Lou Whiteman

Really, each one of us make our financial decisions based on how we are doing.

All you need is a critical mass of people who feel okay enough to keep spending, to keep doing trips, and the consumer is fine.

The thing is, you never really know if that critical mass is 65% of consumers or 50.1% of consumers.

I think that's what needs to play out over this year is we're going to find out if the number of people who feel comfortable, if that total is eroding, if so, how fast and by how much.

I think we'll only know that in hindsight.

It can be a better deal, especially if you're putting it on a credit card paying 25% or so.

It could be just a shift in preferences or it could be a sign of trouble.

And also remember, 100%, there's a denominator thing there too.

These are small companies, so they are growing fast.

But yeah, I think it's worth noting, but I can't draw a conclusion.

Dan, there's been a lot of saber-rattling from the White House about the defense industry.

Earlier this week, there was finally action.

L3 Harris, ticker LHX, announced it's going to spin off its missile solutions business, which is basically the rockets that power missiles, as an independent company backed by a $1 billion investment from the Pentagon.

The idea here is best of both worlds.

L3 will continue to hold a majority of the business, but the government will fund basically an increase in R&D to spark more sales.

There are a lot of details to be ironed out, but Dan, I really like this setup.

It allows L3 to focus its resources on other potentially faster-growing parts of its business while using the government funding to turn an okay but not amazing part of the business into a new growth engine.

I see a lot of upside from here and I'm excited about this.

You know what?

I really like their CEO.