Lou Whiteman

But I don't think we should take that as a prediction.

We should just take it as we're always at risk.

We like to think about this as binary, that either the consumer is good or the consumer is not good.

Really, what this is, is just the critical mass of every consumer out there.

If enough individuals feel confident enough that they can spend, then spending is fine and economy is fine.

If not, we're in trouble.

It's always just some mix, whether it's 70-30, 51-49.

It feels like that critical mass has shrunk, but that doesn't mean it continues to shrink or that we're in trouble.

We just had a surprisingly strong jobs number.

There's some asterisks there, and I don't know if it's as good as we hoped, but jobs are okay.

Michigan's consumer sentiment is at a six-month high.

I don't want to read into that as gung-ho either, but there is a glass half-full for every glass half-empty right now.

I don't think, as investors, we should get too caught up on anything or predict anything.

If there's one thing to watch, and after all I said, don't watch any of it, but if there's one thing, I do think pricing stability.

That comes through with inflation numbers.

We haven't had wild surprises.

We're seeing inflation do exactly what economists thought it would.

It's still up.

It's not making life easy.

Again, this is the shrinking critical mass.