Rafael Bostic

What I would say is we're trying to control what we can control.

And in order to do that, we need to understand how decision-makers...

are operating in whatever environment that we have.

Look, at the beginning of 2025, most businesses that we were talking to said, we know there's going to be some tariffs that are going to be put onto the economy.

Then April comes, and what everyone discovered was what they thought the level was going to be was maybe 20% of what it turned out to be.

And what's been interesting is that businesses and families as well have been quite creative to try to mute the impacts as much as they can.

So it's meant that the influence on tariffs through the economy has been stretched out over a much longer period of time because...

Everyone's trying to delay, postpone, parry, and they've been successful.

Oh, I'm stressed, too.

We're all stressed.

So, yes.

Okay.

A couple things.

So, one, uncertainty by itself makes people nervous.

Second, big changes lead to real questions about viability of business models.

So now businesses have to figure out, do I have a business model that's going to work?

And small businesses don't have as much buffer to really be able to weather it.

So it becomes much more existential for those sort of institutions.

We've seen it with families as well.

So affluent families have been able to really just roll through and flow.