and the inventories and declining imports. Real private final demand in the first quarter was barely better than a 1% annual rate. If Atlanta Fed is right, maybe we're close to 2% because the consumer hung in really well. Housing is in a recession. Commercial construction is in a recession. The recession and capital spending, I think, started in the first quarter of this year from already fairly weak base. When you think about the one thing that should have propelled the economy to new heights last year, what have been capital spending because the tax cuts really geared towards the business sector, well, guess what? They got diverted to stock buybacks. That's been a huge story. David, I want you to stick around. I want to do an overtime with you. For our regular listeners, you know the drill. For new listeners, you head over to hiddenforces.io. Right. I've been writing a daily since 1998. It's called Breakfast with Dave. I actually do two early in the morning. One's called Dispressed (55/57)
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