There's no question that what's happening in the stock market is going to hurt consumer spending. The only thing helping us is the performance of housing.

Next week's producer price index or consumer price index could tip the Fed in favor of a June hike if they're on the upside.

If you have productivity growing faster than the economy, how can you expect demand for labor to be all that strong? I'm still hopeful that unemployment won't go much higher than 6.2 percent or 6.3 percent, but where we'll peak is not as important as when we turn around. If we sort of linger at 6.2 percent, that will put some downward pressure on consumer spending.

To the extent that consumer sentiment reacts to movements in the unemployment rate rather than the meager increase in non-farm payrolls, we have to take this ... report as delivering good news to the troops.

All the focus is on the core number. The Fed said yesterday that energy has not worked its way down to core consumer prices.

I think the risk is the downside, not the upside, ... I think the markets are fairly nervous about the prospects for growth. They're going to be dissecting the number. If we have slower than expected consumer spending and stronger than expected inventory growth, that's not going to bode well for the next quarter or so.

Outside of energy, the consumer is fine. That's why growth this year will be weaker than last year, and it will be weaker next year than this year.