Consumers Are Bullish. CEOs Remain Bearish. Could That Tension Sink the Economy?
November 18, 2019 | Kevin Kelleher | Fortune.com
Last month, as Costco chief financial officer Richard Galanti discussed the retailer’s strong earnings, a telling moment happened.
Costco, like many U.S. companies, has struggled with the impact of new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. When an analyst asked Galanti how tariffs and global concerns were affecting consumers, he seemed to throw up his hands.
“Who the heck knows?,” Galanti said, prompting some chuckling on the call. “I think if we all turned off the television and stopped listening to everything every day, we’d all be better.”
As strange as it sounds for an executive at a $135 billion company to express bafflement at what his customers are thinking, Galanti has a point. Amid all the hand-wringing in executive suites about a slowing economy and a simmering trade war, the U.S. consumer has not only seemed indifferent to these concerns, they’ve almost single-handedly propped up the U.S. economy.
