There is no change in course, and markets have already priced in more action.

We haven't had a single year of falling consumer spending since 1938. There's no boom or bust in consumer spending.

If gas prices are just holding steady and not increasing, and if incomes are rising, your gas bill is the same, and [consumer] demand can rebound. That's the most likely scenario here.

It's very unlikely for Fed to worry about month to month data changes, or even two months, as the markets do.

The Fed has assumed that the weakness in the first quarter was temporary. This confirms that. The reasonable view was you don't have a one-third rise in energy prices without consequences.

We already were expecting a 5,000-job decline in manufacturing employment in May.