And buried inside a perfectly standard corporate press release was one of the most important sentences you'll hear about the American economy this year. CEO Ramon Laguarta said, and I'm quoting directly here: "I think the consumer is worse than what we had anticipated, and it's driven mainly by gas prices."

That's not a fringe analyst. That's the chief executive of one of the largest consumer goods companies on the planet, a company that sells beverages and snacks to hundreds of millions of Americans every single quarter, telling you directly: something has changed. For one thing, credit card use dropped sharply, as we'll see.