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Confidence numbers. they were down very dramatically in october, down again in november. part of that was due to the fact you were seeing the government shutdown this fall, the problems with the rollout of obama care. there was this sense that the government is not getting its act together and it's a headwind to growth. but i think in another sense, you talk about the stock market being up. you have to remember that the top quarter of americans, the top 20%, 25% of americans, own 75% of the stocks. so sure, you feel that stock market ticking up if you're wealthy, but if you don't own a lot of ...

Going well or fairly well. that's the lowest number since 2012. what you are seeing is kind of these mixed feelings that americans are feeling as we approach the holidays caught somewhere between pessimism and optimism. >> how is it that people are worried about the economy but then you see the stock market going up. you see the housing market getting better. so, what gives? >> because it has been one of these recoveries that we have been in that hasn't been kind of even. it has been a spotty recovery, not one that's operating on all cylinders. we see the markets at record highs, the dow, the ...

Issue. what you're seeing from the numbers you're hearing from retailers is that. the luxury guys will do just fine. walmart came out and said -- not that they will struggle but that there's so much margin depression. if you're a consumer margin is a good thing because you might be able to buy goods at cheaper prices. >> what about the wealth effect. new highs in the stock market and yet it's not having any impact with the regular person. is that basically the translation that nobody got back into the market at least not the people who needed to? >> nobody got back -- nobody got back into the ...

It? >> i don't think that we have had that much of a wealth effect. if you look at the whole funs data, household wealth is back where it was precrisis, but the gains are very heavily secured toward the upper en. the federal reserve bank of st. louis did a study to look to see how evenly the gains from the stock market haves been. the top 7% of households, healthiest howholds, have seen their holdings value go up. the other 93% have seen them go down. the truth is that middle income and upper middle income households just haven't been aboard the rally, so they missed and it consumer confidence...

Most important issue. those two things. and then look at this fox news poll. 71%, as you point out, think that his recent economic speeches are just, you know, sort of the same old tired stuff that ain't working. and it's devoid of any new ideas. >> yeah. what's interesting about this gallup poll was that it was taken before the dow took its worst weekly drop in more than a year. it lost 2.2%. >> right. >> so we're going to be talking about the wealth effect in the next hour. basically people feel wealthier if their home prices are up and if their stock prices are up. the stock market, who kno...