While first quarter sales and margin strand to remain healthy due to the ongoing relief of our backlog, we have experienced softening demand in the first quarter that coincided with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in late February and the market volatility that followed. We believe it is prudent to remain conservative until demand trends return to normal and -- we are providing the following outlook for the first quarter of 2022."

This was shocking at the time as it was the first direct admission of tangible weakness in consumer end-demand, and was soundly mocked by all the 'consumer is strong' narrative-pushers as idiosyncratically focused on RH and not systemically-based.

Then five months later in September, Friedman dropped some more truth bombs slamming Yellen and Powell for being "like massively blind and wrong" on inflation

"...the interest rate is going to go higher. It's going to hit the housing market first. And the housing market is the biggest part of the U.S. economy. And it's going to drag down everything.

And if I'm wrong, that's OK. But the data is there. Now like nobody should be surprised about what's going to happen here...

...anybody who doesn't think we're in a recession is 'crazy.'"

With credit card debt at record highs and the savings rate near record lows, it appears Friedman's views on the consumer have been proved right...