I know I’m a couple days late on the “fight of the century” theme. Apparently, there was a major boxing match the other night, which, characteristically, I missed.

Nonetheless, better late than never, especially since there’s another “fight” going on that will ultimately have a much bigger effect on our lives.

Reading over the statement from this week’s Federal Reserve meeting, it seems clear that the committee members are as confused as everyone else.

Today’s big headline is that U.S. economic growth came in at 0.2 percent for the first quarter of the year, well below already depressed expectations. In line with yesterday’s post, is this a sign of slowing growth?

In case you missed it, on Friday, April 24, I was on-air with CNBC Closing Bell co-anchors Kelly Evans and Bob Pisani to discuss the markets—in particular, performance of old-school tech names.

Not that long ago, the U.S. was facing a fiscal cliff, with the government at risk of running out of money and the world expected to end shortly thereafter. It was a big deal at the time—mitigated by the fact that the only real problem was the inability of the U.S. Congress to agree.

The question about the economy lately has been whether or not we’re looking at a sustained slowdown.

A decline in expected corporate earnings has often heralded recessions, and with disappointing retail sales and employment numbers, many believe that the U.S. is looking at a significant slowdown at best, another recession at worst.

Why all the angst over the weak jobs number? Much of it is based on the assumption that a decline of that magnitude, especially after a very strong run, means we’re moving into shaky economic territory.

We might be, but let’s check the data before we get too upset.

In the interviews I’ve given recently with various financial media, the questions have centered on earnings season—the time every quarter when companies report how much money they made, in revenue, and kept, in earnings, in the last quarter.

This matters, certainly for the stock market, which is priced off of those earnings, but also for the economy as a whole. If the economy is doing well, companies should be doing well.

The different reactions to Friday’s weak employment report got me thinking about how our underlying expectations can affect our decision-making processes—especially when it comes to investments.

My response to the employment report was to look at other employment data and decide the bad news was probably a blip. A friend of mine, on the other hand, took it as confirmation of all his worst fears. You can certainly see where each of us is coming from, in the larger sense.

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend, whatever holiday you celebrated. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a good Friday from an economic standpoint.

The employment data released last week disappointed across the board: