>>1454918
“I think there’s a component of a more discerning consumer, and I think most of it – the majority of it – is this massive pullback,” Boatwright said. “That household under $100,000 a year is pulling back.”

At the same time, some consumers are spending like they’re from a completely different universe.

Crocs CEO Andrew Rees noted that bifurcation on a call with analysts Thursday: “There is a portion of our North American consumers that are highly affluent. They’re buying Crocs, they’re buying other high-end brands and they are in great financial shape,” Rees said. “But there is a large portion of consumers who are nervous, they are in less-good financial shape and are being super cautious about their spending and certainly spending closer to need.”

Or take Coke (to wash down your burrito). Coca-Cola’s Chief Operating Officer Henrique Braun on a call last week with analysts said Coke’s earnings were boosted by strong demand for the company’s premium brands: Topo Chico, Smartwater and Fairlife.

But Braun highlighted a successful two-pronged corporate strategy, noting the tough environment for lower-income consumers hasn’t changed – despite the growth in its high-end brands. That’s why Coke is also cutting sizes (and prices) on the lower end to drive sales – to “really tackle not only affordability but premiumization as well,” Braun said.

>>1454919
The ‘K-shaped’ economy
Economists call that phenomenon a “K-shaped” economy: Wealthier people are spending like nothing’s wrong. Lower-income people are making significant changes to preserve their finances.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell addressed that concept Wednesday in a media briefing.

“On the K-shaped economy … if you listen to the earnings calls or the reports of big public consumer-facing companies, many, many of them are saying there is a bifurcated economy there and that consumers at the lower end are struggling and buying less and shifting to lower-cost products,” Powell said. “But at the top, people are spending, at the higher income and wealth.”

It’s not all anecdotal: Last month, Moody’s Analytics reported that the country’s top earners are accounting for a growing share of overall spending.

What’s causing that divide?

Wealthier Americans are generally invested in the surging stock market, which has gained 17% this year. They have more job security than lower-income workers. And they own homes, which keep appreciating in the tight-supply market.

By contrast, less-affluent Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and their wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. If they lose their jobs, the cruddy labor market is preventing them from finding a new one – the number of Americans on unemployment insurance for multiple weeks recently surged to a four-year high. And rents, until recently, had jumped as demand for rentals explodes – because so few homes have been on the market.

>>1454921
What happens next?
A K-shaped economy can be difficult to repair. America’s economy has been increasingly bifurcated for quite some time – with the exception of a few years following the pandemic.

During those post-pandemic years, government support for workers gave lower-income Americans a leg up. For the first time in a generation, the wealth gap narrowed. Wages outpaced inflation, especially for lower-income workers. Interest rates were low, and homeowners refinanced like crazy to lock in historically low mortgage costs.

But it was short-lived. The sugar rush of government stimulus checks wore off, and the economy resumed its previous trajectory. Mortgage rates rose to multi-decade highs. And, concerning for people who are getting left behind, the US government began pushing safety-net programs in the opposite direction, reducing benefits and increasing hurdles to access support.

Those actions could widen that “K” in the future. Wider than you have to open your mouth to eat a Chipotle burrito.

TLDR: Trump is fucking the poor to make the rich even richer
Exactly what anyone with a brain said would happen

>>1454922
>America’s economy has been increasingly bifurcated for quite some time – with the exception of a few years following the pandemic.
Gee, I wonder why the people in power at the time aren't around now?
They did Biden dirty, I swear. Even if he died right after he was sworn in, just having someone to guard those programs he started, programs which were already paying dividends to the American people would have been far more preferable to this horrific situation.

>>1454918
>>1454938
I dread to think about how bad the Trump Depression is going to get when the AI bubble finally bursts.

The worse thing is this is standard conservative economics.
>Fuck up the economy with their failed policies like trickle down economics
>They get voted out of office
>Guys who replace them can't fix all the damage conservatives have caused fast enough
>Conservatives blame the other side of this and claim they can fix it (While omitting they created the problem)
>Conservatives get voted back into power
>Repeat
This is exactly the loop we're going through with trump for the past decade.

>>1454955
It's been that way since Bush Jr, maybe earlier.

>>1454955
>past decade
ever since reagan

>>1454961
>>1454958
Reagan started the whole Trickle down shit show, and Bush Jr greatly accelerated it. But we got Clinton and Obama in between them. And both served 2 terms even though republicans did everything to cripple the economy and make people suffer during that time.
It was only during the trump regime era that they successfully suckered people.

>>1454918
>ITT another Orange man bad thread out of 500
Imagine being so obsessed that you have to blame him for your fast food sucking.

>Chipotle on Wednesday reported miserable earnings and cut its sales-growth forecast for the third-straight quarter. The culprit: Young and lower-income consumers (Chipotle’s core customers) are cutting back on their spending, and they’re starting to skip the guac.
Or MAYBE, and I'm just a former customer so what the fuck do I know, your service started to suck just like Subway did because you keep hiring retard high school students with no work ethic, you stopped loading your burrito bowls with meat, cheese, and all the other goodies people want, and you're charging $20+ for something I can make at home by myself for $5.

But no! It's Trump's fault you can't run your business the way you did back in 2011. Clearly!

Looks like the TIDF just arrived.

>Trump crashing the economy is completely unrelated to the economy being crashed

>>1454980
>Imagine being so obsessed that you have to blame him for your fast food sucking.
The problem isn't that Trump is why it's sucking, it's that Trump isn't stopping the cause for the economy rapidly accelerating to Zimbabwe levels of inflation.

He should have put his foot down around AI when he came into office. He should have assembled an SEC kill team to immediately investigate how all of these AI companies were having infinite growth into the sun while literally every other sector of the economy is failing. He should have put a hard-nosed czar as chair of the Fed whose first and foremost goal was to keep the dollar from inflating. He's not only done none of that, he's actively made the problem worse by putting dipshits in who WANT to make the AI bubble bigger and will burn literally every federal asset to make it happen, first the government, now the monetary system, soon the economic system in general.

this isn't draining any swamp, this is using a nuclear explosion to create a bigger swamp next to it and declaring victory when the smaller swamp drains into it.

>>1454985
>Zimbabwe levels of inflation
Ironically, just after independence the Zimbabwean Dollar was slightly more valuable than the US Dollar in that continent. The rest is history, of course.
What is currently included in the list of non-Zimbabwean currencies used by people there, instead of their own. In time, and with inflation, that list will be South African Rand, Pounds Sterling, Euro, and Chinese Yuan
Notice something missing?

>>1454985
>>1454989
Are we seriously comparing the United States, the country with an obesity crisis where nobody dies of starvation, to Zimbabwe, a famine factory that has more than ten times the inflation rates? Even Biden at his very worst didn't rise inflation beyond 9%, while Zimbabwe routinely has inflation rates in the double digits.

No you're right, we're totally becoming a third-world African nation. Game over man! Soon we'll have to hunt and eat rats to survive.

>>1454985
No shit, this is exactly why you don't put businessmen in charge of the government since they'll follow the route of destructive short term profits and cooking the books. Just like how Trump's bail out of Argentinia was only done to help rig their election in favor of his ally there.
The problem is, Putin is not going to come to the rescue for trump when the house of cards that is the trump economy collapses.

>>1455003
And since he's persona non grata with the financial establishment as a whole, the last of such that had dealings with him, Deutsche Bank, won't touch the toxic Trump brand. Thus is reduced to grifting.
Without even them, Trump can't get so much as a small loan of a million dollars, so it's all gone full circle.
Irony has bit him on his diapered ass.

>>1455008
The problem there is he's using the government to enrich himself and further scam his cult.
If America survives the 2nd trump term, one of the first tings that needs to be done is all his assists and money need to be seized and put back into the coffers of the US government to repair all the damage he's done.

>>1455008
>the last of such that had dealings with him, Deutsche Bank, won't touch the toxic Trump brand
DB reps testified in court, under oath, that they would be thrilled to do business with him again.

idk why you dudes just make shit up. There is no shortage of stuff to be critical about him.

>>1455014
>Maybe we wouldn't have ruined the country if you hadn't done this thing you didn't do.
Can't argue with that.

>>1455014
>Strawman
Might as well seize the wealth of all the billionaires if you're really serious. Nationalizing everything Elon owns would help things out

>Trump reduced to begging billionaires for money to build a ballroom
>couldn't have just gone to Deutsche Bank for a small loan of 250 million dollars
idk why he couldn't have just done the latter

>>1455052
>finally admits that the ballroom is privately paid for and costs the American people nothing
Own goal of the day right here.

>why couldn't Trump just ask Deutsche Bank for a small loan of 250 million dollars
A college football kicker doesn't kick a field goal/extra point towards his own team's goal
>why couldn't Trump just pay for that ballroom with his own money if he's the billionaire he claims to be
>privately funded ballroom construction
There's nothing stopping a different administration in the near future demolishing that ballroom. That's a goal scored against MAGAts.

>>1455066
>There's nothing stopping a different administration in the near future demolishing that ballroom. That's a goal scored against MAGAts.
Absolutely mindbroken.

>>1455014
>maybe you shouldn't of
Maybe you shouldn't have avoided English classes.
>you'd of won
You would have won a spelling bee competition
>of
>a very simple word, as is 'have'
Or not.
>>1455044
>if you were competent and not narcassists
>narcassists
If you were competent, you would know how to spell 'narcissists'.
>narcassistic
As well as 'narcissistic'.
You would actually win if you were American. But you're not, as proved by your inferior education. You can only lose, shill.

>>1455078
>Absolutely mindbroken
>the thought of that ballroom ceasing to exist in the near future
Just that mere notion existing in MAGAts' minds would break them, sure, or they wouldn't care about it happening.
MDS is already breaking minds in /pol/.

>>1455087
>jeff bezos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos#Donald_Trump
Elon Musk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Politics
>>1455048 wins with his idea

>>1455087
>>1455094
>Listing off people who are sucking up to trump.
Their money should be seized too along with everyone else in silicon valley. Especailly after the AI bubble bursts and the trump depression happens. No bails out.

>>1454764
This breaks the MAGAt brain cell

>>1455098
>No bails out.
pajeet moment

>>1455102
>bails
Yes, projecting brown people in the Indian subcontinent play cricket.
Keep striking out, shill.

>>1455107
You can stop posting run-on sentences this is an example of a run-on sentence it is a great way to convince us you are esl

>>1455107
Nah, it would be easier to just seize all the money of the rich, and then they won't be able to hire all those immigrates you were brainwashed to hate.
Win win.

>>1455107
So we shouldn't start with Musk>

>>1455107
We can start with those who aren't American. All shills will be taxed 91% of their net worth in perpetuity (Republican Americans were just fine with that top tax rate - 91% - in the 1950s) or be forced to not have opinions on an American board.

>>1455115
Whose language are you speaking? Who's more comfortable with contractions

>>1455115
>whose easier
Who's easier to not be American? You. Also
>>1455107
>democrats will be taxed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk#Politics
'Musk supported Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020'
>>1455048 certainly wins with his idea
>democrats will be taxed
You said it, we didn't.

>>1455118
Nah, it's republicans who are billionaires, so they're taxed. Why are you against taxing billionaire?

Who's easier to denaturalize?
>>1455115
>whose easier to denaturalize
>whose
You, obviously.

>>1455120
>Why are you against taxing billionaire?
>billionaire
>singular
I wouldn't have a problem with Musk being taxed.

>>1455123
We CAN agree on something, that makes me happy.

>>1455122
>stupidity tax
>run-on sentences
Great. Let's start with you.
>terrorism tax
You're guilty of committing acts of terrorism on the English language.

>immigration tax
You'll make a nice slave. Once you become useless, you'll be used as a chair for a teacher in an English class. Perhaps you'll learn something.

>>1455128
So you're bad at english and into manrape?

>couple of soap dropping sessions
There's the shill's sexual fetishes coming out. It should come out of that closet if that's what its obsessed with.

>>1455122
The irony being that Democrats have absolutely tried to put fourth legislation to tax rich Democrats and brain rotted conservatives making 25k a year rage to stop it each and every time so they can continue deepthroating billionaire dick.

>>1455128's faggot status: Confirmed.

>>1455135
The duality of the lolcow

>>1455135
>rich democrats are calling him a communist
I'm sure the rich democrats in your mind are saying this

>>1454955
at this point the mega rich will just milk the country dry and fuck off somewhere with their immeasurable wealth, leaving us with massive debt and social/political systems that don't work