The author's shift key seems to be broken, but otherwise it's a good article on the present state of the U.S. economy. The A.I. bubble is propping up an otherwise ugly situation, and those companies are now asking for government loan guarantees and financing themselves in sketchy circular financial engineering schemes.
[T]he high-end US consumer has remained strong, but middle and lower rungs are suffering. the mcdonalds CEO said this in August:“With middle and lower income consumers, they’re under a lot of pressure. If you’re upper income earning over $100k, things are good. Stock markets are near all time highs. You’re feeling, quite confident about things. You’re seeing international travel, all those barometers of upper income consumers are doing quite well. What we see with middle and lower income consumers is actually a different story. It’s that consumer is under a lot of pressure in our industry. Traffic for lower income consumers is down double digits, and it’s because people are either choosing to skip a meal. So we’re seeing breakfast, people are actually skipping breakfast, or they’re choosing to just eat at home.”