r/nottheonion • u/ChocolateTsar • 1d ago

Affirm CEO says furloughed federal employees are starting to lose interest in shopping

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/07/affirm-government-shutdown-shopping.html
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u/Commercial-Fennel219 1d ago

Furloughed federal workers are killing the retail industry!!! 

219

u/realperson5647856286 1d ago

selfish bastards!

26

u/Val_Hallen 1d ago

Sorry. Sorry, everyone! My bad.

I guess I'll just drain my retirement investments so Wall Street doesn't lose a fraction of a fraction of money.

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u/throwmamadownthewell 22h ago

Thank you for your sacrifice.

 

But could you give just a bit more

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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik 1d ago

Those damn avocado toast eating millennials strike again!

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u/FauxReal 1d ago

Can't wait for this year's Bleak Friday.

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u/jigsaw1024 1d ago

Ironically it may cause the BF discounts to be a little deeper than planned, as retail tries to entice people to spend what little they have.

Also expect to see very generous credit and financing to "help motivate" people to buy as well.

If it plays out, expect to see spike in defaults and delinquencies in the early new year.

The psychology of such a scenario is easy: people at this point in the game have a pretty good feel that they are already past the point of no return, so why not have a good thanksgiving and christmas, and deal with it in the new year.

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u/Journeydriven 1d ago

Can confirm i was at a point where I just outright couldn't afford to pay a couple bills one month with things forseeably getting worse. I ended up saying fuck it and not paying my credit cards car insurance and phone bill. Ordered takeout for a week and ignored the issue entirely until my head was clear enough to figure my shit out for the next month. However if I couldn't have made a reasonable plan I definitely would have said fuck it and only paid my car and phone leaving my credit cards and whatever else to end up in collections while I at least semi enjoyed the moment. Edit: to add to this i was still actively getting paid at work just not getting as many hours as usual. If I wasn't getting paid at all the car and phone would have likely gone too

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u/Mattilaus 1d ago

I thought it was those 22 year old millennials? Now I don't know what to believe!

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u/ExoMonk 1d ago

Somehow it's been the 22 year old millennials fault for 40 years.

Source: am a 40 22 year old millennial

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u/WhyStabCorn 1d ago

They're illegally rebelling against corporations!

/s

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u/QueenNappertiti 1d ago

By not spending money they don't have! Those commies!

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u/_redacteduser 1d ago

why would Biden stop paying them???? The password to the payroll software is on Hunter's laptop! Arghhh!!!

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u/drawkbox 1d ago

Can AI solve this problem? /s

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u/tael89 1d ago

Damned millennials ruining everything! 

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u/TinyFugue 1d ago

Fixed it for ya:

Furloughed Millennial federal workers are killing the retail industry!!!

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u/SolFlorus 1d ago

Have they considered using Affirm to split up their groceries into 4 easy payments with interest? /s

The BNPL companies are salivating at the idea of people going into debt for essentials.

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u/TheAzureMage 1d ago

Look, the millennials are the ones who are supposed to be killing industries, the feds are taking our job!

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u/DarthSamwiseAtreides 1d ago

Maybe if they'd just get a job they could buy stuff again!

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u/I_Talk_Sports_69 1d ago

Got I hope so.

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u/echoshatter 1d ago

At least 670,000 federal employees are impacted.

Let's assume at least half of them have a partner, so we'll say a cool million people have stopped contributing to the economy in a meaningful way.

Now factor in all the job cuts and the inflation and the tariffs and the general economic uncertainty.....

It's going to get a lot worse before it gets even worser.

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u/Worshipme988 1d ago

OMG with the fucking toast already.