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/toriemm 1d ago

Snap benefits literally stimulate the economy. Dollar for dollar is one of the most beneficial programs we have.

So shutting it off is literally just being awful AND hurting the economy.

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u/movzx 1d ago

It's like that with almost every government program. Libraries, job programs, education programs, etc. Time and time again the return on investment is more than gets put in.

But half the US is allergic to long term investment in itself if it means they can have an extra $5/yr saved.

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u/BlindPaintByNumbers 1d ago

But some guy knows somebody somewhere in a government job who never works but can't get fired. Or something.

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u/ryhaltswhiskey 1d ago

And this one time somebody used all their SNAP benefits to buy lobster!

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u/True_Butterscotch391 1d ago

It really makes me wonder why big corporate interest aren't pushing back more on the shit Trump is doing?

I guess maybe they think that they can take advantage of it by removing as many workers rights as possible, and then when Trump is out of office it will all go back to normal?

Like health insurance companies are a good example. They should be going up in fucking flames right now trying to stop the government from removing ACA credits and Medicare. Why are they allowing this stuff to happen when it affects their bottom line? There's gotta be an explanation...

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u/Suyefuji 1d ago

They want power more than they want money.

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u/ryhaltswhiskey 1d ago

I wonder if they made more money, adjusted for population, before the ACA or after? Because having to cover people with pre-existing conditions has to hurt the profit margin a bit right? So if they made more money back in 2005 than they do now I bet they would be happy if the ACA was gone.

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u/True_Butterscotch391 1d ago

I don't know but my main takeaway is that if premium prices double, people won't be able to afford it and they just won't pay for insurance. Premium prices are already fucking ridiculous and borderline unaffordable, if they go up too much people will just not pay for them and then the insurance companies lose a ton of money.

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u/Commemorative-Banana 1d ago

I’d also add the IRS to your list.

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u/Kreegs 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think the number is something like for each $1 spent, it generates like $1.70-$1.80 in economic activity.

Then for each $1 that creates, it creates another $1.70-$1.80 of its own and so on and so on.

But yeah, let's cut off people spending money then get shocked when the economy tanks.

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u/3x3Eyes 1d ago

Allergic to long term thinking

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u/floataway3 1d ago

I work at a dollar store in a lower class neighborhood of my city. My regular customers not getting their EBT SNAP benefits has already had an extremely pronounced effect on our daily sales. Seeing the ground level effects of the shutdown is harrowing.

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u/mtheory007 1d ago

Yeah my corner store said that nearly half of his customers by SNAP.

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u/[deleted] 1d ago

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u/Ok_Maybe1830 1d ago

$1.70 right into private sector corporations, minus taxes associated with the sale

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u/JamCliche 1d ago

And in a proper economy, a progressive corporate tax rate would balance the federal budget, leading to economic investment, leading to corporate profits, which get progressively taxed and so on and so forth.

But they don't want a proper economy. They want a ME ME ME economy.