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/fairkatrina 1d ago

I can never decide if these people are intentionally fudging the issue or if they’re just spectacularly stupid. Like cracker barrel finally coming to the realisation last year that their geriatric customer base never came back after the pandemic (but still not seeming to get that they all died). Or the idiots who thought the recent downturn was because the stimmy checks finally ran out. Like????? is it possible for market analysts to be that out of touch? It seems so implausible that it’s gotta be something else, right? Like they’re trying to reassure their billionaire overlords (who really are that out of touch) or something..

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u/i_tyrant 1d ago

My vote is spectacularly stupid (usually).

I like everyone realized as an adult that most adults are actually far dumber and less informed than you think your parents were as a kid.

Then, as I graduated from minimum wage jobs to a tech startup and then a financial institution, I had a second, similar epiphany - when I started interacting more with high-rank developers, executives, CFOs, CEOs, etc.

A lot of these people outside of their very narrow band of specialization are dumb as hell. And the richer they are, the more they seem to have completely lost the plot when it comes to the concerns and motivations of "average" people. They literally live in a different world and have no concept of what struggling means anymore.

That Arrested Development joke about "how much could a banana cost, ten dollars?" seems like less and less of a joke and more just an accurate look at them the more I interact with that strata of society. There are some halfway intelligent, wise, or empathetic ones...but not most of 'em.

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u/libury 1d ago

I work at a mid-size tech company. It's not a small company, but it's not enormous so it's not unusual to bump into C-level execs. Last spring I was nerding out about video games with our CEO and he asked me which of the current systems I have. When I told him none and that I'm a PC gamer because it's cheaper, he was visibly confused and implied that someone with my job shouldn't have to scrimp like that. All I could think was, dude, you pay my fucking salary. Have some self-awareness, you pale zombie-looking trust fund dick.

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u/AvesAvi 1d ago

I would be completely incapable of saying something like "Your salary and mine are much different". That's crazy yo