A key part of America’s economy has shifted into reverse | CNN Business
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America’s services sector is losing steam at a time when it’s highly unclear whether the broader job market will hold steady or result in unexpectedly higher unemployment.

A vast swath of the US economy is showing signs of weakness as unemployment rises to its highest point in more than two years.

Consumer demand seems to have tapered off so far this summer, according to surveys of American businesses that sell any kind of service to make a profit, ranging from restaurants to dental clinics. That weakness is also evident in the latest spending figures — a far cry from last year’s lucrative summertime spending spree when Americans shelled out for films and high-profile concerts.

  • @MrVilliamEnglish
    13•1 month ago

    When wages stagnate and necessary expenses like rent and groceries skyrocket, people stop having extra money to blow on “films and high-profile concerts.” Runaway corporate greed did this. As for unemployment, if you weren’t gonna afford rent whether you worked your shitty job or not, wouldn’t it make more sense to just not go to work?

    A lot of top American companies have drastically inflated value based on stocks rather than actual profitability; eventually that will become too obvious to ignore and there will be a feedback loop bank run that crashes the market. Once that finally happens, then we can maybe see something like a 21st century New Deal. Since we’re apparently not gonna reform our economy, it’s doomed to fail and then it’s either reset or it’s the fall of the empire. And because economies have become so interconnected, it won’t just be America that feels the crash, and probably not just the western world either. We’re all pretty well fucked because we’re all in this together.