This week’s world-famous-news-haiku-competition™ is about how Americans are spending more money on hobbies despite economic pressure. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET Thursday, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

But first? News!

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

Table of Contents

• Bad Mood? Yes. But American Consumers Keep Shoppin …

• ‘Digger,’ WB’s Last Pre-Merger Pic, Is a Major Flo …

• Chick-Fil-A Turns Down AI for Its Drive-Thrus

• How Chang Robotics Is Rebuilding American Manufact …

• How To Shop Amazon Prime Day Like a Pro

• Matt’s Tuesday Stack™

• Poll of the Day: Now, That’s a Moving Idea…

• Poll of the Day: LOL America’s New ‘Hobby’ 🌿

What’s the Stock Market Up To, Eh?

$SPX ( ▲ 0.66% )  $DJI ( ▲ 0.18% )  $NDX ( ▲ 1.59% )  

Companies Mentioned in Today’s Newsletter

$WBD ( ▲ 0.03% )  $PSKY ( ▲ 2.9% )  $MCD ( ▲ 0.5% )  $WEN ( ▼ 0.33% )  $AMZN ( ▼ 0.05% )  

Bad Mood? Yes. But American Consumers Keep Shopping

If you ask the average American how they feel about the economy, they’ll probably tell you it’s terrible, inflation is infuriating, and the future feels grim. Then, they’ll immediately swipe their credit card for an $11 bruschetta.

This is the great American economic paradox: We are miserable, but we refuse to stop spending. Consumer sentiment gauges hover near record lows, yet U.S. household spending jumped 6.1% over the past year. As Brian Fabes of NORC at the University of Chicago told The Wall Street Journal, “The macro numbers look good… spending looks good. And no one is happy.”

Why the disconnect? For starters, retail therapy beats sitting at home. Kathleen Harper, who sells fraud-protection services, admitted to splurging at happy hour despite her economic worries, noting, “Business has been good… because fraud, unfortunately, is up.” 

Economists call this split between feelings and bank accounts a decoupling of psyche and pocketbook. Mark Mathews of the National Retail Federation told the Journal, “Consumers are spending their financial condition, not their psyche.” In other words, if Americans have cash or credit, they’ll buy — even while complaining. 65-year-old Alice Withaar grumbled that everything feels “twice as expensive,” yet still went sofa shopping because “it’s time for a refresh.”

So go ahead and complain about gas prices — just make sure you do it on the way to the store.

Quote of the Day

‘Digger,’ WB’s Last Pre-Merger Pic, Is a Major Flop

On paper, pairing superstar Tom Cruise with Oscar-nominated auteur Alejandro G. Iñárritu for a satire lampooning power-hungry billionaires sounded like an automatic win. In reality, Warner Bros.’ $WBD ( ▲ 0.03% ) massive gamble, Digger, dug itself straight into a box office grave with a dismal $8 million opening weekend.

Audiences were unimpressed, slapping the R-rated film with a grim “C” CinemaScore. Between production delays after co-star John Goodman fell on set and nearly $100 million dropped on marketing, the studio is staring down losses between $125 million and $150 million.

Making matters more painful, Digger serves as the final stand-alone release for Warner Bros. before it is acquired by Paramount $PSKY ( ▲ 2.9% ) and becomes “Skydance.” It caps off a bleak year for WB, where high-profile releases like Supergirl and The Bride failed to cross $100 million. While studio executives declined to comment, industry watchers are already declaring the end of an era. As box office consultant David A. Gross told The New York Times, “This was an eccentric story, and WB deserves credit for taking the risk. But ‘Digger’ is not working, and Paramount... will soon decide what kind of movies they want from WB. Paramount does not have a recent history of making big, auteur-driven films like this.”

I’m torn. The movie flopped so badly I think I might go see it on Wednesday night!

Chick-Fil-A Turns Down AI for Its Drive-Thrus

While fast-food giants race to replace human order-takers with conversational algorithms, Chick-fil-A is taking a stand: The machines can run the conveyor belts, but a real human will still ask if you want extra Polynesian sauce.

While rivals like McDonald’s $MCD ( ▲ 0.5% ) test their voice AI “Archy” and Wendy’s $WEN ( ▼ 0.33% ) deploys Google Cloud-powered “FreshAi,” Chick-fil-A CEO Andrew Cathy has made it clear that AI won't be taking drive-thru orders.

It’s not that the company avoids technology. At their elevated drive-thru location in McDonough, Georgia, four lanes sit under an overhead kitchen equipped with a high-speed conveyor belt that delivers a meal to an employee every six seconds. But when it comes to taking your order, Chick-fil-A insists on keeping actual human beings holding tablet computers in the drive-thru lanes.

“From our experience, we really want that hospitality to be human to human,” Cathy told CNBC. “We’re not going to substitute that interaction with technology, because we feel like that hospitality is so important to create that warm environment for consumers.”

As the company explained, the goal is to “elevate the human touchpoints” across its restaurants while preserving person-to-person connection as the core of the experience. Reflecting on the industry's rapid technological pivot, Cathy noted, “It’s a fun time in the industry, to think about all the possibilities of what we can do to make a better experience for our guests.”

If you could open on Sundays, Andrew, it’d be a start.

Song of the Day: Victoria Monét, ‘See You In My Dreams’

“See You in My Dreams” featuring SZA is widely praised as a standout, hazy R&B highlight from Victoria Monét’s new album, Frequency of Love. It pairs gorgeous vocal execution with sharp, vulnerable lyricism. Plus: She’s naked in the promotional shots, for some unfathomable reason. So it’s just like this newsletter.

How Chang Robotics Is Rebuilding American Manufacturing

Thanks to tariffs, severe labor shortages, and skyrocketing real estate costs, American companies are rushing to bring production back home. But they aren't relying on legacy assembly lines. They’re building fully automated, robot-dense facilities. As Matthew Chang, CEO of Chang Robotics, explains, “Automation is the base case, so nobody is building a new plant without doing a full robotic implementation.”

Building these high-tech plants isn't cheap. Construction costs have doubled compared to pre-COVID levels, forcing manufacturers to build higher and “make full use of the cube” to maximize output per square foot. Companies are also locked in an arms race for technical talent, competing directly with AI data centers for scarce engineering teams.

Despite the hurdles, the economic payoff is massive. Properly automated U.S. facilities achieve unit-cost parity with Chinese manufacturing, eliminating shipping delays and tariff penalties. Instead of traditional line operators or forklift drivers, future plants will be run by specialized technician teams keeping automated software and hardware running, Chang said.

With demand surging at a “hockey stick growth rate,” Chang Robotics is aggressively expanding so that “no factory customer goes unserved.” Reshoring may be expensive, but with physical AI and smart robotics, American manufacturing is officially back, and it runs on code.

Free Yourself From Advertising Forever!

How To Shop Amazon Prime Day Like a Pro

Amazon $AMZN ( ▼ 0.05% ) Prime Day is officially upon us until Wednesday night, triggering a collective frenzy of deal-hunting and late-night cart-stuffing. But before you impulse-buy a 12-pack of glowing Halloween skeletons or an air fryer you don't need, retail expert Trae Bodge has some real talk: Not every shiny red percentage-off is a true steal.

To navigate the chaos like a seasoned pro, start with the categories where retailers actually drop prices. As Bodge explains, Amazon-owned tech is always your best bet because “they have a lot of wiggle room with those margins, and so we'll see the most generous discounts right there.” Beyond Echo devices and Kindles, Prime Day is surprisingly great for unglamorous household essentials — like stocking up on paper towels and beauty products.

Want to avoid getting tricked by fake discounts? Amazon now includes historical pricing directly on product pages. Bodge recommends using it right away: “I would just click on that to get a sense of what the historical pricing of that item is. And you'll be able to tell right away if it's a really good deal.” Furthermore, don't feel pressured to buy everything at once. While Prime Day kicks off early holiday spending, Bodge reminds shoppers that “the deepest discounts of the year are Black Friday and Cyber Monday.”

As for spooky season prep, Bodge advises grabbing costumes now before selection thins, but waiting on sweets: “hold off and get your candy later because that's when retailers are gonna wanna clear that merchandise out and they'll be pricing it to move.”

Her ultimate golden rule? “Stay organized” and “never take a price at face value.” Do a quick cross-retailer search before clicking buy. Your wallet will thank you.

Should You Check Your 401(k) Today?

👍️ 

Yes. It’s nearly back to its record high of mid August…

Matt’s Tuesday Stack™

Welcome to Matt’s Tuesday Stack™, a new weekly feature where I tell you about three things I actually pay for, so you can feel worse about your own decisions. Let's go…

NordVPN — for when the hotel Wi-Fi is, perhaps, run by criminals. Look, every security expert will tell you a VPN won't make you invisible. What it does do is stop the guy at the airport from reading your email over your shoulder, digitally speaking. I use it on every network I don't own, which is most of them, because I travel and because I'm paranoid in the way that turns out to be correct a little too often.

Coinbase — for the crypto-curious who missed every previous boat. Remember when your cousin bought Bitcoin at $400 and now owns three countries? Just me? Coinbase is the onramp with training wheels, the interface your dad could use, which is both an insult and a compliment. I'm not your financial advisor, I'm barely my own financial advisor, but if you're going to buy the dip, do it somewhere that won't vanish overnight.

Semrush — for everyone who has to Google themselves professionally. I get paid to care what the internet says about people. Semrush is the tool that tells you who's outranking you and why, and it's the closest marketing can get to reading your competitor's diary. Expensive? Yes. Worth it? Also yes, which is…annoying.

Poll of the Day: Now, That’s a Moving Idea…

Poll of the Day: LOL America’s New ‘Hobby’ 🌿

We asked: What's your favorite hobby for 2026?

You answered:

🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Aspirational Shoplifting-at-Home: Buying a $70 video game or craft kit, leaving it sealed in the shrink-wrap, and staring at the box while telling yourself, "One day, when the kids are out of diapers, I will be a person who has fun again." (27)
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ The "I Saved $1,200 on Flights" Splurge: Buying a $40 set of artisanal watercolors to paint a picture of the Italian coastline you can no longer afford to visit thanks to jet fuel prices. (80)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Competitive Granny-Coring: Aggressively crocheting a synthetic yarn bucket hat at 11:45 PM in a desperate, screen-free attempt to "touch grass" without actually leaving the couch. (25)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Touching actual grass. If you know what I'm saying. The kind that is legal in many more states, these days, thank goodness. (109)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Funflation-Induced Sticker Shock: Taking up tabletop gaming as a "budget-friendly local pastime," only to realize miniature unpainted resin goblins now cost more per ounce than prime rib. (21)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ The Analog Child Guilt Trip: Spending $95 at the craft store on raw wooden beads and felt so your toddler can have an "organic, screen-free tactile experience" for exactly 90 seconds before asking for the iPad. (33)
295 Votes via @beehiiv polls

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