Happy Thursday, !

This week’s world-famous news haiku competition™ is about how cows literally outperformed the S&P500 over the last five years. Send me your entry — to haiku at cheddar dot com — by noon ET today, for consideration by your Cheddar peers.

And now for some news you really N2K…

Matt Davis — Need2Know Chedditor

News You Need2Know

• McDonald's wants to feed you for under $3

• The AI paradox: Why ‘efficiency’ tools are actuall …

• Microsoft breaks corporate silence to back Anthrop …

• Tap your 401(k) to put a down payment on a house?

• Trump directs war with markets top of mind

• Poll of the day: Taking the 🗳️ temperature…

• Poll of the day: You’re disillusioned by Uber

What’s the stock market up to, eh?*

$SPX ( ▼ 0.47% ) $DJI ( ▼ 0.07% ) $NDX ( ▼ 0.76% )  

Companies mentioned in today’s newsletter

$MCD ( ▲ 0.74% )  $NVDA ( ▼ 1.44% )  $PNRA ( 0.0% )  $DPZ ( ▲ 1.29% )  $DIN ( ▼ 1.0% )  $MSFT ( ▼ 1.48% )  $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.5% )  $UBER ( ▲ 0.53% )  $ING ( ▼ 2.44% )  

McDonald's wants to feed you for under $3

The Golden Arches $MCD ( ▲ 0.74% ) are betting big on bargains. Starting in April, McDonald's will launch an aggressive new value strategy featuring a menu of items priced at $3 and under, plus $4 breakfast meal deals designed to win back budget-conscious diners.

"We have achieved incredible progress together and remain committed to meeting ever-changing customer needs," the company told franchisees in a recent message.

The push comes after years of customer backlash over rising prices. When franchisees hiked costs during post-pandemic inflation, surveys revealed a troubling trend: Many fast-food fans no longer saw McDonald's as a good deal. The chain has spent nearly two years — and roughly $85 million in advertising — trying to reclaim its affordability crown.

CEO Chris “It’s Not A Burger, It’s a Product” Kempczinski isn't backing down. "We absolutely are going to make sure that we are protecting our leadership position in value," he declared during a recent investor call.

McDonald's isn't fighting alone. Panera $PNRA ( 0.0% ) recently launched $4.99 promotions, while Domino's $DPZ ( ▲ 1.29% ) touts $9.99 any-topping pizzas. At Applebee's, deals now comprise one-third of all orders. "Our perspective is that this is the new normal," Dine Brands $DIN ( ▼ 1.0% ) CEO John Peyton, who owns the chain, told the Wall Street Journal.

The AI paradox: Why ‘efficiency’ tools are actually making us work harder

The promise was simple: AI would lighten our workloads, freeing us for creative, meaningful pursuits. The reality? AI is making work faster, denser, and more demanding than ever.

A sweeping new analysis of 164,000 workers' digital activity by workforce analytics company ActivTrak — covering 443 million hours across 1,111 employers — reveals a troubling trend. After adopting AI tools, workers saw their email and messaging time more than double, while use of business-management software jumped 94%. Most concerning? Time spent on focused, uninterrupted work dropped 9%.

"It's not that AI doesn't create efficiency," Gabriela Mauch from ActivTrak told the Wall Street Journal. "It's that the capacity it frees up immediately gets repurposed into doing other work, and that's where the creep is likely to happen."

This contradicts rosy predictions from tech leaders like Bill Gates and Elon Musk, who've suggested AI could shorten workweeks, or even make work optional.

UC Berkeley professor Aruna Ranganathan offered an explanation: "Workers often use the time savings to do more work rather than less because AI makes additional tasks feel easy and accessible, creating a sense of momentum."

But she warns this intensity comes at a cost. "Over time this can lead to cognitive overload, burnout, poorer decision-making and declining work quality, even if workers appear more productive in the short run."

No wonder you’re so tired.

Quote of the Day

Microsoft breaks corporate silence to back Anthropic against the Pentagon

The unwritten rule of corporate America under the Trump administration has been clear: Don’t pick fights with the White House. On Tuesday, Microsoft $MSFT ( ▼ 1.48% ) decided the cost of silence was simply too high.

The tech giant filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Anthropic's lawsuit against the Pentagon, which designated the AI company a "supply chain risk" — a label typically reserved for entities linked to foreign adversaries like Russia and China. The move is remarkable given Microsoft's position as one of America's largest government contractors, holding billions in federal deals including a share of the $9 billion “Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability” contract.

But Microsoft has skin in the game. The company recently agreed to invest $5 billion in Anthropic, which committed to purchasing $30 billion in cloud services from Microsoft in return.

The dispute erupted after negotiations collapsed between Anthropic and the Pentagon over restrictions on using Claude AI tools for mass domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. A Pentagon official reportedly said the government intended to "make sure they pay a price."

Microsoft isn't alone in pushing back. Thirty-seven engineers from OpenAI and Google $GOOGL ( ▼ 0.5% ) — including Google's chief scientist Jeff Dean — filed their own supporting brief.

CEO Satya Nadella has charted a quieter path than tech peers, skipping Trump's inauguration and refusing to fire a former Biden official at administration request. This brief suggests that his quiet resistance has its limits.

Tap your 401(k) to put a down payment on a house?

With home prices soaring and mortgage rates stubbornly high, desperate homebuyers are eyeing an unlikely source for their down payment: Their retirement savings. But financial experts warn this shortcut could cost you dearly. #NotFinancialAdvice

Most 401(k) plans and IRAs allow withdrawals or loans for home purchases, but the consequences can be steep — tax penalties, lost investment growth, and a delayed retirement.

"Planning is the name of the game here," said Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate $RATE ( ▼ 0.63% ) , talking to the Associated Press. "Running the numbers, having a solid understanding of what you can financially cover and financially manage is going to be really important before you step into this."

The numbers tell a sobering story. The median U.S. down payment now stands at $64,000, yet median 401(k) and IRA balances sit at just $34,400 and $10,476 respectively. It took the typical household seven years to save for a down payment last year — double pre-pandemic timelines.

Still, few buyers take the retirement fund route. Only 6% of all homebuyers tapped their 401(k), while just 3% used IRA funds.

For those who do, Kates offers a clear warning: "Most likely, somebody who's taking money out of the 401(k), they're going to have to retire later than they otherwise would have."

Consult a financial planner before touching that nest egg!

Song of the Day: Flying Lotus, ‘Captain Kernel’

"Captain Kernel" is the opening track on the 2026 Flying Lotus EP titled “BIG MAMA.” Critical reception of the track and the EP generally highlights its shift toward "wonky" 8-bit aesthetics and video game music (VGM) influences. If you like those, you’ll like the song, and I like the song, because I do. I like those.

Free yourself from advertising forever!

Trump directs war with markets top of mind

President Trump's focus on stock markets as his economic scorecard was on full display this week, considering he appeared to tailor his war messaging to Wall Street's reactions.

As U.S. strikes on Iran sent oil prices surging — Brent crude $BZG23 ( 0.0% ) spiked 65% to nearly $120 a barrel — stocks tumbled. By Monday afternoon, Trump was signaling the military campaign was "very complete, pretty much." The S&P 500 immediately jumped, notching its best single-day performance in over a month. Then, hours later at a news conference, he reversed course: The war wasn't ending, just "ahead of schedule," Trump said.

"He cares about markets. He cares about, in particular, the stock market. It makes sense that he wants to calm fears," Kristina Hooper, chief market strategist at Man Group told the New York Times.

But market-soothing maneuvers offer little relief for struggling households. "The stock market doesn't solve consumers' problems. It doesn't solve many of our problems," said Michael Kantrowitz of Piper Sandler.

The disconnect between soaring markets and sour consumer sentiment — a hallmark of recent years — has finally converged. Investors are now rattled too, with the S&P 500 down, now, over the first quarter of 2026.

Meanwhile, Americans remain focused on affordability, housing, and grocery bills — not portfolio gains. As Henrietta Treyz of Veda Partners told the Times: "The American public is worried about affordability, housing, high electricity prices and high grocery bills."

Markets may recover, but as ING's $ING ( ▼ 2.44% ) Padhraic Garvey bluntly noted: "Markets are coldhearted.”

Should you check your 401(k) today?

👎️ 

Absolutely not.

Poll of the day: Taking the 🗳️ temperature…

Poll of the day: You’re disillusioned by Uber

We asked: “You're a woman. You want an Uber $UBER ( ▲ 0.53% ) . To quote one blogger; ‘Are you going to sit there in front of the bar and wait an extra 20 minutes to get matched to a woman?’”

You answered:

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Yes. Based on Uber's record of rape prevention I'd say it's worth the wait. (202)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ No. For a variety of reasons, no. (32)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 I would prefer if Uber vetted their male and female drivers better so that "get a woman driver" wasn't the only way they could try to cut down on their horrendous rape statistics. (328)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ How long has this been going on and how is Uber still in business given that it's not tried harder to solve for this issue until now? (113)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ I guess Uber "created a lot of value for shareholders," huh? (14)
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ "Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks." — Karl Marx (15)

704 Votes — via @beehiiv polls

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