The antebellum south was so awful that being known for “simply” for having a large share of its population in chattel slavery, is kind of a propaganda/PR coup.
Few know about its system of mass incarceration, surveillance and informant network, endemic corruption, horrendous public health/diets, non existent infrastructure, unstable economy, as well as the poverty and servility experienced by most southern whites.
Hyper exploitation of a racial underclass poisons everything in a society. Plunder, coercion, and dishonesty bleeds into every facet of life.
Qualitatively, this is the worst economy I’ve experienced in terms of day-to-day life and the general vibe. Most of the people whom I knew in 08-09 and still hang out with now range from upper-middle class, professional class and few petite bourgeoisie and they have all reigned in their spending big time. This despite the fact that their wages are much higher than in 08-09 and they have some degree of economic security from their families assets (ranging from trust funds down to the ability to move back home and live rent-free). Even the ones who get income from rents and investments, reinvest everything. Even for those on the right side of the K-shaped economy, inflation and economic pessimism are supressing consumption. But there's something even more powerful at work here, dread. Unless things radically change, everything will be privatized, the cost of health care and education will keep going up, the dollar is in danger of losing its reserve currency status, and a handful of billionaire tech bros are selling their latest technology as being the destroyer of good jobs.
So Milton Friedman had an idea called the "Permanent Income Hypothesis." The idea is that assuming that households have sufficient access to credit, households will not change their marginal propensity to consume in a manner that closesly mirrors the fluctutaions of top-line macro economic numbers. Durning temporayer downturns and marginal losses of income or asset depreciation, household will borrow in order to offset their short-term losses. During good times, they will pay back what they borrowed in bad times. Friedma argued that there will be high marghinal propensity to consume if the fundamentals of an economy are strong.
I'd argue that in many ways, he was correct as far as the 08-09 GFC indicated. The top 10% of wealth and income holders (minus the top .01%) saw the crisis as transitory, had economic backstops in terms of assets, and could borrow in a way that papered over temporay loses in asset value and in returns from investments.
In 2026, the Permanent Income Hypothesis still holds true among the top 10% (minus the top. 01%) but the distressing parts is that this top 10% (less the super wealthy) have made a vote of no confidence towards the US's Economy's fundamentals. Their consumer spending has dropped and it is saying that hard times are ahead unless there is major structural change. This is why low unemployment numbers, high stock prices, and generally low inetrest rates have not moved the needle very much.