Axios

"There is massive, rampant abuse of special services. There are people using wheelchair assistance who don't need it at all."

Fast food's biggest brands are suddenly turning toward value after years of price hikes that have hampered sales.

Why it matters: The industry's prices have increased at a higher rate than grocery bills and gas prices over the last several years, Axios' Han Nichols reported.

Driving the news: In the wake of a move by McDonald's, Burger King is poised to debut a $5 value meal that includes a choice of three sandwiches plus nuggets, fries and a drink, Bloomberg reported.

• Burger King owner Restaurant Brands International did not respond to Axios' request for comment.
• McDonald's announced its own plans for a similar $5 value meal.
• "This is likely to be a summer of value, or maybe a year+ of value, to draw more price-sensitive customers back to fast food," Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Harbour wrote Tuesday in a research note.

The big picture: The industry's slowdown is driving a renewed focus on value and affordability, Axios' Kelly Tyko reported.

• "Consumers continue to be even more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending," McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the company's April 30 earnings call.

Zoom in: At McDonald's, prices have increased by 30% since 2019, according to Harbour.

• Price increases and reduced savings among low-income consumers have curbed sales — and the second quarter is expected to be worse than the first, Harbour predicts.

Quick take: Fatter wages and rising commodity prices have given fast-food franchisees little choice but to hike prices to make up the difference — but that's resulted in a trade-off.

• 78% of consumers now say fast food has become a luxury, according to a recent LendingTree survey.

Yes, but: 54% say they still eat fast food once to twice a week.

The bottom line: Fast food is feeling pressure to put the value back into the value meal.

The UAW is challenging the results of a unionization vote at Mercedes-Benz in Alabama, contending that the automaker illegally intimidated workers into voting against the move.

Why it matters: Mercedes workers at the manufacturing campus in Tuscaloosa voted against joining the UAW by a margin of 2,642 to 2,045 in a vote that ended May 17, according to the National Labor Relations Board.

• The union had five business days to challenge the results with the NLRB.

What they're saying: In an NLRB appeal on Friday, UAW attorney Benjamin Dictor said that the automaker "engaged in a relentless antiunion campaign marked with unlawful discipline, unlawful captive audience meetings, and a general goal of coercing and intimidating employees who were attempting to exercise their" right to vote.

• "What that tells us is that in a fair fight, where Mercedes is held accountable to following the law, workers will win their union," the union said in a followup statement.

Between the lines: The UAW had already filed unfair labor practices charges against Mercedes, accusing the company of wide-ranging illegal behavior.

The other side: Mercedes rejected the allegations, saying it followed federal guidelines and ensured a fair election, but ultimately workers said no.

• "We sincerely hoped the UAW would respect our Team Members' decision," the company said in a statement.

The big picture: The UAW is hoping to make the plant the second this year to join the union, after years of failed attempts to organize foreign-owned factories.

• In April, workers at the Volkswagen factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee, became the first non-Detroit Three assembly plant to be unionized.

What's next: The NLRB said a regional director will review the objections and decide whether a hearing is warranted.

• "If after the hearing, the Regional Director finds that the employer's conduct affected the election, she can order a new election," NLRB spokesperson Kayla Blado said in an email.

Americans' opinion of Elon Musk's social media platform X has fallen to a new low, according to the sixth annual Axios/Harris Poll 100 — while AI chipmaker Nvidia, in its first appearance on the list, snagged the number one position.

Why it matters: Social media companies overall have fallen behind the rest of Big Tech both in terms of their value to investors and public perception scores over the past year.

Ether and bitcoin rallied into the SEC's expected ruling on spot ether ETFs.

Flashback: Anticipation for the decision to swing to the positive pushed prices higher, and ether popped when the decision landed shortly after 5pm ET yesterday.

• BTC rallied alongside ether at the top of the week but ultimately finished the week flat.

What's happening: Ether is giving back some of those gains this morning.

Crystal's thought bubble: Perhaps part deux of the rally will pick up when there's activity around the second leg of the ether ETF regulatory process.

Kabosu, the dog who inspired dogecoin, has died today at 18.

"I am certain that Kabosu was the happiest dog in the world," her owner, a teacher in Japan, Atsuko Sato, said.

Our thought bubble: 😿

In the late 1930s, as Hitler prepared the German economy for war, a secret team assembled in the U.S. Treasury Department to use economic tools to fight the Nazis. Their story is told in a terrific work of historical fiction out this week.

Why it matters: "The Wealth of Shadows" by Graham Moore has the addictive readability of a good spy novel — yet is simultaneously one of the best economics books I've read in a long time. It makes financial history uncommonly vivid and accessible.

Ether exchange-traded funds are on the way to listing on major stock exchanges, after the Securities and Exchange Commission greenlighted applications Thursday.

Why it matters: The ether ETF approval is being hailed as a symbolic victory for crypto — part of a larger unexpected softening on the U.S.'s regulatory stance.

The crypto world is having a breakthrough moment in Washington.

Why it matters: While the White House still seems highly skeptical of crypto, the legislature — and former President Trump — seem to be coming around.

OG Closer readers may remember Courtenay Brown's story in May 2021 on how there's an exchange-traded fund (ETF) for nearly everything these days.

State of play: Well, now there's an ETF for the weight-loss drug boom.

• Roundhill Investments this week debuted an ETF "focused exclusively on the rapidly growing sector of GLP-1 receptor agonists and other weight management drugs."

Zoom in: 20% is Novo Nordisk (maker of Ozempic and Wegovy), while 20% is Eli Lilly (maker of Mounjaro and Zepbound).

• Other parts of the portfolio include Amgen and Viking Therapeutics.

Fun fact: The ticker symbol is OZEM.

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted against the Fed putting dollars on a blockchain (or something similar).

Why it matters: Central bank digital currencies, known as CBDCs, are a growing trend around the rest of the world, but the U.S. has dragged its feet.

There's no driving narrative from the crypto industry to inspire grassroots investors to believe its future is in making stuff that will be useful in the world, says Regan Bozman of Lattice, an investor in early stage companies.

Why it matters: We're in the middle of a crypto boom, which means a lot of financial power is gathering with no clear place for that energy to flow — so a lot of it is going into memecoins.

Affluent Americans are reaping the rewards of soaring prices for stocks and houses. Lower-income Americans are falling behind on their credit card bills, being pinched by high rents and interest rates and not seeing their pay rise as quickly as it did a couple of years ago.

Why it matters: The economic strains experienced by low-income households help explain negative sentiment about the economy — and President Biden's weakness in major polls.

As the kids say, there's a lot to unpack here.

Reality check: Speaking of financial nihilism, the interplay of thematically related meme coins like these are at the heart of all of that.

Zoom out: All of these tokens represent popular internet archetypes. If we took the Freudian construct of the id, ego and superego and overlaid them with these memes, then the breakdown here is easy.

• Wojak, the feels guy, is the superego. He's the one who can get angry, who can cry, who is tapped into a values system.

Two investors and prominent Crypto Twitter denizens are going to actually fight in Austin, during Consensus 2024.

• Nic Carter versus David Hoffman.

Background: It's under the auspices of Karate Combat, a token-powered sports betting application in which no one loses (their principal — crypto thing / I'll explain it all later).

The bottom line: Number go up? Yes, but someone's going down.

Nvidia, the primary avatar of the AI revolution, has solidly ensconced itself not only as one of the most valuable companies in the world but also as one of the most profitable.

Why it matters: Nvidia's profit margins are the envy of the corporate world — it made $14.9 billion of net income on revenue of $26 billion last quarter. By contrast, Nvidia's net income was just $0.7 billion in the final quarter of 2022.

More than half of Americans — 56% — mistakenly believe the U.S. is currently in a recession and that Biden is responsible for a worsening economy, according to a stunning new poll conducted by Harris for The Guardian.

Why it matters: The economy is actually in good shape and there's no recession. But misperceptions like this are a huge political challenge for President Biden and an advantage for former President Trump as they vie for second terms.