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Meredith Whitney, the “Oracle of Wall Street,” blames fantasy sports and online sports betting for men not buying homes or having sex.
Seriously. This is something she claimed. On TV.
“The consumer drives everything I look at, in terms of housing, my economic outlook,” Whitney recently explained to Squawk on the Street on CNBC.
“Monthly, I look at the specific consumer data that I’ve been looking at for over 20 years.
“Two weeks ago, a week and a half ago it said something I’ve never seen before, which I know retail spending has been down all year.
“Restaurant spending, travel, leisure, they have been bellwethers, they’ve been the strong suits, but you think of the Taylor Swift effect.
“We all assume that is what was driving growth and spending, but actually they called out that the fastest growing leisure spend is fantasy sports and online sports betting.”
So what does all of that have to do with men not having sex?
“The negative impact is that it’s all young men,” Whitney continued. “I paralleled that with, or dovetailed that, with Pew Research that says that 63 percent of young men are single. And that’s the highest it has ever been. And 50 percent of those young men have no interest in dating, not even casually. And 30 percent of young men said they have not had sex in over a year and don’t seem to care.”
Fascinating. Please tell us more, Meredith.
“You have young men who don’t want to date and young women who are spending their time, really with Instagram moments, going to the Taylor Swift concert,” she continued. “I don’t know if you’ve been to them, it’s all filmed about yourself at the Taylor Swift concert.”
She also said that if Texas and California ever legalize sports betting the problem will only get worse due to how populous those two states are.
So there you go. People aren’t buying homes – they are renting instead – and they aren’t dating or even having one-night stands because of the proliferation of sports betting apps. Oh, and Taylor Swift concerts. And Instagram.