October 31, 2025 • 44 mins
Max and Stacey are joined by Leo Feler, an economist with a unique perspective on the Trump administration’s immigration and deportation policies. During a recent renovation project, Feler’s property was raided by federal agents looking to detain workers they believed were in the country illegally. Feler recounts the dramatic incident and explains how raids like these could have a chilling effect on the US economy.
Also on the show, Sean Fennessey, chief content officer of The Ringer, and co-host of The Big Picture podcast joins to debate just how bad of a year this has been for Hollywood.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I'm Stacey Mannix Smith.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I'm Max Chafkin. Stacey.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
There's a lot that's going on in the world that
is upsetting or difficult or scary.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
But on a happier note, it's Halloween.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It is Halloween. Happy Halloween, Happy.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Halloween, my children's favorite day of the year. It's also
on a Friday, which is awesome. And we at Everybody's
Business are going all in on the spooky season. We've
got a great conversation with Sean Fantasy. He's the co
host of The Big Picture podcast. He's going to catch
us up on what's been happening in the film industry,
give us some recommendations for what to watch tonight. You
(00:50):
visited a haunted bank. I did lots of Halloween cheer.
And then we also have a really difficult conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yes, we do, with economist Leo Feller, who experienced an
ice raid on his property. He talks a little bit
about what that was like firsthand, but also about the
economic impacts of some of the Trump administration's immigration policies
and how that's likely to play.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Out and our underrated story. Stacy, It's sweet. That's what
we have to look forward.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, candy, I've been promised candy.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Maybe a little sour. Also, I've been told a little salt.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What kind of candy did you get?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
All right, Stacy?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Before we get to all that's ahead of us for
this episode, I just want to quickly catch people up
on a couple of basically like modest wins for the
Trump administration that have made news this week. First off,
we've talked about Javier Mela and Argentina and the US bailout,
and I got to tell you listeners, if you have
not been paying attention, the bailout worked. Javier Melay was
(01:56):
successful during the Argentine midterm election. He's going to have
any of the things that were sort of worst case
scenarios for his administration for Argentina, the chainsaw lives on.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And also a huge deal with China. I would argue
this is a major win. So President Trump met with
President she of China, and obviously there have been a
lot of tariffs back and forth. Most recently, China was
threatening to withhold rare earths from the US, which would
be a big deal because rare earths are in all
of our computers and phones, and China controls ninety plus
(02:32):
percent of that market, so that was going to be
really bad. In exchange, Trump agreed to hit pause on
tariffs on Chinese goods.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
For a year.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
You genuinely think this is a big deal. This is
a nothing burger stacy. This is like a modest compromise
over like one tiny aspect of the US China thing.
It's just a truce. It only lasts a year, and
it only relates to the stuff that's happened over like
the last month, the rare earth thing like this, Like what.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
A dollar sign on this nothing burger max?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Because if we do it's like it's almost unimaginably big.
It is important to keep focused that China is quite
simply one of our most important trading partners. The business
we do with them is huge, and so any small change,
any small truth, even if it's temporary, is a big deal.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's good for our economy.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
I mean, I totally agree that China is an important
trading partner, but like this deal, I mean, come on, like,
you know what the stock market is doing as we
record this. It's eleven twenty nine on a Thursday, a
deal was announced.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
You take your cues from this store is down.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
A third of a percent. That's the SMP. So like, basically,
investors were not surprised at all.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
No one's surprised.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
You. Everyone can sleep through this. Press the snooze button.
There are other and more important things happening in the world.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
All I have to say is, if you are taking
your cues on the economic wisdom of things from the
stock market, you have way bigger problems.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I listen to the stock market when it agrees with me.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, that actually seems that I believe that I believe.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Let's get to Halloween, Stacy. Obviously, this is a holiday
where there's a lot of consumption.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
There's candy, there's kids on the street.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I mean, look, it's a special day in the United
States and in most of the world now because we
have managed to export this holiday even to countries where
Halloween doesn't necessarily come naturally.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, Halloween is very delightful, and I think it gives
us a moment in time to look at our fears
and to face them, which is interesting, especially at this
moment when there's a lot of economic fear broiling around
and As a matter of fact, I visited the site
of some economic fear.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Here in New York.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
They have a haunted bank that you can visit, so
it's like a haunted house, but it's set up in
an old bank building.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
I love how like normal people are like afraid of,
you know, dying or like falling from a high place
or having their teeth fall out. But you, Stacy Vanoxsmith,
are afraid financial crisis, financial cricause they.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Are so much scarier.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Do you Financial crises can mess you up way more
than like a werewolf or something. Anyway, I went to
the Haunted Bank and talked with the people of the
haunted bank to see why they had come. And I
also went through the haunted bank myself. So here here's
our trip through the haunted bank.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
What brought you to the haunted Bank? I was just like, well,
it looks fun. Do you guys find banks scary normally? No? No,
do you find banks scary?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Not really?
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Hell?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Are you here to make withdrawal?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh the deposits for.
Speaker 6 (05:52):
Fools.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
This vault was not made to hold cash. No, this
vault was made.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
To hold email.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
That it was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, it was pretty scary.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
We love scary stuff was cool. I never screamed so
much before you.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I don't know do you find banks scary?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Normally banks are not scary, but when they fail is scary.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I worked for JP Morgan.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
That's why, well.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Do just coming to this bank like fel cathartic, like
a ghost.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Bank scary, feels great. The whole place shut down. Happy
for it.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Wow, Stacy, that is why you get paid. The big
bus I got that was that was phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let me tell you what is even more wild. So
I started looking into the history of this building. It's
this beautiful building in China. I think you might know it. Yeah,
this big kind of art modern structure. It was built
in nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Ooh, not great timing there, right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Before the Black Friday, which crashed the stock market led
us into the Great Depression. And the bank in question,
it was National City Bank of New York, was at
the time one of the biggest banks in the world
and was one of the main banks that was pushing
borrowing money to buy stocks. So that bank is very
(07:30):
responsible for the crash itself. That that is so much
scarier than the killer clowns in the vaults.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
I totally agree with you, And it makes me wonder
like who put this together? Like who's whose haunted house
is this? Like how much did you pay?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Like what the tickets are almost fifty dollars? Wow, and
five hundred people a day are going through it.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I gotta say, like, I think they need to hire
some like consultants to like, you know, punch up their
horrors right, Like they're like it sounded like it was
like a evil bank teller or whatever. They need to
explore the terrors of like a credit crisis or like
structural spill over, like you know financial panel.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right, it's a fault swap. The private credit market is imploding.
That max is scary by the way it goes through
the early part of November.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So good luck. You can still visit and take the family.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A lot of kids there a lot of kids at
the Haunted bank.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There were Oh the only kid I saw came running
out crying. The scary clowns in the vault were really scary.
They were like yelling at you, and it was scary.
I don't like clowns.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
What did the clients say, this is a vault for evil?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
No, the no, the clowns were the ones like the deposits.
They were the ones you had to give the deposit
slip too. I couldn't figure out what was going on,
but I did manage to hand over the apostles.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
So Max.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
The Trump administration has been making some pretty seismic changes
to the US economy. We just talked about tariffs. Another
one of the big ones is immigration.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yeah, and in a way, I think harder to get
your arms around, because it's happening in this way that's
extremely diffuse, right, You have all of these sort of raids.
You have kind of people maybe who are afraid to
go to work or concerned about arrest. But also, in
addition to being very diffuse, you see it, it's also
in your face. There have been these images, these very
(09:29):
powerful images of immigrants being hauled off into detention sites.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, I mean, the images, like you say, have been
very powerful. And I got a call in fact from
economist Martha Gimbole earlier this week.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
She's friend of the show, friend of the show.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, she had the Yale Budget lab and she told
me that an economist she knew had just had his
home raided by ice agents his home renovation project.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
You know, economists normally don't get into the news this way.
And this is even more amazing because, as our guest,
Leo Feller not only had this experience, but he had
been tracking the economic impact of all of this policy,
all of this Trump immigration policy professionally.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yes, and its effect on consumer spending. And so we're
very lucky to have him with us. Leo Feller, an
economist who's worked at UCLA, Johns Hopkins, the Justice Department.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
You know a lot of us have been reading about
and seeing images of ice raids for months, but you
experienced one firsthand. Do you mind just kind of laying
out what happened?
Speaker 5 (10:36):
So?
Speaker 6 (10:36):
I've been doing a construction project on my home. I
own a home. Starting in around October, construction crews have
been here to remove the old siding, remove the old windows,
put new ones in. And this past Friday, October twenty fourth,
at eleven fifty am, the workers were taking a lunch
(10:56):
break and eating lunch on the stoop and suddenly a
white van pulls up, Another white suv pulls up. Nine
agents jump out of the car, or we presume they
are agents because they were masked and wearing camouflage gear,
but they never announced themselves. They hopped over a locked
fence and chased the workers through a construction site into
(11:20):
the backyard. One of the construction workers was able to
come in through an unlocked door in the back. Another
construction worker climbed onto a balcony. The federal agent climbed
onto the balcony of my private home trying to chase
this construction worker. A third construction worker went to the garage.
(11:40):
A federal agent entered that garage. Throughout this time, my tenant,
who was home, was asking, where is your warrant? Show
me your warrant. You do not have a warrant. This
is private property. Get off.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You weren't home at this time.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I was not home at this time. I was actually
in Toronto, Canada for a client meeting. I was watching
this all through security camera footage, and so I was
watching it live as it was occurring, and I also
yelled into the ring cameras for them to get off
the property.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So how did this look when you got the alert?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So you're at this meeting and like something pops up
on your phone like tell us, like walk us through
that moment.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
It was jarring. I can see the agents jumping over
a locked fence. And this is a five foot tall
fence with spikes on top.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Right.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
This isn't like a little white picket fence, right, this
is a wrought iron security fence meant to keep people
off the property that was locked, and you can see
the agents jumping over it. At that moment, I thought,
oh my gosh, this is you know, this is really bad.
I called the tenant right away and I said to her,
(12:49):
I was assuming it was Ice ices on the property.
Make sure the doors are unlocked so that the workers
can get in. I was actually a hotel lobby as
all of this was happening, and I start shouting voting
into you know, the phone, into the ring camera. Right, Ice,
you do not have permission to be on my property.
Get off my property. You do not have permission to
be here. Where is your warrant? Canadians are looking at
(13:11):
me like what the heck is going on? And I
looked back at them and I said, you can't possibly
be imagining what's happening right now in the United States.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
I mean, the amazing thing and you kind of alluded
to this. Leo is that this whole raid is documented,
and you know, because of ring cameras and because I
guess as this unfolded, and this is one of the
things that to me is so interesting, just you know,
a bunch of the neighbors came out and and also
were upset about this, and so there's cell phone videos there,
there's videos from the cameras on your property. I think
(13:44):
we should just play like a tiny bit of the
audio from this, just to give people a sense of
what's going on and what this sounded like, what it
felt like.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
That is I don't what is it like to hear
that right now?
Speaker 6 (14:15):
It gives me chills to hear it. I'm a US citizen.
I never thought I would be this afraid of my
own government. This is the kind of thing that you
see in third world countries where you know, armed military,
you know, men and fatigues raid your property without a warrant.
This isn't the kind of thing that should be happening
(14:36):
in the United States. We have a Fourth Amendment to
the Constitution that protects US as US citizens, as property
owners from these kinds of raids.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
How did this resolve itself? Was anyone detained? Yeah, it
didn't even go away in the van, so one worker
was detained.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
One worker managed to run, and a neighbor pulled that
worker into their car and drove them away. Two other
workers were pretty beat up, right, They were bloody, and
they were eventually able to come into my home since
the door had been unlocked. When I came home, I
spent pretty much an all nighter cleaning up the blood.
(15:14):
There was blood everywhere, right, this was a very violent raid.
The one who was detained was taken to a facility
in broad View. I and the neighbors raised money to
pay for an attorney, and we pulled an all nighter
together to write a writ of habeas corpus to say
(15:34):
that the way that this worker was detained violated the constitution,
because it appears right that agents came onto my property
without a warrant, since they never showed a warrant, and
essentially effectively, you know, burglarized my property by coming into
my garage, by coming onto the balcony, and then you know,
(15:56):
took someone away.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
The legality of these raids has been questioned in a
number of ways by a number of judges. The raids, however,
are continuing in the Trump administration is insisting that they
are legal. As an economist, I imagine you've been reading
about the ice raids and the sort of change in
policies towards immigration the Trump administration has put in place.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
You experienced it firsthand.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Did that change at all you're thinking about this issue
or illuminate part of it, like, how has this experience
changed your thinking?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I guess if it has.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
I already knew that these raids were having a chilling
effect on the consumption of the buying patterns of first
generation Hispanics. I have access to wonderful proprietary data that
shows me the purchases that you know, two hundred thousand
households are making at representative households across the United States
(16:56):
are making at places like wal Mart and Costco and
home Depot and also you know, mom and pop bodegas.
And one of the things that we can see is
that Hispanic households, first generation Hispanic households, have been pulling back.
And that suggests to me that you know, they're less
able to earn income right as is the case with
(17:17):
these construction workers right now, they're out of work because
they can't come to a construction site they are injured,
there might be fear about going to construction sites. But
also it just might be harder for them to get
a job because people like myself who would normally hire
a repair person to come to their property and do something,
who might hire a gardener or a cleaning lady, we
(17:39):
are going to be more fearful of hiring these people
if it means that the government can invade our properties
to try to detain them. And so we've seen consumption
come down amongst this cohort. I'll give you an anecdote.
I had one worker here for a separate project. Right
this is a big home renovation project. I had another
(17:59):
worker here who is a US citizen, speaks perfect English,
but is very clearly Hispanic. And he told me that
he's no longer going to the gym because he's afraid
of being picked up. He goes to work, which he
has to do, and he goes home, and he was
admiring I have some free weights here at the house,
and he was asking me about those because he said,
(18:20):
you know, I might just have to pick up some
free weight so I can continue working out at home,
simply because I'm afraid of going to the gym. He
also asked me to go and pick up some items
at home Depot for him because he was afraid to
go to home depot. And that's because there have been
raids at home depot, right at the parking lot of
(18:41):
home depot against day laborers. And he said like, look,
I'm happy to do the work for you at your home,
but I will not drive to home depot.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Now, a lot of the argument that the Trump administration
has made has been economic and campaigned on around immigration
has been economic. The idea that people are coming to
this country, they're not necessarily documented, and they are taking
jobs in an economy that is softening, in a job
market that is getting weaker, and so this is actually
(19:11):
sort of going to eventually boost the US economy. Like, yes,
this may cool spending among people, this may have a
dampening effect on certain things, but in the end, this
is going to open up jobs for citizens.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Can you talk about that.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
There is so much economic data that says that that
theory is incorrect. So when immigrants first come into this country,
they do take that very first rung on the ladder, right,
they take the jobs that no one else wants to take.
But that pushes everyone else who is on that first
rung up on the ladder up into the second rung.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
We saw this.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
There's some great research by you know, Nobel Prize winning
economists on what happened when you know, the surge of
immigrants came to Flora, when you had the Murial boat list,
right when Cubans were allowed to flee into Florida. Florida
accepted these immigrants with open arms. Right for a year
or so. It was a hardship on Florida because they
(20:13):
were supporting all of this new immigrant population. But ultimately
these immigrants generated so much demand.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Immigrants demand housing, they demand food, they demand services. They
also work very hard in sectors that you know that
we really need more labor for. Right AI is not
going to be able to put windows and sighting on
my house. Artificial intelligence can do lots of things, it
can't do that, right. Artificial intelligence right now is not
(20:43):
going to care for my aging parents as a home
health care aid. So there's a lot of jobs that
immigrants do that actually free up labor to then take
other sorts of jobs. And I will give you an
example right now with construction. The fact that there's construction
workers working, you know, on putting windows and sightings, allows
(21:04):
the American worker to become the head contractor, right to
be the one that's going out and generating new business,
being the one who's going out and you know, creating
the business that does the installations of sidings and windows.
The way that this has an impact on the broader economy.
And again, let's let's let me give the example of
my home construction project. It's a three hundred thousand dollars
(21:25):
project on a multifamily building with three different units. Even
though I'm paying three hundred thousand dollars, only a tiny
fraction of that is actually going to the workers that
we're here putting up the windows and the siding. Most
of that money is actually going towards Marvin windows, which
are the windows that we're installing. Marvin windows. I looked
(21:46):
at their website. It says all Marvin products are proudly
made in the USA. They are made in Roanoke, Virginia.
So if I'm not buying Marvin windows because I can't
find workers to install the Marvin windows, ultimately most of
the harm isn't just concentrated in Chicago. It's also affecting
those workers in Roanoke, Virginia who are producing Marvin windows.
(22:08):
The James Harding sighting is produced in Prattville, Alabama, as
well as Illinois, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Virginia, Washington. It's not
a huge impact, and it's just right now my project
that I'm speaking of, maybe projects in Chicago. But the
more these raids occur, the more this is going to
have a broader effect on the overall US economy.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
You know, we're talking about the economic impact of this,
You're talking about it in very broad terms. I'm kind
of curious, what is your strategy as an employer going
forward on a very very small scale.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
Well, so first, let's let's back up right. I didn't
hire these workers directly. I hired a you know, large
and reputable contracting company. That large and reputable contracting company
then hires subcontractors, and you know, I'm a little limited
in going out and trying to find subcontractors and checking
(23:02):
their legal status. And so, you know, most of us
when we go out and hire for a big project,
we're hiring a company and that company then hires workers.
In my case, I'm just going to pause this project right,
We've cleared the construction site. It's now completely clean. Maybe
in April May, when things are safe, the work will continue.
(23:25):
There is no just crew of American workers that's sitting
around waiting to finish up this project. And so you know,
it's really not that easy to go out and find
workers who want to hang off of a four story
ladder to put up a window and put up sighting.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Leo Feller, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah, Leo, thank you for talking with us.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Thank you, Stacy. I don't know if you knew this.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
Maybe it kind of came up a couple of weeks ago,
but twenty twenty five was supposed to be the year
that saved the movie industry.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
It was supposed to be this was to be a
big year at the box office.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I mean, I feel like I did hear that, although
I thought twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Saved the movies. Well, but it hasn't, Barbenheimer, it hasn't.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
It hasn't gone that way. Though the start of the
year was bad. There were a bunch of flops this summer.
They were all excited about Superman. Superman flopped.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
I didn't even remember that it came through.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
It was a big deal.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
But anyway, well, our next guest definitely remembers and is
here to kind of help us try to understand what
has been happening in the business of entertainment where it's going.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Sean Fantasy.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
He is the head of content at The Ringer the
co host of the Wonderful Big Picture podcast with his
co host Amanda Dobbins.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Sean, thanks for being here, Thanks for having me guys.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So Sean, just to get us started, describe for us
what the state of the movie business is right now.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I think in general, the movie business is down. The
number of tickets that are sold annually is down. It's
been going down for fifty consecutive years as the onset
of all kinds of new entertainment technologies have come into
people's lives in more convenient ways.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Going to the.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Movies necessitates a night out. It necessitates you have to
pay for your tickets and your concessions, and your parking,
and if your parent babysitters, and a number of other things.
And so it's an expensive hobby. And it's also a
hobby that can be conquered if you're willing to wait
two months till the film comes to streaming, So it's
harder than ever to get people interested in doing that.
But there are still definitely successes. I mean, this year
(25:30):
is marked by a couple of really fascinating successes. Ryan
Coogler Sinners is probably the most important and interesting one.
An original movie from a major studio and a celebrated
o'teur who also happens to have made a bunch of
billion dollar movies in the past, and the Black Panther
films and audiences love that movie.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
It made a ton of money, It.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Was a huge part of the cultural conversation and is
almost certainly going to be nominated for Academy Awards. That's
like the old school movie business style. That's tic tac
toe for a movie. So that is still possible. It
is still possible to make a movie a special event
along the lines of Barbenheimer, but it is fewer and
farther between. It is no doubt harder to get people
out on that opening weekend to get them to see
(26:13):
a new film, especially if they don't know exactly what
it is and it's an original story.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I was just gonna say, and the crazy thing is even
Barbenheimer like it was good, but it wasn't like historically speaking,
it wasn't like a huge it wasn't great. It was
just kind of almost like getting back to some version
of the past.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I would argue it was a pretty big event. I mean,
to me, that was the most significant cultural thing that
happened in that year. It's just that it was just
two movies, Like there weren't like twelve movies that did that.
But there are not a lot of occasions where two
movies are released on the same day and they both
make a billion dollars. There's not a lot of precedent
for that in Hollywood history.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
So Sean, the industry consensus was that the summer of
twenty twenty five was gonna be kind of the moment,
the season that things really turned around coming out of
the pandemic and all that.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
What has gone wrong, I.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Think it's a series of events. There's some exhaustion in
a handful of certain storytelling styles, like obviously superhero films
are at a low relative to the last decade. Jurassic
Park Rebirth was one of the biggest movies of the summer,
but it was the least successful of the recent Jurassic
World movies, and so there wasn't a ton of other
(27:23):
IP known legacy products for people to go check out.
And so when you take a couple of those things
off the board in a movie like Fantastic four underperforms
and Captain America four underperforms, all of a sudden, when
you look at the total box office numbers, it feels weak.
But you know, there were also positives. Weapons was a
huge positive, you know, original horror movie from Warner Brothers
(27:45):
that came out the first week of August, which is
historically more of a dumping ground, and made well over
two hundred million dollars on a budget that is way
lower than that, But that those are much harder to
predict and much harder to identify if you're in the
business to say, Okay, we're going to put forty million
dollars into this original horror movie and hope it becomes
a sensation. And when the IP stuff isn't working as well,
(28:06):
it does threaten the scope of the business, how big
it can possibly get, whether we can ever get back
to a time like twenty nineteen when it felt like
there was no stopping movie going.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I mean, the weird thing for me is that my
friends at this very moment. The thing they're talking about
is a movie. It's a movie, one battle after another.
That movie has been this huge critical success. It also
has made a lot of money for like a pt
Anderson movie pt Anderson the director, like a lot for
like an indie a serious like arty movie. But also
(28:39):
like I've read these stories saying, actually, it's like not
going to make any money because even though it's done
like one hundred and eighty million at the box office,
it cost over one hundred million to make, and like
when you add in the marketing and so on, So
like I'm curious, Sean, like, first of all, is that
movie a success, And like, how does studios think about
movies like that that get like a lot of buzz,
that maybe get Oscar nominations, that maybe build a lot
(29:02):
of goodwill, but don't necessarily like earn out.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
It's a little hard to say on that one in
particular until the spring. It's a movie that I think
it will end up making roughly two hundred million dollars
worldwide at the box office, which for a pal Thomus
Anderson movie, as you mentioned, isn't extraordinary. That's essentially three
times as much as any movie he's made has ever earned.
But it did cost it sounds like well over one
(29:27):
hundred and forty million dollars. So then yeah, when you
add the marketing, that's basically two x. It would need
to make three hundred million dollars or so they say
at the box office to be profitable in theaters.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
But here's the thing. It's the best reviewed movie of
the year.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
It's probably going to be nominated for somewhere between nine
and twelve Academy Awards right now. It's the odds on
favorite to win Best Picture. And that means it's a
movie that has a chance to become a forever movie.
And if you become a forever movie, it's an annuity.
It means that there it is a revenue stream in
perpetuity because it's a movie that people love and want
to rewatch and want to pay for on streaming and
(30:00):
want to license on streaming services, and they want to
own physical copies of it, and it can play in
repertory theaters forever. And so there are a lot of
films like this in the studio business libraries that are
still valuable to them that were made thirty, forty, sixty
eighty years ago.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So you mentioned that moviegoing has been on the decline
for a while. Twenty twenty five is not a great
year for movies, or at least hasn't been. Are you
worried about the industry as a whole.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Not really.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I think you just really, if you're a person in
my job, you have to accept that the movie business
is getting smaller. And I'm a big believer in a
practitioner of the philosophy of movies as the great American
art form, that it is the thing that we helped
to develop and perfect and ship overseas and influence the
world with. It is the most powerful art form that
(30:57):
we ever created, and it isn't as important as it
was in nineteen fifty eight, and it's never going to
be that important again. You kind of got to get
your head around that a little bit and accept it
if you are talking about movies every day like I am,
But it doesn't mean that it isn't going to exist, because,
like I said, I'm raising a four year old and
every day she's like, can we watch a movie? Like
it's just it's it's the perfect container for emotional entertainment
(31:20):
and it's better than a streaming TV show. It's better
than a record that you've heard one hundred times.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It is something.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It is like, it's the sensation of new and the
opportunity to be thrilled every day. So I'm not worried
about movies going anywhere. I don't think they're threatened in
any meaningful way. I do think that the way that
the movie business is organized is obviously dramatically changing and
is going to continue to dramatically change, and I think
it's probably gonna end up being something closer to more
(31:47):
like live events, where it feels more like a concert,
you know, and everything will be a little bit more
premium and there will be fewer things to choose from,
but the things that you're choosing from might look more
like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey next summer, where everyone you
know is going to say, have you seen that? We
have to go see that. This is really important that
we all see that. They wanted to feel more like
a Taylor Swift album than they do an art house film.
(32:07):
That's not great for the art in my opinion, but
it will help the business in some ways.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
So do you think like we're gonna look back on
twenty twenty five as like another down year for movies.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Once the bookkeeping is all done.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I think it's gonna be more or less a hold,
maybe a slight disappointment. The numbers are not like dramatically
down in any way. It's just that I think some
titles that were expected to be massive were not as
big as expected. It's just like baseball for me, it's
just wait until next year every year where like the
anticipating what's coming soon is a huge part of the
work that I'm doing on my show. And so you know,
(32:40):
next year The Odyssey is coming. Next year, there's a
new alien film from Steven Spielberg. You know, like there
are a couple of things that are coming out next
year that are gonna be very exciting.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I never give up hope on the movies.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Well, let's talk about these horror movies, because Sean brought
them up right, Like, this is like one. This is
like a real bright spot for the industry, not just
the two you mentioned, but I think there are a
bunch of other big ones that have come out recently.
Like why is this genre like such a great business?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
It's a good question. I think there's a few reasons.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
One that communal aspect that I was talking about, it's
very fun to see a horror movie with the crowd.
It's fun to hear people scream, It's fun to hear
that nervous laughter. It's fun to hear people yelling at
the screen. Sometimes, don't go in that room. Two, the
movies are pretty cheap to make relative to Jurassic World
and Superman, and you have a really a built in
fan base. I say this as as a horror psycho
(33:34):
fan who will pretty much show up for anything. You
know that the barred quality is lower than we're kind
of like, we're willing to eat gruel even if it
gives us our horror hit. And that doesn't mean that
there isn't like great artistic horror films out there.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
There have been a bunch this year.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But you know, like one of my favorite movies of
the year is called Final Destination Bloodlines. It's the sixth
movie in the Final Destinies.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Oh my gosh, really that's favorite movies of the year.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
That is the villain still death?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, the villain is still death. Yes, okay, spoiler, that's design.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Actually, if you don't know that by now, you have
big problems.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
There hasn't been a Final Destination movie in like over
twelve years when they revived this franchise, and it was
really really fun and this movie made over two hundred
million dollars as well, like as a huge hit despite
being the sixth entry and kind of a second tier
horror franchise. So like movies can still do this. Whenever
we get into the doom saying conversation, I do point
(34:35):
to things like that to say, like, hey, people did
get a babysitter, you know, they did board their dog
for the night, like they did do all the things
they had to do to go see Final Destination bloodlines.
So not all hope is lost, all.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
Right, So Sean, your horror psycho, like, what are you
going to be watching? Give us some recommendations those of
us who are looking for something something to watch on
Halloween night or over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Okay, I'll get I'll preface this by saying that I
am very much a disciple of all of the masters,
of John Carpenter, of Toby Hooper, of Wes Craven. I
worship all those filmmakers. I love really Scott's Alien, all
of the classics. I don't know if listeners need to
hear like, you should check out John Carpenter's Halloween. Like
I think everyone knows that that's a very special movie.
(35:17):
There are a couple of movies in more recent history
that I think are very effective, some known, some not
as well known. But I was just speaking with my
wife about this the other night, and I said, let's
try to watch this movie. I want to say it
was roughly two thousand and nine. A director named Brian Bertino,
who kind of came out of nowhere, had a horror
movie called The Strangers. Have you seen The Strangers?
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Guys?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
No?
Speaker 5 (35:38):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The Stranger stars Live Tyler and Scott Speedman as a
couple who live in a cabin in the woods and
one night a group of people wearing masks knock on
their door and just start menacing them. And at first
it seems like it may be teenagers playing prank or
(36:01):
someone from like a towny who just has a problem
with these people who have just moved into town. And
then over time it becomes much more malevolent and not
necessarily supernatural but genuinely unnerving. Okay, that's one. I'll give
you another one. Have you seen the Changeling? Do you
know what The Changeling.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I do know about The Changeling, but I have not
seen it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Okay, It's a movie from the late seventies starring George C.
Scott about a widower who moves into a lonely old
house by himself and things start happening in the house
and they're not good. George, he's got one of the
great convulsive yellers, yes, yeat, and of course in a
very intense actor. It's kind of a maniac himself, a
(36:43):
psycho himself, and he is being taunted by this force
that is in the home. So I highly recommend that one. Hmmm,
third one?
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
How crazy do you want to get?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Crazy?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Do you want to hear me say the word cannibal Holocaust? Like,
there's a movie it is called Cannibal Holocaust that maybe
most people would not want to watch.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Magnus is nodding his head.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Cannibal Holocaust's Shark NADOs.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Much more evil than that. Nonado is fun. Cannibal Holocaust
is very dark.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Okay, Max, what about you?
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Like?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
What are your favorite horror movies?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I got it.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
I gotta admit something. It's kind of I feel like,
what like this is not a cool thing? To say,
but I am not a huge horror fan. My plan
was to watch the World Series on Friday night. Well,
like a real American.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Feelings about baseball, that could also be quite scary.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
What about you, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
So as far as.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Things that scare me, I am Slashers don't scare me
that much, but go scare me a lot. I get
really scared by the supernatural. I don't get that scared
by like killers, because I feel like you can just
lock the door, you know what I mean, Like you're
you're aware of the limitations of the killer.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
But the ghosts because they can go through the door.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
They can go through the door, right, you don't know
the rule. That is just terrifying to me. So the
scariest movies for me that I have seen, The Shining
is definitely up there. The Exorcist scared me so much
I started crying in the.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Middle of the movie.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
I really love watching horror, but it affects me way
too deeply.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I always say that I love going to the movies
to feel something, and horror movies think is the genre
that makes people feel the most consistently, you know, to
scared and to be excited by a movie. Is very
powerful and horror.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Is the best of them all Right, Sean Fantasy, thanks
for being here. Thanks guys, great talking to you.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
So Max.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It is now time for our Underrated Story of the
Week and I am especially excited for this week because
it involves candy.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
I hope you didn't need too much before this podcast,
so Underrated Story. There have been a couple of pieces
about this. The one I found was in the New
York Times. It was about the hot trends in candy
in honor of a Halloween. Now, I gotta say, like
I don't know. First of all, according to the National
Retail Federation trade group, spending on candy is going to
(39:11):
be a record three point nine billion dollars in twenty
twenty five. That's the prediction of the United States. And
this story proposes a bunch of trends, some of which
I kind of question because there's not a lot of data,
some of which I can one hundred percent back up
based on my anecdata of my three children. For instance,
the big trend now that the big trend in candy,
(39:33):
Stacey is sort of extreme flavors like okay forget, like
Reese's peanut butter, cups. It's all about extreme sour and
also extreme textures.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So experiential candy.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Experiential candy.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
And there's a funny quote in this story from a
like I don't know consumer behavior person trying to explain
why these kind of extreme candies are so popular. It says,
one theory is that young people quote want antidotes to
increasingly virtual, repetitive, and isolated daily lives. Says somebody who's
(40:07):
the director of food and drink at a market.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Research that's putting a lot on candy.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
So Stacy, I have dumped a bag of candy on
the table my daughter Alice, who's ten, to a New
York City bodega in Queens and asked her, like, Alice,
show me the hot candy, Show me the candy that
all the Generation ALPHA is excited about. And the first
(40:31):
one that she picked, which I knew she would pick,
because like, my kids are crazy about these things. It's
called a Nerds gummy cluster. Have you ever heard?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I have heard of these. I've never had one.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
All right, So I've got some of them here. I'm
going to open it up. I've never had one either.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
What is the big deal with these?
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Like honestly don't know. They look really bad for you. Here,
I'll put a few on the table for you. It
sort of looks like you want to describe it.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Sure, it is like the size of a marble, and
it's like a little gummy sphere and it's covered.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
In it's like a raspberry almost like mine. Looks sort
of like a berry.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
It's very sugary.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Who fowl.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Okay, it's actually pretty delicious.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
All right, the next one. And she was really excited
about these. These are sour. Sorry, super sour gushers.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Oh I remember gushers.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Well, now you've got super sour gushers.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
So okay, super sour gushers.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Gushers look foul, but.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
They look like gushers. I mean I used to eat
gushers when I was a kid. All right ready, okay,
I think they taste the same.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
They're not sour at all.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
Are you a sour No? Hmm, that's kind of bland.
I don't know what this is. It's a that's a
gummy burger. It's a gummy burger. I think she just
wanted to eat this like when she bought it. And
I don't know how we're gonna split it. We can.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
We can take it apart.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
Here you go, It's okay, and then we have to Okay, well,
let's have the gummy burger first.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay, it's a mini burger. It basically looks like a
time gummy hamburger. Here, we'll split it, all right.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
Oh my gosh, are you into that? Really?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'm not sure I can bite through it. It's so
hard it's like a sole of a shoe.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
All right?
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Is this the future of the candy economy?
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Now?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I am underwhelmed by these candy innovations. I think these
just taste like the candy I grew up with.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
The Other thing that I understand to be a hot
new candy is salted licorice from Sweden.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Swedish candies is very hot right now.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
And luckily our producer are a supervising producer. Magnus Hendrickson
is Swedish and his Swedish mother sent us ah some salted.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Thanks Magnus's mom.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
I know that you love salted licorice, Stacey, So I.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Like licorice, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Before we started taping, Stacy was like, it tastes like pea.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
It doesn't taste great.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Ah, I don't understand.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Oh my god, I don't understand. It gets worse and
worse as masticated. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
See the pe comes later. It's a bottom note in
the back of your mouth, right.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Oh, listeners, If you have a favorite candy, or if
you have any thoughts on this episode, send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody's with an asset
Bloomberg dot net. We heard that super powerful story about
the ice raids from Leo Feller, Like, I'm kind of
curious what people thought of it, whether they've had similar experiences,
(43:37):
whether you agree with Leo's perspective disagree, Let's hear it.
We'll read some of those emails when they come in.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Also, if you've experienced something like that, if you're hesitating
to go out to go to the gym, anything like that,
we would love to hear your story.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
This show is produced by Stacy Wong, Magnus Hendrickson, noted
fan of Licorice is All So our supervising producer, Amy Kean,
our executive producer, Sam Rogic handles.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
Engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks. Sage Bauman heads.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
Bloomberg Podcast special Thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin and
Maria Ling.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
If you have a minute, give us a rating or
a review. It'll mean a lot to us.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
And if you have a story that should be our business,
email us at Everybody's at Boomberg dot net. That's everybody
with an US at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks for listening,
and we will see you next week. Happy Halloween.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
I'm Stacey Mannix Smith.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
I'm Max Chafkin. Stacey.
Speaker 5 (00:18):
There's a lot that's going on in the world that
is upsetting or difficult or scary.
Speaker 4 (00:23):
But on a happier note, it's Halloween.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It is Halloween. Happy Halloween, Happy.
Speaker 5 (00:28):
Halloween, my children's favorite day of the year. It's also
on a Friday, which is awesome. And we at Everybody's
Business are going all in on the spooky season. We've
got a great conversation with Sean Fantasy. He's the co
host of The Big Picture podcast. He's going to catch
us up on what's been happening in the film industry,
give us some recommendations for what to watch tonight. You
(00:50):
visited a haunted bank. I did lots of Halloween cheer.
And then we also have a really difficult conversation.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Yes, we do, with economist Leo Feller, who experienced an
ice raid on his property. He talks a little bit
about what that was like firsthand, but also about the
economic impacts of some of the Trump administration's immigration policies
and how that's likely to play.
Speaker 5 (01:14):
Out and our underrated story. Stacy, It's sweet. That's what
we have to look forward.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, candy, I've been promised candy.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
Maybe a little sour. Also, I've been told a little salt.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
What kind of candy did you get?
Speaker 4 (01:32):
All right, Stacy?
Speaker 5 (01:34):
Before we get to all that's ahead of us for
this episode, I just want to quickly catch people up
on a couple of basically like modest wins for the
Trump administration that have made news this week. First off,
we've talked about Javier Mela and Argentina and the US bailout,
and I got to tell you listeners, if you have
not been paying attention, the bailout worked. Javier Melay was
(01:56):
successful during the Argentine midterm election. He's going to have
any of the things that were sort of worst case
scenarios for his administration for Argentina, the chainsaw lives on.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
And also a huge deal with China. I would argue
this is a major win. So President Trump met with
President she of China, and obviously there have been a
lot of tariffs back and forth. Most recently, China was
threatening to withhold rare earths from the US, which would
be a big deal because rare earths are in all
of our computers and phones, and China controls ninety plus
(02:32):
percent of that market, so that was going to be
really bad. In exchange, Trump agreed to hit pause on
tariffs on Chinese goods.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
For a year.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
You genuinely think this is a big deal. This is
a nothing burger stacy. This is like a modest compromise
over like one tiny aspect of the US China thing.
It's just a truce. It only lasts a year, and
it only relates to the stuff that's happened over like
the last month, the rare earth thing like this, Like what.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
A dollar sign on this nothing burger max?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Because if we do it's like it's almost unimaginably big.
It is important to keep focused that China is quite
simply one of our most important trading partners. The business
we do with them is huge, and so any small change,
any small truth, even if it's temporary, is a big deal.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's good for our economy.
Speaker 5 (03:23):
I mean, I totally agree that China is an important
trading partner, but like this deal, I mean, come on, like,
you know what the stock market is doing as we
record this. It's eleven twenty nine on a Thursday, a
deal was announced.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
You take your cues from this store is down.
Speaker 5 (03:38):
A third of a percent. That's the SMP. So like, basically,
investors were not surprised at all.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
No one's surprised.
Speaker 5 (03:45):
You. Everyone can sleep through this. Press the snooze button.
There are other and more important things happening in the world.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
All I have to say is, if you are taking
your cues on the economic wisdom of things from the
stock market, you have way bigger problems.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
I listen to the stock market when it agrees with me.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Okay, that actually seems that I believe that I believe.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Let's get to Halloween, Stacy. Obviously, this is a holiday
where there's a lot of consumption.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
There's candy, there's kids on the street.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
I mean, look, it's a special day in the United
States and in most of the world now because we
have managed to export this holiday even to countries where
Halloween doesn't necessarily come naturally.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Well, Halloween is very delightful, and I think it gives
us a moment in time to look at our fears
and to face them, which is interesting, especially at this
moment when there's a lot of economic fear broiling around
and As a matter of fact, I visited the site
of some economic fear.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
Here in New York.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
They have a haunted bank that you can visit, so
it's like a haunted house, but it's set up in
an old bank building.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
I love how like normal people are like afraid of,
you know, dying or like falling from a high place
or having their teeth fall out. But you, Stacy Vanoxsmith,
are afraid financial crisis, financial cricause they.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Are so much scarier.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Do you Financial crises can mess you up way more
than like a werewolf or something. Anyway, I went to
the Haunted Bank and talked with the people of the
haunted bank to see why they had come. And I
also went through the haunted bank myself. So here here's
our trip through the haunted bank.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
What brought you to the haunted Bank? I was just like, well,
it looks fun. Do you guys find banks scary normally? No? No,
do you find banks scary?
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Not really?
Speaker 5 (05:39):
Hell?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
Are you here to make withdrawal?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Oh the deposits for.
Speaker 6 (05:52):
Fools.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
This vault was not made to hold cash. No, this
vault was made.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
To hold email.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
That it was pretty good.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
Yeah, it was pretty scary.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
We love scary stuff was cool. I never screamed so
much before you.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I don't know do you find banks scary?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Normally banks are not scary, but when they fail is scary.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I worked for JP Morgan.
Speaker 5 (06:34):
That's why, well.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Do just coming to this bank like fel cathartic, like
a ghost.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Bank scary, feels great. The whole place shut down. Happy
for it.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Wow, Stacy, that is why you get paid. The big
bus I got that was that was phenomenon.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Let me tell you what is even more wild. So
I started looking into the history of this building. It's
this beautiful building in China. I think you might know it. Yeah,
this big kind of art modern structure. It was built
in nineteen twenty seven.
Speaker 5 (07:07):
Ooh, not great timing there, right.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Before the Black Friday, which crashed the stock market led
us into the Great Depression. And the bank in question,
it was National City Bank of New York, was at
the time one of the biggest banks in the world
and was one of the main banks that was pushing
borrowing money to buy stocks. So that bank is very
(07:30):
responsible for the crash itself. That that is so much
scarier than the killer clowns in the vaults.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
I totally agree with you, And it makes me wonder
like who put this together? Like who's whose haunted house
is this? Like how much did you pay?
Speaker 2 (07:42):
Like what the tickets are almost fifty dollars? Wow, and
five hundred people a day are going through it.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
I gotta say, like, I think they need to hire
some like consultants to like, you know, punch up their
horrors right, Like they're like it sounded like it was
like a evil bank teller or whatever. They need to
explore the terrors of like a credit crisis or like
structural spill over, like you know financial panel.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Right, it's a fault swap. The private credit market is imploding.
That max is scary by the way it goes through
the early part of November.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So good luck. You can still visit and take the family.
Speaker 4 (08:21):
A lot of kids there a lot of kids at
the Haunted bank.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
There were Oh the only kid I saw came running
out crying. The scary clowns in the vault were really scary.
They were like yelling at you, and it was scary.
I don't like clowns.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
What did the clients say, this is a vault for evil?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
No, the no, the clowns were the ones like the deposits.
They were the ones you had to give the deposit
slip too. I couldn't figure out what was going on,
but I did manage to hand over the apostles.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
So Max.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
The Trump administration has been making some pretty seismic changes
to the US economy. We just talked about tariffs. Another
one of the big ones is immigration.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Yeah, and in a way, I think harder to get
your arms around, because it's happening in this way that's
extremely diffuse, right, You have all of these sort of raids.
You have kind of people maybe who are afraid to
go to work or concerned about arrest. But also, in
addition to being very diffuse, you see it, it's also
in your face. There have been these images, these very
(09:29):
powerful images of immigrants being hauled off into detention sites.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yes, I mean, the images, like you say, have been
very powerful. And I got a call in fact from
economist Martha Gimbole earlier this week.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
She's friend of the show, friend of the show.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes, she had the Yale Budget lab and she told
me that an economist she knew had just had his
home raided by ice agents his home renovation project.
Speaker 5 (09:54):
You know, economists normally don't get into the news this way.
And this is even more amazing because, as our guest,
Leo Feller not only had this experience, but he had
been tracking the economic impact of all of this policy,
all of this Trump immigration policy professionally.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Yes, and its effect on consumer spending. And so we're
very lucky to have him with us. Leo Feller, an
economist who's worked at UCLA, Johns Hopkins, the Justice Department.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6 (10:23):
Thank you for having me on your show.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
You know a lot of us have been reading about
and seeing images of ice raids for months, but you
experienced one firsthand. Do you mind just kind of laying
out what happened?
Speaker 5 (10:36):
So?
Speaker 6 (10:36):
I've been doing a construction project on my home. I
own a home. Starting in around October, construction crews have
been here to remove the old siding, remove the old windows,
put new ones in. And this past Friday, October twenty fourth,
at eleven fifty am, the workers were taking a lunch
(10:56):
break and eating lunch on the stoop and suddenly a
white van pulls up, Another white suv pulls up. Nine
agents jump out of the car, or we presume they
are agents because they were masked and wearing camouflage gear,
but they never announced themselves. They hopped over a locked
fence and chased the workers through a construction site into
(11:20):
the backyard. One of the construction workers was able to
come in through an unlocked door in the back. Another
construction worker climbed onto a balcony. The federal agent climbed
onto the balcony of my private home trying to chase
this construction worker. A third construction worker went to the garage.
(11:40):
A federal agent entered that garage. Throughout this time, my tenant,
who was home, was asking, where is your warrant? Show
me your warrant. You do not have a warrant. This
is private property. Get off.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
You weren't home at this time.
Speaker 6 (11:54):
I was not home at this time. I was actually
in Toronto, Canada for a client meeting. I was watching
this all through security camera footage, and so I was
watching it live as it was occurring, and I also
yelled into the ring cameras for them to get off
the property.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
So how did this look when you got the alert?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So you're at this meeting and like something pops up
on your phone like tell us, like walk us through
that moment.
Speaker 6 (12:18):
It was jarring. I can see the agents jumping over
a locked fence. And this is a five foot tall
fence with spikes on top.
Speaker 4 (12:28):
Right.
Speaker 6 (12:28):
This isn't like a little white picket fence, right, this
is a wrought iron security fence meant to keep people
off the property that was locked, and you can see
the agents jumping over it. At that moment, I thought,
oh my gosh, this is you know, this is really bad.
I called the tenant right away and I said to her,
(12:49):
I was assuming it was Ice ices on the property.
Make sure the doors are unlocked so that the workers
can get in. I was actually a hotel lobby as
all of this was happening, and I start shouting voting
into you know, the phone, into the ring camera. Right, Ice,
you do not have permission to be on my property.
Get off my property. You do not have permission to
be here. Where is your warrant? Canadians are looking at
(13:11):
me like what the heck is going on? And I
looked back at them and I said, you can't possibly
be imagining what's happening right now in the United States.
Speaker 5 (13:21):
I mean, the amazing thing and you kind of alluded
to this. Leo is that this whole raid is documented,
and you know, because of ring cameras and because I
guess as this unfolded, and this is one of the
things that to me is so interesting, just you know,
a bunch of the neighbors came out and and also
were upset about this, and so there's cell phone videos there,
there's videos from the cameras on your property. I think
(13:44):
we should just play like a tiny bit of the
audio from this, just to give people a sense of
what's going on and what this sounded like, what it
felt like.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
That is I don't what is it like to hear
that right now?
Speaker 6 (14:15):
It gives me chills to hear it. I'm a US citizen.
I never thought I would be this afraid of my
own government. This is the kind of thing that you
see in third world countries where you know, armed military,
you know, men and fatigues raid your property without a warrant.
This isn't the kind of thing that should be happening
(14:36):
in the United States. We have a Fourth Amendment to
the Constitution that protects US as US citizens, as property
owners from these kinds of raids.
Speaker 5 (14:45):
How did this resolve itself? Was anyone detained? Yeah, it
didn't even go away in the van, so one worker
was detained.
Speaker 6 (14:52):
One worker managed to run, and a neighbor pulled that
worker into their car and drove them away. Two other
workers were pretty beat up, right, They were bloody, and
they were eventually able to come into my home since
the door had been unlocked. When I came home, I
spent pretty much an all nighter cleaning up the blood.
(15:14):
There was blood everywhere, right, this was a very violent raid.
The one who was detained was taken to a facility
in broad View. I and the neighbors raised money to
pay for an attorney, and we pulled an all nighter
together to write a writ of habeas corpus to say
(15:34):
that the way that this worker was detained violated the constitution,
because it appears right that agents came onto my property
without a warrant, since they never showed a warrant, and
essentially effectively, you know, burglarized my property by coming into
my garage, by coming onto the balcony, and then you know,
(15:56):
took someone away.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
The legality of these raids has been questioned in a
number of ways by a number of judges. The raids, however,
are continuing in the Trump administration is insisting that they
are legal. As an economist, I imagine you've been reading
about the ice raids and the sort of change in
policies towards immigration the Trump administration has put in place.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
You experienced it firsthand.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Did that change at all you're thinking about this issue
or illuminate part of it, like, how has this experience
changed your thinking?
Speaker 3 (16:34):
I guess if it has.
Speaker 6 (16:36):
I already knew that these raids were having a chilling
effect on the consumption of the buying patterns of first
generation Hispanics. I have access to wonderful proprietary data that
shows me the purchases that you know, two hundred thousand
households are making at representative households across the United States
(16:56):
are making at places like wal Mart and Costco and
home Depot and also you know, mom and pop bodegas.
And one of the things that we can see is
that Hispanic households, first generation Hispanic households, have been pulling back.
And that suggests to me that you know, they're less
able to earn income right as is the case with
(17:17):
these construction workers right now, they're out of work because
they can't come to a construction site they are injured,
there might be fear about going to construction sites. But
also it just might be harder for them to get
a job because people like myself who would normally hire
a repair person to come to their property and do something,
who might hire a gardener or a cleaning lady, we
(17:39):
are going to be more fearful of hiring these people
if it means that the government can invade our properties
to try to detain them. And so we've seen consumption
come down amongst this cohort. I'll give you an anecdote.
I had one worker here for a separate project. Right
this is a big home renovation project. I had another
(17:59):
worker here who is a US citizen, speaks perfect English,
but is very clearly Hispanic. And he told me that
he's no longer going to the gym because he's afraid
of being picked up. He goes to work, which he
has to do, and he goes home, and he was
admiring I have some free weights here at the house,
and he was asking me about those because he said,
(18:20):
you know, I might just have to pick up some
free weight so I can continue working out at home,
simply because I'm afraid of going to the gym. He
also asked me to go and pick up some items
at home Depot for him because he was afraid to
go to home depot. And that's because there have been
raids at home depot, right at the parking lot of
(18:41):
home depot against day laborers. And he said like, look,
I'm happy to do the work for you at your home,
but I will not drive to home depot.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
Now, a lot of the argument that the Trump administration
has made has been economic and campaigned on around immigration
has been economic. The idea that people are coming to
this country, they're not necessarily documented, and they are taking
jobs in an economy that is softening, in a job
market that is getting weaker, and so this is actually
(19:11):
sort of going to eventually boost the US economy. Like, yes,
this may cool spending among people, this may have a
dampening effect on certain things, but in the end, this
is going to open up jobs for citizens.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Can you talk about that.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
There is so much economic data that says that that
theory is incorrect. So when immigrants first come into this country,
they do take that very first rung on the ladder, right,
they take the jobs that no one else wants to take.
But that pushes everyone else who is on that first
rung up on the ladder up into the second rung.
Speaker 4 (19:50):
We saw this.
Speaker 6 (19:51):
There's some great research by you know, Nobel Prize winning
economists on what happened when you know, the surge of
immigrants came to Flora, when you had the Murial boat list,
right when Cubans were allowed to flee into Florida. Florida
accepted these immigrants with open arms. Right for a year
or so. It was a hardship on Florida because they
(20:13):
were supporting all of this new immigrant population. But ultimately
these immigrants generated so much demand.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Right.
Speaker 6 (20:20):
Immigrants demand housing, they demand food, they demand services. They
also work very hard in sectors that you know that
we really need more labor for. Right AI is not
going to be able to put windows and sighting on
my house. Artificial intelligence can do lots of things, it
can't do that, right. Artificial intelligence right now is not
(20:43):
going to care for my aging parents as a home
health care aid. So there's a lot of jobs that
immigrants do that actually free up labor to then take
other sorts of jobs. And I will give you an
example right now with construction. The fact that there's construction
workers working, you know, on putting windows and sightings, allows
(21:04):
the American worker to become the head contractor, right to
be the one that's going out and generating new business,
being the one who's going out and you know, creating
the business that does the installations of sidings and windows.
The way that this has an impact on the broader economy.
And again, let's let's let me give the example of
my home construction project. It's a three hundred thousand dollars
(21:25):
project on a multifamily building with three different units. Even
though I'm paying three hundred thousand dollars, only a tiny
fraction of that is actually going to the workers that
we're here putting up the windows and the siding. Most
of that money is actually going towards Marvin windows, which
are the windows that we're installing. Marvin windows. I looked
(21:46):
at their website. It says all Marvin products are proudly
made in the USA. They are made in Roanoke, Virginia.
So if I'm not buying Marvin windows because I can't
find workers to install the Marvin windows, ultimately most of
the harm isn't just concentrated in Chicago. It's also affecting
those workers in Roanoke, Virginia who are producing Marvin windows.
(22:08):
The James Harding sighting is produced in Prattville, Alabama, as
well as Illinois, Texas, Florida, Nevada, Virginia, Washington. It's not
a huge impact, and it's just right now my project
that I'm speaking of, maybe projects in Chicago. But the
more these raids occur, the more this is going to
have a broader effect on the overall US economy.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
You know, we're talking about the economic impact of this,
You're talking about it in very broad terms. I'm kind
of curious, what is your strategy as an employer going
forward on a very very small scale.
Speaker 6 (22:42):
Well, so first, let's let's back up right. I didn't
hire these workers directly. I hired a you know, large
and reputable contracting company. That large and reputable contracting company
then hires subcontractors, and you know, I'm a little limited
in going out and trying to find subcontractors and checking
(23:02):
their legal status. And so, you know, most of us
when we go out and hire for a big project,
we're hiring a company and that company then hires workers.
In my case, I'm just going to pause this project right,
We've cleared the construction site. It's now completely clean. Maybe
in April May, when things are safe, the work will continue.
(23:25):
There is no just crew of American workers that's sitting
around waiting to finish up this project. And so you know,
it's really not that easy to go out and find
workers who want to hang off of a four story
ladder to put up a window and put up sighting.
Speaker 4 (23:40):
Leo Feller, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
Yeah, Leo, thank you for talking with us.
Speaker 4 (23:45):
Thank you, Stacy. I don't know if you knew this.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
Maybe it kind of came up a couple of weeks ago,
but twenty twenty five was supposed to be the year
that saved the movie industry.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
It was supposed to be this was to be a
big year at the box office.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I mean, I feel like I did hear that, although
I thought twenty twenty three.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Saved the movies. Well, but it hasn't, Barbenheimer, it hasn't.
Speaker 5 (24:14):
It hasn't gone that way. Though the start of the
year was bad. There were a bunch of flops this summer.
They were all excited about Superman. Superman flopped.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
I didn't even remember that it came through.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
It was a big deal.
Speaker 5 (24:24):
But anyway, well, our next guest definitely remembers and is
here to kind of help us try to understand what
has been happening in the business of entertainment where it's going.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Sean Fantasy.
Speaker 5 (24:35):
He is the head of content at The Ringer the
co host of the Wonderful Big Picture podcast with his
co host Amanda Dobbins.
Speaker 4 (24:42):
Sean, thanks for being here, Thanks for having me guys.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So Sean, just to get us started, describe for us
what the state of the movie business is right now.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
I think in general, the movie business is down. The
number of tickets that are sold annually is down. It's
been going down for fifty consecutive years as the onset
of all kinds of new entertainment technologies have come into
people's lives in more convenient ways.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Going to the.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Movies necessitates a night out. It necessitates you have to
pay for your tickets and your concessions, and your parking,
and if your parent babysitters, and a number of other things.
And so it's an expensive hobby. And it's also a
hobby that can be conquered if you're willing to wait
two months till the film comes to streaming, So it's
harder than ever to get people interested in doing that.
But there are still definitely successes. I mean, this year
(25:30):
is marked by a couple of really fascinating successes. Ryan
Coogler Sinners is probably the most important and interesting one.
An original movie from a major studio and a celebrated
o'teur who also happens to have made a bunch of
billion dollar movies in the past, and the Black Panther
films and audiences love that movie.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
It made a ton of money, It.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Was a huge part of the cultural conversation and is
almost certainly going to be nominated for Academy Awards. That's
like the old school movie business style. That's tic tac
toe for a movie. So that is still possible. It
is still possible to make a movie a special event
along the lines of Barbenheimer, but it is fewer and
farther between. It is no doubt harder to get people
out on that opening weekend to get them to see
(26:13):
a new film, especially if they don't know exactly what
it is and it's an original story.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
I was just gonna say, and the crazy thing is even
Barbenheimer like it was good, but it wasn't like historically speaking,
it wasn't like a huge it wasn't great. It was
just kind of almost like getting back to some version
of the past.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
I would argue it was a pretty big event. I mean,
to me, that was the most significant cultural thing that
happened in that year. It's just that it was just
two movies, Like there weren't like twelve movies that did that.
But there are not a lot of occasions where two
movies are released on the same day and they both
make a billion dollars. There's not a lot of precedent
for that in Hollywood history.
Speaker 5 (26:47):
So Sean, the industry consensus was that the summer of
twenty twenty five was gonna be kind of the moment,
the season that things really turned around coming out of
the pandemic and all that.
Speaker 4 (26:58):
What has gone wrong, I.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Think it's a series of events. There's some exhaustion in
a handful of certain storytelling styles, like obviously superhero films
are at a low relative to the last decade. Jurassic
Park Rebirth was one of the biggest movies of the summer,
but it was the least successful of the recent Jurassic
World movies, and so there wasn't a ton of other
(27:23):
IP known legacy products for people to go check out.
And so when you take a couple of those things
off the board in a movie like Fantastic four underperforms
and Captain America four underperforms, all of a sudden, when
you look at the total box office numbers, it feels weak.
But you know, there were also positives. Weapons was a
huge positive, you know, original horror movie from Warner Brothers
(27:45):
that came out the first week of August, which is
historically more of a dumping ground, and made well over
two hundred million dollars on a budget that is way
lower than that, But that those are much harder to
predict and much harder to identify if you're in the
business to say, Okay, we're going to put forty million
dollars into this original horror movie and hope it becomes
a sensation. And when the IP stuff isn't working as well,
(28:06):
it does threaten the scope of the business, how big
it can possibly get, whether we can ever get back
to a time like twenty nineteen when it felt like
there was no stopping movie going.
Speaker 5 (28:16):
I mean, the weird thing for me is that my
friends at this very moment. The thing they're talking about
is a movie. It's a movie, one battle after another.
That movie has been this huge critical success. It also
has made a lot of money for like a pt
Anderson movie pt Anderson the director, like a lot for
like an indie a serious like arty movie. But also
(28:39):
like I've read these stories saying, actually, it's like not
going to make any money because even though it's done
like one hundred and eighty million at the box office,
it cost over one hundred million to make, and like
when you add in the marketing and so on, So
like I'm curious, Sean, like, first of all, is that
movie a success, And like, how does studios think about
movies like that that get like a lot of buzz,
that maybe get Oscar nominations, that maybe build a lot
(29:02):
of goodwill, but don't necessarily like earn out.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
It's a little hard to say on that one in
particular until the spring. It's a movie that I think
it will end up making roughly two hundred million dollars
worldwide at the box office, which for a pal Thomus
Anderson movie, as you mentioned, isn't extraordinary. That's essentially three
times as much as any movie he's made has ever earned.
But it did cost it sounds like well over one
(29:27):
hundred and forty million dollars. So then yeah, when you
add the marketing, that's basically two x. It would need
to make three hundred million dollars or so they say
at the box office to be profitable in theaters.
Speaker 4 (29:36):
But here's the thing. It's the best reviewed movie of
the year.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
It's probably going to be nominated for somewhere between nine
and twelve Academy Awards right now. It's the odds on
favorite to win Best Picture. And that means it's a
movie that has a chance to become a forever movie.
And if you become a forever movie, it's an annuity.
It means that there it is a revenue stream in
perpetuity because it's a movie that people love and want
to rewatch and want to pay for on streaming and
(30:00):
want to license on streaming services, and they want to
own physical copies of it, and it can play in
repertory theaters forever. And so there are a lot of
films like this in the studio business libraries that are
still valuable to them that were made thirty, forty, sixty
eighty years ago.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So you mentioned that moviegoing has been on the decline
for a while. Twenty twenty five is not a great
year for movies, or at least hasn't been. Are you
worried about the industry as a whole.
Speaker 4 (30:34):
Not really.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I think you just really, if you're a person in
my job, you have to accept that the movie business
is getting smaller. And I'm a big believer in a
practitioner of the philosophy of movies as the great American
art form, that it is the thing that we helped
to develop and perfect and ship overseas and influence the
world with. It is the most powerful art form that
(30:57):
we ever created, and it isn't as important as it
was in nineteen fifty eight, and it's never going to
be that important again. You kind of got to get
your head around that a little bit and accept it
if you are talking about movies every day like I am,
But it doesn't mean that it isn't going to exist, because,
like I said, I'm raising a four year old and
every day she's like, can we watch a movie? Like
it's just it's it's the perfect container for emotional entertainment
(31:20):
and it's better than a streaming TV show. It's better
than a record that you've heard one hundred times.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
It is something.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
It is like, it's the sensation of new and the
opportunity to be thrilled every day. So I'm not worried
about movies going anywhere. I don't think they're threatened in
any meaningful way. I do think that the way that
the movie business is organized is obviously dramatically changing and
is going to continue to dramatically change, and I think
it's probably gonna end up being something closer to more
(31:47):
like live events, where it feels more like a concert,
you know, and everything will be a little bit more
premium and there will be fewer things to choose from,
but the things that you're choosing from might look more
like Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey next summer, where everyone you
know is going to say, have you seen that? We
have to go see that. This is really important that
we all see that. They wanted to feel more like
a Taylor Swift album than they do an art house film.
(32:07):
That's not great for the art in my opinion, but
it will help the business in some ways.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
So do you think like we're gonna look back on
twenty twenty five as like another down year for movies.
Speaker 4 (32:16):
Once the bookkeeping is all done.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I think it's gonna be more or less a hold,
maybe a slight disappointment. The numbers are not like dramatically
down in any way. It's just that I think some
titles that were expected to be massive were not as
big as expected. It's just like baseball for me, it's
just wait until next year every year where like the
anticipating what's coming soon is a huge part of the
work that I'm doing on my show. And so you know,
(32:40):
next year The Odyssey is coming. Next year, there's a
new alien film from Steven Spielberg. You know, like there
are a couple of things that are coming out next
year that are gonna be very exciting.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
I never give up hope on the movies.
Speaker 5 (32:51):
Well, let's talk about these horror movies, because Sean brought
them up right, Like, this is like one. This is
like a real bright spot for the industry, not just
the two you mentioned, but I think there are a
bunch of other big ones that have come out recently.
Like why is this genre like such a great business?
Speaker 4 (33:09):
It's a good question. I think there's a few reasons.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
One that communal aspect that I was talking about, it's
very fun to see a horror movie with the crowd.
It's fun to hear people scream, It's fun to hear
that nervous laughter. It's fun to hear people yelling at
the screen. Sometimes, don't go in that room. Two, the
movies are pretty cheap to make relative to Jurassic World
and Superman, and you have a really a built in
fan base. I say this as as a horror psycho
(33:34):
fan who will pretty much show up for anything. You
know that the barred quality is lower than we're kind
of like, we're willing to eat gruel even if it
gives us our horror hit. And that doesn't mean that
there isn't like great artistic horror films out there.
Speaker 4 (33:50):
There have been a bunch this year.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
But you know, like one of my favorite movies of
the year is called Final Destination Bloodlines. It's the sixth
movie in the Final Destinies.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Oh my gosh, really that's favorite movies of the year.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3 (34:03):
That is the villain still death?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, the villain is still death. Yes, okay, spoiler, that's design.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Actually, if you don't know that by now, you have
big problems.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
There hasn't been a Final Destination movie in like over
twelve years when they revived this franchise, and it was
really really fun and this movie made over two hundred
million dollars as well, like as a huge hit despite
being the sixth entry and kind of a second tier
horror franchise. So like movies can still do this. Whenever
we get into the doom saying conversation, I do point
(34:35):
to things like that to say, like, hey, people did
get a babysitter, you know, they did board their dog
for the night, like they did do all the things
they had to do to go see Final Destination bloodlines.
So not all hope is lost, all.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
Right, So Sean, your horror psycho, like, what are you
going to be watching? Give us some recommendations those of
us who are looking for something something to watch on
Halloween night or over the weekend.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Okay, I'll get I'll preface this by saying that I
am very much a disciple of all of the masters,
of John Carpenter, of Toby Hooper, of Wes Craven. I
worship all those filmmakers. I love really Scott's Alien, all
of the classics. I don't know if listeners need to
hear like, you should check out John Carpenter's Halloween. Like
I think everyone knows that that's a very special movie.
(35:17):
There are a couple of movies in more recent history
that I think are very effective, some known, some not
as well known. But I was just speaking with my
wife about this the other night, and I said, let's
try to watch this movie. I want to say it
was roughly two thousand and nine. A director named Brian Bertino,
who kind of came out of nowhere, had a horror
movie called The Strangers. Have you seen The Strangers?
Speaker 4 (35:37):
Guys?
Speaker 3 (35:37):
No?
Speaker 5 (35:38):
No?
Speaker 4 (35:38):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
The Stranger stars Live Tyler and Scott Speedman as a
couple who live in a cabin in the woods and
one night a group of people wearing masks knock on
their door and just start menacing them. And at first
it seems like it may be teenagers playing prank or
(36:01):
someone from like a towny who just has a problem
with these people who have just moved into town. And
then over time it becomes much more malevolent and not
necessarily supernatural but genuinely unnerving. Okay, that's one. I'll give
you another one. Have you seen the Changeling? Do you
know what The Changeling.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
I do know about The Changeling, but I have not
seen it.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Okay, It's a movie from the late seventies starring George C.
Scott about a widower who moves into a lonely old
house by himself and things start happening in the house
and they're not good. George, he's got one of the
great convulsive yellers, yes, yeat, and of course in a
very intense actor. It's kind of a maniac himself, a
(36:43):
psycho himself, and he is being taunted by this force
that is in the home. So I highly recommend that one. Hmmm,
third one?
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Right?
Speaker 4 (36:53):
How crazy do you want to get?
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Crazy?
Speaker 1 (36:56):
Do you want to hear me say the word cannibal Holocaust? Like,
there's a movie it is called Cannibal Holocaust that maybe
most people would not want to watch.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Magnus is nodding his head.
Speaker 4 (37:08):
Cannibal Holocaust's Shark NADOs.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
Much more evil than that. Nonado is fun. Cannibal Holocaust
is very dark.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Okay, Max, what about you?
Speaker 5 (37:18):
Like?
Speaker 3 (37:19):
What are your favorite horror movies?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I got it.
Speaker 5 (37:20):
I gotta admit something. It's kind of I feel like,
what like this is not a cool thing? To say,
but I am not a huge horror fan. My plan
was to watch the World Series on Friday night. Well,
like a real American.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Feelings about baseball, that could also be quite scary.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
What about you, Stacy.
Speaker 3 (37:38):
So as far as.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Things that scare me, I am Slashers don't scare me
that much, but go scare me a lot. I get
really scared by the supernatural. I don't get that scared
by like killers, because I feel like you can just
lock the door, you know what I mean, Like you're
you're aware of the limitations of the killer.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
But the ghosts because they can go through the door.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
They can go through the door, right, you don't know
the rule. That is just terrifying to me. So the
scariest movies for me that I have seen, The Shining
is definitely up there. The Exorcist scared me so much
I started crying in the.
Speaker 3 (38:11):
Middle of the movie.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
I really love watching horror, but it affects me way
too deeply.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
I always say that I love going to the movies
to feel something, and horror movies think is the genre
that makes people feel the most consistently, you know, to
scared and to be excited by a movie. Is very
powerful and horror.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Is the best of them all Right, Sean Fantasy, thanks
for being here. Thanks guys, great talking to you.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
So Max.
Speaker 2 (38:41):
It is now time for our Underrated Story of the
Week and I am especially excited for this week because
it involves candy.
Speaker 5 (38:50):
I hope you didn't need too much before this podcast,
so Underrated Story. There have been a couple of pieces
about this. The one I found was in the New
York Times. It was about the hot trends in candy
in honor of a Halloween. Now, I gotta say, like
I don't know. First of all, according to the National
Retail Federation trade group, spending on candy is going to
(39:11):
be a record three point nine billion dollars in twenty
twenty five. That's the prediction of the United States. And
this story proposes a bunch of trends, some of which
I kind of question because there's not a lot of data,
some of which I can one hundred percent back up
based on my anecdata of my three children. For instance,
the big trend now that the big trend in candy,
(39:33):
Stacey is sort of extreme flavors like okay forget, like
Reese's peanut butter, cups. It's all about extreme sour and
also extreme textures.
Speaker 3 (39:44):
So experiential candy.
Speaker 4 (39:46):
Experiential candy.
Speaker 5 (39:47):
And there's a funny quote in this story from a
like I don't know consumer behavior person trying to explain
why these kind of extreme candies are so popular. It says,
one theory is that young people quote want antidotes to
increasingly virtual, repetitive, and isolated daily lives. Says somebody who's
(40:07):
the director of food and drink at a market.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
Research that's putting a lot on candy.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
So Stacy, I have dumped a bag of candy on
the table my daughter Alice, who's ten, to a New
York City bodega in Queens and asked her, like, Alice,
show me the hot candy, Show me the candy that
all the Generation ALPHA is excited about. And the first
(40:31):
one that she picked, which I knew she would pick,
because like, my kids are crazy about these things. It's
called a Nerds gummy cluster. Have you ever heard?
Speaker 3 (40:38):
I have heard of these. I've never had one.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
All right, So I've got some of them here. I'm
going to open it up. I've never had one either.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
What is the big deal with these?
Speaker 5 (40:45):
Like honestly don't know. They look really bad for you. Here,
I'll put a few on the table for you. It
sort of looks like you want to describe it.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Sure, it is like the size of a marble, and
it's like a little gummy sphere and it's covered.
Speaker 5 (40:59):
In it's like a raspberry almost like mine. Looks sort
of like a berry.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
It's very sugary.
Speaker 4 (41:05):
Who fowl.
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Okay, it's actually pretty delicious.
Speaker 5 (41:08):
All right, the next one. And she was really excited
about these. These are sour. Sorry, super sour gushers.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Oh I remember gushers.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Well, now you've got super sour gushers.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
So okay, super sour gushers.
Speaker 4 (41:24):
Gushers look foul, but.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
They look like gushers. I mean I used to eat
gushers when I was a kid. All right ready, okay,
I think they taste the same.
Speaker 3 (41:35):
They're not sour at all.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
Are you a sour No? Hmm, that's kind of bland.
I don't know what this is. It's a that's a
gummy burger. It's a gummy burger. I think she just
wanted to eat this like when she bought it. And
I don't know how we're gonna split it. We can.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
We can take it apart.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
Here you go, It's okay, and then we have to Okay, well,
let's have the gummy burger first.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Okay, it's a mini burger. It basically looks like a
time gummy hamburger. Here, we'll split it, all right.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
Oh my gosh, are you into that? Really?
Speaker 3 (42:10):
I'm not sure I can bite through it. It's so
hard it's like a sole of a shoe.
Speaker 4 (42:15):
All right?
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Is this the future of the candy economy?
Speaker 5 (42:18):
Now?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I am underwhelmed by these candy innovations. I think these
just taste like the candy I grew up with.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
The Other thing that I understand to be a hot
new candy is salted licorice from Sweden.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Swedish candies is very hot right now.
Speaker 5 (42:36):
And luckily our producer are a supervising producer. Magnus Hendrickson
is Swedish and his Swedish mother sent us ah some salted.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
Thanks Magnus's mom.
Speaker 4 (42:48):
I know that you love salted licorice, Stacey, So I.
Speaker 3 (42:51):
Like licorice, Oh my god.
Speaker 5 (42:55):
Before we started taping, Stacy was like, it tastes like pea.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
It doesn't taste great.
Speaker 3 (43:02):
Ah, I don't understand.
Speaker 4 (43:05):
Oh my god, I don't understand. It gets worse and
worse as masticated. Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
See the pe comes later. It's a bottom note in
the back of your mouth, right.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
Oh, listeners, If you have a favorite candy, or if
you have any thoughts on this episode, send us an email.
Everybody's at Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody's with an asset
Bloomberg dot net. We heard that super powerful story about
the ice raids from Leo Feller, Like, I'm kind of
curious what people thought of it, whether they've had similar experiences,
(43:37):
whether you agree with Leo's perspective disagree, Let's hear it.
We'll read some of those emails when they come in.
Speaker 2 (43:42):
Also, if you've experienced something like that, if you're hesitating
to go out to go to the gym, anything like that,
we would love to hear your story.
Speaker 5 (43:55):
This show is produced by Stacy Wong, Magnus Hendrickson, noted
fan of Licorice is All So our supervising producer, Amy Kean,
our executive producer, Sam Rogic handles.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
Engineering, and Dave Purcell fact checks. Sage Bauman heads.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
Bloomberg Podcast special Thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin and
Maria Ling.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
If you have a minute, give us a rating or
a review. It'll mean a lot to us.
Speaker 5 (44:15):
And if you have a story that should be our business,
email us at Everybody's at Boomberg dot net. That's everybody
with an US at Bloomberg dot net. Thanks for listening,
and we will see you next week. Happy Halloween.
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