April 22, 2024 • 35 mins
Chuck Zodda and Mike Armstrong discuss how the latest TikTok ban proposal in the US House is going to get major pushback from China. Tesla and Li Auto cut prices in China as EV competition ramps up. Reversing the real-estate doom loop is possible, just ask Detroit. Americans have a new TV habit. Subscribe, watch, cancel, repeat.
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The DAV five K Boston is presentedby Veterans Development Corporation This is the Financial
Exchange with Chuck Zatta and Mike Armstrong. A little bit after eleven here on
the Financial Exchange, Chuck, Mikeand Tucker with you and a familiar story
starting to take place here today whereat the opening S and P five hundred
(01:23):
was up about two thirds of apercent. As it sits right now,
it's up less than a quarter percent, So in danger of giving away its
morning gains once again, which hasbeen what we've been seeing for the last
six seven trading days. Now it'sit has not been the most fun that
you've ever had if you've owned stocksfor the last week and a half.
Yeah, despite that, the Sand P five hundred is still about five
(01:47):
and a half percent away from anall time high, So I do think
that some context is warranted there.And the other piece that I do come
back to is remember just because indexdoesn't do anything for any certain period of
time doesn't mean that it's inherently goingto stay that way. Last year was
a great example of this, wherethe S and P five hundred, as
(02:10):
you know recently as late October,was almost flat for the year and then
went on one of the most faceripping rallies that I can remember for the
next five months, and you know, closed almost thirty percent higher than it's
October lows. And context is important. Yeah, it's just something where volatility
(02:36):
in markets. I say this alot. It's a feature, not a
bug. It actually tells you thatmarkets are working the way they're supposed to.
If if a market didn't have volatility, it tells you one thing.
Either it's it's not really trading veryoften, in which case it's not really
a market, or be someone issuppressing that volatility and it's just going somewhere
(02:57):
else. Because volatility cannot be createdor destroyed, it just gets transformed.
And so when you see something likethis, it is actually a sign of
a healthy, functioning market that occasionallyhas to clean out some of the uh
FLOTSM and jetsam hot garbage, notnecessarily hot garbage. Even you know,
sometimes you see sell offs even inmarkets that aren't overvalued. Right, it's
(03:22):
just you gotta you know, havethese periodic cleanses in markets. And it's
not necessarily fun. It's not enjoyable. I'm not saying that you should like
sit there, crack open to beand be like, ah, this is
great. Markets are down seven daysin a row. No, I'm not
saying that, although there are plentyof who I'm sure are relishing in the
moment. Sure, if you're someonewho's been betting against it for you know
(03:43):
a little bit, Yeah, ifyou've been wrong for the last fifteen months,
then this is the market for you. Yes, But for most humans
that hasn't been the case, becausemost humans have no business trying to time
markets because you're just not going tobe very good at it. Let's talk
a little bit about TikTok back inthe news after the weekend, the House
(04:06):
on Saturday passing a bill by athree hundred and sixty to fifty eight vote
that was also tied to the IsraelUkraine aid package an Taiwan Right Antaiwan Yes,
And this would give Byte Dance upto a year to sell the app
or require it to be shut down. This is the fourth time that this
(04:27):
has been attempted by the House.I don't know if it's going to end
up getting anywhere. What are youpointing at Mike Elon Musk coming to the
defense of TikTok. What did hesay? I will summarize his post on
his platform, which was even thoughthis would benefit my platform. I don't
think it should be banned, andit runs freedom of speech issues, which
(04:54):
every time Elon talks, I don'tknow whether he's talking to make himself seem
good in the eyes of the Chinesegovernment or whether this is his genuine belief
at the stage. So I'm notsure entirely what to do with that,
because a couple of years ago,Elon put up a Twitter post celebrating one
hundredth anniversary of the was the onehundredth or the fiftieth, I can't remember
whatever it is of the Chinese CommunistParty, which doesn't really believe in free
(05:17):
speech. And we know this becausethey've told us. And when someone tells
you who they are, you shouldbelieve them. So in any case,
is TikTok actually gonna be? Isthere gonna be a forced sale here?
It seems like we're getting to thepoint where this is probably real because it's
it seems very close. It seemslike we are very close rather to this
(05:43):
bill probably passing the Senate this weekor next week, I would imagine,
and in doing so, then theclock has started, you know, TikTok
for TikTok in terms of hey,you got a year to sell this or
you're gonna have to be shut down. So again, the Senate hasn't passed
this bill. They could strip thatout and send it back to the House,
(06:05):
but there didn't seem like there wasa whole lot of desire to do
so. And you know, fromeverything that we've seen, right, it's
a twelve month time period where TikTokcan go look for a sale. But
on the other hand, the ChineseCommunist Party has been very outspoken about the
idea that they will not allow theTikTok algorithm to be sold. A little
(06:30):
bit less specific on TikTok for thecompany, but nobody wants to own Well
maybe they do, but I wouldguess that most potential investors aren't interested in
buying a social media platform without thedata that goes behind it and the algorithm
used to produce the results that they'regetting. And by the way, on
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this like if I just I'm tryingto just get across what the real problem
is with TikTok, because I seepeople talking about it from a free speech
perspective, and that's not it.That's not what the problem is. No
one is saying that you can't havea TikTok account. No one is saying
(07:15):
that you can't post what you wantto on TikTok. What is at stake
here is the fact that the ChineseCommunist Party has the ability, through Chinese
law, to demand any information runthrough a Chinese company at any point in
time. And as much as TikTokhas talked about how they have this plan
(07:38):
Project Texas to get all of theirdata from the US into the US so
that in theory it can't be subjectto the whims of the Chinese Communist Party,
which then you can give it tothe PLA People's Liberation Army. None
of that's been completed, and noneof that is actually how it's set up
right now. So the concern isthat you have a foreign adversary who has
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the ability to directly reach hundreds ofmillions of US citizens, can control what
they are viewing. And by theway, every social media platform carries a
whole bunch of geolocation data, whichis you know, just one of the
many examples that I have come acrossthat are particularly concerning. You know,
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certainly the ability to change what Americansare viewing could have severe political consequences.
Right, if they're trying to controlthe outcome of an election, to deciding
what you see on TikTok would bea pretty good way to do it.
But let's not even go that far. Let's just say you want to again
rip off some new technology that inNvidia is producing. If I am the
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Chinese Communist Party, I have geolocationdata on millions of Americans and I can
probably easily see how many of themare going into Innvidia's headquarters on a day
to day basis, and at theyou know, in the most innocent version
of this, try and figure outwho to bribe. And then beyond that,
if you know, hey, inVidia then alleges that the technology was
(09:11):
stolen, I can then suppress anystories related to that on my platform so
that no one can actually see them. And I just don't get the free
speech argument right, Like one,Chinese corporations are allowed to do right to
free speech in the United States,maybe the US domiciled version of TikTok does.
(09:33):
I'm not entirely sure the legal precedentthere, but you know, certainly
the Chinese companies probably has no rightto free speech. And likewise, even
if you ban the product, you'renot telling people that they can't use social
media. No, you're even ifit gets eliminated here and there is no
TikTok ever, again, which isnot what the bill is calling for.
Uh, this one actually is narrowerthan like this one. The way it's
(09:56):
structured, I will I won't lie. It actually does have a couple concern
things that concern me because it specificallymentions TikTok and only TikTok in this version,
and that is a little bit that'spretty problematic for me. But that's
because of how it's written up,because of what it's trying to accomplish.
Yeah, So instead you would rathersee a bill saying, you know,
(10:18):
social media companies owned by foreign adversariesof concern or whatever it is, or
just China. Yes, you know, it's there's when you talk about there's
a concept known as a bill ofattainder, which is pretty much a legislator
saying, hey, you are guiltyof this without a trial, and so
(10:39):
we're going to This gets a littlebit close to that, quite honestly,
because it's just with the way thatthis one is written. But that's a
drafting issue, not a hey weshouldn't do this issue. So long story
short, TikTok's not going anywhere fornow. Anything that does get past will
be tied up in courts for awhile as well. But I could genuinely
(11:03):
see a path where a year ortwo from now, TikTok is either under
new ownership or not existent. Inthe United States, the Financial Exchange Show
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visiting Financial Exchange Show dot com andclicking the on demand icon, where you'll
find all of our interviews in fullshows. This is your home for the
latest business and financial news in NewEngland and around the country. This is
the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Peacefrom the Wall Street Journal talking about further
price cuts from Tesla in China,and this comes on the back of the
(11:52):
Chinese hybrid automaker Lee Auto cutting pricesas well. As a result, Tesla
is cutting the prices of all oftheir models by anywhere from one to three
thousand dollars. It looks like andthis is going to put further pressure on
Tesla's margins, and quite honestly,we're not there yet, but we're starting
(12:20):
to get into a pretty dangerous spotfor Tesla as a company. Well,
let's talk about that, because Imean late twenty tens, right, Tesla
went through a very different period ofconcern, which Elon Musk has spoken publicly
about that we were months, ifnot weeks away from running out of cash
because we could not get our manufacturingprocess efficient enough and get cars out the
(12:43):
door to satisfy sales demand. LikeI think they were probably pretty close to
not being able to make payroll.They are now a profitable company, they
are still selling a lot of vehicles, but they clearly face a growth problem.
I think I can agree with youthere. That's you know, the
(13:03):
year every year they didn't sell morevehicles than they did last year, and
they're they're priced as a very fastgrowing company. So talk to me about
what it is this time. Iguess it's not just a growth problem.
It's a margins problem, okay.And where that leads so operating margins are
(13:24):
basically, hey, out of thesales that you have, what do you
actually end up taking home in profit? Operating margins for the last twelve months.
It's a simplified definition, but I'mjust trying to not get into a
whole thing. Tesla's operating margins peakedin the fourth quarter of twenty two It's
sixteen point nine to eight percent forthe last twelve months. They're currently at
(13:45):
nine point one nine So in aspan of a year, Tesla's operating margins
have been cut in half, whichis not great. This then leads us
to free cash flow, which isnot an accounting metric. It's quite literally,
Hey, what do you have forcash coming in versus cash going out?
Yeah, you can't manipulate it.Tesla's free cash flow peaked in a
(14:07):
third quarter of twenty twenty at eightpoint nine billion dollars for the last twelve
months. It's currently at four pointthree seven four point three five seven billion
for the last twelve months. Andthat's, you know, again been cut
in half, even as their saleshave increased significantly over the last year.
So now you've got declining sales atleast for one quarter, maybe for two.
(14:31):
You know, we're gonna get Teslaresults. When do they report next
this week? They're this week.Yeah, I'm fairly certain they're Wednesday or
Thursday. Yeah, April twenty third, So they are tomorrow. I'm sorry,
Yeah, they're tomorrow. And soyou've got Tesla reporting earnings this week.
That again, it's gonna include thatquarter where we already know there was
(14:52):
a decline in sales. But whenwe look at where this this goes for
them, if you start stacking salesdeclines and margin declines, that doesn't lead
you anywhere good. And here's theproblem that car companies run into. And
this is, by the way,this is what happened to Chrysler and GM
(15:16):
in the late nineties. If youstop coming out with new models, people
don't buy your cars. Yeah,they stop buying your cars. And Tesla
recently rolled out, you know,a very mildly updated Model three. Did
(15:37):
anyone notice? No, you canstill get it. Like the inventory we've
seen it, Like the inventory isbuilding for Tesla right now. Just priced
went out. And you know we'vedone this before where you like price out
of car, it's how long areyou waiting? I just priced out a
very basic model. Why which istheir best selling models? You know,
is their cheapest model starting at liketwenty six grand? I'm sure that doesn't
(16:00):
include a whole lot of stuff.The twenty six is not a real price
that include the tax credit in thesavings and your supposed gas save. Got
it, it's like forty two andthen it gets down to there. So
available today in Deba, Massachusetts ifI wanted to go buy it, not
like by the end of the month, but today available now. This is
a dangerous spot for Tesla. AndI don't think I haven't said this before
(16:26):
because I don't think they've been there, but we're starting to see some things
that are really concerning for them,in my opinion, And I don't know
how you reverse this other than takingout a bunch of raising a bunch of
capital and investing in new products overthe next three to four years and not
(16:51):
the cyber truck, which is goingto probably sell enough of what it is,
but there's only so many people thatcan afford one hundred thousand dollars pick
up and chuck. To be clear, they just took what could be perceived
as the opposite step because they justkilled off their project that they were working
on for their cheaper vehicle and haveseemingly gone all in now on self driving
(17:15):
robotaxis. Yeah, and it's ahail Mary. Yeah seems a bit.
It really feels like if this doesn'twork, then within a couple of years
after that, they're gonna be staringdown some big capital raiss that they need
to do then rather than choosing todo now. And I don't know what
(17:37):
it looks like then. So thisis not a Hey, Tesla's going bankrupt
and they're out of business this year. This is if this doesn't work,
things start to get really dodgy forthem in probably twenty six, twenty seven,
maybe even a little sooner. Bringingthe latest financial news to your radio
(18:00):
every day. It's the Financial Exchangeon the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The
Financial Exchange is now available on yourAlexis smart speaker has to play the Financial
Exchange and catch up on anything youmight have missed. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network from the Wall StreetJournal. Reversing the real estate doom loop
(18:22):
as possible. Just look at Detroitnow. It is true that Detroit,
if you've been there in the lastthree four years, it's going through a
remarkable resurgence right now. Yeah,downtown air is buzzing. They've I think
gotten back to what makes a citydesirable which is having a pizza named after
it. Yeap Detroit style pizza,I won't knock it. But having a
(18:48):
lot of things in one place ratherthan focusing on one concentrated thing that can
go by the wayside, so arts, entertainment in places to live in addition
to central business tricks, which wasnot the case for Detroit for a long
period of time. The problem isthat this also, I think minimizes just
(19:11):
how bad things got in Detroit andhow long the downturn was before this turnaround
that's now going on a couple thingsfor have you did you know, have
you ever look at real estate listingsin Detroit in the last decade. Yeah,
you could buy houses still like fivegrand. I mean the city of
(19:33):
Detroit itself filed for Chapter nine bankruptcyin twenty thirteen. Right, it's like,
yeah, you can reverse a doomloop, but it's gotta get bad.
Well, not just that we thinkof the slide of Detroit as being
you know, this ten to fifteenyear thing. The population is declined by
seventy percent since nineteen fifty seventy percent. Yeah, this is not something that
(20:00):
just started with you know, thethe Great financial crisis in two thousand and
eight, which is where things gotreally bad. But Detroit has gone through
a like a sixty year decline beforefinally getting to where it is now,
and it still has a declining populationnow if you compare that just as an
(20:21):
example, largest New England city,anyone, anyone, Boston, Boston,
if you look at it, hasalso gone through a meaningful population declined since
nineteen fifty. Part of this isjust the general trend of older cities towards
you know, more suburbs, butthat decline in population was about seventeen percent,
not seventy So the population decline hasbeen far smaller. And the other
(20:47):
piece that you have to keep inmind on this is Detroit. When we
talk about, you know, thereasons for that, A huge portion of
it was economic yep, and thefact that Detroit and Chicago were, aside
from New York, the economic centerof the United States for about eighty years
(21:10):
basically post Civil War until nineteen sixty. Yeah, and they're not anymore.
In Chicago has figured out, youknow, kind of better than Detroit how
to manage this. They got I'mnot saying that this is like better better,
but they they handled it better.You have more, you know,
service oriented jobs as opposed to justbeing focused purely on manufacturing, which was
you know, Detroit's downfall and thingslike that. Saint Louis, Missouri,
(21:33):
by the way, I'm not thefirst one to write about this but Saint
or talk about this, but SaintLouis, Missouri is on a very similar
track right now in terms of whatthey're facing now. Again, Saint Louis
has a lot of those same thingsthat Detroit has in terms of the ability
to eventually rebuild it. I mean, you know, big sports town.
(21:53):
They still have the Cardinals, theBlues. Do they have anything else big
four Sports? No, No,but you got the Cardinals, you got
the Blues. But same story there. You've had large companies vacate the city
due to a lot of the samereasons that happened in Detroit. And the
question is can you turn that aroundor are you just so hyper concentrated in
(22:17):
serving office tenants that it's not goingto be possible. So this idea of
hey, reversing the doom loop ispossible. Yes, Detroit's on a little
bit of an upswing right now,but it's after a seventy year decline of
seventy percent of the population, andthat doesn't even get to what we talk
about in terms of, you know, the real standard of living in things
along those lines. That's where youknow, even for the people who remained,
(22:41):
there were real challenges there. AndI say this to someone, by
the way, who has family thatlives in Detroit, so I know of
what I speak, you know,when I go to visit them. I've
seen it over you know, notthe whole seventy years, because I'm not
that age, but I've seen itover the course of my life that it
is not been easy, even overyou know, thirty forty years. Beneficiary
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and Dolan and or Armstrong Advisory maycontact you offering legal or investment services.
(24:08):
Cushing and Armstrong did not endorse eachother and are not affiliated. I want
to talk about plant based meat,Michael, Yeah, I do. In
a while. It has been andthis reflects the general trends that we are
seeing here. So this is somedata that we have from the Good Food
Institute, Okay, which didn't Igotta say, kind of want to work
(24:32):
there. In the fifty two weeksending December third, twenty twenty three,
US retail sales of plant based meatand seafood dropped twelve percent to one point
two billion dollars, with unit salesdown nineteen percent. So this idea,
and we talked about this a lotwhen there was all this hype about beyond
Meat that first of all, howdo you know that those you know,
(24:56):
initial customers, that initial sales growthis going to turn into repeat customers,
Especially because a bunch of us whohad no serious interest in actually going plant
based or anything like that, werelike, yeah, let's try this.
I just try it just to seewhat it was like. Sounds interesting,
And the answer is was fine,but I don't want to pay that much
for something that I'm still not convincedof it's health benefits because, as we've
discussed, plant based does not inherentlymean healthy see the potato chip and cocaine.
(25:19):
Uh. When we look at wherethis goes from here, I think
the big question is is there anythere? Like who is the market for
this? Because as someone who hasa vegetarian in my family, they don't
want this. And so if ifthe vegetarians I know are saying, no,
(25:45):
this is not for us, andif the mediators like me and you
are saying this is fine, butwe're not gonna buy it again, then
is this a product that exists forno one? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean clearly they're still selling. Imean, there are sales of this stuff
still happening, and I don't thinkit's just sales of people who are interested
(26:08):
for a moment and then never again. But you're taking a look along the
line here the only ones that arereally holding up right now, or like
the plant based milk and a fewand a few bars, what are plant
based eggs? And why do Inot want anything to do with you?
I've tried it before. Again,expensive and I would just rather what plants
(26:32):
are based off of, uh somesort of bean? Yeah, yeah again,
I thinks so expensive. Yeah,it comes in a yellow carton and
just looks like a yeah, youknow, it's just used for scrambles.
But yeah again. My my generalconclusion on most of this stuff was much
(26:56):
more expensive and doesn't do much forme. So when unless I again,
if I'm a vegetarian or vegan,I've probably been kind of cool operating on
actual plants for quite some time.I don't need this process stuff. Maybe
I buy it occasionally for when Idon't have time to cook or do any
of that myself, but otherwise Ijust don't get it well. And look,
(27:19):
you use the word processed as well. We have no idea if there's
any long term health benefit for this, and it was being marketed like,
oh like this is you know it'sit has you know, no meat in
it, so it's Here's the onlyrelevant question is can it ever be cheaper
than animal protein? If it canbe substantially cheaper, then I think there's
(27:41):
a market for it, but that'snot the selling point today. There's also
one other relevant question. Is thereanother alternative that's going to be developed,
such as synthetic animal protein that isthen cheaper than that and still the same
as animal pro is going to bean outdated technology? Right? Is this
the thing that gets skipped over becauseis this laser disc lab grown meat versus
(28:04):
Yeah, that's the other competitive itemthat's been talked about. Is you know,
hey, can we just grow sellsin a lab that are actual And
the answer is yes, just notcost effectively right right now, I haven't
tried it, of you. Idon't know that it's for sale anywhere,
is it? I think lawn Theygotta be doing some tests somewhere. I'm
sure that you can sign up forsome it's they got to be testing it
(28:27):
somewhere. Yeah, I have notseen it for sale at my local supermarket.
I guess I will. I'll saythat much. I'd lab grown meat
specifically, I'd love to try it, is all I'm saying. I don't
know if I would actually be ableto eat it, but I'd love to
try it, because I don't know. It just seems you can grow anything
(28:48):
in a lab these days. Youknow. I'm seeing a piece from Scientific
American on July thirtieth of twenty twentythree that lab grown meat was approved for
sale and would soon be available atrestaurants and of course San fran and DC.
Uh So maybe we got to takea take a trip down to DC.
Actually, I might be in SanFrancisco this fall. I'll try and
(29:10):
find some there you go, Canyou bring some back? Are you able
to bring it across state lines?Good question? How do you check it
at the TSA counter? Yeah,so long as you don't mind eating ten
hour old chicken. I mean,it's lab grown. Is it really fine?
Here's the question, Like, here'sa question that I have. Is
it really chicken? For it isgrown in a lab? Good question?
(29:30):
Well, no, if you're growingit in a lab, and if you
vacuum seal it, do you haveto worry about spoilage. I would think
so. I think not. Iwould think so. I just assume it'd
be fine. I don't know.I would think so because the parasite or
the back tier or whatever has tobe present to begin with. So if
(29:51):
you can grow it in sterile conditionsand pack it in sterile conditions, maybe
you don't need to refrigerate it,which sounds weird and gross, I get
it, but maybe this could be. One of the benefits of loub grown
chicken is that you can least yourrefrigeration. You can finally enjoy the dream
of eating at medium rare. Justtake a quick break when we come back
at stack Roulette. Missed one ofour shows, catch up anytime by asking
(30:15):
your Alexis Smart speaker to play.The Financial Exchange. This is the Financial
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five K Boston is presented by VeteransDevelopment Corporation. Mike, what do you
have for me for stack Roulet?The new habit in television? Subscribe,
Watch, cancel, Repeat. Iwill definitely say that I am. I
(31:37):
wouldn't say part of the problem here, the part of the solution here in
terms of rotating around different streaming platforms. For example, just this weekend,
I subscribe to Max again because theyhave the playoff NHL Playoffs in addition to
TNTN TBS, which I don't geton my stupid streaming platform Fubo. So
(31:57):
I have used Hbo and excuse me, I've used Max in the past.
I'm now a Max subscriber again.But not an HBO subscriber. But not
an HBO subscriber, because that's nota thing any well, it is the
thing if you have cable. It'snot a thing if you just want to
stream it, which is dumb.This time, there is a piece from
the New York Times, and thisdoes make it seem as though the American
(32:21):
consumer is really savvy on this andconstantly moving things around. And they they
outline a scientist who lives outside ofBoston, mister Misel, who has been
doing this. I would be willingto bet that while a lot of people
are rotating them, a lot morepeople just forget what they have subscriptions to
and don't cancel them. So Ithink that most of these streaming platforms will
(32:44):
still stand to benefit quite a bit. Also, my guess, and I
think I've seen this in a fewdifferent places, is that many of these
streaming platforms are going to start offeringdiscounts on your long subscriptions, or only
your long subscriptions in some cases,for the exact reason that The York Times
is hitting on here. Good,So it's gonna be worse than cable.
It's just gonna be the same.No, it's gonna be worse. Why
(33:05):
is it worse? It's different apps. So I gotta hop around make sure
that all my subscriptions are up todate and this, and that it's gonna
be yearly subscriptions that might not beat the same time, so you have
to remember, you know, whenthey were new and all that stuff.
This is the price for the massiveamount of choice in television right now.
I want less choice. I'm donewith choice. This is the price.
(33:27):
I'm done. Yeah, I don'twant this much choice. Give me three
networks, maybe one, and that'sfine. I don't know. I'm not
sure I agree. I think thereis a lot of cool stuff that's being
made right now that we would neverhave seen in decades past because of all
these things. Tell me one networkever that would have made that Netflix show.
(33:51):
Squid Game never would have happened withoutthe existence of Netflix. No,
but it would have been made inKorea and then someone would have brought it
over here, just like it alwayshappened before. Yeah, I don't know,
you know, I just does onesquid Game justify all of the other
crap that gets produced? Apparently we'reall paying for it. I know,
(34:13):
I'm starting to really have some disdainfor it is where I'm at fair And
the problem is I don't want togo back to cable because then you're back
with like, oh the service isterrible, and if you do want to
cancel, you got to bring yourcable box back to an upside down warehouse
three blocks underground on the third Saturdayand month. Again. I'll take this
(34:36):
over what we were dealing with inthe early twenty tens in terms of the
I distinctly remember standing in like aforty person line on September first to return
my stupid cable box. I knowit's it's almost like the media business is
just awful. Well, we've knownthat for for decades now, but we
(34:57):
have this brief period of you know, t twelve to twenty nineteen where streaming
was great and it's been ruined.Now it's been ruined, and that's just
sad to me because I remember howgood it was. Markets are back in
positive territory. Downs up seventy sixs and P nineteen, Nasdaq up sixty
(35:19):
five. We're done for the day. See tomorrow on the Financial Exchange. More earnings
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The DAV five K Boston is presentedby Veterans Development Corporation This is the Financial
Exchange with Chuck Zatta and Mike Armstrong. A little bit after eleven here on
the Financial Exchange, Chuck, Mikeand Tucker with you and a familiar story
starting to take place here today whereat the opening S and P five hundred
(01:23):
was up about two thirds of apercent. As it sits right now,
it's up less than a quarter percent, So in danger of giving away its
morning gains once again, which hasbeen what we've been seeing for the last
six seven trading days. Now it'sit has not been the most fun that
you've ever had if you've owned stocksfor the last week and a half.
Yeah, despite that, the Sand P five hundred is still about five
(01:47):
and a half percent away from anall time high, So I do think
that some context is warranted there.And the other piece that I do come
back to is remember just because indexdoesn't do anything for any certain period of
time doesn't mean that it's inherently goingto stay that way. Last year was
a great example of this, wherethe S and P five hundred, as
(02:10):
you know recently as late October,was almost flat for the year and then
went on one of the most faceripping rallies that I can remember for the
next five months, and you know, closed almost thirty percent higher than it's
October lows. And context is important. Yeah, it's just something where volatility
(02:36):
in markets. I say this alot. It's a feature, not a
bug. It actually tells you thatmarkets are working the way they're supposed to.
If if a market didn't have volatility, it tells you one thing.
Either it's it's not really trading veryoften, in which case it's not really
a market, or be someone issuppressing that volatility and it's just going somewhere
(02:57):
else. Because volatility cannot be createdor destroyed, it just gets transformed.
And so when you see something likethis, it is actually a sign of
a healthy, functioning market that occasionallyhas to clean out some of the uh
FLOTSM and jetsam hot garbage, notnecessarily hot garbage. Even you know,
sometimes you see sell offs even inmarkets that aren't overvalued. Right, it's
(03:22):
just you gotta you know, havethese periodic cleanses in markets. And it's
not necessarily fun. It's not enjoyable. I'm not saying that you should like
sit there, crack open to beand be like, ah, this is
great. Markets are down seven daysin a row. No, I'm not
saying that, although there are plentyof who I'm sure are relishing in the
moment. Sure, if you're someonewho's been betting against it for you know
(03:43):
a little bit, Yeah, ifyou've been wrong for the last fifteen months,
then this is the market for you. Yes, But for most humans
that hasn't been the case, becausemost humans have no business trying to time
markets because you're just not going tobe very good at it. Let's talk
a little bit about TikTok back inthe news after the weekend, the House
(04:06):
on Saturday passing a bill by athree hundred and sixty to fifty eight vote
that was also tied to the IsraelUkraine aid package an Taiwan Right Antaiwan Yes,
And this would give Byte Dance upto a year to sell the app
or require it to be shut down. This is the fourth time that this
(04:27):
has been attempted by the House.I don't know if it's going to end
up getting anywhere. What are youpointing at Mike Elon Musk coming to the
defense of TikTok. What did hesay? I will summarize his post on
his platform, which was even thoughthis would benefit my platform. I don't
think it should be banned, andit runs freedom of speech issues, which
(04:54):
every time Elon talks, I don'tknow whether he's talking to make himself seem
good in the eyes of the Chinesegovernment or whether this is his genuine belief
at the stage. So I'm notsure entirely what to do with that,
because a couple of years ago,Elon put up a Twitter post celebrating one
hundredth anniversary of the was the onehundredth or the fiftieth, I can't remember
whatever it is of the Chinese CommunistParty, which doesn't really believe in free
(05:17):
speech. And we know this becausethey've told us. And when someone tells
you who they are, you shouldbelieve them. So in any case,
is TikTok actually gonna be? Isthere gonna be a forced sale here?
It seems like we're getting to thepoint where this is probably real because it's
it seems very close. It seemslike we are very close rather to this
(05:43):
bill probably passing the Senate this weekor next week, I would imagine,
and in doing so, then theclock has started, you know, TikTok
for TikTok in terms of hey,you got a year to sell this or
you're gonna have to be shut down. So again, the Senate hasn't passed
this bill. They could strip thatout and send it back to the House,
(06:05):
but there didn't seem like there wasa whole lot of desire to do
so. And you know, fromeverything that we've seen, right, it's
a twelve month time period where TikTokcan go look for a sale. But
on the other hand, the ChineseCommunist Party has been very outspoken about the
idea that they will not allow theTikTok algorithm to be sold. A little
(06:30):
bit less specific on TikTok for thecompany, but nobody wants to own Well
maybe they do, but I wouldguess that most potential investors aren't interested in
buying a social media platform without thedata that goes behind it and the algorithm
used to produce the results that they'regetting. And by the way, on
(06:51):
this like if I just I'm tryingto just get across what the real problem
is with TikTok, because I seepeople talking about it from a free speech
perspective, and that's not it.That's not what the problem is. No
one is saying that you can't havea TikTok account. No one is saying
(07:15):
that you can't post what you wantto on TikTok. What is at stake
here is the fact that the ChineseCommunist Party has the ability, through Chinese
law, to demand any information runthrough a Chinese company at any point in
time. And as much as TikTokhas talked about how they have this plan
(07:38):
Project Texas to get all of theirdata from the US into the US so
that in theory it can't be subjectto the whims of the Chinese Communist Party,
which then you can give it tothe PLA People's Liberation Army. None
of that's been completed, and noneof that is actually how it's set up
right now. So the concern isthat you have a foreign adversary who has
(08:05):
the ability to directly reach hundreds ofmillions of US citizens, can control what
they are viewing. And by theway, every social media platform carries a
whole bunch of geolocation data, whichis you know, just one of the
many examples that I have come acrossthat are particularly concerning. You know,
(08:26):
certainly the ability to change what Americansare viewing could have severe political consequences.
Right, if they're trying to controlthe outcome of an election, to deciding
what you see on TikTok would bea pretty good way to do it.
But let's not even go that far. Let's just say you want to again
rip off some new technology that inNvidia is producing. If I am the
(08:50):
Chinese Communist Party, I have geolocationdata on millions of Americans and I can
probably easily see how many of themare going into Innvidia's headquarters on a day
to day basis, and at theyou know, in the most innocent version
of this, try and figure outwho to bribe. And then beyond that,
if you know, hey, inVidia then alleges that the technology was
(09:11):
stolen, I can then suppress anystories related to that on my platform so
that no one can actually see them. And I just don't get the free
speech argument right, Like one,Chinese corporations are allowed to do right to
free speech in the United States,maybe the US domiciled version of TikTok does.
(09:33):
I'm not entirely sure the legal precedentthere, but you know, certainly
the Chinese companies probably has no rightto free speech. And likewise, even
if you ban the product, you'renot telling people that they can't use social
media. No, you're even ifit gets eliminated here and there is no
TikTok ever, again, which isnot what the bill is calling for.
Uh, this one actually is narrowerthan like this one. The way it's
(09:56):
structured, I will I won't lie. It actually does have a couple concern
things that concern me because it specificallymentions TikTok and only TikTok in this version,
and that is a little bit that'spretty problematic for me. But that's
because of how it's written up,because of what it's trying to accomplish.
Yeah, So instead you would rathersee a bill saying, you know,
(10:18):
social media companies owned by foreign adversariesof concern or whatever it is, or
just China. Yes, you know, it's there's when you talk about there's
a concept known as a bill ofattainder, which is pretty much a legislator
saying, hey, you are guiltyof this without a trial, and so
(10:39):
we're going to This gets a littlebit close to that, quite honestly,
because it's just with the way thatthis one is written. But that's a
drafting issue, not a hey weshouldn't do this issue. So long story
short, TikTok's not going anywhere fornow. Anything that does get past will
be tied up in courts for awhile as well. But I could genuinely
(11:03):
see a path where a year ortwo from now, TikTok is either under
new ownership or not existent. Inthe United States, the Financial Exchange Show
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(11:26):
visiting Financial Exchange Show dot com andclicking the on demand icon, where you'll
find all of our interviews in fullshows. This is your home for the
latest business and financial news in NewEngland and around the country. This is
the Financial Exchange Radio Network. Peacefrom the Wall Street Journal talking about further
price cuts from Tesla in China,and this comes on the back of the
(11:52):
Chinese hybrid automaker Lee Auto cutting pricesas well. As a result, Tesla
is cutting the prices of all oftheir models by anywhere from one to three
thousand dollars. It looks like andthis is going to put further pressure on
Tesla's margins, and quite honestly,we're not there yet, but we're starting
(12:20):
to get into a pretty dangerous spotfor Tesla as a company. Well,
let's talk about that, because Imean late twenty tens, right, Tesla
went through a very different period ofconcern, which Elon Musk has spoken publicly
about that we were months, ifnot weeks away from running out of cash
because we could not get our manufacturingprocess efficient enough and get cars out the
(12:43):
door to satisfy sales demand. LikeI think they were probably pretty close to
not being able to make payroll.They are now a profitable company, they
are still selling a lot of vehicles, but they clearly face a growth problem.
I think I can agree with youthere. That's you know, the
(13:03):
year every year they didn't sell morevehicles than they did last year, and
they're they're priced as a very fastgrowing company. So talk to me about
what it is this time. Iguess it's not just a growth problem.
It's a margins problem, okay.And where that leads so operating margins are
(13:24):
basically, hey, out of thesales that you have, what do you
actually end up taking home in profit? Operating margins for the last twelve months.
It's a simplified definition, but I'mjust trying to not get into a
whole thing. Tesla's operating margins peakedin the fourth quarter of twenty two It's
sixteen point nine to eight percent forthe last twelve months. They're currently at
(13:45):
nine point one nine So in aspan of a year, Tesla's operating margins
have been cut in half, whichis not great. This then leads us
to free cash flow, which isnot an accounting metric. It's quite literally,
Hey, what do you have forcash coming in versus cash going out?
Yeah, you can't manipulate it.Tesla's free cash flow peaked in a
(14:07):
third quarter of twenty twenty at eightpoint nine billion dollars for the last twelve
months. It's currently at four pointthree seven four point three five seven billion
for the last twelve months. Andthat's, you know, again been cut
in half, even as their saleshave increased significantly over the last year.
So now you've got declining sales atleast for one quarter, maybe for two.
(14:31):
You know, we're gonna get Teslaresults. When do they report next
this week? They're this week.Yeah, I'm fairly certain they're Wednesday or
Thursday. Yeah, April twenty third, So they are tomorrow. I'm sorry,
Yeah, they're tomorrow. And soyou've got Tesla reporting earnings this week.
That again, it's gonna include thatquarter where we already know there was
(14:52):
a decline in sales. But whenwe look at where this this goes for
them, if you start stacking salesdeclines and margin declines, that doesn't lead
you anywhere good. And here's theproblem that car companies run into. And
this is, by the way,this is what happened to Chrysler and GM
(15:16):
in the late nineties. If youstop coming out with new models, people
don't buy your cars. Yeah,they stop buying your cars. And Tesla
recently rolled out, you know,a very mildly updated Model three. Did
(15:37):
anyone notice? No, you canstill get it. Like the inventory we've
seen it, Like the inventory isbuilding for Tesla right now. Just priced
went out. And you know we'vedone this before where you like price out
of car, it's how long areyou waiting? I just priced out a
very basic model. Why which istheir best selling models? You know,
is their cheapest model starting at liketwenty six grand? I'm sure that doesn't
(16:00):
include a whole lot of stuff.The twenty six is not a real price
that include the tax credit in thesavings and your supposed gas save. Got
it, it's like forty two andthen it gets down to there. So
available today in Deba, Massachusetts ifI wanted to go buy it, not
like by the end of the month, but today available now. This is
a dangerous spot for Tesla. AndI don't think I haven't said this before
(16:26):
because I don't think they've been there, but we're starting to see some things
that are really concerning for them,in my opinion, And I don't know
how you reverse this other than takingout a bunch of raising a bunch of
capital and investing in new products overthe next three to four years and not
(16:51):
the cyber truck, which is goingto probably sell enough of what it is,
but there's only so many people thatcan afford one hundred thousand dollars pick
up and chuck. To be clear, they just took what could be perceived
as the opposite step because they justkilled off their project that they were working
on for their cheaper vehicle and haveseemingly gone all in now on self driving
(17:15):
robotaxis. Yeah, and it's ahail Mary. Yeah seems a bit.
It really feels like if this doesn'twork, then within a couple of years
after that, they're gonna be staringdown some big capital raiss that they need
to do then rather than choosing todo now. And I don't know what
(17:37):
it looks like then. So thisis not a Hey, Tesla's going bankrupt
and they're out of business this year. This is if this doesn't work,
things start to get really dodgy forthem in probably twenty six, twenty seven,
maybe even a little sooner. Bringingthe latest financial news to your radio
(18:00):
every day. It's the Financial Exchangeon the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The
Financial Exchange is now available on yourAlexis smart speaker has to play the Financial
Exchange and catch up on anything youmight have missed. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network from the Wall StreetJournal. Reversing the real estate doom loop
(18:22):
as possible. Just look at Detroitnow. It is true that Detroit,
if you've been there in the lastthree four years, it's going through a
remarkable resurgence right now. Yeah,downtown air is buzzing. They've I think
gotten back to what makes a citydesirable which is having a pizza named after
it. Yeap Detroit style pizza,I won't knock it. But having a
(18:48):
lot of things in one place ratherthan focusing on one concentrated thing that can
go by the wayside, so arts, entertainment in places to live in addition
to central business tricks, which wasnot the case for Detroit for a long
period of time. The problem isthat this also, I think minimizes just
(19:11):
how bad things got in Detroit andhow long the downturn was before this turnaround
that's now going on a couple thingsfor have you did you know, have
you ever look at real estate listingsin Detroit in the last decade. Yeah,
you could buy houses still like fivegrand. I mean the city of
(19:33):
Detroit itself filed for Chapter nine bankruptcyin twenty thirteen. Right, it's like,
yeah, you can reverse a doomloop, but it's gotta get bad.
Well, not just that we thinkof the slide of Detroit as being
you know, this ten to fifteenyear thing. The population is declined by
seventy percent since nineteen fifty seventy percent. Yeah, this is not something that
(20:00):
just started with you know, thethe Great financial crisis in two thousand and
eight, which is where things gotreally bad. But Detroit has gone through
a like a sixty year decline beforefinally getting to where it is now,
and it still has a declining populationnow if you compare that just as an
(20:21):
example, largest New England city,anyone, anyone, Boston, Boston,
if you look at it, hasalso gone through a meaningful population declined since
nineteen fifty. Part of this isjust the general trend of older cities towards
you know, more suburbs, butthat decline in population was about seventeen percent,
not seventy So the population decline hasbeen far smaller. And the other
(20:47):
piece that you have to keep inmind on this is Detroit. When we
talk about, you know, thereasons for that, A huge portion of
it was economic yep, and thefact that Detroit and Chicago were, aside
from New York, the economic centerof the United States for about eighty years
(21:10):
basically post Civil War until nineteen sixty. Yeah, and they're not anymore.
In Chicago has figured out, youknow, kind of better than Detroit how
to manage this. They got I'mnot saying that this is like better better,
but they they handled it better.You have more, you know,
service oriented jobs as opposed to justbeing focused purely on manufacturing, which was
you know, Detroit's downfall and thingslike that. Saint Louis, Missouri,
(21:33):
by the way, I'm not thefirst one to write about this but Saint
or talk about this, but SaintLouis, Missouri is on a very similar
track right now in terms of whatthey're facing now. Again, Saint Louis
has a lot of those same thingsthat Detroit has in terms of the ability
to eventually rebuild it. I mean, you know, big sports town.
(21:53):
They still have the Cardinals, theBlues. Do they have anything else big
four Sports? No, No,but you got the Cardinals, you got
the Blues. But same story there. You've had large companies vacate the city
due to a lot of the samereasons that happened in Detroit. And the
question is can you turn that aroundor are you just so hyper concentrated in
(22:17):
serving office tenants that it's not goingto be possible. So this idea of
hey, reversing the doom loop ispossible. Yes, Detroit's on a little
bit of an upswing right now,but it's after a seventy year decline of
seventy percent of the population, andthat doesn't even get to what we talk
about in terms of, you know, the real standard of living in things
along those lines. That's where youknow, even for the people who remained,
(22:41):
there were real challenges there. AndI say this to someone, by
the way, who has family thatlives in Detroit, so I know of
what I speak, you know,when I go to visit them. I've
seen it over you know, notthe whole seventy years, because I'm not
that age, but I've seen itover the course of my life that it
is not been easy, even overyou know, thirty forty years. Beneficiary
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request it online from their website LegalShane Show dot com. The proceeding was
paid for and the views expressed aresolely those of Cushing and Dolan. Cushing
and Dolan and or Armstrong Advisory maycontact you offering legal or investment services.
(24:08):
Cushing and Armstrong did not endorse eachother and are not affiliated. I want
to talk about plant based meat,Michael, Yeah, I do. In
a while. It has been andthis reflects the general trends that we are
seeing here. So this is somedata that we have from the Good Food
Institute, Okay, which didn't Igotta say, kind of want to work
(24:32):
there. In the fifty two weeksending December third, twenty twenty three,
US retail sales of plant based meatand seafood dropped twelve percent to one point
two billion dollars, with unit salesdown nineteen percent. So this idea,
and we talked about this a lotwhen there was all this hype about beyond
Meat that first of all, howdo you know that those you know,
(24:56):
initial customers, that initial sales growthis going to turn into repeat customers,
Especially because a bunch of us whohad no serious interest in actually going plant
based or anything like that, werelike, yeah, let's try this.
I just try it just to seewhat it was like. Sounds interesting,
And the answer is was fine,but I don't want to pay that much
for something that I'm still not convincedof it's health benefits because, as we've
discussed, plant based does not inherentlymean healthy see the potato chip and cocaine.
(25:19):
Uh. When we look at wherethis goes from here, I think
the big question is is there anythere? Like who is the market for
this? Because as someone who hasa vegetarian in my family, they don't
want this. And so if ifthe vegetarians I know are saying, no,
(25:45):
this is not for us, andif the mediators like me and you
are saying this is fine, butwe're not gonna buy it again, then
is this a product that exists forno one? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean clearly they're still selling. Imean, there are sales of this stuff
still happening, and I don't thinkit's just sales of people who are interested
(26:08):
for a moment and then never again. But you're taking a look along the
line here the only ones that arereally holding up right now, or like
the plant based milk and a fewand a few bars, what are plant
based eggs? And why do Inot want anything to do with you?
I've tried it before. Again,expensive and I would just rather what plants
(26:32):
are based off of, uh somesort of bean? Yeah, yeah again,
I thinks so expensive. Yeah,it comes in a yellow carton and
just looks like a yeah, youknow, it's just used for scrambles.
But yeah again. My my generalconclusion on most of this stuff was much
(26:56):
more expensive and doesn't do much forme. So when unless I again,
if I'm a vegetarian or vegan,I've probably been kind of cool operating on
actual plants for quite some time.I don't need this process stuff. Maybe
I buy it occasionally for when Idon't have time to cook or do any
of that myself, but otherwise Ijust don't get it well. And look,
(27:19):
you use the word processed as well. We have no idea if there's
any long term health benefit for this, and it was being marketed like,
oh like this is you know it'sit has you know, no meat in
it, so it's Here's the onlyrelevant question is can it ever be cheaper
than animal protein? If it canbe substantially cheaper, then I think there's
(27:41):
a market for it, but that'snot the selling point today. There's also
one other relevant question. Is thereanother alternative that's going to be developed,
such as synthetic animal protein that isthen cheaper than that and still the same
as animal pro is going to bean outdated technology? Right? Is this
the thing that gets skipped over becauseis this laser disc lab grown meat versus
(28:04):
Yeah, that's the other competitive itemthat's been talked about. Is you know,
hey, can we just grow sellsin a lab that are actual And
the answer is yes, just notcost effectively right right now, I haven't
tried it, of you. Idon't know that it's for sale anywhere,
is it? I think lawn Theygotta be doing some tests somewhere. I'm
sure that you can sign up forsome it's they got to be testing it
(28:27):
somewhere. Yeah, I have notseen it for sale at my local supermarket.
I guess I will. I'll saythat much. I'd lab grown meat
specifically, I'd love to try it, is all I'm saying. I don't
know if I would actually be ableto eat it, but I'd love to
try it, because I don't know. It just seems you can grow anything
(28:48):
in a lab these days. Youknow. I'm seeing a piece from Scientific
American on July thirtieth of twenty twentythree that lab grown meat was approved for
sale and would soon be available atrestaurants and of course San fran and DC.
Uh So maybe we got to takea take a trip down to DC.
Actually, I might be in SanFrancisco this fall. I'll try and
(29:10):
find some there you go, Canyou bring some back? Are you able
to bring it across state lines?Good question? How do you check it
at the TSA counter? Yeah,so long as you don't mind eating ten
hour old chicken. I mean,it's lab grown. Is it really fine?
Here's the question, Like, here'sa question that I have. Is
it really chicken? For it isgrown in a lab? Good question?
(29:30):
Well, no, if you're growingit in a lab, and if you
vacuum seal it, do you haveto worry about spoilage. I would think
so. I think not. Iwould think so. I just assume it'd
be fine. I don't know.I would think so because the parasite or
the back tier or whatever has tobe present to begin with. So if
(29:51):
you can grow it in sterile conditionsand pack it in sterile conditions, maybe
you don't need to refrigerate it,which sounds weird and gross, I get
it, but maybe this could be. One of the benefits of loub grown
chicken is that you can least yourrefrigeration. You can finally enjoy the dream
of eating at medium rare. Justtake a quick break when we come back
at stack Roulette. Missed one ofour shows, catch up anytime by asking
(30:15):
your Alexis Smart speaker to play.The Financial Exchange. This is the Financial
Exchange Radio Network. Find daily interviewsand full shows of the Financial Exchange on
our YouTube page. Like us onYouTube and get caught up on anything and
everything you might have missed. Thisis the Financial Exchange Radio Network. The
(30:48):
Financial Exchange is a proud partner ofthe Disabled American Veterans Department of Massachusetts.
This year's race is Saturday, Novemberninth at Fort Independence on Castle Island and
registrations now and help us support thesegreat American heroes by visiting DAV fivek dot
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of initiatives like the DAV Transportation Program, which takes disabled vets to important medical
(31:14):
appointments that supply both the physical andmental care they need. For more information
or to make a donation, visitDAV five K dot Boston. The DAV
five K Boston is presented by VeteransDevelopment Corporation. Mike, what do you
have for me for stack Roulet?The new habit in television? Subscribe,
Watch, cancel, Repeat. Iwill definitely say that I am. I
(31:37):
wouldn't say part of the problem here, the part of the solution here in
terms of rotating around different streaming platforms. For example, just this weekend,
I subscribe to Max again because theyhave the playoff NHL Playoffs in addition to
TNTN TBS, which I don't geton my stupid streaming platform Fubo. So
(31:57):
I have used Hbo and excuse me, I've used Max in the past.
I'm now a Max subscriber again.But not an HBO subscriber. But not
an HBO subscriber, because that's nota thing any well, it is the
thing if you have cable. It'snot a thing if you just want to
stream it, which is dumb.This time, there is a piece from
the New York Times, and thisdoes make it seem as though the American
(32:21):
consumer is really savvy on this andconstantly moving things around. And they they
outline a scientist who lives outside ofBoston, mister Misel, who has been
doing this. I would be willingto bet that while a lot of people
are rotating them, a lot morepeople just forget what they have subscriptions to
and don't cancel them. So Ithink that most of these streaming platforms will
(32:44):
still stand to benefit quite a bit. Also, my guess, and I
think I've seen this in a fewdifferent places, is that many of these
streaming platforms are going to start offeringdiscounts on your long subscriptions, or only
your long subscriptions in some cases,for the exact reason that The York Times
is hitting on here. Good,So it's gonna be worse than cable.
It's just gonna be the same.No, it's gonna be worse. Why
(33:05):
is it worse? It's different apps. So I gotta hop around make sure
that all my subscriptions are up todate and this, and that it's gonna
be yearly subscriptions that might not beat the same time, so you have
to remember, you know, whenthey were new and all that stuff.
This is the price for the massiveamount of choice in television right now.
I want less choice. I'm donewith choice. This is the price.
(33:27):
I'm done. Yeah, I don'twant this much choice. Give me three
networks, maybe one, and that'sfine. I don't know. I'm not
sure I agree. I think thereis a lot of cool stuff that's being
made right now that we would neverhave seen in decades past because of all
these things. Tell me one networkever that would have made that Netflix show.
(33:51):
Squid Game never would have happened withoutthe existence of Netflix. No,
but it would have been made inKorea and then someone would have brought it
over here, just like it alwayshappened before. Yeah, I don't know,
you know, I just does onesquid Game justify all of the other
crap that gets produced? Apparently we'reall paying for it. I know,
(34:13):
I'm starting to really have some disdainfor it is where I'm at fair And
the problem is I don't want togo back to cable because then you're back
with like, oh the service isterrible, and if you do want to
cancel, you got to bring yourcable box back to an upside down warehouse
three blocks underground on the third Saturdayand month. Again. I'll take this
(34:36):
over what we were dealing with inthe early twenty tens in terms of the
I distinctly remember standing in like aforty person line on September first to return
my stupid cable box. I knowit's it's almost like the media business is
just awful. Well, we've knownthat for for decades now, but we
(34:57):
have this brief period of you know, t twelve to twenty nineteen where streaming
was great and it's been ruined.Now it's been ruined, and that's just
sad to me because I remember howgood it was. Markets are back in
positive territory. Downs up seventy sixs and P nineteen, Nasdaq up sixty
(35:19):
five. We're done for the day. See tomorrow on the Financial Exchange. More earnings
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