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How did Google lose but win their antitrust case? · The Financial Exchange Show

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1:02
Speaker 1: This is the Financial Exchange with Chuck Zada and Paul Lane.
1:08
Speaker 2: Chuck, Paul and Tucker with you, and if you didn't
1:13
Speaker 2: like yesterday's sell off, the good news is that two
1:17
Speaker 2: of the three major indices are rallying today. The Dow
1:20
Speaker 2: is still off ten percent about fifty points, but the
1:23
Speaker 2: S and P five hundred is up thirty seven points
1:25
Speaker 2: about half percent of the Nasdaq is up about one
1:27
Speaker 2: to quarter percent two hundred and fifty seven points. This
1:31
Speaker 2: largely on the back of a ruling from a judge
1:37
Speaker 2: in the Google anti trust case who said, hey, we're
1:44
Speaker 2: not really gonna throw the book at you, will let
1:45
Speaker 2: you off with basically a slap on the wrist and
1:48
Speaker 2: a couple of small changes that you need to make,
1:50
Speaker 2: nothing too big. So you got equities by and large
1:53
Speaker 2: moving up. Though I will say in the S and
1:55
Speaker 2: P five hundred right now, ninety five more stocks down
1:58
Speaker 2: then up. So it's just Google Apple that are dragging
2:01
Speaker 2: the index higher more than anything else. When we take
2:05
Speaker 2: a look at the ten year Treasury uh it is
2:07
Speaker 2: down five basis points to four point two two six
2:10
Speaker 2: percent right now. If we take a look at commodity markets,
2:14
Speaker 2: oil reversing a lot of yesterday's gains, now down a
2:16
Speaker 2: dollar fifty six barrel on West Texas Intermediate to sixty
2:19
Speaker 2: four to oh three, and we've got Gold continuing it's
2:23
Speaker 2: strong run up thirty dollars ten cents an ounce to
2:26
Speaker 2: a new all time high of thirty six twenty two
2:29
Speaker 2: and thirty cents. So Gold continuing to break out at
2:34
Speaker 2: the moment here. But Paul, our top store for this
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Speaker 2: hour is the ruling in this Google anti trust case.
2:39
Speaker 2: The case was originally started about a couple of years ago.
2:43
Speaker 2: The verdict was given I want to say, like six
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Speaker 2: to nine months ago. But now we have the penalty.
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Speaker 2: What is going to happen to the Googs?
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Speaker 3: Really a very minor set I has did to even
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Speaker 3: call it a stepback for Google here. This is a
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Speaker 3: very lenient ruling here. The punishment is not nearly as
3:04
Speaker 3: severe as we had once speculated as to what it
3:07
Speaker 3: would be. The biggest thing that was in sort of
3:10
Speaker 3: the air was whether or not they would need to
3:13
Speaker 3: spin off their Chrome browser. And as a result of
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Speaker 3: this ruling from Judge Meta, they are not going to
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Speaker 3: have to do that.
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Speaker 2: What they are do love The judge's name in the
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Speaker 2: case is Meta.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very meta, it is, and they will so
3:30
Speaker 3: they're not gonna have to spin off their Chrome browser.
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Speaker 3: That's tremendous news for Google. About fifty percent of the
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Speaker 3: browser market is controlled by Google Chrome in the US,
3:40
Speaker 3: so that is really significant to have that at its disposal,
3:43
Speaker 3: particularly as we transition to more of an AI search world.
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Speaker 3: To be able to have that browser presence, that's tremendous.
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Speaker 3: That's one of the reasons that you have Google up
3:53
Speaker 3: close to nine percent today. What they will have to
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Speaker 3: do is they're going to have to provide more search
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Speaker 3: data to its competitors, have to be a little bit
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Speaker 3: more transparent on just all of the search data that
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Speaker 3: they accumulate, and try to provide their competitors with better
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Speaker 3: insight as to how they could replicate the sophistication behind
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Speaker 3: Google Search. Also, they will have to not be a
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Speaker 3: They will no longer be able to pay for the
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Speaker 3: exclusivity for search engines on devices and browsers out there.
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Speaker 3: So kind of important to note two distinctions here. Where
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Speaker 3: Google pays Apple twenty billion dollars a year to be
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Speaker 3: the default searcher on your Safari browser for those iPhone
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Speaker 3: users out there, they're going to be able to continue
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Speaker 3: to do that. Another reason why you see Apple stock
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Speaker 3: is up three percent today because about fifteen or sixteen
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Speaker 3: percent of Apple's profit comes from just every single year
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Speaker 3: caching that twenty billion dollar check from Google. They're still
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Speaker 3: gonna be there. It's a big check. They're still gonna
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Speaker 3: be able to do that. However, they're not gonna be
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Speaker 3: able to make agreements with other search engines or browsers
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Speaker 3: out there to say you, you can only have Google
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Speaker 3: on this browser. There will have to be much more
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Speaker 3: of an open structure there. Does that really matter? Is
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Speaker 3: that really detrimental? No, it's not really that significant. Google
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Speaker 3: has about ninety percent market share of the search engine
5:17
Speaker 3: the search engine history, so it's not really a huge
5:20
Speaker 3: concern there. So all in all, there really is not
5:23
Speaker 3: too much in here that's negative. This is an overwhelming
5:27
Speaker 3: positive for Google, and it's something that we should talk about.
5:31
Speaker 3: Is the emergence of AI and shat Gibt in this
5:34
Speaker 3: punishment or this ultimate ruling and punishment on the case.
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Speaker 3: I think it was instrumental in making this what is
5:41
Speaker 3: a pretty small slap on the risk for Google.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. So here's here's the thing. So the judge said
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Speaker 2: a couple of things here. Number one, he said, Look,
5:53
Speaker 2: there are you know, all kinds of changes that are
5:56
Speaker 2: taking place, and I'm not sure how those changes will
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Speaker 2: affect Google's business in the future. Okay, that's not really
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Speaker 2: what was the question here. But fine, okay, it's a
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Speaker 2: changing environment. I'm not entirely sure that I buy that,
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Speaker 2: given that Google still is the dominant search engine. But okay,
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Speaker 2: let's let's let's go with that. So you find that
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Speaker 2: Google did abuse its position to act as a monopoly
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Speaker 2: in a number of different areas, and then basically say
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Speaker 2: they are going to be restricted from doing things that
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Speaker 2: they don't currently do. And beyond that, we're not going
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Speaker 2: to require any major changes because the market may be
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Speaker 2: changing and it's unclear that Google will benefit from those changes.
6:46
Speaker 2: What was the point of this, great question? What was
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Speaker 2: the point of this? And by the way, that the
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Speaker 2: thing about this, this is now a This is a
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Speaker 2: trial that has gone through three different administrations. This was
7:01
Speaker 2: started by the Trump administration in twenty twenty, so that's
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Speaker 2: what kicked this off. The Biden administration continued this during
7:11
Speaker 2: the prior the subsequent four years, and now the Trump
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Speaker 2: administration is looking to kind of finish this this trial
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Speaker 2: at this point. So you've had three different administrations that
7:22
Speaker 2: have basically said, yes, we want to continue with this
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Speaker 2: anti trust case. The judge said, yes, there are problems
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Speaker 2: here from a monopoly perspective, but didn't really do anything
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Speaker 2: to change that.
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Speaker 3: I don't recall from the initial ruling last year what
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Speaker 3: specifically on the monopoly practices was the criticism the twenty
7:44
Speaker 3: billion dollar payment to Apple basically being a huge impediment
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Speaker 3: to other search engines making relevancy on search engines for
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Speaker 3: mobile phones.
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Speaker 2: I can't recall off the top of my head, so
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Speaker 2: I don't want to say like.
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Speaker 3: It it's a huge about face from where it was
7:59
Speaker 3: last year. But I just was trying to recall what
8:01
Speaker 3: the specifics were into the anti competitive practices. I feel
8:07
Speaker 3: like the payment was perhaps one of the areas of
8:09
Speaker 3: contention by camp.
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Speaker 2: I mean, part of this I'll quote here from the
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Speaker 2: Wall Street Journal. Meta appears to have been guided partly
8:15
Speaker 2: by testimony that the Justice Department's proposals would produce collateral damage.
8:19
Speaker 2: Google gives a cut of advertising revenue to Apple and
8:21
Speaker 2: others in exchange for keeping its search engine in other
8:24
Speaker 2: apps at the center of devices and deciding to permit
8:26
Speaker 2: those payments. Meta wrote that barring them would likely lead
8:29
Speaker 2: to fewer products and less product innovation from Apple. That's
8:34
Speaker 2: not your job. Your job's not to protect Apple. Like
8:39
Speaker 2: I think Tim Cooking can protect himself. He's a big boy,
8:43
Speaker 2: you know, the guy runs Apple. I think they can
8:45
Speaker 2: figure out how to deal with it. So I don't know,
8:50
Speaker 2: as someone who is a big believer that hey, we
8:55
Speaker 2: could we could do with a lot less regulation if
8:57
Speaker 2: we had more competition, And as such, I'm kind of
9:00
Speaker 2: a pretty big proponent of anti trust, I don't know.
9:04
Speaker 2: I tend to think that this is just like, what
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Speaker 2: a waste of time this was? Why would anyone pursue
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Speaker 2: an anti trust action? Again? If this is all that
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Speaker 2: you get from this after a finding that Google abused
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Speaker 2: its position to do this, you say, Okay, we're gonna
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Speaker 2: borrow you from doing things that you don't do. What's
9:28
Speaker 2: the point? Like why why even work for the FTC?
9:31
Speaker 2: Or like what what are we even doing here? Why
9:33
Speaker 2: even go work for the Justice Department to try to
9:35
Speaker 2: do this? It's really like you look at yourself and
9:40
Speaker 2: you must just be thinking, like what a waste of
9:42
Speaker 2: five years in my life. I feel awful for those
9:45
Speaker 2: people because they got the judge said, yes, Google was wrong.
9:50
Speaker 2: What's the penalty, Eh, not much. I'm nervous about upsetting
9:54
Speaker 2: the Apple cart pun intended. I'm sorry. This kind of
10:00
Speaker 2: sucks in my opinion, Like you imagine you're found in
10:05
Speaker 2: wasted resources. It's it's one of the biggest tech companies
10:09
Speaker 2: on the planet. Yeap who's found guilty of using its
10:13
Speaker 2: market power to illegally generate, you know, profits for itself.
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Speaker 2: And and what do you do with it? Well, I'm
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Speaker 2: not really sure that I understand. Let's just don't do
10:25
Speaker 2: anything bad, guys.
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Speaker 3: I just I don't know if I would go that
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Speaker 3: far without being able to recall. And we'll have to
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Speaker 3: look over a break as to what specifically were their violations.
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Speaker 3: I mean, I know that they have tried to box
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Speaker 3: out competitors. The creation of the Chrome browser was certainly
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Speaker 3: a way to further their search capabilities. The payment to
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Speaker 3: Apple is another one to keep their dominance in there.
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Speaker 3: But in terms of something that is you know, illegal,
10:54
Speaker 3: obviously I get what that was, what the ruling was.
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Speaker 2: But so here here I'm pulling this up and this
10:59
Speaker 2: is from University of Miami Law Reviews just because it
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Speaker 2: was the first.
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Speaker 4: Thing that came up in search.
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Speaker 2: No, I don't. I don't use Google Search because, like, honestly,
11:09
Speaker 2: like it sucks, which is why whatever. That's the other thing,
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Speaker 2: Like Google search sucks, like search I used freaking duck
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Speaker 2: duck going it sucks. Like the search engines are not
11:21
Speaker 2: good because there's so much SEO and AI generated crap
11:24
Speaker 2: that you can't find what you're looking for. Half the time.
11:27
Speaker 2: I had to go down like two pages just to
11:29
Speaker 2: find this. So it says, look, the problem here was
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Speaker 2: that Google monopolized the search services and text advertising markets
11:37
Speaker 2: through its exclusive deal arrangements that made Google the default
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Speaker 2: search engine on many devices and browsers. So it says
11:44
Speaker 2: that's the problem. Okay, what are we gonna do about it? Nothing?
11:47
Speaker 2: Keep doing it? Why did we do this? What are
11:51
Speaker 2: we doing here? Based on the evidence presented, judgment concluded
11:56
Speaker 2: that's general search services and text advertising constituted mark It's okay,
12:00
Speaker 2: so those are actual markets that you know should have
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Speaker 2: competitive behavior. He applied the factors from Brown Shoe Company
12:06
Speaker 2: versus the United States, finding that the search engines. Different
12:10
Speaker 2: search engines had unique uses and characteristics, and that although
12:14
Speaker 2: people could choose whether to search on any search engine. No,
12:19
Speaker 2: soorts was interchangeable with the comprehensiveness of you know the platform.
12:23
Speaker 2: And regarding text ads, only ninety two percent of Google's
12:26
Speaker 2: advertisers use text ads, so they found you know here
12:28
Speaker 2: the markets and blah blah blah. Market power alone is
12:32
Speaker 2: not illegal on its own. The DOJ had to prove
12:34
Speaker 2: that Google's power was maintained willfully, so the DOJ focused
12:38
Speaker 2: on Google's exclusive arrangements with browser developers, device manufacturers, and
12:42
Speaker 2: wireless carriers. Judge Meta agreed that the agreements were exclusive
12:47
Speaker 2: and had anti competitive effects such as market for closures,
12:50
Speaker 2: thus rendering them illegal. So he said, these agreements are exclusive.
12:55
Speaker 4: And those have to be unwound as part of this rule.
12:58
Speaker 2: But then in this he says, you can still pay
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Speaker 2: those you just can't make them exclusive. What does that mean?
13:03
Speaker 2: What are you paying for then.
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Speaker 4: To be the default? What are we doing here?
13:11
Speaker 2: This is why this is stupid, Like the judge said,
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Speaker 2: I don't like that. This is like how this works,
13:19
Speaker 2: and then says keep doing it, but just change the
13:22
Speaker 2: name from the Facebook to Facebook, Like that's basically what
13:27
Speaker 2: this is. So let's take a quick break and when
13:30
Speaker 2: we come back we'll talk about something else that, uh
13:34
Speaker 2: doesn't get me quite so excited. How about holiday shopping
13:37
Speaker 2: trends for this year. Let's talk about that when we return.
13:41
Speaker 4: Wow.
13:41
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Speaker 2: Com, PCENCNBC. Holidays spending, especially by gen Z, is expected
15:19
Speaker 2: to drop this year, survey says. According to a study
15:24
Speaker 2: by PwC, holiday spending by US consumers projected to drop
15:29
Speaker 2: five percent, but gen Z is projecting and spend twenty
15:32
Speaker 2: three percent less than they did a year ago. I
15:37
Speaker 2: don't buy it.
15:39
Speaker 4: What You don't think they're gonna spend less?
15:41
Speaker 2: Nope, why not because they haven't so far.
15:46
Speaker 4: I haven't so far.
15:47
Speaker 2: We haven't seen any drop in consumer spending this year
15:50
Speaker 2: like you've seen it in certain categories where Hey, travel
15:53
Speaker 2: spending has gone down, but it's been repurposed elsewhere, or
15:56
Speaker 2: the other theory there is, Hey, most of the drop
15:59
Speaker 2: in travel spending is from international travelers who are not
16:03
Speaker 2: coming to the US this year. There's nothing out there
16:06
Speaker 2: when you look at like credit card data, banking data,
16:08
Speaker 2: anything else suggesting that US consumers are pulling back on
16:12
Speaker 2: their spending right now. And so I guess my question is,
16:17
Speaker 2: why should I believe them when they say they're going
16:19
Speaker 2: to change when their behavior does not indicate they've made
16:22
Speaker 2: this change.
16:23
Speaker 3: Oh, you're talking about the five percent drop. I was
16:25
Speaker 3: ready to come back with the gen Z and say,
16:27
Speaker 3: thirteen to twenty nine year olds, you know what percentage
16:29
Speaker 3: do they make?
16:30
Speaker 1: No?
16:30
Speaker 4: No, no, we're spending.
16:31
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm not buying a five percent drop in
16:34
Speaker 2: holiday spending.
16:35
Speaker 4: Yeah.
16:35
Speaker 3: Where the drop would come from is if you're looking
16:37
Speaker 3: at the demographics. The way they broke it out, just
16:39
Speaker 3: based on what the survey says is the baby boomers
16:42
Speaker 3: are supposed to be spending five percent more on average,
16:46
Speaker 3: and then the other demographics are supposed to be flat.
16:49
Speaker 3: And then obviously gen Z we highlighted would be a
16:51
Speaker 3: twenty three percent drop. Those points on the consumer spending
16:54
Speaker 3: front are fair. I mean, we're really not seeing the
16:58
Speaker 3: tariff increase pricing that we anticipated at this time. If
17:02
Speaker 3: you had asked me back in April May, I probably
17:04
Speaker 3: would have been more likely to believe this.
17:06
Speaker 4: But the fact of.
17:07
Speaker 3: The matter is whether it's through front loading of inventory
17:10
Speaker 3: or just retailers holding back increasing prices. You really haven't
17:15
Speaker 3: seen the substantial uptick in these costs of different items
17:20
Speaker 3: out there, and I don't think we're gonna see it
17:23
Speaker 3: over the course of the next month or two as
17:25
Speaker 3: we kind of get into the holiday season there. So
17:29
Speaker 3: five percent does seem like a pretty substantial drop. I
17:32
Speaker 3: could see it flat, but probably not a five percent
17:35
Speaker 3: to CLI. And this was four thousand US consumers that
17:39
Speaker 3: were surveyed in this PwC survey between late June.
17:42
Speaker 4: And early July.
17:44
Speaker 2: And this is another thing. Think about when this survey
17:47
Speaker 2: was conducted. It was almost three months ago now, right,
17:50
Speaker 2: think about, you know, whether psychology is different now as
17:53
Speaker 2: opposed to you know, in June. I'm just not sure
17:58
Speaker 2: that I buy this in terms of an actual shift
18:03
Speaker 2: that we're going to see in behavior if it materializes, Okay,
18:08
Speaker 2: like fine, it was right then, but we haven't seen
18:12
Speaker 2: anything of this magnitude as far as a shift in
18:16
Speaker 2: spending behavior. The general trend, by the way, has been
18:19
Speaker 2: about a four to five percent jump in consumer spending
18:24
Speaker 2: year over year, about two thirds of which is attributed
18:27
Speaker 2: to additional you know, pricing, from inflation, and the remaining
18:32
Speaker 2: third is because of people actually spending more in you know,
18:35
Speaker 2: a few key areas. So I just don't buy that
18:38
Speaker 2: this is going to happen. If you want to tell me, hey,
18:42
Speaker 2: gen Zers are really stressed about money because everything's expensive
18:46
Speaker 2: for them. They don't have any savings, they don't have
18:47
Speaker 2: any capital investment, so they're not benefiting from a rising
18:50
Speaker 2: stock market. Totally by it. But it's tough for me
18:55
Speaker 2: to get from there to In the aggregate, Americans are
18:59
Speaker 2: going to spend five percent less on holiday shopping. There's
19:04
Speaker 2: nothing out there indicating that right now.
19:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, the gen Z piece they mentioned more focused on
19:09
Speaker 3: entertainment and experiences versus actually buying goods, and I believe
19:13
Speaker 3: that the more wallet share is taken up by concerts
19:16
Speaker 3: and travel rather than buying items. But I can I
19:19
Speaker 3: can get down with your premise on the five percent
19:22
Speaker 3: drop being overstated.
19:23
Speaker 4: We'll see.
19:24
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break. When we return. We got
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Speaker 5: Network, Well markets are a mix this territory, with the
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Speaker 5: tech sector rebounding on the heels of a major win
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Speaker 5: two points higher. Russell two thousand is completely flat. Ten
20:39
Speaker 5: year Treasure reeled down five basis points now at four
20:42
Speaker 5: point two one nine percent. In crude oil down nearly
20:46
Speaker 5: three percent now trading a sixty three dollars in eighty
20:49
Speaker 5: one cents a barrel. Alphabet shares jumping over eight percent
20:53
Speaker 5: after a federal judge ruled that the tech giant is
20:56
Speaker 5: allowed to keep its Chrome browser, dodging significant antitrust PAS penalties. However,
21:01
Speaker 5: Google won't be able to sign exclusive search deals and
21:04
Speaker 5: also has to share its data according to the ruling.
21:07
Speaker 5: Apple stock is seeing gains today in reaction to that ruling,
21:11
Speaker 5: with Apple receiving Google's payments of twenty billion dollars to
21:14
Speaker 5: keep Google as the default search engine on its devices. Meanwhile,
21:19
Speaker 5: Macy's beat second quarter earnings expectations after the department store
21:23
Speaker 5: chain saw its same store sales grow for the first
21:25
Speaker 5: time since twenty twenty two. That stock up by sixteen percent.
21:31
Speaker 5: Sticking with retail, where Dollar Tree shares are down about
21:34
Speaker 5: eight percent despite the discount retailer beating second quarter earnings
21:38
Speaker 5: in revenue expectations, the company also upped its annual outlook.
21:43
Speaker 5: C Scaler is down by one percent after the cybersecurity
21:47
Speaker 5: company b quarterly Street forecasts on the top and bottom
21:50
Speaker 5: lines and also offered an optimistic guidance for the current quarter.
21:54
Speaker 5: And after today's closing bell, we'll see earnings from Salesforce.
21:59
Speaker 5: I'm Tucker sal and that is Wall Street Watch. And
22:01
Speaker 5: in the previous segment, we asked you the trivia question
22:05
Speaker 5: what number president was Benjamin Harrison. That'll be the twenty
22:09
Speaker 5: third Anthony from Sandwich Mass is our winner today. Taking
22:12
Speaker 5: on a financial exchange show t shirt and we played
22:15
Speaker 5: trivia every day here on the Financial Exchange. See complete
22:19
Speaker 5: contest rules at Financial Exchange show dot com.
22:22
Speaker 2: Probably got a piece in market Watch today. It's titled
22:25
Speaker 2: Retirees are told to work longer to make ends meet?
22:28
Speaker 2: But what if jobs disappear? What are we talking about
22:31
Speaker 2: in this piece?
22:32
Speaker 3: Basically, this piece is done by a freelancer who lost
22:36
Speaker 3: a couple of their writing jobs this year, and then
22:39
Speaker 3: just mentions the general struggle that some retirees can find
22:43
Speaker 3: where perhaps financial advisors say that they should work a
22:47
Speaker 3: little bit longer just to lessen their reliance on their
22:50
Speaker 3: nest egg for retirement income purposes. But he outlines here
22:55
Speaker 3: potential pitfalls to that strategy, just basically that hey, perhaps
23:00
Speaker 3: the jobs aren't there, whether it be from agism or
23:04
Speaker 3: just a shift in the landscape of these particular careers.
23:09
Speaker 3: While is highlighted here perhaps the reduction in staff for
23:14
Speaker 3: some businesses like freelancing and others, it's important to know
23:17
Speaker 3: that overall as a whole, on the labor market, like
23:20
Speaker 3: we were talking about in the first hour of the show, Yes,
23:22
Speaker 3: the labor market is slow, but it hasn't been a
23:25
Speaker 3: significantly heavy layoff environment At the moment. For the most part,
23:30
Speaker 3: you have employers trying to retain their employees. But if
23:33
Speaker 3: you are in that position that unfortunately you are laid off.
23:37
Speaker 3: In our older worker, there are a couple strategies that
23:41
Speaker 3: are outlined here reviewing your cash flow and your budget
23:44
Speaker 3: and priorities, as well as some different ways to make
23:49
Speaker 3: some smaller side hustles just to help boost your cash flow.
23:53
Speaker 2: Folks, are you wondering where the economy is headed? GDP
23:56
Speaker 2: is growing, but Tariff's inflation and jobs numbers are making headlines.
24:00
Speaker 2: Interest rates, housing costs and policy changes are impacting all
24:04
Speaker 2: of us, and even AI is changing how markets move.
24:08
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25:15
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25:26
Speaker 2: Ev sales are spiking in the last month or two,
25:29
Speaker 2: but it's not because Americans suddenly said, hey, we all
25:31
Speaker 2: want to buy evs. Rather, it's you have the seventy
25:34
Speaker 2: five hundred dollars tax credit that is expiring as part
25:38
Speaker 2: of the big beautiful Bill on at the end of September,
25:41
Speaker 2: and so Americans who may want to purchase evs are
25:45
Speaker 2: front loading them right now. In the expectation is that
25:49
Speaker 2: sales for electric vehicles could get pretty dodgy as we
25:52
Speaker 2: get towards the fourth quarter when those tax credits are
25:57
Speaker 2: no longer available.
25:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Q three numbers should be huge, like you mentioned,
26:01
Speaker 3: because that will encapsulate that sunset of the seventy five
26:05
Speaker 3: hundred dollars credit for the month of September. But even
26:07
Speaker 3: in the second quarter, we saw that Americans bought three
26:11
Speaker 3: hundred and ten thousand all electric vehicles, down six percent
26:14
Speaker 3: from a year earlier. And then of course you have
26:17
Speaker 3: just the struggles that Tesla has faced just in the
26:20
Speaker 3: East EV space. In general, there are certainly a lot
26:24
Speaker 3: of challenges head particularly domestically, because the United States doesn't
26:28
Speaker 3: benefit from the infusion of these very low cost evs
26:33
Speaker 3: that China has unleashed on you know, the European Union
26:37
Speaker 3: as well as in South America and obviously in China too.
26:42
Speaker 3: There isn't really that cheaper option here domestically.
26:45
Speaker 2: No, it's just something where there's been no there's been
26:51
Speaker 2: no way to get you know, those cheaper evs that
26:53
Speaker 2: everyone's talked about. I think you know, you talk to
26:55
Speaker 2: just about any company out there, whether it's Ford, whether
26:57
Speaker 2: it is Tesla, everyone wants to build you know, the
27:02
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand dollars EV or below, and they can't
27:06
Speaker 2: get there. So you know, we'll see I know Ford's
27:08
Speaker 2: talking about this, this whole project that they're trying to
27:11
Speaker 2: get off the ground and you know, produce these in
27:13
Speaker 2: the next couple of years. I just, you know, you
27:17
Speaker 2: got to prove it, because to this point, we just
27:19
Speaker 2: haven't seen it. And so there's a lot of skepticism
27:23
Speaker 2: that I have that you're going to necessarily get there
27:27
Speaker 2: when it comes to you know, those cheaper evs actually
27:30
Speaker 2: making landfall in the US at any particular point in time.
27:36
Speaker 2: I want to talk a little bit about the box office.
27:38
Speaker 2: There's a piece from the New York Times behind the numbers,
27:42
Speaker 2: how Hollywood missed its mark this summer, uh, And what
27:46
Speaker 2: it's talking about is, look, if you look at the
27:49
Speaker 2: top five movies by domestic revenue for the summer, you've
27:54
Speaker 2: been kind of on a decline over the last you know,
27:56
Speaker 2: five normal years. Obviously strip out twenty twenty and twenty
27:59
Speaker 2: one because of you know, obvious reasons. But twenty nineteen
28:03
Speaker 2: you saw about two point six billion dollars for the
28:05
Speaker 2: top five movies at the box office twenty twenty two
28:09
Speaker 2: was two point four billion. Twenty three came into two
28:12
Speaker 2: point one billion last year, two point one billion in
28:15
Speaker 2: this year one point six billions. So the question that
28:19
Speaker 2: needs to be asked is what gives Is this, you know,
28:22
Speaker 2: just a trend towards fewer Americans seeing movies or are
28:25
Speaker 2: the offerings just not great this year and that is
28:29
Speaker 2: what is driving this?
28:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, you don't have. It's funny.
28:33
Speaker 3: When we were covering a top Gun back in twenty
28:35
Speaker 3: twenty two, there was a lot of chatter about the
28:37
Speaker 3: movie going experience being back, but like you said, with
28:41
Speaker 3: these numbers recently, that really hasn't been the case, at
28:43
Speaker 3: least for twenty twenty five. I mean, if you look
28:46
Speaker 3: at the list of movies here, none of these are
28:50
Speaker 3: in particularly, you know, a dominant franchise the movie industry
28:54
Speaker 3: in general. I'm not saying that going to the movies
28:57
Speaker 3: is done necessarily, but they certainly have beaten to death
29:00
Speaker 3: the whole superhero Marvel phase of things, so there needs
29:04
Speaker 3: to be some sort of innovation there. I don't think
29:07
Speaker 3: necessarily it's gonna happen because these studios aren't gonna change
29:11
Speaker 3: their bread and butter and profitability behind those big IP properties.
29:15
Speaker 3: But something needs to change.
29:18
Speaker 2: Let me ask a question, and it's not my original question.
29:20
Speaker 2: I can't remember where I saw this for the first
29:23
Speaker 2: time because it's again it's not my original thought. Is
29:30
Speaker 2: it possible that the movie format has just kind of
29:39
Speaker 2: come and gone? And it's not And there's just nothing
29:41
Speaker 2: new that you can do under the sun?
29:43
Speaker 3: There anymore format in terms of just a standard hour
29:46
Speaker 3: and a half picture And you're saying half hours migration
29:50
Speaker 3: to you know, shows on Netflix like a six to
29:54
Speaker 3: seven hour episodes.
29:57
Speaker 2: Not even necessarily that, but just the call it two
30:00
Speaker 2: hour format. There's only so many different beats that you
30:05
Speaker 2: can get into that in order to produce something, and
30:09
Speaker 2: have we just kind of exhausted most of them to
30:13
Speaker 2: the point where there's not much new under the sun
30:16
Speaker 2: and the stuff that we've already seen people just aren't
30:19
Speaker 2: willing to pay for anymore. And what I'm getting at
30:21
Speaker 2: here is, look, the medium of storytelling is always changing. Yeah,
30:26
Speaker 2: Like there's always a new format that is being used.
30:30
Speaker 2: If you go back, you know, one hundred and fifty years,
30:33
Speaker 2: the only way that you could tell stories was either
30:36
Speaker 2: in a book written down where you had to like
30:38
Speaker 2: actually pay to have something published because there was no
30:40
Speaker 2: freeway to do it, or it was spoken word or
30:44
Speaker 2: live music performance like that was the only way that
30:47
Speaker 2: you could tell stories. Then as you innovated, you saw
30:51
Speaker 2: these new things popped up, and certainly with movies. Hey,
30:55
Speaker 2: the twentieth century was the century of movies. Is that
31:01
Speaker 2: format just a little too restrictive to be able to
31:03
Speaker 2: do anything new with? And is that why we're kind
31:08
Speaker 2: of just a little bit tapped out on actually going
31:11
Speaker 2: to see these things? There's just not that much that's
31:13
Speaker 2: interesting there, whereas on the streaming side, there are a
31:17
Speaker 2: bunch of different ways that you can structure things into,
31:20
Speaker 2: you know, five to fifteen hours of whatever in order
31:24
Speaker 2: to you know, hit a story a little bit differently
31:26
Speaker 2: than you would otherwise. I know that we like to
31:30
Speaker 2: rip on studios for just being like, Oh, all you're
31:32
Speaker 2: doing is you know, all these sequels and comic books
31:34
Speaker 2: and this and that. But when you're paying one hundred
31:36
Speaker 2: million dollars to make the movie and there are only
31:40
Speaker 2: fourteen movies this year that have done more than one
31:42
Speaker 2: hundred million in the US, what are you gonna do?
31:46
Speaker 2: Because like I look at some of the original stuff
31:48
Speaker 2: that is, you know, out there, and you got to
31:51
Speaker 2: go down pretty far on the list to get there.
31:54
Speaker 2: I mean, the only thing that is an original in
31:58
Speaker 2: the top fourteen movies is Sinners, which is vampires, right, Like,
32:07
Speaker 2: it's like an original Vampires that the Michael B. Jordan one,
32:09
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, it's awesome, Yeah, which I hear is fantastic.
32:13
Speaker 2: But otherwise it's Minecraft Movie, Leelan Stitch, Jurassic World, Fantastic Four,
32:17
Speaker 2: How to Train Your Dragon, Captain, America, Mission Impossible, Thunderbolts
32:19
Speaker 2: F one, Final Destination Mufasa, and then you finally get
32:23
Speaker 2: to something called dog Man, which you.
32:26
Speaker 5: Skipped over weapons there. That's been getting a lot of Oh,
32:29
Speaker 5: I didn't see that.
32:30
Speaker 2: Yes, yep. So you've got like three out of fifteen,
32:33
Speaker 2: So twenty percent of your top movies are originals.
32:37
Speaker 3: Right, So I don't think to me that the outer
32:41
Speaker 3: storytelling through movies is dead necessarily. I do agree with
32:44
Speaker 3: the point that the streaming emergence allows for much more
32:48
Speaker 3: flexibility on how you want to construct an arc or
32:52
Speaker 3: a narrative, and it is probably a little confined to
32:55
Speaker 3: be stuck in our and a half one, but you
32:57
Speaker 3: still need them to kind of echo appeared in time.
33:01
Speaker 3: You still need that storytelling from movies, so I still
33:04
Speaker 3: feel that there's a place for it, but maybe the
33:07
Speaker 3: traditional studio, like going to the theater experience to get
33:12
Speaker 3: that storytelling. Sure, there's just other ways to get at it.
33:15
Speaker 3: Just take a quick break when we come back. We'll
33:16
Speaker 3: do a little bit of stack Roulettes.
33:24
Speaker 1: Or not.
33:24
Speaker 2: Hold on, we're not doing stack roulette. Stupid computer. Okay,
33:29
Speaker 2: hold on.
33:29
Speaker 4: We're back.
33:30
Speaker 2: He want us to keep talking. Okay, So, what's the
33:34
Speaker 2: last time you went to the movie there?
33:35
Speaker 4: It's got to be a couple of years for me.
33:37
Speaker 2: Uh No, I go I get to like one or
33:39
Speaker 2: two a year.
33:39
Speaker 5: I almost went back. I almost went back to see
33:42
Speaker 5: The Naked Gun.
33:43
Speaker 4: I just didn't. Oh, heck out, how does that? How's
33:46
Speaker 4: that done? Is that for comedy? Really good?
33:49
Speaker 2: I went to Uh. I went to Mission Impossible this
33:52
Speaker 2: year just because I'm a big fan of the franchise.
33:54
Speaker 2: But the last two were not particularly great?
33:57
Speaker 4: Was this the last one? Finally?
33:58
Speaker 2: The last one? Supposedly? Did I see anything last year?
34:04
Speaker 2: Tune in to find out, because we're really I saw
34:06
Speaker 2: Twisters last year. I like that a lot. That was
34:09
Speaker 2: that was a nice ride, quick break and then sacrola. Yeah,
34:13
Speaker 2: that's the one.
34:16
Speaker 1: The Financial Exchange is life on Series XM's Business Radio
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34:54
Speaker 5: The Financial Exchange is a broad partner of the Disabled
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35:32
Speaker 2: What do you got for me for stack roulettes? Chuck.
35:35
Speaker 3: Blue Apron is expanding its offerings here.
35:40
Speaker 2: They're still around.
35:41
Speaker 4: I just googled.
35:43
Speaker 3: I know you hate Google, but I just searched is
35:46
Speaker 3: blue Apron still in business because, like many others probably here.
35:50
Speaker 3: I don't know if you guys went through a phase
35:52
Speaker 3: in your household where we had signed up for blue
35:54
Speaker 3: Apron for a period of time. But the subscription model
35:57
Speaker 3: that they run, which they do still run, they are
36:00
Speaker 3: now expanding to just have one one offer, one off
36:04
Speaker 3: offerings where you can just get pre made meals, no subscription,
36:09
Speaker 3: no subscription, you can do it differently than the subscription model,
36:12
Speaker 3: which I don't have any numbers to back this up,
36:15
Speaker 3: but I just feel like they probably saw a lot
36:17
Speaker 3: of attrition with that, whether you go on vacation or
36:19
Speaker 3: you just kind of slow down on the subscription train
36:23
Speaker 3: and just have too many meals that go uncooked and
36:25
Speaker 3: you stop it and probably never get back on it.
36:28
Speaker 3: They're now trying to break out fully prepared, chef designed
36:31
Speaker 3: meals that you can just purchase sort of ad hoc
36:34
Speaker 3: when you need them for some that you can put
36:36
Speaker 3: together in five minutes with no prep, or you could
36:39
Speaker 3: do another one that is ready in the oven in
36:42
Speaker 3: under five minutes just to put together with pre chopped ingredients.
36:46
Speaker 3: Did you guys ever go through that phase of the subscription?
36:49
Speaker 2: We didn't do Blue Apron. We did I think was
36:51
Speaker 2: Hello Fresh. Oh maybe that was fun. Yeah, And they're fine,
36:57
Speaker 2: They're expensive, and they do get a little bit repetitive.
37:00
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I do know, just based on looking
37:03
Speaker 2: at like the financials of the publicly traded ones that
37:07
Speaker 2: were out there, no one can figure out how to
37:09
Speaker 2: make money on this right, which I think is probably
37:11
Speaker 2: still the case. So I'm just not sure what there
37:14
Speaker 2: is from a business perspective there. But Okay, if you
37:18
Speaker 2: want to do it, and you have venture capitalists subsidize
37:21
Speaker 2: my eating habits, that's fine. It's cool. Starbucks don't waunch
37:25
Speaker 2: protein packed cold foam lattes later this month.
37:30
Speaker 4: It's all about protein, baby.
37:32
Speaker 2: I'm not a coffee person. I am a protein person.
37:35
Speaker 2: I love some like some good meat, but not in
37:37
Speaker 2: my coffee. And here's the thing, all this health stuff,
37:45
Speaker 2: no one knows what they're doing like this whole protein kick.
37:48
Speaker 2: People are like, oh, like you got to get protein
37:50
Speaker 2: because of this and that. Well, there's kind of like
37:52
Speaker 2: a big cause and effect problem as to hey, are
37:55
Speaker 2: people living longer because they ate more protein or is
37:58
Speaker 2: there something else going on that, like people eat protein
38:00
Speaker 2: in large numbers.
38:01
Speaker 5: Also does this protein coffee thing though, is taking off Starbucks.
38:06
Speaker 5: This is a good move for Starbucks for some reason.
38:08
Speaker 2: People are actually gonna buy these.
38:10
Speaker 5: I'm seeing it a lot on social media right now.
38:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
38:12
Speaker 4: Wow, nothing like a Starbucks coffee after workout.
38:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me a steak culata please. Let's let's load
38:17
Speaker 2: that puppy up. Quick break here for the rest of
38:20
Speaker 2: the day. We'll see you tomorrow on the Financial Exchange