Morning Brew Daily - Meta Trims its Workforce for AI? & Trump Stamps 25% Tariffs on Steel

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Episode 516: Neal and Toby discuss Meta’s continuation of its ‘Year of Efficiency’ as it begins another round of layoffs amid its investment into its AI strategy. Then, President Trump imposes 2...5% tariffs on steel and aluminum that will likely hurt Germany, Canada, Mexico, and Asian countries. Next, another push to abolish the US penny. Meanwhile, Apple Watch wearers are moving their trackers down to the ankles. Lastly, a roundup of the biggest headlines from the day.  00:00 - It’s official, Gulf of America 3:00 - Meta layoffs 8:15 - Tariffs on US Steel 12:30 - Penny waste? 19:10 - Toby’s Trends: Ankle Watch 22:40 - Sprint Finish! Subscribe to Morning Brew Daily for more of the news you need to start your day. Share the show with a friend, and leave us a review on your favorite podcast app. Check out https://wise.com/business for more! Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/@MorningBrewDailyShow All investing involves the risk of loss, including loss of principal. Brokerage services for US-listed, registered securities, options and bonds in a self-directed account are offered by Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA & SIPC. Public Investing offers a High-Yield Cash Account where funds from this account are automatically deposited into partner banks where they earn interest and are eligible for FDIC insurance; Public Investing is not a bank. Cryptocurrency trading services are offered by Bakkt Crypto Solutions, LLC (NMLS ID 1890144), which is licensed to engage in virtual currency business activity by the NYSDFS. Cryptocurrency is highly speculative, involves a high degree of risk, and has the potential for loss of the entire amount of an investment. Cryptocurrency holdings are not protected by the FDIC or SIPC.  APY as of 1/16/25, offered by Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Rate subject to change. *Terms and Conditions apply. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:29 Good morning, Brew, Daily. show. I'm Neil Fryman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, hold on to your piggy banks because the penny could be going extinct. Then bust out the cardboard boxes in Menlo Park. Meta's layoffs have begun. It's Tuesday, February 11th. Let's ride. If you live in the U.S., open up Google Maps and scroll to the big body of water west of Florida, you'll notice a big change. The Gulf of Mexico has been officially renamed Gulf of America. The company said that it made the update in accordance with the new executive order from President Trump, citing longstanding practice of changing labels based on guidance from countries. So, at least for the next four years, people in the U.S.
Starting point is 00:01:14 will see Gulf of America, people in Mexico will see Gulf of Mexico, and people everywhere else will see both names. Toby, what did you think when you saw this change? I didn't think anything, Neil, because I didn't even notice it. I used something called Apple Maps, which still has it as Gulf of Mexico. Yes, I will use this as an opportunity to advance my Apple Maps is superior to Google Maps agenda. People still remember Apple Match's original launch and how glitchy it was, but I'm telling you, give it another chance. It is far superior.
Starting point is 00:01:46 But yes, back to the news, Apple hasn't made any changes in Apple Maps yet, but it does redirect searches for Gulf of Mexico or Gulf of America to Gulf of Mexico. So clearly they are thinking about it. I wonder how long they will hold out. And I also wonder if a new administration comes in, if they'll change it back, and it's just like a snip snap, snip snap, go from America, go from Mexico, back and forth. Apple behind Google, I mean, Apple Maps behind Google Maps.
Starting point is 00:02:14 It's what it's been like for the past decade. Oh, my gosh, you are a Google Maps user. Wishing you could be there live for the big game, soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd. But too often, life gets busy. Or the price holds you back. Price Line is here to help you. make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see
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Starting point is 00:03:46 According to reports, the company is cutting nearly 4,000 rolls equal to about 5% of its workforce. These aren't your normal layoffs, though. Meta just reported record profits, a 48% operating margin, and the stock has gained 15 straight trading days, its longest streak ever. By every metric, this is a very healthy company, but Mark Zuckerberg thinks it can be healthier. These layoffs are performance-based, targeting underperforming employees as determined by internal talent evaluations. It's a continuation of principles laid out in meta's vaunted year of efficiency, which started in 2023, and aims to streamline operations and redirect resources towards AI initiatives. Case in point, meta plans to
Starting point is 00:04:27 start hiring machine learning engineers and other AI related roles over the next month, even as it trims its overall headcount. Neil, the performance termination, as Meta calls them, are upon us. There is a big HR strategy shift underway in Silicon Valley. It's happened over the past few years, and that is more cuts consistently. I mean, if we talked about this in 2017 or 2018, it would have been almost unheard of these companies. We're growing very very fast. They grew even faster during the pandemic. They grew their workforces substantially. And now they're doing more periodic cuts. And it's not just meta. It's Amazon 2. It's Microsoft. It's Salesforce. There have been a lot of layoff announcements recently. And it has to do with,
Starting point is 00:05:16 yeah, it's these performance-based cuts. It's not to reduce headcount. They're going to rehire the same amount of people just in other areas. And let's hear from Zuck to explain why he, why this massive strategy change. And at a town hall meeting, he says, I think this makes the company better. I'm not going to be apologetic for it. And I think most people here want to work with people who are going to be better fits. It seems like Silicon Valley CEOs want to shed their reputation of employing people like Bighead, who I don't know if anyone's seen Silicon Valley, but Bighead is this character who is a part of this massive tech company who consistently gets promoted despite not doing much work, and he's just this small cog in a larger system. And I think that we've seen over
Starting point is 00:06:01 the past few years, tech companies are trying to shed that reputation. And there has been almost a vibe shift, a lack of trust now between Silicon Valley companies and their employees, because there used to be this model where employees had immense power. It's kind of what led to the nap pod in the office, the food every day, the perk-heavy culture. But now that vibe has shifted. And a lot of people who are affected by this most recent round of layoffs say it's actually a huge black mark on your employment record because calling them performance-based layoffs, now you have to enter the workforce having being laid off from meta under this label of saying you were an underperformer. So it really is, I mean, we're saying all these words, vibe shift, but it is distinctly a
Starting point is 00:06:44 different era that we are entering into right now. And you're right that Zuck isn't shining away from it. He does say, if I think it can make the company better, why wouldn't I do it? I'm making the people you work with higher performers. So this should be a good thing overall for the company. And this is part of the broader, what we'll call a white-collar recession, where high-wage professional services workers are facing a much tougher job market than pretty much anyone else right now. If you go to the jobs report for January we just had last Friday,
Starting point is 00:07:15 professional business services and information sectors, which had been booming, shrunk by around 9,000 positions. in January, many job cuts have been announced in this area in particular, once you're laid off from these kind of positions, finding people that are willing to hire you is much tougher. And we haven't even mentioned the two letters that are hanging over all of this, which is AI. And a lot of the positions that meta and Salesforce and Amazon and Microsoft, all these companies that have done these cuts are going to be hiring for is machine learning engineers and AI. So it's not necessarily a one-to-one match of AI is doing your job.
Starting point is 00:07:52 but someone who is working with AI is going to be doing your job. Right. There is this interesting subtext to all these layoffs is the fact that these companies are technically developing employee replacing technology. AI agents are getting to the level where they can replace mid-level coders. And don't take my word from it. That is Mark Zuckerberg's opinion. He said that AI agents will match good mid-level engineers this year.
Starting point is 00:08:18 That is a quote from 2025. So that is the subtext to it all that you're cutting rolls so you can hire up in AI so you can technically cut more roles in the future. Now, just for some big picture numbers, it sounds like there's been, or it feels like there's been a lot of job cuts this January. But if you go back to last January, there was a lot more. The figure for this January is down 40% from last January. Last January, there were tons of cuts, especially in the video game industry, which was the most job cuts in January for 50%. years. The trade war entered a new theater yesterday, one with a steel curtain. President Trump announced 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports to the U.S. beginning March 4th in a move that intends
Starting point is 00:09:03 to protect and grow American production, but at the same time could disrupt trade with close allies. When it comes to making steel and sending it around the world, China is the world leader and no one else is close. Chinese mills crank out more steel and aluminum each year than the rest of the world combined. But the U.S. gets its deal from a group of closer friends. Canada is the number one supplier, followed by Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Vietnam. And those are the countries most likely to be affected by 25% tariffs. But as Trump's tariff plans go, that he's targeting metals isn't surprising. Steel, which is a relatively small industry in the U.S., but a politically sensitive one because of its home base in Pennsylvania, has been a pawn in trade wars for years. Trump imposed tariffs on steel and
Starting point is 00:09:46 aluminum, his first go-round in office, and Biden mostly maintained those trade barriers when he was in the White House. Anyway, this caused a major market reaction, stocks of American steel and aluminum producers like U.S. Steel, Cleveland Cliffs, and Alcoa surged, while European producers fell. Toby, another big shake-up to trade weeks into the new administration. Yeah, let's actually go back to that 2018 year that you mentioned when Trump first instituted those 25% tariffs on steel. At the time, he cited national security as the big reason for it, but said another reason why he wanted to do it was to strengthen domestic production. And what were the results from that? They were a little complicated. Technically steel imports to the U.S. did fall. They fell 35% from 2014 to 2024. But domestic steelmakers were still not producing enough to satiate U.S. steel demand. And they were still complaining that imports were continuing to harm. They're still complaining that to this day. So technically, yes, it did boling. the domestic industry, but it's just we don't quite have enough production here to fully, you know, replace the demand that you would get from importing from countries like Canada,
Starting point is 00:10:54 countries like China. And just to take a step back, the goal of tariffs is to make the steel and aluminum coming in from abroad much more expensive so that it makes the American production, American steel, more competitive. But there does appear to be just broad sectoral challenges and headwinds facing the steel industry. of things like higher labor costs, higher energy costs. And the reason we import so much aluminum from Canada specifically is they have really cheap hydro power that power these mills, and they send it to the United States. The United States is the largest consumer market. We consume the
Starting point is 00:11:29 aluminum, and then we send the scrap metal abroad. We are the largest exporter of scrap metal. So that's kind of how the trade system has worked in a lower tariff environment. Now that tariffs are going up 25 percent, it could shake things up. But the U.S. steel industry is still facing an uphill battle for various broader, for broader challenges. And unlike other tariffs that Trump has announced, these are not easily negotiated away, right? So Trump announced tariffs, 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, all imports. And then he went back on that because Canada and Mexico made concessions. But it's not clear whether there are any concessions that these countries can make to have
Starting point is 00:12:12 these tariffs go away. this is more economic base. It's not based on immigration or drugs coming across the border. It's very clearly that Chinese steel is very cheap and depressing prices all around the world, which is making American steel less competitive. Yeah, you're right. There is a distinction between tariff threats that are aimed at, you know, getting countries to the negotiating table, dealing with things like fentanyl,
Starting point is 00:12:34 dealing with things like migration, and those that address U.S. trade deficits, it's trade irritants. It looks like we're seeing this bifurcation of Trump's tariff strategy. One, let's go to the negotiated table. One, we're actually trying to bolster U.S. domestic manufacturing. And we'll probably see some retaliation, because whenever you put a, you know, a trade war takes two to trade war. If you put tariffs on other countries, they are going to slap tariffs on you.
Starting point is 00:12:59 And Europe has said that they're going to come out with tariffs on high-profile American goods like Tennessee, Kentucky, Bourbon, and Harley-Davidson motorcycles, and Levi-David. jeans. Guess the coin flip was on President Trump's mind because right before the Super Bowl, he dropped a copper-plated bombshell. Trump said that he had ordered the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bassett, to stop producing new pennies. Why no new pennies? Government efficiency, according to Trump. He said, let's rip the waste out of our great nation's budget, even if it's a penny at a time, adding that pennies literally cost us more than two cents. He is absolutely right about that. The U.S. Mint said last year that it cost $3.69 cents to
Starting point is 00:13:39 produce and distribute a single penny far more than the coin's face value of one cent. All told, the mint lost $85 million last year, producing $3 billion pennies, which made up more than half of all the coins the mint made last year. Why are we making so many pennies? Is an excellent question that no one has a good answer to, and Trump would seem to have broad support in his attack against the penny, which has no clear role in today's economy. The only problem is it's not clear whether he has the authority
Starting point is 00:14:07 to unilaterally stop penny production, Congress, not the Treasury nor Fed, for that matter, oversees the production of coins and operations at the Mint. I thought you were going to ask a penny for my thoughts on this one, Neil, but I will give you my thoughts anyway. Elon Musk has come out and said, this is not going to be a huge savings for the government, but anytime we're spending more money on something that people don't actually use,
Starting point is 00:14:29 that's an example of something we should probably change. But what if I told you, Elon Musk didn't actually say that at all? And in fact, Barack Obama said it all the way back in a speech in 2013. So it really shows that this has been a decades-long debate about keeping the penny around. It is this very emblematic thing of government waste. It's not huge amounts of government weight. It's $85 million in the grand scheme of things. But it's certainly one of those things where you look at it and say it's just brutal to produce something
Starting point is 00:14:58 that literally is worth one cent for over three cents. So you can just look at around the world, though, to see. that other countries have successfully done this. Many would probably be surprised to learn that Canada got rid of its one cent coin. More than a decade ago, they just round up or round down at this point. So it might be tough psychologically for American consumers, you know, go to a convenience store and see their 99 cent Arizona IST rounded up to a dollar. There is a legitimate psychological tax that happens when that occurs.
Starting point is 00:15:30 So maybe it's been tough to get Americans on board with it. but this could be finally the death now for the penny that is just probably overstayed it's welcome. Can I play devil's advocate? Sure. So here's the argument for keeping the penny, and you can tell me if you are convinced. Well, the advocates for the penny are few, but they say that it would increase demand for nickels. And guess what? Nichols cost almost 14 cents to produce, which is way more than their face value of five cents.
Starting point is 00:16:02 they're way more expensive to produce than Nichols. And then as you just mentioned, we're going to be paying more for things. So Arizona IST is priced at 99 cents. Well, we're all going to be playing a dollar for that now. Is that not going to spark inflation? So are you convinced? I mean, I'm not convinced, really, because if you look at the cash transactions that happen in the US, 86.9% of all transactions in the U.S. were cashless in 2024. So there really isn't going to be, you're not going to even know if you're using Apple pay or a credit card and you're tapping. Like, I don't think there's going to be this moment where you're like, oh, shoot, I just got rounded up or rounded down. So I do think that we're just moving into a cashless society.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Well, even if you're paying by credit card, they won't round up or round out. Right. See, no, exactly. That's the difference here is that, I mean, I guess some people still do use cash. Like, again, the 86.9% isn't 100%, but it does look like this is something that just has enough momentum behind it. I really do wonder, though, because part of the thing that keeps, you know, it around is just nostalgia for people. Like, people don't want to get rid of this keepsake. They don't want to get rid of Abraham Lincoln, which, by the way, my fun penny fact is that Abraham Lincoln is technically the most reproduced piece of art in the world, the portrait of Abraham Lincoln on the penny because there have just been so many of them. There's been half a trillion
Starting point is 00:17:23 produced over its entire run. So if you want a fun fact or a fun trivia fact, the most reproduced piece of art on earth is Abraham Lincoln's portrait. I completely zagged there at the end for a fun. Yeah, I guess my final point here is we're not really sure what the future holds for the penny because as I said, Trump can't probably unilaterally do this. So he's
Starting point is 00:17:43 going to have to get Speaker Mike Johnson on board and have someone pass a bill that'll go through both chambers of Congress to end the penny. So we'll see what happens. There clearly is more momentum than there has been in recent memory to get rid of the penny. Up next,
Starting point is 00:17:59 it's time for Toby's trends. We're the Hartford, with decades of experience ensuring millions of unique small businesses when it comes to your small business insurance. Thank you. One size, absolutely does not fit all. Get a quote or find an agent today at thehartford.com slash small business.
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Starting point is 00:18:44 Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to home depot.com slash price match for details. All right, everyone. I have a bit of a bizarre trend for you today. Ankle watches. No, people aren't rocking Rolexes above their cancles. Instead, it's Apple watches that have migrated down. from the metacarpals to the metatarsals.
Starting point is 00:19:03 The New York Times reported that a growing number of people are relocating their Apple watches down south in pursuit of better fitness tracking or a workaround to everyday inconveniences. Say you have tattoos on your wrist or a skin condition that interrupts the watch's sensors, put it on your ankle. Maybe you're a healthcare worker
Starting point is 00:19:21 who is barred from wearing things on your wrist. Put it on your ankle. Or maybe your under-the-desk treadmill steps aren't getting counted while you work. ankle watch could solve all your problems. The New York Times calls the small but growing group of believers ankle watch acolytes and describes how their fashion choice sometimes elicit some second or third glances
Starting point is 00:19:42 while working out at a gym. One fitness influencer told the outlet that she often has to explain that no, she's not on house arrest wearing an ankle monitor. She just likes wearing it down there. But Neil, my big issue with this trend is that the sensors aren't designed for ankle use, even if some people swear it tracks their steps more accurately when it is on their ankle. No, so the folks at Apple Insider did a test.
Starting point is 00:20:06 They tried this one morning where they put an Apple Watch ultra on their wrist and another Apple Watch on their ankle and took measurements and saw whether these were consistent. And no, they were not consistent. Blood oxygenation readings varied by 5% or read 98% on the wrist, 93% on the ankle. heart rate varied as well. The wrist sensor showed 75 beats per minute. The ankle watch read 63 and warned twice about a low heart rate. So there were some certain inconsistencies. They didn't make the Apple Watch for the ankle. And there are good and interesting reasons that I've never thought about why an Apple Watch would not work on someone's wrist. But maybe putting it on your ankle is not going
Starting point is 00:20:48 to work for anything except maybe tracking steps. Well, don't bury the lead here. What are those good invaluable reasons why you put an Apple Watch on your wrist. You are, you're the Toby's Trends. Okay, fine. Well, I will tell you, one of them is if you have tattoos, it doesn't work if you have tattoos. Another person was a mom walking her kids in a stroller. She would put her hand on the stroller, and it would not count the steps that she was
Starting point is 00:21:13 doing because apparently your arm has to swing, and that is how Apple tracks your steps. So there are a number of use cases where people might not have the, the ability to wear an Apple watch, another person just had a very small wrist and the band didn't work. So she put it just on her ankle. So there are reasons. And maybe there is a market here for wearables that don't go on your wrist. That's what this kind of sparked for me.
Starting point is 00:21:40 That really is the final point that I will add here is that wrist watch heart rate monitors are actually not very reliable at all. There is just something about the skin contact that gets interrupted every once in a while. It is, you know, firing this green-colored light and seeing how many red blood cells reflect it back. So it's just not quite as accurate as something like a chest rate monitor, a chest heart rate monitor, or an arm heart rate monitor. So I will use my platform right now to say, if you are seriously into fitness tracking, go get a reliable heart rate monitor. The Apple Watch is, whether it's on your wrist or your ankle, isn't probably going to give you the most accurate data overall. Now let's sprint to the finish with some more headlines you may have missed.
Starting point is 00:22:20 Up first, Elon Musk still hasn't closed the book on his beef with OpenAI. A consortium of investors led by the Doge Chief has submitted an offer of $97.4 billion to buy out the nonprofit that controls OpenAI. It throws a multi-billion dollar wrench into Sam Altman's carefully laid plans to convert the company into a for-profit entity, something Elon has long railed against. Altman quickly rejected the offer, writing on X, No thank you, but we will buy Twitter for $9.74 billion if you want for some decimal-related smack talk. Neil, is this must-bid fully serious?
Starting point is 00:23:00 Who knows? But what the offer does do is stir up some questions as to how the nonprofit should be valued. Elon Musk replied to that Sam Altman ex post saying Swindler. And really, this is like Kendrick Lamar versus Drake, but for people whose favorite book is Sapiens. And the reason that this throws a wrench into Sam Altman's plans to turn AI and Open AI into a for-profit private enterprise is that this, they need to, when they break off from the nonprofit, which is what they want to do, they need to compensate the nonprofit arm of Open A.I. And they probably don't want to pay that much. But the nonprofit has to accept the bid that is accurate market value. So if there is an external actor saying, oh, we'll pay $97 billion for the nonprofit,
Starting point is 00:23:49 then the nonprofit can't say Open AI, your lowball bid will take that. They have to assess all bids, you know, compare them against each other. So what this does is set a starting price that Open AI has to come and pay, probably pay a lot more than they wanted to for this nonprofit. It sets up a bidding war. Yeah, it's literally the fiduciary duty of the nonprofits board to accept the bid. that values it at a fair market price. And Musk has said that he or will actually continue to bid up to outbid whatever bid Altman
Starting point is 00:24:23 and co kind of come up with. So I don't think this is the end of it. I'm not sure if the board will ever get on board with Elon because the board is filled with some Sam Altman supporters. But it is a fascinating, like, again, I'm not sure how serious the bid is, but it is serious. Like he does have a consortium of investors. So I don't think this will be the last we hear of, you know, Elon Musk trying to the last gas to regain control of the company that he and Sam Altman originally founded all those
Starting point is 00:24:48 years ago. President Trump signed an executive order that instructed the DOJ to stop enforcing a half-century old anti-bribery law. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, introduced in 1977, bans American companies from bribing foreign officials to win business. But Trump said, while that sounds good on paper in practice, it's a disaster. He said the anti-bribery law puts American companies at a disadvantage when competing for contracts overseas and that any firm that wants to do business internationally, even legitimately, gets investigated under the rule. Anti-corruption critics say the executive order defangs
Starting point is 00:25:23 what had been a key tool officials used to crack down on companies doing sketchy things. Last year, the SEC and DOJ filed 26 enforcement actions under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Yeah, under Trump's interpretation of this is that a lot of deals get killed because nobody wants to run a foul of this law. he says that every time they pick up a phone, they think that they might be going to jail.
Starting point is 00:25:46 So he's trying to loosen these restrictions. It also is just a pause on enforcement. They're saying they just want to get a better understanding of how this law, FCPA, actually functions. But remember, the intent of this law was to prevent American firms from, you know, taking part in a lot of the public corruption that does roll and run in some parts of the world. It was supposed to be this bedrock principle of how Americans do business abroad and how how they operate overseas. So you can see why there's some pushback and some alarm bells ringing that we are going
Starting point is 00:26:18 to undermine this bedrock of kind of doing business with integrity abroad. But you see the DOJ did announce enforcement actions 24 cases in 2024. So it isn't like this rampant thing that is constantly violated, but it is something that DOJ does keep an eye on. 126 million people tuned in to watch Patrick Mahomes throw the ball repeatedly to Eagles players. and what was another record-setting Super Bowl. Fox's main broadcast averaged 111.5 million viewers, but the sugar on top was its free streaming service to be,
Starting point is 00:26:51 which drew 13.6 million to push it into record-setting territory. As cord-cutting leads to drops in traditional TV viewing, the Super Bowl remains an unstoppable force. This was the third big game in a row to set a new viewership record. Neil, the only people happier than Fox execs right now are probably Kendrick Lamar. fans. Maybe Roger Goodell knows what he's talking about because we want the Super Bowl to happen on Saturday. He insisted that Sunday would lead to, or always leads to better viewership. And this is
Starting point is 00:27:22 an absolutely monster number, 126 million. Go back to 2021. 95 million people watch the Super Bowl that came in under 100 million. Now we're back to 126, the most ever monoculture. The NFL is monoculture. And I can't say that word. And I think, know, most people tuned in, you're right, not for the football itself, but this was packed with celebrities both in commercials and on the in the stands themselves. Trump, Swift was there, Kendrick Lamar, Samuel Jackson, Anne Hathaway. I mean, the list goes on and the Super Bowl does have a very long half-life after the fact because these videos go viral and the chatter continues to stay.
Starting point is 00:28:04 So we're on Tuesday and, you know, a lot of Super Bowl storylines, whether it's Kendrick Lamar's jeans or Anne Hathaway dancing. has still continued to this day. I know, I'm still reading all the, you know, the references in Karachi Clymouth's halftime performance. I feel like I'm studying for a test trying to pick up everything that, you know, he dropped in that performance. Don't even think about busking on the streets of Bangalore without a permit, even if you're a pretty famous ginger from West Yorkshire. Over the weekend, Ed Shearan was stopped by police while holding an impromptu street concert in Bangalore,
Starting point is 00:28:36 a city of 13 million people in India. A viral video showed a police officer approaching Shearin while he was singing The Shape of You and unplugs his microphone, which led to jeering from the crowd who was singing along. The police deputy commissioner defended their party foul, claiming Shearin didn't have a permit and that their job was to keep this busy street moving. Lawmakers joined in saying even global stars must follow local rules. No permit, no performance. Toby, this would never have happened to Benson Boone. Two takeaways from this. One, never knew the word busking until reading this story, which just means to play music on the street for donations.
Starting point is 00:29:13 And two, Ed Shearin loves India. He's there in India for the second year in a row, 15-day tour. And it also shows that demand for live music in India has been heating up. He's got, Ed Shearons got the rest of his tour to complete. It's on the heels of Dua Lipa doing a concert there. Cold play went on a multi-city tour as well. So I do think you are seeing the concert economy in India start to heat. I don't know if he's going to like them anymore.
Starting point is 00:29:37 He claims they got a permit. You said we did all the paperwork. I was supposed to be out there. Everyone knew. And he was putting on this, you know, strumming his guitar and his little elvish style. But apparently the officials cracked down. Maybe we'll see Ed Shearin's Super Bowl performer one day.
Starting point is 00:29:54 One day. Let's wrap it up there. Thanks so much for starting your morning with us. And have a wonderful Tuesday. For any questions, comments, or feedback, send an email to morning brewdaily at morningbrew. dot com. And if you're enjoying the show, share it with a pal, family member, or coworker. Friends, don't let friends be uninformed about the cost of the penny.
Starting point is 00:30:12 Toby, who should everyone listening share the pod with today? I want you to share the podcast with someone who should test out the ankle watch trend. Maybe it's just a small-risted friend. Maybe it's someone with a sick wrist tattoo. But share it with them. Then report back as to how their ankle wearing went. Let's roll the credits. Emily Milliron is our executive producer.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Raymond Loo is our producer. Olivia Graham is our associate producer. Eichena Ogu is our technical director. Scoop Starteris is on audio. Hair makeup is free on Valentine's Day if anyone needs a hot date. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our shows of production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Own it all.
Starting point is 00:30:59 Pay off your home, travel for life. Drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Bucks slot machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package, the biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29th. Don't pass go and own it
Starting point is 00:31:18 all, only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion.

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