Morning Brew Daily - Russian Turmoil's Impact On The Global Economy & The Fruit States Crop Crisis

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Episode 89: Neal and Toby explain what is going on in Russia; who is the Wagner Group and how has the civil unrest in Moscow impacted the global economy? They also break down the not-so-peachy crop crisis happening in Florida and Georgia and why wild weather is to blame and did you know that Elton John has the highest-grossing tour of all-time!? Plus, Congress is proposing a decrease in training hours for commercial pilots to combat the national pilot shortage. Then Neal and Toby share their winners of the weekend and what else we are watching for this week. Listen to Morning Brew Daily Here: https://link.chtbl.com/MBD Watch Morning Brew Daily Here: https://www.youtube.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Many employees can't afford a hefty medical bill that pops up out of the blue. But it happens. And employees who are financially stressed are, understandably, more likely to be distracted at work, costing their employers greatly in lost productivity. Luckily, AFLAC plans help with out-of-pocket expenses not covered by health insurance and can be offered at no direct cost to businesses. Learn more at aflac.com slash morningbrewdaily. That's aflack.com slash morning brewdaily.

Good morning, Brew Daily show. I am Neil Fryman. And I am Toby Howell. On today's Monday morning pod, Russia had an eventful weekend, to say the least. We will catch you up on what happened and what it all means going forward. And the pilot training regulation that has senators telling each other, they'll have blood on their hands. Then, Neil will explain why you might be seeing higher prices when buying orange juice these days before finishing up by checking in on the Rocket Man himself, Elton John, who just played his last show ever in England,

concluding one of the most lucrative careers in all of showbiz. It's Monday, June 26. Let's ride. Toby, I have big news. I watched Titanic for the first time this weekend. Wow. Just felt like the right time to dive in. Yeah, why did you do that? I don't know.

Titanic was in the news. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. So it was freaking good. Yeah, what's your... It totally deserves all of the accolades again. got amazingly epic tragic story, stunning visuals, very hokey love story. What's your favorite part?

Give me your favorite scene. Okay. I have an admission. Okay. I didn't watch the last hour. Okay. That's fair. You don't need the, you know what happens.

Oh my God. I thought you were going to be like, how did you not watch the last hour? No, you know how it adds. The love story is more fun in my opinion. Exactly. I was like, I know these people are going to die. The water is about up to their waist right now. It's soon going to be up to their heads.

I know it's crashing and sinking. So I was like, you know, I'm going to go to. to bed right now and I don't need to see, you know, thousands of people die. I'm glad you're, I did not know you were going to be so receptive to that. Neil, I'm always receptive. The problem with the dialogue. The dialogue is super cringy. Leo. They just say each other's names like for half of their lines. It's like, Rose Jack, Neil, so do we. That's true, but we're on a podcast. We're allowed to. All right, let's get to the news. There was almost a civil war in Russia this weekend. That was pretty Wild. Here's the TLDR. The leader of Russia's private mercenary army of Genie Progogian

blew a fuse against the country's leadership, which he has not been shy in criticizing in the past, and accused them of bombing his own Wagner troops. He then told his soldiers to turn their tanks around from fighting Ukraine and instead march on Moscow. They got two-thirds of the way there and took over one major Russian city before the two sides agreed to a surprise truce. Progoshin was exiled the Belarus and his troops stopped their advance on Moscow. But while the rebellion was more of the Pixar animated short version of a coup, it still represented the most significant threat to Putin's rule since he took charge of Russia more than 20 years ago. And it could destabilize the Russian government even more,

as it's what has already been a mess of a campaign against the Ukrainians. Instead of Putin focusing on repelling the Ukrainian counterattack, he's now having to look over his shoulder to see if any of his other deputies are, plotting to stab him in the back. So you want to sign that Russia has been weakened from this? Just look to the markets. The ruble fell up to 3% against the dollar today to its lowest point since Russia launched his invasion last year. But Neil, we got to talk about who Pregozion is because he has an insane bio. So he was arrested two times for robbery in his early years. Then he got out and started a hot dog stand in a flea market. I didn't know they like hot dogs in Russia.

I know. I guess so. And then he turned that hot dog stand. into kind of this Russian empire. Some of the restaurants have been described as a little kitsy, but we won't pat judgment on that. And then he also became a close confidant to Putin. Then he started the private military group, Wagner Group, and he actually cedes that group with convicts from Russian jails. That's where he kind of populates the group with. And then he also was the financier of the Internet Research Agency, which is what the Department

of Justice called a Russian troll farm in this two. 2018 indictment about interference in the 2016 election. And then now he did this coup attempt. So what a LinkedIn bio for this night. What a LinkedIn bio. Crazy. Hot Dog Stand a coup in the span of one lifetime. His name, yeah, he's known as Putin's chef.

Right. Because, yeah, he catered. He has these huge catering contracts with the Russian army. I guess that leads you to become a mercenary leader. He's a millionaire. He's this like oligarch. Yeah. But yeah.

Honestly, very confusing time to kind of be a Western nation watching this unfold. a lot of people are like, who like, coo-attent. And then they're like, wait a second, this Progogian guy, not good news at all. Like, you definitely don't want him kind of running the country at all. So everyone was on Twitter and when you were talking to people over the weekend, you're like, is this a good thing or not? So it was just a weird time to be observing this unfold. So did you talk to people about this?

Because I was at multiple social events. Right. Like we were not, you know, we were just hanging out, watching golf or whatever. And people were like, did you hear what's happening in Russia? Like, are you, do you see what's happening?

They've taken Rostov. And I'm like, I honestly have not been following because it's my one day off from checking Twitter. But I will read up tomorrow and tell you on the podcast. But I was like obviously following. But it literally came up at parties and things. Yeah. That people were very plugged into this.

They completely forgot about the submersible and were all in on this coup. Right. That was the joke all weekend. It was like the experts in deep sea, Titanic diving pivoted to Russian, like, politics expert in the span of 24 hours. But yeah, definitely. And then if we want to just check in on what Ukraine thought about all this, President Zelensky said that the march from Prokosin shows

that the bosses of Russia do not control anything. Nothing at all, complete chaos. So obviously, Ukraine is saying that this shows weakness from the Russian side. Right. And Russia has been using Wagner, did I say that right, Wagner, Wagner? I don't know, to really, they've been relying on them heavily in Ukraine in in the past starting in 2014 and wagner has been very active not in not only in russia but in syria and in africa kind of advancing russian soft power in like sub-saharan africa it's very yeah kind of shady stuff it's james bond villain level stuff so that's your breakdown of the russian situation hopefully when someone asks you if you've been following it you can say yeah i listen to morning boo daily i know what's going on all right neal our next story brings us down

to the peach state and the sunshine state where things aren't actually so peachy or so sunny. A combination of weather and disease has demolished the harvest of oranges in Florida and peaches in Georgia. So for Florida, it was the one-two punch of hurricanes in the fall

and then something called greening disease, which is this disease that makes oranges a little greener, which makes them taste bitterer, less juicy, less orange. And then for Georgia, it was a combination of cold weather and all the wrong times of the year. get into that. In total, Florida is staring down a season where they've only harvested 18 million boxes of oranges compared to a peak of 250 million in the early 2000s, while Georgia is looking at a year

where 95% of their peach crop has been destroyed. That's a wild. Just a brutal time to be in the citrus industry. There's literally no, and the stone fruit industry. Right. There's no, yeah, I got to flex my fruit. Got to flex my fruit knowledge. But these are not so equal to compare, Because for Florida, the orange and orange juice industry is massive. They are the number one producer of juice oranges in the country, and that industry is worth $6.9 billion. So, as you know, you can tell us from growing up in Florida how big a deal oranges are for Florida.

Meanwhile, Georgia for peaches, it's more of a branding exercise, and they've somehow become associated with peaches because it is the peach state. But it's not really a big economic factor for Georgia. I think they only bring in like $54 or $34 million a year from peaches compared to other cash crops like cotton, which brings in $1.4 billion. This is kind of like a small thing. And obviously the farmers of peaches are, you know, definitely impacted. But it seems like there's only three big companies that operate in this one single area in Georgia that produced 95% of the entire state's crop. Yeah, I mean, good branding exercise for Georgia.

You're totally right on that. But I also want to get in and put my science hat on science hat Toby because why the the peach crop failed in Georgia is very interesting. So peaches actually require a certain number of chill hours to allow the plants to go dormant. And a lot of scientists say dormant is like plants sleeping basically. It gives them time to recharge. So there weren't enough chill hours in the winter months of the year. It was too warm during that time. But then come March, Georgia got hit with a ton of cold warm.

weather, which is not when you want it, which froze the plants. So it was a combination of too much warm weather when they needed to be cold and then too much cold weather when it needed to be warm. And it ends up, yeah, 95%. Climate change is not going to be good for Georgia peaches. Meanwhile, orange juice, you said it's going to taste bad. Right. So more bitter. Right. And so you're probably going to get orange juice from Florida and you're just going to be like this does not taste good, even if you don't brush your teeth beforehand. Oh my God. So right now, I mean, and it's going to be super expensive. A gallon of orange juice is already above $10 and this, you know, this crop, this lack of supply is definitely going to drive it even higher. So it's sad for me because a core

memory of growing up in Florida is smelling tropicana burning the orange peels because I lived near a tropicana factory. And so waking up in the morning, going to school, you'd smell like this burnt orange. It's not necessarily good smell, but it's just a core smell from my, from my memories. All right. So you're going to have to lay off the orange juice this winter and Justin Bieber is going going to have to get his peaches from somewhere other than Georgia. That is our takeaway here. All right, let's move on to our next story. There is a nasty fight brewing in Congress over pilot training regulations, and I promise this is really fascinating once you dig into it. The Senate is about to vote on a major aviation policy bill, but Kristen Sinema,

the moderate Democrat whose approval is necessary to push bills through, is stalling the vote because she wants what's known as the 1,500-hour rule for pilots loosening. This requirement mandates that pilots log 1,500 hours of flying time before they can become first officers on a commercial airline. And there was a specific event that led to this creation. A Colgan Airjet crashed in western New York in 2009, killing 50 people, and that spurred lawmakers to take action to improve airline safety. So they bumped up the number of training hours from 250 to 1,500, a massive increase.

An analyst and airline execs cite this rule as the cause of the pilot. shortage that's plaguing the industry right now. They say it's a major barrier to entry into the pilot profession. So bringing it back to the current day, cinema wants this rule eased up. But Tammy Duckworth, another Democratic senator who lost both of her legs when her Black Hawk helicopter was attacked in the Iraq war, ripped into cinema last week, saying that she'd have blood on her hands if she got her way. Duckworth said, now is not the time to put corporate profits ahead of the lives of our constituents who may want to board a commercial flight. It's very tough to argue. against the 1500 hour rule.

You can say it's excessive, but like no one wants to be on the side of loosening airline regulations because the argument can only be, oh, you're trying to make air travel less safe. We've just entered the most safe period of airline travel in our history. But then you look at the pilot shortage, and you do think that maybe if we loosen it up a little bit, some of these like American Airlines has grounded some regional flights because they just simply don't have enough pilots on their roster. And so I can see like this debate, but I, if I had to pick aside, like, I don't think it's going to get repealed or lowered anytime soon just because, again, it's tough to argue against.

So Andrew Leff, who's this aviation industry expert who everyone looks to, says it's actually less safe because of the 1500 rule. Because basically what you need to do is just log time. So you can go in your single-seat aircraft and just like fly in sunny days when you have time. and you're not actually gaining real-world experience, so you're not actually prepared. It's like going to, you know, it's like you're a basketball player and you go to the gym,

and you're just jacking up threes without a defender in your face. Are you going to actually be better unless you play like scrimmages? You're preaching to the choir. Practice with purpose, Neil, you're right. Right. So that's the whole point.

They're saying you're not practicing with purpose. You're just kind of logging hours when it's not consequential or anything. And it only is, you know, you only make the pilot profession available to wealthy people. Right. So you're limiting diversity because who has time if you're working one or two jobs to feed your family to go 1,500 hours in a plane on joy rides.

Yeah. And people look at the, you mentioned the Colgan flight, air flight that kind of precipitated this change. Both those pilots actually had over 1,500 hours in training already. So people are like, okay, well, didn't even present the disaster that predicated the rule that we made. Did I convince you? You always convinced me. You're a convincing fellow. We know this.

All right. We're going to get into the second half of the show where Neil can convince me even more, but right now we're going to take a quick break. It's time to refresh your yard during spring backyard days at the Home Depot. Get low prices guaranteed on propane grills starting at $179, like the next grill 3-burner gas grill,

or get $50 off a select Weber Spirit grill and bring big flavor to your backyard. Then set the scene with Hampton Bay string lights that bring it all together. Shop Spring backyard days for seven days at the Home Depot. Now through May 6th. Exclusion supplies to homedipo.com slash price match for details. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel

is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only a Yama Vah Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win?

Must be 21 to enter. All right, Neil, today is Monday, which means it's time for our post-weekend segment, winners of the weekend. That's where we both pick out someone or something that had an especially great weekend. Neil kick us off first. Who is your winner of the weekend? All right, my winner is Mr. Beast because he is not dead. Good for him.

The YouTuber was apparently offered an invite on the Titan submersible that imploded last week, killing all five on board. We know this because yesterday morning, Mr. Bees tweeted, I was invited earlier this month to ride the Titanic submarine. I said no, kind of scary that I could have been on it. Can you imagine? Okay, the media frenzy was huge to begin with. Yes. Imagine if Mr. Beast was on this thing. Heaven and earth would have been moved for sure.

But wait, take us through the controversy of the, the, the, screenshot that he posted. Okay, so I'm not so well versed in iPhone message colors because I'm an Android guy very famously. But apparently people were saying that it was a blue text, which means that he sent it. Yeah. So everyone was kind of questioning, not everyone, but some people were kind of questioning the veracity of whether he actually was offered this. Right. He was saying I was invited, but then they're like, wait a second, this is a text that you sent. But then other people came to his defense and saying this was probably a screenshot from the person who sent the text. So I don't know.

It was, I mean, what... It makes sense that he was offered this. Yeah, absolutely. And you know what was funny, too, is that when it was happening, people were making these jokes saying, like, fake Mr. B's headlines of, I invited five friends on the Titanic. And now it turns out he was actually invited.

So, yeah, I mean, good on his claustrophobia, I guess. It's a lesson that you can just say no to invites. Someone asks you to go somewhere? You can just be like, nah, I'm too busy, or no, I don't feel like going. Protect your calendar, yeah. All right, Neil, my winner of the weekend. is an Indiana high school student who announced on Friday that he committed to play college golf at Ball State. Good school, good golf program, but why is he my winner?

Well, his name is Happy Gilmore. Yes, a kid named Happy Gilmore is going to play D1 Golf. You literally cannot make this up. And of course, Happy Gilmore is the name of the 1996 Adam Sandler film about a golfer who hits the ball really far. And the real Adam Sandler saw the real Happy Gilmore's tweet and congratulated. him on Twitter. And I do have a little Baxter in his name too. So apparently Happy Gilmore's real name

is actually Landon Gilmore. But he's gone by Happy since he won a long drive contest at nine years old. So I think it fits. If you got the name Happy from a long drive contest, that's pretty epic. I would, I think it would be even better if his name was Happy Gilmore

by birth and then he wasn't necessarily a golfer and then he just happened to be a good golfer. Yeah, but that would have been too on the nose from the parents of naming him. Happy Gilmore, so I'm glad he came to it through organic means. So I'm on team. It's good that he was a long drive contested at 9. So unbelievable, though, like Twitter blew up around this, and the guy milked it for everything

he's worth. So I'll be following Happy Gilmer's career at Ball State. That's for sure. I wonder if he puts with a hockey stick. He's actually a good player, too. He got seventh in the state tourney, and he shot 66 at a U.S. Junior Amateur Qualifier recently. I looked into his backstory, too.

So the kid can play. All right, Neil. our next story takes us across the pond where Elton John has played what many believe is his last ever show in England over the weekend in Glass and Barry. It's sad for a lot of Brits because Elton is one of their own and an absolute tour day force. So I did a little digging just to run through some of the figures that shows just how big of a tour de force he actually is. Despite all our talk about Taylor Swift and Beyonce's tours this year, it's actually Elton John's farewell. Yellow Bick Road Tour that is the highest grossing tour of all time. It's grossed more than $887 million across 300 shows in 20 different countries. Just a quick quiz, Neil, do you know who

has the second highest grossing tour of all time? I mean, I have it copied in my... No, I do. It's Ed Shearin. It's Ed Shearer. Ed Shearin, the ginger solid of our generation. He's number two. So yes, Neil, Rocket Man might be hanging up his sparkling cape here soon in a minute, but what a career for them. Also, this tour has been going on since 2018. I know. When do you say, like, this is actually two tours or three tours? I mean, you could just go on one tour for your entire career and rack it up and get to the top of the list.

I don't know. Well, he is at the top of the list. He's actually the highest grossing solo act of all time grossed over 200 or nearly 200. Two billion. Two billion, not 200 billion. I also have that written down. $2 billion, $20 million ticket sales. The guy just is amazing.

And he started this tour in Allen Town, Pennsylvania. And I had to be I was thinking I've been to Allentown. I don't know if I would start my You know, farewell tour in Allentown, Pennsylvania. So I was kind of digging around why he's starting in Allentown. Yeah with no offense to anybody who's from Allentown of here, but apparently it's close to a stage Production Company that makes the stage. So I so for some reason he was like we're going to reduce logistics cost here and get the stage just popped over on I-80 here. I also did some digging because his performance to that Glassonbury, which is this huge festival in England. And a lot of people were like, okay, the performance was electric. He crushed it, but they were a little disappointed in the

guests that he brought out because apparently the buzz all weekend was that he was bringing Britney Spears out because to perform her version of Tiny Dancer with Elton Don. And so when people found out that she wasn't coming, people, like the quotes were hilarious of like, Elton was great. Like, I loved being there, but like, no, Britney was a little disappointing. So that's your, that's your glass and berry tea for anyone. All right. So Ellen John's finishing up his tour and where else, but Stockholm, Sweden on July 8th, where he's expected to jump on fiance and drive up inflation even more.

So poetically elegant. What's your favorite Elton song before we go? Rocket Man. I absolutely love it. Because there was a cover that came out recently. Elton's very active in the current music community, too. So I absolutely love Rocket Man. It's different for sure.

And Billy Joel's hanging up the cleats. Madison Square Garden. All of our little childhood pop idols are going into retirement. All right, let's quickly go into our week ahead. It is a big week heading into July 4th weekend. Supreme Court, everybody is watching them this weekend, or this week, because they're going to wrap up their term, and they have some major rulings that we've been talking about, student loan debt forgiveness, race-conscious college admissions policies, LGBTQ rights are all in the docket.

So expect some really big news out of the Supreme Court. And the first half of the year concludes we're going to hit June 30th. So it might be time to check in on your accounting department or review your New Year's resolutions to see how well you're doing. Or not, if you have not been doing well like me. Coming to screens, we got a new season of The Bachelorette today. That was the talk of our control room. The Witcher Season 3 on Thursday. And then the final Indiana Jones movie of Harrison Ford's career is on Friday.

We're losing Harrison Ford. We're losing Harrison Ford. There's a famous quote back from 2009 where he goes, nobody's going to be Indiana Jones. Don't you get it? I'm Indiana Jones. When I'm gone, he's gone. It's easy.

I love that for Harris. And Chris Pratt, who wanted to be Indiana Jones, was like, scared off. He's like, no, I'm not doing this. He got Mario instead. All right, what else do we got? LSU and Florida play for the College World Series and a winner-take-all game tonight.

It's been an electric atmosphere. This event is only growing each year. It makes me like baseball. I don't watch a ton of baseball outside of the College World Series, but Electric Factory. It's very fun. They use metal bats, so they just crank homers all the time. One of the busiest new museums in the U.S., which is the International African American Museum, opened in Charleston, South Carolina tomorrow.

That is a big deal. Hollywood actors could strike if a labor deal isn't reached by Saturday, in which case the actors and the writers would be on strike. The directors agreed to a deal, so it's not going to be this trio of work stoppages. Neil, we're the only entertainment on these days. It's kind of good for us. And then finally, the Tour de France starts on Saturday. And Lance Armstrong got ratioed this.

Did you see that? I didn't see that. Oh, no. He's launching a series talking about fairness in sports and talking about transgender rights. And everyone kind of lit into him saying, do you think, sir, you are the one to talk about fairness in sports? Underrated sporting event, though, Tour de France. No, it's fun.

But is it a good TV sport? Yeah, it's great. The announcers are super informed. and I absolutely, I love watching it. Yeah, no, I know some people who are, who like swear by watching it, they're big slow burn, but it's good. Yeah, it is fun. The landscapes are cool too.

And just watching them go up these inclines. Superhuman. Superhuman. All right, that is our show. Thanks for joining us to start off the week. Happy Monday. Remember, we will read your emails and eventually reply to them. So if you want to get in contact with us, our email address is Morningbrewdaily at

morningbrew.com. Let's roll these credits. Big shout out to Emily Milliron, our editor, and producer. I'm sure she was not happy with my Allentowns Slander. Samantha Velas and Raymond Liu are the associate producers. Yuchinawa Ogu is our technical director. Dili Benino is on audio. Hair and makeup has been exiled to Belarus after we squash their rebellion. Don't try that again. Devin Emery is our chief content officer and our show is a production

of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil. Let's run it back tomorrow. Enjoy more ways to save at Ralph's like low prices in every aisle. And when you download the Ralph's app, you can clip and save more with digital coupons every week. Plus, you can earn fuel points to save up to $1 per gallon at the pump. At Ralph's, you can enjoy more ways to save and more rewards every time you shop. So it's always easy to save big every day with savings and rewards. Ralph's SoCal for over 150 years. Savings may vary by state. Fuel restrictions apply. C-Sight for details.