Morning Brew Daily - US Budget Deficit Skyrockets & Amazon Replacing Employees with Robots?

Episode Date: October 23, 2023

Episode 175: Neal and Toby explain how the US budget deficit hit $1.7 trillion as Congress ends their fiscal year. Plus, the guys wrap up the biggest headlines of the weekend, including the fallout between Jon Stewart and Apple and Taylor Swift at the box office. Also, how one museum is connecting Van Gogh and Pokemon cards, and why orange juice is out and apple juice is in. Finally, is the actors strike nearing a breaking point? And a preview of what 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/@MorningBrewDailyShow Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good morning brew daily show. Brian. And I'm Toby Howell. On today's pod, the U.S. budget deficit doubled from last year, and it couldn't come at a worse time. Then Hollywood actors have officially been on strike for 100 days now, and they're staring down their biggest challenge yet. What to wear for Halloween this year. It's Monday, October 23rd. Let's ride. So, Neil, I was scrolling TikTok last night as one does, and I came across a video explaining why it's rained seven consecutive weekends in New York. Apparently, there is an atmospheric traffic jam happening right now. There's a high pressure system hanging over Canada that keeps bouncing storms back our

way. And since weather often follows a pattern of some sort, when these storms roll in every six to seven days, they just happen to start on a Saturday. So now we're stuck in this ring of loop forever. It's been so brutal, but I think we have come over the edge. We're past the precipice. Next Saturday is going to be gorgeous, and I don't feel bad about staying inside all day. While we're on the subject, the NOAA also came out with his annual.

winter outlook last week, and this winter season is going to largely be shaped by El Nino. In the north, we're probably going to have a milder, warmer winter, and in the south, they're going to get soaked. So as you're doing your winter shopping, wherever you are, listening to this, that's the general winter outlook. Warmer, milder, I like the sound of that. All right, before we get into the news, let's start with a quick shout out to today's sponsor. Neil, Halloween is coming up, and I have a costume idea for the good listeners of MVD.

If you say Yahoo Finance, I swear to God. It's Yahoo Finance. Hear me out. Who wouldn't want to dress up as the Internet's number one finance platform trusted by over 150 million visitors globally each month? Okay, I don't know how you would dress up as that. Okay, well, obviously you wear all purple, and then you just spout off reliable market data

and breaking news whenever someone asks what you are. Okay. I mean, I guess I'm sold. Head to finance.yahu.com if you're looking for help navigating the financial landscape or picking out a costume idea, or you can download the Yahoo Finance mobile app to get it directly on your phone.

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Book on Hilton.com or the Hilton app and save up to 20% to get the stay you expected. When you want savings, not surprises. It matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. Let's start with the U.S.'s financial situation, which is in desperate need of a consultation with money with Katie. On Friday, the Treasury Department said that the federal budget deficit spiked 23% to $1.7 trillion

in 2020. Side note, the deficit is the difference between what the government spends and what it brings in, just to clear that out of the way. This $1.7 trillion deficit would be spooky enough on a lot. its own, but that figure is actually a low ball. There was an accounting mirage due to Biden's student loan debt cancellation the Supreme Court struck down. So what you're actually looking at is a deficit that doubled from $1 trillion to $2 trillion this year. Critics say these mounting debts are not sustainable and puts the U.S. on a dangerous fiscal path. We can dive into the

specific reasons behind the search in a bit, but just at a high level, the drivers include lower tax revenues, higher interest rates, and remnants spending on COVID relief benefits. The U.S. is also paying an ungodly amount on interest payments for its debt. The $659 billion the government paid on interest was almost twice the level from 2021. This bleak deficit picture comes at a time when the U.S. is attempting to fund allies in two wars, Ukraine and Israel, and trying to finalize a spending bill to keep the government from shutting down in a few weeks. This data will only jack up the temperature around government spending further. I mean, financing the debt has just gotten so, so expensive. That's the big thing that's set out to me is that now that the central central bank has

raised interest rates and that the 10-year treasury note is flirting with a 5% yield, it's just so expensive for the government to actually make these loan payments. And if we continue on this path, it's going to become the second largest government program, just servicing interest rate, servicing debt behind Social Security. So again, it gets really unsustainable when you start considering it in terms of what we're spending the money on. And this is just like money that's burning away. Economists cringe so hard when we spend, however many hundreds of billions of dollars just servicing our debt. We spend more paying down our debt than on child care programs altogether, and eventually we might pay more than even we spend on Social Security

down the line. So this is quite urgent for some economists. Another thing to pay attention to is tax revenues dropped more than 40 percent. And a big reason behind that was that the stock market didn't do well, so people paid less capital gains. The I.I. IRS is now going out trying to recoup some lost tax revenue with its $80 billion that it got from Biden from the Inflation Reduction Act. And it reported last week that some of that, you know, it's made some progress. It brought in $122 million from millionaire tax cheats, but that's obviously a drop in the bucket for this trillion dollar deficit.

Yeah. And then there is just trouble on the horizon, too. I mean, you mentioned it, but we have this government shutdown that is kind of looming. And then you have the House, obviously, gridlock. they can't do anything until they elect a speaker. And then it just makes these federal funding negotiations just all the more tense, because unless you can figure these kind of make some compromises on both sides, we're going to have a government shutdown and this deficit is growing.

So a lot of people do like pointing at the deficit in saying this is a runaway train that's out of control. And sometimes when you see this data, I'm kind of on their side. This is an unsustainable path we're on. If interest rates do come down, which they're expected to, we have a really strong economy. This is very unusual for the deficit to expand during a time of economic growth because people are making more money. They're paying more tax revenue to the government. So this is very unusual, and I think it has to do with this very peculiar economic situation we're in where interest rates are so high. If they come down, we do have a solid economy and that might reduce the deficit like people expected.

This was so surprising. So we'll see what happens in the future. But Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did say that we could easily afford to fund all of this military expenditure for us. allies abroad. Yeah, she was kind of playing the hits. She says the U.S. economy remains resilient despite the global headwind. So she was trying to kind of tow the line between saying we can afford this, but also we need to get this under control. All right, Neil, for our second story of the day, I want to do a little weekend news roundup. Lots of things happen from Friday afternoon to Monday morning when we jump inside the studio. So we picked four stories from the weekend that

we think you all should know about. Neil, you won the pre-show Long Division contest, so you're up first. course I did. The first development goes back to a discussion we had last week about how CEOs and companies were tripping up with their responses to the Israel-Hamas war. Well, on Saturday, Patty Cosgrave resigned as CEO of Web Summit, which hosts one of the world's largest tech conferences due to his remarks on the conflict. Last week, Cosgrave wrote on X that war crimes are war crimes, even when committed by allies, a critique of Israel's heavy bombardment of Gaza in response to Hamas' terrorist attack on October 7th. Cossgrave, comments drew tons of backlash from the tech community for not condemning Hamas, and a wave

of major companies, including Google, Intel, Meta, and Stripe backed out of the summit that was scheduled for next month in Lisbon, Portugal. Cosgrave apologized but decided to step down, saying he did not want to become a distraction. The summit is still scheduled to take place, and some tech writers pointed out that Cosgrave still owns 82% of the company, so him resigning is essentially a title change, but it's still notable. We've seen how this war has caused internal controversy at companies like McDonald's and Starbucks and across college campuses, but this is the first exec I can think of who's stepped down over their bungled response. Yeah, and we have a ton of earnings calls coming up this week, so I'm sure execs will be asked about it again. And so far,

only 20% of the 100 largest S&P companies have made a formal statement on it. So expect to see more of those statements coming out this week. So we'll see what people have to say. All right, our next bit of news comes from the entertainment world where John Stewart's show on Apple, the problem with John Stewart was abruptly cancelled last week seemingly out of the blue. But it turns out the problem with John Stewart was that Apple execs weren't thrilled with some of the content he had planned for the next season of the show. The topics they weren't thrilled with included China, Israel, and AI. Now, to be fair, Stewart did have creative control over a show, but Apple would push back on guests here or show subjects there. And eventually things just reached a breaking point.

The biggest elephant in the room was always China, though. China is a man. massive market for Apple, representing nearly a fifth of its sales, and is the company's fastest-growing region by far. So, any time Stewart took shots at China, Apple was no doubt sitting on pins and needles, lest he offend it in such a way that would materially impact sales. Neil, I feel like as soon as Apple stepped into the entertainment biz, brand safety was always going to be a question, and now we got our first glimpse of exactly how they're going to handle these situations. Yeah, not well. There's a lot of criticism towards this move, but this is what happens when you become a media company. We've seen it happen to Disney so many times over the past years where

they've done something in a geopolitical sense in their movies. I mean, Barbie is not Disney, but Barbie had this particular map of Southeast Asia that Vietnam didn't like, and the movie was promptly banned in Vietnam. So Apple has gone to this weird situation where it's producing media content and it's also selling hardware to businesses that don't seem compatible at all, and you're starting to see the friction. Right. And it seems like, like the entertainment biz is usually the one that breaks before, obviously, the major moneymaker. Yeah. Talk shows in general are not great for streaming platforms. You want to have a long shelf life for streaming services for your content on it. And talk shows from David Letterman and

John Stewart have seemed to fail to gain traction on these streaming services. Okay, moving on, Argentina, which is in a world of hurt economically, held its closely watched general election yesterday, and the presidential field narrowed to two. The country's current finance Minister, Sergio Masa, will go to bat against the radical libertarian Donald Trump-loven, Javier Milay, who's come from out of nowhere to become a serious contender. Masa and Miele will head to a runoff next month, and the winner does not have an enviable job. Inflation in Argentina has surged to nearly 140 percent, and poverty rates have risen to 40

percent as a country suffers its worst economic crisis in decades. This isn't a good look for Masa since things spiraled out of control on his watch, but his ruling party did much better than expected in yesterday's election. It was also a bit of a momentum killer for Miele, who shocked the world with a huge performance in the primary. Muley's got a bunch of out there ideas like legalizing the sale of human organs, switching over the Argentinian currency to the U.S. dollar and abolishing the central bank, but Argentines are desperate for change.

How desperate, we will find out in November. I just, I mean, we've talked about Muley a lot on this show already, but he lost by 6% in this election. and even though Argentinian law means you have to win by at least 10% in order to win the presidency, I just think he's going to lose. I mean, 6% is 6%. We've got a Nate Silver over there. Yeah, exactly.

I'm predicting it now. All right, for our final weekend wrap-up story, we're going to check in on what went down at the box office this weekend, specifically the debut of Killers of the Flower Moon. Neil, I feel like we've been talking about killers of the flower moon for what feels like months now, and for good reason. It's three and a half hours long. stars Leonardo DiCaprio, and of course is a Scorsese movie, and a very solid box office debut coming in at number two domestically.

But wait, number two, what movie did better than a Scorsese DiCaprio movie? Taylor Swift, of course. Yes, the ERAs tour movie held on to the top spot at the box office for the second week in a row earning $31 million, bringing its two-week total to $129.8 million. Now, to be fair, killers of the flower moon did take the top spot. globally thanks to a strong international performance, but still, how do we think Scorsese feels about being nipped domestically for the second weekend? I mean, you can't compare the two.

You can't compare the, but he lost. So you can't compare it. He lost, but they never expected to win. R-rated movies, three and a half hours. This is a niche movie for some people. Taylor Swift is the most mass cultural impact of anyone. But it is a strong showing for the Killers of the Flower Moon and for Apple, which backed it. So we talked about Apple twice there.

We have to move on though, and we've been waiting slash dreading for this moment for a long time, and now it's here. Amazon is testing humanoid robots in its U.S. warehouses as the tech giant tries to cut down costs, streamline operations, and get your purchase to your door before you even order it. This humanoid robot is called Digit, which the company showed off last week. It has movable arms and legs. It can grasp and handle items like a human, but it doesn't need to go to the bathroom or will ever try to join a union, which is why Amazon is very interested to see the efficiencies it can bring to its fulfillment operations. Amazon has employed robots in its warehouses for a decade, but a humanoid bot that can walk is a major step forward for the company and for the industrial robotics field in general. As Amazon goes, so goes the industry, given the sheer scale of Bezos's empire.

Every other retailer or logistics company that's trying to deliver stuff faster, Walmart, Target, you name it, will keep a close eye on whether Amazon's digit trial leads to more humanoid robots in its hundreds of warehouses. labor critics say this is just another ruthless attempt by Amazon to get rid of human jobs, but Amazon has shot back that it never envisions a future where humans don't work in its fulfillment centers. What are your impressions? My impression is that whenever you make a robotics announcement, it's weirdly humans that are the focus of it because, yes, you do not want to come out and say, this is going to eliminate a million jobs. It's going to be so much more efficient,

even though that's the undercurrent and the undertone to what you're hearing. So yeah, during the presentation, they said, yeah, we never see a few. where there's no robots. I also always wondered why the heck they keep making robots look like humans because robots don't need to look like humans. They could interface in the world in a different way. But the argument is actually that the physical world is built for humans. Like when everything from the height of shelves to how wide the aisles are, they're built for things shaped like humans. So that's why you keep seeing these humanoid robots. You're seeing Tesla tried to make it. There's another company called Figure. So there's all these different humanoid.

looking robots that are supposed to look like we look because they interface in the world easier. Because these warehouses are already built on brownfield sites. There aren't coming, many of them aren't coming up from scratch. Amazon has the money to build them from scratch, but a lot of times you're just taking over a warehouse that exists. So you need robots or whatever you put in the, whatever you put in the warehouse has to kind of fit with the existing landscape. Let's talk about the jobs thing. Do you think this is going to eliminate jobs? I don't want to take the side of Amazon or, you know, I don't have a stake in the matter, but I'm just looking, they've had robots in their warehouses for a decade, right? They bought Kiva Systems in 2012, which was seen as this big first robotics purchase.

They've had robots. You know, if you look at a warehouse at Amazon, they have wheeled robots. They have grasping robots. But when you look at their headcount, in 2019, Amazon had 800,000 employees. Now it has 1.5 million. That's almost double. It's, you're a, Neil, you're sounding like a techno optimist right here. You're Mark Andresen Techno optimist because you're right.

Amazon has grown bigger than time, so there's always going to be more jobs. Yeah, they have 750,000 autonomous mobile robots currently deployed across their warehouse network right now. So again, this is not a new thing by any stretch of the imagination. All right, Neil, before we jump into the next half of our show, 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 three burner gas grill or get $50 off the 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.

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All right, Neil, it's time for our Monday segment winners of the weekend, which is different from the weekend roundup because this focuses on two stories that feature someone or something that had in this special. good weekend. Neil, you went first in the weekend round-up segment, so we might as well keep the Neil train rolling. What is your winner of the weekend? My weekend winner is Apple Juice. And it's not because Apple Juice did anything good. I don't even know if anyone drinks Apple Juice anymore. But times are getting even tougher for one of its biggest rivals, orange juice. Prices for frozen concentrate orange juice futures have more than tripled since late 2021 and hit a record high of $3.91 a pound on Friday, up from $2.11.11 last October. That's translated to higher OJ prices at the grocery store. A gallon of OJ costs nearly $10 on average this month, a more than 10% increased

over last year. No offense to OJ, but it's not that good. So here's what's going on. Orange production in Florida has been hit hard by extreme weather and a brutal disease known as citrus greening. Greening has slashed Florida citrus production by 75% since 2005, and the number of growers dropped by 62% from 2002 to 2017. And while Florida production did jump this year, output is still down over 50% from two years ago. So here we are with the humble OJ costing more than green juice in Los Angeles. This is so sad for me because I grew up in Florida and I grew up near a Tropicana factory. And I have a distinct childhood memory of smelling the orange peels burning every day as they kind of process the orange juice. So this not only is just an interesting

economic story, but it hits very close to home. Wait, is that a good smell? Orange peels burning? It's a weirdly bad smell, but again, it's very nostalgic for me. It does have citrus notes to it, but it's kind of gross. That industry is in decline. I know. It's very, again, like, I want it to succeed. Like, this is a very integral part of the Florida economy.

So, yeah, greening is no joke. And so hopefully it kind of passes and they can survive this. All right, Neil, my winner of the weekend is Pokemon cards because they've still got their fastball. Over the past month, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has been giving out special cards that feature Pikachu painted in the style of a Van Gogh painting to celebrate the museum's 50th anniversary. To get one of the cards, you have to complete a scavenger hunt in the museum to find certain Van Gogh classics or Pokemon-related pieces of art. Everyone who completed the hunt received a card. That is until all hell started to break loose.

Guest started elbowing each other out of the way in the gift shop as they lined up to receive the cards. and capitalizing on the frenzy, resellers gathered outside to prey on the unlucky patrons who weren't able to snag on the cards. So the museum had to officially shut down the Pokemon giveaway, which of course has only driven people to eBay where cards are selling for upwards of $620. So yes, Neil, my winner of the weekend is Pokemon

because who knew that a Van Gogh Pikachu card could set off mini-riots in Amsterdam? I mean, if you look at the history, then you see that Van Gogh was absolutely fascinated with Japanese culture, especially in Paris in the late 19th century when he moved there. So that was what interested me about this story. I never was into Pokemon, but I was very curious to find out that Van Gogh and other artists in Paris had this absolute fascination with Japanese culture and Japanese art and collected

Japanese artworks and that served as inspiration for their own. So this whole Van Gogh, Pikachu, Japanese company thing has been going back centuries. Right. It's a very cool collab, but I actually think the Amsterdam Museum, didn't do this right because I think they should have made the scavenger hunt super, super hard and only give out five to ten of these cards. This might be, if they did it that way, it could be one of the most valuable Pokemon cards of all time.

But instead, they were giving them out like candy and now they're only selling for $620. So I think they could have made a much bigger international kind of frenzy around this, but that's just my marketer hat talking. All right, Neil, let's move on to our next story. Halloween is coming up. And while it's a stressful time for anyone trying to put together a funny, sexy, culturally relevant, but not too niche Halloween costume. It's going to be doubly stressful for members of SAG Astra.

New union guidelines pass down to the still striking actors urge them to avoid dressing up as characters from major studio productions, and if they do, avoid posting pictures of those costumes online. So that means no Ken and Barbie fits for Hollywood's A-listers, and more generic costumes of something like a zombie, spider, or ghosts, for instance, are preferable, according to union leaders. Now there's a chance that they could get their Barb and Heimer on, though, because the latest news on the strike is that studios and union reps are returning to the negotiation table on Tuesday. But I wouldn't commit to anything yet because less than two weeks ago, talks were suspended because the sides were still remained far apart on significant issues.

As of today, it's officially been 100 days on strike, which is the longest in the history of the union. Neil, to me, all this means is that every single celebrity is going to dress up as Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, if this strike can. continues through Halloween. I don't think I can bear that. This move by the union leaders to limit what you can wear for Halloween was met with a lot of scorn and jokes. And Ryan Reynolds said, yeah, I'm going to call my eight-year-old a scab if he wears anything from a movie. And, you know, former Sag after president blasted the current leadership and said, this is what you're focusing on. And I think while it seems silly, it does highlight a little more internal strife that's going on. George Clooney offered a big deal for the highest paid actors to pay a

little more into the union's coffers to fill the shortfall between what the studios were offering and what the actors wanted. So you can see that there's a little anxiety and there's internal conflict about what's happening because this has gone on for over 100 days. It's the longest strike in 40 years. Some people want to get back to work and they're kind of not happy with union leadership the way they've gone about this. Yeah, again, even though the guidelines technically you want to not scab, you don't want to cross the picket line, but there was a subject line, nothing is scarier than scabbing and that maybe dress up as animated shows because they're covered under a different union.

So, again, you do kind of take a step back and saying, really, this is what you're focusing on. Although, again, people do want to support the strike in general. So I just think it's be very funny if they all just go as the most generic, which is. Ghost and zombies. I feel like the celebrity Halloween costume has become a big thing, especially in social media years. Absolutely.

It's a whole industry in itself, for sure. Okay, let's go finally to our week ahead, a little preview of what to expect this week. Let's start with the House Speaker saga. It's been two weeks since Kevin McCarthy was ousted by his own party as House Speaker, and Republicans have made zero progress in choosing his replacement with Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise, having failed to win enough votes. We are back to Square One with nine fresh content.

putting their name forward. A private candidate forum is planned for tonight, and a nominee will be selected by secret ballot as soon as Tuesday. But they need 217 votes, and it's unclear whether anyone can gain enough support to hit the threshold. I'm thinking of putting my name in the ring, because this is getting ridiculous. We just need a better way of picking a speaker. I'm proposing heads-up, seven-up. Remember that game you used to play where you go around and get tapped on the thumb? Let's just do that in whoever wins is speaker. Or a long division contest. Yeah, or that. It's also a busy week for earnings, meta and Amazon, highlight a busy week for tech companies. And then we have GM in Ford, which are reporting financial results during this ongoing United Auto Workers strike.

If the Auto Giants report meaty profits, it could strengthen the union's position that the companies can afford more concessions to employees. Yeah, we've talked about the economy where sometimes good news is bad news. Same thing for Ford and GM. If they do too well, then the union will go like, well, listen, we got a lot more negotiating power now. Look at your profits. So, yeah, damned if you do, damned if you don't. So if anyone's looking for a book to read, Britney Spears' memoir is coming out tomorrow. It's called The Woman and Me.

And it's already reached number one on the Amazon bestsellers list, thanks to pre-orders. It is not surprising to see this is getting a ton of buzz. The book offers a look into some of the most private details of Brittany's life, including her rise from Child Star to International Icon, her marriage to Kevin Federline, and her 14-year conservatorship. I won't lie, I'm Gen Z. I kind of missed the peak, Britney. So maybe I'll pick it up to get up to speed because I just, I missed Britney.

I was nine years old, I think, or 10 years old when Brittany came to fame. And those songs were fantastic. Okay, what else we got going on? The NBA regular season tips off Tuesday night with the defending champs, Denver Nuggets, hosting the Lakers. And then, honestly, all anyone cares about is Wednesday, which is when Victor Wimbun-Yama, the number one overall draft pick makes his debut. And he is insane. I've been very vocally on Wednesday.

is a bus train, so I'm going to look very dumb or very smart going forward. But listen, I said it on the podcast, so you have the receipts. Okay, that is our Monday show. The week is officially off and running. I spent some time responding to emails this weekend. So there is plenty of Google storage available. If you want to send us a note, you can do that at Morning Brew Daily at Morningbrew.com. Let's roll the credits.

Emily Milliron is our editor and producer. Samantha Vela's and Raymond Lou are associate producers. Yucenoa Ogu is our technical director. Billy Minino is on audio. Hair and makeup could never be replaced by robots. Devin Emery is our chief content officer, and our show is a production of Morning Brew. Great show today, Neil.

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