The Best One Yet - 💁‍♀️ “Boy Sober” — The No-Marriage Economy. Arizona’s Crazy Rich Asians. Snow White & The 7 Debacles.

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy, Tuesday, March 25th. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Well, brackets busted. Apparently every game was not an upset this year, Jack. I only picked like two upsets. Are you kidding? That's why I'm doing very well. Virginia Commonwealth University, you were supposed to win in all. Also, I like Florida and I like Michigan, and they're both still dancing. I don't even know where half the schools I picked are based. Jack, three stories for today's show. What have we got on the T-Boy? For our first story, it's a wild phenomenon with huge economic impacts, a trend called boy sober. Boy sober. Women are choosing to not get married. They're going sober on men. For our second story, Disney's Snow White remake bombed at the box office this weekend.

Starting point is 00:00:51 It's Snow White and the seven debacles. But Jack and I found the magical number that no one else is talking about. And our third and final story. Georgia and Arizona are being showered with $300 billion of new foreign money. But that $300 billion is coming from three surprise places. Three Asian nations. But Yeties, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. What a mix of stories? No one else is doing that mix, Jack.

Starting point is 00:01:18 Yesterday we finished the pod with this question. What billion dollar food brand began as a gift from a man to his wife? And that gift happened to be based on her sign. Basically what we asked was, what huge snack food began as a present for a Pisces? And the answer, what is it, Jack? Is goldfish. Oh, it's goldfish, goldfish crackers. They actually began with a romantic baker over in Switzerland.

Starting point is 00:01:43 Goldfish for a Pisces. Classic. But how did goldfish end up in America just a few years later? It was all thanks to a shark. We're talking about the most cunning woman we've ever read about in business who made goldfish go global. Actually, she's one of the greatest entrepreneurs in American history. But we bet you've never even heard of her. Her name is Margaret Rutkin.

Starting point is 00:02:04 Margaret Rudkin, and she built an entire factory in Connecticut with only female workers, young and old. She got into the baking business in the first place to save her son's life. And her story is completely unknown. To hear about how goldfish crackers really began and why they're still growing double digits every year, listen to our weekly show, the best idea yet. The untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with. It's 45 minutes, drops every Tuesday, and we got nominated for a Best Business Award in the Ambys. Oh, we are so pumped about this episode, and we love this show yet.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Check it out. We got a link in the episode description today. Because Goldfish Crackers are simply the best idea yet. But, Jack, today's tea boy is also fantastic best we've ever done. Let's hit it, baby. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the Northeast met in the dawn. They had an idea to cause a cultural storm. It's the best one yet, but the best is a known.

Starting point is 00:02:57 50%. That's a fat tip. Tea Boy City on your at list. If you know, you know, because we're ready to go. We can't wait no more, so just start the show. Start the show. First, a quick word from our sponsor. For our first story, the newest trend for young American women is boy sober. Record number of women are choosing to not get married.

Starting point is 00:03:36 Going sober on boys. And we found four fascinating. reasons why. Yeties, you know Jack and I are big fans of 18th century British literature. Jack, can you please read the opening line of Jane Austen's novel, Pride and Prejudice from 1796? It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. But Jane Austen doesn't say anything about a single woman being in want of a good husband. Here's the news. Women don't want a good husband, a bad husband, or any husband. husband these days. That's right. A record number of women are saying no to marriage. It's all part of a new

Starting point is 00:04:15 trend called boy sober. Here's the hero stat from the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. The share of American women ages 18 to 40 who are single was 51% in 2023. That's up from just 42% in the year 2000. And that's a big change. Oh, another big stat from a 2023 Pew survey? Just 52% of American women said that marriage was important to living a fulfilling life. Well, that is down from 70% just four years earlier. So two big stats from two robust surveys. Women are fine being single. They're not looking for marriage these days. It's not dry January. No, it's dry manuary. The new lifestyle choice is going boy sober. Or Jack, can I put this in Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice terms for a second? That'd be fantastic. Yeah, uh, women think there aren't enough Mr. Darcy's out

Starting point is 00:05:05 there. I hear you on that. But yet he's here's why Jack and I found this story fascinating. The key word here is choice. Because four fascinating forces are making women curious about boy sober. Choosing boy sober. Now, the first force here was that women are simply wealthier than ever. The gender income gap is narrowing. The single lady home search, we told you about it like a month ago. Remember that, Jack? You don't need a man. You just need a mortgage. Okay. The second force for boy sober is the education mismatch. Women are getting college degrees more and men are getting them less. According to the Wall Street Journal, 47% of women, age 25 to 34, have a bachelor's degree.

Starting point is 00:05:43 But just 37% of men of that same age have a bachelor's degree. Some women find the educational incompatibility unacceptable. There are literally degrees of difference here. The third reason for boy sober is the political divide. Now, this is a pretty new one, but the difference between men and women political, has never been wider. 39% of young women in America identify as liberal, while just 25% of young men do.

Starting point is 00:06:10 It's hard to get married when you're arguing over immigration policy at the dinner table. So from an overall economic perspective, women are not satisfied with the supply of men right now. Yeah, simply the compatibility between the genders is shrinking. In fact, over half of single women believe that they are happier than their married friends are. Wow, but Jack, we should point out that

Starting point is 00:06:31 this story reflects also, it's a challenging moment for men out there. Not easy to be a guy these days in a lot of ways. Men have fewer economic opportunities than men from previous generations did, but they may feel the same societal expectations to be the breadwinner for the family. But yet, he's, despite all those three macroeconomic reasons, we noticed a fourth reason why more women are going boy sober. And we think it's highly relatable. So Jack, what's the takeaway for, as Beyonce would say, are buddies who are single ladies, all? all the single ladies over there. Dating apps have broken the algorithm of love.

Starting point is 00:07:07 Yeties, the Wall Street Journal did a story on this entire boy sober phenomenon, and they cited a whole bunch of those economic statistics. All those macro factors are making women choose no to marriage at increasing rates. But besties, there is one variable that we noticed in the interviews with boy sober women that there was no date on.

Starting point is 00:07:25 They all have frustration with the dating apps. Every woman in this Wall Street Journal piece had Tinder, as we call it. Here's one quote from the article. Dating apps are the only thing you can put 10,000 hours into, but end up the same place where you started. Honestly, that quote said it all to us. That's like one of the key reasons we decided to do this story. They could have mastered the piano instead of wasting 10,000 hours on Tinder. And ended up in the same place. Basties, this generation of Tinder fatigued, unsatisfied women, they are simply done with the swiping. Look, if Mr. Wright

Starting point is 00:07:55 shows up spontaneously, great, but they're not going to waste another 10,000 hours looking for him on the apps. And yeah, we've been to plenty of hinge weddings out there. A buddy Timmy? Yeah, he met his wife on the league. But the surprise variable that so many women are going boy sober, except for these women, dating apps ruined dating for a whole generation. For our second story, Snow White and the Seven Dwarves has become the most doomed Disney movie of our lifetimes. But we did the movie math on Disney's Vault strategy, and they all live happily ever after. Uh, okay, yetis, new name for the new Disney movie, Snow White and the $43 million opening weekend. It's not a comedy, it's a tragedy.

Starting point is 00:08:40 Yeah. Because Disney spent $250 million on the live remake of Snow White, the 1937 Disney classic. Side note, Snow White actually is a story written by the German Grimm brothers back in 1812. And the word grim, fun fact, comes from the Grim brothers. That's how dark their tales were. Okay, but Jack, enough with the fun facts. We got some not fun facts here. How about the opening weekend of the new Disney remake of Snow White?

Starting point is 00:09:05 The live action version of Snow White brought in just $43 million in the U.S. box office weekend. Yeah, besties, that's a fairy tale flop. Less beauty, more sleeping. So Jack and I got to ask, mirror, mirror on the wall. What went wrong with Snow White's remake over there? Three wild and unrelated pieces of PR drama tanked this movie before it even hit the screens. These all came out of nowhere. First, there was the DEI controversy. This is an old German tale, but the cast is modern and diverse. Snow white skin, as the mirror says, is as white as snow, but the Latina actress playing her is not. So that bothered some people.

Starting point is 00:09:44 The second issue was the war in Gaza, because the lead princess, played by Rachel Ziegler, is outspokenly pro-Palestine. But the evil queen, played by Galgado, is pro-Israel. She actually served in the Israeli army. And that made movie promotion for these two actresses awkward and basically not happened. And then the third surprise was The Seven Dwarves, which was one big controversy. Peter Dinklage of Game of Thrones fame, a dwarf himself called the movie that Disney produced backwards. He said the film shouldn't portray dwarves the way it was portraying them. And then Disney made things worse by trying to fix it. They didn't hire dwarf actors to play The Seven Dwarves.

Starting point is 00:10:22 They created computer-generated dwarves instead. Which like, you could have implored seven people to be in your Disney movie. Instead, you used a computer. Jack, add it all up and what exactly was the result for the new Snow White? This whole movie was a nightmare that Disney just wanted to end. There's no magic lamp you can rub to make things right here, Disney. I'll bet you $20. You've never seen a trailer for this movie because Disney didn't promote it whatsoever.

Starting point is 00:10:48 Or to put things in Snow White terms, Disney went full bashful on this movie when it came to promoting it. They scaled back the premiere, there was no red carpet event with interviews, they canceled the whole promotional tour. But Jack, to sprinkle on some context here, this Snow White film was announced back in 2016. Disney couldn't have predicted the PR bomb that they were building. Disney could not have predicted there would be a new war in the Middle East, President Trump would be elected twice, and there would be a whole DEI backlash. But stripping out the controversies of this one movie, how is Disney's remake strategy working overall? That's what Jack and I were really curious. about. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Disney? There's still a lot of money in the

Starting point is 00:11:31 Disney vault. Yeties, everyone knows about Star Wars and Marvel. Disney's two big franchises. But no one talks about the third franchise, which is all of the Disney remakes. Remakes are a franchise. In fact, in the last 10 years, Disney's done nine live action or computer remakes of animated classics. They've done Cinderella, Cruella, Little Mermaid, all got fresh remakes in the last decade. But Jack and I took the time to look at the financial results of each of those remakes. And Jack, what do we discover? Each one did surprisingly well. Aladdin, the Jungle Book, the Lion King, those live action remakes did a billion dollars globally on 200 million dollar film budgets. Now, interestingly, critics didn't love them, and none of these films were in the top five

Starting point is 00:12:16 movies for their respective years. But each was a reliable profit puppy for Disney because Disney's got tons of fans who wanted to watch those movies again. So now, besties, many are saying that this new Snow White is going to be the end of Disney remakes. However, Jack and I just think it's an anomaly. Because when you look at the numbers, remaking the Disney Vault, maybe its lowest risk, highest reward franchise. The Vault is a profit puppy. Now a quick word from our sponsor. For our third and final story, Georgia and Arizona are being showered with lavish new investments from foreign companies.

Starting point is 00:12:56 Because the best way to avoid trade war bullets is to not trade at all. Yeties, mark your calendars for April 2nd. That is Liberation Day. More tariffs are coming. Liberation Day is what Trump calls it, because a little over one week from now, tariffs are coming to virtually all of our trading partners. Unless they get canceled. Now, Europe and Canada have responded to tariffs by shunning the United States.

Starting point is 00:13:21 Both those countries are pouring Jack Daniels whiskey out into the Atlantic Ocean. But here's the surprise. Asian countries are responding differently. Specifically, non-Chinese Asian countries are going all-American. Here's the news. The top companies in Korea, Japan, and Taiwan are all investing in the United States. In fact, we counted $298 billion pledged by three companies from these three specific Asian nations. And the way we see it, we might have to think about renaming some of our states. Yeah, I mean, at this point, that is so much money. like Arizona is like the new Taiwan.

Starting point is 00:13:57 And Georgia could be the new Korea. Because both those states are getting money from crazy rich Asians. Here's part one of the news. Hyundai is spending $33 billion, mostly in Georgia, to build a third U.S. manufacturing plant. Louisiana's getting a new Hyundai Steel factory, but most of the money, it's going straight to Georgia, baby. And with the new Kia, Hyundai, and also Rivian car factories,

Starting point is 00:14:22 Georgia will be producing one million cars a year pretty soon. Now, we should point out besties that Hyundai also opened a new plan in Georgia last fall during the Biden administration. Part two of this news is the bigger splash, which is coming to Arizona. Yeah, that's where the chipmaker TSMC from Taiwan is investing a whopping $165 billion. $165 billion is enough money to acquire Uber. Jack, that's enough money to acquire Caterpillar. It's enough money to buy all 32 NFL teams. Or buy 28 lifts if 28 lifts actually existed.

Starting point is 00:14:59 And that's how much money TSM is spending to build five new factories in Arizona. And that's why Jack and I are thinking, Phoenix is the new Taipei. Now, we should point out again, that same chip company also invested $65 billion during the Biden administration. But all of these foreign investment announcements have accelerated under the Trump administration. And they're all being announced at White House events to match. maximize political points with the new administration. So add it all up and new American jobs are being powered by new Asian money. Crazy rich Asians.

Starting point is 00:15:33 Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in Georgia and Arizona? The best way to dodge a tariff is to not trade at all. Yet he's interesting thing about Hyundai's announcement. They made the same exact announcement over in Korea. In January, Hyundai announced. one of the biggest corporate investments in Korean history. Okay, so what we're saying here is that the new Georgia factory will make Hyundai's for Americans in America, but the new Hyundai factory in Korea will make Hyundai's for Koreans in Korea.

Starting point is 00:16:05 Exactly. Hyundai labels this strategy, localization. The goal is basically produce in the country where you're selling. That way, there's no importing, no exporting, and no risk of tariffs hitting Hyundai's business. And then, when Hyundai's Georgia factories generate a profit, they wire the money back to Korea where it arrives tariff-free. So besties, with the rise of globalization, companies were producing in multiple countries and then shipping off to a bunch of other countries all around the world.

Starting point is 00:16:31 But in the trade war era, multinational corporations are localizing. Because the best way to dodge a tariff is to don't trade at all. Jack, could you whip up the takeaways for us for T-Boy Tuesday? American women are increasingly fine being single and unmarried.

Starting point is 00:16:49 They're going, boy sober. Because dating apps have broken the algorithm of love. For our second story, Disney's Snow White remake is a bust, doomed by three unrelated PR disasters. But there's still money in the Disney vault, and we're still waiting for that Mighty Ducks remake. Like, what's taken so long? And our third and final story, Arizona and Georgia are getting the biggest foreign investments in American history. To avoid trade war tariffs, Hyundai and TSM are avoiding trade altogether. But Yeties, this pod's not over yet. Here's what else you need.

Starting point is 00:17:23 to know today. First, Apple might put a camera on the Apple watch to turn it into an AI wearable. Zuck has AI wearables. They're their smart glasses. Yeah. So instead of smart glasses, which is the obvious choice. Apple's working on putting AI into their AirPods and their smart watch. It's kind of an innovator's dilemma. It is kind of an innovator's dilemma check. Will Apple disrupt their own iPhone supremacy with the AI device of the future? As long as they can sell more dongles, I think they'll do a check. Second, 23 and Me just filed for bankruptcy and the CEO resigned. 23 and me was once worth $3.5 billion, but it turned out to be a one-hit wonder.

Starting point is 00:18:02 Like the macarena. People, you'd spin in a tube, you'd get your ancestry results. Congratulations, you're 4% Turkish, but then they were done. So what's happening to your DNA that you gave 23Mee? Yeah. That's an open question that people are kind of concerned about. Maybe a story for tomorrow's pod. We're jumping in T-Boy style. And finally, Warren Buffett finally paid one of his workers, one million. for a March Madness bonus.

Starting point is 00:18:25 We mentioned it last week, the annual Berkshire Hathaway Bracket Challenge. One employee picked 44 of the initial 45 games correctly, so he's getting a $1 million check from Warren himself. This person got a $1 million check. No word yet

Starting point is 00:18:41 on whether they chose Duke. Now, time for the best fact, yeah, this one waved up by Jack and me, because honestly, we saw it and we were like, okay, we got to share this with the Yetis. What's the most popular snack among CEOs? Okay, we You were curious, like beef jerky? Are they, you know, are they like fruit bowl people, like edible arrangements with pineapple? The answer is nuts. Shickshack CEO is big on Jiff peanut butter and a banana

Starting point is 00:19:04 every morning. I actually liked that a lot, but I would go Skippy, so a little bit of judgment there. The CEO of Sandals Resorts munches on mixed berries and cashies every day. Okay, and Obama famously snacked on seven almonds every night, no more, no less. For me, I'm not a nut guy. I mean, I mean, I like nuts, but usually I snack on a giant carrot. Okay. Like the kind of carrot. you'd put in a snowman's face to make a nose. How do you explain the three tins of Nutella in your pantry, Jack? That's for Wilder. Oh, it's for my child.

Starting point is 00:19:32 Oh, it's for my child. It was pretty high up. I don't think you can reach that, Jack. It was like an adult height right there. Yeties, you look fantastic today. And after this show, the best thing you should do is head over to check out the wild origin story of goldfish on the best idea yet. Seriously, the woman behind this story is an absolute phenom of capital. Liz. Honestly, she's one of the biggest deal makers of the 20th century, and you probably don't even know about her.

Starting point is 00:19:57 If you're from Connecticut, you need to listen to this story. If you work in banking, you have to listen to this story. All right. Links in the episode description, check it out. And if you eat goldfish, you better listen to this story. Nick and I. We'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait. Happy birthday to Yeti, Lisa Leslie, over in Ohio, who's been listening since 2020. Great to have you with us, Lisa. Happy sixth birthday to Aurora Eno's of Franklin, Tennessee, who's listening with her parents and her sister, Felicity. Happy birthday, and Ashley Holkamp in Orange County, California is celebrating the best birthday yet. Happy birthday to Elias Jude Rogers. This legendary kid is turning four years old in Houston, Texas.

Starting point is 00:20:40 And ride without training wheels, there's another one to celebrate. Congratulations to Joe, who got a new job in Austin, Texas. Gets to work with his wife and have breakfast and lunch with her every day at Meta, not too shabby. And a big shout out to Rachel of Flagstaff, Arizona. This OG Yeti is boy sober. but she's accepting applications. And here are the criteria. You must be 28 to 35 years old,

Starting point is 00:21:05 and you must send all inquiries to Nick and Jack at T-Boypod.com. Yes, we will vet them on Rachel's behalf, so you better bring your breast stuff. And since Rachel is in charge of our social media account, yes. If you haven't liked every post we've done, Rachel's not interested in you. No like, no first date.

Starting point is 00:21:25 This is Jack, Island Stock of Disney and Berkshire Hathaway. This is Nick. This is Jack. It's way. Way, three. Brutal, three go. It's all.

The Best One Yet - 💁‍♀️ “Boy Sober” — The No-Marriage Economy. Arizona’s Crazy Rich Asians. Snow White & The 7 Debacles.

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