The Best One Yet - 🍕 “Frozen > Fresh” — Pizza’s biggest winner. JPMorgan’s Epstein settlement. NYC’s traffic tax.

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Pizza delivery surged during the pandemic, but it’s now gone cold… because of Frozen Pizza. JPMorgan is paying a $290M settlement because it allegedly saw something with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstien, but didn’t say something. And NYC is moving forward with America’s 1st “congestion pricing” traffic tax (New Jersey hates it). $DPZ $PZZA $JPM Want merch, a shoutout, or got TheBestFactYet? Go to: ⁠www.tboypod.com⁠ Follow The Best One Yet on ⁠Instagram⁠, ⁠Twitter⁠, and ⁠Tiktok⁠: @tboypod And now watch us on ⁠Youtube⁠ _______________________________ 0:00 - Intro 1:08 - Professional quitters 3:34 - Frozen Pizza Sales 7:54 - JP Morgan/Epstein Lawsuit 13:15 - NYC Congestion Pricing 18:08 - Takeaways 18:59 - Best Fact Yet 20:35 - Shoutouts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-boy, Tuesday, June 13th. Then today's pod is the best one yet. Nick, we do stock disclosures at the end of the pod. Can I do a voice disclosure right now, though? Hit me, Jack. My voice is still completely shot from the wedding this week.

I didn't want to say anything, but you sound like a mature, Aretha Franklin. Let's go with that. A little bit softer now. A little bit softer now. It's like a Katie Perry with a little bit of ASMR. It's hopefully temporary. I think it looks good on you. I think we should roll with it. First story, what do we got, Jack?

Delivery pizza surged during the pandemic, but now delivery has gone cold. Because frozen pizza is eating delivery pizza. For our second story, J.P. Morgan Chase is paying $290 million to settle their Jeffrey Epstein lawsuit. Because the secret crime fighter you never think of is Frank from finance. And our third and final story is New York City. They're about to enact the first ever traffic tax. Search pricing for commuting. But Yeti's, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories, Jack. Just a fantastic mix of stories, Jack.

I love the mix. To quote singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka. Breaking up is hard to do. The tissues, the tears, the takedown. Jack, there is nothing fun about a breakup. Nothing good about a breakup. But Yet he's breaking up with your boss? That one.

That one's complicated, Jack. Well, there is a startup in Japan that will break up with your boss for you. Get this. This Japanese startup will break up with your boss like a boss for you. This company is called exit and its business model is quite simple. Yeah, yeah, basically you pay them money and they quit your job. For $144, this company will orchestrate the perfect quitting for you. For $144, they are designing your resigning. This startup exit, it'll choose the perfect day for you to exit and it'll craft the perfect letter to say goodbye. Then they'll call your boss and handle the tough conversation all on your behalf. I just want to say on behalf of my client that these past eight weeks have been the best in my

career. And they're going to be like, what is it exactly you say you do here? My client says they'll never forget the mentorship you provided. Yeah, it is, we should sprinkle on a little context here. This company, they've got a wait list of over 10,000 workers who want them to quit for them. 10,000 people are waiting to quit without the confrontation. It's basically like a quitting consultant. They quit while you banana's blind. Now, Jack and I were thinking about this yesterday, and we were like, uh, you know what? This kind of makes sense.

Yeah, you hired a recruiting firm to get the job. So you should hire a breakup firm to leave the job. So for T-Boy Tuesday, Yetis, we want to know from you. What is the worst part of quitting a job? And would you pay a consultant $144 to avoid those things? Actually, more specifically, how much would you pay a consultant for the coordination of your resignation. For designing, your resign.

Yiddies, we want to know. Hit us up at T-BoyPod on Insta and Twitter. Nick, let's hit those three stories. Fifteen years before this song, two boys from the northeast met in the dorm. They had an idea that caused a cultural storm. That's a 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. For our first story, pizza delivery stocks, they have been dropping. But that doesn't mean that pizza is dead. Frozen pizza. This story is about frozen pizza having a big moment. Frozen pizza is so hot right now. But yet he's last year, Jack and I told you about the pizza apocalypse. The pizza pullback. The pepperoni problemo. The pirish exit. I'm running out a piece. Yet he's back during the pandemic. Dominoes and Papa John stocks more than doubled. Pizza delivery stocks were surgeon because pizza. It was easy, cheap, safe, it transports. Well,

It was basically made for quarantining. But now it's 2023. The pandemic's over. But pizza should still be thriving in this economy. In this economy? It should be a pizza economy, right, Jack? Pizza is a value play. According to the Wall Street Journal,

it is the highest calories per dollar for any food that you can buy. If you want to save money right now, you should have pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at supper time. One family pie can feed, I don't know, three people, four people,

five people, if you're tiny people. But Yeties in the last, Two years, we've experienced a pizza apocalypse. Domino's and Papa John sales have started falling. And both of their stocks are down by 45% from their highs in 2021. And it's a pretty clear reason why. We're all facing a little bit of pizza fatigue, aren't we, Jack? We're not afraid to dine out at restaurants anymore.

But we are sick and tired of paying a $5 delivery fee plus $5 of tips and $5 of fee fees. But here's the news. Get this, Yeties. The biggest threat to delivery pizza is actually frozen pizza. Jack and I jumped in T-Boy style. It turns out frozen pizza is eating fresh pizza for lunch, like literally and figuratively. Shout out to the Red Baron whose pizza has been feeding the Kramer family since like 1992.

If you cut Jack's brother in half, you will see slices of meat lovers pizza. Yeah, we're actually 1% meat lovers. Get this, Yet these. Grocery numbers just came out. And it turns out the frozen aisle is selling a lot of pizzas. While sales of delivered pizza from the big chains have been falling, sales of frozen pizza are up by 9% in the past year. It's not delivery. It is Dejorno. It is Dejorno doing this.

It's like it is. That is Dejorno doing this. Now, the main reason frozen pizza sales are up, it's the price. Yeah, they got the price down. Like Jack, a Domino's 14-inch ultimate pepperoni pizza delivery in New Jersey, what's that going to cost you? After all, the fees, it's $25. However, the price of a Dejornos pepperoni pizza, what's that going to cost you? Your local stop and shop, $8. It's a third the price.

It's like they pulled off the Manhattan Project of Pizza. But, Nick, frozen pizza is not just cheaper. No. Have you noticed frozen pizza is getting fancier and kind of nice? That's the interesting dichotomy here. Like fancy restaurants during the pandemic, they started selling their frozen pizzas, didn't they, Jack? One of Vermont's best pies, American flatbread.

You can find those frozen pies anywhere in the grocery aisle across all of New England. Jack, before we recorded this show, I went downstairs in the ferry building, pulled out a Delphina frozen pizza, an award-winning pizza that we can eat tonight. Plus, this is Jack. I now have an air fryer. So do 60% of U.S. homes, which makes the market for premium frozen pizza even better. 60% of Americans have air friars. You're going to go with a premium frozen pizza in that thing. And it's going to come out pretty good. That's why Nick and I think we're approaching pizza parity. Frozen pizza can be just as good as fresh pizza, and the numbers are backing it up.

Regardless of what your taste buds think. Even if you're a super-taster. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in the pizza industry? Sometimes it's not what you consume, but how you consume it. Yeties, this new data, it reveals that last year's pizza apocalypse was a fear that was mislabeled. There wasn't a problem with pizza. The problem was with delivery. You're not quarantined anymore.

You're sick of the delivery fees. You're expecting higher quality. All that was the problem. So we're not eating less pizza. We're just eating pizza in a different way. Which means we have to be careful when we interpret data. Sometimes it's not what you're consuming, but how you're consuming it. And that is why frozen pizza is having a moment.

The product didn't change. The behavior did. It's not delivery. It is de journo. It is de journo. For our second story, J.P. Morgan Chase. The bank is paying the victims of Jeffrey Epstein a whopping 29. million dollars. Why? Because shockingly, it's finance. That's the first line of defense against

crime. Now, yeties, you've probably seen the mugshot of Jeffrey Epstein. The disgraced and deceased convicted sex offender. Willing to go into the background of Jeffrey Epstein, but he had a whole lot of ties to a whole lot of rich people and a whole lot of top financial institutions. Well, the victims of Jeffrey Epstein sued one of those institutions last year. Yes, they did. And that institution that they sued was America's biggest bank. This week, that bank, J.P. Morgan Chase, offered $290 million to settle that lawsuit. Now, to sprinkle a little context, that is a big amount of money. That is a significant amount of money.

And what did J.P. Morgan Chase allegedly do to have to pay so much money? Jack, it's almost like less what J.P. Morgan Chase did and more what J.P. Morgan Chase allegedly saw something, but didn't say something. They saw something, but then they didn't say something. Jeffrey Epstein was a client of JPMorgan for 15 years from 1998 to 2013. But here's the thing. Court documents show that during those 15 years, Jeffrey Epstein withdrew really huge amounts of cash. He routinely made cash withdrawals of $40,000 to $80,000 several times a month.

Who does that? That is not typical. Jeff Bezos, second richest man in the world, not doing that kind of thing. If you're withdrawing duffel bags of cash, I think you should look into it. It feels like that would set off a say-something signal. Now, J.P. Morgan did eventually kick Epstein out as a client in 2013. But the victims were taken J.P. Morgan to court saying that was just too little, too late. But rather than let the embarrassing evidence play out in court,

J.P. Morgan's decided to write a $200 million check instead. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at J.P. Morgan Chase? The most shocking crime fighter in our economy is Frank from finance. Yeah, Frank from finance is the best. Batman of banking. Yet these banks are actually required by U.S. and international law to help fight crime. When Jack and I worked at banks on Wall Street, this was like part of our training. Multiple times per year, we were trained on how to raise red flags when we saw suspicious activities. And that suspicious activity here is how we would do it. By monitoring payments for

shady activity, you're supposed to alert law enforcement if you work at a bank. Well, let's say your client spent $17.99 a month on who, That is not suspicious, Jack. Okay, let's say you notice your client bought the deluxe collection of Nickelback album. That is disdasteful, but also not suspicious. All right, let me try you this one. What if your client is withdrawing huge amounts of cash on a regular basis? Or wiring money to anonymous accounts in the Cayman Islands?

Well, Jack, that would be both distasteful and suspicious. And if you come across that as a banker, you're legally required to alert compliance and possibly investigating. In fact, if it is a very suspicious situation, you're supposed to alert the FBI. Because the most shocking crime fighter in our economy, it's finance people. The crime fighter, who you never think of, it's Francine in finance. For our third and final story, Manhattan Island, New York City south of 60th Street,

is about to get America's first traffic tax. Economists love the plan. Yes, they do. The bridge and tunnel crowd hates it. Yes, they. They do. Yet he's New York City is the biggest city in the United States. Also the slowest city in the United States.

Jack, when I was 10, I had a nightmare about getting from Chelsea Pierce to the Upper East Side. The taxi made a left on 10th Avenue. We were stuck forever. If you're walking on the sidewalk, you have to move incredibly fast. Best walking city, amazing walking city. But if you're in a vehicle, good luck. Well, looking at just part of Manhattan, south of Central Park, get this.

700,000 cars enter that area every single day. There are more cars entering in a single day to lower Manhattan than the entire population of the state of Vermont. And Jack, if you try to squeeze 700,000 cars into that tiny 10 square miles, what are you going to get, Jack? You're going to get traffic. Yeah, you're going to get traffic. We're not geometrists, but that is going to lead to some traffic. And that's why the average speed traveled by cars south of 60th Street, New York City is seven miles an hour.

I think we need to talk about this for a second and pause the pod, Jack, do you know what the speed of a walking person is? Three miles an hour? So basically, if you're in a car in New York City, you're just going twice the pace of someone who's walking. Battery Park to Central Park, you can jog there faster than you can drive there. It might actually be faster to go the other way around the world and just go south and then end up with the north part.

You know what I'm talking about, Jack? That's why the state of New York in 2019 passed a first in the nation, congestion pricing bill. Or as Jack and I like to call it, the first ever American traffic tax. And four years after that bill got passed, that congestion pricing, it's about to begin. Yes, Yetis, that's what led to yesterday's fascinating news. The Department of Transportation is expected to approve New York City's congestion pricing plan like any day now. Could happen right now. We know what you're thinking. What the heck is congestion pricing? It's actually pretty wild and it uses a bunch of interesting technology. The city is going to set up a

bunch of cameras at all the entry and exit points of Manhattan south of 60th Street. And then those cameras are going to read your license plate and charge your easy pass or mail you a bill if you are going through lower Manhattan. Now, the toll for entering Manhattan is TBD. Right, but do we have some early pricing, Jack? Like, we've heard some ideas. It's expected to be $9 on the low end during off-peak hours and up to $23 on the high end if you try to enter Manhattan at like 5 o'clock. Jack, that's like three Lenny sandwiches right there. You can get a lot of pastrami for that price, my friend. Yeties, this is surge pricing, but for vehicle commuters. This is the first ever American traffic tax. Now, it's the first ever American traffic tax, but it's not the first one in the world.

Because the supporters of this pricing plan point to a lot of success stories that have already happened. London has a congestion pricing bill. Stockholm has congestion pricing. And so does Singapore. Now, New York City plans to use the toll money that. they get from this plan and invest that in public transportation. They're gonna upgrade the subway cars. They're gonna add a little razzle-dazzle to the Long Island Railroad, aren't they, Jack? A little sprinkled-dinkle to the Union Square 456.

456, you're still looking fantastic. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in New York City? New Jersey hates this plan, but economists love it. Now, yeties, here's how Jack and I like to think about this. Who pays the price for New York City's chronic trials? It's not just the people stuck in the cars. It's also the people outside of the cars. Exactly.

It's the pedestrians, the residents, the physical businesses that are suffering from the various forms of pollution that traffic creates. Pollution can come in many forms. And for traffic, it's danger that might get hit by a car. It's incessant horn honking. True. It's exhaust coming out of those tailpipes. But congestion pricing reduces that pollution by financially incentivizing public transportation. If you're commuting into Manhattan and you're not taking the subway, the train of the bus,

you're going to get punished with a $9 to $23 fee. Now, Jack, who is most opposed to this New York traffic tax? New Jersey. Yeah, it's to Jersey. Both senators and the governor there are outspoken critics of this plan. Gabba Ghoul going to have a problem with this thing. They represent car driving commuters, and they've asked the president to block the plan. So at the end of the day, the bridge and tunnel crowd hates paying a traffic tax.

But economists love it because it. makes the polluters pay for their pollution. Jack, and you and that sultry voice over there, whip up the takeaways for us. He did great. He did fantastic. Yeties, we are approaching pizza parity. Pizza delivery is down while frozen pizza is up. Because it's not what you're consuming, but how you're consuming it. For our second story, J.P. Morgan Chase is paying $290 million to end the lawsuits from Jeffrey Epstein survivors.

Because Frank and Francine from finance. are actually crime fighters. And our third and final story is Manhattan. It's soon to get America's first congestion pricing, whereas we call it a traffic tax. New Jersey hates it, but economists love it. Hey, I'm walking here. No, but seriously, I am walking here. I don't know if you want to stop and look up at the buildings.

Get out of the way. Now, time for the best fact yet. This one sent in by bookkeeper Kelsey Black from lovely Austin, Texas. Push and play. Hey, besties and yetis. This is Kelsey Black from Austin, Texas. I have an unbear-leavable best fact yet. In 1942, a company of Polish troops befriended a bear they named Votech. Votech was enlisted as a private in the unit and was co-wolified to carry heavy ammunition and quickly became a positively adore bear celebrity. Voitech was eventually discharged with full benefits and now he lives on in posterity in various movies, documentaries, and the best facts. yet. I feel under a tremendous

amount of pressure to make a punch. I think, I think Kelsi just used up all the bear species on us there, Jack. So I think we're off the hook. I think we're totally off the hook. I really can't think of anything. No, I really can't. I have no other bears to mention. I tried polar Jack, but it's not working. It's just not working. Yeties, you look

fantastic for T-Boy Tuesday. And remember, if you would pay someone to quit your job for you, we want to know how much you would pay for that thing. How much would you pay for coordination of your resignation? Oh, Jack, better. If you would like Jack and me to quit for you on the pod, we could

maybe whip up a little something in the shout out section. That'd be a new shoutout category. Are we sure we want to get into this and how much are we going to charge? Jack and I got to discuss it in the meantime. Hit us up at T-BoyPod. At T-Boy pod on Instagram and Twitter. If you know, you know.

And before we go, a happy birthday to Yeti, Annabelle Paxoy, the titan of talent down the street in San Francisco. And happy birthday to Laura Chamberlain in Philadelphia, PA. And Michelle Saliba, keeps celebrating that birthday over at Oceanside, New York. Happy birthday to Joaquin Baez, who's turning 33 in some cool socks down in sunny Miami. And KLTA, happy golden birthday down in Gilbert, Arizona.

Happy birthday to Tim Langley, who's hustling for his birthday down at Greensboro, North Carolina. And Dylan Ramsey's Vasquez, happy 16th birthday over in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. right there to Zach Karazzi in Cliffside Park, New Jersey. And a shout out to Ryan the Iron Heart Everhart, who just completed his 100th run of the year down in Texas. Already? His 100th run of the year? Already. And a huge shout out to Kelsey Black, the Black Bear herself, who just got featured in Book Riot as one of the top queer-owned bookstores in all of the nation.

So funny when you and I were just like, I know in your head you were like, Black Bear, no, Brown Bear, no. Polar bear I was mostly thinking about grizzly I was like I'm like Grizzly

Nothing even rhymes with grizzly Nothing even rhymes with grizzly