The Best One Yet - 💨 “Gone in 60 rubles” — Russia’s piggy bank. TikTok’s TikTooooooooook. Jersey Shore’s $4B wind.

Episode Date: March 1, 2022

It was a panic attack — Russia’s economy suffered the fastest plummet we’ve seen, because Putin’s piggy bank had a crack. TikTok’s is expanding to 10 minute videos because it’s chosen the hardest path. And a record $4B was just dropped on water real estate for an offshore wind farm capturing the Snooki Gusts.$GOOG $FB $NGG $RWEOYGot a SnackFact? Tweet it @RobinhoodSnacks @JackKramer @NickOfNewYorkWant a shoutout on the pod? Fill out this form:https://forms.gle/KhUAo31xmkSdeynD9Got a SnackFact for the pod? We got a form for that too:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe64VKtvMNDPGSncHDRF07W34cPMDO3N8Y4DpmNP_kweC58tw/viewformLearn 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. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Tuesday. Tea Boy, Tuesday, not February 29th. It is not February 29th. No. Leap year.

It gets you every year. Three out of four times every year. We Googled, is it February 29th? We did. What? 5.3 billion search results told us no, it's not. Snackers, it's March 1st. And today's pod is the best one yet.

TBOY, for our first story, Russia's economy, just had the fastest single-day collapse we've ever seen. Yeah, Snackers, it was a financial panic attack. because Putin's piggy bank cracked. For our second story, TikTok was 10 second videos? Yeah, it was. Another 10-minute videos. Jack, I think what you're trying to say is TikTok is now TikTok.

Third and final story. For our third and final story, the U.S. just sold nearly 500,000 acres of the ocean to wind farm. Yeah, call it the snooky wind farm because it's $4 billion of gusts off the coast of the Jersey shore. By the way, gusts just not easy to pronounce. Plural of gust, might as well be two syllables. It's like a six syllable word. Jack, what's going on today? It's already been a long week, Snackers.

Yeah, Snackers. Fantastic mix, but like, is it a holiday yet? Once the next three-day week. Actually, today is a holiday. It's Mardi Gras. It is a holiday. Snackers, the French-named Christian celebration of Fat Tuesday, ipso facto, Mardi Gras.

Marty Gras. Yeah. Tuesday. Fat. Exactly. Now, this is an event that includes floats and cakes and parties and carnival. You had me at cakes and parties. I think I did, Jack.

This is our kind of holidays, what Mardi Gras is. The biggest Mardi Gras celebration is, of course, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Yes, yes, yes. Now, what you may not know is that the star of New Orleans Mardi Gras celebration is actually a king cake. That's right. I wrote a paper on this in third grade. I had no idea. It includes purple, yellow, and green frosting for king cake.

Well, I assume this was a long paper. Keep going, man. You're on a roll. Nick, it's like a Skittles rainbow of sweetness. The king cake of Mardi Gras. By the way, that's all I got. Don't grill me anymore about this thing. You want to add a citation.

or a footnote to this one, Jack? We're doing Chicago style or the other one? MLA? Yeah, MLA. But Snackers, here's what Jack and I find fascinating about this Marty Grog King Cake. It's not just a culinary tradition. It's actually one of the great business growth hacks of all times. Yeah, because in each one of these king cakes is a little toy baby.

A little figurine. You might find it in your slice. And that figurine symbolizes a baby Jesus. Here's the tradition. If your slice has the little toy baby Jesus, okay. You're responsible for bringing the cake next year. Yeah, so each cake customer leads to another cake customer.

This looks like perpetual motion. We found it. What you're saying, Jack, is someone buys and then eats the cake. Which guarantees someone is going to buy and eat the cake next year, too. Yeah, so, Jack, this is the gift that keeps on giving. It's the indulgence. It's the indulgence. King cake isn't just a cake.

It is a growth hack. King Cake is capitalist cake. Snackers, enjoy the Marty Grau Profit Party down with the King Cake. Let's let our three stories draw. You're tuned in the snacks daily. Snacks about to hear rain food. candy. They don't reflect the views of the Robin Hood family. It's all informational just so. We're not recommending any securities. It's not a research report or investment advice. Not

an offer or sale of a security. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC. For our first story, the U.S. and allies just took away Russia's money and the impact was immediate. Russia just suffered a financial panic attack. Okay, so Snackers, we'll back up 48 hours here. Over the weekend, the West showed some like, say, Olympian level unity. The world's democracies condemned and punished Russia, like they were all playing on the same team. Now, the interesting thing here about the strategy was that the U.S. and allies, they didn't send troops to Ukraine. Instead, they used a new weapon. Yes. Weaponized finance. Weaponized finance. We're talking the United States, European Union,

United Kingdom, Japan, even Switzerland, Czech. Neutral. Switzerland chose the side here. Not so neutral. Slapped Russia with the biggest financial sanctions ever, aka weaponized finance. And the goal of this weaponized finance was to make it as hard as possible for Vladimir Putin to finance his war on Ukraine. So these sanctions banned Western banks from doing transactions with Russia. And the result of those sanctions we immediately saw on Monday. Jack and I woke up, get this, to start the week, we saw the biggest and fastest plummet of a national economy.

we've ever seen in our lives. No exaggeration. No joke. On Monday, Russia suffered a financial panic. Exactly. And the more it panicked, the worse the attack got. Because Snackers, here's the thing about panic attacks. They start with just a little sweat.

Then there's some chills. But then things get dizzy and then things get worse. The sweat in this scary analogy was the stock market. It was. Investors were so eager to sell their Russian assets that Russian stocks were already down 50% last week. So to stop investors from selling even more, Vladimir Putin announced stock markets would be closed on Monday, something we've never seen in the United States. Yeah, the thought process here, stocks can't fall further if markets aren't open to let them fall further. He was trying to stop stocks from falling, but what it did is cause panic to rise.

Exactly, which then led to a situation at the banks on Monday morning. Concerned about the sanctioned Russian banks, Russian people understandably were concerned about their savings, which were in those banks. Jack and I were seeing photos of lines at ATMs outside of grocery stores in Moscow that looked like the Great Depression throwback picks you saw in your history books. People were rushing to withdraw their money and convert it into another currency or spend it before it became worthless. Okay, here's where things get kicked up a notch. That panic from the Russian public led to panic from the Russian government. Russia banned the sale of Russian stocks from foreigners and banned the sale of Russian rubles. And all that then prevented money from leaving.

Russia in the first place. So it all is stuck in Russia. Yeah, Russia essentially tried to trap all of the money that's in Russia from escaping Russia. Now, Snackers, if you want to see a number that reflects the panic, all that panic added up is reflected in the price of the ruble Russia's currency. The most basic way the outside world can judge an economy is in the value it gives to that economy's currency. And the outside world isn't into the Russian currency right now. The Russian Rubel, a huge international currency, critical currency, lost 25% of its value compared to the dollar on Monday alone. In a single day, Russia's entire currency lost a quarter of its value. That means everything in Russia was worth 25% less in just one day. Now, there is one thing,

Jack and I should mention. There is one way that the Russian financial system in Russian economy could be rescued. If there's anything that can rescue Russia right now from its financial situation, it's the central bank of Russia and Putin's piggy bank. Putin's piggy bank. So Jack, what's the takeaway for the Russian economy's panic attack? Putin prepared for these sanctions, but his piggy bank has a crack. Snackers, Russia built a protective piggy bank, a sanction-proof piggy bank, just in case Russia became a pariah, just in case everything we said that just happened, ended up actually happening. The piggy bank included $630 billion. Yeah. Saved up money.

A whole lot of money. Hidden in the top shelf of Russia's central bank in this metaphorical piggy bank. Potentially literal, we haven't seen a picture yet. Now, that's $630 billion of U.S. dollars, euros, yuan, gold, crypto, all in that piggy bank. It was a sanction-proof piggy bank to be broken open in case Russia's economy had a financial panic attack. Yeah, looking at the situation. Now, it feels like it's the perfect time to smash that piggy bank on the ground and grab that money. They can't. They can't.

They can't because the West banned banks for, doing business with Russia. So Putin can't convert those foreign reserves into rubles. And Putin needs those rubles right now to keep running the war and rescue the economy. The $630 billion piggy bank was Russia's protection against sanctions. Exactly. It was its protection against a financial panic attack. But the sanctions announced on Russia's banks, they are a crack in Putin's piggy bank. For our second story, TikTok was already TikTok. And then it became TikTok. And now it Now it's TikTok.

10 minute long TikTok videos because TikTok chooses the hardest path. Absolutely. Before we jump into the story snack style, Jack, estimated value of TikTok's parent company, we haven't updated this in a while. Bite Dance is worth a reported $400 billion. Yeah, $400 billion for TikTok's parent. That is by far the biggest private company on earth. It's almost as valuable as Facebook.

Yeah. Don't even ask us about lifts. All right, fine. It's 20. Now, TikTok is known for short form video. Quick correction, Jack, the app formerly known as short form video. That's right, because TikToks were originally 15 seconds max. Which was like just long enough to do the moonwalk or the floss or watch a few corporate

Natalie videos. They quickly expanded, though, to 60 second videos. Yeah, that's the TikTok we've known for years. But then, in July, we covered it on this pod when TikTok expanded to three-minute long videos. Three-minute videos sounded crazy. That's like the game of thrones of TikTok videos. TikTok became TikTok.

But then things got kicked up a notch yesterday when TikTok confirmed that they are expanding their short form videos into 10-minute videos. TikTok. Yeah. Just became TikTok. Okay, Jack, that is great and that is fantastic content right there. But the funny thing here is TikTok's looking a lot like our buddies over a Quibi. 10-minute videos? Yeah.

That's the length of a quivie. Yeah, someone call up Jeffrey Katzenberg. TikTok is becoming what quibby was supposed to be. Exactly. Quick bite videos for those in between moments. Except they're a $400 billion company and the other one no longer a company. All right. TikTok is doing this for the love of art to help creators, maybe to win an Emmy.

Check. This is why I love you is your ambition, your positivity, your optimism, your glass half full world. But that's not what they're doing. No, TikTok is not UNICEF Snackers. TikTok is expanding to 10-minute videos for two reasons. More and money. More and money. those are the two biceps of business. More, as in more people.

TikTok already dominates with teens and Gen Z. They got a short attention span. It works. Exactly. But now, mom who grew up with 30 minute TV shows may download TikTok given the new 10 minute content. Yeah, she may feel comfortable with a 10 minute skit from like TikTok or tinks. Yeah. Doing her rich moms of L.A. routine. Exactly. Now, that's the more part. But on the money part, that's what TikTok's also after. Longer videos? Yeah. More room to stick ads.

Pretty straightforward here. You can stick three more Listerine ads in that TikTok video by Tinks if the video is three times as long. TikTok wants some of that 30 billion of ad revenue that YouTube makes every year. Seems like we're going to get a schmovie of uncut gems. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at TikTok? TikTok has chosen the hardest path. Yeah. Every screen size and every tech giant.

Snackers. TikTok's first fight was pretty big fight. It was against Facebook and TikTok won. Zuck was so frustrated by TikTok's growth. He sucked TikTok with Instagram Reels. Exactly. And the last time Jack and I covered TikTok on the pod, it was because TikTok was shockingly expanding to TV screens. TikTok partnered with Atmphere to create a curated TikTok channel of popular TikTok viz. So what Jack and I have noticed is that TikTok is the only social media app that wants to be on every screen against every large rival. It wants to be on phones, on tablets, on computers, and now on TVs too. And now it's TikToking on YouTube's turf with 10-minute videos.

First it was Facebook. Yep. Then it was TVs. Now it's YouTube. TikTok has chosen the hardest path. For our third and final story, the U.S. government just sold $4.5 billion of ocean. Every time a tech company pledges carbon zero, a wind turbine gets its wings. Okay, honestly, yeah, I've never been.

to Cape May. You haven't? I had a family reunion there. How was it? It's way down there in New Jersey. It's like exit zero. You'll see a lot of T-shirts. Seems like it's a bumper sticker situation. Bottom of the old Garden State Parkway, right? It's like Montau. Montauk is the other end of the other spectrum. It's the last stop on the Long Island. Right. Of course. Our buddy Timmy's the king of Monty. Yeah. Well, Cape May and Montauk, these bastions of New Jersey and New York beatry are also the bookends of something called the New York bite. Geology majors out there love. story. The bite. The bite. B-I-G-H-T, by the way. It's a vast wedge of Atlantic Ocean sandwiched between Long Island and New Jersey. If you've ever surfed a wave on that part of the beach, you know it's windy there. Big waves. And if you've seen season two of Jersey Shore, you know it gets stormy there. There is a land grab happening for windy oceans right off those beaches because they're close to cities. Jack, and what is the reason for this land grab of the oceans? Offshore wind energy. Capturing those snooky guys.

Yes. Huge right now is the U.S. government, which just held a big auction this past weekend. Now, up for sale was a casual 488,000 acres. Of water. Yeah, just water. Salt water. Exactly. That's it. But this is actually quite a bit of salt water. I've never seen acres used to describe an amount of water. Yeah. Again, the geology majors are now upset, Jack. But it is about two-thirds of the size of the state of Rhode Island. So like a pretty big chunk of water. And two publicly traded electricity companies bought the biggest chunk of ocean that the United States had up for auction. The first was Germany's RWE and the second was the UK's national grid. They spent $1.1 billion with the top bit. Yeah.

And their plan is to install about 50 enormous wind turbines off the coast of the Jersey Shore. You can say that is the situation. They're going to float on the ocean, these huge turbines, and get anchored down to the ocean floor. Yeah. So they don't move. Just like J-WOW. Jay Wow doesn't want to move on the dance floor. The turbine doesn't want to move on the ocean. No, what they do is they catch wind, turn it into electricity, and then send it back 56 miles underwater to New York City.

Now get this. The United States made $4.4 billion at this auction. They made a killing. We're talking the highest ever price paid for water real estate. The price to acre ratio. It was 10 times higher than the previous ocean lease sale situation. We're talking about record-setting numbers for offshore wind energy real estate. Now, President Biden's pumped about this because he loves offshore wind, and he hopes that this is just one fifth of America's offshore wind development that will come by 2030. And FYI, the California coast, you're up next. And while the booming interest in offshore wind, yeah, Jack, it's going to come down to one word.

It's going to come down to the pledges. Pledges. So, Jack, what is the takeaway for our buddies pledging over at offshore wind? Every time a carbon zero pledge gets made, a wind turbine gets its blades. Yeah, Snackers. You got Google, Apple, Amazon. Big tech has been pledging carbon zero for the last few years. It's not just tech companies.

Ten big U.S. states, a bunch of cities. And like every liberal arts college, they're pledging like a thousand percent renewable energy goals. Microsoft, Jack, they pledged carbon negative. So they're going to like yank the carbon out of the atmosphere. But these companies and these states, they can't meet those huge pledges by just planting a billion trees. No, what they need is long-term contracts with renewable energy producers. Now, wind electricity, it's still more expensive than the dirty stuff, like coal or natural gas. But developers will still spend billions of dollars on offshore wind because of the pledges. Behind every wind turbine

is a simple pledge. Jack, can you whip up the Mardi Gras takeaways for us over there? Russia's financial system is having a panic attack. Yeah, Putin prepared for this, but his piggy bank has a crack. Our second story, TikTok already beat Facebook. Then they entered TVs. Oh my God. Now they're going after YouTube. Yeah, TikTok, they've chosen the hardest path. Geez.

Our third and final story is about 500,000 acres of ocean. Yeah. This got sold for $4.4 billion. Because behind every renewable energy project is a pledge. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one from legendary snacker, Kelsey Black, all the way down in Austin, Texas. You may have had too much pineapple at some point in life. I had a lot in Hawaii, Jack.

Your tongue got paralyzed. Happens to me every time I had pineapple. It's like the dessert of fruits. It's a really great fruit. The reason this happens is because pineapple contains bromulane enzyme, which breaks down your protein. So that protein breakdown is why your mouth feels so awkward post-pineapple. Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies eating pineapple? When you eat pineapple, pineapple eats your back.

Snackers, you look fantastic today. Jack and I will see tomorrow. Snackers, for today's shoutout, it goes to just one, the people of Ukraine. Civilians, soldiers, how about President Zelensky? All in it right now. Some are fighting on the ground. Others are taking their children to try to find safety. They're facing incredible hardship.

We're rooting for them. Birthdays and belated shoutouts, they'll be back tomorrow. But the one shoutout today is for the people of Ukraine. This is Jack. I own stock of Amazon. Nick own stock of Apple. Robin Hood Snacks, newsletters, and podcasts reflect the opinions of only the authors, who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC,

and do not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a recommendation to buy or sell any security, cryptocurrency, or investment strategy in any account. This is not an offer or sale of a security, not a research report, and is not intended to serve as the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein does not reflect the views of Robinood Markets, Inc., Robinto Financial LLC, or any of their subsidiaries or affiliates. All investments involve risk, including loss of principle and past performance, does not guarantee

future results. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA SIPC.