The Best One Yet - 🦠 “Google would like your health data now, please” — Lulu, Nike, and Under Armour’s leadership. The Fed’s last bazooka. Google’s COVID-19 moment.

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

To rescue financial markets from pandemic ruin, The Fed took drastic measures Sunday — but it’s already used up its major tools. To help people figure out testing for COVID-19, Google’s deployed “Project Baseline”, which is like Healthcare.gov but for disease screening. And private businesses are making “flattening the curve” possible with pro-social distancing policies.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. And this is Snacks Daily. It is Tuesday, March 17. We're kicking things off with one gigantic, red, and negative number from yesterday. Right, we're going to round up in just say 3,000. The Dow fell 3,000 points yesterday. Snackers, that's the second worst day in the 124-year history of stock markets in the United States.

You had President Trump going online to say bars, restaurants, fitness centers, any place where you seem to notice other human beings, they should probably be closed. Large gatherings, not a good thing right now. I think they used to say that you shouldn't get together with a thousand people. Yeah, tough. That has gone down to 10. No gatherings of 10 people or more. Pretty awkward for families of nine. Just going to throw that out there. Meanwhile, President Trump says this could also be lasting until August. Yeah, this is, we're in it for the long haul. Nick and I are still working from home. I had to move out to Vermont because the sprinkler line in my building burst. Nick's still in San Francisco. We're doing this podcast remotely and we'll do

everything we can to bring you the best one yet every single day. Jack, I'm checking on the sprinkler system. That one was not the best one yet. Let's hit our first story. What do we got, Jack? Nick, have you heard of Verily? Probably not. It sounds like a made-up direct-to-consumer vest startup from the valley. Nope. It's actually Google's public health poppy, and it's created basically a health care.gov, but for coronavirus. They probably could have gone with a better name than Verily. Second story, Jack. Last week, the Fed used its ammo to fight the corona crash. Now it's fired more missed. at the coronavirus crisis. Just one big problem there. It's pretty much used all its ammunition, and we have like none left from the Federal Reserve. We got a Power Rangers situation where all

the Rangers morphed together, and that's kind of their last straw. Third and final story, we noticed who's taking the lead on coronavirus issues. Looks like it's been big publicly traded companies. We're talking like the Lulu lemons of the world. Flattening the curve is the new number one business priority, and we're impressed. Snackers, before we jump into all that good stuff, First of all, we got to wish you. We know it's St. Patrick's Day. It's also T-Boy Tuesday. Happy T-boy Tuesday. You may have heard of hashtag life goals or hashtag squad goals. Right. How about quarantine goals, Snackers? Yesterday, President Trump's administration said we have 15 days right now to start to slow the spread.

Basically, that means you're not supposed to be doing anything outside. You kind of got to stay inside and you shouldn't be interacting with other human beings. Right. So President Trump and authorities have basically told us. us to quarantine ourselves. So we're thinking, what are our quarantine goals while we're all staying inside? It's pretty much like New Year's resolutions, but what can you do for the next 15 days? It's New Year's Eve resolutions with run rule. Don't go outside. We have a lot of time. We're going to be spending home potentially. My number one goal is to watch Game of Thrones from season one, Lannister versus Stark, all the way to season eight, Lannisters and Starks versus everybody. If Jack were a little bit tougher, you'd just be reading the books. But, I mean, you can

want to do what you can do, right? I'm hoping this thing's only 15 days. I'm just trying to cook through an entire Odolengi cookbook. He's got like six of them, and I look at each one, I'm kind of intimidated. I don't know how to do a puree. Odlengi? Sounds more exotic than it is. Okay. Now, my wife's kind of a yogi, so she's going to be trying to perfect her handstand over these next 15 days working from home. Snackers, whether you are defying gravity or trying to figure out which house is burning down which Lannister house, you've got 15 days. We want to hear your quarantine goal. What is the one accomplishment you can achieve staying inside for 15 days? Is it learning how to play hot cross buns on that instrument that's been in your closet since you were seven?

Is it figuring out how to throw pizza up in the air and actually throw pizza in the air? Because no one knows how to actually throw pizza in the air. T-Urude Snacks. Our quarantine goals, at Robin Hood Snacks. Our quarantine goals, keep on making this podcast every day. Happy T-Boy Tuesday. Let's hit our three stories. candy. They don't reflect the views of the

Robberhood family. It's all informational just so you know. 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 FINRA slash CIPC. For our first story, Alphabet is stepping up to the challenge of COVID-19.

And it's all about becoming the leader in digitized healthcare. Snackers, whip out the pen and paper. We got to write down this code word, code, secret code, project baseline. Yeah, it's actually not secret at all. The president mentioned it on Friday on national TV, Nick. So true. So true. We're talking the go-to website if you want to get tested for COVID-19.

Also a way better name than Apple's Project Seymour for workout apps that we told you about last week. They really got to get the marketing teams involved in these names. Project Baseline is supported by the Trump administration, which, yeah, mentioned it Friday night in a primetime speech about the administration's like actions for COVID-19. Only people more surprised than us were the Project Baseline people who did not see this one coming. Yeah, it was a total shocker. But let's tell you how Project Baseline works. You basically log on to ProjectBaseline.com. Sounds simple. You tell them your symptoms and it tells you whether you should get

tested for COVID-19. So patient number one jumps online, logs into Project Baseline, types in I have a bellyache. Project Baseline's like, that's not COVID-19. Here's a link to the Great British Bake Off. You should just watch some shows. You're going to be fine. Enjoy your evening, kid. Patient number two logs in, types in. I've got a fever and try cough what's going on.

Okay, that might be COVID-19. Here is a link to the nearest medical center that can test you. You should probably schedule an appointment. Oh, and by the way, please throw away your computer. So Snackers, curious what Verily is right now, because Verily is important. Verily is actually one of Alphabet's Other Betts, which is basically their non- YouTube and non-Google search businesses. Verily is behind what's running Project Baseline.

And Verily graduated from Google's Project X, which is their laboratory for moonshop projects that make all the Googlers proud to be Googlers because they're like trying to save the world. So Snackers, let's say you're trying to assess where project baseline sits in the world. It's kind of like a healthcare.gov, but it's entirely focused on COVID-19. With the president of the United States on board and Alphabet's absurd resources. So many resources. This could become like the National Registry for COVID-19 response. So Snackers, we couldn't do anything more with our work from home day than to jump in snack style.

Jack logged in and basically told them he had an itchy foot and he didn't know what to do with his itchy foot. Okay. Actually, before I told them about my itchy foot and tested to make sure they weren't going to, you know, tell me to get tested, I had to log in with my Google account. And that's in a very important step. this process. Yeah, basically you then have to agree, and they do make this very clear, that you will be sharing your information with public authorities at that very moment. If it turns out that you'd get tested for COVID-19 and you'd come up positive, it's pretty important that the public authorities know that. Meanwhile, in South Korea, they basically have apps right now that are tracking where you go if you've got COVID-19. I'm pretty sure they got like drones in South Korea that are like keeping an eye on all the

positive COVID-19 people. Jack, in South Korea, they've got plant-based drones running the whole operation. So what we face here is a classic conflict between freedom on the one hand and security on the other. It's a trade-off. Jack, there are about a dozen policy graduate students right now who just yanked up the volume on their snacks daily. Giving Google this kind of data about your personal health is kind of scary. But you know what? So is a global pandemic called COVID-19. The downside seems to be that you'll probably end up getting a lifetime of Google sending you Gmail ads for Tylenol for the rest of your life. By the way, Project Baseline only launched yesterday just specifically in the Bay Area of California. And guess what?

The website crashed right away. Kind of like healthcare.gov. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Project Baseline? Big moments are big opportunities for big business. And Snackers, this could be Google's big opportunity to digitize health care in a big way. Google is more than just curious about getting involved in the healthcare industry. They have aggressively put their money where their mouth is they recently acquired Fitbit because they wanted to get into the wearable health hardware space ASAP. And it's an investor in one medical, which we've said on Snacks Daily, is like the equinox of doctors offices. Google wants to make your health records exist online, not in like the paper filing cabits by Debbie's drawer over there and Debbie can ever find that. And this COVID-19 crisis,

plus with the president's support, this could give it like its first millions of users online ASAP. For our second story, the Fed just basically pulled out DefCon. three, four, what are we going to do, six on here, Jack? It's doing the same thing it did during the financial crisis of 2008. Now, Snackers, we know what you were up to on Sunday. We were doing the same thing. We were just trying to watch some reruns because TV programming these days is either canceled or sports canceled reruns.

Which is also canceled. Nick, the bubble boy episode of Seinfeld never gets old. Never gets old. Uptown, uptown? Oh, upstate. Obscath. Then came the Fed's announcement right in our lap on Sunday night. The Fed is so worried about the COVID-19 epidemic that it is firing all of the monetary ammunition that it has.

We're talking about like the end of every Power Rangers episode where instead of just using the guns, they all morphed together into one giant Power Ranger. Why didn't they do that in the beginning of the episode? Yeah, except instead of guns, it's using like billions and trillions of dollars at the Fed. So the Fed wants short-term interest rates to fall. So it lowered interest rates to zero percent. The Fed also warrants long-term interest rates to fall. So it's spending $700 billion of freshly printed cash to finance. long-term mortgages. Finally, the Fed wants banks to lend to people more. So it's loosening rules on banks

so they can lend to people more. Here's the thing, Snackers, these are the same measures it took in the months and years following the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis of 2008. But here's the other thing, Snackers, there's one problem with it. There's really not much more the Fed can do. It's pretty much run out of bullets. It's already used its bazooka. It's whipped up the grenades. It's done all that to try to help the economy already. It's like a DJ standing outside the entrance to a club, like offering free mojito tickets and handing out glow sticks just to get people to come inside. It just wants you to come in, spend some money, and relax. The Fed's policies are basically like yelling at consumers to borrow, invest, and spend more because the economy really needs it right now.

Chairman Jerry Powell might as well, like, call you up along with your mom and say, refinance your student loans, refinance your mortgage. What else do I got to do to make you get out of the house and do this? invest in stocks because bonds and savings accounts, they have like no return because I have lowered the interest rates to zero. Basically what Jerry's been screaming at us without emoji. But here's the thing, Snackers. That's it. The Fed is done. There's not much left the Fed can do. It's used every gun and every bullet in its arsenal. There's no more free drink passes the DJ can give out. If the government's going to help the economy further, it's going to have to come from Congress and the president. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies?

At the Fed. The little guys of this economy need the help the most right now. Snackers, the government is deciding on potentially bailing out airlines and like other huge companies. But here's the thing. Restaurants, gyms, yoga studios, movie theaters. These tiny businesses are the ones that are about to lose a lot of business during COVID-19. Many of them right down the street from you, they could be on the brink of failure after weeks of basically no one going it out and spending money. Remember Snackers, the rules of hashtag quarantine goals, no going outside and no spending time with people. The government's loans and low interest rates, they're helping for some to survive, hopefully, until the epidemic is over and then things can get back to normal.

For our third and final story, the greatest leadership on the coronavirus situation, Jack, it's actually coming from private companies. And that's because the goal here is you got to flatten the curve. Flatten the curve. We're talking about getting fewer people infected so that our hospitals can actually handle this epidemic. Snackers, flatten the curve is. the new winter is coming. Call of Solidarity. We should get like a hand gesture for this thing. I think Nick and I actually have one. We might share on Instagram. We worked on one. Jack,

I think this thing is ready to go out of beta mode and into the real world. Snackers, remember, if you're snacking inside, then you're flattening the curve right now. Thank you. Okay, so flattening the curve, which is like reducing the impact of COVID-19, it requires social distancing. And companies have taken the lead to make that happen. Now, Snackers, we're not talking about like the There are corporate emails you've been getting every day about how so-and-so added a little bit more Purell to the front desk. I have a folder in my Gmail just for those kinds of emails. We get it. You guys have a plan about a plan. We're talking about bold, bold private company moves. Nike, Lulu Lemon, Under Armour, all of those three retail companies have closed all of their stores

well before the government required them to do so. Starbucks is pickup only nationwide, even before New York City's requirement that they become pickup only in New York City. White-collar America has been encouraging and even mandating work from home for like over a week now in many cases. If your job revolves around I-Ming slack emoji to each other, odds are you've probably been working home for a few days. I'm also in Vermont. I didn't bring my skis because Vail Resorts shut down all of the Vail Resorts, and so did all of the ski resorts of the epic icon pass. We repeat, Vail Resort shut down Vail resorts. Pretty much every other sports league, by the way, they're also shut down too. All of these efforts to help people flatten the curve have been voluntary initiatives by these private companies.

Government officials have been lagging. Business is leading. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies who are all private businesses in this case? Workers need relief from this thing too. Snackers, work from home really only works for salaried workers. If you're an hourly worker, you're in trouble because you don't get paid unless you work hours. Or if you've got kids who are no longer in school, because school's been canceled, you can't really work from home when the kids are around, but then what are you going to do? Because the kids are around. Long story short, people need some extra money right now because things are just so crazy. And Congress is working on something. They've already waived interest payments on student lows. There you go. But companies are making the

big moves. For example, Snacker Sarah Eden from New York City told us that work date, they're given every worker 250 bucks for work from home and two weeks extra paid bonus. Shopify knows working from home is a drag and people are obsessed with their second monitors. So they're giving a thousand dollar stipend to encourage productive work from home. A lot of ways that could be misused. Grubhub, by the way, is cutting commission fees for restaurants that it typically charges restaurants. Yeah, those mom and pop restaurants shouldn't be paying like 30% to Grubhub right now when they're just trying to survive. And the Dallas Mavericks are paying workers as if the games are happening and they're not happening. Private businesses are helping flatten the curve and they're helping the workers too.

Jack, can you whip up the T-Boy Tuesday takeaways for us, please? Verily just launched Project Baseline, which is the go-to spot for checking if you should get tested for COVID-19. It's owned by Google Parenthabit, it's only in the Bay Area, and it kind of could digitize the future of your health data forever. Second story, the Fed has used all the big guns in its arsenal to ease the financial burden of COVID-19. It's lowered rates to 0%, and it really just wants you to spend, invest, and take out loans. Jerry Powell's pretty much yelling at everyone. Third and final story, private businesses are leading on their response to COVID-19. Snackers, they're helping flatten the curve with some pro-social distance work policies.

Now, time for our snack back to the day. This one tweeted in by an OG snacker. I think she's listened to every episode since the start from her town, originally Andover, Massachusetts. What do we got, Jack? Just Wang goes way back to listening before I had a beard. Jack was this tall. This snack fact was a shocker. I thought it couldn't be true.

Nick triple fact check. It is true. Literally, we were looking the numbers up on the board. There are three trillion trees on planet Earth, which is about 420 trees per living human being. But Snacker, that's not one made Jack and I have to sit down and take a big breath. It's that there are more trees on Earth than there are stars in the Milky Way or cells in the human brain. You have got to be kidding me, Jess, Wes Wayne.

Just, get out of here. You're messing with our heads over here. Now, before we go, we want to give a quick birthday shout-out to Alex, who lives in Germany and whose girlfriend Leah is super bummed that you had to cancel your birthday plans because of the pandemic. It's really rough. We get it, Alex. Probably should double down, double the party next year. Alex, Frolica Gobertskak.

Thank you for snacking. Happy birthday. Snackers, happy Tea Boy, Tuesday. Have a fantastic one. Send us your quarantine goals on Instagram or Twitter at Robin Hood Snacks. The Robin Hood Snacks podcast, you just heard reflects the opinions of only the host who are associated persons of Robin Hood Financial LLC and does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates.

The podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended to serve as a recommendation to buy or sell any security and is not an offer or sale of a security. The podcast is also not a research report and is not intended to serve as the basis of any investment decision. Robin Hood Financial LLC, member FINRA, SIPC. This is Jack. Nick and I both on stock of Lulu Lemon and Nick own stock of Shopify.