The Best One Yet - ⛏️✨ “I AM saying she’s a golddigger” — Kanye’s new iPod. Google’s Kraft-O-Matic. How Sanctions mess with Americans.

Episode Date: February 24, 2022

Kanye’s newest album is dropping, but there’s only 1 place to listen… and it looks like a hockey puck. Kraft-Heinz has a unique problem: It’s already everywhere - so Google's helping it go viral. And we heard you want to know how sanctions can affect you - here’s how.$KHC $AAPL $SPOTGot 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 Thursday, the new Friday, February 24th. TBOI. This is the best one yet. Totally the best pod we've ever done. Jack, what's our first story?

For our first story, Kanye, just dropped a new album. It's about the ultimate gold digger. Yeezy is cutting out the musical middleman. Our second story is about Kraft Heinz, which partnered with Google to create CraftO-Matic. Craft-O-Matic. This thing's going to tell Kraft what wild food you're going to eat by tracking your YouTube. Our third and final story, you might be thinking, Russia invaded Ukraine. Why didn't sanctions on Russia go further?

Well, it's because sanctions don't just hurt Boris the billionaire. They also hurt American Joe. Wow. Snackers, before we hit that wonderful mix. A fantastic mix for a new Friday, Jeff. Thursday is the new Friday. It's indisputable. Ipsop facto Thursday is the new date night.

But what if Thursday wasn't just date night? Yeah, Snackers, what if Thursday was your only date night? Funny thing, a new dating app that only lets you date one day per week. And that day is Thursday. And that dating app is Thursday. Yeah, that's the name. It's called Thursday. It's called Thursday.

Here's the catch snackers. You can only date and match on Thursdays on Thursday. The app lies dormant for six days a week. It's just sitting there. But at the strike of midnight, Wednesday night, the gates open. You can log out. And then you have 24 hours. to swipe and find a match within 24 hours.

And when the sun rises Friday morning, the app wipes itself clean and lies dormant again for six more days. It's like Cinderella. The ball is over. Go home. Thursday has created a false sense of scarcity. Oh, they absolutely have because if you only had one night to date,

Jack, you're going to go full ham on this thing. You're not going to waste time with Ghost and Greg or maybe Madeline. No, no, no. You're going to shoot your shot with a shot worth shooting. This is your one shot. You're not just getting a dollar slice of beer and a dollar burger. No, you're not. You're going to toss on a tux.

Maybe a full-length gown. You're going all out. What are you doing Monday? You're busy. How about Tuesday or Wednesday? You're busy. Thursday? You're dating.

Thursday is the day for dating. Thursdays are the new everything. Let's date our three stories. You're tuned in the snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something illegal out the way. The snacks are about the hearing food. It's air 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. Right. Snacks is digestible. Business news for you. Robberhood Financial, LLC, member Fenra slash SIPC.

For our first story this week, Kanye West dropped an album. But here's the thing. There's only one way to get it. Because Yeezy is bent on destroying the music industry's middleman. It has been a trifling friend indeed. Snackers, 2022. It's been a year of Kanye. You got the good and you got the bad, quite a combination.

We're not even two months in, but this year, a documentary about Kanye West is top 10 on Netflix right now. And you were just watching it right now. Oh, yeah. I'm one episode in, two to go. I heard his retainer, like, plays a big role in the documentary. Yeah. It's very endearing.

And I know you have a retainer, too. It's a permanent retainer. It's not as cool. But then at the Super Bowl, Kanye wore a mask. Not a 995 mask. No, no, no. A full-headed black mask with like no eye holes. Yeah, we're talking like it's hot and her kind of a mask.

Oh, and of course there's the public feud with Kim Kardashian who's seeking divorce from him and a public feud with a new boo Pete Davidson too. But this story that Jack and I jumped into Snack style, this story is about yeezy thinking that the music industry is a gold dig. These are Kanye's words from Instagram. Today, artists get just 12% of the money the industry makes. I'm not saying she's a golder. He is saying she is.

a gold digger. He is very clearly saying she's a gold digger. Here's why Kanye's saying that, because Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon, they've reportedly paid musicians just $5,000 for each one million streams of their music. Let that sink in Snackers. A million times your song streams, you're getting paid $5,000 as the artist. So if you're a musician, you must be asking your fans to just leave Spotify on overnight. Just let my song play on repeat. Please, I need the money. Toss it on repeat and I'll cut you a check. Play that same song. So, Kanye is out to destroy what he calls the oppressive system. And the way he's doing it is with Donda. Specifically, Donda 2. Now, Donda is actually the name of his late mother, which she's featured in the

documentary, I believe, Jack. Yeah, she is. She's amazing. They had a great relationship. Now, he named the first album after his mother, Donda, in 2021. So the second album, Donda 2 is like, supposed to drop any day now, right? It was supposed to drop on Tuesday. Did it drop? And it didn't see a drop. It didn't drop. But when it does drop, he's, he didn't drop. But when it does drop, he's, he's, Here's the catch. It's not going to be just everywhere. Yeah, Snackers. In fact, you can only listen to the new Kanye Donda 2 album in one place,

one physical place only. Not Apple Music, not Spotify, not Amazon music. You can't stream it on YouTube. No, no. The only place you can listen to this new Kanye album is with the STEM player. The STEM player. Kanye's version of the iPod. Yeah, called the Yeapuck.

Called the YIPA. This is a physical thing about the size of a hockey puck, and you need it to listen to his music. It looks like a glorified Tomogachi. Yeah, it does. It's $200. It's basically an MP3 player. Exactly.

And it lets you listen through Bluetooth to speakers nearby. Now, shocker, Kanye says this device is special. Yeah, this isn't just some 20-year throwback to the old MP3 days. Uh-uh. Kanye says you can listen to four different elements of each track of his music. That's exactly what you've never asked. It's $200. And it comes with Donda 2 built in.

So it's kind of like, you know, an NFT club. It's a member's only exclusive thing once you buy this Kanye tech product. Right. But instead of owning an NFT to listen, you have to own this $200 hockey park to listen. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddy Kanye West taking on the music industry? Where there's a middleman, there's money. So Kanye's cutting out the middleman in music. Yeah, Snackers.

Kanye doesn't want 12% of the music he streams. He wants 100% of his music money. This man from Chicago is. going for vertical integration of his music. First time we've ever seen it, from production to vocals. And here's the thing, it's not just the middleman streamers. Kanye also wants to cut out the middleman concert venues. On Tuesday night, the night the album was supposed to drop.

Kanye hosted a concert in Miami to promote that album, Donda 2. Now, instead of the conventional tour with like one concert, every city, Kansas City tonight, Miami tomorrow, Kanye only did one concert. He only did one concert, but he live streamed video of that. wild concert, by the way, to 15 different IMAX theaters across the United States and charged $25 per ticket, not to the concert, to the IMAX theater. Now, we should point out that at the last second, Kanye kind of caved and ended up live streaming the entire thing on YouTube for everyone for free.

Yeah, if you bought those $25 tickets, you must be like, what? And it's TBD, whether the sales of Kanye's STEM player for music are going to be huge or not. He also might cave and put it on Spotify, even though he said he wouldn't. But no matter what, where there is a middleman, there is money. If Kanye cuts those middlemen out successfully, other artists will try to. For our second story, Jack, bagel bites or Kool-Aid? Cool-Aid. I mean, no, no, no.

Bagel bites. It's both. You got to wash one down with the other, Jack. Cheese. I don't know about that. And ketchup, icon, Kraft Heinz, they're on a comeback. They are our second story. And Kraft Heinz, they are our second story.

they just partnered with Google of all companies. The Craft-O-Matic is about solving a problem caused by too much success. All right, let's go back to 2015. Jack, 2015 to 2020, those were dark days for the condiments in Isle 6. Yeah, Kraft-Hines, which is the king of the condiments. Classic. Their stock fell 75% in that five-year period. Now, Comfort Food Cravings, they have stopped the stock drop over at Kraft Hines.

But, Jack, Craft Hines, they still face this, like, unique. Here's the problem. 97% of American homes already have a Kraft Heinz product in there somewhere. It's a weird problem to have. Like, we'll admit it. But 97% of us don't think... We don't even think.

It's just ketchup heights. Mac and cheese. Craft. Boom. Mariner. Classico. I'm a Prego guy. You're making it from scratch, Jack. You gotta make it from scratch. Their grandmother's not happy right now, Jack. So Craft Heinz, they don't need new customers. They do need, however, to stay relevant, to stay fresh, and to stay desirable

in the eyes of consumers. One Kraft-Hines executive summed up the challenge here. They have to do this by inserting themselves in the social conversation. But inserting yourself as a corporation on Twitter into the conversation? It's awkward. When they do it, it's awkward. It's insincere. It's unnatural when companies do that. Well, Jello to you too, Adele. So Snackers, here's what Jack and I found fascinating about this predicament. Craft Hines is now part of it. with Google to build a thing that they're calling Kraftomatic. Google is going to mine all the customer data that Kraft hands. Then they're going to mine everything on the internet and find out new product opportunities for Kraft Hines.

Yeah, basically the techies over at Google and preft Kraft Hines with the words artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cloud. Where do I sign? All that technology, they're going to find ideas to keep Kraft Hines relevant. That's Google's promise. Okay. So here's an example of this in the real world. Last year, mac and cheese was like taking off in stores and on Instagram, like everywhere.

It was an online thing. People were adding in candy toppings, maybe even food coloring, wacky colored mac and cheese and posting it online. Working from home, he may as well heat up a whole bunch of velvita. So Kraft Heinz launched pink candy mac and cheese. They followed the meme. Exactly. They tested this pink candy flavored mac and cheese in Canada, sold out, and then they started selling it in the U.S.

It was pink, so it was great on TikTok's algorithms. And it was candy flavored, so it was perfect for comfort food cravings. Now, thanks to Google's partnership, Kraft won't have to rely on their interns who are actually using TikTok to spot the trends. That's a good point. Instead, they can just use Google searches, Google shopping, and YouTube with the data whipped up by Google to create new flavors and formulas. Sit this one out, intern Annie. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Kraft Hines? Success isn't yesterday's sales.

It's about tomorrow's sales. Snackers, we repeat, Kraft Hines is in 97% of U.S. homes. That sounds like success. If there wasn't Kraftine Sourcrow and Grey Poupon, it wasn't even a barbecue. Yeah, but here's the thing. Successful brands, they don't take for granted past sales. They don't expect them just to continue. If customers don't find Kraft Hines products relevant, then when that product runs out,

they might not replace it. Snackers, it is easy to see Kraft Hines' extensive reach as a success. There are like literally no new houses for them to sell to. Well, there's 3%. That's it. But yesterday's sales don't guarantee tomorrow's. For our third and final story, after our story yesterday on Russia, a lot of Snackers were wondering why the U.S. didn't punish Russia more.

And the reason is because sanctions go both ways. They can hurt both Boris the billionaire and American Joe. So Snackers, Monday, Putin of Russia tried to redraw the map of Ukraine. The West responded with Sanctious. sanctions and condemnation. So on yesterday's pod, we focused on Russia. How would the sanctions from the United States, European Union, UK and Germany, how would they hurt Russia? And how can social media fight Putin's attempts to revise history in real time? But Russia, this is a unique situation. Russia's not like other countries. Russia has a nuclear arsenal and tons of oil. Snackers,

Russia is number one in the world in nuclear weapons and number three in the world in producing oil. Those are big numbers. So we think this Ukraine situation, It requires a part two pod story. It does. How do American sanctions affect America? And why didn't Joe Biden go further with the sanctions? So here's how Jack and I are thinking about these sanctions. They're not dropping at once like a Netflix show.

This isn't Tiger King. You're not binging on all the sanctions. No, no, no. Instead, these sanctions, they are unfolding over weeks like HBO episodes. This is Game of Thrones. This is like Game of Thrones. Phase one was Tuesday. It was financial sanctions.

Yes, those sanctions cut off Russia's bang. government and oligarchs from Western money. Joe Biden announced it on Tuesday, and those sanctions affect Boris the billionaire, not American Joe. Now, that was phase one. Phase two of sanctions hasn't happened yet, but it goes even further.

The more severe sanctions against Russia would be ones that target Russia's oil industry. Yeah, so the United States and Europe are saving those more intense sanctions for if Putin escalates the invasion further. And the reason they're saving those intense phase two sanctions, you can see it in the stock market. Yeah, you can. The S&P 500 felt Tuesday and Wednesday on fears that Biden may have to go further in sanctioning Russia to protect Ukraine.

The stock market is now down nearly 12% from its record high. Right, which is a technical correction of the stock market. So the first sanctions, they only affected oligarchs like Boris the billionaire. Yeah. The second sanctions would affect American Joe too. So, Jack, what's the takeaway for all of us who are seeing these sanctions suddenly happen? Sanctions go both ways. And the U.S. economy, we don't need a sanction.

right now. Yeah, here's the reality. These intenser phase two sanctions, they would hurt Americans probably about as much as they hurt Russians. In yesterday's pod, we said that Russia at the country was like one giant gas station. One big Chevron. But without the fun magazines and the cheeky snacks. And if we cut off oil that comes from Russia, that'll cause prices of oil and gas to spike. And that'll be a huge problem because gas, it's already 40% more expensive right now than it was last year. It's a five bucks here in California. Imagine if we should. shut off all the oil and gas from Russia, what that would do to prices. Oil prices, they're already up on just the chance that Russian oil and gas could get blacklisted. Oh, and Russia produces a bunch of

wheat and corn that the world eats too. Yeah, they do. And if oil, wheat, and corn from Russia get punished with sanctions, then inflation is going to get even worse. Corn flakes are already painfully expensive. So snackers, President Biden, who suffers in the polls because of inflation, is saving the biggest sanctions for later. American businesses and consumers, hope he saves those bigger sanctions for never. Jack, can you in the Craft-O-Matic whip up the takeaways for us over there? Kanye is cutting out all music's middlemen with Donda Tick. Yeah, where there's a middleman, there's money.

For our second story, even though you already have it in your pantry, Kraft Hines wants to stay relevant. Because yesterday's sales, don't guarantee tomorrow sales. And our third and final story is that phase two sanctions may be needed to protect Ukraine and stop Putin. But they'd hurt both Boris the billionaire and American Joe. Now, time for our snack fact of the day. This one sent in by Lucy, Alex, and Little Millie Matthews,

a wonderful family who I met in the Fort Mason Farmers Market Jack, their snackers, and they cook great food, apparently. Great farmers market. I used to live just a few blocks away from it. It's a great one. We should pot from there. Here's a trivia question for you. What is the fastest growing plant on earth?

You're going to think it's some kind of a tree. It's not exactly the thing. kind of tree you're thinking. It's bamboo, which technically isn't a tree. It's grass. Exactly. And bamboo can grow to full size in under four months. Some bamboo plants grow 30 inches a day. We repeat 30 inches a day. Oh, and guess what? It's the only plant we're aware of that has a Guinness World Record. Yeah, for that 30 inches of growth a day. And did we mention their climate vacuums too? They absorb twice as much carbon as the average tree. And pump out 30% more oxygen than the average tree, even though it's not a tree. Actually, we share our idea to stop the next toilet paper shortage. Bamboo toilet paper. Boom.

Done. Can I humble bag for a second? Please, go on. I'm potting right now from a bamboo tabletop. Okay. What are you doing to help the climate? This podcast is absorbing CO2 as we record. Snackers, have a fantastic Thursday, Thursday, date night. Another way you can help grow this pot? Talk to a buddy and say, hey, H. H. H. H. H. Y, H. H. H.S. Day. Have you had your snacks daily? If you know, you know. Nick and I'll see you tomorrow. Can't wait.

And before we go, happy birthday to Melanie Gutierrez, turned in 39 in Ontario, California. And Frederick Jake Miller in Aurora, Ohio. And Wardenite Tara Sullivan, who's listening on the walk to class from Riddenhouse Square. Happy 17th birthday, the Talley White in Garden Valley. And Nick, turning 25 in Tempe, Arizona.

Happy birthday to Jerson Alvarez in Litchfield Park, Arizona. And Tee Mo. O'Connell in Dallas, Texas. Big happy birthday to Eric Jones in Samonic, Illinois. And Jenna, enjoy that new job down in Jacksonville. And anybody celebrating something else today? Make it a T-boy. Celebrate the wins.

This is Jack. Nick owned stock of Apple. I own stock of Netflix. We both own stock of Spotify. And I own stock of Amazon. 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 Robinhood 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 on the basis for any investment decision. Any third-party information provided therein

does not reflect the views of Robin Hood Markets, Inc., Robin Hood 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. You're mega from scratch, Jack. You got a bigger from scratch.