The Best One Yet - 🤐 “Secret Elite VIP Club” — JPMorgan’s Infatuation feast. Facebook’s secret X-Check. Taxes poppin’.

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

The WSJ’s deep reporting shows Facebook’s got a secret club of 5.8M VIPs users subject to different FB rules than everyone else. JP Morgan just acquired a hipster restaurant startup The Infatuation (we double-taked)? And Democrats just unveiled their beefy, meaty, tax hike on the wealthy & big business, so we whipped up some numbers for ya.$JPM $FBGot 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, September 14th. What a pod we whipped up for you today. This is a fantastic pod. Stocks.

Got a case of the fun days, Jack. Yes. The Dow jumped 260 points to start the week and to break its five-day losing streak. Best quote of the day comes from Jack. I haven't worn my Apple Watch in two days because I know it's dead and I don't know where the charger is. It's not set it and forget it. In the meantime, this pod's actually the best one yet. This is the best we've done.

First story, the infatuation is next to my go-to website. It is. For the 10 best burritos in all of Mission District. And the legendary restaurant review startup was just acquired by J.P. Morgan Chase? Really? For our second story, Democrats are targeting the rich and big business with the biggest tax increase in decades. Snackers, what happens to taxes messes with stocks. For our third and final story, have you heard of X-Chcheck?

Jack, I haven't heard of X-Chek. What is X-Chek? It's a secret elite VIP club of six-month. million Facebook users who don't have to follow the Facebook rules. First rule of X-check, don't tell the lawyers about X-check. Before we hit those three stories, your name is nice, but your nickname's even nicer. Jack, do you want to disclose something here? Jack Kramer? I mean, John Kramer? Yeah, Jack's not my real name. Jack's a nickname. It's nicer. It is, it is. And I should let you know I'm a Nicholas. You know, it's more formal, but I'm technically a Nicholas.

Nicknames are more fun, and it's the same with stocks. You know, two, three, and four-letter ticker symbols. We've all seen them. They're all over Wall Street. Those ticker symbols are basically nicknames, but for stocks. Most ticker symbols are pretty boring. Like Microsoft has MSFT, Tesla has TSLA. Some of them, though, Jack, we got some fun in there. Harley Davidson, their ticker symbols, H-O-G. Hogg. Got to love it. Malson Cores, the beer company, TAP. TAP-T-T-A-P. So I've never heard of the company Olympic Steel, but apparently Olympic Steel stock ticker symbol is Zeus. I'm going to love it. The ultimate stock ticker symbol, though, is neither boring nor clever. The ultimate stock ticker symbol is the single letter stock ticker symbol.

Now, there are only 26 possible members of the single letter ticker symbol club. Yeah, so fact, 26 letters in the alphabet for everyone keeping track over here. Some are just abbreviations like F is four. Kellogg got K and that's pretty impressive. T is AT&T because that company loves the letter T. They love the T's. But then Z, you got to get the coveted Z. Z, Z is Zillow.

They got Z. Now, apparently, there are only four single letter ticker symbols still available. That's right. 20 of the letters in the alphabet have been taken by stock. 22, actually. 20. And math has been taken out of my head. But there are four remaining and that is it.

So for T-Boy Tuesday, today, our question for you, what are the four letters? Snackers, think about this. Talk to the people around you. What four letters have not yet been claimed as a stock ticker symbol? The answer. Yes. I'll give you a number. minute is it's at the end of the pop. Let's turn out of three stars.

You're tuned in to snacks daily. We spoke to the lawyers and we got to get something legal out the way. It snacks about to hear ain't 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. Nope. 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 for our first story. The Senate's back from summerification. And here's the thing. Here's the first plan. The first thing, the priority massively raised taxes. That's what it is. Yes. Okay. Nick, Democrats control the House, the Senate, and the White House since the elections back in November. But time is running out for them.

I'm just a bill sitting here on Capitol Hill, Jack. Democrats have already talked about, and we've talked about on the pod, the trillion-dollar hard infrastructure bill. Yeah, you know, the roads, the pipes, the bridges, we've talked about this. And we've talked about the three trillion dollar human infrastructure bill. The child care, the health care, the fighting poverty. We've talked about it. Democrats are still working on those two bills, but this week, they're focused on how to pay it because someone's got to pay. Someone's got to pick up this bill. It always happens at the end of the night, which leads us to the TLDR here, Jack. The rich and big corporations would pay more than not rich and small businesses would pay the same or less in taxes.

Yeah, Snackers, Democrats' plan, this would raise about $3 trillion over the next 10 years to pay for Biden's built-back better plan, the old triple B. Now, this tax hike is very different than in 2017. Well, it might say the opposite. When then President Donald Trump cut corporate taxes from 35% to today's 21%. Yeah, that was the great tax diet, the Atkins of taxes back in 2017. Very different story. This plan proposed yesterday by Democrats would partially undo that corporate tax cut,

but only for companies making over $5 million in profit. So if you're a company that's making more than $5 million a year, your tax rate would go from 21%, which it was reduced to in 2017, up to 26.5% now. But if you're a small business making less than $5 million profit a year, you're going to enjoy a tax cut from this Democratic proposal. That's right. Your tax rate fell to 21%.

back in 2017. Now it's going to go down to 18%. It's going to be cut even more. Now, that's just the businesses. Yeah, what about if you don't own a business thing? If you don't have business, and you're just, you know, just a casual human being walking around for individuals making over $400,000, this plan calls for like a Benihana-sized service of more taxes. Yes. But if you make over $5 million a year in income, first of all, good for you. Second of all, congrats on the bonus tax of 3% extra per year. And this money is going to give the IRS more funding to catch tax Dodgers who are on an extended vacation down to the Cayman Islands the last few years. Now, since this bill has zero Republican support, it would require every Democratic vote to pass Congress. Yeah,

so Jack and I are looking at like the whiteboard lineup here of the political spectrum. You got progressives like Bernie Sanders. They're all for this Democratic taxation bill. Moderates like Joe Manchin makes him a little uncomfortable. So we'll see if this becomes real Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over in everyone who lives in the United States? Trump's tax cut boosted stocks. This will probably hurt stocks short term. December 23rd, 2017. Trump's signature legislation that came out then made companies 25% more profitable overnight. Lower corporate taxes means higher corporate profits. We're talking to zero-sum game here. Increaseum stockium. It's that instant. If you,

You are a company, your stock probably rose thanks to that bill in 2017, because stock prices are driven by profits. Now with this new bill, here's the deal. This would partially undo the Trump tax drop, which would partially undo the Trump stock pop. I think that worked. It worked. I think it works.

Okay. Nice. But that is why Goldman Sachs just downgraded their forecast for the US stock market for 2021. Exhibit A, Goldman Sachs cited. this exact Democrat tax hike as a key risk for the whole U.S. stock market. Long term, tax hikes like this one, you could call them fiscally responsible. Yeah. Because the government's spending, that might as well actually pay for it and not just

charge the nation's credit card. But short term, stock markets love tax cuts and hate tax increases. Or our second story, this one's a shocker. J.P. Morgan just made its tiniest, maybe, most interesting acquisition. Honestly, they've ever done. America's biggest bank just bought a hipster restaurant review startup called the infatuation. Hey, Jamie Diamond, what's your favorite pork bun in the West Village, man? The infatuation founded in New York City in 2009 by a couple of Nix fans named Steintall and Stang.

Classic. They do the restaurant reviews in 50 cities, and it's written like it was a Snacks newsletter, basically. These guys actually inspired Nicks and my early version of snacks. Oh, and also, Jack, remember like we were celebrating the wins that time? We went to bar sardine and we got the burger at bar sardine. Yeah. That was an infatuation review. That's how we ended up. Snackers, infatuation reviews are like BuzzFeed meets Yelp with a dollop of Gordon Ramsey's grit.

Yeah, perfectly put. Edge, sassy? If we got a date in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, most reviews are going to tell you the restaurants with the best service and the fanciest tartar. Yeah, infatuation is going to tell you if you're going to look like an idiot for choosing that place. They're all over you. Don't choose that place. Choose this instead. That's at the infatuation tones.

Now, Jack and I have said there is so much just content out there in the world right now. Content is king, but curation is queen. That's the key. With limitless food options, you need a guide. Yeah. And that's why these infatuation guides are that curation. For example, they got a guy to 15 places to eat with someone who is cooler than you in Chicago. My buddy bear definitely needs that one.

Yeah, he's going to do that one. That's a good guy for that. Or how about this? five San Francisco tomato dishes that will make you name your first child, Pomodora. Jack, actually, I've got one up right now from the website. It's where can I eat fries by myself at the counter and still look sexy, seven places to eat it. The answer is anywhere as long as it sounds bad.

You can't lose if you're eating fries solo. But that curation, that's just the first step. Then it goes a step further. They're famous for their filters. Right. Because there are a thousand restaurants in Boston. You need a filter. Right.

I remember when I was living in New York, I would search for restaurants and I would add the filter good for big groups. I'd add the filter brunch, good for birthdays, and good for basic brunch. Boom. You use the infatuation and the 1,000 restaurants in like a three block radius in New York or down to three. Very useful. Now, financial institutions don't usually acquire media startups or food startups for that matter. That's what Jack and I find fascinating about this story. banks aren't buying up companies with burritoless.

But J.P. Morgan, the owner of Chase Sapphire credit cards, wants... They want our takeaway, Jack. They want our takeaway. So what Jack is our takeaway for our buddies over at J.P. Morgan and the infatuation? Perks. Perks have become a competitive advantage. Snackers, this story immediately reminded Jack and I have one thing. Actually reminded us of the acquisition of market snacks, our startup. Yeah, I mean, this is like, freakishly identical. Finance company acquiring immediate stuff.

Really kind of great. The other thing, though, that it reminded us of was 2019, American Express acquired a startup called Resi to help you get restaurant reservations. Yeah. Now, thanks to that acquisition, American Express credit card holders can cut the line and get that 7 o'clock, prime time Friday night reservation right by the window. You know that one by the window? I know that one by the window. That carbone. That's a good place by the window. Not too shabby. Well, J.P. Morgan's Chase credit card holders will probably now get some special infatuation. perks because of this acquisition. Spend $6,000 in the first three months, you get a private baking class with a chef who invented the cronaut.

Spend $10,000. Maybe you get to cut the line at the infatuation's next food festival over in Kansas City. Credit cards used to get your loyalty with points and points alone. Now they're doing it by giving you exclusive access, making you feel like an insider. That's why perks have become a competitive advantage. For our third and final story, there is a secret VIP group of Facebook users called X-check. X-check. Here's the deal. Powerful people face one

set of rules on Facebook. Everyone else in the world faces another set of rules. Now, Snackers, if you're even using Facebook these days, maybe you're just doing it to make birthday posts. Or maybe you're on Instagram instead, which is also on Facebook, and you're a creator whose financial livelihood depends on your Instagram following. But whoever you are, it doesn't matter who you are, you must obey Facebook's community standards. This is a quote straight from Facebook's transparency website. Our community standards apply to everyone all around the world and to all types of content. And that is an airtight claim.

The Wall Street Journal found a huge exception. Yeah, get this. Apparently there's this thing that none of us had ever heard of called X-check. X-check is a secret list of 5.8 million powerful people. We're talking politicians, celebrities, athletes, even famous dogs, legendary dogs. And these people don't follow those community standards, we just mentioned. This is 5.8 million VIPs globally who are in this club X-check. They may not even know it, and they're getting special treatment on Facebook.

We just found out. The Wall Street Journal quoted Donald Trump, Elizabeth Warren, soccer player Namar, even an Instapet who has a great account, Doug the pet. Doug the pug is apparently in this. Exchecks Secret Club and he didn't even know. For these high rolling, high follower Facebook users, Facebook decided to disable the AI that automatically takes down posts that violate their community standards. Yeah. So posts like bullying, sexual content, hate speech, things that inside violence, that kind of stuff.

The reason is that Facebook didn't want to accidentally delete a post that shouldn't have been deleted because that would lead to a quote unquote PR5. So instead, here's what Facebook did. They were supposed to have like a full-time human employee reviewing all these posts from this VIP X-check club. But then 5.8 million people got added to this list. So there's no way Facebookers are reviewing their posts. If so a fact of Facebook's found itself with an invisible elite tier of people whose posts

just aren't subject to the same rules as all the rest of us. Here's the while this part. Facebook did an internal review and discovered this huge problem in 2019. And their own lawyers were like Facebook. This is bad. Yeah. Their own lawyers literally said, for a select few members, we are not enforcing our own policies. And this is a PR risk. Now, thanks to fabulous journalism by the Wall Street Journal, that PR risk, the lawyers alluded to, exploded yesterday into a PR scandal. And then it ended up on this pod. So Jack, what's the takeaway for our buddies over at Facebook?

Facebook's trust deficit hasn't hurt profits, but it can crush projects. Snackers, Facebook's head of digital currencies said it best. Facebook has a trust deficit with the public. We just mentioned it the other day. Because of Facebook's long history of contradictions and failed enforcement of their own rules. Funny thing, that hasn't hurt Facebook's profits. This is in a trillion dollar company with record profits and advertisers love it.

But the trust deficit has hurt Facebook's ambitions to go above and beyond scrolling and likes of social media apps. Case of point, Jack, thinking of the portal, video screen in living rooms that Facebook came out with, kind of a flop. How about Facebook's global digital currency? That hasn't even launched. Policymakers are so opposed. The Rayban shades that they just announced, an alternative digital reality known as the metaverse, other new things. We don't know how they're going to do.

PR scandals like Xcheck haven't impacted profits of Facebook's existing core social media apps. But PR scandals like Xchek have eliminated any trust needed for new Facebook products. Jack, can you whip up the takeaways for us before you go find your Apple Watch Charger? The latest Democratic bill means more taxes for wealthy people and big biz. Yeah, Trump's tax cut boosted stocks, this tax hike would probably do the opposite short term. The infatuation has gone full corporate. They're now part of the suits at J.P. Morgan Chase. Yeah, because J. Sapphire, it knows perks are an advantage.

Facebook's X checklist got out of control, letting violating posts from big people mess with the Facebook. Has hurt Facebook profits. Has hurt Facebook product launches. Now, time for our snack fact of the day, which is the answer to our trivia question for T-Boy Tuesday. Fantastic trivia question. What are the four letters still available for single letter ticker symbols? Yeah, there are only 26 letters in the alphabet. Four are unclaimed on the stock exchanges. What are they?

I. Yes. And can I buy a vowel? What do we got? Q and P. There you go. I and Q and P. It sounds like a weird new subway line, Jack. All right.

Now, I know one company, Reddit is rumored to be gearing up for the stock market. Oh, are you thinking they're going to take one of these? Which one would you take? Q. Reddit. Yeah. Ask me anything. There you go.

Jack. Another one here. Goop. You know, Gwyneth Poutros goop. I don't know Gwyneth, but I feel like she'd take the P. I feel like she'd take the eye because there is an eye in Gwett. Just to mess with us. Snackers, you look fantastic.

Actually, if you got an idea for who should take. these ticker symbols, tweet us at Robin Hood Snacks, at Jack Kramer, at Nick of New York. Nick and Al Cedar, I can't wait. And before we go, happy birthday to Hardik Javari in Mumbai, India. And Barry Del Moshi in Pleasanton, California. And Kevin Land, down in Long Beach, California. Congrats to Alonzo F, who just got to grad school in North Carolina. And Yusuf, congrats on the new job in Tempe.

Also, new job. Tyson Martin, congratulations in Pennsylvania. Ryan and Maddie, enjoy the move to Austin. Send us some barbecue tips. We need some tips. Anyone else celebrating something today? Make it a teable. literal steak tips. Celebrate the wins. This is Jack, Nick on Stock of Zillow. 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, or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates. They are meant for informational purposes only and are not a 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., 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, LLSA, or L-L-C, member FINRA SIPC. That's a good place by the window.