Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

And I'm Toby Howell. Today. If you want to learn a lot in a short amount of time, this is the podcast.

Episode for you. It's a special holiday show featuring the smooth talking, fact dropping Phil Andrews of Max and Nomics.

It's Monday, January 20th. Let's.

Ride.

Today is Martin Luther King Junior Day, a federal holiday that has many of you home from work.

It's also Inauguration Day, where Donald Trump will be sworn in as the next president of the United States.

And to cap it all off, the college football championship game is tonight between Ohio State and Notre Dame.

A ton going on, a ton going on.

That's a great way to describe this episode that we taped ahead of the holiday.

We talked to Phil Andrews, who is the man behind the Maximum Mix brand for Morning Brew.

This guy is a human encyclopedia.

He can talk with expertise on topics ranging from autonomous cars to Costco's store design, to whether the U.S.

Should buy Greenland. A true man of the world.

We learned a lot from Phil and know you'll also get a lot out of the conversation.

But first, a word from our sponsor, Yahoo Finance.

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And now here's Phil from Max and Alex.

Fell. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me.

It is a pleasure and an honor to be here.

So, first class in your YouTube channel and social media accounts are called Max and Nomics.

But your name is Phil. What is going on there?

Who are you and how did you end up at Morning Brew?

That's a great question. I'm glad I get to say this because so many people call me Max.

They see me on social media and they see my name is Max.

Rightfully so. The name Max and Onyx was just the name that was chosen for the third, where I came about via.

A variety of websites that served,.

Investing data to the retail investor and just the general public.

Max and Omics was the third one.

It was just kind of the name that stuck when it was time to have a name.

And so here we are. I came from that background of the internet and in writing for a bunch of different websites.

That I'm making video, people like you were really good.

You should get on video. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't do video.

And yet here we are. So, after a little bit of time, Morning Brew reached out and we formed a partnership and.

Here we are. Now, I'm on the morning of your daily podcast.

It is pretty, pretty interesting, right?

And where are you located? Like what city have you spent the most time in in your life?

I have lived in a variety of different places around the United States.

But right now I am just outside of San Francisco, about an hour south of San Francisco.

Enjoying a little bit of the sun.

That's where I call home. But I am originally from Philly, so I'm Phil from Philly, and you will hear it occasionally.

Come out of my mouth. I'll say water, I say water, and a few other things, like I'm from Philly because I'm.

From Philly. Great. Now it's time to pick your brain a bit.

Should the US buy Greenland? I can't see a reason why the US putting want to buy Greenland.

Of course, if the people of Greenland agreed to,.

Join the United States, there's a variety of resources.

The land area, the. It's becoming more and more strategically valuable, given that the planet is warming up and a lot of.

The ice on top of Greenland is melting.

So I don't see a big downside to the United States owning Greenland.

I think it's probably been said, you know, the Alaska purchase was a huge deal.

What a what a benefit, what a boon.

The Louisiana Purchase was probably the best move that Thomas Jefferson made out of all of the good moves that he did.

Make. So why wouldn't Greenland be a benefit to the United States?

Again, I'm not I don't think it should be taken by force or, you know, threatened to be taken over.

The people want to Greenland, want to join the United States.

We would gladly take them and they do want to be independent from Denmark.

And I would remind our listeners that the US did buy a territory from Denmark in the early 20th century, and that.

Would be what is now the US Virgin Islands.

So no Virgin Islands without it, without a land sale, the more you know.

Today is also Inauguration Day and the soon to be President Donald Trump's signature economic proposal is tariffs.

Your most recent YouTube episode is titled tariffs are even more powerful than you think.

A tariff is simply a fee paid at the border.

When goods like steel are brought in from outside the country.

They're not uncommon. The US tariffs on more than 17,000 items.

And this book, which lists all the tariffs the US has in place, is 3000 pages long.

And every single country around the world has a similar book.

Why are tariffs more powerful than I think?

And also, how did you get inside my head?

I have curious to know how that is inside your head.

But the tariffs are far more powerful than you think for a variety of reasons.

You could probably go on for about 30 minutes on the history of tariffs, how they've shaped the world, how they have.

Changed, particularly since 1995 when the World Trade Organization came about.

But tariffs are just this very powerful tool that govern access to a country's consumers, a market.

The US market is the largest consuming market in the world.

You and I, we buy stuff every year that that accounts for about 70% of GDP, or about $20 trillion worth of.

Spending from US, and 7 trillion of that is spent on goods.

Things like cars, dishwashers, mugs, pencils, whatever it happens to be.

And the United States with the lowest or the 14th lowest tariff rate in the entire world, has kind of opened up.

Its market to every manufactured that wants to sell to the United States.

And this has been great for consumers in a lot of way, in a way for prices.

But low tariffs incentivize manufacturers to move manufacturing outside of the United States.

And this is what's been happening for about the past 20 years.

And in huge droves in the early 2000s.

So tariffs are this incredible tool that was has kind of been put on ice over the past 25 years.

And it's just now coming back.

And I think we'll start to see the impact that tariffs had.

Because what the World Trade Organization did not to go on is it removes the ability for a country to utilize, literally.

Change its tariffs for different countries.

And the US pulled out of the WTO in the about 2018.

And so tariffs are coming back into vogue.

Well what do you think we can learn about, the tariff regime from last time when Trump implemented them in 2018.

That might help us understand what's coming for consumers and businesses in the United States and around the world, should they be.

Implemented this time? Obviously, there are so many question marks.

We don't know how high they're going to be or where they're going to go, or on what goods they're going to.

Be placed on. But is there anything that we learned last time that can maybe be applied to, you know, our new.

Era going forward?

Of course. And the blanket implication this time of it's just going to be 25% across the board for all goods.

That's a huge number. And, you know, pretty scary in a variety of different ways.

But the one thing that I would say is for the for president elect like Trump, I would believe is coming out.

Of his mouth. While some of this is certainly a negotiating tactic, this is a man that typically does follow through on.

A lot of the stuff that he says, or at least attempts to.

So I wouldn't think that this is just some grand gesture to try and get,.

A better negotiating position. I would expect to see tariffs come in, at a pretty decent clip across a variety of different.

Categories. As as much as it affects the US consumer, we did see the price of goods that tariff put Trumps on.

Or that Trump put tariffs on in 2018 rise.

But the broad inflation level, it had almost zero effect on broad inflation.

So it's going to depend a lot on how these are instituted in different categories.

But for the most part.

It's hard to predict the effect until we see exactly how they're going to come in.

So I would take a bit of more of a reactionary standpoint here and say they're coming.

They're going to come in a variety of ways on a variety of goods.

Exactly what that's going to be is to be seen.

Did we actually see a boost in domestic manufacturing on the industries that were affected by tariffs?

That is kind of the protectionist mindset when it comes to tariffs, is that by applying these tests, it will hopefully incentivize.

People to move their manufacturing to the United States and hopefully, you know, strengthen those specific industries.

Did we see any of that last time around?

I don't have I don't have great numbers on whether or not the categories that we put tariffs on.

It brought manufacturing back. And I honestly think it would probably be too early to tell.

Six years is a short amount of time to install an entire new manufacturing base.

But what I can tell you is a little bit of the inverse of that.

In 2000 to 2010, 5 million manufacturing jobs left the United States.

And one of the big problems with that, or why that occurred, was because when the when China joined the WTO and.

The WTO became,.

An institution in 1995, China is a special case.

And why the US has higher tariffs on China than the rest of the world.

China does not allow U.S. companies to sell to China the way the US allows China to sell to it.

And and companies around the country looked at this and said, okay, well, if the United States can't raise tariffs in the.

Next 20 years, like they can't unilaterally go in and just next year change tariffs on say,.

Mugs, then I can confidently move my manufacturing outside the United States and not have to worry that that's going to change.

And all my profit margins are going to be destroyed.

So that incentivized. So many companies to leave.

In between 2000 and 2010, 5 million manufacturing jobs lost.

And there just hasn't been this threat of tariffs that have.

Incentivized companies to set up shop here.

And I think we're still in this period of all right.

Our tariffs really back. Like are we really doing this again.

And if they are as a new manufacturing company, am I willing to take the risk of setting up shop outside of.

The country? Or do I definitely want to set it up here and not take that tariff risk?

So to your question, I don't have specific numbers on whether or not that has occurred, but I think it's too early.

To tell. This is a much longer process, I think, than that.

Let's shift gears here a little bit.

If you take a scroll through your Instagram page, you'll see a lot of videos about the airline industry, specifically southwest.

That airline recently announced it is changing its famous boarding system to include a sign seats and premium perks.

What do you think about southwest kind of ditching its routes and falling more in line with the broader airline industry?

One of the reasons that southwest is doing this, in my opinion, is because they don't have anything to offer loyalty customers.

Right. So if you're an American Airlines, I don't know if you either of you have,.

You know, an allegiance Delta United, whatever it happens to be.

I happened to be on American Airlines just because I got on it ten years ago, and it's very hard to get.

Off. It has been beneficial, but American Airlines gives me free stuff for a variety of different categories of flying.

Southwest just gave all of that stuff away for free, right?

There's no first class. There's very little in terms of like early boarding.

There's no lounge. Like there's nothing that southwest had to offer to as a, as a loyalty park.

And that has been good and bad.

A lot of customers would say they love that about southwest.

But a big part of the traveling public now,.

Especially our generations, the millennials and lower love perks.

They have travel credit cards. They have loyalty points, and they want those perks.

You know, the ability to be upgraded to first class is is like a nice thing.

So southwest doesn't have any of that.

And a lot of people are kind of tired of just the random boarding process.

So I'm a little worried about southwest as a company.

However, they have great brand loyalty, so we'll see.

And speaking of perks on flights, Delta and DraftKings just announced a partnership.

It's very vague, but do you think we'll ever see gambling reach the skies?

I'm wondering from a regulatory perspective how this would happen because it's state by state, gambling laws happen state by state.

And frankly, I'm not sure how that would play.

If you're taking a flight from California to Texas, how do you get over all those regulatory hurdles?

Because there's been very light on details.

I think that Delta and DraftKings are like, yeah, this would make a ton of sense.

We've got people sit in our seats for a couple hours.

Let's let them gamble. But I think executing this is going to be much harder than it seems.

And actually, at the federal level, gambling on flights is barred on all U.S commercial flights.

So there is the potential that they go to the Trump administration and lobby.

But it might it might render itself as a much more limited partnership than we what I was about to say we.

Want. But like maybe then some people, I think as you fly over each state where it is legal, it drops in.

And out when you're over that state specific airspace.

So as you're flying over Vegas, get your bets in.

And then once you hit, you know, Iowa, it's it's it's done.

Let's go up in altitude a little bit.

You posted a video recently about the new space race.

What is the new space race?

If you look at a chart of orbital launches, this is taking a rocket and putting it in outside of atmosphere and.

Into space. In 1967, 141 orbital launches happened.

We didn't hit that number again, 141 launches until 2021.

In 2021, we did 145 orbital launches.

And if you look at the chart, it's just right, like a stock chart that you really want to be.

It's just has gone vertical. 263 orbital launches this year.

And the number is only going to continue higher.

The what's happened here is that the cost to put something into space has gone so low SpaceX became the preferred launch.

Platform used to put objects into orbit for U.S.

Companies, nations and Western allies. This year, 90% of all payloads going to space measured by weight will be carried on a.

SpaceX rocket 90%. That is an enormous competitive advantage, and it's likely that number goes up, So as the cost has dropped,.

People are looking and saying, okay, well, what part of space is valuable and do I want to occupy or want to.

Be a part of? So the new space race has been a function of dropping costs.

And then everybody saying, well, I don't want to miss out.

So this has been an entrepreneurial thing, but also militaries at this point in time.

So this is the first time in space history that we have not just nation states and militaries, but we now have.

Entrepreneurs saying, all right, let's go to space and do some stuff.

Let's stick with this future looking perspective.

We've been promised self-driving cars for a decade now, but there finally seems to be actual momentum, with Remo racking up rides.

In San Francisco and expanding to other cities.

How close is our autonomous future?

Our babies born in 2025? Ever going to need to learn how to drive a car?

I think that the answer to that is probably probably no.

I mean, an infant today, they would 16 years from now, we're looking at 2040.

These are between us. Yeah. Generation beta.

Yeah, yeah. The fetus, we'll call them something else.

Yeah. Whatever the term is for AV.

AV riders that don't have driver's license.

I mean, a lot of people in New York don't have driver's license, and a lot of kids get around by Uber.

Now. It's way safer. I'm not a parent.

I don't know if you guys are parents, but one of the things that whenever I've talked to parents is like, we.

Would prefer for our kid to not have to drive.

There's 35,000 car accidents that caused fatalities around the world, around in just the US.

Every single year. So if that number can be lowered, and I think it's hard to argue that autonomous vehicles aren't safer.

I mean, we can get into little details, but over time it will become safer because, autonomous vehicle doesn't look at his.

Phone ever. Or have a chat or drink coffee or whatever it happens to be.

So I think the answer to that is yes.

You live near San Francisco. Have you been in a self-driving car and what's the experience like?

I've spent a bunch of time in Waymo's.

I probably take in 2025 trips and Waymo's at this point in time.

The first thing that you notice when you get in a Waymo is that it's private.

There's no there's no driver yet.

I mean, sure, there's cameras and speakers in there, and I'm sure if somebody really wanted to listen to you, they could.

But you get in there with somebody and you can talk about whatever you want at whatever volume you want.

You can choose the music, like you can have a party.

It's like your own little world for a little period of time.

So it is very nice in a variety of ways.

You know, the windows don't go down.

You set your preferences once and when you get in the next Waymo, preferences are there.

The experience is quite elevated compared to, what we have experienced with, Uber and Lyft in the past.

You are a big fan of Costco's business model and frankly, who is an dollar 50 hot dog soda combo?

You cannot beat that. What can the retail industry learn from the way Costco does things while maintaining their own identity?

One of the things Costco does is maintain its own identity so well with the Kirkland brand, I think it's probably underrated.

I mean, everyone talks about everyone loves Kirkland, but like Costco wine, the Kirkland brand is good.

I mean, and so are a lot of their white label Kirkland products.

So they give you this ability to just go in, wander around,.

And spend money on things that you really do need at a really nice price point without being pushy.

There's really no sales. Things are just kind of placed where things are just kind of placed, where people can go find.

Them and they don't change anything.

Right. The dollar 50 hot dog is such a really good.

It's such a good example. The CEO or CFO years ago or a couple of years ago, I think you guys probably.

Remember the series. Like, definitely use a curse word means like we were not going to change the price of the hot.

Dog. I think that that's what people want is they want that stability of a product and a brand saying, we are.

What we are. We're not changing it.

Just keep coming and we'll keep giving you what you want.

We've been talking about food a little bit, and you have posted some videos about fast food.

Totally market cap right now is around $76 billion.

McDonald's is $200 billion. What does calories per dollar have to do with the gap between those two market caps?

Potentially narrowing over the coming years?

Sure.

When you go and anytime we get food, right, it's,.

It's calories. We are eating calories.

That's that's kind of the point.

So how much how many calories can you get for a dollar?

What is the premise of that whole video and series that I did?

Because it's what we do. I don't think that we instinctively think about it.

You know, how many calories am I getting?

This is a standard meal for McDonald's double cheeseburger of medium fries.

There are 770 calories in this, and it was $9.03 for every dollar you spend in McDonald's, you get back about 100.

Calories. There might be promos and other things to more people in the door, but the regular menu is going to come.

In at about 100 calories for every dollar spent.

Now, this is a very typical meal from Chipotle a chicken burrito, tortilla, rice.

Beans, chicken. Cheese,.

Salsa,.

Lettuce.

1080.

Calories.

Cost.

$10.85.

About 100 calories per dollar. But just an eyeball test and you can see the calories in this burrito are much higher.

Quality than McDonald's. There's fiber, real protein.

Like, I can see the chicken cooking right over there.

It's real vitamins, minerals. It's kind of crazy that you can get this quality of meal for the same price as McDonald's,.

And this has opened up a lot of markets for Chipotle.

Like fast food can go into smaller rural areas that don't have an affluent customer base because they have a lower price.

Point. Chipotle is the first really kind of healthy, fast food, quick service restaurant that is able to do this, which has.

Unlocked just this magnificently big market.

So the runway for Chipotle at about 7000 stores now,.

They could expand by, you know, 500% across the United States over the next 10 to 15 years.

A wise man once said that three out of every 100 people added to the US population in the last decade have.

Ended up in Phoenix. That wise man was you.

Mr. Phil, what is the number one reason behind the growth of the Sunbelt?

And what is the biggest risk factor that could slow its roll?

It was cheap. I mean, it was so cheap.

And of course, the weather. I think that there's a there's a the reason for the growth is one the weather.

A lot of people wanted to get out of the northeast where a property prices are extremely high.

It's hard to build. It's cold most of the time.

And if you move down into the Sunbelt, where now electricity is,.

Much cheaper, it's prevalent. Like you can run AC throughout the year without a window unit.

Like the advances in air conditioning have made the Sunbelt in the really hot areas like Phoenix and Arizona,.

And.

Southern.

Florida.

Attractive. Like without air conditioning, this really wouldn't have happened.

There are very few advances that have happened over the past 30 years, and I've just made it better and better.

Not that people didn't live there beforehand, but this has helped for things like industry.

You can now set up a big office building in Phoenix and it will remain cool and people can work there.

So you can have more jobs in these types of areas.

So this is a big part of the growth.

But I think the point yet housing prices are not cheap anymore.

And if you talk to anybody in the Sun Belt, in places like Phoenix, in places,.

Like Nashville, they complain about the influx of people.

So before, you know, it was just like natural thing, like, oh, you're moving to Nashville and people are like, oh yeah,.

It's great here. But now everybody knows that it's not the niche cool thing anymore.

And I think that that could be a little bit of, a problem.

Okay? The year is still young, so Toby and I put together a few predictions for 2025.

We'd love for you to rate these takes on the likelihood of them happening.

On a scale of me dating Dua Lipa to Tony Romo predicting a football play in other words, not going to happen.

At all too. Very likely. So Toby is going to go first.

My first prediction the air bubble pops, Nvidia stock falls 50%.

And as big tech companies reduce their spending on chips, I think that neo has a pretty good chance of dating Dua.

Lipa. So I'm not going to put it in that bucket.

But I think that the chances.

I will see you guys, I didn't know that.

Well, things can change. Things can change.

I don't think the AI bubble pops.

I do not think Nvidia stock falls 50%.

This is an area where we're seeing huge productivity gains.

I wouldn't be surprised if you guys use it.

I certainly use it all the time.

It helps me in a variety of ways.

So I think the productivity gains throughout the economy are kind of under the surface.

It's hard to measure within financial statements right now, but there's a gold rush here.

I can't see it going anywhere.

It's only going to get better.

The I broke code for the first time a little bit ago, and the tools available for writing code are so good,.

And so the people that write code are also the people that develop AI, and I just can't see them pulling the.

Plug on this. They just kind of want to make their job easier and easier.

Okay. Next prediction Apple intelligence fails to ignite a new round of iPhone buying, putting CEO Tim Cook in the hot seat.

To find Apple's next big thing.

I think this falls in the middle.

Tim Cook hasn't been on the hotseat for a little while.

There have been some failures. I think the scale is here.

Ten flop. Yeah, Vision Pro is a big thing, but big flop.

Yeah, I'll give this a six out of ten then close to Tony Romo.

There you go. All right. Next one.

Terrorists reignite inflation. And rather than cutting rates the fed hikes rates at least one time next year.

Low I say this is a possibility I would never assign a zero.

But I think the incoming administration.

Will want to avoid inflation at all costs.

Because if you get tagged with inflation your group is going to be out of office.

So I put this at a two.

Though I think that there will be plenty of headlines around this, but low.

Let's see what you think about this next one.

Our second last one Starbucks has stock more than doubles after returning to sales growth under new star CEO Brian Niccol.

I would say there's a strong yes there.

I would go in there in the seven to 8 to 9.

I might high five. Tony Rome on this.

I think Starbucks has has a renaissance over the next 12 to 18 months because you, trust Brian Niccol or because you.

Think that they're going to figure out their cafe situation, make it a more plausible experience to to get coffee there again,.

I think they're going I trust Brian Niccol to do exactly that.

He's very good at this. And already what you see is him slimming down the menu.

All of the things that I think we all went to Starbucks were like, why are they serving olive oil drinks?

Why is the menu five pages long?

Like it's it can be a much more pleasant experience.

I think a lot of people like Starbucks, the brand brand has such good affinity.

So I trust Brian Niccol to get this back on track.

I went one for seven actually.

Neil has one more prediction. All right, will Max and Omics hit 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

I would say, talk my own book here.

Yes, absolutely. I think I think YouTube hit, YouTube hits on 100,000 subscribers pretty early in the year.

I really like what we're doing.

It's been a lot of fun and the momentum is great.

And if you like what you heard from Phil today, you can definitely go to his YouTube page, watch incredible videos.

It's in the podcast description, and you can also find him on all social media platforms under the handle at Max and.

Nomics. Phil, I only wanted to call you Phil at one time during this show, so thank you so much for jumping.

On. We hit a lot of topics there, so I hope you all enjoyed listening at home as well.

Go check out Phil's stuff. He's on all platforms and he makes awesome stuff.

Thanks for joining us Phil.

Thank you so much for having me.

It's been a pleasure.