Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.

This is Everybody's Business from Bloomberg Business Week.

I'm Max Chafkin, I'm Stacey Bennix Smith and Max.

I think the theme for this week is situationships.

I don't know where this is going, but.

Okay, situationships as in a relationship that's kind of messy, not entirely defined.

Source of a lot of drama.

Situationships.

All right, Stacey, I'm gonna work with you here because but because I think you're right a little bit like it does kind of describe our situation with tariffs right now.

Yes, maybe they're awesome, maybe they're not.

Maybe they're legal, maybe they're not.

We've got Joe Wisenthal of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, a friend of the pod here talking markets and tariffs.

Also, the Movie of the Summer is well, it's not in theaters, Max, it is on Netflix.

Movie of the Summer.

It's on Netflix.

I'm so excited about this.

I just want to say the title.

I know the great Sam Sanders is here to talk.

Go ahead.

K Pop Demon Hunter K Pop Demon Hunters.

Max is very into this movie, and we'll talk with.

Sam about it and Finally I'm told it's pumpkin spice latt sis.

And now I'm told the mayo is love the flavor.

It's everywhere.

Nothing is complicated about that one, right.

Stacy, Except most of the ingredients are imported, so tariffs are complicating our relationship with pumpkin spice lattes.

It's pumpkin spice tariff season now.

I think right now, in our economy, the ultimate situationship is between companies, workers and AI.

And we talked about this two weeks ago on the episode that Zitron, which people should check out a FA and listen to.

There's all this promise with AI.

We're all a lot of businesses are super excited about it.

They're investing sing billions in some cases.

Ten workers replaced by this technology in some cases right.

And and there's also the promise that it could create more jobs.

It's just it just feels like so much there is up in the air, and we really don't know anything yet except we're all spending tons of money on it.

Yes, well, and I think things are changing really fast, and everyone's like, is this going to take my job?

Is this going to help me do my job?

But I thought I would go to students because they are tend to be more comfortable with new technology on the cutting edge.

So too Columbia to NYU to kind of track down some students and ask them how they are using AI.

And here's what they said.

Do you guys use AI?

Yes, all the time, all the time, we're.

Actually AI students students, really yes?

What do you use it for?

Editing?

So like if you write a papers.

It could be like as simple as just like a text just to polish my language?

Or is it like some simple researchers.

I don't trust an AI on like super deep academic stuff yet.

And what about like with schoolwork?

Is it like a big helper.

I wouldn't say take AI with a grain.

Of salt, because they make mistakes just like humans do as well.

Always double check.

Honestly, it's basically the greatest cheat code for college.

Like I'm not even kidding.

I do know a few people who have used AI or chat GBT as kind of like a friend, like getting advice from I.

Agree, but I definitely think that other people might find more comfort in AI as a friend than what we might like to think.

I study actually in the field of public health.

I studied cancer and epidemiology.

We are actually working with AI, like studying and working with it.

With the rise of AI, like pretty much anything as possible.

Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, Oh my god, oh god, I'm so worried for our future.

Really, the AI students, well are they are they ais or are they actual people?

What do you mean?

Well, I just got worried for a second that you had interviewed like a couple of chatbots.

There was a fact at chatbot in the mix there was one of the answers was a computer.

It was the one who said that AI was the best cheat code.

I asked chat gpt to come up with, like, it's like defensive AI was like if you were an a enthusiast, what would you say?

And you were students, So we said like, hey, it's the greatest cheat code.

I'm not even kidding.

And then I used to script the software program has AI voices that you can interject, and so I mixed that in.

But everybody else was real.

Everybody else was a real student.

Okay, A couple of things.

One is I'm glad at least one person said, uh, yeah, you can't trust it for everything, because.

Yes, yeah, she was one of the AID students.

Yeah, well that makes sense because she's actually an expert.

And the funniest thing about being an AI hater is that the biggest AI haters are AI experts in many cases because they're the ones who actually understand the limitations of these techologies, whereas like people who are just like you know, dipping in and out.

I don't know, in some cases they're using it in dangerous ways, like trying to trick their co host into misidentifying.

I think I was doing that for illustrative purposes, not at.

For gas malented.

No, there was no mal intent.

I was just kind of showing you that if that voice had been like ten percent better, I don't think you would have picked it up.

No, Yeah, I don't know.

It's super interesting.

Like I do think that the in terms of these questions of new technology, they are probably like two categories that are worth looking at, Like one is pornography because that's where all new technologies seem to start, and the other are the are the youngs who are using AI.

Well, I chose to go with the youngs for this episode.

Because we are a family podcast.

Max.

You do what you need to do for research, Max, without a doubt.

The situationship I believe is dominating our economy right now, at least this week, is terriff.

I hate the word, but you're right, that is what this is.

And I felt like it was.

Really worth exploring this because I looked into this and since Liberation Day, the tariffs have been like postponed, paused, modified, you know, enacted, reacted more than a hundred times.

It has been so much back and forth, a.

Lot of defining the relationship going on.

A lot of like DTR talks that just seemed to be going nowhere, and in the latest twist, there's a big question about their legality.

So Trump used something called AIPA to pass the tariffs.

That's the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

It was in place in nineteen seventy seven, and it essentially because normally Congress has to okay the tariffs, this gives the president like an emergency power to override Congress and just make it happen.

Yeah, and og listeners of everybody's business will remember that we talked about this when a lower court initially invalidated this basically said no, that Trump is sort of abusing this law.

He doesn't have all the power that he says he has to to do these Liberation Day tariffs.

Right, He's claiming the trade deficit is the emergency, and so our trade deficit with all these countries is an emergency.

The Supreme Court is now going to be hearing this case and Trump has asked to.

Fast track it.

But if it doesn't happen, it would mean all the tariffs were invalidated and the US would have to refund the money it's collected so far.

It would be a mess.

It was very complicated.

We decided we would bring in someone to help us kind of navigate, like why the markets are reacting to this as they are.

Yeah, we walked all the way over to the other side journey of the floor where ours are, and found Joe Wisen's.

All Leaping over Desks.

Odd Lots podcast, which is awesome if you don't listen to it.

Joe is like one of the smartest, one of the most entertaining people on markets.

UH agreed we could find and.

Here he is in the studio with us.

Joe Wisenthal, a co host of Odd Loots.

Welcome, Joe, Hi, thank you for having me.

Well, we're very excited to have you here.

Especially since we are a confused Max and I are confused right now and we're hoping you can clear this up.

So, when tariffs were first put.

In place, I think it's fair to say that some people liked them, some people hated them.

The markets did not like them.

Sure correct, Now that they their legality is being questioned, it seems like the markets do not like the idea of the tariffs going away.

Yeah, And amid this like ruling, Trump got up at a podium and the market was going down, and he said, he said this, let's just listen, and.

Now it's going to the Supreme Court and we're going to ask for expedited and expedited ruling because you know, when you look at the stock markets down today, the stock market's down because of that, because the stock market needs the tariffs.

They want the tariffs.

Like I'm listened to that, Yeah, and I was like, Okay, Trump's probably just saying that because he likes the tariffs.

But like it made me wonder, is there any truth to that?

Does the stock market we can talk about the bomb market too, Do the markets like the tariffs?

And is there any aspect to this?

Is that he's right about.

I will try to maybe make the strongest defense of that claim, which is there probably is some truth to the idea that policy uncertainty is not great for the market, and this would clearly reinject I guess.

I suppose policy uncertainty on the volatility of the tariff policy is probably narrower than it was back in early April, although there still seems to be changes every day.

So I guess the idea that the tariffs could be pulled out the rug from the whole thing, I would not entirely.

I suppose discount the possibility that investors aren't crazy about that.

I don't really believe it directly.

I mean, the thing is, this market is driven by a handful of gigantic tech companies, and it's mostly an AI story at this point, and that is an industry in space that largely is unaffected by the tariffs.

So the market is up a lot since early April, in part because there's been some walk back from the Liberation Day levels, and also because nothing has derailed the AI story.

Now, there's one other element that could be interesting, which is that there is quite a bit of revenue coming into the federal government thanks to the tariffs.

Yes, one of the anxieties in markets is what's been happening at the long end of developed market yield curves and sort of bond yields blowing out.

If there is some perception that, okay, deficits are already very wide and one of the few sources of growing revenue is going to suddenly disappear, maybe there could be something where people get more concerned about the fiscal equilibrium and that having an effect.

That was kind of the story on Tuesday.

Like how far I would take that, I'm not sure, but I suppose I wouldn't completely say this is not a factor.

I mean, beyond just the uncertainty which markets notoriously do not like.

It also seems like if for some reason the tariffs are declared illegal, this is just gonna be a mess because everybody would have to get their money back.

I can imagine this could sue the government for like lost business or increased costs.

I mean, it seems like as much as you might dislike the tariffs, as much as someone might dislike the tariffs, doing away with the tariffs is a mess.

Yeah, it would be a mess.

I mean, there's sort of two things going on at once.

Here that are both very interesting.

I think longer term economists would say, look, even if it's messy in the short term, tariffs are bad tariffs creating efficiencies, They create all kinds of problems.

They create divisions between trading partners and allies that make it hard to plan.

There are all kinds of issues that tariffs raised, and they would probably say, look, yeah, maybe it'd be a mess in the short term to dial them back, but does not compare to the mess the tariff's introduced, So.

Better to like wade through the mess.

Yes, And I mean I think most economists would say, let please get rid of them now.

The one complication I would say here is that I would say that there is a perception in the United States right now that we have this dysfunctional public sector and decisions essentially can't get made.

Things can't get built, legislation can't get past, et cetera.

This is because of the sort of very diffuse nature of democracy, where there are a lot of veto points, et cetera, and a lot of people aren't crazy about how many veto points there are in American democracy, whether at the court level or the local level, et cetera.

How hard it is to build things, et cetera.

There's this frustration of stagnancy in the built environment and in the policy environment.

And perhaps someone would say, well, if the Supreme Court undermines the Trump tariffs, this just confirms the fact that nothing can get done in America.

We can't set a new chart, a new policy course.

Now.

Again, like the ability to tariff is something that is theoretically in the Congress of purview and theoretically should only be used by the White House in emergency situations.

The congressation in.

Fact invoked those emergency situations.

But like for all the countries in the world.

And Congress has not stood up for itself.

So if Trump is sort of usurping this power that belongs to Congress, it's not like Congress has really complained, or certainly the Republican leaders of Congress.

Nonetheless, I suppose if the Supreme Court were to rule the tariffs and valid the money was no longer be connected.

It may feed into this idea that the American sort of presidential three system of power.

It's difficult.

Well, there's also the risk branch.

When we're talking about INSERTNTY.

I was just trying to think Okay, Well, what is the incertainty, because if they invalidated the tariffs, then like, I don't know, it seems pretty certain we don't we don't know those tariffs.

But it seems like part of the risk is that Trump would somehow to ignore the Supreme Court or do some other additional thing that would further create a sense of uncertainty.

And well, we're in a very weird situation right now with a TikTok band where there does not seem to be any legal basis whatsoever for TikTok to exist on the app stores in the United States.

That law has not been repealed at all, but the White House uniletter I said, I'm just going to not ignore it.

We're just not going to pay attention to the lower can enforce it.

But that's a very weird situation, Like, right, why it's so it is it is illegal by the law, and yet no one is enforcing the ban for better or worse.

But that what if the Supreme Court said no tariffs can no longer be collected and the White House instructed the ports to keep collecting the tariffs.

I mean, this is potentially it's a very weird situations here.

I mean also, if you're running a business and you're trying to figure out what to do, and you're like, okay, should we if the tariffs are locked in, it would be better for us to build a factory and start making things here, or invest in iron mine or whatever it is.

But it's just hard to know if it's going to get overturned or if it's going to go away with the next president.

It's like where do you invest your money?

You can't really grow and expand the way you could if you had like a clear course totally.

So this is a really important dimension, which is that the longer these tariffs exist in any form, the more likely it is that they will exist forever.

Because once you start getting any company that is making domestic investments predicated on the existence of tariffs, that company is a perpetual lobbyist for the existence of.

A lobbyist, but like a lobbyist with a pretty good case to make.

We should talk about the bomb market a little bit, because, like what Joe said about the stock market is true, like the stock market has done really well during the Trump presidency, but it could just be a comment on like in Vidia and maybe maybe in fact if if there weren't tariffs to.

Video, but we know that a huge amount of it is attributable to these companies.

Anyway, keep going, yeah, yeah, So anyway, I was just that's a segue for stations.

So since the tariff conundrum happened, since it seems like the legalities come into question in a serious way, the bond market has reacted in this way where like yields have gone up, in other words, kind of interest rates have gone up.

The US is perceived to be a riskier place to put your money.

Yes, so what is going on?

I guess one way to think about this question, and it gets back to I think you really have to talk politics, and you really have to talk about this idea of whether you feel that over the next several years we will still even have a nominally or truly independent central bank that can set rates at will or set rates sort of independent of the political cycle, regardless of who is in the White House.

And so if you're going to put your money in the US for a long time, if you're going to lock up your money for a long time, you probably would like that the central bank to feel.

You would like that confidence that the central bank will do at its job to preserve the value of your currency, avoid high inflation, if you are worried about the political status of the central bank, if you're worried that an entity will no longer exist that is committed to doing getting to two percent inflation sort of whatever the cost because of something upstream in the political cycle, et cetera.

I don't know, maybe you want a little bit more compensation in your long term holdings to compensate you for this risk.

Well wait, that doesn't really have anything to do with Liberation Day though, or like the tariffs, I mean.

Or it doesn't really you're no, no, it's totally true.

So it only has anything to do with it in so far as all of this is a commentary on US political stability.

Well totally.

Like if you're if you're lending money to the US government, you're like, okay, I like the most of those people like the global financial system as it exists today, Like the US is like integrated, this like incredibly successful experiment in politics and capitalism that played out starting after World War Two.

Yeah, and if Trump is blowing that up, that makes you nervous.

I think that's what it is.

Yeah, I think that's right, And all of these things are just sort of novelties within the American political system.

Right, say the Supreme Court were to say tariffs are illegal, I mean broad based.

First of all, the broad based tariffs on these emergency claims, that's a novelty.

The idea of the Supreme Court, then reversing tariffs, that's a novelty.

A potential dispute between the White House and the judicial branch, that's a novelty.

All of these things, right, that we sort of took for granted, certain institutional arrangements.

And this is where I get back to the FED itself.

The way I think about the FED is it's been encased in glass, right, and it sort of let operate to do its own thing.

And the independence is like a little glass.

But it could get shattered, and maybe it will get shattered at some point, or maybe it already has been shattered or at least cracked, based on the fact that's already coming under a lot of criticism.

So a lot of institutional arrangements which had been perceived to be stable are perceived to be less stable.

And once again, the FED is part of that and could have a factor in the degree of the payment that you want in order to keep your money in dollars long term.

And just to bring it back to this initial question, like treasury yields went up yesterday, which again kind of feeds Trump's idea that like, yeah, we need those terrifts market, and what you're saying is this is another the story is kind of the same.

It's an uncertain it's a certainty versus.

So I think part of this too, you know where it's really bad is in the UK right now that it's getting a lot of attention is how much they're buying.

Yields are blowing out at the long end, but it's really it's Japan too, and they're you know, for them long term rates like one point eight percent, which is very low, but it's Japan, so for them that's very high by their grand standard of things.

But there is this concern I would say two concerns at least in maybe three concerns within rich developed countries, which is that they have unfavorable demographics, that they have aging populations that are going to require a lot of resources that and a lot of that will soak up and burden a lot of the productive labor.

Two, some combination of this burden of the aging population and then other sort of the hollowing out of industrial activity specifically because of competition with China.

Is this fear that the productive base of rich Western or you know, sort of rich liberal countries is going to get hollowed out, et cetera.

And then finally add on to these things this sort of evident political dysfunction which kind of exists everywhere.

I mean, we see it.

I think people perceive political volatility in the US the certainly you look at the UK and also doesn't look like they can get anything done.

They're always having these very piaun scandals that seem to be at the cover of the paper.

But everywhere you look there's similar things going on.

There's these sort of stresses that are being put on the sort of political arrangements.

So you combine all these three things together and there's sort of this global story going on that is beyond just the question of tariff revenue.

So Joe, little known fact, well maybe not that little known, but you are in a band that's right called Seek Crewure, and I had a musical questions for you because this is so weird.

Max is going to die, But It's the first thing that came into my.

Head when I read about the illegal possibly illegal tariffs, which is that song by the Clash, like do I stay or do I go?

Oh yeah Gray so hun Because it seems like with the tariffs, this is the case like if they stay in place.

There's going to be trouble.

If they go away, do it'll be double.

I love the setup that.

Was thank you.

It's a really long setup, no, but it putt I appreciate you rolling with it.

I think there are a lot of things like that these days, where we sort of arrive at these forks in the road and we'd sort of want them to never be resultd because neither of the resolutions seem great.

I mean, I think about this with AI.

Do we want the AI bubble to burst or do we want AI to take all our jobs?

I'm not sure at this point.

I think with tariffs, I look, I have no I'm a journalist.

I have no opinion on tariffs.

I just I just report the news and usually I just ask the questions.

Rarely am I answered.

Then yes, all of these things are very strange, and I don't you know, from a sort of when you balance out economics with sort of institutional stability, et cetera.

I think there's this feeling that we're hurtling towards genuinely uncharted territory.

I feel like that clash song is how investors feel about everything, not just yeah, I mean.

I feel like it also works with the AI bubble too.

I mean, do we want things to keep going and get super overheated?

No?

Do we want the bubble to burst?

No?

Yeah, I gotta return, not soon.

But Joe Wisenthal, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me.

That was a lot of fun.

Shoot, I still shoot I go.

If you say that you on my.

I'll be tilly end no time, Stacy.

Have you seen Kpop Demon Hunters?

Okay, yes, this is this movie on Netflix.

It's this huge hit.

I had not watched it until.

Last night when you your enthusiasm about this topic encouraged me to watch it and.

I really liked it.

All right, So listeners to this show know that I have three children.

My oldest is ten.

I think this movie, I think snuck up on everyone who isn't ten years old.

It is on Netflix.

Came out almost three months ago, maybe two and a half months ago.

It is on track to be the most watched or maybe it already is the most watched film on Netflix two hundred and sixty six million views.

Definitely the movie of the summer as we're recording it.

Yeah, and it is the movie the Summer, I think, which is weird because there have been a couple other big Netflix movies before, big streaming things before, but I don't think they've ever quite broken out culturally in the way that this one has.

And again it's not just Netflix.

If you pull up Spotify their global one hundred list of top songs, you got what it sounds like, which is number nine.

This is a musical, by the way, how It's done, number six, your idol number five, Soda Pop number four.

And these gold bangs.

So this gold is a banger.

It is like the hottest song right now.

It's on my exercising mix.

This movie is gonna make a fortune, and we have a great person to talk about it.

Sam Sanders is here.

He is host of the Sam Sanders Show, which you should subscribe to if you don't.

Just a really smart cultural commentator.

Sam, How you.

Doing, I'm good, y'all.

Finally got me to watch K pop Demon Hunters, which had been on my list, and let me tell you, I was dancing in the living room with the dog last night.

It's really cute and it's really fun.

All right, So Stacy, you wanted to just kind of quickly summarize the premise here.

I mean, it's basically in the title they're K pop stars and they hunt demons.

It's like Nake's on a plane level, like obvious.

Well, okay, so there is a band.

It's three women and they are like born like demon slayers and they slay the demons of the world with their voices, which creates some kind of a network that slays demons anyway.

But that is also an evil boy band made up of like five very handsome men who are singing for evil.

They're demons too.

It's an animated film.

It's a musical, and it came out, like I said, like back in June, and I think it's snuck up on a lot of people.

It's snuck up on me for sure.

Like I only really became aware of it over the last week when I was on vacation and my children watched it like seven times in a row.

But like, I'm kind of curious when you started to kind of hear chatter about this, like when you became aware that this was going to be a phenomenon, that you were going to be talking about this, you know, in a professional capacity.

At some point, the songs kind of crept into my algorithm.

I used Spotify mostly for streaming, and all of a sudden, Golden began to show up.

And for the longest time, I just said, Oh, that's some new K pop band.

They always got a new one over there in K pop world.

Then I realized, oh, this is from a movie.

Then I googled a movie and I'm like, oh, it's a massive, massive hit.

It really surprised everybody.

It surprised Sony, it surprised Netflix, and I think that says a lot about how most executives in the entertainment industry actually.

Don't know anything.

They don't know anything.

Yeah, I'm this movie.

I didn't know this going into taping this, but like I guess, animated movies are really expensive to make.

This movie costs one hundred million dollars to make.

Oh wow, I've read that like it is gonna be a billion dollar movie, and that's a big deal because it didn't have a theatrical release.

Sam like people who don't pay attention to this business, like how do you get to a billion dollars or a big number for a movie that like I can go on Netflix and stream for free, My kids are streaming for free NonStop, Like where is the money in something like this?

For Netflix?

It's fuzzy math and they'll never tell us everything.

The biggest shift between watching movie and TV viewing go to streamers as opposed to being in networks back in the day and the movie theaters.

Back in the day, we had really distinct measures of how shows and movies did.

There were Nielsen ratings that told you that Seinfeld had thirty five million viewers a week and box office numbers that said this movie made one hundred million dollars this weekend.

Netflix hides a bunch of that data, but what they're hoping is that this movie being so popular keeps people coming back and subscribe, and those subscriber fees will help their bottom line.

There's also an ad tier of Netflix now that exists, but most people I know don't use it.

So all this to say, whatever hard number they give you about this movie, it's less about that and more about winning the conversation.

And being seen as the biggest, baddest, best stream.

The subscription fees I mean is the short answer, Like people like this and they keep subscribing to Netflix, or they don't subscribe and they resubscribe because they got to watch K pop demon Hunters.

I want to jump in here and ask you about something you said earlier, Sam, which is that nobody knows anything, which I think is really interesting.

I mean, the summer movie of the summer has always been this big deal, this big deal in business too nobody hit it right next Netflix seems to have accidentally hit it right, Like, what's going on here?

Why does nobody know nothing?

Right now?

I will So there's a few things going on we are seeing movie going in general.

Just go down.

There used to be a time in our youth where on the weekends you would go to the movies even if there wasn't a movie that you really wanted to go watch.

Well, Barbie Heimer happens.

Not that long ago.

There was the those of you in far between.

Yeah, there are very few monoculture moments and movies anymore, and only about twelve percent of Americans now go to the movies at least once a month, and about a quarter of Americans don't go to the movies at all.

Wow.

In the midst of this, these studios rely a lot more on IP like Barbie and other things that folks already know and will go see.

And so if you look at the biggest performing movies of this year so far, it's all existing IP, How to Train Your Dragon, Fantastic Four, Jurassic World, Superman, the Lelo and Stitch sequel.

So movie going.

Is going down, which means that movie studios rely on old names that we all know, which means that a movie like K Pop Demon Hunters, they don't know what to do with it because it's new, and they're afraid to take that chance and put it in theaters.

So there's also a really weird story about the way that Sony and Netflix made the deal that put this film on Netflix and not.

Any sam You want to just explain that.

Yeah, So, as I mentioned on top of Americans just going to movies less, the pandemic and that era of lockdown really decimated movie theaters for a while.

They're still bouncing back, but they're not back to what they were pre COVID, and they might never get there.

If I'm being honest.

However, during that lockdown moment, a lot of movie studios said, what can we do to keep making movies and not close our businesses and not lay off all of our staff.

Sony ink to deal with Netflix during lockdown that basically said we'll make movies, but we know they can't go to theaters, so we'll sell movies at a flat rate to Netflix that will then stream these movies on their platform and then they'll get all the rights.

So K Pop Demon Hunters was a part of this deal, which meant that even though Sony made the movie, they were paid twenty million dollars for it, and Netflix got all the rights and the benefits from having this big.

Hit well the and Netflix paid to make it to paid one hundred million bucks to make it, and then another twenty Yeah on top of that, that was the flat fee part to Sony.

Yeah, yes, yes, but that means that Sony will see no upside from this movie.

And even when Netflix put K Pop Demon Hunters in theaters for one weekend for a special sing along edition of this film, Sony the movie studio saw none of that money.

WHOA to Netflix?

You know, there's been this debate in Hollywood, I think over over some period of time, Sam and I know you're probably familiar with this, but like we have traditional Hollywood, including a lot of like filmmakers and so on, who feel like theaters are really important.

Theatrical releases are really important.

There's like a kind of cultural reason for that, which is like they feel like that's what a movie should be.

But there's also like a marketing argument, which is that theaters are how you create like cultural moments, like you can't have a movie of the Summer without a theatr.

Yeah, the producers of Crazy Rich Asians turned down more money from Netflix because the theatrical release was so important to them.

And Netflix has been kind of like the one saying no, no, no, you don't need this.

So so Ted Sarandos is the CEO of Netflix at the time one hundred Summit in April, which that's funny.

I don't know what that is, but it's an event in April held by Time magazine, and he was asked about theaters.

Just listen to what he said.

Folks grew up thinking I want to make movies on a gigantic screen and have strangers watch them and play for the the in the theaters for two months and people cry and sold out shows.

It just doesn't happen very much outdated.

So I'm kind of curious Sam, if you agree with that, or if there's anything to what he's saying, and if K Pop demon Hunters maybe helps make make the point, because they did create a cultural moment in a kind of an interesting and maybe arguably new way.

Yeah.

I mean, I talk a lot about the ways in which Americans are just not going to the movies like they used to.

It kind of makes me sad.

I love movies.

I actually think that movie going does a lot for social and cultural adhesion.

Like it is a community experience.

There are few feelings better than watching a really good movie in a theater and then talking to the stranger next to you about how it was afterwards.

I think it's good for like society.

So I'm sad that we don't go as much, But I think that the trend lines are just inevitable.

I tell folks a lot.

I compare movie going right now to opera going.

There was a time in Western culture where opera was the most popular thing ever, and on the weekend you went to the opera and at night for a date.

You went to the opera, and everyone went to the opera.

Right, Opera doesn't not exist now, it still exists.

There are people who sing opera and make money doing opera, but it's not nearly as dominant as a cultural force.

I think movie going in the classical sense at the movie theater is going the way of opera.

We're all just going like people in like over dressed old people coming out of movie theaters.

Yeah, well, am I going to be one of these people?

Do you buy the marketing argument?

Everything you're saying could be true, But opera or some movie releases that are not necessarily big moneymakers could be events that like allow a project to gather enthusiasm or excitement or whatever.

I think there have been a lot of people arguing this is a way to signal to people, like this is a thing you need to see, this is a big deal, like any of that.

But you think that could also go away.

When is the last time that happened?

Probably it's like Barbieaks.

The last several years.

But like those were things where Christopher Nolan as a director is as close to existing ip as you can get in a human being, and Barbie is a brand that we've all known for decades.

I really think that as movie goes the way of opera, the own things that will work and become cultural moments or things that were already a cultural moment.

Before we let you go, Sam, I wanted to ask you about kind of like what happens next.

I mean we were talking about the money earlier, like some of the money's gonna be in sequels, right, there hasn't actually been a ton of mercery.

I've not seen the last of Kop Team.

And because this took people by surprise, like they didn't have enough time to like, oh really, there's some a little bit, but not as much as you would normally have for something like this, they're gonna be sequels.

I'm kind of curious, Sam, what you think the lessons are, I mean beyond just like we're gonna see I'm sure copycat type stuff.

What are people in entertainment?

How are the smart ones thinking about this?

What are they gonna learn from this?

Like, I mean, there has been a decade plus of movie studios relying a lot on existing ip to make their money, so big brands that you already know and love, sequel after sequel after sequel, But all the trend lines say that this won't last forever.

Most of the time, when you extract all these sequels from ongoing IP, it's diminishing returns with each sequel.

That's happening with the biggest franchises is in Hollywood, and so Hollywood's about to face a problem.

They actually need new IP.

And you know what K Pop Demon Hunters is, It's new IP.

So I think the lesson here for all of Hollywood and all these executives is that they're gonna have to start taking chances again because the trough they're feeding from is eventually going to run dry.

How many Jurassic World movies can we put up with?

Stacy?

Don't ask that how many questions, Sam, because they answer could be a lot.

Sam Sanders, thank you for being here.

Thanks Sam.

To everyone listening.

It's good for America.

Go to the movies.

Yes, Please go to the movie Yes co sign and be sure to check out Sam Show, The Sam Sanders Show.

I just listened to their year interviews so far episode.

It's great checking.

Out all right, Stacey, Max, I have a confession to make and I feel like this makes me almost like anti American, like what.

I hope I don't get deported for saying this, but I am not a big fan of like a pumpkin spice coffee, and I feel like that is one of the institutions of this.

It's as American as apple pie and baby.

Well.

I have something to admit as well, which is I've never actually had a pumpkin spice latte.

We're gonna do this whole segment without actually trying one.

That's that seems harsh, but you have an underrated story and it pertains this.

Yes, in fact, so pumpkin spic season has launched its official and it is an economic force.

The pumpkin spice, which is apparently like cinnamon, nutmeg clothes little mix.

Apparently, visits to Starbucks go up by twenty four percent in pumpkin spicison.

People love this mix.

Apparently you and I are just in the extreme minority of non pumpkin spice.

But also, pumpkin spice is also what you need if you're making a pumpkin pie, right or sweet potato pie.

I love, which is a delicious thing.

Yes, so it can't just be.

I like my coffee to taste like coffee.

I'm a purist.

I'm just glad that Starbucks has something to look forward to, because you know, we were talking the other day about the challenges that they've had.

But yes, pumpkin spice season, this is going to be great for them.

Well it is and it isn't.

So Starbucks is possibly now in a situationship with the pumpkin spice latte because not only are coffee prices up like fifteen percent over last year, which is enormous for a number of reasons, but all the spices in the pumpkin spice latte are imported, and so those are all being.

Affected by tariffs.

And the pumpkin spice latte since two thousand and five when it started being the price started being tracked, is up by almost seventy percent.

Okay, wait wait, break that down for us.

So how much did it cost back in.

Uh, three dollars in thirty five cents?

Okay, now it is.

It's like around seven dollars and fifty cents eight bucks.

And that's before these tariffs kicked in.

Well, the tariffs may have slightly kicked in.

I don't know if Starbucks has been stockpiling pumpkin spices.

One can only imagine that when they saw this coming, they were like, you know, it's a very important thing.

But you know, if these tariffs get locked into place, all these spices, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, like, we do not grow them in the US.

So they're mostly coming from Asia.

I think, yes, India and Indonesia, and like the places where the spices come from are all being hit by tariffs.

I find it funny there's so much political discourse right now where you have sort of like Democrats saying these tariffs are are really bad and Republicans say, no, they're not bad, and it's like, well, we don't really have to argue about it.

You can just look at the prices of certain goods and like they're going up, I mean, and you can sort of debate whether or not that's a big price increase with that's like a politically a problem, Like there are a bunch of debates you can have about it, but like the prices don't really.

Lie unless you think Max that coffee is the only thing on the line here.

I would just like to pose it that pumpkin spice has now infiltrated almost every corner of consumer culture.

There is pumpkin spice, cup of noodles.

Oh god, there is pumpkin spice spam.

There are pumpkin spice, doritos, slurpies, hummus, ramen, pringles, cough drops, my personal favorite, cat litter.

There's poppins spice, cat litter.

It's everywhere, everywhere.

I mean, imagine the pumpkin spice inflation alone.

The economic impact is going to reverberate earthquake style.

Through the we had.

If we had like Scott Bessen here, he would say, look, the President is just trying to reorient the US economy away from pumpkin spice, and I would say, amen to that.

You're all for it.

You're not going to start drinking pumpkins, spice, lattes.

Or cat litter.

All right, Stacey, Before we go, I gotta just read some of the emails.

We got to the A I think I met.

We got a lot this one we should say.

This show was we had.

On Exitron noted Ai Hater, really awesome conversation about mentioned it at the top of about sort of the ways in which, no matter how excited you are about this stuff, there are there seem to be some real economic.

It's possibly very overvalued in a way that could crash the lot.

I gotta tell you, Stacey, we got some some haters listening to this show.

So Rick wrote in complaining that I don't use it unless it's forced upon me.

Take that college students complaining essentially about the electricity, the water usage, and like the fact that as a consumer you don't always get value.

Talking about customer service phones being converted over to AI.

He complained about doctor's offices, which actually came up in another note from another correspondent I think his name is Yoshin, but wrote in complaining about basically having his doctor's office put him in touch with like an AI agent and that feeling really interesting, Haley Icky.

I mean, the most interesting note we got was a sort of lengthy one from Josh, who is by his account anyway, a Carnegie Mellon trained machine learning engineer, and he's basically saying like Although he wrote, well, I don't always agree with Ed's approach to arguing against the current hysteria gripping markets around AI, he's right about the fundamental disconnect between hype and reality.

I don't see this to mean that there's no utility in LMS.

There are clearly are narrow applications where they provide value.

However, the ROI is highly suspect given the capital required to produce what will likely remember as the twenty first century lies.

Now, I had to.

Twenty first century Eliza look as in like Eliza Doolittle.

No, Eliza was a a like very early chatbot from like the nineteen sixties.

Okay, and I had to I had to google that, But I mean again, it didn't I was.

All in my fair lady, I was, you know.

But anyway, awesome emails all around on this topic, like keep them coming.

I think we really liked that conversation.

In particular.

We're gonna, as we said on the other one, we're going to try to keep coming back to this topic.

So so keep sending us ideas examples.

Let us know what you thought of K pop demon Hunters, what it could tell you about what we can learn from Hollywood.

That's everybody's at Bloomberg dot net.

Everybody's with an ass at Bloomberg dot net.

Do you still consider yourself an AI skeptic?

I feel like everyone should be an AI skeptic, especially if you're a journalist.

Like journalists by nature are supposed to be skeptical of everything.

I try not to use AI because I think it's going to actually make me a worse writer, and I think that everyone is kind of melting their brains a little bit.

Well, you wouldn't want us to put it on the show or give it a job on the show.

Definitely not what we should probably do.

The credits.

This show is produced by Stacy Wong.

Magnus Henrickson is our supervising producer and Amy Keen is our editor.

We get engineering from Blake Maples and Dave Purcell.

Fact checks Sage baumanheads Bloomberg Podcasts.

Special thanks to Jeff Muscus, Julia Rubin and Maria.

Ling, who are these voices.

If you have a minute, please rate and review the show.

It means a lot to us.

If you do, Max will drink a Venti Pumpkin spice latte during next week's show.

This will be enforced.

And if you have a story that should be our business, email us at everybody sat Bloomberg dot net.

That's everybody with an S said Bloomberg dot net.

Thank you for listening.

See you next week.

Resistance is feudal max check you will be assimilated except your fate.

I would like to to think, uh, the descript AI generated voices that contributed to this, including Owen and Grace, they contributed to them.

They're not voices, they're just mathematical models.

It's an auto computer.

You have to drink of spice latte if somebody reviews the show, so that's that's interesting.