Stock Trading Banned for Lawmakers? & Vending Machines That Sell… Ammo

0:01Good morning Brew Daily show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today Three Mile Island was the site of the worst nuclear nuclear accident in American history. So why are there plans to reopen? Then a new law aims to stop politicians from trading stocks, introduced by politicians. It's Thursday, July 11th. Let's ride.

0:26Happy July 11th, everyone, or more importantly, happy 7-Eleven Day. Little history lesson to start off the show. Why is the store called 7-Eleven? Well, it comes from the operating hours. They were open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week, which was considered these crazy extended hours at the time. Now we're used to 24-hour stores, but 24-7, it just doesn't hit the same as 7-Eleven. Neil, are you getting your free Slurpee today? I am getting my free Slurpee, but one fun fact about me is I can't get a brain freeze. My brain runs hot. I've tried this. At college, all my friends, we went to a 7-Eleven, and they just huddled around me, and I chugged a Slurpee.

1:09And I just looked at them and was like, yep, nothing. So maybe we should try today and see if somehow my chemical composition, my brain, has changed over the past 10 years, and I can get a brain freeze now because they seem pretty electric. That is genuinely a fun fact that I've never heard about you. And I don't even know if it's verifiable because maybe you just have a really good poker face. What is your favorite Slurpee flavor, though, if you were to try? I don't have one. I like blue raspberry just because my dad always said, you know that blue raspberry doesn't exist in the wild. So I always just think about how, you know, chemicals create our particular fruit flavors.

1:43Can't go wrong with blue raspberry. Now a word from our sponsor, Meta AI. So I was hanging out with my friend's kid the other day and they said something along the lines of, I wish people could wear strawberries. I'm so on board with this kid. Certainly one of the most wearable fruits. So me being the metaphorical fun uncle that I am, I pulled up Meta AI on my Instagram app and typed in, imagine a person wearing an outfit made out of strawberries. Absolutely blew this kid's mind. Dude thought I was a magician. You just know his parents are going to rue that day because now he's going to try to wear his strawberries for years to come.

2:16Oh, yeah. Things are going to get messy. But it was fun seeing the awe in his eyes. Gives you a window into what people are going to be inspired to do through this new technology. I am inspired to expand your world with Meta AI. now on Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, and Messenger. Politicians trading stocks has always felt like oil and water. They just shouldn't go together. And now politicians are doing something about it. A group of bipartisan senators unveiled a new proposal that would require members of Congress, their spouses, and their dependent children to divest from their assets starting in 2027.

2:50The penalty for breaking the law would either be the lawmaker's monthly salary or 10 % of the value of the asset in violation, whichever is bigger. The public has long been aboard the politicians shouldn't trade train. A University of Maryland poll showed that 85 % of respondents were for banning trading by members of Congress. But right now, the current rules only require lawmakers to disclose when they or their spouses trade individual stocks over$1 ,000. But with a measly$200 penalty for not abiding by the law, critics argue that it is insufficient and rarely enforced. Neil, countless bills have died before seeing the light of day on this very topic.

3:28Does this bipartisan push feel any different? They're saying they may have a chance because we're in an election year and they could attach this particular bill to a broader bill that has a, you know, that needs to get passed for spending or something like that. But it does seem like there are these these efforts made every single year, most recently around the 2022 midterms to get a stock trading ban by politicians past or at least one that has a lot more teeth like this one. But it seems like it just stalls. There's not a lot of political appetite in Congress because they are absolutely prolific stock traders like the people in Congress trade stocks more than you or me or anybody listening.

4:07so it just seems like they really want to do that. It's kind of encapsulated by what Nancy Pelosi said. Nancy Pelosi is probably one of the biggest lightning rods in this arena because her husband, Paul, is a big trader, and she said we're in a free market economy and members of Congress should be able to participate in that. She walked that back a little bit and got on board with the stock trading ban in 2022, but it didn't really pass a committee or anything. So I just will forever be doubtful that anything like this will get passed. Yeah, we've been having this conversation for a very long time now.

4:40It first kicked off in earnest all the way back in 2009 because a lot of questions were raised about some members of Congress profiteering off information that they were learning about potential bank stocks going bust. And then it also got turbocharged again when some very profitable change started emerging in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when members of Congress were privy to information about how serious things were and were acting on that information. Eventually, the FBI launched a probe. Nothing came of it. And then it, again, picked up steam in those 2022 midterm elections because you're right.

5:14Nancy Pelosi has always been like the poster child of the stock trading movement because there's entire companies now dedicated to just tracking her and her husband's trades because of how well she usually outperforms the markets. And the stats around her trading are pretty remarkable. Yeah, there is a new choose-your-own-money-manager app called Autopilot, where you can literally just load up the Pelosi tracker, and your portfolio will match the top 10 stock picks made by Nancy Pelosi's husband. And then there are these ETFs that have been launched, one which tracks Democrat stocks of Congress, and that's called Nance, N-A-N-C.

5:51And then there's one that tracks Republican stocks, which is Cruz, C-R-U-Z, which is a reference to Ted Cruz. And both of those portfolios have outperformed the market over the past year. So it's maybe not the worst idea to just hitch your wagon in your portfolio to what members of Congress do because maybe they're not allowed to trade on insider information. But they're probably some of the most plugged in people in society. Yeah, I do think that the biggest difference between this bill and some of the other bills that we've seen in the past is this bill has a ton of teeth. The fines in this bill are actually legit.

6:26That$200 number is just a slap on the wrist. It really doesn't do anything to dissuade people from trading stocks. But the 10 % of the values of each asset or your monthly salary, those can add up very quickly. It's supposed to accrue monthly. So hopefully that this bill actually has some teeth and actually makes it further than bills in the past have. Walk into a grocery store in Alabama, Oklahoma, or Texas, and you might find something surprising while checking out your yogurt and eggs. A computerized vending machine selling ammunition. Since last November, a Texas-based company called American Rounds has installed vending machines selling bullets in six grocery stores and has plans to expand to more.

7:10It says it has over 200 store requests for its machines across nine states. Wait a second. What is going on here? Why are we selling lethal bullets in grocery stores? Many people are asking, given that America has a dire gun violence problem. There have been 15 mass killings involving a firearm so far in 2024. And on 4th of July alone, 33 people were killed in gun violence. The CEO of American Rounds, Grant Majors, says he understands the concerns of making ammunition more accessible, but argues that his vending machines are a more secure way to buy bullets than the two existing venues online and at retail stores.

7:50Toby, the reactions to this news were predictably all over the place, ranging from, great, I live in a rural area. This will make it so much easier to buy ammo to go hunting, to, holy moly, is this dystopian? It feels dystopian because you don't think about shotgun shells being next to your milk, your bread that you're buying at the grocery store. But the technology behind this is something that makes a lot of sense. You have to scan your driver's license. You have to verify you're above 21 or older. It also then scans your face to make sure that you aren't matching the driver's license that you submitted.

8:24And it is potentially safer than a lot of the other avenues. You said online and in person. And there have been multiple studies from gun violence organizations showing that a lot of these websites especially are not verifying IDs at all. And so if you have a method like this vending machine that does verify IDs, you could argue it's a lot safer than the other avenues out there. People might be wondering what are the regulations around buying ammo in the United States? There aren't that many. Federal law does require you to be 18 years old to buy ammo for long guns like rifles and shotguns. And then if you want to buy bullets for handguns, you have to be at least 21.

9:02American Round says its age verification mechanism makes sure that you are over 21 to buy anything from its vending machines. It also said, look, we didn't necessarily come up with this idea. We were approached by grocery stores in rural areas that wanted more people to have a reason to come into their stores. You know, you have grocery stores, you know, you sell groceries. But at grocery stores, you also have other things that you might want to buy. And they're like, hey, if we have an ammo vending machine in these particularly rural areas, we'll get more customers. So he said he was approached, and that was the reason these things exist in the first place.

9:35Right. These are very small cities, too. I mean, Pell City, Alabama has one. They have a population of just over 13 ,000. Noble, Oklahoma has 7 ,600 people. So you're right. Convenience and accessibility is a big reason for these things being installed. Vending machines that sell age-restricted things are not new either because there's been multiple companies developing technology to sell alcoholic beverages, multiple to sell cannabis products as well. So I don't think that this is going to be the first or the last company we see creating these safe and secure ways to conveniently buy age-restricted products.

10:11Of course, there are a ton of critics to this, and they're saying, why would we make it ever more accessible to buy lethal items? Just, you know, going into a retail store, there's always a human middleman. You have to wait in line. Maybe this is something that you should have to wait in line for. And they don't, you know, technology does not work all the time. It has the potential to get hacked. It may not verify you particularly correctly. So this is, I don't know whether this thing is going to grow already in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The city councilor was, they had a city council meeting. The city councilor was like, somebody just called me up and said, we have a grocery store that's selling, with a vending machine selling ammo.

10:46And like initially I thought it was a joke. So the city council looked into whether this was legal and eventually this vending machine in Tuscaloosa was pulled. So I am not necessarily bullish on on avenues for growth for this particular company. Three Mile Island is a name burned into many Americans minds as a site of the worst nuclear accident in U.S. history. But the dormant plants owner, Constellation Energy, is in talks with Pennsylvania officials to potentially turn the plant back on soon. Driven by the bottomless energy demands of artificial intelligence, plus a little help from the government, the economics of operating a nuclear power plant have totally shifted in the years since Unit 1 reactor at Three Mile Island was shut down in 2019, as data centers that fuel hungry AI models are forecasted to suck up 9 % of the U.S.

11:34power supply by 2030. Given those demands, politicians have rewarmed to the idea of nuclear as well. A slate of clean energy subsidies championed by the Biden administration has inspired other energy companies to begin drafting up plans to dust off old reactors as well. Neil, the U.S. has never opened a shuttered nuclear plant. And Constellation said nothing is confirmed yet, but it's historic that this conversation is even happening. Totally. There is a wave of interest in reopening nuclear power plants or building more. And that all has to do with AI and the data centers that fuel them. They're expected, just data centers, are expected to eat up as much as 9 % of the U.S.

12:12power supply by 2030 in six years from now, which is triple their share of electricity demand today. The CEO of Constellation Energy said he expects a 40 % rise in U.S. power demand just over the next two decades. He says he's getting approached by companies, by tech companies opening data centers that are going to require the power use of the city of Miami. And these need to be to hit our climate goals. These need to be zero carbon. They need to be emission free. And one of the best ways of doing that is nuclear. The Biden administration is pouring a ton of money into nuclear plants. So so, you know, they're not so easy to build.

12:48They cost 20 to 40 billion dollars to make these things. So you look around the United States and they're like, OK, where do we have semi functioning nuclear plants that we could restart? Three Mile Island is one of them. There aren't just one reactor there. There's two reactors, one melted down. There's another one that was actually going until 2019, so that's the one they're going to potentially revive. You have to remember that not a very long time ago at all, the nuclear power industry was just shutting down plants left and right because it simply could not compete with the financial incentives offered to natural gas, offered to solar power, wind power, these other green energy sources.

13:23It just didn't have the subsidies that could go toe-to-toe with these. But now with all these energy demands, I mean, even beyond AI, you have the rise of EVs as well. You just have this frenzied search for zero emissions power. So, of course, nuclear energy is back on the table right now. There is a little bit of a frantic push right now, too, because what if the next administration that comes in the office isn't as nuclear friendly? Are these subsidies going to remain in place for much longer? So you see this frenzy of dealmaking, this frenzy of conversations around reopening these plants right now in the current moment.

13:57Maybe politicians aren't great traders because I don't see any of these nuclear companies in their portfolio, but they probably should have because Constellation Energy has jumped 80 percent so far this year. And another nuclear company has soared 132 percent. These nuclear stocks are probably the best performing S &P stocks after the A.I. stocks themselves, NVIDIA and Supermicro. So they're absolutely surging right now thanks to this tailwind of government help and reopening plants. And it's not guaranteed whether Three Mile Island will reopen, but there does seem to be momentum in that direction.

14:33Up next, my literal favorite segment of the week, Neil's Numbers.

14:42Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will have you spouting knowledge with the confidence of Hermione Granger. My first number is about the rise in toddler-less cities. Yeah, there just aren't many small kids in the largest U.S. cities anymore because families have packed up and left during the pandemic. According to new census data, since April 2020, the under-five population has fallen by 18 % in New York, 15 % in Chicago's Cook County, 15 % in San Francisco, and 14 % in Los Angeles County. These are shocking numbers that spotlight a number of recent trends.

15:19Number one, how expensive it's become to raise a family in a city. And number two, the COVID-induced exodus of people out of metropolitan areas and toward the suburbs and rural areas. More than 800 ,000 people moved out of large urban counties last year, twice the pre-pandemic rate, and they brought their kids with them. It's not just cities where strollers are evaporating, though, due to an aging population that has fewer babies. The number of children under five fell in 58 % of all U.S. counties last year. Still, it's big cities that are seeing the most striking declines in kids. Here is a stat that I've thought about every single day since I first read it.

15:56In downtown Boston, there are 36 high school students. Just a shocking stat right there. I think part of what happens is that just cultural norms take over at a certain point. Because if none of your friends or family or people that you know are having kids, then suddenly it doesn't make sense to have kids yourself. If you look at a stat like the number of kids in New York can drop 18 % over the last 40 months or so, it's not unfathomable to think that that number will accelerate as you start seeing more and more childless families around you. Yeah, it's childless. I think it's two things. It's childless families, and then it's also just people leaving urban centers.

16:35I think those are the two trends that are leading to these really remarkable declines. I mean, if you just walk around New York City, not during school time, you don't really see that many kids at all. I mean, and the numbers speak to it. You know, under five populations aren't decreasing everywhere. What are the fastest growing states, Texas and Florida? And in Polk County, which is near Walt Disney World, the number of under five kids has increased more than 12%. And then suburbs in Texas and Texas cities like Dallas and Houston have also seen a lot more strollers. So it's not universal, but 58 % of counties are seeing a decline in under five, and that is pronounced in major cities.

17:15For my second number, how much would you pay for a military-grade protection dog that also exhibits the warmth and the temperament of a conventional family pet? A grand? Ten grand? Try$150 ,000, which is how much these one-of-a-kind luxury dogs cost, according to the New York Magazine. Bred on what is essentially an army base for canines in Montana, each dog is an undisclosed mix of Dutch Shepherd, German Shepherd, and Belgian Malinois, and they've been described by one owner as having a gentle Navy SEAL in the house. They'll tear it in two shreds when threatened, but can also be perfectly lovable when you just want to curl up with your pup and watch Netflix.

17:57Worth$150K? Well, some rich people think so, but get in line. The breeder called Svalen only sells 20 of these dogs max per year and just 350 exist around the world. Toby, these dogs are literal commandos with four legs, impeccably trained, fierce, but cool under pressure. I think I want one. There's a lot of trained, professional attack dogs, whatever you want to call them, protection dogs out there. But the difference is that these dogs are also feasible as pets because most of those protection dogs are just very aggressive. You don't necessarily want to curl up on the couch with them. I'm totally on board with this price tag, though, because they go through some extensive training.

18:36They have this obstacle course on the ranch in Montana where they're trained. It's called the Phoenix. They change it every single day. It's meant to challenge both the physical parts of the dog and then also the mental part. But my favorite part about Svalin, the training company, is that they also bring the owners out. They vet the owners. They said, we're as much training the owners as we are training the dogs. They check in with the owners after 45 days of owning the dogs and saying, listen have you been staying up on your training so i think that's a very important part of having a very highly trained dogs that you need the owners to be on board as well this has become truly a luxury piece in western montana to have one of these dogs for my final number drake can't stop racking up the l's this year first the rapper was the victim of an onslaught of diss tracks by kendrick lamar then this week he lost three hundred thousand dollars after betting on his native Canada to beat Argentina in the Copa America semifinals, which did not happen.

19:30Argentina won. And then to pour salt on the wound, Argentina trolled Drake by posting a photo after the game with the line, not like us, which is a reference to Lamar's most recent diss track. Drake is actually a prolific sports gambler. And just like you, he is not very good. He bet$500 ,000 on the Mavericks to beat the Celtics in the NBA finals. They lost. And he also bet a similar amount on the Oilers to beat the Panthers in the NHL finals, they lost too. Of course, these amounts are chump change for Drake, who is arguably the most famous rapper on the planet and makes zillions of dollars, but it does feel like everyone just wants to pig pile on this guy this year.

20:08Drake absolutely stinks at betting. I think you're underselling it. He also lost$565 ,000 on the Tyson Fury fight. That is multiple millions of dollars that he has lost. My takeaway from this though is that drake does not do well against short adversaries kendrick lamar 5-5 lino messi 5-7 if you want to take down drake you better be under five foot eight it sounds like ronaldo is 6-2 by the way j cole is 6-3 so i think there is a trend emerging here right now but yes we do have to say too that drake has a partnership with an online casino named stake and you'll notice he'll post these betting slips on his Instagram story and it's powered by Stake.

20:51So they definitely subsidize his gambling, but still truly an abysmal track record. If you want to look further into this too, just look up the Drake curse. Even if you post a picture with your team, that team usually ends up losing. There is historical documentation of this trend. So if Drake ever shouts out your team, you better run and hide because they're probably going to lose. It's July in New York, which means one thing for anyone who has ever been to the Big Apple during the summer, it smells like hot garbage. That's because New York has a lot of people creating a lot of garbage. Some 44 million pounds are collected every day, but it's also because New York doesn't use garbage bins.

21:31Yes, due to a variety of reasons from space constraints to cost considerations, New Yorkers have always been instructed to bag up their rubbish and toss it to the curb on trash days, but trash habits are changing after an announcement from Mayor Eric Adams earlier this week mandated that all residential buildings with one through nine units will be required to put their trash in containers starting this November. Feels common sense enough, but the real icing on the cake of this story is the fact that NYC came to the conclusion that garbage should go in bins by commissioning a 20-week$4 million report from the consultants over at McKinsey.

22:09Neil, beyond the absurdity of that price tag. I know there is some deep New York City trash lore that you are as happy to dig into as an oversized rat. Well, so this week, everyone was making fun of New York City for paying McKinsey$4 million to come up with the grand idea of a trash bin, which is used by all other major American cities and cities around the world like Barcelona. But I will say that the trash problem in New York City is particularly unique. And I don't know if it's worth a 4 million price tag for McKinsey, but it is a very tough logistical challenge to solve. First of all is the amount of trash that you said.

22:47Tens of millions of pounds per day of trash being hoisted into the sidewalk. And then another quirk of New York City that makes it such a tough trash nut to crack is that we don't have alleys. So every other, most other major American cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, they, in their city plans, They had alleys, which are these, you know, these small lanes behind stores, behind buildings that allow you to take out the trash out of view of everyone. And New York City, for whatever reason, doesn't have that. When the guys were creating the grid in 1811, they were on a deadline to build the Erie Canal.

23:22And it looks like they were just preoccupied with building the Erie Canal and just forgot to add alleys when they were drawing in the grid above Houston Street. So it is a big problem to solve. And for the past decades, they've used trash bags and it's become just an absolute feast for rats, which is another problem they're trying to solve with this. And it looks like now we're slowly moving to bins thanks to McKinsey. I am actually on board with it because it is a hard problem. 14 billion pounds of trash every year. It's not easy to figure out what to do with that, but you have to determine what sort of bins you would use, what different vendors you should use, what safety considerations are going to come into play with bins on being used by garbage men to dump them in the garbage trucks.

24:06Do you want wheelies? Do you want stationary containers, share containers? There is a lot of considerations to think about. And, yeah, the rat problem is definitely the biggest thing as well. Well, rats are just cursing McKinsey right now because like they're all you can eat buffet of 14 billion pounds of trash is now going to start being binned up. So tough one for the rats out there. Meanwhile, New York City does collect trash from residences. 804 ,000 of them in other cities rely on private services, but New York City takes it upon themselves to collect trash. Private businesses do contract with private garbage services.