The Fed Slashes Rates Again & Big Tech’s Endless AI Spending

0:00When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at GoodToKnowFacts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit GoodToKnowFacts.org. Good morning, Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, how one sentence by Jerome Powell sent markets tumbling. Then Netflix's new movie is Ruffling Feathers at the Pentagon.

0:43It's Thursday, October 30th. Let's ride.

0:55Imagine coming out of a work meeting and thinking, wow, that went even better than I expected. Hasn't happened to me, but it did just happen over in South Korea, where President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping held a summit and agreed to lower the temperature on the trade war. I would say on a scale from one to 10, with 10 being the best, I would say the meeting was a 12, Trump said, in a sentence that has never before been uttered in human history. That's because Trump announced that he would lower tariffs on Chinese imports by 10 percentage points to 47 percent, and in exchange, China would delay restrictions on those key rare earth's minerals for a year and resume purchasing American soybeans.

1:33That's what he said. What did she say? Both sides should focus on the bigger picture and the long-term benefits of cooperation rather than fall into a vicious cycle of mutual retaliation, according to a readout. You may have been locked in on the meeting and the de-escalating trade war, but I was locked in on something far more important, the length of Trump and Xi's handshake. I was cruising prediction market site Kalshi yesterday and saw a market for how long the two leaders would shake hands for. six to ten seconds was by far the favorite but when they actually met the handshake went on for 24 and a half seconds that is a long handshake maybe there's a direct correlation between the quality of the meeting the de-escalation of tariffs and the length of a handshake all i'm saying is next time they meet shake hands for a minute and see what happens maybe tariffs go to zero they were just holding hands for the majority of it while taking pictures so i don't know if that's technically a handshake because they weren't moving in an up and down or back there There was some movement.

2:28There was a little movement going on. I might take this up with Kalshi. Okay, now a word from our sponsor, Disney Campaign Manager. Picture the right audience for your marketing campaign and picture them where they're most engaged. Maybe they're early risers and are already watching Good Morning America or they're night owls scrolling ESPN for game highlights. Or maybe they're like me and spend a lot of their time pondering the universe's existence. Curiosity and cultural relevance. That's exactly what Disney Campaign Manager wants to help you tap into. Disney Campaign Manager uniquely offers adjacency to Disney, Hulu, and ESPN streaming content, brands, shows, and talent.

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3:37Capital expenditures, not revenue or profits, was the metric investors were watching most closely from these tech firms, because it's seen as a barometer of interest in AI, which all these companies are betting the farm on. And let's just say there's going to be a data center moving in near you if there isn't one already. Google raised its projections for CapEx this year to between$91 billion and$93 billion, up from$52.5 billion last year. Meta previously said it planned to lay out$72 billion this year, and it said 2026 spending would be, quote, notably larger. And Microsoft announced it would double its total data center footprint in the next two years.

4:14The reason these companies are able to wager so much at the AI casino is that money simply grows on trees for them. Microsoft's Azure cloud business, already massive, grew 40 % in the latest quarter. Meta's ad unit keeps chugging along, bringing in a record$51 billion in sales last quarter, up 26 % from the year before. And for the first time in history, Google parent Alphabet topped$100 billion in quarterly revenue. Toby, these three behemoths kicked off the most consequential two days of earnings season with Amazon and Apple up tomorrow. So far, it looks like the AI boom is rolling on no matter how many times you call it a bubble, but investors are getting a little bit angsty about all this spending.

4:52Yeah, let's just start at the top with what Meta said. Zuckerberg keeps saying that Meta needs more compute, more compute. He says a significantly larger investment is probably coming because compute is very likely to be a profitable thing. Obviously, why would you be plowing this many billions of dollars into it if you didn't think it was profitable? He says that the worst case for AI spending is just building too far ahead. He says, eventually, we are going to be using this compute. So even though you're getting a little antsy right now that we're putting so much percentage of our revenue into this CapEx, eventually we're going to use this because they forecast demand being that high.

5:28And he's also just pretty optimistic on Meta, specifically winning this super intelligence battle. One, they just spent so much money on building out their super intelligence team. But also, too, a lot of people use Meta's AI models because, you know, they baked them into their very widely distributed apps. And he says there's a clear correlation between model improvement and usage. So, again, there is a lot of nervousness from analysts who say, I don't know, Meta. Like, you don't have a cloud computing division like a Google does or like a Microsoft does. Why are you spending so much money on – why are you spending so much of your sales on this one thing?

6:03But again, Zuck says, breathe easy. I think we see a path towards profitability here. Who knows who's going to be right? But Zuck is clearly committed to this one particular line of thinking. Yeah. And by investors getting angsty, they sent the stock down 9 % after hours. Meta had a few wrinkles in its earnings report. It took this$16 billion tax charge related to the GOP tax bill. So it's got that coming down the pike. and investors were just a little uncertain about the ROI on all this investment, saying that executives at Meta on the call were just a little bit cagey about whether they were going to see any return on the hundreds of billions of dollars they're investing.

6:43Zuck responds that, yeah,$100 billion. If we go over a few hundred billion dollars, it's just, he said it would be, quote, very unfortunate, but still not a big deal in the grand quest to achieve super intelligence. And then going down the line, Microsoft's kind of line of thinking was they can't build fast enough to keep up with AI demand. Because remember, Microsoft is winning on both sides of the equation here. One, they have Azure Cloud, which AI companies need in order to scale their operations. So that division is absolutely killing it, 40 % year-over-year growth. And then they also want to double its data center footprint in the next two years as well.

7:19if you are a microsoft investor versus a meta investor you're little more you're breathing easier hearing microsoft say that because of just this money making cloud unit but again spending so much money on this thing is it was kind of the theme of this earnings call is just analysts saying make sure you guys are not getting too far over your skis right now because you don't know necessarily if this demand is going to catch up with all of this supply you're bringing online. So Microsoft stock dipped 2 % after hours because of this little investor anxiety about spending. Probably the best earnings report out of the three was Google.

7:56The stock was up 6 % after hours. Investors really loved what they heard from the Google executive team. The search division, even as it faces a ton of competition from ChatGPT, from perplexity, is still growing at a rapid clip. Search revenue was up almost 15 % from the same quarter last year to$56.5 billion. The company said that its Gemini AI assistant has 650 million monthly active users, up 44 % from three months ago. So it looks like Google is having its cake and eating it too, because it still has that big search business. And at the same time, it's developing its AI and seems to be pretty popular.

8:34$100 billion in one quarter. That is a lot of money that you're making. And again, if we go back to meta again, And that is why those investors are a little more nervous because you have half the revenue that Google does. You're trying to embark on the same spending spree that Google and Microsoft is doing. And yet you don't necessarily have the same amount of money coming into your coffers. So just a big holistic look at what was going on there. I think the name of the game was we are still spending on this AI boom. The AI boom is helping us in the present right now too. So just kind of a top to bottom.

9:08It's still an AI world and we're all living in it. Moving on, in a decision that was about as surprising as Neil's new haircut looking fantastic, the Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by 25 basis points, marking its second consecutive cut as it tries to prop up a faltering jobs market and deal with an economy cladded by the ongoing government shutdown. The cut was all but certain even before the meeting convened as increasingly dour data from the labor market forced Jerome Powell's hand, but by no means was this a straightforward decision. two Fed governors dissented again, splitting the vote 10 to 2, with Trump appointee Stephen Marin voting for a larger half-point cut, signaling an attempt to juice economic activity, while another governor representing Kansas City's Fed voted for no change to combat still stubbornly high inflation.

9:54When Powell stepped up to the podium for his post-meeting press conference, he adopted a surprisingly hawkish tone. Before Powell spoke, traders were pricing in about 90 % odds of another cut coming in December. But after JPOW said a rate reduction in December is, quote, not a foregone conclusion, far from it, those odds started to plummet. By the end of his conference, the market showed just a 60 % chance of another cut. Neil, this decision focused on last week's promising inflation data and some state-level metrics like unemployment claims looking better, but it also was the first time a government shutdown forced the Rate Setting Committee to change monetary policy without complete employment numbers.

10:34Despite the double dissents again, this was a relatively straightforward decision given the state of the labor market, but it might have been the last straightforward decision of the year. Yeah, Powell got up to the microphone. He threw everyone for a loop because they thought that a December rate cut was as much of a lock as this one. And then he said, we're far from making a decision about September. He just talked about the complexity of the situation. He called, it's very complicated. And I think everyone who watches the central bank would agree with him that there's basically no path that you can take that would be risk free because central bankers are thinking, OK, if we cut rates too much, then that risk spurring inflation higher, juicing economic growth.

11:14And we're already at 3 percent inflation. That's much higher than the 2 percent inflation that our target is. But then if you cut rates not enough or too slowly, then you risk the labor market going off of cliff. We just talked about so many layoffs that happened in the economy. The unemployment rate has ticked up over the past few months. So there is a lot of tension here. And that's why you're seeing a 10 to 2 vote where that is very rare. You know, central bankers typically vote all unanimously. It's usually a pretty clear decision. But you're just seeing a lot of complexity. And it's not made any easier by the fact that there's no data coming from the government because of the shutdown.

11:50So, you know, they are driving through a very foggy morass right now. Yeah, and there was mixed messages coming out of the Fed yesterday because, one, they did cut rates. That's a very dovish thing. You know, it spurs economic activity. And then they also paused their quantitative tightening that they've been doing on. The Fed has been shrinking its balance sheet over the last few years coming out of COVID. Remember, the Fed, when we say they're shrinking their balance sheet, it means they're just reducing the amount of bonds and assets that they own. They hold trillions of dollars in assets in exchange.

12:21It basically is they're giving money to banks. when they start selling those assets off or when they start shrinking its balance sheet, it means they're just reducing the amount of doing it. It is basically a dovish signal to actually hold off on that quantitative tightening campaign. So you had two dovish signals with that campaign winding down and then also the rate cut happening. And then Jerome Powell steps up to the podium and starts adopting this very hawkish tone. So everyone, that was why you saw the market for what they were pricing in a rate cut to be in December start to plummet immediately.

12:55Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where is all this energy coming from J-PAL? I thought we were kind of on the same page here, but again, it is a very fluid situation, which is why we are seeing some more uncertainty heading into this December meeting. Moving on, if you've switched on Netflix over the last week and cruised to the top movies list, you've likely seen a house of dynamite sitting near the top spot. The movie is a new military thriller directed by Catherine Bigelow, the mind behind the Hurt Locker in Zero Dark Thirty. It's a good movie and clearly people like it, but the Pentagon is not so happy with its cameo.

13:27The movie imagines a scenario where a nuclear intercontinental missile makes it through U.S. air defenses and heads to Chicago. But according to Bloomberg, that plot line hit a little too close to home for the Missile Defense Agency, the real-life department tasked with preventing that exact scenario from happening. An internal memo from the agency seen by Bloomberg claims the movie vastly underestimates America's defense capabilities, pushing back on the suggestion that the U.S. would only have a 50-50 chance of actually intercepting a missile. So it's a bleeping coin toss, a character says in the movie.

14:01That is what we get for$50 billion. The MDA insists its systems are far more reliable. In fact, in the memo, it claims a 100 % success rate dating back decades, which is a little questionable. Neil, the Defense Department is notoriously picky when it comes to films about the military or national security issues because of creative liberties Hollywood takes, sometimes on purpose, sometimes innocent mistakes. But what was it about this specific movie you think caused such a ruckus in the Pentagon? Well, it makes them look a little bit weak and incapable of not shooting down a missile that's headed to a massive metropolitan area in the United States.

14:37A bunch of arms experts were, you know, reporters after this came out were calling up all these arms experts and asking, well, what do you think? What is the reality here? And they did push back on this 100 % claim. Lieutenant General Douglas Lute said to ABC, I don't know of a single technological system that is perfect with 100 % accuracy. And remember, in this case, we're talking about literally a bullet needing to hit a bullet. Catherine Bigelow, who was behind this film and a bunch of other films about the military, also gave interviews after this news came out and told CBS, I felt that we needed to be more independent.

15:13We had multiple tech advisors who have worked in the Pentagon, but said she did not consult the Pentagon specifically. She said this was a work of fiction, but it was based in reality. And her mission, she had a particular mission with this movie, and that was to let people know that we are surrounded by 12 ,000 nuclear weapons. And she is sort of advocating for anti-nuclear proliferation here with this movie saying like, yeah, anything can happen here. And the Pentagon is probably not as ready as they want you to think. And the other subtext here is Trump wants this golden dome plan to come to America as well, which is basically like an expanded version of Israel's iron dome that he wants to protect the entirety of the United States.

15:54That is something that potentially is the subtext of the Pentagon issuing this memo because they want funding to build this golden dome system, which is still a little ill-defined right now. And then I also can't help but think of the Streisand effect, which is when you call attention to something that was relatively minor, it ends up bringing more attention to it. I don't know if a lot of people were going to be thinking like, ah, the Pentagon doesn't have these capabilities without this memo being circulated to its internal employees, without Bloomberg discovering it. So I think they might have done the reverse effect of what they were actually trying to achieve here and are now calling more attention to their capabilities.

16:29And then just the final thing is this 100 % claim. Everyone's like, why do they even pick that? It was kind of a cherry picked data set where over the last decade is what they said. It has been a hundred percent. There's only been four tests. Two of those were the only ones that actually had sort of active realistic circumstances to it. So technically, yes, it has had a hundred percent success rate in closed testing environments over the last 10 years. But beyond that, it gets a little murkier and they say, actually, it is closer to a 50, 50 chance because it is hard to, you know, shoot down one missile with another missile.

17:02And it's just another chapter in the Pentagon's love-hate relationship with Hollywood. There were times when it loved Hollywood. Go back to 1986 and Top Gun. Top Gun helped boost Navy recruitment by 8 % because how can you watch that movie and not want to become a pilot? And the Defense Department worked closely with Top Gun Maverick to supply it with F-18s. So they're looking at certain movies and they're saying, are you going to portray us, the military, in a positive light? Sure, we would love to work with you. We will even look over your script to make sure everything's accurate. And then there are certain movies that portray the military in a much more negative light, and the Pentagon tends to not work with those.

17:38I'm thinking about Apocalypse Now, which came out seven years before the initial Top Gun. Francis Ford Coppola was not able to secure any aircraft or equipment from the U.S. military, and then he wrote to the Pentagon, I can only assume that the military uses its control of these aircraft as a means of dictating which films can be made and which films cannot be made. So in the Pentagon's ideal world, this movie on Netflix, which is now the number one movie watched by more than 20 million accounts, was never made at all. We're going to take a quick break and come back with Neil's Numbers.

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19:25Apple Card ranged from 17.99 % to 28.24 % based on credit worthiness. Rates as of October 1st, 2025. Offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply. Welcome to Neil's Numbers, the segment where I share three stats from the week's news that will help you face your fears this spooky season. My first number helps explain why KFC has been slumping hard, boneless chicken is hot, and demand for bone in is looking downright skeletal. According to the Wall Street Journal, U.S. fast food menu listings for bone-in fried chicken meals, the kind that KFC specializes in, have plunged 72 % in the past four years.

20:02Meanwhile, boneless wings, tenders, and other meals of that style have spiked 29%. It's led to a kernel-in crisis. KFC's same-store sales have decreased for six straight quarters in the U.S., and it's dropped to fourth in the rankings of U.S. fast food chicken restaurants. Next year, it'll fall to fifth when Wingstop leapfrogs it. KFC's pain has been others gain. The companies more hip to the boneless trend, Chick-fil-A foremost among them, have surged as demand for poultry rises overall. Raising Cane sales jumped 32 % last year compared to 2023, while Dave's Hot Chicken soared 57%. Toby, it's clear people are increasingly avoiding the messiness of eating bone-in wings and thighs while embracing cleaner, more convenient boneless nuggets and fried chicken sandwiches.

20:45But at what cost? I thought we were a proper country. Well, first of all, when you read this story, you said, Toby, you're a boneless guy, which was rather insulting to me. I like the bone-in feel. I'm a traditional wing guy, but I think one of the reasons why we're seeing this trend emerge is because a lot of customers are eating food in their cars. 26 % of customers eat fast food meals sitting in their cars, and what is easier to eat? A boneless wing. And so you just get a little greasy. The bones are hard to deal with, so I understand why this trend is happening, but it is remarkable to see anyone who serves tenders absolutely killing it anyone who serves nuggets killing it no one really is in this bone in the game anymore i guess wing stop is so maybe they don't have a you know fully uh get out of jail free card here if you're kfc but fascinating to see that you know the i think it's a young person thing too they love boneless wings you're kind of asking around the office here and there was uh there was a generational divide gen z likes boneless wings and us elder millennials do appreciate a good bone and wing.

21:48All right, for my next number, an industry you might not expect is getting disrupted by AI, animal actors. Yep, there never might be another real life lassie. The owner of Benet's Burden Animal Rentals, which supplies films with animal acting talent, told The Hollywood Reporter that her business has plunged to just 40 % of what it was before the pandemic. Elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, Rocco, a Bernard Boxer mix whose credits include Jane the Virgin, Veronica Mars, and The Morning Show, hasn't booked a film or TV gig in years. Studios are increasingly turning to AI generated animals added in post-production to suit their animal talent needs.

22:24Just look at the most famous movie dog of 2025, Superman's sidekick Crypto. He was a digital version of a real dog that got scanned for the role. It's not just dogs feeling as washed up as anyone who's been on Dancing with the Stars. Benet Karp, who runs that struggling animal rental company, said, I don't think I've had a call for a woodpecker in probably three or four years, maybe five years. I have a flock of seagulls. I think I've only gotten one job for them in the last year where they used to work all the time. Toby, this industry is going through an existential crisis. I can't think of a single movie with a woodpecker in it, but maybe I need to increase my catalog.

22:58I feel like I'm uniquely situated to comment on this trend because I just watched Superman, which has the digital crypto dog in it. And then also Anatomy of a Fall back-to-back where a dog plays a very big role. A real dog plays a really big role in that movie. And it is night and day. I mean, first of all, Anatomy of a Fall, if you haven't gone and seen it, this dog is acting in it. I don't know how a dog acts sick or I don't know how a dog has a presence on camera, but it absolutely did. And it's just different than like crypto. Obviously, Superman is a very CGI movie in general, But there is obviously a massive divide between those two things.

23:35So some animal rights activists are saying, yeah, it's actually good. AI is helping replace animals, you know, being abused in the entertainment industry while other people are saying this is a real livelihood for people. And you probably get a better emotional response when you have real animals on screen. So interesting divide in one that I just experienced with the last two movies I watched. And you come down on the side of the animal actors being an actual important role in these movies. I'm telling you, watch this dog act. It acted its butt off. It was incredible to see. The Daniel Day-Lewis of canines.

24:05Yes. All right, for my final number, a lot of you are due for some PTO. In a new survey of 3 ,000 U.S. workers from FlexJobs, almost one quarter said they hadn't taken a single vacation day over the past year. That's despite 82 % of respondents saying they do have vacation leave through their work. This is supported by other studies about Americans' hostile relationship toward PTO. In a Pew survey from 2024, almost half of American workers said they didn't take all the vacation days they've been allotted. So what gives? Why are Americans clocking into a neon-lit office on days they could be drinking biodynamic wine on Corfu?