Why Oil Prices Could Tank the Economy & St. Louis Real Estate Market Plummets

0:03When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans. Send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th. And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neil Freiman. And I'm Toby Howell. Today, 14 new shows in 11 days. Broadway is back, baby. Then a big office building in downtown St. Louis just sold at a 98 % discount, which does not bode well for the future of Midwest America.

0:48It's Monday, April 15th. Let's ride.

0:56It's tax day, which means you better submit those tax returns or make plans to leave the country, change your name, and live under a different alias for the rest of your days. Okay, it's not that serious, but please get that paperwork done to avoid those annoying failure to fine penalties. Neil, did you get your taxes done? I did do my taxes. It's maybe the one thing in the entire world that I don't procrastinate over. And while I do owe the IRS a little bit of money, I definitely don't owe as much as Mark Cuban. So Cuban tweeted yesterday that he was going to wire$288 million to the IRS. He said that the country has done so much for him and he's proud to pay his taxes every single year.

1:37Is$208 million, I mean, is that an outlier for him or does he do that every year? I mean, I think he sold the Dallas Mavericks this past year, so it's definitely an outlier year. But what a flex to say that you're giving Uncle Sam$288 million. Good for you, Mark. Now let's hear from our friends over at Robin Hood. Neil, I got to say, sometimes when you're making a daily news podcast, it's easy to get caught up in the never-ending now. I know exactly what you mean. Always so concerned with what's happening today or tomorrow, you never take a breath to do a little TLT. TLT? Thinking long-term. The ups and downs of financial markets can make anybody's head spin, so it can be nice to think long-term, like in decades, instead of obsessing over what one stock is doing today.

2:20Ah, as the great Adam Smith said, happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. He's busting out Adam Smith at 6 a.m. Robinhood Gold makes TLT easy with things like 5 % APY on uninvested cash and 3 % match on retirement contributions for a subscription fee. And those kinds of incentives can add up over the years. So think about doing a little TLT with Neil and I and learn more about the Robinhood app in the App Store or Google Play Store. Disclosers, investing is risky. Robinhood Gold is offered through Robinhood Financial LLC and is a subscription offering services for a fee. Terms apply to the APY and rate is subject to change.

2:57Limitations apply to the retirement match. More info in the description of this podcast. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app. It's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. First, let's talk about what's going on in the Middle East and how it could impact energy markets and markets more broadly.

3:34Late Saturday, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, marking the first time Iran directly attacked its adversary from its own territory. Historically, Iran fights Israel through its network of proxies in the region, like Yemen's Houthis or Lebanon's Hezbollah. According to Tehran, the barrage was in retaliation for a suspected Israeli strike on an Iranian consular building in Damascus on April 1st. The attack caused little damage. Israel said it, along with the U.S., Western allies and Arab partners, shot down 99 % of the projectiles. But despite the successful defense, the attack significantly raised the temperature in the region and put more upward pressure on oil prices, which have already risen nearly 20 % this year.

4:17And that's because a direct confrontation involving Israel, Iran, and the U.S. that disrupts energy supplies from the Middle East was the worst-case scenario for investors since October 7th. The U.S. is trying to lower the tensions, telling Israel to, quote, take the win and not escalate things further with a counterattack. But the prospect of a wider regional war in the region got a little more real this weekend. Right. The big risk here for the global economy, if we want to zoom out, is whether this escalates into a broader regional conflict. Like you said, that's been on traders' minds for ever since October 7th.

4:51And when that happens, how do higher oil prices kind of filter through the economy? The most obvious way is that it leads to higher gas prices. We've already seen that this year. U.S. gas prices have jumped 50 cents per gallon since the beginning of January. They're right around$3.70 right now, but also higher oil prices and higher energy prices filter through the economy in general because anybody who has to move any good that uses fuel to do it will feel that sting of higher oil prices. So your targets of the world, your deltas of the world who are moving people, oil prices do filter through every single part of the economy.

5:25Yeah, that's why Mark Zandi, who's the chief economist at Moody's, said that spiking oil prices reflect the most serious threat to the economy just because of how they filtered through every industry that exists. Meanwhile, stocks are doing poorly. Last week, the S &P 500 had its worst week of the year. And that's just over these general concerns that are going on in the Middle East. Meanwhile, safe haven assets like gold, the U.S. dollar are all surging. The U.S. dollar had its best week in 18 months last week. And gold, as we've been talking about on the show, a bunch has been has been reaching record highs over the course of this year.

6:07So maybe over the first few months of this conflict between Israel and Gaza, there has not been huge ramifications for the global economy. With Iran getting involved, there are, because there's two factors that investors are looking at when it comes to Iran. First of all, is they are a major oil producer. So if anything, if any conflict escalates in the region, then it'll curtail supplies from Iran as a producer. And then also, it borders the Strait of Hormuz, which is one of those oil checkpoints around the world. Through the Strait of Hormuz, more than 20 % of all global oil consumption moves from the Dubais, the UAEs, the Gulf states of the world, goes to global markets through the Strait of Hormuz so they could close those shipping channels as the Houthis have been doing in the Red Sea.

6:53Those are the primary risks directly tied to the conflict, but rising oil prices aren't just tied to those tensions in the Middle East right now. So OPEC plus that conglomerate of oil producing nations have also cut output. Demand for fuel has been a lot higher than most people expected due to the fact that our economy is still just humming along very strongly. And then Ukraine is also launching attacks against Russian oil refineries. So everywhere you look, there is upward pressure on the price of oil. So it's not just tied to specifically what's happening in this region. Signs that a city are struggling can come in many shapes and sizes.

7:28And for St. Louis, that size and shape is a vacant 44-story downtown office building. The former one AT &T center just sold for$3.6 million, 98 % less than its sales price all the way back in 2006, showing that the Midwest is just as, if not more vulnerable to the so-called doom loops than more widely publicized issues facing coastal cities like San Francisco. According to real estate brokerage JLL, the total office vacancy in St. Louis reached an all-time high of 22.3 % in the first quarter of this year. And as offices sit empty and other shops and restaurants close up, it leads to fewer and fewer people commuting downtown, which feeds into less foot traffic for struggling businesses.

8:11And thus, the cycle continues. Toss in the pandemic, which led to a mass emptying of office buildings. You have a recipe for big office towers selling at 98 % discounts. Neil, today we're talking about St. Louis, but tomorrow it could easily be another city. The future of some American downtowns is looking rather bleak. It is pretty bleak, especially these office districts, the five eyes of the world. I mean, we have one in New York City, but they exist across cities in the United States where you rely on office traffic of people commuting into work. And when that dries up, then the whole the whole sort of ecosystem and the viability of those areas comes under threat.

8:50St. Louis is not doing well. Most North American cities are not doing well, but St. Louis is doing the worst. Its central business district suffered the steepest drop in foot traffic of any North American city between 2019 and mid-2023. And you mentioned the Midwest more broadly. Six of the 10 U.S. office districts that were at the bottom of that ranking are in the Midwest. We've talked a lot about San Francisco and New York, but those have actually bounced back much better than people expected. San Francisco is doing better thanks to AI and companies wanting office space to win that arms race.

9:25New York has a lot other stuff going on in addition to offices like tourism and culture and sports and things like that. So that has helped out those coastal cities. Meanwhile, these Midwestern cities are looking for a possible solution to bring their downtowns back. Right. San Francisco was kind of plastered as this cautionary tale against what happens when the remote work boom happens and it starts this doom loop in downtown, but they actually still rank 18 spots above St. Louis in terms of downtown foot traffic. And you're right. It is these coasts in middle. It is the cities far from the coast in middle America that are suffering the most.

10:00And there's just a lot of factors that make it hard for St. Louis to succeed. They've experienced population loss. There's been competition from offices in the suburbs. The suburbs of St. Louis are very vibrant. And then there's also a lot of kind of uninspired urban planning that hasn't gone to plan. The one thing that I do think there is hope for St. Louis is actually the soccer team that just recently moved to the city. There's an office district to the west. There's a new soccer stadium there. There's a train station that's turned into amusement park. So there is ways to kind of revitalize these cities.

10:33And the soccer team has seen a lot of great support there. So it's not all doom and gloom for St. Louis, as long as we look at the football team. Well, it's funny because we've talked a lot about studies that show that stadiums do not lead to economic revitalization. Then when you look at St. Louis, the only neighborhoods that seem to be doing well are the ones with the soccer stadium and the ones with the Cardinals stadium that bring a lot of people to those areas during game day. So at least anecdotally, these stadiums do provide a bit of vibrancy and economic development. If you're a fan of theater, Garrett, get your butt to New York City right now because there are a historic number of Broadway shows opening in the next few weeks.

11:14Over the span of 11 days in mid to late April, 14 shows are opening, ranging from musical revivals to celeb-studded plays. April is always a popular month for new shows to raise the curtain, but this is a historic bonanza. The number of new shows will increase the number of available seats at Broadway theaters by almost 50 percent from about 240 ,000 across all productions at the end of March to 350 ,000 in April. This has theater analysts wondering if it's too much of a good thing because making money on a show is hard enough as it is. And trying to stand out from the crowded pack will be harder than ever.

11:50To others, though, the rush of openings is a sign that Broadway is back after COVID shuttered theaters and raised existential questions about the industry's future. Either way, it's great news for consumers who have more options than ever. About 38 shows are currently running on Broadway. Toby, which one are we seeing first? I don't know which one we're going to because there are truly too many to go to. Who knows if this is actually a good thing because critics are saying, listen, we cannot possibly give enough time to review all these shows that are debuting in April. And then audiences can't possibly go to enough shows.

12:24Part of the reason why we're seeing just this late April push is awards season. The Tony Awards, which is the big award show for Broadway. They have a cutoff date that's been moving earlier and earlier. It used to be back in May 8th in 2008. jumped up to April 30th and it's now gone even earlier in the month. So part of the reason why these shows want to be before that day is they can say Tony eligible as a marketing material. So that is part of the reason why we're seeing just this massive late push in April. Yeah. You don't think of Broadway as a seasonal industry, maybe like Chipotle burrito season or the holiday season, but it does appear that Broadway is a very seasonal industry with most shows opening in the spring so they get before that Tony cutoff date let's talk about Broadway more generally how it's doing obviously during COVID everyone was saying man this this is an industry that will not bounce back kind of like the box office and theaters so far this year attendance is down 16 below where it was the same point in 2020 total box office grosses are down 15 so it has come back a decent amount hasn't come back all the way but there is a general bullishness that this site that this slate of new openings is a sign that Broadway has maintained its resilience throughout the pandemic.

13:41Right. And if we just want to quickly touch on the slate, I know I didn't give an answer to what I'm most excited to see the outsider. If we're going in on some plays that are tied to more, some more well-known IP, you have the outsiders, great Gatsby, the notebook, water for elephants of those four. I think I got to see the notebook. I've never seen the notebook actually all the way through the movie, but I would love to see it. I'm sure it's an emotional. Apparently you have to bring a lot of tissues to the notebook. Another one worth highlighting is SUFFS, which is about the women's suffrage movement.

14:12The Wiz is coming back. I saw Illinois' The Sufjan Stevens album. It's more of a dance thing, but there's a live band that plays this album all the way through. I love that. It was not on Broadway, and it was so popular that it came to Broadway. So that is definitely one that I'm looking forward to. Stereophonic is another play that is actually three hours long, but is another one that had so much enthusiasm in its off-Broadway one that it's coming to Broadway. So those two, if you're music lovers, those two are ones I recommend. Good Rex. Up next, Morning Brew Daily's winners of the weekend. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real.

14:51And so is the relief from EPCLIS. After an initial dosing phase, about four in 10 people taking EPCLIS achieve itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EbGliss, LibriKizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per two milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.

15:23EbGliss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if If you're allergic to Epglis, allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with Epglis. Before starting Epglis, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit epglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. I'm Christian McCaffrey, pro running back, and Abercrombie is an official fashion partner of the NFL.

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16:17Welcome to our winners of the weekend segment, where we look at two stories that had a better weekend than New Yorkers seeing the sun for the first time in months. Neil, I won our pre-show game of Dance Dance Revolution, so I'm up first, and my winner of the weekend is bagels. Specifically, bagels from McDonald's. Franchises in California are bringing back the fan favorite Ring of Carbs after a four-year absence to help offset the impact of the new fast food workers minimum wage hike. With the law adding an estimated$250 ,000 in cost per location, McDonald's is turning to the bagel to see if the new menu item can give a little sales boost to restaurants in the state.

16:56As part of the experiment, they are spending$15 million on local advertising, a significant amount given McDonald's rarely promotes product in just one area. This is my favorite part of the whole wage hike saga, though. So McDonald's reportedly assembled a task force of employees and restaurant owners to figure out how to offset the added expenses and called it the Rise and Dominate team. And apparently the Rise and Dominate team decided bagels were the answer. Well, bagels are expected to add 10 percent foot traffic to these restaurants and raise profit margins. We've talked about it a lot. Breakfast is the golden goose.

17:32I don't know if that's the right term of the fast food industry. And apparently bagels were so popular before the pandemic when these fast food chains limited their menu during COVID. Bagels were apparently the first to go. But who doesn't love bagels? I mean, you and I love bagels. I don't know if they're actually bagels. They're probably just round pieces of bread with a hole in the middle. First of all, I thought you were definitely going to say the golden goose for the golden arches. You were setting up so well for that, but it's all right. You stuck the landing still. I do think one of the reasons why McDonald's is trying to innovate through this is because they've seen other fast food chains already start to raise prices ahead of that pay jump.

18:08Burger King prices rose about 2 % in February. Wendy's prices were 8 % higher. But McDonald's has tried to say, like, we do not want to raise prices. So they're trying to do things like introduce new menu items, innovate a little bit just on the margins to try to offset some of these wage hikes because they are very reticent to raise their prices. McDonald's has been the poster child of inflation. Those Big Mac meals that in certain areas got to$16,$17,$18. Those have been plastered across headlines everywhere. And you're right that McDonald's is very sensitive to price increases. It wants to find any other way it can do things.

18:44It can get through this minimum wage increase, then raise prices. But competitors have done that, and they just don't care. My winner is Societal Collapse because Civil War, the movie, was the king of the box office this weekend, bringing in$25.7 million in ticket sales. The film follows journalists in an America where California and Texas have united against a president who disbanded the FBI and gave himself a third term. It's a dystopian thriller that to audiences doesn't feel all that distant from reality. And it worked because, according to one film consultant, the story is not directly partisan, but it's provoking partisan feelings, which is a fine balance to strike.

19:25Plus, the timing ahead of a divisive presidential election was uncanny. Civil War's strong debut was also the biggest opening ever for A24, the upstart studio that's made a name for itself with thought-provoking, unconventional films like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Uncut Gems. Toby, are you surprised people wanted to watch a movie about Civil War? I'm not surprised because it feels like we're definitely entering a new era of movies that really bland, family friendly superhero fare seems to be on the way out. Now, these more gritty movies like the Oppenheimers of the world, like the Civil Wars of the world is luring these adults out to go watch the movies because we've just been starving for anything different, anything a little bit more serious than than apparently than Iron Man, just cracking the same jokes over and over.

20:11So, and A24 is probably the poster child for this new era of movies as well, because you're right. They've always had these beloved movies that have done really well at award seasons, but they've never had a film open at number one. They've never had a box office hit just like this. And it does feel like a lot of factors were providing tailwinds for Civil War to do really well at the box office. If you're in Aries and just received some lovely presents for your birthday, I suggest you get on those thank you notes, because the price of a Forever Poets' stamp is set to rise five cents this summer.

20:41Pending approval, this July, first-class stamps will run you$0.73, up from the current$0.68. If this news sounds familiar, it's coming on the heels of another price hike back in January, and would be the sixth price hike since January 2021. It might be tempting to just point a finger on inflation as justification for the price increases, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The Postal Service is a bit of a financial mess. The use of first-class mail, which is the Postal Service's main revenue driver, has been in decline for decades, while costs, specifically the agency's obligation to pay for retirees, health care and pension plans have been rising.

21:18So the formula for setting stamp prices that the USPS uses has spit out yet another price hike. So write those thank you notes, please. The USPS is taking a lot of pains to say that yes, while we're increasing prices six times since 2021 that we are still relatively cheaper than any other postage in 31 pure countries. They issued this report saying the price of a standard domestic letter in the U.S. was nearly half the average price in 31 sampled countries. So they are trying to make the point that we have kept stamps extremely cheap in the U.S. relative to other countries for decades. And now we have to increase postage in order to not be in the red.

22:01They were, they lost$6.5 billion in 2023. So they're cutting back service. They're raising prices in order to be solvent. Right. In raw numbers, only four countries had cheaper stamps in the U S and if you adjust for purchasing power, then the U S did have the lowest stamp price of any one of those 31 peer countries that you mentioned. So why are stamps in the U S actually cheaper than a lot of our peer countries? The big reason is mainly scale. The U.S. is by far the largest market for the delivery of domestic mail. This just goes to show you how big the U.S. Postal Service actually is. It handled half of the world's domestic mail in 2021.

22:36So even though domestic mail has been on the decline in first class posts, has been on the decline in the United States, it's not nearly as sharp or as bad as the decline in other countries. Right. And I was thinking about why the USPS is so big relative to the other postal services in other countries. Maybe it's more fragmented in other areas, in other countries that are even bigger than the United States, because the United States is not the biggest by population. It is one of the wealthiest countries, and maybe it does have a more centralized mail service. But just looking at these numbers, I know no one is surprised by this, but the volume of single piece first class mail, which is your bill payments, your letters and your cards, that stood at 2.7 billion in 2007.

23:16and seven. And now it has fallen 68 % to just 900 million to its lowest level since the 60s. So it's not surprising, but no one is sending mail anymore. Let's go to our week ahead preview. It is extremely, extremely busy. Donald Trump's historic hush money trial begins today. The GOP's presidential nominee will become the first former commander in chief to stand trial in a criminal case when he faces 34 counts of falsification of business records for concealing a 130 ,000 payment to buy the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. He faces a maximum of four years in prison, although legal experts believe that even if he's found guilty, he's not likely to end up behind bars.

23:59Right. Not likely to end up behind bars and probably not likely to impact his election chances as well, because we've seen in the past that cases levied against Trump has done nothing to kind of shake his base's faith in him going forward. So who knows if this may be a conviction for the first time. This is the first of four criminal cases that Trump faced. One thing that could derail his, uh, his election is reelection bid is that he's going to actually have to be in the courtroom, which he hasn't had before in his civil cases. He's going to have to be in Manhattan for the courtroom over the course of this trial, except for Wednesday.

24:33So campaigning while you're in court might be a bit of a logistical issue. Moving on, the Boston Marathon is also today. About 30 ,000 people are running 26.2 miles from Hopkinton, Mass. To Boyle Street in Boston in the 128th running of one of the most famous races in the world. Productivity in your company's Boston office is going to be low. With 500 ,000 spectators spilling out into the streets to cheer on the racers. And sneaking in a few Monday morning beers. Marathon Day, it's just the best. It's just the best. And you better believe next year I will be there towing the line alongside everybody.