Quiz show!

0:05Cushkin Listeners, you've survived another festive season, you're bursting with chocolates and booze and you're quite frankly sick to the back teeth of parlour games. Well, have a little guess what we've got for you here. Yes, that's right. It's essentially another parlour game. Hooray. The festive period calls for frivolous nonsense. So we have prepared for you today a frivolous quiz. And when I say we, I very much mean I have prepared a quiz, ladies and gentlemen. Rob, as usual, is just rocking up and making it up as he goes along. So grab a cup of tea or hell, something stronger. and play along at home.

0:46Today on the show, we will decide who is the winner of 2025. The stakes have arguably never been lower. This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times. I'm Pushkin. I'm Katie Martin, quiz master and columnist at the FT in London. In an effort to organise doing as little as possible over this festive time, I'm hereby pre-recording a little quiz with the dynamic duo, the Batman and Robin, the Santa and Rudolph that is Robert Armstrong off of the Unhedged newsletter and friend of the show, Hull's finest, John Foley, editor of the FT's excellent Smarty Pants Companies and Investment column, Lex.

1:27John, you are also the owner of a spectacularly sore finger, are you not? It's so sore, Katie. I fell over and I landed with my entire body weight, my not inconsiderable body weight on my ring finger, on my right hand, and it popped out of its joint like something from a horror film. We've all seen the x-ray. It looks pretty bad. Finger is not supposed to point that direction. I know. No. Anyway, this will get you no sympathy in the quiz, John. It's fine. It's fine. I'm giving John one point on my little score sheet now. Pure sympathy. So he's already starting ahead. I would just like to say before we start this whole quiz that Katie designs these quizzes to humiliate me personally.

2:09So I just want to lodge this complaint even before play begins. Well, I'm here to help, Rob. I'm complaining to whoever is the FIFA equivalent of holiday finance quizzes. I'm lodging an official complaint preemptively. Complaints will get you nowhere because the rules of the quiz are as follows. I'm in charge. Okay, let's start with, has to be done, a taco round. just, you know, tying a bow on Rob's spectacular invention of the taco trade. Trump always chickens out. He's been dining out on it since April. Before you know it, it'll be a whole year of dining out on the taco trade. So, question one.

2:54U.S. President Donald Trump chickened out on tariffs when government bonds started crapping out. How did he describe the bond market at that time? Was it funky, yippy or jumpy? I'll go first this time. You have to go first next time. It's yippee, I say. What do you say? I also say yippee. You are both correct. It was indeed yippee. Yippee! One point to each of you, but as I say, John's got an extra sympathy point because of his sorting. A pity point. Trump himself was asked about the taco trade in the Oval Office, marking the peak of Rob's fame slash notoriety. How did he respond? was it the nastiest question, the stupidest question, or the meanest question?

3:40It was the nastiest question. Yeah, that's correct. It was the nastiest question. You're both saying nastiest and you are both correct. God, 2-0. Feeling good. So no more taco questions. I feel like we've almost reached the point of taco saturation. It's got a reindeer. It's got the whole thing. We don't need any more. Moving on. No more taco. Moving on with our sad little lives. Okay, more Trump stuff. Question number three, a tariffs question. What was the tariff rate imposed on the Herd and MacDonald Islands on Liberation Day? For guidance, these islands are inhabited almost exclusively by penguins.

4:23What was the rate? Well, we all know how this administration feels about penguins. It's hostile. They are hostile.

4:35towards the penguin. I don't know. John may know. So you're not going to give us options. You're just going to pick a number and it's whoever's closer. Yeah, exactly. I think they got the standard 15. Okay. So I'm imagining that the US does not run an enormous trade deficit with these islands. Maybe a modest trade surplus if there are also some people there. Yeah. So I'm going to say that they got a preferential rate of 10%. John is correct. John's correct? John's correct. They got 10%. Damn it. On the nail. Yeah. I was thinking maybe like guano is imported from there. And so there could be an imbalance there.

5:24Like some ship stops there, picks up a ton of bird poop, and brings it to American farmers. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, no, that does make sense. Yeah, but maybe I think they were just looking at a map and circling dots and putting numbers next to them. I think 10 % is a number that says, look, we're not taking any shit from you penguins. But we are giving you a bit of a sweetheart deal. Okay, so John is in the lead. Pull your socks up here, Rob. Okay. Question number four, another Trump question. According to Trump, two or three is the correct number of dolls to buy for your daughter.

6:04What is the wrong number of dolls to buy for your daughter? Okay, I'm going to let John go first. I'm going to go first. This is who's closer. I remember, I think I remember this. I mean, I'm going to just go around and say 10. I think he said, it was like, you don't need 30 dolls. I think 30 dolls was excessive. Well, the correct answer is 37. Yes, you don't need 37 dolls. He's not wrong. You don't need 37 dolls. No, it's true. Why is your president telling you how many dolls to buy for your daughters? I don't know. Dolls are creepy. Okay. So we are now even apart from John's extra point. Roaring comeback.

6:48Question number five relates to everyone's favorite, clever, smarty pants way to talk about the U.S. economy, which is the K-shaped economy. At the U.S. Open Tennis Championships this year, one food stall was reportedly selling a dish of chicken nuggets topped with caviar. How much did a serving cost? I just want you to know, I've heard that caviar prices have really fallen. I say this non-sarcastically. I think there's been like some, I vaguely heard something about like, people are better at farming sturgeon now, or like the kind of agricultural technology. has gotten better. So caviar has gotten a bit cheaper.

7:28Maybe the, you know, I don't know. But you know what did go up a lot this year was chicken prices. True. Good point. Good point. That's not K-shaped. That's the opposite of K-shaped, right? That's the, anyway, this is a good question. Now let's just start with some context here. At a sporting event in America, no food is less than 10 or$12, right? Like a hot dog at Madison Square Garden is a tenner just for starters, right? So you get caviar involved. You have to times two. So that gets us to 20. And then, you know, it's tennis. So you get the tennis premium, right? Now we're up to 25. I think you're looking at$25 here.

8:1525? Is that all? You think that? So here's how I would approach this. so last time i went to a concert in the barclays center i think i think i spent something like twenty dollars on a can of non-alcoholic beer which would normally cost about let's say like five dollars so that was four times that's horrible a multiple of four so if you think chicken nuggets would normally cost like i don't know let's say ten dollars from somewhere a bit fancy you add caviar and that makes it twenty dollars and then you multiply that by four you get$80. Wow, there's a big difference of opinion here, Katie. So, Rob, you're saying$25.

8:49John, you're saying$80. By the way, I think it's a small serving. I think my hypothesis, we don't know. But, you know, anyway. I'm saying$80. So, Rob is saying$25. John is saying$80. The correct answer is, folks, 100 of your Earth dollars. What the hell? I forgot the tennis premium. Ah, you forgot the tennis premium. Multiply by 1.2. Every inflation economist knows that. You should have taken Rob's number and multiplied that by four. I can't believe, in retrospect, that was an astonishingly low ball guess. And I don't know what I was thinking. But like, what is, again, like what is going on out there where this is like a thing?

9:31Like, so like the strawberries at Wimbledon in, you know, the famous tennis championship in London, they're always like astronomically expensive, but like$100? Yeah. Chicken nugget? Don't you get ashamed that that is being sold at your venue at some point? You know what I mean? It's just not right. Yeah, yeah. Well, there you go. K-shaped economy, folks. Yeah. It's all there for the rich people. Now, question number six. The subject at hand is brain rot. Fabled U.S. toy company Hasbro is worth$11 billion. What is the market capitalization in dollars of Popmart International, maker of Le Boo Boo's?

10:15The nearest wins. Okay, so I know it's fallen quite a lot. So at the time that we're listening to this or that you're listening to us say this, I'm not sure what it's going to be. I'm going to guess that it's about$40 billion US dollars. I'll take the over. I'll go, I mean, because I have the advantage of going second, I'll just go 41. Like this is the price is right. Do you have the price is right in England? You know, I'm just going to be strategic here and say it's 41 billion and take the over. Well, once again, John is the winner. The correct answer at the time of recording is$33 billion. That is remarkably good, John.

11:01That is really, you really almost got it. I just took Hasbro and multiplied it by four. Yeah. That's my answer to everything today. Just multiply things by four. Earlier, you took a non-alcoholic beer, multiplied it by four, and got the price of a chicken nugget. I mean, this is the kind of alchemy that makes the Lex Collins so special. This is the Lex secret sauce. Yeah, is that how you do it? Oh, now I get it. God, am I down by two points now? This is terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really got to go on a tear now. But LeBouBou's question mark. Like, is this going to be a 2025 phenomenon that we don't need to worry about in 2026?

11:42These are like these horrible, like grinning little elf toys that people have suddenly become obsessed with for like no apparent reason. Are they a thing in Britain as well? I think so. But like, they're very naff. They're very bad. I'm not a huge LeBouBou fan. A little bonus question here about LeBouBouMaker, PopMart International. You get a bonus point if you can tell me how much is the stock down from the peak of this year. 50%. 25. 25. The correct answer is 40%. So you're closer, John. So one second. Or do you just... Oh, this has just been a frustrating couple of questions for me. Terrible.

12:28I'm keeping my chin up, though. I'm still in the... How many questions do we have left? Enough. You can definitely make it back. I can make a comeback. And we've exhausted my specialist subjects now, which are la boo-boo and chicken nuggets. And things that get multiplied by four. And sore fingers. And sore fingers. Yeah. Right. Okay. I now have several questions about very normal people. Question number seven. A very normal person, tech billionaire Peter Thiel, wrote in the FT in January of the need for a truth and reconciliation process to right the wrongs of the Joe Biden presidency. He has interesting views about environmental and social justice campaigner Greta Thunberg.

13:14What does he think she might represent? Do you want to go first, Robert? I think that he thinks she is the Antichrist. I don't remember him saying that, but I just know that he's into the Antichrist. And so I'll go with that. So you're saying the Antichrist. John, any advance on Antichrist? I agree that he thinks that she's the Antichrist. My understanding about why is that the features that the Antichrist must demonstrate are basically being intent on stopping AI. And also they have to be popular. And Greta Thunberg is sort of both of those things. I think that's the anti-Peter Thiel that you're talking about here.

13:54Same thing? Yeah, same thing. Anything he doesn't like is evident. Makes you the Antichrist. So he said, My thesis is that in the 17th and 18th century, the Antichrist would have been a Dr. Strangelove, a scientist who did all this sort of evil, crazy science. In the 21st century, the Antichrist is a Luddite who wants to stop all science. It's someone like Greta. for completeness. He did offer other people who might represent the Antichrist. Am I right in thinking he also suggested that Mark Andreessen could be the Antichrist except that he wasn't popular. It's all very normal. It's extremely normal to go on about the Antichrist.

14:36This is what we know. Okay. Question number eight. Very normal person, former British Prime Minister Liz Truss has plans to open a private members club in London describing it as a nexus. I love this story. What is she called? A nexus of, quote, a global network of leaders, of entrepreneurs, of technologists based in the former MI5 headquarters. She will apparently run the AI aspect of the club. Sounds superb. I think we can all agree. Yes. How much will founding membership of this club cost in Sterling? This is also normal. I think. Very normal. You take the price of a head of lettuce. Was it a head of lettuce?

15:22You multiply it by four. No, I think it's 10 ,000 pounds just to walk in the door. No, no, no, that's not enough. That's not enough. I've learned from the earlier questions. 80 ,000 pounds. Oh, wow. So I was thinking, like, what do people pay to send their kids to fancy schools in London? I don't really know, but I'm guessing it's something like 40 ,000 pounds a year, maybe? So it's probably like that at least. So maybe, maybe 50 ,000. Yes. Okay. Okay. So 80 ,000 pounds says Rob, 50 ,000 pounds says John. The correct answer is 500 ,000 pounds. That's like 10 years of school at a fancy private school.

16:06And the thing is you go to that club and everyone there is going to be so stupid. You'll feel like you had a very expensive education. Yes. So it's really a bargain problem. Yeah. I mean, that's not going to happen, right, Katie? This club is not going to come off the ground, do you? Nobody is paying. I mean, I really hate private members clubs, and this sounds like a particularly bad one. Yeah. So everything is high quality about this very normal project. But yeah, 500 grand. Final very normal person question. Very normal person Edward Corristine was an employee of Doge, which slashed US government spending earlier this year.

16:51What was his nickname? Oh, I know this. I do not. I just have to concede this one. You do know this. Other than Antichrist, I have no guess. I believe his name was Big Balls. Correct.

17:07Him too? God. very normal people very normal people on the federal government it's all been it's been an excellent year for that sort of thing okay that's the end of that round the next round is the bubble round and it's a who said it round so you have to buzz in when you think you know who said it okay you understand do we have to make a buzzing noise of some kind yes some sort of buzzing noise or maybe you could go Lex Foley or like a university challenge yeah yeah yes okay Okay, here we go. Number 10. There's been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different.

17:54It's the, that's the CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Wang. Correct. Yeah. Correct. From our vantage point. This was one of the dumbest quotes of the year. uh it was like there there's not a gold rush on look at all these shovels we're selling oh yeah you know what i mean like of course for me you know it doesn't look like a bubble to you you're selling the soap in the water that people are using in the little ring you blow through

18:27yes well one point to rob okay again when you think you know the answer question 11 The banking bubble, the crisis in the banking system, that's just bad. That's like 2008. Those bubbles society wants to avoid. The ones that are industrial are not nearly as bad. They can even be good. Because when the dust settles and you see who are the winners, society benefits. Okay. Yes. You got it in first. I might be wrong though, actually. I was going to say it was Sundar Pichai alphabet. bets incorrect i have i think it's um bill ackman also incorrect god damn it it's jeff bezos jeff bezos i think by the way this is kind of true this is not this is not the dumbest quote of the year so like the telecom bubble and the railway bubble and certain real estate bubbles you do generate all these productive assets you just have too many of them and you kind of have to grow into it.

19:28So everybody goes bankrupt. But in the long run, the stuff is there to be used. Yeah, it's like a giveaway. Yeah. Do chips last like railways? I don't know. We don't know the answer to that question. And I think a lot of these data centers out in the middle of the desert are just, it's a huge shed with a power line and a water source and nobody wants it. It has no alternative use. And if AI doesn't take off, these are just going to be dead buildings. It's okay because the rich Americans say it's a good bubble. So we can all be happy about that. Turn them into private members clubs.

20:10Serving chicken nuggets with caviar on them. It's the worst party ever. Okay, right. No more buzzing in. We're back to normal questions. Question number 12. On October the 30th, a certain John Foley wrote in the FT that don't worry, the hyperscalers are not borrowing money to fund their addiction to AI. How large in dollars was the bond issued by Meta later that very day?

20:42I'm going to let John answer that one. He deserves a point for being teased in this way. I cannot remember. I didn't read that story. Yes. Was it something like 40 billion? 40 billion US, says John Foley. I'll take the under on that. That's fine. I think it's 30 or something. You'll say 30. 28. 28. The correct answer is$30 billion. So Rob, point to you. All right. Yeah, this is all working out. Did you really say they weren't borrowing money to do AI stuff? The nuance of it is, did you hit your head when you broke your finger too? The nuance of it is, they're borrowing money because these companies have no debt.

21:26But are they aggressively funding their infrastructure build with debt? No. I don't know if we approve of nuance on this show, Kate. No, I should have known. You've been on this podcast before, John. You know there's no... The timing was unfortunate. This is a sophistry.

21:44Moving on. Moving on. Question number 13. Lucky for Sun. Almost unbelievably, Meta is still spending money on the metaverse. What is the name of its avatar-filled social virtual reality experience? Reality labs. No, that's the business division. I'll let you guess that. Oh, you mean what's... Like there's a name for this place, this virtual place that you go to. Is that what you're saying, Katie? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the name of the place? Okay, I have no idea. Dorkville.

22:18Dork Phil is incorrect. John, would you like another guess? No, I thought it was just the metaverse in reality labs. It's Horizon Worlds. Another question here that's related to meta. Question number 14, the final question. As you may know, I'm a huge fan of meta's AI-enabled glasses, the perfect holiday gift for people who wish to cheat in exams and also for perverts.

22:51How much do the Wayfarer Ray-Ban Meta glasses retail for in the US? This is the kind of question we've demonstrated John is very good at, by taking a random price and doing some kind of mathematical transformation on it. So in cans of non-alcoholic beer, how much are the Metaglasses? I have some impression that those Apple goggly things that you wore so you could compute while wearing them. My feeling is those were like in the$600 or$700 range. So I'm going to put the Metaglasses there at$699. That sounds like a good price. So let me think about this. So how much is an iPhone? Let's say an iPhone is about$800.

23:38You already have one of those. This isn't instead of your iPhone. But it's probably not going to be more than that. But then my specs that I bought, and just normal ones that I got from Warby Parker, were probably about$80. And they were so good that they weren't looking where you were going. You fell and broke your finger. So you might want to go up the scale a little bit there. I'm going to take the price of my Warby Parker glasses and I'm going to multiply it by five this time to get$400. John is the winner. The correct answer is$379. Cheap. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. I mean, perfect for cheating in exams and being a stalker.

24:19Yeah. Absolutely ideal. It's the price of four chicken nuggets with caviar on top at Wimbledon or wherever. We have a very clear winner here, ladies and gentlemen. John. I think we're all winners, Katie. No, no, no. John is the winner. Not everyone. John is the winner of 2025 with a total of nine points. That's very kind of you. Ten if you include his bonus point for having a sore finger. Rob is sadly only got six points. I do want to say that if you'd ask questions about actual important real stuff, Rob would easily, easily have won. Well, I'm getting way to end of the year.

24:59John, how do you feel as the winner of 2025? Well, I needed cheering up today, Katie, I'll be honest. Yes. After the finger thing. So I'm delighted. It's good news all round. Well, congratulations on your glorious victory, John. Listeners, if you're playing along at home, I hope you are similarly satisfied. We're going to be back in one sec. Normally with Longshore, but today with New Year's resolutions.

25:34Already we are back with New Year's resolutions. Now, Rob, I looked it up and last year you said you essentially wanted to be more mindful. You said, I'm going to concentrate in the new year. I've had a moderate amount of success with that only this year. I am concentrating a little better. I read a few more books and things, but that's got to be an ongoing project. I'm not quite. But this year, I'm actually kind of taking the opposite tack. My New Year's resolution is like, I'm going to indulge myself next year. You know, I'm getting older and I have a life of hard work and discipline. And I'm going to do a lot of frivolous nonsense next year.

26:20I'm going to be excessive. I'm going to, you know, drink when I'm thirsty and eat a lot and have fun. I'm going to be less responsible and serious as a person in 2026. I'm hearing midlife crisis.

26:40John, do you have a New Year's resolution? So it's not to be mindful this year because I decided I had that last year and then I decided that mindfulness is basically victim blaming because capitalism makes us stressed. And then we pretend that it's our own fault for not being sufficiently mindful. So I'm not doing that this time. And this time I'm going to get back to an old habit that I had when I first moved to the United States of reading more presidential biographies. Because I think it's a really interesting way of learning about the U.S. It is. I agree. I haven't read loads, but I've read a couple of good ones.

27:09That recent Grant one is quite good. Well, I've got a really good one that I'm ready to start on President Garfield, who's one of my favorite presidents. Yeah. Interesting. It's no wonder you've been in quizzes. That's an unusual choice for a favorite. Well, not because of it. around his short, brutal presidency, which ended with him languishing for several days. Well, this is a cheerful way to wrap up the show. Katie, New Year's resolution? My New Year's resolution is I'm going to say no more often. I say yes to things that I don't really mean to say yes to. I say yes, I'm going to come to this event, or I'm going to go and do this thing, I'm going to go and do that thing, and then I find myself completely overloaded, and I'm just going to say no.

27:512026 is the year of no. I like that. It's the year of no. I'm going to put a little post-it note on my computer saying no, and that will remind me to say no to things. Chaps, it's been a joy. Thank you so much for participating in my frivolous quiz. I hope you enjoy reading presidential biographies and being frivolous. Listeners, wherever you're hearing this, happy new year. We love having you all on board, and there's millions of podcasts out there, so it's, like, awesome that you listen to this one. So have a fabulous 2026 and we'll see you on the other side.

28:51unhedged offer. I'm Katie Martin. Thanks for listening.