The Best One Yet
🤡 “Forced Fun!” — Target’s Smile Rule. Trump’s $2k Tariff Dividend. OneSkin’s dude beauty. +Starbucks’ Bear-ista.
11 Nov 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Nick. This is Jack. It's Tuesday, T-Boy Tuesday, November 11th, Veterans Day. And today's pod is the best one yet. This is a T-Boy. The top three pop business news stories you need to know today. Yetis, welcome back to the Mecca of Markets. Jack, you missed the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center by one day.
I can't, you were right there. Newman!
But stocks are up nonetheless, and it's because of our first story. Jack, what do we got on the pot? For our first story, it's President Trump's tariff dividends. He said on Sunday that $2,000 checks are coming to most Americans. But these $2,000 checks actually have just a 12% chance of happening. And yet they've already achieved their goal.
For our second story, Target is requiring their store workers to smile at anyone who comes within 10 feet of them. That's right. It's forced fun and it's taken over corporate America. We'll explain why. And our third and final story, there is a viral skincare product targeting dudes who work in tech. One Skin Cosmetics is showing how the millennial age of clean everything is over.
But yetis, before we hit that wonderful mix of stories. Fantastic mix of stories. Love the T-Boy Tuesday mix, Jack. Hoarder's Almanac, week 294.
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Chapter 2: What is the 'tariff dividend' proposed by Trump?
Oh, things we're running out of in the economy. Jack and Ivan keeping track for you. This week, we're running out of Starbucks barista cups. Ahem. That is bear Easter cups, as in coffee cups shaped like bears. Because, Yetis, last week I was in San Francisco, and I witnessed something very strange at 5 a.m. when I was getting my coffee.
Yeah, Jack stays on East Coast time when he's visiting me in SF. And, Jack, what did you discover at the Starbucks? I was at Starbucks, and right as it opened, I expected to be the only one there. But there were dozens of people there. But Jack, they weren't there for the early morning lattes, were they? They were there for the Barista Cup. Ah, Barista, not Barista Cups.
It's a double entendre to hold your double espresso.
Chapter 3: How is Target enforcing mandatory smiles in stores?
Starbucks CEO even name dropped this Barista Cup on the last earnings call. It's a honey bear bottle, but with a Starbucks green beanie hat on top. There's a straw sticking out. It's kind of like a hipster glassware situation. It's adorable. But here's the drama. That holiday merch sold out instantly. And the situation's gotten so bad, Starbucks just issued a public apology.
Mea culpa on the bear cuppa. Because besties, the bear cup demand was so high, they're now selling for 500 bucks on eBay. $500 for a glass cup that looks like Yogi Bear's Nalgene Bottle. Now, Starbucks said they're sorry, but it was probably a shortage on purpose, wasn't it, Jack? Because they have a track record of causing pandemonium for their limited edition plastic mugs.
Remember the 2019 cup craze? They got a pink mug from Starbucks now going for a thousand bucks on eBay. I mean, it was studded with crystals, Nick. And the Stanley Cup Starbucks collab, it broke the internet. It's now in a museum somewhere. Forget the Frappuccino, Starbucks. Make more merch. Seems to sell really well. Hey, Starbucks, we're bullish on the bull-shaped barista cups.
Let's make them happen. Wilder wrote his first letter to Santa yesterday. What'd he ask for? This cup.
I thought he was a Stanley guy. Jack, let's hit our three stores. that's it i don't even think they need to practice 50 that's a fat tip t-boy city on your at list if you know you know because we ready to go we can't wait no more so just start the show start the show first a quick word from our sponsor
For our first story, would you like to receive a $2,000 check from the government? Yeah. Oh, you probably would. Of course you would. So we're looking at Trump's latest policy idea, the tariff dividend. The tariff dividend. It probably won't happen, but it's already had the intended effect. Yetis, here was a post from the president on Sunday. Jack, read it off to us.
A dividend of at least $2,000 per person, not including high-income people, will be paid to everyone. Besties, that was a post on President Trump's social media platform talking about the tariff dividend. Now, there were some major factual errors in this post, but it's still a really exciting idea. And it's also like a really simple concept, right, Jack?
Take the revenue that Americans are collecting from tariffs and pay them out to Americans. Basically, we're tariffing French champagne 15% already. Why not send some of that wine tax over to us everyday beer-drinking Americans? call. Are stimulus checks back? Should I be buying GameStop right now, Jack? Is Bitcoin going to the moon again, baby?
But besties, before you get too excited about a $2,000 stimulus check known as the tariff dividend, we should sprinkle on some context about those errors. Error number one, President Trump said that we're collecting trillions of dollars in tariffs, but we're actually collecting $30 billion a month.
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