Sunlight Is the Best Disinfectant |
Sunlight, as we all know, is a semi-firm Colorado goat's milk cheese produced by Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy. It has the textural features of a rustic Spanish cheese, and the pungent aroma of an Alpine wheel. It also has a sticky, pale orange rind and a medium intense, creamy mouthfeel — just like this reasonably high-quality newsletter! Meantime, I'm a firm believer that the American People™ are great judges of right and wrong, if only they're given all the facts. So let's spread a healthy dose of sunlight across today's cheddlines, shall we? Come to think of it, I'd rather be in the dark eating Cheetos right now. Is it too late to ch-ange my mind? —Matt Davis, N2K Chedditor P.S. We've got drone fast food delivery on our Instagram. |
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"In the short term, there's a lot of headline noise that can definitely create some volatility," — Ayako Yoshioka |
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1. Tesla Shares Slump: Sales Went Up, But Nobody Wants a Cybertruck |
Tesla's global deliveries rose in the third quarter, marking the first increase this year, with 462,890 vehicles delivered, thanks to buyer-luring initiatives such as low-interest financing, attractive lease deals, price cuts, and free charging offers.
That's up from 435,059 vehicles delivered in the same period last year, and slightly surpassed analyst expectations. Despite the growth, Tesla's stock price fell nearly 4% on the news. Just goes to show: Investors are demanding.
Tesla has faced challenges throughout the year, including a slowdown in electric vehicle sales growth due to concerns over range, pricing, and charging infrastructure, leading to significant discounts and reduced profit margins. The company's average vehicle sales price dropped to the lowest in four years at $42,500. Most of Tesla's sales were from its more affordable Models 3 and Y, with the company selling only 22,915 of its more expensive models, including the Cybertruck, which many people have many things to say about.
Tesla plans to introduce a purpose-built robotaxi soon. Let's hope it's incredible, and cooler than a Johnny Cab from Total Recall, eh? Or poor Elon Musk might have to sell some stock just to make his rent. (Checks notes.) Wait. He'll be fine, regardless? Well, okay, then. Read More |
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2. Will AI-Powered Self-Service Kiosks Improve Your Fast-Food Experience? |
Kamala Harris once worked at McDonald's, which is probably just one of many reasons Brandon Barton, CEO of Bite, wants to replace fast food service workers with self-ordering kiosks that will never run for office.
"Digital ordering is frankly easier than talking to somebody about ordering," said Brandon. "I come from a hospitality background, so I truly care about the human interaction part of it. But when you walk into someplace, things like an overwhelming menu or too many options, too many choices, it's much easier to digest in a digital setting from a menu board. And so being able to order from a kiosk gives people an off-ramp if they want to take it."
That's how you finesse the idea of doing away with people's jobs. It's an "off-ramp if you want to take it." You know? It's worth noting that actually self-service kiosks increase labor demands.
"In theory, kiosks should help save on labor," RJ Hottovy, an analyst who covers the restaurant and retail industries at data analytics firm Placer.ai, told CNN, "but in reality, restaurants have added complexity due to mobile ordering and delivery, and the labor saved from kiosks is often reallocated for these efforts."
"Now, I want to make it clear, I don't think our product actually replaces labor. It's not taking people's jobs," Bite's Brandon said. "It's allocating the time that these people have. Somebody here may be spending 25% of their time into cashiering 25% of their time, you know, making food and 50% taking orders. We can take that 50% of taking orders away. They can do other things, clean the dining room, go interact with guests in a meaningful way, not just in a 'would you like fries with that?' way."
The kiosks also use AI to offer people meaningful extras. If it's a hot day, for example, the incredibly clever robots will offer people an ice cream instead of hot soup. It's the future, alright. The promise of AI made real. Off-ramp, please! Read More |
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| Drive-thrus? More like fly-thrus. 🍔🚀
Serve Robotics and Wing, part of Google's parent company Alphabet, are joining forces to create an efficient robot-to-drone delivery system.
Select deliveries will be picked up by Serve robots from restaurant curbs and taken to nearby Wing drones, which will then zoom off and deliver items up to 6 miles away.
Together, they aim to make food delivery quicker, safer, and more reliable, all while keeping customers happy and cutting down on emissions and traffic pollution. Also, killing delivery jobs. |
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3. Hurricane Helene Death Toll Rises |
Hurricane Helene has become one of the deadliest hurricanes to hit the U.S. mainland, with at least 160 confirmed deaths. President Joe Biden set out to survey the damage yesterday. The storm swept across the Southeast this weekend, causing extensive damage. Deaths were reported in the Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee, mostly due to falling trees. Helene caused catastrophic flooding, particularly in the Blue Ridge Mountains areas, where 10 to 30 inches of rain led to destructive flash floods.
Hurricane Katrina remains the deadliest storm since 1950, killing 1,392 people. Hundreds of people also remain unaccounted for in the wake of Hurricane Helene, and the death toll is likely to rise significantly over the coming days. Read More |
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4. How Will the Economy Do as We Head Into Q4? |
"The economy is pretty resilient," Ayako Yoshioka, senior portfolio manager at Wealth Enhancement Group, told us. "We've seen strong GDP growth numbers. The labor market has moderated a little bit, and unemployment remains a little over 4%. However, historically, when we look at how unemployment rate has been over time, it's relatively low in that context. So we think the economy's relatively strong right now."
Interest rate cuts have had their desired effect, meanwhile, and everybody's keeping an eye on the jobs numbers. Although for Ayako, "it's a conglomeration of all of the data." She's looking at jobs claims, inflation data, energy prices, and more. She's less concerned about the potential for a Middle East conflict to impact stocks but does see the potential impact of a dockworkers strike.
"These dockworkers do have a fair say in terms of, you know, how the goods move through the overall economy, especially along the East Coast," she said. "So we'll have to see how this all plays out and how that impact will play out."
"In the short term, there's a lot of headline noise that can definitely create some volatility," she said. "However, having a well-diversified portfolio to take advantage of both some of the growth areas of the market like AI and technology as well as some of the economic strength that we can see in our markets, I think is the way to have a good portfolio that can last through the long run."
Stick it in an index fund, basically. That's the gist. *This is not financial advice. **Even though obviously it's great financial advice. You know. But it's not. Read More |
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5. Walz Highlights Vance's Non-Answers Over January 6th in Debate |
With five weeks to go until the election, the polls are too close to call. So, on Tuesday night, a few Americans tuned into CBS to watch the vice-presidential debate, which is unlikely to sway any undecided voters because none of them can be bothered to tune into a 90-minute conversation about politics.
Tim Walz and JD Vance had a lovely, cordial debate and I tuned in, on your behalf. It was all reasonably nice until the end, when Vance refused to say whether President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and downplayed the events of January 6, 2021, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the ceremonial certification of the results.
"What President Trump has said is that there were problems," Vance said when asked about his own past assertion that he would not have certified the 2020 election. "We should fight about those issues, debate those issues, peacefully in the public square. And that's all I've said. And that's all that Donald Trump has said."
"We need to tell the story," Walz said. "I mean, he lost this election, and he said he didn't… a president's words matter. People hear that."
"He is still saying he didn't lose the election," Walz said of Trump, turning to Vance. "Did he lose the 2020 election?"
"Tim," replied JD, who once compared his new boss to Hitler, "I'm focused on the future."
"That," Walz said, "is a damning non-answer."
Also worth noting was that Mike "Hang Mike" Pence was not on the stage on Tuesday night, as Walz pointed out.
"It should come as no surprise that I will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year," Pence told Fox News in March, after facing death threats for refusing to go along with Trump's unconstitutional scheme to try to remain in power after losing the 2020 election. Kamala Harris's campaign tweeted a picture of Pence and Vance next to one another yesterday, along with the words, "always ask employers why the position is open." Read More |
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