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🌊 Netflix and (Poison) Pill?
Plus: Trump's AI order, China's $1T surplus, & inflatable Santa called "tacky"
Floor 13 in hotels and now 67 at In-N-Out.
In-N-Out Burger has removed the number 67 from its ordering system because of the viral meme. Kids were gathering at the counter to celebrate it being called — like in this dystopian video. The 67 meme has also reportedly wreaked havoc in classrooms across the country, with many teachers banning it.
The end times are nigh. Enjoy the rest of the ride.
Also, we’re in the process of upgrading our WeThe66 platform. For that reason, there was no newsletter this morning. Stay tuned, though: We’ll be back tomorrow!
💰 Paramount’s hostile takeover bid
🇨🇳 China’s $1T surplus
🎅 Inflatable Santa called “tacky
–Max and Max
KEY STORY
Paramount Offers Warner Bros. Bid
Paramount launched a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery after Netflix agreed to buy parts of the media company last week
Netflix announced an agreement on Friday to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and HBO Max streaming service in a deal valued at $82.7B, excluding Warner's cable networks
On Monday, Paramount bypassed Warner's board by making its offer directly to shareholders. Paramount valued the company at $108B, including debt, and argued its all-cash proposal provides shareholders with $18B more in cash than Netflix's offer
Dig Deeper
Paramount said the Ellison family and RedBird Capital guaranteed they would cover the cash needed for the deal, while Bank of America, Citigroup, and Apollo committed to provide $54B in loans to cover Warner's debt
Paramount also received financial commitments from government investment funds in Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, and Qatar, as well as from Jared Kushner's investment firm. These foreign investors agreed to forgo voting rights and board seats in order to reduce concerns that foreign governments would influence an American media company
KEY STORY
China's Trade Surplus Tops $1T
China recorded a trade surplus exceeding $1T for the first time in history
Chinese customs data released on Monday showed exports increased 5.4% during the first 11 months of the year compared to 2024, while imports declined 0.6%. The surplus of $1.08T represented an all-time high for any country in recorded economic history
China relies on exports to grow despite weak local demand, while the US often runs large trade deficits. US economists have traditionally viewed this as a sign of American wealth, resulting from a powerful dollar and strong domestic consumption. Trump and many in his cabinet view the deficit as a sign of weakness and exploitation
Dig Deeper
Chines exports to the US dropped 29% in November compared to the previous year, but shipments to the EU surged 14.8%, exports to Southeast Asia rose 8.2%, and shipments to Australia jumped 35.8%
Some analysts view China's continued export growth as a natural result of its manufacturing advantages in products like electric vehicles and batteries. Others have warned that the imbalance creates unsustainable strain on global trade relationships
French President Emmanuel Macron said that Europe might impose tariffs if Beijing did not address the surplus, warning that international frustration could reach a breaking point
KEY STORY
Trump Announces $12B Farm Aid Package
President Trump announced a $12B aid package for American farmers on Monday
2025 has been terrible for the US agricultural sector, with low crop prices after record harvests and higher costs causing bankruptcies to jump about 60%. The pressure worsened when Trump’s tariffs on China led Beijing to stop buying US soybeans, removing the beans’ biggest buyer
The aid package includes $11B in one-time payments through the Farmer Bridge Assistance program for crop farmers, with the remaining $1B designated for other commodities. The program is available to farmers whose average adjusted gross income fell below $900,000 during 2022-2024
Dig Deeper
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping reached an agreement in October, under which China pledged to buy 12M metric tons of US soybeans before March 2026, then 25M metric tons each year for the following three years. As of Monday, however, China had only purchased approximately one-quarter of the initial commitment
Trump offered similar bailouts during his first term, when the administration provided $28B to farmers between 2018 and 2019 to offset losses from trade disputes with China
China has since developed alternative supply chains and increased reliance on Brazilian soybeans
QUOTE OF THE DAY
You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him find it within himself.
KEY STORY
Trump to Sign AI Executive Order
Trump announced plans to sign an executive order preempting state AI regulations with a single federal framework
Over the past several years, states have enacted their own AI laws in the absence of comprehensive federal legislation. This year, all 50 states and territories have introduced some form of AI legislation, and 38 states have collectively passed around 100 laws
On Monday, Trump said he would sign an executive order establishing a single national rulebook for AI, stating that having 50 different state approval processes would destroy AI innovation and harm America's competitive position
Tech industry leaders have lobbied for the order, while governors from both parties have opposed it as federal overreach
Dig Deeper
A draft version of the order that circulated last month directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to establish a task force to challenge state AI laws through lawsuits and instructed federal agencies to withhold funding, such as broadband grants, from states with AI regulations
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) called the effort federal overreach and last week introduced legislation in Florida aimed at creating an AI bill of rights with data privacy protections and parental controls
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson (D) said, "Congress can't fail to create real safeguards and then block the states from stepping up"
RUNDOWN
Some Quick Stories for the Office
🔫 Conservative commentator Tim Pool said his house was shot at last Friday night by an unknown gunman who approached his property in a vehicle.
📚 The US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Texas residents challenging the removal of 17 books from Llano County public libraries.
💥 New clashes between Thailand and Cambodia killed at least five people on Monday, marking the most serious violence since the July ceasefire.
🧎🏻♂️ 12 FBI agents fired this year sued Director Kash Patel and the Trump Administration on Monday, claiming they were unjustly punished for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest.
🛩️ The Pentagon announced its first drone attack unit, Task Force Scorpion Strike, which will use drones reverse-engineered from Iranian Shahed models.
What does Roca Nation think?
🇺🇸 Yesterday’s Question: Do you want Netflix to own HBO? Why or why not?
HBO is known for quality. Netflix is known for quantity. I’m worried HBO will lose its identity and that Netflix will use its large market share to produce subpar content on the “one” streaming platform. Price control is also a huge concern. Bust that monopoly wide open!
Absolutely not!
Perhaps it's because I'm in the performing arts sphere, but this feels like the most obvious monopoly in my lifetime. In my opinion, HBO Max is the better than any other competitor to Netflix except maybe Disney+ and Apple. Better production, better user experience, and better content than Hulu, Paramount+, or Prime.
And as an avid supporter of physical media, I just don't trust Netflix. I'm tired of paying every month for content rather than paying once to own it. I'm tired of more content going straight to streaming instead of being released in theaters where I can laugh and cry and be amazed alongside other humans. Performing arts are meant to be connective and empowering. Allowing a Netflix monopoly could mean the end of the theatrical experience and the irreversible capturing of the industry by a corporation that doesn't care about humanity, artistic empowerment, or the dignity of the customer, but only about the value of their stock and the dollars streaming into their pockets.
I think it’s a bad idea to merge so much into Netflix. Aside from dancing on the knife’s edge of anti-trust laws, broad homogenization of entertainment in an era when it is highly consumed and very often culturally and politically biased to influence the masses, is very dangerous. Would it really be any different if Russian or Chinese official media outlets were private or publicly traded companies rather than government owned? Not really because the effect is the same. We already have a monopoly problem with radio and print media conglomerates. Besides, they could really botch any new Harry Potter movies and that JUST CAN’T HAPPEN.
🏆 Today’s Question: What’s a snub that enraged you? Could be an Oscar snub, a college football playoff snub, or something else.
POPCORN
Some Quick Stories for Happy Hour
🎥 Globe Trotters: Leonardo DiCaprio's film One Battle After Another dominated Monday's Golden Globe nominations with nine nods, leading the pack into Hollywood's award season.
🦛 Hippo Hooray: Serial Guinness World Record holder David Rush teamed up with his young son Peter to shatter the record for fastest time to clear Hungry Hungry Hippos by a team of two.
🦕 Jurassic Parkway: Scientists discovered a record-breaking 16,600 dinosaur footprints and 1,378 swim tracks at Bolivia's Carreras Pampa site in Torotoro National Park, the highest number ever found at a single location.
🎅🏻 Silent Night, Holy Fight: A London father-to-be received an angry anonymous letter demanding he remove his 20-foot inflatable Santa and snowman decorations, which a neighbor called "cheap, tacky and completely out of place."
🐢 Shell Yeah!: Olive ridley sea turtle nests along India's western coast have surged to 1M, a tenfold increase from just 100,000 counted nationwide two decades ago.
ROCA WRAP
The Brass Nosed Astronomer
Tycho Brahe
The astronomer who lost his nose in a drunken duel became the last great stargazer before the telescope.
Born into Danish nobility in 1546, Tycho Brahe spent his life mapping the heavens with unprecedented precision. Raised by his uncle after being taken from his parents at age two, he studied law at the University of Copenhagen but became fascinated with astronomy after witnessing a solar eclipse. The prediction was off by a day, sparking his lifelong obsession with accurate observations.
At 20, Tycho attended a Christmas party in Germany where he and his cousin drunkenly argued over who was the better mathematician. On December 29, 1566, they settled the dispute with a sword duel in the dark. Tycho lost part of his nose and gained a scar across his forehead. He wore a metal prosthetic nose for the rest of his life, attached with paste. For centuries, people believed it was made of gold and silver, but when his body was exhumed in 2010, scientists discovered it was actually brass.
King Frederick II gave Tycho the island of Hven and funding to build Uraniborg, the first major observatory in Christian Europe. From 1576 to 1597, he compiled observations far more accurate than anyone before him, using instruments he designed that were larger and more precise than existing models. He even built an underground observatory when he realized the towers moved too much in the wind. Nearly 100 students and craftsmen worked with him, and he established his own printing press to publish his findings.
In 1572, Tycho observed a brilliant new star in Cassiopeia that shouldn't have existed. Ancient doctrine held that the heavens beyond the Moon were eternal and unchanging, but Tycho's measurements proved this new star was farther away than the Moon. His later observations of a comet in 1577 similarly showed it was traveling through what was supposed to be the unchanging celestial realm, contradicting centuries of accepted belief.
After falling out of favor with Denmark's new king, Tycho moved to Prague in 1597, where he worked with Johannes Kepler. In October 1601, he attended a banquet and refused to leave the table to relieve himself, considering it a breach of etiquette. He developed severe urinary problems and died eleven days later at 54, urging Kepler to complete his star tables.
The nobleman who dueled over mathematics and died from politeness left behind the most accurate astronomical measurements of the pre-telescope era.
EDITOR’S NOTE
Final Thoughts
The answers to the HBO/Netflix question were of such high quality. So many great insights.
Also, Max T is on the road to Bethlehem, PA, for a three-day Pennsylvania trip (Lancaster and Harrisburg also). Thank you to all of the Roca Riders who’ve helped us with our planning and whom we’ll soon be meeting!
–Max and Max