Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing.

Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching.

Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson work for Ritholz Wealth Management.

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben or any podcast guests are solely their own opinions

and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholz wealth management.

This podcast is for informational purposes only. not and the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben.

I want to start off the show talking about layoffs specifically in the restaurant industry.

So Danny Meyer has a company called the Union Square Hospitality Group.

They're laying off 2,000 employees, which is about has a company called the Union Square Hospitality Group.

They're laying off 2,000 employees, which is about 80% of their workforce.

And from the article, quote, hourly and salaried employees at both the restaurants

and overarching corporate offices have been laid off due to a near complete

elimination of revenue.

The staffers who remain there are to keep basic corporate functions operating and it sounds

like Danny Meyer said that he was foregoing all this compensation and

donating to a relief fund for all of his employees. So I was watching see and B.C. this

morning and somebody that owns a bunch of property and B. C. M. this morning and somebody that owns a bunch of

property and restaurants said we don't have contingency plans for the

absolute worst-case scenario. There's people that are saying why didn't some of

these companies plan better for this.

You could never in a million years plan for this and if you did, investors would tell you you're

stupid, right? Like there's never any reason. The fact that these bigger companies like Apple and Amazon,

...