Debating the 1970s Economy

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This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions clients of Brit Holdts wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Ben Friday was A really ugly day in the stock market One of the ugliest that we've seen, hey, see what I just did there?t I don't even have a data point for you. And you could say, comeome on Michael it's lazy,'re hosting podc. You can't tell us it was the X worst day or whatever I do three podcasts a week, three mark related podcasts a week One with you, Animal spirits. I do what are your thoughts tonight with Josh And I do the compound on friends. And credit to me, I've gotten pretty adept making sure that there's not too much overlap in what I'm saying which is Her than it sounds because I've stated at the wazoo but I' as I'm opening the show right now I have no stat for today. I'm sorry. canan I me this stat guy for you How's that Okay, you get that's great. So those are I guess that's for what are your thoughts about the nature of a Friday's stock market sell off. It was ugly and what what prerecipitated it was a W, way better than expected labor market report And is just very rich in irony. that The Actually, wait a minute The job markets Good AI is not killing the The job market Wait a minute, is AI not effective He wait a min Is growth too strong and the labor market is heating up too? doest fed need to cut Uh, it's it's just It's very funny that that could be the story. Now. I will push back against that narrative to the extent that such narrative is not just one that is born. Good jobs market equals bad st stock market. That would be kind of ronic, I guess in some ways, like, hey, yeah, this means AI is not working. Yeah. so My read of Friday was u was two foold. Number one, I love that the stock market will still slap investors down anytime there is a whiff of danger I think people looking for reasons to sell as opposed to Reasons to buy is something that you don't see at a top There's there's still things that happen inside the market where stocks will just get smooushhed instantly. I think there's still a lot of fe out there, even though the VIX is seventeen, even though the stock market has done so well, anytime there is a remote a sniff of oh, we're getting long on the tooth. like investors get real bearished real quick. That was one of those middle aged dads looking out at the rain. It's raining today day in Michigan got, we needed this. Law needed this. That was one of the Yes Ben. Yes, Ben. And also position positioning thingsings were extended I think investors were looking for reason to sell and excuse to sell And the on the economic front. It is just sreinaking incredible The labor market was softening has been softening, as's part of Part of the conversation that the eoners have been having for the better part of the last year. And we keep saying like this economy is teflon. I don' know when we first said that t first it was soaring inflation accompan by high interest rates and aggressive fed hiking cycle Then it was a commercial real estate collapse, okay absolute frozen. housing sector Remember when commercial real estate was gonna to take the whole economy down Yes, I forgot about that one Then it do you remember the maturity wall? I think we' hitting in twenty Then it was tariffs, okay Then it was higher gasoline prices. And I've been worried about my murity wall since twenty eleven. Okay. and now it's the threat of AI and you just Kill economy. It is funny, because if you look at the data, you have this Wall Street Journal chart in here. Non from payrolls changed from one month to the next. The labor market was slowing We were getting a decrease in jobs and now it's coming back And it's kind of crazy. So there's some exhibit a charts in here that shows like the three month moving average of jobs growth. and it is trending up. If you were if you're doing a techical techical analysis on this, you'd say this is breaking out Job growth is breaking out. We have continuing unemployment claims Basically been steady for the past, I don't know three years, they have not ticked up at all. job openings in the U.S. economy are now rising from one month to the next. This is crazy to me. that job openings are rising And so obviously the Goldilock situation would be, okay, fine, AI is not going to destroy all the jobs. It'll make people more productive. That's the best best case scenario here Obviously Right? But People have been waiting. I made a joke on I'm after the Spurs lost game to the other night, I said Wemby is like the labor market. It's inevitable But it's not quite happening yet. Sorry I't to like throw dig in you guys to last night So I think people are going to keep having to wait on this. I honestly think if AI is going to have a big impact on the job market, it's not going to be until we have a recession. I think that's when people will pull the trigger and not reire. but I don't think we're going to see a massive change. I'm on the other side of you. You have been for a while and I think eventually you're going to have to finally admit you're wrong because the data is not supporting AI h on market at all. Hold on. It's not like I've been saying this for three years Well a couple ofes. You've been pretty strong about AI is going totally disrupt the labor market Since March I think it's been a while. Yeah, that is a while since March. All, I think it's been longer than that. I think you are in the camp that you think this is inevitable and I don't I don't quite U I don't know, inevitable seems strong, but I I mean because that's one hundred percent chance. but I do I do feel strongly not and, I wouldn't say inevitable But yes, I do think that you're going to see AI impact in theabor market. I really do. Well, of course it'll have some impact. I don't think it's going to there it is. the grand Rits hedge. I'm the impact that the tech people keep saying it's going to have, I think they are totally completely wrong When they say AI is going to take all the jobs, I think they are ridiculous and they're wrong Yeah, I mean, I'm not don't don't donump put me in the ten percent unemployment camp. I'm not saying that But I for it's going to have, but obviously it's not impacting the labor market yet. The numbers don't bear it out at all. People can worry about it all they want. It's not having an impact. So you're obviously correct openings are rising unemploymentate is at four point three percent. We're adding jobs every month. You are correct. To the extent that it's showing up in the data now, it is clearly not And it's clearly not to the extent that It caught investors by surprise on Friday And they said, wait a minute it we has for happened Friday we what happened Frid. But, it's a combination of hey, Oil prices are causing inflation, expectations rise. And now if we have a strong job market and wages start rising again then that's So do you Uh this what this question sounds ridiculous given that we've We're looking to have a modest bounce for the second straight day W was up at the top Obviously not Um But it was a good you're right It was a slap on the wrist. And we swep the wrist. We said this last week. Listen, these stocks are going to get hit. and I have some numbers where. Micron was down thirteen percent. This isn int one day. Sandus was on twelve percent. Western digital was was eleven, DrAam, which is that Round Hill ETF we talk about the memory storage was down fifteen percent South Korea is on fourteen percent SMH was semiconductors was down nine point two percent. and then the Qs were down almost five percent in a day. That was you're right that was a big And Sherwood News had this chart where they showed twenty twenty six' big winners became the big losers on Friday And you can see there was a lot, a lot of stocks down double digits in a single day Look at that chart Yeah, that's that's that's good stuff. That's great to now andel like it's These stocks and they pair with the year to date returns and these stocks had hammered This is kind of A mini nineteen eighty seven situation in a lot of ways. In nineteen eighty seven, the stock market was up like forty five percent going into nineteen eighty seven. And then it crashed. That's like These stocks have like their own individual mini nineteen eighty seven moments. Yeah, it's too much This is This type of data point is one that I love. There's there's a pile of historical data points that people bring it out that I throw in the Dusbin But the ones that I keep coming back to are the ones that are based on human behavior. For example, this one from Blue Kurdic Market Insights He said, or they said Dip buyers have been rewarded pretty well in this bowll run. They see a two percent down dayay on the SP five hundred like Friday they buy the dip Since the start of the bull market, there have been thirteen other two percent down days Four days later The SP was higher eleven of thirteen times So along the way These slap on the wrists I' been bought up Pe peopleople saw ten percent stocks on ten percent. I'm going to buy those By the way, that that u that introduction that I gave to that tweet was didn't match up. I thought I was Sve up another tweet. I thought it was like more behavioral based than that. I hand up. bet So exhibit Matt team at exhibit also have this thing that shows the total number of one percent down days on average is like thirty one per year. We've had eleven this year so far. So this year has been rel you know, we have a minor little correction, but there haven't been many big down days like that. So that was kind of again, we kind of needed it. The that I think is interesting is that I love one of the things I love about the markets is how the price always sets the narrative. And this is obvious. On Friday, when things were crashing, it was like, o Maybe maybe this AI stuff isn't working. Maybe it's like any and when prices are going crazy, you're like, okay, this AI trade is going to last forever. When prices come back in, you go, oh, wait a minute. You start this skeptical arguments make more sense. It's so funny how the market does that to you You cant You can't help it We are two piece in a pod ben I wrote this in my notes and I forgot to put it the dock. I'll read what I wrot U But I I wrote down to myself the exact same thing that you just said The market and psychology, is just the ultimate mind forever and ever for always and ever Um, I found myself recently thinking Yeah, I guess this is just going to continue And the market really does twist your brain It's awesome to feel like internalize and to watch, right? So you watch other people behave and you're like, oh, you idiot, but like of course you' feel it. like and it's really It just really is u It's the best You can't help it because there was all these anti stuff that came on Friday and it's like, oh, That makes more sense now when the market is down Th Mark comes back up and you, Oh those people are idiot So So last week you said The fear will come back soon And it's funny because there was a Wall Street Journal article saying Market route leaves Wall Street bracing for rockier times invvestors confiront challenges from the latest inflation reading and SpaceXIPL in the days ahead Of course, Day was calling this another. he said Friday's Tumble was important. A move that highlights a central role that Global craze for artificial intelligence and other way slackax is played in the record run He said market and economic concentration is in one new sector that is highly volatile and risky. It is super popular among unsopisticated investors. That's classic bubble stuff. Just stop talking, how about that It's enough I know. I would love a punch card. I've said this before. You get a you get five punches on your card like this like when you go to the your local deli And you get five punches and you get a free sub Like if you call for a crash five times, sorry, no more crash calls. You can't. Dallio' got thirty six punches. There should also be a window of time Yeah because I'm pretty sure he said it was nineteen thirty seven in twenty fifteen Yeah J just maybe say, hey you know what I'm just I'm out of touch with markets. You got me. This is harder that this is harder than I thought. I'm using an old playbook. Yes, for ten years calling a bubble. You can't keep calling it a bubble. Okay. This is interesting to me. So this is another exhibit A one, a lot of plugs here for them. They looked at the S and P five hundred versus the four hundred ninety three and the Mag seven And the four hundred and ninety three is outperforming both the S andP five hundred and the Mag seven. And the Mag seven is underperforming the S andP whichich is surprising because people have talked about that MG seven concentration But now now would feel like the concentration talk to moveved to no, no, no Because the four hundred ninety three includes all the memory stock. So of course, it's just AI concentration. But I feel like people are moving the goal post on this now I agree with bothufffac she said Um And I also do think that the concentration that's happening in the semies is notable and fair Yeah, I don't think, I don't think that most people would would would think that The Mag seven or underperforming. I don't think I knew that It was surprising to me when I saw it Yeah So this is a one from Bespoke Speaking of concentration So they put tech and comm services together Com services, essentially it was a sector that was spun out of tech a few years ago reasonssknown. I don't know why they did that. They should have just kept them together becausecause the biggest holdings are Google and Facebook I think the other things that are in there though is like, where do you put Disney in Netflix Yeah, I know itelt weird at the time it still feels weird to me, but I get it. Yeah I don't know why they did. anyway., if you add those two together, those two are now forty nine percent in change of the index Halfy index It's basically it's tack Te is half the index. Yeah, when you think about it that way, it is kind of with all the other nine sectors, it's the same as all the other nine sectors combined, which is is kind of nuts to think about If you want to be long stocks you say, all right, this is just Listen, if the AI trade ends abruptly, we'll probably all have toome tumbling down with it. let's be honest. There's probably going be a few places tide But I do think that like Barksire is probably a good place to hide It's not quite it's it's not quite. Hey they just called Google Vo It's not quite lged to theent that it was in nineteen ninety n When it was down like thirty percent going to the top, and you know, the NASA was up a billion percent But if you look at Berkshire compared to the index, like it's, it's There's no bid. noobody wants it. The funny thing is I was thinking about this in terms of diversification. How do you diversify away from this? I've been getting tons of I've been doing the whole podcast orer for my book And I've been a lot of questions about diversification and hey, you' worried about the a bubble, what you do And yeah, you put your you could you could diversify Not just and like's it differe been going to cash and timing the market versus like diversifying away from certain segments of the market So if we think about dividend stocks or value stocks or high quality or whatever But it's funny, the value stocks, so South Korea, according to at Yard Denny, trades at eight times forward earnings We've talked about this. The reason that the valuations is so low is because the earnings are so extremely volatile And it's funny that EWY, which is a South Korea MSI ETF was up two hundred and forty percent at one point this year afterfter the drop down. So its over the last year, It's only up one hundred and ninety percent of the last year. So It's funny, when you look at But anyway I looked at the Russele one thousand value and I thought, wait a minute. becausecause Micron has the huge earnings expectations coming The valuations probably look pretty good You know what the number one holding r also one thousand value is? I know, it's Micron. Micron It's kind of hilarious. Yeah it is. and Google is in there as well. So it's Amazon is in there It's becausecause tech is fifty percent of the index It's hard to get away from it. It's really hard. Here hereere's how you get away from it This chart does look like ninety nine If you compare SPLV which is investos S andP low volatility ETF Make a chart of that compared to the market And that looks ninety nine ish. becausecause it's gone literally no nowhere So this has less than one percent each comm serervices in tech. literally no exposure there It's twenty five percent utilities twenty one percent financials, eighteen percent real estate But utilities are kind of tied to theI trade now This is less than two percent in in andc services. This is the place to hide. I'm not saying that this is a good investment. I'm recommending it. But if you're really, really, really worried and you want like thet the anti AI trade This is probably a decent place. My point is if tech makes up fifty percent of the index and you're trying to hide away from it, you're making a huge, huge bet. So it's part of your portfolio. But if you're trying to make that, like that is essentially, if you're going totally exX tech, that's a huge market timing indicator. Yeah X techs. It's really hard. you have to nail it. You have to nail it It's really, really hard to do All right. So shocker, Eric Beel Chunus, we talked about this last week. S andP five hundred will not fast track SpaceX It'll take at least a year, probably more He said, this is wild considering every other big boy index is in five to fifteen days So this was surprising to people. They thought SP was going to bend over. I listened to your talk last week on talking wealth about the whole index thing And so I guess the What was a guy's? Aaron Dyan? they don' It was really it was worth listening to He made it sound like, listen, they take feedback, these index committees, they take feedback. They're not just doing what they want. And so there must have been enough blowback. where they said, all right, fine Pe don't want because it seemed like there was blowback That was like that was I'm glad you said that was my biggest takeaway too. And when he said that I was like, Oh yeah, of course it makes sense. L AsMP has a committee. picks the members. Now it is the rules are relatively straightforward. It's not exactly the biggest five hundred stocks but it's prettyamnose. Oviously there's exceptions Like, um, like Tussel was an exception SpaceX is an exception And yeah, obviously enough of their pension funds, whatever. un if they're institutional clients The giant pce of money said Guys, please, please Don't shove this down our throat. We don't want it. And so great, All right, we'll see what happens. So my generally to SpaceX is that the general sentiment is finance is bearish, tech is bullish That's pretty is that pretty fair statement to make for the most part Yes U So I last week I said, listen, this doesn't bother me that much. I don't think it's going to have an impact either way. So Nick at dollars in data work with said, all right, fine, let's like try to put some numbers on this And he looked at what it'll make up of the index. And we're using estimates still So he's looking at the NASX one hundred. He said, SpaceX If it's three times a float it will make up seventy basis points essentially He said for every hundred dollars you have invested in VTI It would be one hundred and ten dollars in SpaceX. For every one hundred thousand dollars you have invested in theQS, you'd have six hundred and eighty dollars invested You said hundred. So for every hundred thousand dollars in VTI Every hundred thousand sorry, you'd have one hundred and ten dollars in spaces So he's saying let's say like De Modorin says this thing is going to price at one point eight trillion. I think it's worth one point two N says all right, fine let's say it's thirty percent overvalued and it immediate fall back to that. fundamental value that the finance people think it is You'd lose like twenty one basis points or something who from the cues threeree basis Prs of Vi. It's not, it's meaningless. It is meaningless. I think the again, the anger is not necessarily I don't want to lose money because Saceics is overvalued. I think most people that are thinking about it logically, like you just laid out, get that More of the anger is the mechanics and how Elon is seemingly forcing this right in limiting the the flow, limiting the supply to push up the price. I think that's probably what people are more upset about It's come on, there's just, there's more important things in life to worry about than a couple of basis points That's a good Senior quote for a year book right there. Contrarian in me is keep keeps thinking like, man, Everyone in finance thinks this thing is way overvalued. Is it really that easy that this thing is going to be overvalued or is it just like ah, he's going to p her out of out of hat again did Let me just grab this. Aaron actually emailed this to me and I haven't had time to read it All right, so Google toay SpaceX nine hundred twenty million dollars a month for compute capacity at XAI data centers. I didn't read the details of that people but I did see people saying that like It looks the it looks a little bit, um The timing seems a little bit funny and the contract seems a little bit Lucy Goosey Here's the one. Morgan Stanley sees SpaceX's revenue reaching three point four trillion dollars in twenty forty Now. 's I'll say B If that is even in the ballpark E in the universe, in the galaxy to stretch the space analogy Then yeah, okay seemeems cheap. the fin the because you know what, the finance guys don't know shit about tech And sometimes the finance gu being sober, right And sometimes they just their imagination won't let them run wild. Okay If this if if we were even in the vicinity of a local generational top because of the supply, the IP the bu, bl, blah This will be the quote This would be like the thing that we'd back just like wait a minute Did somebody really say that SpaceX have three point four trillion dollars in revenue? orr did I make that up? This will be the quote that we look back at say Ding ding, ding ding ding ding. you were hitting me What what you? Yeah, what were you people thinking? Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it wasn't obvious to you. Were you guys wereere you guys even paying attention to anything Um We'll say all right, there are going to be some very Interesting Not kind effects from this in terms of how Local economies are impacted I don't know that the SpaceX liquidity unlock will have an impact on the macro That seems to be a bit of a stretch. Yeah. But imagine buying a house right now in San Francisco or Austin and you're competing against these people who Unlimited budget apparent effectively So the journal did an article about some of the SpaceX employees who are about to become overnight millionaires Um, and they said this one guy moved to Northern Italy And I say this one guy I was about to say I'm not to pronounce try to pronounce his name. It's Jay Andre Loveoy. G moved to Northern Italy five years ago and bought a hotel. T by which has been which she has been renovating It also said this guy left the company like twenty fifteen So he kind of his early shares and balanced. H stake is valued to more than twenty twenty million dollars. Um This is great quote. I don't want to just die with a pile of money in the bank. loveve it. Love that mentali. But this guy's buying a hotel. So it's just be all sorts of bizarre things that happen as a result of like a giant windfall of money Ben, we've spoken, we've spoken a little bit about this company Hyperliiquid We mentioned Patrick Asron is his company Coss in an incredible profile on that company So you could see where spaceX is training Um, let's say, hyper liquid B. So hyperlquid is a blockchain based company that brings markets twenty four seven markets and Anyone can make a market and it's I mean, the company is really really on fire SpaceX. So the the IPO is priced at one hundred twenty, I believe don't know I'm pretty sure it's hundred twenty buck. And SpaceX is now currently trading at one hundred and fifty eight dollars a share on this on this thing And there's Theresolume, dude the twenty four hour volume takeake a guess. I was gonna to ask that, what's volum. Take a guess I don't know, five million. one hundred eighteen Okay hundred eighteen million dollars. So You know what? That's enough for me. I'm in That's the price Honestly, one hundred eighty million dollars in volume, that's good enough for me In twenty four hours. Just the volume when this thing trades is going to dwarf that by twenty times. What are you talking about? That's nothing. That's enough one hundred eighteen million dollars worth of payment You don't think that'sough to a market one hundred eighty million buck don't know it I don't I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know I'm not a market. I'm speaking pretty confidently about something I know very little about but I don't know it it seems like a lot of money to me Okay hundred and fifty bucks a share is where it's currently trading on hipP So my thing that I've said for a while now is the market only has time to worry about one thing at once. And that could be a boom, it could be a bust, right? We only have time for one risk For one Fancy object. Do you remember it feels like a year ago now that gold and silver were like the biggest story. Remember silver going nuts at one point at the end of January, silver was up sixty four percent on the year, gold is up twenty five percent on the year Both are either flat or negative Silver' down four and a half or four percent of the year. Gold is effectively flat on the ear Does that not feel like six cycles ago? that happened? That was like the biggest story. And then we just kind of move on and forget about it I think that's one of your best insights that you've been. I don't know when you first said that, but it it's so it's so true It's so true. Remember private credit Right. We moved So Cliffwater just reported that they got I think they had fourteen percent redemption requests in the first quarter in seventeen and the second. I think that's what the number was Who cares I know people care, but like There's too much other shit to focus on right now all the attention is on is on SpaceX. but that was That was that had all of our attention And now it Now who cares. All right, this is a great email Um I wanted to share a funny story relating to Michael mentioning he writes down the reasoning Whenever he decides to buy or sell a stock, I've always done the same I don't trade very much, but I do research on really anything and everything becausecause there's a price I'd buy almost anything. Back in April and May of twenty twenty five, I was looking at Micron in the seventies and eighties. After some time, I decided not to buy it as I felt that its product was a commodity and it would be easy to compete with them. Pus blahah. So anyway, last week, I bought a picture frame that sheet of my notebook in my office just to remind myself how absolutely stupid I can be All I can do is laugh at myself. Everything is so clear in hindsight And sometimes all you can do is leftugh. And love the sooner you you you are honest with yourself the better of an investor you'll be. Maybe now is a good time to share my next story So so just this guy said, look at Micron in the seventies and eighties, it's now nine hundred and seventy dollars a share Yeah. Just so we know. Okay. All right, so it turns out and that markets are efficient Wait a minute. I just I wanted to say this You guys sold NvIidia in like twenty eighteen, man selling yourickets early. Don't say you guys, I wast all right.'re your ticket partner Sold NVid in twenty eighteen. Okay. As I was looking at all the stories, I'm sure. Okay, go ahead So kind in the market is hard in the stock market and in the sports ticket market. All right, bear with me. this is going to take five minutes I told the story before A week or two ago, my friend A lifelong friend, we have been through many sports battles together between the giants and the next He sent me a screenshot us selling the tickets and I said, what is this? And he said, we spoke about this. I don'tember speaking about this. I would not have sold the tickets, okay So heres here's how season tickets work Everybody sees the prices by all right Back up. This is the hottest ticket in the world. People are really upset. There's a lot of like econ spillover into what's happening And this is very simple And I don't want to sound like a dickhead because it's easy for me to say because I'm not getting locked out because I do have tickets All right, so I'm not trying to sound insensitive But this is supply and demand Like I don't know what people are so up in arms about because this turned into like Bitcoin essentially They're not making any more tickets. There's not making any more tickets. So the garden did bizarrely release Um, five hundred tickets F on Sunday at ten AM and then at two PM. and then they released another batch, a small batch. yesterday before the game, that was very bizarre There's only nineteen thousand tickets, okay And the garden is sort of like the Federal Reserve. Maybe more powerful They can set prices, but then there's a whole market outside of them, right? Like how the mark the fed controls the short end of the curve So The problem is this, like, friends ofine were like, this bullshit I've been a lif long fan and I can't G it to see my team play for less than nine thousand dollars a ticket Okay, but if the tickets were two thousand dollars, then there would be Three million people that want to buy nineteen thousand tickets like this there is this's not an it's not an econy wide story. No, supplies meeting demand. Okay. But but anyway but those all of those prices that we saw to bring it back to my story All those prices, all the screenshots, they were bullshit. I can list my house for four million dollars. Nob's going gonna to buy it So you could have listed yours and you wouldnt have sold them for ten grand or whatever. they're. Exact. All right, so let me come back to reality So The way that my tickets work, I' I'm in the lower bowl section one hundred nine row twenty. They're good seats They're not amazing seats. they're certainly good enough, better than good enough. Yeah was Th those good seats. Yeah Th good seats Um My face value for the for per ticket for the season is like two twenty five, somethingomething like that Round one was three hundred eighty Not terrible Round two was five fifty Round three it starts to getet Jack up to seven fifty The finals it's thirteen fifty You know it's it's not an insignant amount of money. It's a lot of money. Be this before this series started, as I've now said five times, my friend sent me a screenshot What he what he had hoped for was that we would sell our tickets we made a three thousand dollars profit and he thought that we would trade down and go in the two hundreds, right And he thought that he essentially We would get paid five hundred bucks to go to the game.ight You you're shorting him, essenti He got caught naked So and then we compounded the problem So we sold our tickets too early And simultaneously, we bought back into early And then simultaneously we waited too long to sell So it was jab, jab knockout punch. All right So we sold those tickets in one hundred and nine for four thousand four hundred for game four And then We bought in one eleven So even more diagonal, so worse seats, we bought those for seven thousand five hundred dollars a ticket All right, so now we're the hole already We' in the whole And then for last night, For last night We paid eight thousand dollars a ticket eight thousand actual dollars for ticket for section two hundred, okay So now Now We are working with our broker who was Bless him. He was so patient. We were really being in pain in the ass Because the amount of anxiety that we felt because now, so now We need to sell these our original pair The seats that we own We need to sell game three for twelve thousand dollars a piece to breakven And when I say break even, I just mean no worse off than we would have been financially meaning, we spent thirteen fifty cars a ticket. All right So to get back to square one, albeit with worse seats, but to get back to square one financially We need to sell each ticket for twelve thousand dollars. Now, we listed them for eighteen thousand dollars first because that's what the market was pricing at That was not the clearing price. That's what they were listed at. There was no transactions there Now it's easy to say in hindsight because we didn't know, but we just kept lowering them And My find that I would tch each other back and forth like We don't want to like harass our broker, right? He's like, but we're watching it allund day, dude on Sunday all day on Sunday. It was so stressful becausecause now we're like, oh no if we're like if we sell them for like seven thousand like we're going to take an Asolute bath To be in worse seats, now we're turning what should be like a blissful moment of like Zen like Euphoric Zen Um, being in the finals, it is it is beyond stressful So I so I go to sleep on Sunday night. And at this point, the tickets we wanted them to sell already, obviously I wake up on Monday at four forty five in the mor And I see they still ha't sold And now I'm like It's four forty five and I'm staring at the space and my friends text me, it's like, arere you awake? Like neither of us could sleep. We were so anxious about selling these tickets So finally, I said, Jason 'miving a ten'lock.'s my that's my line the sand. We're not gonna be the last assholle to sell these tickets I'm just gonna just He texts me back like twenty minutes later we just hold your tickets for nine thousand dollars I'm not gonna to take a commission. Thank you. this guy's mch. U I felt like I was beat my head was held underwater And I just caught like a gasp of air to breathe the amount of like relief that I felt. Anyway, this was a giant cluster F. the amount of stress It so ultimately where it shook out was We ended up paying twenty eight hundred dollars per ticket instead of four thousandteen hundredars per ticket Once it was done I said to my friend All things considered Anybody that I know who's a nick fan. would put a knife in my throat to be able to go to both games for twenty thousand eight hundred dollars. Still a lot of money, but not eleven thousand dollars But someone paid more than the annual contribution limit for Raloth IRA for your tickets which tickets? Oh yes, nine thousand dollars ticket. nine thousand fre dude, I spent I spent eight thousand dollars for section two hundred. Now it was sort of funny money because I was using the proceeds, right? Like it wasn't like coming out of my pocket But this is not an economy wide story. This is a the Nicks haven't been here in forever and raid fan bed and lots of money in New York. Yeah Oh, So a lesson in efficient markets. lesson learn, don'tll early for final tickets Speaking of Iirace, oh. One part of the e story that I omitted. So I was with Matt Middleton and Chris Cherry from Future Proof We went to the watch party for a game schema Game two, I believe And we're at Robertus, which is a pizza joint a class pizz to join a Chr in the garden We upstairs having dinner drinks. And I'm talking about And he's like, Oh, you have seasonen tickets? Where are they So I said one on nine He goes R were they twenty He goes way He took out his phone. he goes, what seats are they Middletons Middleton brought my seats Matt Middleton. bought my seats What are the freaking odds So he timed to good. He got anerry on top So the the the It was his brother in law that bought the tets and it wasn't me that sold. So Matt and I didn't transact with each other My partner mat's brother in law Anyway Ohf suppupply and demand and time in the market I'm sure you wanted to be a sweep. I'm happy of this thing go seven because I'm enjoying the basketball. Being an observer from the outside. Of course Hving a dog in this. Of course. So I will be in San Anto for u ame five All right I h for first weeep, I was We'd rather not travel, but the sps are tough to shut. They're a really good team Yeah, I think it's been a great. I think it's been a great series so far. Im enjoy another One other, I know I know I'm grabbing the mic a lot. forgive me but one other thing. I think that was the appropriate time to say this last week, I gave grace and gratitude to the world, just like acknowledging the like Life sucks a lot for a lot of people Um I had I had years of blackness in my personal life And I'm I'm enjoying myself, right? Like things are good and it's nice to be grateful And I'm not like the most spiritual, religious person in the world, I f factking not at all It is sometimes funny how the universe works U on that day, later that afternoon The backstory is such I had worked out of my house A year ago when I moved in and The person that did the job was a referral He got referred into me from a friend of mine So I texted him, hey W looks great. Thank you so much How do I pay you That was on september second I never heard back from the guy. I'm saying to my friends who have heerard him didn't get back to me is this weird? He's like, yeah, he did the same thing to me Um he just whatever, just like a few months going by and he didn't, you know, he eventually came back to me Like, all right, that's a little bit weird. Noted So by october thirtieth, it had been Basically two months I texted him again. I said, hey As much as I would love to not pay you I owe you money. likeike you did a job, how do I pay you? Ghosted Um, I got a text last Tuesday after we recorded the pod Hey, it's so and so from So and so's office. What's your email address? where could send you an invoice And I reacted I reacted this is really strange Who does business this way? I haven't heard from you for a year And you just text me like, what's your email address? you owe us money They're like, oh well I'm sorry we' just trying to get pa I know, but this is bizarre. Like Who does business is way And she said, you seem pretty upset? I said, Yeahah, I am upset. Tell him to call me. And now had they said, hey, Sw this through the cracks, We're trying to get more organized I'm pretty sure I would have just said no problem it happens But I just thought it was weird that there was no acknowledgement of it or anything. Just in, hey, what's your email address? you owe us money L I tried to pay you twice. flush if they're not seeking out people for a year, huh? I thought I did the right thing by even proactively saying, I owe you money. It was it was It was like not it was not four hundred bucks. It was like a decent amount of money So he calls me And he said, you know, I was really taken aback by the way that you reacted. Now, I didn't curse or anything like that. Like I'm don' I don't treat people that way. That's like not my, that's not my MO , but I was I stned. I said yeah, Tom' call me I am upet You know, I'm a local guy. I've been in this community for years and I've just never seen anything like this I did a job for you and I gave you an interest free loan. I'm like I know, but business person too. and And I just think it's weird that when somebody tries to pay you, you just You just go some I think's weir behavior. I'm sor And he goes, Well, you know what I've been running around for the last six months, taking my six year old theng college is' about to grow And I was just like, It was such It was such a fucking gut punch. never know what someone else is going through, right It was So obviously I'm just like trying to calm down and I could hear how upset he was getting. you know, his lip was quivering and it was just It was rough and And it was a good reminder Like you hear people say this a lot and you don't really like take it to heart because people go on with your life and whatever But really just like to try to be nice and because you never know what somebody is going through And people usually don't experience that because ninety nine times out of a hundred, who cares Everybody's going through some shit And then in termes of a hundred people are just being jerks and whatever. But there are some people who are going through real shit and you're like, oh, geez, okay, that explains your mood or your reaction or Yeah. So it just it was one of those things that I hope that I know will I will take with me forever and ever because it really It's good reminder I agree. I got no transition from that. I just wanted to just just try it's a good story you're right. It's a good it's a way to frame life fromr the Wall Street Journal, GenzZ can't get enough Roth IRAs For the last ten years, a share of all individual retirement account owners who are under thirty years old has doubled from five percent to ten percent Great news U Total IRA contributions from Gen Z gw sixty five percent in the first quarter of twenty twenty six. Fantastic I look at this from the Federal Reserve This is corporate equities and mutual fund shares by age, under forty It's up three fold since twenty twenty The ownership of equityities for people under forty This boom in the twenty twentyenties has been such a great thing for young people getting involved in the markets And it's just wa these are lower. But just wait Ben until nineteen thirty seven happens. I heard from people. What happens when we have a sixty percent crash? It is It is so tiring. I'm so sick of it. Yeah. Okay. if we have a bear market They what what do you mean if we have a bear market? that's that's That's what happens in markets. You have their markets. R Well they're gonna lose some money and learn some lessons and move on with their life and buy stocks at lower prices Exactly. I think it's okay to like take good news what it is. All right F from Blomberg. Katie Gyfield, Vanguard VO hits one trillion dollars in assets for the first time. This is the first ever And they show the inflows this year So it's have like seventy billion intholos this year which is not so Um Boomber says this this was once thought unimaginable for the TF industry, which is kind of crazy because there's so many different S and P five hundred index funds, right There's not just this. SPY still has a ton of assets too. There's a lot of different so it is kind of crazy that this is This is the one I did. Yeah SPI has seven hundred seventy billion and assets in our management. So It's crazy, but you contteract this with another one fromloomberg R right All right Retail investment traderom individual share of stock trading in stock has doubled since twenty ten. So from ten percent to twenty percent So it's kind of weird to juxtapose the fact that There's all this money in Vanguard, there's all this money going into Roth IRAs for young people, right? That is Reasonable investment behavior These people are doing good stuff. and then you have this stuff It says there's twenty already spaceX leninkgth ETF's that been filed and those will get eaten up. People will invest in them. There're already there's already filings for anthropic and open amurs Three times Space X and three times entthropic And all of this things and I think it's hard for people to have both of these ideas in their head at once. that people can be behaving responsibly and irresponsibly at the same time There's people that You know drunk and thrown up all over the dance floor And there's people that are at home sleep on their couch Who made who made the analogy with the market about like the church in the casino Buffffet, I can't remember Okay. Yeahah that is above one, I think. Okay I an allan to do it for us. but I've been saying this, you know, Josh and I have been having this conversation a lot that I think I think the degenerate behavior is really distracting people Like they're focusing more on that than they are as PY flows N VLF flows Exactly. And those are the things that matter I agree. All right This was interesting on inequality. I had never seen this. So you and I have shown this chart before of the fact that the middle class is getting howllowed out, not because people are getting poorer because people are getting richer. right People are moving from the middle class to the upper class in the upper upper class, right and the rich So I think it's what? thirty six percent of families were middle class in nineteen seventy nine went down to thirty one percent, But that's because the u upper middle class grew from thirty one percent from ten percent. So these guys did this piece and they wrote about New York Times But this is interesting. U The share of wealth held by the middle class fell eight percent in twenty twenty two from twenty four percent nineteen eighty nine. So middle class wealth fell a ton But share by the upper middle class also fell from thirty nine percent to fifty percent. This is of the pie Right? So this is not that their aggregate will fell, it's that their share of it That's because The share of wealth to the top group, just three percent of families more than doubled, rising to fifty three percent from twenty six percent So this is the hard part about wealth inequality is that everyone is getting better. The pie is getting bigger and the question is like Does it really matter that the middle class is not being heed out? They're moving up, they're getting richer. Does it really matter, I guess in the grand scheme of things that like just the top one percent or the top three percent, whatever it is is getting having so much more money Yes. And my only answer to that is like, politically it matters. more than anything else. Yes Like it's not it's not like this is taking away from other people in some way, but politically This is the problem where there's too much power in the hands of too few people like this. I think that feels. feels it feels like things are being taken away Yes, that just that number was shocking to me the three percent, top three percent to see their wealth double You that little class that a chair fell Think about what Elon and Bill Gates and Bezos, like think about what their wealth alone, just those three people does to this chart Yes, yeah, exactly. You know, like because Elon's going to be worth a trillion. It' kind of hard to wrap head around it th All right. Why don't you you read this email and I have a defense for myself No, I want to I want to doal with some data I don't want to have a I have data Okayes Somebody emailed Ben a couple weeks back Ben's defense of today's economy versus the nineteen seventies put me over the edge Any review of real numbers show that today's economy is objectively worse. ticket items Like housing healthcare and education to say otherwise is logic defined. Which was not my point, by the way. Okay, by the way, I read this wrong. I think yeah, he's right on that. Housing health carere education. Okay Um, Sure televisions have gotten cheaper But you need to watch them while living in your parent's basement Who does body's looking in their p's basement The cououtigas in all of this is that evenven though the nineteen seventies were challenging. It was mostly forfford on one salary, not two that most young couples need today shhocking boomer analysis for Bed. EXO exXO exXO longtime fan. So I said, you mind if I read this on the show? And he said, please do I love you guys. I said I assume you're you're a young person And this threw me for loop end. The guy said, no, I'm fifty four years old and also a six years adv. so I could take the heat U This person was born in nineteen seventy two I Does their perspective of the nineteen seventies hold any water Of course not not when you're I don't remember I don't have vision of the economy when I was six years old or something. All. Now in fairness we have we have no vision of the economy from the nineteen seventies because we weren't there. But so my whole thing was there's no way that you can say the sentiment should be worse today than it was in the seventies. The seventies was objectively worse as an economy. He says no, no, you're wrong So guess what I wrote a whole chapter about the seventies in my book Okay. I dided a chapter called The Great Inflation I get a lot of stranis Okay. I just have I just have a couple things I want to read from my book, okay A combination of factors, including excessive government spending the Vietnam War, supply chain issues and oil place shocks, contribed to unprecedented inflation in the nineteen seventies Okay, From nineteen sixty eight to nineteen eighty one, the inflation rate averaged seven point five percent per year It ended the year with dble digit inflation three times nineteen seventy four, nineteen seventy nine and nineteen eighty. There wasn't a single in the entire decade when inflation came in below it. three percent In eight out of the ten years, the annual in Flation rightate was above. percent. This is the craziest one to me From nineteen sixty one to nineteen eighty two, U the USA was in a recession for one third of this dreadful period Okay, one third of the time over a thirteen year period or something the US was in a recession. What was theemploymentate?as it was ten percent? That's ten percent as well Yes, there was three Recessions between nineteen seventy three and nineteen eighty two Brutal Brutal c that was my whole point is that you can't say that the economy today is worse than you just can' You No, no. Yeahah. and You're not you're not saying that. I don't know if he's saying that, because it sounds like he's talking about big ticket items. Yeah, maybe the housing situation is worse And you also had eighteen percent mortgages by the end of that.. So Tell tell you what, fifty four year old guy who called me a shockingly boomer analysis. your address,'llnd a copy book you can read This is a fair question someone posted me the other day I wrote about how AI is flattening the world in some ways in terms of international stock markets. South Korea, and Taian and China and Thailand are all outperforming the NasAQ over the past year or so, like crushing them And this guy says to me, okay, fine The US is spending close to ten times more on AI CapEx than China is, but their models are only a nose ahead of China's models and they are close source. How can that possibly be justified? At a minimum, the US should be three to four years ahead And I said, give me a source on this I I need to back it up. He said, right fine Uh this is from Jeffreys Chinas AI industry has reached a milestone where its top mileles out not perform ninety percent of US levels But they're spending eighty two percent lower than US peers such as AWS, Microft, Google and M meteta So what's so what's the question The question is, why aren't our models more ahead or No, the question is like is are the returns going to be there for these big companies, the hypers scholars if China is able to do this. Now the thing you would say is, well, it's kind of circular because China is just stealing from them Right? So China can't really get ahead without stealing from them, I guess, is the point the question is like, are these is are the U.S. investments going to pay off for the hyperscalers if China can just replicate this stuff to ninety percent of what they do. Like And I guess Kaiwu said, listen The code is not the mode. I think that was his point. Like these hyperscalers are not going to have a mode in this stuff. It's not going to be like the other stuff I think the opportunity is said that we have to monetize these models is just way greater than China. For example And this be this actually might be a very ignorant statement because I don't really know what the deal is in China. So but what I was thinking Mm is Think about the monetization of reels. For example Like Given that China is a state run country I'm guessing Actually know what I don't need think guss Totally ignant here. I They they started TikTok. Yeah Yeah, yeah Um All right, so say I call thought That was an interesting question I caught myself saying something to me. Hey, qu it to me. I caught myself making shit up Hand up. I don't know the answer. This ening, a couple charts This is from the Financial Times This show since A genenicKI came The number of app releases is through the roof R right? It became easier to build your own app The question is how many people actually have good ideas? And it shows that the app reviews are right where they were and absolute significant usage actually dropped. So all these new apps are being created, peopleeople have ideas, and no one is using them Bob Belly had this other thing where he show weekly ebook releases. When Chan GPT releases, there's a ton of new ebooks because people guess what you can use AI to help you write. It's not helping. There's so much like scientific paper submitted. took off like a rocket ship Same for for lawsuits The question is like, where's the quality? If there's no quality and everyone just has crappy ideas that they're implementing, like what's the point of it I think there's going to it A lot of spaghetti thrown at the wall That's the thing. You start to have some quality. I'm still getting used to this. I asked I do this thing every year in my blog where I do the best books I read every year my favorite fiction book, my favor non fiction So took all those blog posts and uploaded them to J GP. and I said, I need to new fiction book. the well iss run dry. I've got nothing to read right now. I need something new. Whatever I'm trying to read It's not ten of me. So I took all my books I read. lookook at my fictionook Give me some suggestions. So it gave me like a bunch of suggestions, but this is, I'm still getting used to it. They recommended Straight manan by Richard Russso And it says, this is Chat TB talking One of the funniest novels I've ever read I just I look at that and I just I can't That's good. I'm still getting used to this. That's good. The fact that AI is talking to us like a person. Did I really read this? I guess? It's I don't Kind of I don't know. I thought that was kind of funny All right, let's do crypto for a second All right, D you read this from Joe Eisenthal He wrote a piece at Bloomberg about the crypto winner. And he said twelve reasons why this crypto winner is worse than ever Okay. And he gives he gives he's saying like Basically You can no longer say we're early. Crypto Twitter is dead. inststitutional adoption already happened. The regulatory environment is already as favorable as it could possibly get. AI boom is crowding out access to electricity. There's a growing concern about quantum computing He goes through all this stuff. And he said the biggest one that which you talked about last week is AI is taking up all the mental share, mental market share. A few years ago, maybe if you were a smart tech person, crypto seemed like a cuttingedge that defs't gonna be the c Here's the thing that I think is the most disheartening for crypto is Cpto was a risk on assets Okay, We've shown that it's not a risk off asset. hasn't helped hedge against anything But it's risk on. and that's the weirdest thing to me now that that we are fully risk on and crypto is not keeping up. That's the thing that would haveave me the most concerned about this Yeah, there also does seem to be just a bit of apathy Because what is what's the next catalyst? already it already happened. I do we do say this every time there's a crypto winner theyough like, what could pull it out of this? What's an ex t out? But now it does feel like There afterfter the ETF came out, like what else was there? There's nothing. U And not helping matters is the fact that Michael Saylor finally sold some Bitcoin I don't even know what the story is to I guess they needed money forretch. that preferred I don't you know a little bit out of my depth here. So but whatever, the point is The person who said, sell a kid if you have to, don't sell bitcoin, sold Bitcoin And then they bought hundred million dollars worth of Bitco Like It's really weird. I don't get why they sold it and then bought it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But they' really big, bigly underwater on their Bcoin holdings, right? Strategy. Well, if you price it in dollars One Bcoin sell one Bcoin? It is interesting that simultaneously this is happening. and this could have been Huge news, but nobody really cares. so The largest U.S. banks plan to launch a tokenism to the journal. plan to launch a tokenized deposit network next year and attempt to stave off threats from crypto companies that are seeking to weight deeper into their territory under Pident Trump The new network will connect traditional payment rails with the infrastructure that digital assets run on It will be operated by a real time payment network company called the Clearinghouse which is co owned by JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and other large commercial banks. There here it does. The move marks one of the most significant efforts yet to open up the crypto world to the banking industry. It would allow tokenized deposits to move instantly across blockchain technology with twenty four seven settlements Now we've complained about this over the years, I sure have Why does it take? whyy does it take my money to go from JP Morgan to whatever uh, a custodian, whatever, like why does it take seven days to settle It's because they're not speaking the same language. They have their own rails. they have their own rails like If there's an integrated network to allow settlements move faster I hope is inevitable This is awesome it's on blockchain, but nobody really cares because it's all about the price But that's the thing. like, let's say they did this. Does it really help the price at all I don't know, no idea Okay. This is the bottom in crypto. We just marked it right there U Okay, I want to talk about going home to God's countountry, Northern Michigan I've been home last we had two socc touraments the last three or four weeks in Trever City where I'm from Michigan's right here rightight there on the mittain That's where it And I was thinking about this a lot because I got a question from a podcast listener and said, Hey, my wife got a job there. We're thking about moving there. What do you think So I had a few back and forth with this guy I'm like a Michigan travel agent P people always ask me like whataurants and bars should I to Grand Rapids But An anyay this guyed to move to traverity He asked me what I thought And I said Five months out of the year, it's probably one of the beautiful ples on Earth Like from June to October, it's beautiful. The other seven months out the year, it's brutal from the weather But every when I was eighteen and I graduated high school, I wanted to get out there so fast. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.ight? I mean I feel like I'm in fishowl It's a small like touristy town Get me out of here. I don't want and I had friends who like stayed in the area and settled down had their famies and I' like, You're nuts There's no way I could stay in that hometown. I wanted it out of there. It was too small But now every time I go back, I realize like, oh, you idiot? This place was amazing. What were you thinking? And every time I love it when I go back there And and I like, but but now I my parents it's a peninsula. Travor Stity's in a big peninsula. It's like eighteen miles long. and each side there's a bay. And my parents live closer to the East Bay And every time I go back there, I go for a jog along the bay. this road goes right along the water. It looks like Cibbean style water, Like the bluest water I've ever seen And I see all these old houses that used to be there are now torn down and built in these huge mansions The place has been discovered And that's what I told a guy like, listen It's a great place to live Probably it's not a great place for a job market because a lot of people who have homes there now it's seasonal And it's really bad. So there was a story someone sent me of Potasky Michigan. which is just a an hour and half nth Trevver City anotherother lovely town right on the water The costs of available homes have more than tripled since twenty twenty, rising from three hundred ten thousand dollars to one point one million. again since twenty. This is like one of those places where people discovered it in the pandemic And they said hf half the homes in the city of five thousand eight hundred been scooped up out of towners are typically only there to summer And the question is like, How do regular people live there And they said that they've been interviewing people for the schools And they have to ask, do you haveous? We've had a lot of people turn down jobs because they couldn't find housing. So these like beautiful places, like how do you have people who are teachers and police officers and firefighters and working at the shops downtown. We went there to vacation a couple of years ago. And on a Wednesday, the restaurant was closed and it said, not enough staff And so when these places get discovered like this, and this is one of the things where're like there's no places undiscovered anymore I' sure it's like this like with Sanrancis, we talk about the anthropic people. How do normal people live in these places anymore If you did how did they come there if they didn't already live there? is impossible Yeah, it's sad I don't know I don't know what the short of building more housing find. I don't know what the actual solution is All the beautiful places now have been discovered by people. Well here's a pretty dark reality. There is no solution. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is this is this is what it is and there's there's no There's nobody who would benefit from changing it Nobody nobody is incentivized or powerful enough at the government level It just sucks. It's say That's kind of my takeaway All right, we spoke about this earlier So Blackstones's private credit fund, BCred Investors asked for ten percent of their shares in the second quarter up from eight percent in the first quarter It was four point four billion dollars. they're going to cap it at five percent. Yeah, Cliffw. We did this already. Just interesting, noobbody cares. likeike whatever happening It's still beding But so they're going they're going to lose five percent per quarter for the next two years probably. Is that fair to say based on like the at least for the next year or so? I don't know if it's quite that clean because there's money coming in Oh yeah. to offset some of the some of the money going out And there's like all sorts of credit facilities and stuff. So I think this is this is the point of the gate Right? It's like maybe I don't know how this plays out. I don't know. People h they slow down I guess maybe if maybe if it's three more quarters and the private credit world doesn't blow up. like the headlines sort of slow down and the returns are still fine. Anden people say like, Ah, you know what? All right, it turns out that it was mucht to do about nothing I'm not predicting that, but that could slow down. The big story in the panic of nineteen oh seven was JP Morgan The guy told his bank tellers to count the money out slowly so they could stop the bank run And like every day they giveave out less and less money and that was way to out the bank run. That's like that's what this is. All right. You've talked about your car buying situation. I want to talk about mine Um You've got a car broker. I'm still a man of the people do the shopping mind my own But I'm using I'm relying on ChadTPT heavily in the LLMs for looking at cars And'm I'm having enormous ticker price shock because the last time I got my lease three years ago I had a ton of equity in my old car still and like the transition was easy. So it was relatively Now I can't believe how expensive. thingsings are I buying a new car I'm doing all these price points and I'm Chaci Bi is really, really good giving you Like here's what you should get They're giving you advice on like, here's what you should get, Here's what you should ask for And I'm looking at all these cars that are on the road everywhere. I'm looking at these huge SVs and I don't want I told you I don't want the big one because I want to be to get in a p working spot But I'm looking at not even like high end luxury cars, just like suburbans and Tahoes and expeditions in wagoners and Lincoln navigators And these cars all like if you get like even a decent package on them, we're talking like fifteen hundred to twenty thousand five hundred bucks a month for these These are cars you see everywhere on the road kind of boggles my mind, evenven like the to I don't know pilot And the Volvo X ny like we're talking like well over a thousand dollars a month for these You see these everywhere How are people doing this? Right. It's not like there's like, it's not like one person your town has a wagon here Yes, they're everywhere. You go to a soccer game, the whole parking lot is full of them. And so anytime you tell we talk about what kind of cars we're thinking about or getting Pe are apt to say like, oh, you idiot, don't get that. It's a piece of cp. Get this. Or this is actually the version of this, what you should get. And so I told you a few weeks ago, I can't I looked at I lear looked at Alexis And I'm like I just My kids destroy the carars like, I can't do it yet. Maybe like when the kids older I'll get something nicer. I'm going to get like a ke I'm like trading down. I'm getting like a ka tellur ride, which is pretty nice. are nice. They're nice. They look nice. It's like it's like a step down version of like a Hundai essentially But the guy told me, we can't keep these on a lot They're selling so fast, we can't get them here Maybe just says's whole area is set like fifty thousand dollars is like the affordable car Yes, exactly. That's my point I think like That was like the affordable one When we were, I don't say in high school What did fifty five thousand dollars get you? Like an M three? Unbelievable car. I guess that's my point And again, I don't want to drive an SUV anymore. I would love to drive a sedan But I have to because we have kids with sports, we have benches and chairs and we have car pooling and so I needed more room. Anyway The sticker price shock was totally real for me, though It's crazy All right, stick personal finance It's funny where people get up and arms about it U guysuys, I am listiting all the time. somethingomething driving me crazy wanted to send overver I am fifty three and guess what? I am considering early retirement. And guess what age? fifty five. goodood for you Ben continually says on the show, I don't know why everyone says says fifty five for early retirement Do you continually say that? I think I've never heard you say that. I do Beause people look around, because every time we get a question about early retirement for askk compound, people say retirement fifty five. You said ask compound, o U Well, anyway, this person is up in arms ben Um, but He has a point. For anyone with a four hundred one K, it is not that complicated The rule of fifty five allows you to access four and one K money without penalty I don't think it should be surprising that without With that out there, people consider fifty five for early retirement if they can afford it. All right, good for you. we've talk about the rule of fifty five many times on Ascombo, by the way The thing is I'm having people in their thirties tell me this. So this guy's like not many people know about this rule of fifty five. comeome on man No one knows about this Uh Well, anyway, I asked Claude about it. and It gave me whatever a bunch of pagraphs I copied and pasted it Bill Suite. I said, this is true And he said, yes we talked about it.ill Bill is the one who sc schooled me on. I didn't know it either. I guess my point is like just uh, you know, just just u Chat and Claude giving you pretty rock solid answers on personal finance stuff, it's cool. It's obviously, you know, a potential threat to advisors makeake it fory better better better informed consumer G's good stuff. It's great. Yeah. The thing that we've been talking about is, if you're an advisor, you're going to have to deal with a better informed consumer whichich I I think I think most advisors are like, good Yes, like it's easerer. Kids just have said this like I used to spend time educating people on a mutual fund. I don't want to do that. Honestly, we've had Thousands of conversations with people over the years. The hardest people to have conversations with of people who know absolutely nothing. Be you have no idea where to start sometimes Like you feel like you're starting from square one, if someone is actually understands and you just have to fill in the details, that's an easy conversation for us to have. We do that on our sleep Yeah wait you're right So I've been doing the podcast tour for My book, I've done a lot of them and It's interesting I'm noticing like themes and stuff, but I had two conversations last week that really stood out to me And both of them were dealing with guys who are eighty years or older. So I was on Jeremy Schwartz' a podcast with SarsX and Radio, called Behind the Markets, and he brings on Jeremy Siegl every week to talk like the first fifteen minutes and have a podcast afterwards And I think Siegel is eighty years old. I think he's eighty and His love of the markets We just had to like wind him up and let him go He gets so excited to talk about the markets. The guy loves the freakaking markets and talkking about the economy. He's like a child. that's so great. Yes, he's so excited And then I talked I was onberber Robin Farzad's podcast with Paul Merriman. and Paul Merriman is eighty three, I think. and he's still teaching people about investing and saving. He has a podcast, He has a newsletter. He teaches people how to like save and invest and seeing these guys in their eighties still do what they love. That to me That is the dream. I know there's a lot of people who have the dream of early retirement. We talked about the guy before. I get questions all the time from people about I want to do the fire thing because I hate my job And I think if you actually do find something you love to do, and you're start doinging in. That is the dream to me. Yeah And these guys still love what they're doing at eighty years old. And I think to me, that's a dream. I know other people, other people would say you're nuts. You think I'm going to keep doing keep working that old To me personally, that's the dream. I agree. And the thing about dream span is everybody has their own dreams ? Yes. And it's okay. That's okay That's the market. Siegel is just a animal It was really fun to talk about market hist rhythm. You know what else was really fun? went to the movies on Friday And I saw obsession. Okay, that's the other YouTube movie. Like the one one last week, backackrooms of the YouTube movie. So backrooms was backackrooms is a YouTube channel, whatever it's called. I guess I didn't realize the extent to which people had already been watching this as a show on YouTube and that's sort had a built in audience, which is really smart. I didn't realize the extent of that. So I believe the Darker theme is Karriry Barker of obsession He did he's done he did like a short horror movie called the The Chair, which is very good to watch that Um and he has another one called milk and cereal with an S That' also I believe you release on YouTu An anyway He is a director that has put hisuff on YouTube. who was a known today And this movie obsession was made for seven hundred thousand dollars, give or take, whatever it was,, well under a million And I sent this to to the boys who I talk movies with This was on Friday night But seven o'cl This movie's been out for T full weeks, three full weeks L my many seats were available Basically full Um Now this is my type of movie It was So fantastic I'm giving anything away it' in the trail. This this is horr movie I would like or not or is it like I don't know I don't know. No, it's not derranged. Well There' are some movies that I' mind watching.'s too d. I don't like the deranged stuff I would not classify this as derange. The plot is such U this, uh sort of losory kid has a crush on a girl that he works with. He's afraid to tell her He misses his opportunities. He's like, I'm such an idiot I had my chip bl bl up He makes a wish. he finds something in a store. It's like a, it', you know, it's aachchk It's called one Wish Willow You break it, you make a wish and his wish is I wish that she would love me more than anybody in the world and His wish comes true And Goys H wish needed some context, huh Yes It goes off the rails and it was It was fantastic. It was so I don't mind the premise. Maybe maybe. It was such a good movie Did you likeem Maybe in the same sort of like universe as talkalk to me, didid you like that one Oh yeah I thought that one. I thought you did. Well, anyway Anyway, I just I love the fact that young people are going to me When I grew up, that we did that every single Friday night If we didn't have a game going on or something, we would go to the movies, My friends, we meet at the movies. We did it every s a week. And it didn't matter what we were seeing, we'd see something. I love that you're to movies again That's what's happening because the theater was packed And it's just great.s it's so he man came out at a flop masster of the Universe N a surprzise. Scary movie had a really strong opening Obsessions is back whenom we're still going strong movies are having a real moment, a real moment. This was interesting. Okay, I guess what I guess I did used to watchorror. I went and saw all the saw movies in the theater. you know, I used to watch these back in the day And this is like much' going This is elevated hor. It's like, it's thoughtful, you know,''s, it's well done. So there was a guy in front of me in the front row And it was full of kids. And like I said with backrooms, nobody was on their phone Like people are genuinely enveloped in the movie. Did I use that word right I let's say enveloped? Sure I don't know feel like'm like, maybe. There was a guy in the front row who who's had his fun and he seems scrolling. I'm like, dude, what are you doing This movie is rocking ass right now and you're scrolling on your phone So there's one viol sten in of the movie Like, well, there's a few. Maybe too, but there's one particularly Whoa violent scene in them in the movie So this guy who had been scrlling, he gets up right after that scene And he walks out And I see behind him, his child gets up If' And the kid was eleven or twelve Now, it is it is weird because from my forty one year old vantage point. I'm like This guy should be arrested That was some scarring shit for life. L that was so, so, so inappropriate My dad took me to say eight millimeter when I was like thirteen I saw all the horr movies where I was like I't know You know what Tarantino said in his book He said, he used to go see movies when he was like five years old. And he said his mom one day said, I would rather have you see it here than watch the news That's good. So I we started the second season of four seasons on Netflix. I think that's a show you originally recommended me on Netflix. So it's Tina Fe Will Forte, I'm a huge Will Fortete fan. I think he is hilarious. likeike subtly funny. Coman Domingo is one of my favorite newer actors that like he's became an actor middle age. I love him And um This is not a show that would be on HBO from a quality perspective, right But for some reason, I really enjoy this show. The way that they approach friendship, and marriage and middle age. I just really think that they tapped into that perfectly Las is written by Tina Fe and she's so talented. I really my wife and I really enjoy this show A you watching season two or? Uh No, Robin washed his one without me. I thought you watched I thought you were the one who told me to watch this show I think I did. I said you you would like it. I watched the first episode I really enjoy it So it's on Netflix and it' each is like each episode is a half hour. I think there's six or eight episodes. And the way that they do it, the show is episod each they have two episodes each for one season and one vacation Every time is like either a holiday or vacation. Oh, that's good for me. whichich is really yeah, which works I finished your friends and neighbors last night, season two. The show went a little bit off the rails at the end like a little over the top, but then they always kind of bring it back. And I feel like that show still with the family stuff really works. And so' I'll watch season three a little off the rails. Happy to hear that.id you did finish half manan? I know I keep Forget about So That's kind of a show that kind of sticks with you in the back of your brain for a while. Like, oh my God, what did I just watch? No that was depraved Yes. but just the performances in that show, I thought it was really, really well done, but yes, very depraved. Not deprave. My daughter and I are still plowing through nineties RM coms So we did like, Notting Hill, my best friend's wedding, you got meail in the last ten days. And every night, I'm going to milk this as much like I can because my daughter says hey Can we watch another round count tonight? And I know in a couple years she's going to say because she's twelve years old. She's gonna to be like, get out of your scram, dad I'm already getting some of that Um, But it's just the Dinese Rom comom just the vibe of them is hilarious because they they wouldn't work today The vibe of them wouldn't work because they would just get destroyed. So like Notting Hill Hugh Grant works as a guy who works at a travel bookstore. All they do is sell travel books. He's like a beautiful charming man and he works at a travel bookstore And while you were sleeping, Sander Bullock tickets at the subway in Chicago or whatever And I just think it's so funny that they have like these beautiful charming people in these like, whatever jobs. and it's like, no, a beautiful charming person doesn't have that job. Yeah of course. Not a hill, N a hill is such a good movie I'm like, man So we watched you've got mail last night too and I've been I had to explain my daughter like how AL worked and you've got mail and stuff Um, Julia Roberts was so good in that movie. I was like, how did she not How did that not carry over to her in like her fifties or something Same with Tom Hanks, L those two both peaked in the nineties and early two thousands and never kept it going. I would have bet a million dollars, they both would still be making like fantastic movies today to keep it going Anyway U Watch Michael Jackson documentary that was fun So my daughter went to see the movie And I know it's it's getting it's getting weird. My kids like Logan wants to Logan is always asking us to print stuff. He wants us to print like Michael Jackson things from the Ce. and I'm like, what do we do with this? It's so nice Like what obligation do you have as a parent to I don't know Anyway, on that note. Okay. Email us. emmails to all of your seventies Economic takes, Al's swatting them the away. donon't worry You know what I love? I love that we get emails like like the seventies Philly guy and the fifty five year old guy. And people are like playfully dickish to us. Yeah, they don't mind. We don' mind either I know they' fans of it's love. so it's love So than we appreciate it.' so any for that Animal sppirits to compompound News. comot We'll see you next week