Afford Anything - The Stacking Benjamins Roundtable Plays a Game of 'Would You Rather'

Episode Date: May 16, 2016

#25: Would you rather...have $15k in quarters or $15k in dollar bills? Today we have fun with Joe Saul-Sehy, Len Penzo and Greg McFarlane (HELLO Greg) from the Stacking Benjamins Roundtable. For more information, visit the show notes at https://affordanything.com/episode-25-would-you-rather-game-stacking-benjamins/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is time to add Joe to this call. What's up, sexy people? That's how I want to be introduced every single time I see you, Joe. Welcome to The Money Show, a podcast about mastering your money and time so you can live your optimal life. This show features interviews with entrepreneurs, financial experts, and regular people who share amazing insight into investing, business, money management, and productivity. There are many roads to financial freedom. show explores them on. Grab a beer, kickback, and enjoy the money show. Hi there. Before we get started, a quick disclaimer, typically we try to make every episode

clean and family friendly by either editing or bleeping out the bad words. But in today's episode, there was a lot. And while we bleeped or edited out much of it, there was still some stuff that got through. So today's episode is not appropriate for anyone under the age of of 30. If you happen to be listening and there are kids in the vicinity, for example, if you're driving and there are kids in the car with you, hi kids, mommy and daddy are going to listen to this later. Also, it's okay for you to have ice cream for breakfast. So, now that I've just gotten you in trouble, please heed that warning. Today's show was marked explicit for a very good reason. and if you want to stick around, enjoy.

Hey, ladies and gentlemen of the audience, I would like to introduce you to the stacking Benjamin's roundtable. Joe. Who? Introduce yourself. Me. I am Joe Salcihi,

and what else do you want to know about me? What's your favorite flavor of cake? Oh, I'm not a cake guy. I'm an ice cream guy. Okay. And what you really need to know about me is that it took my wife coming into family for us to figure out that we were all lactose intolerant. You hadn't figured that out before?

No, we would sit around and we need ice cream and then about half an hour later, the whole family would giggle while we're, you know, passing gas. This is a great start to the show, isn't it? Like, why are we having these guys on? And my wife joins the family. She's like, I can't believe your whole family's lactose intolerant. My mom goes, oh my God, we are. I never knew. So how about that? Oh, goodness. Very random. And Joe, just To give you a little bit of credibility, you used to be the money guy on some television station in Detroit. Is that right? I was on Channel 7 in Detroit for nine years.

I also had a radio show in Detroit. I did a lot of public relations for Ameriprise investments. I was commonly quoted in papers like the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, where our friend Len lives and the Chicago Sun Times, Baltimore Sun, things like that. Wow, and look how far you've fallen now. Here, this is what your life has come to. Now I'm on the money show. I've got spums. Speaking of people who live in Los Angeles, Len, you tell us about yourself. Your blog was named by Kiplinger as one of the best finance blogs of 2011, I believe, right? Yes, which just goes to show if you pay anybody enough money, they will do even the most ridiculous thing.

So, yes, that's true. And if you had the money, you could do the same thing. No, but yes, that's true. Thank you, Paula. Would you like to know something interesting about me? Yes, I would. Okay. I think, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on this panel right now who has been the victim of two armed robberies. Can anybody else say that? Oh, damn.

No. That's crazy, man. And I'm still here. I'm still here to talk about it. Were they both in L.A.? Yes. Both of them. One at a pizza restaurant and the other at a grocery store.

Wow. I thought there was a joke at the end of that. Like, you know, your kids holding you up for like their allowance or something. something. That'll be three. I guess that's stickups. Well, so speaking

of people who have never been the victim of an armed robbery, Greg McFarlane from Las Vegas. I am much more likely to be the aggressor. Don't let Joe fool you. He runs a marathon every month. He has never eaten

ice cream in his life. Although these days, Joe can get quoted in the Texarkana Gazette anytime he wants. Which is the highlight of my day and my week. You guys need a better laugh track.

I'm Greg McFarlane. I am the brains, if you want to call it that, behind Control Your Cash.com, now in its third year of hiatus. And I write for Investopedia. And I was banned from the Yacazzi or Yacchese or whatever the hell it's called. And from the Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. And from Europe Car, Australia. Were you banned from the L. Cortez also? Or I guess it would just be called El Cortez. I suppose you don't need to say the walking away was my decision. I don't think they formally told me not to return to the premises. Actually, no, because they did invite me back to get my last, to get my final, almost had last final paycheck, which is as redundant as the L. Cortez. If I have cause to go back there, I'm sure they would let me drop my money on the blackjack table. They just wouldn't let me deal. All right, you crazy boys. Oh, no. I've got a list in my hand. I've got a list in my hand of a whole bunch of would you rather's.

All right? And I think what we should do is go by them. I will speak them out to you all. And then one by one, you guys tell me what your answer is. Okay. Jake, call on the first victim. Okay. We're going to start with a semi-simple one.

But it's a fun one. Would you rather win $15,000 in dollar bills or win $20,000 in quarters? But you can't go to the bank and deposit them all. You have to literally spend either $15,000 in singles or $20,000 in quarters. Joe Mama. You know what? I'm going to take the $20,000 in quarters. And the reason I'll take the $20,000 in quarters is that it'll be such a

spending that money that it'll make me hold onto it longer. Like there's no way I want to show up at, you know, the beautiful Walmart here in Texarkana with just a roll of quarters for my, you know, $25 bill, whatever it is. And I've got this line of people behind me while I'm counting them out. I don't want to do that. So I'm more likely to hang on to them. So I think I hold on to that 20 grand longer if I take it in the quarters. I, how about you, Mr. Penzo?

You know, this is almost a trick, one of these trick questions. I mean, they're both, when it comes to spending, they're both a pain in the butt, right? I mean, how is $15,000-one bills or 60,000 quarters? No, what would that be? 80,000 quarters. You know what? I would take the quarters. And I would use it for things that I have to pay.

that I really don't like paying, but I'm going to pay. For example, speeding tickets or like Greg's parking tickets. I would use those quarters for that kind of stuff. Keep it in the house and when it's, keep it in my bunker. And when it's time to break the stuff out, I'd break it out. I might, you know, that's the way, that's what I would do. That's a beautiful answer, man.

I did good? Yeah, you did good. You'd come back on the show. Never. Yes. Thank you very much. All right, Mr. Crap Steeler, person. kick her outer.

First of all, I just discovered that I can get away with saying, son of a borg on this podcast, what words are forbidden? Because I know there are a couple I'm not allowed to say on stacking benjamins beyond the seven deadlies. Don't worry. We'll bleep out anything that needs to be bleeped out. So just have at it.

I would take the $15,000 in dollar bills, and I'll tell you why. I have an investor in this property that we're busy selling, this undeveloped land here in Vegas. She owns one and a half percent and has been holding up the sale every step of the way.

This hasn't made a tax payment since we bought the property. She keeps hassling just for the hell of it. She thinks she has leverage, but she doesn't. Now, the property will eventually sell, but it might take a few weeks longer, thanks to her, holding up the process. But because she's never made a tax payment and because the other investors, the other investors who comprise 98.5% of the ownership have carried the water for her, we're deducting that from her proceeds. And she's probably going to make out with about $1,500 out of this. So I went to the trouble of finding out.

I could cut her a check, but no, she can go to hell. The number of quarters it would take to pay that $1,500 is about 280 pounds. And every time I talk to her, she says, no, go through my brother, who's a criminal defense attorney, he's busy. No lie, he's busy defending policemen who molest little kids. So it is with glee that instead of sending her a check that weighs one microgram, I will be sending her 280 pounds worth of quarters. And yes, I'm petty enough to do this. Wow.

That leaves you with a lot more quarters left over. So I understand how I'm practical it is. And for the extra $5,000, for $5,000 fewer, I'd rather have something that's considerably lighter. As will she, as she'll find out. How are you going to actually deliver that to her? I can go to a bank and get, I know people have tried this with pennies and it doesn't work.

Plus, pennies means I got to move them at some point. But moving 280 pounds of quarters is not going to be a big deal for me. So I can go to a bank. Go ahead. Well, I was just going to say, you've got $5,000 extra to figure out how you get it there. Exactly. I do. I thought this was a hypothetical.

You mean it's real? Great. All right, Paula, Pete. What about you? I would take the $20,000 in quarters. And I would probably for the same reason that Joe has in that I would probably not spend it. And I hate to use this term, but it would effectively turn into an emergency fund because it would be, I'm just not going to spend it. So that means that any cash that's actually in a bank account can be deployed in other ways,

like put into investments. Yes. Okay, good answer. What's interesting is that all of you kind of got annoyed by the fact you had a whole bunch of dollar bills or quarters. And it was free money someone was given to you. 15 grand or 20 grand and you all were bitching a moaning. Well, you guys are really going to like this next.

Hey, Jake, hold on. So let me give you, would you rather, would you rather take the 15,000. single dollar bills or one million dollars in counterfeit hundred dollar bills. I would take the real money. Why would I want a million in counterfeit to be funny? Because you spend it. A video with your friend. No.

Oh, man. I am like the worst. I am such a good. No, I'm such a good boy. I would never even dare. Like the thought of jail like scares a crap out of me. Yeah. No way.

Although interestingly, I've read a lot of articles. that talk about all fake money in movies, like in gambling movies and like Godfather type movies. And they say that a lot of those people sneak away and try and spend it, which is kind of cool. Really? Yeah. I mean, the money looks really, I mean, it's for movies,

so it's supposed to look real, of course. And there's like this whole company that makes them, it's this whole industry of people that make fake cash for like movie sets and whatnot. It's fascinating. All right. Here we go. Would you rather have a salary of $50,000

but everyone around you can only make $25,000. Or that's what they have. You get 50 grand salary, they have 25 grand salary. Or you get $100,000 salary, but everyone around you has $200,000. And we'll start with McFarland. Is there a trick in the wording that I didn't catch? Why would I not take the one that pays me twice as much? No, there's no trick.

It just depends on how much you care about other people around you or not. Yeah, because on 50,000, that's why I counted you first because I already knew what your answer was going to be. Don't get me wrong. Rubbing my good fortune in other people's faces is great, but I don't think it's worth 50,000 a year. The difference between 100,000 and 50,000. How about you, Mr. Penzo? Okay, I have a question for you. Are we the only people on Earth, my coworkers and I, or are we just part of a huge population?

Because if we're the only people on Earth, then I will take the $50,000 and everybody else gets $25. But as long as we're part of the larger world population, then, yes, I'm with Greg. I'll take the $100,000. Do you mean, like, from an inflationary standpoint? If we're the only people on Earth and I'm getting $25,000, what am I getting? $50,000 and they're getting $25, then I have more purchasing power than they do. Right. And if I get $100 and they get $200, I have half the purchasing power of them.

And so it makes sense to take, I want to be in the position that I have the most purchasing power. But if we're amongst all the people of the world, then yes, who am I to be grudge people getting $200,000? As long as I'm getting twice as much as my other choice, I'll take the $100,000. How's that? That's a good answer. Yeah. And this is, to give you the answer, it is, it's like you and your friends and colleagues. Like everyone you know in the, so it's the real world, but like all of us on the show, your friends, your colleagues, everyone you know are the people.

involved in this decision or in this situation that, you know, we're just making up out of nowhere. All right, Mr. Jail, go ahead. Well, I can see first Len uses money as power. He just wields it, right? I got the 50. You people only got the 25. So I love that. And totally predictable, by the way, completely predictable.

For me, I have never, for a guy that works with money, has worked with money his whole life. I'm not really motivated by money. And I would feel worse that I made the decision for me to make double what everybody else made. And I think that everybody around me knew that I made that decision would treat me like I was a complete A-hole because of it. I'd prefer to make the 100, not just because I'd feel good about everybody else making 200. And they could all say, you know what, Joe is the reason why we all made 200. Ah, interesting. I didn't even think about that one.

Would it change? Probably not knowing you, right? It wouldn't change even if no one knew. Danes knew like one of our friends out of a hundred of us made the decision, but no one knows who. You still do the same? It still wouldn't because I would know that I'd make the decision for me to make a bunch more money. And I'd feel guilty. All right.

How about you, Paula P? I would greatly prefer to be making $100,000 if all of my friends were making $200,000 because knowing that my friends are doing better than me would motivate me to work harder and try to make more. So I actively seek out friendships with people who, are more successful than I am because of the inspiration that it provides. That's why we're all friends with Paula. No, I can't figure it out, Jay, because you look at the Sacky Benjamin's crew. Like, what hell is you doing with us?

Now I'm starting to wonder the same thing after this show, Joe. Don't worry. All right. This one, Paula, I think you're going to like, because if I recall years ago when I blogged about this, this was a feisty one for you. Okay. You're going to be the first one to answer this one. All right.

All right. Would you rather, here we go, live in 1816 with a million dollars in cash, which then is like, I don't know, a trillion dollars, right? It's a ton of money. Or keep living as you are today in 2016, making $70,000. I have a question, Jay. All right. Can I be a white guy? Very good.

Yes. Well, you would be one. How many are of, there's one, two, I'm looking on Skype, counting the people on here. There's five of us, and we are all white. Actually, I can't see you, McFarland, but you strike me as a white man. Is that a true fact? What are me? Lens the Italian, are they white?

Ah. Did you say, are we wide or white? Yes. So, yeah, so Paul, and why do you say that, Paula P? Well, go into it. Because I didn't think about this when I first wrote about it, and I'm a white dude, and I didn't think about white problem. right or you know well your question was would I rather live 200 years ago as a very wealthy person

versus today as who I am I'm not sure if you're aware of this but and I realize this is a podcast so the listeners can't actually see what I look like but I'm brown and 200 years ago was a bad time for that so yeah I would have happened so so yeah there's absolutely no way I would choose to live 200 years ago if I could instead live today, given, you know, the color that I am and the gender that I am. Right. Well, and see, like talking about like even this, like I'm, you know, I usually say things and write things without, you know, we all write and think stuff based on our own, like how we are. And so I wasn't even thinking when I even blogged about this that there's so many changes. Like I was thinking of like air conditioning and disease and not like rights or any of that kind of stuff, right? Slavery, all

these horrible things happen. Right. I love that your concern is air conditioning. You're like, but I wouldn't have air conditioning. Yeah, internet, blogs. I can't blog. First of you know, this is horrible. Like, I do not want the million dollars. I can't write online. So, all right, how much you guys? Let's start with Len this time. I guess assuming I'm white, as long as I can be white, I think I'll, I'll take the million dollars. And go back 200 years, yeah? Actually, no, but I just thought I put that in. No, I think I would take the $70,000 today. Just too many advantages.

Although, you know what? Being white back in 1802 and having a million, maybe that's quite a bit. That's pretty tempting. It's a big, big, big deal back then even more. How about you, Joe? Yeah, I'm going that way. I mean, I could deploy a million dollars back then.

That's a ton of money. I can invest that in big business. I'm not that in love with the internet. I get to get rid of Facebook, which is awesome. So that's actually a plus. I get some of that time back. So, yeah, I'm going there. And then I'm finding Paula and I'm persecuting her.

Well, she's living 200 years. She's not even born yet. She didn't pick that answer, my friend. I know, Paul doesn't even know what. He can do what he wants. That's right. Pola doesn't even know what happened in 2003. Gone downhill.

my friends. All right. Let's quickly move on to another one. Wait, wait. I want to hear what Greg's, what, Greg, what would you do? I'm just flattered that my previous answers were so boring that Jay Money completely forgot that he didn't pose this question to me. Go for it, bud. Live today, not even close. Antibiotics, for one thing, Lasic, I'm not going to walk around with Coke bottles on my face. I don't think vasectomies existed back then either, and mine has saved me at least a quarter million dollars, I figure. plus I have a black thumb. I can't grow anything in my garden. And if I live back then,

agriculture would probably be my job. So yeah, $70,000 in 2016. Oh, okay. All right. Here's another one to quickly move us along on this one. Okay. Here you go. This is back in 2016, okay?

Would you rather be really, really attractive? Like, you're hot as hell, right? You're like whatever supermodel. You're really hot, but you can only make 30,000. a year for the rest of your life. Like you can't make any more money no matter how hot you are. No trickery.

You're just hot as hell and you can only make $30,000 a year. All right? Or, which I'm sure you're about to guess, you can be extremely not so attractive and be incredibly ugly, but you're rich for the rest of your life. And we shall start with Greg

before he gets all mad at me. I'm not mad. I'm just questioning the way you choose to moderate your podcast. That's all. And I'm male. I can answer for all four of us. I'm male, so I have to take the ugly face and the money.

If I was female, I would answer the opposite way just as quickly. Interesting. All right. Is he correct, Joe? Well, kind of with a caveat. If hotter also means healthier. So hotter, I'm with Greg. But if health, it just means, just means I am flipping gorgeous.

Yeah. Yeah. It just means you're still the same health-wise. You're just super attractive. Yeah. I'm with Greg. I take the money. Not that you're not.

God. That's right. We're just saying, right? No, I'm with Greg. All right. How about you? Are you asking me now? I was feeling left out. You know, in Italian, my grandfather had a term for the for ugliness. It's called facha brute. Facha brute. Ugly face. And yes, since I've been used to being called that all my life, there's no problem. And it's just a bonus if I had extra money to go along. So yes, the facha brute. Fadja Brute. I would actually also choose to be ugly and wealthy.

I know that probably wasn't the expected response, but as I see it, I can do more with wealth than I could with simply having an attractive face. And so given a choice between those two priorities, building wealth is a bigger priority. But Paula, with an attractive face, you would have zero expense. I'm not saying you don't have one now, but you would have zero expenses. You mean because, well, but then I would be forced into having to marry into wealth. You don't have to marry and Danny. You just have to wink at the right guy at the bar, smile when appropriate, and then leave with your friends.

No, first of all, if you have guys buy you drinks at bars, then you have to talk to them, and you really don't want to do that because your time is worth something. I would much rather buy a drink myself and not have some insipid conversation with somebody that I don't want to talk to. Number one. Number two, the vast majority of my expenses are not bar tabs. The vast majority of my expenses are things like going to the grocery store, paying the electric bill, taking a trip to a given destination that I would like to visit. Cat food. Things of that nature.

And those things typically don't get purchased for you regardless of what you look like. Unless, of course, you say, married into it, in which case, again, you're a little bit held back by the fact that now you don't have the independence to make a mate selection. that's purely of your own. You're constrained by this one consideration. Hi, Rich, man. I'm stuck here at the airport, and I lost my ticket to Ecuador, bats her eyelashes. Can you help me out? If I was as hot as this hypothetical question indicates, I'm pretty sure I could get a free ticket out of it, and if I was female. I would much, much rather have the money to be able to buy my own ticket. That's how you maximize your independence. I asked this question on my blog about two months ago. I have my question of the week. This was one of the

questions of the week. And do you want to take a guess? The two choices, you know, would you rather be beautiful or wealthy? What do you think? There was 780 responses. What do you think won out? I'm going to say beautiful, even though you have a financial site and the obvious answer would be well. But I'm going to say beautiful. I was like going to be my guess. Okay, so let's let's go around. What percentage of the people said beautiful? I'll say 55. 55% would prefer to be beautiful. Okay, how about you, Joe? Yeah, I was going to say 60, so I'm right there with Jay.

Okay, Paula. I would guess that 80% of people, I'm guessing 80% of respondents wanted to be wealthy and the other 20% wanted beauty. Okay. Let's see, am I forgetting anybody? Yes. Oh, Greg, Greg. I'm going to assume that your viewership, your readership,

your readership is half male and half female, so I'm going to go with 50%. Paulo almost nailed it. 18% said they'd rather be beautiful than wealthy. 82% preferred wealth over beauty. Wow. I was going to pick beautiful myself on this panel, and if there's five of us, that means 20%. So it's the same stats here.

Look at that. I was thinking about this, Jay. We've all met people that are incredibly attractive, and then you get to know them, and they're not that fun to be around. So they go from, you know, in Donald Trump terms, a 10, down to like a six or seven, just because they're annoying.

But there are people that have the world's ugliest, ugliest person, you know, the way that they look, which is this question. But then maybe they take their wealth, they take the things they do, and they're really a cool person. And then they go from, not being so attractive to being incredibly attractive people.

So I think when you have the money, you can still be hot in different ways. Is that sound too Pollyanna? Oh. No. Although with your line of thinking, two things. One, you're already yourself, so however you are now. Right? When people say like when you win the lottery, when you get all this money, it just accentuates

how you are already. So if you're already, let's say, somewhat greedy and now you're like rich, then you can turn into like a big A-hole and you're ugly. But you're rich, right? And on the other hand, too, if you're not that attractive and all of a sudden you get super hot, right? Like people in like middle school, high school, they go to college and all of a sudden, like, they blossom and now they're super popular. And they go from nice guys into total, you know, D heads too. So yeah, I mean, there's obviously no answer.

And unfortunately, we'll never find out. That'd be pretty interesting. But yeah, that's a good comment, though, for sure, man. Okay. Let's go on to another question here. Would you rather have an extra $500 a week of extra income? You don't have to do anything. It just shows up in your bank account every week, $500.

Or one hour extra a day. So you get seven hours a week for free or $500 a week for free. And it's one hour more than anyone else gets to, by the way. Let's start with Paula. So if it's a choice between 500 a week versus seven hours a week, that means that I would be valuing my time at $71.42 an hour. Yeah, I would take the extra one hour a day. Would you take the base on just how much you can make or just to live for an extra hour?

Yeah, I would, well, all of that comes into play, right? Like any given amount of time, I'm either sleeping or working or showering or puttering around the kitchen. I mean, either way, I'm living my life. And that life, that time is much more important to me than, you know, I value it at higher than 71 bucks an hour. So I would trade off 500 a week in order to have an extra seven hours a week. Cool. All right. Mr. Greg.

What do you think? What Paula said word for word. I'm not just saying that because I was too lazy to formulate a response. She nailed it. She hit it out of the park and she planted both feet on home plate and pointed her fingers toward the sky. Thank you, Greg. Yeah. All right.

How about you, Joe? What Greg said. I mean, that's my answer, too, I guess. So maybe this isn't a good one. Yeah, well, it's a calculation, and Paul already did the calculation. And I like the way she did the math. I actually take the opposite tack of all of you guys. I think if time is money and I have $500, I can buy a menial labor at $10 or $15 an hour minimum wage.

I can get a lot more done with that $500. If I pay people the minimum wage. So I would actually take the $500 and I would be able to do maybe, say, just for simple math, $10 an hour. I could buy 50 extra hours of time doing things that I couldn't do myself in a week. So I would take the $500 and pay people to do 50 hours worth of work. Wait, what type of tasks do you have, what type of tasks are you responsible for that a person could do at $10? an hour that consume 50 hours a week. They could do my shopping.

They could do pay my bills. They could take care of all my menial tasks. They could clean my house. They could wash my car. They could take care of taking my kids to and from places. Lots and lots of tasks. My time is worth $100 an hour or $200 an hour, but my time is more valuable than menial work. I mean, I use that time to do real important work.

So, but for the menial tasks, there are far more menial tasks than, you know, big, important work that can be done. So I'll take that $500 and pay people and spend it on 50 hours of other work. I figured Len would take the extra time just because he's older than the rest of us. I'm not that close to the end yet, Greg. I'm getting there, but I'm not that close. Does it change anything that the hour's an extra on that, well, everyone, like, doesn't get versus an hour that you already had. Does that change anything at all? Like, I separated out, like, I didn't, I'm not, you know, all math, like, oh, my hours are worth this and, and I can do the

sneaky money. It's just like what I want extra. And so in my brain, and maybe it's a stupid way to analyze it, it's like when I want an extra hour a day or just an extra 500 bucks and the hour excites me more. So I pick that. I think I would take the money if it was like taking one of my hours I already have. I'd rather take the 500 bucks than give an hour that I already have, if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't say out loud, but. Well, there's that theory that says that whatever time we have available, we fill it, right, with stuff. So the task always

fits the time available. So I feel like if I had the extra time that nobody else had, I totally still wasted on doing the same crap I do now. If I spend it sleeping. Yeah. I don't know I wish for that. All right. Let's see here. You want do a couple more, Paula? What do you say there?

Yeah, let's do a few more. I got one. That was nixed by Paula, so I will not mention it. It has to do with politics. and it's going to be a good one for this crowd, but okay. Oh, fine, oh, fine. We can do it. Yeah? Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, okay. That sounded like a bedroom conversation. Did it? Oh, okay, we can do. We can do it. You hear, Jay? Yeah. Really?

Okay. Policy. Yeah, yeah, all right. The same voice I use with my wife. Yeah, it's a same voice. That's right. You got to play that back for the listeners, Jay. So would you publicly support,

and let's say you're on your local news, or let's say it's like, I don't know, national news. Like you have like five minutes of everyone in the country or the world's time. You can publicly support the president you love and all the reasons why for free. You don't get anything. You just give them your support and it's awesome and it's what you, you know, it's very cool for your presidential candidate that you're supporting. Or I can give you $100,000 in cash,

but for those five minutes, do you have to support the presidential candidate that you can't stand in front of everyone in the world, but you walk off with $100,000 in a briefcase to do as you please. Which one would you choose, Mr. McFarlane? I love that you think that that many people could be swayed by my opinion. I'm taking the $100,000 and telling people to vote for Bernie Sanders. You didn't have to pay the person. Awesome. You know what you want. I love it. Paula, you go next. Actually, I have exactly the same reasoning that Greg does. I don't. think that my opinion is really going to sway anybody because I'm just a random nobody on the national

stage. So given the fact that I don't think that those five minutes will actually have any impact on society whatsoever, I'd rather take the $100,000. That's ironic coming from a bunch of bloggers. My opinion matters to my readers, my audience, but number one, I don't talk about politics with my audience. Well, you're going to have to now for $100,000, Paula. And number two, my audience is a very small segment of the national stage, you know, in a country of 300 million people. Well, and I think the question isn't necessarily like if people are going to listen to you or not. I mean, you know, they could or couldn't or whatever. But more of like, does it bother you personally for, you know, supporting something that you don't believe in if you're political?

Obviously, so like I'm not super political. My wife is and I'm not. so to me it doesn't matter as much. So I would take the money because I don't really, you know, care either way. But if you did, you know, and maybe that's a part of it that just depends on like,

are you okay with supporting someone you don't believe in? All right, go ahead, Joe. Man, I can't do it. I just keep, I keep thinking about the question. I can't. I would look like, remember all those memes of Chris Christie standing behind Donald Trump where he's just got that look on his face like,

oh, God. I would have that look on my face the entire time I would, would be talking about whatever candidate I don't like and trying to build them up. Like, nobody would, nobody would believe it. So maybe I should do that because everybody would see my eyes and they'd know that I'm full of crap anyway. And I'd get the cash. But I just, God, I can't imagine myself standing in front of a bunch of people saying I support

ex person, even though I'm totally with Greg. Nobody really cares anyway, right? But I still can't do it. I can't do it. Do you have a super strong opinion one way or another towards candidates right now? No, I have some opinion. What's funny is that my son was home for the weekend. And my son said, he's like, I'm watching the news.

And my dad's, or my son's like, why are you watching this, dad? And I said, what are you talking about? He's like, all you do is get angry. So that's why I don't pay any attention. I pay as little attention to politics as possible. Because I just, I do. I get very angry. So no thanks.

Right. That's a good answer. How about you, Mr. Penzo? I'll take the hundred grand. Heck yeah. I'm the odd man out. There's always one. I was the one on the last one. Right. I was a hot one on the last one. I'm looking good right now, but I have no money. We'll end our riveting discussions here with a nerdy one. So we'll see how nerdy each of what you are. Okay. Would you rather have $5 million in cash or the ability to teleport? We'll start with you, Paula. I'd rather have $5 million. What would I do if I could teleport? Where would I go?

I can't even think of anywhere that I would necessarily want to be. Well, you travel all over the world all the time. Yeah, but I can do that in an airplane, especially if I had $5 million. Well, actually, I shouldn't even say that. I can do that in an airplane now. I don't need $5 million for it. But think about all that time of money you'd save, Paula. I would.

I would certainly save time and money, but I could do it in other ways. With $5 million, there are many other ways that I would be saving so much time and money that, you know, the day, of flying that I lose to being in an airplane versus teleporting is not the end of the world. Put another way, transportation does not consume such a major chunk of my life that it would be worth a $5 million trade-off. Well, for people, actually, Len, we should ask you next because you like to do illegal stuff and that teleporting would come into handy with spending those million dollars of fake cash. Is the teleporter foolproof? Is there a chance that I could teleport six feet below the ground and that'd be the end of me.

It's fail-saf. It works 100% of the time. I'll still take the five minutes. In gold. In quarters, in quarters, the mail to people. And why is that, Len? You come down to my bunker and I'll show you, Paula. The gold.

And the guns. You can't have that much gold without the guns, huh? Mr. Benson? I know this is the whole other podcast. No wonder you've been robbed at Gunpoint twice. carrying all that gold on you. All right, Joe, how about you, man? I think, although I'm very excited about teleport,

I actually get relaxed when I have to travel. It's just, you know, there's nothing else that I can really do on a plane, which is why I'm not that excited about, like, Wi-Fi being more widely available on a plane. I'm glad that it barely works, and I'm glad that I decide not to pay for it because I seriously just get excited about nothing to do for whatever, time I'm on that plane.

Are you TSA? What you say? Precheck for TSA. I am not and I need to. I totally need to get that done. But I live in the middle of nowhere and I have to drive two hours to do that and I haven't done it. That's right. That's true.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the downside of living in Texarkana. The one downside. There's no other downside for living in Texarkana. Besides that, it's all unicorns and rainbows. But that's what I do.

I'd still take the $5 million. All right. What about you, Mr. Gregg? The last one to seal the show of your final answer. I'm surprised that Paula said what she said. Now, teleportation is at the speed of light, correct? Oh, I'll take you word for it. I have no idea.

Well, it's your question. It's your parameters. Whatever your choice of teleportation, you may choose. I will dedicate the rest of my life to doing what would have been $5 million worth of travel. By the way, I recently discovered that TSA Precheck is handled airline by airline, not just airport by airport. I flew from Vegas to Dallas and discovered that the airline that I took, Spirit, thank you very much, doesn't use TSA pre-check. So you get a wait in line with all the other plebs, even though you paid $120 a year or whatever it is. And then on the way back, Dallas-Fort Worth, which I thought was a pretty major airport, it says TSA pre-check this way, just 300 steps.

So I had to move eight gates out of my way to go through the pre-check. And then I get there, and it's about 6.15 p.m. And the guy says, yeah, our precheck closes at six. What? Closes at six. And they reach to compromise. Okay, you still got to take a laptop out of your bag and declare all your liquids, but you can keep your shoes on.

Security theater at its finest. So before you cut that check for TSA precheck, I'm just telling you the downside of it. All right, guys. Well, that's the last of the questions I have. Thank goodness. Where can we find you all? If people want to reach out and listen to your show. read your stuff. Why don't you all go around and give people a link or soda so we can reach out to you.

Go ahead, Joe. All right. You can find me at the Stacking Benjamin show with these crazy people every Friday. We have this type of fun and we get this little done on a weekly basis. Coming up soon on the show, we've got Gene Chatsky, the Today Show Money Editor coming back on the show. And then Gretchen Rubin also coming on the show. We've got some great guests coming up. Cool. Len? Yeah.

You can find me at the persistent itch.com or Len Penzo.com. That's for the stacking Benjamin's listeners. Joe referenced this blog once. He went to the persistent itch.com or something like it. It was just the funniest thing. But no, Len Penzo.com. And there's all kinds of stuff there. Just come by and check it out.

And thanks for having me, Paula and Jay. Yeah, thanks a lot. Yeah, what about you, Mr. Greg? Where can we avert our eyes to for you? I'm on the stacking Benjamin's podcast once a week. By the way, Joe, thanks for not putting me on the show at the same time as Gene Shatsky, or I would just be drooling instead of talking. And you can also find me on Investopedia several times a week. Oh, that's pretty cool. Nice. All right. Well, that's our show, guys. Thanks so much for coming on, and we will see you on the inter-rids. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you.

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening to the show. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and leave us to review. Thanks. That sounded like a bedroom conversation, didn't it? Oh, fine, oh fine, we can do it. Yeah? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah?

Did you hear Jay? Yeah? Really? Okay.