Animal Spirits Podcast - A Key Market Signal (EP.395)

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

On episode 395 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the devastating fires in LA, why homes are the most important financial asset for the middle class, a roundtrip in stocks since the election, why rates are rising, nitpicking the economy, Howard Marks is on bubble watch, quantum computing stocks, the anti-social century, Jerry Springer, and much more. This episode is sponsored by YCharts and Fabric by Gerber Life. Get 20% off your initial YCharts Professional subscription when you start your free trial through Animal Spirits (new customers only). Sign up at: https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/spirits. Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Subscribe to The Unlock newsletter: https://www.advisorunlock.com/subscribe Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yeah. Oh, you just started? Well, yeah, I guess so. Seeing your parents age and seeing their friends get sick or die, life, death and taxes, correct? And I think maybe is that one of the reasons that people don't spend a lot of time planning for things like life insurance because they don't want to think about that kind of estate planning life insurance they don't want to think about that stuff but would you

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reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. I want to start the show by talking about the devastation on the West Coast. This has to be the most awful experience. that one can have in life outside of losing a loved one is losing your home? Yeah, I can't even imagine what it's been like to live there.

We have an office in L.A., so we have people on the ground who live there, and they've been sharing their experience. We've talked to clients. We know people who have lost their homes, and I don't know where you start to pick up the mess. And the devastation is so big here. I don't know how you start over in some of these places. When you see the pictures, it looks like a nuclear bomb went off in some of them, with the houses just all completely gone, and I wouldn't know where to begin. You're right. The home is, this is one of the things we talk about, like housing as an investment and the return you're going to get out and all

these things. But, like, the psychic income you have from a home, it's your life. Yeah, it is. Everything is tied into your home. So, yeah, they say this has the potential to be, at least collectively, the costliest wildfire disaster in American history, said climate scientist from UCLA. The Wall Street Journal had this piece that kind of got into the home thing. And they they talked about how so many people there, their whole entire, not only life is in their home, but their financial assets. They were saying that they interviewed all these people. And this one guy says, he's 63 years old, he says, it was our retirement, it was our investment,

it was our equity, it was our everything. And he was basically saying, like, this was our nest egg. And they looked at, they said the average home, the typical home in the Palisades, which is the place they got at the worst, is like $3.4 million. Because there's a lot of Hollywood people. They said Tom Hanks and Ben Affleck have a place there. But there's also all these middle class homeowners who are completely screwed. And if you look at the stock market, right, it's something like 10% of the people hold 9% of the stocks, right?

It's concentrated in the hands of few. But if you look at real estate, it's more like, it's only like 14% in the top 1% and then the bottom 90% is like 55%. So the middle class has a way higher concentration in homes than the wealthy. It's much different makeup than the stock market. For many middle class people, a house is not only like by far and away their biggest financial assets. For some people, it's their only financial asset. And then it goes away. I can't imagine, I mean, it's seeing your stock portfolio lit on fire and not knowing what the outcome is going to be.

That is a scary proposition, especially since the roof over your head. Yeah. So I don't know if you read a lot of these pieces about the insurance industry there. I didn't. So bring me up to speed. So it feels like if you started from scratch and tried to make up some of the rules that they have in California in terms of how this stuff works, these laws and rules would never get past today. But it's one of those things like we do it this way because it's always been done this way. So obviously, insurance is a big issue that you and I have been talking about for well over a year now, I guess. Because it seems like every six months, unfortunately, we have one of these natural disasters and they seem to be getting worse.

and insurance is a big, it's a big topic now because some people did not have fire insurance, unfortunately. But they also said that in 1988, so this is from Noah Smith, and I read this a lot of different places. There was a Prop 103, which said that if insurers want to raise their premiums, they have to get approval by the government first. So like, insurance commissioners would have to say, yes, it's okay for you to raise your prices. And what elected officials ever going to say, oh, sure, go ahead and raise prices. So what happened? They didn't raise premiums enough. So a lot of the insurers said, we're out of here. If the risk reward is going to be so skewed that we're not being paid enough for this risk, we're not going to insure anymore. And I guess there was

state insurance that you could get on, but it was much higher priced, obviously. And so what happened is a lot of people just don't have insurance either, making this obviously even harder to stomach. Right. And I don't know what the answer to this is because, again, we've asked, like, what is the answer going to be for people in California or Florida if they have these natural disasters? The government is going to have to step in eventually, whether people like it or not. I don't think that's the only solution, even though it isn't a great solution. I have no idea. Yeah. And you don't want to worry about, like, the financial aspects of this kind of thing, but that is a worry for a lot of people. And the other thing was the Wall Street Journal

article touched on was the people who are displaced now, they're trying to find rental rentals, right? Because where do they live? And so now it's going to make the housing situation even worse there because the supply is so low because people are fighting over rentals now. And so those rates are being jacked up. It's just an awful situation all around. Yeah. Yeah, I can't. Really, truly, you can't imagine what that's like. And when you talk to people, even if they weren't personally, they did, you know,

you know, saying, hey, my house is fine. You hear, they had friends or colleagues or peers who were impacted. And it just, you can hear the way they explain it, just the terror. I can't imagine looking at the wind report and wondering, I saw a video of a guy who was on his roof saying, we thought we were going to be fine. And then all of a sudden the winds shifted. And now we're worried and we're trying to get out of our house. And it's just, ugh.

It's, yeah, awful feeling. The, uh, the ugliest part of the internet is just people politicizing tragedies. like immediately. Yes, it is, it's very sickening, and it's just, fortunately, one of those things that's probably only going to get worse. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I'm at a lost words.

I'm not really sure what to say, because I don't know, like, about the insurance situation of what the problems are, what causes, how do we fix this? What do we do it over for it? It's just, you know, obviously not something that I'm keyed into, but yeah, it's just, it's devastating. It's really, really sad. All right, anything else to say on this? no just thinking about the people out there and it's it's just i i can't even imagine what an awful

situation that is yeah um all right let's talk about the stock market so uh we round-tripped the uh the gains from the election i think this is as good a reason to sell as there ever could be i am extremely happy with the reason why stocks are behaving the way they behave And the basic... Oh, healthy correction. Very healthy. The keto diet correction. Wait, so what is the reason it's selling off?

Because I don't... Is there a reason? Yeah, I think it's pretty simple. Rates? The economy is not slowing down. Rates are as a result and as a result of some other inputs. Rates are going up. And so the fear is that there will...

There are less reasons for the Fed to cut. And so that's it. And so stocks are falling because of that. The economy is too strong. Could there be a better reason for stocks to fall? Yeah, that's pretty good. Right? So, you know, we had back to back 20% years.

And I am usually, you're much more likely to say this than I am, but I will bend the knee to you this time. Stocks were just looking for a reason to sell, right? You say that. Sometimes that's true. You already had really great gains heading into the election. Yeah. And then you had an election pop too.

You're right. I'm sure people said, you know what? This is pretty good. So I've been talking about Apple a lot for the past couple of weeks. Just like a proxy for the 2024 market. You and Mark Zuckerberg, both hating on Apple a lot. Apple did not have a good year. And the stock went up almost 30%.

Why? Because, you know, AI and hopes and whatever. Apple had a very quick 10% correction. Now, I'm not picking on Apple specifically. I don't, I don't ever want to see anybody lose money, but just as a proxy for this market. And the way that I view what just happened to Apple, it's like they just blew the foam off the, off the beer, right?

Just one of these. Do you do that? You know, you know, the grossest one was always? If you take the oil on your, like, your nose and then you wipe it on the, have you seen that trick? What the fuck? Is that the grossest thing you ever saw? I had a, in college, people.

used to do this. Okay. If you have a lot of foam on your beer, you touch your finger to your face because you have oils on your face, and then you put it on the top of the foam and the foam evaporates. That's gross. And I had a friend who always do this, and I'd go, that's disgusting. You're putting face oil into your beer. You've never seen that trick, huh? That's weird. No. Okay. The more you know. So, uh, yeah. Now, listen, if, if the tenure continues to rise and up and up and up, that will definitely not be good for stocks, I would probably take the other side of that. it does seem very one-sided consensus on where the dollar is going, on where rates are going. Don't you think that the, at this juncture, not always, the cure for high rates are high rates.

It's kind of like the cure for high commodity prices or high commodity prices. Don't you think the cure for high rates is going to be high rates in the fact that they're eventually going to, either they're going to slow something down or the economy is going to be so strong that it's not going to matter very much. So it seems like both outcomes are pretty good, unless rates get high enough where they really cause people to retrench, and I don't think we're quite there yet. Yeah, I agree. So Matthew Klein had a piece on like YR yields rising, and he said it's, you don't have to look very far. It's just people were too pessimistic on economic growth. And now that trade is unwinding. And I think that's pretty fair, and that people have been very pessimistic.

for the last two and a half three years or overly pessimistic. I don't know if I buy that. I bought that when Warren Pyes put it out there, like the first part of the move was just in the unwind, but it keeps going. It keeps moving. The move keeps moving. Like how much unwinding is there to be done? So, like, it kind of gets back to the point of, like, what should rates be given the

state of the economy? And if you look at, like, I don't know, a 1990s, 2000s kind of thing, If the 10 years at 4 to 5%, shouldn't these other rates be, mortgage rates maybe should be 6% or 7%. If real GDP growth is going to be 3, 3.5%, maybe they should be this high. And maybe this is the market realizing this. Even if it feels painful to us because we got way used to lower barring rates for a long time. So Torson-Slock has a post a chart on the 10-year yield before and after the first Fed cut. And he looks at the average of all cutting cycles and today.

And it's just, it's unusual because normally the Fed isn't easing with an economy this strong. Right. The other thing is this, it just happened to line up perfectly with when the Fed started cutting. So like if you, if you're a person who makes nice looking charts, this is just like, chart kid Matt is, you know, right when the Fed. started cutting, rates started going up. Yeah. It's almost like, it was like a perfect handoff. What's interesting, though, is

this chart is from John Authors at Bloomberg showing global 10-year yields all across the world. And it's not just in the U.S. Like, our rates are a little bit higher than around the world, but their strength in 10-year government bonds all over the world, which is just interesting. Although, if you look at the tenure, though, the trend is up. But look at how many up-downs,

It seems like every time this happens, again, we try to shift the narrative. My whole thinking is at some point people are going to look back and go, gosh, those 5% yields on treasuries were so juicy. What were we thinking? That is going to be a hindsight bias conversation at some point. I don't know when. All right. I'll say it.

I bought zero coupon bonds this week. Zero coupon bond? Yeah. Okay. Like zero Z, Z, the ETF? Yeah, it could be early. okay so you're you're that's a mega duration play all the way and listen this is like my fun gambling account my moderna account which uh that was fun then goes did you sell last week i said nope

i was in new york and you said i got like a 20% pop i think i'm going to sell and we kind of talked about it and then it what fell 20% yesterday i was i was going to sell and then i had that listener in the back of my head hey you don't sell 20% gains you idiot hold on uh we'll talk about that later. I got it in here. But wait, but this is, this is the great part about investing in a brokerage account. You're either taking gains, you're taking tax losses. You can't lose. Okay, so your point about rates rising around the globe. This, this is kind of like the inflation thing, where you try to look at it in isolation of the U.S. economy, but this is a global phenomenon. And maybe, maybe this is just the way things are now. Like, the decoupling doesn't

happen as much for things like inflation and rates. Well, so this next chart, this is, again, from the same Bloomberg article, we're looking at since the September jumbo cut, rate cut hopes have evaporated. That's a 50 basis points called Jumbo? It's a Jumbo cut. You didn't know? I feel like we need a different name for that.

Jumbo, to me, is like 100 basis points. 50 is like a big cut. Jumbo, that's a big adjective. While we're on the topic of rewriting the rules of the English language, juror number two, there was a line that J.K. Simmons said. It's a line you don't hear every day. And I have no idea what it means.

I've heard it before. He said he's like confident about a wager, about as confident as I was on the charges. We'll talk about that later. And he said, from dollars to donuts. Yeah, I don't know what that one means either. But you've heard it before, right? Well, I've heard it plenty of times.

Dollars to donuts. Yeah, I don't know what that means either. That can't be a Shakespeare one because did they have donuts back then? So I was thinking about, like, origins of, like, phrases, you know? Like, where do they- 90% of them are Shakespeare. Oh, really? Look this up.

Look up like Shakespeare phrases and saying, phrases that emanated from Shakespeare. It's a lot of them. Dallas Adonuts means something that is certain. The phrase is an American idiom that originated in the middle 1800s. The idea behind this shorthand phrase Dallas Adonis is a sentiment that the speaker is so confident that he is about, that he's right about something. He will put forth his dollars against the listener's donuts.

See, it still doesn't make sense. It still doesn't make sense. But just imagine the first person to say something and then, like, it catches on and it goes viral. Those are like the memes of the day back then, right? Imagine just like, I was the first person and said, oh, no, you weren't the, come on. I started this meme and everyone's going, no, you didn't. Yeah, but somebody had to be the first person to say dollars to donuts. That's true.

I'm sure a lot of it came from the written word, and that's how it spread. It had to be writers, right? Well, okay, what's the other side of this? Oh, the share of households reporting is harder to obtain credit than one year ago is dropping? So, yeah. So we've got two charts from Tors and Sox. So we talk about, like, rates going higher as being restrictive on the economy, right, higher higher borrowing costs.

However, the share of households reporting it is harder to obtain credit than one year ago has been going down, meaning access to credit has been good. Since we're on the Torses-Slock thing, I've got a take here. And I feel like every thing that every negative worry about the economy for the past two and a half years has been nitpick. This has been one of the strongest economies we've ever seen. So look at this other one. He shows a record low share of countries expected to be in recession in 2025 and 2025 and 26. So this is the share of countries with positive and negative growth going back.

in 1980. And look at this. We basically, they're forecasting 2025 to have 99% of countries around the globe with positive growth. And if you look historically, it probably hovers around 80% average or so that are positive. This is one of the strongest global economies we have seen in the past 40 or 50 years and everyone hates it. All right. So everything that, every negative piece about the economy, like, well, what about higher mortgage rates? And what about that? They're nitpicks at this point. I love that idea, with the exception that everyone hates it. I think you're too much Twitter brain right now. Not everybody hates it. That's not even close to being true. But you are right that all of the arguments against the economy,

you're right, they're nitpicking. More people hate the economy right now than should hate it. Fair. Okay. So he also shows this household debt-to-asset ratio at a 50-year low. Debt to asset ratio for households. And a part of this is because assets have risen so much, probably. but debt is also It's kind of hard Fiat assets True I'm just saying

This is what we do Especially in finance We find stuff to worry about But it's all been nitpicks At this point It's all like Yeah that was an amazing movie Like Pulp Fiction is the greatest movie ever

But what about Bruce Willis' His girlfriend? Right if you're looking for the bad part Yeah that's a really good point Right astute observation bend Very well done All right Blake Miller had a tweet

that, you know, this is a, this is catnip for me. I just, I love this stuff. I'm a sucker for it. What can I say? First five days, a key market signal. The last 49 first five days that were up were followed by full year gains on 41 of those occasions, an 84% hit rate. And the average return is up 14% for those years.

The numbers fall off dramatically when the first five days are down, coming in negative about half the time and averaging less than 1% returns for the year. Ben, I know you hate this, so how about it? I don't know. I actually don't really hate it. It is pretty interesting, right? I'm sure you could do the same thing like the first month of the year or, yes, it's very short-term in nature, but I don't know, maybe you're setting the tone somehow and I don't know. I guess I'll take it. Well, there is a chart. I think Nicola did this, but I could be wrong. I could be mistaken. Is it mistaken? Yeah, mistaken. I said mistaking. Mistaken. The market is most likely to top in either January or December. Did you know that?

Yes, that's the one I've heard for Nick Colis. That kind of is mind-blowing. That just happens right away or it happens after a big year or whatever. So this corroborates the data that Blake is sharing. Yeah, that's why it kind of makes sense to me. Okay, Howard Marks says he is on Bubblewatch. He wrote a one for Oak Tree. No shade at the legendary investor, but I think he's been on Bubble Watch for a while. Is that fair to say? He's probably been on Bubble Watch for like five years. I think that's being generous.

And we're big fans of Howard Marks. Okay. But this was an interesting point based on our conversation from last week. We've had the mega tech, mega cap conversation for a while. He looked at the top 20 S&P 500 companies at the beginning of 2000. And then he looked at them at the beginning of 2024. So there's six of the top 20 are still in there. ones that have dropped out would be IBM, Oracle, Verizon, Pfizer,

Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble. It is crazy how many of these, like, blue-chip names, General Electric, were in there back then. He said, importantly, of today's Magnificent 7, only Microsoft was in the top 20, 24 years ago. And so the biggest names of today are... That this is likely to be, that there's likely to be turnover again, or... Yes, I think that's the point. he said, and in bubbles, investors treat their leading companies and pay for their stocks as though the firms are sure to remain leaders for decades. Some do and some don't, but change seems

to be more the rule than persistence. And last week, you said, like, listen, I don't think these companies are going to change. And this is, to me, this is like the big intellectual debate going on right now, that my grander of its head could see both sides of like, I'm so disgusted with you. Take a side. Remember my side was, I pick the index fund. That's, all right. That's a side This is an opinion show We're here to have fun Because this is

Okay, if you want my opinion Yes, there's going to be At least two of the Mag 7 are going to drop out In the next 10 years And everyone's going to go Of course they did Of course they did

Like I For me it's always been Facebook I feel like Facebook Is the one that No why No way Okay No

That's the one to me Because you're thinking You're thinking with your boomer head on You're thinking about like Facebook Facebook and meta is much bigger than Facebook. Facebook is enormous, but Instagram and WhatsApp are also monster companies.

I know, but my point is that maybe what if social media is fleeting and a new thing comes along? That's why I think they'd be the one that's biggest at risk. Okay. And I've said that for five or seven years, and I've been wrong. My, if I had to pick one, it would be Apple. I know it's a very, very, very, very. very wide moat, very thick, very difficult to penetrate.

It's like a rhino's hide. But it's... That was a good phrase right there. I don't know why I said that. No, I agree. It's hardware. It's freaking, it's this. It's so ingrained in your lives, though.

I know, I know. To your point... But can't there be a better piece of technology? No, but you could... But the thing is, you could say Apple is not in the top five anymore. in a decade, and that doesn't mean that necessarily that the company did terribly. It could just be more mature

and it's not seeing crazy growth rates anymore. I could buy that. It doesn't have to crash and burn. It's not growing. It hasn't grown for years. Yeah. The ski goggles are the first thing to me. Like, all these companies have it a failure. Think about the time as Amazon. Remember Amazon did a phone

that totally did nothing in crash and burn? It's like, whatever. The ski goggle thing from Apple that didn't work. now the i guess you know there's a lot of counter arguments to what i just said like just the scale of apple though it's so it's so extraordinary think about how big a business the AirPods are right like AirPods is a standalone business is an enormous business you know i started finally buying cheaper i'm sick of losing them or them not connecting or i started buying the cheap $20 ones on amazon i'm not buying any more AirPods is that what's in your right now no these are still

AirPods once these are gone that's it i feel like i like mentally budget $500 a year for AirPods. That's what I do too. So I looked up, I think Ramp Capital tweeted out like, hey, what are some cheaper versions of AirPods? And I looked at some of the recommendations and I bought these like Soundcore or something for like 20 bucks. And guess what? They work just fine. Really? Okay. All right. You know what? Apple. I'm in on the idea. What are they called? I'll send you them. Sound core. I don't know. Sound core. Okay. Okay. So last week, it was just perfect chef's kiss timing. We had an email from a listener who has, who, as a college professor, he's DM'd me a bunch of times. And he said,

listen, I'm one of the ones who got Nvidia early. And he says he's lucky, but he also, yeah, really nice guy. And he said, listen, I also bought these quantum computing stocks, which- Didn't we talk about this last week on the show? Yes. So the timing of it is perfect. So he emailed us and he said, what do I do? I bought these at like 90 cents and a dollars. We got in them early. And the ones he bought were Raghetti and, what's the other one? D-W. wave quantum. I don't know. These companies got as high as like, it looks like 10 bucks and almost 20. And the day after we heard that thing, and you and I said, we don't know, but, you know, is it really going to be the next Nvidia? Hard to say. The day after we did that,

Jensen Wang from Nvidia said, if you kind of said 15 years for very useful quantum computers, that would probably be on the early side. You said 30, it's probably on the late side. We've picked 20. I think a whole bunch of us would believe it. Basically saying, we're 20 years out on quantum computing. Sorry. Stocks got cut in half on the day. And these companies since last Tuesday are down 55 and 60 percent like that. It's just kind of crazy that we got that email. And a day later, these things got massacred.

So somebody emailed us with a really good point. It's like, listen, if you're trying to think through selling big winners, the answer is come up with a plan, say, I'm going to sell X percent a year or X percent a quarter or a month, and you just stick to it. And this way, you'll sell someone their home. you'll sell someone when they're low. And I think that's really good advice when you're thinking about, hey, I've owned Microsoft for 25 years, right? I have these gigantic gains and it's a relatively stable company.

It's not going to go down 50% in a day. The question about what to sell these stocks is a completely different question altogether. Because these stocks, just by their very nature, if you're trying to get like a hundred beggar and you're in these small volatile companies, I don't know what the rules are. I don't know what a good rule of thumb is for trimming or taking winners because by definition, unless you're the best trader of all time, you're going to have to take massive drawdowns. You don't get a hundred bagger without 70% drawdown. So I'm not sure that there's great universal advice for what to do when you catch one of these. I think if you're really going for a 10 bagger or 100 bagger, you probably have to make a like a VC portfolio where you're going to buy 10, 15, 20 of them.

and 90% of them are going to do nothing or lose money, a couple of them might do well. I think that's... If you're going for a hundred-bagger and a concentrated portfolio, good luck. I think we heard from somebody in the Nvidia story, or maybe it was in the story itself, like their strategy was to do just what you said.

Right. And you just got to hold on. Yeah. I couldn't do this strategy, but Godspeed to anyone who can. Okay, this is interesting, the Target Aid Fund. This is from... Jeffrey Potech from Morningstar.

In the three years ending, 1130, 24, the average dollar invested in thematic funds and ETFs lost 7% per year. Now, most of that was ARC. So X-Arc, it's almost just 6% loss. Over that same span, the average dollar invested in target date 2050 funds gained 6.9%. Nice. Dull, crushed, exciting is what he says.

And this is one of those things that you would have predicted, but is still, like, hard to fathom. Because thematic funds, I'm sure many of them outperformed the Target Date fund. But the investors in Target Day funds did much better because they just stuck it out. This is the thing we see. We've seen so many times in history. Yeah. This is the case.

And people still don't believe it. Well, I think that, you know, it's human nature. You just think that, like, oh, I'll get out. I'll ride the wave and I'll get off the train before crashes. Right. So, like, me buying T-bills would probably outperform you buying your coupon bonds. Probably. This is the tortoise and the hair. You're the, you're the, uh, you're the tortoise. All right. So Derek Thompson got the cover story for the Atlantic and, uh, it's called the

anti-social century. Did you read this, Ben? I did. It's a very long piece and I read the whole thing. What are they, what are they going to call it when magazines completely go away? I'm still going to call it a cover story and it, do you think in the future people are going to go, why do they call it a cover story? The cover of what? Like, we're in newspapers and magazines, like our kids, they don't know what this stuff is. Magazines? Cover story is going to be one of those things where people go,

well, why is it called a cover story? There's no cover to what? Yeah. I don't know. And that's a stretch. I think magazines will always be a thing. Oh, I don't know, man. Really?

Everything's going to be digital in the future. I'm like the last holdout here for hard physical magazines. I think in our lifetimes there will always be magazines. I'll be it. They're in secular decline, obviously. I just don't think that they're going to disappear forever.

entirely. No, I think there's going to be a time. So in the next 50 years, do you think magazines won't completely go away? I'm not lasting another 50 years. So you are middle-aged? I saw a tweet yesterday. Don't Be a Menace.

Do you remember Don't Be a Menace? Hell yeah. So Don't Be Menace. I was too young to see this when I saw it. So I was 11 years old. I had a friend who this was like his favorite movie. Like he watched it all the time. Yeah, me.

I was that kid. So I was 11 when this came out wildly inappropriate for an 11-year-old. I would say this is probably like, you know, you probably should have been like closer to 14. It was a spoof of a lot of the gangster movies in the 1990s. Anyway, so I was 11 when this came out. And, yeah, this movie came out 29 years ago. It was a Wayne's Brothers movie. 29 years ago.

Right. I just still remember the part where he tops out with like a nuclear bomb out of his car. Do we have? Okay, so back to Derek's story. So he says it's the antisocial century, a few stats and figures. This one's interesting. 74% of all restaurant traffic came from off-premise customers in 2023. That is takeout and delivery up from 61% before COVID, saying people aren't going into restaurants as much.

It's like taking out, go eating at home. He also said, adults spent in 2022 99 minutes at home on an evening day more than compared to 2003. So we're spending a little over an hour and a half more at home than we did in the past. And he goes to all these stats. We're watching more TV. Wait, just go through all these stats. Just go through all these stats. Okay.

What else do you want? Well, you did the first one? Yeah. All right. The share of U.S. adults having dinner or drinks with friends in any given night has declined on more than 30% in the past 20 years? That's a lot. Solo dining is increased by 29% in the past two years.

The number one reason is the need. for more me time. Television. So in 1970, just 6% of sixth graders had a TV set in their bedroom. In 1999, that proportion, I grew into 77%. As a parent, my wife and I've already talked about this. My daughter's asked, can I have a TV in my bedroom? No. Nope, not in the bedroom. My answer is no. Which is funny because, well, they're going to have iPads. It's not going to matter. But not in the bedroom, right? You have to at least be by us. You're not going to go watch TV. Did I have a TV in my bedroom? So I feel fairly strongly about this, although, let's be honest, I don't really care, but I kind of care.

I did not grow up with a TV in my bedroom. Maybe in high school, I got one, but I think it was more for video games. I didn't actually watch TV in there. You know, I don't know why I'm so judgmental about this. Like, what's the big deal, I guess? But I don't know. I just think that... I like TV being a communal thing.

Like, we make our kids, like, no, we're watching a movie together tonight. We're all doing... So anyway, the point of Derek's post is just that, like, especially the one that gets to me is, like, the less social teens. A percentage of 12th graders going out with friends two or more times a week. week has gone from 80% or so in 1980 to 50 or 60% now. So the whole loneliness thing, and he looks at the other side of it, and he did a podcast on this too, which I think worth to listen, saying, like, we are more connected than ever, and there's more ways to talk to

people. I remember, I did, I mentioned before, I did a summer in Europe for school. We had this program for school that would send us over to Vienna for two months. And I told my wife about this a couple weeks ago. Like, I maybe called my parents once a week and sent like one email. Other than that, like, I was off the grid to them. They had no idea where I was, what I was doing. And now, if you went to Europe, if you sent your, you know, 20-year-old to Europe, you'd be texting them all the time, you'd be calling them, you'd be, you know, you'd be in constant contact. So that piece of it is, there's way more contact these days, but I think this whole loneliness epidemic is way, way, way more important for young people.

This is a terrible thing for young people. I think once you get older and middle age, yeah, sure, it can mess with your mood a little bit. I don't mind being as alone in middle age. When you're young, you need this. This is why I think college is still so important. And the people who poo-poo college and say, no, we're going to have AI robots teaching our kids. They won't need to go to college.

The socializing aspect of college is the most important part of it. And that's why I think college is still very important for young people. It forces you to interact with way more people and socialize more because living in a dorm room was not a great living situation. Yeah. So he has a chart in here showing the change in average minutes spent at home compared with 2003. And of course, this increased, you know,

four-x in the pandemic, but it hasn't really given a lot of it back. So Derek wrote that modern technology is always open window to the outside world makes recharging much harder, leaving many people chronically depleted, a walking battery that is always stuck in the red zone. In a healthy world, people who spend lots of time alone would feel that

ancient biological cue. I'm alone and sad. I should make some plans. But we live in a sideways world where easy home entertainment, oversharing online, and stunted social skills spark a strangely popular response. I'm alone, anxious, and exhausted. Thank God my plans were canceled. I get that. And think about when you go out to hang out with people and then they are on their phone while you're hanging out. So it's like even the hangout time is not as much one-on-one anymore. I'm guilty of that, unfortunately, because it's just like habit. Everyone is.

And this is why the 1990s really were better. I saw a piece last week saying, like, the 90s weren't as great as you think they were. And they went through all these statistics and stuff. But like, come on. My report that was, no, the 90s were better because as someone who lived through both of those time periods, I can tell you the 90s really were better because it just wasn't It just wasn't as exhausting as it is being online all the time as exhausting. I think we are going to, as much as, as great as it's been, we're going to look back someday

and say social media was bad for humanity on net. Like, it's been, it's just been a, I think it's been a horrible, horrible thing for us. Oh my God. I have no doubt. Yeah. I don't even know if that's controversial. Now, it is what it is. It is, right?

Yeah, so there's no going back. And it's definitely, listen, it's definitely not all bad. I'm not saying that. I don't think Derek's saying that. There's obviously amazing aspects of it connecting to others. You know, there's a lot of good, but there's a lot of fucking disgusting bad stuff. I got stuck on the 4U tab over the weekend. My kids were at the Knit game, and I just fell into it.

And it was just like, I just looked up after 45 minutes. My eyes were burning. Like, what did I just do? You feel gross about yourself, right? Yeah. The algorithms are going to take us over. Here's my one take on this financially about people spending more time at home. this is going

this is just going to so the remote work thing and people wanting to spend more time at home you know having takeout as opposed to going to restaurants when I look going back to the college thing

my dorm was this how many square feet it was 200 is so my dorm was awful and so I you never wanted to be in it but that's the point of college is being out about right but I think for people

wanting to spend more time at home this is going to put a bigger premium on housing prices because people are going to going to want to spend more time at home, they're going to be working at home. They're going to be hanging out more. They're going to want an office in their home. Yes.

So this is one of the reasons. A couple of mudrooms. Yes. So this is the reason why there is a premium on housing because people are going to want bigger, nicer homes now. Okay. You know, the meme, the market will regulate itself and then the market, right? Yeah.

So on polymarket, there is a market. Will Palisades wildfires spread to Santa Monica by Sunday? And Ben Eifertz quote tweeted and said, in all seriousness, this should be 100% illegal. That's not big government telling people what they should or shouldn't do with their money. That's saying you shouldn't be incentivized to burn down Santa Monica to dig yourself out of your gambling debt. I mean, come the fuck on. Of course, this is right. That is awful that they even allow that thing.

Of course, this should not be a, you should not be able to bet on something like this. that you could just take a blow torch to Santa Monica. Yeah, that's pretty bad. But this is what people want. Give us everything and let it happen. Speaking of gambling, somebody sent this to us. So Fandul, Fandle's parent company is a publicly traded stock. I think it's Australian.

Is it Australian? I can't remember where they're hellful. I didn't know that. It's called Flutter. So listen to this. Listen to this. Flutter announces an update on short-term U.S. sports results impact. Following our Q3 earnings report, continued strong U.S. player momentum has been offset by a period of very unfavorable U.S. sports results across the remainder of November and in December, primarily on NFL Parlay and Same Gay Parlay outcomes.

The season has been the most customer-friendly since the launch of online sports betting with the highest rate of favorites winning in nearly 20 years. How about that? Oh, so people are actually winning and gambling this season. Yeah, so everybody had a great season, except for me, Ben. I got... How many units are you down? I was hanging in there. I was hanging in there.

Losing my standard three to five cents on every bet, you know, fluctuating. And I got annihilated. I was so confident that the charges were going to win this weekend. And it was no... It wasn't even about the chargers. But I followed football pretty closely and the Texans have been horrendous all season. Their offensive line was dog shit.

All season long, C.J. Strad was on the run. They're short-manned. And so, yeah, I got hosed. I took a beating. And then... So now you double down to make it back. And then, you know, I might have tripled down during halftime and then I chased my loss.

and I was, uh, really felt pretty good about the buccaneers and then Baker fumbled, the handoff. And, uh, so yeah, it was a rough weekend. It was a rough weekend. But hey, that's, that's gambling. Hey, here's another thing. Here's another thing. Tell me it in what world this makes sense. There's no other industry that operates this way. And I'm sure there's a reason, but maybe there's not. Head coach interview schedule for lines defensive coordinator, Aaron Glenn. Thursday, Jets, Friday AM Saints, Friday PM Raiders, Saturday, A.m. Maguars, Saturday PM Bears. He's still employed.

He has a game next week. What other industry operates this way? Isn't that so bizarre? You're saying people don't interview for jobs when they still have a job? So publicly? Hey boss. Sorry, I'm going to be out in the next two days. I know we've got a big meeting next week, but I'm, you know, just seeing what else is out there.

So I haven't, I haven't placed one bet at all this whole season. My whole thing now, I'm the, you're the thematic funds and I'm Target Day funds. I placed three bets at the end of the last season, the day of the Super Bowl, on who would win the Super Bowl this season. And my bets were on the Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs. I got, I don't know, plus a thousand for two of those. Wait, Bill's Chiefs and who? Bill's Chiefs and Ravens.

Bill's Chiefs and Ravens. So not the Lions. I'm not going to bet on my own team. No, that's like a double whammy. Okay. You don't bet on your own team. So am I going to bet this weekend? I think, unfortunately, we all know the answer to that.

so that was in my parlay you betting more and but now my now i'm all shook my confidence is completely rattled i feel like uh whatever it is i'm going to lose but hey that's life right you win some you lose some you win some you lose more survey of the week from michael mcdonald like macdonough did you call michael mcdonald yeah he's the yacht rock guy right right yeah mcdonough uh he says this is still the most striking chart in economics and politics the complete flip in one-year inflation expectations among Democrats versus Republican after the election. So they just updated January 25 data. So Democrats shoots up and now think inflation is going to be higher. Republicans shoots way lower and now thinks inflation is going to be, it's kind of

funny. Republican inflation estimates are at zero. I guess the good thing is that the independent in the middle is actually pretty, it's pretty much an average of these two. But the way I look at this is it's kind of like the vibe shift after Christmas. Leading up to Christmas, you listen to Christmas music and you're in the spirit and you have all the decorations and then the day after Christmas it's like okay

we can't listen to Christmas music anymore take the decorations down it's over like it's still snowing out still beautiful in Michigan but I can't have Christmas songs on anymore it's that same vibe shift that you get

and I think you have to just use the independent line now you can't use the Republican Democrat views about the economy anymore they're useless yeah you can't even

call them really a contrarian indicator because it's not even contrarian it's it's it's not an indicator it's who do you vote for yes right that's it now but i do believe that there is some signal in in this survey so kevin gordon tweeted as of december the net percentage of small businesses expecting the economy to improve jump to its highest since 2002 the two month change has only been seen one other time. So a massive, massive increase in optimism from small business. Yeah, but look at the last time it happened.

When was that? 2016, on the election. This is also a political chart. It's the same thing. Republicans own small businesses, I think, is what it's saying. Okay. Well, can't this be like influential? If people are optimistic, they're going to invest.

you would hope yeah i mean that's not a stretch that's a pretty direct path from a to b i'm optimistic about the future of my business therefore i'm going to invest in my business i think we've gotten into a world where you just have to throw out what most people say and just watch what they do because it's not like companies haven't been investing for the last two years i know but this is a small business this is this is main street i just again i i'd like to see if the investment follows uh we'll see if it if it follows i don't i don't know that it That it does. Well, maybe I'll be wrong.

I think you have to watch what people do know what they say. All right. There was a great tweet that is a real faceblower, Ben. So, A-24, the independent movie company. Okay. Was able to make 16 movies in 2024 with the same budget as Red One. Now, I haven't seen Red One. Is that the Amazon movie?

That's the Rock one. Don't waste your time. But did Amazon make this movie? They either made it or bought it. Yeah, somehow it's an Amazon movie. So $50 million for Dwayne Johnson, another 15 for Captain America. What's the name? Dr.

Chris Evans. Chris Evans. 185 million on the rest of the movie. So 824 did Civil War, queer, love lies bleeding. That was a great movie. Baby Girl. Can't read that. Y2K, Maxine.

I saw the TV Glow, Heretic, The Brutalist, Sing, and a bunch of others. So people always say independent movies are dead now. They still exist within 824. They're not dead. Who says that? They're not dead at all. They're very much alive.

You haven't heard people be moaning that for years that like independent movies are gone? No. 824 and Neon are on fire. That's what I'm saying. We don't have any of them maybe, but. I don't think I've seen any of these movies. I love lies bleeding.

I've seen a lot of these. We're just ending to a movie of the year, maybe. Love Lies Bleeding? Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, okay. I wouldn't see Heretic just because I like Hugh Grant. I like, I mean, yeah, I like the movie. Good question from a listener.

Ben's comments about getting used to consumption in the hedonic treadmill are spot on. We took our three kids to Germany last year. Kudos to you. We planned to return just my wife and I in 2025, but the kids had such a good time. They're all wanting to go back with us. I'm not sure I'll be able to disappoint them. I'm worried this is just the beginning of spoiling them. Any thoughts on how you guys keep your kids' expectations low enough?

also give them great experiences. I look at this as the difference between kids being spoiled and entitled. I think everyone spoils their children in some ways. I think spoiling your kids is actually okay. Not all the time, sometimes spoiling your kids is okay. You don't want to raise entitled kids who just assume that they get this. I had some friends like this over the years that came from pretty wealthy families who were a little entitled. And I had other friends who came from wealthy families who were pretty level-headed and were probably spoiled but didn't act like they deserved it. That's the difference. I think you don't want kids who feel like they should deserve this type of lifestyle. How's that? Yeah. So how you keep your kids' expectations

low enough? Hmm. That's a tough balance to strike. I think the big part is you have to try to keep them grateful for what they have. Right. So we constantly try to remind our kids of people who are in worse positions than them and people that we should be helping and I show my kids some of like the charities that we give to and like this is and the last like you know

they're starting to understand money and so I think that's the kind of thing is like getting them grateful for what they do have. Yeah. I mean I think the answer is pretty straightforward. I don't know if it's like easy but you just I talk about it to Ben's point. Right? Yeah. You have to be yeah. We're lucky that we're able to do this. A lot of people can't

you do the best you can. You try and, I don't know, I don't know, yeah. So a couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Empire State Building when I came to New York. And Dennis, a listener of the show, reached out and said, hey, I got the hookup. Let me know if you want to go. And you and I didn't drop the ball, but our research channel, Sean did, and didn't get back to Dennis in time. And so I emailed him, I think the day of, and said, hey, I still want to go to the Empire State Building. And he made it happen, like, last minute for us.

You couldn't go. You had to go back on Long Island because you had family. obligation to attend to. Credit to you. So I grabbed Bill Sweet, and we got the VIP tour of the Empire State Building, skipped the lines. And one of the cooler things that I've ever seen, when we walked out on the observation deck, Bill and I both kind of like, it was kind of breathtaking. Like, I couldn't believe the view. And it was totally worth it. One of the best tourist experiences I've had in New York City. Just an amazing, amazing experience to have. I'm surprised your hat didn't blow off.

It was very windy up there. That's a skull cap. It stayed on pretty tight. So, anyway, thanks to Dennis for being the hookup there. It was an awesome, awesome experience. It was really fun and highly recommended. Okay. Yeah, that looks great.

I've never done that before. Probably should. You should do it for sure. All right. Okay. One of the best emails we've ever gotten. Yep. Michael and Ben.

My fiance and I absolutely adore you both. He has been a listener since 2018. And I have been since I met him in 2020. and we started doing podwalks around the esplanade. Esplanade? What's an esplanade? Kind of like a big community space. In Boston.

Love Boston. It might sound corny, but it's part of the nerdy reason we found love bonding over your pod in our discourse on media and financial markets. We're now getting married later this year. Annal spirits brings the people together. I made the joke that we should be invited to the reception where we give a live podcast during the reception. I'm sure their guests would love that.

Recommendations? Ben, what are you watching? Recommendations. I watched the Den of Thieves after it was on the Watchbook because I've never seen that before. Awesome movie. 2018. Really good heist movie. It's on HBO Max right now. My only nitpick if we're doing, I'm going to be a nitpick guy.

You can't nitpick that movie. I mean, it's a ridiculous movie. Gerard Butler characters. It's like nitpicking Jurassic Park. No, I don't nitpick the heist. Like, I love the over-the-top heists. And I think that part of it, but Gerard Butler's cop character was so over the top. Like, he goes to his ex-wife's dates and stuff, and he's so over the top that you don't even root for the cops.

You root for the bad guys in this movie. Okay. I don't remember the plot that well, but I do remember having a heck of a good time. A rip-worn good time. Okay. So I've been catching up on the agency lately, and I've been watching a lot of spy shows in the past year or so. And I have a game show idea from all my spy shows. I don't know if you're cut up on the agency at all.

I'm a few episodes behind. Does it, does it tell off? There's two, there's like two episodes in the middle that kind of, but then you get back to six and seven, and it starts getting really good again. So there's a couple of filler episodes, but then it takes off again. But this show, there's a lot of tailing. Like, right, I'm tailing this person to see who they're going or they're tailing me, and people are trying to lose a tail. That could be a game show. How so?

You know, someone tries to tail you through New York City or Chicago or L.A. And you have to try to lose the tail. Like, hop into this building, right? There's a stretch. There's a stretch, Ben. You tell me, that wouldn't be fun to do. Like, you've seen how people go into those safe rooms or whatever or the mystery rooms for something to do. Like, if you were on a bachelor party and they said, what are we doing today?

Laser tag, paintball? No, we're all going to get tailed through the city and you're trying to lose the tail. That'd be fun. Come on. Well, what if you speed away? Yeah, what if you speed away and you hit somebody? I don't think you've thought this there. I'm going to nitpick that entire.

No, you're not driving. A tail like, they're tailing you walking through somewhere. Not in your car. That sounds like a bit worse. All right, what else? Okay. Landman. I love the part where Billy Bob gives his soliloquy about oil prices.

And he says, the perfect price of oil. You remember this line? Mm-hmm. So he says, you want, for this is for the oil producers, you want oil to be in $60 to $90 range, right? He says, anything over that, gas prices are too high, and it starts bleeding into the economy that's not good. And he said, the perfect price of oil is $78 a barrel.

Do you know what oil is today? $78. As I'm looking at it on my white chart screen, $78 a barrel. Today is the perfect price of oil, according to Billy Bob from Landman. Can't get any better than this. Are you all the way caught up? No, I'm probably on episode 5 or so. Okay.

No offense. You're moving very slowly through that show. I am. We've been busy lately with sports and such. Yeah. It's a good show. The stuff with the wife sometimes a little cringe. Yeah.

But again, I'm, this is like nitpicking the economy. See, I'm the nitpick guy now. Yeah. Okay. A few things. A listener email two movies. I watched the first one and I politely said, it wasn't for me. I just didn't really get it. The movie was called Red Rooms. And then he said, all right, try the next one. That might be more your speed. And the next one was Woman of the Hour. Anna Kendrick starred and directed it. And it was okay. And I was like, and he emailed me a again. It's like, what did you think? I gave you that one.

Woman of the Hour? Yeah, that's the game show one with a serial killer. Yeah, it was fine. It was like a B-minus C-plus. Yeah, it was okay. Better idea than a movie. Yeah, it was fine. It was whatever.

And then he's like, all right, last one, if you don't like this, I promise double, triple table pounder. The movie was kneecap, which somebody else had recommended that movie as well. So Neckap is on Netflix. It stars, well, stars. He's a supporting actor, Michael Fastbender.

And it's about, and this is... Oh, Fastbender is this who I love him, man. So, listen, I'm sorry. This was news to me. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this. But, hey, I learned something new. Why am I embarrassed? Irish is a language.

You mean like they have their own language there? So I'm like, Google, I'm like, what the hell? So the premise of the movie is like, the English want them speaking English and they're trying to keep the heritage live so I Google I'm like Irish language so apparently it's it's Gaelic you've heard of that I've heard of that before

right right but I didn't realize that that was Irish and it's like a real language because I was like in the beginning of the movie I was like is this like a made up language like what are they what are they speaking here? Oh like how many people actually still speak that? Yeah so anyway the movie was fine I didn't I didn't not like it

I would have recommended it was it was okay it was fine. And then I was thinking like, shit, am I an asshole? Like, am I incapable of taking recommendations, which would be, that would be pot called in the kettle black? Or maybe that's, it would be in complete hypocrisy considering that I give recommendations every week. Can I give and not take? And then I, thank God, that's not the case. Because I was thinking, I was like, hey, wait a minute, I've taken a million recommendations that I love. So I was going through the list of my head of recommendations that I like, but I got worried for a second that I'm in capable of taking a recommendation. It's not true. I genuinely happen to think that these three

movies were just not for me. It's all subjective. Movies are very subjective. You can't get mad at someone for not liking a movie. Just like you can't get mad at someone for not liking a meal. Yeah. So I sent this guy, I think, a very, very polite response. Listen, and I said, I'm not mad at you. Shoot or shoot. Like, I give plenty of rights and it's okay. I didn't agree on the movie. No big deal. Knee cap's on my list, too. I'll watch it. I might like it more than you did it. You might like it. I didn't dislike it. It's just, you know, whatever. It's fine. Okay, here's what I did like. Oh, just one more thing on Linus, which is a well I keep going back to.

This always irks me. I might have said this before on this podcast. There's a scene where she just walks into the water with her sneakers on for no reason. She could have just avoided the water. Is there anything worse than stepping in a puddle of water and getting your socks Sweat. Oh, socks sweat. In your house, too, right?

Wet? In your house? Well, the kids bring in snow from outside and then you're your socks and you step in water. Yeah. There's few things are worse than a wet sock. And nobody would ever step in water fully engulfed their shoe in water outside of a movie. It just never happens in real life. Yeah, that's a good point.

But it's something you see on TV and movies all the time. All right. So Jerry Springer, I assume you were a Jerry Springer guy. Definitely. In high school, we used to go in one of the classrooms. Was it in Chicago? Huh? Was it Chicago? Yeah, yeah. It was Chicago. I just watched it. We would sneak into a classroom and eat her lunches and watch Jerry Springer at lunchtime. So for the younger listeners, the Jerry Springer show was a circus. It was basically they would bring in these people and one of them was cheating on the other with the horse or just like wild shit, right? Like really over the top type stuff. and I had there was I felt very vindicated because there was like a big argument back in day like it's got to be staged right like these can't be real it has to be fake people they were real people they were real people so there's a documentary on Netflix it's only two episodes so they made a great point that they basically said it was like the coliseum and remember a year or two ago I was like why do I like harm movies and then somebody recommended um the hardcore history podcast about the history of coliseum and And if that existed today, like, would people still watch it?

Yeah, they probably would. It's just like a primal instinct. The Jerry Springer show was the Coliseum. It was like watching a train wreck. And so the whole thing about the doc is that, yes, these were real people, but obviously they were fully exploited. And the producers basically treated them like caged animals, got them all riled up, had them prepare and prep and practice for how it was going to go down, and then they would

raise the gates and the animals would vote down and hit each other. So it was real people, but they were fully coerced into the powder keg. The funny thing is that when the show first started, it was relatively serious. It didn't really go off the rails until later in the show. Not serious, but it wasn't quite so crazy at the beginning. So, but it was truly like a cultural a part of the culture. Steve, the guy who was his bodyguard, got his own show. Steve Wilkes, yeah, he had a spin-off. Yeah.

So, it's only two episodes. Man, it was dark. Pretty dark. Jerry. Yeah. And then the message at the end of the show that he would end it with, take care of yourself and each other. It was a bunch of animals fighting and flinging poo at each other for 30 minutes

and ended in the show. He would sit down seriously and talking to the camera and it would take care of yourself and each other. Yeah. He used to be like the mayor of Cincinnati. or something. It was so sick. Yeah. All right.

We'll take a look. Anyway. All right, Ben. We're backing the swing of things? You backing your routine? Yes, I am. Yeah, I was thrown off. I went from Christmas break right into New York last week, and now I'm back,

cool, calm, collected. Okay. Shaving the beard? It's a new year, to new me. Okay. Animal spirits pod. No. Nope.

Dang it. Animal Spears at the CompoundNews.com. I thought I had that fixed. We appreciate all the emails, all the feedback. Give us a review if you want. That'd be great. Oh, yeah. Subscribe to The Compound.

See you next time.