Animal Spirits Podcast - Life and Death (EP.400)

Episode Date: February 19, 2025

On episode 400 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: Jon Carlson's story, dealing with grief, why financial planning matters, Jon's life advice, the power of kindness and the mundane, gambler's fallacy on Meta, the mental freedom of index funds, YouTube's reach, Mr. Belding's age, how to save money at Disney and much more. This episode is sponsored by YCharts and Kraneshares. 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 Sign up for Kraneshare's latest webinar at: kraneshares.com/webinars Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: thecompoundnews.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

Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by our friends at Whitecharts. This is our 400th episode, not including all the talkier books that we've done. This is the 400th episode. Ben, you and I started the podcast. It was November 2017. And I did a podcast with Josh and Barry. Patrick O'Shaughnessy hosted us in our office. And afterward, Patrick said, why don't you and Ben have a podcast? and I think we had like maybe spoken about it but I was pretty self-conscious at the time about launching a podcast like

I wasn't comfortable talking to a microphone I had never done it before and it felt like we were late to the game which is hilarious it felt like there was a million podcasts in the world didn't need another and then a week before we officially launched the New Yorker had a cartoon saying I'm thinking of stopping a podcast

and I was like oh no we're such bozos like who wants to listen to us and we're taking a little bit of a trip back down memory lane because it's 400, it's a big round number. And our sponsor for today, Y charts, has been with us, maybe not since the beginning, beginning, but they were definitely our, the first company, first partner to stand up and say, we want to be a part of what you guys are building. So it's been an incredible partnership for us. So we just want to thank the entire team at Y charts. And as we've said over and over again, we really are power users. I have it on

all the time. Open on my screen all the time for, for everything. thing. Every day. I would love to see the numbers of how many charts I've created over the years and searching for stuff. And it's really helpful for us, not only in the podcast, but with all the research we're doing on the wealth management side of things and sharing stuff on social media. And yes, it's just like it's totally part of our whole process now, every single day. So if you have not taken the plunge yet and you've been thinking about it and you're new to Y charts, give me a call. Tell them that of the Spirit sent you. You'll get a 20. percent off your initial subscription.

Today's show is brought to you by crane shares, known for their flagship Chinese technology ETF, Kweb. Ben, I don't know if you know this, but Chinese stocks have been on a bit of a tear. Over the past one year, Kweb is up 45 percent, total return. The S&P is up 23 percent over the same time. Year to date, these things are on fire. Kweb's up 22 percent. The S&P is up four.

Zooming further out, obviously, it's a different picture. Chinese stocks have been in the dojums for a while, but they're on a tear, and I don't see too many people talking about them. I heard a good case to be made that after the deep seek stuff came out saying, well, maybe you need to own Chinese stocks as a kind of an AI hedge to spread your net a little wider here, catch your net a little wider in case who knows where the winner ends up being from. Maybe that's part of this, right? Matter of fact, the, yes, so that was definitely the catalyst, the spark that

the fuse. Crane shares is hosted a webinar on Thursday, February 20th at 11 a.m. Eastern on the impact of Deep Seek on Caleb and the whole Chinese internet space. You can find the registration at crane shares.com slash webinars. Disclosures and performance related to these funds are available at cranechairs.com. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not 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. Michael, not to start off a little sapy here, but I'm a big believer in things happening for a reason in life. And I think over, so over the years, you've been probably more like open book than me in some ways. Like, you've really let it out.

I'm from New York. You're from the Midwest. I'm the Midwest. We bottle things up. But I do think that your sharing of your mother's story over the years has been helpful to, like, so many people. We've gotten many, many emails. from people over the years saying, Michael, your story helped me process or think through my sense of loss and grief. And your whole dealing with that, I think, has been so big for me

this past year, dealing with my brother who a year or so ago contracted pancreatic cancer was diagnosed, and it was the prognosis not being good. And just your open and honesty about it has like, you know, I think there's a reason that you came into my life. How's that? Oh. Is that fair? Anyway. This is about you, not me, but I am curious. What, was there anything particular that I said over the years or recently that made you feel a certain way? Well, I've just, it's, I've never gone through something like this. And it's one of those things where you don't really know. It's the kind of thing, you know what happens to a lot of people. I keep saying it's like a very personal emotion.

But I think just your willingness to talk about it and talk about like what it did to you and what it, the lasting impact and talking about how like, you know, Robert, you said Robin had an experience where her father passed away at a young age and hearing all that stuff and just hearing the different stages you went through and the feelings and how it changed your perspective on life, all of that stuff. I think it's been helpful for me kind of trying to process this with my brother. So, yeah, so I just think the, it's one of those things where you don't really know what to do or what to say. Like as someone from the outside looking in, I've never been one to have, like, the words to say

to someone who's going through something like that. But now going through it myself, it's kind of funny. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter. It's just like being there for people and telling them, like, I'm here. So, yeah, so my brother passed away last week.

So it's been about a week. So I've been kind of a haze. And I wrote a long blog post about it. Actually, when he got diagnosed, I started writing it. So I'm writing this for probably almost a year. But, like, when he actually passed away, then I probably for three straight days, I worked on this. I really wanted to be, like, perfect as, like, a tribute to him.

And I have a lot of stuff I want to talk about. but the biggest takeaway for me is that I think it's very easy to be cynical these days about the world and like that there's just bad stuff and bad people and bad headlines and my biggest takeaway is like just the amount of like I don't know what I expected I wanted to put it out there for me selfishly because it was like cathartic to write about him and I wanted to tell his story because he's a pretty private person about his illness and I'll kind of get into his story a little bit too which I wrote about but so I wanted it to be out there as a tribute to him and I wanted to just share his story, but the outpouring of support and notes and people showing their story with

me and just not only friends and family and coworkers, you know, reaching out and offering support, but just like total strangers that listen to the podcast, read my blog, whatever, has been, like, totally overwhelming and just kind of amazing and, like, actually, like, really helpful to me and my family. So that side of things has been, like, oh, wow. I, you know, that's not even something I consider just like all these people, like just total support and kindness from people. So that part has been really cool. Yeah, we got so many emails from listeners and I'm sure Ben read all of them and I didn't. Two lines that stood out to me. Somebody wrote grief as a heavy blanket of love, which is spot on. Somebody else wrote,

It reminded me of a line in the original Blade Runner talking about your brother. The candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long. Yeah, that would stand out to me too. It is, it's such, I told you this the other day, it's such a bizarre emotion because you know millions and millions of other people have felt it in some way or another, but it still feels like this, it's like the most personal emotion because of the person and the circumstances. And so it's like all the, all this stuff that, you know, you would imagine to feel

the sadness and anger and kind of being numb. But I've been going through that process for like a year now. So John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a year ago, but he actually had cancer before when he was in seventh grade. That's the really hard part about this for my family, I think, is he went through it. It was a really terrible period in our lives. He got kind of a rare form of leukemia when he was young. Actually, it was like, we were on a Disney trip.

I wrote about this, and the whole trip he was like tired. and I was, I don't know, I was 10 years old, nine years old. And I still remember this picture of him, like, laying on a bench at Disney, taking a nap. And my mom obviously knew something was wrong. She's a nurse. Took him to the doctor. He was diagnosed. He needed a bone marrow transplant to survive, and I was the donor.

I still have, like, the bumps on my hip that you could feel from, like, the huge needles they inject. And he survived cancer-wind remission, and it was like, whoa, we dodged a bullet, right? But, like, that experience shaped him for the rest of his life in, like, positive and in somewhat negative ways. I almost equate him to be in, like, a, I don't know, if it's a 60-40 portfolio or, like, a cynical might not be the right. Like, cynical optimist, right? He had, like, both of these two competing things in his head of, like, I went through this once, but I just think that I'm unlucky with this stuff. And he always, like, halfway joke that he's going to die before age 50. and I was saying the other day

that asshole just always had to be right about these things, you know? Just like annoyingly right. So he had some other like illnesses and surgeries in his life and he always kind of in the back of his head felt like this just something about my body is not right and so he got sick again

you know it was almost like he was defeated but he also like he like felt in his like his bones that it was coming or something. It was very, it was kind of a bizarre situation in that. aspect of like he's been like preparing for this this whole life so that part of it is is just like the hardest part for me watching him like having this in the back of his head and then like that

realization coming true that was tough but like then we went on this roller coaster where the prognosis looked pretty good if we just have some chemo things might be okay and then the prognosis is is really bad at stage four there's probably nothing you can do the The health care side of things is interesting to me because his initial diagnosis was basically like, well, this is the kind of thing where there's nothing you can do. We're going to give you chemo. And then you're probably going to, that'll help manage your pain until you pass away. And he kind of said, I've done chemo before. And he went through a month of chemo and lost a bunch of weight and lost all his hair and just was tired all the time and said, this is not how I'm going out.

So he ended up calling these specialists all over the country and is like, I need to try something. and he got, because his pancreatic cancer had some rare form of mutation or whatever, I'm not a medical person, so I don't know, a doctor at a hospital who specializes in this new medication said, I'm willing to let you try my experimental medication, and he tried it, got off chemo, and it, like, it worked. It, like, stopped the cancer from spreading. He gained all the weight back. He grew his hair out again, and he looked like normal. You wouldn't know from the outside that he was sick. So he got this extra, like, six months or so to kind of start riding his bike again and traveling and doing all this stuff.

But he also got all of his affairs in order, right? He stopped working on his job, obviously, and he could help prepare his family because he has a wife and three kids that he's leaving behind. So he got to take all these months to have this second window that we didn't think he was going to have at first. So that part has been kind of a crazy roller coaster too, just dealing with, we're going to do this, we're not going to do this. And what happened was

he, they told him it was inoperable at first. Like, there's nothing to do about this. The cancer is going to spread and you can't stop it. But with this new drug, it kind of stopped the spread. He found a surgeon in New York who said, I'm going to, I can do this. Let's operate. Because my brother said, I'm not just going to sit and wait until I die. I want to, like, go out swinging. If it's a 0.5% chance that something could extend my life a few years, I'm going to take it. So he went to New York. He had got a surgery. And I had one of those kind of like movie moments where we thought the surgery, we thought maybe like worst case scenario, they do the surgery, it doesn't work, the cancer continues to spread, and then unfortunately he passes away. It happened to be that he had complications during surgery, and that's how he ended up passing.

So he was in New York, had the surgery. I think it surprised a little while of us, the surgeons especially. but it was one of these weird out-of-body experiences where my mother calls me and says your brother is dying and he's in the ICU

and he's got I don't know he's going to die very soon I need you to say goodbye to him so we put it on speakerphone and you know he's got the breathing tube in and all the things on

and it's like you hear in the movies I say goodbye to to him and you hear all the machines start to go you know and like he could hear me which was so okay so that's the sad stuff I wanted to get it out because I wanted to tell the story but there's also been you know the best advice I've gotten so far from this is just calling friends having friends and family send stories and send pictures and

talk about him from the positive side of thing and that's like the part of grief that is like it's unfortunate that's what has to happen to get you there but that part of it is like oh you realize how many people his life touched

and I hear from all these people all the time so like again the all the outpouring of like support and condolences and messages from people people sharing their stories, that part of it. That part has been helpful. All right. Sorry, just have to get a tissue.

So, could we share the letter that he wrote to his kids? Yes. So, yeah, so a few of the things he did. You said this to me as I was sitting down for, God, that movie sucked. I took my kids to see Dog Man. Oh, my kids would just see it yesterday, too. Was it bad?

It was not, well, they loved it. It was not for us. For adults, it was hard. So you sent this to me, and I'm, I sat down and I'm, I started crying. Logan's like, Daddy, why are you crying? I said, dad, watch a movie. So. Yeah, so he left behind a bunch of things for his kids out.

He had time. So he, he did a video for his kids, obviously. You know, he left all these instructions and planning for his wife. But then he left this, this email that had, I don't know, 10 or 12 pieces of life advice for his kids. Very simple, like one-liners. Perfect. All right. You want to read it? You want me to. You go ahead. Figure out what you do like.

Well, I'm going to read the wall because they're all great. Love each other. Handle your business. Figure it out or fix it. I love that one. I hate people that are just like problem oriented, right? Right. Bring me a solution. Victims, yes. Never leave anyone behind. You are each other's best friends. Life isn't fair. always pay off your credit card bill never all caps ever carry a balance see that was my favorite you're going to make mistakes learn from them and do better the next time take care of the cabin

it was a special place to me always got a real christmas tree was that a big thing in your family yes it was that's why it was such a hard thing for me to realize that i had to get a fake one uh but yes he's very principled guy life is a is way better than a squirrel and go live it. Be happy with what you have. You don't need as much as you think. Be kind. The world needs more kindness.

And I can't read the last one. All right. The last one is I love you all, basically. Yeah. Credit card one is obviously, I told his kids, like, just don't forget the credit card one. Okay? So, I think the kids are young. And it's obviously so tragic and heartbreaking and all that stuff.

Yeah, so his twins are eight and his oldest daughter is 10. So they're basically the same age as my kids. It's kind of bizarre how close they are in age and the fact that we both had twins. And they are resilient to sell. And that's the best piece of advice you gave me is you said, hey, listen, Robin lost her dad young. I don't know how old was she. She was eight. Yeah.

So same age. And you said, like, the best thing I can tell you is that they're going to be all right. It's not going to feel like it, but they're going to be all right. like it's going to be a hole in their lives or whatever but kids are so resilient and we all realize like we have to pick ourselves up like we have to for these kids sake we can't just sit here and like wallow and so the kids immediately they wanted to go bowling and they wanted to go to David Busters and play video games they wanted to go sledding and do stuff

and so seeing how resilient they are to this whole thing is and it's going to come down later for them but that that's obviously my biggest concern You know, it stinks for me because he was, he was, like, my confidant about things. He was my advisor. It really sucks for me to lose my big brother, but his wife and kids are obviously, that's, that's like the, like, their life is, is forever, you know, separated. And obviously, my parents, too. It also puts into perspective, like, so many little things, like, going through this, you get annoyed at other people for, like, complaining about their trivial problems. But you realize, like, you can't do that.

You can't, you can't, like, compare your level of, of pain or whatever. Like, how are other people supposed to know? It also, like, makes you realize that the money stuff. Just on that, on that point. So, I was 25 when my mom died. And one of the things at the time that was unfair that you just mentioned was, the hardest part was, like, everybody's life goes back to normal. Yes.

Right? And, and again, like, my friends are 25, it's like, you know, we were kids-ish. But I was still in so much pain And everybody else was like living their own normal life And obviously like I you know With the benefit of like time and maturity I learned to like you know like over those things But at the time but really

That part of it was really difficult Just the world moves on But there's a phrase like life is for the living And it's true And one of the things that I've said to you Is that the unbearable pains subsides Because it has to right Like if it didn't

Your body would Your brain would just shut down your body Like the pain And so it does get better over time. Yeah, I made the comment to my dad the second day or something. And I said, but it's weird to think about it this way, but it can't get any worse than this. Like the feeling can't get any worse. It can only get better from here, which, yeah, it is a, you're right.

If you had that same initial feeling the whole time, you wouldn't be able to function as a human being. And humans are resilient. One of the silver linings about losing my mother who is, you know, a huge, she was the center of my universe. Like I was definitely a mama's boy and losing her, it's such a great reminder to like live aggressively. Now, sometimes I would probably take it too far, but life is a blessing and you really don't, you can't possibly have that perspective without having had this sense of loss. Like a lot of people. So to me, would I reverse it in a second? Of course I would.

But it ended up being a huge blessing for me because it really shaped the way that I think about life. And without that perspective, a lot of people just go through life like, you know, sweating the small stuff. And I just, I don't let anything bother me. And I don't know if some of that is my personality, but a lot of that is just because, like, what else matters? You know, like, I just don't let the small shit bother me. Yes. That's certainly a point that, like, the last week, I've just kind of paid attention to nothing and just, just to this. And it's like the other little stuff that I always think about and look at all the

time or concerned about, you realize like, oh, God, it just, it doesn't, it really doesn't matter. And the funny thing is, that's, we're all going to die. Like, yeah. The funny thing is that was, fine, just enjoy yourself if you can. And that was, that was part of John's perspective, too. Again, after having his earlier diagnosis, his earlier bout with cancer, that he was like that, too, he was a very adventurous guy. And the thing that his kids keep saying is like, life is going to be so boring without him. He was a very adventurer. interest guy, hiking and biking and kayaking and outdoors. And you know those people, like, if you're sitting there and you're nothing to do and you play on your phone, even if you're

with people, John was the guy, John was never the guy who was like playing on his phone. It was always over here. He was that guy who, like, he was in the present. I think the other perspective thing here is that you realize that, like, the money stuff doesn't matter in times like this, but it also really does. And having this extra time to, you know, figure stuff out when he knew the prognosis was bad, like gave him time to go through and get everything really in order, right? And I, I, and we're still going to have a heavy lift. And that's the thing I did. I said Midwesterners bottle thing up. Immediately I jumped into, we need to figure your finances out. Let's start having conversations about this. And he speaks that same language. Great. So we

sort of working on it immediately. All the accounts and credit cards and bank, you know, payments and all this stuff we have to figure it out and make steps and as we're going through his stuff I realized like he was like way better covered for this than I ever could have imagined he had all this cash like a huge percentage of his money was sitting in cash and I said why why are you holding so much cash you're in your mid 40s and he said like I needed a backstop for my whole life like his experience with illness in the past changed his perception of risk for like the rest of his life and he had way more money set aside than I probably thought.

He had this big life insurance policy, and he talked about the fact that he was one of the really smartest, like, street smart people that I knew. And he had a very good business mind, and he probably could have done, like, anything you wanted. But he got a job with the CDC and the federal government. He said one of the reasons he did that, I think he actually thought he could be one of the people

that, like, changed the government from the inside, which is kind of funny, which shows you, like, the kind of personality he had. Like, if anyone can do it, I can. But he also liked the fact that, like, it had a pension and really good health care benefits. And it was, like, a backstop for him. So he had this, like, very adventurous streak, but also this very conservative side on the other thing. And as prepared as he is, it's still going to be a big heavy lift. But I don't know how, I can't imagine how difficult it would be for people who didn't have their financial life in order dealing with a situation like this.

That would make it ten times harder to deal with. if you weren't a little if you weren't prepared because he was he was overly prepared and his luckily his wife and kids are going to be just fine financially because he prepared and and we brought in our our our wm family really stepped up and and having an objective third party as a financial advisor to help at times like this has been really huge because it's you could hear from from someone who's in it and knows all the things to be like you're okay but if you have some from the outside come in and say listen, you're going to be okay, it's kind of crazy how helpful that objective third party can be that has dealt with this before. But that stuff is, it's funny. I've had a lot of heavy

conversations in the past year or so, but that was easy stuff for me. Like, okay, I know where I can help is the finance side of things, because that was the same language that he spoke. But it does show like the planning stuff side of it like that stuff is really important it's way down the list but it's it is though I don't know what else I wanted to talk about

at least he got to see Michigan when the national chance to come up here yes yes did he have a favorite movie he left behind a list of like songs and movies and it's funny he also left behind like his wishes for what he wanted to do for like a service and

how we wanted to go out And, yes, we've definitely been watching, like, we put Goonies on for the kids. That was one of his favorite movies, so we put that in. And, yeah, no, I just, again, the coolest thing for me is hearing from people I haven't heard from in years, friends and people I haven't talked to a long time, just to send a note. And you know me, I'm not a big, like, text person. Like, group chats are, like, poison to me. Like, I'm just not a big group chat guy. but every single text I got from someone

just to say, and people would say, listen, I don't know what to say, you don't need to respond, just wanted to say I'm thinking of you, where I love you. And just those things from people, as you look, someone who's not a big part of like the small talk and stuff,

that, it almost feels like the mundane stuff is the most helpful. Like, I've been taking my dog in a lot of walks. I've been, it's been snowing here for like a week. I've been shoveling snow. Doing the, like, simple mundane stuff actually is helpful. the kids decided

like we all want to do our sports this weekend so we're driving the kids around to their games the cousins and our kids and my dad and I are talking about college basketball on the way he kind of looks over at me and just some stupid stuff about college basketball he says you know isn't it nice to just talk about stuff that doesn't matter right now

and so I think that's one of the reasons that I wanted to like still get on this podcast and talk is that like I want I want to have some mundane talk so I know this has been very heavy I appreciate people for listening and again sending support but I also want to, like, can we just have some small talk? Can we, like, talk about the markets? Tell me about

your trip to Florida. I got some small talk. All right, so, Ben, I love you. I got a lot of people reaching out just asking how you were doing. And my response was basically, like, not, I guess I bet, like, as you probably would imagine he's doing, like, not great. Yeah. Yeah, as expected. It's been tough. I've been, it's one of those things, like, you think you've prepared yourself for it, knowing it's coming, and then you still know you're really not prepared. So, yeah, it is kind of a surreal experience, but, I don't know, we're happy. Like, we had no regrets. He went out, he wanted to go out swinging, and he did.

And so we all feel like that he, the whole burning the candle on both ends saying, he, he did that. He went out his own way. And, yeah, we just keep, our mantra now is like to live like John and just enjoy all over here. and so that's that's where we are if you didn't read ben's post um to learn a little bit more about the type of person john was he sounded like an incredible guy and uh your parents did your parents did good work with the three of you yeah the one yeah the one of the story i wanted to share that i'd share in the blog post which it didn't really hit me until years later so john gets diagnosed with cancer a year later he's in remission and the make-a-wish foundation you know comes to and

says what do you want he you know he almost died he was in a bad place uh And I don't know. I would have asked for a whole room full of Nintendo games or kids, you know, anything. And he asked for a trip to Hawaii for a whole family. So for two weeks, we went to Hawaii. All expenses paid trip. They rolled out the red carpet. They brought a limo.

And at the time, I didn't really think about it. Oh, cool. We get to go to Hawaii. Swim with dolphins and sea volcanoes. My kids are laughing because we're telling the story that we went on a helicopter ride there. And the helicopter pilot was like a maniac. And he's going up and down over these hills. and we get off the helicopter

and we get on the tarmac or whatever and I puked everywhere just blew it out all over the and we still laughed about that but I thought about years later like oh my gosh he was a kid that could have been so self he could have said I want to meet my favorite athlete

I want to meet this actor I want to do any of these things but I think he instinctively knew like our family needs to get away after having this experience we like need to go and I thought just him he was always like very wise beyond

his years in that sort of thing. So it didn't hit me the way to like, oh, my gosh, how did he know that we needed that? And I think we did. So anyway, I'm, yeah, I'm doing about as could be expected. I'm more worried about his wife and kids and my parents for everything they've gone through. But, yeah, again, thanks to everyone for all the support. And it means the world to me.

So that part is cool. I am going to be having a Miami Vice after I'm done recording this. in John's memory. So, Ben, I'm down here in Naples with my family, and you're much better at this than I am. But I was thinking about the people at the pool. I know you did this bit already, but you know, there's always a couple of people, one, two, whatever. It doesn't have to be a guy or a girl. It can be either that are just obliterated by the sun, right?

Just like, not even red, just pink. And you're like, dude, you're, what? And they just still have their shirt off somehow? Yes, with the tan lines. Yes, they're making the most of it. Let me ask you this. So we're at a nice hotel and we're sitting down on the lounge chairs. And the guy next to me, you can tell that he's been here a bunch of times, knows of staff.

They come over to him or somebody comes over to him, sets him up, says high, whatever, small talk. And the guy just seems like a really nice guy, just, you know, Midwest and nice and handed him a $100 bill. And I was talking with Robin later in the day. And I said, did you see the people next to us? I said, I want to be that guy. And she goes, why? He seemed like such a douche. And I was like, you saw he gave him $100?

She's like, yeah, what a douche. And I was like, huh, I had such a different reaction. And I understand her reaction, which I'll tell you about in a second. But from my point of view, I love, this topic of the show, I love tipping. and I love the idea of being able to give a service worker $100 because it means a lot. And so... That'll make their day. They'll remember that, right?

That's all I was coming from. Not like, oh, I just, I love to be able to make people happy. And I think that... What is she thinking he was being flashy? So what she thought, and she's right, was she's like, okay, I hear you on the making people's day part, like, obviously. But you do, if that was really the objective, you do that. after, right?

Like, you do that when you settle up. Okay. So her point was she did it at the beginning so that he can get better service. And I was like, yeah, yeah, it's true. But so what? So it's sort of like when you, when like you leave a,

when you make a donation online, like a GoFundMe thing. So like you could leave your name or you can do it anonymously. So I have like principles for this. If I am making, a donation so for like for like my temple or something right if they're doing like a fundraise or whatever i will make my donation for that anonymously now if you talk about if you're giving

donations anonymously doesn't even matter right so i'm not trying to get credit for that remember this is a curb episode right is it where he donated to a museum and it said donated by anonymous but ted dancing put his name on the wall yeah yeah so anyway so for so for something like that I'll do it and honestly, because I don't want, like, you know, credit for that or anything. Right. But if you're making a donation where you think that it can encourage other people to give money, then for that, I'm willing to, like, put my name on it. Because if somebody's like, oh, Michael gave this, I can give that too.

Yeah, social proof. Social proof. I like that. It makes sense. All right. No really other observations about the vacation. Just in light of what you're going to just trying to enjoy myself with my family. Is it packed?

Yeah, it's pretty busy. But it's, so it's not like necessarily a kids hotel. So there's stuff for the kids, but it's not, it's not like crazy. It's not like Bahamara where I'm jump shores is nuts this week. All right, let's just do some quick stuff in the market. We had an all-time high in the-up this morning. Did we move on from Egg Talk yet or not? Stay tuned.

Okay. I have something later in the show for that. Stock market is hitting an all-time high this morning. This is really weird. Meta is up like, I don't know if it's 19 days in a row, 20 days in a row. But Mike Harris tweeted that Facebook, Meta has gained 17 days in a row, which is an extreme event using Northgate data

with current and D listings for the S&P constituents, we find that the maximum has been 19 days. So I think this is a record, which is weird. Why? It's kind of weird, no. Would it be a gambler's fallacy thing if you're a day trader that you just short meta every day from now on on the hopes that it falls finally? Probably.

Isn't that like hitting black 19 times in row in roulette? Ben Robin Hood has a slide in their earnings call. that I really loved. It shows the average cumulative net deposits tend to grow over time across our funded customer cohorts.

And recent cohorts, initial deposits are larger. So it shows you 2020 through 2024 by quarter. I've never seen a chart laid out this way. It's really wonderful. But the TLDR, for those of you who are listening, is the initial deposits are getting larger every single year as their customer base. Oh, for their new account. Okay.

Makes more money and grows up. that makes sense okay that is a cool chart credit to them what are they managed these days do you know uh is it 100 yeah it was in the deck 100 I don't want to misquote them 180 billion

150 billion it's a lot that's a lot um all right so ben it finally happened vanguard uh vanguard's smp 500 etf VOO officially passed SPY about junice is all over this um so just talk about like

the bogal effect or the vanguard effect And this dovetails in nicely with something that our colleague Nick Majuli tweeted. So Nick said, I stopped buying active investments, individual stocks, et cetera, when I realized that they monopolize most of my attention. Despite being a small percentage of my portfolio, I watch them all the time. This is why I want passive, and you should too. You can't put a price in mental freedom. And Nick's absolutely right.

That's a good phrase. Mental freedom. I like that. I spend way too much time. I probably look at my phone to see what the market is doing, my stocks, Bitcoin, whatever. for, I don't know, 74 times a day. And that counts for something, a lot, actually. And not in a good way.

I feel like the regrets are larger with individual active investments, too. Like, I bought a handful of growth stocks in 2021 when things went to shit and crashed. And I think I bought Spotify and Shopify when they're both down like 40% or something. Of course, they both crashed way more than that. But when they turned around, I thought like, I'm going to consolidate some things here. And I'm going to get rid of one of these stocks. And I just, I'm like, of, of course, I got rid of the wrong one. I got rid of, I kept Shopify, which did okay.

It's done all right. But Spotify has been going crazy for the past two years, like right after I sold it. And you look back and you go, ugh. But that's the kind of stuff that you, if you sold one index fund and bought another index fund, you don't go, oh, no, what did I do? That only happens with individual positions like this. Right. So anyway, so then later on in Nick's Twitter feed, somebody quote tweeted Nick about that tweet and said, I truly wish stocks would go down for like five to ten years.

I'm so sick of everyone thinking stocks are free money because that is what we've become. This used to be a really hard game that required an omnicrum of skill once upon a time, but now an ape can just buy and hold till rich. And Nick, quote, tweeted him and said, there's a subset. of active investors out there that want to see stocks destroyed to teach passive investors a lesson. We will have such a decade eventually. He's right that stocks aren't free money, but hoping for this is not the way.

No one wins in a deeper session. And I get the person's mentality. It's a loser's mentality. I might call him this person loser, but, and then I get obviously, like, Nick's point. And maybe you should rethink that? Like, do you really want stocks going down for five to ten years? Like, are you really that bitter that you want everybody else, including like just regular people?

Because stocks go down for five to ten years because nasty shit is happening in the economy. And do you really want to happen? in the first decade of the century. Just to teach people a lesson. Like, come on, grow up. We had that already. And again, if you're a new investor, you didn't experience that. But the lost decade was a terrible period.

And we've had other lost decades, too. Emerging markets went through a lost decade where nothing happened. I think it was like 12 years or something. Also, Nick is not a stocks go up always guy. Like, he's a keep buying guy, which sounds the same, but it's not. I don't think Nick would ever say that stocks are free money or guarantee. Like, that's not his, that's not his thing. It's just that, you know, his thing is like accumulated income producing assets, buy great, you know, all that sort of stuff, whatever.

Yeah, and then the hard part is you keep buying even when stocks are down. Yeah. That's right. That's right. You take advantage of that. All right. Bucco Capital tweeted, software developer job postings over the last five years. Hard to find a crazier chart.

So remember, like, like, learned to code was the thing. So during the pandemic, this went straight. straight up and straight down. Is it a really bad thing if we're just back at 2020 levels or should this be way higher because there's some more tech companies now? I don't know.

I just think it's like a reflection of the AI. Yeah. I mean, it does look like a mean... Just how wild that is. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. Isn't that like the biggest... I know people keep talking about AI

being this job destroyer. Isn't it going to be programmers that have the most jobs destroyed potentially? I think so. I think that's what this is showing. Yeah, okay. So one of the things in crypto is, like, it has no use case. We need to rehash it.

Like, you know, everyone, that's a pretty tired story. But it is kind of wild in the context of how much money came into crypto. So I can't read who this chart is from. Appillion? Is that what it says? My eyes are bad. But there's a chart showing life-to-date, VCP investments in crypto startups is now $96 billion. dollars that's crazy almost a hundred billion dollars went into crypto companies and you know we've got

we've got coin base we've got circle and tether and you know a gig a ton of money in stable coins but uh it's surprising more of these haven't worked out i think that although but here's something like i guess it's complicated and like that there's like nothing to show for it is kind ridiculous. I mean, I think that on the one hand, like, what sort of returns were had by the $96 billion? I don't know. I guess we'll find out. But yeah, there's not, there's no like consumer app, which is, you know, one of the things that people are waiting for. But the nothing to show for part is kind of nuts because there's $100 billion in the ETFs. And yeah, like, I think that's something that pisses people off. It's just a number grow up story. But yeah, that's the story.

And it's a big one. I think it's just, yeah, what we have to show for it is not what people would have expected. Probably not what the investors would expect. Because it's like a barbable. You have the ETFs over here and you have like meme coins over here. Yeah. That's not the outcome people were expecting. Not what the investors were expecting, for sure.

Ben, I'm guessing you missed this over the weekend. But there's a story that like the president of Argentina is pumping and dumping a meme coin, Libra, and Portnoy got involved. Did you see any of this? No. It doesn't sound shocking to me. the president of Rantina and Dave Portnoy, yeah. Nope. Sounds about right.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. This is surprising. But there's just never going to be any repercussions, though, I guess. For people who pump and duck meme coins, that's just, yeah, it's fair game. I don't know. I mean, it seems like it, doesn't it?

I don't know. It's like reputational risk, but if you have no shame, what do you care? Oh, well. Oh, well. I guess so. Okay, so Variety had a post on YouTube, and here's the TLDR. YouTube is now, I'm sorry, the TV is now the number one device for YouTube viewing. The TV.

More people watch YouTube on their TV than on their phone and their computer, which is, I guess, where it started. Well, my kids view it as another app. So it's like Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu and YouTube. That's kind of they view it like a streaming service. Yeah. So according to Nielsen, YouTube has been the number one service and time spent viewing on the U.S. on the TVs for the past two years. 11% captured of TV usage.

Netflix is 8.5%. Prime is 4%. Hulu, 2 and a half at Disney 2. Did you start watching... Again, I feel weird asking you this, given all the shit you'd be dealing with. But did you start watching Paradise yet? No, that one is on my list.

I did get into some TV lately. I'll share it in Rex, but worth watching for me. Paradise is very good. It feels... Although, I feel like it... Maybe it's too premature to say that. I've seen four episodes. It feels like lost only in the sense that you really want to see what happens during the next episode.

It's very bingeable. It's not like lost in the sense that like it's completely open-ended. So they give you the spoiler in the first episode. And then there's a billion flashbacks to like fill in the missing pieces or the fill in the story. So I'm into it. All right. This is a face blower. There's a picture of Richard Belding.

And if that name means nothing to you, Richard Belding was the principal. and saved by the bell. So, somebody tweeted, if you were born before 1984, you're now older than Mr. Belding in the first seasons as saved by the bell. How does it make you feel, Ben? Middle-aged?

I saw it the other day when I walked into, I'm not ashamed to say I've been, I definitely have been drinking a decent amount lately. I had definitely had to, like, drink myself to sleep the first couple days. Well, I don't mind saying that. That was, you know, you would have done this with me,

but that was my advice. Yeah, you said, alcohol is the only answer. And God bless my wife, on me. Like, are you okay? I said, yes, I just need a couple days here. But I walked into the booze store and I bought a bunch of beer and it said, like, if you were born on this date before 2004 and I'm like doing the math in my head, I'm like, oh my God, oh, my father time. You've been 21 for a long time. Yeah. Somebody said to us, so we've been talking about how expensive Disney is. And somebody said, I'm traveling to the Disney world with my family

this week and wanted to prove that it can be done without breaking the bank. Also, FYI, the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for Disney. So it's stay away from that. Ben, did you say you're doing that? I think we want to go leading up to Thanksgiving. Okay. Okay. So, here's their, here's their budget. Coming from Oklahoma. Flight, 750. Hotel 550. Four nights, breakfast included at Homewood Suites. Disney tickets.

1450. One day Magic Kingdom, one day, Epcot. Two adults, two kids, one infant. Rental car, 250, food 500, souvenirs, 200, miscellaneous. is 200, total 3900. He said the big savings, because that does seem pretty light, the big savings fly to discount airline, staying in a non-Disney hotel, and no Animal Kingdom. I agree. Animal Kingdom is pretty much a waste. Okay.

So there you have it. So I'm stealing the take from someone else, but someone made the point, I don't know, on Twitter or somewhere, that it's kind of funny that the free breakfasts are usually at the lower-end hotels, not the upper, higher-end hotels. Like, you'd expect if you're paying a lot of money for hotels, you should get the free breakfast. But no, it's the opposite. Right?

Yes. All right, Ben. You mentioned something about eggs. I want to play you. So somebody suggested that we call our listeners filthy animals, and I think I'm going to stick with that. I like it. Not bad.

Okay, so a filthy animal sent us a song that they made on Chat, GBT. Now, the first, the opening of the song is pretty cheesy, but let's just get through the first lines. And then I think it's pretty good. All right, let me play this. Then who's singing it? And AI singing it? Yeah.

Well, Michael and Ben, they talk stocks every day, breaking down markets in their own kind of way. Michael's got charts. Ben's got the vibe. Together they keep the retail crowd alive. Now Michael, he's got a bone to pit with those four little rings on an outy stick. Says German made junk, it's a money pit. Ben just laughs. says that's your bit Ben says eggs are 20 bucks well that's just life

Michael stares back like he's seen a poltergeist man are you serious the price is insane Ben shrugs it off like it's pocket change oh market's up and the market's down Michael and Ben break it all down tech is fly and rates are high still rocket hawaiian shirts looking real fly They got close stocks, CTFs, bonds on deck. Ben says go passive, man, just don't stress. Michael's all in checking wicks and lines. Ben's like, come on man, let's have a good time.

They both agree on one thing for sure. Hawaiian shirts make a portfolio pure. Yeah, Buffett would wear him if he had the nerve. Got a dress for success and a tropical curve. Ben calls made a Facebook like it's still 09. Michael rolls his eyes, but let's it slide this time. All right, not that. So that's like a Blink 1282 version of anal spirits?

Not bad. What is it, eggs are 20 bucks, and Ben just shrugs it off? Ben says, extra 20 bucks. Well, that's just life. Michael stares back like he's seen a poltergeist. All right. Not bad. That was good.

All right, Ben, we got an email. As parents, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Is it tacky to give a link for 529 contributions in lieu of gifts for a child's birthday party? No, I've done this before. No, I'm kidding. I gave a link to my parents and said, hey, if you ever want to just give 529 instead of here's the link. And it's, in most places, make it very easy to do.

But so I think this person's point of like, yeah, with family, it's totally normal. It's a family thing, yes. For friends, it's a little, might be tacky. But I'd say, but I've had friends do it before without me asking. And I obviously appreciate it. But yes, for family, I think it's totally. above board. What do you think?

You think it's tacky? I don't know if it's tacky. It's a little odd. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't have strong thoughts. I'm not sure. All right.

I've got... This might upset some people. I'm just throwing a grenade for no particular reason. Bring it. Okay. When people have a literal whiteboard on their background on Zoom,

It's a little weird. What do you mean a whiteboard? Like an actual, like a physical whiteboard that they're like writing Sharpies on. Or not Sharpies, but magic markers where they're like, you know, it's like they're taking their notes, whatever. Right. There's easier places to take notes these days. I mean, yeah, like on your phone. Yes.

This is not 1993. Right? A little weird? I don't know. I've got books behind me. That's kind of a flex. So I feel like the whiteboard is kind of like books behind me. it's kind of like a flex like look at me i'm smart i write stuff down and i read yeah um all right ben

i can't figure this one out so i still have the line of my tv how many years are we going on here that's pretty impressive that you haven't given in yet five years has it been five years no it can't be maybe can be uh so i moved that so you just got used to it not really well yeah actually not I did get used to it. So the lines aren't growing. They're not like expanding or multiplying, but they're there. So anyway, there was a, oh, separate. Okay.

So the line of my TV is still there upstairs. Downstairs, I replaced my Samsung because that's what the line is. I replaced my Samsung with a Sony. My TV downstairs was frozen with a Samsung logo on it. And I thought I was hallucinating. Like, I even took a picture of it. Am I on fucking drugs? how is the Sony TV, why is there like the Samsung logo on the picture of my screen frozen?

And it was like floating on my TV. And I don't have any Samsung devices connected to that TV. Is Samsung who like punking me? Did you Google this? What would I even Google? Why is there a Samsung logo floating on my Sony TV? Yeah. It was very strange.

Lastly, I saw this on the internet this week. There was a fight at Madison Square Garden and it reminded me of something that I've been thinking of for a long time. Wait, were you there when this fight was going on? No, it's not. So you don't see fights, and it's probably the same reason. You don't see fights at a basketball game for this, you know, because at football games, people are like wasted, right? They're there tailgating, they're drinking for six hours, whatever.

So it's probably the same reason why you don't see, but you don't see, you never see people run into a basketball court. Oh, like people run on to a football field. Yeah. That's true. Or even a baseball field. You think it would be easier run on a basketball court. You never say it, ever.

I wonder if it wouldn't have the shock value as much because in a football field it's so big You can see someone Where are you going Also you know what These people are smart You don't want to get tackled on the hardwood That's true

It hurt a lot more Yeah probably if people think it's harder to get out too I mean they always get caught What are those people think is going to happen though Like they're happy spending a night in jail or whatever I don't think it's well thought out Wow true Okay Ben

What were you able to get into this week So my son is still fully into skyscrapers. So I made him watch Man on Wire with me. It's on Peacock, I think. Have you ever seen this documentary before? No. It's about the guy who sent a wire

between the World Trade Centers in the 1970s and then walked on them and balanced on them without any line on himself. It was a French guy. It's an amazing, amazing story how they did this. that the world trade centers were just being finished. And him and his friends had to come up with this cockamamie scheme to get to the top floor and pretend they were other people and they're hiding.

And then he like shot a bow and arrow with this wire across. And then the guy literally back and forth walked between the two Twin Towers with one of those, you know, big balancing sticks. And it's this French guy. And he would lay down on the line and the cops are waiting on both sides for him to get off. And he would walk all the way. And the cops were to grab him. And he'd walk backwards.

And he was smile at him. And they asked him afterwards, like, why did you do it? And he's like, I just wanted to do it. He didn't have any big, he wasn't like trying to, like, today, that guy would be a YouTube star, right? He'd have a YouTube channel, like me walking on my tightrope. But back then, he just, him and his friends thought it would be cool to do. And it's an amazing, amazing documentary. Huh.

Did you ever show George San Andreas, the movie with The Rock? Of course. He watched all the Rock's movies. There's actually a movie called Skyscraper, which we obviously watched a couple weeks ago. I watched most of the SNL 50. Did you watch any of it? Uh-uh. Okay. I mean, half of the sketches and bits were good. Half of them were just okay. It was kind of amazing to see that many famous people all in one room, though. I enjoyed it. I don't really watch SNL anymore. I just watch the clips on YouTube or social media, but for a long time there, for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years, I watched like every SNL.

What was peak SNL for you? Oh, it's obviously the Farley Sandler. It's what you grew up with, but that Farley, Sandler, David Spade, Tim Meadows, Chris Rock. Not Tim Meadows. I love the ladies, man. That was a great one. Yeah. So I was a little bit, I was, because you're a little bit older than me, my mind was like the Will Ferrell Sherryotery, Terry.

Yeah, right? Yeah. But, I mean, we used to watch the best of Will Ferrell and Chris Farley in college all the time, which shows how long ago they were on. And I watched the first episode of the New White Lotus, and I'm in. I think I said this before. They could do 10 seasons of this, and I'd watch every one of them. just the same beat of, we're going to a nice place,

the first episode, you know they're going to show a dead body, and then we're going to have to figure out how they did it. I'm sure it'll get old eventually, but I don't know, I don't know when. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Like, as long as they keep, the quality is so good. And I realized, so Robin sent me, like, something on Instagram with, like, saw a lot of, like, the hidden gems in the first episode. And not even hidden necessarily.

I'm a very non-observant watcher. Like, for example, I didn't even necessarily. necessarily pick up on the fact that, like, the last scene, not to spoil it, because it's, it's, it's, I won't spoil it, but the last scene with the brother and the bathroom, the other brother looking, did, did that even, did you pick up on that? Not really. No, I don't, I don't, yeah, I'm not looking for clues either. Okay. Okay. So I'm not alone. But I did think, and this is, we've got a lot of people, like North Carolina ties that work with us, Duncan is a, is a North Carolina guy. I thought the North Carolina family, like they walked up and they talked about how this kid went to Duke and this kid went to North Carolina. and I thought that was just perfect.

I thought they nailed that family. It's so good. All right. Q emails. By the way, they're making a Gooney sequel. Did you know about this? My kids will be in. All right.

I don't know if I will be. Longtime fan on Alaska. Wondering how you'd rate your ability to gauge the quality of a movie based on the trailer. Oh, okay. That's a good one. Michael talking about cordially invited

almost sounded like he expected it to be good. That steaming pile could be sniffed out five seconds into the trailer. I am mostly a bad movie guy and recommended the Ed Helms movie together together. Okay. So, I had no expectations of,

of cordially invited would be, no, was that? Yeah, I didn't think it was going to be good. But, so let me not answer your question first. I don't watch trailers anymore. If I, I mean, if I can avoid them, I do. I like to roll a dog movies. I've said this before. But I do like to think that I'm,

some trailers can't be avoided. For example, like if you go to a movie, you're seeing the trailers, right? So I guess that's where I, I guess I just told them myself, but there, but, so there were trailers that can't be avoided, but I see a lot of movies that I've never seen the trailer for, like Strange Darling, for example, that was a win. But, uh, Captain America Bravely World, I knew those could be trash. So, to answer your question, I think I'm pretty good.

I love watching trailers. I still remember, I, I think we've talked about this before. I said, The Hangover is the best trailer of all time where you watch it and you go, that is going to be an amazing movie and it lives up to it. You're right. So for an example, for example. Uh, there's a new movie coming out called, um, Friendship with Paul Rudd and is his name, Tim Robinson? I'm not really familiar with his work.

Yes. Okay. It's a Detroit guy. So based on that trailer, I know for a fact, minus 2000, that movie's going to rock ass. Okay. I thought it looked a little weird, actually. I, I'm a trailer guy, though. I love, I love watching new trailers.

Okay. So I think, I think I'm pretty good at determining. if they're good or bad at that. We'll end on this. You know what, Ben, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a, this is a set up. We're going to answer this next episode because I need to think about this. I would love to hear you guys debate the following. What are the top 10 shows of the golden age of television?

And let's define the golden age of television as a non-broadcast network show that ran from 2001 to 2025. Ooh, non-broadcast, that's interesting. Okay. I bring this up because some buddies and I were discussing the Americans. I never saw the Americans during its time that showed about a two-season runway or was this hottest succession. True.

But for some reason, it just fell off. the radar in greatest shows. That is true, too. Okay, you know what? We're going to circle back. We'll do that next week because it deserves some. So they want us to come up with the top 10 shows of the Golden Age of Television. Yeah, that's homework for next week. Okay. I mean, the top five is easy. All right. Well, save it. Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Six Feet Under's in there. Ooh, okay. Right? Yeah, so I probably have a few that you wouldn't anticipate, but that's a good question. The first five are easy, the next five are hard. Okay.

Okay. All right. It was good to chop it up. I feel good. I can't just sit around and not do anything. We did that for a couple days, and I realized, like, that's not going to be helpful. So I need to, like, get back in the mix and do stuff. So this is good.

Again, I appreciate all these support from everyone. It's been helpful. As I said earlier in the show, life is for the living. And obviously, you will live in John's honor and do everything you can to honor his memory and all that's good stuff. So everybody who emailed us, we appreciate it. Obviously, it means a lot to Ben.

So thank you for some of them. Yeah, if I didn't get back, because I tried to get back to as many people as I could. If I didn't, I apologize. But I really do appreciate it. And looking through all the comments the past couple of days, like, it really, like, it was really, like, uplifting to me and, like, and very helpful.

And just to have people read and understand John's story, me was was was very cool because he i think he deserved it well said ben um okay animal spirits at the compound news thank you everybody for riding with us for 400 episodes uh we love you guys we'll see you next time