Animal Spirits Podcast - Recession Not Required (EP.317)

Episode Date: July 19, 2023

On episode 317 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the stock market vs. the Fed's balance sheet, why expectations matter more than fundamentals in the short-run, the cruel irony of investing, how to hedge hyperinflation, why no one can claim victory on a soft landing, why the U.S. economy is so much bigger than the Eurozone, Dwight Schrute and the human condition, movies are back, and much more! Thanks to Argent Capital Management for sponsoring this episode. To learn more about the Argent Capital Mid Cap Strategy ETF, visit: https://argentcapital.com/our-strategies/institutional-mid-cap/ Pick up your Tropical Bros X Animal Spirits shirt here: https://tropicalbros.com/collections/animal-spirits/products/super-stretch-animal-spirits-hawaiian-shirt 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.   Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com   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. Wealthcast Media, 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 Argent Capital Management. Michael, as a coastal leader, we know that you never give flyover states a credit they deserve, right? Sir. Argent capital management has an asset class that gets the flyover treatment as well. And even though it's midcaps, okay? If you think about it, it kind of makes sense. Midcaps have more established business models and management teams. Overlooked?

Is that what they're trying to say? I think it makes sense. A little less risky than small caps, but they have more growth opportunity in large caps. I think this makes sense. My first boss in this industry was a big mid-cap proponent. He said the same thing. So if you're interested in adding mid-caps to your portfolio, the Argent Mid-E-M-CAPE-M-I-D might be right for you.

This is a strategy that seeks to align quantitative and fundamentals, and they said they think about it like checks and balances. Unlike most quantitative funds, though, it's low turnover and more concentrated. So they're looking for high-quality enduring businesses, growing cash flows, wise capital allocation, and durable competitive advantage. And to finish things off, Argent itself,

the business, is located in St. Louis, Missouri, another flyover state. So sorry to throw shade to you, but listen, this is the, this is what they wrote for us. Again, A-Mid, it's the Argent Mid-Cap ETF to learn more. Visit argentcapital.com. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben 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 Redholz wealth management. 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. One more quick announcement. Tropical Bros shirts are selling out fastly on there's only 50 left. I don't know what size is. I heard you saw some Tropical Bro shirts in the wild over the weekend. I did. Credit credit to the animal spirits community. It's strong. We had a A meetup in Holland, Michigan, which is 45 minutes an hour from where I live. It's actually where my wife is from. Her family still lives there, where I went to college. And my new favorite bar in the whole world, 424 Brewery from Dave, was a huge fan of the show.

He put together a meetup of people from Animal Spirits Discord. People came in from Toronto, California, Florida, Ohio, all over the place to meet. And there's a lot of tropical burl shirts there. And good drinks, good beer, good pizza. it was a really fun time to see some of our listeners in the wild. And these people at all had, like, created friendships with each other just outside of the show. It was great. Maybe I'll make it next year.

Yeah, it was fun. Great, great brewery, right on the way to the state park in Holland, Michigan, right on the way to Lake Michigan. Beautiful spot. Love the brewery. And, yeah, thanks today for hosting. I got one more, not an announcement, but just hear me out. This, I saw this from Suruli. who wrote this article?

I can't remember. Sorry, I can't remember. According to Surreli, the RIA channel represents nearly $3.7 trillion worth of potentially acquireable assets over the next decade. The vast majority, $2.7 trillion, will come from veteran advisors who are retiring at a faster rate than new professionals are entering the industry. All right, pause. We're losing boomers, basically.

While that may be statistically true that advisors are retiring faster than new advisors are coming into the industry, I'm here to say a little something. And this is self-promotional, so forgive me, but it doesn't mean it's not true. We talk to a lot of financial advisors who are interested in joining Ridholt's wealth management. And one of the dominant themes today that will endure for the next decade, and I'm sure there will be people, advisors that are not in their head, and maybe I'm even talking to you. The senior advisor is never retiring. I spoke to three advisors in a 72-hour period.

I was doing the math there, three days. I spoke to three advisors in three days who told me the exact same story. Why are you reaching out? Why now? Well, my senior advisor has been telling me, like, literally for three, five years that he's going to retire, that I'm going to have an opportunity to take over the business and does it happen? Yeah, it happens. But guess what? What happens more often than that is they don't retire. They don't have to. This happens in every industry, by the way. Boomers are doing this everywhere.

The presidential candidates are both going to be like 80 next year. Indiana Jones. How old was Harrison Ford and just at Indiana Jones? 80 years old? This is going to happen for all boomers. Being a 75-year-old advisor is a lot easier than being a 75-year-old president. Especially if you have younger people that are basically running the show. So yeah, you're right. we hear this all the time that people were promised that they were going to be able to take over someday. And then the advisor basically says, I don't think so. It's, I'm not going to leverage the junior. What are you going to do? What are you going to do? So the reason why I bring this up is because if you are that person and you're looking for a new home or you want to talk to us,

maybe even at Future Proof, you know where to find us. You know our email address. I mean, reach out. We're happy to talk. You can set up an email with Michael and myself. There we go. all right on to the topic of the day this chart tickled my funny bone from mark dow it looks like it comes from cnbc it says relationship issues and it shows the fed balance sheet overlaid with the s&p 500 and the idea here is that well liquidity has driven everything the only reason why the stock market is up or one of the big reasons one of the big drivers of share prices is liquidity accommodative fed posture. This was a big, this was a big Dumer chart for a while of just overlay the Fed balance sheet with the S&P 500. That's the only reason it's going up. There's no other reasons. That's it.

So I'm not here to say that the wind being at our back with an accommodative Fed has not been a tail into asset prices. Of course it has. Nobody would argue that. But just because it's gone the other way was not like a harbinger of Doom, clearly. But remember that if you were hanging your hat on this, Mr. Bear? Tough lesson. And it's true that you say Mr. there. It's not a sexist comment. It's the perma bears are always men, right? For some reason, doesn't it seem like that? How many perma bears are women? I could think of two, but we don't need to be serious. It's not what we do. Fair. Well, sometimes we do. But the thing is, I don't think this has been talked about enough of the bear market coming to an end without a Fed put. And the Fed is actually still like

putting out the fire. And the stock market still came roaring back. The Fed is still. still raising rates. I fact, I guess it's priced in 100% for a rate increase next week. Maybe that'll be the last one. Maybe we'll do one more. But people forever said, the only reason we've seen all these comebacks from every correction since the great financial crisis is because there's been a Fed put. Every time the stock market falls, the Fed steps in, they lower rates or they're more accommodative, and the stock market comes up. And that's the only reason the stock market comes back. And look what happened. The Fed is still raising rates, yet the stock market came back from a bare market. Duncan wants us to give a plug. And this is a not to brag, but speaking to

the community and all the gratitude that we have for everyone, listeners included. Even if you're not in the inner circle of the diehards, we appreciate everyone who's listening and who helped us get to number six on the investing podcast episode on Apple. So credit to you and credit to us, not bad. Thanks to the listeners. All right, from Axios. This is why expectations matter more than fundamentals. Axios says the S&P 500 is a big this year, but importantly, it's not really because people think corporations will bag fat or profits in the immediate future. In fact, Wall Street analysts think companies in the S&P 500 will see earnings per share rise just 1% in 20203 compared with 2022. The S&P 500, on the other hand, is up 17%.

In other words, share prices are outpacing puny expectations for profit growth. And you read this and you go, oh, the stock market is detached from reality. But this doesn't take into account the fact that people probably assumed earnings were going to fall way more this year. And this is why especially short-term. A real-time example of this? Expectations. Let's do it. Here's the headline. Schwab, net deposits, or what is the exact number?

I don't want to misquote it. Something fell 30% year-over-year, something that was meaningful. The stock was up 13% today. So expectations are not everything, but mostly. A big part. But that's why if you're banging your head against a wall going, this doesn't make sense. It's like people thought it was going to be way worse than this. So the bad stuff was already priced in, and now that it's better than expected.

It has to be unwound. Yes, that's why stocks are rising because it's better than expected. Better or worse, not good or bad. Okay. This is interesting. I wrote a piece on this. First time, a long time. I got the creative writing juices flowing.

Still remember how to do it. Nate Garasi tweeted, money market funds took in $43 billion last week. They've now taken in nearly $900 billion since the October 2020 low. The S&P 500 is up 25% over this time. Now, of course, not all of this money is coming out of the stock market and going into money market funds, right?

A lot of this is moving from zero yield accounts at banks to money market funds, which makes good sense. But, man, this is this market. It'll get you. I mean, going into 5% guaranteed was a rational, rational move. Yeah, the point of your post was, which I read was just nicely done, was just that, like, you thought I have 5%. I can sit on this.

I'm going to be fine. If the stock market falls, I'm clipping 5% here. I'm doing great. Sit on it, Manetti. That's a deep cut. You know what that's from? No. Star Skane Hutch.

Oh, I thought that was going to be another Wayne's World reference. Tom Sarah Vegas has a great chart showing the percentage of ETFs that are lagging BIL performance over the last 12 months. And BIL is a one to three month. It's basically cash. It was 94% of ETFs were lagging, I guess, at the bottom in October or somewhere thereabouts. Now, boom, only 26% are lagging, meaning 74% are. percent are outperforming. This is obviously. Everything's outperforming cash.

It's an obvious statement, but this is why people do panic sell. And it's not like everyone panic sells, but there are a certain percentage of the population who are going to panic sell and capitulate or whatever, because cash just seems like it makes so much sense at that point. Okay, this is a good one. Remember last week we talked about Jack Dorsey, his hyperinflation call that was obviously hilariously wrong. I'm reading the new William Bernstein update of the four pillars of investing, probably about halfway through it. You know, it feels good to read again. I just I haven't done much. I'm on a big nonfiction kick right now for the first time in Wyoming,

and part of it is the William Bernstein book, and part of it is I give credit to movies. So I just started a Napoleon biography and the Oppenheimer biography that the movie's based on. Good for you. Which biographies are you reading? Like, who's the author? Isn't there a gigantic Napoleon one? That's like 1500 pages? They're both like, they're both really long. And that's always my biggest beef with biographies is that why do they have to be 900 pages? I don't care like who their third cousin was in the 1850s or whatever. I don't know a single thing about Napoleon, not one, other than that he was a general in France. And I learned from the movie trailer, he became king or emperor or whatever it was.

I didn't know much about it. Honestly, the intro to this book, I learned so much more than I realized. But the funny thing is, is that this book talked about how there's been hundreds of Napoleon biographies written. But this guy, I'll have to look up which one I got, I don't remember. But he said, basically, every other Napoleon book got it wrong, and this one's going to get it right, which is kind of funny to me. Wait, can I just say one thing on the Bernstein? And were huge fans of William Bernstein, there's no fifth pillar. It's been 25 years. There's no fifth? Hey, you don't go to, this is my favorite saying that you don't go to church to learn the 11th commandant on Sunday, right? Those pillars never change. All right. So he looked at the best

hedges against inflation. And he said his favorite hedges against inflation, which was pretty good timing, were over the long run stockmark, but of the short term short duration assets. And he also said, this is this interesting. So, Weimar Germany, 1920 to 1923, saw consumer prices inflate by a factor of one trillion. Remember that was the wheel. You see the pictures of people carrying a wheelbarrows full of cash. That's how one trillion consumer prices went up. The stock market, even though it was pretty volatile, was still showed positive real returns over that period, which is wild to me. So because all the currency was going up so much, the earnings rose just as much probably in a commensurate rise with inflation because people were spending more money

so the companies are in more. So the stock market actually is, so the people who try to scare you that hyperinflation is coming by, I don't know, gold or Bitcoin or cans and bullets and the stock market is your best bet against hyperinflation.

How's that? Yeah. That's a surprise. I mean, prices get pushed through. Pushed through. You know, as he said that, I was reminded of, like, because I watched Pulp Fiction over the weekend,

I only caught one scene. The scene, and I saw this scene just, I timed it perfectly start, to finish where Uma Thurman and John Travolta get to the diner and then she has the overdose and then I turned it off. I caught 25 minutes and in and out. By the way, speaking of that, I think that I had an epiphany. Samuel Jackson is so good in that movie, obviously.

I think he wins the movie, at least in my opinion. John Travolta was phenomenal. Just got overshadow by Samuel L. John Travolta was incredible in that scene. I don't know. There was a big push for like John Terwold's comeback when that movie came out. He got a lot of praise for that movie. Can I give you a hot look on Pulp Fiction?

Please. It might be the perfect movie. I love that movie. That's not a hot take. Go ahead. Okay. I'm going to quibble with your perfect. No, I'm going to zag a little.

I love, love, love that movie. I think it's, when you watch it, it's a little slower than you remember. It feels dated. It does, and it feels a little, that's my only thing is, I guess you have to put it in the context of where it was. I mean, it was 1994?

It's slower than you remember. It's still, it's a phenomenal movie. It's slower than I remember. I rewatched a couple years ago. That's my own acquittal. Agreed. This is great. But anyway, the point that I was making is that I don't know what year that movie is shot. Like, I don't think it's, I think it's relatively modern because they did have cell phones,

early cell phones. So I don't think it was like shot in the 80s or anything. He says for a $5 shake, it better be damn good, right? I don't know if it's worth $5. Guess what? You can't get a shake for $5? I tweeted this, I retweeted this a couple years ago when I watched it, saying that inflation is a myth because you can get a shake for $5.

in, what was it, 1994 when it came out, 1993. And you can still get a shake for $5 today. Not here. Anyway, one more movie point about inflation. When Dr. Evil asked for a million dollars, obviously that was a joke, and then he asked for $100 million. But what would he ask for today? A billion?

Yeah, at least a billion. Probably a billion. And people would laugh at them. Investors are, this is from the Wall Street Journal. Investors are bailing on Kathy Wood's popular arc. ETF. Oh, really? We're finally starting to see outflows.

So, Kathy Woods' flagship trade fund has rallied more than 50% this year. Investors are using that as an opportunity to get out. They have pulled a net $717 million from the ETF over the past 12 months, which still relatively small for a, it was, it was 30 billion at the peak. Now it's still like $9 billion. This is, this does not look like an exodus to me. We're looking at bar chart, quarterly bar charts of the flows. And does this look that bad to you?

Not really. I'm surprised it's not bigger because this is usually what happens with these star fund managers vehicles is after they get killed after the money ran in it, it runs out. And people were still investing in it last year. Well, according to facts that the dollar way returns, as we know, are really bad. The ARC fund has an 11% annualized. Wait, wait, is this, oh my gosh, is that real? 11% annualized average returns since inception, which is obviously very good. I should say good. I don't know what the company. is, but the average arc investor has lost 21% on a dollar weighted annualized basis. That is, that's a gap. Holy moly. It's quite a behavior gap. That, geez, the stock's up, the stock, the fund's up 60% year to date. I remember she got dunked on for obviously selling Nvidia, but for buying Coinbase after the SEC. Oh, this is interesting. So, do you remember that? She, she bought, I think, I think she bought it the day after the SEC announced that they were

suing Coinbase or going after Coinbase. The stock fell to 40, eight bucks or so, guess where it is now? She bought more? Is that 110 almost? It doubled pretty much. That is kind of funny that that coinbase has doubled since the SEC. It's a lot just decided they were in. This is since ARC's inception against the S&P 500.

They both have a total return of 170% since ARC inception. Okay. And ARC is probably. But in February 2021, ARC was outperforming by 600%. Wow. And now it's up 60% year to date and it's still in a 60%? seven percent drawdown. Tough. Okay, I got some thoughts on inflation. So I got this inflation chart that I created here that shows going from 1.4 percent year over year in January

2021, all the way to 9 percent. And I think it was June 2022, back to 2.97 percent for using decimal places now. So it actually went from below 3 percent to 9 percent. It was, it took less time than it did to go from 9 percent to less than 3 percent, which is pretty crazy. but I think a lot of people like everyone is now coming around to the idea of a soft landing and credit to us here if we're doing victory laps which it seems like this is the victory lap episode in January 2023 we're at Derek Thompson's podcast we went on to the limb and said there's no recession this year and it felt like kind of a bold call at the time right we after we said that we were like oh man is that going to come back to bite us because it it's it still felt like a recession

was but I think my my call is no one can claim victory on inflation coming down if we get a landing because you can't say it was transitory because the Fed raised so much. Like the Fed raised from zero to five in such a fast time. There's no way to know exactly how much of impact that had because there's no kind of factuals. I don't, I would say you can't call it transitory because it lasted a while. It's not like it went up and came straight down. Look at this chart. Did that really, did it really last that long? Look at the chart. That's not that long. A couple of years is not transitory. Sorry. But you can't say that it was all the Fed because the unemployment rate didn't rise. That's explicitly what the Fed said they wanted to do, is raising unemployment.

rate. So couldn't you say that most of it is the oil price falling and supply chain's healing? And then, so that'd be, I don't know, 60%, 70% in my book and 30% to 40% is the Fed. Like, I think the impact from the rise in rates was mostly caused, they caused the housing market to slow activity and it caused a stock market to fall. That's what they did. And that's not what they wanted to do. They wanted the unemployment rate to rise and it didn't happen. Here's what Colin says. Colin Roche said, I have zero empirical evidence to support this, but I'd be willing to bet the inflation reduction was pretty close to this. He says 50% mean reversion and supply chain normalization, which is what you're saying,

35% tight monetary policy, and 15% slower fiscal policy. Okay. So Colin and I are on the same page here, pretty much. So that's my point that, like, I don't think anyone can do a victory lap on a soft landing, the Fed or any economist, because... Well, let me ask you this. Do you see anybody doing a victory lap or what? I think there's some people who are trying to...

I think there's some economists who are going to claim victory. on this one. I think that's going to happen. All right, so you're not seeing it, but you're saying, if somebody does claim it, yellow card. Twitter, Twitter, Econ people, I think, are starting to, I think people are gearing up for a, for a victory lap. And I've seen a lot of people in the last couple of weeks say, Jerome Powell is the best fed chair we've had in history if he performs a soft landing.

And I think the soft landing is going to happen despite him what he was trying to do. I don't think that they were trying to a soft landing. No, I don't think so either. Hey, so what did you want to talk about? Well, I want to tell you about Wagovi. Wagovi? Yeah, Wagovi. What about it?

On second thought, I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor. About Wagovi. Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into lion tamers.

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Workday, moving business forever forward. All right. So what is, what is, we don't think you get too far into this, but everything's moving in the right direction for the most part. Shelter, inflation has peaked, restaurant hotels has peaked, food at home has peaked. Obviously, cars have peaked, energy, even airline tickets. Well, the biggest thing is going to be in the coming months is going to be shelter is going to fall and used cars are going to fall. And those are going to fall a lot. And so that's going to, inflation is

we're going to get back to like 2% by, I think it's going to be happening pretty soon. Simone Foxman tweeted, interesting tidbit from today's CPI data. Airline fares are down 8.1% month over month and 19% year over year. And the cheapest since March 2022, even in the busy summer season, is it U.S. airlines ramping backup capacity or consumers getting wary about travel. I don't know the answer to this, but I did listen to, we're going to get to great quarter guys later in the show. I did listen to Delta, Delta's call. And they were asked specifically about this. June 30th, they said, was an all-time record for single-day traffic and revenue. They said that they're not, they're not experiencing disinflation. So take that for what it's worth. I just booked a flight to

New York that I'm coming out in about a month here to see you. I hope you get the guest bedroom ready for me. Can I tell something? Can I tell something just real quick? Sure. So we're, we have a bedroom in the guest bedroom as you know. You saw it before. Robin wants to turn that into like a playroom area for the kids. So she wants to move our couch downstairs, which is a pullout couch to the upstairs. And I said, wait, Ben's coming in a few weeks. Let him sleep on the bed. I'm not just put me in the mudroom. I'll sleep in the mudroom. That's why you did it, right?

Some are waiting for you. All right. Hey, very nice. So I booked my ticket, and I was on Google Flights, which is this magical website where you can book flights and change all the parameters, which you just learned about. And I said to my wife, when I was booking, I said, I can't believe how much lower airfares are to New York now.

I don't know if it's the timing or what, but it was noticeably cheaper than the last time I booked. $150 cheaper, probably. Not bad. All right. This is from the New York, no, Wall Street Journal. Another bunch of good charts and stuff from the Wall Street Journal this week. Pay raises are finally beating inflation after two years of falling behind. So look at this chart here. So they have wages growing faster than prices and prices going faster than inflation. And it really didn't start until 2021, where prices were really growing fast. And that's when inflation kicked off. But here's the thing. And I think I know why this is the case. So they said inflation adjusted average hourly earnings rose 1.2% in June from year earlier. Second straight month that we've had gains after two years were working. historically elevated raises were raised by price increases. Look at before 2021 when wages were going way faster than inflation. You never heard about that then. Yeah, we did. We spoke about that all a time. Well, the pandemic boost, yes. But I'm just saying in a normal environment, like going back

to 2019, when wages are going faster than- I miss hard yet. I miss heard you. We spoke about prices growing fast than inflation all the time. But I'm saying when wages were growing faster than inflation for this two-year period here, no one ever talks about that. We only talk about stuff when it turns, and maybe that's the point where people just don't realize stuff until it turns bad. But I'm just saying, we talk about the prices growing fast than inflation all the time. No one ever brought up when wages were going faster than inflation. So. Sir, you're not wrong. Here's another one from the Wall Street Journal. Adjusted for inflation and purchasing power

since 2019. So this is inclusive of what started the pandemic. Real wages have declined by 3% in Germany, 3.5% in Italy, in Spain, and 6% in Greece. Real wages in the U.S. have increased by about 6% over that same period. So since the start of the pandemic, real wages are up. I guarantee if you surveyed 100 people on the street like they do for family feud, which they make those up. Are we, we're being honest, right? They don't really do a survey for those. God, is that, that show is a national treasure. I mean, it's just so ridiculous. I would be an, you know, when they do this? Oh, yeah. I, the, the final challenge one where they answer five questions, I would, I, I, I, I'd be a good person of family food. I'm just,

I'm just throwing that out there. And you know what? I'd support you. Good answer. Even if it was bad answer. I'd say, good answer, Ben. Good answer. All right.

How many people on the street would say, yes, wages have grown over the rate of inflation since the start of a pandemic? 10 out of 100, maybe? How many people would understand the premise of the question? Fair. But I'm just saying this would surprise a lot of it. So they had a bunch of other good charts in here. This shows in 2008 the size of the Eurozone economy versus the size of the U.S.

economy was essentially the same. We were a little bit bigger. Since then, the European economy has basically gone nowhere, and the U.S. economy has essentially doubled. Well, it's a spending. It's spending. The next chart is all the spending. But it seems like the doomer mentality has taken over way more in, maybe I'm wrong about this because I don't have like the sentiment gauge in Europe, but like people in Europe have a right to be angry about like the direction of things over there. Because the economies are growing, the wages are falling. And on a relative basis, we're doing so much better than they are. And it doesn't seem like anyone seems to care here. Everyone still seems to think things are horrible. This is all being driven by the iPhone, right? I guess.

I just, these charts are, I think these charts are just wild to me. How, how, you know, we've talked about the fact that the U.S. has been the only game in town in terms of the stock market since 2008. Sometimes the stock market is the economy. If you look at the fact that the U.S. economy has doubled and the euro economy has gone nowhere, then the fact that international stocks have underperformed makes a lot more sense, doesn't it? Can I tell you? Yeah. Yeah, it does. So we're recording this Tuesday morning. It's 1030 Eastern. And here's what's happening. Small cap stocks are breaking out. The equal weight S&P 500, which is obviously lagged. The cap weighted is breaking out. In XLI, industrial stocks,

which have the highest correlation to economic growth is close to 52-week-high. The Dow Jones Transport Index is at a 52-week high. Materials are on fire. What else is on fire? Can I just, can I get, can I offer a correction for what you just said there or something? I had to set up a call with friend of the show Sam Rowe today. I would talk about something. And he said from March to November, it's E.D.T.

Eastern Daylight Time. And from November to March, it's E.S.T. Eastern Standard Time. What? He said either you're going to love or hate this, but I just have to tell you, because I set up a time and I said, can we talk at 1230 Eastern? Well, I love Sam, but I hate that. Anyway, the market, I am particularly interested to see how stocks respond to their earnings, especially, well, either way, beats, misses, I'm curious to say, because obviously there's been a great run. Stock market's on fire. It's gone up a lot, but it's just going, it's like dribs and drabs, right?

This is the whole, we take the stairs up and the elevator down. The stock market is just slowly but surely going up. There's really no volatility to speak of. Although, it is kind of crazy. All the stuff we've dealt with this here that has just been brushed off, right? Jason Furman tweeted about, like, since the banking crisis and early March, the stock market is up 12%. Interest rates are down and the dollar is weaker. He said this is not what I've expected.

Like think about, remember that 10-day period of the banking crisis, how big of a worry that was. And now it's just kind of like, wait, when was that? that happened again? I don't, all this stuff the stock market is brushed off. Goldman Sachs chief economist said we are cutting out our probability that a U.S. recession will start in the next 12 months to 20 percent from 25 percent. Yian Hatsis quote, the recent data have reinforced our confidence that bringing inflation down to an acceptable level will not require a recession. The funny thing to me, so they showed Goldman Sachs, their probability of recession versus

the consensus. The consensus got to 60 some percent, which is kind of funny because it happened in September 2022, which is right near the bottom of the stock market. the economists never go over 40% on anything. So this is essentially 100% as far as I'm concerned. And I do kind of get it. But right now, besides an inverted yield curve, are there any signs of recession? Yes, leading economic indicators.

Okay. Hasn't that kind of been debunked, though? That doesn't really show... It feels to me like there's not many things that you could hang your hat on. The only thing you could really say is, listen, rates have not been that high for very long. This is, I think, where a lot of people are pivoting.

The people who weren't pivoting to a soft landing are pivoting to, no, this stuff acts on a lag. And I could kind of see that, even though I think the economy and the markets move way faster and price in stuff these days. Like, the lag thing to me, I guess it's possible. I mean, almost any time, just looking at, like, when you get leading economic indicators crashing like this, now it looks like they may find the bottom. It's just one month. But that typically has coincided with the recession.

How about this? Spreads and high-yield bonds have fallen to the, this is Lisa Bromowitz, fall into the lowest level since April 2022. If credit is a forward-leading indicator, it's suggesting we're not going to see any kind of default cycle of note. So spreads blew out a little bit in March from the banking crisis, and now they came right back down. A little bit. I just, I don't think that you could say, if you didn't know what was going on to the Fed and inflation and all this stuff, if you just looked at what was going on, I don't think you would say, like, a recession is on the horizon. I think it's only the Fed stuff and you'd be hanging your hat on, well, rates are going to filter through eventually. And at some point, people are

going to run out of money from excess savings and rates are being higher. And that's going to be the thing that's slow thing. That'd be the only thing you could say, I think, at this point. Fair? Yeah, Carl Kennedy tweeted, Amazon Prime. First day of Prime day, single largest sales day ever. Amazon Prime members bought over 375 million items worldwide. And I think that this says more about the economy than it does about Amazon because I poked around and I saw a lot of people tweeting the deals, there weren't deals. There was fluff deals, nonsense deals. I think I was on a call with you and I got a new pair of AirPods that I'm wearing and they were $10 off. It wasn't bad. Yeah, 10 bucks. I was in the ocean the other day and I got wrecked by a wave. I wasn't paying

attention, brought me to my knees. And like an idiot, I had my sunglasses on and they flew off my face. Do you buy my gooders yet or not? I did. I'm sorry. So. Not for you? Well, I like Maui Gims. And I had my pair for like four years. I don't know what Molly Gems are, but it sounds like boomer sunglasses. Not at all, sir. How about middle age? Middle age. So let's say there are 200 bucks or so. So 50 bucks a year, if I could hold on to them for four years, that's fair. Oh, come on, $200 is way too much to spend on sunglasses. Michael, what are you doing? The chances of all people breaking them are, that's like higher than the chances of recession

right now. I like marriage jims. All right. I'm just saying, get four pair of $25 ones. And if you break one, you don't care because you have three other ones. That's called giving yourself a margin of safety. Did you not read Ben Graham? All right.

Where are we going next? Oh, this is interesting. Bob Belli tweeted this. So we're saying, like, why haven't rate hikes filter through the economy yet? And of course, it doesn't happen overnight. But, like, you would expect to see some of it, but it's been a while, though. So Bob Elliott tweeted, the significant rise in short rates had no impact on aggregate household disposable income. Interest income from rising rates has equally matched the rise in debt service costs,

both up 170 billion annualized since the post-COVID bottom, equally offsetting each other. identical. What do you think about that? Well, think about the fact that 62 thirds of all people own a home, right? That's the homeowner's... Speaking of that, by the way,

that was a knot to the rewatchables this week, my cousin Vinnie. Oh, gosh. I can't wait to listen to that. That's easily one of the most rewatched movies of all time. It's probably in my top ten

of movies that I've watched the most in my life. Every time it's on, I have to, and it's on all the time. Yeah. So the two Utes that gets me every time and his, the circus suit

just slays me. But two-thirds of the country owned a home, and they essentially locked in mortgage rates under 4%. Now those people who tend to have more money in savings or cash, now they have the ability to earn 5% of their cash. So you've got a double whammy of low borrowing rates, plus now high yields on your cash. So that makes sense. This whole thing makes sense to me. It was like the immaculate trade-off, right? Yes. Are we doing demographics? Are you doing this just to troll a little bit? A little bit. It was a big piece in the New York Times about demographics, and they showed how things are changing over time. The projections are reliable in stark by 2050. People aged 65 and older will make up nearly 40% of the populations in some parts of East Asia and Europe.

It's almost twice the share of older adults in Florida right now, America's retirement capital. Extraordinary number of retirees will be dependent on a shrinking number of working age people to support them. As a result, experts predict things many wealthier countries take for granted, like pensions, retirement, age, and strict integration policies will need overhaul to be sustainable. in today's wealthier countries will almost inevitably make up a smaller share of global GDP economists say. Yes, I just can't get worked up over this. I still think that trying to figure out the implications of this 10, 20, 30, 40 years into the future is nearly impossible. I don't think anyone predict – I think Morgan Halls were a piece about this a while a long time ago about how no one really predicted the baby boom following World War II. Like no one – demographics is easy to predict, but no one really predicted that.

I just think, I don't know, I don't see how having wealthy people live longer and continue to spend is going to make things that much worse off. I know there's going to be a certain proportion of them that we're going to have to take care of more, but I don't think you can automatically make the claim that this makes everyone worse off because people are living longer. Yeah. Think about how many cruise, that new cruise ship, that's the biggest one ever. I'm going on. Retired people are going on cruises. I'm going on a cruise next year. I'm telling you, it's a lot of people. Some people agreed me, some people disagreed. Cruises are fun. I'm sorry. It's fun. Don't be sorry.

I think last week or two weeks ago, I talked about how I'm predicting if and when mortgage rates fall, there's going to be a huge binge of home equity lines of credit, cash out refis. Bloomberg has a story on this. Actually, the HELOC binge is already kind of coming. In 2022 annual HELOC originations rose 34% from the year prior to 1.4 million individual loans. That was the highest since 2008, according to TransUnion. And while 20, 23 figures aren't in yet, the number of HELOC accounts has risen each of the last three quarters

which date is available. They're basically saying people have stopped doing the cash-out refi because that doesn't make a lot of sense because rates are so much higher. But if you have the HELOC and the ability to be a little more flexible with it, that makes sense.

Even though rates are approaching 7% or 8% for borrowing on HELAC now, you can be a little more flexible with them in terms of when you pay it off and how you pay it off and these things. They said tapable equity, which is keeping a 20% equity cushion

is $9.3 trillion up 56% over a three-year period. I think this has the possibility, even though it's going to put some people into more debt. I think home equity has the chance to be like the- The next Fed put? Well, the buffer for the economy. I think if people get into trouble, I look at my home equity line of credit as kind of my, and I know people have said in the past to me, well, during 2008 Wells Fargo or someone pulled my home equity line of credit, that's a risk. look at it to me as like a buffer. So I have this home equity line of credit that I can tap in a in a real emergency. And I think some people, their definition of emergency is different than others. And the trip to Hawaii is an emergency for them. So I think people are going to use this

to keep their spending up if it falls for whatever reason. I hope we don't have to find out. You did the cash out refi, right? I think we did this at the same time. You cashed out refi and I did And yours was probably a better move at the time because you got to borrow a 3% for yours. Mine went from 3% to 8%. But I just, I have, I have dry powder. I'm like, Buffett over here. I've now used up all of my Benjamin Graham and Buffett comments for the day. You want to talk about threats for a second?

So this is from CNBC. Tuesday and Wednesday, the platform's number of daily active users was down 20% from Saturday. And the time spent for users was down 50%. It was kind of cool at the beginning. I think this, it's a mess. For someone like you and I who use it for information and news and opinions and real-time analysis on the economy and sports. I don't use, I don't use threads. I don't, I mean, I tried it out for a couple of days. I get my shirt from Twitter. It looks okay, but if they don't have a chronological order and just follow your, and maybe they

don't want that. Maybe they want to be a fortune cookie advice and, hey, what's your favorite movie people? Like, those are the kind of things that the algorithm feeds me. It's like, it's useless to me. You know what you don't get on thrice? You don't get jokes like this from our friend Eddie Elfin Bind. Did you see this, Ben? I think you send me more Eddie Elfin Binds than anyone. Eddie tickles my funny bun.

Eddie's a funny guy. Let's say. This made me laugh if I could find it. If a stock goes down 20%, then goes up 20%, it's still down 4%. So where did the 4% go? Answer, Vanguard and BlackRock. The funny, the best part of Twitter is, you know some people are going to take that as serious and believe it. Oh my God. Oh, my God. You can imagine. It's pretty phenomenal.

That's what, one of the things Twitter has made me realize, I think I've said that before, like, there's more smart people in the world and more dumb people, but they're a way higher percentage of people who don't understand sarcasm than I ever would have imagined who are on Twitter. Well, somebody responded, wait, and you're an ETF manager? Good God, dude. That's terrible. all right all right great quarter guys uh i am utilizing the quarter app if you're a listener of conference calls this is the way to do it the transcript search is my one i've been using the most lately i use transcript search to see if uh they mentioned crypto on black rock's conference call and they did not that kind of surprised me a little bit interesting okay um all right jp morgan this is from the cfl both u.s consumers and small businesses remain resilient, and we haven't observed any meaningful changes

to the trends in our data we discussed at Investor Day. And then today, Tuesday morning, we saw U.S. retail sales roads for the third straight month. Auto sales are a bit light, but I think that was to be expected. What was the quote that Diamond used,

like about a hurricane coming, or what did he say in anything? He kind of backtracked on it, right? Well, he set it for two consecutive quarters. I don't think, I don't remember him mentioning it this time. They still mention headwinds, but... Here we go. This is from C.

NBC, June 2022. Jamie Diamonds has braced herself for an economic hurricane caused by the Fed and Ukraine War. I think he kind of had to walk it back a little bit, which is, but I don't know. I guess at his stage, the position... Nobody predicted a soft landing. No, but the position that he was in, I think he kind of, he's like a politician, he kind of had to say that, whether he believed it or not, or whether it was showing up

in the data. The funny thing is, he was saying that, but then he was also saying, our business is fine. And so I think he was more caught up in the macro than that. then he was in the micro, and the micro probably was the one that he should have been following because that was saying everything's fine. Did you see this ring? Oh, I forgot. You're not an office fan. You didn't like Michael Scott on the office, but did you like Dwight Shrewd at least? Wait, you're putting thoughts into my brain. I just, saying that I'm not an office fan implies that I don't like it. I just, I never got into it. I have seen an episode here and there, but

Okay. So I think even if you don't like Michael Scott, though, it's the other Jim and Pam and Dwight in Kevin and Oscar and I've heard people say season one you got to get through season one it doesn't really ramp up until season two all right I still think season one holds up can I say something I don't I don't like the caveats like that you got to get through this to get to that so I watched four or five episodes of the bear and I understand why people like it I think it's it's quality TV it just does nothing for me so I don't know I mean whatever different strokes for different folks it doesn't do anything for me me. It is, it's such a chaotic show. I can see why some people don't like, there was a few

episodes where my wife said, uh, are all the episodes going to be like this? She loved the show too, but she's like, I need like a break from the being so chaotic. I, I tend to like those, but yeah, I can see why it didn't hit with certain people, even though I loved it. Okay, so I mean, I'm in the minority. I feel like everyone likes that show except for me. Yeah, I've seen a few people say like, yeah, I just didn't do it for me. And I, I, I get it. All right. What were you about to say? So, Rayne Wilson was on Gilmar recently. He played Dwight on the office. And there was all these. Was he talking about J.P. Morgan's conference call?

Yeah. Well, all the, I'm just talking about the human condition of personal finance. And I think I'm going to bring this back to personal finance some way. So he he talked about how at like the height of the success of the office, he was still unhappy that he wasn't a bigger star and how he should have been making more money and he should have been a movie star like Will Farrell. And like he was on one of the biggest best shows of all time. Uh, that's, That's my subjective opinion, obviously not yours. And he's saying, like, listen, yes, it's true. And I think some of the headlines were kind of angered him a little bit.

He said, this is the... Wait, what's this guy's name? What's this actor's name? Rain Wilson. Rain with two ends. So he says, I discussed at the height of success on the office and how I still was unhappy, I wasn't a bigger star. This is the human condition after all.

And he's talking about it. And I think that human condition part of it makes a lot of sense to me because I think this is the reason that we continue to... I'm continuing to be optimistic about the future because you can have people who get to this point. And this is actually one of the reasons I like the bear. So the bear, the guy becomes one of the most successful young chefs in the world and he's still not happy. I think that happens to so many people. And that's why people continue to strive to get better and make more money and do more stuff.

I think this is one of the reasons that I'm actually bullish on the long term, almost all the time, because the human condition never allows most people to be content with where they are in life. They always want to strive to do more and get better. And it seems sad in some ways, but in other ways, it's like, this is why things, we continue to see progress and innovation because people are never content with what they have. Yeah, it is a double-edged sword. It's unfortunate for the individual, but it's great for society because people keep striving as if the incremental dollar will make them happier. I will die on that hill that for people that just think more money, if they're already making decent money, will make them happier. Like, they're just fooling themselves.

I don't understand. I mean, it seems pretty clear, I think to most people. people that money, you know, once you have money more is not going to make you happy, but it doesn't go away. But actually, Bill Simmons was just talking about this. He was like, I forget who he was talking with, maybe, maybe Stephen A, which is a great interview about how you get to that point. And yeah, it's just, you're still yourself, like, right.

Cool, you can get it, you can get another car. Anyway, um, back to you, what? This is from Apollo and I want to get your take on this. Wait, wait, I was still doing quarter stuff. Oh, I thought that was it. No, I'm not done. Okay. All right.

Black Rock. Q2 net flows. 4 billion out of equity. 44 billion into fixed income. How about that? Wow. I think a lot of this is rich people who are at or approaching retirement age, and they went further out on the risk curve than they had to.

This is the money market and the bond thing, I think. Yeah. They were 80, 20 when they should have been 60, 40, or wanted to be 65. and they had to be 80-20 because rates were so low. So I know I've spoken a lot about the stock market shoving it to people that went seeking for fixed-to-come. I think I don't care about the short-term divergence. Oh, you let, you know, maybe you left some money on the table by shifting asset allocation.

I think it's rational to downshift. If you were 70-30 to 60-40, I do. I think it makes sense. And I think it still continues to make sense. So I'm not like dunking. I think it makes sense. It's just the market is cruel that way. All right, Delta, as I said.

record revenue and earnings, and they raised their guidance. So dealt, I mean, what a run. This stock has been on. Good Lord. Just on fire. All right, Ben, I'm sorry. Back to you. All right.

So Apollo had this for 48-month and 60-month auto loans. Went from 4.5% in the start of 2020 to 8% now. It was right around 4% from 2013 to 2017. surprisingly still a little higher, like 5% in the 2020s in 2021. So it never really got that low. But do you think that higher auto rates matter way less than higher mortgage rates? Because I feel like with, because the time period being so much lower, I feel like it doesn't impact your payment nearly as much.

Or the total interest cost isn't nearly as much. So you say, well, interest rates are eight instead of four. I have to pay 50 or 60 bucks extra a month. I'm going to eat that because it's a car. I don't think people care as much about higher auto rates as they do higher. Here's why. Here's why. You would say, like, I can't sell my house because my rates.

You would never say I can't get a new car because my rates, because of interest rates. Right. Yeah. I don't think it matters as much. Yeah, I don't think so either. Okay. People, Duncan did a poll where were the sorting hat, place. Michael, we spoke last week about Harry Potter.

And 38%, which is pretty high, said Hufflepuff. And I don't know what that means. Well, I don't know what that says about me. I guess I don't know the book well enough. I don't remember. It's been over a decade. So. So you know what that means?

That's Cedric Diggery. Handsome fella. Maybe that's it. I told you my daughter. I showed this to my daughter. And I said, I think people said that I would be a Ravenclaw. And my daughter laughed. And I don't know what that means.

Although the second place was Slytherin, which I don't take kindly to. That was Malfoy, who was a dirtbag. Ben, I've got to ask you a question. Okay. I was in somebody, Kobe went to a kid's party which was in their backyard and I went into the house to go to the bathroom

and it's obviously a one person bathroom, right? You're in somebody's house. So I lock the door and I hear somebody jiggling the knob and then they knocked. Yeah. What in the, who doesn't? So now I have to like awkwardly say

like someone's in here um one minute yeah you do the jiggle and then you back away especially in a house you go it on the hall i would love to know i mean i was about to say could it have been a child no way a child would have knocked yeah childhood just tried to burst in yeah it had to have been a grown-up what a psychopath who does that yeah that's pretty bad so last week we talked about how john candy was 39 when he did uncle buck and then people look older i think you put this in Danny Glover was 41 when he decided he was going to retire and leath a weapon. He looks like he's 60. By the way, that is, that is, that is, that, that, that right there, what you just

said was very Midwestern. What? Because the quote says on the picture, Danny Glover was just 41 when he decided he was getting too old for the shit. Let that say good. And Ben said, Danny Glover was 41 when he decided he wanted to retire. Okay. Maybe it's because I have kids and I try to, you know, keep it clean for them.

So someone actually sent us this video about why we look younger. And it was this whole 20-minute YouTube video, and it talked about the reason people used to look older, smoking, lack of sunscreen, better health care, nutrition. But he also, this guy also said that it could have been an illusion that styles in the past simply made people look older, which I don't really buy. I think people used to look older.

I don't think it's just that, like, our mind-playing tricks on us. I really think this is a thing. He was saying a lot of this perception. Nope, nope, sorry, not buying it. I'm with you, Ben. I didn't buy that one. Okay, real quick. Lucas Shaw, Linear's TV's share of TV viewing has dropped by 12% in the last two years alone,

and it will soon slip below 50%. Netflix and YouTube will soon account for as much TV viewing as all broadcasts, networks combined. I mean, the biggest surprise here to me, the biggest surprise here to me, so it gives all the streaming watching, and, like, Disney Plus, Prime, and Hulu were all bigger than Max. Max has by far the most high-quality shows of anyone, and it's, still this tiny. And it's the same size as Tooby. Have you watched Tooby before? I think I've done this one like I can't find a movie. It's, it's a commercial one, like a free commercial platform. That is the same size as HBO is kind of mind-boggling to me. Well, I think, I wonder,

I wonder if, well, HBO doesn't put it out as much content, number one. But it's got to be, it's got to just be, they bungled the shit out of it. How many iterations is HBO gone through? HBO Go, HBO Max, HBO now. I don't know why they didn't just keep doing HBO. Now it's Max. Totally dropped the ball on that. All right. I went to see Mission Impossible.

Have you seen it yet? No, but I will be seeing it in the theater. Okay. I got a support on and Tom. It was probably 20 minutes too long. It was 2.45, but it was a phenomenal action movie. Just, just. I recently rewatched the last one.

What was the last one called Fallout? I recently rewatch that one. And I, that one, the last two, that in goes protocol, are phenomenal. So movies, I had an observation of realization, movies are just as top heavy as the market. Like between Mission Impossible, Mission Impossible, Barbie, and Oppenheimer, that's like 40% of all revenue. And that's definitely not true. But you know what I'm saying. So like movies like the NASDAQ 100.

Yeah, a lot of tension on this. So I'm kind of annoyed that I'm not seeing Oppenheimer until next Thursday. Josh got us tickets, which I'm annoyed because I'm going to be waiting. a week. But I saw the coming attraction in the theater. Oh, here's another thing. I saw this on TCAF, but I want to just expand on this. So I go to my local theater, right? It's not like a regal or an AMC. It's just my local theater. The movie screens are probably, I don't know, 20 feet. 30 feet is probably a smaller one, yeah. Okay, whatever the size it is. And it doesn't have, you know, it's loud, but it doesn't have like the Dolby. And I went to, I went to a regal

cinema to see Mission Impossible, and the theater was shaking. And it dawned on me. I know this is so dumb. I'm sorry, local theater. I can't support you anymore. The gap between the experiences was nine and day. How much further away is the other one? It's 15 minutes. Oh, no, it's probably an extra 10, 15 minute drive. For as many movies as you see, you've got to do the better experience. Yeah, I don't know what I was thinking. But again, I felt like a real idiot. Duncan said just said a little closer to the screen. so for Oppenheimer the theater it was shaking and the whole movie was I mean it was phenomenal listen to this cast do you know about the cast of Oppenheimer yet yeah they don't really plug it that much until recently yeah Damon and Emily Blonde here we go Killian Murphy Robert Downey Jr. Florence Pugh Emily Blunt Matt Damon Jack Quaid Romney Malick Gary Oldman plays Harry Truman Josh Hartnett I guess he's back in the game there's a that guy who's obviously

obviously been in a lot of things. Benny Safty, Jason Clark. I mean, you recognize a lot of these faces. Just an incredible cast. Matthew Modine. Oh, wow. Cannot, cannot wait for that. And I had a thought, getting back to Mission Impossible.

I had a thought. And I'm not necessarily looking for an answer, but how the hell do they breathe in a submarine? How do they have enough oxygen? Yeah, where does that come from? Someone better send us a YouTube video on that. How do they not run out of action? That's a good question. Thank you.

Are you watching hijack? I gave you hijack. Sorry, sorry. Credit you. So I watched it all in like, I don't know, four hour. It's a show that should be binge because you want to just keep, I was like, I had low expectations for that show. I'm like, oh, it's a show about a plane hijacking.

That show gets better every episode. It's really good. But no, it's so weird, because you're right, and it is very bingeable. I would never watch a seven-hour movie about a hundred. hijack? No. Edra's elbow in it. It's not Apple. Apple is producing some good shows lately. This is a, it's like a it's not like a prestige show, but it's like a

one level below that. It's good. It's good. It's good. And Robin walked in, she's like, what are you watching? And so she started from the beginning to catch up because now she's into it. I asked you because I'm pretty dry on shows these days. I asked you if I should watch silo and you said no, which thank you for saving me. The middle was just too slow. Like the beginning and the end were both in that they, the way that they ended the first season, it's like, oh, there's some promise here. But I would say

The middle was just too, I wouldn't highly recommend. Here's another one. I'm doubling down on Platonic on Apple with Seth Rogen and Rules Burn. We finish it. I think it's just a one-season show. It was like 10 episodes. It felt like just an extended movie. Like this certainly would have been a movie in the past.

It was just a fun, light-hearted, and every episode had at least two or three moments that made me laugh out wild. I'm going to watch this. This looks good. It's not like a great show, but if you like Seth Rogen kind of stuff, you'll like this show. That's what I. Apple's producing some good stuff lately. Also, Oppenheimer, I think it looks great. I'm probably going to wait to see it at my house. What?

Yeah. Sorry. You are not supporting the arts, sir. Hey, let me ask you a question before we get out of here. What would you do in my situation? Chris and I were on the water yesterday, and we went to the place that has, it's a bar. I was about to try to use other language, but that's what it is. It's also a restaurant.

So I give them my credit card. to hold the tab. And when I got back there, they couldn't find my credit card. And they said, Michael Battenick, I said, oh, yeah, you found it? They're like, no, but we have you on file. I'm like, all right, cool. Well, you know, did it drop? They don't have my card.

Credit to me, I'm a very laidback sort of guy. I did not. I even want to tip $20. And she said, no, no, no. You're not tipping. So it's annoying because now I don't remember my credit card is. And I've got everything linked to that. And it's certainly I don't want to have to order a new card.

card and re-up everything. What, what, what should I ask for? I mean, I, I, so I said, so if you can't find my card, free drinks for the rest of the summer? I, I, I think it just, I think that happens. What's reason? What, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's just snagged it on accident? Or they gave to someone, maybe they gave to some, I think you just wait 24 hours, check again, and then you cancel that card. I don't think you get anything. No, I'm going to get something. Come on. You got to get something. Okay. I think that it happened.

I think that's just part of the game. What game of going out? Yeah, it happens. They'll send your new credit card in two days. You'll be fine. No, it's not about that. But I've got to get the new password. Your credit card note is declined because I've got everything linked to it.

$25. It's a big. $25 gift certificate. $25. I'm sorry. The punishment does not fit the crime or the opposite. It's a big pain in the butt. Yeah.

Happens. Happens. All right, maybe you're more laid back than I am. Because I was pretty calm, but now I'm starting to get agitated. It's funny. It never happens with you at restaurants. All right, Animal Spiristpod at gmail.com, and we'll see you next time.