Animal Spirits Podcast - Tax the Billionaires (EP. 446)

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

On episode 446 of Animal Spirits, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ben Carlson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ discuss 2026 predictions, the risk of a bear market, why valuations should be higher, why international stocks outperformed, recession risk in 2026, AI hallucinations, self-driving cars, Disney stock, where to find cheaper housing, an appreciation for Keanu Reeves and more. This episode is sponsored by YCharts. Subscribe to YCharts’ Advisor Pulse, LinkedIn newsletter here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7163920704407552000 And start your free YCharts trial through Animal Spirits (new customers only) at https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits 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 Y Charts. As we kick off the new year, one of the biggest challenges for advisors is figuring out what actually mattered in markets and what was just noise. That's where Y charts advisor polls comes in, a LinkedIn newsletter that delivers clear market context, timely charts, and concise takeaways advisors can use right away. Their latest post was a 2025 wrapped looking back at the year in markets, breaking down the biggest winners and losers, the economic forces that shaped returns in how advisors navigated volatility, all through simple client-ready visuals. Instead of chasing headlines or scrambling for talking points, advisor pulse helps you stay prepared, save prep time, and show up to client

meetings with clarity in 2026. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe on LinkedIn and get 20% off your initial whitecharts professional subscription when you start your free whitecharts trial through animal spirits, new customers only. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnick 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 Riddholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholds wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Happy New Year to everybody. Hope you had a nice break from school, from work, et cetera, et cetera. I had the flu. And I think I had a coming, Ben. I came back from Disney, spent one night in Universal. Had a great time. Spent another three, four nights.

and Disney had a wonderful time. And when I got back, somebody was saying like, oh, you must be exhausted. No, not really. I've got stamina. Not to brag. I just, I don't get tired. I've got a motor.

I've got an engine. I've been above my 200-day moving average for a long time. I was due. I was due for a correction. And boy, did I get a correction. So Thursday night, I watched Bagonia. with Robin. She actually, Rob and I have been DMing each other on Instagram.

Not sure what's happening. But we've been like tagging each other like, like, oh, look at this, look at this. My wife sends me stuff and gets mad at me because I never check Instagram. I do all the time. How weird was Begonia? Because this is a preview and I thought, it looks pretty weird. Okay. So Begonia, obviously a Michael movie, meant to see it in theaters, didn't get around to it. And when I saw Robin send it to me, I thought, hmm, this is interesting. She obviously has no idea what it is and thinks it's something. else. So I said, hey, let's watch this movie tonight. We haven't sat down on the couch and watched

a movie together in a decade. Well, it can't be a decade. That's ridiculous. I genuinely don't know the last time we've done that. I'm usually a by myself type of guy. So we watched Begonia. I loved it. She said that was awful. And I said that was awesome. Okay. I'm going to skip it. Yeah, it's not for you. I'm going to go robin on this one. I wasn't feeling great. But then the next morning, I woke up. And I was like, whoa, boy, something's wrong. Now, when I get sick, which is not too too frequently, I never get a fever. Like, I don't, I don't remember ever having a fever. I'm sure I have, but I just, I don't get fevers. So, and every time I get sick, I'm an exaggerate. I'm a baby. I do overdo it a little

bit. Robin doesn't want to hear about it. Like, she has no sympathy. Believe me alone. I don't care. You're not sick. You're sick. You are sick. You're not sick. Don't care other way. But she usually doesn't believe me that I am sick. So I woke up. I was like really struggling to get out of bed. but I had a podcast to do with you guys. And not to brag, a lot of the meat of the show was stuff that I had put in the dock. Otherwise, I would have just bailed. So I did it with you guys. You looked very sick.

I got on the thing and you looked very sick. I felt awful. Matter of fact, I was genuinely close to bailing mid-show. And don't think I don't know what you have Dunkin-F plan later, okay? I know what you guys have planned. I'm in the doctor. So after the show on Friday, I went straight to the urgent care. And it was packed because there was like a record number of flu cases in New York these days.

I saw it on ABC. So it's true, confirmed. And I got the rapid test. I thought I had strep throat. The flu, the nose, the COVID. The doctor comes back in five minutes. He's like, you got the flu. And I'm like, mother F.

My first thought was, I can't wait to tell Robin I have the flu. She's going to roll her eyes and she's still not going to care. And also, karma. Because if you remember on this show a couple of weeks ago, I happened to mention that I got my flu shot. You were rubbing it in the face of the rest of your family saying you were the only who got it. Did it bring the kids? Now, I told Robin I was getting one. That's a pretty important detail.

She wasn't too interested in having herself or the kids go, which is kind of weird because, I don't know. I didn't know that she was like. a truther of sorts, but she was like, yeah, whatever. Maybe now she will be, because you got it. So anyhow, I was in bed all day Friday, all day Saturday. And I mean all day. I got up to go to the bathroom. Like, that was it.

And Sunday, I said, like, if I don't get out of bed, like, my body, I'm going to start getting rig and worse. This is why your wife has no sympathy for you, because she's taking care of the kids while you're laying in bed. So it wasn't, it definitely, it definitely wasn't all bad. I've got about 10 movies to talk about later. These are movies that I probably otherwise would not have ever got into. And I'm quite excited about some of them.

One of them is NC17 teaser. We'll get to that later. And so yesterday I was feeling like 80% better. And now I'm like, I'm good to go. And I feel, it feels great. I feel great to be back on my feet. It really makes you, it puts a perspective, how being healthy. You don't understand how important being healthy is until you're unhealthy.

Yes. Right. Absolutely. So I'm back. And I am excited to be back. So let's pod. All right. You punted on predictions for the year, which a few people said, hey, we wanted Michael's predictions.

So I put some in here and Gallup also did some. So Gallup asked people a bunch of different questions about 2026. And some of them are just ridiculous. But some of them ask, like, is the stock market going to rise or fall? 55% said rise, 44% fall. Rising employment or rising unemployment. Time out. Can we each go on the record?

About what? the stock market 2026 let's do it yeah i've got some ben predictions here for a second and then but it says a year of economic prosperity or a year of economic difficulty and 70% said economic difficulty not prosperity so people are not feeling too great about the next year there's not like overwhelming optimism from the poll at least so here's my what's not going here's my simple ben grant up its hedge predictions that things are not going to change okay tell me where i'm wrong the a i bubble doesn't pop mag sevens do good not great how's he market remains stuck. Activity is low. Not great. No recession again. Just keeps being pushed

off. Interest rates are range bound. Three and a half, four to five percent. We live in the same thing where it just feels like we're stuck. Where's... Three and a half. Did you say three and a half? Okay. Sorry, four to five will say. Okay. I don't know. We're already pushing four. I think three and a half still is not like crazy. But like what's what's the one that's wrong there? Um, well, the things don't change. I think things don't change is a pretty safe bet. You're not going to get in too much trouble for saying that things are going to stay the same. Yeah, that is a baseline seems pretty simple to me.

I've seen some other... If I had to pick one, so go through the list again. Mag 7, do good. Stock market goes up. No recession. Hasing market remains frozen. Interest rates are range bound? Yeah.

Um Just a continuation If I had to pick one I don't know I would say let's say Let's say interest rates come down And the housing market re-opens Okay that's not bad

No conviction I think that would have to be like the government Would have to do something to get that really going Speaking of no conviction I got a bunch of emails about the Seahawks And I have to admit Oh yeah you're a little nervous now aren't Did you make the bet?

I have to admit it is pretty funny The Seahawks defense, I guess I haven't been paying enough attention. I watched the game. Yeah, they're awesome. Through the flu, what in the world? Did I just make a very bad mistake? I don't think so. It's because I stole Michigan's old defensive coordinator, Mike McDonald.

I still don't think Sam Donald is winning the Super Bowl. Sorry, and if he does, I will admit, it will be funny. So Michael Sembless, his outlook piece about AI, he looked at four big risks. And I think the biggest, take away something coming out of left field, obviously. The biggest one that, like, okay, this is. is going to lead to probably a bare market is something with China and Taiwan. Not being a geopolitical expert, I think that would be. Dan Wang, we both read his annual letter. Yeah. He was like, he made, he made a comment about, listen, the China, Taiwan stuff is not new.

That's been a political risk for 70 years. Yes. I remember we had a macro newsletter we subscribed to in the 2010s, my previous job. And this guy was like, if you look at this one island off the coast of China, and this is not Taiwan, if they take it. If they, take this island, then watch out World War III. So you're right, people, but just for the AI trade, I think it would spook headlines. I think there'd be a swift fall. But my other thinking is, why wouldn't there just be a deal to keep Taiwan Semiconductor running, even if China did something?

Why wouldn't it be just like the tariffs where, geez, this sounds awful. But no, wait, this is a really important thing. They're going to keep a deal to keep certain parties happy. I can't comment. I literally have no idea. Okay. This is interesting. There was a new guide to the markets I looked at yesterday.

and J.P. Morgan always puts together some lovely charts. And they look at the, at different inflection points for the S&P 500, the peak in 2000, the peak in 2007, the peak in February of 2020, 2022, now at the end of where we stand. And it looks at forward PE in 10-year treasury and dividend yields. And it's kind of crazy to think that from the peak in those, this has been invested right before a 35% crash in the S&P in COVID. If you were invested then, stocks are trading at 19.2 times forward earnings, and the tenure was at 1.6. Fast forward to the end of last year, 2025, the 10-year more than doubled to 4.2%.

And valuations barely budged from 19 to 22. Now, if you look at that, you would say, how did the S&P do? You'd probably say, ooh, not great. Nope, the S&P doubled in that time frame. Yeah, I think a lot of the stock market data and stuff that we're talking about. It's just, it's all AI. Obviously, it's all Nvidia, Google.

It's all the Mag 7 stuff. And Semblis had a data point. But just the whole thing of how rates more than doubled. There's no way anyone would have thought, okay, the stock market doubled in that time, too. Of course. And there's no way anyone could have predicted a revolutionary technology. Semblis in that post was saying how if you took Nvidia out of the market, I think it was just Nvidia, then Europe and whatever else is outperforming. And obviously, I love Semblis.

And I think it's, I know he knows this. The point is valid. He's just to show, like, how much Nvidia has helped the market. But it's also like saying, well, like, take Jalen Bronson's 30 points off the Knicks per night and they only score 85 points. Without, it's like, yeah, but the returns probably, they wouldn't have been redistributed equally, but there could have been returns that would have been had elsewhere. That's fair.

I still think you're dismissing a little bit of the rest of the world. So the acquie is up, I don't know, 75% in that time. And obviously, a big part of that is because the U.S. makes up a chunk of that. But it's not just the Mag 7 anymore that's going up. Everything is joined the party. I'm just saying the specific for the S&P 500. Like, from 22 to today is 70% of the returns to Mag 7? I mean, it's a lot.

True, right? It's obviously the earnings, too. So the next one is JP Borgon. They looked at the estimated earnings for 26 and 27, and both are 15% per year. So I guess that's probably the risk is that people are just the estimates for earnings

are way too rosy. Yeah, that's a very obvious risk. Yes, but doesn't it seem like every risk right now is obvious? Isn't that always the case? Or maybe not? I feel like it's more so now than ever. Yeah, no, I think...

In this cycle, the risks are more obvious than we've ever had them, I think. I think you're right. I also don't think because everybody thinks AI is a risk that it's not a risk. I don't buy that.

I think it's way too cute. I also love the fact, and I sound like a broken record here, like I love that the market is rejecting the bubble for now. Yes, for now. But the whole, I think the one thing we can definitively say is that the people who have been the most wrong has been the valuation bears over the past 15 years. So look at this one for duality research, which we've highlighted before.

By the way, the person who runs this sent me an email, I don't know, a year ago, a year and a half ago, saying, hey, I'm quitting my job in finance. and I created these charts and I'm going into this and I was kind of like listen your charts are awesome good luck

and that's one of my favorite newsletters now every week I spoke from the other week and these are the best these are some of the among the best charts in finance can I just say what before you get to the data

on the margins I like don't I'm not waving my finger at the valuation bears from the 2012 era where margins were extended because there used to be a cyclicality to the business cycle before the Mag 7 names expanded their moat and just they've done things in business that have never ever been done before.

Expanding margins, 20% consistent growth rate at this scale, we've never seen anything like it. Now, like if you were bearish in 2012 because of valuation that you're literally saying the same thing in 2025, I mean, on already. But like, I don't, you know, I think it's like, I think it was reasonable to be bearish on valuations. I just think we poked so many holes in the cape ratio stuff back then that it was, it was easier to look at the other side than it was to say like definitively stocks are in a bubble again. I think those people, I thought that it was just too much. Yeah, I agree with it. Yeah. But the whole thing here, so this chart looks at valuation, forward PE versus profit margin. And it just shows, obviously,

profit margins are just up and to the right, starting from 2005 to today. And we're entering a period of AI, robotics potentially, stuff that's going to seemingly make businesses more efficient. How could you, how could valuations not be so much higher? Wait, Pat, describe the chart for people listening. All right. So on one axis is a FordPE, on the bottom axis is profit margin. And it's showing valuation versus profitability. And it's showing that as profit margins have increased and have increased a lot since 2005, so to evaluations. I mean, it's a pretty strong relationship. It's almost perfect. It's a pretty strong. And it's showing the estimated profit margin in 2027 of almost 16% and it was 7%

in 2005. I am very proud of the fact. I've mentioned this before, pat myself in the back a little bit. In 2018, when research affiliates called me out in that article for saying it was different this time. Like, we were right about why multiples were elevated. Right, and have remained elevated. And it was the margins. There was a consistency in the sustainability of the profit margins. And when you just look at the valuations and you're not like looking under the hood of what comprises the index, you missed the story completely. That's the whole thing. They required context. And that's what we've been trying to say. And this next one, I think this was via Sam Rowe, the Bank of America. It shows revenue per worker, jump to a record high,

have for 15 years of selling out, which is, and it just, you can see it took off in 2022, this decade really. And why would this, why would this ever go back now with technology being what it is? Uh, 2017, I wrote a post, should stocks be worth more now than they used to be? Kind of crazy that were coming up on a decade of that post. Yeah. And one of the things that I used was revenue per employee. Remember that I said, like, U.S. Steel was the first billion company, and their revenue per employee was 300,000, and Facebook's was 27 million. And it's obviously only gotten better since then. And it's just done nothing but gone up into the right consistently.

And at some point, you know, you would figure that this is going to plateau. But who's to say when, where, and if that will even happen? All right. So on our TCAF episode, we talked about international outperforming and no one caring. So I looked at this. The EFA outperformed the S&P by roughly 14%. last year. It's kind of crazy to think in this AI bubble. That totally took all the oxygen out of the room. Tech, Meg 7, concentration, AI bubble. That's all anyone talked about

all year after Liberation Day stuff. And this was the biggest outperformance by international stocks from the perspective of the U.S. investors since 1993. Like blew it out of the water. There haven't been many double-digit. It's really insane to think that that happened. And rewind to the beginning of, or the end of 2024, I mean, genuinely people were saying in what universe, what would have to happen? Like, honestly, what would have to happen for international stocks to outperform in 2025? Even looking back, aside from like a week dollar, it wasn't just a week dollar, like local markets outperform too, like in local currency.

So what do you think explain the outperformance? I honestly don't, I don't know. It almost still doesn't make sense looking back on it, but obviously part of it's the dollar. But we look at the attribution of this. And it was more valuations than the dollar in earnings. It was fundamental reasons. And I think the biggest thing that we've, and you've tried to, we've always had valuations out of timing indicator for years. It's just, listen, how things can't possibly get any worse.

All they have to do is get less worse and then people will dive into these things. And I think that was part of it. I think I did this with Josh on what are your thoughts a few weeks ago for one of our mystery charts. European banks have outperformed the NASDAQ 100 for the last five years. It's nuts, right? Is that insane? I almost want to fact check myself. It doesn't feel right.

And the bizarre thing, too, is that we've looked at value stocks overseas crushed last year. Small cap value was up in an insane amount. And in the U.S., it was barely up at all and got killed. And so you're seeing like dispersion among the types of stocks, too, globally. And for the first time, it was like, oh, my God. diversification actually worked. Yeah. For the first time in many years.

All right. Todd Sone is out with his first blast of the year. And in there, I learned that ETFs, equity ETF specifically, and ETFs in general, had a record-breaking month in December of 2025. And it wasn't even close. It was like off the charts.

Why would that be? What are people trying to sneak in at the end of the year? You'd think that there'd be more activity almost in January trying to get ahead of stuff than December. I wonder if there is a seasonality to this. Is there like a year-end bonus kind of thing that happens? Hey, you get your bonus right before the end of the year. Jam of the Month Club, put it that into the stock market? Don't know.

That's a massive number. And you and I keep saying, where is this money coming from? Wages and mutual funds. And mutual funds. Wait, did you have a prediction for the S&P this year? Oh You said you were going to get to your predictions Did you have them or are they later in the show or no?

Oh, I did not give a level for the S&P. Would you like me to give you an estimate? I would like one, please. I said every year I'll either predict a 20% gain or a 10% loss And I can't that put so we've had so many 20% gains I think I'd be leaning more towards another 20% gain and this thing gets crazy I'd say that's 75% chance

and 25% chance we have 10% loss. How's that? Okay. I'm going to handicap it. Do you think that we will have a 20% correction? Because a 15 is baseline. Do you think we'll have a 20, a bare market? I think that's a better possibility, yes.

We got three times this decade where the stock market has been down double digits from peak to trough at some point in the year and finish the year up double digits. And I think we could probably have one of those again. All right. If you had to handicap, the likelihood of a 10% correction. Would you say 80-20 or even more? So historically, it's 266%, okay? So if I put it at 80-20...

Wait, that's it? It's only two-thirds of years have a double-digit correction. Two-thirds of all years since the 1920s have had a double-digit correction at some point, piqued trough. Huh. I thought, I would thought it would have been higher. So 80%, I'd say that's probably not bad just because we've had a good run. So, yeah, I think that would make sense.

So if we're making an odds board here, 10%, 20%, yeah, I think we could go 80% for a 10% correction, 52% for a 20% correction? How's that? All right, let me get more specific. Will there be a bare market? Will there be a 20% correction in the AI names? Oh, does that include Mag 7? Are you talking about like the crazy stuff?

I don't want to split hairs. Let's just say in general. No, when I'm so crazy, I'm not talking about, I'm not talking about like, um, uh, weave. Okay. You're talking Nvidia Google. Yeah. That'd be, that'd be a way higher percentage than the overall market, I would say, for sure. Yeah, you're not. It was up 70% last year. Yeah, you or nay. Had to bet. Don't get, don't, I don't want handicaps. Like, if you had to bet. Yeah. And then they still finish the year out. Okay. I think that's a very, pretty safe bet. All right. Um, see what I did there. I can't be wrong. That's good. Put me on CNBC, mom.

That's good. I will go on record as saying the market will have another up year. 75% of the time, it works every time. It's true. Not a very bold prediction, but oh, well. All right. Let's do some stuff in the economy. There was a lot of talk of the second half about a weakening economy. All fair. Same store sales as a proxy for how the consumer is doing are just fine. doesn't it seem like the number of recession predictions has gone down every year since 2022?

It seems like now is the lowest number of predictions I've seen for recession going into a year. Well, 2020, 2020, everybody was expecting a recession. Everyone. That was that year. 2024, there was still some people. Going into 2026, I feel like now no one really thinks

we're going to have a recession. Doesn't it feel that way? Besides the usual Dumers. Yeah. I don't think that's in anyone's Parlay book A recession this year. A nationwide recession.

Yeah, probably not. All right. Let's talk about this. So there's a there's a handle on Twitter. Middle class party. Middle underscore class underscore U.S. tweeted, Denny's is closing

180 locations by the end of 2025, jack in the box is closing 150 to 200 stores. People didn't like stop, people didn't stop liking food. They ran out of money to spend on it. And this went mega viral. 11,000 likes, almost 3,000 comments, 2,000 retweets, 300,000 impressions. And this is social media all day, every day. Of course.

Jeff Richards. replied with a picture. And there's a lot of legitimate complaints about Twitter. My feed this entire week while I was in bed is people undressing people with asking Grock to undress women on the internet. So there's a lot, obviously, you know, don't need to like belabor the bad side about Twitter. There's plenty of it.

We talk about it. This is a good feature. So there's an about this account. and Jeff Richards took a screenshot. And the account is based in Bangladesh. Of course, trying to... My hope... This is how much of the negativity

is literally fake foreign agents. Farm. My hope for the... Because I keep worrying about this for my kids as they get older. My oldest daughter is 11. And we talked about social media the other day. And I hope that there's just...

it's so overrun by AI that the kids all go, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what's the point? Why do we want to, like, be getting our news there, information there if it's just run, like, if they're going to be looking at Instagram and looking at stuff on TikTok, fine, I guess. But for the other social media stuff, like the information, if they just go, if it's, if some of it's fake, then we're going to think all of it's fake. I hope that's what these kids think. I think that's such a great point. I'm glad you said that because it is alarming. And I was thinking about this, like, remember, um, all of the Facebook, misinformation, disinformation, the Cambridge Analytica, all that stuff, that's going to look quaint compared to some of the deep fake stuff that's coming with AI

that is going to be completely indistinguishable, real from fake, and people are not going to care that. I mean, what even do we do? How do you regulate this stuff? Well, there's already been stories in New York Times about AI videos that have a watermark saying, like, this is AI. And people still think it's real. So I think the transition period

is just going to be really hard for people who didn't grow up with this stuff or didn't have technology in their lives. It's for a long time, certain people are just going to be fooled by it and we're just going to have to live with that. You're going to need a new chapter and don't fall for it.

Remember, like, that was the golden age of fraud? Yeah. Like, this is going to be just be, right. Whatever's coming is going to be awful. This middle class parties guy, his thing about Denny's closing, the jacket box closing, people ran out of money.

It's not true. Look at this next chart. Well, of course, it doesn't even matter. But this is like all of Twitter. Oh, I know. Of course. Because people like to, when you complain, you're in the same boat. Everyone's in the same boat.

When you say things or crap. Yeah, we're getting screwed by the man. Right. But look at this chart from BLS. It shows there's this really cool tool where you can click on these different things of what people spend money on. And it goes from 2010 to 2024. And it's food at home versus food away from home.

And look at the amount of money that people have spent, both of them are up into the... Obviously, inflation is a big piece of this, but it's not like people have decided to stop spending money going out. The dollars are still being spent. Begrudgingly. Yes, right, begrudgingly. But it's not like people have severely changed their behavior.

You know, this is interesting, too. They have alcohol beverages at home and alcohol beverages away from home. And this is the opposite of the food. There's way more money being spent away from home on alcohol beverages than at home. So we keep hearing these stories about how any of the sin industries are really screwed. It's actually interesting. I think this is probably for socializing, probably a good thing. Like people, if they are drinking, they should be doing it out and about at restaurants with people, at bars, right?

Sporting events, doing it out as opposed to drinking themselves at home because people don't throw parties anymore, I guess. My drinking habits have completely flipped, I guess, similar to the chart. Like, during, remember COVID was, I was drinking every night. probably for about a year. I was like, all right, I guess I'm, this is just what I'm doing now? I never drink at home. I guess on the weekends I do.

But yeah, you're right. I don't really drink during the week. That's my thing. You go out more than I do in New York, but you're right. It's more of a social thing. You do it when you go out for dinner or something. All right. There was, there was an opinion piece in the Times.

That was pretty depressing. said, when AI took my job, I bought a chainsaw. So it was about, I think this guy was a writer. I can't remember exactly. And he asked Chad Chabitie, like, what can he do? That's AI resistant. Okay. And he started cutting trees.

And then he got hurt because it's physically, you know, it's laborious. And he ended the piece with, in towns like mine, outsourcing and automation consume jobs, then purpose, then people. Now the same forces are climbing the economic ladder. Yet Washington remains fixated on global competition and growth, as if new work will always appear to replace what's been lost. Maybe it will, but given AI's rapacity, it seems far more likely that it won't. If our leaders fail to prepare, the silence that once followed the closing of factory doors

will spread through office parks and home offices, and the grief long-borne by the working class may soon be born by us all. Obviously, dramatic, but... You know, valid. My thinking is like, the AI's, like, if you see it in movies and stuff already, you see AI's, like in every new movie now, AI is the villain, right? This is, this is going to be the pop culture for the next 10, 20 years probably. Oh, yeah.

Right? There's going to be so many books written about this and so many movies about this and the impact of this is going to have just a long tail, a very long tail. Yeah, I do wonder. I mean, that is a question. like there are obviously there's there are obvious jobs that will be lost to AI to automation you can name them the question is like where does it end it doesn't really come for all of us i mean all of us is you know absurd but um there was a chart in in uh benedick evans um

what is an annual report i don't know he he does he's an annual presentation okay and uh he he wrote AI layoffs a red herring in the short term so he shows employees laid off within tech specifically. All right. So employees that are laid off and then companies with layoffs. And yes, there was a spike as Chad GPT launched that was way more to do with macroeconomic forces. Right. Right. That was just a bad timing. It was 9% inflation. It had nothing to do with chat chit. Since then, both of these numbers are down to the right. This is surprising. This does not match with the headlines at all. No. And you would think that tech would actually be the place because you hear about how much AI helps with programming. And so you'd think tech would be the place where

this would have the biggest impact immediately. You would. That's surprising. I still, I'm on the like, I know there's going to be a difficult transition for millions of people. I don't know what the number is. Is it 2 million? Is it 5 million? Is it 10? I don't know what the number is. But I still, I don't think that it's going to completely take over and ruin tens of millions of jobs. I just don't, I don't believe that. There's too much inertia in the system. I don't think that's going to happen. Neither do I.

I guess the question is how many jobs are going to be destroyed and how does that impact society? Even if it's only a small percentage. What if it's, what if it's seven million people? The thing I keep thinking about, seven million people. I made the number up, obviously, but. And I'm not saying that these are great jobs for people,

but think about the new industries that have popped up just in this last 10, 15 years. DoorDash, Uber, all these things that didn't, I'm not saying these are good jobs people, but these jobs that came from technology that did not exist before, that how many millions of people do now? And those jobs are going to get displaced when we have self-driving cars. But I guess the point is like those are terrible jobs. Of course. And how many people do them? So I'm just saying there's going to be new jobs that come about because of this. And I don't think we even know what they are. Yeah, I agree.

And hopefully they're better than what exists. All right, Ben, let me have it. Okay, so we did a live talk compound and friends on Friday, and I gave this take about AI, and you immediately came back at me and said, hey, what the hell, man? You stole that take from me. And you, if you look at my face on the video, I'm totally confused because I thought, oh man, did I? If I did, I had no idea. And then a bunch of people emailed in and said, wait, what's Michael talking about? Then had that take on the latest animal spirits. Duncan, play the clip. Duncan found the clip for me. So you and Josh and I next week are going to have a live show for TCAF, right? I want to talk about this then with him, but I want to plant the seed a little bit here. I feel like people keep putting this stuff all in one big bucket. Like it's either going to succeed or it's going to fail, and it's all or nothing. Right?

Yeah. But what if it is like, hey, listen, these two companies figure out how to work it and these other companies figure out to use it better, and these companies, they do crash and burn. but it doesn't bring the whole thing down. I think that's the way people are thinking about it. That could be, okay, that's good, Duncan. Okay, so you put my take honor on the table, and you called all my honor for takes.

And did I intercept that into your brain? Yes. The take was so good that you intercept into my brain. Listen, guilty is charged in my defense. I'll give you a, you were sick. I'll give you that much. That was a flu pod. my brain was a bit scrambled.

But yeah, that's embarrassing. You just said, and you stole that take from me. You... The funny thing is, I just thought maybe I missed it from you. You said it, and I was thinking of something else. What's this hallucination? I had to have Duncan pulled that. Fair enough.

What's the hallucination rate thing? Okay. So I am about to cancel my $200 a month. chat GPT thing, which I kind of thought that I was going to when I did it. It was more of a test. It was more of a test than anything. Like, I would have said like probably 80, 20% chance

that I canceled this. That was like what I thought going into it. And I'm canceling it primarily because I just, I don't see enough value out of it. Right. Like, I don't think that I'm going to notice a huge drop up from the $20 a month. Okay.

And also. And also. So, chat, GBT, Gemini, whatever, these tools are amazing. I'm not trying to be a complainer. Like, I understand that they will never be worse than they are today. Right? Like, think about what the iPhone is today versus what it was when it came out or Netflix, when they had nothing on the service.

Right? Like, it's early. And it's going to be amazing. And maybe one day I will need the $200 tool. All right. All that, okay. It gets shit wrong all the time. Yeah.

Like all the time. The stuff that really isn't interesting. infuriating is the simple stuff. Hey, change this little thing about this picture just had you create. And then it can't, for some reason, the simple stuff is the hardest for it. But there's a lot of like factual errors. For example, I asked, um, or the Lions mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. And it said like, yes, they finished the season eight and eight. And I was like, what? The season's not like the season's not over. And you, and it gives you the whole, oh, you're right. I apologize. It's one of the movies that I was, that I was watching that I turned off

actually, because it was way too boring. There was a 1974 movie, I believe, called The Conversation. It's with Gene Hackman, who was obviously one of the greatest actors of all time. Francis Ford Coppola, I had never heard of it. Oh, good rotten tomatoes and we fired up. I was just bored, whatever. So it got me thinking, hey, whatever happened to Gene Hackman? Remember, like, the double death?

And there was speculation, and it sort of just fizzled out. So it got me like, oh, what happened to Gene Hackman? So I asked chat, how did Gene Hackman die? And it said, that was a hoax on the internet. Gene Hackman is still alive. And I said, like, what are you kidding me? So the other day, I asked it, if China invaded Taiwan, what would the reaction of the stock market be? And what do you think it told me would be the baseline percentage drop would be for the stock market if China invaded Taiwan?

What did it say? 50%. Let me see if I could find. It's still got some work there. let me see if I could find this I can't even find it who cares it doesn't matter oh here it was here it was

there's been no find so did they ever find that how Gene Hackman died there's been no fine because Gene Hackman has not died Gene Hackman is alive and then it said like if you're thinking of a death hoax that's circulated online that's almost certainly the source

so I said Gene Hackman is dead what are you talking about and then I started complaining about how much money else But, okay, but anyway, getting back to the point, yeah, getting back to the point, so in Sembalist's post, he has AI model hallucination rates, which are incorrect responses, the share of total questions. It's high as shit. Like, chatGBT, 5-2 is still 45%, like, it's too much. It's basically a coin toss if it's going to get a factual answer right. And there are some people who take these as religion, right?

this is it. What this thing says is right. It's perfectly accurate. Wow, those numbers are really high. Okay, I mentioned on TCAF last week that we, so we flew into Phoenix for a week just to have a nice time at like an Airbnb place, do some hiking. I got a hiking story later.

But the first thing I noticed coming out of the airport is Waymoser everywhere. And I was like, oh, I forgot Phoenix is a big area for this. I didn't think of it. But I started seeing them everywhere. And we rented a car, but I told my wife and kids, I'm like, we have to take one. We have to do this. And they're like, why? I'm like, we have to do this.

It's a literally, look, there's no one in the driver's seat. This is a miracle that we create this. And so we took one to dinner and so we could hold four passengers. So we had 10 people with this. We had to take three of them. And everyone was like, oh, my gosh, this is the coolest than we've ever done. It felt like you're going on a ride at Disney. And to see the steering wheel move on its own.

And it's funny, the driver's side. the seatbelt is buckled. I think it has to be. So doesn't beep. But the cars are jags. It's really nice. Everyone we were in is super duper clean. You get in, it gives you instructions. You hit the start button after you're ready to go. It tells you what to do. You can hook up your own Spotify to it. It's unbelievable. It like changed my life. And I don't know how you could see something like experience something like this and be bearish on the future of humanity. The fact that we created a car that can literally pick you up and drive itself. And it was, the craziest thing was at the red lights, I thought, like, are these things going to be really slow? It, like, takes off

from a red light. Like, it goes, it goes with the flow of traffic. There was only one time where I was at a green light, and it was a left turn lane, and it had to turn. And it kind of started to go, and then it slammed the brakes on because cars were coming. And it probably could have made it, but it decided, no, I'm going to be, and it, like, gave a little read on the screen saying, hey, sorry, cars were present. And then it took off. It, I never felt unsafe for a minute in it. It was, it's, it's crazy to me that these are going to be on the road everywhere in, I don't know, 10 years. Yeah.

I don't know how you can be bearish on humanity, the fact that we have the ability to do this. So, Nvidia yesterday said they want to power a robotaxy fleets with chips and software by 2027. Jensen Wang said this at his thing. Waymo, I looked this up. They said they've done 14 million trips in 2025 so far, 20 million lifetime trips by the end of the year. And they were everywhere there. You see them all the time. They had these big things on the top that swirl around as like the sensors or whatever.

And just seeing these cars with no one driving in them is wild. And I'm sure it's something that eventually you just get you. We took it like five or six times. And then like, okay, it kind of wears off. But it's, it's magical. I can't imagine them going around New York City with all the honking and moving and nudging there. There's too many people that are just crazy walkers in New York City. Right, that just run across the street when they shouldn't be like, I don't know if it would work in New York City, but it would be hard.

It's amazing. Yes, it really is. And the thing is it was, I don't know how they're making. Google is obviously subsidizing it to get this up and running because I think the cars cost $150,000. Our rides were way cheap. We got like something one of the nights saying, hey, 25% off all rides. And the rides for like a 20 minute ride are like $10. It was cheaper than Uber to start, but it was, it's magic.

All right. Speaking of cars, I'm close to making my decision. Okay. This is like LeBron and taking his... I'm taking my talents. So I test drove the Lexus GX and I test drove the range rover. And I've been pretty vocal about my shitty car experiences and saying like, I just want, I just want a car that's like not going to give me trouble, which would steer me to the Lexus, right?

It's not a cheap car. the Lexus GX. Okay. I got in it, I drove it, and it felt- Are there any cheap SUVs anymore? No. And it felt, it felt fine. It's a very nice car.

Like, I'm definitely not a snob, okay? I, I, like, it's, it's a very nice car. But I'm not buying the car. All right, I'm not, this is not like a car that I'm going to have for 10 years, right? Where if you're buying the car, I would never, ever buy a Range Rover. Oh, man, you're setting yourself, you're going to have so many problems. I'm already marking it down. This thing's going to be a lemon.

But here's my thinking. I'm not a snob, but I'm buying a range rover. I know. Listen, I'm embarrassed. Because I don't consider it. It's a dushy car. I know. I see him all over.

I think you actually said this to one person. Didn't you say that to someone? I said this to a friend of mine years ago. And he happened to drive it. I didn't know he drove it. Yeah. It is a dushy car. It just is, and I am a little bit embarrassed.

However, I'm also very proud. I'm doing this for me. I'm not doing this for external purposes. I love this car. I love how it looks. I drove it, and I felt really good. It's a type of car that I will get in, and I hope, maybe it'll wear it very quickly,

and I'll report back. What's the model? I needed to know the model. The, whatever, the full, I don't know, the regular one, the full size one. Okay. There's like a bunch of different model. I was not. Okay. So, all right, let me. But I drove it and it drives awesome and it's a beautiful

car. And yes, like there was a piece of me that is embarrassed to be perceived as like, I look at this douchebag. But you know what? If you test around the range rover, you're never going to go to something else. But ultimately, I'm doing this myself. I'm very proud of what I've been able to accomplish professionally to be able to afford this car. Like, is something that I never in a billion years when I was unemployed in 26 years old thought would be possible. So I'm doing this for me. And also for the content, because let's be honest, if it breaks down and it's a piece of shit and I go mental, it would be very funny. Yeah. Add it to the list of the Audi and the Jeep and the, yeah, Ranger over the next.

But on that front, I'm leasing the car. And yeah, obviously I'm rolling the dice because the, the statistic objectively, this is like not a reliable car. Right. And hopefully that's what the lease is for. So I'm not 100% done, but I'm not, I'm not getting the Lexus regardless. Good for you. I like it. Thank you. On to Disney. So I don't love like the cynical stuff on the internet just in general.

Like I just, it's very easy to be cynical about everything. People are taking pictures of Disney. Oh, I can't imagine. Could you imagine who would, like, listen, I don't like that attitude anyway, but it is, it's just a magical place. It really is. No, that was me. I was a cynical person saying I hate lines.

I hate crowds. I hate all of that stuff. Yeah, I hate all that stuff. Then you go to Disney and you go, oh, that's fine. I can deal with it. My kids, my boys had such an incredible time. Logan is obsessed with Peter Pan. And Captain Hook, he gave Captain Hook's book.

And Captain Hook took the book and ran away. And Logan chased him. And then Logan got to meet Peter Pan. Like, I literally cried. Like, it was. You sent me the video. That was good. It was the sweetest thing ever.

And yes, I have a few. pictures in here, were the amount of people overwhelming and, like, was it the most fun being everyone? And it was, it wasn't the greatest. But memories for life, 10 in a 10, if you could, if you could afford it. It's just a. And at one point, Robin wanted to make sure that they got to meet Buzz, I think. And so she's like, you know, I'll just take the kids for a walk. So they, every day, we took them for like an hour nap. Thank God we brought a stroll by the way, which I thought was a bad idea. Holy shit. I can't imagine.

It wouldn't have worked. We would have had to rent a stroller. So we had a double stroller every day. They took a nap for an hour, whatever. Like, it's exhausting. It's a long day. At one point during the day, Robin was very happy to sit down and wait online and be on our phone, whatever.

And I'm walking around Disney. I was in Hollywood studios. And the kids are sleeping. And I'm listening to Cameron Crow's audiobook. And it was just, I was specifically thinking I'm having the time of my life. good pushing my boys around listening to an audiobook robin's a load like it was just it was fucking awesome um and and i think i'm done with disney this is my third time yeah i think i'm good so wait so here's the point i wanted to make so with investing all the time i you know

peter lynch obviously popularized this um invest in what you know is a little bit more nuance than that but you see a place like disney and you're in a place like disney and i heard a few people saying how much money they're making. And yeah, the theme park is a gold mine. Parks and experiences are a gold mine. I think the number I saw was between all the parks, it's like a million people a day. If you put all the parks together. And you think about the money people spend.

I thought the same thing. I got a question for you on the, so you've got these charts in here, you can give this, but if Disney never would have done Disney Plus and they just would have like give their IP to other people, right? Netflix, you buy it from us. HBO, buy it from us. Peacock, if they never did Disney Plus, is a stock way higher today. Way higher.

Probably, right? Way higher. Look at all the travel stocks. Way higher. Right? If it's just the parks and they're making movies and they're renting those movies to other streamers. Now, but this is, but hold on it because we have to consider that ABC is obviously a huge

property. Right. So if Disney parks was a standalone, separately traded vehicle, the parks and experiences, yeah, I think I think the linear stuff And Disney Plus is absolutely an anchor. All right. So here's the deal, Jack. The earnings per share hasn't gone anywhere in a decade.

The stock has underperformed on every single time frame for the last 30 years. The earnings one is the earnings chart is crazy. I had Sean look at the one, three, five, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. And it's underperforming on every time frame. So a 30 year time. timeframe, the S&P is up 10% per year in Disney 7, that's, that's a big number. Okay. So I'm glad you said that because the actual numbers are astounding. And yeah, like the company, it's a phenomenally profitable business. Its earnings aren't growing, but it's still making a

shit ton of money. But the market doesn't value that. I mean, obviously, I know we know that, but it's so easy to look at something and have like the wrong impression on what, you know, the investment. All right. So Disney. Because the Disney parks don't scale. That's the thing. The hope was Disney Plus will scale. Obviously, it didn't. They haven't had a six hours in three years. That's why tech companies are better than, yeah. So, cumulatively, over the last 30 years, Disney is up 675%.

Not bad, okay, on a nominal basis. Not bad at all. But over the, but the S&P is up 1,800%. Yeah. Dang. 10 years, it's 298 versus 17. When we're talking about investing, like it sort of breaks my brain. a little bit. Like, if Disney isn't making money, this is an absolutely iconic global brand.

What has stronger resonance with people than Disney? And, uh, anyway, I'm, I'm beyond overjoyed that my boys got to experience it. By the way, someone in the comments last week said, I will pay these guys to stop talking about Disney every week. And then the next comment was, they'll just take that money and go to Disney again, which I thought was pretty funny. So kudos of the guys can comment. So I am going to, so we're going back to the Bahamas in February, because Disney was not exactly a relaxing vacation. Right. And I was thinking, like, so I take two vacations a year with the family, December and February.

None of this happens without points. Helps a lot when you have kids and plane tickets and your- My plane tickets and the hotel is with music points. Right. And don't you think this is so much of the travel boom? Of course it is. I wouldn't. I just, I wouldn't.

It's sort of like, there's maybe a bad analogy, or maybe not. I would not bet the money at a black trick table if I was using cash. Oh, instead of the chips, you mean? So if I'm, I just wouldn't pay 10 grand for flights and hotels. I mean, maybe once a year, not twice a year. It's a lot, yeah. You know how many credit cards I have that I've taken out to get the point bonus and then use them at a hotel?

Do it all the time. Like, I guess it's been a while since I've done it, but, yeah. All right, real estate, somebody, John Brooks had a chart. I don't know this is his from Reventure. I'm not familiar, but why the housing market is frozen. And it looks at the mortgage payment to buy versus the monthly rent versus mortgage payment current owners. I'm glad they put the current owners in here because people only show the new. Yeah.

And not. So I'm noticing more and more houses in my neighborhood, some more desirable than others, of course, that just aren't selling, that would have sold in a second. I mean, a millisecond. It would have been a bidding war. And they're just sitting. Don't you think it's going to take some government intervention? If we really want to get activity going to say, hey, you get a teaser rate for five years, right? If you have a 3% mortgage, we're going to give you four and a half percent or something if you, like, for five years and then it adjusts whatever the market is.

And if you're buying a new home, you also get that teaser rate for five years. Like if they just said, we're going to buy down mortgage rates for you. For everyone. Everyone wants one. If you're willing to get off for 3% mortgage, we'll buy it down for you for five years. And then whatever the market says it is, that's what you've got to refinance into. Something like that. If you really wanted to get activity going, I don't see anything other than that that would help because of the everyone's stuff.

I don't see what else would do it. Well, people can move to the Midwest. Did you see this article? No. Wall Street Journal, Americans are looking to the Midwest to find affordability. not a lot of data in here in terms of real estate Midwest specific stuff, but they were just talking about a lot of anecdote, you know, a lot of John and Jane Smith. But they were saying like not only is the Midwest affordable, but they also showed that

it's not just because wages are stagnant where people have no money. Like they have a chart showing after tax wage and sadly growth by region, and the Midwest is, you know, it's up there. Interesting. I wonder how much remote work has to do with that. The fact that you could potentially earn a higher wage living somewhere else. Are you, what is the housing market like where you are? It's, I mean, the prices are, it's getting to the point where it's like, oh, boy, you know,

it's where it's not that as affordable anymore. Like that, but you're seeing people push back. When people try to list for really high prices, the market is pushing back. I have a few friends who work in real estate who are saying that like that's stuff selling but people are if people try to like buy something and move in a couple years they're not going to get what they paid so but the price here are much higher but compared to another the coasts people would laugh at the prices yeah all right there is talk from uh politicians in california about a billionaire tax this is from the new york times suzanne himenez the

Chief of Staff at S-E-I-U-H-W said the organization was trying to fill a funding gap for the state's health care industry. She said, we looked at how could we generate the revenue to fix this kind of hole? And this group of folks just made sense. And the California billionaires were the most fortunate people in this state. So the Times says if the measure gains enough signatures to reach the state ballot in November and wins approval, it will retroactively. applied to anyone who lived in California as of January 1st, 2026.

Those of $20 billion in assets who resided in the state on the date would face a one-time tax of $1 billion and of five years to pay it. Larry Page, for example, that would result in a one-time tax of more than $12 billion. Peter Thiel would be 1.2. So these people are not going to be in California if this is actually happening. and it's easy to say to yell tax the billionaires it's so stupid like first of all the the problem and it's very easy to point to inequality and the problem of the billionaires no that's not the problem in this specific case the healthcare system is the problem and i don't care how much money

somebody has nobody likes to pay taxes like oh what's what's uh who cares their what was the number for larry page 12 billion dollars i don't know high number. That's a lot of money. 12 billion? I guess the thought is who's going to who's going to cry for the billionaires. I think that's obviously the thought. Of course. That's obviously the thought. Of course. It's popular, right? Like, yeah, tax them. But it's just, it's not real life. They would just move. Of course. Yes. There's incentives here. Right. Yep. Yes. That's not going to work. Real quick on streaming. Lucas Shaw did a did a review on who's watching what, where. Top show from 2020 to 2025 by minutes watched while in the weekly top 10.

NCIS is number one. Crazy Anatomy stilt. They're unbelievable. What does NCIS stand for? Navy something I can't remember. It's been on forever. Wow. Naval.

I had no idea. Naval criminal investigative services. So it's funny because a lot of people, say, listen, Avatar is like the biggest movie franchise ever, right? Every one of the movies does billions of dollars and has no pop culture footprint at all. No one quotes the movie. There's no memes about the movie. So Avatar is the NCIS of movies. NCIS is massive. Who talks about that show? Ever. You've never watched an episode, right? Obviously, why would you? No. I don't watch, I'm not 65 years old. All right. Gray's Anatomy is number two,

Bluey is three, Coca-Mellon. Another one, Criminal Minds is number five. Raisin Eddie jumped the shark in, like, season four. I watched the first few seasons. Can't believe it's still on. Do you know what criminal minds is? No, but it's got to be something like NCIS, I assume. I'm guessing it's a CBS nonsense. It's crazy that suits is still up there.

Suits in the office. Okay. Ozark is the most watched show ever. At least, I'm sorry, 2020 and 2025. Stranger Things. Okay. No, this is not, no, not Netflix. Oh.

just streaming. Okay, that's very interesting. So I finished stranger things, by the way. I only watched the first season. I'm not, I'm totally out. How was it? I didn't love all the mind stuff and jumping in and out of different worlds,

but the ending was like an 80s movie. I kind of liked it. I kind of liked how they finished it. Is the series over? Yeah, series is over. Okay. I kind of liked how they finished it. It wasn't, I didn't,

they didn't need the last two seasons, but I like how they tied the loose ends up. Anything out of the crown? All right, whatever. It's all the Netflix shows. Disney, all right, so we spoke about this earlier. Disney, they show the company hasn't increased their share of TV viewing in three years. It's just flat.

Of course. All they have is like one Star Wars new show a year. That's it. My kids watch Disney. You know, blank check, but. On your recommendation, my daughter, Kate, watch blank check on the flight to Arizona. Did she love it? Yeah, it's a good one.

Netflix crushes rivals in competition for film. fans. So 61% of viewing time for movies in the weekly top 10. Okay. Because I was going to say, I watch most of my movies on Prime. Yeah, I'm more like an HBO person. Prime and HBO are probably my two biggest ones. All right, Ben. So tell me about what happened to you in the desert. I mean, this is the second time that a plant attacked you. Yeah, the plants don't like me. So I got attacked by a cactus. So when we get to Arizona, my son, eight years old, George, The first cactus we see on the side of the road in like a pot, he goes up and has to touch it. Like, he's just can't believe these cacti exists.

So every one he sees, he has to go touch. And I'm like, dude, you're going to get hurt. And he's like, oh, no, it's every cactus he's got to touch. So we're at the base of this trail. Pinnacle Peak. It's really nice hike up the mountain, a few miles, getting ready to go. We haven't even gone on the hike yet. And my, of course, the signs don't go off the trail.

All my kids run off the trail immediately. As we're, like, getting waters ready, getting the bathroom, you know, we haven't started the hike yet. And I hear him screaming, and there's these little cactus that look like sea urchins. And I hear him yelling, and all the kids are over there, he's yelling, I got a sea urchin, I got a sea urchin. And so I run over, and he's got one in his leg, like in his ankle, right by his ankle bone and his sock. He's got one. It's stuck to him. And it's this teddy bear cactus that if you touch it, it falls off, and it hooks to you.

And it looks like it should be soft and fuzzy, but it's not. So he's stuck there. And I said, hey, come here, I'll get it out for you. And there's this guy next to us who's a local. He's like, hey, just take your shoe and hit it off. And I said, come here. And he's going, and he's frozen in place. He can't move.

And I'm thinking, like, what if this has something in it? Like, what if he's... So he's like, no, and he's frozen. And so I'm like, oh, so I run over and I jump over a bush. And as I jump over the bush, behind the bush, is another one of these cactus. And it just immediately goes into my leg. And I'm trying to get off his, and all the other kids are like, oh, my gosh, dad, look at your leg.

You got a dart in your neck. Yes. I felt like, you know, an Ace Ventura, too, when he's got two of the... Yes. Oh, that's what I felt. So I see it,

and I walk over, and it hurts immediately. It really hurts. These things are going in different directions, and I got to... My son had a little one. I have a gigantic one in my leg. This picture is amazing.

It's huge. And so I walk over, and immediately, of course, my wife is dying laughing. And it hurts. And we find the park ranger. He says, hang on. I'm going to get...

I'm going to get... going to go get a comb to get this out. I'm like, what do you mean a comb? I was like, okay, this guy has a thing that will help to get it out, and it hurts. And he comes over, and he's got all his tools, and he's taking his sweet time. And I'm like, hurry up, man, this really hurts. And it, I'm not trying to, like, downplay it. It really hurt. It was not fun. And it's, like, pulling at my skin in different directions. It's in there good. And the guy comes out, and he has a literal comb that you'd get at, like, school picture day. I thought he had, like, he had, like, this big thing. He's like, he looks at it and he goes, and he's got this

little tiny comb. He goes, man, that's a big one. I said, yeah, it is. Can you? And so he takes it. And when he took the thing out, it hurt 10 times more going out than going in. It, it, somehow this cactus ripped the hair off my leg. Did the barbs, like, stay in your leg? Then he had to give me tweezers, and I had to pull out like 10 of them with tweezers. The funny thing, you can see in the picture, I'm looking at my hand. I tried to grab it and rip it out with my hand. And that didn't, that was not a good idea because all the, they all in my fingers. It surprisingly didn't bleed that bad. I had these holes, and it, it was painful the rest of the day. It wasn't nearly, I thought it was going to be, like, bruised, and it actually wasn't that bad. Once it came out,

it hurt for the next few hours. I took some ibuprofen. I drank a margarita, and guess what? Still did the hike, though. So, not fun. I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend it. Wow. Yeah. So it, uh, and I took a picture there to show you what it looks like, but the one I, it was much lower to the ground, and man, did it hurt? It was, I'm not trying to be a whim. And my wife is sitting there, like, filming me and taking pictures and she's dying laughing. And I'm like, you know, it actually does hurt. I'm glad you're laughing.

I'm glad you think this is funny. Yeah. Anyway, so that was, uh, recommendations. That was fun. So I told myself, like, maybe just stay away from the cactus for a while. Like, anyway, I'll do something since you got a bunch. I watched a couple good movies this week, new ones. First, good fortune was the Aziz Ansari one with Seth Rogen.

and Keanu Reeves. I have no idea how they got Keanu Reeves in this movie. Because sometimes you just like a good 6.5 comedy, right? It's not great. It's no belly laughs, but I chuckled 10 times probably. Some people don't like Aziz in his comedy. I tend to be a fan in him, Seth Rogen. And Keanu played an angel, and he played like the straight guy, right?

He's the straight guy. He was really, really funny in this. I have no idea how they got him to do it. And I just, if you put him in his other actor, Leo and Matt Damon and Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. Like, he's nowhere near as good an actor as those guys. No. But I always like when he's in something.

Right? He's not a good actor, really, if you think about it. But he's good in his movies. I don't know how to explain it. In this movie, I loved him in this movie. He was so good. I don't love Aziza's stand-up, but I like him on screen. Did you and I see a stand-up together?

I saw him once, yeah. But I don't know. I thought it also was a good, so it was a story about, I think this is an undefeated movie plotline where two people switch lives and you get perspective and they switch Ziz is down in his luck he lost his job, he lives in his car

Seth Rogen is a rich venture capital bro and they switch lives and it's so funny because after they do it Keanu's like, see, your life isn't very good as he's like, what are you talking about? This is amazing anytime there's a problem, I just throw money at it and then he realizes anyway. So it's also a good take on class. I also watch

the life of Chuck, which is I really liked it. And it's a kind of movie where you watch it, and it's like three movies in one. And when you figure out what it's actually about, by the end, you either go, oh, that's really creative, or you go, oh, I hated it.

I thought it was creative. It's based on a Stephen King's short story. Which, who reads short stories? Can we be honest? That's such a great point. Anytime I hear a short story, I'm like, where do you find it? Anyway, it's Stephen King,

and this is like a coming of age. it's about life and death and it's, I really, really liked it. I don't think it's a Michael movie. Oh, it's definitely not. It's definitely not a Michael movie because I watched. The first 45 minutes are a Michael movie

because the first 45 minutes... No, I turned it off on the airplane. Okay. Which is very rare. So did you make it to the grandparents or not? No. Okay, so the grandparents of this movie are Mark Hamill and Sloan

from Ferris Fuel's Day Off. I'm like, I know both of these people. Why do they, why do I know them? Anyway, all right, one more. Took the kids to see, we were nothing else to do after winter break. The last day took them to see Zootopia 2. Whatever, it was fine, it was good. I, the kids loved it.

I know everyone has been really psyched about the return of original IP this year. But I heard Zootopia is just crushing the box up. So I pull up the top 10 from this year. Look at these, look at these. It's all sequels besides sinners. Every single one is a sequel or a book or it's, Yeah. There's nothing new.

It's Minecraft and Leland Stitch and Superman and Jurassic Park. My dad is like you. My dad texting me. Let's see what he texted me exactly. He watched one battle after another, which by the way, I bet on to win Best Picture because I guess it's going to. Yeah.

He goes, I thought Franken's, there's just a random text to my dad. I thought Frankenstein was well done. I did not enjoy the DiCaprio movie. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. You give Mr. Bannick. Yeah, I like Cotopia.

Also, I rewatch Fargo the other day. The scene where he shows the road level bumps, I think he stole that from Fargo. Fargo did the road level thing. I love when the guy smoking the cigarette. That is my favorite movie of all time. I've heard you say it before. It really is. Probably once or twice a year.

Okay. What do you got from your bedridden days? Okay. This, dude, I was on an absolute heater. This is like one of the benefits of being stuck in bed. I was quarantined, like completely by myself. I'm going to start with two Ben movies Okay

Let me go this one first One that I did not care for Train Dreams Okay, I figured he wouldn't I loved it It just Just super fucking boring I get it was like maybe a good film

Whatever you're a film guy When did that happen to you? I just really enjoy it I just thought about the simplicity of that guy's life And I really appreciated it He cut down the trees And he built the train tracks

That was his little cabin on the river. I really appreciated that. All right. Okay. I watched, I like me. Did you know, so that was the John Candy documentary. Did you know that Colin Hanks produced and directed that? Yeah, pretty good, right?

Ryan Rounds with the producer, too. Wasn't that really well done? Holy cow. Holy cow. I cried, obviously. How could you not? It was very good. Unfeckin-believable.

I am, so I'm a little bit, there's a big difference in our age gap in terms of like growing up because you were very much like a child of the 80s. I was born in 85. So I know John Candy from like the cameo in Home Alone and cool runnings and you're like an Uncle Buck. You're like a real John Candy guy. Right. Yes. I was a little bit later. Oh, space balls, of course. But what a monster of a person. And a good way, obviously. Just a tremendous human being. Amazing Doc. I could not record. highly enough. And just like a great documentary, too. Like, it's really well done. Yeah. All right. So, Bougonia, I already said before I got sick. That's a recommend. I'm going to be

very specific with how we talk about these movies. All right, influencers. That influences I was watching, sick or not. Sequel to influencer. This is a shutter production. Fantastic. So good. Horror movie? Not quite. I guess it might be under the horror genre because I don't know where else you would put it? Is it a genre movie? I don't know what you call it. Thriller, suspense, horror, whatever. It's basically about this very attractive psychopath that kills influencers and, like, takes over their life.

And it's sort of like a modern spin on misery a little bit. Roofman. Did you see Roof Man? Okay, I started watching this last night. This is a U movie. Okay, I like it. Just breaking out of prison to me, I'm in. So, Roof Man is a throwback movie.

I'm surprised they made it. You don't see movies like this anymore. This is the premier airplane movie. That might be a stretch, but it's a very good airplane watch. I wouldn't necessarily fire it up at home on a Friday night. Like, it's not that type of movie, in my opinion. Listen to this cast. Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Juno Temple,

well, I'll come back to later. Probably don't, whatever, she's from things. Peter Dinklage, Ben Mendelssohn, the guy from Atlanta and get out he's really good too um the Keith Stanfield yeah like unbelievable cast and it was a good movie I'm enjoying it it was a good movie okay what doesn't kill you now this was I'm just I'm just going after it on Amazon I'm just scrolling like on Blockbuster in 1997 what doesn't kill you I came across this and on the cover I see Ethan Hawk, I see Mark Ruffalo, and I see Amanda Pete, and I'm like, I've never

heard of this movie. 2008, Friends Since Childhood, Brian and Polly do whatever it takes to survive in their hands, hard scrabble, South Boston neighborhood. It's okay. Like, I'm not recommending it, per se. I mean, it was good enough. Good enough for a sick day. It looks like five other Ethan Hawk movies I've seen.

It does. It's not, yeah, it does. It's definitely not the town of the department. So if you're into Boston crime, sure, fired up. And if not, keep, keep moving. Sisu, Sisu, Sissu, Sissu, Sissu, Sissu, Sissu, this is strap in action. Hard recommend, hard, hard recommend. And in fact, can't wait to watch Sisu too.

So let me just read you the plot and tell me if this sounds like a movie. During the last days of World War II, a solitary prospector, he's a good. gold digger, crosses paths with Nazis on a scorched earth retreat in northern Finland. When the soldiers decide to steal his gold, they quickly discover, they just tangled with no ordinary miner.

Non-stop action. That sounds like a good Liam Neeson movie. It does. Very good movie. All right. The Long Walk, the Stephen King movie. Eh, it was fine. Good enough. Not a recommend. How many ideas does that guy have, though? He has a million

ideas. Cocaine. Hell of a drug. Okay. Love Story. Love Story was the highest grossing movie in 1970. Okay. So you watched it because of the Bob Evans book. Correct. So Bob Evans and Ali McGraw were married. And Love Story saved the studio. Like before The Godfather. Love story is a very good movie. That's where the line, love means never having to say you're sorry. That's where that line comes from. Certainly not a must watch, but it's a good romantic. It's definitely not a comedy.

It's just a good romantic movie. All right, I tried and turned off the conversation, the Gina Hacking movie I talked about, the girl who got away. I don't know what that is to turn that off. All right. Last one, last but definitely not least. And I hesitate to even recommend. I went back before.

Should I even admit that I love this movie? Love this strong word. That I really enjoyed this movie? Okay, I liked it. I loved it. The movie is called Killer Joe. And I was listening to the rewatchables this morning. Bill Simmons had a mailbag episode.

And one of the listeners recommended a new category, which is worst scene to have somebody walk in on. And I nominate this movie, Killer Joe, which is rated to NC17. Is this a McConaughey movie? I nominate this as the absolute worst scene I've ever seen. That might be a stretch. But seriously, top five, top five to have somebody walk in on. So the movie is, again, Juno Temple, who was in the offer.

She was much younger in this movie and had a disturbing role. Gina Gershahn, Matthew McConaughey, Thomas Hayden Church, and Emil Hirsch, who I love from Alpha Dog. Anytime I've seen that guy, I'm in. So here's the story. Emil Hirsch and Thomas Hayden Church hire Matthew McConaughey as a hitman to kill Emil Hirsch and his dad's ex-wife for the insurance money. That's the plot. It's from 2012.

I had never heard of it. It's streaming on Prime. I'm surprised it's on the platform. NC17. Again, don't judge me. Because it is, there is the one scene that I'm talking about, if you see it, you'll know it. If you saw it, you know it.

Wow. It would never, ever happen today. And a matter if I, Ben, you should watch this movie. You would enjoy it. Okay. Would you watch it again? Would I watch it again? Yeah.

Okay. All right. Probably fast forward to that scene, but yeah, I'd watch it again. All right. So, I had a great time. Yeah, see, you had a tough time being sick. You watched 12 movies. What else?

There was also one of, oh, there was a Liam Neeson movie that I watched, but I was like not paying attention. I said, huh, a Liam Neese movie that ranked like 80%. Like, that never happens. It was like the sinners of something. Did you see this movie? No, but they're all the same. Come on.

The sinners. No, this was not, the Saints and Sinners. Eh, I think I fell asleep. Whatever. I had a great time. Being sick sucked, but watching. 12 movies that I wouldn't have seen most of these. Almost worth it.

Not quite, but almost. Okay. Get your flu shots, kid. Get your flu shots. All right. Good to be back. Feels good to be healthy. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in, as always.

Wishing everybody the best year of their lives. Animal Spirits at the CompoundNews.com. We'll see you next time. Thank you for defending my honor, everyone. For Michael calling me out. I appreciate it. I was so. All right.