Animal Spirits Podcast - The Age of Discontentment (EP. 441)

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

On episode 441 of Animal Spirits, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠��⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ben Carlson⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ discuss why boring plain vanilla portfolios are hard to beat, predicting the 2026 stock market, Robinhood is Netflix, teens investing in stocks, all-time highs in rich people, the case against an AI crash, the crypto crash, how expensive housing is changing behaviors, ranking the best Disney rides, YouTube is eating TV, the joys of homeownership and more. This episode is sponsored by YCharts and Fabric by Gerber Life. Register for the December 9th Charts That Defined 2025 webinar with Josh Brown, here https://get.ycharts.com/resources/webinars/the-charts-that-defined-2025/ And start your free YCharts trial through Animal Spirits (new customers only) at https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at: https://meetfabric.com/SPIRITS Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thecompoundnews.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠A Wealth of Common Sense⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Michael Batnick’s ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Irrelevant Investor⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Feel free to shoot us an email at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Ritholtz Wealth Management⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to Animal Spirits. a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. All right, Michael.

Through the close on Monday. We're recording this Tuesday morning, right before the open. The U.S. stock market, the S&P 500, is up 17%. And it's in a drawdown of 1%. Price in gold. Well, price in gold is down. Price in Bitcoin, it's up. So which one do you follow?

Which is your currency? Maybe people overreacted a couple weeks ago. Is that fair to say? And you don't, so we had a little 5% correction. We had that one day we were up one and a half percent. They were down one and a half percent. And it seemed like the mood of people were, some people overreacted a little. Listen, I'm not calling anyone out.

One of our producers, one of them, SlackBain said, you know, we have a lot of guys with you. He said, hey, is this the start of the crash? I just think, I do think every time, this is obvious to say, but you can't have like a 40% crash without starting with a 5% correction, duh. But every time we get a 5% correction, I feel like from now on, people are going to think, okay, this is it. This is the crash. I think that overreaction is going to happen every time we have a correction now.

I agree with that part. The part that I don't agree with is did we overreact? It's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. But I think the reason why the stocks were falling off was and is warranted. Because this is like, you know, Atlas with the, the world, the globe on his shoulders, that's statue in New York City. That's what this is like this market is with the hypers and AI and the spending. And that legitimately came into question. And so I think that we're three weeks removed from the episode. But when Nvidia

reports a blowout quarter and has a huge reversal, yeah, people are going to react appropriately. And investors never underreact. They always overreact. So I don't think that it was an overreaction, like, oh, people are being babies and freaking out, it was warranted. We got some news that was disconcerting, and people responded, as they always do. I'm still saying this is a healthy correction that we, a lot of the speculative stuff. Because if you say, well, listen. Wait, no, but that could be true too, because I was saying it's a healthy correction. But that doesn't mean that like invests were dumb to sell invidia and meta and whatever.

So it's a healthy overreaction. Yeah. Okay. This is kind of interesting. If you look at just plain vanilla, because I feel like in the past few years, people have wanted to put a stake in the heart of, like, plain vanilla is dead.

You need more. Plain vanilla can't work anymore. The 6040 died in 2022. Yeah, remember I wrote the eulogy. Plain vanilla, this is doing fantastic this year. So the EFA is just developed international stocks is up almost 30%. I mentioned the U.S. stock market is up around 17%.

The ag, bonds, total bond market, is up 7% this year. So if you just had this boring three-fund vanguard portfolio of U.S. international bonds, you're having a fantastic year this year. Boring worked. It's kind of surprising, right? Especially, I think the bond piece, I don't, how many people do you think know that bonds are up almost 10% this year?

Like the aggregate bond market. Probably not many people, correct? No, yeah. It's a good year for plain vanilla. Yeah. Most years are. Most time stocks go up, as Sam Rowe likes to say. That's true.

Speaking of Sam Rowe, he does this every year, and I love it because he does this, he takes all of Wall Street strategist price targets, and he shows them because they start coming on now, he keeps track of them by the firm, and then he updates him throughout the year, and he shows what happened at the end of the year. And so, as of

right now, we're looking at like $7,100 to $8,000 for next year. I'm actually kind of surprised because, so they're all gains so far. I'm sure there's got to be a bearish person coming out somewhere. So the gain... I think Savita's not too bullish. Okay, so the gain range is 4% to 17%.

If I'm a strategist and I want to stand out, because that's the game. You want to be able to get on CNBC and Bloomberg because of your calls. You want the headline to read, hey, strategist who predicted dot, dot, dot, that's what you want to happen if you're a strategist. I'm predicting a 10 to 15% down year in 2026 because you know my stat. The average down year in the S&P is down 13% of the last 100 years. If the stock market is down, the average is down 13. So you're not predicting that.

You're saying that if you were coaching, if you were doing PR for a strategist, That's what you would tell them to say. If I was a PR, I'd say, hey, listen, no one is doing this yet. You'd be the first one to say, hey, the market's going to finish down 15% 2026. If it happens, you look like a genius. If it doesn't happen, no one remembers it because everyone else picked the gains. Yeah, well, the thing is, if you're bearish and wrong, nobody cares. Well, that's not true.

There's a lot of wrong bearish people. That's not true. But it's not as if one strategist is going to make a client do anything, right? No. They don't only listen to one strategy. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah.

Now, if you're bearish and wrong on you're managing money, you're fired. Because all these firms have strategists that make, that have views, but then they also have asset management firms that have their own views. And they, their portfolios don't always match the views of their strategists. I'm just saying, if you want to get on TV, that's what you predict right now. And by the end of the year, everyone's going to forget anyway if you're wrong. Okay, I have a take here. So Jeff Gunlock was on outlots, and he says almost all financial assets are now overvalued.

And my take is that this is impossible to happen. All financial assets cannot be all overvalued because money has to go somewhere, especially in today's day and age. Everything can't be overvalued. Okay? I pulled this one because I wrote about this in 2015, way back when. That was when the everything bubble was happening? So Robert Schiller said, unlike 1929, and this was on zero hedge, this time everything,

stocks, bonds, and housing is overvalued. I just don't think that is possible. Because people have to allocate capital somewhere. I mean, you could say, well, they could just put it in cash. But I don't think it's possible for everything, every financial asset to be overvalued simultaneously. Thoughts. I mostly agree. I guess maybe the pushback, if I were to give pushback, not that I am, but if I were to be the math piece for people for Jeff Gunluck, not that he needs me as math piece, the bazooka was fired during COVID.

And so much money made its way into the system into people's banks accounts, filtered into the stock market, into private assets, into crypto assets. So I think that you can have that dynamic where, and this is part of the broader conversation that was taking place this week about, and it's not just this week. There was a piece I went forward this week, but just the overall sentiment of something is not right. And I am definitely sympathetic to that view because you're seeing it in elections. Like something, it's not just feelings. It's not just vibes. But I think maybe the diagnosis of it of where the bad vibes are coming from, where it's like, it's so expensive to live.

True. I don't think anybody would dispute that it is more expensive to live than it ever has been. But I think maybe the root of the problem is there are too many people with too much money. bringing back to the point that you can have this type of thing where most asset classes are overvalued, even if it doesn't mean that all of a sudden they're going to all burst simultaneously. So there was this post, I think,

what do you think about that take? The real problem is, of course, the have-nots that's a perpetual issue. But what's causing the consternation is there's too many people with too much money. So there was a post on LinkedIn a couple weeks ago from the Tops, you know, Tops the trading cards, from the CEO of Tops, which I used to be, I used to dabbling cards a little bit back in the day. I feel like everyone got into it,

you know, five years after the Fleer, 1986, Michael Jordan. So everyone had one friend who had the Michael Jordan Rookie card, and then everyone in the 90s started buying cards, and all those cards in 90s are worthless because we all bought them. Anyway, so he said, listen, the card market is crazy out of whack because there's so many rich people coming in and buying stuff up. And everything is, he was kind of saying that, like, everything is overvalued. And he talked about the case-shaped economy and all this other stuff. And I do think that that's a thing where everyone has a lot of money because money market assets, bonds, all this stuff. Like, we keep asking, where's all the money coming from?

The money just keeps flowing in the stock market and people borrowing against their assets. I was listening yesterday, Patrick O'Shaughnessy did a podcast on business breakdowns with the founder of, what's the watch company called Hodinky, I believe? And they were talking about, and it was a Rolex episode. And you used to be able to get a submariner for five grand, whatever it was. The entry price for a starter Rolex is now twice that. And at the upper end, you can go to a watch store. You can try to get a Rolex or these fancy brands and literally try and slap down $100,000 for a watch and be told no.

I have to admit this. As a finance guy, I'm going to lose my finance brocard here. I don't get the Rolex thing I never have. Like, I don't, I don't even think they're attractive watches. Is that, is that a contrarian take? Like, I, what I see a Rolex, I don't think, like, man, that's a beautiful watch. I don't, yeah, that is a contrarian take. Okay, nothing for me.

The point is, like, there's so many different, you mentioned cards, I mentioned watches. Look at the stock market. There's so many different areas to point to. Look at real estate prices where it's like, this just doesn't feel great. I don't think that that feeling is going away, though, because I think this is also social media dynamic. I don't think that all of a sudden. to be solved and one day everyone's going to wake up and go, yay, everything's great again. I think this is going to be a perpetual feeling that is probably just going to slowly but surely get worse

because this is the, this is the, how we live now. This is, it's like one of the trappings of wealth. Everyone is wealthier, but when you see other people wealthier, it's really hard. Because I think one of the things that's happened is, on social media especially, a lot of rich people are telling middle class people that they're actually poor people. And who's going to argue with you when you say, middle class. I should be because by definition, everyone can't be above average. By definition, you can't be above average. There's always got to be a median, and

it would be great if everything was better for everyone. And the average, the average just keeps getting pulled higher. And so does a median for that matter. Yes. And you're right. If you do fall below there, then it's very painful, and you see every, like, this person's doing fine. Why am I not doing fine? It's a hard. Absent to complete

wipeout, which obviously hurts the lower the lower part of the K, the worst. I mean, if you do read, if you read a lot of the books about the Great Depression, they had the wipe-up, but there were still a lot of rich people who did just fine, and they kept living with their servants,

and that's the thing is... This is the new home roll. It is. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, I think it is. It's not good. So the zeitgeisty stuff is not going to get better. Did you see, oh my God, my brain?

Cinderella man. Remember that scene where Paul Giamati, where Russell Crow goes into its apartment, and he sees that he's living broke? that's a that's a really good movie actually that's kind of an unrated Russian pro one very good movie saw that in the theater every movie you say you saw in the theater

I'm positive myself I'm gonna call bullshit on half of them call my dad call my dad we saw Cinderella man in the theater all right positive but I guess it is true back in the day like when there was nothing else to do there was no stream like we would literally just go to the movie theater every weekend so also my parents got divorced in our 6

and every Saturday I went to my dad's and we either went to Blockbuster or most of the times we went to the theater. That's what we did. All right, that's fair. All right, this is a chart. In April, so let's start with this. Actually, let's start with Yardini.

So U.S. net capital infos, foreign private purchases of U.S. equities totaled a record, $646 billion over the past 12 months. Look at that chart. So that whole cell of the U.S. thing lasted about, a month. So here's the thing, wait, here's the thing that I'd like to see, though. Like, what is foreign purchases of foreign assets look like?

Because you would, if you showed me this data before the year, I wouldn't say, man, foreign stocks are probably crushing U.S. stocks this year or doubling up their return. I would guess not as much, but I don't know. That's just a guess. All right. But here's the kudigra. Net foreign purchases of U.S. assets is from Apollo. And it breaks it down by month.

So look at April 25. There was a massive outflow. Like, that was a thing, and their narrative was, uh-oh, U.S. exceptionalism, question mark. And that narrative died because immediately, as soon as they sold them, they came back in record numbers in May, and it's been positive inflows for the rest of the year. One of the things that we asked in April or May or whenever was, what's going to matter more, tariffs or AI? And obviously, I think we have our answer. Yeah. What a year.

April was scary as shit. People, like... It was... We had the President of the United States... like, listen, I don't want to make a depression, but like, what if we put this stuff through it and we're willing to take... Remember the talking points from Bessent and Lutnik where it's main street's chance? Yeah, everyone's got to... Yeah, rich people have to take their pain and we're going to, if we have to go to recession, who cares? There are people who are like legitimate people

saying we have to go into recession to do this, so be it. Anyway, okay. Moving on. All right, I've never seen this before. Eric Balchunis, believe it or not, 54% of Americans own a mutual fund by only 15% own an ETF. Why do they get people think? So, obviously, the big part of this is, I guess, just baby boomers who have most of their money in vitrof ones and didn't want to sell them, or 401Ks. Like, that fact be- So 401Ks is the thing. I can't believe that there hasn't been a bigger push to get ETFs than 401Ks.

Does that not seem like a, like we're going to look back in 20 years and go, why did that take so long? What was the holdup? I don't know the mechanics of cash settlement and all that sort of stuff. Yeah, I know that, but I mean, the robo advisors figured it out. You've got to imagine that the 401K, I guess maybe it's a little behind. But this number surprised me, 15% of households own ETFs. I would have thought higher.

Yeah. Here's a great chart from Mike Sucardi from via Bank of America. Robin Hood holds the biggest share of daily active users. This is a hell of a chart. For online platforms. they compare well yeah they're not measuring physical branches

well you know so this is what E-Torro E-Trade Schwab Fidelity, Robin Hood surprisingly though Robin Hood peaked in 2021 at the meme stock craze and the other companies

have eaten into the share a decent amount obviously it's still what 50% of the total yeah it's wild but it was I guess 70 75% at the peak But, yes, Robin Hood is like a behemoth in the online space, obviously.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a daily active user. You know what I did recently? Probably gone Robin Hood to check the market. I mean, when I'm out of my computer, I think I'm a sick out. I think I should look at the market 474 times a day. You know, one of the great, the, there is never, there is never, how about this? I almost never, unless I am recording with you, but even still I've got the market on my screen. I'd probably never go more than six minutes without looking at the prices.

I'm probably a little bit more of a range than you. But here's the thing. So I recently, I think people give, say, like, Robin Hood's platform or like their technology and the access and how their interface works is one of the reasons that they've done so well, obviously. Zero commissions was a big thing, but their interface is just better than everyone else. It's a great app. It's kind of like Netflix and the other streamers, right? The other streamers is got a great app.

The other streamers are so much worse than Netflix, right? Well, I don't know what that's from. Heat. Oh, a great. Oh, I got. Okay. Thank you. That was your Pacino. But so if you use other streamers and like it doesn't just automatically go to the next episode, like you like, why is this so much worse than Netflix? Netflix's interface is just so much better. But does that, but I, and so it would be the same

thing with like Schwab and Vanguard and Fidelity. Like their online platforms just aren't as good as Robin Hoods. I think that's, that's, that's undisputed. Here's the thing. Yesterday, I was, I have a point. I have a point here. I moved all my, my money, my stocks and stuff from Robin Hood to Schwab recently. And I don't check it nearly as much because Schwab's interface just isn't as nice and easy as Robin Hood. And I think that's actually a good thing. I'm not, I'm not checking it compulsively like you were saying. Like, oh, what is this stop doing? What is this ETF doing? What's the market doing? I'm not checking it as much because it's not as easy. I think that's a good thing. Oh, yeah. I'm not saying what I do is healthy. It's insane. I did it. It's like, it's kind of

like a relief. Like, oh, I don't have to look all the time. Yeah. What was I, what is my doing? It's not helping anything. I do wonder is, will there be a point in my life? I'm sure there will be. when I don't do this. But it's been like this for 15 years. I don't know. Anyway, getting back to the point of the interface, last night, so we watched The Beast and Me, which we'll talk about later,

I was trying to search for, on the Disney app, I was trying to search for The Americans, a show that you love, a show that I've never seen. The main star of The Beast and Me is in The Americans. That guy is fantastic, isn't he? He's such a good actor. I don't think he's a very good actor. You don't like him?

Oh my gosh. Wow. We disagree on this totally. I think he's phenomenal. So I was on the Disney app looking for the Americans. I couldn't find it. I literally typed in the American, and I go on my phone. I said, wait a minute.

Isn't the Americans on Hulu? I don't understand. So I opened the Hulu app inside of Disney. And again, I search for Americans. I search for the Americans. Nothing. But I open on my phone and it's right there. So then I go into, I'm in the Hulu app,

and I'm scrolling to like the action category. Scroll down. Nope, not there. I scroll it. I'm like, is it in the drama category? Finally, it's in the drama category. But why is it so hard? And your point, Netflix is the Robinhood of content.

Way better. All right. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal. Duncan says I have to live a little. Why? Because you don't check the stock market that much? Yeah, I guess so. Meet the teens and investing in stocks for their future home and retirement.

This is great. So they give all the stories as usual, like this person is doing this and we interviewed this person. I just think all these stories are great. This stuff was not happening when we were young. Not at all. And this is all Robin Hood. And in 2020 and 2021, a lot of people like you and I were wagging our fingers and saying,

this is not healthy. The stock market is not a casino. People are learning the wrong lessons. And a lot of that is valid. They're gamifying investing. And a lot of that is valid. But the benefits to people, and we did say this at the time, maybe we changed our tune a little bit later, the benefits of getting people to learn about the market and to discover that

there is a right way to do this and long-term compounding all that sort of good stuff. Like, that was all Robin Hood. It really was. It broke the barriers down. I think the whole zero commission trading and just making it easier to set up an account in minutes, attach your bank account, and then start trading or investing immediately. And the other thing is, I think people are realizing the stock market really is like the greatest wealth building platform on the planet. So there's just, in the story, they talk about this teen, I think is in college.

And we talk about all these kids who have saved up their money from summer jobs and put it in the stock market and the parents help them. And it says that this one girl growing up in Manhattan's Chinatown, Zeng translated her immigrant parents tax form for them and noticed that her classmates homes were nicer than hers. She says, I felt an obligation to be financially stable because my parents aren't always that stable. Now a college student studying finance and accounting. started saving and investing in the stock market because she wanted to create a better life for herself. I think that's a wonderful story. Yeah. Good for these kids. And we hear about it all the time. I hear from young people all the time who are investing in way, way, way younger than I was. And if they keep their money in there, they are going to be so much better off

and wealthier than even our generation. I don't think I told you this. Josh and I are interviewing Vlad on Thursday. Okay. No. Yeah. So that should be fun. Okay. I love their, you always pull out from court of the Robin Hood charts and stuff that shows they have the best deck in the business. They do. Yeah, it's very good. All right.

Getting to the point that we were talking about earlier about the discontent and where it's stemming from, Alice and Schrager had a really good piece on this. She said, this is an age of discontent. Just note how often we use the word crisis, the affordability crisis, the housing crisis, the everything crisis. And yet we've never had so much, not only in terms of wealth, but also income. It's true the middle class is disappearing, but largely because so many people have become upper middle class and fewer people than ever live in poverty, even by real American poverty standards. She has a chart showing the percentage of U.S. households with a total income

greater than $150,000 has increased as the middle class has been shrinking. So more people are getting pulled up. It is important to note this figure includes earned income, tax, credits, and transfers. To some extent, it shows how much redistribution we already do. It also shows how much more prosperous America has become over the last 50 years. You can't even compare our standard of living today with how we lived 15 years ago. So why do people feel like the economy isn't worth? working for them. Some of it is higher expectations of what a home should be, where you should be able

to live, and how fast your earnings should rise. Some of it is legitimate affordability issues. Healthcare, education, and housing do cost much more, even if they are much higher quality than they used to be. Well, maybe not education. More than that later. If we are richer, our expectations would rise. It could also be that while the upper middle class has grown and is better off in many ways, the very rich got much, much richer. And this makes the economy feel more zero-sum to people striving for success, even if overall it has meant a more prosperous economy for more people. I think she nailed it.

So the people that would have been discontent 20 years ago are so much angrier, understandably so, because they see so much excess and so much wealth. and it's so visible and it feels so f*** up when everything that they're paying for is so expensive.

So I thought about this recently in terms of my own family dynamic over the years and how the expectations rise so my dad and his he had four brothers and sisters they lived in a tiny house one of my uncle still lives there

and I can't believe that with seven people they lived in this house and when we were growing up he would always tell us that they didn't have anything at all he would say like and he would every year Christmas he would say listen we didn't get Christmas presents every year we rented them. He was trying to tell us, like, we didn't come up. So what you guys have is way more than I ever had, okay? But I think about something like childcare, which I think

is a big thing. I asked my parents recently, like, what did you guys do for us for childcare? My mom worked night shifts. She worked 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. 3 days a week. And she said, in the other days, me and one of the moms down the street, we traded off doing daycare. So half the time I took her kids, half the time she took us, right? And so she said, you sending your kids to daycare, like, they're actually learning stuff. They're doing stuff. We just like made do with people in the neighborhood. I don't think people do that as much anymore. And so when we went to Florida last week, and our kids flew,

I said, listen, when we went to Florida as a kid, we drove. I laid in the back of a minivan. We drove for 24 hours to get there or something. We stayed off-premises. We didn't stay at Disney like we were doing it. And I think that stuff, like over time, that that's a sign of progress, but also the expectations are rising and rising and rising.

And I think that is a form of progress in itself. But unfortunately, when the expectations get higher and the luxuries become necessities, that can make it easier to be discontented. I told the story a couple months ago. Over the summer, my dad took me to the apartment that he grew up in, the complex. And my dad grew up in poverty.

He was, he shared a bedroom with his grandfather, like a bunk bed with his grandpa, which is wild to think about. And I asked him if he felt porn. He said, he said, no. Because they didn't know. Right. He didn't know, he didn't know that people lived in houses

and that there was, now there wasn't the extravagance. in the 1950s that there is today, obviously. But that's the point. It wasn't visible. It was much more local. Everyone was kind of in it together, more or less. Right.

Yeah. Again, so I think this is a sign of progress, and this is one of the reasons that these feelings aren't going away. Yeah. Probably ever. All right. Good chart. Claire Lehman tweeted,

the trends in mathematics reading and science performing. This is for the OECD, so it's global. It's not just the United States. people who don't think phone, social media are having a deleterious effect on developing brains. What's the alternative explanation for this? Did every country put lead in the water at the same time? So the test scores for mathematics, reading, and science are collapsing. Now, there is a noticeable break, especially in mathematics, around COVID.

Yeah, COVID's a big thing for this, for sure. Had a horrendous impact on society. But this was trending lower. And there's been a lot written about this over the past couple of weeks. this trend is alarming. I don't want to poo-poo this at all. I feel like for decades we've heard how bad our education system is.

Why do things keep improving that? Why do we keep, like, if our education system is so bad, how do we keep creating such great stuff? How do we keep creating so much wealth? I just, I'm not trying to poo-poo this. And I also think that, like, the solution is coming. Every kid is going to have an AI tutor. Like, I don't think, I'm not as worried about this

because I think the solution is already here. I like that take I agree I agree this is not good this is not a good thing the solution is here all of our kids are going to have an AI tutor that's going to like

understand and know their specific strong points and weak points and help them on the weak points yeah I agree all right Carlisle has two charts that I wanted to highlight

one of them is the household consumption index I don't know exactly do what this measures, but it breaks down into highest income, middle income, lowest income. And the takeaway is the highest income. The middle income in the lowest are up into the right, but nowhere near or steep as the highest income line. And then they have another chart next to it showing the household financial stress index. And of course, at the highest income, there's, you know, no stress less than 2% delinquency

rate. The middle income is steady under 4%. But the lowest income. Declining is still way, way, way higher. I think the chart always looks like this, but, all right, good news. Good news. On the other side of this. The fantastic news, in fact, Michael and Susan Dell announced on Tuesday that they

would deposit $250 in individual investment accounts for 25 million children, an amount totaling $6.25 billion in his own. one of the largest philanthropic gifts ever to go directly to Americans. This is a cool story. That's great. The federal government will give $1,000 to babies born between January 2025 and December 2028. The Dell's gift extends to children up to 10 years old, though it limits eligibility to those who live in a zip code where the median household income is below $150,000. More of this. I think more of this is coming. I think people will follow this lead. If you're a really,

really super duper rich person. I think I looked, it's like, he's worth like 150 billion. What better way to give it, like, than doing something cool like this? I've seen other billionaires that have, like, paid off everyone's student loan debt or something. Like, this is a very cool story. I do think that one of the ways that we could help a lot with young people, we talk a lot about the housing market. I do think that the, there should be a way bigger tax credit you get for daycare. If you, if you have a dual income family, you're like, it's, it's so stupid that. It's backbreaking. We subsidize education, K through 12. but not pre-K, when it helps people go to work and be members of the economy and help things

grow. Like that, that should be a way higher number. Like, if they're in this same time frame, people hate, people hate this. Why should my taxes go up to subsidize you having babies? We didn't have that. Like, this is a very, this is an electric rail type of market. It's a net positive for society because it helps the economy with more people working and producing. Yes. I, I unapologetically agree with this take. Like, whatever, child, child costs pre-day care or just completely unhinged. All right, this is another interesting one from Carlis. So last week, we shared the staff from Matthew Bowes.

I can't remember what the stat was, but it was something like what we're seeing has never happened outside of a recessionary from job losses, right? All right. This is not a good chart. The local experiences versus travel spending index, both of them are going down big league. there was another chart showing the experiences spending index, which is travel, tourism, and live events. This turned negative for only the second time over the last three years. Not great.

I don't know what the story is here. Maybe it's just, I don't need to overthink it. The economy is slowing. I think eventually people got exhausted and did too much stuff. Like at a certain point, it had, we've been waiting for this forever. Like, we thought, ah, people are going to take one or two trips after COVID, and then it'll be back to normal. It didn't. This seems like it maybe is back to normal. I tell you what, not at Disney. Holy smokes. People love spending. So I'd never been to the, I'm not a Disney person. I've

mentioned this before. Stop saying that. You're a Disney person. I am. We've gone three times. So I'd never been to Disney Springs before. Have you ever been there before? No. Oh, is that like the shopping spot? It's shops and restaurants. So for Thanksgiving dinner, we went there, which side note, the last two years we've been traveling Thanksgiving week. We thought, the kids have time off of school anyway, so I've missed Thanksgiving, the traditional Thanksgiving day. I didn't miss it at all. Two years in a row, not at all. Yeah. I don't, you know, anyway. But we go to Disney Springs, and there's just millions of people everywhere. And we're trying to go in stores, and it's too much. It's too chaotic. And I, um, the kids went and did some, like,

boat. There's a car that you could drive that, like, a car turns into a boat. You can drive around so the kids did it with Courtney. And shoot, there's only four spots. So I'll just stay back and have margarita. So I'm talking to the bartender. And, uh, I said, This place, is this place more insane than usual because it's the holiday? And she was like, it's a little bit more, but she's like, honestly, it's always like this. It's always busy. And like, that just boggled my mind. That there's just always people spending money in an insane amount of money at a place like that.

And it really never slows down. Yeah. Happiest place on Earth. Can't wait to go. I have some more Disney thoughts for you later. Let's talk about AI. So Derek Thompson had a cool post with Tim Lee, who he does a. substack called Understanding AI.

So he's, and he does a lot, he does some of the best charts on AI, I think. And they did this thing kind of like the pros and cons, right? They did a grander up its hedge post, okay? Little of this, little of that, little good, little bad. And I thought this one was interesting. He said on the positive side, AI revenue is climbing fast. So they said, generative AI revenue has increased ninefold in last two years from $7 billion

and more than $60 billion, and this isn't counting like circular spending on chips and data centers like, I'll give to you, you, give to me. And they look out what it could be the estimates. So say if AI revenues continue to grow at 100% per year, AI will hit $650 billion annualized in 2029, which is right on schedule. And it's basically saying all the money they're spending, if that happens, now that's a big if,

like all the money, like the ROI, would actually be worth it. I hope so. That's a big leap, obviously, right? Yeah. Okay. We talked a few weeks ago about the construction boom. I said, like, there's got to be construction companies that are going crazy and people doing the,

Wall Street Journal had this one nailed. Few people sent this to us. So they're saying that because of high demand from data centers, people from electricians, the project managers are earning 25 to 30% more than they did before this happened. So they said they talked to this guy in Columbus, Ohio, who said he's been doing odd jobs, hanging drywall, trying to find clients.

He said he pinches himself every day going to work. He's 51. He now makes more than $100,000 a year. It's a huge increase in pay, and it's all because of data centers. And they said they had all these stories about these people who are in construction workers making more money than they ever thought possible. But this is one of those things, though, like if you're a realtor in 2020, late 2020,

early 2021, it's the best market environment you're ever going to have, ever, right? Low interest rates, bidding wars, housing, selling, like this is going to be probably the best labor market for these people in these specific industries ever. Like this boom is going to be the biggest one they ever see. Correct. They're going to be talking about this forever. Yeah. But anyway, that's a good.

unintended benefit, I suppose. Absolutely. All right, let's do some crypto stuff. Crypto has been acting horrifically. What do you think Bitcoin could go to? Especially notable considering the strength of the stock market. Are you asking me for Bitcoin price target? You gave S&P 10,000.

Obviously, a lot of this has to do with the stock market because crypto is a risk asset. This could age terribly. I think the bottom's in. Okay. But could it go to $70,000 and then, I mean, yeah, why not? Obviously, if a stock market fall 20%, Bitcoin is going way lower. Sure.

But here's my grand rat, I'm hedge. Did I buy more? No. So do I really believe it that much that I'm putting my money where my mouth is? No. Oh, okay. See, I'm a money where the mouth is guy. I said I started buying.

I've been a little bit shrill. Once a week, I'm buying a little more crypto because it crashed. Yeah. Because every time it crashes, it comes back. If it rolls over again, I'll buy. Okay. So investors pulled $6 billion from global crypto funds. November's Exodus is so far the worst on record for ETFs.

So investors are scared. They're, you know, for whatever reason, I mean, maybe prices are growing lower. It's that simple. I don't know, but they're pulling money out of it. So that's interesting because in April, money went in, right? Everyone flooded into buy the dip. Now the money's flooding out. Yeah.

The April crash felt worse, maybe because it was in the context of falling stock prices as well. Like for me personally, I said this in April. I almost sold. Right. I remember I was on the baseball field. And I saw a tweet from a guy that I really respect who I think is really bright on this stuff, level-headed. Say that big can go to $10,000.

I said, can? Holy shit. And that was the literal bottom. But I was genuinely tempted to like sell a decent amount. So, do you think it still could go to 10 at this point with the ETF powerhouse behind it? No. I think, I almost think it's impossible. No, I just think that there's too many people with too much money that would...

Unless there's a quantum computing hack or something. But, you know, it's funny, someone did some... I saw some conspiracy theory out there saying, like, Bitcoin is crashing because they're worried about quantum computing, figuring it out someday. But if you could figure out the code to Bitcoin, what would be the point of it? Because it would all crash. If you, unless you just wanted to see, see anarchy, like, if you... could hack Bitcoin, and it wasn't secure network anymore, so what? It's all going to zero. Well, and that, right, if you're the, why, and why wouldn't you hack the Federal Reserve or

the Treasury? Or steal the U.S. Constitution. Right. Declaration of Independence, I mean, yeah. All right. So, in L-O-L-O-O-O-O-L news, here's a press release from strategy. Establishment of U.S.D. Reserve. Strategy today announced that it is established a USDA reserve of $1.44 billion to support the payment of dividends on its preferred stock and interest on its outstanding indebtedness. The USD Reserve was funded using proceeds from the sale of shares of Class A common stock under strategies at the market offering program. A strategy's current intention is to maintain a USD reserve in an amount sufficient to fund at least 12 months of its dividends and strategy intends to strengthen

the U.S.D. Reserve over time. All right, so... Oh, so back into Fiat, I see. Hmm. Interesting. So they sold shares and they raised cash, aka a U.S.D. Reserve. Is this a massive red flag to your?

Is this just like, oh, no, they're just, they're being prudent. Because I feel like you've been more of a strategy. You've followed this story pretty intently. Both? Yeah, I... If this is not the local bottom, We're a local bottom of a strategy, which I do believe it is. Like, I think the next 20% is higher that, holy cow, this stock is in so, this company

is in so much trouble. Now, there are people that know about where, like, the, the puking point is for his Bitcoin holdings. I don't know all the mechanics of how it works. I saw this morning, someone said the average price is like 75 for them. All right. But I don't know when that means they have to sell. It's much, much, much, much lower.

So, um, anyway. But it would, to me, it'd have to, Bitcoin can't, like, obviously the premium has compressed so much. It would just have to be Bitcoined at it. to keep crashing. Because if you look at the chart of this thing, holy smokes, did it get rocked. It got rocked. So relative to Bitcoin, too. So that's why I think there is a floor under strategy

because smart people would just be like, all right, well, now it's training at a 20% discount to its Bitcoin holdings. Like, I'm buying because if there's a Bitcoin balance, the leverage is here. Yeah, it would be, but if Bitcoin falls 20% more from here, look out below, right? I think, I think you're right. If Bitcoin stabilizes that this thing, I don't know how much will crap.

It depends on the MNF. It's called the MNAV of where strategy is relative to its underlying the holdings. And there is a floor at where the discount could go to. Like, I don't think it could collapse to like, you know, a 20% discount, for example, because people come in and buy. But the real where this snowballs is people start worrying like, okay, he's not going to be able to fund any more purchases anymore because people aren't going to buy the convertible notes. Like that is when. But counterpoint, he just did yesterday. They sold the $1.4 billion with the stock.

I just think this is one of the stories where. When Bitcoin is going up, he looks and sounds like a genius. Like, oh, God, this guy has it figured out. When it's going down, he sounds like a lunatic. And it's obviously, it's not either of those things. Those are the extremes. But that's how this, and it's kind of like crypto in general, but this company especially is like that.

Yeah. All right. So there's some new studies that came out. Let's talk housing. In a study from the University of Chicago, Northwestern, they found that Americans demonstrate reduced work efforts. increased leisure spending and investment in risky financial assets among young adults who face little to no realistic prospect of being able to afford a home. So they found out, and I don't know

how they did this, but they found that people who are owning a home, or it's more realistic, they take fewer risks and they strive harder at work, which is kind of surprising. The work thing, I don't know how you can actually figure that out. But the whole, the risk thing obviously makes sense. And we've talked about this. And I do think, and some people look at this and go, this is a bad thing. And I continue to think this is probably a net positive for most people who are doing this. Not for their psychology, not for their psychic income. I think from their bottom line, they're going to be wealthier because of this, because they're willing to take more risks, invest in the stock market. I think that is going to be the outcome of this, even if they're not

happier because they would rather own a home than to have a stock portfolio. Yeah, because somebody's like, all right, I have $20, I would have had $17,000 in my brokerage account, and now I have $34, whatever it is. Like, they want to be in the house. Yes. For those that want to be in the house. Yes, but obviously this, so they put some numbers behind the stuff that we've been talking on.

This obviously makes intuitive sense. This is kind of crazy, though. They look at, because the FT is, I guess a lot of people are based in the UK or overseas. They show housing price affordability across the UK and U.S. They show London, the UK and U.S. and look at how much more unaffordable it is in London and the UK. Obviously, if you put like New York on here, it would be probably pretty similar to London, maybe not as bad. But this just shows the house price to income ratio.

And I just keep thinking in places like England and Australia and a lot of places in Europe, things are way, way worse. And I just wonder if people think it's bad now, imagine, I can't believe that people aren't like riding in the streets there. Like the house prices in Australia and London and such, I just think that it could get worse. And it doesn't seem like anyone is willing to do the thing that we need to do, which is build more housing. Well, as far as the comments about foreign markets, I assume you don't track foreign politics. Like, maybe it is bad. Fair. It's possible.

But like the price to income ratios and places like Australia and the UK are five times worse than they are in the U.S. They're so much off the charts worse. Yeah. And I just think that, like, are we on track to become those type of countries? Are we actually going to do something to fix it? I don't see anyone willing to fix the problem yet. There's, like, a few handful of cities that are doing it. That's it.

Yeah. All right. Did you read this piece from Greg Zuckerman about Charlie Munger. So it's kind of the story of Charlie Munger's final years. It's a really good read. But I wanted to pull out this one piece. And I think this kind of blends in with what we've been talking about with, like, higher expectations and how different generations.

So he says, he owned a home with spectacular ocean views in Montecito, California. I guess he designed the entire community. They call it Mungerville. And at one point,

he told a friend he expected to spend his last years there. I looked the house up. It looked fantastic, beautiful, right? He said, instead, Munger chose to remain

in his long-time home in Los Angeles. The place didn't even have air conditioning during a heat wave three years ago. Friends bought electric fans and bags of ice

to cool his library. Munger didn't care. The home was close to people he liked and the project he found stimulating. So this guy is obviously a billionaire. Could have easily afforded air conditioning. Didn't want it.

The first person I thought of when I read this is my father. My dad would do this exact same thing. And I feel like this is the, this attitude, this like, I don't want it, I don't need it. It's, I'll be fine. Which we grew up in a house without air conditioning, by the way. My parents just got it finally a few years ago. This is something my father would do.

And I feel like this, this attitude of like, I don't need it. I feel like that is, that, that, that, is dying with the older generation of the baby boomers. That's depression babies. Yes, exactly. So we don't have that anymore. And so starting with Gen X and lower, that whole attitude is completely gone. Yeah, I need it.

That attitude, this is gone. Like, I just thought it was really funny because I just thought for like, oh my gosh, that's my father. I think that depression mentality is sad. And I understand where it comes from obviously, right? Like your childhood memories form who you are forever. You can't change who you are. And I'm glad that that is dying yet. I'm not glad that these people are dying.

Don't mishear me. But that is a horrible way to go through life. I actually, yes, when you see the stories about billionaires who drives a 20-year-old Honda quarter ever, I don't think that's a success story. No. I think that's someone who, like, can't get out of a, or the, hey, this person was a janitor who secretly had $8 million. It never spent a dime on themselves and lived above a garage.

Right. I don't think that's a success story. I think that they should have spent the money on themselves and made their life better. Me too. Some people would disagree with us. All right, so no one else is going to care about this, but you're going to Disney next month, right? You're taking the kids on Christmas? I am. How long are you going for? We're going to, we're going to Universal and Disney. I think I'm going for five days, something like that, six days. You're hitting all the Disney parks? I don't think we're doing Animal Kingdom because we did it the last time. That's one we didn't do

this time. All right, so I'm going to give you the rides that you should buy the lightning lane premier pass for, okay? This is Ben's ride. We did this at the end on Thanksgiving dinner. We were all done all the parks. We all went through and named our favorite rides. So Guardians of the Galaxy at Epcot is a must. That's one of the best roller coasters I've ever been on. I couldn't believe how great it was. Like, it was fantastic.

So much fun. I think we did that last time. That was good. There's an aerospace roller coaster in Hollywood Studios that I didn't know about. It's called Rock and Roller Coaster. It's the only roller coaster that goes upside down. It's fantastic. Tron, of course, is very good. Do you see the picture I put in here me doing tron that's amazing so tron was closed last time we went okay it's very fun it's it's as advertised my kids said a little too short but it's it's like that thing like it looks like it's fake what

i'm doing that's the actual roller coaster riding on like a motorcycle um tower of terror was great my my daughter kate my youngest was holding on my arm for dear life and a few other ones that you know but um the star wars rides are overrated stop just stop next topic really you don't think this is I think the Star Wars rides are they could have made a resistance is overrated. What is wrong with you? They could have made a very cool Star Wars roller coaster and they chose to make some like to make you feel like you're in the movie.

Yeah. Imagine being a kid. Yeah, but it's the new Star Wars movies that no one likes. It's not the old ones. Get out of here. Get right out of now. And finally, it's a small, you like horror movies. It's a small world after all could be a horror movie.

They could make a movie about it's a smaller. That is the creepiest ride. I was telling my kids like, just be aware. this is the creepiest ride you're going to go on anyway okay that's all i got all right i have some disney stuff later actually as it turns out okay um all right so so uh let's talk streaming stuff oh hey hang on one more thing we did you know they had the live indiana jones thing right the indiana jones show it's yeah it's one of my favorites because that's my favorite action movies of all time um and my son george has watched all the indiana jones movies multiple times

he loves them uh he goes i don't think that's a real indiana jones you know. And I said, the original movie came out in 1981. Harrison Ford is like 85 years old now. It's kind of hard to believe that, that, I mean, I know they're still making the bad movies and recreating them, but it's been off for a long, long time. And I also said, that's the greatest action movie jingle ever. Right? Yeah, it's just absolute goosebumps. Yeah. All right. So Michael Sembalist did a post that we spoke about last week

with his favorite movies on the state of streaming there's a so Warner Brothers is for sale talks are heating up that Netflix might buy them and a mostly cash offer Paramount is obviously in the picture Did you listen to the James Cameron

with Matt Bellany? I did. Okay and he said he absolutely does not want Netflix buying Warner Brothers which I thought was interesting because he's worried that they won't show all their movies in the theater. Right. So they'll show the

you know the Batman's of the world but like sinners, for example, no way. That'll go straight to HBO or wherever, yeah, or Netflix now. So anyway, interesting to see where that lands. And Netflix hasn't really, haven't ever really done a big acquisition like this. Certainly not a giant studio. I mean, I don't want Netflix to buy them. I think we have to just relent and just, it's going to be Apple and Amazon and Netflix in the future.

No, Paramount. Yeah, I guess Paramount, yeah. By the way, Paramount, Michael Eisner did Indiana Jones. More than that in a second. So YouTube Premium has 125 million subscribers paying $14 a month. What do you get for that? Just no ads? I wanted to watch.

I wanted to watch. So my favorite Patrick O'Shaughnessy interviews are with, Roo! I don't know what she's doing down there. I hear noises. My favorite Patrick interviews are with the Hollywood guys. So I love listening to Mike Ovitz from CIA. Yeah, he's good.

I love listening to Ari Emanuel and Barry Diller, like all these guys that made Hollywood. So I wanted to watch the Ari Emanuel one. And I popped it up on YouTube. and there's commercials in there. So for YouTube premium, which is not YouTube TV, right, YouTube premium gives you, I guess, ad-free viewing. I think. I'm sure there's more to it.

I haven't really done a deep dive, but they've got 125 million subscribers paying $14 a month. That's $21 billion a year. To say nothing of YouTube TV, which I'm sure I could just Google. It is kind of funny that people tried to, like, say Google's done. Like, how stupid was that? that people were actually throwing dirt on the grave of Google. So Barry Diller said to Patrick,

now Barry basically invented the movies. Not exactly, but he was a hugely, hugely influential media, media guy. He said, quote, Hollywood is irrelevant. Okay, meaning? Meaning. Oh, because of YouTube? It's YouTube, it's Netflix, it's Amazon, it's Apple.

Like Paramount and Warner Brothers and like, who gives shit. I mean, obviously, they're a fraction of what they used to do. The old school, the old school Hollywood being so important is not anymore. Um, so check out this chart. Streaming earnings. Netflix net income since 2019 versus the major studio director consumer losses. Disney, NBC Universal, Warner Brothers, Discovery and Paramount. Obviously, Netflix disrupted them. They were so late. And then they overspent. Remember Disney plus how much the money they spent out of the gate trying to catch up? and didn't work, obviously.

So this is wild. The share of U.S. TV viewing time, like the pie is not growing. Nobody's watching TV more than they used to. And increasingly, legacy broadcast cable, it's just, it's a nice cube. It was 58% in January, 2023, 58%, I'm sorry, 57.5% down to 42%.

That is a rapid, it is melting fast. Where do you think YouTube TV falls in this? It is in all of the streaming. Because YouTube TV is bigger than Netflix. Wild stuff. Makes sense. So, and then the next chart shows streaming U.S. video revenue. Streaming versus traditional TV, box office home entertainment.

And, yeah, streaming is just going to continue to eat into the pie, which is why so many people are worried about Netflix by Wander Brothers. Like, the theaters are already under such pressure that if Netflix, like, does what they do and just moves a lot of these would-be theatrical releases to the couch, not great. Disney basically has to hold on to ESPN forever. Like, if they get rid of ESPN and one of these other big streamers, he picks them up, then it's over. Lastly, to put a bow on this.

He has this great chart that I've ever seen. It shows recovery rates since 2019. And it shows all different categories. U.S. restaurant revenues exceeded 2019. So they're all the way back. Do you remember when people thought people were saying that like restaurants are dead forever? Yeah. That was actually a thing.

Hotel average daily rates all the way back. North American airline passengers all the way back. Okay. What's not back? New York City mass transit recovery. Film industry box office receipts. Only 75% recovered. Film industry tickets sold.

only 60% of 2019 levels. I'll get to know my recommendations. We went to the movie last weekend. Zootopia? Wicked. Wicked, okay. All right, somebody told us that air fryers or what, then? Okay, a bunch of people said this.

Air fryers are small convection ovens, and yes, you can have a large oven that has convection mode. Convection ovens have a heater, which is feeding a fan that blows the hot air into the oven space. The fast moving of the air speeds up the speed of the preheating, and shortens cooking time. I think people were saying one of the reasons, speeds up so fast is because it's smaller.

But a few people sent us pictures that, hey, I have an oven and an air fryer oven right below it. Like those double ones, you know? So some people had it. Anyway. So I keep getting emails about my car. People have very strong opinions about what kind of car you should get. So get this.

I was dropping Kobe off to school last week. And he's never said anything about a car. He pointed out of a car and says, Daddy, I really like that car. You should get that. A big white range rover. I swear to God. Okay.

We were driving on the highway the other day. We were going to IKEA, which, by the way, when did IKEA become expensive? Oh, really? The snooom florgans are expensive now? So I got Kobe a desk. The desk we didn't spend a lot of money on it. It was maybe 90 bucks. But the desk chairs are all like $2,300.

I'm like, what did? So Kobe's become a value shopper. I took him to the mall the other day and he said his budget is $35, which is very cute. So he's so the chairs are 200 bucks And he said why is this place so expensive So we ordered a chair on Amazon But anyway on the on the highway A GX passed us and I said

That's the car that I'm gonna get And Robin Kobe and Logan looked out the window And they all at the same time said Either ew or I don't like that it's ugly I'm standing my ground Okay I guess I haven't seen the new ones it's also it's kind of boxier now it's very boxy i don't know that i love the look either honestly but

i don't want to be in i just want a car that works it does look kind of like futuristic yeah it's not i kind of like the boxy look too it's not terrible so my my struggles with TVs continues okay two things i'm buying cars and buying TVs um so the people who we bought the house from they left their TVs which was very nice uh but the tv in the basement is an old their TV, and so it only has, like, one H.D. My cord. Wait, does that mean you got rid of your TV with the line on it? I left it.

Yeah, finally. I loved it. Oh, the people in your old house, most of your old house, I thought, oh, great, thanks to the TV of the line. No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, I threw it out. Like, you know, um, so I put, I was trying to hang my TV from my office there, but the TV was

too thin. It didn't fit on the wall and I, I, I'm trying to put it on the, the, the rack. And I crushed the TV. I'm like what all right it's annoying whatever so I go to Best Buy get a TV and I'm swapping out there TVs with my TVs from my house have some guys come and hang the TVs because there's three TVs I'm hanging three TVs plug in the TV downstairs blinking red light six times I chat CBT it what's going on warrant it's a it's a manufactured defect I'm like come on on go back to Best Buy swapped it out just annoying

That is annoying. Okay. Speaking of breaking stuff. So Mark Andreessen did this thing on a podcast recently. And they wrote about it. Alex Danker wrote about this. And he says, if you live in the United States today and you accidentally knock a hole in your wall, it's probably cheaper to buy a flat screen TV and stick it in front of the hole compared to hiring a handy band to fix your drywall. And I think we're real like getting stuff fixed is it's hard to do. It's expensive. You have to pay a certain amount just for someone to come into your house. Right. So I have the Wi-Fi enabled heater on our phone. Like, it attaches to our phone. What do you use? The nest or the Honeywell? It's like a Sensei, honeywell, yeah. A Sensei, I don't know. I hate the Honeywell. I swap the nest with the Honeywell, and I regret it.

I want to go back. Okay, so you can turn it up and down, obviously. I get a note that our last night in Disney, hey, your heat fell below, because there's a big cold front that came in. It's tons of snow. Heat fell below 60 degrees, and it's like, I look, and it's like 54 degrees in the house.

So, like, oh, shoot. So my father-in-law, the next morning goes to check it out. Yeah, your heater's off. It's broken. So as we're flying home, he, luckily he went early and did this. He called the heating place, came to look at it. Heater's broken.

Oh, should we come home and do a broken heat? When you say you're heater, like you're, the water boiler or whatever, the boiler? The actual, yes, heating machine, yes, not the, the, the, we had no heat in her house. Okay? Whatever you want to call it. The fire. Well, what is it? He's like, it was unsafe.

He's like, there's like, there's like a, he's like some water dripped and there's rust. And there was like a, the flame of the heat was like, it was like a backdraft. He's like it was a very unsafe situation. So I have to fix it. He says, here's the problem. So he's there for a couple hours trying to figure it out. You need this new mainframe, whatever you're saying. It's going to be expensive.

Okay, whatever. We need heat. It's freezing. Here's the problem. It's Friday after Thanksgiving. We're open today, but the part carrier for the carrier air conditioning are not open. We can't get it until Monday. He says, what we could do is you could spend $200 bucks.

I could have someone from carrier drive there for that $200 fee, and then they could get the piece. And I said, or we, yeah, of course. We need heat. It's freezing. And then he says, I can't get a hold of him. Sorry. We're going to have to go to a hotel or something. And I'm going to go clean up and get everything ready so Monday I can come in and just put

the thing in and it'll be ready. Okay? All right, fine. He called, and he says, all right, the carrier guy just called me. Wait, so did you stay at the hotel? No. So as he's walking out the door, he comes back in and he says, the carrier guy just called.

This is like five at night, by the way. He's been there all day almost. He says, the carrier guy just called me. He can come in and meet me. I can go get it. And I'm like, man, listen, I feel bad. It's a holiday weekend. don't get paid until this gets fixed.

So I'd rather do it now than Monday. So I said, go for it. The guy did it, came and fixed it. But that kind of thing, those people are never going out of business. No. So wait, you didn't need a new thing. You just needed a piece fixed? It was a big, big piece.

Some mainframe, I don't know. He's telling me the names. Like, I know what it means, you know? It's the rotary gooder. Yeah. Do it, man. Yeah. Anyway. But you know what everyone always says when this kind of thing happens.

Ah, the joys of homeownership. People love saying that. Of course. All right, anyway. I'm due for some good luck on my house because I've had bad luck the last few weeks. What happened with your door? They're going to come and refix it.

But they're going to have to give us all new trade. I don't know. It's going to be a mess, but they're coming next week to fix it. All right. I'm going to start with some book stuff. So a couple of weeks ago, when Josh and I were going to Austin, I saw, I was watching CNBC in the morning, and I saw this guy who I never heard of,

Tom Freston, do an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin. and talking about his new autobiography. So Tom Freston ran MTV from the beginning. Like he was the guy. And he had a fascinating life. Oh, yeah. I saw that interview too. You're right.

That was good. So good audiobook. And in the audiobook, so he worked directly for Sumner Redstone, who owned Viacom. And Sumner Redstone is a world-class psychopath. myth absolute tyrant maniac um and told he was tom fresco was telling stories of taking him to um uh southeast asia to go to sex shows and all this sort of stuff so after i finished listen to the book which was good i uh i saw like a another recommendation right like maybe you should listen to this so a book called unscripted by this author james stewart james stewart

wrote Dena Thieves. Oh, yeah. Hey, he's good. Yeah. So I listened to this unscript. He said a really good investing column. He kind of helped me through the 2008 crisis. He was saying like every 10% lower I'm buying again.

Hmm. He had like this rules in place. Anyway. So, um, so I listened to unscripted. And it's the battle for Viacom and it's Sumner Redstone and these two girlfriends that he lived with that were that that that he gave 50 million dollars each two that were bleeding him dry and keeping him away from the family and the story about him and and and sherry redstone of course and uh and looped into it was less moon viz and tom frostin so they like pulled from

that for succession right didn't that the book they used for succession yeah it was it was it was unful believable this this guy's life um and the aftermath of uh of all of that so then that led me to another James Stewart book, Disney War. How are you listening to these books so fast? I'm going to tell you. I'm going to get to that because I had a feeling that was coming. So Disney War is about how Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, Barry Dillers involved, because Eisner worked from at Paramount.

So the story of how they built out Disney, the movie studio, because they were in the shitter. Like in the 80s, Disney was nowhere. I remember when the Disney store came to the malls, like it was a huge deal at the time? Oh, yeah. So Disney was absolutely nowhere. And then they basically reinvented the studio. Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Lion King Aladdin. We were there, right?

You remember that. Excellent book. Excellent book. So anyhow, the question is, how do I have time to read these books? So I was thinking about this because I knew I was going to have to answer because people are going to ask, what are you doing, you weirdo? Over the weekend, I took the kids to see Zootopia too. Not over there, on Friday.

So Black Friday, Robin was with their friends. I had to kill the day. I don't know anything about Zootopia. Like, my kids aren't fans of the movie. I've never seen it. My kids really like the first one. I've watched it many times. So it turns out it's a massive, massive global sensation.

Like did $500 million over the weekend. Yeah. So I took them to Lincoln Square to the IMAX because I needed to kill the day, right? So my kids are car sleepers. So boom, two hours in the car. The next day, Ikea, I'm putting together Kobe's desk, another hour and a half. I'm running errands all weekend. And I'm listening to that, so the book was probably the unscripted book was probably like

seven or eight hours. And then a couple morning walks to Starbucks. That's a nice thing about Auditle, right? So I'm cutting vegetables. I'm putting the groceries away. Like, is it a bit antisocial? Yeah, but my kids are playing. They're out.

Or they're young with you and you're ignoring them. No, no, no. But a table pounder for unscripted, you would love this. It's succession. It's unbelievable. And there's a lot of things to take away from the book, but envying like these billionaires, whoof. Right.

It's not what you think. Just tragic life, Sherry Redstone, living under the thumb of her maniacal, truly sociopathical, Sotheopathological. Whatever it is. That guy's a total psycho. All right. Anyway, enough with the audiobooks. Oh, last thing.

Zootopia. So, excellent movie. Had no expectations. Truly a very quality movie. Jason Bay. In the trailer, Project Hail Mary, I'm in. I can't. That's one of my favorite books I've read in a long time.

Remember how are they going to put that onto the big screen? It looks good. I don't know how they're going to do the alien. I still, I'm worried about. about how they're going to make the alien look? It looked pretty good. Okay. Another coming attraction was a Neil Diamond biopic.

I'm not a biopic guy. Like, I didn't see the Bruce Springsteen one. I didn't see the Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. I didn't see Rocket Man. I watched Queen, maybe. We need to have one for all of these guys? No, I'm sorry. Okay, however, so I certainly in a vacuumed,

I don't need to see a Neil Diamond movie. But it's Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. I don't know. You know, the best Neil Diamond pop culture moment is saving Silverman. They have a Neil Diamond tribute band.

All right. Did you binge watch The Beast and Me? We're two episodes away from finishing. This is the first show that we've binged. I feel like we were like 25 again.

Kobe was out of play date over the weekend. Logan was somewhere else. We watched three episodes on Sunday. Highly bingeable. It's been a minute. I can't remember the last time

I binge watch a show. So anyway, I think, I thought Claire was, Claire Daines was so much stronger than her male counterpart. So you didn't, see, I thought like the scene where they're getting drunk together and the scene where they're at the lunch, I thought that they just played off of each other so well. I think he is amazing. I love that guy. I thought there were, there were parts where he was strong and parts where it literally sounded

like he was reading. Okay. I think he's fantastic. So we will have to agree to disagree there. I enjoy it. Good show. Anything else from you? No, I am contented out the end.

asked the past couple of weeks. Okay, I got a little bit too. So I finished Slow Horses, the new season. It was season five. And I would say the first three seasons were like a nine for me. Like I thought just knocked it out of the park. This is the best show, no one talks about it. I say this every year I watch it.

Yeah. Gary Oldman is so good in this show. And I think the last two seasons are more like eights out of ten, right? Still good, not as good as the first three. But somehow the last episode, they always tied in so, so good. And it's always a twist you never saw coming. And the ending is always great. And they always make you, leave you wanting more.

It's just, it's such a high quality show. And it's only six episodes seasons. It's so, it's so good. I watch the roses on my way down on my iPad. Totally. So do you hear of The War of the Roses from the 80s? It's Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. It's a couple who's getting divorced,

who love each other and fall passionately in love, and then they grow to hate each other. And they sabotage each other's lives. And this is an updated version of that. And it's Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Coleman. And Andy Sandberg and Kate McKinn play their friend couple, who's kind of funny in humor. And it's just, it felt like a 80s or 90s movie. It's like not good, but a total great airplane movie.

Benedict Cumberbatch is actually really funny in a comedy. I thought he was very good. That's like a, it's on a Hulu. So it's like a good background movie. Like not something you have to pay attention to that much. Wicked. So I took my kid, my kids love Wicked. They loved the first one.

They listened to all the music. My wife and my mother-in-law love it. So they went and took the kids to see the actual life. show of it. So they love Wicked. So they were so excited for it, went to see it. And afterwards, they're talking about how much they loved it and, and how great it was. And I had to be the turn and the punch bowl. And I just put my hand up and I said, I just have a little slight, slight comment to make. And they're like, my wife knows probably what I'm going to say, and she's getting mad at me already. And I said, it's creative. I get it. But they're trying to change the story of one

of the most magical movies ever made. And I don't like that. They try to change Wizard of Oz to they get a story that it wasn't, okay? And I thought that they took a lot of liberties there. So I didn't like the fact that they tried to change Wizard of Oz. That's my problem. And obviously, the show has been out forever. So I should have known this, but I didn't know what the story was. And I don't like that they tried to change Wizard of Oz.

I think that's sacred material. Yeah, I agree. Anyway, but my kids loved the movie. And it was way too long for me. Wait, when's the last time you've been to the theaters? That's the first time in a while, I suppose. But yeah, they're like for Zootopia, too. It was great.

Not bad. $10 matinee tickets, not terrible. Oh, last thing. So this goes to the earlier point of Netflix depriving me, the moviegoer, of a great cinematic experience. You know there's a new Knives Out coming next week? Can't wait. I rewatch the first one this weekend because I'm excited for it.

First one was a 10. The second one, eh. Yeah, the second one was okay, but that should be a big screen release. I thought they're going to release it for like a week maybe so you might be you might get in New York if you want I think they're going to release it for a week I texted uh I texted Robin yesterday

hey uh Friday December 12th 7pm I'm going to see the shiny at the Ibex it's a re-release that I did not see in the theater 100% okay I'm writing it wrong Ben all right that's that'll be my Friday night solo

all right are we going to get your predictions before the end of the year Are you doing Michael's 10 predictions again? Is that coming? I don't even remember what my predictions were. Someone on Twitter said to me, hey, you predicted that strategy was going to crash like this. And I said, there's no way I predicted that.

It was probably a Michael prediction. Did I? I don't remember. It's possible you did it. So I think we're going to need your 10 predictions coming up soon. You do that's it. You know what? I have to do it. I have to start working it now because I don't want to cram at the end of it.

It's too much work. All right. Thank you to the production team. As always, Duncan and crew. Appreciate it. Thanks to all the wonderful emails we always get from people. What's your email address? Animal Spirits at the CompoundNews.com. And we'll see you next time.