Animal Spirits Podcast - The Best Bear Case on AI (EP. 478)

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

On episode 478, ⁠⁠Michael Batnick⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Ben Carlson⁠⁠ discuss: one of the greatest bull markets of all time, falling valuations, why young people gamble, financial nihilism, the next recession, $3 trillion in money markets, when bond yields compete with stocks, debating AI outcomes, NHL ETFs, renting vs. buying, rich sports owners in trouble, breaking even at the blackjack table and more. This episode is sponsored by YCharts and Vanguard. To start a free trial and get 20% off your initial YCharts Professional subscription (new customers only) visit: https://go.ycharts.com/animal-spirits To learn more about Vanguard bonds, visit: https://vanguard.com/audio. Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠thecompoundnews.com/subscribe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Us On Social Media: Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠twitter.com/thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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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All investing is subject to risk, Vanguard Marketing Corporation distributor. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, I'm ready to call it. This is officially one of the greatest bull markets of all time. We're there. We're entering 1980s, 1990s territory. Allow me to make my case in front of the jury here. Okay?

2010's S&P 500 was up 13.4% per year, annual basis. Not bad. Handful of minor fair markets, right? We had a few like 19% in change ones. 2020s, 15.7% per year. I think the 80s was like 17 and the 90s was 18. Something like that, maybe flip-flop. So a little higher.

From the lows in 2009, the S&P 500 is up almost 1,500%. Sorry, this is the Vanguard total stock market index. You see now that they have the VLOSP 500%. Vanguard Morningstar total stock market index? That's a new thing. Oh, that is interesting. Okay. Yeah, Morningstar branded it.

VTI is up almost 1,500 in total, 17% annualized returns since the bottom in 2009, which is when I think the bull market started. Some people disagree with me. I don't care. That's when it started. This year, and I think the bull market,

this has been a caveated bull market the entire way. It's only the S&P, nowhere else is, nothing else is keeping up. It's just concentration. It's all mag-7, blah, blah, blah. Well, the last 24 months or so, the bull market has entered a totally new territory. So we, in the last week, have hit new to all-time highs in the S&P, the equal weight, Europe, mid-caps, small caps. Emerging markets are basically there. Valuations are falling. Profit margins are rising.

This is the craziest one to me. Tech stocks are up 65% since January 2025, and I pulled this duality research chart. in that time, the 4 PE, again, this sector is up 65%. In that time, the forward PE has gone from 29 to 22, while the stocks have risen almost 70%. This is like, we're a stones throw away from this being one of the great bull markets ever. Thoughts. Am I right? Am I wrong? So many thoughts, Ben. That was a rushing nesting egg doll of arguments. A lot to unpack there. Nailed it.

An egg doll. Is that what it's called? Oh, a nesting doll. I said egg doll last week. Did it again. All right. First of all, let me just nitpick a little bit. I don't think the bottom of a disgusting bear market is the beginning of a bull market.

A lot of people nitpick with that. I disagree. Keep going. Fine. Whatever. We can move on for now. We've been in one of the greatest bull markets of all time. Right.

I know you, obviously you know that. We didn't just enter one. Right. You could have said this three years ago, and I would have said, yeah, this is one of the greatest bull markets of all time. And I still think there's a wall of bar to climb. How about that? Despite the 1,500% rise off the bottom, I still think people, not, okay, I don't think.

I know that people are worried that earnings are too high, which sounds hilarious. Yes. But honestly, that is part of the bear. case is that the earnings are too good. Yes. It's all fake. It's all fake. They don't count. Just too good. Which could, that could turn out to be right. Right. Yeah, you're right. Not fake, but they're not going to last. Right. They're temporary, which is a funny worry, but it's a legitimate concern nonetheless. And another thought that I had as you're talking about this as I'm staring at this chart, I think this partly fuels the consternation among young people.

It's like, okay, I miss the housing market. I miss the stock market. What's next? And I think that's valid. If I'm 26, 28 years old and I feel like everything is just too out of reach, I look at the stock market, I look at the housing market, I say, yeah, parlay's, let's go. I get it. Okay. I wanted to get into this in a minute.

I think way too much kid gloves for young people these days. I'm sorry. We've given plenty of sympathy, empathy, whatever the word is for people in the housing market. I think we're way too tiptoeing around young people. Oh, boo-hoo young people. You know what? Suck it up. This will be a popular take.

Suck it up. You don't get to get rich overnight. You don't get to have your dream job right away. I think the problem with young people is that they know too much. Like when I came up, no one expected to get their dream job right away. No one expected to be rich by age 30 right away. I think that's the young people living in a day and age. where they see other young people who are wildly successful, and they go, that should be me.

At 27, I should be wildly successful. And I think that's, I think the expectations for young people are way too high. And I think that we are all being a little too like, oh, boo-hoo, young people, I'm so sorry. I feel like there's way too much virtue signaling with young people right now. You know what? No young generation has ever had it easy. It's true. They've never had, okay? That's where I'm feeling these days. I got more to say on that. Wait, I think, I think you're right. And I also think that. that nobody looks bad by pandering to the young people. Of course.

And like putting your arm around them. It's a great strategy these days. If you want to get good on social media, you tell young people, hey, listen. They're screwed. You're paying all the interests on the debt. You're never going to buy a house. Yeah. You panned it to the male.

Blame the baby boomers. Epidemic of loneliness and a lot of pandering going on. And listen, there's more than a kernel of truth, right? Yes, I agree. In many ways, young people do have it hard. Harder than previous generations. It's always been hard to be a young person. But now there's a content strategy around that audience, which amplifies the shit

out of it. Well, here, let's get into this. Now, if we're going to do this now. Go ahead. I think a lot of this came on because there was this survey in Bloomberg that went kind of nuts on social media. Hang on. Correct the record.

Betterman survey. Yes, sorry, Betterman survey in Bloomberg. reported it, yeah. Yes. 26% of Gen Z investors born between 97 and 2007, so they treat sports betting as a deliberate ongoing component of their financial plans. According to an online survey of 1,000 retail investors. That's compared to 14% of millennials, 6% of Gen X, blah, blah, blah.

They had this chart. And it makes it look like everyone in Gen Z has given up, and this financial nihilism has taken hold, and they've decided the only way to get ahead is for me to gamble. And this to me is the Winnie the Pumim, and it's degenerate gambler on the top and financial nihilism on the bottom. We're giving people a free past because they're degenerate gamblers or because they want to gamble. And I also don't believe these numbers. There's no way these numbers are correct.

No way in hell. There's no way. This many people assume that sports gambling is part of their financial plan. That's just not, there's no way. I have a few thoughts here. Number one, this is like just ties into our theme about how social media is just breaking everything. Yes.

I don't think anybody actually read the survey, number one. No. But this chart, this tweet could have said anything. It could have said anything about people blurring the lines between investing and gambling and people would have gone nuts. It could have said 11 percent and people would have had the same reaction. So I don't know that I disbelieve the numbers, but I don't think it matters. Guess what?

These are young people. If I was 25 years old and I had Robinhood, I'd be doing the same thing. And guess what happens to young people? They turn into us. Their back start to hurt. They eat cottage cheese with pineapples. That's what happens. And they snap out of it.

They're not going to, I don't think that 40-year-olds in 15 years, I don't think that 25-year-olds today, when they're our age, are going to have 60% stocks, 30% bonds, 10% NHL ETFs, which we'll talk about later. I just don't believe it. How many people who are 25 have a long-term financial strategy

in the first place? Yeah, what do you? What? Long-term strategy? 25? Come on. I love to know how many... Too much extrapolation going on.

How many Gen Z people they had to locate to actually answer this survey? So there's two... Well, there was a thousand people surveyed. I don't know how many of them were Genzi. But there's two things here that really get to the crux of the matter.

One is this is, this appeals to people in our world that love to wag their finger. I get it. See, everyone is gambling. Right, right. I get that. And then there's the crossover of young people that are screwed. And that is a big Venn diagram of rage bait. Right?

Like this tweet, we're chimpanzees in the cage screaming about this. So you pulled up the actual survey from Betterment, which is the front, old friend of the show, Dan Egan. Oh, yeah. Oh, credit to me. I went to the source. How about that? So they said where sports betting fits into financial goals for Gen Z.

36% don't participate. That's not a headline, right? Nobody wants to read that. So 36% of Gen Z people just don't bet. 15% used it to accelerate a goal. All right. 14% occasionally redirected funds. Also very not headlining at all.

Nobody is going to click that. 23% kept funds separate as fund money. Again, nobody's clicking that. That's not very interesting. That sounds... Nope. Bordel. Dare I say that sounds responsible.

And 11%, 11%, so 1% and 10 have it as a high-risk strategy investment strategy. You know, these numbers, I don't know. I don't find them unbelievable. Anything there that you say that there's no way that's true? No, this is not nearly as bad. But then Bloomberg talks to this 32-year-old dude who, says, it's not just a hobby for me. I'm smarter than the gambling markets. And he said this year he made, he said he booked a whole vacation thanks to the Carolina Hurricanes, which sounds

insane to say out loud. So you find these anecdotes and you latch on to them. And you go, see, everyone feels like they have to do this, have to gamble on sports just to get ahead. The thing is, young people are so far ahead, so much further ahead financially than previous generations, just because it's so much easier. So you have people doing everything now. They're much more advanced than we More young people have IRAs, more young people have 401Ks, more young people have Robin Hood accounts. More young people also gamble online because guess what? It's easier. We didn't have access to this stuff.

So no one talked about it or did it. No offense to Robert. He's 32. There's like the seat in wedding crashers when they're sitting on the steps of the Washington Monument or maybe it's a Jefferson can't remember. Come on. We were young. I think Owen Wilson says, you're not that young. Robert, you're not that young.

You're 32 years old. Snap out of it. Robert says I booked a whole vacation thanks to the Carolina Hurricanes this year. sounds insane to say out loud. It's not that insane to say out loud. A little bit insane. But guess what? You could also not book a vacation because of the hurricanes.

You're 32 years old. True. You should be saving it a different way. So there was this other survey done by Empower that a lot of people point to. And they asked every generation, what do you need for a minimum net worth to be? What does financial success look like to you?

And what's a minimum salary? This is garbage. We've been through this before. The salary is like $600,000. And the net worth. there's like $10 million. And everyone's like, see, look at Gen Z. And I just, this is like the sampling bias survey.

Like, I don't believe a lot of these numbers. And I feel like they are used to, I still don't understand the term gaslighting. I'm still trying to learn that one. It feels like gaslighting to me or virtual signaling or whatever. It's funny because I do an annual rewatch of the office space. And I put it on again the other night. And I'm watching this. And it's Gen X who is completely just miserable with their situation in life.

and being in a cubicle. And it just, every generation goes through this, like, quarter-life crisis, whatever you want to call it, I think Gen Z is just going through it earlier than most. And I had one of these moments in a great financial crisis. I remember I asked my boss for a raise. And they kind of, they laughed at me almost. Like, are you kidding me? No one's getting a raise right now.

And I was reading, Remeet, I will teach you be rich. He was the first blog I ever started reading, like 2006. And I remember in 2009, because I got caught up in the, listen, we're all screwed, because the great venture credit, like through no fault of our own, we're screwed. The job market stinks. No one's, you know, it's hard to ask for a raise. It's hard to get a new job. And I remember Rameet wrote a post about like, okay, listen, you can complain about the macroeconomy for 10 minutes.

And then what are you going to do about your own situation? And that's kind of like you need someone to shake you out of it and go, stop getting into the herd over there who complains about it's all the economy's fault and it's all the boomers fault and it's all the housing market's fault and all these things. Okay, fine. Get it out of your system. now what are you going to do for yourself that you can control to get out of the situation? Now that's kind of where I am with young people. Like, okay, fine. Get it out of your system.

We've seen these things before, but Gen Z really is better off in terms of income, in terms of stock market dollars, in terms of wealth by age. Like, if you look at all the numbers of under 40, these people have more money in the stock market than ever before. And they just have more money in everything than ever before. And again, I do think the biggest gripe about housing, I totally am on board of that. If you miss the housing boat by five years

because of you just weren't at the place in life to buy one and you miss 3% mortgage rates and much lower prices, it's not your fault. That's the Robin Williams and Goodwill Hunting. It's not your fault. I have two different lenses through which I see and experience young people.

Number one is this nonsense and social media which paints a distorted picture of everything. right young people old people unhappy people happy people AI people everybody's a warped image so let me just let me just put that to the side because that's not real life right and then I have the people that we work with which is also a I suppose a I don't know if that's a small sample of people well I do know it's a small sample of people

how many people how many young people do we have working for us under 30 I'm going to guess not 20 we've like yeah 20 25 probably all over the country not making $600,000. And by all accounts, these seem to be very happy people. I don't know that they're like representative the entire population of young people.

But I just, I just, I think that a lot of this shit is warped by social media. If you're too online, then yes, I agree. I also do think that there's going to be something whether it's happening now or in the future where there are just so many more,

I keep harping on this. There's so many more rich people that there are bound to be unhappy children who are almost like downwardly mobile through no fault of their own because their parents are so successful and rich that they're going to be miserable because they're probably not going to be as successful as their parents.

That's true. They're going to inherit mommy and daddy's money and it's like they're never going to be happy because of that. That's going to be a big thing for a small segment of the population. The other big thing is that in 2008, when I was coming out of college, obviously not a great time, but there were no young rich people for the most part. No.

There wasn't a thing. There's no influencers. That wasn't a job. But that's why the 2008 crisis was so different because everyone felt like they were in the same boat. Because there was older people who got in trouble who lost their stock options, who got crushed in the stock market, who lost their house potentially, who lost a job, and also young people who were doing. So everyone was dealing this at this.

Everyone was on the same wavelength. And now there's a different wavelength. Because some young people would say, listen, okay, great. I put 20 grand into my 401k in the past five years, and now it's worth 45 grand. What good does that do me? And I understand that. But you also have to be patient as a young person and know that, like, most people don't get rich overnight. And the stories that you're seeing, that's not normal.

That shouldn't be a strategy. Life has seasons. And like every young person before them, they will age out. of this season of their life and into whatever is next. Yes. And I still do feel like as a whole, young people are going to be richer because some of them boxed out of the housing market. I really do think that's a thing.

And it may still make them unhappier, but I think that they're going to be one of the wealthiest generations ever at a younger age than most because they know more about the stock market and they have access to it. See, this is what the world does to us these days. We start out talking about how this is one of the greatest bull markets of all time. And then we have to bring it, we have to bring it down. Everything is a caveat. Speaking of which, so in the 2010s, the big caveat was the only reason

that we have a bull market, and I'm speaking in like Dumer's here probably, the only reason you're speaking in what? I didn't hear that. Dumers. Dumers. The only reason there's the bull market is because interest rates are at zero and the Fed's monetary policy and QE. That's the only reason we have a bull market, right? That was a 2010. That was 2010 to 2010. That was 2010 to 2000, well, not even 2010 because in 2010. See, here's the thing, Ben, getting back to my earlier point. In 2010, nobody was talking about a bull market. No way.

This is all revisionist history, right? It's like looking at basketball stats and saying, uh, this person was the best. No. If you, if you saw it, you would say, no, no, no, no. No, no. Yes, the SP 500 was up 37% in 2009 and whatever the number was. That wasn't a bull market. We were there.

In 2011, we were still talking about. double-dip recession. That wasn't a bull market. The only time we even started talking about a new bull market was 2013. Yeah, but a secular bull market can only be defined in hindsight. It can't be defined in the moment. Fine. I know there's nuance here, but I know you were there. We were not talking about a bull market. Of course, no one. Yes, I agree. So that was the thing in the 2010s is 0% rates. And now in the 2020s, it's any time you show someone there's a bull market, they go, oh, yeah, well, government spending, government debt, deficits. That's the only reason for the bull market. And obviously, that's a big part of it. That money does drop to the bottom line.

But here's the thing. Because in the 2010s, the question was, okay, fine, Europe has negative rates. Why aren't stocks going crazy there? In the 2020s, it's, remember we showed this data from Michael Sembless before? Canada has a, or not Canada, China has a bigger deficit than the U.S. China is now borrowing as much or more as a share of GDP than the U.S. Look at what Chinese stocks have done this decade. And I didn't really realize it was this bad. MSCI China has done literally nothing this decade. It's up 2% in total in the 2020s. I hear your point.

You can't compare Chinese stocks to U.S. stocks. I get it. We are a capitalist society and they sort of are not. It's kind of crazy when you think, and obviously, hey, the debt goes to different things. My point is, as you know, you can't just pick one variable like that and you go, okay, if you just pull this lever, things go up. It doesn't work like that. Of course.

Right. I think there's people who actually think this is true, though. that the Illuminati is pulling the lever and making the stock market go up. And if it was that easy, they would just keep pulling the lever. Right? Well, keep,

what's keep that chicken Jerry from? Is that a blooper on the internet? I got to plead ignorance here. I don't know what that one is. Yeah. Yeah. It was a weatherman who went viral. Okay.

All right. Anyway, moving on. Well, you can't have a bull market without this. chart from the Wallachy Journal via Bank of America, the median earnings growth for the S&P 500. So strip out the one time, like the hypers, the median earnings growth is about 14%, which is the highest it's been in a long time, which gets back, I mean, at least since 2023, like way, way, way higher than normal, gets back to the earlier point. This could be peak growth.

Like, we might- This is a good chart, though. This is because you're right, this takes away the extremes and the concentration and the, hey, this is all just a markup from Anthropic and Open AI. It does it. It's not real. This is a good chart. Very good chart.

All right. On TCF, we were talking about how much money is still in money market funds, despite the raging bull market, despite higher interest rates on bonds that you could lock in, despite money market rates coming down, like the money is not moving out. And somebody rightly said, guys, you always talk about money market funds. You never talk about how big the denominator is. And I would say, I said, actually, not true. Not true.

On Thursday, I omitted the fact that the market is so much bigger. But we've shared this chart a million times in the past. So credit to this person for sending us an email. You have to make the adjustment because we were saying like, oh, my God, $3 trillion. That's money on the sidelines, whatever. It's 11% of the S&P 500 market cap, which is below the 18% average since 1990. So I don't know that I've seen this chart before going this far back. I assume chart could help you with this.

that is bananas that it was that money market funds were 61% of the stock market in mark 2009 yeah i think that was just a pure denominator collapse well of course but that but being that high yeah it's nuts because it was half of that in the dot com bubble or whatever so i think what's so this is a wall street journal article it said there's three trillion dollars in retail money sitting in in money markets and i really do think that this that cash is a bond allocation now i think so many people got fed up with bonds because you lost 18% of your money in the ag or whatever, that people said, you know what, fine. Cash is my bond allocation. And even if I get lower rates and lower yields, I'm going to have a barbell portfolio. And I'm not going to get hit in bonds again.

Which is interesting because I think you and I, something we may have been wrong about or we were leaning, that we thought once rates get to a certain level, it's going to be competition for other stuff. Right. So, If you look at tips right now, because everyone's worried about inflation, right? Correct? People think inflation is going to be higher. We're in a 3% world, not a 2% world. Inflation is sticky.

Government spending is obviously not slowing down. Nothing stops this train. So how are you getting 3% in a tips yield for a 20-year bond plus inflation? So you get a real 3% for bond. Like, that's a pretty darn good deal. And William Bernstein wrote a piece on this. He's a big tips guy. he always writes about this in a lot of his books.

He's saying by 2010 yields for tips had fallen below 2%, by 2011 below 1%. In 2021, the five-year tips yield fell to negative 1.76%. You had a negative yield. You were literally paying the government in real basis to buy these tips. Now you can get 3% in tips. And he's saying, this is like a massive, massive buying opportunity. Like you can get 3% real in a government bond. crap and no one cares.

No one wants this stuff. I understand it. Yeah, nobody cares. People think in nominal terms. So on... They also, people also have been, they just,

the scars are still fresh. Their hands still hurts from touching the oven. They don't want volatility and they're fixed income. So on Steve Eisen's podcast this past week, he had Jason Tenor

from Stratigas. Well, you had Todd, someone from Stratis last week, too, right? We did have Todd Zon. So they asked, what's the level of interest rate for bonds that would get people to sell some stocks? And they all agreed. I thought it was like four, four and a half percent, which probably you and I probably would have said, yeah, back up the truck.

People are going to be, and they said, it's actually way higher. And this is just total bull market mindset that if you're getting 20 percent a year in the stock market, what do you care if you can get four, five or six percent in the bond market? Yeah, sounds the same thing, right? It's the only... Five percent, three percent, same thing. You say it after the fact. Whenever this thing ends,

someone's going to look at bonds and go, why didn't all these idiots put their money into five-year treasuries? Are you kidding me? Because they were yielding what, you know, and that's the only thing you know after the fact. And I mean, yeah, no one's going to say, I'm going to lock in 5%. Awesome.

Maybe some retirees. Most people aren't going to do that. I forgot to mention exciting news. Our longtime friend Morgan Housel has joined the compound. Morgan has a podcast called the psychology of money, name of his bestselling book, and I do mean bestselling, got to be the, it has to be the number one selling book in the history of finance, no? If we call it like a personal finance, behavioral psychology book, probably, yes.

Well, I don't even know what number two is. Is the intelligent investor the number two? It has to be an intelligent investor. That thing has been on sale since the 1940s, and it's still like it. I bet you Morgan sold more than the intelligent investor. I don't know. It's just been out maybe. Anyway, Morgan is an incredible person, incredible author, speaker.

He's one of the few. Not too many people can write and speak. Very difficult. I would say I'm probably below average at both. I could do both. It's two different muscles. Not well, but I could do both. There are some really good writers who if you hear them speak, like, oh, gosh.

Yes, you and I are both like these. No, you're a great writer. You're an A writer, C plus speaker. I would say I'm a C-minus writer and a B speaker. That's fair. Average it out and we're B's. Yeah. I would say Derek is another unicorn, Derek Thompson, A-A.

Hey, listen, I graduated college with like a 3.3 grade point average. I think that's where we are. 3-2-3. If we average it out. Wait, I have one more thing to say. Oh, speaking of books. I got rid of almost all my books. Okay, you sent a picture of you sitting in your driveway with a bunch of U-Haul

boxes. So they're being picked up. It looks like we're going to picked up yet. Um, why would you do this? Because a bookshelf just looks so nice. There's something about a bookshelf with all these, but why did you do that? I have no, I can't fit a bookshelf in my house. Oh, you have no room for it? Nope. I, uh, listen, I enjoyed looking at it, but it's sort of a piece of furniture. I wish I could keep my books. I can't keep them forever. I have 11 boxes where there's taking up too much space. I'm never reading these books again. So you give them to the library or? I kept the ones that are signed, but they, I don't know, some book company picked them up. Okay.

Felt like that season of my life of hoarding my books is over. I wish I had space for a bookshelf, but I don't. Well, it's funny. Almost every new book I buy now is either on Audible or Kindle. So I don't, people send me books still, but most of the books I have now, I'm consuming an electronic form. There you go. All right.

Let's talk about a bull market story here. Oh, wait. There's one more bond chart. just real quick. Another risk to the bull market. Bond weights just continue to march higher. Especially at the long end, which is like the worst in part.

Yeah, but what we just talked about shows that it's not a risk until it is. Like no one, in a bull market, no one cares about bond yields. It's not a risk until it is. I mean, isn't it this kid? Literally, that's true with every. We just had this conversation.

No one cares about bond yields right now. When the stock market is giving you so much. It's a potential. risk. And it's not just in the U.S. global bond yields are screaming higher. And I think for the most part, the stock market, not for the most part, the stock market has absorbed higher rates. Stock market is at all-time highs. Of course it has. The median stock is in an all-time high. We are now used to this. If the 30-year goes from, if it lurches from five to six, the stock market will buckle. But if it's a steady march higher, I don't know what the line is, but something

to keep an eye on. The stock market really has been like a boxer that just absorbs punches. Like takes a chameleon punch. Remember on The Simpsons where Homer? His whole thing was that people would punch him until they fell over. And he just took the punches and then finally that's the stock market. So everything it's been thrown at them, it takes it. And then every once in a while it punches back and goes up.

But if you would have told me four years ago, hey, mortgage rates are going to be at 6% forever. And bond years are going to be at 5%. And you're going to get the highest 30 year bond yield and keeps going higher. I always said, man, that can't be good for the stock market. Right? Stocks don't care. It's crazy. All right.

Great bull market story here from the Wall Street Journal. The dating scene that's suddenly dominated by chip nerds. Thanks to mid-six-figure bonuses, engineers at Samsung and SK Hynix are the hottest bachelor's in South Korea. See, they should make a reality show about this. And they interview all these people, and they talk to this guy who works at Samsung, and he said, like, everyone there is getting six-figure bonuses. and he says that there's more romantic interest for him and his coworkers because they got stock options. The real housewives of S.K. Heinex. I love it.

That's a great bull market story though, right? Yeah, that's good. I think they said the average, you know, I'm sure they get stock options too. And they interviewed one woman who said, I dated a guy who worked at S.K. Hynex, and for three years, and my biggest regret is that I didn't buy the stock. It's 30 minutes of the show. We haven't even mentioned the rebound in the AI memory names in particular. Oh my gosh.

They came roaring back immediately, right? Sand disk was up 35% last week. But see, this is the point. When we're part of the problem too, Ben, we love talking about the bad news. And the good news, eh, cares. That's because we move on, right? One risk, one week, next week, other risk.

Yeah. All right. I'm thinking about this as we continue to harp on potential bad news, because that's what we do, we worry. is as good as it gets. Humans are never going to change. But I do think that there's like some weird, I have no evidence of this. There's some weird thing going on where people want to go back.

And I think part of that is certainly COVID. But like people want to reset. And I think, I don't know, I don't know if I don't know how to articulate that. So the way like, so you're talking about inflation and prices and stuff. And okay. But I don't even. I don't even know that that's like... It's like a human condition.

Yeah, I don't even know that it's like a 2026 story. I think it's like a forever sort of thing. I do think in a lot of ways, though, 2020 is a huge line of demarcation. For sure. There was a before COVID and there's an after COVID. And I think that is screwed with a lot of people. I do agree with that.

All right, somebody emailed us. So wait, wait, hang on, getting back to this recession thing. I keep thinking through, like, what is the reaction function going to be? And I think that the sentiment could be so, so overwhelming, overwhelmingly negative like we've never seen before. That's pretty easy to say, like, consumer sentimental just dropped to lowest levels we've ever seen it. But what if some people actually are happier that we're in a session? And it's kind of like, you know what? I've been suffering.

Now they're suffering too. And what if there are, there is a certain 20% of the population, 30% whatever the number is, who kind of go, you know what? I don't mind this. I don't mind a recession. My life hasn't been very good anyway. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's going to be a lot of that where some people are going to be happy when we have the next recession. That's going to be an emotion. Just got a text message, Ben. Oasis, don't look back in anger, is out now in cinemas and IMAX, September 9th. I was thinking about that the other day since we're almost time for future proof again.

One of my best concert experiences I've ever had in terms of just the vibes, vibes were off the chart of that concert. It was amazing. That was so much fun. I loved it. One of the best nights in my life. That was great. All right, what's the email here?

Okay. markets, okay, you say markets are always right many times. If markets are always right, there would be no buying opportunities. Therefore, this popular statement is inaccurate. Don't scare the people into always indexing. Believe. All right, a lot to unpack here. My operating premise is that the market is always right. And now I know that's not true. Obviously, the market is not always right because guess what the price changes tomorrow and the day after and sometimes the price changes so fast so the market can't always be right and especially when there's uncertainty and confusion I guess the point that I'm making is it's hard to know when the market's wrong

and if you think that that's controversial you're an idiot that should be like that should be like the fundamental premise for any investor is that it's hard to know when the market's Okay, so that's a really good segue. So Burton Malkiel was on Barry's podcast a number of years ago, right when Barry started Masters in Business. And I had this quote. And he says, people think that market efficiency means the price is perfectly right. That's wrong.

He said the price is never right. In fact, prices are always wrong. What's right is that nobody knows for sure whether the too high or too low. It's not that the prices are always right, it's that it's never clear that they are wrong. The market is very, very difficult to beat. I think that makes more sense to me. Okay. So that's also, I was thinking about this.

I was in a car ride with a friend. And we were talking about the stock market. And he sounded like every retail investor. And I don't mean that pejoratively at all. Okay. He sounds like every retail investor who's done extraordinarily well over the last 15 years. And I know, Ben, you said there's some people that want a recession. There's a lot of professional investors who want this era of the best,

and most well-known companies beating everything, people need that error to end. They need it to end. This idiot just bought five tech stocks and he's killing me. I can't believe this. So my friend, and let's just call my friend

the average investor, who bought Google 10 years ago and just held it. And what I say, just extraordinarily hard to do. I didn't do it. So I'm not putting them down. Has beaten the shit

and there's so many investors like that that have beaten the absolute living shit out of, quote, professional investors. Right. Okay. And there's nothing that I could do to convince him that this... You were just about to use a big word there and you stopped yourself. A swage?

Yes. Was I about to use it, right? I was like 50-50. Yeah. Keep going. Okay. There's nothing I could say to convince him that this has been a really good market environment. And I think what he hears is, and I'm like, dude, I'm not like wagging my finger at you.

and saying that like I'm a better investor trader than you are. That's not what I'm saying. And I'm definitely not trying to scare people investing in index funds and needing to hire a financial advisor. That's not my, that's like not my shick. I would encourage people to invest however they invest. And it doesn't matter if you beat the market. Just put your money in the market, what you can afford to save for your future.

That's like my whole MO, Ben, is safe for the future, whether you beat the market, whether you're, I'm smarter, better trading than you. It doesn't matter. But it is an interesting thing because I was thinking about this. Well, in what environment can the retail investor lose to us? Can we say, I know for a fact that I will be the average, quote, no nothing investor. And it would have to be in a bare market where buying the dip no longer works. Because I know that if I'm investing in a bare market, I'm not going to get blown up.

If the market's down 30%, I can be down 30%. If the market is down 30%, I won't be down 70%. Right. The guy in the three times leveraged NASDAQ fund is going to be down 80%. I also think that just a a different market environment and maybe these don't exist anymore, but value stocks work, dividend stocks work, international stocks work. And those things are working. But if they like really worked as tech stocks got smoked for a long period time, that's the period. That's the time where. So that's that's the environment that all the Buffett Acolytes are dying for. Yeah. I don't care. Like we don't we don't need that. So anyway, Wisenthal also was on this beat this week.

He tweeted, what is true is that an individual trader going up against pros will have a hard time outperforming the index. But I don't know what the going up against pros part means in there. But anyway, he said, but unless you're managing other people's money, I've never understood why this is our particularly important thing to care about. But even on this point, the story over the last 15 years is that to beat the market, all you had to do was buy the big names that every Joe Schmo has heard of. no need for any satellite imagery data, sophisticated algorithms, or complicated Excel models. It's been a very interesting 15-year period where the professionals have gotten smoked. Yeah, it's been the first level thinking market for a long, long time. For a long, long time.

Yeah, good point. All right, let's talk about AI. So AI feels to me like the debate has shifted to the member of the hard landing, soft landing debate we had about the economy. It just kept going and going and going. Alex Emas had a good tweet here. If you look at the last three years of AI progress, technologists have largely been right about the massive increase in capabilities, right?

That's probably better than anyone. The things that AI can do is probably better than anyone could have possibly imagined when Chad GPT came out. At this point, like, oh my gosh. And the economists have largely been right about the economic impact. I don't expect that to change. This is the one, I think he's, I think this is the right take. That the capabilities of this are going to keep getting better and better and better,

and it might not have the earth-shattering impact that people think. And that's going to be... It's somewhere in between the hard landing and the soft landing. And everyone's kind of like, wait, I'm kind of right

and I'm kind of wrong. Can I pile on your Grand Rapids Hedge? I was thinking about the Paul Kedroski Cantrose interview and Paul Kedroski has been making the case

for a while now that this is a massive bubble. He has the... I listen to that too. He makes the best bare take that there is. It was good because he's not like, he's not like, this is all nonsense. He's like, well, obviously it's real.

Otherwise, there wouldn't be this level of investment. He's not just a dumer either. He literally works. He's a VC. Okay. And part of it, I think I worry that like, wait, is it just stick that he's just the AI bear guy and he keeps doubling down? But his bear case, it's the best bear case that there is by far.

So how do you sum up his bear case? His bear case is that just listen, there's never been this amount of spending before on something like this. And the ROI is just not going to be there in time. Right? Is that fair? That's basically it. And it's not just that it's the biggest spending as a percentage of GDP in history. It's that it happened faster than any time in history.

And you just, there's too much other spending that has to go on in the future. And if you just look at these like an actual investment, unless we get, unless we turn technology into a god, he's, and he's saying like, the only way I'm wrong is if this is actually a call option on AGI. So my takeaway was, you know what, this is just, I put this in a too hard pile. Now, I know as people talk about, there's a financial podcast, we should probably have strong opinions on, is this a bubble? Is it not a bubble? I don't know. I have to listen to that. I was like, I just, I don't know.

How could I know? How could I know if Google and Microsoft and Amazon are going to get a high enough return on their investment? How the hell could I know? Yes, I totally agree. You come away from listening to that and you go, oh, man. But even he asked him at the end, how are you like betting it? Are you putting a big short on this? And he was kind of like, not really.

I can't really force myself to put it. I'm not reinvesting or something. But yes, I totally agree. I'm hedging this one. I'm totally on the fence. We said before, we told Derek, like, no, this isn't a bubble. And I lean that way, but I'm not 100% on that. How could you possibly?

I mean, all the signs are there. Yeah. But I don't know. Paul makes a very good, on the big technology podcast, it's worth the listen. He makes a very good bear case. Very good bear case. Here's another part of it, Wall Street Journal. Why the $3 trillion in spending is higher than it seems,

and they show all this off-balance sheet stuff for all the big hyperscalers. And then they break it down, and it's mostly Google and meta and Microsoft and Oracle and Amazon and Nvidia, have these massive off-balance sheet leases that have not started yet. And obviously, if the Wall Street Journal has it, the market knows this.

But this is another thing like, hey, actually this amount of spending and what they're what they're committing to this is even bigger than the numbers that we see at face value. And it's going through the free cash flow levels down to, okay, we're into borrowing territory now. And Google has even issued equity. So that's kind of the thing here. All right.

Well, it's certainly real. Anthropics revenue run rate is up to $65 billion. As Sean, make this chart comparing the, AOR of Anthropic to the trail on 12-month revenue of various companies. And it's done more revenue than Pfizer, Cisco, Conoco Phillips, Intel, $10 billion ahead of Uber, $15 billion ahead of Coca-Cola. I don't know why I just said it like that. And $18 billion, $17 billion ahead of Netflix.

Holy mackerel. And it's right behind that it's probably about to pass Oracle and Delta. See, I'm not impressed because they, how can Delta be ahead of them? Show us how bad of an, doesn't it show how bad of a business airlines are that Delta has a higher revenue run rate than all these companies? Yeah. It's kind of funny to think about it. And it's so much smaller.

But yeah, you're right. And this is a company that was founded a couple of years ago, a few years ago. And they're already earning more money in revenue than all these. Yeah. So that part is real. All right. Last week with Todd Sohn, we were talking about the explosion in the ETF marketplace and what's coming, wrapping prediction markets inside of ETFs.

And then there was a filing from a company, I don't know who this is, but Jeffrey Protak tweeted wild, wild stuff. Filing to register 32 ETFs tied to each NHL franchise. Each ETF will invest in futures contracts tied to the CME FSPI index for the team concerned. I hate this. Obviously, I hate this. it's kind of funny that the

NHL is the first one to do this and not the NFL of the NBA but yes obviously this is it's also crazy that there is an actual futures contract created in the C&E for this like this is it sounds halfway legitimate

but keep gambling out of your brokerage accounts you should not be able to commingle your retirement fund that I agree with your retirement account with sports gambling. That's why, yes,

I like the separation of church and stay here. You should keep your gambling in your Fanduil account or your Draft King's account or whatever it is. Like that should be separate from your Charles Schwab and your Robin Hood account.

Because you know why? You could so easily drain your brokerage account and just shovel that money into the hole that is sports betting losses. It needs to be, there needs to be a little bit of separate.

There needs to be a little bit of friction to slow people down from making big. decisions. But this will kind of test our, like, do we actually believe these gambling numbers? Like, how much money are these ETFs going to get? Will they actually have enough traction? I don't think so.

So the hope is that they just fall flat on their face and they never get enough money to matter. That's the hope. Obviously, this stuff is not slowing down ever. You talk to Todd about this. Like, this is just, there's going to be so much crap thrown against the wall. It doesn't start it yet. No, so much crap. All right.

So when do we start regulating this stuff? We just don't care? Well, you and I care. I don't think the regulators care. All right. I guess it is kind of a while, while less. And it's like,

hey, if you want to touch the hot stove, you know what, I guess I am a little bit sympathetic to the where's the line argument. Although maybe that's like a, maybe that's a straw man type of attitude. I don't know where the line is. I don't,

it's funny. I was going to talk about this later, but you asked last week, like, why is, why are Westerns, as a genre. Why are Westerns a movie genre? And so I started listening to this book. I had a long drive last week, so I listened to a bunch of audiobooks, which is a great way to pass the time on a drive. I know podcasts are, but listening, you can listen to an entire audio book on a long

drive. It's a great way to pass the time. So I was listening to this book called The Gunfighters by Brian Burroughs. And it's this book about White Earp and Billy the Kid and Wild Bill Hickok and all these people that are in the Western movie you've seen. And you kind of like, wait a minute, that was a real person. So it's about like the actual history behind them. In the first chapter, the author explains that in the 50s is when Western, like people kind of started researching this stuff and it really came in a big way, the TV shows and the movies in the 50s. And he said, he kind of said, like, why were Westerns so popular? And he said, the reason is that Western is so popular, especially in America,

is the freedom component. And you're on your own. And there's no laws. And there's no regulations. And there's no rules. And he said, that's why Americans love Westerns. Because you have that element of freedom and you're on your own and no one's there to help you and that's that's why etsiafs are also wild wow well that checks out good analogy well done all right so we talked before about yes young people being really angry about the housing market makes sense um there was this guy writing in bloomberg who wrote on his own situation and he says he's been a renter over the years and he says i love renting it gives me flexibility it gives me a fixed overhead. He said he's rented in Brooklyn. He's rented in Miami. He says, I love knowing that

my rent is basically the maximum all pay in housing costs aside from some minimal expenses like renters insurance and small repairs that aren't covered on a landlord. A mortgage payment, however, is the only one of the costs of a homeowner must pay to maintain a home. And then he basically says, all the money that I would have spent on homeownership, I've gone into low-cost, broad-based index funds. And he's okay with this. And I know a lot of young people aren't. A lot of people. No, a lot of people, but a lot of people have done that. I made a fortune. But I think this attitude is going to start becoming more and more pervasive

for a larger segment of the population of young people than it ever have it before. Fine. I'll just put it in my brokerage account. All right, but it cuts both ways. Because what if you put your down payment in, and then the market, fall 20% doesn't recover for three years? And you're like, shit. My down payment.

True. But I think some of this money is just maybe never going into a home where, yeah, you're right. They buy when they're 40 or something. I just thought it was a good, it was a good, like, there are pros to being a renter. Yeah. Yeah. Ben, getting back to the negativity bias that we spoke about earlier, SpaceX, a lot of talk about

about what's going to happen during the unlock. Is it going to fall below 100? Is anybody talking about the fact that it just bounced from 100 to a buck 50 during the unlock? Yeah, you're right. Everyone was kicking it while I was down, too. Nobody cares about good news. Hey, I do.

I got into SpaceX for a quick little 20% gain. Love it. Good for you. Trader Ben. All right. So there was an article in Bloomberg. The father of the 401K has a new savings plan. And my big takeaway from this, there's a picture of him with a cat on his lap.

Yeah. And it says, Ted Benna is the guy. Ted Benna with this cat, Leo, on his farm in Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania? That's a new one. There's a Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania? That's new to me, too. So he talks about like, hey, listen, I, so he basically got the 401K because there's this tax loophole, which of course, what do you, what do you think of tax loopholes?

Who is it going to benefit? He said, the 401K has really benefited rich people more than other people, and I want to make it more equitable. I actually think the 401k has been a resounding success. And I know a lot of people would disagree with this. Here's the numbers from this article. What is to disagree with? It's been a home run.

So he's saying it as, so here's the thing. When he started this in the late 1970s, the 401k phone, when it first got hatched, 38% of U.S. private sector workers, many of them in unionized industries, had pensions that promised income for life. It wasn't, there was never this time that everyone had a pension.

And now we have, we would not have 65% stock market ownership in the U.S. without a 401K. It simply, that wouldn't be the case. There's $10 trillion in 401Ks. Ted, take a bow. Yes. It was a way bigger success than we ever could have realized or hoped for.

Because guess what? Those unions were going away and those pensions were going away either way. So if we would have had all the pensions go away and the 401K wasn't there to fill the void, it would have been 10 times worse. Then people would have gone, what that, what? There's nothing? Just an IRA? That's it?

Just that fidelity alone. there are 600,000 accounts that are worth a million, that have a million dollars more. And think about what that number is going to be in 10 years and 20 years. Yeah. Yes. I would still love it if we could open up the 401K for everyone. And the government said, listen, if you have it, if you earn a paycheck, you can invest in the government's form of the Thrift Savings Plan. Because there's still like 40% of workers don't have access to a 401K because they work for a small business that doesn't have one or their employer doesn't give it.

So I would love to see a 401K for everyone. That would be the Ben Carlson campaign promise. Everyone gets a 401k. If you want it, you can have it. I do love that he's not resting on his laurels and he wants to improve. Because it's not perfect. To your point, there's always room for improvement. But yeah, Ted, take a bow.

This is interesting from Bloomberg. More Americans now fly than ever before. So they're going back to the 1970s. And they look that people have flown in the last 12 months or flown ever. And both of these have essentially doubled. from, I don't know, flown in the last 12 months is like 25% of people in the 1970s, and now it's closer to 50%.

And flown ever was 50% of the 1970s, and now it's closer to 80 or 90%. My 6-year-old has been on more flights than I was in my entire life prior to age John, I know, 25. That makes sense to me. I didn't really start going on planes as much until, I mean, I'd fly to Florida descent at grandparents occasionally,

but the whole thing of people driving for spring break is not as big of a thing as it used to be. That used to be like everyone would just get in their car for 20 hours from where I'm from and drive to Florida. And we lay on the floor of a van with no seatbelt on and sleep. This is another good one from this report, though. On an inflation-adjusted basis

from the early 1990s, the cost of a domestic flight has essentially been cut in half. That's pretty crazy. This is, and just the average fare is from Chicago, just for inflation. is in half in the past 30 or 40 years. I really do believe this.

I know this is not a new insight we've spoken about this on the past. I think it was Jonathan Haidt that came up with this, but I can't remember who. All this complaint that we do is a huge sign of progress and luxury. It is. I totally agree with that. Yeah. Yes. The fact that we have time to complain about the Wi-Fi on the plane and all this stuff,

it's a sign of progress. It's a good thing. So Louis did a bit about complaining about Wi-Fi on the airplane. Yeah. Everything is great and everything is amazing and everyone is miserable or something. Sebastian Manascalco came through Jones Beach. And I was thinking about this. You went to see him?

I did not. Oh, okay. I've been to see him a few times. He's great. Okay. So you might not like this take. Okay. First of all, I've noticed, people that go see Sebastian Manascarco love imitating him.

They love doing his bits. Oh, yeah, I can see that. Like, no other comedian I've seen. They just love doing his bits. Yeah, yep, I can see that. All right, here's my take. Sebastian, and this is not a knock on him per se, Sebastian Medascarco is the comedian for people that don't really like comedy,

the same way that people think that Olive Garden is great Italian food. That's actually, that's a pretty fair take. Because he appeals to every. one. Like, he's, he's funny. I mean, obviously he's funny. He's a professional comedian, but yes. And I, to be fair, I had discovered him very early on and like his early stuff a lot better. If I'm playing that card. That was a great walkback. I'm a more fan of his early stuff. That's great. Name three of his comedy albums. Because, you know, like my dad, my dad, I was like, dad, I get it. Yeah. Yeah, but he's

very animated and I mean, they do on SNL now. Yeah. So, yeah, that's, that's a, that's a, that's a good take. That's fair. No, I, my wife and I saw Kevin Hart in like 2007 before he really took off. And it was honestly one of the funniest comedy shows I have ever been to. And now I think the guy is not funny at all, like at all. And because success changes you. Success makes you not as funny anymore. I'm, I'm very sympathetic to comedians. I think it's the hardest thing in the world or one of the hardest things to like make people laugh. Oh yes. It's,

yes. And it's, you have a finite amount of time, though. Think about it. People, I've seen this because Will Ferrell had a new Netflix show that came and went. And everyone is going,

Will Ferrell's not funny anymore. What happened? Like, he was one of the funniest people alive for like 12 years. And it just, you can't keep that pace up forever. Louis is still funny. I saw his special at Radio City last year and it was incredible.

Yeah, there's some people that still have it that are just really good at Joe writing. All right. Let's talk about rich guys in trouble. We talked a couple weeks ago about the guy who owns the Dodgers and apparently used to own the Lakers being in trouble because he ran Guggenheim and there was some private credit stuff going on and insurance company stuff. A lot of self-dealing. Those are the allegations. Are you surprised that they let this guy buy the Lakers in the first place? Well, I don't know. I have no idea what the vetting process looks like. How would they have uncovered this? He was a very, very, very rich guy.

I guess that's true, like how, what kind of due diligence does the NBA have that would even know this stuff? But that's why I think this private equity, private credit stuff, it's really, really easy to hide stuff if you need to. Obviously, this guy did. So maybe this is the next risk. I can't believe that he bought the Lakers and sold them a year later. All right.

So I would love to institute a new rule. I don't know how it would be enforceable because if this guy has to sell for either financial and or legal reasons. okay. But maybe that aside, you can't buy an, if you buy a team, there has to be a minimum five-year holding period. Because think about a world where people are flipping NBA franchises for a billion dollars because that's the value increases by a billion dollars every two years. What is that going to do for the fan experience? If it is purely, purely a financial asset and there's little consideration to the experience of the fans, what does that go do to the league?

I don't want to live in that league. This seems like a pretty extenuating circumstances to me. I agree. And most of these are like usually not assets you buy for, I mean, obviously it helps that the value goes up, but a lot of times... Yeah, but I'm saying, but if people, not if, people with money will see this, saw this and said, holy shit, this guy just made $2.5 billion in 18 months. Right.

Let's do it. There's just so many rich guys now, though. It's crazy. Like, think of how quickly they were able to find a buyer. It's also kind of crazy. Disney stock has gone nowhere for 10 years. Bob Iger's buying the Lakers. I don't know how much money he's investing.

Okay. Got a lot. So Matt Ishbiyah, who a big name in Michigan, not a lot of people. He owns a Phoenix Suns. He created one of the biggest mortgage developers in the country. They kind of needed a rescue from oak tree of all places because they made a bet that didn't work out, and they try to hedge them.

And I think it's just a good reminder that even really, really rich guys, there's, they can stumble. And like, there's nothing that makes you stay there forever. And actually the ranks of really rich people changes way more often than people think. There's been studies on this. That, like, people who are in the top 1%

or the top 5% can also find themselves, like, it changes. Obviously, it's easier to keep money than it was in the past, but this stuff is not guaranteed to anyone to stay where it is. Yeah. I saw a funny joke about how poorly managed the sons are. It's no wonder he made a few bad trades with his mortgage company between Bradley Beale and KD. Yeah.

So the stock's down 85%. I think they put some rate hedges on, assuming rates would fall. Like, of course, there's been no housing activity, right? And so it kind of makes sense that the stock would be down so much. All right. Story time. So I did a speech last week at the FBI crossroads down in southern Indiana. French lick, home of Larry Bird.

And the resort I was staying at, a lot of great finance people there. It was a fun conference. But I got down there and realized, oh, this place has a casino in it. And it was like 10 o'clock at night. And I thought, you know what, I could put on like a Netflix show or something and just kind of relax. But man, there's a casino. And I texted you. I said, I have to go to the casino, don't I?

I'm by myself. He said, yes, you have to go to casino. So this is kind of obvious, but this relates to stock trading as well. If you own a stock and it goes from 300 to 500. and then it falls back to 400. You've made a nice gain in that stock, but you're kind of miserable. If you own a stock and it goes from 300 to 200,

back to 300, you're floating on Cloud 9 because you came all the way back, even though you made less of a gain. That's how I feel about Netflix. I'm only down 15%. I feel like the smartest man alive. So I went down,

I went to the ATM, I got a few hundred bucks out. I put it down, and they had like $15 tables, which is funny, seems low by the standards of today. Usually you can't find anything lower than 25, if you like, when me and you go to Vegas. And I'm playing the right way, of course,

and my money's gone immediately. I lose every hand. The guy next to me is getting a black check every other hand. He's winning everything, and I'm playing by the books, and I just, I lose, and I'm gone 10 minutes in. And I play the right way, and my whole, I'm gone, I'm done. And the, the dealer was just a widowmaker. So I said, I can't let that be the, no, I can't do that. So I go and get another, gets more money at the ATM, and pay like $12 for an ATM fee. I guess we're all just cool with this, the fact that you pay the fee and you pay the 90th Mee fee. That's cool.

And I come back and I go to a different table with a different dealer and all I do is win. And I come all the way back and I make up all the money I lost. And that's just that, and I think all I did at the end was break even essentially. But that's a great feeling as opposed to the other way. It's the one where the guy is in the bus and he's looking at one side at sunny, one side it's the mounted. That was me with blackjack. And in your head, you've got the Ben Carlson from a, from a Milan entrance music playing. You're walking through the smoke machines.

Yeah, so you feel great. And it's even one of those times when every, there's no greater feeling than when everyone at a table is winning. And even like everyone there was by themselves and some old guy next to me, even like give me a fist bump at one point. Like, hey, nice, nice, you know, when you're, you're really feeling it. Great feeling. One more thing. Parlays are just everywhere now. So I sit down at this table and I see all these people doing these other stuff.

side bet. So you have your little circle where you put your bet, right? And above the circle, there's these little number threes. And I see every, every one of the table is putting little money down on these, like, five bucks. And I set the guy next to me, he won one, and it was like a nine to one payout. And I'm like, what is that? I've never seen this before. Maybe I'm just naive. And he's like, oh, it's a kind of like a, it's a really high odds. You can, if your card, like a three card, poker hand. So if you get like a straight or a flush with the dealer's card, or if you get three of a kind, you win like nine or ten to one. Or if the top two, if the first two cards are like Queen of Hearts, it's like 100 to one or whatever.

But the dealer's just funneling money from these people. It's crazy that these parleyers everywhere and people, everyone is betting them almost every time. I couldn't believe it. Anyway, wanted to give an odds, odds of lessen to these people. You know, I'm telling myself as we get ready for the end. NFL season, then I'm going to cut it out with the parlays. But they're just so enticing. You still bet the parlays, huh?

I am, I am a, so what I, my strategy for betting, which has not worked the last two seasons, but I feel like it might work this season. I like buy points. So I'll do Jalen Hertz over 25 rushing yards. Jalen Hertz, 125 yards passing over under Cowboys, Eagles, 31 points. and that'll be like even money. So I'm not doing like, I don't do like the plus 450 parlias. Okay, you're doing things that are high probability.

Yeah. See, this is why I think that these ETFs on sports gambling are not going to work. Because if you just did a high probability sports gambling ETF, you get away the feeling that you get from gambling. That's all point of gambling. 100%. Like the ecstasy and the agony and like if you do it in the ETF at, yeah, I'm clipping 8% a year because I'm betting taking all the high favorites or something like, What is the fun in that? That takes away the fun in gambling.

Well, you and I aren't going to do that because I enjoy, I enjoy actually, I enjoy losing money because that's fun. Making 8% super not fun. Right, of course. But Jane Street will do that. They are doing that. Right, probably. All right, recommendations. Okay.

All right, I rewatch Bloodsport. Now, I'm pretty sure that Bloodsport is my number two. most rewatched movie of all time. It was always on USA all the time. I watched it on USA all the time too. It's always on. One is Shawshank, I think, too, is Bloodsport. It was always on from, I don't know,

1992 to 1997, it was on every single week. And I think I might have watched it every single week. But I haven't seen it literally in, Ben, I haven't seen this movie in 25 years, at least. Yeah, it's probably been a while for me too. Because you've seen it a million times, you know, it was still fresh in my brain. But I don't think I realized, in fact, I definitely didn't realize that that might be the single worst acting performance of all time by one Jean-Claude Van Dam. Holy mackle, was he terrible?

And guess what? Didn't matter. The movie still slaps hard. Fight to survive. Kumate. Kumata. When he gets the stuff in his eyes and he blinks really hard. Unbelievable.

I think everything had to be one take. It was the worst acting I've ever seen. But it's on prime and it's incredible. So you've probably seen Lionheart too. Oh, yeah. I mean, sudden death. What's the two of them? Double dragon.

Time cop. Yeah, he was an actual star for a while there. I know for a... Van Dam would not make it. He would have to be satire to make it today. He could have only come up in the 1990s. Correct. I tried to take my kids to see the end of Oak Street,

which is a dinosaur movie. And Robin looked it up and she said absolutely now. I said, it's a dinosaur movie. She goes, she read the description. Is it appropriate? No, there's, whatever. Like, Robin, it said, freak. All right, whatever.

I wasn't going to win that battle. My dad, I, so I was thinking about Van Dam. I saw Universal Soldier with my dad in the theater. What year was that? 90. I know it was a different time, but, uh, Universal's Soldier was 1992. Remember in the, in the first scene when, when Dolan has the ears

on the necklace. I don't remember that one very much. Okay. Anyway, I did see the end of Oak Street. That was a fun-ass movie. Was it good? Yeah, really good. Okay.

It looks great. The preview looks awesome. It's like an old-school sci-fi movie that was actually good. It's like a made-for-USA movie. So the premise is Ewan, not Ewan McGregor. It is, okay. I always get him in Ethan Hawke, confused. Okay.

Youen McGregor. All right. So, Hugh McGregor, Anne Hathaway. Who's in everything this year? Right. And there are two kids.

The story is based in 1982. There's a flash of lightning, and all of a sudden they're in the, they're in the Jurassic era, and they're surrounded by dinosaurs. The dumbest premise of all time. A straight to USA movie, circa in 1992.

Guess what? It worked. It worked. And, oh, you saw the invite. Okay, so I've watched the invite with my wife. And you recommended this to me. I had a handful of people who emailed us and said, this is a Ben movie, you have to watch it.

I love this movie. Of course, it's perfect. I mean, listen, the premise is obviously a little absurd and over the top, but I just thought it's a one-night movie. I thought all four actors in the movie were great. I thought, like, the fighting between Seth Rogen and who is he married to in the movie? What's your name?

Olivia Wild. Olivia Wild. I thought the fighting of them was perfect. for a married couple. Ed Norton was very great as like the straight man. And man, Penelope Cruz has still got it after all these years. She looked great.

It's weird that there's so many of these actresses from the 90s who can't age. Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek and Jennifer Aniston and J-Lo and like, how do you explain over 35 years that these people just don't age? I know it's diet and exercise and Botox. Plastic surgery and it's crazy though, but Penelope Cruz is great.

Is it weird for me to say that I think Seth Rogan, who literally plays the same character in every movie's in, he plays some version of himself. He has zero acting range at all. Is it weird for me to think that Seth Rogan could win an award for this movie? He was great. I thought he was absolutely excellent on this movie. All right, so I, as I told you, I unfortunately saw this in a very crowded theater by myself. I wish I was with my wife or a friend because there's a few, like, very hard laugh-out

loud scenes. Yes, I laughed a dozen times in this movie, like actual laugh. It's really, really funny. But I thought Seth Rogen was, again, who plays himself in every single movie. He was excellent in this movie. I thought he was really, really good. It was great. What a great year for movies, though. You were right about this. I thought 2025 was some decent movies that were a little overrated. I think 2026 is just a great year for movies. Last year, I was right, it was sinners and one battle. Like, yeah, good, but this slate is so much better, in my opinion.

2026 has knocked it out of the park. Yes, between the Odyssey and Obsession and the Invite and, like, there's just been so many good movies. Yeah, I love it. All right. All right. What's that? We need a correction to kind of spruce things up a little bit.

We're searching for negative stuff here, but we need a correction. I don't think it's going to happen. We're going to have another 20, You don't think it's going to happen? I don't know. Wow, bad. I mean, we're going to have another 20% up year in the stock market.

It appears. Okay. All right. If the market is down 7% next Tuesday or Wednesday, I suppose, it's all that's fault. All right, Animal Spirits at thecompanet News.com. Thank you for everybody for listening. Thank you to John and Duncan and Daniel and the entire production team. Remember, check out Morgan's new podcast, Psychology and Money with Morgan Housel,

and we will see you next time.