Animal Spirits Podcast - The Dumbest Trade War (EP.398)

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

On episode 398 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the financial impact of tariffs, why AI could save the stock market, market return assumptions for the next decade, the Vanguard Effect, levered ETFs, AI Ben, crypto is not a tariff hedge, using Bitcoin instead of a 529 plan, the remodeling boom, peer pressure from friends to go skiing, and much more! This episode is sponsored by YCharts. Check out the Debunking Investing Myths Deck at: https://go.ycharts.com/debunking-investing-myths Sign up for The Compound newsletter and never miss out: thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Find complete show notes on our blogs: Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by our friends at Y Charts. White Charts created a brand new deck, helpful for advisors, called debunking investing myths. And I've got some favorite charts in here that they use. They have one that says fallen stocks will always bounce back. This is a thing where you... Not true. No, it's not. So they show AIG, 96% below all-time highs.

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have a lot of them. So we're big fans of myth busting here. Click the link in the show notes, download a copy of Y-Tchart's latest deck, get 20% off your initial Y-Tarts professional subscription. when you start your first free whitecharts trial through animal spirits new customers only whitecharts.com to learn more tell me what else we just send you you welcome to animal spirits a show about markets life and investing join michael batnick and ben as they talk about what they're reading writing and watching all opinions expressed by michael and ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of redholz wealth management this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Britholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in

this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. We're going to start the show with one more plug for future proof. Signups are going bananas, Ben. Gangbusters, if you will. So if you are an emerging manager, again, no offense, not like a pajama day trader, but a real financial professional and you want to showcase to the world what you're up to, sign up, link in show notes.

One other thing that we've mentioned in the past, but not for this particular event. Again, it's March 16th to March 19th in Miami, Miami Beach, literally on the beach. If you are an advisor, you are eligible for a $700, up to a $750 reimbursement for travel and hotel. So what that means is you're going to pay. You're going to sign up. You're going to pay. But if you sign up for, I think it's eight breakthrough meetings. And again, we'll link in the show notes.

It's all there. You have to pay. But afterwards, you submit for reimbursement and up to $750 with a free ticket, I should add. So come on, no-brainer. Yes. And those breakthrough meetings are helpful, too. Yeah, that's not homework. You opt in.

You can meet with who you want to meet with. I think for one of these future proofs, we need to do a roulette, roll of the dice, and all of a sudden, Ben or Michael is there for one of these breakthrough meetings. A mystery guest, if you will. Right? I don't hate it. I don't hate it.

So, okay, this has been a year. The Deep Seek stuff feels like it was 14 years ago. I don't love a lot of what's happening, but especially the fact that we have to be glued to our phones on a Sunday night, not a big fan of that. Or the weekend. Did you just say or the weekend? Well, just the whole weekend.

Yeah. Because it's kind of started out on Friday. So I, most weekends, I'm busy with kids stuff, right? It's sports and practices and birthday parties and now we're going to go skiing or whatever. And so I, one of the great things about that is a lot of parents complain, I'm so busy. But I love being able to focus on my kids and not have to focus on the outside world. right it's i think it's actually like a one of the benefits of being so busy is like i don't have time to be glued to my screen but this weekend i i you know kids settle

down and i'm looking at all this tariff stuff and it so i have i have the analogy you're a big tariff guy let's just get that let's just get that on the record ben's a big tariff guy i don't i don't like the fact first of all we're going to get into all the tariff stuff and you know luckily it seems like that's on hold for 30 days we're talking about what it means yeah i don't i don't like that we have to talk about this because i don't think that ben and i are overly political people. But inevitably, there are people that are that feel very strongly about this, that are going to email us and strong opinions. I don't know how to be non-political about this, but my feelings on tariffs have nothing to do with the president. Okay. So tariffs, I just,

what are we doing? I don't get it. Now, again, fine, you could say he won because it was all negotiating tactic, but just, but he actually does like tariffs. Like this, this was not a bluff. And I guess credit to him because there was, you know, there were some deals that were made, but tariffs are not good. And what are tariffs? They are a tax that the importer pays for bringing goods into the country that ultimately gets passed along to everyone. It is destructive economic behavior.

It is like the opposite of free market capitalism. So Colin Roche, I thought, had the really the best idea because a lot of people were saying, hey, listen, I would rather buy my products from, that are manufactured in the States and have to pay more fine. People were saying this. And Colin Roche said, listen, the deal. genie is not going back in the bottle. We're a technology and service-based economy now. It's, you can't go back to the way things were when everything was manufactured here. It's not,

that's, that's just not going to happen. I agree the political thing because, just because you have a financial analysis of something like this, it doesn't matter. I don't care if it's Republican, a Democrat, an independent, a Green Party, whatever. The facts are the facts. And the Wall Street Journal had the headline saying this is a dumbst-st-y liberal Wall Street Journal. Yeah, the dumbest trade were in history. And my explanation of this, I watched the movie Saturday night at Netflix this weekend, which was very good. Ben, movie, not a Michael movie. I'll put it out there for that.

So it was the very first night of the very first show of Saturday Night Live back in the 70s. And I guess they took like six months of stories and put them into one night, so it was very chaotic. And Jason Reitman did it. I thought it was very well done. And the guy who played Chevy Chase, because it was Chevy Chase and Jim Belushi and Gilda Radner and Dan Aykroyd and Billy Crystal and all these people. And I thought all the actors did a very good job. The guy who played Chevy Chase just nailed Chevy Chase. He looked like him.

The mannerisms were the same. And at the beginning of the movie... You're a big Chevy Chase guy, right? Oh, love Chevy Chase is a one-on-one. What movie says you've been on? I'm just kidding. So Chevy Chase is... And apparently this is a gag he did.

He's walking down the hallway, and he does a theatrical trip, and he falls over. And he gets up and he jumps up. He goes, oh, sorry, I tripped over my penis. In a very arrogant way. And that's the way I view these tariffs, is that it's just more of an... an ego-irrigant thing, like, why are we doing them? Because we can. And that, because the U.S. is in such a good position, it's like, well, why wouldn't we do this? Because we can. And I think that is, that's the biggest mistake of like puffing our chest out and be like, well, of course

we can do these. Because you don't know what the downfield effects are of that. And that, that's my worry. All right. So let's get into some of the facts. Again, on hold, but who knows if they're going to be put on. So let's get into, like, if tariffs were to go into effect on our two biggest trade partners, what would that mean for us, Ben? Before we get into this, the one thing I want to say is, I would actually be okay with targeted tariffs on China. China is a huge competitor of ours. If we wanted to put targeted tariffs on China and not let them completely take over the world, I'd be fine with that. But on Canada and Mexico, that's where it doesn't make sense. Because guess what? I like drinking medello. I like Pacifico. I like avocados. So this

is from Torses-and-Slock. Goods imported from good imports make up 11% of U.S. GDP. 43% of imports come from Canada, Mexico, and China. That means 5% of U.S. GDP is directly impacted by higher tariffs. And so it's a lot. And Callie Cox breaks it down for us. She did a great job on her site looking at all this. It's 90% of our fresh vegetables come from Canada or Mexico. 84% of beer, because the Medello is like the biggest beer company in the world now. These are really high numbers. Berries and poultry and baked goods and wood lumber products like poise game and sports equipment. Seventy-three percent of it is from China. All above 50 percent of our consumption of these comes from these three trade partners. It's a big deal.

Bloomberg did another one where they looked at it. And again, it's beer and fruit and vegetables and distilled spirits and poultry. 67% of our berries come from Mexico. Ben, I think I speak for all parents out there. Kids eat a lot of berries. we go through a ton of fruit in our household. Yeah, so again, this is, and the funny thing to me about the tariff talk is no one ever even assumes that the businesses are going to pay for these, right?

No one ever assumes, like, that tariffs are a taxed on businesses. No, right? Well, they're not. Well, the, right, because they immediately get taken by the consumer, right? But you wouldn't even consider that they'd be. Again, they, Mexico, Benton,

Canada, the next. And I don't say that as a good thing. Like, I still don't think this was great on balance. But there were concessions. And again, I don't know enough about the border stuff. Like, that's outside the scope of our shtick. So this is from a Canadian listener. And a lot of people in Canada were rightly scared

because it could have a really impact on their economy. We heard from a lot of our Canadian friends. Yeah. And this one was probably pretty exemplifies this. So we're scared, we're angry. We feel vulnerable and betrayed. I live in a small province that relies heavily on non-energy U.S. trade, we're going to be decimated. There was booing at the Raptors game for the national anthem over the weekend.

I'm like, this is not good. So the social media world freaked out. All the people in my financial sphere that I follow spent all weekend completely freaking out. And I made the joke that like if social media sentiment from finance people translated into market moves, we would have had a 1987 moment on Monday. Like that's how much people were freaking out about this. because I think the people on Wall Street had initially thought, like, he's never actually going to go through with this.

These are a negotiating ploy, and I guess it turned out to be a negotiating employee. But Ben, you did a meme that was funny. What was your meme? Oh, I did a clown meme saying Wall Street analysis on tariffs, and it was basically like he's never going to go through with it. These are a negotiating ploy. Okay, they're going to be targeted tariffs, but no, actually if the trade war will actually be short,

if it shortly happens. But the truth is, again, not knowing his exact motivation, but it was, was it not a negotiating tactic? I guess, but it sounds like the tariffs on China are going through. So I don't think anyone, I think that's the hard part for people as we don't know. So I think people spent the weekend freaking out because it's like, oh, gosh, maybe this is going to go through. And people thought, like, the financial implications of this are just not good. Just an unforced error.

Like, we're so far on the other side of inflation and, like, we're in a pretty good economic environment. And, like, why shoot ourselves in the foot? But now counterpoint, it's like, well, he ran on this. And now I wonder if like the market's reaction. So we'll talk about this maybe a little bit later. But the market, the S&P opened down 2%. Right now, crypto was crashing. We'll talk about that later.

S&P futures opened down 2%. NASDAQ opened down 3%. The VIX only, I hesitate to even say spike, but it went up to 20. There was, it was a pretty muted reaction on Wall Street. And there was people saying, like, even last week on Friday, like, why is the market looking past us. It feels complacent. And I think the market was right in looking past us and saying, like, listen, this is, it's not going to happen. It's your boy who cried wolf analogy from a few weeks ago. The downside of that is, let's say you take the chance of the economy breaking from

5% to 15%. Right. So Jake at Economic did this thing. He said, if I wanted to crash the economy, I think I'd put on indiscriminate tariffs, push cheap labor out of the country slash public jobs, cut public spending, promote an alternative to the dollar, and incentivize every global ally to look to partner with China. Maybe that's getting too cute, but let's say you just took the percentage from 5 to 15. I don't know how you repriced that. And I also think if we get out of a boy who cried wolf situation where like, okay, finally he does say, screw it, I'm going to do it. Is there a potential for an air pocket in the stock market? And I think that there is. And I'm really glad that stock market does not trade 24-7, because I think you would have seen a much bigger

move this weekend because crypto was a pretty good risk-off barometer, right? So that's why I'm glad that the stock market has the weekend to kind of chill through this stuff. Through the lens of the stock market alone, there is so much strength underneath the surface. There is so much buying. Oh, yeah. This easily, would you have been surprised if this was a down 6% date? Now, I guess, again, given that there was a deal made, you know, it's not surprising the way things ended up.

But even prior to that, the market was really not down a lot, especially given that we were 2% from all-time highs. Like, it could have been way worse, but the market should. Do you think that, let's say we do have this trade war, and it goes on and off for the next four years. And tariffs here, no, take them off. Tariffs, like, and there actually is an economic impact. Do you think that the economic impact could actually be greater than the stock market impact? Because I think it's possible, what if AI is the counterbalance to all this in the stock market?

And the stock market ends up being okay, despite some volatility, because AI trumps all the tariffs, all the interest rate stuff, all the Fed stuff. The only thing that matters to the stock market is going to be AI for the rest of the debt. decade, and the economy actually gets hurt more than the stock market in this case. Well, it's so funny how quickly the narratives shift because last week it was all about earnings. It was all about Mag 7 and it was all about Deep 6, right? It was Deep 6 and then how did Max 7 look and they look good and numbers look good? Deep 6 sounds better than Deep Seek, but it is Deep Seek. Deep Seek, my bad.

Deep Six is a better name. That sounds like some sort of spaceship in an alien movie. But the narrative shifts are wild. Nick Cola, so in terms of thinking about the next four years, Nicholas was on with Jessica and Josh yesterday, and he said, for as much as we talk about Trump's erratic policies, 80 of the 100 or something like that, of the 100 lowest VIX closes ever were during Trump's administration when there were tariffs. So it might not translate one for one.

Now, it seems like these are more aggressive than the first go around. These are way bigger. So that's the potential difference. But I just think where we are, I think the AI stuff, last week, and NVIDIA dropping 20% or so in a day almost, I think that just shows that the margin of safety for this to keep harping on that term is much lower because stock prices are higher, valuations are higher.

Yes or no. Investors have way bigger gain. So I just think the potential for a VIX spike is way higher now than it was back then. I think that ultimately the tariffs are like to use the dog on the leash analogy. The tariffs are the dog. and AI earnings are the person walking the dog. And I think that ultimately,

MAG 7, the AI mega story, which is what it is, will Trump, pun intended, Trump's policies. Not in the short run, not like overnight, there's going to be wiggles and stuff, but ultimately, that is the arrow pointing up. And the big downside risk is

you have these tariffs and you have presidential volatility and you have AI that comes up short for whatever reason. That would be bad. But as investors- BAMI would be. As investors, as, you know, this is unsettling and whatever, you might, you might like

it, you might not, but you got to look, you got to look through the volatility. My whole thing is, I just think there's going to be a lot of reasons to freak out. I tweeted this on Sunday night, like, it's easy to freak out, but, like, there's a high likelihood any tariff-related sell-off would be a buying opportunity. Yeah. It's because we have the ability to walk them back, because to your point, saying this is an unforced error, it does seem. like it is, but it also seems like the Fed raising rates is that if the Fed raised rates too high,

they could just take them down. And if Trump puts tariffs on too high and it causes a freakout, he can take them off. And I think that's the way Wall Street is looking at this. Yeah. Like, we don't know what happened in conversations with Trump and the leaders of Mexico and yesterday. What if Trump was someone that cave due to the market's reaction? And he was just looking for, like, I'm not saying that happened. But the point is, this is not, like, separate this from your portfolio. You have to. Yes. You can't freak out about this stuff all that. Even if you don't like the policies or whatever, you don't like what it's doing. You can't make investment decisions based on that. All right, here's another one.

Again, we have to cover because I think it's a huge story. I am, my bias is, I don't like this. I read this article and say, I don't like this. It makes me more comfortable. I don't like it. On the one hand, I also don't necessarily love how much bloat is in the federal government. Like, there's no doubt that the federal government, the systems, the processes, the technology is built on a layer that was that's from the 1970s, right?

Like, there's got to be a way to modernize the infrastructure. streamline it, bring it into the 21st century. I'm for that. Like, I am. I think that's probably on balance a good thing. And I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt to see where this goes. But this scares me. Can we start with the convenience fee every time I pay my property taxes?

Sure. Can we get rid of that? Absolutely. So what am I talking about? There was an article in the Wall Street Journal, Doge gains access to payment systems doling out trillions to Americans. So let me read the article. The Treasury Department has agreed to give Elon Musk's Department of Government

Efficiency access to a payment system that distributes trillions of dollars in entitlement benefits grants and tax funds to Americans each year. Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who was confirmed by the Senate this past week, greenlighted the move to Grant Doge representative's access to the system, which is typically run by career civil servants. Treasury's payment systems is one of the main financial arteries of the U.S. government operating as an account payable department that disperses money to contractors and millions of Americans who get Social Security payments. Any interruption in its operations could result in far-reaching economic disruptions. The payment system handles nearly eight.

88% of all federal payments, including some 81 million payments every month for Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits. This is, like, the most sensitive thing that we have. And the richest person in the world with all sorts of potential conflicts of interest is in charge. Again, do I think that this needs modernization? Yes. Is Elon the person to do it? I don't know. Maybe.

Like, is this idea a little bit worrisome? Yeah, it is. So I guess for years, they've always said, like, why don't, why doesn't the government run like a business? Or why don't we have a business person running the government? And I guess this is going to be the grand experiment to see how those two things can coexist. Yeah, so I'm not going to, like, make any decisions on ultimately how I feel before this pans out. Like I said, I'm open-minded.

I like parts of this, but we'll see. Interesting time. Was that a Grand Rapids' hedge? Not quite. Okay. That was like a 70-30 hedge. Okay. All right.

Vanguard produced their look-ahead for the 10 years for what their capital market assumptions are. That's a very high-level sounding thing, but it just means what do they expect returns to be? Now, Vanguard is, again, they tend to lean bearish, their bonds for the long run. Right? Well, for the next 10 years, they might be. So they look at the median is kind of like that's their base. case, I guess. And they think over the next decade, bonds are going to beat U.S. stocks. They said roughly 5% for bonds and 4% for U.S. stocks.

That would in no way surprise me. I don't think the scenario is easy to lay out. Yeah, we know what bonds are going to do, right? The bonds are yielded by 5%. Okay, that's about what you're going to get. Can I see stocks doing 4% given that we've just done 15 for 15 years? Yeah. Yeah. I also, here is a Grand Rapids hedge. I could also see. the AI train continuing and lifting is much higher. But it is credit to Vanguard. Like this is a, this is a sticking their neck out. I'm sure valuation based and mean

reversion based. And yeah, we could do 10% a year for the next 10 years. Counterpoint. Literally, not specific to Vanguard, every single one of these capital market forecasts has been wrong for the last decade. Oh yeah. They're never, they're almost never right. Yeah. Right. Ask out the motor in the professor at NYU. who's probably one of the better podcast guests. If he's on a podcast, I'm going to listen. He's always very good. He does this annual thing where he updates the calendar year returns for stocks, bonds, cash,

and he added small caps and real estate and gold and all these things. And I referenced it all the time. I use it for my blog. And I was looking at it, and every year I update it once a year. I go through an update and I say, and he goes back to 1928. So I update, what are the returns from 1928 to 2024? And so I updated it from 2023 to 2024. for, and I saw, like, the very long-term return ticked up.

And I looked at this, and I thought, oh, you know, a few years ago, it was the long-term return was 9.5%. And now it's closer to 10%, because we've had such a good run. And I wanted to look at how much this has changed. So since in 1999, the long-term return for U.S. stocks was 10.8%. This is the S&P. By 2008, after that lost decade, it was down to 9%. So we lost almost two percentage points of long-term returns from the lost decade.

Obviously, that's at the bottom almost. Now, since then, since 2008, we've added a percent back. So we're back to 10%. That's like how much this run has added and how hurtful that lost decade was for long-term. This is obviously very, very long-term returns. Now we're closing it on 100 years of returns. But I think it is interesting, like how a 10 or 15-year cycle can really impact even the long-long-term. Remember, like, in 2019, when was Fang coined?

Was it 2017 or 2015? I think 2017. I'd say 17 sounds about right. Okay. So, of course, there was many people who were like alarm bells. Like, this is the top. There's a name for these groups. Apple's a trillion top, right?

So Demodron did a blog post where he showed the contribution in overall market cap from the Mac 7. And this is from 2020 to 2024 by year. 44%, 30%, 43%, 45%, 50%. So from 2019 to 2024, 44, 45% of the, the gains in the market are from the MAG7. So we are the world that's resting on the shoulders of these giants. Wow.

Not bad shoulders to be resting on, but nevertheless. And I still feel like the 2030s, there's going to be like two or three other companies that are robotics companies or AI companies that are trillion-dollar companies that... I think they're going to be inside the Mac 7, like Optimus for Tesla, from example. See... These are the biggest venture companies in the world. All right. I just think there's going to be a new company

that we don't know about or that's good that invidia was one of them Nvidia was not in the top 10 as recently as 2019 Sure So I just think there's going to be another company That comes up I mean another sure

But if you're going to say that Like there's going to be a new crop That like takes the throne Or the crown I would take the other side of that Invidia just did that though No I'm saying like a new group of companies that, like, supplants these companies.

Yeah, yeah. The idea that the Mag 7 is going to turn over. I don't buy it. Yeah, the whole Mag 7, I agree. A few of them, I still think that's possible. All right. Eric Belchunis tweeted about the Vanguard effect. We've seen a $5 trillion swing

from high-cost active to low-cost passive over the past decade. And you can see this, I mean, we've seen this chart before where one of them's going straight down, the other one's going straight up. Now, Vanguard just announced this week, they're slashing expense ratios

on hundreds of mutual funds and ETFs amounting to what the firm said is the largest cost cut in history at over at over 350 million investor savings per year, like taking what it is. Now they, on an average, that drops the fees from 11 basis points to nine basis points. And someone will go, oh, geez, thanks, two basis points,

but that's 20% savings. And on trillions of dollars, that's, now you're talking real numbers. BlackRock was down 5% yesterday. Why was a problem? This? Hello? Oh, Earth to Ben. So just because Vanguard took their fees from 11 to 9, BlackRock's down 5%. Yeah.

Just because they know they're going to have to match. Yeah. Jack Bogle really is a saint. Like, because if Vanguard didn't do this, BlackRock wouldn't have done this either. Is that fair to say? It would have happened. Somebody would have done it. It would have taken a lot longer.

Not taking anything away from Bogle. All credit to him, but somebody would have done this. Vanguard is quite possibly the best thing that's ever happened to individual investors. Is that fair to say? No, that and triple-levered ETFs. Speaking of which, all the way on the other side. Okay. So Bloomberg had an article about levered ETFs, and they say traders have been diving into leverage exchange trading funds.

Someone asked us, is it levered or leveraged? Which one is it? Either way. Either way. Dealer's choice. Okay. I feel like... I say both. Okay.

Yeah, I probably do too. Yeah. traders have been diving into leveraged, exchanged, traded products, funds, excuse me, a subset of a derivative is enhanced products, offering to amp up. All right, why am I reading this? They netted around $940 million in revenue in 2024. That's a record 37% jump. $940 million in revenue.

So, like, that's the headline, right? Like, holy shit. And my credit to me, my initial thought is, well, I need to know more. Like, all right, but what value were they providing? And again, we've spoken a bazillion times about these problems. basically we had emails all the time. And we get another email from a very sophisticated listener who's like, listen, if you are using these levered or leveraged ETFs inside of a portfolio, it can actually have like diversification benefits. You could get like intelligent

leverage. I'm like, listen, dude, I'm not talking to you. Like you know exactly what you're doing and there are absolutely ways to use this responsibly, even though they're not meant to be held to the longer, whatever. Like there are ways inside of a portfolio. What I'm talking to the kids that are just getting started, that email loss, like, hey, why wouldn't I just put all my money into a triple levered ETF? Like, that's who I'm talking to. But anyway, be that as it may, Jeffrey Patak did yeoman's work. I don't know what that means, but I know it's something people say, to, like, look further

beyond just the fees, like what sort of value did they provide to investors? And look at this chart. It shows the fees versus the income and the gains. And the fees, as noted, are a billion, but the income and the gains are like $16 billion. So Jeffrey said, if you're like me, And Jeffrey is an analyst at Morningstar. If you're like me, you look at this and say, sure, they paid a lot in fees, but they also made real money, $16.5 billion in income gains.

To put those numbers in context, the ETFs held $38 billion in average net assets that year and all. So it means investors paid 0.65% of average net in asset and management fees and earned a 43% return on those assets. Not bad. Not bad at all. The funny thing is, is that no one has ever invested in a levered ETF before and gone. I wonder what the fee is on this thing.

Yeah, nobody cares. It's besides a point. But what really stands out is the extent to which investors' dollar gains in these ETFs lagged the ETFs reported total returns. So that's like the behavior gap stuff. We know that. That does something to do with the product issuer. And then Jeffrey goes further to say that like the actual gains lagged what the issuer said they might expect to gain.

But either way, credit to Jeffrey, great analysis. Yes. But every time we talk about these products, we do get an email from someone who has an intelligent way of thinking about these. And I agree, if you have a highly volatile strategy within your portfolio and you use it to rebalance, it actually can provide benefits in your portfolio. But a lot of people that ask us these questions are not doing that. Well, listen, also, there are gazillions of dollars in these things. It's not all people that have no idea what they're doing, right? Like, there's obviously a lot of institutional

investors and hedge funds that are using this. We're offering a PSA here. Keep your eyes. Just keep your eyes open. Yeah, the fees are completely besides the point because they're getting access to an area of the market that's liquidated and quick and whatever, whatever. Okay, AI Ben. This was, this is good. Somebody uploaded a bunch of Ben Carlson posts into one of the LLMs. I don't know which one. And they said, like, let's see what Ben Carlson would say about Deep Seek, okay?

Pretty good. It's pretty good. Okay. Here we go. It's hard to keep up with the AIAR. You know what? Why don't you read this? I mean, this is your writing.

Wait, I looked at this. I'd say, no, I just want to get my... No, no, no, no, I'll read it, then you can respond. If you don't feel comfortable reading your computer voice. It's hard to keep up with the AI arms race these days. One day, everyone's talking about Open AI and Nvidia. The next, the Chinese startup comes out of nowhere and wipes out half a trillion dollars in market value. For the biggest AI players in the world, welcome to the stock market in 2025.

And then it goes on. I don't know, man, this sounds pretty good. It sounds like you. So they did like the takeaways at the end. And then at the end, it says, if you're investing in AI, read the takeaways. Read the takeaways, because that's bad. Okay. Disruptions happen fast.

The AI race is still in its early endings. Diversification is your friend. Market reactions are often overblown. Okay, that's, but the ending here. The takeaway, go ahead. If you're investing in AI, buckle up. It's going to be a wild ride. I'd say it's like 60% there.

No, this is you, dude. The takeaway isn't that, this is you. The takeaway isn't that Nvidia is doomed or that deep seek is the future. It's that innovation is unpredictable and markets will always struggle to price it correctly. That's the Ben Cross and Grand Rapids Hedge. I'm sorry, dude. They got you pegged. You will be obsolete.

I don't think I'm ready to lose my job yet. But it's not bad. So I was playing around with my kids ask questions all the time. And I finally put JetGPT on their iPad and said, why don't you play around to this a little bit? And it's funny. The one thing my daughter wanted to do, she's like, well, what do I ask it?

And she asked some questions and she was kind of bored immediately. And I said, why don't we do a Taylor Swift thing? So she said, all right, because she's into big into basketball right now. I want to write me a song. about Taylor Swift and basketball. And Chad GPT did a Taylor Swift song about basketball that, honestly, my daughter and her friend were singing it, and they were like, it was actually pretty good. The way that they were rhyming stuff, I was actually kind of impressed.

All right, let's talk about crypto. You know what's funny about the crypto stuff? Like, I think that people say that like one of the good things, they usually say sarcastically about crypto is that it's like a risk gauge for sentiment over the weekend. Yeah. And I think that if crypto was. wasn't behaving the way it was behaving, people would probably have been a little bit less freaked out. Right? Like, Heath nuked like 20%.

It was down 30% at one point over the weekend. It was down 20% in a day. So my first take is crypto is not a tariff hedge. I think we can rule that out. Take that off of the hedge list of crypto. But I do think that it does serve a purpose on the weekend. I think one of the reasons that the stock market didn't freak out so much is because crypto did it for them. Maybe. Crypto already did it. What Bitcoin was down in 15% or whatever. By the way, nobody's saying crypto is a tariff hedge. I know.

I know no one said that, but I feel like the crypto people are like secretly hoping it's going to hedge one of these things eventually and not just be completely risk on, risk off. But it is, but that's what it is. It's a risk asset. Why would it not behave this way? Exactly. It's a risk asset on steroids. And with leverage.

There was $2 billion of leverage wiped out. It was the biggest wipeout ever. But don't you remember the whole narrative of Bitcoin when it first came out was this thing's going to be an inflation hedge. The narrative changed. It's not. Someone plotted TQQQQ, which is the two or three times levered NASDAQ on Bitcoin, and it basically follows it exactly. Yeah. Right? So, yes, it is risk on risk off. I did want to plug our talker book with Calamos this week. We talked to Matt Kaufman from Calamos. And when these downside protection ETFs from Calmos came out, there was a story on Bloomberg and the story in CNBC, and I saw people on social media dunking on them and saying, like, why would

you ever want to protect Bitcoin? And it's, there's a, there's one where you can have zero losses, but your upside is capped like 11%. There's one, they come out today actually, like, downside is cap at 10%, but upside is 30%. I thought it was zero and nine. I thought it's zero and nine percent. Is it 11? Either way. And then there's another one that you're capped at 20% downside, but your upside is 55. And all these people are going, Bitcoin is a huge volatile asset. Why would you want this? Yeah, the volatility is the point. And our, you and I both, we talked about this before we talked to Matt. And we said, like, I don't understand this. Well, let's push him kind of hard on this.

And his explanation, you folded like a cheap suit. His explanation, like, so I just, if you've heard of these products, listen to our podcast with him because I think your mind will be changed or at least will give you a different perspective about the reason for strategies like this. And it made way more sense to me than it did just from reading the headlines. Yeah. So it's worth a listen. All right.

There was an article over the weekend or last week that got a little bit of attention. It was the headline is parents ditch 529 plans and embrace Bitcoin for college savings. And of course, you see, this. And you're like, what the f? Come on. No, don't. Stop. Like, the, no, college savings, Bitcoin, no. And some quotes from the article, take Jim Kreider, a 35-year-old father of four from San Antonio, Texas, who wants each of us kids to have one whole Bitcoin saved by the time they turn 18. As a certified financial planner, he knows some consider, he knows some consider putting all his children savings of Bitcoin that's risky. But he believes the asset will reach $1 million

in a decade. The opportunity is too good to pass up, he says. And then he said, I think it's incredibly risky to have 0% exposure to Bitcoin. And I think people see this and understandably their knee-jerk reaction is top. Oh, my God, blah, blah. This makes no sense. It's outrage. But like, I still think that Bitcoin is still so, I don't, I'm going to say underowned. Like, it should be owned by everyone. But it's still like, it's still a fringe asset, despite the tens of billions of dollars in Bitcoin ETFs. Most people still don't own Bitcoin. And I think if you're looking at stories like this that are like, you know, admittedly sound like poppy and stuff, I just think it's like, it's not, that's not it.

This also happened. I had a friend's parent from college tell me that saving for college in the 90s was easy because we didn't, we didn't even bother with 529 plans. We put it in the stock market in our brokerage account. And the stock market went up 20% every year, whatever. And so I think that's also why these stories happen because people see the huge gains that you've gotten. And then they think, okay, sure. Do you think this guy is a financial advisor? Do you think that? Does that, I don't know. As a financial advisor, that seems a little risky

to me. In a five, and issuing the 529 plan to put your kids college fund into Bitcoin. Putting all his children savings in Bitcoin. Yeah, that's risky. I'd say. I understand, like, I want my kids doing Bitcoin forever and I'm going to start them early. That I can see. But for college savings, to me, I think that, that is a leap. To do all of it, yeah. What I would say is not what I would recommend, but to each of their own. This is a... I would not have expected that coming from a financial advisor. I guess that a young financial advisor, that makes sense, but that's all I'm saying.

Okay. Lawrence Hamtill, friend of the program, wrote a great story at Fortune Financial about the implications of an aging household stock. And he looks at the, how, the census data provides this. When were the houses in the U.S. built that people live in? And more than 60% of houses in the U.S. are at least 35 years old. 1989 or earlier, which is crazy. And look at the number of houses that are still 1939 or earlier. It's almost 12% of houses were built that long ago. Obviously, there's been remodeling, all this stuff. I do think this is going to be a massive story because I just don't think

young people are going to put up with an aging housing stock. Okay. So, Ben, I am a shareholder in Home Depot and Sherman Williams. It sounds like you want to jump in while the water's warm. I've been talking about home renovations forever and I don't know why I don't own these stocks I'm an idiot I don't follow my own advice Guess what? The market's open right now It's not too late So I mentioned before my daughter

Has been watching Full House lately She's on like season 4th She started with Fuller House Then she's going back and watching the original So every once in a while I'll watch an episode Before she goes to bed And one of the things I can't believe Well funny enough

I'm thinking about the fashion at that time Like Uncle Jesse and Uncle Joey have Mullets which are apparently back in style They're back Yeah the hairstyle is back But the, remember when Uncle Jesse starts dating Becky, who she's the mom who went to bail? I think Becky was everybody's first crush. Yeah, she's mom went to jail because of the college scandal a few years ago.

Yeah. But she has her own apartment before they get married. And they try to dress it up as like this stylish, because she's like a news reporter, you know, on like the San Francisco Today show or whatever. Oh, and she worked with Danny. Yeah, she was Danny's co-host. But her apartment is just so, it looks, they try to make it look like in the 90s that chic, but it's like pink carpet and like green furniture and gold, whatever. It's, it's just

that kind of stuff just would never fly today. And I think that's, I just think the tastes of young people these days, blame it on HGTV or whatever, are so much, like, there's going to be a massive remodeling boom if they're buying these older homes. That's my point. That bobblehead behind you. Is that you? It looks like Jack Bogle. It is me. It looks like a young Jack Bogle. The Motley Fool did something And used one of my articles for something And send me a book I'm even holding my own little book here Yeah

That's me Yeah, full house, what a show What else are we doing with houses? So I looked at like the equity It's just, it keeps going up It was, I looked at an old piece I did in like 2021 And I was saying like, gosh, home equity Is that like $20 trillion dollars?

This is crazy. It's at $35 trillion now Home equity. It's just, look at this, this is like a chart of NVIDIA, home equity in the United States. So I wanted to talk about my strategy for renovations, because the Axios did this piece where they looked at the median price of home renovations, and it's gone from $15,000 to almost $25,000 pre-pendemic to now. So obviously, wages have gone up, materials have gone up, and the demand for this stuff has gone up. So I feel like these people can do it now. So they say the high-end kitchen remodel can run up to $200,000.

which is just insane, obviously. I have a friend of mine who's doing something like that, and it's wild. But he's like, dude, my mortgage is under 3%. Where am I going? So here's my stress. So we have some stuff we want to do. I'm thinking about maybe adding an office space for myself at home. Extra mudroom, extra mudroom?

We need a bigger mudroom. We do. That's maybe something eventually. My wife is talking about how she wants more storage in the kitchen. Actually, she said, you know what, I don't need the kitchen stuff yet because I just want to keep taking vacations. That's where I want the budget to go. So kudos to her.

if we're not wanting it to have her cake and eat too. But I think my strategy for renovations is, I think the cost of this stuff is just going to keep going up. And if I'm just barring for my home equity line of credit to do it, I think I would rather do it sooner than later. Because I think every year you wait, the cost is just going to rise. And yeah, you pay interest on it.

Did Ben just discover inflation? Well, but I think the cost is going to rise more than the rate of inflation, is what I'm saying. I think the increase in this stuff, because I think that the home renovators are going to have so much leverage because they're going to be so busy that they can offer you obscene estimates and it's going to be like,

I don't care, I've got so much work, it doesn't matter. Supply and demand. Is that fair, though? You've done some renovations in recent years. What's your strategy? My strategy is to invest in the home renovation stocks, use the gains. How do you source these things?

Because that's something I've done. I haven't done any large, I haven't done any large projects. that require like a big chunk of money. Okay, but you did like a, you added stairs in like a play space for your kids or whatever in the attic. Like, that's a pretty decent size project. Like, I've, we bought our house brand new.

And so we've never had to do any full-scale renovations. Like, how do you even go about finding a person to do these things? I sound like such a new, but that's, that's where I'm at these days. I guess you, you ask around. But do you have a contract broker that you use for general contractor? There should be a contract broker. I know that's how it is. You ask people, like, who do you use?

But just specifically, if you're asking me, like, what would I do if I needed to do my kitchen or something? Yeah. I would take it, I would do a HELOC, no? Yeah, no, I'm not saying how would you pay for it. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do, too. I'm saying, like, how do you find the right place to do it? Okay, this is crazy. I would call a friend and say, hey, who did your kitchen?

Were you happy with the work that he did? Yeah. The way that I'm going to do it is I'm going to get three or four bids and see where they come in. Like, I'm going to, I'm going to shop around. Yeah, obviously. Yeah. Okay. Well, come on.

No offense, but I can see you just taking the first one and be like, ah, fine, that's good enough. Ah, you got me pegged. Like, what, you did your, did you shop around? No, no, no, no, no, no. The first mudroom, didn't we talk about this? I went nuts on the show. The first mudroom quote tried to give me $40,000.

Oh, no, was it the mudroom? What, it couldn't have been 40. That's insane. It was a quote that pissed me off. so much because I'm like and then I spent 10 grand on the modem

I think and even that pissed me off when I saw what the actual scope of the project was beams this that come on so I feel like it's like a car

relationship so I'm having a guy do a quote for us for an office and he said think about what you want to spend for your budget but I don't want to give

them a number I want them to give me a number first I think I think you have the number in your head yeah so that's the thing I want to tell them what I want I don't want to give them

number because I feel like whatever number I have, they'll anchor to it and add 20% or something. Yeah. Right? So I don't want to, guys, like, just give us what budget you want. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, what it's going to cost. What's your budget? You tell me, how much this cost?

Yes, exactly. Listen, as somebody who climbed out of the passenger door, I think that you're going to get steamrolled, okay? No offense. Hey, I'm good negotiating for my cable bill and how's it? You know, I ran into somebody recently, this week, actually. Where was it? I was talking to somebody, maybe on the phone.

I can't remember. And they're like, was Ben kidding? Or did he really climb out in the passenger door? Sadly, to say I actually did climb out the passenger. Because my kids got in a car and said, why is your door, why is your seat all dirty? In hindsight, did it make the wrong move? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Everyone agrees. Live and learn. I got a good survey for the week. Okay. This is from the National Bureau of Economic Research. How much do employees value remote work? Did you look at this already?

If not, don't look. I did it. I did it. Okay. On average, what are, this is a big, giant survey they did, or they said they kind of, they had these numbers before. They wanted to look at it in a deeper way.

What pay cut would employees be willing to accept for partly or fully remote roles, like versus going into the office all the time? What kind of pay cut would people be willing to accept? 8 to 12%. 25%. All right, that's, that's not true. I believe that's what the survey answered,

but no, that's not actually. When the rubber meets a road, no way. They also said 11.8% of full-time workers work fully remote, 29% are partly remote. Does the 12% number surprise you?

Is it higher or lower than you would have thought? That seems pretty high for all full-time employees. That's not just saying white-collar work. I don't know. Feels right-ish. I do think people that have lived through the remote work, I think part of it is if you are already working remotely

and you said you have to go back full time, I think that's when the pay cut thing comes in because if you already tasted that sweet, sweet, sweet remote work, right? I think it would be really hard to give it up. And I think you could say, like, yeah, I'd take a lower wage to do it. Yeah. Anyway, all right.

The Bonaparte, Doug and Heather, have this subset called the joint account where they talk about money and relationship issues. And they did this thing post a couple weeks ago said, no, we will not ski with you. And they were saying that they've got a lot of pure pressure from friends every ski season. And they said they're not big skiers and it's expensive and it's time consuming and there's kids have all their stuff going on. And they just,

they feel the pressure, but they just don't want to be pushed into the skiing thing. And I, I, I, I've, I've felt this exact same thing. We have friends who ski. I've never asked you, but are you a skier? Have you ever skied? I can't. I bet you've tried it before. There's got to be some mountains in Upper State, New York, right? I've tried it. But I feel like you either grow up skiing and then you're a skier or you're not. So here's the thing. I actually Grand Rapids Hedged this in the middle.

So we moved up to Northern Michigan when I was in fifth grade. And there was three ski hills within five or ten miles of us. And so just for something to do because we got so much more snow up there, we kind of taught ourselves how to ski. But I was not a skier. Like if you saw me on the ski hill, you wouldn't go, oh, that guy's a skier. Like, you know what people have the look? That was not me.

You know, I didn't have the ski jacket. And I didn't look like I had the used skis. they were probably gray, right? They weren't the nice brand. So I skied because it was something to do, but I still remember that, so I started in fifth grade, I retired from skiing in college, and I still remember exactly why it happened.

Freshman year of college and Christmas break, four or five friends said, hey, let's drive up to Canada and go skiing for the weekend. And so we all piled in to my friends suburban and went up to Canada, and we got there and we realized that, oh, the drinking age here is 19. And two of the friends who were huge skiers,

and had been skiing all that they went from ski families went skiing, and the rest of us stayed in the ski lodge and drank beer. And I didn't go skiing all weekend. We stayed in the lodge and drank beer. And that's the last time I went skiing. I retired then. That was anticlimatic. Sorry.

I just, it ran its course, okay? That's all I'm saying. And I just, I didn't miss skiing. Like I had a fun time doing it because there's something to do, but I didn't, I wasn't a skier. So now. So when you say you're getting pressure to ski, like literal or people just asking you're saying no? Or they like, come on your ski.

I just, I want to. You know you want it. I want to tell you. so we just have friends who like go on trips and yeah why don't you guys ski it's so much fun and so my twins are are seven going on eight and they got invited to a ski party for someone's birthday and they've never skied before a ski party yeah like the girl was having one do skiing for a birthday they have a really cheap oh ski mountain here uh so they've never gone and my wife's like what do i'm like i don't know tell them they don't ski of course we don't

they don't ski. We got other stuff going on. And so she said, no, no, we want to try it. So she got them lessons. They did an hour lesson. And she said, oh, I guess they're good to go. So they tried it. And they went last night. And so they did the lesson for an hour. Then they went skiing with a friend. And now they love it. All right. Long story short, you're going to be ski dad. So my wife said, why don't we get into skiing again? I said, I don't want to get to skiing again. You're going to get skiing. But now that my kids want to do it, I feel like I'm going to be, I'm going to have to. But am I the crank for saying like, eh, I've already, I've, that's already kind of past me by. I don't need to.

No, I wouldn't want to learn skiing in my mid-40s either. Okay, thank you. I stand with Ben. If my kids want me to do it, I'm sure I probably will, but I didn't have the desire to do it again. I feel like that's part of my life that I've moved down from and not care. Okay, anyway. Okay, read this one from The Private Chef. Because we got, I think one of the most proud things I am of this podcast is the fact that we have such a diverse listening audience.

Like, every time we write about an obscure topic or a different profession or something, we get an email from someone that says, hey, that's me or I know about this. Well, it is funny because last week, I, after concluding the email, it's like, I don't think we've ever read an email that had so little connection with our audience. And we got a bunch of emails from people in the private chef world. So here's one. I would agree with your assessment that this playing field is generally for the 1% of the 1%. However, I have noticed that my field has grown in demand.

I have colleagues that have generally not gravitated towards being a mercenary for hire and have become jet chefs or travel with these clients and their families, including travel with them for extended periods of time to different parts of the country where they have homes. Having a private chef is more of a flex for new money and a basic normality for people who have had existing wealth. Generally, the old money knows how to work with us, while newer money is often more demanding or particular and treats us almost as any regular service worker. Shout out, Michael.

What does that mean? Are they saying that I, that I, that I respect, that I respect workers or that I would treat them poorly? No, I think that you respect service workers. I absolutely respect service workers. So this is interesting. So it's like the old money probably treats the private chef as more of like a member of the family or friend, whereas the new money is like maybe not as nice or not as accommodating is what they're saying. Okay. I would assume that old money is just like, they don't even like look at them.

They just sort of, they're just like invisible. No, I don't think that's what they're saying the opposite, though. They might be just wrong. Anyway, they conclude none of us will ever go back to work in restaurants or starting a business with the physical location, owning a brick and mortar mom and pop shop or even a restaurant or something only 1% of us even consider doing. And that's because they are either, whatever. So yeah, I guess for chefs, this is like a new line of business because being an entrepreneur is not for most of them. He also said, I think this is the new normal as the wealth gap intensifies.

And I agree with that. The other thing is, I can totally see. being a private chef and not having to worry about the overhead of running a restaurant, your profit margins are through the roof. I'm sure that who's on the hook for buying the food, do you think? The chef or the family? Who knows? I don't know.

So what's your strategy for getting a private chef? Is this a he lock, too, or asset back alone or what? I can't imagine bringing a private chef on a trip with you. That is a serious flex. But those are the families that probably have a nanny. and a private chef, and a living person who cleans the house. I don't know. That's a world that will never be part of, I guess.

Oh, okay. Let's do some random thoughts here real quick. So I thought about this because I was reading Howard Marks last week, and he calls his updates to clients, he calls them memos. Okay? So I thought, oh, that's such a boomer thing to say, memo. I like memo. For millennials, it's called a blog.

For GenX, it's called an update. And for Gen Z, it's called a newsletter. They're all the same thing, but they call them different things. Right? Yeah. Like, Howard Marks would never say, like, this is my blog or this is my newsletter. For him, it's a memo. Yeah.

It depends what generation you're in. Okay. Well, this is a good one. On your podcast, you said that we still don't know what to call the aughts. The Brits are calling them the Notties. I hate it. I hate it. I don't like it.

Yeah, but it sounds way cooler with a British accent. They can pull it off weak yet. Yeah, yeah. All right, this one tickled my funny bone. Now, our friend group has been debating this all day. Would you rather hiccup every minute for the rest of your life or sneeze every minute for the rest of your life? Thanks guys, love the show.

I'd rather die than have either of these, but I think it's an easy answer. What do you think? Sneeze. Hickoping is the most annoying thing ever. Okay, I was going to go the other way. You'd rather sneeze? I think hiccuping is just so uncomfortable.

Again, both of these are bad. Okay. All right, Ben, you tweeted. Actually, you skyed. How do you differentiate between what you're going to sky, what you're going to tweet? I feel like, you know how comedians sometimes going to the comedy seller and work out 10 minutes of their show.

Oh, I got you. Blue sky is where I'm working out my new material. Okay. Did this make it to Twitter? I don't think so. Okay. I think the true sign of middle age wisdom is realizing how useless all the self-help quote books were in your 20s and 30s, but understanding there will always be a market

for that crap. Spot on, and I want to talk about middle age for a moment, specifically mental middle age, because I think I'm getting to mental middle age, Ben. we got an email Hey Michael and Ben your brief conversation about filling tires with air caught my attention

and I have a recommendation not long ago I bought a compact air compressor on Amazon and it is so convenient plugging it into your car and set this PSI and boom and I said to myself

oh my God I have this I bought this I forgot I had it It's only 30 bucks That's a pretty great deal It's a great machine Why have I been going

to the gas station for two years? I have this So I'm like, oh, my God. All right. So have you ever used it before? Yes, it's great. I use it all the time in the basketballs.

It's wonderful. So I stopped working out with my trainer because my schedule was too busy and blah, blah, blah. This is probably four or five months ago, and I haven't touched the weight since. All right? So you got your Peloton back there? All right. So that's the backstory for this. So last week I said, you know what?

let me touch those weights. Did some presses, did a few squats. And the next day, I was really sore. And I'm like, wow, you're a real pathetic loser. Like, I didn't do a lot and I really was sore. So I tell that story because I was walking and I felt soreness. And I wanted to call our friend Dan LaRosa, who also uses his trainer and say, hey, I finally worked out. right so anyway i called dan put the phone back in my pocket he goes yo what's up dude and i had to take my phone out of my pocket because i forgot who i called and i told dan that and he's like oh my god dude he's like anyway what's up and then i go oh no i don't know why i called you and so for like two hours. I was driving myself nuts. Like, why did I call him? Like, what were we talking about? Why did I call you? And then later during the podcast with Dan Ives, I like, I stretched.

I felt sore. Boom. Remember why I called Dan La Rosa. But it's, that's pretty bad. Okay. So once you finally do lose it and go down to Alzheimer's dementia route, like, what we're going to have to do is record this podcast every week and pretend like it's still happening, but it's not going to be released into the world because you're going to be so forgetful that we're just going to, like, me and you have a one-on-one session, like a podcast. Yeah, this was, this was like, I did not feel good about this at all. It happens. All right, recommendations.

I mentioned Saturday night. This was a recommendation from Barry. So this was, again, a bunch of early Saturday night live stories that they all condense into one. And the reason that I listened to this is because Neil Brennan has a podcast called Blocks. I don't have you ever heard of it. And he, he's a big, like, therapy guy, like, realized he made a bunch of money and success. wasn't happy so he's trying to like work on himself and so he talks to celebrities about like their biggest blocks and like it's so funny because they're all just as messed up as we are more so

yeah more so and there's a good one like ed helms and chris o'd donnell not chris o'clock jerry o'connell close enough and so he had one with jason wrightman who's ivan rightman's son iven wrightman did like some of the best comedies of the 80s he did ghostbusters and he talked about doing saturday night which is the saturday live movie and the guy who's in snack shack plays Lauren Michaels on the show. And then again, they have all the, you know, Belushi and Ackroyd and Chebby Chase and I don't think you would like it, but like the intensity of the show, like made you feel like how Saturday Night probably really does feel. It was a very first episode and like how no one thought it was going to work. And I thought it was just very well done. One of the better

movies I've seen in a while. People keep emailing us about Snackshank. I got to watch it. Wait until the summer. Don't watch it now. Wait until it's summertime. Wait till you're going back to your pool, then watch it. It's a, you've got to, be in the right state of mind to watch it. All right. That movie here with Tom Hanks and Robin Wright is on Netflix as well. Who directed that? It was a big director. It's a nekis. Okay, that's right. I give them credit for taking a swing. It was ambitious. You know what the whole story of the movie is? I forget. I listened to a podcast, but I forget what it was. It's literally one camera angle. It doesn't move. And then it's one room of a house. And all the things that happen in this one

room of a house over time. And it's different people living in this house. And so it goes back and forth between years but it also does the de-aging thing on tom hanks and robin right because they're they start out in like they're in high school and i appreciate the ambition of this movie it wasn't very good okay it and i think the de-aging thing it throws me off it feels like i'm looking at some it doesn't it's like tom hanks but they he looks like a young tom hanks but he looks like an ai version of a young tom hank it's it takes you out of it and so i think this was a cool idea not a very good movie all right Hard pass from me, right? Definitely.

I just, I'm sure some people might like it. It just, yeah, I didn't like it. Okay. I watched a Ben movie, and I really enjoyed it. Okay. It's called Goodrich. It's on Max. Michael Keaton plays an older father of twins.

He had Milakuna's in his first marriage. And the premise of the movie is, who wakes up, gets a phone call from his younger wife, who checked herself into rehab. and so he is scrambling to become a father of two nine-year-old twins and also repair the relationship with his daughter. It's like a very you movie, and I very much enjoyed it. I might have even cried.

Oh, because it's almost like a coming-of-age movie. Yeah, it's like a coming-of-age movie for like a 70-year-old dad, I guess. It's very good. Don't you think that millennials are going to have more coming-of-age moments as they're older, too? I feel like that's just going to be a thing. I don't know. It just seems like a thing. that our generation is much more deep introspective.

Okay. I love Michael Keaton. Yeah. Somebody emailed us. We spoke about American Prime Evil a couple weeks ago. The first battle scene took like a year to film, which is not surprising concerning like how wild it was. Yes.

It's very, it was epic. Yeah. Someone said their brother or something, her brother-in-law worked on the scene. It took forever. So I finished a very gory show. Oh, my God. I don't know. I have, like, a weird feeling about the show.

Maybe I, maybe this was the intent. Like, I didn't love, I didn't love watching it. It was, it was, it was a lot. I have one episode left. Yeah, it's, you almost feel bad watching it, even though you know it's probably pretty relatively accurate for how, yeah, like, it was, it was good, just not really a lot of fun. In fact, it was the opposite of fun.

It was tough. No, really well done. But yes, you're right. You don't get great feelings coming out of it. All right. Gooder, I'm going to add it to my list. Maybe you should watch Saturday Night then. Nah.

Okay. All right. Animal Spirits at the compound news. Could we get through one week without nuts-so stuff happening? Probably not. I think this is just life these days. The 2020s, this is what this whole decade has been. But think about all the crises that we've lived through the...

Remember the Silicon Valley Bank thing? Like, I feel like our crises these days now all last a weekend. Yeah. is going to be over, Silicon Valley Bank, tariffs, eventually we're going to have an actual crisis that stays. But most of the things people freak out about now, we move on in two days. It's like, yeah, remember that thing? It didn't matter. Yeah, we freaked out about it, then we moved on. Okay. That's depressing. All right. It is, but I think that's just where we are. Okay. Everybody enjoy the week. It's almost getting sun. It's sunny out here.

Sunny today. Forty-five degrees. We're turning in a corner? Probably not. no it's still early February it's freezing in Michigan this is why you have to come to Miami with us next month okay that's right all right we'll see you next week thank you for listening