Animal Spirits Podcast - The Holy Grail of Investing (EP.346)

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

On episode 346 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: concentration risk in the US stock market, economic dominance from the United States, when the Fed will cut rates, competing takes on the Apple Vision Pro, macro is hard, wage growth won't quit, why there are so many realtors, another investing book from Tony Robbins, and much more! Thanks to YCharts for sponsoring this episode! Download your copy of their ETF research and don’t forget, get 20% off your initial YCharts Professional subscription when you start your free YCharts trial and tell them Animal Spirits sent you (new customers only): https://go.ycharts.com/the-best-performing-etfs-of-2023 Find complete show notes on our blogs... Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor Feel free to shoot us an email at [e-mail] with any feedback, questions, recommendations, or ideas for future topics of conversation.   Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com   Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by our friends at YCharts. YCharts just released a new report called The Best Performing ETFs of 2023 for Equity and Fixed Income. I was perusing it today. Overall equity, the best returning fund, was up almost 100%. Wait. Surprising me. Let me guess. Okay.

An ETF? This is overall equity ETF. So it's a wide, think, niche strategy. I got it. It was a crypto one. Actually, so BitWi. Web 3 ETF was up almost 100%. That's pretty good.

I'll give you credit for that one. So all these different funds, categories, it's pretty good. We have a link in the show notes. Good research. So you know that we are an anti-survey podcast. Actually, we got some good surveys today, but not always.

Not always. So I was out in Las Vegas two weeks ago at the T3 conference. and Y charts got ratings, huge ratings, big, big, delicious ratings across the board from the service that they did out there. I mean, obviously. Best ratings you've ever seen in your life?

Crem de la Crem. Okay. They got good, all right, good reviews. All right, so download their copy of the ETF Research Report and 20% off, if you tell them, Annal Spirit sent to you for your initial subscription. description, go.Ycharts.com and then check our show notes for the link. Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnik and

Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ridholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ridholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, I spent much of 2023 poo-pooing the Magnificent Seven being the only winners in

the stock market. And that has bled into 2024. So I'm looking, it's not that big of a difference. It's through Monday. The NASDAQ 100 is up 5%. The S&P is up 4, and the equal-weighted S&Ps down 65 basis points. The beat goes on. The beat goes on.

It's down almost 5%. So it's kind of more of the same. NVIDIA's up 40% this year. Meta is up almost 30%. Amazon's up 12. Tesla's getting smoked down almost 30%. It's actually the worst performer I saw in the S&P 500 so far this year. But at what point does this become an actual worry?

because we had like, I don't know, six weeks where some other stuff, small caps did really well and stuff came back. But it seems like these, like, how long does this have to last for you to be like, okay, this is actually something I'm worried about? Leadership is thinning out. There's no doubt about it. What would worry me, what would truly worry me is if we start to see a bare market under the surface where it's not just the equal weight not keeping up. It's the majority of stocks. Forget making new highs. it's them rolling over.

So if the majority of the index rolls over and it's only the mag 7, when I say only, it's only 28% of the index or whatever it is keeping it up, then I would get worried. But you're right. This is unusual. All of the themes that we saw in 2023 are in place in 2024 and even to a greater extent. It is funny. You assume we turn the calendar and it should change because that does happen some years, but this year it didn't happen.

Jason Gepford, sentiment trader tweeted, man, this is weird. the S&P 500 is within 0.35% of a three-year high. Fewer than 40% of stocks are above their 10-day average. Fewer than 60% are above their 50-day. And fewer than 70% are above their 200-day. Since 1928, that's only happened once before. And I won't tell you the date. I'm not going to say it was 1929.

I'm definitely not going to do that because those are head words, not mine. Jason also says, the S&P. 500 closed within, again, 0.35% of its all-time high, yet fewer than 20% of the New York stock exchange issues rallied today. By the way, I want to talk to you about our stock exchange experience. That's never happened since 1962. There were only two days when fewer than 30% of issues rallied. And a large part of this was thanks to Meta, which again, sentiment trader tweeted, well, that was weird, thanks, meta. This seems like it's going down as one of the very few times since the S&P 500 stock index,

then it jumped more than 1% on a day, that was the meta day, when more of its stocks declined that advanced and forward returns weren't great. Now, small sample size, this happened a lot in 2000 and 2001 before the market completely rolled over. So would I prefer more stocks participating than less?

Yes, I would. Am I overly concerned? Not yet. If it's a week or two from here and the majority of the stocks have rolled over hard and these haven't, I'll change my mind, but that's where I'm at. What did you think about the stock exchange? You've never been there.

I had never been to the York Stock Exchange. A lot of history. It was bigger than I anticipated. The floor itself is essentially a TV studio, which I suppose makes sense because all the trading is done electronically, and you don't have people shouting at each other for the orders. But I was very impressed. You took way more pictures than I did.

We discussed I'm not a picture guy. You took a picture of like every, took a picture of like every, you took a picture of like every piece of paper on the wall. I am a huge picture guy. You're right. Guiltyish charge. I feel like I did not take as many pictures as you're representing it to be. But there was a ton of history there.

So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. That's it. A dozen pictures, that's a lot. For me, like, one or two pictures is a lot for me. Sorry, I'm a sucker for the Butterwood Agreement. I can't see the actual Butterwood Agreement walk by to not take a picture. I can't see Thomas Edison writing a letter to the stock exchange and just say, cool, I'll sock that away for a later, I'll sock that away for a later date.

I'm never going to remember it. Your cloud is busted. Don't tell me about your cloud. How many of your old pictures do you ever actually go look at, though? Let's be honest. Well. I look at old pictures of my kids, but if I take a picture of something. Okay, here's what I do.

Here's what I do. I swipe to the left on my iPhone, and I see old memories. And about every day, I say, look, that was fun. It's me and Logan. And then I swipe, yeah. So you're damn right. I do look at all pictures. You don't get to have this experience like I do. Look at that. No, I do with the kids, but I don't look through my pictures and go, oh, look, there's a picture of a piece of paper. Excuse me, sir. The bud and wood agreement is not just a piece of paper. Maybe you don't know your history. Listen, it was, I agree. It was interesting. A lot of the different rooms that we went to the meeting rooms and the Alexander Hamilton rooms.

And it was a very cool experience. It'll be stored in Ben's Cloud for a long time. okay yeah sure it will don't worry in 20 years i'll show you the picture duncan just uh dropped this in slack latest plane armrest survey results in case you guys want to discuss today so duncan asked the audience three thousand votes who gets the armrest on an airplane the choices are you share them 50 50 middle seat gets them it's a free for all man it's a bunch of savages uh and then i don't know i fly business class hmm not to brag all right so the The winner was the middle seats gets them. And it was sort of all over the place.

That was 36% of the vote. Next, at 31% of vote was it's a free-for-all. And you share them 50-50. That's 25%. You know what? That's probably what I would have voted for. You share. You'd be, you know.

I think so, too. I don't worry about the middle seats as much as just stay out of my leg room. Wide V guys. That's, that is absurd. That is way over the line. Wait, so, Ben, getting back to the matter at hand, are you worried about the lack of participation? I mean, you're not, you're not a stock market guy.

Well, I am a stock market. It's, here's my overarching concern. Should we be worried about the fact that the U.S. just dominates everything else? Because to me, it seems like it shouldn't be like this, where the U.S. is just dominating the rest of the world. And the surprising thing for me is, remember the whole Thomas Friedman, the world is becoming flat and globalization. And it's, it's kind of bizarre to me that the U.S. is so overwhelmingly winning. in the markets and in the economy versus the rest of the world.

It doesn't seem like it should be like this. Actually. That's actually kind of concerning to me. There's a lot of markets around the world that have broken out to all-time highs, or at least for the new-week highs. But don't you think that the U.S. is extending its lead over everyone else?

So here's some other parts of this. So I'm going to skip a few things here. So Axios had this thing, GDP growth among G7 nations. The U.S. had the highest growth in 2023. It's estimated to have the highest growth in 2024. I sent you this report from Goldman Sachs, their 2024 outlook, and had all these really good charts. And it showed nominal GDP. China's in the same ballpark. Everyone else were way larger than.

The U.S. has, you know, $27 trillion economy. But look at this one, this next one. Top 10 countries ranked by size of bond and equity markets together. The U.S. is first and Japan is second, but we're seven times larger than them. They did this Venn, this Chris Venn diagram, which is top ten countries. by GDP, GDP per capita, and market weight. And they show some Italy and Brazil are kind of around in GDP, and Australia and Switzerland are kind of around in this, but the U.S. is really the only one that has, has it going in all three of these things. And look at the demographics going forward. The U.S. has by far the most favorable demographics on

a relative basis. China's demographics are crashing. Japan's have already been terrible for a while. I mean, people are saying, like, the U.S. Empire is over and late-stage capitalism and all this stuff. The U.S. is dominating the rest of the world economically. And for the 2010s, it was, we're the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry hamper. Nice wink. I just winked. Did you just wink at someone? I might have. It's involuntary.

Bill Sweet just walked by, and he might... Bill, did you wink at me first? He definitely winked. Do, are we, like, I don't know. It seems like the U.S. is... It was the cleanest dirty shirt in the laundry hamper in the 2010s. Now it's just the cleanest shirt, and it just got pressed back from the cleaners. And it's doing well.

But why are these other countries, at least economically? speaking, doing so much relatively worse than us. I don't think that's a good thing. I don't think we should be winning at the expense of these other countries losing. I would be happier if these countries are doing better, and everyone is doing better. Hang on. Sean just shushed me. He came in and closed my door. That's fair. If he's listening, my door is open because it's a sawn in here. New York has some heating issues, that's for sure. The hotels are always either 95 or 65, with no one between. No, I'm sorry. I have to open my door. It's a son in here.

Oh, sorry, I just want to interrupt. Thank you. So that's the part of episode. Wait, wait, why is this bad? Why is this bad that we're leading? This is not zero sum. It's positive sum. We're growing the pie.

I know, but the U.S. is, but I'm saying it doesn't have to be zero sum. Are you concerned about that? Who says it is? Who says it is? 15 years these other countries have fallen behind a lot. You think that you think they're falling behind because we're winning? No, I don't think that's happening at all. I'm just saying it would be nice if these other countries,

came along and played catch-up a little bit. Yeah, it would be great if Germany would create their own Nvidia, wouldn't it? Okay, so over the last three months, Nvidia added Tesla's entire market cap to its valuation, which is over $550 billion. This stock is just unbelievable. Listen, what can I say? We do capitalism really, really well. I'm not going to apologize for that.

Neither should you. All right. I'm wondering, is it something to be concerned about? Like, shouldn't the whole – obviously there's always winners and losers, but we're – we've been the clear winner for going on 15 years now, maybe longer than that? Approaching two decades? Speaking of international stuff, let me give you a potential bulk case that's on nobody's radar that sounds absolutely ridiculous even coming out of my mouth. Okay. What's been in the headlines lately every day with the mass exodus of investors running out of the country saying it's

uninvestable. China, guess what? When I see a burning fire, I run in. I actually, I bought FXI, full disclosure. But what if you're buying Chinese stocks? I bought FXI last week and I bought a little bit more the other day. What if China actually, and I'm not going to say it's good, I don't know anything, I'm not going to pretend to be a macrotorist, but what if it's just not quite as dire as everybody suggests? What if instead of it being catastrophic and uninvestable, it's just really bad? Like that, I'm going to use a term of that hate, that delta alone could be enough to, to deliver an upset surprise in global markets and global economies. You know what drawdown that fund is in right now?

FXI. It's down 60%. That's a pretty good drawdown. That's fair. I'm just wait. Can't the officials there snap their fingers and say, we're going to buy a bunch of stocks and turn around if they really wanted to? They tried.

Didn't work. So, all right, getting back to the lack of breadth and leadership of why it's all big tech, Bob Elliott tweeted, always have to write. Russell with the question of whether the relative cheapness of an index is appropriate given the fundamentals. And he's showing a chart of the, I guess, the forward 12-month earning per share estimate of the NASDAQ versus the Russell 2000. And guess what? It's not some conspiracy. The market's not dumb and you're smart. The market is responding to fundamentals. Now, maybe prices driving fundamentals in a certain extent with this feedback loop. And certainly

there's a narrative portion of it that I'm not going to discount, but it's responding appropriately. The growth in these businesses is astounding, and the Russell 2000 is, it's not. Yeah. So maybe that's the point. It's, you don't, it's not something to worry about, it's something to be like in awe of. Like this is, it's, it's, it is kind of unbelievable. Yeah, absent, listen, absent this context, if you're just looking at the chart, you're like, alarm bells are ringing, this is unsustainable, this is going to end badly, and maybe it will. but it's not based on nothing. Do you remember Scott Galloway wrote that book called The Four?

It was about Amazon and Apple and Facebook and Google. That book came out a long time ago. I think it was like 20... Wait, say that one more time. So when he came out with the book, it was Amazon and Apple and Facebook and Google. Yeah, those are the big four. So that was 2017. Wow.

So no Microsoft. But remember that kind of book came out and you go, okay, it's got to be over for these big companies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dude, when did Silicon Valley come out? 2014. We saw Erlich Bachman at a comedy show. Speaking of, Betta and I saw Erlich Bachman live, T.J. Miller in person. That's one of the more impressive things about New York is we went to a comedy show on a Monday night.

Wasn't it a Monday night? It was a Monday freaking night. And I think the show was at 7 o'clock. 8 o'clock. 8 o'clock. And it was just packed, wall-to-wall packed on a Monday night. That's the kind of thing you get in New York that you don't get anywhere else. Who else did we say? That was not on the lineup.

Jim Norton? How great we say. That was good. That was a good comedy show. We've got some stinkers over the years. That was a good one. We have. That was a good one. All right. So my stance now is I'm not worried, but it's kind of thing like, how long can this cycle really continue? It's more shocking than, I guess, worrisome, I suppose. Guess what? What if it's just getting started?

You think we're closer to the end of the AI super cycle than the beginning? That's true. are the AI winners going to come from? It's not going to be from some other country, probably. Now, of course, the midwit question is, well, we've already discounted all of that. Maybe. I don't know. Could be. Would it be shocked if we have a hiccup and Nvidia takes a 30% pull. Who knows? But I don't know, man. And whenever I hear this is unsustainable, I get bullish. I just don't. If AI really makes us as productive as people think and it's going to do all the things everyone keeps promising, There's no way that this is, that it's already a bubble, that these are the kind of things that the bubbles get way, way bigger once the actual stuff starts happening.

Yeah, how many, how many shitcoes are up 5,000 percent? Right. Yeah, this is, if we do get an AI boom, it's, and it's going to turn into a bubble. Let's, let's be honest. This is, this is not it. Yeah. All right. I have a question for you, Ben.

we've spoken a lot over the last couple of weeks about where the Fed is and what they should do. Goldman Sachs put out a chart financial conditions eased further in January as most central banks remained on pause. Are financial conditions more important? Can you define financial conditions for me?

Because I always hear this term, but what does it encompass? It's credit spreads and PMIs and ISMs and all the, a lot of those leading indicators. I don't think the Fed should care about. I don't think the Fed should care about the stock market at all. You don't think the Fed should care about financial conditions? They should not be making monetary policy decisions based on where the stock market is.

No, I don't think so. I think I agree with that. I think I agree with that. But I also think that they have to be cognizant of the fact. Like, I've put this thought out into the ether. What if, what if by loosening? And what if I cutting rates, like they open up the IPO window and housing prices go nuts again, and we get an overheating economy again, then we're right back to where they started.

Like, you don't think that that's even in the back of their head? We had low rates throughout the entire 2010s, the stock market boomed, and we had no inflation. Now, it's circumstantial. Maybe this is more of a set of that. But that does nothing to do with today, because today we did have inflation, quite a lot of it. But we don't have the supply chain stuff anymore. True. But I feel like there is there is just no appetite

on the part of anybody for an up to inflation. Like, we did it already. It sucked. I agree. And that's probably why the Fed is what Powell said. We're not going to cut in March, which, whatever. If he cuts in May instead of March, does that really matter? I don't think so. I think, and listen, we're just a couple of guys talking out loud. I don't have the answers here.

But if he asked me today, I think I would prefer further run the risk of staying too tight for too long as financial conditions ease dramatically versus cutting preemptively and undoing a lot of the work that they've done. All right. I've got more thought. I've got more thoughts on the Fed, but I have to stick with the dock here. I don't want to get too out of whack. I'm all over the place.

I have a take on, you saw the Vanity Fair article with Tim Cook. I did. Okay. Which could he've looked a little happier on the cover and in the pictures? He looks miserable wearing that thing. Let's be honest. Listen, listen, I'm sure they took 4,000 pictures. He didn't choose which one they used.

So here's from James. So this is from the article. I would say my experience was religious. Director James Cameron told me when I asked him about the first of Conner with Applevision Pro. I was skeptical at first. I don't bow down before the great god of Apple, but I was really, really blown away. John Favro also said he was blown away and it is impressed by the technology and what it'll do for storytelling. The reviews coming in are amazing on this thing, it sounds like.

I'm anti. Now let me give you my take, and here's why. The technology sounds amazing, and it's going to make movie watching. Awesome, it sounds like it's going to make watching sports even better. It's going to make video games better. If you're sitting on a plane with this thing on, it's going to make it like you're sitting in a movie theater. I get all that. But here's the stuff that I've been hearing for years.

We have a loneliest epidemic in this country. Young people aren't going out as much anymore. They're having less sex. They're not drinking as much. this seems like one of the most isolating pieces of technology ever invented, and I think that it's going to make that stuff way worse if this thing takes off and as big as everyone thinks it could be. So I am bullish on this for Apple, the company.

I am bearish on this technology for society. Is that a fair take? Sounds boomer, right? I feel like an old man yelling at call it. Listen, I am not some of what I... Listen, you're a, no, you're a Midwestern boomer. Let's just call it what it is. I technology has been very good to me in my career and and and I think there's always pros and cons

but if I'm leaning on a net basis I think this is a net negative for society at large this kind of technology that everyone is living in this world of goggles I think so I reject that I reject that premise I don't think that I don't think that's what the world is going to turn into you think I think that that most of the wearing of this device will be indoors Yeah, of course, you see people on the streets in New York, but it's not going to be, I don't think we're going to live in a world where everybody's wearing goggles, number one. I also think that the goggles at some point, hopefully, are going to be contact lenses. I don't know when that's going to, but they're going to be, they're going to surgically implant them in your corneas or something.

They're going to shrink. Yes. I hear you on that. No one could look cool wearing. Brad Pitt wouldn't look cool wearing these things. There is a huge cringe factor. So you're right. A lot of it is going to be behind closed doors.

Yeah, for sure. But I don't know. I hear where you're coming from. I lean more excited. I'm excited by the technology. Just seeing some of the stuff, it's magical. Guess what? You're also going to be able to watch a movie with a friend, which I think that could be neat.

You're going to be able to sit courtside with a friend. I think you're going to be able to do a lot of social activities with these things on. All right. I just, I think there's no stopping the freight train of technological progress. I think where this stuff is heading and if it's going to just keep getting better and better, I think it's going to make people more and more isolated. That's my worry. when you say people do you mean like at the fringe or you think we're all going to be you we're all

going to be uh lonely people i just i don't see that it just it just seems like that i think that i'm more worried for young people at i guess than anything that they're going to grow up with this technology and they're going to be way more isolated than previous generations and there's nothing we can do about it i'm excited i'm excited for young people all right here's a you're a you're a movie theater guy movies are meant to be watched with other people sports are meant to be watched with other people I'm saying, I think that you're going to be able to sit courtside next to a friend or you'd be able to watch a movie with your friend with these goggles on. I guess.

I don't see, I don't, I think people are going to be very, this is going to be a very solo experience for a lot of people. How about this? If I'm a perma bear, can I say, can I say the perma bear phrase? I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I will reserve judgment. I mean, these things, this is version 1.0.

They're only going to get better and smaller. and more amazing. So I hear what you're saying. Maybe I am the middle-aged guy, middle-age guy take, yelling at the cloud or whatever, but I... I don't even necessarily disagree with your take. I just, I'm choosing to focus on the positives because I think it's pretty incredible. Okay. It's magic. That's fair. It is definitely, it's not for me. Like, I won't be getting this. My kids, I'm sure, will want it someday. This will not be a... So maybe I'm putting my personal beliefs on this. But why would you do that to yourself? Why would you pigeonhole yourself?

You're never going to wear one of these because you said so in 2024. Don't do that to yourself. Again, I'm sure it's going to get better, but I... You probably said that about AirPods. No, I was on an AirPods pretty quick. I was an early adopter of AirPods, and I loved them right away.

And I'm an Apple person. I just, I don't want this. It's too much. Too much for me. I prefer to just... The new BMO, V.I. Porter MasterCard is your ticket to more. More perks. More points. More flights. More of all the things you want in a travel rewards card.

And then some. Get your ticket to more with the new BMO ViPorter Mastercard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months. Terms and conditions apply. Visit bemo.com slash ViPorter to learn more. All right. So there was a CNBC story this week. Paul Tudor, this, I'm just going the headline. I read the story and I watched the CNBC interview, actually. But Paul Tudor Jones says the U.S. economy is an unsustainable path threatening markets. This is this week. I'm like, I wonder what his takes have been in the past. Because I don't remember him, you know, he's always been kind of a bearish guy. But this is from October 10th, 2022. Paul Tudor Jones believes we are in or near a recession and history shows stocks have more to fall. That was within two days of the low. My point here, again, is not to dunk on someone who's a legendary investor, but just to show, like, what makes you think that you can predict the macro and what it means for the markets if these legends can't do it? Because they've all shown that they're terrible at this. How many of legendary investors have been dead wrong about the economy for years and years and years? Asterisk, their comments in public always aged poorly. It's entirely conceivable that two days after this interview, Paul Tudor Jones at the bottom said,

you know what, flipping it, now I'm bullish. And he's not going back on TV and letting you know, hey, I changed my mind. I changed my mind. Maybe that's the point is that you can have all the thoughts you want about what's going to happen to the macro. Don't act on them when it comes to your portfolio. Everything that Paul Drucker Miller has said out loud to an audience over the last shit, almost 15 years, what did I say? Paul Drucker Miller, close enough.

All right, well, you said Paul Thudder Jones. I'm looking at Paul on the screen. Listen, I'm getting old. everything that Stan Drug and Miller has said on the screen for the last 15 years going on would indicate that he's a horrible investor and has lost a ton of money. Guess what? Right. I would bet that he's done just fine.

Yes. And not just because he's starting with billions of dollars, but I'm sure that his track, that his actual portfolio has done much better than his comments would suggest. Would you agree with that? Don't listen to people who pontificate about macro, then don't listen to yourself. My whole point is macro is hard. Even the Fed, so this is from bespoke, the gray lines are where the Fed futures market expects the fund rates to be. And this is the actual Fed front.

Have you seen this one? Where it shows like, here's what people expect. Here's what actually happened. And the expectations are always completely off what actually happens. And then they try to play catch-up and cut. No one, even the Fed can't predict what their own actions are going to be. What makes you think you can? That's my whole point.

It's just macro is hard. Macro is very hard. All right, where are we going next? Survey of the week, not really a survey, but I'll call it a survey. Gun John from the Wallachie Journal, Gun John Bonnergy, who was on TCAF. She's tweeted, one measure of sentiment among individual investors, the Yale School of Management. One-year confidence index is at the highest level since 2007. Holy small.

I think that's the Robert Schiller one where he asks, do you think stocks will be higher or lower one year from now? I'm pretty sure that's it. A hell of a chart. Really just unbelievable. If you had to summarize the state, the psychological state of the American investor today, how would you describe their mood? Do you think it jives with this chart? I don't know. I think everyone's, I think sentiment is so all over the place and opinions and everything.

Do you think it really feels like we're at all-time highs in the stock market? Because I don't, I don't feel like it, it doesn't, there's no feeling of euphoria. I can't define that, but it doesn't feel like it, does it? No. Yeah, I don't know. Okay, back to the Fed stuff. What if it's good news if the Fed doesn't have to cut rates for a while? Because the economy is so strong.

We had a blowout jobs report again on Friday. The Atlanta Fed says now we're looking at 4.2% first quarter GDP growth. They could be wrong, but it's going up. it wasn't it be a good thing if it's not because they're worried about inflation but because the economy is staying stronger that the Fed puts off rate cuts for a little bit. I think that's a good thing, correct? And what if, I don't know, this whole thing, the economic growth continues to be strong and the labor market continues to be strong. I think we had three million jobs last year. And that's not like jobs that were lost during the pandemic. We already, we already long ago

made up all those jobs. I think besides savings accounts and borrowing rates in the housing market, what if monetary policy just has no impact on the economy? Well, that's ridiculous. Very little. How could you say monetary policy has a huge impact in the economy if economic growth continues to be strong in the labor market continues to be strong after they went to zero to five percent? I didn't say that.

I said that your assertion that has no impact is ridiculous. Well, yes, I'm being extreme, but it has way a much smaller impact than anyone felt possible. In this particular day and age, given where we are today. How about this? Absent the pandemic, if there was a bit of inflation

and the Fed jacked rates up to five and a quarter, it would have had an impact on the economy. Maybe. This is interesting, Matthew... Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this.

Remember when you were... I'm surprised by this, too. I never would have believed this would have happened. Remember when you were a Fed apologist? Let me ask you this. If you're Jerome Powell, what are you doing in March? There's a bomb on a bus.

If the economy reigns strong, I don't mind him waiting. What's it going to matter? No, no, no. I'm asking you, Jerome Powell. What are you doing in March? If the economy is so strong, I don't cut, and then I cut in a couple. I mean, does it really matter the 25 basis points? That's what I say.

Answer the question. I'd probably rip the band dead off and do it just to say, just to show people, hey, we're going to cut rates. You can stop being so worried, but does it really matter if he does it in March or May or June? Probably not, as far as I'm concerned. All right, Matthew Klein at the overshoot. Wages are growing faster than we thought. So he says, zooming out, our core wage growth is now running slightly faster than it was in the late 90s and in 2005 to 2007. Put another way, wages are rising two to three percentage points faster than pre-pendemic period.

And he's saying we're at, you know, 5% wage growth. And it doesn't have to be inflationary. Because he's saying if workers save more, they would partly break the link between wages and spending, which would relieve some of the pressure on businesses to ration and finance, quantities via higher prices. This is like the Goldilocks potential situation where wages are going five, inflation is three, but if people don't spend more and they're saving some, that's actually a, we could thread the needle. I don't know if that could happen. Too many Fs. Too many Fs. I'm sorry. Call me crazy. This is, so economists said, you're crazy. The economy says your pay is still going up too fast. Why the last part of inflation may be the hardest. I don't know. Call me crazy,

but I think higher wages are a good thing. But look at, look at this nominal wage growth since 1999 for G10 countries, highest by far that it's been. And this is looking at the globe, not just the U.S., but they're saying, listen, to get inflation under control, wage growth has to break down, meaning maybe rates have to stay higher for longer. But call me crazy. I think people making more money is a good thing. All right.

You said call me crazy three times. You're crazy. I am crazy. Mike Saccardi, if we do have this slowdown that's people have been predicting forever, household are still in good shape. Households are outstanding as a percentage of GDP down over the past decade and still looks like it's falling. This is when we use the denominator. I looked at New York Fed had their report out today. Here's, wait, hang on. Here's my take on this chart. So you're showing that household debt as a percentage of GDP is way, way, way lower than it was during the GFC.

We've had as Bill Bill, as Ray Dahlia called it the beautiful de-leveraging. And this chart would indicate there's nothing to worry about. We're less steady since the 2010s. To me, this chart doesn't mean that something bad can't happen. It's just that if you're looking for like a boogeyman, everybody's over levered, they're just not. Would you, is that fair? Yes. Yeah, you're right.

It doesn't save us for anything, but households are in pretty good shape. Look at the, from the New York Fed, the new foreclosures by age. The housing market boom and 3% mortgages essentially took foreclose. off the map. They're so small compared to history. They barely even show up. Same thing with bankruptcies. Hold on, compared to the GFC. I feel like this is like a pandemic looking chart. This goes back to 2003. If you were to start this in 2018, right, there's no context here. Well, look, the context is look at 2003 to 2007 before the great financial crisis. It was four times higher than it is today. Same thing. Look at bankruptcies. If you're a bankruptcy lawyer, you've got nothing to do today. It's the lowest has been this century. It's just, it's way, way lower than history. Yeah. All right, we heard from an economics professor.

He wants to answer a question about 2% inflation. He says, we know high inflation is bad. However, deflation is bad, too. Causes the real value of debt to rise. Unemployment usually rises because employees cut wages or resist wage cuts, firm revenues fall, et cetera. What history has shown works best is low, stable, predictable inflation. There's no theoretical reason why 2% is a magical number.

The 2% number is more of a consensus. it's very low, but not so close that the Fed doesn't have to prevent deflation from inflation starts to fall. You know, somebody else email that's from Australia. I think the 2% number came from Australia or New Zealand. I can't remember. New Zealand, yes. It was more or less a made-up number, but New Zealand's some economists there.

All right, here's an interesting email. I love Tim Ferriss's podcast and have been a long-time listener. I found it interesting that for a guy with such a broad range of interests and also given his venture capital background, he didn't know what the FOMC is. So this is the conversation. You know what? I'll play Matt Mullenwig. Ben, you play Tim Ferriss.

Deal? Okay. Yeah, it was an interesting format. So have you heard of the FOMC, the Federal Open Market Committee? No. So that is the committee of bank presidents and Federal Reserve leaders that come together to determine what's called the Fed Funds Rate, which basically trickles down to be the interest rates. Man, I bet a lot of people would like to be in that room, wouldn't they? Yeah.

It's a pretty cool meeting. It must be. And they're basically... That's like the Illuminati. Okay. So... I don't think you need to dunk on Tim Ferriss here. I'm not dunking on...

No, no, no, no. That's not the intention. The intention is this guy makes a good point. We take for granted that people know this stuff, and they don't. That's my point. This is not a dig at Tim Ferriss at all. No, I think the...

But I also think that you can be a very smart person and not know... There's people we talk to that are experts in certain fields that know so much more. than we do, and we cover a lot of areas, but I think that that's not that surprising if you're an expert, even in a handful of areas like Tim Ferriss is, that you just don't pay attention to something like this. Right. This is the could, how many people on the street could pick out Jerome Powell? One out of 20, maybe? Yeah, how, why would, why would Tim Ferriss be watching CNBC at 2 o'clock on a Tuesday or whatever day, they, whatever day of the week they,

they make interest rate decisions? Why would he? Do you think Tim Ferriss helped Mark Wahlberg planned his morning routine. Absolutely. That's what I'd like to know. Okay. You know, speaking of morning routine, I said this to Josh. I don't know if we've spoken about this. I, uh, when we went to the stock exchange, I couldn't sleep that night.

I stayed in the city because we had to be in the exchange early. And I was up to like 1.30. I was annoyed. And so I woke up in the next morning and I tried to take a cold shower. Yeah. Yeah. I tried to take a cold shower and I hated it. I think this is a dumbest thing ever.

I tried to wake up. But I did try, I did try, like, to take a cold bath. I'm not going to call it a cold plunge. It was a cold bath. You ever do one of those? I'm out. I've heard that they're good for your muscles and joints and it shocks the system. No way.

I love a hot shower. You could not pay me to do a cold plunge. Sorry. So I did. I took a cold bath with the Vision Prozon. How about that? You beat me to it. No, but hold on, but just my quick review.

Your body goes numb. I lost feeling of my fingers and my hands, my toes, not fun. I think people just want to feel something maybe? I don't know. I'm sure there's the reports that show and research that shows how good it is for you. I love a hot shower. There's no way you could talk me into a cold cold. All right.

So first time and last time, me talk about the cold plunge, I promise. Okay. You're going to get one of them, Marchio. All right. New labor market take. If companies can't raise prices to improve margins, they're going to have to fire people. You probably heard people say this recently. And there's all these headlines, and it seems like they have been increasing in January, right? That, so I did U.S. non-farm layoffs and discharges from Y-charges. What I did is I took April and March of 2020 off of there, because there was such a massive number. Wait, what's a discharge? I guess that's what they say to people for a nice terminology for getting fired. I don't know. But it says layoffs and discharges? Like, is there a difference between being laid off or discharged? That's a good question. It's economic speak.

I don't know. The average since 2000s, so I took away March and April, again, because that makes the graph just look, it's unusable of 2020. 1.8 million per month. There's 1.8 people million laid off or discharged per month since it started a century. In December, it was 1.6 million. And maybe it'd be a little higher in January,

but it's, so we're basically below average still, right there. It's nothing out of the ordinary. It's funny. Doesn't that seem like a lot of people? We, I think, well, it does seem like a lot of people, but obviously we over-index for the brand names that are laying people off. Like Snap just in another round. It's just, it's name brands.

And so we think that that is more representative of the overall economy than it really is. I'm just saying that there's way more room to run if things, before things get bad. and the U.S. economy is very dynamic, and this kind of thing just happens. And I think we just hear about layoffs more now than we did in the past. All right, Ben, you poo-poohed the crypto ETF. You thought it was underwhelming in terms of the flows. Apparently, I've been doing a lot of completely lately. Yeah, yeah.

Ben Poo-Poo-Carlson. My daughter brought home. My daughter brought home a piece of art the other day from school, art with quotes around it. And it was like a picture of a guy, and she said, this is Bob. So it was a guy she made and I look on the back and I said, what is it say in the back? And I look, all it says is I like poop. Wait, let me guess. Did she say the World's worst market timer? Yeah. Oh, that's true. But yeah, all it said was I like poop on the back. That's it. Thanks. Nice work. So Nacarasi, I shares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity Wise

Origin Bitcoin Fund. Now number one and number two, in AUM out of all ETFs launched since the beginning of 2023, that's over 600 ETFs. And it took them less. in three weeks to do it. That's impressive in the world of ETS. What other ETS have been released since 2023 that we're going to bring in a ton of money? So I pulled the numbers up because I knew you were going to do this to me.

Do what to you? I'm not doing anything. So the I shares has $2.8 billion. Fidelity has $2.5 billion. And Biddo has $1.8 billion. It's a lot of money. But I still think it's underwhelming relative to the hype these ETS got.

It's, it's, it is a lot of money relative to a bunch of stock market ETFs and alternative strategies and liquidals. So what's, so what, so what, so what's the number where you, where you would be impressed? Is 10 billion? So gray scale had, has 20 billion still. It had 30 going into it. And again, a lot of that was arbitrage money that got out. If this thing would have brought in 20 billion dollars and matched gray scale right away, I, I would, okay, wow, but I don't know, seven billion dollars, relative to the hype still seems low to me. My, maybe my expectation. Maybe my expectation are too high. I also think the hype is sort of a bit of a long game in this because the

majority of flows are going to come from advisors and they're probably not putting money in on day one. True. They might want to wait around a little bit and see and yeah, that's fair. I just, I would have thought a bit more. Okay. I hope realtors banked and banks some of their income in 2020 and 2021. This is from NAR. So this goes back to the 1980s. As the Hasey market corrected, there were fewer than three homes sold per NAR member in 2023, the lowest per capita since at least 1981. So this is houses sold per realtor and just crashed. Is this because there's, because so many realtors came to the market and during the pandemic?

I mean, it's been trending down for a while, but. It's that and there was just so few houses sold. That's just, I mean, if you're in that business, that, that's a tough, tough business right now. Ooh, brutal. Yeah. Right? Every time we, every time we talk about real estate commissions, somebody emails us or a bunch of people email us saying how difficult it is to sell a house

and it's not like they're raking in the money. And okay, but that's, that's sort of erroneous to the fact that there are too many real estate agents. Yes. Because it's a, it can be a part-time game. If you say, if you say taking commissions from 5% down to 3% would wipe out the ability for 600,000 people to make a living, I'm sympathetic to that cause or that statement. However, I guess the point is there's 1.5 million members in the NAR. And maybe there's just way too many of them.

Maybe there doesn't need to be 1.5 million of them. True. I think it's a good fallback plan for a lot of people to say, hey, I can do this on the nights and weekends if I want to as a part-time gig. And the people who are, I'd like to see the number of what the full-time number of realtors actually is because a lot of those people obviously aren't selling a lot of houses. And so back in the day, before Zillow, When you really needed an agent to show you like what properties were even available, yeah, 5% they earned it.

It made a lot of sense. It's a different world. But you know where they're earning it today is they have a network of other realtors that they're talking to. And when you need to buy a house, they say, listen, I know someone else who's going to list. I will get into that house first and we can negotiate before it even goes on the market. That's how you make your money today's right? Absolutely. The group has more than 1.5 million members and $119 million in cash with total assets of $1 billion.

It spent $52 million in federal lobbying last year behind only the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. You know, I got to be honest. I, if you ask me, what does the U.S. Chamber of Commerce do? You know what my answer is? I don't know. I have no idea. Do they hand out pamphs like the Chamber of Commerce at every town in America, small town of America? Do you know what they do?

No idea. Okay. So the reason there are so many members then is because they have to pay to be a member and NAR. Well, if you get access to the listings. Yeah. And so they like to have this money. If they have a billion dollars in assets, because they have a lot of fees coming in, too, from these people, they want to have more members. Anyway, so the gist of the article, which I guess we buried the lead here, was like that there were allegations that they were colluding to keep commissions high.

I don't know. We'll say. And this is not an attack on people that are trying to make a living selling houses. I know it's not easy. All right. This is something, Ben. I heard this, Meb Faber was talking to Jared Dillian

and they put this on my radar. There's a book coming out called The Holy Grail of Investing. The world's greatest investors reveal their ultimate strategies for financial freedom. This is a book by Tony Robbins and I am not a Tony Robbins hater.

That's not my deal. However, let me just read you the description. Now, holy grail, those are some big words, right? When you talk about Holy Grail of investing, I mean, you better be bringing it. So, okay, from Amazon, and the Holy Grail of investing, you'll discover how to take advantage of the trillions flowing into private equity by becoming an owner of the firms that actually manage the assets and share in the revenue they generate. How to take advantage of the two to three times higher returns of private credit as an

alternative or complement to bonds. And then there's a bunch of other things. So CitiWire did an article, and they said, with Holy Grail, Robbins notedly as a new writing partner. The book is co-authored by Christopher Zuck, the founder, chairman, and chief investment officer of Houston-based alternative investment manager, CAS Investments. In 2021, a consortium of private investors, including Robbins, made a significant investment in CAS gaining a, quote, passive ownership interest in the company. Okay. Again, not a, I'm not a hater of Tony Robbins, but if there ever was some sort of bell ringing

to maybe, maybe just be aware. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Whatever happened, do you remember where he wrote a book probably five to seven years ago about investing? And his whole thing was the secret to investing is the all-weather fund from Bridgewater. Do you remember that?

I do. It was about, I wonder what happened with that because I thought he had a fund for that too. Whatever happened to that? So that's a bit different because it was, but just, wow, the holy grail of investing is private equity and private credit. Here's the biggest red flag for me for this.

How many of the world's greatest investors thrive in good times and bad. That's what regular... That's just... That's a lie. It's an untruth. Yes. Regular people see that and they go, oh, that is the Holy Grail. And that's the thing that is a flat out lie.

I mean, let's just get this out of the way. There's no such thing in investing as a Holy Grail, okay? No. Anyway, definitely filing this one away for later. That's fair. all right so peloton did they report earnings yes is that way we go down so much i i pulled the report up yes so i pulled the report up on quarter and i thought what my baseline is always every diet or exercise new whatever shiny new toy in the is always a fad and i'm still surprised at how bad palaton

is done so their their stock is 98% off the highs they went from a 50 billion dollar market cap to 1.5 billion. Here's my take. And I think I heard you say this on the TCAF last week. Someone has to take this company over, I think, is rarely a good investment thesis. It sounds like it's so obvious, but how often does that actually work out? And so I pulled up the thing. So while we, here's, this is from their CEO. While we continue to outperform the connected fitness market, our biggest challenges continue to be growth at scale. One initiative that hasn't worked out is our premium co-branded bike experiment with the University of Michigan, notwithstanding the football team success winning the national championship. We sold substantially fewer bikes to alumni and boosters

than we expected. This is their plan. This is it for growth at scale. So they have three million subscribers. It sounds like that's probably the ceiling. It's not going any higher. I just don't know. I still use the bike. I like it. I don't know if yours has turned into a coat rack. I used it today for the first. I'm sorry, I used it two days ago for the first time in a year and a half. Okay. I still use it and like it, but I think they just don't call it the comeback, Ben. They pulled forward everything, and they, like, this is the amount of people they have. That's all it's going to be. They're never going to be able to grow, I don't think.

So I'm palatoning. I'm taking coal plunges. You know what else I'm, I bought? You know what else I bought? I haven't told you this. I'm a bit embarrassed, but I'll say it anyway, just between us. I saw this on Instagram. You know the thing that you chew on to, like, make your draw stronger to give you a better drawlid?

I did not know that was a thing. That's like the people who do the hand. Like the hand one? grip. Yeah. Yes. So my biggest word about Pelotin is how are they going to continue to pay all of their instructors? Like, I feel like I'm going to turn my Peloton on and you're going to be instructing me one day. Right? I don't even use the instructors. I mean, I listen. I do it on mute. I watch TV. Okay. Really? So you don't do what they say? Like turning the knob up and down and up out of

your seat. I don't know. I follow because I see the cadence and the resistance. I just don't listen to them either. I watch TV movies. All right, there was an article in Bloomberg on doom spending. It's funny, Ben, because last week we had the title of our show is Gen Z is on fire. And then last week, there was an article with the headline, Gen Z is splurging on luxury goods to soothe their economic despair. So about 27% of Americans admit to, quote, doom spending to cope with concerns about the economy and foreign affairs. Give me a break.

Young people are concerned about foreign affairs, so they're buying expensive stuff. So this is people justifying their spending on expensive handbags and shoes and whatnot. I don't know. Is this really a story? Is this like really something that people are doing that's worthy of an article?

I'm guessing you see that in the... Young people have it so bad that they're just saying, I'll buy a vacation. Guess what? There's no hope? Every young person in history... Guess what?

I have no hope. 2009, I made $415. Of course, young people feel like they have no hope and they feel like everything is out of reach. That's what it is to be a young person. Yes. Every young person in history is doomed spend under that definition.

Yeah. All right. Give me a break. My baseline for the internet is every viral video is a hoax or set up in 99% of, unless proven otherwise. I just assume everything's fake.

Okay? Like, why did this person have a camera right at this time? And most of the viral finance stuff is fake, too. So there was this New York Post article about one West Coast couple, each earning $100,000 a piece, and they said they're struggling in today's inflated economy, and they're ditching luxuries like pricey gym memberships

and vacations to Europe and trips to local restaurants. And they show their budget, and it's their mortgages and their bills and their membership. And then it shows socializing. They only spend $105 a month, and their new plan for 2024, they're going to spend $0 socializing, right? So these people are screwed.

And if you add it all up, it's $55,000 in spending, but they're making $200K a year, which is $17,000 a month. And they're saying their total budget is $4,600. So even if you did 30% taxes from this, we're missing $7,000 a month. And my point is they're either missing something here or they're lying to go viral or people just don't actually track their spending. Can I say all the above? It's got to be. Like, how many people do you think actually track what they spend each month? 5%?

Maybe? I do. I'm rocking money. It's a low number. Tracking your spending, like, physically is, come on. That's unrealistic. Dunk, do you have something to say? Any of these viral finance posts are fake for the most part.

Fair? Duncan's... What does Duncan need? Duncan's making jokes. the slack. Michael, pull yourself up by the bootchap's batheck. That's pretty good. Okay, how much people have in savings?

This is from, oh, Daily Chartbook, which is a, I look at it every day, and they had this consumer snapshot, 30 charts on the U.S. consumer, which I thought was very helpful, but they have this one from Morgan Stanley. This month, 30% of consumers indicated they do not have any savings, 36% of three-month or less in savings, 19% has 4-12-month-in savings. and 16% has more than a year. I can't debunk any of this. It sounds right to me.

One third of people don't really have any savings to hold them over. The reason why I believe this data is because if you look over time, it's consistent. It eb and it flows, but it's consistent. It actually sounds right to me. So 16% have more than a year that it's a small, that, it actually makes this. This jives with me. I think it makes sense. That's impressive.

All right. This is a great email. Every once in a while, we get an email from a listener who takes something. Wait, let me ask you this. How much money and savings do you have? Mine would be... I have... Three months or so?

I don't go very far out. I have... I have four to six, probably. Okay. I have other sources I would tap, so I don't like to keep... Not to brag. No, I'm just saying 12 months in savings, I think, is unrealistic for 90% of people. It's too much money.

Yes. It would take way too long to get there. So it's hard. All right. Everyone's in a while we have a listener who emails something from like the last 12 months of our shows and pulled it all together and, you know, pulls something from here. And this was a great one. Michael, I think it's time to spend a little of your savings between your uncomfortable couch, old Sony TV, broken fridge, and death jeep. You have some spending to do.

And then this person really gets you because at the end, he says, what are your thoughts on terrifier and the art of the clown, which have to be horror movies, I guess? It's art the clown. Oh, Art the Clown. Sorry. Yeah, I'm not a big terrifier guy. I mean, I get it. I saw the first one. It's just, it's not my particular cup of tea. Okay.

Okay. So what would you like to spend on out of all these? You already bought the fridge, it sounds like. What a great email. So I'll give you some insight. This makes absolutely no sense. This is how I roll. I bought a new TV.

So I took my TV. So I bought a 65-inch TV. when I had that line in my TV, and I, all right, let me back up. I had an 82 inch or 80 something inch TV downstairs that had a line on it. I replaced that with another same size TV. I took the line TV and I put it upstairs in my bedroom because I thought I wouldn't be able to see the line because my bed is like 20 feet away from my wall, not to brag. But I do see the line.

So I bought a new TV to take down that. And guess what? I have, the new TV has been sitting in my closet for a year and a half. So I still have the line on the wall on my upstairs, which makes absolutely no sense. That's pretty impressive. That long, you won't cut like because you can't hang it yourself? I don't know. I just, I've been busy.

I've had to have one person on the other than the TV to lift it up 48 inches. I haven't gotten around to it. So I took my Jeep in and they fixed it in a day, which is a bit, which was a joy. And I got it, I have a bone to pick. I have a bone to pick with Audi. Put a pin in Audi. My refrigerator, so I replaced my refrigerator. Tell me if this is consistent with how you and your wife shop.

So, Robin and I went to Best Buy, and I asked the guy, I'm like, what are we, I've never bought a fridge before. Somebody said, how have you never bought a fridge? Because every place that I either rented or bought a fridge with, I never, it came with a fridge. And I never bought a fridge. So I went to Best Buy. We're looking around.

I'm like, I don't know, Samsung, LG. I don't really have big preference for refrigerators. And I asked the guy came over, said, you guys look like you need some help. I said, yeah, we do need some help. What do we? Oh, you're a sucker right away, right away. I've never bought him before. I don't know what brand to get.

You didn't do any research? Okay, no, not a research guy. Listen to what this guy said. Okay. Listen to what this guy said. I said, what are the differences in some of these, and his answer? The brand. And I said, oh, very helpful.

So. You don't say. I swear, the brand. This guy knew nothing. I could have done his job. So we left. We went to PC Richards. Because everyone does research on the internet before they go buy one.

They don't need to help you anymore. Not me. Yeah, I guess not. So we went to PC Richards and I sat down on one of the reclining chairs. And I'm scrolling on my phone while Robin picks out a refrigerator for us. Okay. And let her do it. She goes, Michael.

I say, yeah, I like that one too. I'm like, who cares? It's a refrigerator. It's a fridge. They're all the same. Back to Audi. I am so worriedly screwed. And there's, I have, I have,

no get-out-of-jail free card. I owe, so the car, thank God I got a warranty. I'm not a warranty buyer, but I got a warranty. And I had a broken transmission. You bought your car at a cap ratio of 86. Yeah, it's exactly what happened. And I was a forced buyer because the scenario was either my payment goes from like $8.50 a month to $1,200, or I buy it and my payment goes down by $50. It was a no-brainer. So now my payment, whatever. So I bought the extent the warranty, the transmission crapped out $11,000 on the warranty, thank God. Recently, something crapped out again, it's $7,000. And they have no loaners.

What's the point in buying a luxury vehicle? There's no loaners. So now I have to pay Enterprise for, because Rob needs the car to go to work. So I have to pay the truck at Enterprise. Anyway, I owe $34,000 on the car. It's worth $18,000. And in 20,000 miles, the warranty will be kaput. There will be no more warranty.

The coverage disappears at 100,000 miles. So I will be forced at 95,000 miles or so to take whatever loss exists. So I'm hoping it's like $10,000 or less. That's the Ron Burgundy. I'm not even mad. I'm impressed. Like, I don't even know what to say it to this. Yeah.

So I cannot drive that car past 100,000 miles because it's just too expensive to maintain. That's like Hall of Fame stuff for worst personal finance moves ever. I, uh, but in hindsight, it wasn't a bad move. What was I supposed to do? It just, it just, the timing was. bad. So I called out and I said, all right, listen, here's the deal. I'm going to buy it. Because when Robin told me that the engine light was on, I said, that's it. I'm getting a new car. I'm getting a new car. I don't care much. I'm getting a new car. So they said, well,

you are $16,000 on the room. All right, fine. So what does that mean? What it means is you have to pay $5,000. And then your monthly payment will go up by $400 a month. So I'm like, okay, so what does that mean? It's like, okay, so it's $5,000 down and a new Q7 will be $1,600 a month. I'm like, what? So I said to Robin, nope, driving into the ground. You're stuck. You might as well. Yes.

That makes sense to me. $1,600 a month? Stuck. That's what it is. So anyway, thank you for the email. Yeah? You're screwed. No big deal.

All right. All right. Let's talk about, so last week, Netflix dropped some bombs. They announced like their upcoming slate for the year. Let's run through it real quick. Michael Shannon and Matthew McFadden. And Matthew McFadion, is that cousin, is that, is that Tom? Yeah.

That's Tom Williamsgams. All right. We'll star in Death by Lightning, the stranger than fiction story of the reluctant President James Garfield and his admirer turned assassin Charles Gutow. I am so in on that. I'm intrigued. Okay. Thumbs up for me.

Eric stars Bernard Dick Cumberbatch, set in the 1980s, New York. Eric is an emotional thrill. from Abby Morgan following the desperate search of a father when his nine-year-old son disappears one morning on the way to school. Thumbs up. Kids disappearing is bad for me. I don't know. Give me back my son! Yeah, it's too, but could be okay.

All right. Andrew Scott and Ripley, this is based on the talented Mr. Ripley. Who's Andrew Scott? I don't know. All right. Talented Mr. Ripley is a wonderful movie. I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm in. All right. Mark Wahlberg and Hallie Berry in the union. That sounds like a straight to DVD movie right there. Say no more. A construction worker from Jersey is quickly thrust into the world of espionage when his high school...

I don't even... I'm in. I'm so in. When his high school X recruits him on a high stakes mission. All right. I'm obviously in for that. That's the one where the audience rating versus the critic rating is going to be the widest gap in history. Yeah. Okay. J-Lo is Atlas. A brilliant data analyst with a deep distrust of artificial intelligence joins a mission to capture a renegade robot with whom she shares a mysterious past. I'm in, of course. Okay. I had a take about my recommendations about movie stars who have jobs that do not, like, you could never see the look of that person doing that. I'm sorry.

J-Lo is a brilliant data analyst. Come on. Huh? No. I already told you. Hey, thank you. J-Lo is to, well, I'm sorry. Barry distraught to me. What were you saying about, J-Lah? I got to take. Just keep going.

All right? Beverly Hills Cop. I mean, obviously, right? No. You're not going to watch it? He ruined. I didn't, I never watched Coming to America to you. You can't remake something this. Top Gun, Mammar is the only one they can do that with. We're not saying, I'm not saying that this is going to be good, but are you going to watch it? I don't know. I don't like how they remake classics like this. I don't like it. Is that Owen Wilson? Looks like him. You're not going to watch this? You were the only, I didn't watch coming to America too.

Well, that's a good decision. Okay. Lastly, I know, we're almost done. The new poster for Damsel starring Millie Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, and Nick Robinson. This is not a fairy tale. That's the headline. I don't know what this is, but I'm in for it. And then Cameron Diaz and Jamie Fox starring back in action.

Years after giving up life in the CIA to start a family, these former spies are dragged back into the world of espionage. A lot of espionage. Of course, where I'm in. Are you in for this? It's probably going to be bad. I'm not going to lie. Okay. And then lastly, Squid Game Season 2.

All right. That's a slate. And we haven't even discussed Ben Afflex directing a movie with Matt Damon called Animals. Okay. So hopeful... All right.

I'm hopeful Netflix is going to be saving the movie industry. That's what I... That was I said before. Ben, you have something you want to discuss? Oh. Watching another parent freak out of their child is both horrifying and I feel like I, I feel you.

So I'm coaching my son's basketball team now, and we had pictures on Saturday. And it's kind of hectic because you have to get there half while before the game to take pictures, and you're trying to round up all these kids to get their picture taken, and it's kind of a big mess,

and then still play the game. So we were waiting on line, and the team behind us, this mom, I mean, we're talking second grade boys. The mom just lights it to her kid about, I can't believe you did this, you've been ruining the morning, and just screaming at him.

And everyone else is kind of like, geez lady but it's one of those things where like I know where she I know how she got to that point it was a series of things that happened but it's very awkward to watch another parent discipline their child in public it's very uncomfortable you're in a no-win situation yeah yeah but this lady lost totally lost it and even my kids like geez everyone has has their line of how much they can take yes I totally get where she's coming from I've never done that in public but I wouldn't, I'm not saying, I'm not saying it's impossible. I hope I never do, but.

Yes. You can see how it's possible. Kobe, if you're listening, don't push me. Yes. Don't push me. All right. Michael Beschloss tweeted this photo of President Abraham Lincoln today, 1865 at age 55.

Now listen, he had been through some shit, obviously. Yes. But, I mean, if you just want to use a picture for the progress that we've made over the century, decades, and last 150 years more. I mean, he looks like he's 95. My take on Lincoln is that he does not look like a real human being in his pictures. He looks like a movie character. Someone you'd create in a movie somehow, he doesn't look like a real person. Credit to him. Look at that head of hair. The hair looks like a 40-year-old

and his face looks like a 90-year-old. Honestable's a good-looking guy. All right, Ben, what do you got? All right, we watched episode one of Masters of the Air, or Masters of Air, whatever it's called, an Apple. I'm in. And? I'm in. It's not going to be as good as Band of Brothers or the Pacific, which I absolutely love, but it's going to be good. That's where I'm, that's where I'm at. Okay, so here's my take from earlier on J-Lo. I caught the movie Chasing Amy, a Ben Affleck, Affleck in 1991. It would never get made in a million years today, but it's sort of a time capsule of the 1990s. So Ben Affleck and what's the other guy's name, Jason Lee, are comic book creators. I cannot buy Ben Affleck as a comic book creator.

Like, he's creating, it just doesn't make any sense. And I feel like this is the kind of thing that happens in movies. Like, remember in World of the Worlds or Tom Cruise is moving those big crates? And Adam Sandler is always like a dentist or something. That's how Jennifer Lawrence was like a downer luck bartender in her new movie. Sometimes it's hard for me to. That's a good movie. Right?

When like a really good person or like they're either, the job is way too high level for them or they're way too good looking to do this job, that's one of the things that always gets me with movies. It's like, this person would never have that job. One other thing. Affleck had a goatee in the movie. Okay, and not just like a fancy goatee

like some people have the day with like just the little, you know, what's this triangle thing called? That's called the douche patch. I don't know, what's it called? A sole patch? Soul patch, there you go. Not like a fancy one.

It was like the thick 1990s goatee, which was a total 90s thing. And I'm wondering, mustaches have made a couple of, comeback? Like, at first, people were doing it ironically and just in Brooklyn, and now people do it everywhere? Like, a mustache is a real thing. Do you think goatees will ever make a comeback? I feel like that's a total 1990. I'm sure there's some people with goatees still, but it's a very 90s thing. Well, people rock goatees in November. They get their kick. Okay. But it was a total

90s move to have a goatee, like a very thick goatee. Everything, everything makes it come back. Okay. That's all I got. Okay. So, Robin and I are watching True Detective, and after episode one, I'm like, I'm in. After episode three, you're like, eh, and after episode four, what the fuck? I mean, they are really asking a lot of the audience to stick with them because it's boring and really nothing is happening.

And I would have been out, except I found out that it's only six episodes. So now, I mean, I'm in for another two hours, but it's not good. And I don't even think that they can make it good. Are you watching it? Yeah, it's just okay. It's not, I don't think it's bad.

It's okay. Did you see the fourth episode? We're halfway through it. Okay. Yeah, I don't think it's bad. It's just not good. No, it's not great. I think they just could not recreate the magic of the first season.

The one with Mercia Ali when Steven Dorf was pretty, it's okay. But this one is just, yeah. All right, so I binge watched Band of Brothers this week. Oh, really? Okay. And I watched, I have one episode left. So that movie came out. Do you remember when it came out?

I was in college, I think. It premiered two days before 9-11. Oh, really? Yeah, I was in college. I remember watching it. All my college friends would get together every Sunday night to watch it. Yeah, so September 9th was the premiere episode.

And it's an extension... I mean, it's saving Private Ryan, right? It's, it remains... I read the book, too. The book, it remains my favorite book of all time. The Band of Brothers... Favorite book of all time? Wow.

I love it. It's incredible. And I don't, how do they make it? I mean, I'm just watching this thing from 20 plus years ago. How the hell? So, Hanks and Spielberg produced it. It feels so real. If you're really into it, watch the Pacific next.

I thought the Pacific was just. Well, that's why I'm doing it, because I did want to watch whatever the Apple one is. So I know I have to watch this and then Pacific is up next. But yeah, I'm 23 years behind. I think it's on Netflix now, too. It's amazing. Oh, is it? Okay.

Excellent. Yeah. very good not a fun watch not a fun watch by any means obviously but uh but a good watch okay uh all right we went long sorry about that hey everybody all right animal spirits pod nope i'm sorry animal spirit nope i apologize animal spirits at the compound news dot com thank you thank you we'll see you next time We're going to be able to be.