Animal Spirits Podcast - Why Housing Prices Are So Expensive (EP.313)

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

On episode 313 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss investor behavior in a bull market, how boomers fell in love with stocks, how the unemployment rate impacts stock market returns, why Americans love spending money so much, why down payments for houses are falling, how credit cards ruined the airport lounge, and much more! This episode is sponsored by JPMorgan. To learn more about the JPMorgan Nasdaq Equity Premium Income ETF (JEPQ), visit: https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/adv/products/jpmorgan-nasdaq-equity-premium-income-etf-etf-shares-46654q203?utm_source=jpmam-crossdigital-awealthofcommonsense&utm_medium=con-animalspiritspodcast&utm_campaign=us-en-exchange-awa&utm_content=txt-etfjepq-jepqpdp-v1 Find complete shownotes 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 J.P. Morgan. Check out the JPMorgan NASDAQ equity premium income ETF, ticker JEPQ. It's an active ETF that seeks to deliver monthly distributable income and NASDAQ 100 exposure with less volatility. So this is a covered call strategy we've talked about in the past. Unique, low cost. Would you say it's the sister to JEPI? I think so, yes. It's the NASDAQ. Yeah, so income, diversified equity solution, credit replacement, they say. So they're targeting a 9 to 11% annual income consisting of dividends, then option premium. I'm guessing most of that as option premium. They pay out all the income on a monthly basis. So if someone who's looking for income or retiree, maybe, that seems to make a lot of sense.

We have a talk about coming up with them. We'll dive. You have questions? One of our most requested funds that we've seen. So check out more to learn more of the link in the description. Remember, always understand the risk war before we invest in anything. And go to jp.morgon.com to learn more. 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 Riddholt's wealth management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Riddholt's wealth management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.

Welcome to Animal Spirts with Michael and Ben. Ben, it's good to see your face. Thank you. You're welcome. How was your father's day? Same. All right. There was the one different thing I got to sleep in, and then the kids woke me up with donuts. That was nice.

You want what kind of donut I had? An acclair. An eclair? I did have a long John. It was good. All right. Quick update. I'm told that future-proof rooms are selling out.

And not metaphorically, actually. Somebody texted me, hey, I can't get into the high. Can you take care of me? I'm like, no. There's another hotel. There's two more hotels. Yeah. You're the guy behind the guy.

You can't make that. You can't make hotels happen. Yeah, come on. All right. Nakeros, he had a great tweet that I wanted to get to last week, but I forgot. He said, since the October S&P 500 low, money market funds have taken in $832 billion. Equity ETF's only $18 billion.

And the S&P is up 20% over that span. Again, still amazed at lack of equity, ETF inflows. I remember when ETFs were the only reason markets were going up. Remember that? So, can we put that argument to bed or? Yeah. Isn't it just most of the movement now happens at the margins and most people, the majority of money is just kind of sitting there doing nothing?

The hedge funds and if we're talking like the trillions and trillions of dollars in there, most of it's most of the time not moving from. one thing to another. You know, there's a chart showing the average holding period of individual stocks keeps going lower, which I understand. But if you look at the total pie, I wonder what the, I don't know if this is measurable, if anybody has this data, shoot it to us. What would you guess the overall turnover of global assets are on an annual basis? I would my need, I would guess, I would guess, I would guess, I would guess. I think that's way high or way low. Probably, what would You guess.

Well, a few years ago, they headed on the SPY, and it was like the average holding period is 22 days or something. People also use that as a hedging vehicle. They use it to short. That's what I'm saying. I don't know how you would separate the crazy machine trading from regular investors. I'm also not saying that flows cannot drive performance for certain assets. They certainly can.

Yes. But ETF flows do not drive the overall market. Come on. Come on now. All right. Good piece from the Wall Street Journal called Boomers. got hooked on stocks, now they can't let go. Nearly two-thirds of U.S. adults, 65 or older, own equity through individual stocks, mutual funds, or retirement accounts, according to Gallup.

So remember the Gallup poll we've been talking about that shows how many people own stocks. They broke it down into different age groups. So they look at this 18 to 29, 30 to 49, 50 to 64, and 65 and older. And the 65 and older crowd is the only one that has continued to go up every year since, like, 2001. Which is pretty good. That's what we've been telling our clients, right? living longer. So that's what they said. As life expectancy increases, older Americans often need to fund retirement.

Life expectancy, this is interesting. Life expectancy by birth rose about five years for men, eight years for women between 1940 and 1960. That's crazy. That's a crazy thing. Wait, say that one time? Life expectancy at birth, so if you're born between 1940, 1960, jumped five years for men and nearly eight years for women.

Over what time period? If you were born between 1940, 1960. Oh, I understand. By the way, for people that are, watching us on video, I'm looking down because I've got my phone, because normally I've got a separate monitor. I don't right now. Do you think the reason that boomer equity exposure is continuing, the life expectancy thing is a big one. You're going to be living longer. But do you also think boomers have just been trained over the course of their lifetime that stocks are

really the only game in town if you want to earn higher returns? Stocks are the safest long-term investment. Not the riskiest, the safest. But if you've been in it for so long, you've noticed that every time there's a crash or bare market, stocks come back. So why wouldn't you increase your exposure to stock? I'm just thinking, is this an experience thing for the boomers that that's why that they have more money in stocks now and it continues to go up? I would say there's definitely an element of that. I would also say that I wonder, had interest rates over the last decade, not average 0% and closer to 5. Yeah. That's a piece of it. This might be different. So I think there's multiple facets in here.

So they also broke down equity ownership by generation. No one ever really talks about the silent generation anymore because they're obviously dying off, I guess. But boomers have, I don't know, eyeballing it, what is it? 60% of it. Wait a minute. But the silent gen still owns a ton of stocks. I mean, 25%, not quite 25, closer to 20. So if you're on the silent generation, you were born before 1946.

So at a minimum, you're like 70, close to 80. So just imagine how many boomers are waiting for those that inheritance to come through from the silent generation, right? The boomers are going to get even wealthier now because that inheritance is just going to trickle down. But look at all small millennial pieces. I think that in the next two to three decades is going to explode higher. Gen X is... Yeah, that's not an opinion. That's just, I mean...

That's a fact, right? But Gen X is probably bigger than you would assume. Because look at it, it dropped to almost zero in 2008, and now it's above 25%. Not bad. I'm going to start having to charge for ad hoc research, but someone asked, because we talked last week, I said, I showed the different unemployment ranges, right? I said, when unemployment is high, returns are better, unemployment is low, future returns are worse, right?

Wait, before you dive into this, can I just say one, sorry to cut you off, can I just before we leave the population thing? Mm-hmm. Or the demographic thing. People were saying that I had a terrible take on demographics. Quite a few people were saying this, or population. You got dunked on a little bit because you said you didn't care. Yeah. How is that a take? I'm just saying I don't, it's not that it doesn't matter. Of course it matters. It matters a great deal. I'm just saying it's not something that I find super interesting. That's all.

You can't do a candlestick chart on population growth. So you're out on it. Yeah, I'm just saying, yeah, no, it matters, obviously. Maybe I did give an opinion. If I did, I don't quite remember. But my generals, my general take you just, yeah, you're not there. You just, you're not there. I didn't need to poo it. It's just personally. I don't find it super interesting. That's all. Back to you. All right. So someone asked. along with that unemployment stuff, we've looked before at stocks in higher or lower inflationary data, right? So inflation is rising, stocks do worse,

and inflation is falling, stocks do better. Someone said, Ben, why don't you show me unemployment rising or falling? You gave in? Yeah, it's a pretty simple one. I just looked at year to year. I just looked at an annual return. So 1928 to, sorry,

1948 to 1920, and I looked at, unemployment rate, higher, lower, over the course of a calendar year. Can I guess? Can I guess at the rest of the rate? results. Sure. I'm going to guess there's nothing. There's no material impact one way or the other. There's more than I thought, but they were both pretty good. So the unemployment rate

is rising. You get 9.9% average returns. Unemployment rate is falling. You get 14% average returns. So it's better. But it's also. Well, I guess, you know what? That makes sense. Because if unemployment is falling, you're probably coming out of a recession. Yeah. And yeah, you're in a good, strong economy. Do you know what the annual returns for the SMPR from 1948 to 1922. So you're taking away World War II, Great Depression, really... Total returns are closer to, like, 12%. It's like 11.5% per year. Like, pretty amazing. I mean, you're starting there, like, the 1950s were about to have

an unbelievable... Do you mind? Do you mind? Now show Japan? True. I'm just saying, like, it's crazy. If you, if you just take off the Great Depression crash, how much better stock returns get? Anyway, even with the Great Depression. Caviot's Baviat's abound. There was no S&P 500. There was no way to invest in a basket of stocks like that. And you couldn't reinvest. But even, I did this for a speech I gave a couple weeks ago. Do you know what the average returns were from 1926 to 1959? Inclusive of World War II, Great Depression, 1930s, malaise, all this stuff. Average annual returns. Well, the 50s were a sick decade. So, 7%. Over 10% per year from 1926 to 1959. Because that's when they did the crisp

The crisp data, the first time they looked at those returns in 1960s. What was it from 1926 to 1949? Zero? I don't have to look. No, I bet it's probably closer to seven, like you said, but I have to look because you're right, the 50s were great. But it's just... I bet you 1926 and 1949 is closer to zero than it's to seven.

Almost every single long-term period of stocks in the U.S. stock market, if you look over like a 30-year period, is pretty fantastic. That's the takeaway. Well, how about this? Not to go down this rabbitel's been beated to death, but... But does the next 50 years look like the last 50 years? Like, are we going to get 8% from the next 50 years, give or take? Here's my take that I gave, that I've given recently that back then, it was the barriers

to entry to get into the stock market were so much higher. The spreads were wider. The feet, you had to pay 1 to 3% to trade a stock. Net returns were lower. So is that where it's going to shake out? Yeah, net returns were lower. So I think now fees are so much lower. Maybe gross returns will be lower.

Maybe it would be more like 6% to 8% versus 90%. 9 to 10% but on a net basis you're but a net basis because you're paying so fewer fees and you have the ability to defer taxes you didn't have that in the past I think the number why I looked at recently I got a new piece out today you can look 85% of all money in 1965 was taxable so like tax because 401ks weren't around IRAs run around so on a net basis if we're talking net of everything fees taxes all this stuff in you know investment expenses all this stuff I think now on a net basis, it'll probably end up being the same thing. I think maybe you had to have higher returns back in the day to compensate for those higher costs to get into the stock

market. How's that? All right. So, we just zoomed out. Can we zoom back in? Let's do it. Some market higher or lower at the end of the year? Have stocks gotten ahead of themselves? So the S&P is up, what, 15% right now, year to date? Yeah. I don't think it's, I'd be, I'd be higher or lower from here, higher or lower from the start of the year? No, from here, from here. I'd be mildly surprised. Of course, nothing is too surprising. But I'd be mildly surprised if stocks are materially higher by the year end. Like, I think they're more likely to, like, lose 6% than gain 10%. The number of 20% up years in the stock market is way higher than you think.

That would be my guess if I had to base it on probabilities. So higher from here. If we're going, if we're going to, I'm going to zoom out again because this is what I do. We're probably, two thirds of the time we have a 10% correction, right, in a given year. 95% of the time we have 5%. We already actually actually had a 7% correction this year. No one realizes that. But we had like a seven, like February maybe.

I can't remember one of it. But we've had like a 7% correction this year already. I think people just kind of moved down. I did not know that. I did not know that. That's a good tweet from Jared Daly. I think there's a lot of truth here. Jeff Gunlock, and this is definitely not a Jeff Gunnock specific thing.

I think we, all of us exhibit this. The quote is, the stock market, frankly, is exhibiting signs of a mania, said double-line CEO Jeffrey Gunluck on Wednesday, a warning that the stock market valuations are, look, quote, pretty scary. And what he said is not really material, but I want to focus on what Jared says. Jeff Gunlock has predicted 26 of the last three bear markets. Well, he's a bond guy. They're all, they're, they're, bond guys are bearish. So Jared said, gunlock is deep in the financial industry bubble. Stocks will be in a mania when I start hearing about them from people in Myrtle Beach. Nobody around here

cares. It is not a mania. But I do think just the general idea that everybody has their own experience of the stock market through their Twitter feed. You know what I mean? If you are on Twitter, especially if you work in finance, your view is A, how are you positioned? And B, who are you following? It's very easy to get a skewed position of what the actual sentiment is. And also hearing one or two anecdotes of an Uber driver mentioned to me, they're trading stocks or a friend. We went to a party a couple weeks ago and someone was asking, Ben, what do you do? You know, we did that game. What do you do? And I said, I work in wealth management. I can't remember how I explained it, and the other person said, I work in health care. I have no idea

about managing money. I know nothing about the stock market. They wanted nothing to do with that conversation, which is fine with me. I'd rather not have it. But I think that's most people. Most people just live their life and don't think about this stuff very often. But if you're in it all the time like we are, then you try to look for every little anecdote of, oh, this person did this, and this magazine cover said this, and this story said this. And there's just way too many data points now that you can screw yourself up with, I feel like. All right, Ben, I want to do some stuff on inflation. I made a chart of CPI, all items.

That's the blue line. Energy is the gray line. And the lines I'm talking about for people that are not watching is the 12-month standard deviation of CPI. So energy is crazy, right? It's all over the place, which is why core strips out energy. It also strips out food. and I'm looking at food bent.

Does this look that volatile to you? Food looks as volatile as everything else. Yeah, that's actually kind of surprising because people always say, go to the grocery store if you want to see inflation. So it must be just one-off items. But I'm saying core strips out food because it's energy because they says they're volatile.

But I'm looking, food doesn't look that volatile. No, so you have all items here, food energy, and food, to me, looks like all items. Correct. Anyway, would be curious if anybody, any economist listening or has an opinion on that. All right, 12-month percentage chain for CPI.

The BLS website gives a lot of good charts that you could play around with. So these are select items that are going down really fast. One is actually close to deflation. Disinflation is when it's going down, when it's going down at a faster pace. So it's still rising, but I'm sorry, to slower pace than it have been previously.

That's disinflation. Deflation is when it's outright. The prices are down. year for year. So not rising slower, down. So new vehicles, as well as food at home, are going down pretty quickly or rising less quickly than they happen. I feel like automobiles are the ones that we've been waiting on forever. So that's happening. I'm going to talk to my dealership tomorrow to talk about a potential newly. So I'll get back to you next week on how that goes. I'm a little nervous. You're not using a broker? I'm not in New York, man. I don't have

like a lawyer and a broker and call for every transaction that I do. They don't have, they don't have broker, car brokers in the Midwest? I negotiate all my deals for myself. When I negotiate cable, internet, cars, I do it all. I value service. I'm like Lamar Jackson. I don't need an agent. Medical care services is close to going down year over year for the first time this data series goes back to 2003. Is it kind of interesting? I feel like that's the type of thing that never goes down. That's true. And as I'm playing with all of these different, so it's energy, electricity, apparel, medical

care commodity, shelter, there's a million things. The prices almost never go down year over year. So, Ben, look at the chart up top. CPI, just for all items. This is from Fred going back to 1950. Well, this is what we were talking about last week. You don't have a burst of inflation, and then it just round trips and goes back to where you where inflation is always rising.

Always. That's the point. Prices never go down. Prices never go down. The last time there was deflation was after the GFC for a couple of months. And then in the 50s for a minute and right after World War II, which, you know, for obvious reasons. But prices don't go down. They just don't.

I feel like my voice are very high on that. Because if prices went down a lot, wages would be falling. And no one's going to, people would be riding if their wages were falling. So, Ben, to that point, I mentioned food at home is coming down pretty good. look at food away from home this has been this went like from 5% to 6%

over the course of 21 to 22 peaked out at about 8.5% and it's not coming down at all The restaurants took advantage of it. This is the kid's meal thing I was talking about last week. This kind of wild. Jonathan sent me a picture of a hotel bar menu. He said guess where I am right now? I said I know exactly where you are.

86.5.8.000 tequila there. Okay, so here's Here's what I don't get. So look at this. So I looked at the inflation rates in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and the US. They're all way higher than us now, right? The UK is still almost 9%. Italy's over 8%. Germany's over 6. France is at 6. We're having like the best growth coming out of the pandemic of the developed nations and our inflation is the lowest. How is that possible? I wish I don't have an answer. But I feel like, so I, so you never really know what the Fed is thinking. But I think, I think one of the reasons

they went so hard last year and we're like talking the stock market down and really like managing with an iron fist ruling with an iron fist is because they thought the only way that they could really legitimately bring inflation down is through job loss and a recession. I feel like they looked at history and thought there's no other way to do this. Let's take our medicine now and move on. Which is fair. But I think now in the back of their head, I think they're thinking, wait a minute, we could be heroes. Like what if? And I think this is like through no fault of their own that the U.S. economy has remained so resilient that the Fed is thinking, like, wait a minute, we did all this stuff and the economy is still chugging along? What if we could

get out of inflation and not have a recession? Now, why don't we actually try to thread this needle and go? I think that's why they paused. I think they're looking at it like, wait, we actually could do this. Like, we could be heroes and try this. And I think that, I think the Fed may be thinking that now in like going for that angle. Thoughts. A lot of the narrative last year was the Fed wants you to lose your job. Jerome Powell wants you to lose your job. Was that, was that, were those headlines all over the place? Yes, that's what he was saying. He literally said that. So now they're saying that, well, Yellen is saying that they think of avoiding recession as possible. I think he said that to him the last presser. But he also said that

the full effects of our monetary tightening have yet to be felt. So we're going to take a pause and reassess. My one, if I'm basing this on one segment of the economy, why I think, like, okay, I think the soft landing now is like a very, it's way higher probability than I thought is housing. The fact that the housing market remains so strong, you saw the housing start data this morning when it came out, we're recording this Tuesday morning. The fact that the housing market has had these exorbitant interest rate increases and it's still just chugging along, okay, it didn't get just totally decimated, is just,

is shocking to me. I never would have to believe that. Travel as well. I thought that there was going to be a one-time spree of people saying, oh my God, I got to go on vacation. It's not slowing down, not even a little. Yeah. I mean, you go out in the summer now, too.

People, it's like, it's an excuse to spend money. I've got something coming up here. Do this Bob Elliott thing. I've got some stuff about the economy, like how much we love spending money. Okay. Bob Elliott had a really good chart. He said, even with 500 basis points of tightness,

money just isn't all that tight. In past cycles, rates peaked more than 5% above core PCE inflation, which is personal consumption expenditure, and that's the Fed's preferred target. Today, the Fed's actions have brought rates just to match it. That's just an interesting point. Like, just because rates are 5%, doesn't mean that money is necessarily tight. True. Yeah, there's a difference between the level of rates and the level of credit, right? That's two different things. So Dario Perkins posted this, and it's growth in global goods consumption since 2019 Q4, which is the start of the pandemic. And it's the U.S. and then the OECD excluding the U.S.

And I got to be honest, I know the OECD is like this collection of developed economies across the world. Gun to my head, could I, like, explain what the OECD is? No. But you see it all the time. Do you know what the OECD is? Like if you have to explain it? Not only do I not know what it is. I don't even know that I can give you what it stands for.

Is it the organization of economies cooperating developmentally? That's not even close. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Oh, shit. I was close. Democracies with market-based economies, blah, blah, blah. You see it all the time, though. And I feel like people just assume everyone knows what that means, but I feel like no one knows that means.

Oh, yeah? Let me ask you list. I'll see your OECD and throw you a G7. Well, G7, that's a little easier, no? Tell me. Yeah, what's here? I just, it's just way easier because it's like 37 OECD countries. No, no, no, no. I'm just saying I think I can potentially name the G7.

I'm not going to try here, but I think I could do it. But what do they do? Because isn't that all about or is that just a group of nations? There's a lot of coalitions, it seems like. All right, so he looked at growth in global goods consumption since the start of the pandemic. And look at how much the U.S. has done in terms of growth. Like, it's, I don't know, 90% of the growth for all these OECD countries. Now, look at this next one.

U.S. share of OECD goods consumption as a percentage. And this is since 2010, it's gone from one-third to 40%, basically. And look at that jump in 2020, going from like 35% of goods consumption. How do we explain the growth? It's just up until the right. We love to spend money. No, I know, I know. But there's got to be some sort of reasonable explanation other than that, no?

Or is it just that simple? I think the U.S. just becoming wealthier. You'd think that other countries would catch up. I think, I mean, I think if America is, like, we have the best basketball players in the world, that's starting to waver a little, too. It's starting to waver a little. We are better.

For the top five are international. If aliens came to, like, aliens came down and said, like, pick a skill for your country, the U.S.'s biggest skill would be we know to spend money. It's really funny that this is a segment because in my notes right here, Here's what I did when I was in my car. I wrote American spending Sunday morning.

So I thought about this on Sunday as I went to the bagel store to get bagels and tuna fish and, you know, what we do for Father's Day brunch. So I spent $80 there. Then I went to start. Biggs and tuna fish? That's your Father's Day brunch? Well, there wasn't just tuna fish, but you don't, I'm not even hearing this. We're not having this conversation. So I spent $80 there

This is a delicacy I'll never understand Like the, what's it What locks? Is that the other thing? I don't do locks But that's a very Long Island thing as well

Do you do? I'm sorry, see What about X L? We had donuts. We had donuts. What about eggs salad? And that X Lid and that X Lid guy That's just

That's just personal preference I'm not all right But fine, let me ask you this If you're doing a brunch That you're hosting What do you bring in 40 donuts What do you serve people? Eggs

You're making scrambled eggs for 10 people Maybe like an egg casserole dish with some sort of protein in the side, sausage, bacon, that sort of thing. I like that, too. I mean, nothing wrong with that. Anyway, then I, so I went from the bagel store to Starbucks, where I did not spend $7 on a tranter with a few shots

because I used my points, but I would have, but, you know, seven bucks at Starbucks. Then I went to CVS for whatever, and I was just thinking, like, this is just what it is. We just spend money. Spend, spend, spend. Can you put some of this on, like, credit cards and apps and Apple Pay and stuff where it's just, it's so much easier in Amazon where it's just clicking buttons.

It doesn't feel like spending money. I thought, too, because the money I spent this weekend, I thought, if I would have had to go to the bank every time to get the cash out and then spend this money, it would have hurt, it would have been way more painful than just sliding my credit card or putting it in whatever, you know, it's, you don't think about it. That's a huge element. Nobody gets into debt with cash, right? It's so much easier to swipe because it's like out of the side of the mind until you see your credit card.

Be like, holy, wait, how did I spend that much money? But that's a big component. As well as the rewards. By the way, did you see there was an article about what was like cards are ruining the travel lounge or something? Yes, we had our discussion last week about the travel lounge and a lot of people wrote in to say, hey, listen, Ben, you're right about the travel lounge being overrated because so many people go into it now. They'll be, like, lines out the door to get in there because every credit card now allows you access. Yeah.

But I feel like the one that I got. I don't know if I said this last week, but I got the American Express Reserve, which gets you access to, like, some of the nicer lounges. But I don't even care about it. I'll get into any lounge. I just want to get into a lounge.

We looked at mine afterwards. I had the American Express platinum, and Duncan said I get into, like, the Centurion or something. Same. So we have access to the same spots. Okay, maybe you'll see you there sometime. So we're ruining, you know, sorry. It's because I have, like, 12 different credit cards.

All right, go to Eddie Elvenbine. Survey of the Week. The United States is effectively bankrupt. True or false? 68% said false. 32% said true. I don't think people understand what the word bankrupt means in this context.

Well, that's understandable. Do you think that there's... Not, do you think? There's a huge difference in the portfolios from group A to group A. Huge. Oh, yes. Yes.

Huge. That's true. You don't even need... You don't even ask what's in your portfolio. You kind of know. I don't think there's many bogleheads that think the stock market is, the economy is bankrupt. No. The people who say the United States is bankrupt.

Hard asset people. Yes. They have physical stuff and is safe. Yeah. Okay. Here's our good news of the week. We talked about some good news last week. People liked that one.

This is from Axios. He estimated Ginny Global Income Inequality Coefficient is at its lowest level in 150 years. So I think this, I don't know how the Ginny. We're talking about all the things. We don't know how they work. they just they just are uh let's see on a scale let's see inequality from 69 in 2000 to 60 in 2018 is almost certainly lower today that means the world is more equal now than at any point since about 1875 countries with the richest citizens are generally the world's most powerful that

power is now more broadly distributed than any point in over a century they're basically saying countries like india and china becoming more wealthy are that thank you blockchain evenly distributing things and this i don't know this surprises me the funny thing is, is that it's probably becoming more unequal in the United States, but on a global basis becoming more equal. Does that make sense? Yeah. If you look at it in the United States, it's probably not

falling this much, but globally, that makes sense. But anyway, good news. The layoffs section of our dock has fantastically been pretty quiet. Sonos, actually. Okay. Do you have a Sonos? You know, I do. I just had a good experience

with them. I have one of those little Sonos Rome's. It's just a little one. You know, I have a big sono speaker, then I have the little one that you can kind of move anywhere. Like take to the beach type thing? Yeah, I hadn't used it in a while, and it was it. It just, I got no light. I was charging it, nothing. And I called them, and they said, hey, we're going to send something to it, and they did it and it worked. I couldn't believe it. How about that? They fixed it for me. I thought I was going to have to buy a new one. Anyway, Sonos is laying off 7% of their staff. Sonos went public, no? I feel like that's a stock that I've never, ever, yeah, it did. I'm assuming it crashed,

Let's see. The stock has been, yeah, not a, whoof, not good. This was definitely a pandemic play then, because it went bonkers in the pandemic. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Bottom of $7 and it topped out at 40-something. It's almost where it was when an IPOed. But yeah, hell of a ride.

Okay. This was interesting. Did you see this? Instant pots, I think they're filing bankruptcy. I don't know if they're going away or if they're restructuring. But net sales fell by 22%. the seventh consecutive quarter of decline. I feel like with the benefit of hindsight.

That was a fad, right? This is the type of thing that is easy to see coming. I don't know this is a fad. It was just, you know, it was the work. It was the, it was the pandemic type thing. Everybody was buying the instant pots. When it happened, but what did you,

is this, is it like a, I'd never use one before. Is it kind of like a crock pot? I think they make slow cookers, yeah. You know what? So you'd make brisket in it. I think, did you make brisket in an instant pot? Tons of brisket. I'm surprised, that's the only way to make it, right?

You can't make Bruce get anywhere else. Just kidding. But I haven't used mine in like a year. I'm not quite sure why. I love that thing. We never got. My middle-aged thing is that I'm definitely... Duncan says you can make a baked potatoes in five minutes.

My big thing that we still use a lot... I had an epiphany. Middle age is once you're 50. I'm sorry. It's not me being in denial. I'm just not middle age. It's 50. You're definitely...

Every week in the comments on YouTube, someone says Michael slowly realizing he's middle-aged is the greatest thing ever because it's been happening like six months in a row. But my middle-aged thing is... Yeah, go ahead. The air fryer. I've heard people say that people

swear by their air-friars. I cooked some asparagus in it last week and usually put it in the oven, maybe, or on the grill, and it takes forever. Like 10 minutes in an air-friar, and you get crispy, nice crisp. Air-fire is great.

Air fry is great. So remember I said, I'm turning into my dad. So my dad always... So I have a brother, Matthew. My dad always, like, calls me Matthew or mixes up, which is understandable. But I cannot keep my kids' name straight.

always, it doesn't make sense. There's a 50-50 chance. I always get it wrong. I don't understand. My mom would like that, too. I'm pretty good. So you had the epiphany of turning into your dad. I had one too.

This is going to sound like a humble brag. It's not because one of my dad's favorite things to do is he loves to just take his dog for a walk. He goes for like two or three walks a day. It's great activity. But when I was growing up, my dad would bring like a plastic bag from a grocery store and pick up trash on the way. And I'm like, that's such a dad from they do that. Like trash on the side of the road.

What a good Samaritan. Yeah, my dad's a good guy. And I'd be like, why are you doing that? It's so gross. It's such an old man thing. And in a young age, I would think, like, why would you ever do that? And now, with my kids, I'm turning in my father. I pick up trash all the time.

You have some pride in your neighborhood? Well, my kids were learning about, like, littering and, like, being kind of the environment. And so I started picking up, and my kids will now be like, dad, there's a piece of trash. And there's some stuff I obviously won't touch. But I want to get one of those walking sticks with, like, the sharp thing in the end. you can stab the, I want to get one of those because once you start seeing it, it makes me angry that people just litter

all the time. I hate it. Littering really is gross. I'm not a fan of, I mean, I've been in a situation where people throw things out the window. I think it's a dirtbag move. You never, you never got into Mad Men. I will flick gum, which is probably not nice, but I won't throw a piece of, I won't throw a donut out of the window.

Well, food is okay, because that's a are you being serious? Throwing food? Right? Food's okay. Food's not littering. So here, so. Decomposes. My dad is notorious for saying things incorrectly. For example, you know how last week, when I was like, holy shit, I'm talking to my dad,

I called Dennis Green, Dennis Allen, right? That's what I did. My dad yesterday, or on Father's Day, we were talking about, like, my tail's tail was wagging. He's like, oh, that reminds me of the scene and that movie with Jack Black, what's it called, Duss? Along came Mary. And I'm like, first of all, you're thinking about Shadow Howl. And it's Along Came Polly.

not, and then something about Mary, but he called it a long-came Mary. And that's, I will, I'm not far from that. I can see that. Okay. Good one from our colleague, Nick Majuli. Why are houses so expensive? This was a good stat. Over the past decade, U.S. housing prices have increased nearly 4.7% above the rate of inflation,

while median household income is only grown by 1.5% per year over inflation over the same period. That's a tough stat. That's a massive, massive number if you're not in the housing market. If you're in the housing market, you are like, you're golden. If you're out of the housing market, you're screwed, unfortunately. Look this chart. Wild, huh? It really is. What are we looking at?

What are we looking at? So, real U.S. Housing Index since 1890. This is from Robert Schiller. It's adjusted for inflation. From the end of World War II until 2000, U.S. housing price is appreciated by basically 30 basis points a year after inflation. In the seven years that followed, they grew 6.3% above inflation, which is 20 times faster. So we've had these huge, you know, just a takeoff in housing prices in the 2000s and then now. And I remember Robert Schiller first wrote his book in like 2000 talking about, or the early 2000s, talking about how housing should basically track inflation over the long term.

And ever since then, it hasn't at all. But wait, that's like a national index, obviously. Yes. I, yeah, I don't know. I have a feeling they're going to be studying this period of the housing market for a long, long time in the future. Because I don't know how it's going to get better. So next piece basically said three things.

It's a lack of supply. It is a lack of new homes, which I guess are the same thing. And it's, this is demographics. This is like the big one. Right? There are 70 million millennials that are moving out of the cities. It's kind of weird to think about that the craft. in housing prices from in 2008 and that last of the 2012 basically set up the bull market that's

happening that happened in the pandemic. If that crash didn't happen and people didn't stop building homes, things would probably be a lot more healthy right now than they are. So this is a good one from Twitter. This is price indices for housing relative to construction costs. And it's showing the UK is like 3.25 times the cost. The U.S. is still relatively low. It's at like one and a half times. So there's like the markup? Yeah. So this is essentially like, I don't know, how much does land cost, right?

Because it's replacement cost versus prices. And things are way, way worse elsewhere. It says relative, not to nitpick, it says relative to construction costs. You assume that includes the price in the land, probably? No, I think it means how much to build a house. So that's what, so the land, this is, the reason it's so much higher there is because land is so much more expensive. Because if it costs $500,000 to build a house,

but it costs $2 million to buy it in London, the difference is the price of the land, right? I don't know. So, yeah, this is stripping out land. So it's basically just saying it costs, to buy a house, it costs way more because it's so hard to get where you could actually build a house,

but if you didn't have the land, you're screwed, right? Look at the UK. That's wild. It's really, really, yeah, exactly. They're in a way worse position than we are. Maybe that's why their inflation is still 9%. I don't know. Good one from Redfin here. one-third of U.S. home purchases made in cash in April up from 30% a year ago,

comparable to 33% in February, which was the highest in nine years. Typical down payment, 52,500, which is pretty high, down 18% from a year ago. But look at this typical down payment. If you go back to 2011, it was, I don't know, $25,000, it got as high as $65,000 in 2022. Now it's falling, and I think that's because the median downpment. payment as a percentage is going down. So I guess it used to be 16 and a half percent a year ago. Now it's 13 percent. So I think housing prices rising and interest rates being so much higher, people are putting less down, which honestly makes sense to me. Totally. Right? I'd be putting

down as little as like, yeah. Yeah, you could afford what you could afford. Right. So yeah, people are trying to make it work by putting less down, which I think actually probably make sense. We've talked about this a lot, but more than nine and ten mortgage holders have a rate below 6%. This is also from Redfin. Look at how that changes over time. Let's see. Yeah, 82% have below 5%. So yeah, it's not great. They gave this hypothetical about a buyer who bought in 2018 when home prices were on $280,000 median wise and 4.5% mortgages, which, you know, not 3%, but not bad. So they would be paying $1,000 less today. So you bought in 2018, you're paying $1,000 I was left of months. I mean, that, that monthly payment spread over the course of how many

every years. Here's my, here's my question. Why are mortgage rates so much higher than 10-year treasuries right now? I know we've talked a little about the reasons. Why aren't spreads coming in at all? Is this just a mortgage bond thing? Because look at this. I put this on a Y chart. The average historically, going back to 1971, Sean did this for us, 1.7%. Currently, it's like 3%. Over the, so, because 10-year treasures are not that high. They're 3%. $3.7, 3.8%. Mortgage rates are seven. Why is it so much higher? What drives the spread of mortgage rates? Is it demand? I think it has to do with mortgage bonds and the fact that you're not going to get prepaid. We've spoken about this. Yeah, yeah. But it's... Joe and Tracy did a deep dive on this.

I don't know. It's just hard to fathom the fact that the 10-year treasury is still relatively low, relative to history. 3.7% is pretty low for a 10-year treasury yield. Not lower than it was in the pandemic, but it's still pretty low and mortgage rates are still this high. I don't know. I'd be pretty angry if I was getting a new mortgage right now. Did you see that there's a chart from the Washington Journal about renters. We don't speak about renters that that much, but the new lease asking rents percentage from a year earlier, according to Zillow, Redfin, and a bunch of others. According to Redfinn, the prices are down year over year. So this is disinflation, too, where prices are still rising, but the

the speed at which the rising is crashing. Are these going to go negative? This is good news. I think it probably will. It looks like it, right? Yeah. This is good news for people who decided to sit out the home buying process and just want to rent, right? Yeah.

Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Every year, Vanguard puts out this How America Saves Report, because they have, like, I don't know, trillions of dollars in 401K IRA plans. And this is, so across the Vanguard universe or participants, 83% of eligible employees were enrolled in their employer's voluntary savings programs in 2022, which is pretty good, 8 to 10 people who had a 401k enrolled in it.

That's up 8% since 2013. But if you had automatic enrollment, 93% participated versus 70% with a volunteer enrollment. So that automatic stuff is good. What do you think the average savings rate is for someone in a Vanguard 401K? The average savings rate in terms of dollars or percentage. Percentage, percentage of their target is 12 to 15% to meet retirement goals, which I think is a pretty good target. I think that, that, I'd be aligned with that.

12 to 15%. Let's say 8, 7 or 8? Yeah, it's like 7.4%. But they said 20% of participants, we need to boost their savings, 1% to 3% and hit their target. It's pretty good. Not bad, but I like that 12% to 15% as a goal. Anything else? Interesting.

Any good takeaways? tidbits, if you will. Not real. I mean, there's one that shows, they show the average deferral rate by income. And even over $150,000, the average is still only 8%. Which I would have, I've assumed would have been higher. This doesn't include a match. So with a match, it's obviously a little higher if you'd get one.

Ben, we've spoken about this a million times, and it's a topic that will just probably come up every so often. Because I don't think, I think it's a trend that's up into the right, unfortunately. Stephen Ratner had a tweet thread if the economy is so good, why are so many Americans grumpy about it? So he shows different like opinions, surveys, if you will. Country on the right track. Everybody says no, we're not everybody. Seventy-five percent of people say it's going in the wrong direction. Optimism about the economy, not good, consumer sentiment, terrible, presidential approval, awful. Americans, and they said Americans feel a lot better about their own lives than they do about their country. 73 percent rate their personal

situation is good or excellent, but just 18 people say the same about the U.S. as a whole. And I don't think this is complicated. It's just social media for the most part, right? You have more access to what other people are doing. And we don't like other people generally, the royal way, right? We like people that we know. And so sort of a sad state of affairs. There was a story in the New York Times today called Your Brain has tricked you into thinking everything is worse. And Derek Thompson summed this up on Twitter. He said, basically, your memory is biased towards positive information, which is nostalgia. So you think positively about the past, but our present focus attention is being biased towards negative information, meaning our

general perception is that everything is always getting worse. We look at the past more fondly and we think about the positives of the past. Yes. In the present, we think about the negatives. And that means that's why we constantly think things are getting worse, even though they are definitely getting better for society as a whole. That's a good piece. Good take. Good take. Somebody sent us a check from Denver, Colorado. Was this Sean? Yes. Or is this?

Okay, this is from Sean. I really would like to know what a strawberry daisy drink is. I mean, we have no one to talk since we drink Miami Vices, but there's a strawberry daisy on here, which I've never heard of before. Sure, it's delicious. Although now that I'm examining this menu, who's drinking a strawberry daisy and getting a miso soup? This looks like a sushi.

Yeah, crunchy red. Interesting choice. I'm sorry. you don't drink daqueries with sushi. Okay. But anyway, what was on? I don't eat sushi either. I'm just a, I'm a wimp when it comes to it.

You like the finer things in life, I guess. Me? I don't eat sushi. I mean, I'll eat like a, I don't eat seafood. I'll eat like a California roll. Oh, that's true. You and I went to a seafood restaurant once, and we both said, we're out, sorry. Yeah, don't eat seafood.

So, but there was an employee wellness fee of 3%, which is, that's over the line. I'm sorry. Employee wellness? You pay your employee. We'll tip. So, you know, on the machines that ask for the tip now, you can, you can write a little message there. And I saw one of them said, like, industry standard.

Like, they're pushing you towards picking a certain amount, you know? And I think it was like 20, 25%. It was like a higher end. That's high. Listen, I grew up in the service industry, okay? Valet Parker, caddy, only for a day. But I spent years parking cars, Cabanamoid, waiter. So I know from this.

I take care of the people. There's a time and a place. And an employee wellness fee is not one of them. Know what I tip my Valley Parkers? What? Although I'm debating about this. It might be too much. I might have to throttle it back.

$10 a day. Or $10 a park. Okay. It's so expensive to park out of a hotel, too. If you park at a hotel, it's like, I don't know, $70 or $80 a night or something. It's ridiculous. That's a scam. Yes, that is a scam.

All right. Someone sent me this. Credit card in front, he lock and back. Home equity-backed credit card. lower rates 8 to 15% I've never heard of the company here before but I talked about how people are going to be using their equity for different financial means

It's a home equity backed credit card Meaning your home equity is collect I don't know how How that works How you it's a credit card to unlock home equity I honestly don't know how it works but I thought I'm intrigued The low APRs are good

Maybe because there's obviously a lot of collateral there I still can't believe that Amex charges charges 28% APR That's wild Unsecured debt, I guess, but yes, that's pretty high. Someone actually asked me the other day, do you think most people pay off their credit card? And the assumption was most people do not. My thinking is...

Well, you say most? Over 50%. I would say most people do. I think so, too. I think it's a small percentage, like, I don't know, a third maybe that don't pay it off. And they're the ones who get caught eating the late fees and they don't make them... I think it's a smaller subset than you think. By the way, this data has to be available.

Has to be. But I would guess, I would guess one in eight, don't pay their, maybe I'm way off. I don't know. 15%ish, don't pay it off. All right. Got an email. Oh, hey guys, I'm a journalist and an author who cold reaches out to folks regularly.

I sometimes try to do the scheduling thing. We're talking about the email thing that I spoke about this week. I sometimes try to do the scheduling two or three weeks out, not for my own sake of my own busy schedule, because I assume that you are busy, which is very uh very polite that's not what i'm that's not what i'm referring to i totally respect that if that's your thing i'm saying like when somebody connects you and they do like oh yeah i could talk to you through because i'm so busy i don't like that right i just don't like it sorry don't like it i don't i don't think anybody's too busy for a quick call all right ben i had i had a thought

i was in the deli the other day getting uh an egg wrap for breakfast and Robin said, get some gum. So I looked onto the counter, and they had gum, and some of the gums that hit my face, I was like, oh my God, that's still a thing. Juicy Fruit, double mint, and Big Red. Remember those, obviously? You don't see a whole lot of new gums anymore, do you? Well, I feel like Orbit was like brand new back in the day, probably 20 years ago that

hit the scene. But, and I'm not judging at all, but who do you think buys Big Red? Who's the buyer of Big Red gum? That's a good question. I never really did it for me. So for people that are, I guess, under 35 who don't know about Big Red, it's like a pack of gum, obviously, and there's like five sticks of, like, kind of... It's like you're snorting cinnamon.

Yeah. I'm not a big cinnamon guy, so... But anyway, so I went on the Wikipedia to figure out, like, hey, what's going on here? So those gums, all of those gum, can you pluralize gums? All of those gum were owned and made by Riggily, which was bought by Mars in 2008 for $23 billion, which blew my mind. But here's what really blew my face. Juicy Fruit, you know when that came out? Are you looking at the dock?

I see it now. Okay. Juicy Fruit, 1893. There was gum in 1890s. Double mint, 1914. Big Red. Wow, they took a huge break. Big Red is 1975.

It's kind of funny that we discovered gum before penisillin. Hubba, Bubba. What's that? You know what Hubbubba is? Yeah, that's like the... Oh, orbit. They make orbit. 2001.

So anyway, more fun facts on Wrigley, on the gum. Goose Island. That's where they're located. Where's that? Chicago. Have you been there?

I've had Goose Island beer before. Okay. They own the big building, the Wrigley building, right? You don't my go-to gum is? The lake. Did I call the Lake the River? My go-to gum.

Go ahead. You first. I like the Mentos gum. Mentos gum. Mentos gum is a good gum. It looks like a little mento, yeah. I like that one. It's fresh.

I like not the orbit little squares. Not like the little rectangle ones. I do the like the crunchy white, the one with the one with the crunchy white outside. Well, we must be in a bull market because we're talking about gum here. Yes, I'm thinking. I'm like literally nobody cares. I apologize. We got too far afield out here.

I've got some good recommendations. All right. I've got a new show, Apple TV, Platonic, with Roseburg. and Seth Rogen. I loved them together and neighbors. I love that movie. I think part of it

because we had our daughter when that movie came out, so we had a toddler. I think Apple sneakily is putting us some decent content. So, it's just weird because I don't have any comedies in my life anymore.

There's not many, I mean, obviously Succession was funny, but that was more witty than funny as a comedy. This is an actual comedy. I think Rose Byrne is highly underrated.

I think she's funnier in this show than Seth Rogen is. She's great. And it's a great midlife show because they have kids and dealing with – it's kind of like a midlife crisis kind of show. It's two friends who – they were best friends in college. Her and Seth Rogen were best friends, and they kind of split – went their separate ways, and now they're kind of finding each other again in their 40s and becoming friends again. It's not like a great – it would have been a funny movie in the 2010s if it was made.

But each part of the show has funny parts to it. And the funniest – it takes place in L.A., and they ride those little scooters around that you and I always ride when we go to cities, you know. and a running bit for some reason is Seth Rogan every time he sees when he like drop kicks it or throws it he hates the scooters and he pushes him over and I feel like there has to be a backstory there but it just makes me laugh every time

speaking of LA I'm going I'm going next week will I get access to my lounge we'll have to see you'll have to give us a review all right our new one of our newest advisors at Ridhold slapped us a couple weeks ago Eric and said you guys have got to revisit the graduate it holds up really well I haven't seen it in like 15 years

it's on Amazon Prime I watched it. He's totally right. This movie could have been released now, and it would have worked. And I've got a few things to say, I read the Mike Nichols book about it, and it's so funny because, or about Mike Nichols, he was the guy who's the guy who directed it. And they said, like, when they picked Dustin Hoffman as the lead, everyone was kind of like, hey, he's okay. Like, no one thought like this guy's going to be amazing. Was he like, 25? How old was he? He looked like a baby. Yeah, he was pretty young. But it holds up so well. The movie could be released now and it would have been good. It's such, I'm usually not a fan of like really weird movies like that because it does have a weird tone to it, but I love it.

Here's two things that stood out to me. The 1960s style could, like, that stuff could work today. The stuff they wore like the short shorts at the pool and the loungeware. You could wear that, like the style in the movie was great. And I just love how every house had a bar in it. Like that was like a thing. Like, you just had a bar and you were, you assumed if you go to someone else's house, you go get a drink because there's a bar right there. Anyway, great one.

I watched that, wait, hang on the graduate, I watched that for the first time. like two years ago, and you're right, phenomenal movie. Yeah, it's so good. I have a recommendation for you. So from the man who brought you Tropical Bros and Bird Dogs, now you need a pair of sunglasses that you can wear your jet ski that are not expensive and won't fall off. Gooder sunglasses, G-O-O-D-R, okay?

G-O. I put a link in the dock here for you. They're like 25 bucks. They're rubber. I wear them like in the pool, on the boat. When I go jogging, they don't fall off. And if they do fall off, they're $25, and I don't care. So I have, like, four pair.

And if they break, I throw it away and get a new one. Those are your summer beach glasses. Okay. You know what? I will buy a pair because I always lose my sunglasses. The ones that I currently have, I feel like it's my longest streak, it's like two years. But I'm afraid to buy expensive sunglasses. I lose them.

I just bought, I did buy goggles from my jet ski. But I can, I'll, but $20 on Amazon. I'll buy these two. Thank you. Speaking of bird dogs, yesterday at the beach. So my wife's friend was like, so her colleague listens to us. And the wife texted the friend that like, my husband's buying a pair of shorts that your husband's husband was talking about. My father-in-law bought some.

Damn right, he's buying bird dogs. Nice. We influence someone. Okay. Two things from me. I rewatched The Purge, which I haven't seen since it first came out. What year was that? It is just a really

It's a really good idea Even though I'm not a huge fan Of those kind of movies It's a really good idea 2013 And I'm going to say it holds up Because it's only 10 years old It's an awesome movie

Just a really kick-ass movie Yeah And I watched last night A movie on Shutter Oh wait Before I get to that Do you know about this one Ben About my father

I'm holding my phone I'm holding my phone from my screen About my father So this keeps popping up. It's a new one with De Niro and Sebastian. It's got to be horrendous. It didn't look great. It's got to be horrendous.

What did it get? About my father. It's loosely based on his life. Whose? Sebastian, Minuscalka. Oh, oh, oh, I stand corrected. Okay, this is a winner. The critics gave it a 36.

The audience gave it an 81. I'm going to try it. That's a winner. I don't know if I hope, but I'll give it a try. Yeah, but when there's a giant. spread favoring the audience for, for comedies. The audience is almost always right. I will definitely watch us.

Okay, so I watch a movie called Influencer. You've probably never heard of it. No. I watched it on shutter via Amazon. And it's a, it's about an influencer who goes to Thailand and starts to get stalked by a stalker. And it's quite creepy. It's in the horror genre, I guess, but it's not, it's not scary.

It's not like slasher, you know? It's just very creepy, very well done. And if you are into those movies as you know I am, I would recommend this. And as I bet, I see, I see you, I see your, the wheels turning and you're about to say something. Before you say something, let me just say my piece. Okay. I think you and others think that I'm the only person that watches movies like this. Clearly that's not the case because they get made, right?

Yeah. I mean, there's, there's got to be tens of thousands of us that enjoyed these movies, maybe even hundreds. The horror, it's like horror in sports or horror and superheroes. That's the only thing carrying the movie industry the last 10 years. But it just occurred to me that, like, you don't go to the movies wanting to, like, sit back and relax and just kind of like turn your brain off. You go to the movies to be, like, freaked out or thrilled or skate. Like, you, it's like a tense experience. You love having a tense experience in the movies.

That's not. Yeah, guess what? I don't even know if I enjoy it. But I love it. Okay. And I found this. So Rod and Tomatoes did, like, the top 100 horror movies of the year. So that's how I found the influencer

Quite good In fact See that's the problem If there's a hundred horror movies in a year That there's too many of them But you know There's obviously a market for them All right

All right Anything else, Ben, for the audience? I got nothing All right You know what? Before we go So much July How does this happen every year?

You say you're not in midlife crisis yet Summer is almost over. I know summer has that yet to begin, but it's almost July. It's beginning of the end. You're an old man. Animal Spiritspod at gmail.com. See you next time.