Peak Prosperity - Making Decisions When Trust has Fled the Scene

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

What an we trust anymore from or government. It turns out the consensus is “very little.” Well, we still have to make decisions and carry on with our lives, which makes your team and information sources more important than ever.

Nothing in this program should be considered investment advice. It is for educational purposes only. Please hit pause and read this disclaimer in full. People are jealous of where you are when you get there, but they're never jealous of the journey you took to get there. The following is the audio version of a video released at peakprosperity.com. Visit peakprosperity.com to watch the video and to find other insightful content such as articles, discussion forums, and exclusive subscriber-only content.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this really amazing in-the-field finance university. Welcome here. Where's here? Here happens to be in Dallas, Texas. We're at the Limitless Conference. I'm here with Paul Kiker of Kiker Wealth Management. Paul, good to be here with you today. And exciting people. This is such a great conference. But we thought, hey, you know what? It's a great time to just peel off a little side room time or in just a side area. There's all kinds of stuff going on out there. There's about 2000 people here. And we just want to sit and talk markets for a bit. So this is very much a financial conference. There's a lot of real estate investors, a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of highly successful people. Different mood this year, I'm going to say. Last year,

there was a lot of gloom. This year, there's a little bit of hope. People are starting to say, are we getting near the bottom on this? That's on one side. On the other side, people are also saying, wow, what a mess we're in at this point in time. And so there's a lot of concern, obviously, too. So with that, Paul, good to see you here. Good to see you, Chris. Always good to be in person. Well, I know it's great. It's been a wonderful time. And the people are just amazing. Yeah, this is great. Yeah. Yeah. Great people. So where do we start in this whole thing? So a lot's been happening financially, economically lately. You know, one of the things I'm concerned

by is watching how the markets just keep powering higher. But there should be some concern out there, right? We have signs everywhere. I think that the consumer is a little stretched, that there should be some concern out there, right? We have signs everywhere. I think that the consumer is a little stretched, that there should have been a recession on the way. And recessions are okay, right? I'm old enough to remember they happen. It's not a big deal. They come and they go. But this one's being fought tooth and nail by an activist set of central banks who just up and to the right, they just want stocks going higher for some reason. They sure do. And it's a normal part of the business cycle and it's actually healthy and it's healthy to have it on a more regular basis than the postponement this far because it just increases and fuels the speculation so that when it does come apart you know this it's going to be much worse than what it otherwise

would be yeah yeah too much um uh fuel in the understory, right? You just want that little burn every so often. You don't want the crown fire in the canopy of your trees. So where do we start on that? Let's see. I've got a few charts here that we're going to look at. First is let's go with my favorite sarcastic wits, Sven Henrik. He says here in this tweet, the Fed says, we've finally beaten inflation.

Now let's cut rates. So big topic here, cutting rates. Are they going to cut rates? Why would they cut rates? But why would the Fed even be thinking about cutting rates at this point in time when we're looking at this inflation chart? Stocks at all-time highs. Yeah. What's the impetus?

What's the excuse here? I don't really understand. In thinking about what their excuse could be about why to cut rates at this point in time is the argument that they've been behind the curve so much in the past that they waited until 2008. That's the excuse that they're using. But at this point, inflation is still high. It's still an issue to the large number of Americans. Houses are still unaffordable for the average individual. And they're wanting to cut rates at this point when the party's still running strong.

Liquidity in the market seems to be fine. If somebody wants to go borrow money right now, they can go borrow money if they can afford to do so. So I don't see the need. I don't understand the need unless it's, you know, I hate to say that it would be politically motivated, but as an impetus to keep these markets higher and at least remove that as a decision-making point for a large part of the populace coming into the election. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. And I may be completely wrong on that, but nothing else makes sense. So I've read the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

It does not talk about that mandate. Right. Keeping markets up. Right. So it's not a decision point in the upcoming selection process, right? Yes. Yeah. Well, you were just in Ireland though. Yes. Are people worried about inflation there? Amazing so really one thing that the Irish people were incredible and so we traveled around gosh I don't know how many miles we went but we went basically mid to southern country stayed in four different towns and I was talking to everybody that I could talk to which is easy because the Irish people like to talk as much as possible but I'm like so what's it like? How's the economy? Inflation across the board from the ones that were, that did well to the servers, to the, to the hotel owners,

met a couple of those nice in Ireland because you get to meet them because they're working the hotel when you're staying there. We're all complaining about inflation. And, you know, jobs are plentiful over there right now, but the cost of living is going up so much and it was surprising to me because I've kept up with what's going on in the United States, North America, but I really didn't think about it that much until I got over there and then they started talking about housing. You know, if you get close to Dublin, nobody can afford a house, so everybody's moving out.

And it just made me think, you know, in that process, it's like, OK, one question is we've got this inflation run in the United States. Our government's being fiscally foolish, but our currency's held up pretty strong. But if you've got all the European countries or Western countries that are that are doing the same thing, then there's not one breaking in relation to the other. So this is something that even coming through Paris, because we connected through Paris on the way back, the language barrier is a little bit harder for me, but I had a couple of conversations with employees and people in the airport that were talking about the inflation issues there too. So it's not just here.

Inflation and housing or is it? Housing, food. Food too. Food. Yep. And it was interesting because you could not buy. So I went to get a bottle of water in our connecting flight and I had to scan a passport before you could buy something. And I asked the guy behind the counter, I said, so how long has this been going on?

Literally, I can't buy anything unless I scan a ticket or a passport. He said, yeah, I'm sorry, but that's the policy. My boss says that's what we got to do. So I guess you can't buy anything unless you got a ticket or a passport in the airport. I thought that was interesting. That is weird. So. All right.

So inflation is at least a Western phenomenon at this point in time. Yes. You know, I've heard from people living in Thailand and they haven't really noticed it for food inflation there as much. Yes. Right. So. All right. Well, so the Fed's thinking of cutting now. Now that's because they want well, they just want stocks going up, I guess. It seems to be that way. Now, of course, we get a revised GDP number

today that comes out and says that it was unexpectedly high for the second quarter because a surge in consumer spending. But yet lows came out last month and they missed their earnings. So purchases are slowing down at lows. Then dollar general was down, what, 30 percent today, which is the single largest drop that we've seen in history with dollar general. So the bottom, let's just assume that that's the bottom 50% of the population is really struggling right now. So this inflation, I think all the excess savings that was given from COVID is gone. So maybe they're trying to front run that. But with real estate still not having turned, with the market still not having turned, if it reaccelerates these markets and pushes this, I believe it's moving us more

into an area of speculation than it is anything. Because they, you know, I mean, we nearly had the market come apart first part of August with the yen carry trade, but all of a sudden we've had these record stop buybacks that have come through, which is pushing this market through. My concern is if they're not right, that inflation gets out of control. And if that genie's gotten out of the bottle a little bit, and they said it was transitory, right? It wasn't transitory. It seems to be embedded, and it's going to take some time to work itself out of the system.

But if they accelerate this again and throw fuel on that fire, then we may end up in a very concerning situation. And I'm not so sure that if inflation accelerates again that the markets are going to do what the average participant thinks. Well, so strange markets, one of the themes that I've been hearing a lot, we heard it right at the lunch table today, is people sort of anecdotes, right? But our table mates were saying, and very successful people, by the way, were saying that they don't trust the data anymore, you know? I really enjoyed that conversation listening in. Yeah. Yeah. Lisa was saying, I don't trust anything, right? So we know that the jobs report, obviously, you know, that got revised down 818,000 jobs, if that's even the correct revision.

Right. We know GDP just got revised up because,'re just saying mostly because consumer spending was stronger, right? But this is the weird part. So the spending numbers, Jeffrey Tucker did a great piece of this. It was in Epoch Times. I think he also put it on Brownstone Institute, where he showed a chart by a guy who said, well, let me just inflation adjust retail sales because they don't do that. It's one of the many things they don't inflation adjust. And so the point is, is that if you sold 100 units last year and 110 units this year, it looks like 10% growth in consumer spending. But if inflation was up 10%, it was actually zero. And it's supposed to be gross domestic products. So how many products

are we selling? We don't care what the TVs cost. We want to sell for our TVs the units the units So when you do that, it looks like for the past two years, there's been zero growth in consumer spending On a unit basis which fits with what Dollar General's now reporting yet with what Lowe's is reporting all of that So where do you fall in that? I mean like how much can we trust? What we see well, I've been concerned for quite some time that you can't trust the data. And it's one of those things you try to talk to people about as time goes along. And then you adjust your strategy to deal with it. You pay attention to supply and demand and price signal and money flows.

The problem is you've got all the computers, the algorithms, what? I can't remember the data. 70% or 80% of the trades that are done on Wall Street now are computer algorithms. At least, I think, yeah. Which are built on that you can trust this data. So they're making decisions based upon what is... When we've got really successful and smart people that are not tied to the markets. They're not watching them as much as we are that are, and don't, didn't, I don't think they knew you were sitting there and

they certainly didn't know me and they're sharing, we can't trust this data. Yeah. It's to the point that it's common knowledge around here. And that was very concerning to her. She's like, what do we do? And, um, and that's my biggest concern is you've got, you've got people that are starting to wake up around the margins that have the ability to do so. They just don't know what to do right now. Right. And this passive kind of indexing, let's just trust it. And I can't remember all the data. I've shared this with you a little bit before, but I was listening to to to a discussion about propaganda and how if you can, the whole point in creating chaos is to get people where they can't trust what their eyes see. And they basically just accept the lie, which I think is where everybody's been at this

point, but until it starts impacting them. And it sounded like it's starting to impact some of these people. Maybe not specifically, but that's my biggest concern. You start to see something come apart like the in-carry trade. You know that's a big deal. You break a few support levels, and you reduce a little bit of risk in the portfolio because it's the right thing to do. And then all of a sudden, you've got massive corporate buybacks that come back, which I can't I couldn't find the statistic. But somewhere I saw two point three. Let's just say it was one. Anyway, they were on a record level. Those are fading in the middle of September.

And then you've got Treasury secretary doing a few things to try to increase liquidity. You've got the Fed coming out talking about we're going to cut rates and they're fueling this. It's punishing anybody who's trying to operate under what their eyes are seeing versus the data they're being told. I hate corporate buybacks. I do too. Because there's supposed to be a mechanism. If corporations have too much cash and they don't know what to do with it, right? Meaning there's no R&D, there's no expansion, there's no new product lines they want to bring forward or anything like that. Then they're supposed to give it back, and it's called a dividend. They already have a mechanism for doing that.

You give the corporation your cash. They need to give your cash back. It's called a dividend. So when they do the corporate buybacks, they try and pretend like this is good for the shareholders, but it's not. For the most part, what I see in that, Paul, maybe you see it differently, maybe I'm just too jaded, but what I see is corporation C-suites load themselves up with options, so they're

diluting existing shareholders, and then they clean those back off the market with a share buyback. So it's really just an advanced C-suite pay package is how I'm looking at these things, rather than the mechanism. I agree, if corporations want to give cash back, that's totally fine. It's called a dividend. You give it back, right? And that's what a shareholder should be getting in a company that accumulates that much cash. But what was it prior to 1982, I believe it was, corporate buybacks were illegal. As they should be, I think, for this very reason. Incentives are

wrong. The incentives are misaligned. They sure are. So a company should be able to reinvest back in. One of the things we do in our dividend strategy is we will not purchase a company in the dividend strategy unless they're paying out more than 60% of their revenue. Interesting. Because if they're paying out more than 60% of their revenue, they're not reinvesting back into the future of the company. So, yeah, great, you might get a dividend and there's one stock I'd love to pick on that people seem to love out there that I think has been a terrible stock. Instead of paying this real high dividend that's just flat for 15 years, well, that doesn't do you any good if you're looking for growth in income because your greatest

risk in retirement is going to be inflation over the long term. And everybody's understand the pain of inflation over the past three to four years so if they're paying out more than 60 percent they don't have money to reinvest back in and we want to see them reinvesting back in so i want to see dividends that are coming out of companies but the problem is and i believe this is 100 generated by the incentive packages in the c-suite for your key employees because, you know, the argument is we want to compensate you through the stock price so that you can make the stock price better.

Well, if we're operating in a world where there's boundaries and integrity, that does make sense, right? But if we're in a world today where there is no integrity and the only concern is I want to make as much as I can for me, then those stock buybacks can be utilized to manipulate the stock price to benefit the C-suite. How much better would our country be if we're paying out higher salaries to the employees of those companies, good dividends? It's not going to line the pocket of the C-suite, but it's going

to be far more beneficial for the average individual and the investor in those companies. Right. No, I totally agree. So everything I know about investing, I learned from the movie The Wolf on Wall Street, right? And there's that lunch scene with Matthew McConaughey and Leonardo DiCaprio. And he says, the point is, we go home with cash in our pockets at the end of every day. Your job is to keep the investor, the rube in this story, the dumb money, fully invested. Yeah.

But they go home with cash at the end of the day. So I understand. Yeah, you know what? We could do a share buyback. We could do a dividend. One of those puts cash in my pocket. That's right. And then I get to decide where I want to deploy that cash.

The other one is sort of saying, well, we're going to indirectly boost the price, hopefully, of your share, which is not a guarantee. Shares go up, shares go down. But cash in my pocket is a declarative thing. So I don't see them as equivalent. They're just not the same to me. But for the most part, in that world of integrity that doesn't exist, we live in this other world where we find out that a lot of cases, the C-suite does these hugely dilutive pay packages. They don't have to account for them properly as far as I'm concerned.

That's executive compensation. That's right. They expense it out as a cost of business. No, it's pay. It's different. But when they do that, I actually see it as a sign of weakness now. I don't consider that a good sign. I want my companies to either be reinvesting in the business they know well or giving me my money back. Those are the two things

I think are valuable services. That's right. And if I choose to reinvest it back in the company, that's my choice. It's not their mandate to line their own pockets. So the big question is, and Nick turned me on to the Daniel Schlechtenberger. Schlechtenberger. Did I butcher it? I butchered it, didn't I? So anyway, it's a fascinating interview. And I'm still kind of processing everything. But the question is, I don't think we woke up and said, this is exactly how we're going to do it.

I think this is just the game that you have to play if you're a CEO. You're competing against this other CEO over there, and you're more worried about keeping up with the Joneses than you are doing what's right from a long-term standpoint of a company. But if we go back, and this is the thing that concerns me, and this is really hard in working with individual investors is we, people will grab on narratives, right? So whether it's Nvidia, whether it's Apple, whatever that stock is, you know, it's been the best performing stock. It's been good to people or people are going to chase it. Hey, if I'd have just done that, I'd be okay.

They're investing looking through the rear view mirror at the good stuff, but what they need to be doing is going back and looking at GE and what okay, they're investing looking through the rearview mirror at the good stuff. But what they need to be doing is going back and looking at GE and what happened with Jack Welsh in the late 1990s. That was the number one performing stock in the S&P 500 up to the year 2000. Well, it's those same stock buybacks, the gutting of the company from a standpoint. He was celebrated from what I understand was basically everybody tried to follow in the C-suites what he was able to do through GE coming out of the 1990s. And that stock was one of the worst stocks that you're going to have from 2000 to 2020.

But it was narrative management up until the point it went bad. Yes. Because I remember those days like, oh, beat by a penny, right? Jack was the master of beat by a penny. Like he did whatever he had to do to beat by a penny on those earnings so that he constantly surprised the upside. But it was a lot of shenanigans. It was. You know.

It was. Which came out in the wash eventually. It sure did. Same thing with, well, Enron and all these others. So the problem with the Fed putting off and refusing to allow us to have a recession is no different than a parent that refuses to discipline a child and gives them anything they want from the time they're born until the time they're 18. They end up being, outside that one in a million, a menace on society. So my concern is we basically fuel all of this. Investors have become complacent because if you have been prudent and you've made those decisions, the Fed stepping in and bailing you out at the last minute makes you feel stupid. Yeah.

So I think that's why we're so rare in what we do in the industry now is because so many people have thrown their hands up and said it's just not worth, you know, it's not worth the stress. It's not worth the stress it's not worth the risk where you know by God's grace we've stayed in there and continued to fight and make adaptations to be better at playing the game by the rules that are forced upon us and and I think we're at a point in time where where those who are awakening and looking for a different path when they look around say hey things don't make sense to me right now, you want to reallocate and take those profits

when things are really, really good. You don't want to wait until things are really, really bad. So I think more people are starting to wake up, and at the margins, I think that's going to matter. Indexing has some issues with it that may cause it to last a little bit longer. Mike Green talks about that a lot. But at the margin, things seem to be changing.

Well, they do. And so this is, maybe this is not, okay, this isn't a cross-section crowd that we're here with at Limitless in Dallas. Which, by the way, is a great show. If you ever have a chance to come and you're interested in all things financial and or Entrepreneurial this is a great crowd really is Kenny does a spectacularly good job Ken McElroy putting on a good show him and Tarle But I caught the vibe already and we've all I've only been here a day This has been a constant refrain heard it three times at least now People saying yeah, you know my broker broker keeps pushing this stuff I don't understand.

They're trying to get them into this and that and all this. And so what people need to understand is that in a lot of cases, if you have a big time broker, meaning they're with one of the big firms, and I'm not going to name names here, but they have a buy side, they have a sell side. And there's supposed to be a Chinese firewall, meaning there's no connection between these two but there is right and the buy sides over here like they just bought a whole bunch of something and now they got product on the shelf they're like a grocer with like some lettuce is about to wilt up on them and they're like they get out to the front like push the lettuce push the lettuce you know yes and and people can detect that and i think that's what people are responding to now is like this it's nothing doesn't feel right they want integrity they want you know they want to know that they can trust but we don't even trust that our jobs numbers are right we don't trust

no the statistics keepers to give us good data so no tricky tricky landscape when you've got the largest revisions and you look back historically from the Six Sigma plus events and misses and it hasn't happened this much in the past and all of a sudden it's happening here, and then you look at just the sheer deception in the mainstream media. I mean, just absolute sheer deception and open lies. We have to assume that in every aspect of the data that's coming out, they're lying for their own benefit, especially when things don't add up.

Hey, if the consumer spending surges, most people spend a lot of money on their homes remodeling. There's pent up demand there because interest rates have been a little bit higher. I could understand that number and think that it makes sense if Lowe's had beat their earnings or if Dollar General had beat their earnings surprisingly. But when you've only got a few handful of stocks in the artificial intelligence space that are outperforming, and you've got these major retailers that are missing to the downside and putting out warnings and talking about how tough the environment is. And I'm talking to people all around the country that are getting layoff packages and offerings. And, you know, that's something consistently that I'm hearing around.

Two plus two just does not equal four. And it makes it a hard environment to navigate. So if we could talk AI for a second, because I'm so. I am such I'm really built the wrong way for for the narrative machine because I don't buy into the narratives easily. Right. So I remember back in the day, a lot of people saying, oh, Tesla, Tesla, Tesla. Now, I'm a big fan of Elon Musk because of what he's done for X and opening up free speech. I think what he's done, like putting like beating NASA speech. I think what he's done, like beating NASA. I would not have thought you could beat NASA.

You not only beat them, beat them hands down, beat Boeing, right? Yes. Boeing, embarrassingly, is going to have to, like, I think NASA just hired Elon Musk to come rescue some stranded astronauts. It's embarrassing, you know. All of that's true. But even with all of that with all the hype i remember there were a lot of people who were tesla car fanboys say telling me this is it it's you don't understand chris they're not just cars they're data it's going to be self-driving and i was watching the

whole thing going you know you're gonna have to show me more than that and i don't think i was wrong about that now the blush has come off the rose a little bit it has you know people are kind of going oh yeah evs you know maybe plugins-ins make more sense, hybrids. We're getting some maturation around that. Okay, with AI, I can't figure this story out to save my life. I'm like, it's going to help you cheat on your college entrance essay.

It's going to help you write a better thank you note to your grandparents. It's going to do some stuff, but I'm like, where's the trillion dollar idea here? I think I just can't find it yet. Right. I can't either. And the question is about monetization.

There's no doubt that it's changed the way we do business. Sure. Like the internet hype in the late 1990s. That created a massive NASDAQ bubble. But there's only two ways you make money in business. You make more of something or you make it cheaper. That's right. So it's either going to help us with efficiency and productivity,

or it's going to help us figure out how to make new stuff we hadn't thought of. But everybody talks about what these large language models actually can do. They're not going to tell you something you didn't already know. They might tell it to you faster, a little bit more clever, but basically human knowledge is contained in this thing. It's not going beyond that, as far as we know, hopefully. Right, right. Hopefully not.

If it's gone beyond that, Terminator, Terminator 2. Then they start building their own robots. We're in trouble. Yeah, that's when we get in trouble. Well, the interesting thing is, is to me, from from the applications I've tried to utilize, it's a supercharged Internet search. You remember the days when the Internet was kind of free and you could go find things and you knew how to search. You find it now. It's pages and pages, algorithms and ads. And so for me, it's a supercharged internet search. But I met an individual here earlier today. He spent a few minutes telling me, he's like, I use all five. I didn't realize there were five artificial intelligences.

And he's like, these are my new employees. I've cut six employees with what I've got here because I had this person that did this research for me and this person that did this research for me. And he researched all that. Well, that's inherently deflationary, right? It is. So, so, you know, that is interesting that it can cut jobs from that standpoint and makes it efficient for that individual, maybe increases profitability a little bit for him, but it's not creating this revolutionary new life-changing product to an extent. Now, don't get me wrong. It's life-changing in his situation.

I'm trying to run the balance in my head. So, hey, it saves this guy five employees. So those people are all out. That's the negative side of this. They don't have salaries anymore. But on the other side, it's not like it feels free right now, but it's all because it's subsidized and buried somehow in the back end of this whole thing because it's not free. Like to run an average search apparently costs like, you know, you can power a house for a half a day on some searches, you know?

Yeah. Like they suck an amazing amount of juice. Yeah. Somehow that's coming from somewhere else. So we lost five taxpaying, you know, productive people's incomes. It cost us something too. Right. I don't know that we understand that externality yet. Like what that, I don't think we know what that really costs, but the thing I'm from a long-term standpoint that really alarms me is you do that long enough and then the lights go out. Yeah. And now who knows

how to do anything anymore? Right. We're going to we're going to lose skills and abilities. Yes. Over time. Yes, we are. So is this it? Is this the high point of human evolution? Like that's it. We got something that allowed us to basically couch surf mentally. Right. And so like how are we going to push ourselves? I think there's a cost here that's not being added up yet. That's a good point. Well, and I mean I would still think something's going to break here at some point. We don't know what that is. We don't know how much longer that's going to be but you've got to be on alert for it. You've got to be looking for the wolves at the edge of the forest coming in after the sheep. You know that's our responsibility. That's what you do

for people. Yeah, so I'm going to pull this up. So we're going to talk about this now, which is, this comes from Albert Edwards. I knew him when he was back at SockGen. I don't know if he's, where he is now. He might be on his own. A great analyst.

I love his work. I call it SockGen, but it was probably Sauce. I think it was SockGen. I call it SockGen. SockGen. Yeah. This is the credit impulse, right? So as I understand credit impulse is more debt, is more credit being extended globally versus not. You can subcomponent it, China, U.S., Europe, stuff like that.

But anyway, the idea is that, and by the way, who did this? The economist, I'm just blanking his name for a second. It'll come in a second. But you can show on a spreadsheet that if last year we had 10% debt growth, right? And this year, now we have 8%. It's still growing 8%. That 2% reduction in global credit actually causes a reduction in GDP. So anytime credit is not growing as robustly this year as last year, it actually is a negative drag on the overall GDP because we don't factor debt out and it's all this thing and we're using the debt to expand GDP usually because we spend the money on something that we borrowed. All right, this chart says that we're in pretty deep negative territory

for a credit impulse. This is globally. This feels like a pretty stiff headwind to me. It does. For global GDP. It makes sense. And if you go look, so the Mad King just put out his research report, which I've got it on. The Mad King. Does he have a name or do we know him as the Mad King? No, that's his, you know, I can't remember his name.

All right. The Mad King's his research portal, you know, and everybody's kind of getting like where they take the person out of it, but put the research up front. Yeah. And, uh, hang on, let me see if I can pull it here because he pulled up and his quote, when he put this out is the more it goes up, the more complicated the landing will be. The S and P 500 is behaves behaving as if nothing matters. So Albert Edmunds. Exactly. That's what I've been saying.

Yeah. We've been talking about this. Yeah. And it does. Like nothing matters. And that contraction in the global credit impulse, that matters. It matters. And what he's showing on this chart, which will be put up, is the black line is the conference board U.S. leading 10 economic indicators.

So that's been contracting relatively heavy since, you know, 2022 when the market started turning. And it's not slowing. There's not a slowing to an accelerate up. The S&P 500 has diverged from it. So they're just going separate directions here. They're going separate directions and jaws. And the last time we've seen, now it separated dramatically back in 2004 and 2008. So the indicators were going up and pulled down, the market came down with it.

But since all of the Fed intervention since 2020, the market seems to be completely ignoring it. And my question is, are investors really that complacent? And have they come to believe that the Fed is that powerful that we will never have an economic crisis come again, or stocks will never go down? But if people have been habituated into the Fed always rescuing, and they think they're always going to rescue, and you see a dip, you just buy the dip, and it's just how it works. I remember this is how it went 2008, 2009.

I remember people were doing, they were selling volatility. Anytime the market spiked in volatility a little, you just sold it. And that was great until one day it blew up and burned them. Yes. But a lot of famous traders got toasted on that trade because they just knew something, which was when volatility spikes, it always reverses. Right. This is like just a, I'm not picking up pennies in front of steamrollers.

This is just free money. Right? Just pick it off the tree. Yes. It works until it doesn't. Works until it doesn't. Well, and I can't find it here. I think it may be on my computer.

But basically, you know, the argument is, so shorting the volatility index has been a big profitable trade for the past couple of years. Well, that blew a bunch of people up right after the 1st of August when the market came apart. But it's supercharged now at this point. So if buybacks end, we've got about 10 more days with these massive buybacks that are coming. The question is, is there going to be liquidity in the markets? And I'm not so sure. But I'll tell you, I don't know if you picked up on it or not, but there was one conversation we had today, or you were having and I was listening to and I was around,

and they were sharing their concern about the markets and kind of the lack of truth or knowing what was true. And everybody agreed, except for you, that the Fed was just going to come in and bail us out. And you made the comment, you said you can't discount that, you know, that they don't come and bail us out. And that's my concern at this point is everywhere you go, everybody is convinced that the Fed is going to bail us out. We're all on one side of the boat. We're all on that side of the boat. And there's people that are trying to front run that right now too, I think, especially in the markets, I'm seeing that start to happen some. But if we're all that convinced, and what is it? It's not what you know. It's what you think you know that just ain't so.

That's Mark Twain, right? I know I butchered it. I think it's, it ain't what you know, it ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you think you know that just ain't so. That just ain't so. That's right. Yeah, that's it. So that's my concern is do we all, is it going to be so that the Fed's going to, I mean, they've said they were going to, but what was November last year that the Fed basically said they were going to cut, and here we are nine months later, 12 months later.

So I'm willing to entertain any unorthodox thought. It was November last year that the Fed basically said they were going to cut, and here we are nine months later, 12 months later. So I'm willing to entertain any unorthodox thought. I own some energy shares at this point in time. Closest I'll get to saying what they are, right? If they got cut in half, would that be a terrible thing? No. I'd be like, nope, I would love to buy them at half price. And I think young people should have a chance to get in on stuff at cheaper rates, right?

Everything's like stupid nosebleed territory. Not everything, but a lot of things, right? But the narrative is, well, it would be terrible if stocks fell. I'm like, no, no, I like buying stuff cheaper. That'd be like saying, Chris, tragedy. I was just down at the supermarket and T-bones are half off. I'm like, that's a good thing. That's a good thing.

You have this wrong. That's right. But somehow the Fed's got it in its mind that they can't allow that. I don't know why. They must have access to some data that says if this gets started, maybe this snowball turns into a cornice that makes an avalanche that kills the village. I don't know what they're thinking, but they're terrified of financial markets having what I'll call their own footing.

Right. They don't want them to have their own willpower about where these things are going. They have a better idea. Right. Sounds a little Soviet Politburo crop report. You know, we define, like, what the right price of money is and the right price for assets because we know. Well, I don't like that central planning. Now, it does make sense to me that they're so concerned that the system is levered to the hill that, and I want to come back to these buffered products here in a minute talking about

sales things, but it makes sense to me if they think the system's so levered to the hill that everything will blow up. But just come out and tell us, right? If that's the case, tell us, say, look, we're going to keep this thing going. We got a problem. We got to fix it. We're going to work as a society to work ourselves out of this hole. But if you don't have the courage to lay that truth out there, if that is the case, then we're in big trouble because they're not, it's not going to be fixed. It's going to get worse by what they're doing. Well, so that's the thing. If you come out and say, here's the predicament, we're in the problem, this is what we think we're going to do about it,

and here's how we'll know we're done, right? Remember, you know, we got into Afghanistan militarily as a nation, and we had no sense of victory. What was, what were we there for?

What was the goal? Right? We didn't know. Was it 10% women in the Afghan army? I mean, it was something vague. We didn't, but we didn't have a,

you have to have a clear strategy. So, the Fed, I don't think, I haven't, if they have one, I can't detect what it is. I can't. We'll do this until then. Yeah. And this is what then looks like. Every year things just get worse and more outlandish and bailouts get bigger and the

interventions get more obvious. And I don't know where, what's the there? I don't know. What's the goal? What's the? I think it's an ever-moving goalpost because, you know, the 2% inflation target's an arbitrary number. Yep. That comes out of nowhere.

And now they're trying to talk about raising that to 3%. That's another arbitrary number. So it's a situation where you end up, you know, creating this narrative around trying to navigate the situation you're in or they're giving us a narrative to try to drive us in a certain direction. I don't know. But I agree with you. I wish we had clear data, the truth. Just tell us exactly what you're doing and then trust the American people to make the decisions they need to make to work ourselves out of it.

If we do that with our collective, I mean, you go into a room like this, there's a lot of brilliant people here. They're very specialized in certain areas. Everybody's got gifts. Together, we're far better than we are with just a handful of individuals that are making all these decisions for us. So don't let me change the subject on us, but I want to talk about it before I forget. So I know you're good at pulling me back. So you talked about the people that were mentioned that they that that they feel like their brokers are just really

trying to sell them products okay so in my side of the table we have a wholesalers that will call and they're good tools because if you have an investment that you need to learn about you can go to them you can get the due-diligence they're kind of advisors to advisors, specialized products. But they're also salespeople. That's what their job is. I have been inundated and everybody that I've talked to in the industry for the past two to four years with these buffered products. Well, if we go back to the great taking, so a buffer product is, hey, I can sell you this product, Chris. You put $100,000 in this. We can protect you against the first 20% decline in the S&P 500.

This is just an arbitrary number, but 20%. So if the market goes down 50, you're not going to lose the first 20, so you're already better off. Well, that's great, but these things are becoming ridiculously popular, and if you look at the growth of them, they sell easy because of the fear that's out there right now and they tend to pay better commissions than what not in all cases like if you're a fee based advisor you don't get any extra compensation associated with those but there are more profitable product for Wall Street but guess what they're created by I know you

know but I'm I've got to ask that question guess what they're created by. I know you know, but I've got to ask that question. Guess what they're created by for the listeners out there? It's by derivatives products, which goes back to the great taking, which goes back to Warren Buffett saying derivatives are weapons of mass financial destruction. So now you've got an environment where investors are concerned. You've got a high profit product for Wall Street that puts more money in their pockets that may not be able to deliver, if things go sideways, the protection that they want. Now, they can say guaranteed because they've got banks behind them and things of that nature, but there's issues. It's that derivatives complex that just continues to get bigger and bigger and bigger.

I consider derivatives, like Paul, it's really good insurance. It's there until you need it. Yeah. And then it doesn't work. Right. Because you can't, by its very nature, insurance doesn't work when the entire pool gets tapped. That's right. Insurance works because one in a thousand houses burns down.

If a thousand houses in the same pool all burn down all at once, you don't have insurance anymore. That's right. It just can't work. So derivatives are that sort of like they work unless things get a little out of band. And I think that's what the Fed's afraid of to tie this back, right? Yeah. I think they're just afraid that there's so much leverage, so much stuff. In fact, they don't even know where it is. I believe that's a true statement.

Afraid of the unknown. They're like, kids don't want to look under the bed, you know, because it might be something there, right? So they don't. So their whole option is like, well, we'll just pull the covers up tighter whenever we can, you know? My mother was making fun of me this weekend. She said when I was a kid, I don't know how young I was, she said I'd close my eyes at night like she couldn't see me. That's basically what they're doing, isn't it? No object permanence, just like, yep, you're gone. But I think that's it.

And because of that, it just gets more and more and more excessive, and people get more and more trained, more habituated that this is just how it is. And, of course, when you just step back, it's bizarre. It's just a little weird because history says that when prices for assets are above a certain level and they're very expensive, that your returns over the next periods of time, 10, 20, 30 years, stink. Yeah, they do. And John has been. So now we have to think it's different this time, which of course is never a good starting point for a conversation in finance, right?

No, it's not. Well, and let's say it is different this time, right? Okay. So valuations were lower in the 1970s. So now let's say valuation ranges have jumped up a little bit higher out here, but the feds intervened so much. Now we're going to go a little bit higher. But it's an oscillation that here, and then you jumped up to another area, then you still had periods of consolidation. So even in higher valuations from 2000 to 2008, 2015 until today,

the important thing is you still had 250% declines approximately in that 2000, 2003 to 2008 forward. So it's, it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that we've reached escape velocity, that we're never going to have these declines. I mean, at some point it's a high probability we're going to have a 30 to 50% decline. If we go back to historical valuations and all of that data throughout history matters. And I love history because it's so important to look back. This is one thing I always have told my kids to the point that they're so sick of hearing is learn from other people's mistakes. Right. I'm not talking about judging people, but learn from other people's mistakes so that that you're not making the same mistakes.

You're not making stupid mistakes. So when we look back through history, these are the periods of time where you go back. I mean, think about somebody in the late 1990s. Okay. They're all loaded up in the technology NASDAQ bubble. What if they'd have paid off some of their debts? What if they'd have made sure, harvest some profits, build up their emergency funds, especially those that are closer to retirement. What about those that are in the workforce and they've got 10 or 15 years? Dollar cost average in the emerging markets, not a recommendation, just a discussion. Dollar cost average into emerging markets, energy. Build into those because they're not popular right now and accumulate as many shares as you can in that sideways market for 10 or 12 years

is the best thing that could ever happen to somebody saving. It's the worst thing that could ever happen to somebody that doesn't run a risk managed approach or, or, or mitigating their risk in retirement. So what's good for one part of the population is completely opposite for the other in most cases. So I think we're in a fascinating time where, where people are going to look back in hindsight, they're going to say, I really wish I had have been a little bit more prudent during this window. And I want to encourage everybody to think about this. I heard a quote, somebody made the comment this morning and said, people are jealous of where you are when you get there,

but they're never jealous of the journey you took to get there. That's exactly right. Yep. So to get there and to survive this, people are going to have to take a path less traveled. Nobody's, you know, when I say nobody, I'm not talking about smart people. I'm talking about large populace. You look at the average advisor that's out there. Go get your own advice.

I'm just sharing an idea. Hey, I want to allocate five or 10% to gold physically and hold it long-term. They look like you got horns out of the side of your head, but that may be a very good decision if things come apart. And if debt is that bad, that things are going to come apart and that's what the Fed's trying to hold, gold has no creditors. You know that. I know you know all that. I love that. But that's an asset that you want, you know, that'll maintain that purchasing power at that extreme.

So I encourage people to really look at your situation and think about that path ahead and wonder, what could I have done in this environment when things were so good that I might wish three or four years from now that I had it done. I think I butchered that guys, but you know what I'm getting to. Well, I do. Um, you know, uh, so I'm both pleased and saddened to announce that, that our summit is completely sold out and we've worked hard to sneak a few extra people in. Um, I know your time is starting to get real short too, because people

are starting to catch on to, to maybe they should be talking to somebody who sees the world the same way they do and this is really important so how's that been going it's been going great you know it's I've always loved what I do but you know I'm not scared of any questions and it's so fun because people be timid when they start asking questions initially. And then once they get it rolling, it's like our time goes by so fast. Yeah, yeah. But to be able to help people that care, they just don't know what to do, you know, meet people that have been doing it themselves

because they haven't been able to meet anybody that they felt like saw the world the way they did. And it's not that we see the world that different. The thing I like about you is you have the courage to see the world the way they did. And it's not that we see the world that different. The thing I like about you is you have the courage to see the world with the truth. It takes courage to see that. Reality is more important because if we understand what reality is, then we've got a chance to navigate it. So that's our whole purpose.

That's my whole focus is telling the team, we deal with reality. The reality of your financial situation, here's how you get out of it. The reality of the markets, here's how we deal with reality the reality your financial situation here's how you get out of it the reality of the markets here's how we deal with it we're not on that deal with it perfectly because we're in uncharted territory I mean yes there's not a historical period of time a market we can look back and see so to be able to talk people and and just the enjoyment the relationships we're building helping helping them make good decisions, not only in just the asset management side, but the financial plan, shoring up, making sure that they're building a solid foundation. Because I see a lot of people who think they have a brick house, if we go back to the three little piggies analogy, but a bit of puffs gonna blow that straw house down and what we're able to do is help people build those brick houses that will withstand the test of time and that's the most

important thing I can do for somebody is help them build a plan that will stand the test of time may not may not be the number one plan over the next 12 months but if we're in that top 10% over the next five years that's the most successful place to be I don't know why but I was thinking in that top 10% over the next five years, that's the most successful place to be. I don't know why, but I was thinking of that cartoon where you see the three little pigs, and they're actually in their brick house. Unfortunately, the wolf, who they are prepared for,

has got his wallet out, and he's paying the Kool-Aid man. I've not seen that. And the tagline is, uh-oh. Uh-oh. That's good. That's really good. So who knows? Maybe the Kool-Aid man's like, you know, I got my brick house, but if that happens, you know, getting ready for the unexpected.

So I think there's huge opportunities in here, too, because the thing I like. So I don't know what the truth is, but, man, I'm good at BS, right? And I can tell when there's something off on a story. And I know we've talked about it before, but just one quick example is silver, not a specific investment. But when I did the fundamental analysis on it, I love this stuff, right? You know what I'm seeing? I'm seeing shortfalls and underinvestment. And I'm seeing that there's a whole lot of people out there who just hate it. Wall Street's figured out how to sort of sell it, do their little paper games and all kinds of things like that. Right. So I think there's a lot of stories out there still like that. There are.

But you got to be a contrarian sort of like everybody loves AI and I'm over here fishing around and, you know, some some high, high value growth stock, you know, dividend stocks, things like that. I think there's value out there. I think there's places to be that make sense. I believe so, too, and not a recommendation, but you look at emerging markets. You look at even some international markets. You look at a lot of your commodities right now. This is a good opportunity to be accumulating them.

And there's times where you want to embrace volatility, and a lot of those areas you want to embrace it. I think we were talking about cinnamon earlier. I was sharing with you interactive brokers had run out of shares of XOP to short. And XOP being the oil and gas production, oil and gas production and expiration and production, expiration and production. They're the E&P companies. So basically anything that's doing pulling it out of the ground, producing it, putting it together. So I think it was Bloomberg that came out with it. It was on Twitter. Don't hold me to the exact number, but in other words, it's a record short.

It could get worse, but that gives you the sentiment in that space. But we still need that to produce. Artificial intelligence hasn't created a magnificent new way for us to just create energy out of thin air. The only thing I'm hearing is we're running into an energy problem in the future. Well, don't you want to own those that are being overlooked right now instead of chasing the nice shiny objects, instead of keeping up with the Joneses and buying NVIDIAs right now, which it's been amazing the growth that they've had, quite frankly.

But, you know, look somewhere else. And that way you end up being the person that bought NVIDIA five, seven years ago, you know, 10 years ago, and you're in the right place. I see ridiculous amounts of opportunity out there like you're talking about. And for those that are patient, I believe they're going to be ridiculously well rewarded for the next three to five years. We just don't know if you're rewarded six months from now or three years from now. Well, I mean, the other part of the conversation today, not to hinge too much on one lunch conversation, but it touched a lot of areas. And the other piece of this is just the uncertainty of not knowing what they're going to do. Right.

And the they in this story is like you've seen the tax proposals. I know. Those are shocking. The Harris-W proposals. I know, those are shocking. The Harris-Waltz campaign, they are shocking. Not just like, well, you know, we're going to take these and bump them up a couple points. Like a more than doubling of the capital gains rate. The idea that you would tax unrealized gains, meaning just something you have has gone up in price. And so you're going to have to, what, pay cash? The whole thing's a disaster. If that happened, that's a disaster.

Oh, don't worry, Chris, it's only going to apply to billionaires. Well, actually, the way the code's written, it's 100 millionaires. Well, actually, you know, next year it'll be 10 millionaires. Actually, it'll be millionaires. Actually, it's going to be anybody over 400,000. Hold on, this is such a great program. We've extended it to everybody, right? That's just how these things go. I'm smart enough, old enough to know that. Yeah, but I don't understand how people can believe that. What amazes me is you seem to be putting this much effort into the narrative of the economy. You're fudging this many numbers, but yet you're willing to take a risk to tell people that you're going to tax the fool out of them.

And what are you going to do? Like, you have capital losses right now. Unless you have a capital gain, you can only write $3,000 against your, I'm not a CPA. So $3,000 against your taxes until it's gone. So, well, what if I have unrealized losses? Can I take a deduction on my taxes? I bet they won't allow you to do that. It's only the gain.

And they don't inflation adjust these things. So let's imagine I bought NVIDIA last year. I sell it this year and I've made a hundred percent. Yeah. Okay. I get it. I had a gain there. What if I bought a house 50 years ago and I get a hundred percent gain off of that compared to my purchase price? What about that? Well, that's just inflation. Yeah. Actually it's less than inflation. If it's three percent a year, that's 150 percent gain. So it's 3% a year, that's 150% gain. So it's a loss. It should be a loss. So the government creates the inflation, but then taxes only the upside of that and doesn't allow you to subtract the downside of that.

Heads we win, tails you lose. I think it's time for people to know inflation is, I consider it a crime. Yes, it is a crime. Because it's taxation without representation. Yes. It's a form of thievery under that regard. But given that, I would support the government coming forward and saying, well, we create the inflation, but we shouldn't be the ones who benefit from it in essence, right? So guess what?

You're going to be able to inflation adjust all of your gains going forward. That would be great. Now, that would be really great. That's a great idea. I mean, it's only fair, right? It is. It really is because we're not creating the inflation. They are. I mean, just because we go out and buy the things that we need on a regular basis, I mean, they want to remove food and fuel from the inflation numbers. Well, what do we use more of? We have to eat, we've got to have fuel and energy to get around. So that's a great idea. I'm with you on that.

So yes, it's like, you know, if you paid 50 bucks for your shirt and I go give this guy a hundred bucks to buy it from you. And then I tell you, you actually owe me part of that 50. You know, it's just, it just doesn't, it doesn't make any sense. So we should absolutely inflation adjust gains. No question about it. Absolutely. Well, so you've shared a couple of times, first by inflation, then by taxation. Yep. And then what's that key component?

Deflation. Then by deflation. That's when you rip the rug out. That's when everybody's habituated. The Fed will always bail us out. Oh, no, they didn't bail us out this time. Look at this. Ah!

Right? That's the thing to fear. You made me think of something there. And my concern is, is now, look, I'm I'm ready and I'm anticipating inflation. OK. And I'm anticipating that there could be a point in the future where we have a currency crisis and we end up in hyperinflation. So I've built models and rules around it that I hope that I never have to use. But you go back to Thomas Jefferson first by, as Jefferson was, first by inflation, then by deflation, they'll rob you of all your wealth. So they've told us they want to tax us for quite some time.

They've told us that they want to equalize the playing field. They want everybody to start in the same place and finish in the same place. So how do you get that? That's one thing I can't get out of my head. So what's the one thing right now, if you're going to tax the fool out of the people that have accumulated, the only thing that you have left to bring equal misery across the board is deflation. Because if you have the stock market now all of a sudden that drops 60, 70, 80 percent, now you've taken away, especially for passive investors and those that have relied upon the Fed, poof, you're taken away.

And that really levelizes the playing field across the board. Well, it's true. I saw this up close and personal when I went to Panama to watch the migrant issue. Because the way they're talking about it, so this is exactly analogous, but in the field of human migration. So they say this right on the IOM webpage. You know what we're trying to do all here, they would tell you?

There are these people who are really poor over here in this country, and one of the best ways to level the playing field is you bring these poor people here to a richer country. So this is part of their, oh, that's how we make things fair. Like, no, two things just happened. One, the country just lost people. By definition, the people they lose first are the ones who are capable of being mobile, which by definition means you're most capable. So they just got poorer because the wealth of the nation is the people you have there and their general level of productivity and all that. So that's what happened. The first wave of people they said who came to Panama was four years ago

and they're Venezuelans and these people had money. They drove up the price of real estate in Panama City by a factor of two because they poured in with all their money, right? So those were all your business people, business owners, doctors, you name it. They lost their entire professional class, so the country starts to collapse. But according to those migration specialists, that was a good thing that they moved from a low area to a high area. Second thing that happens is, by definition, you take poor people who need services and you drop them into a richer country.

It drags that country down. Yeah. So they don't care that they're kind of hoping, well, this country loses, but maybe this country loses more. And that's how they level stuff out. Loss and a greater loss come into a little bit more even. That's how they think about it. Same thing's going to happen on the tax side. So they're actively doing it on the immigration side.

Yep. They're actively planning for it on the tax side, whether they get it now or they get it at some point in the future, they're actively planning for it. Yep. But yet we're fully convinced as an investor class, and I say we just talking about as a nation, not you and I, because I know you're not. We're both like, I want to see the data on which way this thing goes,

that they won't allow deflation to occur. And that's the one thing, and that's what always concerns me. That's the one thing that people, investors have convinced themselves, just hang in there and we'll ride it out, right? Well, what if you're 65 years? What if you're 60? And today, in hindsight, is 1929. And we go through an 80 percent decline. Market rallies into 37, goes through another 40 percent decline. And it's 25 years later before it gets back to even. And you've run out of money because you put your faith in the Fed. That's what concerns me. Well, it's a non-zero probability, right? It's not 100% guarantee of inflation. It's probably pretty high. I would,

I personally, I'm over 50% pretty far, but it ain't 100. So you have to like, the roll of the dice could be deflation. So that could happen for two reasons. One, the Fed lets it happen, which we're discussing as a possibility. Two, they're forced to make it happen because something happens geopolitically, the BRICS countries. That's a good point. Somebody comes along. There's a forcing function that actually forces the Fed's hand where they have to allow deflation to happen

because it's not under their control anymore because the magic printing press has been taken away. Now, I can imagine some scenarios where that could happen. Again, not a high probability, but it's enough. It's like you can't push it all on red roulette table, you know, because there's just too many blacks out there, right? That's right. So you can play, you can play pretty reliably, not green, right? That's a bet you can, you can play, but half a percent of the time it's green. Yeah. You know, it happens. That's right. Enough that the house allows that bet to be made, you know.

And that's a good point because if they choose to bring about deflation, at least there's a controlled descent. But if it's an exterior force from one of the bricks or somebody else, which I've not thought about until you had mentioned that, then that is not a controlled event. That's going to be absolute chaos on the other side of it but who knows that you know the problem is and the sad thing is is this is what you think about the level of stress that everything that's taking place in society is putting on the average individual today especially investors trying to deal with this and it's easy to be complacent just stick your head in the sand and oh i don't want to hear it but that's never been rewarded throughout history. Like in all of humanity, you've not been rewarded to stick your head in the sand.

You might be oblivious for a short period of time and it feel good, but at some point you get hit in the mouth with a baseball bat. And that's what concerns me more than anything is trying to help wake up people. Hey, if you want to take that path, at least do it with your eyes wide open, understanding the risks that are associated. But don't do it because you feel like there's no alternative, because there are other alternatives. It's just you've got to have the discipline and the forethought to walk that path less traveled.

And in every aspect of our life, where we look back and we've made the sacrifice and the discipline and we put thought into it, that where our real real reward well i might i got tongue twisted real reward it's easy for you to say apparently when i was a kid i had a hard time saying drawer so my mother still makes fun of me to this day so that i struggle with that but it just it speaks like like this is a time where you have to just be really nimble and really watch but i'm starting to trust my gut more and more. You know, I overthink stuff and I'll analyze the bejesus out of everything. But increasingly, I just know something isn't right in this story. And that's kind of a common thing.

I'll poll people really not in a biased, leading way. But when I open it up, most people will report today saying something's not right. I don't quite know what it is. And so like a blind group of men feeling an elephant, people will sort of put different pieces out. But we can feel it. Something's off, you know, and it happens. But that's when the greatest opportunity comes for those that have the courage to be prepared for it. So, you know, the sad part is when the truth comes out, which the truth

will stand the test of time, it's going to cause a lot of damage to a lot of people. What I mean, the truth is if it's manipulated, you know, just truth across the board, the reality comes out. There'll be a lot of people damaged by that, but there'll be a lot of people who were seeking wisdom like you are and others that are listening in that will be in the position to bring about a better society on the other side. I do fully believe that. Indeed. Well, with that, Paul, thank you so much for your time. So good to be in person. Thank you everybody for listening. And we'll be back next week, I guess, on a regular schedule. Until then, see ya.