The Ben and Emil Show - BAES 160: DEBATE: Is the Billionaire Tax a Bad Idea?

Episode Date: July 9, 2026

Ben makes the case against it, and Emil makes the case for it. Plus a whole lot more. They're saying it's a banger episode. For bonus episodes, discord access, fan Q&A, merch, Ben's monthly playlist,... and to support the show: https://benandemilshow.com/ The Chase Sapphire 100,000 point bonus is here! https://www.thecreditcardlist.com Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it! And please leave us a comment! It helps us! For all you audio freaks: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7M0vN85aGO0zdh62hyg03I Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ben-and-emil-show/id1693270208 Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/51280f1b-2fbd-4ea9-bdde-e96f70b5b1ae/the-ben-and-emil-show iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-the-ben-and-emil-show-117763570/ Follow us! TikTok - https://tiktok.com/@thebenandemilshow Instagram - https://instagram.com/benandemilshow Twitter - https://x.com/benandemilshow Ben - https://instagram.com/bencahn Emil - https://instagram.com/emilderosa https://www.youtube.com/emilderosa https://substack.com/@emilderosa Our newest acid video is out now so check it out! https://youtu.be/7vkFY3f5kkw Some other videos of ours you may enjoy: https://youtu.be/qX4pks0ASq8 https://youtu.be/_VOVxt3ZtIE https://youtu.be/5wsoc5pieuA https://youtu.be/dTbEk0pVh2w https://youtu.be/yGSs56bFzRU https://youtu.be/cIHWkY35cuc https://youtu.be/zBvVGHZBpMw https://youtu.be/1ZUWTkWV_MM https://youtu.be/_cM1XqA9n2U Chapters: 00:00 Intro + merch 07:10 Billionaire Tax Act 15:00 Decagon ad 16:53 Residence issues, legal precedence 30:50 Superpower ad 32:50 Nobody wants to move, Buffett rule 45:00 Too much money, arguments, ball torture 53:20 Trump accounts, Trump's trades 1:02:30 Bubble pop, gambling, robots __ MUD/WTR: Start your new morning ritual & get up to 43% off your @MUDWTR with code BAES at https://mudwtr.com/BAES ! #mudwtrpod Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 Billionaire Tax Act. Why does it matter? It is presumed to raise $100 billion on California's 200 or so billionaires to raise money for health care, food assistance, and education. Like, get a job, right? Which in that instance, if you're trying to evade this tax, it seems like it will be more difficult to do than just, you know, buying a ranch in Texas and being like, boom, that's where I live now. I spend all my time there. Yeah. I hang out with Joe Rogan. I go to the mothership weekly. Yeah, without it, being national, that is the thing. The risk is there will be some kind of billionaire flight. Yeah. And if there is, whether or not it's still nuts out. Peter Thiel wants to go live in Argentina.
Starting point is 00:00:40 Go for it, my brother. Go for it. Take away his passport. They're basically saying, well, the billionaires have us by the balls. So we can't do anything. Oh. We'd love to do it. Sure.
Starting point is 00:00:49 So you're just saying we can't do anything that would upset them because then they'll leave us. It's like, all right, you're just describing an abusive relationship. And we need to go, we need to fix that immediately. You don't want to pay the taxes? Just fine. Well, we'll get to whack your balls once a year. Twice a year. Even if you pay the taxes, we're whacking your balls.
Starting point is 00:01:05 Yeah, we're whacking your balls. No matter what, those balls are getting whacked. What's going to? Ladies and gentlemen. I thought you were going to do the... The full song? No. What is it?
Starting point is 00:01:44 Four non-blones? Three non-blones. How many non-blon's it? Non-blond? That's on... What's going on? Oh, yeah. No, I was doing our theme song.
Starting point is 00:01:54 I realized... That's why I said, I thought you were going through... Yeah, no, I'm not doing four non-blones. I did not know that that's the name of the song. That's... How many non-blondes is it? Four non-blonds. Yeah, four non-blonds.
Starting point is 00:02:06 Holy God. Well, anyway, if you want to know what's going on, you came to the right place. My name is Ben. That's Amil. And this week, we are talking about... All about four non-blonds. Four non-blonds. No, we're talking about the 2026 billionaire tax act.
Starting point is 00:02:21 And I am going to be... I think I'm going to probably be making the case against it. What'd you call it? the 2026 billionaire tax act. Oh, interesting. Isn't that what it's called? I've just been calling it prop 40. I didn't know it had it.
Starting point is 00:02:34 Yeah, well, Prop 40, I believe the official name is the billionaire tax act. And it's surprisingly, well, I guess not surprisingly. It is a highly contentious, highly hotly debated topic. And we're going to be just absolutely digging into that. Billionary taxes in general have been, it's obviously been bandied about in many political. circles, not just California. Political polygons. The political polygons.
Starting point is 00:03:03 Yeah. The political polycules. Yeah. And if we have time, which we probably will, we're going to talk about some other stuff in the markets. You got the Trump accounts, Trump hating short guys. What's that all about, huh? What's his problem?
Starting point is 00:03:18 A bunch of people became millionaires, except for you, of course. Sorry to hear that. But we'll talk about that. But you also, you might be one of the lucky Americans who lost a ton of money on betting. But you also might have become a billionaire. We don't know if one of the billionaires is listening. Millionaire, excuse me.
Starting point is 00:03:32 That's true. That's true. And if you're listening, we tip our hat to you. Yeah, we tip our hat to you. Way to become a millionaire. And, yeah, maybe some gaming stuff and some robot stuff. And it's just a fan. And if you are one of the people from Microsoft who got laid off, we also tip our hat to you. Yeah, we salute you.
Starting point is 00:03:49 We're sorry. I'll see you in Valhalla. The watch is ours. Yeah. We have the watch now. Stay tuned for the comment of the week. We're going to be doing that. Also, hey, Ben and Emile Show.com, last week we did a, we're doing new stuff on the website for the, for the subscribers.
Starting point is 00:04:08 Some of the stuff, we can't even talk about. You'll have to go check it out. Really? Oh, yeah, sure. Anyway, I took an edible and we watched Independence Day, and it was very, very fun. So it's all behind, it's all on Ben and Amel Show.com. Oh, and before we forget, guys, we got the Titans of Industry. You know the art that we always have.
Starting point is 00:04:29 Huge announcement here. We got Jeff Bezos, of course, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk. And we finally got around to making them into merch for you guys. We got the one with all four. And what better episode to do it than today where we're talking about the billionaires tax? We got the all four and then each is individual ones. You can go Big Billy style. Big Billy?
Starting point is 00:04:53 Oh, Bill Gates. You can go Elon style. You can go Nazi salutes. Yeah. You can go Bezos. You can go a longtime guest of the show, friend of the show, Jeffrey B. Jeff Bezos. He's been on the show many times. Yeah. Or Mark Zuckercorn.
Starting point is 00:05:08 And then our personal favorite, last bit, at least. The Zuck. The red one is. Anyway, so you can go individual. You can pick your guy. Or you can go for the, you can go for the, you can go for the, you can go for the all four. Check them out. They're going to be live on. andamielshow.com.
Starting point is 00:05:28 Hey, and while you're here, some butt nugget in the comments last week. There's butt nuggets in the comments again. I thought we chased all the butt nuggets in the comments. We thought we had gotten rid of them all, but there are still butt nuggets. I'm going to have to call my butt nuggets guy. Who accused us of promoting a credit card points scam,
Starting point is 00:05:47 which is not the case. What is the scam? I don't know. When we said go to the credit card list.com, which is our website, and get the Chase Sapphire card, because the sign-up bonus is temporarily 100,000 points. Some yucco was like, that's a scam or something.
Starting point is 00:06:05 And I just wrote, what do you mean? And I didn't bother to see if they replied. If you don't want the 100K, I don't give a fuck. Well, and then other people were some other guy was like, yeah, but you can't even get anything. When I go on the chase portal and search, you don't search on the chase portal. You're using the chase portal? You transferred my brother. They're truly our butt nuggets in the comments.
Starting point is 00:06:23 Yeah, but they didn't know that. To be fair, they didn't know that. We should do a tutorial on how to find... Man, I am just... I mean... What? The way I've... Finagled?
Starting point is 00:06:35 Like, just... It takes a little finagling. It does. But then all of a sudden, you're like flying L.A. to Dublin for like 30,000 points. And you're like, okay. Wow. I'm the king of the world. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:47 And then lastly, we're going to do the comment of the week toward the end. So stay tuned for that. And also check out last week's episode. It was a banger. What did we talk about? last week? We were celebrating that all the but nuggets were gone from the comments, but now it was a bit premature. We were talking all about Mr. Wonderful and his freaking wife. Kevin O'Leary and his murderous wife. Okay, let's get right into it. The Billionaire Tax Act. What is it? Why
Starting point is 00:07:15 does it matter? Well, for some, if you're a Californian, it matters. And if you're not, we're going to vote on it. Yeah, we're going to vote on it in November. You're not. Actually, you can probably vote on it. because the entire system is fraudulent. And just come on in and vote. Oh, yeah. If you're from surrounding states, Arizona, Utah, you're a Republican or whatever. Just drive right in. They let anyone vote, even dead people.
Starting point is 00:07:37 So bring your dead relatives. I'm probably going to vote six times. I haven't decided yet. I usually do about 12. I'm going to do three votes for and three votes again, so it just negates. I like that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:07:47 Isn't that fun? And you say, yeah, I did voter fraud, but it didn't matter. Yeah. I just do it for fun. But it might have reverberating effects. it might set some precedents and as you will learn, it does kind of affect what could be a national referendum of sorts on this exact kind of thing. So what is this tax act? Well, it is, it imposes
Starting point is 00:08:11 a one-time 5% tax on the global net worth of billionaires. And this is where it gets crucial, who were residents of California as of January 1st, 2026. So if you were living here January 1st of this year, you are included in this. And then it gets extra confusing because they measure your wealth as of December 31st of this year. And you will see where that starts to get really, really hairy. It is presumed to raise $100 billion on California's 200 or so billionaires to raise money for health care, food assistance, and education. Which is like, get a job, right? get a job, dude.
Starting point is 00:08:56 The vast majority of it, I do think, is going to health care stuff. Yes. I think 90% of it will go to health care. The other 10% will go to education and food access stuff. And it is to be paid over five annual installments. It got 900 signatures to get on the ballot, and it is sponsored by SEIUHW, which is the Service Employees International Union
Starting point is 00:09:17 and the United Healthcare Workers West. In order to counter Medicaid cuts that have been occurring to make up for the shortfall of $20 billion a year, which is now threatening hospital and clinic closures statewide. And it's also endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Rokana, the DSA. It has wide support from voters. So seems pretty good, right? But also to say, you know, with the Bernie Rokana thing,
Starting point is 00:09:43 and Tom Steyer, notably, who is a billionaire who ran for governor but lost, he also supported it pretty much every mainstream Democrat. I don't know if you'd even call, I don't think you'd call Roecon a mainstream Democrat. You don't think so at this point? Yeah, I guess you're right. He's, yeah.
Starting point is 00:10:01 I think he pisses off a lot of the establishment. You know, he partners with other people like Thomas Massey who are definitely not establishment at all. Yeah. But pretty much every establishment Democrat is against it. Obviously the Republicans are against it too.
Starting point is 00:10:18 Steve Hilton who also ran for governor as a Republican. The hotel guy? Is Steve Hilton? I don't know how he made his money. Whatever. Gavin Newsom against it, but weirdly pro-national billionaire tax?
Starting point is 00:10:33 You could probably Google it. He released a weird YouTube video being like... Gavin Newsom? Yeah, this is not the time, but I am... That's your Gavin Newsome? I don't know. I'm not doing... I'm just...
Starting point is 00:10:45 I wasn't doing an impression of the guy. This is not the time. I fucking can't do it either You're going to get on me and then do that? Yeah, that sucked. I'm sorry. That was crazy. Let's just forget that that ever happened. Yeah, he's against it.
Starting point is 00:10:58 Gavin Newsom, Katie Porter, Javier Bacera, probably going to be governor. So every, you know, every like just run-of-the-mill Democrat in California is against it. There are reasons why. Should we go into the arguments for first?
Starting point is 00:11:19 for this thing. Well, I mean, how do you feel about it? You're going to be voting for this thing? Well, in my, in my, before we even get to... I spent several hours reading about this last night. I did as well. I found myself going, okay, it's one of these things where it's, it seems like a good idea and it is,
Starting point is 00:11:42 but when you get into the nitty-gritty of it, it might end up costing the state in the long run and the medium term a lot more than they otherwise would make. So I've got this whole, I've got to. But you don't have a decision on how you'd vote for it? I think I would probably vote against it. I'd vote against it. But I wouldn't be mad if it passed.
Starting point is 00:12:05 Sure. So here are the following reasons against it. So number one, the legal challenges are risk. Because as we said, it assesses you as a resident as a, of January 1st, but the wealth is as of January, as of December 31st. So you could, let's say you left mid-year and you moved to Nevada or you moved to any other state or internationally, whatever, you would technically still be taxed on the remaining half of the year. And that is... Well, but that's just how taxing works. You can only be domiciled in one location, right? So you have to
Starting point is 00:12:43 pay your taxes where you are. But it's saying this thing would, would, because I've done that before. When I moved to New York and then when I moved back to L.A., I paid half of the year in California, half of the year in New York. This would have you pay the entire year of California. They're going to tax you for the whole thing. Yes, which is, that's a legal challenge that these guys are absolutely, if you're a fucking billionaire, of course you're going to challenge this.
Starting point is 00:13:09 I think that's my biggest frustration with this thing is that there are some significant legal challenges here, which was surprising. In reading it, it seems like there was a bunch of, of professors who helped draft this thing, like tax professors and you're like... UC Davis, I don't want to say? There was UC Davis, UC Berkeley,
Starting point is 00:13:27 you know, some presumably very smart people. So some of these legal challenges were... Surprising. Yes. Well, in part also, it defies the normal rule of residency or where you're domiciled
Starting point is 00:13:43 because that considers when you're when it's factored into where you are considered a resident. They consider the time spent there, connections like family, property, professional, and social ties. And this bill, or this proposition, replaces all of that with a one-time date. Hey, did you live here?
Starting point is 00:14:03 So it's like, it's very vague. Yeah, maybe before we even go further on these, we should probably explain that it's very different than other things we've seen. Massachusetts is probably the most, like, high-profile case we've seen where they introduced a, they introduced the higher tax. It's not a wealth tax. It's an income tax. They bumped up.
Starting point is 00:14:21 Anyone making a million dollars in up is now going to have a higher effective tax rate. But that's all income. Very different than a wealth tax. Right. Income is what you are actually... And this is a one-time thing. If you're a resident of Massachusetts, that's just going to continue. Every year, you're going to pay a higher effective tax rate.
Starting point is 00:14:43 Do you know how much higher it is? I believe they bumped it up 5%. I think it was like... whatever it was. If it was four, it's now nine, I think. On every dollar after a million dollars. Oh, oh my God. Hey, everybody.
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Starting point is 00:16:54 And then, so in the actual proposition, it talks about the residents. It says, residents for purposes of the CBTA is based on long-standing residence rules under California's personal income tax, which I just talked about. Among other aspects of this approach, which is almost a century old, California residents are presumed to remain in California until they are able to demonstrate that their absence from California was not temporary. In other words, like when I moved to New York, California just assumes that I'm still a resident until I prove that I'm not, or until I proved that I wasn't. When California courts make that determination, they look to whether a person's
Starting point is 00:17:36 closest personal, business, family, and political ties are to California or instead to somewhere else. Thus, like some of these billionaires have been doing, simply buying real estate, opening office space out of state or announcing a planned move is not the same as successfully severing California tax residents. As courts recognize, it is very easy to claim to move, but very hard to actually do it. Many Californians have claimed to have moved for tax purposes, only to find that their move was not effective, at least not as early as they had hoped. So that is kind of, that's where it does get shaky, because like the rules. Which in that instance, if you're trying to evade this tax, it seems like it will be more difficult to do than just, you know, buying a ranch in Texas and being like, boom,
Starting point is 00:18:22 that's where I live now. I spend all my time there. Yeah. I hang out with Joe Rogan. You got to, you got to prove it. I go to the mothership weekly. Yeah, and it sucks for me because, like, I remember my dentist was still in California. My, obviously my mom, my brothers, or one brother, at least, my sister, I would go back frequently.
Starting point is 00:18:41 But it, because I'm such a small fry, it wasn't that hard. This domicile issue? Yeah, it's just like... I didn't even know what was a thing. If I was just like... If I moved, I just told my accountant, I moved, so we'll file taxes there. I've never had to be like, California, you gotta believe me. I almost had them come out.
Starting point is 00:19:02 I think it's... Because if you're paying taxes in that state for years and years and years and then suddenly it's zero, they're going to be like, oh, what the fuck happened? Oh, you moved? Prove it. Because otherwise, you owe us tax money, bitch. It can't be that difficult to prove if you actually did move. You show a couple power bills.
Starting point is 00:19:18 You show a couple. Exactly. So here's the other thing. Here's another point, rather. This is a, this thing is, its status is as a holy new tax. It is a completely new tax and not an adjustment. And there are two Supreme Court cases that have precedent that say you can't retroactively enact a new tax law. And there was Blodgett versus Holy.
Starting point is 00:19:44 Right. Like the Massachusetts tax. for example. That's a perfect example where they're just going, hey, this is our tax cut, we're just bumping it up a little bit. Yes. That's, that is just a new, that is a... But this is California being like, hey, we're creating a whole new thing. And you can't retroactively enact that, which is what they're hoping to do. Because remember, it's if you are a resident as of January 1st, but then this thing could pass in November. So they're trying to say, okay, if it passes in November, okay, automatically for the past 11 months. bigger challenge is that it's this retroactive taxing. That's one of them. But that's also, the point being is that you don't want to pass it in November of 26 and then have everyone go, well, fuck it, I'll just go camp out in Texas for the year
Starting point is 00:20:32 because it is, it's a one-time tax. Yes. This is not something they're trying to, it's not going to be, if this passes, that doesn't mean in 2027, you'll also owe the billion. But as you will see, it does get more complicated than that, unfortunately. In the eyes of the law, the law is so interesting. Isn't it? It really is.
Starting point is 00:20:55 Because, I mean, just those two things alone is like, okay, that can, if all these billionaires were to fight it, and they would on these, well, actually, except for one, and we'll see who. It would tie up. Are you talking about, Jensen one? It would tie up so much of the courts. It would cost the state a lot of money. I mean, not billions and billions of dollars, but still, it would be quite a big fight. So then here's another question. And they're trying to fight it in a different way.
Starting point is 00:21:25 It's like they've already started some kind of organization called like building a better California or whatever it is. Yes, and they've launched their own initiatives, which is Prop. and Prop 42, which effectively, if they get those passed and Prop 40 passed, it won't matter for Prop 40 because Prop 41 and 42
Starting point is 00:21:48 will basically invalidate Prop 40. Almost. If they get more votes overall, which is the fucked up part. Oh, more votes for 41 and 42. Yes. Yes. They're trying to basically invalidate it at the ballot ballot box. Which is so wild.
Starting point is 00:22:04 I did not even know. So let's say... Well, they've got an army of policy wonks. Yeah. But there are, you know, there's, there's a lot of them, there's a lot of like,
Starting point is 00:22:17 the California Teachers Association is on their side. There's some other ones that I should have written down. But just continuing off of this, here's a, here's a scenario for you that makes this also messy. What if you're someone who's worth $999 million, right? Half of the year. and then, you know, you're, while you're here, it's $999 million, and then you move,
Starting point is 00:22:45 and you actually do become domiciled somewhere else. Like you live in New York or another country, and then you move, or actually, rather, excuse me, you're worth $999 million, and then you move to California for the first time. So let's say I'm some New Yorker and I'm like, hot diggity, I want to move to Sunny Los Angeles. Angeles. And then upon moving here, you cross the billion dollar threshold. You've only been living in California for one month. What is California versus New York? Then it's like a... California doesn't have any right to your wealth. You've only been here for a month. Arguments like this are... They are more convoluted. And just like I find
Starting point is 00:23:30 unconvincing because it's like, okay, this is a very specific example of like, you know, California wants to do this very specific one-time thing. to fill a budgetary gap left from the Trump administration is basically asking for, hey, billionaires. Yeah. You live in our state. You make a tremendous amount of wealth. Yes.
Starting point is 00:23:48 We're asking you to cover the gap. Right. With this one-time tax. Right. And it probably won't harm you that much. As we'll see with like the way Jensen Wong talks, which I think is true. And even if like this is the case, like, okay, sorry, if you're worth $999 million and you have some weird accounting trick, okay, you owe 5%.
Starting point is 00:24:06 Like, you'll live. So, like, those, I'm like, all right, yeah, sure. There might be some small examples. Or someone who leaves and then crosses that. I think it only affects, what, 212 people or something like that? I think so. You know, how many people are we expected? Like, so who cares if they...
Starting point is 00:24:24 Well, beyond that, it's also difficult to accurately assess someone's true wealth if we're talking net worth because you could have a company that's completely illiquid that's on paper. worth, I don't know, yeah, a couple billion dollars and your stake in that is worth that much, but you don't, you truly don't, you're like Mr. Beast. And you're like, I don't have money to buy McDonald's. What does that person do? If they can't, like, let's say 90% of my wealth, I have, I don't know, fucking $50 million in my retirement account or however much elsewhere, a couple homes.
Starting point is 00:25:02 and then the bulk of it is in like a fucking holding company where I can't just, it's not publicly traded and I can't just liquidate shares to raise the cash to pay this tax. What does that person do? I agree with you that it's not cut and dry in that sense. I think that with these things, we're going to have to figure it out.
Starting point is 00:25:24 I would hope that they have a plan for those things. Oftentimes those are valued. You're talking about people who live off of, they do that, what is it, buy, borrow, die, or no, something borrowed. I can't believe Yeah, they borrow against their assets for a much lower rate.
Starting point is 00:25:40 You know, banks are going to be valuing their assets whenever they're lending in that way. I'm sure they have a lot of their assets insured in all kinds of ways. So these things are valued. Sure.
Starting point is 00:25:55 I don't know exactly how they're going to do it. It's not cut and dry. Yeah. If a wealth tax is something that people are serious, about, we're just going to have to figure it out. And I would assume they have some kind of plan for that. I don't know exactly what their plan is for that.
Starting point is 00:26:14 I understand it could be complicated, but there are definitely ways of valuing those things. So another, yet another argument against this is, yes, there's a couple, because one of the, the writers of this bill say, and as I said, it's very hard to leave California and prove that you're domiciled elsewhere. And what are the odds? Yeah, you're probably going to get a couple out of the 200 that, like, Sergey Branden and Larry Page, moved their mutual LLC to, like, Delaware or something like that.
Starting point is 00:26:45 There will be a couple like that, but there was a guy, there was some wealth manager who has a couple clients who are this exact demographic. They are a couple of those billionaires. He was saying that even the perception of the, of this thing as being viable is still pretty harmful because it causes those billionaires to want to bail, even though if it passes, it could be reformed.
Starting point is 00:27:14 Just that perception alone is enough for some of these guys to go, all right, you know what, fuck it, I'm out. Because even though this is a one-time thing, who knows what maybe there's another one-time thing just down the pike in five more years, who knows? Or a more permanent thing. So why would they, and I'm not, defending that, of course, I'm just saying from like, you know, the law is blind kind of thing.
Starting point is 00:27:37 If I'm a billionaire or if I'm like being paid to protect the assets of billionaires, that's probably what I'm going to advise them to do. The only thing I would say against that is that that argument falls apart when you look at the data of when taxes have been raised in other instances in this way. Sure. Like where? New Jersey was a big one. They did a very long study in... Hold on. Let me find it. Okay.
Starting point is 00:28:12 These guys, Christobal, Young, and Charles Werner. It's like the best paper on this. It was... Christobal. The National Tax Journal and American Sociological Review. They basically studied 13 years of IRS administrative data and found that this like transitory elite chasing better taxes and tax savings and stuff just isn't really a thing.
Starting point is 00:28:37 It happens. Some people leave the state. But what they've found is that most people are like, I'm from here, my roots are here, my life is here. Yeah. A lot of them make a lot of noise. Sure. You know, when it's happening, the argument you're talking about, I mean, you saw it in the the Zorn Mamdani election.
Starting point is 00:29:00 There's always all kinds of people going like, well, they're going to flee. They're going to flee. Peter Thiel. Everyone. But what you find is that doesn't necessarily happen. And so that is them studying over 13 years of data. The most recent one, which we've alluded to a bunch already,
Starting point is 00:29:16 is the Massachusetts thing that passed in 2022. So we have much less data there. But for the years up until now, here, let me find Massachusetts. It's on the East Coast. dose, dude. Because this would be kind of close to this. If they have billionaires, like, four, oh yeah, it's a 4% bump. But the difference is that's taxable income.
Starting point is 00:29:43 I understand. Which is tough. I know. But it's still better than nothing. I would support that. I already highlighted the distinction. This is an income tax, not a wealth tax. But they were able to generate way more income than they thought they would already.
Starting point is 00:29:58 then their projections. And they also showed that the number of Massachusetts residents with $50 million or more in wealth grew 35% from 2022 to 2024. Well, and the number of millionaires by net worth grew by 38%. Nice. It is different. It's an income tax, not a wealth tax. But from what I can tell, the data does not show that. I mean, think about, like, you know.
Starting point is 00:30:26 But you're using, to be fair, you're using. data for a completely different type of tax. I've admitted that myself. No, yeah, I know. We have not had a true wealth tax in this country. And I think that is probably... We might have one coming. That is probably the reason that Gavin Newsom is...
Starting point is 00:30:43 It's exactly right. ...is advocating for a national wealth tax rather than a state. Hey, guys, we've got to take a quick break to talk about superpower. Power? I use superpower. You've probably heard me complain about how for years I've been going to the... the doctor and feel like I have no idea what my actual health even looks like. Oh, yeah.
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Starting point is 00:32:50 Gavin Newsom opposes this on the state level, but he likes it on a national level, plus closing the loophole, the lending loophole that we were just talking about, wherein Elon Musk famously does this, I mean, all of them do it, where he's got hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Tesla stock. He doesn't want to sell it because that would trigger a tax, a taxable event. So he borrows against those shares for a really, really, really low next to nothing interest rate. J.P. Morgan says, goes, oh, sure, well, you put up those shares as collateral? we'll give you a couple billion dollars. Now he's liquid and it's not taxable. It's not income. It's a loan. Gavin Newsom would close that loophole. I don't know how that would look, but that would be fucking awesome.
Starting point is 00:33:38 Yeah, without it being national, that is the thing. The risk is whether or not there will be some kind of billionaire flight. Yeah. And if there is, whether or not it's still nets out. Okay, if 10 guys leave, it might still be more, they might still raise. or they might still raise the money they were looking for. Peter Seale wants to go live in Argentina. Go for it, my brother.
Starting point is 00:33:59 Go for it. Take away his passport. I mean, honestly, that's the other thing. Like, they're always talking about, like, New York and California. Yeah. A lot of you guys don't want to go live in Florida and Texas. I'm not trying to say anything negative about Florida and Texas. No, he said it's because they stink.
Starting point is 00:34:15 But, like, let's be honest. Bill Ackman, like, you like going down to Lincoln Center, going on the opera, and going to, like, how's the Sarasota? Sarasota Orchestra. I don't know. But like, I bet you're going to miss Sabaro. I bet you're going to miss all these. I mean, dude, you see it with Trump, right? Like, you can tell he's always so disappointed that he has to hang out with people he detests. Yeah. And he likes that when he's around Zoron Mamdani. He wants to be around like, he wants to rub elbows with New York liberals. He wants to be liked. He wants, that's why we're here. God. And so, the boy just wants to be
Starting point is 00:34:53 loved and approved. So I just... There before the grace of God, go I. I think there is a reason these people... Yeah. I don't want to discount that. I think these people don't want to leave. I mean, you know, they'll go on podcasts and tell you how great it is.
Starting point is 00:35:10 They feel free to say whatever words they want in Texas. But where do they all go when they go to Texas? Austin. Isn't that weird? Why? They go to the one, like, liberal. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, the one liberal bastion in a, yeah. They like it where they are.
Starting point is 00:35:29 I'm just saying. I know, you're exactly right. So the one that Gavin Newsom is proposing, again, going off of some of the, well, not the opposition for this, I guess. This would fall under one of the arguments for is that Gavin Newsom's idea, while fantastic, would be contingent upon all kinds of things having to line up. that would get that would get tied up in the courts for fucking ever the the congress it would just be a nightmare god willing it gets past and he would do apparently he he likes the buffet rule of taxing billionaires at the same rate as their employees um that's what so i mean the thing that i've i found through looking at it all is that you know that have you ever seen that i feel like we've talked about
Starting point is 00:36:19 That guy, Gary Stevenson, Gary Stevenson, he's the British guy. He runs that channel, Gary's economics. Oh, yeah, dude, I can't stand that guy anymore. Really? Because he's not that good of a traitor, as it turns out. And he's always like, he always looks like he's just, man, I've just seen it. Oh, it's like, shit. Dude, fucking relax, all right?
Starting point is 00:36:36 Anyway, going. I like the guy a lot. He seems, I mean, he seems like he must be a decent trader. He's extremely wealthy. Maybe he is. Maybe he's not. You know he's not a good trader? Because I've seen some anecdotal things online about people who knew him during his tenure at whatever banks.
Starting point is 00:36:56 And they're like, he was fine. It wasn't like a top tier. Which doesn't mean he didn't make millions of dollars. Go on. Okay, regardless. But this guy's whole beat for like literally the last few years since I've like encountered him has been this wealth tax thing. And I've found it persuasive. But obviously it presents a lot of challenges.
Starting point is 00:37:15 And so seeing this, you know, this push for the California. billionaire tax, I'm like just broadly supportive of it and figured I'd vote for it. Looking into it, there's some real flaws, as we've highlighted, I would probably still vote for it. But the thing
Starting point is 00:37:32 that is the most frustrating and like slightly disheartening, as you pointed out with the Gavin Newsom, like, national billionaire taxes, like, that's just like a tremendous upheaval. And I think everyone really wants like
Starting point is 00:37:49 this panacea of, you know, if we just do a billionaire wealth tax, like that'll fix everything. And to be clear, they're not saying that. They're saying we want to plug this gap in funding. For me, I do want to fix everything. Like, it's very clear that we have huge issues. We talk about it on the show all the time.
Starting point is 00:38:07 And a lot of it stems from this accumulated, concentrated wealth in the elites. And so this will do nothing to, address that. I want to be clear about that. Like this billionaire wealth tax, if all goes to plan, it'll probably help with some of the medical costs we need to cover. Well, that goes into, so one of the main points that the California Teachers Association says is that it wouldn't provide sustaining and long-lasting funding. It would just essentially be kicking the can down the road until such time we run into the same
Starting point is 00:38:45 exact problem in a few years. At which point, The concern is that some of these billionaires will have already successfully fled the coop, and then we'll be in a situation where we're pulling in all the less tax revenue from them. Yeah. That's where the calculus gets kind of like, oh, man, I wish they would have just done like Massachusetts instead. Sure. It would be easier to do retroactively because it's not an entirely new tax law, I think. and yeah, taxing,
Starting point is 00:39:20 well, that's where the income part becomes difficult because if you're talking about, I mean, like Sergey Brin and what's his name, the other guy, Larry Page, Google pays dividends, and they're making hundreds of millions of dollars on those dividends. Instead of taxing those at whatever rate California does, 10%,
Starting point is 00:39:39 tax that shit way higher. If your net worth is a certain level and you have income above a certain threshold tax that shit. That was kind of where I was going as I was going through this I was like oh we need like a massive
Starting point is 00:39:57 holistic approach to doing this. Clearly we need to change the tax code. We need to close all these loopholes make sure we're actively collecting on these things restore the higher rates so we're bringing in all the revenue we need to through tax
Starting point is 00:40:17 Also, like, funding the IRS so they can actually go after rich people and make sure the, like, you know, their little crime investigation unit isn't just doing, like, small, petty bullshit. They're actually going off, like, insane tax avoidance by the majorly wealthy. And then, yeah, I mean, just all kinds. I mean, we need to, like, actually enforce antitrust law so we don't have these huge conglomerates. we have no control over and we're at the mercy. It's so disheartening when people talk about this stuff, when they go, hey, we're trying. Whether or not you like this or not,
Starting point is 00:40:55 I do think people are good intentioned with the bill. Absolutely. It's so disheartening when people's big argument is like, they're basically saying, well, the billionaires have us by the balls, so we can't do anything. Oh. We'd love to do it. Sure.
Starting point is 00:41:10 But what it, and I'm like, well, that's a bad way to, that's a bad place to start. Yeah, you're going into like, oligarchy realm there. So you're just saying we can't do anything that would upset them because then they'll leave us. It's like, all right, you're just describing an abusive relationship. And we need to go, we need to fix that immediately. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:41:31 And so I'm like, there was that big New York Times article with the guy wrote the op-ed from, he's from the Stanford, the Hoover Institute, which is a very like free market, more conservative thing. He's arguing against it. And did he reference France? He referenced France, right? There were a couple of countries that tried this, and then they got rid of it. Which, again, even that is very annoying.
Starting point is 00:41:54 Like, when you dig into these numbers, the whole narrative around this is very, like, papered over. And it's very difficult, too, because no one's really neutral. You're either getting, like, people who are... Everyone's an ideologue when they're talking about this. But, like, France itself funded a study, and it showed that... That number they're getting, he cites a number, $200 billion that they lost out on from tax revenue in France. That comes from a paper by some guy who did the most, like, cockamamie data. Oh, it's by Pierre Baguette, I think.
Starting point is 00:42:29 It was Pierre Baguette. Pierre Baguette. Two hundred billion dollars. And the data is like all bunk. They looked into it. And then they did a much more intensive study and showed that the story is like very different. and that the reason when they had a tax deficit, the reason was because they repealed the tax.
Starting point is 00:42:50 That's what this more intensive study came from. So, but yeah, but the reason I brought that up was the thing that bums me out about this is like, okay, fine, if you don't think this is going to work, but what's noticeably absent in that article is any other offering. Yeah. Okay, fine. If this doesn't work, what's your plan? Well, there are some billion, I didn't see who,
Starting point is 00:43:17 but there are some billionaires who are funding lobbyists to find a happy medium where they can service California and not get fucked at the same time versus Sergey Brin and Peter Thiel and others who, they've now spent collectively over $120 million to oppose it. So there are, I wonder if Steyer is one of them, who's funding these lobbyists. I'm not sure.
Starting point is 00:43:40 I'm not sure what Steyer's up to now that he's, the Kingings wins. But yeah, I mean, it's obviously a very difficult thing. It's going to be extremely difficult to tackle. I'll probably vote for it. The thing is it's just so much bigger than this. These elite are like so international too. There was a movement. I think it was like the 2024 G20. They like authored some plan for an international wealth tax at 2%. Next, they're going to take over the moon, dude. They're just going to domicile on the moon. I live on the moon. Can't tax me.
Starting point is 00:44:12 I mean, honestly, they're all obsessed with a... Fucking go. We'll blow it up. Here it is. They, uh, the 2024 G20 blueprint, blueprint proposed a coordinated global minimum tax of 2% annually on wealth above $1 billion.
Starting point is 00:44:28 Explicitly modeled on the 2021 global minimum corporate tax deal that over 130 countries actually signed. So there is like movement on this. I just... And what is their argument? Is it, is it like, if I'm Sergey Brinand, I'm the second fucking wealthiest man in the world, and I'm worth $250 billion. If you win a $3,000 a month payday for life, what would you feel free to do?
Starting point is 00:44:58 Maybe take a long weekend, every weekend, or try a bunch of new hobbies. Would you feel free to upgrade and listen ad free? Don't worry, we get it. Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number 155-2194. Please play responsibly.
Starting point is 00:45:23 You can't spend enough just, you couldn't spend enough in a year just to get rid of the passive income that's coming in from your dividends and your interest. You couldn't. You couldn't spend it in a lifetime. Dude, if you were banging hookers every day and they all had very, very, very, very, very expensive taste. I like that that's the most expensive thing you come up with. If you're paying and hookers... I'm being back to those escorts,
Starting point is 00:45:49 man. I'm like, if you spent all day buying classic cars. Sure. And blowing them up with expensive Chinese fireworks. You would still... Well, do you have the Jensen Wong quote? Oh yeah. Jensen Wong said, so Jensen Wong would pay $8 billion. And he doesn't have a problem with it. And he said
Starting point is 00:46:04 he's perfectly fine with it and had quote, not thought about it once when asked if he was concerned about the tax. He added that he and others, quote, choose to live in Silicon Valley and whatever taxes they would like to apply, so be it. Because that's...
Starting point is 00:46:19 That's kind of the core of the issue. You know, a lot of these arguments against it are like, okay, sure, they could fucking leave and hold us hostage if they want. Or they could just pay the fucking tax and be like, oh, we have a massive hole because of the Trump administration's bullshit. Yeah. I'll write that.
Starting point is 00:46:41 We don't mind being... Yeah. Benefactors here. Instead of getting into the nitty-gritty of the law and like, well, this good side of process. Well, I'm going to, I get it. I'm going to Texas. I'm going to Texas where the gas is cheaper.
Starting point is 00:46:52 I'm going to move to Austin, Texas. Yeah. Awesome, Texas. It is awesome. We do love Texas. Hook them, whatever. Huck them, whatever the slug. Oh, no, it's a bull.
Starting point is 00:47:03 Doug, get away from the door. I know you're thinking about it. But, yeah, is Sergey Brin, is it, it can't. It can't be that he's arguing, oh, my God, they're going to take all my money. Oh, my God, I'm going to end up broke. Is it that... I think it's a power thing. I was going to say the other thing is that, yeah, I'm sure it's absolutely a power thing.
Starting point is 00:47:25 But is it that they don't trust that the government will utilize that tax money effectively? And it's essentially just going to be a waste. And it's more effective in their altruistic hands. Then prove it, bitch, if that's one of the arguments. I think they may suggest that that's part of it. and I'm not going to sit here and argue that the government has been some kind of effective...
Starting point is 00:47:46 Sure. But I do think it's more than anything, it's a power thing, and I think for them it's like a it's a... I think they're afraid if they give even an inch. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:03 That it shows that there's weakness and that somehow that their power can be reigned in. I mean, the, New York City thing is massive. It's like they live in a different world. It's, you see
Starting point is 00:48:16 you see them talk and they're like, yeah, we're already thinking about the next election to save New York City from Zoran Mamdani. And it's like, from what exactly? Everyone seems massively happy. He balanced
Starting point is 00:48:33 the budget. Every month so far that he's been in office has been recording lowest levels of crime since they started recording it. He's making the crops grow again. But he represents
Starting point is 00:48:47 an extreme threat to the power, right? If he can get that Pietitare tax through and it means what's his name?
Starting point is 00:49:03 Kevin, no. Who? Ken Griffin. If it means Ken Griffin, is now going to, oh, whatever he's going to owe on his like
Starting point is 00:49:13 $250 million penthouse well we can't stand for this and by the way they're dude they're who he also massively spent to also make it so Illinois couldn't tax him in similar ways. King Griffin just absolutely printing money
Starting point is 00:49:28 I was reading about this so a lot of these hedge funds and stuff they have what are called pods so it'll be just like a fully owned subsidiary little fund with like I don't know 10, 20, 20 guys. And one of them made, I don't know how many billion, five billion dollars in the last
Starting point is 00:49:48 six months. And they were showing what the bonuses for each of these guys in their ages. The one, the, like, head of the shop is 39. And his bonus is probably going to be $250 million. Good for him. Good for him. And like the lowest guy is like a 26 year old analyst. And he needs that. $8 million. He needs it. That guy does. I mean, yeah, sure. It could be a woman, too. He likes to spend his days buying classic cars and blowing them up with expensive Chinese fireworks. And having hookers light the fuse? Did you see that? It's very relevant to this.
Starting point is 00:50:20 The building? The what? The building in New York that's buckling. That's wild. That is wild. The... There was that data released about all of the different countries and their average wealth of the median wealth. No, I didn't see that.
Starting point is 00:50:40 It's been going viral because at first people were just posting the Americas America's average wealth is very high That doesn't really tell the whole picture and then they started I think we come in like I think we were number one for average and I think for Median we were number 28 Who's number one like Switzerland? The wealth is extreme Switzerland was definitely up there The wealth is extremely concentrated among a few people and the rest of the country lives off scraps.
Starting point is 00:51:10 Yeah, man. Yeah, man. So, yeah, I don't know. That's, my big takeaway is like, look, this is not going to, this is not going to solve anyone's, this is not going to solve the problem we are in with this massive wealth inequality thing. You know, it's going to take a huge, holistic approach to. I got an idea.
Starting point is 00:51:33 Let's kidnap Elon Musk and strap him to a chair. I'm in so far. Like in Casino Royale where they do it with James Bond and the rope with a nod at the end of it and just whack his balls. Let's just do that. We don't even have any... We don't even have any demands. Let's just do that to you know.
Starting point is 00:51:50 Oh, my God. What do you want? Just to do this. Yeah, man, we just want to do this. You don't want to pay the taxes? Fine. Well, we'll get to whack your balls once a year, twice a year. Even if you pay the taxes, we're whacking your balls.
Starting point is 00:52:01 Yeah, we're whacking your balls. No matter what, those balls are getting wet. Of all the torture methods, that's the guy. when the guy comes up with? Vigo or what's his name? Not Vigo Mortensen. It's Mads Mckelson. It's a fun movie.
Starting point is 00:52:17 Also, you know what? Watching torture in a movie sucks. That was kind of fun. You know, Daniel Craig is laughing. One of the best torture methods in a movie is, I believe it's lethal weapon two or one where Mel Gibson is chained. I think it's one. He's chained up.
Starting point is 00:52:37 And that Asian guy is, he's got him under a shower and he's like zapping him with these electrodes. And he just goes, oh, I'm going to kill you. Best towards you seen in the movie, Ace Ventura, the silver world on the plate. That was pretty good, too. All right. So, yeah, let us know what you think, folks. Let us know how you're voting if you're in California. It comes down to imperfect but immediate and needed versus smarter, more sound.
Starting point is 00:53:09 But a lot slower in potentially... But that's my other thing. Not happening at all. Yeah. Who's gonna... I know. I'm like, okay, let's at least fucking try it. It's always like that...
Starting point is 00:53:21 Every time there's anything remotely close to something like this, it's always like, we can't do it, we can't do it. Oh, and, you know, whatever. Okay, then show me the fucking plan to fix it. You know what we should do? Otherwise, I'm voting for the billionaire tax. Here's what we should do. If all the billionaires want to leave, let's just follow him.
Starting point is 00:53:39 It's all go. I'm not going to follow. I'm not going to Texas. I'm not going to Florida. I'll follow you anywhere. And it's nothing against those great... I love you. Nothing against those great states.
Starting point is 00:53:48 Yeah. All right, let's switch gears here. The Trump accounts just launched. So if you got a baby out there, hey, Brandon. Our friend Brandon has a baby. I wonder if he's getting one of these. We have... A baby?
Starting point is 00:54:00 Do we know any babies? We did ask on the Stocktwits show if anyone who has given birth has gotten one of these accounts. And people reached out and said, yes, I gave birth and got an email about my... Wow. Trump account. So it's pretty awesome, I think.
Starting point is 00:54:19 Yeah, but he's also voting against the billionaire tax. I mean, I just think that it's... I'm thinking about it in the long run. Oh, yeah, this is not like a Trump thing. Like many a politician has talked about opening infants... Yeah. infants index funds accounts and letting it grow basically throughout their life
Starting point is 00:54:44 yeah these these will be classified as I think just regular investment accounts or some kind of savings account but parents will be able to contribute I think there's probably an annual limit oh wait is that it right there the monthly oh the Monday event they they'll be able to they'll be able to it's a thousand dollar a one-time
Starting point is 00:55:06 thousand dollar pilot program from the u.s treasury department for babies born from 2025 through 2028 um and then the dell family is uh also seating with 250 dollars each for children ages 10 and under who were born uh before january 1st 2025 um and then potentially SpaceX are going to um chip in and micron said that they're going to chip in and morgan stanley chime financial chipotle they're going to give them burritos, I guess. They all said that they're going to match the government's $1,000. And you turned 18 in your burritos just disgusting. Just so actually, or maybe it's McDonald's style and it's just the preservatives have kept it.
Starting point is 00:55:46 But yeah, I, when upon turning 18, the owners of the accounts will then be able to take them over. And I think that's when they automatically switch to being traditional IRAs. And if things go well, every single person who's got. one of these accounts and contributes to it will have a couple hundred thousand dollars by the time they're 18. What I don't like is that it turns into an IRA. It would be greater if it
Starting point is 00:56:14 just turned into a regular investment account because otherwise it's like, okay, cool, I'm 18. You're telling me I got hundreds of thousands of dollars. I didn't realize it turned into an IRA. I assumed, yeah, you'd be able to be like cool, okay, I'll pay for college. Yeah. Maybe you're able to then, I think it defaults to that. But you'll just hit a huge tax penalty. I think
Starting point is 00:56:33 I think you'll be able to... Maybe we'll get the choice. I don't... Maybe. Yeah, they should because that would be so insanely fucked up. And then Trump had some great...
Starting point is 00:56:42 We all know about Trump's stock. Everyone would just take it out anyway. They would just pay the tax. Oh, yeah. Maybe this is his brilliant plan to create a massive amount of tax revenue. Could be. Can you imagine telling an 18-year-old's kid?
Starting point is 00:56:55 Okay, look, there's 300 grand sitting in this account, but you will be steeply taxed now if you take it out. Okay. Oh, yeah. Just give it to me. I don't care. Taxes, what? It's money I didn't have before.
Starting point is 00:57:06 I'm going to put it all in doge coin kids these days. Honestly? I'm going to put it all in vape. I'm going to buy vape. I'm putting in vape coin. They're going to buy vapes and fidget spinners. And maybe trampolines. Maybe by then trampolines will have a big resurgence.
Starting point is 00:57:20 I'm buying those new trampoline shoes. I don't know, whatever they're going to have. Click the other one. This is your back to the future. Yeah, whatever the hell they got, man. Trump made a lot of money. He made... And we're happy for him.
Starting point is 00:57:35 1.1 to $1.2 billion just from crypto. So just huge shout out to him for doing the right thing and making some money. And important to note, that's pretty much on the backs of... Clowns. I mean, sure, yeah. But I mean, yeah, if you bought into the trial, what do you want me to say? I think they were... How can I politely be like...
Starting point is 00:57:58 You got it, man. That was a solid choice. but yeah it was just a basic basically a massive rug pull of his own I believe the average I think I saw that the average person who participated in Trump coin got fleeced for an average of $6,000 yeah right anyway and then Trump was talking about the markets Trump paid short guys I liked I liked what he had to say here David, Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Black Rock, they're all here. And think of it, I'm making them all geniuses.
Starting point is 00:58:38 Every one of them is a geniuses. Anybody doing poorly, if you are, I guess you have a couple of guys that went short. Those poor bastards, I mean, they're in big trouble. They're being wiped out. They're short guys. I never like short guys because they're betting against the country. So that's okay. But early...
Starting point is 00:58:55 I mean, I was like, what can you say other than... Those four bastards. Yeah, truly. But I hate that perspective of like, if you're shorting, it automatically means you're against or rooting against. It's like, that's not what it is, man. Sure, in some cases, it very well could be. And then here's a fun stat. Stock market gains minted nearly one million new millionaires in 2025.
Starting point is 00:59:19 And the United States accounted for most of the increase, adding more than 440,000 millionaires last year. wish I was one huge shout out to those millionaires I wish but does it mean anything because we are now on track to lose $250 billion um
Starting point is 00:59:39 wait let's see let's see the breakdown of that of that so 44% North America Western Europe 25 and a half percent China's doing it Southeast Asia's doing it's doing it Latin America
Starting point is 00:59:52 wait go ahead finish what you were going to say we're on track to lose 250 oh we're on track to lose $250 billion this year on gambling, sports gambling and gambling generally. You got the millions. Why not let a little ride? Yeah. Apparently even just today. I'm sure it's all responsible people who have the money to do it. Oh, yeah. That's who's gambling. Yeah. There were people betting on whether or not Ronaldo was going to cry after he lost the World Cup. Did he or did he not? Well, they were showing like the chart. It's hard to tell, right, with all the sweat? Well, because at first when he came out onto the, under the field, I will not say pitch. When he came out onto the field,
Starting point is 01:00:26 he looked all stone-faced and the odds dropped but then it looked like he was getting emotional and they shot up but then there weren't any physical tears so then they dropped back down it's just what a disaster man and I've seen all the celebrities just absolutely selling their souls like I saw one for future
Starting point is 01:00:43 future was like if you're American what do you think is going to happen can you predict the future hey y'all's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair ever order furniture online and wonder what if what if it doesn't hold up That sofa was four days old.
Starting point is 01:00:57 You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what-if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. How much you think you got for this? $5 million. You think?
Starting point is 01:01:12 No way. I bet, yeah. What's he doing now? Timothy Shalame did one. Oh, I know. Like, the money must be crazy. It must be crazy, of course. Timothy Shalamey did like a series of three of them.
Starting point is 01:01:25 Yeah. You want to buy. bet on me winning an Oscar? I don't know why that's my impression he's one of those tubes Well, weirdly one of them was him at the dentist With the dentist's got That's not him at the dentist
Starting point is 01:01:41 That's just some guy. Oh And he's just going, Kalsi And the dentist is like, I don't understand what you're saying Kelsey. That's not Timothy Shalemi? I don't think so. Pretty sure that's not him.
Starting point is 01:01:52 Do dentist Kalshi. Just do Timothy Shalameh Kalshi. Timothy Shalomay. Shalame. Shalima. Shalima. Kalshi ad. Oh, that is him at the fucking...
Starting point is 01:02:08 Is that him? Yeah. I did not know that. Good call, dude. How could it... And his teeth are... He's admitting that his teeth are fucked up. He's got an infection in there to me.
Starting point is 01:02:18 You're doing really well. Wow. See, this is stupid because I didn't even know it was him. I thought it was just something bad. Are you feeling anything? Kahn. I don't. I don't understand, but this is going very well. This is such a terrible ad.
Starting point is 01:02:32 Is this on YouTube? Yeah. What's the first comments? I'm just curious if people are like... Kasi? Kashi? Being around Kevin O'Leary... Kashi.
Starting point is 01:02:42 Bro said he wanted to be the best and then does a gambling ad. I'm not even surprised anymore. Hollywood must have really did a number on him. He betrayed us. Super disappointing that Timotee would work with Kalshi. El Timmie. The fuck is a... Yeah, I mean, the money's got to be crazy.
Starting point is 01:02:58 Yeah, man. Gotta be crazy. Anyway. I'm sure they're getting their money's worth. Everyone's watching this. Oh, yeah. I mean, everyone's using it. The number you just said is staggering.
Starting point is 01:03:10 I mean, that spend is obviously working. Yeah, meta's getting into it because they're, I mean, we were going to do an episode a few weeks ago called We're Calling the Top. Because it seems like the, we'll talk about it probably on Stock Twits this week. But the fact that meta is now selling its computer. implies that maybe they overbuilt and they're now going
Starting point is 01:03:35 okay well turns out we don't need all this compute that we thought we did so we'll sell it out to other people we'll rent it out but then fucking we're doing gambling now bye yeah also we're doing gambling I guess which also from a purely just like
Starting point is 01:03:52 strategic point of view not a bad idea right you've already have the built in platform to just like blast every single one of your users with it. You have a, one of your platforms is Facebook with just like deranged boomers and you can just like,
Starting point is 01:04:06 squander every millennial's, uh, inheritance. Let me fucking gamble on my uncles on Facebook and what they're going to post. Is my uncle going to post an AI video today? It's, uh,
Starting point is 01:04:18 you've, yeah, and they're just watching polymarketing calls. You just absolutely rake it in. But, oh man, I've been seeing so many videos that are clear, not clearly AI,
Starting point is 01:04:27 but then I go into the comments, hoping to see people, People go AI, and surprisingly, it's just getting fewer and fewer. It's just they're getting so good. Oh, yeah. Someone posted a video recently and was like, was basically saying, look how good it is. And people were trying to dunk on it and be like soulless. You can tell, blah, blah, blah.
Starting point is 01:04:47 And I was watching and going, honestly, if this just came across my feed, I would just think it was real. I'm sorry. Like, I hate to say it. It just, they've gotten pretty good. They've gotten really good. I would have a hard time telling. But like I've said, and it's not just me saying this, the big thing to watch out for if the AI bubble is showing signs of deflating or popping entirely is if these companies stop spending or slow down on spending so much money on building out the infrastructure for AI.
Starting point is 01:05:15 And this could be the first kind of sign that that could be happening. If meta is going, hey, we're going to rent out some of our compute and essentially be like an AI cloud provider of sorts. but then the question becomes who are they renting it out to? Google has their own. Microsoft has their own. I saw someone joking that all this energy around all this energy around stopping all the data centers
Starting point is 01:05:46 is actually weirdly a gift to the... Oh. A gift to the AI companies because they like massively overspent. And now they can get a lot of these projects canceled. that is funny. That was very funny. Let's see. Why don't we go out on that?
Starting point is 01:06:05 Did you see the robot? And this is a big thing. Because everybody's saying, oh, physical AI is the next thing. Robots, robots. Okay. This is one of our first opportunities. You can buy this fucking robot. Why is it always folding laundry?
Starting point is 01:06:18 I don't know. What is wrong with tech guys? Why is that your biggest issue? Don't you just hate it? Hey, everybody. Don't you just hate it when you got to fold your sweaters? Don't you just hate it? Look how big that fucking thing is.
Starting point is 01:06:31 What an eyesore. Look how giant this. For the audio listener, this thing is huge. Okay, but I do want to say, he's kind of cute. Yeah, he's cute, but look how dummy is. Okay, go ahead. Hit play. Oh, great.
Starting point is 01:06:43 We're probably not going to be able to use this music, are we, Luke? He's also like... Should we mute it? He's also Wally-esque. Yeah. First of all, he's a bumbling moron. Don't worry. I organized your pillows for you.
Starting point is 01:06:57 Oh, great job. Some very strategic strategic cuts there too. Oh, yeah. I want to see full unedited video of this clanker folding.
Starting point is 01:07:11 And yeah, what if my laundry room is downstairs? You're fucked. Oh, yeah, great job. You fold it. Oh, it only took you an hour to fold the laundry. A lot of cuts here. A lot of cuts. Yeah, a lot of cuts. Terrible job folding. It didn't put it away. Put away the toys. Also, is he doing it?
Starting point is 01:07:27 it autonomously or is there some guy Polynesian guy? Yeah probably not. Yeah. So that's it. That's that stupid ass robot. Oh man. Weave robotics. I really don't. We were just talking about how
Starting point is 01:07:43 we cannot tell the difference between AI videos right now, right? And do you remember like the first we had this or we had a different show when AI video started coming out? Oh yeah. I remember. Crazy. And so it's just a short...
Starting point is 01:07:58 And we're like, look how wild this is. It's crazy looking. It's just a short stretch before... Now it's something we can't tell the difference. So who knows? I mean, maybe in two, three years... Moore's Law or something. Maybe two, three years that robot's going to be folding like it's nobody's biz.
Starting point is 01:08:12 Yeah, could be. Also, just, you know, we're giving you a kind of rapid fire thing here toward the end of the episode. The FDA greenlit Zen to be able to market themselves as a safer alternative to cigarettes and chewing tobacco, which is kind of awesome. It's awesome. Awesome for guys like me who have brain aneurysms. The FDA must have sufficient evidence that the new products offer greater benefits to population health than risks.
Starting point is 01:08:42 And apparently, in this case, the data show that these nicotine pouch products meet that bar by benefiting adults who use cigarettes and or smokeless tobacco products and completely switch to these products. anyway folks I still think ripping darts is the safest thing it's awesome I have so many friends now that legitimate probably I can count on one hand five friends who have quit vaping and started smoking
Starting point is 01:09:08 it is the strangest thing to me and they're like it's healthier for decades the thing was I mean you remember growing up all of the the whole plan was to go after kids and stop them from smoke. Every like anti-smoking thing
Starting point is 01:09:24 was aimed at kids. Yeah. It's not cool. Don't do it. Because just say no. You get hooked as a child. Because if you're an adult with a full, you're like, what am I going to do? I'm going to start smoking. That's insane. But somehow that's completely gone away. People who never even
Starting point is 01:09:40 fucked with nicotine all of a sudden are smoking saying it's crazy. I did it the way you're supposed to. I got hooked on it when I was like 15. Yeah. Quit in my 20s. And now all of a sudden everyone's And the jewel is gone. I still remember dare. Don't smoke, no joke.
Starting point is 01:09:58 Be smart. Don't start. You don't think they do dare to dare anymore? I don't know. Yeah, but it's the opposite. Now they dare you to try it. I dare you to smoke. There was also drugs too. End alcohol was all kinds of things.
Starting point is 01:10:12 Yeah. Anyway, folks, love you so much. Remember to go to the bonus. Let's all check out that final comment of the week, shall we? It's in the slack. This came from the Independence Day thing that we did. It's from Clance 2210. Sir, a second alien has hit the Spearmint Rhino.
Starting point is 01:10:32 You got to watch Independence Day our commentary on it. If you want to get that one, which it's going to hit really hard. Anyway, folks, we'll see you in the bubub, the bonus. Coming up on this week's episode of Ben and Emile Show.com. I don't understand.
Starting point is 01:10:52 Heaven? Like, pause it. These guys are suffering. They must have ulcers too. Oh, yeah. Like, that is, he's clearly not experiencing pleasure or joy. Yes, he is, dude. He, he tasted the oak and pental.
Starting point is 01:11:11 He likes it. I mean, I get it. Like, like, like, uh, Sejuan is a kind of spice high. It's like a pleasure. It's an enjoyable kind of tingling feeling on your tongue. But that's it. That's as far as it goes. I've also never, yeah, but I wouldn't consider that high.
Starting point is 01:11:28 I've only been like, oh, this is nice and I like the taste. It's a nice little kick. Once I crossed the threshold. This is sadistic. I'm just like, okay, I'm not enjoying anything anymore. I feel sick and bad. Maybe the guy, Smoking Ed seems to be enjoying it. He's just, he's like.
Starting point is 01:11:42 Smok and Ed seems to be perfectly fine. And he's just like. It's weird. What is a spice high? Spice. No, not spice like fucking K2 synthetic marijuana. You got Paul McCartney. What's on?
Starting point is 01:11:56 They have him do, I think it's I Want to Hold Your Hand. And I'm like, dude. That's because Travis Kelsey probably thinks that song is sick. Oh, I like that song. I'm Travis Kelsey, dude. They also had, I think Adam Sandler officiated. All right, all right, all right. Travis, yeah.
Starting point is 01:12:16 Who? You remember the time we went and ate pizza late at night, naked on your farm. I was not supposed to tell that story. Anyways, you are my queen, my princess, my baby's mama, maybe. Maybe. And everybody goes, who, and he goes, ha, ha, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself.
Starting point is 01:12:45 They say that the hardest part of a football player's life is when he has to hang up his cleats. But for me, it was looking at you in the crows. out and you was the only smiling face. I'm gonna see you haters. I don't know what I'm doing.

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