The Compound and Friends - Jill On Money

Episode Date: March 24, 2023

On episode 85 of The Compound and Friends, Michael Batnick and Downtown Josh Brown are joined by Jill Schlesinger to discuss the Fed decision aftermath, unlimited FDIC insurance for banks, the SEC's crypto crackdown, banning TikTok, and much more! Get 25% off Blinkist premium and enjoy 2 memberships for the price of 1! Start your 7-day free trial by clicking here: https://www.blinkist.com/thecompound Check out the latest in financial blogger fashion at The Compound shop: https://www.idontshop.com Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Josh Brown are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. Wealthcast Media, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Investments in securities involve the risk of loss. Any mention of a particular security and related performance data is not a recommendation to buy or sell that security. The information provided on this website (including any information that may be accessed through this website) is not directed at any investor or category of investors and is provided solely as general information. Obviously nothing on this channel should be considered as personalized financial advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any securities. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He's one of the first mainstream reporters to take me seriously. Who didn't? How dare they? No, I get it. This is the early days of blogging. It was weird to work on Wall Street and have a blog. But then the Wall Street Journal called me and they said, we have this financial advisor column and we want you to turn it into a blog. That's great. So I said, all right, that sounds really interesting to me because, you know, I was like independently

doing blogging, but like having a Wall Street Journal byline is like, oh my God. Pretty awesome. So I take the meeting and after the meeting, I said to the editor that I met with, is there any way you could introduce me to Jason Zweig? I read his book. Like, this is your brain on money or whatever. Like, I'm just like, I read everything he writes, the column. Just, is there any way?

He's like, yeah, he's right over there. He's like, no big deal at all. But Jason sat with me for 30 minutes. In the middle, spontaneously. And he was aware of what i was doing and uh that was like one of the first real i think reporters in finance to like actually listen to me talk and you know pay attention yeah he's a he's and he's a gentleman he really is like he's he uh in a field that's filled with lots and lots of people. Yeah. He couldn't have been more generous to me and just always very lovely and would talk about things and, all right, this is unsavory or this is a fund that's charging,

you know, more than they're representing or what, like whatever he's going after. He always gives the target of what he's writing ample opportunity to refute what he's trying to say. Oh yeah. And, uh, he's not like a gotcha. He's just like, look, this looks strange to some people. You tell us why is it not strange? Right. Right. And I guess doing that over 30, 40 years, you built up a lot of credibility. Yeah. I think that it's important. I mean, when I had met him, I think the first time I met him, I was still an advisor. And then I was just at CBS and he was very interested in like, what's it like to be someone who went from like the profession of financial

planning and investment management into like talking about it. And we had some interesting conversations about that. And I said, look, one of the hardest things for me was definitely that people at CBS, I came in in 2009. So the entire newsroom was like, you're from Wall Street. Those are evil, horrible people. And I'm like, yes, some of them are and some of them are not. So it was a battle sometimes. Guarantee we could find some evil media people, some evil. Right.

Very nice to meet you. Thank you for coming. Great to be here. Michael was wrapping up his fourth podcast of the day. Wow. This is his fifth. Okay. What were you doing just now? That was a White Shirts webinar. Oh, webinar. Oh, you told me to rush day. Wow. This is his fifth. Okay. What were you doing just now? That was a white shirts webinar.

Oh, webinar. Oh, you told me to rushi. Okay. Now I'm putting it all together. Now it makes sense. Also a hat. A hat and the shirt. I'm looking for...

What do you think of the studio? I just said I love it. I think it's beautiful. It's beautiful. I love the bookshelf. I'm into books. So I see a book that's missing that I'm going to get for you. Which one?

Is it yours? Well, no. Mine is going to be there eventually. We have you a book. But I don't see reminiscence of a stock operator in the bookcase. Edward or Edwin? Edwin Lefebvre. I have it in my briefcase.

You have it? I have a copy. Are you reading it? It's such a good book. It has a red cover. It would be perfect. I want to tell you, that's the second best book about Livermore.

It's no longer the first. What's the first? Jesse Livermore? Brian Burroughs' book. Is it called? Oh. It's a bio of Jesse Livermore. Jesse Livermore's remarks aren't driving it.

Isn't it called Jesse Livermore? I think it's called The Boy Plunger. Oh, The Boy Plunger, that's right. Man, is that a book. You know who wrote the foreword to that? Who? Eddie. You're kidding me.

Elf of Mine? I'm almost sure. Or he's mentioned it. I'm sorry. Paul Tudor Jones wrote the foreword and Eddie is mentioned in the foreword. So one of the things where I think it's a superior book,

reminiscences, a lot of it is being narrated during Livermore's like fishing in Florida phase. Right. This book really gets into the stuff about Long Island. And his family. Great Neck and the Gold Coast. Yeah.

And a lot of stuff that's absent from the- I'd like to read that. That's cool. Such a good book. It's fantastic. Oh, I went to, because I was just, so he killed himself. Which hotel? The Sherry? The Sherry, Netherlands. It's not there anymore a good book. It's fantastic. Oh, I went to, because I was just, so he killed himself. Which hotel?

The Sherry? The Sherry Netherland. It's not there anymore. Spoiler alert. What? Sorry. Wait, it is there. Is it not there?

Yeah, the Sherry Netherland is there. It's on Fifth Avenue in Central Park. In Central Park, the southeast corner of Central Park. Right, or 60th. Last night,

Chris and I went to the Plaza Hotel. We sat at the bar. We did our 60th. Last night, Chris and I went to the Plaza Hotel. We sat at the bar. We did not order beverages. We left because we had to catch a train. But I had never been there. The Plaza? Never been inside.

You've never been to the Plaza? I've never been inside. My parents were married at the Plaza. Oh, very nice. Really? Yeah. Look at you. That's my podcast face.

Oh, Nick, can you get me Jill's book? It's next to my desk. Yeah. Okay. It was, I guess, exactly? It's next to my desk. Yeah. Okay. It was, I guess, exactly what I expected it to look like. Yeah. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Absolutely. You know what I like up there? And there are apartments there. Yeah, above. People live there. I can't imagine. The King Cole bar I like. What hotel is that?

It's like one of those. Yeah. You're a New Yorker. Yes. The Carlisle Hotel has a cool piano bar, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You're a New Yorker. Yes. The Carlisle Hotel has a cool like piano bar, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny.

So you know who used to sing at the, this is so like old New York, at the Carlisle Bar. Woody Allen used to play there every Tuesday night. Like trumpet, right? Clarinet, I think. I don't think he's allowed there anymore. But anyway. What happened? I don't know. I have no idea. And you know, I think. I don't think he's allowed there anymore. But anyway. What happened? Uh, I don't know.

I have no idea. And, you know, like, it's such a throwback. Do you guys grow up in New York? Long Island. We're in Long Island. Merrick. Both of us. We're from the same town, but eight years apart.

We didn't know each other as kids. All right. I'm just going to be like. Who's older? Who's older? Michael is eight years older than me. You know, I didn't think so. Um, I lived with a guy from Merrick off campus.

I'm older than you are. But, um, one of my roommates, housemates at Brown was a guy named Rob Marcus. Okay. Who was a Merrick boy who made good. Okay. And he ended up- He got out? Did he go to Calhoun or Kennedy?

I don't know. This is like for extra, extra, extra credit. I don't know. I just remember he brought bagels from Bagel Power or wherever the hell it is. Yep, sure did. He went to law school. Okay. And he was working at, you know, one of those white shoe law firms hired by the client.

And the client was Time Warner Cable. And he became the CEO of Time Warner Cable for a teeny tiny period of time right before they got taken over. And there's like a headline in the business section, you know, like Time Warner Cable is on the first graph. It's like, Rob Marcus, CEO for eight months, you know, made $80 million over eight months

in which my mother calls me up and says, why didn't you date him? What was going on with you? I'm like, well, there was the girl part that I like girls

and then there's that Rob already had his girlfriend who's now his wife. You couldn't make it work anyway? I mean, for God's sakes. So you know who else we got from Merrick? Who?

We got Lindsay Lohan. All right, that's big. And her mother, famed driving instructor, Dina Lohan. Had a few poles? We have- Schefter. Oh, Schefter. And Steve Levy.

Steve Levy. Us. Ben and Jerry. Both of them. Both. I've had them on my pod. They were so funny. It was in North America. I've had them on my pod. They were so funny. It was in North America.

I didn't know that. Wait, the list is long. Look at you guys. South Shore guys pulling a duck. If we could do the whole South Shore, we could keep going. Debbie Gibson. Amy Fisher. Amy Fisher.

Oh, yeah. Amy Fisher. Maybe she wasn't a psycho. Maybe misunderstood. Misunderstood. I like that. Is that the whole list? That's a good list.

Wait. Oh, Doug Allen, creator of Entourage. Okay. Yeah. That's good. Kenny Dichter, founder of Wheels Up. Okay. And both of them are hanging up in my daughter's school, in the high school.

So you live there now. I am not on this wall. There's a Merrick Hall of Fame. Oh, brother. There's a lot of people who belong on there. People who have invented surgical procedures. Yeah. I'm fine with it.

Okay. But there's a lot of people who belong on there. Like people who have like invented surgical procedures. Yeah. I'm fine with it. Okay. But there's like a lot of space left. And I'm like literally living a mile away. You basically want the JV of that. Where was Jackson Pollock from? Well, he painted out on the East End. So in the Springs. I didn't know he was in New York.

He ended his career in the East End of Long Island in the Springs in East Hampton. So, but we have a lot. Well, South Shore, I mean, Howard, Seinfeld. We're only really rivaled by Massapequa. Seinfeld. Mazzapizza. Oh, Alec Baldwin is from Massapequa.

So you count all the Baldwins separately. That's a lot already. I thought it was Massapequa. Who's Baldwin? No, no, Massapequa, Rosie O'Donnell, the Baldwin brothers. Oh, the Baldwin brothers. Okay, yeah.

Seinfeld. It's a good one. I feel really left out. I'm from Westchester. Boring. Nobody famous comes from Westchester. By the way, the funniest thing that you should say, so my girlfriend is from the North Shore.

Okay. And, you know, like, I'm from Westchester, so I'm such a wimp. We're, like, driving out to Long Island. I'm like, oh, there's so much traffic out here. And she's, you know, honey, you know why there's so much traffic here? Because there are actually things to do on Long Island.

You know why there's no traffic in Westchester? Because there's nothing to do there. Truth. I grew up in Scar's Hill. What is there really to do, though, in Westchester? Golf. People play golf. There's Ride Play Land. Which I loved as a kid. There are a lot of golf courses there. And it was an

easy commute to Grand Central. That was what the claim to fame was. You know what I call Westchester? What's that? Diet Connecticut. Okay, wait a minute. I like that. Let me just think that through for a second. My mother grew up in Jackson Heights. Okay.

And then her parents moved to Scarsdale, which is in- By the way, drop that gorgeous town. It's all right. It's fine. I grew up there. Scarsdale? Yeah, that's where I grew up. So it's like we have many generations now.

So my mother used to say, when my mother grew up in Scarsdale, she was one of two Jews in her class. Yeah. She was like— Not anymore. She's like, this was a nice place before the Jews came. Right. Not anymore. Not anymore.

And so I grew up there. My sister raised her kids there. So my claim to fame is I am in the hall of fame in Scarsdale, but because of sports. Okay. Say more. Because I was on the team, the soccer team at Scarsdale, they went undefeated for four years. Wow. Yeah. And so I, that was like, my claim to fame was I was part of this very storied team and, um, and we killed it. And I played, I played, Oh, let's see if we killed it. What did you do? What was it? I played. Oh, let's see if we can guess. Are you guys soccer people or not? Striker?

Okay. Yeah. That's what I would guess. Center. And what happened was I used to play right wing. And then one summer I went away. I grew four inches, got boobs. And like, wow, I'm not as fast anymore.

And then they said, stand right up in front. But you could still score goals. Okay. So then I played. That's how I got to college. Not because I'm so smart. I'm smart enough. But I was recruited to play soccer.

Wow. I was part of the team at Kennedy that went 0-8 in football in back-to-back seasons. That I believe. That I believe. Back-to-back seasons. I was part of the team at Kennedy that smoked cigarettes behind the gym. And you did well. And we were defeated every day.

All right. We're going to. How are we doing? We looking good? Yeah. All right. You know, Jill's a very important person. And not a. We're lucky to have her here. All right. How are we doing? We looking good? Yeah. All right. You know Jill's a very important person. And not a...

We're lucky to have her here. We are, but let's not waste any more time. I mean, we've... All right, John, what show is this? What episode? 85. Oh, my God. That was kind of fast.

That's good. All right. Everything sounding good? Give me my music. Welcome to The Compound and Friends. All opinions expressed by me, Michael Batnick, and our castmates are solely our own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only

and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Today's show is brought to you by Blinkist. The Blinkist app enables you to understand the most important things from over 5,500 nonfiction books and podcasts in just 15 minutes.

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We are here with, is legend too much? Way too much. Personal finance legend? No, just say we're here with new friend. We're here with a new friend. We're so excited to have you. We're taping here on Thursday afternoon. A lot went on this week.

We had a Fed meeting. Today, we've got the CEO of TikTok on Capitol Hill. Hi, everyone. It's Sho here. I'm the CEO of TikTok. I'm here in Washington, D.C. today, and I have some news and updates to share with everyone here. Today, I'm super excited to announce that more than 150 million Americans are on TikTok. That's almost half of the US coming to TikTok to connect, to create, to share, to learn, or just to have some fun. This includes 5 million businesses

that use TikTok to reach their customers. And the majority of these are small and medium businesses. Now, these numbers are amazing. And I'm so thankful to all of you and the 7,000 TikTok employees in the U.S. who are helping us build this incredible community in America and around the world. Now, this comes at a pivotal moment for us. Some politicians have started talking about banning TikTok. Now, this could take TikTok away from all 150 million of you.

I'll be testifying before Congress later this week to share all that we're doing. Those numbers aren't rare. 150 million? No way. Do you believe that? Yeah, I believe it. One in two Americans? I don't believe they're active. I believe 150 accounts have been created. Is that fair? Yeah, maybe. I was happy. Nicole did like 10 of them herself. Obviously, because she's the right demo. That's right. I'm happy to say I've never actually been on TikTok. But 7,000 employees, is that what they said in the US? That's a demo. That's right. I'm happy to say I've never actually been on TikTok. But 7,000 employees, is that what they said in the US?

That's a lot. That doesn't seem like that many. I was like, okay, let's ban them. We're done. We're good. Only 7,000 people lost their jobs. 7,000 jobs. No problem. That's like yesterday at Meta.

But is that guy the CEO of the parent company? No. So this is the point. This was, he did not do well today. Actually, we're not going to get actually we're not gonna get we're not gonna do a whole thing

about this right this second but we are gonna hit this okay um it was shockingly bad and I now believe there's a very good chance that we will not have

TikTok in its current incarnation in this country for very much longer and you guys could save this audio to play back and embarrass me when I'm wrong about that but that's just how I feel. All right.

Let's give Jill an introduction. We wrote a very professional introduction for you. Jill is an Emmy and Gracie award-winning business analyst for CBS News and writes, hosts a nationally syndicated column and podcast called Jill on Money. Jill on money. Prior to CBS, Jill was editor-at-large for CBSMoneyWatch.com and spent 14 years as the co-owner and CIO of an RIA. If Josh is a reformed broker, Jill is a reformed trader. So you wrote that part. She got her start on Wall Street trading gold, silver, and copper options on the floor of the Comex. Jill Schlesinger, welcome to the show. We're so happy to have you. Oh, thank you.

I'm so psyched to be here. I like that. I like that. I don't actually consider this a guest appearance. I consider this an audition to be your third banana. Oh, my God. We would love that. I'm so excited.

We would love that. What are you doing tomorrow? I'm in. Okay. What's a Gracie Award? It is for women in media, and it is awarded for lots of different categories, and it's mostly fun because it's a great party in L.A. if you win. And all different things, I mean, but it's generally women who promote other women or excel in their area,

and I won it for my radio show, which is the precursor to my podcast. The radio show has been around since 2011. And then the podcast emerged 2014, 15. Okay. What made you, somebody who had spent 14 years at an RIA and trading professionally, what made you say, I actually think that my career is going to be in front of the camera or the microphone and in media? Were it so assertive and decide that? I mean, most of my career choices have been ambling and saying, well, that would be interesting. I'm a very curious person. So I started as a trader.

My dad was a specialist on the floor of the American Stock Exchange. My godfather was on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Sorry, where was, was the American Stock Exchange inside the- Trinity Place, 86 Trinity Place. It's like around the corner. Yeah. And so it was, you know, the Amex was kind of a weird place. It was like the poor stepchild to the big board because the Amex was like,

kind of like the rogue folks. Yeah, they called it the curb. The curb. These guys were trading out in the street. Outside. Exactly right. And so my dad went there because he was a tiny bit of a math head and the – Amex was the first place where stock option trading was conducted. So my father loved options.

He thought it was like the most fun thing because he could sell something naked and just wait and collect money until he went broke a couple of times doing that. So, so anyway, I, I clerked for him in the summers. I clerked for my godfather on the big board summers. And so when I was coming out of college and I thought, of course, I'm going to be a trader. I was an athlete in college, very much like a trading mentality, ring the bell in the morning, play the game, ring the bell, tally it up. It's aggressive. Yeah. It requires speed. And you see win and loss. Win and loss.

And it's very easy. And, you know, it was fun because my dad was, you know, sort of in his career, the height of his career was the 80s. It was just like a fun time to be on Wall Street. And so I was part of this tiny little group of people who went to the Comex floor,

hired by a now defunct firm called Spearleads and Kellogg, absorbed by Goldman Sachs. Lloyd Blankfein told me directly that it was the worst deal he'd ever done, which was acquire Spearleads and Kellogg. It's by far the worst deal I've ever done. On the record, he told me that. And so I did that. And it was like six young kids got pushed into the gold, silver, or copper options ring. We'll train you. There's a million bucks in your account. Don't blow it. There were eight women.

There were 800 men on the Comex. It was an insane environment. How many women were trading copper futures? Ridiculous. It was insane. And I wanted to trade on the Merc because oil was where, like, there was a ton of action. But I wasn't big enough. I really wasn't actually physically. And I'm pretty big. the Merck because oil was where like there was a ton of action, but I wasn't big enough. I really wasn't actually physically – and I'm pretty big.

You see me. Because you had to get into the middle of the pack to make things happen, right? Yeah. I mean if you were a local, which meant you were just sort of trading for yourself or for a company's money. You weren't executing brokerage. You really had to like be in it. So I traded gold options and it was fun. And I did it for a few years.

And I can tell you the very best thing to have happened was that I met this guy who was my futures trader. And I introduced him to my sister and they are still married. Oh, wow. 30-something years later. Okay. The second best thing is that I realized I didn't want to be a trader. Why not? Margin. There was a critical moment that was really interesting. And it's like a great story

about my dad. Uh, so I was, I had left Spirulis and Kellogg's. I took a bonus. I bought my own seat and I just traded for myself. And it was kind of like the most fun you could use like 23, 24 years old. You just do what you want. You're trading. You make sure you go home hedged. You're okay. Everything's cool. So I had one amazing month that was a dopey month. And my dad's looking at my sheets. We used to have physical sheets and he's, oh my God, you've had a fantastic month. And I go, yeah. And he's, what do you mean? I said, well, yeah, I mean, it was a good month, but you know, it's not every month. He says, well, yeah, I mean, it was a good month, but, you know, it's not every month. He says, listen, honey, you don't have months like this. You better, like, celebrate these months.

This is not an everyday occurrence. You're making significant money. This is the fun part of the job. You're going to have a lot of crappy months. And if this doesn't jazz you, you better think about whether or not this is right for you. That probably was so important to hear that because people don't understand like the mentality that's required to have longevity speculating. You have to be a very specific personality type. Why do you think the fun part wasn't fun for you? I think that I realized I wasn't actually motivated by money.

It was a fascinating moment. I mean, I grew up with money. I was lucky wasn't actually motivated by money. It was a fascinating moment. I mean, I grew up with money. I was lucky. And not tons of money. It's not like traders of today. So my father was a journeyman trader. He made a good living. We lived in a nice suburb.

We never wanted for anything. But we didn't have an over-the-top. You didn't have a butler. Sadly. Right. My mother is very upset. I always feel like I was missing that part of me. I know.

It's very sad. Like a tap-dancing butler that you could do routines with. Right. My mother is very upset. I always feel like I was missing that part of me. I know. It's very sad. Like a tap dancing butler. Yeah. That you could do routines with. Yeah, exactly right. But, you know, I think that for me, like the money as an end was just not that interesting. And my father and I had actually an interesting conversation about that. And he said, look, you know, I love my job because at the time, he was a trader.

He started his career. The hours were 10 to 2, then 10 to 3, then 10 to 4, then 9.30 to 4, and then 9.30 to 4.10 for the options close, okay? Those are his hours. He compared himself to lawyers and investment bankers who worked so much harder. And he would laugh. He'd be like, these idiots. Can I curse on your show or not? Oh, yeah.

Oh, okay. Because I'm a former trader. Drop it. So, you know, he'd be like, these idiots. Can I curse on your show or not? No, I want you. Oh, okay. Because I'm a former trader. Drop it. So, you know, he'd be like, these fucking assholes. Like, they can't go to their kids' ball games. Like, what a ridiculous life. Working 20 hours a day for what? And like, for what?

And so it was funny because he didn't, I think he loved the job because of the camaraderie on the floor and because of the flexibility. My grandfather, his father was a real corporate executive dude and he was one of those people tethered to a lifestyle. So my father kind of opened the door and let me sort of have this conversation where he's like, if you don't love the fact that you have flexibility and you don't like making money, there's nothing more to this job. It is job. That's the point of it. That's it. Okay. That's it. So I meandered around and I ended up kind of noodling around and finding my way to back.

I went to school in Providence, Rhode Island, and I was back up there. Whatever. It's just a whole long story. Can we have drinks next time? Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a man. There's a marriage. There's a divorce.

Then there's coming out. Okay. Let's flash forward. Okay. Okay. So then I'm in Rhode Island and I meet this dude, he's got a company and he's like five people and he's doing financial planning. I'm like, what's that? Yeah. He says, well, you know, I used to work for a company. We do financial

planning for like very fancy people. And I thought it would be cool to do it for regular people. Yeah. So he had this little RIA and I joined and you know, he was like— What is this, like mid-'90s? Yeah, mid-'90s. Okay. Like 94, 95. RIAs are rare. Yeah. Early. Nobody even knows what that means until it's explained to them.

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, early on, commission-based. This guy came from the insurance industry, then flipped the firm. And so I worked there for a year. And he's like, you know, you really kind of walk around like an owner. Why don't you be an owner and give me, you know, 30 grand and you can buy a third of the company. I'm like, all right. Oh, shit.

Look at that. All right, I'll do it. So then we were growing the company and he says to me, you know, we keep making, we got a call, we got to get business. And I said, you know, I have a client who's got a radio show. He's a general manager of a radio station and maybe we could get a radio show. He's a general manager of a radio station and maybe we could get a radio show. Yeah. And so this starts a whole odyssey, which is we started a radio show, call in radio. It helped us grow the business. We leveraged it. We got bigger and bigger and bigger. We ended up having a really nice sized RIA. So let me think when I left, like in 2008, there was like 650 million bucks that we managed.

In Little Rhode Island, that was a lot, right? And that was like coming through the crisis. So maybe we had 600 at the end of the crisis, at the end of 08. But I was toast. And we had really done a ton of media and people in the media where we would have our radio show. I was on the local, you know, lead into the Today Show. And the people would say to me, like, you know, you're good at this. And I'm like, I don't care as long as I get business. That's the only reason

I'm doing it. I really couldn't care less. And then we ended up selling the company. We were doing part of a roll up and I had to get out anyway. I was like done with Rhode Island. My girlfriend was in New York. I was commuting. It was too much. And I was trying to figure out what to do next. You were toast. You were like personally burned out from giving advice through the crisis. And it was just like you wanted to change. And 14 years of, I think that I was toast from feeling emotionally engaged with people and their financial lives. That's what it was. It wasn't the crisis because I can always get people through a crisis, but I always felt this enormous responsibility.

I felt anxiety when people didn't take my advice. I mean, it would be like you'd come into my office and I'd say, you know, you really need more life insurance. You have three kids and then you don't buy the life insurance. I don't think I need it. And then I'm sweating it out. I'm like, oh my God, I hope he's okay. Is he really riding a motorcycle and he doesn't have enough insurance? So you really like couldn't, uh, it was bad. You couldn't separate

yourself from the work. No, it was hard. And, and so, and I liked giving the advice and I liked helping and I liked growing a business was fun. I didn't love employees. I'm not a great – I mean I'm a good team player, but I didn't like being the boss. I had a business partner who loved being the boss. I could give shit about being the boss. Again, that's personality type. It's not me either. You're the boss though.

I know. We'll talk about it later. We'll have a moment. I'm trying my best. I'm struggling. It's very hard. It's a very hard job. You know what my father said?

I remember I called my father. I'm like, you know, it's so hard. He's like, big f***ing deal. That's why you get paid more money. That was his advice. That was the other side of Albin. You got to have your dad here next week. He's dead, so he can't come.

It's a long distance call. So you find yourself then as like a media personality who really understands trading, investing, managing money. There were very few of you, like circa 08, 09. Right. And so what happened was I was on CBS as a guest during the financial crisis. And then I could really explain what was happening because I understood what was happening, which is most journalists didn't really understand it. And then they couldn't communicate it.

If they did understand it, they couldn't communicate it in a way that broke through. I could. CBS calls me in the beginning of 2009. They're like, hey, we're launching this thing called Money Watch. I'm like, Market Watch? No, Money Watch. Okay, well, that's confusing. Still confusing.

And I said, I don't want a job. I'm exhausted. I'm going to take it. I'm taking three months off. I'm going to go get a house at the beach. I'll talk to you. Come in. And I signed a contract three weeks later. It's actually almost my anniversary. I signed it to go get a house at the beach. I'll talk to you. Come in. And I signed a

contract three weeks later. It's actually almost my anniversary. I signed it April of 2009. How about that? How about that? Look at that. And you've been doing it ever since. Yeah. It's awesome. So I catch you on TV and I think you do such a great job. And Michael and I were just watching you yesterday. And I just said, we're in trouble because she can really do this. Like she's professionally trained, knows the subject matter. So let's dive right in. This was a pretty momentous week.

Every Fed meeting is somewhat momentous. This was just the ninth since January of 2022. It was another hike. None of them are suspenseful. At least none of them prior to yesterday. This one was. This was. Okay.

None of them are suspenseful. At least none of them prior to yesterday. This one was. This was. Okay. What's your big takeaway from what Jerome Powell followed up the interest rate decision with? And did you think it's weird that they counter-programmed him with Janet Yellen saying the exact opposite? What is going on right now? Well, I understand from a few people that the White House and Yellen are furious with him, by the way.

With Powell? Yeah. Why? They think he's going too far? They think that he is a little bit of a loose cannon right now, that he was too late, obviously, which is in retrospect. He would say that. He would say that finally. that he kind of has lost a little bit of the narrative, which is they were mad in the beginning that he literally said inflation is temporary, right?

Or transient. Transitory. Transient, it's like a derelict. Exactly. It's a transient. Transitory. So I think they were upset about that because it set the stage for like,

oh, it's temporary, no big deal. And then everybody repeated that in the media. the stage for like, oh, it's temporary. No big deal. And then everybody repeated that in the media. It's transitory. It's transitory. So I think the big takeaway from this particular meeting is Jesuit Jay just like picked up a three-wood and hit it right down the middle of the driveway because he felt like it was the safest thing for him to do. If I pause, then everyone's going to freak out thinking the shit is hitting the fan in the banking sector. If I do 50 bips, then I am going to blow up something.

And he didn't quite take responsibility. Think of these terrible instincts. Right? Like everyone's expecting 25. Let me just do that. Yeah. Just strikes me as terrible instincts. Well, at this point in time, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place

that they put themselves in. Exactly. Exactly right. You know my favorite part? The best line of the whole presser was, I don't know. Well, why don't you say that? Nobody knows.

Nobody knows. What would have been the harm in him saying, given that we know monetary policy acts on a leg, given how much we've already done, and given the fact that there's been a little bit of stress in the banking system, we're going to pause and reassess. We're not done fighting inflation. We're just going to pause. I think that their belief at the Fed was that if we do that, the signal and the optics are the wrong optics. So they're playing a metagame?

I think so because I think that pausing would have been – so last week I was like pause, pause, pause. They're going to pause. They have to pause. That's what I was saying up until yesterday. I really, really thought like they're going to have to pause because they don't know. And we don't know just how much this banking situation is deflationary. We don't really know the other banks and whether they're going to curtail their lending or not. I mean, obviously the midsize guys are, but we don't really know, right? How about common sense dictates the point? How about the

fact that we're not going to raise rates while blanks are blowing up? Yeah. Oh, well, we blew them up. Right. Like we thought we were tapping on the brakes. Isn't it insulting to keep hearing somebody who's in a position of immense power, data dependent when what's really called for now is common sense and judgment? The data is too late. Exactly. You're going to wait for actual shock to show up and then like we have a current shock. For me, that's data. So I understand they're fixated on one or two

specific components in PCE. I understand that. It's okay. But can you also just use some judgment based on prior financial crises? The answer was never keep hiking. Ever. Ever. And you know what's fascinating about this Fed is that as much as, oh, we're independent or we're this or we're that, but they are so susceptible. Because I just went back for fun and looking at, like, if you look at all of where we, like, go back 10 years, okay, and look at rates. And you look at how low rates are. And I know Bernanke was like, I don't want to raise rates. I don't want to raise rates. That's fine.

But then we are finally in a cycle where we're raising rates. And, you know, Jay Powell was a wuss because he really did allow Donald Trump to jawbone him. In 2018? Yeah. He got jawboned, no doubt, because what on earth were we cutting rates for in 2018? The market, the stock market. I mean, that is insanity. And that did, so I do feel a tiny bit like, okay, can we just call him the arsonist fireman? But guess what?

The bond market calls his bluff because he says we're not doing cuts later in the year. Well, guess what? They raised the Fed funds from $475 to $500, and the two-year dropped below 4%. I know. We don't believe you. Yeah. And I always liked the bond market more than the equity market anyway. So there's a big disconnect.

The two-year leads the Fed funds and it's way lower. Is it extreme to say that if you were a voting member of the Fed in 2021, you should be removed right now? Is this the biggest miss ever? Why aren't we all screaming the housing market is up 40%

year over year. The stock market is making all-time highs. There are 1,000 IPOs on the New York Stock Exchange. And they were still buying mortgage bonds. And they were still buying mortgage bonds. If you're a voting member of the Fed during that and did nothing for a year, should you be voting in 2023 about anything?

It seems implausible that we would have that much power concentrated in a bunch of people who have not proven that they can make this. Exactly. Nobody dissented. Well, I think that's the other upsetting part to me. Nobody? In this particular meeting? Unanimous? Nobody.

Because why? Why was that unanimous? How could that be unanimous? Where was, what's her name, who always dissents? Lael? Yeah. No, does she? She's out now, you know.

She's out. All right. Listen, I'm not like a Fed bashing person. They have an important job to do. It's almost impossible. They're being asked to forecast the economy, geopolitics, climate. It's ridiculous. But like this strikes me as if you were this wrong in 21, why are you so sure in 23 on the other side of the ball? When did you think that they were going to start raising rates? They started raising rates on March 16th of 2022, just to put a fine point on that. It's been like 13 months. Okay. So when did you think like, like I, when Larry Summers was like, uh-oh, this inflation is for real. I was like,

hmm, but you know, he's Mr. I'm the beginning and the end of the story. So maybe I'll just wait. I was thinking at the end of the summer, I was talking to economists and they're like, hmm, this is real. They got to like start moving. So I thought they were going to move in the, like there was that first meeting after the summer. They missed like July, August, and they go September. And there was nothing. But Jill, to that point, CPI first hit 5% year over year in June of 2021. Right. So from June of 2021- Nine months. We were over 5% for the first time since whatever-

Nine months with stimulus. Right. And then they were still going and they were still buying, was it $80 billion a month of bonds? 120. It was 120. Oh, it was 80 of treasuries, 40 of mortgages, something like that. And they were still going. Right.

And so at what point was like, what was going on? How is the decision made? That's the question. But these are the same people calling the shots right now. This is what's, this is like not one reporter asked this question, given how big of a miss and for how long y'all just presided over, why do you still have the confidence to sit there and do what you're doing with no dissent whatsoever on this last decision? Right, because we're hired for seven-year terms.

That's why. The other thing is it's not as if we were raising rates from, you know, three to three and a quarter. They were at zero. I know. With stimulus. Zero with stimulus. They were at zero. I know.

With stimulus. Zero with stimulus. And so it's like, I don't understand why the management at these banks didn't see what was going on. And then you're sort of like, if he threw it, so yesterday he throws management at Silicon Valley Bank under the bus,

which they should be, right? But he's right there with them. Yeah. Because if you think you didn't see, I mean, and also like, I got questions about the San Francisco fed. What were they doing? Yes.

What was going on? It's clue. It's like, who, who done it? Like everybody did it. The fed is involved. The obviously risk management at these banks is involved.

Um, allocators piling into venture, uh, venture guys on Twitter are involved. It's, this is not everything. This is not one per person. This is not one person. This is not like Madoff where it's like one guy. There's a lot of different sides to what caused this. So we spoke

about them being late and missing on the CPI, but it wasn't just CPI. Look at the rampant speculation with SPACs and crypto and everything. It was so blatantly obvious. I mean, if you just look at the year 2019, things were bubbling up already. They really were. And I think that the pandemic, I get it. Like the pandemic was crazy. It was scary. Once in a century, we have no idea what's going to happen. And it did feel like the world was falling off a cliff.

And they did what was appropriate. Exactly. The question really became, at what point do we now like sit up and say, oh, wait, we got to change things around? And I think that, look, I think these guys suffer from recency bias just like every other human being. I mean, we are human beings. It's a beautiful thing. It's why I love covering finance because it is not math. It is emotion.

Half of it is emotion. Half of it is emotion. And I think the thing that's fascinating is, you know, all of them, they got a lot of flack because after the financial crisis, the theory was you jammed rates up. You hurt the poor and middle class people who lost their homes. You screwed them. And you need to make this right. And I think they were desperate not to make that mistake again. Oh, I agree. After the pandemic. There was actually an ESG component to this also.

I think there was a Jackson Hole speech or paper about how certain classes of people and certain minorities are more affected by hikes in rates. Yep. The theory being if you leave them lower for longer, you might have a slightly overheating economy, but you're giving people with the least amount of chance to get employment that chance to get it, or you leave it low enough, long enough, you'll see more raises for minimum wage. So

there's like a component of that to it also. And I'm sympathetic to that because every organization is being forced on a daily basis to examine not just is what they're doing effective, but what is it doing to other people outside of the organization? So like, they do have to have that like self-examination, like what are our policies doing? Not just for rich people who own stock, but for everyone. I think they care. Oh, for everyone. I think they care. Oh, I think they do. I mean, Janet Yellen, when she was the Fed chair, was very into that. Like she was the one who really said like, holy crap, this housing crisis dusted a generation.

And so we got to make this right. But that is a different responsibility because, of course, inflation is so regressive that like in your effort to bend over backwards you've just made it worse for the people you say you care about so it's really awful before we leave this topic last thing on this for Powell to succeed he needs about a million and a half people to lose their jobs the feds forecast for unemployment is four and a half percent we're at three six now or4, some ridiculously low level. So literally – I don't know about that.

You think that we have to have – I'll give you the number. Yes. You need a million and a half people to lose their jobs. In order for what to happen? To the unemployment rate to go up. In order for this services X housing component to cool off. This is salaries, expectations, wages.

This is the whole ballgame. Right. He can't say that. The Fed can't say. But they're still saying the labor market's too tight. They are saying that. But they can't. But they can't.

They can't. They can't say what you just said. They can't deliberately say 1.5 million people need to lose their jobs in order for prices to come back. Right. Can't say that. That guy over there. By de facto, that's what it means. Yeah.

I mean, I think it's. But here's my question for you. He's Trump's appointee. He's not Biden's. Biden inherited him, kept him. That happens all the time with the Fed. It's one of the interesting things about the Fed. Can Biden endure that?

He did. He supported him this week, earlier this week. He said that he— Yeah, but we haven't had any layoffs yet. Right. So my point is, for Powell to get his way on inflation, you really want 2% inflation. You probably can't do that with 3.4% unemployment.

Why are we obsessed with 2%? I don't know. Why can't we move the goalposts forward? Oh, it was explained to us. Nick Cola said, because one sounds way too low and three sounds too high. I like that. That's perfect.

That's as good an explanation as anything. I think- Anyway, will Biden put up with those numbers when they start coming out? And I think they will. How long will Biden tolerate Powell with now jobless claims rising, unemployment ticking up? It's going to make him look bad, even though that's the Fed's stated intention right now. intention right now. So I think that President Biden is one of those rare characters in politics who actually does care about precedent. And I think it would be very weird for him to blow out Powell. I really do. And I just I don't see that. I think it's cool that he has Lael comes over and

says, you know, you'd be ahead of the economic advisors. And he has somebody on his team who understands exactly what's going on there. But I think that would be quite out of character for someone like him. He is an institutionalist. He's a traditionalist. Yeah, and he believes in the institutions. Have you guys talked to Gina Smilick from The Times?

No. She just wrote this tome, and I'm reading it. She's coming on my pod next week. And if you need to reschedule, I need another week with that book. Plug the pod. What's the name of the pod? My pod is called Jill on Money. Jill on Money.

Do it again. And so she really thinks that the Fed's power has consolidated and increased. Yeah. I think so too. Right? And as much as Jamie Dimon likes to think he's JP Morgan, he's not. And it is – all of this is conducted by the Fed and Janet Yellen right now. Well, all of the government spending would not have been possible if not for the Fed keeping rates as low as it has all these years.

We don't even compromise anymore. Now it's one party passes a bill. The other party passes a bill. All right, we'll live with both, spending on both sides. And you can do that when rates are 1%. John, can we roll this clip of Yellen speaking of... Brown graduate.

Yeah, let's get into some John. So what is your plan to keep large depositors from moving their funds out of community banks into the big banks? We have seen the mergers of banks over the past decade. I'm concerned you're about to accelerate that by encouraging anyone who has a large deposit

in a community bank to say, we're not going to make you whole, but if you go to one of our preferred banks, we will make you whole at that point. Look, I mean, we're, that's certainly not something that we're encouraging. That is happening right now. That is happening because depositors are concerned about the bank failures that have happened and whether or not other banks could also fail. No, it's happening because you're fully insured no matter what the amount is if you're in that have happened and whether or not other banks could also fail. No, it's happening because you're fully insured no matter what the amount is. If you're in a big bank, you're not fully insured if you're in a community bank.

Well, you're not fully insured. Oof. Why does she act like no one was going to ask her that question? I don't know. She had two weeks to come up with an answer better than that. So I know this is not about regional bank stock price, but the regional bank index is at a new 52-week low, and what are we doing here?

I don't know. All right, I have maybe a different opinion about this. I think we have way too many banks. I'm fine for consolidation. I'm fine with, like, I don't know, 2,000 fewer banks. I really am. How many? We have five? Seven, I think. 7,000? It's ridiculous. I really am. How many? We have five? Seven, I think.

7,000? It's ridiculous. I mean— But they're part of the community. They give out balloons at the Memorial Day parade. You know what they do? Toasters. They talk to their legislators.

Yeah. That's what they do a lot of. What? The owners of local banks. Yeah. Okay. Don't they make loans, though, that big banks would have no interest in because— Maybe, maybe. Yeah, they do. Who fills that hole? Loan sharks? No, but I think that like, yes, if you have less than $50 billion in deposits and you want to run your local bank and everybody

has FDIC insurance, that's cool. These regional banks are not doing that. Okay. And I understand they're giving like, I had a great story. There was a woman who's a lawyer, real estate lawyer in New York. She goes, you know why I moved my accounts to Signature Bank? Because they were really smart. They said, hey, we want your escrow accounts. And you know what we do? We're going to give you free CLE credits. You can do your continuing ed for the bar in New York and we'll give you all this platform and we'll do it. So it was great. We got something, you park your money here. You can do your CLE credits anywhere. But if we're not going to supervise these banks, then I'm fine with them going away. You think they're totally unsupervised?

No, I don't think that they are supervised correctly. This is a treasury bond on the balance sheet driven crisis, which is nuts to me. Okay. But you are in a business where you are a registered investment advisor, right? Your client says to you, I want to buy a house within the year. But I don't want to keep my money in a money market because that's getting shitty interest. So can I just buy a 20-year bond and get more interest? We would obviously not allow that.

Exactly. So why are we allowing this at banks that have actual liquidity? They obviously did not have strict risk management around their balance sheet. Undeniable. Right? Okay. But then where is the San Francisco Fed saying, oh, wait, last summer, we think that you have terrible risk controls. You can't do any acquisitions. But they don't say anything about liquidity?

We already knew about the bond market. Well, that's the thing. If the San Francisco Fed, how come they couldn't say six months ago, you guys are sitting on how many billions of dollars? Exactly right. Are you doing anything about this? Well, I mean, that to me is a huge issue because, I mean, I believe that, of course, the Federal Reserve has a lot of oversight of the big banks. But part of the beauty of Dodd-Frank was that as much as a bellyaching and bitching that these big banks did, they all have made money hand over fist. Yeah, they beefed up their compliance. Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard.

They all made money, right? And the midsize banks – and I don't know if you guys listened. There was a good interview this week with Barney Frank on the Daily, on the New York Times Daily. I read the transcript of one of his recent interviews. Oh my god, I mean I have to say, first of all he's always entertaining. So much fun. So much fun. But you know he's like, oh the bank wasn't going to fail, they

were premature. Bullshit. That bank was dead. Well he's blaming crypto for the death of his bank. Whatever, then I blame the board. Then don't tell them to make those loans. That's right. So, I mean I think the is, though, if we're going to ask for regulation, it has to be smart regulation, and we have to endow the regulators with the ability to make these changes. Now, if we find out that Mary Daly and the San Francisco Fed said, oh, no, no, no, in December we told these guys you got to do this, this, this, and this, but I don't think so. What if we found out that they were personally banking at SVB? In the financial crisis, though, we did learn that at least the New York Fed, they almost

didn't see it as their job to be a regulator so much as like just part of this banking system. And my partner, Barry Ritholtz, wrote like probably three chapters in his book about this. Like they didn't see themselves as oversight in the way that we're thinking about oversight. But they do now. Post-financial crisis, they absolutely do. To your point, J.P. Morgan made roughly $10 billion in quarterly income, you know, before – two years ago.

In 08, it was doing, I don't know, a quarter of that? I mean – so I'm not against big either. Like I am not one of these people who like it is bad. And full disclosure, my girlfriend works at Morgan Stanley. So, I mean, I am very happy with big banks and especially the wonderful health insurance they provide me. But I think that we get so misty-eyed sometimes about like, oh, these regional banks are doing so much. Are they? I get the small

community banks. No, they're barbershops. I mean. But that's not what we're talking about. This is not a small community bank. Exactly right. Issue. First Republic is f***ing huge. It's a big, huge. They're all over the city. Our past two yesterday. So is there going to be regulation change from all of this? There has to be, no? I think there has to be. I think that there's a whole question about not just dollar amount limits, right? So we had a dollar amount limit. Okay, not 50 billion now up to 250 billion. And from 250 to 700 billion, you're not going to have the regular stress test. Okay. All that being said, why are we not regulating based on balance sheet? Why is that? I can't imagine. Well, so why are we not regulating and saying like, well, you have liquidity requirements. What is easily convertible to cash?

What's going on in your – wait, what amount of – how much of your uninsured deposit base? I mean – Because now we regulate based on asset size. Absolutely. It's a straight-up regulation. We have tier one, tier two assets. There is some delineation between what – the problem is treasuries are considered to be the high – because nobody anticipates 450 basis points worth of rate hikes in one year. Well, but also the margin for error of these banks is tiny.

The sliver of equity sitting on top of all of this balance sheet is nothing, and it could get wiped out really quickly. Explain that. So $500 billion in assets, $495 billion in liabilities. Yeah, so the – It's not a lot of coverage. The deposits at the bank, those are not assets. They're liabilities. Right. I the- It's not a lot of coverage. The deposits at the bank, those are not assets. They're liabilities.

I don't think anybody- Say that one more time just to like put that fine point. The money that you put at a bank is a liability of the bank. It's not their asset. It's a liability. They owe it back to you.

They owe it back to you. So it shows up on the right side of their balance sheet, right? So now they know how much, like 90%, were uninsured deposits, okay? Why is that a riskier type of debt to have on your balance sheet? Because the uninsured depository base knows we're not covered by FDIC insurance. So if the shit hits the fan at the bank, we better hightail

it out, right? That's why that's a very scary type of liability to have. So risk in terms of it could move like that. Exactly right. Yeah. They just never saw it coming. So, do we expect companies to have 4,700 different banks that they bank with? Of course not. No.

Maybe these companies should have better cash management. Yeah, but I feel like that's a lot for a company. Like, okay, let's just like pretend it's, you know, it's a production company. Okay. Like we got beautiful production company and great producers here in the studio. And maybe they have 25 people and they got a couple million dollars in their bank at First Republic Bank. Do we expect this production company to start looking at the balance sheet of First Republic? If it's John and Duncan, yes.

Yes, of course. But of course not. So what do we do? at the balance sheet of First Republic? If it's John and Duncan, yes. Yes, of course. But of course not. So what do we do? So I think that maybe what we have to do

is have a real fine regulatory bias and say, hey, for a small business that has this much money, I do think that we may have to raise the FDIC limit for a small business, not for a freaking venture capital fund. I know. What about for a fee? What about you can have more not for a freaking venture capital fund. I know. What about for a fee?

What about you can have more insurance for a fee? Every million dollars costs. Here's what can't be insured. Oh, you mean to the customer? To the depositor. I kind of want the bank. You can't do that at 0% rates. Yeah. You might be able to do that now. I would say, but you know what I would do? I'd rather do it to the banks themselves. So I do like

the idea of the banks. Have the banks pay for it. Either you pay for it, or they'll pass it on to, you know, probably in taking something away from us. It'll come out of the dividend, so what? Nobody will notice. Right. Gotta do it. But I do think that, what is this $250,000 also? Like, where did that

number come from? Which it linked to. You can't expect a depositor to be a forensic accountant. But hold on. You can't expect that.itor to be a forensic accountant. Hold on. But hold on. You can't expect that. Here's two issues here. The publicly traded companies like Roku, which I still don't know what it does, but fine. They kept $480 million in a checking account. What is that?

Are you smoking crack? I don't know. I think that's silly. There aren't even households that would keep that much money sitting in a checking account. No, but that's odd. But that's obviously very bizarre. But what about for the company that has $11 million? Okay, but wait, wait.

It's odd, but they are one of the parties with a gigantic uninsured deposit that's getting made whole. I understand. What about for the company that has an $11 million payroll? Like, what are they supposed to do? I mean, I think that it's the companies like that. And, you know, look at a nonprofit. Signature did a ton of business with New York nonprofits in the theater community. And, you know, if you look at two and a half weeks of payroll for a $15 million organization, it's going to be a million bucks. Okay. So do I expect the people

at the theater development fund to be like looking through what's the balance sheet of signature? So here's the second part. And this shoe hasn't dropped yet. This is where I think the puck is going. If you were amongst this Silicon Valley elite crowd that was doing your business banking at Silicon Valley bank, which for 40 years, that's how it's been. What else were you getting from the bank as a result of keeping these uninsured balances and deposits there?

Well, they were getting favorable rates. You might not have even thought twice about it. You just, because sometimes when you're in business and you're just like in the heat of the moment, you're moving things around and doing stuff. The bank says,

tell you what, if you don't send this money out to Chase, let us do your payroll. We can help you with a second mortgage. No, but they would give loans to people that only had $10 million in crypto. Like other banks wouldn't do that. Right, so that's my point.

You might be getting concierge-like services. And as a business founder, you probably don't even think it's a conflict because in the early days of starting a business, you are the business. You own all the equity, sweat equity, equity capital, everything. So you're like, oh yeah, I should get a cheaper mortgage.

I should get this benefit. Why wouldn't I? Free checking, this and that. I think that's where the puck is going. You can't have- What do you mean? It's the 16th largest bank in America. There's no way this episode ends

without a lot of questions being asked about who had money at the bank, what else was the bank doing for them to persuade them to keep that much money. Greg Becker will be in front of Congress, no doubt. 100%. No, no, no. I'm talking about customers. Oh, that's – see, it's interesting because I wonder – They bailed out the customers. Greg Becker would have been fine no matter what.

So the question is we just bailed out all these millionaires and decamillionaires. no matter what. So the question is, we just bailed out all these millionaires and decamillionaires. Why do they have so much money at this bank besides convenience or relationships or other conflict that we need to know? But that's not illegal on the depositor's part.

It might be a conflict of interest between the founder and the company and the company's shareholders and employees. I'm not rooting for this. I just know the way this kind of thing works. It's never over. Well, it's going to be interesting to have like the real, the postmortem on the supervisory, the regulation, who knew what at these banks. You know, Barney Frank had a very sort of, gosh, gee, I have no idea how this happened. I'm like,

well, then you must be a pretty shitty board member for your $325 a year. Because why would you not know that that was happening? You and I would look at a balance sheet and we would say, wait, that's a problem. Again, I'm going to buy a house in a year. He's probably the bank's quote unquote regulatory expert and not risk expert or bond market expert. There's probably somebody more culpable than he is on that board. True, true. That actually understands interest rates and bonds better than he does.

You know, I sit on the board of a nonprofit here in New York City. What are you guys doing with your treasuries? So I tell you what, the LGBTQ Center of New York City, and we got a big bequest during the pandemic of the Keith Herring estate and like $3 million came in. The artist? Yeah, the estate. They sold a piece of art. They said, we want you to make it through the pandemic.

It was awesome. Oh, wow. Cool. So I come on the board. I'm like, we have $3 million at the bank. Can we buy some T-bills? Because we're moving this and we're buying T-bills. That was what I said. When? 21?

Yeah. No, 21. So you're earning zero, but you're happy to earn zero because you can't afford to lose the money. And I didn't want it in a bank. That's right. I was in FDIC uninsured land. Yeah. And so it seems to me that I'm not the most brilliant human being in the world.

I know what's over 250 and what's under 250. Yeah. So I have to believe that a lot of people knew this on some level and just thought the idea- I don't think so. Really? I don't think the other person has any idea. No.

No way. Not even on a board level? Like the CFO of the bank doesn't report in? Remember, you traded, you advised, you managed money, you were a CIO, and you're a money expert for a living. You definitely are in the category of people who understands this. Duncan, what's on your mind? I just wanted to ask you.

I was talking to you offline yesterday. Is ignorance an excuse here? It sounds like that's the excuse here is people didn't understand. Why do you always got to be such a hard-ass, Duncan? I'm just—people are commenting. People are asking these questions. Duncan wants it. Or inertia. It depends on the part of who. Right. Why do you always got to be such a hard ass, Duncan? I'm just, I'm just, people are commenting. People are asking me questions. Duncan wants it.

Or inertia. It depends on who, on the part of who. Right. To answer your question. Right. I mean. Ignorance is an excuse for 99% of Americans, yes. That's not Silicon Valley Bank's clientele though.

Exactly right. Exactly right. I mean, so if you have a CFO of all these organizations or these VC funds and all these crybabies who are like, oh, I'm a libertarian and I want to buy crypto and I don't believe in and you shouldn't trust the government or any of the system. And then they cry like babies when they're like, ah, we need protection. Who's backing us up?

The whole system is going to melt down if you don't protect me. Were you? So let me turn this on you. Did you think? Yes. me. Were you, so let me turn this on you. Did you think, yes, did you think that did you think that

we should have let the contagion burn out? No. You didn't either? No way. I think, here's what I said, if they didn't act on Sunday when they did, they would have acted on Monday, because I do believe it would have been chaos. Yeah. I think it's better to bail people out and punish them afterward

for making a bad decision in a non-chaotic way than to just say, f**k it, let's see how bad it gets. Exactly. It would have been chaos. And the reason why is because there are too many innocent people with bank accounts that had nothing to do with Silicon Valley who would have been burned to a crisp. Exactly right. You can't let wildfires just go. And I understand moral hazard. It's arguably one of the dumbest arguments you could ever make in the midst of a crisis to not try to end the crisis.

I've always hated it. It's never made sense to me. And I feel – I have children. I punish them after they're – when they're no longer in danger. That's when I deal with what they did wrong. Not let's see how bad this danger gets. Right, exactly. Let's let them learn a real lesson from mother nature. That's not how I

roll in my real life. I think it makes no sense to do that when there's money on the line either. And I think that the herd mentality is such that you want people to pay for mistakes. And I think the reality is at least this time around, as opposed to 2008, we didn't rescue shareholders. No, they got killed. No. Right? Capitalism. Wait, bondholders too, in the case of Credit Suisse.

I have a whole— David Tepper is yelling about his AT1 bonds. He got wiped out. That's— Wait, wait, wait. But here's one thing I am sympathetic to, the political whatabout argument. Yeah. Because's – Wait, wait, wait. But here's one thing I am sympathetic to, the political whatabout argument. Yeah.

Because what Yellen just said, it does look like special treatment for the SVB people. It does. But, you know, I felt like her speech before the American Bankers Association did exactly what she wanted it to do. If someone else fails, we'll do it. We'll be there. We will make sure. You know they will. Of course they will. They have to. They have to. Can you imagine

the optics? They let a bank in Indiana fail that doesn't have venture capitalists? No, it's not happening. And even First Republic. So, I mean, I felt like I mean, look. Do we buy the stock here? You like the equity or the preferreds? I'd like to step aside and buy my index funds just like I have always done.

Right. Can we touch on Hindenburg Research talking about Block today, which formerly was called Square? Listen, I'm not long or short the stock, but I feel like the allegations being made about the way the company's been run, it's like very emblematic of just my overall opinion of fintech companies during the pandemic. I feel like there was like this lawless moment, the tail end of Trump prior to Biden, a lot of deregulation anyway, all of these new digital services

that consumers were adopting overnight. And then you add into the mix government money being doled out. If you read this tweet thread, which did you get a chance to? Okay. You really come away from it like, I can't believe we had a moment in time like this. They're talking about, here, according to the report. So Hindenburg, they sell short the company,

then they put out their report. So people don't like that because they say, oh, that's not. Meanwhile, all of the research is like public information. Yeah. So anyway. All right. So they said 40 to 75 percent of the accounts that former Square employees reviewed were fake, involved fraud, or were duplicate accounts tied to one individual? The upshot of the story is millions of fake accounts, government money spraying around everywhere, lawless corporate culture at Cash App in particular, which is a unit of Square.

And then the stock price goes wild during the pandemic. I think it gets to 50 billion market cap. And the insiders, Jack Dorsey included, unload billions of dollars worth of stock as a result of this Wild West culture. Here, 25 insider sales with the stock over 250. It was 72 as of yesterday. It was $130 billion market cap.

130. That's unbelievable. Let me ask you something, though. So you look at something like this, and I mean, let's be fair and balanced on this one for a second. Okay, so Jack Dorsey, he sells some of the stock.

Well, was he selling all the way up? Was he doing it, you know? I would like to see how many. Was it a schedule? There was a wave of sales, though, at the highest print. Like in this particular case. What if he just knew, like, you know what? Not that I knew that there were fake accounts.

What if he was like, holy moly, 250. That's crazy. I think Jack Dorsey is a decentralization hippie and did not know that there were fake accounts. I think he just thinks nothing matters. That's scary. And that's evident in the way that Twitter functions, which is like anybody can have an account and say anything. Right. Was basically how Twitter started.

So I think he just – it's like, whatever. But also what this points out is how you capture in a moment. As you said, there's not one culprit. There's a lot of things that had to conspire. Yes. Again, 0% interest rates, $1,400 stimulus check. Pandemic. I'm freaking bored.

Crypto gambling. Right. I'm bored. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it would have been nice if there were at a company like this that probably does have some access to like broadly spread a better message than if they had acted more responsibly. But they're not, they don't really, see, that's my problem sometimes with some of these firms. It's like, you are talking about someone's financial life. There should be an element of responsibility

in helping that person out. So that's the part that makes me a little bit nutty. So the SEC is, and the government is just going after it. Gensler is going hard in the paint against crypto companies. Coinbase got a wealth notice yesterday. This morning, they put out a report, exercise caution with crypto assets, securities, investor alert, signature got shut down because they say it was insolvency. Well, maybe. Matt Levine has a good take on it. So Coinbase put out a blog post. And they basically said, we've been public for a while.

We've been doing this this whole time. Why now? They came public three days before Gensler took the place of Jay Clayton. Yeah. Coinbase has been running a crypto exchange since guess when? No, but I'm just making the point. The new Fed chair was other, the new chairman of the SEC was not there. It's 2012. So Matt Levine, as always puts it best, he said the position of Coinbase and of the crypto industry more broadly is look, SEC, if you want to have a flourishing system of

legally compliant, safe, trustworthy crypto assets, you will need to work with us a little bit to write new rules. And the position of the SEC is, no, we don't want that. We want all of you to go away forever. Basically, the SEC is saying you need to comply and they're saying, well, we can't comply. I think the SEC is saying, no, dickhead. These are securities. Right.

You're in violation of existing law. We don't need to sit with you and engage with you. You need to comply with the rules that everyone else is complying with. Coinbase is saying, we're trying to comply and you're not letting us. No, Coinbase is saying these aren't securities. Right, they're fighting the classification. They're saying both.

I'm reading everything everyone's saying. Coinbase is saying, now, this court case will decide once and for all, no matter how long it drags on for, are crypto asset securities or not. But that's the good news. But even Hester Pierce is saying that the SEC is making it very difficult for these companies to comply. Do you think that she is jockeying for position as Coinbase's highest paid employee?

I don't know, maybe. Okay. Listen to me. The SEC, you don't have to be an SEC apologist on crypto or this and that. They are saying there are existing securities laws on the books. There was case law. There were Supreme Court cases. We deem these to be securities, not everything, but most.

But how about this? And Coinbase is saying, engage with us. We are. Right, here's the rule. But they don't even know who is their regulator. Is it the SEC? Is it the CFTC?

Well, that's an interesting point. Well, right now it's the CFTC and then- For Bitcoin. Exactly. For Bitcoin. Right. Not every crypto asset

is a security and some of them look, act, and function more like commodities. They're called a commodity. Right. It's confusing. No doubt. Yeah.

But I will say this. In all of this mishegas of the last three weeks, the fact that Bitcoin is rallying is going up my ass sideways. I'm not happy about it. Why? Because I hate it, and I really don't think there's a use.

And I've been short from 19th. No, I'm not. I have no position. I've never purchased Bitcoin. Do you know my first Bitcoin story? It was when it went above 1,000 on the way up. What? You bought it? I did not. I have no position. I've never purchased Bitcoin. Do you know my first Bitcoin story? It was when it went above 1,000 on the way up. What? You bought it?

I did nothing. I did a story on it for CBS News. That's why you met. That's why I'm like a moron. I think we are aligned. I hate what's going on with Balaji and hyperinflation. It f***ing drives me nuts. The reason why I first bought crypto in 2020 was to protect myself from doing

something harmful to myself if Bitcoin went to $100,000. That's the best investing rationale you've ever heard. And I didn't own it. It was a self-hedge against me losing my mind. I have not done it. I know some people who've made, listen, you know what? Actually, you know who made money

in some of the great, in the early days of Bitcoin were some of my friends from commodities traders because it looked like a commodity. It's recognizable to them. And they're just like, oh, I've seen a chart like that. That's silver in 1988 or whatever. This is the first time in Bitcoin's life that we had something of a crisis within the banking sector. Now, I know the S&P 500 did not respond like it was a crisis. But every time the S&P 500 fell, respond like it was a crisis. But every time the S&P 500 fell,

Bitcoin fell a lot more. This is the only time where it was actually a safe haven, a hedge, whatever you want to call it. And I think it makes sense from those people's point of view because now they're validated. It's trading in line with gold right now. But it's validation.

I know, I was just about to say that. Look from their point of view. Look at the risk in banks. All the banks are in solvency. Why would you keep your money at a bank? Self-custody, self-suffering, all that stuff. Yep. It makes sense, kind of.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think it's just like this generation's gold is what it feels like to me, more than anything else. Like, I'm going to buy gold because the world's going to pot. There's also this bit of, I think we're going to have, if you, if there's hyperinflation, why do Europeans are buying gold because of credit Swiss scared the shit out of them from the traditional finance and the Asians, Californians are not buying gold. They're buying Bitcoin. Crypto makes a lot more sense if you're not in the United States, because then you're really, your banks are not stable.

Right. But if, if there's going to be hyperinflation, who gives a shit if your Bitcoin is worth a million dollars if dollars are worth nothing? That's true because it's all dollars denominated anyway. It's all denominated. I don't know. It's like a dorm room 4 a.m. bullshit session.

It really does. I know. Joe, should we ban TikTok? If you were in charge and they said, Joe, make the call, you've now heard from this young man who's actually Singaporean, not Chinese. He's an employee of ByteDance. He might be the CEO of TikTok, but he is a ByteDance employee.

You've now heard him basically go through this very convoluted show of we're going to take the data, put it on Oracle servers in Texas. Nobody could change the source code of how the app works from China. U.S. employees overseeing the data, the software source code. And basically, it'll be an American company with very, very distant Chinese ownership. And Beijing can't access the data or the source code anymore. No one believes it. So what do you do here? There's 150 million Americans waiting for your decision. Okay. I don't like this company. I don't like, I really don't. I'm uncomfortable. I've been uncomfortable. That's why I don't have an account. I told people at CBS,

I'm not opening an account there. And it's funny because this is like, again, being a pessimistic trader. You look at the worst case scenario. I'm like, why would I do that? Why would I open myself? How many videos could I push? What's the worst case scenario with letting TikTok operate as is? They have unfettered access. To my daughter's bedroom.

Yeah. To not just her bedroom. To my son's travel basketball team practices. Or maybe to a way to influence the conversation with those kids. Okay. Put the data shit aside. That's not the issue. That's actually the smokescreen.

Exactly. We're going to house the data in Texas. Who gives a shit? Who cares? You still— Who cares? It's teenagers dancing. The influence part is—here's my worst case scenario.

State like Florida or Arizona, like you have an election that could go either way. And TikTok decides – TikTok. ByteDance decides one of the candidates is better for China than the other. You mean China decides? Yes. Yeah. You get what I'm doing here, right? Right.

All right. That's the nightmare scenario. And it doesn't even have to happen. The accusation by somebody like Donald Trump that it happened would be enough to be a massive societal problem. And for f***ing what? You have reels. If you want

to dance, plenty of venues for you to dance. I know. So when you said, what would I do? I mean, I really sound like an old fart, but like, I have no problem. Like, ban it. Who gives a shit? Let it out of here. We're done. Did you see Sofia Coppola's daughter's TikTok that she made yesterday? No, what'd she

do? It's got to be embarrassing for the family. She made a video about her making a pasta sauce because she'd been grounded for trying to charter a helicopter to go see a friend. A Coppola. Oh, no. That'd be good. You should check it out. You should watch it.

I would if I cared about watching it. All right, so that's not what's going to happen. Here's my opinion what will go down. I want to hear what you think. I think Oracle's going to end up owning it.

Yeah, me too. I think that that's what's being- I'm long the stock. Full disclosure. Yeah. Look at the price of that stock. I think Larry Ellison has an inside track

to maybe own a U.S. version of TikTok stock, I think Larry Ellison has an inside track to maybe own a U.S. version of TikTok. And I think that that would probably be okay, right? Like, well, then you get to have this thing. I mean, if the Chinese government is going to let this happen, I mean, for all I know, Larry Ellison will disappear shortly thereafter, but we'll see. But, you know, I'm really, we'll get to this, like, in what, like, is interesting about is interesting about in the world and what I've read and been listening to.

But I am very intrigued by President Xi's very clear case of I like being an autocrat much more than I like democracy and capitalism. And I think that that should be what – we should believe him in what he says. That's exactly what he's telling us. It's very transparent. The other thing is America should act in its own best interests. And they don't let our companies do whatever they want there. No. There's no Google in China.

There's no Facebook. And it's okay. It's fine. That's their prerogative. And, you know, someone – and if Larry Ellison and Oracle and if we can actually see the—if we can see the reins of the company being taken over and maybe it won't be as good and maybe it won't be this or maybe it'll be diluted, I don't give a shit. Joe, is this the only bipartisan issue that both sides—I mean, based on what I saw today, it appears as though there's no daylight between the Democrats and the Republicans. it appears as though there's no daylight between the Democrats and the Republicans. I don't think there's another issue other than like an alien invasion that they're so— this guy has not been able to make one friend in Washington.

He tried to take meetings. Nobody is listening to this. And I think rightly so, frankly. So that's—I'm fine with that. Are you okay with that? You good? You're done with TikTok? All right, here's the last thing on this.

The weakest argument I heard in favor of stop bullying TikTok out of America is that it's going to hurt the Democrats because their demo is more likely to be on TikTok. I almost laughed out loud when I heard that. As a Facebook shareholder, they can go to Instagram. Yeah. I mean, I'm okay with that. Whatever. That's silly. That's just silly.

What are we doing? What's this thing with ghost listings? We don't need to spend too much time on here. Oh, about the labor market? It's just that all of these, the job openings are at an all-time high. They're fake. They're fake.

It's fake. It's not even that it's fake. It's just like we haven't taken them down yet. Yeah. I know plenty of people. They're like square user accounts. One company could put up seven open jobs and hire one person for those seven.

It's a structural change. We're not going back to the way it was. The data's broken. Maybe. That's interesting. I have one position open for a client service associate. I listed in Chicago, New York, Florida. I only need

one. They could work remotely. It's not three different cities I'm hiring in. I'm hiring in one city. I'm advertising in three. Okay. This is what the data is missing. Right. I never thought job openings.

I mean, until, it's so funny. I used to love the Joltz report and then everyone started reporting on it. I'm like, no, this is not fun anymore. It's like the Baltic dry index. It was so much, it was much more fun when nobody knew about it. I think that the labor market data is fascinating right now because it is all over the place and you don't have a sense of what is actually happening. I think you get long, you have some trends that we get like, yeah, leisure and hospitality is still hiring and tech is firing and okay, but what about everyone else?

but what about everyone else? And there is definitely a culling of the ranks. And what I think is really starting to happen is like people are starting to retire and companies are like, we're not hiring that position back. That's like a shadow layoff. Yeah. And then Facebook just said 10,000 more layoffs.

And by the way, closing 5,000 open positions. Walmart just did a round of layoffs today. Yeah, but even if you talk, if you talk to people at investment banks, and I do this all the time, because, you know, I know these folks, and, you know, somebody is leaving and retiring. He's 68 years old.

And I said, well, who's going to take that job? Nothing, no one. We're divvying it up and giving a third, a third, a third to his three lieutenants. I wanted to end on a positive note. Oh, excellent. Is that cool if we do that? Let's do it.

Okay. How unlikely. Before we get into favorites, I have one more story. I love this story. Apple, you must love this. Mike's a movie theater guy. I am too, to a lesser extent.

I want to hear your take on it. Apple is leaning into the theatrical experience as it looks to establish itself as a serious player in Hollywood. According to Bloomberg, they plan to spend $1 billion a year to produce movies that will be released in theaters and has already approached movie studios

about partnering on certain titles for release this year. Amazon, too. There's some big movies coming out that will not start off on the apps. Martin Scorsese has a movie, Killers of the Flower Moon. Great book.

Great book. There's a movie called Argyle. Ridley Scott has a Napoleon biopic they've been sitting on since the pandemic. Is it Doctor Strange? Oh, Joaquin. That's right. I saw pictures of that. It's going to crush it.

Anyway, IMAX went up. AMC went up. Cinemark went up. These are the last three, I guess, theater owners in the country. Movie theaters are becoming a more pleasant experience than they were pre-pandemic. I think it's cool. I think raise the price, raise the experience. Guess what? We'll go once a month

and we'll do it right. The other day I was in a theater and you know the seats on the side, the seats on the side, they face straight in and it's like, this theater, they were turned at an angle. It was such a pleasure. I like that. Such a subtle change. It was great. I love the like that. Such a subtle change. It was great. I love the theatrical experience.

I also think that you should get a $100 fine if you open your phone while you're in a movie theater or in live theater. I like it. It makes me, I can't stand that. And I do feel like I would love to be able to go to the movies again and have someone run a movie theater in a professional

way where you actually do have, like, listen, there are the cheap seats and there's the good seats. So if that's, and if you don't want- It's like the opera. I want to get dressed

and go to the movie. My wife loves the movies in the movies. I love her already. We don't even talk. It's great. We sit in the dark, but we're together.

There's no conversation about the kids, all the shit that drives us crazy. And it's one of the things – I'm a huge live theater person. So I feel the same way that like it's immersive in a way that you can't – And there's no distractions and I do watch more critically and it's so much more interesting. Of course. Yeah, of course.

I do. I love it. So yeah, I'm all in. And who better than Apple? love it. So yeah, I'm all in. And who better than Apple? Well, if Apple and Amazon both think that there's a reason to take their big movies

that they're spending, I think they're looking at the budgets. They spent $500 million on a movie. You probably don't want it watched on a phone, at least not at first. So I think there's some of that. There's some prestige creeping in. I think so. There's also some awards gratification. You have to have a theatrical release to be considered.

Right. So instead of just sneaking it into one theater, now they're going to really try to make money. Now, by the way, I know you guys are both huge influencers, all four of you here in the studio. So I'd like to make sure that everyone from Apple and Amazon would like to know that they would be more than welcome to purchase Paramount Global at any time.

Do you share a holder? Not, but it would be good for the company. They turned down a $3 billion offer, which sounds like a lot of money to me. Oh, speaking of. I can't speak about this on the air, but I have many opinions. Okay.

Oh, interesting. Wait, but are you under that umbrella? Do you have a show on the app? Like, can you do Jill on Money as a show? I guess I could if I wanted to, if I pitched that. Do they want you to? No. Why?

They don't. Because – Just do the same show, but with a camera on you like this. I mean, so I could, but what they really want is scripted TV on the app. Would you solve crimes? Or murders. Am I obsessed with women getting murdered? No. I love murder shows women getting murdered? No.

I love murder shows. You do? Can't get enough. Oof. I like the- I love murder. Yeah, Michael's a big, he's a big murderer. He's a crypto guy.

He's a murderer. I love it all. So anyway, I will say that there, listen, there's like the whole streaming world and the media world, we can do a whole different show about like what is happening in that landscape. But it's fascinating for me because, you know, I'm in this world. News is a losing proposition. No one watches news anymore.

And yet, you know, you can put news on an app, but no one's watching that either. So it's like there's just – so we need – you need something that's content that is differentiated, right? I predict you will have something streaming on that app. I might have it on the Ritholtz Wealth Management app ladies and gentlemen Joe Schlesinger did you have fun today? I had so much fun that I want to come back

all the time how was my audition? let me ask the two guys look at her mic presence incredible right up on that mic. Deal with the problem. So, all right.

This week. Wow, wow, wow. Jill's going first. Jill's going first. But first, I want to make sure we let everyone know for our book readers, and we have many, The Great Money Reset. When did this get published, Jill? This got published in January.

This past January. Hot off the presses. Hot off the presses. It's a great book. It's a great book. It's a fun book. And by the way, the whole reason I wrote this book is because on my podcast, so I had a podcast, which was a twice a week podcast. It was sponsored by Goldman Sachs at the time coming into the pandemic. And they were like so micromanaging and annoying.

And they're like, it's March, and the pandemic hits, and they're like, we're pulling the sponsorship. It's up. We're done. I said, no sweat. Of course. So I said, okay, I'm going to self-finance this. I don't give a shit.

No one's advertising. No one's doing anything. We went to a daily show. Wow. Daily. We answered questions, just people freaking out. The appetite was there. Huge.

And our listenership quintupled over the next three to six months, and then all of a sudden I had a conversation. Thank you. And then Ihip quintupled over the next three to six months. And then all of a sudden I had to conversate. Thank you. And then I started having these conversations with people that were fascinating to me that were about, you know, like during the financial crisis, people were like, what should I do? Yeah. Collectibles. Okay. So then in this crisis, it was like, who am I? It was like an existential conversation. You mean in the bank crisis? The banking crisis? No. I mean, in pandemic. Oh. Like people were home. You mean in the bank crisis? The banking crisis, no. I mean in pandemic.

Oh. Like people were home. Oh, how should I live is more than what should I do? Right? Like who am I and what is it that I want and what is my life all about? It was like intense. And the book is a reflection of the stories and the conversations I had with people during the pandemic every single day. And I adapted it into a book.

And I said, these people need guardrails, right? You want to make a huge reset. You say, I want to give up being the president of this huge wealth management firm. And be in Park City and ski every day. And ski every day. How am I going to do that? I can't believe you got SBF to write the forward.

It's incredible. Congratulations. What a coup. What a coup. What a coup. All right, Jill. Give us – so we're going to make sure we link to the great money reset. Give us a favorite. What's something you're listening to, reading, watching that you think the audience would be into?

So on the geek side, Ezra Klein on his show, which is wildly geeky, has a series of the last – over the last month, he's done some really interesting conversations with scholars who are Chinese. Okay. And it has given me a somewhat different appreciation for where we are in this moment with China. Okay. And so I would say the Ezra Klein show, which is – he's now at the New York Times. It's kind of an interesting take on that. Number two, I just said I was a huge theater fan. Yeah.

I am obsessed with Stephen Sondheim, which I'm sure you probably did many Sondheim shows in Merrick. Oh, yes. And so I will put a plug in for anyone coming to New York, please go to theater as much as you possibly can

and spend a lot of money. I'm a big fish. Is one of his shows in revival right now? Merrily We, so Merrily We Roll Along is coming out. I just waited an hour online in a

virtual queue to get my tickets. I'm a huge fiction fan. I like nonfiction sometimes, but I love fiction. I almost only read fiction. So I, my theory on life

is that you should plunge into areas where you have absolutely no experience and like take yourself away and see what comes back. Yeah. So I read a book called The Matrix by Lauren Groff. It takes place in the 12th century and it is a story about a woman in France who basically creates a feminist Vatican kind of establishment across France. Is this a true story?

I'm just kidding. If only. And as a proud lesbian and feminist, I am going to tell you that this was like, it was amazing. So it's like an alternate history fiction. Oh, that's cool. And it just felt like it's power. It's women. But it's not like a male bashing thing.

It's like a real, like, how do we work together? How do we do things? Anyway, I found it amazing. She's a beautiful writer, and no one will listen—maybe who's listening to this would care, but I do think you get better at your job. Well, what—it's called—the book is called The Matrix. Josh has said that a million times. Like, I really think— No, you have.

No, but like— If you read good, you write good. I think if you... You have to read good writers. You have to read good writers, but you also have to experience other things to have a different viewpoint, to be able to ask the right questions. Like, when you don't know something,

you're like, well, I have an experience that's this. What would be the experience over here? And that's what makes you, like, a well-rounded human being. Can I take that a step further, though? It's impossible to have a lot of different experiences at a point in your life where you're like working, paying bills,

supporting people, reading, specifically reading fiction or history or something other than reading books about your own profession, which I stopped doing. Totally.

Right, it's enough already. Like that is how you have that experience. You might not be able to physically have it, but you can mentally have it. And I think that's so important. Yeah. And my last thing is I watch, I've been watching on Apple,

Dear Edward, which is a haunting series. Who's in that? Connie Britton. I'm in love with her. Okay. Yeah, I know who she is. So Friday Night Lights is one of my favorite

all-time series. And I think it's really an interesting exploration of what happens with loss and grief. I just lost one of my best friends last year, and so I'm a little bit into like,

become a little bit of a grief junkie lately. All right. What is it called? Dear Edward? Dear Edward. All right. It's on Apple?

Apple. All right. I just read the little plot. Sounds good. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Aww. Look at this. Oh my god. Guys. Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday dear Michael. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. Oh, we have Ben? We have Ben on the phone?

Oh, that was very sweet. Turn on the TikTok camera. Michael is mentally 12 years old today. Is that right? Yes. It's his bar mitzvah all over again. How's your Torah portion going? My bar mitzvah is so stressful.

38? You were born in 1985? So for my bar mitzvah, I hate being the center of attention. Thank you, guys. That was very stressful. Thank you, guys. That was very stressful for me. Yeah.

So I could not stand the idea of walking into a crowd of people looking at me dance with the dancers on my arms. So I did like a sports. We just played sports. Okay. That seems good. I was not bat mitzvahed, which is a great shanda because my parents really didn't care. My father was like, doesn't it interfere with basketball? Really?

I didn't get away with that. I just paid for two of them. We got Shonda and Mr. Goss on the show. That's a win. Yeah. All right. Matt Damon, Ben Affleck on Bill Simmons. Yeah.

Almost up to that. I know. Just hearing them together. I feel like they don't do that often. Kibitzing. It was great. And then I love Brian Cranston. I know that's not a hot take, but I,

when I saw season one of Your Honor, I said that was a fun show. I enjoyed it. I don't really need a second helping. But season two was just, was good. I really enjoyed it. Rosie Perez on top. Little cherry on top. Love her. And he is, Brian Cranston is just incredible.

Yeah, he is. Just incredible. I can watch him do anything. I want to shout out Joe and Tracy at the Odd Lots podcast. They've had just nothing but great episodes all year. The last episode they did

was about commercial real estate. You and I talked about it. So many people hear that term. They don't really know much about it, myself included. I understand what it is, but they had a very smart gentleman who broke down actually where the money is, what the real risks are, et cetera. So I think that's the next shoe to drop personally. I think a lot of the banking crisis, a lot of the small and mid-cap banks are heavily involved in commercial real estate loans.

And I thought that was a very good episode to listen to. It's great. And we'd highly recommend that. All right, we're going to wrap here. Duncan, we have nothing left to do. Are we good? We're good. Shout out, Nicole.

Gotta eat some cake. Yeah. Shout out, John. Great job this week. Sean, thanks for all the research. Duncan, great job as always. Special thanks to our guest, Jill. Jill, where do we tell

people they could follow you? We know you're doing hits on CBS all the time, but on social media? Jill on Money. Jill on Money. Everywhere? Everywhere. Oh, man. So easy. Except TikTok. What an amazing episode to sustain. Except for TikTok. We loved having you. Thank you so much.

Come back again? I will. Absolutely. I'm psyched. All right. Compound and Friends is out. That was so good. You guys are awesome. You're awesome. It's so much fun. you