We started the show.

Yeah, we started the show.

Welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.

This is the higher standard.

Sitting in front of me is my partner in crime in the old school merch.

Higher standard merch, Christopher Nahibi.

You know, when you start off a show like that, it does feel a little criminal.

So we got a segue.

Partner in crime is absolutely accurate.

And sitting across me and my partner in time.

The one, the man, the only, the man who only wears quarter zips.

Quarter zip king say you don't want everybody.

Thank you my man.

And sit behind the desk.

We call him 50 aka Ferrari F50.

Regil fighting Virginia.

What's up my guy?

What's up everyone?

So if you didn't catch the reference, Regil has actually hit his, his new goal of losing £50.

Yes.

I'm down to 195.

Very proud of that.

And a new goal is 180 for the next three months.

Wow.

As are we, man.

We're proud of you too.

Yeah.

And if you want to be like.

Regil, you know what to do.

Yeah, that's right.

Where do they go?

Sponsored by Fridays.

You can go to join Fridays.com enter in your information, use the code higher.

And you too can't be like Regil.

Lean and mean.

Yeah, he's the after, I'm the before.

Right?

Take a pick.

Well, we got a big episode for everybody tonight.

You know we have to touch even though I know on, on the lives you've already touched on the, everything that's going on in Venezuela.

But we're definitely going to get into all that and what all, all the implications, what does it mean for oil, the oil industry, market implications, all that.

But first we're going to start off with what is going on in the market and how we're hitting record highs.

Yeah, well I should say was we came off the record highs towards the end of the business day.

I did the real, the real time update during the live today where we were at the top of the market for the S and P, the Dow, the nasdaq.

But we traded down towards the end of the day towards closing.

So in between call it like 12:15 to 1:00 clock when the market closed Pacific Standard Time.

We saw the market pull back.

Nothing to be freaked out about.

I mean frankly the market hitting all time highs at any point during a day.

Intraday is still noteworthy.

So let's get into it.

US Stocks hit the new highs in record setting start to the year S&P 500 up 0.62% but the total record high was 6944.

82.

I do think you're going to see 7000 soon.

That's going to happen.

That's definitely going to happen.

Yeah.

Dow Jones up 0.99%.

Again, not a huge number but total record high of 49,462.

08 Nasdaq up 0.65% closing price 23,005 4,717.

And if those numbers don't mean a whole lot to you listening to the show.

Right.

What is it?

What should it mean?

What should they take they're eating list.

What should what should the listeners take away?

Because what I took away from it honestly is because it's no secret.

Got white paper towel hands, right.

You.

Yeah.

I had no idea.

Dollar cost averaging is the name of the game for me.

Right.

So DCA baby.

Yeah, that's it.

Right.

Dca.

What I take away from numbers like this is, you know, the markets didn't panic.

They didn't go crazy.

They didn't overreact to any of the news of what's going on in Venezuela.

They didn't yesterday and they didn't do it again today.

Well, both ways.

They didn't react in a positive way.

They didn't react in a negative way.

There were some outliers in the stock market.

We'll get into why.

I think there are some people in some spaces who will benefit from what happened in Venezuela.

But for the most part we kind of anticipated going into it.

And for those of you who did watch the the live real time on I think it was Saturday was or Saturday or Sunday, I think it was Saturday where we covered Venezuela.

We, we made some predictions in that live that turned out to be true for this week in the stock market and that was largely that nobody would care from a fiscal perspective.

Yeah.

So let's get into a little bit more about the markets before we start getting to the Venezuela stuff because that's pretty heavy.

Dow closed more than 450 points lower.

S&P 500 pulls back from record.

This is live updates from CNBC.

I read this in part on the lives as well.

You can see this reoccurring theme here.

I want you guys to watch the lives.

Okay.

Tune in.

Even if you tune in and just hit the like button for your boy.

That'S 10% more likes than I had last time.

The S&P 500 in the Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back from a record level on Wednesday as areas of the market that were hot to start the year lost steam.

I think there is going to be an AI fatigue coming.

Not that people don't care about the technology.

People just tired of hearing about the technology and not seeing it implemented.

Yeah, I mean I think there was, I can't, I can't remember which website.

It was decided, but 50% of the companies out there right now have already adopted some form of AI in their business models.

But if, when I hear that number, I think, well, there's 50% of companies that haven't.

And there's a lot of opportunity out there for a lot of people, you know, to make some serious money off of this.

And when I hear that number, because I'm a better friend than you, I think of Regil's recent 50 pound weight loss.

Drop it like it's hot.

50.

See, he gets it.

There you go.

No, I hear what you're saying.

I think that's accurate.

If you remember the life cycle, we talked about AI on the show previously, there is a consistent pattern of behavior that has a maturation cycle and that is you mine the data.

You start building a data warehouse, you start getting real serious about that and you start building the models.

The models work off the data and then you continue to feed those two things to get the best results and then you tailor those results over time.

Somebody who's in the AI is going to listen to the show and be like, that's not it, sir.

And you know what?

I'm watering it down, kids.

Okay?

Most companies at this point in time who've been talking about AI for a prolonged period of time, think about it, 12 months or so have now gotten their arms around the data and have gotten models, they're starting to build out and there's actually third party vendors who are now selling that product.

And now the AI race is turning out to which company's technology is going to lead the way.

You believe in Gemini?

I like Anthropic and Claude.

We've all used ChatGPT.

Regil uses Chat CPT, it's the Compton variant.

Keep a gangster dog where you at?

We all use some form of AI, right?

But the maturation cycle is going to speed up now.

Yeah, now people are saying, hey, I'm tired of talking about your, your capital expenditures.

Show me results.

Exactly, show me results.

And whether you believe we're in an AI bubble or not, if you're trying to look at this information and trying to, you know, gauge, should I invest now?

Should I not?

What you, everyone needs to understand is even if we are in an AI bubble.

Right.

The technology is not going away.

Right.

So if, if, if there is a correction, there's all signs are pointing to millions, if not billions, if not trillions of dollars are being poured in, into this technology.

Right.

So there's a lot of places where you can invest your dollars to where you can have it, you know, have your money grow.

It could be the semiconductors, it could be robotics, it could be the, you know, the data centers.

Right.

There's ETFs out there for all of these things.

Yeah.

But what I'll say is, is you can also go to different path, right?

Yeah, not even that.

So I think there are adjacent industries which are going to do really well this year.

Okay.

Number one, I think the energy sector is going to continue to do well because it is an outlier impact to the air bubble.

Right.

I think fuel costs in.

And energy that comes from, frankly, crude oil is going to see costs go down as volume picks up.

I think some of the refineries are going to benefit.

We'll talk more about that later.

But I certainly think that electric, electrical power is going to be one of those things where if you can get into something in that space, you're going to see massive profits over the next five years because the energy requirements to power all of these things.

Right.

And even just your home, if you remove the AI, you know, nonsense from the equation and you just think about your home.

We use smart light bulbs.

I know.

We have smart interfaces in our homes.

Our refrigerators have screens.

I know.

You know, not mine.

Yours.

You're rich.

I don't.

No, mine does not.

Yeah, yeah, just.

So which one in the house?

Honestly?

Okay, I got suckered in.

Okay, True story.

I got suckered in to buy the Samsung.

See Regil.

The Samsung refrigerator.

Pause right there.

Hold on a second.

Back.

Back in 2015, 2016, this is what Richie will say.

You know, Reil, I got suckered into buying that Lambo.

No, man, drop the brand.

No, the price.

The price was there.

It was comparable to everything else.

So it looks all fancy and nice.

Dang that.

It broke down quick.

Was it the ice maker?

It was the ice maker, bro Y.

And then it was under warranty, they came and fixed it and then sure enough, it ended up breaking again.

So then my rule of thumb now is if I'm buying appliances for the house, it's got to be an appliance company that's been around for a long time making kitchen appliances like ge.

Yeah, not in a notion.

Yeah.

Not an electronic Company like Samsung.

No.

Come on.

I'm not gonna lie.

It looked really pretty.

We got a lot of compliments when people came over.

Like, that was a nice fridge.

Hey, Rajille, were you invited over?

No, I wasn't.

Yeah, me either.

I know.

That's awkward.

I know.

Very similar to how I didn't get invited to Hawaii.

No, you did.

No, you did.

We invited you to Hawaii.

We just knew that you wouldn't wear a bikini.

Right.

So there you go.

We just knew that you weren't going to be in a bathing suit.

And Rajeel and I effectively wore Speedos the entire time.

See, I'm okay with that.

I actually did.

My shorts were Speedos.

Oh, yeah, Take that in.

Take that in.

Take that.

He's not lying.

Yeah.

Between Diddy and Venezuela's president in prison, it could be a fun time.

And the oil community's out there shook, bro.

There's been a lot of changes out there.

We should talk about it.

And Tekashi turned himself in going to the same prison.

He was in the same prison.

Yeah.

I think he did it on purpose.

Oh.

He's like, I got to know.

I gotta.

This is gonna be.

I'm gonna write a book when I get out of here.

Did you see the.

In regio.

Don't look this up.

Did you see that?

The.

The Trump over Tekashi interviews.

That.

Honestly, Maybe.

Maybe the best use case, by the way.

I swear to God.

Maybe the greatest form of content I've seen so far in 2026.

Best use case for AI I've seen yet.

It's the best.

Yeah.

The best.

You see the ones where he's dancing?

I've seen the ones where he's dancing.

Those I don't like so much.

I just like the one where he's like, I went in there and I took it.

Yeah.

You're a terrible human being.

All right.

Financials and energy, two of the sectors that started off 2026 strong saw losses during the trading day with both declining more than 1%.

Bank stocks that ended the session lower included JP Morgan, bank of America, and Wells Fargo.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips were key laggards in the energy space.

And people are gonna be like, well, wait a minute, why aren't they benefiting from the oil?

We're gonna cover that.

Okay.

I don't think that you're gonna see a lot of these larger oil companies.

Chevron might be an outlier.

So Chevron, historically, for people who don't.

Know Chevron's already there.

Right.

Chevron's already there.

They acquired a company which was already in.

In Venezuela before they nationalized the oil industry.

I'm gonna put a big asterisk on this whole oil, crude oil conversation.

Right.

Right off the gate.

I know what I said on the lives and I know what the media is saying about Venezuela having more oil than any other country in the world.

303 million barrels come from, you know, come from there.

There's a big but there.

Yeah.

What's the but?

Site.

They only produce, I think less than 1% of the world's oil barrels per day.

Yeah, but that isn't the asterisk and that is.

So we know their production is as you noted, like less than the US which produces about 49 to 50 million barrels.

Right.

I mean there's like 800,000.

Yeah.

There had.

So their infrastructure decreased significantly when the company now or the country nationalized the oil supply.

The government said, hey, we own this.

Yay.

Yeah.

Chevron was the only US Based company to stay there.

And then the infrastructure to actually get the crude oil out of the ground went away.

Now, I don't know if you guys have ever seen crude oil before.

Crude oil is really thick and like are like.

Yeah, right, exactly right.

Sweet oil like we get out of Texas is really clear.

Resembles more like gasoline.

Okay.

But there are I think like six refineries in the U.S. right.

All in Texas and Louisiana.

All in Texas and Louisiana.

That, that primarily work on crude oil.

And the US has more of them than anybody else.

Yeah.

Ye.

So keep, so keep my.

For example, in Kuwait, in Iran, in Libya, in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it all comes to the Strait of Hermos.

And when it comes to the Strait of Hermos in that, in and around that region there, that is generally sweet oil, not crude oil.

And it is harder to get here than it is to get from Venezuela to the US It's a much easier route, but the crude oil takes a whole lot more work to refine.

Yeah.

So what I will say is I think if you dump a lot more oil supply into the, into the ecosystem, it brings oil costs down over time.

So any benefit you're going to get as a gas company of selling more gas is probably going to be offset by the fact there's just way more gasoline out there to sell.

So supply and demand.

But I will say the asterisk that I wanted to give everybody out at the top is I know that everybody's citing these numbers, myself included, but we don't really know how Much oil Venezuela has, that's actually just self proclaimed oil.

Oh, really?

Yeah, that's never really been validated.

And if you're a country who nationalized oil, it's kind of in your interest to be like, nah, we have all of it.

Yeah.

How much does Saudi Arabia have?

Or.

Jill, we got, we got 100 million more.

Yeah, we're right, right.

It's true.

200 million.

We get 300 million.

Yeah, 300 million.

Yeah.

That's kind of the way.

Nobody out there to validate it.

There's really no validation here.

And so everyone's like, oh, for all we know, they don't have any.

Okay.

Yeah.

So it's a, you know, a little questionable to say the least.

So here's what's really going to happen.

Okay.

If you were going to get the benefit of being a shipper, okay, maybe near term, long term it's going to level out, right.

If you're going to be like a gas producer, like Chevron, Chevron's going to benefit near term.

And they spiked like 11% the day, the day after, I think on Monday, the first trading day.

Okay, fine.

They traded, they traded high because they're there first to react, but to get the infrastructure in place even.

And we'll get into some of Trump's comments.

He came out and said, we run the country now.

Yeah, we got it.

Wait, what, what do you mean?

Just like that, right?

Yeah.

And so how much of this.

There's a lot of talk going around.

I'm curious to get your take on this.

Oh, there you go.

Okay.

Yeah.

How much of this do you think really had to do with the idea of them partaking in de dollarization?

They also have a ton of bitcoin there, which is another noteworthy commentary.

Before we get to that, let me get to the rest of the articles that I want to cover here before.

We get to this because I think.

I set it up right.

That part of the conversation I think is, is the most fascinating part about all of this.

Right.

Because no, there's another thing you haven't checked.

This one caught me totally off guard.

I didn't think about.

There is a geopolitical conflict that we'll do it now.

But there's more to get to this later on that people generally missed when it came to this.

Okay, the oil is nice.

Okay, we want oil.

Great.

Lovely gumdrops and lollipops.

Jill, would you like some oil?

Oh, yeah, I would like.

I want all the oil.

I want all the oils, just not from Johnson and Johnson oh, baby, not, not none of that.

I got somebody in trouble last time you wanted something.

Yeah.

In any event, there's also some interesting pressure where one of the largest receivers of oil from Venezuela was China.

No, that part I knew.

Actually.

The part that I knew which was the most shocking to me was they were hours away from certain high level members of their government, hours away from getting there to meet with them.

And then that's when we stepped in.

That's right.

The boys got sent in.

Yeah.

There was also a relationship with Russia, which destabilizes that relationship as well.

It was a brilliant chess move at a very precise time.

But I don't think it was the rhetoric of the President.

I don't think there was a weird time sensitivity.

I think all of this had a lot to do with the fact that there are midterm elections coming up where the Republicans could lose part of the House.

Yeah.

Look, it's, it's no secret.

A lot of the world.

Okay.

A lot of the world doesn't like the way the US does business.

Okay.

And when things don't go, when the US lays out the rules, and if you don't play by the rules, okay, then we step in and we take over.

And now we make sure.

Play by the rules.

Right.

You, not we.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we.

Right.

So, I mean, the best, I think the best.

One of most recent case examples that we could cite is when Russia invaded Ukraine, the US froze like over $300 billion worth of, you know, Russia's like funds dollars and we sanctioned it and we kept it.

Right.

Oops.

Yeah.

And it's like a lot of, a lot of the world's probably like, hey, hey, you can't just do that.

Right?

And they're like, yes, we can.

We can do whatever we want.

Right?

So, so that's the reason why there's this whole movement with a bunch of other countries, like, look at brics, that they want to, you know, really ramp up de dollarization and.

Yeah, and so there's a whole.

And they, they went this whole bitcoin route, which if you're into nefarious activities, that also serves as a nice little way to hide how much money you're getting.

Exactly.

So, and, and with a lot of, a lot of the oil market in the industry, you probably attest to this more when it's sold.

It's sold in US dollars.

Venezuela started to dabble into the fact that we're going to sell it in, you know, what is it?

I don't even know how to Pronounce it yuan, yuan dollars, Chinese dollars.

And they're like, no, you're not, you're not going to do that.

You're not going to go off the petrodollar system.

You're going to continue to do this way.

And when they dabbled into it the other way, they're like, okay, we got to send in the boys.

Yeah, there's a lot there.

The boys, huh?

The boys, yeah.

Yo, he looked pretty good in the jumpsuit though.

Not going to lie.

Nike tech, please.

Really, no one's going to comment on that, bro.

Everybody, that's all I can focus on.

I was like, nike stock went up.

I thought it was the Takashi photo until somebody told me it was Maduro.

Bro, I bought.

So I bought that track jacket.

Not the whole suit.

Cuz I have the whole suit.

Okay?

I bought that track jacket, right?

And when I, when I got it from Dick Sporting Goods, I got to say the full name there for you.

I got to say the full name for you there.

Too mature for me not to.

What are you talking about?

Right?

I thought she was looking up.

It's lit.

It's literally.

It's literally the.

The.

It was the only piece of clothing that was like chained down at Dick's to where they have to have a special key to release it.

They said this holiday season every single store of ours has been broken into and people were stealing those jackets.

Yeah, I'm sure they were the same.

One that was on your boy.

Ironically, not a huge bump in the stock price for Nike for having tracksuit be very visible.

Who knew?

No, but they did have a bump in the stock price recently because Tim Cook bought like crazy amount of shares.

Yeah, him and some other person bought a bunch of stock.

Yeah.

Theory is.

Theory is they're going to sign Steph.

Yeah, maybe.

Who cares?

Good for.

Good for Steph.

You know what I mean?

I'm actually more excited about a completely different detail relates to this whole thing.

I have never in my life gone into my wardrobe and thought, I have the same thing as president does in my wardrobe.

We got the same thing.

No.

Yeah, you do.

Come on.

Maduro.

And I know, I mean, I got jackets and suits and stuff like that, but like, I would generally speaking not be caught dead or caught.

And most of the stuff is something these dudes are wearing.

Right?

That's valid like a quarter zip.

I wouldn't do that.

Why not, huh?

Quarter zips are the way, bro.

You're missing out.

Why don't you just have the handcuffs of corporate America on your wrist right now.

What do you mean?

This is Nike, bro.

This is.

When I put this on, I feel like I am Tiger Woods.

No, that.

This is his way of saying, look, I'm cool, everybody.

I'm hip, I'm athletic, I'm cool.

Yeah, look, I got these hips don't lie.

Shakira and I, okay?

But I have to go into work.

I get right.

So I do that with a Nike quarter zip.

See, I'm not buying into your culture.

See what I'm doing?

I know what you're doing.

See what I'm doing?

That's right.

Yeah.

Don't.

Don't do chosen one.

Well, some kids 67 me the other day.

What?

No, you almost slapped.

You said six.

You're realizing you say it more than.

More than you.

I was.

No, bro, I was in the storage unit.

Cuz I was moving the storage unit the other night, right?

Late at night, it's like 10 o'.

Clock.

And this like 12 year old comes on the corner.

He has all the carts.

Also all the carts.

And he's taking.

I don't know where his parents are.

I wasn't one adult, right?

And I walk up to him and he's got like seven cards and it's just him, so he can't push seven cards.

I just need one cart to move a bed, okay?

From my storage unit is 10 by 10, and the one is 10 by 5.

It's late.

I worked a full day.

I'm tired.

I haven't seen you all day.

So I got no cuddles, right?

You know, just looked at me on the screen.

Yeah, well, no, I looked at Brigille, but you too, I guess.

Wink, wink, nudge, nudge for Jill into.

Yeah.

So I go up to him, hey, man, is it cool if I get a card?

And he goes, six, seven.

And I'm like, wait, what?

There was no reference.

And he just looked at me and he goes, six, seven.

And then he walked off.

And I'm like this little man.

I'm not gonna be the hip guy who chastises him.

I'm not gonna lie.

So I thought I was in the clear with the whole 6, 7.

Because according to my son, it's no longer cool.

There's new numbers now, right?

There's 41 and all 41, right.

I don't get that one.

I thought we were in the clear, right?

And then today, this morning, I wake up, my son's up early making a flipbook, right?

Because that's what I do when I wake up.

Yeah.

He's, he's into this whole flipbook thing right now.

I'm like, okay, cool, whatever.

Yeah, he's making a flip book.

And it's a flip book about six.

Seven, six is morphing into sevens.

I'm like, come on man.

Hey man.

A plus for creativity, son.

Come on, man, you're going to be solving the world's problems one day.

I know.

Imagine me, imagine me coming downstairs just being like, oh, what's on going Good morning son.

How you doing?

Oh, you making a flip book.

I'm so proud.

Oh yeah, highs and lows.

Started, started off good.

Yeah.

Well, let's get back into it.

Beyond the energy struggles, crude oil prices dropped.

Do me a favor, would you look at WTI crude when you get a chance, you can go to cnbc.com and it's on the oil tab up top.

Dropped in the heels of President Donald Trump saying that in the interim, authorities in Venezuela will be turning over as much as 50 million barrels of oil to the US spurring concerns over increased oil supply.

Not the way everybody thought it was going to go.

In the conversation on here you have crude oil futures at 56, 21 so and you see a small drop off but generally pretty healthy.

It was again a huge non event.

So my thoughts on this, click on that link down below there, the CNBC one that, yeah, right there.

56, 2122 cents ish 0.36 up on the day.

So nothing.

I mean, look at it throughout the day.

It didn't really do a whole lot.

It was kind of flat.

Look, I know the chart looks like it's all aggressive, but it's really not.

So you got a lack of significant movement in the price of a barrel of crude oil and in our opinion is a vote of confidence that we're still far from being tight from a supply demand standpoint.

Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at globalt Investments.

It's a weird name, so I say it weirdly.

There's a significant risk of oversupply that's on the horizon that nobody's talking about, but we'll get there.

What's happened in South America hasn't changed the prospect for growth in the US from an equity market standpoint, Buchanan said.

I think that there's some complacency from appreciating the overall geopolitical risks that are going, that are growing in our opinion.

But we don't feel like what's happening in Venezuela has moved the needle in that regard up or down.

He continued.

That to me was crazy.

Okay, why?

So I want you guys to think to this weekend, right, you're doing whatever you're doing, and wham, right across the wire you get, we're invading Venezuela and we're taking their president, and now we're gonna charge him for criminal actions.

I expected Iran controversy, people rioting in the streets or like Iraq.

No, no, I mean, I understand he was a terrible dictator.

There's a whole bunch of reasons why he wouldn't.

But there wasn't any civil unrest in the country.

Right.

And again, I get it.

It's a democratic country, so they had a vice president lined up.

She's very similar in her socialism stance than Maduro was, but she seems to be a little more liked, I guess, from, from what rhetoric I've.

I've been able to glean from.

From media from then till now.

But there wasn't a lot of civil unrest in the country.

As a matter of fact, the headlines were strange because it was our president saying, we're going in there, we're gonna run it now.

Yeah, we're, you know, we're sending our oil companies in there to improve their infrastructure now.

And you're like, wait, what?

Man?

It was, it's very.

It was very similar playbook to the.

What they did with Saddam in Iraq.

A lot of civil unrest there.

As a matter of fact, I don't know if you guys are watching the headlines lately, and I know we're not a political show, but ironically, we always talk about politics.

Dude, I know we can't.

We can't help.

Can't divorce yourself from it.

You can't.

Right?

It's.

It's all interwoven.

You can't.

Yeah, just.

What are we supposed to do?

Just ignore it?

Yeah, I think you can.

So what happens?

I.

At least my feet, anyway, on social media was all, Iran in their social protests.

Wow.

Okay.

So I'm sitting here thinking, like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

We just went into Venezuela, a South American country.

We took their president literally in a fly ass tracksuit, right?

Put some glasses and headphones on him and flew him to New York to be charged with trial on Monday, where he shockingly pled not guilty.

Who knew?

I'm trying to understand.

All the photos I saw was him, like, giving two thumbs up.

I didn't understand it, like, why I.

Think his handcuffs were locked.

No, he went like this, bro.

It was like, maybe he meant it in the Middle Eastern way where that means the middle finger.

It does mean the middle finger.

You're right.

Maybe he was just trying to like, talk to the homies, Yo, Saudis, come get me.

Yeah, you know, I don't know, but so the, the, all the things that I was reading online about civil unrest were in the Middle East.

So that is clearly strange from a geopolitical standpoint.

Like, we just did this with one ruthless dictator.

Are we thinking about doing this there?

Like.

Right.

Where does that all play out?

Because clearly the social attentions on something very different than what the political one is.

Right.

Or maybe it's not because we didn't get any heads up and neither did Congress about any of these things.

So for all we know, I mean, we could turn on the TV this weekend and be like, oh, my God, they went into Iran, they took a bunch of people out.

And at this point in time, you.

It seems, again, I'm.

I don't know, it seems like you'll have more support from the people than you otherwise would have historically.

I'm not saying it'll be like Venezuela, where there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of civil unrest around and people just didn't like them.

There will be some people who are loyal.

I'm sure there's.

I'm sure there's a good, A good portion of the population that recognize that, you know, them eventually ending up as a, as a failed state was inevitable on the route that they were going, Right?

Maybe.

So maybe they think that this is, this is a way out.

Yeah, well, I mean, there's a whole.

I have a personal connection to Iran and the Middle east in general.

Right.

I, I have seen pictures from my father's, like, childhood there, Right.

In, like, the early 70s, before the Shah of Iran came in, and all the stuff that was changed.

It was a very westernized or westernizing country.

Afghanistan, too.

Afghanistan too, yeah.

Suits and ties, women in bikinis and beaches, like all the iconic 60s imagery.

People wouldn't believe it.

Dude, I know.

They were well on their way.

Yeah, yeah.

And then you had some hardliners came in from a religious, you know, pitch, and they, they basically turn the country into a religious nation, which I think most people there that I know aren't, like, entirely in support of.

I mean, there's a whole confluence of political backdrop there, but it's certainly a very different landscape today than it once was.

So it's interesting to see how there are still people who hold on to.

And there's really no clear.

And I like, I look at it as much as I want to, like, criticize the country, I think to myself, well, the US Is not A whole lot different from its extremism.

We're not extreme over religion, we're extreme over politics.

Yep.

Right.

The system is designed that way to be that way.

And I can't help but think, like, okay, we look at them, we go, oh, there's so many people don't like them.

How many of them are looking at us going like, oh, God, people don't like their president.

You know, I mean, who knows?

Yeah.

But the rhetoric that's going out versus the rhetoric that's coming in, it's always filtered.

Always.

You ever been, like, out of the country and looked at, like, gone to other museums?

Mm.

I'll never forget.

I went to the Vietnam War Museum in Vietnam.

Oh, talk about a different pitch on what America was.

No way.

Yeah.

I'll save you some of the ugly, gory details, but there were very visible and palpable examples of, like, us corruption and wrongfulness in a museum.

Yeah.

Is wrongfulness a word?

Wrongdoing.

Wrongdoing.

Yeah.

There you go.

Don't be, don't, don't smartass me, boy.

Sat vocabulary wrongdoing.

We're just gonna move on cnbc, Trump says US Oil companies will invest billions of dollars in Venezuela.

Alluding to what we were alluding to earlier, President Donald Trump on Saturday, according to Instagram.

CNBC via Instagram, because that's where I get all my relevant news, said the US Oil companies will invest this money.

We're going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, Trump said in a press conference from his Mar A Lago restaurant and residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Let's start making money for the country, Trump said.

Noble.

That's noble, bro.

You know, if you took this out of context and spun it around.

Yeah, we're going to go into the bedroom, ok?

We're going to have the best experience in anywhere in the world, the absolute best.

We're gonna go in, we're gonna spend hours.

Saeed.

And we're gonna fix your broken infrastructure.

Let's start making.

I'm gonna start making some.

How.

Some money for the house, the bedroom infrastructure.

Let's start giving you pleasure.

You can do that by joining Fridays@join Fridays.com.

Bad Plug.

Bad plug.

Right?

But.

Yeah, man, I don't.

I, I'm.

He also went on to say, it's going to take about 18 months.

I actually think it's going to take longer and I think that it will.

Yeah, I think that's the reason why you didn't see a whole lot of volatility in.

In the markets right away.

Because I think people understand that.

Well, so play this out.

And this is.

There's also an element here that I think people don't understand from the long term.

Near term, okay, Chevron gets a bump, you got 11% day one.

Near term, you're there, you're gonna get some kind of benefit.

We don't know that's gonna look like.

But everybody, all the retail and everybody went in saying, okay, Chevron's only one there.

We can put our money there.

Okay, you got three different categories.

Shippers, refiners, producers.

There you go.

Right.

Producers, Chevron shippers, you know, whatever transport company you want.

I listed them on the show.

They're in the show notes.

Refiners.

Okay.

If you're shipping oil and you're producing oil, sorry to say, more in the market means more supply, less demand.

Okay, Sorry.

Yeah.

The only people who are really going to benefit are the crude oil facilities that are just going to have more crude oil to refine.

That's it.

And that even in and of itself, you got to get there, spend the money, get the resources, get the infrastructure in place.

Let's assume, he said they've agreed to send 50 million barrels of oil, whatever the hell it is, our way.

Right.

Doubling US Production effectively.

Fine.

Great.

Glamorous.

Over what time frame?

Did you hear a time frame?

I didn't hear a time frame.

Rajeel, did you hear a time frame?

I did not hear a time frame.

Right.

Say, if you're my friend for the rest of my life, I'm gonna give.

You a million dollars for the rest of your life.

When do I get that million dollars?

Don't worry about that.

I'm gonna give you a million dollars.

Yeah.

You just have to outlive me.

No, no, I'll give it to you over time.

Yeah, you'll get that while I'm committing to giving it to you.

I need the time.

No, I can't do that.

Yeah, I can't do that.

I can't do that.

There's too many unknown variables here.

So if you're the stock market, how could you invest in that?

So how are you going to invest?

You're not going out and spend a million dollars.

Right?

Right.

So the stock market didn't go out and put their money into something they don't have any conclusions to.

They know there's a process in place for the future.

They know that the US May or may not Be the.

This could very easily turn into the Venezuela starting a war with us.

That's an extreme case.

You start into there being a new person.

So everybody thought the Nobel Peace winner from Venezuela was going to step in and she was going to be like this, like, well loved.

I want a peace prize.

Yeah, right, yeah.

Not to be confused with your laureate, right?

That's different.

That's completely different.

You've got a different laureate in economics.

Green jacket, right?

Green jacket.

Yeah, yeah.

Nori over Beanie may have one too.

That's fine.

Yeah.

Okay.

That's fine.

So, yeah, I think there was a bit of stigma going into Monday.

People thought, okay, was market going to tank because of fear of war.

And no, you didn't get that socially.

The media wasn't covering it because it wasn't there.

Then you got all these statements that said the US Is going to go in there and do all these things.

But there's no timeline, there's no time frame.

And largely people expect this to take a long time.

And even if you play it out over time, over years, let's say you get the oil infrastructure in place, let's say you get the shipping going, everything going, you're selling more oil, but you're selling it for less dollars, kind of even, right?

You're shipping more oil.

Okay, maybe as a shipper you make more money, but if you do more shipments, it kind of bleeds out over time.

I don't know.

There's going to be a whole lot of value there.

They're not going to make a whole hell of a lot more money.

The refiners will produce more oil and they'll make more money initially.

But again, a lot of this just winds up costing us US Citizens less money over time.

That's true.

But what, what else we did see in the markets when all this went down and even through today is a lot, a lot of times investors get, get this wrong.

They think the stock market, stocks and gold work opposite of one another.

If stocks are doing well, gold, gold is staying pretty stagnant.

Or if gold's doing well, I mean, the stock market's going down.

Right.

Look, we just talked about it.

At some point in the day, you know, S&P 500 and the Dow hit a new record high.

Right.

But gold also creeped up.

And that is the market telling you that uncertainty is increasing.

When there's geopolitical unrest and uncertainty.

Right.

Lack of stability, gold tends to increase.

And that's exactly what's been happening.

Well, we're going to talk about that later on in the show as well.

VIX fear gauge is somewhat decoupled.

We've talked about on previous shows that employment and price stability.

The Fed's dual mandate may have decoupled because of some of the technological implications that we're seeing here because of the lagging data.

You're seeing unemployment move up as earnings continue to be profitable and dividends continue to happen.

Well, there's something to be said for the fact that you can have fear in the markets and the markets improve.

Today was a great example.

Right.

The day started off with The Vix around 14.

The fear gauge.

Right.

Started around 14 and then closed out above 15, I want to say.

Was it?

Yeah, look.

You looking at the VIX for me?

Yeah, 15.38.

There you go.

He's playing hide the sausage with the price there.

15.38.

About 1 point higher.

Again, not in my mind.

In scary territory.

Right.

I think, I mean, look at that.

52 week high was at 60.

Yeah.

So I think anything above 20, you're starting to get some, some tension and some stress in the markets.

But below 20, you know, you can have this creep up.

Now.

Is it weird to have it creep up on a day we hit all time market highs?

Yeah, that's pretty weird.

So I think there's some material decoupling in the market which in my mind are also indicative of bubble.

And people always go, okay, well, hey, Chris.

Hey, Bubble scary bubbles burst?

Not always.

Sometimes they float away in the sky.

Really?

Sometimes they, you know, they just get smaller and smaller and smaller and they want to be a little shriveled balloon in the corner of your house that nobody plays anymore.

You know, it just sits there.

Yeah, it just sits there.

Yeah.

Then it gets all sticky.

Ew.

But it's still a bubble, right?

Never touch a sticky bubble.

Oh, I can show you.

I don't care.

So.

But yeah, we are absolutely in a market bubble.

But what I would keep telling people is I have yet to hear the data.

And this is going to be a recurring theme of the second part of our episode later tonight.

I have yet to hear the data which actually supports the narrative that we are in a bubble and it's going to burst.

Yes, we're in a bubble for sure.

Is it going to burst?

I don't know.

Based on what?

What's going to blow consumer credit?

Not yet.

Maybe.

But what's going to be the catalyst?

A lot of the CEOs from the Max 7 though are even now starting to touch and hint on that.

We might Be in an AI bubble.

Because they are.

It's undeniable.

It's a nice way for them to hedge their bets too.

Be like, look, yeah, we are a little overvalued.

So when it does come down, nobody panic.

I told you this was going to happen.

Yeah.

I mean, you can't spend the type of capital expenditures they're going to put out over the next couple of years and not have a bubble form.

Right.

They're making a ton of money.

Sure.

But they're not giving it back to the employees and they're not giving it back to everybody else.

Right.

So, you know, grain of salt there.

Let's.

I mean, so all, all of these companies are dumping tons of money in.

Into AI, Right.

They're trying to.

The big conversation is who's going to win the AI race?

Right.

Who's going to get to AGI?

Right.

Do.

I don't really know that AGI.

I don't think there's that meaningful.

I don't think that.

Well, I don't think you ever.

There's an end, right?

No, there's never an end.

There's never going to be an endless day.

Let's say you get AGI and I get AGI.

We won't have.

We both have these individual, like computers that can talk and do things on their own and they're individual individuals, let's say.

Forget us that are here.

I'm saying if, if, if you're competing against China.

Right.

All right.

Right.

Let's just.

You think we're going to know?

You think we're going to know that they got there first?

Honestly, ask yourself that question.

Well, it depends what they can do with it.

Yeah.

If it's the naughty stuff, you're never gonna know.

If it's the good stuff, they're gonna be, oh, look at all the cool stuff we can do.

This is the problem though too.

There's so much like.

So we use the moon landing as a proxy.

Right.

The narrative is we didn't make it to the moon.

We just wanted China to feel like we made it to the moon.

I know.

That's China and Russia.

Hey, guys, look.

We made it to the moon.

We did it.

Yeah.

Why is that flag we're not waving?

I don't know why.

It's you.

It's you.

You were the one that saw all those reels and then Instagram thought, oh, you talked to Chris a lot.

We should send you those reels.

Cuz I'm getting all of those reels, right?

Oh, yeah.

I.

Conspiracy Theory the hell out of your feet.

Yeah, bro.

I'm that guy.

I know you're that guy.

I'm like, I read it all, dude.

Yeah.

Little green men.

I don't want to.

Gray men.

I don't want to.

I don't want to touch it.

But some of that stuff is pretty damning.

It's.

It's like, come on, do better.

I'm.

I'm pretty sure.

Hey, do better.

You know?

Look, I'm going to go ahead and say it, okay.

There's aliens underneath pyramids.

But I said it.

There's aliens there.

Done.

Zoe Hawass is not like the guy I want representing my country.

You try to talk to that guy and he's like, no, you're crazy.

Yeah.

There are no aliens.

And you're like, prove it.

No, I don't need to.

I don't need.

I know everything about Egypt.

And you're like, zoe, he's kids, like, goes on Joe Rogan's podcast, Fights with Joe Rogan about it.

You're like, come on, dog, read the room.

Right?

There's only two people in it.

Right, right, right.

Yeah.

So it's just, you know, I'm just saying I want people to know that I'm not as intelligent as we might sound on the show.

So if you think that, oh, Chris had this opinion on stuff on Venezuela and he was at one of being right on some of the predictions that he made.

It's not because I'm smart.

Yeah.

It's because I actually read an article about somebody else for who wrote it.

Yeah.

This is from, say.

He's like, look at the handoff I just made.

It wasn't obvious.

Let me.

Let me get.

Let me get it in.

Alliance.

Stop.

Don't ever say to me again.

Alliance, Global investors from Venezuela.

Instability, market implications.

This is from August 12, 2025.

They just happened to write an article about this, which to me says maybe people knew.

Yeah, maybe they knew.

Three bullet points right at the top, which I think are the only real meaningful parts to take home here.

There's a lot more detail, but you don't need it if you listen to this show.

We think the most likely scenario in Venezuela is a continuation of the status quo or regime change involving an orderly transition to a more pro Western government.

Check.

Continuation of the status quo or regime change.

I feel like those are.

Those are.

I feel like those are two different things, aren't they?

Yeah, well, I mean, isn't the stat.

Isn't the status quo like, hey, let our.

Let our vice President step in.

That would be, that would be a status quo or a full regime change.

The whole thing, an orderly transition to a full westernized regime.

I think you got the latter, you know, but, you know, whatever, ok, whatever.

We don't know what remains to be seen.

Number two, given the potential for Venezuela's bigger role in oil markets and growing competition between the US and China in South America, we think it is important to explore the potential transmission channels and market implications.

What we term the Venezuela trades.

Basically saying, hey man, the Chinese government's coming in there and they're going to try to do some deals and cut us out.

We better get in there and explore the territories.

Yeah.

And they know, they know that, okay, US is now going to dump more dollars into the infrastructure there so that they are going to play a bigger role than what they're currently doing.

I mean, right now, right now they're producing less than 1% of all the oil in the world.

Right.

So any.

It's only going up from here.

It's not, it's.

So, yeah, they're going to take it on a bigger role.

Can you imagine if we just like literally start calling it the United States of Venezuela?

That's it, bro.

We own you now.

All right, Number three, we think there is the potential for short term gains for oil prices during instability, but likely lower prices over the longer term if Venezuela raises oil supply and regime change could pave the way for a consequential sovereign debt restructuring.

So there you go.

I think you're going to get sovereign debt restructuring.

I think you're going to get more oil supply.

I think just like it said, near term higher oil prices.

If there was instability, there wasn't.

So I think long term you're just looking at overall lower oil prices.

So much ado about nothing as the kids say.

You buying some real estate in Venezuela?

No.

Love the country.

Beautiful country, beautiful people.

But no, no, no, not right now.

And I would not buy in Colombia at the moment either because Trump's going.

Like, hey, man, he's looking, he's like, who next?

FIFO dog.

First in, first out.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You thought I said fafo.

Yeah, that's different.

That's different.

Different, different.

For those of you listening to the show, we are PG13 podcast most of the time.

Yeah, 90s PG13.

Not this new age stuff.

90s PG13 was a little bit better.

Can I didn't check the news, but was this whole like Stranger Things?

No, I haven't seen rumored ninth episode.

It wasn't true.

Right.

There wasn't a ninth episode that came out.

Why are you getting so excited?

Look at you.

I was so excited.

You're so excited.

Yeah.

You weren't.

You weren't fulfilled with the final episode.

It was unfulfilling.

Was it?

Yeah.

Not.

Not because it wasn't good and heartwarming, but because there were a lot of holes that need to be plugged, need to be filled.

Yeah.

You know, sometimes you just need your holes plugged.

Yeah.

Filled.

Right.

There's a lot of questions unanswered.

How I felt about.

That's not what I said.

Yeah.

That's how I feel about Game of Thrones at the end.

Really?

Yeah.

I just felt like if the fan base knows the loopholes more than you do and they have, like, theories.

I know.

Okay.

This is what happened with Game of Thrones 2.

But.

But then if you go down that rabbit hole and then they go off one of the crazy theories.

Right.

And doesn't it come off as a little too gimmicky?

Like you're.

Now you're stretching.

You're stretching way too hard.

First of all, Game of Thrones, basically softcore porn.

Let's just start there.

That's not the case.

Yeah, it's the case.

I've seen a couple episodes and I'm like, wait, what does that dragon do to that person?

That's not.

Oh, bro, that never happened.

I'm just saying, you know nothing.

Jon Snow.

I know everything.

I know all the things.

Venezuela's Maduro declares innocence in New York courtroom hearing Trump reiterates the US Is quote, in charge.

President Trump reiterated Sunday.

I lost.

There we go.

Evening.

That the US Would call the shots in Venezuela.

He also threatened Colombia over its role in drug flows, said Cuba is ready to fall, and repeated his position that the US Needs to control Greenland for its own national security.

And when I heard this, I was like, he does understand it's the United States of America and that South America is not attached, right?

Yeah.

I mean, not literally, but figuratively.

Yeah, exactly.

Guilty by default.

What?

Y' all got an America in your name.

Why'd you do that?

Yeah.

We own you.

Right?

That's us.

Right?

Like I thought.

The same address.

Like it's inevitable.

It's inevitable, right?

Yeah.

It's just strange.

Shares in US Energy companies, including Chevron, rallied on Monday.

The de facto leader of oil rich Venezuela, Del C. Rodriguez, who served as Maduro's vice president, has demanded Maduro's release, but struck a softer tone toward the U.

S on Sunday.

I mean, it's cool.

I mean, if you can't do it, I understand.

Just.

I mean, am I gonna run?

Am I gonna be in charge here?

What's happening?

Ring, ring.

Yeah.

Hey, Delsey.

What's up?

Yeah, you keep talking, you're gonna wind yourself.

You wind up in a Nike Jack jumpsuit.

Yeah.

What's that?

Can I ask you a question?

What size are you in the N, child?

Size eight, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, Right.

What size are you?

Yeah.

How do you feel about orange?

Right?

Yeah.

So that's so crazy.

Is that even legal?

No.

Can you just take someone from a foreign country and be like, we're charging you.

Right.

For crimes?

Yeah.

I mean, it was.

They just think that through.

When you saw.

When you saw the.

The footage of, like, the military coming in, it was just chill.

Imagine you're just sitting there, like, what's going on?

Having some nachos.

Why nachos?

Why not arepas?

Yeah.

Why?

Why nachos, bro?

What are you talk.

I had a craving in the night for some nachos.

Another dirty, cheesy kind, but, like, you know, like the meaty kind.

Some jalapenos.

Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about.

He knows I'm gonna leave it alone.

50 pounds lighter over there.

He knows what I'm talking about, you know?

Yeah.

I walked past the grocery store, and I looked at a bag of, like, tortilla chips.

I'm like, nah, nah.

That's all I'm here for.

Yeah.

Came back the same aisle.

I'm like, nah, nah, nah.

It's not the ones I want.

Right.

Came back five minutes.

I got the bag anyway.

Had to.

Had to ate it, dude.

I can't.

I can't go.

I can't go grocery shopping.

I always, always end up buying something that I'm not supposed to buy.

Same here.

Always.

The wife's got to go.

Either that, or it's got to be target pickup.

Like, target pickup.

That way, I just don't even step in the door.

You can show the restraint on the app order.

You just can't show it the person.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Here.

This is what I need.

Go.

One item only.

Yeah.

All right, let's get to Saeed's point about the vix and the S and P. I think it's material and fun, and we've had enough political commentary for one night.

This.

According to Market Watch via Instagram, stock market has been climbing despite rising geopolitical tensions after US Captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Smithero.

Huh?

Do that.

Very well.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I Had to look at you to get the confirmation, but fine.

In the wake of the weekend operation, The S&P 500 gained 0.6% on Monday and another 0.6% on Tuesday.

For those of you who can't do math, that's 1.2%.

You're welcome.

Perhaps more interesting, however, is that as stocks were gaining, investors were positioning themselves for volatility.

The CBOE Volatility index, or the Vix, often referred to as Wall Street's fear gauge, gained 2.7% on Monday alone.

This doesn't happen too often, and as the kids say, a rising VIX is an up market is not necessarily a warning by itself, but it is a signal.

Joe Mazzullo, head of trading at Derivative Strategies at Charles Schwab, told Market Watch.

It's a signal that the market is pricing in uncertainty.

Yeah, I think when you go into a country and take their president right before trade talks with China go down, you still have geopolitical unrest in Russia and Ukraine, got Iran doing all their stuff.

I mean, there's lots of things all over the world to go.

You know what?

I don't feel very comfortable right now.

Right.

Yeah, apparently.

I mean, look this up.

Brazil, I think China had invited like 30 countries to get together to start discussing de dollarization.

Yeah, that's a little.

I mean, I would consider that Uncertainty.

Yeah.

Instability.

Yeah.

Volatility.

A little bit.

Well, yeah, that's right.

That's right.

Got it.

Bang bang.

China recently invited over 30 countries to join the new International Organization for Mediation in Hong Kong, forming a bloc for dispute resolution.

And also hosted many nations for the SCO Summit to discuss the de dollarization and trade in local currencies, aiming to build an alternative to the US led World Order.

These actions highlight China's increasing diplomatic push to foster cooperation, particularly among developing nations, and reshape global financial and political structures through initiatives like the Belt and Road.

Yeah, bro.

I mean, this is happening one way or the other.

We should have called the podcast the World Order.

Yeah, I mean, it just sounds dominant, doesn't it?

Well, I mean, we're the World Order.

Yeah.

I mean, you take it a little bit from the New World Order.

No, I don't know what you're talking about.

The guy that said last episode he didn't watch wrestling.

I don't watch wrestling.

This guy.

I just feel like you have to say New World Order like that, bro.

Come on.

You know what I mean, brother.

Dude, you're hurting.

You're hurting my feelings, bro.

Of course I'm hurting your feelings, Big Daddy Diesel?

Hulk Hogan.

Yeah, I don't know that is.

Or what about higher world order standard?

The Higher World Order.

That just sounds like a bad.

I feel like it's a tongue twister.

Yeah, there's no way I can introduce a show every time with that hwas.

It doesn't go very well.

I'm still on the fence with the Bureau of Wealth Building.

What are you talking about?

Just call ourselves another bureau.

I thought you registered the trademark.

We're the Bureau.gov.

The Bureau would be amazing.

Can you imagine if we could find a way to finagle ourselves a.gov like URL?

I would be the first person to be like, hey, thank you for calling the government issued enterprise.

This is Chris how may direct your call.

Right.

Yeah, I'd do it.

I'd be all over that bum on a bologna sandwich, if you will.

All right.

Even with markets climbing, the VIX implies that traders are bracing for some sort of volatility.

Mizzulo pointed out that there are plenty of upcoming events that have the potential to move the market.

There's an upcoming jobs report expected at the end of this week as well as other data on labor, cpi, ppi, opi, opp.

Yeah, you know me, all those things.

Yeah.

So you keep up.

We're working here.

I'm on it.

He's.

He's locked in.

Yeah.

The U.S. supreme Court's ruling on President Trump's tariffs is also looming and could arrive in the not too distant future.

And there are escalating geopolitical tensions as we've covered on the show, with the U.S. venezuelan military operation potentially causing investors to brace for future volatility, even if the stock market shrugged it off in the near term.

However, Mazzullo said that it is important to take a step back and understand where the Vix was.

The jump, it was about 14.

Now, Rajeel, do me a favor.

Go to cnbc.com we're going to walk through this together, kids.

If you guys want to check this out, this is how you do it.

I could give you the, the acronyms and abbreviations, but this is the simple way to do it.

We're going to do the simple stuff tonight.

Okay, Saeed, let's do it.

All right, so at the top you're going to get red and green boxes which are going to tell you some of the basic stuff.

This is the pre market in the top.

See that little plus sign and the three little.

The gray bars at the top right above the red box.

There you go.

There's one of them that says bonds.

Let's click on bonds.

Let's do that, James.

There you go.

One in the top left corner should be US 10 year treasury.

Click that.

There you go.

It's green 4.14 up.002.

And I know you're thinking like, oh God, that's not a lot.

If you watch this and you just look at it once a day, you will have a good approximation for what mortgage rates are doing at any given time.

It's always about what, 2 to 3 percentage points higher than whatever the tenure is.

That's right.

So between 6 and 7%.

6.

7.

Dang, bro.

It's the year chosen one.

It's all I did.

I set him up.

These deep bit.

Bro, you do realize the hand gesture you're doing is not the appropriate hand gesture for the rest.

It wasn't low.

No, it was low.

No, it was.

I was up here.

There's cameras on you side.

That was low.

Yeah.

Okay.

It was awkwardly close to your chest too.

Oh yeah.

Don't do that.

Don't, don't, don't.

It's.

We're going to lose sponsors already.

I hope we don't lose first form.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Andy Frisella sent us over these wonderful cans of First Form Energy.

I'm on the Screaming Freedom, honestly.

Probably one of my favorite flavors.

It was the last one.

You son of a. I took it.

Yeah, I know you did.

I took it.

Take that.

I took it.

It's mine.

I gave it to you.

It's fine.

It was a little oily.

I went in there and I took it.

I put some baby oil on top of it.

That's a Maduro can.

No wonder why you're so loose right now, Saeed.

Yeah.

You feel it, right?

Pausing.

Emphasis.

All right, go back to the previous screen now.

I want to cover some other things so if you look at this every single day, you'll be good.

I actually cover this on the live streams too.

If you go back to the pre market there at the top left, you also have a crypto bar.

You have some other stuff here you can look at.

But click on the pre market you're going to get what some of the stuff is trading before market.

Go to the oil in the top or top right there, the green box.

Oh, you can go to the top left now.

Green box, green box, green box down below.

There you go, There you go, There you go.

WTI Crude.

I watched this recently just, just to get an idea of where oil's at.

You can kind of see the drop off now.

Look at the course of one year, look how much higher it is, look how much it's come down, it's come down recently.

This is only going to bring it down even further.

Yeah, you got to kind of wonder if anybody thought about that as part of this whole process or was just don't let China have it.

I think, I really, really believe it has most to do with them beginning to price it out in anything other than U.S. dollars.

Right.

Because this is the way, this is the way that it works.

If, if they price it out in something other than US dollars and there's less demand and less need for US Dollars when things are priced out in US dollars overall, then, then countries will either trade, make, you know, make more trades with the US or they'll buy, they'll, they'll buy or change the currencies into US Dollars, which will ultimately they'll buy into the US Treasuries.

Right.

And if they don't do that and they don't need that, what's going to happen to the yields of the 10 year Treasury?

It's only going to rise.

It all goes back to going off the gold standard.

You know, I think that was a bad decision for a lot of reasons.

But I think this conversation is unavoidable at some point in time.

And I think it's a strange rhetoric.

I don't know if you've seen it.

I do.

The next the meat potatoes of the show is coming up.

Kids, I know we're like an hour in.

You're like, oh my God, I can talk about something relevant now than politics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are.

It's politically adjacent.

But before we do that, I think it's weird how all of like the banking heads who are opposed to cryptocurrency are now like, hey, we gotta get with the times.

Cryptocurrency is the way to go.

Jamie Dimon coming out supporting, which is raw.

Right.

We all gonna ignore.

That's a complete 180.

That's a 180 for him.

Yeah, well, I mean a lot of that probably, whether he believes in or didn't believe in it before, you know, the regulators had to have been on him.

Like, you cannot come out here and start supporting this initially even if he, even if he believed it now.

He did.

Yeah, right.

Like, come on.

I know what he did.

What'd he do?

He's like, Warren retired now I can step in now.

I can step in.

Be the savior.

Greg Abel, shut up.

This is what's gonna happen.

Okay, that's what this went down.

So let's get into us Will ban Wall street investors from buying single family homes.

Trump said, I wasn't going to cover this in the live.

And then the more I was like, man, this narrative is terrible.

So it came from Reuters.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday said his administration is moving to ban Wall street firms from buying up single family homes in a bid to reduce home prices.

A pro.

A potentially a potential blow for private equity landlords that also pressured home builders socks.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he was immediately taking steps to implement the ban, which he would also call on Congress to codify in law.

It was not clear what steps he would take.

I'm gonna read his actual quote because I think it's important here in a moment, but before we get to that, there's no evidence.

I'm sorry.

I know there's people all over X that are like, oh, damn these private equity firms.

And I am not a private equity firm fan, okay?

I'm not backing some of these people, but I got friends at Blackstone.

Do they buy a lot of multifamily apartments?

Yes.

They bought a lot of.

Buy a lot of multifamily apartment debt.

Yes.

Why are they into that?

Why are they interested in that?

Because they get the interest rate, they get the return on the cash flow every single month and they get the equity upside in the property over time.

It's a stable investment, but believe it or not, it is not the highest yielding product they get.

It may turn into that, into a higher yielding product, not the highest.

This is not incredibly risky product for them.

It's incredibly stable.

So it's low yield.

They want slow and steady growth over time.

Okay.

People like, oh, well, it's because of them that my rent's so high.

No, man, it's not.

Okay?

And we're going to cover as and I'm going to prove out because I'm so tired of this damn rhetoric.

I'm tired of it, right?

A lot of people believe that it's the institutional investor that came into their neighborhoods.

Look, there are some neighborhoods out there that have maybe experienced more than others, right?

Disproportionately more.

But some of depending on how you define a large investor, whether you talk about 100 units or more or a thousand units or more, it's somewhere between 3 and 7% of the total supply is bought by, quote, institutional investors.

I'm sorry, that is what causes your housing problem.

It's the high rates and the High home prices that are doing that.

Right.

And in order for the housing affordability to really get resolved, we talked about this on the show ad nauseam.

Right.

Three things need to happen.

Not one of the three, not two of the three.

All three things need to happen in conjunction.

Right.

Wages going up, home prices coming down and rates going down.

Yeah.

Not likely to happen anytime soon.

Right.

At least all three of them.

Right.

So.

Or you can have outsized growth in any of them.

I'll take the higher wages.

I'm good.

I'm good with that.

Yeah.

Let me decide.

I'll decide whether they do the extra money.

Everybody.

But higher wages with no inflation in home prices at the same time is the problem.

And therein lies the human conundrum, if you will.

Okay.

Truth Social.

For a very long time, buying and owning a home was considered the pinnacle of America, of the American dream.

It was life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Pursuit of happiness meant home ownership.

He is not wrong.

It was the reward for working hard and doing the right thing.

But now, because of the record high inflation caused by Joe Biden and the Democrats in Congress, that might not be the only reason, but okay.

That American dream is increasingly out of reach for far too many people, especially younger Americans.

Agreed.

Ok. At least on it's out of reach.

I agree.

It is for that reason and much more that I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single family homes.

Why?

Because you're pandering to this false narrative?

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, fine.

Okay, whatever, dude.

And I will be calling on Congress to codify.

Okay, Typically speaking, just, just to be the.

I don't.

Won't be the guy.

Typically speaking, this comes from Congress and then you codify it.

Right?

Not the other way.

Yeah.

Executive, judicial, legislative.

Legislative to executive, executive appro.

It's just semantics.

Right.

Remains to be seen how this is legal and I.

Look, I'm pretty sure the SEC has got some comments here.

I'm pretty sure some of the housing authorities got some comments here.

Hud, maybe, for example.

I'll let you finish the quote before I comment.

Oh, good.

Thank you.

Very courteous of you.

Yeah.

People live in homes, not corporations.

Yeah, except here's the problem, chiefy.

Corporations don't live in them either.

They rent them out to people who live in them.

Right.

And just, just to be the bearer of bad news here.

If less companies can buy and vis a vis their acquisitions, rent them out.

Okay, you got a fundamental problem, which means less rental supply in the market, which means rents go up.

It is significantly Cheaper to buy rent than it is to buy right now.

Do you really want rent going up as a result of this?

Because nobody's thought this through.

And while I'm doing this, you know who some of the largest buyers of homes are?

Who?

The builders.

There you go.

So now you're going to discourage them from buying their own stock and re renting them on the market as a cash flow vehicle.

So they're just not going to make it.

And don't worry, Chris has got a chart to prove this out because I know someone on X is going to be like, you know what you're talking about man.

And if they can't do it, then they can't go back in and build even more units.

Right?

Discourages them from building out even more.

Why would you do it if I can't buy my own units?

Oh, Jill.

Bringing up the Burns docs.

Dude Burns Docs Trust.

John Burns.

This is old.

Believe it or not.

I, I did not.

I did not.

You know.

I did not know.

This is gonna be used in the future at some point in time.

But before I get here, by June 2022 institutional investors owned around 450000 homes or about 3%.

That is institutional investors defined as a thousand or more, not 100 or more.

100 or more.

It's closer to 7% because it's this 3% plus.

It's like 3.5 plus 3.8% approximately.

We'll get it, okay.

Don't worry.

Of all single family rentals of the homes nationally According to a 2024 survey by the Government Accountability Office.

Another what?

There's a Government Accountability Office?

Bro, what is going on?

Accountability office?

How many offices are there?

That's.

Yo, this is the government swagger office.

I wanted to call you about your swagger.

Saeed, those quarter zips are not satisfactory.

We're gonna have to find you and we're gonna issue sanctions if you keep this up.

The Bureau of Swagger check.

Yeah.

Can't be wearing those fits.

You look very Maduro ish.

American homes for rent AMH on the stock market dropped to a near 3 year low of 28.84 and was halted for volatility before trading resumed.

Just in case you don't know this, if your price changes too much and I don't remember the exact numbers and we can look it up some other times, not really relevant for the show.

They'll halt your activity trading to kind of slow the progression downward upward.

If it happens three times, they'll just stop your Trading for the day.

You can start trading again the next day.

Okay.

It ain't good, right?

No, it's bad.

It's bad, yeah.

Very bad.

Yeah.

Not good.

But it happens.

And you know, sometimes it's productive and sometimes it's cautionary, but you don't want to hit those red alarms in the stock market.

If you're a publicly traded company, it's not good for you or anybody else.

Trading resumed.

Its shares closed down only 4% at 31.01 cents.

Blackstone shares hit a one month low of 147.52 and closed down about 5.6% to 153.59.

The PLH PHLX housing index fell 2.6% of spokesperson for Blackstone said their ownership of such homes represented a small portion of their overall business.

I can confirm firsthand know the guys who run it.

That's true.

And they had been a net seller of homes for the prior decade.

Sold more homes than they bought.

Yeah.

You know, you know that all the homies at the private equity firms are looking at them like, bro, why you didn't have to do this.

We're already the devil, Mr. President, why.

Are you doing this?

Yeah, like, why?

Why did you do this to us?

You know why?

Because they are already the devil.

He knows.

Yeah, you know, blame the dead guy.

When I, when I, when you were reading it, what came to mind for me was like, sometimes, like right before bed, for some reason, the kids tend to get a little too playful.

They get feisty.

Sometimes they argue with each other over things that don't matter.

But sometimes they're playing and it sounds like fighting.

If you're not really like locked in and tuned in.

Okay.

Sometimes my wife will be downstairs and say, hey, go upstairs and like, take care of that before I get upset.

To you?

Yeah, to me.

Go take care of that.

Make sure they get to bed before I come upstairs and I have to take care of business.

That checks out.

You know, it does check out.

Right.

So then in my mind, I'm like locked in.

Like, I could tell that they're playful and be like, oh, I got it.

Don't worry, I'll go take care of that problem.

You don't.

And I know if I go up there, they're just playing and I can put them in bed and I come down, look like the hero, bro.

There's no problem.

And he's acting like he's solving a problem.

There's zero problems going on here.

Say, totally just confirmed that his wife does not listen to the podcast.

Ain't locked in after an hour, bro.

Yeah, she's like, all right, she might listen.

She.

She'll listen for the first, like, 20, 30 minutes and then maybe check the sign off.

Chris.

Chris talking too much.

Click.

She a listen to the mean potatoes.

Yeah, she was on the live the other day, though.

She wasn't alive.

Yeah, she's on the live.

She want to catch me slipping, though.

You got to know his wife.

She want to be like, oh, that episode was so great.

Except for that one part where you stuttered too much.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, it sucks for you.

She does.

She doesn't.

She likes calling Chris out.

Yeah, she does.

I went to her.

All right, this from the John Burns Research and Consulting is the best chart I have seen on this.

I've seen a lot.

This, to me, and it goes from left to right.

You got to read it in that order.

Otherwise it looks like a bunch of rainbows and colors and stuff like that.

So there are 148 million housing units on the market.

A certain percentage of them, 9%, is about vacant.

Is that right?

9%, yeah.

9% vacant.

Okay.

Of these housing homes on the market, 134 million households, okay.

Own the non.

Are in the non.

Vacant units.

All right, there is a vacant unit breakdown here, but not really relevant for this product conversation.

So of the 65% that are owned and the 35% that are rented, you look at the 35 that are rented and you say, okay, that's 47 million total rental units.

Yeah.

Okay.

Of those 47 million total rental units, 66% or 31 million of those are apartment buildings.

Okay.

Yeah.

So sorry, kids.

Yeah, that.

That is.

That has to be an investor.

Right?

That leaves us excluding mobile homes, which is only a 2 million unit supply here, single family rentals of 14 million units across the entire country.

14 million single family rented units of the original.

148 million units.

Yeah.

Housing units.

Housing units we live in.

So of the.

I know.

The question is.

Well, I think people get that confused, right?

Housing units, units that people can live in.

That includes apartment buildings.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoopsies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, so now you got single family rental units.

14 million units.

Let's break down the 14 million units because this is surprising to most people.

Okay.

If you own one to nine properties.

Okay.

If you own 10 to 99 properties, those two groups, shocker.

Make up 76.6% of the ownership I make.

That checks out, given my underwriting history.

Yeah, it does.

It should check out yeah.

Saeed Omar.

Yeah.

Should check out real well.

70%.

76.6.

76%.

Right.

So now of the cohort that own 100 to 99 properties, 16.2% are owned by people who own 199, 999 properties.

Only 3.8%.

I'm sorry, I, I messed up.

My bad.

I, I did this math wrong here.

Let me fix this for you.

76.6% is 1 in 9 properties.

People own 10 to 99 properties.

Is 16.2%, which means a little over 90.

Was it 92% is owned by people between 1 and 99 properties.

Yeah.

Okay.

I mean, those are your real estate investors that, like, got in the game early and did really well for themselves.

Or people who just own their home.

Yeah.

Right.

Or, or, or people that just all know.

Right.

One unit.

Yeah, that's right.

So 190.

999 properties.

999, yeah.

102 and 999.

So less than a thousand properties.

More than a hundred properties.

3.8% of the total market.

What are we talking about here?

Okay.

1,000 properties plus 3.4% of total market.

Okay.

Total combined.

If you own a hundred units or more, okay.

7.2% of total rental market is owned by them.

Do you really think this is the solution?

Yeah.

Crazy.

And how do you define institutional?

Right.

There's is, there's.

Honestly, there isn't enough money for them to, for them to make.

Right.

Especially when it comes down to, like, single family rentals.

Yeah.

Come on.

They're not in, they're not in to it for that.

And the part, the problem with this chart is this is a static shock.

Look at their ownership right now.

But if you listen to people like Blackstone who made the comment they made, and they're not wrong, they have been a net seller.

That means for all the properties they own, they have sold more than they acquired in any given year.

Yeah.

So if you start going through the math that way the last 10 years, well, how are you gonna sold more properties?

Well, also, like, how are you gonna stop it?

Right?

Like you're gonna discourage these, these people from making units to go online.

Discouraging developers.

Well, you're also discouraging rentals.

Yeah.

If 7% of the market is rental properties that are owned by these people, you don't think that, okay, we'll make housing more affordable, but we're going to make renting more expensive.

Right.

And what does that do?

Does that really make everybody's life Better.

Absolutely not.

Absolutely.

As my son would say, not.

Yeah, absolutely not.

Right.

I mean there's no, there's no restrictions.

On.

Investors in capping the increases in rates.

Right.

Like rent control on single family homes.

Right.

Only, only on apartment buildings.

Right.

It depends on where you're at.

It's regional, most places around the country.

I mean that's something at some point people, I would have to be considered if anything.

Right.

Because that really puts people in a pickle where they have, they're, you know, renting a home and they just get their rent increase.

10.

You're baiting me right now.

I know what you're doing.

See what I'm doing?

Yeah.

All right, let's do it.

I have been a self proclaimed rent control expert for a long period of time, having made a lot of loans in Southern California, the second largest multifamily in the country.

In California at one point in time.

I know firsthand that rent control has very good sides and very bad sides.

Yes, you can keep rates low and yes, that means that some people can stay in those properties for a long period of time.

That also prevents transitory migration from one unit to the next unit.

People don't move, they stay there because any new apartment you go to is going to wind up being more expensive than the one you've been in for two decades.

Some people try to pass down their apartments and their rents on to their, their kids.

Right.

Because they're so cheap for long term tenants.

Rent control makes them, it gives the illusion of protection and stability.

Right.

That's, that's the lure, the draw, and.

It'S one way to solve the problem.

I'm not, I'm not demonizing it, but you got to understand there's a human element here.

Rent landlords, it almost encourages them to be some lords.

Why do they want to put more money into rehabilitating and making a unit really nice if that person's not going to vacate and it's never going to relet?

And if they can't raise the rent meaningfully.

Right.

The only way in some of these markets in Los Angeles they can raise the rent is they keep it vacant for a year and then re rent it at a much higher rate.

So.

And yeah, new properties that are built in areas like Los Angeles, for example, can be built and they have to have a low income housing component, but.

They'Re what, 15 years before they, before they get hit with rent control.

Yeah.

And it's not exactly a perfect system.

It does work that it keeps valuations of properties which are based on the amount of income and revenue you can build from them.

It keeps them stable from going too far down and too far up and it keeps people from over leveraging, like banks from over leveraging these properties.

You can't get much cash out because you got to get that service to pay for them.

Right.

So there are rational explanations on both sides of the equation.

I'm not saying that it's greater, it's good or it's bad, but I'm saying that pulling off 7 point something percent of the rental properties in the market and lowering that over time is not going to meaningfully move the needle.

First, we saw the executive branch talk about a 50 year mortgage and social media lost their mind laughing their asses off at it, and now you have this spin at it.

Clearly there's a problem in, in the housing market.

Clearly.

I'm, I, I commend everybody in, in the White House for at least acknowledging some of the problems and taking up some of the most popular rhetoric and feeding into what people want to hear responses to.

Oh, like a 50 year mortgage.

People, People, look, people are discouraged.

They want to hear there's something that, that the administration could do.

Yeah, but, but, but I think for a lot of people when they, they're complaining about there's a problem here, there's a huge problem here.

We, Nobody, nobody can afford homes.

Right.

And you come to the table with this first, you come to the table with whoa, whoa, we'll start, we'll start pushing in approving of 50 year mortgages.

Right?

It's like that's your solution, my guy that you had all this.

That's not his fault though.

No, no, no, it's not his fault.

But I'm saying like that's the unrest for many people that they're sitting and waiting for a solution and that's the best thing you can come forward with.

Not good enough.

Right.

And then second, and then you, and the next thing you do is we're going to stop institutional investor.

That's not even a problem, dude.

What do you mean?

That's not the real problem?

Well, what, what if you, you put on the tinfoil hat and you had the conversation, okay, let's say you do.

Let's say, okay, this doesn't solve the problem, but let's just say you could move several dials a little tiny bit and maybe that will meaningful.

So let's just say macro, 30,000 foot elevation, devil's advocate number one, you roll out a 50 year mortgage but you make it really hard to qualify for.

It's for first time home buyers only and you got to have certain restrictions that make it unique in the market.

Okay, number one, number two, and there's a constitutionality issue, right?

Similar people being treated differently.

Is it constitutional?

Is it, you know, legal?

No different, no different than this student loan example, which, but, but let's just.

Say you do it.

Okay.

I cut you off.

Go ahead.

No, no, no, go ahead, give me that half smile.

I know what you're thinking.

Go ahead.

No, because then there's all, there's, there's.

I'm not saying it's, it's the administration's fault or anyone's fault.

I think what scares people is we need a solution and our policymakers can't provide a solution.

Yeah, but I can't think of one either.

Right, But I'm saying like the system, is the system broke?

Yeah.

We're all supposed to rely on the system.

Right.

And the system is when things don't go well, our policymakers can go in there and provide solutions for us and create solutions to fix, to fix the problems.

The problem is, is by the time people acknowledge that there is a problem, you've got an entire class, people who are priced out of the market and won't be able to be priced back in.

Right.

If you don't fix the problem near term, it is going to be a long term painful, almost impossible problem turn around.

Not due to somewhere from our national data, that.

Right.

But let's just say you move the needle.

You the 50 year mortgage, you find a way to make it constitutional.

Okay, whatever.

Let's say you cut institutional investors out of the market.

Okay, fine.

You've got Mirin Myon in the fomc, right.

You get drone P out, you name somebody else, you got three votes.

You get more aggressive cuts, rates come back down.

But we know what that does.

Ultimately drives home values up.

All these things are inflationary for home prices.

Right.

There is no solution for this, the home affordability crisis.

So how do you.

It's death by a thousand cuts.

Yeah.

This death by a thousand cuts or just a massive AI bubble crash to where there's multiple catalysts and multiple things break.

And how does that happen?

How does that happen when you have companies making more money than ever?

They're paying less dividends because they're building out their infrastructure, but at some point in time you presume they're going to pay dividends again.

What, what, how does this happen?

Where does the.

I'm not saying it should Happen.

I mean, you are kind of wishing for, like, not at all.

No.

Did you originally.

You heard him say that, right?

He's like, I want people to lose their money.

That's what he said.

I did not say that.

I might be reading between lines.

I did not say that.

Look, look, I benefit off of it.

I'm.

I'm saying I. I got the feels for the people that don't.

Do you?

Yeah.

Okay.

Because you own a lot.

Shout out.

Shout out to my man Bob File, who.

Who messaged me before the show.

And I told him.

And I told him I was going to give him a shout out on the show.

Did you?

Yeah.

And I said, chris is an elitist.

I'm the people's champ.

I'm your guy.

Yeah.

I would.

I want to sound humble if I live in a palazzo, too.

With six bathrooms.

Yeah, six bathrooms and the big water fountain up front.

You ever seen that thing?

No.

He's got a statue now.

See, now you're lying.

You're adding.

You're adding to it.

There's no water fountain.

There's only two baths.

Simply because I haven't talked about in the past.

There's only two baths that work right now because you got a bunch of water.

I'll give you that.

You found the loophole, one of which is technically.

Technically a sitting room now.

Yeah.

Oh, we can laugh at my pain.

Regill.

True story.

You sent a.

You sent a picture to the group chat the other day about.

About his bathroom having a leak.

And I'm like, oh, no, that's the other bathroom.

Yeah, that's.

Yeah, that wasn't the one from before.

Yo, can we.

Can we do this on the show?

When you moved in, you had a water leak.

You had to put pex piping all through the house.

I did, Right?

Had to change the water heater.

Change the water heater.

You did the bathroom upstairs because there was a leak there.

And now during the rainstorms, you found another leak in the bathroom downstairs.

Yeah.

Through the window.

I'm gonna be honest with you, dog.

You turn your water off.

I know.

I need a God turned his water off.

This again.

This guy.

A little crazy, honestly.

That's all this problem.

The leak in the.

The leak in the bathroom was a small leak, and it just.

It created a little bit of water damage.

Right.

But the problem is when my contractor came in to see, like, oh, there is, like, there's a little bubble, like, under the paint, and he put his finger on it, and he.

He pressed on it, and it just Cracked it.

I was like, come on, man.

You could have left it there.

You couldn't just leave it.

Like, I wasn't gonna fix it now.

I was gonna do the hair dryer on the thing.

I was just gonna tell people to go upstairs, use the bathroom.

The.

The upstairs one has a bidet.

So the real version of the story where Jill is side went in and was like, I got the money.

Just fix it, bro.

That far from true.

Far from true.

I actually negotiated down with the guy.

I feel bad.

I was like, you don't ever feel bad.

Shout out to Ben.

Best contractor in the world.

The greatest.

Yeah.

Saeed's never paid him market rate on anything.

That's not true.

I paid him whatever.

He.

Whatever.

He's quoting me.

That's.

That's the.

That's the payment.

At least he's willing to quote you.

He won't quote me, you know?

Yeah, because you're an elitist.

I'm not.

Stop.

Don't do that.

I did it.

Okay.

You want to hear elitist?

Brazil.

You know the story as well.

Tenant moves out.

Property inspector goes in.

She inspects the property.

My sister, so I'm not going to talk too much.

A rental property of yours.

Rental property.

One.

One of.

One of my one rental properties.

One of them, yeah.

And new tenant comes in, does the whole, like, pre.

Pre rental.

Like, look around.

She loves it.

Her family loves it.

Dad's gonna live with her.

Oh, wow.

She's like.

Smells moldy in here.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

Turns out there was seepage, which I know you guys think about going to the bathroom when I say seepage.

Not that kind of seepage.

Ew.

Yeah, it's worse in reality than it is in hyperbole.

So apparently the sink, at some point in time, whenever you run, it leaks.

Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit.

But everybody runs their sinks multiple times a day.

The previous tenant was so paranoid about dust that I send contractors in to fix things for her.

She wouldn't even let them wear, like, those, like, booties that go over their shoes.

She wouldn't even allow the shoes in her house at all.

You could not wear shoes in her house.

You had to wear the booties with no shoes.

Socks only, bro.

I'm Afghan household.

You gotta take your shoes off when you come to my house.

No, I. I did the same thing.

My wife's Filipino.

I mean, I get it, but I did that before I married her, so, you know, I guess that makes us.

Yeah.

Shoe brothers, right?

In any event, she was very, very apparent she would call Me and say, hey, this guy wants to get shoes off.

Get a different contractor out here.

And the contractors always like I have to wear shoes.

It's an insurance liability.

It'd be like a whole thing.

Right.

So whatever.

But.

So she didn't know if.

She would know.

She would if she had a small kid.

Like I get it.

She moves out.

We see the.

The girl smells.

As we have a mold inspector come out.

He inspects, finds the entire kitchen cabinet structure is molded.

Like the point where it all is like a wet.

Is basically like your bitcoin hands.

Yeah.

Wet paper towel hands.

Right.

So we rip out the entire sink which has the countertop, the cabinets, everything has to go.

Of course.

This is a big house and it's a big island in the middle.

On one side there's a kitchen with countertop.

The other side there's a matching countertop.

Guess what?

They don't make that countertop anymore.

They don't make countertops anymore.

They can't get a matching stone.

They don't make the cabinets anymore.

Can't get matching cabinets.

This turned into a ten thousand dollar ordeal.

Not including the five thousand dollar.

Professional mold remediation.

Yeah.

For the space.

Damn.

Yeah.

So I cannot criticize your habits.

But the fun fact, the lesson here is kids, if you ever call your insurance company and you want to talk to them about this, you cannot say it was a slow leak over time because they will not cover.

As a matter of fact, most rental insurance policies across the country have pulled mold out almost entirely.

Because they always say that mold tends to occur not from a singular one time event, but because it happens to a slow leak over time which they do not cover.

You can get a rider an addendum to your policy which includes it for a nominal increase in fee.

Of course no one tells you that.

But the higher standard.

There you go.

That's actually gems.

Yeah.

I'm out here.

Free game.

Free game.

Free game, baby.

That's old school.

I get.

We approve that.

You can say that.

I can.

Yeah.

Free game.

Yeah.

We got to just stick to like our lingo.

We do.

Yeah.

So I should not make the shirts to say 6, 7 on.

No, don't.

Don't do that.

You should segment about this insurance stuff.

A whole section of insurance.

Yeah, yeah.

Some of the evergreen content.

Let me tell you why I'm changing insurance companies.

And mine sucks.

Yeah.

Especially with mold.

You could call it drip too hard.

That's actually a great.

That's a shirt.

That's a shirt.

Drip too hard with the roof.

That's caved in on top of it.

Oh, the drip.

The drip.

You got the drip.

Yeah, that's good, Rajeel.

Thank you.

Knows what he's doing.

Yeah.

All right.

There you go.

All right.

You guys got anything else?

I mean, we're an hour and 21 in.

I know, right?

I hope that new road cat.

Oh, if you're listening to the show, you're this far into it.

You're a loyal, true fan.

We love you.

Yeah.

Number one.

Number two, we're using new audio equipment.

Same mics, same tone, same sound, but it sounds a little differently.

Different to us because the preamps are all a little different.

If you think this sounds different or it's socks, by all means send site, an email mediahirestandardpodcast.com and we will let you know.

And we will get you the discount code percentages for our new sponsor, Fridays.

Join Fridays.com microdose, GLP1s.

Get GLP1s.

Get testosterone, get some peptides.

All the good stuff.

Great way to support yourself and have us help you help yourself and help us at the same time.

So there you go.

Honestly.

Yeah.

I saw.

I saw one of their posts earlier today and it was spot on.

If you ever bought, like, your kids gifts, right, and they don't.

They don't ask.

You ask Carter what you got him for Christmas last year, right?

He made me remember one gift or two or his birthday, he'll start confusing.

Like when you got what gift?

He won't remember.

Give your kids the gift of health for yourself.

For yourself.

Don't buy your kids GLP ones.

No.

Just to be clear, by yourself.

The GLP one.

So you live a healthier, longer life.

Life for your kids.

For your kids.

The delivery and that could use some better execution.

That's lawsuit territory.

I can't have it in a lawsuit.

This is.

This is one of those.

I got just a couple more shout outs for a couple people here.

Annie and Cali told me she and her husband sometimes watch us on the big screen TV in their house.

So shout out to them.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, it's always weird.

People send me photos of them watching us on television.

Their house.

Yeah.

Makes me feel very awkward.

Yeah.

And shout out to.

Very intimate.

And shout out to baby B. Diaz.

Yeah.

Oh, b E Diaz.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

She's cool.

She watches this.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shout out to all the people.

And if you're still with us and you're watching this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button.

Hit that, like, button.

Ring that notification bell.

Do all the moist, goody good, sassy frat stuff.

Leave us a comment.

Let us know if you like the quarter zips.

We should come out with some higher standard quarter zip merch.

Not gonna do it.

Come on, dog.

Make your own merch now.

You can make your own guy.

I'm gonna go get this embroidered.

Yeah.

I'm not doing it.

We can actually do that with our merch company.

Company.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We need the embroidering thing.

I just refuse to do it.

Why?

Huh?

Come on.

This is so, like, professional.

I only wear stuff you can actually wear in Compton.

In Compton, like, you can wear this in Compton.

You'd be fine.

You'd be good.

Brazil and I would be good in the hood.

You would not make it, sir.

All good, man.

Yeah.

How do we lose?

How do we lose?

Right?

Brazil.

How do we lose?

Saeed, Quarter zips.

Yeah.

Even the left turn.

I quarter zip.

Alley quarter zips.

In Compton.

Can't do it.

Yeah.

Neutral colors, though.

All right.

Yeah.

You got anything else?

No.

You're colorblind.

Yeah, sometimes.

I always.

Gray or black, baby.

That's not great, dog.

What is it?

Huh?

That's purple.

That's lavender.

Lies.

Brigil, tell them lies.

Don't listen to them.

Lilac.

Lilac.

No, it's Heather Gray.

Heather Gray.

It's lilac.

You know what I don't like about Nike?

What?

They come.

The.

The name.

Their color convention names are all like.

I'm like, what is that?

I don't even know what that is.

It's not like.

Just tell me if it's gray, blue, red, black.

Periwinkle is graphite.

Come on, bro, just say.

Just tell me what it is.

Yeah, Fancy.

Gray.

Yeah, come on.

Crimson.

I'm like, come on, bro.

Crimson.

Red.

Like, make it simple.

There's colorblind people out there.

Sounds like a yp, not an mp.

Say good night, everybody.

Let's go.

Yeah.

All right.

A yp.

Yeah.

Brazil.

You got anything?

Well, I guess since we're talking about Continentalist quote, Ice Cube, the best thing in life is health.

Get your mind right get your grind right get your mind right get your grind right There you go.

Use code higher on Fridays.

He just has so many of them.

Those.

He's.

He's good.

Yeah.

You got anything?

I'm useless.

All right, good night, everybody.

Bye.

Okay, bye.