Because you're the kind of guy who let me go a full episode.

No, I literally told you before the episode you were going to.

I was.

You're the guy.

You are literally the guy that waited until the end of the episode let me know I had something in my teeth.

Yeah.

But I'm also the guy who edits it out, so you're welcome.

You don't edit from my teeth.

Get out of here.

Honestly, this is why I can't talk to you.

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 all facts, no cap tea you can find on thspod.com Christopher Nahibi, Selfish Plug.

Selfish plug.

There's a lot of plugging in there.

And sitting across me and my partner in time, the one, the only, the man, the myth legend, the king of quarter zips.

Yeah.

Side Omar, everybody.

Quarter zips.

I'll take that.

And sitting behind the desk in the production suite.

He's back.

The fighting Fijian.

What's up, my guy?

Hello, everyone.

Yeah, Rajille, we got a lot to get into today.

Right.

First, I think you want to get into what went on with the dot plot in the summary of economic projections from the fomc.

We're going to get into buying versus renting later in the show.

And we're going to get into the unemployment rate.

But you said that this episode is going to be a controversial one.

Probably our most controversial ever.

Oh, coming out.

There you go.

And I prepared a statement in advance of it just to make sure.

Disclaimer.

This will be our absolutely the most controversial episode of the year.

We're going to tell you some things that you don't like, probably won't like.

But you know what?

That's okay.

We're here for it.

Yeah, we are here for it.

At the end of it all, we're going to explicitly give you an idea of how to invest your money in a way that really makes a difference in your life.

But first, the quote.

I need to read this because I know people are already going to be.

Should I read it?

Yeah, go ahead.

You got.

Okay, I read it on behalf of the squad.

Yeah.

All right, all right.

I understand why people are angry.

If you're under 40, you live through zero rates, asset inflation, a housing boom you couldn't participate in, and now the highest mortgage rates in two decades.

Feeling like the system was rigged against you isn't irrational.

It's.

What is it?

Come on, man.

It's Experiential.

I was gonna say experimental experience.

Look, I'm adopting you.

You'll read my quotes.

You better read it right.

For you, this episode is not about fairness, it's about adaptation.

If you want moral outrage, 20, Twitter has you covered.

If you want agency, stay with us.

There you go.

So Matt was just here.

Matt was on the show and shout out to Matt.

Yeah, he was.

He was talking to us a little bit about just kind of how he feels about life in general in business.

And I think a lot of people do that to us largely because we do the show.

And I think people open up to us in a way that they probably wouldn't open up normally to other people.

And I will tell you that there is large portion of my DMs.

The resounding majority of them are people who are concerned about their financial future.

Some of them are doing it from a place of optimism, like, I want to make more money.

How do I do that?

And some of them are doing it from a place of just like, hey, I need to make more money.

I got problems.

But at the end of the day, they all sound very similar.

And I think that there's a false hope.

Every time the Fed cuts rates and people were saying this last rate cut, you know, hey, Chris, why didn't we see the Treasuries move the way we had the last previous two rate cuts?

And now that we've seen the dot plot come out, we've had some time to assimilate that.

This from chart of the day via Instagram or Jill, you ready, baby?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

The Federal Reserve still sees just one rate cut in 2026.

That's a very different forecasting scenario than we just lived through.

We just saw three right now we're saying one all of next year is possibly where we're going to wind up.

Now this could change because you get a new FOMC head next year in May.

And for those of you going, well, Chris is a little repetitive from the last couple of shows.

I'm tired of hearing about the fomc.

Bear with us.

The tail end of the show is going to be very juicy, very moist.

More juicy and moist.

Both.

Okay.

It's going to be the enjoyable part of the meat.

Okay.

Yeah.

Part you like?

Yeah.

The ribeye.

The Hawaiian ribeye.

Ribeye, yes.

All right.

So the central bank so called dot plot which anonymously shows 19 individual members expectations indicates in a median estimated range of 3.4% for the federal funds rate at the end of 2026.

A quarter point lower than it currently is today, between 3.5 to 3.75%.

The forecast is the same from its projection from last quarter.

So we all know the purple dot at the bottom is Mirin or Myron, depending on how you say his name.

Donald Trump's most recent appointee.

But if, even if you exclude him, right, you really don't have a huge statistical outlier.

They're kind of all in the same place.

And more importantly, this is relatively the same as what we saw just last quarter or last time he cut rates.

So that seems to be a pretty consistent cadence of, look, there's not going to be as many rate cuts as we had this year, next year.

So that's why you saw the treasuries rise long term, as they know long term that you're not going to see a rate cutting cycle continue in perpetuity.

Right, right.

Kind of towards the end of it.

Right.

And I think that's the thing that confuses people the most.

You got, they have their favorite realtors that they follow, their favorite brokers that they might be following and listening to.

Right.

And they're like, oh, we're getting a rate cut.

So they're also expecting, okay, so maybe right around the corner in a couple months or in a month or so, I'll be, might be able to refinance, you know, my mortgage or maybe I can afford that house that I've been looking to buy.

Right.

And then the opposite happens.

The 10 year treasury goes up and then that means mortgage rates go up.

So I think that's the part that really confuses everybody.

And there's also a whole entire section of the Twitter sphere now.

X that is like the Doomers.

They're either a stock market doomer or a housing market doomer.

And I see people like Logan, who works for Housing Wire, as their chief economist and you know, he has this five year forecast and he's a great guy, smart.

I really value his input.

But he's always rosy on housing and sees everybody else as a doomer.

I try not to be either one, but I try to see both perspectives for the show because I think it's important that we have a lot of real estate agents and professionals who listen to the show and we have a lot of people who are on the other side of the coin who don't really trust real estate agents and professionals.

And I try to see it from all perspectives.

And this next chart is really important.

This is the housing grand Ponzi scheme chart Regil this one is common rhetoric.

You see on social media right now.

It has people upset, a lot of people upset.

Okay.

There is a suggestion that the Fed has done all of this, the rate cutting that we just talked about on purpose.

And I would argue this is correlation, not causation.

And people tend to get confused by this.

But this is, this is a post where you have Fred, the Fred data, the Fed data shown, where you have two lines overlaying.

Right.

You've got mortgage prices or home prices rising higher in green lines, and then you've got the mortgage rates going down even lower.

And they're, they're basically saying this is all manipulated by the fomc.

Mm.

And this is the kind of thing that really bothers me a lot because people will go, okay, well, if the Fed's doing all these things, you see this dot plot coming out and now you see all this.

And well, if, if home prices are going up and, and rates are going down and they're, they're just driving the money into the hands of the wealthy.

And I'm like, okay, well, that's not what the Fed does.

No, no.

Right, right.

If you saw the last press conference, Jerome Powell is pretty explicit.

Yeah.

The mortgage section, the mortgage space has got a problem.

He's not saying, I'm gonna fix that problem.

It's impossible for him to.

Right.

It's not his job.

It's not.

I mean, okay, inflation, part of inflation.

Housing shelter is a part of his job and he does need it to come down.

Small part.

It is a small part.

Right?

Yes.

Unemployment, employment.

Right.

That's job number one.

Yes.

Job number two, stable prices.

Exactly.

Housing prices are a small component of his price.

Now, you could argue that inflation is largely propped up by housing.

It is and it has been.

Right.

And it's the, it's the slowest to react.

Right.

Like, it's very, very lagging.

But this is the inflection point that we've been talking about for the greater portion of a year and a half, two years, that, okay, at some point in time, inflation is going to get to a point where it didn't reach their target mark of 2%.

But the job numbers are going to start to get pretty bad.

Right.

And they're going to signal that.

It's going to signal that it's going to continue to be bad and he's going to have to make a decision, do I save the jobs or do I continue to fight this battle of inflation?

And that was largely the conversation that we heard at the last fomc.

Meeting.

And a lot of the thing that he kept going back to saying, well, we haven't seen the unemployment from AI coming in.

Yes, we're going to address all this.

So just that's foreshadowing the business kids.

Yeah, we haven't seen this large amount of layoffs and unemployment is ticking up 4.2%, 4.3%, 4.4%.

And then we got a print recently at 4.6%.

Ouch.

But before we go there, let's go to the next chart.

Regil.

I think the more important chart to look at than this kind of conspiracy theory that you see on social media and X is probably the biggest culprit of that.

Instead, let's take a look at where the wealth is and why this matters.

More wealth by generation.

This is the real imbalance.

And this is something we talked about on the show where we talked about there being a K shaped economy moving forward.

We probably all heard it.

If you listen to the show and you're into finance, you probably heard it from somebody else.

The middle class is getting shrunken out.

Mm.

Right.

And this chart kind of explains why.

You got millennials, Gen Gen X, baby boomers in the silent era, silent era being the oldest of the generation.

Right.

But the silent era doesn't have anywhere near as much wealth as the baby boomers do, which holds the large majority of the wealth, frankly, almost as much wealth as everybody else combined.

You got Gen X right behind them with a good chunk, probably about half of what the baby boomers do.

And the millennials with arguably the smallest chunk, or maybe just incrementally more than the silent and early era, which is the oldest generation there.

So the wealth disparity is pretty wide by generation, pretty wide by generation.

And if you really think about it too, think about like what, what the millennials have had to go through in their adulthood so far to get to, to get to this point.

Yeah.

And think about it too.

The baby boomers got the cheapest ability to buy.

Now they would argue, I lived in 1970s, it was different.

Okay, yeah, fine, whatever, bro.

Yeah, it ain't the same, bro.

Last 20 years have really changed the dynamic.

So the silent early generation were part of that save and retire generation.

And we're going to get into that and why that theory no longer works in a little bit.

But a lot of pensions were being handed out back then.

A lot of pensions.

A lot of people had assets.

They had to sell those assets to survive in a highly inflationary economy.

So they've lost their wealth at the top, the baby movers have, have maintained their assets.

They kept their assets through this, and their assets started appreciating with crazy numbers.

Crazy, crazy numbers.

Matter of fact, if you had assets and your asset rich, you are far wealthier in most cases than you are if you had assets.

High salaries.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you just held those assets and managed to keep them even though your salaries weren't, like, super high, you got rich.

Mm.

That is not the same for Americans today because you can't afford to buy the assets.

To start that conversation.

Yep, it's true.

That is not fair.

That is why you have an entire cohort in Gen X, in millennials that feel like it's really hard to buy a home.

And it's true.

Because the average home age now of a buyer, the average age of a home buyer is 40 years old.

That's insane.

Yeah.

You know that, that feels like the system has let you down.

You're not even 40 yet, are you?

July, man in July.

Avery.

Jill, let me tell you right now.

Where's the party at?

Where's the.

Let me tell you right now, these knees feel like they're 40 years old.

Tell you that much, bro.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

That much, let me tell you right now.

Play some ball last night.

Wait, you played basketball last night?

I'm coaching, so I'm getting in and mixing up with the kids and.

Wait, you're picking on kids?

Have to.

Yeah.

Gotta stay fresh, bro.

That's not right.

10 year olds.

When I was your age, I used to be able to stop guys like me.

Yeah.

Cut.

Move.

Come on.

I need you to cut.

Wow.

Yeah.

But anyways, I was fine on my knees until literally this year.

45 is when it hit me.

Yeah, I, I, I hurt.

They ache now.

Like all those little injuries you have in your kid, they come back.

Yeah.

And the, the guys that I still see playing at at this age and like, at, at your age.

Why you got.

Come on, man.

Why can't you say our age?

Your age?

There's a lot of mobility work that goes in, a lot of mobility daily in order, in order to be able to sustain that.

Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm stretching, I'm getting down.

I'm getting the squat stance.

Yeah, I'm doing the whole thing, man.

Yeah, I'm seeing, no, I'm seeing some of Adam's coaches and, and what they're doing, and I'm like, dude, forget it.

None of that.

Since many, when I was a kid, I'm like, why are y' all stretching so much?

A lot.

Yeah.

A lot of activating of the glutes and in the hip flexors and.

Oh, man, it's.

It's a lot.

That seems like a lot of time.

I'm going to be the adult in the room because I'm the oldest and not make a joke about activating your glutes.

Okay, you're welcome because I'm the mature one here.

Say because you've had somebody at the gym literally tell you you look like you need to activate your glutes.

That's a true story.

That's why he's laughing.

It's so sad because it's true.

Yeah.

Boomers didn't win because they're smarter.

I want to be clear about this.

If you feel smarter than that boomer who's got a higher net worth than it might be because you are.

Okay, they won because they owned homes.

They own stock.

They refinanced into 3% mortgages, and they locked in leverage before inflation.

That's just time and circumstance.

And I understand luck is the combination of preparation and opportunity.

Right.

They were prepared for the opportunity, so they got lucky.

I'm not taking that away from them.

But it's not the same today.

The biggest wealth transfer of the last 40 years didn't come from innovation.

It came from owning things when money got cheap.

And that's.

Homes are just one proxy for this.

This goes for businesses in the economy and a lot of other things.

But this is going to be a resounding theme of why we are going to deviate meaningfully from the investment advice you've heard historically.

And this is all setting us up to get there.

Towards the end of the show, where we explain to you how to invest and why you need to accept some of these things as fact.

Yeah, it's good.

It's true.

But let's see why the sentiment is so dark right now and look at buying versus renting in America today.

Because I think this is also an important fact.

Fact that people have been saying this a lot on social media.

There's a lot of anger around this.

Everyone's like, it's cheaper to rent than it is to buy.

And frankly.

It's true.

It is.

You know, it is true.

And I know that, you know, some advice that we had back in the day that probably doesn't hold up as much anymore right now, at least where we live.

Right.

Is.

I mean, you.

You've notably said that you made the decision to ultimately buy once you realized that it was cheaper to buy than it was to rent.

That doesn't exist anymore.

Yeah, that's just not even sound advice.

And mind you, when I did that, that was with, like, 3% down.

Yeah, it was.

It wasn't like I put 20 down to do that.

Right.

It was 3% of the time.

And I use some of my agent commission as a broker to.

To put even more of it down.

Yeah.

So let's go over just some basics real quick.

Right?

So renting makes sense if you value flexibility.

Right?

If you.

If you value the.

The ability to be able to move around still.

If you're not, you don't have any routes that you want to put down anywhere.

Right.

You can't overlook that either.

I think with a more transient work culture and remote work being way more prevalent, you're seeing just more humans value that level of transience, the ability to move around.

And I think renting gives them like, hey, if I want to go live there, I can.

Right.

Also, though, it makes more sense if it.

If buying stretches you out too thin financially.

Right.

If coming from somebody like, take.

Take it from me.

If it gets to the point where now you have to limit the life experiences that your family gets to enjoy and appreciate.

Right.

Then maybe this ain't it.

Right.

Because now you're.

You're tied down to a home and you're grateful for the situation.

But also it's like, okay, kids, sorry, we can't go on this trip, you know, or we can maybe only do one trip if we're lucky.

Right?

And.

And you have to start picking and choosing.

Okay.

There's only so many activities that you can do.

Like, from a parent like me, I know that Carter is not into sports just yet.

Not say that he won't be.

Basketball on Saturday.

We'll see.

Okay.

There you go.

You know, and I don't know about your boy Rejeel, but, like, if they get to the point where they take it seriously and they really, really.

And they like that.

I want to get better at this.

Yeah, dude.

The personal training alone is wildly expensive and sucks royally to have to tell him, like, look, I can't get you that trainer.

Right.

And luckily for.

For my kids, like, okay, I'm gonna do the research.

I'm gonna get out there with you, and I'm gonna train you, and we'll do our best.

Not a lot of parents have that flexibility, so you're gonna have to start picking and choosing.

So if it stretches you out too thin financially, maybe it does make more sense for you to rent just so you gotta still experience life, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

And I think that that's what people are feeling right now.

I think that's, that's the cultural divide that we're seeing is people don't feel like they're experiencing life because they just feel so cash constrained.

There was an interesting article I read today about a, a woman in the Midwest.

I can't remember what she did for a living, but I want to say it was like something clerical or, but like adjacent in nursing.

But she made like $135,000 a year and she said that a couple years ago that was more than enough to her to experience life and do the things that she wanted to do for her and her daughter.

She was a single mom and now she can't.

Well, we talked about it.

That140,000 was that new poverty line.

That's right.

I mean, and she felt that way, which to her was stunning because if you think about it from her perspective, she didn't make less money.

Nothing changed for her.

But everything changed for her.

Absolutely.

I mean if you look at.

So tomorrow, today is.

I'm sorry, the date is the 17th, 18th.

CPI numbers are supposed to come out.

Okay.

If they're going to come out, they're going to give you the inflation rate.

That's not what the true inflation rate is, right?

No, they're not the average of everything.

Well, they're also not measuring prices of things.

Right.

It's, it's what, what is the cost of maintaining the current lifestyle that you have?

So if meat got too expensive, what's an alternative to meat that you might buy?

And that's how they base everything off of.

So the real rate of inflation is probably closer to 6%.

So if you're not getting a 6% raise from your job, you're essentially getting a pay cut and you're accepting a lower standard of living.

Yeah, Right.

And I'm telling you, and that's most of us, most of us are not going to get that 6% raise.

Right.

So it's that, that's just fact.

Right.

So I feel her, you know, and that's probably the sentiment most people carry.

So to your point, the reasons that people feel crushed in this economy, particularly when it comes to renting and housing in general, sticker shock meets immobility.

High prices, high rates, low inventory, locked in, homeowners won't sell.

People feel stuck.

Not just priced out, they feel physically stuck.

And these cultural changes are meaningful.

We, we don't Quantify them enough because we don't want to look at how people feel because we as a society generally don't talk about this as openly as we, as we probably should.

But those are great indicators of what we are all experiencing financially.

Number two, renting no longer feels like a temporary phase.

Rents rose with home prices.

No saving fast enough can escape that hatch.

Okay.

And renting feels like a permanent displacement now.

So now people feel stuck permanently.

That's a problem.

Now you have an entirely different human behavioral dynamic where if people feel stuck permanently, they look for alternatives.

They start demonizing the thing that they cannot get because they feel like they're never going to get it.

Yeah.

And that leads us to number three, expectation whiplash.

Everyone was told rates will fall, housing will correct.

Neither happened meaningfully.

And the last rate cut, the fomc, which is the cost of banks to borrow, not the mortgage rates.

You saw the ten year treasury rise which pushed mortgage rates up.

Right.

And what's the famous quote that the realtors and brokers like to say?

Marry the home.

Date the rate.

Yeah, date the rate.

Marry the home.

Marry the home.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, doesn't always work like that.

No.

And it certainly didn't work.

If you bought a home like the last year or so and you put like a limited amount of money down and 53% of the homes across the country have lost value.

Not a ma.

Not a massive amount of value, but lost value.

You, you could be not doing so well from an equity perspective.

Now that doesn't impact you.

As long as you can afford to pay your mortgage payment, it's not detrimental, it's not crisis territory.

I want to ring any alarms.

Right.

But that's the beginning of what could be a bad trend for some people.

Yeah.

I mean for a lot of people.

I don't want to, I want to be careful and not go too far down this rabbit hole and sound like the Grant Cardones and the Cody Sanchez's of like don't ever buy a home.

It's a waste of your time and your money.

You know this and that's.

But it's like you got to factor in there are hidden costs to owning a home.

And like I would had a really.

Good post not too long ago that I commented on and don't pull it up or Jill.

So anyway, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want endorse him, but he actually, he was talking about a $40 million home.

So grain of salt.

Okay.

The cost, I think, I think I.

Saw this the Property taxes.

Yeah.

And he was talking about property taxes, maintenance, and also the stuff that he was going into it with.

And he was talking about, look, my equity over time in the next couple of years won't be anywhere near where that money could be in the market.

So he made.

He probably made a little bit more fiscal sense in this economic climate.

It's the first time I've heard him say anything that I was like, oh, okay, well, this kind of was true now.

But I would also say that's also wildly confused because most people are buying, let's say, the average home at about 440,000 in America today.

They're not putting down 10% or 20%.

They're probably putting down close to 3 to 5%.

Okay.

That money working in a different area is not the same as Grant Cardone's down payment on a $40 million home working in his favor.

Right.

And you think about.

It's going to take like the rule of thumb used to be stay in the home for a minimum of five years in order for you to start seeing some.

Well, Americans are staying longer now.

That rules out the wind.

Well, you're forced to have to stay longer now, but with the rates even being a little bit higher than what they were before, that number is probably closer to seven years now.

You know, seven, eight, actually.

Seven to eight.

Right.

So the.

The naysayers to buying a home are always going to say, you know, it's a.

It's a cheap savings account to buy a home.

You know, like all the money that you put into maintaining the home, the property taxes, the insurance.

Right.

Like, you could have taken that money and invested into the market or invested into.

Cody Sanchez says buy a business that, you know, like.

Okay, that might not be.

Can I go on the record for.

Something like this has been on the record, but you.

You can go on the record again.

I don't like her.

Neither do I, in any way, shape or form.

Yeah.

It's not that she's.

I just don't like her face.

Okay.

I don't.

I don't mean that in a hurtful way.

Like, I don't mean that in a bad way.

Like, she's.

She's like a nice lady, I guess, but she just.

I change it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

I don't.

Yeah.

I don't like the demeanor, you know?

Yeah.

Maybe that's what it is.

Maybe it's the ego, Something about her face.

The confidence is crazy.

It's such false confidence, too.

It's because it's the Goldman Sachs Right.

That's where she worked for like, two weeks.

I mean, a little bit more.

Her resume is.

Nobody take that seriously.

But, yeah, no, her resume is not real.

As a matter of fact, I would invite her on the show at any point in time.

Let's talk about your resume, shall we?

Something tells me she's not coming on the show.

I declare.

Shenanigans.

Yeah.

Her and Dave Ramsey are not on the waiting list.

Let me tell you right now.

Look, and look, we've.

I. I've said this in.

In a.

It may be in a different lifetime.

Right.

I wish that I would have taken more risk earlier in life and look, to start a business.

Right.

And look.

To fail and start again.

And.

Because you know, that is.

That.

That.

That part of it is.

Is nice, but, like, telling unknowingly.

Just walked into something that we're going to talk a lot about in a little bit.

Did I?

I mean, I've been doing this for quite some time, bro.

I know you didn't read the show notes, bro.

I know I did.

That's the alley.

All right, look, there.

There is.

There's a lot of things we wish we knew when we were younger that we heard or we thought about, but we didn't do because we followed what we thought was smart.

Right?

Health and nutrition are a great proxy for this.

Carbs are bad now.

Carbs are good.

Fat's bad now.

Fat's good.

Don't eat this, don't eat that.

Go for running.

Running was huge.

80s and 90s, baby.

Go for a run.

Now it's like, oh, don't.

Don't damage your knees.

Go for a walk.

Yeah, go for a walk.

Exactly.

It's like.

But when it comes to investment philosophy, we haven't really changed.

And that's what we're going to do tonight is we're going to change the way we all think about investments and Saeed.

Just full disclosure, everybody.

He's gonna poop himself a little bit during this episode, so he might have to get up and go away.

So I'll be prepared for you.

So when you do, Jill, when he gets up and leaves, we'll just keep it going because he's gonna need to poop himself a little bit, I think.

I don't think so.

I don't think so.

We'll see.

I'll be ready.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We got the tushy.

Yeah.

Sponsored by tushy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So let's bring up the.

The buying versus America Buying it versus renting in America chart real quick for Jill So this is the chart.

And this is this.

This chart is meaningful.

If you're not.

If you're driving, shame on you.

But if you are driving and you want me to give you a oral depiction, that's what I'm here for.

You'll see that during recessionary economies, the blue shaded vertical lines, you generally get the cost of buy increasing afterward.

And it's pretty self explanatory what happens.

People start buying more during these times because values come down a little bit.

Right.

So then it drives prices up.

And you've seen these peaks and valleys over time and it's been really fascinating rise.

But cost to rent versus cost to buy has gone up at very different cadences.

As a matter of fact, I would say that the cost of rent has steadily gone up over time.

You've seen a spike in 2022, and 2022 is going to be a very interesting year.

I want to come back to 2022.

Okay.

2022 has been a very interesting year because you saw the.

Probably what I think is clearly the most aggressive spike in rental costs year over year in American history.

Okay, Fair statement.

Yeah.

Based on the chart.

Fair.

Okay.

You also saw at 2022, what is clearly, no argument about it, the single largest increase in cost to buy in American history.

Yep.

Those two things are facts, right?

Facts.

Rent went up, cost to buy went up, cost to buy went up way higher than cost of rent did.

But again, all in 2022.

Yeah.

And I know what everyone's thinking.

Well, Chris, pandemic stimulus.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Daddy's got better answers for you tonight.

Yeah, I want better answers than that.

Okay.

Maybe something a little bit more.

Oh, don't worry.

And by the way, this, the source for this is Kay Shiller and the bls.

Yeah, Not a bad source.

Yeah.

I'm just saying.

Right.

So I want to apologize in advance to all the Twitter economists because where humanity and perspective creep in, these conversations, it starts to change the paradigm.

You can look at this straight from a data perspective, but you need to be human about this.

Okay?

You need to start thinking about this from how people feel.

And I know that's not tactile enough for some people, but the Twitter economist can go cry themselves river.

Buying a home is no longer a lifestyle decision.

It is a balance sheet decision.

Do I want this for my balance sheet?

We used to say buy a home because, you know, you need the utility.

That's what makes sense to buy.

That was our.

Yeah, that was our saying.

I Still believe that.

But I also think there is an entire group of Americans today who feel like they just need that on their balance sheet because they've been told their entire lives.

A single largest place that Americans derive their net worth is the equity appreciation in their home over time.

I want that on my balance sheet to build wealth.

And I do think that it's also kind of ignoring that a lot of people feel the pressure, the peer pressure of buying a home just to keep up with, you know, their friends or keep up with the other kids at school.

Right?

A lot of people feel that.

Yeah.

No, it's almost like a point of shame for some people.

For some people, Right?

Or it's like, man, like, I want to start a family.

They have visions of, like, you know, owning a home, having a backyard and doing all these things.

Huh?

Having a white picket fence.

Having a white picket fence, all that.

Right.

So who really, really has one of.

Those anymore, by the way?

Not in our community.

I mean, Sai lives in a palazzo, so different story.

He's got a whole big fence thing going around his house.

Virgil and I, I mean, we're borderline homeless compared to you.

It's not true.

That's true.

Not true.

Brazil.

You can come over.

You want to invite you over.

So you can see how small this palazzo is.

All I'm saying is take your square footage, lay it out into one single level, and then add a huge lot to it, and you would have Saeed's house.

That's.

That's not true.

That's true.

That's nice, man.

It is nice.

Congratulations.

You don't act like you don't know this guy.

He's in my palazzo.

He's a very nice.

He's painting a completely different picture.

1900 square feet, man.

Is it not a single family detached house?

It is a detail, Christopher.

We've gone down this path.

This is a dangerous game for you.

How many detached homes do you own?

That's the question.

That's the question is, do you live in one?

I got it.

Okay.

So here is the harsh truth for many households.

Okay?

This is going to offend a lot of people, but unfortunately, this is a perspective shift we all need to accept, number one, renting is, in fact, cheaper monthly.

That's it.

I agree.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All in for sure.

By the way, if you didn't agree, that would be a very big argument right now.

Oh, no, I agree.

I mean, yeah.

Get out.

Get out.

My rent is like a mortgage by itself.

Yeah.

So, yeah, the interest and all this other Things.

Yeah, but then like, just think about the main instinct.

What, what's the cost?

What's, what's rental insurance has a problem.

He called, he calls the, the property manager.

They come fix it.

They come fix it.

Yeah, bro, you better call him for everything.

Hey, one of your light bulbs are out.

Come up here.

I.

All the time you have to.

Yeah, I'm not paying for this.

Hey, man.

Toilet smells weird.

Can smell it.

That wasn't me.

That's the water.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, Number two.

Okay.

And this is going to be harsh for a lot of people.

Buying is only rational if you expect long tenure in the property and the location.

Right?

Right.

You value inflation hedging.

Not all people do.

And certainly some people don't feel like a home is a hedge against inflation.

What do you mean by that?

Right.

If you think that the home value is going to go up with, commiserate with inflation or like we've seen the last couple of years, that it's going to rise outsized relative to inflation because home value has gone up way higher than the average inflation number no matter what the real number is.

Right.

Then you go, okay, maybe this is a speculative investment for me, but that's not a decision for most people.

Most people are just trying to find a place to live.

Yes.

Right.

Number three, you can absorb volatility and that's an important thing.

Homes are illiquid investments.

You put your money into that and you hope to get equity appreciation.

Over time, that long tenure becomes important, but it can also strap you in.

And then, hey, if home values go the other way, right.

I mean, you got an economic loss.

You'Re looking at right now.

I mean, in some markets, some neighborhoods definitely still a seller's market.

Right.

But in, in a lot of them, it's a buyer's market.

Right.

There's we, we covered the, the data points on, I think last week's episode with how many more buyers or how many more sellers there are than buyers.

And I can't remember the data point off the top of my head, but it's pretty, it's pretty astonishing.

It's like people are.

Homes are staying online for a lot longer.

That's right.

So to your point.

Yeah, they are illiquid.

And if you need to get out of it, I think that now more than ever it's going to be equally as important to maybe not put all of your, you know, your funds down as a down payment, maybe, maybe hold on to some PMI for a little bit longer just so you can still have an emergency fund.

Right.

It might be.

It might be worth.

It might be a trade off that you should want to consider.

I would say be more cautious of downside risk and home values in the near term.

Mm.

If you're gonna be there for five, seven years, then.

Then you do whatever you want.

But if you feel comfortable.

Right.

If you got stable income and you feel good.

Yeah.

So homeownership nuances that everybody should accept at this point in time.

Home homeownership is clearly not the only path to wealth anymore.

It used to be, and it was the largest number one source for most Americans.

I don't think that's going to be the case in the future, and I don't think it's the case now.

Yeah.

But I think that's.

It's not going to be the case unintentionally, though.

No.

As people are going to be forced into other avenues.

They already are.

Yeah.

Not going to be.

They already are.

Number one.

Yeah.

Just accept that.

Okay.

And number two, that.

But this is still most politically protected.

Homeownership is.

Is a politically protected.

Right.

Because the Constitution.

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Pursuit of happiness really meant property ownership back then.

It was farms, but really land and homes.

That's what they're talking about there.

So there is a political zeitgeist element to, you know, protecting this asset class, which some people may or may not find useful.

But look, it's changed.

We all need to accept that it's changed.

And the old school narrative that we were fortunate enough to adopt doesn't mean that's the only narrative.

Matter of fact, I think it's probably a losing narrative in the coming 10 or 20 years.

And the answer in the conclusion has been staring right in our faces for a long time.

And it has to do with technology.

I have one more foundational element to set before we get into the why you need to invest differently and think very different about investing.

And this is going to be as revolutionary as Keto was when it came out.

Like, oh, my God, I can lose all this weight by just eating fat.

Right.

You can get rich by doing something completely different.

Let's go.

And it's gonna.

It's gonna be a very obvious switch to some.

That's the title of the show.

You can get rich by doing this.

This is true.

I believe it fundamentally.

I'm already plugged in.

Let's go.

Okay.

Well, site has read the show notes, so he doesn't know that.

It's just.

Stop.

I have loaning money to friends.

Hi, Side, I'm your friend.

We would be remiss if we do not acknowledge that 4.6% is the new unemployment rate.

It went up 4.2, 4.3, 4.4 and now 4.6.

4.6 unemployment rates according to Yahoo Finance via Instagram, is very serious.

There has not been a time since the 1980s and the 1980s recession was the only exception that unemployment was high throughout the 1970s in the last decade.

And economically.

But let's get to the point here.

There has not been a time that unemployment has been this high and it did not indicate the early days of a declared recession.

I am not being a doomer.

That is just a statistical fact historically.

Now, obviously you can point to AI, you can point to some other things.

Regil is kind enough to pull up the US Employment right here.

You got September, August, July going all the way back.

4.2, 4.3, 4.4 from July, August, September, respectively.

So, yes, this has gone up every single month.

2026 is going to be an economic slowdown.

I think we can all agree on that.

That's a fact.

Okay.

This is a near certainty.

And I can pretty confidently predict that most pundits are wrong and it will not be boom times.

You know, you're not going to people in the market.

You're going to get the talking head on CNBC going, hey, Bob, I think next year is going to be a 15% increase in everything and it's going to be prosperous for everybody.

And it's just going to be amazing.

Okay?

I don't believe that.

I'm sorry, I don't, I don't.

I don't know where people get that, that weird fallacy in their head locked up from like, it just seems almost like buying into the narrative to sell the narrative to other people in the narrative.

It's weird.

Right?

And executives of publicly traded institutions right now are even expecting slower growth for next year.

I mean, this is, this is evidenced in the Challenger report.

I want to let you finish too, but I got a whole thing on that and why.

And you know, the Challenger report is actually something that I think we should begin covering a lot more, especially with where we're at right now and because it really gets into layoffs.

Right.

Yeah.

I like the Challenger Report.

I think it's a good span and pull of some very important people.

Well, it goes.

It literally takes.

It takes their data from, you know, the public announcements from corporations.

Right.

And what's actually being announced.

That's going to happen.

Right.

They're Not.

It's not on surveys.

It's not on estimates.

It's what's already been announced, and that's what it.

What it takes from it.

We covered her in an episode.

Huh?

We covered.

We could.

We cover it.

Yeah.

But I think it's something because.

Oh, why don't we do, like, a full breakdown of, like.

Oh, yeah, yeah, we should.

So.

But from this one, just a, you know, high level.

From January, November of this year, job cuts are up 54% year over year.

Okay.

Wow.

The top four reasons companies are cutting jobs.

And maybe you can elaborate a little bit.

Yeah, that's definitely on there.

Number.

Number one, restructuring, which is code for.

AI, which is code for AI.

Right.

In November.

In November alone, it led all reasons.

So think store units or departments that are actually closing.

Right.

Number two on the list, artificial intelligence.

AI is responsible for 54,000 layoff plans.

Number three, market and economic conditions.

So also, AI also has a lot to do with AI.

And the last one, which actually remains the leading reason for job cut announcements in all of 2025, with 293,000 job cuts.

Garbage.

Government.

Yeah.

I was going to put a chart in here about the government cutting jobs.

That's.

That's the crazy part, is that we've seen a lot of cuts in the government.

Yeah.

And employees and I don't know how.

Okay, this is gonna sound terrible, and I'm just gonna ask the question, the quiet part out loud that everybody's asking.

Yeah.

Government agencies weren't known for moving.

I had so many jokes that I refrained myself.

Pull back here.

Yeah.

Think Robin Williams.

Yeah, pull back.

You don't want to be that guy.

Yeah.

You want to be the comedian who's wholesome and family love.

But you can go to your comedy specials where you do the arm.

Nate Bargasky.

Yeah, I'll be that.

I'll be here.

All right.

So the government agencies were not exactly known for efficiency to begin with.

There were a lot of people not being efficient together.

I have to believe that a lot of people not being efficient together is probably more efficient than less people being less efficient.

I. I think I would.

I would agree to that.

Yeah.

I completely agree.

What has been implemented to make these.

That's the question.

Yeah.

What is the question?

Right.

Like, no one has come out and been like, okay, listen, this is how we improved efficiency.

Right.

We let all these people go because they're no longer needed.

Shouldn't you improve efficiency first and then let them go?

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Look, we've created this Technology that'll make it more efficient now we no longer need you.

Maybe that.

I got it.

Department Government efficiency.

Yeah.

Doge forgot the whole being efficient first part of it.

Yeah.

You go or you started cutting jobs.

You think that's what it was?

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So the other reason why I really like this report and why it's, I think, good for our listeners to pay attention to and why we should, you know, routinely cover it, it dives into the industries that are being impacted.

Right.

So you can, you can get a feel for.

Okay, is this coming up in my industry or is this like what's going on mainly like in tech or you know, finance or what is it?

So for this, for this report that came out, it was mainly telecommunications.

Right.

Technology, the service sector and retail.

So that I saw a similar quote on construction too.

Construction industries booming a little bit from the employee standpoint.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, but.

Huh.

Well, let's finish the thought on, on employment because we want to get to the meat and potatoes and the meat and potatoes is our new investment philosophy.

I'm ready to adopt it.

That's the meat I could use.

Don't.

I don't say that now.

I can use a new investment philosophy.

Don't say that now because you're going to, you're going to have to go to the bathroom halfway through.

Okay.

Are you going to adopt this investment philosophy?

I.

Or have you already full disclosure before.

We get there and people are going to be like, oh my God, I have.

Teasing.

I'm teasing.

No, I'm not.

I know you're.

I'm teasing that part.

The meat and potatoes.

Strange hand gesture.

I have always been a believer in V I, O O the S&P 500 index funds.

I think that belief is wrong now.

I mean, I had it down to a philosophy we gave out on the show previously about where I invested.

I don't think it's real anymore.

I think it's outdated.

I think it's, you know, gone with the wind.

And I'm gonna explain why, but I think that that's an early Precursor.

Interesting.

Okay.

U.S. labor market is coming to a halt.

This from the Kobisi letter via X.

The total non farm hiring rate fell negative 0.2 percentage points in October to 3.2%, the lowest since 2020's pandemic bottom.

Over the last four years, this figure has declined 1.4 percentage points to levels in line with December 2008 meaningful time, also known as a great financial crisis.

By Comparison, during the 2001 recession, the hiring rate was much higher at 3.7% to 4%.

And typically, unemployment spikes at the end of a declared recession, which is also an interesting thing that we're seeing now, if we're seeing unemployment begin to spike back up and we're not in a declared recession, which typically is declared afterward anyway, it is normal to see unemployment spike at the end or towards the end of a recessionary period.

Right.

Think 2010, we hit 10% unemployment rate, you know, a year, year and a half, well past the recession.

That's right.

So furthermore, the private hiring rate fell to 3.5% in October, the lowest since January 2011.

And in line with the 2020 lows, the US labor market has, frankly stalled, as Said has pointed out.

Rajille pulled up a beautiful chart here, which shows a bunch of lines going.

Up and down like my heartbeat.

Yeah.

Is that a heart attack in the middle?

That's what that was in 2020.

The pandemic heart attack, we'll call that.

All right, now let's get into investment philosophy.

We're.

Jill, you ready?

Let's do it.

You strapped in?

Oh, yeah.

Saeed, let's go.

Okay.

I will say there is a whole segment on the loom as a proxy for what this is in a link that I provided in the show Notes from market in moonshots called the Window Manifesto about how the loom affected the textile industry.

And it gives a very, very good, similar analysis to what we're seeing today with AI but before we get into this, I want to ask some simple questions to both of you.

Do you two believe that technology is changing at an ever increasing, faster cadence?

Yes, Jill.

Okay.

Do you two believe that the speed at innovation in general has increased?

Yeah.

Okay.

I think that's been the case, you know, as old as time.

It's always increasing exponentially.

Okay, so let's take that and let's go with that for a second.

Do you believe that we have now hit a point where it's faster now than ever before?

Yes.

Okay.

Those three questions and those three answers are going to lead you to what you probably think is a strange conclusion for the future and how to invest your money.

And you're going to say, well, Chris, that's concentrated, or that doesn't make sense to me.

But first, let me tell you why the old ways don't work.

For decades, the story was simple.

When markets grew, the economy created jobs.

When markets cooled, hiring slowed.

Right now, we are not seeing that the market has not effectively cooled, but yet we're seeing a Massive slowdown in jobs and unemployment increase.

Definitely.

It's almost a tale of two different markets.

But we do know there is some weird behavior with the S&P 500 where the Mag 7 is leading the way.

Yes.

Yes, Jill.

Yeah, that's right.

The booth is involved today.

Let's go.

Strap in.

Regil.

The two lines move together.

Intrinsically bound, both being a proxy for the same thing, economic prosperity.

Then something broke.

Something happened.

Oh, we're just showing you the S&P 500 index versus total job openings.

They moved largely in line in tandem.

Yeah.

And then look up 2022.

Something broke.

What broke in 2022?

Remember when I said 2022 would come back to bite you in the bum?

And the bum?

Yeah, this is the bum.

Oh, it's biting.

What happened on November 30, 2022?

Side.

You know, Rejeel, do you know something.

To do with the Fed rate cuts or rate increases.

Oh, sugar bear.

Something happened on November 30, 2022.

Since then, some of the Magnificent Seven stocks have almost tripled.

Meanwhile, job openings.

Well, they're back to 2019 levels.

Pre pandemic levels.

Pre pandemic levels.

Rajeel, pull up the next chart.

Okay.

This is a correlation chart.

We don't talk about these much in the show.

Instead of just showing S&P 500 versus total job openings, which typically move aligned with one another up and down, this.

The correlation chart is a bit different.

It shows a very different tail.

You can see that the black line above the X line, if you will, shows that these two things, the S and P and the jobs report, were very much aligned.

They were very Correlated up until November 30, 2023.

And you can see now that it started to go down and now it's moved into the negative where the correlation is completely divided.

Yeah.

So effectively they were still moved somewhat in line, just at a wider cadence up until about 2025.

And now it's going negative where they're not.

They're moving in completely opposite directions.

Yes.

So something meaningful change November 30, 2022 that has driven this correlation completely apart.

I got it open.

AI launched.

That's right.

In his defense, he does have Google in front of him.

I do have Google.

So you had Jerome Powell in the last FOMC meeting saying that he hadn't seen it yet.

Site hasn't appeared in the numbers.

Yes, it has, Jerome.

Yeah, just not.

Just not a data point that they say that they claim to use in their beige book.

Well, again, they're not looking at the correlation.

They're looking at the chart.

And unfortunately, we look at the correlation here and just take the same data and overlay it.

It looks very different.

Yeah, but I know you could say, Chris, you're just taking numbers and you're pulling them out of size.

Tushy.

To use a tushy and make a tushy and all the tushy stuff.

Because we like tushy stuff in the show.

It is a lagging indicator.

Okay, I, I fully appreciate the.

The gravitas of this being a number that we look at in retrospect, and maybe it's, It's.

It's hard to have confidence in, but that's precisely why it matters.

Okay.

Shorter time frames show noise.

This shows how unusual sustained, sustained movements like this really are.

Sustained negative correlation, if you want to be technical.

Really, really can be.

So on the first chart, the line represents capital ownership and productive assets.

The other line represents human labor, your ability to sell your time for skills and sell your time and skills for money.

Okay.

It is essentially what you're doing.

That's what we're comparing.

And I know it sounds terrible and esoteric and really just bastardizing humanity, but.

If you, if you boil it down to a simplest form, that's what it is.

Ownership of productive assets versus human labor, your ability to sell your time and skill for money.

That's all we're comparing with these two charts for your entire life.

They move together, and now the gap is widening.

That in and of itself should give us pause to think, okay, something meaningful has changed in the economy.

Maybe the way I invest my money should change along with it.

Perhaps.

Yeah, definitely.

We're not a perhaps show.

No, I want to hear more.

Okay.

Yeah, because look at the.

At the end of the day, had you, had you continued to invest the same way that you had been, let's say, since 2022, you still would have turned a close to 20 profit.

Fire.

Fire is the answer site that.

I'm fire.

No, not fired.

Fired.

No, he said, bro.

You're fire.

You're so fire, bro.

Nobody says that anymore.

Just.

We are.

We are a millennial appropriate show.

Yeah, no one says that.

So that's actually an acronym.

It's.

It's short for financial independence.

Retire early.

It's broken.

It's broken.

Yeah.

You're not retiring early.

Okay.

Okay.

In 1992, Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez published your Money or your Life, laying out a powerful new novel idea.

If you can accumulate 25 times your annual expenses.

You could safely withdraw 4% per year and never work again.

God, that sounds amazing.

Okay.

Break that down to people.

Well, the concept simmered for years.

Okay.

And people were like, okay, wait.

If I.

If I can accumulate 25 times my annual expenses.

So I try down my annual expenses.

Let's say it's a million dollars a year, and I accumulate $25 million a year for the rest of my life.

I'm good.

So I hit that target number.

Right?

So I have financial independence.

I can retire early.

Yeah.

It's a very simple concept, except it doesn't work anymore.

It's broken.

You can knock.

No one's coming home.

Okay.

Okay.

2010, Jacob Lund Fisker published Early Retirement Extreme series of retirement books.

I like to call these the Jim Cramer fans.

Yeah.

And something clicked.

By the mid 2010s FIRE financial independence, Retire early had become a movement, particularly among millennials watching their parents grind through decades of corporate life.

Nobody wanted to do that.

They wanted a way out.

This gave him a grind early.

Then on the.

I can.

I can exit out.

Right?

That's where hustle culture came from.

That's where grind mentality first started.

Started.

Yeah.

Right?

Blogs, proliferated, subreddits formed, software engineers making $150,000 a year, living on 40,000 and retiring at 35 instead of 65.

This fired people's imaginations.

Oh, my God.

Jill, you can retire by the time you're 35.

Game.

I'm on.

Let's go.

Got one year left, man.

Sign me up, homie.

Yeah, I'm all in for that.

Except that isn't real anymore.

That don't work.

Roommates in your 30s use cars, cooking every meal.

Saying no to expensive hobbies.

Surely not for everybody.

But for those who did it, the reward was time.

You got to live the back half of your life.

Margaritas.

Or at least.

Or at least be able to maybe step away and focus on something that provides you a greater purpose and something that you're passionate about.

Right.

Gives you the freedom to.

Because that idea of retiring early and just having time.

Yeah.

Okay.

Don't get me wrong.

I. I do want to spend all the time in the world with my wife and kids, but I do also know that we, as.

As human beings, we need a purpose.

Right.

The record show that said, is not always a good husband.

Jill, what do you mean?

Part of being a.

Part of being a good husband is for me to, you know, stay mentally sane.

And I wish I could spend every waking moment with my wife.

Yeah.

And kids and Kid.

True story.

My.

My.

My daughter came home with a haircut today.

My wife took her to get her haircut.

Very meaningful moment for women.

Yeah, it's been her first one in years.

How'd you feel?

She was excited.

She stepped out the car, and I felt like, for a brief moment of time, it felt like time was passing by so slow as I'm waiting for her to get out of the car so I can see it.

And though in the.

My wife.

The door, the window's tinted, so I can't even see her walk through.

And I swear to God, she stepped.

She stepped across.

And I literally.

I hate to.

I.

You're gonna.

You're gonna call me out for this, but I'm just opening up and being vulnerable on the show.

I was bawling like.

Like, legit crying.

Like, legit crying.

We do, like, the chin, like, wiggle thing.

No, no.

It was just literally coming down, and I was just like, she looks so beautiful.

She looked way older than she is.

She's only seven, you know?

She tell you what she was gonna do to her hair before she went?

Yeah.

I knew that she was cutting it shorter.

Right.

But she had really long.

And I was just like.

I. I almost got a glimpse into her as, like, an adult.

Oh, God, I cannot wait to attend this dude's, like, daughter's wedding.

Oh, my God, bro.

I don't know if.

I don't know if I'm gonna be able to attend this wedding, dude, I'm gonna be in tears.

But it was.

It was insane.

So, anyways.

But I do also know with that, as much time as I do want to spend with them, like, we all need a purpose.

Right?

I agree.

We all need.

We all need something, like, a problem to be solving.

And although it's frustrating at times, like, I know for you and this podcast.

Has that gone too far?

I mean, the podcast definitely has gone too far, just to answer your question, but has this gone too far as a society?

Have we.

Have we pushed?

Like, humanity needs a purpose.

Humanity needs to work so much.

Look at Warren Buffett.

Warren Buffett's retiring now.

Dude's dead.

Like, he's alive, but he's not alive.

I saw some wild posts the other day about his.

The dividend check he gets from Coke.

Yeah, it's crazy, bro.

I was like, what kind of Coke is he?

Oh, okay.

I was like, coca Cola.

Yeah.

But, you know, it makes.

It's.

It's a weird life, and.

And I'm asking these questions, 1.

To be sarcastic and funny and Everybody listens to the show and goes, oh, my God, Chris is way better than say.

But also because I think it's important.

I think it's important to ask these questions because a lot of where we're going to come to the conclusion of this and how to invest comes down to you asking your question of, like, what you want your standard of life to be and are you holding on to outdated ideals?

Okay, I think we do.

I think I do.

You know, I mean, a part.

I mean, maybe part of.

And I want to hear.

I want to hear the rest of this too.

But perhaps, maybe because you're not getting a choice, some of this might, maybe, maybe the idea of diversification isn't just your portfolio, but style of investing too.

Right?

Like that's a problem.

Yeah, right.

Like maybe, maybe do a little bit of, like, old school mentality.

Right?

Like old, old school ideology, and then maybe adopt some of this new stuff that you're about to present to the peoples.

The peoples.

So Fire was aspirational, right?

It was never about securing your retirement, but about lifestyle design and living life on your own terms, which I completely agree with.

Fire adherence fundamentally relied on the same assumptions as traditional financial advice.

The safe withdrawal rate of 4%, 7% returns, and the need to accumulate 25 extra expenses.

So in theory, it was.

You would get minimum of 7% returns from the market.

You would put out 4% every single year to maintain your life.

And then, guess what?

3% would continue to grow and compound over time, and you'd be set for the rest of your life.

You'll be set for the rest of your life.

Gummies and lollies for everybody.

Yeah.

What happens when Bitcoin does 50% annually?

Site.

Okay, but hold on, Christopher, I. I.

Can feel like you're clenching a little bit.

You want to let it go or you want to go now?

Okay, we're gonna acknowledge that, but you can't say that without also saying in the same breath that it's dipped below.

It's dipped 80% three times already.

Okay, hold on a second.

I'm just saying.

I know you're angry.

Too much volatility for me.

All right, Rajeel Said has an issue, a chronic health issue we have to talk about.

He has something known as wet paper towel hands.

Okay, wait.

He changes the paper towel?

That's way worse than paper.

Would you prefer white paper towel paper hands?

No, it can't be like college rule book paper.

Like, why got to be paper.

That's not what it is.

Okay, okay, let me Ask a question different way.

What happens when the Q. Q. Q.

Does 20%?

That's.

Yeah, well, that's an index that you got to invest.

I could be even more pointed, but.

That'S an index you should invest in.

Okay, we're going to get to that and I agree.

But you could be even more pointed and say, what do you do in the Mag 7 or the Mag, you know, top 10 in the S&P 500, do you know, 20%?

Well, that's my point.

That's why you invest in the S&P 500, to cover your bases.

But does it.

Or, or are the other 490 stocks pulling you down?

I mean, yes, of course, but there's no way to predict that.

Right, but you just said to me to start this segment, that innovation, you both agree to this innovation is moving at a faster cadence.

Technology is moving at a faster cadence.

Why wouldn't you bet on the technology stocks leading the way and not bet on the non technology stocks lagging you down?

Well, that's the.

And that thought process right there is the exact reason why the Max 7 is still continuing to outperform everything.

People who are pulling their money out of the savings accounts and those are the only stocks that they feel comfortable in investing in because they're all propping each other up.

Or maybe, just maybe, technology has changed.

The cadence has changed.

And these companies will be technology companies that are going to be the outsized growers in the market for the rest of time.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And we've covered this on the show too.

There was literally an article that came out from the White House.

Right.

This isn't, this isn't a political, like anything political.

This is from the White House.

They said they are.

It's called, I think it's called the winning.

The winning race.

Right.

Winning the race and is winning the race to get to AGI.

Just to be clear, not.

Not ethnicity.

Winning the race.

The race.

The.

The winning the race.

Yeah.

Like the attempt to get there.

Like the marathon.

Right.

The sprint, the 100 meter deaths.

Yeah.

Be careful, Christopher.

Hey, stop testing.

I just got to make sure certain lawsuits have been filed.

Yeah, yeah, I got to clarify.

Right.

And it's like they come out and say, like, we will go to any lengths to make sure we win that race.

Okay.

So it's like.

Yeah, you're right.

Sprint.

Sprint.

Yeah, we will sprint.

I prefer that vernacular here.

We will provide the jet fuel packs.

Yeah.

Suddenly the math of 25x in all these markets.

Right.

If you're talking Bitcoin, QQQ S and P500, whatever it might be.

Right.

25x becomes disconnected from reality.

You may only need about 10 to 15x, but Fire fans often didn't like too much risk in the portfolio.

And follow the classic portfolio compositions like the fund portfolio or even the 6040 mix.

60% stock, 40% bonds, equities to bonds, right?

Yeah, except that ain't paying the bills like it used to, Bruh.

That's.

That is very, very, I guess, risk averse.

You go to any iconic book.

I was brought up on the 60, 40, you should be 60 in equities and 40 in bonds.

Bonds in equities used to form opposite one another.

Almost like that correlation chart.

That doesn't happen anymore.

As a matter of fact, there's a pretty significant disconnect on how those two interwork with one another and it's caused problems.

So let's talk about the other methodology here.

Okay.

It's very similar to fire.

Work, save, retire.

Simple concept.

Regia.

Would you like to work, save and retire?

Yeah.

Say, would you like to work, save, retire?

Sounds glorious.

Sounds amazing, right?

This advice was everywhere for the longest time.

Work, save, retire.

Guys, not that hard.

And for decades it worked.

Except we know that it doesn't work anymore because people are working in perpetuity and some people like it.

I understand some people can't retire.

Get a good job, save 10 to 15% of your income.

Max out your 401k and get the employer match.

Be consistent size, diversify with a 6040 portfolio.

60 in stock, slash equities, 40 in bonds.

When stocks fall, bonds rise.

So you should be good.

You should be Gucci.

You should be Gucci.

Yeah, as the kids say, Gucci mang rebalance annually.

It's simple.

Just keep that, that percentage and you'll be fine.

Just check on it every year, once a year.

Not that hard.

Buy and hold index funds.

The S&P 500 returns about 7% real per year over the long term.

Don't try to time the market.

Don't pick individual stocks.

Just own everything and let IT compound for 30 years.

I gave that advice on this show.

I have hundreds of thousands of dollars, almost a million frankly, in low cost index funds.

And now I feel like a jackass.

No, you shouldn't feel like a jackass.

Feel like a jackass.

No, because I'm Chris.

I'm a jackass.

Hi Regil.

I'm Chris.

I'm a jackass.

No, that afforded you a lot of flexibility and that this shouldn't be shunned because I'm still gonna, I'm still gonna do that and I'm still gonna teach my kids to do that.

Right.

Okay, well, that's because you've got wet paper towels.

Paper towel hands.

Look, it's, it's actually one of my, like favorite statistics.

And I have it here actually for the next episode that we're gonna do because we're gonna go Drake back to back on on him tonight.

Right.

But he's been waiting to say that all night long.

Oh, yeah.

I'm just itchy.

I couldn't wait even.

I couldn't even wait till the next episode.

I had to say it now.

Yeah, right.

The market's biggest gains often occur in a few isolated days, usually clustered around periods of high volatility.

Right.

And market stress, making them nearly impossible to predict in time correctly.

A ten thousand dollar investment in the S P500 in 1980, left untouched until the end of 2020, would take you up to a million dollars.

Right.

If you just remove the top 10 days of, of the performance of the S&P 500, you'd have less than half of a million.

I hear what you're saying.

Ten days.

We've given that advice.

I firmly believe that that's, that's real.

But is that expectation of a return too conservative?

I understand you wore boat shoes when you were 14.

No, but my point is, I understand.

Conservative nature is part of your DNA.

Back to Chuck's, though.

Yeah, yeah.

So think with a Chuck hat for a little bit.

Okay?

Okay.

With inflation being what it is in a single year, are those returns really keeping you above inflation or do you need to take on more risk relative to the markets in order to sustain your lifestyle?

It should be a balance.

There definitely needs to be a balance.

This can't be your entire how they propose balance for you because, because we've said this.

We've.

But listen, this isn't all, all brand new.

We've said this on the show too.

Some of the richest people that we've seen and that we know, especially you, right.

That have diversified their money of all.

All ethnicities and races, by the way.

All of them.

All of them.

All the races, all inclusive, all over the world.

All of them, the ones that are, have made, I guess, further along and would, I guess be deemed more successful, have said it's been their speculative investments that made them the most money.

Yeah, yeah, I would agree that, that.

So some of this.

Okay, some of this is still speculative.

There isn't enough time in this for us to say that it's proven, but I'm just saying it's still speculative.

And like we've said on the show, you should dabble.

I have, I have people literally hitting me up now and telling me like close family members and friends want to dabble with you.

You know, these individuals.

What's up, Weiss?

No, no, no, somebody else.

And they've said, dude, right now the market is in collectibles, right?

It's either in sports memorabilia, bro.

My wife has vintage jewelry.

Vintage jewelry.

It's, it's.

Think like not just, not even just like Pokemon cards.

Like, I guess Gary Vee has this thing where he's selling like characters and kids are going crazy over them.

Oh, this, this has been for a while now, right?

For a while, right.

And this trend is really, really like popping off and kind of runs in.

Line with the whole analog, like retro throwback you're going to see in 2026.

And it's actually, I mean, we could, we could do a whole show on this.

But like, look, still, that's still a speculative investment and it might work.

You know, don't get me wrong, I got a lot of sports memorabilia that I might be banking off of in the future someday.

Right.

But I plan on like passing that down and letting like, the kids do whatever they want with it.

I don't want to touch it right.

As sentimental value to me, but it's still a speculative investment.

Okay, well, the last thing you can't disagree with from the work save retire mindset and culture, something that has led us to the early parts of this conversation tonight, get a 30 year mortgage and buy a home.

You'll slowly climb the corporate ladder and pay it off by 65.

You'll have enough to retire comfortably and free of debt.

This wasn't bad advice for people who started investing in 1980, 1990 even, or frankly up to 2000.

Okay, so not bad advice.

It worked beautifully.

Well, if you're contrarian to this, you.

You were saying, like, look it, the entire model is, was a whole marketing campaign to get people to buy into the American dream.

And look, you have 300 million customers.

And this all worked until it didn't.

And when it broke, one by one, things started to fall apart.

And around this time, this podcast came about.

Ironic.

Maybe we broke the system.

I think we did.

I like to take credit for that.

The 6040 portfolio is dead.

Stocks and bonds used to move in opposite directions.

That was the entire point of having that makeup of your portfolio that you rebalanced Annually.

When stocks crashed in 2008, bonds rallied, cushioning the blow.

But since COVID Correlation's broken in 2022, both stocks and bonds fell together.

The hedging mechanism that justified holding 40% just vanished overnight.

Rejeel.

Chart me, baby.

There it is.

There's your correlation chart again.

The S&P 500 to the bond market.

They rose and fell together.

They were aligned until they weren't.

And now you're seeing volatility since 2022 that you had not seen going as far back as 20 years.

It's wild, man.

Maybe even, frankly, farther than that.

The last few years have produced two demonstrable winners.

Tech stocks from the S&P 500, which we've covered on the show.

Mag 7/3 10, and Bitcoin pucker upside.

It's go time.

It is?

Yeah.

Look, I'm not going to deny it.

Look, it's factual.

If some people came up on top for this, I commend you.

Good.

Good job.

Good for you.

Right.

So what are you gonna do?

Are you.

Are you changing up the whole dynamic?

You going crypto again?

I think so.

I think so.

But I have some very specific parameters for going crypto, and this is new.

We got a sponsor for the show.

No, I'm just kidding.

Poly Markets, if you like this.

By the way, there is a sub stack that I'm gonna.

I'm gonna link in the show notes again, where a lot of this came from.

I would love to say this is a novel concept.

I believe in what we're talking about now, but this is really the work of.

Of a gentleman.

I think his last name was Lakowski or Lasowski, something.

I can't remember.

But the links are down the notes, so just click there.

And he does a really interesting proxy historically as well.

I think it's valuable.

But let's get comfortable with some facts, shall we say?

And by.

By let's, I mean you.

Okay.

Okay.

We all need to face these facts together.

But say definitely more than all of us.

Butter was bad and carbs were good.

Now carbs are bad and butter is good.

Don't eat bacon.

Don't eat salt.

It all changes.

Shout out to my pump, my pump, my pup.

And Rogan Rogan.

Rogan.

Yeah, they were good Samaritans for our show.

And I thought that reference would resonate with a lot of fellow colleagues from the historical cadence that came from the show.

They love us.

We love them.

We do love them.

And we all love Adam.

Yeah, we love all of them.

And, well, the Math has changed as well as your health and fitness.

Frankly, the old Investment advice assumes 7% returns in 30 years to accumulate.

But things have changed.

You don't know how much time you have.

What if the number is 5 or numbers 10?

And I'm gonna be dark and morbid, so we're gonna move on.

The market grows 10 to 20% a year, not seven.

Yeah, almost three times as much site.

Yeah.

You're 60, 40 conservatives leaving money on the table is money on the table.

Broad market diversification thesis doesn't really hold up well diversified in the market.

Okay, well, let's just use that, that S&P 500 example again.

Right?

490 stocks didn't do so great.

10 of them did.

Spectacular.

Yeah, diversification was dragging you down, baby.

Okay, now, but.

Okay, but I mean, I'll let you finish before bringing.

Just.

That's right, that's right.

Paper towel hands hold as wet paper towel hands as long as you can.

Keep them dry.

Yeah, keep them dry.

Okay.

Bitcoin crushes everything else year over year.

Like that or not.

That's kind of factual.

It's hurting you, isn't it?

I know.

Look, at the end of the day, as long as there's belief in it from, from the masses, it's going to continue to do well.

And dude, there's so much, so much hedge fund money behind it.

It's.

It's probably not.

They're not going to let it go, go south.

Yes.

But I'm also going to warn people about how to invest in this the right way because I think the most likely solution is to take risk adjacent approaches to this.

And I don't think that's going to get the job done for you.

So we'll get there as well.

Okay.

What does that mean?

No, I was going to say the Bitcoin etf.

Yeah, don't do that.

Don't do that.

You got to hold it directly.

Yeah, yeah.

He's like, that's how I would have done it.

ETFs and index funds.

That's the only way, bro.

Share the risk.

Share the risk.

Yeah.

No.

Okay, so housing, real estate prices go up fast, but demographics change and add question marks.

We've seen some really weird things.

But bonds we know for sure are negatively correlated with stocks.

They're not doing that anymore.

Okay.

So that whole correlation is gone for the last couple years.

So things have changed pretty heavily from where we originally had investment concepts coming from the same way health and fitness has.

So let's take a different approach here.

If You're a worker.

Invest in whatever assets you can in the hardest assets you can access.

That's right, giggle.

Get it out of the way.

Get, continue until you don't have to rely on your work anymore.

That's the concept.

Invest in assets.

Because we saw from the older generational gaps, those who hold more assets by age, demographic, have more money.

Yes.

So the goal here is to hold as many assets as you can until such time as you don't have to work anymore.

If there's one resounding theme that I would love for, like, listeners, our listeners to adopt and something that, you know the cliche of, if I could go back and speak to my younger self, what would I do?

And I've done a relatively decent job.

I haven't been as bad as some other people that we know.

But it's increase your investments before you increase your lifestyle.

Right?

Yeah.

Like, don't, don't opt for the big car payment.

You know what I mean?

It's 108.

In the show.

Rejeel side finally acknowledges having the Palazzo.

No, I get it.

We don't.

You're ambiguously talking about something else.

Not.

Not the plaza.

Fine, keep on going.

No.

Jesus, man.

But it's.

What was the name of your house again?

It has like a big fancy name, right?

Yeah, the second home.

Yeah, it was the beach house.

No, it was like Chateau something.

Whatever it was.

Oh, no.

Miraval or whatever it was.

Yeah.

Maybe lose my train of thought, but.

You mean the one you were saying?

I'll remind you what you were saying.

No, you should.

You were telling us about the plaza that you had.

No, you should be.

You should be increasing what you invest in, because at the end of the day, to your point, investing in assets is going to ultimately help you way more in the long run.

Now, look, at the end of the day, we will have to go down this path with our listeners at some point in, in 2026.

We will be doing a lot more educational content that I think the listeners would like to have from us that's.

Almost entirely ready to go at this point.

It's just a matter of us actually, you know, getting to work on it.

But okay, it's.

It's.

It's the same, same similar concept of, okay, I have a home that's appreciated, has received so much more equity.

Right.

I've increased my equity in it, but it means nothing to me because I'm not selling it.

Right.

So we're telling people to invest, invest, invest.

Right.

In all these assets and watch them Grow, grow, grow.

But okay, how do I, how do I diversify it?

How do I move it to eventually capitalize off of it?

Are you telling me to only invest in stocks with dividends so I can receive some type of passive income?

Like, what is it?

So we will get into all that at a, At a later time.

Maybe sometime next year.

Now.

We'll tell them now.

Buy bitcoin.

Buy a bitcoin.

No, no, not a bitcoin.

Buy as much bitcoin as you can.

Not.

I'll buy some when it drops.

You got to have bitcoin.

Okay.

Not an etf, the actual thing.

Start dollar cost averaging today and continue until you don't have the problem of dollar cost averaging anymore, which in this case, a lot of money.

But dollar cost average all the way up until you hold an entire bitcoin.

Until you hold an entire bitcoin.

But then to your point.

Exactly.

It's just going to continue to go up, right?

Maybe.

But what does that mean to me if it's just going up and I'm just holding it?

Oh, it's like a home.

No, I'm saying it's like a home.

People are going to be so afraid to get rid of it and sell it.

Right.

And I'm not saying you.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't invest in it.

I agree with you.

I'm to the point now where it's like, okay, something as stable as bitcoin, Right?

Not these, not these, these other meme coins.

Let's just walk through a scenario outside of the show notes here.

Would you not argue that politically we're in an unstable world now relative to where we were historically?

100%.

Okay, look.

Yeah, Bitcoin held in a wallet that's not in an etf, that's literally in a traditional crypto.

Wallet is probably your safest place to put money with that volatility in the rearview mirror.

Okay, okay, that, that's, that's just a fear you gotta accept.

The political world is a weird one these days, and we're seeing all this volatility internationally.

Having a bitcoin wallet is decentralized to politics for now.

Okay.

Okay, number two, you can be an accelerationist here.

We.

I started this segment just so you guys recall asking you both if you believed in technology.

You said yes.

Yeah, I said you believe it's increasing at a faster cadence.

You said yes.

I do.

Yeah.

I asked you both, did it lead?

Does it lead in the way?

You said yes.

And it's going faster than it ever has historical.

True or fact?

Fact.

Okay.

True or fact?

Yeah, Historically, truth.

Whatever.

You get what I'm saying?

Yes or yes?

Yes or yes?

Yes.

Okay.

So we know this to be the true truth.

Damn it.

So excited to make a point, I can't even do it.

We know this to be the truth, so it is a natural, logical conclusion to come to that.

Bitcoin as a way to pay for things will be more utilized in the future than less.

That is a safe wager.

Now, I'm not saying it's a hundred percent, but I'm saying if you're looking at where technology is going, how disrupted politics have.

I mean, you got a guy, Mandani, in New York, who ran on socialist idealism because people are so discouraged with capitalism.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, fine.

Let's remove the politics from this conversation.

Internationally, you've got just disrupted politics everywhere because there's corruption everywhere.

Like it or not, crypto seems to be the mechanism with which you're going to pay for things in this accelerated technological world.

And you can do it regardless of where you are in it.

Mm, That's a harsh truth.

It is.

Bitcoin may be the way to do that.

Crypto in general may be the way to do that.

I'm not saying go out and buy meme coins.

I'm saying a decentralized currency held in a wallet is a good investment today.

Like that.

Or not.

Wet paper handhelds.

Towel hands.

Damn it.

Paper towel hands.

Too much caffeine today, boys.

Number two, the more sound advice.

Sell the S&P 500.

Buy QQQ.

Yeah, S&P 500 is 493 companies barely keeping up with inflation, dragging down the seven that actually make the returns.

But the index still gives you many benefits.

You don't have to monitor changes.

You don't have to pay capital gain taxes from rebalancing.

And you need less money to diversify properly.

What is your second best option?

Replace the 500 companies from the New York Stock Exchange with the 100 tech stocks from the NASDAQ, which is the QQQ.

You'll get less of the drag and closer to what matters if you buy Voo or Spy.

Buy QQQ instead.

Today, currently priced at 640 $641.

QQQ and Bitcoin are the new 60:40.

A sample asymmetric portfolio for the acceleration era.

It also aligns with Jeff Park's radical Portfolio theory, another book you should possibly read and in fact is a minimalist radical portfolio that I already do.

Do I Already do.

Invest in the qqq.

This is the only defensible strategy about techno technological acceleration.

Own as much of it as you can.

It's real.

I just dropped my equivalent of a mic, which is my phone.

Look, I'm not saying I'm not on board.

I'm on board.

Look, he don't sound like Brigitte.

Does he sound like he's on board?

Yeah, yeah.

I'm doing notes right now.

Invest in Q.

He's like, I'm on board with this episode.

Let's go.

How do you spell that again?

Yeah, yeah.

No, man, look, at the end of the day, this thing is going to go as far as people want to push it to go.

I'm against all the meme stock, all the meme coins.

Right.

Something as stable as bitcoin.

Yeah, I agree.

There's enough people behind it.

Oh, you say as stable as bitcoin.

Look at you adopting.

It's been, it's been.

You can agree though, it's.

You two saw the volatility 100.

Yeah.

Right.

And it's like, okay, it's.

It's to the point now where there's been enough established to where it's.

It's given it.

It's given it legitimacy in areas where you're like, there's.

There's an ETF back in it.

It scared me 100.

It did.

But you know what also scared me?

I thought it was gonna be the.

Greatest rug pull of all time.

Eating fat.

Eating fat scared me.

Oh, I can eat this and lose weight.

No way.

Well, because it's completely.

It's.

It's.

It's a fiat currency.

Right.

It's completely tied to.

Is there faith behind this?

Do enough people believe in this?

No, I get it.

That's all that it is.

As of right now.

There are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I don't.

I don't.

You're right.

I don't see that going away.

Yeah.

There's too much institutional buy in now.

There's too much of a back end.

So you got me.

Yeah.

You got me.

Yahtzee.

Yeah.

Next episode, I'm coming in bitcoin gear.

Bitcoin tat on my neck.

Get up on the right side so the camera can see.

Yeah, yeah.

Instead of a tattoo tear, he's gonna have a crypto sign.

Yeah.

That's controversial episode for everybody.

They're gonna be like, oh, these guys, look.

Look at them.

A bunch of hypocritical liars.

Yeah.

Someone.

Someone for sure is gonna go back to like episode four and Be like, hey, look what you said here.

Hey, look, we're.

We're adapting and we're evolving.

Are we not allowed to evolve and adapt?

I don't understand it.

Is the higher standard, as in continuing to increase.

There you go.

Right?

And we didn't say we were already at the highest level.

I mean, one of us is.

Rajeel.

It's you, not me.

Hey, the guy in the production suite.

So seriously, what's the name of your house?

Yeah, curious.

Listen, guys, if you enjoy the show, please take a second to like it, Share with a friend or leave us a review.

If it's a review, you better make sure it's an honest five star review.

Aren't you forgetting something?

What?

Really?

What?

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everybody.

We appreciate you tuning in.

I should have started at the top of the show.

This was our Christmas episode.

It is.

No, it was.

Is.

Where's your Santa hat, bro?

I don't have enough hair to hold one of those up anymore.

Why you laugh, dog?

It's hurtful.

You do have like a small head, though.

What's your hat size?

Is that supposed to be.

I'm not telling you what's your hat.

It's very private.

I'm going to tell you my size of everything else.

Everything else.

You do look like you have a small head though.

Seven and three eighths.

Okay.

Seven, five, eight.

Well, don't do the hat size comparison.

How big are your hands?

Big enough.

Regio, what size hat do you wear?

I know it's a big ass one.

I think it was seven and a quarter.

That was back in high school, though.

Let's go.

All right, so Merry Christmas, everybody.

I hope you enjoy your holidays.

Hope you're enjoying time with your families.

We sincerely appreciate every single one of you guys.

You got anything for the listeners?

No, I just very much appreciate you guys.

Inside is very apologetic for stuttering when he said sincerely.

Sincerely.

If you enjoy the show, please take a second to like and share with a friend.

It does a lot for the show.

Leave us an honest five star review.

You, whether that's on Apple or Spotify.

If it's honest and it's five stars, we will read it on the show.

If it's not, we're going to try to encourage you and plead our case why you should change it.

We've been successful twice.

We will harass you.

We.

We will come after you.

Grasp.

We will find you.

Yeah, right.

It helps more people to find the show and allows us to keep bringing you better content.

Also, there's a lot of work that goes into the newsletter.

Go over and subscribe to the newsletter.

It's.

It's a nice.

It's a nice recap of the show, and you get a lot more stuff that we.

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On the mic.

So if you can head over to the higher standard podcast.com and.

Actually, it's higher standard podcast.com, not the higher standard podcast.com.

That'S right.

And make sure you subscribe to the newsletter.

We appreciate you guys.

Bailey, Rajuli, got anything?

Happy holidays, everyone.

Happy holidays.

That's right.

Good man.

Right there.

Inclusive.

All the peoples.

All the peoples worldwide.

Yeah.

Everybody.

Everybody.

All the races.

All the races.

What's wrong with that?

Anytime you'd like to.

Sprinting, right?

No, this one is all the ethnicities.

All the races.

I will just nod my head.

An affirmation that you made a statement.

There you go.

I am nodding my head.

Okay.

All right.

We got another episode to do.

You can say goodbye first.

Okay.

Good night, everybody.