That's a bigger problem right now.

The biggest problem for.

The biggest problem for Stephen A.

Smith.

Yeah.

Is LeBron stepping into retirement.

LeBron steps into retirement, bro, you're gonna get trolled for the rest of your life.

That's it.

You're basically talking about a taller version.

50.

Yeah.

And then he's gonna.

ESPN is gonna be really upset that they gave him that big contract.

And this turf war between Stephen a.

Smith and LeBron James, this has gotten out of hand.

No, it's not.

This is out of pocket.

I'm all for it.

I know you are, because you're a terrible human being.

I am.

But I gotta be honest, man.

Like, I.

I've seen some of the stuff that.

That LeBron has said, and obviously Stephen A.

Smith saying he would put hands on LeBron.

He said, I'll put hands.

And he said, I'll put hands on LeBron.

That's why he posted the boxing video.

Like, you're gonna put hands on me.

But Stephen A.

Smith, does he.

Does he realize he's not an athlete?

I know you're not.

I know you.

Clever.

And then athletes.

And then LeBron trolled him by saying on the Pat McAfee show, which was so strategic.

That's the show that comes on right after first take.

That's messed up, right?

That was messed up.

So he's like, I'm gonna go on this show.

And.

And then he's like, I'm g have the last word.

I'm g.

Have the last word.

And on top.

And on top of that, he.

He said that he's a.

He called Stephen A.

Smith Taylor Swift.

I did not see that part.

He's like.

He's on his Taylor Swift tour, just going around talking about me.

I mean, it is kind of true.

I mean.

But look, I think that part of this, too, is probably motivated by the fact that ESPN is not getting the numbers they used to get.

So they're like, look, we're going to use this.

We gotta.

We gotta do something, you know?

Exactly.

Exactly.

And that.

And that's the problem with when people try to compare the cable ratings, and cable views of, like, games are like, oh, viewership is down.

Well, because viewership's not the same that the way it used to be.

When you look at viewership, it's not accounting for streaming numbers or the social.

Media clips that come out of that.

So a lot of people don't even watch ESPN.

They just watch ESPN social media channels.

100%.

Exactly.

So, like, a lot of your viewers have pivoted.

To that.

Yeah.

And if there's something big coming up, they'll watch like a.

Like a full channel.

Half of their viewership comes from overseas.

China, which they stream.

So how do you not look at the streaming numbers?

I was also telling my wife the other day that, like, how much money like Apple's losing on their streaming platform.

Oh, my God, it's incredible.

They're spending hundreds of millions on all their TV shows.

Right.

And they're not making it all bad.

Yeah, Because, I mean, they're.

People are putting out some high quality content.

Well, you're saying that Ben Stiller shows on Apple, right?

Yes.

Yeah, it's on there, right?

Yeah, he directed.

Yeah, he directed it on Apple.

And let me tell you, that is such a great show.

I mean, I am not.

I am so.

The plot's great.

I like season one a little better than season two, if I'm being honest.

But the cinematography, you know, we do this and we had to get used to lighting and cameras, everything.

You can appreciate it.

Oh, my God.

Like, the color, the cinematography, the equality in each shot.

Like, each shot is so well balanced in positioning, in scene.

I mean, symmetrical.

Right.

It's a work of art.

Symmetry is just beautiful and stuff like that.

Unless you're looking for it, it comes.

It comes naturally.

You don't notice it.

I heard Casey Neistat say this in a.

In an interview once, that nothing drives him crazier than watching other YouTubers or vloggers and him seeing.

Because he can appreciate.

He's a director.

He.

Yeah.

When shots aren't symmetrical, it apparently drives me crazy.

And I was like, wait a minute.

I never noticed his were symmetrical.

I go back and I'm looking at all the videos and I'm like, holy cow, I missed this.

He nails like, some of, like, the rule of thirds, for example, with cameras.

Like being in.

In one particular spot where he knows the human eye is more prone to be visibly connected and engaged.

I mean, he.

He's a classic I went to film school type mentality where he knows the nuances.

I remember when we wanted to sign up for his film school.

I still do.

Yeah.

If he put it out again, I still.

I still think it's a pretty dope situation, man.

Like, I.

I look at that and think to myself, like.

Like that.

That's a.

That's a guy selling a course I would happily pay for.

I mean, I mean, just clearly credible.

Right?

Sign me up.

Yeah, exactly.

Well, we have a financial literacy podcast to get to.

What was the name of that Podcast.

Again, welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.

Sitting next to me is my partner in crime, Christopher Nahibi.

And sitting next to me is my partner in time who humbly requested a positive show tonight.

He wanted to give the love.

The love.

So in order to to bring the one and only Saeed Omar the love, I had to.

I had to dig deep.

As a matter of fact, I had to go to the uae.

The uae.

The uae.

The United Arab Emirates, for those of you who may not be familiar.

So I'm playing this straight from Elon Musk's own post and I gotta be honest, this guy, if you can get past the fact that he's got a heavy Arab sounding accent, but I mean it.

I love it personally, but you can get past it and just listen to what he's saying.

He makes a pretty incredible argument for the fact that maybe all this tariff talk isn't so crazy after all.

Yeah, let's hear it.

You ready?

Let's go.

So this clip is a little bit long.

It's about three minutes long.

But bear with him, he makes some really, really solid points.

Okay.

And we'll break it all down.

We'll break it all down.

Every Think of Trump.

His economic plan makes complete sense.

The US has 36 trillion in debt in 2025.

They will spend 6 trillion but will only collect 4 trillion in revenue.

So they need to borrow 2 trillion and this will increase their debt to 38 trillion.

Trump economic plan is based on three levers.

Number one, cut expenses by 1 trillion, which is Doge Elon Musk.

He's targeting waste and fraud like Social Security payments for people who are 150 years old.

That is just fraud.

Two, increasing revenue by 1 to 2 trillion through number one, tariffs.

They will increase tariffs from 50 billion to 500 billion.

Target people will say.

But other countries will retaliate.

They will not be able to do it.

The US is the biggest customer on Earth.

They consume 20 trillion every year.

They are the biggest importer.

They import 3 trillion every year.

Plus the current tariffs is actually not fair.

Why should US cars entering Europe faces 10% tariffs while the European cars entering the US just pay 2.5%.

It's not fair.

And because of the tariff changes, it now makes economic sense to build factories and businesses inside the US Again.

That means more jobs, means tax paying businesses and more foreign investment coming in.

He will also increase revenue by deregulation.

He will remove unnecessary regulations and rules making it easier to do business so business can grow faster.

Generate more tax revenues.

He also makes this gold card which is offering lifetime US residency for 5 million.

I think at least 1 or 2 million individuals globally can afford it.

So if just 10% of them, it's just 100,000 people buy Discord, that's 1 trillion in incremental revenue.

The third lever is he will reduce taxes.

If he successfully put 1 trillion in waste and expenses and add 1 to 2 trillion in revenue, the US will have a surplus.

They will have more money than they want.

So he will cut taxes for individuals.

Anyone gaining more than 150k, he will make them pay zero taxes.

And on corporate taxes, he will go down from the current 21% to 15% compared to the European average of 22%.

France averages 25, I think, and Germany is 30.

So at 15% corporate tax, the US will become one of the most business attractive countries on earth.

Bottom line, this is exactly how government should be run efficiently.

Because when you eliminate waste, the money can actually go where it is actually needed.

To the elderly, to the sick, to people who cannot work.

And that is the real purpose of government, to protect the weak.

Very few countries have the political will to do it.

It takes leaders with backbone, charisma and clarity of vision.

Do you have leaders in your country pushing for real reform or are they talking about non relevant side topics?

And let me know if you think Trump plan is bad.

Let me.

All right, so I'll leave that there.

But man, there's a lot to unpack there.

He.

First of all, why isn't this guy running for president?

You know what I mean?

Forget the rules to be born here.

Yeah, yeah.

At least here's my problem.

Right out the gate I thought to myself, let's say this is true.

And I don't think that it's not true.

Let's say that it's true.

Ok, this is such, this, this man who I don't know, in a matter of just under three minutes can articulate a strategy to the American people in a way that our own executive office has not articulated.

Why.

Why hasn't someone come out and say like, you know, this is.

Just keep it this simple.

Right?

Yeah, he broke it down very well.

Why not, why not just have a press conference and be like, look, I understand the idea of tariffs are scary.

I understand that you might be concerned with some of the things that I, as your president am doing, but here is why.

These three points, in and of themselves, they're fantastic.

Everybody would want that if they just.

Most Americans aren't, aren't Sitting there thinking to themselves, okay, what could the upside be to these tariffs?

Okay.

They're saying, I feel like we're in a recession.

I feel like there should be.

I mean, it'd be nice if there were some, some models laid out to show us, okay, this is where this could go and this is how it could be beneficial versus everybody just hearing about it.

Have you seen the numbers of the.

This gold card thing?

They've already sold a thousand so far.

A thousand?

A thousand.

That's five billion.

Five billion.

That's just five billion dollars.

I get it.

Five billion dollars is a lot of money.

That's a lot of money, bro.

But let's just say this.

The amount of, okay, a five million dollar gold card, are you really gonna.

Diminish how valuable this has been already?

No, no, hold on, hold on.

It's.

W.

It doesn't matter where he goes from here.

I've seen the numbers.

I've seen the numbers on this.

It's, it's.

It's.

It's overestimated.

Okay?

And completely miss.

No, no, no, it's completely missed.

Chris, you know this.

Come on.

How many people around the world could even afford this?

Okay.

I mean, he covered that.

Yeah.

How many?

There's.

There's around like nine, I think.

Nine million people around the world that could even contemplate affording it.

Right?

The fact that it's already out and we only have a thousand people willing to sign up.

It's early, Chris.

It's like a sale of Macy's.

Oh, too soon.

They're going out of business.

Too soon.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't, I don't.

I wouldn't hold your breath on this.

Solving the problem.

That, that.

I'm not saying it's solving the problem.

I'm just saying it's another way the government can create money without any additional cost.

Keep in mind this is not costing us more money.

Yeah.

In any way, shape or form.

They're selling the same product at a higher cost.

And they're just saying, we'll cut the red tape.

I mean, they're doing less work.

Yeah.

Now, I'm not saying that it's the best for OFAC and for, you know, terrorists.

There's real.

There's real concerns there.

And you hope that, okay, everyone does their due diligence to sure that money doesn't get laundered here.

I hear you.

I hear you.

You know, but what I'm saying is, look like the way this was presented, it was presented in a way where.

Yeah, yeah, he was probably sales pitching a little bit.

But he said, look, tariffs are unfair.

Internationally, they're unfair.

It is unfair.

Why should we be, you know, exporting cars that we're paying way higher tariffs on, like 10%.

And we're only.

And we're getting two and a half.

Two and a half percent back whenever they bring cars here.

Why are we incentivizing people to import cars here and costing them less money?

Because keep in mind, they pay the tariffs on our.

Our charges.

And the thought process is, okay, we increase the tariffs that much, they're forced to open manufacturers here, create more jobs.

Which has been happening.

Apple's committed.

Lots of car dealers.

Car manufacturers committed.

Apple's committed.

Apple's committed to a.

Yeah, they had, like, a big announcement.

Oh, really?

I thought they were.

They're backing off their stance on making an Apple car.

I felt like, no, no, not on cars.

Apple committed to open up manufacturing plan here.

Apple manufacturing.

I got the podcast in real time with a laptop in front of me.

I'm basically Jamie and Joe Rogan.

Who are you?

Yeah, you're Patrick McDavid here.

Just googling on the fly.

Look, a lot of the stats that he says is true and we've talked about it on the show.

Here we go.

In response to potential tariffs on Chinese imports, Apple pledged a $500 billion investment in U.S.

facilities, including a new server manufacturing facility in Houston, Texas.

Shout out to H town.

And expanding existing data centers, aiming to create 20,000 jobs.

That's a W, bro.

And in Texas, too, because I believe the minimum wage in Texas is significantly less.

Why are you trying to take everything there?

You wanted a positive.

No, I'm.

I'm trying to make sense of it.

All right?

Obviously they're not going to do it here in California.

You literally said to me, chris, I want a positive show.

And everything I'm saying to you, positive.

You're just poo pooing.

I'm not.

They're doing a good job.

You poo pooed.

You poo poo twice.

A lot of people.

A lot.

Multiple poo poos.

But a lot of companies removed.

Texas.

You got the PGA headquarters going.

Moving to Texas.

Better.

Better tax positioning.

Yeah.

What?

So how.

How so lower.

So you have.

I know that.

I know that a lot of companies out there that.

Like, for instance, real estate investors.

I've seen a lot of real estate investors create their LLCs and.

Based out of Delaware.

Yeah, Delaware used to be.

So this whole tax shelter haven thing, it trans.

It's.

It transitioned.

So some states are more Friendly for certain types of corporations.

Like Delaware had a lot of protections for corporations because if you were to.

Get sued, you would, it would fall under Delaware jurisdiction.

Right.

And then there's a lot of.

There was a big period of time people went to Nevada corporations and they were looking at more at taxes in that particular instance.

Right, okay.

And a lot of states like Wyoming have some benefits.

Wyoming has some interesting things.

You're registering cars there.

You do like a one time registration.

That's why you see a lot of Wyoming license plate on exotic cars.

They, they incorporate or organize an llc.

There's.

Right.

Then they have their LLC own the vehicle.

They pay one registration fee on this high end exotic which would otherwise have an expensive annual registration in states like California.

And it's lifetime registration.

And all they got to do is pay to maintain that, that LLC there, which is probably a couple hundred bucks.

And plus your taxes a year still less than the thousands you would pay in registering.

Which is why you see all these Wyoming and Montana plates, for example.

Exotics.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what they do.

That.

It's a tax shelter.

No, I've seen, I've seen these people from outside the country come with their exotic cars and all those reels where like the cops are pulling them over and they got all their paperwork.

They sound a lot like the guy we talked to the Trump situation.

Yeah, but no, look, I, I get it.

But so yeah, states like Delaware, they go in and out of favor though.

So that's why I'm not being like, oh, Delaware's amazing.

Let me tell you why.

Yeah, this tends to be.

Every couple of years there seems to be a new like in vogue state that everybody's kind of pivoting to.

Also happens internationally too with tax shelters like the Cayman Islands and like the Turks and Caicos and you know, the Swiss bank accounts for a long time were popular.

So this all like kind of rotates on a pretty regular basis.

It just gives people a feeling of another layer of protection.

Yeah.

And over.

So what happens is, is like one tax shelter, whether it's international or domestic, will be trumped by another tax shelter from another organization.

Because laws constantly change and states have their sovereignty and nations do things differently.

So you know, people, people will rotate.

So right now I think Delaware is kind of falling out of fashion and Texas is falling into more fashion.

Keep in mind, a lot of very wealthy people have moved to Texas recently.

They moved to Florida recently.

Post pandemic.

During the pandemic.

So as a result of that, you had all this wealth there in these states that have much lower taxes in places like California.

So I know what you're trying to do.

You're trying to get me off topic, away from you being negative.

No, no, no.

Who's being negative?

You were being negative.

No, but it.

Look, it's okay.

It's true.

The, this is, this is not new.

The U.S.

does have a spending problem.

We're spending six.

Yeah, but you're clearly trying to point out that this.

But that's the, that's, that's the spin.

We know that that's the goal.

Is it going to be achieved?

Christopher.

Christopher, come on, man.

Doge is going to cut $1 trillion in cost.

He just wrote off $1 trillion like it was nothing.

I'm not saying that it's going to happen easily.

Yes.

But what I am saying is, is that you're going to see some pretty big pivots, whether this is completely successful or not in things like manufacturing.

I hope so.

Right?

Yeah.

And, and I think that you're going to see people have like, sourcing shifts where they, where they get their products.

They're going to go, okay, wait a minute.

So we have all these tariffs on China, but we don't have them on India or Pakistan or Vietnam.

Okay, I'll just go to Pakistan and Vietnam.

Get it.

Yeah, just like the tax shelters and tax havens where it was an opportune time for companies to go or opportune, you know, place people to be to get the benefits.

You're going to see this rotate.

People are going to go, okay, look, we used to buy a lot from China.

Well, now we're going to buy a lot more from Vietnam.

Yeah, I've seen, I've actually seen a lot of clothes being made out of Vietnam.

Yeah, a lot, a lot of.

A lot of stuff like that.

So, I mean, look, you got Apple, which announced that investment we talked about.

You got drug maker Eli Lilly said in late February it planned to spend at least $27 billion to build four new manufacturing plants United States over the next five years.

You got John Johnson.

And Johnson said in late March it planned to invest over 55 billion over the next four years to establish manufacturing facilities and research infrastructure United States.

You got Schneider Electric.

Schneider plans to invest over 700 million United States to U.

S.

Operations over the next two years.

The investment will focus on bolstering u.

S.

Energy infrastructure, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So, I mean, look, there's a list of people who've committed, right?

And you know, the White House is going to Wave this all in your face.

Look how successful we are right now.

That.

That all nice in theory.

Okay.

That companies are coming out and saying.

That we're going to negativity coming back.

No, it's not.

I mean we're.

Let.

Let's.

As the kids like to say, let's keep it a buck.

I like that.

I really like that phrase.

I don't.

Let's keep it a.

Why.

Let's keep it 100.

Let's keep it a buck.

I don't.

I don't like that phrase.

Why?

I just.

I just feel like it's not catchy.

No.

With inflation, the dollar isn't what it used to be.

No.

But it's a hundred.

It's like me saying it's a hundred cents.

Let's keep it a nickel.

Let's.

I.

Oh, there's another.

There's levels to this.

It's a hundred cents.

Have it make sense.

It's a buck.

Keep it a buck.

I know you're so good.

I know you're proud of yourself.

So good.

Okay.

Anyways, let's keep it a buck.

All right.

I'm sorry.

To all those listening thinking to my thinking themselves.

Like, why am I listening to the show?

I don't know.

I don't know.

This is what you get.

Yeah.

You get exactly.

I'm just happy the light switch we just installed in the studio works.

That's all.

Everything else.

Tonight's a win.

We know right now, more so than.

More so than in recent history, there's been a lot of uncertainty with what's going on in the market.

People don't know where this is all going, where we're headed.

Right.

It's a fair statement.

Yeah.

It's.

It's not that it's a guaranteed scary time ahead, but it's a reality.

It's.

There's potential.

Look, with the uncertainty that's in the economy right now, it's undeniable.

The VIX is showing it.

You're seeing some weeks are terribly negative in the stock market.

Some weeks are terribly positive for reasons that are still in some ways unclear.

Seen a lot of revisions of data.

I think I read a report today that said that a major bank had.

And I can't remember the name of the bank.

I think it's maybe a Citibank said that the probability of recession had increased 50% during 2025.

Deutsche Bank.

Is that Deutsche Bank?

Yeah.

That was a.

That was a pretty powerful statement for a bank to come out and say that.

Look, that's.

That's a company and in a certain industry that does not like uncertainty.

Yeah, right.

So for them to come out and say that, it almost makes me feel like maybe it's more than 50%.

That's a strong.

That's a strong pivot, bro.

That's a very strong pivot.

And like they're not some small town bank.

One of the largest banks in the world.

Yeah.

Deutsch.

Can you spell Deutsche Bank?

D U.

That's a big pause.

D U E T.

No.

C H E.

No.

Deutsch.

No.

I'm close, man.

I'm pretty close.

Come on, I gotta scramble the letters around a little bit.

Come on, bro.

You said no.

You said no while you're still searching.

Come on.

Let me get that.

D E U T S O C H E Bank.

I said, I said D U E is D E U.

My bad.

German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany and dual listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.

And come on.

The New York Stock Exchange.

That was a gimmick.

That was a gimme.

Yeah.

So for companies that.

All the companies that you've mentioned between Apple, Eli Lilly, Schneider, all them.

Right.

Nancy Pelosi's Invest in, all of them.

These ads were strangely right before these decisions were made.

Who knew thought it.

Have you seen that app where you can literally follow like.

I've seen that.

I've seen the advertisements for it.

It's like you can, you can, you.

Can have your money invested and it'll immediately dump money into whatever she also invests in.

Yeah.

I mean, that's brilliant.

Hold on.

That's a great marketing pitch.

Dub is like Instagram for investing.

You can copy other investors, copy trade politicians like Nancy Pelosi, hedge fund managers like Warren Buffett and top traders on Twitter and X and more.

This is actually good.

Let's get it.

I actually want.

Actually thought about asking this the other day.

I was like, I want to bring it up on the show.

So for someone in her position, do you know like copy trade anyone?

When she.

When I know she has.

Damn it.

Why didn't we think about this?

I know when she, when she does invest in certain, certain companies.

Right.

She has to disclose it now.

Yeah.

How soon thereafter does the public find out?

Is it quarterly?

Is it?

I believe as soon as she does it.

No, no, I believe it's quarterly.

So yeah.

I mean, them finding out and doing it months later.

Don't quote me on that.

Well, actually, I got a laptop right in front of me.

I can tell you right now.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I.

You know, I don't know how.

How often.

Yeah.

Must they report?

Right.

Because I know that even people at publicly traded companies have to report what they invest in, too.

Right.

Okay.

This is an interesting structure here.

Of course, it talks about Nancy Pelosi ad nauseam.

Shocker.

Yeah.

Instead, they require officials to publicly disclose all securities transactions valued at over $1,000 within 30 days of receiving the notice.

30 days?

Within 30 days.

Wow.

Over a thousand dollars.

I'm surprised they haven't revised that to be, like, over, like, 10,000 or something a little more meaningful.

Well, the.

The.

The get the workaround, too, is like having their spouses within 30 days of.

Receiving notice of the transaction.

Within 45 days of the transaction.

Isn't that the thing with her, that to have.

She has her husband make all the investments?

Well, yeah, her husband is technically, I think, like a wealth advisor or something.

Yeah.

So it's like.

Yeah, that's.

My husband's really smart.

He knows.

You've heard this before, right?

Like, her pitch is like, oh, I don't.

I don't get involved in his investing, which, you know, may or may not be true.

And by may or may not, I mean, it's not true, but, you know, whatever.

Right?

It's funny how, like, pro athletes can bet on their own games, but public officials can invest in companies that they can control and regulate.

Oh, yeah, like, that's it.

I mean, and nobody cares.

But everyone cares about their sports.

They make the rules, though.

Like, here's the problem, is the athletes aren't the owners of the teams.

Come on, man.

We can.

The public officials.

Are the owners of the teams allowed to bet on the games?

I'm sure they do.

No, I'm not asking if they do or not.

Are they allowed to bet on the games?

Oh, I don't even know if they track it.

They.

They don't care.

It's.

It's.

Isn't that weird, though?

You own the team, right?

Yeah, I know.

You know what I mean?

Like, you're not a guy in the game.

I understand that, but you could easily go, hey, hey, hey, hey, man.

Do you like playing here?

I know.

Do you want to continue to play here?

I need you to take a few less shots today.

I want to win tonight, Mr.

Davis, but I don't want to win by a lot.

Yeah.

You ever been traded to the G League?

I don't know how much time you.

I don't know how much time you've ever spent on this.

Probably not a whole lot, because you don't seem like a guy that likes to waste their time in sports, but there.

I don't seem like a guy.

You've known me my entire adult life.

I don't seem like, you know, I don't.

No.

But this is actually really intriguing.

There.

There's a segment on SportsCenter that's called Bad Beats, and I've never seen it.

It goes like, okay, there's a spread and the team has to win by, let's say, four points.

And another, the team is up by like nine or 10.

And then it shows within the last 30 seconds, somehow it gets down to four points.

Reggie Miller had to be a king of that.

Reggie Miller was rude.

No, the worst is.

The worst is when you see it happen in college.

You're like, how.

How is this possible?

Yeah.

And then the.

The fans and the crowd are just sick to their stomach.

Yeah.

They go from.

It's such an emotional roller coaster.

They just get so volatile.

Yeah.

It's not good, man.

It's not.

But.

Okay, back to what we said about Eli Lilly, Schneider, Apple, willing to invest.

Right.

It sounds good.

In theory.

That relieves a little bit of the uncertainty for a lot of people, I feel like.

Because if you start to hear all this negativity, Right.

That we've been fighting this inflation thing for a long time and we still don't have it under control.

People are feeling the pinch.

Right.

You hear the talks on tariffs and just go on YouTube.

Every YouTuber, every creator that's in this space is talking tariffs, terrorists.

It's just causing even more fear.

Right?

Yeah.

That's what we talked about with the narrative economic stuff.

Right.

Like, it's the easiest way to get a click.

It's the easiest way to get.

I've been doing it.

You've been doing it.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, it's.

We have to talk about it.

Right.

I mean, we are a financial literacy.

We are.

I mean, and then you.

If companies aren't investing in other companies, we're not talking about, like, little investors like you and I that might invest in a company, like a blue chip stock.

If big hedge funds, big investors, big players in the game, are not investing in growth stocks.

Right.

And they're looking for a more secure return.

Right.

What does that do to the market as a whole?

Right.

Companies aren't looking to expand.

If that's the case, there's probably fewer hirings.

Everything begins to slow down.

You know, what I think most people don't understand about this space is that there's a different level to different parts of the ecosystem financially.

Okay, right.

Like banks have a different cost of funds or their cost to get money and use money is different than like a hedge fund's cost of funds or like a life company's cost of funds of funds.

Okay, right.

So everybody's got different, like a dollar for.

I think a lot of people understand how even banks operate, to be honest.

All right, so for a bank, the simplest way to put this is let's just ignore operational costs.

I think a lot of, what a lot of people think is people have their money deposited in and from that, from that money that's deposited, we can lend money out.

And it doesn't necessarily work like that.

No, because they're going to pay you interest on those deposits.

Right.

They're going to have operational costs.

Let's just say for the purpose of this conversation, you can assume 2% as an operational cost of what the bank's gonna, you know, 2% of their, of their profits.

Right.

Well, other net income, but whatever.

So I mean, it's a pretty meaningful cost for banks.

And as much as people are like, oh, they get free money, it's not free.

Right.

And it only works in an environment where you're making more on loans than you're paying on deposits minus a 2% difference.

So for example, if I'm paying you 1% interest, right.

But I'm making a loan with that 1% interest money that I'm paying you to somebody else at 3%, my cost of funds is 1% for just my cost of funds, but my operational cost might be 2%.

So that 3% might be break even, might be a wash.

Might be a wash.

Right.

Because the cost to have the infrastructure to loan you that money, to service that money, to do all those things to it, to run a business, to have marketing, to have advertising, it adds up too.

And that's why banks scale bigger, make more money, because they have operational costs which are generally lower than that of like a community regional bank which has got, you know, a hefty infrastructural cost because there's scales of economy that are in place as you get bigger and bigger.

And then I know there's that age old model that a lot of people that are outside of the banking space when they start to talk down about big greedy banks and they talk about fractional banking.

Right?

Yeah.

I've never understood the infatuation.

Oh, if person A comes in and deposits $1,000, the bank can ultimately turn that around into 10,000.

On the other hand, you got like life companies which have super cheap cost of funds and they can go out and lend their money and generally undercut even banks.

But then when they get to that size and that scale, they go, I don't want to mess with a small loan like on a home or this.

And they want to make like these tens of millions of dollar loans.

They're regulated differently.

Regulated differently.

So therein lies in like a whole other challenge, which is, you know, hedge funds aren't regulated like banks are.

Right.

There's a whole entire sector out there which I would call a little more sexy as it relates to lending.

A lot of the fintechs are like this, where they're like, hey, you know, we'll make micro loans at $50,000 a pop, but we'll work on volume and we'll take a little more risk.

And, and they'll try, but they'll charge a little bit more on interest.

Yeah, they'll charge more on interest for the additional risk they're taking on.

And they're like, look, okay, we lose some money here and there, we're still more profitable because we're not charging 5% what banks would charge, we're charging 8%.

Yes.

So if we take 1% in losses or 2% in losses, we're still making 1% more than they are.

How do they get comfortable with that, though?

Like, if, obviously if you're, if you're a company that's in, in need of money.

Right.

That's got to be one of your last stops.

When I was younger, I used to think that too.

When I was younger, I'd be like, ah, you just got to be conservative, man.

And then as I've gotten older, I don't know if I've gotten more immune to the ideology of risk or, or just desensitized to it or what it might be.

But let me put in a different perspective.

Let's put it in a perspective of the saver.

Right.

As in a person who, a person who saves.

Right.

If you're a super cheap person, most people who are super cheap don't ever really build like significant wealth.

That's right.

Right.

Yeah.

Because you're not investing your money, they're.

Not taking the risk to make more money.

They're just trying to say, matter of fact, savers are the slowest traditional path to wealth.

Yeah, We've actually covered this on a previous show.

I mean, you actually lose buying power over the years.

Right.

But then there's the opposite side of the spectrum where you have the most Amount of risk.

Right.

You're the entrepreneur, and you're throwing everything you can into the business.

It's got way more upside, but it's got way more downside.

It does.

And when you said that, I immediately thought about our episode with Adam from Mind Pump.

Mindpump.

Mind Pump.

So, so sexy.

Right?

And he.

And he.

He said that he remembers Adam.

I know you don't listen to the show anymore, but remember when you listen to show.

That was nice.

Yeah.

Somebody tag him where he was speaking to somebody that had, I think, had made a successful business and was like, you know, on average or who's reading a book?

On average, it takes somebody nine attempts before they become a millionaire.

Right.

Like.

Right.

Like you're going to fail when starting anything.

Right.

It's just a matter of learning from it and applying what you did learn and go on to the next thing.

So, I mean, that's.

Yeah, there's going to be risk involved.

You know, and take the risk.

When you're young, you know, if you don't have a wife or you don't have a husband and you don't have kids, you know, that's.

That's the thing that I want to instill in my kids.

Take that risk.

I want to.

I want to instill that in my kids, and I want to find a way to do.

Roll the dice, baby.

Have a good time.

Yeah.

Just go.

Have fun.

Do it right.

Like, you work a lot of hours, you might learn a lot, you might fail, but that failure will teach you more than working for somebody for five years.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, you will learn a lot about yourself, and there's something to be said.

I wish I did more as when I was younger.

Well, let me ask you the hard question.

This is.

This is just overarching theme.

Why do we stop trying to what, to take these risks?

I mean, I'm not saying that business, like, starting.

I know.

I know what it is for.

I know what it is.

It's like we stop learning, you know, like, we, like, I think we have this mindset like, oh, college up to this point.

I went back to college later in life.

I did the program at Yale.

I got a master's later.

I did all those things later.

Right.

Yeah.

I really, really enjoyed going back to school later.

Yeah.

I mean, you can appreciate it more.

Right.

Like, I don't know if that was.

I can just tell you I, The, The.

I did not enjoy school when I was younger.

Right.

I sucked at it.

I was.

I was just a kid who Just.

It was in the wrong topics, I think.

I.

And I was always the kid, too, that I.

I remember.

I.

And I was.

I did very well in math.

I was in, you know, honors classes and, And I remember being good at math and being in my calculus classes, like in the 10th, 11th grade.

Fancy calculus.

Yeah, exactly.

And then thinking to myself, why am I doing this?

I'm never going to use this.

I know.

I have those thoughts.

I'm like, this is, this is ridiculous.

What do you think was the one class in school that was the most valuable for you?

The most valuable for me, which is.

The one class you like?

Oh, yeah.

I still use.

From what you're talking about, from high.

School, just in school in general.

Like, any, Any class you had at school, college, high school, whatever.

Elementary school.

I don't care.

Don't say pe.

I took a class in, at UCI that was political theory.

Really?

Yeah.

That's not what I expected.

Yeah.

And it was just really.

It's really just game theory.

Right.

Which is valuable.

Understanding odds, being able to try to see all the different variables.

I had a statistics class in college.

I hated it.

I love the idea of that exact concept like game theory and playing the odds, but for some reason, the statistics class, in and of itself, like, I just was terrible at it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think I had a bad teacher.

And that's why I, like when.

I remember when I was studying for the LSAT for law school, the logic games portion came very easy to me because I, I found it fun.

It was like a game.

It was almost like, find the trick.

They're tricking you here.

Find it.

And that's kind of what, that's the, that's the tactic I bring with my kids sometimes, like, in order to get them to focus, especially with my son, because some of the, you know, the public school system, the schoolwork that he gets, it's, it's, it's.

It's very behind.

It's not challenging.

It's not challenging.

Right.

So then.

But I tell him, you draw a panda.

I'm 12.

The star testing, or like the state testing that they get, obviously.

Right.

To prepare them if they want to go into gate.

Which is sad because there are some kids who are probably at that level.

Yeah, no, exactly.

No, I know.

And I tell them that.

I'm like, you got to make sure you don't make anybody feel bad.

Right.

They still have gate, huh?

Gates.

The thing they don't have.

Not every school has it.

And Adam tested into it if he wanted it.

Yeah.

But he had to transfer schools, and we thought that socially we wanted him to excel.

So we're like, let's just.

We'll worry about the schooling stuff later.

Let me tell you what happens when you're in gate Me.

That's what happens.

Okay.

So that's why we're.

Yeah, good.

Good choice.

No kidding.

Good choice.

But won't need a hair transplant.

But I.

What I always try to tell.

What I always try to tell them is like, hey, look for the trick.

They're.

They're trying to trick you.

Find the trick.

Yeah, I did the same thing when I was in schools.

I was always trying to, like, find, like, I was always trying to, like, okay, why are you asking this question?

Yeah, there's.

And I.

And I really blew his mind.

It's easy when, like, I asked him to find the trick in the math question, but with the word problems, it blew his mind when I was like, this one word changed everything.

And he's like.

And that now really gets into, like, lock in.

Well, on the same topic, I passed across a Wall Street Journal Instagram post where this woman was talking.

I had it on mute, and I wasn't going to watch it because it didn't look very engaging.

No captions.

They need to.

They need.

Nobody was dipping their face in water.

They need to hire people like us, right?

To get it.

Like, yeah, I just felt like, you.

Know, they needed us.

There were some books in the background.

I was like, yeah, this looks very cerebral.

It's late.

I'm not gonna.

Then I read the caption.

I'm very close to dipping my face in water every morning.

No, don't be that guy, bro.

I went out and bought a bottle of Saratoga Water.

I saw you.

I saw you post it.

I heard this makes you buff.

That guy's been doing that forever.

He's been drinking that water forever.

And he just went viral.

You know, the theory is, is that he was so.

Here.

There's some context you need here.

So Saratoga Water was not a, like, a huge brand.

They had some huge stock lift and sales l.

Search lift on Google as a result of him going viral.

Okay, the.

The pitch is, is that maybe he's like a plant as, like, a viral marketing campaign for them because they had such a good response.

No, he's been doing this forever.

I hear you.

Yeah, but then their own social media team at Saratoga Water made no comment about this.

They're just letting it play out.

Yeah, but here's some fun facts about that dude.

He's five'five Start There.

Really?

Yeah.

He looks incredible.

I feel so much better about.

Maybe it started his growth.

He's fine.

He's five'five He's a short king.

Shout out to him.

Yeah.

Just got evicted from the same building that he posted all his videos in.

He was evicted.

Apparently the evictions for he like cloned a fob key and was letting people into the gym to use the facilities.

Something I don't really know, but.

Oh, really?

But I find those videos pretentious, man.

His name's Ashton something.

Ashton hall or something.

Yeah.

But I find those videos incredibly pretentious, man.

Like, first of all, why is somebody always handing you clothes?

Oh, yeah, I'm not noticing that.

Like, there's a female who's handing him clothes and, like handing him his food.

And I'm like, this feels kind of.

Sexist if that's the case.

That's weird.

Yeah.

Now he's got a guy like a.

Like a.

Like a chauffeur or like somebody rolling with him and then he rolls out with.

Because this is.

Because this is necessary.

He goes for a run and somebody's filming this from what I'm presuming is a third vehicle.

Yeah, but his chauffeur is driving his G wagon and somebody else is driving his Rolls Royce behind him.

Huh?

Yeah.

While he's running.

Because if he's running without the cars, you don't know he's rich, Saeed.

Yeah.

You don't know that those are his cars.

No, he's ripped.

Oh, because.

Oh, because.

And you've got to be ripped and rich.

Yeah.

Otherwise no one's gonna buy the program.

Yeah.

Or sign up.

Sign up.

But he's got just under 9 million followers.

The car.

The cars are part.

Are their characters in his channel.

That's.

That's what.

Yeah.

I don't know, man.

All I can tell you is, is it just.

And here's my.

Here's my underlying theory.

And I want everybody listening to this to tell us, your kids or anybody you know, that's influenced by social media.

Here's a part that blows me away.

All these social media channels, and I don't care if you're a fitness health influencer what you are.

They all post these beautifully curated timestamp videos to reels.

Yes.

Static posts on.

On their page.

But none of them post the same content in their stories in real time.

You want to know why?

Yeah, it's a good point.

Because you're not living the curated lifestyle that you're putting on for everybody.

Yeah, I saw you post this on your stories and I thought it was a really good point.

It's like the.

The guys that are really doing it.

Yeah.

That are really about that life, as the kids like to say.

They don't got the time to stop and curate these videos.

No.

And so, like, think about this.

He's setting up a camera.

He's figuring out what he's gonna do.

He's probably scripting out, like, what his day looks like.

He's putting the camera in front of the water.

It's.

There's multiple takes.

There's multiple takes, multiple angles.

I mean, the color grading, like, I mean, there's.

It's.

It's a whole thing.

And yeah, sure, eventually you can get to the point where you.

Hi.

You hire a team to do that, but it's also.

That makes it even more curated.

Right.

It's just.

It's fake.

Yes.

There's no other way to say it's fake.

Yeah.

So anyway, I was watching and.

Let's get back to one second.

I gotta do one more thing.

One more thing.

If you think that dipping your face into cold water is doing anything of value for you, let me just give you some science.

I am not somebody who's going to tell you that science has proven that cold plunging is absolutely better for you.

Okay.

I do feel better when I do it.

I have more energy when I do it.

I do feel more refreshed when I do it.

Yeah.

Is that a feeling versus science?

I don't know.

I just feel that way.

I've got nothing to really support it other than the fact that I feel better.

No.

There's psychological benefits.

I think that.

No.

No different than the same thing where the type of person that wakes up 4:00am Club, 5:00am Club to work out, and then after they get done, you always feel great after because you chose to do something very difficult in the morning.

You accomplished it.

Boom.

I think this is no different.

It's not easy waking up in the morning and sitting in some cold water.

Like that doesn't let me be clear.

Me jumping into a cold plunge and me putting my face in cold water, they are not the same.

I know.

And I'll say this.

Only reason why I said I want to do it is because I do.

I put.

I put the faucet on really cold, ice cold in the morning.

And I.

When I wash my face, it feels really good.

Yeah.

It's brisk.

It'll wake you up.

I get that.

Yeah.

But let me just.

Again, the science part here.

You gotta hit the vagus.

Nerve in your neck to really get to get in there, the response that you want physiologically.

Now, you can do that by putting your face into water up to your neck.

All right, so then what about.

What about cold showers?

I hate cold showers.

But I'm saying there's got to be.

At some point, you got to be, like, breaching the point.

But you also don't need to be, like, in the 40 degrees, like, ice is frozen.

So 38, 40 something degrees.

You can.

You can be totally happy at 50 degrees and get all the same benefits.

Like, is it such an unnecessary thing that people.

People take things to levels of extremes that don't need to be done?

It's a.

It's a.

At the end of the day, it's a ritual.

Right?

It's.

It's creating a habit.

Yeah, I mean, whatever.

But again, dipping your face in water.

What?

I mean, why?

I feel.

I mean, the same can be said, though, for some people.

They're saying, look, there's no real science behind the benefits, and you're dipping your whole body into cold water.

No, I hear you.

I get that.

But what I would argue is dipping your face in a cold water might wake you up.

Yeah, you can do that.

Like you said in the kitchen faucet and in the bathroom sink.

Yeah.

You know, you can get an ice mask, a cold mask.

Like, there's.

There's other ways to do that that are not so, like, visually like, oh, look at me, I'm pseudo cold plunging my face.

I think that if I were to.

If I were to cold plunge my face, I would only be doing it because it feels really good, not because I'm saying I'm getting all kinds of benefits.

You got a big head.

You ain't got bowls that big.

I know.

They sell.

They sell certain.

They sell bulls, though.

You don't got a bowl that big.

I got to buy one.

Think about.

He's using Saratoga water.

Just use deposit water, brother.

What are we doing?

What are we doing?

I thought about filming a video where I'm pouring Saratoga water into the ice in the cold plunge.

There's so many people clowning that dude.

The best part of my day yesterday was watching all the people clown him on social media.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It was bad news.

All right, so this clip from the Wall Street Journal.

The caption got me.

Do you have a second job?

More Americans are holding down multiple roles.

I thought we hit an inflection point where this was slowing down, particularly because it is now a.

An economic fact that jumping from Job to job, which used to actually prove to increase your salary over time.

No longer the case.

Staying in your job for longer is actually going to be the better way to get a higher salary, at least according to the data right now.

Yeah, that changes depending on how active the economy is.

Yeah.

But let's.

Let's take a listen here.

And I believe this is Julia Munslow.

Don't quote me on the name, but here you go.

Jobs data revealed a striking stat about millions of Americans.

More people than ever have multiple jobs.

Now, this trend isn't new.

Last year we reported on the rise of two job workers who say there aren't enough hours in the day to stay afloat.

Their reasons range from being short on cash to it simply being easier to find a second job now than it was before.

And that's thanks to gig work like.

Uber or Doordash and the rise of work from home.

So, okay, man, you know, like, so.

And that goes.

That's why a lot of people take issue with the jobs numbers, right?

Unemployment.

The unemployment rate can appear to be down or still at historic lows.

However, it's not accounting for the people that were let go and had to find two jobs to make up the salary that they were making before.

Right.

It's not accounting for those type.

We're not talking about the type of people that are holding down two jobs at the same time and working them at the same time as like, you know, two software engineers there.

You know what I mean?

As an engineer with two software jobs.

Right.

You're like, we're not talking about those kind of people.

We're talking about the people that are really feeling a pinch here that time.

I mean, the compounding inflation numbers year over year over year have taken such a toll.

And if maybe they've been laid off, they've been forced to over the weekend or after work, have to take on jobs like Uber or door or doordash.

Like.

Like, this is.

This is.

When I saw you put this.

This was like, we got to put a pop.

We got to find a positive spin.

This is.

This hurts.

It hurts me to see this.

I mean, look, there are.

There are predatory cases 100%.

There are necessary or.

What's the word I'm looking for here?

There are reasons why people will do it that they have no other choice.

Okay?

But look, I think this is just a brave new world.

This is the world that we're in.

I think you got to deal with.

With the fact that if people can't get to where they want to go.

And some people, it's irrelevant.

They just got to stay busy.

I mean, this is part of the new working world.

I think this is.

This is out there and I think how companies are going to address it is going to change.

Certainly the returning to office part addresses some of this.

The last thing you want is to hire an employee, I'm sure, who is paying somebody from upwork to do parts of their job.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Or they're trying to, like, you know, manage calendar.

I mean, I've heard horror stories.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And that's.

And that's completely unethical.

Right.

That, like something you.

You can't sign off on.

But when you hear like these side hustles that people used to do, I don't think that it's a coincidence.

With everything that's going on, with all the uncertainty going on, with all the layoffs that we know that have come and gone and that are still around the corner, that why people are doing this, because they're feeling the pinch.

That's why more people have second jobs now more than ever.

Yeah.

Because of the times.

Right.

I don't think that's a coincidence.

I don't think it's.

Because it's a brave new world where it's like people are just getting hip to the times.

Like, this is what you need.

No, I feel like people are understanding.

Look, consumer confidence is down further than it's ever been.

Yeah.

All right.

At least in the last, like four or five years or so.

That's in the show notes, my friend.

Are you jumping ahead again?

That's a Segway game.

That's.

We're not even there yet.

No, but it's a way to tie it together.

Can we get to the week ahead first?

Yeah, but you wanted a positive spin.

Yeah, we can.

That didn't seem sincere.

So should I go to car repossessions, then?

You're literally.

You're so unappreciated.

You're so unappreciative of the Segway game.

It wasn't a good segue.

We weren't.

Right.

We weren't there yet, man.

Like, you know, hold on.

You're trying to keep the structure in order.

All right, so I did want to note that there are some notable people who reported this week.

By the time you hear this, it's the week prior to you, KB Homes being one of them.

On Monday, March 24, there was some flash manufacturing.

PMI came out, but it's not a really widely read report.

On Tuesday you had GameStop consumer confidence, which we're going to talk about here because SAEE can't hold himself back.

Case Shiller home price index and new home sales came out the 25th.

And frankly, what you're seeing is new home sales are everything, tend to be slowing down.

In my mind, one of the interesting ones was actually today, Wednesday, March 26, we were recording this at the lovely.

Brisk hour of 10:49pm 10:49pm on a weekday.

I just said that.

Yeah, I'm just saying that.

It's like you don't listen to me anymore.

You're here, but you're not hearing me.

Do you care what I have to say?

Remember when you actually used to listen?

So when I drive in, when I'm driving in the car and I'm in my own thoughts sometimes and the kids are in the back and so all the time.

All the time.

And the kids will ask me a question.

Yeah.

And then he'll be like, let's just say, let's say Adam will be like, dad, who's your favorite player on the Lakers?

My natural response, I'm driving because I'm in my own thoughts.

Yeah.

I'm saying, I say to myself, I say out loud, who's my favorite player on the Lakers?

Right.

And so now he's taking issue with the fact he's like, how come every time I ask you a question, you repeat the question?

Like, why can't you just answer the question?

Are you not listening to me?

Dairy.

Turn around to go.

That's right, son.

That's correct, son.

Yeah, that's it.

That's a.

That's an accurate assessment.

Yes.

Yeah.

What was your name again?

What was your name?

Yeah.

Don't you report to your mother, who reports to me.

Right?

Yeah.

Don't you know that there's levels you got to go through before you can get to me?

Ask your direct supervisor, son.

Let me know how your performance comes around.

All right, so today we had Jeffrey's Dollar Tree, Cintas, Pet Petco, Chewy and Paychecks and the durable good orders.

Again, nothing super sensational.

Shout out to my friends over at Jeffries.

And then tomorrow, March 27th, we've got Lululemon.

You love some Lulu.

Love some Lulu.

Consumer discretionary spending.

This is one of those high end consumer discretionary spending items.

Lulu guy or a Vuori guy?

Vori.

Vori.

I'm really neither.

You know what you got to say to support the squad?

Mind pump.

Yeah.

Mind pumps.

Warrior.

Big Vori.

What?

I said, why do you Struggle with this.

It's a weird name.

Can you keep it a buck?

It's a weird name.

I'm not responding to when you say that phrase.

Okay, sorry.

Give you one monster.

You can't control yourself.

We also have.

Tomorrow, we have jobless claims, pending home sales in advance, trade balances.

Something to note.

New home sales and pending home sales, not the same thing.

Right.

Newly built homes being sold sell at a different cadence as pending home sales.

All homes that.

That have entered into contract homes.

Existing home sales.

Right, exactly.

And then on Friday, you got no notable earnings coming out.

Generally, you don't have earnings on Fridays.

That'd be weird.

But you got PC, Core PC, which.

Inflation, by the way.

And then you have consumer sentiment.

So tomorrow, you know, Lululemon.

Friday.

Consumer sentiment.

Yeah, which.

That's how you segue, Saeed.

Oh, okay.

See what I did there?

I saw what you did there.

You see?

I mean, I'm out here, right?

So you heard your.

Your boy, Lawrence Summers.

Who?

Larry Summers.

Right.

Lauren's name is Lawrence.

Larry for short.

You're not allowed to call him Lawrence.

That's his name.

What do you mean?

That's only.

His mother calls him Lawrence.

Laura Summers.

He can't.

He took a shot across the bow on your boy JP from the hood recently because JP Used the word transitory again.

Oh, he's like.

You, my friend, are not allowed to use that word anymore.

We edited that out of the script last month.

Jp yeah, he said the recent spike in inflation due to the tariffs will be transitory.

What do you think Jerome Powell's friends call him?

Yeah, that's a good question.

Like, what's his nickname?

You think that's on the web?

Jeremy?

Yeah.

Is Jeremy short for Jerome?

Is that.

Is that nickname for Jerome?

Jeremy, what is Jerome Powell's nickname?

Go on.

If they're not.

If they're not calling them.

If they're not calling JP Then he doesn't have hip friends.

Nicknames for all star economists.

Super Mario Mario Draghi of the ecb.

J.

Powell.

Jerome Powell.

J.

Powell.

Yeah.

J.

Powell.

Isn't that a Jersey Shore?

No, it's Jay.

Wow.

Oh, Jay Powell is so good.

Jay Powell.

Yeah.

Who was Jerome Powell?

Trump's pick for the.

Come on, man.

That's so outdated.

Five things about Jerome Powell.

Okay, well, I mean, we're here.

I mean, we got to.

Right.

I'm invested from 2021, updated 2022.

And number one, Powell has served under four presidents, both Democrat and Republican.

I mean, he was nominated by.

By Donald.

Right?

That's right.

That's right.

Number two, he is the first non economist to become the fed chair in 40 years.

Well, that explains a lot.

I bet you he's the last one that's a non economist.

How is broadly an uncontroversial pick for Fed chair with one Wall street player, Ward McCarthy of the investment bank Jefferies telling CNBC he was the boring choice?

Shout out to Jeffries.

That's not like an insult.

That's just an opinion.

You know what I mean?

He's a boring choice.

It goes on.

Blah.

Instead, Powell cut his teeth in the private sector working for investment banks before.

Before and after his stint at the Treasury Department.

He quit his position at Bankers Trust in 1995 when Saeed was three years old, after the bank became embroiled in a trading scandal that cost his clients hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ouch.

Powell was not named in lawsuits with the sec.

The actions launched in response to the scandal.

You worked in the private.

You worked in private equity before joining the Bipartisan Policy center in Washington, D.C.

i didn't know that.

Wow.

Oh, here's a big sentence.

You ready?

Powell's career in finance also made him the wealthiest Fed chair nominee since 1948.

Washington Post reported in 2017.

At the time, Powell's net worth was believed to be.

And when.

At what time?

In 2017.

In 2017, his net worth.

Oh, 5 million was between.

This is a wide range.

This is wild.

19.7 million and 55 million.

I feel like you should probably bracket that a little bit tighter.

You know What I mean?

10 and 15.

10 to 20.

Between 19 and 55.

Like, y'all get to get your facts straight, man.

Come on.

What are we doing here?

When.

When he gets nominated.

Take this seat.

Does he have to fill out like a balance sheet like he does.

He does have financial disclosures that are.

He does.

Yeah.

Or they.

They have.

He has to let everybody know what he owns, what he doesn't own.

Right?

Like, no, it's not quite like that.

His financial disclosures are slightly different, but yeah.

Okay, like, what do you mean?

Like, he has to announce the companies that he owns and you know that he's invested in.

You mean that he's like my.

Like he owns a percentage of.

You're saying stock's a little more specific, but you don't really know, like, you know, 100%.

Yeah, yeah.

So number three is a private citizen, pal Worked to prevent a federal defaul fault, and now he's looking to create one.

That's weird.

Number four, Before COVID pal had expressed skepticism of experimental Fed policies that went out the window.

Yeah.

Now he's all about stimmies.

Yeah, the stimmies.

Yep.

Number five.

Finally, Powell became J.

Powell chair of the Federal Meme Reserve.

And I'd like to say that he's straight out of comping.

I mean, he's got.

Honestly, he's got to be looking around.

We talked about this, I think, on the last show or two shows ago.

80 of the money in circulation has been printed since 2020.

It was like, last show.

That was last show.

Okay, 80 of the money.

So he's got to be looking around honestly, everywhere he goes.

You're welcome.

Hey, you're welcome.

For these.

These recent renovations you got in your house.

You're welcome.

So if you're the guy that he calls the print money or is your name in his phone.

Dollar dollar bills, y'all.

It has to be dollar, dollar bills, y'all.

Wu Tang.

Like, that's kind of who you call, right?

Hey, Siri.

Call $$Bills.

Yeah.

And if anybody's phone just rang, we got questions.

We got questions.

All right, so this according to Intel's, which I don't even.

I don't even know who that is, but it was an Instagram page that I saw this come up on, and I.

I just had to go down the rabbit hole.

Car repossession surge 23% as Americans fall behind on payments all right, so this.

Is why this is a big deal, right?

Because people will default on credit cards.

They'll def.

Like auto loans is one of the last things you default on, right?

Because you don't want your car to get repoed because you.

Now, you don't have a means to get to work.

So that's why this is.

That's why this is such a big deal.

Like, this is one of the last things people allow to happen.

That's right.

As of early 2025, auto loan delinquencies and repossessions in the United States have reached concerning levels.

In the first half of 2024, car repossessions, United States surged by 23% compared to the same period in 2023, surpassing pre pandemic levels by 14%.

This increase is attributed to elevated interest rates and inflation, which have raised the cost of car ownership, leading to more consumers falling behind on payments.

The average interest rate for new car loans reached 7.3%, with monthly payments averaging $739, while used car loans have an average interest rate of 11.5% with monthly payments around $5.

That's the average.

Additionally, 6.6% of subprime auto borrowers were at least 60 days overdue on their loans as of January 2025.

What would you say to the per.

I actually know of people at the place that I formerly used to get my haircut at who had they had.

Somebody there had told me, not the owner had told me that they got a car loan once at 25%.

Wow.

You know, and they said, oh, their credit was bad, this and that.

I mean, you do what you got to do, brother.

I mean, if.

That.

If you feel like that's your last resort, I would hope that you're not trying to get something really nice.

If you have enough money to put down as a down payment, just buy something to get you from point A to point B.

I mean, 25% is crazy, man.

I don't know.

That's extortion.

Like, who's charging 25% at that point?

That's too big of a.

Why are you even doing this load?

No, I get it, man, but people go through so many, like, waves of life, you know, where you go through, like, maturity levels, too, financially.

It doesn't matter how old you are.

Maturity has more to do with your mental status than it does your age.

That I.

I feel for a lot of people.

I mean, there's some people who make just bad spending decisions, and they, you know, they might be perceived to, I guess, deserve it.

But financial literacy, which is the reason we do this show, is such a missing element, man, that I really feel for more of these people than.

Than I look at them and go, ah, you're terrible money.

Like, I.

I don't.

I don't look at it like that way.

I look at it and go, like, what unfortunate circumstance did that person have to live through where that was, where they're at?

You know, if there's anything that people can get from this show, which I would hope that, you know, if somebody's listening and they like it and they.

They share with a friend, hopefully it makes conversations with friends about financial literacy and finances that much easier to talk about.

Because I know that sometimes for some people, especially if you're like, you've entered into the workforce and now, like, maybe five, six, seven years have gone by, and you feel like, oh, man, I should really know this information by now.

Yeah.

And that's what keeps you.

It's like, hopefully, like, these are conversations where now you can start.

You feel comfortable asking people and just owning, like, look, I don't know this And I'm.

But I want to, I want to learn it and have those conversations with the people you feel like you can trust.

And see, the older I've gotten, the more comfortable I'm saying.

Like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Like, help me.

Yeah, explain that to me.

What do you mean by that?

I don't get it.

That thing you just said.

Say that again.

And here's what I'll do, man, is I will literally go on to this day, I will go on a chat GPT and be like, help me understand this.

Because I don't understand.

Mm.

Like throw people, throw out a term at me.

And I'll be like, oh, yeah, that's cool.

Yo, Chad, GPT help brother out, man.

Yeah.

Oh, speaking.

Speaking of which, like.

And this.

Okay, this kind of goes into our conversation earlier about uncertainty and consumer confidence.

I don't think statements like this makes people feel a whole lot better.

When Bill Gates recently was out quoted saying, I think in the next 10 years, AI will replace a lot of jobs, even to the tune of teachers.

Right.

It could.

I mean, I think some of that's a little bit aggressive.

But look, man, doctors.

Yeah.

The problem is it's, it's more logical.

I've.

I've had.

So I've got a chronic throat clearing condition which I believe is really driven from stress.

It's the best I can come up with.

And every day around like 4pm it's like bad.

And I happen to go to the gym usually after 4pm and I'm going the whole time, I'm working out after.

But.

Okay, yeah.

And I believe it's stress related and it's chronic.

And I've been to a lot of doctors, man.

A lot of 37.

Over the course of the last couple of years, I've had surgeries, multiple surgeries.

And everyone has told me that it's going to fix the problem for me.

Ent.

You know, I've been to GI doctors, I've been to asthma doctors.

I mean, you name it.

I've been to a lot, a lot.

I can't, I can't sell.

I can't tell you how many.

I can't sell you on the idea that you cannot possibly believe.

But it's real, that I've seen everybody I can.

And some.

I've even been to a hypnotist.

I've been to a psychologist.

Everybody agrees that I'm under a tremendous amount of physiological stress and mental stress and that it's manifesting in some ways I'VE been allergy doctors, but no one's been able to solve the problem.

And I look at that, and I think to myself, it's because so many doctors will try to position you into their specialty.

Oh, you have postnasal drip.

I know how to deal with that.

Yeah.

Oh, you're having acid reflux.

I know how to deal with that.

Oh, you know, you have tonsils, which have changed positions over time, and it's changed this internal structure of your.

I mean, weird stuff.

I've been through all of it.

Oh, your job's distressful.

Yeah.

You know, stuff like that.

I've heard everything under the sun, and it's like that some of these things, like your stressful job, you can't change.

Right.

You know, or at least not easily anyway.

Some of these things you can have a surgery for.

None of these things have solved my problem.

Right.

So I look at AI And I go, okay, like, what's wrong with that?

And then I know, look, I'm an attorney by trade.

Attorneys are going to be largely replaced by some of the stuff that AI can do.

They already are not going to be.

Already are in some ways.

What does that do to people out there that think you need to learn.

To prompt, you need to learn to work with AI Because AI will only be as good as what it's asked.

Mm.

And there'll be an inflection point where it's even better than that, and the prompting will be less relevant.

Right.

And there'll be.

There'll be an inflection point where it's clearly more intelligent than us as humans.

But I'm not going to worry about getting there and what the ramifications are.

I'm just going to continue to adapt the best that I can.

There isn't a single job out there that humans do right now.

And here's a sick, twisted part.

Plumbers, electricians, not going to be replaced by AI they might be helped by it.

Blue collar, right?

Blue collar.

Why not?

But all the jobs that we thought as Americans, we were going to keep here, and we're going to be cerebral and more intelligent.

Those are the ones going to get.

Replaced by AI they could, right?

Yeah.

When are you going to have your first AI CEO?

Oh.

I mean, the gm, I think, in President of basketball operations over in Philadelphia has already admitted to using AI to help IT make decisions.

Oh, he got ripped to shreds.

I don't know why it seems so naive to me.

I don't understand.

You don't want proprietary information in AI but if you're using something to bounce ideas off of.

If that were a human being, you'd be like, oh, that's very astute.

Talking to a smarter person and you're logically going through things and trying to figure things out.

It's very astute of you, Saeed.

Right?

Oh, you're using AI.

Oh, you're the devil.

You want to hear something scary?

I haven't told you the story because I wasn't sure that, you know, I didn't want to spoil your fantasies.

Oh, my fantasies?

Yeah.

There's a very unassuming and I have to describe him.

So I apologies.

My apologies for doing this, but there's a reason why.

Very unassuming.

About 5556, skinny white dude that goes in my gym.

Okay.

He's not in incredible shape.

He's there every single day.

He's there for hours at a time.

And he's just clearly got money.

Okay.

So I don't talk to him to the gym.

I have my headphones on at all times and you know, whatever.

And I had.

I had this dude next to me go up to him while I was stretching and the dude goes, hey man, like I see here all the time, younger guy and you know, what do you do for a living?

And he goes, he looks at him dead in the face and goes, oh, I'm an only fans model.

And the guy's like, wait, like, like you?

And he goes, well, kinda.

Oh yeah, I've heard about this.

And he's like, what do you mean kinda?

He's like, well, he's like, this is gonna sound weird, man.

And he's like, just, you know, I'm not gonna tell you how this works, but you know, I have, I.

People ask me.

And he goes, I have an AI avatar overlay of myself.

Oh, at least it's of himself.

Yeah.

So he sits in front of a screen and I don't know like what programs he's doing this with or what, but the AI avatar basically turns him into a female on camera when he streams.

So he records like videos of him in this female form.

Right.

And he's literally responding to people in real time.

Yeah.

As this female.

And he's describing this and he's dead serious.

Yeah.

And he's like, do I get naked?

No, but they're talking to me in live stream.

And then I'll send like AI edited photos of myself or like, you know, I edited videos later on.

So sad.

But.

And then I'm sitting thinking myself, like, this is so weird.

Like it like that, that being even remotely possible five years ago was not a thing.

Yeah.

It makes me feel.

Makes me feel for the, the guys.

Okay.

Obviously there's like the people that log into that stuff and like, are into that kind of thing.

Yeah.

You know.

Well, I mean, what kind of thing, though, as far as like people talking to him go?

They think they're talking to a female.

Yeah.

But it's the one on one stuff that makes me feel bad because, you know, like, loneliness for a lot of people out there, it's a, it's a.

It's a sad depression.

No, no, I hear you, but they.

Get taken advantage of, man.

Okay, well, let's take this a step further in the AI realm because, you know, okay, what if AI can engage with you and keep you company?

Yeah.

If.

If you know that it is AI and you're like, yeah, do you care?

Do you care if you're talking to somebody?

You gotta think that person also isn't in the right headspace to be asking themselves, is this what's good for me?

Well, I mean, good shades.

There's always going to be an evolution of what we think is good or bad.

Right.

We thought trans fats are bad and good.

And we thought that, you know, I can't believe it's not.

Butter is better than real butter.

We thought that, you know, we thought that fat makes you fat and, you know, and then bread made you fat and then carbs are the devil and.

Simple carbs and carnivore is good.

Yeah.

And then keto, everybody.

You do keto, bro.

Yeah.

Are you on ketosis right now?

Yeah, everybody did.

I mean, it all evolves.

So I'm just saying, like, you know, if you're feeling comfortable and, you know, happy, what does it matter?

Yeah.

Yeah, I guess.

But yeah, it's.

I think it's.

I think there are addictive traits to those things that haven't been studied enough to where like social media is addictive.

Yeah, yeah, I know, but they're not, they're not disclosing how harmful this could be for you.

Right?

Yeah, but neither did, like, people don't realize.

People, people unfortunately don't realize how bad these things are for them psychologically.

Like, people like, I know for a long time and I know we're a clean show now, so we're not going to go too deep into the weeds here.

But.

Yeah, but there's a, like, there's studies out there that have gone into why you shouldn't be consuming like X rated content.

Because.

Because it's Very, very harmful for you psychologically and what it could do for, you know, to you and the relationships that you do have.

And I look at it like this, like I, I hear you.

I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't, but what I'm saying is, is there's always people who go to extremes that make things bad.

There's people who can handle things like alcohol or, you know, that kind of imagery or even social media.

So, you know the truth.

The truth is most people don't have the level of control over themselves to be able to recognize something is wrong before it's too late.

Yeah, no, I get that.

You know, and then that.

And that's, and that's my only issue with it.

And the sad part about all of it is, is you can't regulate it.

What do you, how are you gonna regulate it?

Not anymore.

Yeah.

When we were kids, it was much easier.

Now there's just too much access.

It's too deep.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, Elon, Elon said it on Rogan maybe four or five years ago.

He was like, by the time Congress could even get around to trying to regulate it, this thing is blown out the water.

It's too late.

Too late.

Let's cap the show with consumer confidence.

As you alluded to multiple times at wrong times on the show, According to Iowa Finance, consumer confidence hits the lowest level in more than four years, 92.9.

For those of you who know the numbers, Americans continue to sour on the US Economic outlook as uncertainty around President Trump's policies and higher prices weigh on consumer sentiment.

The latest consumer confidence index reading from the conference board was 92.9 in March, below the revised 100.11 seen in February and the lowest level in more than four years.

The expectations index, which is based on consumers short term outlook for Income, business and labor market conditions, ticked lower to 65.2 from 72.9 and remained below the threshold of 80, which typically signals a recession ahead for the second straight month.

This marked the 12th year low, 12 year low for the expectations index.

Consumers expectations were especially gloomy with pessimism, pessimism about future businesses conditions deepening and confidence about the future employment prospects falling to a 12 year low.

Stephanie, I'm not going to say her last name is senior economist of Global Indicators at the Conference Board, said in a release.

Meanwhile, consumers optimism about the future income, which had held up quite strong in the past few months, largely vanished, suggesting worries about the economy and labor market have started to spread into consumers.

Assessments of Their personal situations.

So knowing that we were going to get into this, I had a couple things here that I wanted to get your take on.

That's why you try to segue so hard.

Well, I know we were getting the show, and I know this is, this is actually good because I had stuff here for how this affects everyday people when consumer sentiment is down.

What, what does that do?

Right.

Because although if, if consumers as a whole, everyone tends to, you know, go together.

Right, Right.

That affects big institutional money.

Right.

Because they can, they, they can see, they, at the end of the day, all the stuff we're doing on social media, that's all data.

Right.

And they're seeing what people are liking.

They're seeing where the trends are.

You got companies like Robinhood, they're seeing where you're putting your money and they could tell where, what are the trends ahead of time and why.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

So usually when there's uncertainty in the market like this, we talked about it earlier on the show, big investors will pull their money out of, let's say, riskier options and put them in safer options.

Okay.

Like, like the US Treasuries.

That affects everyday people by.

If the market as a whole becomes stagnant or even comes down a little bit, it affects your retirement accounts or affects your brokerage accounts, and you're going to, you're going to feel or see a dip in those things.

You got to understand, you got to remain patient and plan for the long term and not try to pull your money out right away.

Right.

You have to almost weather the storm.

Wouldn't you agree?

Yeah.

And I think that that's, that's part of.

Just good decisions aren't made from fear.

And fear is really what drives a lot of these consumer behaviors.

And certainly that fear can turn into realization of those problems at some point in time, but certainly fear is what begins them.

Yeah.

And it's only human to want to protect yourself and your family and the people around you.

All I can tell you is that no good reaction typically comes from fear.

It usually comes from a point of clarity.

So the more clear you can make your decisions based on logic, the better off you will generally be.

That isn't to say that you have to wait a long time or procrastinate.

It's to say that if you are afraid of where the economy is going and your sentiment is getting negative, you need to sit down, look in the mirror, and ask yourself why.

If it's because of the spin that you're getting from the media, take A step back and ask if you've actually seen those impacts.

You know, okay, there's a recession coming.

Okay, well, what have we seen right now?

Consumer sentiment, the way people feel is changing.

That's probably because they're feeling the financial pinch.

But the data so far suggests that, yeah, things are incrementally getting worse, I.

E.

Defaults on car loans, I.

E.

Credit debt.

Oh, but you said it's gone up 23%.

Yeah, no, it's gone up a lot.

I'm not downplaying it.

That's a spike, you know, and if, if consumer sentiment is down, the next step from that is, okay, how does that affect their behavior?

Right.

If.

If their behavior becomes affected and they actually finally, after years now of us talking about this, they decide to show it by spending less, who does that affect?

Right.

Affects the businesses.

Yeah, yeah.

Small businesses especially.

And service.

Service industries.

Small businesses and service industries operate on, typically on thinner margins.

Yeah.

So if.

And then it affects them, what does that ultimately do?

Okay, then the next step, more job losses.

Right.

And in turn, with less job loss or more job losses, affects ultimately consumer spending, corporate earnings, everything starts to slow down.

Slow down.

It's like a trickle down effect.

Right.

Have I told that Jamie Dimon is getting fired story on the show before?

No, I don't think so.

Jamie Dimon was, I want to say, at Citibank, and he was like, I think, number two, like the president to Sandy Wild.

And Sandy was a very well regarded banker, old school.

Sandy ultimately terminated him.

And when Jamie Dimon asked why his mentor, somebody he respected deeply, terminated him, he didn't see it coming.

Sandy said, because you want to be CEO and I'm not ready to go yet.

That's not a good reason.

And it really affected Jamie Dimon, but he always maintained that it affected his net worth, not his self worth.

Oh, wow.

And during the time to come, he considered taking other jobs, one of which was a job with Jeff Bezos.

Really.

And he almost romanticized the idea of him and his family moving to Seattle, living on a houseboat, never wearing a suit again.

But at the end of the day, he accepted.

He was a financial services guy, that's who he was.

And he took over and became a CEO of a much smaller bank.

After interviewing and finding the right opportunity, that smaller bank got acquired by JPMorgan Chase, which he ultimately rose to become the CEO of.

And you know, like, he's done very well for himself.

Done very well for himself.

He's the CEO of the most reputable bank on Wall street and frankly in the world.

And he is pretty much kind of a banking rock star.

His voice carries a lot of weight.

Yeah.

I mean, and all those guys, I mean, they all, they all, they're, you.

Know, I mean, that's, that's why their, their opinions are always quoted and they matter.

Right.

It's an accomplishment.

But people don't realize it takes a special breed of human to really, to do that at that level of stress, that level engagement.

It's not for everybody, but it takes an even more special person to not be defeated in situations like that.

Even CEOs or people that are alpha, like the top of the, the, you know, the pack will go home, look in the mirror and question themselves.

Right.

Like question their self worth.

And you can't do that.

You can never let the economy dictate what kind of human you are.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.

Because you got to know at some point when you're, when you're at that level, if you're putting in the work, you know, your self worth, you know, you know, you know what you, what you're capable of and what you give every single day.

Yeah, right.

You know, but you should, I mean, and this trickles down to, to everybody.

Right.

Like I, let's just go back to parenting for a second with my kids.

You know, my, it's no secret my son's in basketball, right.

And he's developing still and he's, he's better.

Better than some, not as good as others in his age group, but he's working and he's actually eager to learn.

And in the games, after our games, I always tell him, you do a very, very good job.

Let's talk about the things that you felt uncomfortable doing today.

Right.

And he always, without fail, it's always dribbling with my left.

Right.

Any normal thing to be uncomfortable with.

Yeah.

Because he's right handed, so going to his left and it doesn't feel comfortable.

Right.

And I was like, why don't you do it?

He's like, I'm not confident doing it.

Going to my left.

I'm like, you know why you're not confident doing it is because you don't practice it enough.

Not to say that.

I'm not saying that you're not good at it.

If you practice more at it, you will in turn become more confident doing it.

Yeah.

But in the business sense too, it's kind of, it's kind of a mixed bag because, and I'll use the Jamie Dimon example again.

If You're Jamie Dimon.

You go to work every day, and you do a good job every single day.

You wrap your identity up in.

I am Jamie Dimon.

I'm the president of Citibank.

Right.

So if that changes for you.

Yeah.

And your.

Your identity is wrapped up in it, it's very easy for you to look in the mirror and question you.

Who am I?

Right.

I think.

I don't remember the age that he was.

I probably should look that up, but I closed the laptop already.

It must be tough, too, for, like, people like, of that stature, too, because at the end of the day, you're also, like you said, it's tied to your identity, so you're also tying yourself to a stock price.

Yeah.

That's weighs heavily on some of these guys.

Yeah.

You know, like, I.

I am in large part responsible for this price.

Yeah.

It's.

It's not a job that most people really want, man.

They want it in theory.

They don't want it in practice.

It's very different.

Yeah.

I can't imagine.

Yeah.

So.

All right, man, that's.

Look, it's a long day.

We had a long night.

Yeah.

It's a good episode.

Let's wrap this thing up with a bow.

I'm.

I'm proud of you.

Kept the show clean.

You want to do a kiss on both cheeks on the way out?

No, no, no, no.

It's a handshake.

We started off European style.

Wow.

You're just completely erasing your whole.

We started off in the uae.

I thought we'd end somewhere in Europe.

Your whole culture.

My whole culture, yeah.

Middle Eastern is doing the same thing.

Oh, you're right.

Iranians do three, right?

No, we do two.

Afghans do three.

Oh, yeah, we do three.

Yeah.

One more.

I'll always give you three.

An extra one for good measure.

There you go.

One for the road.

Yeah.

Got anything else?

No, sir.

All right, thank you for the reviews, everybody.

The.

The narratives didn't come in, so we can't read them all, but we got two extra ones off our plea last.

Time, one of which was not a five stars.

One star.

Yeah, that one hurt.

It's okay.

We're still.

Hey, we're still a 4.9 star podcast.

So, you know, the real reviews.

Yeah, yeah, they're honest.

Right.

All right, thanks.

Go out and leave us reviews, or if you're on YouTube and you're still listening to this, subscribe, hit that, like, button.

Ring that notification bell.

I know.

It's late in the show.

I know.

Tell your friends.

And family.

You know what I mean?

Leave us a review.

We love you.

Okay, good night, everybody.

Bye.