All right.

Put some headphones on.

I should get a little bit of extra credit here tonight.

What's that?

The Lakers are playing the spurs, bro.

That's who I'm giving up.

I'm giving up what I'm giving up.

Lakers versus Spurs.

Victor.

Victor against Luca for this.

Webina is not human.

It's just.

It's disgusting.

Honestly, it's.

You know what it is?

It's.

Let's create our own player and give him all the attributes and let's play.

Let's.

Let's just start playing.

I just.

I'm gonna say it because I don't.

I don't be the guy, but he.

He's just got to prevent injuries.

That's all he's got to do.

Yeah.

Yeah.

O Camp Pop Early.

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.

Holiday edition.

Holiday edition.

Little wrinkly Chris Fernie.

He be.

And the 25 year old Dodger cap.

25 years old.

Bottom was 21 years old.

Well, time, sir, damn near never wore it.

You know how I know?

Because it's fitted.

Fitted?

That's.

That's outdated, bro.

Is it really?

It's got to go Snapback.

All my hats are fitted now.

Got to go snap.

I have snapbacks for the gym.

Yeah, yeah.

But I also have a bit of density, hair issues.

So fitted makes me feel more held together.

There you go.

Got it.

Sitting across from my partner in time, the one, the only side, Omar, everybody.

Thank you, my man.

And sitting behind the desk in the production suite, the fighting Fijian Rajeel rocking his own higher standard merch.

I feel like I'm out of place here.

I need to get more gear.

You wore some last time.

I did, yeah.

Yeah.

What's up, my guy?

What's up, everyone?

How are you?

Good, good.

How are you all?

This guy.

This guy is literally like losing weight.

Such a fast cadence.

Visibly skinnier every show now.

I mean, it's getting to the point.

Honestly, showing off now.

He's coming.

He's taking his jacket off.

He's like.

He's flexing on me.

That's what I know.

That's a fitted t shir the way.

Yeah, yeah, I could tell.

It is a little.

Huh?

It's a little loose though.

Oh, you wouldn't know what that feels like.

Do you know?

Yeah.

So today's episode, we got a lot to talk about.

We got shut down to talk about which God that Probably flagged us already right there.

And we're going to get into a lot of housing stuff.

We're going to get flagged out the way of this episode.

So just know that going into it.

Yeah, a lot of housing stuff, a lot of the kind of government standards of what we're, what you should be expecting.

I think there's gonna be a little bit of recession talk in this.

It's unavoidable as particularly as we talk about the housing market.

And then certainly a worth note is we're gonna wrap up the end of the show with Michael Burry's big bet against the market, particularly AI.

Michael Burry, you may know from the big short, was one who made a pretty significant bet against the housing market and it paid off, making him a bit of a contrarian that people listen to of sorts because nobody believed him at the time and obviously he proved to be a pretty big winner.

That bad?

Yeah.

So without further ado, the government shutdown is in 36 days today.

That is officially the longest government shutdown in American history.

The Predecessor 1 was 2018, 2019, Trump's first campaign, 35 days.

This has exceeded it.

And we're going to start off with Kobe Letter from via X.

The US government shutdown is now expected to last through Thanksgiving until December 1st.

According to Poly Market, which for those of you don't know, it's basically a polling type group here.

This would mark a 61 day shutdown, almost doubling the record if it were to occur.

Air traffic control is now short over 3,000 employees.

So and I, you've seen in the news and this is becoming a reoccurring problem.

And for those of you who don't understand how this works, I'm going to, I'm going to explain it to you briefly, but we have a little bit more of a narrative on this, on how this works logistically.

But if you're furloughed, you're not working.

Fine.

But there are those, a cohort of employees in the government who have to work and also not get paid.

Yes.

So those employees who are going to have to work and not get paid at some point have their own bills to pay.

Yeah.

And, and I guess they, the, I guess what's being told to them and it's being sold to them.

And what's always happened in the past is they will eventually get back paid once, you know, government is no longer under shutdown mode.

That's right.

But most Americans we know if you listen to the show at any length of time, you know, don't have enough of a nest egg to carry themselves for two months.

And certainly if this were to go today at 36 days, that's a month in.

People are now behind on payments and logistics of this work.

If you get to 90 days, you're in foreclosure on things like mortgages.

Wow.

So these are meaningful timestamps.

I would hope we wouldn't get to 90 days.

Certainly the bets are that we're going to get through the holiday season.

But imagine all those families of government employees, you're not generally high paid employees who rely on those paychecks.

And there's the holidays coming up, Thanksgiving, Christmas.

Yeah.

These are materially impacting their happiness in their lives.

So expect people who otherwise would have to come in to just find other jobs if they can.

There's definitely some of that, you know, I know honestly couldn't happen at a worse time given where we are at, you know, in the economy and the time of year that it's in.

So the US government shutdown enters its 36th day.

I should probably point out we are recording this on Wednesday, November 5th.

The to become the longest in history.

The US government shutdown became the longest in history on Wednesday Today, crossing the 36 day mark with no end in sight as Republican and Democratic senators remained at loggerheads over restarting funding to shuttered federal departments.

This is a problem and I don't care what your political stance is.

This is not right for the American people.

Right.

But we are now being impacted by it.

So we can't ignore what the real future might be here in Walt Disney.

It's ugly.

The shutdown has been, has beat the previous 35 day record set in December 2018 through in January 2019 during Donald Trump's first term when the government funding legislation was held up over his insistence on including money to build a wall along the border with Mexico.

So if you don't remember, that's what it was about.

The standoff began on the first day of October after Democratic senators refused to vote for a government funding bill unless it included an extension of Joe Biden era tax credits that lower cost for health plans purchased through Affordable Care act exchanges.

Tens of millions of Americans are expected to be unable to afford insurance once the credits expire at the end of 2025.

So there is something material here to, to, to, to resolve.

Now do you resolve those things by not coming to an amicable resolution that, that benefits all parties or do you shut the government down?

Well, it turns out you shut the government down.

Apparently, which is unfortunate.

The Republican controlled House of Representatives had in September passed the funding bill with only a single Democrat voting in favor.

And Speaker Mike Johnson has kept the chamber out of session ever since.

That has shifted much of the legislative action over to the senate where John Th.

The majority leader has held 14 votes on this topic.

So it is not seemingly going anywhere soon.

And this, this because this delay and because of what you're looking at, this is why you see the, the market predicting this will last through the holidays.

Yeah.

And this is going to directly impact.

Okay, let's now take it back to like a macro level.

Right.

Billions of dollars lost towards GDP, right?

Yeah.

I believe it's 14 billion a month.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's pretty.

It's meaningful dollars.

It's meaningful dollars.

Especially now.

We talked about it in the beginning.

Unfortunate time for families around the holidays coming up.

Right.

So think of traveling.

Right.

You think of just retail spending in general.

Right.

And how does that ultimately, if some of these furloughed employees do get back pay, there might be a little rebound effect, but not, not enough to cover everything.

So expect to see this impact GDP figures.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they use it in their narrative to explain why this isn't a true recession.

Part of it was due to the government shutdown.

Yeah.

What you're dancing around there is an important point to note.

So two successive quarters of negative GDP growth is the technical definition of recessionary economy.

And we already had one.

That's right, we already had one.

So if this were to force the hand in that, you could see another White House statement like we saw during the previous presidential campaign where they said this is not technically a recession America.

Right.

Because we didn't have 2/4 of negative GDI growth.

Growth, gross domestic income.

Because when you average the two, you.

Gotta average them size.

Yeah.

And for those of you going, why the hell is Chris making the weird voice?

Because that was never included in the technical definition of a recession historically.

And somehow it just magically appeared.

I don't know if it's like a Mandela effect or whatever the hell it was, but it was absolutely asinine.

That should have been a recessionary economy.

But we, we chose to, to not call it that.

Which honestly strange.

Yeah.

So I would fully expect there to be some, some real and serious implications.

And to your point, Saeed, one of the things I think is forgotten is if you don't make your payments on time, you get penalties.

Oh.

So these people are unable to make their, their payments on time.

They Occur those penalties, the government's not going to pay for those.

So this is costing them a great deal more in not.

We're just excluding the mental sanity and stress part of this whole situation, the uncertainty.

And it's difficult.

And I don't know if you traveled recently by plane.

Have I had.

No, I haven't.

I went from here to.

I think it was Dallas.

Dallas to Nashville, Nashville to Phoenix, Phoenix back here.

And I can tell you, the airport in Nashville, the TSA lines were notably packed because not all of them were working.

Oh, boy.

And that was early on in this.

In this whole dogfight.

So I would imagine the airfare travels.

Another reason for you to go out there and get your TSA PreCheck.

I went and got it again.

Yeah, I had to get re upped, but I had to get a passport first because mine's through Homeland Security.

I went through that whole process, but it was ugly.

So I would say my heart goes out to all the government employees out there.

Over the years in banking, I've worked with a number of regulators, all of which are government employees.

These.

And.

And I certainly feel a great deal for the people that are impacted by it, and our hearts go out to them.

Yeah, absolutely.

Now, moving on.

Not to make short work of that, but we got a lot on the real estate market because things have visibly shifted from a lot of the things we've heard from a narrative perspective.

And I thought there's some really interesting things to talk about here.

And then I'm going to take a pivot at the end of this.

For those of you who have been watching the New York election, we typically do not get into politics in the show, but there is something from an economics perspective.

This is not political.

And I'm gonna look at the camera and say this because I always get judged by somebody I'm not supporting or, you know, not supporting.

I'm not giving my opinion at all.

But I think there are some economic implications to Mandani winning and the reason why he seems to have cultivated a great deal of voting population in support.

And I think there's a narrative to be had there.

And I think this housing argument is actually a large part of it.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Okay, so let's get into the housing piece and then I'll explain as we move on further here.

So Nick Gurley, Viax, we talk about him a lot.

Thank you, Rejeel.

You're welcome.

Handsome man.

Oh, thank you.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

The profitability of investing in real estate has declined.

This was A bit of an interesting article for me because it kicked off a lot of the due diligence that I did for this episode.

I'm going to read a lot tonight because there's a lot of material facts that I don't want to leave out.

The profitability of investing in real estate has declined significantly over the last 75 years in terms of yield.

Returns today are near the lowest level on record of about 4.7% and have been driven lower by three distinct periods over the last 75 years.

The 1970s inflation, which caused the home prices to double in a decade, far greater than the growth in rent, pushing yields down.

The 2000s mortgage bubble, which we all know, which caused prices to outstrip rental growth and.

And dropped the cap rate down to a record low of 4.4%.

Capitalization rate.

Just for those of you who don't remember, that's just your yield on investments, and it gives you a way to compare similarly situated investments.

So a capitalization rate of 4.4% is not as good as a capitalization rate of 7% on stocks and bonds.

Right.

So you can compare what your return is on that investment.

Zirp.

And I never heard this term before this.

And this was fascinating.

And I don't know if you can tell, Saeed, but on the chart that Rajeel just pulled up here, make this as big as you can.

Rejeel.

The US Single family rental cap rate.

Yeah, that one.

Perfect.

That's what she said.

Yeah.

There you go.

They actually highlighted this whole area in yellow here from 2015 moving forward.

And this is the first time I've seen ZERP in pandemic.

You know what ZERP stands for?

No.

Zero Interest Rate period.

Oh, wow.

So they took the period of artificial interest rate deflation that we just lived through.

And if you look here, it shows as a recessionary economy.

Look at that.

So somebody's finally figured out that in order to show the behavioral patterns, there is showing up as what's normally gray bars on every recessionary chart.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And they're calling it the ZURP Slash Pandemic Period.

Zero Interest Rate Period.

Zerp.

Yeah.

And we always refer to that period of time as the time of artificially Interest rate.

Interest rate deflated.

Right.

And that's because rates were kept at or near zero during that time.

So I found that to be a really fascinating chart.

First time I've seen anybody represent it that way.

Yeah.

And.

And I think history will remember it that way.

Yeah, it's true.

So Zer period of 2000s.

Plus the pandemic, which produced outsized home growth relative to rent growth, again driving cap rates down to a record low.

So low cap rates mean low return on investment.

High cap rates mean high return on investment.

Right, right.

And if you think, and if you think about what the rule of thumb is for the S&P 500, why you'll hear a lot of people say you should just invest your money in the S&P 500 because you'll typically get somewhere between 8 to 10% return on your money.

Right.

So for real estate investors, it dropping down to, I think what you said, 4.7%.

Right.

It's like, why would I do this?

Exactly.

Right.

In the last several years, cap rates have improved marginally as price growth has slowed, but not nearly enough to offset the increase in interest rates that we're seeing.

Right.

So if interest rates go up, the cost of financing leverage which most people have on their property.

Right.

Your cap rate is going to go down.

Exactly.

Your yield is going down.

Why?

Because more of the profits you would otherwise make are being paid towards interest toward.

Exactly.

Towards the, towards the mortgage, if you will.

Right.

So one has to wonder, are we coming to the end of a long cycle of cap rate compression and will we see rental yields grow into the future?

And I look at that and I think to myself that question is not as important as the macro question.

Okay.

If you have a stock market economy which is this far outpace the real estate market, and now we're seeing the real estate market start to show signs of weakness, which we're going to get into here.

Is this the leading indicator for what you should expect to see in the stock market?

And after this zero interest rate probability period or interest rate period, are we seeing a prolonged slower correction than we've ever seen in American history before because we had a prolonged period of artificial interest rate deflation.

Hmm, good question.

So I lead this off because we're gonna get some of those answers I think inferred to us and some of the data that we're gonna look at next.

But what's really important is that we keep in mind that there is something amiss in the real estate market that we've not seen before.

Okay.

Okay.

So Bloomberg US media, first time homebuyers, age now at a record high of 40 years old.

Wild.

I mean, I remember when I first bought my first home, it was 30.

Yeah.

And it was 38 up until just recently.

Yeah.

So I, I bought my, our first home, or I should say my wife And I, we both bought it.

And when was it?

2015.

So there's a chart from this Bloomberg article.

I apologize.

Behind a paywall.

This is actually from the national association of Realtors.

So, yeah, you know, this data is coming from them.

It's, it's probably not skewed.

It doesn't benefit them to say this.

So over the past year, first time homebuyers accounted for 21% of the market, which is actually kind of low, the lowest since NAR began collecting such data in 1981.

So now you have the lowest amount of first time homebuyers, and the average age has crept up to 40 years old.

And we've talked about this in previous shows, if you're a home buyer, right, and you derive the majority of your net worth over time in the equity appreciation of your home, but you start that at 40 now, as opposed to in your late 20s or early 30s.

Yes.

You've missed out on 10 plus years of equity appreciation.

And because of what I just read to you.

Right.

The housing market isn't returning anywhere near what the stock market was.

And then I think another component to layer on top of this is, okay, say you buy your first home at 40.

I think the average person back then.

Right.

Let's say just five, ten years ago.

They died at 40.

No, the average, the average person, they brought you inside.

Yeah, the average person buys like three to five homes over the course of their lifetime.

Yeah.

Okay.

And that number's got to be down now.

It's got to be way down.

Right.

And you think like if you're 40 years old, you buy your home.

Let's just say you're lucky enough to buy a home, the one you get into is the one you're going to stay in forever.

Okay, well, you put 30 years on that.

You're 40, bro.

Yeah.

You, you're paying off the mortgage at 70.

You're supposed to retire at 65.

I mean, you better hope that Peter Atia and the rest of the world gets that longevity solution figured out, because I'll tell you right now, if you're 70, buying a new home, right?

So if you're not, Better not have stairs.

If you're not making.

Yeah, exactly.

If you're, if you're not making extra payments towards your principal and you don't refinance, you're not paying off that home until you're 70.

Well, and this totally ignores kind of a macro problem that we're also going to talk a little bit about later on.

But let's get into it now is the mortgage lock.

So I've seen realtors on social media recently talk about you're good.

You should expect, you know, this, this next couple of months you're going to regret not buying between now and February.

Just kind of create this false sense of urgency because this is historically a low period for Realtors and I got to create this urgency in period.

If you don't buy now, you're going to miss out on the next bit of growth, the next amount of growth.

What data are you looking at which suggests that.

Right.

And here, and they go, oh, people are going to mortgage rates coming down.

People going, okay, most people's mortgage rates are below 5%.

Today's mortgage rates are still above 5%.

And here's the problem.

Even if, even if you wanted to sell and buy a new property, okay, why would you do that if your mortgage rate is, call it three and a half percent.

Yeah.

Makes no sense.

Everybody, everybody's stuck on the sideline.

It's too expensive to buy because home prices are high and rates are still above 5%.

You're at the worst affordability in my mind in all time, but certainly in the last 40 years.

And then even people that want to buy, that have a home, that want to buy that second home like you've talked about.

Yep.

Why would you now?

Yeah, I mean, so we've talked about it routinely on the show.

The only way this problem for housing gets fixed, just throw.

It has to happen either one of three ways or all three ways combining together and joining forces.

Right.

Prices have to either come down.

Right.

Mortgage rates either have to come down or income for everybody needs to go up and there needs to be probably a healthy contribution from each of those for this to really like take effect.

Right.

I did a little bit of research for the show for this topic.

Look at you.

And the reason why this, the unaffordability crisis is what it is, right.

Really comes down to this.

So in 1975, the average, the median price of a home was $38,000.

And we, four years after, we just.

Come off the gold standard, household income was $12,000 back then.

Okay?

So your monthly payment made up of 24% of your household income.

Okay.

Okay.

That, that is the, the golden rule.

It fits in that golden rule.

Right.

And two.

Now let's fast forward to 2015 household income average.

$38,000.

Median home was selling for 410,000.

Okay.

Oh, sorry, 290,000.

That still made up only 24% of your monthly take home pay.

Right.

Now, this is where it hurts the most.

In 2025, median household income, 85,000, where the house is selling for 410,000.

It's now making up 36%.

So people literally just can't afford it.

That's right.

It's eating up too much of their take home pay.

And on top of that, you can't.

This isn't.

This isn't the 80s or the 90s where you're like, you know, we really want to buy a home.

And honey, you.

Why don't you, you know, you go out and you get a job, too now.

They're already working.

They're already working.

Everybody's already working.

Exactly.

And some people have two jobs, which now in.

In this is.

You know, now people are being bastardized for having two jobs because the companies want to own you, which is a whole different conversation to have.

So you wind up in this.

In this process where people feel the only thing they can do is cut expenses now, Right?

Yeah.

So you.

You wind up between a rock and a hard place.

Yeah.

And for a lot of people, I feel like a lot of people have already cut the expenses where they can.

And that's why you're seeing an exodus out of, like, states, out of California and out of New York.

Right.

It's like it's becoming too expensive to live there.

So I'm going to frame this now.

See what I did there?

Yeah, I know.

I see what you did now.

Okay, we're gonna get into this in New York in a bit, but this part of the conversation, keep that there.

Put a pin in this, America, because we're gonna come back to it.

Okay?

Yeah, and shout out to my Canadians out there, because a lot of Canadian listeners to the show.

Yeah.

They're hurting right now.

Yeah, they are.

Sorry, guys.

Yeah.

Dodgers had to do it to you.

Oh, I thought it was because Diplo slept with Justin Trudeau, too.

Oh, I saw.

I saw that earlier today.

If there's any truth to the fact that Diplo slept with Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry was in a relationship with both of them at the same time.

He'S got to go down some kind of damn time, you know?

Like, is he going down the hall of Fame or hall of Shame?

What.

What is it?

That's got to be hall of Fame.

I'm sorry, I don't care what your preferences are.

If you pulled that off, that's not real.

Come on.

I.

Have you met Diplo?

I.

You're saying.

What you're saying is Trudeau hasn't Come out and, like, said that it's not true.

There's plenty of time between the statement being made and now you don't think it, like, if he would have.

I'll just pretend I'm Trudeau.

Okay.

I'm scrolling through social media.

I have a feeling, like, this is shocking content.

I'm fubbing at night with whoever I'm next to.

Right.

There's only one person you should be next to, Chris.

Yeah.

And I'm just Trudeau.

Oh, okay.

Sorry.

I didn't mean to give you the wrong fubbing impression.

Got it.

So.

And he's rolling through and he goes, huh?

Diplo was sleeping with me and Katy Perry.

Dear Twitter, this is inaccurate.

That's all I got to do.

Done.

That's it.

Yeah.

Not true.

Instead of word, prove it.

Yeah, yeah.

There's got to be some pictures out there somewhere.

And then you got to go, dear Twitter, this is AI in a Diddy file.

Even if it's not AI.

Yeah.

Because you don't know anything.

You don't know.

Have you done that yet?

Where you've scrolled through and you had to, like, you don't know if it's AI.

So the SORA videos are getting.

They're getting.

In the beginning, it would be.

They'd come up, and then you would see a little SORA logo.

No, that's only for the non paid version.

I have the paid version.

Mine doesn't show any sort.

Well, the ones that are really shocking, they'll still throw it on there.

Just, I think, because they want people to know.

Right?

Yeah.

But now it's like, getting delayed, like, later in the video, and I'm watching, like, what.

What am I watching right now?

And then, sure enough, it's fake.

I'm like, okay, you know, there are websites dedicated.

Just removing the SORA icon videos, too.

Yeah.

I refuse to take anything I see on social media is accurate.

Like, it's gotta.

It's got to come from a trusted news source.

Now, we're gonna get back to that, too.

Don't worry.

All right.

Warren Buffett, he and his Berkshire Hathaway and Zillow say that mortgage rates can't fall enough for Americans to afford a home.

Now, I thought that was an interesting dichotomy.

Warren Buffett and Zillow on the same page.

That's got to mean something, right?

Right.

What does it mean?

Now, keep in mind, he has Berkshire Hathaway, which had a huge interest in a real estate firm, formerly Coldwell Baker.

But in late 2023, mortgage rates peaked at approximately 8%.

They've let up since to today's 30 year fixed mortgage is down to 6.19% according to mortgage News Daily.

But economists and real estate groups have warned that they don't see that figure budging much in the near future.

And that dovetails into a lot of what you and I have spoken about, about the treasury is not going down.

Yes, yes, the FOMC is going to cut rates, the fed funds rate, the cost of banks to borrow, and yes, banks are going to lower your deposit rates, the interest they pay you.

But the Treasuries have been stubbornly high.

Yeah.

And leading into a interest rate cut is where you see the benefits of mortgage rates.

But then after all, all of the last interest rate cuts, we've seen mortgage Treasuries and mortgage rates spike.

Yeah.

Pushing mortgage rates up, not back down.

Yeah.

You still see people talking about how that's going to happen.

It's going to, it's going to take some time for it to eventually work its way into the system.

And, and honestly, you'll probably see it lower weeks before the another rate cut is even announced.

That's right.

And to make matters worse, some have said mortgage rates would.

The mortgage rate it would take for it to make home feel affordable again isn't even achievable.

I mean, it's true.

I'm be honest.

I myself today would not feel like I can afford the home that I'm in now, valued at what it is.

Even if rates were to come down.

OG listeners would remember that I used to call it the palazzo.

Say it's a palazzo.

That's right, you did call it.

So I forgot about that.

I mean, I'm not saying it's.

I'm not gonna say it's what I mean, it's 1900 square feet.

It's not the hugest house.

It's.

It, it's the perfect size for our family.

It's cute how you're not including the front yard in the backyard.

There's no.

Bro, the front.

What are you doing in the front yard?

I don't have either one of those.

Honestly, I don't have those things.

Curb appeal is overrated, bro.

Yeah, you have.

Honestly, I don't have a curb to appeal to.

Honestly, curb appeals over.

I hate like there's people that I.

Had to build up.

You gotta, you can build out.

Stop, stop.

I'm just saying, hey, you bought sight unseen and that's kind of.

Hey.

Honestly, if there was someone that's balling hard is buying sight unseen.

I got it as reo.

Don't matter.

You're like, nobody wants.

You know, I'll take it.

Send the wire.

Yeah.

Stop it.

That's what you did.

That's not the way that went down.

That is how it went down, actually.

That's exactly.

I said, hold on, let me just go to Wells Fargo real quick.

Send the wire.

What's that, Rejeel?

Keep going.

You said sure.

This summer, Zillow economist economic analyst Anusha Prakash reported mortgage rates would need to drop to 4.43% for a typical home to be affordable to an average buyer.

But that kind of rate decline is currently unrealistic.

Prakash wrote.

Meanwhile, not even a 0% interest rate would make a typical home affordable in New York, in Los Angeles, in Miami, in San Francisco, in San Diego, San Diego or San Jose, she added, think about those, those cities, okay, zero percent interest rates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Zero, zero.

Would not make a home affordable in Los Angeles, in Miami, in New York, in San Francisco, in San Diego, in San Jose.

Yeah, because they're taking the average median income in those areas and then, you know, the house prices in those areas and they're like, no, you still wouldn't be able to afford it.

Perfect.

Remember that.

We're going to get back to that.

That is a very, very astute observation and one that's going to cause problems, I think, generationally, that we don't fully understand, but we are starting to see.

And then I want to pose a question to do you think at any point, is it even in the realm of possibilities that this can all be declared as a national emergency?

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Yeah, it can be.

I mean, and I want to go.

I want to go actually go down some of the different at some point later in the show, because I know you've already created such a detailed, well.

Structured show, but don't patronize me with well structured nonsense.

I don't.

So I don't want to deviate too much, but there, there are, I guess, certain things that have been claimed to be possible that would ultimately help the situation that I actually want to get your take on.

So the problem is one of constitutionality and the appropriate branch with which this would come from.

Right?

There's the judicial, legislative, and there's executive branch.

In theory, the executive branch would want to do so, but any type of executive branch movement, no matter what political party you support, would be opposed by the other side of the House because you would be effectively trying to ingratiate yourself to society.

If I Told everybody in America, hey, you got a housing problem, I'm gonna help you out.

Yeah, right.

You're just trying to buy boats.

It doesn't matter what side you're on.

That's the pitch.

Or.

Yeah.

Or you could be helping out some of your friends, right?

Yeah, that too.

So, I mean, there's.

Yeah, there's.

There's really no good answer there.

But, yeah, you can declare a national emergency.

You could declare a lot of different, you know, vehicles for that.

But the question is, is it legal from a constitutional perspective?

How do you deploy?

I mean, honestly.

Honestly, I don't know.

I don't.

Listen, the show is already flagged.

It is what it is.

Right, okay.

Like, whether it's constitutionally, if it's legal or not.

I mean, at this point, you know, I think we all got surprised by Liberation Day with all the tariffs that get thrown around, like, liberation.

Honestly, I remember when.

When all that went down, I'm like, hey, can this really.

That's a lot of power.

Yeah, it was.

You know what I mean?

Just to be able to be like, I'm gonna put tariffs on everybody.

Yeah, 150 on you.

Yeah, 1, 200 on you.

I'm like, that's wild, man.

Yeah, that's a lot.

That's a lot of power.

And look, I think there's.

Look, I think that there's even a right time in place for tariffs.

Oh, look at you.

No, no, there is.

Offend everybody.

Side.

Why not?

Oh, I think if.

If you use strategically, it could be used in the right way.

But I'm just saying, in general, like, I don't know what it.

What can be considered legal and what's not considered legal anymore.

I got that.

That's part of the problem.

And I think we have an executive branch at this particular juncture who is pushing the limits of what's legal and what's not legal.

But I will say also, too, and this.

This is going to offend some.

You know, so if you got baby ears, I'm sorry, I will tell you right now that there.

There is and has always been presidents who challenge the constitutionality in what their.

Their limits of power are.

So I'm sorry if that offends some people, but this is not unique to any one president or any one campaign.

Everybody's always kind of pushed the limits there because they want to be the one that comes in to help the people.

Right?

I mean.

Yeah, Yeah, I know.

So when doing research for the show, I found out.

I didn't even know this.

Did you know there was five government shutdowns during Carter's reign.

Yeah.

I didn't know that.

5.

Yeah.

But they were very short still though.

I mean, that's a lot.

It's a lot.

But I mean, when you think of there's been 80 increases to the national debt limit, a debt ceiling.

Yeah.

So I mean, eight almost.

But out of the 20 something government shutdowns, he's got.

He's got like 25% of them.

So I mean, it's just.

It's a wild thing to think about from a constitutionality perspective.

I would.

I thought student loan forgiveness was illegal.

Constitutionally illegal as applied sim.

The.

The baseline.

For those of you who are not attorneys, similarly situated people being treated differently is almost generally unconstitutional.

Yeah.

Right.

Unless you've got a reason to treat a different class of people a different way.

For example, veterans.

Right.

There you go.

You've done something meaningful for your country.

I can identify the class.

Yes.

Right.

And that class gets treated the same way.

You are all veterans.

You all get treated this way.

And that's effectively how student loan payment forgiveness kind of went through for the majority of people.

They belonged to a class that was being treated the same.

Yeah.

But when you start treating similar people differently, it gets really interesting.

And the example I was giving out during the student loan repayment situation, this will apply to the housing market as well, is how do you help some people and not help others?

So if you're going to help Saeed Omar, you're going to help Bill Ackman, Right?

I'm sorry, but that's just.

That's the problem.

Right?

Because let's just say Saeed Omar had student loans.

He had federally backed Sallie Mae student loans.

Syed Omar does still have student loans.

Shout out to Zomar's hurt with his student loans.

I still have.

I have like 80 grand left in mind or 60 grand or whatever.

I don't even know.

800amonth, though.

And I'll use myself as an example.

I refinanced my student loans to SoFi, student loans, a private lender, because it was a much lower interest rate.

Took my student loans at the time from like 1200 bucks down to like 800 bucks.

Yeah.

And in doing that was a smart financial decision.

Yeah.

We run a financial literacy podcast.

You'd think it would make smart financial decisions.

Right.

So explain to people why you haven't.

You chose to not pay them off yet.

My interest rate's so low.

Right.

It doesn't make sense for me to take a lump sum of Money that could be earning, in this case call it 10 to 12% in the markets, in the places I put that money into buying a property, that property increases in value over time plus I get cash flow on it.

It doesn't make sense for me to pay it off.

$800 is nothing.

And when you combine $800 a payment plus my $1700 a month mortgage payment, I'm still well below my financial capability to spend.

Right, right.

For some people I, I get, I get there's the Dave Ramsey's of the world that are telling you just pay it off so you can get this snowball effect to where you paying something off.

And now it's, you can go into investing to have no debt.

Yeah, I don't have a problem with that.

Yeah, I think that's probably good advice.

But you have to understand there are, there is a, a cohort of people who have the financial discipline to actually say okay, I'm going to leverage this time.

And taxes are a great example.

This.

I was talking to a really smart person the other day.

Welcome.

Sorry.

Well no, it wasn't me, it was somebody else.

Actually.

I didn't talk to you about taxes.

So I guess you kind of do fall into this band.

I'll give you.

I was talking to Saeed and another smart person the other day about them paying the taxes and he made a really interesting observation to me about paying his taxes.

He said look, the maximum federal penalty for paying my taxes late is about two grand.

A little over two grand.

I don't know this to be true, but that's what he said.

Yeah, but that's not tax advice.

And I said okay, so what are you getting at?

He's like, well if I have a large tax bill, which I typically do at the end of the year, I'll intentionally pay that late, take the two grand penalty because I'm gonna make more investing that money.

Yeah, I'll pay it whenever.

Don't sell, don't sell on, on the stocks to cross that one year threshold to get more on the capital gains and then pay it off.

So I said what do you mean?

He's like, well my liquidity position is always really light in October, November, December and by January, February, have you generally got more liquidity?

He's like, you know, holidays, personal spending, you know, the business cycle for me, I just generally have more money after that.

And I said okay, so you.

He's like, I take the, the, the penalty hit every single year.

I will intentionally not pay my taxes in October.

I mean Low key kind of what the government does too.

And that's what he said.

He's like, look, like people, people sit there and they talk about, oh, I got a big tax return.

He goes, you don't understand.

You paid too much in taxes to the government and they gave you some of your money back because they had a free loan from you.

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's essentially what it is.

I mean, you can go on literally the, the Treasury, U.S. treasury website right now, Treasury Department, and you could see that, you know, it's no secret we've talked about on the show, they're constantly running at a deficit, but somehow in the months of April and September, October, they, they're no longer in a deficit.

Yeah, right.

But every other month they're in a deficit.

Wild, wild times.

All right, so let's finish this article real quick.

Getting into some more of the Warren Buffett conversation here.

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Home Service also said in an early July report, mortgage rates are one of the main deterrents for both home buyers and, and sellers.

Many homeowners are reluctant to put their homes on the market and give up the low mortgage rates they already have.

According to Berkshire Hathaway Home Services, to them, high price gains won't mitigate their ability to pay more for another home at significantly higher interest rates.

So there you go.

Yeah.

You held a home for the last several years.

You got a ton of equity into it.

And I'll use myself as an example here.

I bought my home, 350,000 with a $25,000 seller credit.

I bought, I think about this one to size point, sight unseen.

I think it was 2012.

That home is now worth over a million dollars.

It makes no sense.

It is, it should not be worth that.

It is a, an attached town home.

Again, I don't have a palazzo like say no front yard, no backyard, no curb appeal.

But I have a, I have a home.

My wife and I constantly talk about, we have, you know, a million dollars in equity in this thing.

Right.

I got a very small mortgage on it because the mortgage was the first mortgage I had.

And you know, I haven't really done anything with it since then.

So, you know, I could use that to buy a bigger property, leverage it.

But there's, I can 1031 exchange it so I don't have to pay any like, you know, tax implications.

But then what?

My mortgage rate's going to be what?

Right, Five and a half percent.

Yeah.

If I'm lucky.

And the stress there's so much hidden costs to.

To owning a home that we can also go down that path and talk about, too.

Not only the property taxes, but the maintenance over time.

Right.

The insurance costs that go over.

I mean, it's, it's.

It's not just the mortgage payment.

No, it's not.

And then I sit there and think to myself, like, okay, we have.

And we always do this on the show.

Your home should not be an investment while it is an investment, and it will be beneficial for you over the course of history, and history has shown that it should be you purchasing it for utility.

You should have the things you need.

But for my wife, my son and I, we have the things we need.

Yes.

Do we wish we had more space?

Sometimes?

Yeah.

Sometimes.

Do we.

Do we want to get it to the point where we have to change the way we live to get it?

No.

Yeah.

Right.

And I think most Americans feel that way.

I think the comments by.

I think.

I think we're entering into a time where.

I hope.

I should say, I hope this is the case, because I know for.

For a long time, a lot of people felt pressure.

Like, man, I'm.

I'm getting to a certain age and I should be able.

I should be able to afford a home.

You know, we're at this stage in our lives, either we want to start a family or we have a family, and they might stretch themselves out a little too thin to.

To buy that home just to keep up with the Joneses.

Right.

But now with them getting priced out and realizing, you know, this mortgage payment is going to take up 50% of our.

Our income or maybe 60%.

First of all, they wouldn't even qualify for.

Right.

Yeah.

But let's just say they were able to find a way to, you know, get gift money, and they were able to, you know, finesse their way into getting the home loan.

Right.

Then it's.

Now they're realizing, man, I really don't.

I don't really don't think we should do this.

Now they're getting priced out, and it's almost like helping them.

Right.

So in that sense, it's great.

But you wonder what are the ripple effects that this is going to have on everybody and the economy as a whole?

And we're going to talk about that.

I think the ripple effects are already starting to be seen, but we don't recognize them as being caused by this.

A very common thing with humans is we have a tendency to look at reactions, not causation.

We do this in fights with our Significant others.

We do this in business.

We always look at the reaction.

We very rarely look at the cause.

Really good stock market investors will always look at the cause.

And a class example I've given a thousand and one times, Lululemon's CEO came out at one point in time and said, we don't make.

We don't make clothes for Saeed.

We don't make clothes for fat people.

He said, I'm just quoting.

That's what he said.

This is not so.

I knew that he was the cause, not the market reaction to their stock tanking.

So what did I do?

I bought stock because it was down low.

Because I understand that that cause either going to get rid of the CEO or he's going to come out and apologize.

But it doesn't change the fact they made the best products out there.

People still, people are still going to want to wear that product.

Interestingly enough, they just trademarked Lululemon dupe because so many people were selling replicas and dupes of Lululemon pants and stuff on Amazon on social media.

And now if you're selling a quote Lululemon dupe, you can be sued for trademark infringement.

Wow.

Yeah, they're up there.

Cerebellum.

Sarah.

Yeah, my biological science degree is coming in handy.

Yeah.

All right.

This issue with the home buying lock in is actually known as golden handcuffs or the lock in mortgage rate effect.

You've probably heard about it on social media.

The idea is that the current homeowners have no incentive whatsoever to put their homes on the market.

And even if they want to move because they'd forego a much lower mortgage rate, they had to lock in years ago, there's no reason to do it.

Right.

So this causes a litany of other problems in the housing market, namely inventory.

Oh, yeah.

Which is also keeping home prices high.

So only a couple more articles I want to go over for housing and then I want to jump right into what this really means politically and why Mandani is where he's at today.

Well, to piggyback off what you brought up at the top of the show with the.

The what?

The age for new home buyers is now entering 40.

Average age is 40.

Average age.

Average age is 40.

Right.

And you think to yourself, okay, well, I know that new homes are actually somewhat lower in, in some markets in certain regions than existing homes.

Right.

So these and the incentives that they're offering, you're like, what is it going to do to pe?

All the people out there that, you know, they play this game of you know, buying three to five properties over the course of their lifetime.

And they're, they were hoping to get out of this so that they can move up and get into a bigger home.

Now they're also stuck because there aren't any buyers for their homes.

That's right.

That's right.

And I think, I think you're going to see more and more people be reluctant to buy in the months and years to come until we find whatever resolution comes next.

Whether that's correction, a crash, a special program, an emergency, I don't know.

We don't, we don't have the crystal ball here.

What I can tell you is, is that housing market turnover is at a 30 year low amid this real estate deep freeze.

So it's not like it's just a nominal amount.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rejo.

This from Business Insider.

The pace with which US Homes are changing owners to say its point dropped to the lowest in at least 30 years, according to a new Redfin analysis of MLS and public records data.

The real estate listing site estimated that around 28 out of every 1,000 homes in the US changed hands in the first nine months of the year.

28 in every 1,000 homes changed hands.

That's not a lot.

Yeah, it's low.

If I told you that you had a 28 in 1,000% chance, right?

Yeah.

Of getting lucky tonight, you're probably not getting lucky tonight.

I'm probably.

Yeah.

Probably gonna be sitting on the couch watching the game.

You're probably gonna be Fubbing.

Welcome to FubHub.

Please tell me that's a URL we could buy.

Nobody listening to buy.

Fubhubtube.

Jesus.

I didn't understand.

I didn't understand the Fub hub reference, but the FUB tube.

I got fubhub.

Yeah.

You don't know what that is?

No, no.

Get it.

You have no idea, huh?

I have no idea.

Let me see your search history on your phone.

I got zero idea.

What are you guys talking about?

I bet you we for sure get straight stricken for sensitive content on this one.

We're a little shocking on this one.

Shocking content.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You do not have freedom of speech.

You think you do.

YouTube and Google own your speech unless.

You want to become a highly rated podcast.

Yeah.

In which case you, you actually get, you know, some benefits here.

Well, so now we've got a historic low pace of, of properties changing, changing hands.

That's the lowest turnover rate in the housing market seen year to date since at least the 1990s.

The firm said in a report last week across the nation, housing turnover rates were at the lowest in New York city where just 10.3 sales were recorded for every 1,000 homes.

Again, New York City has come up in two, two occasions here which I think are meaningful.

Even if they were held at 0% rates, you still wouldn't have affordable homes in New York city.

And only 10.3 out of every thousand homes changed hands in New York City.

Okay, keep those numbers in mind.

I want the housing market and how challenged it is to be something we hearken back here to because it's important.

That was followed second by Los Angeles and San Francisco which both recorded fewer than 15 sales per 1,000 homes year to date.

Okay, so these markets are very challenged.

By the way, both these markets are now Democrat ran markets.

What does that have to do with it?

New York is probably on the board a little bit but I'll explain what that really comes down to and this is speculation on my part.

I'm not supporting one way or the other but I think as we get into it it'll self explain a little bit and people won't think that I'm biased.

I, I just have observations that I've made on relative to extremism and how I think the younger demographic feels.

I talked to a lot of people about this stuff and I think we should get there.

So I want to get one more article from Nick Gurley via X and then, and then we'll we'll done with the housing market stuff but I think it's proven the point here.

Nick Early VX U S home value growth is entering recessionary territory in late 2025 the U.

S home values as reported by Zillow, the value index growing by only 0.1% over the last 12 months.

So home values only went up 0.1% in the last 12 months.

The previous times we've seen home value growth this low have mostly been associated with economic recessionary economies like 2008, like 1991, like 1982 and 1973.

This confirms the comments made earlier this week by Scott Bessette, Treasury Secretary that the housing market is in fact in a recession.

The government's treasury secretary, the man that a lot of people want to see replace Jerome Powell, has openly come out and said that we are in a housing recession.

Yeah, okay, that's meaningful.

Chart Brazil pulled up from Revenger One of my favorites so far on this.

It shows home value growth year over year from 1954 to 2025 now and it shows that we are coming off of what Looks like a peak.

Yeah.

It's pretty meaningful in my mind.

But if you look at something which is really fascinating here, you look at the Great Recession or the great financial crisis, and you see the high that we came off of down to the low that we went to.

Right.

That was a fall straight down.

Think of this as a parabolic curve.

You go up the curve, you come down the curve.

When it came down the curve, it went way farther down than it's ever gone in American history.

Yeah.

We're halfway there now from an even higher peak.

Yes.

Which means the delta, the change in values from peak to trough of this curve.

Right.

So a parabolic curve.

Start at the bottom, go to the top, go to the bottom again, go up to the next curve.

Right.

Peak to peak, trough to trough.

The low to low, the high to high.

We are now coming off of the highest high we've ever had in home in history, with home prices are coming off the actual highest price that they've been.

This is talking about growth.

Growth.

Yeah.

In home price growth.

I apologize.

Thank you.

So we could see some meaningful changes here.

And according to Scott Beset, the market is, in fact, in recession.

The question is, will national home values finally dip negative in 2026, and which cities will be the best places to buy next year?

That concludes the housing portion of this conversation.

Sorry.

Spitting a little bit, Saeed, Because I want to talk about something that I think I've seen a great deal of, and I think it's going to ruffle some feathers.

Oh, yeah.

In your case, body hair.

In Rajill's lack of body hair, case, sexiness.

I got hair.

I just got trimming.

Oh, do you?

Oh, good, man.

See, Saeed, the two of us, two thirds of this group, trim.

No, no.

I do, too.

Is it every morning and then the testosterone just takes over?

It just comes back?

That's what happens.

Brazil.

Yeah.

Ruffle the feathers.

Do you believe that?

Yeah.

I don't know, man.

Yeah, that's a no.

All right, so look, on social media, there was clearly passion around Mandani being elected.

Passion from a younger demographic, which I think in a lot of ways is not typically as involved in things like a mayoral race in New York.

Okay.

And I found it to be really interesting, so I went down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out his policies and his stance and why he resonated with the youth.

It wasn't like Obama, where Obama, when he was elected, the HOPE campaign, and people wanted change, and there was an entire kind of country that was behind him.

But the age demographic wasn't so uniquely young.

And there was, I think probably a, in my case, a better understanding of why he was different.

Okay.

There's been a lot of polarization whether you're Democrat or Republican across the country.

And extremism is now how you differentiate yourself.

You can't be a middle of the road Republican or a middle of the road Democrat.

You have to be extreme left or extreme right in order to align with your parties.

Yep.

It's not going to get the job done.

And Madani is a Democrat.

AOC was there at his, at his campaign party when he won.

And it was an event for all, you know, the people who were behind him, I think they were very, very happy.

And I think a lot of people who thought that he shouldn't win or weren't qualified or there was a whole bunch of rhetoric around it were really upset.

But if you carve the emotions out of it.

Okay.

And you look at why he resonated with people, I have a theory.

Unfortunately, a lot of his policies sound to me to be a lot like socialism.

Okay.

And I think that's the underlying problem, is he resonates with a disenfranchised group of people who feel like, if you live in New York, feel like the.

System let them down.

Right.

And what happens is then you have Republicans who get associated with capitalism.

And I'm going to.

Again, not my opinion, but just the perspective that I think we're seeing now is, oh, these rich assholes are all Republicans.

Right?

Yeah, yeah, I hear you.

I understand why that might be the sentiment.

And so what happens in order to say, hey, you know, we're going to give back and we're going to do all these things for the populace, for the people, and we're going to, you know, tax the rich and we're gonna do all these things.

You start pushing more and more extreme versions of that, which starts sounding more and more like socialism and less and less like capitalism.

Because capitalism and this, the people who have the ability to buy the homes, they're not like you and me and everybody else.

They're.

They're that different class.

I don't like them.

Right.

They have all the things that I want.

And if you're in New York, Right.

You know that home affordability is a problem.

Even if it were 0% interest rates, the majority of people would not be able to buy.

Right.

You know that 10.3 homes and every thousand traded hands, people aren't even selling there.

You have a reason.

Well, people are.

People aren't selling too, because they know there's no one to buy.

That's right.

And you have a reason to feel discouraged.

Yeah.

Right.

So you want somebody who's going to give you the opportunity.

And I don't know if where this leads.

And I want to get away from Mandani.

It's not really him per se.

It's more of what I see as a cultural movement.

Then I took a step back and I started looking at social media.

Yeah.

We just went through this era where everybody was living the vagabond life, getting a sprinter van and living out of their car.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have a lot of people hypersensitizing things like e comm sales and all these other side hustles, and those have largely proven to be fake.

So people who got their hopes up for these other passive income sources are now starting to be broken a little bit and people are going, huh, this idea of the government giving me more and sponsoring me in ways to help me get there, that sounds nice.

It sounds easier.

It sounds path of least resistance.

Right.

It resonates with me because it gives me hope.

Yeah.

Which if you recall the Obama posters from his campaign, it was all about hope.

Yep.

And I think that's the problem right now is the housing market is a hope issue.

And people go, okay, Chris, well, the stock market's at an all time high.

They should, they should be happy.

Are you kidding me?

People can't buy some of these stocks.

The prices are thousands of dollars in some cases per share.

Right.

They can't get involved in the stock market.

At best, they can buy into a low cost index fund.

Do they feel emotionally attached to Nvidia?

The AI hype?

No.

Some of these stocks are so expensive now and so unattainable to them or they miss the curve or they still don't have the discretionary income that people don't feel like they can buy that into the stock market right now.

And we've already covered on a previous show that you've got more people now than ever invested in the stock market than they do in the homes because they can't afford homes.

We have created economically through this ZERP period, the zero interest rate period.

Zerp.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Not to be confused with the WERP.

Or the sizer or the Scissor drinking that lane, but I think what we've done is we.

We've seen the beginning of polarization towards a pretty palpable disdain for capitalism.

And that scares the hell out of me.

Yeah, it just scare everybody.

I mean, if, if you like, if you like the country that we're in and what, what we've built thus far, that was largely in part due to capitalism.

Well, capitalism supposed to be free markets.

I gotta be honest, it doesn't really feel like a free market anymore.

And I, I don't know, I don't claim to be young anymore.

You know, I know that I'm in my, my mid-40s and I know as much as I feel like we're young, that we don't necessarily resonate with the same audience.

Six, seven.

Is that how you use it?

I already figured out yet.

41.

41, yeah.

Anyway.

And I, I can see a world where, just like we saw in, in different, in very distinct periods of time where people were pushing towards socialistic causes.

Socialism.

I can see a world where people feel so pressured by society, by an economic policy that they can't keep up with, by this barbell economy.

You've heard this expression a lot.

The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class are indeed being wiped out.

That is true.

Yep.

I don't care what anyone says to you, okay?

The gap is widening.

The gap is widening and it's widening faster now, in large part due to technologies, lift and infrastructure and the zirt period.

If we don't do something to make this cohort, this group of people feel like socialism isn't their best solution.

Well, I mean, let's talk about what are some things that can be done?

Well, we need to find a solution to the affordability crisis for homes.

One, that's one.

Affordable housing is important.

I'll tell you something else too.

Something that is in fact hurting it.

Whether.

And it's hard.

It's hard to anybody to admit to it.

But one aspect that could help a lot of people is I know this return to office thing is hurting people.

Right.

Where otherwise they could travel further still in their state.

Right.

And buy homes that are more reasonably priced within their budget.

Right.

But then not have to make the commute.

Right.

But unfortunately that's not the case.

Right.

Well, I, I got a whole diatribe on this that I can get into for hours, is you had the zero interest rate period also created a different problem that has contributed to this that I don't think people think about.

And because I was in, where I was at for so long in business, I've seen this at the highest levels.

You had a class of executives who probably would have retired, who now have healthier living habits, who aren't drinking as much who are finding ways to exercise and their longevity is going out.

Their minds are sharp, their bodies are good, they're staying in the roles longer.

And because they live through this period of zero interest rate, they stayed in the seat for longer.

And a lot of them want to live where they want to live.

And their companies are going to work where they want them to work.

So what happens?

You get a JP Morgan Chase prison, like building in New York City.

You know, you, you get these things and you get people at the top who probably would have been gone making way for the next generation who then would say, okay, I've got a shot that doesn't require socialism.

I've got capitalism working because I'm gonna, I'm gonna move up, I'm gonna be respected for my work.

And instead what are you seeing?

You're seeing companies be more restrictive, not less, in my mind, weaponizing unemployment against employees.

Ah, Timmy's not gonna get a job somewhere else.

Where's he gonna go?

Yeah, you know, it's like, I mean, I wasn't around, like, I wasn't in the work workforce back in like the 80s or the 70s.

I wasn't even born then.

Right.

But it's like you think the picture that I, I think of is when people were working, there were still traditional families and people going home.

And you look to retire and spend time, go back and spend time with your family and your grandkids and whatnot.

But it feels like nowadays the job is so much of who they are that it's like it doesn't, People don't want to let that go because this is who I am.

Well then you also have a bit of a polarization too.

There, there is a lot of people whose ideology of work is very lazy.

And I don't mean to knock anyone or any generation.

This is nothing to do with age.

There's just a lot of people who got really lazy and work from home.

Oh yeah, there's some, there's definitely some of that.

And efficiency has dropped off in some cases.

So I'm not exactly co signing one or the other.

I get why coming back to the office makes sense for some companies and other cases I don't.

But we have reached a situation where.

But we, we do know.

And that with that being said, I want to just gloss over it.

We do know that.

I'm not saying all companies, but some companies that have utilized.

That utilized it solely just to not have another reduction in forest.

Just to, you know.

Yeah.

Let people self select.

And I didn't put it in the show notes.

But there's actually an interesting thing happening now where you're seeing less people hiring and less job postings because people in companies that are higher up that make these decisions believe that AI is going to meaningfully reduce the requirements of FTE full time employees.

So there, there is a lot happening and because technology is moving so fast, because people feel so, just disenfranchised, I think you get someone like Mandani who's very much has a socialist narrative to him on some level.

Yeah.

I think you get him in office because people just want to feel like there's hope.

Yeah.

And again, I, I, it resonates with me because the whole point of the show is to give people hope and to let them know they can overcome these things.

But it's not lost on me how difficult it is.

Yep, it's not lost on me.

When I was a kid, and I don't know that I've shared any of this stuff on the show before, I wanted an opportunity so bad.

I was writing letters to people trying to get a job, just trying to get my foot in the door and nobody would hire me.

Yeah, Everybody at the time was like, oh, you know, you're in law school so you're just going to become a lawyer and you're going to leave and why am I going to put the time and energy into training?

You're also reasonable though.

Reasonable, I guess.

But you know, at the time I just wanted good money in a path forward.

I had this banking background, this mortgage background, I understood finance, but not a single person would hire me.

And I remember reading an MBA book on commercial real estate.

And I went into an interview with Jamie Goldenfeld Nelson, who's retired now, bless her heart.

And I went into an interview and after reading this book in one night, I stayed up on it long to read it.

And I lied my ass off in the interview with her and she closed the door, she sat down and said, that was a good lie.

Now tell me the truth.

After the full interview had been completed and I told her what I did.

Yeah.

And by sheer luck, her daughter had graduated law school, couldn't find a job here and moved to Australia.

And I would not be who I am today had she not have given me the opportunity that she gave me at that point in time.

That's true.

I mean, that's true.

But look, you don't even come across that opportunity unless you put yourself out there and try, right?

It is.

But nobody ever talks about the times they tried and failed.

Yeah.

It's almost like, oh, they have shame about it.

Dude, I've written so many letters to people about things about just, hey, like, you shoot your shot, you know, And I have no shame.

Yeah, yeah, no shame.

I've written letters to everybody.

And.

And people are like, oh, like, don't.

You know?

You know, where's the.

Where's the shame in that?

Like, what?

They don't respond to you.

So what?

Yes, exactly.

So what?

What's the worst that could happen?

Worst comes to happen, you throw it away.

Best thing that could happen is you read it, you see my name, you choose not to respond to me.

Fine.

Yes, exactly.

You know who I am.

You gave it a shot, right?

Now go, like.

And subscribe my podcast, damn it.

Like, on a.

On a much, much, much smaller scale.

We went.

I took the kids to Venice beach over the weekend, and I told you about it.

We went there and I. I showed the kids the skate park and took them to the famous basketball courts.

And, you know, it is really cool.

They got to see the street performers, and, you know, they got exposed to some things that I wish they didn't have to get exposed to this early, but.

Smell of marijuana.

Yeah.

I also.

I also knew it was gonna happen, so I was like, okay, it comes with the territory.

I'm not going to shelter them too much, right?

It's Venice beach, man.

It's Venice Beach.

You know what you're getting into.

And then we walk over to the basketball courts and, you know, no secret to everybody, anybody who listens to the show.

My son's absolutely obsessed with basketball right now.

Too scared to go ask somebody if he could take a shot.

They were just shooting around.

They weren't even playing a game.

And I was like, why?

You're going to.

Literally, you're going to pass on this.

You're going to.

When's the next time we're going to come back here?

You're going to pass on this opportunity to play on these courts.

I pulled up YouTube videos.

I'm like, look, LeBron James has played here.

The professor from Anone has played.

Like, I'm showing him name after name after name, and he's like.

And you're just.

You're too afraid to go and ask.

And then my daughter stands up, she goes, I'll ask.

And she goes over to a gentleman over there and says, can I please take a shot?

And she can't even get the ball to the rim.

But she was just trying to show her brother, like, why are you so afraid?

Right?

Goes up Asks the guy.

He had to be some older guy that, you know, she probably thought was going to.

I thought he was just going to blow her off.

He looked kind of like crazy nutso, you know, and.

But I walked her over there, and he's like.

He's like, yeah, you can't hear.

As a matter of fact, why don't you just keep the ball?

I have a fight to catch, and you guys just keep it.

I. I'll just head out now, Miss.

Right.

Just like that.

And now I'm telling them.

What a lesson for him to learn there.

You were going to pass on this.

Not only were you.

Could you have gotten a shot, he handed you a basketball.

And now we're creating a lifelong core memory here, and we could have not had it if she didn't go up and ask.

You want to hear a wild thing?

Every single job I ever had, that's how it's come about.

Really.

I've never applied for a job, gotten an interview, and just like, yeah, been, like, hired for who I am.

How interesting.

Never once.

It's always.

It's always been like some extra step that.

There's always been something like.

Like Jamie, in that case, she.

She had a daughter and she resonated, but we had this conversation because I just lied to her in an interview for an hour.

Right, right.

And she.

She took pity on me because of that.

That connection.

See, and that's.

And that's the thing that I'm afraid of, too.

And it's something that I've shared with not only my kids, but my younger cousins that have asked for advice, too.

I'm like, look, there's always going to be a human element to.

To these things.

You have to get yourself to that point where you can reach that human element of it.

Right.

Show somebody who you are.

Right.

As a person.

Now it sucks with all the, you know, people are going to hear this, be like, bro, I'm applying on LinkedIn, and there's.

There's you literally using AI to filter applications, you know?

And, like, what do you do in those instances?

That.

Yeah, that part.

I don't know.

I don't know how this evolves, but.

Oh, there's so many cheat codes people do.

Like, I've seen the whole game.

They'll call hr, they'll ask about the jobs.

They'll just call and ask to speak somebody in hr.

They'll.

They'll.

They'll find out who the hiring manager is on LinkedIn.

They'll.

They'll call or they'll send Text messages to people on through LinkedIn and try to, you know, do it that way.

People will send like cards in the mail.

I mean, I've had the full gambit.

I've had people literally send me, I swear to God.

This happened once it tripped me out is I get a letter handwritten to me in the office.

I had posted a couple jobs vis a vis, like people who, see when you're, when you're a C level executive, like, I have managers that post for jobs.

It's very rare that you yourself post that.

I would post for a position that I'm gonna hire, but I, one of my managers had posted for a job that was under the operations umbrella.

And this person sent me a handwritten card and letter with a 25 gift card from Starbucks.

And I'm like, damn it, come on, man.

Like, I can't like, not call somebody who just gave me 25 bucks.

Right, right, right.

I could mail it back, but then I would the year, like, you can't.

Do that, but you've already won three years in a row.

So here's what I did is I said, look, I, I can't take your card.

I said, but here's what I'm gonna do.

I want you to come pick it up and we'll talk when you come in and pick it up and I'll buy you coffee.

Okay?

And that's what, that's what we did.

All right.

Did not hire the person, but hey, a for effort, but kept in contact, still very close to them to this day.

And they did get a different job.

And left a lasting impression on you.

Look, that you never, you never know.

I mean, I mean, I, I, I agree.

And I think there's always, like, at some point, it's, it, it's true.

It's not what you know, it's who you know.

And I mean, there is a little bit of what you know too, but relationships are so important.

It's super key to the whole thing.

But I, I, I, I think the, to get back to the, the kind of, the, the previous point is the discouraged youth and discouraged people in society who feel the weight of this economy on them should not be ignored.

And if you're looking at a government shutdown on top of that, imagine being somebody who feels like that in New York and you're a government employee.

Yeah.

Like, how discouraged are you?

Just in life in general?

Right.

At what point do you go, I don't give a damn about capitalism.

I just want to not feel like this?

Right.

And then someone pitches the idea of socialism and you go, I like that.

It's better than what I got going right now.

Universal, you know, income.

Well, yeah, they don't understand like the ripple effects, right?

Yeah.

But again, unless we do something to make people feel like they have a chance at capitalism in today's economy, my humble opinion is we've gone too far.

And we all rode the wave up.

Companies rode the wave up.

And unless, unless we do something meaningful, I, I think you're going to see those socialism conversations come up again.

What's that, what's that saying?

It's like hard times make, make good times, good times make bad times, bad times make hard times again.

Right?

Yeah, it's something to that effect, you know, and it feels like that's, that's what we're, what we're going through right now.

Yep.

And so we've kind of read this whole thing.

The housing market seems like there's got some cracks in it there.

There's a couple, there's one more article I want to finish off with and then I have some housekeeping items that I think are meaningful that we should talk about on the show.

So number one, Michael Burry, the big short Michael Burry, he bet against the market recently.

He bet against Palantir and Nvidia.

You might be saying, Chris, those are both AI stocks.

That's right.

Big time.

He's effectively betting that there is an AI bubble.

Nvidia shares fell 2% to 202.838 $202.83 in pre market trading Tuesday after the filing showed that Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management bought 187 million in NVID put options signaling a bearish bet.

And for those of you don't recall, put options are when somebody says I am betting the price will go down.

Exactly.

So 187 million dollar bet that pricing will go down.

But wait, there's more.

He also via Zion disclosed a $912 million in plan tier Palantir puts with both trades making up about 80% of its portfolio.

It's unclear if the positions are still active as filings lag by up to 45 days.

So it's pretty clear he believes that AI companies, which mind you, for those of you who remember this, 10 companies, effectively the top 10 companies of three companies plus the mag seven, all tech stocks and all very heavy into AI.

No, he's paying.

He's making a huge bet on this.

Yes.

We're not going to act like your boy Michael Berry hasn't been wrong before.

He's been wrong before.

Yeah, but the point is, he's been right a lot.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

He'll make.

He makes up for it, too.

When he's right, he makes it.

And here's the thing is, when I heard the first 187 million, I was like, me.

$187 million puts in Nvidia.

Meh.

Okay.

But 912 million in Palantir puts.

Damn.

He believes.

And honestly, Business Insider, you couldn't pick a better photo.

Like, dang, no, he looks like that all.

Yeah, he has a resting bitch face.

That.

I mean, that he looks like a cyborg.

Yeah, he always looks like that.

I mean, if I were making billion dollar bets, I would look like that, too.

I mean, damn.

Pinstripe shirt on a pinstripe suit.

Come on, bro.

You got that much money.

Get a stylist.

You don't care.

He doesn't care.

Balls.

He balls hard.

Balls so hard.

All right, so house cleaning items to wrap the show up.

First and foremost for Jill, there is a couple of things under the Chris section of the show.

Notes.

Let's pull up the first comment here.

Stop it.

We.

We got to get in the first comment.

So Regil is back.

Shout out to C. Wessler.

Yeah.

Longtime listener of the show.

Long time.

Listen.

Show frequent commenter.

Lol.

No knock, but the quality of the show, content, energy and production ion is light years ahead of where you were at the beginning of just 2025.

Bravo gents should see what it was like in 2023.

I know.

Yeah.

Garage.

The.

The weighted blanket.

Yeah, we had a weighted blanket behind.

It was so hot in there.

But Rajeel and I spent a lot of nights in here, so I did not.

Yeah.

Building the studio.

And I could not have been happier with how the video and production quality has turned out here.

Yeah, I mean, this is Netflix quality.

All Netflix approved material.

So, yo, when that Spotify Netflix deal comes down, you know.

Yeah, I know.

The call.

Yeah.

She's just saying, call me.

Don't call Saeed.

I'll drop him off the show.

Tag your boys.

Yeah, I'll do a show with Schultz.

No problem.

Site doesn't want to do this anymore anyway.

Do this.

All right, so this from a very, very good friend.

She listens to the show quite frequently and she is originally from the Mind Pump.

Mind Pump.

Mind Pump.

You know her, Jackie.

Shout out.

Jackie.

She asked.

Curious, my friend.

I noticed you guys added a little tease before the episode with music in the background.

Curious.

Curious why I'll Be honest.

Not sure if I like it or it adds value.

I think going right into the episode is the best.

I know back in the day Mind Pump did that and took me out of the episode.

Just get down to business.

Lol.

My response to her just trying different things more for YouTube.

I don't like it personally.

Logan Paul's editor Caleb suggested it but I think everything is tailored to YouTube.

The audio is supposed to be at least differentiating it.

So a couple things I want to point out here for you listening going like what the hell is going on in the beginning episodes?

I did it for about a minute to start the the last couple.

So I think I'm going to cut it down about 45 seconds and make the audio a little bit, a little bit bolder, a little more dynamic.

But the idea is that the video platforms will get a more engaging teaser to start, but the audio only streaming platforms will not.

They'll just get to jump right into the show.

Except that Spotify rips the audio from the video.

So if you get the video, if you get on Spotify, you're going to get that teaser in the beginning as well.

Yeah.

I will do my best to make it sound a little different.

It is a lot of work on us to make that.

But it also should prove to be a little more engaging for retention on places like YouTube where it drives consistency.

And you just get a little bit of insight into where the show will be headed.

Yeah, I want to give you the hot topics getting into it so you don't listen to us for like 10 minutes and go, oh, is that what the show is about?

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

So we're trying to, we're trying to give you some options if you will.

But we do appreciate the input.

Jackie.

And then Rajeel, there is a very important message that we do have to talk about on the next item in the show notes.

There you will find some off brand looking shoes.

Saeed, these are your feet, are they not?

These are my feet.

These are, yes.

You care to explain what in the actual hell we're looking at here?

Because I'm very confused.

This looks like a smock.

A Birkenstock, bro.

Like shoe sock thing.

No, this is a, this is a clog Birkenstock.

So this is what all the cool kids are wearing.

It doesn't say Birkenstock on it.

It doesn't say Birkenstock.

So I bought off brand.

Listen, I could buy six of these before buying one Birkenstock.

Why am I.

Why.

Why would I pay for the Brent name brand?

The fact that you know how much Birkenstocks cost just to begin with is a problem, bro.

Wow.

You looked into this, bro, $120 is crazy.

But you wanted to buy them.

Yeah.

And then you decided to so badly that you wanted them so badly you found a dupe.

All right, so, look, you know, there's.

There's no secret with me.

I'm not a guy that likes to show off my toes.

I got nice feet.

Okay?

But this.

This is a questionable fashion choice.

You're wearing black ankle socks.

Wait, hold on.

This is.

These are house slippers.

Why are you wearing this?

Don't.

Don't encourage them.

No, no, these are actually.

These are crew.

These are.

These are crew cut socks.

Okay.

Yeah, it looks like it from this angle that it's ankle, but it's actually come up a little bit higher.

Okay, so you're wearing knee high socks with your.

With your off brand Birkenstocks house slippers, bro.

I don't like.

Okay.

The ones that are super furry on the inside because my.

It gets too hot for my feet.

I don't like.

I don't want to actually worn the super furry ones.

I'm learning so much about you.

I did.

So Father's Day.

I've gotten.

I've gotten gifts from the kids.

Can't knock my kids.

Hold on.

Don't put the kids.

Oh, let's get that some houses.

They got me the Uggs version, as I put it on once.

I'm like, I can't be wearing this sweaty, right?

I'm sweating, right?

Literally, I'm sweating.

Look hot.

I'm sweating thinking about it, right?

So I'm like, please return them.

This is not my.

I'm gonna work in Colorado.

I'm always.

I've always been an Adidas slide guy or a Nike slide guy around the house.

But then I was like, okay, I want something that's like, if people come over, I'm not gonna wear slides.

So they know your political stance right away.

This is a.

This is not a political statement.

This is just me trying to fit in.

I literally sent this picture to Weiss over at Fridays, and I was like, he loved it.

Huh?

He's like, welcome to the club.

Yeah.

So I will say, in your defense, my wife has a pair of these.

Yeah, these are really popular right now.

Very popular.

I won't wear them out, though.

Refuse to wear them out.

This is not.

That's not my.

You wore these out with, like, tube socks.

Like, Higher ones?

Yeah.

Why?

Exactly.

That's the look.

And then you tuck your.

Your sweats into your socks.

That's a. I know you like to do this.

I. I know I only do it because my pants aren't long.

No, don't do that.

Don't do that.

You're trying to show off that look.

I got the designer socks.

No.

Yeah, yeah.

Hey, you got the Nike socks with the red.

With the red logo all the way.

Down to my ankle because I'm freakishly tall.

Stop it.

So it's the first time fashion actually agrees with me.

No, but I will not wear these out.

I. I won't.

But you'll send me photos of your feet.

Yeah.

I was like, I just want to let you know that I'm invited to all.

To all the cool Cl.

Cool kids.

And there.

There are a couple listeners to the show.

Mark, this is for you.

I know how much you have a foot fetish, so I wanted you to see this as my gift to you.

Don't worry about Mark.

Mark's.

Mark's good.

Mark, we gotta.

We gotta get a Patreon.

Every time.

Every time I post, like, inadvertently my feet in.

In my stories, I.

Mark's like, more, more, more.

And I'm not gonna lie.

I'm gonna tell you right now, I have sent Mark, like, nude foot photos.

No.

You.

And I've been like, yo, hey, can I make an only man's with this?

And he's like, absolutely.

You got beautiful feet.

Yeah, I feel good about that.

Right?

There you go.

There you go.

Come on, man.

You.

If I complimented your feet, you wouldn't feel good about it.

I just thought of a bit.

There's nothing graphic about this, man.

There's nothing worse than, like, me sitting here thinking of bits that I can't talk about on the show without us getting canceled.

It was something that Theo said on Rogue.

Oh, you pretend like you were gay just to get a compliment.

Just to get a compliment.

Yeah, yeah, exactly like gay.

I thought you were gay.

You played along with it because it made you feel good about yourself just.

To be a little less straight.

Yes.

I don't want to get offended.

I don't.

I want to be hit on.

I didn't pretend anything, though.

He's like, hey, man, you got beautiful feet.

I'm like, thank you.

Yeah.

You want to see more?

Yeah, I'll give it to you.

I'm not afraid.

I'm not, like.

I'm not afraid to show you my foot cleavage.

Let me know.

Is this good?

I don't know what good looks like.

Yeah, man.

Yeah.

So anyways, we take the Birkenstocks down.

No, we can leave those up there.

We can leave it out.

Yeah.

Take the show out on that.

Yeah.

All the time.

Yeah.

Where'd you get these from?

The wife bought them for me because she knew.

You know why my wife's so smart?

I started.

I started floating.

I need new house slippers, right?

She knows I'm the guy that's just gonna overspend and buy the name brand thing.

So she got out in front of it, Boom, bought me the Amazon version, showed up to the house.

She's like, you can wear these.

Well, Rajill is trying to say to you and Rejeel, I got you here.

He would like to buy a pair as well and wants to know where you bought them from.

I got you, bro.

I'll bring you.

I'll buy them for you.

Lincoln Bio.

Yeah.

Sponsor the show.

I don't even know the name, honestly.

Walmart has some dupe Birkenstocks for, like 19.

But see, here's the problem.

This is.

This is the problem.

I've been to Walmart forever.

The.

The suede on the off brand ones, it shows.

It shows the creases.

So you don't want that.

Can't you just get like a regular, like a rubber eraser and.

And rub it out?

Familiar with rubbing it out?

Yeah, I do it all the time.

Yeah, I could tell.

Will your wood robot.

The acre wood.

There you go.

Nice setup.

This guy always set me up.

I try to make, like, witty comments on social media about whittling the wood, and I didn't know how to spell with the word whittle at first.

I had to look it up.

Anyway, shout out to all the listeners out there if you're still.

If you're still here and you're listening to the show an hour and 16 minutes in, please head over to our YouTube channel.

Leave us a comment or leave us an honest 5 star review on.

On any the streaming platforms that you're listening on.

Subscribe.

Hit that, like, button.

Ring that notification bell.

Do all the moist, goody good sassafras stuff.

Is that what we used to say?

You used to.

I never said that.

You said the sassafras.

No, no, you said, don't put that on me.

I got.

I can go back to those little episodes.

I can pull it up.

Okay.

You said it a lot of times.

Okay.

You got anything?

Just.

Thank you guys for phubbing.

And stay fubbing.

Yeah, stay.

Listen to three grown men Talk.

Yeah.

One of us is not so grown.

You still.

You still fubbing Me?

No.

Joanna was out at dinner last night with some friends in la, so I.

So you were just.

I solo fubbed.

You were scrolling.

Yeah, I don't think it's flubbing if you do by yourself.

Yeah, well, at some point, I gotta.

I gotta share with everybody else.

I am so incredibly frustrated with social media.

And I'm getting to the point now where I'm.

I'm just calling BS on everybody.

Like, I'm just so tired of, like, the fake growth and these accounts, like 200,000.

I'll eat some dudes account today.

And I'm.

We try to be honest in the grow our show, like, just with advertising, we keep getting, like, steamrolled by it.

And I'm getting to the point now where I shouldn't care, but I care.

Okay.

And I'm gonna have an emotional outburst.

One of these days.

It's gonna happen.

So I apologize for all you listen to the show.

Before we say goodnight, I just want you to know in advance I'm so.

For the future emotional outbursts I'm gonna have about social media.

It feels like some of this is rigged.

It's rigged.

It's gotta be.

You're gonna trigger me.

That's what try.

I'm go triggered.

I'm not gonna do it.

I tried to.

Not gonna do it.

All right, you got anything else?

No, sir.

Appreciate you, sir.

Appreciate you, Rajill.

Thank you, guys.

All right, good night, everybody.

Okay, bye.

Bye.