I saw an interview from way back in the day when Andre Johnson was asked, like, you know, hey, why don't you rap anymore?

You know, your music style has changed.

And he's like, I don't want to be a 45 year old rapper.

Why?

He said, that's not gangster.

It's not.

He's not a gangster.

Nothing about him is gangster.

No, not at all.

But he's an artist.

Big boy was gangster.

Big boy was gangster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Shall we?

Oh, we haven't done that in a long time.

Yeah.

A little homage to the early days of the show, back when Arun was here inappropriately interrupting us all the time.

I know.

Clearing his throat.

Look at you.

And you still got the toes out.

I do have the toes out.

Arun has a health issue, I'm convinced.

And I'm a guy who has a chronic throat.

Not anymore, man.

He's down.

He's down like 30, 35 pounds.

Is he really?

Yeah.

Well, before we get into all this, welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.

There's that.

There's that.

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

That's right.

And sitting next to me is my partner in time, the one and only.

The man, the myth, the legend side Omar, everybody.

Thank you, my man.

And sitting behind the ones and twos is nobody.

Because as we were talking about, DJ Harpoon decided to leave the show and lose 35 pounds.

I mean, win some, lose some, right?

I mean, that's.

That's kind of how the saying works, right?

Anyway, yeah, he's.

I haven't seen him, so you're probably.

You probably know better than I would if he's actually lost weight or.

No, he looks great.

Really?

Yeah.

Does he still have a little bit of the chin thing going?

What chin thing?

You had a little bit of the, you know, loose, loose skin there.

The loose, gobble, gobble.

I did not say that.

You were thinking it.

I was thinking it, but I did not say it.

Which makes me a better human than you.

What kind of show do we have for everybody today?

So I was.

I was scrolling through the interwebs, social media, most notably, and I should probably break everybody into what my routine is for the show.

Okay.

Okay.

I read constantly, largely because I don't sleep a lot.

Right.

And when I'm not texting you inappropriate messages from.

From Instagram, my favorite messages, it's a nice little surprise.

It's nice to know that when you see those videos, you think of me.

God, that Richard Pryor interview when I sent you, wow, that was hard to hear.

That was.

Yeah, we can't talk about those things.

No, we can't talk about those things.

Yeah.

Until the end of the show.

But.

So I typically figure out what we're going to talk about on the show because I see headlines, financial headlines that I think are noteworthy or applicable to the audience and I think that really need to be unpacked or could be misleading or educational.

Right.

I mean, there's lots of different avenues lately, particularly post election.

Frankly, the headlines have been strange.

There goes the promotion.

Yeah.

Can't election speak.

Can't say election.

Can't promote it on Google.

I've just given up advertising on YouTube at this point.

Yeah.

It's just YouTube hates us and it's specifically.

It's up.

Saeed, Omar and Chris are talking.

Yep.

Nope, not gonna happen.

Do not pass go.

Yeah, we can't even give them the money to make the advertising happy.

It's just so weird.

The last couple weeks have been very stigmatizing, so we've taken some different show paths in light of what I think is really not a material focus on data but more of sensationalism and it's becoming very, very, very strange.

There's all sorts of rhetoric on the housing market.

So there's lots of people talking about how we've got a historic low as far as new applications go, yet we've seen interest rates come down a little bit in the last couple weeks.

Treasuries have come down.

Seeing it right now, 30 day or 30 year fixed mortgage at six and a half.

Yeah, it's in the mid high sixes, depending on where your, where your financial position is at.

But that's been a good news, but people aren't very comfortable with it.

As a matter of fact, applications for new homes have dropped off to the lowest level, I think in history.

So there's clearly a disconnect in the metrics in the market and what people are doing.

But again, this is also January, February.

Not a lot of real estate trades in January, February like we talked about the last show.

So I don't know what to make of it.

So rather than come to you, all the audience with headlines that are much ado about nothing said, and I thought we'd take a different approach tonight.

What approach is that?

We would talk about some of the headlines in real time.

We'll just pull the phones out, we'll talk about some things that we see and just have a conversation with you.

Like we're just Hanging around by the fire.

Yeah.

And definitely conversations that would, I guess, spark your interest and make you want to see what Chris's thoughts are on the matter.

The one that I actually wanted to start off with, that I put in the show notes.

I don't know if you saw any of them.

I did not.

Yeah, I saw that you put them in there.

But I thought, you know what?

Let's go with real visceral reactions.

Real visceral reactions.

Okay.

This one has been a hot topic for the greater portion of the last, I'd say, six months.

Mr.

Warren Buffett remains on the sidelines as cash pile continues to build.

When we did that show, probably about six, seven months ago, and we talked about how his company, Berkshire Hathaway, had stockpiled cash.

Everyone's like, bro, he always does this.

It's cyclical, man.

You don't know you're talking about.

And now he's got an unprecedented level of cash.

So I have some of these figures for everybody.

So what?

We'll start off by saying, no secret to anybody, he's one of the greatest investors of all time.

And if you doubt that, just stop talking to people about investing.

Yeah.

Okay.

There.

There is undoubtedly no way to position him anything but one of the greatest, if not the greatest investors of all time.

Right, Exactly.

Got a famous rule.

Rule number one.

When.

When it comes to investing, don't lose money.

I kind of like that rule.

That's a very good rule.

And then he's got.

He's actually got a second rule to that.

Rule number two.

Don't forget rule number one.

So it's Fight Club.

Yes.

Yeah, it's him.

Brad Pitt.

Yeah, exactly.

So the last time he even came close to piling on this much cash was in 2005.

Wow.

So are you trying to intimate that he maybe saw some of the metrics leading into what became the great financial crisis?

I'm not.

I don't think that that was the case, per se.

I very much think that him and his team over there at Berkshire Hathaway are constantly looking for good deals.

Right.

They want good buys, and if there's no good deals to be made, he won't jump in.

Let me call it that a little differently, because I think you're right.

But I think him and his team are very cautious about pulling your chips out when valuations are high.

I think they're probably looking at the market right now saying, okay, the market is overvalued now.

We've got more downside risk than upside risk in some of these stocks.

Let's sell out in cash, hold cash until we can find something that's got a viable entry point from a purchase perspective.

Absolutely.

And I think as he's sold out of those positions that he feels are more top of market than bottom of market and only downside risk or more downside risk than upside, he's probably saying to himself, I don't see an opportunity to buy right now and utilize this cash and put it to work.

So I'm going to put it into Treasuries.

I'm going to put it into something that gives me a decent yield near term while the market gives me an opportunity.

Why rush it?

And that just so happens to coincide with his strategy leading up to the great financial crisis.

Not because he predicted it, which he really didn't do, but because he was tracking metrics which should have predicted it.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

So the question that is going around is, should we all take this as a warning sign?

Because one other thing that him and his, his team did over there is they completely sold off of both of their S and P 500 ETFs.

I saw that.

And that's the part that has everybody talking.

That really rattled me.

I was driving into work and, you know, I used to be like listening to music on the way into work and kind of, you know.

Yeah, that just completely has changed for me.

I think we're old now.

That's what it is.

I think that's like the barometer for old.

Like once you drive into work and you're listening to like CNBC or a podcast.

Yeah, you're old.

I feel like even the young people, the young generation these days, they're listening to podcasts now too.

I feel that's got to be a dying, like, who's really rocking out to some Linkin Park?

Jay Z on the way to work now.

Damn, why you gotta go there, bro?

That's a.

It's a little.

Feels a little aggressive, right?

It is a little hard for 9:00am in the morning.

I mean, some people, 7:00am in the morning.

Yeah.

If you.

The sad part is, most of my music listening to these days, if I'm not working out, it's like rain sounds, like rainforest sounds, like birds chirping and like rain.

And I'm in my mind going, you're like, no.

You know, when you come to my office and I have, I have AirPods in.

So you're working out, you're listening to rain sounds.

No, I said, except for that time.

Oh, except I see.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm usually listening to Barbra Streisand when I work out.

No, Run the Jewels.

I do listen to Run the Jewels a lot.

Yeah, I'm a Run the Jewels guy.

Yeah.

Gotta love Killer Mike.

You have to.

He's gangster.

He's friends with Bernie.

Yeah, he knows.

He knows.

Yeah.

I think that that was very symbolic for me.

So I was driving into work and I hear this as a byproduct.

I listen to CNBC sometimes in the mornings, depending on how action filled the morning is or if I know that some reports coming out that I want to hear.

And I do a little podcast on financial literacy.

So I try to stay up to date.

But that was one of those headlines where he got out of Voo and some other, like, S&P 500 funds.

And I thought to myself, like, okay, so if he thinks that's overvalued, it's got more downside risk than upside risk.

Because really, that's as simple as his logic is.

It's not complex.

I'm thinking to myself, like, oh, my God, should I sell.

Sell down my position?

You know, like, should I get out?

And then I'm like, you know what?

For him, let him be intelligent.

I'll just dollar cost average my way through this.

There you go.

Whatever it is.

So when people are referencing that, they're sitting on the most cash they've ever sat on.

Okay, let's get into some of these figures.

They're sitting on over $334 billion in cash.

Or cash.

Or cash equivalents.

Yeah, Treasure, Exactly.

It's got 286.5 billion in UST bills.

Right.

And 44.3 billion in cash.

Yeah.

And just to be clear, it's not as simple as him just holding those in, like, one account.

Yeah.

They usually have some type of interest rate risk policy.

They have a liquidity policy.

They're hedging for inflation.

Not necessarily by hedging for, like, the valuation of currency, but they're hedging for interest rate risk and duration of the assets.

They're timing things out and shorter and longer duration.

So they have money timing tied up for longer earning more, but tied up for shorter earning a little bit less.

And the average duration on both gives them an average yield, which is better for the market.

So there's a lot of liquidity management strategy in that.

It's not as simple as that, but the market goes, oh, my God, he's dragging 300 something million dollars in cash.

And to me, it's very telling.

And I do worry that like we talked about in the previous show, there is an asset bubble.

I can't tell you what it is, but there's clearly bubbles that are out there.

And now I think more than ever, you're starting to see the cracks, whereas before you didn' the housing market.

I mean, if interest rates went down 50 basis points, granted, it's a lagging indicator, so time could tell, but if you're at historic low applications for new mortgages, that's telling.

And then I go, okay, well, wait a minute, what else is going on?

And I'm like, well, the crypto world's been a little on Fire lately.

79,000.

Yeah.

Bitcoin went from above 100,000 down to below 80,000.

Again, that's a big swing.

And I have yet to see a clear and concise explanation for, for why that value switch.

Oh, did you see the.

The statement by the SEC today?

No, I did not.

Oh, let me, let me drag this up.

Okay, Drag this up, because I also wanted to.

To wrap up our conversation about Mr.

Warren Buffett.

The Mr.

Warren Buffett?

You, sir.

The Mr.

Warren Buffett.

Yeah.

Another notable point that has been made around this entire topic for them is that in the last quarter, in Q4 of last year and Q1 of this year, they didn't buy back any Class A or Class B stock as well.

So what does that mean as far as their position in holding their cash?

What is what, what kind of signal is that sending if they're not.

If they haven't bought back any of their own stock with the cash that they held onto?

First of all, their stock price is high, so they don't really need to take more of their stock off the market to improve valuations.

Typically when companies do that, they're trying to signal the strength in their position and trying to increase the value of their underlying stock.

And they're redeploying their retained earnings and capital into buying stock back, saying that we're confident in what we're doing here, and that's a really good benefit.

It tells the market you believe in you.

Right.

But if you're in his position, number one, your stock price is already high.

It's one of the highest stock prices out there.

You're also saying, you know what?

I'm going to redeploy this money into something and there's an opportunity coming.

That's what he's effectively saying.

If I buy this, my stock back.

Yeah, all well and good, but I'm also missing out on upside potential, on opportunities that I could be buying into.

And there's really no, no need to continue to price people out of a stock that is very, very, very expensive.

All right, so the SEC made a comment about meme coins particularly, but I think it's very telling.

This is from the Kobisi letter, which you all know that I follow.

So I'm going to read some one, one statement in this paragraph, but it was a statement on meme coins.

Meme coins also typically have limited or no use or functionality.

Just knife right in the heart of the crypto.

Bros.

Slap them.

What?

No meaning no.

I mean, this is like Warren Buffett wrote this.

I know, but what was interesting was the next paragraph.

And I'm going to read this.

It's a short paragraph in its.

It is the division's view that transactions in the types of meme coins described in this statement do not invol the offer and sale of securities under the federal securities law.

As such, persons who participate in the offer and sale of meme coins do not need to register their transactions with the Commission, that being the securities Exchange Commission, the SEC under the securities act of 1933, the securities act, or fall within one of the securities Act's exemptions from registration.

Accordingly, neither meme coin purchasers nor holders are protected by the federal securities law.

Wow.

So they're basically saying a couple really important things, but they're saying it somewhat tongue in cheek.

Number one, they're saying meme coins have limited or no real functionality or utility.

Like, it's cute.

You guys want to buy, I don't know, some emoji coin, knock yourself out.

Right?

But they're also not saying that it's illegal.

They're not saying that it's illegal.

They're not saying.

They're put a stop to it.

Matter of fact, what they're saying in the second paragraph is this doesn't fall under our purview under sec.

It's not a security, not my problem, not our problem.

We are not going to regulate this.

And oh, by the way, if you have a grievance for how you're treated, the SEC ain't going to protect you because this is not a security.

This is something that has no utility.

Exactly.

So, and this is specifically to meme Coins.

I mean, it's not necessarily like you.

Buying like cash and, or some kind of token in a game, an app game.

So to be clear, this is not Ethereum, this is not Bitcoin, but this is all those, like, tertiary ones that start off like a couple cents and like, it'll Go to the moon, bro.

But the haktua ones.

Yeah, Those are meme coins.

Yeah.

Ha.

Wow.

Yeah, I.

I was stunned that people still fell for the rug pull on the crypto thing.

Yeah.

Like, I don't.

I don't want to be the.

The guy.

Okay, but you got to be the guy right now.

Okay, I'm going to be the guy.

And this is not a knock against cryptocurrency.

I'm just saying, if Warren Buffett came out with a cryptocurrency, I'd be like, okay, Warren Buffett's a guy I kind of respect and admire.

Right.

If any investor deserves their face to be on a coin, yeah, he should.

Be the new Abraham Lincoln.

That's all I'm saying.

They're getting rid of the penny with.

A cheeseburger and a Coke.

Have to.

You got to do that.

But for America, if the hock to.

A girl comes out saying she's going to have a crypto coin.

Did.

Did anybody think that that wasn't going to be a rug pull?

That's the thing.

They don't know what's going to.

It's.

They're all buying on the hype, on the potential of the hype.

So the whole idea was, let's buy it and then sell it quickly, but we'll try to get out before it drops.

So I've.

I've spoken to a couple people that have invested in these meme coins.

That's a lie.

I swear to God, you don't know a single damn person.

I know.

I do.

I do, and I'll tell you them.

I'll tell you who they are right at the.

No, I want to know now.

On the show.

They deserve a call out.

No.

So, Xena.

No, no, no, no.

Weiss.

No, no, no.

Who did it?

Actually, I think Weiss, maybe in the past.

Doge.

I.

Doge, too.

No knock on that.

Yeah, but it's hard not to.

You got Elon, like, repping it, right?

I had it way before the Elon days.

Yeah.

Way before.

That was just the added benefit when Elon jumped on.

Oh, when he jumped on, I already sold out.

And I was like, this is why I sold out, bro.

This is why.

I saw that.

I knew you were going to make.

It overhyped, though, but the thought I asked, so I was like, I know.

I know who.

I know you.

I know that you've made smart investments in the past.

I know that you've done pretty well for yourself.

Why are you doing this?

This is.

This is the exact conversation it's like gambling.

I'm like, you literally know better than this.

Why?

He's like, listen, I know, man.

I'm not saying it makes up my entire portfolio.

I am spreading it out on all.

It's like treating it as a speculative investment.

I just need one of them to hit.

I know real estate investors that have that mindset about buying random properties.

It's like, I'm okay with losing a couple grand here, a couple grand here, come here.

But if one of them hit, then I'm set.

I'm like, I guess.

But really?

Yeah.

I know a lot of people who take that same methodology, apply it to their investment of choice.

Real estate investors do this all the time.

They'll buy like a piece of land in the middle of nowhere and they'll be like, but they build a town around it.

Well, we, you, you told us a story once on the show where the, that's been.

Some of the biggest gains that some of these real estate investors have had are on those speculative investments.

That's 100 accurate.

Dude.

I could not have called the real estate that I bought in Oklahoma turning up in value so much.

I bought in a suburb of Oklahoma City back in the day.

So what the thought process when you did choose to invest is all I could afford.

And I knew the area.

I had no idea that you had family close by, had family lived there.

I had no idea that then the Oklahoma Thunder was going to have their teams in this like, high up, upscale neighborhood directly across the road from my properties, you know, And I had no idea that that whole small suburb was gonna wind up being like an extension of Oklahoma City proper.

And that's really what it is.

I mean, you're just in like an outlying part of Oklahoma City now.

And it's, it was a huge transformation.

I could have never in a million years pre it, but the returns were great.

I doubled my value on some of these things.

Yeah.

Which is very uncommon in Midwest, by the way.

Right.

So, I mean, I'm not, I don't know, I, I, I don't necessarily believe in that philosophy.

I'd rather be, you know, I'd rather be lucky than right in some circumstances.

But, man, I don't know that meme coins are the way to go.

I mean, the similar, similar thought.

This one, I mean, wasn't an investment for me, but just me buying my house when I did, why I did, I just did it for the utility aspect of it and it worked out.

That's why we always say on the show not to just Sit around the sidelines.

You need to get started right.

In learning, doing something.

If you want to get in, start investing in real estate.

Find the right deal for yourself and who knows, you don't know what that could turn into.

So actually, good, good.

Sidebar.

So we are building a new studio space.

Right.

And I should be honest with listeners, we have stopped having guests on for a little while just so that we can, we can kind of figure out things.

Plus we record really late at night, you know, 9 to 12.

But I think when the new studio is done, we should, we should start opening up interviews again.

Absolutely.

And doing that.

And I want to take a bit of a different tact.

I've been thinking this through a lot.

A lot.

Rod McDermott from McDermott and Bull.

He's a, he's a recruiter.

He wants to come on.

I mean, if you're listening to the show and you're thinking about changing jobs, like, his perspective on that would be pretty amazing.

Absolutely.

And I think now more so than ever you have people looking to maybe jump ship or you know, look into new industries.

Yeah.

Plus he can give you some perspective on the industries that he's seeing, which I think is interesting.

He, plus he's doing some social media work himself now, which is really cool to see somebody who's an executive at a company they built embracing social media as a new marketing media and a new strategy that leaders take.

The old perspective was that leaders just weren't on these things.

And it's kind of cool to see that.

I want to get like a real estate broker in here that works in like commercial real estate, like multifamily.

I want to get, I want to get some bankers in here.

Like I want to talk to some people, not, not anybody who's like famous on a title perspective, you know, like, oh, this guy, you know them.

I want to talk to everyday people who for a living does something and I want to talk about what they do.

Yeah.

Especially if someone that we know in the business that it helps because it's almost like we know that this person knows, knows the business.

Oh, did you see that?

Baller buses going after Patrick by David.

Now stop it.

Yeah.

Basically saying that his PHP people helping people agency is really a multi level marketing scheme.

Oh, the one where you get to, you buy in like on a per minute basis, you pay versus.

No, that's Minecraft.

That's his social media app, which I took, I took a look at.

I was going to register for it, but all the top people in it are are like his people.

Oh, Minec.

That's a good name.

Yeah.

Connect by the minute.

Yeah.

Oh, I didn't, didn't put that together until just now.

Look at, look at you.

Cerebral.

No, they were criticizing his insurance agency and the way he does business and they have like video inside his company and how they rally people together.

It's very like sales heavy.

And you know, back in the day.

Those insurance agencies, I mean, that's, that was the name of the game.

No, that's what he's doing now.

That's what he's doing now.

And he did an interview with Coffeezilla where Coffee Zilla pretty much called him out and he did like this really weird answer.

I, I, look, you can't deny that he's successful and, you know, financially did quite well.

He's really good, he's really good at selling himself, that's for sure.

Yeah.

So I haven't fully broken on the criticism and I haven't really looked into it, but it's, it's getting to a point where it's hard to really know who to trust, man.

You know, everybody is putting on this, this show of affluence or success, and it's just so weird how it's manipulated.

Yeah.

But speaking of affluence and success, that was a segue.

This is a segue that wasn't intentional, but go for it.

Since the show already got flagged.

Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah.

Mr.

Trump, President Donald Trump to you, sir.

Yeah.

Has proposed a gold card.

Oh, my God.

A gold card.

Visa comes with a hidden tax break for the wealthy.

President Donald Trump's proposed $5 million gold card for US residency would be one of the most expensive in the world, according to experts.

Okay, is this an alternative, like a green card is what you're saying?

So essentially what this does, it allows wealthy individuals to pay $5 million for a green card.

He's calling it the gold card.

Okay.

So you can pay $5 million and be a U.S.

citizen.

Yeah.

You get a green card.

Yeah.

So now the way he pitched it.

Okay.

And you'll find out why I'm bringing it up on the show.

Okay.

Okay.

We're just gonna tie it into what we do on the show, right?

Sure.

But why he's pinching it is we get a lot of foreign exchange students that come here and they go to these, you know, big time schools like Wharton or Yale and whatnot.

And they don't have the means of staying here because they're foreign students and they, they go back.

Well, It'll allow companies to pay for their $5 million visa and they'll use that money to pay down government debt.

That's one thing.

Is a company really going to pay $5 million for a student?

Wild.

Right?

The fact that he said that, I'm like, bro, who are you lying to?

What's the return on investment?

Who are you, who are you lying to?

Now this is, this is where, this is where we really figure out what's going on.

Okay.

He's saying wealthy individuals from other countries that will make sure we vet out are good, that can be good citizens can pay the $5 million and we'll use as that.

And what it'll do, it'll create jobs for people, right?

And they'll be earning money here and they'll be paying tax dollars and we'll just generate more tax revenue.

Here's.

Here's the thing.

Oh, no.

Before, before we get into this whole thing.

Okay.

This already exists in a number of different countries.

Portugal, Spain, Greece, Italy, Austria, Ireland, Sweden, New Zealand.

Common theme here.

A lot of these nations are massive.

Are.

Are essentially having failing economies and have high unemployment rates.

Okay, well, I mean, just think of the logistics here.

If someone has the financial wherewithal to pay $5 million for themselves, their family member, to come to the United States and become a citizen, an elite class, right?

That person isn't going to go work at Starbucks.

No, they're not.

And what are we really saying?

We're not gonna.

We don't want to get too into the weeds about like, what is, what being a citizen of the, of the country should mean, and you should have an obligation to your country and yada, yada, yada.

Okay, we're not gonna get into that.

I get that.

But these are also ultra high net worth people who are probably gonna wind up paying the least amount of taxes in the United States.

I'll give you a great example.

Well, they're going to be using the United States as a tax haven.

Okay.

Yeah.

So great example.

Okay.

I had a client years and years and years ago, okay.

They bought that old Jerry's Deli in Westwood.

Oh, okay.

Remember when that used to be a big pop in place?

Yeah.

And it was a Chinese person.

And he bought the Jerry's Deli.

And when I asked why, he said, oh, I want to be able to have the income from Jerry's Deli go to pay my son who's going to school at ucla.

That was his spending money.

Yeah.

And I was like, wait, what?

So they bought the Jerry's Deli.

Right.

They no, no loan.

It was cash.

And then they started funneling him money, but he didn't care about how it ran.

Right.

Because the.

I think there's already a current program that exists called EB5.

Right.

Where Trump's already targeting EB5 to shut it down now.

To shut it down.

Is going to propose this.

Now, for those of you don't know, you could pay to get an expedited.

Visa process, but it requires you to invest a certain dollar amount, like 500,000.

There are investment minimums requirements.

Is really popular in some countries, like China, for example.

These EB5 programs would go to build something here in the United States, usually a property or something that would create jobs.

So a lot of banks or lenders would take in EB5 money because it would sit in cash in their accounts for a prolonged period of time while this project was getting built and off the ground.

So first they would aggregate funds and build and build and build and build and they would start deploying funds into whatever their project was, but those funds would stay with the financial institution.

So it was really great for liquidity in the system, the banking system.

But was it really.

And people were really effectively buying citizenship, though.

Now, how does this tie into our show?

I do tell.

How is.

How is home affordability these days, Christopher?

It is not good, matter of fact, it.

It is not arguably, but it is factually the worst it's ever been.

Factually, yeah.

Right.

The worst it has ever been, you say?

Yeah, in history.

Okay.

So in Los Angeles alone, 5 to 10% of the real estate is owned by foreign nationals.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

And in some pockets, it's actually closer to 10 to 15%.

Yeah.

In New York City, 10 to 15% owned by foreign nationals.

Believe that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

In Miami, closer to 20 to 25%.

Ooh, that's what I would have guessed.

Yeah.

20 to 25%.

Now what do you think is going to happen when you have these elite class members paying $5 million using the US as a tax haven?

Where do you think they're going to invest their money to clean up their money that we have no idea how they're laundering wherever they're from?

Well, I'll keep in mind there's bsa, AML policies, Bank Secrecy Act, Anti Money Laundering Act.

No, I get that.

But there's, there's, they're gonna, they're going to find their own ways.

Right.

You're fooling yourself.

You think that this is going to create jobs or create tax Revenue for the ultra high net worth.

Individuals that can afford to do this are going to have really good tax attorneys.

They're going to have really good financial advice on how to avoid tax liability.

$5 million for a green card.

What do you think?

What do you think they're going to.

Who do you think they're going to hire?

Of course, they're not the best of the best.

Generally speaking, they're not coming here to work, they're coming here to holiday.

Yeah, there you go.

To holiday.

Yeah.

They're gonna, they're gonna stay working whatever country built them that net worth.

Because if you have a business or a family business or just money in China or Brazil, right, and you're coming to the US and you're gonna start deploying money here.

Yeah.

You might diversify your investments, you might have a nice place here, but are you going to abandon what created all that wealth for you in that foreign country?

Probably not.

Probably not?

Probably not, no.

Although this.

There's.

So I ran across an article earlier tonight.

It wasn't an article, but it was.

It was a post on LinkedIn, and it was an IRS employee who's a senior leader in the IRS looking for a new job.

He hasn't lost his job yet, but he fully anticipates that with mass layoffs coming to the irs, that he's going to be impacted.

And then I thought to myself, you know, there.

Is that the right thing to do.

He's basically announced publicly that me, a currently employed person, has a high probability of being laid off.

So I'm open to networking, and if you know anybody who's looking to hire somebody with my skill set, let me know.

On one hand, I'm like, okay, that's, that's too open and out there.

But on the other hand, it's very telling because he doesn't fear retaliation because he thinks he's gone anyway.

But it's, it's hard to see.

Yeah, what is that, Is that, is that frown?

Is that frowned upon?

If you're on.

You're currently employed by an employer and you have a LinkedIn account, you have that open to network.

That's kind of like everyone, everyone at the office looking at you like, dang, bro, you know that?

Open with it.

So we've got into this weird inflection point that nobody ever talks about when it comes to social media.

You can try to hide your social media account or make it private.

No.

But you eventually make work friends.

Those work friends eventually see things.

I'll give you a great Example at a former company a long time ago, I was as the company sued by an employee for what she said was a work related repetitive stress injury which limited her mobility.

She had a hard time walking, but her private social media account had videos of her dancing and she had befriended many people in the work environment.

Can't do that.

And some of those people shared it with HR because they knew about the lawsuit and they're like, well, I'm not gonna let her get paid.

These are people I'm sure she perceived to be her friends or colleagues.

But, you know, right is right and wrong is wrong.

You can have social media and try to button it up and make sure that nobody sees it.

People are going to see it, people are going to share it.

The Internet doesn't forget.

So this whole concept of in construct of I can move in silence.

You really can.

No, you can't move in silence.

No.

But what you can do is you can be intellectually honest with yourself.

Can you have an open and networking stuff like that?

Yeah, I guess so.

Can you apply to jobs on LinkedIn?

Sure, sure.

The other problem too, and I, I'm going to call LinkedIn out for this.

I don't know how many people have ever looked for a job on LinkedIn.

I don't believe that all those are real jobs.

Oh, the ghost, the ghost postings.

Not even the ghost postings.

I think that some people are like, you know what, we want to hire Billy, he's our guy.

But we got an internal hiring policy saying we got to interview three people.

Yeah, well, you know, that's going on.

Right.

So because it's good, it's good for business to promote within.

Right.

You have to promote within.

It's hard for multiple reasons.

It's also hard to argue that the, it's financially viable to train somebody new, bring them into your organization.

Are they going to be cultural fit or not?

When you got Billy over here, everybody likes Billy Bill, he's been here for a long time.

He might be the most qualified person in the world, but he fits.

Yes.

You know, and then I also look at some of those jobs are straight marketing tricks to get you to apply to them just so they can offer you some nonsensical like, you know, sales course or something like that.

I mean, I don't know a single person, not one has ever told me, I've applied for a job on LinkedIn via job board and I got a job from that job.

Plenty of people have told me, oh, I got connections on LinkedIn.

I reached out to them.

They connected me with somebody in their network, and because of their referral, I got a job.

Yeah, that's the way I've seen people get jobs.

This whole, like, LinkedIn world, the job.

Postings thing, it seems like.

Yeah, you got to have a referral to get your foot in the door.

Is that.

I mean, not.

Not always.

Not always, obviously.

But our company has hired people from LinkedIn that have applied.

And I mean, I can say that we've done that, but outside of.

Outside of what I know that we've done, I don't know very many people personally that ever gotten hired off of a LinkedIn job posting.

Yeah.

Maybe I'm just being cynical or something, but, you know.

Yeah.

Geez.

What the dark.

You're being gay.

You're cynical, bro.

Yeah.

I'm just saying, calling it what it is, I think that like, like the.

Remember the people still use monster.com and like, all those, like, websites.

I don't think monster, but the ZipRecruiter or indeed is big.

Okay.

Like those.

I don't think that I've ever hired anybody from those.

Those places.

It really comes down to who you know, which sadly, even if your kid.

Especially as you continue to grow in your career.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The more.

And the weird part is, is you don't cognitively know that, like, there isn't a part of your life where you get to.

When you're like, you know what?

I'm the kind of guy who calls somebody wanting to get a job.

You know, you don't.

You don't figure that out.

You pass checkpoint.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's not like a.

Like a roadmap where you're like, you know what?

I'm above this.

I don't need a.

Need to look for job postings.

Yeah.

It's.

We're all humans, man.

Yeah.

I know some pretty high profile people are like, damn it, nobody will hire me.

Yeah.

And it's like, should somebody be hiring you?

Is that what we.

Just to be clear, I didn't.

I didn't know that was the thing.

Yeah.

You know, but that's just the way it works.

All right, let's see.

I actually had another article here that we can get into.

Is.

Okay.

We talk a lot about inflation on the show.

Right.

What do we know about tariffs?

What do they do?

They're inflationary.

Tariffs are inflationary.

The US Citizen winds up being passed along the cost.

Mm.

So despite the popular rhetoric of the idea that, ooh, we're gonna put tariffs on China, China's Gonna pay tariffs.

China does not pay tariffs.

Mm.

You pay the tariffs to get your stuff from China.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

But Trump has basically said, from what I.

I've been following this pretty closely.

Mm.

He pretty much said, hold on, everybody.

Buckle up, America.

Tariffs coming next month.

About to come next month.

Yeah.

So they've already imposed a 10% tariff on China.

Yeah, that's already happened.

Which came with a lot of fanfare and a lot of delayed shipping.

It really changed the dynamic.

And just.

Just to be clear, the delayed shipping was so they could reprice you.

Absolutely.

Because, yeah.

If it cost them more.

More money, they have to pay more taxes on it.

That.

What are they going to do?

They're not going to allow their profits to shrink.

They're going to increase, you know, the cost.

Yeah.

That ultimately gets passed on to you.

My wife routinely orders off of Alibaba, which freaks me out because I get these weird packages all bundled, all super weird from China.

But there was like a week long period where, like, no packages showed up.

And I was like, oh, my God.

Like, we've hit it.

We've hit a corrective point.

We're not going to buy nonsense from China.

Nope.

No, no.

That was an overstatement.

Got delayed.

It was just delayed because the tariffs.

So she's upset, though.

Why are my packages being delayed?

Yeah, we had the conversation, and I'm like, ah, so you did order more stuff.

And she's like, yeah, we needed.

We needed some place for our dishes to dry.

I'm like, what?

What?

What?

Yeah.

So the tariffs on Mexico and Canada are back on.

All right, those are supposed.

What do we really get from Canada?

All right, so here we go.

I.

I got that for you here.

The three biggest imports that we have from Canada.

Bad slang.

All right, Broski.

So they say we get energy from Canada.

They say we get machinery and lumber from Canada.

Lumber, I buy.

Everything else is shenanigans.

Mexico.

We get a lot of stuff from Mexico.

Mexico's cars, fruits, vegetables.

Yeah.

So we.

A lot of the fruits and vegetables come from Mexico.

So, I mean, that 25 tariff on Mexico and Canada, that's set to start, let's see, on March 4th.

You thought your eggs were pricey.

Just wait till you try to buy a cantaloupe.

It's about to get real.

Yeah.

And look, it's a real thing.

I used to know a guy who imported fruit from Mexico, and I don't know how I got in this business.

It was a strange business, but he would basically import fruit.

It would come into the harbors on these big containers, get them there, and he would distribute them to grocery stores.

One of my first jobs was importing and exporting from Germany.

What?

Yeah.

One of your first jobs?

One of my first jobs in caught while in college.

What were you importing?

Exporting from Germany?

No, we were there with the company, the shipping company that would schedule the containers for people.

You do this as a job?

I did this as a job, yeah.

Huh.

Yeah.

Out of Long beach at the harbor.

I was in the office.

I'm not.

I wasn't down on the.

So you were a longshoreman?

I wasn't on the ports, bro, but it was.

I didn't appreciate it back then for what it was.

There was a lot of money to be made.

Yeah, why don't you stick in that business?

Why are we even in podcasts right now?

Right, but import export makes good money, friend.

That does that does.

That does quite well for herself.

Although she imports the weirdest tchotchkes and then just list them on Amazon.

And sometimes I wonder if she's really making money doing it or not.

I feel like it's just one of those things where you put your money into a product, you list it and you make incrementally more, but you just have like this cycle of cash that's coming back at you.

I don't know.

So I was in the gym today.

Yeah, I'm taking all over the place tonight.

I apologize.

No, don't.

And there's these two younger kids in front of me, and they're on this ab machine that I really wanted to be on.

And I'm on an ab machine which faces them and I'm just waiting for them to finish, right?

And I'm doing my.

My crunches.

And the guy was like, bro, I found this way to get.

Make so much money, man.

And the guy was like, oh, dude, tell me, bro.

Like how.

And he goes, e comm.

No.

And he has like this full conversation about how.

How he's going to sell courses on E comm and make millions.

And he was so dead set on like, this is.

This is.

This is the way.

This is the way.

This is how you do it.

The other guy was like, oh, really?

Yeah.

He's like, oh, I know this guy.

I know that guy.

And he makes all this money and we can do it too.

Check it out, bro.

If we have it listed at x dollar amount, all I need is 100 people to buy the course.

So the guy goes, hey, man, I know you know all these people, but you haven't done it.

He's like, that's the beauty in it.

I don't have to do it.

I can teach you guys how to do it.

And the guy was like, oh.

I thought to myself, like, I can never come to the gym at this time again.

No, no, never.

I can't do it.

Never.

I can't.

I can't be.

I can't be in this guy's vicinity without wanting to slap somebody.

It's just, if you're gonna put all that work in, like, why don't you just build something?

Yeah.

You know, like, why don't you build some type of experience?

Nobody wants to do the experience, though, right?

They don't put the time in.

They're gonna need to.

I mean, we.

We were having.

Right.

Now, this next article that I had up here is one of the dual mandates by the Fed is maximum employment.

And what we're seeing is.

Yeah, Doge is offering severance packages ahead of time to government employees.

I know a number of government employees that I did not expect.

That took that.

That took that.

Right.

Big Tech is already offering severance packages to some of their staff.

And that's what from a lot of people who I know that are in that industry.

How they're looking at that as a.

More layoffs are coming.

We're just letting you guys know we're offering the severance packages up front in case anybody wants to take it.

And if nobody takes it, can I.

Can I.

Can I just call this what it is?

Yeah, please.

So as.

As a guy who has led reductions in force, and it was honestly one of the most mentally traumatizing things I've ever had to do.

I remember seeing you go through it in real time.

It was absolutely sucked.

You're not fun to be around.

Am I ever really fun to be around?

Yeah, man.

When the show was explicit.

Now, now, now it's like, yeah, he's always frustrated.

He wants to punch people in the groin.

I've done them.

I've.

I've worked with the mechanics of them.

I don't see the difference other than the narrative here.

So let me give you.

Let me walk through, right?

What do you mean, the difference?

So if I say, hey, Saeed, you are going to be unemployed.

Here's your severance package.

It's eight weeks, right?

Or I say, hey, Saeed, you can be unemployed.

I'll give you a severance package of eight weeks.

Other than the narrative, it's the same end result, let's be clear.

Giving somebody the choice to be but.

You don't think that it's.

It, there's a.

There's hope where if enough employees take it, maybe we won't need.

Oh, I'm sure there's psychological impacts one way or the other and none of them are good.

And I guess you're scaring your cultural workforce.

Yeah, exactly.

And this way people have the opportunity to feel better, like, oh, look, they try to do the right thing.

Are they really?

Yeah.

Are they really?

Yeah, they're basically so.

If you recall from Last week's episode 270, Jamie Dimon in his rant said that he could do the most jobs in the company with 10 less workforce, people trying to build their kingdoms.

That's what he's.

That's what he says he like can tip his hat to.

Right.

Or that's what he's really good at.

Efficiency.

Yeah, I can make any company more efficient.

Yeah, efficiency.

So if you kind of follow that logic out, they're basically saying like, hey, if you're not a top performer and you know it.

Yeah.

What company was that that Elon sent.

That email to you talking about this?

I didn't see it.

I was waiting for.

Let me find this.

So I guess my point on this whole thing is I know that it sounds like a.

It sounds like a kinder version of a reduction in force, but it's tantamount effectively to the same thing.

You're just changing the way the delivery goes down.

And unlike a reduction in forest, where they typically plan it, they know the economics.

They're going into the economics blind because they don't know how many people are going to accept it.

So in my mind, it doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to ultimately have reduction force anyway.

It just means you can point to that and say, hey, look there.

And then this is where it becomes really interesting is let's say you do this offer to voluntarily self select and let's say you offer somebody six months of pay.

If you ultimately have a reduction in force and they're involuntary terminations, are you gonna pay them less than six months?

Just say, hey man, you didn't self select, but we're gonna let you go.

And now you get four.

Like that's a bad message, dude.

That's a really bad.

Right.

Yeah, you're gonna hate yourself.

This is Beast games.

This is not good.

This is literally.

You're playing Beast games.

I think the only way you can.

He planted this seed.

I blame Mr.

Beast for all of this.

I mean, I blame Squid games, but fine, you I can't believe you still.

Haven'T watched the show.

It's.

It's impeccable, dude.

I'm not watching a single thing you recommend to me until you go watch.

I promise I will watch Loki if you watch this.

It is so good.

Yeah, you go first.

You're years behind.

I am years behind.

Yeah, you go first.

It's true.

All right, so what happened was your boy Elon.

Your boy Elon.

I haven't bought a Tesla.

You have.

I have.

Yeah.

Sent federal workers an email asking them to list five things that they did last week.

Him directly.

First of all, Elon Musk emailed me.

It was Doge.

Oh, see?

Way cool.

If it came from Elon, right?

I respond back, I bought a Tesla.

I got solar from my house from Tesla.

I got satellite connection, and I subscribed to X.

Yeah, that's what I did.

That's what I did.

That's what I did last week.

Starlink, X, Tesla.

Right.

I signed up for all of them.

That's what I did.

And I got some solar panels while I was at it.

All from your companies.

Right.

That's what I did for the community last week.

What'd you do, Elon?

Yeah.

So the emails were sent out saying, what did you do last week?

So a lot of people freaked out.

Well, who's reading all the responses?

Okay, that's.

That's a good question.

All right, they have AI run through it.

Which one of these responses should I fire?

So, Pember.

Hey, he put Lex.

Lex Friedman.

Yeah, Friedman.

I need you to build something and figure out if this is BS or not.

They just ran it through it through X's AI.

Right.

Hey, Grok, do me a favor.

Read these responses and tell me which One of the 10% of these people should go.

So everybody freaked out.

Yeah, I went to.

It's a weird email to get, man.

People didn't know what to do.

So they're like, you know, you know what I'm doing.

I'm just not going to respond.

All right?

So they sent another email, doubling down.

If you do not respond to this, you will be fired.

Damn.

This guy does not mess around.

Okay, so these employees were forced to respond what they did.

Look, I get it.

People are still holding out, not responding.

Why would you play a game of chicken with somebody like him?

So more than one.

He brought a sink into X when he bought it.

Okay?

He spent 44 billion, whatever it was, to buy a company which chronically makes fun of him.

I don't think you should play a Game of chicken with Elon Musk.

It's a bad move.

Make something up.

Use his own AI to come up with a response and send it to him.

Get creative.

Yeah, I think you'd appreciate the creativity.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's, that's what's going on over there.

I don't know.

And so here's the thing.

They've.

So there's their website, Doja's website.

Right?

They have a website or whatever government media page.

Yeah, whatever government website that is reporting how much money they've saved so far.

There's some, there's some real.

How can I say this without fuzzy?

Yeah, yeah, there's, yeah, there's some.

They're messing around a little bit with the numbers are finessing.

I think that the younger generations calls it getting finessed.

Okay.

It said that there's this thing going around to make people happy about what they're doing, putting a positive spin on it.

You know, we're thinking about giving 20% of the savings back to taxpayers.

All right, so five thousand dollar stimmy.

Right, which would essentially.

Yeah, let me tell you right now.

Don't get your hopes up.

Forget about it.

It's never gonna happen.

Okay?

No, that's gonna make inflation 10 times worse.

It would, it would be, it would.

Be, it would be inflationary.

It'll be inflationary.

But look, they would need to hit their two trillion dollar savings mark, right?

As of right now, they're in, they're at 50 according to their number.

Why don't you keep the money and cut our taxes?

Why not do that?

Right?

But as of right now, they're at 50 some billion, okay, that's being wildly misreported.

There's somebody found, somebody found a mistake where they accounted for an $8 billion savings when it was 8 million and they just never corrected it.

They still, to this day, they're still accounting for the 55 billion on the website.

Another time it was like 600, 600 million or something like that that they saved and they tripled it and they never corrected it on the, on the website that they still have saved 55 billion.

You're like, come on guys, I gotta.

Be the guy that says this, please.

Doesn't sound very efficient.

Wait, you can't do simple accounting if.

You guys are messing up the accounting on the, on the savings.

Yeah, how am I gonna get the.

A vote of confidence in what you're doing to save us money?

So it's a hard sell.

So, okay, you want, you want, you might critique of this yes.

And look, I will be the first to admit I like Elon Musk.

So this is going to sound like I'm attacking him.

I'm not.

I'm not.

I just don't think that a guy who is so clearly looking at humans as a commodity.

I don't know Elon Musk.

I can't speak to what his personal mindset is when it comes to family in life work balance, but I'm guessing he doesn't have a lot of life work balance.

I agree.

And I'm guessing that people are useful to him as long as they're working really hard and putting in a ton of hours.

And when they're not, he's probably like, eh, I can replace you now.

Okay.

And Bezos is Bezos.

He's known for the type of demeanor, right?

Really easy.

Yeah, yeah.

He's.

He's very cutthroat.

Very cutthroat.

I mean, a lot of billionaires are like this, right?

They expect their employees to work and work a lot.

Okay, fine.

That's corporate America.

You know, all good life work balance is different for everybody.

But is that really the guy you want, like, trying to drive efficiency?

Because there's an inflection point of what's efficient and what's crazy.

And I don't know that someone gets to be a billionaire at any point in time unless they inherit it without being a little crazy.

And you can look at Elon and say, look, dude, like, that guy is a smart guy, right?

I mean, he's not really technically an engineer.

He's not really technically, like, you know, a medical doctor.

He's got opinions on all these things because he's a hyper intelligent dude.

Mm.

But he's clearly a little crazy.

Yeah, right.

He's taking some crazy risks.

They've paid off.

He said he's the world's richest man.

He's done quite well for himself.

I'm not knocking him.

I could probably learn a lot from the lessons that he carries in his life.

But that being said, I want to spend time with my son.

Clearly he does, too.

Takes his kid with him everywhere, which I respect immensely.

Yeah, but then I hear who.

Elon.

Elon takes his kid everywhere.

He doesn't have.

Just have one kid, though.

No, I know, but his son's, like, with him all the time.

All of his kids.

Not all of his kids, but he.

He's routinely seen in pictures with his kids in the White House with his son, you know?

Although you see that where his son, like, picked his nose and wiped on the desk.

And the next week, Trump had a new desk.

I did not see.

Yeah.

So it was in the Oval Office.

No, they didn't.

That desk is.

No, they took another old, like, desk from the White House and swapped it.

You're lying.

No, I swapped.

There's literally a picture of, like, the desk he was having the day that the kid was there.

White.

But did a national treasure uncover that has all these secret compartments?

How can you just replace that?

Not sure.

National treasure is a good repository for history.

Sorry, sorry.

I'm sorry.

That's.

That's what?

I might not be accurate.

It might not be.

Got it?

Yeah, I got it.

But then I hear about him getting rid of like 7,000 IRS workers, and I'm like, all right, that sounds like a lot.

Who's going to do the work?

And then I'm like, they just hired.

87,000, you know, just tired of getting audited.

So he's basically cutting less than 10%.

Yeah.

I don't know.

And then, like, I guess he lost.

Have you heard about usaid?

Usaid?

No, what about it?

So USAID is really.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know how to.

So the Supreme Court's ruled against him that he can't just cut off funding to usaid.

USAID sounds, like, helpful, right?

Sounds like it's helping a lot of people.

We're aiding people.

We're the U.S.

yeah.

And we're aiding you.

We're aiding the people of the U.S.

It'S a program and there's a lot of money that goes into this program.

But USAID is effectively, and I'm going to water this down, they're pretty much doing all the work the CIA can't justify doing on their own vis a vis usaid.

Oh, like that.

Okay.

Like they're extorting people.

Like it's corrupt.

Okay.

Like top tier level corrupt.

And he, you know, fun Trump tried to cut their funding.

Okay.

The Supreme Court said you can't do that.

So they, they still get some funding.

That's yet to be determined what this is going to look like, but it's a pretty messed up organization, man.

And there are some people who do some legitimate good work there, but there's also some really nefarious things that happen.

Vis a vision usa and a lot of US money is funneled into this agency.

That sounds like it's doing good.

Just like the Inflation Reduction act sounded like it was doing good.

Except nothing in the Inflation Reduction act actually worked to reduce inflation near term.

So I Don't really.

I don't understand how Doge is getting away with being able to control who gets funding and who doesn't when this is really Congress's job.

He's just removing Congress's responsibilities from them.

Executive, legislative, and judicial.

Right?

Yeah.

There are supposed to be checks and balances.

Yeah.

So in the case of.

What's a great example of this, that's.

This happened recently.

What's one of the agencies that he cut funding on?

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Okay.

We'll use a cfpb.

There's a different one that he'd cut.

He's trying to come after the Department of Education next.

Well, you know, there's a lot to be said for that.

I've always been hypercritical of the Department of Education.

I.

And, you know, we have kids, so, like, I look at what the kids learn in school.

You know, many times I've picked up my son and he's watching videos.

Yeah, man.

I'm like, yo, like, what are y'all doing?

I have cousins that live in Germany.

The Germans?

Yeah, the Germans, Yeah.

And I like to cut.

German cousins?

Yeah, yeah, several of them.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're.

They're.

They're really into the tight pants.

Tight pants?

No, not so much.

Not so much.

Unbuttoned shirts?

Yeah.

Unbuttoned shirts?

Yeah, yeah, they were like, collar shirts.

Right.

And they're really into everything that's.

That goes on with the U.S.

right.

So they always.

They're always asking me about my kids and the educational system and, like, how's it going?

What are they doing?

What are they learning?

I'm like, I'll be honest, man.

Like, my daughter and my son come home from the week with homework for the week, and they finished it on Monday.

I have to supplement.

I have to either enroll them in some after school activity that supplements more for them, otherwise there's nothing else for them to learn other than just forcing them to read.

Right.

I mean, the Department of Education in this country was not set up to be entrepreneurial or even truly education.

It was set up to be a program to foster good workers into the environment.

There's certain things that they have going on over there he was also telling me about.

And why are we rewriting history?

Yeah.

What do you mean?

How so?

You heard about some of this stuff?

No, what do you mean, bruh?

Rewriting history.

How so?

Like, there's so many things that, because of, like, DEI and because of the actual.

They're changing the narrative around things, which I get you Want to be sensitive to people's cultural and religious implications.

What's the big.

What's the big one?

There's a lot without getting plagued.

There's a lot.

Like, I don't even the whole American Indian.

Native Americans in what we now know, population wise, is taught in a weird way, I'll take it out of the education realm so it's not so inflammatory.

We know that humans have been around a lot longer than we in our.

History books tell people that civilizations have existed longer.

Civilizations existed.

Lidar technology in the Amazon and other parts of the world have exhibited some pretty crazy finds of very complex societies.

We know this to be a fact, yet kids in school are still learning that, oh, the Incans and Mayans were effectively like rudimentary people.

No, dude, these people had calendars that were thousands of years long and accurate.

They had three different calendars to mark the solar system in a way we still cannot achieve on our own.

Right.

They could track natural disasters in a way we fully don't understand.

I mean, there's so many things that these advanced civilizations did and had.

I mean, they had waterways, they had roadways, they were interconnected.

And yet we talk about these cultures like they were beneath us or like they were less educated.

And look, I get it that we grew up as a population quickly, and as a result of our population's growth, we as a species feel like we're superior because we have an understanding of some of these technologies.

Quantum computing, for example.

Right.

But that's really arrogant.

It's like saying our way is the only way.

I mean, you don't know that.

Right, exactly.

So we're teaching people that we're superior when in fact, that's not accurate.

Yeah.

We're basically treating like Native Americans in some of the history books that are savages and are.

What?

Yeah.

No, no.

These people had established cities and populate.

It's like, come on, man.

Like.

But we're rewriting history in a way that appeals to people that isn't necessarily accurate either.

And we know we have facts to know that.

Right.

Yeah, that's.

And we've seen a lot of that over the.

Especially over the, like, I'd say the last, like five years or so.

Right.

More so the last five years, where if there's an uproar from like a small percentage of a certain community.

Oh, yeah.

Then it's like, okay, let's.

Let's overcorrect.

Right.

Well, that's what.

That's what went so wrong with politics.

Yeah.

Is that people are Overcorrecting to an extremism point of view.

He was telling me about the German cousin.

The German cousin about the labor force in Germany.

Yeah.

Not to say that things there are better, but something that I thought I found really, really cool over there is there when you become unemployed, Right.

Everyone automatically gets unemployment for a year.

Okay.

You have it for a full year.

You know you're getting it.

Yeah.

And they look to find you new jobs.

Yeah.

It's state sponsored.

Yeah, state sponsored.

So let me take.

They take.

Yeah.

And they'll literally place you in the new job, given your credentials and your work experience.

So I've spent some time overseas.

Right.

And there's idiosyncrasies that we have come to believe as Americans that are just normal.

And I use the word normal with bunny ears.

For those of you driving can't hear me, let me highlight a couple examples, one of which being the Department of Education of how corrupt this is right in front of us.

And we don't see it.

Nobody sees it.

Okay.

Right.

So we all pay taxes, right?

Federal, state, a lot.

A lot of taxes.

It's a good portion of your paycheck.

And in theory, your money is going to the government.

And the government uses your tax dollars to subsidize things like roadways, infrastructure, and health care.

Right, Health care, Great.

But wait a minute.

If the government is subsidizing health care by paying money into these giant healthcare companies, why are we paying money in?

Why are we paying for it at our employer?

Why are we paying deductibles?

They're double dipping.

They are double dipping.

They're getting our tax dollars to give to these healthcare companies, but then they're charging us for everything along the way.

A good portion of your paycheck.

Every single time you get a paycheck has healthcare withdrawn because your employer.

And you have to pay for it, Subsidize it.

And then you're paying deductibles all along the way.

Why?

My tax dollars are supposed to subsidize this?

You guys are double dipping.

And you're just saying, well, Chris, that it can't be enough to cover.

You know, they need the money, dude.

Some of these healthcare companies, if you look at their profits, are 70% to 90% funded by government dollars.

Insane.

70 to 90%.

So you think that your contribution is your deductible and how much you're paying for your health care premium.

That's just them double dipping.

When you go to other countries.

China, great example.

Right.

Germany, another great example.

Everybody's got health care just because you're a citizen.

You just pay a five million dollar gold card.

Citizenship, like you just, you just have health care.

Right.

Another great example of this is our education system.

But then I know there's also downside to that too, right?

Takes you forever to schedule an appointment, see your general practitioner.

Not in all countries.

When I went to Shanghai.

I know it's like that in Canada.

So the problem, the, the flip side of this too though, just, just to play devil's advocate, right?

Like, let's just say because it's.

Everything is sponsored by the government with health care in some of those countries, like Canada, right.

They'll, they can now force you during a pandemic too.

You have to stay in your house.

You cannot go out of your.

And we can't, I mean, we cannot.

Afford communist country though, dude.

Like, we can't afford, we can't afford.

No, I said Canada.

I said, I said that's a communist.

Country we're forcing you to stay in.

Yeah.

And you can't because we can't afford for you to get sick.

I hear you.

Right?

It's like, I don't know.

I don't know if I would want that either.

I would say their, their prime minister was arguably a clown.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

So shout out to Trudeau.

No, shout out for me.

Yeah, but look, I hear you and I'm not, I'm not disagreeing with, with it being challenging, but the grass isn't.

Always greener on that side.

No, it's not.

But why am I paying so many tax dollars for health care?

I agree, I agree that you know.

What I mean, they should be able.

To find a way to make it cheaper.

The fact if 90% of your revenues are coming from government, like dollars, but you're still charging us all this money.

And then you're seeing people.

I can't remember, like how subsidized are you?

I read an article, I can't remember the number, but the percentage of increase of cost for insulin that people are experiencing now, like over the past like several months is outrageous.

And look, and I don't know if like, so I tell a lot of people to read Salt, Sugar, Fat.

It's a book on, on basically how how Americans got addicted to some of the things we think are healthy for us.

Right?

And how such literally salt, sugar and fat are mixed and manipulated.

You need two to three at least to make something addictive.

And it just triggers like this addictive part of the human brain and these three additives in and of itself before.

The chemicals have been added to everything throughout the years to make it more addictive to us.

And you think it was by accident?

It wasn't by accident.

It was no different than social media gamifying their apps to keep you in them longer.

The food industry's been doing this for way longer than social media has been around to make the food more enticing for you to eat.

And there's an added benefit.

If they make the food less filling, you'll eat more of it as a result.

So this is why sugar got so over pumped is they knew that sugar wasn't filling, it wasn't very fibrous, it doesn't have any fiber at all, and it's highly caloric.

But at the same time, that caloric burn is super quick because the way insulin works in your body, you're gonna be hungry again.

Not too long, you go back for more.

I remember the first time hearing this and then looking, when you start going around and really looking at like all the nutrition labels, right.

I look on, looking at the nutritional, nutritional facts of bread, I'm like, how's there so much sugar in bread?

Yeah.

How does this make sense?

Because bread is really a pastry.

Yeah, yeah.

And so I'll never forget there, there was a, it's in the book.

But like the, the heads of like General Mills and all the old cereal companies and, and the larger production, you know, wheat companies got together and it was a late night meeting to discuss some of the addictive properties of their food.

And they all met.

I think it was like General Mills is like corporate offices.

And one by one these older, very affluent men got out of their cars.

All of them were in good shape.

All of them had like a butler or somebody on staff.

They had food pre ordered for each one of them based on their requirements.

The food they ordered were like chicken and rice and very high.

It was none of their own products.

Yeah, right.

And they're in this room dressed very, very well, in very, very good shape and they're eating food.

That's not what they're talking about themselves.

And they're talking about how obesity is a problem.

The food, the additives, their food is causing these things.

It's addictive.

But none of them clearly are in that lifestyle.

Yeah.

Because they, they understand the negative effects of it.

And you have to, you have to look at some of these things and ask yourself like how Pervas is this in the government, how pervas is this in corporate America?

And if you're the Department of Government efficiency trying to go through.

On one hand, I go, yeah, they're for the people.

It's government efficiency.

Yeah.

On the other hand, I'm like, yeah.

Every time I've been told that, man, there's always been an ulterior motive.

Exactly.

You know, gotta read between the lines a little bit.

That's why you gotta respect a guy like Warren Buffett who's always walking around with his coke, invested in the company.

Cheeseburger ice cream.

Yeah.

McDonald's.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm not here for my body, bro.

I'm here for my mind.

Still going strong.

Giving cerebrum.

Yeah, Cerebellum.

Cerebellum still going strong.

You look at the clock already.

You.

I just.

You looked at the clock Because I'm facing the clock.

Yeah.

See, look at you in your eyes or look at the clock.

And sometimes it's a little too romantic in here late at night, you know, both wearing all black, both hairy.

Let's see when we pull up another article here, let's make it.

That's making the rounds.

And for those of you listening, if you guys are like, you know, hey man, this show sucks.

I want a more directed show.

It's Said's fault, that's why.

But honestly, there wasn't really good.

The headlines this week financially were terrible.

It was all like scare tactic media.

And I just didn't want to.

Everything on X was just like overwhelming in your face, fluffed up stuff that didn't seem to have any baseline, in fact.

And it really bothered me and I just didn't want to put out a show where all we did was trumpet these headlines that were terrible.

Hmm.

There is no meaningful material data out there right now which we can point to which justifies any of these headlines.

The most sensational one out there that was real was that bitcoin has fallen down from over a hundred thousand to, you know, below 80,000, which to me suggests there's been a material change in crypto, but I don't fully understand why.

So I can't do a show where I talk about what happened because I don't get it.

Right.

I don't have that answer.

So Today's mortgage rates actually 30 year fixed at 6.32%.

It's a great rate.

I mean, exactly.

That's a, that's been a positive sign.

I can't necessarily guarantee that it's going to stay here.

I, I don't know what's going to happen to the 10 year.

I know we're back we were, we were back in that inverted yield curve for a little bit.

Are we still there?

No, I think we're out of it.

We're back out of it again.

Yeah, we've been.

We've been kind of dipping our toe back in there.

But the Treasuries went down this week a little bit, which actually really good for my business.

But yeah, look, I think that inflation is not under control.

I think we're going to have some volatility in the Treasuries.

And if you listen to the show we talked about the VIX being the fear gauge or volatility index, I think you're going to see some spikes and some volatility in the index as a result.

People are not very confident in what's going to happen in the next couple of years.

And why should they be?

You've got Doge, a new government agency, trying to be more efficient and change things.

You've got a president who's very counter to traditional presidencies, who's been in the office before, and there's a lot of volatility associated with that presidency.

You've got an outgoing president who is largely perceived to have had some policies that were very inflationary.

And there's questions about some of the things that happen behind the scenes.

Like there is every president, frankly.

And there's just been a lot that's gone on that I think make people feel very uneasy.

On top of that, you don't have to be a genius or a Nobel laureate to go, you know what, there's a lot of volatility here and there's a lot of uncertainty.

And uncertainty does not create stability in the Treasuries.

As the Treasuries rise with this, you know, uncertainty, guess what happens?

Mortgage rates rise.

Yeah.

And they're going to go.

They're going to go up and come back down, but they're going to hover in and around the same space until such time as something happens.

And I don't think the Fed's in any position to cut rates anytime soon.

Yeah.

And I think that's also kind of what's going on here with tariffs now being back on the table.

Yeah.

And that's.

That's inflationary, right?

That's.

It's inflationary.

It's also creates a lot of uncertainty and instability with what's going on in the markets.

And I think that the talking point of tariffs initially starting off was probably viewed by most people as a negotiating tactic, and it still may, may be, but double down on it now.

And say March 4th.

I think that was the date that.

Yeah, it was early March.

Yeah, they're back online.

I think it's starting to scare people.

Like, wait a minute, hold on.

Yeah, but see, when you're scaring people with headlines like that, and this is part of the reason why I didn't want to do this in the show, like with, with articles, when you scare people with headlines like that, whether you're actually going to do it or not, or whether you're.

The headline is actually true or not, the impact is still real.

Yeah.

It still affects people.

It still affects the economy.

Jerome Powell is probably just at home going like, damn it.

Why?

This is, this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile, Jamie Dimon was actually pretty, pretty articulate.

I like the way he handled it.

When he was asked about Doge, he said, look, you know, it's too new for me to call one way or the other, but I think this is needed.

And I think that the government has been inefficient for a long time.

There's been no checks and balances in accountability.

And whether you like or don't like what Doge is doing, you have to agree that there is some type of efficiency, project of improvement that is necessary and it's long overdue.

Right.

But I don't think that, I don't think this is the way to handle it, the way that it's being handled.

Well, okay, this isn't a hedge fund or a private company.

No, but he's using a hammer.

Yeah, he's using it.

He's using a hammer.

But it's like, I don't know.

There is a more effective way.

I think, frankly, if you had somebody who was a lot more charismatic and thoughtful and cared about people, how people thought, they probably wouldn't get a lot.

Done, they probably wouldn't get it.

But I, I think that this is a.

There needs to be a longer play here versus just come in and we.

Don'T have a longer play.

You think it's that, that dire?

Yeah, I do.

I think when you have a multi billion dollar, insanely quickly moving national debt.

Overspending of $2 trillion, overspending all over the place, that's happening.

And you've got what is largely believed to be an inflationary president.

But we know, we know that there's no way it's impossible for them to save $2 trillion a year.

Okay, it's not going to happen.

But that doesn't mean you don't try.

No, I'm not saying you don't try, but it's also, like.

It's very misleading.

It's very misleading to the people to make them think that this is going to happen.

It's not going to happen.

To tell people you're going to get a $5,000 stimmy check because Doge saved.

It's not going to happen.

Yeah, that.

That was.

That was kind of ridiculous speculation, you.

Know, and it's like.

It's very.

It's very misleading.

It's making people think that.

Look, now we're on board with everything you guys doing.

Yeah, go.

Hurry up.

I need that $5,000 stimmy check.

Well, with AI, you don't need people to review tax returns.

What are we doing here?

It should be solely algorithmic.

Yeah, but you've ran into this issue, too, though.

What?

Where you've given quotes to news reporters or someone that's writing an article, and it gets flagged for AI and you're like, that's not true.

I didn't use AI.

Yeah, I know, I know.

AI is wrong all the time.

No, look, I just think that AI is evolving at a cadence that itself cannot keep up with.

And I think that there's a lot of things that are.

So here's the problem.

AI will often flag something you say.

That's a definition as AI.

Exactly.

Oh, he pulled it from this article.

It's plagiarism.

And you're like, no, I cited the definition.

That's just the.

If you're like, hey, Chris, define, you know, the judicial branch, and I give you something that sounds a lot like a definition you can find online.

It's because I can articulate what the definition is.

Well, yeah, I memorized.

I shouldn't be penalized for that.

Or I.

I was basically trained to memorize the law.

I'm an attorney.

Like, that's.

That's what I'm supposed to do.

Yeah.

I can still sit here and go, a reasonable, prudent person with the same and.

Or similar circumstances.

I mean, negligence, Right.

Yeah, I know the definitions because that.

You literally just burn them into your brain.

Exactly.

I wish I could forget many of them, but I can't.

The caveat to the caveat.

Yeah, yeah, I do that all the time.

Yeah, I still have, like, nightmares about the bar exam years later.

I'll never forget the guy in front of me, slamming his laptop on the floor, screaming expletive and walking to the bathroom.

He was so high now.

Yeah, I think.

Was he a paid actor?

No, no, he was.

He was.

He was clearly some wealthy kid who showed up Late.

Who didn't care?

Oh yeah, he got there like 30 minutes late.

And I'm like, man, this is not one of those things you show up late to.

Yeah, you can't make up this time.

Like, you call that one, you call it a rap.

You just chalked this one up to.

An L.

The test is three days long.

Back when I took it, it was three days long.

Now it's two, now it's two.

They've shortened it.

That really pissed me off.

That's gotta.

When I took it, it was the morning session was three essay questions, one hour each break.

Afternoon session was a performance exam where they gave you a bunch of information and you had to read it and then write for like three hours.

Then day two was the MBE, the Multi State Bar Examination.

Multiple choice questions.

And they are insanely tricky questions that really can make or break your whole bar exam.

But.

But that's the one you can perfect the most.

Right, like with, with the right course.

Yeah.

Barbary is probably the best one.

And then the third day was like the first day, but in opposite order.

You did the performance exam first and then you did three essay questions second.

And then I don't know how they're doing it in the two day structure.

How do you sleep at night in between the days?

So the first time I did it, I got a hotel and I got to tell you, like, I just did not sleep well in the hotel.

It wasn't.

Yeah, it wasn't good.

Obviously I didn't pass first time out.

Of, out of fear that you show up late.

Is that why?

Why I just don't sleep well in hotels?

No.

But why did you even get the hotel?

Oh, because in Orange county, where we live, there wasn't a bar exam center.

There was.

The nearest one was like Ontario and it was either Ontario, Los Angeles or San Diego.

And Ontario was probably like the least packed one.

But I just did not sleep well.

The second time I did it, I actually just stayed at home and I just drove back every night.

My wife was like, why are you driving back?

And I'm like, you know what, honestly, I'll listen to some music on the way back.

I'll decompress.

Yeah.

I'll never forget the third day I was driving back, my dad called me and it was.

I literally just left the parking lot and I was convinced I failed.

I was kidding.

I'm like, this is.

Yeah, I hate.

So aggravating.

Yeah.

And he's like, why?

Because I knew everything that I got wrong.

Like I knew everything That I gotten wrong.

I knew it.

It's just in the heat of the moment, you're going so fast and you're.

Typing, you don't have time to think.

Yeah, you just.

You didn't.

Yeah, I just knew all the stuff that I got wrong.

I knew it before anybody telling me.

I just.

You walk out and, like, the light bulb goes on.

Do you get deductions for grammatical errors?

No.

No.

Okay.

No, no, no.

But you get.

It's.

It's very subjective, too.

That's the part that sucks.

The first time, I failed by, like, seven points.

So it went to a regrade and somebody had to sit down and look at it and go like, yeah, this guy's not qualified.

That's a lot of power, bro.

Yeah, that's a lot I want.

Yeah, that's a wild job.

And the worst part is when you get your scores, you see that somebody went through it and, like, regraded it and you're just like, ah, damn it.

Oh, that's the worst.

It was the worst.

It mentally destroyed me for a long time, but I was convinced I didn't pass.

And then, I'll never forget, my sister was in town.

I actually forgot the results were coming out that day and I was driving and I got the results back and said I passed.

But I didn't understand because I'd never seen the pass screen before.

Oh.

So I didn't understand what the results were.

It said that the name appeared on a list and I'm like, is that good or bad?

Yeah, I don't know.

So I just gave the phone to my sister while I was driving because we were driving back from la, my sister was in town, my wife was in the front seat, and I'm just driving and I'm like, yeah, did I fail again?

Because I think I failed.

She's like, no, I think you passed.

I'm like, I'm pretty sure I didn't.

So my sister calls my dad.

My dad inputs it on his computer screen.

My dad, like, freaks out and I'm like, so I failed or what?

It took me like a good half hour to realize what happened.

Yeah, that's gotta be.

That's a lot.

But it didn't change my life, so I just kept driving home.

Yeah.

Not really putting it to use yet.

No, no.

Everything is pro bono.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

Although I got a call tonight from somebody getting sued who I'm probably going to help.

I can.

Yeah, it's.

They got in a car accident and instead of just going after the insurance Policy, which is more than ample to cover.

They're suing for, like, 37,000.

Oh.

Which is like, they have a $100,000 policy.

Why wouldn't you just go after the policy?

Like, why are you suing?

Why are you getting me involved?

Yeah.

They've already admitted fault.

Like, what are you doing?

Yeah.

So I'm probably going to try to help out somehow.

I'll figure it out.

Good man.

All right, man.

You got anything else?

You didn't bring up any articles?

No.

You did all the work tonight.

It's weird for me, too.

Yeah, no, I get it.

I'm excited to show everybody the new studio and get everybody in there.

It's gonna be a couple more months, I think, before we can physically get all this in there.

But it's painted, insulated, framed drywall.

I mean, it's in there.

We got to do some flooring, some H vac, the glass wall, and then it's.

Then it's time to build out the real studio.

The real studio.

You know, not just the structure, I guess.

I think we had a comment on the last YouTube that I wanted to read off.

Was it something about me being sexy?

No, that was about me, but don't.

Feel like it was.

Here we go.

This from Fluffy Doughboy 0056.

So you know they're serious.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Clearly a listener of the show.

And this is on YouTube.

So do yourself a favor.

Head over to YouTube.

Make sure you subscribe.

Ring that notification bell.

Hit that, like button.

Let's get this show out to as many people as possible.

Another great show, guys.

This is for the last episode.

Episode 270.

That's a good episode.

It was.

I like that one.

As someone who used to dread going into work.

Starbucks, college job.

I can relate to both of you guys about finding the silver lining about one's job before work.

I'll blast music on my commute, sing, and just jazz myself up.

And I've been much happier and more tolerant while I'm on the floor.

I remember listening to a clip where Steve Harvey talks about how attitude can impact how you perceive life and started to look for positive opportunities in situations rather than.

Than the negatives.

I love that.

Yeah, that's something you can control every day.

There's a lot of things you can't control in the workplace, but you can definitely control your own attitude.

And that's.

That's something that I spend a lot of personal time trying to do.

Not that I'm trying to go, like, hell, yay, be happy.

But I Spend a lot of my time saying, look, I can sit here and be frustrated, which we all get at work, or I can try to be productive and I just try to be as productive as possible.

I burn the candle at all ends at all the time.

And if I sit there and sulk, I'm not going to get things done in an official.

And also, if you actually enjoy working with your.

Some of your colleagues, and it doesn't even need to be all of your colleagues.

Are you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Definitely not you.

But if you enjoy working with some of your colleagues, then it's like, why?

Why would I want to ruin their day by being negative?

They don't deserve to see this version of me.

This is not their problem.

I've said it before on the show.

I'll say it again.

Nothing brings co workers together like mutual hatred for another co worker.

Find that co worker you hate, get out there and hate him.

Looking back, working at Starbucks has made me a much better communicator with people as I used to be shy, it's made me much better at handling pressure.

I work at one of the busiest stores in our district, and I make $21 an hour to serve coffee while going to school.

I just think that there are some people who will always look for negative or negatives in every situation, and that's unfortunate.

100%.

Yeah.

Yep.

This is coming from someone who survived cancer and grew up with a parent who struggled with alcohol abuse.

As always, it's a pleasure listening, fellas.

Yeah.

That was a great comment.

That was a great comment.

We love you, Fluffy Doughboy.

Fluffy Doughboy.

I almost thought it was me.

Doughboy.

No, I'd be Fluffy Harry.

Doughboy.

Yeah, yeah.

There you go.

All right.

Tell him it's over.

It's over.

All right.

So sad to say it, but goodbye.

Yeah.

Good night, everybody.

Bye.