I didn't see the game.

His one shot at them.

No, two shots.

He was over two.

All over social media were, like, videos of him and his dad going into the game the same time.

It's an iconic moment, bro.

Yeah, iconic, fine.

Valuable for this sport.

No, not so much.

Not so much.

Not so much.

LeBron, I hope you're happy, because he's clearly a listener, you know, look, he.

Deserves all of it.

I want him to enjoy all of it.

I want to enjoy all of it, too.

I wish I could have that moment with my son one day.

That would be a dream come true.

If my son was equally unqualified to be in the league with me.

Right.

But it's okay.

It's all right.

It's just.

That's just another.

Another championship banner for him.

I'm so good.

You gotta pay him $3 million a year on top of.

I'm so good that my son can get drafted into the NBA and get.

$3 million a year.

That's insane.

Yeah.

I mean, what are we doing?

It's okay.

I'm all for it.

I know you are.

I am not.

And I'm.

And I love the way.

I love the way Reddick handled it.

But anyways, we got a show to do.

Oh, yeah, we're.

Hi, everybody.

What's happening?

As promised, last week, we are a trio of two.

Trio of two.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We are the two wise men.

Because the third, not so wise man decided he was gonna go out on PTO once again.

Yeah, we gonna do.

Next week.

We should do, like, Halloween costumes.

That'll be fun.

Actually, we probably should have done it this week because it would have been out during the week of Halloween.

It would have been in the week of Halloween.

But we could do it that one, too.

It's fine.

I'm dressing up on Friday.

Yeah, I know you are, Woody, baby.

I mean, your true calling.

Yeah, that's your true calling.

My son's gonna be Buzz Lightyear, and my wife is gonna be Woody's.

What's this girl's name on Toy Story?

Jesse.

Jesse.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I stopped watching after the second Toy Story.

Am I the only one?

You're the only.

It's.

It's so good.

It's just so emotionally just challenging.

Yeah, no, you have to watch it, because the last one that I saw, there was a scene that I thought was a little too intense for kids.

Oh, is that the Buzz movie or.

No, it's the one.

It's.

I mean, if you haven't seen it yet, I better not don't ruin it.

Don't.

No, you have to watch it.

You have to watch it.

I'm not doing it.

Apparently, they're coming out with the fifth one.

God damn it.

So much money for.

If you're an actor and you're doing voiceover work, you won.

Like, you won.

You won in life.

You're.

You're just.

I mean, damn, you're rolling in the studio.

That's it.

Don't get me wrong, voice work has got its own challenges.

I mean, clearly we know what that's about.

Professionals that we are.

I mean, who would have thought Tim Allen would have carved out this for his career?

Like, that's, like, I did not.

I did not know that was in the cards for him.

I forgot about him.

Yeah.

Like, I hear the voice.

I don't think Tim Allen anymore.

Exactly.

It's very strange, right?

Equally as strange as two financial literacy podcasters talking about Toy Story to open up a show.

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

Sitting next to me, my partner in time, and really the only one I can rely on, the one and only side, Omar.

Thank you, my man.

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

Welcome back to the show, everybody.

And behind the ones and twos is.

Nobody.

Nobody.

Yeah.

Not a single person.

No one.

Yeah.

No one that you know is back there switching cameras that you won't see.

Yeah.

DJ Baboon on pto.

Yeah, he.

He is at a work related event.

It is he.

You know, for backstory here, because he doesn't share too much of his personal life.

I will.

He works in marketing during his 9 to 5 job, and I wasn't aware that his shop was a pronoun shop until today.

Yeah, they were very.

Exactly.

They wanted to make sure they didn't.

Offend anybody, so they had a little bit of a name tag type thing where they also allow them to choose their pronouns on their name tags.

Yeah.

I don't know how I feel about it, but it was interesting to see how marketing people get together with a different mindset than, you know, for example, me, F.

Finance, banking, law.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Very different.

Very like loosey, goosey.

Kind of like, I'm still very much the person that wants to make sure that nobody gets offended.

Yeah, me either.

I mean, but it's.

I also think that, like, why even go there?

Right?

I get it.

I mean, especially when you think about the marketing.

Like, it takes a different mindset to do that, and there's usually a lot of Creatives.

Yes.

So, you know, whatever.

Like, I.

I don't care one way or the other.

Here's the thing is, I'm gonna offend everybody.

Okay.

Exactly.

I'm inclusive with who I offend.

I'm gonna make all the jokes.

There's no race or ethnicity that's safe.

There's no gender.

That' Right.

And I'm going to ask questions.

And if the questions sound insulting, because I don't understand one of us has a problem, and it's probably somebody's gone too extreme in one direction or the other.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to figure it out.

That's all I'm saying.

Right.

Exactly.

And it's on you to convince me otherwise.

Right.

Or just break the logic down to me.

Or let's just move on with our day and just.

And carry on.

Can I ask.

Can I ask a question about questions?

A question about questions?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why is it that when people ask clarifying questions, it's offensive as ultimate automatically?

Like just assuming that you're trying to be offense if I say, hey, why are these your pronouns?

Because I legitimately don't understand.

Like, I'm afraid to ask that question.

Well, that.

That's the whole.

I know.

And that's the problem.

Right.

It's like, that's what college used to be about.

Right.

Is.

I think I listened to an interview back in the day where Bill Clinton said that the smartest people in the room answer questions with questions.

Socratic method.

That's what they do in law school.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it's like.

And how is that now turned to become a bad thing?

Yeah.

It's like you're prying.

You're trying to get too much information.

Yeah.

No, it's not.

I'm not.

I'm trying to understand.

I want to make sure I understand your position better.

I want to understand your position, Saeed.

I want to know all the positions, Chris.

I understand it so well, actually.

Which dovetails really nicely into a conversation we were having before we started the cameras today.

What was that?

We were having a hypothetical scenario about certain situations in their prime.

I did not know you could.

We're not doing that.

You asked the question.

I did not.

I didn't ask any questions.

You were asking questions.

All right.

Absolutely not.

For those of you listening to the show, we have a little bit more than Toy Story and weird situations to talk about.

We actually have a fascinating episode 253 for you.

And right out the gate, I'm going to give you and everybody listening the Ending.

The ending is we don't know.

We don't know.

Right.

We don't know.

And the likely broader answer to the ending is no one really knows.

Right.

All we can do is present you the facts that we do know of now.

Yeah.

So some of this is going to sound dark, some of this is going to sound like a little bit of a recap.

But the fact of the matter is there's going to be stuff here for anybody who's missing out on current events.

There's going to be stuff here for people who want to understand earnings calls and the relevance.

There's going to be stuff here for people who want to understand the MAG7 and their impact on the markets.

We're going to talk a little bit about real estate, we're going to talk a little bit about the markets and we're going to talk a lot about you and the things you're probably feeling at home but not articulating.

Yes.

But before you do that, if you're listening to the show on Apple or Spotify, please leave us an honest five star review.

We'll do a lot for the show.

We'll read it actually right here on the show.

If you're watching this over on YouTube, please make sure you subscribe.

Hit that like button, ring that notification bell, make sure you do all the moist, goody good stuff.

We have two viewing options for our listeners.

We got Spotify, we got YouTube.

You can take a pic or you just want to listen to it, that's fine too.

But if you really want to support the show, you gotta head down into the show notes.

Buy yourself an ice barrel.

That's the number one way you can support this show.

Or get 12% off any of their products.

Aside from the chillers.

Yeah, yeah.

And the code.

If you go to the website directly, it's just my name, Chris.

Chris, yeah, there you go.

As in not said.

Because Saeed is not ColdPlunch.

But is it.

Yeah, it's Chris, right?

Not Chris.

No, it's Chris.

Yeah.

Just to be clear.

All right, so the Fed has been explicit about wanting to cool the economy by increasing unemployment and to lower inflation.

We know that is their intent.

That is Fed policy.

That's what they want to do.

And if you've been living under a rock the last couple of years, you know, they've had a really difficult time doing that.

So markets seem to believe the opposite will occur.

A rebound in inflation and a continued low unemployment.

That is what the market is essentially betting on right now.

Right.

And you're saying, well, Chris, what do you mean?

Where is that coming from?

We're going to explain, we're going to explain the trends that you can see in the economy, in the market that says, hey, we don't think the Fed is done and we're not exactly sure what happens next then how?

Well, markets might be pricing in optimism today.

Early.

Right.

They might be optimistic and things might be reflective of that.

And we'll talk about the stock market, we'll talk about home values and talk about some of the stuff that's happening there, which might have a good, actual positive impact for everybody, but might sound dark depending on how you look at the data.

Look at the data for the purposes of, you know, being a realtor, you're going to say, hey, wow, the transactions are slowing.

It's a crazy cadence.

It's not good.

Yeah, yeah.

Refinances come to a screeching halt.

But if you're looking at it under the lens of a consumer, you can, you can say, oh my God, this is approximately 60% of inflation.

This means values go down, inflation hits the target rate, that this is a good thing for the economy.

Right.

If that.

Yeah, that's the hope anyways.

So despite the Fed's hawkish tone, financial conditions have remained loose.

Credit is still flowing, unemployment is still saying unemployment.

Employment, for example, is still staying strong and unemployment is still staying relatively low, suggesting that investors might be betting on a, quote, soft landing.

Right.

Goldman Sachs reduced their expectations, I believe.

Yeah.

Of a chance of a recession down to 15%.

Yeah, it was originally like over 50, then it was like 35 now.

You know that.

So it's kind of fascinating to see how, and I put very little credence in those kind of things because every recessionary economy had kind of a, well, not every most large or impactful recessionary economies had like this moment, pivotal moment.

You had the dot com bubble bursting, you had the subprime mortgage crisis leading to the great financial crisis, you had the industrial revolutions, you've had wars.

I mean, there's been things that have been catalysts.

I don't know that we've found the catalyst for what this may or may not be, or if there isn't one, maybe we won't have a recession.

I'm willing to be open to that idea as well.

And if 15% is low.

So points to consider as we go through the show today.

Could the resiliency of employment mean that inflation is more structural than expected than expected?

Meaning that inflation is just going to stay, it's going to manifest and it's going to be slower and maybe we don't have all the tools to fight it, but maybe it's just a prolongated longer solution, not a bad outcome, but it's going to be painful for a while longer.

Number two, is the Fed behind the curve once again risking stagflation?

So if some of these indicators that we're going to see here are true and others are not true, then would the Fed be facing an increase in inflation again, hyperinflation, or will we have this stagflationary economy which we just essentially came out of, really?

Right.

That's a period where you have a slowing economy, an increase in unemployment and an increase in inflation.

That would be stagflation.

And then lastly is how much of the market's optimism is driven by mega cap stack tech stocks that make up the Mag 7.

Right.

And we're going to tell you exactly how much of it is impacted by that today.

And then the numbers are staggering.

Okay.

Yeah, because I know, I believe.

It's funny, I looked, I actually looked into this right before the show.

Coincidentally, The S&P 500 is up 20% year to date.

Yeah, S P 500.

Right.

Largely carried by the Mag 7, however.

Yes.

So a bit of a, in my mind, an asterisk.

You can keep saying the S&P 500, but it's really seven stocks that trade on the NASDAQ.

Right.

And we'll get into those towards the latter second half of the show that are really carrying the entire market.

I mean, how well are those seven doing to carry the other, you know.

493 Nvidia is doing quite well.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Tesla after today, doing quite well.

So we'll get into that.

So some food for thought and we're gonna have a couple food for thought like statements today because I think these are powerful indicators of not only facts, but they also help put in perspective the rest of the conversation we're going to have.

Okay, number one, the Fed's 2% inflation target hasn't been achieved consistently for over a decade, except briefly during the COVID 19 recovery period where inflation shot far beyond that.

So for context, I think you can carve out COVID 19 as a pretty exceptional set of circumstances.

It's been over a decade since we had the Fed hit the fed's target.

Okay, 10 years.

Right.

That's a long time.

The last time the Fed intentionally induced a recession to fight inflation was during the Volcker era, 1981 period where interest rates hit nearly 20%.

But even then inflation took years to stabilize.

Right.

So the whole point of this is to say we know that something is off right now.

Yeah.

Because that's also not the tactic that this Federal Reserve, you know, FOMC committee is, has chosen to take.

They're not intentionally trying to induce a recession.

Right.

Because if they were, they would not have cut rates when they did.

They would have just continued to hold because every data point was positive.

But.

Right.

They don't, they didn't have 20% inflation, they didn't have wildly high unemployment.

No.

They didn't have GDP still reporting in the positive.

Right.

Is it, we're, we haven't, according to their standards, haven't hit a recession.

Even though we feel like we've been.

In a recession, we don't have a triggering event.

Right, right.

So they're looking around saying like ship, what do we do?

Yeah, yeah.

How do I, how do we manufacture a reason to cut?

Right.

Because like if everything is going well but inflation is still high, they almost have to now produce numbers that show that inflation is coming down.

Now the counter argument to that is if you listen to the show on previous times, is that the unemployment numbers are largely inaccurate.

Yeah, they are.

Right.

So there are lots of people who are saying, yeah, it doesn't make any sense.

And like, I get it.

And I guess the reason why we say something is off is because like we talked about on top of the show, we don't know what that is.

We don't know the answer.

I don't think anybody really does.

We just know that the things we're seeing are very counterintuitive.

There's a lot of positives, there's a lot of negatives.

So let's get into that.

While the Fed's Fed is calling for higher unemployment and lower inflation, the market is trading exactly opposite to that.

Okay.

Markets are now pricing in a potential rebound in inflation and drop in unemployment.

Why do you think that is?

Well, I think the markets have this way of looking at things from just a pure numeric standpoint and they're saying this is not sustainable.

Right.

You can't have the S&P 500 up this much while we're in a rate cutting cycle, otherwise it's going to go up higher.

They're looking at all this saying, okay, something has to give.

Right?

Right.

House prices can't stay as high as they are, unemployment can't stay as low as it is.

Like these metrics typically offset and rebound and move off of one another.

And they're not.

They're all just staying in what we have traditionally believed to be healthy ranges.

Yes.

So the fact that we're in a rate cutting cycle and we're not seeing significant movement in any way, shape or form, and you've had this unbelievable run up of home prices, of stock prices.

Mm.

If it just stays this way, here's the harsh reality.

And it sucks for a lot of people.

Everything's going to stay more expensive.

Yeah.

And we will talk about that as it relates to most consumers.

And let me be clear, food is exceedingly more expensive than it once was.

Oh, yeah.

The very, the very thing that the Fed likes to cut out when they get those inflation reports.

Right.

Because they think it's too volatile.

So they like to look at core inflation.

But let me ask you, so with the Fed cutting rates, Right.

How much would you say?

Because I know the banking sector.

Right.

But let's look at the broader stock market.

How many companies out there would you say on like a percentage scale are walking into profits just by the Fed cutting rates?

Well, other than people who are working on arbitrage, which are typically banks, lenders, finance companies, for example.

Yeah.

Not a lot.

Okay.

It really comes down to how they.

Well, and I will say as rates get cut, some of them, if they have lines of credit they're out on, it'll increase the profitability because they're paying less interest in those lines of credit.

Right.

But generally speaking, most well run businesses have mitigated that interest rate risk to the markets by having something to offset it.

Okay.

So if you have a million dollar line of credit, let's say you've got a million dollars in cash somewhere, you invest that million dollars of cash, it gets you returns.

Even though your company is a manufacturing supplier of some product, let's say you've got retained earnings, you take those retained earnings instead of borrowing and using that as your working capital, what you do is you go invest it in something.

You make 10% and you have a line of credit that you're paying, you know, 9% on.

You now have 1% profit on money.

Yeah.

You're offsetting it, you're arbitraging.

You're a good CFO will know those tricks.

So you're going to walk in incrementally more profit, let's say your index plus margin pricing goes down.

Right.

And now you're paying 7%.

Well, now you have 2% more profit on that arbitrage.

Okay.

And that's how they look at it.

And that's for most companies and well run companies for well run companies.

Yeah.

And the larger you get, the more sophisticated their financial strategies are.

Some of them have, you know, tax benefits.

Google's notorious for this.

They have overseas entities, shell corporations that strictly shield their tax liability.

That's when things get a little more complex.

People get really offended by it.

But those are legal loopholes, and those are things in the system that you can do.

It's just you have to be really sophisticated and have the money to try to save the money.

If it makes sense.

Yes.

Yeah.

So a lot of people get really offended by it.

I look at it and say, look like these are all financial vehicles that we can all deploy.

Is it economically viable for us?

Yes.

It pisses me off that some, you know, billionaires don't pay a lot in taxes.

Well, they're all in real estate and they're getting all the write offs.

I look at those and go, okay, wait a minute, I need to get more of those write offs myself.

Yeah.

How do I get that?

Yeah, exactly.

I don't go like, what the fuck?

This guy's not paying any taxes.

No, it's just.

That's the game.

Yeah.

You can only play the game by the rules that are in place.

And you can get pissed off about the rules.

You can get mad, but you still got to pass go.

You still got to collect your 200 bucks and you get.

Still got to try to buy a property.

Don't get mad that, you know, I own Boardwalk and you own some other street.

Yeah.

You know, Monopoly.

References on a financial literacy podcast.

Yeah.

I love that you own the railroad company.

I didn't know any of the street names.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I don't need the low level one.

Yeah.

I mean, Baltic, I think.

Baltic.

Yeah.

Baltic's one.

Yeah.

That's the low level one, right?

Yeah.

I would know.

Personally, I never buy low level.

I passed that one.

Yeah.

Didn't have an apartment complex on it.

Chris did not buy it.

So.

Nearly 50% of US consumers perceive themselves as living paycheck to paycheck, according to a new bank of America study.

This from Business Insider.

If Arun were here, he put the article right show and said, I'm looking at sides.

Big brown eyes, beautiful face.

Yeah.

Puppy dog face.

By comparison, in Q1 of 2022, this percentage was at 37%.

So approximately 13% more people.

50% of the US consumer, 50% feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck.

And how many people are actually talking about that?

Right.

They feel it they'll say it on an anonymized survey, but they don't tell their friends.

They don't tell their family.

They don't openly speak about it.

And look, we see it.

We're in this business.

Like, I see people's accounts, I see people's finances.

It's real.

It's.

Oh, man.

Even in our household, for me, personally, like, we are, like, cutting on costs, trying to look for activities that are, you know, more cost effective.

Just, why don't we just go to the beach?

Let's go to the park.

Let's, you know, like, let's not spend all this money out, because right now it's not like that.

It's been a long time since I had to, like, legitimately think about spending.

And unfortunately, I'm at the point now where the spending's gotten so over the top and egregious and to no real fault of anybody.

I mean, myself, my wife, I look at it and I think to myself, okay, things are just costing a lot more.

And if you buy the same things, it costs a lot more, but you're buying a lot of things, you're gonna spend a lot more money.

Well, think.

Yeah, right.

Because, I mean, our entire economies is based off consumption.

Right.

The whole thing.

And if people are having to spend more, then all these other companies are becoming that much more profitable.

Well, that's the sick part about this process.

Right.

So during inflationary times, companies raise prices because their costs go up.

When they find a way to reduce their costs or costs go back down, they don't lower prices.

Nope.

Right.

Right.

And I know people are saying, well, Chris, what if we were in a deflationary economy?

Or what if we were going through deflation or disinflation?

Doesn't matter.

It is extremely rare for a company to reduce prices after increasing them.

Yep.

So their profits are going to ultimately increase unless something legitimately cost them more money in perpetuity.

And that's why if you're sitting on the sidelines, that's why we like to talk about financial literacy so much.

If you're sitting on the sidelines and you're not investing, whatever, even if it's only a little bit of money that you have left over.

Right.

You are missing out.

You are missing out.

During times like this, companies continue.

Look, like we mentioned at the top of the show, or I mean, not too long ago, S&P 500 is up 20% year to date.

Even though times are tough, everyone's living paycheck to paycheck.

But These companies are doing very well.

So if you were investing into the stock market, you would be doing very well right now.

And we're going to really spend some time on that towards the end of the show where we talk about that in particular.

And again, this is one.

This is one of those things where you look at and you go, okay, is the market walking towards a recession or are they not?

Like, there's so many signs that say, wow, wildly profitable, great economy.

And at the same time, you have 50% of consumers feel like they're living paycheck to paycheck, like they can barely make it.

Yeah.

How much more expensive can things get?

And this is the stunning part to me.

You ready?

Yeah.

So it blows me away.

I look at this and I think, this is sad.

The cost of living increases are primarily to blame for people feeling this way.

Right.

Particularly food and housing.

I mean, the basic essentials.

Essentials?

Yeah.

I mean, the stuff that people like to.

I don't know that those are the things that they care most about probably.

Right.

Well, you can't not buy food.

You can't not have a place to live.

Yeah.

And if you do have a place to live, like, what do you.

And you, let's say you're trying to cut back on costs and you just want to stay in more.

So what are you gonna do?

You're gonna.

You're gonna cook more food at home, right?

You're gonna, you're gonna want to at least host people.

I mean, that's even us at our house, Right?

Like, we would love nothing more than to host, but it's like everything is getting that much more expensive.

Yeah, dude.

I was telling my brother on the way here today, I was like, yeah, man, I ordered like a burrito from a healthy burrito place.

It had like, you know, like, no, like mayonnaise, and it was like a chicken and like egg in this morning.

Oh, is that.

That.

That one that you got me the.

Other day, but a healthier version?

Yeah, the one I got you was ribeye.

It was not healthy, Right.

Fantastic burrito, right?

Yeah, they have a healthy version.

How much do you think the one burrito delivered to me cost?

The one burrito.

So one.

No sides, no extra add ons, no beverage.

One burrito.

I mean, it's got to be north of like 20 bucks, right?

$46.

Get the out of here.

40.

Why?

Why are you doing this?

Dollars.

I mean, I had already gotten to the app and I mean, it has like that little, like, it was Postmates and, you know how it has.

You click like submit and it has like this little like wind down of time before you submit.

It reprices or some.

So the Chris falls like, submit, submit.

It's like putting an offer in a house.

It was so bad.

I remember we got there and I'm like, I ate it, right?

And I'm like, this is.

You didn't enjoy it.

You didn't enjoy it.

Yeah.

You could have gone next door.

God damn, bro.

$46.

One burrito, chicken, eggs and a little bit of cheese.

That's it.

That's it.

And it wasn't like a mat.

I mean it was a normal sized burrito.

$46.

Gotta start meal prepping again, bro.

We can't be doing this.

Dude, it's the meal prepping isn't that much cheaper either.

No, no, no, come on, stop it, Stop.

I mean it's cheaper, but I'm just, I'm just saying.

Damn.

Yeah, that's where, that's where we're at now where it's like, you gotta mess with your day.

So while we had a period of disinflation, prices are in fact still rising.

We talked about that on the show multiple times.

You're not getting to a deflationary economy where having things cost less, we're having disinflation.

So things are still costing more.

They're costing more at a slower cadence.

Yes.

So instead of things going up, you know, 9% a year, they're going up 2% a year.

If we hit the target rates, they're not going backwards.

At least not yet anyway.

Which in my mind is a compelling argument for the Fed to maybe want to cause a recessionary economy.

Right, right.

Maybe it isn't interest rate driven.

Maybe it's like, look like people just can't survive.

Yeah.

You know the Prometheus theory.

And sometimes in order to create, you must first destroy.

But then if they do do that, what happens to all the assets?

Right?

Like stocks, like property values, companies will hurt.

I mean, I'm not advocating for it.

I'm just saying, like, look, like, I.

Don'T know, I'm going to shopping centers around my house right now and I'm seeing them.

Vacancies, Huge vacancies.

Yeah, there was one.

There's one furniture store.

I don't remember the name of it.

But is it one of those constantly going out of business tours that actually went out of business this time?

No, it was one.

It was.

It was only in a huge lot.

It was the one right next to.

Of course I would know this right next to Dick's, right?

Dick Sporting Goods.

That is not the strip club.

Nothing that you.

No, not this.

Just to be clear.

No, you just got the recreation.

You got the video flag.

Look at you.

For the recreational purpose.

Yeah.

And they.

They flipped it now into some, like, pickleball court.

Like, bro, this whole pickleball.

What is.

I have.

I've yet to try it.

I'm not doing it.

You're not gonna give it a try?

There's a whole.

You tried.

You tried the ice barrel.

You're not gonna try a pickleball?

No, I can't.

You're too tall.

You.

I have tennis elbow now, and I don't play tennis.

You will.

Like, it's like, why would I purposely.

That.

That's.

That's like saying, like, I got a broken ankle, so I'm going to go play basketball.

Yeah.

Like, I'm not doing it.

Like, there's no way.

And I see people online posting, social media, and there's a lot of animosity between traditional tennis players and pickleball players.

And it's like the new hood rat games.

No, no.

There's animal.

There's like, beef, bro.

Oh, yeah.

People.

People out there in these streets, these paddles.

There's, like, a problem.

I know.

It's gotten very, really, really popular.

Yeah, like, you know, you trying to press me, fool?

Yeah, like, you know, it's.

It's serious.

Like, I don't.

I'm not playing with no pickleball.

I ain't trying to lose a finger over it.

No.

If I play, if I give it a shot, it would have to bleed 2 on 2.

I'm not running across the quarterback.

This is crazy.

Stop.

I'm not doing this.

Dude, there are so many sports that I'm just not athletically gifted to play.

Volleyball is one of them.

I'm not doing volleyball.

I.

I look stupid when I play volleyball.

Odun's a really good volleyball player.

I know.

It bothers me.

He's so.

Why that he's so good.

Beach volleyball, too.

Yeah, I know.

God damn.

He's so chunky for it, too.

He's like.

He's got.

He's got a lot of coordination.

Yeah, he could.

He'll surprise you.

Yeah, because he had terrible ankles back in the day.

He would.

Every single week, he'd be limping out of the gym going, like, ah, spring.

And I go, how'd you know?

I'm like, every week.

Clockwork, clockwork, clockwork.

Weak ankles, bro.

While 50% of respondents to a B of A survey said that they felt themselves to be living paycheck to paycheck.

The banks report found that around 30% of housewares households were spending more than 90% of their income on necessary expenses.

90%.

30% of households that were reporting were spending 90% of their income on necessary expenses.

That is wild.

Yeah.

Mind you, not too long ago, we gave everybody a rough draft of if you were starting to build a budget where it should be, should be like around 60%.

Want to hear something worse?

What's that?

You ready for it?

Tell me.

Well, around 25% were spending more than 95% of their income on necessary expenses.

Bank said those are like, that's like living expenses.

That's like food, mortgage, rent, utilities.

Yeah.

You know, like.

No pickleball in that game.

Yeah, you're not playing pickleball, unfortunately.

Yeah.

So inflation has left many Americans obviously struggling.

The facts are what they are at this point.

You can't, you can't deny these things cost a lot and people are feeling it.

And I might not be talking about it because it's taboo.

Right.

But they're feeling it and that's real.

Another food for thought.

Even with higher interest rates, job openings per unemployed person remain at nearly 1.5 to 1.

So one and a half jobs available for every one unemployed person.

I don't, I don't believe that personally.

Yeah, we've talked about the ghost.

The ghost positions, right?

Yeah.

Like the ghost postings that they should have been taken down a long time ago.

But if you, if you read into the survey indicating a labor market still has a pretty high demand, historically this has only happened during economic booms.

So we've had very exceedingly prosperous times where the economy has boomed.

That would be normal for this type of unemployment.

So how long do you think, would you say, I mean, you've, you're, you're old enough to live through multiple cycles.

Son of a bitch.

But I mean, I mean, this is going to be hard for you.

Hard for you to say.

Right.

Especially given like your position.

You got my age.

No, no.

Your position at the company that we work for.

I know it's gonna be hard for you to say, but if we're not gonna experience or.

It's very unlikely for us to experience a deflationary economy.

Right.

Without a recessionary economy, it'd be very challenging.

Right.

And that's where all the predictions lie right now.

And prices of things are now compounding.

Even if the Fed does get it down to 2%, it's still compounding from the previous year, how long until companies now realize this and they just start paying out more because people just can't afford to live.

Ah, yes.

This is actually a very valid point.

So wage inflation is clearly lagging behind cost of living inflation.

Yes.

And the economics here, to your point, are critical because in theory, the way it's supposed to work is things cost more, companies raise prices, companies make more money, companies pass some of that extra earnings onto their employees.

Yeah.

To help with their wage inflation.

Historically speaking, I would say wages across the country were typically raised between 3 and 5% for a traditional wage increase.

Yes.

And that was really given to you for cost of living increases as outside of the performance spectrum.

Right.

Like if you perform well at work, you get promotions or you get something along the way.

But generally speaking, cost of living increases, that's what those are for.

But we went through a period where there was 9% inflation through at least part of the year.

We went through a period where there was 2, 3% inflation, then there was 5% inflation.

There's all these different periods.

You take the average inflation over the year.

Most people didn't get any increase at all because their companies were struggling.

Yeah.

And just to avoid another round of layoffs or another reduction in force type scenario, they would say, okay, in order to keep some jobs, let's just not give out any increases or maybe cut back on some bonuses.

Yeah, it's difficult.

It's 100% difficult.

And let me explain how this also gets really, really bad.

We've talked a lot about this in the show and unfortunately, this is a reality that's going to be hitting home for everybody, especially in the new year.

And I don't think most people realize this.

Yes, property insurance has gone up.

Oh, my gosh.

Yes, car insurance has gone up.

Somebody I worked today told me that their premium on their car insurance went up 50%.

Yeah, mine has gone up about that as well.

Wow.

Yeah, it is.

My, my payment went and I remember, I think it's quarterly.

It was like 400 something bucks is now like 1500 bucks.

It's insane.

Yeah.

And they billed me like some money in advance.

Now they're doing some really weird stuff.

I don't fully comprehend it and I just haven't the time to invest into it.

But the other kind of insurance, nobody's really speaking about health care.

Oh, yeah.

Think this through.

Why is property insurance going up?

Because there's allegedly a lot of natural disasters.

Right.

They got the insurance companies that pay a lot.

So now they're Just raising premiums to cover themselves.

Right.

Yeah.

Even if your area isn't experiencing it.

Like they got to make up for it on your side.

Right.

And in theory, why did car insurance go up?

Because they had to pay extra claims.

And not just that.

Look at the price.

Look at the average price of a new car right now.

Exactly.

Okay, good.

So health care in this country is getting more expensive, driven largely by how insurance pushes the medical profession to think about not proactive but reactive medicine.

Right.

They're not doing preventative medicine at all.

They're just doing responsive medicine.

But more importantly than all that, we just got through this pandemic era where there was tons of medical expenses.

Yeah.

So you start thinking this through.

Insurance companies pay a lot of money.

Healthcare insurance is going to rise.

So let's say you're at a company and let's say you get a salary increase of 3 to 5%.

Will that be enough to cover your increase in healthcare coverage costs for you if your company.

And some companies can pay more or less?

And I don't know the answer here.

I haven't, you know, but I know that's the next car to turn because a lot of these conversations take place effective January 1st, whenever their enrollment period is for whatever the insurance company is.

Yeah.

So there's a lot of problems here.

And again, insurance inflation is a real thing.

Just like, you know, household costs, you know, food, you know, housing.

Right.

This is also one of those inflationary.

Yeah.

The thing that scares me with, with this too is probably right now it's still, I feel like a little.

There's a little instability with what's going on in the job market.

I wouldn't necessarily be recommending to anybody asking me, should I jump jobs.

I'm like, I don't know.

I don't see the job availability, frankly.

I don't see the job availability.

But also, is it safe to say that if you jump to another ship, it's like, is that company stable enough to where you feel comfortable that there won't be any round of layoffs given what's going on?

I don't know what industry, what sector you're in so that all, you know, has to be factored in.

But at some point, like, the 3 to 5% increase isn't going to be enough.

And the only way people are going to have to be able to make it up is if they do, in fact, jump ship, you know.

Yeah.

Or they can do.

They can take the advice that I've constantly given on the show, which I, you know myself is that 5 to 9 is an opportunity to make money.

And, and it is something that should be taken seriously.

I know that that runs afoul of traditional American notions that people say I don't want to work two jobs or I don't want to have second sources of income.

And I typically say to those people like, I get it, I understand you want this life work balance, I do too.

But at the same time, I also want the freedoms that comes along with not being tied to one source of income.

I'm not saying you can't be a dedicated, full time great employee, but you can also do something you're passionate about.

Instead of having a hobby that doesn't pay you, have a hobby that pays you.

Yeah, you know, it's not, it's not terrible advice.

Right.

So let's move on.

We're going to talk more about the impacts to your wallet and mine.

This from the Kobe Letter.

Lower income households are experiencing higher inflation.

If it wasn't bad enough that inflation has already been as we described, now you know that the bottom 40% of households by income are now experiencing inflation that is 25 basis points higher than the national average, according to the Fed study.

Yeah.

And that 25 basis points, albeit may not seem like a lot.

You know, that's 0.25%.

I mean, you gotta think for lower income households, like every last dollar counts.

So in 2022, these households saw inflation that was 50 basis points above the national average.

This is primarily due to housing and food accounting for a larger share of their expenses.

So I'm going to finish this, but I'm going to clarify and it's sad.

It's really sad stuff.

Meanwhile, the top 20% of households by income have been experiencing lower inflation than the national average since about 2021.

Basic necessities have never been more expensive.

And that's the problem.

Food and shelter people are spending more money because we have a home affordability crisis.

Whether you rent, you buy, that's just, that's a fact.

Can't debate me on that.

That's fact.

That's fact.

Yeah.

Okay.

Your food prices have gone up.

That's a fact.

They've gone up way higher than this number we throw out as inflation.

Oh, inflation, Chris.

It's only 5%, it's only 2 and some percent.

It's only below 3%.

Yeah.

On average.

But guess what?

To get us here, we live through 9%, we live through 5%, we live through 10%.

And the real inflation for some of these things was 20 25%.

The real inflation.

And I believe that food cost you 25% more today than it did literally two years ago.

I believe that too.

And I don't think there's been any remediation to this.

Like, nobody's gone, like, oh, okay, well, let's fix the food price.

You know, they fix food prices, they just give you shittier quality food.

That.

I was just gonna say that.

Like, we, we actually show our kids, like, look, we spend a little bit more for healthier things.

We just want you to see the difference.

And Arya is a little too young.

A little too young.

Yeah.

She's just.

But Adam gets it.

He sees it and he's.

And he's blown away by.

It was eight now.

Yeah.

Going to be.

Yeah, he's eight and a half.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that's about the age where like, light bulbs are going on and like, you put all the pieces of life together and you started going like, wait a minute.

Right.

Shenanigans.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So again, food for thought.

Core inflation categories such as housing and service can account for up to 60% of the consumer price index.

So if these numbers are so out of line and they account for 60%, you have to think about in the context of are we even going to hit the 2% target rate?

And the answer we've said on the show historically is no, we're just not going to get there.

And the Fed essentially give up on it.

It's fabricated.

If they do, I don't believe it.

This makes inflation harder to control even when other sectors like energy stabilize or decline.

So meanwhile, it now takes 46% of the average American's income to cover mortgage payments.

So approximately 50% of the average American's income goes towards just their shelter costs.

Half.

Yeah.

A level not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.

Compare this to the 30% benchmark that financial advisors, I.

E.

Dave Ramsey's of the world, typically tell you to target.

Yeah, well, Dave Ramsey doesn't even want you to have a mortgage, which is crazy.

But yeah, like we've said on the show, right.

They.

If you're going to go off a 60, 30, 10 split for your budget.

Right.

Which is an ideal set of circumstances.

I fully understand that.

Right.

Then, yeah, like 30% of your.

Of that 6 of your needs.

Right.

Should be going towards your mortgage or rent.

And I get it.

You'd have to be making a lot of money these days, man.

You know, I have some needs you can help me with.

Be happy to help with your needs, Christopher.

You like when people call you Christopher?

I'm opening a can of worms.

So today I was hit up in the DMS in Saeed's was thoughtful enough to read my angry retort.

Yeah.

And the guy addressed me as Christopher.

And I fired back on him pretty much calling him out for being a scammer, bullshit artist.

And well, my brother, My brother said, hey, I received some feedback that you're being kind of an asshole.

Yeah.

And I said, dude, this is my most shared and liked content.

Whenever I show examples of how I respond to people and call them out for what I think is nefarious and malicious behavior.

Yeah, I understand.

There are sales people out there.

I have no problem with a salesperson taking the time getting to know somebody, you know, trying to pitch to them after doing some research like that.

To me, you're investing time into figuring out who I am to talk to me.

It does not take very long.

It doesn't take very long.

But incrementally, each one of those things that you do for each person can add up to a lot of time if you're marketing to several people.

But to me, you want my attention.

There's a guy who was DM and I DM sending me emails in the office every single week trying to get my attention.

Smart fucker that he was, he knew my whole bio week one, hey, man, I'll send you a free Yale T shirt.

Hey, man, I'm going to send you the whiskey, like behind you guys on the shelf.

Okay?

Yeah.

So he went, he, he went.

So that was one that caught my eye.

Perked up a little bit.

Then he was like, hey, man, I know you don't listen.

I don't.

I know you don't watch sports anymore, but he was saying the things that tell me that he listens to the show.

And I was like, okay, cool, I'll hear him out.

So I responded to him.

I look, man, like, I'm not interested in the product you're selling, but if I ever have an opportunity, you're my guy.

Oh, good for you.

Okay.

Right.

And I said, let's look, put some in your calendar for six months.

Let's.

Let's talk.

Yeah.

You know, and all you gotta do is remind me you're the guy who actually took the time.

See, and that's what I like to tell people all the time, is I know we're in this era of technology and AI now and all that, using.

It to improve your efficiency as far as making your life easier because you got to do less work yeah.

Translates to the message you send me.

Oh, yeah.

You have to be very, very careful.

Right.

Like the guy that hit you up today that you took you.

So the guy clearly used a bot to take the first name of my social media account.

He targeted niche, probably financial or entrepreneur, influencer, or probably somebody who markets on Instagram.

Right.

And it sent me a message that was this very generic, could have been sent to a thousand to one people.

Usually it's like, yo, what's up, boss?

Like, how's life?

You know, or something.

Something stupid like that.

They're trying to be cool and hip.

Yeah.

But it says Christopher.

And it was like, you could tell.

It was like just somebody took my name, dropped it in, sent it, and he's just shooting fish in a barrel.

Who responds?

Yeah.

And then you could tell that it was, it was some bot system because of all the spacings, right?

Yeah, there was, there's lots of red flags.

Then he said, then that, then he's like, I love what you're doing.

That does.

That's another key.

Yo, say it.

I love what you're doing.

That could be sent to anybody with a social media preference, like profile.

Right.

You know, I mean, like, that could be said to anybody.

Right.

So what I like to tell people all the time is that, look, there's, there's still always going to be a human element that you have to address.

Right.

Like, you don't want to just imagine me coming over to your house and just say, hey, man, I love what you're doing.

And I'm just be like, who are you?

And the worst part about it is, and I don't know why, I really don't.

And I would like to know, they all have the same damn Instagram profile.

Does it work?

Like, maybe we don't see it.

Maybe it's them posting like vanity shots of themselves posing in front of cars, buying expensive stuff.

Being in these remote, like, locations.

It's all folks photos of themselves.

It's nothing that's interpersonal at all.

It's not about like their, their wife or their girlfriend or their family.

It's all photos of just them in these locations.

It's never like tons of photos.

It's usually like 10 or 15 at most.

I don't see how that type of profile, if we're going to stay on this topic for a second, I don't see how that type of profile helps them close a deal.

It's because they want to see, like, they want to make you think, like, yo, like, I'm in they also doing so well.

I'm so good at what I'm doing that I can do all like.

Is that what it is?

It's.

I don't need to.

I am my own brand.

I'm gonna create a brand for you, brother.

And they sell everything from like Ecom to like social media.

Like that was the old like hustle was they would get you like all these media mentions, right?

And when I first started off doing like media work.

Yeah.

Like, you know, I work with a couple of those guys and then one of them put out like one completely just stupid article about me and I was like, they're out.

I can't do that anymore.

Yeah.

And I realized you got to work through reputable sources and build up like a journalist media contact list over time.

And you know, you do it the right way and it's not fun, it's painstaking.

You write and say a lot of things and give a lot of interviews that don't get used in the beginning and then you kind of work your way through it.

But most people don't know how to do these things and all they want is the end result.

So they're willing to pay somebody like this person who just slides into DMs who promises something, whether that's an E Comm store.

You give me $30,000 and I'll run you a store.

It's too good to be true.

I'll tell you right now.

Yeah, okay.

I've litigated enough of these cases.

I know.

Then someone will say, oh well, hey man, I can get you all this notoriety.

I can get you articles and this, this and this.

Again, too good to be true.

I'll tell you right now, it's not what you think it is.

Usually it's paid advertisement.

It'll say advertisements or it's on some third rate rag which means nothing.

If that makes you feel good.

At the end of the day, somebody put some words in a picture of you on something that you can share, then good for you.

But it ain't going to do anything for your business, Right.

Or your credibility for that matter.

And it's just I've seen enough of these to where I call them out.

I usually respond and people like, why do you waste your time?

Because I use them as educational tools so that if some kid who's watching my stories sees it.

Yeah.

And they go, oh, I saw Chris respond to a guy like this.

He told me to look out for these red flags.

So what I'll typically do is I'll Go to their profile.

I'll scroll through it, I'll highlight what some of the photos look like, and then I'll show you my responses to them.

And I'll show you how they can't respond when I call them out directly.

And I know the game they're playing.

Yeah.

So this guy lied to me and said, I watched, you know, I watched the show.

I watched 40 episodes, I'm not gonna watch anymore.

You couldn't tell me a person?

Nobody who watches our show calls you Christopher.

Is calling me Christopher.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

Anywhere on the show.

Whether you're watching it on Apple.

Yeah.

Whether you're watching it on or listening to Apple, you're watching on Spotify, you're listening to it on YouTube or watching on YouTube.

Right.

You know, in all the notes, I'm references Chris.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like, it's a sign of respect, man.

Okay, which one is it?

Do you know me or do you not know me?

Because it doesn't sound like, you know, it's not trans.

Yeah, the math ain't math.

And right now, math ain't math right now.

So speaking of math, shall I continue?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, please.

I don't.

I know you're bored and everything.

Talk about financial literacy.

Not bored at all, are you?

Yeah, I love the Kobe Letter.

Well, we're going back.

You can't make this up.

The average interest rate on a 30 year mortgage is officially back above 7%.

Kids, do you know anybody who may have called that an advance?

Hmm?

Because the.

What happened?

The tenure went the opposite way after the Fed.

4.226% as of today.

Today is Wednesday, October 23rd.

So the 10 year has been.

So for everyone that's listening, I know that they've been listening for a while and they know we've said that mortgage rates aren't directly correlated with the fed funds rate.

And this has clearly been proven now that they track the 10 year Treasury.

And the 10 year treasury has been going up steadily over the last month.

Yeah.

Well, let's get into that.

Okay.

Since the Fed issued a surprise 50 basis point rate cut in September 18, rates have now moved in a straight line higher.

Well, the question you could ask yourself is, did the Fed break the market?

What were they thinking?

Was this a natural and logical?

Because I'll be honest, there was a moment where I saw all the social media rhetoric on, you know, September 17, September 18, September 19, where all the real estate agents and loan brokers and wholesalers were like, oh my God, rates are gonna go down, you're gonna light the market on fire.

Home price is gonna go, let's go, baby.

You know they're doing all that, right?

And I'm like looking at this, going like, wait a minute, if that does happen, that could be cataclysmic for the market.

I wonder if the Fed was astute and aware enough to know that they were going to get out of the yield curve inversion and push rates.

Because we knew that that was likely outcome, I'm assuming, because we're morons and we knew.

Okay, yeah, like if our, if we're two idiots and these two idiots know, clearly the Fed had to know the bond market was going to rally.

Right.

So do you think they were in the meeting with the FOMC and they were like, all right, look, Neil, put the crayon down.

Okay, we're going to cut rates, 50 basis points.

But we're fairly confident the optimism is going to drive the 10 year higher.

And when it does, mortgage rates, because it follows along the 10 year, those are going to go higher, back above 7% probably.

Neil, stop drooling and pay attention.

Right, okay.

And as the bond market goes higher and interest rates go higher for the mortgage market, we're going to drive affordability down unless values come down.

And that's going to make Americans feel better because again, like we talked about in the show, because the FOMC watches the show.

They have to.

Yeah, they've checked in on the story.

60% of CPI is shelter and food.

So if shelter housing comes down, we're winning, baby.

Yeah, put that bit back on, Neil.

Put it back in his high chair.

Yeah, Crayons in the back.

You know what I should do?

Neil and I connected on LinkedIn.

Like he's in my, in my circle, he's.

Yeah, you know LinkedIn.

Now that you've joined.

I'm on there now, baby.

So Neil and I are homies.

Like we tight.

He's my, he's in my contacts, you know, I want to take that, clip it, post it to LinkedIn and tag him.

Say something now, dog, I just want.

You to know you can't get mad if I literally tag you in it.

Yeah.

For the record, he does not listen to the show.

No, no, he doesn't.

Yeah.

I think he got insulted.

Well, equally insulting is, well, according to Yahoo.

Finance, existing home sales fall to a 14 year low in September.

14 year low of activity.

And this to me is crazy because this is the complete and total exact opposite of what everybody was saying on social media.

And this is why?

This is why we warn you all you out there, when say and I are like, eh, a lot of these Realtors, they might be seasoned, there's a lot of very talented ones out there, but a lot of them have never had an economics course in their life.

Yeah, they don't need to.

It's not required.

It's not required.

Right?

Yeah.

Convenient.

Yeah.

So a lot of them will make these just broad statements about things they think are going to happen because they're in an ecosystem of other people who are feeding into the ecosystem.

Like my favorite one, keeping Matters Current, a web.

They blocked me now so I can't talk shit anymore.

They have an Instagram page and all they do is they spin data to cater to their audience because their audience is Realtors and they sell their social media packages to Realtors so that social media.

So Realtors can use them to grow their own social media presence in their assets and their assets all spin the.

Now's your time to buy.

Time to buy us now.

Yeah, I mean I actually got it.

I got it here.

They're no different than the national association of Realtors, the Mortgage Bankers association and even Fannie Mae.

Okay.

They all predicted that in 2024 home prices are going to go up somewhere between 3 to 6%.

Okay.

Yeah.

And in 2025, they're going to go up somewhere between 1 to 3%.

Yeah.

They're just going to continue.

There's going to continue to rise.

And how's that looking now, guys?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean the problem is there is an affordability like crisis going on here.

How is everybody so laissez faire about it?

Yeah.

And like, why are more people pissed off about it?

Why aren't more people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like why?

Like, what is the, what is going to be the solution here?

There is no solution other than somehow there being a shit ton of inventory coming online.

Yeah, right.

I don't know how that happens.

If home builders have.

Home builders need to get some type of incentive.

Right.

To get more units online.

But the problem is the big players are really controlling how much they release at a time.

We've talked about it on previous episodes.

They figured it out.

It's not their job to solve the economy.

Their job is to satisfy the shareholders.

Right.

We need to maintain profitability.

Yeah.

It's not my job to care if every American has owns a home.

I'm building houses.

I'm just not building at the pace you want me to.

Yeah.

I don't need to.

I'm trying to make A profit over here.

I'm not a bad guy.

Yeah.

I'm just.

I'm just a guy.

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I don't know what the solution is going to be here.

I mean, I think inventory actually did spike up a little bit.

It's over, like 1.7 million homes listed for sale right now.

Tiny bit.

Not enough to move the needle.

Not enough.

I mean, pre pandemic, we're talking 2.3 million homes.

And that's, you know, really 1.5 million homes.

750,000 of which for rent.

750,000 of which for sale.

And then you're starting to get back to normalized inventory numbers.

Those are the numbers you need.

Yep.

That's a big deal.

So in the interest of time, I'm gonna read through this next next portion from the Yahoo.

Finance article fast.

I think there's some interesting points here.

But then we'll go on to a little bit of the stock market concentration and the stock market portion of the episode.

And then we're gonna teach you guys about earnings calls again.

Yeah, let's do that.

I'm really excited for that.

And I got a real life, real time example from Tesla today.

Let's go, baby.

We can.

We can get into it.

We can smoosh it.

Is that going to be the thumbnail?

No, no.

Tesla's earnings.

No, no.

I already had a title in mind for the show.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

What is it?

Tell me.

I feel like I should surprise you a little bit.

You want it?

Is that good?

No, it's okay.

Okay.

It's markets versus the Fed.

Who's right about inflation and employment.

I like it.

And the reason why is a lot of what we're talking about here is that the Fed is making one decisive action which is communicating what their thought is in the market.

But the markets are saying something else.

The markets are saying, we don't believe you.

Yeah.

We don't believe.

The market has said all along, throughout this entire process that we don't believe you.

And sometimes, sometimes they've been right, sometimes they've been wrong.

The Fed has lost credibility.

Credibility.

Between the last show and this show.

I just can't speak English very well anymore.

Yeah.

And we're at a decent time tonight.

Yeah, well.

Yeah, I know.

I'm not even that tired.

The Fed lost credibility with the markets long ago.

Long ago.

The market has not believed the Fed for a very long time.

As we get closer to what the Fed's going to do, they believe they're going to Cut rates.

But they don't believe those rate cuts are going to be as impactful as the Fed thinks they are.

And that's why you have the optimism of the market.

I really, I don't know.

I don't think that.

I think that the Fed.

The Fed said that they're going to cut their fed funds rate.

We haven't actually talked about this portion of their projections.

The Fed said they're going to cut the Fed funds rate down to 3% by the end of 2026.

That's the goal.

You buying that?

You think they're going lower?

Nope.

You think they're going to go lower?

I think they have no clue.

I think it's way too speculative.

They were certain they're going to cut again 50 basis points by the end of this year.

And I don't know that's going to happen.

I think November's got a strong possibility of a hold.

And then December, you might see a cut at 25 basis points.

Maybe.

But I mean, how much farther are you willing to risk driving the bond market up?

You're going to shut the housing market down.

Yeah, exactly.

Look, I'm all for a healthy normal curve, a yield curve.

Right.

Where the lower end of the curve is cheaper than the high end, long end of the curve.

Right.

But I mean, is there always a.

Balance between the two year and the 10 year, like the spread between the delta?

Yeah.

No.

It's got some variance.

Does it?

Okay.

At least healthy, healthy bond traders would give you a range.

I would say.

No.

I would say that can always change pretty dramatically depending on consumer confidence.

Right.

And the more uncertain the near term is, the lower the yield will be in the future.

And the longer the end of the curve, you'll get a better rate.

Yeah, but I will admit bonds are not my air expertise.

Being sexy is mine, clearly.

I mean, I look like a Fidel Castro wannabe right now.

It's fine though.

Yeah.

It's a linen military shirt.

You like it?

You're all about that military green.

I like the olive.

Yeah, you like the olive.

It offsets my tone.

US existing home sales dropped to a 14 year low in September, likely as prospective buyers held out for lower mortgage rates, which I don't know they're going to get anytime soon because house prices are remaining quite elevated.

Home sales fell 1% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.84 million units, the lowest level since October of 20 2010, the National association of Realtors said on Wednesday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast Home resales would be unchanged at a rate of 3.86 million units.

Home resales, which account for a large portion of U.S.

home sales, decrease 3.5% on a year over year basis in September.

Home resales have struggled to rebound after being depressed by a surge in mortgage rates in the spring.

It goes on, but suffice it to say, ain't nobody buying, right?

No, not right now.

Who can?

Yeah.

And to cap off the Kobe letter.

Can I please.

Stock market concentration has rarely been so extreme.

So now we know the housing market's got some turmoil.

Good or bad or ugly, we don't really know how the outcome will be.

Hopefully the prices will come down with time.

The top 10 US companies now account for 18% of the global stock market capitalization.

The most since the early 1970s, baby.

So break that down.

So it was funky town accounting for 18% of the stock market capitalization.

What does that mean?

Right, so the market cap of a company is essentially its market valuation.

Yeah.

Right.

How much?

It's like I guess, worth.

Yeah.

There's calculations we talked about on previous shows, but effectively you're just finding out the size of the company and it's a way to compare one company to another.

Yes.

When you take the size of all the companies, like looking at their share in their stock price and the number of shares that are outstanding, effectively you can take the cap out algorithm, come up with a total market cap.

Now the question is if Tesla is a massive company, it's obviously going to be a bigger contributor.

Contributor to the overall market capitalization.

This all in number.

Yes.

So If I'm worth $100 million and said's worth $1 million.

Right.

I am clearly a larger portion of our aggregate market cap of $101 million.

Right?

Exactly.

Right, yeah.

Collectively on average it's $50 million.

I'm like baby, on average, baby.

Yeah.

Well, unfortunately the top 10 US companies now account for 18% of that, which is a big number.

How big you say?

Well over the last 15 years this share has tripled.

Right.

So larger companies are now worth more and own more of the collective stock market.

To put this into perspective, Even at the 2000.com bubble peak, the top 10 firms weight was 14% or 4% lower.

4% lower before the dot com bubble burst.

Wow.

So, and you're saying, crystal, what is the dot com bubble verse?

Why is that so impactful?

Like why are you saying it all snotty and zesty and these are all tech companies, right?

These are all tech companies.

They're all traded in the nasdaq.

Yeah.

Don't worry, we'll get there.

Yeah.

Hold tight.

Listen, grab a beer like Arun's doing right now.

I really enjoy the listeners that show us when they'll like send screenshots or like the post on their stories and they'll tag us.

Yeah.

That they're watching the show like in their living room.

I think that's so cool.

You do?

To me, I'm just like, it's, it was a little weird at first, but then I'm like, man, I appreciate you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

I mean if you're, if you're sitting down watching our faces while you eat food and you can eat it.

Yeah.

Good for you.

Good for you.

Yeah.

You know, two cows and cows that.

On.

Two cows and cow.

And sometimes it's two cows cocktail and cows.

There's so much.

Oh, somebody just messaged us on the online store.

I'll get back to that on Shopify.

Oh, yeah.

Let's go, baby.

Interactive, brother.

At the same time, the top five US companies reflect 15% of the global stock market's market value, the most since the data began tracking in the 1970s.

A few key US stocks effectively are the stock market.

All right, let's talk about those stocks, shall we?

Let's do it again.

Some food for thought.

The Mag 7 stocks, which are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, and Tesla.

This scares me, man.

Something about that really scares me.

Yeah.

And I will say these aren't all traditional tech companies in, in my mind because of what and how they do it.

But so now they, these seven companies account for 30% of the S&P 500's total market cap, a level of concentration not seen since the dot com bubble burst the early 2000s.

And they all trade on what is a tech heavy exchange, the nasdaq.

Right.

So this is a good opportunity to talk about earnings calls and to talk about how impactful these companies have been to the market.

Okay.

I don't know if you watched the news today, cnbc.

Not today.

I've been knee deep in working and work stuff.

I've been, I've been grinding.

You got a job?

J O B.

I got a job.

I've been answering a lot of phone calls.

Yeah.

No judgment.

So Tesla had their, their earnings call today.

Okay.

And what we're going to tell you and talk about, if you want to apply it, I think there's a great opportunity here.

So I did a little bit of, you know, forward thinking.

Look at you.

I saw, I Got an email from there because, you know, not too long ago, we were shopping for EV car.

I want to trade in the Jeep.

So sad.

Rip.

Yeah.

Oh, you don't have that anymore.

I'm very sad about it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know that's tough.

But then we, we ended up getting an EV and we were in.

The market was between Tesla and the Volkswagen.

Right?

The Volkswagen.

The Volkswagen.

Never thought I'd be honest, growing up, never thought I'd ever own a Volkswagen.

They offered that 0% financing.

I was like, sign me up.

Yeah, it's a good deal.

Yeah.

And I got an email from Tesla the other day saying that they're offering 0% financing again.

Oh, really?

Yeah, 0%.

That's what.

So I don't know how this plays into your forward guidance on Tesla, but it's zero, I think 0% financing on model three and model wise.

Well, so we're gonna talk about Tesla, we're gonna talk about their earnings call today.

We're gonna talk about what that meant for the market.

And if you want to apply this one week from today is Tuesday, October 29th, the day this episode 253 will drop.

On that day, Visa, Pfizer, HSBC, Chubb, a lot of companies will report.

There's pages and pages of them.

But Google Alphabet, one of the MAG7 will also be reporting that day.

Today, the day you hear this.

So if you want to listen to earnings call in the morning, you can do that, right?

If you want to listen to it recorded later on, you can also do that.

If you want to see what the market just does and you want to see it make headlines, you'll see that and you'll be better educated because you listen to this show today.

Yeah.

Hashtag blessed, Blessed.

Tesla reports they mixed their third quarter results after the bell on Wednesday, but the stock jumped in after trading hours as traders investors cheered the earning beat, higher gross margins and news that Tesla's cheaper EV is on track for production next year.

CEO Elon Musk also added on the earnings call that Tesla's volume growth could be 20 to 30% next year.

So the earnings call.

Cheaper EV.

Yeah.

They have a cheaper model coming out.

Yeah.

Like a lower end version of the three in the.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow.

And he's, he's really trying to democratize the space to be taboo and cliche and use the word.

That's often too to use.

Democratize.

Earnings calls are really going to tell you about the performance in the previous quarter.

So the earnings calls you're getting today is a Q3, 20, 24 earnings call.

Like a report card.

Yeah.

They're not allowed to give too much forward guidance, but they're allowed to tell you some things like what he noted here.

So he's saying that we beat the earnings expectations, that the analyst people who cover us, who are experts in knowing how we perform, they look at our public filings, they follow and track our stock.

They expected us to do X.

Well, we did X plus more.

That's like patting your own self on the back.

Yeah.

Which I'm seeing a lot of people do on LinkedIn.

That's all they all everybody does.

They just pat themselves on the self promotion, baby bro.

It's crazy.

Best.

It's crazy.

It's the best, right?

Surprisingly, our videos do not do that well on LinkedIn.

Yeah, haters.

I think it's just they're not acclimated to a video platform and they want to see like text and like graphs and stuff.

And instead I give them your face.

So it doesn't sell on LinkedIn.

You just got to put a graph in your face.

That's all you need to do.

Yeah.

Moving.

So not only did he have an earnings beat, but he's also expecting higher gross margins and that this cheaper EVs on track for production, which will further boost their position.

So a lot of positive news for people to go.

Oh my God.

Let's, let's trade them up.

Let's, let's trade the stock price up.

For the quarter, Tesla reported revenue of $25.18 billion versus 25.1.

I can't even say it's so much money versus 25.4 billion per Bloomberg consensus, higher than the 25.05 billion it reported in Q2.

And also topping the 23.4 billion Tesla reported a year ago.

So they're making more money.

We did a year ago.

They're making more money than they did the previous quarter.

Tesla posted adjusted EPS earnings per share of $0.72 versus $0.60 expected.

So EPS earnings per share is typically how I like to look at companies.

And in this case it's a great way because the analysts are saying, hey, we expect them to make about 60 cents per share.

That's how profitable they're going to be.

And in this case, when you multiply it times a shares, you do some of the math, you get to approximately 25 billion in some change.

Well, they beat that number and they provided a $0.72 per share.

That's a revenue beat.

They beat the expectation.

Big deal, right?

That's a big deal on adjusted net income of 2.5 billion and free cash flow of 2.9 billion.

Man, it's.

That's a lot.

It's a lot.

It's a lot of the billions they're.

Doing all right over there.

Billions and billions of dollars.

Like we say on the show, it's a lot of millions.

The closely watched gross margins figure came in at 19.8%, much higher than the 16.8% expected.

So for Tesla, increasing profitability and efficiency in producing these cars has been a strong narrative of criticism and concern for the Street.

How are you going to increase your margins while you increase your profitability while you're selling more units?

And unfortunately, the world that we live in is you had every single quarter.

You got to improve.

Well, he did and he provided a return, and it's pretty significant.

So some food for thought because we like that in this episode.

This is.

This is.

These are the statistics that really hurt, man, what, what you're about to read.

Yeah, this.

This is one of the reasons why we tell you to invest in products that you believe in.

I bought my wife.

My wife and I bought her.

Her Tesla early.

Early on.

I can't remember what year.

I think maybe it's 2019 model.

I remember.

Yeah, you were the early birds.

Early birds, yeah.

Early ish birds.

But we have unlimited charging for life on the thing.

It's a great car.

We spent over $100,000 on the damn thing.

A $1,000 investment in Tesla stock at its 2010 IPO would be worth over $2 million today, making Tesla one of the greatest stock market success stories in history.

Its earnings calls often shift the market sentiment globally.

Wow.

Now, that's a pretty.

Pretty powerful response to your earnings calls.

You can shift markets, you can change the end result in the day of how the entire stock market traded.

And it's not just him.

It's not just the company.

It's also him.

As in Elon Musk, personally.

Yeah.

That's why people take great exception to him talking about other stocks.

Right.

It's.

Or cryptocurrency for that.

Well, yeah, well, that was kind of cavalier.

And there's all sorts of reasons why I think there's a whole narrative there.

We don't get in on this show without you getting all, you know, upset about the Crypto Bros.

I love the Crypto Bros.

They're my favorite people.

They, of course, they are just trying to stay alive.

Are they, though?

Yeah.

That being said, earnings calls are fascinating to me.

Some of them are A little bit long and dry.

Some of them are entire events.

Think Berkshire Hathaway.

Right.

But in my mind, if you own stock in a company and you have a good amount of exposure in it, you owe yourself the courtesy to listen to the earnings call at least once or twice a year.

They do four of them a year, Right.

Just so you get a feel for the company.

And who's talking?

Who knows?

You might listen to the call and be like, oh, God, that CEO sounds like a jackass.

You know, you don't know.

I mean, Elon Musk is so visibly known that people know who he is.

You don't have to like listen to an earnings call to know.

But there's a lot of people who you would otherwise never hear outside of.

Their earnings call because it's not just him speaking, Right.

It could be other people, other companies.

Chief operating officers, presidents, you know, chief innovation officers, chief technology officers, I mean, you name it, they have all sorts of chiefs.

But enough Indians, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah, there's a lot of reasons why you want to listen and I think there's a lot of positive benefit for it.

But I have some final thoughts to recap the show and I think they're valuable.

We haven't really had structured final thoughts before.

So this is me, you know, beta testing a little bit.

Ooh, a nice little coalesce into a nice final thought.

I like it.

Yeah.

So at a time when the Fed is asking us to slow down, markets seem to be speeding up.

Right.

The Fed wants us to slow down for inflation to come down, for consumers to be reserved.

But markets are going in the direction they're speeding up.

A pretty big disconnect between the market and the Fed.

Right.

Why this is happening?

Well, we don't know like we started the show with.

Right.

If consumer behavior, earnings calls and economic fundamentals are all sending conflicting signals, which they clearly are, how can anyone confidently navigate the months ahead?

Yeah, anyone by mean individuals and companies.

Well, what I'll say is be cautious.

It's okay to be optimistic, it's okay to be negative, it's okay to be a doom and gloom Peter Schiff.

Right.

It's okay to say, I think this is going to be fantastic.

We're going to make it to the other side, it's going to be great.

Come drop Snowy Pops, give me my goddamn unicorn outfit, I'm putting it on.

Right?

But be cautious, be thoughtful, be pragmatic, because really, nobody knows.

There's a lot of mixed messaging here.

If you want modern day terminology vernacular to Appeal to the hip kids.

Okay.

There's a lot of red flags.

There's a lot of green flags.

You got to navigate.

Red light, green light, red light, green light, red flags, green flags.

Okay, give me a lot of green flags right now, Saeed.

Okay, so even though inflation, the inflation rate is moderating.

Moderating.

Prices are still rising, just more slowly.

Yeah.

That's not a good thing.

That's a bad thing.

Right?

Yeah, maybe they're right.

They're rising slowly.

They're still rising for everyone.

Everyday consumers.

Disinflation feels like inflation because they're paying more today than they did yesterday.

Disinflation is not deflation.

Right.

Two completely different things.

That's the rate of which things are increasing is slowing down versus prices of things actually slowing down.

Yeah.

I'm kind of proud of us tonight.

That was very impressive, sir.

Was it?

Yeah.

Christopher, Was it the food for thought little tidbits or was it.

I like that, I like that.

I like the recap.

Put it all together.

Little bow.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You would open my package.

I would open your package.

Okay.

Just.

Just make sure.

Yeah.

I want to be clear.

I'm not opposed.

You're not opposed?

No.

I'm glad that you receiving of my package.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're welcome.

I don't know, man.

This is, this is.

I think we're entering into a very interesting time.

I can't wait to see how it plays out.

Normally on shows I would ask you what your thoughts are, but I don't want to do that this week because there's so much more data that I think is going to come out and I want to kind of see where things go.

Yeah, there's a lot in November before.

I make predictions, I actually have that economic calendar.

Let's see here on the 29th, that's next week.

We got the Jolts job opening labor turnover survey.

October 30th, we got ADP Employment and we got GDPs for Q3.

Right.

October 31st, we got PCE, baby.

Yeah, you know me.

Yeah.

That's the Fed's favorite gauge for inflation.

And then November 1st we got the jobs report.

And then we have to fit the election, baby.

See, man, we're on a show, right?

And I told you I don't like these scammers hitting people up.

Right.

This is me, mind my own business.

I'm just here doing what we do.

We're doing a show live.

Live.

Yeah.

Real time.

Hot mic.

Yeah, Hot.

What are you gonna say?

So hot.

What are you gonna say?

I Get a D message to the podcast merchandise storage.

By the way, if you haven't been there, thspod.com or you can click on any of the links that any of our stuff.

There's merch store there.

Great stuff.

We sell merch.

A lot of sexy people like Adam wear it.

Yeah, Adam Schaefer.

Yeah.

He wears it using incredible shape in just like a month.

That's impressive.

If you're not watching your series on YouTube.

Muscle memory.

He's got an incredible.

He's added muscle and lost body fat on a bulk.

It's like, fuck you.

Yeah.

Anyway, so I'm sitting here and I'm like, oh, new customer message on Oct 23, 2024 at 8:20pm like, great.

What's up?

What's up?

Yeah, yeah.

Hi, store owner.

I'm Bucky.

Spelled B, U, K, K, Y.

Nothing good follows that.

Come on, Bucky.

You can be store owner.

I'm Bucky.

Which one of the Avengers are you best friends with?

Bucky, a Shopify expert.

Oh, no, don't do this.

Bucky who uses Buck O la difa fees.

Buck Abdullah fees.

So this looks all sorts of reliable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Your store setup and product niche are impressive.

However, I notice there's room for improvement in driving sales.

Your store's sales channels aren't optimized for high traffic and converse and conversion.

Can I share with you some effective strategies for organic growth and optimization?

Best regards, Bucky.

Okay, this is exactly what I was talking about.

Yeah.

So although not in the DMs, it's a direct message.

First of all, you don't have a corporate email.

You're using a Gmail account, so I'm gonna minus one.

Okay, your name is Abdullah.

People on game right now.

Abdullah Fees Buccalo or Buckola.

Your name sounds like you're from a different country, but your country code is us.

Is it?

Yeah.

Okay, fine.

I'll discount that.

But a red flag.

Mm.

Let's break down your message.

High store owner.

Not high.

Higher standard.

You didn't go over just to see.

Like, it's literally not Chris, not Saeed.

Our names are right there.

Not nothing.

Nothing that says you read, even read the website.

I'm Bucky, a Shopify expert.

So all you know is that this is the Shopify store.

Yeah.

Your store setup and product niche are impressive.

What is my store setup?

Yeah.

What is our product niche?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What have you told me that you haven't copied and pasted and sent to 6,000 stores tonight?

Yeah.

If there's Anything that we have learned ourselves and we've learned from others in the space that we really appreciate.

All the mind pump guys, it's.

You got to provide value.

No value here.

Yeah, you got.

You have to show me that you have value and you're going to give me some value for free for me.

To trust you and this guy.

Okay, look.

Okay, great.

You sent me a very generic message.

You provided me zero value.

Now you've wasted my time.

Nothing you said is going to help me.

However, I noticed there's room for improvement in driving sales.

How?

Yeah, what am I selling?

Yeah, you said, what am I selling?

What am I selling?

Have you seen my page?

What am I selling?

Your storage sales.

Sales channels aren't optimized for high traffic and conversion.

What sales channels?

What sale?

Yeah, exactly.

Selling merch, bro.

What do.

What do you.

Where.

Where am I going to.

What do we do?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, and for everybody out there that's listening.

We don't sell the merch to generate.

It doesn't.

We don't.

It's.

It's really for the listeners to.

We don't make any money on this, though.

We make any money.

Yeah, it's like maybe like three or four dollars a pop or something like that.

It's.

It's really for the listeners to wear something cool and support the show and, you know, it's like, advertisement.

We love you.

Loving us.

Loving you.

Yeah, Simple.

Come on now.

Right?

Can I share with you some effective strategies for organic growth and optimization?

Best regards.

No, no, Bucky, you cannot.

And I would normally post that on my story, but I don't want people getting all scentsy about me, like, calling people out.

Yeah, no more people need to get called out.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah.

It needs to be more of it.

And during this show, I probably received 10 or 15 messages.

And I'll show you when we get off the hot mics of people going, like, I love this, bro.

Never stop.

Yeah, never stop.

Never stop him.

I almost said something that I'm not allowed to say anymore.

Oh, yeah, can't stop, won't stop.

Oh, bad boy, bad boy.

Good with the daddy.

It's never going to not be funny anymore, dude.

All the videos that are resurfacing, resurfacing.

And you're like, what subliminal message were you sending on this talk show?

He wasn't trying to hide it at all.

There was one.

I don't even.

I didn't fact check to see if it was a real Episode or not.

I don't know how crazy AI is any anymore, but he came on the Ellen show and gifted her a T shirt with a videotape on it.

Yeah.

Is that.

Was that.

That really happened?

I don't know.

But what does that mean?

That's like.

Because it's like, why would Ellen have Diddy on the show?

It almost feels like he forces her hand.

Bring me on the show.

There was a clip on the show too where he.

He was doing like some weird sketch with him, her, and somebody else in the middle.

I can't recall.

French.

Huh?

French was a French Montana.

I think so.

I think that's.

I mean, I've seen a bunch of those.

Yeah.

Where he.

He basically said like, oh, they didn't.

He went.

He wouldn't whisper something to.

To her in front of him and he was like, what the fuck?

And he like tried to redo the skits and then they were going to cut and restart.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was super awkward.

I don't think he was hiding it.

I think he was just like, no one's ever gonna.

Can't stop, won't stop.

I think he meant that.

Yeah.

I got enough people in my corner that'll make sure I'm never going to jail.

And now he's buggies.

I can't.

They're actually bunkies.

You could not have called anybody.

Who the Vegas odds on that had to be in.

I mean, what.

I know, right?

Exactly.

I mean, can you imagine Sam Bankman Fried getting another celebrity endorsement this late in the game?

Who's calling who, daddy?

Oh, let's be honest.

Let's be honest.

Sam Bankman Fried ain't doing well.

No, he's not doing too well right now.

He probably.

He probably was the guy going, wait, who's coming here?

No, hell no.

No.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No.

Yeah.

He probably tried to punch himself in the face to go to the infirmary.

God damn it.

Yeah.

And it's just the.

The arrogance that he thought that he could get away with it.

Right.

And he did for a long time.

He did.

Well, innocent till proven guilty.

Yeah.

Like, what's going to happen?

So what, Like Siroc was the bottle at all the clubs.

Right.

Like I haven't been in a long time.

But it was the bottle.

Like, what is think that it ever was like the bottle?

I think it was just like.

No, that was a lower level cheap stuff.

No, no.

But that was the one that most people bought because it was lower level.

Cheap stuff before inflation.

You're not going to you're not out there buying Cristal and shit, right?

So speak for yourself.

You've done that.

You bought Cristal.

Yeah.

Why, bro?

You want to have this conversation?

No, I don't want a.

Certain events.

I don't want.

I don't want that part of the.

But, like.

But why?

Certain series of events in Miami cost me $30,000.

In Miami, on the hot nights, they have a dollar minimum, not a bottle minimum.

And if you don't spend the money, they're going to charge it for you.

So at the end, you might.

You might as well.

You start ordering everything.

Yeah, exactly.

For your pot.

Committed at that.

Oh, yeah.

And then, you know, you just order everything and you spend, like, 80.

That's why you go, like, Miami clubs, and, like, right before they close, like, everybody seems like they're parting their ass off.

It's not because they want to get more drunk.

Yeah.

It's because they got to spend the money.

Yeah.

I might as well get bang for a buck.

Yeah.

Geez.

Yeah.

Those bottle minimums, like, they create such a crazy culture, man.

I.

Looking back on it, man, like, I.

I just.

I.

I will go.

I was.

Oh, I'm older than you, so let's just get this out of the way now.

I remember going to clubs when it was just a VIP room that was off, that nobody ever saw.

Right.

Like, there was the club that's worth.

Spending money on at least.

Right.

You know, you couldn't get in that way, though.

That's not the way you got in.

You didn't.

You didn't get to spend money to go into a VIP room.

You had to be somebody or be connected to get the vip.

Yeah, you could.

You were VIP because you were literally vip.

You couldn't buy it.

Right.

Access to those rooms was like, hey, we want to have some celebrities.

They want to party in privacy, you know, we bring in some people, blah, blah.

They have their own separate party.

I get.

I get that.

Right, right.

Which is also weird to me because, like, why are you going to a club?

You don't want to be seen.

Yeah.

You know, but whatever.

Like, that's the way it used to be.

And then you have open dance floors and, like, whatever.

And then it got to the point where it was standing room only.

Then, like, ah, we'll car.

We'll put little, like, ropes out, and we'll carve off sections, and we'll sell that real estate.

So smart.

Come on, man.

Then they do, like, this bullshit where they.

Oh, but if you buy this bottle, it Comes out with streamers and rockets.

Yeah.

And you look like you're that guy.

And then everybody has a streamer, so it lights up the room so they can see you a little bit.

And then.

Yeah.

And then they're like, oh, that's the guy at the table with the streamers.

And then if you want.

If you want the ball and table.

Next to the DJ booth, Real estate process, man.

You pass boardwalk.

Yeah.

Seriously.

You know, I never.

I never really understood that.

I mean, I.

I think.

I don't think there's really anything to understand.

It's just.

You want the prime real estate, you gonna pay for it?

No, it's just.

Cause you wanna be seen, though.

It's like.

The sick part is, a lot of the best tables didn't go to people who were paying.

Like, it was routine.

During.

When I.

When I used to spend a lot more time in Vegas, people didn't know this, but, like, we always had the dj, the table right behind the DJ booth at, like, some of the hotter day clubs.

Yeah.

We never paid.

Oh, wow.

Never paid.

We knew the promoters, we knew everybody, and everybody was kind of a crew.

They all kind of went around and hung out, and somebody.

Somebody was paying somewhere, and it might be your turn one time or something like that, but generally speaking, we were getting comped.

Yeah, because you rolled with all the people, and everybody wanted to be where you were at.

So those people came in.

Yeah, man.

That's.

I mean, that's just the greatest lesson, right?

In life, that if I could teach Adam and Aria, like, at a young age.

A lot of life has to do with not only what you know, but who you know.

Yeah.

That's the real value of colleges now, too, which is also sad.

It's just a networking thing, rolling the.

Dice to get somebody that becomes somebody that you know, that you know that.

You'Re in the circle.

I like to think that I'm the somebody that people know.

Yeah, you are that.

Because if so, I don't have any friends that I know that came up.

Hook me up.

You know people.

You host a podcast.

Yeah.

You host the podcast.

You hook me up.

Yeah.

What can you do for me, bro?

I need a cold plunge.

12% off.

Yeah, yeah, go.

It's in the show notes.

Yeah.

Make sure you click the links.

All right.

Say good night.

They make it.

They make it really hard now to, like, get down to the show notes.

Like, I remember the other day I went on our last episode, and I scroll down and I click more, and then you have to click more again.

You have to find it to really.

You have to really hunt it down.

This is not a problem that I have.

And then on top of that, the way YouTube is like throwing ads on the.

Yeah, the.

The separate show notes come up underneath those ads.

Yeah.

And then it looks like, like, let's say for instance on the last one, what was it?

I think it was like Old Spice.

Right?

It looked like Old Spice was sponsoring our video, but it really.

It was just an ad through YouTube.

They are.

I'm just not sharing money with you.

Yeah.

Son of a bitch.

Yeah.

You got anything else?

Nope.

I'm looking forward to editing this show, so stop talking.

All right.

We miss you, Odun.

Love you.

We don't.

Yeah.

Good night, everybody.

We really don't miss you.

Yeah, I do.

Bye.