E137: Inflation cools, market rips, Ripple/MSFT beat regulators, NATO summit, cocktails of youth

25:55On the other hand, if inflation is above 3%, with low unemployment, you're back in the overheating quadrant, which is probably bad for stocks. Now, you could have a situation in which inflation goes down and remains good, but unemployment goes way up, in which case that'd be the hard landing. And then the final quadrant is stackflation where you've got high inflation and high unemployment. So I think the quadrants right now are probably as balanced as they have been in quite some time in terms of where we could end up in let's say a year Yeah, I think that there are some yeah, there's some early signals That you can look to to get a sense of where this may be going Disney World is empty the lines are really short I don't know if you guys have any friends that have been to Disney World lately or Disneyland It was in the Wall Street Journal the traffic has fallen off a cliff.

26:44Yeah, and There's just, there's not there go go broke company. That's a really interesting point is do you think that Disney traffic has gone down because the conservative half of the country basically feels offended and they're probably a lot of bud light. Yes. Or is it a larger consumer spend problem? Everybody everywhere else is still spending like even if you go to like look at the world series of poker main event this year had the historic number of entries. everything is telling you that people are getting their last raw. So the fact that Disney has been decaying for the past year is more emblematic of the fact that they've gotten into this social culture war and half the population of America said we're not going to support your business like they did to buttlight and I'm not adjudicating the rightness or wrongness of either buttlight or Disney, but the answer is in the actual results.

27:34The people are not walking into the store. Just to show this is what we're on Disney. So here's a Disney chart for you just to show you the times at the different parks over the years It is in 2023 meaningfully shorter than 2022 or pre -pandemic So I don't know if that's a function of their technology that they've been deploying or if maybe conservatives are not going But there's also another X factor which is the previous Head of Disney who got ousted and Bob Iger's back was the guy who ran parks and he just leaned into changing the pricing and it got absurdly expensive and they got rid of like the California pass and all that stuff.

28:11So I think the jury's out on this one, Bob Chapak. But there's a broader consumer spending question that I'm saying there may be some early signals. The most consumers rely on credit as you guys know interest rates are rising and that passes through to consumers purchasing goods. But other folks look at the metric of consumer credit card balance as a percentage of savings or percentage of earnings which is actually a little bit lower given wage growth and savings that have accumulated. Regardless, there are other signals we can look to. So if you pull up this chart, this just shows a really important statistic.

28:42So 80 % of new car purchases are financed, meaning you take out a loan to buy the car. 40 % of used cars are financed. And interest rates on car loans, as you guys can see in this chart, in just the last year So interest rates have spiked from under 4 % called 3 .7 % to an average of 7 % today And that obviously translates into a doubling of the Monthly payment needed to buy a car and now if you go to the next image So this is now playing through in terms of youth car demand and youth car prices In the last month it was reported by Cox automotive that the pricing for youth cars has declined by 4 .2 % And so this starts to indicate that there may be a bit of a softness emerging.

29:31We can argue, yes, this is having a positive effect on the inflationary conditions, but it may also be an indication of consumer spending and that we're starting to get to a point where credit is so expensive and consumer's ability to flex credit is being decreased and that's starting to translate through into what everyone's been worried about, which is the recessionary or declining effect on revenue, declining effect on profit of companies that are selling goods and services. So that is obviously the challenge to sexist point on that two by two matrix on it. You know, if you reduce cost and reduce demand too much, you can have a recessionary effect and consumers are a big driver of this and so many consumers depend on credit.

30:07It's going to be a big condition to watch. Well, a study measures are going to happen. Here's the chart of quarterly revenue for Disney. Yeah. Still doing great. I bought the stock and it's the one thing in my JTRAD and portfolio I've gotten and crushing on that and one of our brothers' discovery. I made two entertainment bets on what I think are the two best companies. I also did Netflix, but one out of three ain't good. All right, so some breaking news here that we'll try to dovetail together with this leena con and the FTC losing their activation case. Apparently, and it's breaking news, a partial win is what it looks like.

30:43Let me read this here. Judge gives Ripple partial win in SEC case over XRP currency. Ripple Labs, Inc. violated federal securities law in its sale of cryptocurrency XRP directly to sophisticated investors, but its sales on public exchanges did not involve securities. A US judge said in a ruling that sent the cryptocurrency soaring, XRP was up 25 % after the ruling. SEC had accused the company and its current and former chief executive conducting a $1 .3 billion unregistered security offering by selling XRP, which Ripple's founders created in 2012, US District Judge who was based in New York on Thursday said the company's 728 .9 million of XRP sales to hedge funds and other sophisticated buyers amounted to unregistered sales of securities.

31:29But Torres ruled XRP sales on public cryptocurrency changes were not offers of securities under the law because the purchases did not have a reasonable expectation of profit tied to effort. Okay. Those cells were blind -bid ass transactions, she said, where the buyers could not have known if their payments are reading from Reuters here, of money went to Ripple or any other seller of XRP. Interesting. So the buyer becomes the person who profits from it becomes the the full from here. XRP sells on cryptocurrency platform. I mean, Jason, you're not going to figure this out in real time. This is too complicated.

32:06The bottom line is that the headline is - Look, the headline is, I mean, the tweet, ripple sales of XRP do not constitute offer investment contracts according to judge. They won. This is a huge vindication for them. XRP is ripping 35%. And it really handcuffs the SEC. What are they going to do about Coinbase and every other exchange? I mean, if they're not selling securities, I think Coinbase and everybody else has always maintained their selling tokens. This was the full -crime argument for the SEC and they just because they just lost. The whole crypto market is ripping right now. It's an interesting one.

32:45The confounding part of this is that the initial sale to accredited investors and hedge funds was done that they violated security's law there when they were directly sophisticated investors. I, just looking at it logically, you would think it was the reverse. But there's a fascinating turn of events. I just talked through with Brad Garlinghouse and he says, yes, it does mean that they won and he feels vindicated. and really happy about the... Yeah, you feel it, Jake -O. Well, I feel like I'm gonna lunch Jake -Oin and Celatoke into back startups. I mean, if it's a free for our own, I won't tell you what he said.

33:23He said, you Jake -Oin. No, I mean, I said... You were accusing these guys of security fraud for like last several years. I think it is worth it being convicted of security fraud here. So that's the two part judgment. Ripple violated federal securities law on its sale of cryptocurrency, the first line of the story. There's two judgments here. They violated federal securities on its sale of cryptocurrency, actually be directly to sophisticated investors, but the sales on public exchanges did not involve securities. So what they're saying is, if you sold XRP to hedge funds, that was a security when they did the first offering.

33:55But when the public started trading it on public exchanges, they did not have, according to the Howey test, this belief. But that's where their vulnerability was, because if you sell to a professional hedge fund, they're accredited. That should not be an issue. You should be able to sell to a candidate. So what's the problem? This is an out -of -the -range for them. The judge says they lost that. They sound pretty happy and the market seems to be indicating that this is, I mean, would you say the price is up 35%, well, I mean, let's, the public, it's up to 37 % right now. Crypto trades, I wouldn't necessarily put too much on it.

34:27I would look at the actual judgment here, but we all know people trade headlines, so let's, let's see where it's at in five days, but a bunch of the all coins are ripping right now. Well, by here we go. It's a judgment that seems to indicate for a lot of folks that these are not going to be treated as securities. I think that this is a really important. Just think about how amazing the United States is that the government agencies, the administration in power, can come after corporations. And then we have a court system that can adjudicate and make decisions that follow the rule of law. I know we're going to talk about Lena Khan and her agency's efforts at litigation.

35:04But I'm really encouraged at the fact that the court system in the United States doesn't just cow -tow to whatever administration is in power at that moment, that they do adjudicate by the law and ultimately provide greater clarity for business, for individuals to operate going forward. There is a better sense now for the market. There's a better sense now for individuals on what has actually been a program. Have they always been? to check in balance. It's a check in balance. I think that's what's so great is that there's now clarity because the courts provided that. Has this trend changed? I thought America always did that.

35:38Yeah. I think it's great. Look, you obviously have a very zealous administration and a very zealous agency leader who is testing the boundaries. And Lena Khan's agency is pushing the limits on what constitutes antitrust. and in the effort to try and push those boundaries, there is a pushback from the courts. Nobody thinks Joe, it's been Gensler and the SEC. It's been Gensler and the SEC, sorry, yeah, we're talking about both agencies, right? And so it's good to see that there's clarity emerging and that the courts do their job and that the administration's come in. And I think the lead thing is very different.

36:13I think this was a nuanced argument that the SEC made that required a highly sophisticated interpretation of securities law, and you're supposed to go to the courts for that. I think what the FTC has been doing is basically just emotionally reactive lawsuit filing. All right, so let me just pivot over to Lena Kahn's losing streak here. On Tuesday morning, a federal judge denied the FTC's attempt to delay Microsoft's $70 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and the FTC's argument was basically, Microsoft should not be allowed to acquire Activision because it would make Activision's core assets, which is basically called of duty, one of the greatest franchises in the history of franchises, movies or television shows or video games, and that it would be exclusive to the Xbox.

37:01Satya Nadella and Xbox had full Spencer, both set under oath they could not make COD exclusive and they wouldn't, and not only that, they said they would allow it. No, it made no sense. I mean, they also said they would put it on Nintendo, which chorus because Nintendo and Sony, are the number one and number two players in this market in Sony alone is basically 50 % of the market. So, I think like the crazy thing about all of this is if you look at the legal strategy of the FTC, it's basically that they view themselves as a hammer and every deal, particularly if it's done by big tech, is a nail.

37:42And so, you know, Amazon Rumba, lawsuit, Facebook, some random little company, lawsuit, Microsoft Activision lawsuit, and it's that emotional reactivity that takes away faith and trust that this organization is intelligent and sober and well run. And that's the shame of it, because if you actually look across all of the deals in tech that have happened recently. This deal was frankly, deal away from the start from a regulatory blocking perspective because of what I just said. The number three player, a distant third, buying an asset, why would you take an asset that you pay $70 billion for and immediately turn it off from 50 % of all consoles?

38:28Nobody would do that. Hey, Saks, when we look at this, and let's widen this aperture to the faith in institutions because we have the Gary Gensler, They're, hey, do we actually believe that they're acting in good faith or are they trying to protect fiat currency and not let an alternative currency take some control and sort of be a backstop against their behavior in the money printing machine, which is crypto's big sort of, let's call it the biology position. And then in this case, Lena Khan was selected, hand picked as a 32 -year -old wonder kid who had this incredible thesis that she could predict who would compete in the future.

39:05She was like a minority report free con. She alone could decide, you know, how these competitions would emerge and she keeps losing. So these two institutions now being used for political purposes by the Biden administration or do you think that they're just poorly executing what you're taking? Well, I think clearly the legal strategy that Lena Khan has been pursuing is not having much success in the courts. I mean, she just lost this big decision on the Microsoft acquisition of Activision. But that being said, I'm almost starting to feel bad for her, because although some of her legal theories may be flawed, I do think that these big tech companies like Google and Microsoft do need to check on their power.

39:51And so what I would urge is that Lena Condon needs to regroup, maybe figure out a different legal strategy, figure out a different way to take on big tech, because someone does need to cut these big tech companies down to size. They are giant monopolies and they do need to be restrained and controlled or they will basically consolidate the whole tech ecosystem and abuse their market power. So I think it's actually pretty vital that we have a regulator who is energetic in wanting to check the power of big tech. I think maybe trying to put a damper on M &A was the wrong way to do it. We've talked about this before.

40:26It needs to be more surgical, right? There's so few ways to have a good exit in the tech industry that when you take away M &A, it puts a damper on all risk -taking and the deployment of risk -capital into the ecosystem. So I think it was having too big of a chilling effect. So I think she needs to move away from these M &A cases unless it's a very, very clear case. But I think where she can be more aggressive is on restraining anti -competitive tactics and also maybe busting up these companies. You know, I'm thinking more and more about this Google case that she has where she wants to basically break up the company Because they've got this monopoly not just in search, but also in Advertising maybe that's a good thing and maybe Amazon chef to spend out AWS Maybe Google chef to spend out YouTube because I do think they are abusive in the way they exercise their authority as a small example over the past week YouTube just banned a video of Jordan Peterson and interviewing RFK Jr.

41:29Why? What gives them the power to interfere in our democracy that way where they just decide for their own reasons that the public can't watch a video of Jordan Peterson interviewing RFK? Well, I wouldn't be counting on the beers. That is absurd. Didn't the Supreme Court just say private companies can serve customers however they want? If you want a gay cake, a baker doesn't have to make it, isn't the same analogy? No, I don't think it's the same principle. These are huge monopolies. that have to make this market power that are years for you. So, more companies can choose their customers and products, but the big company has more of a responsibility to be an open plethora in your mind.

42:05Yeah, that's the common carrier argument. But my point is, they have to make this market power that they abuse in arbitrary ways. You have to admit, Saks, her lawsuit strategy is Gattershund. It's a little bit of a spring prey. In fairness to her, she said she was going to do that. For example, where is the lawsuit on Adobe Figma? That seems like a more obvious one. You have the number one and the number two, right? There's a clear number one monopoly buying the number two. And so that could be more market consolidation than a number three player buying again. Nobody, the public doesn't know those names.

42:38And Biden put her in there to be anti -tack, but to be anti -well -prepared. This is a heart, but no, I just want to tell you, her position has also been driven by wealth inequality, which is not the mandate of the FTC. I think that's why she's the worst modern day FTC head. I'll say it again. I know you're saying Michael. Because she should be looking at tactics. The tactics she should do is the app store on iOS should be open to other app stores. Amazon is open to third party sellers. They should be looking at the bundling of Microsoft teams and say, you know what? Because you have a monopoly position, you can't add things to the bundle without charging for them.

43:16If you want to include Microsoft teams, you've got to put a price on it. And the price has to be a fair market price because you're doing product dumping. You're dumping into the market of free product with your market position. Instead, when they launch that, the settlement should be, Microsoft Teams should be plus $8 per month per person, plus $4 per month. But it shouldn't be allowed to dump products onto the market. I think the tactical stuff would be much better. I don't understand what I'm doing. That got a response. Okay, freeberg first, Chimauz, X. Freeberg? Well, I'm just asking why? Why?

43:46Why wouldn't it be okay for Microsoft to put a cheap product out? If someone makes an alternative to teams that is a better product with more features than they charge for it and people are willing to pay for it, they'll win in the market. Because of bundling, bundling and product dumping is illegal according to the laws in the United States. I'm asking you, do you think that's what I agreed with that? Yeah. It's a form of bundling. You've got to make that argument, but yes, I agree with that. I agree with that too. But look, the way I judge these things is what is good for the ultimate health of the startup ecosystem because entrepreneurship is a thing that we should be optimizing for, not the power or wealth of big companies, but the vibrancy and dynamism of the startup ecosystem as a whole.

44:26I think that long term, that's what leads to the creation of new big companies, that's what's good for America. At CoSUN. Yes. With FTC, I think Lena Khan hasn't gotten the formula right. I think she's challenging some of the wrong M &A deals. But like I said, I'd like to see her regroup and figure out how to take on on these big companies because I do think they have to be restrained. On the other hand, what's happening with SEC and Operation Choke Point is I think they would have basically put the cabosh on the whole crypto ecosystem. I mean, if you basically come out and say that there's no such thing as a token that every single token is basically a security, then that's the end of crypto as a potential center of innovation.

45:07Now, we can argue about what the utility of it is, we can argue about whether it's long term going to be anything there. I don't really know for sure, but I would like the United States to be the place where we figured this out, not driving it overseas. So I'm happy that the judge found in favor of Ripple without knowing anything specifically about what Ripple did. And I'm not endorsing their behavior or tactics or whatever, but I'm happy that there is because that is going to enable more innovation in the ecosystem because it was really going the other way before. And my critique of what the SEC was doing is they were basically seizing power that they did not have.

45:49I mean, basically, Gensler unilaterally was telling Americans that they cannot hold or buy or trade crypto. Because when you say that every tokens is security and they can't operate on exchanges, you're basically saying that Americans don't have the right to engage in crypto. So, and I think that was basically a bridge too far. Tremoff, you wanted to get in on that? Well, I just think that part of the thing that I think maybe the FDC suffers from is that Neenaconda is a very young academic. And maybe what we need to have a little bit more of a higher batting average or slugging percentage here is to actually have somebody that understands how business works.

46:30Because I think this scattershot approach doesn't do much and I think it just wastes tax paramount money by funding these frivolous lawsuits that then sophisticated organizations like Microsoft and Meta just win. And so where does it leave us? It weakens the institution. It makes the laws, frankly, not enforced where they need to be. And the whole point is not a marketing exercise or a PR exercise, to go after companies you dislike, but to actually enforce the laws of capitalism and market dynamism. And so to not do that, I think, is very egotistical. I think it's emotional and I think it sets the US back because the things that should get stopped don't.

47:11And then all this other stuff is just a red herring and a waste of time and taxpayer money. I think you're absolutely nailed it there. I think both of you know that, um, Sachsha and Chemaathare, I think she needs to focus on product dumping. You can pull up the screenshot here. Predatorial below cost pricing is well within the FTC's mandate. You can go look up just type in Predator or below cost pricing FTC and you can read all about it. It's absolutely clear that you cannot put products out there at a lower price. And so you have to have a granular discussion is teams, Microsoft teams, a product or a feature.

47:42I think we all know it's a product. And so that's an easy win for her interoperability. Should Android people be not allowed to use iMessage? Should people on iOS not be able to use the Play Store or buy digital assets from Amazon? Obviously Apple should be stopped there. So interoperability. And then there's one that's such a clear easy layup for her. And you know, we'd all like to see her succeed. But I think she is absolutely doing Biden's bidding with an anti -tack, anti -wealth creation, anti -capitalism, frankly, pro -union punishment. I think this is punishment for tech being too successful.

48:19I don't think it's logical. And if you really want to get them, go after dark patterns. And if you don't know what dark patterns are, that's when you subscribe for the Wall Street fucking journal online and then you have to call them to unsubscribe. And there are so many dark patterns and I think Amazon's getting in trouble for this for prime, one of the most loved products of all time, obviously. But dark patterns could be stopped by the FTC and that's where they can really, really do damage. I heard today that they're investigating chat GPT for giving out wrong answers. It says right on it, it's going to loosen and give you a wrong example.

48:51This is an experiment. Another example of the FTC going after the wrong thing. So I think she needs a sniper rifle, not a shotgun. She's got a, she needs to get a kill shot. Where's the kill shot coming from? Let's kill Google. Well, that was pretty controversial when you said blow it up. I mean, I would love to say more on that. Yeah, well I paraphrased a line from RFK junior who is paraphrasing a line from JFK Which is he went to shadow the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter to the winds I said that after they banned the Jordan Peterson RFK interview that we should shatter Google into a thousand pieces and scatter to the winds And that thing went massively viral There's a big part of this country that is really pissed at Google in the way they're exercising their arbitrary power Why don't you get 12 ,000 like I just think that the people running that company I don't understand how they make these decisions.

49:44Just makes no sense. Well, FreeBarg, you worked there. What are your thoughts on breaking up Google and how they make decisions? Look, I'm a free market guy. As you guys know, I think that consumers vote with their dollars and their eyeballs in their time. And ultimately, as we see with Disneyland, and Disney World, if people don't like the behavior of a business, they're going to stop giving their time and their money to that business. By the way, freeberg, were you shocked at the fall off in traffic? I did not. I actually immediately thought I'm going to take my kids to Disney World. Yeah, wait times down on it.

50:20Please, Republican stay home. Disney hates you. You guys know how expensive VIT or... Yeah, I'm going to say the VIT tour. It's so expensive and I'm like, man, if I could... Too expensive. I'm just stopping so cheap. The number one problem we have with you is that you're driving a 12 -year -old Audi that gets six miles to the gallon when you could drive a taxi. Great car. I love the Audi RS7. and that he wants to send you to your model, or whatever. A hole in the ozone you hypocrite. And you're a hypocrite because you deserve that. You deserve that. What is it? $10 ,000 for the day to bring your kids to Disneyland VIP?

50:54Or you can do it. It just tires somebody in a wheelchair. It's ridiculous, the cost, but yeah, you get to cut all the lines and everything. I think it's anything else. And I also, I generally don't love the crowds. So if it's gonna be less crowded, I'm more interested in taking my kids there. It's already hard enough to deal with it, you know? So speaking of you know, freeberg made this point about The administration being over zealous. Did you guys see this article on the glut of electric cars that are piling up now? Yeah on dealers lots Yeah, we shift gears to this by the way I think this is a big part of what I said earlier about interest rates on car loans No, this is a this big thing is more because of the bureaucracy of the government not allowing these credits to beg basically work across all different kinds of cars This should not exist for the reason.

51:36This is not a demand issue. This is a shit of the car stock. Government intervention in market dynamics. Is that the driver? Yeah. So Axio, so it says here, the legacy auto industry is beginning to crank out more EVs to challenge Tesla, but there's one big problem, not enough buyers. There's a growing mismatch between EV supply and demand. Even though consumers are showing more interest in EVs, they're still worried about purchasing one because of either price or charging concerns. Range anxiety. Yeah, a lot of these new companies that are, they're not new companies, but they're new to EVs, don't have charging networks.

52:12Yep. That's an issue. And then also if you've never owned an EV and you don't live in a city, because now we're going down the curve of people who live outside of cities and you see 200 mile range, you remember your trip where you drove 300 miles or 400 miles and you're like, well, then I I can't have this car. If you have a Tesla, you obviously can, but then Tesla also made the chest move of lowering their prices and having record sales. So they are margin went down, but their sales went up. And everybody can wait a year. Like that's I think that what people don't realize about cars. You can always get another year out of your current car.

52:46So according to this article, the nationwide supply of EVs and stock has grown nearly 350 % this year to more than 92 ,000 units, which is a 92 -day supply of EVs, whereas my comparison dealers have 54 days worth of gasoline -powered cars in inventory. So even though interest is growing in EVs, they're simply too much supply. Too much supply? It's because all these other companies, like Ford and GE, are now producing tons of EVs, but they don't have the charging networks. And they're new to the EV game and they don't really produce great cars, great EVs. Tesla does not have this problem, by the way.

53:30And what I come back to is just the administration's industrial policy. I mean, the administration just gave all these subsidies and credits to big companies like Ford and GE to make EVs, but no one wants those cars. Yep. By the other problem. And so they're actually interfering in a free market where Tesla is the big winner because they took a huge risk and created a product people wanted. And now you've got these big, stodgy old companies trying to catch up, but no one wants their cars. And the administration, which is pro union, is anti -Tesla because they don't have a union. And so they put the thumb on the scale and give them the credits instead of giving the credits to Tesla, although Tesla lowered the prices, and I think they now qualify.

54:13But the prices are so low for Tesla, and the cars are so sophisticated, to listen to talk up our guy's book. But I think the other big issue here that's not mentioned, the story is interest rates. I mean, if you could give these things away at 2%, 3%, 4 % interest rates, that's a big difference, isn't it? In terms of monthly car payment. 80 % of new cars are financed. Okay, so that's the beginning and end of this probably. I mean, it's three factors going on here. And interest rates are not all loans have doubled, like the charter showed. So, you know, it's a huge impact on demand overall. And it's not, you know, if you know the adoption curve of technology, I think we're getting into the big middle, the fat middle, and then going to the laggards.

54:53And the laggards want an F -150 or a cyber truck. And until lows emerge or a suburban, that's electric, you know, three rows with a lot of storage. Those don't exist yet. All right. So, Jiggell, let me ask you a question. Okay. So you've got an administration that is overzealous, as Fibers said, on industrial policy, basically subsidizing these old, stodgy, broken companies like Ford at the expense of innovators like Tesla. They are bringing a bunch of anti -MNA, FTC lawsuits that you don't like. They are cracking down on crypto, which you may like, but in an overly aggressive way, the course is throwing that out.

55:33How would I get the rules fair? I mean, just finish saying. Keep going, yeah. We've just gotten off of a one to two -year spike in inflation caused by runaway deficit spending and over stimulus. Yeah. So my question to you is, is the economy doing so well because of or in spite of this administration? I think it's innovators and consumers drive the economy. I think I voted for Biden and over Trump because I think Trump would have stopped in the election and as a treasonous felonious, horrible human being. And I thought it was existential crisis for America. Now, if you could put up a Republican candidate like Chris Christie, who I just, uh, Mouche, Scar Mouche, just put me in touch with Chris Christie, he's coming on the show.

56:19So, Nikki Hale and Chris Christie are coming on the show. You couldn't deliver, you couldn't deliver to Santa's for the show. So I will deliver Chris Christie and Shemal is going to deliver Nikki Hale. I'm going to vote. I'm giving my announcement now. If Chris, I'm going to vote for Chris Christie, I think. I think you changed the subject. I wasn't asking you about I mean I I was asking you about whether you think the Administration is helping the economy or hurting the economy I think the runaway spending to freeberg's point last year is Made me a single issue of voter and I think that they're spending disqualifies them for me voting for them I need somebody who's gonna balance the budget or get this spending.

56:58I love you now. Oh my god No, I mean, I can agree with you on some things. I'm like, Han Solo, you're like C3PO. I need you to navigate an asteroid field, but I need you to also just shut the fuck up when I'm doing it. So just let me cook as the world's greatest moderator. Now, I do agree with you on this. You're absolutely correct. If we don't get the balance sheet right, nothing else matters. And I don't think Trump's crazy spending and Biden's crazy spending is not going to get us out of this. We need somebody to control spending. A period full stop. I don't know how you where how you guys feeling about the election at this point.

57:31I guess we can just look at the deficit myth. Okay. That book is the problem. It's that we can always just issue money because we are the currency that everyone wants to hold. And the flawed logic is that we are the currency that everyone wants to hold until we issued too much debt. Wait, wait, wait, we've rehashed this. I mean, the interest payments, I think are the backstop Chimoff. When we start hitting those interest payments, People are going to start going we're paying more in interest just like people with their home mortgages are like You know, I should have bought a smaller house because I'm paying so much in interest I should have bought a model three instead of a model X I over I overspend So is that going to be the backstopper the United States itself?

58:11Is there any path of controlling spending? Is there any candidate who will get spending under control or is it just one popular? RFK you think okay and the reason is because he's so against the military industrial complex and he wants to pass an executive order that bends pharmaceutical advertising, those things would have a pretty large ripple effect in the economy and in spending and in entitlements. So be interesting to let it play out. All right, that's what you really care about. Yeah. Those things would be pretty meaningful changes. Sax, anything from you on any theory on how we could control spending in this country?

58:48If there's any back stock, i .e. my theory, when we start paying huge interest payments, Maybe we get our act together. Is there any candidate? At the end of the day, the market's probably going to impose discipline on us. That's sort of my point, yeah. Yeah, you're right. The cost of borrowing will become so painful. That is the argument that Larry Summers, another contrarian economist, contrarian to the administration's policy, have been making, I'm sorry, I don't want to put that in his mouth, but that the cost of borrowing is going to be high as long as spending remains high. And so when you see security and climate transition, and simulatory spending going on, chips act, IRA, all this sort of stuff.

59:27It's not cost -free. You have to pay more to the buyers of your debt. Yeah. I mean, Tramoth can speak to this. The big, you know, is always, if you place a lot of bets, the big doesn't go down. It goes up when the debt goes up. So anyway. Just on the market imposing discipline on the federal government, one of the things we've talked about is whether there could ever be an alternative reserve currency. And the theory was that as problematic as the US fiscal situation is there's no real alternative to the US dollar. The BRICS countries are about to introduce an alternative currency that's based on gold.

1:00:04So it seems like what the BRICS countries would like to do is use gold - Go back to gold standard. Gold certificates as an alternative. That's basically what we're talking about. So it's announced that they're going to be rolling this out. We haven't yet seen how or what the details are going to be. But that scarcity built into it. That would be the alternative is you go back to a gold standard and the Brooks country has moved to that. Now, I know a lot of people may not think that's much of a threat, but I was reading actually some really interesting articles about how big the Brooks countries are now.

1:00:38And if you look at them on a purchasing power parity basis, this, the BRICS countries just surpassed the G7 in terms of GDP. So if you measure the size of their economies based on exchange rates, then the G7 is still bigger. But if you look at in terms of PPP, actually the BRICS are now bigger than the G7. And growing faster. And then for people who are catching up Brazil, Russia, India, China, and other, what are considered emerging markets, but are quickly becoming Brazil, Russia and China. Bricks. And there's a bunch more who want to join. With this ripple ruling, I think this becomes a boon for people to say, well, the scarcity of Bitcoin and Bitcoin's stability, I think, where it's trading right around 30K between the 10K previous average and the 60K peak, maybe that becomes the gold standard in the future.

1:01:34And if people can feel a little bit more secure in it, now we're going to see 10 counter lawsuits, and everybody's just going to sue the SEC and stand up for themselves. I think that's what's going to happen now. If Ripple wins this, or if this Ripple thing does work out, appeals, whatever, then for the standard operating procedures, they're not going to have any settlements. And I think that's what M &A is going to happen. All M &A, it's like, well, now the settlement is off the table. We're going to fight. And you know what? You can afford a lot of lawyers if you sold a lot of tokens or you're a big money printing machine quick plug for the summit go.

1:02:10Yeah, well we have At this point the ability to announce a bunch of our speakers for the summit, which is super exciting Da da da da da da da put in like some tip in here So we have Toby from Shopify Stephen Wolfram of Wolfram Alpha, Mathematica obviously Mr. Beast everyone knows Mr. Beast Mr. Beast is coming Mr. Beast is coming. Can we take a, well, in the green room, can I ask him to take a picture of my daughter? You can do it. Is that a line? Yeah, I can. Okay. I don't know. I don't know. I think it'll be interesting to ask Toby. I tweeted this out, this whole thing that he did where he canceled everybody's meetings and that forced people to reset it with a little calculator that shows how much money that meeting costs in terms of greater initials that it's in the Google calendar.

1:02:56It's like this meeting costs $3 ,000. They just launched an AI. He launched his AI thing called the sidekick. It's awesome. It replaces like all board meetings. Yeah. If you're like, basically, it also tells you how to do basic stuff that you need to do to get your business stood up. It's fantastic. You will reconfigure a website in real time to increase sales. It'll tell you why sales are falling off a cliff. It's like your little, you know, and he said like, every superhero needs a sidekick and Robin, boom. So we got Rob Henderson, Nikki Paul, Vinod Kostler, Bob Mumgard from Commonwealth Fusion, Jenny Just, Ryan Armstrong, Alexandra Botes of the Botes sisters, famous chest dreamers.

1:03:40We have the fifth bestie, Brian Gerstner, Larry Summers, and a few others that we can't announce just yet will announce closer to the summit or at the summit. We reserved a hundred general admission tickets for after we announce speakers, so we're going to update the website with these speakers. And we're reopening GA ticket sales until those 100 final tickets are sold out. So if interested in joining us, it's going to be a fantastic event. Jason organizing amazing parties all three nights Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night. Can't wait to find out about them. Oh, first, first night's party. And when this subject to change is the bestie who loved me.

1:04:19Casino Royale, James Bondi, where are your best James Bond, Tuxedo, Play Rulat, Bokarot, whatever. White, Votis, he has. Exactly. Second night party is going to be Bestie Club, like the breakfast club, 80s, big 80s. Where are your besties out? I thought it was like a white club where people get in the ring and bestie club. Yeah, okay. Okay. And then the last night, the raise, and we're going to go late. I don't know how late, but we're going to go late. We're going to have a raise. It's going to be Bestie runner a blade runner cyberpunk send up where your best blade runner cyberpunk rave outfit sacks is gonna dress like The fifth element red meat for sacks and for Jake out to a certain extent there are no winners and more NATO has brought Sweden and obviously Finland came in right before them because of Putin's invasion of Ukraine and here we go So Zelensky denounced the NATO alliance's administration policy as absurd and disrespectful.

1:05:17First sentence of SACS is very long tweet storm despite Biden's best efforts to put a happy face on it. Villainly this will be remembered as the NATO summit where tensions boiled over. Obviously, this photo has become a bit of a meme. Throw it up on the screen right here. Zelensky literally, not figuratively, having NATO turn his back on him on stage from being the class celeb last year to everybody I you know and again it's just a picture. There was a press conference with Biden who said Zelensky was stock with the US and I'll let SACs take it from there. These NATO meetings are supposed to be symbols of unity and harmony and the alliance coming together to show how on the same page they are and this meeting it sort of ended up there but it's not the way it started.

1:06:12Zelensky had been told, the Ukrainians have been told, before the summit, that there would not be a timetable for their admission to NATO on the agenda. Stoltenberg had said it weeks ago, Biden had said it weeks ago. This controversy had played out already in the pages of The New York Times and other publications. So he knew that it would not be on the agenda. And yet he went into the meeting, demanding that they put it on the agenda, to try to muscle his way into admission into NATO, which Biden, I think to his credit, has resisted because Biden understands that this is an escalation that can lead to a war III.

1:06:47As Biden explained, the members of NATO have an article five commitment to defend each other's territory. So if Ukraine is emitted to NATO, then we would end up being directly involved in this war, or at least that's the risk. And so Biden's position is that the alliance will emit Ukraine at some point in the future when the conditions have been met. And that wasn't good enough for Zelensky and he basically threw a diplomatic tantrum. Why? Well, I mean, do you want to explain from his point of view? I mean, I think from here... Yeah, I'm curious what you would think his... Why would he do something like that?

1:07:20I guess my question, yeah. I think there's a couple of different reasons. Okay, so I think the less positive explanation is that his sentiment title has reached incredible proportions. that you had here the entire West, and especially the Western media has been falling over him for a year, the West has given over $100 billion, and he just feels entitled to more and more aid. And I think that really rubbed the attendees the wrong way. You had Ben Wallace, who's the Secretary of Defense for the UK, basically chastised Zelensky for his ingratitude, gratitude and just so you understand I mean Ben Wallace is a super hawk.

1:08:01He is super pro Ukraine and if he had his way we might even be directly involved in the fighting by actually vetoed Ben Wallace becoming the new head of NATO. That's why Stolenberg on another year. So you probably got one of the most hawkish members of this club, reprimanding Zelensky for again this lack of gratitude basically to the Alliance. Now I think from Zelensky's standpoint His view is that, hey, we had a peace deal, he didn't say this, but this is my reading between the lines, that we had a peace deal at Istanbul. We could have ended this war, and you sent Boris Johnson to tell me, we don't want to make a deal, we want to pressure Putin, and we're going to give you the weapon systems to win this war.

1:08:46That was the deal that he thought he was making, and now it turns out that the US doesn't have enough ammunition to give him. I'm talking about the key type of ammunition in this war, which is artillery shells. The US has basically run out of 155 millimeter artillery shells, which are the key type of ammunition that's using these howitzers and these tanks and so forth. And artillery is the main weapon being used in this war. It's what's creating most of the casualties. So it must have come as a rude awakening to Zelensky to find out that his partners don't have enough ammunition to give him. And I'm still stunned that we spend over 800 billion a year on defense and we could run out of ammunition.

1:09:30I mean, how does that happen? I mean, how royally screwed is the American taxpayer when we spend 800 billion a year and we are out of ammunition ready? It is mind -boggling to me. Now the prop is mind -boggling, right? I mean, how incompetent has our military industrial complex become that this could even happen? We need more competition startup shout out Palmer Lucky friend of the pot. But certainly, I mean, I know he hates you, but I do think that the solution is 10 more Palmer Lucky's. I mean, I think the Silicon Valley's anti -supporting the military is a crazy position that needs to change and we should make more weapons and have VC back companies making weapon systems that are more affordable and, you know, more advanced obviously.

1:10:13This is actually not a case of needing some smart bomb or some super sophisticated attack. No, this is basically just plastic industrial production. We've hollowed out so much for our industrial production that we don't have the capability to scale up the manufacturing of these artillery shells. It's going to take us, according to the Pentagon, they started the war at 14 ,000 shells being produced a month, mainly for training purposes. They've scaled that to somewhere between 20 and 30 ,000 a month now. and they're saying that they will get to about 90 ,000 in somewhere between 2025 and 2028. We have three percent unemployment.

1:10:50We talked about earlier. Who's gonna work in these factories? It's gonna take multiple years to skill up these factories. But who's gonna work in these factories? We're at 3 % unemployment. Like we don't have factory workers in this country. We have to let them in. We're gonna need more immigrants. That's not the limiting factor here. But if you're wondering why did the US give cluster bombs to Ukraine, it's because we're out of ammo to give, and it's all we've got left are these stockpiles of cluster munitions. That is why the United States is violating international law, a treaty that we haven't signed, but 120 other countries have signed, not to use cluster munitions, and yet we are giving them to Ukraine because, according to both Biden and Jake Sullivan, we are out.

1:11:38You think we shouldn't give them the cluster bomb, such a position? Well, I wouldn't have put ourselves in this position. I mean, we're in a... But on the cluster bomb, would you give them or not? No, I think it's degrading to America's moral authority to be violating international law, to be using and endorsing cluster munitions. But we put ourselves in this situation. The counter to that, of course, is Russia's using them on Ukraine's soil. This is Ukraine's soil. Don't they have the right to defend themselves and use the same weapons that the invader is using? That's disputed. It's known. If the Russians were using them, would you think it would be fair for the Ukraine since they're being invaded?

1:12:12The thing that I find curious about these accusations is that when people talk about these examples of the Russians using cluster munitions, they talk about an example here or an example there. There are these isolated cases, which doesn't sound right to me. It seems to me that if you're going to use cluster munitions, why wouldn't you just use them at scale? That is what the Ukrainians are going to be doing now because again, it's all we've got left to give them now What the Russians have said is that in retaliation? They're going to start using cluster munitions at scale so regardless of the truth of those allegations Jason Yeah, it's an estimated now escalating this war yes And the reason why you ran so just a real why start 120 120 countries sign an agreement not to use cluster munitions, because they linger.

1:12:56Yeah, it's terrible. On the battlefield long after and you have kids walking on them in civilian skills. We're still cleaning them up in many locations around the world that they should be banned forever. Yeah, I agree. Let me give get your take on this, Sacks, as we wrap up here on the Sacks Red Meat section and then go to Science Corner. Putin did what NATO couldn't do for decades, which is get Finland and Sweden who are famously independent, unlike a lot of the Nordics, to join NATO. They both joined because of his invasion of Ukraine and he's been very serious that if Finland were to join or if Sweden were to join that this would be A trigger for him if military contingents and military infrastructure were deployed there We would be obliged to respond symmetrically and raise the same threats to those territories where threats have arisen for us.

1:13:43He's done nothing Do you think that Sweden and Finland are a huge alpha him and do you think he'll have any kind of response to it? Do you think they should have been allowed in? Taneita. I think it's an L for everybody. I mean, we used to have an understanding that we'd have a buffer zone between Russia and the West. And that was good for everybody. Finland was neutral. And I think it was good for Finland. I mean, during the entire Cold War, they were at much greater risk facing the Soviet Union on their border, which was a much more powerful, a much more expansionist country than Putin's Russia has been.

1:14:19Even if you don't like Putin's Russia, the Soviet Union was the evil empire. It was much worse in every dimension. And Finland managed to survive the Cold War remaining neutral. And so now you're right that I think disinversion of Ukraine has ultimately caused Finland and Sweden to join NATO. But we are now directly NATO is going to be directly on their border, staring eyeball to eyeball, with nuclear weapons. the Russians have now moved nuclear weapons into Belarus. So this is a ratching up of tensions that I think is not good for anybody. Who should get to decide, Friedberg? Who joins NATO? NATO?

1:14:58The countries that want to join? Or Russia? What do you mean? NATO? What are our... It's a pretty basic question. You know, right now, it's Russia saying Ukraine cannot join NATO. It's a line in the sand. Obviously Finland and Sweden just joined this year. So I'm curious you'll take on the NATO alliance and if it's good for humanity. I think look, obviously this is a different difficult calculus if you... That's why I'm messing the question. If NATO wants to escalate tensions with Russia by accepting Ukraine, it's obviously going to require a significant influx of capital by some estimates up to $2 trillion dollars to increase the security capacity of NATO given the instigation that would arise from accepting Ukraine in NATO with Russia.

1:15:48So that is one path. The other path is to not accept Ukraine in NATO and minimize the investment needed. Reduce the escalatory cycle with Russia at some degree for some period of time. See where things go with Ukraine and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Well said, but not get actively involved. So it's a difficult calculus. I think everyone wants to jump to some decision about what should be done here But this is a very hard decision very hard. What do you think about Finland and Sweden joining? Is it a is it a major win for NATO in the West? Is it a major alpha Russia somewhere in between?

1:16:21I don't really know Yeah, I think that's as honest as you can get yeah like I said, I think it's just sort of bad for everybody but in the United States among the foreign policy establishment, they tend to think that any country joining NATO is an asset for us. And I would argue that it's a liability because it requires the U .S. to defend these countries. Again, if Sweden or Finland gets in a war, we are making a guarantee to send American boys and girls to go defend that country. Now they also make a guarantee to defend us, but realistically, are we going to benefit is our security benefit by having Sweden or Finland.

1:17:00We don't know how I use going to defend us. No. So every time you add a country to NATO, you're making a commitment for Americans to have to go defend that country. And I would argue that's a liability, not an asset for America. Now, you know, it's an asset for, is a military industrial complex. Because all these countries when they join NATO, because we, to spend 2 % of their GDP on defense. And they can only spend that money on defense contractors who are interoperable with the NATO platform, which is basically these approved Western contractors. So the defense industry loves NATO expansion.

1:17:36The military, they're locked in to vendor lockers. Absolutely. Oh, I didn't know there was vendor lock. And that's like when you rent like a, you know, a union hotel or something, they're like, you got to use Wolfgang puck and it's $800 a person for coffee. One of the requirements for a country to join NATO and Ukraine already had been on this path for the last few years is called interoperability. You have to make your military interoperable with NATO's, which means that you use weapons as well as tactics and strategies but weapons that are on the approved NATO list. And if you looked at the summit we just had in Vilnius, when all the planes came into the airport, you had these anti -aircraft batteries and howitzers and all these tanks and all these weapons were being shown off by our defense contractors at the NATO summit.

1:18:25It was like a confab for the MIC. So you have to understand that NATO is a business and the more countries that join NATO, the more money our defense contractors make. Yeah, and the price of that for the average American is that our sons and daughters one day might have to go defend these countries. And it reduces the risk of Russia going into another country. It would be the other steel man of it, but let's go on to science corner. Everybody's favorite part of the show is science corner. sex, you can go use the bathroom and Chimoff and I will be absolutely engaged in freeberg's science corner.

1:19:08Let's go. We were talking about what to talk about. As you guys know, I said, hey, we can talk about the sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic that's likely going to drive the biggest hurricane season we've ever seen this coming season. Super compelling, good topic. We were going to talk about this minimal cell. But then just yesterday, this paper was published, which which I think deserves a lot of attention. We've talked about Yamannaka factors and reprogramming cells, adjusting the epigenetics of a cell to make it youthful, basically reversing aging. A couple episodes ago, I talked about how there's great proof and evidence now that aging is a result of degradation or changes in the epigenome, the little molecules that stick on top of the DNA in a cell that decide what proteins are expressed that make that cell different from all the other cells.

1:19:55The difference between an eye cell and a muscle cell in a skin cell is the epigenetics of that cell, even though they all have the same DNA in the nucleus. And so the Yamannaka factors, these four chemicals that allow the expression of these four specific genes cause cells to become stem cells that can turn into any other cell. The problem with applying Yamannaka factors to reverse aging is that it turns the cells and to cancer cells if you apply too much. So then there were all these efforts on doing short bursts of Yamannaka factors. And more recently, there's been an effort to do gene insertions through viral vectors.

1:20:31So you basically get a virus to deliver a gene into a cell that causes that cell to express some of the Yamannaka factors that makes that cell more youthful. And there's actually clinical trials underway right now to apply this as a medicine for vision loss. where you can make the retinal cells actually youthful. Yeah, really incredible. So the problem right now is that we don't really know how to target the cells, how to provide the right amount of Yamannaka factor stuff, and how to get it there is that these gene expressing viruses are what do we do? But this paper that was just published yesterday shows that you can use small molecules.

1:21:05Basically small molecules are like Advil or Tylenol or there's about 1800 molecules in a certain reference library that's used in medicine. And what this research team at Harvard, medical, and some other facilities, MIT, and other places in collaboration were able to do is they basically did a screen, a combinatorial screen. So they took all these different molecules that are known to be used in medicine. And they combined them together and created different cocktails. They then took those cocktails, and they applied them to the cells to see if they could reverse aging. And in fact, they found six different cocktails of small molecules that were able to have the same effect as we see with the Yamanaka factors in short bursts to cause these cells to actually reverse their aging and become youthful again.

1:21:56I cannot overstate how important this is. This is probably the most important trajectory of what's underway in biology since the discovery of DNA. This ability to actually make cells youthful again, it can, in fact, ultimately result in a pill or a series of pills that can reverse aging. That is why it is so exciting right now. And we're seeing this data coming out from this research team. And I have heard separately about data that has not yet been published by other research teams following the same track to do the same thing that it turns out it may in fact be possible to create pills with small molecules in it.

1:22:31Things that your body can absorb and end up in your bloodstream and go into different cells that actually rejuvenate the cells, fix the epigenetic data loss that happens in those cells causes them to become more youthful. You could see a cring that you could apply to your skin that takes away wrinkles. Ultimately, you could take something that makes your heart healthier, your liver healthier, and actually reverses aging in the individual cells by the absorption of these small molecules into those cells that ultimately cause the expression of these genes and change all the transcriptome as it's called in the cell and makes it more youthful.

1:23:01It is unbelievable work. Everyone should be fascinated by this and where it's headed. It is so exciting that there are multiple teams that are having breakthroughs on this work that could ultimately translate into clinical trials and products that could be used by people. The obvious question, can we get this to Biden before the debate? Oh, hey, oh, Chama, your, your, your, your Danish joke, please. Chama, sorry, I need me to step on your Danish joke. I'm so tired. I had such a big night last night. Man, he's like, I can't even get a Uranus joke up. I drank so much wine. I am fucking gassed today.

1:23:40When you say drank so much wine, how many bottles were opened? And how many glasses did you have? Be honest, I'm going to put the over under at six glasses. There was six. 5 .5 glasses. 5 .6 of us. There's probably seven or eight bottles. But it's just like, it was just so delicious. and then I don't like to eat a lot when I'm drinking really, really good wine. And then, oh man, I'm tired. Okay, that's all right. 5 .5. You got the over or the under sacks? 5 .5 glasses. I got the over. I drank so much. I had the night sweats. I will. I was like, oh, not so much. So hot. I get the night sweats. I mean, too much meat.

1:24:16So you were drinking red wine. You were not drinking white wine. No, I don't know why. No white. White the whole night. Yeah. Champagne. Oh, the champagne. I don't like that. Champagne. I'll get champagne. That champagne. I think I do. What is the worst hanger? Is it red wine, champagne or white? What gets you worse? It gets like the sweeter it is, the higher the alcohol content, the more it really just fluxes with me personally. Producer Nick coming in hot. Seven dollar pitches are sangria all night. He says sangria. That's because they pour sugar in it, dude. Sangria. The more sugar, it's just it's just it's just the sugar bomb.

1:24:49It's too. Well, you know what I got to run. I'm going to be in Italy. So maybe we could catch up and have dinner. Chamatha. I don't know where you'll be about. I'll see you shortly. I will look you up when I'm in Italy maybe I don't know if anybody busiers are gonna be in Italy any time over the summer But I may go to Italy. I may be are we taping next week or no? Oh my god. Can we do it live in Italy? I'll be in Italy next week actually What are we doing next week? Are we taping next week or no? I don't know if I say we're not taping then freeberg's going bro So I'll say keep to you freedbergs.

1:25:17It's apparently you know how to hack the fucking YouTube channel Well, you took a cash or it's back of course I did I need to have two factor when you hacked it. I was like Who is trying to log in and then I was thinking about it. I'm gonna get your phone next time. I'm gonna take your phone, just a quick actor. You know, while you're in the bathroom, I'm gonna run into your house and take your phone. Thanks. Thanks, that's you running into my house. Well, Jake, I will say, I'll tell you my honest opinion. I missed you last week. I think that the show is better with you. I think that you bring a character and a personality that I miss when you're not around.

1:25:52And as much as we fight, like brothers that truly hate each other. I really do respect and appreciate what you do on the show. And I honestly felt it was a big hole last week. So despite all of our issues, I think it's great to be doing the show with you. I wanna like... Thank you, that's very heart -felt and kind. Who wrote it? Who wrote that phrase? Is that Alex and we're at that? Chachy PT. Tell us, I'm... How do I make Jekyll feel better? How do I express emotion to a friend? How do I behave like a loyal friend? and the YouTube channel and publish a rogue episode. No, that's not how you do it.

1:26:27All right, listen, for the drunken hungover dictator, C3P Friedberg, the Sultan of science, the Prince of panic attacks, the queen of king, why? And crazy hair, don't care. The architect, Steve Bannon with a high IQ, his name is David Sachs. I am the world's obviously greatest moderator after the shitshow last week. And this has been Best Episode of any podcast ever recorded. And we'll see you all next week. Chin down, maybe we'll grab some pasta. I love you, besties. Love you guys. Bye bye. We'll let your winners ride. Bring man David Sack. I'm going to win. Oh yeah. And it said we open source it to the fans.

1:27:17And they've just gone crazy with it. I'm going to the toilet. What? What?

1:27:28Besties are gone. Oh, go through. That's my dog. Take it away. I wish you're driving. Sit down. Sit down. Oh, man. My ham is a disaster when we eat the apples. We should all just get a room and just have one big hug, George, because they're all just like this like sexual tension that we just need to release them out. What? Your back beat. Happy European! Happy European! We need to get merch!