2024 Predictions (EP.341)

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25:02Tito's is known for giving back, teaming up with nonprofits to serve its communities and do good for dogs. Make your next cocktail with Tito's. Distilled and bottled by 5th Generation Inc., Austin, Texas. 40 % alcohol by volume. Savor responsibly. All right, a couple of... I just want people to know that the annual update charts of performance are going to be coming hot and heavy from me in the coming weeks. Get prepared for it. Wait, wait, what's coming? What's coming? I love updating now that calendar year charts to 2023 are done. I'm going to be updating a lot of that stuff. I have so many charts that I love to update on an annual basis.

25:36Drew Dixon at Albert Bridge Capital had a good one. Dow Jones Industrial Average, 1896 to 2023 total return. So he breaks them up by deciles, up 10%, 20%, 30%, right? All these different ones, and he breaks them down by year. Look at all of those up 20%, up 30%, up 40 % years. And there's very few years where the Dow over this period has lost 20 % or more or 30 % or more. The fact that the left tail stuff is very tiny compared to the right tail, that's the story of investing in the stock market. the big years more than outweigh the big, the big up years more than outweigh the big down years. People are very, at least in this country specifically, very resilient, very good at fixing things, very ambitious.

26:25That's my one long-term optimistic thing is people generally figure stuff out in this country. Right? I've got more on that later. Hey Ben, so - Wait, Frenzac Quarter did the NASDAQ, same thing. The NASDAQ composite, which goes back to, what, 1979 or something? No, 75 maybe? 70-something. And it just shows that, so 38 out of 52 years of positive returns, 73 % of the time. The NASDAQ composite, this is not the 100, it was up 45 %-ish in 2023. Fourth best year ever. Which is crazy to think about, right? Did it feel like that? It's hard to say. The NASDAQ has had more big, bad down years, down 40, 50, 30%.

27:18So it's a wider range there, but still, the green outweighs the red. Wait, I just want to just stick on this for a second. We just lived through this. We just lived through 2023. And both of us are not like, yeah, it felt like one of the best years ever. That is true. It didn't feel like that. And I think part of it is because people have been hammering home in our heads all year that, oh, it's just these seven stocks. So it doesn't really count. But who cares? In 50 years when looking back at the data, is someone going to look back at 2023 and go, geez, the NASDAQ 100 was up 55 %? Eh. But, but, no one's going to care.

27:56The return is the return. But this is why, like oftentimes history, one of the greatest quotes ever. I think it was from the French guy. Mandelbot? Yeah, I think it's from him. Oh, no, maybe it's from Adam Smith. History tells a rather bloodless tale, I think. Because to your point, yeah, you look at this, you say, wow, 2023. Everybody must have been thrilled that they made 50 or 45 % in their tech stocks. Not really. Yeah, it never felt like there was euphoria or people are going crazy and there was all this FOMO. It never felt like that. And maybe it's because it was those huge gargantuan stocks.

28:36Well, this is why you need context. Because 2020, so 2023 was a better year for the NASDAQ composite than 2020. The difference is that 2020 was full of like SPAC stuff and crypto stuff and NFT stuff and like stupid shit. Yeah, more speculation. So that felt way more bubbly. Interesting. Ben, we're recording this on Monday. Who do I bet on for the Rose Bowl? Is it the Rose Bowl? Is Michigan playing Alabama? Is that the Rose Bowl? They do the playoffs still in, so by the time this airs, people will know. My heart says Michigan, of course, because I'm a Michigan fan. My head probably says Alabama.

29:11I would take the Alabama money line if I'm really being, if I'm taking emotions out of the equation. But also, maybe that's just trying to do a reverse jinx. This is why I don't bet on my teams, though. But if I'm logically saying to you, I would probably take the Alabama money line. And I hope I'm proven wrong. Oh, wow. No, the Wolverines are minus 130 and Alabama is plus 109. Yeah. Michigan's favorite to win by. It's like a one and a half. It's a pick them basically. But yeah, Michigan has. All right, so money thinks that Michigan's going to win. Good luck to you. Okay. This is a great chart.

29:46The Big Ten is like the Dow or the S &P and the SEC is like the NASDAQ. 100. 100. Yeah. Yes. So that's, I got like 3M and it's like 3M or IBM going up against Nvidia. It's tough. Yes. Okay. This is a great chart from the Wall Street Journal. Estimates of interest income generated by money market funds. Ah, bite. My gosh. From 2009 to 2016, it's essentially zero. So we made$300 billion in interest last year. So this would back up your prediction of money is going to stay in these money market funds. because again, maybe it was just a catch up from all these years of 0 % rates. And that money would have been in money market funds if not for yields being so low.

30:35Cause I mean, don't you think, I don't know if it goes from 5 % to 3 % really quick, maybe people freak out. Maybe I'm coming around to your idea that, that even if it's 3%, people say, Oh, that's still better than zero. Because dude, how often do people check their money market funds? You kind of, not that you forget about it, but it's not like you're seeing your interest payments every day where you're like, oh man, I was getting 5 % and now I'm getting three. I just think mentally it's a different thing. Hey, I wanted to share the chart with you. This is from Tom McCullen. He tweeted, people laughed and criticized me when I first posted this here, just as I laughed at it years ago when I first built it.

31:12This was in 2009. And yet it just keeps on working. QE interferes with it sometimes, but then the relationship gets back on track again. And what we're looking at is the Dow Jones Industrial Average versus New York City precipitation. And the gist of it is that when... Come on. Come on. When it's wetter than normal... I don't even know what's going on here. Hold on. Is it drier than normal? Is it bearish? Wet is bullish? Okay. Thoughts? Hard to argue with the chart. I mean, this was, remember all the early behavioral finance books would have the thing about churning butter in Indonesia in the stock market or whatever.

32:00I give him credit for, I don't know how you would ever figure this out in the first place. So I give him credit for the form fitting. Dryer is bearish. Dryer is bearish. Listen, I'm not saying that Jim Simons was using this data specifically. But sometimes, but sometimes like just weird shit works. You'd think, though, that if it's wetter than normal, it would be more bearish because people are in a bad mood. Wasn't that Josh's theory, that when it's sunny out versus rainy? Because I would think if it's wet outside all the time, or maybe it's raining, you're not doing as much. Counterpoint, if it's drier and you're outside, who cares about the market?

32:35That's fair. I do wonder how people in California ever get into the office to do stuff. Again, this is not just torturing the data. This is waterboarding the data to find this. So I'm impressed that he was able to figure this out in the first place. Hey, if it works, it works. All right, we're going to get to some emails that have been sitting in the dock stale for a couple of weeks. This is one that came in when I was talking about the price of dog food. This person did the data for me. He's had a 30 % increase in two years in dog food. Okay. Because people pay anything for their pets. All right, here's another inflation thing I want to talk about.

33:09So we were in northern Michigan visiting my parents. We had like a late Christmas. with the family. And when I grew up, there were like, I don't know, four restaurants. And you were happy if a chain restaurant came to town. So I'm from a small town in northern Michigan. There's 30 really good restaurants now up there, probably. And new ones popping up all the time. And one of our favorite ones, people always ask me if they're going up there. Like, where do we go? So we have a pizza place called the Filling Station. It's an old train station that they turned into a pizza place. Oh, wow. And it's a really cool place.

33:41And I talked to my wife after. I'm like, Like, do you remember how bad restaurants were when we grew up? Like, nice restaurants, even just regular old places, were just not a thing. Like, you were happy if, like, a Chili's or an Outback came to your town. This is me speaking from someone in the Midwest. But now there's these niche restaurants popping up everywhere. So even if the prices are higher, how do you account for the fact that there's more choice and more high-quality restaurants than ever than we had when we were growing up? Doesn't that feel the same way to you? Yeah. So there was a Chili's that came in by the Roosevelt Raceway for people on Long Island that know what I'm talking about.

34:14And like maybe the 90s. I don't know when it came exactly, but that was like kind of a big deal. You're absolutely right. I also, I think like most people, like I never, I don't think I even went to a steakhouse until like, I don't know if I ever went to Peter Luger's growing up now that I think about it. I don't think I ever went to a steakhouse until I was in my 20s. And same thing with beer. My dad used to drink Bud Heavy when we grew up. I remember we'd have a fridge full of Bud Heavy. Now all the beers you have, the selections you have everywhere you go, every place now it has its own brewery or their own kind of beers in a million different flavors.

34:42Everything is everything. I was in Target the other day with Robin and the boys and there's a section with water bottles. Like, you know these things? I'm holding up like this big giant jug. There's like a section of these. There's so much choice it's ridiculous. There was a craft beer section in Target. You know what else was in Target? Maybe I am out of touch, Ben, because there was a section for Blu-ray DVDs. Oh, I saw you. Send us that picture on Slack. I just... I can't believe it. I don't, they're not there by accident, right? They're not like, they must be there because people are buying them.

35:15You sent me that and I thought I had to drive my mom's car and I didn't have a hookup for, I didn't want to go through the process of hooking up her Bluetooth to my phone. So I had to listen to the radio. I was just driving from her house to the hotel we're staying at. And I had to listen to the radio and it just made me, yes. And so I use the Apple CarPlay all the time. It made me think like, wait a minute, radio is still a thing. people listen to the radio still in the commercials and the not choice, not having the choice of what you want to listen to. It's, it's hard to believe it almost still exists, but obviously it does.

35:48So like who's buying Jackie Brown for$35? Am I insane? Am I taking crazy pills? This is still happening. Jackie Brown, the movie's 25 years old more. Yes. Spend two months on Netflix and you get a million choices. It is hard to believe. Oh, it's crazy town. All right. Here's an email that came in. I just wanted to flag something I'm sure you're aware of, but that I'm not sure you've mentioned on the podcast, home mortgage loan amendments. No, I was not aware of this. Listen to this. My wife and I bought a home in 2019 and did two loan amendments as rates fell in 2020 and 2021. Rather than sign a bunch of papers or pay to refinance, we just started an online refinance process at Ally or something to get quoted rates, then asked our lender to match those rates.

36:30We had to sign one page, didn't pay anything, and our mortgage rate dropped half a each time. The length of the mortgage didn't change. We just pay less each month. We may not, we may not have gotten the best deal we could have if we refinanced, but it was an easy and free process. How about that? It's like price matching for a recently, for a recent, for a new mortgage. I've heard of this, but I, I didn't know how easy it was as a process to do. Obviously I've never done it before. If you can do it for free, I, yeah, I guess it's worth looking into. I never knew this though. I love it. I mean, what a great idea.

37:00Value add. Thank you. All right. So there was a tweet over the weekend that got a lot of traction. Somebody tweeted SFR underscore investor. What does SFR stand for? Single family rental. Okay. My dad's friend had a$300 ,000 mortgage on his house with a 3.25 % interest rate. He just paid off the balance so he doesn't have a house payment. He loves Dave Ramsey. My heart hurts. I saw this one. So people have - This is a dumb decision. This is a dumb decision. It's really dumb. Here's why. It's not – people are like, well, peace of mind. And I get that. I really do get that. This has behavioral finance gone too far.

37:44Seriously. You can't put a price on peace of mind? Well, sometimes you can. Sometimes you can. This is a dumb decision. The reason why – it's not just that you can get 5 % on cash, although certainly that's part of it. But why would you give up the liquidity? Yes. You could lock in a 30 % treasury for 4 % right now and have it be liquid. You're earning a better rate of return and it's liquid. And you could change your mind. Why would you give it liquidity, optionality, and more money? Now, listen, if you have a lot of money and you're just flicking away the$300 ,000 in debt, you just don't want it, okay, fine.

38:25You know what I mean? Fine. But for most people, that do need money? Like, so for example, this was a tweet, one of the responses. I've seen a couple of older individuals dig into savings to pay off a low-rate mortgage only to struggle with lack of liquidity and now stress over groceries for those arguing it's about sleeping at night. Come on. Like, if you're in that situation where you're so averse to debt that you do that and now, I mean, it's just, this is this is more less black or white like there's a little bit of gray a very small slice but the majority of the comments are like good for him you can't put a price on on comfort it's like yeah well sometimes you can you can yes yeah sometimes the behavioral finance stuff i'm sorry it's taken too far and people people rely on that crutch of psychology too much sometimes you have to actually look at the spreadsheet and sometimes the spreadsheet numbers matter and they should matter it can't always be about your feelings Ben and I are very in touch with our feelings.

39:28Listen, I cry a lot. I'm very emotional. I'm an emotional person. But sometimes the numbers trump emotions. And this is a clear case where giving up liquidity when you could earn more in money market funds, it does not make sense. Just does not make sense. Yes. I'm totally with this guy about his heart hurting. It's a bad idea. Yeah. All right. This was an interesting one. How couples meet in the U.S. This survey goes all the way back to the 1950s. And this is the story of our society. It's just online, being online. So online started at zero, obviously, and then went over 50 % and everything through friends, work, bar, family, whatever, plummeted.

40:11Just gone. I don't know what the ramifications are of this. It's just this is what the world is right now, but it has to mean something. Oh, it means everything. we're talking about our choices of restaurants and beers. Now your choices of a mate now have risen exponentially. And I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You just say a mate, a mate. Yeah. You know, finding a mate. I, I just, I'd said before a couple of weeks ago, I was glad I didn't have to live through the camera, social media phase. When I was younger, I'm glad I don't have to live through the online, just people constantly remember the, the hot or not.com came out and you were rating how people look on the internet.

40:52That's essentially what online dating is for most people, right? Obviously, yeah, there are activities and hobbies. I'm glad I don't have to subject myself to that. I think we saw peak social media. What do you think about that? What do you mean? So there was an article in the Wall Street Journal. Headline, we aren't posting on social media as much anymore. Will we ever? Billions of people access social media monthly, but users are posting less and favoring a more passive experience. in an October report from data intelligence company Morning Consult. 61 % of US adults responded with a social media account, so they've become more selective about what they post.

41:29The reasons are varied, but they just say that the fun of social media has fizzled. I hope so. This is interesting. This would be positive. The head of Instagram said in July that users on the app were spending most of their time in DMs. All of the French sharing is moving in that direction. there are more photos and videos shared in DMs than there are shared in stories. That's crazy. So they just have to find a way to push advertising into DMs somehow? So more photos shared, more photos and videos shared in DM than there are in stories? Interesting. Well, isn't it the power law thing of the biggest posters get the most response and engagement?

42:11And if you were posting and no one was responding to you or engaging with you, what's the point in the first place? Like, are kids still? They really never were. But kids aren't creating Twitter accounts. Right. No. We're like the last. It's basically old millennials and Gen X, or young Gen X that are still carrying the day there, I think. This sounds like a positive to me. It's very positive. I love it. I'm all for it. Here's a note I got in the mail yesterday. You've been randomly selected for a random act of kindness. This is what we do here at the credit union. Please enjoy the extra$50 for the holidays deposited into your max checking account on us from the mortgage servicing department.

42:47That doesn't happen in a recession. Now you could say maybe that's the sign that a recession is coming. The bank's just literally handing out money. I thought this was a joke, but I looked in my account,$50. Just, I guess that's what they, they just take that out of their pool of ATM fees and such. Speaking of not recession, I think the transcript tweeted this, somebody tweeted this. Con of the Cruz, they said that like they just had their, their best Black Friday period ever. Or holidays? Remember people thought cruisers were going to die in the pandemic? They're bigger than ever. Booming. Speaking of Black Friday, I watched Thanksgiving by Eli Roth.

43:24Horror movie about Thanksgiving? That was a good one. What do you think about the Haunted Swing Pool movie coming out? I mean, I'll say it. Okay, of course you will. Night Swim? Yeah, it looked right up reality. I was on the bank website today looking up. They were talking about 15.15 % 12-month CDs, which just seems pretty good considering the Fed's going to cut. Like, I would lock that in. Wait, what did you just say? Oh, 5.15. Sorry, 5.15. Yeah, I messed that up. What did you? Okay. 5.15, not 15. That'd be a little high. So the 12-month CDs are still over 5%. 18 months was 5%. But then you go to 24 months, and it's down to 3%.

43:59But I don't know. 18 months at 5%, if you're locking in right now, not too bad, especially if the Fed is going to cut in the first six months of the year or something. Not bad at all. Right? All right. Multiple YouTube comments last week. Talked about you needed to get a Suburban because you have a dog. You might get another dog. You got kid stuff. Multiple people said, I have the solution. Michael needs to get a minivan. I would love to. It's half the price of a Suburban probably. You have those deep dugout trunk space, automatic sliding doors. The minivan is your solution. My wife just won't let me.

44:34That sounds about right. Sounds fair. I actually, I did text my car guy. I'm not getting, they're just, they're so expensive. That should be the slogan for people, for Tahoe's and Suburbans and Wagoneers. It should just be, just pay up because you're not going to get a minivan. Be honest. That should be their slogan. We're not a minivan. Yeah. Maybe if cars, if the prices come back down, but like they're outrageously expensive right now. Yes. Minivans. So someone also said rooftop car device for$500. That's not bad. Remember the rooftop car carriers things? It's actually not a bad idea. I don't know how to put that on.

45:11That is a great idea. That is a really good idea. That's true. You probably don't. Ben, this is an interesting take. Talk on it. Okay. My most cynical take of the year, I tweeted this. What are the odds that Ozempic results are faked? A drug that can make you eat less, crave less, lose weight, stop gambling, butting your nails, and drinking. It's either one of the greatest discoveries ever or Elizabeth Holmes 2.0 in the middle ground. I just was throwing the Molotov cocktail into there, and a lot of people wrote back to me like, Like, hey, listen, man, I did it and it worked. I lost 15 to 20 percent of my weight.

45:38I have a brother or a sister or a wife or a husband who did it. I got hundreds of responses to this. A lot of people said – a lot of people also said, listen, idiot. These drugs have been in the pipeline for a while. They're just slowly but surely getting better. But when this stuff first came out, and I obviously don't really believe they're faked. But that's – if you're taking the extremes, this either is a miracle drug that can control our willpower or it's fake or the middle ground is obviously there are some side effects. and such that are going to be coming down. Is it like super expensive?

46:07That's the thing. It's$1 ,500, but it sounds like it's going to be coming down. Wait, what do you mean it's$1 ,500? It's like$1 ,500 a month for it or something. And I heard it's going to come down to$100. I don't know. The willpower stuff to me is, I initially poo-pooed this Ozempic thing because I figure my baseline assumption is all diets and weight loss miracles are just fads and they're not going to work forever. It won't last. But this one sounds like it's the stuff about the other stuff people are saying, like, I don't eat as much sugary food or salty food. It's pretty crazy. And am I. Is it a little too early to start worrying about an I am legend scenario where we're just all turned into zombies because of these drugs?

46:49Is that possible?

46:53But don't you. So if you're if you're if you really can control your willpower with a drug, do you then you take that for six days a week? but on the seventh day, you take the anti-willpower drug so you can enjoy yourself. Why are you saying willpower? It's not willpower. Doesn't it just suppress your appetite? Well, yeah, but it's also saying people are gambling less. They're drinking less. They're stop biting their nails. People are weak. I am weak. I have no willpower. I can't stick to something. I'm pathetic. If this stuff actually works like they say it does, it's like a miracle. Yeah. Hey, speaking of I Am Legend, I saw like a trailer, but it looks kind of fake for I Am Legend 2.

47:29I think it is fake. I think someone actually made that. Okay. Maybe they are doing an I Am Legend 2. Maybe you're right. Well, I was poking around. Oh, it says two days ago. Nah, it looks fake. You think so? Okay. We'll get to movie stuff later. I just want to finish this. So the transcript tweeted, McDonald's dominates competitors in marketing spend. We invest over$4 billion every year marketing our brand, three to four times more than our nearest brand, the competitor. Our marketing scale ensures that our brand maintains high top of mind awareness, which drives customer affinity and frequency.

48:05I was thinking about this because I walked out of Penn Station the other day. And outside, there's like these giant digital billboards. And it was Rolex, Netflix, Capital One, like all in a row. And maybe those brands to a lesser extent, but certainly McDonald's, you know, when you see like, why are they advertised? Like it's, who doesn't know McDonald's? No, that's why you know McDonald's is because they do so much advertising. Like, I know it sounds obvious, but it works. Getting back to people are weak. Like advertising really, really works. What if McDonald's like just slowly but surely puts the anti-ozempic drug into their food to make you crave it more?

48:42They already do. Yeah. So Austin Rafe tweeted, Amazon is already one of the largest ad businesses in the world at a$40 billion run rate. Now Prime Video will show you ads unless you pay$3 a month. This will add many billions to their bottom line. I tend to agree. This is the next step. This is the next step. This is what all the streamers will try before they have to, are forced to come together is more ads, which will just dampen the experience for everyone. You know, my Amazon, I came full circle. I shorted the stock in 2011. I bought it in 2023. You just bought it at the end of the year? I bought it at the end of the year.

49:16Okay. It's a little stretched, but whatever, started position. Still hold Facebook? I still hold Facebook. Okay. Big fan of the show. One of the best things you guys do is just be normal. Thank you. That may not sound like a compliment, but there's not a lot of financial podcasts that I found where the hosts aren't a little robotic. That's a good compliment. Here we go. Because I feel like that's our whole shtick. We're just normal guys. I was recently laid off, and I'm just starting to network. The recruiting firm I'm working with told me I should offer something in return at the end of the conversation, so it's a two-way street.

49:42I get that, but it also just feels very awkward when they're generally established in their career, and I just lost my job. Not sure what I'd offer, and I think most people aren't expecting that, but maybe I'm wrong. Thoughts? Other networking tips are welcomed. Yeah, that's horrible advice. I mean, it's pretty transparent. If you're looking for a job and you're talking to somebody, like, I don't know, what can I do for you? It's like, I don't know. I think, yeah. So weird suggestion. Someone read the Robert Cialdini books, I guess. Yeah. Oh, that's right. The thing, Persuasion and Influence. The thing that you can offer, though, I think the biggest thing at networking is just you ask the people about themselves and let them talk.

50:24People love talking about themselves. and their career path, and that sort of thing, and playing themselves up, I think that's what you offer them, is just the chance to talk about themselves. This isn't what anybody wants to hear, certainly not this person. I've spoken to so many people over the years about the job market and whatever, and unfortunately, everyone that we've hired that's come to us, it's because they have a great personality. It's not because there was a tactic. You know what I mean? Your personality trumps everything, unfortunately, for better and for worse. That's really what it is.

50:55Right. Yeah. No one tricked us into having a conversation with them. Yeah. So I'm not saying that there's not methods or little tricks or tips or things like that, but it really just is, do people like you? Somebody want to hire you? True. Yeah. And if you don't have a good personality, you're not really likable, the networking stuff's not going to go very well either. Oh, this is a great one. Hey guys, love the SECURE Act had tax incentives for businesses. So last week we were talking about like, how come more Americans own stocks in their retirement plans? We were wondering if that was like a Robinhood phenomenon that got people interested.

51:28No, it turns out it's not. The SECURE Act had tax incentives for businesses to automatically enroll their employees in the plan. So employees have to opt out for the plan rather than opt in. This is a case of a very effective nudge. Nice work, Congress. Okay, how about that? How about that? Using the tax code for good. All right, Ben, I've got some pet peeves. I thought about this the other day because I had two things this week that annoyed me. Here's one. And this sounds ridiculous, but just hear me out. When somebody holds the door for you, like unnecessarily, and I think I might've spoke about this in the past, when somebody, there's two variations of this.

52:05One is when somebody like insists on letting you go first out of the elevator or holding the door. It's like, just go, don't make, just leave. Don't make you weird. No, I insist. All right, fine, very kind. But here's the other one that actually is a little bit annoying. When somebody holds the door for you, let's say this happened to me at Starbucks. I was going to Starbucks. Somebody's holding the door and I'm like a good 20 feet away. And then they want you to hurry up to get there, right? So you got to do this. Yeah. You have to like - I'd say three steps probably. Anything more than three steps, sorry.

52:36Open it yourself. That's a three-step rule. Don't make somebody jog because you're being so polite. It's too much. Yes, I agree. It's overly polite. It's overly polite. It's sort of equivalent to when somebody comes to an appointment 30 minutes early. That's rude. Yes. Here's another one that – It was with – Chris did this. So I FaceTimed him, and he's with his family, like not just his immediate family. He's at like a party with his extended family, and he picks up. I was like, dude, just – Yeah. Obviously, I can't – Yeah. Just don't pick up when you're – my dad always does that. So my dad will be like at dinner, out to dinner and he'll pick up on FaceTime.

53:20I'm like, oh, I'll just talk to you. He's like, no, no, no, no. I'm like, no, no, no, no to you. What do you mean? No, I'm not talking to you while you're, I'm not going to FaceTime with other people. Yeah. I'm not FaceTiming you while you're, while there's background noise. No. Do you, do you have any nitpicks with any of those, either of those pet peeves? Am I crazy? The door thing is a definite. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I think the reason we could do this today, because it doesn't seem like either of us are hung over from New Year's Eve. This is the first year probably that I can remember that we literally had zero plans.

53:51We had no plans. We didn't, the kids at the end of the night, wait, are we doing something? Isn't it New Year's Eve or something? And we had no plans and I was perfectly fine with it. That's awesome. That's great. How did you get away with that? I think part of it is because we were up seeing my parents and we had two nights of partying and being out and about and doing stuff with the kids. And then we came back on New Year's Eve. And so I think that was part of it. So you were just wiped? Yeah, we were wiped. So the fact that we had nothing, but I didn't mind it. And obviously that means I'm getting old, but it was actually pretty nice.

54:21That's really nice. That's really nice. Yeah, I don't mind news. I can go either way. We did have people over last night. We had two couples over and we were up. They left at 1245. It was a long night. Long night. Okay, that's late for you. All right, Ben, I want to talk about, I have a question for you. The Netflix algorithm, like people say it's like gamed and stuff, which I'm sure there's an element of them promoting their best stuff. I don't know if that would necessarily be like illegal or unethical. I don't know. But the reason why I bring this up is because the movie Maestro, which I don't know, I found it incredibly unwatchable.

54:54That's not a, it's past film, whatever you want to call it. Bradley Cooper. Yeah. Wonderful performance. You know his problem? He tries too hard. Did you watch the movie? I started it. I still have to watch it, but I could just tell. No, you don't. No? Okay. I mean, I don't know. I watched 15 minutes. I was like, yeah, he's brilliant. I get it. But anyway. The thing is he already had his film where he did that as A Star is Born. Like you don't have to do that performance again where you go so over the top. And he spent like six years studying Leonard Bernstein. But anyway, the reason why I bring this up is because it was like when I looked, it's out of the top 10.

55:26When I checked originally, like I think it bombed on Netflix. And you would think that if they were like manipulating the system that it would be in the top 10. It's out. I don't think they are. Okay, here's a movie you don't have to watch for sure. I'm the last person on earth to do this my wife and I did Barbenheimer this weekend this past weekend really? well Barbie's on HBO and she wanted to watch it she wanted to check it out first because the kids wanted to watch it and I I didn't know what I was getting myself into I mean you'd watch it for five minutes and shut it off I did, I did okay the whole movie's like that I thought it was like going to be a more because I think it's PG there's a couple of wink-winks up.

56:08It's a kid's movie. No one told me it was a kid's movie. It's, it's so, Oh, it is? Well, I mean, it's just so much cheesier and over the top than I had anticipated with the people involved. To be clear, this movie was not made for me. This movie was not made for a middle-aged dad. Yeah. But I, I was shocked at how cheesy this movie was. I couldn't believe it. For as, so I give them credit for making a billion dollars on nostalgia and marketing so that, but there's two kind of movies that when they're released. The movie that does huge and then years later you go, wait, how did that movie make so much money?

56:39And then there's a movie that like bombs like Shawshank and then years later it's a classic. Barbie has to be in the first category. It has to. Years from now people are going to look back and go, how did that movie make a billion dollars? How? Well, I watched... Because nostalgia and marketing and over the top. Yeah, marketing, advertising. And it was a social media phenomenon. I think all these things. I probably watched 15, 15, 20 minutes. And my reaction was very much like yours. Like, this is not, this movie's not for me. My wife liked it more than me. Yeah, but again, it was not for me. But I was also kind of impressed.

57:11I was like, I get it. It was clever. It was well done. I guess I thought it was going to have some more, I was waiting for a turn and it never, I don't. So Oppenheimer, I think you didn't like it. Is that right? I didn't love it. I was disappointed relative to how I thought I would feel about it. I thought it was, I thought it was fine. This is going to sound pretentious. Pretentious or not. I wanted to read the book first, and I read the book that it was based on, and I actually thought reading the book helped. Again, sounds pretentious to say, but I thought it helped understand because the movie was very jumpy.

57:41So I was explaining stuff to my wife because I read the book, and it helped me. And I thought the movie, I thought it was the best movie of the year. Like, that movie should win all the awards. I thought it was fantastic. The fact that he was able to take that story and turn it into it, it's also got to be one of the best casts of a movie, I don't know, this century. The cast was amazing. Amazing, yeah. Like some of these people that are great actors that had like three lines or something. I just thought it was, I thought it was so, so good. It could have obviously been shorter, but it was, I loved it.

58:13It's all, God, it blows my mind that we had in the span of 25 years, the Manhattan Project where we created a nuclear bomb and we put a man on the moon in 25 years. And Godzilla was in between that. Don't forget about that. But that, yeah, anyway, that's my whole feeling there is just like, the fact that if they can throw resources and smart minds at something that we can we can't accomplish it it's anyway that movie to me has to win all the Oscars. You know what so I saw it opening night in IMAX and you know Christopher Nolan the cast the hype the expectations I don't think it could have possibly met my expectations so maybe that's why I was disappointed.

58:51I think it's a movie that didn't have to be seen in the theater. Oh really because I saw it I mean I thought seeing it in IMAX helped. Yeah I don't know To me, it's a movie we broke up over a couple nights because it was so long. And I don't know. I thought it was fantastic. So two weeks ago, I think I was like, I wish I liked The Iron Claw more than I did. And I don't know why. I've been thinking about that movie a lot. So maybe I did like it more than I thought originally. Stuck with you, huh? Okay. Yeah, I've been thinking about it. Just been in my brain. Watch when it's on streaming. All right.

59:20So as I mentioned, Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving is a popcorn commercial horror movie. It's for everyone. If you like horror, if you're even, even if you don't like horror, you could see Thanksgiving. Not one of these weird joints like you that's just sadistic and - No. So Tim Dillon, Tim Dillon is in it and he has a hilarious role. So it's clever. It's about Black Friday. Patrick Dempsey's in it? Yeah, it's about like a Black Friday type scene where there's like a stampede and people die and then the next year somebody comes back for revenge. So that was actually a lot of fun. Eli Roth was the director.

59:54A lot of fun. I should have called it I know what you bought last summer. Last Friday. Anyway. Okay, on the other side of the spectrum. So these are like, this is not for horror normies. I'm sorry, this is not for like normie viewers. So if Thanksgiving is like a passion fruit white claw, then these next two movies are like scotch. You know the meme of Tobias from Arrested Development? I don't think you've ever watched that. where he says there's dozens of us. Dozens! This is like the fans of your horror movies because I know there are some that listen to the podcast and they love your sadistic horror movies that you recognize.

1:00:33Okay, so here's two. There's dozens of you. Here's two. The Dark and the Wicked. Just truly dreary. Very good. Truly dreary. Like sort of, it was just dark. Just dark. Check it out. I think that one's on Shudder. Another one. This is an old one. Bill Arts put me onto this. Eden Lake. So two people go camping and they get basically attacked by teenagers, I guess, is what happens. The two people, it's Beth from Yellowstone. Okay. And Michael Fassbender. Oh, never heard of that one before. 2008. I'm like, wait, what? So this is like right before he really exploded. Anyway, that one was super gnarly and grisly.

1:01:17Again, not for most viewers. Okay. One more thing. Two more things, actually, real quick. I watched Manhunter, which has been on my list forever. So on the big picture, they did like a Michael Mann movies because Ferrari just came out. So Manhunter is – have you ever seen Manhunter? No, I haven't. It's Red Dragon. Right. Right? So Red Dragon was a remake of Manhunter. I liked Red Dragon. I love Red Dragon. So Brian Cox from Succession plays Hannibal Lecter in Manhunter. I think Manhunter is from like the late 80s. But anyway, so I was listening to the rewatchables because they did it. And they were shitting all over Red Dragon.

1:01:53because they loved Manhunter when it came out, but they were like really nasty about Red Dragon. And I got to say, I'm sorry, Red Dragon ruled. Ray Fiennes was so much better as the Tooth Fairy than the guy in Manhunter. So you know what it was like? So Red Dragon is like Giannis or Joel Embiid and Manhunter's like Bob Pettit or George Mikan. Yeah, once you've seen the updated version. Yeah, you can't go backwards time. All right, last thing. We spoke about the trailer for Civil War and how some of the nastiness is bleeding over into the movies. There's another one coming out that looks incredible.

1:02:29It's called ISS, International Space Station. Did you see that one? No. So the trailer, there's Russian and American astronauts in a space station. And they're looking at the globe and they're like, oh, it's so beautiful. And all of a sudden, they see an explosion. And then another one. And then another one. and it's like take over the space station because Earth is ending type of stuff. Pretty scary. Pretty scary. I'm in. All right, Ben, I'll see you tomorrow. That's true. We're going to FarmCon. Ben and I are doing a podcast from FarmCon. Excited to see all the fine folks over there. We just wanted to travel to get out of the house, basically, because our kids have been home for two weeks.

1:03:10It's been a long couple of weeks, huh? Ready for the kids to go back to school? Pretty much. Two weeks is a long time to get off. it's too much personal emails, personal responses animal spirits at the compound news.com there we go see you next time