A Key Market Signal (EP.395)

26:15I'm sick of losing them or them not connecting. Or I started buying the cheap$20 ones on Amazon. I'm not buying any more AirPods. Is that what's in your right now? No, these are still AirPods. Once these are gone, that's it. I feel like I like mentally budget$500 a year for AirPods. That's what I do too. So I looked up, I think Ramp Capital tweeted out like, hey, what are some cheaper versions of AirPods? And I looked at some of the recommendations and I bought these like Soundcore something for like 20 bucks. And guess what? They work just fine. Really? Okay. All right. You know what? Apple. I'm in on that.

26:48I'm in on the idea. What are they called? I'll send you them. Soundcore. I don't know. Soundcore. Okay. Okay. So last week, it was just perfect chef's kiss timing. We had an email from a listener who has, who, as a college professor, he's DM'd me a bunch of times. And he said, listen, I'm one of the ones who got Nvidia early. And he says he's lucky, but he also, yeah, really nice guy. And he said, listen, I also bought these quantum computing stocks. Didn't we talk about this last week on the show? Yes. So the timing of it is perfect. So he emailed us and he said, what do I do? I bought these at like 90 cents and a dollar.

27:24So we got in them early. And the ones he bought were Rigetti and what's the other one? D-Wave Quantum. I don't know. These companies got as high as like, it looks like 10 bucks and almost 20. and the day after we heard that thing and you and i said we don't know but you know is it really going to be the next nvidia hard to say the day after we did that uh jensen wang from nvidia said if you kind of said 15 years for very useful quantum computers that'd probably be on the early side if you said 30 it's probably on the late side but if you pick 20 i think a whole bunch of us believe it basically saying we're 20 years out on quantum computing sorry stocks got cut in half on And these companies since last Tuesday are down 55 and 60 % like that.

28:05It's just kind of crazy that we got that email and a day later, these things got massacred. So somebody emailed us with a really good point. It's like, listen, if you're trying to think through selling big winners, the answer is come up with a plan. Say, I'm going to sell X percent a year or X percent a quarter or a month. And you just stick to it. And this way, you'll sell some when they're high. You'll sell some when they're low. And I think that's really good advice when you're thinking about, hey, I've owned Microsoft for 25 years, right? I have these gigantic gains and it's a relatively stable company.

28:39It's not going to go down 50 % in a day. The question about wanting to sell these stocks is a completely different question altogether. Because these stocks, just by their very nature, if you're trying to get like a hundred beggar and you're in these small volatile companies, I don't know what the rules are. I don't know what a good rule of thumb is for trimming or taking winners because by definition, unless you're the best trader of all time, you're going to have to take massive drawdowns. You don't get a 100-bagger without 70 % drawdowns. So I'm not sure that there's great universal advice for what to do when you catch one of these early market chips.

29:16I think if you're really going for a 10-bagger or a 100-bagger, you probably have to make a VC portfolio where you're going to buy 10, 15, 20 of them. and 90 % of them are going to do nothing or lose money, a couple of them might do well. I think that's... If you're going for a hundred bagger and a concentrated portfolio, good luck. I think we heard from somebody in the NVIDIA story, or maybe it was in the story itself, like their strategy was to do just what you said. Right. And you just got to hold on. Yeah. I couldn't do this strategy, but Godspeed to anyone who can. Okay, this is interesting, the targeted fund.

29:54This is from Jeffrey Patek from Morningstar. In the three years ending, 11-30-24, the average dollar invested in thematic funds and ETFs lost 7 % per year. Now, most of that was ARK. So, X ARK, it's almost a 6 % loss. Over that same span, the average dollar invested in target date 2050 funds gained 6.9%. Nice. Dull, crushed, exciting is what he says. And this is one of those things that you would have predicted, but is still like hard to fathom. Because thematic funds, I'm sure many of them outperformed the target date fund. But the investors in target date funds did much better because they just stuck it out.

30:34This is the thing we see. We've seen so many times in history. This is the case. And people still don't believe it. Well, I think that, you know, it's human nature. You just think that like, oh, I'll get out. I'll ride the wave and I'll get off the train before crashes. Right. Right. So like me buying T-bills would probably outperform you buying your coupon bonds. Probably. This is the tortoise and the hare. You're the tortoise. All right. So Derek Thompson got the cover story for The Atlantic, and it's called The Antisocial Century. Did you read this, Ben? I did. It's a very long piece, and I read the whole thing.

31:12What are they going to call it when magazines completely go away? Are they still going to call it a cover story? Do you think in the future people are going to go, why do they call it a cover story? The cover of what? Like when newspapers and magazines, like our kids, they don't know what this stuff is. Magazines? Cover story is going to be one of those things where people go, why is it called a cover story? There's no cover to what? Yeah. I don't know. And that's a stretch. I think magazines will always be a thing. Oh, I don't know, man. Really? Everything's going to be digital in the future.

31:43I'm like the last holdout here for hard physical magazines. I think in our lifetimes, there will always be magazines. albeit I'm sure they're in secular decline obviously I just don't think they're gonna disappear forever entirely no I think there's gonna be a time so in the next 50 years you think magazines won't completely go away I'm not lasting another 50 years okay so you are middle-aged uh I saw a tweet yesterday don't be a menace do you remember don't be a menace oh yeah so don't be a menace I was a bit young with the when I was too young to see this when I saw it. It came out, so I was 11 years old.

32:19I had a friend who this was like his favorite movie. Like he watched it all the time. Yeah, me. I was that kid. That's you. So I was 11 when this came out. Wildly inappropriate for an 11-year-old. I would say this is probably like, you know, you probably should have been like closer to 14. It was a spoof of a lot of the gangster movies in the 1990s. Anyway, so I was 11 when this came out and yeah, this movie came out 29 years ago. It was a Wayne's Brothers movie. 29 years ago. Right. I just still remember the part where he tops out with a nuclear bomb out of his car. Do we have such a good memory?

32:54Okay, so back to Derek's story. So he says it's the antisocial century. A few stats and figures. This one's interesting. 74 % of all restaurant traffic came from off-premise customers in 2023. That is takeout and delivery up from 61 % before COVID. Saying people aren't going into restaurants as much. It's like taking out, go eating at home. He also said, adults spent in 2022 99 minutes at home on any given day more than compared to 2003. So we're spending a little over an hour and a half more at home than we did in the past. And he goes to all these stats. We're watching more TV. Wait, just go through all these stats.

33:29Not going into movies. Just go through all these stats. Okay, what else do you want? Well, you did the first one? Yeah. All right. The share of U.S. adults having dinner or drinks with friends on any given night has declined by more than 30 % in the past 20 years. that's a lot. Solo dining has increased by 29 % in the past two years. The number one reason is the need for more me time. Television. So in 1970, just 6 % of sixth graders had a TV set in their bedroom. In 1999, that proportion had grown to 77%. As a parent, my wife and I have already talked about this. My daughters asked, can I have a TV in my bedroom?

34:04My answer is no. No, not in the bedroom. My answer is no. Which is funny because they're going to have iPads, so it's not going to matter. But not in the bedroom, right? You have to at least be biased. You're not going to go watch TV. Did I ever TV in my bedroom? I feel fairly strongly about this. Although, let's be honest, I don't really care. But I kind of care. I did not grow up with a TV in my bedroom. Maybe in high school I got one, but I think it was more for video games. I didn't actually watch TV in there. You know, I don't know why I'm so judgmental about this. Like, what's the big deal, I guess?

34:33But I don't know. I just think that… I like TV being a communal thing. Like, we make our kids… Like, no, we're watching a movie together tonight. We're all doing… So anyway, the point of Derek's post is just that, like, especially the one that gets to me is like the less social teens. A percentage of 12th graders going out with friends two or more times a week has gone from 80 % or so in 1980 to 50 or 60 % now. So the whole loneliness thing, and he looks at the other side of it, and he did a podcast on this too, which I think is worth a listen, saying like, we are more connected than ever, and there's more ways to talk to people.

35:06I remember I did, I've mentioned this before, I did a summer in Europe for school. We had this program for school that would send us over to Vienna for two months. And I told my wife about this a couple weeks ago. Like, I maybe called my parents once a week and sent like one email. Other than that, like, I was off the grid to them. They had no idea where I was, what I was doing. And now, if you went to Europe, if you sent your, you know, 20-year-old to Europe, you'd be texting them all the time. You'd be calling them. You'd be, you know, you'd be in constant contact. So that piece of it is there's way more contact these days.

35:39But I think this whole loneliness epidemic is way, way, way more important for young people. This is a terrible thing for young people. I think once you get older and middle age, yeah, sure, it can mess with your mood a little bit. I don't mind being as alone in middle age. When you're young, you need this. This is why I think college is still so important. And the people who poo-poo college and say, no, we're going to have AI robots teaching our kids, they won't need to go to college. The socializing aspect of college is the most important part of it. And that's why I think college is still very important for young people.

36:07It forces you to interact with way more people and socialize more because living in a dorm room was not a great living situation. Yeah. So he has a chart in here showing the change in average minutes spent at home compared with 2003. And of course, this increased, you know, 4X in the pandemic, but it hasn't really given a lot of it back. So Derek wrote that modern technology is always open window to the outside world, makes recharging much harder. leaving many people chronically depleted, a walking battery that is always stuck in the red zone. In a healthy world, people who spend lots of time alone would feel that ancient biological cue.

36:49I'm alone and sad. I should make some plans. But we live in a sideways world where easy home entertainment, oversharing online, and stunted social skills spark a strangely popular response. I'm alone, anxious, and exhausted, Thank God my plans were canceled. I get that. And think about when you go out to hang out with people and then they are on their phone while you're hanging out. So it's like even the hangout time is not as much one-on-one anymore. I'm guilty of that, unfortunately, because it's just like habit. Everyone is. And this is why the 1990s really were better. I saw a piece last week saying like, the 90s weren't as great as you think they were.

37:33And they went through all these statistics and stuff, but like… Come on. My, my return to that was no, the nineties were better because as someone who lived through both of those time periods, I can tell you the nineties really were better because it just wasn't as exhausting as it is being online all the time is exhausting. I think we are going to, as much as, as great as it's been, we're going to look back someday and say social media was bad for humanity on net. Like it's, it's been, it's just been a, I think it's been a horrible, horrible thing for us. Oh my God. I have no doubt. Yeah. I don't even know if that's controversial.

38:05Now, it is what it is. It is, right? Yeah, so there's no going back. And it's definitely, listen, it's definitely not all bad. I'm not saying that. I don't think Derek's saying that. There's obviously amazing aspects of it, connecting to others. You know, there's a lot of good, but there's a lot of f***ing disgusting bad stuff. I got stuck on the For You tab over the weekend. My kids were at the Knick game, and I just like fell into it. And it was just like, I just looked up after 45 minutes. My eyes were burning. I'm like, what did I just do? You feel gross about yourself, right? You can't. and the algorithms are going to take us over.

38:37Here's my one take on this financially about people spending more time at home. This is going, this is just going to, so the remote work thing and people wanting to spend more time at home, you know, having takeout as opposed to going to restaurants. When I, going back to the college thing, my dorm was this, I don't know how many square feet it was. 200? So my dorm was awful. And so you never wanted to be in it, but that's the point of college is being out and about. But I think for people wanting to spend more time at home, this is going to put a bigger premium on housing prices. Because people are going to want to spend more time at home.

39:12They're going to be working at home. They're going to be hanging out more. They're going to want an office in their home. Yes. So this is one of the reasons. A couple mudrooms. Yes. So this is the reason why there is a premium on housing. Because people are going to want bigger, nicer homes now. Okay. You know the meme, the market will regulate itself and then the market, right? Yeah. So on Polymarket, there is a market. Will Palisades wildfire spread to Santa Monica by Sunday? And Ben Eiferts quote tweeted and said, in all seriousness, this should be 100 % illegal. That's not big government telling people what they should or shouldn't do with their money.

39:53That's saying you shouldn't be incentivized to burn down Santa Monica to dig yourself out of your gambling debt. I mean, come the f*** on. Of course, this is right. That is awful that they even allow that thing. Of course, you should not be able to bet on something like this. Yes. That you could just take a blowtorch to Santa Monica. Yeah, that's pretty bad. But this is what people want. Give us everything and let it happen. Speaking of gambling, somebody sent this to us. So, FanDuel, FanDuel's parent company is a publicly traded stock. I think it's Australian. Is it Australian? I can't remember where they're held from.

40:30I didn't know that. It's called Flutter. So listen to this. Listen to this. Flutter announces update on short-term U.S. sports results impact. Following our Q3 earnings report, continued strong U.S. player momentum has been offset by a period of very unfavorable U.S. sports results across the remainder of November and in December, primarily on NFL parlay and same-gate parlay outcomes. The season has been the most customer-friendly since the launch of online sports betting with the highest rate of favorites winning in nearly 20 years. How about that? Oh, so people are actually winning and gambling this season.

41:09Yeah, so everybody had a great season except for me, Ben. How many units are you down? I was hanging in there. I was hanging in there, losing my standard three to five cents on every bet, you know, fluctuating, and I got annihilated. I was so confident that the Chargers were going to win this weekend. And it wasn't even about the Chargers. But I followed football pretty closely. And the Texans have been horrendous all season. Their offensive line was dog shit. All season long, CJ Stratt was on the run. They're short manned. And so, yeah, I got hosed. I took a beating. And then – So now you double down to make it back.

41:56And then I might have tripled down during halftime. And then I chased my losses. And I really felt pretty good about the Buccaneers. And then Baker fumbled the handoff. And so, yeah, it was a rough weekend. It was a rough weekend. But hey, that's gambling. Hey, here's another thing. Here's another thing. Tell me in what world this makes sense. There's no other industry that operates this way. And I'm sure there's a reason. But maybe there's not. Head coach interview schedule for Lions defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn. Thursday, Jets. Friday, AM Saints. Friday, PM Raiders. Saturday, AM Jaguars.

42:34Saturday, PM Bears. He's still employed. He has a game next week. What other industry operates this way? Isn't that so bizarre? You're saying people don't interview for jobs when they still have a job? So publicly? Hey, boss. Sorry, I'm going to be out in the next two days. I know we've got a big meeting next week, but I'm, you know, just seeing what else is out there. So I haven't, I have not placed one bet at all this whole season. My whole thing now, I'm the, you're the thematic funds and I'm target date funds. I placed three bets at the end of the last season, the day of the Superbowl on who would win the Superbowl this season.

43:09And my bets were on the Baltimore Ravens, the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs. I got, I don't know, plus a thousand for. Wait, Bills, Chiefs and who? Bills, Chiefs and Ravens. Bills, Chiefs and Ravens. So not the Lions. I'm not going to bet on my own team. No, that's like a double whammy. Okay. You don't bet on your own team. So am I going to bet this weekend? I think, unfortunately, we all know the answer to that. That was in my parlay, you betting more. But now I'm all shook. My confidence is completely rattled. I feel like whatever it is, I'm going to lose. But hey, that's life, right?

43:43You win some, you lose some. You win some, you lose more. Survey of the week from Michael McDonald of Bloomberg. Wait, Michael McDonough. Did you call him Michael McDonald? Yeah, he's the Yacht Rock guy, right? Right. Yeah, McDonough. He says, this is still the most striking chart in economics and politics, the complete flip in one-year inflation expectations among Democrats versus Republicans after the election. So they just updated January 25 data. So Democrats shoots up and now think inflation is going to be higher. Republicans shoots way lower and now thinks inflation is going to be – it's kind of funny.

44:16Republican inflation estimates are at zero. So I guess the good thing is that the independent in the middle is actually pretty, it's pretty much an average of these two. But the way I look at this is it's kind of like the vibe shift after Christmas. Leading up to Christmas, you listen to Christmas music and you're in the spirit and you have all the decorations. And then the day after Christmas, it's like, okay, we can't listen to Christmas music anymore. Take the decorations down. It's over. Like, it's still snowing out, still beautiful in Michigan, but I can't have Christmas songs on anymore.

44:48It's that same vibe shift that you get. And I think you have to just use the independent line now. You can't use the Republican or Democrat views about the economy anymore. They're useless. Yeah. You can't even call them really a contrarian indicator because it's not even contrarian. It's, it's, it's not an indicator. It's who do you vote for? Yes. Right. That's it. But I do believe that there is some signal in this survey. So Kevin Gordon tweeted, as of December, the net percentage of small businesses expecting the economy to improve jumped to its highest since 2002. The two-month change has only been seen one other time.

45:31So a massive, massive increase in optimism from small business. Yeah, but look at the last time it happened. when was that 2016 on the election this is also a political chart it's the same thing republicans own small businesses i think is what it's saying okay

45:52well can't this be like uh influential if people are optimistic they're going to invest you would hope yeah i mean that's not that's not a stretch that's a pretty direct path from A to B. I'm optimistic about the future of my business. Therefore, I'm going to invest in my business. I think we've gotten into a world where you just have to throw out what most people say and just watch what they do. But it's not like companies haven't been investing for the last two years. I know, but this is a small business. This is Main Street. I just, again, I'd like to see if the investment follows. We'll see if it follows.

46:28I don't know that it does. Maybe I'll be wrong. I think you have to watch what people do know what they say. All right. There was a great tweet that is a real face blower, Ben. So A24, the independent movie company, was able to make 16 movies in 2024 with the same budget as Red One. Now, I never saw it. I haven't seen Red One. Is that the Amazon movie? That's the rock one. Don't waste your time. But did Amazon make this movie? They either made it or bought it. Yeah, somehow it's an Amazon movie. So$50 million for Dwayne Johnson. Another$15 for Captain America. What's his name? Chris Evans. Chris Evans.

47:14$185 million on the rest of the movie. So A24 did Civil War, Queer, Love Lies Bleeding. That was a great movie. Baby Girl. Can't read that. Y2K, Maxine. I saw the TV Glow, Heretic, The Brutalist, Sing Sing, and a bunch of others. So people always say independent movies are dead now. They still exist within A24. They're not dead. Who says that? They're not dead at all. They're very much alive. You haven't heard people bemoaning that for years that like independent movies are gone. No. A24 and Neon are on fire. That's what I'm saying. We don't have as many of them maybe, but... I don't think I've seen any of these movies.

47:52I love lives bleeding. I've seen a lot of these. We're just ending to a movie of the year maybe. Love lives bleeding? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

48:02Okay. I went to see Heretic just because I like Hugh Grant. I like, I mean, yeah, I like the movie. Good question from a listener. Ben's comments about getting used to consumption in the hedonic treadmill are spot on. We took our three kids to Germany last year. Kudos to you. We plan to return just my wife and I in 2025, but the kids had such a good time. They're all wanting to go back with us. I'm not sure I'll be able to disappoint them. I'm worried this is just the beginning of spoiling them. Any thoughts on how you guys keep your kids' expectations low enough while also giving them great experiences?

48:31I look at this as the difference between kids being spoiled and entitled. I think everyone spoils their children in some ways. I think spoiling your kids is actually okay. Not all the time. Sometimes spoiling your kids is okay. You don't want to raise entitled kids who just assume that they get this. I had some friends like this over the years that came from pretty wealthy families who were a little entitled. And I had other friends who came from wealthy families who were pretty level-headed and were probably spoiled but didn't act like they deserved it. That's the difference. I think you don't want kids who feel like they should deserve this type of lifestyle.

49:07How's that? Yeah. So how you keep your kids' expectations low enough. That's a tough balance to strike. I think the big part is you have to try to keep them grateful for what they have. Right. So we constantly try to remind our kids of people who are in worse positions than them. And people that we should be helping. and I show my kids some of like the charities that we give to. And like this is – and the last like – you know, they're starting to understand money. And so I think that's the kind of thing is like getting them grateful for what they do have. Yeah. I mean I think the answer is pretty straightforward.

49:44I don't know if it's like easy but you just – I talk about it to Ben's point, right? Yeah, you have to – yeah. We're lucky that we're able to do this. A lot of people can't. You do the best you can. You try and – I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. So a couple weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to go to the Empire State Building when I came to New York. And Dennis, a listener of the show, reached out and said, hey, I got the hookup. Let me know if you want to go. And you and I didn't drop the ball, but our research analyst, Sean, did and didn't get back to Dennis in time. And so I emailed him, I think, the day of and said, hey, I still want to go to the Empire State Building.

50:15And he made it happen like last minute for us. You couldn't go. You had to go back on Long Island because you had family obligations to attend to. Credit to you. So I grabbed Bill's suite and we got the VIP tour of the Empire State Building, skipped the lines. And one of the cooler things that I've ever seen, when we walked out on the observation deck, Bill and I both kind of like, like it was kind of breathtaking. Like I couldn't believe the view and it was totally worth it. One of the best tourist experiences I've had in New York City. Just an amazing, amazing experience to have. I'm surprised your hat didn't blow off.

50:53It was very windy up there. That's a skull cap. It stayed on pretty tight. So anyway, thanks to Dennis for being the hookup there. It was an awesome, awesome experience. It was really fun and highly recommended. Okay. Yeah, that looks great. I've never done that before. Probably should. You should do it for sure. All right. Okay. One of the best emails we've ever gotten. Yep. Michael and Ben, my fiance and I absolutely adore you both. He has been a listener since 2018, and I have been since I met him in 2020. And we started doing pod walks around the Esplanade. Esplanade? What's an Esplanade? Kind of like a big community space.

51:28Okay. Shops and, yeah. In Boston. Love Boston. It might sound corny, but it's part of the nerdy reason we fell in love bonding over your pod in our discourse on media and financial markets. We're now getting married later this year. Animal Spirits brings the people together. I made the joke that we should be invited to the reception where we give a live podcast during the reception. I'm sure their guests would love that. Recommendations? Ben, what are you watching? Recommendations. I watched The Den of Thieves after it was on the watchbook because I'd never seen that before. Awesome movie. 2018.

52:02Really good heist movie. It's on HBO Max right now. My only nitpick, if we're doing, I'm going to be a nitpick guy. You can't nitpick that movie. I mean, it's a ridiculous movie. Gerard Butler character. It's like nitpicking Jurassic Park. No, I don't nitpick the heist. Like, I love the over-the-top heists. And I think that part of it. But Gerard Butler's cop character was so over the top. Like he goes to his ex-wife's dates and stuff and he's so over the top that you don't even root for the cops. You root for the bad guys in this movie. Okay, I don't remember the plot that well, but I do remember having a heck of a good time.

52:37A rip-worn good time. Okay. So I've been catching up on the agency lately and I've been watching a lot of spy shows in the past year or so. And I have a game show idea from all my spy shows. I don't know if you're caught up on the agency at all. I'm a few episodes behind. Okay. Does it tell off? there's two there's like two episodes in the middle that kind of but then you get back to six and seven and it starts getting really good again so there's a couple of filler episodes but then it takes off again but this show there's a lot of tailing like right I'm tailing this person to see where they're going or they're tailing me and people are trying to lose a tail that could be a game show how so you know someone tries to tail you through New York City or Chicago or LA and you have to try to lose the tail like happen to this building right this is a stretch this is a stretch Ben You tell me that wouldn't be fun to do.

53:24You've seen how people go into those safe rooms or whatever, or the mystery rooms for something to do. If you were on a bachelor party, and they said, what are we doing today? Laser tag? Paintball? No. We're all going to get tailed through the city and try to lose the tail. That'd be fun. Come on. Well, what if you speed away? It's a half-baked idea. Yeah, what if you speed away and you hit somebody? I don't think you've thought this through. I'm going to nitpick that entire thing. No, you're not driving. A tail, like they're tailing you walking through somewhere. Not in a car. That sounds even worse.

53:50All right, what else? Okay, Landman. I love the part where Billy Bob gives his soliloquy about oil prices. And he says, the perfect price of oil. You remember this line? So he says, you want, this is for the oil producers. You want oil to be in the$60 to$90 range, right? He says, anything over that, gas prices are too high, and it starts bleeding into the economy, and it's not good. And he said, the perfect price of oil is$78 a barrel. Do you know what oil is today? $78. As I'm looking at it, on my white chart screen,$78 a barrel. Today is the perfect price of oil, according to Billy Bob from Landman.

54:26Can't get any better than this. Are you all the way caught up? No, I'm probably on episode five or so. Okay. No offense. You're moving very slowly through that show. I am. We've been busy lately with sports and such. Yeah. It's a good show. The stuff with the wife sometimes is a little cringe. Yeah. But again, this is like nitpicking the economy. See, I'm the nitpick guy now. Yeah. Okay. A few things. Listener emailed two movies. I watched the first one and I politely said, it wasn't for me. I just didn't really get it. The movie was called Red Rooms. And then he said, all right, try the next one.

55:07That might be more your speed. And the next one was Woman of the Hour. Anna Kendrick starred and directed it. And it was okay. And he emailed me again. He's like, what did you think? I gave you that one. Woman of the Hour? Yeah, that's the game show one with the serial killer. Yeah, it was fine. It was like a B minus, C plus. Yeah, it was okay. Better idea than a movie. Yeah, it was fine. It was whatever. And then he's like, all right, last one. If you don't like this, double, triple, table pounder. The movie was Kneecap, which somebody else had recommended that movie as well. So Kneecap is on Netflix.

55:50It stars, well, stars. He's a supporting actor, Michael Fassbender. And it's about, and this is. Oh, Fassbender, this is who I love him, man. So listen, I'm sorry. This was news to me. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but hey, I learned something new. Why am I embarrassed? Irish is a language. You mean like they have their own language there? So I'm like, Google, I'm like, what the hell? So the premise of the movie is like the English want them speaking English and they're trying to keep the heritage alive. So I Google, I'm like Irish language. So apparently it's Gaelic. You've heard of that.

56:26I've heard of that before. Right. Right? But I didn't realize that that was Irish and it's like a real language. Because I was like – in the beginning of the movie, I was like, is this like a made-up language? Like what are they speaking here? Oh, like how many people actually still speak that? Yeah. So anyway, the movie was fine. I didn't not like it. I would have recommended it. It was okay. It was fine. And then I was thinking like, shit, am I an asshole? Like, am I incapable of taking recommendations, which would be pot calling the kettle black? Or maybe that's, it would be a complete hypocrisy considering that I give recommendations every week.

57:02Can I give and not take? And then I, thank God that's not the case. Because I was thinking, I was like, hey, wait a minute. I've taken a million recommendations that I love. So I was going through the list in my head of recommendations that I like. But I got worried for a second that I'm incapable of taking a recommendation. It's not true. I genuinely happened to think that these three movies were just not for me. It's all subjective. Movies are very subjective. You can't get mad at someone for not liking a movie. Just like you can't get mad at someone for not liking a meal. Yeah. So I sent this guy, I think, a very, very polite response.

57:33Listen, and I said, I'm not mad at you. Shoot or shoot. Like, I give plenty of records. It's okay. Like, we have to, we, I didn't agree on this movie. No big deal. Kneecap's on my list too. I'll watch it. I might like it more than you did. You might like it. I didn't dislike it. It's just, you know, whatever. It's fine. Okay. Here's what I did like. Oh, just one more thing on Linus, which is a while I keep going back to.

57:57This always irks me. I might have said this before on this podcast. There's a scene where she just walks into the water with her sneakers on for no reason. She could have just avoided the water. is there anything worse than stepping in a puddle of water and getting your socks wet socks wet in your house too right what in your house well the kids bring in snow from outside and your socks and you step in water yeah there's few things are worse uh than a wet sock and nobody would ever step in water fully in uh engulf their shoe in water outside of a movie this just never happens in real life. Yeah, that's a good point.

58:42That's the thing you see on TV and movies all time. All right. So Jerry Springer, I assume you were a Jerry Springer guy. Definitely. In high school, we used to go in one of the classrooms. We'd, wasn't it Chicago? Huh? Was it Chicago? Yeah, it was Chicago. I just watched it. We would watch, we would sneak into a classroom and eat our lunches and watch Jerry Springer at lunchtime. So for the younger listeners, the Jerry Springer show was a circus. It was basically, they would bring in these people and one of them was cheating on the other with a horse or just like wild shit, right? Like really over the top type stuff.

59:16And I felt very vindicated because there was like a big argument back in the day, like it's got to be staged, right? Like these can't be real. It has to be fake people. They were real people. They were real people. So there's a documentary on Netflix. It's only two episodes. So they made a great point that they basically said it was like the Coliseum. And remember a year or two ago, I was like, why do I like horror movies? And then somebody recommended the Hardcore History podcast about the history of Coliseum. And if that existed today, like, would people still watch it? Yeah, they probably would.

59:49It's just like a primal instinct. The Jerry Springer show was the Coliseum. It was like watching a train wreck. And so the whole thing about the doc is that, yes, these were real people. But obviously, they were fully exploited. And the producers basically treated them like caged animals, got them all riled up, had them prepare and prep and practice for how it was going to go down. And then they would raise the gates and the animals would run out and hit each other. So it was real people, but they were fully coerced into the powder keg. The funny thing is that when the show first started, it was relatively serious.

1:00:32It didn't really go off the rails until later in the show. Not serious, but it wasn't quite so crazy at the beginning. But it was truly like a cultural – Oh, yeah. A part of the culture. Steve, the guy who was his bodyguard, got his own show. Steve Wilkes, yeah. He had a spinoff. Yeah. So it's only two episodes. Man, it was dark. Pretty dark. Jerry. Pretty dark. Yeah. And then the message at the end of the show that he would end it with, take care of yourself and each other. He would sit down and have a – It was a bunch of animals fighting and flinging poo at each other for 30 minutes and then at the end of the show, he would sit down seriously.

1:01:04and talking to the camera and it would take care of yourself and each other. He used to be like the mayor of Cincinnati or something. It was so sick. Yeah. All right. We'll take a look. Anyway. All right, Ben. We're back in the swing of things? You back in your routine? Yes, I am. Yeah, I was thrown off. I went from Christmas break right into New York last week, and now I'm back, cool, calm, collected. Okay. Shaving the beard? It's a new year. It's a new me. Okay. Animal Spirits pod. No. Nope. Dang it. Animal Spirits at the compound news.com. I thought I had that fixed. We appreciate all the emails, all the feedback.

1:01:48Give us a review if you want. That'd be great. Oh yeah. Subscribe to the compound. See you next time.