Is Financial Education Working? (EP.413)

24:34It's more than any supplier can absorb. And so I'm concerned that the consumer is going to start seeing higher prices. You'll begin to see that likely towards the tail end of this month and then certainly more in June. Not a surprise because the tariffs are higher than they've been in whatever. 90 years. I got to chart. So check this out. Sorry to cut it in. I listened to the Ernie's call yesterday. These are my highlights. This is a face blower. You might be surprised. I was, Doug, to know that nearly 60 % of our suppliers in the U.S. are small businesses. That is a surprise. So they're saying that the small businesses are probably themselves getting hit with tariffs, which is trickling down to Walmart?

25:12I just kind of figured that they were way more reliant on China and the rest of the world. Here's another one. So earlier you mentioned the quote about raising some prices. They said, we won't let tariff-related cost pressure on some general merchandise item put pressure on food prices. So they're going to raise prices on items where they're seeing price increases. But as it relates to food, tariffs on countries like Costa Rica, Peru, and Colombia, Our pressuring imported items like bananas, avocados, coffee, and roses. We'll do our best to control what we can control in order to keep food prices as low as possible.

25:49Bananas have some room to run. The bananas are still so cheap. I always say this. Don't you think that Walmart probably has the best supply chain of any company? I mean, when I went to business school, that's all. Whenever we talked in the supply chain class, it was how amazing Walmart supply chain is. If they can't handle this, I can't imagine what it's like for other smaller companies who don't have a good supply chain like they do. So Donald, the president tweeted or truthed, Walmart should stop trying to blame tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain. Walmart made, all caps, billions of dollars last year.

26:25Far more than expected. That part made me chuckle. Between Walmart and China, they should, as is said, all caps, eat the tariffs and not charge valued customers, all caps, anything. I'll be watching and so will your customers. So the liberal Wall Street Journal opinion section wrote an article, Donald Trump plays Walmart CEO. He goes full Kamala Harris and demanded that the retail giant not raise prices. We've called out, obviously, every time Bernie Sanders and more so Elizabeth Warren said this nonsense about Kroger, for example. It's like, what? Either you are really stupid or you think we're really stupid or maybe both.

27:11And it's offensive. And to see the president doing this is, I don't know, pick the adjective, however you're feeling. But Walmart, I have a chart from YCharts looking at - Is he going to personally track prices across everything? I'm sure he is. Look at Walmart's revenue compared to their net income. The revenue has grown, at least eyeballing, I don't know, so much faster than the income. But the bottom line is, talking about their profit margins, there's no room. Their profit margin is 2.8%. It's averaged 2.4 % over the last decade. They can't absorb the price increases and neither can any other business in this country.

27:47What are we doing here? And this makes an important point about a lot of our messaging, getting back to what we've been saying publicly and others like us for the last however long we've been doing this is it's okay to have political opinions, right? Like it's okay. You feel what you feel. You believe what you believe. but for the love of God, whatever your beliefs are, do not let it invade your portfolio. It's too much. You're going to live through administrations that you love and administrations that you hate. And if you look at the raw numbers, it does not support however you feel. So just live with it and don't make any drastic decisions.

28:26Okay. And then In comes 2025. And the policies that the president laid in place blow up the stock market temporarily. Stocks fall in a straight line, 19%. And everybody who was afraid of Donald Trump and what he would do feels vindicated. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And people like you told me politics don't mix politics with your portfolio. Okay. Now that we're on the other side of it, as some of the rhetoric around the tariffs have been relaxed, it is interesting. And I was thinking about this morning, policies that can impact the market and the economy obviously matter a lot.

29:10We just saw that. Nothing else does. Nothing else does. Whatever he's saying to Walmart, whatever he's saying to these companies, none of the rhetoric matters. It's policies or nothing else. The market can look through a lot of the nonsense, whether it's Democrats or Republicans. The market will look through a lot of the rhetoric because whatever, the market just calls BS. But when it comes to actual policies, that's how politics can impact the market. What's the actual change? And this is the thing people keep saying is, listen, we have not felt the impact of these tariffs yet. They're way, way lower than they were on Liberation Day, but they're still higher than they were before and that there's going to be an impact.

29:46This was interesting. So we talked to a couple of portfolios. But hold on, just in conclusion, I think the belief that you should not mix your politics with your portfolio still holds true. Even now so more than ever, because if you thought that you were right about your intuitions, that Trump was going to ruin America and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now we're even like, now what? Yes, exactly. Now, yeah, well, now what do you do? And most people probably dig their heels in. So we talked to a couple of portfolio managers from JP Morgan yesterday on their value team. It's going to be on one of our talker books in a couple of weeks.

30:17And they made the point that Walmart is actually cheaper or Amazon is cheaper than Walmart now. And I did this in a 4P ratio, and they talked about it in a couple different metrics. But so it's actually way, way cheaper than Costco too and Walmart. Why is Walmart so expensive? Can you explain this to me? Walmart's trading at 37 times earnings and Amazon's at 33. Costco's at 57. I think it's a combination of like their e-commerce business growing dramatically. It's not, this is not like the Walmart of 10 years ago. But wouldn't we say that tariffs with Costco, I know Costco, the whole deal with Costco, what people always say is that they essentially break even on their, on all the stuff they buy.

30:56And then they make money on the memberships. That's, that's their profit margin is the memberships. So if Costco and Walmart have these pretty razor thin profit margins and we're having tariffs that are going to impact a lot of their supply, shouldn't these companies see their, their valuations decrease? You would think it's a very fair point. I don't even know what the counterpoint would be. Why would, why would, why would the multiples not go down? I don't know. Especially from these levels. They're not exactly cheap. So Joey Politano at Apresitas, his substack, looked at all the major tariffs.

31:29And I think he said, again, they're the highest in 90 years. He said, even if, so he has this chart that shows, and it looks like cars and SUVs and minivans are the biggest hit. That's like a 19 % tariffs. Vehicle parts is 10%. So these are still pretty high, right? He said, even if you walked them back to just 10%, it will leave tariffs at the highest level since 1940s and make America the only high-income nation with double-digit tarot rates. Um, he may be eating his trade war, but it's far from ending it. So again, I just keep thinking that the corporations and the investors have to keep thinking like, okay, yes, this is true, but they're not going to remain this high.

32:01That's the only explanation I can come up with. I think the market is saying that there's going to be exemptions on everything. Yeah. That's the only thing I can think of. Now, market may be wrong, but I think that's the interpretation because it's hard to, uh, it's hard to imagine anything else being true. All right. Did you, when I first came out of college and I, and realizing I know nothing, and I'm reading through all the personal finance books, cause I, again, I know nothing. This is one of the first books I read. Did you read this? I feel like if you're a financial advisor, this is on your bookshelf.

32:35You know, I didn't. Okay. So this is the millionaire next door. And you know what? My millionaire next door equivalently was the wealthy barber. Okay. So, but this, this was kind of to use your term face blowing to me. So I think this came out 96. I read it probably 2005 ish. And again, knowing nothing, I thought, oh my gosh, I've cracked the code. I figured out how to get rich. But, and so the one thing that really stood out to me that I still remember, this is back in 96. So this is self-employed people, entrepreneurs, business owners make up less than 20 % of workers in America, but account for two thirds of the millionaires.

33:12So the point is like, you want to be people that missed it. Less than 20 % of workers in America are self-employed or own their own business, but they make up two-thirds of the millionaires in this country. And so the Wall Street Journal, and so the question is, like, this is 96. Does it still, you know, does it still hold? Wall Street Journal has an article called Meet the Stealthy Wealthy Who Make Their Money the Boring Way. And the whole point of this, too, is also, like, these are not people who own flashy, high-tech businesses. It's mostly slow and steady but profitable businesses. They're not showy.

33:44That's most of these millionaire next stores. One of the ones that the article highlighted was a guy whose business is cleaning or ripping up carpets in elementary schools. Oh, really? You didn't read the article? No, I did. But they had the weather tech guy too. I use those in our cars. Oh, the formats. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they say the largest source of income for the 1 % of highest earners isn't being a partner at an investment bank or launching a one in a million tech startup and owning a medium-sized regional business. Many of them are distinctly boring, extremely lucrative, like auto dealerships, beverage distributors, grocery stores, dental practices, and lofts.

34:18And they found that the number of people who are in the 1 % of earners, the share of income that ownership generates has increased to 35 % in 2022 from 30 % in 2024 for the top 1 % of earners. And read the next one. The number of such business owners worth 10 million or more just for inflation has more than doubled since 2001. And it's saying a lot A lot of it. So the takeaway here is equity, right? You want to own equity in a business if you want to get wealthy. Yeah. And it's not saying you can't be a nine to five person and say, we know plenty of those people who have done that. But if you want to get really, really wealthy, it's owning equity in a business.

34:57I'm always surprised, but we are always surprised about the anecdotes that they find from these articles. There was a, there was a family who said like they made$550 ,000, uh, And they just spoke about his family's luxuries include two Land Rovers, private school for the kids, and a month-long summer vacation, and all of those sorts of personal financial details. Why would you talk to the Wall Street Journal about that? I don't understand. Are you showing your friends, like, look at this article that I'm in? It's so bizarre to me. I mean, there are certainly people who brag a lot about their vacations.

35:33But yeah, you're right. Can you imagine going around town and, like, there's already gossip about people enough as it is? If you're worth$50 million or whatever it is, you can't hide that. Everybody knows you're rich. Right. But yeah, I agree. The bragging of, yeah, we went on a month-long vacation to Europe. And yeah, you're getting talked about. Maybe you don't care. Maybe you want people to talk about you. I don't know. Good article, though. Okay, this one from Food & Wine is, I think we've talked something about this similarly. So they say a whopping 75 % of restaurant traffic now consists of takeout orders, according to National Restaurant Association.

36:07NRA. I think they want to rethink that one.

36:13And let's see. 95 % of consumers deem speed as critical to the experience. Well, 90 % see it as a top priority. So there's this 40. So convenience is just a huge part of the economy. And I think this is one of those pandemic takeaway things that no one really would have foreseen ahead of time. I was so wrong on this. What did you think that just restaurants were? I mean, people still go to restaurants, but it's. no particularly no the door dash thing look at the stock what a beast this is it's a great looking chart uh and i just couldn't believe that people would continue to pay the outrageous fees i guess i should have asked my wife but the numbers don't compute everything's so expensive like i don't i don't use these services i think once you get a taste of convenience i probably do door dash once every other week at my office i'm really busy and i don't want to get up to go to get lunch somewhere down the street.

37:05I'll door dash and have them send it here. And it is really, really easy. And I think once you get a taste of that convenience, it's really hard to give up. It becomes a, it's the luxury becoming a necessity kind of thing. I agree. I thought people would for sure go back. And so we have a friend who actually owns some restaurants and he said, he's thinking about doing a restaurant that is takeout only. Like that's the whole thing. It's just a pickup counter. And he's like, why you save on overhead? You don't, you know, it's, It's easier to manage the staff, and that's all people want. So he's like, I'm thinking about just doing a takeout-only restaurant.

37:39It's just interesting. All right, I want to talk AI real quick here. By the way, the other AI story with Klarna was the fact that they had AI agents. Remember, they had like 700 AI agents, and now it sounds like it's not working very well? Yeah. So Klarna is just, they're a lighting bolt of everything. Do you think that is one of those things that, I think there's two ways looking at it. One is, well, see, AI is not as great as we thought. It can't take over the customer service for a human. Or is it just like, yeah, fine. But in two years, it's going to. Oh, 100 % it's going to. Are you kidding me?

38:11For the call center stuff? Please press one for, I was screaming at the phone the other day. I can't remember who it was on with. I was like, no, customer service. That's what I always do. Talk to operator. Talk to operator. Talk to operator. Yeah, no, that, we will not be doing that in five years or pick a number. Okay. So we've been in our house for eight years now. You know, boys, you know this, boys with potty training, not always the greatest. Just my son would wake up in the middle of the night to go pee and wake up in the morning and see just all over the toilet seat, just full of pee, right?

38:45Boys are just, they're not good at aiming, right? And so I looked at it and I thought like, I think I just need to get in. Like he's eight years old now, he's better. But like, why don't I get a new toilet seat? I'm like, how do I do this? So I just took a picture of it, and I uploaded to ChatGPT, and I said, what do I need to buy here? What's the toilet seat replacement? You can see the name of the brand of the toilet. And it looks like an elongated toilet, and the measurement, if it's 14 by 17 or whatever, then here's the kind you need to get. So easy. And that kind of stuff, for me, is slowly migrating from Google to ChatGPT.

39:20Like, if I need help with something, I don't go to Google anymore. I mean, sometimes if you need a video, but… Yeah. You can still do that stuff on Google, but. Yeah, but it's, I find the answers are better with Chad GPT. It's easier. Everything, if you ask it, like, how do you do this? How do I cancel my subscription to this? Chad GPT takes you through the steps. That's amazing. Whereas Google, it's just, it's one more step to try to find it through the jumps now. Now Google built Gemini into the search feature. Okay. But I still am just finding myself going more and more to Chad GPT for that type of stuff.

39:53Yeah. All right. So did you look at Torsten Slock's real estate update? He has this U.S. housing market outlook. It's 120 pages or something. And people were posting a lot of these charts on social media just saying, listen, housing is broken. It is. And the point, I think it's partially broken. I also think demographics play a big role here. Okay, so this is the conventional mortgage rate versus the effective. So effective is what people are actually paying. And throughout history, this has been very close. And I think we just really screwed things up with the mortgage rates. I think that's part of it, is just taking them so high so fast and allowing people to still pay so much lower.

40:30He's looking at the demographics saying the demand is still there. Like 33-year-olds is the – 33 is the most common age. So the people who are homebuyer age, it's still there. But now it says the median age of all homebuyers is 56 years old, up from 31 to 1981. And this is where people go, okay, come on. And this is back to the baby boomer thing. They're the ones who have paid off mortgages and can afford to buy a house. This is why this number is rising. And the whole point is 40 % of homes don't have a mortgage. So this is interesting. This guy on Twitter replied to someone who was tweeting about these, and he said, the median homebuyer in 2007 was born in 1968.

41:07The median homebuyer in 2024 was born in 1968. Wow. That's a crazy stat. But then Jack Rain said, fair. But the median American is also nine years older today than they were in 1981. So he says we have a housing affordable problem, but we also have an older population where many people switch homes later in life. So I think, yes, the housing market is broken for especially first-time homebuyers. But I think so many of these demographic numbers in the years ahead are just going to be broken by baby boomers, too. We've never had a cohort this big before. 70 million baby boomers with all this money,$82 trillion in wealth.

41:43I think that they also make these numbers look more skewed than they are. An article in the journal said baby boomers homeowners hold, baby boomer homeowners, excuse me, hold$17 trillion in home equity. And they share. So that's half of the total, right? They show a chart. The share of U.S. home equity held by people who are 70 or older. It is actually less than what they're in the GFC. I don't know if that's surprising or not, but it's around 30%, a little bit more. so the millennials look at this and the gen x younger gen x say all right fine but we're going to inherit that money someday true because the baby boomers aren't spending enough of it it's just gonna you're not gonna get it till they're 65 yeah yeah nick majulian i talked about this on the unlock recently if you want to check that out it's our channel for advisors but his whole point was this is why you need to give now and not later like to help the young people who are struggling, especially when it comes to homes and such.

42:42Homes, child care. And I would think a lot of people are. Like, for the people that are able to, for the young people that are buying houses today, there's just, there's no way to do it without helping your parents. Yeah, unless you're in the top 10 % of income for your cohort. Yeah, you're right. You need help. Yeah. Yeah. Can you imagine telling someone, no, just save 20 % for a down payment. And also, set aside 12 months of expenses for the emergency fund. It doesn't work. So max out your 401k. And also like you can't make it all work. Right. Surveys. So sentiment surveys came out last week and it feels like they're already stale because they were all tariff related, obviously, but, um, they looked at consumer sentiment.

43:23Hey, Yes. Pen guy. What's the problem? You like my pen? I just think it's funny that you hold your, you hold your pen in your hand as if you've got like, uh, like paper notes in front of you that you're going to pound on the table. Like you're like a reporter. I'm writing stuff over here. So consumer sentiment slides with second lowest level on record as inflation expectations jump. So they looked at inflation. This is Michigan survey. Yearhead inflation expectations surged from 6.5 % last month to 7.3 % this month. This month's rise was seen among both Democrats and Republicans alike. I just think we have to throw these sentiment surveys out the window.

43:59Yeah. I don't, there's so, people go to such extremes and it's, there's such recency bias that it's, and I understand why people thought this because the tariff stuff and it was crazy. And, but having these types of extremes, when we've lived through so much worse times before, it's just, I don't think they're useful anymore at all. I agree with you. I also used to be of the mind that, well, ultimately people will act the way that they feel, but that's not true. No. People say stuff on the internet that they don't mean in person. Right. The answers that they give are not how they actually feel.

44:37And people are not stopping spending or spending more because the price is good. The way that they behave does not match the answers that they give. Here's a chart from Semblis. Wait, hang on. I got a point on this. So my wife and I, before we got canceled, we went to see Louis C.K. a bunch of times. My favorite comedian ever. He's great. So he had this thing where his bit where he talked about how you yell at other people when you're in your car, unlike ways you would, like you yell at someone for cutting you off and you go, hey, idiot, and you swear at them. But if someone cut you off in the elevator, you wouldn't say, hey, moron.

45:12You wouldn't yell at someone the same way in your car versus the elevator. It's the same way in the internet. People say stuff and do stuff on the internet that they would never do in real life. Yes, accurate. So he has a chart showing all these different surveys that should be capturing the same thing. The conference board, one-year households, Michigan, New York Fed, Atlanta Fed, Philly Fed, whether it's business people or professionals or households or consumers. And I mean, they're sort of all going up into the right, but some are the Michigan one is way more dramatic than the others. To this point, Mike Sicardi tweeted, you miss 7 % inflation expectations.

45:45And then he said, ask, want to bet? And that figure drops to 3.7%. So on Calci, it shows how high will the level of inflation get in 2025? Putting your money where your mouth is. Yes. That's an interesting. Okay. So, so it's at 2.3 % now. 3.7 % is the forecast. Are you an over under that? Like what side of the bet would you take here? Under. I think I probably would too. I feel like, I mean, I don't know if I'm going to bet on it, but I mean, we're almost halfway through the year. I feel like the corporation can keep kicking the can. And my, my worry would be a 2026 story that we'd be seeing the higher inflation.

46:22If these tariffs stay on. So Ben, we were in Del Mar last week. We took a nice long hike. You know, I was impressed. That's usually my type of outdoor adventurous thing. I got to San Diego later than you, and you said, get your shoes and shorts on. We're going for a hike. And it was a way longer hike than I had anticipated. Credit to you. You're on the health kick, kind of. I don't know about that, but I did 30 ,000 steps out there. 15 miles. I was impressed with the trails there. I really loved it. So at the end of the trail, he said, you know, let's go get some tacos. And I said, you down for more?

46:57It's another 50 minutes. You thought I said 15. Yes, I did. It was another 50-minute walk. But we got there. And when we got there, I didn't have my wallet. I just had my phone, which has my Apple Pay on it. No big deal. But the restaurant didn't take Apple Pay. So you, thank you, paid for lunch. I was surprised to learn that you have a Hyatt credit card. And I want to know what that's all about. It's an interesting choice. There's a reason for this. I'm sure there is. I know you've thought about this. Go ahead. I just got it probably a month ago. That's why I'm using it. Oh, you're playing the game.

47:30Well, my, what's, what's your Bahama? But you don't even use Hyatt. You don't even stay at Hyatt. What's your Bahama resort that you go to? Oh, but I'm sorry to say points don't work there. Okay. Well, that was my idea. Okay. There's a resort in the Bahamas. And so I figured I might as well become a Hyatt member and you spend$3 ,000 in the first three months, then you get all these extra bonus points. So that's why I'm doing it. Okay. Well, I wonder if a new member, if you could, if you could. No, but you're right. I'd probably say at one Hyatt every five years, if that. Actually, I don't think I told the story on the show.

48:04Maybe I did. But last December, we went to Bahamar. By the way, future-proof Bahamar this year. Holy shit. October. That's going to be awesome. Holy moly. What do they have? A water park? A casino? Yeah, it's going to be a good time. So last December, we stayed at Bahamar. And a friend of mine told me that he used points to book it. Or he was thinking about using points to book it. And I said, you can't use points. He said, yeah, you can. I'm about to. So what is it? A million points to get a night or something? So I had already paid using my credit card. So shame on me. I guess I should have asked, but he showed me a screenshot of pay with points.

48:43So why wouldn't I believe it? So I took all of my reserve points, all of it, and transferred it to my Hyatt card. They wouldn't take it. And the points are not reversible. So now I've just... So now you have to find a Hyatt somewhere else to stay. So now whenever I'm going to a city, I just stay at the Hyatt. Okay. More San Diego talks in a minute. So it was something we were talking about that I didn't really realize until going through this. So once a year, you get an email from Social Security saying, hey, check out your new Social Security statement. I don't. You don't get that? Okay. I signed up for something.

49:22And it gives you like, if you keep earning this amount of money, if you take social security here, here's what you're going to get. Here's what you're going to get. But it also shows your survivor benefits. And so it showed, this is for me, it showed like if you pass away, your children will receive this much money a month and your spouse will receive this much money. And it says your total family benefits cannot be more than like$6 ,500 a month for each kid. And we went through this. My brother, as he was getting his finances and his financial affairs under order when he got sick, said, listen, we're going to receive a check for each kid from social security because essentially if you die early, you don't get your social security, but your kids do until they're 18.

50:02And I never really thought much about this or realized it, but it's a lot of money. It's like a couple grand a month, depending in from social security that these kids get until they're 18 years old tax-free. Amazing. Kind of amazing, right? I know people poo-poo a lot of government services. This is unbelievable. And so it gave me the amount. So you can look, if you sign up for your, you can just enter your email and create a profile on socialsecurity.com. And they send you an annual statement every year. And it shows like how much money you made and it shows how much social security you paid and what you're getting.

50:33Anyway, New York Times, this is Tara Siegel-Bernard wrote this piece. Why many retirees are taking social security early? Because they'd like to get cash. It feels good. An additional 276 ,000 retirees claim benefits on their earnings, a 13 % jump from a year ago. So it's more than they would expect based on how old people are. And they say this rise was dramatic. and they say, why is it happening? This guy, the agency's commissioner said, fear-mongering has driven people to claim benefits earlier because they're afraid they're not going to claim benefits at all. Oh, wow. And so I don't know if that's because they think they're going to die or Social Security is going to run out, but this is the spreadsheet versus feelings kind of thing.

51:09Like, if you look at the spreadsheet, you are better off taking it at age 70 because you get like a 7 % or 8 % return from 62 to 70. Like, your benefits are going to be much, much higher. but most people can't or won't wait for that. My dad didn't wait. And I was like, well, but why? And he said, because I want the money now. And I was like, all right, fair enough. Yes. So people don't use time value of money to make decisions like this, especially in retirement. It's like, no, no, no, give it to me now. I'm going to spend it now. I don't care if it's more in the future. It's worth more today than it is in the future.

51:42Okay. But it's not like, yeah. I guess it's, anyway, just interesting. That's how things work. All right. Let's do some more travel thoughts. We had horchata. At least I had it. You tasted it? You did. Do you still? It's like a milk cream soda? It's like rice pudding in a drink, I guess, ish. I loved it. Delicious. I don't know how you weren't ready to take a nap. I took a little sip and it was not. I don't know that it goes really well with the burrito, but it was delicious. So last week I was talking about how the line at clear was as short as I've ever seen it. And I couldn't help but think, well, I guess this makes sense.

52:19economy is slowing. We know that travel is slowing. We hear it from the airlines. But then San Diego, my friend guilted me in to change my flight to the 6.30 a.m. flight to get home from the Knicks game. True fan, my friend. I woke up at four o 'clock, got my ass to the airport, and I thought I would sort of stroll through. It was packed. San Diego, five in the morning, packed. So I don't know. I don't know if that says anything or nothing. Did you see the line at the lounge? The line at the lounge was like circled around the airport. Like people really wait that long to get into a lounge. I'm sorry.

52:56Going to lounge, I don't mind. Waiting for a lounge? I don't think I would wait for a lounge. So when I was at the Broadmoor, I ordered a pastry and a cup of coffee and it was$18. And I thought to myself, Wow. That's a lot of money. I also thought in hotels, there's no limits to what they could charge. When I was in the Bahamas, I told you, I got like a little bag of Doritos and a ball and some sunscreen and this and that. It was$110. And yeah, sure. Charge whatever you want. What are you going to do? But then I got back to my room and I've got this travel case of cords, right? I got one of those too.

53:36and every cord was wrapped up perfectly lined up my room was immaculate and then i thought all right i guess you get what you pay for so we you and i were just i had never been to say tan diego before i think you had never been either or was i had you never never to the part that we were at okay so it was it was beautiful and we were in a great set we at the tory pines we did a live podcast there with van ak and that's going to be coming out shortly i think next week or so It was fun. Cool group there. But I had never been to San Diego before. You and I were just speaking glowingly of it the whole time because we were hiking and seeing the great spots and these outdoor restaurants.

54:12Every five minutes we're like, this is amazing. Yeah, like why doesn't everyone live here? And we asked a few people who lived in San Diego, like because we said, do you think people here appreciate it enough? Like the weather is perfect. You can be outside all the time. The ocean is amazing. And so we asked people, like, do people here appreciate it? And most people said, yeah, but the housing costs. and we had multiple people say that exact same thing. Well, of course we appreciate it. The weather's great. It's beautiful. The hills and the mountains and the cliffs and, but yeah, the housing is insanely expensive.

54:43And our tour was, yeah, like this is the kind of place where housing probably should be expensive. It makes sense that more people would want to live there than can because it's so magnificent. I still don't know what the excuse is for New York, but. We have a great port. That's true. All right. I have a question for you. Why, maybe I just never paid attention growing up, and this is all in my head. Why does it seem like school drop-off is so much harder these days than it was when we were younger? Because I had to drop my kids off this morning. My wife had to take my son to, he thinks he, my son got a new swing for his birthday.

55:20You know those big round circle swings? Like a big, it's a big circle. You see, Matt, we got one for our back place. No, it's just a round, flat thing. Anyway. He was on it last night, and he goes too high. He fell off, and he thinks he broke his hand. He was screaming bloody murder. He's already broken his hand once. We'll see. So he had to go get an x-ray this morning. So I dropped the girls off at school. And the line for drop-off and pick-up is so long. Maybe it's just because kids don't take the bus anymore. I don't know, but it seems like I don't remember ever being an issue when I was young to drop off at school.

55:55Mostly because I did take the bus, and if I ever got dropped off, It was kind of a special thing. But if my mom dropped me off, it was just kind of pull up, go. Now there's a line. You have to follow certain instructions, which way to go. Is it like that for you too? Well, you know, that's one of the benefits of living in New York, Ben, is that our drop-off is actually super easy. Is it really? Well, 95 % of the time, my kids take the bus. Here and there, I drop them off. But yeah, pull up. See, the problem is ours is the very first stop. So our kids would be on the bus for like 45 minutes in the morning.

56:27They'd have to get out really early. we just said that's not worth it. Anyway. Recommendations. What do you got? What did you watch on the plane? I watched Inheritance. A movie I had never heard of. It was like a spy. It was actually a good airplane movie. Yeah, it was a good airplane movie. Not the 2021, the 2025 or 2024. See, I don't like it when movies use the same name. Wait. There's a 2020 and a 2024. Which one did I? I didn't watch either of those. Which one did I watch? Is there a 2025 one? Yeah. Okay, so not in 2020 or 2024. Here's, when Maya learns that her father was once a spy, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an international conspiracy.

57:10Okay, so this has got a 5.6 on IMDb. Yeah, 54 % on Rotten Tomatoes, airplane movie all the way. It was quick and easy. I went to see Final Destination last night. Okay. Killed it at the box office, over$100 million. Wow, okay. That's still kind of stuff still has legs, huh? How many of those have there been? I remember when the first one came out, it was like kind of a thing. And then. Oh, it was a thing. And the second one was a thing too. That was Allie Lauder. I don't think I've seen anything beyond the second one, but a rip-worn good time. A lot of fun. Great deaths. I guess it's one of those movies that just makes you think like, why doesn't stuff like this happen more often?

57:46Like I could have died there. And if this would have broken this way or that, like I could have totally died there. Yeah, it was fun. Oh, so not to beat this dead horse, I'm still, I'm enjoying The Last of Us. I'm really surprised because I'm not even like a super fan, but did you watch the most recent episode, episode six? Well, yeah, you won't because they brought Joel back. That's why you're enjoying it. When I saw him come back, it's like, yeah, this is why I like the show because of him. Yeah, but we knew he was going to come back, that he was going to make another appearance in the show.

58:18Not that he was brought back from the dead. By the way, this is not a spoiler. Some people got mad at such a spoiler. This is not a spoiler. All right? We'll be more conscious of spoilers going forward, but you knew that Joel was going to make another appearance in the last of us. And it was already in the video game. Yeah. But anyway, my - But here's the thing. All the video game people don't like the show anyway, I guess. Like, they complain all the time. So why did we have to appease them anyway? You know, it's odd. It's only seven episodes this season. So next week is done. But, so are you back in?

58:45Or you still don't like it? Or you're mad? No, I'm just saying, Joel coming back makes you realize, like, oh, why did they get rid of him? it's better when he's on the show yeah he's a good character okay um i tried nosferatu on the plane this has got a 7.2 on imdb my score is far lower than that i'd give it like a 5.4 now i've made it halfway through it just when the vampire so it's actually a movie about real estate the vampire wants a new estate he wants to get in nicholas holt is going to come find him a new estate somewhere. And when he comes to talk to the vampire, it's, it's like unintentional comedy.

59:22It's, it was, I don't know, it was for something about it to me. I wasn't scared. I was, I was laughing. Maybe this kind of movie is not for me. It just, it's, uh, I'm surprised that you would even try it. That's definitely not a you movie. I heard a bunch of people talk about it. I figured I'd give it a shot. Not for me. Uh, I rewatched easy a for the first time in a while. I never heard of it. Emma Stone. It's Emma Stone. Penn Badgley's in it. It's a early, it's a 2010s-ish teen movie and it's a little over the top. Stanley Cucci plays her mom. Wait, why did you rewatch it? I was on American.

59:55They didn't have a great movie selection. Emma Stone is just so good in this. And I think, is she on the list of like best teen movie stars? Because she was in this and, this century, she was on this and Superbad. She's been in some classic high school movies. And they do play up to a lot of like, it's an homage to previous high school movies. They do a good job of kind of wink-winking at you. Like, yeah, we know this is a lot of how a lot of high school movies are. But she's just amazing in it. Yeah. Yeah, so she needs to get back to rom-coms. I watched Crazy Stupid Love recently too with her and Gosling.

1:00:29You know, my big take on Gosling is that's his best performance ever. I never saw that movie either. Good, obviously. I mean, it's a rom-com. Steve Carell, the very last scene of the movie is really, really funny. It's got Kevin Bacon, Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling. Those are airplane movies. Yes, that's why I watched it. And I finished the four seasons. I know you didn't like it and you fell asleep. I really liked that show. I enjoyed it. There's a new show on Max. Oh, we didn't even get to the Maxes now, HBO. What a cluster that is. There's a new show with the guy Sawyer from Lost New Max show.

1:01:07I always wondered why he wasn't bigger. I liked him. It's called Duster. I watched the first 10 minutes. I think I'm going to wait. I think I'm going to wait to hear how it goes. All right. If it's good, I'll jump in, but I wasn't gripped. All right. Waiting game. I think everything's a waiting game now to see what the actual impact. What are you waiting for? Tariffs? Tariffs. I think everything that is just a waiting game. I think that's one of the biggest reasons that stocks came roaring back so quickly. Not only did Trump back off, but like, show us first. Show us the actual impact, then we'll react.

1:01:43I think the stock market doesn't have patience for like, waiting and waiting and waiting anymore. It's like, show us some actual impact, then we'll react. Maybe we will. But I think there could be, I think the risk is like a retailer gets dinged really bad in earnings report in the months ahead. But that's going to be, how long is that going to take? Third quarter, probably? I don't know. I'm not following like the tariff news that closely. Like I don't even, I don't know what the current tariff policy is. I don't know if anyone does. All right. Personal emails, personal responses, animal spirits at the compound news.com.

1:02:20See you next time.