Is Twitter Dead? (EP.316)

24:48Like, I think that playbook they were working on in terms of like unemployment rate has to rise for the inflation to come down because that's all that we knew in terms of historical analogs. the pandemic ripped up all the textbooks, everything, all the relationships that we thought had to hold, right? And so the next time something happens, people are going to overcorrect because of what happened this time. So I don't think historical data, I don't think historical relationships are dead and buried forever. I do think that there should be some sort of equilibrium between inflation, employment, and interest rates and all that sort of stuff.

25:26I just think because of all of the mess that there was a pandemic, all of those relationships are temporarily broken. Because of how much we spent. Yes. But I think that the next time something happens, people will overcorrect because of recency bias and it's going to f*** it up. Yeah. You're not going to get the same level of support, especially if it's a mild recession. So maybe those relationships go back in the future, but we're not going to get the same response or even anything close to it. I mean, we'll never see a response like this again for a recession, I would imagine. In other words, the next time, maybe fiscal stimulus would be the right answer, but we're not going to do it because of the inflation that happened this time, even though a lot of the inflation happened because the economy was shut down and then reopened.

26:08It is kind of crazy, though. Prime age labor first participation rate. This is ages 25 to 54. This is prime age. It takes away the people who are older and potentially retiring. It's the highest level it's been since 2001, over 83%, almost 84%. This one is crazy. This is from the New York Times. They talk about how the great resignation is over. Wait, wait, hang on, hang on. Don't blow past this real quick. Okay. So what are the implications of this chart? That basically anyone who wants a job can get a job? I think that the thought was in the 2010s, because you can see, look, it kept going down after 2008 and didn't really stop going down until 2016.

26:46There was this thought that I think, oh, people are lazy and this is kind of it. We've topped out the number of people who want jobs. Like there are certain people who just want to sit around and play video games all day and they don't want a job. And I think we've we've shown that if you pay people more money, especially on the lower end, they're going to they're going to come back to the labor force and work. And I think that people people thought like, OK, this is this is topped out. We can't go any higher. And that was wrong. And they're talking about how this is New York Times average hourly earnings for rank and file restaurant and hotel workers rose 28 percent from 2020 to 2022, which is higher than inflation and wage growth.

27:24And there was this research paper by two economists that found that the earnings gap between workers at the top end of the income scale on the bottom after widening for four decades. OK, here's the here's the what do you say it? The coup de grace. There we go. In just two years, the economy undid about a quarter of the increase in inequality since 1980 between the top and the bottom income. Much of that progress they found came from workers increased ability and willingness to change jobs. So all of, again, the pandemic broken all these relationships. There's no way anyone could have predicted that would happen.

27:57That workers would have all this, the ability to earn more money and that inequality, like a quarter of the increase in inequality since 1980 was undone in two years. That's amazing. Inflation fixes inequality? Incredible. It is kind of hard to... I thought inflation hurts people on the bottom among the lowest, the most. All right, so we talked about, you talk about the overcorrection and the next time we have a recession. I think the whole fiscal and monetary policy thing is going to dictate a lot of what happens with relationships. So Lance Lambert said that the average, this is last week, average 30-year fixed rate mortgage jumped to 7.22%.

28:37They have this mortgage news daily. I don't know if you ever checked this thing. It shows daily rates. This is a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. If the Fed keeps raising rates and the economy keeps rocking a little bit, is 8 % actually a possibility here now? For mortgage rates? I remember I did a Kelsey bet for 8 % last year. Like, could mortgages hit 8 %? I did a yes. I took a flyer, which is crazy to think. So on the other hand, Michael Antonelli and Cullen Roche were talking about this on Twitter. Here's Michael Antonelli. A take I'm convinced is true. The sub-3 % 30-year fixed-rate mortgage will be the greatest gift ever bestowed to you as homeowners.

29:10And Cullen said, Michael is right for now, but we'll see a sub 3 % 30-year mortgage rate within the next 10 years. The whole structure of debt in this economy is predicated on low rates and will pull rates lower at some point, either through crisis or anemic growth. Hold on, Ben. Were you able to hear my wife chattering in the background? I was not. What is she asking you? Did she ask you to change your shirt? No, no, no. I just don't get it how women are able to talk on the phone for so long. What are they talking about? I just, she's on the phone for 40 minutes all the time. And that could mean she's on, I guess, summer vacation.

29:45I would love to see my average phone call. It's gotta be under a minute. Gotta be. Now, I'll do a 10 minute phone call if it's necessary, but. It's rare. 20 minutes for me and you feels very long. That happens maybe once every six months. No, it happens once a week here on this podcast. Wow, true. So do you think that that is, So my hedge take here is a lot of this depends on whether we get fiscal or monetary policy during the next time. Because if the government decides we're not going to spend anything and it's all on you again, the Fed, like it was in 2010s, then a 3 % rate could be in the cards.

30:21But if the government keeps spending and fiscal policy remains a strong tool and that keeps inflation at 3 % or 4 % versus 1 % to 2%, then maybe low rates aren't going to have it again. What do you think is more likely? 3 % mortgages or stay at five to six? 18 months ago, I would have said 3 % mortgage, definitely. Now I think - Give me time for him. Well, Cullen says in the next 10 years, we'll see sub 3 % 30-year mortgages. Oh, well, here's a take that didn't age well from us. If we were patting ourselves on the back earlier, remember when we said we were just gonna keep refinancing? Yes. Every, you know, every four years, just take some equity out and make money.

30:57That didn't - Oof. I do agree with Cullen that like the structure of the debt in the economy, like we need low rates. And even if we're going to keep spending to finance those rates, what would you put your money on? A sub 3 % mortgage in the next 10 years or no? I'd have to lean yes because I agree with Cullen that like even if we're going to spend a lot of money in this country, we need low rates to finance it all. We can't have rates stay 5 % or 6 % at a short end. That's never going to work. I hear that, but is that, I don't know. I'm not smart enough to talk about this stuff coherently. Is that what moves interest rates?

31:38Just the fact that we need low rates? So what? I need Disney stock to go up. Doesn't mean it's going to happen. Yeah, I just think that if our budget just continues to be consumed by interest costs, eventually that's going to be a problem. How about this? AI. The economy will grow 10 % to 12 % a year. So it's all good. Don't worry about it. All right. I don't want to bring up demographics because you don't care about that. So we won't even. You know what? I don't care about this either. No, no, no. It's not that I don't care. It's just I find it, it's mental masturbation. All right. So the potential for like 8 % mortgages in the short term seems like a possibility.

32:17But does it even matter? Like when will it matter to the home market? Because this is from Redfin. This is the first time since last August that the average sales to price ratio has surpassed 100%, meaning homes are selling for higher than they're being listed for now. Oh, wow. No, well, it absolutely matters. It matters for the existing - The first time in a year, US home price is selling more than it's asking. Dude, bro, dude, it matters for the existing home market. It doesn't matter for new construction. Yeah. So this is Lance Lambert. Among the 100 largest markets, only one market Austin saw seasonally adjusted month or month's home price decline in May.

32:53The other 99 markets all posted an increase. Housing prices are rising again. Crazy. So 7.2 % mortgage rates and housing prices continue to rise because supply has been so shrunken down that anything that comes to the market is selling for over asking price. So, okay, here's prices that are rising despite interest rates being at multi-decade highs. Homes, which are directly tied to interest rates and non-profitable tech, which I thought should be negatively correlated to interest rates. And I still believe that to be the case, but - How about just the stock market in general? Yeah, but high tech in particular, high beta tech in particular.

33:36The IPO ETF is ripping. ARK is ripping. Oh, wow. ARK is, holy moly. ARK is at the highest level since August 2022. I looked at it the other day though. That fund is still down 80 % from the highs, I think. 80? Wow. Hang on. Oh, 70. So it's down 70 % from the highs still. I guess it was 80 at the bottom. Unbelievable. Hey, Ben, look at this house in the dock. We're looking at the modern farmhouse, which the Wall Street Journal says is the millennial answer to the baby boomer McMansion. The house that I'm looking at is, I see Ben smiling because I'm assuming that you see this all over your town as well.

34:22It's a white house. No, this is literally my house. Oh, it is? No, we don't have the, we have a white modern farmhouse. We don't have the wooden, the wood in front, but we have the black metal roof. We have the white clapboard, like they say. I read this article and I realized, oh, they're just literally describing my house. Two thirds of new homes. I was early, by the way. We bought ours in 2017. I was early. Now, listen, this is a great house. I love it. Okay, modern farmhouse, a contemporary style that bears a passing resemblance to a traditional farmhouse first entered the American lexicon a decade ago.

35:00Okay, sorry, you were not early. On Fixer Upper, the HGTV sensation that catapulted the host Chip and Joanna Gaines onto the national stage. Guess what? You know I don't watch HGTV, but you do, right? So you knew about this. Is that where you found this house? No, I mean, the builder was doing it this way, but we sure sure sure yeah no we like the we like the don't apologize it's a great house the national association of home builders uh actually my house yeah i don't know how you could hate on this kind of house it's a beautiful looking house it's a beautiful house so my house when i bought it was just a flat brick house and i don't like brick my wife i had to like twist her arm like who likes brick it's ugly i would much prefer to be in a house like this stays good forever though.

35:46You know what the downside of a White House is? It gets really dirty. We had to have like the - Downside? That's the upside. You get to power wash that baby twice a year. Oh yeah. Well, I paid someone to do it because it's getting up three levels is kind of hard. Well, you had three levels, not to brag. Well, yeah. Well, the basement is - Anyway. The National Association of Home Builders does not track the popular style. I don't have a mudroom though. I do not have a mudroom. Well, I don't have a basement. Do you have a basement? Yeah, we have a basement. Okay. But Daryl Patterson, the president of Housing Design Matters, says the look accounts for more than a quarter of a company's work.

36:22If a builder says, I need three elevations, one will always be a modern farmhouse. Great house. It really does make sense. Great house. All right, Ben, last week when I was telling you about my friend that has all of his money in the stock market in NIO, one thing that I forgot to mention is he was asking me or asking or telling me that he opened up accounts for his kids and he bought REITs. He just bought REITs for them. I assume that individual name is probably just an index if I had to guess. And he's like, when I give it to them when they're 20, it's going to be whatever, tens of thousands or however much money it is.

37:01And I was reminded of that story when I saw a tweet from Peter Lazaroff. And by the way, mind you, this is not a dumb guy. He just doesn't know. He's not in finance and he's, I guess, not super interested in it like our listeners are. Peter Lazaroff said, an advisor adds an unbelievable amount of value in three areas. One, peace of mind. Two, expertise. You cannot know what you do not know. Three, objectivity, removing unhelpful emotions. And what else would you add? Somebody said execution. And again, seeing this tweet reminded me of that story from last week with this guy, because I think the average person, if you don't know, you don't know.

37:43And when I said all this guy's money that's in the stock market is in NIO, I doubt it. I doubt it's all of his money. It's just, he probably has all of his money in cash and high yield savings or whatever. And the money that he plays with the stock market, he just has in this stock. Like just people just don't know the basics. Right. And the execution part is actually like, the thing is like, Like there's probably 35 different financial plans you could create for someone or allocations or like different levers you could pull that they would probably be fine in most instances. But it's like narrowing down to this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to execute it.

38:19Like that's the hard part for most people is like the choices they have. They're just like paralyzed by choice. So just saying like, listen, this is the one we're going to do. We're not going to know what the perfect one is going to be until we have hindsight to look back on. So this is the one we're going to do and we're gonna be happy with it because we've taken all these different factors into account and this is the way we're going to do it. Are you on board of this? And most people just tell us like, yes, I just appreciate having this plan in place and I know what we're gonna do regardless of what happens in the market because no one can predict what's gonna happen in the market.

38:51I could hear some listeners screaming, well, this is why we should teach personal finance in schools. I think like the psychological component is the biggest one. If I went back to, you know, I studied finance in college. If I would have had to do it all over again, I would have taken a bunch of psychology classes to understand the human nature side of things. Because that is so - What's that going to do? It's so much more important, don't you think? Like learning that stuff was - No, I don't think learning about behavioral finance is more important than learning the basics. You don't need to be a behavioral finance expert to buy a part of the fund.

39:26I think for almost any job you're in, you have to understand human nature. It doesn't matter if it's finance or anything else. I think understanding human nature and the things that make people tick and the incentives and all that stuff and why people react the way they do to certain things. I think understanding that is helpful in any job you do. True. Yeah, agreed there. All right, let's talk about Twitter. So Threads to me feels like the first actual threat to Twitter. They had 100 million signups in five days and I am not threading yet. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. probably one I don't really, I don't tweet anymore, but opening threads was kind of wild because it was Twitter.

40:07It looked like Twitter. Everybody was there. It's the first one that has, because people have been telling us for a while, there's a guy we work with. I won't name his name, name by name, but he always tells us, Hey, you guys have to send up for Mastodon and blue sky and post. And every time I've been like, why, why do I, there's no way there's no way these are ever going to work. And sorry, Josh, I didn't mean to out you there. But he I think he's wanted a new thing. And this is the first time that's like, Oh, this is real people actually going over. And you open it up. I've tried it a little bit.

40:38And it does feel like Twitter has Twitter's not dead. I think I think both of these can probably coexist. But Twitter has peaked. You read this Eugene way piece about how to blow up a timeline. He talked about how Twitter has peaked and totally changed and gotten worse. And I don't really buy into the fact that Twitter's gotten worse. I think people are just kind of fed up with it. Oh my God, it has. Of course it has. Well, the changes they've made have certainly made it worse. But Twitter was better pre-2018 or something. Remember the mid-2010s were like peak Twitter for us. It peaked a while ago, but in terms of the community and just being a fun, vibrant place.

41:16But just the user experience has gotten shitty. And I still, Well, even though I am not posting on Twitter, I still use it almost as much as I ever have. News consumption, right? Just for content purposes and filling up the doc for this podcast. But I do want to read something that Eugene Wei wrote. He said, this past year, for the first time, I could see the end of the road for Twitter. Not in an abstract way. I felt its decline. Don't misunderstand me. Twitter will persist in a deteriorated state, perhaps indefinitely. However, it's already a pale shadow of what it was at its peak. The cool kids are no longer sitting over in bottle service knocking out banger tweets.

41:48Instead, the timeline is filled with more and more strangers. The bouncer let in to shill their tweet storms. Many of them Twitter verified accounts who paid the grand fee of$8 a month for the privilege. In the past year, so many random meetings I have with one-time Twitter junkies being with a long sigh and then a question that is more lamentation than anything else. How did Twitter get so bad? Well, the crazy thing to me is the fact that, remember in Rocky IV when the Russian gets cut and they're in the corner, like, he's bleeding, he's cut. And like, Rocky sees his opportunity. Like, this is what happened.

42:18Like, I don't think, it sounds to me like Facebook put this together in, like, a matter of months for threads. Like, they didn't want to release it, but they saw Elon Musk's clown car over here, like, messing things up and not letting people see a number of tweets if they don't pay money and all this stuff. And they, like, I think they just took an opportunity that they probably didn't even want to, and it probably worked out better than their most wild dreams. So I think Elon Musk basically allowed this to happen, which is just crazy to me that it deteriorated this much this fast. And Elon is definitely feeling the pressure.

42:52He's flailing like a maniac. He tweeted somebody, Zuck is a cuck. I propose a literal dick measuring contest. Those are things that he actually tweeted. I don't know if they're suing Twitter, but here's a letter. Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, I write on behalf of X Corp as successor and interest to Twitter. Based on recent reports regarding your recently launched Threads app, Twitter's serious concerns that Meta has engaged in a systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets. Over the past year, Meta has hired dozens of forward Twitter, whatever. Yeah, you fired everybody.

43:29What do you expect? But here's the thing. So Zuckerberg said, the vision for Threads is to create an open and friendly public space for conversation. We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text ideas and discussing what's on your mind. So they're not going to copy Twitter exactly. Like, I already think Threads looks better than Twitter. It's a really cool experience. But do you think you can do Instagram for text? Like, can you have that? Obviously, 100 million people signed up. But I don't know. What does Instagram have? Two or three billion users? Like, do you think that it's viable to have Instagram for text and Twitter over here to do this other stuff that you really pay attention to for sporting events and live stuff and news consumption?

44:05Oh. Like, is it possible to have both? I think it probably. Oh, yeah, why not? Yeah, why not? The people on Instagram, like, they obviously either tried Twitter or never tried it and just have no use for it because the users have not been growing for years. So to that point, Twitter is not adding new users. Like, a 15-year-old is not signing up for a Twitter account. Why in the world would they? Right. But is it also bizarre that Elon Musk has screwed this up so royally that now people are like looking at Zuckerberg like he's a savior? Do we really want Facebook and Instagram and Instagram for Twitter to be run by the same person?

44:43Remember a few years ago when everyone said Mark Zuckerberg like ended democracy because he helped rig the election in 2016? Those same people are like, yay, Threads is awesome. I can't believe this is happening, that people are allowing one company to potentially take over the three biggest social media platforms other than TikTok. People are okay with this. I'm shocked by that. I guess it's all relative because people hate Elon Musk enough to like Mark Zuckerberg again. I just can't believe this is where we've gotten. Eugene Wayne made another great point about just why nobody copied Twitter because it was such a bad business model.

45:17Right. Here's another clip of Fizz that I wanted to read. Of all the social networks that achieved some level of scale in this first era of social media, perhaps no other was tried and abandoned by as many users as Twitter. Except for the extremely online community of which I'm deeply embedded, most normal, well-adjusted humans churned out of Twitter long ago. That is so true. I don't think I have, and I don't know anybody who's on Twitter. No, like your regular, normal people that you interact with? I mean, yeah, there's a few that for sports, but for the most part, nobody's on Twitter. It's only us.

45:50It's only finance dorks and econ nerds and people that are arguing over politics. And really online people. Yeah, it's really – so all right. We spoke early about billionaires and I don't know what you said. I forgot what we said about them. Also – Oh, does it make us feel better that billionaires can make mistakes? Go ahead. What were you going to say? No, I just – I never got into any social media networks beyond Twitter. Twitter has always been my only one. I signed up for Instagram a few years ago. I think a bunch of people told me that I already have some fake thread people. I think my handle is like Ben Carlson 007.

46:21And I didn't do that because I like James Bond. I think it was like the only number that was one of the lowest numbers that was available. Why can't you just say you like James Bond? 007 was the only number you could land upon? Come on. I think they recommend it. I like James Bond too. No, I don't like James. I'm of the opinion that Jason Bourne is better than James Bond. That's my hot take. If you didn't like James Bond, you would change it to 006. Okay. I think seven-minute apps. but where was I going with this? I just, I've never gotten into, I think it's a kind of a chore to get into another social.

46:56Like I never got into Tik TOK. I didn't like Facebook because I didn't really care about my friends posting about their lives every day. I figured I'd catch up with them when I catch up with them because you know, nostalgia is the best part of old friendships, not like knowing what's going on in your life now. And so this is the first time that I've actually tried a new social media. Like Instagram just never took for me. It was never like, I always felt weird posting pictures and captioning. I love Instagram. Okay. It just, it never took for me. It wasn't like I, I understand it, but it just never took for me.

47:25This is, I think. But wait, but wait, but where do you shop?

47:31Okay. So back to Twitter and the business, by the way, where were, where were, if Twitter was a publicly traded stock, so he bought it for 44 billion. Where's the market cap? Six. 10. Realistically. Realistically. 10. 10. Andresen said this to Elon when he wanted to buy it. I think this is from leaked private messages. Mark Andresen to Elon Musk, if you are considering equity partners, my growth fund is in for$250 million with no additional work required. They ended up giving you$400 million. Now, I don't think that this makes... In fact, this does not make Mark Andresen a dumb guy. Mark Andresen is not a dumb guy.

48:13With the benefit of hindsight, this might look dumb, but he's a very smart man. In fact, incredibly so. Sequoia invested$800 million. Qatar Investment Authority, $375 million. Prince Al-Walid bin Talal al-Saud owned$2 billion worth of Twitter stock. When it was a publicly traded company, he rolled it over. Larry Ellison forked over$1 billion. Jack Dorsey, $1 billion from his existing shares. Morgan Stanley Bank of America and Barclays collectively lent $13 billion. Anyway, I give all those numbers to say, all of those numbers are down well in excess of 50%. I don't know where, what the value is of Twitter, but they have to assume that this is a permanent write-down.

48:51During a time when tech stocks have been going crazy. Nah, not all tech stocks. I mean, a lot of them. I mean, Twitter, had this never happened, let's assume that Jack Dorsey was still at the helm, or whoever was on Twitter. I still think Jack Dorsey is a lot of blame here, too, because he never did anything to make the product better. He did a horrible job. Horrible. Didn't monetize it. Horrible. So anyway, but let's just say that Elon never bought Twitter. So if Twitter was a publicly traded stock today with Elon at the helm, I'm saying it's sub$10 billion. If he never took over, guess what?

49:25It still might be$10 billion or$15 billion. $15 billion or$20, yeah. Probably not$20. I think that's what it was. So yeah, I mean, tough. Not a good business. Not a good business. All right. Danny Meyer on tipping. If you're just taking out food and it was just a transaction, I give you money. You give me a cup of coffee. I don't think there's any obligation to tip whatsoever. Do you tip on takeout? I do. I usually give a few bucks and I think I've been tipping more since the pandemic for that. If they, for them like getting it ready. How about you? I think I do. No, in fact, I know I do. I give a few dollars depending on the order.

49:59I'll give a few bucks, but I'm so at the, at the beach club, I tip the, the, uh, Valley Parker is pretty well. Cause you know, I used to be in the industry, not just the hospitality industry. We don't need to go into that, but I was an actual Valley Parker for the company that parks at my beach. Guess what? I got fired from the job. We don't need to get into that right now. So I always give at least $5, depending on the bills that I have available. Usually I give 10 if I have a 10. So I gave the guy, this was on July 4th and it was late-ish. It was probably eight o 'clock. So I gave the guy a 20.

50:33I asked for$10 back. He did not give me$10 back. What do you think I did? what what do you mean let him have it no i gave him a 20 and i asked for ten dollars and change he didn't give me ten dollars i guess he probably didn't hear me what do you think i did complain to the manager i don't know what nothing let him have it yeah let him have it okay i can't believe uh i asked well i guess i could have said i asked him but you know the guy he worked hard and guess what he now he knows me okay there you go uh you know what i watched over the weekend? Also, that used to be my... So we had a bar we went to in college and right when happy hour started, everyone would rush to the bar.

51:13Happy hour was like four to six. And what me and my friend would do is we would show up at 3.30 and have a beer, a leisurely beer, and then tip the bartender really well so that when happy hour started, they would come take our order first. Smart man. So Amazon Studios is in trouble. They're putting out... They're spending a lot of money and they're not really getting much to show for it. Well, what's it called? The Lord of the Rings. Huge flop. Horrendous. Unwatchable. Bloomberg did a story. In the past nine months, Amazon has released at least half a dozen pricey series that failed to deliver huge audiences.

51:51Daisy Jones and the Six, which I love. I like that one. I like that one. I liked it a lot. The Power. I don't know what that is. Dead Ringers and Peripheral. Guess what? I never heard of any of those. They all cost over$100 million, but failed to crack the top 10 list for Nielsen's. Rings of Power,$400 million. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Failed to hold on to most of its viewers. Okay. So there's a chart. Dead Ringer has a 7.5, and it's with Rachel Wise. I'd try that. I love Rachel Wise. Dead Ringer's. Have you ever heard of this? Ooh, Jeremy Irons. Doesn't look bad. So Jeremy Irons is a successful gynecologist, works at the same practice as his identical twin, Beverly, who's also played by Jeremy Irons.

52:37Okay. Elliot is attracted to many of his patients and has affairs with them. When he inevitably loses interest, he will give the woman over to Beverly, the meeker of the two, without the woman knowing the difference. See, this is... Beverly falls hard for one of the patients, but when she inadvertently deceives him, he slips into a state of madness. Oh, wait a minute. This is from 1988. That's a David Cronenberg movie. okay wait what uh you lost me all right moving on no wait hang on that was funny i just read a premise of a movie from 1988 dead ringers prime what is this it's a twin gynecologist oh it's a remake oh must be okay oh it's kind of funny anyhow i watched um i watched uh the terminalists over the last week.

53:27Thoughts? Did you watch it? I liked that one. Chris Pratt. Here's my thought. I like Chris Pratt as a leading man. Should have been six episodes, maybe even five. Agree. It was a little too long. A lot of fat, a lot of fat there. But yeah, I liked it. Global platform demand share for all streaming originals. Netflix is still a king, 38%. Prime is next, 10.8%. So, I mean, I still love the platform. It's just the original stuff is not doing so well. if Prime Video were publicly traded streaming service stock, be in the toilet, right? Yes, I agree. They're lucky they have other. But that's the problem with these big ones that spend a ton of money.

54:07If they're not seeing returns, if they back out, then where is the investment in good entertainment going to come from? If Apple and Amazon back out now, we're screwed. Oh, just got a heads up from Nicole, our social media manager. Animal Spirits, Tropical Bros shirts are back in stock as of now. Huge news. We sold out earlier. They're back in stock as of today. If you missed it the last time, we got all sizes back. Get your shirt now. All right. All right. I think this is the worst movie year ever. This is the top rated movie so far from IMDb. Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse. You know the thing that really irks me about Spider-Man fans?

54:42Literally every time a new Spider-Man movie comes out, and there's been probably 12 of them, they go, this, the tagline will be, this is the greatest Spider-Man movie ever made. For every one of them that says that. That's just not true. It can't be, right? No, no, no. No, no. I'm a Spider-Man fan, and the Spider-Man movies have been phenomenal. Come on. Phenomenal? Very fun. I mean, it's a superhero movie. They have a lot of fun. The Tom Holland movies are great. The one where they had all the Spider-Man. The Spider-Verse is great. Yeah. All the Spider-Man. The Spider-Verse ones, come on. That's really little kids.

55:14Hang on. Time out. The most recent one with Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield and Toby, I agree, was a little too much. But the Spider-Verse movies are not just for little kids. Yes, they are for little kids, but they're also for grownups. They're great movies. I haven't seen the second one yet, but - Nerds. All right. Guardians of the Galaxy, John Wick 4, Covenant. Air is the only one on here that I think is a quality movie is Air. A Man Called Otto. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Time out. The Covenant is supposed to be very good. I have not seen it yet. I'm going to. Guy Ritchie. Why are you rolling your eyes?

55:43You know what it is? Oh, which one is that? It's not a horror movie. It's the Jake Gyllenhaal - Oh, it sounds like a horror movie. No, it's Jake Gyllenhaal. Jake Gyllenhaal. I think Jake Gyllenhaal. It's an army movie with Guy Ritchie as a director. Oh, okay. Tetris, Dungeons and Dragons, The Flash and Missing. I think air is the only one on here that I've seen as quality. I think this is maybe the worst movie year ever for modern movies. First half was terrible. I did see the Napoleon preview. Looks sick. That looks awesome. Here's what's on the back half. So this is a second half story. We've got Dune Part II, Killers of the Flower Moon, Oppenheimer, Barbie.

56:20I'm reading Killers of the Flower Moon right now, the book. I'm reading the book. I read it when it came out, not to brag. Mission Impossible and Napoleon. That's a pretty good back half. I'll go see Mission Impossible at the theater, maybe Napoleon. I'm sorry. I'm totally anti-Barbie. I'm sick of it. Shoving the pink stuff down my throat. It looks so dumb. I'm not going to watch. Well, but you did not see Oppenheimer? I'll see Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer looks good. Okay. Those are some decent movies coming back, but it's pretty bad. All right, recommendations. Okay. Eric Davis tweeted, it's super rare for a movie franchise to have four installments rank in the 90s in Rotten Tomatoes.

56:55Toy Story has done it for animation. Spider-Man and the MCU have done it, but with multiple series, 007 has done it. Ooh, 007, there you go. Mission Impossible, out here making history. How about that? The weird thing is, my take on Mission, I love Mission Impossible movies. The first two movies were the worst ones in the franchise. Like the first one is almost impossible to follow. I love the theater. It's not that. The second one wasn't like, I think the first two are the worst ones of all. The last few have been awesome. Amazing. Okay. I want to plug something called Mint Comedy. That's mintcomedy.com.

57:31What is Mint Comedy? A dad friend in the neighborhood told me about it. You can stream live comedy from the comedy seller. How freaking cool is that? Oh, really? Interesting. How awesome. So I'm going on Thursday. $8.99 a month. Isn't that awesome? Not bad. I'm seeing Dan Naderman, who I love, Colin Quinn, Keith Robinson, and Andrew Schultz. Didn't you see Colin Quinn with me that one time? He was awesome. Yeah, I feel like he's always there. I've seen him a lot. But isn't that a great lineup? It's not bad. All right, so mid-comedy if you're a comedy fan. All right, I forgot to mention this the other week.

58:06I saw this on the airplane. When I saw the trailer for 65, the Adam Driver movie with dinosaurs, I was like, I'm in. In fact, I'm all in. Guess what? I heard it was terrible. Probably the worst movie I've seen in the last 10 years. Really? That bad? Just thoroughly, thoroughly unwatchable. Top to bottom. I don't know. I don't know what happened. It was very odd. They're doing courtroom drama month on the rewatchables, which is, I don't know, it's my favorite genre, but it's got to be one of the best genres, right? Yes. I love it. It's kind of sad that there are no good courtroom movies anymore.

58:43So they did Primal Fear first, which I was thinking, that's not a great, weird name for a movie. I don't even know what that means. I saw Primal Fear when it came out. I was 11 years old and still remember the feeling of seeing Ed Norton clap at the end. No spoilers. But if you're a young listener. It's a little late for a spoiler, but yeah. Well, it's a little late, but I'm being generous. If you haven't seen Primal Fear, stop everything. In fact, press pause right now. Go watch it and come back. It was easier to do a twist back then. And then the next one, which also is a classic, A Time to Kill.

59:19God, what a movie. Yeah. See, we need more John Grisham. Also 96. Also 96. Okay. Someone actually emailed us and said, watch The Drop. It's on HBO Max. It's with Tom Hardy. I watched it when it came out in 2014. Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini. and one of my favorite tropes from a gangster movie is the guy at the bar who is kind of around all the gangsters but he's kind of quiet maybe a little slow but you know like in the back of it like he's seen some stuff this is a and tom hardy is that guy it's a it's a it's kind of a slow burn but the end is very very good and uh really good like kind of like minor gangster movie i don't think i've ever heard of this you know who's a big time that guy i'm just looking at the cast uh john ortiz yeah he plays the detective in it he's he's good and finally uncle buck is on netflix and i turned on the first half of it with my wife through the night and there's a difference between i think one of the biggest internet misconceptions is the difference between this is the best thing ever or this is my favorite thing and uncle buck is not one of the best movies ever it is easily one of my favorite movies ever because i'm a huge john candy fan and you saw and you saw it when you were nine but there are so many iconic scenes and lines in this movie that still hold up.

1:00:34Here's the thing. It came out in 1989. John Candy was 39 years old. I'm going to be 41 next month. I need to, I need like a definitive, like 10 page magazine article on why people used to look so much older than they do now. There's no way that I, I right now I'm older than John Candy was in Uncle Buck, but I am people these days look so much younger than people did in the past. How is that possible? I don't know if I've ever seen Uncle Buck. I feel like I must have, but I can't tell you anything about it. Okay. I don't want you to watch it because you're going to ruin it for me by saying that you didn't like it.

1:01:08So just don't watch it, please. It's just - You don't want me to - It's Sacrosanct? It's one of my favorite John Hughes movies ever. I just - I love, love, love that movie. I think John Candy is so good and he's just - He's the best. Oh my God, I nailed it. Sacrosanct means regarded as too important or valuable to be interfered with. You know what? out of respect. Thank you. I won't watch it. Leave it alone. Can I watch The Great Outdoors? Yes. I love, oh, that's a great idea for the summer. I love The Great Outdoors. All right. Remember, Tropical Bros is back. Tropical Bros, look for Animal Spirits collection on there.

1:01:44I think the other collections I have are USA, like you're wearing, and then Natty Light, so we're in good company. Email us, animalspiritspod at gmail.com and we'll see you next time.

1:02:03Introducing Taking Share Lessons from Leaders with Rob Holmes, Chairman, President, and CEO of Texas Capital. During each episode, you will hear from leaders, decision makers, and culture shapers across industries. What drives them? What tips the scales when making tough calls? How do they continue to evolve? We're here to understand the thoughts behind their actions and discover how they are taking share. For more information on Texas Capitol, please visit us at our website.