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Podcast Summary: Animal Spirits Podcast - Episode 400: Life and Death
Episode Overview In this milestone episode of the Animal Spirits Podcast, hosts Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson delve into personal reflections on grief, the significance of financial planning, and share life advice inspired by the late Jon Carlson, Ben's brother. The conversation also touches on a variety of topics, including investing strategies, the power of kindness, and saving tips for visiting Disney.
Episode Details
- Hosts: Michael Batnick, Ben Carlson
- Episode Number: 400
- Release Date: [Insert Date]
- Sponsors: YCharts, Kraneshare
Key Themes
- Personal Grief and Reflection
- Jon Carlson's Story:
- Jon battled pancreatic cancer, having previously survived leukemia as a child.
- His journey through illness had a profound impact on Ben and his family's perspective on life and loss.
- Grief and Support:
- Discussion on the immense support received from listeners, friends, and family during difficult times.
- Notable quote shared: "Grief is a heavy blanket of love."
- The Importance of Financial Planning
- Financial Preparedness:
- Jon left behind a well-organized financial plan, which eased the burden on his family during the crisis.
- Ben reflects on the necessity of having one's financial affairs in order, especially in times of unexpected adversity.
- Mental Freedom of Investing:
- Discussion on the peace of mind that comes with investing in index funds versus individual stocks to avoid emotional turmoil.
- Life Lessons and Kindness
- Life Advice from Jon:
- Jon's insights on life, shared through his letter to his children, emphasize love, responsibility, and kindness.
- Examples of advice include:
- "Love each other."
- "Always pay off your credit card bill; never carry a balance."
- "Life isn't fair; be kind."
- Celebration of the Mundane:
- Hosts appreciate the small, everyday joys and the importance of mundane conversations during tough times.
- Investing Insights
- Market Discussion:
- Brief reflections on recent market activity, notably Meta's stock performance and the ongoing trends in passive investing.
- Emerging Markets and Crypto:
- Commentary on the influx of capital into cryptocurrency startups and the mixed results of these investments.
- Cultural References
- Media and Pop Culture:
- Light banter about movies, the legacy of "Saved by the Bell," and the significance of YouTube's rise in viewership.
- Travel Tips for Disney:
- Discussion around budget-friendly strategies for visiting Disney parks.
Key Takeaways
- Processing Grief: Sharing personal experiences can help others cope with loss, and community support plays a significant role in healing.
- Financial Awareness: Being proactive about financial planning can alleviate stress during difficult times.
- Value of Kindness: Simple acts of kindness and understanding can make a substantial difference in people's lives.
- Enjoying Life: Living fully and appreciating the little things can help navigate through life's challenges.
Conclusion The episode emphasizes the intertwined nature of life, death, and investing, urging listeners to live purposefully and cherish their relationships. The heartfelt conversation serves as a reminder to prioritize financial literacy and personal connections while navigating the complexities of life.
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*For further insights and to connect with the hosts, reach out via email at animalspirits@thecompoundnews.com or visit the official Animal Spirits website for more episodes and content.*
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Today's Animal Spirits is brought to you by our friends at White Charts. It's – this is our 400th episode, not including all the Talk Your Books that we've done. This is the 400th episode. Ben, you and I started the podcast. It was November 2017, and I did a podcast with Josh and Barry. Patrick O'Shaughnessy hosted us in our office. And afterward, Patrick said, why don't you and Ben have a podcast? and we had i think we had like maybe spoken about it but i was pretty self-conscious at the time about launching a podcast like i wasn't comfortable talking to a microphone i'd never done it before and it felt like we were late to the game which is hilarious it felt like there was a million podcasts in the world that need another and then a week before we officially launched the new yorker had a cartoon saying i'm thinking of stopping a podcast and i was like oh no we're such bozos like who wants to listen to us.
0:57And we're taking a little bit of a trip back down memory lane because it's 400, it's a big round number. And our sponsor for today, YCharts, has been with us, maybe not since the beginning, beginning, but they were definitely the first company, first partner to stand up and say, we want to be a part of what you guys are building. So it's been an incredible partnership for us. So we just want to thank the entire team at YCharts. And as we've said over and over again, we really are power users. I have it on all the time, open on my screen all the time for, for everything. Every day. I, I would love to see the numbers of how many charts I've created over the years and, uh, searching for stuff.
1:37And it's really helpful for us, not only in the podcast, but with all the research we're doing on the wealth management side of things and sharing stuff on social media. And yes, it's just like, it's totally part of our, our whole process now every single day. So if you have not taken the plunge yet and you've been thinking about it and you're new to YCharts, give them a call. Tell them that all the spirits sent you. You'll get 20 % off your initial subscription. Today's show is brought to you by CraneShares, known for their flagship Chinese technology ETF, KWeb. Ben, I don't know if you know this, but Chinese stocks have been on a bit of a tear.
2:16over the past one year, K-Web is up 45 % total return. The S &P is up 23 % over the same time. Year-to-date, these things are on fire. K-Web's up 22%. The S &P is up four. Zooming further out, obviously, it's a different picture. Chinese stocks have been in the dough jumps for a while, but they're on a tear, and I don't see too many people talking about them. I heard a good case to be made that after the DeepSeek stuff came out saying, well, maybe you need to own Chinese stocks as a kind of an AI hedge to spread your net a little wider here, catching a little wider in case who knows where the winner ends up being from.
2:54Maybe that's part of this, right? Matter of fact, yes. So that was definitely the catalyst, the spark, the fuse. CraneShares is hosting a webinar on Thursday, February 20th at 11 a.m. Eastern on the impact of DeepSeek on Caleb and the whole Chinese internet space. You can find the registration at craneshares.com slash webinars. Disclosures and performance related to these funds are available at craneshares.com.
3:24Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life, and investing. Join Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing, and watching. All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast.
3:53Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, not to start off a little sappy here, but I'm a big believer in things happening for a reason in life. and um i think over so over the years you've been probably more like open book than me in some ways like you've you've really let it out i'm from new york you're from the midwest i'm the midwest i we bottle things up um but i do think that your sharing of your mother's story over the years has been helpful to like so many people we've gotten many many emails from people over the years saying michael your story helped me process or think through my sense of loss and grief and your whole dealing with that, I think, has been so big for me this past year, dealing with my brother who a year or so ago contracted pancreatic cancer, was diagnosed, and it was the prognosis not being good.
4:50And just your open and honesty about it has like, you know, I think there's a reason that you came into my life. How's that? Is that fair? Anyway. This is about you, not me, but I am curious. Was there anything particular that I said over the years or recently that made you feel a certain way? Well, I've never gone through something like this. And it's one of those things where you don't really know. It's the kind of thing you know it happens to a lot of people. I keep saying it's like a very personal emotion but I think just your willingness to talk about it and talk about what it did to you and the lasting impact and talking about how you said Robin had an experience where her father passed away at a young age and hearing all that stuff and just hearing the different stages you went through and the feelings and how it changed your perspective on life all of that stuff I think has been and helpful for me kind of trying to process this with my brother.
5:55So yeah, I just think it's one of those things where you don't really know what to do or what to say. Like as someone from the outside looking in, I've never been one to have the words to say to someone who's going through something like that. But now going through it myself, it's kind of funny. It doesn't matter what you say. It's just like being there for people and telling them I'm here. So, yeah, so my brother passed away last week. So it's been about a week. So I've been kind of a haze. And I wrote a long blog post about it. Actually, when he got diagnosed, I started writing it. So I've been writing this for probably almost a year.
6:36But, like, when he actually passed away, then I probably for three straight days, I worked on this. I really wanted it to be, like, perfect as, like, a tribute to him. And I have a lot of stuff I want to talk about. But the biggest takeaway for me is that I think it's very easy to be cynical these days about the world. And like that there's just bad stuff and bad people and bad headlines. And my biggest takeaway is like just the amount of like I don't know what I expected. I wanted to put it out there for me selfishly because it was like cathartic to write about him. And I wanted to tell his story because he's a pretty private person about his illness.
7:11And I'll kind of get into his story a little bit too, which I wrote about. but uh so i wanted it to be out there as a tribute to him and i wanted to just share his story but the outpouring of uh support and notes and people sharing their story with me and just uh not only friends and family and co-workers you know reaching out and offering support but just like total strangers that listen to the podcast read my blog whatever has been like totally overwhelming and just kind of amazing and like actually like really helpful to me and my family. So that side of things has been like, oh, wow, that's not even something I consider.
7:50Just like all these people, like just total support and kindness from people. So that part has been really cool. Yeah, we got so many emails from listeners and I'm sure Ben read all of them and I did. And two lines that stood out to me, somebody wrote, grief is a heavy blanket of love, which is which is spot on somebody else wrote it reminded me of a line in the original Blade Runner talking about your brother the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long yeah that one stood out to me too it is it's such I told you this the other day it's such a bizarre emotion because you know millions and millions of other people have felt it in some way or another but it still feels like it's like the most personal emotion because of the the person and the circumstances.
8:41And so it's like all the stuff that you would imagine to feel, the sadness and anger and kind of being numb. But I've been going through that process for like a year now. So John was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer about a year ago, but he actually had cancer before when he was in seventh grade. That's the really hard part about this for my family, I think, is he went through it. It was a really terrible period in our lives. He got kind of a rare form of leukemia when he was young. Actually, it was like we were on a Disney trip. I wrote about this. And the whole trip, he was like tired. And I was, I don't know, I was 10 years old, 9 years old.
9:19And I still remember this picture of him like laying on a bench at Disney, taking a nap. And my mom obviously knew something was wrong. She's a nurse. Took him to the doctor. He was diagnosed. He needed a bone marrow transplant to survive. And I was the donor. I still have like the bumps on my hip that you can feel from like the huge needles they inject. and uh he survived cancer went remission and it was like oh we dodged a bullet right but like that experience shaped him for the rest of his life in like positive and in somewhat negative ways i i almost equate him to being like a i don't know if it's a 60 40 portfolio or like a cynical might not be the right word like cynical optimist right he had like both of these two competing things in his head of like, I went through this once, but I just think that I'm unlucky with this stuff.
10:08And he always like halfway joked that he's going to die before age 50. And I was saying the other day, that asshole just always had to be right about these things, you know, just like annoyingly right. So he had some other like illnesses and surgeries in his life. And he always kind of in the back of his head felt like this just something about my body is not right. And so he got sick again. You know, it was almost like he was defeated but he also like, he like felt in his, like his bones that it was coming or something. It was very, it was kind of a bizarre situation in that aspect of like, he's been like preparing for this his whole life.
10:47So, that part of it is just like the hardest part for me watching him like, having this in the back of his head and then like that realization coming true. that was tough. But like, then we went on this roller coaster where the prognosis looked pretty good. If we just have some chemo, things might be okay. And then the prognosis is really bad. It's stage four. There's probably nothing you can do. The healthcare side of things is interesting to me because his initial diagnosis was basically like, well, this is the kind of thing where there's nothing you can do. We're going to give you chemo. And then you're probably going to, that'll help manage your pain until you pass away.
11:27And he kind of said, I've done chemo before. And he went through a month of chemo and lost a bunch of weight and lost all his hair and just was tired all the time and said, this is not how I'm going out. So he ended up calling these specialists all over the country and is like, I need to try something. And he got, because his pancreatic cancer had some rare form of mutation or whatever, I'm not a medical person, so I don't know. a doctor at a hospital who specializes in these new medications said i'm willing to let you try my experimental medication and he tried it got off chemo and it like it worked it like stopped the cancer from spreading he gained all the weight back he grew his hair out again and he looked like normal you wouldn't know from the outside that he was sick so he got this extra like six months or so to kind of start riding his bike again and traveling and doing all this stuff but he also like got all of his affairs in order, right?
12:19He, you know, he stopped working on his job, obviously. And he could help prepare his family because he has a wife and three kids that he's leaving behind. So he got to like take all these months to have this second window that we didn't think he was going to have at first. So that part has been kind of a crazy roller coaster to just dealing with, we're going to do this, we're not going to do this. And what happened was he, they told him it was inoperable at first. Like, there's nothing you can do about this. The cancer is going to spread and you can't stop it. But with this new drug, it kind of stopped the spread.
12:51He found a surgeon in New York who said, I'm going to, I can do this. Let's operate. Because my brother said, I'm not just going to sit and wait till I die. I want to like go out swinging. If it's a 0.5 % chance that something could extend my life a few years, I'm going to take it. So he went to New York. He had got a surgery. and I had one of those kind of like movie moments where we thought the surgery, we thought maybe like worst case scenario, they do the surgery, it doesn't work, the cancer continues to spread, and then unfortunately he passes away. It happened to be that he had complications during surgery and that's how he ended up passing.
13:28So he was in New York, had the surgery. I think it surprised a little of all of us, the surgeons especially, but it was one of these weird out-of-body experiences where my mother calls me and says, your brother is dying.
13:44And he's in the ICU and he's got, I don't know, he's going to die very soon. I need you to say goodbye to him. So we put it on speakerphone and, you know, he's got the breathing tube in and all the things on. And it's like you hear in the movies. I say goodbye to him and you hear all the machines start to go, you know? And like, he could hear me, which was, so.
14:16Okay. So that's the sad stuff. I wanted to get it out because I wanted to tell the story, but there's also been, you know, the best advice I've gotten so far from this is just calling friends, having friends and family, send stories and send pictures and talk about him from the positive side of thing. And that, that's like the part of grief that is like, it's unfortunate that's what has to happen to get you there. But, um, that part of it is, is like, Oh, you realize how many people his life touched. And I hear from all these people all the time. So like, again, the all the outpouring of like support and condolences and messages from people, people sharing their stories, that part of it, that part has been helpful.
15:06All right. Sorry, just have to get a tissue. So, can we share the letter that he wrote to his kids? Yes. So, yeah. So, a few of the things he did. You said this to me as I was sitting down for, God, that movie sucked. I took my kids to see Dog Man. Oh, my kids went to see it yesterday, too. Was it bad? it was not well they loved it it was not for us for for adults it was hard so you sent this to me and i'm i sat down and i'm i start crying and logan's like daddy why are you crying i said dad watch a movie so yeah so he left behind a bunch of things for his kids he had time so he he did a video for his kids obviously you know he he left all these instructions and planning for his wife but then he left this this email that had i don't know 10 or 12 pieces of of life advice for his kids.
15:56Very simple, like one-liners. Perfect. All right. You want to read it or you want me to? You go ahead. Figure out what you like. Well, I'm going to read them all because they're all great. Love each other. Handle your business. Figure it out or fix it. I love that one. I hate people that are just like problem-oriented, right? Right. Bring me a solution. Victims, yes. never leave anyone behind you are each other's best friends life isn't fair always pay off your credit card bill never all caps ever carry a balance see that was my favorite you're going to make mistakes learn from them and do better the next time take care of the cabin it was a special place to me always get a real Christmas tree was that a big thing in your family yes it was That's why it was such a hard thing for me to realize that I had to get a fake one.
16:52But yes. He's a very principled guy. Life is way better than a screen. Go live it. Be happy with what you have. You don't need as much as you think. Be kind. The world needs more kindness.
17:07And I can't read the last one. All right. The last one is I love you all, basically. Yeah. Credit card one is obviously— I told his kids, like, just don't forget the credit card one, okay?
17:23So, I think the kids are young. It's obviously so tragic and heartbreaking and all that stuff. Yeah, so his twins are eight and his oldest daughter is ten. So, they're basically the same age as my kids. It's kind of bizarre how close they are in age and the fact that we both had twins. And they are resilient to sell. And that's the best piece of advice you gave me is you said, hey, listen, Robin lost her dad young. I don't know how old was she when she was. Yeah, so same age, and you said, like, the best thing I can tell you is that they're going to be all right. It's not going to feel like it, but they're going to be all right.
17:54Like, it's going to be a hole in their lives or whatever, but kids are so resilient. And we all realize, like, we have to pick ourselves up. Like, we have to, for these kids' sake, we can't just sit here and, like, wallow. And so the kids immediately, they wanted to go bowling, and they wanted to go to Dave & Buster's and play video games. They wanted to go sledding and do stuff. And so seeing how resilient they are to this whole thing is, and it's going to come down later for them. But that's obviously my biggest concern. You know, it stinks for me because he was like my confidant about things.
18:28He was my advisor. It really sucks for me to lose my big brother. But his wife and kids are obviously, that's like their life is forever, you know, separated. And obviously my parents too. too. It also puts into perspective like so many little things like going through this, you get annoyed at other people for like complaining about their trivial problems, but you realize like you can't do that. You can't, you can't like compare your level of, of pain or whatever. Like how are other people supposed to know? It also like makes you realize that the money stuff. Just on that, on that point. So I was 25 when my mom died.
19:04And one of the things at the time that was unfair that you just mentioned was the hardest part was like everybody's life goes back to normal. Yes. Right? And again, like my friends are 25. It's like, you know, we were kids-ish. But I was still in so much pain and everybody else was like living their own normal life. And obviously like I – with the benefit of like time and maturity, I learned to like go over those things. But at the time, but really that part of it was really difficult. Just the world moves on. But there's a phrase like life is for the living and it's true. And one of the things that I've said to you is that the unbearable pain subsides because it has to.
19:43Right? Like if it didn't, your brain would just shut down your body, like the pain. So it does get better over time. Yeah. I made the comment to my dad the second day or something and I said that it's weird to think about it this way, but it can't get any worse than this. Like the feeling can't get any worse. It can only get better from here. which yeah it's a it is a you're right you're if you had that same initial feeling the whole time you wouldn't be able to function as a human being and humans are are resilient one of one of the silver linings about losing my mother who is you know a huge she was the center of my universe like i was definitely a mama's boy and losing her it's such a great reminder to like live aggressively.
20:31Now, sometimes I probably take it too far, but life is a blessing and you really don't, you can't possibly have that perspective without having had this sense of loss. Like a lot of people, so to me, would I, would I reverse it in a second? Of course I would, but it, it ended up being a huge blessing for me because it really shaped the way that I think about life. And without that perspective, a lot of people just go through life, like, you know, sweating the small stuff and i just i don't let anything bother me and i don't know if that's some of that is my personality but a lot of that is just because like what else matters you know like i just don't let the small shit bother me yes that that's certainly a point that like the last week i've just i've kind of paid attention to nothing and just just this and it's like the other other little stuff that i always think about and look at all the time or i'm concerned about you realize like oh god it just it doesn't it really doesn't matter and the funny thing is We're all going to die.
21:25Yeah. The funny thing is that was – The time here is finite. Just enjoy yourself if you can. And that was part of John's perspective too. Again, after having his earlier diagnosis, his earlier bout with cancer, that he was like that too. He was a very adventurous guy. And the thing that his kids keep saying is like, life is going to be so boring without him. He was a very adventurous guy. Hiking and biking and kayaking and outdoors. And you know those people like if you're sitting there and you're nothing to do and you play on your phone, even if you're with people. John was never the guy who was playing on his phone.
21:54It was always over here. He was that guy who was in the present. I think the other perspective thing here is that you realize that the money stuff doesn't matter in times like this, but it also really does. And having this extra time to figure stuff out when he knew the prognosis was bad gave him time to go through and get everything really in order. right um and i i and we're still going to have a heavy lift and that's the thing i did i said midwesterners bottle thing up immediately i i jumped into we need to figure your finances out let's start having conversations about this and he speaks that same language great so we started working on it immediately uh all the accounts and credit cards and bank you know payments and all this stuff uh we have to figure it out and make steps and as we're going through his stuff, I realized like he was like way better covered for this than I ever could have imagined.
22:51He had all this cash, like a huge percentage of his money was sitting in cash. And I said, why, why are you holding so much cash? You're in your mid forties. And he said, like, I needed a backstop for my whole life. Like it, his experience with illness in the past changed his perception of risk for like the rest of his life. And he had way more money set aside than I probably thought. He had this big life insurance policy, and he talked about the fact that he was one of the really smartest, street smart people that I knew. And he had a very good business mind, and he probably could have done anything he wanted.
23:27But he got a job with the CDC and the federal government. He said one of the reasons he did that, I think he actually thought he could be one of the people that changed the government from the inside, which is kind of funny, which shows you the kind of personality he had. If anyone can do it, I can. But he also liked the fact that it had a pension and really good health care benefits, and it was like a backstop for him. So he had this very adventurous streak, but also this very conservative side on the other thing. And as prepared as he is, it's still going to be a big heavy lift. But I don't know how – I can't imagine how difficult it would be for people who didn't have their financial life in order dealing with a situation like this.
24:05That would make it ten times harder to deal with if you weren't prepared. because he was overly prepared. And luckily, his wife and kids are going to be just fine financially because he prepared. And we brought in our RWM family, really stepped up, and having an objective third party as a financial advisor to help at times like this has been really huge because you could hear from someone who's in it and knows all the things to be like, you're okay. But if you have someone from the outside come in and say, listen, you're going to be okay. it's kind of crazy how helpful that objective third party can be that has dealt with this, you know, before, but, but that stuff is, it's funny.
24:53Like I've had a lot of heavy conversations in the past year or so, but like that was easy stuff for me. Like, okay, I know where I can help is the finance side of things because that was the same language that, that he spoke. But it, it, it does show you like the planning stuff side of it. But that stuff is really important. It's way down the list, but it is, though. I don't know what else I wanted to talk about. At least he got to see Michigan when the National Championship was here. Yes. Did he have a favorite movie? He left behind a list of songs and movies. And it's funny. He also left behind his wishes for what he wanted to do for a service and how he wanted to go out.
25:37And yes, we've definitely been watching. We put Goonies on for the kids. That was one of his favorite movies. So we put that in. Again, the coolest thing for me is hearing from people I haven't heard from in years, friends and people I haven't talked to in a long time, just to send a note. And you know me. I'm not a big text person. Group chats are poison to me. I'm just not a big group chat guy. But every single text I got from someone just to say, and people would say, listen, I don't know what to say. You don't need to respond. Just wanted to say I'm thinking of you or I love you. And just those things from people, as you look at someone who's not a big part of like the small talk and stuff, that it almost feels like the mundane stuff is the most helpful.
26:24Like I've been taking my dog on a lot of walks. It's been snowing here for like a week. I've been shoveling snow. Doing the like simple mundane stuff actually is helpful. the kids decided like we all want to do our sports this weekend so we're driving the kids around to their games the cousins and our kids and my dad and I are talking about college basketball on the way he kind of looks over at me and you know just some stupid stuff about college basketball he says you know isn't it nice to just talk about stuff that doesn't matter right now and so I think the that's one of the reasons that I wanted to like still get on this podcast and talk is that like I want um I want to have some mundane talk so I know this has been very heavy uh I appreciate people for listening again, sending support, but I also want to like, can we just have some small talk?
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27:04Can we like talk about the markets? Tell me about your trip to Florida. I got some small talk. All right. So Ben, I love you. I got a lot of people reaching out, just asking how you were doing. And my response was basically like, not, I guess I bet like, as you probably would imagine he's doing like, not great. Yeah. As, yeah, as expected, it's been tough. I've been, it's one of those things like you you think you've prepared yourself for it knowing it's coming and then you still know you're really not prepared uh so yeah it's it is kind of a surreal experience but uh i don't know we're happy like we had no regrets he went out he wanted to go out swinging and he did and so we all feel like that he the whole burning the candle on both ends saying he he did that um he went out his own way and uh yeah we just keep our mantra now is like to live like john and just enjoy while you're here.
27:59And so that's where we are. If you didn't read Ben's post to learn a little bit more about the type of person John was, he sounded like an incredible guy. And your parents did good work with the three of you. Yeah. The one other story I wanted to share that I shared in the blog post, which it didn't really hit me until years later. So John gets diagnosed with cancer. A year later, he's in remission. And the Make-A-Wish Foundation comes to him and says, what do you want? He almost died. He was in a bad place. And I don't know. I would have asked for a whole room full of Nintendo games or kids, you know, anything.
28:36And he asked for a trip to Hawaii for our whole family. So we went for two weeks. We went to Hawaii. All expenses paid trip. They rolled out the red carpet. They brought a limo. And at the time, I didn't really think about it. Oh, cool. We get to go to Hawaii. Swim with dolphins and sea volcanoes. My kids are laughing because we're telling a story that we went on a helicopter ride there. And the helicopter pilot was like a maniac. and he's going up and down over these hills. And we get off the helicopter and we get on the tarmac or whatever and I puked everywhere. Just blew it out all over the, and we still laugh about that.
29:07But I thought about like years later, like, oh my gosh, he was a kid that could have been so self, he could have said, I want to meet my favorite athlete. I want to meet this actor. I want to do any of these things. But I think he instinctively knew, like our family needs to get away after having this experience. We need to go. And I thought just him, he was always like very wise beyond his years and that sort of thing. So it didn't hit me the way to like, oh my gosh, how did he know that we needed that? And I think we did. So anyway, I'm doing about as could be expected. I'm more worried about his wife and kids and my parents for everything they've gone through.
29:42But yeah, again, thanks to everyone for all the support. And it means the world to me. So that part is cool. i am going to be having a miami vice uh after i'm done recording this in john's memory so ben i'm down here in naples with my family and uh you're much better at this than i am but i was thinking about the people at the pool i know you did this bit already but you know there's always a couple of people one two whatever it doesn't have to be a guy or a girl it could be either that are just obliterated by the sun, right? Just like not even red, just pink. And you're like, dude, you're what?
30:23And they just still have their shirt off somehow. Yes. Not with the tan lines. Yes. They're making the most of it. Let me ask you, let me ask you this. So we're at a nice hotel and we're sitting down on the lounge chairs. and the guy next to me, you can tell that he's been here a bunch of times, knows his staff. They come over to him or somebody comes over to him, sets him up, says hi, whatever, small talk. And the guy just seems like a really nice guy, just Midwestern nice and handed him a$100 bill. And I was talking with Robin later in the day and I said, did you see the people next to us? I said, I want to be that guy.
31:03And she goes, why? He seemed like such a douche. And I was like, you saw he gave him$100? She's like, yeah, what a douche. And I was like, huh, I had such a different reaction. And I understand her reaction, which I'll tell you about in a second. But from my point of view, I love this topic of the show. I love tipping. And I love the idea of being able to give a service worker$100 because it means a lot. And so that'll make their day. They'll remember that, right? That's all. That's all I was coming from. Not like, oh, I just – I love to be able to make people happy. What, did she think he was being flashy?
31:41So what she thought, and she's right, was she's like, okay, I hear you on the making people stay part, like obviously. But you do – if that was really the objective, you do that after, right? Like you do that when you settle up. Okay. All right. So her point was she did it at the beginning so that he can get better service. and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's true. But so what? So it's sort of like when you make a donation online, like a GoFundMe thing. So you could leave your name or you could do it anonymously. So I have principles for this. If I am making a donation, so for my temple or something, right?
32:27If they're doing a fundraiser or whatever, I will make my donation for that anonymously. Now, if you're giving donations anonymously, does it even matter, right? So I'm not trying to get credit for that. Remember, this is a Curb episode, right? Is it? Where he donated to a museum and it said donated by anonymous, but Ted Danson put his name on the wall. Yeah. So for something like that, I'll do it anonymously because I don't want credit for that or anything. Right. But if you're making a donation where you think that it can encourage other people to give money, then for that, I'm willing to put my name in it.
33:02Because if somebody is like, oh, Michael gave this, I can give that too. Yeah, social proof. Social proof. I like that. That makes sense. All right. No really other observations about the vacation. Just in light of what you're doing, just trying to enjoy myself with my family. Is it packed? Yeah, it's pretty busy. So it's not necessarily a kids hotel. So there's stuff for the kids, but it's not like crazy. It's not like Baja Mar, which I'm sure is nuts this week. All right, let's just do some quick stuff on the market. We had an all-time high in the FB this morning. Do we move on from Egg Talk yet or not?
33:35Stay tuned. Okay. I have something later in the show for that. Stock market is hitting an all-time high this morning. This is really weird. Meta is up like – I don't know if it's 19 days in a row, 20 days in a row. But Mike Harris tweeted that Meta has gained 17 days in a row, which is an extreme event using – Northgate data with current and delistings for the S &P constituents, we find that the maximum has been 19 days. So I think this is a record, which is weird. Why? It's kind of weird, no? Would it be a gambler's fallacy thing if you're a day trader that you just short meta every day from now on in the hopes that it falls finally?
34:09Probably. Isn't that like hitting black 19 times in a row in roulette? Ben Robinhood has a slide in their earnings call that I really loved. it shows the average cumulative net deposits tend to grow over time across our funded customer cohorts. In recent cohorts, initial deposits are larger. So it shows you 2020 through 2024 by quarter. I've never seen a chart laid out this way. It's really wonderful. But the TLDR, for those of you who are listening, is the initial deposits are getting larger every single year as their customer base makes more money and grows up. That makes sense. Okay, that is a cool chart.
34:53Credit to them. What do they manage these days? Do you know? Is it 100? Yeah, it was in the deck. 100. I don't want to misquote them. 180 billion? 150 billion? It's a lot. It's a lot. All right, so Ben, it finally happened. Vanguard's S &P 500 ETF, VOO, officially passed SPY. Boucher Unis is all over this. So just talk about the Bogle effect or the Vanguard effect. And this dovetails nicely with something that our colleague Nick Majuli tweeted. So Nick said, I stopped buying active investments, individual stocks, et cetera, when I realized that they monopolized most of my attention. Despite being a small percentage of my portfolio, I watched them all the time.
35:34This is why I want passive, and you should too. You can't put a price on mental freedom. And Nick's absolutely right. That's a good phrase, mental freedom. I like that. I spend way too much time. I'd probably look at my phone to see what the market is doing, my stocks, Bitcoin, whatever. I don't know. 74 times a day. And that counts for something a lot, actually, and not in a good way. I feel like the regrets are larger with individual active investments too. Like I, I bought a handful of growth stocks in 2021 when things went to shit and crashed. And I think I bought Spotify and Shopify when they're both down like 40 % or something.
36:10Of course they both crashed way more than that. But when they turned around, I felt like I'm going to consolidate some things here and I'm going to get rid of one of these stocks. And I just, I'm like, of course, I got rid of the wrong one. I got rid of, I kept Shopify, which did okay. It's done all right. But Spotify has been going crazy for the past two years, like right after I sold it. And you look back and you go, ugh. But that's the kind of stuff that you, if you sold one index fund and bought another index fund, you don't go, oh no, what did I do? That only happens with individual positions like this.
36:42Right. Right. So anyway, so then later on in Nick's Twitter feed, somebody quote tweeted Nick about that tweet and said, I truly wish stocks would go down for like five to 10 years. I'm so sick of everyone thinking stocks are free money because that is what we've become. This used to be a really hard game that required an Omicron of skill once upon a time, but now an ape can just buy and whole till rich. And Nick quote tweeted him and said, there's a subset of active investors out there that want to see stocks destroyed to teach passive investors a lesson. We will have such a decade eventually.
37:18He's right that stocks aren't free money, but hoping for this is not the way. No one wins in a deep recession. And I get the person's mentality. It's a loser's mentality. I might call him this person a loser. And then I get obviously Nick's point. And maybe you should rethink that. Do you really want stocks going down for five to 10 years? Are you really that bitter that you want everybody else, including like just regular people? Because stocks go down for five to 10 years because nasty shit is happening in the economy. And do you really want that? We had that in the first decade of the century.
37:43Just to teach people a lesson? Like, come on, grow up. We had that already. And again, if you're a new investor, you didn't experience that, but the lost decade was a terrible period. And we've had other lost decades too. Emerging markets went through a lost decade where nothing happened. I think it was like 12 years or something. Also, Nick is not a stocks go up always guy. Like he's a keep buying guy, which is, which sounds the same, but it's not. Uh, I don't think Nick would ever say that stocks are free money or guarantee. Like that's not his, that's not his thing. It's just that, you know, his, his thing is like, uh, accumulated income producing assets by great, you know, all that sort of stuff, whatever.
38:21Um, yeah. And then the hard part is you keep buying even when stocks are down. Yeah, that's right. That's right. You take advantage of that. All right. Uh, Buko Capital tweeted software develop developer. developer job postings over the last five years. Hard to find a crazier chart. So remember, like, learn to code was the thing. So during the pandemic, this went straight up and straight down. Is it a really bad thing if we're just back at 2020 levels, or should this be way higher because there's so many more tech companies now? I don't know. I just think it's like a reflection of AI. Yeah. I mean, it does look like a mean stuff.
38:53Just how wild that is. Yeah. I mean, it's funny. Isn't that like the biggest? I know people keep talking about AI being this job destroyer. isn't it going to be programmers that have the most jobs destroyed potentially i think so i think that's what this is showing yeah okay um so one of the things in crypto is like it has a use case we need to rehash it like you know everyone it's a pretty tired story but it is kind of wild in the context of how much money came into crypto so i can't read who this chart is from Apileon? Is that what it says? My eyes are bad. But there's a chart showing life-to-date VCP investments in crypto startups is now$96 billion.
39:39That's crazy. Almost$100 billion went into crypto companies. And, you know, we've got Coinbase. We've got Circle and Tether and, you know, a gigaton of money in stablecoins. but it's surprising more of these haven't worked out I think that's but here's the thing I guess it's it's complicated and like that there's like nothing to show for it is kind of ridiculous I mean I think that on the one hand like what sort of returns were had by the 96 billion dollars I don't know I guess we'll find out but yeah there's not there's no like consumer app which is you know one of the things that people are waiting for but the nothing to show for it part is kind of nuts because there's 100 billion dollars in the ETFs And yeah, I think that's something that pisses people off.
40:28It's just a number-go-up story. But yeah, that's the story. And it's a big one. I think it's just what we have to show for it is not what people would have expected. Probably not what the investors would have expected. It's like a barbell. You have the ETFs over here and you have meme coins over here. Yeah. That's not the outcome people were expecting. Not what the investors were expecting for sure. Ben, I'm guessing you missed this over the weekend. but there's a story that like the president of Argentina is pumping and dumping a meme coin. Libra and Portnoy got involved. Did you see any of this?
41:01No. It doesn't sound shocking to me. The president of Argentina and Dave Portnoy, yeah. Nope. Sounds about right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. This is surprising. But there's just never going to be any repercussions though, I guess, for people who pump and dump meme coins. that's just, yeah, it's fair game. I don't know. I mean, it seems like it, doesn't it? I don't know. It's like reputational risk, but if you have no shame, what do you care? Oh, well. Oh, well. I guess so. Okay, so Variety had a post on YouTube, and here's the TLDR. YouTube is now, I'm sorry, the TV is now the number one device for YouTube viewing.
41:45The TV. More people watch YouTube on their TV than on their phone and their computer, which is, I guess, where it started. Well, my kids view it as another app. So it's like Netflix and Amazon Prime and Hulu and YouTube. That's kind of, they view it like a streaming service. Yeah, so according to Nielsen, YouTube has been the number one service in time spent viewing on the US, on the TVs for the past two years. 11 % captured of TV usage. Netflix is 8.5%. Prime is 4%. Hulu, two and a half, and Disney too. Did you start watching, again, I feel weird asking this given all the shit you've been dealing with, but did you start watching Paradise yet?
42:25No, that one is on my list. I did get into some TV lately. I'll share it in Rex, but worth watching for me. Paradise is very good. It feels, although I feel like maybe it's too premature to say that. I've seen four episodes. It feels like Lost only in the sense that you really want to see what happens during the next episode. It's very bingeable. It's not like Lost in the sense that it's completely open-ended. So they give you the spoiler in the first episode, and then there's a billion flashbacks to fill in the missing pieces or fill in the story. So I'm into it. All right. This is a face blower.
42:58There's a picture of Richard Belding, and if that name means nothing to you, Richard Belding was the principal in Saved by the Bell. So somebody tweeted, if you were born before 1984, you're now older than Mr. Belding in the first seasons of Saved by the Bell. How does it make you feel, Ben? Middle-aged? I saw it the other day when I walked into – I'm not ashamed to say I've been – I've definitely been drinking a decent amount lately. I definitely had to like drink myself to sleep the first couple days. Well, I don't mind saying that. That was – you know, you would have done this with me, but that was my advice.
43:30Yes, you said alcohol. Alcohol is the only answer. And God bless my wife. You checked in on me. Like, are you okay? I said, yes, I just need a couple days here. But I walked into the booze store and I bought a bunch of beer and it said like, if you were born on this date before 2004, and I'm like doing the math in my head, And I'm like, oh my God. Father time. You've been 21 for a long time. Yeah. Somebody said to us, so we've been talking about how expensive Disney is. And somebody said, I'm traveling to the Disney world with my family this week and wanted to prove that it can be done without breaking the bank.
44:02Also, FYI, the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest day of the year for Disney. So let's stay away from that. Ben, did you say you're doing that? I think we want to go leading up to Thanksgiving is what my wife is planning. Okay. So here's their budget. Coming from Oklahoma. Flight,$7.50. Hotel,$5.50. Four nights, breakfast included at Homewood Suites. Disney tickets,$14.50. One day Magic Kingdom, one day Epcot. Two adults, two kids, one infant. Rental car,$2.50. Food,$500. Souvenirs,$200. Miscellaneous,$200. Total,$3 ,900. He said the big savings, because that does seem pretty light. The big savings, fly to Discount Airline, staying in a non-Disney hotel, and no Animal Kingdom.
44:47I agree. Animal Kingdom is pretty much a waste. Okay. So there you have it. So I'm stealing this take from someone else, but someone made the point, I don't know, on Twitter or somewhere, that it's kind of funny that the free breakfasts are usually at the lower-end hotels, not the upper, higher-end hotels. Like you'd expect if you're paying a lot of money for a hotel, you should get the free breakfast. But no, it's the opposite. Right? Yes. all right ben you mentioned something about eggs i want to play you so somebody suggested that we call our listeners filthy animals and i think i'm gonna stick with that i like it yeah not bad okay so a filthy animal sent us um a song that they made on chat gbt now the first the opening of the song is pretty cheesy but let's just get through the first the first lines and then i think it's pretty good all right let me play this then who's singing it an ai singing it yeah
45:42Well, well, Michael and Ben, they talk stocks every day. Breaking down markets in their own kind of way. Michael's got charts, Ben's got the vibe. Together they keep the retail crowd alive. Now Michael, he's got a bone to pit. With those four little rings on an Audi stick. Says German made junk, it's a money pit. Ben just laughs, says that's your bit. Ben says eggs are 20 bucks, well that's just life. Michael stares back like he's seen a poltergeist. Man, are you serious? The price is insane. Ben shrugs it off like it's pocket change. Oh, Mark is up and the market's down. Michael and Ben break it all down.
46:21Tech is fly and rates are high. Still rocket Hawaiian shirts looking real fly. They got close stocks, ETFs, bonds on deck. Ben says go passive, man, just don't stress. Michael's all in checking wicks and lines. Ben's like, come on, man, let's have a good time. They both agree on one thing for sure. Hawaiian shirts make a portfolio pure. Yeah, Buffett would wear him if he had the nerve. Got a dress for success and a tropical curve. Ben calls, man, a Facebook like it's still on nine. Michael rolls his eyes, but lets it slide this time. All right, not bad. So that's like a Blink-182 version of Animal Spirits?
46:56Not bad. What is it? Eggs are 20 bucks and Ben just shrugs it off? Ben says eggs are 20 bucks. Well, that's just life. Michael stares back like he's seen a poltergeist. All right. not bad that was good alright Ben we got an email as parents I'd love to hear your thoughts on this is it tacky to give a link for 529 contributions in lieu of gifts for a child's birthday party no I've done this before no I'm kidding I to the I gave a link to my parents and said hey if you ever want to just give 529 instead of here's the link and it's in most places make it very easy to do of, I think it's this person's point of like, yeah, with family, it's totally normal, but it's a family thing.
47:43Yes. For, for friends, it's a little, might be tacky, but I'd say, but I've had friends do it before without me asking. And I, I obviously appreciate it, but yes, for family, I think it's totally above board. Um, okay. What do you think? You think it's tacky? Um, I don't know if it's tacky. It's, it's a little odd. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I don't have strong thoughts. I'm not sure. All right. I've got – this might upset some people. I'm just throwing a grenade for no particular reason. Bring it. Okay. When people have a literal whiteboard on their background on Zoom, it's a little weird. What do you mean a whiteboard?
48:27Like an actual – like a physical whiteboard that they're like writing Sharpies on. Or not Sharpies. Oh. Magic markers where they're like, you know, it's like they're taking their notes, whatever. Right. There's easier places to take notes these days. I mean, yeah, like on your phone. Yes. This is not 1993. Right? A little weird? I don't know. I've got books behind me, and that's kind of a flex. So I feel like the whiteboard is kind of like books behind you. It's kind of like a flex. Like, look at me. I'm smart. I write stuff down and I read. Yeah. All right, Ben. I can't figure this one out. So I still have the line on my TV.
49:08How many years are we going on here? That's pretty impressive that you haven't given in yet. Five years. Has it been five years? No, it can't be. Maybe it can be. So I moved that to my— So you just got used to it? Not really. Well, yeah. Actually, no. I did get used to it. So the lines aren't growing. They're not, like, expanding or multiplying. But they're there. So anyway, there was a— Oh, separate. Okay. So the line of my TV is still there upstairs. Downstairs, I replaced my Samsung because that's what the line is. I replaced my Samsung with a Sony. My TV downstairs was frozen with a Samsung logo on it.
49:46And I thought I was hallucinating. Like I even took a picture of it. Am I on drugs? How is a Sony TV? Why is there like the Samsung logo on the picture of my screen frozen? And it was like floating on my TV and I don't have any Samsung devices. connected to that TV. Is Samsung like punking me? Did you Google this? What would I even Google? Why is there a Samsung logo floating on my Sony TV? Yeah. It was very strange. Lastly, I saw this on the internet this week. There was a fight at Madison Square Garden and it reminded me of something that I've been thinking of for a long time. Wait, were you there when this fight was going on?
50:22No, I was not. So you don't see fights and it's probably the same reason. You don't see fights at a basketball game because at football games people are like wasted, right? They're there tailgating. They're drinking for six hours, whatever. So it's probably the same reason why you don't see it. But you never see people run onto a basketball court. Oh, like people run onto a football field. Yeah. That's true. Or even a baseball field. You think it would be easier to run on a basketball court. You never see it, ever. I wonder if it wouldn't have the shock value as much because in a football field, it's so big.
50:54You can see someone. Yeah, a basketball court, where are you going? Also, you know what? These people are smart. You don't want to get tackled on the hardwood. That's true. It hurt a lot more. Yeah, probably people think it's harder to get out, too. I mean, they always get caught. It's like, what do those people think is going to happen, though? Like, they're happy spending a night in jail or whatever? I don't think it's well thought out. Well, true. Okay, Ben, what were you able to get into this week? So my son is still fully into skyscrapers. So I made him watch Man on Wire with me. It's on Peacock, I think.
51:29Have you ever seen this documentary before? No. It's about the guy who sent a wire between the World Trade Centers in the 1970s and then walked on them and balanced on them without any lying on himself. He was a French guy. It's an amazing, amazing story how they did this. The World Trade Centers were just being finished, and him and his friends had to come up with this cockamamie scheme to get to the top floor and pretend they were other people and they're hiding. And then he shot a bow and arrow with this wire across, and then the guy literally back and forth walked between the two twin towers with one of those, you know, big balancing sticks.
52:06And it's this French guy and he would lay down on the line and the cops are waiting on both sides for him to get off. And he'd walk all the way and the cops were to grab him and he'd walk backwards and he would smile at him. And they asked him afterwards, like, why did you do it? He's like, I just wanted to do it. He didn't have any big, he wasn't like trying to like, today that guy would be a YouTube star, right? He'd have a YouTube channel, like me walking on my tightrope. but back then he just him and his friends thought it would be cool to do and it's an amazing amazing documentary huh did you ever show George San Andreas the movie with The Rock of course he watched all The Rock's movies there's actually a movie called Skyscraper which we obviously watched a couple weeks ago I watched most of the SNL 50 did you watch any of it uh uh okay I mean half of the sketches and bits were good half of them were just okay it was kind of amazing to see that many famous people all in one room though I enjoyed it I'm a I don't really watch SNL anymore.
52:58I just watch the clips on YouTube or social media. But for a long time there, for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years, I watched like every SNL. What was peak SNL for you? Oh, it's obviously the Farley Sandler. It's what you grew up with, but that Farley Sandler, David Spade, Tim Meadows, Chris Rock. Tim Meadows. I love the ladies, man. That was a great one. Yeah. So I was a little bit old. I was, because you're a little bit older than me. Mine was like the Will Ferrell, Sherry Oteri. Yeah, right? Yeah. But, I mean, we used to watch the best of Will Ferrell and Chris Farley in college all the time, which shows how long ago they were on.
53:37And I watched the first episode of The New White Lotus, and I'm in. I think I said this before. They could do ten seasons of this, and I'd watch every one of them. Just the same beat of we're going to a nice place. The first episode, you know they're going to show a dead body, and then we're going to have to figure out how they did it. I'm sure it'll get old eventually, but I don't know when. Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. As long as they keep – the quality is so good. I realized – so Robin sent me something on Instagram with a lot of the hidden gems in the first episode. Not even hidden necessarily.
54:06I'm a very non-observant watcher. For example, I didn't even necessarily pick up on the fact that – the last thing – not to spoil it because it's – I won't spoil it. But the last scene with the brother in the bathroom, the other brother looking, did you pick up on that? Not really. No, I don't. Yeah, I'm not looking for clues either. Okay. So I'm not alone. But I did think, and this is, we've got a lot of people like North Carolina ties that work with us. Duncan is a North Carolina guy. I thought the North Carolina family, like they walked up and they talked about how this kid went to Duke and this kid went to North Carolina.
54:43And I thought that was just perfect. I thought they nailed that family. It's so good. Yes. Very lucky. All right. Two emails. By the way, they're making a Goonie sequel. Did you know about this? My kids will be in. All right. I don't know if I will be. Long time fan in Alaska. Wondering how you'd rate your ability to gauge the quality of a movie based on the trailer. Oh, okay. That's a good one. Michael talking about cordially invited almost sounded like he expected it to be good. That steaming pile could be sniffed out five seconds into the trailer. I am mostly a bad movie guy and recommended the Ed Helms movie together, together.
55:18Okay. So I had no expectations of Cordially Invited would be – no. Was that – yeah. I didn't think it was going to be good. But so let me not answer your question first. I don't watch trailers anymore. I mean if I can avoid them, I do. I like to roll dog movies. I've said this before. But I do like to think that I'm – some trailers can't be avoided. For example, like if you go to a movie, you're seeing the trailers, right? So I guess that's where I – I guess I just told it myself. So there are trailers that can't be avoided, but I see a lot of movies that I've never seen the trailer for, like Strange Darling, for example.
55:52That was a win. But Captain America, Brave New World, I knew those would be trash. So to answer your question, I think I'm pretty good. I love watching trailers. I still remember. I think we've talked about this before. I said The Hangover is the best trailer of all time where you watch it and you go, that is going to be an amazing movie, and it lives up to it. You're right. So for example, there's a new movie coming out called Friendship with Paul Rudd. And is his name Tim Robinson? I'm not really familiar with his work. Yes. Okay. It's a Detroit guy. So based on that trailer, I know for a fact minus 2 ,000, that movie is going to rock ass.
56:34Okay. I thought it looked a little weird actually. I'm a trailer guy though. I love watching new trailers. Okay. So I think I'm pretty good at determining if they're good or bad at that. We'll end on this. You know what, Ben? This is a setup. We're going to answer this next episode because I need to think about this. I would love to hear you guys debate the following. What are the top 10 shows of the golden age of television? And let's define the golden age of television as a non-broadcast network show that ran from 2001 to 2025. Ooh, non-broadcast. That's interesting. Okay. I bring this up because some buddies and I were discussing the Americans.
57:06I never saw the Americans. during its time. That show had about a two-season run where it was as hot a succession. True. But for some reason, it just fell off the radar in greatest shows. That is true, too. Okay, you know what? We're going to circle back. We'll do that next week because it deserves some thought. So they want us to come up with a top ten shows of the golden age of television. Yeah, that's homework for next week. Okay. I mean, the top five is easy. All right, well, save it. Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Six Feet Under is in there. Ooh, okay. Right? Yeah, so I probably have a few that you wouldn't anticipate, but that's a good question.
57:42The first five are easy. The next five are hard. Okay. Okay. All right. It was good to chop it up. I feel good. I can't just sit around and not do anything. We did that for a couple days, and I realized that's not going to be helpful. So I need to get back in the mix and do stuff. So this is good. again I appreciate all the support from everyone it's been helpful as I said earlier in the show life is for the living and obviously you will live in John's honor and do everything you can to honor his memory and all that good stuff so everybody who emailed us we appreciate it obviously it means a lot to Ben so thank you for sending that if I didn't get back because I tried to get back to as many people as I could if I didn't I apologize but I really do appreciate it and like it looking through all the comments the past couple days it was really uplifting to me and very helpful.
58:39And just to have people read and understand John's story to me was very cool because I think he deserved it. Well said, Ben. Okay. Animal Spirits at The Compound News. Thank you, everybody, for riding with us for 400 episodes. We love you guys. We'll see you next time.
59:04Thank you.
From the publisher
On episode 400 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: Jon Carlson's story, dealing with grief, why financial planning matters, Jon's life advice, the power of kindness and the mundane, gambler's fallacy on Meta, the mental freedom of index funds, YouTube's reach, Mr. Belding's age, how to save money at Disney and much more.
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Ben Carlson’s A Wealth of Common Sense
Michael Batnick’s The Irrelevant Investor
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