Predictions For 2025 (EP.394)

24:52Balchun is checking in with the final top 20 ETF leaderboard for 2024 VOO. Ended with$116 billion in flows. So that's VOO is - That's Vanguard's S &P 500. But it has totally surpassed SPY as like the S &P 500 ETF. Is that fair to say or not? No, it's not. No, but I mean, it seems like a few years in a row now that it's got But in the other one, IVV is the iShares. Well, they've had more flows, but SPY is still the biggest. Okay. But they'll be passed this year by IVV and VOO, it looks like. So IVV is the iShares one. That was number two. So the S &P 500, again, is the thing. This is interesting.

25:33So IBIT, the Bitcoin ETF, was third. Wow. VTI was fourth. Okay, QQQ, SPY. Here's a surprising one. AG was seventh, the AG. I looked at this the other day. bonds are still in a drawdown. I think the ag is down 9 % from the highs. We're in like a five-year drawdown for bonds on a total return basis, including any income. And over the last 10 years, bonds have returned the ag like 1.3 % per year. Maybe the worst fixed income environment ever. People still on balance. But it's easier to lean into bonds, I feel like, because you see, well, yeah, but yields are 4 % or 5 % now. So, okay. Announcement to make.

26:16not housekeeping announcement i put a new title in here on the dock okay i put a new section retirement i don't think this is gonna get a lot of play i feel like there's like a one every eight episodes to think but it's okay i feel like retirement for the financial advice space retirement is the biggest thing for the next 20 to 30 years because 70 million boomers are retiring every day yes something like that okay so they had this story called financial regrets and wisdom of Americans over 80. This was interesting to me. Sue Jones thought she had more than enough money to live on when she was in her fifties.

26:49She wasn't counting on living to her nineties. She retired. Yeah. But how much fun did she have in her fifties? That's what I want to know. That's a good question. So she retired with$50 ,000 in retirement money and a$2 ,900 a month pension in social security. Her husband had a pension and those pensions, they do not account for inflation. Like if you have the social security is like literally the only one that really accounts for inflation. So that 2 ,900 must have seemed like a lot of money back then when she was in her 50s, probably not as much in her 90s. And she just said, I plan to die at a more normal age.

27:24You know, good news. I live longer. But can you imagine the$50 ,000 retiring and just hoping that Social Security and pension covers you? There's going to be a lot of people in that situation, though. Yeah. We've seen the stats. There are plenty of people that have a lot of money that we talk about and talk to, but there are way more people that have little to nothing save for retirement. I thought a lot about this, not, not through the retirement lens per se, but just like older people and regrets. So I do respect the fact that as you age through life, you get more wise and, you know, more introspective and all that sort of stuff.

28:01But should potential regrets in your eighties supersede how you feel in your forties? and I don't I don't I don't buy that because if you're 80 like oh I wish I would have done this and hypothetically if you had a time machine when you're 80 to go back to those things that you regret I think you would probably still live the same way right so she was much happier in her 50s and maybe not as happy in her 80s or 90s but it was worth it for the 50s exactly right so yeah I get why you would say at 80 or 90 that you have some regrets at that age right and when you're 90 and it's also path dependent you can't see the future guess what if she died at 78 no regrets yes that's but 40 years ago dying young must have seemed like more of a possibility probability right yes all right torson's lock chart of the week credit card debt as a share of disposable income is very low and this has been dropping for for a long time since the crisis we have a lot of room to run here if things get hairy in the economy and wage growth starts to slow Growth starts to slow.

29:04People have the ability, if they want, to use more debt. And I still feel like that is what's going to happen. Consumers are not going to stop spending on the ski slopes and the vacations. Well, if they get fired, they will. True. But even if the unemployment rate goes from 4 to 6, 94 % of the labor force is still working. Right. so I just I just think I don't see how people all of a sudden retrench the consumer retrenches and says nope I'm done I'm not spending money anymore I feel like people are just going to go into debt to keep the spending alive right the friends that you have that take vacations and stuff and got hooked on it after the pandemic you really think they're going to slow down I feel I just feel like there's room I think I think it all depends on their job situation I do think that if people you know lose their job they're not going to take vacations like Of course.

29:56But my point is that's going to be a smaller percent of the population than those who are still working. All right. We talked about this, I believe, last week. And I just said, I don't know how we can continue to have high mortgage rates. And I think that was one of your predictions. What did you say? Mortgage rates remain high. Yeah. I don't see how mortgage rates remaining 6 % or 7 % doesn't eventually impact the economy. And so Luke Kawa at Sherwood wrote about this, saying housing is the business cycle. So he writes, in a world where prospective new buyers are deterred by high long-term interest rates, home builders are facing pressure on margins, thanks in part to trying to subsidize some of this rate sticker shock like they've been buying down the mortgage rates.

30:30And with management of these firms warning of lower than expected deliveries in the first quarter, employment and residential construction stands out as a clear vulnerability for the US job market. Given the old maxim that housing is the business cycle, popularized by a well-timed 2007 paper by Ed Leamer of the same name, that means it's an important flashpoint for the US economy and financial markets as well. I just think that this is one of those lags that eventually catches up. I don't see how we can continue to have strong growth in the economy with 7 % mortgage rates. Eventually, it catches up to us.

31:01Didn't we just discuss this the other week? We did. Yeah. You have any second thoughts? No, I'm doubling down on it. He's saying housing is the business. Remember I said, how can it be such a big part of the economy and not have an impact? He's saying, no, housing is the business cycle. And I think maybe the reason it's on such a lag is just because of the 3 % mortgages. And eventually it's going to have to trickle through. And there's only the - But, so I was looking at a chart. Somebody has the effective mortgage rate versus the current mortgage rate. Right. Could have been, doesn't matter where the chart came from.

31:31We're still so far below where current mortgage rates are. And the high mortgage rates are impacting a very small percentage. Yeah, it's growing. But just, can you imagine being a realtor in this environment? Like how many people have dropped out of that as a profession? Because there's just little to no activity. Think about when you move, you pay movers, you buy new furniture, you redecorate the home, you might do some renovations. Now there's still renovations going on or people who are staying at their houses, but there's so much loan departments. There's so much activity that is tied up into the housing market activity.

32:06Yeah. I just think eventually it has to make a dent in something. all right moving on uh this is a great email i'm the college professor from the nvidia article that michael famously derided as quote i give them no credit as investors they just got lucky thanks for the credit for holding through the 70 drawdowns buddy um all right well he's back and he's nailing it again he nailed the qbts trade these are the quantum computing stocks and Regetti. Let's see. Let's check in. RGTI. He's still ripping. Whew. Credit to you, sir. So yes, I dabble in small stocks and I'm one heck of a lucky guy. They also are held at a Roth, so tax considerations aren't an issue.

32:56Extra credit to you. Okay. Now we all know that Michael would have locked in his 30 cent profit and sold both a while ago. True. I was just telling Ben, hey, I'm up 80 % on Moderna. Do I sell it? But this is a conundrum in the middle of a bubble, went to sell. Let your winners run. Take some profits. I sold some NVIDIA in 2008 to pay off my mortgage after, okay, I won't say that. This is the cause of a consternation and regret. So I don't want to sell too early, but I hate to leave a lot of money on the table again. So what would you do if you were me? I don't see how you can regret having sold a stock to pay off your mortgage.

33:29That should be a non-regret, even if the stock continue to go up. Yeah. So he's, you know, do I wait for an acquisition? Do I sell at a particular number? Like Ben and BTC at 99. Do I sell covered calls? Love the show. You guys are my favorite parasocial relationship. Love you too. And no, in all sincerity, there's obviously a degree of luck, but there's obviously a degree of skill here, right? I mean, proof is in the pudding. Obviously, dabbling early in stocks and having the fortitude to... As guys who aren't going to hold 10 baggers, probably, besides the S &P or VTI, there is no good advice to provide here.

34:06But wait, but really, if part of your investing strategy is to be speculative with small stocks and invest, whatever, a couple thousand bucks, like, and ride the winner, sell the losers, that takes skill. That's hard to do. Yes. So anyway, to Ben's point, there is no, this would be a lot easier if I could see the future, right? I'd give you perfect advice. But I understand the regret part is, like, I'm sure it's painful to sell at six and watch something run to 30. I wouldn't know. Just kidding. The thing that would have to play head games with you is, am I really picking another NVIDIA here? Like, are these really going to be a huge winner like that was?

34:45Who's to say? Yes. That'd be the hard part. Or are these stocks going to round trip? Because, I don't know, this quantum computing thing is not going to be as big as people are saying it is. So I would say the way that I would recommend, paper recommend, because I'm not actually doing this, because I don't have these sort of giant winners. Is it just a trailing stop? Like, is it something as simple as that? So - Like, I won't let this thing fall more than 10 % from its all-time high. Or 20. Whatever your number is. 20 % and I'm out. Whatever your number is. I don't want any losses below 20%. So then you have to be okay with saying, like, there's no way I'm going to sell at the high.

35:20Just by definition. With a trailing stop. Right. That's not a bad - Or, how about this? Let's say that I'm making this up. Ruggetti is at 19 bucks. What if you put an upside target? All right, I'll sell at 25. Come hell or high water. Whatever it is, you have to decide beforehand. That I know for sure. I just love that. I don't know why this is called Rigetti. It sounds like the name of a character on Saved by the Bell. Like, oh yeah, Zach dated Stacey Rigetti that one summer. It just, it sounds like that an Italian person. Whatever happened to Jeff from The Max? I feel like that guy was like a poor man's Rob Lowe.

35:52He was in Starship Troopers. He got his brain sucked out. He was too creepy with Kelly Kapowski. That was the problem. Yeah. Right? Can't tread on her. All right. From the Wall Street Journal, a few people sent us this one. Insurance and taxes now cost more than mortgages for many homeowners. And they show that the share of average mortgage payment going to taxes and insurance is now close to a third, which is kind of crazy, of the cost of the mortgage. And they say in five metro areas, Rochester and Syracuse, New York, Omaha, Nebraska, New Orleans, Miami, at least a quarter of borrowers spend more than half of their monthly mortgage payment on taxes and insurance.

36:27So part of this gets back to the thing we've been talking about, that home insurance in a lot of places is rising for a number of reasons. Part of it is the insurance market, and part of it is people suing these places, I guess, and part of it is the weather. I think the other part of it, though, is just, if you bought a house 20 years ago or something, and you have a very low mortgage payment, or you refine this a few times, you have a low, like, of course taxes and insurance are going to continue to go up as a portion of it. It means your mortgage payment is just really, really low. So I don't really have a lot of sympathy here for people complaining about this.

37:00For some of the people. Okay, that's Ben at... I'm just saying. I don't think... I have way more sympathy for people who are not able to buy a house. Listen, as a non-man of the people, I'm not surprised to hear you say that you have no sympathy. Than people who did buy a house and now are seeing their costs rise. Guess what? Your house is worth way more than it was. Right? There's some people who bought... They had stories here about people who bought in Florida and are saying, I wish I would have never bought in Florida because the cost of my insurance and property taxes are way more than I ever thought.

37:32Yeah. Sympathy there. But I don't have sympathy for people who bought a house in 1997 and have an extremely low mortgage payment. And now their property insurance is going up too. Guess what? Your house is up fivefold since then. Yeah. You're fine. Yeah. How's that? I'm having sympathy because you have a third of the country that never bought a house. Fair? Okay. All right. JP Morgan, Guide to Alternatives. Can you go through this one? I did not. Okay. They have a chart showing U.S. real estate transaction volumes. And I kind of feel like we stopped talking about the office space crash. That's right.

38:16Commercial real estate was the next Lehman Brothers, right? Yeah. Remember that? I do. What happened to it? I mean, it's still disgusting. Like the transaction volumes on apartments are way down. I mean, industrial is hanging in there, but. I think we kind of nailed that at the time. We said, listen, this is not going to be an event. It's going to be a death by a thousand cuts if anything really bad happens. So they show the U.S. online retail sales by segment. And they compare today with pre-pandemic. And total online retail is 15.6 % today. It was 11 % before. Clothing and general merchandise is 14.5%, up from 10%.

38:52So we know where all these trends are going. They look at the change in the number of physical retail establishments. And the biggest hit is, not surprisingly, department and discount down 40%. And this will just continue to shrink, right? Like there's no more. Nobody's opening up a Macy's. And in fact, I went to a Macy's, Ben, the other day. I was, it was January 1st. I was in the city. You know, you know what really. You went to like the Macy's, the one with all the decorations and such. You know what gets my rocks off? I like working when nobody else is. makes me feel good. You came and worked on January 1st, right?

39:25Yeah, it makes me feel good. Okay. You and Jensen Wang from Nvidia. Did you read that thing about him? No. That said that he, he loves working on vacations. His team, this is from the new Take Him book about Nvidia. And it, some posted a little screenshot of it. And he said his team hates it when he goes on vacation. Cause he says, I'm sitting on my balcony watching my kids play in the sand. And I'm firing off more emails than ever because I love working on vacation. Okay. That I, that I I don't do that. Michael Badnik is just like the NVIDIA CEO. Yeah, no, that's not healthy behavior in my opinion.

39:57No, not at all. He says like he loves, loves, loves working. Okay. Okay. Well, anyhow, so I was in New York City without a belt. I only have two belts. What's your belt situation? I have a jeans belt, like a leather belt, and I have like a summer belt that's more of like a… So you only have two belts too? I'm a two-belt guy, yeah. Okay. So I'm a two-belt guy. One of my belts is a little bit too small, so it doesn't really fit well. And then the other one is just worn down. Plus, I feel like you have to, when you have a belt that fits perfectly and you've got it, there's no need for another one.

40:32Yeah. Until you lose that belt. What happened? I don't know. I just can't find it. On vacation? So anyhow, I was in the city. Pants were falling down. Went into a Macy's. Not a great experience. Never is. No, horrible. No. Finding the stuff you want or need and the sizes, it's, yeah. So the Macy's right over here, the flagship, what does that start losing? $150 ,000 a day. Obviously, I'm making that number up, but it's just a slow drip to zero. Yes, but they have great decorations though. Yeah. Can't beat that. All right. I want to talk about private markets. The FT did a piece on the state of the industry.

41:13They said the tally of VCs investing in US headquartered companies dropped to 6 ,175 in 2024, meaning more than 2 ,000 have fallen dormant since a peak of 8 ,300 in 2021, according to PitchBook. And I think this is very much like all the IPOs that shouldn't have happened in 2000, right? Like it's sort of nature's healing type of thing. So they show all these charts. Right, so that decline is not a worry as much as the worry was back then. But I do think that has massive implications, which we'll get to in a second. So they say more than half of the$71 billion raised by US VCs in 2024 was pulled in by just nine firms.

41:51So concentration and VC like everywhere else. Andrews and Horowitz, Iconic, Thrive, you know, the giant ones. And so funding is down. And so the little players, the ones that came in, they're gone. They're having a much more difficult time raising money. They said the time to return capital has elongated a lot across the industry over the last 25 years. It's a word you don't hear very long. You don't hear that. Elongated. In the 1990s, it probably took seven years to get your money back. Now it's probably more like 10 years. Some LPs have run out of patience. The$71 billion raised by U.S. firms in 2024 is a seven-year low and less than two-fifths the total haul.

42:24And they have a chart showing new VCs, they basically went to zero, right? Like they raised 20-something billion in the peak of 21, and it's effectively collapsed to zero. All right, so I think there are massive ramifications for this. Not just like for the entire economy and for the stock market. Okay, hit me with that. Massive. So look at Sherwood has a chart showing OpenAI's valuation in context. The latest is$157 billion. And that is bigger than Zoom, Snap, Zillow, Warner Music, Domino's, Ralph Lauren, Roku, Duolingo, American Airlines, The New York Times. Combined. Combined. There's another chart that shows big tech has acquired 870 companies, again, from Sherwood.

43:12looking at Google, Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and NVIDIA. 870 companies. So back in the day, Vision Pro would have been a venture-backed company. Like the company making the Vision Pro would have been a venture-backed company. Now it's just Apple. Right. So the biggest companies are being funded by… Right. Waymo would have been its own company. Exactly. So the biggest companies are being funded by the largest, by the Mag-7, and the largest venture capital companies that don't write$200 ,000 seed checks anymore. Because the funds are so gigantic. Can we spin this in a positive way? I'm not saying this is bad.

43:54No, but my positive spin on this would be, if you're investing in the S &P 500, it's not as concentrated as you think. Sam Rose made this point a lot, that when you're investing in one of these big companies, Google, Microsoft, Apple, you're not investing in one business line anymore. I get it, but I don't buy it. But Sam is right in saying that the businesses are way more diversified than they were in the past. Look at how many different business lines Microsoft has and Amazon has and Google has. But yeah, would it be a healthier dynamic if these were their own companies? Yes, I totally agree there.

44:27So, but Amazon stock is still Amazon stock, even though the business is way more diversified. But if Vision Pro was a stock, what would it be down right now? All the way. It would be down 90%, right? All the way. So anyway, I don't know that this is good or bad, but it is. Right. It just is. And we've been going towards deregulation, and that was always the biggest worry. I heard that from a lot of value investor friends. Like, just wait. When they break up Amazon or they break up Google, and that is just not happening. So this is a fundamental shift from the way things used to be, the way things used to get funded, and further solidification of the Mag 7 as giant moats.

45:09Yeah. Like NVIDIA is funding CoreWeave. Yes. I feel like everything I learned about monopolies in my econ 101 classes, throw it out the window. Yeah. Right? Because these monopolies actually make it cheaper for people buying their products in a lot of ways and easier and more efficient. They're not, they're not, you can find bad stuff they're doing, but consumers love this company. I think five years ago, you and I would have said there's a 3 % chance that in 20 years, Amazon and Apple and Microsoft are still dominating and Google are still dominating.

45:43Now, is it 50-50? I'd say better than even odds. We're closing in on three companies that are worth$4 trillion. I'd say it's better than even odds that these companies are still dominating in a decade. I'm not suggesting their stock price is going to continue to grow up 20 % a year forever, but still four trillion is a large number what who replaces them oh michael read a history book okay things things change right but what's the time frame of those changes yeah maybe maybe the leaders stay leaders longer than they did in the past no not maybe i'll pound the table on that it's already here it's already happened one of them is going to make a mistake though in this whole AI thing.

46:23But they did. Look what Meta did with... Metaverse. What's their labs called? What do they call that portion of their business? That segment? I don't know. Reality Labs, right? Is Web3 still a thing? Is that... They did f*** up. The stock dropped 75%. Same thing with Netflix. Guess what? They fixed it. True. All right. One other chart that stood out to me in the JPMorgan Guide to Alternatives, they have U.S. private credit versus leveraged loans. And they showed the share of leveraged loan in default by industry over the last 12 months. And by far, the number one—actually, that's not true. Number one and number two, pretty close.

47:02Number two is healthcare. That's 20 % of the total default volume. Number one, 23%, that's media. Media is just in rough, rough shape. Rough shape. And the reasoning is just— Social media has disrupted traditional media. Social media, internet, YouTube, podcasts. Yeah, that makes sense to me. All right. You have mentioned the growing popularity of the CFP over the CFA. Have you ever talked to anyone in conversation that thought that AI could replace a financial planner? I can easily see it in the retail aspect, create a realistic image of a fake person, and add the conversational aspects of AI.

47:39A lot of what the financial planner does is just make the client feel good about the path they are on and whether the volatility seems easy to replicate if AI is what they say it will be. It's a reasonable take that I disagree with. Yes. So Josh and I talked about this on Ask the Compound like a month ago or two. And his take has always been, and I've stolen this probably before, Josh says, wealthy people will not trust a robot. And I completely agree with that statement. Maybe someone will throw it in my face. I think actually an AI financial planner for people who aren't traditional wealth management clients, I think it can actually help a lot.

48:13Answer questions. I don't think it's going to replace financial advisors. I think it's going to help. I think AI will help a lot on the people that are just getting started. And it'll also help financial planners be more efficient. Our financial planners are already talking about this. The notes that it can provide after a conversation or the emails it can provide. Like, it's going to make financial planners who use AI better advisors. But the replacement thing, I feel like every 10 years something comes along and people wonder, is it going to replace financial advisors? TurboTax did not replace CPAs.

48:43It did for a certain segment of the population. and I think I will do the same. All right. Hey guys, love the show. I was curious if you could talk about how you benchmark your own personal portfolios. Given that neither of you are very close to retirement, equity, heavity, do you try and beat the S &P 500? Do you anticipate missing some years, outperforming others? I often hear you guys talk about gains and losses in individual stocks, but I don't know how you view your own benchmarks. I got to be honest. I don't know. That's a really good question. No, no, no. Like I literally don't know what my performance is and I don't, I just don't really care.

49:15As crazy as that might sound. I, in the back of my mind, back of the envelope, I guess, know what my performance is based on what I own and such. And once a year, I update my spreadsheet. I did it last week. I update my spreadsheet. I look at my performance. Here's what I put in. Here's the difference. Here's what I made. Ah, that makes sense. Here's how I benchmark myself. I do a simple spreadsheet where I say, over the next five to 10 years, here's how much I think I'm going to save. Here's how much I assume in market growth. and where am I along those goalposts? Am I better or worse? And I look at it and I update, of course, correct.

49:51And I do kind of look at that. Yeah, I don't do any of that. But I don't look at a benchmark. I've used this before, but Jason Zweig interviewed a bunch of people in Boca a number of years ago and asked a guy like, did you beat the S &P to retire here and live on the beach? And the guy said like, I don't know and I don't care. I'm in Boca. So I did something right. Yeah, so that's sort of - It doesn't matter. That's where I am. I just care that my number goes up and to the right. And a lot of that is a function of saving more than my performance versus the S &P. And do I want to be the S &P? Yeah, of course I do.

50:23Do I think I'm going to? Probably not. Do I care? No. Because also, to be clear, I'm talking about, so I am picking stocks. I've got a taxable account that I mess around with. And I've got a SEP IRA that I do my stock picking. In my 401k, I'm strictly broad market funds. So that is the market. And so, you know, listen, this is personal, right? Like there are some people that are very analytical, very rigid about their math. And that's one personality type. I am on the other end of the spectrum personality type. I don't care. I prefer to just get the market returns. That's where I am. So I don't care if I beat it.

51:00All right. So this post went wild from the guy who was a founder of Loom. What's his name? I forget. Okay. So he founded Loom and he sold the company and he's worth, I don't know how many millions of dollars. I think he sold his share. He said was 60 million. No, he said that if he would have stayed there, he would have, he's giving, he had enough money where he gave up$60 million. Oh. If he would have stayed on. Oh, so tons of money. And it's a, yeah. So I don't know how much he sold for it. The post is all about, I'm really rich. Just read the first thing. Oh, that you posted here. Okay. You read, you better read it.

51:31Okay. Thank you. Life has been a haze this last year. After selling my company, I find myself in the totally unrelatable position of never having to work again. Everything feels like a side quest, but not in an inspiring way. I don't have the same base desires driving me to make money or gain status. I have infinite freedom, yet I don't know what to do with it. And honestly, I'm not the most optimistic about life. I know this is a completely zeroth world position to be in. The point of this post is not to brag or gain sympathy. To be honest, I don't know exactly what the point of this post is.

52:02I tried to manufacture one, but I just felt like a phony. Then I recognized the irony of creating purpose out of a blog post when I don't currently have much conviction of purpose in life. Um, so anyway, to loom sold for$975 million. I mean, he got that much, but he got 50 to a hundred million, something like that. Probably. Yeah. I, I understand this completely. It's it's, it is funny to me though, to think it becomes an existential crisis when you become ridiculously loaded. And I get it, but read through all the old books about like the Gilded Age, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbelts, there was no existential crisis about being so wealthy.

52:38They either spent their faces off partying. Have you ever read the Vanderbilt book? They literally passed out, rolled up dollar bills to smoke cigarettes out of. They were smoking money. They were just lighting money. They were spending so much money on parties and boats, and they spent all their money. Or it was Rockefeller and turned around and gave it all away and set up charities. They did not have – you had no existential crisis back then. You either spent or you gave it away. and I understand why we have the existential crisis now because of how interconnected we are and the internet and all this stuff.

53:11But it's interesting to think about that. That was never a thing before, really. Yeah. I think it's probably also isolating and lonely. Oh, I'm sure. When everybody knows, when you can't hide your wealth, it's like, dude, it's a headline. It's probably like becoming famous. Like if you're an actor, an actress that becomes famous, like you can only talk to other people in that position. There's not many of them. Yeah. So I think that the entire audience, ourselves included, would say, well, give me the money and I'd figure it out. I wouldn't be having an existential crisis. So I don't think this guy's not asking anybody to feel bad for him, but it's just an interesting thing that when you get, when you finally get the prize, it's like an empty feeling.

53:45Right. He's talking about like traveling around the world and meditating and all. It's, yes. It's also personality type, right? Like I think that there are people that money has all sorts of different impacts on them. Some, you know, are their best versions of themselves. Some are their worst. Some are in between. Some are. This is my thing about 10 million being the sweet spot. and having 50 or 60 turns it from being, this is amazing to, this is a responsibility. Yeah. I don't want to mess it up. Yeah. All right. Also, from that Sherwood post that I referenced, which is just very chart heavy, they have one that shows how sequel-itis changed movie titles.

54:21So they show the top 10 movies per year and then they show like how many of them are sequels. And if you look at 24, if you look into 25, it's a lot of sequels. Unfortunately, this is what's ruined movies, I guess. Lucas Shaw did a post called the fact that he looked at ticket sales by year, and he said rising prices have masked a 20-year decline in U.S. movie attendance. And he said domestic box office based on tickets sold peaked in 2002 and has fallen to 50 % from that high. He said even excluding the couple years most affected by the pandemic, inflation-adjusted revenue is near an all-time low based on data going back to 1985.

54:58And I guess that's part of it is a lot of the high-quality stuff that would have drawn people to the theater in the past is now just on TV. But I think you see this a lot with TV shows. There's a lot of TV shows that should be one season and done. And they come back for the second season, and it's not as good. And you just think, well, those have been movies in the past. We've lost those as movies because now they're TV shows. So I think that's a trade-off that I think I'm okay with in some ways and not okay with in other ways. You know how people are mad about LeBron for ruining the NBA with the Big Three stuff, how it became just a superstar type of league?

55:30I think Marvel did the same thing to the movie industry. Yeah. Right? It just became so bankable to just find this IP and just beat it to death. And they went too far. Yeah. That's fair. And yeah, the studio said, we can't make money on this stuff anymore. Yeah. So we're not going to make it. What happened to Juror No. 2? They like didn't do a wide release. So Juror No. 2 came to max last week. And I kind of like, I know I heard about it, but I kind of didn't see it and you're probably in the same situation. Like, wait, Clint Eastwood? Like, huh? So, Warner Brothers didn't do a wide release. I'm not exactly sure what the story is there.

56:10Probably because the movie kind of stunk. Oh, you thought it stunk. So, give me your take. It was a better premise than a movie. The premise was really interesting. What would you do in this situation? I love those. I thought they could have done a really good twist ending. Right? Diddy, didn't he? Diddy, didn't he? And then they leave it up to... I didn't like the ending at all. I thought the movie was way, could have been a half hour shorter. Okay. Dan LaRosa hates the movie and he doesn't understand why. So he's with me. Yeah, he's with you. I liked it. Chris, Jonathan liked it. I thought the one complaint that I had about the movie was because I love the premise like you did.

56:45The supporting cast was horrific and not J.K. Simmons or Kiefer, but who was just in like one scene that was kind of weird. But the other jurors were really bad actors. So Clint Eastwood is a 94-year-old director. He's just, you could tell the quality of his movies has just dropped off a little bit. That was part I saw. I didn't like the Mule either that much. Interesting. Yeah, interesting premise. Okay. Would appreciate your call on this situation. I agree that the first car should be a hand-me-down. Mine was a 1987 Ford Escort, and my wife got a 1984 Chevy Celebrity. The oldest car in our family is a 2017 model year compact SUV.

57:23My daughter will be a 14 in May and is already gunning for it. When she turns 16, it will be 10 years old with 85 ,000 miles on it. Probably worth around 12 or 13 grand. It's all wheel drive, plenty of safety features, and it's just a 2.0 liter four cylinder. Sounds perfect, right? Here's the catch. It's a Porsche McCann in carmine red. Based on all other criteria, it fits the bill. But what kind of monster would we create if we give our daughter a Porsche as her first car? Am I nuts to give her the car? Can't do it. can't do it can't do it you can't give your kid a red Porsche even if it's really used and you just can't yeah I agree I sorry sell it or you keep driving it I don't know can't do it yeah somebody sent us an email that made me chuckle love that we are getting more lazy river commentary Michael needs a seal sealable pouch for his phone this is waterpark 101 oh yeah you don't have one of those for your jet ski no you really don't have one of those because my wife has them all over the place now because she dropped her phone in the lake last year so yeah you waterproof thing and you can still use the phone on the waterproof i'll get one so you can put it on your neck you can put it in the holder i'm thinking about becoming the person who wears a mask on an airplane thoughts sick of getting sick the dude next to me on the way home was blowing his nose the entire time and i was i don't mind germs i'm sort of a what doesn't kill you makes a stronger type of guy but i don't want to get sick going somewhere or coming home.

58:55I'm surprised we don't see more. That's one thing I would have been wrong about that we don't see more on airplanes because it does seem like every time you go on an airplane, you're rolling the dice of getting sick. Now, do masks help you not get colds? I literally have no idea. It's kind of helped a little bit, right? I think we would know this. It is funny to think about all the stuff that people thought was going to happen following the pandemic that didn't, right? But what do you think about my idea? I said, it's not crazy, right? No, I don't think it's crazy at all. Yeah, because I floated by Robin And she said, well, people are going to be looking at you.

59:24I said, who cares? How many people we talked to in the last couple weeks that travel that are just deathly sick right now? Right? It totally throws your life into a tailspin when you're sick like that. All right. So I usually, because you told me to take, I take a, when I get into LaGuardia, I take a cab to the train station. And I always try to tell the cab, I'm going to the 30th and 31st in Astoria. And I was like, give me an address. I don't have one. All right. I was like, dude, it's a mile away. Yeah. And then I take the train in. go to queensborough plaza all the way down to grand central or whatever the next stop when i get off and right by the library but it was way too cold and i thought you know screw it i'm taking an uber i'm not gonna stand on the platform and wait so i took an uber and thinking you know i'll just work in the car with my little handy iphone hook up my laptop but it took me like 30 35 minutes to get in and i was like that's amazing this is so much faster because usually it would take me an hour to get an uber and then i got here and everyone's talking about congestion pricing bill sweet shows me his like phone of all the traffic and it's all green and having not thought about this at all because i don't live in a big city i don't have any like big takes on it but it was just shocking to me that this this happened and now i guess you have to pay nine dollars if you're gonna ride in congestion times because i did it at 8 a.m how much did it cost i didn't even look at my app to see how much it costs.

1:00:4670 maybe. That's F you money right there. Sorry. I think it was 70 bucks. It's not bad. Which is probably, but I couldn't believe the speed. I stopped at one light maybe and I didn't, I couldn't believe how fast it was. Okay. So, it probably stinks for the people who used to drive and now have to ride the subway or figure another way to get in. I saw a lot of people talking about this. I don't have any, I don't know the first thing about congestion pricing or is it good or bad? I don't know. For me, it was good because it took less time to get in here. But yeah, I think there's going to be some unbelievable economic papers.

1:01:20I think people are upset because they're trying to force people to go to take mass transit. And the subway has been pretty dangerous here. So people are understandably not too thrilled. I get it. That's fair. We walked out of a Knicks game last night. And there was two people who I thought could probably do me bodily harm that were walking around the city. Correct? And you. What? You just do a beeline across the street and put your head down. Oh, that's the move. That's the guy waving his arms and yelling. You just get out of Dodge. Yeah, you just keep walking. Somebody sent, there's an article on Esquire.

1:01:54You read Esquire, don't you? I still get the physical copy of Esquire and GQ. You know what? I feel like you are the exact profile of somebody that reads both those magazines. Oh, yeah. Right? Fair. 40s, best shape of their life. Hair. And I still would never buy any of the clothes. Fashion. because it's so, the clothes are so expensive in those magazines. So somebody emailed us, 50 things a man should not know. And number 37 was any human being who says they didn't have that on their bingo card. That's pretty good. I like it. That's a good take. That's a great take. All right, Ben. Which Harry Potter house he would have been sorted into?

1:02:26That's pretty good. I like it. Oh, this is a knock on me. The healthiest item on the Cheesecake Factory menu.

1:02:36That's fair. That's pretty good. Of the salmon broiled dry? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Steamed broccoli. All right. Recommendations. My kids had already seen Wicked. They'd seen the play with my wife. My wife has seen the play multiple times. Loves Wicked. Took the kids to see the play with her mother last year. Then took the kids to see the movie. They had loved it so much they wanted to see it again over break because we honestly after two weeks ran out of stuff to do. Let's bring them to a movie. So I had to go see Wicked. I kind of knew. I was like, oh, it's a Wizard of Oz spin. And I like to give my wife shit about it because it's like actually the witch in Wizard of Oz was not a bad person.

1:03:12And I said, you're rewriting history here. You can't do that. So I kind of give her crap because she loves Wicked Zone. Anyway, we went to see the movie. Hand up, did not realize how much of a musical it was. I think I texted you from the movie like, so this is a musical. Despite the fact that I'm not a fan of musicals, personal preference, don't mind people who are. It's just not my thing. Love musicals. It was a very well done movie. Oh yeah? It was. Did you enjoy yourself? I kind of enjoyed it. Again, it was like, I didn't need all the songs. Yeah. But it was very well done. My kids absolutely love it.

1:03:45They can't wait for the next one to come out. But I thought it was very well done. Is the next one coming out next year? Yeah, it's like a year away. Okay. So my kids, I can't wait for it to come out. Were they upset with the cliffhanger? I don't think so. No, I think they enjoyed it. Okay, I watched Blink twice on your recommendation. And I've put this in the bodies, bodies, bodies. And it's what's inside. Two other Michael Batnick suggestions I liked. This one I didn't like as much. No? A little too dark for me. And it was one of those where like a lot of these thriller movies, like you know there's going to be a twist.

1:04:20But I felt like this one was like, there's a twist coming. I loved it. I thought it was like too much of like, yeah, we know there's a twist coming. It was well done, but it was just too dark for me. How about Christian Slater? Still looking good. You know who wrote and directed that movie? I don't. Zoe Kravitz. Oh, shit. Yeah, which I did. She wrote it and directed it. All right. I came across Diner the other night for some reason. Kevin Bacon movie. I never heard of it. The 1970s. Like one of his very first movies. And it's a good like guys in the 1950s, like the Diner was their hangout. And God, Mickey Rourke, before he had his plastic surgery messed up.

1:04:57I know there's been stories on it. What a great looking guy he was. He really messed up by doing all the plastic surgery. Did he die? No, he's still alive. But I started going through the Kevin Bacon movies again, and I feel like I'm here to go against your Kevin Bacon chart. Animal House, Diner, Tremors, Footloose, River Wild, JFK, A Few Good Men, Murder in the First, Sleepers, Mystic River, Crazy Stupid Love. He's been in some really good movies. I think your point was like— Footloose? I mean, I don't like Footloose, but that was like— You really do like musicals. I've actually never seen Footloose.

1:05:27No, my point was— But he never delivered to the box office. Is that it? He was like the 14th choice for all the good movies that he didn't get. And now it's not his fault because he was going up against Mr. Hanks and, you know, that whole cast of characters. True. But my point was he's been in a lot of stinkers. I think that was the point of the chart, right? Okay. I picked out his classics. All right. One more thing. My kids are into the Mr. Beast stuff, which I don't want to be the adult that like shits on the kids' trashy stuff because I watched plenty of trash back in the day. I watched dating shows.

1:05:55I watched the real world road rules challenges. Like my parents, I'm sure, thought, what is our kid watching? Core TV. Were you a Judge Judy guy? I never got into the court TV, actually. So anyway, my kids watch the new Mr. Beast show on Amazon. And I never really got the Mr. Beast thing, just whatever. I'm past that. But all he does is he puts people in situations of my kids are constantly saying, what would you do in this situation? Like, would you do this thing for a lot of money or not? So I guess that's his whole, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but that's the whole thing. Like, we're going to put you in an uncomfortable situation.

1:06:25You're going to have to potentially screw people over or do this weird thing for lots of money. And that's the whole thing. That's it? That's pretty much it, yeah. Is it good? My kids like it. It's, eh, yeah. It's okay. I come in and out of it. Is it his money that he's giving away? Is that sort of what makes it so cool? Probably not. Probably not. I'm sure it's Amazon's money. Okay. All right. Oh, you see this 8-bit Christmas poster in here? Okay. You ever see this movie? We tried it this year. Didn't like it? My kids gave up on it. I thought it was okay. I thought I was watching it. Somebody emailed.

1:07:00It's a Christmas movie that you should add to the list. Okay. Didn't draw my kids in, but we had other stuff going on. Okay. All right. I'm here to say that if Linus were on Netflix, it would be a massive show. Okay. I binge watched not just season one, but also season two. And there are phone down shows like White Lotus, Severance, right? Where you're dialed in. I would say that Linus is as close to the line of a phone down show, but also, but it is on the side of a background show. In other words, you could have it on the second screen while you're working and still. I feel like Taylor Sheridan shows are, it's okay to be on a screen a little bit.

1:07:42Yeah, because there's a bunch of dialogue that you can completely zone out of. Yeah. But the action is serious. Morgan Freeman is cooking. Nicole Kidman too, right? I watched the first episode. Yeah. Morgan Freeman is in it a bit, but when he is, he's throwing 175 miles an hour. Remember Doug from House of Cards? Oh, yeah. He was in Penguin 2, right? He was in Penguin 2. You know who he looks like in our universe? Wes Gray. Ah, I see it. Right? Yep, I see it. I'm just telling you right now, anytime there's incoming, get down, I'm in. Okay, yep. Right? It's that type of a show. It kind of goes right into it too, right?

1:08:24Doesn't mess around. It's good. It's good, clean fun. It's only eight episodes. She was on... What's her name? Zoe Saldana. Yeah, she was on Smartless recently. It was very good. She was in the... What's that Amelia movie people are talking about? Or Emily? Amelia Perez. Amelia Perez. It's on Netflix. I thought about watching it. It's got Golden Globe stuff. We'll see. Is that also musical? From now on, you are an exclusively a musical guy. What was it? La La Land a few years ago? I never saw that one. Ryan Gosling. five minutes I turned it off yeah no offense no offense to musical it's not my thing okay like I don't see you can't move a movie plot forward with a musical number it's tough alright we did it in person how'd it feel not bad John great we're good alright alright keep the emails coming animalsparates at the compound news dot com thank you for listening have a great weekend and week there's an awkward close i don't think it's worked done we'll see you next time let's try