This is a Good Thing (EP.352)

25:41No, dude, that's back up. 52-week highs, it's back up. Okay, these go back to 2021. Okay. Yeah, I guess gas prices have been rising. If I wanted to be smart like a TV soundbite guy, like you would. What would you say? What would you say? What would you say? Seasonality. This is seasonality kicking in. It always happens. It always happens like this. I don't know if that's true, but I'm guessing. Okay, so the last two weeks, I have been called both a communist and an out-of-touch elitist. So I think that means I'm doing something right or something really wrong. And I think the point is all of these takes that we have on things like inflation and economic growth and net worth and all that, they have to be very nuanced takes.

26:24Because if you take a stand, someone's going to be angry with you. So I think we got called a communist because we said that young people deserve 3 % mortgage rates or something. The point is any of these stories that we're talking about, and I'm going to talk about grocery store inflation now that I talked about last week. If you have people saying, great take, I totally agree with you, or people saying, no, you're an idiot. it, that means it's obviously not black and white and there's gray. And that's my whole point here. So I did a take on grocery store inflation. I sussed out the numbers a little bit.

26:55You're Homer Simpson. This is Ben's backing away from the takes. Oh, no, no, no. I'm just trying to provide more nuance. But I actually think I didn't really back away from the takes. So if you look at US CPI, the regular one, overall CPI versus wages, wages have grown faster than CPI since 2020 by a little bit. Barely. like 1 % more in total. But food at home and food away from home, which is just eating out and then grocery store has been running much higher. So it's like 26, 27 % versus 20 % for the overall CPI. So people do have a gripe about the grocery store thing. And that's one of those prices like gas that you see all the time.

27:30So it makes sense. This shocked me though. I looked at it in the 2010. So 2010 to 2019, look at this CPI food at home, that's grocery store prices versus average hourly earnings. Earnings grew 27 % in the 2010s and grocery store prices grew less than 9%. And everyone is asking, I posted this chart and all these people on Twitter are going, what explains this? And all I could think of was lower commodity prices. But my whole point is this is more about the news than anything. We don't celebrate when stuff like this happens. We only talk about it when it's the other thing. I think you're sort of right.

28:06You're definitely right on that last point, but it's not about the news, dude. It's about people who go to the grocery store every single week. And the numbers don't, I mean, that's what it's about. That's it. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's totally psychological or not because you see those numbers all the time. Yeah, you're right. Yes. And I get why it makes people so angry and you get the viral video. Also, a lot of people did point out the guy in the viral video last year was said he spent$123 on two meals. I don't know what he was buying. Cause that that's ridiculous. And if you, if you say, I can't buy two meals for less than$60, then you have to, you have to, I'm sorry, you have to change your habits.

28:43If it's really killing your budget that bad, stop buying filet mignon or whatever you're buying. Wait, are we talking about a family of four, a meal for$60 at the grocery store? That seems reasonable, no? I don't know. I'm just saying, I bake tacos. I do like taco, like in like a crock pot. How much is turkey? I use turkey. Ten bucks? What's a bayonet cost Michael$10. I don't know. Turkey is 10 bucks. Peppers are another six. I'm completely making this up. You're making everything up. You have no idea. All right. Tally this up. The taco powder can't be more than$3. Rotel tomatoes. What else do I use?

29:25Rotel tomatoes are good. An onion, some sour cream and some cheese. That can't be more than$35. Go to Taco Bell at that point. Eat tacos every night. There you go. Okay, so one other thing people said about inflation is a lot of people have been chiming in saying, okay, even if inflation isn't as bad as some people think, the quality is way worse now. And that's the thing that irks me. And I thought about this. I'm sure there's a lot of stuff you could point to. But all the big things, TVs, computers, phones, houses, clothes, cars, shoes, aren't they all better quality now than they were in the past?

30:03Who's saying quality is getting worse? Oh, a few people commented on that. I don't know if that was a – I think that's – I don't think that argument holds up. A few people. It sounds like one person. Okay. Well, your Audi for sure is lower quality. And I just want to – a lot of people said because I said I don't want to say Porsche. And a lot of people said, no, Ben, you're not only saying Porsche wrong. You're saying Audi wrong. It's actually Audi. Yeah, it's Audi. Maybe it's a Midwest thing. I used to own an Audi. And literally the people at the dealership called it Audi. They did not call it Audi.

30:35Interesting. You know what I noticed early in the show? I wasn't going to call you out because it sort of slows down the show, and it's rude. You said grandpa? Yes. So I say grandpa. Is that a Midwestern New York thing? I don't know. Could be. I feel like that's splitting hairs. That's splitting peas here. Well, those are not – No, you said grandpa. I said grandpa. Okay. I think you're the only person that says that. As I'm saying, it shows – It's less show to us. Why don't call you out? Okay. But it's definitely not Audi. Okay. That was one of your, that was like, no, that was like your closet.

31:12What did you dresser? That take, how do you say grandpa? That was like your dresser take. Who has dresses anymore? And everyone raises their hand. No one says grandpa. I do. I think it's just you. Wait, I have, I have a quality. I have a gripe. Okay. I own a lot of white sneakers. They get dirty really fast, don't they? Perhaps three. they get dirty really fast. So I fell for it again because I'm a sucker. I saw an Instagram shoe cleaner. And what a crock of shit all these Instagram ads are. Like especially the cleaners. I got taken this past week. Tell me about yours and all that in mine. All right.

31:47So I saw like a, I'm going to say the word vibrator. I don't know what else to say. It was like a toothbrush vibrator. That's what it looked like. It was a circle and it vibrated and it gave you foam. So I sprayed the shoe, trying to get the stuff out, wiped it down. Looked nothing like a commercial. My sneakers are still dirty. That's why they keep making white shoes. They look so good when you get them new, and then they go bad. You have to throw them away and get new ones. That's why they keep doing it. I wear them into the ground. What did you get that was crappy quality? Oh, it was my kids.

32:25Have you heard of this dribble-up thing? It's like an app on your iPad, and you get a basketball or a soccer ball, and it gives you drills and it counts how many dribbles you do. There's like a chip in the ball. But my kids do it inside and it's so loud. So this thing on Instagram. Oh, I saw that. The quiet basketball? Yes, a quiet basketball. And it looked awesome. And we got them and it's like this foam piece of crap you get like at Dave and Buster's or something. My kids love playing with them, but you have to hit it so hard to get it to come out. It doesn't dribble at all. So don't get taken for that one.

32:56I got three of them, one for each of my kids. while we're on kids last night I showed the boys The Sandlot which is a movie that I probably haven't seen in 30 years and definitely holds up Kobe loved the scene where Squints kisses the lifeguard what was her name something peppercorn or peppercorn I wasn't really paying that close attention I showed my kids that a couple years ago it does still hold up Black Friday savings are here at the Home Depot which means it's time to add new cordless power to your collection. Right now, when you buy a select battery kit from one of our top brands like Ryobi or Milwaukee, you'll get a select tool from that same brand for free.

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34:14Make your next cocktail with Tito's. Distilled and bottled by Fifth Generation Inc. Austin, Texas. 40 % alcohol by volume. Savor responsibly. All right, here's the surprising one from Axios. Monthly U.S. grocery and dining out spending. Look at how much higher dining out spending is than grocery store spending now. It was kind of tracking along the same lines for much of the 2010s. And now eating out is so much higher. Do you remember when people during the pandemic were saying like 50 % of all restaurants are going to go out of business? Yeah, did they? Restaurants are just booming. How many restaurants did you see go out of business in your town?

34:48Not many, right? Well, I wonder what is causing this? Is a grocery store's food is so expensive, you might as well just go out? So here, for example. But don't you think it's way more expensive to eat out than it is to – the food going out is so much more expensive. Well, let me ask you this. Do you cook steaks at home? Not really. Okay. Well, I do. And recently, I had been getting steak from the local grocery store. And it's not great quality. and the steak is, I don't know, 18 bucks, give or take, right? For a steak for one. So yesterday I went to, like, there's a local butcher, really good quality, like really good quality.

35:38I got a New York strip and it was 29 bucks. And I thought to myself, and it was noticeably better than the stuff that I get in the store. And I thought to myself, I'm not, Why would I spend$29 for a steak that I'm going to cook at home? You could spend, I don't know, how much does a steak cost in New York City? You know, whatever, depending on. $45? It could be more. It could be. And you know they're going to cook it better for you. And you know it's going to be amazing, perfectly cooked. Right. So does that partly explain people's habits? I think people just loved. They hated getting it taken away from them, and they couldn't go out to restaurants, and then it brought back.

36:16But look how far back the pandemic was. It's been going up ever since. It's so much higher than it was. But isn't that also because restaurant wages have risen so much more, so prices had to go even higher? I don't know. It's hard to explain. Look at it. It's still going up. It's like not slowing down. Now, is this a combination of people going out more and food getting more expensive? I feel like this is the show. The theme of this show is numbers we can't explain. can we get a damn economist in here it's a lot of numbers that just don't seem to to make sense i think that's my biggest surprise about inflation is that how many people and i know we're going to get emails saying no you're wrong i do this but how many people complain about inflation but then don't change their habits that's maybe it's like well so what yeah i you can complain about price you change your habit why should i change i think that's but that's the part is the people who say like the inflation is killing my family, my family's budget in this, but then don't change their habits.

37:20It's like, no, I deserve to buy this. I've always bought this. And that's, that's the surprising thing to me is that there hasn't been more trading down than there has. Yeah. All right. Here's a good thing. A good inflationary news. Deflation, in fact, in car rentals. Nationally, the cost of rent to cars fall in car rental prices are averaging this from the journal. $38 a day. That's down 8 % from last year or$3. Look at this chart that we made. So the car and truck rental CPI index is how much off its peak? Let's see. Bloop, bloop, bloop. 20 % off its peak. Remember that one month in 2021 where this thing was up, car and truck rental CPI was up over 100%.

38:09Now it's falling big time. this is one of the few places where prices are actually coming down like meaningfully in fact i'm taking the family to california and staying there for our work trip um and we just rented a car not that bad not bad not nothing but not that bad i guess i did when for an suv it's not that bad i think mine was lower this year than it was last year for the suv for for our spring break trip that's good so this should mean used car prices should continue to fall as well Because the reason that used car prices went crazy is because the car rental agencies got rid of them and they had to buy them back and all that, right?

38:47I remember a lot of cars were being delivered with like the semiconductors weren't in there. Yes. That's all better, right? I think so. All right, Ben, you threw a chart in here from John Arnold showing the months in recession for the US economy based on different 30-year periods. What's your takeaway? So it starts in the 1800s because that's when the National Bureau of Economic Research started keeping track of this stuff or they backdated it somehow. and it goes from 180 months to 150 months to 90 months to 60 months to 36 months in the latest, which is 1990 to 2023. So every successive 30-year period, you spend less time in a recession.

39:36And my takeaway is there's a lot of Fed haters these days, but this is partly because of the Fed, is it not? I mean, part of it is also the US economy is becoming more mature, but the guard Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. How much? That's a pie chart. How much of this is the Fed responsible for? A third? A third of the Fed. Really? A third. That's that high. Oh, really? No, I don't know about that. A third of the Fed, a third of the economy becoming more mature, and then a third just the size and dynamism of the U.S. economy? How's that? All right, let me ask you this. how much of this do you think corporate America deserves more or less credit than the Fed?

40:23That's a good point. So that'd be the, that's on the dynamism bucket. So the fact that corporate CEOs now just know how to better allocate the resources and play to the trend of what's played in the environment and all that sort of thing. Yeah, put their head between their legs when they're expecting a recession. sort of the Fed has something to do with this. I just, I don't know. Good progress, though. I'll take it. Yeah, no doubt. You know what we haven't spoken about in a while? We've got two topics in here. Labor market and layoffs. They have not been getting much attention from us. All right, let's keep them in there because - What's to say?

41:04Labor market - I'm saying, there's nothing to talk about. Labor market strong, no layoffs. Keep them in there. It's going to matter eventually. All right. Hey, guys. First-time emailer, long-time listener, was listening to when I heard you guys talk about the Coinbase scamming, the story sounded exactly what just happened to me. I got a call from some guy pretending to be from Coinbase security who was calling because they had detected potentially fraudulent activity. I asked for proofreads from Coinbase. The guy was even somehow able to send me an email from help at coinbase.com. I punched in some info while the guy was on the line.

41:34Conversation continued until my Spidey sense tingled and I decided to lock him to my account. In those intervening five minutes, I was drained of 10K. Lesson here, scammers are constant. And if you get a call from Coinbase or anyone, hang up and call the list of customer service number online to verify the issue actually exists. Yeah. Anytime. I think I spoke about this last week that I was getting a call from American Express and I just called back. Anytime you get a call, these people are really sophisticated. Anytime you get a phone call, just hang up and go online and find the customer service number and call them.

42:07Just think about how hard it is to get a hold of a customer service person when you call them. How often do you get put on hold or they have to call you back in 20 minutes because you're placed in line? So how easy do you think it's going to be for them to actually call you? That's never going to happen. No, it happens. It does happen. I get called for fraudulent activity. I mean, that's not a good thing, is it? My account's being used fraudulently? No. Okay. Okay, HODL 15 Capital, US Bitcoin ETF started trading 10 weeks ago. Despite the large GBTC ad flows, the ETFs bought 220 ,000 Bitcoin on a net basis with seven consecutive net positive weeks.

42:45Balchunas has a chart from Todd Sohn. Nice look at 2024 year-to-date ETF flows by category. I think I've been slacking on the flows. We haven't spoken much about flows lately, but this is a good one. So I was talking to some European fund managers at lunch today, and they were asking me, about the Bitcoin ETFs because they have, they've had the ETFs in Europe for a while now. I don't know, a year or two. They beat us by quite a bit, right? And they were discussing how they have a decent amount of assets, but it never really moved the needle that much. And they were just saying how they were surprised at how much it has moved the needle in the US.

43:22So what do you think accounts for that? Which part? Why are we so much more interested in crypto than our European counterparts? Yeah. And my only answer was, well, it's BlackRock and Fidelity are two of the biggest ones. Yeah. It's a huge part of it. That was the best answer I could come up with. And how about marketing? It works. Yeah. And I think there's something to the fact that people in the US are a little more speculative. Is that fair? Yeah, for sure. So anyway, 2022 category ETF flows. Spot Bitcoin, XGBTC, 23.6 billion. intermediate duration bonds,$16 billion. I guess that's people coming out of short and ultra short, I would guess.

44:05Tech,$15, et cetera, et cetera. On the opposite side, commodities. That's interesting, given the performance we just spoke about recently. And gold. Wow. Gold at an all-time high and money's pouring out. Huh. That's surprising. Can you imagine if you were a gold bug and didn't pivot to Bitcoin? and had yeah I could no I could I could definitely imagine that what I can't imagine is being a gold person and well are they taking profits I don't know again theme of the show I don't know all right Dave Noddick credit to us for admitting it yeah this shit's hard a lot of stuff we don't know Dave Noddick had a post Bitcoin endgames and the new hyper agents if the hodlers are right they're also the new elite We've spoken before about at least my general disdain for the Bitcoin mindset.

45:02It feels like a short America type of mentality. And obviously, there's a lot of just to say grifters and scam artists in the spaces. Hopefully, this time does feel a little different that maybe the ETF is more of the adult in the room and there's more positivity surrounding it. I hope so. And listen, obviously, I'm paid with a broad brush. Like there's obviously, you know, respectable people that have good intentions in the space amongst all of the other shit. But so anyway, the point that Dave was making is that if Bitcoin works, like in terms of creating another financial system, you know, forget about just an asset class, but really like a system, like what are the actual, what are like the real implications of that?

45:48And they're not pretty. somebody tweeted one of the biggest people in this space, one of the biggest evangelists tweeted, at least 24 % of your wealth has been invisibly seized by the government since January 2020. And this type of shit makes my blood boil. I can't say that this is like disingenuous at best and it's just f***ing toxic grossness and a lot worse than that. And if these people, If Bitcoin really does go to a million, these are people are going to be sitting on enormous sums of wealth and are going to have serious influence. And that part of it is horrifying, like truly, truly horrifying.

46:33Do you think they're going to have – do you think anyone listens to these people anymore though besides people who have always? Yes, yes, yes, absolutely. And guess what? What if this dude has$30 billion to throw around? You know, the ironic thing is that people who say that the true inflation has sucked away your money or the true inflation rate is like 15%. That's like some of the crypto people. They don't ever say Bitcoin's not at an all-time high until you account for 70 % inflation or whatever it's been, according to them. Right? I feel like they need to use shadow stats for their new inflationary highs.

47:06So, yeah, this is the gross part. And Dave brings up a good point. Like, you know, if they're right, then the world is going to look a little bit different. Okay. So get ready for a world of worse macro takes. I mean, that and worse. That and worse. It's bad. I mean, obviously not showing anything other than this, than the inflation rate, like not showing wages or assets. And you know what? It's a person who is educated that knows better too. That's the worst part. They know better. They know what they're doing. Like, and this illusion, delusion, nonsense that it's going to flatten the financial system and bring fairness and equality.

47:51Give me a f***ing break, dude. Seriously. Yes, we know that that's not happening. So are there benefits? Yeah, sure, but this ain't it. Anyway. Okay, real estate. There was big news this week. Yes. So the NAR, they ponied up whatever with the lawsuit. So they're paying a bunch of money. And the whole deal was someone sued who had to pay the seller's commission. They were the seller, so they had to pay both commissions. So are commissions really going to fall from this? So here's some stuff from the New York Times. A professor of real estate said, This will blow up the market and force a new business model.

48:35economists estimate commissions could reduce by 30 % driving down home prices across the board. I don't know about the home price thing. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Starting in July, most home sellers will not have to make an upfront offer for how much they'll pay the buyer's agent. That means home sellers won't cover the cost of the buyer's agents. Buyers could have to pay themselves out of pocket. Companies are experimenting with different structures. Some are talking about a flat fee. So they profiled this guy in Los Angeles who represents buyers for a flat fee of like$9 ,700. That's for buyers.

49:03For sellers, he charges almost$16 ,000. Do you think that this is really going to have meaningful change to the industry? The stock price of Zillow seems to think. A lot of people are saying that it will. It's more of an I'll believe it when I see it kind of thing. But the problem a lot of people are saying is that some people could be out of pocket for stuff they wouldn't have been out of pocket before, but it's going to drive the cost down. Do you think this will actually increase the turnover? If prices are cheaper, will houses turn over more? I don't think so. Once we get away from the 3 % handcuffs or whatever, isn't that possible?

49:37If you don't have to pay as much friction? No, nobody's ever said, I want to sell my house, but I don't want to pay the agent. And therefore, I'm not going to sell my house. Good point. But do you think that we're going to see some fee wars here where this, it does get easier, though? Listen, this is going to bring in competition. There's going to be agents that are like, listen, I'll do it for 2%. Yeah. Yeah. So Americans pay a hundred billion dollars in real estate commissions annually. Yeah. I think you're right though, that people don't imagine if all that money went into Bitcoin where it should be, but you're right.

50:08People don't ever look at it and go, I was going to sell my house, but I got to pay 6%. No one does that. Uh, so I'm saying I've never been, I sold, I sold, I sold my house. I sold my apartment in Brooklyn. You know why? Because I remember when I bought it, you know what the agent did? She met us at the apartment, opened the lock and said, here's your 700 square feet. And I looked around and I said, eh, cool. So when I was ready to sell it, he said, I'm not paying somebody 3 % for that. What are you out of your mind? So how did you list it? I don't know, on StreetEasy, on Zillow, whatever. Okay.

50:44And I'm not, listen, for that situation, you don't need an agent, right? There's definitely cities, places, wherever, where it'd be impossible. A nightmare to sell your house without a professional. That apartment was not one of those places. And I didn't feel like paying it. So one of the stocks that I've been most wrong about and the stocks that I still pick is Zillow. I've been wrong about it for a while because it got crushed the first time that this came out. And I said, this is bullish for Zillow, isn't it? How come they won't be just the marketplace for everyone that puts buyers and sellers together?

51:15But they fell 15 % when this story hit. Redfin fell as well. Now, I know that they get paid by realtors for this to be listed on their sites and stuff, but I don't know why this isn't bullish for Zillow. That they can be the one that puts people together. Listen, based on your lack of understanding of Zillow's business model, and I would say mine too, and the fact that the stock fell 15 % in a day, let's just say that the market is probably right. probably i i would have assumed zillow is going to be the one to step in and and take the the missing pieces here i don't apparently or you know it'd be funny you know it'd be funny if in six weeks from now zillow's uh recaptures all those losses and i could say hey bed great call you were right gaps get filled right yeah i i don't maybe yeah maybe it was just everyone selling real estate stocks uh so guess what happened that brings up wait that wait wait That brings up a good question.

52:08Because this wasn't a gap. This happened intraday. So there was no gap. If this happened after hours, you're damn right, the gap would get filled. Why? What's the difference? There was no gap. There's no gap on the chart. Oh, it has to be after hours. Gaps are overnight. Okay. So if we have 24-7 trading someday, gaps are gone completely. You're thinking, eh? I'm thinking. All right. That would blow a hole in my trading strategy. Yes, it would. All right. Guess what happens when you build more houses and apartments? Prices go down? Good thing. So the Wall Street Journal had a story about Austin.

52:47It's funny because they kind of, they poo-pooed this and said it as a bad thing. I look at, so it says America's once hottest housing market. Austin is running in reverse. And they're saying so many people came to Austin that they built so much, so many more homes, so many apartments that rents in Austin are around 7 % in the last year, more than any other city, according to apartmentlist.com. There's a glut of luxury apartments. Landlords are offering weeks of free rent. They're offering concessions. And they're saying not as many people are coming to Austin anymore, but they built too much. So home prices have fallen more than anywhere else in Austin, which they were, to be fair, they were up a lot too.

53:20But this is a good thing. So they're saying that in Texas, it's way easier to buy a home that's far fewer regulation, or to build a home, far fewer regulations. I think this is a good thing, right? You know, we need an Animal Spirits t-shirt. This is a good thing. It's a great phrase. You use it a lot. Yeah. Yes, this is a good thing. Yeah. This is like, if you want to solve this stuff, and someone asked me a couple weeks ago, okay, smart guy, how would you actually fix a housing crisis? Because the Fed can't do it. We've already talked about that. The Fed, if they lower rates and housing prices take off, people are going to blame, or if they lower mortgage rates, housing prices take off, people are going to blame the Fed.

53:57But the Fed can't control housing supply. I think the only thing that would honestly help, because people said, well, you have to go to local level and restrictions. and that, I don't know how you fix that mess. The government would have to, like they did in the 50s, literally say they're going to back the loans by home builders. They're saying any home loan that you put out there, we're going to guarantee it. That's what they did in the 50s and they built a ton of homes. I think that's the only thing I would really get supply to where it needs to be. Something like that, like a blanket guarantee.

54:25We're not going to let you home builders go bust if you overbuild. Just start building and we'll back them. Up to the first four million houses or something like that. That's my solution. So you are a communist. Yes, it's come full circle. Okay, so earlier in the show, and really for a long time, we've been asking the question, why aren't people changing their behavior? If they're annoyed with prices, you don't like the prices? Don't pay the prices. Do something about it. Well, guess what? Young people are responding, probably because they have no choice but to change their behavior when it comes to where they live.

55:02So the St. Louis Fed put out a piece and it's called By the Generations, Location Patterns of Different Cohorts. Here we go. Members, so they're looking at different, where do people live in their 20s based on different generations? Members of the silent generation were the most likely to live in urban areas early in their lives. Baby boomers, Gen X, and millennials all had similar patterns. Each subsequent generation became increasingly less likely to live in large central metros and more likely to live in medium and small metros, like Austin, I guess, for example. Gen Z in particular has started off living in less urbanized areas compared with their predecessors.

55:41Only 39 % live in large central metros and 11 % live in small metros. Location patterns early in life most likely reflect choices based on career prospects or affordability. If large cities become relatively less, became relatively more expensive across the years, young people early in their careers may be less likely to live there. So silent generation, we're looking at like large cities. It was 58 % of people between the ages of 20 to 29 lived there. 50 % of baby boomers, 45 % for Gen X, 44 % for millennials, and a big drop, only 39 % of millennials, I'm sorry, of Gen Zers live in a large city.

56:20So they have no choice but to respond to the hand that they've been dealt, which is not a great hand. Yeah, which is too bad for young people, because that's the time you want to live in a big city. You share an apartment with four roommates or something, you live in the cheap, and there's all this stuff to do. That's the person who should be willing to slum it for a little bit in a studio apartment or whatever, a three-bedroom with other friends. So that is actually too bad. But obviously it's becoming prohibitively cost-ineffective to live in those cities. So if we're ranking research done by regional feds, I think St.

56:53Louis has got to be close to the top. They put out some good research. We've been using them a lot lately. I do like the Missouri one, both the Kansas City and the Missouri.

57:03Good one. All right. The Wall Street Journal had a piece on young people being disillusioned with life. They're more depressed, all this stuff that we've been talking about. So they have this chart that goes back to the 70s talking about it's hard to have hope for the world. And you wonder if there is a purpose to life given the world situation. And this has increased. You could say if you look at this, the axis is truncated a little bit. So it's not a huge, huge increase, but it's an increase. So my question to you is this. If we want our children who are going to be growing up in the information age and social media and stuff, how do we avoid this fate for them of being more depressed because they're online all the time?

57:47Is it possible to avoid that fate? Yeah, of course. You don't pay for internet. Done. Problem solved. uh well i haven't given this much thought uh here's my knee jerk response lots of kisses shower your kids with love and in spot inspiration and give them confidence and i don't know i get i kiss my boys all the time and i it's that's i plan on continuing to give them kisses forever all right i do also wonder how much of this is covid in that part of it not the answer you were looking for i don't know no okay so here's here's my answer uh sports extracurriculars pushing sure them to hang out with their friends more be outside as much as possible i think that's the kind of stuff where get them away from a screen as much as that's why i think sports are so much more important now because it not only is exercise and teamwork and camaraderie and all this stuff and hard work and discipline but it just gets you out away from the screen and that's why I think sports is so important.

58:47No doubt. So do you think we're ever going to get a younger generation that comes up and says, you know what? No, we're not doing this social media stuff anymore. We're past it. Is there going to be a younger generation that comes up and says, we're nostalgic for the way things used to be. We're not going to fall in line just because everyone else did. Is that what you're thinking? I hope so. I would love to see that, right? Probably, right? I don't know. These companies are so good at addicting the youths. They really are. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. All right. Survey of the week. Two-thirds of U.S.

59:17adults prefer watching movies on streaming rather than theaters according to a new poll. This is from Disgusting Film. Yeah, no shit. I would say it's like nine-tenths. Who goes to the theater except for me? Everybody likes streaming. Yes, it's just, it's way easier. It really is. And the fact that you could break it up into, Dune is like three hours. My wife and I are having a hard time figuring out when we're going to go see it, the new Dune. Yeah. It's hard to find a time. All right, I've got a trillion dollar idea for Apple. You ever hang up, you ever press end on your call like a half a second after the other person presses end and you accidentally dial somebody?

59:57All the time. I do that. All the time, right? And then you have to scramble to the message to tell them that it was just a butt dial before they can call you back. which by the way, for those people who are calling you back, Chris, then dude, if I call you and I hang up half a second later, you don't have to text me. Was it a pocket dial? Cause guess what? If it wasn't a pocket dial, I'll call you back. I have a friend. now, now if you say, well, Michael, what if this person texts you an hour later? No, no, no, Chris texts you immediately. He knows it's a pocket dial. Yes. You know, so here's my fix.

1:00:33If you hit the call button, within three seconds of your previous call ending, I'm okay with Apple saying, do you really want to make this call? Yeah, it's like Google, when you send an email, you can say, undo that email really quick because you have like 10 seconds to do it or whatever. It should be like that. Yeah, it should say, are you sure? If it's within three seconds, certainly one second of a previous phone call, it should say, are you sure? Thank you. I'm not sure. I don't want to do that call. I like that idea. Thank you. Tim Cook on the phone. All right, recommendations. I've realized, and I know I've mentioned this movie before, but I had a lot of time to kill.

1:01:10I had like an eight hour flight here. So I watched a lot of movies and I realized I have a favorite airplane movie of all time. And maybe it's just because it's a flying movie, but, uh, up in the air with Clooney. That's great. It's so good. It's, and it's even better to watch an airplane, but here's the thing. This movie came out in 2009, I believe. So dated. It's well, it's, it's a time capsule of the great financial crisis though, because it's literally a movie about firing people. And they also talk about how housing prices are so low and crashing in the movie. So I just think it's interesting to think about movies that are made of the current period versus the great financial crisis.

1:01:44Because right now, the only movies people are making is like dumb money that's about speculation. Like you wouldn't, you can't really make a movie about inflation right now or something that would actually make sense. It has to be about speculation and people going crazy. How about this idea that somebody would get on an airplane to go around the country you're firing somebody instead of just doing it on Zoom. Yes. Well, that's the whole idea of the show, of switching from firing people in person to going on Zoom. What show? The movie, I mean. Sorry, that's the idea of the movie. Do you remember the plot?

1:02:14Oh, I don't. I guess I don't remember it that well. Oh, the plot is - Is that what happens at the end? The plot is Anna Kendrick comes in as a young person, and she wants to fire people over Zoom. Oh, right, right, right. And Clooney's the old guy. Anyway, I have a confession to make. As a World War II buff, hand up, I loved Band of Brothers. I loved The Pacific. I can't get into Masters of the Air. Yeah, I've heard other people say something similar. I think it's because it takes place all in the planes, and it feels like a video game, and all the guys have the masks on, so you can't really tell who's who.

1:02:42And also because Austin - That doesn't sound great to me. So it looked awesome, and it's pretty good, but I can't really get into it. And also Austin Butler still sounds like Elvis on the show, and I can't get over his accent. He still talks like Elvis, even though he doesn't look like him anymore. Also, I want to give you credit on the gentleman. We're two episodes in and it's great. Total Guy Ritchie. Love it. So I finished it. I binged it. I actually had a lot of time this weekend, which was wonderful. No plans Friday, no plans Saturday. That is my type of weekend. So I finished The Gentleman, but I'm kind of sad.

1:03:15I feel like I sped through it too quickly. It was so good. Like one of the more enjoyable shows I've seen in a while. It was so, so good. Is it set up for another season? Oh yeah, of course. Okay. Just making sure. I didn't know if it was a one season deal. It's phenomenal. I don't know if you got to this part. This is definitely not a spoiler, but just in terms of a character that appears. Mr. French from The Departed. Have you seen him yet? No. Okay. Excellent show. Based on your recommendation, as well as a friend of the show, Phil Huber, I watched Wanderlust. And I don't know how I missed that.

1:03:50I don't even remember it coming out. And I looked, it was from 2012. So maybe that was during my dark days, but I watched it. and it's exactly what I hoped it would be. I mean, it wasn't a great movie, but it was our type of time capsule type movie, right? It's a decent Paul Rudd one, yeah. Yeah, Paul Rudd is so funny. But them trying to sell their house at the beginning and they can't, right? Or they lose money on it. Yeah, there's a few very laugh out loud Paul Rudd scenes. He is definitely one of the comedic geniuses of our day. You're always happy with what you get from him. You're never like disappointed in a Paul Rudd movie.

1:04:28Yeah, it's exactly, exactly what I was hoping for it to be. Okay. So Dune 2, this take is not hot, but I can't believe, so I saw it in IMAX. By the way, Josh and I were, we saw it in the big, like the Lincoln Center IMAX. And apparently there was, it was a Ghostbusters premiere that night. So when I was walking to work that day at the New York City Public Library, I saw people in Ghostbusters costumes. I was like, oh, that's weird. I didn't really think much of it. But then when we got to the theater, it was a premiere. So the car was outside, the mobile or whatever. And there was a bunch of people in Ghostbuster costumes.

1:05:04I had no idea that there was like truckies. Do you think there were plants though? Like they planted them there? No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, they were in there. These were certified weirdos. Did you know that that was a thing? I did not. Speaking of Paul Rudd, I think that was, he was pretty good in the last Ghostbusters too. Is he in the new one? The new one looks very good. So I haven't seen Ghostbusters in 30 years. Does it hold up? I showed my kids. My son is into the Stay Puft Marshmallow guy. It actually does hold up. I think just because Bill Murray is so good. Obviously, the special effects don't hold up, but it's...

1:05:36You know what? It's high time I showed it to Kobe. Okay, so anyway, so Dune 2. Dune 2 was... I have to really think about this, but certainly a top 10 movie experience I've ever had in my life. I didn't love the first one. I liked it, but it was too much work, right? I didn't understand what was going on. I liked the first one. Okay. No, I liked it too. I just, I didn't love it. Yeah. I can't believe how good this movie was. Like, Denis is just such a god. I cannot believe. I walked out of the theater and - Because of the plot or like the visuals or what? Or everything? Not the plot, just everything.

1:06:14Everything. It was such a fucking masterpiece. Because to me, it's kind of like Game of Thrones where I don't really know what's going on at all times, but I don't care either. That I'm not like in all the little side, you know, this person's actually in this. this had a lot more clarity than the first one for me. Austin Butler was great in it, by the way. It, you have to see it in the theater. Wait, does he have the Elvis accent still? You will remember this. You will remember this for the rest of your life. Like that it was, and it's probably not going to win best picture, but it, it's only margin.

1:06:42It should, like, I can't imagine there being a better movie this year. Okay. I'm, I'm, it was, it was incredible. Incredible. Don't get my hopes too, don't get my hopes too high, but I, I will go. Well, no, I can't. So I said somebody, I can't, There's no bar that I could set it to that you would be disappointed. Okay. Good to know. Like, it's just that good. Okay. See, the first one, we rewatched the first one a couple weeks ago. My wife is looking up. She's like, oh, this emperor is actually this person. And that person's, they're related. And I'm like, I don't care. I just like it. I don't need to know everything.

1:07:09I still don't know the different tribes and whatever. And guess what? I don't care. So if we discovered the spice thing, how much does the stock market go up the next day? I bet their stock market is great because of the spice hmm yeah I can't even tell you who they are I mean wealth inequality seems bad but I think the spice market is keeping up the stock market as well in Arcadies or whatever this country the world's called you said it animal spirits at the compound news.com thank you for listening have a great rest of your week we'll see you on Wednesday buongiorno

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