Wall Street Strikes Back (EP. 424)

25:49Here's another example of everyone being back. Balchunas. Balchunas is so back. He's on fire this episode. He tweeted two different YieldMax ETFs in the top 10 in one day flows. Never saw that before. That's crazy. So ULTY. What is that? Is that? Let's see. Is that what I think it is? Ultra option income. Okay, I don't even know what that is. That's not what I thought it was. All right. And MSTY, I think that's the month. Is that the micro strategy? Anyway, those were in the top 10. Yeah. Yield max micro strategy option income. Okay. Those are in the top 10 in daily flows. It goes VOO. This was a day last week or two weeks ago.

26:34VOO, XLF, ULTY, VTI is on the list, and MSTY. So it's funny. ULTI is one of these ones where there's, I get, I'm sure, I'm sure they're selling these really short dated options or whatever. It says the dividend yields 112%. But then if you look at the performance of the price chart, obviously it goes down because you're just relying on the income. Um, even on, I don't think this is like the dumb money that people think it is. I think that, I think that there is obviously, obviously an element of people. I think, I think this is dumb money. Sorry, man. This is dumb money. No, hold on. Hold on. Let me just make a case.

27:10obviously 100 % yield of course this is dumb money obviously there is an element of people that don't understand what's happening here and think that this is like alchemy but i 100 % yield oh my god yeah but all right fine let me say this i would i i would bet that the percentage of people who understand exactly what they're getting is higher than you would think that's all i'm saying dumb money outweighs the smart money in these funds though of course i'm just saying there's more people i would some people understand more people who know what's going on yes just go into go into your these things with your eyes wide open yeah no but the retail crowd is much smarter than it used to be oh that i agree with yes the people who want yeah there are people who do understand this and maybe like jump in and out of these things depending on when the payouts happen and yeah i that's that's fair i've been saying for years that the retail money is not dumb money anymore they are now the smart money all right so let's talk about the economy um arnie tedeschi The 253 ,000 two-month downward revision to payroll employment is the largest since at least 1979.

28:15So, you know, legitimately not great. Cali has a chart showing the three-month average of non-farm payrolls. Not quite negative, but falling sharply. I mean, I don't know how else to describe it. The economy is slowing. So every time this has happened, and it feels like it happens once every six months, call it, for the past three, four, five years, people freak out. Okay, this is it, and then it doesn't happen. When you say people freak out, you mean like people on Twitter, or what do you mean exactly? Yeah, the macro people, just like, okay, this is it. Everyone, Matthew Klein didn't seem to be worried about it.

28:52He said the job market is still strong. The U.S. economy, here's his take. Like the U.S. economy slowed the first half of 2025, but not enough to raise the unemployment rate, hit wage growth or make a dent in the worsening inflation picture. This is not a crisis, even if the situation is marginally worse than at the end of 2024. So I keep I've been saying for a while now, like, what if all the slowdown we keep seeing is just normalization? Yeah, but hang on. No, who's saying crisis? No one's saying crisis. But I think every time that we see a slowing, people kind of just get nervous and go like, what if this is actually it finally?

29:25what if this is it? It never seems to kind of come. Obviously, one of those times is going to happen. He's saying the change in net immigration has been massive and could explain most, if not all, of the observed slowdown in aggregate real growth rates and payroll unemployment. Oh, okay. But that's a real thing, right? Yeah. And he's saying, like, the employment-to-population ratio for 25 to 54, which is prime-age workers, has essentially been the same since 2023. Now, he's saying, listen, the administration's response to these numbers is a crisis, however. firing the head of the BLS and saying, I don't trust the numbers.

30:00It is kind of funny how all this information we have in the, like in the past, no one ever would have thought to even think about this because no one was smart enough to even really explain to these, that's a few wonky people, how this stuff actually works. Right. People kind of just take it at face value and be kind of naive. Yeah. Now everyone's an economist. Yeah. And so now that we have more information, more information actually makes people less trusting. And it's funny, people are more trusting of vibes now than they are of data, even though there's more data than it's ever been before.

30:28So Chamath, for example, tweeted, non-farm payrolls are total garbage. So I asked Grok, which, okay. Anyway, Andrew Cohen responded, I worked at BLS for years and can tell you that revisions are completely legitimate. many field reported stats simply come in late after the close of the month. Would you prefer that they just ignore the newer stats that come in? In fact, as a senior BLS economist, I myself led a study to detect any systematic direction of post-publishing inflation revisions. So to see if there was like any shenanigans or nonsense. It was a perfect bell curve, a normal distribution centered around the mean of 0 % revisions.

31:13So some on the high end, some on the low end, but all in all, it's a wash. Economists take their responsibility seriously. There is no political bias, just the facts as well as they can be calculated. So he responded to himself or quote tweeted himself and said, wow, these comments are blowing up. This is Andrew Cohen. What y 'all don't understand is the number of economists and analysts involved in producing BLS statistics and revisions. in order to collude or fudge the data, literally hundreds of people would need to be in on the conspiracy. But amazingly, there has never been one leak. Take off your tinfoil hats and look at reality.

31:51I'm glad that he spoke up and said something, but think about, I guess I look at the revisions as like they're trying to get the numbers right. Just think about how complicated a 30 plus trillion dollar economy is. To think that you could have these real-time statistics of employment for 300 plus million people or whatever, it's not realistic. Yeah. Anyway, needless to say, firing the head of the BLS for revisions is, in my opinion, very dangerous. Yeah, of course it is. But I just think people saying this is kind of banana republic stuff, I don't think there's so much data now and other ways for people to understand what's going on.

32:34you can't lie to the economy eventually. All right, so there's a story in the Wall Street Journal, and I keep wondering, like, is this weakness actually real this time or is it just vibes again? And they have this story said, American consumers are getting thrifty again. And they interview all these people about what they're doing. And they talk about how CEOs of Chipotle, Kroger, and Procter & Gamble are telling investors that their customers are more strapped or appear to feel that way. There's a lot more consumer anxiety, says Dirk Vandeput, chief executive of Mondelez. So they make Oreo cookies and Ritz crackers and something called the junk food my kids eat.

33:08Or consumer preferences changing and people don't want that shit anymore. That's possible. But it reminded me of this story from 2022. Remember this one? Wall Street says a recession is coming. Consumers say it is already here. Shoppers are getting squeezed and the money is disappearing fast. It feels like a boy or cried wolf moment. And I wonder if you're better off when trying to think through the economy, if you're better off being late than being early. Like everyone wants to be early. Yeah. And calling it ahead of time. There's no glory in being late. Yeah. But I wonder if being late is the better option.

33:38I don't know, man. I think a lot of these articles, like, you can find any number of people all over the country who are always experiencing what looks like a recession to them. Yeah. There are always industries and people struggling. And they are in the business of getting subscribers and getting people to click. And I'm not trying to paint all this with a broad brush that media is all fake and all that sort of stuff. But I think, yeah, I think a lot of this stuff you got to take with a grain of salt. All right. Hey, you said it right that time. Thank you. We don't do a lot of victory laps here, but I'm going to take a victory lap.

34:11Go ahead. That I predict this. Yeah. Mohamed El-Aryan. Per the Financial Times, chart below. U.S. wage growth for the lowest paid has now slumped below that for the highest paid. Why didn't he need a considerable inequities, inequalities in total pay and wealth? Hashtag inequality. He still uses the hashtags. Hashtag economy. Hashtag wages. I love Muhammad he is the Magic Johnson of finance Twitter oh yes that's a good call but I said people are going to be nostalgic for the 2021 2022, 2023 economy at some point that everyone hated at the time there's going to be nostalgia for that period of high wage growth and the ease of switching jobs and finding better employment and higher wages he's saying listen it used to be that the lowest wage quartile was getting the highest growth in wages.

35:01Now they're the lowest. This is a bad thing. People like you were saying, no, the other thing was a bad thing when growth was too high. But I'm just saying, it's going to be... Wait, what are you saying you were right about it? I said people are going to be nostalgic for that high wage growth period, even though everyone hated it because inflation was high. But where's the proof that you were right? He's saying, listen, because at that time, the lowest wage cohort had the highest wage growth, and now they have the lowest wage growth. because guess what happens? We're back to normal. Higher wage growth for people who make more money.

35:36And he's saying, oh, this is bad. It's inequality. I think, all right, I guess we'll rehash this debate. I think that soaring wage growth, which directly drives inflation, is bad for the nation because people adjust to their pay raise immediately, but they don't adjust to how expensive everything is. And then people get pissed off. I think we have conclusive evidence that what I'm saying is true. Yes, because, yeah, wages are, I did that. Prices are, no, you did that. Exactly. Yes, but I'm just saying, people are going to look back at that period of high wage growth and, like, you could make more money just by switching jobs.

36:11They're going to go, oh, my gosh, that was glorious. But, no, at the time, people hated it. Hated it. So, billion-dollar job offer. I missed this article. This is a real thing? Mark Zuckerberg offered to acquire Thinking Machines Lab and recruit its employees, including Andrew Tulloch. Zuckerberg offered him a package potentially worth$1.5 billion, but the guy declined. All right, can I say one thing about this? In terms of like looking back on this as a holy shit, that was the craziest thing ever moment. Wait a second. I remember when Mark Zuckerberg declined a billion dollar offer from Yahoo.

36:47And I remember when Instagram sold for a billion dollars. There was 11 people at the company and we all thought it was the craziest thing. And I remember when WhatsApp got sold for$23 billion and it seemed like the craziest thing. Why is this any different? So this guy's, this Facebook, Zuckerberg is offering to buy this guy's company for a billion and a half dollars. And he said, no. So? No, he's just an employee there. He doesn't even know him the company. Someone else owns the company. This is just, I think that's the difference because it's wages. It takes money to make money. Am I right? Yeah.

37:21Honestly, they're the canary in the coal mine eventually. They have to be with the much money they're spending. I don't know. I think it's crazy. I feel like that guy's on the benefit of the doubt now. Like he knows a lot more about his business and what they're trying to do than we do. A couple of schmoes wearing these dumb t-shirts. But it really is insane that he tried to pivot his company in three, four years ago to the freaking metaverse. Remember that? The picture of him in the metaverse. They should just change their name again to like Facebook AI or something like Facebook FAI book. You know, I don't know.

37:55credit to him though. He, he pivoted off. And he pivoted again. Credit to him. remember when people were buying real estate in the metaverse, that was an actual thing that actually, that actually happened this, this decade, people were buying real estate in the fucking metaverse. You still have that parcel. Uh, yeah. Right on the lake. Uh, you just effing. You never effing. Uh, cause I was so stupid. There's just, there's been a lot of dumb stuff that's happened. All right. This is from census bureau, census business, bureau business trends. If you can believe that I don't, which shows the percent of establishments using artificial intelligence in production.

38:30And it's only, it's not even 10 % yet. Like to say that we're early is an understatement. It has not even begun. I think there are a lot of civilians who just don't interact with it much at all yet. I would say nine out of 10 people don't. Right. Maybe more. Yes. And it's going to be, it is funny because when people finally do interact with it more, it's going to be just keep getting better. So they haven't gone through all the phases where it didn't work very good. Yeah. All right. Let's talk about crypto for a second. So Asnes tweeted, he said, for anyone who thinks today's markets are normal or just normal, I remind you that the market cap of Fartcoin is still$1.4 billion.

39:10And then he quote tweeted himself and said,$950 million. The error is coming out of the Fartcoin bubble for now. See, this is the point that I was making about market caps. This is not a market cap. There is not a billion-dollar market cap in Fartcoin. I understand supply, price, blah, blah, blah. It's not a billion dollars. It's just not. I agree. We are butchering market cap. We are saying, all right, stocks, crypto, shares, coins, price, times. It's not a market cap. It's just not. So one big whale. I'm not saying it's not dumb. Like that, I'm not. Yeah. But all right. So one big investor in Fartcoin goes to sell and the whole thing collapses, right?

39:47Now, not knowing anything about the supply and distribution of Fartcoin, if there were one big whale in Farcoin. And I don't know if there is or if there isn't, but yes, if there were one and Farcoin any coin who tried to sell$70 million, I'm pretty sure that they would find out very quickly the market cap is not the market cap. All right. This was interesting from Will Clemente.

40:08MicroStrategy bought, he quote tweeted this, MicroStrategy bought 21 ,000 Bitcoin at a price of 117 ,000. Wow. So he quote tweeted and said, But Saylor bought$2 billion and Bitcoin barely moved. Galaxy sold$8 billion for a whale and Bitcoin barely moved. That feeling when you realize Bitcoin is a real liquid micro asset now. Right. There's not, these big moves don't move the needle anymore is what you're saying. He said that he did some work with somebody else, Ox Ben Harvey recently, and found that the Bitcoin treasury companies are about half a percent of daily price impact on average, maxing out around 10 % on days of heavy sailor buying.

40:46The market is just much bigger now. It is funny to think that a lot of the volatility of the past, whether it was on purpose or not, was probably being just pushed around. Remember, it felt like people could manipulate the price in the past, and that is not a thing anymore. That's where you had air pockets. Balchunas tweeted, US crypto ETFs took in, this is insane, $12.8 billion in July. the best month ever $600 million a day about double average as a group that's more than any single ETF did including the mighty VOO most all around I mean that's that's unbelievable $600 million a day it's not stopping huh um all right I would love to get a I would love to see a breakdown I know you can't do this because you don't know where it comes from how much of it is new money versus how much of it is coming from the exchanges and stuff.

41:42And it doesn't really matter. But I would love to see how much of this is. I think a lot of it is new money. Saying, all right, this is real. Speaking of that, this seems very important. JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon have been pretty vocally anti-Bitcoin. JPMorgan Chase and Coinbase launched strategic partnership to make crypto buying easier than ever. So this is what the report says. The initial phase of the partnership includes new features for mutual customers, including direct bank to wallet connection. Through JP Morgan's secure API, Chase customers will be able to seamlessly link their bank accounts to their Coinbase wallets.

42:18That seems very significant. Transfer of Chase ultimate reward points. Chase customers will be able to transfer their reward points to their Coinbase account at a one-to-one redemption. That seems very significant. This marks the first time a major credit card rewards program will be used to fund a crypto wallet. And then lastly, beginning this fall, the ability to use Chase credit cards on Coinbase. For the first time, customers will have the ability to fund their Coinbase accounts using Chase credit cards, which seems significant. You might say dangerous or crazy, but whatever, it's happening.

42:48This is a big deal. This is a very, very big deal. I thought you could use credit cards on Coinbase before. No, debit cards. You couldn't? Oh, that's right. Okay. But with all the money going in ETFs, I just can't see how much trading on Coinbase still matters as much anymore for retail. I think it's still very big 24 seven. But also why use cash to buy crypto when you could use credit? Am I right? Worry about it next month. That's that's next month guy's problem. The reward points thing makes sense to me. I am a big believer in just using all your you saved your reward points, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

43:22It's funny you mention this. I was talking to my friend at the beach over the weekend. He has 700 ,000 chase points and another couple hundred thousand delta points. I'm like, dude, what are you doing? What is this? The inflation is being it's like he's hiding his money under the mattress. The inflation is eating away at that every day. I think it's an OCD thing. He just can't bring himself. He like, he's still paying for vacations with fiat. I'm like, what are you doing? Why? Because yeah, those points are worth way less over time. Yeah. These age like a rotten diaper. Spend it. Yeah. Use it.

43:49Just get it back in cash. So let's talk real estate. Somebody has a chart showing the percent of US cities with falling home prices. It is about half. Yeah. About half. Lance Lambert tweeted. That's a meaningful number. Yeah. Lance Lambert tweeted, the estimated number of U.S. home buyers and sellers actively in the housing market. And not surprisingly, especially during the post-pandemic period, buyers outnumbered sellers by almost two to one. And now there are allegedly more sellers than buyers. I was curious how they measure this. And we don't need to read it, but we'll link to this in the show notes if you want from Redfin.

44:26Yeah, they have their own. But here's the thing. Are these sellers, and they've been waiting, they've been on the sidelines, because they've had the 3 % mortgages. Are they willing to lower their prices a lot though? That's the question. Like if they still have the 3%, are they just, are they testing the waters or are they actually going to be willing to lower the, because I would love to, if I was in the market, I would love to just throw low ball offers all over the place and see what hit. Because I wonder if a lot of them are going to be like, no, I'm not lowering my price. I'm ready to share my housing story in a second.

44:56But before we do that, he also shows that he breaks it down by zip code. because obviously real estate is a very local phenomenon. He shows active housing inventory for sale compared to pre-pandemic levels. And he shows... This is what we showed before. It's all the west and the south and the southeast. Is that what we were showing before? This is... This is just the number of housing units for sale pre-pandemic versus now. So there's more houses for sale in Texas and Florida. All right. So it's showing way less inventory in the Northeast and the Midwest and more inventory in areas that people flock to like Texas and Florida, right?

45:37Yeah. That's what this is showing. So if you were a baby boomer, we'll get to the condo thing in a minute. Condos on the streets. Now is the time, like if you haven't bought a condo in Florida, now is the time to do it if you're retiring. Because people are unloading these and can't sell them. Oh, really? Well, so this is from the Wall Street Journal. They say the condo market is floundering. Four charts that explain the downturn, and I put a few of them in here. What's the story here? A lot of it is like these assessments they're getting and the insurance. So look at this price change year over year.

46:09Condos are falling way faster than single-family homes. Single-family homes are still seeing growth. Condos are now falling in price. And they say that just the premium for condos is falling fast because they're getting all these assessments and people flock to them too. So if you want to buy a condo, now is the time to do it. Like people can't sell condos, especially in Florida. The market is just totally dried up. And so people are, they said that's the place where people are offering concessions when you buy because they have these assessments and these insurance from the new, because all the condo buildings had to get up the code and offer these special assessments.

46:43And they're charging people a ton of money to live there still. All right. So you spoke about low ball offers and are people lowering their prices? So, so this is from Redfin, although via daily chart work, although the median sale price hit a record high during the four weeks ending July 20th, it's up just 1.6 % year over year compared to five to 6%. So new home price, I'm sorry, not new home prices, home prices are still hitting all-time highs, but the rate of price increase is slowing down dramatically. So I sold my house and it is wild how the story of me selling my house is a story of how life works with everything in terms of just like all of these things that had to happen for this to happen.

47:23The butterfly effect, if you will. So I bought a house in Long Beach. It's a decent movie, by the way. I enjoyed it. Thumper. Remember that character? I bought my house in 2020. I had a single tenant in Long Beach. Sold it in 2025. Was not planning on selling it. I thought she was going to stay there. She told me like a month before her contract was to be renewed that she was leaving. And I'm like, oh my God, I got to find somebody. Let me just sell it. Done with this. had she left or had she not left abruptly, obviously, well, not obviously, I wouldn't have had, it would have been much more difficult to have the cash to buy the house that I'm buying.

47:59So there was that kicking it off. Then being on the beach with my friend at the time that I was where the Zillow notification popped up. And he said, like, he like gave me permission to buy this house. I was not even, it was not even a thought in my mind that we were going to leave. Right. I was thinking about like, Oh, I can't leave. Like, Hey, I love my house, speed, mortgage rates, blah, blah, blah. And so if I was anywhere else in the world, I would not have been moving. So anyway, on the story of selling my house, we have a great house. It is a - So you're saying, sorry, it was serendipitous the way things worked out for you to buy a new house.

48:35Yes. Like everything in life, right? Like every - A lot of things, yeah. And so I was pretty curious to find out what it would be, the price and everything like that. but my house is a colonial and in my town that is a rare rarity most houses are either high ranches or splanches which I'm not quite sure what the difference is but whatever or a split level I don't know if those are all the same thing splanches that's a new one to me okay yeah I don't know for some reason it just doesn't click on my brain I'm not sure how many days did it take from when you listed to when you sold it was less than a week right yeah so we had an open house and Robin for some reason we have like seven ring cameras in my house so I felt like I was like the NSA like spying on these people I was following them from room to room.

49:17I was like, shh, listening, these are the buyers. So we had six people show up to the open house. We got two offers and that was it. Now, part of it is time of the year, right? I think like the buying season is more in the spring. Part of it is the price of the house, but most of it is interest rates. We spoke to a lot of people in the community, friends of ours that would have loved to buy our house because like it is it's it's a one of the bigger houses it's got like the open concept i guess is what they call it um but most people can't afford to get out of their mortgage obviously did you guys highlight the mudroom right away beautiful colonial brand new mudroom yeah um so anyway only but only two offers and That was it.

50:09Now, slightly over ask, but that was it. Two offers and nobody even saw the house after that. I think we had one showing. That was it. So no buyers. So low supply of house, but low supply of buyers too. Now, I guess on the flip side, like all you need is one buyer. Right. It doesn't matter how many offers you get. You just need one buyer. But I was very surprised. Maybe I shouldn't be in hindsight, but I was very surprised at the limited number of interest. And again, it's not rocket science. It's just interest rates. It makes sense. So anyway - It is one of those things too where you think you know what your house is worth, but the market is going to determine it for you.

50:45Yeah, I got very lucky because there was another house. I was recommended to list at$100 ,000 less than I actually listed it for. But I saw a house pop up on the market about the same time that we were going to sell ours that was listed for$100 ,000 to$200 ,000 more than mine. And I think my house is nicer. So I said, thank you, sir, because they gave me the cover to raise the price. Anyway, so now we've got to pack and move and everything like that. But you know what? I'm excited to purge. We have so much junk. Feels good. We have so much garbage. We haven't gotten... So our kitchen is still full of stuff that we got from our wedding.

51:20That you never use anymore? Or just like, I'm ready for new plates, I think. I'll just buy new glasses on Amazon. I don't care. Just throw everything out. Yeah, I agree. Start over. Yeah. Anyhow. Exciting. All right, that's the story. You're going to be in Newhouse by when? Before school? That's the story. Probably not. Probably after Future Proof. Yeah, that's a future you thing to worry about. Yeah, I don't have to worry about it now. How are you going to pack up all those books over there? Those are not coming with me. Get rid of all your books. I'm saying goodbye to the books. Bring them to the library?

51:55You know, they don't take donations. Really? Yeah, I ask. I mean, I will donate them somewhere. But I'll keep... I don't know. I'll keep some. All right, real quick. There was another one of these. I thought it was from last year. Someone sent me this, and it says, millennials are richer now, so why can't they stop worrying? I'm like, wait, we already read this before, but it just came out. This person says, you only have to watch the big short ones and go, oh, my God, it just makes you jumpy. And then they also said this 45-year-old lawyer in Boulder, Colorado, is a homeowner with ample retirement savings, but worries his wealth could suddenly disappear.

52:28He keeps an emergency fund that covers expenses for years. They're saying there's still millennials who are scarred by the great financial crisis. All right. Well, how about this? Pretend you're a reporter. Ask me a question. I'm a millennial. Okay. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great. I just bought a house that financially makes no sense compared to the mortgage that I have today, but you only live once. I want to be on the water. I'm optimistic about my future ability to pay for this house. And so, yeah, I feel very blessed. Thank you. Says Michael Barrett. In early 2025, the average net worth of millennials and older members of Gen Z was 31 % higher than baby boomers and 20 % higher than Gen X was at similar ages.

53:05So yeah, you're doing fine. You're ahead of the game. Thank you. I thought this was good. This, maybe this is, we've been talking a lot about the definition of wealth and some people are saying, sorry, sorry. There will never be an article where it's like, Hey, millennials are actually okay. Right. People are feeling good to read that. That's true. Yeah. It worked out. Sorry. Sorry about all those articles. It actually worked out. Yeah. That's social media. Um, this is interesting. So someone says, Hey, hello, Ben. I think it's a DM. Holy crap. I realized something while I was listening to one of your podcasts this morning.

53:31It was said the middle class has the most of their wealth tied up in housing. It popped into my head that my 401k IRA Roth IRA is now worth more than my house. I guess this makes me upper middle class. By the way, I live in Oklahoma city. Love your work. Um, that's a pretty good definition. Is your, is your portfolio of, is your portfolio of investment bigger than worth more than your house? That's a pretty good definition of wealth, right? I would still, there's still some geographical stuff in there, but if we have to ascribe some sort of line in the sand, I think that's pretty good. All right, real quick plug, since people said we don't do enough self-promotion.

54:03At the Unlock last week, just type in the Unlock at YouTube. I talked about the 4 % rule of Bill Bengen, who came up with the rule on his own. I think it was actually 4.15 % in this original paper, but the 4 % rule. This is a topic that has come up more and more because all the baby boomers retiring need to figure out how to spend their assets. Very good. Go give it a listen. All right, let's talk streaming stuff. there's still something off about Netflix shows I don't know what it is I don't know if it's because they're algorithm based or it almost feels like it could be AI but we tried to watch this untamed show with Eric Bana where someone falls off of a mountain and they try to figure out who it is and it just it's like they get good actors they had a Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon show earlier this year my wife watched and I tried to watch it with her and it just it feels like a computer made it up and their algorithm made it up you're right and it is and it does because I've heard many people say this.

55:00They genuinely write scripts and make TV such that you can be looking at your phone and still get 90 % of it. That's the thing. We turned it on and both my wife and I are on our phones and I'm like, why are we watching this if neither of us are watching it? Right. Let's turn it off. But that's how they make it. So you're right. It does feel hollow. And I feel like when's, okay, here's a good metric. When's the last time you saw a show on Netflix that you said, I can't wait for season two. That's true. It's funny. Even Squid Game, which I really liked. When season two came out, I said, eh, don't eat.

55:32I never watched it. Okay. So every show. There hasn't been a show there. I'm sure there's an exception. But for example, FUBAR is the poster child of this. So I very much enjoyed season one to the extent that you could very much enjoy this completely trashy garbage action show. I don't even know. I don't know what that is. It's Arnold. Okay. That's all you need. I thought that was a movie. I didn't realize it was a show. All right. So, what on Netflix tweeted, as predicted, FUBAR has been canceled after two seasons. And my thinking is like, why did they make season two? Now, they know their business better than I do, but I didn't watch season two.

56:07I had no interest in season two. Viewership fell 76 % from seasons one to two. And they will learn. And I bet you there will be way less shows, way less seasons two on Netflix. But the problem is, once you have a relatively successful season one, like obviously you want to do a season two because it's, you know, cheaper, cheeser, cheaper, convenient, maybe less risk. But you're right. They do feel hollow because they are. Yeah, that makes sense. But I just, I can't do it. All right. The Wall Street Journal had this piece about goodbye, gentle parenting. Hello, F around and find out. And it says, parents are ditching a softer approach to childbearing that has dominated the culture and taking a harder line.

56:46It's funny to read this because it's just talking about how we were parenting when we were growing up. Wait, is this true? Are we turning on the Wall Street Journal? I know it but it's talking about this woman who said like her son was spraying her the water gun at the campfire and she's like stop and he wouldn't stop so she threw him in the pond or something oh I like that yes and it says it's this idea that parents can ask and warn but if a child breaks the rules mom and dad aren't standing the way of repercussions it is funny because this is just this is how parenting is supposed to work I agree like you're not supposed to let your child run all over you yeah but it probably does happen more often than you think what like this the nice parenting.

57:23Oh, it's okay. Don't you see that when a kid does something like you're at the pool or whatever and a kid does something and the parents are right there and don't do anything? Yeah, it drives me nuts. I am very much a, no, if your kid does something, you fix it. Yeah, if my kid's doing something, I run over. Hey, stop that. My son was, they're playing the beanbag toss game at the ice cream place the other night and they're throwing the beanbag pallet things at each other and I'm like, stop. Someone's going to get hurt and he's shucking them and I'm like, stop. Last night, we were at Point Lookout, which is a, there's a restaurant on the water and there was a kid on the beach throwing sand, not just at the kids, but there's like a doc that goes over the beach and he was throwing sand at people who were eating and this one guy turned around and goes, he's like literally shoulder shrugging.

58:10He's like looking for the parents. Like, how is this happening? How are you like your five-year-old just chuck sand everywhere? Yeah. I like this idea. Like do something. There's a lot of people who just don't do it. It's kind of funny they have to have a story about it um all right i got one quick midwest midwest nice story my wife is gonna hate me for telling it but i gotta tell so we order food from a counter at our like our our boat club and the kids love it because they can go they have our name on account and they just go and they order and they can get ice cream or whatever we tell them to always order and like a month ago the kids ordered and it was kind of busy but not too but usually the food takes 15 minutes it's mac and cheese and chicken nuggets and sandwiches right it's pretty easy um but we waited like 45 minutes for the food and the kids like dude what's going on where's our food so i go up and ask.

58:51And I, hey, do you have our order? And they got our order wrong and they messed it up. And my wife is like, you can't do that. You can't, you're going to make, you're going to, we're going to be the jerks that ask. And I'm like, no, no, you have to ask, right? Wow. That is, your wife is very nice. So she's very Midwest nice. And so it happened again this week. And all these people who ordered after us are getting their food and I'm starting, and I'm getting hangry and I'm like, can I just go check please? And she, no, we don't want to be those people again that do it twice. And so we wait and wait.

59:17And finally she goes and checks and they had lost our order. How long are we talking? Like legitimately? 45 minutes. Come on. Yes. You waited 45 minutes for chicken nuggets before you got up? Yes. And I, and my wife was like, no, I'm sorry. 15 minutes. She's like, you can't be the one person who does this and we get a reputation. And I said, why can't you just ask him? I said, hey, just checking on the status for order. And, and she got mad at me. Like she got mad at me ahead of time, even telling me because she knew that I was right. Like, don't be such a jerk about it, you know? I'm just saying we should have checked.

59:52Sometimes you can be too nice because you don't want to become a Karen or whatever. That's what her worry was. I get it. You know, you get mad at people that take their time in line. I don't know if, I think I forgot to mention this to you. Maybe I did. People at the movie theater. Did I do this last week? Okay. I'm sorry. If you are in line and there's a line and you go up, you can't be looking at the board figuring out what you want. You either want popcorn or you want something else. Yeah, you should have your order right here. I mean, come on. You should have been looking the whole time. You want popcorn, you want nachos.

1:00:25Get your fat ass out of the way and move it. So the same thing is true at fast food or something. You can't get up to the counter and ask a question. Like you have to know what you're getting to order. All right, let's do some recommendations. I feel, I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing every new movie I see, but I've just seen a lot of really stinkers lately. And I feel like a lot of the TV and movie podcasts don't want to be critical of TV and movie, of actors and movies anymore because they have them on their show to promote it and stuff. So they can't say, they can't be truthful. Unanimal Spirits were truthful.

1:00:54And I saw two really weird movies and I didn't like them. Okay? I watched Friendship with Paul Rudd and Tim Robinson. I like Tim Robinson. His show is good. He's from Detroit. Right? I got to represent. It was way too weird. I was really excited about this one. Like I give this a 4.2. I turned it off halfway through. Okay. I tried it twice. So I'm thankful that you did because I saw your score and I, and I've been, I've been made to watch this movie. So you lowered the bar for me. Um, I enjoyed this movie. This is definitely not a you movie. You don't, you don't like weird movies. It was, it felt like he was in a different movie than everyone else in the movie.

1:01:30That was the point. It was, the point was like, listen, I, I, I definitely, I chuckled at a few of his lines. Like some of his lines were funny. It just, it was so weird. It wasn't, it was just way too weird for me. I didn't get it at all. This is the type of movie that you either enjoy it or you hate it. I don't think anybody would see French and would be like, yeah, it's okay. It's polarized because it's very strange. I'm sure there were people who really liked it. I just thought it was terrible. I did like it. I think, honestly, you lowering the bar so much helped. So thank you. And there were still a few lines of his that he said that I chuckled about.

1:02:03But I'm like, it felt like he was in a different movie than everyone else in the movie. Yeah. I also, I enjoyed the aspect of like middle-aged dudes meeting each other and the awkwardness of like. Yeah, that, that, the beginning was. New guy, group of friends. Yeah. And I want to see what went, but fair enough. All right, 28 years later, I have to take Umbridge with this. This was a good movie. What did you not, I mean, then why did you, why did you watch it? I enjoyed the first one. I liked the second one. I really liked the first one. Well. Listen, I know Danny Boyle. I saw this in the theater, so I had a different experience than you did.

1:02:38I know that Danny Boyle does bizarre movies, but it felt like it was five movies in one, and what the hell with the ending? The ending was a little bit odd. The ending I didn't love too much. It just, the movie was way, like I thought the stuff at the beginning with the dad and the son was good, and then I just thought it just, it went off the rails, and it was just kind of like a, huh. I just thought it was weird. I gave it a 4.9. Sorry. I loved the first one. All right, stick to coming-of-age movies. Get off my lawn. These are not for you. All right. I rewatched the original Happy Go More because I wanted to see it's been so long I've always just caught the clips I wanted to see like I didn't like the sequel at all I thought it was an awful movie and there was a great video online of someone like everyone you know who's trying to say it's not that bad and talking about oh the cameos and the friend is like well yeah was it a good movie but yeah they had a cameo and Sandler's the best but was it a good movie but in just he's always just nice to everyone was it a good anyway so I rewatched the original and I still just died at everything the entire movie it just it still worked so well and it just made me mad again that they even made a sequel but i get why they did it finally um i have to explain 1980s movies my daughter because we watched karate kid this week we're still in our sports kick and uh she's like she she liked it but she's like why what's with like the cringy music in the montages and the there was just parts of 80s movies that you just have to get over the cringe and she's like why did why was this some of this stuff so cringy.

1:04:04And I was like, that's just, that's the 80s. They didn't know any better. No one knew any better. I mean, the 80s is such a long time ago for a child. It's like talking to us about the 60s when we were kids. It's a foreign land. But she still liked it enough where she wants to watch the second and the third one. So did you see any movies this week? I see nothing in here for you. I watched Friendship. I'm surprised. So you liked it. I did. I enjoyed it. I'm not listen it is a very particular cup of tea so I'm not like flabbergasted that you didn't like it I understand exactly it's like people who like to drink Sambuca or something like oh come on it's not like that no I don't know I'm saying some people like it most people don't so Robin is getting very fed up with my Godfather obsession okay because because I rewatched the first one that last night she walked in and I was watching Godfather 2 she goes oh no no no no and she turned it right off you have to do back to back that's what I do Well, I have to finish Godfather 2.

1:05:02And then I have to watch the offer because I finished the Godfather audiobook. And then that will conclude. And I listened to the rewatchables, obviously. I liked the offer. The offer was too long, but I liked it. That'll conclude my Godfather experience. All right. I am pretty dry. No TV shows, which, you know what? It's enough already. I could use a break. Yeah, it's a good break. All right. Grand Rapids Hedge t-shirts at idonshop.com. Check out the Unlocked. Do you have another live show this week? I do. I'm talking to Wes. So Wes Gray... Launched. Thank you, Ben. We have a channel for advising on YouTube.

1:05:35West Gray launched their 351 exchange ETF to arousing success. $450 million launch. Unbelievable. Tax alpha is so hot right now. Yeah, it really is. Speaking of which, we talked to Alex Morris for Talk Your Book. But I don't know. This is not tax alpha. This is like diversification arbitrage, I would say. Okay. Tax arbitrage. Yeah. Tax avoidance. Legal. Email us. Animalspirits at the compoundnews.com. Thanks, everyone, for listening. Appreciate it as always. Love your emails. Talk to you next time.