Bet-David Podcast | Guest: Tom Ellsworth (Biz Doc) | EP 34
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You, Kyle, the only one in his 20s, figured it out outside of Sam.
Go figure, man.
Kyle's got an old soul, man.
We ready?
Are we live?
We are live with episode number 34.
And this is the first time we're having two Toms on.
Yes?
Tom Zenner.
Nice to see you.
And Tom Ellsworth.
So I got to say Zenner and Ellsworth as we're going through it just to simplify stuff.
So, Tom, you know, you got a nice shirt on.
You want to tell us why you're wearing that shirt?
Oh, yeah.
This is for Frank Williams.
Frank Williams, legendary owner, founder of Formula One's Williams team, multiple world championships.
Was Senator's last team, tragically.
But he just got out of the hospital.
He's an older guy now, but he's still out there, and he just got out of the hospital.
Frank Williams, I hope you're doing well.
Williams fans everywhere.
Just a little tribute for Frank.
Cool.
Do you think you could change the oil in my rental car?
In the wild, 13 seconds?
You look like a pit crew.
He could do a lot of things.
This guy goes back.
He just destroyed a really good tribute, dude.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay.
What a great way to start, right?
Well, no, no, no.
On this, today's podcast, we'll always know where we are.
You know why?
We got Tom Tom.
So that's a joke, if you're very smart.
And what age do you have to be to get that joke?
About 10 years ago.
Tom Tom was.
10 years ago.
Okay.
So look, we got a lot of things.
We got a lot of things to cover, a lot of things to talk about here today.
This will be the only podcast we'll do this week, just so everybody knows.
This will be the only podcast we'll do this week.
We got, I think, the week of words, meaning two people used two words that shocked the marketplace, which we'll talk about.
One of them was Tim Cook.
The other one was Elon Musk.
One was when he was given a speech.
The other one was on Twitter.
Both of them skyrocketed their stock, which you got analysis you want to give us about GM and Tesla, which is interesting.
I can't wait to get that data that you have.
Stimulus happened this week.
I mean, that's pretty much in the works right now.
We got Georgia going on, record-breaking money that's being raised.
We got Nashville that a catastrophic event happens at AT ⁇ T. Maybe you can kind of give us a rundown and tell us what's going on because there's a lot of stories, connections, mommies, sues.
It's very, very weird on what's going over there.
Fauci and Rubio's little fight that they had over Twitter.
Fauci is being called liar by Marco Rubio.
And then everybody on the other side's coming and saying, how dare you call Fauci a liar?
Where your president's the biggest liar?
It's a very interesting thing that's going on there.
Chinese journalists who documented Wuhan coronavirus outbreak jailed for four years.
Okay, jailed for four years for simply saying what happened, but she's going to jail.
By the way, that's a little high.
If you guys raise it, it's very high now for me.
China regulators tell Anth Group to overhaul businesses, which is Alibaba.
They're trying to break them apart, and maybe we'll get into that a little bit later.
Top earners, biggest CEOs, how much money they're making.
You'll be surprised to see what the biggest CEOs in America's salary is and what kind of money they're making.
And then, you know, GM, we'll talk about that.
Apple, I already said.
Let me see what else I got.
Oh, Wonder Woman opening day.
Mario just said something very interesting.
I wish you guys could have heard him.
Mario said, it is the biggest pandemic opening of the year.
Biggest movie.
Is that what Mario said?
Mario, I want to quote you correctly.
Can you please say what you said?
It's the biggest opening during the pandemic.
We want to quote Mario correctly.
Wait, wait, wait.
Biggest opening during the pandemic for any movie.
How many movies are on that leaderboard?
One movie.
But it's the biggest.
We've had more movies, but it's the biggest.
All right, we'll see what's going to happen.
Well, Mario is very protective of Wonder Woman, which we appreciate.
We appreciate that.
And I think Tom Cruise had another mix-up.
But anyway, so we got a lot of things to go through here.
How about we start off with, you know, we start off with Georgia and kind of go through what's been happening, how much money was raised.
So here's how it's looking like right now.
All four Senate candidates in runoff election are raising record funds, led by one Democrat, rolling in the dough.
According to Politico, Osoff brought in $106.8 million in two months, making him the best funded Senate candidate in history.
His opponent, David Perdue, brought in $68 million in the same timeframe.
Now, Osof is the Democrat.
Purdue's the Republican.
In the other race, Warnock brought in $103.4 million, while Republican Kelly Loeffler raised only $64.
So the Democrats have raised $40 million more than the Republicans so far.
The previous fundraising record for a U.S. Senate candidate was held by Democrat Jamie Harrison, who raised $57 million in his unsuccessful bid to defeat Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.
All four of the Georgia candidates easily surpass that number.
Having said that, Tom, thoughts, Ellsworth.
I think they got it all wrong.
There are exactly 11 million people that live in the state of Georgia.
11 million.
Okay.
And listen to what was raised.
Why doesn't somebody just send every single one of them a $20 Starbucks card?
They could literally do this.
That's right.
With all this money, they could have just said, listen, this is what I'm going to do.
I think it's amazing.
It's a testimony to what's hanging in the balance.
And what's hanging in the balance is the U.S. Senate and conservative or liberal legislative principles.
That's it.
Zenner, what do you think?
You know, I'm glad I don't live in Georgia.
That's all I can say.
I hate political ads.
And could you imagine how you're being ruined?
That is crazy.
It would be the absolute worst.
Now, here's the craziest thing about it.
These Democratic candidates are raising so much money.
It's literally insane.
Over $100 million for one candidate for one race.
But yesterday, one of the narratives is they're running out of money, that they're going to have to choose pretty soon between boots on the ground.
It sounds like a war, doesn't it?
Or TV ads.
And Chuck Schumer even came out and said that he's quote unquote pessimistic.
He tried to back away from that comment a little bit, but pessimistic about the Democratic chances.
Now, they have to run the table, the Democrats in Georgia.
They're going to win both of them, right?
So the Republicans only have to win one.
There are so many interesting subplots to this.
Loeffler, you know, who's a very, very successful, established, credible person, getting torched by the NBA, the WNBA.
She's an owner in the WNBA, and they have, from her team and the entire league, have basically mobilized to try to take her down.
TikTokers have now been able to.
Let me tell you, credit to TikTokers.
I mean, people cannot downplay the TikTok game.
It's insane.
I mean, they had a hand in the regular election, even leading into the debates and into the primaries.
And even now.
Now, I will say this happily.
There are some Republican-based TikTok groups, too, because you only hear about the little liberals that are out there trying to strim things up.
There's like one conservative one that has 1.5 million followers on theirs.
So it looks like it's both ways.
But TikTok, I mean, everything is going to make a difference in this election because so much is at stake.
Yeah.
So here's what I can tell you, what I notice.
I have given money to both Republicans and Democrats.
I've given money to both sides.
So I receive email from both sides.
I get emails from Republicans that send me money talking about Georgia.
I get emails from Democrats telling me, I have to tell you, for every one email I get from Republicans, I get eight emails from Democrats.
And the way they do it is so creative.
They'll get different people sending the emails and they'll say, you know, one of them will say DNC headquarters.
Okay.
And obviously, you know, that's coming straight from DNC headquarters.
I get that.
But then the rest will say different names.
James Taylor, Michelle Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi.
They have 100 names that I get emails from.
So every time I open it up and they'll say, Patrick, this year I went all in and helped and elect Joe Biden, not and then they'll go into this Georgia.
Will you donate $7 directly to DNC to flip Georgia fund to help win the runoffs, elect the Democratic control Senate and win an essential races in a month?
So here's the point I'm trying to make to you.
Somebody may say, well, Pat, why would you give to both parties?
Strategically, for me, I want to learn what both sides are doing.
That's one.
Two, the approach that Republicans are taking versus Democrats.
I got to tell you, Democrats are playing more offense than Republicans are.
And whether there's a part of this where there is this confidence to say, we have it, don't even worry about it.
That's the problem sometimes when you get too cocky.
We have it.
Don't even worry about it.
Where the Republicans are going to pick it up.
There's no way in the world we're going to lose both seats.
So they're not playing offense.
So they're raising 40 million less.
But we know this week Trump is going to Georgia.
I think January 14th is going to be in Georgia to help those guys out.
Who do you think is going to end up winning here, the way it's looking like right now?
God, I hope the Republicans and Republicans are going to be.
Are you hopeful?
Like if you want to put the logical hat and you're betting money right now, are you betting your $100,000 on Republicans winning or are you betting on Democrats winning?
100% I'm betting on the Democrats.
Absolutely.
They've been harvesting votes for weeks out there.
They've already got 2 million votes that are already in, right?
The way they've learned to play dirty, they've developed the playbook.
So they're just going to apply it to Georgia here right now.
No, I'm very, very worried.
I'm not optimistic at all.
And every day I expect something bad or crazy to come out.
I mean, there's even some sort of crazy tie-ins to the explosion in Nashville, which we can talk about a little bit later.
But no, I would say the Democrats are probably going to win this thing just like they won in November.
Tom.
So what's good for America?
I'm going to set my views aside.
What's good for America, I think, is a divided government that is almost kind of neutralized against itself so it doesn't sway too far in either direction.
I think that's good for America.
I get the feeling Kelly Loft is probably going to win her race by a nose, which basically will make that happen.
But I agree with you.
There has been so much effort out there.
It's tough to drop the fraud word without stuff right in front of me.
But, you know, when you see that 82% of Confederate soldiers have voted, you know, I'm thinking, you know, there's things going on.
You know, I wonder if these TikTokers, do they really know all the ramifications of what they're trying to do and how it ultimately will affect them?
I mean, if this country is run exclusively by the left, it's not great for anybody, really, truly, except a lifelong politician, maybe people that want to have just absolute power.
But it's so funny.
These guys are so motivated and they do have power and they do have influence and they do have the energy to do this.
But you sometimes wonder, they're so young.
Do they even know what they're doing?
It looks like they need to have an adult in the room, you know, kind of guiding them.
Okay, there's some repercussions here for what you're trying to do.
Do you really know these candidates you're pushing for?
Peel back a little bit on their histories a little bit and look at what some of the stuff they've stood for in the past and maybe you wouldn't be so aggressive.
You know, to me, every time one side is about to win all three, the opposing side says, what's best for America is to not have one side have all three, right?
But if the Republicans have it their way, they'd love to have all three.
If Democrats have it their way, they'd love to have all three.
If it's up to the politicians, because it's easier in those two years to get what?
Everything done.
Tom, don't hold back with this one, Tom.
Be the Tom of BizDock.
Give us the energy of Tom.
Not the one that's safe.
They're trying to be a little too worried about what could happen.
Give us your brain.
We are relying on your brain and processing.
Let me ask the question.
If everything's won, the Democrats have Senate, House, and presidency, what happens in two years, in the first two years?
Because it's not going to be more than two years, but what can they get done in that two-year period?
I think either, okay, this is what I let it go.
Let me know.
We can go back to that.
No, we can go back and see what happens with history.
Clinton got that in his first term.
And he attempted to ram through the first version, the great, great, great-grandfather of Obamacare.
He and Hillary, he appointed Hillary as first lady to this commission, remember?
And they ran that through.
And the midterm elections was one of the biggest hell-nose in American electorate history as the midterms flipped to bring balance back the other way.
I am conservative.
I want to see Kelly Loeffler win because I think that's the best chance for the Senate holding up conservative business policy and tax policy that I care deeply about.
But I really think that if they win all of it, they're going to fumble the opportunity for two reasons.
One, there's a civil war going on in the Democratic Party.
AOC is pissed that she doesn't have a cabinet post or someone close to her on the squad that has some sort of a cabinet post.
So the hard, hard left is very upset with the moderate left.
Somehow, some way, Elizabeth Warren is not in the mix.
You know, it's a more moderate cabinet.
So there is a, and Bernie, so Bernie, Liz, AOC, and the squad, there is a civil war on the Democrat side pushing.
How real is that?
How real is that?
I think it's damn real.
Is that just articles being written on the right, or is that really happening?
I think you look at the position, you look at what AOC is saying and look at the position of stuff, I think you can see it.
Please totally believe it.
Totally believe it.
They think they can push through any.
They think they're Teflon.
They literally do.
I mean, they got voted into the House.
You agree.
I agree.
I agree.
I think they can't believe anybody would be opposed to them.
They want absolute power, this squad is what they're looking for.
And they can't understand any resistance to it whatsoever.
It just doesn't register for them.
So it will be an all-official story.
Let me ask you a question.
So you asked me about midterms.
And I think the pendulum will swing the other way on midterms because the wrong thing, if I was running strategy for Biden, I would say, listen, the wrong thing would be too much too soon while these conservatives are still triggered and activated.
Midterms are going to come quick.
But I think they're going to go a little too fast.
I think they're going to do a little too much.
And I think it's going to swing back the other way.
I think Biden at his heart is a little bit old school.
I really do.
I don't think he's buying into all this.
I mean, he did things a certain way for 40 years.
He's used to backroom deals, you know, in the Senate.
And he's been part of all of this for the last 40 years.
He's not going to embrace all this radical change right away.
I'm hoping.
I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt right now.
But I'll disagree with you guys on one thing.
I think politicians' number one motivation is self-preservation.
And I think if they felt they owned all three, the House, the Senate, and the president, that they knew there would be such turmoil in two years, half of them would be gone.
So I think there's some sort of benefit.
There's going to be some on the left that are saying it's not going to be a problem.
I think deep down, I don't think they all believe that it's the best scenario for their party, for themselves, because they could be swept away.
Even a long-term congressman could be, you know, sent packing in the upheaval in two years.
So I think that most of them are thinking, I just want to stay here.
I want to clean sail through my next election in two years and just stay here.
So I think they'd be okay if the Democrats didn't control the Senate.
So did Biden come across, now that this has taken place, now that's already, you know, everything's going through the way it is, and the last thing that's left is with, you know, Pence, you know, having to sign off.
And I think Pence is being sued right now for possibly not being able to sign off, you know, hold him back and, you know, what things he could do himself.
So Biden's coming out now being way more moderate than people thought he was going to be.
Is he more moderate than Obama was?
Or is too soon to tell?
It's too soon, but I think he'll probably be.
If Obama's an eight, I think he's going to be like a six and three quarter okay, so he's not going to be far left as Obama right.
And here's the other difference between him and Obama.
Obama had Joe Biden as vice president, who was pretty passive.
Joe Biden has Kamala Harris, who is the opposite of Joe Biden as a vice president, power hungry um, she doesn't come for that next move.
She doesn't come with a stable full of relationships from all those years in the Senate.
Joe Biden brought that.
Yeah, you know he may not have been really valuable to Obama at the voting booth and he wasn't but he was very valuable in terms of all the relationships he had all those years in the Senate.
I will say i'm surprised he hasn't stuck one of these squad members in some sort of high-ranking cabinet position.
To be honest with you, I think a lot of people are surprised.
What do you think that says about him, though?
I think a lot of people are so.
So here's a question.
This becomes a question for me.
So there's there's two arguments here.
One is, is this Biden's doing or is it the people behind closed doors who put up the money saying, listen, here's what you're gonna do.
You're gonna put this person you're not even gonna get close to any of these AOC, Elizabeth Warren guys you're gonna put the people that we recommend you to put in Janet Yelling is gonna be fine.
Some of the things that's gonna take a hit on capital gain is gonna take place.
Some of the things that's gonna happen with taxes where it's gonna go you were talking about yesterday with me, from 33 to 39 that's gonna take place.
But for the most part, is it Biden's strategy that's coming out saying, here's who i'm picking, or is the money?
People behind closed doors.
I think it's some of the money that's keeping Biden kind of in the Biden zone.
Um, I think it's a lot of that.
You know the money, remember.
Money doesn't like change money and money hates radical change.
I think the words Biden and strategy are mutually exclusive.
I don't think he has any strategy, not any big thinking.
He's the accidental president.
I mean, he got thrown into this thing.
He shouldn't have even won the primary, if you think about it, and here he is as the president at 78 years old.
So I think it's behind it's, it's the group behind.
This is a.
This is a, you know, a group effort, a conglomerate behind him making the decisions.
You agree I, I absolutely agree.
I think there's a group that's that is strategically trying to keep this moderate and then keep control and move agendas forward.
And I don't think they're uh, to be trifled with because I think they want to move left yeah, but I think they want to keep it from being, you know, you know, squad operation.
Let's not, let's not say he's not still capable of putting complete buffoons in some of these positions.
So let's see what they do.
So so here's the question, if you're watching this, if you're watching this, what is more likely to happen?
If it's more likely to have Republicans win both seats in Senate, press thumbs up.
If it's more likely that the Dems are going to win the two seats in the Senate, push thumbs down.
I'm actually curious to know what you think about.
And, by the way, vote logically, not emotionally.
Thumbs up if you think Republicans can win both in Senate logically.
If you think Them's are going to win both in Senate, put thumbs down.
But i'm actually curious to know what you guys think about.
What do they do if it's a split, if they think it's going to be one and one?
I don't want to.
I just want to see if they think it's going to be two, two.
That's what i'm curious about the one.
It could end up being a one one, because I think that's where you are, you're more on the one.
One team, I think, kill a lot of win By nose.
All right, cool.
Sounds good.
So let's talk about Nashville.
Why don't you tell us what's going on with Nashville?
This is like very interesting what happened there.
Okay, so Christmas morning, right?
You hear about this explosion, and the first time you read the story or hear about it, the first thing you think is hopefully not anybody was killed, and nobody was.
I mean, it's a minor miracle that nobody actually was killed in this.
So then they started.
Stop right there.
Yeah.
Thumbs up and a shout out to those six cops that evacuated everything and the two very big cops at the end that split to the end of the streets and kept all the patrol cars back.
Thumbs up to them.
All this first responders' learnings from everything in America and nobody else got hurt.
Praise God.
You know what?
And we will never hear the full story of the heroic efforts of these cops.
When they heard that recorded message on this RV saying, if you hear this message, evacuate.
If you hear this message, they were knocking on doors, saving lives.
Six cops.
And, you know, in the year of defund the police, the year thankfully ends with us understanding just how important they are.
I mean, this is such a joke.
Anybody that still believes in the defund the police movement, especially when you see the murder rates that have gone up, Minneapolis' murder rate is up 74% over last year.
Dallas is up.
Dallas is up 34%.
Shootings, insane how much they're up.
I mean, when you start peeling back and look at the number of cops that are taking early retirement, man, it's going to scare you for what's going on in the future.
But kudos to those law enforcement officers in Nashville.
It was unbelievable.
So then you start learning more about this nut job, right?
You automatically assume, what's this guy's problem?
What's he trying to do?
Today, a story comes out that, you know, now all the neighbors are going to start talking.
Yesterday, one of the neighbors that talked to him at the mailbox said, oh, yeah, he was going to say that.
Everybody's going to know my name in a few days.
Today, one of his old friends was saying that he was a pot-smoking, cop-hating, kind of oddball weirdo.
So he has to be weird.
The other interesting backstories about this guy is he was sued by his own mother over these two pieces of property that he deeded to this woman, this 29-year-old executive in the entertainment industry.
She works at AEG in Los Angeles.
She now has two of the houses, one of which Warner was living in.
Warner is the name of the suspect.
So it blows up this entire street, right?
This RV explodes.
And then you're thinking, why this street?
And then, you know, it's looking like the target was this ATT building, which was on that second street in Nashville.
Not just any building.
And the massive regional switch center.
Yeah.
So, you know, cell phone services down throughout multiple states in the area, including Nashville.
The flooding, you know, from this explosion led to the services being outage.
But, you know, you're going to see some other stories now, maybe some conspiracy theories or people that are, you know, looking at this thing a little bit deeper.
But one of the things that that ATT control operations headquarter thing did there on 2nd Street was have something to do with the compilation of the voting in Georgia.
All right.
So there is some sort of connection between ATT and that building in Nashville and what's going on as far as tabulations and data and things that are happening regarding the election in Georgia, the Senate runoff.
So, you know, and then did you hear, but later in the day, they found another van in Tennessee that was recording the same or playing the same type of recorded message.
But they have over 100 ATF and FBI agents on this thing.
We're going to learn a lot more about this a lot, a lot, you know, sooner here.
But this guy was an oddball.
He apparently was paranoid about 5G technology.
So it only makes sense that the ATT building was what he was going after.
Tom.
I think this shows you kind of the dark side of passion.
And the riots we saw this summer was the dark side of passion.
And, you know, it really disappoints me to see what's happening in America when you see people like this that are just stepping up and doing it.
It just kind of flipped me out.
Question becomes: Can these events be prevented?
Can these events, can this, can Boston, can these types of events?
No, no, no, not this one.
No way.
Think we want a nanny state, but I think that there's a difference between those two guys in Boston.
Remember, one of them ran over his brother and killed him in the shootout.
Remember, let's just remember that.
Family ties there, baby.
I think what this is going to bring up, I'm going to be more aware of my neighbors.
And if I got a neighbor that's on the fringe, it's not that I'm going to turn him in.
It's like, wait, what's going on here?
And I would hope it leads to an America that's not like a nanny state spying on your neighbors, but is aware of the people in your life and is aware of things, and people can get help.
And I think we'll prevent some of things like this.
Those two guys in Boston, they were radicalized students.
This was like a hard plan.
This guy seems like he was a lonely, weird kook over time that took a horrible big step.
I think Tom, question.
Question for you.
Yeah.
Question for you guys.
Okay.
So you remember that one movie with Tom, Tom Cruise that is arresting people on future crimes.
What was the name of the movie?
Minority Report, right?
Do you think we're ever going to get to a point where one can, based on searches you're making?
For example, if I go on Google, okay, and I'm searching how to make a bomb, and I go and do searches like that for one day, two days, three days, how to make a bomb to explode a building, how to make a bomb.
Do you think there's any day, anytime soon, that we'll get to a point where there's going to be a trigger to have somebody come in, you know, see why is this guy searching these kinds of things?
What can be done for people like this to be prevented?
Can this be prevented?
100%.
I mean, Nashville's a beautiful city, man.
I lived there for a couple of years.
So how can you prevent this stuff from that?
I mean, think about it.
Did we think a year ago that if you tweet something out, that it could be censored?
Okay, so even in this past year, we've seen where if you do something online, there's repercussions.
If you start talking about bombs or radical groups or I hate the FBI or things like that, you would think that they would be able to intercept this, especially if you couple that with he went down and bought 50,000 pounds of fertilizer, right?
I mean, that's usually a bad mix to make a bomb.
But the FBI said this guy wasn't even on their radar screen.
They didn't even know about him.
So you can have a lone wolf like this who's tactical, who's weird, who's crazy.
I want to see what's going on with this 29-year-old executive in LA.
I mean, she already deleted all her social media.
So there's some sort of tie-in with her and this quack from Nashville that blew up 2nd Street.
But sometimes just an infatuation for a woman can make you do stupid things.
Well, but what I'm trying to add, my question is more from a perspective of you're big on technology.
You're a fan of technology.
You're a believer in technology.
We're talking about earlier with AWS doing $22 million in Q3, no, $12 million Q3, $100 million, $12 billion in Q3.
Yeah, and about to pass up some of these other guys, which we'll talk about here in a minute.
But do you think there will be a time where we will have a technology that's going to say, be careful, this guy is scoring in an 80%ile that he's about to, dot, dot, dot, where action can be taken to prevent behaviors like this.
Do you think we'll ever get to that point?
We're in the baby stage of it right now because the United States Secret Service does this all the time.
And they are, they scan, they have analyst groups, they have a ton of technology that's going out there, looking at the inflammatory statements and see if there develops a person of interest to go pre-interview.
Secret Service will knock on your door and do an interview.
You can go look up Secret Service interviews, Secret Service spot interviews, field interviews.
There is a non-armed side of the Treasury Department that was working on counterfeiting and everything like that of the Treasury Department that is out there doing it.
So in a small way, it's happening now where they're trying to be, use AI and other things to say, should we knock on somebody's door and go check them out before they do something?
So in a small way, it's happening today.
What I think is the technology is accelerating, and I think it's accelerating.
And I think that, you know, if you're a little bit more of a conspiracy theorist, you know, you have all these antitrust hearings.
Everybody's getting pulled except Reed Hastings in front.
Google, Twitter, Facebook.
They all end up in front of Congress in these antitrust hearings.
There's simple deals that will be made, right?
Well, I'll tell you what, you know, we're going to suspend this hearing, but this is what we need.
We need access to this.
We need access to that.
And the government will have access to it, and they'll have their own think tanks and stuff.
So I think we're seeing it starting today, and it's only getting bigger.
I think you're right.
I'm sure they're so far ahead of it already.
And I have no problem with it.
You know, if you think that's an invasion of your privacy, stop talking about building bombs online then.
I think if you're doing that and you create that sort of red flag, the government should come knocking on your door.
And, you know, here's the next question.
Can they send a drone over you and take you out if you're a real big threat, like we do with terrorists, you know, around the world?
But yes.
You went straight from like progress to freaking Middle East, you know, permission to take a guy out.
Tom, you went all the way to the end.
I did.
Yes, I did.
I kind of did fast forward that a little bit.
Would you be, if you're listening, I mean, we got one of the vitainers' fish said, thank you for talking about this all the way from Nashville.
T-Dog419 gave five bucks, and he said presidential elections tend to have greater Democratic turnout.
So the Georgia runoffs will most likely go to Republicans.
Interesting.
Presidential elections tend to have greater Democratic runoff turnout.
So the Georgia runoffs will most likely go.
This is T-Dog 419.
Interesting point on what he's saying here.
And then we had a couple others.
We had Jonathan Ventura.
And if you want to eat at the restaurant, but feel like you should be social distanced and with a mask, there is a spot in the restaurant, one or two tables that are socially distanced.
Jesse Ventura, you may have given something prior to that.
That is the only one that I'm seeing here.
But I'm curious, how many of you that are listening to this right now would be comfortable if we were to get to a point where technology is watching people's behavior online, where it's not necessarily a Facebook watches you talk about the furniture that you want to buy.
Next thing you know, 70 furniture ads come up.
You're like, wait a minute, I didn't even touch my phone.
These ads come up.
But this time around, you're having a conversation.
You're sitting with somebody talking about I'd love to bomb this such and such place or blow this place up.
It leads to triggering a federally funded organization that comes out to want to investigate to see why did you say that and why was that come.
Would you be comfortable with that?
If you're listening to this, would you be comfortable with the government?
Because remember, FBI was an idea.
Why don't we come out with the Federal Bureau of Investigation?
What is it?
Here's what it does.
CIA was an idea.
A lot of these organizations are ideas.
Trump just came out with the new space, what does he call it?
Space Force?
Right.
Something like that.
Space Force.
If I would have told you 10 years ago, Space Force, you would have thought it's a Hollywood movie, but it's actually a real thing.
Space Force, right?
Would people be comfortable with us coming out with an organization that actually studies your behavior and you could get arrested for potentially a future crime you may commit?
Don't forget Homeland Security.
Right.
Homeland Security is brand new spook.
Yep.
Brand new spooky.
November of 01 is when they came out.
Brand new.
And by the way, if you want to think about surveillance, that's the guys that would have all the permissions.
We're doing this to keep America safe.
Listen to what they say about the virus, right, Pat?
We're doing the lockdown so you can be safe.
And people buy into it.
You know, oh, no, no, no, we're doing homeland security.
We're doing all those things into your background so you could be safe.
Would you be comfortable with that?
Would you be comfortable with what I just asked?
Kyle, would you be okay with that?
It's like minority report.
Yeah, would you be okay with that?
You wouldn't be.
No.
Sam, because a part of the power would be abused, right?
Absolutely.
I always go too far.
Sam, you, are you in the same place as Kyle?
Are you also in the same place?
Yeah, because, I mean, I'm thinking of the side of like, you know, people say things sometimes out of anger and frustration.
Yeah.
And a mental crime is not the same as a physical crime.
Well, have you ever gotten into a fight with a Middle Eastern?
You should see the things they'll say.
I swear to God, say that again.
I'm going to bomb this place.
Like, every Middle Eastern would be arrested in Glendo because when the fight breaks out, they'll say, I'm going to bomb this restaurant.
And, you know, people would be.
But that's a good point.
By the way, I'll take the opposite view.
I got no problem with it.
You have no problem.
No, I got no problem at all because I'll tell you why.
I got a better chance of getting blown up by some psycho by getting killed than I have.
You're totally cool.
I'm cool with it because I'm not going to build a bomb.
I'm not going to talk about it on social media.
So I want the idiots that are going to do it to be investigated.
You know who else should be investigated?
The neighbors that come out the next day and say, oh, he seemed normal.
Oh, he was such a nice guy.
Investigate them because they're stupid if they can't see some of these clues that this jerk down the block on the cul-de-sac has an RV and there's a ticking noise coming out of it for the last three weeks.
That's insane.
By the way, a lot of people are commenting saying, I don't trust the government with dictating morality and speech.
Edward Snowden told you this already.
It's already happening, Pat.
Will it pick it up if it says something mind-blowing?
No, because they would abuse it, just like the Patriot Act.
It's got a good point.
Homeland Security is scary enough.
That's a big-time tyranny, says Dutch 1999.
And we had Mohamed Karma in Qumran said Palantir's already has a minority report tech.
It's called Gotham, and they are using it right now.
We talked about Palantir before, and all of a sudden they became a $20 billion company, and no one knows who Palantir is.
So it's already in the works, but it doesn't seem like a mix.
I think 90% doesn't want it, 10% wants it, 1% cannot wait for it.
And that's Tom Zenner's community.
So he is looking forward to that.
Okay, so Tom, Elon Musk sends a tweet out.
And somebody asked him, David Lee on December 24th asked him a question, says, Personally, I think Elon Musk is the best investor of capital and innovator at scale in our generation.
That might be an understatement.
Kyle, if you have that tweet, if you can pull it up, that might be an understatement.
This is an opportunity to create a structure that would optimize his time and interest the most, right?
And then Elon Musk's response saying engineering, design, and general company operations absorb vast majority of my mind and are the fundamental limitations on doing more.
Capital allocation is important, but low CPU load, Tesla publicly, public company duties are much bigger factor, but going private is impossible now.
Parentheses, sigh.
Okay.
Yes, sigh.
Now, while you're looking at this tweet with what he says, what it does to Tesla stock, Tom is going to give us an update on that.
Here's what ends up happening: GM's $27 billion electrical bet begins with Bad Boy Hummer Truck.
The giant automaker plans to push out 30 electric vehicles by 2025 to take on market leader Tesla Inc., starting with the two most iconic brands at the top of its roster, Cadillac and Hummer.
GM is spending $27 billion in an all-out effort to remake 40% of its lineup and retool one-third of its U.S. vehicle assembly factories, putting it in a one-way path to electrification.
Tesla is aggressively building more production around the globe.
The president elect Joe Biden and other political leaders elsewhere are pushing more EV-friendly government policies that will help plug-ins sell.
Like Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, Bera has an advantage over rivals such as Ford Motor Company, Wolksback and AG, plentiful supplies of its own batteries, co-developed with partner LG Kim LTD.
Anyways, this is going to talk about who can potentially compete.
GM is also boosting that truck will go 450 miles before needing HR.
Tom, what happened when Elon Musk sent this tweet out on Christmas Eve?
Well, the stock went up because everybody's like, oh, he's never going to take it private.
So it was kind of the opposite of that thing.
Yeah.
Ready to go private.
Funding secured.
And the Security Exchange Commission said, all right, buddy, pull over.
License registration, please.
You know, and what nuts.
What I think people forget is he is still the leader in EV, monstrous leader in EV.
You know, he has 80% market share in the United States.
So all these great big articles about GM and everything.
GM's a very capable company.
They're giving up Cadillac and Hummer, high-end cars that are very expensive.
There she is.
That's Mary Barrett.
What she was saying right there is, Dear God, please make my stock grow up when I say the word electric.
Dear God, please make my stock grow.
Did it help him?
No, no, it was kind of like a rosary.
She just kept repeating, and it didn't really help at all.
She stuck at $60 billion in market share, which they sold about eight.
Here's an interesting stat.
They sold like 8 million cars this year, approximately.
And at $60 billion market cap, that's about $7,500 a car.
So you got to say that one more time.
So they sold 8 million cars in 2020.
Correct.
And then market cap is $60 billion.
Correct.
So it's about $7,500 per car, if you just use that as a measure.
And if you contrast that with Tesla, which is $600 billion market cap.
That's crazy.
And they sold about 435,000 cars this year.
If it wasn't for pandemic, they would have touched half a million cars this year.
So that's $1.4 million per car sold.
So in terms of future value and what people think, Elon Musk is two universes ahead, but GM's going to catch up.
They're going to catch up and figure it out.
And, you know, the Model S is old.
It's eight years old, but it's nice.
So Elon Musk is about to be in a more going to go from the leader status to a guy that's got other sharks in the same pool with him.
But I don't bet against him, but this feels a little bit to me like the Empire Strikes Back.
Like here comes the second chapter of the movie is what I feel like is coming.
You know, GM only sold 110,000 cars this year.
That's 1.4%.
Yet this is their website.
And you look up there, GM's path to an all-electric future.
Never mind, 98.6% of our cars still use dead dinosaurs.
So it's...
Is this fear?
Is this strategy?
Is this urgency?
Is this the right strategy?
What would you say about this?
I think it is, I think it's fear and urgency right now.
And I think they're trying to move their stock and they're trying to get out of front of it.
I do think it's fear and urgency right now because Tesla is ahead.
But the one that I would fear if I was Elon Musk, not fear, but keep an eye on, is GM because of the battery supply chain.
Because right now, the battery pack of the car is still more expensive than the internal combustion engine.
Still more expensive.
Interesting.
Those lines will cross.
We know they cross with volume.
Today, LED lights, very environmental and everything, and nice light in your house, use a lot less energy.
You can go buy a pack of 10 for about 40 bucks at Home Depot now.
You just go back eight, nine years ago, a single LED light bulb was like 50 bucks.
And now you're buying them in super PACs.
The same thing's going to happen to batteries.
And when those lines cross, people like GM are going to get volume on their side and push.
So he's got to put out new cars.
He's got to keep driving.
Tom, let me give the math one more time what you just said.
This is very important.
I don't know if you guys caught this or not.
Did you guys catch what the math he gave?
Okay.
So here's, pay very close attention to what Tom just said.
GM sold 8 million cars.
8 million cars.
Not 800,000 cars.
8 million cars.
And their market cap is $60 billion.
If you take $60 billion, you divide it by $8 million, Tom's getting $7,500 they're making this year.
Now, if you take, is it $7,500 or $75,000, Tom?
Is it $7,500?
$7,500.
If you take Tesla's market cap, $600 billion, but they only sold $435.
So GM sold 8 million cars.
They're worth 60 billion.
Tesla soared 435,000 cars.
They're worth 10 times more, but they sold 20 times less cars.
And if you break down the 600 billion by how many cars they sold, the average car they sell is $1.4 million profit to them.
You got to understand how this market is right now saying what Tesla's worth.
So here's what I read about an article Tom wrote yesterday on vtpost.com.
Wells Fargo is saying Tesla is about to be the next AOL in 2021.
This is Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo is not as small at a company.
Wells Fargo says Tesla's about to be the next AOL.
So either the market is infatuated with the CEO and they're making the value of this company go to where it's at today, or Tesla's about to be the AOL.
Which one is right?
Well, he is a rock star.
And that is a big, big part of it.
And you know what?
I think a lot of attention gets placed on this because we're so sick of the negativity, all the other news, the coronavirus, you know, the warring factions between the Democrats and the Republicans.
I think some of this, he gets so much publicity.
Can he be oversaturated pretty soon?
I mean, can he be overexposed?
Sometimes I think there's almost too much Elon Musk, but the guy is so brilliant and he keeps delivering.
I will say this.
I've never been an electric car guy, you know, and I'm not really a car person, but you know what?
Yesterday?
Have you ever owned one or two?
No, I'm not.
But I live in California, which is the home of it where everybody has one.
So yesterday, I have a diesel SUV, and there's one gas station I can go to in California.
It's $3.33 per gallon as opposed to $3.63 a gallon.
So I drive there.
And yesterday I'm thinking, I just spent 25 minutes of my day going out of my way to this gas station so I could save 30 cents on completely overpriced gas the way it is.
I want to get an electric car.
I went to the mall because I had to, you know, one day over the holidays.
All the good parking spots are electric.
They literally build the infrastructure of parking lots right now for you to charge your car.
Office buildings, where my office is in LA.
I mean, you want the best primo spot.
It's where the electric hookups are.
And you know what?
I'm in.
And I think this is the next arms race.
I mean, that's why Apple's involved.
This thing is going to get crazy because the whole world is going to want and need an electric car.
And I'll make one last point.
You know who should go into the electric car business?
Not saying it's easy, but should?
Exxon, right?
Why can't they spend $500 billion in research and development and come up with their own because they're not going to sell any gas?
That would be hilarious if Exxon went into the car business.
Okay.
I have been holding my tongue for a minute, but for Wells Fargo, I have no love for Wells Fargo.
Wells Fargo was the nice bank that opened extra credit cards and extra accounts for you without telling you about it, suffered a huge federal, and they lost their CEO and criminal charges were filed.
So I think that there's a bit of overreaction there.
Does Tesla kind of come back to earth a little bit on this valuation over time?
Sure, they are.
But I don't bet against the entrepreneur and the, and pardon the expression, the engine that is in Elon Musk's heart, he's not just going to sit by and let it happen.
We're going to see, you know, remember we thought that the lineup of cars was getting boring.
And Elon Musk kept saying, boy, you know, our car's getting kind of boring.
We got to do design things.
He was saying that for three weeks.
Remember that?
Remember what he did?
He goes on stage with this incredible weird truck announcing the Tesla truck.
And it's like, oh, okay, the super truck.
And I'm moving to Austin.
So he knows what he's doing.
He's got a whole funnel of things to do.
One thing I would say is what you're talking about, moving over to energy.
You know, I saw a list of the plug-in infrastructure players, and the number two ranked on the number of new parking spots installed is BP.
British Petroleum.
Correct.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So one, so this part of my arm from my elbow to my fingertips is doing electric.
The rest of my body, BP, is still selling diesel, natural gas, and stuff.
What was interesting, you and I both know a guy, EV Connect in Los Angeles, Jordan Raymer.
We were in a CEO council together.
Remember?
Jordan Raymer, EV Connect, he was out there making infrastructure as an entrepreneur out there, becoming a reseller of energy and building the infrastructure so that a mall could put in the parking spaces.
And he was trying to convince people, don't just make it a benefit for the top three spots.
Because the first spots were for handicap, and then we have pregnant mothers, socially really good ideas to do that.
And then we put the EVs up there.
Now, wait a minute, there's nothing wrong with someone driving an EV, but they get to be closer.
And Jordan Raymer went out there with this dream.
He just said, hey, I think we should build entire parking lots and everything.
And so I think there's a lot of entrepreneurships going on there that it's only going to help.
But I'm not betting against Elon Musk.
Pat, I'll make this comment and I'll be interested to see your reaction to it.
I think some of Elon's competitors see a vulnerability with him.
And here's what it is.
He runs two other businesses.
He has SpaceX.
He has that boring company that's building the tunnels in LA and Vegas and everything.
And he moved to Austin.
So his companies are in California.
And he's over here.
Do you think he's minimized by the fact that he's the CEO of these huge, huge, globally changing companies?
Something's going to suffer.
And I would imagine a smart guy like a Tim Cook and the people at GM and their competitors are thinking, you know, there's part of his day every day he's not devoting to Tesla.
And does he have enough of an army behind him to make up for he's the man running the show?
So years ago, I mean, Elon, I think, has got four or five kids.
He's got a good amount of kids.
I don't know the exact number, but he's got four or five kids.
And I think he wrote about it in an article written by Neil Strauss, a very lengthy article, great article written about him when they were doing an interview.
And one of the reasons why he decided to, you know, go be single is he wanted to marry his career.
Now, he does his best to be a father, but he doesn't want to have any kind of full commitments.
He definitely wants to be in relationships and not, but he wants to be able to commit to his businesses.
His babies are the companies he runs.
He treats his companies like his babies.
That's where he's at.
I remember one time I sat down with a former CFO of AIG, okay?
And him and I were having dinner.
No, you weren't there.
We were in Ritz-Carlton, Chicago, and he's sitting right next to me.
And this is when they went and got the money from the government, $183 billion.
And I said, so, you know, tell me about yourself.
You know, he says, well, you know, I do this.
I said, how many kids you got?
He said, I don't have any kids.
Really?
You're not married?
He said, no, I'm married.
How long have you guys been married?
We've been married for 25 plus years.
How come you don't have any kids?
My wife and I made a decision a long time ago that our babies were going to be our career.
We were going to dedicate that energy into our career, not kids.
And we felt kids were going to take away time away from our career.
Now, think about, you have kids.
You have kids.
Yep.
I have kids.
I got an 8, 7, and a 4, and 1 on the way, right?
You got Dasha Navanka, you got Brooke and Bailey, right?
How many total hours has been put in into those kids?
Actually think about it.
I want you to actually think about it.
How old is Bailey?
How old is Brooke?
How many total hours of your time have you put into your babies?
Don't say I would not replace it.
I'm not talking about that.
No, no.
I'm just asking you, think about how many of your life hours was put into your kids.
Diapers, park, picking them up, dropping them off, talking to them, sitting down.
Everything's going to be okay.
How many hours is that?
You can't even count them.
Plus, I have a daughter named Brooke as well.
She's just graduated from Pepper.
That's how Pepper died.
She grew up in the Bay Area.
All the time I flew back and forth.
How many hours?
It's actually.
I want you to think about it.
I'm trying to think about it.
If you were to think about it, put the hours, what do you think that hours is for you?
Is it in the tens of thousands?
Yes.
Is it in the thousands?
Okay.
So if you have those tens of thousands of hours that you put into your kids to put into something else, how would they do?
So you have to understand the fact that the part about putting time into his babies, I think he's got plenty of time.
I don't think that's a challenge for him to do.
Now, as far as him being exploited and can they get to him and all this other stuff, you know, when you're going into the NBA, there's a couple different kinds of players.
You go into major league baseball or NBA, there's a couple different kinds of players.
There's players that want to play with who?
Michael, because they're enamored by it.
Like, you know, how when Jordan came back and he went to the Wizards, the bench could never play.
He says, my teammates wouldn't play because they would just stand there, not play defense and rotate because they were watching Michael.
They're like, oh my gosh, I'm enamored by Michael.
Play the damn basketball game, right?
But there were also guys like Kobe coming out saying, dude, I'm not scared of you.
You know, I'm coming for you.
There's going to be people that are going to want to compete with Elon.
That's just, that's just, you know, but wanting to compete with him and maybe not being that next level thinker and genius that he is, you're already starting behind the agenda.
You are, but there's going to be somebody.
The market tells us there's always somebody that comes out that wants to do something.
It's always been like that.
I also think Tesla has to stay cool.
I'm not excited about a GM electric car.
Now, I am excited about the Hummer that you had mentioned, that they're going to come out with a new Hummer that's going to be electric.
Why don't you talk about what they're planning on doing with Cadillac by 2025?
This is a pretty strong statement made about Cadillac.
And I think it's a smart statement.
And it comes out of this fact.
Here's a simple fact for you.
If you take away the federal subsidies and the discounts that are paid for our government on the cars, Tesla is not cash flow positive on each car.
Think about that.
Even at half a million cars a year, they're not cash flow positive.
So we need these federal subsidies, green air subsidies, so that you can do this.
That's, number one, very important.
GM knows this, and GM knows that because of batteries, the cars are going to be expensive for a while.
So I think GM made one really very good strategic move in Murray Barra's announcement, where she was saying, please, God, make my stock go up.
And that is they're sacrificing Cadillac as a gas brand.
Cadillac is going to be an electric brand.
It's more expensive.
It's a higher price point.
There's more features that are inside.
So they're going to do that so that the brand and its cost lines up with the underlying more expensive cost to make an electric car.
I think that's smart.
I think that's smart.
And they're saying, hey, by 2025, Hummer is a cool announcement.
Cadillac is more of a consumer.
It's a big point of Tesla-esque.
Move some volume.
People were willing to pay 80 grand to 100 grand for a Cadillac and not for a GM.
So for every Hummer you sell, you'll probably sell five of those little CXRs.
I can see that.
I can totally see that.
I can totally see that.
Let me give a quick shout out to a couple guys here that gave a few dollars and put comments here.
Paul Nieto III said the same thing.
He said, I think the biggest company Elon owns will be Neuralink.
If the tech can really work and take off.
Interesting to say Neuralink, he thinks, will be the biggest company he runs.
Paul, you didn't get a big reaction from these guys, so maybe they're wrong, or maybe you're wrong, but maybe somebody's right.
By the way, Croatia just had a big earthquake a couple hours ago.
I don't know if you guys heard about Croatia's big earthquake 6.2 earthquake that took place.
It's pretty ugly.
If you type in Croatia earthquake, you'll see what happened.
I mean, I'm getting messages here.
Ivan X underscore CRO says, I know you like Croatia.
I don't like Croatia.
I love Croatia.
Did you see news about the 6.2 earthquake that hit about three hours ago?
I lived 60 miles away from the epicenter and my Christmas tree fell down.
Wow.
Yeah.
So this is, yeah, if you look at this one here, it is.
That's no joke.
No, it is no joke, especially when the infrastructure isn't as solid.
We had a flat rate inspection.
Shout out to Gene Chapman of PHP.
Give me a great $2.5 million index policy, great company, family-like.
I recommend all my youth to look into benefits of index life.
Great.
Shout out to Gene Chapman.
Great job, Gene.
And then we have more that's coming in here from this.
So let's get back into it.
So now, this leads me into what Tim Cook said, okay?
Tim Cook goes out there and uses one word in his speech.
One word in his speech that made Apple $103 billion by just dropping one word.
Kyle, do you want to bring up that picture?
So Tim Cook gets up there and says, we may come out with an Apple car.
They have not sold a single car, but they made $103 billion without having sold a single car.
Do you think Apple can compete in the car market?
I don't think so in terms of manufacturing it and going through all that headache.
But I think that the Apple experience, I think if Apple went to someone like a Ford and says, hey, you build it, but it's the Apple experience and it's all that great connection between hardware and software.
Because remember, the Apple phone, unlike Android, the Apple phone, they control the hardware and the software and they make it work together so beautifully.
I think if they do that with one of the big manufacturers, I think it's a player.
I think it's very, very real.
I'll have to disagree with Tom here.
I think if they decide they want to get into cars, they're going to do it and they're going to do it very well.
They have a couple advantages.
I mean, it's the same analogy with the phone.
If someone said, hey, do you think they could have a great phone down the road?
And who knew that they were already working on it for five years?
They have the ability to go hire anybody they want.
Why can't they go get the best people at Tesla, the very, very best in the world, get them and steal the secrets and just do it a little bit better?
Plus, you're automatically coming out of the gate thinking that whatever Apple designs is going to be cutting edge, different, cool, out of the box, got to have it, you know, latest bells and whistles, the whole thing.
So, man, I think they're right there.
Now, they might be a little aggressive with 2024.
You know, maybe that's a little bit sooner than realistically being able to roll these off the assembly line.
But, man, I'm kind of excited to think what they could do making cars.
I think it's going to be spectacular.
Here's what Elon Musk said about it on December 22nd.
During the darkest days of the Model 3 program, I reached out to Tim Cook to discuss the possibility of Apple acquiring Tesla for one tenth of our current value, which means around $60 billion, okay, give or take.
He refused to take the meeting.
Strange if true, Tesla already uses iron phosphate for medium-range cars made in Shanghai factory.
A monocell is electrochemically impossible as max voltage is 100 times too low.
Maybe they meant cells bonded together like our structural battery pack.
So I don't know whether that was a shot being taken or not, but if he's responding to it, there's only one reason you would respond.
If you actually think Apple could be a threat if you respond.
Now, you know, for me, by the way, I'll read to you what they said in the reports here.
A closely watched Apple analyst is warning that investors should be cautious about a report that an iPhone maker is planning to produce a self-driving car in 2024.
Last week's report by Reuters sent shares of companies that built parts of an autonomous cars like LIDAR centers.
How do you pronounce that word?
L-I-D-A-R.
LIDAR.
LIDAR centers, sensors, soaring.
But the hype was purely on speculation.
Some of those companies might supply parts of the Apple car.
TFI analyst Ming Chi Kuo warned in a note this weekend, we believe that the current so-called Apple Car concept stocks are only speculations by the market and do not involve Apple actual Apple car suppliers.
We also think that because EV self-driving car technical specs are still evolving, it is too early to talk about the final specs of the Apple car.
A part of this conversation that's taking place is that Tim wants to have one big bang before leaving.
Like he's getting to a point where he's thinking about, you know, maybe I've done my part.
My season's coming to an end and I want to kind of leave with a splash.
And it's, I come out with the Apple car.
Like, I would love to see Elon.
I had this conversation the other day with MKBHD YouTube channel, 30 million subscribers, phenomenal conversation with them.
And I said, what do you think are the chances of Tesla, Elon Musk, going into the phone business and winning?
So, question for both of you guys here: What's more likely to be successful for Elon Musk to say, Screw you, Tim Cook?
I'm going to go into the phone business and take market share away from you, and I'm going to create a Tesla phone.
Is Elon Musk more capable of competing in the phone business and smartphone, or is Apple more capable of competing in the car business?
What do you think?
Apple's more capable of completing a car business.
Absolutely.
You know, if Elon puts his head to it, he can.
Battery.
Remember, he can say battery, this iPhone, this computer, a phone that I created, Tesla, the battery life lasts a week.
True.
True.
I'm looking at the entanglements on the phone.
The phone is like seven subsystems.
Battery is only one of them.
You know, there are so many things that go into a phone, as well as the community and the whole application development environment that took three years just to develop that.
It is so much easier for Apple to take experiential programming and usage and brand and put it around.
And, you know, I think it's far easier for Apple to make a car with the right partner than it's going to be for Elon Musk to make a phone.
Complete opposite.
I think it'd be way easier for Elon Musk to do a Tesla phone because he's already proven he can do a Tesla tequila and anything else he wants to.
The other thing, too, is he'd be able to hurt Apple quicker.
Well, that's a good idea.
Drinking and driving because it's a self-driving car and you can drink and use the car for it.
Yes.
But you were saying, when you drink, give your car the keys.
Yeah, I really think, no, if he wanted to, I mean, look, he's building a tunnel to LAX from Hawthorne.
I mean, good God.
And that gets no publicity.
Or what he's doing in Vegas.
The guy can do anything he wants and set his mind to it.
Plus, he could be a little gnat nipping at Apple and stealing, you know, 5% of their phone share, which makes a huge difference to them.
And I think you could produce a phone quicker.
So, yeah, I think he could do that.
By the way, I am so against self-driving cars.
I don't want to know that the car next to me on the 405 is self-driving.
Really?
Tell me why.
Because it just scares me.
I don't trust self-driving cars at all.
Do you trust self-driving planes?
Self-flying cars?
Yes, but there's less traffic in the air.
Less traffic in the air.
And you know what?
There's not idiot pilots next to him, you know, flanking him all over, making illegal turns in front of him.
But yes, I do trust self-flying planes more than I trust pilots, to be honest with you.
But the self-driving cars, I cannot wrap my arms around it.
I know people that go to work without basically driving.
It's all programmed.
What about if you have Road Rage?
Is that programmed into it where the car will actually flip the other guy or hit the guy?
So you're saying Apple is more likely to get into the car business and succeed than Elon Musk is likely to get into the phone business and succeed.
Yeah, other Tom makes good points, but I'm sticking with my point.
Here's the other thing: Musk is petty.
He'd do it.
I know he would do it.
I know he would do it.
Succeed.
Key word is succeed.
Not just get into it.
It's to succeed.
Who do you bet on?
I think making a phone seems easier than making a car.
All the parts.
So you think Tesla more than Apple.
I think so.
Unfortunately, I have to go with Tesla.
So Tesla would have a better shot.
You're thinking Tesla or Apple?
I'm kind of rooting for Tesla, but I think Apple has a really good shot strictly because growing up, I always wondered, you know, what if Apple came out with their own TV?
What if Apple came out with their own car?
No one really thinks, what if Tesla came out with their own phone?
Can you imagine like you drive an Apple car?
Apple car.
What do you have?
I have the latest Apple car.
I mean, you got it.
That car's got to look pretty cool.
It's got to look different.
It's got to be, they're not going to make a product that doesn't look like you might get a free laptop with it, too.
I'm actually being aware of that.
I like your point, too, of that Tim Cook might want to have some sort of legacy play here.
Because if he retires, what's he going to be known for?
He developed a great stock price for Apple.
There's nothing sexy about his legacy.
And he bought a few companies.
Right.
And not to say that he's on Steve Jobs level, but you still want to be remembered for something, especially when competing against Tesla.
If he does the car and the car does stuff, it's going to be interesting.
For those of you guys that are watching this, what do you think is more likelihood of happening?
Elon Musk competing in a marketplace with phones or Tim Cook and Apple competing in a marketplace with cars.
By the way, another question for you.
Right now, Tesla's worth what?
$600 billion.
Do you think Tesla in 2021 will cross a trillion?
I think it's, yes, I think it's maybe it's not 21 or maybe it's early 22, but I think they will be the next one in the T-Club.
So you're putting them to cross-so you're saying Wells Fargo has no clue what the hell they're talking about.
I'm not going to debate the Wells Fargo article.
I'm looking at where Elon Musk is going with energy.
People forget that Tesla is at its heart, not an automobile company, energy company.
Wells Fargo article is important.
They're saying Tesla's the next AUL.
You're saying Tesla is going to be the next trillion dollar.
That is an argument.
So you think Wells Fargo is way off with their assessment of Tesla?
Way off.
Okay.
So you think they'll be a trillion-dollar company?
Not in 2021.
Okay.
But I think they eventually will be.
And have we ruled out the fact that?
Have we ruled out the fact that he could go the route of Alphabet like Google has and put everything under one umbrella?
Is that impossible?
I think if he does that, he probably won't do that because he knows a Biden administration will try to break it apart.
So he's going to be better off just separating all of them so he doesn't have to deal with the politics.
Do you agree with that, Tom?
Or he wouldn't put everything under one company?
I completely agree with that.
Right now, with the attitude in Washington, I think any smart CEO is going to say, hang on, let's.
Were you going to say more?
No, I was just way over.
I think it's like, let's have some more stuff.
Hey, by the way, Pat, I mentioned this earlier.
Did you know that Elon Musk flew to Hawaii to go meet with Larry Ellison for one?
What is that all about?
I don't know.
There's got to be some strategic thing behind it.
No, I'll tell you, but if I was going to go get advice and regulated, and if I thought I was in trouble, I thought I needed strategic advice on a macro scale, I go talk to Larry Ellison.
You know, Oracle and Larry Ellison, they are the Lord God king of lobbying against their competitors and working with the Senate and Congress for legislation that helps Oracle and doesn't help other people.
So if I was going to go get advice or work with people or look at, you know, look at financing, Larry Ellison, everybody forgets.
What number is Larry Ellison?
Look, he's right up there, 20 something in the teens.
How about number four or five or six?
Larry Ellison is usually four or five or six.
I like the way you're thinking because my first thought was who hates Apple?
Does Larry Ellison hate Apple?
But not really.
I mean, there isn't this direct competitive thing there.
So maybe the lobbying issue where he stays a step ahead of it three, four, five years down the road, tapping into some of that expertise that he might have.
Elon Musk is not dumb, and Larry Ellison would be a great private mentor.
And when I mean private mentor, I mean talking about things at nine levels up.
You know what I mean?
Plus, he could probably sell them a lot of tequila.
I mean, you got to realize that Larry can party.
Elon Musk tweets out saying just meeting with Larry Ellison to seek some advice.
Back working on Tesla end of quarter tomorrow, December 28, 2020.
He tweets that out.
I mean, you've got to realize he's sending a message to somebody.
That tweet is probably only for one person.
Correct.
And no one knows who that one person is.
You know, Pat, at vtpost.com, you know, you can kind of get a good gauge on what's driving the world, what people are interested in.
There isn't a day that goes by where I'm not picking an Elon Musk story.
He's relevant every single day with something he does.
Gotta get interested.
Or at least interesting.
He's at least interesting.
And if you're going to go visit Larry Ellison, the nice thing about Hawaii, you can say, Larry, I'm going to bring my PR person, my security detail, my entire family.
Do you have space?
You know, it's like, I own the island of Lanai.
Great.
So you have space.
So you can have private conversations with Larry and there's just a lot of space.
Except for the 2% you said, right?
Yeah, 2%.
He owns 98.
But there's 2% state.
Apparently, it's emergency services and basic CPS.
Do you know who he paid for it?
Do you know the number what he paid for?
It was like $100 million.
It wasn't much.
I thought it was $700.
Well, it was less than $300.
But it was less than $7.
What was it?
It's nothing.
It's less than you would think for a Hawaiian Island.
You know who else bought a ton of property out there?
Isn't it Zuckerberg?
Wasn't he buying a ton in Hawaii too?
Well, he bought a plantation for himself out there.
And that's a little south of Ireland, but it's something.
Yeah.
Okay, so stimulus bill.
Let's talk about the stimulus bill.
Apparently it finally got through.
Trump has signed into law a new $900 billion coronavirus relief and stimulus package, among its provisions, an extension of last spring's paycheck protection program, allowing another $284 billion or so in forgivable federally backed loans for ailing small businesses.
The initial program overseen by the U.S. government, Treasury, and Small Business Administration shepherd some $255 billion to more than 5 million recipients, but was fraught with loopholes and liabilities that raised countless issues throughout an already complex process.
And then at the same time for unemployment, the COVID portion of the bill revives a weekly pandemic jobless benefit boost, this time $300 through March 14.
It also extends eviction protections, adding a new rental assistant fund.
Trump signing into this bill is $2,000, plus the fact that Trump signed the stimulus into law make take pressure off of Republicans in both the House and the Senate to vote for the boosted checks, allowing them to stick to their guns on keeping the size of the relief package under control.
The government is now funded for the next year.
Crucial benefits helping Americans through the pandemic are renewed, and $600 checks will be on its way if the $2,000 checks don't pass.
Thoughts?
First of all, I'm glad they closed the loopholes.
I saw a thing in here that they have a loss test.
So your business can't apply for scoop number two unless you can show that you had a greater than 25% quarter over quarter drop as regard to the pandemic.
I think that's a good thing.
I agree.
There were some businesses out there that just ran and got the money.
We read about sports teams that ran and got the money.
$4.5 million.
Harvard Business School got Harvard got $8.5 million.
And meanwhile.
But the Lakers gave the money back, by the way.
And that story came out.
But meanwhile, those small restaurants and dry cleaners and people that are in the neighborhood around Staples Center downtown are having a hard time getting five grand and the Lakers did.
But Lakers gave it back.
So when the spotlight got shined, they gave it back.
But I like the fact that there's more tests in now.
And it appears that this is more friendly for the small business guy to get in if he really had a loss.
And it looks like it's harder for the medium and large businesses just to go fill out the forum and get some free capital.
I like that part.
Just when you didn't think things could get any weirder, you have Donald Trump agreeing with Democrats, right?
Pumping up the check value from 600 to 2,000.
This whole thing has been bizarre.
The Senate still has to confirm this thing, right?
And they're ready to break for the new year here pretty soon.
But good old Bernie Sanders, is there a bigger egomaniac on the planet right now than Bernie Sanders?
I mean, this guy's ego is so far.
But he's got to be up there.
It's up there.
Here's what he said today.
I will shut down the Senate.
I will force people to stay through.
Who are you?
You are one person from an irrelevant state, number one, New Hampshire, basically irrelevant.
I mean, who knows anything about New Hampshire?
But he's out there saying he's going to keep the same.
Or Vermont, which looks, but you probably got it.
And I used to live in New England.
That's a big mistake.
Because all the small states look alike, right?
But you know what?
I'm in favor of anything that's going to help the economy.
I'm in favor of anything that's going to help small businesses.
This also just shines a microscope on what's going on in D.C.
This bill was 6,000 pages long.
Who has a chance to actually read 6,000 pages of this legislation?
All the pork that they try to jam in this thing is disgusting.
But if it helps businesses, if it helps Americans, if it helps the economy, I am 100% behind it.
I like the fact that Trump fought for a little bit more money because $600 really isn't that much.
If you're going to sign off on a bill of this magnitude, have a little bit more money going to American citizens, I think it's okay.
And I just hope there's less fraud because when that first bill came out, there was so much fraud, so many people taking advantage of it.
I hope that they found a way to shut that down.
What is this going to do to the economy?
I'll leave it up to you to answer that one.
What is it going to do to the economy?
It's going to give people a little bit more confidence, maybe hope, maybe having a little thought that they can pay some more bills, maybe inject more money into the economy.
I would imagine it will have some sort of short-term effect.
Yeah, I think there's going to be a little lift going into the first quarter.
Absolutely.
I think January, we're going to see some, you know, those little stats that come out.
Cost goes up a little bit.
I think the average Joe that's able to get a check is going to be able to do a little bit.
And I think it's going to be a little short-term pop.
I think the Wall Street reaction will be greater than the real impact on the average guy.
The Wall Street reaction.
Tell me what you mean by that.
I think the market will be up more than the actual change and the lift and the help that we gave to the average citizen.
Got it.
So the rich will get richer than the poor will get a little richer.
You're saying the rich is going to benefit from this more than the poor is.
Yeah, absolutely.
Or the ownership class that's owning companies.
Can you unpack that?
Why is that?
Well, because the market's going to react and the value of the assets are going to go up for the people that already own those assets and make more money and didn't need that extra $1,000 and were ineligible to it.
And the little guy on the corner is going to get $1,000 and it's going to be thanks.
That helps me a little bit.
Meanwhile, he's got another $8,000 in credit card debt and everything he's gone through.
That's the part of this that kind of fries me a little bit is we never do enough for the citizen that's down at the end of it.
And in my opinion, paycheck protection completely missed it.
Paycheck protection should have been if you prove you have no layoffs and you prove what your payroll is, we'll pay X for a given amount of time.
And they did that weird thing where they would give you some and then maybe we forgive it.
Maybe we don't forgive it.
And it just seemed like that the little guy didn't get enough.
So my opinion is, did they do better this time?
Yeah, but I'm not cheering about it.
And I think the little guy still needs a little more help.
Who wins here, Democrats or Republicans?
Probably the Democrats will spin it in a way that they got Trump to come over on their side a little bit more.
I don't know if I don't look at this and see that there's one clear winner.
Okay.
I think if you took a poll in the street, the election's over, except Georgia.
But the average person on the street, I don't think, is going to give a passing grade to his government on this.
Does this regardless of how they vote in the United States?
So right now, is it fair to say that the main thing that matters right now when it comes down to politics is one state, 11 million people, right?
Georgia's done something.
That's the only thing that matters.
Does this influence anything there?
Like, is this something where Trump's going to go and say, Republicans got the deal done?
This is why, dot, And the Democrats wanted to only give $600 and send the other money to all these special interest groups in other countries, and we got it done to get the money in the American people.
You think that's going to create some motivation for people to say, you know what, Republicans got this done.
This is the last weekend.
You're going to see those comments and more.
There's going to be all kinds of those claims.
Pat, I think you're on it.
You're going to see all kinds of those claims made in the last weekend.
We're not going to see them in the rest of the U.S., but on TV, radio, the Georgia voter is going to get bombed by people taking credit and spinning that.
I don't think anybody's vote could be swayed by that at this point in Georgia.
And I wish maybe 20 billion of this bill would go into making sure there's no fraud in the election, that there's people looking at every one of these votes, making sure that they're checking the signatures and making sure that whatever happens in Georgia on January 5th is legit.
I mean, I think that's what everybody wants to see.
I think people want to see that taking place in Georgia.
Okay, so let's talk about a little China, you know, since China's one of our favorite topics to go through.
Chinese journalist who documented Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, jail for four years.
Zhang Zhan, 37 years old, was found guilty of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, according to one of her defense lawyers, Zhang Kiki, who attended her hearing, the offenses commonly used by the Chinese government to target dissidents and human rights activists.
A former lawyer, Zhang, traveled some 400 miles from Shanghai to Wuhan in early February to report on the pandemic and subsequent attempt to contain it, just as authorities began reigning in state and private Chinese media for more than three months.
She documented snippets of her life under lockdown in Wuhan and the harsh reality faced by the residents from overflowing hospitals to empty shops.
She posted her observations, photos, and video on WeChat, Twitter, and YouTube, the latter two of which are blocked in China, and she's now going to jail for four years.
Thoughts?
Scary.
I mean, my God, I don't know.
Four years.
What she did, you know, it's not like she was writing editorials every day railing against the president or railing against communism.
She was basically documenting life in China during the pandemic.
And then, you know, the thing that just is crazy about this is these charges.
I mean, it almost seems like too bizarre, like you couldn't even make it up.
Quarreling, you know, things like that.
They can literally almost invent a charge to suppress people, to lock them up, to show that they're in charge here.
She's one of at least 47 journalists that are in detention in China right now.
So it's not like she's the only one.
And you know what?
They get these people and they're forgotten.
I mean, who knows what they're doing to them behind the scenes before they even put them in prison?
So it's pretty scary, you know, that they can control every bit of information that's said about it.
And just I think the other interesting thing is to watch how the American media treats this story.
Like if they're not appalled by it, there's something wrong.
Well, I think the U.S. media is going to talk about this, but then kind of give it a little bit of a pass because the corporate tentacles go all the way from here to China.
Let's face it, there's another word for China.
It's called factory.
And if you want to change the cost structure of everything you buy from this pen to the iPhone to the seats in your car, get ready.
So a whole economic case study I could drop into there.
But this does not surprise me.
China, this is, you don't disagree with Big Poppy.
That's it.
And it's not surprising.
Tom, you're like all, you got very strong opinions to them.
You got to hold back a little bit with your opinions.
You're a little too strong today, and I think you're offending people.
You know, I would like you to taper down a little bit and not upset the folks of China because they may come after you.
So, you know, I don't know if you guys are getting my drift.
You know, it's a little too much, Tom.
You're offending my friends of China.
Okay.
And if you piss them off, they will come and they will find you.
Similar to the line from the girl in wedding crashes.
I will find you.
Okay.
If you remember that scene.
I don't know if you probably.
That's right.
She's a beast, by the way.
I didn't see wedding crashers.
No, I mean.
It's a very, it's highly recommended by the Christian.com website.
There might be a PG version of it up there somewhere.
Yeah, it's 13 minutes long edited.
It's the credits.
There's some kind of a wisdom in that movie.
There's some kind of wisdom in that movie they could take away.
Okay.
All right.
So let's skip this China topic, Tom, and we'll go to another topic that we have here.
How about let's talk about China taking over the world?
Because we haven't really did we get into the numbers with China being the biggest economy in the world or not yet?
We haven't done that.
Okay.
Another painful pandemic side effect.
China's economy is now set to pass U.S. in 2028 as world's largest.
In an intriguing twist, the COVID-19 pandemic, which has its roots in China, is a primary reason the Chinese economy is expected to overtake that of the U.S. within a few years.
A report said China's decisive actions at the outset of the outbreak, combined with the disastrous effects on the American economy, are keys.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said last month that a doubling of his country's economy was entirely possible by 2035 under his five-year plan for an improved brand of socialism.
Japan would stay at number three for another 10 years before India takes that spot.
Germany would drop to number five.
They report U.S. growth slung to 1.9% per year between 2022 and 2024, and then a 1.6%, which is even lower.
The yearly expectation for Chinese growth is 5.7% from 2021 to 2025, then 4.5% from 2026 to 2030 with a trend slowing down to 3.9, but still 2% to 4% faster than the U.S. economy.
Are we one day soon going to look at China as the biggest economy in the world?
Yes.
Absolutely.
It's going to be.
And the rest of the world, using China as its factory, is letting it happen.
You know, when the jobs go, the manufacturing jobs are over there, and that's why you have cheaper products over here.
If you take that away, it's, you know, prices go up on a lot of goods.
It's going to be the largest economy.
It's going to happen.
I'm frankly shocked.
It's not sooner than that.
And I think it might be.
I think if, depending on what happens in Georgia and what happens here in the next three or four years, it might happen by 2024.
That would not shock me.
And here's the difference: China, everything they do is proactive.
Everything we do is reactive.
We bicker amongst ourselves.
We think we're our own worst enemy.
China knows who their enemy is.
It's the rest of the world.
And they unite and they go after it and they have a plan.
I mean, everything is used as leverage for them.
They're just smart about everything, including the pandemic.
All right.
It's almost like they knew about it or something.
So, yeah, it doesn't surprise me at all.
Look at the population difference.
You know, they already have that built-in advantage.
Look at the other key factor: California, which is the world's fifth biggest economy on its own, is slowly slipping into the toilet.
So, yeah, that's going to have a big effect on everything as well.
So, yeah, this is going to happen.
It might happen sooner than these economists think.
What does that mean, though, if it does happen?
What does it mean if it does happen?
Is there anything to it?
Is the American dream going to be getting a black eye?
Is it going to be a book going to be coming out titled The Chinese Dream?
No, but is that what it's going to come out?
The Chinese Dream Replaces the American Dream.
That's how they'll spin it for sure.
But it will be 100% a testimony to the fact that whatever we've done to fall into second place isn't working.
And you know what?
It's just ego-wise.
We don't want to be second in economy.
We're America.
Come on.
I don't think life in America will be altered one bit by the leaderboard of the world economies.
I think you still got freedom, free enterprise, and people here are going to dig it.
They're not going to say, Oh my God, I agree with you guys.
I never said that.
I disagree with that as well because I think China is going to use that and think that they can be number one in everything in the military.
I think it's going to be that's different.
You're talking about average Joe in the United States.
I think it's going to be China.
Will use that information as long as forget about China.
Forget about China.
There's one thing you guys are fully missing and not thinking about.
Okay.
So imagine it's 2032 and your kids are going to school.
They're going to UC Berkeley.
They're going to whatever place they're going to, okay?
And Professor Johnson, Mary Johnson, is up there teaching economy.
And she says, for decades, America kept telling people that the best system in the world was capitalism.
Well, guess what?
China proved that it doesn't work.
China proved that the right way to run a country to consider is communistic at the top and socialistic at the bottom to think about the people.
And America only thought about the rich people.
And this is why America eventually lost.
And now China is bigger than America.
So to all your capitalist uncles and fathers that were talking about America is the greatest country in the world, I hate to spill it to you, boys and girls.
They were wrong.
And your 19-year-old kid, who you're spending at that time, $107,000 a year to go to school, is sitting there saying, mom, my teacher today, Miss Mary Johnson, said the fact that capitalism sucks.
And she's right, because if capitalism is so good, why did China pass up the U.S. economy?
Why?
Maybe we need to consider some of these principles in Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto.
And we need to look at the fact that communism and socialism isn't really that bad.
Maybe these Americans, all they care about is money.
You are going to see teachers run with this like you've never.
Richard Wolf will be a celebrity.
Richard Wolf is going to come out saying, I told you so.
And all the capitalist author, the Arthur C. Brooks, the Milton Friedman community that comes from that lineage, the Thomas Sowell community that comes from there, they're going to be sitting there saying, well, because China has 1.6 billion people and Mark only has 300.
All those arguments are going to be made.
And every time they're going to say, but China passed you up, but China passed you up.
But China passed you up.
You don't think that's going to have a negative impact for the next 20, 30, 40 years of the way kids are going to go to school?
Really?
I don't know about that, guys.
And this is coming from a guy that's a capitalist.
Well, they're probably already doing it, the Mary Johnsons of the world.
But the Mary Johnsons don't have an argument yet because they haven't passed up yet.
What happens if they do pass U.S. economy up?
Well, when they do, and then will we ever be able to catch them again?
Tom, looks like you want to say something.
I hear you.
And I think it's going to be spun that way.
And I think it's going to be seen that way.
And it's just, you know, I think it's going to be like the remnant.
You know, we're all the remnant out there trying to tell the story and trying to help people understand there's a better way.
I like the scenario with the conversation.
Visually, you didn't go there?
You didn't go there visually.
You, seriously, Tom, you are a capitalist.
I am a capitalist.
Tom's a capitalist.
You didn't, because, look, okay, so remember this.
Let me go back to what the guy that I interviewed who said, who are the top five most powerful organizations in America?
Remember what he said number one was?
Number one was, did he say, who did he say as number one?
Was social number one?
No, social wasn't number one.
President was number three or four.
Oh.
Who was number one?
Universities, he said number one, okay?
Then he went to social number two.
Universities, Congress, president, social, then mainstream media.
He actually didn't think mainstream media was as powerful as he thought social was above the rest of the guys.
But if he is saying universities, and if universities are getting an innocent 17, 18-year-old kid that comes to them for four years, and they can indoctrinate a certain mindset into them, how long does it take to get them away from that mindset?
Meaning, you know, the whole saying that goes, if you're young, you know, and what's the quote that says, if you're young and Democrat, make sense.
If you're old and if you're if you're young and Republican, you have no heart.
If you're old and you're a Democrat, you have no brain.
Yeah.
If you're young and Republican, you have no heart.
If you're old and Democrat, you have no brain, right?
Okay.
How long does it take after a kid goes to school and after coming out of school and they get into the whole thing about rich people suck, capitalism sucks, all this stuff?
How long does it take for them to finally say, shit, I don't agree with my teacher?
How long does that typically take?
What's the timeline?
Can we say 10 or 15 years?
Is that probably a good timeline?
No, I knew friends when I was getting my NBA.
Not you.
Don't think about you.
I'm talking about the average person that gets out, not Tom Ellsworth.
Got it.
So you get out at 22 years old and you are saying rich people are bad.
They're greedy.
All they care about is themselves.
These other social countries are more about their people than America is.
After 22 years old, how long takes the average four-year graduate until they realize capitalism is actually pretty good.
Is it 10 years?
Is it by 32, by 35, by 40?
I think it's five to 10 years because I know of a lot of folks in Silicon Valley that are two-sided.
You know, on one side, they want wealth.
They want things.
They want to aspire.
They want to be an owner.
They want a VC to invest in their company.
And they want those fruits.
On the other side, they do feel very passionate about racial equality, equality for women, and moving these social agenda things forward that they think are right.
And they are right, and they are important.
It's things that we need to progress on.
But inside, they'll tell you they may not like some of the fallout of capitalism, but they all want to move forward and they want to earn more.
And they look at the taxes.
Tom, I think you are really being naive right now.
I've got to be honest with you, Tom.
Are you really telling me the effects of China passing U.S. and these professors using it to absolutely crush the brains of our young future generation?
Do you think they're going to take it easy?
No, that's bad.
That's going to be the way they're going to play that card and they have the validity.
There's a different story when somebody pitches it this way.
Like, think about it when somebody says, capitalism's bad and America's very greedy and America's not nice to people.
And look at all the words that America started, right?
And look, we are not the American dream.
Stop saying the American dream.
You know, there was a time people hated when people said American exceptionalism.
I don't know if you remember this.
This was just eight years ago.
We got to stop using American exceptionalism.
We got to stop talking about how America's the greatest country in the world.
What makes America great?
You don't remember eight years ago when everybody was pitching the story that America's not great?
Okay.
So, but that was being said with no numbers to prove.
That was being said without any data.
So imagine when they have the data.
So think about today.
You know how people wake up in the morning and they're kind of like, oh man, censorship.
I'm really concerned about censorship.
You know, Prague University, I'm really concerned about censorship.
I'm really concerned about censorship.
I'm really concerned about, you want me to look at something?
Or I'm really concerned about, you know, where we're at with the amount of control, Google, Facebook, YouTube, some of these guys.
I'm really concerned.
I'm really concerned.
Today, 10 years from now, China's number one.
I don't know if it's going to be censorship.
I think it's going to be university professors.
That'll just be part of it.
And it'll be a big part of it, no question about it.
But I mean, people just lose common sense when they think about China.
Like, what happened in the NBA last year, you know, with the one tweet from Daryl Maury and then how the NBA just completely shows how it bows down to China.
And, you know, everybody that hates Donald Trump, you know, get used to the fact that you're going to have a president that's just going to bow down to China for the next four years.
Trump's the only person capable of standing up to him.
When China has the number one ranking, they control everything.
They control all trade negotiations.
Who's going to be able to stand up to them?
And that gap is only going to widen very, very quickly once they catch them, right?
Because we're going to be chasing.
And they're not, you know, it could be very damaging what happens in the next four years.
And let's just say that.
Especially when you look at how things have changed in the past four years and just China's dominance.
And they are coming at this in a wave of power and a strategic plan of what they're trying to accomplish.
And they're checking off the boxes as they go along here.
Change how America thinks through social media.
Get control of traditional media in the United States.
You know, invest in these key industries so we can have even more sway.
End of discussion.
Bad things are coming.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Then the other side is that even if there are capitalism professors that are teaching that the universities are forcing them not to, because who is the biggest sponsors for some of the universities?
China.
Yeah, he is right, though.
He is right, though.
China's funding some of these universities hardcore, and you're seeing a ton of that.
Okay, so let's talk about the top earners, biggest CEO earners today in America.
Top three are Microsoft CEO, Sataya Nadella, $42.9 million salary.
Number two is, wait a minute.
So let me see.
Top three.
Okay, that's the one, Microsoft.
Number two is Robert Swan of Intel, $66.9 million at number two.
And a big shock, number one, the CEO of Google, parent company Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, whose compensation is a fiscal 2019 total of $280,600,000.
That's a salary.
Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, $23.9 million, $23.4 million, made only 94 times more than his employees.
But that's the lowest of all CEOs listed, most on the list, earn several hundred times more than their workers.
So when you hear these numbers, what do you think about it?
Well, I think you got to just draw a line in the sand and say, all right, man, if we are capitalist and we believe in that type of business and economy, then we got to root for them.
That means they did something right.
That means they had a great year.
It's touchy.
I think I look at it simply this.
It's a scoreboard.
It's a fun little thing to look at at the end of the year.
It's so far off in the stratosphere for most people.
There's nothing you can do about it.
It's just mind-boggling to think of some of these numbers.
And how about the guy?
You got to give Sunday, however you pronounce his name, the head of alphabet, credit for staying under the radar screen.
The guy's never in the news.
You never hear about him.
Very, very, very in the background.
And that's a hefty compensation.
But you also have to read between the lines a little bit.
And that's not their salary.
I mean, they're cashing in stock and it's bonuses and its incentives.
So, you know, more power to them.
Yeah, I think when you break it down, I think the media likes to talk about these big numbers.
Oh, my gosh, it makes so much more.
But a lot of it is stock compensation.
And if the company didn't go up, why aren't any airline CEOs on there?
I'd be willing to bet there's one or two airline CEOs that have a higher cash-based salary with medical benefits, a bunch of perks than some of these guys listed, but they didn't have the stock-based compensation that went with it that drove it up.
And so, you know, I think it's a bit of a vanity stat, but it is to the victor in terms of building enterprise value.
And that's what these guys are paid to do is drive.
Michael M has been saying what I've been hinting at you the entire podcast.
Will the real Tom Ellsworth please stand up?
And he gave 10 bucks.
Okay.
I agree with you, Michael.
I think Tom's playing safe today.
Okay.
And I'm going crazy here.
Give your brain to us, buddy.
I just, I just.
Everything is a 15-second one-liner, Thomas.
We're trying to learn from you.
I called Tom.
By the way, if you, if you, camera's off, I'm having lunch with Tom yesterday.
I don't know where we were yesterday or two days, whatever it was.
Anyways, we had lunch last week or yesterday.
We had lunch.
And I sit there and I walk away two hours later, smarter every single time.
Every single time.
Tom's a modern-day Wikipedia.
Tom's brain when he processes stuff.
But on the podcast, Tom's, you know, Tom's a little bit, you know, I don't know what happened.
Did you eat your breakfast?
You eat your Wheaties today?
Did you have it?
Because Tom, give us the real run.
Now, so I'm going to ask the question a different way from you.
Please give us the Tom Ellsworth.
Give us a damn real quick.
Can we get a damn?
Okay.
Tom, today, I think it's fair to say one of the biggest criticisms that CEOs get, like yesterday a guy sends me a message saying it's unfair that Zuckerberg's is making this much more times than his employees are, and these CEOs are making 100 times more than their employees are, et cetera, et cetera, right?
So we're bashing these guys that are making money.
So here's the question.
If I'm a kid, okay, we're in college.
If we're in college and we're partying together, and we're going out there, we're having a drink or whatever we're doing.
Okay, we're going obviously something you never did because I know you were very conservative.
But so, yeah, exactly.
A different type of partying.
Which I'm willing to bet Tom knows more about weed than anybody in this room combined.
I am willing to bet Tom knows more about weed than anybody.
He can do a clinic.
He can do a case study on it.
But let me go back to my question here.
When we're in college, when we're in high school, when you're hanging out with your buddies, what do you dream about?
What do you sit there and say?
You say, one day I want to be what?
Hey, Johnny, what do you want to be when you grow up?
What do you want to do?
And what do we talk about?
Be rich.
Yeah, you want to be what?
I want to be like Mike.
I want to be like Mike was one of them, right?
I want to be like Mike.
Okay, who do you want to be?
Who did you want to be when you were in high school?
If we're in 11th grade with you, Kyle, what was your dream?
What would you say?
What was yours, Sam?
What was yours?
And, you know, maybe Sam from Columbia said, I want to be like Pablo when I grow up.
I don't know.
What's your dream, Paul?
You said you wanted to be who?
Is it Arnold?
Yes, of course.
You wanted to be Arnold, the greatest bodybuilder of all time.
Sam, what was yours?
You wanted to be what?
Top CEO of a company.
Top CEO of a company.
Okay, was that really yours?
Is that really yours?
What's yours?
I wanted to be the next Denzel Washington.
You wanted to be the next Denzel Washington.
What was yours?
We're in high school.
I was going to take that little down, yeah.
Seriously, honestly.
Yes.
Freaking awesome.
What was yours?
When I was in high school.
We're in high school.
We're in high school.
We're at lunch.
We're having grilled cheese.
You know, whatever pizza we're having, whatever good food they give to high school kids.
Who's Tom want to be?
I had read about the birth of Microsoft and I wanted somehow to be part of a tech company.
Okay, freaking, do you realize like we all dreamt about one day being somebody important?
Right.
Right?
And now I am so confused when the media says these guys are getting overpaid.
There's an element of me as a kid that wants to think about somebody getting overpaid.
There's an element of a kid dreaming about saying, I want to see one guy score more points than everybody else.
Like, can you imagine this question?
Would you like to see somebody beat the Will Chamberlain record of 100, 100 points?
Would you like to see somebody?
Would you want to see somebody beat the 74 home run record with Barry Bonds without steroids, a 220-pound skinny guy doing 75 home runs?
Would you like to see that?
Would you like to see Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak being broken?
Would you like to see somebody, you know, win five World Series in a row and maybe it's never been done before?
Would you like to see somebody get seven rings and someone win four Pete, not three Pete?
We want to see these records being taking place.
I don't understand the logic behind saying this is too much money they're making because it's not good for society to have somebody make this much more money.
Well, why don't you, since you feel you can do better, why don't you go create a website that has 3 billion users?
If you do that, we'll pay you handsomely.
Why don't you go become so good at what you do where you become the CEO of the number one search engine in the world?
You go do it.
If you can do that, props to you.
Maybe you deserve $400 million compensation.
Why are we so much about criticizing people who win at the highest level in America?
I'm so confused.
Why?
Maybe one of the reasons is some of these people are unlikable and they're tech companies and they're hard to root for.
So that could be one small reason.
But the media just in general, that's their mentality.
They always want to root against the big guy.
They want safe.
They want, you know, these aren't big thinkers we're talking about in media that are writing these stories.
So, you know, it's always that us versus them mentality.
Okay.
The real me, you know, I will tell you something, and I wasn't being safe.
I was being honest what I said.
If you take a look at what some of these CEOs make, just the cash compensation, there's a lot of alignment across industries.
But the airlines didn't go up, and so the stock didn't go up, and so they didn't make all the extra money, so they're not on the hit list of overpaid leader punks that everybody wants to call them out to be.
But I got to say this: I am glad that Mark Zuckerberg made what he made because it meant the value of the company was increased, number one.
And number two, he made a hell of a lot of jobs.
You may not like what all those jobs are doing in terms of censoring and things like that, but he made a bunch of jobs.
I am glad that Google is made, that that guy, you know, Sundar, made the money because it means that Google is still expanding and there's jobs that are being created.
I see that side of it from an entrepreneurial lens.
And I tell people, really, well, let me tell you, a world without billionaires means we all eat ramen noodles.
Do you really want that?
Do you want that?
No, nobody wants that.
So that's how I feel about that.
It's like it's easy to be envious of the other guy when some people are a little too critical or a little too lazy or a little too envious or a little too jealous.
It's easy to be critical.
But then you got to step back and look at it.
And, you know, for every Google, you talk about, oh, well, you remember the auto industry and it decimated Flint, Michigan, because it got out-competed against and then it went down.
And now look at Flint.
Yeah, but you know what?
People had jobs in Flint and Flint was built and the world changed.
And, you know, the Rust Belt and U.S. steel went.
These are cycles and they hurt and they're bad.
And people talk about them like that.
But, you know, you're just criticizing the people at the beginning.
You know who makes this most jobs are crazy.
You know who makes this mistake the most and they don't even know how costly the mistake is.
You know who makes this mistake the most and it's so costly?
Parents.
Parents.
Parents make the mistake.
Imagine this kid's dream is to one day be a Sunday, a Sunday.
Imagine this kid's dream is to one day be a CEO of a Facebook.
Imagine the sketch and the mom says, these rich people, let me tell you, these rich people.
And the kid says, Mom, I kind of wanted to do it to impress you.
Now, mom made no incentive for this kid to do that.
And long term, he could have been the winning ticket for the entire family, but the parent killed the kid's dream.
Let the kid dream on what he wants to do.
I think that's who ends up paying the biggest price.
And they don't even know.
You know, I interviewed that.
You know, the whole No More Mr. Nice Guy, the book?
Did you ever end up getting it on?
I bought it.
Did you read it on that yet?
I felt he was talking to me before.
No, I did.
I did.
It started off with a bang.
There's no question.
I'd say the first 80 pages, outstanding.
Got a little clinical in the middle.
Maybe he ran out of things to say.
Picked up at the end.
So I thought it was a very good book.
So what'd you think?
Was it a good book?
No, I think it was.
Did it give you some perspective you didn't think about before?
No, I literally, the guy with his background and with everything he's observing.
Maybe kind of talk to you a little bit.
Well, I mean, I think anybody could look at that book and say there might be a little bit of omni-I agree.
So I interviewed the guy last week.
Okay.
He reached out.
My booker, Alan, who's ridiculous.
He listens to everything we do, and he just kind of reaches out to people.
He says, yeah, I got the guy.
Let's do the interview.
So we do the interview.
Okay.
While we're doing the interview, I said, so, you know, tell me about, you know, how big of a role.
We talk about real interesting stuff.
I said, how big of a role does the first time you ever have sex have to do with us for the rest of our lives?
He says, everything.
I said, so that means we're all screwed.
He says, yes, your first sexual experience ruins your life.
I said, okay.
So we went through all this.
I was like, if we were alone at the time.
Well, that's, that's, he said, that's okay.
We talked about that as well, by the way.
I know what you're saying about that, but we talked about that as well.
But, you know, one of the things, I said, so what do you say about parenting?
He says, here's the thing with parenting.
Just make sure you're going to screw your kids up.
Just make sure it's not too much.
Okay.
What interesting feedback.
You're going to screw your kids up.
Just don't think, just don't do it too much because if you do too much, these kids are going to be grown up worried about walking on ex-shows, this, ex-shows, that, ex-show, this.
You know, I think when you see something like this, you know, I wonder what kids are talking about with their parents at their house.
You know, if you're sitting at the dinner table and mom says rich people are bad, dad says rich people are greedy.
These people, these people, that kid is kind of like, you know, so maybe the best guy that could have ran a great company, been a great CEO, done a thing better than Elon Musk or any of these guys did.
Maybe, maybe that nurturing, maybe that challenge and that pushing, maybe that wasn't there.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm fully off.
If you have the drive to do that, you're probably going to overcome some of those negative impulses you're getting from their parents or whatnot.
But, you know, you mentioned your interview with the guy that wrote Mr. Nice Guy, talking about your first sexual experience.
I was listening to a different podcast, Victory the Podcast, which is about entourage.
All the guys from Entra.
So if you like Entourage, it's a great podcast with Doug Ellen.
And they had James Khan on the show because Scott Khan used to be on Entourage, right?
The actor?
Yes.
So James Khan was on there talking about, and man, have times changed.
But when Scott Khan turned 16, James Kahn got him a suite at the four seasons and brought in a couple of Heidi Fleis's girls.
Hey, you're 16 now.
So can you imagine his first sexual experience is with a couple of Heidi Fleis' girls?
You know what Charlie Sheens was?
Charlie Sheen uses that's credit card to get a couple prostitutes.
That's what Charlie Sheen did.
And his dad's like, what's this mindset?
I got a couple problems.
He got caught.
Can you imagine like everybody has a different story with their first experience?
But he said it has such a big impact of who you become.
So again, half the battle list.
By the way, I can't wait for people to see that interview because it was very, very different.
The things we talk about is very different on what shapes boys to become men.
And some men still have their old boy tendencies.
But by the way, Pat, if you ever want to hear a good James Kahn story, I have one.
I don't want to slow down the podcast.
Go ahead.
No, tell me.
Okay, James Kahn, Godfather.
I mean, just the legendary actor.
So this was probably 12 years ago, and I was having dinner in LA with Byron Allen, big time TV guy.
We were talking about this magazine I had at the time.
And the restaurant, it was Morton's.
So the restaurant was pretty much empty.
It was a Wednesday.
Nobody is in there.
My really good friend, John Kelly, who was the host of X-Ray at the time, was going to come and meet us because he knew James Kahn from interviewing him so many times.
No, he was going to come because Byron was there.
We look behind us.
There's one other table.
It was James Khan and George Hamilton.
So they were in the table right behind us.
And I love James Kahn.
It was right when that TV show Vegas was out, you know, on NBC and whatnot.
But I just love James Kahn.
So I had my magazine issues spread out all over the table.
And I go, John, can you introduce James Kahn to me?
He goes, yeah, yeah, I'll bring him over.
So he brings him over.
James Kahn comes over just like you'd think, hands in his pockets, just Mr. Cool.
Good looking magazine there, kid.
Nice looking magazine.
Good paper.
Great job.
Good job.
I took it too far.
I go, hey, James, such a pleasure to meet you, man.
Love you.
God, you're such a legend.
Hey, Ed Devine in Vegas.
You know, he literally stopped, looked at me.
He goes, direct quote.
He goes, I've been in 65 pictures, including the Godfather, and you want to fucking bust my balls on Ed Devine and Las Vegas.
That's literally what he said to me.
I thought he was going to take me out.
But I don't know if he was joking or if he was really ticked off where he could switch.
Did he leave afterwards?
No, he kind of walked out.
I mean, it's not like we made up or anything.
It's not like I had a great photo or anything like that.
No autograph, no photo.
So I think I did offend him.
Accidentally, I love James Kahn.
Wow.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a lot of stories with James Kahn.
He's got a lot of interesting.
Johnny Russo told me a story about James Kahn one time that when they were making a godfather, James Kahn wasn't happy the fact that Johnny Russo knew everybody at Staten Island because that's where Johnny Russo's from.
And they had a beef.
So the scene about when James Kahn is beating him up, he says he wasn't just, that wasn't acting.
He was actually really trying to hurt me because we didn't like each other.
He didn't like me for one reason.
Anyways, so let's go with that to Mario's quote.
I want to quote him directly.
The number one movie box office during the pandemic.
We have to give credit to Mario because that's Mario.
Is that Mario's quote?
Yes or no?
I think it's Mario's quote.
Mario's definitely listening to this here.
Wonder Woman 1984 opening boost movie theater stocks, but AMC loses more ground.
The better than expected Christmas weekend opening for Wonder Woman 1984 is giving most exhibition stocks a welcome boost as the misery of 2020 gives hope for brighter 2021.
Shares on the Cinemark IMX, Marcus Corp, national cinemedia rose between 3% to 7% apiece after the sequel took $16.7 million domestically.
The best bow by any film during the coronavirus pandemic.
AMC, the world's largest theater circuit, was a notable execution exception to the rally.
Its stock dropped 5% on the ongoing investor concern that it's liquidity on a potential bankruptcy filing at 2.38 cents, $2.38.
AMC shares are at the lowest since early November, though they are still a notch above 2020 bottom of 195 established in mid-March of COVID-19 shuttered theaters across the Western Hemisphere, et cetera, et cetera.
The first movie opened out at $103 million.
This is the first Wonder Woman did $103 million, grossed eventually $821 worldwide, making it the 10th highest-grossing film of 2017.
However, Gal Godot was only paid $300,000 in the first one.
Pretty crazy to think.
She only got paid $200,000.
Wonder Woman 1984, $16.7 million.
And Gal Godot got paid $10 million, which is good for her.
So, Wonder Woman, have either one of you guys seen it?
I've not seen it.
No, I've not seen it.
Has anybody seen it here?
Have you guys seen it?
Have you seen it?
Kyle, you seen it?
You liked it?
Yeah, it was all right.
I mean, I have my gripes.
Zero to 10.
Zero to 10, maybe like a 7.
Did you stream it or go to 7?
Did you go to the theater?
No, I went on HBO.
Okay.
Okay, so you give it a 6.5, 7.
What did you give to the first one?
First one was pretty solid.
I'd give the first one more of like an 8.
Okay, so I watched the first one two weeks ago with my kids because each week our kids get a turn for movies.
So Dylan got the turn.
Dylan wanted to watch Wonder Woman.
Anyways, we watched Wonder Woman and he enjoyed it and kids enjoyed it.
And then we went and watched Wonder Woman 1984 for Lauderdale this last week.
And I got to tell you, I loved the movie.
I loved the movie.
I didn't like the movie.
I loved the movie.
And to be fair, not everybody who went with me felt the way I did.
My sister didn't feel the same way.
My brother-in-law didn't feel the same way.
Some of the people are like, it's an okay movie.
They didn't say it's a great movie.
I thought it was a ridiculous movie.
Phenomenal movie.
A part of the movie I liked is there's this scene with Barbara.
I think it's the girl's name, right?
Barbara's the new girl that's working and working with the FBI.
Is that Kristen Wig?
I think that's who it is.
Is she the one that played in Bridemaid's?
Yes.
Okay, her.
So her name is Barbara, and she plays the role of this girl that comes in very, no guy talks to her.
She's not attractive, et cetera, et cetera.
And then she meets, you know, a super, what do you call it, Wonder Woman, right?
And so she sees how she acts.
Oh, my God, she's so amazing.
And there's this rock, there's this stone that they get that whatever you touch, you can make your wish, and it becomes a reality.
So Wonder Woman makes her wish, okay?
Then Gal Gado makes her wish.
I'm not going to tell you the whole story, but I'll tell you.
Barbara's wish was to one day be like the Wonder Woman.
So what happens?
She starts becoming like Wonder Woman.
And what ends up happening to her?
She flips.
She becomes dark, evil, because too much power being given too fast, what it could do to you.
And then the whole message becomes at the end of the day that be careful what you wish for.
You know, you've got to be careful what you wish for.
And I think the storyline at the end on how it brought everything together and evil became good and evil finally realized that he loves his son and all he wanted to do was impress his son and his son just wanted love from his dad.
And there was so many great messages to this movie that I thought it was a phenomenal storyline to watch with your kids, with your family, because it touched on all the emotions.
So I thought it was a great movie.
And I'm surprised it only did $16 million, but not surprised because most people just went to HBO Max to watch the movie.
Let me throw something out of here.
And I'm going to take a little bit bigger picture look at this thing.
And I'm going to tell you something.
I believe Hollywood has a very big problem on their hands.
And it's not the pandemic's shutting down theaters.
It's people like me.
Okay.
I will not watch Wonder Woman.
And I'll tell you why.
I don't like Gil Godot.
I don't like her.
I don't like that imagine video she put out at the beginning of the pandemic.
I find her to be completely out of touch, completely unable to read a room, having no perspective whatsoever.
That was the stupidest video I have ever seen in my life.
Go ahead.
Ever.
When I think about it now, I think how stupid, how did you not have any mechanism in your brain that might think this is not a good idea?
I will not see that movie because of her.
And I'll tell you another thing.
At the Grove, remember the Grove in LA, Great Mall, they have movie posters all over the place.
When I was there, yeah, exactly, right across from CBS.
There's posters for Wonder Woman because it's the only movie out.
She doesn't feel like a star to me.
Gild Godot does not seem like a movie star to me.
I can't buy it.
So I will not see that movie.
Now you start compounding that by 10 and 20 and 100 because of the political stances these people in Hollywood are making.
There's going to be people that are going to say, I'm not going to see a movie because of The Rock, because of Jennifer Anison, because of Robert Downey Jr., because of Will Farrell, who brought the whole ELF cast to Georgia to raise money for the Democratic candidates down there.
That disappointed me.
Do you think they really care about what you think?
No, I do.
Oh, wait.
No, I don't think they care about what they think.
They care about what you think.
But I think there's going to be a bad.
There is going to be.
I don't think so.
You're going to see it in the box office.
You eventually will.
Let me tell you why.
I don't know if that's going to happen or not.
Who do you think is a bigger victory for them?
You and your community or China?
China.
Okay, that's what I'm trying to tell you.
They really don't care if they lose you if they win China.
They're not trying to win you over.
They're not trying to win conservatives over.
They're trying to do whatever they can to win China over.
Anything and everything.
I mean, if you've seen the movie Mulan, the logo of Huawei is in the movie Mulan all over the place as the Huawei logo.
Have you guys noticed it or no?
It's everywhere, right?
They're not trying to win you.
They're trying to win China.
And if that's the target, they're making a lot of progress.
But they're also under marching orders for how to make these movies because China finances these films.
Oh, I know.
Yeah, I don't know.
I'm not going to watch that movie.
I don't think.
Hey, let me ask you a question.
Do you think you love the movie as much as you did or you love the theater experience, the going to the movie, the fact that you could actually be there and do it and enjoy yourself?
I'm a movie guy, and I like movies that produce emotions and have the right storylines that makes you think.
I'm the guy, Tom and I one time watched a Churchill movie at the Look Theater.
We came out.
I was in tears.
I was fired up.
I was emotional.
I was, do you remember that?
Dunker.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh, man.
I was on fire that now.
I couldn't even sleep all night long just thinking about it, right?
To see that somebody was willing to stand up to evil and look what ended up happening to it because of him.
We speak English.
We don't speak German.
The world could have been a very different place if he wouldn't have had the courage to do what he did and his troops didn't follow the orders that was given from the top.
You know, to me, a good movie that produces good emotions, I appreciate it.
I actually don't go too much deep into the politics, but I don't disagree with you when it comes.
Look what happened with me and the Lakers and LeBron and, you know, how things happened this year.
But I don't really think they care, Tom.
I think they're okay losing you.
Yeah, they probably trying to win China.
There's a lot of me's and that adds up to a lot of U.S. domestic box office.
But there's not 1.6 billion of you.
True.
Yeah, that's the difference.
Thoughts?
You went on a rant, man.
You don't like that?
Yeah, I'm going to have to write this.
Well, I will not watch her with a mouse.
I will not watch her in a house.
I will not watch her.
You have to take a stand to get certain things.
I will not.
Are you guys going to convince me that she's a movie star?
Is she?
Am I missing the boat here?
I don't really, honestly.
The thought didn't even cross my mind.
I just went in to watch a good movie and the story was good and I enjoyed it.
Tom, 50% of movies I watch, I fall asleep.
Not one time did I fall asleep, especially if they have the comfortable chairs.
Not one time do I fall asleep.
They had my attention for the entire two and a half hours.
That's a good rating system.
How many Z's?
I fall asleep, ASAP.
I mean, 15 minutes, you don't get me.
I'm gone.
Kyle, you wanted to say something?
Yeah, I mean, I find it interesting for you, Tom, that you can't separate the artist from the art.
I saw some of the comments in the stream from that.
Because some of my favorite actors I don't necessarily agree with politically.
I mean, I love Tom Cruise as an action actor.
I grew up on Mission Impossible.
I love his sci-fi films, Oblivion Age of Tomorrow, World of Worlds, all that stuff.
But I don't agree with him as a Scientologist.
But when I watch the films, you know, that's the whole point of the acting is I'm trying not to see Tom Cruise, right?
I'm seeing whoever he's playing.
Yeah, but that's easier said than done because everybody's got human nature in them and that is going to affect them.
I agree with that.
You know, it's crazy.
Yesterday, Tom was telling me a story.
He said, there is a guy, there's only one person in Hollywood that has a four older woman.
He wins younger women, older men, younger men.
There's only one actor that has that.
No, it's only one actor that has, what do they call him?
Four blocks?
Yep, four square actor, and it's high positives in all four that will draw viewership.
I'm just throwing names out there.
A current actor?
Yeah, you're going to have one.
Well, it's the biggest one.
Give the biggest one.
Who's the biggest name that made the most money the last three years?
He was a former wrestler.
Non-controversial.
Of the rock.
Correct.
He's number one.
And non-controversial.
And then you know what question I asked him?
I said, that's interesting you say that.
I said, do you think it was a good move for him to endorse Joe Biden?
He says, no, because he went against his philosophy.
So there is an element of hurting their brand if they do that.
There is.
And let's take it one step further.
Was that rock?
I mean, his endorsement was a, I really don't like to do this.
I really don't want to do this, but I have to do this.
I'm going to go with Joe Biden.
It wasn't really a heartfelt, passionate thing.
So there could, I mean, you could go into this.
How these movies are financed?
Who's controlling him?
Is it in somebody's best interest for him to come out and say that?
Yeah.
I think, Kyle, some people are worried for your safety after the comments you made about Tom Cruise.
So today when you're going home, please go in your car with somebody else because you've got to be careful when you say any comments about Tom because Tom may be out there right now shouting your name saying, Kyle, I can't believe you're doing this.
He may lose his mind.
Yeah, you're gone.
God promised this will be the last day you have a job.
Okay, but anyways, guys, that brings us to the end of the podcast.
If you enjoyed today's podcast, smash that subscribe button.
We will not be doing another podcast until 2021.
So between now and next year, happy new year to all of you.
Be safe.
Don't be too crazy.
We're expecting 2021 to become the beginning of the greatest years of our lives.
And I hope you make some big decisions the next few days to make it yours as well.
