PBD Podcast | Guest: Danielle DiMartino-Booth | EP 109
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Patrick Bet-David Podcast Episode 109. In this episode Patrick Bet-David is joined by Adam Sosnick , Tom Ellsworth, Danielle DiMartino Booth and Tom Zenner.
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The Bet-David Podcast discusses current events, trending topics, and politics as they relate to life and business. Stay tuned for new episodes and guest appearances.
About guests:
Adam “Sos” Sosnick has lived a true rags to riches story. He hasn’t always been an authority on money. Follow Adam on Instagram: https://bit.ly/2PqllTj. You can also check out his weekly SOSCAST here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I0VW88nOW4PJkyREjT7rJic
Danielle DiMartino Booth is a Founder & CEO of Quill Intelligence, DiMartino Booth set out to launch a Research Revolution, redefining how markets intelligence is conceived and delivered. Follow Danielle on Twitter: https://bit.ly/36nGzLn. Check out her series "Down The Middle With Danielle DiMartino Booth": https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw4s_zB_R7I28aPXM3OfTNbe4xy7dmVWr
Thomas N. Ellsworth is a strategy and marketing expert with a track record of success within high-tech start-ups and Fortune 500 companies. He has spent nearly two decades dedicating himself to being a mentor to his staff and colleagues. Connect with him on Twitter here: https://bit.ly/3pvFrLT
Tom Zenner is an informed and opinionated television host, author and content creator. He has written over 40 commemorative sports championship books on teams that win the World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup and College Football title. Check Tom on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3jJ93CN.You can also check out his podcast "SporTZ! Now" here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3jDZGRxqc-Wuw3qbXAExHsKNb34ncMkd
Connect with Patrick on social media: https://linktr.ee/patrickbetdavid
About the host:
Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of a financial services firm and the creator of Valuetainment, the #1 YouTube channel for entrepreneurship with more than 3 million subscribers. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a keynote speaker.
Bet-David is passionate about shaping the next generation of leaders by teaching the fundamentals of entrepreneurship and personal development while inspiring people to break free from limiting beliefs to achieve their dreams.
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Tom Ellsworth: https://bit.ly/3pvFrLT
Danielle DiMartino Booth: https://bit.ly/36nGzLn
Tom Zenner: https://bit.ly/3jJ93CN
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#PBDPodcast
00:00 - Start
1:13 - Adams cats can play catch
4:18 - Update on economy
16:28 - PBD Army story (end w/pat "we will see what direction that goes")
28:04 - Inflation Skyrockets to The Highest Level in Decades
33:45 - The Dumpster Fire That Is California
39:00 - Student Loan Repayment (end w/Ellsworth "backing student loans")
47:17 - Home Prices Skyrocket
59:25 - JFK assassination files revealed
1:10:50 - Richard Blumenthal Endorses Communism
1:17:32 - Literacy Rates are costing Americans 2.2 Trillion per year
1:25:28 - Cuomo/Media
1:36:50 - London Breed Reverses Stance On Progressive Policies
Okay, we are live episode number 109 with the great Danielle DeMartino Booth with the BizDoc and TZ Tom Zenner in the house.
So excited to do episode 109.
This is the first week we've done three back-to-back to back.
Yesterday we had John E. Deaton on representing XRP.
Guys, we can hear you if you're speaking in the background.
Okay, we had John E. Deaton on.
And then Tuesday we had Matt Zeller on.
And then today, obviously, this is it.
So we got a lot to cover.
Danielle, before we get into it, our buddy, Adam, I don't know if you saw that, Tyler.
Adam had a message for you.
Did you guys see that or no?
Adam was at his house, extremely focused.
He's listening right now.
Did you see the story or no?
Who is that?
Whose audio?
Is that mine or is that yours or is that whose is that?
Because I'm off.
I hear the audio.
Do you guys hear that or no?
There's like an interview going on in the background.
Yeah, I hear the audio in the background.
It's not us.
You guys turn it down?
Okay, was it you, Tyler?
No, no.
Okay, good.
All right, so if you want to see the story, Tyler, I want to text it to you.
It was very important for Adam for us to show it because everybody's asking, which one do you want me to send it to, by the way?
VT MacBook Pro?
Okay.
It's coming your way.
This is to Danielle and arrested Vietnam and audience.
I can't get like, you know, I can't have like an allergic reaction to a virtual cat.
Tyler, try to not show any of the private Mario videos anymore.
It's a little awkward, but I press play.
Adam's definition of a productive day.
Being productive.
Can your dog do that?
Can your dog?
He's so proud, though.
This is the cat catching the Nerf basketball.
Okay, that's really.
Adam, I think you need to get out more.
Danielle, how many alpha male do you think wake up playing with their cat like that?
I mean, that's just, to me, it's inspirational, if you ask me.
There's a market for it.
It's amazing.
I can tell you this much.
There's one.
There's one market.
For sure, there's one person in the market.
No, I think.
How about Adam can't even get the ball to the rim?
That's the problem.
I've got a good, I've got a good, well, Hanukkah's already come and gone.
However, for next Hanukkah, I was in Paris and this guy was walking around with, he had on a backpack.
Yeah.
And the front of the backpack was a plastic bubble that you, clear plastic bubbles.
It was like a backpack that you wear it on the front of your body.
It's kind of like a carry a baby or something.
A baby snuggler.
A baby snuggler.
Not that I ever did that.
And then inside of the bubble was a cat.
So the guy was effectively taking the cat out for a walk just to do some sightseeing.
What a sweetheart.
And I'm like, what the?
That's a sweetheart, though.
And I'm like scrambling to get my phone and take a picture because I'm like, nobody's going to believe this.
Well, did you hear the story about the woman getting kicked off the plane because she was nursing her cat on the plane?
Yeah.
That was a legit story about a month ago.
You know what Adam did?
Adam found out her name and he DM'd her.
I don't know if you know that or not.
True story.
Anyways, Adam, we love you.
We miss you.
Is DM a technical term?
Is who?
Is DM?
Yes.
Is that like declawed?
It is a technical term.
Anyways, we got a lot of stuff going on.
We got apparently Tim Cook reportedly signed a secret $275 billion deal with China in 2016 to skirt some government regulators.
Who knows if this is a story or not?
We'll cover that.
The Federal Reserve, we want to get an update from you on what's going on with inflation.
I heard something the other day that Goldman Sachs is predicting seven rate hikes by the Federal Reserve in 2020.
See if you can have some thoughts on that.
2022, low literacy levels amongst U.S. adults could be costing the economy $2.2 trillion a year.
You got something to say about that.
White House says restarting student loans is a high priority, sparking outrage.
Tom Ellsworth's got something to say about that.
And then Blumenthal speaks at the Communist Party Award ceremony.
That's very, very weird.
Cuomo ordered to return a $5.1 million pandemic book profit he made.
And then Pelosi rejects stock trading ban for Congress.
Members of Congress, we are a free market economy.
They should be able to participate in that.
So having said that, Danielle, why don't you give us an update on what's going on with the economy today?
Well, let's bring up the chart.
Let's start off today by bringing up the chart.
Because believe it or not, what's going on with the economy has a lot to do with how much money the government is giving people.
And people don't have a good appreciation for that.
We're actually starting to see shipping rates turn.
And this is a global phenomenon.
We're starting to see inventories build.
This is a global phenomena.
So the supply chain disruption that we've been talking about for the last 18 months, it's starting to dissipate.
And companies have gone from just in time to just in case.
So you don't want to build up stockpiles, by the way.
That's not good business practices.
And yet, so many companies are.
On the fiscal front, though, if you look at what beef inflation was, damn near 25% year over year.
Forget the 6.8%.
Forget that.
But poultry was up 14% year over year.
I mean, we're talking about monumental moves in the most essential prices.
We know housing prices are through the roof.
However, there's a reason.
There's a reason that we're seeing inflation to the extent that we are.
And it has everything to do with fiscal policy run amok.
So this is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
And it used to be called Food Stamps.
On the day that Biden had to walk back and say, I meant what I said, August 16th, about Afghanistan.
He had a New York headlines hit right then and there.
New York Times headline hit that said SNAP benefits to increase 32% and the biggest increase in the history of the program.
So he signed an executive order in January and he said, let's revisit the food pyramid and see how much money we really need to give families.
And by the way, in right before the pandemic, we were kind of in the $190 range-ish, $125 range.
This is per person.
Can you explain to the average person what this is?
This is the average benefit that an American receiving what we used to call food stamps gets deposited to a debit card on a monthly basis.
Okay, so this is food stamps being given away to the average person.
Right.
And in August, when the international community was enraged because of how badly Afghanistan had gone, the executive order, all of a sudden, the report was ready to be rolled out that same day that said, we're going to give people 32% more.
32% of the year.
So they buried it, essentially.
As of October the 1st.
Data are not available, but this is an extrapolation, if you will, because we only have data through September.
But if you extrapolate what the average U.S. household was getting, give or take, $400.
You bump it up.
$570 per household.
That's got like two kids per household.
Add that to the average of $550 that 61 of the 73 million children in America are getting the child tax credit.
90% of U.S. households with children are getting cash from the government.
Yesterday was the last payment.
And you add these two up.
90%.
90%.
In 2019, there were 73 million.
That's hard to believe.
In 2019, there were 73 million children in America.
We know that since then, the birth rate has declined.
So that 73 number is probably high, and immigration has crashed.
But as of December the 15th, the last cash payment that we know is going to occur without build back bigger.
As of December the 15th, the average U.S. household was getting $550 in cash.
90%.
61 million of the 73 million children in America.
Families who do not need the money, period, end.
In addition to that, the CARES Act greatly expanded the percentage of Americans who are eligible for assistance with buying food.
So on October the 1st, we don't have the data yet, the benefits went up by 32%.
Again, you hear these anecdotes.
If you're Joe Q household in America and you're getting $1,100 in cash at a minimum a month, and your spouse can stay home, which means you don't have to pay for childcare.
Are you ever going back into the workforce?
Probably not for core jobs under $50,000 a year.
Exactly, because it doesn't make economic sense.
And that's the line we're talking about.
They've done the math.
So they're giving people so much money that the fraud is rampant.
If you're Joe Q with five kids and you're getting $1,500 a month times two, if you're Joe Q, what do you do with all this money on a debit card to buy food?
When you don't want to buy that much food, you sell it to your...
Sure.
You sell it to your liquid uncle for 50 cents on the dollar.
You got $8,000 sitting on this debit card.
You're like, what the hell am I going to do with $8,000?
I don't want food.
I want other things.
But is this stopping?
No, this is not stopping.
That's why we brought up the chart.
There's some emergency measures in there that are going to decrease.
So what you're saying is to divert from the Afghanistan.
I'm just saying that it was a coincidence that it happened to roll out on the same exact day that he had to say, I stand by my decision.
It's one of those.
August the 16th.
Got it.
Got it.
So it's one of those coincidences like dropping a new store at 4 o'clock on Friday and the other tricks that our government does to kind of divert the distraction.
So we could debate the distraction.
But on that day, they raised it and it was not temporary.
It's permanent.
And so you have people that are getting a tax credit simply because you check the box.
That's how you fill out your taxes and tax software does it automatically.
And then that's the half you're talking about.
And the other half is these debit cards that are out there for the other half of them.
Because 90% of American households don't have one of these debit cards.
No, This is not 90% of the child tax credit.
So you're talking 90% of you are getting a tax credit that your tax guy's quick and software automatically puts on because it's part of the regulation.
And then the other half is getting these cards.
And these cards are now up to this to the point that there's a secondary redistribution model.
Massive.
And people are monetizing it and selling it to.
And I'm not saying that this is the norm, but I'm just, I was in Austin for down the middle Austin series last week.
And to hear the anecdotes of somebody with $8,000, $10,000 built up on a debit card.
You sell it to your uncle who's liquid.
Your uncle gives you 50 cents on the dollar.
So you've got cash to buy whatever you want.
All the bad goodies in the world, all the good goodies in the world.
What does your uncle do?
Are those debit cards only?
They're anonymous.
They're anonymous.
Okay.
They're interchangeable.
So what is your uncle?
There's not a name on there.
No, you just use it at, you use it almost like a gift card when you go to check out.
You can buy a cold sandwich, but not a hot sandwich.
And you can't buy booze and you can't buy cigarettes.
You can't buy anything that's bad for you.
Right, but if you're a bad person.
If you bought standard food pat right there at the little checkout at Kroger, you would just use it and they have no clue that you're using basically a card that's appropriate.
Gentlemen, I have a quick question before we jump in.
If you're the uncle who just paid 50 cents on the dollar for this card, what's for dinner?
Is it ground beef?
Or is it waiku?
Whatever they're hungry for.
Exactly, because they've just paid 50 cents on the dollar for cash.
Why is beef inflation up 22% year over year?
Why is a pound of bacon $9.99?
But here's what happens with this.
This is when you get destroyed in midterms.
Destroyed.
Destroyed.
So the point, the point is there's cause and effect.
The great thing about the system is there's cause and effect.
You can do all of this free stuff thinking it's going to work, and then you realize the math doesn't make any sense, and then you get destroyed, and then everybody says it was your fault, and then they gradually distance themselves from you because, God forbid, if a person is seen that's a Biden camp and you're a congressman trying to run again, you're like, if you're part of his camp, you're not going to get re-elected.
You notice a lot of people are not getting around him today.
They're trying to stay away from NCNN yesterday.
I don't know if you guys saw CNN yesterday, made a story.
They talked about the fact that who are some potential candidates to replace Biden?
They're already talking about a huge deal.
They're doing a lot of that, yes.
They weren't the talking thing of the day.
And did you hear what one person came out and said yesterday that said if it's going to be a consequential event if this person gets re-elected?
You know who that legendary person was that said this?
The sweetest human being in the world, the most beloved person in America, who is more ambitious to want to be a president than anybody else we have currently in America that didn't get there.
But Newsweek did a special magazine on this individual saying, Madam President, do you know who that person is?
Hillary.
Yeah, exactly.
Can you imagine if Hillary runs again in 2023, 2022?
So anyway, so the point is, you can do all this stuff all you want, but you're not going to do well.
And you're going to get crushed in midterm.
So keep doing it.
Yeah, and you know, Danielle, the key word that you threw out there was fraud because this thing is just ripe for fraud.
You know, last fall.
So when I was coming.
It's not just ripe.
The fruit's being picked.
You're correct.
So when I was going back and forth from Dallas to LA last year, the final four months of the year, I was going back and forth every single week.
Every single week, the planes were full, right?
And this is when travel was shut down, and I could not figure it out.
I mean, why are the planes full coming back from Dallas to LA?
You can't go anywhere.
The city's shut down.
There's nothing to do.
Finally, this really smart guy informed me what was going on.
And he was an Uber driver.
The massive level of fraud that was going on with the handouts last year on the debit cards, people would fly in that have never been on a plane before, by the way.
A lot of these people have never flown anywhere.
They come to LA, Uber drivers pick them up and drive them from ATM to ATM.
They withdraw $300 at a time on these fraudulent cards, and then they rent big houses in the Hollywood Hills and throw these huge parties.
They rent luxury cars for $2,000 to $3,000 a day.
And that's what was going on for four months.
Billions and billions and billions of dollars in fraud with that handout program last year.
By the way, a few people got arrested and they went to jail for it.
I mean, there's major stories that I'm going to pose a question to Tom because he got one step in front of me because you were going right where I was going.
Because Patrick started off by saying, where's the U.S. economy going?
It's trouble when you compliment Tom.
No, no, no.
Because it's all.
Especially at the beginning of the show.
We're done.
He knows what's happening.
No, this is my sister from another mother.
We're thinking the same way.
He knows what happens on.
Okay, so if you're Joe Q, I've been collecting the child tax credit in cash.
Do you still anticipate that you're going to get your big tax refund on January the 31st when you go to HR Block or wherever you go to electronically file your taxes?
Are you still planning on getting that tax refund?
Like in general or that day?
No, just in general.
The middle class and the slightly upper middle class that choosing HR Block, they still think it's coming.
So they still think the income tax refund is coming.
Absolutely.
But the child tax credit has been paid out in cash, post facto, past tense.
So we're talking about, and Biden wants to start paying back student loans on February the 1st, right at the same time that people are not getting their income tax refunds that they were thinking that they were going to get to pay off their credit card debt from Christmas?
Oh, it's just going to be higher up the printing presses, more money.
No, it's just like the Republicans don't even have to, they don't have to hire an advertising agency for the primary season.
Patrick is correct.
You can just sit back and just say 61.
What's the problem?
Well, and then you couple all that with the crime, right?
And it's a toxic pass.
You're absolutely right.
Well, Pep made a point of a minute ago.
He says, hey, you can keep doing this for free.
What they have done on fiscal policy during this reaction to COVID, and they have pushed the free pendulum all the way over here.
It's a combination of free and printing money, and they've pushed it over here.
All of a sudden, that pendulum is going to be too heavy and it swings back the other way.
It has to.
It has to.
And they can spin it all they want.
And Saki can say whatever she wants from the podium.
And the average person is telling you, My milk is now six bucks a gallon.
The average person is telling you, my gas is expensive.
And those are the people that are going to the polls.
So you can spin it any way you want, but the charts are speaking truth.
And Pat's, you're absolutely right.
It's coming.
Let me ask a different question.
So I remember we were in the army.
Okay.
And you go into formation.
You had a long weekend.
You partied hard.
And one weekend, I'm doing guard duty.
And we had this one guy.
If I say the name, no one's going to know who this guy is.
But his name was Jackson.
Only the guys that were at the unit would know.
This guy was Chris Tucker combined with Dave Chappelle.
Hilarious guy, but he loved smoking weed.
And in the Army, you couldn't smoke weed.
If you did, you get caught, you know, you're going getting an Article 15 and et cetera.
And we had another guy.
I can't say his name because his last name is very unique.
He was a cocaine guy.
So on one end of the hall, we had a mountain of cocaine.
I walked in one day.
I'm like, dude, what are you doing?
He said, but David, you can't tell anybody, dog.
You know, you gotta.
How the hell do you have this much cocaine?
You only make 800 bucks a month.
How do you?
He says, well, such and such gave it to me.
We followed it.
It's a distribution deal.
Anyways, so he says, such and such gave it to me.
But anyways, don't tell anybody.
You want something?
I said, no, bro, I'm totally fine.
But you know what?
Please get rid of this stuff.
I think your clinical issue is.
So now I go back to the other side.
So one end, the door's open.
They're doing Coke.
The other end smells like freaking Bob Marley showed up out of nowhere and resurrected, and they're smoking nonsense.
And by the way, the worst part is smoke's coming from the bottom of the, what do you call it?
The door, right?
Oh, that's good.
So I'm like, Jackson, you're making, I'm responsible.
I got guard duty, bro.
You're ruining my life right now.
I'm going to get in trouble.
He says, dude, but David, dog, you can't do nothing, man.
You got to tell him I'm not doing nothing.
I said, I said, here's what I need you to do.
I can tell him anything, but their nose.
So I said, dude, light up incense everywhere.
So he says, okay, okay, yeah, good idea, dog.
So I go grab my incense.
I get everybody to get him incense.
He's got 50 lights.
You should see this place makes no sense.
So Sergeant calls me.
But David, yes, Sarge.
I'm coming through.
I'll let listen.
I would suggest we start off with the one that's the most troubled one, which is Charlie Company, which is the one that's the most peaceful, crazy coastal.
So we start with Charlie, and I'm taking my time.
I think we have to be careful with this floor.
It was filled with, you know, Christians and Mormons.
They were good kids, right?
So I said, but you got to be careful with these guys because you know how they are sometimes.
There's a bottle of Jackson somewhere.
So anyways, we go to the second floor.
I'm taking my time.
I'm like, dude, I got like, if I can 45 minutes, I open the windows, everything.
Anyways, he says, we got to go to HHC because Jackson's there.
I said, Jackson's the biggest sweetheart.
What are you talking about?
He says, David, you and I know who Jackson is.
I said, dude.
So we go there and we were walking up.
He said, what's that smell?
I say they were barbecuing earlier.
He says, that doesn't smell like barbecue.
Something burned.
Something burned here.
He said, no, I smell wheat.
I said, no, it's incense.
Incense smells very similar.
So he goes and you see the smoke coming out of Jackson's dude.
Dude, he knocks on the door, opens the door.
What's up, Sash?
I'm like, Jackson, wipe that look off your face.
So he's got two other buddies that sit in there.
And I said, you guys smoking wheat?
Me?
I don't smoke the wheat.
What are you talking about?
We're reading poetry and this is incense.
So I'm like, I'm like, no, no, listen, let's just go the other way.
Let's go the other way.
Because I said, no, no, they're smoking with SSR.
They're not smoking wheat.
He said, they're smoking with SSR.
What are you talking about?
It's incense.
You ever had smell this?
It doesn't smell it.
So, anyways, we leave.
So at this point, I'm thinking I got away with it.
We go to the other side.
The cocaine guy covers it up, okay?
Which, by the way, that guy ended up going to jail for like five years.
Military prison, bad situation, because he wouldn't stop doing cocaine.
You're not supposed to do it in the Army.
You're not supposed to do it, period.
But in the Army, it's even worse.
Anyways, we go to formation.
Weekend ends.
We're like, guys, hey, big dog, we made it, man.
You're my homie.
I'm like, dude, we made it.
We're straight up.
So, Monday morning.
All right.
We're doing a random drug test.
If you're social, the last four of your social starts with the number six and four, step up.
So whose numbers are they?
It's Jackson's, mine, and the other guy.
So I'm like, I know I'm clean.
So I step up.
I'm like, oh, shit, Jackson.
Oh, dog.
I don't know.
I don't have the, what do you call the thing you would pour on your vinegar?
They didn't have the vinegar because you had to tip it.
And then, anyways, anyway, we're learning a little too much here.
So he goes, dude, I don't have that.
You got it.
I said, dude, I'm not going to have any.
So, anyways, we go get tested.
And the way they test it, the way they test it is they're watching.
It's not testing.
Hey, go give that.
No, no, they're not doing that.
So put your hands on the side.
One hand only.
Let me see.
Very awkward.
So we come out.
He said, what do you think is going to happen?
I said, dude, either you're going to test positive for incense?
Are you going to test positive for weeds?
Or barbecue.
So the cocaine guy doesn't get tested for nothing.
He gets away.
For whatever reason.
They didn't get him.
They got him six months later, but they didn't get him that time.
He just couldn't help himself.
He was too pretty to a guy.
And he party.
I introduced him to one club and he just went crazy.
Jackson gets caught and he goes demote, gets demoted from specialist on E1, okay?
And he has to do bathroom, you know, all this stuff.
He has to clean up.
He said, I'm like, Jackson, I told you, bro.
So I come up clean.
Everybody's good.
We leave.
Jackson's out.
The other guy goes to military prison.
And people have to figure out, probably not a good idea to smoke weed and do cocaine in the Army, right?
I come out of the Army.
I talked to one of my friends who him and I worked at Burger King together.
He was the cashier and I was the chef.
And so they wouldn't make me cashier.
They said he talked too much.
That's a big worker.
I was a chef.
Listen, I like being a chef.
It's a whopper, no audience, right?
So one day we enter the biggest debate about welfare and social security and all these Section 8 and all this stuff.
I said, you know what I think they need to do?
He says, what?
Biggest debate.
I'm curious to know what you guys will say.
I said, I don't mind if you're giving unemployment benefits to people.
Some people need it for three, six months to recover.
I totally get you need to give welfare and food stamps to certain people.
But here's what I think they need to do.
What's that?
I think every month you ought to get drug tested.
If you test positive, you don't get taxpayer money.
If you test negative, listen, we'll help you out.
But there's one criteria.
You cannot do drugs.
He lost his mind.
He says, that's not fair.
What would it take if we were to drug test people that are getting, you know, whatever it is, WIC, any of this stuff that we're getting?
What percentage of people do you think wouldn't get the benefits?
Well, you know, through the 80s and 90s, you would have a tremendous percent of people under 30 that test positive for marijuana and don't get the benefits.
And now you've got 25 states where it's perfectly legal to go get high.
You can just go buy it at the drugstore.
You can get edibles and whatever you want.
They're, you know, processing.
But what Patrick was saying is in order to qualify, you have to get 90%.
I don't think it's that high.
90%.
No, no, no.
I was going to say a fifth.
Adam right now is rolling.
I don't think it's 90%.
No, no, I would say at least a third.
I'm going to go with a third.
Fine.
I think that's conservative.
Okay, let's just say a high of 90%, which I'm sure he's being conservative in his mind.
Was that a pun?
You're a third.
Let's say third.
There's a delayed reaction this morning with Patrick.
You don't understand.
Let's say a third.
Is he related to Charles?
Tom, put me out of here.
Are you really serious?
You only think one third of people that get free benefits that don't have to do shit all month are only a third of the city.
Fine, how about you say 50%?
Let's just say 50%.
Some point during the month, they would test positive if they hit it up.
90.
You're really jacked up about this.
I thought high 90 was a fastball, but now you're talking about a drug percentage.
Let's say 50%.
Let's say 50%.
What do you think would happen if that was a standard?
He said, look, no problem.
You're going through tough times.
My rule for unemployment, you know how people want to get unemployment?
Here's my unemployment with work.
What were you making out your job?
$4,000 a month.
How much is unemployment?
We're paying you two grand a month.
That's it.
No problem.
Here's what I want you to do.
You're four grand a month.
You were working 40 hours a week?
I was.
The two grand we're giving you unemployment.
I want you to give 20 hours of community service.
Exactly.
And we'll pay the two grand a month.
But 20 hours of community service.
As long as you're not disabled.
You know how quickly people would get off of unemployment?
Oh my gosh.
We need community service.
The side of the freeways are dirty, bro.
We need your help.
You're so awesome.
We'll give you this $2,000 in exchange and a drug test once a month.
We'll probably do that.
Here's your reflective vest and your orange bag.
And people would be like the side of the freeway going, my friend's on this freeway texting.
I do not want to be here.
They would be off unemployment in 10 seconds.
Yeah, that's the point.
So the point is, do you want people off of unemployment?
Do you want people off of welfare?
Do you want people, not you, politicians, establishment, do they want people off of entitlement programs?
No.
Or do they need them on entitlement programs to get them?
But look at the gray line.
That's the unintended consequence.
That's food at home inflation.
It is.
And this is a government program making inflation higher than it would otherwise be, which is the most regressive tax in the world.
Inflation.
Let me ask you this question because the people that are putting these policies together have smart people around them, or they are smart.
They're not idiots.
Do they think we're idiots and that they're just going to force feed us this as long as they possibly can?
Is this a day-to-day game for them just to stay relevant and to be re-elected?
Or do they think these policies work?
Well, let me ask you a question when it comes down to parents.
Do you think parents are smart or do you think they're dumb?
I think they're smart.
Okay, good.
Let's qualify all parents as smart.
Okay.
Do you think some parents who say a father who has not been in a picture comes back, he wants to win the kids over?
How do fathers try to win their kids over?
Money.
Money and attention.
What do kids later on say in life when they have that one big fight with their father?
Stop trying to buy me with what?
With gifts, right?
When people grow up, some kids are going to be like, dude, I love it.
Give me more gifts.
This is great.
But some kids say, what?
I don't want you.
I don't want you to be loving with money.
I want you to put some time into me and help me grow up.
You were not there for that time.
There's going to be a percentage of people that are going to be like, this political party is awesome.
This is great.
I'm loving this.
But there's going to be a few people that are going to be like, listen, I'm sick and tired of this bullshit.
Sick and tired of it.
Listen, I got it.
I got it.
You can't buy me with money.
I don't want any of these entitlement programs.
I mean, again, 61 of the 73 million children in America, 90.
What percentage of Americans know that they're getting money that they don't need and are pissed off?
A lot.
I mean, I hear people, well, I don't know about pissed off because probably, but you know, it's funny.
I've heard people say, like, why isn't this money going to people who really need it?
Why am I getting this money?
I don't know.
That's a reaction.
I hear people say that all the time.
I just got a deposit.
I don't know why they're sending me money, right?
I mean, people that probably don't need it are still getting the handout.
Yeah, you know, it's crazy.
We had a board meeting last week.
Tom was in the room.
And one of my investors gets up and he says, you know, last year I called Pat and I called Pat.
I said, hey, they're getting away the PPP loans.
Okay.
And we can get pretty much free money.
I said, what's the number?
He says, a little bit less than $5 million we can get if we go get it.
But remember, we don't have to pay this back.
I said, why do we take the money?
He says, listen, just take the money.
You don't need to worry about it because we don't have to take it back.
You can, I said, take the money and run.
I said, I'm not doing it, bro.
He says, so then they call another board member to call me and say, we should take this money.
I said, we have money.
Why am I taking $5 million?
He said, because they're doing it for everybody.
And I said, I'm not going to do it.
So he brought up this story to say, Pat didn't want to take it.
Why am I taking the money if I want to be fine?
I don't need this money.
Give it to people that are struggling.
The restaurant owner that's getting crushed, give him that money.
Exactly.
They need tremendous help.
Exactly.
We're going to be okay.
Well, the board should be happy that you took that stance.
Integrity, you know?
Well, sure, but that board member is a very, very driven by the numbers guy.
And I love him, but he's a business guy.
Great guy, by the way.
Fantastic guy.
But it is what it is.
Anyway, so we'll see what's going to happen here with these numbers and the direction inflation is going.
So having said that, having said that, inflation surged to 6.8% in November, even more than expected, to fastest rate since 1982.
Federal Reserve is expected to take a very big step towards a rate hike.
It's what they're talking about right now.
This is a CNBC story.
They're about to announce a dramatic policy shift Wednesday that will clear the way for the first interest hike rate next year.
Markets are anticipating the Fed will speed up the wind down of its bond buying program, changing the end to March from June.
That would free the central bank to start raising interest rates from zero, and Fed officials are expected to release a new forecast showing two to three interest rate hikes in 2022 and another three to four in 2023.
The big wild card for markets is what the Fed says about its balance sheet, which was $4.1 trillion in January.
The 2022-b4 pandemic was swollen to $8.7 trillion.
You just mentioned that there was one set of analytics that said expecting as many as seven mini hikes during the year.
No, no, I said that.
I said Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Shaw.
Goldman Sachs says that.
Goldman Sachs says seven.
Isn't that interesting?
Well, listen, yesterday was a shock for the markets.
And Fed officials are being so aggressive because they announced that the median probability is now three rate hikes, according to Fed officials, according to the dot plot, according to the anonymous votes.
So a preponderance of the officials on the Federal Reserve Board are now anticipating three rate hikes next year.
But as we see Fed hikes seen starting with yield curve flattest in a generation, it's a wonky thing to discuss.
But the reason stocks are up is because stocks are like, they're not going to be able to do it.
Because we've had the difference between the two-year Treasury yield and the 10-year Treasury yield, which is, by the way, what I spent all of 2019 talking about.
I spent all of one whole year talking about the damn yield curve.
But we've had the difference between the two-year and the 10-year yield go from 161, 1.6 percentage points in April at the peak of the stimulus, stimulus checks 3.0, to where it is today, half of that 80 basis points.
So it's been cut in half.
It's a record decline.
Once that yield curve gets really flat, it tends to say we're going into recession.
So the markets yesterday were like, they can try and raise interest rates all they want, but they cannot raise interest rates if the yield curve is flat or even worse, inverted, because that signals a recession.
So try me, go for it, hurry up with the taper.
Right now, they're on track because they doubled the size of the reduction in purchases from $15 to $30 billion starting in January.
So they're on track to finish with the taper, to stop growing the balance sheet by March 15th at the rate that they have announced officially yesterday.
So in theory, on the March 17th meeting, two meetings from now, they could launch the first interest rate hike.
But let's go back to tax season and the money that people are not getting back in interest in income tax refunds.
And the child tax credit not being paid January the 15th for the first time.
And Biden seeming to pull it out of his, the February the 1st student loan repayment.
Let's talk about what the first quarter of this economy is going to look like and whether the Fed's going to be able to do a single interest rate hike despite inflation, which there's a word for it.
It's called stagflation.
And it's the worst of all possible situations because your growth is slowing while prices are still rising.
It's the hardest to break.
And it is the hardest to break.
And wait till people start getting their energy bills over the winter.
They're going to get hammered.
If it gets cold, forget it.
Game over.
You know, when it comes to the Biden administration is going to be praying for COVID strain number six to distract the American people from the fact that a multi-point assault on the economy is happening in the UK.
How bad do you think it's going to be?
How bad do you think the JP Morgan came out yesterday morning and they said, you know what?
Our healthcare conference is going virtual.
So let's try and multiply that out right when travel's coming back.
Right when all the everything, in-person conferences, I mean, I've got them lined up.
That's all the biggest of the year, by the way.
That's in San Francisco, I believe.
It is now virtual.
Could you imagine if people had access to these types of conversations a year ago, right before the election?
Do you think it would have changed people's minds knowing where the economy was going?
Because a lot of people predicted this.
This isn't somewhere.
You know, you know, the executive order the USDA into increasing the food stamp program by 32%.
This is, I mean, this is like what's being done to the U.S. taxpayer quietly is just criminal.
And you just need more people to talk about it.
And I'm telling you, 61 seats, a 61-seat swing come November is going to look like a walk in the park compared to what's going to happen in the world.
The narratives are already in the house.
The narratives are already shifted, you can tell.
And it's a story later if we want to talk about it.
But even how some of these liberal mayors are talking about crime right now, they're actually admitting that it exists.
And you know, that's a preemptive strike for the elections.
But when it comes to inflation, I think everybody has this aha moment, right?
When you realize inflation is real.
For me, it hit me the other day.
I was at the grocery store.
I bought two apples.
I was going to buy two apples.
Two apples.
It was like four bucks, $4.50.
I'm going for two apples.
What's in the apple?
Well, Jackson had hidden some marijuana in them.
That's what I'm saying.
I had to throw it over the wall at Guantanamo.
It's the secret special apple.
That was a bad apple.
No wonder you're in a good mood.
It makes sense.
How about them apples?
I don't know.
I bought 12 more.
I bought two apples.
I like these apples.
I like them apples.
David is in Fuego this morning.
But you know what?
I don't need those apples that bad.
I don't need apples right now.
That's ridiculous.
Four or five pounds.
I will buy this.
For two apples.
I didn't buy the pound of bacon.
So 99.
Somebody told me it was 10 bucks for a bag of oranges.
You have a problem with bacon.
This guy's got a problem with apples.
By the way, how are things in California right now?
You know, you and I texted back and forth the other day with the whole greats where they're getting rid of Fs and some LAUSD and these, right?
Some cities, they're not going to do these.
But how are things with crime street?
I mean, you've seen a lot of videos.
People are walking and taking stuff, but we're not living in California.
You're there.
What is it about?
Dallas, Texas, too.
I know four people that have been either held up, had a gun pointed at them, something violent, a violent encounter.
And this is in Beverly Hills.
This is in the Pacific Pound.
I personally know them.
I personally know people that have had guns pulled on them, robberies around them.
You know, we were.
Was he making a movie with Alec Baldwin?
No, actually.
He took a sabbatical.
Wow.
We had a Christmas party last week, a good friend in Beverly Hills.
And literally, I was thinking about it all day.
I was thinking, is there going to be security there?
Because literally, they're hitting holiday parties now.
They'll come in and they'll watches wallets and rings.
It's happening.
It really is.
And I literally asked him, I said, by the way, is there going to be security there?
Have they thought about hiring somebody?
Luckily, it was in an enclosed condo complex where you couldn't get in.
But I was literally thinking about that all day.
I think about that where you drive, where you go.
People don't wear their watches.
They don't wear, they don't carry expensive things.
You're a walking target.
And it's just, it's really sad.
You know, they had huge smashing grabs over Thanksgiving like a lot of these big cities did.
They rounded up.
They arrested 17 people.
Garcetti goes in front of this big press conferences.
They were all released the next day.
Zero cash bonds.
It's really bad.
They're so brazen.
They don't care.
They're organized.
And I think it's starting to hit more influential people in California.
That's why I think it might start shifting a little bit because it just makes no sense.
If you think back and think, they can go in and steal whatever they want whenever they want in the most high-traffic area.
It's a great time for citizen watches to create a marketing campaign.
Where are watches?
No one will steal them.
Exactly.
Like the old swatch from 40 years ago.
Hey, Pat, you know what we're talking about, the smashing grab.
You know the Nordstroms that's at West Hills?
Yeah, it's right.
It's on Topenca Canyon, and it's the edge of Canoga Park, but it's right by West Hills and where all the celebs live.
Okay.
You know, Calabasas.
It was right next to that.
That was the Nordstrom that was hit.
So they're coming to these areas.
Oh, it's not just that.
That's right.
The one in Topanga?
Topanga Plus?
That's the mainstay.
That's the best Nordstroms in LA.
That's right.
And it's now known as the Westfield West Hills at Topanga.
Oh my gosh.
That's the one that got hit.
So there was police cars chasing them.
It was a huge, it was a huge difference.
This is not an isolated incident.
When Nordstroms reported their earnings, they had a special line item for theft.
That's how much it's impacted Nordstrom's earnings.
They had a special one-line item for losses due to theft.
And Walgreens has shut down hundreds of stores because of theft.
Yeah.
And it's organized.
The Topanga one happened this way.
First three came in with bear spray and they hit the guards.
They walked in and this was two girls, one guy dressed reasonably.
They had like, you know, they were wearing like caps and then pulled them down and then he hit the guards with the bear spray and then 20 people stream in and got all the purses and stuff that can be sold easily on eBay or with sidewalk vendors down in Venice.
Hey, you want a purse?
Yeah, I mean, it had a method point.
There is a playbook for this.
This wasn't just random.
I talked to a big PR firm yesterday in New York, and this is how the call starts.
So my friend said, you ought to get with one of these bigger PR firms.
This is the main person who got to talk to.
I said, no problem.
So she gets on, and she says, so how are things?
Great.
So where are you at?
I'm like, I'm in South Florida.
You know, things are great here.
Ooh, I hear things about South Florida.
I'm like, what do you hear about South Florida?
Okay.
I said, how are things in New York?
Oh, great.
I said, ooh, you know, it's great to be a part of it.
That was the best city in the world just a couple of years ago, pre-COVID.
Oh, stop exaggerating.
Still the greatest city.
I was in the streets the other day.
People are walking everywhere.
It's so free.
It's still the greatest city in the world.
I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of strange things going on there.
And you saw her like she couldn't help herself.
No, this is still the greatest city in the world.
And she's going with this part.
I'm like, all right.
And I said, well, awesome.
You know, more power to the great city.
There are certain people that are trying to deny what's going on in their cities, New York being one of them, LA being one of them.
And Newsom even came out and said, I'm going to follow what do you call it's a protocol.
He says, what Texas is doing with abortion, I'm going to be doing with gun laws is what we're going to be doing.
Remember that?
Yeah, he's ramming that through to get rid of the automatic assault rifles.
Right.
In LA.
Anyways, again, they keep doing things like this.
People are going to keep leaving.
People will react.
There is cause and effect.
I was in New York City yesterday.
I mean, I heard from a lot of my buddies.
I'm back working at home.
They shut down the office again because they imposed mask mandates inside.
Yeah.
Yeah, LA just shut down for another month, too.
Mass indoors everywhere.
Don't you just love that?
It's like a way of saying, go spend time with your family.
There's a level of nobility in Newsom when you think about it.
You know, like these guys are, they're so concerned about your quality of time with your family.
Newsome and nobility.
I never made that connection.
Yeah, it's just, it's a sweet little thing that's going on there.
So, okay, let's talk about student loans.
White House says restarting student loans is a high priority, sparking outrage.
Okay, Tom, this is a story you have opinions on.
Let me read it first, and then you can get right into it.
It's a true truth.
Is that the one?
Yes, it is.
Okay, White House Secretary Jensaki recently announced that the Biden administration is not planning on extending the student loan payment pause, sparking outrage among debt advocates and people who have struggled with student loan repayments for years.
The administration is planning to allow the student debt payments pause to expire at the end of January.
The pause, which was implemented to aid borrowers as the economy was rocked by the pandemic, has been in place since March of 2020.
I'm angry at Biden's backtracking on key pillars he ran on.
Cancellation.
I'm fearing what the end of the moratorium will do for so many people, tweeted one user.
Other Twitter user noted that allowing repayments to start during a critical election year is a poor strategy for a nation's top Democrat, which she's right.
So, thoughts, Tom, what do you think about this?
Well, there's like three angles to this.
And the first angle there is, I think it's political.
And then the other one is has to do with large banking and the big numbers that you talk about.
Right now, there's $1.7 trillion of student loans that is held by a collective sum of about 43 million students that ran those up.
So the first thing you had is Biden ran a campaign promise when he was not yet the nominee for president.
And he was fighting against the Bernie group that was completely locked in with Bernie and the Elizabeth group, Elizabeth Warren.
And so he said, if I'm elected, I will cancel half of the student loan for the lower half of more, you know, economically, you know, below some line students.
Half of them.
Half of them.
Okay, good.
Well, that would be $800 billion.
And we just approved a $2.5 trillion debt increase.
So where are you going to get the other $800 billion from?
It would basically be TARP for those that are carrying it.
You know what the big three are?
Naviant, Wells Fargo, and Discover hold 40% of the student loan debt.
So if you're canceling the debt, what you have to do, you have to do something for the benefit, not the servicers, but you got to do something for the banking industry.
And guess what?
That would impact the size of BBB, and that would also impact the size of the recent increase on the debt limit because it's all related.
This $800 billion is going to come from somewhere.
There it is, $1.73 in true loan.
And you'll find in there about 43, 44 million Americans that are carrying that.
Yep, 43.2.
Yep.
So there's a big number.
So the first problem is, you know, I'm not unhappy to see a civil war inside the Democratic Party about this because this is when all the independents, moderates, and the Republicans kind of sit this one out and they're watching the Democratic people.
You know what's starting?
You know what's the problem with giving things away to people for free?
You know what's the problem with giving money or things away to people for free?
They just expect more.
They come back.
Somebody else's money?
You eventually have to stop.
That's correct.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
So for example, I had a friend of mine, best friend in the world.
We went to first grade together, high school together, military, I mean, everything.
No cocaine.
No cocaine.
This guy is not a cocaine guy.
No.
So best friend in the world.
I'm thinking about that guy.
Because it's other things.
But anyways, so.
But the friend at the other end of the hall was the marijuana guy.
He was Jackson's, man.
I miss that guy so much.
If he finds this, I invite him to tell these stories because he's that funny.
Okay, Tom, stop.
Okay.
That's my bongsty.
So anyway, so I'm talking to this guy, and he says, Pat, I'm going through tough times.
Okay, never forget this.
I'm going through tough times.
I said, what are you going through?
He said, I can't pay the office rent.
I said, no problem.
I got you this month on me.
30 days later, he makes money.
He buys a nice $4,000 or $5,000 engagement ring for his girl.
Rent comes, he says, I'm struggling as well.
I said, bro, you just made.
I don't know how much money you made.
Yeah, yeah.
He says, no, no, one more month.
So I said, all right, one more month.
So at this point, I'm getting the good feeling of being a good friend because he likes me.
Do you know what I'm saying?
It's like, oh, wow, this is so awesome.
What a great friendship we have here, right?
I'm bailing my friend out two months, three months.
It ends up being eight months.
Eight months later, he hasn't paid rent.
Then I have to tell him to do what?
I, the friend, has to evict him.
I have to tell him he cannot be in this office anymore.
After eight months of not paying rent and evicting him, guess who became the enemy?
I'm the bad guy.
And he went nuclear.
You know what?
He went nuclear.
You know what my dad told me?
Here's what my dad told me.
He says, Pat, you're about to start making money.
This is 13 years ago, 14 years ago.
I'm 27 years old, so 16 years ago.
He says, you're about to start making money.
He says, when you start making real money, everyone's going to call you.
You have to have a basic rule when people call you for money.
I said, what's that?
He said, when people call you, they'll say, I need to borrow $5,000.
He says, never give them, lend them $5,000 because the fastest way to lose a friend or relative.
That's right.
He said, instead, say the following.
You need $5,000?
You want to borrow $5,000?
I can't give you $5,000.
However, I can give you $300 and you never have to pay it back.
So here's the, no, no, but I need $5,000.
I totally get it.
But the difference is I don't want to hurt our friendship.
So instead of me loaning you $5,000, here's $300, but never have to worry about paying it back.
It's such a confusing situation because I still helped and you can't walk away upset.
Right.
And I'm still like helping out.
So you kind of walk, it's kind of like this.
It's like, okay.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
And you just kind of walk away.
I think Dems have given so much that eventually, eventually, you have to stop giving them money and they're going to turn against you.
You understand?
That's kind of how somebody else was.
Was it Chas who said when he made a little bit of money, he called all of his friends?
Because I knew it was $30,000 loan.
$30,000.
So Chaz Palmonteri made a bunch of money, apparently.
He was working on projects he earned.
He was a great actor and getting good roles and getting good paydays.
So he said, to preempt what would happen in Hollywood, where people asked him, hey, $30,000, come about $30,000.
I got a script.
I'm going to finish it.
I'm going to get a development deal, blah, Instead of that, what he did, he called all of his friends and borrowed $20,000.
And then they would assume.
Oh, my God.
That's brilliant.
That's so brilliant.
That is so good.
And then they didn't call him preemptive strength.
About to get a million dollar check.
He calls all his friends borrowing for 30 grand.
They all say no.
That's great.
Then he gets the million.
Then when they call, they said, bro, you said, no, I can't do it.
And a great actor can pull that off.
I think of Chas Palmenteri, him dropping the coffee cup in usual suspects when he sees the names on the board.
And the bottom of the coffee cup said the bayashi.
Yeah, just the bayashi.
So good.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Let's continue.
Pat, you're absolutely right.
And so to close, close, close on student loans, you have a Democrat Civil War, number one.
Number two, you can't throw another $800 billion on the economy.
And number three, now you have a voting bloc that feels that they got screwed because they were promised something and it's not there.
Here's my final caveat.
What about the people that are going to school now?
I mean, are they going to be forgiven going forward in perpetuity?
I mean, what if you're going to college in two years and you have to take out loans?
You know, everybody else before you had it wiped away, but you're going to be facing.
I'm telling you, this creates such a big rift and a division.
It's not a pretty sight because you eventually have to say no.
This is why you have to position yourself and know.
If you start now, it's just a matter of time before they hate you.
We could keep on that.
Starting January the 15th.
January the 15th is the first month, the first day that people aren't going to get the child tax credit.
January the 31st is when they find out that they're also not getting an income tax refund.
So there's going to be a lot of animosity before we get to the first month of the year in the Democratic Party among the constituencies that they're trying to buy their votes.
Pat, we could go deep on this an entire podcast.
Maybe we should sometime because it's also the inflation that's happened in the cost of tuition is because the universities know they're only accepting 10% of what comes in.
So there's no problem with the demand.
And they keep raising it because they know that the federal government is backing the student loans.
Yeah.
And so it's the student loan program has been a lot of fun.
Let's go to the next story.
Let's go to the next story.
So from just the news, home prices at a 45-year high, pricing many buyers out of the market.
Annual home prices were 18% higher in October of this year than they were last October and were also the highest recorded in the 45-year history of a home price index published by global property company CoreLogic.
Arizona, Idaho, and Utah saw the highest home price increases from October to October 2021, 24%.
Fannie Mae's November forecast projects a median price of a previously owned home to surpass $400,000 by middle of 2023.
That's insane if you think about it.
I mean, I know it's not a big number when you think about some areas, but it's insane when it's across the board.
It also projects that the median new home price will reach $464,000 by the end of 2024, roughly $100,000 more than the new home prices in January of 2021.
I mean, this has run off the rails, and we wonder why mortgage originations are down three months in a row.
Mortgage origination is down three months in a row.
Submits, yep, apps.
People putting in apps.
I mean, at some point, you're going to hit a pain threshold when it comes to the price.
The sticker stock is going to get you.
Car sales are down seven in the last eight months.
I mean, sticker shock is real when it comes to these.
Well, part of that's inventory, too.
By the way, if Cox Automotive put a story out a few days ago, and they anticipate that this whole supply chain thing, the supply in autos is going to be unwound by the first quarter.
You have lot after lot after lot after lot in Kentucky filled with Ford F-150 trucks waiting for one chip.
But the inventory is sitting there ready to go.
So, no, home prices are completely off the rails.
We get a weekly report from the Mortgage Bankers Association to Fannie Mae's estimate.
The average purchase loan as of yesterday's data was $406,800.
The average home price in Austin, Texas, median home price in Austin, Texas, $455,000.
So the lower-cost states are pricing themselves out of the market because Californians are moving in, and they're like, it's a buy one, get one free sale.
So they come in and they buy one, get one, because they do the tax math of getting out from underneath that terrible tax burden in California.
And they're like, I can buy this house.
I'll give you two anecdotes real quick.
Shonda's Aunt Kay, our beloved Aunt Kay, former belly dancer, by the way.
That makes her moved to B Near House when we were living in Phoenix, bought a house, I think, for about $140,000, $140,000, sold it.
She moved to Missouri, sold it for like $450,000.
Had a bidding war.
And then I had a friend that goes to Court d'Alene, Idaho, and you mentioned Idaho, Pat, in one of these states where the prices are going crazy.
So he used to go back and forth to Court d'Alene, a little vacation home.
Then he built a house recently, within the past year, built it.
I mean, beautiful, like a four seasons, really nice interior, guest house, the whole thing.
All in at 3.2.
Wanted to, you know, this is going to be the place where they're going to spend half the year.
Constant knocks on his door, never put on the market.
Finally, someone knocks on the door and offered him $7.5 million, and he took the deal.
Didn't even live in the house for less than a year.
Someone offered him $7.5, and he had to take the deal.
So it is crazy.
It's absolutely bombarded.
Montana is number one.
There's a little town in Montana.
Austin, Texas is number two.
Boise, Idaho is number three.
The three hottest housing markets in America.
Whitefish?
Let me ask you, how much is rent up?
Have you studied those numbers?
Okay, so I'm looking at the real.com.
I'm going to send this to you if you want to kind of, matter of fact, just go type in the following.
Type in, is rent up?
Just type in, is rent up?
And then go to news.
Go to news.
Yep, news, and then go to the second one.
Yeah, right there.
There we go.
This was fast.
Tyler, this was the best one so far.
So that was a good assist.
Okay, as rent explodes, say there you go.
As rent explodes nationally, New York City tops the charts, go a little lower.
Biggest comeback since 2022.
At least last time the city apartments were on discount rack, rents had fallen 14% in 12 months.
Since then, Gotham rents are up 32%, fourth among U.S. cities, according to a new report from Zumper.
The median price for one bedroom is now $31.90.
It's officially surpassed San Francisco.
Nationally, rents are up 11.6% above where they were last year.
So, okay, so if rents are up 11.6%, but real estate is up 20, what's the number, 20%, 25%?
18% to 20%, let's just say?
18% nationwide.
Nationally, what does that tell you?
What does that tell you if the prices are going at a faster pace than rent is?
Does that reveal anything?
Right now, buying a house, relative to renting, buying a house is the most expensive it's ever been.
As high as rents are.
I've got the data.
Yeah, and then think about taxes.
And that is a brain twister because rents are going up so fast.
Yeah, so are you saying it's a better time to rent than it is to buy right now?
Believe it or not.
Well, but you have to remember, rent increases is a trailing indicator.
Because first you have the price increase.
And one year after the price increase, you have the property tax readjustment based on the sale.
Sure.
Then you've got the insurance that increases based on the ad valerum, the value of the underlying assets.
So now the insurance is up.
So what happens is rents usually increases usually follow housing price increases like six to nine months.
You usually follow them.
And right now is how many private equity firms are dedicating themselves to real estate portfolios and are buying up single-family units.
There's $75 billion has been invested in this single-family build to rent.
Not buy to rent, build entire community.
So you see what's about to happen?
There's a suburban statement.
There's property owners in the private equity sector.
Oh, they're massive.
And the average American is going to be pushed into renting because they can't afford to buy.
They can only afford to rent, but then the rent's going up.
So you asked about rents.
So single-family homes, because this is a big Wall Street baby.
This industry is loved by Wall Street.
So Blackstone has the largest single-family rental home, rental company.
Oh, yeah, I saw that.
Invitation homes.
So they're bragging on their most recent earnings call that for new leases, when they get a new renter in there, they're getting 18, 19% over the past year.
It's actually a brilliant move.
18, 19%.
Here it comes to the market.
And you're going to drop.
There are suburbs outside of Atlanta.
There are certain areas that are starting to clue in to the damage that these private equity firms are doing and saying, go away.
I'm not permitting you.
I'm not giving you the permits to build this subdivision because you effectively create like this entire generation of slaves.
And they're in the right school district and they're in a home that their family wants to be in.
They feel like they have home ownership, but they're actually slaves to these massive above-market rents, way above what you would for a multifamily apartment.
But they don't want to move because they're in the right school district.
And they're paying such high rents that they're never saving up that 3.5% for an FHA or 20% for a regular down payment.
It's a way to ensure that there's a cycle of poverty.
But let me ask you this.
So Blackstone is not going to do this and make an investment just because of 12 months.
They're not doing it for 24 months.
They've been doing it for years.
Yeah, yeah.
What I'm saying is if you're doing that, you're foreseeing renters surpassing buyers at a tremendous rate in the next five to 10 years.
You wouldn't do that just for one or two years, right?
But that's why they're going into secondary and tertiary markets.
That's why they're building these communities in the exurbs, whatever is north of Frisco in Dallas.
They're building communities in prosperity.
But they're doing it because they have to, because lot prices are so high, land prices are so high, that in order to make these crazy internal rate of return assumptions work, which that's what you're speaking to, that they've got to go out into the damn hinterlands.
Schwartzman is a genius.
He's not going to make this big of a bet if he doesn't know it's going to be a good bet for the next five, 10 years.
And who just retired from Blackstone?
Tony James, the number two.
And who sold the firm that I used to work at?
Tony James at the top of the market in 2001.
Thank you.
Oh, you're giving us something there?
He just retired two weeks ago, Tony James, the number two at Blackstone.
Which means what?
Well, I mean, some people know when to take the money and run.
Okay.
But that tells me a different story because what I'm trying to get to is the following.
So imagine a buyer's listening right now.
He knows how to top the market because he did it when he sold DLJ.
How old was he when he left?
Tony James.
How old is Tony James?
Tony James is probably 70, maybe.
Okay.
If I had to guess.
Fine.
70.
I mean, you've made your billions.
You want to go kick it a little bit in.
Schwartzman's 74.
But Schwartzman is a psycho-competitor.
You know, Schwartzman is not a regular guy.
Schwartzman is like some of these guys are not going to slow down.
If you ever read his material, the guy's freaking sick.
I'm a Schwarzman fan.
I mean, Blackstone's real estate portfolio loans about $56 billion.
They bury any player in the private equity real estate space by the way.
And they were an LBO model, right?
They were more of a leverage buyouts model.
Oh, no, no, no, no.
You want to talk about the whole thing?
Yeah.
That's like $300 billion.
I mean, they're a monster.
Yeah, yeah.
So one question for you?
Yeah.
So before we go to the next story, there's one question.
So average Americans in average process-oriented jobs, work from home would sure help these private equity firms that are building these massive portfolios out from city center, wouldn't it?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that 11.1% of Americans are now working from home, less than a third of what it was at the peak of May 2020.
Now they're working from home 30 miles from downtown.
I got a lot of money.
And a giant American company.
They're going to be a lot better by the private equity firm, and they have a nice school and a nice life.
Okay.
Higher rates.
Then that's a shift of mind.
That's a paradigm shift.
That's a shift.
But we're down to 11 percent.
So it's with your point, Matt?
You're correct where you said they're 13, 5, 10 years out?
Yeah.
Yes.
These guys are not dummies.
Listen, when I see people like that, they're not dummies.
When I see politicians, that's a different view of that.
Yeah, but remember, they created this model.
Now the rest of the world is following them into this model.
Yeah, but are you saying this is a negative?
I mean, it's basically a glorified apartment complex with nicer homes.
It's only a negative for the people paying those rents.
Yeah, but they're making that choice.
I mean, some people might want a nice house with a pool, you know, that's 30 miles outside of downtown.
They are making that choice, Danielle.
You can't say they're not making that choice.
They're not.
But we do know from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that in May of 2020, there were more than three times the number of people working from home than there are today.
It's just 11% of people.
And there used to be a moment where multiple people.
Outside of New York and California, people are actually back in the office.
Just out of curiosity.
I mean, out of a complete question that's off topic, but it is somewhat with the topic.
When do you think everything will be back to normal with COVID?
Like 100% like a 18-year-old.
2018, maybe never.
Maybe never.
I don't think business travels are ever coming back the way it used to be.
Okay, but wait a minute.
You're saying, are you part of Nevercamp?
Well, I'm part of the camp that COVID is being used politically and as a weapon, and I think they're going to hold on to that as long as they can for some degree.
So I don't think it'll ever get back to how it used to be.
What do you think?
You know, I see a lot of busyness outside of New York and L.A.
I see a lot of normalcy.
So you're saying it's going to go back to normal?
I'm saying I'm seeing a lot of normality.
So what do you think?
What's your timeline?
What do you think?
If you were to guesstimate and bet $10,000, what would you say?
This Omicron thing, whatever it is, that's apparently not as bad as they've said it.
They've said it right off the bat.
It took a couple of weeks to say it's not that bad.
But there's got to be the next thing that comes out, right?
When do you think it's going to be back to normal?
I think we're going to get about 85% back to 80%, 85% back to the old normal, but there's going to be a bunch of new normals.
Like work from home for processing job is a new normal.
Less business travel, I think, will be a new normal.
But I think we're going to get back to a point where we go to the restaurants, you know, you can go to the ball game, you can go to a party at an event place.
What's crazy is everything you're saying in Florida, it's all normal.
Right.
Like nothing's changing.
It's multinational.
I know, that's what I'm saying.
Like what you just said, yeah.
Without California saying, oh my God, and being the nanny state.
Yeah.
Okay, let's go to the next story here.
Let's go to the next story.
Let's see which one we want to go to.
JFK, you guys want to go through that one?
Top secret JFK assassination files are finally released.
Lee Harvey Oswald was in contact with a member of a KGB two months ago, two months before a shooting.
And anonymous phone calls said Russia was behind it.
Trove up 1,500 documents revealed.
This is on page five.
Biden said he wanted to do this.
They finally did it.
More than 1,500 personal comments on the public comment.
Okay.
They include memos detailing anonymous phone calls from a U.S. embassy in Cabrera and Cambera, Australia, a year before the shooting, where the caller said the Soviet government was plotting to kill Kennedy and details of Oswald's meeting with a KGB agent at Soviet embassy in Mexico City two months before the shooting.
Another call was placed on November 24th, two days before the shooting, claiming the Russians were behind it.
Earlier this year, Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's nephew, which I'm about to do debate with him in the next two weeks with him and somebody that he just wrote a book about Fauci, and it's not the nicest book about Fauci.
It's amazing.
You read it?
I'm part of it.
I started it.
A good friend of mine turned me onto it who read it and he told me all about it.
Unbelievable.
Yeah, we're doing it.
He's debating somebody over the topic in the next couple of years.
Carol Heinz's husband, you know, from Kirby's enthusiasm.
Yeah, okay, cool.
I think you've talked to RFK before.
Let me finish this time.
Let me finish this time again.
So JFK's nephew affumed that some of the files would remain secret until next year.
How the hell is it 50 eight years later?
And what in the world would justify not releasing these documents, RFK said?
By the way, these are not all the files.
Some of the files are going to release next year, and some of them we may never find out about.
Do you think, Tom, because I know you follow this story.
You're somebody that's also curious about this topic.
You and I have talked about this many times.
Do you think we're going to learn anything new?
No, I don't think so.
There was the speculation that the Russians were involved, that the Cubans were involved, that felt betrayed by the Bay of Pigs, that the Teamsters were involved, that Sam Giacano was involved.
And what I find interesting here is they're all pointing back to Oswald, which points back to the single gunman theory, which is the one thing that every scientific analysis of all the echo and everything in the tapes.
And Clint Hill, who you spoke to.
Yep.
The last, I think he's the last living person that was in the first two cars.
So no, you're saying nothing.
Is anybody thinking anything new is going to come up with Daniel?
Nothing at all.
They'll never reveal the stuff that actually tells you what happened.
Because somebody has to know.
Do you have a crazy theory on what you think happened?
Like 10 seconds.
What do you think happened?
Two options.
Internally, mafia because of dad, Joe, or Russia has to be involved.
What do you think, Danielle?
I'm with my daddy with him who was a bootlegger.
Yeah.
You know, here's the thing.
How does a secret like that stay a secret?
I mean, I know people that were, when I go places, people tell me things.
I don't know what it is.
You know, people just open up.
I learn who's sleeping with me.
They're like a priest.
They just feel comfortable telling me things.
Wow.
And I just powerful.
I don't know what it is.
Maybe it's my nice guy vibe or something.
But how do people keep secrets like this?
How does not one person reveal what happened?
How do we not know?
How is it even possible?
Someone has to know.
And it sure as the heck isn't one gunman.
There's just no way.
It's impossible.
I mean, if you go to the JFK, you know, the site where, and you go to the, the building, and there's just no way, it's impossible.
They play the tape and they show you five, four echoes, and then why was it so important to kill him the next day?
I mean, there's just this is so fascinating, I wish we could learn.
There's a, there's a lot of stuff there.
I know I interviewed Jack Barski two weeks ago.
His interview came out yesterday.
Jack Barski was a former KGB member from Germany.
He got recruited, went to Russia, they trained him and then he came out.
He did espionage, he did everything.
So I showed him a video of Yuri Besmanov.
If you've ever seen Yuri Bezmanov's interview before, it's pretty sick where he's talking about the whole subversion and what they do and how they train and how Russia's trying to take over U.S. by getting their philosophies of Marxism and universities and professors and teachers and get the youth and eventually like today's modern day of UC Berkeley is what they essentially were talking about.
And they've been successful.
So I asked him all these other things about the KGBS.
I was KGB involved.
No, let me tell you what we did, the KGB.
Number one, Jay Edgar Hoover was never a cross-dresser.
We planted that.
I'm like, stop.
Well done.
He says Z was never a cross-dresser.
We told him and threatened them that we're going to do that.
You know what else?
The eighth scandal, that was us.
We made that eighth scandal in America.
We did that.
I'm like, dude, I think you're gaslighting me right now.
But anyways, no one's going to know.
It's a story.
It's another great opportunity right now for someone in Hollywood, Steven Spielberg, to make a JFK movie right now.
All the time there'd be absolutely a good idea.
We'll make another one.
Change the angle and bring the mob and, you know, maybe tie, you know, Godfather 4 coming out with JFK assassination linked to it.
Who knows?
Let me ask you a question.
Do you think the immediate Kennedy family knows what happened?
You know, just Maria, did Jackie know?
Is it knowledge that's common at least in some cases?
Is known as one of the greatest environmental attorneys America's ever had.
That's what RFK's reputation is, right?
In the environmental attorney side, he is the best, right?
When he and I spoke the first time I interviewed him, I brought up the whole JFK assassination conversation.
This is a guy that explained it in such an eloquent way that to him, he spent his entire lifetime trying to find out what the hell happened.
Because it wasn't just his uncle.
It was also his father.
It's emotional to this guy.
So I guarantee you, they know more than you and I think they know.
I buy that.
That I buy.
Yeah, I think they know.
I think they know.
Maybe we'll bring RFK out.
What's really interesting about conspiracies in history?
What's that?
Right.
So the mob always thinks a conspiracy is bigger and there's more angles to it.
But when you take a look at the mafia and the conspiracy of kills around the families, conspiracies only stay quiet long term if there's a small group of people.
And then what you always look for is the second kill.
And so when you take a look at what happened with Kennedy, if Oswald was one of the gunmen, apparently he was, then you look at the second kill.
Well, that was Oswald.
And so a small group of people that then offs some of the people that were executing it, that's how the conspiracies work and that's how they stay secret.
So when you look at things long term, if it's a big giant conspiracy, you know, it always leaks out and the truth kind of comes around.
When it's a small conspiracy and you have the second and the third kills, then it stays quiet.
So you're better off not knowing because you might be dead.
No, I mean, like, that's Oswald plus who else?
Who was the guy?
There's one guy I don't trust.
Here's the one guy I don't trust.
The one guy that I always just, no matter what I read, I just don't get a good feel about the guy is Lyndon Johnson.
I just don't trust that guy.
Nothing about that guy do I trust.
If you read up his legacy, the way he was wired, who he was, he hated Kennedy.
When Kennedy called him to be the VP, he's like, who the hell do you think you are?
I'm supposed to call you.
I'm the candidate.
You don't call me and tell me to be the VP.
I call you and tell you, do you want to be my VP?
I mean, Lyndon, that was his fastest way to being a president.
He was a pragmatist.
Who knows?
I mean, I'm not telling you he did it.
All I'm telling you is if he was that motivated to be a president strategically, he got it done.
Okay.
And his mistress had some stories to say about it, but you're right.
In Catherine Graham's biography, who used to be the publisher of the Washington Post, she tells all the bloody stories about the behind-closed door and Lyndon Johnson and how he and JFK, he hated JFK.
And her husband was in the room.
91 hours after the assassination, Lyndon Johnson started the Vietnam War.
After the French advisors had screwed up and lit the Tinderbox.
I mean, you just look at things like that, and it's a nasty, nasty guy.
Here's the one thing I think about.
Any president that was ever assassinated or character assassinated typically scare the hell out of the establishment.
The establishment likes to pick who becomes the next president.
The establishment doesn't like you to pick who becomes the next president.
The establishment likes to pick who becomes the next president.
As long as it's within the crew of who we are, okay, cool.
We're going to be fine because we'll still have our card.
We'll still have our parties.
We'll still have the country club feeling, all that other stuff.
You bring one of these guys that Lincoln out of nowhere comes in, or you get a freaking, you know, Reagan who goes from Hollywood and comes in, and you are fighting a communist, and you want to come in and be the president.
What are you talking about?
You're talking about John F. Kennedy and your father, who was Joseph Kennedy.
We don't like people like you.
Trump, we don't like people like Trump.
So, yeah, I don't know.
I don't know if the establishment likes people like Lincoln, Kennedy, Reagan, or Trump.
They're not big fans of them.
Not at all.
This is why we ought to be very grateful to having a person like Biden right now in the White House.
You know, because, you know, it's just a.
Yeah, you found a positive from him.
That's great for Biden.
I've been reading a lot of Norman Vincent Peel.
Give me a break.
We've gone from clinically insane to medically dead.
Give me a break.
Danielle.
Danielle, but you didn't support the alternative.
What alternative?
When the alternative happened a year ago, you didn't support the alternative.
You have two choices.
Two choices between clinically insane and medically dead?
Yeah, so you.
I'm proud to be an American.
But what I'm saying to you is, even a year ago, who were our options?
We had two of them.
Yeah.
We had a Trump and a Biden.
I know you did, and they were both Democrats.
So you see Trump as a Democrat?
A New York Democrat who gave to both of Kamala's campaigns.
And they've got Kamala locked in the basement somewhere.
By the way, there is a precedent.
We were talking earlier about Biden being replaced.
We forget that Spiro Agnew was replaced during Nixon's term.
So there's a precedent for taking your vice president out.
Just saying.
Well, if it's this bad after one year.
Spiro Agnew was replaced for the equivalent of a parking ticket nowadays.
Well, true.
And then eight months later, Nixon was out of office.
And then they put Gerald Ford in.
So is it a form of blaming somebody else?
It's like shifting blame.
Is that kind of what you're thinking?
From everything that I've heard, you can't even put Biden and Harris in the same room together.
He actually wakes up and gets angry enough that he's like, actually, got a pulse.
That actually could be a good thing, though.
No, like that can get him.
Maybe they should put her in the room right before his president.
Good morning.
It keeps him alive.
No, they need to put her in the room right before he goes up to the podium for the press conference because it'll be like, oh!
Now we can do the conspiracy loop.
Spiro Agnew gone.
Gerald Ford becomes the vice president.
Gerald Ford was on the Warren Commission.
The Warren Commission investigated the Kennedy assassination.
Gerald Ford.
Kennedy cheated.
Gerald Ford was a badass.
Gerald Ford was a complete badass.
I'm going to stand up for Gerald Ford here.
He was a military hero.
He was a badass football player at Michigan.
I mean, two seasons undefeated.
Gerald Ford was an amazing president.
He screwed up, Tom.
Amazing president.
You guys went from sisters to now enemies in 30 minutes.
Gerald Ford.
Let me change a story.
Let me change a story.
Gerald Ford's career as a running back.
Is he related to Charles?
No, I'm just messing up right now.
So, Blumenthal speaks at Communist Party Award Ceremony.
This is a Washington Free Beacon.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat from Connecticut, spoke at an award ceremony over the weekend hosted by a Communist Party affiliate whose leaders used the event to recruit potential members of the organization.
Blumenthal, one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, presented certificates of special recognition from the Senate to three winners of the Amistat Award given annually by the Connecticut People's World Committee affiliate of the Communist Party USA and the Marxist People World News side.
Blumenthal was introduced at the event by Lisa Bergman, a Communist Party member who blamed corporations for imperialism that exists in our world that is undermining the labor and environment.
If you are not part of the Communist Party, we invite you to participate and contribute and join.
Bergman said after Blumenthal's speech, there's more and more people talking about socialism in this country as it becomes more and more clear that capitalism is not going to work for our future.
Thoughts on that, Thomas?
Well, you have to remember, can you pull up Blumenthal?
Just pull up Blumenthal.
Capitalism builds the engine that's running taxes that socialism uses because you cannot perpetually print money, otherwise you end up like Greece.
You know what?
In 1980, 1990, this guy did this.
Can you imagine the uproar?
Remember the anti-communist sentiment that was back there?
And if this guy had done this 15 years ago, 25 years ago, it would be political death.
Is he up for re-election next year?
Curious.
Now, take a look at the picture.
He's up for embalming.
That's the most disturbing story in our whole portfolio here today.
This one.
I mean, this one really pisses me off.
How this guy can actually show his face there and do this.
By the way, he's worth $100 million.
You know where the money comes from?
His wife.
His wife.
It's all real estate holdings.
By the way, they own part of the Empire State Building.
I know that's part of their ownership stake is part of their wealth is owning the Empire State Building.
Do you know who he beats from murder?
You know who he beat?
He'd be Vince McMahon's wife.
Remember when she ran Linda McMahon?
Back in 2010.
So if we should have gone with the WWE character back then, we'd be in a much better place.
But how can he do this?
How is he not kicked out of the Senate?
This is unbelievable that he would show his face here and be active with this whole thing.
I'm really shocked because I literally, I'm not being inflammatory here.
You go back 25 years, you go back 15 years, this guy would be on the headlines of every news and would have just been political death.
Did you see Kevin O'Leary and Bill Maher?
Did you see Bill Maher and Kevin O'Leary together on the show?
Can you pull up the transcript?
Kevin O'Leary and Bill Maher.
So he went up there and Bill Maher, okay, who is a liberal, talks about capitalism.
Yeah, exactly.
That's plentybody.
Just type in capitalism.
It'll come up.
Bill Maher and Bill McKitwin.
These people, Sharks, Bill Maher workers are never.
I want to show the video.
I'm just worried if it's going to stay up or not.
That's the biggest concern, if it would stay up.
28 seconds.
If you don't understand, click on that real quick.
Click on that real quick.
Is it their YouTube channel or is it Twitter?
Yeah, we probably can't show that.
So you may want to pause it.
So, anyways, they talk to each other.
Bill Maher says, I'm a capitalist.
Capitalism works.
Capitalism has been the system that's helped America get to where we are today.
So then you get communism, a speaker like that speaks out of communism.
I wonder what CNN is saying about Blumenthal.
Has CNN said anything?
Has MSNBC said anything about it?
Yeah, because there's got to be something we're all together on.
And CNN is shifting.
I mean, right now, CNN is shifting, not centrist, but they're moving off of hard left in some of their news coverage.
You hear it, you see it on the White House, you see it on Kamala Harris, you hear it on Seaton Sacche.
So there's something inside CNN that's turning the dial from 11 down to about 8.5, which is survival.
I totally agree.
And so I want to hear one of those kind of pick up on this.
You want to hear what he says?
No, I want to hear one of these mainstream news bits kind of call out these things and talk about it.
Look, Omarova stepped down.
I mean, look, the strange thing about what Blumenthal did is that the winds of change have already blown.
Virginia's happened.
It's in the history books.
And, you know, to continue to insist that this is going to—I like what you said earlier.
Let's just sit back, eat popcorn, pop open a beer, and watch the left side of the Democratic Party rip itself apart.
It's in a civil war right now.
Okay, so check this out.
I just typed in Blumenthal.
Type in Blumenthal, Communist Party, and then go to news.
Okay.
Okay, go to all first.
Go to All First.
Well, there's the post.
Okay, you go to all, New York Post.
Okay, I got it.
That's going to be on one side.
Fox News, fine.
Yankee Institute, fine.
National Review.
There you go.
Good.
So let's see how National Review puts it.
Go on National Review.
Go on National Review.
Senator Wilma deliver a speech to Communist Party.
Let's see how they write it, how they word it.
Keep going up.
So every time one member delivered a speech at the Orthodox Congress Party, Blumenthal Antenna event was which was used in part to recruit new members of the organization, presented a certificate of the Communist Party is affiliated with Communist Party.
Okay, keep going a little higher.
Keep going a little higher.
I'm really excited about and honored to be with you today and sharing this remarkable occasion.
Blumenthal uses a speech on President Biden's Build Back Better Agenda and Democratic House, including 15 other Connecticut Democratic House Helsinki gentlemen, holding corporations accountable.
Blumenthal was invited to the Communist Party and ceremonial.
If you are not already popular, I mean, there's nothing bad.
Everybody's talking about Blumenthal is worth $100 million, largely because of his wife, who is a member of the New York Real Estate Dynasty.
He has come under fire for being unaware of all of his investments, including in the U.S. Shanghai LLC, a real estate company connected to Chinese government, according to Washington Free Beacon, go a little lower, go a little lower, go a little lower.
I mean, look, if you – again, if you guys are not on the same page about communism not being – this was already addressed 50 years ago, you thought.
You thought this was over with.
Yeah, exactly.
This is political treason, if you ask me.
I mean, to go out there and support communism like this, and you asked if he's up for a re-election.
He was elected in 2010, so he will be up in 2022, every six years.
Good.
I'm going to go become a citizen of the state of Connecticut.
Maybe he's outthinking all of us and he's making himself such an unattractive candidate to make sure that it flips in Connecticut and you get a Republican in there.
Well, let's go to a different story.
Let's look at the low literacy levels among U.S. adults could be costing the economy $2.2 trillion.
This is on page three.
A new study of Gallup.
This is a Forbes story.
A new study by Gallup on behalf of Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy finds that low levels of adult literacy could be cost in the U.S. as much as $2.2 trillion a year.
According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults, 16 to 74, about 130 million people lack proficiency in literacy reading below the equivalent of a sixth grade.
Wait, let me say that one more time.
I'm blown away right now.
According to U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults, 16 to 74, okay, that's 130 million people, lack proficiency in literacy reading below the equivalent of a sixth grade level.
The average annual income of adults who are at minimum proficiency levels for literacy, level three, is below $63,000, significantly higher than the average roughly $48,000 earned by adults who are just below proficiency, level two, and much higher than those levels at level zero, which is 34.
If all U.S. adults were able to move up at least to level three literacy proficiency, it would generate an additional $2.2 trillion of annual income in the country equal to 10% of GDP.
Tom.
It's unbelievable.
If you had read me the details of this story and said, what is the percentage of this being true?
I'd say 1%.
I'd say there is no way that this is, but it is true.
And it's incomprehensible.
130, that's over a third of us right now.
Well over.
Based on a 335 census.
Here's it.
And yet you've got this.
I mean, you know, and then you have these big cities where it's really, really bad.
You know, in LA, New York, Chicago, San Francisco.
OFs.
You know, they said if these big cities, if 10%, they said the GDP would increase more than 10% in these big cities if they just got everybody up to the sixth grade level.
That is mind-boggling.
And here, think about this too.
What's happened in the last year?
Kids aren't learning anything.
That's right.
Right?
Especially in big school districts in the big cities.
It's a wasted year, and it's probably a wasted three or five years because they don't care.
Their parents can't force them to go to school.
So now you're raising a whole new generation that can't read or won't read.
And it's the most easily fixable problem there is.
I mean, if you think about it, to teach people to have, you know, just remedial English skills is not that difficult if the country wanted to embark on it.
It's kind of difficult to get rid of teachers' unions, though.
Well, what do you think about this, Danielle?
What do you think about this?
I think this is the teachers' unions.
Can you unpack that?
Look, if COVID has taught us anything, it's that the teachers are not advocates for the students.
The teachers are advocates for themselves.
And school districts, the way that they're designed, the money goes to the administration.
There's way too much in the way of management.
You don't pay teachers enough.
We've learned that you can, you know, you could theoretically just go virtual.
You could go virtual in the classroom.
You could hire somebody for a million dollars a year, a rock star teacher, and have them teach the kids and have them be engaged, kind of like, I don't know, a Jay Leno or something, but just pay them a ton of money and then teach these kids.
And you could do that, but you'd have to disband the unions.
Wait, Tama, are you saying that you could do that virtually?
Because I don't think kids would say that.
No, I am saying that you can do virtual teaching if you get somebody who kids are like, hot damn.
I'm talking about like a rock star.
I'm saying deplete the pool of educators in this country to where you get it to where you're talking about people who are so engaging that people are like, this is better than TikTok.
I've got to go see this person.
Because you don't pay teachers enough and you pay administrators too much.
And it's the structure of teachers' unions.
And they've screwed over children.
And I think that they should be, I think collective bargaining should be made unconstitutional.
I look at teachers' unions right now, and this has only happened in the last year, year and a half.
They're a political organization.
They always have been, though.
Yeah, but they're more in your face about it now.
And it's more evident that that's their strategy.
Yeah.
And it's all this grade inflation or deflation or whatever you want.
Just let them pass.
Give them trophies for participating.
I can't believe this.
A sixth grade reading level.
That's unbelievable.
Let me tell you why I like this.
I like this because it's selling me.
But this is being written by who?
Can you look at who wrote this article?
Who's the person that wrote this article?
I know it's Forbes, but I want to know who wrote it.
Right, but you got to be careful with Forbes.
I thought Forbes was owned by the United States.
No, no, no, Forbes did this.
94% is Chinese.
On a report, on a big government.
No, no, but go to that article, Tyler, and let's see who wrote it.
That's like the USDA report that said that food stamps need to go up by 32%.
That one.
Editors pick Michael.
Who is he?
Senior contributor.
He's a contributor.
I'm a former university president who writes higher education.
Go Google him.
Google him.
Take his name and just Google him.
Yeah.
I was awarded a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of 1973.
All right, let's see who you are.
As a retired National Missouri University professor, and prior to that, it was provost of University of Kentucky after retirement as president.
Chairman of Missouri Governor Jay Nixon.
Okay, Governor Jay Nixon.
I hope he's the one who read this 52 minutes ago.
The intellectual freedom that made public colleges great is under threat.
No shit.
The intellectual freedom that made public colleges great.
Okay, go.
Washington Post?
Go.
By the way, Tom, who's Jay Nixon?
Washington Post is trying to do a little bit of CNN medical.
Jay Nixon.
Former governor of Missouri, right?
I get that.
But I mean, who is he?
Like, what was he?
Okay, Democratic Party.
He's probably a monarch.
Okay.
It's very hard to be a harder.
Go to his Twitter account.
Go to Mike's Twitter account.
There's a psychologist.
Intellectual freedom.
Demi Poco.
Okay, go to that second article right there with Washington Post.
Yeah, right there.
Click on that.
The intellectual freedom that made public colleges great is under threat.
Family members at public universities are under fire in numerous states.
Faculty members at public universities face a serious and growing threat to the academic freedom that lets them choose their research topics and determine what happens in their classrooms without political politicians looking over their shoulders across the nation.
State legislators are proposing laws to limit the teaching of certain viewpoints on campus, curb the ten-year system, or otherwise blur the already thin line between higher education and state politics.
If states continue down this path, they will undercut the excellence of their own institutions of higher education, some of which will currently be counted among the best universities in the world.
They could send these institutions to downworld spirits a gap of intellectual freedom, secured at private university.
That's good.
This is a good conversation that they're having about this.
I've got a sentence in the last paragraph there.
Offend the wrong on-campus constituency and university administrators will soon be lobbied to have the offending scholar banished from campus.
This is great, but this is great.
I like this conversation.
That guy's got the right tone.
Yeah, to me, to me, I want to know what the Dems and Republicans agree on.
What do we agree on?
Can we agree that China is enemy to state number one?
Yes.
Okay, great.
Can we agree that communism doesn't work?
Yes.
Can we agree that socialism doesn't work?
Yes.
Can we agree that the best social programs are created by a capitalistic system?
Yes.
Let's go through these things that we agree on.
Okay, why don't we all, let's disagree on whatever you want to disagree on?
Yeah.
Then let's go write these things that we agree on because the direction this article is going to challenge people to get better.
Listen, it's on you, you go increase your value in the marketplace.
I love that.
I think that's fantastic that that conversation is being had.
Andrew Cuomo ordered to return $5.1 million pandemic book profits to state.
You think that'll ever happen?
New York, this is a New York Post story.
New York's top ethics panel on Tuesday ordered disgrace ex-Governor Cuomo to pay the state $5.1 million in book profits he made on the backs of taxpayers amid the worst of the public of COVID-19 pandemic.
The extraordinary resolution was approved by the Joint Commission on Public Ethics a month after the Ethics Agency voted to revoke its prior approval, allowing Cuomo to earn outside income from his book, American Crisis Leadership.
While he was still governor, New York was in the thrones of the deadly coronavirus.
They rescinded its approval after concluding that Cuomo violated pledges not to use the state's resources or government staffers to prepare the book.
He must pay the money to the state by next month.
Do you think this is going to happen?
Hold my beer.
You know, where were you when he was writing this book?
Everybody was so supportive of him and they loved him.
They should reclassify this book from nonfiction to fiction, right?
Now for what we know of how he handled COVID.
So the advance was $5 million.
He says he got $2 million, right?
A million he put in a trust for his daughters, a million of that.
$500,000 he gave to charity.
There's no way they're going to claw back any of this money.
Here's the thing with the Cuomos.
These guys are such fighters.
I mean, these guys are brawlers.
Their old man, the former Mario Cuomo, the old governor of New York.
I mean, he was a tough dude.
I think it's going to be fascinating to see what happens with Chris Cuomo, too, right?
Because someone has to scoop him up.
These guys will tell secrets, I think.
I don't think Chris Cuomo believed everything he said when he was on CNN.
And these guys, I think this is a treasure trove of information if you could get Chris Cuomo to open up about some of these.
I think Fox News should hire him, by the way.
But here's the other thing I saw from this story.
The FBI is investigating it as well to see because he had staffers working on this book, which is illegal, allegedly, right?
So he had a lot of his staff doing the research, helping to write this book, and you can't do that.
So they have some, I think, some legal grounds to try to go after this money, but he's going to fight it.
And you already heard the quotes from his lawyer.
He said, I'll see you in court.
What do you think?
I'm with you.
I'm Italian.
So everything he said, I agree with.
And Mario was a badass.
Mario was a big bad guy.
And I think your idea about Fox News is brilliant.
By the way, with that story with Fox News story being brilliant, you saw Wallace went to CNN, right, on their app.
And then Howard Stern says, who gives a shit?
No one watches CNN's apps anyway.
So what are you going on there for?
And then what's it called?
Brian Williams resigns.
Yeah, he left.
Bye-bye.
Yeah, so he leaves Wallace to CNN.
What do you think about what's going on here?
What did that negotiation sound like with Wallace?
Was it kind of like, well, CNN, you ain't looking too good.
I think it's a good time you hired a conservative.
I'm a good guy to hire because I'm pretty safe.
But here's what I want from you.
If you give me these things, I'll come.
If you don't, I'm not coming.
And CNN needed that victory to say, we got somebody from Fox.
You think that's the play?
I don't know.
Because if you take a look at Chris Wallace, he was not expensive.
Brian Williams was very expensive.
What was Fox paying Chris Wallace?
Fox, well, Brian Williams was like at four and a half a year, and they were stuck with him because it was this long-term contract.
And then he had the, you know, I was being chased by helicopters with gunfire and everything like this and the lies that he told about all that.
Yeah, I think he was making more than four and a half.
$7 million.
Wallace was paid $7 million by Franklin.
That's not wow.
That's insane money up there.
I'm telling you right now.
He just paid $7 million.
He's already paid.
$15, $20 million.
I mean, when he was doing Nightly News, he was making $15 or $20 for sure.
But you're right, Patrick, there's a lot of shuffling going on.
Chris Wallace also.
Chris Wallace also has the name Mike Wallace.
He's got the lineage there.
Brian is $10 million.
Chris Wallace is a Democrat, and a lot of Fox News watchers were getting irritated with him.
Just like they were with Shepard Smith.
I thought he was a fantastic guy.
There's a very measure that he did with Bill Clinton when Bill Clinton came out of his shoes and was leaning into his face.
Right near this grill.
Well, remember when he moderated the debate and everybody was all over Chris Wallace because he wasn't hard enough on the Democrats?
You could kind of see that, you know, he really did.
And after 18 years with Fox News, you probably want to go somewhere else and have a little bit different perspective, spin that you can put on stories.
And I think it's not just a show.
It's CNN digital, right?
So it's going to be a different type of format.
He probably just needed a challenge in his career.
Yeah, but it's just like Katie Cooke.
What do you mean?
Katie Who?
Bill O'Reilly has faded into the oblivion?
Yeah.
Uh-uh.
And Katie Perrick.
But different circumstances.
He was ousted because of sexual harassment.
True.
And nobody else hired him.
You know, he's going to be front and center at CNN, be the face of their digital.
I bet they paid him $12 million.
What do you think Brian's going to be doing next?
Brian Williams?
You can find CNN Digital.
I can't even Google CNN Digital.
I don't think there's any.
I don't think there's any market for Brian Williams whatsoever.
I don't think he'll get a job.
I don't think he'll get a high-level network job.
No way.
And I don't see him being savvy enough to go the Glenn Beck route or anything like that.
And he doesn't have any particular views that you buy into.
I never bought Brian Williams in general.
No, because he does not have a magnetic position.
There's not a magnetic position the way there always was for Rush.
There always was for Beck.
There always was for Hannett.
You know what I'm saying?
They have that center that's at the same time.
The cult personality.
I think you have to have enemies to be cult-like.
Brian Williams wasn't necessarily a guy that had too many enemies.
He'll be like Matt Lauer, just fade away in the Hamptons.
The Warner Media Discovery Deal means for CNN and Jeff Zucker.
What am I looking at?
CNN is about to be acquired by Warner Media, and their ratings are obviously tanking.
So you have to wonder between Chris Wallace, Chris Cuomo, et cetera.
What are they trying to do?
Are they trying to shake things up?
Are they trying to get more moderate to bring their ratings up?
Like, they have to do something.
They're a sinking shift.
Jeff Zucker has no clout in the deal.
Have you noticed that?
Going to it.
He's got no position command of the deal.
Discovery is going to run the thing.
That's a good point you make, Tyler, there.
So what are you saying?
Are you saying they have to become moderate because nobody wants to buy CNN top of a business?
I don't think they have to become moderate per se, but they have to move away from the far-left, almost propagandist brainwashing, get away from the Brian stelters and that kind of stuff, which is where a Chris Wallace sort of moderate can come in and change things up.
I think Jeff Zucker will be possibly gone after this.
Like you look at what they did after bringing back Jeffrey Toobin.
I mean, they've just completely shot themselves in the foot, and they have to do something.
Daniel, what's my deal?
Where do you get your news from?
What do you watch?
I don't listen to anything.
I watch Bloomberg.
You watch Bloomberg.
Well, because it's Bloomberg TV.
It's got like information on it.
I got you.
That's a different story, though.
Yeah, yeah, that's a different story.
The $35,000 a year type of deal.
You talk about that.
You talk about the membership of Bloomberg.
No, I mean the television station, Bloomberg TV, because it's got all the information on it.
I got you.
But you don't watch or listen to anybody.
Is there anybody that you would say, I kind of like hearing this person's perspective or to?
I think, remember, my second master's is in journalism.
So I totally believe in the idea of fair and balanced.
So I think Brett Baer is a good journalist.
I'll watch him on the evening news, you know, if I had to watch the evening news, but I don't.
I watch Bloomberg Asia.
Tom, how about yourself?
In the morning, it's CNBC, Squawk on the Street, Morning Bell.
And I like the way that they put news stories in and they kind of just give you a middle-of-the-road cover.
It's glitzy.
That's all entertainment.
I just want them to bring information.
No, but then I go bounce back and forth between Fox Business and CNN Business.
And I'll scan a bunch of news grabs like Business Insider.
I'll scan that.
But I don't have one guy that is my go-to.
You know, I used to be such a news junkie.
I worked in news.
I was an anchor for 15 years.
I don't watch any news.
I do not sit down and watch a local newscast or a national newscast.
Local news is scary.
Yeah, I consume information all day.
There's a lot of creativity.
I force myself to get a balance.
And you know what?
CNN is unwatchable, but CNN Business is a very tolerable site to read.
I have no problem reading CNN Business.
I'm regularly at the end of the day.
I like reading the New York Post.
I like the Daily Mail sometimes, but you always get bought.
You get sucked into the agenda that they all have.
And they all have some sort of agenda.
So I just tell everybody just to, you know, don't go deep on watching news.
No, I mean, it will ruin your life.
Financial science.
it's really difficult to find just unvarnished information that's not in some way tainted by the editorial team.
You can't even, I've got friends who work inside the Wall Street Journal who work inside the Financial Times.
I mean, Well, here's one great example, Pat.
Did you hear about this story?
So Sunday Night Football, Michelle Tafoya is the sideline reporter, right?
So she hasn't been on the games for the last three or four weeks.
Yep, I saw that.
Okay, so now they just announced that she's not coming back.
This is going to be her last year.
And NBC said that she wasn't working the previous few weeks because it was a bye week for her, which makes zero sense.
All right.
Why would you have your star sideline reporter take a week off, you know, when the NFL season only goes 17 games?
So, what happened about a month ago is she was on The View and she sat in the conservative chair.
Okay, so for one day she was on The View and she said on The View that day that she thought COVID was more like flu, right?
She downplayed the significance of COVID.
And since then, she's been whitewashed.
She's been banished.
She hasn't been on the sidelines.
And now she's done.
And pretty much that's why people are saying it's happening.
She will have a job within 30 days if she wanted to.
Michelle Tafoya is a beast.
She's not going to have a hard time finding a job.
And she's smart and she's multi-sport and she doesn't need the producer in her ear.
She reads the games really well.
Yeah, she's not going to have look if she wants to look how quickly she'll land a job.
Michelle, if you're listening or if anybody knows Michelle, reach out to Value Taint.
We would actually offer a job too because she's a monster.
Exactly.
I actually love the way she her salary was her negative.
If only we had someone on staff that was already looking forward to that.
Okay, check this out.
So what?
Her salary is $1.96 million.
No, net worth is $1.96.
Her salary is $27,000 a month.
That's what her salary is.
No, no, I'm serious.
It's what she's on right now: $27,000 a month, ABTC.ng.
So someone's going to pick her up.
So she gets six grand a game.
Here's $200,000 a year, is $200,000 a year is what her salary is.
Remember, ESPN doesn't pay as well as people think they do.
Right, right, right.
People think ESPN pays very well.
NFL refs make more than that.
They make way more than that.
And Michelle has got a lot of clout.
She's got a lot of credibility.
Yeah, she's been around a long time.
She's like Al Michaels.
She's like, 'Hey 27, I think.' You hit news.
Like Al Michaels, she's also a lot of people.
She hasn't taken anything yet.
She's multi-sport.
She's covered in the audience.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
On the floor?
Yeah.
Oh, she also slammed.
NBC's Michelle.
Okay, let me pull this one up because you just brought it up.
Longtime NBC Sports Sideline reporter Michelle Tafoya is changing roles after criticizing Colin Kaepernick's Netflix series for liking the NFL to slavery during November episode of The View.
And I remember this back and forth with what she said.
No one pressures them.
So this was, again, on The View.
No one pressures them.
She told View co-host Sonny Hostin on November 3rd episode, prompting criticism on social media.
They're not forced to go into the NFL.
To Foyo, who has been on the NFL sidelines, et cetera, et cetera, I'm going to love Simoto.
I mean, if you haven't seen it, you got to watch it.
She's a beast.
She stood her ground when she spoke to those guys.
She definitely did stand her ground.
San Francisco Democratic Mayor London Breed, after backing, defunding police, reverses, need aggressive policing.
So now these folks are realizing cops are good.
Okay, that's a good sign.
We're going in the right direction.
Listen, we're keeping count here, right?
China's bad.
Communism is bad.
And communities are good.
Cops are good.
Yes.
That's right.
By the way, that's what I like.
Now we're realizing what we agree on, right?
San Francisco Democrats reverses going.
A far-left movement that is well outside of mainstream is now calling those same progressive policies the bullshit that has now destroyed our city.
Breed's remarks appear to contradict her prior position when she came out and supported a far-left defund the police movement in the wake of the death of George Floyd last year, saying that the incident brought forward the devastating impacts of police violence against African Americans in the country.
In July 31st, 2020 statement, Breed said that she was seeking to divert more than $100 million from the San Francisco Police Department to social justice programs.
What happened?
So look, nothing important.
This block used to be for first-time homebuyers, then global investors, button.
Blah, boom.
The story in the Washington.
Oh, I see.
The story is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
So it's this block of the neighborhood used to be for first-time homebuyers, then global investors.
This story is going to be grande.
Look, she had a problem.
San Francisco has had this issue for 10 years, long before the unfortunate situation, terrible situation with the loss of George Floyd and things went along with that.
She ran on clean the city up, and she got there on liberal policies, but there was also an undercurrent of we got to do something because this has been going on for 10 years.
That was her original position.
She moved her position under the political pressure because she had to follow everything that happened.
She had to follow the defund.
She had to follow that.
She had no freaking choice.
That wasn't what she wanted to do.
And now you're seeing exactly the person that ran for mayor coming back saying, you know what?
The BS that destroyed our city.
She doesn't want to be on the hook for it.
You know what I like, Tom?
Let me tell you why I'm okay with that.
Here's why.
I am too.
I think she's coming back to her original position.
But here's what happened.
Two years ago, the board made a suggestion on what they wanted to do.
I think you remember this.
Two years ago, they said, let's change the comp structure to XYZ.
Okay, one of our board members didn't like the way I had the comp set up.
And I said, I just want you to know if we change a comp to this, here's what the side effects are going to be.
He says, I don't know.
Let's do it anyways.
I said, no problem.
For two months, we did exactly what the ask was.
Those two months, the numbers dropped 30% for those two months.
Then in March, when we did that meeting, do you remember the conversation?
In March, we did the meeting.
Here's what the board said.
You know what?
This didn't work.
Patrick, maybe you're right.
And that was kind of the board meeting.
And then we went back to what it was.
And then guess what happened?
Everybody now believed in the comp structure.
There's a part of me that thinks that's okay.
It's okay for us to test certain messaging gap time to see how it goes.
We learned defund the police was a terrible idea.
Guess what?
Now it's fully documented.
So now nobody can go back to cops or bad.
Of course there's bad cops.
Of course there's all this other stuff.
But we need cops.
911 is a powerful method.
That's the first thing you think about when somebody breaks into your place and should still be able to have that luxury.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
And the board learned in a very straightforward way that the motivations of sales forces in years gone by doesn't necessarily apply today.
So they learned too.
And now they don't dispute it.
Now they're thinking and helping in ways.
Show don't tell.
Two things she's probably dealing with.
Would anybody in their right mind think of going to San Francisco on vacation right now?
It wouldn't even enter your thought process.
And it used to be a glorious city.
Can you imagine the tourism dollars that they're missing out on?
Oh, my gosh.
I mean, I used to go every six months just for a long weekend.
It's amazing.
I mean, I went to college.
It was just amazing.
It was a great place.
It was magical.
And no longer.
It's a hellhole right now.
But for her to say, destroying our city for a woke mayor like that to say that.
That's great, though.
I agree.
And here's the thing.
The people that they were catering to, that they wanted to protect, those people are not political.
So when this rampant crime is hitting, they don't give a crap who they're hitting.
I mean, who they're affecting.
And I guarantee a lot of her donors and supporters are business owners that are getting crushed.
And they're feeling pressure right now, which is forcing them to do this.
So next in line, hopefully, is Chicago Lightfoot.
Hopefully it's Garcetti before he heads off to India.
And what's your guys' take on the new mayor in New York?
He's going to be a better alternative, isn't he?
Yes.
Could anybody be working for this?
I mean, he's a touchover toward the moderate side, although he's not a pure play moderate, but he's leaning back.
He's the right guy for New York.
He's much better than de Blasio.
Oh, my gosh.
Yes.
I mean, DeBlasio tore down Thomas Jefferson's statue in front of City Hall.
Two people that destroyed cities, Garcon, the district attorney in Los Angeles, and De Blasio in New York.
Two people, I don't think, have done more damage to the major cities than anybody else in history.
We need to get December 31st here and get him out of office.
You know, in San Francisco, she's at odds with the DA.
You know, San Francisco.
Oh, of course, because he was Soros' guy, the DEA.
Correct.
So she said odds.
That's a good sign.
That's great.
That's fantastic.
There's tension there.
You know, the guy that refuses to prosecute anybody, and then she, who doesn't want to lose her job as mayor, she was elected to in the next election because people are like, and I think she's correct.
She's coming out saying the BS had destroyed our city.
She got put in a horrible vice at the middle of just a huge sway of what was happening in America at the time.
And she got pinched right into it, and she didn't want all of it.
And she went with it.
And now look, she has to come back.
I think bail is going to make a comeback in big cities.
What is bail?
Bail.
Make bail great again.
No, it's make bail high again.
Make bail a little bit more.
We'll let you out on your own recognizance if you promise to come to court, okay?
And don't rob us.
No more smashing grabs.
Don't rob them.
Don't rob that other bowdega tomorrow.
Uh-uh-uh.
No.
Question.
No, no, Jeremy.
No, no, Jeremy, one more time.
Scouts Honor.
Question for you guys.
Are you optimistic about 2022?
I am.
I'll answer that question right away because I'm seeing some signs here.
And plus, there's an opportunity for real change to happen.
So I am optimistic.
Hell yeah.
I'm optimistic about 2022, but I think it's going to be a painful process.
But I'm optimistic of what's going to come out on the 2020s.
What do you mean by a painful process?
I think it's going to be a painful process with the economy.
It's going to be a painful process for people like Mayor Lyndon Breed.
I think it's going to be a painful process throughout the year with the next wave of COVID.
But we're going to get down to the midterm election.
I think we're going to look back at the end of the year and say, wow, I'm glad 2022 is over, but I think we've made some progress here, here, and here.
Yeah, I think that there's probably a recession in our future that people are not anticipating.
I don't think it's going to be an easy year to get to the end of the year.
Let me see what she has to say.
Look, with any luck, because it's a midterm year, there's not going to be some crazy fiscal spending to the rescue because you won't be able to pass the legislation.
I think Tester and Cinema and Manchin have drawn the line, and I think they're going to hold the line.
So I think even if we do have a recession, it's not going to be totally overreacted with more fiscal just insanity.
So again, and that will probably boost the midterm chances, and I think the country's ready for change.
I just, I hope the Republicans that have also spent like drunken sailors don't win back the House and the Senate and then spend on what they want to spend on and run the debt up even more.
I really want for all of this rhetoric to actually be sincere and for us to actually step back and say we need to look at entitlement spending.
This is fiscal spending gone wild.
We really need to step back.
And that's what Manchin's been saying.
We need to step back.
And so I'm hoping that politicians in the center and obviously the GOP, I'm hoping that they prevail, but then stop and pause and say, you know what, we had some really crappy policies after the pandemic hit.
The Dow is 36,000 today.
Next year today, will it be higher or lower?
Next year, will it be higher or lower?
Dow.
I think it's going to be flat year over year.
Okay.
There's a lot of forces.
You think it'll be a flat year?
I think it'll be a flat year.
You think recession is going to affect the Dow tremendously if a recession comes?
Yeah, I don't think it's going to stay flat like this.
I think it's going to be one of these.
I think we're going to see it drop.
We've seen volatility come back, and I think that we need to get used to that.
The current generation of investors is kind of like on Prozac, has been.
But the bumpiness that we've been experiencing, I think you better just buckle up Buttercup because it's going to stay bumpy.
So what do you think the number will be at the end of next year?
I have no clue.
I say down because I think it's going to go down, but I think that the midterms will bring it up, but that's no good.
I think the better question is to ask: if a recession happens, is it going to negatively impact the market?
Yes, because Saving the market last time required not just the Federal Reserve to ride to the rescue, but the fiscal authorities to ride to the rescue.
You needed a double-barreled approach.
So the Fed can't go at it alone.
And during a midterm election year, there's not going to be some massive fiscal spending bill.
Mitch McConnell won't have it.
You just hope Manchin doesn't retire or step away.
That's it.
I don't think he will.
If anybody's not seen the Bloomberg interview of him, David Rubinstein from the Carla Group, he interviewed Manchin recently, and it was epic.
It was so awesome.
So catch that.
Fantastic.
We will definitely do that.
Awesome.
Okay, great show, guys.
We will not have a show next week.
On Monday, I'm hosting a business planning workshop that we'll be doing.
A lot of you guys asked about it.
We're finally doing it.
It'll be a Zoom that will do business planning workshop all day from 8 till 8 at night.
If you haven't yet registered, we're going to put the link below for you to go register for this business planning workshop.
If 2021 was an okay year for you and maybe you hit less than 50% of your goals and you want to increase the number of percentages of goals you hit, you may want to join us for that business planning workshop.
It'll be myself and Tom next Monday.
Register, we'll see you there.
Having said that, we are not going to see you until after Christmas.
