The United States has reached a critical economic milestone where national debt has exceeded 100% of GDP for the first time since World War II, with interest payments now exceeding one trillion dollars annually and surpassing spending on Medicaid and defense combined. This unprecedented debt burden creates significant economic challenges, as the government must allocate more resources to debt servicing rather than other national priorities. The situation is compounded by Japan, the largest foreign holder of US treasuries, reducing its investments as Japanese bond yields approach US Treasury yields, potentially destabilizing the US bond market. Additionally, the US faces rising student loan debt at $1.84 trillion, with nearly 10% of federal borrowers 90+ days delinquent, and the Federal Reserve faces divided votes on interest rate policy amid ongoing inflation concerns.
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You heard it straight from the horse's mouth.
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>> During the event, they had a lender borrower meet and greet, which is pretty cool. different when you can spend some time, have a meal together, hang out, joke around. The people are just a blast.
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>> You're going to learn something. You're going to meet someone, and it's definitely going to make a big difference in your business. Not by a little bit, but by a lot. I mean, you could stay stuck thinking you can do it on your own was a lot of people that I talked to as their issue and then they come here and I talked to them a year later and they've grown so much just by coming to this event. Started at $15,000 in credit card debt. As of today, I have $550,000 out of the private lab. That's what this teaches you. Tell people all the time, you have to get in the room to be around the like-minded people.
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 We'll do it live. We'll do it live.
20 small steps for man your last >> Wednesday 5:30 >> 10:30 Eastern time.
>> Welcome back everybody. another week, which means it's another what the f happened. And I think all of you are probably asking the same things the three of us are. Is what the and I'm not even going to say it. Trying to be nice and correct here, but you know what I'm saying. The system we are told to trust is literally cracking all at once. You know, you got major issues, whether you believe it or not, major issues in the real estate world because of literally just a credit freeze. Investors can't get money. Real estate deals are slowing down because millennials and the people who want affordable housing can't afford housing where it's at. So what's going to happen there? Well, I don't know. But the national debt just crossed 100% of GDP. In other words, the United States of America, for the first time since World War II, when we were fighting a world war, we have now crossed that point where our debt costs exceed GDP. I I guess you all knew this is there, but you're probably chanting and reciting the serenity prayer saying, "Yeah, you you know, nothing I can do about that."
And you're absolutely right. There's nothing you can do about that. But what is going to be done is the question. And in the coming months or years, we're going to have to see that. But while that's happening, Japan, there's been a lot going on with the Japan and the the uh just all the things going I'm trying to think how to unpack this, but basically Japan is the number one buyer of US treasuries, which is essential to keep the market stable because the bond market, the Treasury bond market is literally the tell all. And right now, Japan is starting to move some of those investments that they had to give to us that they had to use to buy treasuries, giving that back to their own country because their yields on their bonds, the 40-year bond, are closing in on the US Treasury. So, do they need to go overseas and buy our debts? Not anymore.
But we are begging them, begging them not to stop buying our debt. We'll get into that more and what that means. But then the craziest [ __ ] you know, I guess it's not anymore. There's nothing off the table for craziness, but GameStop. If any of you remember the whole Reddit craze of GameStop, literally everybody piling money into GameStop because of FOMO, a company that sells video games, and the company literally doesn't even have a leg to stand on from a profitability standpoint from its retail investments. But the company made a ton of money, billions and billions of dollars off of retail investors following some jokers on Reddit. And now they built a giant war chest. And they're using that war chest saying, "Hey, we're going to buy eBay, a company that is, if I'm not mistaken, four times or more bigger than GameStop's fake numbers." So, I don't know. If they pull that one off, holy crap is that going to be a a deal of a lifetime. But if they don't pull it off, he's going to piss off the retail investors that own the GameStop stock.
And well, uh, you know where that goes.
But it goes the same place that Spirit Airlines did. Done. Done. You've seen this. You've heard about this. But what does that mean? Well, it means that back during the Biden era, Warren uh, Elizabeth Warren shouldn't have blocked the merger with JetBlue because that would have saved this budget airline.
But now this budget airline is completely bankrupt. Word on the street is you can buy the jets for like 250,000, but I'm sure that's not the case. But nonetheless, they're gone. And at the same time, because the Iran war and the cost of jet fuel being about over $4.50 a gallon, you got company, you got airlines like Delta, one that I fly, cancelling tons of flights, saying it's weather. Stephen, I think you were probably one of those, but you were delayed, not cancelled. Then you got Air France and you got Lufthana.
all these airlines making concessions because of jet fuel cost and profitability. Well, I don't know. I don't know where that goes. And then to kind of put the button on this whole thing, you got the baby boomers, you know, and the baby boomers are making way to the largest legacy transfer of all time. We all know that the silent generation was too small to hit the radar. But the baby boomers are the the creme de la creme. They were the savers or so so to say. they have the the money, you know, and uh now, you know, as they get older, well, the one thing that will happen to all of us, you know, they're dying. And as they die, their legacies, one out of every five baby boomers has a legacy and an inheritance they're passing down to their kids. And their kids can't even afford the house that they're going to inherit.
They can't afford the taxes and the utilities. They probably don't live in the same city. There's there's a lot to unpack there. But what does that mean?
It means that millennials for the most part are not prepared for the largest wealth transfer in history. Oh, and then uh the first flying car landed in JFK and uh I guess a wheel or a light pole hit a bakery truck because a United Airlines flight didn't know how to land the plane. I don't know. There's a lot to talk about here. So, with that being said, I'll introduce the co-host. We got St. James and we got Mr. Snaggy. I don't even know what to say anymore. Like it almost just feels like this is just a a sitcom kind of like a Saturday night live show where we literally just riff but it's all the truth. I don't know.
What do you guys think?
>> Good morning WTF. Good morning guys. You know what? I'm really was looking forward to this WTF because we are coming off of a super successful money tank that happened down to in Atlanta and it was great meeting Jim and so many of the other people uh down there who watched the show. So, thank you all of you guys for tuning in each and every single week to this amazing show. We put a lot of effort behind the scenes to provide you with a great show and uh it's always good to to meet so many of you guys in person. So, on behalf of myself, Steve, obviously, Chris, thank you so much for watching. And you know what? I'm excited for the upcoming years because a lot of people are going to show the need to be financially educated because we're seeing all this tumultuousness. We're seeing what happens when you have too much apathy when it comes to finances. What are the three things we don't discuss at the table? Finances, religion, and uh politics, right? Well, what if we just turned that back and said, you know what, let's talk about finances so we don't get blindsided. So we can start making educated decisions. And um hopefully this will be the catalyst for it because without optimism, there may be no progress. And uh I I think that this people who are watching the show are making that first step. So, I'm looking forward to uh talking about all these hot topics with you guys. What about you, Steve?
>> Hey, what's up, guys? Good morning. Um, yeah, when Chris opened up and was like, we are all saying thinking the same thing. What the I thought we were talking about James outfit today. I mean, that turtleneck in lab coat, brother. What do we got going, man?
>> It's kind of like the reverse opposite of like Steve Jobs.
>> Just playing games. It was great to see in Atlanta. I will say though, everything they say about these blue cities is completely true. I mean, I'm in Atlanta. I'm shooting a selfie video just standing on the curb. This crazed man comes running by, steals my phone, and takes off. So, I have to go chasing after him. I'm just kidding. Did you guys see that on video on on Chris's Facebook channel?
>> Did you read the comments on that? That was the epic part.
>> Yeah. Maybe we'll talk about some of those what the f comments, which by the way, I got some some tea to tell you about Chris and somebody that's at the event in Indie right now and what was said about that Facebook post, but I'll save that for later. With all that being said, guys, all kinds of stuff going on uh this week. The news really is just wild. We love to have a good time. We love to laugh, joke, and uh this is serious stuff though. So, sometimes it's one of those things where it's either you laugh or you cry. And I like to go through life with a positive attitude, rosecolored glasses. So, let's get into it, boys.
>> All right, let's do the economy first.
>> What do we got, Chris?
>> Well, it's being called the the debt reckoning, and there's a lot to unpack here. I mean, I think all of you know about this, but it's finally hit that point. Uh the first time since World War II, the US national debt has exceeded 100% of our gross domestic product. Literally 100% of our gross domestic product.
Meaning interest payments just crossed a trillion dollars a year line. Like that that's absurd.
Absurd. And if interest rates stay elevated, that means it costs the US government even more. So, that's another reason why I think it's pretty safe to say that interest rates are going to continue to go lower. Uh, you know, I know there's a whole bunch of stuff going on with Jerome Powell and but we're not going to really get into that, but the the largest debt holder or largest foreign holder is Japan. We we've got a great rel relationship with Japan. They're they're being pulled toward the exit because of what's going on. The the demand for treasuries right now is not what it needs to be to support this kind of this kind of expense. So when you get into unpacking this, you you're talking about these payments, these interest payments just on the US debt. Okay, the interest payments exceed what is spent on Medicaid and defense.
Okay, the last time the debt hit this was 1946. So we have been here before.
That's the good news. We've been here before and we made it out of it. The question is is can we do the same thing before? Because if you if you really study history, and I don't have all the facts, but back then the government rallied the the population, rallied the citizens to buy war bonds and all sorts of bonds. And those turned out well for everybody. They really did. And that's that's what helped them fund the end of the war or fund the war until it ended and then also kind of climb out. But but the biggest thing the US had going for it and I just don't see that here. It's kind of like Ray Dalio is we won a big war which put the US as the dominant world force and it also during you know other things that happened after that was oil became valued in US dollars and we provided security to you know the UA the United Arab Emirates and all the countries over there providing the oil to which now some of that I'm not going to say it's breaking down and the more Iran bombs uh United Arab Emirates I I have to believe that that just puts us back in that position where we have to defend them and that was kind of the the honorary deal we made with them. But nonetheless, Japan holds 1.225 trillion dollars in US treasuries. And the Iran energy shock is making their b their bonds, the Japanese bonds, more attractive. And and when I say more attractive, we actually have some of the numbers. For example, a 40-year Japan Japanese government bond. Okay, the equivalent of a US Treasury is yielding 3.91. Now, last year it was 2.65. So, you can see that's a huge swing in yield. I mean, there's a lot of things that that are happening about that we've talked about that that is not a good thing. But what it also means is that Japanese, you know, the Japanese don't need to go overseas to buy our bonds. It's they're pretty close to what US treasuries are paying between four and 4.3. So, I don't know. I mean either US bonds need to become more valuable to foreign investors, but how do you make our bonds more valuable when everybody knows that our cost for the debt exceeds our GDP? Like would that like James, if I lent you money, but I knew that you didn't have enough money to pay me interest on what I lent you, do you think that would sound good?
>> No. No, absolutely not. And especially if you could put money somewhere else and get that those guaranteed returns. I mean, it would make no sense for you to loan money to me.
>> Well, it would if I if you had a printing press and you could just print money to make sure that you never default. And if you had a track history that you've never defaulted and you've been running in this situation where you can't afford the interest payments, but you know what? you got the printing press so you technically can you know so then it kind of becomes a well >> there's a duality to that chance >> there is a duality to that because what Chris is alluding to everybody is that we have the the Fed and the Fed can you know print money on demand which is one of the solutions for us getting out of debt basically the Fed would turn on the printing press the US government would take that surplus money and buy down all those bonds and help us spend our way out of debt But unfortunately, it grows another problem which is inflation because the dollars now become worth less. Not worthless, but worth less. So again, if Chris wants to borrow money from me, well, hey, you know what? No problem. I'm going to pay you interest on these, but actually the every single Japanese yen, Chinese one is actually has increased buying power by comparison to the United States dollar. And the United States wants to be as strong as possible. And if the dollar becomes less and less valuable in terms of an international currency, that could also influence other markets, primarily oil.
So the question is it's like how do we maintain a strong dollar but also at the same time be able to pay down this national debt and of course be able to increase GDP. I think somebody uh brought this up a a very good point here. uh paca 6267 brought up Ferguson's law and I want to basically uh recap this um not to be doom and gloom but Ferguson's law proposed by a historian Nil Ferguson in 2025 states that a great power risk losing its status when interest payments on its national debt exceed its defense spending. It identifies Ferguson's limit highlighting that excessive debt servicing drains resources from national security a pattern seen historically in Hapsburg, Spain. That sounds very Spanish and the British Empire. So, are we on the precipice of this? There's no telling. But the cool thing is is that I mean we can then increase defense spending which means we pull away from other particular uh financial sectors in America. And I don't think that's the right move whatso >> we're not going to pull away from defense.
>> That's nonsense. We we we're the most powerful country in the world by a billion%. Nobody's going to mess with us. OPEC is ending. It's going to solve the oil issue and the dog and all that.
We're going to be just fine, boys. Just fine. So, so here's here's an interesting thing. You know, I I just like always saying, okay, what happened in history when we were in this situation and what happened was I mentioned some of those things after World War II, but really it was a productivity increase. You you no matter what your debt is as a country, if your productivity goes up, it doesn't matter because it basically the debt can it's kind of look at it this way. Let's say you got a credit card and he's got a $5,000 balance and you're running at a $3,000 or or let's go $4,000 continued balance. Like you you don't look good on paper, right? You got 5,000 credit limit and you're running at 4,000 consistently. You're making your payments, everything's good, but that they're going to eventually kind of look at you and say, "You know what? Your usage is too high." So then the solution to that is you just call the damn credit card and you just say, "Hey Joker, what's up? Can you increase my credit line?" Yeah. Yeah. My income went up.
Any more questions? Do you need any doc?
No, no documentation. Yeah, my income doubled.
Great. Okay, thanks. And they increase your credit line to $10,000 and now you're running at a $4,000 balance. You see, your problem just got solved.
You're now a good credit risk. Now you look good on paper. Now I I know that's kind of a joke, but it's true. And I bet a bunch of you on here, I bet you Thomas who just came in from Facebook has played that game because most of us have, right? And now all of a sudden you have that credibility back. The credit agencies look at you favorably and all you did is make a phone call and for some reason they don't even verify income or at least I don't think they do. So it's kind of the same thing with the US government. If we can increase productivity and the number one place we're trying to do that is AI data centers and things like that. We're trying to be the the world leader in AI, which would be the same if you really think about it, would be the same as to back to World War II where we were becoming an industrial leader, a manufacturing leader, which we did become. And that that paved the way straight through where we're at now. Now we're in the technology age or whatever they call it. That's the play. Can we pull it off? Can the administration or administrations in the future pull that off? Can we stay ahead of China? Can we continue to lead the the AI and technology race? And can we be the dominant force in that? And could that increase productivity?
>> Well, hard to say. Hard to say at this point. But >> I've got a sidebar about that, Chris. Uh because here's where I see the variance between in the reconstruction period after World War II versus right now. um when we were in the reconstruction period, middle class jobs were being created and they were able and this was also while the US was on a gold standard for its currency versus now we know that money is tied to air basically that's where we printed out of and additionally AI while we're developing these data centers and we see massive amounts of money going into it >> it is not long-term sustainable jobs that are being created out of it as a matter of fact we just saw block Amazon Facebook Meta. Um, we just saw a number of different companies laying off people. Uh, Coinbase is included in that as well, laying off 15,000, 5,000, excuse me, 5%, 10% of jobs, saying that we're going now going to go into AI efficiencies so that they people have smaller blood teams and higher digital teams. So, that is the the kind of the the counterbalance to this particular reconstruction movement. my thing and I think that's something that a lot of you guys would would agree with. The government comes in and says, "You know what? We're going to re uh reconstruct this energy grid that we have here.
We're going to start building more electricity. We're going to start, you know, rehabbing and producing more nuclear uh within the United States, developing more long-term jobs. It would be a long-term progress. And that would that would basically help us uh stick the landing. It would and you know to that you can see that happening firsthand. I I I wish the tariffs had stuck because that would have really forced a lot more productivity here, a lot more jobs returning here because it just wouldn't have made economic sense, you know, to have business overseas or doing what we're doing or have been doing. It would have brought a lot back.
But, you know, as we know, the Supreme Court ruled that that and now everybody's taking their money back. But nonetheless, I don't think that game of tariffs is over yet. But what you had just mentioned is very true that they are transient jobs, right? A lot of these AI jobs that are being created aren't so much sticky. They're not like the manufacturing jobs where you spend 30 years, you get your pension, you're out. You know, the baby boomers and the silent generation were able to take advantage of. We don't have that anymore. There's no there's so much movement within the job market. Now, an interesting thing and and I want to make sure I p pull this out. Um the job reports just came out. Private pay private payroll, you know, you got to hone in on that. It's private payroll, which is smaller than the others, rose by 109,000, which topped expectations.
So supposedly there's still demand for jobs, right? There's still people in demand for jobs. So we are having unemployment numbers tick up, not really fast. So that's strong. That's good. But I it really just comes down to, you know, like kind of what Stephen said, you know, who you going to bet on, you know, and and I think it's important for everybody that wants to kind of entertain this question, if it's even important, to watch Ray Dalio's videos.
I think they give a lot of context to history and they bring it up to the current and and you know, and I listen to Ray Dalio a lot. Don't always love everything he says, but we're definitely at that crux, at that that fork in the road where we've got to figure things out. And you know, when you look at the Iran war and everything else, the only missing piece to me is like Israel. Like I I just don't understand the Israel thing and the Charlie Kirk tied to Israel, not tied to Israel, but all the stuff with that. It's just there's something wrong with that. And and me and my wife were talking last night. Did Israel threaten Trump's family's lives?
Like maybe, maybe not. I don't I just I got to question these things because like the war if he could if Trump could choke off supply of oil to China then that would be the move in the right direction because China's the big one right China and Russia are the two big ones we'd have to be worried about >> making the right steps for it you you can see the patterns you know you can see all the things happening here with Venezuela then you got the the strait and Iran and all this stuff you can kind of see the pattern and you saw the pattern with trying to bring productivity back to the US with the efforts in the tariffs. Although unconventional on how he was doing it, but I think everybody at this point knows Trump's a bit unconventional, erratic, and sometimes just needs to keep his mouth shut. But nonetheless, you can see he was moving toward that direction, which is which would basically kind of hint or give you a hint that he understands that this is the problem and the only way out is what happened back, you know, then and can we pull it off? That's the only question I have. But but I I want to move this because we could talk all day on this to GameStop. Can GameStop pull off a $56 billion purchase of eBay?
I I don't know. I think this Ryan guy's got balls. Okay. The Ryan, the CEO of GameStop. So 56 billion. GameStop's market cap is 11.8 billion, which is actually [ __ ] Like you know if if you if you were to able to sit down with Warren Buffett and you were asking him, "Hey, what do you think of GameStop?" He would laugh in your face while drinking his cherry Coca-Cola because GameStop doesn't have a market cap. GameStop has a market cap because GameStop has 9.4 billion. So I just said, remember market cap of of GameStop is 11.8 billion.
Let's do some math. GameStop has 9.4 billion in cash. Do you know where that cash came from? a bunch of idiot investors falling prey to FOMO and Reddit buying their stock. That's it.
The retail investors piling in that that's their retail. Let's be real. They sell Nintendo games and Sega games.
Like, you really think You really think selling video games is makes it 11.8 billion company?
>> Yes, you're wrong.
>> You're wrong. You're wrong.
>> The game industry is bigger than the movie industry. What are you talking about?
>> Industry is is giant, massive.
>> It's huge. Have you heard of Fortnite?
>> But also, you can do that with almost every company in the in the S&P 500 right now.
>> I know. And I mean, what about the real estate assets? I mean, GameStop is a is a huge company. And the FOMO that happened over uh COVID has died off a long, long time ago. GameStop was able to sustain itself. It has multiple million-doll locations that operate that don't just sell video games, but they sell collectibles. They sell hardware.
They sell a lot of materials right there. The thing is that this Ryan guy, what he's doing is he's saying, "Hey, look," and this is for all the WTFers who want to discuss this um you know, at the water cooler today. What is happening is Ryan Cohen is saying, "You know what? We realize that GameStop has a finite model because the PlayStations, the Xboxes, the PCs, they're going to start buying everything digitally. So for us to keep selling just hard games, actual CD discs, little plastic discs, that could die off in the near future.
So, let me look a little bit further in that, James, because we're just going to go too long on absolute nonsense. Like, who cares if >> because a lot of people care this. We're talking about this right now, and I'm explaining GameStop. Is GameStop the kingpin in the gaming industry?
>> Yes.
>> No, they're not. The manufacturers of the games are not.
>> Yeah, but they're the time they're the number one retailer in America.
>> Do you own GameStop uh stock?
>> No, I don't own stock, but I still learn about it. What What are you saying? Like this Do you understand that the gaming industry? I have friends that own it. I have friends that own it.
>> If you go on social media, if you go on YouTube, do you understand that the number one platform on YouTube is game streaming? Maybe for us old folks, it's not a big deal.
>> Millennials pockets like how does the online gaming because that is where most games are played from my understanding.
I don't play games and none of that, but but I understand it's that. So, how GameStop is a retail location. You see them on every plaza everywhere, which is a high g high expense type of business operation. How are they leaning into and making money off of that? Because by the numbers, their retail operations aren't impressive. And you can see that if they got 9.4 billion in cap and their market cap is 11.8 billion, they're not doing so well.
>> They've got nine $9 billion first off is nothing to sneeze at. if they have multiple million dollar locations.
>> But it it was kind of like just going and stealing money from you on a fake thing. It's almost >> you're you're anchoring towards something that was way in the past that isn't relevant to today's current conversation. Yes, GameStop was in trouble. A lot of people were betting against it when we're having to go down this rabbit hole back over COVID. Cohen basically led the charge over Reddit and said, "Hey, look, instead of ever short selling it, you know what? Let's make a bunch of call options." and it caused basically GameStop to go to the boom.
Then the market stabilized and it came back to reality. A lot of people who are holding all of those call options have already been paid out. It wasn't a long-term buy and hold play. But I'm going to today and I'm talking about where eBay where Ryan Cohen is seeing an opportunity for GameStop to move ahead.
And that is because >> you're eBay. Yeah. GameStop doesn't have a future. That that's my opinion. They they don't have a very bright future.
So, this acquisition makes sense, right?
eBay has a future. Although, I would question, can eBay survive in the future against Amazon? Because Amazon's making moves to do what eBay does. Could I I think Amazon could crush eBay. But, nonetheless, in in the in the current, >> eBay is going out of business right now.
Real fast. Just on that, Chris, real fast. Two seconds. eBay insiders over the last one year, insiders have not bought a single share of eBay. And in fact, they have sold a total combined value of over 53.2 two million dollars of eBay stocks. These are in >> That's why Ryan's saying that is undervalued right now. That that's why >> I know eBay is dying, right?
>> Yeah, eBay is dying and and Ryan's saying, "Oh, that's that makes it undervalued." Is it undervalued or is it dying? That's that's the question. But but the whole story has nothing to do with any of that. It has to do with there's a $16 billion gap.
>> Yes. between what they have and what they're offering, okay, to get with their TD securities line, you know, letter of intent or whatever pledge to finance this. The only way GameStop could close this gap because they don't have the money to do this deal would be to issue new shares of GameStop. I I don't know folks, are any of you like Craig and Jim and anyone are are you wanting to buy GameStop? Like that's the only way they can do this. Ryan's got to go sell a whole bunch of GameStop stock to the retail investors again. Hopefully Reddit pu pulls through for this in order to buy this. Like this would be like, you know, I've done acquisitions and we're, you know, in the middle of one now. It's it's like this this would not be a deal I would touch with a thousand million foot pole.
>> Did you see how he's doing it? Did you see how Ryan's selling it? He went on CNBC and did this like stoner. Did you watch any of this? He did a crash and burn on he was like and then the next day he goes on Fox News with a brilliant interview and then he goes on this longer form show and just lays out the entire picture for it.
Now Chris, a fundamental trader will never buy into it. But these, like you said, Reddit traders, they're loving it.
They're loving the the the silliness of it. They're loving the dumbness, the trolling of it on CNBC. They love all of it. So they're all in. They're buying it, man. So, just like you said, Chris, that's exactly what's happening.
>> Well, le let's switch over because this this is going to wrap up the economy section. Alphabet, as you know, Google, okay, or or Gemini or whatever you want to associate it with, Alphabet. I I if you ask me what's the what's the company that has the brightest future, period, it's it's Alphabet. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And if you ask me what AI will be around 10 years from now that that you know has the greatest use case, it is Gemini. And the in the sole reason is use case. Google has the entire ecosystem for AI, which is why they are profiting off of it tremendously more so than AI, open AI, which open AI, I hate to say this, I don't see them around in the future. I I I hope I'm wrong because I use it. I hope I'm wrong, but I truly don't see them around because their use case is their whole company is built on raising money. The only way they survive is raising money. The only way they survive is Microsoft plowing money into them or Elon back in the day funding them when they were a nonprofit. And and I think they're still a nonprofit, but they were a nonprofit, then they weren't a nonprofit. Now I think they're a nonprofit. Anyway, that's anyone's game.
But but the whole idea here is Alphabet is crushing it, okay? Like I'll just give you some of the stats. Google's cloud business grew 63% in Q1. Okay, that that's 20 billion a quarter. Okay, the revenue for the first time their cloud backlog nearly doubled. Okay, to 460 billion in committed contracts.
That's a lot of money. And then AI, their AI product grew by 800%. Which isn't a number to get too excited about because AI is so new. That kind of growth is to be expected. Uh but then you look at the other shining star in the mag 7 is Nvidia. Nvidia is dropping.
Nvidia's sole existence is based on these companies like Alphabet and Meta and all the other companies buying their chips. And all of those companies are trying to produce their own chips, including Alphabet. They're trying to find ways to produce their own chips to cut the costs on all this that that Nvidia is profiting on. So can NVI Nvidia stay ahead? Now, Nvidia is run by a very smart guy. Kind of it would be like the equivalent of of uh Steve Jobs or you know the whole leadership in in Apple. Like it's it's of that nature.
They're they're very good and they know that this is the problem. But the thing is is like if Nvidia built the shovel, okay, in the gold rush, if they built the shovel, Google found the gold, man.
Alphabet found the gold. That that's the difference you got here. You got Nvidia and Alphabet. both of them chasing the same things from from being the most valuable company in the world because Nvidia is right now but Alphabet's closing that gap and Nvidia is dropping and Alphabet's growing. So pretty soon Alphabet's going to be the most valuable company in the world. Now let me preface I'm not buying Alphabet. I'm not buying anything. I just watched an entire interview with Warren Buffett. Warren Buffett just I think is one of the best guys to watch sitting in 380 billion in cash basically saying nothing makes sense right now. And maybe you, you know, and a lot of people the especially millennials would say, "Oh, fundamental investing is out the door." Well, we'll see because it it is not. But we'll see.
You know, you can't go off technicals and all these other things that you think are going to keep it up. We just haven't had a a doozy recession in a while. But, you know, based on that little old chart with the the good times and bad times, like, it's coming. I think everybody knows it's coming. It's just when. So the whole AI cycle which is is kind of par for the course of the economy discussion we've had is is being completely reshuffled. The MAG7 okay is is completely under pressure and the whole hierarchy of the MAG7 is about to shift. Now I don't know if that's good bad or indifferent. It really is none of those. It's just who's going to lead and is it enough? Is it enough to keep these indexes blossoming like they are? I don't know. What do you guys think?
>> Yeah, I mean I got nothing on the Mac 7 necessarily, but you know, looking at the overall what's going on with these companies. I mean, you're seeing a lot of a lot of movement right now of companies, you know, kind of off topic from that, Chris, but I saw Dell Industries, Dell Computers just approved moving their headquarters and and and everything, their company from Delaware down to Texas. So it adds to the long list of these companies that are leaving these active activist judge blue states that have are completely against business. So interesting to see that. Of course, the other big one this week was Ken Griffin publicly coming out and announcing he's basically stopping what he planned on building in New York City and is going to plan on moving more and more of his companies and everything they do um at Citadel down to to South Florida in Miami and West Palm Beach. So that was in a direct response to Mandami, the wonderful new mayor. That's >> your boy James Mandami, your buddy >> public video. So we're continuing to see these trends of these businesses that are just getting out of the way of the federal government and these activist judges in these states. And I thought that was interesting economic news.
>> Can I give a plug to Mandami? Like he did something that no other mayor has done. He he just did like a run or a race like that was longer than any other mayor has. So he's he's in good shape.
>> Yeah. So Google basically you can consider them as a layer cake >> and they own every single layer of the technology stack. They're going to be selling their own chips. They have great integration. It's kind of like the the Apple level of integration with one product to another. And that's where a lot of speculators are saying Google is going to win. They're they're a legacy company. And what I think is good about Google is that they're a hydra as opposed to a one-headed dragon. And a hydra has multiple heads. And even if uh we're um if one were to step down, well guess what? The the brand is tied to Google itself, not the person. Whereas Apple, which is also a great company, was tied to Steve Jobs. It was tied to Tim Cook, but it wasn't necessarily always tied to the brand itself. So that allows the the brand to basically be immortal. And I think that that's what's going to be really good about this. They took AI very very seriously. um when um OpenAI basically came out and said, "Hey, you know what? We're developing this amazing piece of technology and they invested heavily. They have the data centers, they have the chips, they have the interaction, they have the user base, they're not my favorite large language model by far and wide, but they do have a great use. And on the back end, they still have the world's greatest search function, which I think cementss their place in modern technological society.
I did see I did see that Apple just announced that they are are I guess changing their view. I we just talked about it last week how they're not spending any money on AI and development and they're going to kind of pick you know which uh which model they want to put in their phones but they just came out and said that their R&D investments top 10% of sales as AI race creates sense of urgency. So to put this into context, it's for the first time in at least 30 years, Apple is spending more than 10 cents of every dollar it brings in on research and development. One of the strongest signs yet that iPhone maker has dedicated big money to its AI ambitions. So that's >> it goes right in hand with what we talked about with Tim Cook Cook stepping down and the new CEO being from the the engineering side, the technology side.
Like that that makes all the sense in the world. But like like now now we got to like Michael Jackson eating popcorn.
And by the way, pause. Has anyone watched the Michael Jackson movie that just came out?
>> Oh, yeah. Awesome.
>> It's It's phenomenal. I can't believe we're not hearing more about it. It It is such a good movie, but can I say one thing about And I know it's a movie, but you know, I'm from that era. And the one thing I will tell you, and it I think that movie changed who I am and how I react to things forever because he was the the sweetest, kindest man that I think I've ever come across. Like even in difficult times, even like when things were bad, he was kind and polite to everyone, even people that [ __ ] on him.
>> And there's a lot to be said about that.
He came at everything, you know, from a place of I don't want to call it love because that sounds more like the Beatles, but from a place of respect and and that respect came from love. And it also came from him growing up knowing what it feels like to be treated like [ __ ] He spent a lot of time in in hospitals with children with cancer, in burn units. When he when his hair caught on fire with Pep the Pepsi commercial, spent time there, donated like I think $7 million to that burn unit back in the 80s. That was a [ __ ] ton of money. You know, the whole proceeds he got from the lawsuit against Pepsi. Like, it's a phenomenal movie. You have to watch it.
You owe it to yourself to watch it. But don't just watch it yourself. Bring your family. Bring your kids. Your kids need to see it. They really do. because there will never be an artist like Michael Jackson ever.
>> What's interesting about that movie, it's the uh largest opening for a like a semi-auto autobiographical movie uh slashmusical ever. So, it really shows the undying power of Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson is one of the three most famous people uh in history right now.
It's like Jesus Michael Jackson and I I forgot who the third person is, but I mean that's just it's just uncanny the the amount of influence that he has even to this day. I agree, you know, and good because he stood for all the right things and he he did a lot of the right things to bring I'm not going to just say, you know, people, I'm going to say the world together.
>> And he was one savvy he was one savvy businessman, too.
>> He was a very savvy businessman with the exception of like his legacy plan, but that makes sense. I mean, he he didn't really have anyone in his life except for his chimp and, you know, like the kids that he provided to. And I listen, you can go into the whole court cases and everything. Did he did he not? I don't know. that it it just doesn't change the fact that he was just a good human being and one that is worthy of being modeled and one that our kids need to see and understand. But anyway, I know I got off the topic. Um I don't even know why I went there. We were talking about doesn't matter doesn't matter what we were talking about. But I do want to hit one thing. Margaret, uh coming in from YouTube, can you email me again? I do remember you emailing me. I apologize. We had a big event in Atlanta. I get about a hundred emails a day and you're probably just buried four pages down. So, if you bring a top uh of my inbox, I will respond to you today. I apologize for that. It's just it's near impossible to stay on top of things uh on a day in and dayout basis. Let's see.
Uh Thomas said, "Google's censorship reputation will not be forgotten by some of us." Okay. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. Uh still seek alternatives. Look, I think Grock, we didn't talk about Grock, uh, Elon's company or Elon's AI company. Grock will be around for probably forever. I mean, because the infrastructure and everything he's doing with Starlink and, you know, Tesla and autodriving vehicles and the robots and all that will all run off of Grock, you know, and >> Yeah. Yeah. Spaceship. So, so make no two ways about it. Grock is around to say, oh, Apple, that's what we were talking about. We're talking about the step down of Tim Cook, the new technology things. The use case for Apple >> is on par with the use case for Alphabet.
>> So if Apple figures AI out and does it on their own without adopting Open AI, which was the biggest mistake. I mean, I think all of you that have an Apple phone have realized that Siri, man, the [ __ ] got drunk and never, you know, got over the hangover. Like she doesn't work anymore. Like she sucks. she refers you to open AI and open and it's clunky.
It's not even a smooth transition. So, they need to figure that out and I'm glad that they are. I'm glad that they are. Um, shall we move on to the USA or >> just just really quickly, I just want to put throw in a quick caveat about Grock.
You know what? If you choose to use Grock, it does have its uses as well.
Just understand out of the major AI platforms that are out there, Grock has one of the highest rates of hallucinations.
So, please just make sure that you use it responsibly because there was a a law firm recently that was, you know, using AI uh not necessarily Grock um for major lawsuits and their opposition basically called them out and said, "Hey, you this was all made up. So, please make sure that you um use use several large language models to ve basically verify your information and do your own research." But >> Grock is smoking a little bit of the you know, the green stuff.
>> Yeah. Well, I mean it was it was Elon, the famous picture of my Joe Rogan podcast. But real fast, just an update on the economy last week before we ended was later that afternoon, the interest rates. They decided to keep interest rates level, the Federal Reserve.
However, there was a lot of uh debate around it. I think it was the most divided Federal Reserve vote or meeting they've had in many, many, many years.
And with with a lot of people saying they should raise rates, a lot of the other ones saying they should lower rates. And so, a lot of debate out there. Nobody really knows what's going on with the economy. like put some uncertainty into it. So, just a quick update there. I also saw Coinbase uh this week sent out a letter to its uh employees. They laid off about 14% of its workforce um at Coinbase. I read the letter, the email that they sent out. It had a lot to do with just getting rid of um kind of middle managers, using more AI for efficiency and and that whole thing. So, we're really seeing that across the board almost airlines later on. So >> yeah, in that business you're going to see a lot of re, you know, mid-level like just kind of paper pushers, if you will, be replaced by AI in the financial space. There's no question about that.
Let's move on to USA.
My fellow Americans, you know, >> I got to start this one a little off topic because, you know, I I get all these newsletters, you know, these white papers that we pay for from different economists and I have I've been reading them and it lately it's just been too political and I'm trying to just not talk politics. I I I'm sick of it to be quite honest and I think everyone is.
But here, this one came in and it brings back something that we had talked about before that is perfect for the US. And it it says from bad debt to hard money is the topic. And it's going in talking about, you know, like Americans. It's talking about young and not so old now carry 1.84 trillion. Stephen, you remember when we we were doing this show and we were like, it just crossed a trillion.
>> Dude, it's at 1.84 trillion now.
combined federal private uh student loan debt nearly 10% of federal borrowers are 90 plus days delinquent. So we the story continues the the delinquencies the defaults the car loans and it goes on to talk about the car loans but it also talks about something that's very true to what we were just hitting on with the economy but now we're US is the capital commitments tech companies are making to develop AI and build out these data centers. It's unprecedented what's happening. But it it's all just talking about the playbook on all of this. Like when debts rise like this and interest rates become elevated and inflation is on the move, you have all those things happening right now. Like interest rates are not on the rise, but they're not going down. Like Jerome Powell has to go out with his cadence of well my target is 2% inflation. Dude, when have we had 2% inflation in the last five years? So sorry, you're not going to get there.
and you know and then you can blame it on Trump and the war and everything else but let's blame it on the $5.2 trillion dollars which is why we had the inflation issue in the first place or the biggest reason why. So that's all I I just wanted to open with that because that is not going away. It is not and there's a whole playbook on this but uh yeah it's it's a bloody mess. But let's talk about another bloody mess and that's Spirit Airlines. I've never flown Spirit but I know a lot of people have.
It was a great budget airline. Uh but they, you know, you can blame I I would I would love to blame uh Warren, uh you know, cuz I think she's just a piece of [ __ ] Now, I I know that differs from you, James, but I I just think she's garbage. You know, Biden and Warren, it's easy to blame them because the Biden DOJ blocked the JetBlue merger in 2024, and they did it to protect budget travelers. So what they did then now affects Spirit, a budget airline, and now puts all the power in the four major airlines which control 75% of all airfare. So price fixing, price budgeting. I I I I don't know. I mean, Southwest kind of went off of their their normal quote unquote budget airline model. But the whole idea here is I think Spirit Airlines made a critical mistake that many airlines in the past have and they did not hedge against gas prices. Okay, they did not.
And it'd be like a food company or a giant restaurant not hedging not hedging against rising food costs. You got to lock them in. And and this is age-old game. And they lost they lost the game.
You know, jet fuel's at 451 a gallon.
But in order for Spirit to have actually come out of this one, I have it written down here somewhere. They would have need to had gas or fuel prices would have need to have stayed what was it, James? Like $2 and change.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. 224. The restructuring plan, you know, when they filed bankruptcy was 224 for jet fuel, which was working before the Iran war. So, some of the earnest goes on, you know, the Biden administration, DOJ, some of it goes on the Iran war, which you can blame Trump, but at the end of the day, Spirit didn't hedge fuel costs, and that's why they're gone. That that that is inevitably it was a managerial issue. The company's gone. It's not coming back. Sorry.
That's all I have to say about that.
Well, I I I appreciate you bringing up the fuel angle because that was lack of foresight on on them and unfortunately both all United American a lot of these companies have decided not to actually hedge and buy fuel in advance or lock in their fuel prices in advance and that's internationally. I mean I've even heard that the last hold out was Ryionaire over there in Europe also a budget airline uh that's out there. So we go back also to Spirit and JetBlue, the merger that was blocked by um under the Biden administration and I think that was done in a perfect world to protect against the two merging. But the thing is Spirit was already on the decline and at that time JetBlue was quote unquote flying high. But now we fast forward to today and after the pandemic what happened is JetBlue also has been underwater year after consecutive year.
Now they are sitting on over, you know, a few hundred billion or hundred million dollars worth of cash reserves. But the question is, would have Spirit Airlines been dragged dragged down JetBlue to a completely nonprofitable level? And I feel that that's the major oversight just because in a perfect world, yeah, JetBlue and Spirit merging, the spirit of JetBlue would have been great and I would I would have cheered for it. But right now, JetBlue is also struggling.
And while they are not at the brink of bankruptcy right now, it does not mean that the merger would have worked out.
It would have been they still would have had to uh lock in their fuel prices. Uh JetBlue would have had to make the mistake of offering transcontinental flights and we would have had to see strong strong management up top and none of those things are guaranteed. I'm sorry to see spirit go, but I am very very excited about this ace and a hole, this little joker in the deck, and that's what's known as uh spirit 2.0.
So, all of you guys who are on your phones right now, you can look up uh spirit 2.0. And what there is is there's like almost a crowdfunding effort to say, "Let's buy this old brand. Let's get up all of the, you know, the old inventory and let's make this basically a um not a mutual fund, but a co-op, a an airline co-op where if you invest $1,000, that that is your percentage of ownership and you will get that much in terms of voting stock and we will be able to vote on what what direction the company makes." So that the people the people themselves are going to be the ones that are going to be able to decide the destiny of this organization. Of course, traditional management there will be a level of traditional management with a board. But I feel that that's a good direction and I and I hope that that encourages more people not only to study business but also finance and be able to say look we have this option and I hope that this actually sets a precedent for other companies in the future because hedge funds control the bulk of a lot of our stocks. you know, these super large banks uh tell us to own all these stocks. And if we're really talking about being control of our money, then let's also be in control of these corporations uh that basically move without our regard as opposed to just throwing our hands up and saying it is what it is. Oh well, >> I have no idea what this means, but I absolutely love the idea. Craig, let's get Charlie Sheen to run Spirit 2.0.
That would be bad.
>> Yeah, just turn it into an AI company. I mean, that seems to be the going thing.
>> But listen, the reason people are upset, it's not whether or not Spirit could have been turned around. JetBlue would have helped them. That's a business discussion. People are mad because people like Elizabeth Warren put their their noses in place. They have no business and have these ridiculous anti- business arguments for not allowing things like the JetBlue and Spirit merger to occur. And and that's what people get upset about, not the actual business side of it, but >> I agree.
>> Okay. But then what happens when they allow these monopolies to happen and they control the entire market? We just supposed to say, "Okay, monopoly and the people have nothing to fight back." That doesn't >> denied it. They own like 80 some% of the market share. That wouldn't be a monopoly. How's that a monopoly?
>> I'm I'm talking about in business in general, though, Steve. That That's what I'm saying. Like, you're saying not a monopoly.
>> I I'm I'm not talking specifically about Spirit and JetBlue. What I was referring to is that government sticking their nose in business that isn't theirs to control. That's what I'm saying. So we understand like the Rockefellers owned the the oil company, the the entire oil industry and basically it there was no competition. If we're talking about a free market, who is to protect the people from having a free market? I understand again that JetBlue and Spirit is not the example for this.
An example more actually would be United and US and American Airlines. They would control a whopping amount of the industry if that were to happen. But I'm saying is on that the little side remark, who protects us then?
>> No, I mean I'm I'm not I'm not against completely against hopefully hopefully >> not allowing that there's a time and place for everything and there's the anti- everything crowd is what people get upset about. I mean, she was out over the weekend yelling at Jeff Bezos for sponsoring $10 million to the Met Gala, which I'm not, don't get me started with the Met Gal, the the Hunger Games of the modern times, but it's, you know, it's it's that's insane in its own right. But who is she to like criticize Jeff Bezos for wanting to donate and sponsor the Mech Gala? I mean, Elizabeth Warren has literally never created or or provided any value to any human.
>> She's become filthy rich from her. She she lied to get her first job. She lied to get herself into politics. She's become a multi-millionaire from it. Like >> insider trading 100%.
>> Jeff Bezos has made my life so much better with Amazon and everything Jeff Bezos has done. So who is she to Chris?
So that's what that's the that's the argument there.
>> Hey, every every politician has lied.
Every politician is not fulfilled.
People on both sides, we've already established this. It's it's becoming old now. Have gotten rich from insider trading. We've talked about that as well. You actually talked about that just last week. Okay. To single out Elizabeth Warren, I get it. You know, why is she criticizing Jeff Bezos? But here's the problem with um with Jeff Bezos. He's got no RZ. Okay. He the Amazon is not cool. Okay. The Met Bet Gala is cool or at least it used to be and it basically feels like it's sold out. But what option do they really have? You know, the the the business itself is starting to to, you know, dwindle. Okay. I can't remember if it's Vanity Fair or Vogue magazine. uh Anna Whittenhower, she throws the the um the Met Gala to say, "Look, this is art in fashion." And yes, it is the aristocracy or the supposed aristocracy of America, of the world that shows up for the >> every one of them and every one of them is like anti, you know, wearing like dollar bills to like to go against the one. It's just the hypocrisy is so unbelievable >> that you know what you think it's bad.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
>> You called it on that there, Steve.
>> Let me show you how bad it is elsewhere.
This is still the nicest house on a shitty street, we'll move on to war.
So, before everybody gets all down and doom and gloom on the United States of America, let let's talk about China.
Let's talk about what China just did.
They just set a new rule. You cannot fire somebody because of AI. Okay, so literally, this is from a court in China. They ruled that a tech company illegally fired a worker whose job was replaced by AI. The ruling sets a legal precedent that AI adoption is a business choice and the cost of that choice cannot be transferred to the employee.
The US has no equivalent protection.
I don't want to touch this one with a 10 foot pole, but I mean they're literally saying that, you know, hey, you bring AI in to, you know, replace the the person who's not doing their job, who doesn't really have a job and is just there wasting space.
You can't fire them because AI.
>> Chris, that's a that's you know what? I couldn't fill I couldn't fill up a farm with more [ __ ] than what you just said. Oh, it probably.
>> Okay. Because you're saying that everybody who works a corporate job just sits back and says, "Ah, you know, >> oh my goodness, no, I'm not saying that."
>> That Well, the thing is though, these these aren't these we're talking about, first of all, the Chinese >> There are a lot of jobs that are pretty useless that can be replaced easily by technology. I think that's >> But now, what happens to these people who have the surplus of of labor? We we see an uptick in in unemployment. We're we literally just talked about this with Coinbase, and we referenced this with with Block and Square and Facebook.
We're talking about people who are literally middle America who are making commiserate to whatever economy that they were in, whether it be San Francisco, New York, or the Midwest, losing tons of jobs. And this is just the trickle. This is just the beginning, the precipice of AI's influence within society. And now we have China who's actually doing something that is proworker. And you're saying that this is [ __ ] You don't want to touch it.
I thought if anybody would support >> I said I don't want to touch it. I don't think I said it's [ __ ] I said I don't want to touch it.
>> Okay. Okay. because I was under the impression that you're saying >> I mean I don't want to touch this because I don't really know how to respond to that. That's very I apologize if I if I called you out cuz it sounded to me like you were saying this you know these people with these jobs >> kind of deep down I don't believe in that because I I believe in capitalism.
I believe that free enterprise, Austrian economics, you know, I think if a company to be successful needs to cut expenses and if they can do that by adopting AI and lower level, you know, things that right now, you know, there's a a human who's maybe not being sufficient or not being efficient in that position that you you certainly should have the free will to be able to replace that employee with technology to make your business more effective and more profitable. Like, I'm a business owner. I don't know how else to say that. Love it, hate it, whatever it is.
Like that's just that's just free market.
>> And let me ask you something, Chris.
You're a business owner. How many robots buy your product or service?
>> How many robots?
>> Mhm.
>> Well, okay. So, I'm a business owner and I've already made it very public that I'm not replacing humans. That was my question, though.
>> Now, what AI will do is prevent me from needing to hire future people >> more efficiently. You need people with with income to buy your product or service. When those people when people don't have those jobs, how can they afford your product?
>> So So a business should not be able to fire somebody that's not doing their [ __ ] job, right?
>> But we're talking about people who are doing their job. Okay. So here's here's your modernam. Here's an example from the past that we can apply to right now.
More manufacturing jobs were lost to automation, i.e. robots than were to being exported across the globe than globalization.
Those robots that are on the assembly line that were we're trying to recreate in this make America great again don't buy products or services. Now granted, okay, jobs are being created because people, you know, we need people mill rights to make sure that the robots are working. Okay, we also know that we need programmers. We need to keep the computers computing. But that is a far and long cry away from the amount of jobs that were displaced in the first place. And >> and I think the amount of jobs that were displaced is a knee-jerk reaction. I think a lot of these companies are going to hire people back when the economy is better. Listen, see right now, here's the thing. You've got you got a really good story to tell the world or or the economy or the politicians or whoever you want to tell the story to. Oh, you know, we're using AI, which is a hot topic, and because of that, we're laying people off. But really, are they laying people off because they overhired during the COVID era? Are they laying people off because their business really doesn't need that many people? Are they laying people off because they just they hired the wrong people because they were hail, >> Chris, >> 100%.
>> These Microsoft is recording record profits. Meta is recording record profits. It's you're filling your narrative right now. You really are.
>> If if you have profits, not profits, who is who like they're what the what is causing these because they're saying, "Oh, they have reduced labor costs on the back end."
That's what's that's what's driving up these profits. These people are doing their jobs.
>> Corporate greed is not is not good.
Corporate greed is not >> job. That's that's that is so inaccurate.
>> Who's inaccurate? You or me or both of us?
>> Because you just said these people these jobs that people aren't doing anything.
They are doing something. That's the reason why they got hired. They refined the product and the code for Facebook and all these other companies to do better.
>> That's like saying the person who was on the assembly line, all they did was push this button. Okay, they pushed that button, but that caused the trigger effect of everything else to be put together.
So, if you owned that company and you were paying that button pusher $70,000 a year and this thing called AI came in that could push the button for zero cost per year, you would keep that $70,000 employee pushing the button.
>> Here's a key point.
>> Answer the question. Yes or no?
>> Okay, then no.
>> There you go.
>> No, I would I would keep the I would keep the button pressure. If if it's going to be if it's going to be binary, if it's going to be binary, then I'm going to stand on what I'm saying.
>> That's a communist statement right there. That's why China >> That is absolutely communism.
>> That's comm Oh, here we go with communism again. Oh, that's communism.
Socialist.
>> Meanwhile, Meanwhile, you're saying, "Oh, these people are homeless. Why can't they just go and get a job? Why don't they just literally had a job and it was laid off saying they're Oh, well, you know what? Maybe all you should spend more time listening to Earl Nightingale. All the people that you're referring to as homeless now because they lost their job. They're not [ __ ] homeless, man. But anyway, like maybe they should listen to Earl Nightingale.
Get your ass off the [ __ ] street. Put yourself together and go solve some problems and you won't be homeless anymore. Like >> you Oh, you you could definitely still There's definitely working homeless be successful.
>> There is definitely working homeless.
There's being under underpaid. There's a high level of underpay right now.
There's people working two or three jobs that still can't put sugar honey iced tea together. Oh, come on now. Like, no.
No.
>> But that's not any different than any other period of time. That's not any different than baby boomers or silent generations. You could argue that in any generation, >> but when you're at the top of the financial pyramid, you don't see those things and you blame everybody else for not working. That's why Kennedy was like, "I didn't even know there was a Great Depression until I went to Harvard because he was at the top of the pyramid. These are the top of the dollar for our own [ __ ] actions and what happens in our lives. And you know what? If you're at the bottom, if you don't think you're getting paid, do something about it. Learn something.
Find a way to elevate yourself. It's been done by how many immigrants in this country who came from absolutely nothing who are now or running huge companies like Alphabet. They the pathway has never changed.
>> The pathways never changed. The problem is people like you who think that people should just be handed [ __ ] >> No one should be.
>> Notice I didn't say being handed anything. I I'm talking about people who are working. Please don't misconstrue my words. That was that was very tons of people being underpaid for their skill and and and they're they're probably feel stuck.
>> And here's what we see with some small companies. not an easy game.
>> With some agile companies, what they're doing is they're incorporating and requiring all of their employees to use AI while they're working.
>> That's what they're doing. Okay, >> that's what they're doing to make this whole thing work.
>> I I hate to tell both you guys this, but but universal basic income is coming.
We'll have it in the next 20 years. I would get >> Oh, no. Wait a minute. That's communist.
Uh >> oh.
>> It is. It is. But there's not going to be another answer.
>> And you know what caused it? Capitalism.
Because when capitalism runs rampant no I didn't say capitalism was going away capitalism no no no this is the difference though capitalism is going to fix the problem of universal basic income not socialism and I would lay out the entire argument but we definitely don't have time to do that right now >> Marxism if you study Marxism >> capitalism will solve this >> capitalism leads to a corportocracy and we see that right now the amount of lobbyists and special interest groups influence what happensactly government. We just don't call it a corportocracy.
>> I'll lay it out for you next week. This is for >> We are Here's an example just for you guys who are who one socialist country that's ever that's ever been successful. One socialist country ever.
>> First of all, I'm not saying socialism is all beall let's let's roll that back.
And also let's you if you were going to talk about socialism that's a completely different I just want to bring this point up. Corporations are developing their own offline uh excuse me online currency and tokenization of their commodities that is going to function as a basic currency. That's what's going to be happening through this genius act.
Okay. So if you feel that this this corportocracy that we're headed to isn't something that we need to be concerned or at least be discussing now I get it because that is not your philosophies. I understand that capitalism has worked very well in the past. Okay. But I also want to urge you guys to watch out for these things. So if you want to talk about Earl Nightingale, I you can't tell me to research one thing without me saying look at the other look what else happens as well. If we also want to point to things that have happened historically, 250 years is generally the longest run that any empire has ever had. So let's talk about that as well.
>> Capitalism creates, socialism takes.
That's the bottom line. You're never going to be successful as a taker ever.
not for the last time.
>> I am not a pureblooded socialist. I am for responsible spending.
>> I am for a social safety net and I am for reasonable government interference when monopolies are there. So when you keep saying that you are a socialist communist, I know that I'm talking to a brick wall.
>> Those words don't mean anything.
>> I didn't call you a communist. Just >> But but you guys are bringing up these communist socialist points. It's kind of insinuating that there, guys. You know what I'm talking about. Hey, >> I I guess the only >> the only point I I'll give you, James, is if you study Finland, which is 100% socialist, >> the people in Finland are the h some of the happiest people in the world.
>> So, I don't know. That's worth and that's worth exploring. Uh it really is.
And I don't know the answer. They are happy people. I know that.
Let's find a way for the United States to get to that point. Let's please find that way because I think that's where we need to be.
>> We're already I can't remember who said it, but we're already pretty much socialist here. I mean, you got a little bit of capitalism. And and I love what Matt Hammer said like, you know, nothing that we're discussing has anything to do with Austrian philosophies. He's correct. He's correct. We're kind of both on opposite sides of Austrian economics.
>> Yeah. Finland's not just going to the Finland country though. So that's that's not even a correct state.
>> It's not. I thought it was.
>> It just has a very large social safety net. Um Norway has a sovereign wealth fund. They have oil reserves.
>> The biggest difference and it's cold and they've got >> the biggest difference in Finland and the US is that Finland is small enough to control the corruption and fraud that that could possibly occur in a country like the United States of America. The problem we have in this country is not not enough taxes. It's the fraud and corruption and abuse and all of that.
That's it. Get rid of that and we're good.
>> I could be wrong about that. I I don't know to be quite honest. So So that was a completely uneducated guess at best case about Finland. I thought Finland was socialist.
>> Well, Chris, what what I insinuated from your statement is that they have some socialist socialist uh policies, >> but they're not purely socialist. That's what I insinuated from you. I mean, >> we should do a little bit on that. There we go. There's there's the edit to that.
But just really quickly, I'm going to the um >> to the uh the comments here. We've got some excellent uh Damian, look who brought who brought the Jacksonville Jaguars. He is a foreigner. So was Elon Musk. I I I'd like to hear the rest of your point about that, Damian. And thank you for watching. um education and finance um is what's going to save us, but we're cutting education at every single opportunity um with every round of budget cuts when we dump that into the military. Um and then we I don't know about that, Chris. Finland might be a welfare state. Well, you know what?
I'd rather have a a happy welfare state than an unhappy capitalistic state. And uh that's where we're headed right now.
I'm not sure if you guys want to chime in about that. And what technological or advancement has Finland given recently?
Well, Finland has a lot to offer right there. Maybe you don't have to offer a lot in technology. Uh but you definitely need to have some stable economics to to be existing.
>> Whoever said that is right. Finland is a welfare state, specifically part of the Nordic model, not a socialist state. It operates a capitalistic market economy with high taxes, strong public services, and comprehensive social security. So >> and and look at their crime rate. Look what happens when you have low levels of crime. comes down to what Stephen said.
I mean, I >> private ownership. They have private ownership. They have a free market.
Like, it's not >> very small. And, you know, it's bloody cold there. Like, I I when I was a pro snowboarder, I I I traveled there for photo shoots and man, it is cold. So, man, nobody wants to go out and steal cars when it's like -10. Just saying. I mean, >> Finland's population is 5 million people. Like, come on, guys. What are we talking?
>> It's like, how many people live in New York City?
>> Uh, Biden was let five million illegals a month into this country. Like, why are we comparing Here we go again.
>> All right. Well, to close this sucker out, you know, we'll just hit one final thing here because I think this is this is fun. And that was not fun.
What the >> the first flying car landed in JFK. So, finally, after all the years of us watching Jetsons, that shit's happening.
James, you want to hit on the flying cars?
You know what? Um, we've been wanting this. I think Naggie, you you brought it up a little while ago.
>> Yeah, they're doing it down here, too.
We're living in the future right now.
We've got our flying cars. We've got our robots that do stuff for us. We're sending the robots to Venezuela to um kidnap, excuse me, liberate the president. And um I think we're seeing we're on the eve of seeing something new. I mean, you guys are familiar with Blade. It was a uh helicopter company uh that operated as a taxi cab >> that would ferry people from one point to another all throughout uh the New York uh Massive. And um what makes this so much different is that this is an an electronic vertical takeoff and landing vehicle uh that just flew. Uh Joby Aviation actually purchased Blade, which was the taxi company, the helicopter taxi company. And with a few more years, we're I think we're going to be talking about this on a very common scale. Just like three years ago, we were barely talking about AI. I think within 3 to 5 years, we are going to be talking about um electronic vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. And select few people are going to be using them to commute uh from work. So Chris, um I I if you got a house that you want to liquidate and uh buy an EV, I'd love to be a passenger.
>> I'd prefer to just ride my bike to work.
There's nothing more liberating than pedalling your ass to work and getting a workout at the same time. Listening to the birds chirp and just taking it all in. I I don't want to fly to work. I don't want to Some days I don't even want to drive my car to work.
>> I'm gonna ride my bike to work tomorrow.
Dude, that's a great idea. I'm gonna do that.
>> Yeah, >> I've got an eight mile commute. I'm not riding my bike to work. I'm not showing up to work all funky. That's okay.
I I will say I I do want to and I know we're way over. I do want to unpack Finland Finland a bit more because there is something to that. There really is something to that and I think we owe it to this audience to unpack Finland just a bit more because it is by all accounts the happiest place like and the people are the happiest that live there. So let's let's dive into that a little bit and figure out what that secret sauce is.
>> All right, let's uh let's talk about that next week. So that's your um that's your leading to tune in next week, guys.
Be sure to tell a friend to tell a friend. Again, it's always great to hear all of you guys. Um, but we got a lot of action. We got a a big week heading up for us. Do we have any live events on the precipice here, guys?
>> We got a really cool event coming up, but it probably will be sold out before we can even announce it, which will be a a hybrid inner circle experience that we're going to be putting on October 1st, 2nd, 3rd, uh, restricted to 40 people. It's going to be held here at our offices with a a day down in Elicateville, which is an awesome ski town. So, that's coming up.
So, we maybe we'll make an announcement, but this afternoon we got something going on at 1 PM. We got wealth webinar happening 1 pm Eastern. Go to chrisen ngle or you can go to chrisogle.com and register for it. Um just a couple index finger swipes down. But, uh join us for wealth webinar this afternoon. And outside of that, uh I think that's about it. James, >> awesome. Awesome guys. And naggie, anything else that we got to uh run a flag pole?
>> No, man. We got our BYOB blueprint 3-day virtual event the end of the month, May 28th, 29th, and 30th. So, that's a great one if you're just looking to dive in deeper on what we do with becoming your own bank, how to become your own bank, the infinite banking concept. We get a lot into real estate investing as as well. So, we talk a lot about the active side of real estate, various options, whether it's flipping, wholesaling, rentals, um things of that nature, and a lot of the passive side as well. So, private lending, turn keys, um some different types of deals like that. Uh we're going to talk about leverage, different tax strategies. We get in pretty deep on the four wealth killers and how to avoid those and get those out of your life. So, start looking out for that. We're going to do some I'm actually going to do them. We're going to do some preview events leading up to that 3-day virtual event. But tickets, I believe, are on sale, so just keep your eye on your emails for those. we'll start announcing it, but they're 97 bucks which include the recordings and the VIP workbook and all that good stuff. So 97 bucks for the three days and it's um it's definitely the most in-depth and best training we do all in one place like kind of brings it all home for you in three days. So keep your eyes open for that one. It's Mayuh 28, 29th, and 30th.
>> Amen. Well, I'm I'm definitely looking forward to doing some research on all of Scandinavia, of course. I think that's going to be pretty awesome. Uh Chris, I I'd love to learn more about it. Uh that's Norway, Sweden. Um heck maybe a little bit of Switzerland as well.
>> I think a little bit of Switzerland.
Yeah.
>> Yeah. Let's let's go ahead and talk about this and maybe you know maybe we can start uh discussing you know some ways >> top 10 ready. Finland, Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switzerland is latest top 10.
>> Yeah. Awesome. Let's let's unpack that.
Let's make the whole world section next week about that because listen, there's so many unhappy people here in the United States. Let's figure out why people in other countries are happy and what they're doing and then maybe model that. But I think >> Oh, breaking news. Breaking news. No, it's not a country, but the state of Florida just got named the number one happiest place in the world. So, you heard it here first. State of Florida, number one happiest people. Leave it at that.
>> Man, you guys got too many snakes down there. Sorry. But, nonetheless, go watch the Michael Jackson movie. Take something from how he lived his life and like how he treated everybody with respect. And I think if we just just did that shift, >> yeah, >> everything would start to change very quickly.
>> Hell yeah.
>> You know, although we can't bring Michael back, we can live his legacy and we can we can model and teach our children to to really understand what that's like. But with that being said, that's a wrap for this WTF, which we went way over. See everybody later.
Heat.
Heat.
That's what
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