Ray Dalio (investor and hedge fund manager)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair, expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm Jack Shepard.

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[9] I hope people realize what a huge deal this is.

[10] Ray Dalio is just, he's the Bill Gates of Finance.

[11] I mean, he is, he falls into this category.

[12] We've only had a handful of these people that seem to understand everything about the world, which is very fun when we're talking to somebody.

[13] and you dance to some other topic and you go, oh, right, they don't just have a cursory knowledge of this.

[14] They have the whole picture.

[15] Yeah, there's like a full comprehension of all things on planet Earth.

[16] Right.

[17] Yeah, it's pretty wild.

[18] It's pretty cool.

[19] Ray Dalio is the founder and co -chief investment officer of Bridgewater Associates and a director on its operating board of directors.

[20] He has been a global macroeconomic investor for more than 50 years.

[21] He runs the biggest hedge fund in the world.

[22] It's the biggest most successful one ever.

[23] He has this whole other side of his life, which is just like trying to spread his wisdom.

[24] It's really admirable because he doesn't need to do this.

[25] He doesn't need to spend any time doing this.

[26] Yeah, it's not for money.

[27] No. He's got three great books, principles, life and work, and then principles for dealing with the changing world order and principles for navigating big debt crisis.

[28] We're talking a lot today about dealing with the changing world order, which he's got some really fascinating opinions on.

[29] Also, he's got an incredible YouTube video.

[30] He made and animated and spent a lot of time and energy, and that's so easy to follow.

[31] And it feels like you get an economics degree in no time, and it's fun.

[32] Half hour.

[33] I loved Ray Dalio.

[34] Yeah, I really enjoyed him, too.

[35] He's also just, like, really nice and philanthropic and reasonable and all of it.

[36] Playful.

[37] Also playful.

[38] Please enjoy Ray Dalio.

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[43] Hi, can you hear us?

[44] Hello, Dax and Monica.

[45] Yes, how are you?

[46] I'm good.

[47] How are you?

[48] Good.

[49] Where are we catching up with you?

[50] Are you in a home somewhere?

[51] Yeah, I'm in my home in Greenwich, Connecticut.

[52] I guess saying, are you in a home is a little misleading.

[53] That sounds like you were in like a retirement community.

[54] That's not what I meant to say.

[55] I'm not in that kind of home.

[56] Okay, you're just in your home.

[57] So tell me about the dog behind you.

[58] I'm so glad you asked.

[59] When I was a bachelor and I bought my first house, I realized, oh my God, you have to decorate.

[60] I don't know how to do that.

[61] I went online.

[62] I stumbled upon this dog that I love.

[63] It's very regal and...

[64] Sophisticated.

[65] So when my wife moved in, she looked around and I had these dumb dog pictures.

[66] She's like, you don't even like dogs.

[67] I said, I do not, but I like this one.

[68] And so it was kind of relegated to the basement for a long, long time.

[69] And then now that I have this little attic we record in, guess what?

[70] It's now out.

[71] It's now part of your identity, I Yes.

[72] It is.

[73] And Ray, you'll be happy to know I met this dog on vacation.

[74] Like I was walking at a hotel and someone had brought one of these enormous Great Danes and I felt like the simulation was real.

[75] It had left my imagination and had materialized in front of me. Okay, good story.

[76] Yeah, yeah.

[77] Okay.

[78] I want to start by saying I have watched you many, many times and I've been fascinated by you for a long, long time.

[79] I've been asking for this interview.

[80] I'm so delighted you have a book we can talk about.

[81] We have a friend in common, Adam Grant.

[82] Yes, we do.

[83] Ooh, we love Adam.

[84] Adam Grant told me all about you.

[85] Oh, that's flattering.

[86] I'm as curious about you as you are, about me, probably more.

[87] Well, this is going to be wonderful then.

[88] First and foremost, let's talk about that you and Adam teamed up and you did, I guess what we would generically call a personality test that would basically help guide one how best to work with others.

[89] And I'm curious, what was the goal when you went into that?

[90] And then what was the unexpected kind of findings?

[91] Was there any kind of paradigm shattering results of that?

[92] It was part of like a 25, 30 -year journey in which I started and ran a company, had a lot of people, 1 ,500 people.

[93] And I saw people thought differently.

[94] Then I learned that there are personality profile tests that help you understand that.

[95] So I had 150 managers take a Myers -Briggs test.

[96] And when they did, and I got the results, and I read the results, I thought, I can't believe that people actually think this way.

[97] But when I gave them, to rate themselves how accurate it was.

[98] 85 % of them rated at a 4 or a 5 on a scale 1 to 5.

[99] And then we started to appreciate how people think differently.

[100] And that changed a lot of things because people would get annoyed at each other because they would think differently.

[101] You know, like the big picture thinker would get annoyed at the detail thinker and the detail thinker get along with the big picture of thinker.

[102] But they started to understand that.

[103] So over a period of time, I used a bunch of tests.

[104] And then I wanted to have one test that was really, really, really great.

[105] And so then I went to Adam and two other great psychometricians, which were Brian Little and John Golden.

[106] And we put together this test.

[107] And I wanted to make it free for everybody.

[108] I don't know if you took it.

[109] We haven't yet, but I can promise you we're going to, because one of our favorite things in the fact check, is to go through and do whatever Adam's experiment is or whatever.

[110] So we will be doing it live.

[111] Okay, it'll tell you a lot about yourself, largely because you're telling it about yourself.

[112] Yeah.

[113] And also, there's a part of it where if you both took it, you can put the info in and it'll tell you about your relationship.

[114] Oh, I love that.

[115] It's the most scientifically research, you know Adam, and people love it.

[116] So it's making a big difference.

[117] Fun.

[118] Well, I'm going to point out something.

[119] And as you say, all these things are kind of related.

[120] This maps on to show business beautifully.

[121] It's a very unique skill set to be you as an example, or I'll point to Bill Gates.

[122] Like one aspect of a skill would be some kind of genius on a topic.

[123] For him, it was programming.

[124] That's one thing.

[125] But then to be able to manage many, many, many people, it's such a different skill set.

[126] That person, he or she has to also be an admiral of a ship.

[127] They have to be a leader.

[128] They have to get people to work in concert.

[129] These are sometimes contrary assets in a person.

[130] I think they're universal truths.

[131] If you can't work well to help others, help you get to where you want to go, you can't go anywhere.

[132] Right.

[133] But you could be, by some metric, the most talented person in the world.

[134] But if you can't get people to follow in the same direction, you're useless.

[135] Who cares?

[136] Exactly right.

[137] And then also, if you're the most talented person in the world, you're talented or one or two things, and you need more than those.

[138] Yeah.

[139] Have you read Titan, the Rockefeller biography?

[140] Oh, yeah.

[141] Years ago.

[142] Thought is fabulous.

[143] I think I had a stereotypical idea of what that man must have been like to have assembled Standard Oil and all these things.

[144] What shocked me was, A, that he would lay on a couch in these meetings and drift off and he was a big proponent of Naps, and he really delegated quite early in his career.

[145] I would have thought of him as the kind of hammer, forcing everyone to see it his way and whatnot.

[146] It's not like that.

[147] Yeah, so to me, it's like counter to what the stereotype you see in movies.

[148] Success has to do, most importantly, with how you handle what you don't know, rather than what you do know, and that how you get it from other people is the most important thing, right, and how you orchestrate those people.

[149] It's not like one guy sitting there knowing it all and dictating how it should go.

[150] But it is a tiny bit our American fantasy, like the fountainhead.

[151] We like a Howard Roark who was always right and everyone found out he was right.

[152] It's the wrong thing, but yet it seems to be celebrated.

[153] But it's the opposite.

[154] Everybody makes mistakes and everybody's got a lot of weaknesses and knowing how to deal with that well.

[155] You learn more from mistakes, right?

[156] Because it produces pain and pain says don't do that again or figure out another way of doing it.

[157] And then mistakes, it's part of the process of learning.

[158] And we have weaknesses.

[159] You can't think all different which ways and you can't have enough info.

[160] That's just the reality.

[161] But that's right.

[162] I think a lot of people think that the people who've been successful are different than they really are.

[163] Now, if I recall I was watching something with you, and you were kind of talking about how profoundly wrong you were on some pretty large bet.

[164] God, I wish I could remember the details of it.

[165] I remember the details.

[166] They're seared in my brain.

[167] Yeah, will you tell us that experience?

[168] So I started my company in 1975, and in 1980 -81, I just had a few people working for me, and I had calculated that American banks had lent more money to foreign countries and those countries were going to be able to pay back and that they were going to default and that that was going to create a big debt crisis that would create a big economic crisis.

[169] And I got a lot of attention for that because it was very controversial point of view.

[170] And in August 1982, Mexico defaulted on its debts and a number of countries defaulted on their debts.

[171] And I thought we're going to have this big economic crisis.

[172] And I couldn't have been more wrong.

[173] That was the exact bottom in the stock market.

[174] I lost clients.

[175] I lost money myself.

[176] I was so broke that I had to borrow $4 ,000 for my dad to take care of family bills.

[177] Very, very painful.

[178] And yet it changed my way of thinking.

[179] It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. First of all, it gave me the humility or fear of being wrong, but without me losing my audacity.

[180] In other words, I wanted to have the great upside, but upside goes with risk.

[181] So it forced me to sort of think about how I should.

[182] should be, which taught me a few things.

[183] First, it taught me to find the smartest people I could find who disagree with me to stress test my thinking and hear their points of view.

[184] It talked me a radical open -mindedness.

[185] It talked me that if I can diversify well, I could reduce my risks without reducing my returns.

[186] And it gave me an approach to life.

[187] Like, I was in a position in which, okay, there's risk in returns.

[188] And it felt like on one side of a jungle, and then if I can cross this jungle, which is very dangerous, I could get to the other side and have a wonderful life, or should I stay on the safe side of the jungle and not do that?

[189] And, you know, of course, I had to cross the jungle, but how would I do that?

[190] And the way that I did it, I learned, was to find people who were on the same mission, who could see things that I couldn't see, and we could see together.

[191] And I loved going across through that jungle so much as, essentially that I don't want to leave the jungle.

[192] I mean, I just want to be in it with them doing this.

[193] That's where the action is.

[194] That experience changed my life.

[195] I'm a global macro investor, betting how the world's going to go.

[196] The upsides were a lot bigger than the downsides, and we've been doing that, you know, for 47 years.

[197] And it was that painful experience.

[198] I learned a principle that is in my mind and has become a habit.

[199] Pain plus reflection equals progress.

[200] Uh -huh.

[201] Now, given the fact that you've had the experience and you know what's on the other side of that, has that been successful in mitigating the pain while you're in it?

[202] Like, when you are finding out you were dead wrong about something, are you able to kind of jump to the excitement of, well, around this corner is something new?

[203] Is it shortened that period of suffering?

[204] Yes, that's right.

[205] Because what it is is a lot is habit, and you get your habit from cues.

[206] And so what seems to me now is if I have a painful experience, I view it as a puzzle, that if I solve the puzzle, which is, you know, how does reality work and how would I deal with it better in the future, I will get a gem.

[207] And that gem is some principle, which I will literally write down and say, okay, now I'm going to do that thing in the future.

[208] So my habit has become different.

[209] Also, I accept my realities.

[210] Life gives you your reality.

[211] Some of them you don't like.

[212] Reality is not personal, doesn't care about you.

[213] You know, it's just reality, and you have to deal with your realities.

[214] Yeah.

[215] That's the game.

[216] You know, I lost a son.

[217] Yeah.

[218] A 42 -year -old son.

[219] It was the most painful experience.

[220] I would rather have died.

[221] I would rather have lost everything that I had, and I lost him.

[222] And the reflection, the acceptance of the reality, the understanding reality, the feeling of it.

[223] I immersed myself in those feelings.

[224] Another thing that helps me is meditation.

[225] Do you do TM or what do you do?

[226] I do TM.

[227] I've done that since 1969.

[228] Whatever success I've had in my life has been more due to TM than anything else.

[229] And the biggest gift I can give anybody is TM or meditation.

[230] There are various other ways.

[231] I'm just not an expert on them because it keeps people equanimity.

[232] And it also brings you into your subconscious mind.

[233] And in your subconscious mind is we're creating.

[234] creativity, the flow comes from, and you can align your subconscious mind with your conscious mind, and that works.

[235] So those things have helped me a lot.

[236] Well, I learned it, and I did it for a couple years.

[237] Then we had kids, and I fell off because I'm never up earlier.

[238] Whatever.

[239] I miss it so much.

[240] I'm excited to go back to it, but I can say that I loved it so much.

[241] And as someone who writes, it's a commitment for me to stop thinking in some way.

[242] And yet I could come out of it with an entire third act that was just sitting on a platter.

[243] Right.

[244] That's exactly.

[245] how it works.

[246] I'm sure you've experienced the same thing.

[247] You sit there and you meditate and then you start to get this flow of like great ideas, but you can't keep their great ideas.

[248] The rules of the game.

[249] You got to put them away.

[250] And you almost want to keep a pen and pencil there because they flow.

[251] But if you go deeper, you get more.

[252] And that's why you get what you get out of it.

[253] Yeah.

[254] And you don't even need to write it down.

[255] You just come out of it.

[256] And all of a sudden you're like, oh, right, it's X, Y, and Z. And then I'll be there.

[257] That's the flow from the subconscious where the creativity comes from.

[258] Also, it gives you a lot of rest, like 20 minutes of meditation, I find like three hours of sleep.

[259] So it gives you time.

[260] I think it's a fun beginning.

[261] Again, I'm going to compare it to Bill Gates, this fascinating background of how he happens to be living next to a library that has one of very few mainframes and unlimited hours on it, kind of the Malcolm Gladwell.

[262] Random coincidences coupled with this incredible genius that lead to this outcome.

[263] And I think it's really interesting that you caddied originally when you were younger, and that one of the people you caddied for, George Lieb?

[264] George Leib.

[265] Live, okay.

[266] And Don Stott is really the guy who had a bigger effect.

[267] Okay, but you were taken under these people's wing, yeah?

[268] I was 12, and I was caddying, and the stock market was hot at the time.

[269] And I'd caddy, and I'd take my cadding money, and I'd put it in stocks, and I was with him.

[270] And that got me hooked on the stock market.

[271] And it's so true that a lot of people I met, if you know Jack Dorsey's background and a lot of people's backgrounds at that early age, that's right around puberty.

[272] And you think differently pre -puberty than you think after puberty.

[273] You learn differently.

[274] And that experiences around that can have a very big effect.

[275] You can learn in a way that you can't learn later.

[276] And so, yeah, that was my experience.

[277] I got hooked.

[278] I didn't know what I was doing.

[279] But the only stock I bought, I bought a stock which which was called Northeast Airlines.

[280] And it was the only company I ever heard of that was selling for less than $5 a share.

[281] And that was my investment.

[282] And it's 3x, right?

[283] Because there was a merger.

[284] Wow.

[285] Yeah, it was so dumb and lucky.

[286] Yes, yes, yes.

[287] But you can get hooked on that.

[288] And there's the pages in the Wall Street Journal's got all these names.

[289] And if I just find one of them, I can do well.

[290] So I figured, okay, I'm going to do it.

[291] And that's what got me hooked.

[292] I feel like so many successful people have that moment.

[293] That is luck.

[294] There's a luck moment early on that teaches you, oh, I can do it or I'll keep going or that's fun.

[295] Like, without that, who knows if you would have continued.

[296] Yeah, if it had gone belly up, you might go on a different path.

[297] Who knows?

[298] Right.

[299] Oh, I hate this thing.

[300] Yeah, like Jordan hitting the game winning shot in North Carolina.

[301] Like, he makes that shot.

[302] He's probably going to make those shots the rest of his life.

[303] He knows it's possible minimally.

[304] Yes.

[305] Yeah.

[306] Well, you feel it.

[307] I think games are part of it.

[308] I have three sons now.

[309] and one of them is into education through gaming.

[310] Oh, that's clever.

[311] Talk about a spoonful of sugar with the medicine.

[312] So he hijacks your reward system, but then gives you protein.

[313] Vegetables.

[314] Well, he makes learning fun, a game.

[315] Like you're playing your game.

[316] Yes.

[317] You both are.

[318] You're playing your game.

[319] The aliens are looking at the little monkeys run around planet Earth and, oh, this guy drove a car over there.

[320] He's got to get there.

[321] He's there for six hours.

[322] What's he doing?

[323] Yeah, we're all engaged in.

[324] plead hooey on some level.

[325] Yeah, that's why I like the conversation because we also are into our games and we can be too much into our own games and our own worlds.

[326] And you don't know about the other worlds and the other games.

[327] And that's really interesting to know about them.

[328] It is.

[329] I say this often.

[330] I still have a fantasy.

[331] Like I had one big paradigm shift.

[332] I grew up into Detroit and then I've lived in California for 27 years.

[333] And my thinking is radically different.

[334] I'm not saying one's better than the other, but I experienced this metamorphosis of thinking, and I enjoyed that.

[335] I often fantasize.

[336] I have one more in me. Like, I don't know if I go to Europe or I go somewhere, but I'd still like to shatter this one and try a third one out.

[337] I'm hooked on many.

[338] Okay.

[339] And you don't have to make it your full -time thing.

[340] I like to find the people who are the most different all around the world.

[341] I've built relationships over decades doing that, and it brings you into different worlds.

[342] I love that.

[343] I'm hooked on that.

[344] And I'd imagine for you, like the billions of dollars, whatever, but to have access to people, that's the real currency.

[345] Look, I never even tried to make money, meaning it became a game.

[346] And I always wanted enough money so that I could be free and that I could take care of my family and not worry and play my game.

[347] And play it in the way you wanted to, I imagine.

[348] You needed a certain amount to be free to play it in your unique way.

[349] I think that people sometimes lose sight of what is money for.

[350] It has no intrinsic value.

[351] It can only get you things.

[352] So what is it that you want?

[353] What's it for?

[354] What makes you feel good?

[355] And if you lose touch with that, then you're kind of in a problem.

[356] So to me, success is having the life that you want to have, whatever that is, and having a little bit more than enough money to do that.

[357] Now, that can be with low spending.

[358] I watch a lot of people that I admire, they have backpacks, they go around the world.

[359] You can go anywhere.

[360] You can live in the most interesting places and the most interesting people.

[361] You can be in nature in the top of a mountain in a tent.

[362] And you can't get it more beautiful.

[363] You can have the most wonderful life without a lot of money.

[364] Well, all you're talking about is what conveyance gets you there.

[365] That's it.

[366] Oh, what is it?

[367] Don't lose side of that.

[368] Yeah.

[369] How are you going to arrive at that beach?

[370] That's the big question.

[371] We're talking about a number of things that are mistaken beliefs about.

[372] out what people at, quote, the top.

[373] And how do you measure the top?

[374] Well, maybe, like you said, maybe it's money, maybe it's success or fame or whatever it is.

[375] And it's not like that.

[376] Right.

[377] I think Mike Tyson said it the best on Howard Stern.

[378] Howard said it doesn't drive you crazy.

[379] You lost $500 million.

[380] And he goes, no, Howard, I know billionth that killed themselves.

[381] He wants happiness.

[382] He wants contentment.

[383] He wants purpose.

[384] I think it was a great way to sum it up.

[385] It doesn't equate in the way you would want it to equate.

[386] Right.

[387] It can be on anything.

[388] you can develop an obsession.

[389] Yeah.

[390] You have to be careful for the obsession.

[391] Okay, so now I want to tell you what I'm grateful for.

[392] You could easily decide to just play your game.

[393] And let me say, I think what we're all really dancing around is if you can find something in your life that you are playful in, that's what we've isolated in interviewing all kinds of people of every walk.

[394] If someone has a flare, if they haven't got some playfulness directed somewhere, generally those people are pretty content or interesting or engaged.

[395] They're curious.

[396] Yes, there's like a playful curiosity and an excitement about trying to endlessly understand this place we're in.

[397] That to me is like kind of the key ingredient to all these different things.

[398] For me, it's meaningful work and meaningful relationship.

[399] Do you love your work and do you love your relationships?

[400] If you got those two things, yeah, you're sitting pretty.

[401] Okay, so you've taken the time to write books, which again, you don't need to.

[402] It's not going to perpetuate your main focus, which is managing this hedge fund.

[403] I take the time.

[404] I didn't do them to write books.

[405] I didn't write them as books.

[406] So I'll start off with principles.

[407] I wrote down principles.

[408] And here's what I recommend to everybody.

[409] And I recommend this, like I recommend meditation.

[410] That when I have my encounters with reality and I reflect, I learn about how reality works.

[411] And I write down principles for dealing with that type of situation.

[412] So I started to do it for investments, but I do it for every aspect of life.

[413] And so on the first book, I had this collection of principles that I wrote down over several decades.

[414] And then I approached the stage in my life where I decided to share them.

[415] So what was different is that I shared them.

[416] The book that's recently come out was a study I did for myself to deal with the world we're in.

[417] I needed to do that.

[418] And I decided to share it where I didn't in the past share it.

[419] And the reason is where I am in my life cycle.

[420] And I think almost instincts happen.

[421] to you at different phases of your life cycle.

[422] I think there are pretty much three phases in one's life cycle.

[423] In the first phase, you're dependent on others and you're learning with your parents and so on.

[424] Second phase is you're independent and others are dependent on you and you're trying to be successful.

[425] In the third phase of life, there's a transition to that third phase.

[426] You don't want to be more successful yourself.

[427] The priorities change.

[428] But there's an instinctual behavior which is to pass along what you have that's valuable.

[429] I'm in therapy, real hardcore for the first time.

[430] And what we kind of came to recently, so I'm 47.

[431] I don't have any more career aspirations.

[432] I love this.

[433] I'd love to keep doing it.

[434] I don't have a growth set much anymore.

[435] I've conquered the things I want to conquer.

[436] I have the kids I want.

[437] I have the wife I want.

[438] And I think there is this uneasiness for me for the last couple years where I'm like, what's next?

[439] Because I don't want to climb any more mountains.

[440] But I slowly figured out and what the therapist pointed out to me is like, Increasingly, I love being available to younger dudes.

[441] I love it.

[442] I'm sober.

[443] I've had a really twisty career.

[444] There's little opportunities I have to be of value in dudes' lives.

[445] And I'm finding more and more like, I'm loving it in the way I used to love touchdowns.

[446] There you go.

[447] And I'm like, oh, I guess that's where I'm heading.

[448] And I need to embrace it and stop holding on to the other version.

[449] That's right.

[450] That's that habit, the obsession.

[451] You kind of have to let go, you know, meditate some more, let go.

[452] And then what do you feel?

[453] how do you feel you're lucky to have the freedom it's wonderful because you're free of obligations you just make choices yeah so grateful for it it's just a different well to get my esteem out of and i really am excited about it now that i can identify it and recognize oh i love this this is something gives me great pleasure and i'm endlessly available to anyone who needs that and i like it you're not taking time away from something else and anyway it's funny you would say that because i just had that kind of realization recently.

[454] You know, you're 47, I'm 72.

[455] Uh -huh.

[456] So at 72, man, you better do your planning.

[457] You better do your giving now.

[458] Now I want to talk finance a little bit.

[459] So you have a book out right now called Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order.

[460] And I want people to buy that book and I want people to read that book.

[461] And I'm excited to read the entire book.

[462] But I will say, in the short term, you have an incredible video you've made that's available on YouTube.

[463] I really hope people watch because you're kind of just giving that part away.

[464] I want to pass along how the world is changing and how societies rise and decline and where we are in that.

[465] There's an empire and a cycle.

[466] And so I did an animated video because that's the best way to communicate.

[467] The book is great if somebody wants to get into it in a while, but it's a free animated video.

[468] And we put it on about a month ago and it has 11 million views and people like it in the passing it around.

[469] It's fantastic.

[470] I need to say right now, before you continue, that a lot of people are incredibly intimidated by economics.

[471] When we interviewed Bill Gates, I said, what is the subject that still is the hardest for you to wrap your head around?

[472] And he said, without question, economics.

[473] This is the most friendly, approachable walk through the cycles of our economy.

[474] There are three videos that I did.

[475] There's one that's called How the Economic Machine Works.

[476] It's 30 minutes, and it's had over 100 million views.

[477] And so if you want to know how the economic machine works, in clear, simple way, you can go there.

[478] If you want to know how the world order is changing, then you can go to the video called the changing world order.

[479] And then I did another one called Principles for Success, and that's the same thing, 30 -minute animated video.

[480] They're great.

[481] And the animation's incredibly helpful because a lot of these concepts, I think people get hung up on hearing like asset and this and that.

[482] But just to see simple stuff, there's pictures of dollar bills, there's pictures of gold bricks.

[483] I feel like I could turn the sound off and show it to my children.

[484] They get some idea of what the hell was being said.

[485] People are showing it to their children.

[486] Children around eight and nine are getting it.

[487] Yes.

[488] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[489] We've all been there.

[490] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers.

[491] and strange rashes.

[492] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[493] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[494] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[495] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[496] Each terrifying true story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[497] Follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[498] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music.

[499] What's up guys?

[500] This is your girl Kiki and my podcast is back with a new season and let me tell you it's too good and I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest.

[501] Okay, every episode I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[502] And I don't mean just friends.

[503] I mean, the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[504] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[505] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[506] Let's talk about the specifics, and I'm going to maybe try to Reader's Digest.

[507] Basically, what you said is that the most confounding episodes in your career were ones were it was the first time you were ever witnessing this, and you assumed they were kind of novel.

[508] But then you took the time to have a 500 -year view of everything.

[509] And lo and behold, nearly everything that you had witnessed in your lifetime that was novel has happened several times before us and that one can learn with pretty high predictability what's going to happen ahead of us because they're so cyclical in nature, which seems impossible to believe when you're in the middle of a cycle.

[510] But alas, they are viewed over the long arc of history.

[511] So you go back 500 years.

[512] And I'll just say it starts with your first really crazy aha moment is in 71.

[513] You're working in finance and the dollar is going to be.

[514] devalued and it gets decoupled from gold.

[515] So you can no longer trade in your dollar bills for gold.

[516] And your assumption was this thing's going to be worthless.

[517] You go to work early in the morning to deal with this in the stock trade.

[518] And the opposite thing happens that you were expecting.

[519] Right.

[520] 1971, the United States had paper bills that were like checks in a checkbook.

[521] They didn't have any value.

[522] But what they would do is they'd get you gold.

[523] Because the U .S. wrote more checks and it had gold in the bank, the gold was going down.

[524] And on August 4th, 15th, 1971.

[525] I was clerking on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, and I watched Nixon, said, they're not going to get your gold.

[526] So it defaulted.

[527] And I went on the floor of the stock exchange.

[528] And I said, wow, this is a crisis.

[529] And I thought it would go down on the stock market.

[530] And it went up a lot.

[531] 25%.

[532] Yeah.

[533] And so I researched it.

[534] And I found that on March 5th, 1933, the exact same thing happened.

[535] Roosevelt announced that they were not going to get the gold and that they would go off that and that they would print a lot of money and they printed a lot of money.

[536] And what I realized at that time and saw many times since, that anything that surprised me may not have happened in my lifetime, but happened before.

[537] I studied the Great Depression because I did that.

[538] I was able to anticipate the 2008 financial crisis.

[539] We made a lot of money in the financial crisis because I understood what happened in the Great Depression.

[540] So in this case, three big things are happening that never happened before in our lifetimes.

[541] And the last time they happened was in the 1930 to 45 period.

[542] And those three things are the creation of a lot of printing of money to pay for the debts.

[543] Can I just tack on the tangible thing from that?

[544] So everyone will just remember we had many, many stimulus checks during Corona to the tune of maybe $3 trillion.

[545] I don't know what the total is at this point.

[546] A lot more than that.

[547] Total credit.

[548] Okay, so Lent and or sent out in a check, we basically invented $3 trillion, not backed by any growth in our economy or our production or anything.

[549] We just said, here's this new money.

[550] We needed to at the time, but it was very overdone.

[551] We actually sent out checks, which were about five times as much as the amount.

[552] that would have compensated people for their losses.

[553] Right.

[554] Where they get the money from.

[555] The government borrowed the money.

[556] Who did they borrow the money from?

[557] The Federal Reserve.

[558] Ourselves.

[559] What they did is, the Federal Reserve, prints the money, and they buy the debt.

[560] And that's how it works.

[561] So now everybody gets all these checks, and everybody's happy because they get all these checks.

[562] But when they get all this money and then they spend it, everybody's surprised they got inflation.

[563] What's crazy is I like to think I know a bit about this stuff.

[564] And even I was originally looking at the inflation.

[565] I was going, well, that makes sense.

[566] You have an equation.

[567] You have supply and demand.

[568] And supply was dramatically reduced because of the shipping issues and supply chain and people not working in manufacturing.

[569] So, oh, okay, so the supply went down.

[570] So the price went up.

[571] Initially, I thought that, and then I was sitting on the toilet, and I thought, what percentage is $3 trillion of our overall money?

[572] How much money is here?

[573] That's right.

[574] We've increased the amount of money by 25 % or more.

[575] Yeah, so the fact that our inflation, they say, is only 8%.

[576] I'm like, well, actually, we're still missing 16%.

[577] What has happened?

[578] And by the way, it's described in that 30 -minute video, how the economic machine works.

[579] The price of anything is equal to the amount of money and credit spent on it, divide, by the quantity of it sold.

[580] And so when you increase the amount of money and credit buying power spending by a lot more than you increase the quantity, you get inflation.

[581] This didn't start necessarily with quarantine.

[582] It kind of started in 2008.

[583] Is that the first huge influx?

[584] That was the first big one.

[585] Okay.

[586] Because what happened in both of those cases is they hit zero interest rates.

[587] Right.

[588] So I can't lower the price of money.

[589] So what do I do?

[590] Number two is the The amount of internal conflict that's going on in the United States, the size of the wealth gaps, the size of the political conflicts, is the greatest since not only the 30 to 45 period, it's much greater than that, 1900.

[591] You have to go back to 1900 to have that conflict.

[592] We're having a form of a civil war where populism is one side in a battle with the other side that won't accept losing.

[593] Zero sum.

[594] Well, that's why in the next elections, there's a good chance that neither side will accept the result and accept losing.

[595] History shows that when the causes people are behind are more important to them than the system, the system is in jeopardy.

[596] Right now, there's not much agreement and the polarity is becoming greater.

[597] The political right now, if you follow politics, if you even watch events like, you know, what will the reaction be to Supreme Court making the decision of Roe versus Wade.

[598] Why are moderates in the political system choosing not to run for re -election?

[599] We have this internal conflict that is actually threatening rule of law and the adherence to the Constitution.

[600] It's entirely possible that people with different views, they will go to different places, and they will fight.

[601] So that degree has never happened in my lifetime before.

[602] In our lifetime, obviously you can point to the civil war as being...

[603] That's right.

[604] No, in my life.

[605] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[606] I was born in 1949.

[607] 1945 was when the new world order began.

[608] These world orders happened because there's a conflict and then somebody wins.

[609] So that brings me to the third thing that's happening, which is the rise of a great power to be comparable, China and with it, Russia.

[610] And they form alliances, right?

[611] There's the allied powers and the Axis powers, two different sides, kind of.

[612] and then they're competing because what happens is when you have a new world order, the winners of the war get to set the rules.

[613] So in 1945, America won, and it was the richest country in the world.

[614] It had 80 % of the world's gold, and gold was money, and it had 50 % of the world's economy, and it had a monopoly on military power.

[615] And so it set the rules, and that's why the UN is in New York, and the World Bank and IMF are in Washington, D .C., it's set the rules.

[616] That's why we trade oil and U .S. dollars.

[617] Yes.

[618] So that's changing.

[619] There are certain things that we're doing.

[620] We're spending a lot more than we're earning.

[621] We're living off the printing presses.

[622] We're letting the infrastructure go.

[623] We're giving our next generation debts.

[624] We're not educating all children wealth.

[625] Well, I like what you point out in previous times.

[626] I've heard you speak on this.

[627] It's not a gap in wealth.

[628] addition to that, it's a gap in opportunity.

[629] The gap in opportunity is what is striking.

[630] That's right.

[631] I live in Connecticut.

[632] And my wife works to try to help the worst performing, the poorest neighborhoods.

[633] And I know this intimately.

[634] Let me give you a statistic.

[635] Connecticut is always number one, two or three in terms of average per capita income richest.

[636] In this state, 22 % of the high school students are disengaged or disconnected.

[637] Disengage means that their absentee rate is greater than $2 .000.

[638] 25 % in their failing classes.

[639] And disconnected means they don't know where they are because they've dropped out of school.

[640] Twenty -two percent of the high school students in the richest state in the country.

[641] You go to these neighborhoods and they're just up the road.

[642] And I live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

[643] And there's Bridgeport, Connecticut.

[644] Here, the per capita in the public schools is $24 ,000 a student.

[645] There, it's $14 ,000 a student.

[646] But they need a lot more money because they're growing up in poor, terrible environment.

[647] We have not created an acceptable bottom.

[648] Yeah, it doesn't even need to be equal.

[649] It actually needs to be greater to compensate for the standard deviation, lower, and nutrition and all this stuff.

[650] That's right.

[651] My dad was a Jasmine we didn't have money.

[652] My mom was staying home on, but I had two parents who cared for me, loved me. I went to a public school, and I came out and there was equal opportunity.

[653] That's all you need.

[654] Yeah.

[655] Or at least one.

[656] parent.

[657] And then if you got one parent, it's very difficult.

[658] And if you don't provide that, then you're going to have children who are going to be so disadvantaged that rather than assets, they'll become liabilities.

[659] And it's so unfair.

[660] So you can go back and you could see, I can go back and study all these empires.

[661] And it's a basic thing.

[662] Because you don't know where the talented person's going to come from.

[663] It can come from any part of the population.

[664] And so you You get more resources of creative people that way.

[665] You get less liabilities in it, so it makes sense for the system.

[666] And it's fairer and so on.

[667] But we don't do that.

[668] You are of the opinion, and I agree with you.

[669] It's not just harmful to the people who are left out on the bottom of the ladder.

[670] It's actually harmful to the overall system.

[671] In your book, you go back 500 years, you look at the Dutch Empire, and you look at the British Pax Britonica Empire, and then you look at our empire.

[672] And so are they parallel?

[673] I have to be objective.

[674] And the only way I can do that is have objective measurements.

[675] In that book, you see the measurements.

[676] So you can look at where we are in education relative to the rest of the world, where we are in infrastructure.

[677] And you could see that change.

[678] And you could see how the United States is in relationship.

[679] I put 18 countries in the book and I have 24 measures, which I'm putting online.

[680] So you can see those things objectively.

[681] And yes, of course, It's common sense.

[682] If you educate your people and they are more civil with each other and you provide equal opportunity, the system will work better.

[683] And you'll outcompete other countries that aren't offering that.

[684] That's right.

[685] In this world order battle, and we have a world order battle, there is an allied and access power kind of thing that is emerging.

[686] There's certainly a competition.

[687] There are five different kinds of wars.

[688] There's a trade war.

[689] There's a technology war.

[690] There is a geopolitical influence war.

[691] There is a capital war.

[692] And there could be a military war.

[693] There is a military war now in Europe with Russia.

[694] And those are the patterns of history.

[695] And there's only one way to do well.

[696] And that is to be strong in all those ways.

[697] So I'm very bipartisan.

[698] I believe the opposite of the polarity, the extremes of the left of the find ways.

[699] I agree.

[700] I describe myself as an alt -centrist.

[701] I'm like, I want to remind people how much we need all perspectives and how we've only achieved great things by pressure testing.

[702] And both sides should have an opposite.

[703] Someone should be looking out for the individual.

[704] Someone should be looking out for the masses.

[705] We need both perspectives.

[706] Someone should maintain capitalism.

[707] It's the best system.

[708] But also, we have to have another side that's saying, here are the failings of capitalism.

[709] How do we regulate it?

[710] Make it equal.

[711] And then you have to agree to compromise.

[712] The problem is we do have both, but then no one is saying and we'll meet in the middle.

[713] Yes.

[714] Yeah, I've watched the process evolved in the cycle.

[715] So what happens is you have the war, you have the new rules, wars are sort of great equalizers, and then you come back, and then you have a period of peace and prosperity.

[716] You have peace because nobody wants to fight the dominant power, and you have more equal people, and then they have prosperity.

[717] But the way the system works is over a period of time, that creates differences in wealth.

[718] And that's fine.

[719] You provide capital.

[720] That's the capital system.

[721] People with great ideas come along and they're productive and inventive and they produce great things and so on.

[722] But as they obtain the greater wealth, they also obtain greater benefits like they could educate their children better.

[723] Yeah.

[724] And if you're poor, you don't get to educate your children better.

[725] And so the polarity increases and it becomes unfair because you know, we all should have like equal opportunities.

[726] Yeah, minimally, everyone's able to agree about that.

[727] And then you also build up a lot of debt.

[728] Here's the irony of it.

[729] As these cycles begin at their later stages, the rich are the ones who get into debt.

[730] Now, you would think it's exactly the opposite, right?

[731] Because if you're rich, it's easier to have a good living standard and save.

[732] But like the United States, when per capita income was 40 times that in China, it started to borrow from China because they have a big saving mentality.

[733] When you have a poor person who doesn't have much, they want to save.

[734] That's me. I'm a hoarder.

[735] Their saving is in our currency because when they think, oh, how do I save in world currency, I'm going to buy dollar denominated debt and I'm going to save in it when we borrow.

[736] And that's been the case.

[737] We didn't experience what our prior generations experienced.

[738] I know my dad went through World War II.

[739] he went through depression and war.

[740] His mentality is very different in terms of, you know, what you take for granted or how you save.

[741] And that creates a cycle.

[742] Now, throughout the last hundred years, there was this kind of prevailing theory that we would become so intermeshed with other countries in this world economy would somehow safeguard us from military conflict because everyone would lose too much.

[743] And that thus far has proven not to be true.

[744] We've been interlaced and yet still acted against our best financial interest.

[745] I do feel like this one could be a tipping point.

[746] I'd love to hear your opinion on it.

[747] I look at this situation with Russia right now and I think, wow, this might be the first time it doesn't work, that you just can't do it, that the price is so big that your war in itself will be untenable.

[748] I also hope China's looking at that and going, ooh, okay, that really can't be done anymore.

[749] I'm kind of optimistic that that's what's happening right now, as brutal as this is and as much as I hate what's going on, I do feel like there could be a paradigm shift.

[750] that China is going to have to look at this and go, like, wow, we will absolutely devastate ourselves to ever invade Taiwan militarily.

[751] Do you think it's going in that direction?

[752] There are two things that you're touching on.

[753] First was interconnected and therefore safer.

[754] That was the theory prior to World War II because they would marry each other.

[755] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that different empires.

[756] Royalty would enter be married and everybody's in the same family.

[757] Yeah.

[758] There's no evidence that that's true, either in the actions that are being taken or in history.

[759] Even members of the same family can kill each other.

[760] They can be so entwined in the same family that they gives them plenty to fight about.

[761] The second one in that dynamic is it depends on both countries.

[762] Do you have a win -win relationship or do you have a lose -lose relationship?

[763] The problems with China have a history.

[764] There was one thing under Obama.

[765] Then there was a tilt and it changed to Trump.

[766] And they're now at the point where it's almost irreconcilable differences.

[767] And each side is worried that the other side could kill it.

[768] In the book, I described the prisoner's dilemma.

[769] The prisoner's dilemma is, let's imagine that there are two people and that the best thing you could do is cooperate.

[770] But you don't know whether the other is going to cooperate or kill you.

[771] What should you do?

[772] You should kill the other one.

[773] Because otherwise, there's some risk that they kill you and survival matters.

[774] And it's tough to get to cooperation.

[775] And so we're kind of in that situation now.

[776] China is essentially in the enviable position of finding out how a war goes.

[777] And so because the NATO countries and Russia and Ukraine are in its type of war, you can see how that goes.

[778] You can see, for example, that the U .S. brings out its big weapon is sanctions.

[779] By the sanctions have always in history.

[780] It's been the big weapon that's brought out before the big military weapon.

[781] Like in World War II, Japan was expanding in Asia, and the United States imposed sanctions.

[782] They sort of embargoed the oil, made it more difficult for them to get oil, and they froze their assets.

[783] And so they were stuck, and then they reacted, and they bombed Pearl Harbor.

[784] And then we had World War II.

[785] So we have something that's very similar to that.

[786] So now when I look at the situation, there, I think there are three big questions that we don't yet have the answers to.

[787] The first question is who wins in the UK -NATO war, essentially.

[788] Does Putin win or does the West win?

[789] And here's what winning looks like for Putin, that he controls the eastern part of the Ukraine without being regularly threatened, that the economy in Russia has something like a 12 % downturn, but is tolerable.

[790] Now, since Russia imports everything, you could actually totally shut them off.

[791] But how much will those sanctions crush Russia or will it be tolerable?

[792] They're a historically tolerant people, let's point out.

[793] Let me put it to the opposite.

[794] They are so used to suffer.

[795] Yes, that's what I'm saying, yes.

[796] They are so used to suffering that they're almost uncomfortable if they're not suffering.

[797] If you go back 1917, they have the revolution, they lose World War II, they lose 30 million.

[798] people.

[799] Then Stalin comes in and they lose another 30 million people.

[800] It's that kind of thing.

[801] They have communism.

[802] Then they have a bankruptcy and the whole thing collapses in 89.

[803] So they won't trade off that issue generally for a 12 % fall in GDP.

[804] But there is one new element.

[805] And I think this is a very conceivable outcome to this.

[806] The Bolshevik revolution, all these different periods, you didn't have dozens of billionaires who are going to lose billions of dollars who can, for relatively tiny price, have him assassinated.

[807] If they had to spend a hundred million to get rid of him, that would be a bargain.

[808] I would say the odds of that are very, very, very small.

[809] Really?

[810] Yeah, because of a variety of things in terms of security and other things.

[811] But we'll see.

[812] But if he loses and he appears to be losing, I think he'll escalate.

[813] In other words, I don't think he'll go out quietly.

[814] Well, we just found out something very unfortunate from a guest, Mr. Henrik.

[815] We asked him about Russia and he said, well, you know, interestingly, who wants to be a millionaire?

[816] That show went around the world, right?

[817] When it went to Russia, they found out lifelines don't work.

[818] When they would turn it over to the audience, the audience would specifically and purposefully give them the wrong answer.

[819] They did not want to see them win.

[820] Also, they play these games where you can penalize free.

[821] riders at an expense to yourself.

[822] The Russians uniquely would rather kill themselves to make someone suffer or punish it.

[823] They'll counterpunish.

[824] That's the difference, I guess.

[825] Culturally, on all those psychological tests, they will counterpunish.

[826] So that's a unique element to bring into it.

[827] Well, they're so used to fighting.

[828] And so if he loses, I think that you will see escalation.

[829] And that'll take the form of probably threatening nuclear.

[830] And also, it's a very dangerous thing.

[831] And we'll see what the power of sanctions are.

[832] And then the third thing we'll see is how the sides line up.

[833] Meaning everyone on the West?

[834] West and East.

[835] You could look at the countries right now and you could look at their actions and you can see which side they're lining up.

[836] Do they abide by the sanctions?

[837] Do they not abide by the sanctions?

[838] So at the beginning of the picture of which are the allied countries and which are the access countries, like in World War II, there's a European war and there's an Asian war and different countries line up, but, you know, by and large, they're consistent.

[839] And so we're beginning to see those things.

[840] When you agree that there is more consensus than we would have probably predicted two months ago?

[841] Only in Europe.

[842] It's so interesting.

[843] And I could rattle the countries off.

[844] India, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, China, almost half the world has taken either the other side or has said, I'm not going to participate.

[845] Don't make the mistake of just looking at the European NATO countries.

[846] So anyway, China can watch that and how that works and learn a lot.

[847] It's a real -time computer simulation for them.

[848] I mean, they're just gathering data on how this is going to go.

[849] I've been going to China since 1984, not for money, but for interest, because if I can find interesting places with interesting people and see it through their eyes, I can do that.

[850] And I was able to help them learn about the financial markets and so on.

[851] And that's led me to know the leaders there, as well as lots of poor people, and to see it through their eyes.

[852] And I would say they do not want a war.

[853] Right.

[854] They seem very pragmatic and the goal to make the whole country prosper through this complicated system they have, which is using capitalism to generate stuff that'll be redistributed in some fashion.

[855] I also think something else we haven't had before that's new during this war is social media, is like a younger generation who's super interconnected.

[856] So there's like a whole generation of Russia who's like, I don't want this.

[857] And that's new because they have outside perspectives.

[858] The world has now changed to a whole different dynamic in which ideologies rule, fight and rule.

[859] For example, think about it this way.

[860] The person who makes decisions for Twitter will have a bigger effect on our lives and choices than the Supreme Court's decisions.

[861] In other words, I could do it this way or I could do it that way.

[862] The system we used to be in was a fairly open system in which economics would rule.

[863] If you made more money, you got more resources and resources were allocated by that.

[864] That's much less the case now.

[865] Now ideologies are taking control.

[866] So for example, DeSantis governor of Florida and Disney.

[867] The ideology that you have and that I will fight for it and I will use all the resources I have is the determiner.

[868] And in some extent, it almost needs to, like in some respects, what's going to get money to the kids in schools that we're talking about?

[869] But that notion that if the causes that people are behind are more important to them than the system.

[870] The system is in jeopardy, right?

[871] Because that system of how do we work these things out together becomes a power thing.

[872] I don't think you're going to see either side giving up losing, you know, we played by the game, playing cricket or something, and then we go off the field.

[873] That was amazing that we did that for so long.

[874] But I don't think that you're going to do that as much because it's a win at all cost game.

[875] And I think that you're going to have this pervasively within the United States.

[876] So you get more nationalism, right?

[877] You're going to have more nationalism.

[878] Why?

[879] Because I need self -sufficiency and that other country might be an enemy.

[880] And then you go within a country and you see the same thing within a country.

[881] I need to fight for what I believe.

[882] So we are now in a fight for what you believe type of environment.

[883] that will determine things and we're just not used to it, but that's what's happening.

[884] So can we be good with each other?

[885] Yeah.

[886] If we could just be good with each other and not fight and be afraid of fighting, have the middle work together and so on.

[887] Let the extremists who are fighting calm down.

[888] You know, like if I was president, I would have a bipartisan cabinet because politics now, it's like one side beats the other.

[889] You know, everything is zero sum now.

[890] Compromises a loss.

[891] And a loss is a win, even.

[892] I am optimistic because I actually think the tails wagging the dog, I think that our media cycles driven by the fringe 10 % on the left and the 10 % on the right, I actually don't think we are divided.

[893] I think we're being represented as divided.

[894] I think the vast majority of Americans, I think 70 % of them, you look at these different polls about how they feel about COVID, how they feel about this.

[895] In truth, 70 % of us are still rational.

[896] It's actually that everything's been hijacked.

[897] The voices of the nuts is loudest.

[898] It's going to rise to the surface on social media.

[899] It's going to be on the news.

[900] I have a ton of Republican friends.

[901] None of them storm the Capitol.

[902] I have a ton of friends at Martian BLM.

[903] None of them broke into a store.

[904] I only see those options on TV.

[905] That's not what we are.

[906] I agree with you and I disagree with you.

[907] Let me be clear what I agree with.

[908] On the statistics, roughly speaking, 30 % of the population is extreme right by measures such as, there's a range of things.

[909] What percentage of the Republicans or Democrats think that members of the other party should die?

[910] Oh, wow.

[911] Right.

[912] Yeah, that's pretty extreme.

[913] It's 15 and 10.

[914] What percentage would not want their child to marry the member of the other party?

[915] What percentage of those think the election was stolen?

[916] Mm -hmm.

[917] If you start to use those numbers, roughly 30 % is, by my measure, probably pretty extreme, right.

[918] And because of that, that's the majority of the Republican Party, then has to have unified.

[919] Maybe it's 25, maybe it's 30.

[920] I don't know.

[921] But we know how the Republican party largely is being influenced by Trump.

[922] What's the percentage on the left of fundamentalist left?

[923] I am regularly disagreeing with my side as much where I'm like, what are, what are you talking about?

[924] It seems to be about 15%.

[925] Okay.

[926] So we're at 45 % of the country's nuts.

[927] But the parties are fighting within each other.

[928] And the moderates are dropping out.

[929] Because they can't get financing.

[930] Not so much they can't finance.

[931] It's because of the way politics is.

[932] It's brutal and it's laws.

[933] You can only win if you are one of those extremes that win the primary.

[934] This is what I find myself in as a centrist.

[935] It's like I say something centrist and I lose everybody.

[936] That's right, because they're in that war.

[937] So now you hear that I agree that the The majority is in the middle, but there is a dynamic here.

[938] That's why, like if I was president, I'd want a bipartisan cabinet, or I want whatever it is that's going to bring, you know, compromise the middle, us together.

[939] Like, I believe the president of the United States should be the president for the majority of the people, you know, not in a war of one against the other.

[940] Stay tuned for more armchair expert.

[941] If you dare.

[942] I think there's a systemic problem, by the way, in terms of the way capitalism works that needs to be adjusted because the profit system and the reward system doesn't accomplish all the goals that we need to have accomplished.

[943] In other words, do we have broad -based prosperity and opportunity?

[944] So there are certain adjustments that could be made to that to make it work better.

[945] Which ones do you support really quick?

[946] Because the left would have a redistribution and the right would likely to address that have like advance in technology.

[947] and productivity.

[948] The right, the capitalists know better how to increase the size of the pie, but they don't know how to divide the pie.

[949] And the left knows how to divide the pie, but they don't know how to increase the size of the pie by being more productive.

[950] Right.

[951] What a great way to say.

[952] But can both happen simultaneously?

[953] They both can happen simultaneously.

[954] Okay, there we go.

[955] Like an investment in good education.

[956] I'm just giving one good example.

[957] Invest in good education.

[958] have an acceptable bottom so that the kids don't become those adults.

[959] You know, I'm in Connecticut.

[960] $600 million a year is spent on incarceration.

[961] Yeah.

[962] Because the kids grow up in these households.

[963] My wife trying to help in Hartford, Connecticut.

[964] She's with the mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, and they're in a control room.

[965] And they could see the gangs and everything.

[966] And the kids have a problem walking to school because they have to pass through neighborhoods where there are gangs and shootings.

[967] She says, why can't you have the police assure safe passage?

[968] Well, they can only forward 275 police because it either has to come out of that or the food or whatever it is.

[969] So the capitalist system is a remarkable, fabulous system.

[970] But when it produces the big inequalities of opportunity and productivity, yes, we could make good investments.

[971] And infrastructure, when this went down and they have school, the kids didn't have computers.

[972] and they didn't have connectivity.

[973] That's like not having electricity.

[974] Yeah, yeah.

[975] How can we have that?

[976] So what we had to do, you know, we do it philanthropically, but it's not enough.

[977] And so there's capitalism that can increase productivity.

[978] You can increase the size of the pie and you can distribute it well.

[979] There are things you can do.

[980] Yeah.

[981] I get frustrated.

[982] As I imagine you might too is, there are very fiscal conservatives that don't want to acknowledge, what the formula is.

[983] So to your point, $600 million on incarceration, there are very inexpensive investments that will yield 5x results downstream.

[984] The health care situation, this gets frustrating because it's like, well, I don't want to pay for everyone.

[985] But you do, right?

[986] You recognize that you do let everyone come to the emergency room.

[987] So what does that cost?

[988] Like, these costs aren't gone away.

[989] What's the most affordable way to do this?

[990] It's literally economics.

[991] That's why I think the president they should have the equivalent of the Manhattan Project with moderates from both parties, work together to re -engineer this and agree on it.

[992] And everybody's so hung up, it's got to be exactly the way they want, that you get nothing.

[993] Exactly.

[994] It's got to be perfect.

[995] Look, I don't care what they agree to.

[996] If you have smart people from both sides and they come up with a program, I'm almost certain it's going to be.

[997] much better than what we've got.

[998] Well, it's kind of like when people with the gun control, the response is like, well, then the bad guys will have the gun.

[999] But that would be very similar to saying when we passed drunk driving laws, like, well, but some people are still going to drive drunk.

[1000] Yes, they are.

[1001] When you or I criticizes that side, that thing, where we think we're right, and they think they're right, therein lies the problem.

[1002] Exactly.

[1003] Because we each think that we're right, and we got to get it that way, I don't give a damn.

[1004] like get in a room and work it out and let's get the moderates working it out and then deal with their own extremists.

[1005] Get the majority who is in the middle and then have them, you know, maybe you need a third political party or something.

[1006] Well, I just want you to rest assured I'm having the privilege of saying these things to you because you're here.

[1007] Generally, I'm the person servicing the right perspective and I think I do a pretty fair job of it because most people I interview are liberal.

[1008] It's all priorities for me. This is how I think about it.

[1009] Yes, I have an opinion.

[1010] about Roe v. Wade.

[1011] Yes, I have an opinion about education.

[1012] Yes.

[1013] I have an opinion above all those things, which is functionality.

[1014] If we cannot function, all those other things are irrelevant.

[1015] So I have to start with priority number one is we have to start functioning.

[1016] We're in the same position.

[1017] I can give up all that.

[1018] Yes, to see it function.

[1019] If we don't see 70 % of the resources of the government going to arguing about two fucking issues that have no compromise, like what?

[1020] I know.

[1021] They don't have a compromise.

[1022] Let's move on.

[1023] And it can threaten the system.

[1024] Exactly.

[1025] To your point, they're going to dismantle the system to try to make these two issues work.

[1026] I think what you're going to see is lack of obedience.

[1027] So the federal government or the Supreme Court will make decisions that will not be followed by the states or local governments.

[1028] Yeah, for sure.

[1029] And then you have a breakdown of the system because you know what will happen then?

[1030] Then you have power.

[1031] It's just a test of power.

[1032] You hurt me. I'll find a way to hurt you.

[1033] It's happening real time.

[1034] It's literally happening.

[1035] So Oregon's building a bunch of abortion clinics on the border with Idaho, knowing which direction that's going.

[1036] And I'm in support of that because of my own position on it.

[1037] Then Idaho is going to do something weird.

[1038] Now you got Idaho and Oregon are going to be at war.

[1039] This is madness.

[1040] Okay.

[1041] This has been so, so fun.

[1042] I want to ask you one theoretical question because this is a debate I have with my good friend Eric Richardson, who, by the way, turn me on to you.

[1043] You're his absolute deity in life.

[1044] a traitor.

[1045] You kind of remind me of him.

[1046] Yeah, he's got a little of the erickness.

[1047] He can't be that smart.

[1048] He and I often sit around and we talk about this.

[1049] I'll try to lay it out really simply.

[1050] Okay, money is a story.

[1051] Wealth is a story.

[1052] We've seen numerous times throughout history.

[1053] When the Civil War happened, the North had to have their own currency.

[1054] They just printed a bunch of it.

[1055] When the currency's been anchored to gold, gold is finite.

[1056] But when you unleash it, somehow it becomes infinite.

[1057] There is an interesting thought, which is on some level, this is all untenable.

[1058] To your point, we're not selling as much as we're printing money.

[1059] We don't have a GDP to justify the amount of currency.

[1060] The bill must come due.

[1061] And then there's another voice in my head that says, or does it?

[1062] Because it's a story, and really the whole thing to me seems to be almost entirely driven by consumer confidence.

[1063] It's like we either believe it's working or we don't.

[1064] Because it's a story, is there a future in which the bill never comes due?

[1065] Because somehow we've been borrowing, printing, lending.

[1066] It should have collapsed long ago, it appears to me. And yet, here we are.

[1067] Is it anchored to reality because it's a story or not?

[1068] One man's debts are somebody else's assets.

[1069] The world right now is holding a lot of money in debt instruments.

[1070] It could be money market funds.

[1071] It could be.

[1072] bond funds.

[1073] And we were in an environment in which bonds went up for 40 years and everybody's comfortable.

[1074] And there wasn't an inflation pressure.

[1075] And so everybody thinks that cash is the safest place to be because they don't think about its buying power.

[1076] And so what happens is you have to satisfy both the debtors and the creditors, which is difficult to do when you've got more.

[1077] Okay, you got a lot of debt.

[1078] Because if you pay that debt back in real money, in hard money, so the guy gets paid back the buying power that he lent, that is going to be really bad because you won't have enough money.

[1079] So the easiest tax is to tax through the printing of money.

[1080] And that's because like, nobody asks where did the money come from.

[1081] You know, the checks came in and we're all happy.

[1082] Yeah.

[1083] And we didn't take the money away from anybody.

[1084] But you lose the buying power.

[1085] So as you get the inflation for that, you get the behavior change.

[1086] So still, like, you have to make a choice.

[1087] Do you want to own that stuff or not?

[1088] And so what happens is when you make that choice that you don't want to own it, you sell it.

[1089] And so the amount of selling is not just the deficit.

[1090] The government will have a deficit of five or six percent of GDP.

[1091] It'll have to borrow.

[1092] So that means it sells bonds or sells debt.

[1093] of five or six percent of GDP.

[1094] But if others sell, too, because they say, I'm not getting a real return, I'm not going to hold that, then you have a lot of selling.

[1095] That means that either interest rates go up a lot and shut the thing down or the government prints more money.

[1096] And that's the mechanics.

[1097] History's shown us, Chapter 3, I think it is, called the value of money.

[1098] And 100 % of the time, when they're in that position, they'll print the money.

[1099] But as everyone just prints the money globally, they basically invent money.

[1100] They invent wealth in some really philosophical way.

[1101] Here's the big thing that people think.

[1102] Money and financial assets are not wealth.

[1103] There are claims on wealth, but they're worthless.

[1104] It has no value.

[1105] It's not real.

[1106] It's just like digital.

[1107] It's not intrinsic.

[1108] It only has wealth, real wealth, if you sell it and you go buy it.

[1109] something.

[1110] And I think you pointed out there is more money in the financial sector than there are goods and services to buy.

[1111] Enormously.

[1112] So it's like musical chairs.

[1113] Right.

[1114] So because that is the reality today, let's say that there's $100 trillion in the financial sector and there's only $50 trillion of goods and services to buy.

[1115] It is a theory.

[1116] It is a story.

[1117] It is not intrinsic.

[1118] Yet it works.

[1119] It works as long as people who are holding those financial assets, want to keep holding those financial assets, even though they're losing buying power to them.

[1120] Right, right.

[1121] It is a Ponzi scheme in some level.

[1122] It's a Ponzi scheme.

[1123] Yes.

[1124] So if no one stops buying into the Ponzi scheme, the Ponzi scheme can go on indefinitely.

[1125] Yes, but that's why if you look at history, even in the Old Testament, there was this idea of the year of Jubilee.

[1126] What it meant is, oh, okay, you always have these financial obligations rising relative to the other.

[1127] It happened so often that they said, okay, let's just plan on it.

[1128] Like every 50 years, we're going to have to wipe it clean.

[1129] Right.

[1130] Okay.

[1131] Wow.

[1132] That goes back to the Bible.

[1133] Old Testament in the Bible.

[1134] Wow.

[1135] Okay.

[1136] And they said every year we're going to have to do it.

[1137] And then it was a system actually where they would say, now that you know it's going to be wiped out in 50 years, you will operate as though it will wipe out in 50 years.

[1138] And therefore, you won't have the Ponzi scheme as much.

[1139] But that is how the Ponzi scheme has always worked, right?

[1140] So that's what it is.

[1141] Now, you have a choice.

[1142] You can hold those things.

[1143] But then as they start having bad returns and you're holding them, you're losing money.

[1144] What are you going to do?

[1145] How are you going to deal with that?

[1146] You're going to sell it or you're going to attempt to.

[1147] I want to be first out.

[1148] Of course.

[1149] Of course.

[1150] It's so confusing.

[1151] I mean, it must be flattering to you that you have the knowledge Bill Gates struggled with.

[1152] I hope you take some pride in that.

[1153] I love Bill Gates.

[1154] I love our conversations.

[1155] And it's just like having condomsations with Adam or something.

[1156] Or with you, right?

[1157] Everybody's got a picture of a little part of the world, and we get to exchange interesting thoughts.

[1158] And, you know, everybody has a piece.

[1159] Nobody's got even a significant piece, you know, just they're all those pieces.

[1160] And you still don't know that you're right.

[1161] Well, thank you.

[1162] I don't know I'm right.

[1163] People sometimes will ask, like, what have you guys learned over the four years of interviewing every Thursday, someone absolutely at the apex of their discipline, be it Adam, be it Bill Gates, be it you, be it Obama, all these people.

[1164] My conclusion now, talking to a good deal of the people is no one knows, you know, everything's kind of a spectrum.

[1165] You might be 68 % right.

[1166] That's pretty fucking good.

[1167] There's no binary.

[1168] We're doing our best.

[1169] We see some part of the cave with our flashlight, and everyone should have that kind of humility, because everyone's a little bit right and everyone's a bit wrong.

[1170] But that's why you can be writer.

[1171] You can be writer if you go through the jungle, like I'm describing, with people who can see things that you can't see and you're open -minded, you can be writer.

[1172] And a win for you, career -wise, can be 60%.

[1173] That's why I say that the key to success, is much more in knowing how to deal with what you don't know than anything you know.

[1174] It's a good takeaway.

[1175] Oh, my God.

[1176] This has been a blast.

[1177] I really, really appreciate it.

[1178] I hope I get to speak to you again in the future.

[1179] I look forward to it.

[1180] What a pleasure.

[1181] I really, really enjoyed it.

[1182] And again, for people who want to watch this incredible animated YouTube video that I watch today, it's entitled, I just fucking threw my pieces of paper away.

[1183] I can help you with this.

[1184] Okay.

[1185] It's called The Changing World Order.

[1186] You could see it on YouTube.

[1187] It's actually fun to watch.

[1188] As you said, it's completely approachable by anyone.

[1189] I really encourage people to watch it.

[1190] And now I can't wait to watch the machine one, too, because I missed that one.

[1191] How the Economic Machine Works in 30 minutes.

[1192] Great.

[1193] And then also for people who want a deeper dive by the book as well of the same title.

[1194] My pleasure.

[1195] Okay.

[1196] Be well.

[1197] Thank you both.

[1198] And now my favorite part of the show, the fact check with my soulmate Monica Padman.

[1199] I need to say something immediately.

[1200] Oh, my God.

[1201] I feel like a third wheel now.

[1202] Why?

[1203] Because Wobby Wob just won a championship.

[1204] Oh, yeah.

[1205] Robbie just won.

[1206] Well, he's not in here.

[1207] And he won a championship yesterday.

[1208] That's so exciting.

[1209] Big champion.

[1210] My sister, too.

[1211] She's on the team.

[1212] I know.

[1213] And Yardy.

[1214] Carly, you're and Robbie Wob are all champions, and you're a champion.

[1215] Shit.

[1216] And I'm not a champion.

[1217] Yet.

[1218] I'm running out of a team.

[1219] There's time.

[1220] There's time.

[1221] No, I think we're out of time.

[1222] Well, once we hit into Wade's Spades, we'll be champions at that.

[1223] It could be a Spades champion.

[1224] That is something maybe in my future.

[1225] Exactly.

[1226] Okay.

[1227] I don't want you to give up on your dream.

[1228] The only thing with Spades is there is an element of luck.

[1229] It's hard to be a champion.

[1230] There's an element of luck in any championship situation.

[1231] Is there?

[1232] Yeah.

[1233] Like your cheer routine.

[1234] Yeah.

[1235] It's not really luck.

[1236] It's like you practice it a trillion times And then you just land everything Yeah, but it could be the one I mean, you're right It's all skinny It is Unless you were like performing somewhere Where sometimes there was zero mile an hour wind Sometimes there was 75 mile in our win Then luck would be an element That's like on cheer They do have that because they are outside They're outdoors Your voice sounds a lot better by the way I only remembered when it cracked just now Got bad again that I realized Oh it's good again It's been a wild ride Another thing you need to know, update.

[1237] I'm 30 IQ points dumber than when you last saw me. Oh, my God.

[1238] Tell me. Well, on Friday, kind of out of nowhere.

[1239] Because when I quit things, I know like a couple weeks ahead of time, I'm going to quit them.

[1240] Yeah.

[1241] But I woke up Friday and I was like, today's the day.

[1242] You got to get your caffeine intake under control.

[1243] What level were you at?

[1244] Okay.

[1245] So I was at two in the morning, like pour two full cups of coffee in the morning.

[1246] And then I would sometimes, depending on our schedule, if I come up here, I have another coffee while I interview somebody.

[1247] If we do double, I have a coffee each interview.

[1248] So that's four.

[1249] If I work out as I have a pre -workout, that's a lot of caffeine.

[1250] And then I'll bang back a couple Diet Coke's, one with lunch, maybe one or two in the evening with dinner time.

[1251] What is that?

[1252] A trillion milligrams.

[1253] Oh, my God.

[1254] So I see you have a caffeine -free diet Coke.

[1255] I know.

[1256] and no coffee poured.

[1257] Do you notice it didn't smell good in here when you walked in?

[1258] Yeah, smelled poopy.

[1259] Yes, exactly.

[1260] So, starting on Friday, one cup of coffee.

[1261] Wow.

[1262] Oh, it's...

[1263] How's it going?

[1264] I mean, fine.

[1265] Have you been irritable?

[1266] Oh, good question.

[1267] No, pretty not irritable.

[1268] Uniritable?

[1269] Not irritable.

[1270] Iritable already sounds like the negation of something.

[1271] It's iriritable.

[1272] Yeah, so I'm just irritable.

[1273] Anywho, so.

[1274] I went down to, now I just have one coffee in the morning.

[1275] And one day I had one diet Coke, but then I haven't today.

[1276] And one of the days I didn't have a Diet Coke.

[1277] So it was literally just one cup of coffee each day.

[1278] And so yesterday I was at the Hansons and Matt was nice enough to compliment my new watch.

[1279] And I'm not wearing it now.

[1280] I think you saw it, but you didn't like it so you didn't compliment me on it.

[1281] I saw it?

[1282] I think so.

[1283] When?

[1284] Maybe you didn't see it.

[1285] I haven't seen anyone.

[1286] Okay.

[1287] All right.

[1288] Is it Shinola?

[1289] So you just, you just buried the headline.

[1290] Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

[1291] So at any point, and I think people think it's real gold.

[1292] And I make it very specifically, I tell them it's not real gold.

[1293] Okay.

[1294] Because it's solid gold looking.

[1295] Is it plated?

[1296] It's like electrostatic.

[1297] You know, it looks like gold.

[1298] It's not even gold plated.

[1299] Okay.

[1300] Okay.

[1301] And they say, what kind it is.

[1302] And then I say a mavado.

[1303] because I went to look to see if, and then blank, cannot think of Shinola.

[1304] I own three Shinola watches.

[1305] These are my favorite watches.

[1306] Couldn't think of Shinola?

[1307] Never did.

[1308] What's Movado?

[1309] That's another, like, company.

[1310] Oh, you just said it because you got worried about saying you couldn't remember.

[1311] The one I was wearing was a Movado, but what I wanted to tell them is that I had tried to see if Shinola had a fake gold watch.

[1312] Okay.

[1313] So I went there first.

[1314] They didn't have it.

[1315] So then it was just a random fake gold watch search on the internet, which brought me to Mavato.

[1316] Wow.

[1317] Similarly priced, similar quality, I guess.

[1318] Okay.

[1319] I can't speak on that.

[1320] I've only had it for a week.

[1321] That's not the point.

[1322] The entire point of this thing is that I could not think of Shinola.

[1323] And I have been wearing Shinola watches.

[1324] Again, I have three of them for a decade.

[1325] Okay, but listen, a couple things.

[1326] One, you did remember the name.

[1327] Hold on a second.

[1328] Because I just want you of all the details, and then you can do your rebuttal.

[1329] So then eventually I thought about it.

[1330] Okay, great.

[1331] You know, hours later.

[1332] And then about 20 minutes later, I was like, what's the name of your watch?

[1333] Lost it again.

[1334] I had to think about it for like 10 minutes.

[1335] I quizzed myself like seven more times for the day.

[1336] And four of those times, I couldn't get it after already struggling with it all day.

[1337] You're putting a lot of pressure on yourself and this happens sometimes.

[1338] One, that story's complicated.

[1339] There's a lot to remember.

[1340] Like, you did remember the actual.

[1341] I just fart No, but I do a flam Okay, oh good Put it in a pariet can You did remember Mavado Which is the actual name You just couldn't remember One detail about you lost it Chanel Literally I was going No but this is the other one I was trying to remember And then I lost it Oh my God, it's so scary to me It is scary Okay but this has been happening to me But I don't want to say this on air Because it's gonna offend someone who I love.

[1342] Uh -oh.

[1343] Well, try it.

[1344] I can't remember somebody's name.

[1345] Oh, okay.

[1346] I've been having this.

[1347] Yeah, trying to figure out their name.

[1348] But this is crazy.

[1349] It's the same thing.

[1350] It's your friend who I love, who loves me. Fabian.

[1351] Yes.

[1352] Yes.

[1353] Well, in your defense, let's leave this in.

[1354] Fabian, I'm so sorry.

[1355] But in your defense, there's no other Fabians.

[1356] That's what's spectacular about Fabian.

[1357] What other Fabian's are there?

[1358] That should make it me remember more.

[1359] No, like if someone's name is, ching and laxing thing, good luck.

[1360] You can't even remember how many syllables are in it.

[1361] True.

[1362] Because you never heard it before.

[1363] Yeah, but that's like, I can't pronounce it.

[1364] Fabian is easy to pronounce.

[1365] Fabian is like a fable.

[1366] I just, for like days, I've been thinking, I thought about Fabian.

[1367] I was like, oh, I wonder how Fabian is.

[1368] And then I didn't say, I wonder how Fabian is.

[1369] I said, I wonder how, what's his name?

[1370] Oh, my God, what?

[1371] And then I spiraled.

[1372] And then I haven't been able to remember it.

[1373] And then you, what, you go to a tumor, right?

[1374] Well, I've been blaming it on the COVID.

[1375] Good.

[1376] That's a good excuse.

[1377] And I'm blaming it on the caffeine.

[1378] Also, Little C. Yeah.

[1379] I got to say, I do have a lot of confidence that this whole level off.

[1380] It will.

[1381] But my brain, you should have seen, they were making fun of me yesterday at this hang.

[1382] Yeah.

[1383] I started a sentence.

[1384] I was like, what do you?

[1385] I couldn't even start a sentence.

[1386] And then they were all repeating it.

[1387] Because you never behaved like that.

[1388] Oh, I wish I was there.

[1389] I would have stuck up for you.

[1390] I hate to say, I'm sure most people.

[1391] First thought is, oh, Jesus, here we go again.

[1392] He's relapsed.

[1393] I'm sure.

[1394] No. You don't think so?

[1395] I think so.

[1396] No, it's a different look.

[1397] Okay, all right.

[1398] But I couldn't remember the name of my watch.

[1399] I could barely talk.

[1400] Like, if I were them, I bet I would think, like, oh, he's on the kind buds.

[1401] Oh.

[1402] I'm sad I miss that hang.

[1403] I know.

[1404] We invited you.

[1405] And, again, just let's get, let's out everyone.

[1406] Ryan, they were like, we don't give a. Fuck.

[1407] Who cares?

[1408] No one cares.

[1409] Because Amy said, like, you can come.

[1410] Like, we've all had it.

[1411] They just had it.

[1412] So that would have been fine, but we have two people in the group who haven't had it.

[1413] Right.

[1414] And one that can't get it.

[1415] Exactly.

[1416] So I did say, for their sake, I won't come.

[1417] Did you get the joke I just made?

[1418] One who can't get it?

[1419] Yeah.

[1420] Matt?

[1421] Me. Two that haven't had it and one who can't get it.

[1422] Oh, one who, like, is immune to it.

[1423] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1424] I'm really tempting fate now.

[1425] I know.

[1426] I want you to stop.

[1427] You're making me a little anxious.

[1428] All right.

[1429] All right.

[1430] I'll stop.

[1431] I'll stop.

[1432] I'm just not a champion.

[1433] So I got to cling to the little things.

[1434] This is a big thing, if you really are.

[1435] Little C champion.

[1436] I think maybe instead, my hope is that you did have it and you were just asymptomatic.

[1437] That's very likely.

[1438] You know, Anthony was asymptomatic.

[1439] A, big A. Yeah.

[1440] And he wasn't a champion either, but he was a champion of the Little C. Yeah, the Little C champion.

[1441] Okay, so this is a huge ding, ding, ding.

[1442] I'm on cough drops.

[1443] Okay.

[1444] Oh, I would love one just because, oh, and they're halls.

[1445] They're halls.

[1446] Previous addiction.

[1447] Yeah, I thought about that.

[1448] You see a couple hundred of these a day.

[1449] But they're menthol.

[1450] Yeah, that's the one I was addicted to.

[1451] Yeah, and we were just talking about cigarettes.

[1452] And I totally, you're totally right.

[1453] It's not mint.

[1454] It's eucalyptacy.

[1455] It's mint adjacent for sure.

[1456] Yeah, it's epipresent.

[1457] It's minty.

[1458] Yeah.

[1459] But you're right.

[1460] It's a vapor rub.

[1461] It tastes like a vapor rub.

[1462] I've already had two.

[1463] I'm going to.

[1464] have like four more.

[1465] Oh, good.

[1466] Yeah, they're very addictive, but they gave me gas.

[1467] Oh, my God, well, I'll report back.

[1468] Have you had any gas?

[1469] No, this is the first time.

[1470] I mean, I've only taken it for the past hour.

[1471] Oh, okay, you're new to these.

[1472] Yeah.

[1473] Okay.

[1474] So that was cool.

[1475] Yeah.

[1476] Now I know.

[1477] Okay.

[1478] So Adam and Ray have that personality test.

[1479] Oh, right.

[1480] And we're supposed to take it.

[1481] Well, here's the problem.

[1482] I think we've taken it.

[1483] Oh, when Adam was here?

[1484] I think.

[1485] That would make sense.

[1486] We could take it again.

[1487] Can we do like five of the questions and not get the results?

[1488] Sure.

[1489] Just so we're not breaking our promise to Ray Dalio.

[1490] Yeah.

[1491] Because we like him.

[1492] Yeah, we love him.

[1493] We're in love with them.

[1494] Okay, ready?

[1495] Yeah.

[1496] I am sensitive to others' emotions.

[1497] Disagree strongly and agree strongly.

[1498] And then there's like a continuum, like one, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

[1499] We did take this.

[1500] We did, right?

[1501] Yeah, for sure.

[1502] We already took it.

[1503] But we don't remember what I got.

[1504] What did the answer?

[1505] I don't know.

[1506] I don't know.

[1507] I don't.

[1508] think you and I need to find out if we can work together.

[1509] That's clear.

[1510] Maybe we shouldn't try it because what if it says we shouldn't?

[1511] Right.

[1512] And we don't want to be disrespectful to Ray or Adam.

[1513] Right.

[1514] Okay.

[1515] So we're not going to take it.

[1516] Well, we already took it.

[1517] Yeah.

[1518] We're not going to take it again is the point.

[1519] Oh my God.

[1520] Are those new shoes?

[1521] No, these are the ones that Hussein sent me. Oh.

[1522] My first pair of white shoes.

[1523] See, I definitely would have remembered your watch.

[1524] I noticed all this stuff.

[1525] I know, but you don't remember these.

[1526] This is what I to go see Husson when we went.

[1527] Oh, my God, you did a brain.

[1528] But I would have only thought you would remember because I made a big stink of the fact that I don't wear white shoes.

[1529] You, Molly, Eric and I, we went to see Husson.

[1530] Yeah.

[1531] And I wore a white shirt as well.

[1532] I do remember that.

[1533] It was white on, white on with maybe a black cardigan.

[1534] Again, I wouldn't remember.

[1535] Other than that, I was like, wow, I'm going to wear huge white shoes tonight.

[1536] Yeah, they're very cool.

[1537] I just got some white air maxes.

[1538] Oh, you did?

[1539] Oh, wonderful.

[1540] Ding, ding, ding, Girard.

[1541] Different episode, but still.

[1542] They're very fashion for girls.

[1543] I'm fashion now.

[1544] Oh, that's a different expression?

[1545] No, I made it up, but I am.

[1546] Oh, okay.

[1547] Because I've just been watching so many fashion videos, and I subscribe to Vogue now, and I got a Polaroid camera so I could take pictures of all my clothes.

[1548] Oh.

[1549] So that I can make outfits.

[1550] No. I'm going to hang them on my closet door.

[1551] And then I can see, it's just hard to see.

[1552] Mix and match.

[1553] Yeah, then I can mix and match.

[1554] Right.

[1555] Oh, I can't wait.

[1556] It's a new era.

[1557] This is very much like Nirmala's gardening schedule.

[1558] It sounds like.

[1559] I know.

[1560] I'm so.

[1561] You can't escape it?

[1562] I really can.

[1563] No. But I'm really excited.

[1564] And then you'll have a big whiteboard that you're pinning all these photographs to, then mix match the photographs?

[1565] I think I'm going to do washi tape.

[1566] Okay.

[1567] You know, that little tape.

[1568] It's a small tape.

[1569] And then I'm just going to hang the Polaroids with that tape.

[1570] Oh, okay.

[1571] All over your wall?

[1572] Of the closet.

[1573] Oh, the closet.

[1574] Okay, great.

[1575] So that when I open the closet door, I can see all the options.

[1576] And you'll be like, I want L4.

[1577] Yeah.

[1578] Yeah, exactly.

[1579] I'm wearing a cute outfit today.

[1580] Yeah, big time.

[1581] Pink.

[1582] I always get scared when I announce a color.

[1583] Yeah, it's pink.

[1584] There's always pushback from you.

[1585] But it's pink overalls.

[1586] Yeah.

[1587] Adorable.

[1588] Absolutely adorable.

[1589] And then a flowery, silky, thowery.

[1590] long -sleeve shirt top.

[1591] That's right.

[1592] Blouse.

[1593] High neck.

[1594] Exposed necklaces.

[1595] That's right.

[1596] Pearl necklace.

[1597] Pearl and gold.

[1598] Right.

[1599] But that was a gross.

[1600] Oh, it was gross.

[1601] Well, you know what, Pearl.

[1602] Yeah, I know.

[1603] They've ruined it.

[1604] It's not me. I just wanted to warn people that it was the actual jewelry.

[1605] Actually a pearl necklace.

[1606] Okay.

[1607] So we're not going to take that.

[1608] So that's over.

[1609] Well, it turns out we're compatible.

[1610] Oh, this is just a shout out to my friend because he talked about psychometricians, or he just mentioned the word in regards to the quiz.

[1611] He paired up with some psychometricians.

[1612] I bet that's a word most people don't know.

[1613] I don't.

[1614] Yeah.

[1615] One of my best friends, Robbie from home, is a psychometrition.

[1616] Really?

[1617] Yes.

[1618] And they basically, like, monitor tests.

[1619] Okay.

[1620] So, like, he worked at one point.

[1621] He tests, tests?

[1622] Kind of, yeah.

[1623] We'll get him on here.

[1624] All right, great.

[1625] Oh, I got to interject with one.

[1626] thing.

[1627] So as you know, I'm coming from the dermatologist.

[1628] Yeah.

[1629] And they cut something off my arm I was curious about.

[1630] And then she used that little zapping tool that cotterizes and burns.

[1631] I said, oh, my God, what's the name of this thing?

[1632] And she pointed it was written right on the wall.

[1633] Should have taken a photo, but we got in a little fight over it.

[1634] And I said, oh, my God, I got to find one on the internet.

[1635] I want one of these so bad.

[1636] How many times you've been in the dermatologist so they can just go zap, zap, zap, zap, zap?

[1637] I want that.

[1638] Well, wait, but first they cut it out, right?

[1639] Yeah, but sometimes they just do some zapping.

[1640] Oh, okay.

[1641] Yeah, and I want that thing.

[1642] Okay.

[1643] And so I said, oh, I'm going to try to find that on the Internet.

[1644] And she said, oh, please don't.

[1645] And I said, well, I think.

[1646] And then it became the age -old debate.

[1647] Oh, boy, what'd she think?

[1648] She mostly was just laughing.

[1649] And I told her how I pulled the rod out of my hand.

[1650] And then that kind of got me some street cred.

[1651] Not enough for her to co -sign on me buying.

[1652] Okay.

[1653] It was called like a charismatic.

[1654] It was a K -K -A -I.

[1655] Oh, shit.

[1656] I got to correct myself.

[1657] So a couple pilots commented.

[1658] Oh.

[1659] Some nicer than others.

[1660] I'll start with the guy that was big enough to say.

[1661] He's like, you blew all the language.

[1662] Like, that's not what any of the things are called.

[1663] You meant flaps when you said ailerons and you meant this and that.

[1664] But is it called a yoke?

[1665] That's what you were saying a lot.

[1666] Well, listen, they didn't comment on the yoke, which makes me believe I'm correct because they would have.

[1667] Believe me, I got blasted.

[1668] So I fucked up all the words for it.

[1669] Let me just own that.

[1670] Well, one of them was nice enough to say I actually had all the mechanics.

[1671] of it, correct.

[1672] Okay, that's nice.

[1673] Yeah, yeah.

[1674] Okay.

[1675] So pretty much a loss, but with a subtle...

[1676] By the way, I don't need to pass the definition test.

[1677] I just need to be able to manhandle that thing.

[1678] Yeah, that's right.

[1679] Are we going to get rid of the word manhandle?

[1680] Hmm.

[1681] No, because...

[1682] I think it's kind of a pejorative manhandle, isn't it?

[1683] Well, certainly if you manhandle a woman, ugh.

[1684] But if you man handle another man, not bad.

[1685] If I manhandle the yolk, that's fine.

[1686] Okay.

[1687] TBD.

[1688] How many minutes of meditation equals how much sleep?

[1689] It's hard to say.

[1690] One study out of Oregon State University's College of Business found that 10 minutes of meditation replaces about 44 minutes of sleep.

[1691] But the study only looked at overworked entrepreneurs who were already somewhat sleep deprived.

[1692] Not super conclusive, you could say.

[1693] Perhaps the main thing to consider is that as far as the body's concerned, meditation and sleep are two different things.

[1694] While sleep is meant to replenish your energy and help you heal, meditation is designed to cancel out the stress that made you tired in the first place.

[1695] A bit of a chicken and egg situation.

[1696] It's one person's thought.

[1697] This is ding -n -ding -ding because I've had to take two naps since I got off coffee.

[1698] Oh, of course.

[1699] I woke up this morning.

[1700] I had my coffee.

[1701] It handled the girls.

[1702] I went and worked out, and then I had a doctor's appointment at one, and it was 11 .30.

[1703] I'm like, I'm going to sleep for 40 minutes.

[1704] And I did.

[1705] 40.

[1706] That's long for you.

[1707] Wow.

[1708] Wow.

[1709] I know.

[1710] I'm dying, I think.

[1711] No, you're not.

[1712] But your body's been used to a lot of caffeine.

[1713] It's going to take a bit when he was 12 is when he started investing.

[1714] Uh -huh.

[1715] And he was saying, because, like, that's puberty time and stuff starts changing.

[1716] And then he said a lot of people have stories like that, like major entrepreneurs and stuff have stories like that.

[1717] Then you mentioned Jack Dorsey.

[1718] So at age 14, Dorsey became interested in dispatch routing.

[1719] Some of the open source software he created in the area of dispatch logistics is still used by taxi cab companies.

[1720] Dispatch is a procedure for assigning employees, workers, or vehicles to customers.

[1721] Industries at dispatch include taxi cabs, couriers, emergency services, as well as home and commercial services, such as maid services, plumbing, HVAC, pest control, and electricians.

[1722] In Uber, of course.

[1723] Right.

[1724] That's not on here.

[1725] Okay.

[1726] And he had written some dispatch software at 14?

[1727] Yeah.

[1728] So weird.

[1729] I know.

[1730] I mean, I can use that word for that, right?

[1731] Like, not normal, yeah.

[1732] Wow.

[1733] Kind of like Bill Gates designing virtually that same thing for getting classes, making people's schedules at his school.

[1734] Yeah.

[1735] I know.

[1736] That was his first paid deal.

[1737] And no one had been able to crack it.

[1738] He did.

[1739] Okay, because that's kind of sim.

[1740] I want to tell people about my evil sim.

[1741] had an evil sim moment.

[1742] Right.

[1743] I, yesterday, made myself a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

[1744] I haven't done that in five years, probably.

[1745] I don't remember the last time I ate that or even peanut butter and definitely not bananas.

[1746] I never, but I bought them because I was craving this sandwich.

[1747] So make it, eat it, delicious.

[1748] I am literally wiping my mouth of peanut butter when I open my email, and there's a recall.

[1749] It's from Instacart, and it's like, warning, one of the items you bought might be recalled.

[1750] Yeah.

[1751] It's the peanut butter that you just ate.

[1752] That I just consumed.

[1753] And I'm horrified to see the brand, because that's my favorite brand, the most trusted brand of peanut butter.

[1754] I know, we won't say it, but it's obvious.

[1755] Jeff.

[1756] No. Well, it's in the paper.

[1757] Okay, that's true.

[1758] Some have salmonella.

[1759] Yeah.

[1760] But you didn't have any gushies?

[1761] I did, actually.

[1762] You had a gushy afterwards?

[1763] I did.

[1764] I did.

[1765] I don't know if it was related.

[1766] I had two.

[1767] Humans are impossible to figure anything out.

[1768] You did so many things.

[1769] You got COVID.

[1770] You went here.

[1771] You went there.

[1772] Bananas could have been in the bananas, Listeria.

[1773] I doubt it.

[1774] Yeah.

[1775] Wow.

[1776] And were you banging the vitamin C still?

[1777] Like six a day?

[1778] No. You were over that phase.

[1779] Yeah, I wasn't doing that.

[1780] In fact, I took electrolytes after because of the squish.

[1781] Right.

[1782] And the funny thing is that you're like the electrolyte police and you didn't.

[1783] take any electrolytes the first five days of Little C. Except the emergency has electrolytes, and I took like 40 ,000 milligrams of it.

[1784] Right.

[1785] Actually, more than that.

[1786] I don't even know what a good or bad amount is.

[1787] Me either.

[1788] Anyway, that was bad sin, bad.

[1789] Right, yeah.

[1790] How much total credit given during COVID, lent and given?

[1791] 4 .6 trillion in total aid spending, total budgetary resources.

[1792] 4 .6 trillion.

[1793] Wow, wow, wow.

[1794] That's a lot.

[1795] I know.

[1796] We brought up alt -centrist.

[1797] It seems like maybe I've got a funder.

[1798] Yeah.

[1799] For your two -share company?

[1800] Well, just for my movement, my old centrist movement.

[1801] Right, right, right, right.

[1802] Yeah.

[1803] I got to say I was a little disappointed by the data he gave us.

[1804] I hope there's conflicting data.

[1805] That's really like 45 % of the country's bonkers.

[1806] 30 % of the Republican Party is extreme.

[1807] And 15 % of the left.

[1808] Liberal party, yeah.

[1809] I got to say in all my liberal circles, I'm hearing people, well, let me ask you, have you noticed any movement in the people you know?

[1810] More central?

[1811] Oh, yeah, central.

[1812] Oh, yeah.

[1813] Maybe.

[1814] I personally don't feel like I am super close with anyone very extreme left.

[1815] I'm not saying it for the country.

[1816] I have no clue what the country is, but I feel like California.

[1817] are starting to get frustrated with a lot of the liberal policies.

[1818] Oh, yeah.

[1819] I think you mean homelessness.

[1820] I mean homelessness.

[1821] I mean the taxes.

[1822] The fact that our gas is $2 more expensive than everyone else is driven solely by taxes.

[1823] A lot of people are frustrated with how long we held on to our COVID standards.

[1824] It feels like several things have been percolating up where I've heard people start to go like, yeah, I'm just not with all this anymore.

[1825] I guess that's true.

[1826] I feel that in the unhoused sector, for sure.

[1827] That, yeah.

[1828] This is complicated.

[1829] Ding, ding.

[1830] Because we were talking about, are we willing to break down this entire system over, like, two issues?

[1831] Oh, right.

[1832] Which, no, you know, we shouldn't.

[1833] We have to be really aware of that.

[1834] But it is hard when some of these things, one of these two issues is definitely abortions.

[1835] And it's like, are we willing to break down the system for these two issues?

[1836] No, but one of these issues affects so many people.

[1837] And it's horrible.

[1838] I think the thing that's curious about it, without getting into the debate of it all, is that every poll shows 65 % of Americans are in favor of keeping the right to have one.

[1839] Yeah, I think if it does get overturned, Roe v. Wade, you're going to see probably, I've got to imagine 30 states.

[1840] I don't know.

[1841] All in?

[1842] I mean, all these reds.

[1843] Yeah.

[1844] Yeah.

[1845] That's why it sucks.

[1846] Like, it sucks for states let are a little bit more even in its breakdown.

[1847] Mm -hmm.

[1848] Because, like, that just means so many people lose that right who would use it.

[1849] and wanted and needed, and it's scary.

[1850] You have to imagine that people are going to leave certain states.

[1851] I know.

[1852] I mean, we would never do this because it's mean, but I mean, the real way or a way, to get other states on board and to force people to really have to think about this in a real practical way is for, like, California to not allow an abortion for someone out of state.

[1853] And then they would have to move?

[1854] They wouldn't move.

[1855] I think so many, like, people can't.

[1856] Yeah, they can't.

[1857] People aren't going to move over abortions.

[1858] But I wonder if, like, people that are thinking about moving to certain states and they have young daughters, if they want to move somewhere where that's not an option, if they make a mistake in ninth grade.

[1859] I know.

[1860] I don't know.

[1861] I think even, like, some part of me thinks talking about it even makes it worse.

[1862] Yeah.

[1863] Because back to, like, what he and I were conversing about, it's like, 80 % of, the bandwidth is taken up with these two issues, which makes everyone feel like everyone's on the opposite side of the spectrum because of these two issues, that you can't move forward with all the other issues.

[1864] So it's like, I almost feel like there's just way too much attention put on both of the issues.

[1865] Yeah, but currently it's literally...

[1866] I mean, right now it's in the news everywhere.

[1867] Yeah, we have to.

[1868] Yeah.

[1869] But Norm, you know what I'm saying?

[1870] It's like, it's just reminding people, like, there's so many things we could talk about.

[1871] We could talk about like 85 things that probably both sides agree with.

[1872] Totally.

[1873] Or we could shine a light on this thing that's no one's ever going to agree on.

[1874] Yeah.

[1875] It's just like it's a waste of almost time because no one's going to agree.

[1876] Yes.

[1877] I mean, I understand that.

[1878] Let me be clear.

[1879] I'm not, because I'm sure there's a lot of people on the left that are mad at me for saying that.

[1880] I have my opinion.

[1881] But I have no illusion that I'm going to convince someone on the other side that they're going to, I'm not going to convert someone from pro life to pro choice.

[1882] It's not going to happen.

[1883] No. So you have to ask yourself, Is there any productive outcome of talking about it?

[1884] It's not like just, oh, you're being silent on your opinion and we need your opinion.

[1885] It's like, no, everyone that's pro -life is pro -life.

[1886] Everyone that's pro -choice is pro -choice.

[1887] That's that.

[1888] I don't believe anyone's coming over to either side.

[1889] It is, but currently that right is on the cutting board.

[1890] What is it called?

[1891] Chopping block.

[1892] Madabo, Chinola.

[1893] Chinola.

[1894] Movado.

[1895] Demi Mavado.

[1896] Yeah, so I do think we have to talk about it.

[1897] And women do have to think about this all the time.

[1898] The only thing, though, that is a common, I would say is that a little bit of a common fallacy.

[1899] It's like you might be inclined to say it affects 50 % of the country.

[1900] But it doesn't.

[1901] It affects, I don't know, what percentage is pro choice and female.

[1902] Because so many women are pro -life.

[1903] I think most really religious people don't really have a choice.

[1904] But some religious people, I would say like younger religious people, let's say, would never get an abortion.

[1905] Like they personally would never, but they are for the right to.

[1906] Oh, right, sure.

[1907] Yeah.

[1908] And that to me is, like, no one's forcing you to get one.

[1909] But I know, but it's like they think they're killing babies.

[1910] Yeah.

[1911] Yeah.

[1912] Oh, on a lighter note, have you watched the George Carlin documentary?

[1913] Mm -mm.

[1914] Do you, have you seen it pop up?

[1915] I think so.

[1916] I think it's on HBO.

[1917] Fuck, I don't know.

[1918] It could be on either, to be honest.

[1919] But it's pretty awesome.

[1920] I'm only through part one.

[1921] There's two parts.

[1922] But it's incredible because they're playing clips of his that are like 25 years old.

[1923] Oh, cool.

[1924] And they're talking about this phenomenon that people use his memes in all the current debates.

[1925] Like, he was so on to everything.

[1926] That's just so smart his verbal ability was kind of unparalleled yeah it's one of those things was he ahead of his time or are these things just cyclical remember the favorite quote that you hate but that is true history doesn't repeat itself it rhymes yeah see this is when it applies right it doesn't repeat itself that's a that's an abstract one for me i love it great it's a great one okay someone commented based on the last fact check, that we should call our hotel one -night stand.

[1927] I saw that, too.

[1928] And it's amazing.

[1929] It's incredible.

[1930] Great job, Arm Cherry.

[1931] Yeah, really good job.

[1932] One -night stand.

[1933] And just to remind everyone, the name of the full T -Rex skeleton was Stan.

[1934] Yeah.

[1935] Yeah, one -night stand.

[1936] Although we encourage people to book it out for like three, four nights.

[1937] Well, sure, but it's just a real cheeky name.

[1938] It is, it is.

[1939] But feel free to spend a week there.

[1940] If you want a honeymoon at one -night stand.

[1941] Or just regular fun.

[1942] Oh, yeah.

[1943] You don't have to be married.

[1944] We don't want to put into...

[1945] That's not what I was saying.

[1946] I was just...

[1947] It's customary for people to go for like seven days on a honeymoon.

[1948] That's what drove that.

[1949] I'm not trying to exclude...

[1950] If you want a lover's get away.

[1951] Do you want to butt -buck and do whatever you want to do.

[1952] I don't care.

[1953] All right.

[1954] All right.

[1955] That's all.

[1956] I'm glad you're back.

[1957] Me too.

[1958] Love you.

[1959] Love you.

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