Stocks, Rates & Jobs: The FOMC vs. The President
šØ Disclosure: Due to an unexpected technical plot twist, the show's cameras stopped recording at the 27-minute mark. But instead of leaving you hanging, we got creativeāreal MacGyver vibes. If you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, enjoy the unconventional but still brilliant presentation. Hey, sometimes the universe forces you to innovate!
This episode of The Higher Standard is a wild ride through the economic turbulence gripping America. Chris and Saied tackle the hottest financial headlines, from the staggering reality of consumer debt to the relentless grind of inflation. If you think your credit card balance is bad, wait until you hear the numbers on a national scale. The guys break down the absurdity of rising car prices, how big banks are cashing in on your financial struggles, and why the dream of homeownership feels like a distant fever dream for many Americans. Oh, and if youāre wondering whether the Fed will swoop in to save the dayāwell, letās just say, donāt hold your breath.
ā”ļø But itās not all doom and gloomāthereās strategy in the chaos. With their signature wit and no-BS approach, the trio explores how to navigate these economic headwinds without losing your sanity (or your savings). From interest rate hacks to the real way to build wealth, they break it down in a way that makes sense. And if youāre looking for an excuse to stop scrolling Zillow at 2 AM, this episode might be it. Buckle up, because The Higher Standard is bringing the hard truthsāplus a few good laughs along the way.
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š Resources:
$6 eggs and other inflation pain points: Here's where prices are rising (Yahoo! Finance)
Millions in US juggle several jobs (LinkedIn)
US Mortgage Rates Drop for a Sixth Week to Lowest Since December (Yahoo! Finance)
Redfin Spikes After Rocket Announces $1.75 Billion Deal To Buy The Company (Yahoo! Finance via Instagram)
ā ļø Disclaimer: Please note that the content shared on this show is solely for entertainment purposes and should not be considered legal or investment advice or attributed to any company. The views and opinions expressed are personal and not reflective of any entity. We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information provided, and listeners are urged to seek professional advice before making any legal or financial decisions. By listening to The Higher Standard podcast you agree to these terms, and the show, its hosts and employees are not liable for any consequences arising from your use of the content.
Transcript
I said the same thing to people.
Speaker A:I was like, hey, man, like, if you guys miss the explicit shows, I just want you to know those can be yours if the price is right.
Speaker B:Not.
Speaker B:Not a lot.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm not asking for a lot of money.
Speaker B:How about $3 a month?
Speaker A:No, I feel like we're worth five.
Speaker A:Five a month is good.
Speaker A:You can't even get a latte for $5 a month.
Speaker B:Put five on it.
Speaker A:That's all I'm saying.
Speaker A:So, yeah, let's.
Speaker A:Let's do a little podcast tonight.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the number one financial literacy podcast in the world.
Speaker B:Ooh, canned pop early.
Speaker A:It's vintage rune right there.
Speaker B:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker B:Sitting next to me is my partner in time, Chris Nahibi.
Speaker A:And sitting next to me, my partner in crime, the one and only side, Omar, everybody.
Speaker B:Thank you, my man.
Speaker B:And sitting behind the ones and twos, we have nobody.
Speaker B:Listen, I wanted to start the show right away, right out the gate, just like we promised.
Speaker B:If you leave us an honest 5 star review on Apple or Spotify, what.
Speaker A:Do we get one this weekend?
Speaker B:Well, so we've had this one and the count hasn't changed, but this got added, so it showed up late.
Speaker A:Is this on Apple?
Speaker B:It's on Apple, yeah.
Speaker A:So Apple will show the number of reviews, but the new ones have to go through some kind of filtering process.
Speaker B:Takes time, right?
Speaker B:So I figured, like, okay, we're a little.
Speaker B:We're a little late on this read.
Speaker B:I apologize.
Speaker B:Iron Fist 2.0.
Speaker B:Listen.
Speaker A:Really testing my restraint, brother.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:This was the no G episode titled the Best 5 Stars.
Speaker B:Yeah, clearly honest.
Speaker B:I really enjoy your podcast.
Speaker B:I've been listening since I heard you on Mind Pump.
Speaker B:Whenever that was.
Speaker B:All the days are running together.
Speaker B:You have really helped make financial topics accessible, funny, and comprehensive.
Speaker B:I appreciate you taking the time to create such good content.
Speaker B:And your stories are hysterical.
Speaker B:I've been telling everyone I know to tune in.
Speaker B:Also, the Chicago Fire comment from Saeed Son has had me rolling.
Speaker A:The Chicago.
Speaker B:Oh, keep up the great work.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:All right.
Speaker A:Took a minute.
Speaker A:I got there.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, we appreciate you, Iron Fist.
Speaker B:And if you wanted to be like Iron Fist, leave us an honest 5 star review on Apple.
Speaker B:We'll read it at the top of the show from time to time.
Speaker B:Or if you're watching this on YouTube, subscribe, hit that notification bell.
Speaker B:Hit that like button.
Speaker B:Let's get this video out to as many people as possible.
Speaker A:That's the goal.
Speaker B:That's the goal.
Speaker A:The more of you out There listening to us, the more of us we can give you.
Speaker A:That's a conundrum right there.
Speaker A:That's what they call that, ego.
Speaker A:So this has been a very chaotic week in the markets.
Speaker A:Stock market has gone all sorts of sideways since the tariff talk came out.
Speaker A:And lucky for us, we happen to put out an episode this week on Tuesday covering nothing but tariffs.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And as well, tied.
Speaker A:I actually thought the episode was gonna do a little better than it did on the streaming numbers.
Speaker A:It did about normal for us.
Speaker A:I thought it was gonna be like a big.
Speaker B:A big one because, yeah, all the talks on tariffs had been going on and it came back again after everything that.
Speaker B:Because the market moved in the market.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I don't.
Speaker A:I don't know why that didn't happen.
Speaker A:Obviously, I tried to advertise that episode on the YouTube platform.
Speaker A:It was denied because of political advertising, which is crazy.
Speaker B:How can you not these days?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker A:So everything's political.
Speaker B:Yeah, bro.
Speaker A:I can't even talk about the educational politics intertwined.
Speaker A:Politics.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You just can't get away from it.
Speaker A:It's really frustrating.
Speaker A:So I'm going to be the first to admit that with all the things going on in the stock market and people starting to freak out, that there is a narrative of people going, oh, my God, the R word.
Speaker A:Is there a recession coming?
Speaker B:It's not just that.
Speaker B:I mean, let's just get the flag out of the way early.
Speaker A:Okay, go for it.
Speaker A:Flag us up.
Speaker B: ut a chance at a recession in: Speaker B:And I think that in conjunction with all the tariffs talks.
Speaker B:Tariffs are on.
Speaker B:Tariffs are off.
Speaker B:Yeah, Retaliation.
Speaker B:We're going to cut off electricity.
Speaker B:Ok.
Speaker B:No, we're not.
Speaker A:Do you think that's posturing by him, though?
Speaker A:Do you think he's saying, look, I don't want a recession for the country, but I'm not going to rule it out because I want those other countries to know that I'm not going to back off my tariff position.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So he's just sending the narrative out that he knows they need to hear to get the reaction because, you know, like, let's just say Canada, they're up there going like, this dude's crazy.
Speaker A:No, he's out here saying he's not ruling out a recession that he's going to cause.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly, bro.
Speaker A:You got to give him his tariffs.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker B:I mean, Canada has all kinds of problems.
Speaker B:They said that they want to come out and put some tariffs on China.
Speaker B:China's like, oh, bet.
Speaker B:How about we put 100.
Speaker B:100% tariff on you?
Speaker B:How about that?
Speaker A:Yeah, man, I see.
Speaker B:That's a bad.
Speaker B:That's a bad chess move.
Speaker A:I was like, wow, you guys really went over the extreme.
Speaker A:Y'all couldn't go, like, 1% higher than them.
Speaker A:Just.
Speaker A:Just keep going.
Speaker B:Don't get yourself confused.
Speaker B:You are not America.
Speaker B:Like, we.
Speaker B:Can we play ball differently with y'all?
Speaker A:I just want one country to go Price is right strategy.
Speaker A:1%.
Speaker B:That's so good.
Speaker B:Yeah, Price is Right strategy.
Speaker A:All our tariffs are 1%.
Speaker A:No one's going Price is Right.
Speaker A:By the way, Price is Right fell off when Drew Carey came on.
Speaker A:Can I say that?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, you could say that.
Speaker B:But it's still a good show.
Speaker A:It's still a good show.
Speaker A:But Bob Barker was the og Man.
Speaker B:That was literally the.
Speaker B:The show that I would look forward to if I ever stayed home sick.
Speaker A:If I was sick.
Speaker A:Yeah, Price is Right, bro.
Speaker B:I gonna have some breakfast.
Speaker B:A little more to cartoon right into Price is Right.
Speaker A:You know, when I was a kid, like, I.
Speaker A:I would sit there when I was sick and go, I might be sick, but, man, this makes me feel good.
Speaker A:And then I think, like, yo, like, all, like, the stay at home parents in the world, they get to watch this every day.
Speaker B:Every day.
Speaker A:Did not even dawn on me they might have other things to do.
Speaker A:They can watch this every day.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker B:How are you not watching this every day?
Speaker A:Oh, like, how are you not in it?
Speaker A:That was back when television was.
Speaker A:Wasn't on demand.
Speaker B:And with.
Speaker B:With the Internet and Instagram.
Speaker B:I mean, the Internet's just.
Speaker B:It could be the worst place on any given day.
Speaker B:It could be the best place on any given day.
Speaker A:It's always the best place.
Speaker B:When they show you the.
Speaker B:Some of the old footage and some people are winning and they're coming up on stage in a wheelchair, and they're like, this is gonna be your prize.
Speaker B:A brand new car.
Speaker B:You're like, y'all.
Speaker B:Y'all could have gave this person anything.
Speaker B:Why did you.
Speaker A:Y'all could have given him a couch.
Speaker B:You knew what you were doing.
Speaker B:Why did you do this?
Speaker A:Or like, when somebody's the world class bad, like, assessment of value, like, yeah, that's $15,000.
Speaker A:And you're like, Bro, that's like $500.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:What are you, like, what are you doing?
Speaker A:Did you ever go up on the set up in Burbank?
Speaker B:Never did.
Speaker B:I always wanted to.
Speaker A:Never did So I went up there once and I was with a bunch of people that wanted to wait and get on the show.
Speaker A:There's just like this massive cattle line out in front and I was like, brian, I ain't doing it.
Speaker A:And all my friends went and I went to the mall and just chilled.
Speaker A:Yeah, I was, I wasn't about that life.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, no, yeah.
Speaker A:Just plus.
Speaker A:But there's like a whole bunch of like, you know, people who go together and like, it's like a team building event thing for some people.
Speaker A:It's just weird, man.
Speaker A:I don't.
Speaker A:The vibes are off.
Speaker B:For me, the vibes are definitely off and not.
Speaker B:So to piggyback off that a little bit, we talked about it already with the tariffs, talks to the tariffs, with Trump not ruling out the idea or the possibility, I should say, of a recession at some point this year.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It's got people a little emotional, a little shook.
Speaker B:A little shook.
Speaker B:And the last thing you want to do.
Speaker B:Look, we're not, we're not giving out financial advice, but my strategy has always been dollar cost averaging hold long term.
Speaker B:You don't want to miss out on those 10 best days of the year.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:Those 10 best days could happen at any given time.
Speaker B:And if you're trying to like take your money out when everything is starting to come down, because when you experience we all, we all felt this, that the market was probably overvalued at the end of last, by the end of last year and we're all kind of like, man, another another year of 20 gains.
Speaker B:This is, this is amazing.
Speaker B:But everyone's kind of waiting for, okay, when's this thing going to start to turn around?
Speaker B:And now that there's a little bit of negative news you're seeing, you're seeing Tesla come down 30 some percent, right?
Speaker B:There's been a correction in, in crypto.
Speaker B:S P 500 has even come down some right year to date and Magnificent Seven.
Speaker B:Now people are like pulling their money out and I'd be like, I mean that's not the, that's not the play here.
Speaker A:It's, it's buying and holding strays on your crypto trash talking, right?
Speaker A:Like even the David Sack stuff recently I catch a strays on people on social media.
Speaker A:Be like, hey, hey man, holla at your boy.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Somebody literally asked me on today's episode, like, hey, can comment on him like, you know, coming back and saying why he did what he did and why he said what he said.
Speaker B:And I'm like, we could, we could bring it up at a later time.
Speaker B:We'll.
Speaker B:We'll find a way.
Speaker A:Come on.
Speaker A:You saying stuff or.
Speaker B:No, it was David Sachs, bro.
Speaker A:Your David Sacks comment from the last episode got.
Speaker B:Nobody came to me with it, dude.
Speaker A:All over, like, X man, I'm getting just strays from you.
Speaker A:Hey, man, you talking.
Speaker A:I'm like, what are you talking about?
Speaker A:Then someone finally came back as.
Speaker A:It wasn't him, that was Saeed.
Speaker A:And I'm like, bruh, I think he's.
Speaker B:A very likable guy.
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker B:Like, don't get me wrong, I get it all in podcasts, right?
Speaker A:Like, okay, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:First of all, let's be honest.
Speaker A:In my office, I think it was Monday this week, maybe it was last week when you noticed that crypto had fallen below 80,000.
Speaker B:I was doing a little.
Speaker B:I was doing a little shimmy.
Speaker A:You were so happy in my office.
Speaker B:I was shimmying a little bit.
Speaker B:I was doing a Steph Curry dance in the office.
Speaker B:I was, yeah, all right.
Speaker B:I'm not going to lie.
Speaker B:I was.
Speaker B:But like, it.
Speaker B:What bothers me, okay?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's a little miss.
Speaker B:It's a little misleading.
Speaker B:Okay?
Speaker B:When David.
Speaker B:David Sacks, you know, Trump's czar, right?
Speaker B:Crypto czar.
Speaker A:Or as you say, Cesar, right?
Speaker B:Caesar.
Speaker B:He's the Caesar.
Speaker B:He's the Julius Caesar.
Speaker B:No, his czar is saying, like, look, bitcoin's been around 15 years and look, it's gone from zero all the way up to we're still at $80,000.
Speaker B:I'm like, okay, but you're also neglecting to mention that it had three dips of when it.
Speaker B:When it went down by 80% three times.
Speaker B:So are we just going to ignore that?
Speaker B:Are we just not going to mention that it fluctuated and that's not a risk to people?
Speaker A:Well, let's just say it also fluctuated that much three times in a narrow window of time, which makes it way more volatile than any other type of investment on the market.
Speaker A:And I know people are gonna get upset about that, so let me explain.
Speaker A:There has been one real significant real estate recession, the Great Recession.
Speaker A:Everything else has been recessionary.
Speaker A:There's been some housing like impacts, but nothing like the Great Recession.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:At least not yet anyway.
Speaker A:And that's once in hundreds of years.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's had some dips over time, sure, but nothing as meaningful as that.
Speaker A:One moment.
Speaker A:The stock market, you've had a couple over the course of hundreds of years, right?
Speaker A:1929, the Great Depression.
Speaker A: had the tech bubble bursting,: Speaker A:There's also some volatility.
Speaker A:But how often do you see US equities, stocks and companies drop that much in the course of a couple years and spike back up?
Speaker A:Love or hate cryptocurrency, that type of volatility is difficult because it creates uncertainty in the markets and it creates confusion.
Speaker B:Now, do I think things have a lot has changed since then?
Speaker B:Do I think there's a lot more institutional money in it now with the, the backstop of the government creating some crypto reserve and there being E.
Speaker B:ETFs that make crypto seem that much more legitimized.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Does, does that now potentially, I guess, decrease the potential of this happening again?
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I would.
Speaker B:I would imagine.
Speaker A:I would hope.
Speaker B:I would hope.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But that still doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And to your point about, you know, the Great Recession, and we talked about not letting something scare you at the end of the day.
Speaker B:What was, what was the, the worst time?
Speaker B: Was it: Speaker A: September: Speaker B:Values.
Speaker B:Values came.
Speaker A: started to hit a wall in late: Speaker A: Early: Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B: Early: Speaker B:Okay, let's just.
Speaker B:That was the, that was the worst time.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Had you bought a home at that time, you'd be sitting very pretty right now.
Speaker A:Yeah, but you also bought a home three years ago, be sitting very pretty right now.
Speaker B:No, but you, but you would be sitting even a lot prettier.
Speaker B:Yeah, a lot prettier if you bought back then.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So my, my point is, let's not.
Speaker B:Get.
Speaker B:Don't, don't ever get too emotional if you're.
Speaker B:If the strategy is buy and hold for the long term, you got to stick to your strategy.
Speaker A:Okay, Can I just.
Speaker A:So I kind of set you up a little bit tonight.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I knew you were going down this path, and I kind of had an idea of what your take was going to be.
Speaker B:Why'd you do this?
Speaker A:Because I am the devil.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:The listeners know a devil who loves.
Speaker A:You, which is not good for you in your future.
Speaker A:How do you feel about warm temperatures?
Speaker B:Warm temperatures.
Speaker A:So crypto effectively went about 20% down.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:You're thinking, oh, my God, that's volatile.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:It's volatility.
Speaker A:20% is a big number.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:They classify 20% as a potential what a crash?
Speaker A:20%.
Speaker A:Anything 20% or more is defined as a crash versus anything less than that would be a correction.
Speaker A:Not necessarily specific to crypto, but generally speaking in the real estate market or the stock market, anything more than that type of correction and you're talking about a crash.
Speaker A:But there are, there are things that we look at pretty consistently that move at any given point in time, 20% or more.
Speaker A:And since we're here, Saeed.
Speaker B:Oh, what did I do this?
Speaker A:According to Yahoo Finance, inflation is still running hot.
Speaker A:Little surprise to consumers feeling the sting in everyday purchases.
Speaker A:The consumer price index surged 2.8% over the prior year in February and the month over month increase was 0.2%.
Speaker A:Both measures cooling from January.
Speaker A:Yet categories like food, medical care and used cars remain elevated.
Speaker A:Here's what the latest CPI report means for your household.
Speaker A:And well should come as no surprise.
Speaker A:Auto insurance at the top, 11.1% up in 12 months.
Speaker A:11.1% up in auto insurance.
Speaker A:And I gotta tell you, I got farmers for auto and I got the auto pay, but I get notifications whenever it rolls out, every like month or quarter, whatever the hell it's on.
Speaker A:Yeah, that number has gone up hundreds of dollars now.
Speaker A:And I, you know, I have more cars and stuff but you know, it's just, yeah, it's, it's like I don't pay that close of attention to the number and I recognize it's going up like that's not good.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:That's 11% 12 months.
Speaker A:But cumulatively we know food has gone up 20%.
Speaker A:So is food just as volatile as cryptocurrency side?
Speaker B:Well, food is awkward.
Speaker B:Hold on, hold on.
Speaker A:This is awkward for you.
Speaker B:Hold on.
Speaker B:Food has always been known to be so volatile that the Fed even chooses to not look at it.
Speaker A:All right, prescription drugs, number two on the inflation report.
Speaker A:As of the last 12 months and change, prescription drugs are up 4.6%.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Rent up 4.1%.
Speaker A:How?
Speaker A:Housing.
Speaker A:Yeah, housing's up 3.9%.
Speaker B:Okay, so.
Speaker B:But that's been the lowest reading for over, I think over a year or two.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:So I mean that is coming down in the right direction and we know that is a lagging indicator.
Speaker B:Which, speaking of which.
Speaker B:Oh no, no, I know we, I know you want to get into at some point the show, the latest Update on the 30 year fixed mortgage.
Speaker A:Oh yeah, I have that in here.
Speaker A:Wow, look at you look at the show notes.
Speaker A:It's cute.
Speaker B:It's cute.
Speaker B:So right now what people are seeing is that Homes are staying online for longer.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And they're actually seeing a lot more price reductions.
Speaker A:The market is stagnant, though.
Speaker A:We, we're in the space for a living.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Both commercial and the single family side.
Speaker A:And I can tell you that on both the multifamily commercial real estate mortgages and the single family mortgages, there has been a very palpable and in my mind, unexplained slowdown in transactions.
Speaker A:And I think it's as simple as to say that the economic uncertainty and all the turmoil in the markets has rattled the consumer, both the professional, multifamily investor, real estate consumer and the consumer who's just buying a home for themselves.
Speaker A:It's rattled everybody.
Speaker A:And everybody's on this, like, hold, wait and see.
Speaker A:Let's.
Speaker A:I don't know what's going to happen.
Speaker B:Kind of like feeling in addition to there already being an affordability crisis right now, granted, the best, the best time to buy if you are a buyer typically, historically has always been in the fall.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:That's when, you know, families aren't looking to move, kids are already in school, holidays are right around the corner.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:But the best time to technically list is coming up.
Speaker B:It's mid April.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:So I'm actually waiting to see that because I like to look at it from like, historic, like standpoint.
Speaker B:If that's the best time, well, then let's see how the market reacts during what has always been known to be the best time.
Speaker A:So with all this volatility and all these things costing us more, inflation in my mind was kind of a.
Speaker A:It wasn't a negative report, it wasn't a positive report.
Speaker A:It was kind of very vanilla.
Speaker B:Mm.
Speaker A:It's one of the reports that came out this week and there were several reports that, that are.
Speaker A:That came out this week that I think are notable and we'll talk about those a little later on at the end of the show.
Speaker A:Just if you guys want to go recap them, some of which will.
Speaker A:I'll give you some insight on and some of which you should go look up.
Speaker A:That was going to be part of my weekly, my weekly 15 minute podcast.
Speaker B:I don't think we did we talk.
Speaker B:We haven't said that.
Speaker A:No, we talked about the last show at the beginning.
Speaker B:It was real brief though.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I actually recorded this weekend a 15 minute in front of a teleprompter that I set up in here show that I was going to put out with all like the high points that, you know, if you're in Real estate.
Speaker A:It would have been perfect for you if you're frankly interested in finance at all.
Speaker A:In perfect just kind of give the high points of what to expect next week.
Speaker B:I mean some would, some would go as far as saying give you a pulse of what's going on in the market.
Speaker A:Polls, baby.
Speaker A:That's what we're going to call it.
Speaker A:I designed an album cover to the whole thing.
Speaker A:Came in, recorded it, got home.
Speaker A:The audio file just was not there.
Speaker B:First time that's ever happened to us.
Speaker A:Never happened to me.
Speaker A:It was, it was like the world was telling me, chris, nobody wants to see you without sight.
Speaker B:It did happen.
Speaker B:It did happen.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:It did happen once when odun didn't hit the record button.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But I still had the audio in the camera bodies.
Speaker A:This one had nothing.
Speaker A:Like, it was just, it was, it was strange.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which this show might have.
Speaker A:Nothing we might have put on Tuesday, but.
Speaker A:So yeah, you could argue that it's a stressful time.
Speaker A:So I'm, I, every once in a while I open up the LinkedIn app and, and after cussing out whoever solicits me with some really annoying message, I tend to scroll.
Speaker A:You know, I saw this article today and people do that.
Speaker B:People do that on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:People don't come after people on LinkedIn where it's like a professional public setting, do they?
Speaker A:Oh my God.
Speaker A:I've had like respected economists come at me hard publicly.
Speaker B:I'm starting.
Speaker B:So now that I'm in the social media, like Zeitgeist, if you will, not only on LinkedIn but even on Instagram when I'm seeing posts and then I just view like the, the like count.
Speaker B:I'm like, man, kudos to the people out there that are just openly liking this stuff and not caring if their co workers see it or not.
Speaker B:I'm like, you are some savages.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And then as somebody who's closely watched, as I am.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:To see people out there this cavalier, I'm like, what company do you work for that.
Speaker A:What's the rules there?
Speaker B:I know, right?
Speaker B:Like, like how do you.
Speaker A:I had somebody that I, I know is employed.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:With an open to networking like badge on their profile, liking all the competitors pictures and like photos and I can see all the stuff that you like.
Speaker A:We all know what you're doing right now.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:Like I, I see it.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like just, just the only thing you haven't said is I am interviewing while I'm here.
Speaker A:You know what I mean?
Speaker A:It's like, come on, Bro, like, try to be a little more classy about it.
Speaker B:Yeah, just be a little careful.
Speaker B:Come on, you people are watching.
Speaker A:They watching.
Speaker A:I don't even know you that well.
Speaker B:And I see with what, with what's going on in the market, and I know you got an article here with how many, how many jobs people have.
Speaker B:I know the job opening numbers in comparison to how many people are actually out there.
Speaker B:Like, employed versus unemployed is way down from where we were just a year, two years ago, where it was like two job openings for every, like, unemployed person.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But we've long criticized that as being ghosting ghosted.
Speaker A:Positions that aren't real.
Speaker A:Companies want to look like they're hiring still, even though they're not hiring, there's all sorts of shenanigans.
Speaker A:And I've said before on previous shows, a lot of these job boards, to me are just additional marketing for companies.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Just, you know, make it seem like they're growing, right?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I, I, I, who's really paying attention to that?
Speaker A:To what?
Speaker B:Like, like, are people going on to other, other people's, like, career pages being like, let's see how, how much they're growing, how many, how many positions are they?
Speaker A:I think it's more complex than that.
Speaker A:I don't think it's somebody going like, oh, I'm going to fool the market by showing them that.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker B:Okay, what is it?
Speaker A:I think it's a company saying, like, look, like, I don't want to be in a situation where we pull all of our job postings off at once.
Speaker A:And if you're hiring for salespeople, you just perpetually keep the salesperson role out there.
Speaker A:Because if you get a really good originator or somebody with a really good book of business, you're gonna want to hire them for whatever business you're in.
Speaker A:You'd be selling widgets, right?
Speaker A:Selling cantaloupe for all I care.
Speaker A:If somebody, you know, you want to keep that conversation, communication point open.
Speaker A:That doesn't mean that you budgeted and planned for somebody, but if you find somebody spectacular, maybe, you know, and keep in mind too, like, there's a suite of services that a lot of companies are using on LinkedIn.
Speaker A:Because if you go to LinkedIn, like, if you're like a company that's a large enough size, you have somebody dedicated to you, that's your account manager, they sell you more and more products and services, teach you how to use the function of LinkedIn to get you deeper, the deeply integrated into their system, and part of that is a job postings.
Speaker A:Part of that is a culture.
Speaker A:Go to about the About Us page and on LinkedIn you see how the culture works.
Speaker A:A lot of these companies, it's a marketing tool for these companies.
Speaker A:Look how great we treat our people, look how happy they are in these photos.
Speaker A:So the crazy thing about it from a business perspective is, and I know I'm going off on a tangent is the intranet used to be this, this resource for companies that was much more than your, your repository of documents and policies and procedures and guidance.
Speaker A:It was a way to market internally to your employees.
Speaker A:So naturally, whenever you went to work every single day, your, your home screen on your Internet browser was always your Internet because you look in and you see all the announcements, you see everybody's birthdays, you see all that kind of baseline information.
Speaker A:But it was a way to internally market to your employees and it was a cultural jumping off point.
Speaker A:The problem in America today is that that has gone outside of the company to platforms like social media.
Speaker A:And a lot of new leaders have embraced it.
Speaker A:And you'll see like CEOs of larger companies actively engaged on at least one platform.
Speaker A:Usually it's like X, if it's like a tech company or you know, there's some that are actively engaged on LinkedIn and there's a lot of people who are more traditional, they like to go to networking events and stuff like that.
Speaker A:But there's a lot more executives that are now embracing the social media ambiance and companies too, because they know they need to market to their, their, their employees internally and externally on external platforms.
Speaker A:Because if you think about it, you're in the office logging in only so much of the time, but your phone is always with you, right?
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker A:And it's a dangerous balancing act because this also means as an employee you're always going to be watched whether you're on the clock or not with your activities.
Speaker B:So you got to be careful.
Speaker B:And we actually, I think we were talking about this too the other day where if you were, if, if you as a company, if you really wanted to make us have a social presence, this is not a light source that you could just like turn on.
Speaker B:This is, there's a ramp up period, right, where like you gotta, I guess maybe there's a whole marketing plan behind it and you try out a couple, a couple different methods and see what works.
Speaker B:And it probably takes a Greater portion of 6, 12, 18 months for it to really get ramped up and going.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:So there, there's the most common way that companies are doing this successfully today on social media is actually really interesting to me.
Speaker A:And I went down this.
Speaker A:So Gantt does this, the clothing line.
Speaker A:There's a, there's a coffee shop that does this out of the Midwest, which is really fascinating.
Speaker A:What they've done is they, they hired.
Speaker A:So I'll use the coffee shop as an example is they hired a, a cinematographer like a real film production company.
Speaker A:And what they do is, is they've now created a, almost like a mini social media television series which highlights their product.
Speaker A:So a customer will come in and they have these funny clips of their baristas talking to these customers in these made up hypothetical situations.
Speaker A:But it's very well lit, it's beautifully cinematic.
Speaker A:It's very engaging because you see it, it looks like a movie, but it's only like a minute or two long.
Speaker A:They've now have these series where every time you see it, the aesthetic, the look, the feel of it, you know exactly who it is, you know exactly what it is.
Speaker A:But you know you're going to be entertained.
Speaker A:You know, it's going to be high quality production.
Speaker A:And you almost forget there's a coffee shop tied to this.
Speaker A:So then what they do is they take it up a notch is once they build like a consistent theme and story, they then bring on micro influencers who have their own following to appear in their series.
Speaker A:And then they bring their own personality and, you know, cachet to it.
Speaker B:Smart.
Speaker A:So, so now you have this cross promotion without you, you like, you know, going, hey, go to this coffee shop.
Speaker A:I endorse them, they're amazing.
Speaker A:Instead, you're very much more passively saying, check out this coffee shop.
Speaker A:Because here's this skit of me interacting with them, playing my personality with their promotion, right?
Speaker A:And it's really fascinating take.
Speaker A:And then, then you wind up having this, this, this story that's not only engaging, it's visible.
Speaker A:And people are watching it intentionally because they want the story so they don't really realize they're being marketed to.
Speaker A:This works really well for clothing companies because if you think about it, when you buy clothes, you buy clothes because they look cool on somebody else, right?
Speaker B:Or you aspire to be this person, right?
Speaker B:Or live that specific type of lifestyle.
Speaker A:But it's not in your face.
Speaker A:Marketing.
Speaker A:Ooh, buy this, buy this, buy this.
Speaker A:Yeah, that works with some of the sales stuff, right?
Speaker A:And I love it when people do this.
Speaker A:Oh, my God, it was 50% off, so I bought two.
Speaker A:You spent the same amount of money yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:Nobody ever buys one when it's 50% off.
Speaker A:They always buy two.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You justified in your head.
Speaker A:But I got twice as much.
Speaker A:But you spent the same amount of money.
Speaker A:You see what, you see what happened here, right?
Speaker A:They still got the dollars out of you.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:So, and this is where it gets weird, but for clothing companies, what's really fascinating is, is if you have one of these micro influencers come on and they're wearing your clothes now, you've crossed into people who are washing your skit because they like it, because it's funny, or a coffee shop.
Speaker A:Now you have their following, but your clothes are in this image and it's just like a passive background.
Speaker A:And some people are like, oh, my God, like, that beanie's cool.
Speaker A:I want that beanie.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:And it's just such a subtle, like, smooth way to pimp products out.
Speaker B:Oh, man.
Speaker B:Speaking.
Speaker B:Speaking of which, I can't say the company's name because I don't know if it's out there or not, but I know of some of these.
Speaker B:These quotes that these influencers are giving out for what they would charge for four posts.
Speaker A:It's pretty wild, right?
Speaker B:Like, baffling.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Like, granted, this person is a celebrity, like, I don't know, maybe D list.
Speaker B:I don't even know what, where.
Speaker B:But not, not very high.
Speaker B:But we're talking millions.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:People for four posts a year.
Speaker B:It's in.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's wild, man.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:And this is where I think large companies can miss this is.
Speaker A:Your social notoriety is quantifiable in a meaningful way.
Speaker A:Yes, people have fake followers.
Speaker A:Yes, you'll have fake engagement, but all the companies do is pay for a post with you.
Speaker A:And then if you're an affiliate or have an affiliate code or they have trackers in place and all the big ones do, they're going to track how much crossover they get.
Speaker A:They either get business from you, they don't.
Speaker A:To justify how much they paid you.
Speaker A:And the analytics there will speak for themselves.
Speaker A:It doesn't matter how fake or real your account is.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:I mean, I'm saying if you're a Kardashian, it's a different set of circumstances.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But if you're a micro influencer.
Speaker B:I always wonder, though, because if you're, if you're the.
Speaker B:If you.
Speaker B:Let's say you're the influencer now, let's forget a celebrity.
Speaker B:But you're just somebody that has a big social media presence and you charge X dollar for, you know, a post and now, the analytics will say I had a certain number of people cross over and you can, you can check to see.
Speaker B:But it's your fault that you didn't close.
Speaker B:It's not my fault that you weren't able to close a deal with these people.
Speaker B:And it's like.
Speaker B:Well, they could technically.
Speaker B:Now just.
Speaker B:The influencer could have technically just bought some bots.
Speaker A:Yeah, most, most the affiliates, though, are, they're not, they're not like a sale close, like closing sales on calls.
Speaker A:It's just you go to the website and you, you buy or you don't buy.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:And they don't care whether we close or not.
Speaker A:It's either your base buys our product or they don't.
Speaker B:Right, I know, because it gets very.
Speaker B:They got their own code.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's very binary.
Speaker A:But, you know, so I've seen this in, like, the human social setting, and this is where it gets really fascinating.
Speaker A:And I promise this gets back to the business conversation we're having.
Speaker A:I promise.
Speaker A:But Fire shot my friend Esquire on Instagram at Esquire with five.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:He's got, like, over a million followers.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:You know, he's my friend.
Speaker A:I don't really care, but.
Speaker A:And I, I, I forget sometimes that, you know, he's got.
Speaker A:Yeah, I forget.
Speaker A:I just.
Speaker A:Because, you know, he's my friend.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker A:And I've seen people, like, socially go from, like, completely disinterested, like, hey, man, like, you got a million followers, bro.
Speaker A:Like, yo, like, what's up?
Speaker A:And you're like, wait a minute, like.
Speaker B:What, what just happened?
Speaker A:Like, what are we doing here?
Speaker B:Yeah, what just happened?
Speaker A:Like, you were completely ignoring this person, and now all of a sudden you want a meaningful connection.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:It's just so disingenuous.
Speaker A:But that's, that's what these numbers of followers do to people.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Is it change?
Speaker A:Somebody who had no interest in talking to you, now all of a sudden will have an interest in talking to you and want to engage with you solely because of these numbers.
Speaker A:Think about how weird that is.
Speaker B:Yeah, I know.
Speaker B:It's, it's one thing to have the numbers, right, but then it's what you do with the numbers after you get them.
Speaker B:Like, how do you, how do you monetize it?
Speaker A:Well, and there's lots of different ways to do that, but in the case of, like, to answer your original question, to build a social media following, even if you're one of these companies who has that marketing plan and knows this is what you want to do, because you've seen it work.
Speaker A:You have to be thoughtful, you have to be pragmatic.
Speaker A:It's trial and error.
Speaker A:And a lot of these same companies, Gantt, that coffee shop, they have tried different marketing strategies over time and ultimately got here and it worked for them.
Speaker A:But you have to go through this trial and error process.
Speaker A:For me, it took several years to ramp up to not only just get comfortable in front of a camera, but to get to a point where I felt.
Speaker A:I didn't feel the imposter syndrome anymore of doing stuff like this.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'll be honest, I still get that imposter syndrome from time to time, if not all the time.
Speaker B:But I, Yeah, I remember.
Speaker B:I remember us starting just even two.
Speaker B:What is it, two and a half years ago?
Speaker A:I think it's closer to four, man.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:No, for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, I came on once, I came on this when the show really decided.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker B:Decided to take off the numbers.
Speaker B:The analytics prove it, my guy.
Speaker B:But from then until now, I've seen a huge change.
Speaker B:So it takes time.
Speaker B:I mean, with anything.
Speaker A:Well, there's a lot of people who are.
Speaker A:Are feeling a lot of these same challenges in their daily lives.
Speaker A:According to LinkedIn article that I have here, 8.9 million people have multiple jobs, some of which are social media influencers.
Speaker B:And this is our, this is one of our biggest issues with the job numbers.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, okay, unemployment is.
Speaker B:So the, the jobs number came out recently for February, and when they.
Speaker B:We added 151,000 jobs.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Lower than expectations.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:And unemployment in that report, it also showed unemployment rate went up from 4% to 4.1%.
Speaker B:I get it.
Speaker B:Not.
Speaker B:Not a whole lot.
Speaker A:You still haven't seen a lot of the impacts of reductions in force.
Speaker A:You haven't seen a lot of the turmoil with the Department of Government Efficiency.
Speaker A:You haven't seen a lot of the tariff implications yet.
Speaker A:So hold on tight, America.
Speaker A:There's more coming.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But what doesn't is not being accounted for in this 4.1% unemployment rate are the number of people that have to hold multiple jobs that aren't paying them what they were making at their previous job.
Speaker A:And we're at a record number.
Speaker B:Yeah, there you go.
Speaker A:So let me read this to give you some context.
Speaker A:One job for about 8.9 million people in the United States, that's no longer enough.
Speaker A: ack to when tracking began in: Speaker A:The findings could signal that employment opportunities are easier to come by.
Speaker A:But the more likely reason for people holding multiple jobs is the persistent inflation.
Speaker A:We've talked about it on multiple shows.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:It should not be new to anybody listening to the show.
Speaker A:Experts tell Sherwood the 8.9 million people represented 5.4% of the workforce.
Speaker A: share not seen since April of: Speaker A:So to give some people some context here, these are people who have reported having multiple jobs.
Speaker A:There are a tremendous amount who don't, whether they're working two jobs in corporate America unethically or they just have like a side hustle at night that they're trying to keep private.
Speaker A:So I can guarantee you this number is well underreported.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:Oh, yeah.
Speaker A:And there's also a stigma to people just from.
Speaker A:Just a social stigma of people saying, I've got two jobs.
Speaker A:They're almost embarrassed, like, am I not enough?
Speaker A:Am I inadequate enough?
Speaker A:You know, I mean, is it just.
Speaker A:Is it my own challenges to which I've never understood?
Speaker A:I definitely am a departure from traditional corporate American standards from this.
Speaker A:But I.
Speaker A:There's nothing wrong with working hard.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:You know, and I'm constantly getting calls.
Speaker A:Yesterday was a great example.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:And my first call started at 7:00am the next morning.
Speaker A:And you've seen my meeting schedules.
Speaker A:It's pretty packed some days.
Speaker A:And I got another meeting.
Speaker A:All week long I've had meetings start at 8am and look, there's nothing wrong with being fully ingratiated into your work life and having something else you do afterward or outside of it, if your job doesn't allow for it, you know?
Speaker B: You mean like at: Speaker B: Yes,: Speaker A:But I guess to the point there's nothing to be embarrassed of.
Speaker A:If, if you work hard and you're passionate about what you do and you do a good job, that then, you know what?
Speaker A:So be it.
Speaker A:Good for you.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:What do you say to the people out there that I know there's a whole subset of people, like the younger generation.
Speaker B:I mean, I feel like I'm not part of that anymore.
Speaker B:I'm.
Speaker B:I'm with you on the other side now.
Speaker A:I'm not on that side.
Speaker A:You're over there by yourself.
Speaker B:We're all.
Speaker B:We're on that side together.
Speaker A:I'm on the younger generation side.
Speaker B:No, no, no, no.
Speaker B:You can, you can wear the vans, bro.
Speaker B:It's still.
Speaker B:You're on my side.
Speaker A:No, I'm Not.
Speaker B:It's okay that.
Speaker B:That will say work smarter, not harder.
Speaker A:You almost choked in that one.
Speaker A:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Work smarter.
Speaker A:Emotional.
Speaker B:Yeah, Work smarter, not harder.
Speaker A:I disagree with that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I.
Speaker A:I think people who say that tend to ignore the role that luck played in their life.
Speaker A:You can work intelligently and hard your entire life and not get an opportunity.
Speaker A:And I don't mean that in any disrespectful way to anybody who's gotten lucky and worked really intelligently and made a lot of money, I think the more likely real scenario is people who work smarter also worked harder and they had an opportunity.
Speaker A:And they say luck is a combination of preparation and opportunity.
Speaker A:I truly believe that.
Speaker B:I 100% agree with that.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:Because I believe that, I don't think that you get lucky.
Speaker A:I think you work intelligently, you work hard, and you're ready for an opportunity, should it arise, to strike.
Speaker A:And there are plenty of people, plenty that I know, including myself, that have had the opportunity to get lucky that never took the opportunity because they wanted to be conservative.
Speaker A:And this is where a type A aggressive, the alphas who.
Speaker A:You're like, oh, you know, Jim is stupid.
Speaker A:He's.
Speaker A:He's really aggressive.
Speaker A:He's got no.
Speaker A:No fear, you know, risk.
Speaker A:You know, he just has no problem with it.
Speaker A:He's stupid.
Speaker A:I'm smarter than Jim.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But you know what?
Speaker A:Jim is.
Speaker A:Jim's not afraid to take the opportunity.
Speaker A:You're going to mentally underwrite that.
Speaker A:That opportunity.
Speaker A:You're going to think about it, talk your way out.
Speaker A:You're going to talk your way out of it.
Speaker A:You're going to say, oh, I need the health care.
Speaker A:And Jim's over here.
Speaker A:Like, let's go, baby.
Speaker A:Choo choo.
Speaker B:I know, I know.
Speaker A:And that's what happens.
Speaker A:So you tend to see these alpha entrepreneurs who.
Speaker A:You're like, that guy isn't the smartest guy in the world, but he's here.
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:That's why.
Speaker B:Well, I'm not going to say that's the case for us in this show, because I'm not going to say that we're not that smart of guys.
Speaker B:But I mean, look.
Speaker B:No, look no further than this show.
Speaker B:I mean, all the preparation and the hard work that went into it, and when the opportunity presented itself and we were able to successfully collab with sexy Adam.
Speaker A:So sexy mind pop.
Speaker B:Yeah, we could say that.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:It's so clean show.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:That he's sexy.
Speaker B:Yeah, that's.
Speaker B:That's totally acceptable.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:90s, 90s acceptable, man.
Speaker B:That's not explicit.
Speaker B:Come on, guys.
Speaker B:That ain't it.
Speaker B:Don't do this to me.
Speaker B:But if.
Speaker B:If the hard work and the preparation was.
Speaker B:Wasn't put in place already, then that opportunity would have never, you know, come to fruition 100%.
Speaker A:And that's true for everybody.
Speaker A:And I don't think you should rely on just being intelligent.
Speaker A:That seems almost arrogant to me.
Speaker A:Intelligent people need to work hard.
Speaker A:Unintelligent people need to work smart.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that's just, unfortunately, the way it is.
Speaker A:We all need to kind of have the combination of the two of them.
Speaker A:And if the opportunity arises for either one of those people, take the opportunity.
Speaker A:If you can make sense of it.
Speaker A:And if you can't understand that sometimes when you forego opportunities, you forego a chance at something you probably could have been good at.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:I truly believe that anybody in America can do anybody else's job if given the right opportunity in time.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker B:If you don't have the experience.
Speaker B:The only way I get experience is if I.
Speaker B:I get a shot at the job.
Speaker A:With.
Speaker A:With.
Speaker A:I should say, with reasonable limitations, of course.
Speaker B:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker B:There needs to be some subject matter, like knowledge that takes place.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker A:Or I think there's initiative and baseline intelligence.
Speaker A:You know, something like that.
Speaker B:Stuff like that.
Speaker B:But there can be a.
Speaker B:Don't get it confused.
Speaker B:Don't work smarter, not harder.
Speaker B:That whole concept.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:You have to work hard first to even understand what working smarter is.
Speaker A:Can I talk to you about a pet peeve that you have that bothers me to no end.
Speaker A:Is it the hand gesture thing?
Speaker A:No, I'm okay with that.
Speaker A:I get the hand gestures.
Speaker A:I have Middle Eastern family.
Speaker B:So you got a pet peeve.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I hate when otherwise intelligent people will look at job requirements or opportunities and say, I don't have X, Y, and Z skill.
Speaker A:I can't do it.
Speaker A:Or they question themselves.
Speaker B:It goes into that whole imposter syndrome.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:But it.
Speaker A:I don't care who you are as much.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:And I know I'm gonna be the, like, the D bag who says it, but there are young kids who think they can do anything.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And they're like.
Speaker A:And I'll never forget, I did this when I was young, too.
Speaker A:I was like, I should be a CEO.
Speaker A:I should.
Speaker A:I should be able to do it.
Speaker A:And I could look back on myself 20 years ago and say I was in no way, shape, or form, like, prepared for that.
Speaker B:You know, Adam says that right now, what.
Speaker B:They go around the room, everyone at.
Speaker B:They ask all the kids like, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Speaker B:And all the other kids, I want to be NBA player.
Speaker B:I'm be NFL player.
Speaker B:Adam goes, I want to be an NBA player, but I want to be the CEO of Amazon.
Speaker A:Amazon, see, yeah, Right out the gate, just aiming low.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm going for that.
Speaker B:And then some kid fired back, was like, how can you be the CEO of Amazon?
Speaker B:You don't know anything about investing.
Speaker B:He's like, my dad has an investing podcast.
Speaker A:Good job, Adam.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:You let them kids know.
Speaker B:Let them know.
Speaker B:Yeah, start promoting the show.
Speaker B:He rocks.
Speaker B:The higher standard podcast hat to school.
Speaker A:Yeah, man.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So it's a pet peeve of mine only because there's something about the youthful ambition of believing that you can do anything that is beaten out of us.
Speaker A:And there's some adults, my brother in law is like this and I love my brother in law.
Speaker A:So this is not a knock on him, but you could tell like he's got to fit in the box 100% for him to feel comfortable applying to a job.
Speaker A:And I'm like, brother, you're more intelligent than this.
Speaker A:You got to understand that no one is a perfect fit.
Speaker A:And a lot of perfect fits on paper aren't perfect fits in an interview.
Speaker A:There's a lot you can do to make up for shortcomings and people underestimate their potential.
Speaker B:I couldn't agree more.
Speaker B:And this is the sad part is knowing this and just not applying it to yourself.
Speaker B:We talked about it on a show not too long ago, maybe like two, three months ago, where I brought up a study from, I think it was the University of Purdue where a lot of our financial habits and behaviors are really developed around the age of like 6 or 7.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Based on what our parents do.
Speaker B:And growing up in the culture that I grew up in, being successful was always, be a doctor, be an attorney, have some, have a well paying job.
Speaker B:Okay, yeah, I will say, and how.
Speaker A:Much that whole be a doctor a lawyer thing is such an inaccurate.
Speaker A:What our parents wanted was stability.
Speaker A:And they're like, oh, these are recession proof industries.
Speaker A:But they weren't.
Speaker B:But they weren't.
Speaker B:And to your, and to your point, really, what Subconsciously I think what was being taught was take the safe route, just go to school, do this thing, make some, make a money and then you'll have, you'll be, you'll be fine.
Speaker A:Aim high enough to be upper middle class, but not rich.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:Like, well, you're not teaching me.
Speaker B:You're not well, it's not their fault.
Speaker B:I'm not upset.
Speaker B:But they also did not know, Right.
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:The other rule book or the other potential game plan of how to.
Speaker B:How to make it there.
Speaker A:Yeah, because they bought in.
Speaker A:They bought into the American ecosystem of lies.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:If you go to school and you could get good grades and you put in your sweat equity that this, this whole thing, this, this world could be your oyster.
Speaker A:And look, if you, if you're just there and you put in the time and the tenure, you're gonna move up, man.
Speaker A:You're gonna move up.
Speaker A:It's a meritocracy, baby.
Speaker A:All you got to do is build your resume and your professional career and you're gonna move up.
Speaker A:That's a lie.
Speaker B:Yeah, it is.
Speaker B:And I think that, that what I learned subconsciously, ultimately factored into everything else down the road.
Speaker B:And then you couple that with starting a family early and then putting yourself kind of behind the eight ball with like, it's.
Speaker B:I'm not afraid to admit it.
Speaker B:Like, I have.
Speaker B:I have a house and we have like, car payments and student loan payments.
Speaker B:So it's like, man, there's not a whole.
Speaker B:And then I'm also helping out family.
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:There's not.
Speaker B:I, I did not afford myself enough of a room, enough, I guess, room to take on risk.
Speaker B:And now I'm in this position where it's like, ah, man, like, I'm.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:I wish.
Speaker B:I wish I could, but I also have two kids to think about, wife to think about, family to think about.
Speaker B:And it's something that I would like.
Speaker B:I've been actively focusing on and trying to teach my kids.
Speaker B:Like, you gotta really go after it.
Speaker B:And I'll, I'll help you, you know, teach you some of the ways.
Speaker B:But there's more to life and what you can do and learn and grow.
Speaker A:The number one shortcoming I see in American business today is placing too much emphasis on keeping your head down and doing the work, and not enough emphasis on putting your head up and connecting with your co workers.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's easy to sit in your office, do your job, put your head down and be good at it.
Speaker A:And we both know people who are fantastic at their jobs who do a great job every single day, but they don't connect with anybody in the workplace and they're out.
Speaker A:And fine.
Speaker A:If that's, That's.
Speaker A:If you're okay with staying in that gig and flying under the radar, then that, that's what you're going to.
Speaker A:That's fine.
Speaker A:You can be There you probably do your job for a long time if that's what you want.
Speaker A:But if you want to move up in any company, I'm sorry, you've got to be connected.
Speaker A:You've got to interface with people.
Speaker A:And this is one of my weakest, weakest parts of my life.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, I, I don't like networking.
Speaker A:I want to be recognized for the meritocracy.
Speaker A:I want to be recognized for me work, my work product.
Speaker B:But man, this guy deserves it.
Speaker B:Like, look at his resume.
Speaker A:That's not how this works.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You also need the political ties and that FaceTime.
Speaker A:And this is why returning to office, as much as people hate the idea of it, got to buy new clothes, got to commute, got to get childcare.
Speaker B:Got to eat food, talk to that one person that maybe you feel like slighted you in the past or whatever.
Speaker A:You'Ve got to find a way to maneuver politically and network and have meaningful connections with people beyond just the work that you produce.
Speaker B:And I hate this, I hate this culture.
Speaker B:I have some younger cousins that, that I hear talk like this and it really bothers me.
Speaker B:It's like, well, I'm not fake, bro.
Speaker B:I'm not, I can't be fake with people, bro.
Speaker B:It's like, no, it's not a matter about being fake.
Speaker B:I'm not saying, I'm not saying to be slimy and like be fake to someone's face.
Speaker B:It's about being cordial.
Speaker B:It's about being civil.
Speaker B:It's about, listen, we've all, like, not we've all, but with my cousins, on the other hand, I'm saying we've played sports.
Speaker B:There have been teammates that we haven't liked.
Speaker A:Oh, yeah.
Speaker B:If you want it to be successful, you have to learn to work with them.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker B:It's no different than the workplace.
Speaker A:That's right.
Speaker A:But you also can't just not talk to your teammates and expect them to want to pass you the ball.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Or you need to also find a way to use them to your advantage to get the job done.
Speaker A:Just ask Anthony Davis how he feels about this, man.
Speaker A:You know, that's all I'm saying.
Speaker A:So let's pivot a little bit to mortgage rates.
Speaker A:We got a lot of realtors and people who are in the real estate profession who listen to the show.
Speaker A:The contract rate of a 30 year mortgage slipped 6 basis points to 6.67% the first week of March, according to the Mortgage Bankers association data released Wednesday.
Speaker A:This from a Yahoo Finance article.
Speaker A:And this has been a pretty Meaningful couple of weeks for the mortgage market and rates.
Speaker A:The rate on a 15 year fixed mortgage decreased by a healthy amount to 6.04%, the lowest since October, while the average on a 30 year jumbo was the cheapest in more than five months.
Speaker A:So a meaningful change for people.
Speaker A:I thought this might spur a little bit of activity in the market.
Speaker A:And again, housing and some of these numbers are lacking indicators, but I'm just not seeing it with the loan applications that are in currently to a lot of the major lenders and I've talked to a lot of the bigger names.
Speaker A:The decline in borrowing costs ahead of the busy spring selling season, as said referenced earlier, is a much needed boost for a housing market that's been struggling for traction.
Speaker A:And that's what I've been experiencing and seeing the markets.
Speaker A:And I have seen nothing to change that.
Speaker A:Lower rates help to ease financial burden for prospective buyers at a time when home prices remain elevated.
Speaker A:Mortgage rates track treasury yields, which we've talked about a lot on the show, Most notably the 10 year good job, which have stabilized recently after declining substantially in February.
Speaker A:So we saw a lot of volatility.
Speaker A:As a matter of fact, I think the VIX hit the highest number it's seen in a while recently.
Speaker A:The vix, for those of you don't recall, is a volatility index.
Speaker A:It gives a little bit of a look into the uncertainty in the markets.
Speaker A:And with all this tariff talk, there's been a lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion.
Speaker B:I think, I think yesterday or the day before we hit a new record for the highest five day average for like put options.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:People are betting against the market.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:So remember, put.
Speaker B:Put options.
Speaker B:Are you betting against the market?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You call somebody up, you want them, you put them back down, you don't want them.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Ouch.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Scary, right?
Speaker B:I mean it's kind of showing you that we're people are legitimately getting afraid.
Speaker B:And we talked about at the top of the show if, let's say the market has hit all time highs.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B: is up for the show last year,: Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:That's more than one a week on average.
Speaker B:That's wild, right?
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:More than one a week on average.
Speaker A:And that is not a normal market, by the way.
Speaker B:That is not a normal market.
Speaker B:But at the end of last year, I bet you there were a lot of people that are like, man, I wish I would have got in a year ago.
Speaker A:Well, guess that's, that's every year.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Well, but guess what?
Speaker B:The markets just took a dip and they took a dip again.
Speaker A:When you dip, I dip.
Speaker B:We dip and we dip.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So you're technically in that spot.
Speaker B:You can now.
Speaker B:You can now theoretically a lot of people are saying, you know, this could be a good time to, don't try.
Speaker A:To tell the market.
Speaker A:Don't, don't try.
Speaker B:But if you're going to do it, just keep dollar cost averaging.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You don't want to miss out on those days because you know, at the end of the day, whether it's only once this year, twice this year or if, or if Jerome Powell and the FOMC and Neel Kashkari with his crayons in the back choose to not cut rates, only cut rates once, guess what?
Speaker B:Next year they will cut rates.
Speaker B:At some, at some point they're going to have to cut rates because something's going to break or it's just the right time.
Speaker B:And when they do, what's gonna happen to the stock market?
Speaker B:Well, historically it goes back up.
Speaker A:And let's not forget politically, Jerome Powell and Trump aren't exactly known for playing nice with one another.
Speaker A:And clearly they have different agendas and different priorities and it's playing out on a national scale.
Speaker A:And so the reason why you're seeing the Treasury's moves, investors are flocking to the safety of government securities as the president and his tariff talk policy and all this stuff are causing concerns in the economy.
Speaker A:It's, it's causing a spur in the stock market sell off.
Speaker A:People are going, you know what, I'm going to go into the safety of treasuries.
Speaker A:I'm going to get out of these equities because they're all going to make less money because it's going to cost them more because all these tariffs.
Speaker A:So I'm just going to go into the treasury market where I'm safe, I'm secure.
Speaker A:These are the institutional larger investors, isn't the consumer investors, but some of those too.
Speaker A:The Mortgage Bankers association index applications for home purchases increased to 7% to the highest level since January after a 9% advance.
Speaker A:A week earlier the refinancing gauge jumped more than 16% to the highest since early October.
Speaker A:Now whether this trickles down to the housing data, it's a six month lagging indicator.
Speaker A:Well, it remains to be seen.
Speaker A:We may or may not see a benefit there.
Speaker A: s been conducted weekly since: Speaker A:I bring this article up to say, look, you've seen inflation.
Speaker A:It wasn't a really big swing in either direction at this point.
Speaker A:Now you got mortgage information.
Speaker A:Despite the fact that we've seen some values come down a little bit, still north of 6%.
Speaker A:We haven't seen a wild change.
Speaker A:It's been incremental.
Speaker A:You've seen a lot of stuff in the headlines, a lot of red if you look at cnbc.
Speaker A:But again, remember, go back to Robert Shiller's narrative economics, right?
Speaker A:Are these narratives framing the scary stuff or the actual tangible, real economic data results scaring people?
Speaker A:And I would say there is no data other than the market being a little bit correcting right now.
Speaker B:It's a very good point to support.
Speaker A:Any of this fear.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I feel like what we're really seeing here with some of the sell off is the uncertainty.
Speaker A:You're choking a lot tonight.
Speaker B:I can hear holding back costs.
Speaker A:Coffee, get it out of there.
Speaker A:You mean pat you back?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:No, it's what's, what's really causing the sell off is the uncertainty.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And that, look, that's fine.
Speaker A:Uncertainty is also normal.
Speaker A:Having a healthy amount of uncertainty in the market I think is a normal and healthy thing to have.
Speaker A:Healthy uncertainty, healthy thing to have.
Speaker A:I think it's, I think it's reasonable.
Speaker A:So if you were to go, oh my God, like all this is scary.
Speaker A:Okay, look, if we're at all time highs in the stock market, and I'm going to boil this down to a very simple context here.
Speaker A:If we're at all time highs in the stock market and you have a little bit of a correction for three or four days, the sky is not falling.
Speaker A:Don't be chicken little.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:Now if there's data to support it, like if you actually see the sky fall, like we have a company fail or some type of massive change that you know will reverberate through the economy, okay, then say this guy is falling.
Speaker A:But as of right now, it's like, oh my God, oh my God, the stock market was red for four days.
Speaker B:It's not like initial jobless claims spiked out of nowhere.
Speaker B:It's not like you're getting bankruptcy notices left and right, right?
Speaker A:People had literally 57 new all time highs last year, averaging more than one a week.
Speaker A:So of course, four days of a sell off, people are like, oh my God, the world's coming to an end.
Speaker A:What am I going to do?
Speaker A:Going to Treasuries run.
Speaker A:There's no data to support this.
Speaker A:It's all fear based on speculation of what the President is doing and some of the rhetoric that he's putting out.
Speaker A:And the rhetoric, frankly, for America is not for you.
Speaker A:The rhetoric is for the other countries.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:What do you do?
Speaker B:What do you take away from.
Speaker B:I want to ask you.
Speaker B:I saved it for the show.
Speaker B:And him saying that he's going to come out and buy himself a Tesla.
Speaker A:They delivered one of that to the White House.
Speaker A:I know, a red one or Tesla model.
Speaker B:And we talked about this on his last show.
Speaker B:On the last show I said that.
Speaker B:I'm not saying all of his policies are to help out his friends.
Speaker B:You can't tell me this.
Speaker B:Like, what are we doing here?
Speaker A:Look, if you think that him supporting Tesla and Elon Musk is in any way different than any other president in the past, I would say to you, at least he has the visibility and transparency to say I am openly supporting this guy.
Speaker B:No, no, come on man, that's not.
Speaker B:No, this is.
Speaker B:He had it delivered to the front.
Speaker B:It's a whole show, man.
Speaker B:Yes, of course it is.
Speaker B:This is different.
Speaker B:This is not the same.
Speaker A:It's a show.
Speaker A:But look, it's a show that, you know, is clearly a show.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Versus several other administrations are like, ah, what, what?
Speaker A:Recession.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Gross domestic income and is.
Speaker A:Is going up, not down.
Speaker A:Steamies.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker A:Stimmies.
Speaker B:By the way.
Speaker B:Speaking of which, Atlanta, Atlanta fed GDP.
Speaker B:Now, you see this, what they're predicting.
Speaker A:For Q1, not good.
Speaker B:Negative two and a half percent.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Just to be clear, that is recessionary talk.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Okay, so a little recap for everybody because we used to talk about this on a granular level a lot and we, I know we haven't in quite some time.
Speaker B:The last three quarters have been north of 2% GDP.
Speaker B:Basically signaling that we're all swimming in gold, even though we're all going through a really hard time.
Speaker B:But Atlanta, Atlanta Fed, what they have, and I think it gets updated weekly, if I'm not mistaken, it's updated a pretty rapid cadence.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I mean it can fluctuate, don't get me wrong.
Speaker B:But we're in March, so we're at the tail end of Q1.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And they're predicting a negative two and a half percent.
Speaker B:That is a wild swing.
Speaker A:So what say is saying is with two and a half months of data going into a three month data cycle, they feel confident enough based on that amount of data, which is the overall majority of Data that they're going to get.
Speaker A:Yeah, they'll get a little bit more towards the end of the month and a little bit more in April.
Speaker A:They're suggesting that you're going to have a negative GDP quarter, which if you have two of these in a row, successfully, that is a textbook definition of recession.
Speaker A:Unless you're in the Biden administration, in.
Speaker B:Which case you start averaging.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Throwing in the variables.
Speaker A:Carry the one, you know, it's not quite the same, but yeah, no, look, and I think that's the only prominent data point, which by the way, is a pro forma data point, not a real one.
Speaker A:That is the only prominent data point that I've seen that gives me enough pause to go, are we heading towards a recession or are we not?
Speaker A:Because other than that, I'm not seeing any economic data that is hyper concerning yet.
Speaker A:And I.
Speaker A:Look, I think a recession is a healthy thing to have.
Speaker A:Do I think that's what's going to happen?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:I don't have enough data to support that assumption yet.
Speaker B:I mean, hyper concerning.
Speaker B:I mean, we've been calling, we've been saying that we think a recession's around the corner for.
Speaker A:Because there's, there's asset bubbles.
Speaker A:You've got an asset bubble.
Speaker A:The stock market.
Speaker A:We've had four days of incremental corrections, still not far off from the highs.
Speaker A:And everyone's like, oh my God.
Speaker A:Yeah, oh my God, the market's tanking.
Speaker A:It's not tanking.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:This is a, a pragmatic shift in investor confidence which may serve to be a good thing for the country over time.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, and I'm not saying that it's part of, as a master plan.
Speaker A:I'm just saying to be determined is all I'm saying.
Speaker A:But it is having reverberating implications for the real estate market.
Speaker A:I was actually kind of stunned by this article.
Speaker A:This is from Yahoo Finance.
Speaker A:Vis a vis Instagram, Redfin spikes after Rocket, I.e.
Speaker A:rocket Mortgage announces a $1.75 billion deal to buy the company.
Speaker B:Aren't we developing an app, bro?
Speaker B:What are we doing with the data?
Speaker A:Yeah, well, I mean it was straight like a vertical.
Speaker A:And for those of you driving is a vertical sound mortgage giant.
Speaker A:Rocket Companies rkt if you want to follow them.
Speaker A:The stock market announced Monday it struck a deal to purchase digital real estate brokerage Redfin RDFN in an all stock deal valued at $1.7 billion.
Speaker A:Redfin stock rose as much as 76% on the news.
Speaker A: % in: Speaker A:Rockets revenues were 5.1 billion.
Speaker A: billion in: Speaker A:The deal comes at a time when the housing market has struggled amid high mortgage rates and tight home supply.
Speaker A: in February of: Speaker A:Record low interest rates played a crucial role in driving refinance and fueling the market.
Speaker A: nt public Rocket in August of: Speaker A:And, you know, look, that's a good acquisition.
Speaker A:They're targeting the data and the visibility of Redfin.
Speaker A:Redfin is clearly Zillow's biggest competitor.
Speaker A:Rocket is a mortgage outlet platform where a lot of the data was being sold and a lot of leads are being pivoted to.
Speaker A:Zillow has now got into the loan side of the business.
Speaker A:So this makes sense that Rocket now tries to buy this, to buy their own lead source and then try to go against Zillow, because those are really two.
Speaker A:That kind of.
Speaker B:So that's, that's really what's going on.
Speaker A:Big players.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think it's about time.
Speaker A:And I think you're going to see continued market consolidation for some of the major brokerages.
Speaker A:Compass is a great example of this.
Speaker A:They came out a long time ago backed by, I think it was Softbank.
Speaker A:Don't quote me on that.
Speaker A:They were thinking they were SoftBank back, but I never really understood their pitch.
Speaker A:Their pitch is all this technology and all these things they were going to do.
Speaker A:They didn't deploy any of the technology.
Speaker A:It's basically just a real estate brokerage.
Speaker A:It looks really cool and fancy, don't get me wrong.
Speaker A:I respect it, but do they really do anything revolutionary?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:And I think you're going to see some market consolidation in some of the larger real estate brokerages coming up.
Speaker A:And this happens during cycles and that's normal, it's healthy.
Speaker A:And I think you're going to see some of that stuff in the mortgage market as there's continued compression again, people are going to read the headlines, be like, oh, my God, the world's coming to an end.
Speaker A:And look.
Speaker A:No, it's not.
Speaker A:It's going to happen in the banking sector, too.
Speaker A:Regional community banks are going to get consolidated.
Speaker A:This is, this is what happens.
Speaker A:You have economic prosperity.
Speaker A:Companies grow really fast, and they grow really fast.
Speaker A:Sometimes they get a little bit over their skis.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's the best laid plans Of Mice and Men and they wind up in a situation where they've, they probably need to either get more capital, more equity in the door or they need to find a merger partner.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:So again, very not anything super scary I'm seeing yet, but these are, these are healthy trends in economy.
Speaker B:And for some of these companies, that was always part of the game plan.
Speaker B:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:Some of them.
Speaker A:That's the entire plan.
Speaker B:That's the exit strategy.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:I don't think Rocket and Redfin, that was the case, but certainly that's an opportunity where if you're Rocket, you're like, hey, it makes sense.
Speaker A:Rocket, Redfin, two Rs.
Speaker B:Like, we like, we like Redfin too.
Speaker A:We do.
Speaker A:Okay, so I want to cover some of the things in the 15 minute episode that I didn't get to put out this week because I thought they were valuable.
Speaker A:Even though this is not going to be a look back by the time the show comes out.
Speaker A:FOMC had some interesting comments.
Speaker A:So there was no Fed meeting this last week.
Speaker A:There is one next week.
Speaker A:So by the time you get this episode all up in your ear holes, March 18th and 19th, there is an FOMC meeting.
Speaker B:And the best part about that, we're going to get updated projections on where they see everything going.
Speaker B:Yeah, we talked about that.
Speaker B:The last time we got that was in December.
Speaker B: they predicted by the end of: Speaker A:And I'm calling this now, you're going to see a healthy pivot in their projections where they're going to scale it back.
Speaker B:Scale what back?
Speaker A:They're going to scale.
Speaker A:So the market largely believes that three rate cuts are still possible.
Speaker A:I do not believe that to be the case.
Speaker A:I think you're going to get a healthy pullback.
Speaker A:If not, you're going to get a lot of projecting that they're not sure that three is reasonable.
Speaker B:It might be two at some point.
Speaker B:Okay, yeah, I get it.
Speaker B:I was going to say at some point things could start to go south and people are predicting three rate cuts because the market needs three rate cuts.
Speaker A:Yeah, I, I get the logic there, but I would tell you that that's fundamentally disconnected to how this works.
Speaker A:Matter of fact, if the market, if they think this is going to be very simple, okay, Jobs, employment numbers, instability of the market, if the instability in the market is being caused by political ramifications, I would not expect the FOMC to move very quickly because they don't want to be seen as being influenced by politics.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:There has to be a Chinese wall there, for lack of a better explanation.
Speaker B:But if we do experience two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth now you've.
Speaker A:Got meaningful data that's not political that you have to respond to.
Speaker B:You have to respond.
Speaker B:But it's technically they don't.
Speaker B:They.
Speaker B:They're supposed to stabilize prices, inflation and jobs.
Speaker B:Volcker triggered two recessions and was like, yeah, I'm fine with it.
Speaker A:That was it.
Speaker B:Double dip.
Speaker B:We need this.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I would say Volker was probably a little more cavalier than Jerome Palace.
Speaker B:JP kind of idolizes him.
Speaker A:He does idolize him.
Speaker A:He is a Paul Volcker fan.
Speaker A:I would say that.
Speaker A:Look, right now, inflation did not move a whole lot.
Speaker A:Again, it's early.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker B:But it was the first reading in quite some time that went the right way.
Speaker A:Yep.
Speaker A:Unemployment.
Speaker A:And that the market reacted positively as a result of that and then got kicked in the ding the next day.
Speaker A:But unemployment hasn't moved in a meaningful way despite all the stuff we've heard, which is kind of shocking.
Speaker B:I don't believe it.
Speaker A:I mean it's hard to.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Speaker A:Is anybody still work there?
Speaker A:Are they all out?
Speaker A:The Trump shut them down too.
Speaker B:Because I already.
Speaker B:If you're.
Speaker B:If you're the National Bureau of Economic.
Speaker A:Research, can you say you're looking out for recession?
Speaker B:Just tag us.
Speaker A:You know, just.
Speaker B:They got an Instagram handle, issue a statement, an X handle or something.
Speaker A:We are still here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:We are still monitoring something.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Send out a.
Speaker A:Send out like a distress call.
Speaker B:I know.
Speaker A:Let us know.
Speaker A:Because I feel like all they are is just watching, going like is now the time?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:Is now the time?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker A:No.
Speaker B:Do we let them know it's coming around the corner?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:They're probably playing Donkey Kong or something in their office cornhole.
Speaker A:Remember those days?
Speaker B:The best.
Speaker A:So good.
Speaker A:All right, so next week Fed meeting.
Speaker A:Keep an eye out on it.
Speaker A:Every word they say moves the market.
Speaker A:The fomc.
Speaker A:So we'll be watching for any hints on rate cuts.
Speaker A: th,: Speaker A:There is currently a 68.7% probability of a 25 basis point rate cut at the upcoming March meeting.
Speaker A:I'm telling you right now that ain't going to happen.
Speaker A:This is where the CME gets it wrong.
Speaker A:Sometimes there Is no going to be a rate cut.
Speaker B:What's the prediction?
Speaker B:What's the prediction?
Speaker A:68.7% Probability of a rate cut on the.
Speaker B:At this upcoming meeting.
Speaker A:Yeah, right.
Speaker A:It's wild.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:No, not gonna happen.
Speaker B:Not happening.
Speaker A:Not happening.
Speaker B:Wow.
Speaker A:This is as of last week, but I mean, keep in mind, like, okay, last week I could have been like, nah.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Who fell asleep?
Speaker A:Did you guy call in sick today?
Speaker A:Y'all didn't update this, right?
Speaker A:Did he have a lot of stock?
Speaker B:Y'all planning spring break?
Speaker A:Oh, he was a bit kind.
Speaker A:Holder.
Speaker A:So he's out.
Speaker A:Yeah, he's on an emotional level.
Speaker A:For example, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated on Friday last week that the central bank is not in a hurry to cut interest rates as policy uncertainty continues to weigh on markets and cloud the outlook for the U.S.
Speaker A:economy.
Speaker A:This is a direct quote.
Speaker A:As we parse the incoming information.
Speaker A:We are focused on separating the signal from the noise as the outlook evolves.
Speaker A:Powell said Friday during a speech in New York.
Speaker A:Again, carrying on the quote, we do not need to be in a hurry and are well positioned to wait for greater clarity.
Speaker B:Doesn't sound like somebody that's in a hurry to cut rates.
Speaker B:We are well positioned.
Speaker B:Meaning, you know, this chair that I'm sitting in, I'm a little comfortable.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm very well positioned.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't feel like I need to move anytime soon.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:Simple.
Speaker A:And yet CME is like, what, Bitcoin's down?
Speaker A:What did Jerome Powell say?
Speaker A:Yeah, I think 68%.
Speaker A:So there's a disconnect there.
Speaker A:And look, he cited jobs.
Speaker A:Jobs, 4.1% down to 4% in unemployment.
Speaker A:So again, not a huge meaningful move.
Speaker A:Inflation.
Speaker A:We talked top of the show.
Speaker A:Not a huge meaningful move.
Speaker A:So if you're the fomc, why would you cut rates now?
Speaker B:It makes no.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:You don't have any data to support it.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So CPI came out this week, scheduled for release on March 12th, which was today.
Speaker A:We've talked about the top of the show, and then PPI comes out tomorrow, March 13, just as a reminder, that'll shed some light on the wholesale inflation trends, which can be a precursor to consumer price changes.
Speaker A:I don't expect any big results there either.
Speaker B:Yeah, it'll give us a little insight into what we can expect at a CPI next month.
Speaker A:Earnings took center stage this week.
Speaker A:You had Oracle, Adobe and Broadcom all reporting.
Speaker A:So Monday, which was the 10th of this week, you had job openings and the labor turnover survey.
Speaker A:The Jolts report nothing inflammatory or sexy there.
Speaker A:So again, no, no pressure on the FOMC for next week.
Speaker A:Oracle came out, the tech giant released quarterly earnings with investors focusing on its cloud services and AI initiatives.
Speaker A:Nothing wildly out of, out of good or bad there.
Speaker A:It's just they released.
Speaker A:And no fanfare at all.
Speaker A:Veil Resorts companies expected to announce earnings providing insight into their performance on leisure and tourism sector.
Speaker A:Nothing negative there.
Speaker A:It was all kind of standard flare.
Speaker A:They met their, their, their earnings expectations.
Speaker A:So the market didn't react badly.
Speaker A:Then on Tuesday, you had Kohl's and Dick's Sporting Goods report.
Speaker A:Kind of giving you an idea in the retailer side of things.
Speaker A:Again, nothing wild.
Speaker A:Consumer pullback is starting to appear a little bit, but nothing crazy.
Speaker A:Then today, March 12, we had CPI come out which talked to top of the show.
Speaker A:And inflation was still the biggest question leading into the week.
Speaker A:CPI came out today, but it shows prices.
Speaker A:If it showed prices were cooling, it would have given the Fed more confidence to cut rates.
Speaker A:If inflation was still stubbornly high, we'll expect market volatility.
Speaker A:And inflation really wasn't stubbornly high or cooling.
Speaker A:It was just kind of the same.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So you're not going to see a huge temperature change from Jerome Powell's early comments to what happens next week.
Speaker A:And there is nothing coming out between now and next week that's going to pivot from that perspective based on what we're seeing here.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:So you got a good look at what's expected.
Speaker A:So real earnings for February20,20,25, this release comes out, came out today as well as Lennar the homebuilder came out and the home builder didn't have anything of sensational fanfare.
Speaker A:There wasn't like a huge pullback.
Speaker A:They had all this mortgage stuff they're experiencing, it's not affecting them yet.
Speaker A:Again, housing is a bit of a lagging indicator.
Speaker A: l, the real earnings February: Speaker A:Nothing came out that was unsavory.
Speaker B:So if you're a listener to the.
Speaker A:Show and you're hyper intelligent, you're obviously good looking, clearly, Right?
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker B:You're in your prime years right now.
Speaker A:I mean, this is your preparation for opportunity.
Speaker B:Absolutely.
Speaker A:This is how you get lucky.
Speaker B:This is how you get lucky.
Speaker A:We make you lucky.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:You recommending this show to somebody, that's what's going to set you up for success.
Speaker A:Chris, how do I support the show?
Speaker A:Can I buy your merch?
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:Chris, can I, can we, can we go to a, a vendor and use your code as a, you know, some type of affiliate?
Speaker A:No, no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker A:You know what you need to do?
Speaker B:Tell them, say you need to refer a friend over.
Speaker B:You need a.
Speaker B:You need to subscribe, you need to cross over to all the other platforms.
Speaker B:Whether.
Speaker B:Look, if you're watching us on YouTube, crossover to Apple.
Speaker B:I know you got an iPhone.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I know you don't like those green bubbles.
Speaker B:And if you do like those green bubbles, you're listening on Spotify.
Speaker B:You could give us a five star rating there too.
Speaker A:You know, just give us all the likes.
Speaker B:All the likes.
Speaker A:Just click all the buttons.
Speaker B:You like buttons?
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So if you're a listener to the show and you hear like, oh, it's earnings season.
Speaker B:Okay, how do you, how would you typically approach something like this?
Speaker B:The way I think of it is unless an entire sector is getting hit, right.
Speaker B:If one company's having or reporting, you know, negative earnings or the earnings are down or they miss their guidance or their expectations.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm not really giving too much credence to it.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:What I am thinking about is, okay, if an entire sector gets hit, but like the Magnificent Seven, let's say.
Speaker B:But even then their valuations are so high that a little correction might be warranted.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker A:Yeah, look, corrections are a normal, healthy part of the market.
Speaker A:We are stigmatizing the hell out of.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker B:We shouldn't overreact.
Speaker B:Don't get too emotional with these things.
Speaker B:Things.
Speaker A:Or don't react too quickly.
Speaker A:If you see an extended correction over the course of months, a week does not make a trend.
Speaker A:Okay, I understand it's been a rough week in the markets.
Speaker A:I get it.
Speaker A:But take a step back, look at the entire market.
Speaker A:Ask yourself, www B.
Speaker A:What would Warren Buffett do?
Speaker A:BD wwbd WWW BD There's a lot of W's.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, you get what I'm saying?
Speaker A:But look, I.
Speaker A:So tomorrow, Thursday you're going to have Adobe and Broadcom come out and report.
Speaker B:That'd be insulting.
Speaker A:What?
Speaker B:For us to create wristbands.
Speaker B:Wwthsd.
Speaker A:What would the higher standard do?
Speaker B:Is that like, would that insult an entire community of people that because you're not.
Speaker B:You're replacing, you know, Jesus, name higher standard.
Speaker B:Yeah, it's like, is that.
Speaker B:Do they, do people view that as insulting?
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I really don't know.
Speaker B:How do you feel about that?
Speaker B:Maybe, maybe the fact that we have to question it.
Speaker B:We should just stay away from now.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's just.
Speaker A:Yeah, let's just stay away from now.
Speaker A:And last thing I want to do is piss off an entire community of religious people that are culted together, say.
Speaker B:This is your fault.
Speaker A:Yeah, all these people hate us.
Speaker A:Now we're gonna start a religious war over a financial podcast.
Speaker A:Make the wristbands red, too.
Speaker A:Put a pentagram in the back.
Speaker A:It's about the Illuminati.
Speaker A:It's not about Jesus, I swear.
Speaker A:So there is nothing coming out on Friday.
Speaker A:All of this, because, look, you need to know what's coming out so you understand what the Fed's going to be looking at.
Speaker A:There's nothing meaningful other than a massive market meltdown between now and the 18th and 19th that is likely to prompt them to cut rates.
Speaker A:So that's our prediction.
Speaker B:That's our prediction.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:We're sticking to it.
Speaker A:Also, before we end the show, I have been having a lot of conversations because we.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:For two shows in a row, we've been a little salty towards Canada.
Speaker A:And I want everybody to know what.
Speaker A:Yeah, shout out to all the Canadian listeners.
Speaker A:We have a massive population of listeners from Canada.
Speaker B:Which part?
Speaker B:The six.
Speaker B:Just one.
Speaker B:I have to.
Speaker B:I have to.
Speaker B:It's in my blood, bro.
Speaker B:You're not in my blood, bro.
Speaker B:When I come in here with this certified lover boy heart.
Speaker A:If you ever put a heart in your hair, why I'm telling you right now.
Speaker B:Well, it's wrong.
Speaker A:I will visually pull it out of the show.
Speaker A:I will not let you.
Speaker B:Why?
Speaker B:I'll do it.
Speaker B:I'll do it for the show.
Speaker A:Because you're not like us.
Speaker B:Oh, well done.
Speaker A:So I want all my Canadian listeners out there, our Canadian listeners to know, number one, we appreciate you sincerely, the fact that you listen to this show and you recognize that the.
Speaker A:This economic financial literacy show, which, although based United States does have impacts to you and has value to you, means a lot to us.
Speaker A:So thank you, number one.
Speaker A:Number two, we make jokes about Canada because easy is fun and you're our neighbors.
Speaker A:If you can't mess with your neighbors, who you gonna mess with?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker A:So, yes, we recognize there's a lot of imports, exports that come from Canada.
Speaker A:We recognize the political and frankly, the economic value of the United States with our Canadian listeners.
Speaker A:And anything we say on the show is all Saeed's fault.
Speaker A:Saeed at higher standard podcast.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, send it.
Speaker B:Send it.
Speaker B:Come on.
Speaker A:Send him all the smoke.
Speaker A:He deserves it.
Speaker B:Yeah, all the smoke.
Speaker A:Except for one thing I will back.
Speaker A:Trudeau is terrible.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:He deserves every bit of not being there anymore.
Speaker B:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker B:So before.
Speaker B:Before we leave, I just want to give a quick shout out to listener Brendan Ureas.
Speaker B:Did I pronounce it?
Speaker A:I feel like you went a little saucy.
Speaker B:I tried.
Speaker B:I tried to respect the culture.
Speaker B:No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker B:Italian.
Speaker A:So you kind of did.
Speaker B:No, I didn't.
Speaker B:I said ureas.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Shout out to Brendan, bro.
Speaker B:Appreciate you for listening.
Speaker B:Supporting the show.
Speaker B:He hit me up in the DMs, and I promise I'll.
Speaker B:We'll answer your question on the next episode.
Speaker A:What was the question?
Speaker B:You have to stay tuned.
Speaker A:Foreshadowing.
Speaker B:Good night, everybody.
Speaker A:I wasn't done yet.
Speaker B:You're done.
Speaker A:Okay, fine.
Speaker A:Bye.
