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Lower income Americans are stuck in neutral · The Financial Exchange Show

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  Speaker 1: Zada and Mike Armstrong.
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  Speaker 2: Chuck Michael Tucker with you here, and markets not doing
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  Speaker 2: a ton. We got a very modest downside drift through
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: the midway point of the morning, but overall kind of
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  Speaker 2: a boring day overall for equity markets. We get the
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  Speaker 2: Dow off forty points. Does that get anyone excited? Yes, Buehller, Buehller,
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  Speaker 2: S and P five hundreds down, twelve Fry Fry Nasdac's
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  Speaker 2: off seventy two. It's just, you know, there's just not
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  Speaker 2: much going on right now. We're basically hanging out right
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  Speaker 2: around fifty nine hundred on the S and P five
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: hundred and haven't really seen a conclusive move off of
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: that in about three weeks now, by the way, Like yeah,
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: you know, how we talk about how you know, after
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  Speaker 2: the election in November, even before, from you know, kind
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  Speaker 2: of the start of October through late February, the SMP
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  Speaker 2: traded in like a five or six percent range, like
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  Speaker 2: it just didn't move a ton. Yeah, actually, sorry, it
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  Speaker 2: was like a six or seven percent range right now.
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  Speaker 2: The S and P got to fifty nine hundred on
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  Speaker 2: May fourteenth and has basically moved like maybe one percent
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  Speaker 2: in either direction. Aside from one day last Friday, which
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  Speaker 2: Friday of Memorial Day, you know, fifty percent tariffs on
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  Speaker 2: Europe threatened.
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  Speaker 3: That was the only you know, convincing.
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  Speaker 2: Downward move that we had in markets other than that,
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  Speaker 2: as a piece, been between fifty eight fifty and fifty
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  Speaker 2: nine to fifty for pretty much the last two weeks.
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  Speaker 2: So now going on, I think it's one where hey,
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  Speaker 2: we got through the initial you know, really high tariff scare,
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  Speaker 2: barring any you know, tear any actual raising of tariffs
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  Speaker 2: from here, I don't think that, you know, that's necessarily
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  Speaker 2: the relevant piece.
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  Speaker 3: Now.
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  Speaker 2: It's much more, Hey, our corporate earning is going to
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  Speaker 2: grow or is the US going to see an economic
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  Speaker 2: slow down that potentially, you know, typically indicates a pullback
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  Speaker 2: in earnings growth? And is that the next leg that
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  Speaker 2: we see and we don't know, which is why markets
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  Speaker 2: for two weeks have pretty much been doing nothing. Exciting
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  Speaker 2: a lot of sound out there, you know, bulls and
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  Speaker 2: bears just chirping each other, but it's just a market
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  Speaker 2: that hasn't really moved in the last two weeks now,
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  Speaker 2: and that's quite honestly.
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  Speaker 3: After March and April, it's.
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  Speaker 4: Fine welcome and normally yeah, I mean like investors are
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  Speaker 4: sniffing out that maybe tariff concerns aren't the biggest threat
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  Speaker 4: at the moment. But there, you know, there's still a
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  Speaker 4: lot of question marks. There's still negativity from CEOs. There's
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  Speaker 4: you know, increased joblessness, there's well, I shouldn't say quite
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  Speaker 4: increased joblessness, but increasing numbers of people on unemployment.
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  Speaker 3: Doles.
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  Speaker 4: And a tax bill that you know does not completely
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  Speaker 4: reshape our tax code, but makes it magnificant changes and
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  Speaker 4: potentially increases deficits. And I think there's a lot of
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  Speaker 4: questions as to what that all shapes out to look like.
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  Speaker 2: Ten of US Treasury is pretty much flat at four
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  Speaker 2: point four to two two percent. Uh, You've got oil West, Texts,
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  Speaker 2: intermedia down thirty five cents of barrel to sixty dollars
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  Speaker 2: and fifty nine cents. Again, we've basically been hanging out
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  Speaker 2: right around sixty for the last couple of weeks. And
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  Speaker 2: we got gold off thirty eight ten and ounce to
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  Speaker 2: thirty two seventy nine, and so not a ton of
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  Speaker 2: movement on that front either. Top story for this hour.
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  Speaker 2: Don't call it a side hustle. These Americans are poly working.
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  Speaker 4: Well, why do we have to create these stupid names
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  Speaker 4: for things that have existed for fifty years, one hundred years,
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  Speaker 4: a million, one thousand years, how many? How many years
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  Speaker 4: have people have been working more than one job?
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  Speaker 3: I'm gonna know, I'm just the beginning of jobs.
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  Speaker 2: I'm gonna pull a story from the back half of
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  Speaker 2: the Hour forward as well, this one from the Wall
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  Speaker 2: Street Journal. It's titled welcome in the two word greening.
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  Speaker 2: That's taking over and driving shoppers nuts, And both of
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  Speaker 2: these are symptoms of this problem, which is people with
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  Speaker 2: too much time that don't have real problems in the world.
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  Speaker 4: Nbas.
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  Speaker 2: No, no, listen, Mike, you will almost never get me
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  Speaker 2: to say something, you know, genuinely nice about MBAs as
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  Speaker 2: a whole. There could be nice individual nbas, but as
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  Speaker 2: a whole, it is a a culture that has just
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  Speaker 2: sucked like the lifeblood out of the US economy and
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  Speaker 2: replaced it with a whole bunch of numbers and no
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  Speaker 2: real dynamism.
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  Speaker 4: Don't try and tell me that some consultant didn't go
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  Speaker 4: to Starbucks and convince management that, yeah, we need to
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  Speaker 4: train all of our baristas to start saying welcome in.
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  Speaker 4: When customers come to make it a nice homeye feel
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  Speaker 4: you know that was done by some consultant somewhere that
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  Speaker 4: probably has an enva, Like, how is it.
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  Speaker 2: A problem that people are saying welcome in? Like, granted,
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  Speaker 2: it's horrible English and makes absolutely no sense, but even I,
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  Speaker 2: as you know, the the most pedantic of all grammatically
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  Speaker 2: correct speakers in the world, I don't care about welcome in.
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  Speaker 2: If someone's gonna say, you know, like whatever I get
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  Speaker 2: said a million different things when I go out to,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a restaurant or a store wherever it might be,
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  Speaker 2: welcome in is like the least offensive thing that someone
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  Speaker 2: can say to you.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's up there. I don't know the fact that.
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  Speaker 2: Has a story being published about it. I mean, and
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  Speaker 2: not just a story. This is like fifteen hundred words
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  Speaker 2: or something. It's it's like, it's it's kind of long.
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  Speaker 2: So I just don't know why that is relevant at all.
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  Speaker 2: But polyworking, I gotta quote this piece for a growing
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  Speaker 2: number of Americans juggling more than one job or polyworking
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  Speaker 2: has become just another day at the office as a practice.
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  Speaker 2: It's not so new think quote moonlighting. Oh gee, you
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  Speaker 2: mean there's already a term for this that we could use,
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  Speaker 2: or hey, side hustle, and then it gets to you know,
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  Speaker 2: as a term. Polyworking is more recent. It began propping
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  Speaker 2: up in human resources research and traditional and social media
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  Speaker 2: after the COVID nineteen pandemic as an upbeat spin on
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  Speaker 2: millennials workers reputation for taking on side hustles, trying to
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  Speaker 2: monetize hobbies, or as shoeing nine to five work.
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  Speaker 4: What was negative about moonlighting or about a side hustle? Well,
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  Speaker 4: here's the What was the negative connotation to either of
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  Speaker 4: those two words?
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  Speaker 3: I don't know, I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Look, some of this is just Hey, every generation tries
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  Speaker 2: to come up with, you know, new language that adults,
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  Speaker 2: like older adults don't understand, mostly to anger the older adults.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I think about, you.
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  Speaker 2: Know, when I was, you know, fifteen, eighteen twenty five. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: I loved being able to say something and have adults
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  Speaker 2: look at me and be like, what's wrong with you
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  Speaker 2: as a human?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, and like it's you know, so.
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  Speaker 2: I understand that, but like needing to rebrand them because
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  Speaker 2: it needs to be a more upbeat spin. I mean, look,
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  Speaker 2: I'd like to rebrand the bubonic plague as you know,
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  Speaker 2: purple dot, you know, fun time.
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  Speaker 4: But you do really do this with everything, right, What
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  Speaker 4: was the one from a few years ago quiet quitting?
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  Speaker 4: Quiet quitting like just being lazy on the job. Is
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  Speaker 4: it wasn't even lazy.
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  Speaker 2: It was just doing like your job, and because you
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  Speaker 2: weren't doing anything extra, that was called quiet quitting. And
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  Speaker 2: managers are like, oh, like, we can't stand this, blah
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  Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah blah. And so now poly
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  Speaker 2: working or poly employment is a big thing now.
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  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, it's not it not it's not a
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  Speaker 4: big thing. It has always been a big thing. Yeah,
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  Speaker 4: and has a new name in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 2: That's so, I guess the one thing that is different
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  Speaker 2: and that is unique is post pandemic. One of the
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  Speaker 2: things that did pop up was more remote work. And
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  Speaker 2: the interesting thing that I do think is really something
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  Speaker 2: unique is someone who is working two full time jobs
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  Speaker 2: in the time of one just using their comput and
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  Speaker 2: different programs on that computer to work two nine to
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  Speaker 2: fives at the same time from home.
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  Speaker 3: That is something that I do think is unique.
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  Speaker 2: And if you want to call that poly working, and
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  Speaker 2: you know, relegate it to that tight definition.
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  Speaker 3: I'm all yours on that.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess, yeah. I did meet I think I
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  Speaker 4: mentioned on the program. I met somebody out in California
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  Speaker 4: who was doing that exact thing two nine to fives.
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  Speaker 4: I think he was. He was making good money, I
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  Speaker 4: think six figure income from both jobs at once, and
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  Speaker 4: was able to not do them both in forty hours
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  Speaker 4: a week, but was able to handle them both. And
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  Speaker 4: obviously neither employer had any idea.
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  Speaker 5: I haven't heard much of that at all. I couldn't
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  Speaker 5: see an employer being thrilled about that.
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  Speaker 4: But they don't know, they don't know, they have no idea.
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  Speaker 4: Oh okay, it's there was about that. I was like,
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  Speaker 4: did you disclose that to either of your employers? And
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  Speaker 4: he just said, I have no idea. Why would be
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  Speaker 4: any of their business interesting?
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  Speaker 2: It probably depends on the industry, Like you get away
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  Speaker 2: with that in certain industries.
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  Speaker 3: If you are.
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  Speaker 4: If if you're a security consultant for the you know,
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  Speaker 4: a defense company, that's not going to work too it right.
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  Speaker 2: If you are, you know, in the finance industry and
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  Speaker 2: potentially have undisclosed conflicts of interest and you know.
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  Speaker 3: Outside business activities, big big problem for you.
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  Speaker 2: But if you are, you know, a marketing person for
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  Speaker 2: a fast food company and at the same time you're
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  Speaker 2: also doing marketing for a shoe company, nobody cares. I
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  Speaker 2: don't think there's like a huge problem.
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  Speaker 4: They would care, Workee, Yeah, they would care. I think
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  Speaker 4: if they found out.
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  Speaker 5: Oh, if they found out, you probably lose your job,
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  Speaker 5: I'd say, yeah, I would agree.
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  Speaker 3: I'd be Williams. If someone does the work, what do
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  Speaker 3: I can't like? What do I care?
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  Speaker 5: But what if it's getting in the way, that's the Well, if.
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  Speaker 4: It's doing in the way, then there's yeah, that's a
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  Speaker 4: different case. But I would be willing to bet Chuck
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  Speaker 4: that most employers have something in their employer handbook that says,
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  Speaker 4: you know, you're welcome to work another job, but you
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  Speaker 4: must request it approval from management. Uh. And I don't
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  Speaker 4: think that's I don't think that request from the employer
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  Speaker 4: is terribly unique to our industry. I would think that
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  Speaker 4: most employers have something along those lines of, yeah, there's
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  Speaker 4: a code of conduct here, and you need to let
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  Speaker 4: us know if you're working another job and get approval.
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  Speaker 3: I don't know why.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, say, imagine somebody working for one of
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  Speaker 4: your direct competitors.
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  Speaker 2: But that's not another job like that is like that
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  Speaker 2: is literally like industrial espionage.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Like there there's there's working another job, and then there's
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  Speaker 2: working for a competitor.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: But my point would be that is why those rules
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  Speaker 4: exist on the books, and so they're probably not specific
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  Speaker 4: to you cannot work for a competitor. It's just if
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  Speaker 4: you work somewhere else, you need to disclose it to
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  Speaker 4: us that we can evaluate it. And by not doing it, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: they're probably violating a you know, term of the term
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  Speaker 4: of employment for their employer, would be my guess.
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  Speaker 3: I find that almost as disgusting as welcome in.
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  Speaker 5: Which I've never heard.
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  Speaker 3: By the way, here's the other thing.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think i've ever heard anyone actually say welcome
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  Speaker 2: into me.
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  Speaker 3: Usually say hey, you knowing you know it's I just
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  Speaker 3: I don't think i've ever heard that.
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  Speaker 2: And we've got a whole piece in the Wall Street
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  Speaker 2: Journal about how everyone's saying it, like, oh, welcome in.
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  Speaker 2: I mean you say it every hour, you no, but
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  Speaker 2: I say welcome into this hour of like I'm welcoming
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  Speaker 2: you into something, not just welcome in.
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  Speaker 4: But let's test it out. Mike, welcome in every fifteen
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  Speaker 4: minutes when we come back. Yeah, we'll say welcome in.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome into trivia, or they had the uh what is it?
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  Speaker 2: The German word for welcome is uh, Will Coleman, Yeah,
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: is that how it's I don't even know how it's
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: pronounced because I don't speak German. Yeah, hey, we could
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: just we could do that. We could do a German
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: segment every day.
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  Speaker 4: It's probably more of the sound would be my guest.
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  Speaker 2: Welcome, they'll Coleman, Yeah, that sounds right. I don't know
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: anyone who actually knows German. You can text the show
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: and let us know how bad we were doing, but otherwise,
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: just you know, continue on and welcome in. Let's take
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: a quick break, and when we come back, we'll do
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: some trivia, and then we'll talk about what we're seeing
• 13:18
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• 15:11
  Speaker 2: In a poll of one thousand working adults and six
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: hundred HR leaders, Morgan Stanley found that thirty nine percent
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: of workers say they are cutting back on how much
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: they are contributing to their retirement plan owing to concerns
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: about the macroeconomic climate. This, I think also dovetails nicely
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: with a piece from The New York Times talking about
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: how buy now, pay later defaults are starting to pile
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: up a little bit. And I guess where I get
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: to on this is twofold Mike, which is the lower
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: half of the income distribution in the United States really
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: hurting right.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Now, yep.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: I'm also just not sure because of how little that
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: group makes relative to the higher earning demographics, that that
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: has a material impact on the US economy, simply because
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: so much spending is driven by that top ten percent
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: that makes a disproportionate amount of the income and owns
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: a disproportionate amount of the wealth in the country, and
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  Speaker 2: so unfortunately, like where I kind of land is, I
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: just don't see the path to things really improving for
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: that group in the near future.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: I struggle with that one as well, especially if we
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: end up being faced with any sort of rise in unemployment.
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: I can say, you know, on the micro individual household level,
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  Speaker 4: we do see people pull back on saving in investment
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: vehicles when they're worried about the state of the markets
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: and the economy, which is unfortunate because history proves that
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: that's the best time to be saving for your retirement.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: Especially in this case, found that gen Z were the
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: group that cut back the most in their four to
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: one K contributions and savings, and you look at that
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  Speaker 4: and say, wow, it's unless that person is literally running
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: themselves into credit card debt. It's really tough to justify
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: that cohort, especially pulling back on retirement contributions out of
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: concerns for the economy. So there can be good reasons
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: to pull back on this stuff, and I think you know,
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: high cost debt, needing to be paid off, or need
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: for a rainy day fund are both excellent reasons to
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: do so. I doubt that's all of what's happening here.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: I bet a lot of it is more the hesitation
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: about ooh, what if things get really bad? What if
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: I'm you know, putting money in and it suddenly goes
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: down and you know, my dollar that I put in
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: is only worth seventy cents? And my response is, you know,
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: almost every instance in history that we've looked at, doing
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: so is a bad idea.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's something.
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: I you get the psychology of it, though, right, I
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: mean I don't.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I may maybe I just I mean, I'm just brainwashed
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: from like being in this business for like fifteen six
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: ten years.
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: I totally got the psychology, the whole.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Premise of dollar cost averaging in and putting that money
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: in every two weeks or every month whenever you're for
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: when k deposits go in. Is, Hey, you don't care
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: about the price because you're spreading those contributions out and
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: if it goes down, great, your next contribution is going
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: to go in at a lower price anyways, So who cares?
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, But I don't know. I've spoken to enough people
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: that are just so filled with regret when they put
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: in one thousand dollars and it turns into seven hundred
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: that I do understand the psychology. I believe it's misplaced
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: and bad, you know, bad investing, But I understand the
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: psychology of Oh, I just put in stuff and now
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: it's worth twenty percent less than what I put in
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: just a month ago. How disappointed am I? But how
• 18:44
  Speaker 4: often does that even happen? Very rarely? Like that's the thing,
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: very very rarely.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: It's we talk about, you know, twenty percent declines in
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the S and P, and those are things that happen
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: like every five to seven years.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Yep, doesn't Yeah, it doesn't seem to matter, or the
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: logic of all this is, oh and that sort of
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: thing happens, Keep going and ramp it up if you can.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: That would be the lesson from history, but it's not
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: seemingly the one that a lot of investors play.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: By taking a look at markets, as we head towards
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the hour, Dow is now up seven
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: points Yahoo, the S and P down nine points opposite
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: of Yahoo, and the Nasdaq is down seventy one, double
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: opposite of Yahoo. We're gonna take a quick break. We
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: got the trivia answer next, and let's talk a little
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: bit about Meta when we return.
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: Bringing the latest financial news straight to your radio. Every day.
• 19:46
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• 19:52
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• 19:59
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• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Welcome into the trivia answer here. Trivia question today was
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: what is the name of Gordon Ramsay's original cooking competition
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: show on Fox which has been running for twenty years.
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: That would be Hell's Kitchen. Matt from Wilbraham Mass is
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: our winner today, taking on a Financial Exchange Show t shirt.
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: Congrats to Matt. We play trivia every day here on
• 20:32
  Speaker 5: the Financial Exchange. See complete contest rules at Financial Exchange
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: Show dot com.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Mike, So, we got a PC here from Business Insider.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: It's titled Meta is working on plans to open retail
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: stores internal communication shows. Are these stores in the Metaverse?
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Nope, real live brick.
• 20:55
  Speaker 4: And mortar stores to buy what the like three things
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: that Meta manufactures.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: Doesn't seem like theyn't need a lot of space.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: No, No, I'm trying to think of what they actually make.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: They make that sit on your countertop video conferencing thing
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: that they still be selling. Well, I think so they.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: Make the okay, here we go, Raban.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: Glasses and the VR headsets. I don't know of anything else.
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: I would say the ray Bang glasses would be like
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: the top attraction to it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm on their website right now actually, and they
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: have it looks like the glasses in a few different
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: styles and colors. So there's maybe like twenty options available total. Okay,
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: you know it's like three You.
• 21:41
  Speaker 4: Need less space than a sunglasses hut.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: Right, shouldn't be a ton of space there.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: They have their headsets, the Metaquest, of which they have
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: the Metaquest three S and the Metaquest three and then
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: some accessories and aside from that, it looks like they
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: sell games that you can buy for their headsets.
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: So they don't even sell They.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Don't sell that conference call tool anymore.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: No, gone, oh boy gone? So yeah, I don't. So
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: the good news they won't need to spend much in rent.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: No. No, this could occupy less space than a like
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: a New York City souvenir shop.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing, they're still trying to make meta happen.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: And I want to tell you a story, Tucker. Can
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: we get the time machine all cued up here?
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Dan By, I need to boot it up.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Yep, get the fux capacitor all rolling. We'll get that
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: puppy up to eighty eight miles an hour. I want
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: to take you back to July seventh, two thousand and seven. Wow, yeah,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: we're going back eighteen years. It's a hot, sunny day
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: in New York City. There's a guy actually frying eggs
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: on the sidewalk. He's flipping him and making him over
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: easy if you want him that way. And there in
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: New York City is the world's first Apple store that
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: is opening on the day that the world's first iPhone
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: is for sale. And a good friend of mine from
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: college had driven down to New York City and oh, yeah, yeah,
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: now we're cooking.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: He was driving down to New York.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: City and man, it was hot in that car because
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: the air conditioning was broken too.
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: In eighteen that's right, two and seven, seven, eighteen years ago.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: Dude.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Man, he gets in line on July fifth, two full
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: days before the iPhone goes on sale, and he's not
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: even the first person in line. And he waits for
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: two days camping out on the streets of New York
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: City while some dude flips him, you know, eggs into.
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: His mouth off the sidewalk, eggs into his mouth. Yep,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: uh huh. Yeah, it's like the hibachi but new York
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: City sidewalk. It's great. They do shrimp too.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: In any case, this kid literally waited two days to
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: get the first iPhone and was not the first person
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: in line. They've been selling these headsets for years now
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: and they can't get people to buy them. The problem
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: is not that you don't have a store. The problem
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: is that no one wants them. Apple that not sold
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: a single iPhone, and there was a line of people
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: for days outside that Apple store waiting for the first iPhone.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: So you know what you do, and you can't sell
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: them to the public, Chuck, what do you do? Sell
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: them to the government, of of.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Course, and what do you do, Hey, we're gonna sell
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: these to the military.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Okay. So here's the thing. Couple things. So, I I know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: a very.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: Very sounds like something straight out of the office.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: It kind of does.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Granted, they are partnering with a company called Anderil, which
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: is Palmer Lucky's company. He's, by the way, the guy
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: who sold them the Oculus company that they've then made
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: into all of these headsets. Palmer then went on to
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: found Anderil, which basically makes a whole bunch of technologically
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: driven weaponry for the US military. They've got some small contracts.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Now they're you know, big in dollar terms, but they're
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: not you know, Lucky Martin and stuff like that, and
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: a lot of it is related to, uh, you know,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: automated monitoring and automated you know, systems and things like that.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: That's that's kind of what what Anderill focuses on, sensor
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: technology things like that. They don't make, you know, actual
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: weaponry in a lot of cases, they make the systems that.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Are platforms for deploying it.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: And so at least Anderill does have some experience with
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: you know, government contracts and technology requirements for the US
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: military and this and that.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: But I just don't really know.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: What.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know why he needs Zuckerberg quite honestly.
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not sure either. Quite honestly, I think Microsoft
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: would probably be better at it, be better at what
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: every part of this, the design of the hardware, the
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: software that goes alongside it. I think that Microsoft product
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: would probably beat out on this, So yeah, we'll see
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: where this goes. But I just there never seems to
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: be many practical use cases for this for the average person.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: Maybe there's something on the military. It seems logically there
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: could be something on the military side, but Meta has
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: no experience making hardware of any sort, let alone hardware
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: design for military application.
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I don't know. I'm just skeptical. I am folks.
• 26:54
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• 28:17
  Speaker 2: Mike, do you want to talk about following home prices
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: or non alcoholic beer?
• 28:23
  Speaker 4: Let's go non alcoholic beer and then I've got some
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: data on the home prices. We can cover that next.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: I think that's pretty fascinating, but I want a few
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: extra minutes to go through the data that I pulled
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: on it. So non alcoholic beer projected to overtake ale
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: as the second largest beer category. That doesn't count. I'm sorry,
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: that doesn't you cannot say that, like, Okay, my non
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: alcoholic fruity beer and my non alcoholic ipa as a
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: category in and of themselves, are now out selling ales.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Gotcha? Yep?
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Like no, that doesn't really work for me. Yeah,
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: they're popular.
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: Saying is that you're comparing all fruit to oranges?
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, right, yeah. I think I think that's the miscategorization.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: If you wanted to compare non alcoholic ales or non
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: alcoholic bloggers.
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: I understand you that.
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: I understand your point, but they do sell them at
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: the same store.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: I think Mike's.
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: Point is you're creating a category.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: I can't say that all non alcoholic beer is greater
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: than one specific type of alcoholic beer.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, That's where I'm going with it. But in either case,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: I fully recognize that these things are growing popularity. I
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: had a non alcoholic ipa as I was painting the
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: deck this weekend. Uh, and they are showing up and
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: cropping up at nearly every bar I go to, or
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: most you know, social situations. I feel as though non
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: alcoholic specifically non alcoholic beer and other type drink you know,
• 29:57
  Speaker 4: canned cocktails and things like that are being a target
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: demo epic for most groups, and while the companies themselves
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: are pushing them, they can't see it as welcome news
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: because I think it's all stemming from a general push
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: to consume less alcohol.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I look, I've tried a few of these
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: and a lot of them are really good right now.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: Age, Yeah, the athletics are really good.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: But like everyone, my Brooklyn Beer has a really good
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: IPA that I had over the weekend. There's a lot
• 30:25
  Speaker 4: of really solid non alcoholic options for you. I guess
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: here's the compared to my father's Oduls that he used
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: to drink from, oh just decades and I garbage, just
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: terrible beer.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: I guess here's the question that I have on this
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: is that the market for this is someone who really
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: loves the taste of beer but doesn't want the alcohol
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: because otherwise, if it's just hey, get me over the
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: like the social awkwardness of you know, everyone's drinking around
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: me and I'm not, I'll have a sprite. Even beyond that,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: you could do one of those liquid guys in the
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: you know, the plot can with the skulls on it.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: That's just water and so it's really got to be. Hey,
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: I love beer, but I don't want the alcohol, and
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: I'm just wondering how big that specific market is now.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: It's obviously big enough that hey, worldwide beer volumes. According
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: to IWSR, worldwide beer volume fell one percent last year,
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: but non alcoholic beer grew by nine percent.
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: But I guess it's just something where.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: Hey, you know, okay, first a couple of things, because
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: there's also one they buried the lead in here. Also, Mike,
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: do you know what style beer has the largest market
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: share worldwide?
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: Loggers? Do you know what the market share is?
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: No?
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: A lot, sorry of beer, of beer? It's ninety two.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Wow, So this is like, okay, so non alcoholic beers
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: overtook ales, which at most could be eight percent, But
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: So it's okay.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: What are we also really doing here? Is kind of
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: the continuation of the question, I think, yep, let's take
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a quick break. When we come back, we'll do a
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: little bit of stack Roulette.
• 32:13
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• 32:16
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• 32:20
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• 32:24
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• 32:30
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• 32:33
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• 32:36
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• 32:39
  Speaker 4: Ladies and Gentlemen the Weekend.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: Mike, what do you got for us from stack Roulette?
• 32:51
  Speaker 4: The housing situation? Connor sand and Bloomberg has a piece
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: of soft housing market. Isn't just a Florida and Texas
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: story now? And he's absolutely correct. I went and grabbed
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: realtor dot COM's data. They put out monthly a whole
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: bunch of stats on number of listings, median price, state
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: by state. So I've got the data on fifty states
• 33:10
  Speaker 4: plus the District of Columbia. Here, Chuck, would you venture
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: guess the largest percentage increase in home inventory for April
• 33:19
  Speaker 4: of this year compared to April pre COVID twenty nineteen.
• 33:25
  Speaker 4: It is a ninety nine percent increase coming from the
• 33:28
  Speaker 4: District of Columbia. April twenty nineteen, there were only fourteen
• 33:31
  Speaker 4: hundred district.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: This is like municipality level.
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: No, no, sorry, this is Washington, DC. Is it is
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: everything else on a state Everything else is on a
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: state level. But we've got DC data, so it doesn't
• 33:43
  Speaker 4: really count, but I found a confounding that the active
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: listings in d C pretty much doubled, and I'm guessing
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: this has to do with government employees. Texas takes the
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: next spot, up twenty eight percent, but Colorado's tied right
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: there with them. Texas is just obviously a much more
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: pop state in Colorado. Florida is there at number three
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: with a twenty three percent increase, and then you go Tennessee, Arizona, Utah, Washington, Idaho,
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: and Hawaii all out there with higher levels of inventory
• 34:13
  Speaker 4: than they saw in twenty nineteen. Rounding out the biggest declines. Connecticut.
• 34:19
  Speaker 4: We've talked about over and over again. There are no
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: homes for sale in Connecticut. There are currently thirty eight
• 34:23
  Speaker 4: hundred listings in the entire state of Connecticut. That's a
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: seventy five percent drop. New Jersey, Vermont, Illinois, Rhode Island,
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: West Virginia, New Hampshire, Alaska, Maine, North Dakota, and Wisconsin
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: rounding out that bottom ten in terms of inventory on
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: the other direction. And so there's some of these things
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: that HA like across the Northeast, inventories are still pretty bad.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: But you know, there's a number of states in there
• 34:48
  Speaker 4: that don't have much in common with New England, West Virginia, Alaska,
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: and North Dakota, to name a few, And so it
• 34:55
  Speaker 4: is a very bifurcated market right now in terms of
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: homes for sale.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: I want to ask you.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: A question that I've thought quite a bit about, how
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: many people do you think lived in Middle Earth?
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: I don't have an answer for you, Chuck.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: So this is the question that Lyman Stone, who is
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: a demographer, tried to answer, is, look, how many Hobbits
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: and Orcs and elves lived in Middle Earth? When he
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: comes up with is thirty four million people?
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: And are you allowed to source this data from both
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: movies as well as books or do you have to
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: go with the books only? Well, so he stick with
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: the original source material.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: I think yes, so, and he basically then bases it
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: off of you know, various population densities. But he gets
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: down to I'll read a couple of quotes here, because
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: he does some really good work on this. He says, look,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: my operating assumption here is basically that though Hobbits are small,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: their voracious appetites mean they need similar land per hobbit
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: as humans need because they eat more.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: Likewise, though, elves are immortal and thus can subsist on
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: little or nothing. In practice, elves also have slow reproduction
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: and are leaving for Vallenor and so again similar density
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: as humans. He then goes on to point out dwarves
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: are the only real problem dwarves. What do dwarves eat?
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Can a dwarf and citi subsist on its own? I'm
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: not sure? And so this is a real problem. But
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: he comes back to like about thirty four million people
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: living in Middle Earth during the time of you know,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Froto and Bilbo Baggins, which is something I've always wondered about.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: That's what you're bringing to the table on a Friday
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: afternoon here, huh, Chuck, I mean, yeah, can you write
• 36:45
  Speaker 4: your thesis on this as a demographer? Probably?
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: So it's this is actually kind of funny because so
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: woman actually does like what's that?
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: I'm glad he thought so.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: So No, he does like some really impressive demography studies. Yeah,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: and this thing that he wrote is legitimately like five
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: thousand words. It's just ridiculous. But I found it today
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: and I had to bring it to the table. I
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: guess if we want something else that you know, might
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: be you know, more useful. Here the ten happiest cities
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: in the world. This according to the Institute for the
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Quality of Life, based on citizens, governance, environment, economy, health,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: and mobility. None of these end up coming out to
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: be US cities, but Copenhagen in Denmark ends up being
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: the top ten top happiest city, followed by Zurich, Singapore, Antwerp, Soul, Stockholm, Taypei, Munich,
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and Rotterdam.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: So there's that.
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: We don't get a single one, not a one.
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: I wonder where the highest ranked US one is. I
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: haven't seen the full list. See if I can. Let's
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: see here we go.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: New York City comes in at number seventeen as the
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: happiest American city.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: They've never Everyone from New York is angry too high.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I disagree, you're conflating New York and Philly.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Most people from New York are angry.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: There are a few who are just aloof and you know,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: not paying attention to too much. Minneapolis also clocking it
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: in the top thirty.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: So we got that.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break for the entire weekend. We'll
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: see you back here on Monday on the Financial Exchange.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: Have a great weekend.