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Brewster’s Millions And The Hidden Math Of “Easy Money” · Critique-Opolis

0:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, lost it.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: Wake up.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: So this was my pick this week.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Critique Opolis.
0:41
SPEAKER_00: This I wasn't sure if you were going to like, and you haven't really you haven't really tipped your hand one way or the other.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: I felt like you liked this, but it was a callback from a movie that I thought was hysterical when I was a kid.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Brewster's Millions.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, you brought this to my light, or to the light, since I don't do the mind map, you do.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: That this is actually a very old story.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: And I'm pulling up our mind map here.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: The I 1906 was the original the original story created by do you have the author's name?
1:28
SPEAKER_00: In a book form.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: In book form, which then became a play and then a movie.
1:33
SPEAKER_00: And the 1985 Brewster's Millions with John Candy and Richard Pryor was way down the line, almost, you know, 80 some odd years later.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: But George Barr McCutcheon came up with the original 1902 comedic novel, Brewster's Millions.
1:53
SPEAKER_00: And just to give you the premise of the story, this appealed to me like as a kid, because a kid, you know, when you're young and you dream about being rich, you don't really understand what that entails.
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And now as an adult, you just see all the complications that are framed inside this plan.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: So Monty Brewster, played by Richard Pryor, is a minor league pitcher for the Hackensack Bill Bulls.
2:28
SPEAKER_00: And he has do you remember how the what the f familial relation was?
2:36
SPEAKER_00: Like his the uncle who uh wills him this fortune is white, and he made his money in real estate and oil, but one of somebody some member of Brewster's family b uh above him was white and the mother was black or something.
3:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't remember the connection, honestly.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: But in in any event, he gets pulled into this meeting with these two attorneys and his trustee, and they show him a film of his great uncle who is fabulously wealthy and is dying, and is he's the sole heir to this man's fortune.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: But the uncle, I want to see if it has does it do you see where the uh I'm gonna get to the rules in a second here.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: But what was the the uncle's name?
3:48
SPEAKER_00: Because the the novel is is different from who the characters are in the let's see, the original sources, film adaptations, this might be it.
4:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:07
SPEAKER_00: Tell me if you find it, if you don't mind looking.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: So this uncle uh leaves him a film and lays out the conditions for the inheritance.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: And the first component is just don't worry about the rest of the money, I'll leave you a million dollars cash right now, forget the whole thing.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Or he's willed$30 million, and he has to spend the$30 million inside of 30 days.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: But the catch is he's not allowed to own or retain any assets.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: He can't have any property, he can't have any clothing, cars, homes, none of that stuff, real estate, nothing.
4:59
SPEAKER_00: And he can't tell anybody what he's doing, so he has to spend, on average, a million bucks a day for a month and have nothing to show for it.
5:11
SPEAKER_00: Which, at first blush, before you really think about it, you're like, oh, that's easy.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: It's not easy.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: He has to get fair value for any services he hires, and he can't give it away, and he can't gamble it away.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: He can he can give a little bit to charity, but that's that's about it.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And he can't.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: This is the bit I his uncle said that was particularly funny.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: He's like, that includes buying a Hope Diamond for some bimbo as a birthday present.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Did you find his name?
5:42
SPEAKER_03: His name is Rupert Rupert Horn.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Rupert Horn.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: He's his great uncle.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: Great uncle.
5:49
SPEAKER_03: So yeah, anyway.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, he's related somehow, but nobody else had kids.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: And Richard Pryor's Montgomery Brewster is the only person who would inherit this money.
6:05
SPEAKER_03: The other thing I was gonna add.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait a minute.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: I did I I didn't finish the condition.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: If he's able to do that, if he's able to spend that and retain nothing in 30 days.
6:14
SPEAKER_03: 30 million dollars in 30 days.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: He gets the real fortune, which is 300 million.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
6:24
SPEAKER_03: No, no, that's okay.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
6:25
SPEAKER_03: Um he I just thought it was amusing to me that as you were saying, he he can't um retain or what do you say gain any assets by the end of it.
6:38
SPEAKER_03: He has to all do it all.
6:40
SPEAKER_03: What do you say, like fair shit?
6:41
SPEAKER_03: I don't know how you say that.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: If he if he hires services, he has to get fair market value for them.
6:47
SPEAKER_00: But he overpays, and I think that he he hires a lot of people, but he overpays for a ton of services.
6:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and right away too.
6:55
SPEAKER_03: Like immediately.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: Which I was like, because I mean I do not have good math skills, and I was like, um, I know it's a million dollars a day, but like you can't hire a security person for yeah, he's hiring security people for like thirty thousand dollars a week.
7:11
SPEAKER_03: And like willy-nilly, like, oh you want to be my photographer?
7:15
SPEAKER_03: Okay, I'll take you, and like some person's gonna be.
7:18
SPEAKER_03: And then, oh, do you want to be my driver?
7:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:23
SPEAKER_03: Um, but I was gonna say earlier, I just thought it was funny that when he comes back to the bank after he spent 30 million dollars in 30 days, he has to have nothing, and he has to be wearing only the clothes on his back.
7:37
SPEAKER_03: So um, in the movie, well, we didn't get there yet, but he, you know, he has a lot of money to spend, we'll just put it that way.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: It would I find it funny because they start wearing amazing clothes immediately, or amazing for the 80s.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: But you found out you find out through the course of this that they're all rented.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: So he has to find a service that rents clothes.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: Like really nice clothes, and he gets fitted for them.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: And he has like a rack in his a closet in his apartment sweep or suite or whatever.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And this is the bit that I didn't realize till I came over here was that this has been, aside from the previous incantations of this, the play and the and the previous films, there was another one in China that was called what's the name of this?
8:37
SPEAKER_03: Excuse me.
8:38
SPEAKER_03: Hello Billionaire.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, Mr.
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Billionaire.
8:41
SPEAKER_03: Yes, thank you, Mr.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: And you had said that like the Brewster's Millions was really showing off the excess of the 80s, but this Mr.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Billionaire one is just obscenely lavish because it's it's not spend 30 million in 30 days and get 300 million.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: The grand prize for that movie is like a billion dollars or something.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: Or two billion dollars.
9:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't know what it translates into in the yuan, right?
9:14
SPEAKER_03: Dollars.
9:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: That's all.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: One billion.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: He has in the Chinese version, he has to spend one billion yuan in 30 days.
9:23
SPEAKER_03: If his if he's successful.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: Oh, it doesn't say how much he'll get, but anyway.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: I believe that is this was just the the interesting thing because as you know, I love economics and money and personal finance.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: And as we're listening to, because we stopped this movie while we were talking about after he's given the after he's given the rules, he's just given access to it's his 30 million bucks.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: And he has to spend it all to get 300 million, which I get it, is lofty and like it's something that any capitalist is gonna want to go after.
10:06
SPEAKER_00: But if you if it's his money, like if they say if they say this is your money and you put it into it, you can just take it, put it into your own account, and then just say, like personally, I did the math on this the following morning.
10:23
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: He could just skip out of it because there was no provision, at least in the movie, that said he had to give the remaining balance back.
10:36
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing like, at least not in the movie.
10:40
SPEAKER_00: So then you're he could just say he could just retain 30 million bucks and he could invest it.
10:45
SPEAKER_00: I know I sound like a giant nerd here, but he could invest it, and for the first year he'd make a little over three million bucks.
10:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, I remember that math that you did.
10:54
SPEAKER_03: But in the movie, it said he couldn't do that.
10:58
SPEAKER_00: Or did I don't remember that?
11:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember them saying you know he'd have to give whatever the balance was back.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: Did it did it?
11:08
SPEAKER_03: No.
11:09
SPEAKER_00: It had all it all had for him to get 300 million.
11:14
SPEAKER_03: The 30 million in the 30 days.
11:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: But what you're saying is if you if he didn't do that, if he just took the 30 million, yeah, and they said, okay, this is yours, go to town, I'd be like, all right, I'm not doing anything with it.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fuck that that 300 million.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: Like that's to I'm not gonna waste this money.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll just invest it in a bunch of different places if I get 10%.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's I'll start my first year will be three million, my next year will be just shy of four million.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it'll be a little over four million, and then I did the it would cut it would take him like 15 or 16 years to get to 300 million.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, what you why why would you go through this agony and potentially lose it?
11:58
SPEAKER_00: But I I get it, it doesn't make the best movie, right?
12:03
SPEAKER_00: But if that's the caveat, if you're translating that situation into real life, I'd be like, just give me the 30.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: You know the kind of life you could have on 30 million bucks forever.
12:13
SPEAKER_03: I can't imagine.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: I think that's just kind of the interesting thing is that they they this movie, the story made into this movie focused entirely on the excess of the 80s.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
12:28
SPEAKER_00: About everything was about consumption and spending.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, the logic doesn't really play into it.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: It's just how do you spend this?
12:38
SPEAKER_00: And they had some great scenes in here for how he would come up, he'd come up with strategies to like get rid of this money.
12:46
SPEAKER_03: And also it was immediate, like it's not like like what you're saying, like investing, like that's a little bit like more taking time over time.
12:55
SPEAKER_03: Whereas in the movie, he has to spend a million dollars every day right away.
13:00
SPEAKER_03: There's no he has a uh a lady who's following her out, and her sole job is to make sure that he spends the million dollars every day.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
13:11
SPEAKER_03: She's the accountant.
13:12
SPEAKER_00: Um but she doesn't know what's going on, and that's the other caveat is he can't tell anybody.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Nobody knows.
13:19
SPEAKER_00: So even his best friend John Candy plays the best friend, and as Brewster starts spending money, he's like, What are you doing?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't that's crazy.
13:31
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: But the like John Candy, the security guard he hires at the bank, and what's the uh what's the accountant's name?
13:45
SPEAKER_00: They're all like genuine friends.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: They're they try to look out for mine and like this is a bad move.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: And all throughout the movie Brewster has to be like, I know you don't understand what I'm doing.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: You gotta trust me.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: In the movie, the accountant, her name is Angela Drake.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Angela Drake.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: I like the the crafty things they came up with for him to lose his money.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: In particular, the stamp scene.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I was looking forward for your reaction to it.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna burn it's it's a 30-some odd 40-year-old movie.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: So they're driving around, and what?
14:38
SPEAKER_03: That's genius.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: It's genius.
14:39
SPEAKER_00: They're driving around in Manhattan, and Brewster stops at a collectible store, a high-end collectible store, and they just have uh coins and stamps.
14:52
SPEAKER_00: And he asks the guy, what's the most expensive stamp you have?
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And he pulls out this stamp that the plate on the printing was flipped around.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And it print it was a biplane.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: What kind of plane was it?
15:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was a biplane, I think.
15:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it was called something else.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: Oh actually, this is in the I'm close, I think.
15:23
SPEAKER_03: It's not a part of I can't find uh Yeah, the details of this tale.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to navigate the No, I don't want that.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: A misprinted upside down biplane.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a That's just what it says.
15:50
SPEAKER_00: It's a misprinted upside down biplane.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: And there's the trustee who's I wouldn't say on his side, but he's kind of the father figure and he watches over Brewster a little bit, but he has to be impartial.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: But then there are the ad I guess they're the administrators, the the lawyers who had the uncle as a client, and their firm would get the 300 million if if Brewster can't spend.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: So they're kind of monkeying with his ability to do that.
16:28
SPEAKER_00: And they read about the next day that he has purchased this stamp, and they they start to get all excited, and they're going through the mail, and they get a postcard from Brewster just saying, like, hey, thanks for this is what I'm doing.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Hope you're having a great day, yada yada.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: And they realize, and I I I remember just side-eyeing you to see if you understood what was happening because he mailed this postcard with this$1.5 million stamp on it.
17:02
SPEAKER_03: And they were not happy.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they were furious, but it was really funny, and it's great because the mailing of that, for anyone who's listening who doesn't know, mailing of that stamp negates its value as an asset.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So it's not his anymore.
17:16
SPEAKER_03: It's just it's a which is exactly what he was supposed to do with the money that he had.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Which is that was brilliant.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And it shows that he's not just some knucklehead.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: Brewster actually has he has some smarts about what he's doing.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: And then there's another bit where Spike, John Candy, he he takes a portion of the money and he invests it in a few stocks and some oil, and he makes him in a matter of days, he makes him like 10 million bucks.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: And Brewster's furious.
17:50
SPEAKER_03: Because it's extra money, it's more money he has to spend.
17:52
SPEAKER_03: He's like, I'm right back where I started.
17:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: And they're all like, you're supposed to be happy about this.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: And they can't figure it out.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: They're not like what's he can't tell anybody.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: And they think he's going crazy because now he's rich.
18:05
SPEAKER_03: And he's just spending it recklessly.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's fun that just the things he comes up with.
18:12
SPEAKER_00: Like he he loves playing baseball.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Loves.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: That like that's that's really the only thing he wants to do.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: And so he's already been fired from the Hackensack Bulls or let go.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: And so he He doesn't buy the team, but he like sponsors them.
18:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, to come play a game with the Yankees.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And he gets everybody new uniforms and he flies everybody in on helicopters, and like he flies them in to do like a photo thing for the like for the papers, and he flies them to their hotel.
18:46
SPEAKER_03: Puts them in a place to stay.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, puts them in a crazy expensive space, place to stay.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And about halfway through his money, he realizes I'm not gonna be able to do this just with these penny-anty things.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have to do something that really I have to find a real money pit.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And he comes up with, I'll just go into politics and I'll tell everybody not to vote for me.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Which is ingenious because the m politics just with ads and television and radio, it just chomps up, it just swallows up money.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing he go ahead.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
19:24
SPEAKER_03: He throws all these lavish parties for all his quote supporters, and he's like, Again, please don't vote for me, but enjoy the party.
19:31
SPEAKER_03: And like he's handing out like bottles of drink and or uh champagne, and just like because again, he just needs to like and get funny because I think don't they isn't there a part where like people do contribute to him?
19:45
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, No, I don't no, don't give me the money.
19:48
SPEAKER_03: There is, yeah, and he's like, No, I don't want it.
19:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like, Don't give me your money, and they vote for him, which is the thing that sucks.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: He's like, or they they vote for none of the above, because there's two candidates for mayor of New York and they're both awful.
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
20:05
SPEAKER_00: And so they conspire to sue him, and he just pays them off to get rid of them.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: He does, which is good, he's like, I'll give you whatever you want.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: How much do you want?
20:16
SPEAKER_00: I'll write you a big check.
20:17
SPEAKER_03: And they're like so confused because again, he can't tell anybody what he's doing.
20:22
SPEAKER_00: So it's um I guess the big hook in this.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, who's the director?
20:32
SPEAKER_00: He'd done mostly action movies up till this point.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: I have to Yeah, look around for that.
20:40
SPEAKER_00: That's thank you.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: I wanna say it's uh I got it right here on Roosters Millionaire Directed by Walter Hill.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Walter Hill.
21:01
SPEAKER_00: So Walter Hill had done mostly action movies up to this point, and I had read in your slide deck that he just did this movie for a payday.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And so did so did Richard Pryor.
21:20
SPEAKER_00: Uh because they both they both needed the money.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Pryor's stand-up wasn't going well or he'd blown through a lot of money because of his coke habit or what.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: But Walter Hill and Pryor fought like cats and dogs on this set.
21:33
SPEAKER_03: He needed the money to um pay for his drug habit.
21:38
SPEAKER_00: Is that what it was?
21:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, because I listened to it today.
21:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that wouldn't and he was like on drugs while he was filming.
21:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he was Or taking drugs, however you say it.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: He was on for the anyone who doesn't know, anybody who knows comedy knows this, but Richard Pryor was a notorious, like no no notorious cokehead.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: You look you think of decadence in Hollywood in the eighties, it was consumption of cocaine and half of it was taken by Richard Pryor.
22:13
SPEAKER_03: And he was taking it the whole movie and onset, and that's what his the the move the his I can't talk.
22:20
SPEAKER_03: Um that's what his his his salary was going for.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he I he blew himself up too.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: I believe he burned himself like Michael Jackson.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: He not in the same way.
22:32
SPEAKER_03: The hair thing.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: Not and it wasn't from that, but no, he free was it oh he freebased.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: That's what it was.
22:37
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
22:38
SPEAKER_00: So he he put coke and sometimes they use heroin to burn off the um um the additives in it.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
22:47
SPEAKER_00: They use they use a pipe to inhale the uh the smoke.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah but he and they use like a blowtorch like w we use for the wood for uh uh whiskey for the whiskey.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, they use one of those, but we and we can I can have you look it up, but he was using a free free basing torch and it exploded or it burnt it like it set his clothes on fire.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And you can just look up you like fire.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
23:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, anyway, that's what I learned about.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: Two black entertainers in the 80s who got blown up.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: So they fought onset a lot, and I well, we can get back to the story.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: The the clinch in the story was these attorneys, they want of course, you know, they want that money, so they Angela Drake's fiance is the guy who played the dad in what was that religious show?
23:55
SPEAKER_00: I told you that guy got busted for pedophilia or for drugs or child porn or something.
24:04
SPEAKER_03: What are you who you're talking about?
24:05
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Angela Drake in the movie her fiance who becomes the interior team.
24:12
SPEAKER_03: He was the dad in um Seventh Heaven.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Seventh Heaven, right.
24:17
SPEAKER_00: Whatever his name is.
24:18
SPEAKER_00: Here I'm giving you another test.
24:20
SPEAKER_00: Find that guy's name, because I can't remember his name.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: But he actually, and look up what he did, because he got busted for some kind of I'm almost sure it was some indecent.
24:31
SPEAKER_03: I remember when you said that, yeah.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: So he is t his bosses are actually the law firm.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Stephen Collins.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: Stephen Collins.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, see what it says about his um his running with the law.
24:48
SPEAKER_00: So the attorneys are his bosses, and he gets tasked by them to withhold or return something like any services or furniture, figure out a way to recapture$20,000 so it shows that Brewster has not spent down his entire$30 million allotment.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And Brewster, meanwhile, has tasked him with he had mentioned to Brewster, Stephen Collins' character, mentioned to Brewster that he has an interest in interior design, and a friend of his is an interior designer.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Brewster tasks both of them with creating his ideal room, a room that Brewster, quote, would like to die in.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: So part of the plan is Stephen Collins' character gets a whole goes out and rents a whole bunch of furniture, but then returns it within the month, and they have to the furniture rental business gives him back twenty thousand dollars, but he doesn't give the receipt to Angela, so she can't record it.
26:08
SPEAKER_00: So he thinks so Brewster thinks he's at zero, and he's not.
26:15
SPEAKER_00: So he spends down all of his money, he's fine like the you know, he has this party for the end of his campaign, and people come and enjoy the freed food and drinks and all that.
26:27
SPEAKER_00: And at the end of it, he has absolutely no money.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: Angelo's pissed at him, and his buddies like John Candy and the what's this?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: John Candy and the uh security guy, they all they take up a collection for him because everybody knows now that he spent his fortune.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's the weirdest thing to them because Brewster won't take it.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: He goes down to pr to the attorney's office to say, here I'm at zero, give me the 300 million.
27:01
SPEAKER_00: And uh Stephen Collins, you know, he's he's given the yeah, he's giving the receipt to the attorneys, and they're like, Yeah, actually, you don't qualify, you're$20,000 heavy.
27:16
SPEAKER_00: And Stephen Collins is in the other room.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: Angela comes in and is like, What are you doing?
27:21
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Here, he's about to sign away his his whole fortune because he has to sign off that it he didn't do it.
27:27
SPEAKER_00: And Stephen Collins tells Angela what the the play was because she doesn't know Angela actually cares about Brewster.
27:34
SPEAKER_00: She grabs the receipt and rushes in there and is like, these guys are swindling you.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:39
SPEAKER_03: Which was a And you worked so hard to spend that 30 million so that he could get the rest of the inheritance.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: And like we have a reputation for I guess we have a reputation, it's between you and I, that we don't blow the like the end of the movie.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: But there is um, I mean, what do we want to say about this here?
28:07
SPEAKER_00: It's it's so it's 30 years old, or it's 40 years old.
28:11
SPEAKER_00: Brewster gets the money.
28:12
SPEAKER_03: I just want to say it.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Brewster gets the money, but like there's a a fight that ensues, and um Stephen Collins says he's gonna sue Brewster, even though Brewster has no money.
28:26
SPEAKER_00: Uh so Angela says, You need an attorney.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I'll send you, he's like, I'll I'll um I'll put you on retainer as attorney.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: She's like, well, I'm not your she's like, I'm an accountant, I haven't gone to law school.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I'll pay for you to go to law school.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: So they they write her up a retainer for future services, which was really genius at the end.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at the last minute.
28:50
SPEAKER_03: I know that was a little bit um like what do you say, like um well that that's a legitimate thing.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: You can you can have an attorney on retainer and pay for it, even though she doesn't have the law degree.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: He's like, okay, once I get the 300 million, I'll send to law school.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: I'll just send you to law school, I'll get another attorney to like deal with this guy in the meantime.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: So uh it worked out.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was it was fun to just watch this whole thing play out.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we burned the ending of the movie, but it it I wanted to see this movie just for the moment when you saw when you saw these guys figure out that they had sent that stamp to them on that postcard.
29:42
SPEAKER_03: I did not see that coming, but that was such a great, a great scene.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: It was just he's like, you she's not NASA anymore.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: He's mailed it.
29:49
SPEAKER_03: No, as soon as they're yeah, that was great.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: You believe that taking a 1.2 or a$1.5 million dollar putting it on a postcard.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's incredible.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: Having it be so rare and such a collector letter from that fancy store.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's like, this is one of one.
30:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_03: I just love that the whole the whole scene that he just goes into that store.
30:13
SPEAKER_03: He's like, take me to a stamp in a coin collecting store.
30:15
SPEAKER_03: You know what he should have done.
30:16
SPEAKER_03: He goes in and he says, What's the most expensive thing you have?
30:19
SPEAKER_00: You know what he should have done.
30:21
SPEAKER_00: He should have bought a bunch of them.
30:26
SPEAKER_00: That would have been fun.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: Buy like, you know, as whatever adds up to like 10 million bucks in stamps.
30:31
SPEAKER_03: You mean not just the one, yeah.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then like done a whole bunch of postcards and mailed them all.
30:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
30:40
SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't that be a even it even if it gets returned for insufficient postage, it's not a I wonder if it has to be completed, if delivery has to be completed for it to go through usable at that point because it'll have a if you used it, you used it.
30:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:57
SPEAKER_03: Well, and once you put a postage stamp on a piece of mail, there's nothing you can it's yeah.
31:04
SPEAKER_03: I mean you can't take it off or reuse it or anything like that.
31:07
SPEAKER_03: It's it's used.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: This is as you know, I love action movies, and this was like a departure from that because I know it it's not your cup of tea, and I'd rather watch stuff that we can both get into.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: And I just had so much fun watching this as a kid, and as somebody who went to school for finance, as I'm watching, as I'm listening to this contract be laid out to him, I'm like, just take the 30 million and don't say and like it again, it kills the narrative of the movie.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: But if you were in this actual situation, this would be the first question of like, is this money in fact mine?
31:50
SPEAKER_03: I think it's like you said earlier in the episode, like when you watched this movie when you were younger and it first came out.
31:57
SPEAKER_03: I'd one side note, I'd never heard of this movie before, but I can only imagine having seen it as a young kid versus having seen it now because I remember we paused it several times because I was like, wait a minute, what's going on?
32:12
SPEAKER_03: Because again, that's so much money, and you have to spend it so fast, and it's very it was very confusing to me what exactly was happening.
32:24
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I know the uncle was on screen and he recorded a video and told him what was happening and all that, but it just like blew my mind that this is what Richard Bryar's character had to do, and he couldn't tell anybody.
32:36
SPEAKER_03: I couldn't I couldn't wrap my head around that.
32:39
SPEAKER_03: I can only imagine how you would act if your friend, your best friend, all of a sudden came out of the bank and like you know, I'm hiring you, I'm hiring you.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Like if you got yeah, if you got 30 million bucks and you started doing that, I'd be like, I'm I'm really concerned about you.
32:55
SPEAKER_03: And then I can't say anything, and it lasts for a whole month.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: I'd be like, I don't know what's going on, but like, are you in dis like I'd have to just do like like facial signals.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, just tell are you in distress?
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Is this is there is there a Brewster's Millions thing going on here where you gotta keep your mouth shut?
33:18
SPEAKER_00: And like, alright, alright.
33:19
SPEAKER_03: Something happened to you psychologically that like all of a sudden you were like, um, I'm just gonna spend money.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: Because the for like anyone who I'm friends with, that that behavior is so it's I think the the funny thing about movies is that it takes you, it's completely a fantasy.
33:42
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: And in real life, like if you did that, I'd be like, I'm I'm scared right now because this is so out of character for you.
33:54
SPEAKER_00: Like, you have you you're a teaching assistant, you have a modest salary, you don't treat money like that, and if you had that much, if you came into that much money, I n the A that you wouldn't discuss money things with me, what I'd be like, something's up.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And that you start spending it right away, I'd be like, there's something going on here, I don't understand it, and it's freaking me out.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: And can you imagine if I was actually really in a situation like that?
34:27
SPEAKER_03: Because of course you're the first one that I would come to with the all the money issues and concerns and what to do with it and all that stuff, because I don't know.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: You mu you know much better than I do.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: When I was a kid and I saw this, I'm like, I don't know what an asset is.
34:41
SPEAKER_03: That's the other thing, yeah.
34:42
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna say on the other side, the flip side of things, if I saw this movie as a kid, I would just be like, oh, this is like really fun.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: I would have no idea.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: You just look it up immediately.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: You go out and buy a whole bunch of clothes, and like, you can't own those.
34:58
SPEAKER_03: But like I'm just saying, like, if I saw this movie when I was younger, I would see it with the whole, obviously, with the whole different set of eyes, and I would just see it as this guy went to the bank, his grandpa, his uncle left him whole a whole bunch of money, and that's all.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, literally, like that's as as um basic as I could understand it, and then I don't think I'd even understand him going out and saying, again, you know, you're hired, do this job, and I'm gonna pay you this much.
35:25
SPEAKER_03: That would make absolutely no sense to me.
35:28
SPEAKER_03: Because in like the whole like running for uh Congress or for the U mayor or something, yeah, and like having all those parties, like I wouldn't know anything about that at a young age.
35:40
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I've only learned that because I'm an adult now.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: I think what's fun about it when you're a kid is it's like a whole you know what it yeah, it is.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: It's like you don't understand what it takes to earn money and how it's limited.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Like there's a number you get to you can't spend anymore, and you need it for safety, for home and shelter, and for food and warmth.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: And when you have access to so much of it in your head, especially as a child when seeing it, because it was a comedy and like you know, kids saw this movie.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: You can't conceive that it will run out.
36:24
SPEAKER_03: Right.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: And then to be told you can spend it, you have to spend it in a short amount of time, but you can't have anything.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: You can buy services.
36:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's very confusing.
36:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's what do you mean you can't have anything?
36:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: You can't have any stuff, you can't buy a car.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: Because that's exactly what sorry, not to point, that's exactly what I would think is that okay, I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna go to the fancy expensive stores, I'm gonna buy toys or clothes or jewelry that I could never buy, but you can't do that.
36:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and not only that, like even now in the in the age of AI, like there would have to be some kind of caveat.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Because you were if we were put in the situation where like consult Claude or Chat GPT and say, these are the parameters, how can I get rid of this without having assets and meeting the constrictions of the way it would map out exactly how to do it.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: And you like he of course they didn't have this back in 85.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: So he had to rely on his wits.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: But if that money was, you know, in that situation, uh and I didn't know anything about interest or investing or savings accounts or anything like that.
37:40
SPEAKER_00: For somebody to give you$30 million, that is life-changing money that you could grow into$300 million.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: And like$30 million, just sitting, just that money sitting there in a high interest uh high yield savings account or in bonds or in uh in uh uh market index fund anywhere from eight to eleven percent year over year.
38:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about it.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: That's you get approximately three million dollars for the for year one.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: And then you know, I might actually have this pulled up.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: I gotta see if because I did a uh investment calculator on it when I was in the bathroom the following morning.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: There it is.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: So just for fun, let's look at the actual metrics of these numbers.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: So thirty million dollars.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: How many is there?
38:44
SPEAKER_00: One, two, three, that's three thousand, thirty thousand, three hundred thousand, three million, thirty million.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's give it twenty years.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: Let's say ten percent.
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Compound it annually, don't add anything, just let's say you put in a thousand bucks a year and you're gonna contribute at the end of each month.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: Calculate that.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Holy good god.
39:19
SPEAKER_00: So the first year would be three million bucks.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I was wrong on the amounts.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: First year would be three million bucks.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Year two would be three point three million.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: You'd be earning four million by the fifth year.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: But up until the fifth year, you're earning three million in change every year.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: So by the fifth year, you've grown from thirty million dollars to forty-eight million dollars in five years.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: That's nearly twenty million bucks in interest.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: So to get to the three hundred million, okay.
40:03
SPEAKER_00: It took longer than twenty years.
40:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna push it out to thirty.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it took thirty, but let's just see how far how long he'd have to wait.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: How long how old do you think Brewster was in that he was supposed to be what, like thirty-five?
40:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I would say thirty is that's what I think.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: Let's say he was thirty-five.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: To get to three hundred million, if he was thirty-five.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
40:30
SPEAKER_00: Basically twenty-four years.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: So 45, 55, so six, by the time he was sixty, he'd have around three hundred million.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: So it says at twenty-four years, two hundred and ninety-six million.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: Year twenty-five, three hundred and twenty-six million.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: So thirty million that following year.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: If you could just live on a million bucks over the course of those 30 years, or let's say two million bucks, a couple million bucks, 25, 26 years, right in there, you'd at you'd be at 30 million bucks.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: So 10 years past where I'm at right now.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: 300 million dollars, just wait.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: And just screw around.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Do you know how well you could live on a million dollars a year?
41:20
SPEAKER_00: I could not.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: I blows my mind.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: But you're right, like talking about like this makes a crap movie.
41:29
SPEAKER_00: But this all goes back to what like anyone out there listening, just invest.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: Just do a, you know what you should do?
41:39
SPEAKER_00: Look up on YouTube uh Idiot's guide to investing, learn how to put money into index funds, get a Roth IRA, open up a Fidelity account, sound like a nerd like everybody's dad.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: But you know, I found out that only three out of ten Americans have enough money for retirement at my age.
42:05
SPEAKER_03: Unfortunately, that doesn't surprise me.
42:10
SPEAKER_03: That's really sad, but I yeah.
42:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm 51.
42:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: Imagine like if I only had if I only had like, you know.
42:21
SPEAKER_00: Conventionally, I'm maybe 14 years from retirement.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: And I don't like Dave Ramsey.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: I think he's kind of a blowhard and a religious nutjob, but whenever his stories come up on my phone and I s it's once a week that somebody calls into that show and they're like, Yeah, I'm 60, and I have 20,000, or I had$10,000 for retirement, and I don't want to work anymore, and I don't know how to invest, and I don't know how to save.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dude, you are fucked.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be working until you're dead.
43:01
SPEAKER_00: Just the like everybody living on that.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I told you this.
43:05
SPEAKER_00: I went into the bank, you know, might have been four years ago, and like I was I'd started doing well and I'd been putting money away.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: And the counter go, the counter girl goes, Should we open up a line of credit for you?
43:21
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, for what?
43:23
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Well, you know, so you can go out and buy stuff.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I can buy what I need.
43:27
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Yeah, but you know, you can you can buy more stuff.
43:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, that's not that's not my money.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: That's it's your money.
43:35
SPEAKER_00: She's like, well, this is this the banker saying this to me.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: Not a banker, but a telling.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: She's like, well, you know, that's how that's how you get stuff in America.
43:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, by being in debt to you?
43:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, and I I don't think she understood like my grievance.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: She's like, well, what do you mean?
43:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, if I don't have the money, I'm not spending it.
43:58
SPEAKER_00: And the fact it's straight up irresponsible for you to.
44:02
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, I know it's probably part of you, you're probably comped on how many loans you write or you initiate, but like that that's it's not exactly predatory, but it's like it's irresponsible money, money behavior.
44:20
SPEAKER_00: Like I I I I I remember it was in October.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: October.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: And it was on it was at the PNC branch in Brighton, um, way down Grand River, approaching Howell.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
44:32
SPEAKER_00: And this lady, this this I just got this repulsed look on my face, and I she could tell.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: She's like, what did I do?
44:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you shouldn't be telling people to just go out and get lines of credit when they have plenty of money in the bank so they can spend more of it.
44:49
SPEAKER_03: No.
44:50
SPEAKER_00: It's absurd.
44:51
SPEAKER_03: Not helpful.
44:52
SPEAKER_00: So, um, okay, we're almost out of time, but I was gonna give the recipe.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: I finally have it's barely a recipe, it's real short.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: But as always, Critique Opolis is brought to you by heyhoney.biz.
45:06
SPEAKER_00: This is for all your uh Michigan specialty honey needs.
45:12
SPEAKER_00: I made this for Louisa.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: She didn't like it.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: I was heartbroken because I went out and got specialty cheese for she just turned up her nose at, but I liked it.
45:21
SPEAKER_03: It was stinky cheese, man.
45:23
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so I was given some figs from a fellow vendor, which I'm not gonna call out the vendor, but oh it's quiet.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna call out the vendor, but these f these figs are on the precipice of not good.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And there was a couple that were fine.
45:48
SPEAKER_00: But the great Frank Dixon gave me this recipe on the way over.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: You can roast them, but he said just get a soft brie cheese or goat.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: In his defense, he said goat cheese.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: I got brie, but it was a stinky brie.
46:06
SPEAKER_00: Mildly stinky, I liked it, but any soft cheese, this isn't really a hard cheese dish.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: Slice the fig so it's a round disc.
46:18
SPEAKER_00: Just a dollop of the soft cheese on top.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, I prefer you to use hay honey's hot honey, but any I hate saying this, any hot honey will do.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: But mine's the best.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: And that just a dollop of that on top and wolf it down.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: I have seen it, if you want another angle on this, it's not with figs, but you take us a donut peach, and they are not in season.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: I realize this.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: You cut them, how would you say it?
46:49
SPEAKER_00: Not like if this is the donut peach, you cut it like this.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: Donut peaches kind of have like a flat quality to them.
46:59
SPEAKER_00: You slice them around from pit from uh top to bottom of the pit and twist it so it comes into two halves.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: You take the pit out, and then you put, I believe, a date in the middle of it, a date that's stuffed with uh uh goat cheese.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and you put it back together, and then you wrap bacon around the peach, and then uh grill it.
47:38
SPEAKER_00: And I haven't made it, but it looks delicious.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: So next August, give that a whirl in the interim, get a hold of some figs and do the first one.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: Are we uh oh, it's your pick next time.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: Do you have one picked out?
47:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I have a couple choices.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, look at that.
47:56
SPEAKER_03: A few.
47:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: Are we not getting into those now?
47:58
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna get into them next time.
48:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
48:02
SPEAKER_03: You'll be surprised.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for now.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for waiting.
48:06
SPEAKER_00: Hugs and kisses.
48:07
SPEAKER_00: We'll miss you.
48:08
SPEAKER_03: Okay, bye.
48:09
SPEAKER_03: Thanks.