IBWOC Holiday Spectacular

Sorry.

Greetings and welcome to Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. I'm Liam Allen with my friend Morris Sachs. Happy Hanukkah, MB. Merry Christmas to you, my friend. Ah yes, the season of tears, screaming, shattered dreams, fighting with siblings, overpriced toys. It used to be an age of shopping malls and, you know, joy and snow and it was a wonderful

Yeah. I liked my brother and I like that movie, by the way. Yeah, I know it's your favorite movie. Um but it used to be a season of joy and you know snow. You you you mentioned that and you know I I try over the course of a week. We'll see what's going on and get a theme and You know, kinda I know this sounds like a highly written, well choreographed show, but the truth is it's just two friends having a chat. Um so uh

Before we logged on, I was reading a story about Assad and these mass graves. Uh you know, I Yeah, it's a mess, dude. I asked you know, I I'm you know, I'm of uh I like to talk to people, especially random strangers. And I'm in the Bodega the other day the other day and in the bodega you get a diverse group. Um And I said to the young gentleman who is clearly from the Middle East, I said, What's going on in Syria? And he looks me dead in the eye.

And he goes, I have no idea and I don't wanna talk about it I said, Okay, very good that You know, that we proceed. I said, you know, and that was the end of it. And I was like, Oh well, your buddy Muhammad here usually loves to talk politics'cause there's another guy that'll chew my ear off for an hour. And I got a but I got a quick no comment'cause you know, I what do dude, I'd like I like to speak to people in the no. I'm not, you know, I

You can only get so much out of Reuters and Twitters and and I'm conversation, boots on the ground, I get it. Exactly. Exactly. Of someone who I have something in common with, I have somewhat of a rapport with'cause I see this person somewhat regularly. Um, but yeah, they the and the only reason I ask is they have a little charity thing on the c on the counter that says feed a leppa. Okay, so this wasn't an I'm not This is not a random...

question. This is like all right, you have some you have a skin in the game in Syria. I am mystified by are you friends with Russia? Are you friends with the you have a CIA force? You have a who knows who force? Uh you have everybody tearing it apart. Can we not do Syria? What are we doing, dude? Can we do higher for longer and and rates? Well that's see that's the problem because what I've kind of came through through various conversations. I kind of decided I'm I'm ready for retirement.

And uh I'll give you an example of why I believe that's it's true for now, really true instead of the hyperbole, I'm not doing this anymore. Yeah. But um You know, I was mesmerized about the Saudi doctrine. drives the car through an open shopping mall and kills a bunch of people. And, you know, it came at a really weird time because I had this image in my mind of Um somebody bombing. You know, like the traditional Timothy McVeigh.

Um and then this happens and I assume he's a Muslim. That's bias, I understand. Well, he was, but he was, you know, divorce from his group, whatever. But that quote wasn't a terror attack, but you know what's the difference? People are dead. And um it kind of gave me the uh the feeling about how trivial money is. And I'm keenly aware that when you're my age and you've accumulated a certain amount of money.

You lose your street cred saying there's more to life than money. I get it. Especially when you got a family and you're having to go buy groceries, right? But assuming people will give me a pass because this to me is hopefully perceived as coming from a good place. You know, trying to point out things that A couple of my a couple of times in my life, older people had said to me, trust me, at the end of your life it ain't gonna be a

And that to me really resonated. So, you know, cycling, which was supposed to be a very healthy non-contact sport. It's giving me a heart problem and now a hip problem. So, not like Floyd Landis, which was curable by human growth hormone. But, you know, so I'm working out with a personal trainer a couple days a week.

uh I don't get to talk my way out of things, right? I gotta do and and making some progress, but you know you know how when you wanna change somebody's focus you throw out a topic so Her husband's a doctor and so I you know talk about the markets all of that and um

She goes, Well, what do you do? I said, Well, I used to used to do that sort of thing. In fact, I have this podcast. She goes, Oh, what's it called? I said, No, I I get creeped out when people I know listen. She goes, Well, okay, well. You know, so what's your theme? I said, Well, basically trying to take people, I would say younger people, but people in general. And give them some of my insights, and hopefully they'll have a somewhat smoother path.

um and not make some of the mistakes that are traditionally made by you know low information people. And um So it came that conversation came in a curious time because, you know. I'm called old chestnut for a reason. What am I, 56 now? And what's happening is a lot of my friends are my age and they're getting And I've seen a number of them have difficulty. And so It's not exciting, but what I've tried to do is share my personal experiences with people, because I think I've had some unique ones.

So without exception, every one of my friends who is my age. Um money is not a problem. That's more or less of a degree, but And the ones who did any sort of reasonable planning. You know, I wouldn't say they're rolling in dough, but as you get older, things happen. You know, you get your 401k, any sort of uh annuity retirement starts kicking in. The um the uh the brass ring is Medicare. 'cause that caps out the big biggest single destroyer of wealth is healthcare costs, right? And um

Your kids get older. Generally they need less help.

Oh, by the way, one of my daughters wanted me to communicate to you that she went the tough love route in reality and let one of the babies cry till they went to sleep. And apparently you had been communicating with her. So I hate the fact that you fuckers are going behind my back on this thing. Yeah. If it was up to you, the kid would be like sleeping out in the Canadian winter if it was crying, okay? Tough enough.

Uh no. No. They've got this thing now. I don't know. Your your kids are a little old for this, but they got this thing called the the noon. with a mention on it. So it gives them the sensation they're like in a car. You put these kids in these things, they're out. Oh really? Oh no way. And I think there's so much money you can actually lease them. Oh wow. It might be like five grand. So you immerse the child and it's gently vibrated to sleep. In fact, it's so effective.

You have to wean them for this thing for weeks before it I'm sure. Dude, how is this allowed on your watch? I'm just getting older. practice of trying to respond to every email. Big mistake. Well this this week I just I apologize. I just You meant well. And you did a good job. You you you did. You did a good job. Dude, I'm terrible. I got I got hats to send. I got emails to answer. But when there's two kids, I got Dude, my daughter's about five. Like when we started doing the show, she was one.

And and you got no margin for error. If you're doing your podcast and something goes wrong, it's it's eleven. No. From the studio. Okay, folks. Um, but yeah, dude, I took uh I took the two I took the two of them to the you dude, you gotta exhaust the kid. I know your your grand Lisa, it's not time to exhaust them yet. But once they can crawl, you let that thing crawl until her chin is on the floor, okay, and then pick her up.

Okay, and then she's burned her energy and then she'll go to sleep. But you gotta burn them, dude. I took him to the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum, um, which is just a giant warehouse full of big vintage trains and it was awesome. Um fantastic. Yeah, it was phenomenal. But they they go and they go and they go. I mean, I am just astounded by the energy. When it was when it was just Fiona, when it was just her, th the the Mr. Mom act was fun and it was easy.

Now I have the two of them and dude, I'm not joking about the season of screaming and crying and fighting and hair pulling. Dude, like I also took them to Longwood Gardens. Longwood Gardens is this in a beautiful conservancy arboretum nature down on the main line. Um and they do a phenomenal Christmas light spectacular. So I took the kids and you know, he can walk. A Eamon can walk. Um and I was like, look, if you if you get tired, I'll pick you up. Big mistake because now his sister heard that.

Ten steps into the show, Papa, my legs are tired. I was like, Don't even start. I said, Don't start. I said, I know what act you're doing. If he gets tired, I'm gonna carry him. Dude, within 15 minutes, I had him on my shoulders. Okay. So this went awry quickly. I I got him on my shoulders and her 10 steps behind me whimpering that her legs are tired. I was like, kid, you're full of it, okay? But

Yeah, dude, it's it's awesome. Um yeah, it was it was just a lot of fun. Uh I went down the the the the railroad museum and the arboretum at night and then there's the The national uh they're not the national. The Toy Train Museum is there and they have this inc impeccable, like millions of man hours, beautiful, beautifully done scale model railroads. Um there are adults.

Who run these railroads? Yeah. Yeah. They sleep at people's houses. Rod's Rod Stewart's a big railroad guy. He's got a thing in his basement. Yeah, it's insanity, dude. It's a it's like a it's like pirate weirdos and there's all there yeah, there's train weirdos. So I I'm I'm a I'm one of them. I'm I'm a victim, okay? So we stayed in uh you you like like you said, you like you know that you're used to finer living. Um luckily there's a hotel down there, okay and it's only train cabooses, okay.

So they've ripped the inside out of these cabooses and they've made them into hotel rooms. So obviously we stayed down there, okay? Which was just incredible. I thought of you often. I thought of you often How much was it? Like forty bucks a night? Get the fuck out of here. It was two hundred and forty nine dollars, dude. A night. Yeah. It was it was packed out yesterday was it was we left. We left early, okay? Um

But yeah, dude, it was it was such an ordeal and it was so much fun for the kids. But I d you know what else I thought of you? Is because they had for sale at the toy museum these vintage old toys, these vintage Lionel locomotives, okay? And so my son picks it up and it's really heavy. And all I could think about was you hitting your friend in the airplane. And all I could think was if he does this to her, it'll be like a catastrophic damage.

But it he'll turn out to be a huge success. All I could think about was you clocking the kid with the plane and so and your mom being like, Why did you do it? and you being like, I don't know. Dude, that that has been like one of the most helpful stories you have told when it comes to me dealing with my kids. Because I go to myself, number one, will he hit her with it? Okay. That's number one. Exactly. Exactly. And then I'm ready to expect the answer is I don't know why. So I am already

I have already visualized it. I have turned the map around. And I and as he picked up that fucking five pound lead locomotive, all I could think about was you. So you could tell your trainer that is the mission. It's a parenting show, okay? Yes. We do podcasts. We do we do market. And the and the rates, and Mar Morris is a legendary bond trader, but he's also now a grandfather and a father of three girls.

Which is like more war experience than working on the street, like in in some senses. So so thank you for that anecdote, okay? You're welcome. I'm a huge fan of women. I I don't think anything gets done without women involved. Well my when I found out I was having a daughter, I l I I I beamed with joy knowing that you

Okay, then I could get everything I needed, okay, directly from a triple girl dad. Okay. A a father of three highly successful. Like you don't even have a statistical. Like like by statistics. You should have one that's like a junkie and in jail, okay, just by American statistics, correct?

Like you should argue we we we scraddle their fence, but no, how fast do you get like who gets three aces? All right, uh girl, like three you got three aces. Like, all right. I know the middle one's a little up up and down. She's she's But you got but no seriously, just statistically speaking, I'm like, okay, well, dude, Morris Morris got three aces, okay? So he knows how to do

Him and Cheryl. Let me not let me not give you all the credit. Let me give Cheryl I would give all her all the credit. I'd I'd have good sense to stay out of the way. Right, right. But yeah, anyway. Um Yeah.

Without women, um w it would be a dark place. And and but women are tricky though, because having my daughter before my son made me think that that it's just gonna it's gonna be just like her and everything will be normal and he won't be a full blown feral orangutan, um, which is just the difference between boys and girls. I wouldn't know how to raise a boy. I wouldn't know. Just hit him. I w you will be struck soon. It's when you get old enough I will strike you.

You know I always like the badmouth Greenwich. Um Yeah, it's easy to do yeah, it's fun to do. I was talking to a buddy of mine whose wife is a mucky muck at one of the private schools. There's so many fucked up kids at these private schools, there aren't enough psychiatrists. Can you I'm dealing I I am dealing with a fascinating story at a private school. Um

And yeah, dude, there the stuff that goes all right. So here is the mission of the private school. Okay. And I am the son of a public school educator educator and the son of a private school. My par my mother taught at tactical school, my father taught at public school. The m the mission of a of a high end private school in Greenwich is to make the parents happy.

keep the endowment, keep the donations, and if that kid is having a sad day, that kid should probably stay home and can and reflect on their feelings. And there'll be a massive support network. For however that child is feeling that day. It's not a school anymore, dude. It's not a school. Paris Island, okay. West Point, okay, that's where that's where the learning happens.

Okay. I don't want to hear about anything going on at Greenwich Country Day. Okay. I'm sorry if that's the school. I just it I don't I don't know which school I made a point of not asking so I couldn't fuck it up. But um Thanks. Thanks for adding to the anxiety of my children's education. All right. I already told you the Predator boys are circling my daughter in preschool. Okay.

So I can I can I have a c a little while till I have to worry about sending her to Yeah. But I I remember when E. G. heard I had daughters, he started working on me, you know, what are you gonna do and the boys and it dawned on me You know, what do you do? If the boys don't come round. Yeah, I know you said that. Hey, I'm not pretty. Nobody likes me. I don't have an answer to that one. If the daughter stays out too late, that's fixable.

you know, sitting home crying'cause she didn't ask on. I don't you know, I didn't really have that as a problem either. Um but um

Yeah, I mean it's just part of life. People get people get through it. Um so uh I was sitting around yesterday minding my own business. kind of scratching my head about what we could talk about. And one of my friends sent me a YouTube video of a couple of guys climbing the Matterhorn. Now, you may recall I attempted the matter horn with uh my friend Marty, Travis, and Peter McGuire. Travis, Murray

I don't think Marty, but Peter McGuary, they made to the top I did not. Um ran out of time, which I look back on philosophically because You know, I I'm a risk manager. We ran out of time. And many people would have carried on. In fact, A week earlier two British climbers had carried on, got caught in a storm, froze to death. So when we got to that point, I'm like, this is just karma. Like, if if I break the rules and get above

fourteen thousand feet and a storm comes in after two guys just trying it. Like I know I'm So we we turned around and I was I was really disappointed. I thought we had bad luck with our queue and yada yada yada. But That's mountaineering. And so I'm watching this video of Two really talented climbers and they're just ripping up the thing. And I'm watching it with Maddie. And we got to the point where Marty and I got stuck because some Japanese climber ran out of gas.

And we were waiting for them to lower him down. But They go all the way to the top, sort of this area they call the Solve Hut, which is like the the um like a resting. Well it's a hot so in a storm you can hang out in there. But it's also the point that if you don't get there by X hours, you're supposed to turn around. So we go in the thing and leave some water for the way down and Marie says, What do you think? And I'm like, I think uh think we gotta go down.

And I you know, I was I was really bummed out, I trained really hard for it. But I'm watching this video. Is they're getting to the upper shelf, and it's so sketchy they have fixed ropes, which is a typical. And I'm watching these guys go up the fixed rope, I'm thinking, you know, if I was fit enough, fit enough to do this today.

Not a fucking chance. It's just too hard. I'm done. I'm I'm like done doing her. I had some cycling friends over last week and I these guys are legitimate athletes. And I'd gone to France with them and we did a lot of the classic climb. And one of them, this won't mean much to you if you're not a cyclist, but one of the climbs we did is called the Termal A. Which is a treasure friends climb. They call it or category because it's so hard, it's without category. Is it exposed?

A little bit. You're in the here in the mile. Yeah, but like isn't the top of it like the like a moonscape or you you get like above treeline, isn't it ground? Um but I remember talking to these guys when they came to visit, we were kind of reminiscing and I said, you know Before we hit the base of the climb at the terminal, We had already ridden a hundred miles, so that's a century.

By the way, that will be people's goal for a season. Right. Running. Okay. So we get up, have breakfast, we ride a hundred miles, then we hit the base of the clock. And I'm so ghast. I write my friend. I don't even recognize him. One of the guys had taken in too much sugar because he was like barking. He would go off in the woods, he was pulling his Bib's on'cause his stomach blew up.

Highest paved road in the French Pyrenees. It's the highest paved road in the Pyrenees. You guys set it off with a hundred mile, right? Okay. And you're going up to seven thousand feet, dude. Seven thousand feet. Twenty twenty one hundred meters for our friends in Europe. But yeah, the tourmalade, dude. I didn't know it was the highest m paved pass. Oh disgusting, dude. And where did you get how did you even get there? Where were you a hundred miles, dude?

I just I got talked into it, you know. It seemed like So it don't worry, it ends in tears. So we get to the top of the the turmoil and I was talking to my friends. I said, you know, what if We just made it 5% easier. It would have been so much more fun, right? It would have been and you know, ending in tears. So one of the climbs we did was Alp to West. Which is you see it every year, the Church of France. So there's this indoor cycling program called um

Strava or Zwift? Zwift, Zwift. Yeah, Zwift. They have a replica of Alp Duel. So I would routinely go on that. And I could pin it. It's 200 and something watts. And I swear it took me about three hours on a stationary bike to get to the top of the Zwift up to us. This is all fact checkable by the way. I think. That's what I think. Three hours, dude. Yeah, you know, it's probably my best time on that route. Damn. We get to the base of Elptoz. Yeah, it's 3600. I've done this. I'm gonna pin it. 221

And it should take me about two hours. Completely ignorant. Didn't take rolling resistance into account. Didn't take aerodynamics into account. Didn't take the fact that we rode five hundred miles the four week. Okay. So now I'm barely going up at all, right? Everyone's passing me. And I'm getting mad because it's like it's just a total epic fail. And I'm on this grand One of the key features of any turtle transportation.

And I'm miserable. Cyclic you're in cyclic heaven. You're in s you're like no. But no. You should be granny gearing and looking at the beautiful scenery. Instead you're gasping, staring at your front dial. Yeah. And I get to the top, and Ed's sitting at the hotel. Bunch of the other guys are already done. And I f get to what I thought incorrectly was the top.

Once I get off, Ed's like, No, you got another three hundred yards. I'm like, I don't give a fuck, I'm done. I take my helmet off. I'm so frustrated. I just start smashing the thing into the the the the road literally just as hard as i can and if i could have jumped off the top of the mountain and killed myself i might have done that and again you know it's like So anyway, I'm talking to this young lady and

You know, she's like, well what do you you know, when when we're done here today, what are you gonna do? Well, what I typically do, I'm gonna go sit in my study and stare at the Bloomberg for three hours. And make some money. And she goes, Oh, sounds good. I go, it's stupid. She goes, Why is that? I said, because That's the achievement of my life to sit and stare in the computer, eking out a couple hundred bucks. So that the So I I get that all to myself then i go out of my

study and my grandkids are playing on the carpet. I'm like, this is how I'm going to spend my day. I'm going to roll around on the floor. Hopefully they'll claw on me and puke. But What I normally would have been doing was looking at the Bloomberg, and the T the three-month bill yields. Something like a um

I got an email this week, guy loves peaches and regalia and Morris looking for his notes. Tell he's like waking up when Morris finds his notes. Notes and glasses. So let's say the three month bill is uh two sixteen. Two sixteen? Yeah. Okay. Oh no, no, no. No. Okay, well, so what I would normally do is okay, the money market fund. Is like a four month treasury's four three. Four point three. Okay. Oh good, four point three. The money market fund is a four point six.

So I would say, okay, well, you know, the money market fund isn't taxable in Connecticut. It's not taxable by the federal government. The money market fund. Not a bad yield, you're liquid, but it's not as secure. has a T bill, but the T bill, you pay a$75 ticket charge to buy. So this my day would be going back and forth, calculating this. And if I got it all dialed in right. Over the course of a month, it might be an extra five hundred bucks.

And I'm like, fuck that. What am I doing here? No, I know. Um So I started going through this kind of self-analysis of, you know, where did you set out to do? Where did you end up? All that turn the map around. And it's come at a time where a few of my friends have gotten older and gotten into more lifel life events. You know, it's not entirely cheery.

But you know, I've always been trying to point out things that I've experienced that might help people down the road. And one of the things I've noticed is the people who made a lot of money and were a lot of feet alcohol in it. they've either run out of money or They have plenty of money. But they have nothing to do other than brag about how much money they have or sit around making more money. And you here I have this epiphany of.

I'm going to leave the money aside. I'm going to play with my grandkids. But the life lessons, if I am allowed to share them, are pretty much this. When you're young and healthy, You've got the asset of time is on your side. And you can do a couple things with that. You can take a deep breath and figure out what it is you want to do with your life. I know that's an old man talking, but for people who've been reflective, it's been very productive. They were good about deferring consumption.

The people who made a lot of money and were living in the Grand Illusion, the bulk of them are broke. Most of them are miserable because, you know, that saying the best things in life aren't things. So I I know one guy who just can't buy enough cars. Every day there's another car being dropped off across the street. I don't ever see him really drive him. I don't, I don't know. So, you know, old chestnut says a couple of things.

You know, I remember Steve Jobs did that whole lecture about how he took a class and Japanese calligraphy and changed his life. I I'm not gonna try and be that bold, but you know, when I kind of figured out what was important to me and what it was gonna take. To get there, it took a lot of pressure off. That's number one. Number two, because of the group of guys I was involved with, we were hyperactive physically.

And so as I've gotten older, a lot of physical trouble my friends are having hasn't befallen. Yeah, sure. You know, my hip hurts a little. It's a little tougher to walk, this or that. But I don't have high blood pressure, and I've taken 50 different kinds of medications. And if something does go wrong, you're healthy enough to recover from it. Where the guy that's 50 pounds overweight for 30 years.

You know, I don't know what you do about that, um, other than try not to get there. Um so, you know. I remember telling you a number of times how I wanted my career to end on an uptick. And so I had to be very careful about the timing of it. Well I quote retired, which was stopped going to the office every day. Um it was a it was a really huge setback. I I struggled a lot. You know, I didn't want to Not that anything has changed. I became aware of it.

And my friend Tom Croney sent me this paper which we've talked about. Why did you stick to your guns? Were you ever like I'm going back? You must have been like, fuck this, I wanna go back. Or were you no, you were done. No, I'll tell you that's a good question because I got this paper from Tom Crowley and it forget the name of it, but it's somewhere under But it was about men who were tired, and they gave examples of musicians and scientists who typically did their best work.

when they were young and spent the rest of their careers trying to invent the new thing or come up with the new song. And generally died miserable. And those who didn't try to do something new and teach. live very fulfilled lives. Yeah that that came at a very important time of mine. I think it's before we started the podcast. I figured out I had to find something, a reason to get out of bed.

And I had dozens of investments all over the map, because I was your typical Wall Street idiot. Investment come along, I'd put fifty grand in it and it would immediately become worthless. But you had to spend the rest of the year tracking down because, you know, a moral obligation. Anyway, um I came upon this concept of figuring out how to organize everything for when I wasn't.

gonna be around figuring how do I want to leave Cheryl, how do I leave the kids. And it's it's complicated in a lot of ways. And I like complication. Um, it's complicated because Greenwich is a great example what happens when you raise kids and when they get to be 30 years old, you I have a wealth advisor who we were very close, and he told me he had dozens of kids who were trust fund kids.

And it all ended up the same way. The parents said, you know, at 35 they get half, and at 38 they get. And once they realized they could get 50 grand out of that account, it was Hookers and cocaine and the m until the money was And uh it didn't get directly, but it would be like, I'm starting an internet business where to get hookers and cooking. Okay. And

You know, one, I felt like I had worked too hard to let the money end up in that place. And secondly, I didn't want to put my kids in a situation where They were gonna have to fight demons. when they had access to large amounts of money. So that was the psychological part about how do you incentivize kids in general. not to be, you know, the boomerang kids. And so Cheryl and I spent a lot of time thinking about how do we want to create a safety net with girls.

Especially you worry about them falling for the wrong guy and then them just raiding the Cookie cookie jar. So we put a lot of time into making things divorce proof. Obviously, tax minimum. And we've talked about it on the show. What's helped me is having the focus about how I wanted to prepare for my family when I wasn't here. And then when you had the idea of doing this podcast,

I mean it's all you it never would have happened without you because I'm just too lazy. Kevin Muir. It's not me, it's Kevin Muir. Kevin's the one that got you on the show. So full out of respect for Kevin and Christmas.

Even though you snubbed us this year for the Christmas show on the market huddle. Well we'll we'll we won't tell. Kevin got you on the show. Kevin talked to you. You did a great job with Kevin. And then I said Kevin I said, Kevin didn't let you talk enough. You need to talk more and here we are. Success has many parents and we will have a hat tip to uh Kevin and Lena who's grossly underpaid. I'm sure no one The Canadian approach to compensation.

The 51st state. Go ahead. Go ahead. Let's not do this now. No, no. I'll I'll be good. But um those things, those two things having a purpose. Which was the linchpin of that article I keep talking about. And then coming here and talking to somebody I like about things I like about. We've got lots of examples where people have gotten something out of it. And so it makes it feel worthwhile.

It is a bit stress provoking when you have a week like this where and and a year like this, uh I'll say this. If you didn't make if you didn't have a big year this year, hang it up. 'Cause I've never seen a year this easy in my life. Oh this was personal.

Meanwhile, I was gonna compliment some of our friends who was like like dude look at Jeffries. Jeffries is at an all-time high. Jeffries is up like seventy percent this year. Jeffrey I'm sorry, it might be up a hundred percent. Let me let me get my numbers right.

But and and when I looked at it'cause I wanted to be like look like who had a great year, who do I want to say some nice things about? And I was like, what can I like I'm I'm just scrolling through my list of ticker symbols and I get to Mr. Handler's shop. And I did and I was like, let me just zoom out and see what they did. And the th all I could hear you saying was don't confuse a bull market with brains. Don't go throwing it at handler.

Dude, 98% for Jeffree's year to date, dude. Up 98%. Up 98% year to date. All right. So yeah. Like you heard it from Morris. It was just, it was an easy here. Hey, you know. No Wall Street pro gives a shit about where the profit comes from. I said this dozens of times. If I thought sticking pins in a doll was gonna make me money, I'd have Four thousand pins in my f fingers. Dude, arc are arc arc year to date. You wanna take take a guess what Kathy did year to date, dude? Take a guess.

Down thirty-six percent. Up thirteen percent, dude. Underperformed the market by fucking twenty percent. So we were gonna talk about a few of our successes this week. Please sure. So I think even though she was up, I think our Salacious accurate comments diagnosing her as a um sociopath. I think we nailed that. I think calling uh DJ Sal out about

I think that was a good one. I think predicting four and a half percent two year notes was a good buy. Even Stan Druck caught that one. Remember you're buying an enormous amount to you? Um I said one of our failures. And I was corrected by friend, was my I was convinced Tether was a fraud. Not over yet. It's not over. It's not over. It's feeling like we run out of time on that call though. Dude, there's a guy on Twitter that's that his life is devoted. To to to like fact based

Be like tether does this, this is wrong. They printed another billion tethers and the tether went to Coinbase and then they went to Bitcoin. Dude, this dude has it down to a size. Dude, he gets like thirteen likes. He gets like, you know, nobody cares. I feel bad for him. He's just screaming into the void. Meanwhile there's like, you know, laser eyed, you know, monkey faces like Bitcoin to two hundred thousand and it's got

seven Jillion likes. And I'm like, uh like it did that it but yeah, I agree, dude. The tether thing. Did we get an audit? There's thirteen employees. They print money like I I can't fight the fight. What am I gonna do? I can't be like that. Um it the tougher thing I I went all in and you know so far it seemed like um but you know generally and I had a whole thing um we were gonna talk about and then you you you cold shouldered me when I brought it up. There was that um

Digital bank called Synapse. Yeah, yeah. Where 5,000 people had their money just go disappearing. Oh, I'm so bad for that. So I went to that website because I wondered what they were being offered. To put their money in a non-bank quasi bank. And it turns out, if I read this correctly, Do your own research. If you opened an account at Synapse once a week. They had a lottery and there were prizes. And if you had an account, you were included in the lottery.

So I'm gonna be very careful here. I'm gonna let you feather this one home. But if you ever go to the bodega and you see people buying lottery tickets, They don't look like The sharpest tools in the shed, right? Special folks, dude. The lottery people are special. They got their numbers. They got the fifty fifty, the box, pick three, pick six. Come on. It's ridiculous. You know they got this thing in Canada called the the the 5050. Oh really?

You you go to a a concert. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a fifty fifty ticket and you get a number. Wow. All the money they raise, the winner gets half. Yeah, okay. Yeah, it's that's criminal. What kind of odds do you get half? And the money pours in. The money pours in. Pours in. Pours in. Um, there's signs. You know what there's so many Canadians living in Arizona. We went and saw a um preseason game like the Cubs. And they had a sign with a neural that said 50-50. Pick like where to yeah. Um but uh

I I've been looking at the market the last couple of weeks and you know that's why I'm talking about these life things. Cause the The only thing I think I would say that has any value, okay? I was very impressed with Jerome Powell. Okay. There was an episode several weeks ago where I said I was surprised the market didn't go up on good news. And I'm like, what's the good news?

He said he's going to keep his eye on inflation and he's going to make sure payrolls are strong. And what happened? The market went down and then took off and is up like 50%. So Friday, I want to be careful because this isn't my area of expertise. But I believe Friday was the death cross for the spoos and blues. So for those of you who don't speak Zervos, he's been running this risk parity trade for years. So what he does is he says, I'm gonna buy risk assets.

And if there's a problem, I'm going to own some deferred Euro contracts, aka blues. And so if there's a problem, the Fed will bail me out. Okay. Well, the problem I believe on Friday was the keen stock market. And because Paul talked about being vigilant about inflation, they cane the blue. So that's a correlation that guys like that don't ever want to see. And uh so I'm waiting for the Mia Culpa from Mr. Zerville. So I haven't got the newsletter yet. But you know that Back into the realm of

He's an analyst. He doesn't have I don't think he has that trade on. I mean, I I'm very big on walking the lock. Um I've never been a believer in that. Directly, we've always had front market long positions because of there's logic to the Fed coming. But I was very relieved. To hear Paul restate the commitment to inflation And the commitment to a stronger cause. So to me, and this is not uh any advice, but to me that should be the wet dream for risk assets. You've got you're gonna have easy.

Short rates and a Fed determined to provide noninflationary long-term growth. That that is gonna push people out the yield curve. I don't think it did. Last week. I'm not gonna try and look at my notes again. But You know, what do you want from a Fed chairman? That's exactly what you want. And um so I I think there'll come a time. Not yet, but the come will there will come a time where Like last week, the um the group psychology gets so one way. Like that's what everybody was pointing.

Kevin was big on pointing that and gave cattle and anyone else you pay for was like, uh, market's overbought, there's gonna be a correction. Well, there'll be something, okay, there'll be a problem. In the Middle East, there'll be a problem somewhere and people be searching for liquidity. And I truly believe You make more money buying in the crisis. Then you make sitting around being the angry old guy short all the time. Trust me, I've done that. You know?

It's just there's just it's just pointless. You know, swim with the tide. You know, my brother who's been long I was just gonna say Mark. I was gonna say you and Mark. Sit you and Mark side by side. Well, he will tell you. He had some and I I was there with him. There was some really fucking dark moments. Cause there's no free lunch. There's you know, they they just I like to call it the shape the tree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the best part about working with guys.

like E.G. or Leslie. Because, you know, you go in the room, you put your trade up on the whiteboard, you'd re-underwrite the trade. Do we still like the trade? Yes. Do you like it a lot? Do you like it a little little? If we didn't like it a lot, we trimmed it. If we liked it a lot, we kind of tried to estimate how far against us it could go. And if we thought we were getting within spitting distance. of the of the worst levels, we'd go all in. And um

Uh I still believe that's that's the way to go. I I I look back And I I like to ding myself for not having done a better job investing, but the truth is, I think I've done okay. I've only had a couple of zeros. You know. Um and I look back at the trades I didn't go all in on. And I you know, that would have been more money. But it would have been counter to my approach. Because when you're all in, you make one mistake, you're all done. And uh, you know.

I was always very good about having measured risk. Um diversify It doesn't mean you're not gonna get I was just gonna say like diversify, like you know, is that is that antithesis to or antithetic? What is the word I'm looking for? Um to the to the idea that every investor should have a diverse portfolio. We are were you always we load'em up when you liked'em and you were

Well, look, there were a couple of advantages I had that the average guy didn't have. Number one, I I had access to professional technology and information. So we had Fed watchers, we had economists, I had, you know top guys doing our analytics. I had we wanted to talk about option theory. Had PhDs in physics to talk about stuff, you know. So we had a really good uh situation. Which is why I think guys who trade at home I have a mo a difficult time. I know when I went from riding tickets.

to asking a trade assistant to execute the trade. We started making more money. I said this nauseum, I was after Eiji for years. You know, you're smart. The money is not in the writing and the tickets. Okay, you're the best scalper there is. Grant. And and I was okay at it. But you're you're talking about eighths and quarters. You're not talking about capturing half points. And that

You know, that's where the all-in things come. You know. So an example of an all-in thing that I I didn't do. You may be familiar that island to Puerto Rico. At Lovely Island, Island of Tropical Breezes. Okay, yeah. That's the end of our musical portion for the show. Um so they went bankrupt. And our Muni guys are really good. Not about providing housing for indigenous Americans, but

And I sat down with them and we went through this thing with a fine tooth tooth comb. And there was no way this thing was not gonna work. I mean make a lot of things. So I said to Bobby, I said, how much of my net worth do you think I should put in this thing? And he said 40%. I'm like, what? He goes, yeah, forty percent.

And I looked at my net worth and I said to him, because he had keys to the kingdom, I said, you know how much of these cause there there were zero coupon bonds that traded like 40 cents on the dollar. I'm not buying this many Puerto Rican bombs and turn up to the risk committee and they don't pay and hear about what a dope I was. To the point. I think Maddie. told one of her co-workers where she was working about the trade.

She via violated the number one rule of the circle, trust. Never talk about your position. But anyway, that guy said it was like the dumbest thing he ever heard. Which I immediately knew money, right? And we did it. I don't know whether they went up three times, four times, seven, but But I didn't go well in because

The other one Puerto Rican bonds. You cannot roll you cannot stack the house on the bonds of Puerto Rico. They had this thing locked down. There was no nickel was getting through there without getting used to pay the bonds.

The other one which was a little more interesting and I took a lot more risk was Munis are interesting because these municipalities have all these things they can do with the to save money and and one of them is they can defease them. They can go out and they can issue bonds and buy treasuries and take the treasuries and put them in a trust and guarantee the payment of older bonds. And so One of these bonds, they were called J.C. Bradford's, and the underwriter fucked up the prospective.

So it got into the market that they may not be tax exempt. But their red issued as tax exempt and they call them at 6%. So the market immediately writes them down to like 7%, 8%, because now they're. concerned they won't be tax exempt. So talk to Bobby and King, and they're backed by zero coupon bonds, which are guaranteed by the Treasury. So I'm like, okay.

We buy everyone we can. We buy everyone we can at Grunge Capital. Everyone at Grunge Capital buys everyone we can. Okay. So now I go to a law firm. And I show them this thing. I said, do you think the IRS will deem these are taxable? Which is kind of unusual for a trader to go spend money out of his own pocket. To get a lawyer. Figured you got tens, hundreds of millions. What's the eight thousand bucks? So they came back and said no guarantees but it uh they'll probably say they're

They're taxable. So we get back in there and buy the rest of the remaining stuff. The rest of the guys at Greenwich who hadn't gotten wind, right? There's a family in Texas called the Bassbroth. Like the Bass Brothers were buying these things. And then during one of the great financial crises, people started going through the collateral. And a lot of these Bonds were backed by treasuries, but bonds that were guaranteed by the treasuries.

So they were an indirect obligated okay. So they beat the snap out of these things again. They may hurt our feelings. Any spare cash we came into, just bought more. Because at this point it was Chernobyl if these things went to zero. Um and it worked out and we did very well. Um again, you know, when you ask Why am I always so risk-averse? It's because time and time again. I've seen opportunities show up.

that were just too good to pass up. And if you have positions on, I don't care whether it's Apple. Warren Buffett and there's a crisis. Nobody wants what you got. And I'll tell you why, just to tell you, because the guy you go to ask for a bid, he knows you have no choice. So your bid is gonna suck ass. Even if he wants them. He ain't gonna go, oh goody. You know, it's no, how much can I anal rape this guy? Yeah. They a lot.

So I like... I won't say it because my kids listen, but I like to be the guy getting the peck and shoes. Yeah. You know. I keep coming back to the same things. If I hadn't been around for the stock crash in 87 and wake up and try to call London and have the phones not work and feel that panic. You know, if I hadn't been there on the money market desk, the Continental Bank, the largest bank in the country.

And I was funding it and I couldn't get the money and watched that unfold. And I've just seen so many things that when you had cash, it's like I can't believe it, it's too good. And I know it doesn't make for solid podcasts, but you know. And you know, my brother during those times, I think he had a lot of adjunct. You know? And uh he's earned his return. Yeah, he's operating without a safety net in s in a sense, um when those things

Yeah. Um a different animal, yeah. That was the one safety that I had that a lot of listeners didn't have was good savor. And um, you know, a wife who understood what I was doing and and I didn't have any death. Oh thinking about somebody the other day that that they were hanging around and and I don't know if they blew up or something but I was like more so he said, I was like eventually they get ya. I was like eventually they get ya

And I was like that sh I forget who it was, um, but I was like that dude should've just he it when was it enough? You know? I was like, Eventually they're gonna get ya. Um Yeah, I don't know if you said it, there you were like eventually you I think you said it. You were like eventually the market come for everybody. Stick around long enough. Yeah. And it's It's the math. You know, that epiphany I had with that Scottish math professor talking about the central limit theorem, you know, and um

If you just look, I mean, what are the chances you could flip a quarter and get heads 30 times in a row? You'd say it's zero. Well, I don't know what it is, but it ain't zero. And um They'll get you or somebody who's working for you. You know, I had a guy working for me. Nickname was Giant, smartest guy in China. Fed eased out of nowhere, didn't have the front end hedge. Lost four million bucks whatever.

And you know, he's telling me, I'm not too worried, it'll come back. I got some curve hedges. It's like giant that that loss is real, that that discontinuous jump. Yeah. Yeah. And just to beat a dead horse. So I mentioned to you, I went to dinner party where I met the woman in charge of FEMA who bought the house by the merit. I met A man at that party is a lovely old college professor.

Oh Rob Engel. And he won that coveted and sought-after Nobel Prize, who was awarded to Barack Obama. By the way, I'm making a little traction here. Number one. I actually heard my wife say in public he was a terrible president. Now, here's a little pro tip. It's a little Manchurian Canada. So we we finished dinner. I'm going through YouTube watching different things. We watched that Matterhorn video. And I was Jonesing for a little fish. I know that's a non-starter machine.

But I remember seeing there was like this 12-year-old girl who had a sign. Can I sing bug with you, Trey? Or four year old. Yeah, she got up on stage and killed it. He calls his four-year-old up on stage. And she sings a fish song called Bug. Yeah. Okay song. But there's nothing cuter. Then this rock and roll legend playing acoustic guitar in this

whatever age kid singing a fish song. Yeah. It's just heartwarming. And it's on in the background. And Cheryl hears a little kid singing. She starts watching. And you could see Trage's like face just light up. And he's playing and she's singing. And I see a little um Little smile starting to form on Cheryl's face. Yeah. That's I'm gonna be working that angle for a while, see if we can't break through. Um so um I have it.

On uh on YouTube because it's the cutest thing in the world. Yeah. But that's the beauty of those guys. It's not you say it's not about the money, it's about the money. They go out there, they're just having so much fucking fun. And I think about the guys from Wall Street who are trudging in at 50 years of age, because they need that extra two million bucks or whatever.

Well now you've transitioned y now you're closer to Trey than you are the Wall Street guy. Now you you you know, now you're behind a microphone, you have audience and uh and you have uh and you have fans out there that are that, you know Even if you guys send the emails, I know he reads everything and I I'm bad at I don't answer'em all and I and I got hats coming to people. We would the the we order nothing.

The merchandise order has been confirmed and they're coming. All right. So we we we love the audience. But yeah, dude, you've given more on the podcast than you ever did to kids professionally because you've spent whatever, two hundred hours, whatever the hours are of unfiltered you know, conversation where the kid can or a kid or adult or whoever I'm not a kid, I'm forty, forty two years old, whatever I am. Um, but if there if guys and girls or the audience

can get the value out of that. Like you didn't get you didn't have time for that shit when you were trading. You were in there banging numbers. You weren't fucking you weren't young kids. Look, don't fuck up. Yeah. Yeah. Joke. And I meant it as a joke, but you know. Yeah. Yeah. You didn't have you didn't have two hundred hours of cheap Even the Godfathers said men and women can't be, you know, uh careless.

Yeah. Women and children could be careless, but not men. Yeah, exactly. Women and children could be careful. Speaking of the godfather, I went to La Toretta two nights ago for dinner and I had the veal. It was the best in the city. I didn't make it to the bathroom to see if they had the old fashioned toilet back there. Oh no.

All right, dude, this has been fun. As usual. People were excited. Um, any time that anyone talks about de icing on social media, I get I get tagged in it now. Now now we are we are the go to podcast. Um when people think of um De icing and uh and battle axes for home protection. I saw that a friend of the show is getting married in a couple months. And he lives in California. And we've been invited to the wedding. And uh our plan

uh is to drive there in California. My understanding is it's a four hour drive. And so I was talking to a mutual friend of ours was like You driving four hours? Crazy. But uh yeah. He goes, what's wrong with you? He said you entered the upper echelon of true one percenter. I said once you start to take in the logistical time element. You know, it's forty minutes to drive to the airport. You gotta give him your car. You gotta wait for the pilots, you gotta do that.

Then you gotta fly. Then when you land, the car's gotta be there. Yep, but you know, it costs you like half an hour to drive. Yeah. Oh. So, you know. Gotta stay fresh. Is that the is that the the the the high end of the the drive? Because you're good for uh a couple hours usually. Well, I don't know. I I don't know. Let me say this and you when you were talking about the Matterhorn earlier, I think it was really fortuitous, not just for you, but for Marty.

You didn't go up there'cause I've seen you like at the end of a slam where when you're spent, if you had gotten spent, like physically spent And you maybe like somebody offered some physical encouragement to you, that might have been met with some sort of resistance or or uh displeasure, you know. Why did you brought that up? Because I wanna say, had I known how dangerous that Matterhorn was, I never would have invited Travis and Peter. I I thought it was gonna be

A lot of anchors, good support, good places to set protection. And that final ridge. If a huge wind comes, you're you're getting blown off. Now, in mountaineering, there's ways you can sort of protect the garden, but it it's not glamour. And you're gonna be roped up, dragged up over sharp rock. You probably would have broken a couple of ribs. And uh because we're you we're gunks climbers, you know, every five, eight feet you put in

And I thought that's what it was. No, these Swiss guides, they're so worried about the weather. They don't care about anything other than getting up and down. You know, like for us, when you have someone on belay, you're protecting them, the rope goes through a device.

Which sort of simulates your seatbelt. You know if you jerk on your seatbelt, it locks up. That's what this bullet device does. What these um Matterhorn guides do is they use a hip play, which is they take the rope in one of their hands and they put the rope around their hip. And they have a good stance, thinking if the guy falls, you're gonna be able to hold them. I don't know. I know with the with the ballet device, you're not going anywhere. That hippoly, eh, you know.

And uh How long was that? Would Cheryl have let you go if she had seen the YouTube video? She would have had to let me go because we made a deal that I could climb anything I wanted as long as I didn't spend the night. Which is a sham. I don't know how you she she didn't do enough research on that. I think that you won that. That was you pulled the victory. Oh, you can't sleep on the wall. Big d dude, you're not you don't want you have no interest in sleeping on the wall anyway.

I really wanted to until I heard the story about the guy having to breathe in the cat for burritos from the guy I was climbing with.

Out of the list of winds. All right. Done enough here. It's an uh you're at an hour and ten minutes. So you're you're we're one minute away from Cheryl coming in and giving you the red light. You just did an hour and twenty minutes. Can you go celebrate Hanukkah, please? Can I go supervise the children? I have obligations here. Thank you for giving me a late start. And thanks to everyone for, you know, your regular questions.

Inside baseball cast at Gmail. Send us some holiday messages. Inside baseball cast at Gmail. And have you just make one last interjection? We had an email. I may have said something which somebody interpreted as me thinking the guy who shot that executive was okay. I if it came across that way, I apologize because I, you know, the guy had his behavior as a professional was not to be admired.

But getting shot without a trial, but what has turned into something where I think this thing's getting ready to go parabolic? This personal trainer, lovely young woman, she's married, got kids. She was asking about that and she she's like Well didn't you think the guy kind of had a common? Dude, I bet you I bet you you pull if you went around a Christmas party and you went maybe not to the same uh you know level of parties, if you went to a commoners.

You know, if you went to a party in Jersey, if I go to like, you know, the Jersey Christmas party, okay, I bet you get eight out of ten that would look you in the eye and be like, Yeah, you know, and and I bet you those people have a story about, you know, their mother getting denied something for something and It's you remember I I said to you about they're gonna show up at your house one day with pitchforks and torches. This is it. That's it. There it is. I think there's of all the religions.

One of them. has sort of been ignored with the suicide bombers and the car bombs. And I have a vision in my mind that their time is up. Now I don't foster violence. I'm not gonna do anything. I'm just reading the tea leagues. But when you have normal people going, yeah, he deserved it. I I'm not gonna try and talk'em out of it. That's their opinion. And if they've been mindful Yeah. Yeah. You've seen how badly I can behave, so I don't I don't know what I'm capable of. Was you you again, dude?

Who who who has mentioned the unabobber? Okay. No one has mentioned the unibobber except for two finger on the pulse. It's just that simple, isn't it? Which was really concerning for me. They were like Dude, I like I you know I didn't read the manifesto but like the the name Unibomber came up like ten times and I was like I was like Jesus Christ what are we doing talking about this stuff on the show and I was like no more unibomber no more

Cool. How do you how do you be a risk manager for 20 something years and you just know that there's a bullet with your name on it and you know. Hope you're not there when it comes looking for you. Yeah, exactly. All right, pal. Happy Hanukkah. Have a great holiday. All right. I'll talk to you soon. Peace on earth. Goodwill toward men and women.