Softball, Not Baseball This Week

Greetings and welcome to Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. I'm Liam Allen without my friend more sex. That's right, no MB this week. He is on vacation. I am on vacation. We are both in the Hamptons. However, he is in Watermill over at some$25 million estate at some sort of event. And I am in West Hampton at Cup Sog Beach, sitting in my Ford F-150 doing the show alone. Only because we got so many emails and so many messages on Twitter, people complaining, um, inquiring.

Pining for inside baseball with all chestnut. But Morris and I made a promise to our wives when we started doing this that we'd only try to do it 40 weeks out of the year. And we take some weeks off, but it's just been so good. Um, that we've just had it rolling and we didn't want to stop and there hasn't been a reason to stop. But now we're doing summer break and he's on vacation. And as you know, he mentioned on the show that his wife closed and sold the private air charter business.

So MD no longer has a plane, so the days of jaunting around the country and never waiting in line on his personal jet, that is over. So now we schlep out to the Hamptons, we get on the L I E and we sit bumper to bumper. I mean, he might have taken the blade chopper. I don't know. I'd haven't talked to him today.

But we're both out on the island. It's lovely. It's 75. It's summertime. And really, what what are we gonna talk about? We have bored you to tears. talking about rate hikes, the two year, okay, inflation. We've just talked ourselves in circles. I'm not gonna sit here and talk about AI. I mean it's it's It's become it's become enough. And when I got the email from Bloomberg with the Bloomberg weekend reading, that was the nail in the coffin for.

Uh, because Bloomberg basically summed up what we've been talking about for months. Okay. I'll just read it to you. This is Bloomberg weekend reading. You probably all got it on your inbox lately yesterday afternoon or whatever. The US economy keeps plowing ahead despite all those predictions that the Federal Reserve's rate hike campaign would trigger a downturn. All right, stop right there. The US economy keeps plowing ahead.

Where have you heard that before? Was it was I I beat that drum and and Morris got aggravated at me and didn't want to talk about it and then Main Street and Wall Street and I said the unhinged spending of the American consumer is going to continue to drive this economy. Okay. People hard landing, soft landing and

And you know, you're confusing Main Street and Wall Street and the economy's not Wall Street. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, fine. But what it boils down to is the US economy keeps plowing ahead. All right, so what Morris not going to argue about that for another fifteen minutes? No, I'm just spare you. Just read read Bloomberg Week on reading. Indeed, talk of a recession among perpetual skeptics. Because that's not what I mean.

Talk of a recession among perpetual skeptics is even petering out. So they front run our show. All right, so what Morris is gonna turn bullish? I doubt it. I'm not gonna talk. We're not gonna I'm not gonna speak for him. Okay. The GDP picked up steam in the second quarter. Key inflation measures continue to cool.

Key inflation measures. Okay. Like we we know how they pick that number apart and they dissect it and they pick what they want to take out of it, core and housing and yada yada. But anyway, key inflation measures continue to cool. Okay, fine. Consumer spending is rising and the labor market remains at near historic strength. Understandably, a growing number of economists, including those on staff of the Fed, are rethinking unrealized predictions of a downturn.

Some are even growing confident that Fed Share JPAL can accomplish a soft landing. Okay. In Europe, though, the picture isn't quite as rosy with fears of slow growth amid the European Central Bank's unprecedented cycle of interest rate hikes. And in Asia, a surprise move by the BOJ, the only major central bank yet to start dialing back easy monetary policy, had global implications. Okay.

What what do you want us to tell what do you what are we gonna tell you? Mm MB and I are gonna bicker about it? Um I I've made it really clear that I see with my own eyes. the market ripping. Okay. I had person you want to talk about auto loans or housing, because you know the the national average on an auto loan is eight percent. I had a friend that went into a dealer this week and got a loan from the dealer for like 2.9%. Okay, so people are going to still buy cars. The housing market.

I don't know what to tell you on that. I I can't imagine people are gonna sell a house a house that they bought with a 2.5% mortgage and they're gonna turn around and buy something for eight percent. I know that's still going on. I know that still is happening and the demand is is just uncrushable.

But that's a supply and demand issue. And I don't think that the rate hikes, clearly the rate hikes have slowed down the market, but like Morris said, they're gonna hike until they break something. What have they really broken? They didn't break the housing market.

And does J Powell really wanna do that? Does he wanna just torpedo the whole economy and the housing market right before a November election? Does does do they sit down and say, All right, well, we really gotta break something or we gotta really knock it down? I I don't know what to tell you, but you've seen the market go up the last three weeks in a row. Okay. You've seen it go up, up, up with an area down day.

But the two year is still at what? Four point eight? Okay. So there's your there's your discussion regarding that. Uh and as you know, Morris likes to do some off topic things during the show. So we'll do a couple of things that I would like to discuss. I know he wants to talk about the fish shows. We'll save that for the end. We'll we'll revisit that later. Okay. But I would like to congratulate

our president. And and I know and I know we've we've made it very clear that we stay apolitical and I try my best. And Morris Morris does a good job by by just taking a blowtorch to anyone in his crosshairs. Democratic or Republican. But let me start with the president out of respect. Okay. President Biden announced this week that we have cured cancer.

So that is a very an excit that's a very exciting development. I was thrilled to learn that on Wednesday that he said somewhere in a speech, come on, we've we cured cancer. How about that? Which folks All right. I have the utmost respect for the office of the president. I have the utmost respect for my elders. But like Morris said, we're gonna call balls and strikes here. They gotta they gotta do something with him. They cannot let him go. He can't he can barely read the teleport.

And they can't let him let him have gaffs like this and then run him for reelection? They're gonna run him for re-election? I'm sorry, but I I he he's barely coherent at times. We cannot have the leader of our great nation. fumbling around like this. I understand that he's he's getting propped up and people in the back room are are calling the shots, but it is it is grim and it is embarrassing.

Okay, so let me let me go to the other side of the aisle. And again, I don't want to do this. I have the utmost respect for these men. You know, I say that you know cr with a cringe. Okay. And I'm not gonna poke. Fun at anyone's health? But when Mitch McConnell comes out, and this is not the first time, like he's had a concussion recently, he's had a you know, concussions a is a major head injury and whatever age he is.

Okay. And I didn't watch the clip because it's so cringe. I I saw the stills and read the articles. And if it's a serious medical thing, I'm not poking fun at it, but balls and strikes. If the if these are the leaders that we have these Forgive me, we have these dinosaurs running the show. It is it is it is frightening, okay? Speaking of frightening and elderly, I know this is gonna come across as bad, but more Morris Morris will is in lock.

With me on this, okay? And again, I'm only reading the news here, and I've weeded out a lot of stuff that I do that I will not touch on by myself. But the Diane Diane Feinstein thing, this is I know is has become my pet little project. But again, when she is asked to vote. And someone next to her says just say I and she is in a st in a state of confusion where that needs to be said to her.

Where where is where is the oversight? Where is her family, her aides, the Democratic Party, the people of San Francisco, California saying we can this cannot continue? It's sad is what it is. It's sad. If that was my mother, God forbid, my poor mother's in s in the Senate at 85 years old, and you know, she's she can she's not she's not coherent, you can't have.

You can't have it. So I'm sorry for spending the first five minutes on the decay of American society, but I mean these are the headlines that I'm working with. We got Biden curing cancer. McConnell freezes ice cold. Diane Feinstein is getting wheeled out and tell being told to just say I. Come on. What a week for summer vacation. You can't even read the news or watch the news anymore if this is the state of affairs.

But again, you're here for the market commentary. And I apologize for not having MB. We MB here, we apologize. But look, this is we're not going to come and manufacture a show and and have these discussions that we've gone on and on and on about. Okay. AI, we're not going to do it. What do you want us to talk about? A rate hike in September? It's common. They had they don't have a choice.

They have to hike rates, right? I I can't see how they don't when the this stuff is still going on the market three weeks in a row. It's just churning along. You get, you know, s earnings. Okay, fine. Well how come I don't understand why my buddy Mike Wilson and Morgan Stanley wave the white flag and s and and acting like it's over. We're only in July, folks. What's gonna happen come November and December or even after the rate hike in September? You got three weeks off?

You're not gonna have a correction of any sort. You're gonna you this is a soft landing, we're just off to the races, we're never gonna look back. That was them, they're gonna pump all that money into the economy. You're gonna tell me the commercial real estate stuff isn't gonna come come. Home Tarus? I know Morris po paints a somewhat rosy picture and his his projects are are okay, but he has good tenants in a in New York City, which is that's not Sandusky, Ohio.

where you have a yellow trucking or you know, the biggest truck one of the biggest trucking companies in the company in the country, you have yellow trucking going under. What if you have a yellow trucking hub in in Sandusky that now you got seven hundred employees that got laid off. I I don't I I I know the commercial real estate thing is not over yet and I don't know how that impacts the equity in bond markets, but

As far as it impacting the economy, um, I can't, I gotta think. Now I believe it's Dr. Lacey Hunt, I believe it's Dr. Lacey Hunt that says that these things have lags and they take time to work through the system. I know it's tough for MB to sit here every week and say, I urge caution, and he's the perpetual skeptic and the hard and the hard landing guy.

But you have to you you gotta think that the commercial real estate stuff and people losing their jobs, you want to talk about people losing their jobs? I've got 10 friends. Let's let's say I've got 10 friends. All right. Two lost their jobs in the last two weeks. Out of the blue. Both got called by HR. They both were worried. And they both thought they were going to get reassigned or moved around. And both of their positions were eliminated.

And these are guys that have been with both of those companies for a long time. But I've got so I got two friends out of ten laid off. Now my other friends, I got MB, he's not getting laid off. He's a bad example. But if I have 10 friends from a wide swath of the population, if I I always say, let me work through the bike ride and go through the group. You got 10 guys in the group, let's do a poll.

Now you got two of them that lost their job. How does that how does that play out going forward? You know? I don't know. We'll find out. Dr. Lacey Hunt, I trust him. Morris is a big Lacey Hunt guy. And I know it's not exciting to say to urge caution. And I know it's not exciting. And it doesn't sell sell papers. to say, you know, the recession is coming. Watch out. Urge caution. Urge caution. It's tough.

And how would you sit on the sidelines and not dump money into the into the equity market when it's been c cranking? If you listen to Morris when he pegged the bottom at 3,500 to the day, Robbie Wall, to the day, Robbie Wall, MB said. This is where I'm buying my, I'm buying it. He bought it at 3,500. What are we at today? 48 or something like that?

Tell me you don't get stock tips here at Inside Baseball. We nailed the bottom and told you to buy the equities. And if you had just done that, where are we? We're at 45, 4500. Okay. This is this is for entertainment purposes only. This is not the nothing I say she'd be considered stock tip. I don't want to hear it from Legal. I don't know if Legal will even air this episode. If you hear it, that means it got by. Okay. But what do you want me to say? MB nailed the bottom, thirty five hundred.

Okay, things look good now. And I know he sold it because that's who he is. He hates the stock market, as you know. Doesn't like Apple at fifty fifty bucks. Um So, you know, if you had bought it at 3500, here we are. Okay. Or you could have bought the two year. But I it doesn't shock me that it continues going along.

But I was surprised that Mike's Mike Wilson raised uh waved the white flag. That was disheartening to me. But I I said, why why do it now? We've got a long way to go. We're not out of the woods.

But I guess it's hard to argue with, you know, the what Um, and if I'm gonna try to fly it up the flagpole with legal, I have to talk about Carvana. Okay, as all of you know. Okay, this is painful. As all of you know, my friendly listeners out there and friends on Twitter and my friends in real life. How much how painful this has been for me, the Carvana thing. But I want to thank, I want to thank Leslie Harris.

And I want to thank Morris Sachs. Okay. And they taught me so much. And this is just this one little example of how. Everything that they do, if you boil it down and you and I applied it to Carvana, okay, to me Carvana was just it was a joke, okay? Car vending machines. You hear them buying a a 2010 Honda Accord for$27,000. And then reselling it for twenty two thousand dollars. And the whole thing is a is to me is such a sham house of cards. Anyway.

I you know you read enough research pay pieces and you and you you scroll through Twitter enough and you'll convince yourself. You can be can totally convinced that it's going to zero. Okay. So g me guilty as charged. I I think I'm real clever and I've and I started chirping about it. Yeah, I don't know, maybe even a year ago, it doesn't matter how long ago, but when it was up.

Oh my god, I'm looking at the chart. It's up eight hundred percent year to date. Eight hundred percent. Okay. Anyway, I told more and I said to Leslie and I said to Morris, I said Carvana, going, uh watch this going to zero. And it went down, down, down, down, down. And I'm sitting there rubbing my hands, thinking I'm clever. and it's going down down down down down and it got down to four okay got down to four dollars four dollars all right and where is it now forty four dollars

It has gone up and up and up. It's gone up 15%. There was one day where it went up 45%. Okay. It has been brutal. How many times has more say, do you love the trade? Don't short stuff. It's speculation. You're an investor. Don't be knuckling around. Don't be trading Bitcoin. Watch a movie. And Leslie said it's. L Leslie sent me an email about it.

And I'll go back to that if legal lets me. I'll I'll do a little piece on Tesla if if I can get it by by them. But Leslie's Leslie's and I go back and forth on on Tesla. And he sent me an email and he's always said You know, don't be emotional. And but he said one thing he said is his mother, Mrs. Harris said something about it's a tough way to make a living. It's a tough way to make a living. And shorten stocks is a tough way to make a living.

And boy, is it ever true because if you had it shorted and you were thinking it was going to zero and you just got your face ripped off the last six months, it has been incredible to watch. But to see that to me. Shit company meme stock continue. That to me is an indication of a little bit of frothiness left in the market. And until that shit stops, Jay J. Powell has to keep.

Hiking rates. Okay. All right. You want me to talk about Tesla? I'll talk about Tesla. What do you want me to do? All right. Tesla, you want me to talk about Twitter too? The Tesla battery range fraud. Okay. I know it didn't get a lot of press. Maybe it did. Reuters picked it up. I don't know how I don't watch the eleven o'clock news. I don't watch the the news, so to speak. I don't know if it'll get mainstream publication.

And if you're on Twitter, you're obviously not going to hear much about it because it's him. But the the Tesla battery range fraud for anyone that doesn't know, you buy a Tesla. You get it home, it says your battery has four hundred miles to go. All right, so Morris gets into Tesla in Greenwich and he's gotta get out to water.

It's like 200, two. I don't think it's even 200 miles, whatever it is. Call it 150 miles. He leaves Greenwich, he's crossing the Whitestone Bridge, and all of a sudden his Tesla says he's got 150 miles. Morris says, huh, said 400 when I left the house. So now he gets across the Whitestone, he does the Cross Island, he gets on the LIE, he's past Ron Concama, he's past Merrick.

And somewhere out around Manorville, before he gets on Sunrise Highway Highway, the Tesla says you got 75 miles left in your battery. And now Morris is annoyed because you know he left with 400. He shouldn't need a charge. He's not going to pull over on Sunrise Highway and go to some Tesla. Supercharger and wait in line? Do you think Morris is going to pull over in his Tesla and wait in line for a supercharger because his battery died on the way from Greenwich to Watermill?

Absolutely not. You think he's gonna be bent about it? Yeah. You think he's gonna call Tesla? You bet your ass. And when he does, you know what Tesla's gonna tell him? Mr. Sachs. We ran a virtual diagnosis on your car and it's fine. Have a nice day. How do you think MB's gonna handle it? Well, I know how he's gonna handle it. He's fucking furious. All right. And he's been furious with Tesla since the beginning. All right. So now, now it's come to light that this is a thing, so much so.

So much so that Tesla had a devoted call center where the team's job was to get rid of these customer service queries. So you call Tesla and they say we ran a virtual diagnosis on your car, your battery's fine, Mr. Sachs. Have a nice day. Criminal fraud? I don't know. Criminal fraud? I don't know. Fraud? Yeah. So Tesla's what? The the number one EV maker? Stock is untouchable.

Tesla's stock is ridiculous. It has made so much money. I have gotten my face ripped off by people like Leslie Harris. I go out to dinner with Morris. There's a guy at the table that's a multimillionaire from Tesla's. I can't say a word. I'm embarrassed at that dinner. I don't say a word. I avoid the topic. I look like a I look like a tinfoil hat lunatic.

Trash uh what am I gonna uh I I I try to trash it as a car guy. Oh, it's a shit car. What are you gonna do with the battery when the battery's dead? It doesn't matter. Stocks untouchable that people don't care about the car quality. All right, Mercedes makes a nice one. Okay. Tesla's a cult. It's a cult and it's made people phenomenally rich. And the stock every day is the most active trade. The Tesla option.

See this is where I get my tinfoil hat. So I'll stop and then like legals are already glaring at me. So I'm just reading the Reuters news story, okay? I'm reading the fucking Reuters article. So back off. I don't want to hear it. I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm reading the article. I'm calling balls and strikes. I'm just i'm I'm not giving an uh I'm not giving tips or anything. I'm just talking, I'm reading the news.

So what we've always done here at Inside Baseball is we have read the news. And again, I apologize to the listeners. I know you come to listen to Morris talk. And my job is to shut up, let him talk. Try to keep them on the rails, okay? I know sometimes