Some People Chase Fees, Others Avoid Them At All Costs.

Greetings and welcome to inside baseball with old chess. I'm Liam Allen with my friend Morsex. How you doing, MB? It's so good to see you, bud. It's so good to see ya. And then and Ed got his fee the other night. All right. So there we go, folks. Sorta. Everybody all the fish folks out there chase chase a song and anyone that follows like their favorite musician chases a song, I guess. Um I definitely do. I have a long list. But that is the song that Ed has chased for years.

And to me it's just a funny song to chase because it's like it's just a funny song, you know? It's not like there's other songs where where they're like, Oh, did you hear'em shred that first tube? And you're like, Oh yeah, they shred like Fee is like Do you know the do you know the whole ten paragraph nonsense lyrics, Ed? Ed, can you sing along? We tortured poorhead with this for years. We would see license plates. License plates.

Anyway, I was really happy that the you know, I'm happy they played it, but of course they're in Colorado. You know, I don't feel bad'cause Ed's up on like the boat somewhere in Maine. Ed's Ed's having Ed's Ed's okay, but he missed the the the fee, you know? You know, I don't like friends of mine on boats and water. That that's a very bad combination. I don't like the friends of mine on boats without invitation. That's the only thing. You g you can go on the boat, then like bring me sailors.

So um a little bit of behind the scenes view of Ibwok. Today's assistant producer Cheryl Sachs because MB wasn't able to hook up the fucking Zoom thing. I was losing my mind. So I have such anger welled up in me. I'm just want to prepare anyone who's listening. This is going to be a a rough and tumble Ivoique because I I got some

anger pent up and I just I'm gonna have to get it out. So we want to talk about the rumor that Gary Gensler is going to be the Treasury Secretary. Do you do have thoughts on that?'Cause I've seen that that has been floated. Okay. Did you did you see that? Did you take the bait? Did you click that story? No, I I got other fish to fry here. Okay, let's go. You got a list? Let's go. Yeah. So last week

We gave a big shout out to the big brothers, big sisters. And um Uncle Mark told me that Denzel Washington was a big fan of okay. So I kind of went down the rabbit hole of um, you know, the philosophers Will and Ariel Durant have talked about how when the ruling class

Starts to live by their own rules, society starts to break down. And what we're seeing is that happening. So for example, if you look at Uh William Jefferson Clinton, former president, walking his daughter Chelsea down the aisle over his shoulder. Is the accomplice of that uh pedophile. Um what's funny about that to me is he was down on Pito Island banging girls younger than his daughter. Yet he's walking her down the aisle. Um So here's a guy that was on that plane twenty something times.

He'll put his dick in anything that moves. And we're supposed to believe he didn't do anything wrong, yet he's exempt. Who where you know another one of my favorites is Nancy Pelosi. So you may recall I had some activities at Westchester County Airport. I saw the manifest of one of her flights. from Westchester out to California. Long flight. It's a long flight. There was more alcohol on that manifest than was drunk at E. G. Fisher's Bachelor Party. Okay.

It's a long fight. It's it was a long night. Well, dude, well sign me up for whatever she's drinking because she's crushing the market. I mean if this if if the facts if the facts are true, if the reports are true, if the rumors are true, okay, she's got a heck of a handle on things. Here's a step further. So we've done Almost uh we have almost half a million downloads.

We've done a hundred and something episodes. Yeah, something like that. So the audience has come to know us a little bit. Yeah. So In my case Let's say Cheroke comes home in the foyer of my house is an unknown man in his box of shorts and a police officer and the unknown man is holding a ball peen hammer. How quickly you think that would have fallen out of the news cycle with Cheryl Sachs as my wife? You'd still be reading about it. You get that over. And I'd be

in on life support up in New Haven. I'm sure Greenwich is very discreet. I'm sure their police force is very well versed in discretion of all matters of

Yeah. So, you know, continuing down the uh elite, this is where it gets a little dark. So One of the parts of Chicago I talk about a lot is the South Side. You know, I grew up near the University of Chicago. My grandfather started as a businessman on Maxwell Street, which is kind of like the Orchard Street in New York. And um he was involved in the back of the yards council. And I checked the other day, you know, there's dozens of shootings there every weekend.

It's they call it Chirac. Yeah, Chirac, man. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, this is what struck me as kind of peculiar. Something like 70% of the violence in that part of town is black-on-black violence. Now I bring it up because You can tell there are a lot of white white people walking around a neighborhood when that's percentage of the violence. And then you hear about these

Poor kids will be sleeping in their bed and they'll die from a gunshot. Yeah, catching strays. Yeah. So Heading back and repeating myself, why I think Barack Obama, the worst president ever, you know. Why doesn't he get what's left of Donald's Trump Secret Service protection squad? Grab his fat wife and just have a little meet and greet down near the Robert Taylor homes and beseech their brothers and sisters to stop killing each other.

You know, even in that iconic class of pulp fiction, you know? Mm-hmm. Get back in there and chill them guys out, right? Why? Because I'm sending the wolf who'll be coming directly. You send in the wolf, man? You send in Barack? Okay. No, because he's not going. So here's what's going through that pea brain skull of that guy. I know you hold the Kennedy family in the highest regard. I don't. So Barack Obama appointed uh a Kennedy to be ambassador to Japan.

Right. So his thinking is like this. Well, I g I'm gonna be spending a lot of time on Hyanis. I'm gonna get media Kennedy on my team. And um then when when Michelle and I go there they're gonna welcome uh welcome us. Like, no Brock, no. The the Martha's Vineyard The yacht club is not going to welcome you. You're black. They don't they think you work there. Okay. It doesn't matter. You're not one of them. You're never going to be one of them.

Go back to the back of the arts where you did all the great work, which is what's teed this whole mess up. Get out in public, shake some hands. Who was before him? Blog Blogoyevitch is Blogevich gonna go back? I you know Rahm Emanuel. What about Rahmanuel? Is he wasn't he the second coming? What happened to him? I think they all are getting there and they

What a long list of luminaries through that city. Who came first? What's the what's the sequence of events? What who came who came before Barak? Who is Rah was before him? No, there was a guy in the back of the yards council named Joe Megan. Okay. But these are all community organizers. They don't have a lot of money. They don't have a lot of

uh you know, political favors to dole out. Okay. But somehow Barack ended up there and the next thing you know, he's president, hanging with all the rich people instead of going and back and finishing the job from the mess he started in the first place.

You know, so you know, um how about Tiger Woods? You you and I have one major disagreement, which is quite something given the amount of time we spend together. You had talked about Charles Barclay saying, hey, I'm not your role model, this or that. You know, see, I know this is where you and I disagree. These athletes, okay. They're they're performers. They might as well be working in the circus. Yeah, they're entertaining. Paid to entertain people. Okay. Give something back.

What's Charles Barclay doing to give something back other than going on a podcast bragging about how much money he lost in a casino? I'll t I'm gonna stand up for Charles. I'll stand up for Charles. Charles just re-op. his TNT contract, all right, because he didn't want TNT's The the show to go out of business. All right. So they said look, Ibwak's going out of business unless we get charge.

And Charles said, Fine, I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna take he signed big money, but he came back and he'd said I like the guys. I like the guys that work on the show and I don't want to be responsible for pitting people out of Charles Barkley can do no wrong in my book. He is a national treasure and he's not a role model. And I knew by the time I was nine years old.

Yeah, like I love Chuck was a badass, but that wasn't a role model for me. I don't like I that's it who was your role model when you were ten? You're probably in third grade. Besides your beside your father or uncle or Yeah, it was Don Don Kessinger, number eleven, shortstop for the Chicago Cubs. Yeah. It was a simple time then. That was before T V and like electricity and stuff like that.

So you know something that I've never talked about, but um we have a friend Ted Shaker and at one point several years ago Ted went down the rabbit hole of how kids are losing interest in sports, how they're not getting exercise. And we came up with a program to do these short videos. called Encourage and they're on YouTube. And I put up the money. It was a million dollar thing. And we went to various professional sport groups, here's a way to help incentivize kids with sports.

I remember showing it to you. You were apoplectic with how good it was. I remember this was just another example of your great writing, talking about everything you gained by being a high school competitive athlete, right? So we went to a ton of people. to help raise money just because you know, a million dollars for me out of my pocket, that that was like what I had for that enterprise, especially when I met people.

Who had a dog in the hunt, and they weren't willing, you know, out of all the sports teams we went to. The Mara family, who owned the giants, gave us fifty grand. Um Who's the guy that used to run the NBA? David Stern. David Stern. I remember David Stern half a dozen times. This thing's fantastic. Keep keep going. You guys you've nailed it. Not a nickel. Not a nickel. Not a nickel. The um The Women's Sports Federation. Oh, please. I went there, met them, showed them. How about?

We put your logo on here. But before we do that, we show you every video. You have the writer saying no. Yeah. Not only Did I get a no? I got I got canceled. Wow. No return phone call. Yeah, yeah. Nothing. Right? Yeah, it goes. And, you know, I thought we were doing a good thing. I I love playing little league. You know, I'm not gonna say the coach was a role model.

But I learned what it was like to show up someplace on time. I learned what it was like to win. I learned what it was like to lose all valuable life skills, right? And kids these days. It just doesn't seem like there's that much of it. And so I see these athletes taking down huge chunks of money. And I think they should be You know, paying it forward or paying it back. I mean, it's great, you know. Some guys do some work, but you know.

We'll probably get sued. There's not a more racist place I've ever been in my life than Butler National Golf Club. And um, you know, tiger turns up there every year. You probably remember the Bruhaha when Fuzzy Zeller suggested For the champions dinner, they were gonna have collared greens. Yep. Um And uh, you know, I wouldn't say L Tigre's been much of a role model.

Although apparently his father wasn't much of a one of a role model either. While Tiger was hitting golf balls at the range, his father was in a camper banging hookers. Um Yeah, I I suppose that might have influenced me at a younger age. Now I don't have to read that biography. We got that out of the way. Oh, spoiler alert.

Okay, good to know. Sorry about that. What else you got on your lists? Um I see you perusing your list. Yeah. A couple of really good comments from listeners or questions. One was um a listener wanted to know why do I always say, The individual investor has time as an advantage where a professional investor doesn't? Great question. Pretty straightforward. professional investor got a clock ticking. There's always some little chimpanzee like a bobo over their shoulder

looking at their watch like, if you're not making money, I'm getting rid of you. And that's what they do. I mean, there's no It's a it's a sausage grinder. Yep. And um I didn't realize that until I experienced it uh um One thing I wanted to uh touch upon just as an homage to our good friend Anthony Peters, you know, we I've besmirged a lot of good names over the past couple years.

One I talked about briefly, but I'd like to come back and conk donkey conk it a little bit, is this uh private equity PE. Mm-hmm. You know. If it's possible for there to be something worse than a hedge fund, it's private equity. So basically you sign up. and commit an amount. You don't even send them any money. You just say, okay, over the next four years, I'll send you up to a quarter million dollars. And as they see a deal, they'll send you a capital call.

And you send them the money. But from the moment you sign up, they start charging you a fee on your committed capital. So they're doing nothing other than Collecting interest on a notional amount of money that you haven't sent. Then they go, they find some low-hanging fruit. Lately, a lot of these places have been accounting firms and doctor's office. Um they go in and they pay the principals a huge sum of money.

They go out, they just start firing everybody, and they somehow borrow money to dividend themselves out the investment. I know the private equity fund I've been in, which was well regarded. Um, because that why would I pick a bad one, right? These guys are so fucking stupid. Yes, you heard me. The first investment is E.G., uh E.G.'s listening and he's grinning. The first investment was they bought the Greek yellow pagers. Okay. Now I've been to Santorini.

It's a beautiful island. Okay. This island is so small. You don't need the yellow pages. You just stand up and you just scream somebody's name and they'll hear you. Okay. And by the way, this was after that tiny thing was invented called the internet. Yeah. Right. Oddly enough, that turned into a zero. I just remember looking at EG when we get the investment memo. I'm like, what? You know, and uh yeah, so they've had my money for.

six, seven years, I can look. Arguably one of the greatest bull markets in our life. And you know, I'm down 80%. Ha ha. How's that possible? Yeah, I I you know, I don't know. Yeah, the Greek yellow pages is the answer. Yeah, well that's part of it. You know, I they got so much shit in that portfolio.

You know, uh I don't know. Let me ask you can I read you that one qu the question about uh time duration of trades? Oh yeah, yeah, please. Yeah, you just said, you know, M MB, I was wondering if you could talk about the typical time duration of your trades while at Greenwich Capital. For example, when you bought munis, how long on average would you hang on to them before selling? A month, six months, a year? Well, the smart ass answer is how long did it take for them to work?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. They worked right away. They worked. Yeah. So the typical kind of trade we would do at Greenwich would be some form of mean reversion trade and and just in English you would get an issue that would be cheap or rich to our Theoretical model. And if it was cheap, we would buy it. And if it was rich, we would sell it. And um Depending on what you are buying, what you are selling. We'd always try and attach it to a catalyst.

meaning something that would cause that situation to rectify itself. So if we were long or short futures, Futures contracts roll roughly every ninety days. And at those points in time, things tend to come back in line. You know, if you're long You know, an off-the-run three-year note.

as it would start to approach a new issue through your note, something that to the naked eye you could kind of value, that would be a catalyst for that security to start to work. Um The Muni trade at Greenwich was a little problematic because Um there wasn't a catalyst for that to work other than so many people at Greenwich Capital bought those munis because they were so fucking cheap, they eventually got back into line. Um Bye-bye. How long would we would have something on

We would constantly be re-underwriting trades, meaning take a fresh look. And if upon the fresh look it didn't look good. We'd kick it. You know that concept of no marginal trades. Do you love your trades? We were constantly doing that. And um so that makes it a little tough to answer uh how long you would have it on. We we'd have it on until we didn't love it. Or it it got to what we were expecting.

Um stuff that took a year. Would you sit down and be like look it's gonna take a year but I this is gonna happen? Yeah. Gonna take two years. Would you be like, look, it's gonna take two, it's gonna take eighteen months. I got eighteen months for this to work. The answer is pretty straightforward. I and I'm not going to attempt to do the math in my head right now, but I figured out what Return on assets I needed on my balance sheet. And so if I thought something was gonna take a year.

We just have to ask ourselves, does it fit the criteria to tie up those assets? Got it. Which is which is why as an individual investor, I think I have a big advantage because You know, I don't have quarter-end financials I have to prepare. Uh I don't have statement dates I need to hit for bonuses. Um

Yeah, you control you control the clock. You're you got you control the clock as opposed to like on the desk that you're looking at the clock. You never have to look at the clock. You got no shot, you got no shot clock, you got no halftime, you got no end game over. You got I'm gonna kick the clock and as long as I can keep as long as time keeps going, I can keep trading. And plus

The gift of compound interest. Um, you don't get compound interest as a professional trader. You know, the way it worked for us was at the end of the year, you got a mark. We fought over the dough. The dough got paid out and it started at zero. Yeah, yeah. Which is a little bit Tough because when you're at zero, you're close to your stop.

Right. So you don't have a lot of w room to wiggle. So you need to make sure you had something ready to go. Right. Uh, because you didn't want to have a couple of bad days. And get that. call into the tribunal and start splaining. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You know, fortunately th I didn't have too much of that. Um Is everything measured in a year? Is everything measured is everyone measured by their year? Is there's no there's no

You can't be like, look, it's gonna work in March, it's gonna work in April. It's like, nah, this is like the year stops here, and this is what you're getting, you know? This is where your book is today. So I've mentioned how for a number of years.

Ben, who was my boss at that time, would call me in and sort of ask me how you're gonna make money this year and I'm like, I yeah, I don't know. I know my I just had to be honest. I know and I I love that I love that that was an acceptable answer. Like that that in that environment y the the two of you well it was pretty much like I don't know, I can make something up. Yeah, no, I know, I know, but that's just like the

The beauty of that conversation to people of like my generation and anyone that works on Wall Street now, imagine going in with the head and being like, oh you well, so just to imagine you're in my shoes. Okay. I swear I on the lives of my grandchildren. Every day I walked on that trading floor. I didn't feel I knew I was going to make money. There was never a doubt that I was going to make money in my mind.

I I it might have been who knows? I might have been psychotic. I don't know, but I just walked on that trading floor. I'd say, Where'd funds go out? Like I'd say, I don't know, let me check. And then I'd sit on and go about my business. It's a little bit the same way now when I turn on the Bloomberg, you know, and I get bored. You know, I don't go play Sudoku. I turn on the Bloomberg, I start chumming shit to figure out ways to make money and and

Yeah, Larry Bird doesn't doesn't forget how to make, you know, jump shots, you know? It's like when like Larry Larry Bird went out on the court, he was gonna score, you know, and he was that's And he would tell him. I'm gonna take the ball. I'm gonna go right there. I'm gonna nothing but nut. Yeah. Right? There's that great YouTube video of like the team he was playing when he did it.

They were so blown away with the guys' balls. They were falling over each other and they got fined or something. I mean, that was a big this was worth seeing. But um yeah, so my basic. view was you got a bunch of smart guys You got a a bunch of guys with a lot of experience. You have capital, you have access to good technology. We're gonna find a way to make money. And you know, I don't feel any different now than I did back then. I you put me in a trading room

I don't know. I might need someone to help me grab my lunch, uh, show me where the men's room is. figure out how to get the computer to work, but I have no doubt in my mind. I all I would do is you take the two year note. Right. And then I would just get the quote sheet and I'd write the yield done on the two year note and then go to the three year.

figure out what their yield is and then just draw it uh draw it out. And when I would look at sections of the curve that looked a little too cheap or a little too flat to me. I would look for something. And typically, you know, you could look at a 10-year note and it might look a little rich on the curve. But then you'd have to adjust for the fact that if you sold it, you had to borrow it. And that had implications.

And uh then, you know, if you sold it, there were complexity advantages, which I would try and figure out what they're worth. Um It's not it's not that hard. It just not, which is why I think I said last week, if you didn't make

Money last year. You suck. Give it up. Okay. I think I was 12% last year. Punting around my stupid little bank prof. And that doesn't even account, this is a little morbid, but as of today, one of my estate planning vehicles has graduated. So There's a huge chunk of money that now is gonna save seventy-five percent. Tax. Think about what that does to your IRR if you say 75% of something. It's it's

And am I bragging? I don't know. I'll never I'm never gonna see a penny that money. How'd you figure that out? Who who who who who was the tip of the spear that put that together for you? I met Could you have not done that? I met one of these guys at a you know wealth manager and he enlightened me. into the notion of estate planning. And you know. Hopefully you'll have the same experience.

But my kids have grown up and they can take care of themselves. Okay. They don't need a a chunk of dough waiting for them. But and they've said this before. you know, being Jewish where every twenty years they come looking to wipe you out, I thought a nice thing to do would be to send send a chuck of money off into the future. to get out of Dodge, they could do it. Yeah, yeah. So I started talking to this wealth manager.

And that was part of the time where I learned to turn the map around, sort of see where you want to be. Right. Cause all this estate stuff, as I said, I'm never going to see a nickel of it because none of it comes out till I'm gone and Cheryl's gone. So this is going to generations down the road. But it was important to me. And because you know, I like learning things. And so he he sent he showed me a bunch of these things. The one I'm talking about now is the simplest.

Most egregious abuse of the uh by Congress to allow rich people to move money forward. It's a grantor retained annuity trust. Yeah, the grants, you're right. Yeah, grant. So you put some money in. And the government has a rate schedule. Every year you have to take out a certain amount of money from the Grat. And the Grat has a time limit. And so I think they can go 10 or 20 years. The one I'm talking about had 10 years. So every year you make

A distribution from the grat back into your real life or IRL for you younger kids. And at the end of the grat, whatever remains in the grat. goes into a trust which is outside of your estate, so you don't pay estate tax on it. Now, if that grant earns money while you're still alive, that income flows through to you and you have to pay tax on that. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So that's a double Benny because you're paying tax out of money today.

instead of having it end up in your estate, which would get taxed at you know, some egregious rates. How do you avoid that estate tax? What's the best what's the best strategy? The best what's your best what's your favorite? Well, my favorite And I'm still wrestling whether this is gonna work out great or not, but Before I get into any real trouble.

Do not do this without seeking out your out your own wealth manager. Exactly. He's got the best guy at Goldman Sachs. So folks, this is this is like right, uh let's be honest here. You got one of the best at this. I don't I don't recommend any firm You don't have a guy in a strip mall you don't have a guy in a strip mall in Coscop. Let's let's okay. This guy has an office downtown. Okay. Probably somewhere high.

I found I do my own research. I found a guy that's talented. By the way, there's plenty of attorneys who specialize in trust and estate. You don't have to go to some big investment bank. Who's better? Who would you who do you think? So let me ask you that. Do you want the attorney to do it or do you want the investment bank guy to do it? I want the attorney to do it. Because the investment bank.

A B C always be closing. Yeah, yeah. Next thing you know, they're gonna stuff you full of this. Right. When I'm dead, I don't trust the Goldman guy. When I'm dead, I trust the attorney. Right? Yeah.

That's uh that's when it matters. That's when it ma you're not gonna you know, like first of all, you're mentioning bank names uh that that has nothing to do with me. Of course, of course of course, of course, of course. I'm just using that as an example of of somebody. Well, I I know But I know there there are plenty of really good Trust and estate attorneys. Youngest daughter. now has a job at a trusted and estate firm.

She has a law degree and got an LLM. Wow. And she's in a firm where all they're doing is trust in the state. That's it. Yeah. Well where do I sign up? That that's who's the spearhead of the project. Fuck the fuck the bank guy. That guy's looking for nickels and dollars. The attorney is here to has my interest. Yeah. So anyway. If you can get a good attorney, okay. Who understands life insurance and

This is the way to go. If you're looking to do two things. One is protect your family today, like you get hit in a rock. Term insurance is great. It's cheap. It does the job. If you're looking to like maximize generational wealth, whole life insurance, when purchased and properly applied, And I said, in my case, I'm kind of working through the details because I stuff I did, I bought 10 years ago. And um so a lot of it like I'm done paying, but now I gotta figure out whether

It's living up to the promises that they made. And, you know, seeing as it's what the they call second to die insurance, because you get it's less expensive. Um I'm I'm not gonna be around when, you know. It's time to make sure it gets paid off properly. That's the that's the thing. Like who who like that's like that's where you need that attorney, right? Like Yeah. That's where you need that attorney. And there's

You know, there's plenty of good ones, there's plenty of bad ones. Yeah. You know, um But I learned the bulk of this stuff through a wealth manager. And, you know, uh our good friend Ed taught me a lot about this stuff. And then, you know, watching the real estate. you know, guys avoid paying taxes forever.

You know, I I you know me a long time. I just get a kick out of figuring these things out. I it ain't changing my life. I know. I know. I know. But imagine you didn't. Imagine you were cavalier about it and you hadn't you know, there's a lot of people out there that don't give a second thought to the next generation or what am I gonna do, you know, with X, Y, and Z. It's like I'm gonna get rid of X, Y, and Z now while I'm here, whereas you

you've plotted it out and planned it out. Um because it's that's what was important to me. And and frankly, you know, I've been I guess it's white privilege, Barack. Um But uh I was always very lucky that between Cheryl and I, we made a a nice living pretty much right out of school. So we weren't scrambling to put food on the table. You know, I it's easy for me to come here once a week and chat with a guy I really like and talk about, you know, being rich.

when a lot of people are having trouble making ends meet. I I I don't make light of the fact that You know, it's earning a living and building a a nest egg. It's fucking brutal. Um but you know, the the real genesis of this whole podcast was that th the the stuff that would get put out, you know, the Kathy Woods, just uh it it just made me ill. You know, you see people who work hard. You know, hard working Americans, right? Um, so I thought it it might be an at your

idea and s and suggestion. We thought trying to pass some of these concepts along to people. Um might be a creative and and we've gotten so many notes from people about how it's changed their life for the better and uh

You know, I'm I'm I'm delighted uh by those sorts of things. But I had a bug on my ass about life insurance because I know I've got life insurance. The the first year's premium is commission. Yeah, I know. And you know how I feel about commission. That's not a fair rate. What you didn't you didn't feel as that was a fair rate. But I was young enough and Cheryl's young enough I knew if something happened, I'd I didn't want them relying on our relatives for support.

You know. Yeah. Of course. No, I understand. So I went and I bought term life insurance. Um and uh after seven or eight years I uh You know, I had accumulated enough and Yeah. We underwrote it. Yeah, well I went and got the whole life. Yeah. One of the guys we um used to ride bikes with and apparently after I bought the policy went out and bought himself a R S six. That's a nice car. Good for him. Yeah.

Yeah. Um there was one other little uh bits and pieces of things I wanted to bring up. Uh I was um struck by a comment somebody made about just the kind of the conventional wisdom. And um There's this notion of money and lending money to people. And I wanted to talk a little bit about that if if you're open to it. I don't want to force it. Where was the comment? On the website or something?

I forget the guy's name. It'll come to me, but I don't think he wanted us to mention his name. But he was the one who wrote that really nice note. It was like Searching for a father. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know I got the guy. Yeah, yeah. What was the question? What what was your point? Well, he was just saying how he liked how we talked about things on an understandable basis. So Uh in my travels, uh many people have come to me with

difficulty with money. And so I've seen all sorts of bad behavior with money. And For sake of clarity, I'll I'll talk about some examples, including some of my relatives. But to be clear, none of them were my brother or my sister. Okay. I don't want anyone to interpret this, but over the years, I've made a few kinds of loans. Ones were business loans, ones were friends and family loans. And one were just friends. Yeah. And In a nutshell.

Never loan money to anybody ever. I'll tell you why. You're never going to get it back, and they're going to resent you for it. And uh so you're gonna be out money and Yep. Yeah, they'll they'll they'll they'll resign you. I know that'cause it'll ruin anything. Uh you know, I've loaned money to uh relatives, now my brother and sister. You know, I promise I'll pay it back. Yada yada yada. Whatever. Okay, it was it didn't move the needle for me, right? Another one.

Business loan. The only reason I got the money back was I went to an attorney and I got a lien put against the property. And uh One alone. Expired. Said, you know, we can do this the easy way or do this the hard way. Yeah. And they they they paid me back. But I had a lean against it. That probably cost me twenty five thousand bucks. Yeah, yeah. Of attorney fees. Yeah. What what what I get out of that other than

Making a below market rate and paying a bunch of leave. Okay. My favorite one was somebody we know. Um Nice guy. You know, asked if he could come for some advice. Yep. And I got a tail of wall about, you know, lost my job. This was during like the GFC. I can't get any work. Can't pay my rent. So over like the next three or four weeks I l I paid the guy's rent. Not a lot of money, but okay. He said, look, just pay it back when you can. And if you can't.

You know, I get it, but pay it back when you can. Well, you know, not long after that. I see pictures of him throwing a wedding for his daughter on Facebook, taken in a trip to Italy. Um buying a new bike. And then the guy has the balls to up and move out of the area. Not even a goodbye. Just take the money and run. So, you know. I don't need the money, but...

You know, I'm I can't put it back into circulation. But, you know, he had a great wedding for his daughter. Yeah. Yeah. And new bike and a trip to Italy and Yeah. So anyway, is is it anger and bitterness? Maybe a little bit. Maybe I feel like I'm a dope. So listen to old chestnut. Yeah, don't hand out money.

I think there's a shot I would have gotten more satisfaction if you and I were sitting in my study drinking that. I thought you were going to say that horse radish vodka That is a that's the Rubicon. Did you know what I wanted to ask you before you go is like in summertime like Was there was summer w were the dog days of summer a real thing at Greenwich Capitol? Was there a was there a lull the last week of August?'Cause everyone makes it sound like

Oh, like trading is so light, everyone's away, nothing's going on. There would be some of that, but we'd go play golf or take the boat over to the Bellhaven Club. Yeah, yeah. But then September came back and peop so what happened? September kids go back to school, people buckle down, they start looking at the at Christmas time, like the end of the year is coming. Oh yeah. You know, there would be a big push to last.

90 days because you know that that saying the horse can smell the hay. Like if you made a million bucks. between them and the end of the year that was another couple hundred grand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you didn't have to wait. Yeah. You know, we we got a I got a note from uh touchdown on the the um The comment section. That was one of my former Greenwich colleague. Oh.

The associate producer just I guess the red light's going out. Anyway, I wanna finish the story and then we can but Tim Dan, one of my former colleagues. Goes by the nickname Touchdown. Touchdown and I were scheduled to meet Marty Molatoras, the official climbing guide of Inside Baseball. with old chestnut uh alpine endeavors touchdown and i were gonna go up to the adirondacks old school it we were gonna camp out and we were gonna go climbing and on September eleventh.

We were at work and we see two buildings burning. And I walked down to Touchdown's desk. And I said, What do you think? And he's like, Yeah, it just does not look good. So Anyway, touchdown and I go way back. Yeah, yeah. Wow. That's the best nickname I potentially ever heard on a trading desk. He's a great he's a great guy.

You gotta be with a name like that. You gotta stand you gotta stick a you gotta back that name up. He uh he tra travel up to the gunks with me any numbers of time. Excellent athlete, good climber. You know, I mentioned Zervos and I have shared a rope together. That's uh that's a bond. Yeah, like in John Wick. It's like a blood oath.

More importantly, you said you're looking forward to his note, which I mean like y that that's the highest praise of anyone on Wall Street, waiting for waiting to hear for their opinion on a matter. So we'll we're waiting for Doctor V Zervos to speak, so maybe You know, he's busy, but you know. He's he's gone back on his risk parity shell. Oh really? Okay. yeah he's gonna die on that one but uh yeah you know He's got a good following and uh, you know, anyway.

I think I've meandered a little too long. What do you think? Right. Uh it's fun. Um I'm glad that you uh I'm glad that we got to talk this week. Every happy Labor Day to everybody. Get all day tomorrow on the holiday to listen to it and uh we'll report back uh next week in September. This will probably be five hundred thousand downloads.

Oh, this is it? Half a million? We've hit it. Half a million. Congratulations, my friend. It's all you, man. I'll come and listen to Patreon. Nothing happens without you. All right, buddy. Have a good weekend. I'll see you later. Take care. All right.