What Do You Want It To Be?

Greetings and welcome to Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. I'm Liam Allen with my friend Morris Sachs. How you doing, MB? I'm doing great, kid. Great to see you. How are you? Lady walks around like she's the queen of the town. Better see a neurologist.

Before we get through the news flow of the week, uh our favorite lady, Queen of the Town, made a statement early. I don't I don't know what day it was. Let's not forget about that. Let's get the tax statement out of the way. Okay. You wanna get you wanna? Today we end all family business. Thank you. So I I saw this thing. Um, this is Wikipedia.

Um speaking of uh Kathy Wood, her flagship ARC Innovation Exchange Trade of Fund had received accolades for its performance In two thousand seventeen, two thousand twenty, two thousand twenty three. But is also considered by Morningstar to be the third highest quote wealth destroyer investment fund from two thousand fourteen to two thousand twenty three. Losing you ready?

Seven point one billion of shareholder value in ten years. I first of all, I don't think people lost that much money in Madoff. And secondly, I don't think I could lose. If if you told me go lose seven billion dollars, I wouldn't know. I mean, maybe one day options. I I don't know. But um so As you pointed out, she made some comments. About let me read it. Let me read it. Okay.

Or four thirty in the afternoon, she makes this statement on on Twitter. As a result, our trading related capital tax losses should offset trading related capital tax gains for years, an underappreciated asset associated with our strategies.

So, you know, there's a lesson to the younger generation out there. When you have a fighting. with your wife or significant other. The second you start screaming, it's over. You lose the high moral ground. So whatever you don't scream. So I'm gonna try and not be vulgar when I talk about her. But you know. The notion that a capital loss

is an asset. Underappreciated. I I under it certainly underappreciated, especially underappreciated because it's limited to three thousand dollars a year. Um I I I really You know, there's a lot that these government officials have to work on. You know, they gotta clean up the Secret Service and stuff like that. But I don't think you're allowed to make that statement, claiming that you have an asset that's not an asset. Certainly.

I challenge any uh investment professional in a fiduciary responsibility. To have money with her because that's proof positive she doesn't know what she's talking about. So um she said again this week she thinks Tesla is gonna ten is gonna you know ten times the share price it is because of robotaxi. She said it again with a straight face. Uh I saw Robo Taxi. So I need a car, and I'm just gonna go on Uber and they're gonna send me Cheryl's Tesla, right? That's how it's gonna work.

Yeah, I I I I gotta be honest with you. Um I haven't spent that much time following the Tesla stuff because um former president Trump has said he's doing away with the electric car stuff. Well, that's the end of that. No, you saw the the price of copper collapsed. Um you know that whole nonsense is is um It's coming to an end. Yeah. You know, they were Coming after everybody on Friday, they kicked the shit out of The NASDAQ and the Spooz and not nothing you know nothing. Cheers me up like a good

ass kicking on a Friday afternoon. A good chaos too. You had you had the big tech you had the tech thing go down, you know. So you you you were ripe for a good day on Friday. Unbelievable.

So we have gotten many notes from listeners recently that have caught my attention. There was one last thing I wanted to uh mentioned when we were talking about Kathy Wood. And as usual, I I have these things on my uh computer and then I can't find them. But it was basically a a line from Shakespeare talking about, you know, uh full of sound of fury signifying nothing.

which is uh uh what that woman is. Um but you know, Duke and Duke get the commissions and hope lives on. Um We received a very nice email from the nephew. I believe the nephew of Ted Netzker. Ted Netzker In my mind one of the all time great Uh I I I use this a little bit selfishly because I'm probably gonna say a lot of nasty things about people today and I just wanna prove I can say some nice things from time to time. What's Ted's role? Ted walk me through Ted's. I have no knowledge.

So um he worked on Wall Street and I think got a little tired of the nonsense and um figured there was uh something he could put together where he could put it together a team of traders in the suburbs. acquire a lot of good talent because people didn't want to work in the city and have a very transparent compensation and management. And very, very personal guy. Um he's just one of these guys everybody likes because he's he's just a good guy. And of all the bosses,

I've had in my life. I've never had one who worked harder at paying me money. In a world where everyone's trying to put their thumb on the scale, that's not how it worked. And it wasn't just me. You know, if the firm had like um a record quarter. They'd they'd give everybody a thousand bucks. And they wouldn't just give them a thousand bucks. They'd give them a thousand bucks and pay the tax on it.

Right. Stuff stuff like that. Let me back up. Let me back up. He really he wanted to get out of the city. That was one of the motivating factors. I think so. I think so. That's amazing. That's amazing. And um we were very early adopters of of technology, those these Sun Spark workstations, and uh, you know it it He he had it dialed in. My my cute story about him. I you know one of the the people who made the biggest impact on me, I can't say enough nice things about him.

At one point there was turmoil in the firm. They there's a couple of guys wangled their way to the top and there was a lot of infighting. So the thought was we'll bring Ted in. And he'll cause everyone loves Ted. So we thought we could bring Ted in and he would act as a bromide and calm things down. Um so at that point uh I was uh in London uh running the London trading uh and uh we had a guy who was

had a a senior role in the London office and it wasn't going the way anybody had hoped. But I really liked the guy. I I I I think he just You you needed to manage him slightly differently, but he I think he could make it go. And so we're in Ted's office. And Ted was always a Senior to me. I looked up to him. We'd go in, I'd go in his office, we'd have long talks, and I would tell him about how God one day.

Maybe I'll get one of those coveted 10-year jackets, which are very famous. Uh, when you work there for 10 years, you get a varsity leather jacket. That's a whole, that's like a whole to-do, right? And you know, every couple of years I'd sit down with these long hard to heart talks. So I really felt, you know, very very close to him and and as I said, he just Great golfer, very funny, captivating speaker, but he didn't like this guy. And

I felt very strongly. And I think I caught Ted at a bad moment because I don't think Ted was accustomed to getting a lot of pushback on stuff. So I kept added and added it, added and added, and he you can just tell the steam is just coming out of the ears and he stands up and he says, That guy couldn't sell pussy on a submarine. No, no, he's got smoke coming out of his ears. I'm on the floor laughing. It's the funniest fucking thing. Yeah, I could do not. Yeah. And it just made him madder. Yeah.

So um but yeah that that's why the place worked and why these other places, you know. It's I don't wanna say it's a shame, but when you look at him versus a Lloyd Blankflein or uh DJ Saul, um Yeah, I I just think he would have been capable of running one of these monster organizations. Wow. Because people just wanted to perform for him. Yeah. And uh that's a that's a rare that's a rare skill and uh one that very few people um very few people have. So um anyway. Um

Thanks to the nephew for writing a note. One of our listeners, and this is a this is a sort of a thank you, fuck you. um said, Hey M B, you might like this book called The Maniac. Okay. This book has fucked me up. I can't tell you. I have read this book already once. I predict I will read this book three times. The purpose that someone sent me this book, I think, or told me to get the book was

It was gonna convince me that AI was real. And it's done the exact opposite. It's convinced me it's a fucking con game. So one of the things I've noticed is um behind the scenes at night. Generally I'm at the kitchen table enjoying some music, reading, and there's a little email banter going on in between. uh you and me you meet leslie sometimes the ed gets involved But it's some of the funniest

most hysterical shit you can imagine. And it's too bad we we we couldn't turn that into a podcast. And and you'll notice recently the market huddle had asked the question, who what guests would you like to see back the most? And I think the results were outstanding. Everyone wanted us back. And um you know, the the all our friends, you know, whether it was simply red or the blind squirrel or this or that and see Here's the problem. We love Kevin to death. Um we can't go back.

we're too vulgar and he's too nice and he can't run the risk that I go sideways and um I get it. I get it. So Thank you for the vote of confidence to all our listeners and uh best of luck to Kevin. He's a talented guy. But um I'll request for appearances and I'll go through Again, producer of the year, Liam Allen, second year in a row. Um so uh they took a shot at the uh former president. You know, that's almost out of the news cycle by now. It's kind of old news.

Dude, you had it right. You had the uh you had the nefarious act right. You just had the wrong actor. Okay, so you know, I d again, you have an uncanny sense of saying What to me at the time seemed cringe, bizarre statements. So forty two hours later we got the shot at the guy. Unbelievable. First thing I said right act, wrong guy. Unbelievable. Yeah, I knew something was going on because um I heard A couple of black SUVs pull into the driveway, come to a screeching halt.

Three guys come in, grab me, drag me into the SUVs, and I'm like, what's going on? There's a pickaxe. There's a there's there's a crisis. We need to get you to a secure location. You'll be meeting Liam there. And then when the internet went down, fortunately we had our disaster recovery site, my backyard.

Right. Yeah, ready to go. Internet crashes, he's like, come on to the disaster disaster recovery site. So where is that? This safest place I know nearby is your back patio. Surrounded by Yeah, Wi Fi and everything. Yeah, exactly.

Last week I was a little vulgar and one of my kids pointed out apparently I didn't go back and check, but apparently I I called Nancy Pelosi a bold dried up con. And I wanna apologize for that. I mean I thought that on the inside. But I shouldn't have said it. Um So I won't I try not to repeat that word. But sorry, Matt. She's going I don't know, was she 80? Who knows? You could be older than that, dude. Well, let's just say old. Okay. So she's going and telling Biden he's supposed to.

He's supposed to give up because he's too old. Now We let these people off the hook way too early, easily. For instance, William Jefferson Clinton was on the Lolita Express a couple dozen times. What what is like navigator? I you know. Okay. So but we're we're not gonna dig too deep into that one. Oh no, we're not. And so remember Nancy Pelosi's husband was in his house, in his underwear, with a strange man, with a ball peen hammer,

I went to life in prison. This is a delicate topic. You didn't joke about the SUVs. She's still the speaker of the house, okay? Well, I I I know, but see, that's why we need to get this organized. Let's say, for instance, Cheryl comes home, the Greenwich police are here, and I'm standing there in my um turbulent asser boxer shorts holding a ballpint hander. You think that's gonna go in and out of the news cycle that quick?

Greenwich Greenwich they keep things quiet. If it happened in Greenwich, they'd probably keep it quiet. San Francisco, you can't keep Oh my God. Yeah. So that that's that's part of the problem. Um one of our guys wrote in um uh Who's the guy, uh Bob Cobb, who does Keep us in line and I you know appreciate it. He had made the comment about, you know. the tax rates are gonna have to change and so on and so forth. And and he he's a hundred percent right. But I I I think it's it's more significant

than just changing the tax rates. So if you if you go look at the beginning of the Civil War, and I'm I'm reading a book on this right now. And it seems like A lot of it was The South had it had a way of life, and it got convinced the North was gonna do away with its way of life, and that's what created the war. Keep in mind not my Arabic. And what I see happening now, everyone's talking about revolution, this and that. I think the problem here is again a a money issue.

So what's happened in the last several years through the COVID situation and then through the quantitative easing, you've created this huge It was already there, but the the the wealth gap has just exploded. Okay. And You know, you're talking about small events that happen. For instance, people going into fancy restaurants and stealing watches, right? Stuff starts to break down, it's going to be because The common guy.

looks at what's happened and he's been s been sold a bill of goods by the Pelosi's and that gank, the Clintons. You know, because they live by a different set of rules. And that's not how it's supposed to be. You know, you break the law, you you you you pay the penalty. You know, Hillary uh had her whole cattle trading thing. You know, nothing ever happened there. You know, Bill has the philandering stuff that never got resolved. Um

all the money that gets channeled to people. You know, where did Maxine Waters get all her money from? Yet somebody turns up and and uh She's, you know, ripping them an asshole. I and I'd I'd love a shot of fifteen minutes asking her some questions. Of course, never gonna happen, right? But um We've created I don't know whether it was, you know, in the twenties whether they called the robber barons, but there was a level of welfare. that is matched probably today by the

Pick name, you know, Ken Griffin forty-five million dollar dinosaurs, dude. Forty-five million years. Yeah. Yeah. And then you get this obtuse. Comment the giving pledge. I Have you heard of anything dumber in your life? When I'm dead and I can't spend any money, I'm gonna give it all away. Well, I got news for you, pal. I thought you were supposed to give it before you're dead. I thought the idea was you're supposed to give it Well, thank you for bringing that up. Again.

Give me some latitude, but you know I like biographies. And you read the biography of John D. Rockefeller, who at one point, the most hated man in America. He fell. This could be a little crazy, but he felt God had put him on earth to make that money and do good. Okay. Um buying a$12 million shark in formaldehyde and having a pig walk around your house ain't doing a lot of good. But Carnegie's view was if a man died with a lot of wealth, he embarrassed himself.

Yeah. Now um you can fact check all this stuff and I'm sure Bob will. Thank you, Bob. Um, but uh yeah, it's one thing To be running your average life, going to the grocery store and seeing the price of broccoli go up four times in a year. And then you hear about, you know, the Bezos gets on his rocket and he takes his slutty girlfriend up on a on a by the way. What the fuck? I didn't get that.

You're kidding me? Um anyway. Um a lot of questions about that. I have a lot of questions about that. This is literally if you read if you read Will and Ariel Durant. You know, lessons of history. This is what starts revolution. And this nonsense of the giving pledge is just a a dick sizing concept. I I got a giving pledge too. When I'm gone, my money's all being given away. Yeah. Yeah. Look wow. Look at me.

when we give money away and and I think I I don't know what percentage of our income we give away. I I don't frankly think I'd be comfortable saying it in public, but it's a meaningful figure. But the one thing we make sure of is the money gets put to work today. It's not into one of these. you know, deep phil philanthropic things for the preservation of the arts. Okay. Look, nothing wrong with preserving art. That's great. But you know

Cancer research. Let's let's save some lives, right? Let's save some lives. Let's let's and you know. There's too many people out there want the the light shined on them for being smart. or being wealthy and you're making you and everyone like you a target. And I I I find that reprehensible. Yeah. Um Um

Do you remember uh when I was giving you a neurological exam last week, I gave you three or four items to remember? Do you remember what they were? Yeah, the uh the green box. Something else. The pen uh something touched my nose. Come on, let's go. What were they? I think it was green box desk pen. Okay, yeah. So yeah, yeah. Right. Well, you know, you laugh now. You get to be my age. So I thought I was picturing just green. I thought it was like a trick.

No, where were you going with you? No, you're you you're normal. I mean, you know, as normal as you can be with this world we're living in. Um but the the the AI. Okay. Yeah. Because I I want to make sure I get this right. So this book called The Maniac, Benjamin Labatut, I think it's pronounced. Anyway, I I said I've read it once, I'm gonna have to read it again because it is so much going on. Um I don't know what happened, but they're talking about all these famous mathematicians.

A guy named Von Neumann who was thought to be at the time the smartest man in the world. And I I don't know, I don't even know if I have this right, but I'm reading this and you know Einstein's famous equation. uh e equals mc squared. Okay. Now again, shitty in math. The only physics class I took was in high school. So I know the C means speed of light, and they square it because that's You know, second per second. That's got something to do with velocity, right? And E is obviously energy.

But I was thinking of an equation all of a sudden, which is more significant to you and me, which is force equals MA. Right? So energy is force. Mass. is mass and speed of light squared. Is a velocity. So it seems like those two things are kind of related. Again, not being good at math, although I did I I did realize I've been asked to speak in public twice in my life. One time was it Runsiller Polytechnic?

Yeah, call RPI. What were you doing at RPI? I was asked to speak. About what? What do they want you to markets? Okay. Yeah. And the other was at the current Institute of Mathematical Sciences. Which is thought to be the best math school for finance in the world. So I'm losing some of my street credit being shitty at math, but um in any event. I'm reading this thing and they're this whole AI thing is predicated on they. I have this program and it plays the game Go against a human.

And on some date, I know now they're making up t-shirts with the date on it because it's when the Go made this move and it freaked everybody out. And in short order, in short order, go beats like the world's best humor. Oh my god, look at it. It's it's a fabulous thing. And the first thing that comes to my mind is

what I was sending around to you and Leslie about that scam two hundred years ago where they were taking a bunch of lead and they put it in a box and they put it in seawater. Yeah salt water. Salt water. After an hour, they hauled it up, and lo and behold, the bar of lead was now a bar of gold. Right. So they

sold all these shares and lo and behold it was found out that they actually had like a guy in a diving suit. Classic scam. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm looking at this thing and you know there's that Latin phrase Qui bene who benefits? So you got every Wall Street guy in the world, it's to his advantage to sell this ship. And here we have a computer that. can do things humans can't.

And that really resonated with me for a a a bunch of reasons. Before I I read the book. One was, as I've said to you numerous times, Whenever somebody would come in to buy Greenwich Capital. I'd meet with the new investor. And we'd work through, you know, what what do we do? And it was a very similar discussion. when we'd meet with these obtuse fund-to-fund managers when we were trying to raise money. Again, how how how this exists

you know, people fund to fund managers. It's like, don't tell, don't tell Warren about this. He'll he'll go off. Um I come in every morning, I ask the repo trader where the funds rate close. He'd say, I don't know, let me check.

And I sit down and I talk to E.G. And I talk to Leslie and I talk to Mitch and a couple of other people and we'd start to develop you know how we saw the way the curve looked and start to bounce ideas off of each And as I'm telling these people how this process works, you could just see their face drew.

This is now what they wanted to hear. You wanted to hear, I had a magic box. Of course. I just stuffed dollars and then just dollars came out the other side. Yeah. And that's what this AI thing is. And so if I can find it, you know, the the um because of the problem with the internet and then the lockdown because of the assassination attempt, our intern was off this week. But just bear with me a minute because I did try and mark the page. Um so anyway, this alpha go makes this move.

And he's playing a human, and the human ends up losing. And lo and behold, alpha go, AI, genius. Then I think about Greg Norman. And like the was it eighty six masters or whatever, where we went in with a nine shot lead and it just it was paralysis, right? So now you have a guy And I think there's money involved in this thing. And he's got the whole world watching every move.

You think that might make the kid a little nervous? I I don't know. But but no,'cause that's not how these things get spun in the in the marketing meeting. But um Anyway, so the the kid loses the game and they play a few more. But later on, um The kid's getting worn down and um it looks like AlphaGo is about to beat him. And out of the blue. The kid makes a move. And I'm quoting from page 333 of this book. Quote, the hand of God. That is a divine move, shouted one of Lee's

historic rivals, Gu Li jumping up from his seat in the Chinese webcast. Like a bolt of lightning, Li's seventy eighth stone tore AlphaGo's position apart. striking at the heart of a board with a wedge move unlike anything anyone had seen before. After that, okay, Alpha goes shits the better. And the guys behind the scenes can't figure out what the fuck's going on. Right. Okay. So I you know, hand of God, uh maybe, I don't know. I don't know. But maybe AI should pick a church and uh

So I'm still a seller of that. And uh, you know, I was talking with Cheryl. about AI. And I said, you know, I think this thing's bullshit. And she goes, well they just it just created an antibiotic. Really? So I look it up and it said yeah, it this it did come up with a new antibiotic. And I said to Cheryl, I know a good antibiotic too. She goes, what's that? I said, cyanide. It will kill everything. So I don't know whether they've tested this antibiotic on humans, but let me ask you this.

I'm not asking you to take this antibiotic to see if it works, but would you get on an airplane that didn't have a pilot? If it's an Airbus, yes. A Boeing, no. Okay. G okay. Because I'm convinced if things went bad I could land. Bring me up. Anyone here with any experience? Yes, sir. Bring me to the cockpit. I'll put this thing down. What? Back off the engine, line it up, pull the board, you know? Oh god. Put that thing on the deck with a TV fighter pilot. I I will arrive that plane.

So people will not fly on airplanes without pilots, yet planes can fly themselves perfectly fine, including backing back away from the gate and the whole thing. Is people don't trust it. Yeah, I wouldn't get on a bus. I wouldn't get on a driverless bus. You know, like the the dri the monorail at JFK, I'll accept that. There's nobody driving that thing. I'll I'll I accept the monorail. Um But a plane, zero.

Yeah, yeah. Well that's what these guys are are claiming. All these things are going to happen. Yet a plane, I believe, and our our uh friend Shannon Day could probably verify this. I think a plane has been able to back up, take off. and land and park. On its own for like twenty years. I believe it. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. Big radio controlled toy. Like for the you know, the people with the technology. That's that's a walk in the park. But a commercial airline? Yeah.

So I I I'm a little bit it's just my nature to push back on these things. Um Bitcoin thing went up huge, missed that part of it. On the other hand. I would love somebody to show me a use case. that's benefited society. Um, you know, um Bobo, prolific investor in Bitcoin. loves Israel as a place in television. Yet he's providing a framework for money to get to Hamas who's launching people in Israel and killing. Uh you know that

The conflict. It's a doesn't jive. Doesn't jive. It is if if uh you know If you're a human being, uh uh you know So but like they say, never talk to to the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room. uh crypto's gonna crypto crypto feels like they're uh they're getting a guy like like trump and jd vance apparent apparently jd vance has some pro-crypto background um

So I wonder what happens with that. You wonder what happens with Bitcoin if they get Trump in the White House, you know? Um y you know, i these things take on lives of their own. So for instance, he might go in there and go, I think crypto's great. And we're going to record every trade on every exchange. On your tax return, there's a box that said, did you trade?

Crypto. Yeah. And if you said yes, every taxpayer is going to get a note saying, please send us a copy of all of your crypto transactions. And these guys are not going to have put them on their tax return, which they signed saying it was truthful. And now they admitted to submitting a fraudulent act. So there's there's lots of ways this these things can go. Um I'm a big believer and I know it won't generate a lot of revenue.

But I wouldn't I would I think we've t said this here before, I would take every hundred dollar bill that's outstanding and I would make it worth And if you have it, you take it to the bank. and you exchange it for a new one.

And if you know, grandpa buried you know, a hundred grand were the hundreds in the backyard in a coffee can and you stumble upon it, you take it to the bank even though the the bill has expired, and you explain And you put the hundred grand in the bank and they do their research and they go, Okay. It's not a drug dealer, it's uh eighty-eight year old man and and oh by the way, he didn't pay tax on that, so we're gonna take the tax he should have paid. But you you

Take that whole black market economy and it's critical to the dollar. It's critical to critical to the strength of the dollar though. You need the we need the global black market currency in dollars, right? We we need the dues. Yeah, pretty much. Like we can't have the global uh you know the global black market currency being traded in uh

in in in yen or or whatever. What is China? So let's say it's yen. Okay. So when My contractor comes to my house and says the new roof's a hundred grand, but um I'll charge you eighty um if you pay me in yet. Yeah. Yeah. You know. Uh do you see that happening? I I don't.

It'll be just write me a fucking check. I'll pay the tax. Dude, speaking of paying taxes, all right, and I and and politics, uh this is the only way I'm gonna get to my Jamie Diamond. Okay. And you said you had you wanted you were you would accept my Jamie Diamond conversation. Um I was and I'm dead serious. I don't think I want him to run I don't think I want him to be Treasury Secretary.

I can see that. Yeah. Because it it does it's he's not gonna be able to do a lot with that job. He Number one. Okay, thank you. Number one, he's got the power, he can move and be the powerful figure he is without doing it, arguably he can have more power

staying in the battleship of JP Morgan rather than going over there. The other thing anyone that's ever worked for Trump aligned with Trump ends in ashes. You know, you it's just you get chewed up and spit out he doesn't need it doesn't need it that the only thing is i explained to you and the um goldman sachs guys were masterful at this. I apologize. I told you I was gonna dig into it. I got distracted. But there's a huge tax arb if you leave

deferred comp or something to go into public office, there's a big benefit there. But I think Jamie Diamond, if he if if he's the right guy, he's like It's not about the money. It's about doing the right thing. And that's why I get so worried. He's such he's so pro America.

And I I've heard his exasperation with the political leaders in interviews. And he's said it, you know, it might have been a c years ago where they've asked him, would you be treasurer? And he's like, well, I'm a patriot in the country if they asked me to do it. Like he has the first of all, he has the right answer for everything.

He's sharp as a fucking razor, you know? Um and the the part that I'm like, oh he might do it is because he said uh time and time again about how he loves America, he's a patriot in the country and like So there's part of me that's like you want the you want the guy but but you I'm with I'm with you. You know, I I I think the problem for somebody like him And it it really faces anyone. You're going into a situation It was like me with the real estate. Like I I've been I came from the bond mark.

Like I said, a deal's done. That's not how the real estate market works, right? So you take a guy from the financial services business who has a good reputation for integrity. And you throw him into the cesspool, how's that gonna go with Nancy Pelosi? He's gonna look her in the eye, Chuck Schumer, and they're just gonna lie and lie and lie and Jamie's gonna be like, I yeah, he's lying, but you know, normally people tell me the truth. I don't So I I think, you know.

I I frankly, I'd be worried about him being assassin. Please stop. You jinxed it last week. Can we not get Jamie off? Please. He's if he doesn't run for president. No, if Jamie doesn't run for president, he's perfectly safe. If he's gonna be president, then these guys uh have it in their best interest to bump him off because he's too good. You know, we come uh uh we come think about this, we've come to the point in our country where we had an assassination attempt last week.

And that didn't even make the headline of our show. Um, and now we can have a discussion about like the safety of our political of our political candidates. We're like that that's not out of the question. It's not out of the question.

No, of course not. Of course not. You know, it's it's it's those people that uh rule th it's like the Howard Marx memo, which uh I thought was really good. I I don't think it's anything particularly different than we like to talk about, but Howard Marks basically was wrote a memo paraphrasing the the the Mark Twain quote, which is something like, It wasn't the things that I thought that got me into trouble, it was the things I knew for sure. Right. And uh I obviously uh Twain and Howard Mark

said it more eloquently. But, you know, part of trading and and this is why uh Ms. Wood, the um the destroyer of wealth doesn't understand is like you gotta know what you don't know and you know, you're in a business. Know what business you're in. And um I think one of the reasons I've always underperformed uh what I thought might have been capable of is I've always deferred to pr protect the platform.

I never wanted to get I never wanted to get blown out. You know, the Greenwich Capital thing is explainable because we got paid such a high percentage of to to risk that made no sense to me. And now, you know, i it at uh sixty three, you know, I was a two years ago. Three years ago, I decided hey, I want to take a shot, right? But I you know I'm no one's gonna hire me. So I I have a pile of money and I gotta live on it. So I put an amount of money that I was willing to lose and I lost it.

But I you know, but I I took a shot. Um You in trading actions have consequences and uh um uh her inability to understand that. Maybe her general theme is cohesive, because there's logic there, right? You know, if you find a new technology that works. It's gonna grow way beyond what you could expect. I I I I the the greatest trading blunder I ever made was. I walked out of the Apple store in Soho after looking at that new iPhone, and I said, this is a game changer. This is

Total game changer. And I bought, you know. couple hundred grand worth of apple stock and within weeks it was in it cut in half. And uh instead of believing in it, it got back to my cost and I and I pitched it'cause I'm an idiot and I didn't believe, right? Had I believed, I mean The same thing with Facebook. You know, f I remember having lunch with um uh My uh a good friend of mine, Steve Fraden, at one of those fancy Italian restaurants in Manhattan. And Facebook, you know.

I almost got some through Goldman, they fucked that up, thank you. Um but it started trading and I remember saying to Steve Fraden and a number of people. You know, never in the history of mankind have you been able to push one button and contact four billion people. I don't know what the number was, but it's a big number, right? And I said that I don't know. That's gotta be worth something. I don't know what. And I didn't have The foresight To say

You're right. So treat it as an option. Put some money into the thing. And just go away. No, I I just got the I gotta write tickets, you know, bang Zoom. Trader's gonna trade. A trader's gotta trade. Yeah, yeah. It's the most pathetic. Story of my life, you know. Everyone's like, What's the best trade you ever did? I don't know, what's the worst trade you ever did? I got plenty of those. Yeah, that baseball too. Best trade I ever did, marry my wife. That's Hands down. Not kidding. Um

All right. So I was s while we're doing the Fed, you think they're gonna they're gonna cut the rate in September? Yeah, I do I think they should. No. Do I think they will? Yeah. Wow. The the these these GDP now forecasts are all in the threes. The two year note is let me bring it up here because I know everyone waits for bated breath for my two year note view. The two year notes at a four forty seven

So you got three percent GDP growth, inflation uh running at three percent, unless you're a normal person, then your inflation is much higher. Um I I I have sold all of my long dated paper. Most of it. I I asked my Muni guys to to sell my long data munis, but they were apparently uh they don't work on Fridays. No, no, no, no. I'm just teasing. They're they're the best. Um, the reason I'm concerned about the the Wonga now is because.

I think the market will decide that's a policy error and so we'll get a uh a normal yield curve and uh the economy will pick up and you know we'll move along. I I so the the point Kevin makes a lot which is don't you know, think about what they should do, think about what they're gonna do. I think that's a very mature way of looking at it.

think they're gonna cut'cause they gotta they gotta bug up their ass about cutting rates. Why? It's beyond me. You know, you got the inflation thing on the run and uh Well it's doc slot this morning doc Slock says let me read the Doc Slock note. Dude he he really teed it up. Thank you, Dr. Slock. Um great job with the Saturday morning note because that really helps me for the show. I'm gonna steal the whole thing right here.

So this is from the lead economist at Apollo. Thank you, Dr. Torsten Slock. Um It's the Daily Spark. If you I don't know who lives under a rock that does that hasn't already read this today. Every Saturday going forward, we're going to provide an updated chart book. Thank you, Dr. Slock. Current status as a Saturday, July 20th. Daily data shows restaurant booking strong. TSA Air Travel, strong. Feds weekly GDP 2%. Atlanta Fed GDP now is 2.7% and rise.

Yeah. Retail sales, strong. Jobless claims modestly higher, maybe because of the hurricane. Weekly data hotel occupancy rates strong. Bankruptcy filings trending down. Credit card, debit card. Rising loan. All the recipe for massive easing. The bottom line is that daily and weekly data do not show any signs of a drop off in economic activity.

The bottom line is the daily and weekly data do not show any signs of a drop-off in economic activity. Instead, the data shows ongoing steady growth around potential, similar to what we have seen over the past year. If the Fed Starts cutting rates in September, then stock prices will rise further, credit spreads will tighten, and growth and inflation will start to reaccelate. Inflation will reaccelerate if they cut in September. Well I I voted with

my feet, meaning I've moved out to the long end. Again, King and Bobby get to work on Monday. We got more work. We got more wood to chop, boys. Um But uh I I don't know why they got a chub to cut rates. I mean, what's the hurry? They don't. And it's just and it's just Wall Street that wants it. They're just hounding them to death. Oh, price in a hundred percent chance of the cut. We'll get it.

Well they you know the Fed does like to follow the market. I I just I wish you know, I wish some rationality would uh Didn't Trump bar uh Trump said you better not said Jay you better not? Did did did I read that headline correctly? I don't know. I believe Trump said you better not cut in September. I'm I'm don't quote me. He says a lot.

These it's hard to keep track of. I did pay attention. I'm pretty sure that he made a comment about Jay Don't Cut. Um, so you got him saying Jay don't cut. We got Torsten Slock here who is obviously the best economist on Wall Street. Um and he says that if you if you cut if you if you cut rates, you're gonna re-accelerate your inflation. But you haven't heard a peep of that from that lunatic Mary Daly out in San Francisco.

throw anything she says in the trash anyway. Of course if you ever hit the panic button we can always call Dave Rosenberg and see what he thinks. No, we're gonna call Zervos because we got Zervos deep inside now, okay?

Oh yeah. He um it we don't have enough time. His latest missive he told a pretty good joke, but I we don't have time for it today. Okay unless you insist, but I would like to I would like to hear the Zerloth joke because I'm not I I'll I'll abbreviate it because I know our sponsors you know. Dude Zerv Zervos is deep in he's at the RNC. I'm surprised he didn't give like a speech at the RNC. Okay. Is it the Democratic Convention? No, RNC. R the Republican. He was in Milwaukee.

He's in Milwaukee with Kellyanne, okay? Um chasing tail. Enough, please. Okay. All right. He's he's working. He's on the he's on the campaign trail with his his other. Um Um before I before go ahead. I got one. So Zervos' joke is this. So like an economist is comes into an interview and the guy draws something on the board and uh asks the economist

What's the correlation between these two securities? And the economist, look, first economist says, well, this is usually this, this is usually this. So the correlation's 0.5. Okay. Thanks. We'll let you know. Next economist come in, same question. Yeah. Okay. Third economist comes in, they said, okay, there's this security, there's that security, what's the correlation? The economist says, what do you want it to be? He gets the job. Hired on the spot.

Hired on the spot. There you go. That's Wall Street. That is Wall Street in a nutshell. What do you want it to be? Well, you know, I I made the joke. Being a father of three daughters. the best training in the world to be a trading manager, right? It's just Because traders, I love you guys. I'm a trader. All the way through, but it's a bunch of fucking whining.

They're whining about everything all the time. Lunch is late. I don't my computer's not working right. I got, you know, blah blah blah blah blah blah. Speaking of uh father of three girls, uh we're on high alert. Are you you're you did are you gonna get a call today? This week, yeah. I got my go bag packed. Okay. So all the audience, we we have we now have fingers crossed. Okay. We're a week from being uh of of having grandpa yeah grandpa Morris, okay? I think uh

I think the target date is five days. It's not gonna interfere with the show. Hey, you know, it's like the guy who was cleaning up the elephant shit at the circus and he was complaining to his friends about not liking his job. He goes, why don't you quit? And he was like, what, leave show business? Thank you. Dude, the I live this is this is my only purpose in life. What am I get seriously? What am I gonna do if I don't spend all week

Thinking about stuff to talk to you about. Knuckling around in some stupid trade. I know you. This podcast has saved me so much fucking money. Bingo. Bingo. Exactly. You could talk to me about it rather than doing it on Monday morning. Well it's great to see you, buddy. All right, dude. I'll talk to you soon. Uh good luck. Fingers crossed.

cast inside baseball cast. I'm a little upset that I only got uh a couple of emails from people congratulating Morris who's about to be a grandfather. It's okay. It's okay. Are you All you mopes that that that hang out and just feed from the trough inside these troughs, okay?

I didn't get any Mosletov. I got like my buddy in Australia, Ireland. I got nothing from the Americans. Maybe, maybe Senator Brofi. Um, but yeah, I expected more. Inside baseball cast, okay? Or else we were gonna hike the subscription rate.