You Cannot Short America

Greetings and welcome to Inside Baseball with Old Chestnut. I'm Liam Allen with my friend Morse Sachs. How you doing MB? Hey Kid, great to see you. Uh not bad, not bad, dude. It's good to see you. It's been a while. It feels like it's been a long, long time with the holidays and the winter. Um, but yeah, it's a it's a pleasure to see you, my friend. Looks like one of us needs a haircut. Um y you know, you know.

You gotta bring that up, dude. Um, as the audience knows, MB has beautiful hair that grows at like an inch a week, okay? And I am struggling to hold on. Okay. I don't know. You look pretty good. Yeah, thanks. Um in a manly way. Uh speaking of pretty good dude, uh I'd like to thank Fish. for the for acknowledging us by closing

second set with first tube, which is an obvious nod to us'cause we opened the show with it. So they said we'll shut down the New Year's second set with first tube. And then they worked pretty much your whole entire wish list into the concert. Okay. Well, I haven't seen much because um You know, Cheryl spoke with me the other day. She said, you know, all you're doing these days is taking gummies, lying on the couch and watching the fish concerts. And I'm like

some problem. Is there a problem officer? Precisely. I know my rights. I know my rights. Yeah. So as um as a little bit of a pushback, they She and her friend Rochelle ordered and carry out Mexican food for dinner last night. So if there's any uh non commercial interruptions that's on them. You know, um you mentioned we

prolific in publishing lately. You know, I've made the point of not sitting all day in my study staring at the market. And generally uh what I like to do is see something during the week. That lights kind of a thought process, because otherwise, who wants to listen to a couple handsome guys? complaining about this or that. You want to add a little value. And and so I thought we'd probably be taking the whole weekend off. But life coach Leslie Harris sent us a little note

Talking about uh hedge fund manager David Ironhorn was for the FT. And I immediately put in a call to network, and uh here we are. Um so Keeping in mind I don't want to get labelled as just a grumpy old man. You know, I I think for a long time I've tried to make the point. I always wanted to view what we did as a career a professionalism and uh sort of like The cocktail party bullshit analogy. And when I saw this quote by David Einhorn, it just

It just made me sick. This is in the this is in the FT, I think, yesterday. Uh yeah, this is the FT yesterday. Um he said. Yeah, what'd he say? He said he's he's been talking he stole they did g give the background how he's talking about he said a while back markets are fundamentally broken. But he reckons things will get much worse before they get better. But he said once again he argued that the greatest danger facing markets today was the breakdown in the market structure.

Okay. What a fucking cryberry. I got a transition on that. You know, uh it's just it's just repugnant, you know. So um number one, when Uh JP Morgan doesn't take Goldman Sachs on an assignment. the market's broken. When the Treasury market hasn't cleared in a month, the market's broken. When the Mag Seven That you're short run away from your piece of shit value companies and you don't make any money. That ain't broken. Market inefficiencies.

Are what people make a living off of. If the market was perfectly efficient, You might argue nobody make any money other than the risk free rate of return. If if your client's money is in danger. because of potentially catastrophic effect. Why do you have any positions? Right. Because you have a fiduciary responsibility to your clients. If you think the markets are broken. A prudent man wouldn't have any money in the market, yet he's got money in the market. He's taking his two percent and

To be honest with you, crybaby, mister Genius poker player. You know, it gets hard and the markets are broken. I I don't you ever hear Warren Buffett say that? No, he gives you the the hamburger example, right? Charlie Munger, broken? No. They love when shit goes sideways. You know, and even here we're constantly preaching, you know, liquidity safety because that's where the opportunities are. And if markets are having issues

By your own admission, they're caused by people like you. Listen to this listen to this fucking word Salah that he put together. Let me just read the quote. All right. It's a struggle because it's Overvalued can become more overvalued, and undervalued becomes more undervalued, and you're not having capital efficiency in the way that the markets are designed to create. And this creates what I call a very, very stable disequilibrium.

A very, very stable disequilibrium. And I don't know if or when this will ever reverse. If it ever does, there's going to be a ton of corners that will come from. That's the Minsky moment, right? Where, you know, VOG decreases, decreases, decreases until something happens and the market explodes.

So I think what has happened here is investors, thanks to quality podcasts like this. and others. Uh I don't know that there are any good ones out there. I'd love to listen to podcasts with guys like us'cause it must be thrilling. Anyway, um People have discovered Pan David two and twenty for being long, I'll just give that money to Vanguard or F Fidelity or whoever, right? And so they just buy more of what they own and they push things out of line. Back when I was a full time trader,

At Grange Capital, we would love things to get pushed around because we would vote with our positions. So for instance, Big at least ten years ago.

We were short a lot of five year notes. Or as the denizens of the treasury market know, the five-year, two-month note. Um, we were short, I was short of bowl of them. And this guy, Craig Wardlaw, who is portfolio manager at NCNB. Long before you and I were world famous celebrities. Um he figured out the street was short a lot of these things, and he squeezed the living daylights out of him. To the point th it might be illegal today.

what he did. I'm not saying it was, but it certainly felt like it and People went whining to the Fed. They were writing Wall Street Journal articles about it, about the squeeze. And they interviewed him and he said, look, I was a Marine during the Tet Offensive. We take our lumps like men. We didn't go crying. Right? And so I see this.

Uh green Einhorn green light capital. Yeah, right. And I immediately think of that scene from Blungary Glen Rock. Glenn Ross, where Al Pacino has a sail blown by the office manager. You know what I'm talking about? I uh go ahead. Yep, yep. He he just he just launches into Kevin Spacey. It's like the Vulgaria's unbelievable. But he's like so basically These guys are selling worthless land. And Al Pacino gets his guy to buy a bunch. And the guy starts to back out.

He comes to the office and wants his money back. And Al Pacino's basically got him talked off the ledge. And Kevin Spacey comes out and fucks up the whole thing. It's like oh no, your check went to the bank. And the guy's like, Huh? Didn't you say like my wife found out or something? Yeah, my wife found out she wants a check back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Here, I got three business days. Three business days. Yeah, that's Monday. My time runs out. He goes, no, no, your check went to the bank. Your contract is good. And Pacino's like, you fucking. Cunt pussy. Yep, yep. Barry. He goes, I don't know whose nephews you are. I don't know whose dick you're sucking. But I'm going downtown to Michamuri and I'm getting your ass fired. It was just, it was just...

Golden. And that should be required viewing. A lot of the young a lot of younger guy I only watch that because of you. That movie's old, and I bet a lot of younger guys that work in the business haven't watched. that but that always be closing. I mean that that is what? It's Alec Baldwin, Pacino, Spacey. A B C always be closing. Yes, my middle daughter.

She's got that one backwards and forwards. You know how you you'll see somebody do something, you realize they gotta figure it out. She was working for an accounting firm that paid her a commission on stuff she brought in. And during one of the uh tax bonanzas, they came out with this employer retention tax credit. And She was on this thing, and she didn't go into a bar or restaurant without asking to talk to the manager with her business card, explaining this thing. make a lot of money.

She really learned the lesson of you know being a salesperson and and uh um Uh yeah, very obviously very proud of my kids. But uh this was one of those A B C moments and uh yeah, that's a do not miss. But but um so I'm listening to uh

Einhorn. Einhorn talk his book. Get out of the business, you pussy. Yeah, he's he's blaming hedge funds, he's blaming index and he's mad at index funds, which is like screaming at the sky. He says it's the index funds which are passively buying everything based on what it's previously worth and trading which is based on anticipating everyone else's order.

People who have a short term opinion about price. And I don't mean the price six months from now. I mean the price when my options expire this Friday. Yeah, he's he's just he's mad at hedge funds, pod shops. He brings shame to our house. He really does, dude. I mean really I'm embarrassed. Uh at least the F T buried it on Friday afternoon and he shot his mouth off enough lately that he's

He's entering like Ackman territory where you can't take him seriously. I didn't read the whole article because i I was like, All right, well we I see what's going on here. He's picking fights with people on Twitter. Um so yeah, he's brought shame to the to the tribe. Take the fucking money, okay? Shut your mouth. The fact you're backing this guy or that guy. They're all crooks. You know, they're all, I don't know, they're all the crux of people speaking English, you know.

For years I've been talking about the bad behavior of real estate brokers. And I know I've drawn a little scorn from people out there because of my one way view and, you know. But I was disappointed yet unsurprised to see last week in the paper of record. that a couple of New York real estate brokers have been indicted. For sex trafficking. No, no. What is the post? The post says this? I believe so.

True. Hundred percent facts. Did it name names? Dude, the post is good at this stuff. The post likes to stir the ship pot. Um was it was it a good salacious story? Yeah, I not not not. as much as w I think the people deserve. Okay, all right, all right. Well hopefully now that it's out in the public, um But uh so I saw this Einhorn thing and uh it really made me kinda wanna take a step back and think about my life.

Um so we you know, we've we've um packed up, moved the house out to uh Arizona where the blue skies are quite accretive. Are you gonna catch fire? I don't think so. Now you're safe out there? Okay. Yeah. You smell smoke or anything geographic? I don't know anything about that, West. No, the air is very dry. Okay. I guess that's a artifact of being in the desert. I guess the shit in California is a problem.

But you know, they've gone sideways so far that these things are bound to happen. Why do they need gasoline? Discover that I read a great article about who owns all the water. Guess what? It's two Jewish billionaires, okay? You want to start start sniffing around the water, okay? And there's plenty of stories this week about Who owns the water? It's somebody that's looking I if you know where those were, would you send them to me because

You've been trying to find a way to buy water for years. No, this guy got it. He see somebody your somebody of your grandfather's age got a hold of it, okay.

You know. So Cheryl's friend Rochelle is here. And she's been traveling with us for years because She and Sean go back to high school. Sheryl and I go back to college. And she has been the fly on the wall. She's aggregated a number of my uh Triple A one liners. Isms your isms? Yeah. And uh which by the way is how I figured we're gonna get rich off this podcast. And it's not gonna be through the syndication, right? It's like Jerry Seinfeld. We're gonna write a book. Okay.

Not really right. The problem is people don't read books anymore. You you you do a poll of a hundred people under the age of twenty five and I bet you uh Seventy-five percent haven't read a book. Yeah, you're uh you're you you're like one of the last I don't care if they read them, I just want them to buy them. Yeah, those sardines aren't for trading. Aren't for eight and they're for trading. So anyway, uh long story into some of the quotes. It's like, how do you say fuck you in Yiddish?

Trust me. Here's one that I think we're going to get a huge grin out of life, Coach Leslie Harris. The best plans are the ones that are canceled. Like you got date with the Katzes on Friday night to go to the mediocre diner. Yeah, yeah. Ten to nine, the phone rings. Oh Liam. I got a cold. I I might have COVID. I for the family, I uh I think we better cancel dinner tonight. And you're like

Oh, I feel terrible. Yeah, I know. You stay home and feel better. Meanwhile, we'll be able to muddle through. And you feel like you hit the lottery. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No. Um, another quote I I like a great deal. Um, the horse can smell the hay. To show you what a broad pallet we have, I learned riding horses. When you're riding back to the barn. You have to keep the horse down to a slow trot because

They can smell the hay. They want to get back to the barn and eat. And if you let'em run at full speed, you'll never be able to break them with that habit. So that's the horse can smell the hay. Okay. All right.

I like I like take out the operating agreement. That's my favorite one. Take out the operating agreement. Okay. That's a tattoo quote, right? Really good. I'm going through that now. It's crazy. Yeah. I like liquidity as a f is ephemeral. If you want to do your t-shirts, I really like liquidity as ephemeral. People people enjoyed that one too, you know. The t-shirts are back in stock? They're on their way for the new year.

Just as a pro tip, if you're looking for a hat and a t-shirt, thank you for showing interest, to expedite the process during the labor shortage or labor cutbacks due to budget constraints. A prepaid mailing uh label would be most appreciated. Especially that guy in China. Yeah.

Speaking of China, we got an email from a listener asking why there's no love for the southern listeners. I'd beg to differ. Um The uh Gone with the Wind is my favorite movie. Is it really? Oh it's fantastic. It's fantastic. In fact it got so bad during the uh the DEI stuff. Yeah yeah. Thought they were gonna That thing is money. Yeah, it's a masterpiece. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know nothing about birthing babies. Dude, I've never seen it. I have spite not watched it because it's my wife's favorite. Um, and I just, you know, I can't. What am I? Is it black and white or is it in color? Forgive my ignorance. Is it color? Okay, all right. Yeah, I'll watch it. I'll get to it's it's fucking it's no godfather. I was just gonna say, I was just gonna say your endorsements mean a lot. And I you know I've been

Okay, so I gotta watch Go On With the Winds. You know, I d I wrote him back a nice now a nice note. I am in the South, im I am immersing myself in the South. Okay. I'm in South Carolina. I spend a lot of time in South Carolina. And I really appreciate and I love being down here and being away from that god-awful concrete thirty-two degree gray hellscape that's New York in the winter.

The only ding I have on North Carolina was Adentina and I I don't think you got the knot on this. Made a road trip down there to see um Charleston. Yeah you went to Charleston, didn't you? Yeah. And the uh The place had no energy. I'm talking about the concert, not the town. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The food was great, the women were pretty, people were nice, the accommodations were great.

But the the show just had very little energy. Yeah, I could see that. Although that they did open, I think the third set with uh A rare song.

simple lights or something. It'll come to me later, but it was a really nice one. Um but anyway, uh so uh you know we get down here and you know how you have friends at home and but if you had a second place like we do you have a group of friends on location you don't necessarily keep in touch with that well so I I made a few phone calls to some of my, you know, Phoenix cycling friends. And one of my friends had a very legitimate health scare and he's going to be fine, but it it it caught me.

And uh, you know, not long after that, I got an email from Marker Wizard Nelson Macy. And the quote was something was from a Greek philosopher, I think, named Pericles. And he said, you can't tell what kind of day it was until sunset. And I got very, it must have been the tag end of the gummy, but I got very existential thinking about, well, I guess that means. You don't know until the day's over how the day was. And all of a sudden thinking about, well, you know, what am I?

56, 58, something like that. And there's one number in the financial universe. You never fade. You never fade. That's the actuarial tables. If you look up and it says you're going to live to 58, don't fade that number. They're they never miss, I'm telling you. I I I don't have the right to claim this, but I know. That there's so many eyes and so much money focused on this thing, and there's no government involvement other than regulation.

And I also had life insurance for like 15 years. And if those assumptions were wrong, all the statements I get would be fucking sideways. And they're to down on to the penny. So if You look up and it says fifty six. Write that down. Yeah.

Yeah. And don't start asking, you know, where where am I gonna die because I just won't go there. Yeah, yeah. Just kind of get your affairs and over. How do they get that number? They just crunch the numbers, they've just been crunching the numbers and crunching.

Have you ever been around for the death of a loved one? Yeah, of course. Well I had one experience with this with my mother, who was in hospice, which I highly recommend. I mean, uh if you gotta go, uh I'm not suggesting you you sample their words early, but they took such good care of this woman. But the place was like A Mexican gang warehouse full of drugs. And so they get you all teed up. Like, cause they know when the your loved one passes.

You're not gonna want to get out the mimeograph checklist. It's a she dies, call this number and a man will answer and you tell him your mother passed. So I do that. And they set this wheel in motion. So, like 20 minutes later, there's a crew from like the mortuary at the house. And there's people from hospice there. Before the mortuary gets there to get all the drugs out of the place, right? So nothing because there's nothing but morphine and

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, um that was my experience with it. And uh so you know, I I thought, well, you know, my number's like fifty-six or fifty-eight and so I thought, well maybe it would be a good time to look at the sunset.

You know, appreciate all the good things. So the first thing I think of is my two wonderful children and How many? You got two well, I know you're talking about Kate and Lisa. So you you got two wonderful children. So and then the and then the other. Two wonderful children, three wonderful son-in-laws, who if I had sons, I could only hope they would grow up to be as good as.

these these men or i is a guy like yourself. I would be proud if they were my sons. Um, so I feel great about that. And then, you know, I look up at, well, what kind of career do you have? And I'm like, you know. I did okay. You know, even though I was part of a primary dealer, I still managed to make ends meet. Um and then I don't know why, maybe it was the gummies, but that philosophical question came to mind. If you could do it all over again.

Would you work less and spend more time with your kids? Now, of course, when you're put on the spot, you're gonna be forced to say, Oh, of course I would. And I realized. No, I I I think I got it right. And the reason is this. Is so let's say I worked eight hours less and spent eight hours more with my kids. I don't know. How valuable. that eight hours would have been informing And benefiting them, their life, their mother's life, and the future, the family's life. So

And what what did I accomplish? Well, I put uh together a financial basis that no one in my family Is ever gonna go hungry or want for ability to have a place to live for education? I showed my kids in an example how you can be truly passionate about your job, yet make time for both your career. your family and um

Time to explore your own passions. Yeah, well it's easy for you because you got three aces. I talked about this. If you had one that was a junkie and locked up in Danbury, I'd I'd push back. I'd be like, You didn't do a good job on the middle one, you know? But they all turned out aces.

But you know, there's that thing they teach you in all these substance abuse classes, people, places, and things. There's a reason for that, you know. It's like the alcoholics shouldn't be hanging out with people who like to drink. Because come on, just take a sip. Oh yeah, I know. Or for our, you know, you know, more vulgar.

Listeners, you know, just a tip, just to see how it feels. Right. I know. I'm sorry. You know, our network contract requires every 30 minutes to have one cringeworthy comment.

There you go. But um, you know, I'm uh I'm pretty happy with how things work out and um uh Yeah, I I I I know I've got three aces, but you gotta be at the table and you gotta have a good partner, which is why I'm so excited to see. Our daughter's partners' choices and uh um Well now that you've got the girls all squared away. It's it's it's Cheryl because my um my grandfather in law who who ran Dun and Bradstreet back in the w back in the day, he said grandma up for when when he passed away

He had her so that she could have a case of champagne with dinner every night until she was a hundred and fifteen. Okay. And then then he put her at the Osbourne. Which is like in Rye, okay, and it's where you you know, it's a luxury one bedroom apartment. Somebody somebody must think I've done that because, you know, Cheryl is part of these nonprofit organizations. And they're all cultivating her or what's the word? Grooming her. Grooming her.

For when old chestnut goes. Oh yeah. Oh, he was such a wonderful guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But no, I remembered that. I remember going to the Osbourne to visit grandma and her living there in the lap of luxury at ninety six. And her still like she had a picture of of Chick on her nightstand and I was like, Those are big shoes to fill. Here I am, I'm gonna marry the guy's granddaughter, okay?

He's got her at the plaza, you know, forty-five thousand dollars a month at ninety-seven years old, showing no signs of fading away. Yeah. But I could like Cheryl Cheryl's probably one of these people that's gonna live to a hundred and five, you know. You know it. I hope so. I hope so,'cause she's a wonderful person. And yeah, there's there's probably a nugget. Um

You know, if I ever get this office building refinanced, then she'll be fine. You're gonna re fly the office building. How's that going? It's just day count now. On six months we get a rent check and then uh we go get permanent financing in theory. But I you know, it looks pretty good. You know, the the

The reports of uh the office market death are greatly exaggerated. Um Okay. You know, New York has been uh Listed as dead and buried a number of times in my experience with the city, which goes back to 1900 or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Moved from Chicago. He got a twenty-five percent pay raise. And when I landed on the ground, it was an enormous pay cut.'Cause my rent went from eight hundred bucks a month for a two bedroom, two and a half bath to

800 bucks a month to uh sleeping on the floor on a futon. Yep, yep. Yeah. A tail is a tail is all this time. Um Back when you could get a slice of pizza and a soda for a dollar. Dollar, yeah. That's yeah. Those days are long gone. Um can't get that no more. Please. D did New York, um, they got rid of the crooked mayor. There's gonna be some changes. They got rid of Adam. So he's he they s they're gonna say goodbye to him. Um

And yeah, well, maybe Bill Ackman will run New York. Maybe Billy will show up. I think Mario Cuomo wants to run the city again. It's it's just a comedy show. Um

But such is um, do you got any thoughts on the bond market? You want to do a little bond market before we uh before we lose this? Yeah. Um I uh I kind of like the bond market. Yeah. You know, I I think there's some noise about You know, Torsen Slack was talking about inflation's not dead and yap ba and the Fed's easing and but I and I think We talked about life insurance. There's a huge amount of long dated liabilities that need to be funded. And there is a

Systemic shortage of good quality collateral. Now, people have been bemoaning bemoaning the deficit. I don't know if you saw this headline the other day, but the Fed reduced debt by three trillion dollars through quantitative, you know, the unwinded quantitative easing. You didn't see anything happen. No sirens went off. Oh nothing. Yeah. It's

You're gonna get bumps in the road, but you have the United States of America balance sheet assets, liabilities, assets. You've got X largest economy in the world. Generating tax revenue. What's that NPV worth? I'm guessing it's worth a lot. How about the Grand Canyon? That's an asset. How about the aircraft carrier enterprise? Now I wouldn't want to try and sell that, but it's worth something. How about

Proudhon Bay oil reserves. Plus we're gonna have we're gonna have Canada and Greenland too soon. Those will be huge assets for us to look at. Exactly. Exactly. So the point here isn't I'm not so worried about Where we're at. It's the fact that the people running the bus have no plans on. They're spending. And you can get to a point. Which is where I'm trying to get to. I'm sure you are where

Your interest payments get reinvested and you start getting that compounding going. So, yeah, the debt's big enough that if interest rates were to gap dramatically higher, that interest compounding could be a fucking headache. But right here today, if we got some integrity I I think everything's kind of manageable. Yeah. But

You know, don't tell that to young people trying to buy a house with mortgage rates back to seven percent and a four hundred thousand dollar house is gonna cost you eight hundred and ninety-five grand on a seven and a half point mortgage. Yeah, it's crazy. I d I don't know why they don't do certain things like find some land. Build some affordable housing, give it to mortgages to people who are doctors. School teachers

Right. Dude, the affordable housing is such a joke. So they if they build like say say they put let's pick a town in Westchester. I'll call it Croton because I just saw'em build one. Croton on Hudson, little, little, you know, bedroom community on the Hudson River, forty-five minutes to Grand Central. They see a sign that this is new affordable housing. And they put up a nice little row of townhouses right in the center of the town.

You know who can let's solve out and instantly. No, you don't even they don't even get a chance to sell it. It has to be it's only to people with an income under Yeah, pick a number, some ridiculous number, so that like... A young person like a school teacher living in Croton that should be able to buy one of those townhouses for let's call it a hundred and ninety, two hundred grand, has no chance. They're boxed out, you know?

Yeah, it's just it's a fucked up situation. The affordable housing is such a myth, you know. Some of these ski towns where the Henry Kravitzes of the world have bought up all the land of Ralph Lauren. You know, the locals can't afford to live in town. Nope. And so They have trouble getting ski instructors and waiters and wait the whole thing. So what a place like Telluride, I th I think has done is bought up a bunch of available land. And if you want

To live there or buy there, you gotta apply and and explain your situation. Yeah. I know, like in New York City. 'Cause I've got some of these apartment rentals and when you build'em, you can usually cut a deal with the city. So if you do like eighty, twenty, eighty percent um market rate and 20% affordable, you get a tax credit, which is pretty good. Then if you want to rent one of the affordable units, you fill out an application and then there's a lottery and if you're lucky you get one. Bye.

This is one of the few times I think there's a real need for government intervention. There's not enough doctors. Why would you become a doctor? You spend eight years in school. Yeah, upped your eyeballs in debt, right? And then you don't start earning any money till they put ya through your residency, which sounds like just a horse show. No sleep, screaming people all day.

You know, two of the smartest guys I know, Robbie, Wall, and E. G, they're both children of doctors. So's Ed. So's Big E. Oh yeah, Ed. Yeah, it's really rarefied air, intelligence-wise, right?

They saw what being a doctor was like. No way, not for me. No way. These are guys that in instead of, you know, being forced out by the inefficiencies in the market, like David Einower's complaining about, actually stook, took a stick step back, realized those were opportunities, made some money instead of complaining about it. And they decided they didn't want to be doctors. Well, I you know, but that's a loss to society.

Because they made the situation so bad. Yeah. Um, anyway, um you and I aren't gonna fix it, but I I I really get the whole.

The situation for young people And the safety of the cities is all based on household formation, families. There's this black economist, Howard Soyle. My brother listens to him a lot. I think they tried to cancel him because he said things about the black community and how, you know, getting black kids Because they're minority in the like the hard, hard schools is a mistake. His argument was.

You're taking black kids who generally haven't had a great education, you're putting them in a very difficult situation where they don't have the tools to survive. Then you're taking away a spot from somebody that may be able to do something with it. Yeah, yeah. You know. Not an unreasonable take. I've driven through the um

uh these housing developments on the south side of Chicago. And um It's where they took A lot of the poor black people mowed down the tenements and they put them all in the same neighborhood where there were no businesses, so there are no jobs. People didn't want to go to teach there, so the school sucked. So you didn't Give them a helping hand up, you gave them a handout, which I believe incentivized the breakup of uh the household. And you know, any social scientist will tell you.

The most important thing is to have a strong parent figure at home for dinner every night. Not that hard and and I know for me. We did so well financially, and my kids did so well intellectually. Is cause Cheryl took one for the team. Every night she made dinner. allowed me to have dinner at my desk or just come in for a cameo. But, you know, it was like showing up for lineup. You know, you had to be there. And and so if somebody was fucking off, they knew they were going to sit down

you know, with the hammer every night and they have to explain themselves. Mm-hmm.

I think that goes a long way. You know, I wonder if that I wonder if you you staying out of the way is the secret. I wonder if that is maybe there maybe there's a real lesson to be learned is like maybe the girls I just saw a thing today that like The kids the kids feed off their mom's energy until they're nine years old. They're like, you know, the kid like mirrors their mom, like whatever. It made sense to me. I was like, oh, okay, it makes sense.

That almost makes more now it it seems true if you just carried it on like Thinking about you could sit down if you're a girl and you get to sit down to dinner with mom. It's just a different dynamic if dad's around. You're more of an authority figure. I don't want I I'm not gonna speak to the situation, but from the kid's perspective, if it's mom, because you're girl, like you're you're four girls.

tight. Um, you know, a lot of mothers and daughters don't have that that really glued together relationship. That That's a fascinating thing that like, you know, maybe you going upstairs to eat was good. We don't need your grumpy ass down here right now. Well, I mean, to put one light on it. They saw me go upstairs to work. Okay. I was always very polite. And kind to my wife. And I always made sure I got my work done.

And I always made sure I treated everybody nicely. So, you know, people, kids repeat what they see, right? So if you see your father having gummies and watching fish on TV all day, you're gonna assume that's normal. And so, you know, what we demonstrated was some Greenwich, Connecticut version of Yeah. Dad has a serious job. Dad is a serious person and there's n we don't have time for Tom, you know, fooling around and he's got serious business. End of end of story.

Yeah. And my kids learned long and hard that whatever mom decided For my own safety, I was gonna support. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, that's the brakes. But uh yeah, I I think there's this household formation, and I I'm a big believer in You're never gonna get

Americans to behave till you get the leaders to set proper, for example. You know, so you got Billy Clinton. Poken everything that moves. Right? Yep. Several presidents before him didn't behave all that well. And then you get, you know, the Messiah, Barack Obama, decamping Damartha's Vineyard in Hawaii. You know Trump got him to laugh at the at the funeral. Trump had him chuckling.

Yeah. Barack couldn't keep character. Yeah, he had him laughing. Yeah, I don't know what he was telling him. But yeah, you know the lip readers and they sat him next to each other at Carter's funeral. And yeah, they were chumming it up, snickering at jokes like you and me. You love to see it. So Jack Carter, Jimmy's son, worked at Continental Bank when I was there. Okay. That was a bizarre. Interesting. Yeah. Was his dad out of office by then or his dad?

In office was that I think he was just out of office. Okay. Is it just after the time of the whip inflation now buttons and price fixing and stuff like that? Um Yeah, you know, it's an exciting time to be alive.

In both a good and a bad way. The bad way is, you know, there's a lot of these fifth turning guys that are talking about, you know, the end of the world, Armageddon. Things aren't great out there, you know? It's all I do think that if I I still think that nobody wants to fuck with the United States though. I still think I still think that there's n I if China

Um am I really scared of China? Or do I think that our US Armed Forces can handle that? Like I don't wanna I don't wanna shoot my mouth off, but I still feel like the the United States is still the y the super military power. The US dollar runs the world. Yeah, the fabric of American society could be described as fraying. But I don't think we're vulnerable. Do you think we're vulnerable? Uh you know, i uh I guess to me vulnerabilities don't exist in sort of like an invasion of land. But

You know, there's a problem with China with the technology, problem with North Korea and the technology. And you have state-owned enterprises, SOEs, that are hiring the best of the brightest and teaching them how to hack computers. You know, there's something about the Fed got hacked. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah.

And you know, we we uh were at uh Greenwich one day and there was a a payroll number coming out and I won't mention one his name because you might be offended but He called me over and he showed me the Fed website and he had just typed in release and the date and the number popped up. And so immediately I go to all the traders and they say, don't write any tickets until after the number.

'Cause with my luck, somebody buys something and the number come out was bullish and then all of a sudden. But you know, that was one smart guy just farting around. So am I concerned about that? Yeah. I'm a little disappointed. The guy we supported for President Nate Fick, supposed to be portfolio manager of cyber security. I haven't heard anything from. Okay. And uh

You know, imagine somebody wrote a science fiction novel 100 years ago about this enemy that made this little box that was full of devices. that could spy on you and gave them to you and people started using them every day and had alling willingly using them, yeah. You were like, this is bullshit. This is and so These cameras cost nothing. We have cameras in our houses in Granite, we have cameras in our houses in Scottsdale.

You can see what's going on in your house on your iPhone. Yeah. Yeah. I'm wondering when there's gonna be the website. Um Um The um Airbnb porn site. There's always that urban legend about the Airbnb people are filming. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well you have real life shit of guys going into offices and putting cameras in the ladies' bathroom. Of course.

Tom Cruise Glory Hall people. Yeah, I know. Who would ever think about putting your private part in a in a There's a lot of wackos out there. Breaking news. That's not a cry for help. Yeah, there was a whole thing going on at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop in the great state of New Jersey. And it came down to You know how in baseball there's signals? Picture and catch. Well apparently there's signals in the stall. Oh yeah. You know, like

That's an urb that's a very urban legend that I don't know how you came across. Um because I I have I paint from a broad palette. Yeah, okay. All right. You know, Cheryl and and uh uh Rochelle were all buying little knickknacks to kind of You know? tidy up the house, make it look a little more living. And they bought this rabbit, like a ceramic rabbit with these big fucking ears.

And the immediate thing came to mind were those stories that everyone knows someone that was a doctor in an emergency room in Bellevue and somebody came up and they had a bowling trophy. You know, that guy yeah, yeah, okay. Oh no, it's true, it's true. So I see this rabbit. That rabbit's only going one way. You know how I know that? It's cause it came with his own bottle of lube. Good lord. No wonder your wife is sick of your routine.

Well, I'm very funny. And you know how I know?'Cause I know funny. Those old men The old men all think they're funny? Oh, I know. Yeah. The older they get, the funnier they think they are. I know. I know. Yeah. Well, I said to Rochelle, she should be writing this shit down because it's comedy gold. Which is why I think if we put a book together, it'd be a big hit.

I think t-shirts. I think people would like to wear it on a t-shirt. I think the new generation, rather than books, is I think you're better off selling t-shirts, okay? Yeah, think about having liquidity for his ephemeral t-shirts. with a big like a big leaf about selling t shirts let's say many people to give us a paid return envelope All right. There's something about hawking shit for money.

That just always puts me on the wrong foot. Uh of course, of course. I know. Think about we had like when we do our sponsors, I mean, you know, y I I can see your face drop when I when I go through our list of sponsors. Um Well, yeah, I was, um, can you...

What happens on Friday during the caning? They get the jobs number. So first of all, the jobs number leaks at night now'cause the futures the futures fall off a cliff. at nine PM Thursday night. There's definitely well the number comes out Thursday night. Okay. And then the number hits So the first thing is this. Okay. You got different groups of people. The the guys, let's say the number.

The first thing that happens is the guys who went home long because they have positions underwater and are praying for a bullish number, they see it's bearish. So they immediately said, okay, time's up, they get out. So that's the first wave of selling. There's the next wave of selling that comes from the guys who just got stopped out by the new repricing.

Then there's this whole group of guys out there. I I thought this was an interesting concept. So we had guys working for us, and what they did. This is similar to the ZAX company who goes out and gets the earnings estimates. What these guys did was they would take a survey of what the street thought the non-farm payroll. Would be. Then they would take that number and they would look historically and see in the past. When you had a miss.

How much the miss was, what the base was, and after you saw the market trade after the miss, how much did the market move by? So let's say you got a miss in the market. Went down. But in history with that kind of behavior, it should have gone down 24 ticks. Well, these guys will have calculated all that.

And when the number prints and it's down 20 ticks, they'll just sell it till it's down 24, figuring the market will eventually catch up. So that's where the waves of selling come in. Then You know? You'll get some retracement or the guys who went home short praying for a strong number cover. Then you'll get the bottom fishers. You know, you'll get the market participants, unlike David Einhorn who will see the mispricing as an opportunity.

And and they just call fading the move. Yeah. Because everybody knows. Even the cocktail party bullshit guys know. The market acts like a pendulum. Goes too far one way, too far the other. Don't believe me, read Howard Mark. His last memos, just going through this whole thing about is this a bubble? You know, you look at people's behavior, I I think it all makes sense. I I don't think

He speaks from a position of neutrality though, because he's in a unique situation. He runs a distress fund. People give him money. With the purpose of being long. Okay. So he's usually buying stuff that's in trouble, which probably means the price is dropping. And his mandate is to buy stuff like that. So he falls into that category. No one's ever gonna get fired for being long.

in a bull market, right? So he's supposed to be long. And you know, he can take this view from 10,000 feet and say, well, things stocks can never go down. You know, when you're him, it's easier to play the long game when you're getting two and twenty. Yeah. You got a history of being right. And you don't have idiot investors calling you every two weeks wanting to know how much money you made or lost, or what's your next trade.

tremendous amount of pressure on these hedge fund managers with the fees they're charging to earn the you know alpha, the return above the market rate of return. You know, I that's why I really like the concept we operate on around, which is you you eat what you kill. You know, you go to the party and Okay says, what are you doing? You say I'm a trader. How about you? I'm an orthodontist. But I do a lot of trading. Oh you do? Yeah, I bought Cisco or I bought Nvidia implant here. Ivana.

I had a CarMax experience with It's sort of Carvana kinda. Yep. Yep. So we had this electron. Criminal fraud. Minus the criminal fraud. Go ahead. I don't delve into the equities as much as I should, but we had this electric audio. that we bought during the pandemic. Yeah. And Cheryl hated the thing. So she was constantly bitching about it. I'm like, listen, do you really hate it that much? I said, Yeah. If you could buy whatever car you wanted to buy, what would it be? She says.

Another Tesla like I have at home. As soon as we get home, we're buying a Tesla. She goes, what are we going to do with this? We're going to take in the dealer. We're going to hit the bid. She goes, Well, aren't we gonna lose a lot of money? I said, Yeah. They said, but cocktail party bullshit, honey. You know, it's a financial problem. I love financial problems. You can fix them. So we come in the house, we ordered a Tesla. She was okay, what are we going to do with this thing?

Well the the web ministers Rochelle had just bought a car from CarMax, had a very good experience, and show says, I think CarMax buys cars. I said, Great. I said We got two options. We can call them, we can call the dealer. But I'm telling you right now That bit is, excuse my language, is gonna suck cock and it's gonna suck it hard. She goes, well uh I'm like, I don't care, but I don't want, you know, woe is me in tears when we go to Carvana in the bibblow.

She goes, why I got online and they said they give me five grand for the thing. I said, Yeah, we'll see. Okay. Well, the blue book was like, I don't know, seven grand, something like that. So we drive there. Prepared. I'm prepared. You know, might as well take in that rabbit I was telling you about with me, ready for the high hard one. And they matched the quote they gave us. Yep.

I'm not saying if y you try that it's gonna happen for you, but for me now it works, dude. That's why Carvana is such a head scratcher, dude. They do I l say my truck is worth twenty grand. Carvana will come and pick it up today for nineteen grand, okay?

Absolutely. And they're and they're gonna make five percent out of it. Absolutely. But if you're gonna sit there and gonna go, I need that extra five percent on ten grand, first of all, you're never gonna get it, right? I tried selling a car once myself. Talk about what a fucking fool's interesting. Two of them make appointments. None of them show up. Stop. Yeah, dude, that's why Carvana is is such an enigma, dude. They'll come and give you like Kelly Blue Book.

For your Porsche. Whatever you you paid a buck twenty for the Porsche and when you wanted to dump it, Carvana would've come up to Simmons and put it on a flatbed and written you a check for one nineteen. Well there was that one in the city that Howard Stern used to talk. Oh uh what major world or something? Yeah, major world. Car cash. Oh yeah, car cash. Car should yeah yeah. Yeah. So I had wonderful experiences with them. They even got me like a cab home. Bingo.

Yeah, has this car ever been an accident? No. You know, I I don't know what to say, Mr. Sachs, but the numbers don't matter. I'm like, I don't know what that means. Speak English. Yeah. Tells me there's been some body work done in your car, so I can't pay you the quote. I give me the number. Yeah. Just You know, I sit down by like five hundred bucks and I'm like sold. That's why when I hear this this whining by billionaires about

This is in they gave you a fucking price. When they was getting squeezed on that five year note and Craig War Law Craig Wardlow was telling people, don't be whining like a fucking pussy. Yeah, I could have gone and paid the offer and bought back my short and take my loss. So I just fucking manned up and waited it out and I lost some money. But you know, that's the thing about being short something. Yeah. You can go to infinity. Yeah. MBI.

And beyond. I know. I know. No, the Carvana thing got a lot of headlines. I want to thank the listeners, because the listeners know how much I love the Carvana story. But yeah, they sent me a lot of stuff. Didn't you like that? I misinterpreted. I thought you were making fun of the thing. I am. I'm constantly making I've I'm convinced it's a fraud. It should go to zero. It's an accounting hoax. There's there's voluminous.

Documentation of my theory, okay? But the stock just keeps going up. It just keeps going up. Oh, even Heisenberg like a did a thing where the it Dude, the they keep shooting that thing and it will not die. Okay. But what makes it m even more confusing is like I see the vending machine on the side of ninety five. I see them paying a buck nineteen to you for the Porsche when the Porsche is only worth seventy-nine. So like I see with my eyes, it's not as sustainable. And they're like, oh we make

We make low money on the loans'cause we're gonna resell the Porsche to a guy that can't afford it and we're gonna sell it to him for a buck fifty. I think

If if their accounting is right, I think it's a fucking perfect exactly. I that's a business I would get into. And I would sell get into the insurance business out here in Arizona. So many rich people from California have moved to Arizona and pushed the price of the houses so high. And because you're in the desert with a shortage of water, there's all this fire risk. So the the big insurance companies won't write insurance.

uh policies for people. Yeah. So you get a bunch of these billionaires together. Get a bank letter of credit. Start writing insurance and create a co-op. So I mean I would do that in a minute. The other thing would be I go up to Flagstaff and buy every lick of land I could get. Hands on. Really? Yeah. That's gonna be the next real estate bubble. Uh really? What what's so special about that? Good climate close to LA? What's the deal with that? It's

A 60 minute drive from Scottsdale. Scottsdale has got two chip plants being built in it. There's not enough housing in Scottsdale. And the rich people don't want to be here in the summer. So they hop in a car and they drive an hour to Flagstaff. Wow. Five thousand feet higher. Wow. They get snow up there, there's skiing up there and the there's hiking, there's mountain biking, there's

bespoke breweries. Amazing. There's University of Colorado. It's a college town. Yeah. A little bit of vibe. It's pretty safe. Yeah. Yeah. Great. for people like you, great mountain bike, world-class mountain bike training. I spent probably six or eight weeks of my life there. training for Leadville. Spectacular. Wow. And you know, the secret's out.

And the real estate's going up. They got a fucking in and out burger like a Main Street. Oh great homespun, bespoke um restaurants, great culinary. Um You know? It's pretty fresh air. Yeah. There's a little town down here. I haven't been down here in three years. There went f there's a little town right on the other side of the island called Bluffton that went from a gas station A Dollar General, a library, um

to a full blown they installed a town, Morris. They inst they they leveled ten acres and they manufactured a little main street, all the little shops There was they they just dropped in like a pre like a pre-mod town and it's booming. It is it's got 20 restaurants, it's got a farmers market, it's got a salon, it's got uh it must have 10,000 residential units.

sprawled around it just in the last three in the last three years. It went from nothing like a one stop stop. That's the beauty of America and why it doesn't pay to be shorted. Okay. There's stability of rule of law here. So somebody went and bought a bunch of land. Apparently legally, because that's a uh uh a regist it's like buying a car. Yeah. You gotta go through the government to guarantee ownership, right? So you know if you buy that land, that's your land.

You put up a house, it's your house. You buy a store. you make it attractive to people. They'll come and buy stuff. You learn them proper margin. They'll be happy to come patronize the local guy instead of buying shit from Amazon. Or maybe there's enough room for both of you. But that that's why that works and uh You can't short that. That that's the thing I've learned the hard way about stocks in the book Confusion of Confusions. When the branch dies.

A new branch replaces it, right? So that's why these things make sense here and why when you see a place like you just described and you look at what they did. in uh Chicago with those subsidized or the you know. That doesn't work. You don't create a safe neighborhood. Who's gonna invest there? Who's gonna take their life savings and buy a convenience store to get robbed or shot or brick through the window? You know, it's just not gonna happen.

So the other the other business, which I'm a little frustrated with, because I think this was money. Okay. So when I uh was working for Bobo. Um one of the concepts I had was You get all these big funds, Fidelity, Magellan, whatever, and they have a cornucopia of products. And a lot of them are index. So PIMCO probably had a five-year US Treasury Index based on the Lehman AG or whatever. And my argument, which I was under the impression we were going to do, was You set up a long-only fund.

Where you were gonna meet or beat the Lehman index by five or six basis points. And you were only going to charge one or two basis points. But because you were attached. to a hedge fund, people thought you could spin, you know, gold from hay. You tracked all these assets that would be sticky. And You know, with our team beating a static fund. It's like hitting water when you fall out of a boat. And so we were gonna do that and

The head guy there was a lying motherfucker with a name like sounded like he was from Hawaii. He said, Yeah, we'll give you 500 million to start it. And then when you get more money, you can pay. And I had a meeting with Bobo, and he's like, I never authorized that. I said, well, fuck not told me. And you know, in in my experience in the bond market, the word is, you don't break your word, right? Bust the deal, face the wheel. Yep, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh

Uh, you know, I realized that it was part of a big con. And uh the jig was up there anyway. But that would be what I would do. So I would tell any of our listeners. Uh I'd be willing to take a consulting fee split evenly between myself and young Liam Allen. Um so any of our listeners who has hedge fund money, and you know who you are, and I know who you are. Okay.

What you should do is go to your institutional investors and pitch the notion of a static long-only usage fund. And then you use your trading technology. You beat some static index by a small number of basis points. Your investors are happy. You get sticky money, which is worth a PE or a multiple of your earnings. Mm-hmm. You can sell your business to some uh some other stupid fuck. Right. And uh it's a home run. Yeah, it sounds easy. Yeah, it is. Hey.

If it wasn't easy, I wouldn't understand. Right. I mean, you know. You don't understand it. You gotta walk away, right? If you don't understand it, you gotta get out of the trade. If it looked this is a great quote. If it looks like chaos to you, you don't understand. Who said that? Who was that?

I don't know. It's like cast you you don't understand. Yeah, I know. That is good. I think I think it was Oppenheimer. Yeah, yeah, that yeah, I think I feel like you're right. You know the one I really like because everyone's got a fucking heart on for Goldman Sachs. I may have told the story, but I claim senior privilege. Seth Clorman went for an interview with Goldman Sachs after Harvard Business School. They offered him a job and he turned it down. I'm like, what are you not?

He goes, why would I work there? Everyone there was fat, bald.

hated their job and had a miserable home life. Why would I want to work there? Yeah. Versus Greenwich Capital. You know what happened every day at like 1120 on my trading desk? We would put the phone down and we go down to the basement on the gym. İzlediğiniz için teşekkür ederim. We'd be watching Banda Brothers grinding out fucking 90 minutes on the trainer sprinting.

having a garbage can there next to us so when we started to puke, we didn't have to go into the bathroom because there was one guy, there was such a dirt of bathrooms at 600 steamboat spring. One of the guys, the one of the real estate guys, Mark Feinerman. had his own bathroom cobbled together'cause his office had a like a janitor's closet in it. And the janitor's closet backed into the bathroom. So he had him put a lock on the door, knocked.

the a hole in the wall and built a little bathroom with it for himself. Nice. Yeah. So there were so few toilets that one guy from his department would come down during lunch. to use the toilet. So if we had like an emergency, this guy would be in there, you know, whistling away, sit on the paper. And you know, I was pretty senior at the time. And I told the guy around the gym, I said, Tell that fucking guy

Yeah I run in the gym, really nice guy coach. He coached uh Brunswick basketball for like twenty five years. Really nice guy. So I guess he had a talk with the guy. And uh that was the end of that. No good. So I went to the guy's boss and uh said listen, your guy's coming down. Yada yada yada. And it didn't change the behavior. So what I started doing was when I needed to use the bathroom, I wouldn't use

I locked the door. A couple times there'd be a pound at the door and I'd be like, get fucking lost. They're like, who's this? Like, this is more sex. Who the fuck is this? And so, you know, the word came around it's like so and so doesn't like You use in his toilet. Like, yeah, I don't like Dump dude was just coming down because you know what it's like. If you gotta use a toilet and you're off the boat jump jump off the bike, you don't got an hour. It's a short fuse.

And you know, this guy had all day. If you took your time and wandered around. Yeah. You could find one, but don't go at 835, don't go at 1205. You know, there's some seasonality to this.

But yeah, so we go down the gym, we work out, and you know, there was no judgment. Yeah. Didn't keep track of days off. I looked at your performance. How am I to know whether you need a vacation day or not? Yeah, of course. Of course. You know, it's like My man, who um my brother makes fun of, Orlando, my contractor, has a key to my house. He gives me a bill. Says, don't you want to check it? I go, Orlando, you have a key to my house. Where my wife and family live. Yeah, really.

No, people just don't get it, right? Anyway, that's that's my yarn. You know, pay the people well. Treat them like human beings. Yep. You know, every Friday. It'd be pizza party. Who doesn't want pizza party? It's easy. It's not hard. It's not hard. People make it a lot harder than it needs to be. It's just it's really basic, simple stuff, you know? Yeah. Not for Bobo.

No. He has to get his net worth divided by two every couple of years. He's not getting any taller. That's the beauty of it. He's not getting any taller. I don't want to pay for these pizzas. Petty cash. We're not allowed to pay for that out of petty cash. Come on. No company policy. Okay. But Brevin Howard could not afford a pizza. One of my employees, big time, literally, I would not go out and start a business without hiring this guy. Which has just shocked me because I called a couple of my

Accolates. Is that a word? Accolates, yeah, absolutely. So I call him up. I said, I got this guy. Listen to me. Hire this guy. Okay. I'm telling you, this guy will pay for himself ten times over. Yep. It's amazing. Just amazing. It's just amazing. Yeah. It's amazing. You know? Look, I know I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but when money gets on the table, I tend to get out

With all due respect to Leslie's father, when there's a lot of money on the table, I get out my pencil and I check it. Mm-hmm. And uh so Yeah, no pizza. One of these employees had a severe migraine. Wouldn't K pay for a town car to take him home. Bullshit dude. I'm sure I'm gonna get sued for this, but Anyway. You know? This is copyright material. Yep. Any broadcast, rebroadcast of any accounts or descriptions of today's podcast without the express written consent.

Of inside baseball though chestnut is prohibited by law. Strictly prohibited. Big FBI on the screen. Yeah. All right. It's been fun. I just want to remind everyone. I've been senior management in enough firms. I know where the bodies are buried. And there's this concept In the mutual assured destruction that There's nuclear missiles set to go off like twenty four hours after a nuclear war just to kill anyone. Yeah. Yeah.

So I I've got letters written that are to be released. And they're with my attorney, so I'm not gonna like say Liam or Leslie. Okay and think they can knock you off or or corrupt you and get those. Um yeah.

What else can we talk about, my friend? I don't know. I went to a really good restaurant. We bash the restaurants all the time. I went to a really good dinner down in Bluffton at the Bluffton. The place is called the Bluffton Room. You can't get a reservation. They're sold out. Dude, it was nice. I I've been to you know what I said to Amy? I was thrilled that I got to go to a restaurant and I paid a La Bernadettean price.

And I got a fantastic meal without the snobbery, without the small portions, and without schlepping into Manhattan. Bernadine's gotten bad reviews lately. I've seen a lot of bad reviews for Le Bernadette. Really? Yes. People have complained.

was that show the bear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did not want to watch that. I tried and it was just so hard. But so many people were telling me how great it was. I forced my way through it. It's like breaking bad. You had to break through the wall. What should But I can't go to La Berna Den again.

No, this place was fantastic too. It's called the Bluffton Room. The Bluffton Room um and it was just Dude, it was relaxed, it was elegant, the food was fantastic, the service was great, it was just such a different vibe than you get

in Manhattan where Manhattan you feel rushed, it feels impersonal, it feels overpriced. And Labernan they don't give a fuck anymore. They've been there for thirty years. It's a st you know, they don't need me and Amy to come and have a nice meal. But this place was just Awesome. Everything about it was pro. We went on a Tuesday night. It was packed to the gills.

Um dude you could have you no, you could have eaten everything on that I had. Dude, I had the the steak carpaccio check. That's the you you can have that. All right. They had two kinds of steak carpaccios. Then they had foie gras. You can eat foie gras, right? Is that

Well, you know, ethical concerns of such spare me. No, it's a Hudson it's a Hudson Valley duck. I told the waitress I that from from the Hudson Valley. They they treat those goose better than any than my kids, okay? But they did the foie gras was beautiful. And Amy looked at me and she was like, Oh you know, they nailed it. Melt in your mouth.'Cause foie gras difficult, you know? Dude, the carpaccio, the foie gras, then what did I have? Like a roasted oyster? The roasted oysters were phenomenal.

And then I had an elk loin. You can eat the elk loin too. The elk was beast. Um I've been banished. We have

Executed the keto approach. Oh good. Yeah. Oh welcome back. Welcome back. You know what I had for breakfast yesterday? Pancakes. I don't know. And three Dunkin' Donut. Oh yeah. It was heaven. It was heaven. How'd your body react to that? Were you were you not well for a while afterwards? I don't know. I felt a little tired. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, exactly. You get Cheryl waving her finger at you at two o'clock in the afternoon when you're when the sugar high wears off. Yeah. Good. That's really good.

Yeah. You know they they make that diet sound so fucking good. You can eat as much bacon or meat as you want. Like who doesn't love bacon, right? Yeah. And then you sign up for it and then it's like Enough bacon. I don't want any more chicken. I don't want more steak. Yeah. No more cheese omelet. And you look at a slice of bread and it looks like a slice of birthday cake. That's you know An apple, it's like an orgy. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's uh

Yeah, I mean there's pros and cons to it and if you I I understand that people will swear by it, but I think everything in moderation, you know. I did I did ride better. I did have more muscle clarity. You know, but I it was a sacrifice. Yeah, yeah. All right. Welcome back to Welcome back to the donut. Welcome back to the donut gang. Dude, uh Lakeside Diner when you get back, let me tell you. I'll I'll get you a bag, I'll come over.

So you know what I fall in love with is this concept that is not original. But it's still pretty good. The smash burger. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that was originated at Steak and Shake and Champagne Urbana, for all I know. Oh wow.

Yeah, they're uh they're definitely a thing. Um and th there's they got the place in New Haven that makes'em. Um I think they steam'em, you know. They're they got a real face a famous place that makes'em. Yeah. So are you is that on your list? Are you are you your back, you're you're itching for a burger? I'll scratch that itch before long. Yeah. I'd go I'd run over to In and Out Burger.

Today, except I know it's gonna be like an hour. Uh between an hour. And they got Chick-fil-A here too, which Apparently those are appropriate. Yeah, people um people feel strongly about the Chick-fil-A. There are a lot there are a lot of'em in the south. Um Fiona and I did not stop at the Chick-fil-A because there are two drive through lanes and each one had eight cars in it. I was like, Sweetheart, I'm not waiting an hour for the Chick-fil-A.

I'm not doing it, you know? You know it's gotten a bad word, and I th I don't think it's right. The Waffle House. So I heard such horror stories. Like I was afraid to go in there. Like someone's like, oh no, I'm not going. No, no, no. So I was in Arizona training once and there was a waffle house. And I said, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to give it a try. And I went in there.

Two things jumped out. One is I felt like family. I hadn't been in the place for 30 seconds. Hey, how you been? Come on. You got a seat for you right here, a cup of coffee. Nice. Then um You know, here's the thing that stumps me. A waffle at the pancake house, but you can't get a pancake at the waffle house. Okay. Sound cruise and top gun. You know, yet you're still a captain. Why is that? What a life's mystery, sir. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Waffle House in Arizona at at five PM is different than uh Decatur, Georgia at three thirty AM after the club lets out. Okay. Yeah. The other thing is whataburger. Oh, you have those out there? Really? You an in a ringing endorsement? Really? Whataburger? Again, another line at the drive up at 4 a.m. Dude, I think Whataburger is run by that lady. I think the there's a lady. I think that's a female CEO that inherited it from her pop.

In and out burger. That's in and out. In and out is the girl that that runs in and out? Yeah. Their deal is The meat has to come from a location less than like thirty miles from the store where it's sold. Okay, yep, yep. Wow. You can go in a in an outburger. You could not that you want to, but you could lick the floor. It is so fucking clean. Yeah. People are nice, they speak English.

In and out. Oh wow. Yeah, Esther and Harry Snyder. All right. Yeah. And the owner is the Snyder family. The key people is Lindsay Snyder. She still runs that shop. Yeah. Wow. By my experience, she runs it with an iron fist. Has chosen not to franchise its operations. She will not franchise it and she will not go public.

Yeah, highly loyal, customer based, blah, blah, blah. I th that's sort of the same principle you and I operate on. We don't take any money because we don't want any embellishment on our reputation.

Right. Yeah, that's why like we, you know, if we don't have a great show, we will take a week off. You know, in and out in and out burger's not gonna put up a shop if they can't We value your time. More importantly, we value our time. When one opened in Scottsdale, Arizona, there was a four hour wait for food and news helicopters when they opened the one in Scottsdale.

Now I want to go. What I'd take the over. Only'cause the new staff probably Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My youngest daughter who is now Engaged. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't know that. I didn't get clearance to go public on it. Leave it alone, yeah. Well uh I'm very uh high on this. You've mentioned that previously. Congratulations. Um congratulations to that kid. You know you and I run with a tough crowd. These guys gotta stand up to deal people like you and

Thank you. Thank you, yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay. So then um that's great. So now you've got a new son in law lined up. Um I was shocked how the cost of the dowry has gone down in my day. I've I've gotta think that he has listened to every episode. He must know me as well as he knows his friends because I've gotta think that kid he's gotta have listened to every single episode Harwick. Everyone

Says they know you. So my grandfather was a man of some renown in Chicago, as as you investigate and found out. So he liked to play cards. So like every Friday night he had a poker game at his house. So whenever I would be somewhere You know, I'd be like, oh, I used to play poker with your grandfather. And it'd be like fifty of these people over the years would tell me, like, there's no way he played That's what's gonna happen. Your kid's gonna go to school and the teacher's gonna say,

I was listening to your father's podcast since the beginning. Yeah. What was the first episode about it? Yeah, exactly. It's great to see you. Likewise. Yes. Hopefully entertained you. I know I have a good time.

Happy New Year. Happy New Year. I I love dude, I loved it. Rich Handler went on Twitter on like January 2nd and he was like, All right, let's get to work. He was like the day off, like you got like one day. Yeah. And I was so happy. I was so happy. Yeah, I was so happy he posted that and I was like and I and I posted I reposted, I was like, Where who said this before? But whatever Rich said, it was like January second or something. I would walk in the first day of the trading year.

And say, okay, we're all assholes all over again. Yep. Yeah. At 920 on on January 2nd, Rich Rich went online and said, happy start over from zero day to all who celebrate. Yeah, because that's the only day off of the year you get. So to the doctor told me he was a traitor because he caught Nvidia, you know. You're not a trader until Yeah, really X percent of what you make. Yeah, exactly. No kidding. You get a hundred percent if you put your own money up. Yeah.

Try doing that. Try and go into a double black diamond chip. Try and go to Corbett. It Jackson Hole. Look down over the lip and point'em. You mind saying you're an expert? Okay. Let's see you do that. Okay. Tap those ski poles together. Tap the poles. If you know what I'm talking about, go to YouTube. There's been a clip of a guy just Just doing his arms out. Just I don't know why the clip has been making his he just

sent it and he just put his arms out like he had a like he had a wingsuit on. I don't know if he landed. Have you seen that Mike Makaki guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's insane. It's insane. Sick. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what makes me think I could do it. I sa I've seen so many people do it. I've seen so many hundreds of people drop that shoot. I'm like, oh, I got that. Well That's one of the grand disappointments for me, kind of having The mountain biking taken off.

My list for the time being. Time being. Because I can start to get a visual perspective, like the camber, the arc, getting to the apex of the jump. And just kind of sending it, kind of get the gradual. Yeah. Right. Cause these mountain bikes nowadays with the run flat tires, they're like tanks, they're not bikes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like that it's just that fascinating I every time I see it, I'm like, oh, I could do that. I'm like, I got it. I I I got that. I was like, it doesn't look that hard. It doesn't you know If you get bored, check out McConaughey or McConkey. Yeah, his clips of him doing it. Yeah. Well there's a a documentary about him. He's got the big Mohawk, right? He's got the Mohawk. Yeah, yeah. No, he but he's that's one of his compatriots. Oh but that's Greg uh

Something or other. Okay. But the two of those guys went out and started making movies and doing all the Red Bull. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Scary shit, but it's entertaining as hell. And he had a personality. Yeah. And he lived life and you know, I met him and a couple of his sea buddies at Mike's house. In Tahoe. Oh wow. Yeah at the Palisades. Snow um North Star. North Star. Um but a lot of the Olympic ice ski out there

I've never been good enough. But I did a double black at Jackson and I did paintbrush. Okay. Yeah, that counts. That counts. I will never and if this is the only thing that ever happened as a parent, I'd say it was worth it. But we had the kids at Jackson, where even the blacks, even excuse me, even the greens are hard. And we had a house rented Midmount and I said to Kate. We're going to go down this green, but don't go to the bottom. You see that house? Yes, dad. That's where we're going.

And we got her this backpack. I forget the name of the back comp pack company money maker, but they're the one that make all the tough guy. Like if you were gonna you know, carrier board. Yeah, yeah. Put it in these backpacks. Okay. So I got that. And it's got fabric of like like the leopard skin kind of thing. She's got like a puff coat on and she's on a tiny little snowboard with all the stickers on it. And she goes down this green.

And I'm following her and she's just shredding it, right?'Cause she doesn't care, she don't know. She's looks like she's gonna go right past the house. I'm stuh. And there's this cute little thing with this leopard backpack just.

Saying fuck you did. It was the cutest thing I've ever seen. Until I had to go all the way down to the bottom. Yeah. And then try to put the fucking hill again. It was Now, yeah, I know it sounds a little wimpy, but try lugging your fat old ass carrying a twenty-five-pound snowboard uphill. At three thousand feet. No, dude. I'm out of breath just thinking. I'm just I'm gasping for air, just thinking about.

So that was that was a great tad moment. All right. Well, I got kids I need to go manage. Let me go see what's going on with mine. They're they've they've been suspiciously quiet for the for the last hour. Too quiet? It's it's been it's been too quiet for about an hour now. It's great to see you. We should do this more often. I had a lot of fun. Okay, good. Yeah. Let you let me know when you're available. I'm around. Who are you gonna please with that? Me.

Exactly. Me. All right, I'll talk to you soon. All right, buddy. Thank you. Take care, pal.