Big Tech Funds $1T AI Buildout From Cash Flows as Bubble Fears Rise

The Compound

Unlike the dot-com boom, the projected $1 trillion AI infrastructure expansion is financed directly by corporate cash flows and insulated by a record $186 trillion in U.S. household wealth.

AI-assisted summary of The Wobbly House of Cards | Animal Spirits 483 — original source. Check the original for full context.

Source published: 2026-09-29

Key ideas

Hyperscaler capital expenditures across Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet are projected to reach $1 trillion next year, funded primarily through massive internal free cash flows rather than speculative retail equity. (5:00)
Total U.S. household net worth expanded to a record $186 trillion in Q2, with every wealth bracket experiencing at least 60% growth since 2019 and the bottom 50% more than doubling on a percentage basis. (19:59)
Projected IPO valuations for OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX exceed $5.2 trillion, outstripping the combined inflation-adjusted market caps of all roughly 4,000 tech IPOs from 1980 through 2025. (8:03)
With 10-year Treasury yields hovering near 5%, fixed-income funds captured over $600 billion in inflows through August, reducing the equity return needed for a 60/40 portfolio to hit a 7% benchmark down to just 8%. (22:53)

Detailed notes

## Background Published on YouTube on September 23, 2026, by The Compound, this episode of Animal Spirits is hosted by Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson. According to the show notes, the hosts dive into the interconnected web of tech hyperscalers and AI's systemic economic risk, Nvidia's valuation, $186 trillion in household wealth, the case for owning bonds, Fed rate hikes, Bitcoin's rebound, and housing crisis bottlenecks.

## TL;DR Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson analyze whether the multi-trillion-dollar circular web of Big Tech AI capital expenditure resembles a fragile house of cards, concluding that massive corporate cash flows differentiate it from historical speculative bubbles. They examine how 5% bond yields have revitalized the traditional 60/40 portfolio and review data demonstrating why adding to losing individual stocks empirically degrades long-term investor returns. The hosts also assess structural supply bottlenecks hindering home construction, the risks of illiquidity highlighted by athlete-targeted private market fraud, and surging private equity valuations in professional sports franchises. Across these topics, they emphasize that widespread investor anxiety and high cash levels continue to cushion the broader economy against worst-case macro predictions.

## Atmosphere & style The episode is warm, lively, and breezy, driven by the natural, unscripted banter and comedic chemistry of two longtime colleagues. Serious financial debates over Federal Reserve policy and tech multiples smoothly give way to relatable personal anecdotes about broken television screens, dental phobias, and 1980s cinema. The dialogue feels candid, accessible, and grounded, combining sharp wealth management acumen with self-deprecating humor and informal living-room camaraderie.

## Bulletin - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) Hyperscaler capital expenditures across Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet are projected to reach $1 trillion next year, funded primarily through massive internal free cash flows rather than speculative retail equity. - [19:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1199s) Total U.S. household net worth expanded to a record $186 trillion in Q2, with every wealth bracket experiencing at least 60% growth since 2019 and the bottom 50% more than doubling on a percentage basis. - [08:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=483s) Projected IPO valuations for OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX exceed $5.2 trillion, outstripping the combined inflation-adjusted market caps of all roughly 4,000 tech IPOs from 1980 through 2025. - [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) With 10-year Treasury yields hovering near 5%, fixed-income funds captured over $600 billion in inflows through August, reducing the equity return needed for a 60/40 portfolio to hit a 7% benchmark down to just 8%.

## Key takeaways - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) Modern hyperscaler AI investments are self-financed by dominant corporate cash flows and investment-grade debt, contrasting sharply with the retail-financed speculation of the 1870s railway boom or late-1990s dot-com bubble. - [03:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=226s) Market skepticism around AI sustainability appears already reflected in Nvidia's valuation, which trades at approximately 16x forward earnings—below its 10-year historical average and cheaper than the S&P 500 multiple. - [13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=831s) Autonomous consumer-facing AI agents represent the next competitive moat; user lock-in at the interface level threatens to turn underlying frontier large language models into fungible commodities. - [19:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1199s) Broad-based growth in household net worth across all socioeconomic tiers contradicts the popular 'K-shaped economy' narrative, providing an unprecedented cushion against macroeconomic weakness. - [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) A sustained 5% bond yield environment has revitalized balanced asset allocation, relieving equities of the burden of generating double-digit annual returns to achieve typical multi-asset portfolio goals. - [28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) Empirical data from Trivariate Research reveals only 23% of top 500 U.S. individual equities outperform the benchmark over a 10-year horizon, underscoring that adding to losing single-stock positions is systematically detrimental. - [40:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2415s) A sharp disconnect persists between Silicon Valley expectations of 4% to 6%+ AI-driven real GDP growth and mainstream macroeconomic forecasts projecting moderate 2.0% to 2.5% expansion. - [45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) Resolving the structural shortfall of 3 to 4 million homes is constrained by labor bottlenecks, as strict immigration policies and booming commercial data center construction drain the construction workforce. - [48:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2931s) Structural illiquidity in private equity and venture funds conceals fraudulent behavior by allowing bad actors to refuse redemptions under the guise of asset lockups, as evidenced by the SwiftArc athlete fraud case. - [55:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3325s) Private equity appetite for professional sports franchises continues to push valuations into unprecedented territory, with premier assets like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Lakers commanding valuations above $12 billion.

## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=0s) Nuveen Sponsorship & Year-End Portfolio Positioning

As year-end approaches, investors are reviewing their asset allocations and planning how to position their portfolios for the year ahead. Nuveen provides custom portfolio insights to help investors deconcentrate risk exposure, offset capital gains distributions through tax-loss harvesting, and explore municipal bond strategies designed to deliver tax-advantaged income. Spanning public and private markets, Nuveen aims to help investors build resilient, diversified portfolios across key asset classes.

[01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=60s) The Hyperscaler Web and the "Wobbly House of Cards"

After some opening banter about autumn fashion—with Michael complimenting Ben on looking "very GQ" in his bomber jacket during the brief two-month window in Michigan (September and April) when bomber jackets are wearable—the hosts dive into the dominant story in the markets: artificial intelligence and the massive web of big-tech hyperscalers.

The Financial Times published an interactive visual tool showing just how deeply interconnected the entire AI ecosystem has become. The graphic maps out cross-investments, vendor relationships, and cloud partnerships among major players: Anthropic, OpenAI, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, SpaceX, Nvidia, and CoreWeave. With a collective market capitalization between $20 trillion and $25 trillion, critics worry that the entire structure resembles a fragile house of cards: company A invests in company B, company B buys compute from company C, and company C's rising free cash flow fuels profits across the board. If that circular flywheel ever reverses, doom-sayers warn that the systemic fallout will be catastrophic.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Hyperscaler Interconnected AI Flywheel accDescr: Diagram illustrating circular investments, compute purchases, and cash flows between Big Tech hyperscalers and AI startups.

subgraph BigTech["Hyperscalers & Chipmakers"] NVDA["Nvidia"] MSFT["Microsoft"] AMZN["Amazon & Alphabet"] end

subgraph AIStartups["AI & Cloud Ecosystem"] OAI["OpenAI & Anthropic"] CW["CoreWeave & Neoclouds"] end

[03:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=226s) Nvidia’s Valuation and the Capex Flywheel

Ben and Michael push back on the popular gloom-and-doom narrative. A widely read Bloomberg headline warned that *"AI's wobbly house of cards puts markets and US economy at risk,"* quoting Jim Morrow, CEO of Callodine Capital Management, who claimed people do not fully grasp how wound up the market and economy are in AI. Michael argues that the market grasps this completely—it is virtually the only thing market participants discuss.

Far from being blinded by reckless euphoria, skepticism is heavily priced in. Nvidia, the flagship pure-play of the entire AI buildout, trades at roughly 16 times forward earnings—a lower forward multiple than the broader S&P 500 index and lower than Nvidia's own valuation multiple at any other point over the past decade. Michael humorously derides the overused corporate buzzword "first principles," dismissing it as pretentious filler, but underscores that by any fundamental metric, the AI trade is not trading at unhinged valuations.

- **Jim Morrow (Callodine Capital Management)** warned that the broader economy and stock market have massive interconnected dependencies that could unravel rapidly if spending cools. - **Nvidia Forward P/E**: Trading at ~16x forward earnings, lower than the broader stock market multiple and its own 10-year historical average.

[05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) Historical Analogies vs. Big Tech Cash Flows

Critics frequently compare the AI race to the 19th-century railway buildout and the late-1990s dot-com bubble. However, Ben points out a fundamental difference in how these manias were financed. Based on historical research, the 1870s railroad boom was financed almost entirely by the retail public, who bought speculative shares and lost their shirts amid widespread corporate fraud. Similarly, the late-1990s dot-com bubble was funded by individual retail investors chasing profitless IPOs.

Today's AI boom, by contrast, is being financed internally out of the staggering free cash flows of the largest, most profitable corporate balance sheets in human history, supplemented by institutional debt. A featured Bloomberg chart highlights the unprecedented scale: estimated capital expenditures across Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet are projected to reach $1 trillion next year, crossing their trailing 12-month free cash flow.

While the transition from asset-light software monopolies to asset-heavy infrastructure builders initially caused the "Magnificent Seven" stocks to stall in early 2024 as investors digested the margin impact, markets have largely moved past the panic. Despite AI safety defectors warning of existential doom and periodic worries of an infrastructure cooldown, semiconductor stocks and broader indices continue to power higher.

[08:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=483s) Cash Flow Projections and Staggering Tech IPO Scales

Michael and Ben emphasize that the underlying power of modern hyperscalers dwarfs anything seen in previous market cycles:

- **Operating Cash Flow Expansion**: Torsten Sløk notes that consensus estimates project hyperscaler operating cash flow to surge from $600 billion in 2025 to over $2 trillion by 2030, showing that returns on capital expenditure are expected to scale rapidly. - **Historic Scale of Mega-IPOs**: A chart by Steve Rattner highlights that the combined projected IPO valuations for OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX (which has already scaled massively) exceed $5.2 trillion—greater in nominal value than all ~4,000 tech IPOs from 1980 through 2025 combined. - **Cisco Comparison**: While Cisco was a legitimate, profitable pillar during the late 1990s dot-com era, it did not possess the societal ubiquity, software ecosystem, or multi-faceted economic power that today's mega-cap tech giants wield in daily life.

Ben notes how surreal it is to use AI tools like Anthropic's Claude directly to model Wall Street scenarios, further highlighting how deeply integrated the technology is already becoming in everyday analytical workflows.

[09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=584s) Claude's Three AI Scenarios and Market Commoditization

Ben Carlson recounts asking the AI model Claude to outline the base case for the current artificial intelligence boom, which generated three potential paths forward for investors and the economy. The first is the "Goldilocks scenario," where the industry generates roughly a trillion dollars in revenue, capital expenditures yield a massive return on investment, and the historic bull market is thoroughly justified. The second scenario envisions technology that functions remarkably well but becomes instantly commoditized; in this case, the broader economy benefits tremendously, but the hyperscalers and frontier labs fail to earn back their massive capital investments. The third, bearish scenario occurs if actual growth falls far short of expectations, triggering massive corporate write-downs. While Michael Batnick jokes that they shouldn't make a habit of asking Claude for stock market advice, Ben stresses that these three paths capture the exact debate consuming Wall Street.

The conversation pivots to whether the commoditization scenario would cause the Magnificent Seven to underperform while the rest of the market rallies. Michael notes that the range of variables is too vast to predict specific winners, but market consensus increasingly views open-source models as a mortal threat to proprietary frontier labs. Rather than legitimate safety concerns, calls from frontier developers to slow down AI development appear to be panic over open-source rivals closing the performance gap.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Claude AI Market Scenarios accDescr: Three potential economic outcomes for artificial intelligence investment ranging from a trillion-dollar bull case to commoditization and write-downs.

subgraph Scenarios["Claude's AI Economic Outcomes"] A["1. Goldilocks Bull Case $1T+ in revenue, huge ROI, tech rally justified"] B["2. Commoditization Base Case Tech works, broad economy wins, big tech ROI compressed"] C["3. Growth Shortfall Adoption disappoints, massive asset write-downs"] end

A --> Outcome1["Frontier Labs & Hyperscalers Win"] B --> Outcome2["Broader Economy Wins / Tech Margins Shrink"] C --> Outcome3["Market Correction & Impairments"] ```

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[11:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=665s) Autonomous AI Agents: Meta, Instinct, and Everyday Friction

Meta's stock surged nearly 12% in a single trading session following announcements around its AI agent capabilities, underscoring how violently a two-trillion-dollar titan can still move on AI developments. Ben highlights an anecdote shared on X (formerly Twitter), where a traveler facing a seven-hour flight delay instructed Meta's agent, Muse, to seek compensation. Within five minutes, the agent had secured a $250 credit in the user's Delta account, rebooked an optimal replacement flight, and autonomously handled the customer support email thread. Ben draws a direct parallel between the current hesitancy toward autonomous agents—which request permissions to access calendars, make purchases, and run independent background browser sessions—and the initial public terror in the mid-1990s over entering credit card numbers onto the internet.

Michael shares a parallel experience with an AI assistant named Instinct, which proactively scanned his email and texted him: "Heads up from the inbox. Your son's second tryout today is at 6:00 p.m.... and he needs to wear the reversible jersey from the first tryout. It's not on your calendar. Want me to add it?" When Michael showed this to his wife, Robin, she and a friend on the phone immediately recoiled, insisting they would never grant an AI that degree of personal access. Michael predicts that within five to ten years, consumer resistance will evaporate just as it did with e-commerce. At the same time, Michael observes that discussing AI tricks has become the new personal fantasy football: everyone is enchanted by their own micro-discoveries, but nobody wants to hear someone else drone on about theirs. Michael even struck a pact with their producer, Chris, to stop trading unsolicited AI anecdotes altogether.

- **Meta Market Reaction:** Surged roughly 12% in one day on autonomous AI agent news despite its multi-trillion-dollar valuation. - **Flight Agent Automation:** Filed a compensation claim, scored a $250 airline voucher, and booked an alternate flight completely autonomously within five minutes. - **Consumer Resistance Parallel:** The friction around allowing agents to control inboxes, calendars, and credit cards mirrors late-1990s consumer paranoia over online shopping.

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[13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=831s) Stratechery, Switching Costs, and the Moat Question

The hosts discuss an analysis by Ben Thompson in *Stratechery*, which prompts a playful digression into why Michael and Ben pronounce the site like George W. Bush’s famous *Saturday Night Live* malapropism, "strategery." Thompson's core argument is that Meta's release of an accessible, consumer-facing personal agent is an ominous, bearish signal for frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. If consumer loyalty attaches to an integrated personal agent that lives inside calendars, messaging, and airline accounts, the underlying large language model becomes an interchangeable commodity. In Thompson's view, frontier labs are vulnerable unless they can build native product moats that prevent consumers from treating foundational models as swappable utilities.

Michael remains skeptical about whether agent software possesses durable moats at all. He points out that switching costs between software tools seem virtually non-existent, wondering whether independent startups like Instinct—despite raising hundreds of millions of dollars—could simply be wiped out overnight by swift platform updates from tech incumbents. Ben pushes back, contending that deep personal integration creates real friction: once an agent has accumulated your complete schedule, preferences, and account linkages, parting with it is as inconvenient as switching dentists.

> "Once you get your own agent and it starts knowing you and you have it locked into your inbox and your accounts and your apps and all this stuff... it creates more of a moat."

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[15:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=947s) Dental Phobias, Squeamishness, and Future Proof IV Drops

The dentist comparison prompts Michael to make a candid personal confession: despite his retired father having been a periodontist, Michael is an anxious, terrible dental patient with hypersensitive gums who has avoided getting his teeth cleaned for two years, even while obsessively flossing multiple times a day. Ben sympathizes, noting that during the first three years of his career at a tiny firm without health, dental, or retirement benefits, he avoided the dentist entirely—leading to a horrific, painful cleaning session once he finally secured coverage at his next job.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Future Proof Wellness Experience accDescr: Progression from conference exhaustion to receiving a B12 intravenous drip and feeling restored.

A["Conference Fatigue Sun exposure, networking, late nights"] --> B["Future Proof IV Booth B12 infusion via needle"] --> C["Initial Squeamishness Aversion to visible needles"] --> D["Delayed Recovery Full energy restored within an hour"] ```

The talk of medical discomfort reminds Ben of watching Michael squirm at the Future Proof wealth management festival while visiting an on-site wellness booth offering intravenous hydration drips. Michael had to avert his eyes to avoid watching the needle go in. Ben reflects on his own relationship with medicine, remarking that minor over-the-counter remedies like Tylenol, ibuprofen, and cold medicine never seem to have any noticeable effect on him. Michael agrees that he feels a consistent physical baseline regardless of medication, admitting that even after quitting smoking weed years ago following a prolonged period of using it to self-medicate, he barely felt any shift in his everyday state. Nevertheless, both hosts were shocked by the efficacy of the B12 drip at Future Proof: after grinding through days of sun, socializing, and dining on their feet, the technician promised it would kick in within an hour—and right on cue, it delivered a genuine, revitalizing energy boost.

[18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1114s) Market Worries and Bill Miller's Wisdom

After spending fifteen minutes dissecting artificial intelligence, Michael Batnick is ready to call it: "I'm full. You have anything else?" Ben Carlson wraps up his thoughts by posing a philosophical counterpoint to the doomsayers: what if these tech behemoths are simply so massive and entrenched that all the widespread fears of a collapsing house of cards never actually materialize? Michael enthusiastically agrees, pointing out that in financial history, the vast majority of investor worries fail to come to fruition. Searching his memory for a famous quote—briefly mixing up William Bernstein with legendary Legg Mason value manager Bill Miller—Michael recalls Miller once being asked what worried him about the stock market, to which Miller famously answered: "Nothing. The market does plenty of worrying for me." Michael considers that an essential lens for market participants; whether investors are hyperventilating about valuations or AI capex, the anxiety is already baked into asset prices, even if Nvidia's forward multiple reflects an imperfect balance of under- or over-worrying.

The mood briefly lightens as Ben teases Michael that the only person with a genuine reason to sweat right now is Michael's son, who is currently enduring a second round of sports tryouts. Both hosts marvel at the absurd intensity of modern youth athletics, with Ben lamenting that youth leagues make children endure "two tryouts for one sport" and Michael shaking his head at the modern "crazy town" of competitive parenting.

[19:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1199s) The $186 Trillion Household Wealth Boom

Turning back to macro fundamentals, Michael highlights what he considers perhaps the single most critical yet under-appreciated variable driving both the stock market and consumer resilience: the sheer volume of liquidity floating through the financial system. According to a report in *The Wall Street Journal*, total United States household net worth reached an eye-popping $186 trillion in the second quarter of the year, surging by $26 trillion since just the fourth quarter of 2024. Pondering the incomprehensible scale of the figure, Michael jokes about how many round-trips to the moon a stack of $186 trillion dollar bills would make. Ben notes that he recently had their research associate ("chart kid") dig into the numbers across the current decade: at year-end 2019, aggregate household net worth sat at $109 trillion, meaning balance sheets have nearly doubled in just a few short years.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: US Household Net Worth Growth by Wealth Cohort accDescr: Diagram illustrating the rise of US household wealth from 109 trillion to 186 trillion across all Federal Reserve wealth brackets. subgraph Growth["US Household Wealth Expansion (2019 to Present)"] A["End of 2019: $109 Trillion"] --> B["Present Day: $186 Trillion"] end subgraph Cohorts["Federal Reserve Wealth Brackets (Min. +60% Gain Each)"] B --> C["Top 1%"] B --> D["Next 9%"] B --> E["Next 40%"] B --> F["Bottom 50% (Net worth more than doubled)"] end ```

Crucially, Ben emphasizes that Federal Reserve data disproves the knee-jerk assumption that this is merely a case of the rich getting richer. Across every single cohort—the top 1%, the next 9%, the middle 40%, and the bottom 50%—net worth has expanded by at least 60%. On a relative percentage basis, the bottom 50% actually saw the largest jump, more than doubling their net worth off a modest baseline. This broad-based balance sheet cushion explains why the broader economy has powered through aggressive Federal Reserve rate hikes without tipping into recession: ordinary households simply possess substantially more money. Michael shares a chart of cumulative annual asset flows from January through December, pointing out that 2021 was a "bubbleicious" speculative mania that now resembles "Barry Bonds pre-steroids" when compared to the parabolic line of current capital flows. While Michael cautions that asset values are not on a "permanently high plateau" and could easily drop 30% or more in a severe bear market, the seasonal tax refund spikes and relentless cash accumulation continue to provide immense fuel to risk assets.

- **Total U.S. Household Net Worth:** $186 trillion as of Q2, up $26 trillion from Q4 2024. - **Decade Growth:** Rose from $109 trillion at the end of 2019 to $186 trillion today, effectively doubling over the 2020s. - **Distributional Gains:** Every cohort tracked by the Fed (Top 1%, next 9%, next 40%, bottom 50%) is up at least 60%, with the bottom 50% more than doubling on a percentage basis.

[22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) Buying Bonds at 5% and the Return of the 60/40

Michael highlights a positive shift in investor behavior: fixed income has enjoyed record inflows, with more than $600 billion pouring into bonds through August. While Michael warns that consistently "adding to losers" in individual equities is a surefire way to blow up capital, fixed income operates differently when yields reset higher. With the 10-year Treasury yield hovering near 5%, fixed income offers a genuinely compelling nominal return for the first time since before the 2008 Great Financial Crisis. In a candid moment, both hosts admit to stepping into the fixed income market themselves. Michael bought bonds two weeks prior, while Ben bought bonds just the previous week—marking the first time in Ben's entire professional career that he has personally purchased individual bonds outside of a target-date fund in his children's 529 plans. Ben brushes off any worry about yields climbing further toward 5.5%, quipping, "I don't care... guess what? I will add to my loser."

The hosts discuss how a decade-plus of zero interest-rate policy (ZIRP) distorted asset allocations. Reviewing a Goldman Sachs chart tracking equities relative to bonds, Ben notes that stocks have enjoyed a historic run of outperformance against debt, rivaled only by the 1950s and 1960s. Investors grew severely underweight fixed income due to equity complacency (after years of 14% annualized stock gains versus flat real bond returns) combined with lingering 2022 bond-market trauma. In the early 2020s, when bond yields sat at 1% to 2%, Ritholtz Wealth Management advisors had to show clients that a traditional 60/40 portfolio required stocks to return 11% to 12% annually just to clear an overall 7% portfolio hurdle, prompting many investors to stretch risk into 80/20 or 90/10 allocations.

Now, the mathematical landscape has completely repaired itself. Research analyst Sean modeled the updated numbers: with bonds yielding 5%, a standard 60/40 portfolio requires equities to generate only an 8% annualized return to achieve that same 7% portfolio target. This allows investors who uncomfortably stretched their equity exposure during the ZIRP era to finally de-risk back to balanced 60/40 or 70/30 targets. As Ben puts it, despite the pain of rate hikes, "the world is healing or has healed."

[27:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1655s) Goldman Sachs' 10-Year Return Scenarios and Sports Betting Tangent

Ben introduces a long-term capital market study from Goldman Sachs shared by Mike Zaccardi, which outlines various economic and market scenarios for the S&P 500 over the coming decade: stagflation, economic stagnation, a baseline "Goldilocks" environment of solid growth, and a blue-sky scenario combining Goldilocks economic growth with an uninterrupted AI productivity boom. According to Goldman, if that supreme bull scenario materializes, the S&P 500 could compound at a staggering 14% annualized return for the next ten years. Michael observes that such an outcome would cement the current era as quite literally the greatest bull market in human history.

When Michael asks Ben what betting odds he would demand on FanDuel or DraftKings to wager on ten consecutive years of double-digit S&P returns, Michael gets sidetracked by the frictionless user experience of modern sportsbooks. He marvels at how negligible switching costs have become between betting apps, remarking on how effortless it is for any bettor to bounce freely between DraftKings, Fanatics, or emerging prediction market platforms whenever they want to place a wager.

[28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) Why Buy-and-Hold Fails for Individual Stocks

Ben explains that platform inertia keeps him on FanDuel: because he has used it from the start, the app holds all his historical data, functioning as his personal scorecard. Michael compares this reluctance to move to skipping routine appointments, prompting Ben to joke about his refusal to visit the dentist. Shifting to market outlooks, they place an identical 10% to 11% probability on two extreme extremes: robots wiping out humanity versus the continuation of the greatest bull market in history. Michael then previews a discussion with Josh Brown regarding research from Adam Parker at Trivariate Research titled *"Buy and Hold Doesn't Work"*. Michael stresses that his rule against averaging down on losing investments is not personal opinion, but an empirical, data-backed fact: "adding to losers is a terrible strategy."

Parker's research demonstrates that the proportion of stocks outperforming the broader market declines steadily as holding periods lengthen. While short-term dislocations allow beaten-down stocks to rebound for a year—making one-year windows the easiest timeframe for individual stock pickers—long-term visibility evaporates completely over a decade. Ben observes that while buy-and-hold stock investing was viable for dividend-seeking investors in the 1930s through the 1950s, rapid technological and structural shifts make it nearly impossible today. Pointing to mega-cap tech winners like Nvidia or Apple misleads investors, as those names represent extreme outliers in an otherwise ruthless index environment.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Individual Stock Outperformance Decay Over Time accDescr: Chart illustrating how holding individual stocks longer leads to lower probabilities of beating the index. A["1-Year Holding Horizon"] -->|"Short-term dislocations & mean-reversion"| B["Peak Selection Hit Rate"] B --> C["3-Year Holding Horizon: 27.7% Beat Rate"] C --> D["10-Year Holding Horizon: 23.0% Beat Rate"] D --> E["Index Outperformance Highly Concentrated in Few Outliers"] ```

- In the latest Trivariate Research observation, only 23% of the top 500 U.S. stocks outperformed the S&P 500 when held for 10 years. - Over a 3-year holding period, the success rate for individual stocks beating the index was just 27.7%. - The steep decay in outperformance over 1, 3, 5, and 10-year horizons is identical when measured across the Russell 2000. - Because so few individual equities outperform long term, active managers are forced into higher portfolio turnover rather than passive buy-and-hold approaches.

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[32:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1928s) Taxicab Confessions and the Demise of Raw Reality

Michael shares an unexpected memory of watching the mid-to-late 1990s HBO hidden-camera documentary series *Taxicab Confessions* late at night at his father's house. The program featured taxi drivers in New York City and Las Vegas engaging late-night, intoxicated passengers in uninhibited, intimate conversations about their private lives. Michael marvels at how provocative and genuine the show felt at the time, noting that such a format could never be recreated in the modern era.

Ben and Michael discuss how smartphones, social media, and ubiquitous recording devices have ruined organic interactions. If a similar show were produced today, passengers would immediately recognize the recording setup and become hyper-performative for online clout. Ben draws a direct parallel to the evolution of reality television: early seasons captured genuine human vulnerability, but once participants realized that exaggerated behavior could launch careers as influencers or media stars, the genre became completely contrived. Furthermore, standard rideshare etiquette has shifted toward complete silence, where riders simply do not want to talk to Uber drivers.

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[33:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2027s) Questioning the Fed's Rate Hike and the AI Capital Spree

Ben examines the Federal Reserve's recent decision to raise interest rates, balancing praise for their independence with skepticism about their underlying economic rationale. A Deutsche Bank chart shows that the 10-year Treasury yield tracks nominal GDP growth remarkably well, supporting current yield levels. Meanwhile, credit commentary compiled by Ruchir Sharma from lenders like Wells Fargo and Capital One continues to highlight resilient consumer spending across every income tier. Ben wonders why central bankers feel compelled to deliberately cool an economy enjoying 4% unemployment when headline inflation is primarily distorted by volatile energy markets.

Michael suggests that the Fed may be attempting to curb the massive capital spending sprees of big tech hyperscalers, whose relentless borrowing to finance artificial intelligence infrastructure threatens to stoke inflationary pressures. Ben pushes back, arguing that higher borrowing costs will do nothing to stop executives like Mark Zuckerberg from building data centers, while everyday households bear the brunt of higher loan costs. Addressing political discourse, Ben gives Fed Chair Kevin Warsh credit for raising rates based on committee consensus rather than bowing to external political pressure from Donald Trump.

- Excluding energy, year-over-year CPI was running at 2.5%, hovering right above the Federal Reserve's target. - Headline CPI including energy stood at 3.4%, with recent spikes heavily driven by geopolitical conflict involving Iran. - In the aggregate, consumer prices have climbed 27% since January 2021, while many everyday essentials have surged between 40% and 60%. - Approximately one-third of individual items in the consumer inflation basket continue to rise at annual rates exceeding 4%.

---

[37:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2229s) The "K-Shaped" Myth and Low-Income Wage Reality

The hosts dissect the popular narrative of the "K-shaped" economy, which Ben dismisses as a catchy media buzzword rather than an accurate economic description. While wealth disparity has always meant higher-income households spend more, no actual data series charts in the physical shape of a letter K. Michael notes that acknowledging persistent inequality between upper- and lower-income brackets does not mean the post-pandemic recovery followed that neat visual metaphor.

Examining recent wage data shared by Mike Zaccardi, Ben points out that August after-tax wage growth for lower-income households outpaced that of both middle- and high-income earners. While this reversal in wage momentum is nominally positive, its real-world benefit is largely offset by spending habits. Lower-income families allocate a significantly larger percentage of their take-home pay to energy and fuel, meaning their hard-won wage increases are immediately absorbed by higher gas prices.

[38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) The Resilient Labor Market vs. AI Job Apocalypse Predictions

Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick pick up an ongoing debate regarding the true condition of the economy, focusing on the persistent resilience in the labor market. Michael notes that while lower-income households have experienced strong wage growth, much of those gains continue to be eaten up by cost pressures. Ben questions whether "strength" is the exact right term, suggesting instead a distinct "lack of weakness": initial unemployment claims are down roughly 10% year-over-year, and continuing claims are actively dropping. Ben challenges Michael on how to square this continued labor market resilience with pervasive doomer rhetoric claiming artificial intelligence is about to wipe out all jobs.

Michael pushes back against the premise, arguing that nobody serious ever believed AI would eliminate millions of jobs overnight, accusing Ben of "spiking the football" prematurely. Ben defends his stance, asserting that prominent tech leaders were indeed making aggressive, short-term projections. He points directly to Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, claiming Amodei predicted that half of all entry-level white-collar jobs would be wiped out within six months. Michael flatly rejects that framing ("You're literally making that up"), but Ben maintains it was a real talking point and argues that reassessing hyperbolic timelines is healthy when real-world employment data remains stubbornly steady.

```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Divergent Perspectives on AI Impact on the Economy accDescr: Contrasts the West Coast tech utopia thesis with the East Coast macro view.

subgraph West["West Coast Tech Vision"] W1["Hyperscale AI Deployment"] --> W2["Massive Productivity Leap"] W2 --> W3["Sky-High GDP: 4% to 6%+ Growth"] end

subgraph East["East Coast Macro Reality"] E1["Incremental AI Efficiency"] --> E2["Modest Productivity Boost"] E2 --> E3["Steady 2.0% to 2.5% GDP Growth"] end ```

[40:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2415s) AI Productivity, Macro Growth, and the Buffett Indicator

Ben introduces an observation from energy investor John Arnold highlighting the philosophical divide between tech and traditional finance: the West Coast believes an unprecedented economic transformation is underway, while the East Coast expects three more years of modest 2.1% GDP growth. Ben argues that the reality will likely mirror the rollout of the internet: AI will provide a welcome productivity bump and make daily tasks demonstrably easier, but top-line GDP growth will remain grounded around 2% to 2.5%, rather than rocketing into a 4% to 6% tech-driven utopia. When Michael counters by asking if GDP is even the right metric to assess output, Ben quips, "Vibes," acknowledging that public sentiment around AI is souring regardless.

This leads directly to the valuation conundrum. If GDP merely grinds along at 2% while corporate earnings and equity markets continue higher, the "Buffett indicator" (total market cap relative to GDP) will blow out to historic, lopsided extremes, continuing to drive market bears insane. Ben notes that even Charlie Munger acknowledged that Warren Buffett himself no longer relies on that metric. Ben and Michael agree it makes little sense to anchor to arbitrary historical ratios; Corporate America exerts far more global influence than in decades past, and the sheer volume of global capital parked in public equities naturally swells the market capitalization well past domestic economic output.

- Initial jobless claims are down 10% over the past year, alongside declining continuing claims. - The debate contrasts West Coast expectations of 4% to 6% explosive GDP growth against pragmatic East Coast forecasts of 2.0% to 2.5%. - Charlie Munger confirmed that Warren Buffett has largely abandoned the traditional Market Cap-to-GDP indicator.

[42:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2545s) Karaoke Traditions, Top Gun, and LinkedIn Psychopaths

Michael abruptly derails the macro conversation to bring up a memory that popped into his head: Ben’s annual karaoke performance. Michael establishes that this has officially become a tradition after two consecutive years, teasing Ben as a massive "TC" (Tom Cruise) fan for consistently choosing "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". Ben shares that he and his kids had just been discussing favorite movies the night before, and he confessed to them that *Top Gun* takes the top spot. When Michael asks if he showed his children the karaoke tape, Ben laughs it off with a definitive "No." Michael praises Ben's performance, noting that although Ben is normally reserved and introverted, with a bit of "liquid courage" on stage he performed like Britney Spears. Ben reminisces about the high-energy evening, which featured crowd-pleasers like "Friends in Low Places" and Blink-182's "All the Small Things."

Shifting gears to social media, Ben observes that while conventional wisdom labels Twitter as the premier cesspool of the internet, LinkedIn harbors an entirely different breed of weirdness. Ben jokes that the true psychopaths inhabit LinkedIn, citing a recent sprawling post he saw tagged `#writtenwithoutAI`. Ben suspects this performative resistance will quickly fade as the public stops caring whether text was generated by AI, while Michael dismisses the premise entirely: "Hashtags were always for dweebs."

[44:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2662s) Bitcoin's Inexplicable Comeback

The hosts pivot to crypto, marveling at the sudden resurrection of Bitcoin. Ben points out that near the end of July, the iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) was down roughly 33% on the year, yet in just a matter of weeks, it staged a massive rebound back to around $86,000, erasing its yearly losses. Ben wonders whether the move is driven by regulatory optimism, though Michael corrects him, pointing out that legislation like the Clarity Act recently failed to pass.

Michael recalls doing a show a couple of months earlier with Grayscale where everyone was earnestly asking whether Bitcoin was completely dead and searching for a viable catalyst. Michael's take was that "price is a catalyst"—sentiment swings on a dime without requiring an external fundamental reason. He notes that Bitcoin has simply been rallying alongside broader software and tech stocks. Ben agrees, comparing Bitcoin to the classic Undertaker meme: its defining long-term bull thesis is that every single time it appears completely dead, it inexplicably rises from the grave.

- IBIT dropped 33% year-to-date into late July before erasing the drawdown in a multi-week rally back to $86,000. - Grayscale discussions just two months earlier had centered on low sentiment and a total absence of macro catalysts.

[45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) The Housing Crisis Paradox and Construction Bottlenecks

Turning to real estate, Ben highlights Conor Sen’s Substack, *The Housing Frame*, which tackles the conventional wisdom surrounding the housing shortage. Commentators routinely prescribe building more supply as the silver-bullet fix, but Sen examines the harsh structural reality of attempting to build millions of homes. Recent earnings commentary from major homebuilders like Lennar underscores severe headwinds: labor availability has become brutally tight due to strict immigration enforcement on one end and fierce competition from the boom in data center construction on the other.

Ben outlines the dilemma: if the federal government magically eliminated all zoning and red tape overnight to construct the 3 to 4 million missing housing units, it would trigger massive inflationary side effects. Flooding the market with subsidized construction demand against a restricted labor pool would bid construction wages and materials through the roof, making houses significantly more expensive to produce. Ben argues that the United States cannot simply build its way out of the supply hole without creating another cascading economic crisis. He expresses deep sympathy for growing families looking to trade up from cramped apartments into starter homes who find themselves completely priced out. Michael pushes back on Ben's hyperbole, disagreeing that this affordability crunch applies to "most people."

[047:50] The Housing Crisis and "Tents for Gen Z"

The conversation opens on the ongoing housing affordability squeeze and how young buyers manage to get into the market at all. Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick conclude that most people buying today simply rely on the "bank of mom and dad," acknowledging that while that works for some, it is impossible for many others. Michael views the situation as nothing short of a national emergency. Ben responds with pragmatic cynicism, wondering who actually wants to fix it and what a viable solution would even look like. Building more homes sounds intuitively simple, but execution is vastly complicated: where do you build them, and are policymakers actually willing to construct entirely new towns from scratch? Ben jokingly pitches his political platform: "Tents for all Gen Z" and "tent cities," acknowledging how absurd the situation has become.

[048:51] Private Market Fraud and the Allure of Illiquidity

Shifting to private markets, Ben highlights a recent fraud reported in the *Detroit News* involving a firm called SwiftArc LLC. The scheme took in tens of millions of dollars from high-profile athletes—including NFL star Travis Kelce alongside NBA players Tim Hardaway Jr., Gary Harris, and Mason Plumley. Promising some form of venture capital investment, the fund manager bizarrely dumped the capital into Philip Morris Pakistan, spent the rest on personal luxuries, and paid off earlier investors with money from newer ones in classic Ponzi fashion.

```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: Flow of Fraud in SwiftArc Ponzi Scheme accDescr: Diagrams how investor capital was diverted into personal spending and legacy payouts instead of legitimate venture investments. subgraph CapitalIn["Capital Inflow"] A["Athlete Investors (Travis Kelce, Tim Hardaway Jr., etc.)"] end subgraph Diverted["Misappropriation"] B["SwiftArc LLC Manager"] C["Philip Morris Pakistan Stake"] D["Personal Splurging"] end subgraph Payouts["Ponzi Cycle"] E["Old Investors (Paid with new funds)"] end

A --> B B --> C B --> D B --> E ```

Michael and Ben observe that while fraud exists everywhere, illiquid private assets make running a scheme far easier because managers hide behind the black box of opacity. When investors ask for their capital back, managers simply push back saying the vehicle is illiquid. Ben cites a *Wall Street Journal* report regarding Mark Walter, noting the massive flood of money entering the insurance and annuity space. Even though insurance is historically one of the most strictly regulated sectors in the economy, managers still find avenues to channel customer funds into alternative assets. Ben notes from his research for his book *Don't Fall for It* that the true volume of fraud in private, illiquid markets is vastly understated: outside of court filings, victims—especially wealthy individuals—rarely admit they were scammed out of sheer humiliation.

[050:42] Rich Airline Pilots and the Delta Loyalty Club

The discussion turns to personal finance and an eye-opening *Wall Street Journal* piece detailing how airline pilots have become remarkably wealthy. Ben outlines a profile of one pilot boasting a personal brokerage account alongside a $3.5 million 401(k). Once required minimum distributions (RMDs) and Social Security kick in, this pilot expects retirement income to easily top $300,000 annually—exceeding what he earned in most working years. Michael is all for it, quipping, "I don't want my pilot making $60,000 a year."

- Major carriers like United, Delta, American, and Southwest now provide an 18% non-elective retirement contribution directly into pilot 401(k) plans, meaning the money is deposited regardless of whether the pilot contributes anything. - Senior pilots based near major hubs who fly wide-body planes and pick up weather-related overtime can pull in as much as $100,000 in a single month. - Financial advising for pilots has become its own lucrative niche, including an Atlanta advisor who exclusively caters to Delta flight crews.

This prompts an impassioned aside about airline loyalty. Both Ben and Michael declare themselves hardcore Delta loyalists and praise Delta for sending them a thoughtful care package featuring a model airplane that Ben's son keeps on his nightstand. After flying United to John Wayne Airport for the Future Proof conference and suffering through an awful in-flight entertainment catalog, Michael sends a special shoutout to the person in charge of movie selection at Delta, who once emailed the show, declaring Delta's movie library the absolute best in the skies by a mile.

[052:55] Silicon Valley Dating Non-Negotiables: The "Post-Economic" Phenomenon

Ben brings up a viral dating checklist posted by a 29-year-old Silicon Valley tech worker at the investment firm Khosla Ventures (or similar firm referenced colloquially). Her list of "non-negotiables" for a potential partner sparked widespread debate, featuring requirements like an age range of 35 to 42, being "smart, funny, lighthearted," having a "provider/protector mentality," being fit and sober, and walking a "healing path" complete with past therapy, books, and retreats. The phrase that captivates Ben the most is her demand for someone who is "post-economic (still hardworking)."

Ben explains that being "post-economic" implies you have achieved total financial freedom—such as through an early startup exit or lucrative equity grants—so money is no longer an object, yet you choose to continue working hard. While 99.9% of the country finds such a prerequisite detached from reality, Ben points out that in the hyper-wealthy, exorbitant bubble of San Francisco, finding an eligible single who fits that mold is an actual dynamic. Michael expresses pure annoyance with the entire mindset, venting his distaste for the language of the "healing path," grinders, and life coaches, asking why people cannot just be normal human beings.

[055:25] The $30 Billion Lakers Valuation Debate

Closing out the segment, the co-hosts dive into sports finance via a *Wall Street Journal* article analyzing the prospective ownership and valuation models for the Los Angeles Lakers involving Thrive Capital and Bob Iger. Pitch materials shown to prospective investors project the franchise nearly tripling from roughly $12 billion up to a staggering $30 billion valuation over the next 10 years, with high-end, blue-sky models suggesting it could reach $62 billion.

- The Lakers are projected to pull in $681 million in revenue for 2026. - Thrive's forecast models project annual team revenue scaling to at least $1.6 billion by 2037. - A $30 billion valuation on $1.6 billion in revenue represents a multiple of roughly 19x sales.

Michael balks at the sheer math, asking if he is "taking drugs" looking at a $30 billion valuation pinned to $1.6 billion in sales. Ben counters that premier sports teams are trophy assets that trade on billionaire vanity rather than standard corporate spreadsheet metrics. Michael jokes that if the Lakers actually hit $30 billion in a decade, every investor's 401(k) will be sitting comfortably at millions: "We're all post-economic, Ben." They then get into an impromptu debate about compounding returns: while Michael estimates a normal real-world team asset return should run 6% to 8% (perhaps 12% to 14% on the high end), Ben calculates that going from $12 billion to $30 billion over 10 years is an annualized return of roughly 10%, prompting an argument between the two over the Rule of 72 and double-versus-triple math on the air.

[57:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3473s) Sports Team Valuations: Lakers Projections and Apollo’s Yankees Stake

Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson open with a playful debate over the compounding math behind soaring sports franchise valuations. When considering how a franchise might scale from a $12 billion valuation to $30 billion, Ben cracks a joke about the Rule of 72, asking if Michael learned anything from Robert Kiyosaki’s *Rich Dad Poor Dad*. Michael counters that moving from $12 billion to $30 billion over a 10-year span requires a 10% compound annual growth rate—a figure he checked with a calculator, but one that is entirely achievable if equity markets and ultra-wealthy balance sheets keep compounding at historical rates. Looking at photos of prospective sports investors, Michael quips that Josh Kushner looks just like actor Adam Brody. The conversation turns to the Los Angeles Lakers' aggressive revenue strategies: their financial models factor in shifting 6,000 broker-held season tickets into single-game sales, which would catapult average ticket prices from $217 up to an astounding $360. Ben is staggered by an average seat costing $360, contrasting it with his guess of $145 for New York Knicks tickets. Michael argues that if artificial intelligence mints staggering amounts of new capital and widens wealth inequality over the next decade, a $30 billion valuation for iconic legacy assets is practically inevitable.

The discussion shifts to private equity moving into Major League Baseball, specifically Apollo Global Management reportedly acquiring a 16% stake in the New York Yankees at a valuation significantly north of $12 billion, as reported by Charlie Gasparino of the *New York Post*. While Michael understands Apollo providing the structured debt piece for guaranteed yield, he struggles to see the appeal of passive equity ownership in a baseball club for an institution or wealthy individual. Buying controlling stakes in blue-blood franchises like the Lakers delivers supreme bragging rights and an ego purchase, but holding a minority, non-controlling equity sliver feels financially suboptimal compared to simply buying shares of liquid tech giants like Meta. Furthermore, the co-hosts chuckle at MLB's regulatory flexibility: despite league bylaws formally barring private equity firms from owning more than 15% of a franchise, MLB is expected to simply waive the rule, prompting Ben to joke that league rules operate like "the purge for one day."

- A jump from $12 billion to $30 billion represents an annualized return of roughly 10% over 10 years. - The Lakers plan to reallocate 6,000 broker-held season tickets into single-game inventory, raising average ticket prices from $217 to $360. - Apollo Global Management is acquiring roughly 16% of the New York Yankees at a valuation well above $12 billion. - MLB rules capping private equity ownership at 15% are expected to be waived for the Apollo deal.

[01:01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3660s) The Male Friendship Deficit and Marital Social Calendars

Ben brings up an article published in *The Cut* titled "My husband has no friends," which explores how modern marriages often involve wives unilaterally managing their husbands' entire social calendars. Ben asks Michael how much of his own social calendar is organized by his wife Robin versus himself, already knowing the answer. Both agree that wives serving as social directors is the natural dynamic for nearly every couple they know. Ben describes how at school functions and kid playdates, mothers quickly form bonded circles while the fathers hover awkwardly in corners, entirely content with having zero desire to forge new adult friendships. As Ben puts it: "I don't want new friends. But guess what? They don't want to be friends with me either. It's mutually we're all happy here." When dads gather at backyard barbecues, small talk regarding sports runs out after five minutes, leaving the men staring across the lawn, genuinely perplexed at what their wives manage to talk about with each other for hours on end.

Michael illustrates this dynamic with his own domestic routine. Worn out by 9:00 PM from work and parenting, he puts the kids down around 9:15 PM and heads straight to bed. However, because Robin is a night owl, Michael finds himself half-sleeping and mildly anxious until she finally comes up to the bedroom. After Robin came to bed late following an hour-and-a-half phone call, Michael asked the next morning what could possibly warrant 90 minutes of discussion. When she answered that she was breaking down tryouts for their daughter Kobe, Michael was incredulous: "You and I could have had this conversation in four minutes. We would have been over." He notes that this domestic fatigue, combined with their kids' bedtimes creeping later and colliding with their own, has completely destroyed his ability to watch prestige television. It took him eight months just to finish a single series, leaving him hopelessly behind on current shows like *The Gentlemen* and the latest Jon Hamm projects.

[01:04:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3874s) Reflections on Future Proof: In-Person Connection and Next-Gen Advisors

Ben and Michael reflect on their recent trip recording live episodes at the Future Proof wealth management festival. The conference grew to roughly 5,600 attendees, cementing Ben's observation that the post-pandemic world has made people crave genuine in-person contact more than ever before. While the festival offered high-quality panels and content, the core draw was the pure energy of socializing face-to-face—an organic dynamic that Zoom and digital alternatives cannot duplicate. Michael admits that while he notoriously despises traditional small talk, he thoroughly enjoys being "in the mix" and soaking in the social atmosphere of a massive industry crowd.

Both hosts were particularly struck by the youth and optimism of the crowd. While Ben estimates the median attendee age hovered somewhere in the mid-30s to 40, they were especially impressed by the presence of undergraduate college students roaming the venue. Rather than embodying the pervasive economic angst often attributed to younger generations, these students eagerly approached established advisors and media figures, networking and asking enthusiastic questions about financial planning career paths. Ben reflects on how unimaginable it would have been during his own college years to voluntarily travel to a professional industry conference and actively network, leaving both hosts bullish on the future of the advisory industry.

[01:06:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3975s) Gen Z in the Office and the Rapid Maturation of AI Tools

Reflecting on the broader cultural narrative surrounding younger generations, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson note a sharp disconnect between headlines claiming young people are hopelessly miserable and what they observe firsthand. Looking at their own firm, Ben points out that their growing cohort of Gen Z colleagues is genuinely "happy-go-lucky," enthusiastic, and tight-knit. Michael jokingly chalks this up to their own hiring prowess and stellar workplace culture: "Well, credit to us. We have a great work environment and we select great people. So, that's not an accident."

The conversation pivots to how rapidly the artificial intelligence landscape is maturing. Just six months earlier, at the Future Proof wealth festival in Miami, the entire conference floor was buzzing with speculative conjecture about how AI would reshape finance, populated by countless small niche startups pitching overlapping capabilities. Six months later, the ecosystem has rapidly consolidated around dominant platforms. Major players like Anthropic's Claude are announcing direct workflow integrations tailored for financial advisors rather than threatening replacement, alongside dedicated advisory platforms like Hazel.

[01:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4044s) The Broken TV Chronicles: Best Buy Spite and Basement Handstands

The discussion turns personal as the hosts revisit Michael’s infamous long-running saga of keeping a television with an unmissable green line running down the panel. Michael explains that the defect appeared when the TV was exactly one year and one week old. When Best Buy refused to take it back because the warranty had expired just seven days prior, Michael decided to keep watching it purely out of spite: "I was taking a stand. That was a new TV. Damn it... So I spite-kept it."

Ben matches Michael's misfortune with a fresh household disaster of his own. Having recently installed a brand-new 80-inch TV on a blank basement wall with no console beneath it, Ben recounts how his young son went through an obsessive phase of attempting handstand push-ups against the wall. Inspired by a recent viewing of *Rocky IV*, the kid repeatedly practiced his handstands, accumulating bruises until his heel accidentally drove straight into the screen. Ben pulls up a photo showing roughly 25 rainbow-colored vertical distortion lines across the display. Despite the wreckage, Ben and his daughter still powered through a movie on it the night before, though a replacement has already been ordered.

[01:09:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4176s) Rocky IV Office Decor and Childhood Nostalgia

Ben's *Rocky IV* reference prompts Michael to show off some new artwork he acquired for the office wall behind his desk. Holding it up to the camera despite the glare, Michael reveals a framed print featuring Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa facing down Dolph Lundgren's Ivan Drago.

Michael shares that he recently showed the 1985 classic to his own children, who were completely captivated by the spectacle. The hosts wonder why Lundgren never blossomed into an A-list movie star, with Ben bluntly observing, "He's not a good actor," though Michael notes they did try to push him into leading roles with properties like He-Man in *Masters of the Universe*. Regardless of the campiness, Michael admits the climactic Soviet fight and the ending still give him chills.

[01:10:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4227s) Recommendations: 80s Dinosaurs, Steve Winwood, and Avengers Re-Releases

Moving into their regular recommendations segment, Ben follows up on a film Michael previously recommended for his son: *The End of Oak Street*, a dinosaur adventure that recently shifted from theaters to on-demand streaming. Ben praises the brisk, engaging 97-minute runtime, saying it delivered the pure, fun adventure feel of an 80s Steven Spielberg production.

One unexpected highlight of the movie was its inclusion of Steve Winwood’s 1980s synth-pop track "Valerie." Ben breaks into an impromptu vocal rendition of the chorus, confessing that his kids have had the track on loop for an entire week, singing it continuously around the house. Michael nods in appreciation of 80s synthesizer nostalgia, requesting Survivor's "Burning Heart" next. As for current entertainment plans, Michael mentions he has not caught up on *Resident Evil* yet, but is taking his kids to a special one-night theater re-release of Marvel's *Avengers: Endgame*.

[01:12:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4321s) Direct-to-Streaming Disasters and Revisiting Classic Horror Franchises

Michael laments the inevitable career trajectory where acclaimed performers end up in low-rent video-on-demand projects. A self-professed fan of animal-attack creature features, Michael watched *Deep Water*, a shark disaster movie featuring Aaron Eckhart alongside Academy Award winner Sir Ben Kingsley. Kingsley plays a pilot who only appears for roughly 11 minutes of screen time. Michael reflects on how an actor of Eckhart's caliber—who was stellar in *Thank You for Smoking*—could end up in a "deeply bad movie," leading Ben to remark that he would read an entire book analyzing how great actors end up doing direct-to-streaming schlock, pointing to Mark Wahlberg's recent career path as another prime example.

To cleanse his palate, Michael has been revisiting foundational horror cinema, comparing the 50-year-old original *The Texas Chain Saw Massacre* (1974) to *Friday the 13th* (1980): - **The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974):** Michael confirms it holds up as a legitimately gritty, effective, and "sweaty" classic piece of filmmaking despite its half-century vintage. - **Friday the 13th (1980):** Michael found the original movie surprisingly terrible. He notes a detail often forgotten by casual fans: Jason Voorhees is not even the killer in the original movie; his mother, Pamela Voorhees, is the culprit, and Jason does not adopt his iconic hockey mask until *Friday the 13th Part III*.

Wrapping up the episode, the hosts joke about their heavy focus on artificial intelligence throughout the broadcast. While Michael half-heartedly promises to ease up on AI talk next week, Ben firmly pushes back, insisting they will never stop talking about it because it remains the single biggest macroeconomic and technological story of the decade.

[01:15:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4516s) Relentless News Flow and Sign-Off

Wrapping up the conversation, Michael Batnick expresses a weary wish for the overwhelming news cycle to ease up, admitting, "I just I would like for the news flow to slow down for a second." Ben Carlson offers no false comfort, pointing out the relentless momentum of events and quipping that it "can't stop, won't stop." Michael concedes that Ben is likely right before giving the show's contact information and signing off.

He catches himself while reading the address, correcting his stumble to confirm the inbox: "Animal Spirits pod. No. Animal spirits at the compoundnews.com." Michael reminds listeners that sending in their thoughts guarantees "personal emails, personal responses," before thanking everyone for tuning in and wrapping up until next week.

## Notable quotes > [13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=831s) Once you get your own agent and it starts knowing you and you have it locked into your inbox and your accounts and your apps and all this stuff... it creates more of a moat. — Ben Carlson

> [18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1114s) Nothing. The market does plenty of worrying for me. — Bill Miller

> [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) I don't care... guess what? I will add to my loser. — Ben Carlson

> [28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) adding to losers is a terrible strategy. — Michael Batnick

> [38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) You're literally making that up — Michael Batnick

> [42:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2545s) Hashtags were always for dweebs. — Michael Batnick

> [50:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3042s) I don't want my pilot making $60,000 a year. — Michael Batnick

> [55:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3325s) We're all post-economic, Ben. — Michael Batnick

> [01:01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3660s) I don't want new friends. But guess what? They don't want to be friends with me either. It's mutually we're all happy here. — Ben Carlson

> [01:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4044s) I was taking a stand. That was a new TV. Damn it... So I spite-kept it. — Michael Batnick

> [01:09:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4176s) He's not a good actor — Ben Carlson

> [01:15:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4516s) I just I would like for the news flow to slow down for a second. — Michael Batnick

## Mentioned Aaron Eckhart, Adam Brody, Adam Parker, Alphabet, Amazon, American Airlines, Anthropic, Apollo Global Management, Apple, Ben Carlson, Ben Kingsley, Ben Thompson, Best Buy, Bill Miller, Blink-182, Bob Iger, Callodine Capital Management, Charlie Gasparino, Charlie Munger, Cisco, Claude, Conor Sen, CoreWeave, Dario Amodei, Deep Water, Delta Air Lines, DraftKings, Fanatics, FanDuel, Federal Reserve, Financial Times, Friday the 13th (1980), Gary Harris, Goldman Sachs, Hazel, Jim Morrow, Josh Brown, Josh Kushner, Los Angeles Lakers, Major League Baseball (MLB), Mark Zuckerberg, Mason Plumley, Meta, Michael Batnick, Microsoft, Mike Zaccardi, New York Yankees, Nuveen, Nvidia, OpenAI, Oracle, Ritholtz Wealth Management, Rocky IV, Southwest Airlines, SpaceX, Steve Rattner, Steve Winwood, SwiftArc LLC, The Cut, The End of Oak Street, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Thrive Capital, Tim Hardaway Jr., Top Gun, Torsten Sløk, Travis Kelce, Trivariate Research, United Airlines, Warren Buffett

## Video description On episode 483 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the interconnected hyperscalers, AI's risk to the economy, the chart of the year, Nvidia's valuation, Meta's personal assistant, $186 trillion in household wealth, 10 year return projections, the case for owning bonds, why the Fed raised rates, Bitcoin's comeback, fixing the housing crisis is harder than it sounds, the best movie of the 1980s and more.

This episode is sponsored by Nuveen. Visit https://www.nuveen.com/positioning to learn more and to sign up for a custom portfolio analysis.

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[Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI)

中文简报

泡沫担忧升温之际科技巨头依靠现金流支撑万亿美元AI建设与互联网泡沫时期不同，预计达1万亿美元的AI基础设施扩张直接由企业现金流提供资金，并受到创纪录的186万亿美元美国家庭财富的缓冲与保护。 Michael Batnick 与 Ben Carlson 分析了大型科技公司规模达数万亿美元的AI资本支出循环网络是否犹如脆弱的纸牌屋，得出的结论是，庞大的企业现金流使其有别于历史上的投机泡沫。他们探讨了5%的债券收益率如何让传统的60/40投资组合焕发新生，并回顾了相关数据，解释为何从实证来看对处于亏损的个股进行补仓会降低投资者的长期回报。两位主持人还评估了阻碍住宅建设的结构性供应瓶颈、针对运动员的私募市场欺诈所凸显的流动性风险，以及职业体育俱乐部中激增的私募股权估值。围绕这些话题，他们强调普遍存在的投资者焦虑和充裕的现金水平继续为整体经济提供缓冲，以抵御最悲观的宏观预测。预计明年 Amazon、Meta、Microsoft 和 Alphabet 等超大规模企业的资本支出将达到1万亿美元，这主要由庞大的内部自由现金流支持，而非投机性散户股权资金。 (5:00) 第二季度美国家庭总净资产扩大至创纪录的186万亿美元，自2019年以来各个财富阶层均实现了至少60%的增长，且后50%人群在百分比基础上增长了一倍以上。 (19:59) OpenAI、Anthropic 和 SpaceX 的预计 IPO 估值超过5.2万亿美元，超过了1980年至2025年间所有大约4000宗科技类 IPO 经通胀调整后的市值总和。 (8:03) 随着10年期美国国债收益率在5%附近徘徊，截至8月固定收益基金吸收了超过6000亿美元的资金流入，使得60/40投资组合达到7%基准回报率所需的股票收益率降至仅8%。 (22:53)

Reading summary

Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick counter pervasive warnings that the AI boom is a fragile house of cards, arguing that record corporate cash flows, reasonable multiples, and broad-based household wealth provide durable support for the macro economy. AI Capex Flywheel Supported by Historic Balance Sheets (1:00) Critics such as Callodine Capital Management's Jim Morrow argue that the circular web of cross-investments and cloud partnerships across the $20 trillion to $25 trillion big-tech ecosystem resembles a fragile house of cards. Batnick and Carlson push back, pointing out that skepticism is already priced in, with Nvidia trading at roughly 16 times forward earnings—below its 10-year historical average and cheaper than the S&P 500 index multiple. Unlike the 1870s railroad mania or late-1990s dot-com bubble, which relied on speculative retail capital, the AI expansion is funded directly by mega-cap balance sheets. Projected capital expenditures across Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet are on track to reach $1 trillion next year, backed by consensus estimates from Torsten Sløk showing hyperscaler operating cash flow expanding from $600 billion in 2025 to over $2 trillion by 2030. Commoditization Risks and the Autonomous Agent Moat (9:44) Wall Street remains split on AI returns, captured by a Claude scenario exercise outlining paths from a $1 trillion revenue boom to sharp write-downs or model commoditization. Analyzing Ben Thompson's thesis in Stratechery, the hosts examine whether consumer loyalty will shift to personal autonomous agents—such as Meta's assistant handling flight compensation autonomously—turning underlying foundation models into interchangeable utilities. While Batnick questions whether third-party agent startups have lasting defensibility against incumbents, Carlson argues that integrating assistants into user schedules, inboxes, and accounts establishes meaningful switching costs. Furthermore, market reactions like Meta's 12% single-day surge demonstrate that investor interest is increasingly centering on operational utility and consumer integration rather than proprietary raw models. Macro Resiliency and the 5% Bond Renaissance (19:59) Underpinning broader economic strength is a substantial liquidity buffer, with U.S. household net worth reaching $186 trillion in the second quarter—up $26 trillion since late 2024 and nearly double the $109 trillion recorded at year-end 2019. Federal Reserve data indicates that this balance sheet expansion extends across all wealth brackets, with net worth for the bottom 50% more than doubling over that period. Simultaneously, 10-year Treasury yields near 5% have revived the mathematical viability of balanced asset allocations, spurring over $600 billion in bond inflows through August. In contrast to the zero-rate policy era—when 60/40 portfolios required 11% to 12% stock returns to achieve a 7% target—current yields allow an 8% equity return to clear the same threshold, giving institutional and individual investors room to de-risk equity exposure. Individual Stock Fragility and Housing Supply Bottlenecks (28:54) Despite macro resilience, Trivariate Research data highlights the difficulty of active stock picking: only 23% of top 500 U.S. equities outperform the S&P 500 over a 10-year holding window, and just 27.7% outperform over three years. This decay underscores how index returns are overwhelmingly driven by extreme outliers rather than broad single-stock buy-and-hold viability. Structural frictions also limit real economy solutions. While commentators urge massive construction to resolve the housing shortage, builder earnings from Lennar show that severe labor constraints—exacerbated by immigration enforcement and data center competition—mean rapid building programs would bid up wages and materials, triggering further cost inflation rather than immediate affordability. While tech giants possess unprecedented earnings to self-fund AI infrastructure, questions remain over whether frontier models will face swift commoditization and whether real-world labor and material bottlenecks will constrain broader economic output.

精炼阅读摘要

在播客《Animal Spirits》第483期中，主持人Ben Carlson与Michael Batnick指出，尽管市场担忧科技巨头交叉投资构成的AI生态可能沦为脆弱的“纸牌屋”，但当前繁荣由史上最充裕的企业自由现金流与186万亿美元的美国居民财富缓冲所支撑；伴随美债收益率重回5%，资产配置正迎来由内生动力与股债均衡驱动的结构性修复。 AI资本开支与估值：现金流支撑反驳“纸牌屋” (1:00) 《金融时报》发布的交互图谱显示，Anthropic、OpenAI、微软、亚马逊及英伟达等巨头之间形成了高达20万亿至25万亿美元市值的复杂交叉投资与算力采购网络。针对Callodine Capital首席执行官Jim Morrow关于“AI纸牌屋可能引发系统性崩溃”的警告，Michael与Ben反驳称市场对这一风险已有充分预期。英伟达当前预期市盈率约为16倍，不仅低于标普500指数整体水平，也低于其过去十年的历史中位数，显示资产价格并未陷入盲目狂热。在资金来源上，Ben强调当前AI浪潮与19世纪铁路泡沫及1990年代末互联网泡沫存在本质区别：昔日投机狂热由散户追逐无利润IPO或欺诈项目推动，而如今亚马逊、Meta、微软和Alphabet预计明年达1万亿美元的资本开支，完全由其庞大的自由现金流和机构债务支撑。Apollo首席经济学家Torsten Sløk预测，超大规模云服务商的营运现金流将从2025年的6000亿美元激增至2030年的逾2万亿美元；同时Steve Rattner图表显示，OpenAI、Anthropic与SpaceX预期的IPO总估值超5.2万亿美元，已超越1980年至2025年间约4000家科技IPO的总和。商业化与护城河：大模型商品化与Agent竞争 (9:44) Ben通过大模型Claude推演了AI发展的三种宏观路径：一是年收入达万亿美元的“金发女孩”超预期盈利场景；二是技术高度可用但迅速沦为公共基础设施的“商品化”场景；三是增长不及预期引发巨额资产减记的熊市场景。主持人认为，开源模型的快速迭代正对闭源前沿实验室构成生存威胁，行业内部分呼吁暂缓研发的声音本质上是对开源缩小性能差距的恐慌。围绕Meta推出自主AI代理（Agent）引发的股价单日暴涨12%，分析师Ben Thompson在《Stratechery》中提出核心警告：若消费者忠诚度转移至深度嵌入日历、邮件与账户的操作层Agent，底层大语言模型将沦为可随时替换的消耗品。尽管Michael质疑初创软件Agent缺乏持久护城河、极易被现有平台迭代抹杀，Ben则指出深度的个人数据整合与账户绑定将带来极高的用户迁移摩擦成本，犹如换牙医般复杂，从而构成新型护城河。宏观资产负债表：186万亿美元财富与劳动力分歧 (19:59) 美联储与《华尔街日报》数据显示，截至第二季度，全美家庭净资产升至186万亿美元的历史高位，较2024年第四季度激增26万亿美元，较2019年底的109万亿美元近乎翻倍。Ben强调，数据证伪了“仅富人受益”的K型经济叙事：从顶层1%到后50%的各个阶层，净资产增幅均超过60%，其中后50%群体的净资产在低基数下实现翻番。这种广泛的私人部门资产缓冲，解释了为何美国经济能承受美联储激进加息而未陷入衰退。在劳动力市场方面，初次申请失业救济人数同比下降约10%，持续申请人数稳步回落，有力反驳了AI在短期内大规模消灭白领岗位的末日论。尽管西海岸科技界预期AI将推动GDP实现4%至6%的超高速增长，但东海岸宏观视角更倾向于年均2.0%至2.5%的稳步提升。Ben认为AI将如同互联网普及一样带来切实的效率提升，但不会颠覆整体经济总量的增长中枢；随着全球资本持续配置美股，传统衡量市值与GDP比值的“巴菲特指标”正在失去原有的预警有效性。 5%利率时代与投资组合：60/40策略的数学重构 (22:53) 伴随10年期美债收益率维持在5%附近，前8个月已有超过6000亿美元涌入固定收益市场。Ben与Michael指出，零利率时代（ZIRP）迫使投资者为了追求7%的组合年化目标，不得不将股票风险敞口推高至80/20甚至90/10，因为当时1%至2%的债券收益率要求股票端产生11%至12%的回报。而在5%收益率环境下，传统的60/40组合仅需股票实现8%的年化复合回报即可达标，促使投资者得以理性去风险。与此同时，Adam Parker（Trivariate Research）关于“买入并持有失效”的研究表明，个股跑赢标普500指数的概率随持有时间延长而显著衰减：3年持有期仅有27.7%的个股跑赢指数，10年期更是下降至23%。在技术加速迭代与少数科技巨头垄断指数涨幅的环境下，盲目长线持有单个标的面临巨大风险。Michael引用传奇基金经理Bill Miller的名言“市场已经替我操了足够的碎心”，指出焦虑情绪早已反映在资产折价中，投资者无需对已被充分探讨的风险过度恐慌。总体而言，节目认为当前市场并非建立在毫无根据的空中楼阁之上，科技巨头的强劲现金流、家庭资产负债表与重回5%的无风险收益率共同筑牢了经济底线。然而，前沿大模型的商品化压力、实际全要素生产率能否突破传统GDP框架，以及数据中心建设对建筑劳动力与能源供应的物理挤压，仍是AI资本开支周期未来能否平稳兑现投资回报的悬而未决之谜。

Detailed notes — zh

## Background 本期视频由 YouTube 频道的 The Compound（Ritholtz Wealth Management 旗下媒体）于 2026 年 9 月 23 日发布。根据官方简介，主持 Michael Batnick 与 Ben Carlson 在第 483 期《Animal Spirits》中重点探讨了科技巨头互联互利的资本闭环、AI 对宏观经济的潜在风险、英伟达估值、186 万亿美元美国家庭财富、债券配置逻辑、房产危机困境以及 80 年代经典影视等多元话题。 ## TL;DR 节目围绕当前科技与宏观市场的核心焦点展开深度推演：首先剖析了超大规模企业（Hyperscalers）在 AI 基础设施上万亿美元的资本开支，反驳了市场关于“AI 是脆弱纸牌屋”的单一悲观叙事，并指出英伟达等核心资产已在估值端对风险充分折价。随后，两位主持人讨论了美国家庭财富激增至 186 万亿美元对消费的强劲托举，以及 10 年期美债收益率重回 5% 对传统 60/40 股债组合的疗愈作用；同时通过买入持有胜率数据、比特币反弹和住房建设的通胀悖论，揭示了经济与投资层面的结构性撕裂。节目后半段还延伸探讨了私募非流动性欺诈、飞行员超高养老金待遇，并穿插了中年家庭生活琐事与经典影视的轻松杂谈。 ## Atmosphere & style 整场播客充满了典型的美式财经对谈氛围，语调幽默风趣、节奏明快，兼具严谨的宏观量化推演与极接地气的中年老友闲聊。Michael 与 Ben 之间的互动默契十足，常常在严肃讨论资本开支、市盈率与债券收益率的同时，冷不丁抛出看牙医阴影、输液奇遇、甚至儿子踢碎全新 80 寸电视的爆笑家庭轶事。听众既能从两人针锋相对的心算与逻辑交锋中获得硬核的投资启发，又能在充满市井烟火气的调侃中感受到一种真实、松弛且温暖的陪伴感。 ## Bulletin - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) 四大超大规模科技巨头（亚马逊、Meta、微软、Alphabet）明年资本开支预计冲上1万亿美元，与过去12个月自由现金流相当；但与以往由散户接盘的泡沫不同，本轮AI基建完全由企业巨额内生现金流供养。 - [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1200s) 美国家庭净资产总额飙升至186万亿美元的历史新高，较2019年底接近翻倍，且底层50%人群净资产增幅翻倍领跑全美，巨额流动性筑成了美国经济抵御加息周期的坚实护城河。 - [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) 10年期美债收益率重返5%使60/40股债组合重获新生，股票端仅需8%年化收益即可兑现7%的组合年化目标，缓解了此前市场被迫重仓80/20或90/10的高风险配置焦虑。 - [45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) 美国住房短缺面临供给侧悖论：移民执法收紧造成劳动力匮乏，加上AI数据中心建设高薪抢夺施工资源，激进强建数百万套住房非但无法压低房价，反而极易引爆建筑成本的二次通胀。 ## Key takeaways - [01:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=85s) 科技巨头与前沿AI实验室形成了总市值超20万亿美元的高度互联生态，虽然被唱衰为“纸牌屋”，但史上最庞大的自由现金流储备赋予了其极高的抗风险与强推能力。 - [03:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=191s) 英伟达前向市盈率已被压缩至约16倍并低于标普500大盘，表明市场早已对AI投资回报放缓的潜在风险进行了深度折价与戒备，而非盲目泡沫狂欢。 - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) 与19世纪铁路狂热及2000年互联网泡沫不同，本轮科技基建几乎全由巨头自身内生现金流支付，公众投资者并未直接暴露在第一线信用违约悬崖上。 - [11:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=665s) 个人AI Agent进入落地爆发期，当助手深度接管邮箱与日常偏好后可能形成类似“换牙医”的高昂转移阻力，但底层模型商品化也在加剧巨头间的护城河争夺。 - [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1200s) 美国家庭财富从本年代初的109万亿美元增至186万亿美元，全民普遍受惠与财富增量解释了美联储激进收紧政策下美国消费表现依然极其强韧的谜底。 - [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) 债券收益率重回5%使经典60/40资产配置策略痊愈，投资者无需再承担组合股票端必须跑出12%年化的极端压力即可达成稳健回报目标。 - [28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) 买入持有神话在个股维度遭遇破灭：美股样本中持有单只股票10年跑赢标普500的比例仅有23%，科技迭代加速让选股长期战胜指数变得极其罕见。 - [35:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2127s) 通胀结构呈现深层撕裂：剔除能源的核心CPI已贴近2.5%的政策目标，整体物价反弹很大程度受地缘能源波动与巨头AI债务融资推动，加息反而加重了普通家庭负担。 - [38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) 硅谷期待AI创造4%至6%的乌托邦式GDP爆发，而东海岸宏观分析预期未来三年实际增速仍在2.1%左右，技术生产力红利并不等于整体宏观增速能轻易成倍翻番。 - [44:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2662s) 比特币现货ETF经历约33%的回撤后在数周内强劲反弹抹平跌幅，再度印证其无需外部政策催化、凭借自身价格动能与科技流动性共振的“送葬者”式复活叙事。 - [45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) 单靠政策松绑难以迅速根治全美住房危机，劳工短缺与AI数据中心疯狂分流建筑工程资源，短期内强行大兴土木极易导致建筑成本螺旋暴涨。 - [48:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2931s) 体育明星频繁陷入风险投资庞氏骗局，暴露出私募与非流动性资产往往顶着“另类”光环暗箱操作，并利用流动性缺乏作为拒绝兑付和掩饰亏损的保护伞。 - [55:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3325s) 湖人队等顶级职业体育IP估值被喊至300亿甚至600亿美元，折射出顶级资产已彻底脱离财务基本面，转变为富豪阶层争夺身份象征的“稀缺奖杯资产”。 - [01:06:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3975s) 财富管理行业的AI应用在半年内迅速从概念炒作与初创碎片收敛为主流大模型平台的深度整合，行业焦点转向对专业投顾的效率赋能而非直接替代。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4s) 赞助商信息与开场：秋季穿搭与巨大的话题储备节目开场照例播送赞助商 Nuveen 的年底资产配置与投顾服务，提醒投资者在规划资产组合时注重去中心化配置、税收亏损收割（tax-loss harvesting）以及市政债券等免税收益策略。随后镜头切入正题，Ben Carlson 兴奋地向搭档 Michael Batnick 打招呼，直言本周准备了一份内容极其扎实的选题文档。看到 Michael 的打扮，Ben 忍不住打趣他今天穿得非常有《GQ》时尚男士的风范。 Michael 笑着回应，现在正值一年中最好的季节——“飞行员夹克季（bomber jacket season）”。在密歇根州，一年里大概只有九月和四月这两个月适合穿这种夹克，因此必须把握机会好好展示。在轻松的寒暄与笑声中，两人迅速切入今天最核心、也是他们认为“属于我们这辈子最大的一宗故事”：人工智能（AI）与宏观市场。 --- ### [01:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=85s) 互相绑定的巨头：是「摇摇欲坠的纸牌屋」还是不可阻挡的飞轮？话题从英国《金融时报》（Financial Times）最新上线的一个交互式网络可视化工具切入。该工具清晰展示了当今超大规模企业（Hyperscalers）之间高度错综复杂的共生网络：用户只要点击其中一家公司，就能看到它与 Anthropic、OpenAI、Alphabet、亚马逊（Amazon）、Meta、微软（Microsoft）、甲骨文（Oracle）、SpaceX、英伟达（Nvidia）以及 CoreWeave 等参与方之间千丝万缕的联系。这一群科技龙头的总市值合计高达 22 万亿至 25 万亿美元，构成了当今股市的绝对支柱。很多唱衰者认为这完全是一座“摇摇欲坠的纸牌屋（house of cards）”：甲公司投资乙公司，乙公司向丙公司租用算力，丙公司回头采购甲公司的云服务，大家的自由现金流和账面利润在这套互为客户、互相注资的飞轮里层层自嗨；一旦整个飞轮出现减速或逆转，整座大厦就会瞬间倾覆。然而，Ben 从另一个截然相反的角度提出了质疑：既然这批玩家是全人类商业史上规模最庞大、资本最雄厚的超级企业，大家共同大举押注，难道不反而意味着极高的确定性吗？它们拥有 20 多万亿美元的底气，完全有实力顶住一切外部质疑与短期波动强行向前推进。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: AI 超大规模企业资金与业务闭环示意图 accDescr: 展示科技巨头、芯片供应商与 AI 初创公司之间资本注入、算力采购与云服务回流的闭环飞轮关系。 subgraph Hyperscalers["科技巨头与云厂商 (MSFT / GOOGL / AMZN / META)"] A["充裕自由现金流 & 债务融资"] B["云基础设施与算力租赁"] end subgraph Hardware["核心硬件与新兴云"] C["英伟达 (Nvidia) GPU 芯片"] D["新一代云服务商 (如 CoreWeave)"] end subgraph Labs["前沿 AI 实验室"] E["大模型初创企业 (OpenAI / Anthropic 等)"] end A -->|"资本开支 (CapEx)"| C A -->|"战略投资 / 联合注资"| E E -->|"回购算力与云服务"| B C -->|"硬件供给"| D D -->|"算力部署与债务支持"| B ``` --- ### [03:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=191s) 市场早已知晓的风险：英伟达的前向市盈率竟只有 16 倍彭博社（Bloomberg）在周末刊发了一篇题为《AI 摇摇欲坠的纸牌屋让市场与美国经济面临风险》的长篇深度报道，援引波士顿投资机构 Kaledine Capital Management 首席执行官 Jim Morrow 的警告称：“人们或许还没有完全意识到，整个市场和经济在这场博弈中被绑架得有多深；一旦链条开始松动，有太多的环节会一同分崩离析。” Michael 对这种“世人皆醉我独醒”的论调非常不以为然，直截了当地反驳：“恕我直言，大家都懂，这简直是所有人每天唯一在讨论的话题。”正因为市场对所谓纸牌屋的担忧已经达到了顶峰，所谓的“AI 交易核心”英伟达（Nvidia）的前向市盈率（Forward P/E）目前已经被压缩到了大约 16 倍，甚至低于标普 500 指数大盘的整体前向估值倍数。Michael 甚至半开玩笑地吐槽起“第一性原理（first principles）”这种被科技圈滥用的自鸣得意的高级词汇，但他强调现实数据不容忽视：在 AI 热潮的最核心标的身上，市场给出的估值不仅没有狂热泡沫，反而充斥着深深的怀疑与防备。 - **市场共识的反差**：主流财经媒体警告全市场深陷 AI 风险，但投资端实际上早已在股价估值中对潜在滑坡进行了大幅折价。 - **英伟达估值奇观**：英伟达当前的前向市盈率已跌至本年代以来的最低区间，大盘整体估值反而比英伟达更加昂贵。 --- ### [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) 历史泡沫重演？铁路狂热、互联网泡沫与当下的自由现金流很多人习惯于将如今的 AI 热潮与 19 世纪的铁路建设狂潮以及 2000 年前后的互联网泡沫（Dot-com bubble）相提并论。Ben 指出，自己在为撰写专著做深度历史调研时发现，两者的融资结构有着本质区别：1873 年前后的美国铁路建设完全是由普通公众掏出真金白银买单的，政府几乎没有直接出资，伴随海量财务造假和破产，散户投资者最终输得血本无归；互联网泡沫时期成批上市的 dot-com 公司也是通过 IPO 由公众投资者接盘供养。相比之下，如今这轮 AI 革命的先期投资，几乎完全是由当今科技巨头日常业务产生的海量自由现金流在输血，如今才刚刚开始辅以部分低成本的企业发债融资，普通公众并没有直接成为站在悬崖边接盘的最终风险承担者。随后，两人聚焦于彭博报道中那张“足以融化面孔（face melting）”的“年度图表”：亚马逊、Meta、微软和 Alphabet 四家巨头明年的资本开支（CapEx）预计将达到惊人的 1 万亿美元，图表将其与它们过去 12 个月的滚动自由现金流进行叠加对比。这些昔日以轻资产（asset-light）、源源不断向外吐现金著称的伟大企业，如今正集体转向重资产（asset-heavy）模式，其在标普指数中占据约 40% 的权重。这一巨大的开支转向曾被认为是给牛市踩下紧急刹车的诱因，导致“美股七巨头（Mag 7）”在上半年一度陷入横盘停滞。然而，随着市场消化这一事实，加之半导体股票再次猛烈拉升，原本以为会刺破泡沫的“算力投资放缓传闻”不仅没有掀翻市场，整个大盘反而在质疑声中继续顽强上行。 --- ### [07:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=425s) 万亿现金流预期与超级 IPO：科技巨头的统治力今非昔比究竟怎样才能终结这轮行情？Ben 坦言，回溯历次资产泡沫（包括日本泡沫经济破裂），最终往往只能靠央行持续激进加息来强行刺破。但从基本面看，科技巨头的弹药库远未枯竭。阿波罗全球管理（Apollo）首席经济学家 Torsten Sløk 的一致预期数据显示，这批超大规模企业的经营性现金流预计将从 2025 年的 6000 亿美元大幅跃升至 2030 年的 2 万亿美元；这意味着庞大的资本支出并非永无止境的黑洞，其回报周期的现金回流正在加速显现。此外，资深投资家 Steve Rattner 制作的一张图表更展现了这股科技巨浪的恐怖体量：OpenAI、Anthropic 以及 SpaceX 三家公司的预期 IPO 市值总和预计将达到 5.2 万亿美元。虽然未经通胀调整，但这三家公司的体量已经彻底碾压了 1980 年至 2025 年间上市的全部近 4000 家科技公司 IPO 的总和。 Ben 和 Michael 总结道，现在的市场参与者依然低估了这批科技帝国的实际权力和渗透深度。当年互联网泡沫时代的领头羊思科（Cisco）虽然也是一家硬核实体企业，但其在现实生活中的话语权和对人类日常生活的全面掌控力，根本无法与今天的苹果、谷歌或微软相提并论。正因如此，Ben 自己在用 Claude 处理日常数据和构想华尔街基准推演时，依然常常为大语言模型背后所代表的深层生产力颠覆感到惊叹与难以适应。 - **经营现金流暴增**：机构预估科技巨头的年度运营现金流将在未来五年内从 6000 亿美元增至 2 万亿美元。 - **超级 IPO 碾压历史**：OpenAI、Anthropic 和 SpaceX 三巨头的合计预期上市估值（5.2 万亿美元）超过过去 45 年近 4000 家科技 IPO 的总规模。 - **划时代的巨头壁垒**：当今巨头的现金创造力与社会基础设施属性，已远非当年泡沫时期的思科等龙头所能比拟。 ### [09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=584s) AI 发展的三种宏观剧本与市场分化 Ben Carlson 提到了自己向 Claude 询问 AI 终局的三种推演路径。第一种是所谓的“金发姑娘”（Goldilocks）完美情景：AI 产生数万亿美元的营收，投资回报率（ROI）惊人，当前的科技牛市完全合理；第二种是技术确实起效，但迅速被“商品化”（commoditized），整体经济享受了红利，但重金投入的基础设施无法获得丰厚回报；第三种则是增长不及预期，最终引发大规模的资产减记（write-downs）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: AI 发展的三个可能场景 accDescr: 展示了 Claude 提出的三种 AI 发展未来走向及其对市场的影响。 subgraph Scenarios["AI 终局三种推演"] S1["场景一：金发姑娘 (Goldilocks) 数万亿营收 / 巨大 ROI / 牛市合理"] S2["场景二：技术商品化 (Commoditization) 经济全面受益 / 资本回报被摊薄"] S3["场景三：增长落空 (Write-downs) 无法兑现预期 / 大规模资产减记"] end S1 --> M1["超大规模科技巨头暴赚"] S2 --> M2["整体经济与中小企业获益 Mag 7 相对跑输"] S3 --> M3["科技估值崩塌与泡沫破裂"] ``` Michael Batnick 接着提出疑问：如果是第二种技术商品化的情景，是否意味着除“美股七巨头”（Mag 7）之外的其他股票会跑赢，而科技巨头本身反而会滞胀？Ben 认为其中的变量太多，无法轻易下定论。但上周整个科技圈都在呼吁“放慢脚步”，共识很快就演变成一种嘲讽——所谓的放慢节奏不过是胡扯，纯粹是前沿闭源模型（frontier models）害怕开源生态追赶上来的托词。 - **场景一（金发姑娘）**：营收达到万亿美元级别，资本开支取得超高 ROI，推高牛市。 - **场景二（商品化）**：技术普及但沦为公共品，经济受益，高额资本开支难以收回。 - **场景三（下行破裂）**：增长不及预期，产生坏账与巨额资产计提减记。 --- ### [11:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=665s) Meta 暴涨与 AI 个人代理的“魔法体验” 谈及开源与产品化，Michael 指出 Meta 股价单日暴涨近 12%，在长达数年的 AI 浪潮中，一家市值 2 万亿美元的巨头依然能因为 AI 的产品发布出现如此大幅度的单日波动，令人感到疯狂。Ben 指出这恰恰说明了目前阶段的极早期性质——可能的结果范围足足有“10 英里宽”。随后他们讨论了 Meta 最新推出的 Muse 智能代理（Agent）以及类似产品给个人生活带来的颠覆。推特上一位用户的真实案例展示了 Agent 的威力：该用户的航班延误了整整 7 个小时，他直接让 Muse 去处理索赔；仅仅 5 分钟后，250 美元的达美航空（Delta）代金券就打入了账户，Muse 还顺带找到了新航班完成改签，甚至自己起草并回复了客服邮件。Ben 体验后感慨这就像当年互联网刚出现时人们不敢刷信用卡一样，AI 智能代理接管日历、邮件和购物也让普通人感到心悸，但那种自动完成任务的体验确实如同“魔法”。 Michael 也分享了自己使用 Instinct（另一款 AI 个人助理）的经历：当天早晨助理扫描收件箱后自动发来短信，提醒他儿子的第二场选拔赛改到了下午 6 点，并特别注明要穿第一场的那件双面球衣（reversible jersey），甚至询问是否直接同步至日历。Michael 兴奋地给妻子 Robin 展示并建议她下载，结果 Robin 的朋友在电话里当场表示抗拒，这让他联想到新技术普及初期人们对在线支付的排斥态度。 - **Meta 单日股价涨幅**：接近 12%，反映市场在极宽的结果区间中不断重定价。 - **达美航空延误案例**：5 分钟内自动拿下 250 美元代金券并完成重新订票与客服沟通。 - **自动化生活助理日常**：自动抓取邮件中的球赛时间、场地及着装要求，一键更新日历。 --- ### [13:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=792s) AI 体验疲劳与智能代理的竞争护城河 Michael 开玩笑说，AI 如今已经变成了他的“个人梦幻橄榄球”（fantasy football）——制作人 Chris 和自己一样总是对 AI 的微小进展激动不已，恨不得把每一个细节都讲给周围人听，以至于他不得不和 Chris 定下协议：“如果你不再跟我念叨你的 AI 玩法，我也保证不跟你烦我搞了什么。这就像没人想听你的赌球或梦幻选秀阵容一样，你自己玩得开心就好。” ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 个人 AI Agent 的护城河争论 accDescr: 对比了 Ben Thompson 的高粘性护城河观点与 Michael 的低转换成本观点。 subgraph Thompson["Ben Thompson 观点：深护城河"] T1["接管收件箱 / 深度绑定账户"] --> T2["沉淀个人习惯与偏好"] T2 --> T3["转移阻力巨大 (类似换牙医)"] end subgraph Batnick["Michael 观点：浅护城河"] B1["各家底层模型差距不大"] --> B2["提示词与接口极易迁移"] B2 --> B3["转换成本几乎为零"] end ``` 随后他们讨论了 Ben Thompson 在 Stratechery 上的观点。Ben Thompson 认为 Meta 推出 Muse 对 OpenAI 和 Anthropic 等前沿实验室来说是一个偏空的信号（bear signal）：底层大语言模型（LLM）很难让用户产生真正的依赖，但一旦一个平易近人的个人 Agent 渗透进用户的收件箱、熟悉日常习惯并掌管各软件权限，就会形成真正的壁垒；前沿实验室必须尽快做出带有护城河的产品。 Michael 则对这一判断持保留态度，他认为从一个 Agent 切换到另一个产品的转换成本（switching costs）微乎其微。Ben 却反驳道，当一个 Agent 彻底绑定了你的达美账户和个人偏好后，用户的迁移阻力会像“换牙医”一样麻烦，谁也不想平白无故折腾迁移流程。 --- ### [15:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=947s) 牙医阴影与 Future Proof 大会上的“静脉注射”奇遇 “换牙医”的比喻瞬间引爆了 Michael 的童年与心理阴影。Michael 坦白自己的父亲曾是一名牙周病医生（periodontist），但他自己却是一个极其差劲的牙科患者。尽管他每天用牙线剔牙数次，但因为牙龈异常敏感，他极度抗拒看牙医，甚至已经有整整两年没去洗过牙，光是聊到这个话题就让他开始冒汗。Ben 随之回忆起自己职业生涯的前三年在一家小微公司工作，既没有医疗、牙科保险也没有退休金，三年没洗牙的结果是换工作后的第一次洗牙体验惨痛至极。为了跳出让人不适的看牙话题，两人聊到了在 Future Proof 展会现场的奇遇。当时展会设立了一个提供提升精力与缓解疼痛的静脉输液（IV）展位，害怕打针的 Michael 在扎针时吓得把头偏向一侧完全不敢直视。 Ben 谈到自己对布洛芬（Ibuprofen）、泰诺（Tylenol）甚至感冒药这类轻度药物一向免疫，几乎感知不到任何改善；Michael 也自嘲自己戒掉大麻后生活并没有感到多大差别，自认对药物反应迟钝。然而，在海滩暴晒、连续饮酒加高强度社交站立整整一天后，两人抱着试一试的心态接受了维生素 B12（B12 shot）静脉注射。医护人员让他们等一个小时看效果，结果整整一小时后，两人出乎意料地感到全身精力充沛、彻底回血，不得不承认这次注射确实创造了奇迹。 ### [18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1114s) 告别 AI 话题：比尔·米勒的“市场会替我担忧”哲学在热烈讨论了近一刻钟的人工智能之后，迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）与本·卡尔森（Ben Carlson）终于决定换个话题。卡尔森总结道，如果这些科技巨头的体量已经庞大到那些所谓的“纸牌屋崩塌”的担忧根本不会发生呢？巴特尼克赞同地指出，现实中大多数的担忧最终都不会成真。他回忆起著名价值投资人比尔·米勒（Bill Miller）曾经的经典回答——当米勒被问及“股市里有什么让你担忧的事情”时，他淡然回答道：“毫无担忧，因为市场已经替我操够了心（The market does plenty of worrying for me）。” 巴特尼克认为这是一种绝佳的投资心态：无论是英伟达（Nvidia）16 倍的远期市盈率，还是投资者心中其他的疑虑，市场早已把各种担忧提前贴现进股价当中，无论这种贴现是反应不足还是过度反应。话题一转，两人幽默地打趣起现实生活中的真正压力：巴特尼克的儿子竟然要为一个体育项目参加第二轮选拔试训（tryout），卡尔森调侃说把小孩子逼到要经历两次试训才叫不可思议，巴特尼克也大吐苦水称这简直是“疯狂小镇（crazy town）”。 ### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1200s) 186 万亿美元的家庭财富：经济为何打不垮？两人随后切入近期节目的核心母题：金融体系中到底沉淀了多少流动性？根据《华尔街日报》（Wall Street Journal）的最新报道，今年第二季度美国家庭总净资产已经飙升至 186 万亿美元，仅比 2024 年第四季度就激增了 26 万亿美元。面对这个天文数字，巴特尼克不禁感叹：“如果把这些钞票叠起来，够我们往返月球多少趟了？” 卡尔森透露，他让团队的数据分析师翻查了美联储的历史数据：在 2019 年底（即 2020 年代初），美国家庭总净资产仅为 109 万亿美元，这意味着本年代至今净资产几乎翻了一番。更关键的是各阶层的财富增长结构： - **全民普涨**：美联储划分的前 1%、剩余的前 1%、接下来的 9%、接下来的 40% 以及底层 50% 这五个群体，在本年代净资产均实现了至少 60% 的增幅。 - **底层增幅最高**：从相对增长率来看，底层 50% 人口的净资产甚至翻了一倍以上（尽管其基数较低）。这反驳了单纯“富者愈富”的叙事。 - **加息失效的谜底**：美国经济之所以能在美联储连续加息下依然高歌猛进，根本原因在于每个人的钱包里都比过去多了太多钱。巴特尼克分享了一张年度累计资金流向图，展示了每年 1 月至 12 月的资金走势。投机氛围极其浓厚的 2021 年与 2026 年相比，就如同“服用类固醇之前的贝瑞·邦兹（Barry Bonds）”一样相形见绌——资金曲线的斜率完全不在一个量级。每年退税季也会呈现先跌后升的资金脉冲。巴特尼克提醒道，资产价格不是永久的高原，熊市中蒸发 30% 并不罕见，但当下体系内流动性对经济的托举作用确实不可思议。 ### [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) 债券收益率重回 5%：60/40 组合的重获新生面对庞大的流动性，投资者的行为也出现了理性回归。截至 8 月，流入债券市场的资金刷新了历史纪录，超过 6000 亿美元涌入固定收益类资产。这引发了两人关于投资策略的激烈争论。巴特尼克认为股票投资中不断“给输家加仓（add to losers）”是一剂毒药，卡尔森则半开玩笑地反驳这难道不是沃伦·巴菲特（Warren Buffett）式的低吸策略。巴特尼克坚决澄清：买入估值回调的优质股票与机械性地对亏损头寸越跌越买（average down）有着本质区别。然而，在债券市场，当 10 年期美债收益率来到 5% 时，逻辑彻底变了。巴特尼克在两周前买入了债券，而卡尔森也在上周买入——这是卡尔森职业生涯中除了给孩子设立的 529 教育储蓄计划中的目标日期基金外，第一次在个人账户中直接购买债券。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 60/40 投资组合在不同收益率环境下的回报目标拆解 accDescr: 对比低利率时期与 5% 债券收益率环境下，实现 7% 目标收益所需的不同资产配置和股票预期回报。 subgraph LowYield["2020 年代初期：低利率时代 (债券 1-2%)"] A1["债券收益仅 1% - 2%"] --> B1["股票端必须承担巨大压力"] B1 --> C1["股票年化需达 11% - 12% 才能实现组合 7% 目标"] C1 --> D1["被迫激进化：投资者转向 80/20 或 90/10 激进配置"] end subgraph HighYield["当前环境：5% 债券时代"] A2["债券锁定 5% 稳健收益"] --> B2["股票端承压大幅缓解"] B2 --> C2["股票年化只需达到 8% 即可轻松达到 7% 组合目标"] C2 --> D2["投资组合疗愈：资金从 80/20 重新平衡回稳健的 60/40"] end ``` 根据高盛（Goldman Sachs）的数据，美股相对于债券经历了接近历史极值的超额收益期，其滚动的 10 年期收益差距可与 20 世纪 50、60 年代媲美。这导致投资者因资产自然漂移、对股票过去年化 14% 的盲目自信以及 2022 年股债双杀的“创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）”，极度低配债券。卡尔森指出，正如他们团队分析师肖恩（Sean）所测算： - 在 2020 年代初收益率低迷时，一个 60/40 的股债组合若想达到 7% 的目标回报，股票部分必须跑出 11% 到 12% 的年化表现，这倒逼许多人激进地把仓位提升到 80/20 甚至 90/10。不可思议的是，美股过去几年确实奇迹般地交付了这样的惊人回报。 - 如今，在债券提供 5% 收益的前提下，股票年化只需达到 8% 就能实现 7% 的组合目标。卡尔森欣慰地感叹：“世界正在自愈，或者说已经痊愈了（The world is healing or has healed）。” ### [27:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1655s) 高盛十年展望与体育博彩的转换成本节目的最后，两人讨论了分析师迈克·扎卡迪（Mike Zaccardi）分享的高盛关于未来十年的情景预测模型。在过去 15 年里，华尔街关于未来回报的预测普遍充斥着悲观论调，但高盛此次给出了多种宏观推演：包括滞胀（stagflation）、停滞（stagnation）、金发女孩经济（Goldilocks），以及最乐观的“金发女孩经济叠加 AI 繁荣不熄（Goldilocks + continued AI boom）”。在高盛的最优情景下，若宏观经济平稳强劲且 AI 投资热潮持续爆发，标普 500 指数在未来十年有望录得每年高达 14% 的年化回报率。巴特尼克指出，如果这个情景兑现，那将造就人类历史上“有史以来最伟大的牛市”。卡尔森随即询问巴特尼克：“作为一个喜欢在 FanDuel 和 DraftKings 上下注的人，你觉得这种可能性的赔率该怎么开？”面对这个宏大设想，巴特尼克并没有立即给出数字，而是出人意料地拐到了用户体验与切换成本的话题上——他直言在 DraftKings、Fanatics 或预测市场网站之间转移下注是何等容易，拉开了关于数字平台与博彩行为探讨的序幕。 ### [28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) 惯性偏好与买入持有神话的破灭：个股跑赢大盘到底有多难？谈话从博彩平台 FanDuel 的用户粘性聊起。迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）坦言，自己从一开始就在使用 FanDuel，上面记录了他所有的历史战绩，这就像是自己的“记分卡”，哪怕其他平台有优惠他也不会换，这本质上就是一种由数据积累形成的强大使用惯性，正如本·卡尔森（Ben Carlson）打趣说的“就像你从不换牙医一样”（而迈克尔则反驳自己根本不看牙医）。这种对未来概率的难以捉摸迅速延伸到了宏观与市场预测上：面对未来十年的走势，迈克尔给出 11% 的概率，而本原本想猜 10%。本调侃道，这就好比“人类有 10% 的概率被机器人彻底消灭，也有 10% 的概率迎来有史以来最伟大的超级大牛市”。随即迈克尔严肃地强调，在投资中有些事情是确凿无疑的规律，绝非主观意见。他早前曾断言“给亏损头寸补仓（加仓亏损股）是极度糟糕的策略”，这拥有无可辩驳的量化实证数据支持。接着他提到了 Trivariate Research 创始人亚当·帕克（Adam Parker）近期发表的一篇题为《买入持有不再奏效》（*Buy and Hold Doesn't Work*）的深度报告。该报告分析了在过去 3 年和 10 年周期内能够跑赢标普 500 指数的个股比例，其曲线呈现出一路向下倾斜的惨烈走势，不仅是标普成分股，罗素 2000（Russell 2000）同样如此。数据揭示了一个残酷的真相：挑选一只能够跑赢指数的单只股票，胜率最高的反而是“持有 1 年”这样的极短周期。因为在短期内，超跌的个股可能因市场错位而出现强劲均值回归反弹，即便拉长到 10 年来看它仍然是一只彻底的垃圾股。而一旦进入 10 年的长期维度，任何人都毫无预见性可言。本·卡尔森对此分析道，在上世纪三四十年代或五十年代，投资人挑选个股靠吃股息并长期持有或许相对容易，但在科技与商业模式迭代极其迅速的现代，做个股买入持有的长期主义者变得异常艰难甚至近乎不可能。那些看似推翻这一理论的英伟达（Nvidia）和苹果（Apple），本质上只是极少数的极端幸存者偏差。 - **10 年期胜率极低**：在最新一期样本统计中，美股排名前 500 的大盘股在被持有 10 年后，跑赢指数的比例仅为 23%。 - **3 年期胜率同样惨淡**：个股持有 3 年的跑赢基准胜率仅为 27.7%。 - **中小盘股无一幸免**：排名前 2,000 的股票池也呈现出完全相同的规律，粉碎了“中小盘分散投资能避开巨头集中度风险”的幻想。 - **主动投资管理困局**：指数成分股中绝大多数跑输大盘，正是主动型基金经理极难击败指数的深层原因；要想创造超额收益，主动交易与换手频率反而被迫提高。 --- ### [32:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1928s) 深夜出租车的真情吐露：90年代真实感与当代表演型人格的变迁迈克尔的思维突然跳跃到了一个看似毫无关联的话题上——90 年代中后期的经典纪实节目《出租车深夜真心话》（*Taxi Cab Confessions*）。迈克尔回忆说，当年在母亲家看不到 HBO，只有去父亲家时，自己才能趁着父母睡着偷偷溜起来看这部少儿不宜的节目。节目的形式非常纯粹：在纽约或拉斯维加斯的深夜街头，摄像机隐藏在出租车内，那些喝得微醺、卸下防备的乘客仿佛把后座当成了忏悔室，毫无保留地向出租车司机倾诉生活里极其私密、疯狂甚至荒诞的故事。两人感慨，如果今天把这档节目搬到现代社会，味道就会彻底变质。当下的普通人早已习惯了镜头与社交网络，一旦面对镜头，绝大多数人都会立刻进入“表演模式”，变得极具表演型人格（performative），曾经那种粗糙而真实的脆弱感荡然无存。现在的乘客就算坐上 Uber，多数人也只想戴着耳机保持沉默，根本不会和司机搭话。本·卡尔森指出，这与早期真人秀的发展轨迹如出一辙——起初的真人秀因其真实而引人入胜，但随着参与者意识到“只要表现得浮夸表演就能成为网红明星”，整个类型最终沦为了虚假与刻意作秀的产物。 --- ### [33:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2027s) 德意志银行图表、强韧的消费者与美联储降速经济的逻辑悖论播客话题切回宏观经济与美联储决策。本·卡尔森抛出了一个充满矛盾的核心问题：面对美联储近期的加息行动，人们一方面承认其符合名义 GDP 的匹配逻辑，但另一方面不得不质疑——美联储到底为什么非要把经济拖慢？德意志银行（Deutsche Bank）的一张对比图表显示，10 年期美债平均收益率长期紧密贴合平均名义 GDP 增速，当前利率水平在宏观产出层面其实是合理的。同时，富国银行（Wells Fargo）和第一资本（Capital One）等大型金融机构的高管近期持续重申消费者的强韧表现：无论是在高信用还是低收入客户群体中，消费支出均维持着顽强的韧性，而这类关于“消费者出奇强韧”的论调，市场已经连续听了整整四年。本质疑道，目前失业率维持在 4% 的健康低位，尽管通胀在 3.5% 左右略高于美联储的既定目标，但整体经济运转十分良好，美联储为何非要踩下刹车？迈克尔推测，决策层最大的隐忧或许在于以超大规模数据中心为代表的 AI 基础设施大爆发（AI buildout）可能引发新一轮结构性通胀；科技巨头（Hyperscalers）正在发行海量债务进行融资建设，提高资本成本或许是为了适当遏制这股过热的投资狂潮。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 经济韧性与美联储加息逻辑悖论 accDescr: 展示消费与名义GDP强劲背后，美联储因AI投资与通胀预期选择加息的决策链条 subgraph 经济基本面表现 A["名义GDP增速高位 10年期美债收益率匹配"] B["全谱系消费者展现韧性 失业率维持在 4% 低位"] end subgraph 结构性通胀隐忧 C["科技巨头AI基建军备竞赛 大规模借贷加剧资本需求"] D["地缘局势推高能源成本 生活必需品累计涨幅超预期"] end subgraph 政策困境与争议 E["美联储收紧货币政策 提高全社会借贷成本"] F["巨头资本开支难以抑制 普通家庭借贷成本激增承受阵痛"] end A --> E B --> E C --> E D --> E E --> F ``` --- ### [35:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2127s) 通胀结构的深层撕裂：地缘能源冲击、AI军备竞赛与普通家庭的阵痛针对加息究竟在针对什么的争论进一步升级。迈克尔列举具体通胀数据指出：不包含能源的核心 CPI 同比仅增长 2.5%，其实已经极其贴近美联储设定的 2% 政策目标；但如果计入能源，整体 CPI 同比涨幅则高达 3.4%。这说明近期物价反弹的很大一部分增量直接源于与伊朗相关的地缘冲突所推高的能源价格。本·卡尔森随即提出了尖锐的批评：《华尔街日报》在国会中期选举前曾报道，自 2021 年 1 月以来，全美消费者综合物价水平已累计暴涨 27%，而在老百姓日常必须采购的生活开销中，有大量商品的价格累计飙升了 40% 乃至 60%。本质疑，仅仅因为中东局势推高了油价、科技巨头在疯狂砸钱搞 AI，美联储就通过加息让全社会的借款成本居高不下，最终承受痛苦的却是普通的工薪家庭。“难道美联储加息能阻击伊朗战争？难道多加息 50 个基点，马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）就会停下 AI 投资？这对于万亿市值的巨头而言根本就是九牛一毛！” 迈克尔则反向提醒，大家曾经抨击沃什（Warsh，指被传闻或提名的美联储高官）是听命于特朗普的傀儡，但他顶住外界政治压力选择跟随委员会决议加息，这恰恰展现了央行的专业与独立性。此外从消费篮子的微观构成来看，不考虑权重单独看明细，全美有整整三分之一（约 33%）的日常消费品项同比涨幅依旧顽固地维持在 4% 以上，通胀带来的压迫感对于大众生活依然非常真切。 --- ### [37:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2258s) K型复苏伪命题与低收入群体的“增收陷阱” 对话最后探讨了劳动力市场的工资增速与所谓的“K 型经济”。分析师迈克·扎卡迪（Mike Zaccardi）的数据显示，长期以来所谓的“K 型经济”叙事在图表形态上并不严谨，财富和收入的分化自古皆然，富人永远比穷人更有消费能力，但历史上从未出现过一条真正画成“K”字形的经济走势曲线。值得玩味的是最新的收入分层反转：截至 8 月份的数据显示，全美低收入家庭的税后薪资增速持续超越中等收入和高收入家庭。在经历疫情后期的数次高低轮换后，底层阶层的薪资增速重新领跑全美。然而本指出，这恰恰展现了当前经济中令人沮丧而讽刺的现实：低收入阶层的家庭预算中，能源与汽油开销所占的比例远高于富裕阶层。尽管底层劳动者终于迎来了难得的薪资上涨，但这些来之不易的增量收入，转头就全部被加油站高昂的油价和暴涨的电费账单侵蚀殆尽，并没有让他们真正享受到生活质量的实质改善。 ### [38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) 劳动力市场的坚韧与 AI 取代就业的争论两位主持人就当前美国宏观经济与就业市场展开探讨。尽管低收入家庭的工资增速可喜，但大部分增长已被生活成本吞噬。然而，眼下劳动力市场却展现出一种出人意料的“缺乏弱点”（lack of weakness）或持续韧性：初请失业金人数在过去一年中下降了 10%，持续领取失业金的人数也在持续回落。主持人指出，这一现实与硅谷大肆宣扬的“AI 即将夺走所有人类工作”形成了极其鲜明的反差。面对质疑，一方辩称没有人说过 AI 会在一夜之间摧毁就业，另一方则反驳这属于“挪动球门”（moving the goalposts），并引用 Anthropic 首席执行官达里奥·阿莫代伊（Dario Amodei）此前的预测——他曾扬言未来半年内半数初级白领工作都将消失。讨论随后引申到知名投资人约翰·阿诺德（John Arnold）的一段经典概括：“西海岸（硅谷）坚信我们正迎来现代历史上前所未有的经济剧变；而东海岸（华尔街/华盛顿）则冷静预测未来三年 GDP 依然维持在 2.1% 左右的增长。”主持人认为，现实最可能的发展路径与当年互联网浪潮类似：AI 确实会带来切实的生产力提升，让人们的工作和生活变得更轻松高效，但它不会凭空创造出科技圈狂热期许的 4% 到 6% 的乌托邦式 GDP 暴增，经济增速大概率依然会稳定在 2% 至 2.5% 区间。当被问及 GDP 是否还是衡量当下的正确指标时，两人开玩笑称或许唯一的指标只能是“大众情绪与氛围”（vibes）。 - 初请失业金人数（Initial Jobless Claims）同比下降 10%，持续领取失业金人数（Continuing Claims）同步走低。 - 科技乐观派预期 AI 带来 4% 至 6% 的爆炸性 GDP 增长，而现实宏观预测未来三年增长率约为 2.1% 至 2.5%。 --- ### [41:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2495s) 巴菲特指标失效与美股占 GDP 比重如果未来美国 GDP 仅保持温和微增，而美股市场并未发生崩盘，那么著名的“巴菲特指标”（股市总市值与 GDP 的比值）必将变得更加极端畸形。这一指标连沃伦·巴菲特本人与已故搭档查理·芒格都早已不再盲信，但其严重失衡的数据却持续让空头濒临崩溃。主持人剖析认为，死守“该比值必须回归历史平均水平”的教条毫无道理： ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: 巴菲特指标持续走高逻辑 accDescr: 解释为何美股总市值占 GDP 比重会持续扩大而非均值回归 subgraph Macro["资本与市场结构"] A["美国大企业跨国统治力强化"] B["全球资本与家庭财富持续涌入股市"] end subgraph MarketResult["市场结果"] C["美股总市值增速持续超越国内 GDP"] D["巴菲特指标严重失衡并常态化"] end A --> C B --> C C --> D ``` 随着跨国企业在全球范围内的垄断地位不断巩固、盈利能力超越其他实体，加之越来越多的资金通过被动投资流入公开资本市场，企业产出与市值占本土 GDP 的比重大幅攀升是极其自然的经济演进，历史旧指标早已无法约束如今的超级巨头。 --- ### [42:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2545s) 卡拉 OK 轶事与 LinkedIn 的“纯人工撰写”标签话题随后插播了一段轻松的私下轶事。迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）打趣本·卡尔森（Ben Carlson）近年在公司活动上的固定卡拉 OK 环节。卡尔森平时性格内向，但在几杯美酒的“液体胆量”（liquid courage）加持下，登台演唱电影《壮志凌云》（Top Gun）的经典插曲《You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'》时竟宛如布兰妮·斯皮尔斯（Britney Spears）附体，台风极其火爆，现场还伴有《Friends in Low Places》和《All the Small Things》等大合唱曲目，气氛一度拉满。回归网络生态，两人吐槽起各平台的荒诞之处。外界公认 X（原 Twitter）充斥着戾气与键盘侠，但卡尔森直言职场社交平台 LinkedIn 上的“精神病患者”和做作程度其实更甚。近期他在 LinkedIn 频繁刷到许多长篇大论打上 `#writtenwithoutAI`（非 AI 撰写）的标签以标榜真实。两人一致认为这种标签显得极其书呆子气（dweebs），且注定短命——大众对内容是否由 AI 辅助生成的道德敏感度很快就会彻底脱敏，这种标签崇拜终将被历史遗忘。 --- ### [44:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2662s) 比特币上演“送葬者”式复活加密货币市场再次上演了一场戏剧性大逆转。在经历了 7 月底现货比特币 ETF（如贝莱德 IBIT）自高点暴跌约 33% 的惨烈行情后，比特币在短短数周内强势反弹，价格重新杀回 86,000 美元附近，年内收益已完全填平回本。面对这波由跌转涨的迅猛行情，市场各方众说纷纭：有人将其归因于加密友好法案《清晰法案》（Clarity Act）的政治博弈与预期，但实际上该法案此前并未成功推进。主持人回顾了几个月前与灰度（Grayscale）录制节目时的绝望场景，当时全市场都在悲观探讨“比特币是否已死”、“未来的催化剂到底在哪里”。事实证明，比特币的上涨往往不需要外部催化剂，“价格本身上涨就是最大的催化剂”。正如美股软件股跟随流动性触底反弹一样，比特币本质上依然与科技成长软件股保持着同频脉动。它如同 WWE 传奇摔跤手“送葬者”（The Undertaker）推开棺材板重新坐起的经典模因：每当大众确信其气数已尽、行将消亡之际，它总能奇迹般复活，这恰恰构成了它最牢固的长期多头叙事。 - 比特币现货 ETF（IBIT）在 7 月底一度较年内高点回撤 33%，随后数周内收复全部失地并重回 86,000 美元水平。 - 市场归因各异，但其走势本质上与超跌反弹的软件板块保持强相关性。 --- ### [45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) 住房危机悖论：大建房屋为何会引发新一轮通胀？针对美国根深蒂固的住房短缺，主持人深入探讨了专栏作者康纳·森（Conor Sen）在 Substack 刊物《The Housing Frame》中的核心论点。公众普遍有一种幼稚的直觉：既然美国缺少 300 万到 400 万套住房，那只要联邦政府大笔一挥消除一切繁文缛节与区划限制，号召“疯狂建房”就能平抑房价。然而，从莱纳建筑公司（Lennar）等顶级房屋建筑商的一线反馈来看，实际约束根本不在政策红线，而在极其紧缺的实体资源： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 大规模建房的通胀反噬逻辑 accDescr: 解释为何短期内试图大规模补齐数百万套房屋缺口会引发严重新通胀 subgraph Bottlenecks["建筑端两大瓶颈"] B1["移民执法收紧导致劳工短缺"] B2["数据中心建设狂潮抢夺施工资源"] end subgraph Attempt["激进建房干预"] A["政府取消红线并补贴狂建数百万套住房"] end subgraph Consequence["通胀反噬与危机转移"] C["建筑工人薪酬与原材料成本剧烈飞涨"] D["新房造价失控引发新一轮全面通胀"] end Bottlenecks --> Attempt Attempt --> C C --> D ``` 建筑商指出，建筑成本目前几乎处于未来能够见到的最低点。现实中，移民执法持续收紧导致传统的建筑主力军严重匮乏，而全国轰轰烈烈的数据中心建设狂潮又在开出高薪疯抢同一批熟练电气与土建工人。倘若政策真的一刀切强行启动数百万套房屋的填补工程，必然会引爆一场争夺劳动力与建筑材料的竞价战，进而导致建筑成本呈螺旋式暴涨。盲目依靠增量解决住房短缺非但无法降低购房门槛，反而会制造出一轮严重新通胀。对于成千上万需要成家育儿、迫切想从小公寓搬入独立住宅却无力承担高额房价的年轻一代而言，这场供给与成本锁死的困境在短期内仍几乎无解。 ### [47:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2870s) 住房危机的死结：“啃老”与毫无头绪的解决方案讨论延续了当下的购房困境。在谈到究竟有多少年轻人需要父母资助才能买得起房时，两人都感叹如今房价高企，大多数普通人如果想要安家，几乎只能被迫掏空“父母银行”（bank of mom and dad）。然而现实是，并不是每个年轻人都有这种家庭后盾可以依靠。Ben Carlson 直言不讳地指出，住房问题已经演变成了一场不折不扣的“国家紧急状态”（national emergency）。但最让人无奈的不是危机本身，而是整个社会似乎根本没有人知道该如何解决它，甚至连推动解决的政治意愿都看不到。面对这种无解的现实，迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）打趣地抛出了自己的竞选口号：“我的执政纲领就是给所有 Z 世代发帐篷，帐篷和蒙古包之城！”幽默的调侃背后折射出残酷的现实。表面上看，解决住房危机的逻辑很简单——“多建房子就行了”；但实际上它远比口号复杂得多：究竟在哪里建？难道要凭空建造崭新的城镇？在土地规划、基建配套和现有利益格局的拉扯下，单纯的“多盖房”根本无法迅速落地。 --- ### [48:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2931s) 私募市场与流动性黑洞：连 NFL 巨星也躲不过庞氏骗局谈话转向近期爆出的金融欺诈案。据《底特律新闻报》（The Detroit News）等媒体报道，NFL 超级巨星特拉维斯·凯尔西（Travis Kelce）以及多位 NBA 球星（包括小蒂姆·哈达威、加里·哈里斯、梅森·普拉姆利等）卷入了一场庞氏骗局。涉事机构 SwiftArc LLC 打着风险投资的旗号筹集了数千万美元，声称要进行前沿投资，结果操作令人啼笑皆非——操盘手竟把巨额资金全押在了所谓“巴基斯坦菲利普莫里斯”（Philip Morris Pakistan）上，其余资金则被其大肆挥霍在个人享乐上，并通过拆东墙补西墙的方式用新投资人的本金向老投资人兑付利息。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 私募非流动性资产的欺诈机制 accDescr: 展示私募与非流动性市场中如何利用信息不对称和锁定条款掩盖欺诈行为 subgraph Inflow["资金吸纳"] A["高净值投资者 / 体育明星"] -->|"投入数千万美元"| B["私募基金 / 投资外衣 (如 SwiftArc)"] end subgraph Fraud["暗箱操作与挪用"] B -->|"荒唐投资 / 个人挥霍"| C["非流动性资产 / 离岸标的"] B -->|"拆东补西 (庞氏结构)"| D["老投资者本金与收益"] end subgraph Lockup["流动性黑洞掩护"] C -.->|"无公开市价 无法立即变现"| E["以'锁定期/流动性差'为由拒绝赎回"] E -.->|"延迟暴雷"| F["受害者碍于面子不愿公开认栽"] end ``` 这种案件揭示了私募与非流动性资产中滋生欺诈的天然温床。相比公开透明的二级市场，另类资产往往顶着一层“黑箱”的光环，一旦投资者察觉不对劲想要赎回本金，操盘手便能以“底层资产流动性差、无法变现”为由轻易搪塞推脱。《华尔街日报》近期关于马克·沃尔特（Mark Walter）以及年金（annuities）激增的报道同样印证了这点：即便是受到高度监管的保险与年金行业，资金也常常被挪用转投到其他不透明资产中。Ben Carlson 指出，在撰写反诈研究时发现，绝大多数私下被骗的富豪只要不上法庭就绝不声张，因为对他们来说，承认自己被骗是极其“丢脸和羞耻”（humiliating）的事情。 --- ### [50:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3042s) 飞行员成了新晋富豪：Delta 忠实拥趸与天花板级退休福利《华尔街日报》的一篇报道引发了关于高薪职业的新讨论：商业客运飞行员正在悄然跨入超级富裕阶层。报道中采访的一位资深机长透露，他不仅拥有丰厚的普通经纪账户，其 401(k) 养老账户余额更高达 350 万美元。一旦触发最低法定支取额度（RMD），再加上社会保障金，退休后的年收入将轻松突破 30 万美元，甚至超过了他职业生涯中大多数年份的年薪。出现这一现象的核心原因在于航空公司极为慷慨的福利政策以及近年来的劳资谈判结果： - **非选择性雇主缴费（Non-elective Contributions）**：联合航空（United）、达美航空（Delta）、美国航空（American）和西南航空（Southwest）等主流航司，目前会直接向飞行员的 401(k) 账户打入相当于其工资 **18%** 的资金，且这项福利完全是“非选择性”的——即便飞行员自己一分钱不存，航司也会全额缴纳。 - **高额加班收入**：资深飞行员如果居住在交通枢纽附近、执飞大型宽体客机，并在遇到恶劣天气等突发状况时顶上加班，单月收入甚至能冲上 **10 万美元**。聊到这里，两人顺势对达美航空（Delta）大加赞赏，坦言自己是铁杆的“Delta 忠实拥趸”（Delta Stan）。在回忆起此前参加 Future Proof 财富管理峰会不得不改乘联合航空飞往加州橙县约翰韦恩机场的经历时，Michael 忍不住吐槽联航机上娱乐系统的电影库简直是“一堆垃圾”（garbage），而 Delta 拥有一流的选片品味，甚至曾收到过 Delta 负责机上电影选拔高管寄来的关怀大礼包，里面附赠的精致飞机模型至今还摆在孩子的床头柜上。 --- ### [52:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3175s) 硅谷择偶标准大赏：“经济后时代”与被群嘲的自我疗愈 Ben 分享了一条在社交网络上引发热烈讨论的推文：一名 29 岁、在硅谷风投机构工作的科技圈女性公开列出了自己寻找伴侣的“绝不妥协条件”（non-negotiables）。这份清单上的诸多苛刻标签引爆了舆论，其中最让人瞠目结舌的一条便是要求男方达到所谓的 **“经济后时代”（Post-economic）** 状态，但后面又打了个括号补充道：“但依然保持勤奋工作”。所谓的“经济后时代”，在硅谷语境下指的是个人已经通过出售初创公司或行使大量股票期权实现了彻底的财务自由，不再需要为了生存而赚钱，但仍然出于热爱或野心继续拼命工作。Michael 听到这个词后直呼荒谬，但 Ben 认为，虽然这对于全美 99.9% 的普通人来说无异于天方夜谭，但在生活成本奇高、年轻富豪满地走的旧金山湾区，符合这一身家的人其实并不在少数。不仅如此，女方的择偶清单还包括：年龄在 35 至 42 岁之间、兼具“供养者与保护者心态”、身材健硕且保持清醒戒酒（sober）、以及“正走在疗愈之路上”（on the healing path，要求有寻找治疗师、阅读心灵书籍和参加静修营的深度经历）。Michael 对此表达了极度反感，痛斥这种被过度包装的“自我提升与拼命三郎”（grinders）亚文化，大呼“大家就不能做一个正常的普通人吗？” --- ### [55:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3325s) 湖人队估值狂想曲：300 亿美元的体育资产算术题谈话最后聚焦于体育商业与资本市场的重磅动态。《华尔街日报》披露，Thrive Capital 以及迪士尼 CEO 鲍勃·艾格（Bob Iger）在参与洛杉矶湖人队股权交易的募资路演中，向潜在投资人描绘了一幅极其宏大的蓝图：他们预计湖人队的估值将在未来 10 年内翻近三倍，从当前的约 120 亿美元飙升至至少 **300 亿美元**；如果采用更为乐观的经营假设，估值甚至可能达到惊人的 **620 亿美元**。根据路演数据，湖人队在 2026 年的预估营收为 6.81 亿美元，而新资方的经营目标是到 2037 年底将年营收拉升至至少 16 亿美元。面对这套预测，Michael 忍不住质疑资本市场的疯狂：“一家营收 16 亿美元的球队，估值居然敢喊到 300 亿美元，我们现在到底在经历什么？”不过他也坦言，顶尖职业体育球队早已脱离了传统的财务报表估值模型，本质上是顶级富豪们身份象征的“稀缺奖杯资产”（trophy assets），其最终定价往往取决于最有钱的人愿意为之支付多少溢价。两人随后就职业球队合理的年化回报率展开了即兴争论与心算： - Michael 认为，从实体经济的理性逻辑来看，体育资产的年化回报率在 **6% 到 8%** 左右才算合理，但在如今资本推波助澜的现实中，年化甚至能被推到 **12% 到 14%**。 - Ben 提出，10 年内从 120 亿美元涨到 300 亿美元看似是一笔离谱的暴涨，折算下来年化复合增长率大概在 10% 左右。 - 两人随即就“72 法则”展开了拌嘴式的心算探讨——10 年翻一倍对应约 7.2% 的年化回报，翻三倍的复合回报率究竟是多少？两位金融专业人士在线卡壳，互相调侃起“播客节目上绝对不该现场心算数学”的魔咒。 ### [57:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3473s) 湖人估值与体育资产的疯狂复利逻辑在继续探讨顶级体育IP的估值预期时，两人针对投资回报率展开了快速的心算拉锯。根据“72法则”（Ben 调侃道“难道你没读过《富爸爸穷爸爸》，没从罗伯特·清崎那里学到点东西吗？”），10年内资产翻倍对应约 7.2% 的年化回报率；而若估值从 120 亿美元涨至 300 亿美元，则相当于年化回报 10% 左右。Ben 拿出计算器核算后认为，如果大盘整体每年能维持 10% 的涨幅，富豪们的财富本就会随之复利增长，因此这样的预期并不算过于夸张。照片里的乔希·库什纳（Josh Kushner）被调侃长相神似演员亚当·布罗迪（Adam Brody）。在他们公布的财务预测中，一个极为夸张的举措是将 6,000 张原本由票务经纪人持有的季票转为单场零售，预计直接将单场平均票价从 217 美元推高至 360 美元。即使洛杉矶高净值人群扎堆，高达 360 美元的单场均价依然令人咋舌——相比之下，迈克尔猜测纽约尼克斯队（Knicks）的平均票价大约在 145 美元左右。从宏观来看，只要未来十年 AI 没有毁灭世界，它所催生的海量财富和进一步扩大的贫富差距，完全可能撑起 300 亿美元的体育豪门估值。与此同时，私募巨头阿波罗全球管理（Apollo Global Management）斥资收购纽约洋基队（New York Yankees）16% 股份的消息引发了对机构投资人逻辑的质疑。据《纽约邮报》记者查尔斯·加斯帕里诺（Charles Gasparino）报道，洋基队的整体估值远超 120 亿美元。两人指出，阿波罗如果提供的是债权融资（Private Credit），获取稳健利息无可厚非；但作为一家私募股权机构，去当洋基队的“被动少数股权投资人”，从纯财务回报视角来看吸引力相当存疑。对于鲍勃·艾格（Bob Iger）或库什纳而言，拥有湖人队是无与伦比的身份象征（“Bragging rights”），但机构LP如果只是图资本增值，还不如直接买入 Meta（Facebook）的股票。更戏谑的是，目前美国职棒大联盟（MLB）明文规定私募股权机构持股上限为 15%，但联盟却准备直接特批破例放行，暴露出规则在资本面前随时可破例的本质。 - 湖人队单场零售均价预测：从 217 美元暴涨至 360 美元。 - 10 年内从 120 亿增至 300 亿美元，复合年化增长率（CAGR）约为 10%。 - MLB 规定 PE 机构持股上限通常为 15%，但为了促成阿波罗收购洋基队 16% 股份，预计将直接豁免该上限。 --- ### [01:01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3660s) “我丈夫没有朋友”：男女社交模式的根本差异话题转向生活方式媒体《The Cut》近期引发热议的一篇文章——《我的丈夫没有朋友》（My Husband Has No Friends），文中探讨了婚后许多妻子不得不全权接管丈夫社交日历的普遍现象。Ben 直言不讳地指出，几乎身边所有认识的家庭都是妻子在打理一切社交行程；迈克尔也对妻子罗宾（Robin）掌控日程的现状心照不宣。在学校活动或邻里聚会中，经常能看到妈妈们热烈交谈，而爸爸们则孤零零站在角落。两人一致认为这绝不是现代社会的病态，而是男性自古以来的固有常态。男性通常在特定年龄段建立起固定的朋友圈，此后就极少再结交新朋友，这根本不需要被视作一个“有待解决的问题”： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 男女社交行为与模式对比 accDescr: 对比男性与女性在家庭社交活动中的不同社交动力与表现 subgraph FemalePattern["女性社交模式"] A["校园/操场社交"] --> B["迅速结识新妈妈群"] B --> C["长达90分钟的细致情感与日常讨论"] end subgraph MalePattern["男性社交模式"] D["后院聚会/球场边"] --> E["闲聊5分钟体育后陷入沉默"] E --> F["互不打扰，达成无需增添新朋友的默契"] end ``` 这种默契甚至体现在球场边：妻子总催促丈夫多去和别的爸爸社交，但实际上双方男性彼此都完全没有拓展社交圈的意愿，各自安好。 --- ### [01:02:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3755s) 中年疲惫感与追剧困境迈克尔分享了自己近期的中年日常与疲惫状态：每天高强度思考加上下班后带娃，到了晚上 9 点就精力耗尽、彻底关机。但他偏偏需要妻子上床才能安然入睡，而身为“夜猫子”的罗宾却经常在楼下长时间煲电话粥。前几天深夜，迈克尔半睡半醒等得心烦，第二天忍不住质问妻子到底聊了什么能讲足足一个半小时。罗宾回答只是在聊大儿子科比（Kobe）的球队选拔（Tryouts）。妻子随后一五一十地复盘谈话内容，迈克尔听完彻底抓狂：“同样的信息量，换作咱俩四分钟就能全说完，她们居然能硬生生聊出 90 分钟！”这种对详尽交流的天然需求，恰恰解释了为什么女性之间需要彼此密集的倾诉伙伴。与此同时，家庭生活的作息变化对娱乐方式构成了毁灭性打击。随着孩子们睡觉的时间越来越晚，逐渐与家长的入睡时间重合，两人双双陷入剧集滞后危机： - 迈克尔坦言自己足足花了 8 个月才勉强看完《邻里同居》（Friends and Neighbors）。 - 市场上新剧井喷（如《混混之国/Mob Land》回归、《绅士们/The Gentlemen》出新，以及乔恩·哈姆的新作），但中年父母完全抽不出大块时间。 - 两人苦笑感叹，只能把看不完剧的账算在“这帮该死的孩子”头上。 --- ### [01:04:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3874s) Future Proof 线下大会的反思：人渴望面对面连接节目录制上一周恰逢两人在加州亨廷顿海滩参加财富管理盛会 Future Proof，现场举行了播客专场录制和观众见面欢聚会（Happy Hour）。经历了疫情数年的数字隔绝后，亲临现场最直观的冲击是：无论线上工具和 Zoom 多么高效，人类骨子里依然极度渴望面对面的实体社交。整场大会汇聚了多达 5,600 多名行业人士，即便迈克尔自认讨厌一切形式的虚头巴脑寒暄（Small talk），但真正置身于庞大人群的磁场中时，依然能感受到扑面而来的充沛能量。令他们印象深刻的还有行业后备力量的年轻化态势。尽管从业人员平均年龄可能在 35 至 40 岁上下，但现场涌现出大量朝气蓬勃的面孔。大会专门向大学生开放了免费或优惠门票通道，许多金融专业的年轻大学生主动上前交流提问，虚心请教职业规划并表达对财富管理行业的浓厚热情。回顾自己当年读大学时根本无法想象会主动跑去参加行业峰会，这种积极进取的态度让他们笃定：社会对当代年轻一代的过度焦虑纯属多余，这批年轻人未来大有可为。 ### [01:06:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3975s) 年轻人职场现状与 AI 工具生态的剧变两人在讨论年轻人生活现状时指出，虽然社会舆论普遍渲染年轻一代过得很痛苦、颓废，但从他们公司的实际观察来看，情况截然相反。Ritholtz Wealth Management 目前有一整批 Z 世代（Gen Z）员工，他们性格乐观开朗（happy-go-lucky）、富有投入感，彼此之间相处融洽，工作氛围非常愉快。Ben 打趣称这得归功于公司优秀的文化氛围以及精准的选人眼光，绝非偶然。随后话题转到人工智能（AI）在财富管理行业的演变速度。Ben 回忆起仅仅六个月前在迈阿密举办的 Future Proof 财富管理大会，当时整个会场充斥着各种关于 AI 的漫无边际的猜测，无数初创小公司纷纷推销各自零碎的细分工具。而仅仅过了半年，行业格局已经大幅收敛并落地：Claude 宣布与财务顾问进行系统性整合（强调是“赋能与整合”而非“取代”），市场上逐渐形成了以 Claude、Hazel 等大模型和主流平台为主导的集中化生态。 ```mermaid flowchart LR accTitle: AI in Wealth Management Evolution accDescr: 描述财富管理行业在过去六个月中从碎片化推测走向巨头落地的演进过程。 subgraph SixMonthsAgo["6 个月前 (Future Proof 大会)"] A["概念推测与宏观畅想"] --> B["数以百万计的微型 AI 初创公司"] end subgraph PresentDay["现状格局"] C["明确主流工具整合落地"] --> D["Claude 与财务顾问系统深度集成"] C --> E["核心平台如 Hazel 占领主导地位"] end SixMonthsAgo --> PresentDay ``` --- ### [01:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4044s) 坏掉的电视机：从坚持保修到倒立意外 Michael 提到 Ben 过去常常吐槽自家电视上有一条坏掉的线。Ben 坦言那台旧电视才买了一年零一周就出现了一条厚重的绿线，当他拿去 Best Buy 维修时，店员却以质保刚刚过期为由拒绝受理。为了赌气（spite），他硬是不换新，看了整整好几年。去年 Ben 终于下定决心，在地下室一整面长墙上挂了一台全新的 80 多寸大电视，为了美观，墙前没有任何电视柜或障碍物阻隔。然而，他精力旺盛的儿子最近突然迷上了练倒立，每天在房间里靠着墙倒立，甚至疯狂尝试做倒立俯卧撑，浑身摔得青一块紫一块。结果前几天儿子在电视前做倒立时，脚后跟狠狠踹进了全新的液晶屏幕，当场在屏幕上砸出了 25 条像彩虹一样的故障条纹。尽管电视彻底毁了，Ben 也没法对孩子发火，前一晚甚至还和女儿忍着满屏的彩线看完了整部电影。目前他已经重新订购了一台新电视。 - **旧电视的执念**：购买仅 1 年零 1 周即出现粗绿线，因被 Best Buy 拒保而出于赌气一直坚持使用。 - **新电视的意外**：80 多寸大电视被练习倒立俯卧撑的儿子一脚踹中，留下 25 条彩虹状损坏条纹。 --- ### [01:09:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4175s) 《洛奇 4》的情怀与办公室挂画聊到小男孩旺盛的精力和对动作的痴迷，Ben 联想到儿子可能看了太多《洛奇》（Rocky），他们全家最近一起重温了《洛奇 4》（Rocky IV），甚至盛赞这可能是 80 年代最优秀的电影之一。Michael 随即将镜头转向自己的新办公室墙面，上面正挂着一张大幅的洛奇对决伊万·德拉戈（Ivan Drago）的海报。两人聊起饰演德拉戈的杜夫·龙格尔（Dolph Lundgren）。Ben 疑惑为什么当年身材无敌的龙格尔后来没能成为一线巨星，Michael 毫不留情地调侃“因为他演技实在不行”，虽然演过《宇宙巨人希曼》（He-Man），但戏路受限。不过两人一致认为，《洛奇 4》结尾依然让人热血沸腾、起满鸡皮疙瘩，连家里的孩子们看得都极为投入。 --- ### [01:10:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4227s) 影视推荐与音乐洗脑：《橡树街的末日》与《复仇者联盟 4》在推荐环节，Ben 强烈安利了自己全家最近在点播平台上刷了三次的恐龙题材电影《橡树街的末日》（The End of Oak Street）。该片片长仅 97 分钟，节奏轻快毫无尿点，完美复刻了斯皮尔伯格 80 年代经典冒险片的纯粹娱乐感。片中插入了史蒂夫·温伍德（Steve Winwood）在 80 年代的经典名曲《Valerie》，这首歌瞬间洗脑了 Ben 的孩子们，整整一周都在家里反复单曲循环和跟唱。Michael 随之哼唱起旋律，并希望孩子们接下来去学《洛奇 4》的主题曲《Burning Heart》。此外，Ben 提到自己近期打算带孩子们去电影院看重新上映一晚的《复仇者联盟 4：终局之战》（Avengers: Endgame），重温超级英雄拯救宇宙的经典时刻。 --- ### [01:11:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4319s) 影坛常青与烂片流变：从深海灾难到经典恐怖片 Michael 分享了他对老牌影星职业轨迹的感慨，名言“岁月无情，从无败绩”（Father Time is undefeated）。作为一个狂热的动物灾难片爱好者（尤其爱看鳄鱼、鲨鱼吃人），他最近在 Netflix 上看了一部名为《深水》（Deep Water）的极烂灾难片。令他震惊的是，片中居然有奥斯卡影帝本·金斯利（Ben Kingsley）和曾主演《感谢你抽烟》的阿伦·艾克哈特（Aaron Eckhart）参演；金斯利在片中饰演一名飞行员，总共出场仅 11 分钟。Ben 感慨很多演员早年参演神作，晚年却为了片酬接拍各类粗制滥造的流媒体网大，马克·沃尔伯格（Mark Wahlberg）也是类似代表，“不论赚了多少钱，人永远都需要钱”。最后，Michael 谈起自己近期回顾经典老恐怖片的体验： - **《德州电锯杀人狂》（The Texas Chain Saw Massacre，1974 年）**：虽然已有 50 年历史，画面充满汗水与闷热质感，但依然是一部制作精良的高水准经典。 - **《十三号星期五》（Friday the 13th，1980 年）**：回看发现是一部大烂片。更令人惊讶的是，标志性杀手杰森·沃赫斯（Jason Voorhees）在第一部中压根没有作为真凶出场（真凶是他母亲），直到第二部才登场，标志性的冰球面具更是到第三部才戴上。在节目的最后，两人调侃下周播客可能不会再聊这么多 AI，但随后立刻改口表示根本无需为谈论 AI 道歉，因为这就是“这整整十年来最大的宏观故事”。 ### [01:15:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4516s) 停不下来的新闻周期与节目收尾在节目的最后几秒钟，Michael Batnick 与 Ben Carlson 感叹起近年来永无休止、甚至令人感到有些疲惫的新闻轰炸。谈及从全球大流行病到层出不穷的宏观热点，Michael 由衷地叹道：“我真希望新闻的节奏能稍微慢下来哪怕一秒钟。”然而 Ben 毫不留情地打消了他的幻想，直言这绝无可能，现在的舆论环境和市场就是“停不下来，也绝不会停”（"Can't stop. Won't stop."），Michael 只能苦笑着承认对方说得没错。随后，两人进入播客的常规结语。Michael 在口播联系邮箱时舌头打了个结，脱口说出“Animal Spirits pod”，紧接着立刻自我纠正为官方联络邮箱 `animalspirits@thecompoundnews.com`。他再次向听众重申，发往这个邮箱的所有来信都会得到本人的亲自回复。最后，主持人们感谢了大家的收听，并相约下周同一时间再见。 - **读者互动邮箱**：听众可将个人问题或反馈发送至 `animalspirits@thecompoundnews.com`，主持人承诺提供亲自回复。 ## Notable quotes > [03:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=191s) 人们或许还没有完全意识到，整个市场和经济在这场博弈中被绑架得有多深；一旦链条开始松动，有太多的环节会一同分崩离析。 — Jim Morrow (引用) > [03:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=191s) 恕我直言，大家都懂，这简直是所有人每天唯一在讨论的话题。 — Michael Batnick > [18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1114s) 毫不知情，毫无担忧，因为市场已经替我操够了心（The market does plenty of worrying for me）。 — Bill Miller (引用) > [22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) 世界正在自愈，或者说已经痊愈了（The world is healing or has healed）。 — Ben Carlson > [28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) 人类有 10% 的概率被机器人彻底消灭，也有 10% 的概率迎来有史以来最伟大的超级大牛市。 — Ben Carlson > [38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) 西海岸（硅谷）坚信我们正迎来现代历史上前所未有的经济剧变；而东海岸（华尔街/华盛顿）则冷静预测未来三年 GDP 依然维持在 2.1% 左右的增长。 — John Arnold (引用) > [47:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2870s) 我的执政纲领就是给所有 Z 世代发帐篷，帐篷和蒙古包之城！ — Michael Batnick > [55:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3325s) 一家营收 16 亿美元的球队，估值居然敢喊到 300 亿美元，我们现在到底在经历什么？ — Michael Batnick > [01:11:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4319s) 岁月无情，从无败绩（Father Time is undefeated）。 — Michael Batnick > [01:11:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4319s) 不论赚了多少钱，人永远都需要钱。 — Ben Carlson > [01:15:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4516s) 停不下来，也绝不会停（Can't stop. Won't stop.）。 — Ben Carlson ## Mentioned Ben Carlson, Michael Batnick, Nuveen, Financial Times, Anthropic, OpenAI, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, SpaceX, Nvidia, CoreWeave, Bloomberg, Kaledine Capital Management, Jim Morrow, Apollo Global Management, Torsten Sløk, Steve Rattner, Cisco, Claude, Muse, Instinct, Delta Air Lines, Ben Thompson, Stratechery, Future Proof, Bill Miller, Wall Street Journal, Federal Reserve, Warren Buffett, Goldman Sachs, Mike Zaccardi, FanDuel, DraftKings, Adam Parker, Trivariate Research, Taxi Cab Confessions, Uber, Deutsche Bank, Wells Fargo, Capital One, Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Warsh, Dario Amodei, John Arnold, Charlie Munger, Top Gun, Britney Spears, LinkedIn, The Undertaker, Grayscale, Conor Sen, The Housing Frame, Lennar, Travis Kelce, SwiftArc LLC, Philip Morris Pakistan, Mark Walter, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Los Angeles Lakers, Thrive Capital, Bob Iger, Josh Kushner, New York Yankees, Charles Gasparino, The Cut, Hazel, Best Buy, Rocky IV, Dolph Lundgren, Steve Winwood, The End of Oak Street, Avengers: Endgame, Ben Kingsley, Aaron Eckhart, Mark Wahlberg, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th ## Video description On episode 483 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: the interconnected hyperscalers, AI's risk to the economy, the chart of the year, Nvidia's valuation, Meta's personal assistant, $186 trillion in household wealth, 10 year return projections, the case for owning bonds, why the Fed raised rates, Bitcoin's comeback, fixing the housing crisis is harder than it sounds, the best movie of the 1980s and more. This episode is sponsored by Nuveen. Visit https://www.nuveen.com/positioning to learn more and to sign up for a custom portfolio analysis. Take The Compound's 2026 audience survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LHC8QHD ► 00:00 - Nuveen Ad ► 01:00 - AI and the Stock Market ► 19:58 - Investor Behavior ► 33:46 - The Economy ► 44:19 - Crypto ► 45:49 - Real Estate ► 48:48 - Private Markets ► 50:39 - Personal Finance ► 55:21 - Entertainment ► 1:04:31 - Storytime ► 1:10:23 - Recommendations 👕 Check out The Compound shop: https://idontshop.com 🎙️Listen to our podcasts: TCAF: https://podcasts.thecompoundnews.com/show/TCAF/ Animal Spirits: https://podcasts.thecompoundnews.com/show/animalspirits/ Ask The Compound: https://podcasts.thecompoundnews.com/show/ATC/ The Compound Newsletter: https://www.thecompoundnews.com/subscribe Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-compound-media/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/thecompoundnews Twitter: https://twitter.com/thecompoundnews Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thecompoundnews Investing involves the risk of loss. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be or regarded as personalized investment advice or relied upon for investment decisions. Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson are employees of Ritholtz Wealth Management and may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this video. All opinions expressed by them are solely their own opinion and do not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management. See our disclosures here: https://ritholtzwealth.com/podcast-youtube-disclosures/ The Compound Media, Incorporated, an affiliate of Ritholtz Wealth Management, receives payment from various entities for advertisements in affiliated podcasts, blogs and emails. Inclusion of such advertisements does not constitute or imply endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation thereof, or any affiliation therewith, by the Content Creator or by Ritholtz Wealth Management or any of its employees. For additional advertisement disclaimers see here https://ritholtzwealth.com/advertising-disclaimers. Nuveen Disclosure: Investing involves risk. Principal loss is possible. Private market investments may not be suitable for all investors. Nuveen does not provide tax advice. Diversification does not ensure profit or protect against loss. #thecompound #investing #stockmarket [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI)

Source quotes

[3:11] Jim Morrow (引用): 人们或许还没有完全意识到，整个市场和经济在这场博弈中被绑架得有多深；一旦链条开始松动，有太多的环节会一同分崩离析。 [3:11] Michael Batnick: 恕我直言，大家都懂，这简直是所有人每天唯一在讨论的话题。 [18:34] Bill Miller (引用): 毫不知情，毫无担忧，因为市场已经替我操够了心（The market does plenty of worrying for me）。 [22:53] Ben Carlson: 世界正在自愈，或者说已经痊愈了（The world is healing or has healed）。 [28:54] Ben Carlson: 人类有 10% 的概率被机器人彻底消灭，也有 10% 的概率迎来有史以来最伟大的超级大牛市。 [38:50] John Arnold (引用): 西海岸（硅谷）坚信我们正迎来现代历史上前所未有的经济剧变；而东海岸（华尔街/华盛顿）则冷静预测未来三年 GDP 依然维持在 2.1% 左右的增长。 [47:50] Michael Batnick: 我的执政纲领就是给所有 Z 世代发帐篷，帐篷和蒙古包之城！ [55:25] Michael Batnick: 一家营收 16 亿美元的球队，估值居然敢喊到 300 亿美元，我们现在到底在经历什么？ [71:59] Michael Batnick: 岁月无情，从无败绩（Father Time is undefeated）。 [71:59] Ben Carlson: 不论赚了多少钱，人永远都需要钱。 [75:16] Ben Carlson: 停不下来，也绝不会停（Can't stop. Won't stop.）。

Source quotes

[13:51] Ben Carlson: Once you get your own agent and it starts knowing you and you have it locked into your inbox and your accounts and your apps and all this stuff... it creates more of a moat. [18:34] Bill Miller: Nothing. The market does plenty of worrying for me. [22:53] Ben Carlson: I don't care... guess what? I will add to my loser. [28:54] Michael Batnick: adding to losers is a terrible strategy. [38:50] Michael Batnick: You're literally making that up [42:25] Michael Batnick: Hashtags were always for dweebs. [50:42] Michael Batnick: I don't want my pilot making $60,000 a year. [55:25] Michael Batnick: We're all post-economic, Ben. [61:00] Ben Carlson: I don't want new friends. But guess what? They don't want to be friends with me either. It's mutually we're all happy here. [67:24] Michael Batnick: I was taking a stand. That was a new TV. Damn it... So I spite-kept it. [69:36] Ben Carlson: He's not a good actor [75:16] Michael Batnick: I just I would like for the news flow to slow down for a second.

Original transcript

[0:04] This podcast is sponsored by New. As [0:07] year end approaches, investors are [0:09] assessing their portfolios and [0:10] considering how to move forward in 2027. [0:13] New offers custom portfolio insights and [0:15] guidance, helping investors deconentrate [0:17] exposure, offset capital gains [0:19] distributions through tax harvesting, [0:21] and explore municipal strategies that [0:23] can offer tax advantage income. From [0:25] helping to manage risk, improving tax [0:27] efficiency, and finding new [0:28] opportunities in key asset classes, [0:30] New's expertise across public and [0:32] private markets helps build portfolios [0:34] that seek resilience for what's ahead. [0:35] New positioning for the year ahead. [0:38] Visit newvian.com/positioning [0:40] to learn more and to sign up for a [0:41] custom portfolio analysis. Investing [0:43] involves risk. Principal loss is [0:45] possible. Private market investments may [0:47] not be suitable for all investors. [0:49] Nuvian does not provide tax advice. [0:51] Diversification does not ensure profit [0:53] or protect against loss. [1:01] >> Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael [1:02] and Ben. Michael, we got a huge doc this [1:05] week. You are looking You are looking [1:07] very GQ today. [1:09] >> Well, it's a great time of year. It's [1:11] bomber jacket season. [1:12] >> Oh, I do have a bomber jacket. I have [1:13] one. [1:14] >> I get like two months of the year in [1:15] Michigan where I can wear a bomber [1:17] jacket. It's September and April [1:20] essentially. [1:21] >> Well, you look great. [1:22] >> Thank you. Taking advantage. All right. [1:25] Uh I want to I want to offer, you know, [1:28] I like to do both sides of things, [1:30] right? So I think the the one AI related [1:33] there's a lot of AI in the doc this [1:34] week. It has to sorry it's like the [1:37] biggest story of our lifetime right now. [1:38] We have to talk about it. So the FT has [1:41] this huge uh new tool that allows you to [1:45] see how interconnected the whole [1:46] hyperscaler thing is. So they it's kind [1:49] of cool. You can click on like click on [1:50] one company and see who are they tied to [1:52] and they're all tied together and they [1:53] look at anthropic open AAI alphabet, [1:56] Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, SpaceX [1:58] and Nvidia and they threw core in there [1:59] too. [2:00] So they talk about how interconnected [2:02] all of these big companies are and the [2:04] idea is okay this is all a house of [2:07] cards because I looked at I think the [2:08] combined market cap for these companies [2:10] that they list is like 20ome trillion 22 [2:13] $25 trillion something like that. So a [2:16] lot of people think okay if everyone's [2:18] in the pool this when this house of [2:21] cards falls this is going to be really [2:22] really bad. [2:23] >> Well cuz it's like you invest in us [2:26] we'll loan money to you we'll co-invest [2:28] in this together. Yes, your Yes. The [2:31] fact that your level is rising helps our [2:34] earnings and our cash free cash flow is [2:36] going to your profits and all it's all [2:38] interconnected. [2:38] >> So, the flywheel is spinning, but once [2:40] it slows down or potentially reverses, [2:41] we're all going to die. [2:43] >> But my other side of this is these are [2:47] the biggest companies in the world. Why [2:49] isn't this actually a good thing that [2:52] they are all doing this at the same [2:54] time? Why why couldn't this essentially [2:56] be they are big enough and strong enough [2:59] as companies to keep pushing through all [3:01] of the worries people have and go you [3:04] guys think seriously think we're going [3:05] to slow down we we're worth like 20 some [3:08] trillion dollars what do we care [3:11] it sure some does seem to be the [3:12] consensus view what you're describing [3:14] Bloomberg ran an article over the [3:16] weekend with the headline AI's wobbly [3:19] house of cards puts markets and US [3:22] economy at risk Um they quoted Jim [3:25] Mororrow, the CEO of a Boston investment [3:28] firm, Kaledine Capital Management. He [3:30] said, "People may not fully grasp just [3:32] how wound up the market and the economy [3:34] is in all of this. There are just so [3:35] many things to unravel if it starts. [3:37] Actually, [3:39] with all due respect, Jamaro, I think [3:41] people are extremely [3:43] they they they do fully grasp this is [3:45] all we're talking about. [3:46] >> I think everyone gets it, right? [3:48] Everybody gets it so much that the AI [3:51] trade, tell me if this is fair. The AI [3:55] trade is trading at 16 times forward [3:59] earnings. I'm talking about Nvidia. [4:03] Nvidia is the AI trade. Now, I know [4:06] there's Core Weeave and Neoclouds and [4:08] whatever, whatever. I understand that [4:09] it's not there's semiconductors. There's [4:11] other things, but if you just want to [4:13] zoom in, [4:16] first principles. Is that is that even [4:17] right? I hate that term. You know what? [4:19] I said it. I hate it. I hate people who [4:21] say it. It is stupid. It is filler. I [4:24] said it to be ironic, but [4:26] >> it makes you sound smart when you say [4:27] it, though. [4:27] >> It's It's nonsense. It's a It's a [4:29] jackoff term. That's what it has, Ben. [4:31] Uh, the AI trade is trading at 16 times [4:34] forward earnings. [4:35] >> It is wild that Nvidia now has a lower [4:37] forward PE than at any time this entire [4:39] decade. the market the the stock market [4:42] is trading at a higher forward multiple [4:44] than Nvidia. There is so much doubt, [4:49] maybe warranted, I don't know, but there [4:51] is so much concern that this house of [4:54] cards is going to [4:56] >> So, here's my us. I'm not saying I [4:58] necessarily believe this, but [5:00] >> in the the people always talk about how [5:02] this is like the railroad buildout and [5:03] the dot bubble. Okay, those are the two [5:05] biggest analogies people use. The [5:07] railway buildout, which I I did some [5:09] pretty extensive research for one of my [5:11] books, it was all funded by the public. [5:14] They were the ones extensive. Did you go [5:17] to primary sources? [5:18] >> Yes. [5:19] >> You visit you revisited newspapers from [5:21] 1873. [5:22] >> I read like four books. They This was It [5:26] was funded purely by the public. [5:27] Essentially, the public put all the [5:29] money in. It wasn't even the government [5:30] that did the buildout of the railroads. [5:32] It was the public who funded it and they [5:33] lost their shirts when all the railroad [5:35] stocks went under and it was that was [5:37] just a lot of fraud as well. The dot [5:39] bubble that was also kind of the public. [5:42] All those IPOs were being funded by [5:44] individual investors. Today, this is [5:47] being funded by free cash flow first of [5:50] all and now potentially debt from these [5:52] companies. These companies are the ones [5:54] that are funding this. It's not like the [5:55] public is holding the bag. Well, you [5:57] could say, well, index funds and but [5:59] still that's the big difference now is [6:01] that these companies, they're not [6:02] relying on the public for funding. that [6:05] maybe maybe chart of the year also from [6:07] that Bloomberg article and we've seen [6:08] this before but it's just I'm staring at [6:10] it and my face is melting. It's [6:12] unbelievable. [6:12] >> Yeah, but this one this one has a purple [6:14] line on it. The other ones don't have [6:15] purple on it. [6:15] >> That's true. So, we're looking at the [6:18] capex of Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and [6:20] Alphabet estimated to be a trillion [6:23] dollars next year overlaid with their [6:26] trailing 12-month free cash flow. And [6:29] this [6:31] was supposed to be the thing that put [6:36] the emergency break on the stock market. [6:39] Holy The reason why all these [6:41] companies were such amazing stocks is [6:44] because they're incredible businesses. [6:46] Just free cash flow out the ass. Asset [6:50] light, now they're asset heavy. A total [6:52] rerating 40% of the index. This was [6:55] going to slow the stock market down. And [6:57] then it's sort I mean I guess it the max [6:59] 7 sort of stalled out in the first half [7:00] of the year. They did the as investors [7:03] were digesting what this means. Okay. [7:05] But we got past that narrative and then [7:09] I think a couple weeks ago we're like [7:10] dude there's nothing else to talk about. [7:12] Either slow down, keep going. But like I [7:13] feel like we're sort of in this in [7:15] between world where we're just having [7:16] the same conversation every week. And [7:18] then we got the slowdown potentially or [7:20] at least the whispers of it with the guy [7:24] that said the guy that left OpenAI and [7:26] said uh we're all going to die 10% [7:28] chance. And now it's supposed to crash [7:30] the stock market. The slowdown that was [7:32] supposed to do it. And what has the [7:34] stock market done since? Look at the [7:36] semi-trade. It's ramping back up. What [7:39] is it going to take? The stock market is [7:42] not going to come down until and unless [7:46] I don't even know what until everyone [7:49] discovers that it's a bubble. Like I [7:51] don't know, Ben. [7:53] >> So I guess the Fed would be one thing [7:54] that you could prick this bubble. The [7:56] Fed keeps raising rates. Maybe that [7:58] that's pretty much every bubble in [8:00] history. That's that's what finally got [8:01] Japan. [8:03] But getting back to the free cash flow, [8:05] the if you look at just that chart, you [8:06] go, "Well, okay, they're going negative [8:08] forever, right? They're not they're [8:10] where is their free cash flow coming [8:11] from? Torson Slock says consensus for [8:13] these hyperscalers is they're going to [8:14] grow operating cash flow from 600 [8:17] billion in 2025 to two trillion in 2030. [8:19] Like the return is going to start [8:20] coming. [8:21] >> That'll work, [8:22] >> right? It is getting back to the size of [8:24] this stuff. Steve Ratner did this chart. [8:26] He showed the the projected IPOs for [8:30] OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX. SpaceX [8:32] already happened obviously at $5.2 [8:34] trillion for those three companies. Now, [8:36] this is not inflation adjusted, but is [8:38] bigger than all tech IPOs from 1980 to [8:40] 2025, which is almost 4,000 companies. [8:43] >> This could do, [8:46] >> but again, I keep coming back to the [8:49] size of this stuff. I don't think people [8:52] really have wrapped their heads around [8:53] how big and powerful these companies [8:55] are. [8:56] >> You don't? because the I get there was a [9:00] handful of big companies in the.com but [9:02] it was all these IPOs of these companies [9:04] who had no power to to do anything. They [9:08] they didn't make money. They didn't have [9:10] profits b essentially. [9:11] >> Well I mean that that's not true because [9:14] the biggest Cisco one of the biggest [9:16] stocks back then was certainly a [9:17] legitimate company [9:18] >> but not as powerful as the companies are [9:20] today. [9:21] >> Correct. Cisco back in the late 90s uh [9:25] does not compare to the impact that all [9:28] of these companies have on our daily [9:29] lives. It it just doesn't. [9:31] >> So I I'm still having trouble getting [9:34] used to having conversations with AI, [9:36] right? I'm talking to Claude and I'm [9:37] running all these numbers through Claude [9:39] and and saying like, "All right, what's [9:41] the best what's like the base case [9:43] scenario for Wall Street and what's what [9:44] do you think the base case is?" So they [9:46] gave me three scenarios for how this [9:48] plays out. Number one is you get like a [9:51] trillion dollars in revenue. The ROI is [9:53] huge and the bull market is justified. [9:56] Okay, that's that's the Goldilock [9:58] scenario. Two is the technology works, [9:59] but it's commoditized. The economy wins, [10:02] but they don't get as big of an ROI on [10:04] the spend because it just turns into a [10:06] commodity immediately. And the three [10:07] would be okay, the growth falls short [10:10] and then things get written down. That's [10:12] the bad. So, kind of right, mom. I [10:16] promise we're not going to make this a [10:17] habit of asking CL what it thinks about [10:19] the stock market. [10:20] >> True. [10:20] >> You promise you will never do that [10:22] again. [10:23] >> Everyone's doing this though. But don't [10:25] you think that those are the three main [10:26] scenarios people are thinking through [10:27] right now? And it's like the easy muddle [10:29] through one is okay, this is just [10:30] everything becomes a commodity [10:33] >> in that situation. In that situation, [10:35] doesn't the rest of the stock market win [10:36] and the mag seven kind of underperforms? [10:39] >> I don't know. Too many variables to make [10:40] that prediction. But I do think that [10:42] that is where consensus landed on the [10:44] conversation that we were that that the [10:46] whole world was having last week about [10:47] we need to slow down. It was like this [10:49] is such obviously [10:52] such obviously nonsense that the [10:56] frontier models are afraid of the open [10:57] source ones catching up. And look what [11:00] look what uh Meta just did as an example [11:03] with their Muse agent. [11:05] >> So this was my next topic. Yesterday [11:08] Meta was up almost 12%. And it's kind of [11:11] crazy that we're we've for as long as [11:13] we've been in this AI boom that AI news [11:16] can still impact a $2 trillion company [11:19] this much. Like look at the stock price [11:21] of Meta in the last I don't know two [11:24] weeks. [11:24] >> Doesn't it doesn't this demonstrate how [11:26] much um [11:28] not confusion but just how early we are? [11:30] There's there's no there's no the range [11:33] of outcomes is 10 miles wide. So, this [11:37] this guy on Twitter posted that he had a [11:39] flight delayed seven hours. He asked [11:40] Muse to file for compensation. Five [11:42] minutes later, he had $250 credit in his [11:44] Delta account. Found and booked him a [11:46] new flight. It just figured everything [11:47] out. Even responded to support email [11:49] itself. This feels like magic. Uh, [11:52] to me, this feels a little bit like, [11:54] remember how nervous people were to pay [11:55] with a credit card on the internet when [11:57] it first came out? To me, this is what [11:59] working with an agent feels like. So, I [12:02] I I played with Muse a little bit today. [12:05] I it says like here with your approval I [12:07] can update your calendar. I can make [12:08] purchases. I can connect the apps. I [12:10] have my own computer with a web browser [12:12] so I can keep doing things when you're [12:13] away and I I asked it what what can you [12:16] do me for travel and all these things [12:18] and like it does sound kind of magical [12:20] but it's okay. I can manage your inbox [12:21] for you. I can add or schedule events [12:23] for you. I can I can go find something [12:26] you need to buy. All this stuff. It [12:28] feels like there's going to be certain [12:29] people who would the tech people are [12:31] going to adopt it immediately. [12:32] >> So there's going to be other people who [12:34] are going to be very worried about [12:36] really I'm going to let you into [12:37] everything. [12:38] >> This morning I got a text from Instinct [12:40] which is uh the other AI assistant and [12:44] it said heads up from the inbox. Your [12:47] son's second try out today is at 6 p.m. [12:50] at the blah blah blah and he needs to [12:52] wear the reversible jersey from the [12:53] first try out. It's not on your [12:54] calendar. Want me to add it? So I walked [12:56] downstairs and I showed Robin. said, [12:57] "Hey, you probably should download one [12:59] of these. It's super helpful." She's on [13:00] the phone with her friend. Her friend [13:02] said, "I'm not doing that. I'm not." And [13:03] I made the point like the credit card, [13:05] this is just the way the world is, and [13:06] there's going to be a lot of people that [13:07] resist it. Probably in 5 10 years, [13:09] everybody will be using it. Um, I feel [13:12] like the AI stuff is quickly becoming my [13:15] personal fantasy football. Meaning, so [13:18] Chris, so Chris gets very excited about [13:20] these things, as do I, but he has to [13:23] share every detail of his journey. And I [13:26] said, "Dude, [13:27] >> guess what I did today?" [13:28] >> I said, "I promise you I will not share [13:31] the things that I'm doing with AI that [13:33] are very exciting. If you stop sharing [13:35] with me, it don't right. It's like I [13:38] don't care about your gambling. I don't [13:39] care about your fantasy football. I'm [13:41] glad that you're having fun. I'm having [13:42] fun, too. But it's your own fun." [13:44] >> There is. You're right. There is going [13:46] to be so much of that. Can you believe [13:47] what AI did? [13:48] >> Let me just stop you right there. [13:49] >> Yes. [13:50] >> We're We're all doing the same thing. [13:51] >> So Ben Thompson wrote about it for [13:53] strategy. [13:55] Uh, and [13:55] >> why do we say strategy? I think in my [13:57] defense I say it because you say it, but [13:59] it's obviously Tet is obviously tech, [14:02] right? We both [14:02] >> because I'm holding on to Will Frell as [14:05] George W. Bush from SNL staying [14:07] strategy. So that I'm I'm putting [14:09] strategy and strategy together. Okay. [14:13] So he he says he thinks AI or Meta's [14:17] launch of Muse is a bare signal for the [14:19] Frontier Labs. essentially saying this [14:21] is a very approachable personal agent [14:23] product and the the LLM you're not [14:27] really wedded to them in any way but if [14:29] you have your own personal agent who's [14:31] in your inbox and knows your stuff and [14:33] knows everything about you that's how [14:34] you get so he's saying this is kind of [14:36] bearish for openai and anthropic and his [14:39] his sort of conclusion was they need to [14:42] start having creating products with moes [14:44] like okay you've done this now where are [14:46] the agents that give you the moat to [14:48] keep people there. [14:50] >> Yeah. I feel like I I feel like the [14:52] switching costs to this are like nothing [14:55] going between if you go from Instinct, [14:58] which by the way I didn't is is Instinct [15:00] one of these companies that raised a [15:01] couple hundred million dollars. That [15:02] might be out of business overnight. I'm [15:04] I know nothing. So this is pure [15:05] conjecture, but just again the thing [15:07] about how fast things are moving, how [15:09] narrow the moes are because I don't see [15:12] why I can't switch from one to the other [15:14] or back to anthropic if they do [15:15] something. Well, well, but his point was [15:17] once you get your own agent and it [15:19] starts knowing you and you have it [15:20] locked into your inbox and your accounts [15:22] and your apps and all this stuff, it's [15:24] it creates a more of a moat. [15:26] >> I don't know if that's true. [15:27] >> I don't know how it's hooked into your [15:29] Delta account and it knows all of your [15:31] preferences for Delta. You're right. [15:32] He's saying that does create some sort [15:34] of moat. Maybe maybe you're maybe you're [15:35] right that it's easy to to switch from [15:37] one to the other. I would imagine once [15:39] you have your own agent, it's going to [15:40] be hard to to to switch. It's like [15:42] having a dentist. Like how who wants to [15:43] switch their dentist? That's a that's a [15:46] strange analogy. Dentist. [15:47] >> Have you ever tried to switch a dentist [15:49] before? It's not easy. [15:50] >> Confession. [15:51] >> They got to send your X-rays to to the [15:53] other one. And [15:53] >> so my father is a perodontist or he was. [15:56] He's retired a perodontist. [15:59] >> Sorry. Someone said when I I said braces [16:01] are a racket and you defended him. [16:03] >> No, no, no. That's an ortho. I have no [16:05] allegiance to orthos. [16:06] >> It's all in the same mouth area. [16:09] >> So I am a terrible dental patient. I [16:14] have very sensitive gums, which is [16:15] probably not a great thing. So, I re I [16:17] don't get my teeth cleaned nearly as [16:18] often as I should. And when I say nearly [16:20] as often as I should, it's probably been [16:21] two years. I do floss, [16:23] >> Michael, [16:23] >> multiple times a day, but I I hate I [16:26] hate going to the dentist. [16:27] >> Well, no one likes going to the dentist. [16:29] >> No, I hate it. I'm I'm I'm sweating [16:31] right now thinking about it, just [16:32] talking about it. [16:34] >> I didn't The first three years of my [16:36] job, I had no health insurance, no [16:38] retirement plan, and no dental [16:39] insurance. I was like on my own. It was [16:42] a very small company and I didn't get my [16:44] teeth cleaned for like three years and [16:45] the first teeth cleaning afterwards when [16:46] I got a new job was horrendous. They [16:49] >> All right, let's different topic. I [16:50] can't take it. Okay. [16:51] >> Although Ben, you saw me squeamish at [16:52] Future Proof. [16:54] >> That's true. We There was a booth at [16:56] Future Proof that gave IVs for energy [17:00] boost or pain and someone said, "You [17:02] guys have to get an IV. It's It's [17:03] magical." And you you were doing this [17:06] looking away because you couldn't see [17:08] the the needle go in. And I gotta tell [17:11] you, I'm someone who, [17:14] this is going to sound very odd to say, [17:16] I feel like medicine doesn't have an [17:17] effect on me. Like minor medicine, like [17:20] if I take ibuprofen or Tylenol, I feel [17:22] it doesn't. I never feel better or [17:24] worse. I feel the same. [17:25] >> You know, that's interesting. [17:27] >> So I I wouldn't go as far to say as [17:29] medicine doesn't impact me because [17:30] that's that's a bold claim, Cotton. [17:33] >> But I always feel the same, too. like I [17:36] so I was I was a a pthead for a long [17:39] time and I no longer am. Uh, and it's [17:41] it's been several years, but it was just [17:44] part of my life. Self-medicate, I [17:48] suppose, not a great thing. But I was [17:51] talking about with somebody recently [17:52] said, "Do you feel different?" And I [17:53] said, "I don't know. I don't think so. I [17:56] think I feel same. That can't possibly [17:57] be true because marijuana is terrible [17:59] for your overall everything." But I kind [18:02] of feel like I always feel the same. [18:04] >> But my [18:05] >> not to steal your thunder, but I'm I'm [18:06] the same same guy. [18:07] >> Yeah. If if it's like big medicine, then [18:09] yes. But cold, flu medicine, none of [18:11] that. I feel like none of it touches me. [18:12] But the guy at the IV, cuz people said, [18:14] "Hey, get an IV. We're in the sun all [18:16] day. We're drinking at night, you know, [18:18] we're eating. Like, we're kind of tired. [18:19] >> We're doing a lot on our feet." [18:20] >> Yeah. We're It was a very busy time for [18:23] us. And someone said, "Get an IV. It'll [18:25] make you feel better." So, we did the [18:26] B12 one. And the guy said, "Give it an [18:28] hour and it'll kick in." And honestly, [18:30] an hour later, I felt invigorated. It [18:32] actually worked. [18:33] >> I couldn't believe it. [18:34] >> We hopped in the ocean. [18:36] >> Yeah. Maybe that was part of it, too. [18:37] Nature. [18:38] >> All right. Can we can we move off this [18:39] AI topic for now? I think we 15 minutes [18:41] is plenty. I'm full. You have anything [18:43] else? [18:44] >> No, not for now. [18:46] >> Okay. [18:48] >> I just my my sorry, my conclusion is [18:50] just what if what if these companies are [18:53] so big that all of the worries about [18:55] being a house of cards are just not [18:58] going to come to fruition? [19:00] >> Most of the worries don't come to [19:01] fruition. It's a beautiful thing. Uh uh [19:05] not William Bernstein uh who is like [19:08] Mason uh might go on my brain. [19:10] >> Bill Miller. [19:11] >> Bill Miller. Thank you. So Bill Miller [19:13] had such a great quote one time when he [19:16] was asked what worries you about the [19:17] stock market and he said nothing. [19:21] He said the market does plenty of [19:22] worrying for me. I think that's such a [19:24] great way to look at it. Whatever you we [19:28] all of us are concerned about that's why [19:30] Nvidia is 16 times forward earnings. All [19:33] of the worry is in the price. Doesn't [19:34] mean it's and it doesn't mean that the [19:36] worry is always um uh the appropriate [19:40] amount of worry. It could be under worry [19:41] or over worry. But whatever you're [19:43] worried about, just assume that the [19:44] market's worried, too. That's a great [19:45] way of looking at things. Okay. Um [19:48] >> if anyone should be worried, it should [19:49] be your son who's having a second try [19:50] out. I can't believe we put kids through [19:52] this. Two tryyouts for one sport. [19:55] >> It's Dude, it's crazy town. [19:58] >> It really is, right? [19:59] >> Yeah. Um all right. Uh, one of the [20:01] things that we've been discussing on the [20:02] show a lot lately is just how uh uh the [20:06] perhaps the most important variable in [20:09] all of this discussion around the stock [20:11] market and the economy is just how much [20:15] money there is in the system and how [20:17] difficult it is to quantify that impact. [20:20] So for example, the Wall Street Journal [20:22] reported that uh household net worth hit [20:28] 186 trillion [20:32] in the second quarter of this year, [20:34] which is up 26 trillion [20:37] from just the fourth quarter of 2024. [20:40] $186 trillion. What does it even mean, [20:42] Ben? How many times do we go back and [20:44] forth to the moon with a with dollar [20:46] stacking? [20:47] >> So I had I had chart kid look at this [20:48] for me last week. At the end of 2019, so [20:51] I'm looking at just the 2020s alone, we [20:53] were at $ 109 trillion for total US [20:55] household net worth. Today it's 186 [20:58] trillion. It's effectively almost [20:59] doubled this decade household net worth. [21:02] And we broke it down by all these. The [21:04] Fed has all these different cohorts, the [21:06] top 1%, the remaining top 1%, the next [21:08] nine, the next 40, and the bottom 50. [21:10] And every single group has seen at least [21:13] a 60% rise in net worth. It's kind of [21:17] funny. the the biggest gain on a [21:19] relative basis is the bottom 50% who've [21:21] seen their net worth more than double [21:22] off of a low base obviously, but this is [21:26] not just a kind of thing where the rich [21:28] are getting richer. Everyone has seen [21:29] their net worth increase this decade, [21:32] every group, the low end to the high [21:35] end. And you're right, this is this is [21:37] the simple why is the economy why is the [21:39] economy powering through another rate [21:41] hike? Because everyone has more money. [21:44] That's why [21:45] >> this next chart shows one of my favorite [21:48] formats of charting. It shows the the [21:52] cumulative flows by year. So January [21:55] through December going back to 2021, [21:58] which was a bubbleicious year. And that [22:01] looks like Barry Bond's pre-steroids [22:05] compared to 2026, [22:07] right? It's just it's just a completely [22:09] different uh slope of line. There's so [22:14] much freaking money in the system. Now, [22:17] every time I talk about the assets, I [22:20] always do mention that it's not [22:22] permanent. We have not reached a [22:23] permanently high plateau. These numbers [22:25] can fall 30% in a bare market or more, [22:27] but it it's powering so much. [22:30] Unbelievable. The one thing I noticed [22:32] from this chart, look at how every year [22:34] for tax time when people get their [22:35] refunds, how it increases. There's a [22:38] spike every year on tax time. [22:39] >> A dip in a spike. [22:41] >> Yeah. Right. The payment and then but [22:43] you're right. 2021 was way higher than [22:45] 2022 or 2023 because that was a [22:47] speculative year and this year has it [22:50] just puts 2021 to shame and last year. [22:53] >> So, I'm really proud of investors. [22:56] There is a record pace of money flows [22:58] into bonds through August. [23:00] uh 600 plus billion dollars into fixed [23:05] income [23:07] and the worst thing an investor can do [23:10] in general in the stock market is add to [23:14] losers. Right? That is a very very bad [23:18] strategy. If that is your strategy, [23:21] trust me, you will eventually stop. [23:23] >> Wait, why is that a bad strategy? This [23:25] is the Warren Buffett strategy. [23:26] >> No, it's not. Do not losers. No, that is [23:30] not a Warren Buffett strategy. [23:32] >> What? [23:33] >> No. [23:34] >> Buying buying stocks that are down. [23:36] >> No, that's different. [23:38] >> Okay. [23:39] >> Buying stocks that might be down versus [23:40] adding to losers is not the same thing. [23:43] If you have a negative return on a stock [23:47] and you consistently average down, [23:51] you will lose a lot of money. That is a [23:53] fact. That is not an opinion. That is a [23:54] fact. [23:55] >> Stop stealing Duncan's investment [23:56] strategy. [23:58] He's a big- time average down guy. [24:00] >> The bond market is not exactly the [24:03] reverse because there are there are [24:06] variables involved, but we are now [24:08] staring at a 5% [24:11] tenure. [24:13] That is, in my opinion, an attractive [24:16] investment and I think that investors [24:19] are rightly taking taking uh taking [24:21] advantage of it. [24:22] >> I bought bonds last week. [24:24] >> I bought bonds two weeks ago. [24:26] This is literally the first time in my [24:27] entire [24:28] >> By the way, that felt like a real weird [24:29] one up. I just I meant to say like I'm [24:30] with you. I'm not trying to say about [24:32] bought bonds before you did. I'm with [24:33] you and I don't care if bonds go to 5.5% [24:36] more or because guess what? I will add [24:38] to I will add to my loser. [24:40] >> So I guess other than maybe a target [24:42] date fund for my kids 529 plan. This is [24:44] the first time I've ever bought [24:46] personally bought bonds in my entire [24:47] career. [24:50] >> Yeah. [24:53] 5% yield because I we haven't seems [24:54] prudent. We haven't seen 5% yields since [24:57] before the great financial crisis. [24:59] >> It just seems prudent. [25:02] >> It does. Uh okay, you put this one in [25:04] here from Goldman Sachs. [25:07] Equities relative to bonds. So this is [25:09] equities have enjoyed a near record [25:11] period of outperformance relative to [25:13] bonds. So this is both the US and world [25:15] portfolio. It shows the spread between [25:17] stocks and bonds and it was the highest [25:20] in the 1950s, 1960s. which is makes [25:23] sense because I was also coming off of [25:25] very low and this is what 10-year [25:27] rolling returns. [25:29] >> So as a result of this people are [25:31] severely underweight bonds for for just [25:33] for natural drift. [25:35] >> Yes. [25:35] >> Complacency stocks have given you 14% a [25:38] year. Bonds have given you a flat real [25:40] return. Why would you own bonds? Uh 2022 [25:43] PTSD. I get all of it. But if you are [25:46] even a little bit worried about the [25:48] stock market or you don't think that the [25:50] 14% will persist, you have 5%. [25:53] >> Yeah, [25:54] >> finally. Finally, for our entire career, [25:57] it was like, well, I can own bonds. 2% [26:00] one and a half% what's left. [26:02] So in the early part of this decade, we [26:04] showed a chart to our clients where we [26:07] looked at different yield levels and we [26:09] said this is what your stock portfolio [26:12] needs to do to hit like a 6 7 8% bogey. [26:15] Right? If you have a 60/40 portfolio but [26:18] bonds are only yielding 1 or 2% you need [26:20] a you need much more lifting from the [26:22] stock market. So you might need to go [26:24] from an 60/40 portfolio to an 8020. [26:26] >> And everyone did [26:27] >> and in fact a lot of people did that. [26:29] Our adviserss were telling people, you [26:31] either lower your expectations or you [26:33] increase your equity allocation. And lo [26:34] and behold, the stock market actually [26:37] came through. It [26:38] >> really did. Son of a [26:40] >> It was kind of like the stock market [26:41] needs to return like 11 or 12% per year [26:44] to hit this return bogey for a 60/40 [26:46] portfolio. And god damn it, it did. Can [26:48] you believe it? [26:49] >> No. So now I had Sean, our research [26:52] analyst, create this for us, showing [26:54] with a 5% yield, you need so before in [26:57] the early 2020s, you probably needed you [26:58] needed like 11% in stocks to get a 7% [27:01] return in a 60/40 portfolio. Now you [27:04] only need 8% from stocks with your 5% [27:06] with bonds. [27:07] >> It's much better. [27:08] >> So this is this is much more in [27:10] alignment. And the people who did take [27:12] more risk now can hopefully think, oh, I [27:16] went from I should have been 6040, I [27:18] went 7030 or 8020 or 9010. Now I can [27:21] maybe get back to 7030 or 6040 because [27:24] these things are more in alignment. The [27:27] world is healing or has healed. [27:29] >> Mhm. [27:30] >> Even if yields keep going up to your [27:32] point. [27:35] >> One more thing from Mike Zakardi. I feel [27:36] like I like this. This is another from [27:38] Goldman. They look at all these [27:40] different scenarios for the next 10 [27:41] years. And I like this because I feel [27:43] like every return scenario that we've [27:45] looked at for the past 15 years has been [27:47] awful. Here's why the returns are going [27:49] to be lower going forward. Goldman [27:51] looked at all these different scenarios. [27:52] They looked at stagflation, stagnation, [27:54] goldilocks, which I think is just a [27:56] strong economy. And then they looked at [27:57] the best case like Goldilocks plus a [27:59] continued AI boom. And they say if we [28:02] get a Goldilocks plus an AI boom that [28:04] doesn't falter, we could be seeing 14% [28:06] annual returns in the S&P for the next [28:08] 10 years. So that's the economy still [28:10] powers higher and the AI boom continues [28:13] 14% per year [28:15] >> which would give us [28:18] literally the greatest bull market of [28:19] all time. [28:20] >> Mhm. [28:21] >> What probability if you're a you're [28:23] you're a betting man. [28:24] >> You're a FanDuel guy or whatever [28:26] DraftKings. What probability would you [28:28] put that? Like what what odds would you [28:30] have to have to say, okay, we're going [28:31] to do this Goldilocks and AI boom for 10 [28:33] years. 10 more years double digit [28:36] returns. [28:36] >> But talk about switching costs. [28:38] Theoretically, and I don't think this is [28:41] necessarily unique to me, theoretically, [28:43] it is super duper not theoretically, it [28:45] is incredibly easy for me to use [28:48] DraftKings or Fanatics or one of the [28:50] prediction market sites to do my sports [28:53] betting. [28:54] But FanDuel, which I've been on since [28:57] the beginning, has all of my data. So, I [29:00] actually am not going to switch because [29:03] that's my scorecard. Just like your [29:05] dentist. It's inertia. [29:07] >> I don't go to the dentist. We've been [29:09] through this. [29:11] Um, all right. So, what percentage prob [29:13] I don't know. How would I even know [29:14] where to begin? Uh, [29:17] 11%. [29:18] >> I was going to say 10% probability of [29:20] that, but I I honestly think that it's [29:24] it's kind of funny because there's a 10% [29:26] chance robots will wipe us out and a 10% [29:29] chance we could just see the greatest [29:30] bull market of all time continue. So, [29:32] I'm talking about this with Josh Knight [29:34] and what are your thoughts? The reason [29:36] why I said so emphatically, sometimes I [29:40] I hedge or not hedge, sometimes I I give [29:43] I I say I think when in fact I know. So [29:47] earlier in the conversation I said [29:49] emphatically that adding to losers is a [29:51] terrible strategy. And that is not an [29:53] opinion. That is an empirical [29:56] quantifiable backed by data fact. So [29:59] Josh and I are going to be talking about [30:01] a piece that Adam Parker at Triari [30:03] Research wrote. The title of the piece [30:05] is Buy and Hold Doesn't Work [30:08] and Adam showed the percentage of stocks [30:12] beating the S&P 500 over the last three [30:15] years and over the last 10 years. And it [30:18] is just down and to the right the number [30:20] of stocks that are outperforming over a [30:21] three year and a 10ear period and not [30:22] just in the S&P and the rest of 2002. [30:24] And then he breaks it down into one [30:26] year, three year, 5 year, 10 year [30:27] periods. And the best chance you have at [30:31] picking a stock that's going to beat the [30:32] market is over a one-year period. [30:35] Because in the short term, there's a lot [30:37] of potential dislocation where a stock [30:40] can get oversold and it could bounce for [30:42] a year and it could still be a terrible [30:43] stock over a 10- year period of time. [30:44] But over a 10-year period of time, which [30:46] is what the Goldman is doing, you have [30:48] literally zero clarity. absolutely zero. [30:51] Nobody knows anything in any field about [30:55] what the world will look like in 10 [30:57] years. Nobody. [30:58] >> My So my reading of that would be that [31:02] it probably used to be easier to be an [31:04] individual stock buy and hold investor. [31:06] And a lot of people in the past did it [31:07] in like the 30s, 40s, and 50s. Did it [31:09] for dividends. But I think things change [31:12] so much faster now that it is harder to [31:16] be an individual stock buy and hold [31:17] investor. [31:18] >> It's impossible. So Adam says only 23% [31:21] of the top 500 US stocks held for 10 [31:23] years beat the index in the latest [31:25] observation. [31:26] >> 23%. [31:27] >> That's a wild stat. The thing is [31:28] >> for three year for threeear holdings the [31:30] hit rate is 27.7%. [31:32] >> But everyone would look at Nvidia and [31:34] Apple and all the tech stocks and go no [31:36] no no you guys are wrong but those are [31:38] the outliers. [31:39] >> Those are the outliers. Hello. But it's [31:41] again I re I repeat because people I [31:43] could say I could hear people say [31:45] concentration max you idiots. It's the [31:47] same exact thing in the top 2,000 [31:51] stocks. [31:53] >> That's a wild stat. So 10 years, 23% of [31:56] stocks. Wow. [31:58] Which is another reason why the it's so [32:01] hard to beat the index for active [32:03] managers. [32:05] You have to be more actively traded. [32:06] Interesting. [32:08] >> So, uh, all right. Um, Ben, this is [32:10] really random. I don't know exactly why [32:12] I threw this in here or why this popped [32:15] into my brain. [32:18] But it did. And it I was thinking about [32:21] Taxi Keep Confessions. [32:25] Taxi Keep Confessions was a show in the [32:28] I guess mid to late 90s. It was a show [32:31] that I watched when my parents went to [32:32] sleep that I shouldn't have been [32:34] watching. I guess only my dad's house [32:35] because my my mom didn't have HBO. So I [32:37] watched it at my dad's house. Um and [32:40] Taxi kept Confessions was [32:43] exactly what it says. Uh it was [32:45] basically like a confession in a taxi [32:46] cab. People were going to church in a [32:48] taxi cab. It was uh it was in I think it [32:51] was in in New York and Las Vegas, late [32:54] night riders, drunk inhibitions to the [32:56] wind and they would just share crazy [32:59] stories with the taxi cab driver. [33:04] Why was I thinking about the show? I [33:05] have no freaking idea. But if you showed [33:07] this to somebody today, [33:10] there would be a lot of questions that [33:12] this was such an such a provocative show [33:14] back in the day, [33:16] >> right? If you did this show today, [33:19] people are so much more used to cameras [33:21] and talking and you would get people be [33:24] way more performative about it. It [33:26] wouldn't be as real. [33:27] >> Correct. But and also if an Uber driver [33:30] started talking to you, although I [33:32] suppose maybe at two 2 am anybody talks, [33:34] but for the most part people don't want [33:35] to talk to their drivers. [33:36] >> It's kind of like how reality TV was [33:38] actually kind of real when it first [33:39] started and then people realize like, [33:41] oh, if I am more performative, I can [33:44] become a star and then became fake. [33:46] >> Totally [33:47] >> interesting. All right, let's talk about [33:49] the Fed. Can I both give the Fed credit [33:52] for raising rates last week and also [33:53] question why we had to raise rates? [33:55] >> Go ahead. Okay, so first of all, this uh [33:58] chart from Deutsche Bank shows the [34:00] average 10-year yield versus the average [34:02] nominal GDP growth and it tracks it [34:04] pretty darn closely and it's saying so [34:06] rates where they are make sense given [34:08] nominal GDP growth, but also [34:11] uh Re Sharma tweeted this. We've used [34:14] all this. So he talks about Wells Fargo [34:16] and Capital One saying, "Listen, the [34:18] consumer is strong. There's all these [34:19] quotes. Uh we see similar spending [34:22] strength across all our credit spectrum, [34:23] including some of our lowest income [34:25] customers. Overall, the consumer [34:26] continues to show a lot of strength even [34:28] in the face of a lot of uncertainty out [34:30] there. These are the same quotes we've [34:31] been reading for four years. [34:32] >> Years. Yeah. [34:33] >> Right. About the So, everyone's think [34:35] strong. So, my question is, [34:37] >> why does the Fed feel like they need to [34:39] slow the economy? If we have a 4% [34:41] unemployment rate and yeah, inflation's [34:44] 3 and a half%, they want to get why the [34:47] economy is doing fine. Why do they feel [34:49] the need to have to slow it down? [34:52] >> That's a good question. I sus my [34:55] knee-jerk reaction is that they are [34:58] worried and I could be way way way off [35:02] that they are worried about the AI [35:06] buildout fueling more inflation and the [35:10] hyperscalers are borrowing a lot of [35:11] money and maybe if you increase the cost [35:14] of capital it will slow them down a [35:16] little bit because to your point I don't [35:20] know that [35:22] they think that this is going to do [35:24] anything to energy prices because for [35:26] example [35:27] >> CPI without energy is up two and a half% [35:31] year-over-year which is pretty damn [35:33] close to their target CPI with energy is [35:36] 3.4% 24%. [35:36] >> So all the increase we've seen is coming [35:38] from the Iran war essentially. [35:39] >> Well, a lot of it, but but the other [35:43] side of that is the Wall Street Journal [35:45] ran a piece weeks before the midterms. [35:48] Almost everything is getting more [35:49] expensive. So consumer prices in the [35:52] aggregate are up 27%. [35:55] Since January 2021, but there's a lot of [35:58] things that we pay for on a daily basis [36:00] that are up 40%. 60%. Um my my question [36:04] is why are we harming consumers because [36:06] tech companies are spending a lot of [36:07] money and because we went to war with [36:09] Iran. Why do we have to harm households [36:11] because of that? [36:17] >> Which how is this harming households? [36:19] >> It's making it it's making it much [36:21] harder to borrow and we're trying to [36:23] slow the economy. So we're harming [36:25] households potentially because we went [36:27] to war with Iran and we have an AI [36:30] buildout going on. [36:31] The Fed can't stop those things. [36:36] >> Do you really think that Do you really [36:37] think the hypers sc if the Fed raised [36:39] rates even another 50 basis points, is [36:41] that really going to slow down the AI [36:42] buildout? You think those Mark [36:43] Zuckerberg is going to say, "Yeah, okay. [36:45] Now we'll slow down." No way. [36:49] >> Maybe not the hyperscalers, but [36:51] >> it's a drop in a drop in the bucket. [36:52] >> I don't know. I'm not the Fed. What do [36:54] you What do you want from me? Um, but [36:56] this is a [36:56] >> But I But here the thing I do get [36:58] because everyone said Worsh is a puppet. [37:00] He's doing whatever Trump wants him to. [37:02] So, I give the guy credit because [37:03] everyone said he's just he he actually [37:05] raised rates [37:06] because that's what the committee wanted [37:08] to do. [37:09] >> So, not this is not weighted, but this [37:12] is just like if you look at the [37:14] individual items within the basket. All [37:16] right. Some some items are obviously [37:18] more important than others. Energy, for [37:20] example, more important than others. But [37:22] a third of the consumer basket is still [37:26] rising at more than 4% year-over-year. [37:29] There are still a lot of things that are [37:31] going up way faster than is comfortable. [37:34] >> I'm surprised that's not higher because [37:35] the average is three and a half% almost. [37:38] Uh this is interesting because lower [37:40] income households need this. So Mike [37:42] Zakardi showing that the K I think the [37:43] K-shaped economy was always kind of [37:45] bunk. [37:46] Like we've talked about how it's always [37:48] been rich people have always just spent [37:50] more. Uh in August [37:52] >> hold on be careful because people get [37:53] really annoyed about this. I don't think [37:55] that we've said that the [37:55] >> K there was never anything that was [37:57] there was never anything in the shape of [37:58] a K like they people say K-shaped [38:01] economy because it's a good narrative [38:03] but no chart ever actually looked like a [38:04] K. [38:05] >> Yeah, I think we we I think we agree [38:07] with the premise that there are always [38:08] winners and losers and that the upper [38:12] the upper class of the economy has [38:14] always done better than the lower class. [38:16] >> Right? So here's the thing that stinks [38:17] because right now it says in August [38:19] after tax wage growth for lower income [38:21] households continued to outpace that of [38:23] higher income households. So lower [38:24] income households are seeing higher wage [38:26] growth than middle income and higher [38:27] income. Right now this has flipped. So [38:29] it's flipped a couple times. In the [38:31] early 2020s it was lower, then it [38:32] flipped. Now it's back. The thing that [38:34] stinks though is that there's a way [38:37] bigger consumption of energy prices in a [38:39] budget for lower income households. So [38:41] they need this raise. But this raise for [38:43] them effectively is going to pay higher [38:45] gas prices. That's what stinks, [38:49] right? It's [38:50] a great great thing that the lower- [38:51] income households now have higher wage [38:53] growth, but most of those gains are [38:55] being eaten up right now. [38:57] >> All right. One of the interesting things [38:58] about the economy right now is the [39:01] continued [39:03] Is strength the right word in the labor [39:05] market. [39:06] >> It's it's picking up again. Yes, there [39:08] is increased strength in the labor [39:11] market. I would I would care. [39:12] >> How about this? How about this? A lack [39:13] of weakness. Maybe not the same thing as [39:15] strength, [39:16] >> but initial unemployment claims are down [39:18] 10% in the past year [39:19] >> and continuing claims, meaning people [39:21] that have been uninsured for a while. [39:22] >> It's falling. [39:23] >> Yeah. [39:24] >> How do you reconcile this with AI is [39:26] going to take all the jobs? The labor [39:27] market is getting stronger. [39:29] >> Well, I feel like we keep having this [39:31] conversation. I I don't think anybody [39:32] thinks AI jobs are all going to come [39:35] overnight. [39:37] >> Okay. That's that sounds like you're [39:39] moving the goalpost. [39:40] >> I'm not moving the goalpost. I think [39:41] that's I think that's a ridiculous. [39:42] You're you're spiking the football. [39:44] >> I'm not spiking the football. I'm saying [39:46] it's it's good. It's a good thing that [39:48] we're reassessing this [39:51] >> because there were some people were [39:52] giving forecasts for 6 months from now. [39:55] >> No, no, but No, that's not true. That's [39:57] not true. Nobody said in six months all [39:58] the jobs are going away. You're [39:59] literally making that up. Who said [40:00] >> Dario from Anthropic said in 6 months [40:03] half of all entry-level white collar [40:05] jobs will be gone? [40:05] >> I don't believe he said that. [40:06] >> That was an actual quote. [40:08] >> All right. Well, he was actually wrong. [40:10] Either way, do you do you think that AI [40:12] is not going to impact the economy? I [40:14] mean, is that what you're saying? [40:15] >> Here's So, I have this is a good lead [40:17] in. So, John Arnold posted, "West coast, [40:19] we're approaching an economic [40:20] transformation unlike anything in modern [40:22] history. East Coast, we're looking at [40:23] three more years of 2.1% GDP growth." [40:26] I'm just throwing it out there. What if [40:29] AI gives us a little bit of boost in [40:31] productivity? It makes our lives [40:33] demonstrabably easier and more [40:35] efficient, but it does like the [40:37] internet. There's no huge change to GDP. [40:40] I think that's a very reasonable outcome [40:42] we could see because I think the tech [40:45] people think we're going to have like 4% [40:48] growth, 6% growth. It's going to be this [40:49] magical utopia of growth. And I really [40:52] think that there's a much higher [40:54] likelihood that growth is just two two [40:56] and a half%. [40:57] >> Perhaps. But is is GDP the right [40:59] measure? [41:01] >> That's what the tech that's what the [41:02] tech person would say. [41:03] >> No, but it's true. What does that what [41:04] does that really capture? The total [41:06] output of our country. [41:08] >> Yeah, it's kind of a big deal. [41:10] >> I don't think it's the right metric. [41:11] >> What What is the right metric? [41:13] >> Vibes. [41:14] >> Okay. [41:15] >> I don't I don't know what the right [41:16] metric is. [41:16] >> I'm not helping with vibes right now [41:17] either. Everyone hates it. [41:18] >> Well, that's definitely true. [41:20] >> I I but I I I'm just saying I really do [41:23] think that this is a more likely outcome [41:25] that GDP could increase a little bit and [41:28] that would be a huge thing over the long [41:29] term because the economy is so big. But [41:32] the tech people go, "Wait, what?" [41:34] >> So, if GDP does increase a little bit [41:37] and the stock market doesn't crash, [41:40] >> then Buffett's indicator, which is [41:42] something that he doesn't really care [41:43] about anymore, [41:45] uh, is going to get extremely even more [41:48] lopsided. The stock the size of the [41:49] stock market versus GDP is going to [41:52] going to continue to make bears [41:56] insane. [41:57] >> I I think it's and Munger even said like [42:00] Buffett doesn't believe this anymore. [42:01] Get out of here. I think why wouldn't [42:04] the stock market be a bigger percentage [42:06] of the GDP over time? [42:09] I the claim that it has to be a certain [42:11] level because it was in the past. Why? [42:12] >> No. Corporate America is more powerful [42:14] than everything else [42:16] >> and more people invest in the stock [42:18] market. Of course, it's bigger. There's [42:19] more money in the stock market than it [42:20] was in the past. [42:21] >> But one piece of of of of our output, [42:23] but it's the biggest piece. Um, I don't [42:25] want to let this this I don't know why [42:26] that just things pop into my brain all [42:29] the time. popping guy. You know what [42:31] just popped in? You singing your song, [42:33] your karaoke song. [42:36] So every year, is it every year at this [42:38] point? Is it a tradition? Can we call it [42:40] that? [42:41] >> For what? [42:42] >> For your karaoke. [42:44] >> Well, the last two years I've done it [42:46] now. [42:46] >> Okay. So, so it's a thing now. So, Ben's [42:49] go-to song [42:51] is Ben's a big TC guy. [42:54] It's Is it Lost That Loving Feeling or [42:56] That Loving? [42:57] >> You've lost that loving feeling. It's [42:58] funny. My kids, we were talking last [43:00] night. What's your favorite movie? And I [43:01] said, it's probably Top Gun. [43:04] >> Did you show them the video? [43:06] >> No, I didn't. [43:07] >> Would you? [43:08] >> No. [43:10] >> You did very well. I mean, you are [43:12] you're an introvert, but on the mic, my [43:14] god, you're like Britney Spears out [43:15] there. [43:16] >> I gave it my uh I gave it my best. [43:18] Obviously, I had some liquid courage [43:19] going, so that helped. [43:20] >> It was very impressive. [43:22] >> Uh yes, vibes were very high. Everyone [43:24] was doing karaoke. [43:26] There was some friends in low places and [43:28] all the small things. Good times. [43:32] So, it's funny. Everyone always says [43:34] that post like Twitter is like the [43:36] biggest cess poolool in the world of [43:37] social media. And obviously in a lot of [43:39] ways it's true, but have you ever waited [43:41] into LinkedIn before? [43:42] >> No. [43:44] >> So, I was on I I I post some stuff on [43:46] there. [43:47] >> I mean, not not but what do you mean [43:48] what do you mean by waited in? [43:50] >> Just like done a scroll of the post on [43:52] LinkedIn. [43:52] >> Not really. [43:53] >> Okay. Everyone says the biggest [43:55] psychopaths in the world are on Twitter. [43:56] I think they're on LinkedIn. [43:58] Um, [44:00] but I saw a hashtag ha like a big long [44:03] post and it said hashtag written without [44:05] AI. [44:08] I think that's I don't know how long [44:10] that's going to last for because no one [44:11] I feel like people are going to stop [44:12] caring about that. Like people have [44:14] really strong feelings about that now. I [44:15] think it's going to go away. [44:16] >> Hashtags were always for dweebs. [44:20] >> Yes, it's true. Um, okay. Okay, let's [44:22] talk about Bitcoin a little bit. [44:24] Bitcoin's had a massive, massive [44:26] comeback. So, at one point in the end of [44:28] July, Bitcoin was down 33% on the year. [44:31] This is IBIT. And now it is essentially [44:34] flat on a year after a massive, massive [44:36] comeback in the last couple weeks [44:38] because of regulation. And I don't know. [44:40] >> No, no, no, not because of regulation. [44:44] The Clarity Act hopes for regulation. [44:47] The Clarity Act failed. [44:48] >> I know. I guess the hope is that it's [44:50] going to pass. I don't know. [44:52] So explain this to me. [44:54] >> Uh I will try. Um couple months ago we [44:57] did a show with uh Gayscale and we were [45:00] saying asking is Bitcoin dead? I mean [45:03] what is the catalyst? And we weren't [45:04] asking that rhetorically. We're like [45:06] literally what can it possibly be? [45:08] >> And sentiment was very very low [45:10] >> and I believe I said I don't know. I [45:11] think price is a catalyst. I don't know [45:13] that there has to be one. People can get [45:14] back in the boat really quickly. Uh is [45:16] it just software? I don't know. Software [45:18] is bouncing. Bitcoin's bouncing. Is that [45:19] is it that simple? Why over complicate [45:22] it? [45:23] >> Remember Bitco Bitcoin really flew on [45:25] risks of the end of human extinction or [45:27] human extinction fears. [45:29] >> I don't know. I It really is the It's an [45:32] asset that has always sort of defied [45:34] logic, [45:34] >> but it's moving with software still. [45:37] >> I still think this is the the best [45:39] long-term bullcase that every time it [45:42] feels like it's just dead than dead, it [45:44] comes back. [45:46] >> It is. [45:47] >> It's always the Undertaker meme. [45:48] >> Yeah. And it's back at what? 86,000. [45:51] >> Yep. [45:52] >> All right. Speaking of inflation, Connor [45:54] Sand's got a new Substack called the [45:55] housing frame, which is very good. [45:58] And he's talking I feel like I'm [46:00] probably guilty of this. Like we talk [46:02] about the housing crisis, the supply [46:05] crisis, and we're say like obviously the [46:07] solution dummies is build more housing. [46:10] The question is what would that actually [46:12] look like if we did build more housing? [46:14] And so he has he pulled some quotes from [46:16] home builders. So, so the guy from LAR [46:17] said, "Lair labor availability has [46:20] started to become more of an issue. [46:21] Immigration enforcement, enthusiastic [46:22] data center construction continue to [46:24] create tightness in certain geographies. [46:27] We've been able to offset labor [46:28] increases with efficiencies of scale, [46:30] but the pressure on cost is certainly [46:31] building." Uh, another guy from another [46:33] from from Department RE said the same [46:34] thing. We're at the point, we're [46:35] probably at the point where construction [46:37] costs are the lowest they're going to [46:38] go. So, it's hard to find people who [46:40] work in construction right now because [46:42] we're immigration enforcement. We're [46:44] locking down on immigration and there's [46:46] all the construction people are going [46:48] towards data centers. So if we said if [46:50] we did this moratorium on housing and [46:52] the federal government waved a magic [46:53] wand and said we're going to make it [46:55] we're taking away all the red tape. [46:56] Build as many houses as you want. We're [46:58] going to incentivize it. If that was the [47:00] thing, people would think that would [47:02] solve a lot of problems. But what that [47:04] would also do is it would cause a really [47:06] huge increase in inflation because [47:08] you're have to pay for more people to [47:09] come to construction work and housing [47:11] would be way more expensive because of [47:13] this. [47:15] My point is we're probably not going to [47:17] solve the housing crisis [47:19] without creating another add-on [47:21] something. If we really were to to fill [47:24] in the hole with those 3 to four million [47:26] houses were missing, if we could somehow [47:29] do it, [47:31] it would just cause another crisis. [47:33] What literally happens to people that [47:37] are growing up and having babies and [47:40] need more space, need to move out of the [47:42] apartment into a house, and they just [47:44] cannot afford it, which has got to be at [47:46] this point most people. [47:49] >> No, it's not most people. [47:50] >> It's got to be most people. [47:52] >> It's got to be. How can it be? Houses [47:55] are so expensive. [47:57] >> You tap the bank of mom and dad. That's [47:59] how you do it. [48:00] >> Okay. Not everybody can do that. [48:02] >> True. [48:04] >> I don't know. I really do think it's a [48:06] crisis. I think it's a national [48:07] emergency. [48:09] >> And my point is [48:12] no one it doesn't seem like anyone wants [48:13] to fix this national emergency. And even [48:15] if we could, what would it lead to? And [48:17] how how would it happen? [48:21] That's the hard part. [48:22] >> Well, out of my depth, I have no idea. [48:24] >> Tense for all. Gen Z. That's my [48:26] platform. [48:28] >> Tense yurts. tents. [48:31] >> Yeah, tent cities. [48:34] >> I got No, I I I It's It's It's It sounds [48:37] like a simple problem. Just build more [48:38] houses. I think it's way more [48:39] complicated than it sounds at face [48:41] value, unfortunately. [48:44] >> Well, also, where to build them? I mean, [48:45] are we talking about making new towns? I [48:46] don't even know what that means, but [48:47] just build more houses. [48:49] >> Right. [48:51] Let's talk about fraud a little bit. [48:53] Travis Kelce was in a Ponzi scheme. I [48:57] saw this in the Detroit News. Also, Tim [48:59] Hardway Jr., Gary Harris, Mason Plumley. [49:02] There was this Swift Arc LLC. The guy [49:05] took in tens of millions of dollars. I [49:07] think he promised to do some sort of [49:08] venture capital something. It's kind of [49:10] funny. It says he put all the money in [49:12] Philip Morris, Pakistan, which I did not [49:15] know was a thing, and basically took the [49:18] rest of the money, spend it on himself, [49:20] and then started paying back new [49:21] investors or old investors with new [49:23] investors. Huge Ponzi scheme. [49:27] um the it's it's obviously not all [49:31] private investments, but it's so much [49:32] easier to commit fraud in private [49:34] investments. [49:36] You can have the whole aura of blackbox [49:38] in anything illquid. It's so much easier [49:41] to do that. The Wall Street Journal had [49:42] a story about [49:43] >> Also, when people say, "Hey, I want my [49:44] money back." I I can't. It's illquid. [49:47] >> Right. Yes. The Wall Street Journal had [49:49] a story about Mark Walter, the guy who [49:51] had to sell the Lakers, and it was [49:53] showing the huge increase in money going [49:55] into annuities, and saying how kind of [49:57] easy it was for him to use this. And [50:00] they interviewed a few people, this guy [50:02] saying, "I bought annuities from this [50:04] company for decades." [50:06] And then I realized that they're this [50:07] guy is investing it in other stuff. And [50:10] you'd think that insurance would be one [50:12] of the most regulated industries that [50:14] there is. And I think it is. And it was [50:16] still easy for this guy to do this. [50:18] I just I just think that the s the sheer [50:20] size of private markets in illlquid [50:23] markets now illquid investments means [50:25] that there's probably so much more fraud [50:27] going on than we even know. [50:28] >> True. [50:30] >> And you probably don't hear when I [50:31] researched don't fall for it. What I [50:33] found was a lot of fraud you never hear [50:35] about because unless it goes to court [50:36] because people don't want to admit that [50:38] they got taken advantage of. [50:39] >> Yeah. It's humiliating. [50:41] >> Yes. [50:42] Uh okay. This is interesting. [50:45] pilots rich. [50:48] You know this [50:49] >> good. [50:49] >> The Wall Street Journal had us. It makes [50:51] Yeah, that this is one of the things [50:52] >> I don't want my pilot making $60,000 a [50:54] year. [50:55] >> So, it's interesting. They interview [50:56] this pilot and he says he's got a [50:59] brokerage account and a $3.5 million [51:01] 401k. Once he starts taking his required [51:03] minimum distributions, his income will [51:04] be well over $300,000 a year, including [51:06] social security, which is more than he [51:07] earned most years while working. Uh, [51:10] this is crazy. United, Delta, and [51:12] American and Southwest now make 18% [51:15] non-elective retirement contributions to [51:16] pilot 401ks. Love that. [51:18] >> Holy smokes. So that non-elective means [51:20] like they put that in your 401k whether [51:23] you put anything in or not. [51:25] >> Pretty crazy, right? They said pilots [51:27] with seniority can make as much as [51:29] $100,000 in a month if they live near a [51:31] hub, fly the biggest planes, and can [51:33] pick up overtime rates due to weather [51:34] related events. [51:36] >> Wow. I've heard of this before of [51:38] there's I think there there's an adviser [51:40] in Atlanta who the his only clients are [51:43] Delta airline pilots. [51:45] >> Now, [51:45] >> shout out to Delta. You know what? I I [51:48] meant to wear my So, they sent us a care [51:50] package which was very nice. [51:51] >> Yes. [51:52] >> Uh I am a hardcore Delta Stan loyalist. [51:56] >> Me too. At Future Proof, we had to fly [51:59] to uh we had to fly United [52:03] um because we flew to John Wayne Airport [52:06] in Orange County, which is near where [52:08] our event is. [52:10] And what did I watch on United? [52:15] Garbage. [52:17] Garbage. Garbage. Garbage. [52:18] >> You're right. Delta have the best [52:19] movies, too. [52:20] >> What the hell did I watch? Man, I [52:21] watched some pieces of I genuinely [52:23] don't even remember. And matter of fact, [52:25] didn't we get an email from the person [52:26] at Delta that runs their movie [52:27] selection? [52:29] >> Yes. Yeah. [52:30] >> If you're still listening and you still [52:31] in that role, salute to you, sir, [52:34] because not only is Delta just the best [52:36] for a million different reasons. [52:39] By far the best movie selection by far. [52:42] By far, Delta, I miss you. Thank you. [52:46] >> You're right. They sent us a really nice [52:47] care package. My son loves It's like a [52:49] little model airplane. He put it on his [52:51] nightstand right next to his desk. Very [52:54] cool. Uh, all right. We got to talk [52:55] about this this uh tech person who put [52:59] out her non-negotiables for finding a [53:01] mate. You saw this? [53:03] >> No. [53:04] >> Okay. She's 29. She works for Corgi. [53:07] She's in Silicon Valley. And she said [53:08] non-negotiable. [53:11] >> Corgi the investment company. [53:12] >> Yes. [53:13] >> Huh. Okay. [53:14] >> And the the one So, if you read through [53:15] these, a lot of people said, "Oh gosh, [53:17] she's she's got way too high of [53:18] standards." But the one the best one [53:20] >> Wait, wait, wait. Read it. I I didn't [53:22] say this. Okay. 35 to 32. Healthy math. [53:25] >> That's 35 to 42. [53:26] >> Or 42. Smart, funny, light-hearted. [53:28] Provider protector mentality. This is [53:30] the greatest one here. Post economic [53:32] parenthesis. Still hardworking. [53:34] >> What the what does that mean? [53:36] >> Uh posteconomic means you have you're [53:39] you have more than enough money for a [53:40] financial freedom, but you still like to [53:42] work. So you sold a startup or you got a [53:45] stock options. And so this is the one [53:47] that people latched on to, and I love [53:49] it. Posteconomic. [53:51] Can you imagine how [53:52] >> is there anything else on Is there [53:53] anything else on the list? [53:55] >> Uh, [53:55] >> fit and sober. [53:56] >> Sober because you care about Yeah. So, a [53:58] lot of people on a healing path, history [54:00] of serious commitment, exothers, [54:02] retreats. [54:03] >> Um, so anyway, a lot of people this [54:05] thing went wildly viral. [54:07] >> I'm sorry. I I love that phrase because [54:10] can you imagine how hard it would be to [54:12] be a young person in San Francisco? [54:15] I cannot even imagine [54:18] how difficult it would be with the sheer [54:20] amount of money that some young people [54:21] make [54:23] >> and how expensive it is to live there. [54:25] >> Like her saying this sounds absolutely [54:28] insane to 99.9% of the country, but if [54:32] you live in San Francisco, you probably [54:34] know so many people who are post [54:36] economic. I don't know, for some reason. [54:38] I love that term. [54:39] >> Can meet anywhere but will not date [54:41] unless live in the Okay. on the healing [54:43] path. [54:45] This is weird. History of serious [54:48] commitment, exotherapists, books, [54:50] retreats. [54:53] I'm sorry. I hate the healing path. I [54:57] cannot stand that whole genre of life of [55:01] grinders of [55:04] I just I hate it. [55:05] >> The thing is, [55:06] >> can we just be a normal human being? [55:09] But do you know how many weirdos in San [55:11] Francisco probably fit this description [55:13] she's putting out here? [55:14] >> No kids yet decidedly want kids. Ben, [55:16] why did you bring this to my life? I [55:17] don't need I don't need to know about [55:18] this. [55:19] >> I just I love the phrase posteconomic. I [55:21] love it. [55:22] >> I hate it. All right. Um [55:25] let's talk about what's going on in the [55:28] world of sports, entertainment, and [55:30] finance. [55:32] The Wall Street Journal was writing [55:34] about Thrive and Iger's purchase of the [55:36] Lakers and they say that they are [55:38] telling prospective investors they [55:39] expect to nearly triple the basketball [55:41] team's valuation within 10 years to uh [55:45] $30 billion at least. Wow. Uh [55:48] >> they 12. [55:49] >> Yeah. And more favorable assumptions [55:50] would be at $62 billion. So they said [55:53] that the the Lakers are on track to [55:55] generate $681 million in revenue in [55:57] 2026. [55:59] uh under their plans, they said revenue [56:00] would hit at least $1.6 billion by the [56:03] by the end of 2037. And they they show [56:05] the cost, the the revenue and cost. And [56:07] this is a nice little nice little [56:09] visual. But [56:12] am I taking drugs? $30 billion on $1.6 [56:16] billion in revenue. That's what we're [56:17] doing now. [56:20] This is one of those you can't value it [56:22] like on a spreadsheet, though. This is [56:25] one of those assets that it's you're [56:27] it's what a rich guy is willing to pay [56:29] for it. [56:30] >> $30 billion on one and a half billion in [56:34] revenue. [56:35] >> So, do you know what [56:36] >> if if the Lakers sell for $30 billion or [56:38] if the Lakers are worth $30 billion in a [56:40] decade, then we're all going to be very [56:43] rich. [56:43] >> So, hey, [56:44] >> that means that every that means that [56:46] everything went right. All of our fears [56:48] were were misplaced. [56:50] >> The Lakers are worth $30 billion. Your [56:52] 401k is is $2.9 million. We're good. [56:56] >> What do you think a [56:57] >> We're all post economic, Ben. [56:58] >> What do you think a reasonable annual [57:00] rate of return is for a professional [57:02] sports team? [57:03] >> Um, [57:04] >> how much should it go up? Should it [57:05] follow inflation? Should it go up more? [57:07] >> Okay. So, in real life, in real life, I [57:10] would say 6 to 8%. [57:12] >> Okay. [57:13] >> Like in economic reality, in reality, [57:16] reality is it 12 to 14? I don't know. [57:21] So going from 12 billion to 30 billion [57:24] in 10 years sounds like an insane [57:27] increase in price. I think it's actually [57:30] like a return of 10% per year. Isn't [57:33] that about right? [57:34] >> No. [57:35] >> No. [57:36] >> No. [57:36] >> Am I way off? [57:37] >> A triple in 10 years? If that's not No, [57:40] that's way higher because a double in 10 [57:43] years is 7%. [57:45] >> No. Do your math again. A double in 10 [57:48] years of 72 30 is going from saying a [57:50] double A double in 10 years I know we're [57:52] not supposed to be doing math on the [57:53] show but [57:55] >> a double in 10 years is 7.2%. [57:58] >> Yeah. [57:59] >> Didn't you read Rich Dad Poor Dad? Have [58:00] you learned nothing from Robert [58:01] Kawyasaki? [58:03] >> Do the math right now. [58:04] >> I'm not doing the math. That's the only [58:05] math I'm doing. [58:06] >> 12 to 30 is a 10% annual return. [58:10] >> Okay. [58:10] >> Over 10 years. [58:11] >> All right. Well, you obviously just used [58:12] a calculator, so I'm not going to [58:13] >> Of course I did. I I wanted to make [58:14] sure. But it's not as it's not as high [58:17] as you think. [58:17] >> All right, fine. Maybe it's not. [58:20] >> Listen, rich guys are going to compound [58:22] their wealth at the stock market if the [58:25] stock market's up 10% every year. [58:27] >> So, it kind of makes sense actually. [58:29] >> So, um this is kind of [58:30] >> Josh Kushner in this picture looks like [58:32] Adam Brody, [58:33] >> very handsome man. They said that uh [58:37] part of their increase in revenue [58:39] projections is taking 6,000 broker held [58:42] season ticket sales for single game [58:44] sales which would raise average ticket [58:47] prices from 217 to 360. That is freaking [58:52] crazy. An average ticket sale. Now I [58:54] know Los Angeles is a place with a lot [58:56] of money. An average ticket sale of 360. [58:59] >> What do you think the average is for the [59:00] Knicks? [59:03] you know, um the average for the Knicks [59:06] is I'm going to guess 145. [59:11] >> Think about just a scenario where AI [59:13] doesn't rule like destroy the world. How [59:17] much money is AI going to create in the [59:19] next 10 years and how much how much [59:21] wider is wealth inequality going to be? [59:25] 30 billion. Mark it down. These guys are [59:27] right. [59:28] >> Okay. Finally, after after an hour, [59:31] you're taking a stand. [59:33] That's right. [59:34] >> Okay. Um, in the same vein, uh, [59:39] >> and I don't get this. So, so Apollo is [59:42] buying 16% of the Yankees. [59:44] >> Okay. Are they putting it into a private [59:45] credit fund? [59:47] >> Here's probably Well, yeah, because [59:49] there's there's debt involved. Here's [59:51] the part that I don't understand. So, [59:52] the the the debt piece, okay, I'm sure [59:54] they're getting a nice return for [59:56] lending money to the Yankees. That's [59:57] money. Good. But the equity [60:01] uh $12 billion um significantly more [60:04] than $12 billion. This is reported from [60:06] Charles Gaspino at the New York Post. [60:09] How do equity investors in the Yankees [60:10] make make an attractive return from the [60:12] point of view of a rich person? If [60:14] you're Iger and Kushner, I get it. I [60:17] totally get it. The Lakers are the prize [60:21] of all prizes. There are no bigger [60:23] bragging rights. But if you are merely [60:25] eagle purchase, [60:26] >> if you are a passive equity investor in [60:28] the Yankees, is that attractive? [60:31] >> Like I'd rather buy I'd rather buy [60:33] Facebook. I don't know. [60:36] >> That's true. I'd like to see the the [60:37] spreadsheet on this. [60:38] >> This also made me laugh. [60:40] >> Um uh [60:43] Gasparino said, "Pe firms are currently [60:45] barred from owning more than 15% of any [60:47] team according to MLB rules, though the [60:50] league is expected to wave the cap. [60:54] Okay. [60:55] >> All right. So, here are the world's it. [60:56] Who cares? [60:57] >> It's the purge for one day. [61:00] >> All right. There was a story in the cut. [61:02] My husband has no friends. And it says, [61:04] "For some wives, first comes love, then [61:06] comes marriage, then comes managing [61:07] their spouse's social life." I have a [61:10] question for you. [61:11] >> For your social life, how much is [61:13] planned by you and how much is planned [61:15] by Robin in terms of like stuff you guys [61:17] do together with other people? [61:18] >> I'm pretty sure you know the answer to [61:19] this. [61:20] >> Okay. I think this is the way it is for [61:22] almost everyone I know that the wife is [61:24] in charge of the social calendar [61:26] >> when it comes to people. And this this [61:28] woman, she was like kind of poking fun [61:29] at her husband, but also like writing [61:32] about it and how like you go to school [61:34] events and the husband is kind of over [61:36] in the corner, but the wives are all [61:37] talking to because they know each other. [61:39] Like I think this is just the natural [61:41] way of of life. [61:42] >> Correct. This is not [61:44] >> I don't think this is a problem. [61:45] >> This is not a reflection of modern [61:47] society. This is this is the way it's [61:49] always been for for men. [61:51] >> I think men find their friends at a [61:52] certain age and they rarely find new [61:54] friends. [61:55] >> So here here's what happens. And I like [61:57] my dad friends. I happen to enjoy their [61:58] company for the most part. But when we [62:01] get together in somebody's backyard, for [62:02] example, the the women are all talking [62:04] about god knows what forever and ever. [62:06] And after five minutes, we sort of run [62:08] out of things to talk about [62:09] >> and it's mostly like oh uh you know [62:11] sports whatever and then we're done. [62:14] >> How it was for every guy. Yes. Then we [62:16] just watch the wives and say, "What are [62:17] they talking about? What are they even [62:18] talking about? They look so happy." [62:19] >> My wife has so many new friends from the [62:21] moms at school and the the play working [62:24] the playground and stuff. Like she has [62:25] this whole group of new friends and [62:26] she's always like, "Go talk to more of [62:28] the dads at the games and stuff." I'm [62:29] like, I don't want new friends. But I'm [62:30] guess what? They don't want to be [62:32] friends with me either. [62:32] >> No, [62:33] >> it's a it's mutually we're we're all [62:35] happy here. [62:35] >> So here's here's my here's been my [62:37] routine thus far. I've been very tired [62:39] lately. Um, I don't know if this is like [62:42] a new thing or if I'm just a tired sort [62:44] of person, but at the end of the day, [62:46] I'm very tired. We do a lot, right? Our [62:48] brains are very active. Then the kids [62:50] come home like I'm just at 9:00 I'm [62:52] done. I know you're a night owl, which [62:54] is very nice for you. Um, so I put the [62:56] kids down, whatever, 9:15, and then I go [63:00] straight up to bed. Straight to bed. And [63:03] Robin is a night owl like you. And but [63:05] it's annoying because I get a little bit [63:07] I get sort of like anxious is the wrong [63:09] word, but like I can't really fall [63:10] asleep until she comes in. So I'm like [63:12] sort of half sleeping. And the other [63:14] night she comes in and then I'm just [63:17] kind of annoyed cuz I was tired and not [63:18] able to fall asleep the next morning. I [63:20] said, "What the hell were you talking [63:21] about for an hour and a half?" And she [63:24] said, "Kobe's tryyous." And I said, "You [63:27] got to be kidding me. How could you? How [63:29] was there 90 minutes of conversation?" [63:31] He goes, she goes, "Well, you don't want [63:32] to talk about it. I'll talk about it. [63:34] Let's talk about it. tell me the [63:35] conversation that you just had. So she's [63:37] breaking it down for me. She's like I'm [63:38] like and you got to be kidding me that [63:41] you you squeezed 90 minutes out of that. [63:44] You and I could have had this [63:45] conversation in four minutes. We would [63:46] have been over. I'm happy to have this [63:47] conversation. 4 minutes done. But they [63:51] they talk. They like to talk. [63:52] >> That's why they need each other, right? [63:53] It's I think it works. My point is that [63:55] this is not a problem that needs to be [63:57] solved. Everyone is happy in this [63:58] arrangement. [63:59] >> This just is. So arrangement works. I [64:01] mentioned this a few weeks ago, but [64:02] because my bed my kids bedtimes is now [64:04] creeping up a little bit higher [64:06] converging with my bedtime. I am really [64:09] struggling to get through TV shows. It [64:11] took me eight months to get through [64:13] Friends and Neighbors. So, I want to I [64:15] want to watch um Mob Land is back and [64:17] The Gentleman is back, which are [64:19] basically the same show. I can't even I [64:20] don't know which is which. [64:21] >> John Ham has another new show as well. [64:23] Guys everywhere. [64:24] >> There's too many good there's too much I [64:26] feel like TV is having a moment. A lot [64:27] of shows [64:28] >> that I want to watch that I just will [64:30] not get to. [64:30] >> It's taking me a long time to get [64:31] through shows as well. [64:33] >> These damn kids. Am I right? [64:34] >> Let's talk some future proof thoughts. I [64:36] got a few thoughts on future proof now [64:38] that we've and we we've recorded live [64:39] from there last week. It was really fun. [64:41] Great to see a bunch of people. We had [64:42] an animal spirits happy hour. A bunch of [64:44] people came. We had a live animal [64:45] spirits. [64:45] >> We saw a million people at the [64:47] conference. It was so much fun. [64:50] This is not a novel observation, but I [64:52] think this is just something that has [64:53] been more deeply ingrained in us since [64:55] the pandemic that people just want to be [64:57] around other people. Like the whole [65:00] point of this conference, there's a lot [65:02] of really good content and a lot of like [65:03] stuff, but it's more just being around [65:05] other people that had made this [65:06] conference grow to like 50 600 people or [65:09] whatever it was. I can't believe the [65:11] amount of people that were there and [65:13] just wanted to be around other people [65:14] and socialize and get that one-on-one [65:17] that you can't get over Zoom and you [65:19] can't get digitally. [65:20] >> You're right. As somebody So, I'm not I [65:22] don't like small talk in almost any [65:23] form, [65:24] >> but I do but I do love being in the mix. [65:27] >> I I just love being around so many [65:29] people. [65:30] >> It was Yes. It's like it's very [65:31] energizing. U I continue to think we [65:35] have a very young audience at Future [65:37] Proof. I don't know what the average age [65:39] is. Probably mid30sish, [65:41] 40 at the highest probably. I'm sure the [65:44] future proof people have these numbers. [65:46] It's a young crowd. I just I continue to [65:48] think as much angst as there is about [65:51] young people, I think young people are [65:52] going to be fine. [65:53] >> It's it's older than that, but there are [65:54] a lot of young people there. [65:56] >> And I had I had a bunch of we have this [65:57] thing where we allow college students to [65:59] come. I think I don't know if they give [66:01] them free tickets or cheaper, but I had [66:02] all these college kids coming up to me [66:03] talking about how they're into this [66:04] stuff. They're asking questions and can [66:07] you imagine when you were in college [66:08] going to a an an industry event and [66:11] being excited about it and asking people [66:13] questions about your career path? [66:15] >> I never did that. [66:16] >> From our purview, which is a narrow one, [66:18] obviously, there does seem to be a big [66:20] disconnect between young people are are [66:22] miserable versus the young people that [66:24] we interact with. [66:25] >> And the young people at our firm, we [66:27] have a whole Gen Z cohort now that works [66:28] with us. They're they're happy golucky. [66:32] They're all in they all really want to [66:33] have a good time. They have a good time [66:34] with each other. [66:35] >> Well, credit to us. We have a great work [66:37] environment and we select great people. [66:40] So, that's not an accident. [66:42] >> True. One other thing, I feel like the [66:44] AI shift, like the the future proof in [66:47] Miami 6 months ago was all about AI. I [66:50] feel like there's already been a massive [66:51] shift from that 6 months ago to now. [66:55] >> You're right. six months ago was a lot [66:56] of like uh just conjecture as to what is [67:00] the world going to look like in six [67:01] months and six months later we have [67:04] Claude making the announcement that [67:06] there's a that they're integrating with [67:07] financial advisors not replacing [67:10] integrating [67:10] >> but that was the thing it was like what [67:12] are the AI tools you're going to be [67:14] using there was a middle of there was a [67:15] million of these smaller AI companies [67:17] that hey we can do this for you and we [67:18] can do this for you and now it's like no [67:20] we have Claude and we have Hazel and [67:21] these are the big ones and it's it felt [67:22] like there's a huge change uh all right [67:24] one more story for For years, we talked [67:27] about the line on your TV, [67:29] >> right? You had this line on your TV and [67:30] you you kept it for how long? [67:33] >> Ever. [67:33] >> Forever. And you finally got [67:35] >> I was taking a stand. That was a new TV. [67:37] Damn it. Oh, it was so it turned a year [67:40] and a week old. And I tried to bring it [67:42] back to Best Buy. There was a a pretty [67:44] thick green line and they said, "Sorry, [67:45] your warranty expired." And I said, "You [67:48] got to be kidding me." [67:50] Uh, so I I spite I spite kept it. [67:52] >> I got a new TV last year. I don't know. [67:53] It's like a big 80 inch whatever. I [67:55] finally got a really big TV in our [67:56] basement. And we just have like a big [67:58] long wall in our basement. And so I have [68:00] nothing in front of this TV. It's just a [68:01] TV on a wall. There's no TV stand. [68:03] There's no nothing in front of it. It's [68:04] just so it's not that tall. And for some [68:06] reason my son because little boys are [68:08] like psychotic in many ways and they [68:10] just get something in their head. He [68:12] decided in the last month he really [68:14] wants to perfect a handstand. So all day [68:17] every day this kid is doing handstands [68:21] >> against the wall or naked. Both. Both. [68:24] >> Wow. [68:24] >> He's doing against the wall. He goes [68:26] against the wall and he tries to do [68:27] straight up push-ups, like upside down [68:29] push-ups. [68:30] >> All right. He's been watching way too [68:31] much Rocky. [68:32] >> I don't know what we actually did watch [68:33] Rocky for. And it it really, you're [68:36] right, that's probably the best movie of [68:37] the 80s. So, he's been doing a million [68:39] of these and he he he's got bruises all [68:41] over his legs cuz he keeps doing them [68:42] and he falls over on stuff. So he does [68:45] one in front of my TV, my brand new TV [68:47] on the wall and his heel goes into the [68:52] TV and immediately scroll to the [68:56] picture. [68:57] >> I see it. I see it. I see it. [68:58] >> There's 25 lines like a rainbow in my TV [69:02] >> because his heel hit the TV so hard. And [69:04] I JUST GET A GEORGE. AND I couldn't be [69:06] mad at him, but I'm like, what do you [69:10] But to your point, I'm like, well, this [69:13] we can't watch TV in this room anymore. [69:15] It's ruined. [69:15] >> That's way worse than mine was. I mean, [69:16] that's [69:17] >> I was going to ask if it's worse. But [69:18] last night, my daughter and I were in [69:20] the basement and I'm like, "Let's watch [69:21] a movie." And I'm like, "Oh, shoot. The [69:22] stupid lines in the TV." And you know [69:24] what we did? We powered through and we [69:25] watched it with lines in the TV. But I'm [69:27] I'm I have to get I already ordered a [69:29] new TV. But yeah, because little boys [69:32] have so much energy. I have lines in my [69:35] TV. [69:35] >> Can I show you something? Speaking of [69:36] Rocky 4. [69:46] >> So, we got uh new office that I'm be [69:50] going to be spending time in. So, I [69:51] needed to get some things to the back of [69:52] my wall. [69:57] >> Wow. A lot of glare, but [70:01] >> Andrago [70:03] >> and uh well, Rocky Andrago. [70:07] >> Wow. So, I I showed my kids last week [70:10] the movie. I think I sent you a picture [70:12] of it as we were watching it. [70:12] >> Why didn't Dolph Lungren have a bigger [70:14] career? [70:15] >> He's not a good actor. [70:16] >> Was he He-Man? [70:18] >> I think so. [70:18] >> They tried, but I still got chills at [70:22] the end. [70:22] >> Oh, [70:22] >> my my kids were so so into it. But I got [70:25] chills at the end. [70:27] All right, recommendation time. So, you [70:30] I think you told me you said George is [70:32] going to love The End of Oak Street and [70:33] it came out on you watched it in the [70:35] theater and it came out on on demand. [70:36] So, we watched it this weekend and my [70:39] kids watched it three times in two days. [70:42] So, it's a dinosaur movie. The other [70:44] great thing, I think it was 97 minutes, [70:47] so it was a it just the movie got into [70:49] it and it went and that's just an [70:52] entertaining movie. Just quality [70:53] entertainment. A [70:54] >> lot of fun. It was like a Spielberg 80s [70:56] movie. [70:56] >> Yes, it did. The the fact that they [70:58] really went in all in the 80s. The other [71:00] thing, at some point in the movie, they [71:02] play the song Valerie by Steve Winwood. [71:05] >> What is that? I don't think I know that. [71:06] Sing [71:07] >> karaoke. [71:09] >> Of course. Of course, of course. [71:11] >> Same. [71:13] >> Good job. [71:14] >> So, for the last week now, my kids have [71:17] been listening to Valerie and singing [71:18] it, and it's stuck in my head on a loop. [71:20] They keeps every time I walk in the room [71:22] like kids are going and they're singing. [71:24] >> Next I want to hit do burning heart [71:26] please. [71:28] >> But who's more 80s than Steve Winwood [71:29] with like the synthesizer [71:31] >> and just nailed it. All right. What do [71:33] you got? [71:34] >> Uh pretty dry. Pretty dry. I I'm trying [71:36] to see uh trying to get to Resident Evil [71:40] but have not made it yet. I'm taking my [71:43] kids to see uh Endgame is being [71:45] re-released for one night. So we're [71:48] going on Friday. Excited about that. [71:49] What's Endgame? [71:51] >> Avengers. [71:52] >> Ah, [71:54] >> everyone dies, but then magically [71:56] they're all alive again. [71:57] >> Exactly. You know how it works. Um, all [71:59] right. This is the This is, you know, [72:01] Father Time is undefeated. Ben, I was [72:04] watching. So, you know, I'm a big big [72:07] fan of animal attack movies, right? [72:10] >> Yes. [72:10] >> Crocodiles eating people or shark. Have [72:12] >> you seen the Have you seen the for the [72:14] guy who gets eaten by a whale? [72:16] >> Yeah. I can't wait. That's but that's a [72:17] that's a legitimate mo film. So there's [72:20] a movie on Netflix called Deep Water [72:24] Starring Ben freaking Kingsley, [72:27] Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley. [72:31] Uh and Aaron Eckert. [72:33] >> Sounds like a straight to streaming [72:34] movie to me. [72:36] >> Ben Kingsley played a pilot. He was in [72:38] the movie for 11 minutes. [72:42] Isn't it unbelievable? [72:44] And I thought Aaron Eker was a good was [72:46] a fine actor. I thought he was great in [72:48] uh Thank You for Smoking, but I guess [72:50] his career just completely unraveled. [72:52] Anyway, deeply bad movie. Uh more just a [72:56] commentary on [72:56] >> I would read a book about how actor and [72:59] actresses go from being like in very [73:02] good movies to oh now you're doing these [73:05] now. [73:06] >> Mark Wahberg. [73:07] >> Mark Wahlberg now. Guy used to do good [73:09] movies. [73:11] There's a lot of people like that. Um, [73:13] no matter how much money people make, [73:15] you always need money is one of the [73:17] takeaways. And lastly, I've been uh I've [73:19] been returning to some of the elder [73:23] horror films that I haven't seen in a [73:24] long time. Like a long long time. For [73:28] example, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Have [73:30] you ever seen the original? [73:32] >> What year are we talking here? [73:34] >> 77. [73:36] I don't even know. [73:37] >> You're saying the one that came out in [73:38] the 1990s is not the original? No, I [73:40] don't think I [73:41] >> I did like the one with Jessica Beal. [73:42] Um, let's see. Texas Chainsaw [73:47] original. [73:48] Uh, 1974. Wow. Wow. That is [73:52] >> I mean, it's just the only thing I think [73:54] it's a it's a very sweaty movie, right? [73:57] Everyone's hot. [73:58] >> Deer Hunter old. Uh, so anyway, the [74:01] original Texas Chainsaw. Listen, it's 50 [74:03] years old. Obviously, it's like it feels [74:05] like an old movie. Quality movie. On the [74:08] on the other hand, Friday the 13th, [74:12] 1980, [74:14] big piece of Horrible, [74:16] >> horrible movie. [74:17] >> Did you know, and this is I suppose I'm [74:20] spoiling a 45-year-old movie if it's [74:24] possible, Jason Vor is not even in the [74:26] movie. [74:28] Now, I remember from Scream that it was [74:30] his mom, and I did see it when I was a [74:31] child, but I just totally forget. [74:32] Jason's not even in the movie. [74:35] I I gotta be honest. I've never seen any [74:36] of the Friday the 13th movies. [74:39] >> Not surprising. [74:40] >> I know who Jason is. That's all I got, [74:41] though. [74:42] >> Yeah. Terrible movie. I'm watching the [74:44] second one. He's in the second one. And [74:45] apparently he doesn't take out the [74:46] hockey mask until the third one. [74:48] >> All right. [74:49] >> That might be the end of my journey. But [74:50] I've seen all the uh the recent ones. [74:52] Jason Goes to Hell, which by the way, [74:53] we're old Ben. That's not even recent. [74:54] But to me, that's recent because I was [74:56] in the 90s. [74:58] Unbelievable. [74:58] >> Your dad took when you were six? [75:01] >> Probably at 12. Uh, all right. [75:04] All right, we said it all. We're uh [75:07] maybe we'll not talk as much about AI [75:09] next week. [75:09] >> Of course, we will. We don't We have to [75:11] keep prefacing this. We don't have to [75:13] apologize for it. [75:14] >> Yeah, [75:14] >> it's the biggest story of the decade. [75:16] >> Fine. [75:17] >> The global pandemic. [75:18] >> I just I would like for the news flow to [75:19] slow down for a second. [75:21] >> It can't. Can't stop. Won't stop. [75:23] >> Probably right, Ben. All right. Animal [75:24] Spirits pod. No. Animal spirits at the [75:28] compoundnews.com. [75:30] Personal emails, personal responses. [75:33] Thank you for listening and we'll see [75:34] you next week.

Big Tech Funds $1T AI Buildout From Cash Flows as Bubble Fears Rise

Key ideas

Detailed notes

[01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=60s) The Hyperscaler Web and the "Wobbly House of Cards"

[03:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=226s) Nvidia’s Valuation and the Capex Flywheel

[05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=300s) Historical Analogies vs. Big Tech Cash Flows

[08:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=483s) Cash Flow Projections and Staggering Tech IPO Scales

[09:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=584s) Claude's Three AI Scenarios and Market Commoditization

[11:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=665s) Autonomous AI Agents: Meta, Instinct, and Everyday Friction

[13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=831s) *Stratechery*, Switching Costs, and the Moat Question

[15:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=947s) Dental Phobias, Squeamishness, and Future Proof IV Drops

[18:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1114s) Market Worries and Bill Miller's Wisdom

[19:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1199s) The $186 Trillion Household Wealth Boom

[22:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1373s) Buying Bonds at 5% and the Return of the 60/40

[27:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1655s) Goldman Sachs' 10-Year Return Scenarios and Sports Betting Tangent

[28:54](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1734s) Why Buy-and-Hold Fails for Individual Stocks

[32:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1928s) *Taxicab Confessions* and the Demise of Raw Reality

[33:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2027s) Questioning the Fed's Rate Hike and the AI Capital Spree

[37:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2229s) The "K-Shaped" Myth and Low-Income Wage Reality

[38:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2330s) The Resilient Labor Market vs. AI Job Apocalypse Predictions

[40:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2415s) AI Productivity, Macro Growth, and the Buffett Indicator

[42:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2545s) Karaoke Traditions, Top Gun, and LinkedIn Psychopaths

[44:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2662s) Bitcoin's Inexplicable Comeback

[45:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=2752s) The Housing Crisis Paradox and Construction Bottlenecks

[047:50] The Housing Crisis and "Tents for Gen Z"

[048:51] Private Market Fraud and the Allure of Illiquidity

[050:42] Rich Airline Pilots and the Delta Loyalty Club

[052:55] Silicon Valley Dating Non-Negotiables: The "Post-Economic" Phenomenon

[055:25] The $30 Billion Lakers Valuation Debate

[57:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3473s) Sports Team Valuations: Lakers Projections and Apollo’s Yankees Stake

[01:01:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3660s) The Male Friendship Deficit and Marital Social Calendars

[01:04:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3874s) Reflections on Future Proof: In-Person Connection and Next-Gen Advisors

[01:06:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=3975s) Gen Z in the Office and the Rapid Maturation of AI Tools

[01:07:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4044s) The Broken TV Chronicles: Best Buy Spite and Basement Handstands

[01:09:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4176s) Rocky IV Office Decor and Childhood Nostalgia

[01:10:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4227s) Recommendations: 80s Dinosaurs, Steve Winwood, and Avengers Re-Releases

[01:12:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4321s) Direct-to-Streaming Disasters and Revisiting Classic Horror Franchises

[01:15:16](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=4516s) Relentless News Flow and Sign-Off

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Detailed notes — zh

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Original transcript

[13:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=831s) Stratechery, Switching Costs, and the Moat Question

[32:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7pe8L4WeRI&t=1928s) Taxicab Confessions and the Demise of Raw Reality