Big Tech Capex Defies Treasury Yield Surge to Fuel S&P 500 Rally

科技巨头无视美债收益率飙升大举资本支出，助推标普500指数上涨 超大市值科技公司在股市大跌之前不会削减人工智能支出，充裕的现金储备让该行业免受更高借贷成本的影响。 Ben Carlson和Michael Batnick分析了“速球资本主义”下的现代金融环境。在这一环境中，巨额企业发债、AI资本支出以及大型交易迅速被金融市场消化，而市场对不断上升的美债收益率表现出令人意外的免疫力。他们将前0.1%人群的财富集中度以及科技创始人面临的“暴富综合征”心理负担等宏观经济现实，与更广泛的消费者健康状况、代际里程碑以及私募市场估值扭曲进行了对比。两位主持人还探讨了受利率影响的结构性住房动态，并评估了美国家庭晚宴聚会和保龄球联赛衰落等美国休闲娱乐方式的变化。本期节目最后给出了涵盖历史债务分析、好莱坞回忆录以及娱乐败笔的流行文化与图书实用推荐。 在“速球资本主义”时代，市场消化创纪录的发债和超大规模IPO等巨额交易的时间只需数周，而非数个季度。 (2:50) 科技行业目前约占标普500指数的50%，但仅占美国总就业人数的2%，凸显出股市与更广泛经济之间的脱节。 (10:00) 财富集中度达到前所未有的水平，前0.1%的人群（约13.7万户家庭）掌控着28万亿美元，约占美国全国家庭净资产总额的15%。 (27:30) 在风险投资领域，回报呈现极端的幂律分布特征，排名前1%的退出事件创造了该行业84%的总退出价值，前10%则占到94%。 (42:08)

Ben Carlson and Michael Batnick analyze an era of rapid capital absorption and market resilience, examining how massive corporate liquidity and artificial intelligence spending continue to propel equity markets despite elevated interest rates and pervasive consumer dissatisfaction. Speedball Capitalism and Tech Dominance (2:50) The broader financial markets are functioning under what The Economist terms 'speedball capitalism,' digesting record-breaking mega-deals, historic junk bond sales, and geopolitical friction within weeks. Artificial intelligence infrastructure across hardware, power, semiconductors, and software now accounts for roughly 53% of the S&P 500. This capital expenditure cycle mirrors historical infrastructure booms, yet mega-cap technology firms possess immense profitability and balance sheets that have shielded them from higher interest rates. Market Resilience and Fixed-Income Distortions (10:00) Despite 10-, 20-, and 30-year Treasury yields reaching cycle highs, equities have pressed toward fresh records, challenging historical assumptions about interest rate sensitivity. High-beta strategies have outperformed low-volatility factor funds by 260% to 40% since 2020, even while defensive funds maintain far higher assets. In fixed income, retail investors have aggressively bought the iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), lifting its assets from $17 billion to nearly $50 billion despite a historic 40% to 45% drawdown. Historical data from Robert Shiller since 1940 shows that 10-year yields between 4% and 6% occurred only roughly 25% of the time, debunking the idea that current yields represent an anomalous deviation from a stable 'normal.' Sudden Wealth, Inequality, and Generational Shifts (30:00) Rapid capital creation has heightened wealth inequality and produced complex psychological adjustments among startup founders experiencing 'Sudden Wealth Syndrome.' Financial planning behaviors often shift past a $20 million net worth threshold, where capital can begin to feel unanchored from normal trade-offs. Broader societal metrics also highlight sharp concentration: the top 0.1% of American households (roughly 137,000 families) now command $28 trillion, or approximately 15% of total household wealth. Concurrently, younger generations hold a higher proportion of their assets in equities at age 34 (19% for Millennials versus 7% for Baby Boomers), even as life milestones like marriage and homebuying are consistently delayed. Macroeconomic Surpluses versus Real Estate Headwinds (40:00) The domestic consumer continues to display resilience, sustained by a physical surplus of goods that has expanded the U.S. self-storage footprint beyond all major retail chain footprints combined. However, macroeconomic crosscurrents remain unresolved. Apollo's Torsten Sløk identifies a compounding feedback loop where elevated borrowing costs reduce home construction, which constrains housing inventory, pushes rents higher, and reinforces sticky inflation through Owners' Equivalent Rent. Simultaneously, private market valuations show acute stress; Andreessen Horowitz data indicates the top 1% of venture exits generate 84% of industry exit proceeds, driving sponsors to seek liquidity from retail investors while companies delay initial public offerings. While equity markets continue to advance near all-time highs despite sharp factor dispersion and multi-decade highs in bond yields, persistent housing supply shortages and heavily concentrated venture capital outcomes present lingering structural challenges.

## Background 本期内容由 YouTube 频道 The Compound 于 2026 年 10 月 7 日发布，属于《Animal Spirits》播客的第 485 期节目。由主持人 Michael Batnick 与 Ben Carlson 主理，节目主要探讨了极速资本主义（Speedball Capitalism）、超大规模云厂商的 AI 资本开支周期、股市逼近历史新高与宏观经济的脱节、暴富综合征以及年轻人财务状况与社会习俗演变等话题。 ## TL;DR 节目围绕当前美国金融市场展现出的极速资本主义特征展开，深入剖析了科技巨头由 AI 推动的庞大资本开支如何无视高利率环境，并探讨了股票市场作为资本开支周期先行指标的内在传导机制。主持人通过数据反驳了长端美债投资与历史利率常态中的统计学偏差，指出年轻一代在资产积累上并未落后，同时揭示了前 0.1% 超级富豪急剧膨胀下的“暴富综合征”与一级市场估值虚高难题。此外，两人还横向延展至租金末日循环、现代育儿与家庭晚宴等传统社交活动消亡的社会变迁，并在节目尾声分享了有关债券历史、名人传记与小众影视作品的个人推荐。 ## Atmosphere & style 整期节目洋溢着轻松诙谐、语速飞快且不乏辛辣讽刺的闲聊氛围，两位主持人配合默契、互捧互逗，经常拿生活琐事与体育投注惨剧相互打趣。面对宏观经济与资本市场的复杂数据，他们以犀利的常识感撕开统计幻觉与流行悲观主义，既有对风投造势和伪精致生活方式的尖锐吐槽，也有对代际更迭、家庭亲情与岁月流逝的温情反思。听感上如同置身于两个资深金融老友的午后对话，在密集的专业认知输出与自嘲打趣之间自然切换，生动且充满人情味。 ## Bulletin - [02:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=170s) 全球市场迈入“极速资本主义”周期，科技与 AI 概念股在标普 500 指数中的权重已攀升至约 53%，而科技行业在全美实际就业人口中占比仅为 2%。 - [12:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=732s) 美债收益率创周期新高并未压制风险偏好，标普 500 高贝塔 ETF 自 2020 年以来累计暴涨约 260%，远超同期低波动 ETF 约 40% 的涨幅。 - [28:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1710s) 财富集中度加速分化，全美前 0.1% 的家庭（约 13.7 万户）掌控着高达 28 万亿美元的财富，占全国家庭总净资产的 15%，引发科技新贵“暴富综合征”与广泛的社会焦虑。 - [42:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2528s) 一级市场估值出现严重堰塞湖，VC 前 1% 的退出项目贡献了全行业 84% 的总回报，多数独角兽因估值虚高而选择推迟 IPO，规避公开市场检验。 ## Key takeaways - [02:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=170s) 全球金融市场展现出极高的流动性吸收能力，能够在数周内快速消化地缘冲突及百亿美元级别的超大并购和发债。 - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=300s) 历史上资本开支繁荣的终结遵循固定传导链条：股票二级市场率先见顶回落，数月之后迫使企业削减 Capex，而非高利率直接阻止巨头投资。 - [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=300s) 科技巨头坐拥充沛现金流，对传统加息政策钝化，美联储货币紧缩主要冲击房地产等脆弱部门，未能有效遏制 AI 军备竞赛。 - [12:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=732s) 2020 年代呈现极端“高贝塔”特征，高息环境下 3% 的传统高股息股票失去吸引力，资金更倾向于追逐高贝塔动量或直接持有高收益固收资产。 - [14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=888s) 长端国债 ETF（如 TLT）在经历逾 40% 的历史级熊市回撤期间，其资产管理规模反而逆向激增至近 500 亿美元，凸显散户博弈反弹的逆行交易。 - [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1054s) 宏观经济中不存在所谓“常态利率”，1940 年以来的历史统计表明，2% 至 4% 的收益率区间持续时间最长，80 年代极端高通胀严重扭曲了长期均值。 - [21:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1290s) 千禧一代在收入与财富积累上并未落后于前几代人，其在 34 岁时股票及共同基金占资产比重达到 19%，大幅超过婴儿潮一代年轻时的水平。 - [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1800s) 突发获得巨额财富（如天价并购退出）往往导致心理适应断层，稀缺性的骤然丧失与阶层脱节催生了“暴富综合征”，约 15% 的退出者陷入严重抑郁或家庭危机。 - [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2100s) 密歇根大学消费者情绪调查于 2024 年由电话采访改为在线问卷，网络环境的戾气与负面偏见被放大，导致消费者信心指数与实际强劲消费出现背离。 - [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2400s) 高利率导致多户型与独栋住宅开工量急剧下滑，阿波罗经济学家警告未来可能陷入“低开工—租金飙升—通胀反弹—维持高息”的恶性循环。 - [42:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2528s) 独角兽企业借口“市场环境不佳”推迟上市暴露出私募估值的水分，标普 500 逼近历史新高背景下，推迟上市实为惧怕二级市场杀估值。 - [48:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2880s) 社会社交模式发生深远转变，高强度育儿与丰富居家娱乐令传统家宴消亡，打扑克与保龄球等传统社群活动参与率自 1970 年代以来大幅下挫。 - [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3300s) 公共债务并不等同于私人欠债，悲观主义者往往高估了国家债务的偿付重担，却低估了技术创新与生产力长期进步所带来的综合承载力。 ## Detailed walkthrough ### [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=0s) 开场：Fidelity 赞助与 Michael 的橄榄球投注悲剧 节目伊始是由 Fidelity Investments 赞助的广告，推介了其全新交易平台 Fidelity Trader+，强调多设备同步、可定制桌面端多屏显示以及与专业交易专员集成屏幕共享等功能。 随后，主持人 Ben Carlson 与 Michael Batnick 展开了闲聊。Ben 开玩笑地问 Michael 是不是纽约巨人队（New York Giants）的铁杆球迷，Michael 先是长叹一声，自嘲说全网可能只有 11 个人会关心这个话题并为此发笑。作为十多年未曾尝过分区第一滋味的巨人队球迷，Michael 坦言自己犯了赌徒的“重罪”——在亚利桑那红雀队（Arizona Cardinals）客场让 2.5 分的比赛中，他认为红雀虽然不强但更有竞争力，于是下了一笔当天最大的 5 队过关垫分投注（5-team teaser），将巨人队的受让分一路垫到非常保守的安全区间，赔率大约在 +130。他当时盘算着巨人队就算输，也绝不可能输超过 9.5 分。 事与愿违的是，比赛行将结束时，巨人队实际上领先 3 到 4 分。但在比赛计时器归零的最后一瞬间，防守球员 Deonte Banks 完成了一记达阵拦截（pick-six）。原本 Banks 只要倒地或跑出界外就能安全收场，结果他一路冲进端区，导致巨人队的净胜分瞬间穿透了盘口，精准摧毁了 Michael 的周末最大注单。Michael 苦笑着抱怨，这本该是一场“情感对冲”（主队赢球冲淡输钱痛苦），结果反而成了最难受的折磨。 --- ### [02:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=170s) 极速资本主义（Speedball Capitalism）的降临 Ben 引入了《经济学人》（*The Economist*）的一篇重磅报道，指出全球金融市场已正式迈入“极速资本主义”（Speedball Capitalism）时代。报道梳理了过去一年美国金融市场以惊人胃口迅速消化的各类历史性庞大交易： - **最大规模募资**：SpaceX 的超大规模 IPO，Alphabet（Google）及韩国 SK 海力士（SK Hynix）的巨额股权融资。 - **巨额私募与债务**：OpenAI 的私募融资，博通（Broadcom）的私有债务交易，以及亚马逊（Amazon）创纪录的企业债发行。 - **资管与并购里程碑**：Vanguard 诞生首只突破 1 万亿美元规模的 ETF；伯克希尔·哈撒韦（Berkshire Hathaway）坐拥破纪录的现金储备；英伟达（NVIDIA）实施巨额股票回购；艺电（Electronic Arts）达成史上规模最大的杠杆收购（LBO）。 - **产业整合与垃圾债**：铁路、公用事业及传媒领域发生超级并购，后者更催生了打破单周纪录的最大规模垃圾债发行。 Michael 身上正穿着一件压箱底三年的复古运动夹克，Ben 打趣他看起来像电影《长大》（*Big*）里的汤姆·汉克斯（Tom Hanks）。两人指出，曾经足以让华尔街陷入数月恐慌的企业丑闻或对冲基金爆仓，如今在极其高效、冷酷且弹性十足的美国金融机器面前，往往一两周就被彻底抛在脑后并完全消化。 以 SpaceX 为例，此前市场对限售股解禁（unlock）与估值回落充满了长篇累牍的忧虑，但当其股价完成过山车式的圆弧顶（round trip）重新回到 170 美元的发行价时，讨论热度却早已烟消云散；又如霍尔木兹海峡受阻这类过去足以引发全球地缘危机的重大事件，现代市场也在极短时间内适应并认定未来必有替代管道，资金旋即转战下一个热点。 --- ### [05:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=300s) AI 资本开支周期、利率悖论与市场主导权 两人进一步探讨了 AI 板块在资本市场中的统治地位。目前与 AI 相关的股票——横跨超大规模云厂商（Hyperscalers）、半导体、硬件、电力能源以及软件——已经占据了标普 500 指数约 53% 的权重。 针对这种狂热，《金融时报》（*Financial Times*）回顾了历史上诸如 19 世纪铁路热潮、1920 年代公用事业、日本泡沫经济、2000 年互联网泡沫以及页岩油投资周期，指出每一次繁荣的终结往往遵循着固定的传导路径：并非资本开支（Capex）先踩刹车，而是股票市场率先见顶回落，数月之后企业迫于二级市场的估值压力才被迫削减 Capex。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: Capex Cycle Transmission Mechanism accDescr: 资本开支周期的传导逻辑：市场先行见顶倒逼企业削减开支，而非利率直接迫使高管停手。 subgraph Macro["宏观与政策环境"] Rates["美联储持续提高基准利率"] Asym["经济出现不对称降温<br/>(地产受重创 vs 巨头资金充沛)"] end subgraph MarketStage["市场阶段 (先行指标)"] YieldDemand["投资者要求更高的资金回报门槛 (Hurdle Rate)"] StockRoll["科技股估值见顶回落 (Stocks Roll Over)"] end subgraph CorporateStage["企业阶段 (滞后指标)"] FinancingTight["债券/股权融资成本飙升或遇阻"] CapexCut["科技巨头被迫缩减 AI/算力等资本开支 (Capex Slows)"] end Rates --> Asym Rates -.->|"无法直接勒令巨头停手"| CapexCut Rates --> YieldDemand YieldDemand --> StockRoll StockRoll --> FinancingTight FinancingTight --> CapexCut ``` 《纽约时报》（*The New York Times*）与巴克莱（Barclays）的分析提出了另一个严峻现实：由于超大规模科技公司现金流充沛，高利率根本无法有效抑制当前的 AI 军备竞赛。美联储传统的货币政策传导机制在于通过加息打压利率敏感型行业（以房地产为首），进而带动整体经济降温。然而，当前拉动美国经济增长的核心引擎（科技巨头）对利率极其钝化，美联储越是加息，受害的反而是脆弱的利率敏感部门。 对此，Michael 与 Ben 展开了针锋相对的思辨： - **市场才是真正的掌舵人**：Michael 驳斥了“利率永远无法制约科技巨头”的观点，认为只要基准利率足够高（例如达到 9%），必然会从根本上改变资金的风险偏好。当资本市场不再盲目买单，股票市场的杀估值自然会逼迫科技公司 CEO 们停手。 - **市场资金依然泛滥**：Ben 指出，现实中所谓的“资金枯竭”仍遥遥无期。派拉蒙（Paramount）近期进入债务市场寻求 520 亿美元融资，市场认购意向竟然高达 1500 亿美元。即便面临着同周末史上最惨烈电影票房惨败的阴影，廉价资金依然疯狂涌入。摩根大通（J.P. Morgan）的数据亦显示，科技行业虽仅占美国 GDP 和就业的一小部分，却占据了美股总市值的 50%，显示资本市场的集中度与对科技巨头的溺爱仍在延续。 ### [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=600s) 股市不等于经济：高利率下的韧性与 AI 叙事 本部分一开始，Ben Carlson 和 Michael Batnick 讨论了科技巨头资本开支与宏观现实之间的巨大落差。Ben 抛出一个极为反差的数据：科技行业在美国仅占总就业人口的 2%，但在标普 500 指数中却占据了将近 50% 的权重。这一鲜明对比生动诠释了“股市并不等于经济”。尽管科技巨头们在基础设施和 AI 上的狂热投入可能比大众预想的持续更久，但两位主持人一致认为，唯一的硬约束在于金融市场——哪怕像 Mark Zuckerberg 或其他科技巨头 CEO 宣称无论如何都要全速推进，最终如果金融市场决定踩刹车，这股狂潮也只能被迫放缓。然而到目前为止，市场依然充斥着海量流动性，并没有发出任何抗拒信号。 随后二人回顾了上一期的讨论。当时 Ben 曾提问：在如此多底层个股下跌、市场广度（breadth）极差的情况下，大盘能否扛得住？Michael 当时的回答是斩钉截铁的“可以”，除非利率继续狂飙。然而讽刺的是，当下美国 10 年期、20 年期和 30 年期国债收益率均创下了本轮周期的新高，但标普 500 指数却在节节攀升并逼近历史新高，等权重指数也出现反弹。作为一个当前偏看多、并认为等权重指数终将追赶上来的投资者，Michael 坦言自己感到相当惊讶：“我感到很意外，市场居然能顶得住这样的压力。” Ben 则从地缘政治和通胀的视角进行了解析。若回顾俄乌冲突爆发前的市场，当时的收益率和通胀几乎处于本轮周期的底部（当时通胀仅为 2.5%，利率勉强低于 4%）。虽然战争引发了能源价格暴涨并推高了通胀，但眼下即使霍尔木兹海峡等地缘局势依然紧绷，市场的驱动力已经彻底切换至 AI 浪潮。投资者深信 AI 带来的高增长叙事足以支撑更高的利率环境，这也解释了为何美债收益率与股票市场能够齐步上涨。尽管市场似乎早该迎来一场 10% 的健康回调，但这种“总得打破点什么”的担忧，正是典型牛市中常有的情绪写照。 - 科技行业仅占全美就业人口的 2%，但在标普 500 指数中的权重接近 50%。 - 录制当时，美债 10 年期、20 年期及 30 年期收益率同步刷新本轮周期高点，但标普 500 指数依旧逼近历史新高。 ### [12:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=732s) 高贝塔的十年与分红投资者的困境 话题转向不同因子策略的表现。Ben 提到他和 Michael 刚与 Victor Kaplan 录制完一期播客，主题正是“高贝塔（High Beta）与低波动（Low Volatility）”的博弈。Ben 直言 2020 年代是名副其实的“高贝塔十年”。以景顺（Invesco）旗下的相关 ETF 为例，自 2020 年以来： - 标普 500 高贝塔 ETF（SPHB）累计暴涨约 260%。 - 标普 500 低波动 ETF（SPLV）同期总回报仅有 40% 左右。 这种高贝塔策略与低波动策略之间的分化，堪称过去 30 年来最悬殊的时期之一。如果投资者保持分散配置并同时持有两者，业绩基本能够与基准大盘持平；但对于重仓低波动或偏向高股息的投资者而言，这一轮分化简直是在“伤口上撒盐”。长期以来，分红类股票既面临高利率对企业实际融资成本的挤压，也在投资者偏好上面临严峻竞争。过去市场缺乏无风险收益，投资者被迫追逐 3% 的股息率；而如今在承受股市波动的风险下，买 3% 股息率的股票毫无吸引力，投资者直接转向高息债券即可。 然而令人玩味的是资产管理规模（AUM）的反差：表现惨淡的低波动 ETF（SPLV）规模高达约 70 亿美元，大约是高贝塔 ETF（SPHB）的整整 7 倍。Michael 分析道，这符合常理，因为单纯持有高贝塔股票并不是一个优秀且可持续的投资策略。如果市场资金真的想要追求高弹性和动量收益，它们根本不需要去买高贝塔因子 ETF，而是直接涌入了纳斯达克 100 指数（Nasdaq 100）。 ### [14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=888s) 债市大屠杀下的逆行资金与“用数据说谎” 随后，二人将焦点转向资金流向的怪象。Luke Kawa 援引摩根大通（JPMorgan）的数据指出，长端国债 ETF（如 TLT）正在经历史上最大规模的资金轮动，其主要驱动力来自于长端国债收益率走高时散户的巨量净买入。彭博社分析师 Eric Balchunas 分享的图表也印证了这一点：TLT 的价格一路下挫，资金却一路疯狂涌入。 这构成了本十年最荒诞的投资图景之一：2020 年代上演了史上最惨烈的债券熊市，TLT 遭遇了超过 40% 甚至接近 45% 的历史性最大回撤（计入分红再投资）。尽管避险手段极度简单明了——直接缩短久期、持有 1 到 3 个月的短期国债（T-Bills）即可免受利率波动的摧残——但投资者的实际行为却南辕北辙： - 2022 年暴跌前，TLT 的资产规模仅为 170 亿至 180 亿美元左右。 - 暴跌约 40% 之后，截至目前其资产规模竟然膨胀到了近 500 亿美元。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: TLT 规模与收益率走势反差 accDescr: 展示长端美债 ETF 暴跌期间资金持续涌入的现象 subgraph Performance["资产表现与回撤"] A["长端美债遭遇历史级熊市<br/>TLT 历史最大回撤达 40%~45%"] end subgraph Divergence["资金流向的极端背离"] B["避险替代路径<br/>转向超短期国债 (T-Bills)<br/>规避久期与利率风险"] C["逆向涌入受灾资产<br/>散户加速买入 TLT<br/>资产规模从 180 亿激增至 500 亿美元"] end Performance --> B Performance --> C ``` 为了厘清这一现象的本质，Michael 引入了阿波罗全球管理（Apollo Global Management）经济学家 Torsten Sløk 的宏观图表，展示了数据视角的重要性。该图表自 2024 年 9 月起统计，显示美国家庭其实在抛弃长端国债曲线，转而将高达 750 亿美元的资金砸进超短久期国债 ETF，而同期流出 TLT 的资金约 50 亿美元。Michael 指出，虽然最近几个月涌入 TLT 的绿柱确实显眼，但往往只要拉长时间跨度（zoom out）去审视，就会发现大部分追抄底资金其实是在 2023 年至 2024 年进场的，并在被市场连续“暴击”后逐渐减速。 Michael 借此警示当下社会普遍存在的数据操纵：“你可以用数字来说谎（lying with numbers）。”通过截取特定的时间窗口、选择性呈现图表，人们可以得出完全相反的结论。但不可否认的是，在收益率狂飙的过程中，确实有大量散户像“冲进着火的大楼”一样持续买入长期美债。随着 30 年期国债收益率触及约 5.7%，即便不能说是“世代级的罕见暴买机会”，但这确实是 20 年来的最高收益率水平，吸引抄底资金也就不足为奇。 ### [17:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1054s) 历史的长镜：根本不存在所谓的“常态利率” 节目尾声，Ben 针对当下老一辈投资者（婴儿潮一代）常挂在嘴边的话题展开反驳。常有人说：“7% 的房贷利率很正常，我们一辈子经历的都是 7% 的房贷。”但 Ben 直言，宏观经济中根本不存在所谓的“常态利率环境（normal interest rate environment）”。 Ben 查阅了罗伯特·席勒（Robert Shiller）自 1940 年（二战爆发时期）以来的 10 年期美债收益率历史数据： - 1940 年代二战期间，美债收益率长期被行政压制在 2% 的超低水平。 - 1980 年代通胀危机爆发，收益率一度飙升至 15% 左右。 - 此后开启了长达数十年的长期下行周期。 Ben 将 1940 年以来的收益率划分为不同的利率区间进行统计： - 0% 至 2% - 2% 至 4% - 4% 至 6% - 6% 至 8% - 8% 及以上 统计结果表明，历史上占比最高、最接近所谓“常态”的区间实际上是 2% 至 4%；而大众凭直觉认为应当是基准常态的 4% 至 6% 区间，在过去 80 多年里仅占大约四分之一的时间。 Michael 与 Ben 总结道，这也是另一个典型的“统计学欺骗”案例。如果仅仅是将 1940 年至今的所有数据机械地算出一个算术平均值，然后宣布“这就是历史常态”，在经济学上是毫无意义的。因为 1970 和 1980 年代极端的异常高利率彻底扭曲了全局的平均数。单纯依靠被污染的平均值来指导当下的宏观预期，无异于刻舟求剑。 ### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1200s) 5% 债券收益率与代际记忆 Michael Batnick 和 Ben Carlson 回忆起以前老一辈投资者总是带着说教口吻批评年轻人赚钱太容易，Michael 直言自己“极度讨厌那种调调”。话锋一转，两人谈到如今的婴儿潮一代与当前市场环境：整整一代年轻投资者在过去十五年里根本没经历过 5% 的债券收益率。在长期超低利率环境下，几乎没人关心固收资产；而如今利率大幅回升，两人的电子邮箱被海量咨询债券配置的邮件彻底淹没。 随后，Michael 分享了一件温馨的私人物品：他的父亲最近寄回了一本名为《嘿，爸爸，告诉我一些我不知道的事》（Hey Dad, Tell Me Something I Don't Know）的家庭互动纪念书。书中收录了许多互动提问，例如父亲年轻时的绰号、初恋、热爱的运动与爱好、以及给孩子起名字的背后故事。虽然 Michael 坦言翻开看肯定会感动落泪，但他强烈推荐像他们这般年纪、父母已步入晚年的人去尝试做这件事。Ben 听后也深受触动，表示自己的父亲也快要年满八十岁，同样打算做一份这样的家庭回忆记录。 ### [21:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1290s) 经济感知偏差与年轻一代的资产积累 节目讨论了 The Compound 制作人 Duncan 发起的一项受众民调——“你如何看待当前的经济状况？”： - **30%** 的受访者认为经济非常强劲； - **47%** 认为经济状况尚可； - 约 **25%** 的受访者认为经济十分疲软。 Ben 指出，大众在被问及整体经济时，评估的其实是“自身微观的财务境遇”。作为一个财经播客的主播，他们经常被听众指责“脱离现实、不食人间烟火”。Ben 反驳道，在宏观经济面前，“其实每个人都脱离了现实”：长年坚称经济烂透、通胀无解的人脱离了现实；而因为自己身边的朋友都发了财就认为天下太平的人，同样脱离了现实。 紧接着，Ben 引用了 Meb Faber 分享的波士顿咨询公司（BCG）报告《年轻人没问题：关于年轻人与金钱的永恒焦虑》（The Kids Are Alright）。数据显示，年轻人在更早的年龄介入了资本市场：在 34 岁时，股票与共同基金占个人资产的比重呈现出明显的代际上升趋势。与此同时，千禧一代虽然在步入婚姻、购房等重大人生节点上比前辈们推迟了许多，但在收入与财富追赶上并未落后： | 世代 | 34岁时股票及基金占总资产比重 | 追赶/超越上一代人的年龄节点 | |:--- |:--- |:--- | | **婴儿潮一代 (Baby Boomers)** | 7% | — | | **X世代 (Gen X)** | 11% | — | | **千禧一代 (Millennials)** | 19% | 20多岁时收入反超，30多岁时财富反超，40多岁时住房拥有率反超 | ### [24:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1450s) 流行悲观主义、迟婚现象与“家宴的消亡” Michael 提到前几天与 Ed Elson 的交流。尽管他非常赞赏 Ed 的才华与分析，但他指出媒体和公众舆论天然偏爱负面叙事。就像已故瑞典学者汉斯·罗斯林（Hans Rosling）在著作中客观列举世界如何变得更好却鲜有人爱听一样，若有播客通篇宣扬生活多么美好，收听率必然惨淡。对于“年轻人不愿早结婚”这一现象，Michael 认为不应盲目将其定性为社会倒退——上一代人很多年纪轻轻就草率结婚生子，最终因心智不成熟而导致离婚率高企，给无数孩子留下了家庭心理创伤。 两人随后探讨了德里克·汤普森（Derek Thompson）关于“不再有人办家宴/晚餐聚会（dinner parties）”的观察。Ben 幽默地指出，以前人们在家办聚会是因为外面的餐馆糟糕透顶，而现在的餐厅水准高出太多，大家自然愿意下馆子。更核心的现实在于现代家庭生活重心的转变： ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 家宴文化消亡的多重驱动因素 accDescr: 展示双职工育儿精力消耗、居家娱乐体验极大丰富导致家庭聚会减少的因果图 subgraph Societal ["社会与家庭结构演变"] A["双职工家庭普及"] B["密集型育儿 (Intensive Parenting)"] A & B --> C["家长精力与社交带宽枯竭"] end subgraph Lifestyle ["现代居家与娱乐变革"] D["餐厅品质与外食体验大幅跃升"] E["居家舒适度与娱乐极度丰富 (TikTok/流媒体)"] D & E --> F["彻底消除无聊感，无需靠访客打发时间"] end C & F --> G["传统家庭晚餐聚会 (Dinner Parties) 走向消亡"] ``` Michael 回顾起童年时代趴在窗台对着窗外发呆的真实无聊感，而现代人已经随时随地被海量数字娱乐填满。此外，Ben 指出如今年轻人之所以看起来“抱怨更多”，核心在于他们历史上首次握有了互联网和播客等强大的麦克风；90 年代的年轻人同样满腹牢骚，但当时只能通过另类小众电影来抒发不满。 ### [28:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1710s) 前0.1%的超级富豪与“暴富综合征” Ben 强调，虽然每一代年轻人在成长过程中都要历经阵痛、且最终都会走向稳定，但当下激化社会矛盾的核心是触目惊心的贫富分化。《华尔街日报》的数据显示，公众的愤怒焦点已经从前 10% 或前 1% 转移到了最顶层的 0.1%： - **前 0.1% 的家庭（约 13.7 万户）** 控制了全美高达 **28 万亿美元** 的财富； - 该群体占据了美国家庭总净资产的 **15%**； - 他们的财富总量在过去十年内实现了翻倍。 这种单向度加剧的不平等让普通人产生了深深的剥夺感与愤怒。而与此同时，彭博社却刊登了一篇让大众哭笑不得的报道：科技行业涌现的大批新贵正在饱受“暴富综合征”（Sudden Wealth Syndrome）的折磨，这种强烈的反差为当下资本社会的荒诞现实增添了一抹黑色幽默。 ### [30:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1800s) 突然暴富综合征与美国“爆仓”的仓储文化 Ben Carlson 与 Michael Batnick 探讨了一个正在壮大的“退出后生态系统”（post-exit ecosystem），该生态专门帮助那些通过出售公司获得巨额财富的创始人应对随之而来的心理困境。这些人被称为“后经济阶段人群”（post-economic people）。报道中采访了一位播客创业者，她以约 1 亿美元的价格卖掉公司后，却陷入了前所未有的抑郁，甚至导致离婚，直言这笔巨款“毁了自己的人生”。数据显示，经历这类天价退出的人群中，约有 15% 陷入悲惨绝望的境地，70% 感到适度舒适，仅有 15% 真正享受其中。Michael Batnick 指出，大多数普通人骨子里只想当一个正常人，一旦套现 1 亿美元，这种泼天财富根本无法隐藏，就像身高两米多的人走到哪里都无法融入普通人一样。 从财富管理行业的视角来看，两人将其比作见惯了伤痛和流血的医生：从业久了，巨额数字便不再令人惊艳，但他们清晰地观察到，那些财富逐步递增、有充分时间适应新阶层的人往往心态更健康；相反，年轻时突然暴富就像童星过早成名一样，个人的心智成熟往往在成名的那一刻戛然而止。报道中提到，财富在 2000 万美元以内时，人们仍在思考如何合理利用资源；一旦突破这个门槛，金钱就变成了毫无意义的“大富翁游戏币”（Monopoly money）。稀缺性的消失会剥夺人生的选择感与意义，整日纠结是否再买一辆法拉利只会让人感到单调乏味。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 暴富心理适应路径 accDescr: 对比渐进式财富增长与突发式巨额套现对创始人心理健康的差异化影响 subgraph 渐进财富积累 A["逐步增长的收入与资产"] --> B["心理有充分时间逐步适应"] B --> C["保持心智成熟与现实感知"] end subgraph 突发巨额退出 D["年轻时突获1亿美元以上退出"] --> E["财富失去真实感（大富翁游戏币）"] E --> F["稀缺性完全消失与生活目标迷失"] F --> G["15% 陷入严重抑郁或家庭破裂"] end ``` 谈及现实财富，Ben Carlson 引用《纽约客》关于美国自助仓储设施（self-storage facilities）的文章，指出美国正处于人类历史上前所未有的最富裕时期。全美自助仓储设施的数量，已经超过了星巴克、麦当劳、沃尔玛、家得宝（Home Depot）、达美乐披萨、Dunkin' Donuts 以及 Costco 的门店总和，且美国独占全球约 90% 的仓储容量。2022 年百得公司（Black & Decker）的调查显示，全美超过三分之一的住宅车库因堆满过剩物品而无法停放汽车。大众媒体和内容创作者往往过度聚焦于被通胀压垮的数千万人，却忽略了同样有数千万人富足到无处安放消费品，甚至全美还建有 4,800 个专门停放大型房车（RV）和游艇的仓储基地，这些体型庞大如巴士的房车加满一次油就可能耗费上千美元。 - 退出后人群心理状态分布：15% 陷入绝望悲伤，70% 状态舒适，15% 积极蓬勃（thriving）。 - 心理临界点：2000 万美元以下仍具备资产管理与规划意识，超过该数字则金钱感知完全失真。 - 仓储规模对比：全美自助仓储设施总数多于 Starbucks、McDonald's、Walmart、Home Depot、Domino's、Dunkin' 与 Costco 的总和，占全球仓储容量约 90%。 - 车库占用现状：超三分之一的美国家庭车库因囤积过多杂物而无法停进车辆。 - 房车与游艇专用仓储：全美拥有 4,800 个专门的 RV 和游艇仓储设施。 --- ### [35:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2100s) 经济韧性与消费者情绪调查的“线上偏差” 进入宏观经济讨论，Michael Batnick 试图客观看待最新出炉的数据。过去十个季度中，企业 CEO 们普遍反映消费端表现稳固，但经济学家 Heather Long 近期指出裂痕正在显现：8 月份个人支出增长了 0.9%，而个人收入仅增长 0.2%，巨大的剪刀差表明人们正在消耗储蓄以维持消费。然而 Ben Carlson 对单月数据的悲观解读持怀疑态度，认为在宏观层面这种波动尚不足以证明长期趋势逆转，且房产等经济表现高度呈现本地化特征。《华尔街日报》的报道则展现了另一面：经通胀调整后的美国实际个人消费自 2022 年以来呈现几乎笔直向上的态势，走势宛如稳步上扬的短期国债（T-bill）收益曲线，显示出强大的美国消费者正在冲破通胀阻力拉动经济增长。 针对这轮经济周期的本质，Ben 总结道，衡量一个经济体是否强大的标准，在于它能够消化吸收多少负面冲击。面对冰冻的房地产市场、阶段性高达 9% 的通胀、飙升的汽油价格以及两场地缘政治冲突，美国经济展现出了史上罕见的强大韧性。至于为何密歇根大学等消费者情绪指数长期低迷，听众的反馈点醒了两人：情绪数据在疫情期间暴跌后，密歇根大学消费者信心调查在 2024 年彻底由“电话采访”转为了“网络在线问卷”。 这种调查媒介的转换带来了巨大的心理偏差。Ben 引用了喜剧演员路易·C·K（Louis C.K.）的著名段子来类比：一个人在开车时被人加塞，往往会狂怒地咒骂对方；但如果是在电梯里被人挤了一下，绝不可能当面放声咆哮。线上填表的人与在电话中同真人交谈的人完全是两种心理状态，匿名网络调查极大地放大了受访者的戾气与悲观情绪。 - 8 月收支差距：个人支出环比增长 0.9%，而个人收入仅增长 0.2%。 - 经济抗压指标：成功抵御了 9% 的高通胀、高油价冲击、冻结的房地产市场及两场国际地缘冲突。 - 情绪调查机制变动：密歇根大学消费者情绪调查于 2024 年从电话调查（phone-based）全面切换为网络问卷（web-based），引发显著的负面情绪线上放大效应。 --- ### [38:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2285s) AI 渗透率的分歧与“在网/离线”认知割裂 话题转向风投机构 a16z（Andreessen Horowitz）发布的《市场状况》（State of the Markets）报告，该报告包含多达 90 张宏观与行业图表。其中一张关于人工智能家庭渗透率的图表引发了 Ben Carlson 与 Michael Batnick 的截然不同解读。图表显示，目前为 AI 软件付费的美国家庭比例仅为 2.2% 左右。Michael 认为这个比例微不足道，AI 软件无需等待实体交付、极易订阅，但普通家庭至今几乎没有形成付费习惯，目前的商业增长几乎完全由企业端（B 端）买单驱动。 Ben Carlson 则持完全相反的乐观态度，强调这一数字正在迅猛攀升，正是因为当前基数只有 2.2%，才意味着未来留有极其庞大的渗透空间和增长潜力。两人进一步探讨了更深层的认知割裂问题：当下的社会现实正被严重分化为“常年泡在网上的人”与“过着现实生活的正常人”。科技圈在谈论 AI 时所使用的语言体系和思维方式，与普通民众完全脱节，宛如生活在平行世界；而每天在社交平台（如 X/Twitter）上度过一个小时以上的人，其大脑构造和信息消费习惯已经被不可逆地改变，这种网络浸泡极大地扭曲了人对真实世界运行状态的感知。 - a16z 数据：当前仅约 2.2% 的美国家庭正在为 AI 消费级产品付费。 - 观点交锋：Michael Batnick 强调 C 端渗透率极低且缺乏大众吸引力，Ben Carlson 则认为低渗透率预示着未来巨大的增长上升空间。 - 认知分歧本质：“重度网民”（online people）与“现实日常人群”（offline normal people）在 AI 认知、宏观感知及日常语言习惯上已出现严重脱节。 ### [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2400s) 社交平台的毒性与高利率引发的“租金末日循环” 讨论从社交平台的生态切入。迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）谈到 Threads（Meta 旗下的类 Twitter 应用），直言自己稍微刷了一下就发现它比 Twitter（X）还要“愚蠢 500 倍、恶臭 500 倍”。本·卡尔森（Ben Carlson）尝试用了一个月后也彻底放弃。在他们看来，Twitter 在社交媒体界的地位就像加密货币里的比特币，无论其他替代品（如山寨币或 Bluesky）怎么叫嚣取而代之，大家都始终会退回到原本的那个招牌平台上。 随后话题转向阿波罗全球管理公司（Apollo）首席经济学家托斯滕·斯洛克（Torsten Sløk）的一项敏锐分析：当前的高利率正在为未来的经济埋下一颗巨大的定时炸弹。本·卡尔森解释道，本世纪初低利率时期，虽然没有出现大规模的独栋住宅建造狂潮，但多户型公寓楼的建设非常火爆。如今高利率让建筑商大幅削减开工量，而房屋与公寓供应的减少必然推高租金，进而推升通胀，迫使美联储维持高利率。斯洛克将此称为“高利率—高租金末日循环”（higher rates, higher rent doom loop）。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 高利率与租金末日循环 accDescr: 展示高利率如何减少房屋开工，导致供应不足、租金上涨，并反过来推升通胀和利率的闭环。 subgraph RatesAndBuilding["利率与建设"] HighRates["维持高利率"] --> LessBuilding["建筑商减少开工量"] LessBuilding --> SupplyShortage["房屋与公寓供应短缺"] end subgraph RentAndInflation["租金与通胀"] SupplyShortage --> RentSpike["租金再次加速上涨"] RentSpike --> CPIJump["推高业主等价租金 (OER)<br/>占据约 1/4 的 CPI 篮子"] CPIJump --> InflationUp["通胀面临上行压力"] InflationUp --> HighRates end ``` 这种紧缩已经彻底冻结了房地产市场的流动性，木材价格也因无人建房而持续暴跌——让人不禁回想起几年前木材价格疯涨、网友在 Home Depot 拍下木材堆并调侃“带我去昂贵的地方”的荒诞光景。眼下虽然租金稍有回落，但两人一致认为这种好转不会持久，租金反弹只是时间问题。 - **业主等价租金（OER）权重**：约占美国 CPI 篮子的四分之一，租金重新加速对美联储抑制通胀而言是极其严峻的挑战。 - **木材市场反转**：木材从疫情期间的狂热大牛市彻底坠入冰窟，直接反映了住宅开工的极度萎靡。 --- ### [42:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2528s) 一级市场的估值遮羞布与 VC 的极端幂律 迈克尔·巴特尼克提到了《华尔街日报》杰森·茨威格（Jason Zweig）的一篇文章，标题一针见血：《私募股权是个麻烦，山姆大叔说你的钱包能解决它》。前 SEC 投资管理部副主任、资深基金律师罗伯特·普拉兹（Robert Plaze）针对“另类资产大众化”的本质给出了一记辛辣讽刺：“这些新规则不是为了让散户投资者更多地接触私募资金，而是为了让私募资金发起人更多地接触散户投资者的钱包。” 一级市场迫切寻找“接盘侠”的心态在 IPO 市场表露无遗。乔·韦森塔尔（Joe Weisenthal）指出，智能戒指制造商 Oura 成为最新一家以“市场环境不佳”为由推迟 IPO 的公司。两人愤怒地反驳：标普 500 指数今年上涨了 15%，前年上涨 20%，大前年又上涨 20%，美股接连刷新历史新高，怎么好意思甩锅给“市场环境”？迈克尔引用电影《好家伙》（*Goodfellas*）里保利掌掴雷·利奥塔时的经典台词怒斥：“别把我当傻子耍！（Don't make a jerk of me.）他们真以为大众都是坐轮椅的白痴吗？唯一合理的解释就是这些独角兽在私募轮的估值虚高得离谱，根本不敢接受公开市场的检验。” 迈克尔还顺带吐槽了 Oura 戒指这类健康追踪设备的荒谬：现代人非得靠一个戒指给睡眠打分，甚至因为晚上 8 点后吃了一口糖或喝了一杯红酒导致分数下降而焦虑万分。“我如果昨晚睡得好，早上醒来自然神清气爽！人终有一死，何必为了一个睡眠分数整天担惊受怕？” 与此同时，a16z 发布的一组风险投资（VC）幂律数据更揭示了一级市场的残酷真相： | 指标 | 数据占比 / 特征 | |:--- |:--- | | **前 1% 的退出项目** | 占据了全行业 **84%** 的退出总价值 | | **前 10% 的退出项目** | 占据了全行业 **94%** 的退出总价值（如 SpaceX 这类超级巨头） | | **IRR 离散度（2024–2025 年份）** | 前 10% 与后 10% 基金的内部收益率差距创下历史极值，贫富分化空前严重 | --- ### [45:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2702s) 科技题材影视疲劳与票房惨败的明星光环 两人讨论了一封听众来信，信中列出了四部即将上映的科技题材电影/剧集（包括聚焦 Facebook 的《社交清算》*The Social Reckoning*、马斯克纪录片、以及关于 OpenAI 的作品），担忧大众是否已经陷入了“科技叙事疲劳”（tech exhaustion）。迈克尔和本一致认同观众已经受够了这类题材。迈克尔直言《社交网络》（*The Social Network*）是本世纪最伟大的电影之一，那种叙事魔力根本无法被复制；后来跟风拍摄的 Uber 剧集等全都毫无水准、全面扑街，观众对科技圈的浮夸戏剧早已审美疲劳。 聊到电影，两人提到了近期遭遇票房惨败的院线新片（指弗朗西斯·福特·科波拉的《大都会》*Megalopolis*，主演为亚当·德赖弗等）。该片制作成本高达 1.6 亿至 1.8 亿美元，首周末票房却仅有惨淡的 800 万美元左右。这再次印证了一个道理：“宣发造势再大，也无法凭空制造出观众的需求。”主演到处跑通告、疯狂营销，依然无人买单。迈克尔调侃道，某些好莱坞巨星不能再靠打填充针、留着蓬松头发假装年轻了，必须像罗伯特·雷德福或克林特·伊斯特伍德那样坦然接受衰老，去演真正有深度的主角老翁，那才是通往奥斯卡的唯一正道。 --- ### [48:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2880s) 濒临失传的社交传统：保龄球与打扑克 最后，两人聊到了德里克·汤普森（Derek Thompson）关于“1975 年以来美国人日常社交活动参与率暴跌”的统计分析。其中最让本·卡尔森触动的不是家庭晚宴的消失，而是两项具体活动的断崖式下跌： - **打扑克牌（Playing Cards）**：自 1975 年以来的参与比例暴跌了 **67%**。 - **保龄球联赛（Bowling Leagues）**：艾莉森·施拉格（Alison Schrager）的研究显示，20 世纪 70 年代全美曾有约 **1000 万人**加入保龄球联赛，如今已暴跌至仅剩 **100 万人**左右。 本·卡尔森表示，这两项都是自己家族代代相传的文化传统，他下定决心要强行“灌输”给自己的孩子们，绝不能让它们在自己手里断代。他吐槽道，如今去老式保龄球馆，球道几乎永远是空的，根本不用排队。迈克尔问他去的是不是带高档酒吧的时髦保龄球馆，本澄清自己去的就是镇上散发着陈年烟味和啤酒酸味的老派球馆。 本感叹，在最近的 Future Proof 大会租下的 Airbnb 里，他试图攒一个扑克牌局，结果发现身边的年轻人们居然完全不会玩纸牌了。“我从小到大最喜欢的事情就是和家人打牌，现在居然没人会玩了。”迈克尔当场答应本，找机会一定让他好好教自己玩一把传统的扑克游戏。两人最后也感叹，不仅是打牌和保龄球，甚至像父母在家里举办晚餐派对、邀请朋友来做客的生活方式，在如今的快节奏社会中也早已渐渐销声匿迹。 ### [50:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3000s) 两代人的育儿社交差异与街头挥手乌龙 Ben Carlson 和 Michael Batnick 聊起了两代人之间社交与育儿方式的巨大代沟。在他们小时候，朋友的父母就像“另一个物种”一样遥远，小孩子去别人家做客通常只打个招呼就不再多言；而如今这代人当父母，孩子们对同伴的家长都非常熟悉。这引发了一个现实问题：如果家里请朋友来吃晚饭，孩子们该去哪？总不能让他们一直黏在大人身边。Michael 回忆起自己父母在大学时有一群铁哥们，这二十多人的核心小圈子友谊延续至今，不仅彼此受邀参加对方子女的所有婚礼，而且当年每周五晚上，大人们都会把年纪小的孩子交给大孩子照看，自己集体去街角的酒吧狂欢，让小辈们自生自灭。这种放养式的周五酒吧之夜在现在的育儿文化里已经非常罕见了。 ```mermaid flowchart TD accTitle: 两代人育儿与社交模式对比 accDescr: 展现上一代放养互助社交与当下一代深度介入家庭生活的差异 subgraph Past["上一代育儿与社交"] P1["父母与子女朋友保持距离"] --> P2["固定大学好友圈周五酒吧聚会"] P2 --> P3["大孩子照看小孩子，完全放养"] end subgraph Present["当代育儿与社交"] C1["孩子与大人深度熟络"] --> C2["家庭聚会孩子难以打发"] C2 --> C3["父母全程深度介入看护"] end ``` 谈及社交性格，Ben 坦言自己并非那种自来熟、热情打招呼的类型。周末去看女儿踢足球时，他看到旁边两个大叔——一个是芝加哥熊队球迷，一个是底特律雄狮队球迷——正熟络地互相打趣斗嘴，显然两人每周都这么干。Ben 感叹自己完全做不来这种社交，但他非常尊重这种氛围。此外他还分享了球场边常见的一种典型老爹形象：哪怕大冷天也坚决穿着短裤或短袖，还要摆出一种扎深马步的“超宽站姿（wide stance）”，整个人硬生生矮了一尺半，显得格外沉浸其中。随后 Ben 还自嘲了周末去社区街区派对（Block Party）时的尴尬插曲：他走在封锁的街道上去开车，突然听到身后有短促的双击喇叭声，他下意识以为是熟人打招呼便热情挥手致意，结果回头才发现对方是在警告前面正在倒车的人别撞上，让他再次陷入了自作多情的“虚假挥手”尴尬。 ### [52:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3171s) 听众用 AI 整理推荐清单与小众影视推荐 节目进入每周推荐环节。一位听众利用 AI 将《Animal Spirits》开播以来两人推荐的所有电影、书籍和电视剧梳理成了一份分类目录，详细标注了恐怖片、书籍等类目，甚至还附上了海报与精彩点评摘要（例如记录了 Michael 热情称赞某部片子“太炸了”，或是犀利怒斥 1980 年版的《十三号星期五》是一部“彻头彻尾的烂片”）。两人对此大加赞赏，认为这是多年来听众尝试整理的清单中最好的一版。 影视方面，Ben 极力推荐了自己在 Paramount+ 上看的一部冷门佳片《调音师》（Tuner）。影片讲述了一位有听力障碍的钢琴调音师，利用敏锐的听觉去帮人破译保险箱密码的故事。达斯汀·霍夫曼（Dustin Hoffman）在片中饰演一位爱打趣的老者，状态依然在线；男主角则是《白莲花度假村》第二季里的熟面孔，与女主角的对手戏极具化学反应。整部电影的基调让人联想到奥布瑞·普拉扎（Aubrey Plaza）主演的《罪犯艾米丽》（Emily the Criminal），是一部克制、紧凑、绝不浮夸的精彩犯罪小品，烂番茄或 IMDb 评分约在 7.0 左右。 此外，Ben 还补完了亚马逊 Prime 上的冷门剧集《爱国者》（Patriot）。他直言这部剧呈现出极端的两极分化：“要么觉得它是神作，要么恨之入骨看不下去”。该剧充满怪诞、奇特的气质，Ben 坚信这种故事哪怕用 AI 算上一百万年也绝对构思不出来：主角表面上是 CIA 特工，整部戏带着黑色幽默与温情，但主角竟然会时不时用弹唱民谣的方式来交代剧情和心境。虽然剧集结尾稍显平淡，而且大约 70% 的普通观众可能会讨厌它，但其剧本的原创度和精妙程度堪称电视史上的独特杰作。 - **AI 整理的节目推荐库**：涵盖恐怖片、影视剧、图书等板块，包含剧照及 Michael 和 Ben 的原汁原味毒舌或赞美点评。 - **电影推荐《调音师》（Tuner）**：Paramount+ 播出，达斯汀·霍夫曼参演，被评价为兼具扎实质感与情感火花的小成本犯罪佳作。 - **剧集推荐《爱国者》（Patriot）**：亚马逊黑色喜剧特工剧，以民谣歌词推进剧情，极致荒诞反套路。 - **剧集跟进《美国人质》（American Hostage）**：乔恩·哈姆（Jon Hamm）主演，Ben 已经看到第四集，依然赞不绝口。 ### [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3300s) 《神圣的债务》解析国家债务逻辑与名人家传 在书籍推荐板块，Ben 强烈推荐了《金融时报》记者罗宾·威格斯沃斯（Robin Wigglesworth）的新书《神圣的债务》（A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World）。这是一本系统讲述债券市场如何铸就现代世界的权威力作，既讲明了债务如何驱动经济繁荣，也剖析了它如何引发崩溃。为了说明大众对债务的认知误区，Ben 朗读了英国历史学家托马斯·麦考利（Thomas Macaulay）写于 1848 年的一段经典论述：近两百年前人们就总在担忧政府债务会引发灭顶之灾，但麦考利一针见血地指出，人们错在将“个人欠另一个人的债”生搬硬套到“一个社会欠自身一部分人的债”。更致命的错误在于，悲观者在看到债务膨胀的同时，完全忽略了科学实验的不断进步与每个人为了改变命运所迸发的不懈努力所带来的生产力增长。换言之，人们严重高估了债务负担的压力，却极度低估了社会承载这一负担的综合实力，而债务本身恰恰是推动社会飞速发展的重要基石。 Michael 紧接着分享了自己本周读完的两本传记： 1. **阿里·伊曼纽尔（Ari Emanuel）的《点名》（Roll Call）**：好莱坞顶级经纪大鳄的自传，内容极具冲击力。Michael 提到 Ari 近期在马修·贝洛尼（Matt Belloni）播客上的对谈非常精彩，两个个性鲜明的人互不相让地狂喷猛侃，火花四溅。 2. **西尔维斯特·史泰龙（Sylvester Stallone）的自传《台阶》（The Steps）**：有声书由史泰龙亲自朗读，聚焦于他童年直至 1976 年拍出《洛奇》（Rocky）成名之前的艰难岁月。书中披露的成长史令人不寒而栗，其父母对待孩子的冷酷与恶劣堪称极致。Michael 评价道，平时大家喜欢调侃“直升机式父母”管得太宽，但比起史泰龙童年时那种冷血漠然的家庭暴力与忽视，过度保护简直不值一提。两人也惊叹于史泰龙当年顶着巨大阻力坚持必须由自己主演并亲自写出《洛奇》剧本的天才与毅力。 最后在轻松的闲聊中，Michael 提到自己 7 岁的儿子洛根（Logan）最近迷上了亚当·桑德勒（Adam Sandler）的经典喜剧《冒牌老爸》（Big Daddy），整天乐此不疲地模仿片中“尿湿自己裤子”的经典桥段。临近尾声，两人话锋一转回归金融主线：标普 500 指数距离历史最高点仅仅只差约 25 点，股市正再度向着历史新高发起冲击。 ### [01:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3600s) 美股狂飙与标普500再冲新高 迈克尔·巴特尼克（Michael Batnick）与本·卡尔森（Ben Carlson）在节目尾声探讨了美股市场的惊人表现。尽管面临高利率环境，但股市似乎“根本不在乎高利率”，依然展现出不可阻挡的势头。两位主持人感慨，市场即将再次创下历史新高，而这必然会让许多看空或持怀疑态度的人大惑不解。 本提到，标普 500 指数眼下正奔着又一个年涨幅超过 20% 的年份而去。迈克尔询问目前的涨幅具体是多少，本回答大概在 15% 到 16% 左右。面对这种持续亢奋的情绪，迈克尔戏谑道：“让我们疯狂起来吧，让我们傻乐吧（Let's get crazy. Let's get stupid. Let's get nuts）”，感叹当前的市场行情确实让人难以置信。 - 标普 500 指数年内涨幅已达约 15% 至 16%，并有望再次实现年化 20% 以上的暴涨。 - 市场对于高利率的压制全然不顾，估值与情绪再次逼近历史峰值。 --- ### [01:00:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3630s) 出行日程与电影《Disclosure Day》的失望吐槽 在结束节目前，迈克尔询问了幕后制作团队成员阿马尔（Amar）接下来的行程。阿马尔表示本周行程满满，先要前往加拿大参加 CFA 蒙特利尔的活动，随后本周晚些时候还要赶往 CFA 休斯敦的活动。迈克尔祝他一路顺风，随后忍不住提起了在返程航班上经历的一件令人痛心的事情。 迈克尔在飞机上试图观看史蒂文·斯皮尔伯格执导的新片《Disclosure Day》，结果大失所望，直呼其为“垃圾一部”。他吐槽这部电影开篇极其诡异，刚放了几秒就让他怀疑自己是不是错过了前一两分钟，甚至特意倒带重看，结果发现开头就是这么没头没脑、令人摸不着头脑。迈克尔看了 20 分钟就果断关掉，不过本表示电影里大概有半个小时的片段还是有点意思的，迈克尔也承认之后可能会再给它一次机会。 - 斯皮尔伯格的新作未能达到预期，迈克尔直言“令人心碎的失望”，感叹“没人是完美的，但这也太糟糕了”。 - 讨论中两人还提到了其他大导演偶尔失手但依然贡献了影史经典的过往，认为不必对其过于苛责。 --- ### [01:01:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3690s) “时间老人永不败”与节目结语 谈到传奇导演的失手，两人感叹“时间老人是不可战胜的（Father Time is undefeated）”。迈克尔风趣地举例，连勒布朗·詹姆斯（LeBron James）现在都饱受坐骨神经痛的困扰，“我们所有人终究都会变老并死去”。本也顺着这个话题打趣说，也许等他们六十岁的时候依然在录制《Animal Spirits》，而听众们会摇头叹息：“天哪，真没想到他们还在做这档播客？你听听他们这周胡扯了些什么？”迈克尔笑着认同：“这就是生活啊，本。” 最后，迈克尔给出了节目的互动邮箱（AnimalSpirits@thecompoundnews.com），并承诺会亲自阅读和回复观众来信。在向制作人邓肯（Duncan）及幕后制作团队致谢时，迈克尔不小心口误把“behind the scenes”（幕后）说成了“behind the mics”（麦克风后），引得自己忍不住自嘲“真是个糟糕透顶的收尾”，并在欢笑声中与听众道别。 ## Notable quotes > [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=600s) 我感到很意外，市场居然能顶得住这样的压力。 — Michael Batnick > [14:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=888s) 你可以用数字来说谎（lying with numbers）。 — Michael Batnick > [21:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=1290s) 其实每个人都脱离了现实。 — Ben Carlson > [40:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2400s) 愚蠢 500 倍、恶臭 500 倍 — Michael Batnick > [42:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2528s) 这些新规则不是为了让散户投资者更多地接触私募资金，而是为了让私募资金发起人更多地接触散户投资者的钱包。 — Robert Plaze > [42:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2528s) 别把我当傻子耍！（Don't make a jerk of me.）他们真以为大众都是坐轮椅的白痴吗？ — Michael Batnick > [45:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=2702s) 宣发造势再大，也无法凭空制造出观众的需求。 — Ben Carlson > [52:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3171s) 要么觉得它是神作，要么恨之入骨看不下去 — Ben Carlson > [55:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3300s) 人们严重高估了债务负担的压力，却极度低估了社会承载这一负担的综合实力 — Thomas Macaulay > [01:00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3600s) 让我们疯狂起来吧，让我们傻乐吧（Let's get crazy. Let's get stupid. Let's get nuts） — Michael Batnick > [01:01:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8&t=3690s) 时间老人是不可战胜的（Father Time is undefeated）。 — Ben Carlson ## Mentioned Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Trader+, New York Giants, Arizona Cardinals, Deonte Banks, The Economist, SpaceX, Alphabet, SK Hynix, OpenAI, Broadcom, Amazon, Vanguard, Berkshire Hathaway, NVIDIA, Electronic Arts, Financial Times, The New York Times, Barclays, Paramount, J.P. Morgan, Mark Zuckerberg, Invesco, SPHB, SPLV, Nasdaq 100, TLT, Eric Balchunas, Apollo Global Management, Torsten Sløk, Robert Shiller, Hey Dad, Tell Me Something I Don't Know, Boston Consulting Group, Meb Faber, Hans Rosling, Derek Thompson, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, The New Yorker, Black & Decker, Costco, Home Depot, Starbucks, McDonald's, Heather Long, Louis C.K., Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), X (Twitter), Threads, Jason Zweig, Robert Plaze, Oura, Joe Weisenthal, The Social Reckoning, Megalopolis, Adam Driver, Francis Ford Coppola, Alison Schrager, Tuner, Dustin Hoffman, Patriot, American Hostage, Jon Hamm, Robin Wigglesworth, A Fabulous Debt: The Epic Story of How Bonds Built the Modern World, Thomas Macaulay, Ari Emanuel, Roll Call, Sylvester Stallone, The Steps, Rocky, Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg, LeBron James ## Video description On episode 485 of Animal Spirits, Michael Batnick and Ben Carlson discuss: what can stop the hyperscalers from spending, why the stock market is near all-time highs again, speedball capitalism, how capex cycles work, it's a high beta decade, how to lie with statistics, young people are going to be fine, the top 0.1% is really rich, the problem with getting rich young, private markets are overvalued, no more dinner parties and more. This episode is presented by Fidelity Investments and the all-new Fidelity Trader+, Fidelity’s most powerful trading platform yet. Learn more at http://www.fidelity.com/TraderPlus Take The Compound's 2026 audience survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LHC8QHD ► 00:00 - Fidelity Investments Ad ► 01:00 - Intro ► 02:50 - Stock Market ► 35:00 - The Economy ► 38:05 - AI ► 40:36 - Real Estate ► 42:08 - Private Markets ► 45:02 - Entertainment ► 52:51 - 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. Fidelity Investments Disclosure: Fidelity Investments and The Compound are not affiliated. Views, opinions, products, services, and strategies discussed are not endorsed or promoted by Fidelity Investments. Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC #thecompound #investing #stockmarket [Source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhRHngKYa_8)

[10:00] Michael Batnick: 我感到很意外，市场居然能顶得住这样的压力。 [14:48] Michael Batnick: 你可以用数字来说谎（lying with numbers）。 [21:30] Ben Carlson: 其实每个人都脱离了现实。 [40:00] Michael Batnick: 愚蠢 500 倍、恶臭 500 倍 [42:08] Robert Plaze: 这些新规则不是为了让散户投资者更多地接触私募资金，而是为了让私募资金发起人更多地接触散户投资者的钱包。 [42:08] Michael Batnick: 别把我当傻子耍！（Don't make a jerk of me.）他们真以为大众都是坐轮椅的白痴吗？ [45:02] Ben Carlson: 宣发造势再大，也无法凭空制造出观众的需求。 [52:51] Ben Carlson: 要么觉得它是神作，要么恨之入骨看不下去 [55:00] Thomas Macaulay: 人们严重高估了债务负担的压力，却极度低估了社会承载这一负担的综合实力 [60:00] Michael Batnick: 让我们疯狂起来吧，让我们傻乐吧（Let's get crazy. Let's get stupid. Let's get nuts） [61:30] Ben Carlson: 时间老人是不可战胜的（Father Time is undefeated）。

[25:00] Michael Batnick: Well, so what? Were dinner parties so awesome? [25:00] Michael Batnick: Why would you want to have people over to your house when you can go to a nice restaurant? [40:00] Ben Carlson: 500 times stupider and more toxic than Twitter. [42:08] Robert Plaze: These new rules aren't about giving retail investors more access to private funds; they're about giving private fund sponsors more access to retail investors. [55:00] Thomas Macaulay: They erroneously imagined that there was an exact analogy between the case of an individual who was in debt to another individual, and the case of a society which is in debt to part of itself... They saw that as the debt grew, they forgot other things grew as well as the debt. They greatly overrated the pressure of the burden; they greatly underrated the strength by which the burden was to be borne. [55:00] I wipe my own ass! [60:00] Michael Batnick: does not give a crap about higher interest rates. [60:00] Let's get crazy. Let's get stupid. That's where we're at. Let's get nuts. [60:32] Father Time is undefeated

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Views, opinions, products, services, and strategies discussed are are not endorsed or promoted by Fidelity Investments, Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSC, SIPC. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. Michael, are you a Giants fan? Long pause. Ben, I know, I know, I know, nope, there's, you know what, I was about to say nobody cares. There's 11 people listening that are going to care, that are going to laugh at what I'm about to say. Yes, I'm a Giants fan. It's been... It's been over a decade since we were alone in first place. So I committed a cardinal sin. The Arizona Cardinals, pun intended, I suppose. Well, unintended, actually. The Arizona Cardinals were favored 2.5 points against my Giants. Giants are not a good football team. Be honest. I thought the Cardinals were going to beat us. They're not good either, but they're competent. So my biggest bet of the day, Ben, for five team teaser. Shame on me. But I teased him all the way up, like all the way up. Very conservative. The five-team teaser was like a plus 130. I said, I think the Cardinals are going to beat us. But we're not going to beat them by more than nine and a half points, are we? No way. I mean... And I don't know if anybody saw the end of the Giants game. I'm guessing most of you didn't. But the Giants were up by... three point whatever it was the giants were by three or four points so there was a pick six at the end of that there was a pick six with zero seconds on the clock zero seconds all deontay banks had to do was go out of bounds or go down which normally happens because It would have preserved my biggest bet of the weekend. Shame on me. Shame on me for opening up that can of worms and letting you talk about your bets. I probably was. I probably was just going to keep it in. But I couldn't help it. Misery, my misery needs to, it needs to breathe. That's an emotional hedge because your team won so you can't complain about that. It cancels each other out. You're fine. I'm okay. From The Economist, the era of speedball capitalism has dawned. I like this. So one of my things that I've been on for a long time now is just everything is getting faster. I want to redo this opening paragraph because I think this is really good. I read this and I go, oh, yeah. Every time something big happens, we think it's going to be like a signal of something in the market. This is it. This is the sign of the top. Everyone wants to. In the past year, American markets have digested the largest ever initial public offering, SpaceX, equity raised by a public company, Google, or foreign firm, SK Hynix. I don't know. I'm sorry. The Giants have been so bad for so long, I have all this gear that's been stuck in my closet for three years. You're like Tom Hanks on Big right now. Like this nifty starter jacket. All right. Sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry to interrupt the flow of the show. Go on. No, that's really great looking jacket. private funding around open ai private debt deal broadcom as well as most of the biggest bond issue in history amazon there was the first one trillion dollar exchange traded funder etf vanguard record-breaking cash pile berkshire hathaway stock buyback program, NVIDIA, and consummation of the largest ever leveraged buyout deal, electronic cards. I didn't realize that was the case. Then there are enormous mergers in railways, utilities, and media. the last of which led this week to the largest ever junk bond offering, beating a record set only last week. New markets have been created out of thin air or become much bigger. Worries about massive corporate scandals and hedge fund blow ups, which would have once occupied investors attention for months. are steamrolled by the relentless, totalizing, and extraordinarily flexible machine that is American finance. Speedball capitalism. I thought this was very well put because every time one of these things happen, someone goes, oh, that's it. Fine. That was this is a sign of something. You've been on this beat for a long time. Credit to you. This is just the way things are now. Markets are everything is bigger now. Everything is part of the markets and things move faster. And when there is something to worry about, We just we worry about it for one week and then we move on. Think about SpaceX. was the biggest story. for, I don't know, two or three weeks. When's the last time you've heard anyone talk about SpaceX? [5:00] And finally today, it round tripped back to the IPO price. So we had all that worry. I'm so glad you mentioned this. Space X wasn't in the dark, but I'm glad you brought it up because – I put it in here a little bit just before we got out. Oh, did you? The price round tripped. Yeah. We spoke a lot about it when the price is going down. Oh, no, the unlock. Oh, no, it's going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now that it's back at 170, I know we're talking about it, but – Who cares? We only talk about bad things. So obviously the worry now is just, AI is just consuming everything. So this is what you know the straight of Hormuz is still closed. Is it? I haven't followed my tracker lately. There was probably one guy who's been tracking the ships by hand. Hold on. I know you're sweeping under the rug, but to your point, this is one of the biggest stories of the decade and nobody cares. I know nobody cares, but here's the other thing though. Because this happened, they're going to figure out some sort of pipeline to make this not be a worry anymore in the future. So like the fact that this event happened means it won't happen again in the future. It won't be as big of a worry in the future. There's no way they're going to let this little piece of land Take the whole global geopolitic everything hostage again. It's not going to happen. Hear me out. I'm no energy expert. I'm no scientist. or astronaut for that case. Uh, Pipelines in space. All right, let's do it. AI is now 53% of the S&P 500, so they break it out by hyperscalers, semiconductors, hardware, power, and software. And all these stocks are having massive gains obviously okay the ft is on my corner Last week I said, listen, the stock market has the It has it. If it wants to take it, it can take higher rates and say, fine, we're going to sell off. So the FT put this into historical, I said, every time this has happened historically, That's what it was. Higher rates kind of was the pin in the bubble. So they look at the railways and the utilities in the 1920s in Japan, a dot-com bubble in shale, and they say that stocks roll over first, capex follows. So they say the stock market tends to peak. Early, the stock market sniffs this stuff out, rolls over, and then a few months later, CapEx eventually slows down. Can I just rephrase that a little bit or add to it? I think it's a combination of maybe the stock market sniffing it out. But I think it's actually causal. I think the stock market was over. forcing these companies to slow down. Yes, that's a good way to put it. So the New York Times had this piece. They say higher interest rates aren't slowing the AI boom. That's a problem for the Fed. And they're kind of going around what I said last week. I said, well, what if these companies are just so big they don't care about higher rates? So they quoted a guy from Barclays here. He said, the problem for the Fed is that there is usually a built in correction mechanism in the US economy, which interest rates rise. And at some point, the rate sensitive parts of the economy led by housing slow down hard. And then that that propagates the rest of the economy. But if a large part of the economy is just less rate sensitive, and that is what is pushing the economy to grow faster than the Fed, unfortunately, has to hurt the part of the economy that is more rate sensitive. So the question is, I feel like this is what people always say. Well, it's too big. The Fed can't do any interest rates can't touch the sector. But to your point, the markets can. So if the markets tell these companies, no, Rates are higher. There's a higher hurdle rate. We're going to put money elsewhere. We're not going to give you the debt anymore at these levels. then the market can force their hand no matter what the tech CEOs say. Right. Correct? The market is the captain now. To say that rates can't slow this, I'd be very careful with that stance. I will throw that stance out and flush it down the toilet. That's insane. They can't? Oh, really? 9% can't? That won't change risk appetite? Of course it will. But we've been saying like when, how, where is – Where is the boogeyman? Where is the pinprick going to come from? And one of the things that we have thrown out as a potential – is that investors will walk away from a debt offering, right? They will just say, all right, Meta wants to borrow $30 billion and investors don't show up. Well, guess what? Paramount, just came to market. Looking for $52 billion in debt. You know how much money showed up? Getting back to my team that there's just so much money. $150 billion. And guess what, Paramount Warner Brothers? That's... That coincides with the weekend of the biggest box office flop Maybe in the history of movies. We're not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about it. Don't be Spurge's name. We're going to talk about it later in the show. But yeah, the idea that there is not going to be money showing up for these companies, maybe someday, not today. So the thing people would The counterpoint would be I put another one from JP Morgan in here. If you look at the economy, so it's the share of GDP employment and then the stock market. percentages and technology makes up 50% of the stock market. And it's not a [10:00] and close that for the rest of the economy. It's kind of funny. Technology makes up 2% of total employment in the United States. and 50% of the S&P 500. So this is the whole the stock market is not the economy. Mm-hmm. That would be the thing. It's just so big. But so I think they could extend this for longer than maybe many people think. But I agree that the financial markets, that's the. That's the stopping point here. That's what could... I don't care what Mark Zuckerberg or any of the other CEOs say, like, hey, we're going to go big. We don't care. Eventually, the markets can slow that if it wants to. But it's up to the market to say in the market so far. Hasn't said anything. You're right. There's so much money flowing around. Ben, you opened the show last week asking me – I can't remember how you phrased it, but it was something about the breath. Like can the market, oh, can the market, was it, I think it was, can the market hold in there when so many stocks are going down? And I said emphatically yes, unless – interest rates continue to rip higher. right for the wrong reasons, wrong for the right reasons, because interest rates keep going higher. We're recording this Monday afternoon because... Ben has something tomorrow. But new cycle highs for the 10-year, For the 20-year, For the 30 year, um and yet the s&p is having a great day it's it's right near all-time highs, the equal weight is... It's bouncing a little bit. I, I, uh, I don't believe it is too strong of a word, but... I'm surprised as somebody who's, I like I'm I'm bullish right now. I think that the equal weight will catch up. I'm not worried about the lousy breath. I'm surprised. I am surprised the market is holding him like this. The weird thing is if you plot the... the rates and inflation and all this stuff before the war Right before the war started was like the bottom and everything. Inflation was only 2.5%. Rates were barely below 4%. And if you put it to now, it looks like the war caused all of that stuff. And obviously it did a lot of it, right? Because if ChartKidMath looked at inflation and inflation X energy, And inflation X energy is a totally different story. But is it also possible that initial burst we got of rates and inflation was all that story? It's the war. You said the street of Hormuz is still closed. And now, It's okay, fine. And AI is taking over now too. And AI is pushing it up and people are really believing this higher growth story. for rates. And that's why the stock market keeps going up. even as Rates go up too. It's surprising that the market hasn't said, all right, fine, 10% correction, just take it. Something's got to give. I feel like that quote is in the bull market. All right. You and I, uh, Recorded a talker book today with Victor Kaplan. We're talking about high beta versus low beta. This is the high beta decade. High beta momentum, however you want to phrase it. This decade alone, 2020, high beta is up 260%. Low volatility. So I'm using S&P Invesco funds here. is up 40% in total. Low volatility has just done nothing, right? Very steady, not very much returns. It's actually slowing down. So you're just getting like the difference between high beta and low beta. If you're a diversified investor and you got both of them, you probably did okay. Probably like match the market essentially. But that divergence between the two has got to be about as great as it's been in the last 30 years. This is salt in the wound for... I guess, dividend-focused investors. Right. because this is the area of the stock market. That is extremely vulnerable to, to higher rates, both in terms of actually like financing the businesses. as well as investor preference. - Right, well I don't throw a 3% dividend yield, just give me, on stock market volatility, I'll just take bonds. Yes, yeah, you're right. At this point, there's actually competition for those dividend yields. And for years, there wasn't. You know the funny thing is here? So again, high beta is S-P-H-B. Low volatility is SPLV. SPLV has about seven times the assets. the high beta has. Low volatility has way more assets. It's like $7 billion, where the high beta has about... We've talked about this, the fact that no one really owns like momentum type strategies. That kind of makes sense to me. only because high beta is not a good strategy. And I'm not saying low vol is a great strategy, but it kind of makes sense. If you want areas of, if you want exposure to juice, High beta is not a great way to do it. So you just own the NASDAQ 100, you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I guess that you're right. That's where all the money is gone for that. Speaking of crazy AUM stuff, here, read this stuff from Luke Kawa. You put this in there, I think. All right, so Luke at Sherwood. tweeted. From J.P. Morgan. That was horrible podcasting. saying, Too many names. JP Morgan says, that the largest rotation, into the long-end treasury ETFs, TLT, Uh, [15:00] a record, and driven mainly by outsized inflows. into TLT as yields keep drifting higher. So they show a cumulative retail imbalance. And I have to be honest, Don't know what that means. But – But it is going up and to the right. That just means that I assume that means retail is the ones doing a lot of the buying here. Sure. which jives with the chart that Balchuna shared over at Bloomberg. Basically... money just keeps pouring to tlt as it keeps going down Um, This is surprising because you and I have talked about the fact that there's been this is the worst bond bear market of all time. This decade has been by far the worst bond bear market that there is. And there was a really simple and easy hedge for it. you go short duration you go to t-bills you go to one to three or treasuries whatever it is you don't have the interest rate volatility But before this crash happened, Okay, and TLT is still in a 40-some percent drawdown, a 45 percent drawdown. that's including income reinvested. It had, I think the total assets were 17 or 18 billion dollars in 2022. Then it crashed 40%. Today there's almost 50 billion in assets. So money has been pouring in. to this asset during a it's been in a 40 drawdown since November of 2022 and money has continued to pour in and not being taken care of very well either. Okay. I don't need to say again this year. Not exactly true. So, yeah. I'll show you. Torsten Slock has a chart. That zooms out. And he shows it's the title is households don't like the long end of the treasury curve. And this chart goes back to September, 2024. And money has... absolutely gone into the hedge. into ultra short-term treasury ETFs to the tune of $75 freaking billion dollars. while $5 billion has come out of TLT. Now, but you see that little bump in the line in that green bar? So, In the last... I don't know, six months, a lot of money has come in. But this is instructive because we'll talk about this later. Sometimes you have to... Zoom out. Think a little bit critically. And I, This is a dangerous posture. that like not all numbers are accurate. Because there's a lot of distrust in society these days. And if you can't trust the numbers, what can you trust? But very often in conversations, Numbers are either framed or or cherry-picked, They can be misleading. You can lie with numbers. Okay, you're right. So actually, it shows most of the money went in in 2023 and 2024. You're right. And then it kind of slowed down. But still a ton of money and obviously people kept getting kicked in the shins. and said, "All right, fine." But there's a ton of money in this strategy for what has been a big time money loser, one of the biggest all decade. - Right, but it is also accurate to say that during the rip in rates, as Eric is showing, during the rip-in rates, people are definitely – running into a burning building. Right. And you're getting, I think, 5.7% on a 30-year now. Again, this is not like boom, generational buying opportunity, pound the table. But this is the highest level they've been in 20 years. Yeah. So I guess I get it. The funny thing I've been thinking about this. People are saying like, hey, listen, This is especially kind of a boomer thing to say. I don't mean to pick on boomers because we always get emails from people being like, hey, I'm one of the boomers you guys always talk crap about in a joking way. But there's a lot of people who say like listen 7% mortgages aren't those are normal. We've had 7% mortgages our whole life, but there there's no such thing as a normal interest rate environment. I plotted the 10-year treasure. Look at this chart. Going back to 1940, the start of World War II, essentially. This shows a 10-year treasury. It goes from 2% and during the war it essentially stayed really, really low for a long time. got up to 15% or so in the 80s, and I got this data from Shiller that has been down ever since and there's no such thing as a normal interest rate. Right. And in fact, people say, well, I don't I think if you had to give people a guess a number, what's a normal interest rate, would you say 5%? Like historically, what's the norm? Since 1940, I put these into different bands. Zero to two, two to four, four to six, six to eight and eight and up. the most normal quote unquote is actually two to four percent so actually lower interest rates have been the kind of the norm Most of the time. And then the 4% to 6% range that people would call normals happened one quarter of the time or so. But you can't look at this chart and then just draw an average and say, "Yep, that's normal," because interest rates got so high in the 70s and 80s that that skews the average, too. Well, another example of lying with numbers. Yes, factually, there is an average. You can calculate it, but it's completely meaningless. It is kind of funny, though, that you can also say... You know the thing was like, hey, there's a whole group of generation of investors who's never lived through a bear market. That was the thing people would say, right? [20:00] That was so annoying. You could you know what? Because it was it was said by old people to like some of scold young people for making money. I hated that shit. I still the other speaking of boomers. But wait, it really is true, though, that there's not there is a whole generation of investors who've never lived through 5% bond yields before. It's been a long time since we've had this. So you and I, our inbox has been flooded with people asking questions about bond because no one ever had to think about bonds for the last 15 years or so because rates were so low. No one cared. Yeah. Um, all right. My dad returned this book to me. Hey dad, tell me something I don't know. A fun and memorable activity and family keepsake. I would agree. So, uh, it's just a bunch of like, what is your favorite memory of us? And if I read this, I'll probably cry because I haven't read this yet, but, uh, it's awesome. I would encourage anybody who is of mine and Ben's age ish, who has aging parents that aren't going to be around forever and ever. Um, this is great. This is something that I will probably keep with me for the rest of my life. And, uh, just a plug. Tell me how it works now. So it is. This is where this is where you ask them information and they fill it out for you to share. So like did you have a nickname growing up I just scrolling through I heard of this before Crush I mean just random shit like as a Tina Dolby favorite sports and hobbies how do you come up with my name oh I haven read that one I haven read this all yet but uh yeah it's great for your kids too obviously yeah it's awesome so it's very meaningful and that's I'm glad you said that because I've been thinking about doing something about with my dad as well yeah who's fast approaching eight years old okay Duncan sent us a poll at the compound how do you feel about the current state of the economy. 30% say the economy is strong. 47% say the economy is okay. And about a quarter of people said the economy is weak. And obviously, I think when people are asked this question, they don't think about what the actual economy is doing. They think about their personal economy. And I think about this a lot because we are part of a podcast, a finance podcast. And if we talk about different income groups, people, ever since we do this podcast, people say, you guys are so out of touch. You don't understand A, B, or C. And you don't understand people in this group or that group, my thing is literally everyone is out of touch when it comes to the economy. Because if you're one of these people who've been saying for years, this economy stinks, inflation and it's only like if you've been saying that, then you're out of touch. But if you also say listen all my friends are doing great because they rich then you like my take is everyone is out of touch Okay is that fair enough to say i think it such a great point in in some ways everyone about the economy is completely out of touch with reality and that the way it probably always been but we just have more data now speaking of which this is from uh meb faber sure this this is from bcg group they say the kids are all right the timeless angst over young people and money and you talked to ed elson about a lot of this the other day. And so I thought this was kind of a good for the TCAF you guys did. So exposure to the markets. This is corporate equities and mutual funds as a percentage of assets at age 34. Baby boomers had 7%. Gen X had 11%. Millennials, it's 19%. So young people are getting into the markets earlier. Great news. They also look what happened to millennials in terms of how long did it take them to overtake previous generations in income, wealth, and homeownership. Income happened in the 20s, wealth happened in the 30s, and homeownership didn't happen until the 40s for the generation ahead of them, Gen X. And the whole point is younger people now are waiting to do these things much longer, right? How many people do you know that are getting married right out of high school or college anymore? It rarely happens, but it's still happening It just taking a while Jeremy Horperdahl has this one where he shows the average age for millennials and Gen Z much greater than where Gen X was at the same age Can I say one thing I started to cut you off Yes Okay I think Ed Elson is terrific. He's an incredibly impressive speaker, writer, person, like huge fan. Me too. I like it. One of his beats. Sneaky tall. He's one of those guys that you see him in prison. Sneaky tall guy. So one of his beats is how tough young people have it these days. Yes. And I'm not here to say that he's wrong about everything he's saying, or in fact, that he's wrong about most of what he's saying. That's not the point that I'm going to make. There's like two different spectrums of this. One is everything is terrible. One is everything is amazing. Who is the there was a social scientist that passed away recently that it wasn't Steven Pinker we spoke there was another guy that just all of the ways that the world has improved right just like objectively all right so but no but nobody wants to hear how great things are Hans Rosling his book was Rosling yeah amazing okay the audience [25:00] wants to hear Negativity. Right? Of course. If there was a podcast that just described how great everything was, nobody would listen to it because it's super boring. right? Like, I would listen to it, but yes, you're right. Most people wouldn't. But I feel like with stuff like specifically to what we're talking about, Everything is viewed as a problem. oh, young people aren't getting married anymore. Right. So that must be bad. Really? Because my parents got married when they were way too young. And like many of our parents got divorced because there were kids having kids and couldn't handle the responsibilities of. bringing kids up, which up a lot of people my age, like, Dealing with divorced parents is not the easiest thing. A lot of this is preferences, not just, hey, the world is falling apart. Yeah. So I don't view this data point as, hey, why aren't people having And there is some negativity wrapped up in there, obviously. Right? Obviously. Um, Another – so I've been thinking about this the past week after Ed's podcast, but also after reading Derek wrote a post. Sorry to – should we – I'm jumping all over the place, but Derek Thompson wrote a post about Um, like uh people don't have this yeah people don't throw parties anymore yeah people don't throw parties anymore And I'm not saying Derek said this, but my first thought was, Well, so what? What dinner parties are so awesome. And I, Everything that we used to do that we don't do, it's not all bad. Yeah, there's a ton of bad shit in the world. Income inequality, we don't have to get into that. There's all sorts of horrific shit. But... But... Matter of fact, I re-watched The Invite with Robin finally. Not finally, it just came out. You see that movie? Loved it. Hilarious. That was a great movie. I rewatched it already. I watched it twice. I really liked it. And there's another movie where people have people over called The Invitation. You know my take about why we're having fewer dinner parties? Restaurants are so much better and nicer now. People had dinner parties in the past because restaurants sucked. Today, restaurants are so much nicer. Why would you want to have people over to your house when you can go to a nice restaurant? So Derek, exactly. So Derek wrote, "The death of the host is the story of lonely unmarried people, Mm. And Harry married dual earner households Anxious parents spending more time with their children and less time with friends. That part is true. Kids take way more bandwidth. But this to me is like 70% of it. And the typical home, becoming such a ride of diverting comfort that people no longer have to invite human beings to interrupt their boredom. Right. Yeah, being home is awesome. We've said this in the past. Back in the day, I remember like I remember staring out my window. Like I remember that visceral feeling of boredom. Now, have we overdone it? Is there no boredom? Is boredom maybe good? Is TikTok too much? You're right. It's give and take. Yes. It's a give and take, and I'm saying there's just too much giving and not enough taking. So I have one more point on the young person too. The thing is it's great that we have young people's voices now, Ed Elson, Kyla Scanlon, these people who are young and also speaking for their generation. It's needed. Here's the thing, though. In the past, young people did not have a microphone. No one ever listened to what young people said. Young people couldn't complain because no one would listen to them. They didn't get the chance to share their plight. So if you would have given people in the 90s, like, guess what we got? A bunch of movies about disaffected young people who were pissed off. So it's just now we have social media and podcasts and young people can now complain. They didn't have that opportunity in the past. So it feels like, oh my gosh, young, you just never heard from them in the past. You hear from them today because there's a microphone. Now here's one of the reasons. So this is to be true. Yes, last thing. It's hard to be a young person today. It's always been hard to be a young person. Doesn't mean that you're not taking their struggle seriously. They're going to grow up and they're going to be fine. Yes. Every older generation has always thumbed their nose at younger generations saying you had it easier than me. Grow up. You're going to be fine. You'll be fine in the future. That's true, and it's also true that young people have had Got it. dealt a bad hand in some ways. As always, this is one of the things that despite all those graphs that I just shared, this is why this is why people are really angry from the Wall Street Journal. They talk about the 0.1 percent. It's not talking about just the top 10 percent anymore or the top 1 percent. It's the top 0.1 percent. 137 households. control $28 trillion or 15% of total household net worth. So people say, I don't care how much better things I've got for this group or that group or this group. The top 0.1% having this much money, and I guess their wealth has doubled this decade. People go, that's just, I'm just going to be pissed off, okay? That's going to make me mad. Yeah. Understandable. It's out of control. The wealth inequality... Only goes one way, unfortunately. Speaking of which, I never heard of this one. This one, I missed this a couple weeks ago from Bloomberg. Um, This is really funny to me that this shows how much progress we have made. Tech's new rich are suffering from sudden wealth syndrome. [30:00] Growing post-exit ecosystem is helping founders deal with the unexpected difficulties of becoming extremely wealthy. These are the post-economic people. Yes, it is post economic post. Yes. So they talk about how like after this happens, people, they sell their company. They interviewed this woman who started a podcast and she sold her company for one hundred million dollars or something. And afterwards, she's like, I've never been more depressed in my life. I got divorced like it ruined my life, essentially. And they say they ask like how 15% of people who go through this are a pretty sad place. 70% are comfortable. and 15% are thriving. So like, People who make a ton and ton of money. We're talking life-changing amounts of money by selling or getting shares in a company, whatever it is. They're not all saying, I'm doing amazing, this is awesome. Most of them are really... - People wanna be normal. If you have a $100 million exit, And let's assume that you're like a normal person. You're not one of these psychomaniac driven people. You're a regular person who happened to build something awesome and whatever. You had this outcome. And you can't hide that wealth. No. Right? It's like how people that are like six foot 10 feet. They just want to be normal. So I think one of the things that we've learned working in wealth management and dealing with people with lots of money, it's kind of like a doctor who becomes kind of immune to like. not immune to suffering of their patients, but they just get used to it, right? You get used to blood, you get used to people getting whatever it is. I feel like for us, you get used to the money and it doesn't impress you as much anymore. And then but you see the people that are more well adjusted and it's the people who had time to slowly but surely. get adjusted to each new level of income and wealth. And if it happens all at once, It's like the child actor, like the year you become a child actor, that's when you're maturity stops growing. If it happens at a very young age, it can really screw you up. And so this is like the world's tiniest violin thing, but it actually does make sense to me. So they say that up to $20 million, they're still thinking about how do I use this resource well. And they say anything above that. It's like monopoly money. It doesn't. It has no meaning. It had like it screws you up. I think... scarcity is is is helpful in in life yes i agree and having too much money where you're like You never have to make a decision about anything, right? Right. You can do whatever you want you can do. Yeah. Should I get another Ferrari? It becomes very monotonous, I'm guessing. Okay. I want to give one more data point on how rich we are as a nation. Because it's weird to say that we are the richest society in history right now. There's never been a society that's richer than the United States of America at this moment right now. Okay? It's going to be painful if we go through a crash or a down cycle or whatever, but right now, So someone sent me this New Yorker about how we are the the American religion of self-storage facilities. Have you ever used a self-storage facility before? Sure. You've used where you block stuff in a garage or whatever. I use it for, yeah, for six months or something. Like when you're moving or something. Yeah. So there are more self store. I love these there are more self-data points like that There are more self storage facilities in the US and there are Starbucks McDonald's Walmart's Home Depot Domino's Dunkin Donuts and Costco is combined and The United States is the world leader in storage units, roughly 90% of global capacity. So this is a United States thing where we have so much junk. that we have to put it somewhere else. And they said that this survey in 2022 from Black & Decker found that more than a third of the country's residential garages were so full of overflow possessions that their owners were unable to park their cars in them. You've seen this. Everyone has a house or two on their street where you go by the garage door when it's open. And you go, oh my gosh. Look at all that stuff. Like they can't fit their cars into the garage because they have so much stuff in there. This is how rich we are collectively as a nation. We can't fit all our stuff in our houses Anymore. And so just getting back to the bigger point I was making about focusing on the negative. Yeah, it is obviously understandably up that there are so many people struggling big time getting crushed by inflation and there's. tens of millions of these people and there's also Tens of millions of people that have more money than they can wipe their ass with it. But we spend, we, content creators in general, over-index, on the suffering. and spend no time, forget it, I'm not talking about the billionaires, but there's so many people that are doing incredibly well financially. right and it's sort of like you know those people who cares Right. 4,800 dedicated RV and boat storage facilities, United States. Have you seen how big RVs are now? You drive past a house, one of these old boomer houses that was built in the 70s, and it's got an RV parked on the side that could barely fit. It's the size of a bus, and you go- We don't have room for RVs here. Oh, that's true. But you look at it, you know, that RV is worth more than the house probably. They're everywhere. How much it costs to fill up an RV tank? It's got to be like $1,000. Yeah. All right, no more good news. Let's talk about bad stuff. [35:00] All right. So I'm trying to call balls and strikes with the data that comes in. And we've been saying that like for 10 quarters, the CEOs are telling the same story for the most part that the consumer is holding up to various degrees. Well, that might be changing. Heather Long tweeted, economist, I think she was at the Washington Post. American consumers are struggling right now. Yes, they're still spending, but the strain is clear. personal spending in August is up 0.9% personal income in August is up 0.2% that's a big gap people are still spending but many are dipping to savings you know another thing with all this data stuff is it's just really hard to compare like national to think about national numbers see I can't look at a number that says 0.9 versus 0.2 and get super worried about it it's just too small of a I know that's probably a big gap in the aggregate it's also it's also it's also like you know we haven't seen a trend like this it's one month but when you're talking about how people are doing it's just like a ridiculous premise how is how is how is uh how is the housing market doing well I guess in general the house market is doing pretty shitty but a lot of a lot of the economy is really local so the Wall Street Journal has a story that kind of refutes this not refutes it but says the mighty American consumer is crashing through inflation and driving growth And says spending is rising because prices are climbing and Americans are buying more stuff despite long run frustrations over inflation. I thought this is a really good chart. It shows real consumer spending. So it's adjusted for inflation since 2022. It's basically a straight line up. It looks like a T-bill yield that you buy. You buy a T-bill and over time it slowly but surely goes up in a straight line versus consumer sentiment. And it's showing that inflation adjusted spending just continues to inch higher and higher and higher. And people have powered through everything this decade in terms of spending and just keep going no matter what. All right. So if I'm going to do like an aggregate view of the economy, a sign of a strong economy is how much bad shit it can absorb. a frozen housing market consumer sentiment for what it's worth zero actually so disregard that nine percent inflation inflation gas prices and yeah yeah two wars right things aren't that bad this is the most resilient economy that we've probably ever seen all right one more thing about consumer sentiment surveys a bunch of people sent me this we talked about like we were trying to figure out why is it that consumer sentiment is so low and someone says you guys missed the biggest one of all and in 2024 i mean sentiment had already fallen off a cliff during covid but in 2024 they went from phone-based surveys to web-based surveys we've talked about this a million times so i've seen i remember seeing louis ck a number of years ago and he said i am a different person when i'm behind the wheel of a car and someone cuts me off and i say that guy you know and he But he says, but if someone cuts me off in the elevator, I'm not going to scream at them and yell at them at the top of my lungs. That's online person versus real-life person on the phone, right? It's two different people. You answer differently in an online survey than you would if you were talking on the phone to someone. Right? Okay. Do you read this A16Z, State of the Markets? It was charts, and yes, I went through all 90 of them. Okay. It's a lot of charts. A lot of charts. Okay, you've been on this one for a while now. it says more and more households are paying for ai but it's a it's a very small number what it's two percent or something two and a half 2.2 percent and it's climbing but it's just there's there's nothing there yet in terms of households it's going to be are we just going to make the assumption that i disagree with that that well you and i have different takeaways so you what your takeaway um that it rising rapidly and who knows how high it going to get Okay it rising rapidly That's a small percentage of the, especially since taking on software is very easy for people to do. It's not like you're buying and waiting for a finished product. I'm just saying, I'm guessing almost all of the growth is just happening with businesses still and not individuals. Well, another another thing that I'm thinking about is just the disconnect Between all the shit that we spoke about on this episode Right about what's real what's not how people feel blah blah blah It's really like are you online or are you not are you online or are you a normal person? Who just does their life? It does feel like a different language when you when you hear especially the tech people talk about What's going on in AI? It sounds like they're speaking a different language and they're living a different life than other people But I feel like people that spend an hour a day on Twitter, their brains are different, their consumption habits are different. Yes. Definitely, not for the better, and I'm one of those people. But don't you agree that this is just a very small number? My whole point is there's so much room for more growth ahead. Oh yeah, totally. By the way, speaking of Twitter, not just now, but Instagram takes you to threads. [40:00] which is Facebook, Twitter. And it is, as far as I can tell, because I go to the thread and I just scroll for a second, it is 500 times stupider and more toxic than Twitter. Oh, really? Okay. I tried to plug a month and then I kind of gave it up. I don't know if that's representative or not, but yeah. Twitter is like Bitcoin is to crypto. It's just the brand that everyone kind of falls back on and knows. People thought the other one, like the shit coins are going to take over Bitcoin and it just never happened. It's just the same thing with social media posting. Remember Blue Sky? Yeah, it's still there. Is it? Okay. Whatever. All right, this is a good one from Torsten Slock. How higher rates now are going to cause big-time problems down the road. So we had lower rates earlier this decade. There wasn't a huge boom in building houses. There was a huge boom in building apartment buildings, multifamily housing. There was a ton of building that went on. So Torsten Slock says, when rates are high, builders build less. When fewer homes and apartments are built, rents go up, which puts inflation higher and keeps rates high. Call this the higher rates, higher rent doom loop. With owner equivalent rent alone making up roughly one quarter of the CPI basket this reacceleration in rents is a problem for the Fed because it puts upward pressure on inflation by driving higher rates It does feel like we just never going to get more housing being built I keep talking about this. And higher rates, obviously, right now are just totally suffocating the housing market from any activity happening. Lumber is crashing. Because no one's building houses? Yeah. Remember when that was the biggest story? when lumber was going crazy. People were posting the pictures of them in Home Depot, take me somewhere expensive, and it was a lumber sitting next to the lumber yard. But he's right, though. I feel like I'm happy that we haven't seen anybody try to remake office space. That would be... You can't touch anything Mike Judge has done, I don't think. I hope he's stuck in his own box. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, idiocracy or any of those things. But I do agree with him, though, that this is just going to make... We talked last week. It's great news. rents have been falling but that's not going to last they're gonna they're gonna go up more all right um jason's why from the wall street journal wrote an article private equity is a problem uncle sam says your wallet can fix it this is such a great line uh i'm jealous of this one robert plays a veteran fund attorney um and former deputy director robert plays and former deputy director of the SEC investment management division um was talking about the dynamic between democratization of alternative assets how why is it only for rich people and he said quote these new rules aren't about giving retail investors more access to private funds they're about giving private fund sponsors more access to retail investors. That is a good line. Well done. And as we've been talking about these private markets, they need a new pipeline. There was Joe Weisenthal pointed this one out. Aura Rings, smart ring maker Aura becomes latest company delay IPO. And it's like, they talk about all these other companies that have delayed IPO in recent days, citing market conditions. And Joe was like, isn't the stock market up 15% this year? and wasn't up 20% a year before and 20% a year before that, how can you cite market conditions for not going public? And the only reasonable conclusion here is these companies are way overvalued. Otherwise, they would have gone public a lot, a lot sooner. You know when Paulie says, smacks Ray Liotta in the face, he says, don't make a jerk of me. That's how I felt reading this stuff. What do you think, we're assholes? This is market conditions We know that the stock market is up what are we schmuck on wheels also I have a problem I know people like these things the aura it tells you like how you slow your sleep score was and stuff you know what I need to know to talk to tell I had a good night's sleep I wake up the morning feeling good I don't need some real your old school like that yeah you you had a bad night sleeper I think this kind of thing because if you change like one little oh I had sugar past 8 p.m. I can't do that again oh I had a glass of wine now I didn't my sleep score was off I think it's ridiculous I know Ben you're preaching the choir I want to slap those people in the face and say come on you're gonna die one day what are you doing so wait another one another one from a 16 Z that kind of gets to this this is I don't know if you saw these ones these are crazy the top it's how the power law in venture is driving everything the top 1% of exits accounts for 84% of exit value. Now you could say, well, that's all space X, the top 10% accounts for 94%. So yeah, this it's like, this stuff is totally on steroids, the power law. And it says the VC dispersion has never been wider. So the dispersion of VC IRRs by vintage in 2024 and 2025, the top 10% and bottom 10% is just the, they're getting wider and wider and wider between if you weren't in like this best fund that owned this company, [45:00] You're screwed. It's interesting. Really good. It is. All right, we got an email. I see four tech movies potentially entering the cultural zeitgeist. The social reckoning. You can see everything now. Uh... Musk is a documentary. and artificial. And they said, this feels like a moment in our culture. Um... I worry we may be entering a bit of tech exhaustion. Yeah, I agree. Do you think audiences will show up for these? Um, Number one and four, no. I think... I think I agree with you, number one. I think the social reckoning social network is such a, like one of the best movies of the century, you can't try to recreate that magic. I think, I think that's going to fall flat. Especially with Jeremy Stone. I'm pretty bearish on that one as well. I am. I'm curious about the open AI one, because that feels like, that feels more akin to the social network where it's, the beginning. I don't know. I just feel like All of the movies that tried to come after the social network tried and failed. There was a movie about the Uber guide or the show of the Uber guide. There was like, I feel like every one of these got that same treatment and none of them were any good. Well, I agree with you there and with the emailer. Yeah, there's tech fatigue. I think people are like, people don't want this. It's, It's enough. I will watch the Elizabeth Holmes one, though. But that's not really... I don't know if you can call that tech. But I guess ish. Uh... Digger absolutely bombed. I think it did $8 million. The budget was a Buck 60 and 180. Did you, did you, did you listen to Sean and Amanda? Um, and hear the spoiler on the big picture, I did because I'm not interested. Please don't spoil for me. But did they like it or not? Well, I don't know. Neither here nor there. Okay. But – There is a There is a twist. that again, I'm not going to say anything. Thank you. Are you planning on seeing it at all? Of course I'm going to see it. I have to watch it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious. I'll see it... when it comes out. I mean, right from when I saw the preview, I thought, OK, this is this is a swing here. He's taken a huge, huge swing. I would like to... Goes to show, you cannot manufacture demand. It's true. They spent... a ton of of money marketing this. He was on all these shows. He was everywhere. He was everywhere. Nobody gives a shit. You know what he's got to do? He's got to get rid of the, he's got to let his hair go gray and get rid of the floppy hair. He's still trying to look young. He did some fillers on his face probably. He's just got to age and play an old guy. That's like what Redford did and Clint Eastwood and like eventually you have to graduate into playing an old guy. I know he tried to look like an old guy in this. But he's got to naturally become an old guy. That's his next step. That's how he gets his Oscar. Yeah, that's not going to happen. He's not going to naturally. No, probably not. Um, Yeah. It's a, hey, listen, you can't win them all. I still ride for TC here. So I got one more thing from this Derek Thompson piece. He had one that said percentage decline in the share of each activity since 1975. And the one that stood out to me, not not dinner parties. but playing cards. It's down 67%. Okay, and another one, Alison Schrager, who's just on Talking Wealth with Josh, talking about a new book. It says bowling. There used to be like 10 million people who were in bowling leagues in the 1970s. Now it's down to a million. These are two things. that I'm going to beat into my children's heads that this is these are traditions of my family. They're going to keep they're going to keep playing cards. And they're going to go bowling. These are two things that I do not want to. It is funny if you ever go to a bowling alley now, like they're always empty. Every time we go, they're empty. It's easy to get a lane. And really with, we've had an opposite experience. Oh, really? Because you probably go like an I go to like an old school one. I go right across my office. Actually, what were you about to say? Where do I go? You like the lucky like there's nicer ones now. You like the ones that have like the bars and so I go to the bowling alley in my town. Okay, still smells like cigarette smoke, hopefully that you know that kind of the old one. It stinks like beer. Yes. Okay. good i'm just making because there are the newer ones i'm sure that are that's probably harder to get a lane i don't like going to those i want to go to the old school bowling alley that smells I agree with you there. Okay, so these are the things I want to keep in my family, bowling and playing cards. Because, listen, I tried to get a card game going at Future Proof. at Airbnb, no one knows how to play cards anymore. I love playing cards, it's one of my favorite things to do of all time. My family has played cards for years. I love it. No one plays Carly. I love her. I like her. I'm like... Love playing. I'm going to teach you how to play a card game. Okay. All right. I'm in. I'm down. One other thing about dinner parties, Back in the day, like I said, my parents were divorced, so I didn't have any dinner parties at my house. But even... Even my mom and stepdad, we never had people over. You know why? Yeah, they never had people over. Two things there. [50:00] Number one, I feel like when we were growing up, people's parents were... like a different species. Right? Like we just... I didn't know what anybody's deal was. Right. And I feel like with parenting today, Yeah, you didn't talk to people's parents, really? Kind of said hello and that's it. Yeah, I feel like every kid knows the parents. Yeah. Like... decently. So anyway, if we had our friends over for dinner, What would we do with our kids? What, they'd hang out with us? Nobody wants that. Hey, get out of here. But where are they going? I had the kids go in the basement. My parents had a really core group of friends from college. They still, to this day, are really good friends with these people. They all would invite each other to their own kids' weddings. It was kind of just known, like, hey – There's like 20 people. that are our friends from college. They're coming to, we're going to everyone's wedding. They all went. That's very nice. And on Friday nights, they would have the older kids of the group would babysit the younger kids and all the parents would go to the bar. They had a local bar on the corner every single Friday night. they would go to the bar and they would leave the kids together and say, you guys fend for yourself. The older kids will watch you. Yeah, that doesn't happen as much anymore. Um... All right. Uh, oh. But I got a problem. Interesting problem because I'm not the... friendliest guy in the world. I'm not like unfriendly, but I'm not, you know, I'm just... Keep it to myself sort of guy. You're not a hey guy. So. Nah. My daughter's soccer game this weekend. These two guys were giving each other like one guy's a Bears fan, one guy's a Lions fan. And I can tell they do this every week, you know, like just razzing each other about the Bears and Lions. And I thought, yeah, that's that's I'm never going to do that. And I respect that. I love that. I love that, but I'm not mad that that's on me. Anyhow, by the way, no one observation I had over the weekend at a sports game. You know, there's always one or two wide stance guys and I mean like a deep wide stance. Yes. It's usually the dad who wears shorts even in the winter. Right? So, yeah, I mean, literally, this guy was wearing a T-shirt and it was pretty damn cold. And when I say wide stance, I mean, this guy is... making himself a foot and a half shorter than he otherwise is just, just really getting into it. Um, But so there was a there was a block party. uh that we went to over the weekend oh see people still love parties Yeah, block parties are a big thing here. And, I'm walking. So like obviously the street is blocked off. So I'm walking to my car. And if somebody did a double hunk, And I waved. I don't know. I thought it was somebody I knew. Just an instant wave. Like double honk. I was like, who is that? Oh, just instant wave. My hand came up. Uh, and he was honking because somebody was back out of the drive when he was, it was not a honk. It was not a hello honk. It was a, Hey, don't hand me honk. You're pretty good at it. I keep, I keep getting get with the, uh, with the false waves. All right. Hey, better to wave and, you know, I like it. All right, up to recommendations. First of all, this is awesome. Someone put AI to good use. and emailed us and sent us a list of all of our recommendations we've ever done. It's movies, books, TV shows, and you can look at them by category. So horror for Michael, you can look at everything, just books. And then it also has a little synopsis of what we said. Like Michael enthusiastically praises this movie, calling it fun and saying it rips. Friday the 13th, Michael Battening explicitly calls the 1980 film a big piece of shit and a terrible movie. True. And it also has a little picture of the show in it. So we emailed this guy back and said, how did you do this? And he said, AI, of course. We'll include a link in the show notes. It's really well done. This is the best one. People have tried to do this over the years of all recommendations. This one is really, really good. Somebody emailed us about Letterboxd, and I don't know why I'm not – more into that platform. I've used it. sporadically. I just never really got into it. All right, I think this is a movie you might have turned me on to. This is one of my favorite under-the-radar movies I watched this year. It's called Tuner on Paramount+. I did recommend that. And so it's a guy who is a piano tuner. He has a hearing problem, but he uses it to break safes. And Dustin Hoffman still got it a little bit in it. He's kind of plays the wise, cracking old man. But the young guy, I only know him from White Lotus. White Lotus season two. He's really good. I thought the love interest in the movie who I'd never seen before. She was really good. I thought they had actual chemistry. And it kind of reminded me of the Aubrey Plaza movie, Emily, the criminal. where it was like this little kind of like caper kind of movie, but it never went too over the top. It felt always kind of contained. And not it didn't like jump too many levels and the French guy the club. I mean, what a classic that guy. So anyway, to I yeah, yeah, John. What's wrong? Yeah, something. uh, My wife and I both said, "Man, that was a really enjoyable movie." 7.0. I liked it. finished patriot on amazon and probably eight years late to this i mentioned this for us You've probably never seen it or heard of it. [55:00] The kind of show where... There's only two responses to it. Oh my gosh, I love it. This is a masterpiece. Oh my gosh, I hate it. Why would I keep watching this? It's probably if the guy who did DTF Atlanta or DTF St. Louis, whatever it was called, on HBO. This is his first show on Amazon. And, This is a show that AI could never create in a million years. recreate because I don't it's the weirdest, quirkiest show I've ever seen in my life. And the whole time you're thinking, how does a human being think of this as a premise for a TV show? What's the premise? It's a CIA guy, but it's kind of a dark comedy, but it also has a heart to it. But they're also the guy explains the plot through folk music at times. Oh, my God, I'm out. You would not like it, but I kind of and I the end of the show kind of fell flat like the ending. I didn't really appreciate that much like that. kind of left me wanting more. But I laughed a lot and I just thought like this this show is kind of a masterpiece, even though 70% of people who watch it will probably hate it. I watched two seasons. It was essentially one long season. And it was just I can't believe how well done it was and how it ever got on the air. I have no idea. Hmm. Are you still watching the not so you mentioned last week? How is it the Jon Hamm show? I? I really like it. It's good. Four episodes in. What's it called again? American hostage one more I got a book another book a fabulous debt by Robin Wigglesworth from the FT the epic serve how bonds build the modern world so we've getting a ton of questions I said about bonds if you want to know like why bonds are important in the story of how debt helps grow the economy, and how it also can wreck the economy. This book is fantastic. Really well done. I want to read you something. It was written... by Thomas Macaulay in 1848. Now, it sounds a little weird because back then people actually used to like write like, in proper English. So we talked about how everyone for years this is again this is the 19th century worried about government debt that will lead to a crisis. And this guy explains why it never happened. So this is, 200 years ago almost. He said they erroneously imagined that there was an exact analogy between the case of an individual who was in debt, to another individual in the case of a society which is in debt to part of itself. In this analogy led them into endless mistakes about the effect of the system of funding. Say it louder. They were under an air not less serious touching the resources of the country. They made no allowance for the effect produced by the incessant progress of every experimental science and by the incessant efforts of every man to get on in life. They saw that as the debt grew, they forgot other things grew as well as the debt. They greatly overrated the pressure of the burden. They greatly underrated the strength by which the burden was to be borne. And he was his whole thing is saying, like, One of the reasons that we grew as a society in the first place is debt. That's one of the reasons it grew. It's a really, really good book. It's like this is like the historical bond market book. Really well done. Highly recommended. Okay. Love it. I also got through two books this week. Um... Roll call with Ari Emanuel or by Ari Emanuel was – Freaking awesome. So much fun. And if you don't care to listen to six hours of it, He was on with Matt Bellany and what a character that guy is. I mean, really one of a kind. You can tell he just loves – that was a great podcast. They were going back and forth with each other and neither of them cared. It was really well done. It was so much fun. I enjoyed the conversation. All right, so the other one is the steps. by one Sylvester Stallone. And he read the book. And I think we all... Rocky fans generally know the story of how difficult it was to get made, that he was made an offer and... he insisted on playing Rocky and back and forth and, Um, but it went deep into his... His childhood until he made Rocky. And it stopped there. So it stopped in 1976. And, uh, It was effective. It was well done. His upbringing is truly insane. His parents were some of the biggest pieces of shit. in the world and say what you will, about helicopter parents. I'll take that any day over – the sons of bitches that he grew up with, which was not. Who didn't care about him. Worse. Not entirely uncommon. for that generation. When you first realized that he wrote those movies, I remember when I learned that, I go, "No, are you kidding? Really? He wrote them?" You don't with that voice he has, you can't. you into like the muscles and how is he actually right yeah how did how did he write these movies you do yes Yeah. Um, All right, what else is going on? Logan, Logan, Logan is... Logan is watching Big Daddy. My seven-year-old might be a bit inappropriate, but I wet my own ass. We couldn't get enough of that line. I think that's one of the more underrated Sandler movies that there is, actually. I love that movie. The S&P 500 right now has been about 25 points of an all-time high. So the stock market is [60:00] as of yet. Does not give a crap about higher interest rates. Doesn't care. We're going to hit it. We're going to hit new all time highs again and people are going to be so confused. It is an interesting dynamic. We're heading towards another 20% year in the S&P. Oh, yeah? What's it now? 15, 16? Yeah, 15%. Let's get crazy. Let's get stupid. That's where we're at. Let's get nuts. All right. I think so. What's the email? Where are you going, Amar? Montreal, CFA Montreal event. And I'll be at a CFA Houston event later this week. I'm all over the place this week. Okay. All right, safe travels. Oh, one more thing. One more thing. This pains me to say. On the flight home, I tried to watch Disclosure Day. What a piece of garbage. Right out of the gate, I thought that I missed the first – I like rewound. I thought I missed like the first minute or something. The start of the movie is bizarre, isn't it? It just starts, and you're like, wait, what? It's very strange. So I turned it off after 20 minutes. I probably will give it another shot. Because I'm kind of curious to see. There's like a half hour of the movie, you're kind of like, I can see something here. But other than that, it's... Oh, so disappointing. My God, Mr. Spielberg. Nobody's perfect, but yikes. Hey, Spielberg had Disclosure Day, TC had Digger, but they gave us some of the greatest movies of our lives, so I can't be mad at them. Yeah, no, I'm not mad. Just a little. Hey, Father Time is undefeated, as they say. LeBron has sciatica. We all get old and die. You and I are going to be doing Animal Spirits in our 60s, and people are going to go, man, really? You hear what they say this week? That's going to be us. Such is life, Ben. All right, AnimalSpirits at the compoundnews.com. Personal emails, personal responses. Thank you to Duncan and the entire team behind the mics. Behind the mics? Behind the scenes? Terrible close. We'll see you next time. Thank you. Thank you.