Speaker 1: Is it multi layer chess from President Trump? Or is
it chaotic? Zach Abraham joins us on The Todd Herman Show.
Courtesy of God Almighty.
Speaker 2: The Todd Herman Show is one disapproved by big pharma
technocrats in tyrone Sabrian ware from the high Mountains of
Free America. Here's the Emerald City Exi Todd Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is the day the Lord has made in. These
are the times to which God has decided we should live.
Joining me, my friend and brother, Chief investment Officer Bulwark
Capital Management At Zach Abraham. Zach, welcome back to The
Todd Herman Show.
Speaker 3: Good to be back, Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year to you, man.
Speaker 4: It's been a while, I know, man, it feels like
it's been a fortnite. A coon's age, Coon's age. That's
a lie.
Speaker 3: It's like a line from the Outlawed Josie Whales or
something like that.
Speaker 1: That's right. I'm always careful as a white dude saying
anything about coons.
Speaker 2: Just I'm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you know, I'm just because I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hadn't he thought of that. I hadn't really
thought of that angle. But you got to be cure.
You know though.
Speaker 4: The one thing I will say is is the crazy
wokeness as it relates to mainstream it is significantly better
than it was.
Speaker 3: Five years ago. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Remember when you'd get called Somebody reminded me this the
other day. It wasn't that long ago where I remember
I said black and people are like, that's racist, or
it's the color of my wife's skin.
Speaker 1: Like do you remember the brown bag lunch thing? That
there were brown bag lunch seminars at the city of
Seattle and that was banned.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean that's clearly racist, right because.
Speaker 1: Brown bags and all that. And I know, and it
has gotten better. And I think part of this is
that credit cards expired. And I think the other thing is, man,
there are so many serious things that people are dealing with,
and I think that people have started to get kind
of a handle on Maybe words aren't our problem, maybe
some other things are problem. And I wanted to ask
you because I've heard the reporting around this in every
significant way. I don't think I've ever heard a more
interesting argument then one thing. We didn't talk about this beforehand.
I need you to explain this to me. President Trump
has a plan to take two hundred billion bucks and
purchase housing bonds and therefore lower housing prices. And I'm
not getting the mental gymnastics on this one. I truly,
I'm not doing this for the show's sake. Because I
hear someone saying I'm going to purchase all the housing
bonds with government money, injecting money into the housing market
or the aftershoot of the market the bonds does that, then,
how does that then say I will sell my house
for less money, or house buyers myself for less money,
or the market will go down. There has to be
an argument for this. I'm at a loss.
Speaker 3: There isn't one.
Speaker 1: There isn't no no.
Speaker 4: And again, I hope, I hope your listeners know this
by now. I think it's one of the reasons that
you and I get along really well, one of many.
But I'm a fan of President Trump. I voted for
him twice. But when he says something that I don't
agree with, I'm gonna tell you that will do nothing
to home prices. If anything, it could maybe have a slightly.
Speaker 3: Upward push on home prices. And here's why.
Speaker 4: Because banks have a certain amount of assets and a
certain amount of cash, they got to deploy right, So
if you buy, and that's the whole point of quantitative easing,
if we go, what he's advocating for is a form
of quantitative easing that's focused strictly on what we call mbs,
or mortgage backed securities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the FED bought a bunch of these.
Speaker 4: The reason you buy them is because you replace that
asset on a bank's balance sheet with cash.
Speaker 3: And what does that bank need to do. They need
to redeploy it.
Speaker 4: Okay, so they might get a little more aggressive on rates, right,
they might give somebody a little but if that brings
rates down a little bit, that's going to push home
prices up.
Speaker 1: Right, it could be more aggressive, meaning, okay, we've got
some cash. President Trump injected, took money from the taxpayers
force us to purchase housing bonds even though we didn't
want to. Necessarily, they can say, okay, so maybe instead
of some of this and have great credit, maybe instead
of seven and three quarters, we'll give you seven and
a half. Yeah, and that's being aggressive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I don't look, I don't think it's a
horrible idea. I mean, you know, it's so funny to
me that people are up in arms.
Speaker 3: Oh, he can't. You're like the FED.
Speaker 4: The FED splashes the pot for three times that all
the time. And they're like, well, it's not the same,
and I'm like, yes, it is the same thing. If
I pull cash out of my right pocket, it isn't
different when I pull it out of my left right Okay,
like so whatever I mean it and cash was fungible, right,
So in fact, it is the same, I honestly think,
and this isn't a knock, right, President Trump plays a
political game. I think this along with what he said
about corporations buying homes, I don't think doing either one
of them would have a deleterious impact. I also don't
think that either one of those things will have a
really beneficial impact. But I think that they're fairly low
cost to things that wouldn't be a bad political move
to do before midterms.
Speaker 3: I think that's no.
Speaker 1: Politically speaking, the optics are great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's what it's all about, because, like
you said, there's that will have no I mean you
look at the US housing market. What are we talking
about fifteen trillion in size? Right, So, like a purchase
of two hundred billion dollars in MBS that doesn't do anything.
Speaker 1: Okay, then the capping of this is an executive order,
and our mutual friend Tom wrote analysis this. I wanted
to share with you because I think Tom he's one
of those guys who does investments on his own. He's
an engineer and he thinks that way. And you remember
when moving out to pizza, you guys end up gravitating
towards each other and sharing shartstoles a whole stick at night. Yes, right,
your drug sharts and the pizza pies and etc. So
this is about President Trump's is going to use an
executive order to stop Black Rock and Vanguard and others
from buying up entire neighborhoods of single family homes. Tom Rights.
We know Trump to make some pretty dramatic moves his potus,
but this one really caught my attension. I'm conflicted. On
one hand, he's talking about violating free market principles, which
is perilous, But on the other hand, do we really
have a free market when it comes to home affordability.
I think I have something to say about this. Since
I'm a city councilman, I'm asked to make quasi judicial
decisions on land use. Inner cities. Cities throughout the country
have been building codes which I had a layer of
red tape and bureaucracy to building homes. This raises single
family home costs uniformly. On the other hand, institutional investment
companies buying up homes is a real thing. Blackrock is
well known to do this. It's been reported in red
Finn in a recent market analysis, and they target the
lower tertiary, the most affordable of housing stock. That buy
uphole swass within a municipality of neighborhood and then they
literally sell to themselves, raising the market value of homes
as a way of creating investment margin. Another effect is
to reduce the supply of housing stock, which under free
market principles, raises the prices of homes. Then municipalities like
mine are encouraged to authorise more land development in order
to raise the supply and obtainability. It's a vicious cycle
that can destroy communities. I'm interested in hearing what other
people have to think about this. I won't know what
you think about that about that analysis, I didn't know
they were selling homes to each other. They buy up neighborhoods.
Speaker 3: What they do that that's so vicious.
Speaker 4: Well, oh, it's Look, there's so many games and it's
frustrating and somewhat disgusting to me because it is the
ultimate form of window dressing. I mean, if you want
to look at what another really good example of this
is stock based comp stock based compensation, Yeah right. You
look at how big stock based compensation has been in
the tech world and they're, oh, they're giving people a
skin in the game.
Speaker 3: Yeah they are.
Speaker 4: But the reason they do it is because when they
pay you stock based comp they don't have to realize
that as a cost. Right, that doesn't hit their cash Okay,
it's just it dilutes shareholders, and then they turn around
at the end of the year and announce a multi
billion dollar stock buy back, so they keep the dilution
at minimal. But then you turn around and look at
it and just right, so they're not technically spending money
on labor. They're spending money on stock buybacks, and so
there's tax advantages to that.
Speaker 3: And it's not bad.
Speaker 4: It's there's nothing illegal with it. But what it does
is it obvious skates what's really going on. It makes
the things look better than they really are.
Speaker 3: So painting the.
Speaker 1: Tape so they're doing the same thing in the housing market.
They're making Oh, except that does affect real people. That
does seel there are like kids my daughter's age who
may not own a home ever.
Speaker 4: So look, any time we're getting into and I love
the way Tom put it because he if you notice,
like he addresses all of his concerns, but he's still
he's it's conservative style of thinking, right, He's being logical.
Speaker 3: He's sitting there going here are my concerns.
Speaker 4: I'm not really sure what I think as opposed to oh,
businesses are bad. So I've moved on this and I
have not deep dived this, but here here's my thinking.
When I first talked on this, I think I was
a little bit off the cuff and came out a
little bit hard, and I was like, oh, it's inappropriate
for corporations in mind. Here's the problem where I'm at
now is I do not believe that we should allow Now,
how do you define corporation? I think that that's a
big deal, right. I think a lot of time needs
to be defined on how we define that. Are we
talking about an escort that a husband and a wife own,
that owned fourteen rental homes?
Speaker 3: Right, that doesn't meet the cue.
Speaker 4: To me, what I think when we're talking about more
major corporations like Goldman, Sachs, black Rock Goldman, or Berkshire Hathaway,
where I'm at is I do not believe that they
should be able to buy existing construction.
Speaker 3: But if they want to build their own, have at it. Okay,
I like that.
Speaker 4: And here's now I'm not sure on this, but this
is where I'm at right now. Here's why I think
that if think about free markets, if you're building a
home for the purposes of renting it out, the person
that's going to rent that home out to you or
rent rent that home from you is a person that
can afford the rent and actually the payment of a
nice home, but probably aren't in the financial place to
get it. That's a wonderful service you're providing them. You're
providing them. Both parties are winning, right, You're giving them
thirty two hundred square feet four bedrooms for their three kids.
Everybody's winning. What you don't want to do is you
don't want to see big corporations come in and take
over neighborhoods, right, and all the problems that can come
or that can happen. You could also, and I think
that it's a big stretch, but you could also make
the argument by buying existing construction, they could start cornering
certain markets and dictating too much, if you call if
you confine them strictly to new construction, I don't think
that's going to pose any of those issues.
Speaker 1: I would go with that. I would go with that
because black Rock buying up neighborhoods. I've talked about this
vertical and horizontal marketing. So they buy the integration, they
buy up a neighborhoods, yep. Then they buy up the
cable service, Then they buy up the delivery service. Then
they own the airspace above it for drone deliveries right right,
and they just now and then they are now they're
going to create private roads and access and the smart
cities are coming all the signs of that. I don't
know if you saw this. This is a great big
I told you so. I've been saying this for years.
In Massachusetts, they're floating a bill to limit how far
you can drive your own personal car per day. So
this would clearly be about we need you all to
move within the beautiful city corps. There's one other thing
I want to talk with you about, and this is
a big one because there's a huge debate on this
and it has to do with President Trump and Jerry
Powell and Jerome Powell put out an unprecedented statement. I
heard someone say that Jerome Powell is the most ethical
public servants today, and I don't know how you determine that.
In that we aren't allowed to into Jerome Powell's performance.
So we'll talk about that in a second with Zach
Abraham over the weekends. The man who brought me to
Christ ultimately started the process of bringing me to Christ.
It was the first boy who ever told me he
loved me, first time I ever had a brother say
that to me. That happens in the year before my
senior year because he was visiting me. We had been
best friends since eighth grade. He had moved away to
Seattle and he'd come to visit and he gave me
a hug and said, hey, I love you. And I
remember thinking, wait, does this mean that you're gay? And
it didn't. He's got number of kids, and does it
mean I'm gay if I said I love you back
and it didn't because I'm not not same sex attracted,
but it was that sort of thing in the eighties,
like wow, okay, that's kind of weird. This is now
a friendship that's going to go on for far more
than half our lives. He's having some significant health issues,
and what do you think I did? So because of
what the health issues are related to the immune system.
I immediately convinced him to please write up your history.
It's seven pages what he's gone through. He's been to
naturopathic mds, He's been to China to go consult their
natural paths. He's been to doctors here, immunological specialists, et cetera.
I talked to Steve Anderson at RENEW and they have
set people's reset in people's entire immune systems. So if
I will do this for the dearest friend and brother
I've ever had, and it will personally make that introduction,
do you think I don't believe in renew if you
have immunological issues. Sometimes he's manifesting these rashes that will
not go away, or this incredible pain that will not
go away. Sometimes it's his headaches or you can't eat foods.
This is very common and what the hads now with
the stem cell process because It's not just the world
class stem cells, it's the entire process and this chain
of study they've done down there. They have reset immune
systems that people go down and they come back and
they can eat all the foods again. The rashes are gone,
the headaches are gone. So if you know people who
are suffering from this, or you yourself are reach out
to renew it's our e n U e dot healthcare.
Renew dot Healthcare. Please tell them you're part of the
Todd Herman Show family. It's renew r E n ue
dot Healthcare. So Zach Jerry Pow is that kind.
Speaker 3: Of call him Jerry Yeah, j Powell Jay, you know
something like that.
Speaker 1: So JPO uh Jpo came out and put out what
I call a sad face video. Here's jer Own Powell.
He is not a king, mind you. He is talking
democracy because he's into the democracy. Good evening.
Speaker 5: On Friday, the Department of Justice served the Federal Reserve
with grand jury subpoenas threatening a criminal and indictment related
to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.
That testimony concerned, in part, a multi year project to
renovate historic Federal Reserve office buildings. I have deep respect
for the rule of law and for accountability. No one,
certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve is above
the law. But this unprecedented action should be seen in
the broader context of the administration's threats and ongoing pressure. Right.
Speaker 1: So he goes on to sad face that this is
trying to pressure him to change interest rates, et cetera.
It's an unprecedented attack against democracy. I can't get past
Jerry Powell JPOW saying that he is not above the law,
no one is, and that he's in favor of democracy
and accountability. And I'm listening to this, and then I
get comments from people saying this is the most ethical
public servant working today, and I want to know how
they know that. Did you have any similar response to
this dude saying he's into accountability in transparency, et cetera. Well, no,
and no you didn't have that response? Well I yes,
and no.
Speaker 4: I'm more like you where I'm confused. I saw comments
that were similar to that. Yeah, and I was just
confused on the face of it. I went, guys, since
when did virtue signaling become real morality? I mean, like,
I'm not saying he's not the most moral public SERI.
But because he came out and gave a scripted speech,
that means he is. No.
Speaker 3: What that speech ensures is that he's.
Speaker 4: Still accepted to all the best cocktail parties on both
sides of the aisle. That's all that speech ensured. Now,
if you want to get into does he have a point?
Okay again, fan of you know supporter President Trump, I
do think he's got a point meaning what he's saying. Look,
the reason he's going after Powell is Powell won't lower rates.
It's not because Paw. Look I don't I don't know
enough and I haven't gone through and audited it. I
do not think Powell and the f o MC are
rigging the system to get extra spending on renovations to
FED buildings.
Speaker 3: And I just, I just I could be wrong. I
could be wrong, and I will issue with me at
may a couple if I am.
Speaker 4: But this, at this kind of feels a lot to me,
like and I don't disagree with this, but this feels
a lot to me, like making Venezuela about Fenno, right,
Like does.
Speaker 3: Do drugs go through Venezuela?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Is that why we're down there.
Speaker 4: No, we're down there because of the oil and the
power that it gives Venezuela and the ability to sway
geopolitical issues and.
Speaker 3: And and to Trump's credit, he's also said that too.
Speaker 4: So I, unlike any other president, right, when we when
we ever go into another country, there's always a humanitarian
reason why.
Speaker 1: Right, And like always, it's always colored that way. There's
a lot we could talk about with Venezuela. There's the
China cooperation, there's the Russian cooperation. Their radar systems failed Cuba. Like,
we need to remember that China has promised to be
the sole superpower. They have promised to be the number
one purveyor of chemical and biological weapons. They do speak
the language of racial supremacy, just as everybody remember that.
There are reasons to say we'd actually like to secure
the Venezuelan oil for ourselves because we see some chips
adding up against us, and I don't God forbid we
go take Greenland by military for US. Guys. If that happens,
I'm out. Yeah, if we attack Greenland, count me out,
count me out of Megaalands. I'm done. There's ways to
approach this attacking Greenland. No on this topic. Let me
go back through with what I'm watching here. He probably
perjured himself in front of Congress. Okay, there's a ton
of problems with his testimony around this build number one.
Where is the budget? Well, we don't have to show
that to you. Where the federals? Okay, we'd like to
understand the vendor process. That's not supoon need to show you.
I don't like the fact that that entity has so
much power and no boss and no one running it,
and that this guy speaks the language of democracy and accountability.
And I'm sorry, I would like to see this audited.
I would love to see Jerry Powell or JPO sit
in front of some people who could ask them some questions. Hey,
while you're here, why can't we audit you?
Speaker 3: Hey, now, hold on, scond.
Speaker 4: If that's what this is for, If this is the
camel getting it under its nose, underneath the tent in
order to begin auditing the FED, then I am in.
Speaker 3: Full support of that, full support of that.
Speaker 4: My whole thing is, do I think that they're misappropriating
funds on a FED building build out? I don't, Okay,
do I think what you just said and the inability
for us to verify that as a problem.
Speaker 3: As sol lowly, he look, we one of the.
Speaker 4: Things we talk about. I think everybody's familiar with that
two trillion dollars that's missing. It's out of the budget
at some point over the last twenty five year or
thirty years something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Right, Think about all of the things that we have
or haven't funded with dark pools, you know, stuff that
we've funded. Like you think about like, uh, the the uh,
the Sandinistas down there and in Nicaragul when we were
doing that, right, Uh, how like think about how easy
it would be for an entity that isn't audit and
it has no oversight or no regulator and has the
ability to print the world's reserve currency with virtually no restrictions.
Speaker 3: Like meaning, I'm not a so my adult.
Speaker 4: Brain tells me that the likelihood that funds have not
been used for untoward things have got to be like zero.
Speaker 3: Okay, But I'm not even accusing them of that.
Speaker 4: I'm sitting there saying the fact that we have no
ability to oversee that, or to verify that, or to
check it. I mean, that's like leaving your front door
open with a neon sign above and it's saying Robney.
Speaker 1: This is exactly what I'm saying. And look I'm looking
at this is a grand jury Sypenis. It's not congressional testimony.
But if he gets in front of a grand jury,
and he lies in front of a grand jury, now
Jerry Powell has his significant problem, then there's some leverage
on this. Now is it to get interest rate?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: President Trump's trying to blackmail him the way they tried
to blackmail him, And don't tell me Jerry Powell wasn't
part of that. Jerry Powell played with interest rates when
it helped Biden and the people who ran Joe Biden.
They lowered interest rates. They knew what they were doing.
Jerry Powell's playing politics on this as well. He could
have lowered interest rates. He has the power to not
because he's not auditable. If this is what you said,
the camel getting the toe under the tent and the
nose of the tent, I am in because I would
love to see the questions on this. It is an
obscenity that these people get to invent debt, hand it
to us and say pay us. That's abs and what
they've done with this, particularly the COVID was so obscene.
That has to change. It has to be audited. And
furthermore on this, look at USAID and all the things
we've learned about that money laundering and that whole thing
that came up. If it's too dirty for the CIA,
give it to USAID. Tell me an entity that gets
to conjure debt and force the American people to pay
it back isn't doing the same thing. Man, If you're
the CIA, I'd be I'd have I'd have offices all
over the Federal Reserve, I'd have everybody on my payroll,
and i'd have everybody hung up on a blackmail thing.
Everybody I'd own and welle.
Speaker 3: Here's the problem I've got with it is what are
the chances that that isn't happening? Right again? I don't
want to be a conspiracy theorist.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I've got no clue, but you know, you just sit
back and you look at the different parts and you go, Okay,
it's possible.
Speaker 3: Nothing untoward is going on here.
Speaker 4: I mean, look the people that occupy wash in DC.
For me to believe that nothing on tooward was going
on there, you'd have to convince me that a bunch
of Midwestern pastors are what's occupying DC right now for
me to believe that story, right, I just you give
those kind of people access and proximity to unlimited amounts
of printed money and no oversight ability, Like that's crazy
to me.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the absolute fraud playground of the world. There's
one thing about that though, what you just said, this
Midwestern pastorn thing. Let's remember that everybody can fall everybody
and you can be any process. Satan is always hunting us.
I can't count how many times we're told in the Bible,
believers are told Hebrews fourteen through thirty one is telling believers,
do not depart the fath, do not be fooled, do
not turn your back on the Holy Spirit. Don't do
these things. Once you know the truth, to practice sin,
look forward to the fires of Hell, et cetera. So
I know you're making a joke about the Midwest pastors.
We need to talk faith, and we need to talk
to finance, faithful finance with zach Abraham here, and really
it's very sad because it's coming off of the death
of a guy who is known as the Dilbert creator.
And then the headlines around this. Have you seen the headlines,
They're calling this guy disgrace. It says we'll talk about
this in just a second. Was dat Abraham. My friend
Tim Kruk Shank is asking us to band together to
do something to help his social media presence grow. And
it's pretty cool because you can win tons of rewards
in terms of free coffee from bone Frog Coffee. It's
called the Coffee Crush Giveaway, the Great Coffee Crush Giveaway.
Here's how you enter, super easy. Just follow bone Frog
Coffee on any of the social platforms you use and yes,
sir TikTok, they're on x desh, Twitter, Facebook, et cetera.
And then simply comment on the post that's pinned to
the top about the Great Coffee Crush Giveaway. When you
do that, you enter to win. There's three winners. One
person's going to get three undred and fifty bucks in
free coffee gift card from bone Frog, another one hundred
dollars gift card, and another will get a fifty dollars
gift card. It's really that simple. And by the way,
you get an entry for every platform you do this on.
So if you do all the platforms, you get all
the entries, you have to five entries and five chances
to win. I have to read these details because lawyers
make that happen. The promotion is running this entire month,
and winners are going to be randomly selected. Winners are
going to be notified VI a DM. This also confirms
that you're following the accounts, and once all the winners
confirm receipt, bone Frog will publicly announce them. There's no
purchase necessary to open to US residents, only a border
as it were, one entry per person per platform. So
go and use the hashtag bone Frog Coffee are a
great coffee crush and you go hit that up. Help
tim gow to the social media presidence and you get
an opportunity to win a whole bunch of coffee to enjoy.
So on the faithful finance topic, Zach Abraham's with me,
Chief investment Officer Bulwart Company Management. Scott saw the sad
news of Scott Adams dying. Zach, Yeah, yeah, yeah, So
Scott was a very wealthy man, very successful. Would you
agree that after Dilbert's had kind of it reached zenith
and we saw him online explaining systems thinking and psychology
and politics. I think he was gifted with an incredible
and incredible intellect.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, brilliant guy. Brilliant guy. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And the coffee with Scott Adams thing showed him to
be a very approachable man, showed him to be someone
that you could turn to like as as a friend.
He was apparently a very very good husband. But it
brought up a topic that you and I have kind
of flirted with talking about before, and it has to
do with rich people in the Kingdom of Heaven. I
want you to hear the statement that his ex wife
put out and had. It was something Scott wrote he
wanted people to hear this after his death. Here's what
his ex wife read for people's consumption next.
Speaker 6: Many of my Christian pros have asked me to find
Jesus before I go. I'm not a believer, but I
have to admit the risk reward calculation for doing so
looks so attractive to me. So here I go. I
accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and look
forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about
me not being a believer should be quite quickly resolved
if I wake up in heaven. I won't need any
more convincing than that. I hope I'm still qualified for entry.
Speaker 1: So that's part of what he said in his note.
There's Zach and it begins with I do not believe
your God, paraphrasing I do not believe, but I'm willing
to issue what I would call an incantation Harry Potter
type incantation. I'm going to say some words that will
have a magic effect, and then I'm going to offer
a negotiation with God. I'll die, you wake me up,
then I'll believe. And what's so sad about this to
me is, guess what if Scott Adams God forbid, woke
up in hell? He also believes. Yeah, and right. He
was a very wealthy man, a very smart man, and
in that that's what I wanted to talk with you about,
and the faithful finance front. Then we can expand this.
I think that's an example of why it's so hard
for a rich man to make it into heaven, because
a rich man can look around and say, well, I
did all this on my own. You spend a lot
of time around wealthy people. You've been very good in finance,
so you've met more of them than I do. You
work with more of them than I do these days?
Why do you think it's hard for rich people to
make it into heaven?
Speaker 4: At the risk is sounding arrogant, I don't think I know,
and I've experienced it firsthand through a lot of other people,
and I've dealt with it to a certain degree on
my own. And there's a thing that my wife and
I referred to that when we started bullwarking, we started
with about twelve million dollars under management, and now as
of today, I think we're about forty million away from
the one billion dollar mark.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 4: That there's not an there's not an ounce of brag
in that. There is nobody more shocked by it than
I am. I see the numbers and people are like, well,
wasn't that always your goal? And no, man, my goal
was that I didn't lose my house and I fed
my kids like that that was the you know, I mean, sure,
we all have dreams, but you know, when you're staring down,
when you're staring down on viction, you're not thinking about
getting to a billion dollars under.
Speaker 3: Management, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: But with each step that we've taken and we've reached
these different financial platforms. It kind of caught me off
guard a couple of times, but then it started getting
to very predictable.
Speaker 3: And my wife and I talk about it. We refer
to it as equalizing, meaning you hit.
Speaker 4: These different platforms and these different things open up to
you because you've got the freedom and the and the finance,
so wherewithal to do these different things.
Speaker 3: And that's a new reality.
Speaker 4: And I've equated it to like deep sea, like like
deep diving, right you need to stop every twenty twenty
feet and calibrate and blow your ears and all that
kind of stuff. And I found that I needed to
do that, not because I was like going off the rails,
but it's a new reality. It's a it's a place
you've never been to before, right, like most people have
not experienced making it a month more money than they
need to live over the next.
Speaker 3: Year, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: That's a that's a different reality, and it's really easy
for it to mess with your mind, to get you
focused on the wrong things. And the other part of
it is that as you get more money, you are
able to mold and shape your life and your work life,
and everything around you to exactly the way you want it.
Speaker 3: And if you think about it, that's not normal.
Speaker 4: Right, Like everybody has to deal with things that they
don't want to deal with it they don't like. The
more money you have, the less of those things you
have to deal with. Again, I'm a perfect example. One
of my primary goals when I started bullwork was to
get to the point where I didn't have to do
my own paperwork, right, Like, just a little thing like that.
Speaker 2: Now you know?
Speaker 4: Now I have hired people and built a team to
where I only do the things that I like to
do about my job. I've outsourced that around. Is that
a realistic life for me? No, I've been unbelievably blessed,
and very few people get to do that. And it's
really easy for that to start bleeding into other parts
of your life. Nobody tells you, No, the more money
you have, the more your butt gets kissed every time
you walk through a door.
Speaker 3: That's not normal.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: You can mold your reality around you. You can effectively
be your own God. Right, So you said you did.
Speaker 1: Guess you weren't guessing why it's hard for rich people
to make it into heaven. You said you know, is
that the kapper that you're treated like a little baby God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you treat yourself that way that if you
want this, you buy it. You don't think right like.
Speaker 4: It distorts kind of the normal human experience to a
certain degree.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm looking at Scott Adams. I mean there's Zach
Abraham's you know, the work that you've done and the
challenges you and your wife face and building Bulwark. I've
got my challenges. I've had my seasons of plenty. As
the podcast world changes, we were here right now retooling
some things. So some things we're going to focus on differently,
and some things were do differently. The radio world change.
So you go through plenties, you go through seasons of plenty.
And God is the God of the mountains, He's the
God of the valleys. He's with us. My challenge, Zach
is actually trusting God. And I'll tell you I trust God,
but sometimes I will be fearful about financial outcomes and
then I remember, wait, God has me, always has had me.
What I hear in Scott Adam's statement is something that
my daughter will sometimes joke about. If my daughter's in
the house and I remember this I'll never forget this.
I was on the phone with my agent when I
had a radio agent, and we were talking about the
contract renewal. And I was on the phone with Heather
and hung up the phone and said, hey, honey. She goes, ooh,
daddy's doing business. That's at he's business voice, the deal
making voice. I go, I'm that different. She goes, oh,
my gosh, you're so different.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm in command, and I'm in charge, and I'm hearing
from Scott Adams, and that's something that really makes me sad.
I heard him negotiate. I heard him say, all right, well,
so if I understands your deal correctly, Lord, it is
that I repent of my sins. I come to you
in humility. I recognize that you are the King of
the universe, the Lord of all things, my personal savior.
I can't do it on my own. I beg you
to forgive me to be my savior. I accept you
as my savior, and then I ask you to change
me and to sanctify me. And then I began acting
that way. Okay, I hear you. I mean, and that's
an attractive offer. I'm not here to say it isn't
but I want to counter you with this, God, how
about this, I'll die. I don't believe in you, but
I'll die, and then when I die, you wake me
up and heaven and then I will be. So that's
my counter offer, and it's my final offer. And sadly
it was his final offer. So I see a guy
who spent a lifetime negotiating rights for Dilbert in cartoons,
in syndication, in books, in merchandise. And look at what
he did financially for his family. And it wasn't just Dilbert.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 1: He wrote books about work, he wrote books about marketing.
He became Hey, I don't need a publisher, all self published.
He created a social media platform of notes, he became
political thinker. Right, that's what I see him trying to
do negotiating with God.
Speaker 4: He never didn't have leverage. He never didn't have leverage. Right,
he is not used to and nor should he be.
Speaker 3: He's not used to.
Speaker 4: Operating without leverage. He got into a negotiation that he
didn't realize he has their leverage. It's not a negotiation,
it's an offer, take it or leave it. Yeah, Right,
And this gets back to my You ever see the
movie Devil's Advocate.
Speaker 1: Yes Alba she in that there's some horrifically nearly pornographic
scenes in that.
Speaker 4: There are, and what I would advise people do, And
I would say probably like seventeen years old would be
the cutoff.
Speaker 3: Maybe sixteen if there.
Speaker 1: I say seventeen at least.
Speaker 4: Okay, but figure out where those scenes are because the ironically,
the message.
Speaker 3: That movie sens was phenomenal, which is what the seduction
of power and money and prestige and how.
Speaker 4: And there's a scene at the end where Keanu Reeves
does the right thing right, He stands up for right,
He vanquishes his foe, walks into the bathroom, and the
reporter pulls.
Speaker 3: Up next to him.
Speaker 4: He goes, man, you're incredible in the courtroom, and there's
kind of that twinkle in his eye.
Speaker 3: Keanu Reeves walks out of the bathroom.
Speaker 4: All of a sudden, the reporter flips back to being
an al pacino and he goes, pride, it's my favorite sis, right,
And you sit there and you're like, oh, and that
you and I were talking about this off the offline
the craziest. I got a little choked up when I
listened to his wife talking just now. And the reason
I yeah, And the reason why is because I hear
the words of a man negotiating with somebody that doesn't
need to be negotiated with, and you realize the penalty.
It's so much easier to see faults in other people.
And I think that we should all sit back and
look at that. What we just saw was the horrific
impacts of pride. And you and I were saying, if
you have five, ten thirty days to live, think of
how illogical it is to take the approach that that
very logical man took. Right, Why why wouldn't you at
least say it? Why wouldn't you just go no, I
do believe right, Like like, if it's not the case,
you don't have to spend the next twenty years going
to church.
Speaker 2: No, right.
Speaker 1: And I I can respect him saying out loud to God,
I don't believe in you, right, because it better so
not a lot of God's face, because God knows right.
But that so my question then, is with all his money,
all his success, you said never time, or he didn't
have leverage. Well, you know what, I guess I'll just
take my cartoon away from you. I guess you don't
really need the Delbert calendar. If you're not willing to
pay that, that's fine because I don't need the Delbert
calendar either. Right, I've got plenty of time.
Speaker 3: Ielf publish. Right, I'll self publish a.
Speaker 1: Good idea calendar.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: I'll do that on my own. Thanks for the idea.
No no, no, no, no no no, Scott, no no no.
We can work this out. Baby. We love you seriously, No,
we love you very much. So what are the keys
to people who have reached financial success? Zat Abraham? What
are the keys to staying grounded? One of the things
I had a friend of mine tell me when we
started building a startup together. He was my mentor in tech.
He said, promise yourself. There's things you'll never do. Like
John said, My rule is I'll never buy a Porsche
because everyone I've ever seen buy a nice Porsche turns
into a jerk. So I've given myself rules. And Paul
I used to tell my staff. I used to say
a very very racy phrase. I'd say to them, the
first trick you turn is the hardest. After a while,
you just get in the car and you let the
John drive, meaning The first time you violate your principles
is not going to feel good. After that, you'll get
used to it. So I had them create a plaque
that they put up on their wall with a mirror.
These are things I'll never do. And the day you
do one, you quit. You leave DC and give your
best friends and your parents a copy of that plaque
as a poster. And if they ever see you doing
one of those things, they come to you and say
it's time to leave DC. You took your first bribe, yep.
And everybody gets offered a bribe in DC. Everybody gets
offered a bribe. Eventually, if you have any job of note,
you get offered. You can get offered a bribe as
a hotel maid. Hey there's a guy staying in the room.
We need you to put this on his shoes. Okay,
we need you to put this on his belt, and
we'll pay you. So how do you stay grounded?
Speaker 2: Then?
Speaker 1: What are the rules for people who are are really
wealthy and they don't want to fall away from Christ?
How do you handle that for yourself? And what do
you suggest the rules of other people?
Speaker 3: So this is this will sound kind of weird, but.
Speaker 4: One thing that I've experienced, and I've seen a lot
of other people experience it to greater levels, but ownless stuff.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: And the reason I say that is when you have
the ability to purchase whatever you want whenever you want to,
within reason, it you know, it can be very exhilarating
and there's parts of it that are a lot of fun.
But what happens to a lot of people is you
start acquiring things and inadvertently a you start spending more
time focused on the maintenance and the care and the
those things take. They start taking a very bizarre place.
And the other thing they start doing is they start
sucking up in ordinate amounts of capital and they start
with restricting you. You know, you're wealthy, You've still got
plenty of flexibility and you can do things. But I've
seen many times where people probably should have and felt
led to give, but they couldn't because they were juggling
vacation homes or someone like you.
Speaker 3: See what I'm saying, And there and there's these these.
Speaker 4: Stuff is so stuff is so much less fulfilling than
people think it's going to be, and it's so much
more of a pain than people think it's going to be.
Speaker 3: We did we ascribed so much value to things that.
Speaker 2: We do not have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's and it's a huge mistake.
Speaker 1: I saw a person do a spiritual balance sheet, and
I thought this was a really interesting approach. Profit loss
for the family, for the home, okay, the business, investments
in the kingdom. And they put a line item down
there and it blew their minds. Four homes, vacations, college funds,
and we tithe, we give ten percent and they, as
a husband and wife, sat back and looked at it.
I said, that is pathetic. It is flat pathetic. We
can afford thirty percent and it wouldn't even make a dentse.
Speaker 4: So I was just gonna say one of my biggest
tips to people as you start making amounts of money,
if you're fortunate enough to come into an income that's
reflective of the top one percent or something like that,
piece of advice. The best thing that you can do
for your marriage, you can do for your own peace
of mind, for your soul, for your family. Make the
number one. Because this is the beautiful thing about money.
I think people always miss this. When you have big
amounts of excess, you can prioritize anything however you want.
To so make the giving the number one priority like
my wife and I have. And it look, I don't
do everything perfect. I'm not saying at all, but I've
set these things up because I'm not perfect. Meaning We've
got to the point where when we want to do
something with money, but a financial an opportunity to give
crosses our path, we know immediately that Dope put that
thing on the side, give to that right and I
love it when it happens.
Speaker 3: I didn't it first because it was an inconvenience, right, well,
I want that. We got to do the right thing.
Speaker 4: What I learned over time is like everything else with God,
right it's protection it. Three months later I'd sit back
and go, I'm so glad we did that because now
three months, four months, five months later, I got it anyway,
and God was just saying I didn't say no to
just say, what do you prioritize?
Speaker 3: What do you prioritize?
Speaker 1: Love the guy, love Lord, your God with your entire heart, mind,
soul and strength, love your neighbors, yourself.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Zach.
Speaker 1: There is one of the things I wanted to play
for you. DC style. You talk about money and never
having had enough did Rick Scott, Yeah, senator from Florida.
He was going to be governor at one point. And
Rick Scott kind of plays the hardcore Republican routes. He's
the rock rib conservative of all those kind of cliches.
He had the defense of something I thought you'd find interesting.
He decided to go out and defend insider trading. Rick
Scott has a nine figure net worth watches.
Speaker 7: But somehow it's suspect because I made money. How many
people in the artists, how many of you don't want
to make money? Anybody want to be poor?
Speaker 3: I don't, right, So this.
Speaker 7: Idea that we're going to attack people because they make
money is raw. Is absolutely raw. We should cherish all
of our different backgrounds. Every one of us has a
different background. I've got a business background. But what I
was just accused of is making money is somehow I
can't do I can't be fair and do things the
right way.
Speaker 3: So I think it's disgusting with this going on here.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about limiting insider trading. And Rick Scott's
defense of this is that people don't want him to
make money. I was trying to figure out nine figures.
That's he's got a significant little basic capital work from Disney.
Speaker 3: It's over one hundred million dollars one hundred.
Speaker 1: Million bucks, and he needs more from insider trading.
Speaker 3: So I'd look at it. I'd look at him and go, hey, buddy,
go back to the business world.
Speaker 4: You chose to be a public servant and take the
public money. With that comes certain responsibilities. For instance, you
can't purge yourself in front of the Senate, can you?
Speaker 3: Okay, you can't.
Speaker 4: There's all these things you've got to do. You can't
delete emails. I can you know another thing you can't do.
You can't take public funds and use them to enrich
themselves off of access to information that the public doesn't have.
And Rick, don't sit there and play make this a
moral playground.
Speaker 3: You are that. You are the virus that has infected
the Republican Party.
Speaker 4: And you're one of the reasons that we're at this
place because you guys have been all mouth and no
action for the better part of my adult life.
Speaker 3: And when it comes time to stand up and do
the right thing.
Speaker 4: You issue some bs feigned disgust about protecting your ability
to make money. Rick, you got over one hundred million
you could stick it in treasuries and make four and
a half million a year off the interest.
Speaker 3: Give me a freaking break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was sick. And the fact that he can
do that and hold his head up high shows that
he is not just the virus. He has become the virus.
It's not just that he has it. He's become the
actual virus in our system.
Speaker 4: And talk about a guy that didn't make his chart
of things he wouldn't do in DC, right, or if
he did, he lost it.
Speaker 1: So when came in and stole it, it's just gone
sorry about that.
Speaker 3: They traded him nine figures for it, right, exactly.
Speaker 1: Always good to have wise counsel for my friend, Zach Abraham,
Chief and Destmunster Bolt Cup of Management. Thank you for
coming on, stay safe over in this separate counchy of Seattle,
and hopeful those daycare businesses work out for you. That
was a wise investment you suggested. I thought you were
small open something when you said go get the Somality
Daycare Fund. But that was a goodbye. It's a thousand
turn time return and thank you, Zach.
Speaker 3: Yeah, talk about the investment opportunity there. We missed one there, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. This is the Todd Herban Show. Please go,
be well, be strong, be kind, Please make every effort
to walk in the light of Christ.