Speaker 1: There couldn't be more rich territory to talk to Zach
Abram about today. For instance, do natural resources determined country's wealth?
Is Harvard already in financial problems? And what about people like?
Are people sometimes the equivalent of a destructive asset. We'll
talk about this with the help of Zach Abraham, my brother,
chief of vis Mouficer couple of managements.
Speaker 2: And thank you to God Almighty.
Speaker 3: The Todd Herman Show is one hundred percent disapproved by
big pharma technocrarats in tyrans everywhere from the high mountains
of Free America. Here's the Emerald City exime.
Speaker 2: Todd Herman.
Speaker 1: Today is the day the Lord has made, and these
are the times to which God has decided we shall live.
Speaker 2: My friend and brother, Zach Abraham, joins me the godless
Seattle area. Man. You guys have a knack for making
the news, do Zach.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well you're gonna love so today we're headed Woodland
Park Zoo.
Speaker 5: We're gonna feed Christians allions.
Speaker 2: That's you and the kids.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 5: It's good clean, good clean family fun.
Speaker 4: Uh you know, And that's that's you know, that's the way,
that's the way we roll around here. It's it's look,
it's it's all about diversity and equity and inclusion.
Speaker 5: And that's really what it is. Uh, you know, the lions.
Speaker 4: Lions needed too, and you know, I mean you're not
gonna feed it. You can't feed them a transactivist or
a city council member.
Speaker 2: Well, the transactivist, they wouldn't know what it was.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean there is that, There is that, but yeah,
it's it's it's gonna yeah, it's gonna.
Speaker 5: Be good times. That's it's something else. So I I uh,
I'm old enough.
Speaker 4: To remember when when classical liberals actually stood for everybody's
constitutional rights, but everybody.
Speaker 2: We were all people.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean yeah, I mean that's true, that's true.
Speaker 4: I mean yeah, we're I mean there's a lot of
bigots running around out there.
Speaker 5: They don't qualify as people.
Speaker 1: Right, people with the Bibles in there, like some people
have Bibles at home.
Speaker 4: Well, and some people cling to their Bibles and their guns, right,
you know, bitterly, there are those, There are those folks.
I would count myself actually to be one of them.
Quite honestly. I've always I've always had a bit more
faith in my Bible and my guns than I do
the federal government, but that.
Speaker 5: You know, I I'm kind of I'm kind of weird
that way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I didn't necessarily bitterly cling to my Bible.
I wouldn't describe it as that. But man, you guys,
every time I turn around, there's another reason for me
to praise God for being out of there. I was
doing show research and mind in my own business and
this show Zach nothing's ever happened before. It just just
came at me, and I kept going through silversers, going,
oh God, Askack about this, got to ask about this,
Gotta ask Hack about this. Let me start with this
this clip from Meggie Thatcher, because this gets into a flow.
She talks about natural resources of the country, this stuff
with India's happened, They've passed Japan. I got to thinking
about humans's natural resources, and then I would to wrap
this up today by talking about Harvard and their natural
resources their financial assets, because by one measure, they might
already be in financial trouble.
Speaker 2: So let me do this.
Speaker 1: This is Meggie Thatcher, and let's start the conversation with this.
Speaker 6: Countries are not rich in proportion to their natural resources.
If they were, Russia would now be the richest country
in the world, and Gola would be very rich. And
there are many other countries that have a lot of
natural resources, but they have not had an enterprise economy
to develop those resources. Russia has everything oil and gas
Downwond's platinum, gold, silver, marveless soil, but has been poor.
She's also on the second bott very bad emboverment.
Speaker 1: So she goes on to make this point, and she's
compared Russia, and I think some things have changed Russia.
They've gotten better at, you know, making money, and Putin's
net worth would indicate that. But she talks about these
natural resources. Does that hold true that it's not just
these natural resources? Because India just passed Japan. We'll talk
about that second. But does that hold true it's not
just the natural resources.
Speaker 4: Yeah. One And a perfect example of that that I
think is topical that everybody would know would be Venezuela.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So the one thing about Venezuela that I don't think
most people realize is how big their oil reserves are.
I mean as in like Saudi Arabia Lotti. If you
combined a bunch of those countries oil reserves, they'd be
like a drop in the bucket, right, So I mean
it is massive and look at that country, right, it's
what you do. Now, our natural resource is part of it, yes,
but it's what you do with them, right, It's it's
what type of productivity. Like think about it like sort
of like a like a corporation, right, not a perfect analogy,
but let's say you have a corporation that is no
longer you know, active or whatever, but it still owns
a bunch of assets.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: If we go to sell that corporation, we're going to
sell it at some discount to the value of those assets.
Speaker 5: Some okay, But.
Speaker 4: If that same corporation has a company, right, and there's
a CEO and they're able to take those assets and
make a profit with those assets, Okay, now we're going
to sell that company for an amount of money that
is greater than the value of its assets, right because
why because we don't just have the assets, we've also
got the human capital and then know how to take
those assets and create a profit.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So countries work similarly, where yes, natural resources and access
to those natural resources certainly helps in economic development and
GDP growth and all those things. But if you do
not have the human capital and then know how to
convert those resources into marketable goods.
Speaker 5: Then it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'm looking at the natural resources and then
the government, the structure, and the enterprise structure. But it
gets us down into people in a discussion about people.
And this is what was interesting to me about India,
because India has surpassed Japan as what another, the fourth
largest economy in the world, and getting past Japan, that's
kind of a big deal. I want to talk with
you about that and then our natural resources as a
country in terms of our human beings, because there's been
a dumbing down of that, and I think we'll probably
agree with that together. Zach Abraham's with me. He's a
user of the same product I'm going to tell you about.
Its called mass simes. Zach and his wife started using it.
In fact, he's why I asked, why does a product
that's designed to help you more efficiently digest foods, in
this case, proteins, really concentrates on proteins. I asked Wade,
who runs Baptimized, just why the heck does that cause
you to sleep better? And he said that undigested protein
causes your mind to get all messed up. It's kind
of you know, releases these sort of neurotoxins. And I've
definitely definitely learned that since I start taking an extra
dose of mass simes before bed, because I eat three
hundred and sixty grams of protein every stinking day, even
on days where I don't.
Speaker 2: Work out, and it's a chore. It's gross.
Speaker 1: I don't like it, but it's what I have to
do to do what I do athletically, and I found
out that I do sleep better. So a thank you
Zach for turning me on to that. B. If you
want to sustain the lean muscle you have or have
any chance at growing it, you want to sleep better.
You want to get more nutrition out of every bite
of food for which you pay and then chew and swallow.
Go to boptimizers dot com slash todd and use promo
code todd. You get temper sent off all the products there,
including mass signs.
Speaker 2: To which used to subscribe.
Speaker 1: That's Boptimizers dot Com slash Todd, promo code Todd. Okay,
So the the economies in the world, the largest economy
of the world ZAC India has just passed Japan.
Speaker 2: Now, if you look at the chart.
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's the United States and China like here,
and then way down here you see Germany and then India.
But this is not a small deal for them to
go past Japan. I don't think, is it.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I mean it's a it's a it's
a huge deal. And you know, you talk about human
capital and also natural resources.
Speaker 5: You know, India's India's really big.
Speaker 4: It's a big, big country, big piece of land, a
lot of people. And I think no kind of free
is perfect, right obviously, but I've long thought that that
there is the baseline in India for them to be
a much larger contributor to the world economy.
Speaker 5: And in a productive way that's good for their citizens.
Speaker 4: I think all of the developments in India are are positive.
I think it's a for the most part, it's a
it's a positive culture, right, Like there's there's some cultures
in the world like, look, you want the like you
want good for everybody, And it doesn't make my life
better that anybody's not having a good run of things,
right that being said, I mean, let's just be honest.
There are there are certain cultures that you see on
the rise or decline, and you're like, Okay, that may
be good for them, but that poses problems for the world.
Like think of the rise of China. Right as China
got we we knew as being a communist, you know,
an authoritarian government. There are benefits there. You're happy that
there are people who are coming out of coming out
of poverty, but you also know that you know there's
there's probably gonna be some friction there.
Speaker 5: With India, there's just much less of that.
Speaker 4: I think that they're much more Western friendly, if that's
the way to put it, kind of culture, and I
think that they naturally align much more with the West
than they would you know, the East in terms of
China and Russia. So yeah, it's a big deal for them,
and and I think it's a I think it's a
good thing for the world.
Speaker 1: They bought a premium on education, Zach. I mean, they've
got premium education. They want everyone. And again I don't
think everyone should do stem.
Speaker 2: I think that's stupid. I think that's way overblown.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of reasons that people should go to
trade schools and pursue all that. And President Trump had
this great idea, take three billion from Harvard.
Speaker 2: We're going to talk about Harvard here.
Speaker 5: In a bit.
Speaker 2: Give it to trade schools.
Speaker 3: Love that.
Speaker 1: But in India there's the cast system that's still there.
That's bothersome. No country's perfect, but they put a ton
of focus on getting a business education, business degrees, working
in business, entrepreneurism, technology, service, we can be the service
economy English language like. They've put a huge premium on that.
You compare them to China. China, what do they have STEM?
Everybody needs to do that focus on business right and
they've got the Chinese Communist Party making sure.
Speaker 2: That only the right businesses succeed.
Speaker 1: But then I'm starting to look at the United States
and yeah, there's been the STEM push, and yes, I
still think we've got the great entrepreneurial culture, but of
all the dumbing down that's starting to show up is
starting to show up, I think in workplaces and attitudes,
even in places. I mean, and I know it's not
like the world's most important thing to talk about.
Speaker 2: A Starbucks barista.
Speaker 1: All workers honorable, they're God's kids if they belong to Jesus.
But I'm looking at the comparison between our peoples and
in India, am I wrong, or have they viewed their
people as a resource in a way that we don't.
Speaker 4: Oh, they absolutely do. And but one of the I mean,
this is one of the insidious. And it's more complex
than this. And I'm not trying to I'm not a
silver bullet guy, because you know it's silver bullets exist
in movies and in child's brains, right, we all know that. Well,
you know what I mean. It's like it's one of
the things that even bugs me in political analysis, where
like this is the problem, Like this is never the problem.
Speaker 5: It's always a confluence of.
Speaker 4: Events, right, and so they But here in the United States,
I do not think it is an accident that the
dumbing down of our educational system and then just the
dumbing down of our people have coincided with a period
of time in which we have taken on the most
at run record deficits.
Speaker 5: And printed money.
Speaker 4: And why because think about it, this is the first
time in the history of mankind that money, in the
way that we all think about it, is truly fungible.
And I don't mean money's always been fungible, meaning it's
the most easily replaceable asset in the world, but in
terms of being able just.
Speaker 5: To caught like your word, call it out of thin air.
Speaker 4: Right, And if you think about that, if if we
have wealth via the printing press, it sort of takes
the starch right out of every other you know, well
you need to do this to be a productive member
of society, or you need to do this. It sort
of disincentivizes it in a way. And you know a
perfect example of that is I just saw a new
proposal from the City of San Francisco, the school Board
of San Francisco. They're they're going to get rid of homework. Yep,
they're going to get rid of assignments, and they're going
to make it more equitable. So your whole, whole grade
will come down to your final which you can take
theoretically as many times as you want.
Speaker 2: To and to see see what percentage equals to c No,
what was it? Forty one?
Speaker 4: Forty one? There you go, oh forty one.
Speaker 5: See what's an f Well, yeah, we don't use that word.
Speaker 4: Oh I'm sorry, I apologize fans for fantastic right right,
So my friend, yeah, you gotta me come on, man.
Uh so, But but this is you know, this goes
back to the old days of Michael Savage talking about
the enemy within right, meaning if you don't see it
right now, you're not looking at it, and do does
the proletariat just go along with this because it sounds good?
And yeah, I mean it always sounds good to the proletariat,
right like uh oh, yeah, it's gonna be nicer for kids,
gonna be And you sit there and you go, hey, guys,
we why where do we have any evidence of laxing
standards and decreasing standards making better people? And where is
there any evidence that there is any benefit to giving
somebody a successful mark or a successful conclusion to any
type of work that they do. Where is there any
evidence that the the self estem esteem boosts they get
from that aid supersedes the lack of skill that they
didn't acquire getting that grade, the type of knowledge that
they didn't acquire getting that grade. And it's just nonsensical
and it's so tragic because we don't need an army
to come in here and beat us. We're doing the
job ourselves. And in what world does you know decreasing
those standards? Well, you can't even say decreasing the standard
because the academic proposal of the City of San Francisco's
throwing up there. It's just the removal of any standard, right,
I mean, grades are meaningless at this point.
Speaker 1: Right, And we've seen this. We've seen this move from
a very early age. But the nineteen fifties we started
to see we went to a peak of standards and
things were okay, but rout nineteen seventy through nineteen seventy
five we started to see a decrease in standards, and
that treat this level of absurdity.
Speaker 2: In your area.
Speaker 1: There's no AP classes, they don't allow advanced placement courses
because not enough bipops we're getting the buy into the courses.
Speaker 5: So well, it's also because it's also because we care
about children.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean certain children, not the Christian ones. You're
feeding the lions and what oh gosh, I don't want
to keep you right, No, right, this is not the volcan.
Well no, I guess I'd prefer the volcano. But no,
we're watching this and I.
Speaker 2: See the results so very clearly. Red state, Blue state.
Speaker 1: There's plenty of kids who work over in the Blue states,
but there's a difference here, Zach. My guys who are
fourteen or fifteen years old, if.
Speaker 2: They don't have a job, they're stressed.
Speaker 1: I'm the guys to get to work with at church, like,
oh my gosh, I need a job. And you look
at my youth group, the one that is I'm most
commonly with, it's the hardcore members are fifteen Zach there,
none of them are above the age of fifteen, and
thirteen of them already have their jobs lined up for
the summer. And I'm talking serious jobs. The other two
are really feeling stressed because they don't have it. So
they're saying like this, I don't know, I might just
have to do constructionists my dad this year. Again, that
is not the case over in the city of Settle
It's not in in Los Angeles. There are kids who work,
but it is not I must work. Do you see
what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, yeah, well it's because they didn't grow up
in my house. So my thirteen year old getting ready
for her summer job right now, and yeah, it's the
whole thing is part of education. The other part of
it too, is you really can't. This is not this
isn't a story we haven't heard before, right right, Like,
let let's let's let's sit back and think about this
for a second. Where have we heard, Oh, you know what,
it's okay. You don't really need to do your homework.
You don't really have to. Everything's gonna be fine. We're
just gonna get you. Everybody can pick their own way.
There's multiple ways. Where have you heard that before? Right?
And and that kind of sounds a lot like demonic
and satanic whispers?
Speaker 5: Doesn't it right?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: You don't. You don't have to adhere to a standard. No, no, no, no,
God's just being too stricture.
Speaker 5: There's more ways.
Speaker 2: You won't die.
Speaker 4: No, he didn't mean not eat from the tree.
Speaker 5: What he was really saying.
Speaker 1: You know, I got a note from a guy on
YouTube who said, how dare you say Satan's the one
who lied? Because he said they wouldn't die and they didn't.
This and this is.
Speaker 2: This the level of debate we get are sometimes I like, wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 5: It entered in death in mortality, like they did.
Speaker 4: They did die.
Speaker 2: God didn't say did die.
Speaker 4: They're not alive. Did you talk to him?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: I mean God, I'm pretty sure they died.
Speaker 2: God didn't say that. Second, no, right, right.
Speaker 1: This was a serious defense because there's a lot of theologians.
I don't know if you know this, but in the
YouTube comment section it's almost all theologians because they don't
have other work. All right, I want to give a
point of comparison to what Starbucks is to itself and
in one way, I love this and I'll play this
in just a second. Let me ask you something because
I'm scared to talk about. You have these conversations with
people Borward Capital Management and you will get on the
phone or a video conference.
Speaker 2: What's that like? You know, you do these free now
obligation conversations. People present to you.
Speaker 1: Their portfolios, their debts. You did this with my friend
Ben's dad. Ben's dad, you're nodding your head. You remember
he has he did the big job at one of
the big national retailers, and you told him, dude, you
are set go get it.
Speaker 2: Go get retirement. And you know later Ben.
Speaker 1: Told me goush, my dad was so jack thrilled. My gosh,
Zach think I thinks I did a good job. What's
that like for people? When they come in and you
do video, you do in person like, how does that
stuff flow?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: So typically the first conversation is like it's usually between
thirty to forty five minutes, and.
Speaker 5: It's us trying to get to know you.
Speaker 4: And try to figure out, you know, what you've got,
what it is that we're trying to accomplish, where you
want to live, what kind of budget we're looking for,
and then just getting an idea right kind of building
the framework and then and a big part of that,
and I think people are typically a little bit surprised
by that, but there is a conversational and personal part
of this. And one of the things I tell people
all the time is, look, people forget about this, but
whoever you hire to do this job, they're going to
know more financially about you than anybody outside of your spouse, right,
which is a very personal relationship, and it's one that
most people are not used to. And so one of
the reasons if anybody's wanting to know one of the
reasons I started working with you on this podcast is
we started saying, look, I once had a guy call me,
he DM me on Twitter, and he goes, why are
you making you know, conservative political statements? You're alienating half
of your potential clients, And I go, no, I'm not.
Speaker 5: I don't want to work with those people.
Speaker 4: And I don't know. There are things more important than money, right.
I firmly believe that God has put me in this place,
and I think as long as we're obedient to him,
I think that purpose will continue to play out. But
God's put me in a place to do this for
like minded people money. If you're completely opposite political politically,
you're Unless one of you is really well adjusted and
able to set their own personal beliefs aside, it's probably
not gonna be a very fruitful financial relationship. Yeah, right,
because it flavors the way that you. So part of
it is getting to know each other, sitting there saying, hey,
can we work together? Do you see things? Are you
going to freak out?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 5: Like last year is a perfect example.
Speaker 4: We had a couple of new clients leave because we
were up fifteen sixteen percent in a year where the
market was up twenty three. Well, I understand what they
were saying, but they didn't listen to us. Right fast
forward to this year, markets flat to negative on the year,
and you know the value portfolio I runs up ten
So meaning look, no, no, this is how we want
to do things. We're not focused on one year marks.
We're focused on limiting volatility, making your retirement, you know,
viable for the rest of your life.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we're focused on the long run stuff.
Speaker 4: So a lot of it is vetting that out, but
then just going through the process and over that three
meeting process, we vet out all the information we need
and we're able to put together a portfolio proposal.
Speaker 5: And complete with the cost.
Speaker 4: And so people aren't buying something unforeseen, right they sign up,
they know exactly what they're getting, and yeah, that's that's
kind of that's that's the that's kind of the process
in its entirety.
Speaker 2: Okay, so here's how you can get this process for you.
Speaker 1: If you're five, ten, fifteen years from retirement, now's the
time to have these conversations with Zach, beginning with is
he who he says he is?
Speaker 2: And he is. You're gonna have this meeting with him.
Speaker 1: You'll find out this Zach is the same Zach you're
gonna be talking to. So go to the website and
it's changed. It's Know your Risk Podcast dot com. Know
your Risk Podcast dot Com. Go there and get this free,
no obligation. By the way, either one of you can say, hey,
you know what this ain't gonna work, but go there.
Speaker 2: It's Know Your Risk podcast.
Speaker 1: Dot Com Investment Advisor's services off through Trek Financial LLC
and sec Register. Investment Advisor investments of all risk and
are not guaranteed past performance, doesn't guarantee future results. Truck
twenty five DESH two one seven. So this is a
Starbucks employee and this is the second clip of HAD
this week. I don't know if you saw the one
went ultra viral. This young man, he had to be
mid mid twenties, was weeping, Zach weeping because he had
to work in eight hour shifts and work double eight
hours on the weekends plus a twenty six hour h
He has twenty six credits.
Speaker 2: He's taking college.
Speaker 1: And there were so many customers and so many and
they all lined up, and I get it, like people
can have ADHD, they can have anxiety issues.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 1: And yet he's weeping and saying it was unfair. Now
this is another Starbucks employeeho's made an announcement about the unions.
I think Starbucks has done this to.
Speaker 7: Themselves union over these stress code changes.
Speaker 4: Therefore we have productstop the stress code.
Speaker 7: Workers United has also sent a letter to Starbucks demanding
but the new dress code not be implemented at union
represented stores until bargaining concludes. Starbucks is legally required to
bargain with workers at union stores over changes to their
working conditions. UNI lotal changes are not legal. If the
new TRUSS code is implemented at our store, or if
workers are disciplined for wearing face masks, we will be
forced to take escalating action. Thank you the union partners
at thirty six and May.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 8: They don't want uniforms there, and they're hold on and
they're fighting for their right to wear face masks.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: Well, so, I you know, I've got a simple solution
to this don't work. I would shut down all my
union stores. I just shut them cand you Yeah, yeah,
you need to shut them down. Yeah, they can't make
you keep a store open. Oh they can just shut
the stores. Huh. I mean you just sit there and
it's non economically viable. Just shut the store down.
Speaker 1: I would love to see that. And yet Starbucks has
earned this.
Speaker 4: This is They've supported it, They've they've engendered it, they
have fostered it. They have tilled the soil to grow
this insanity in our own backyard. They deserve every bit
of it. I'm glad their stock has gotten smashed. They
deserve it. And and what really, what really irritates.
Speaker 5: Me though, is.
Speaker 4: They're not the only ones that eat from that plot
of land. Right, They've sowed weeds that all of us
have to deal with and all of this nonsense. So
I love it. I you know, you and I talked
about it for years. We you look at what the
left in this country has been curating and what they've
been nurturing, and they've been building this beast in secret
that eventually has turned on them and has begin to
eat them.
Speaker 5: And I love it.
Speaker 4: It's it's if it wasn't so deleterious and so dangerous
for society as a whole, I think it would be
a I think it'd be wonderful.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: The downside to it is that we all have to
deal with it. But I mean, I mean, listen to
what we're talking about, like dressed like you, I mean
what I basically it's I want to do whatever I
want to do and you owe me this much money
and and crying about I did see this is the
part about it now And I've i know family members
that are caught up in this, especially young people, that
this is the part about it, that these people are
too foolish to see. They're they're spiritually blind, they are
uh you know, intellectually lightweights. But what they don't understand
they're killing these kids. Man, Yes, they're ruining these these
these kids' lives are going to be garb because of
the nonsense you're feeding them because it never pays. They're
never going to live me or your lifestyle. They're never
going to the state can't give them that level of lifestyle,
so you're robbing them of the only thing that's going
to get, which is initiative drive. Can you imagine, let's
just talk about a society not where a kid is
crying because he's got to work eight hours, but where.
Speaker 9: He's not embarrassed to post it on social media, right, Like, yeah,
I mean, why don't you just wear a sign around
and say I'm not a real man, come slap me
across the face.
Speaker 4: Yes, right, Yes.
Speaker 1: One of the proudest moments I had in my life
was when my daughter had her job at this pizza
place and it was in this sports facility and it
was you know.
Speaker 4: By the way.
Speaker 1: It was crazy good pizza, like what you know, mini
golf and oh, by the way, great pizza. And I
went in there one day and she goes, oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: She turned.
Speaker 1: She goes, oh no, no, no, no, no, no said what.
She goes, I got to remake that. I go what
she goes, No, no, no, she she went. She said,
I'm sorry, I'll be right back. So she she like.
Speaker 2: She would take it a break, just visiting with me.
Speaker 1: She pops into the kitchen, recooks his pizza, and comes
out and gives it to the customer. It takes over
a ham Sorry, this is late. Here's a couple of
SODA's on me. And she's like fourteen, and so I
sat back on what long? She goes, well, I didn't
get to put the toppings on that. I only got
to roll it out and and and they just didn't
do it right.
Speaker 2: But my name's on that pizza. Yeah, it needed to
be perfect. And yeah, well I was fourteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, a similar one. It was a
great experience for me. But you know, uh, a job
I took during high school, I've worked. I've worked tons
of job dan my way through college and all that
kind of stuff growing up. But but one of the
jobs I took I was a bus boy, and I
took that job really personally, right, I wanted to want
to have and I worked my tail off at that job,
and it got the point where as a bus boy
at a Mexican restaurant. Right, so we're not talking about
an expensive El Galacho steak typed restaurant. But you know,
I was making between seventy to one hundred bucks a
night and tips as a bus boy because the waiters
wanted me in their section. Because I took it personally
and it was a wonderful experience. It took me to
a take pride in what you do. But be also,
if you do it and you do it excellently, you're
gonna make more money.
Speaker 5: You're gonna people are gonna want you to work their sections.
Speaker 4: And this is how you look. You know, that's how
you learn, Right.
Speaker 1: I learned when I was working at a pizza place
and started to get recruited by other pizza places.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that blew my mind as a high school kid,
like I thought it was a scam. What you don't
go like, no one goes and tries to find it.
Employees and one of my friends said, where do you
think they find employees.
Speaker 2: To pizza?
Speaker 1: They said, Wow, this kid is running the joints on
his own. Why would I not try to hire them away?
Like that actually happens.
Speaker 4: I keep my eyes open whenever I'm talking to people
in the service industry, I keep my eyes open. Yeah,
I don't think I've ever hired anybody right out of that,
but I know that I've hired people based off interactions
with them working at other businesses.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've recommended people. I mean I know that, like
I see young people, I see initiative, like I've recommended
some and I will.
Speaker 4: And man the other part of it too that and
you know this, and some man of your listeners know
this too. But it's the work ethic side of it,
like meaning it it's never fun, okay, But you get
to a point where you learn how to shoulder the
load and just keep plowing, and you start taking pride
in that, and you start to see results, and so
you double down and it builds a muscle inside of
you that nobody can take away that if you know
I it'd be a horrible thing. And I don't say
this to brag, but you could take Bullwark away from
me right now, and based on what I've learned getting
to this point, I'm pretty sure I could be back
at a place where I'm earning a decent living for
my family and a not too distant, not too distant future.
Speaker 2: Right And you would do anything?
Speaker 4: Well? Yeah, because because that's because that's that's the price
to pay, right, Like, that's that's what you got to
pay the pie.
Speaker 1: I know, I've told you the story about the guy
who lived in our neighborhoods and the guy who had
lost everything and he needed to work, and they were
building houses across the street, and he went over and said, look,
you know, I've lost everything.
Speaker 2: I need to work. Can I sweep up? Can I
do anything?
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, he's over there doing this and
he starts to see how they do construction.
Speaker 2: He's like, wait, this is how you do things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if I could build you software that could actually
handle some of this planning, would you use that?
Speaker 7: Wait?
Speaker 2: You could do that?
Speaker 1: He goes back and he puts together a software program
which is basically a construction project management program that he
built and super elementary, and they start using it. Next thing,
you know, the guy who runs a construction company's like, hey,
why don't you build this for other people?
Speaker 2: Like, I'll be.
Speaker 1: Customer number one. Next thing, you know, two years later,
he's rebuilt. He destroyed his financial life. He was rebuilt
because if he hadn't had the humility, right, because God
is going to humble us. You cannot be fully used
by God until you need him because God will humble you.
Speaker 2: I garay t God will humble.
Speaker 5: You multiple times.
Speaker 1: Right, if you hadn't been humble enough to say, I'll
wash the construction trucks, I'll spray them off. I'll bring
you lunch, I'll sweep, I'll stay later and clean up
all the nails. I'll put up signs.
Speaker 4: I'll eat from the troughs, R right, the prodigal son,
I'll eat from the troughs right right.
Speaker 2: It's a great visual.
Speaker 7: Second.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Harvard here in a second,
because there was a man I watched this piece, Bill
Ackman on Harvard. I want to go through this with you,
but I just brought up visuals. I want to recommend
the movie to you in your family. Have you seen
I don't think unless you went to the theaters to
see this. It's not yet availablet home. If you've seen
King of Kings. The King of Kings, it's a animated
documentary about Jesus.
Speaker 4: No, I haven't even heard about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is I'll tell you.
Speaker 5: We're watching the David miniseries.
Speaker 4: Have you seen the David miniseriessel Yeah, the House as
a Family Together?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Do you think I think it's outstanding.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 1: We were a little worried at first because there's a
little bit of they referred to their god, the Jewish
God is their God. We're like, oh, I don't know
about that. But it turns and gets much more biblical.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's it. I was a little bit worried
about it drifting because I went, oh, no, this isn't
like remember like the Last Temptation of Jesus Christ. Yes,
it was just a mockery, right, and I was kind
of afraid that it was going that way.
Speaker 5: And then it writed really quick. I've I've been really impressed. Yeah,
that was awesome.
Speaker 1: I read the book The LSTs Sentation of Christ before
Scrosacey did that. So this is from Angel Studios. It's
there are the people who did Sound of Freedom, remember.
Speaker 5: That right, right?
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: So it's from the point of view of the Charles
Dickens family. So Dickens wrote a piece called the Life
of Our Lord, and so in this in this movie,
he's telling his story life. He's telling that's what's the
Christmas story he told? Uh with Evan User Scrooge. He's
telling that, and he's got this annoying little boy comes
to interrupts the play, and it's got this ridiculous cat.
So my wife had to watch this. Uh oh, annoying
little boy and little cat. But then the dad starts
to tell him the story of Jesus and he does
it like in a Princess Brideway. So the movies like
the dad's telling the story and then the kid's interrupting.
But then the kid gets into the Jesus story and
he walks with the Lord, and you can see it's
changing the kid in the story, and then you learn
it changes him in his life. And he's obsessed with
King Arthur and the Roundtable. But he grows to understand
the King of Kings is so so good. And Angel
Students is doing something brilliant. I'll tell you about this.
They have created the Angels Studio Guild. So dig this
when you become a premium member. You to watch the
King of Kings. You get to stream all their fan
curated shows. You get two free tickets to every Angel's release,
Angel Student release.
Speaker 2: But you get this too.
Speaker 1: You get to do thumbs up or thumbs down on
the movies they make, and you go to Angel dot
com slash todd you join over one million people like me.
We give thumbs up or thumbs down to the movies
that they're gonna produce and stories they're going to tell.
We're taking control of entertainment. Angel has opened the door
to Hollywood. We're marching through. So go become a Premium
Angel Studio Guild member to watch the King of Kings,
stream all the fan created shows and movies, get two
free tickets to every Angel Studios theatrical release, and you
get thumbs up thumbs down. We are voting on what
Angel puts out next incredible. It's Angel dot Com slash
tut so I fully recommend. I got a screener's copy
and I'll actually ask him if I could share that
with you before it is in home streaming. Alex producer
Alex is watching it. He's going to do a review
on it too. So I'll tell you about that. I'll
see if I can send you the link, if you
guys want to look at it.
Speaker 5: That'd be awesome. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2: So here's the deal.
Speaker 1: President Trump has come out and said this was this
was so trumpion. President Trump comes out and says, hey, I.
Speaker 2: Got an idea.
Speaker 1: Why did I take three billion dollars from Harvard And
why did I give this to trade schools?
Speaker 2: Because that could we could do? You know, you could
train a lot of people.
Speaker 1: And where I live in Idaho, there are like three
or four trade schools within ten minutes of where I'm at.
And one of the trade schools they've got power lines
set up and back so kids can go learn to
climb up power lines and take care of that. They've
got machinery in there, They've got machining shops. There are
kids that can come out of there and make a car.
And I'm not like saying, you know, just just modify car.
I'm saying, make a full on car. So Trump says this,
and I'm fascive with this. And I was thinking about that,
and Zach Abraham, chief Investments for Bowart Capital Management. I
saw Bill Ackman and he was talking about Harvard's financial profile.
Speaker 2: First of all, has Akmen a guy who knows what
he's talking about financially, Yeah.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 4: He's been in the game for a long time. I
wouldn't put him in the same pantheon as a buffet,
but he's at He's generated very good returns. He's run
ahead Frond for a very long time. Pershing Square is
the name of his fund. Ye, And he's yeah, And
he's a very he's a very common sense pro America
guy too. Yeah, he's a credible human being, and more
importantly from from the outside looking in. And I know
people that have met him and know him. He is
a guy that tries to do the right thing, which
I appreciate.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And when Trump made this announcement, we'll get to
this Bill Ackman piece. Just what Trump said, X dash
Trump or true social I'm considering taking three billion dollars
of grant money away from a very anti Semitic Harvard
giving it to trade schools, all caps all across roy Land.
What a great investment that would be for the USA
and so badly needed batsya Ungar Sargon replied, And this
is exactly right, she writes, This would be an actual
redistribution of wealth from the elites to the working class
that would create upward mobility for labor. Yet watch the
so called left, they will bray against it and insists
we keep the status quo of robbing the working class
to fund the quote education of the rich in future apparatrics.
Speaker 2: Of the CCP. What a joke.
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that statement. This has happened Harvard's
Now this is going to be the second lawsuit. So
here's what Ackman said, and here's where I want you
to be the chief investment.
Speaker 2: Officer of this.
Speaker 1: Listen to what he's talking about with Harvard's finances, and
you tell me, Zach.
Speaker 10: Harvard's marketing a billion dollar slice at their portfolio. So
one thing I believe is that the private equity portfolios,
the real estate portfolios, the venture capital portfolios are mismarked.
What's meaningful, I would say forty percent discount forty percent.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 10: First of all, the every institution is completely full up
with private equity. No one wants incremental exposure to private equity,
so the next buyer cost of capital is meaningfully higher.
My guess is Yell chooses not to transact, and Harvard
may do the same because they don't want to report
the figure. So how has Harvard been meeting its obligation
as they've been issuing debt. What's not talked about when
you mentioned the fifty three billion dollar endowment is Harvard
has seven point nine billion dollars worth of debt. My
experience with charity or you know nonprofits that have large
amounts of debt, it's it's a death spiral because the
donor doesn't want to give money that they want to
give to a project, they don't want to give to
to kind of pay interest expense. Harvard relies on the
federal government on uh, you know, the alums donations and
a very small liquidity pool to meet their kind of
ongoing obligations, and a draw from the endowment, and each
of these has been meaningfully impaired. Donors are not excited
to give money to the university, and they're going to
be less excited once they understand what's the financial picture.
The tax exemption is at risk, which means, you know,
that tax exemption benefits the institution because they get the
you know, they don't have to pay taxes. But I
would say more significantly, the donor gets the benefit of
a meaningful tax deduction in America when we give to
these institutions that goes away.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's it's a disaster.
Speaker 1: So that's Bill Ackman and my producer Acts did a
lot of editing to that to fit it into a
short space.
Speaker 2: It's accurate.
Speaker 4: So put on the.
Speaker 1: Chief investment officer hats and you're looking at Harvard with
a fifty three billion dollar endowment.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe they have to write that down.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So this is so emblematic of so many different
things we've all seen, right, like, let me, let me
let Let's take you back a little bit too. You know,
Silicon Valley Bank going under? Okay, okay, you almost have
the collapse of the regional banking system in our country
because risk managers at banks did not understand the long
duration bonds would get hammered when interest rates went up. Now,
if you do what I do for a living, like,
do you we were not short those banks when they
started going down? Okay?
Speaker 5: Do you want to know the reason we weren't?
Speaker 4: Because I never dreamed they were that inept, right Like I,
I No.
Speaker 2: You guys hedge everything and that didn't occur to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and we didn't get hurt by it because
we didn't have any exposure.
Speaker 5: But we didn't. You just sit there and you went,
hold on a second.
Speaker 4: You've got inflation running at a forty year high, you
have the FED telling you they're going to raise interest rates,
and you're just sitting in your long duration fixed income positions.
So you because and I think this is a byproduct
of the FED and the US government papering over so
many holes for the last fifteen years that you know,
when you live in fair like if we're doing a Disneyland, like,
you know, doing a Disneyland ride, and let's say it
has to do with like like an office scene or
like the Harry Potter rides. Right, you don't need to
hire real teachers to work in a fictional Hogwarts right, Right,
So the same is true when you lived in a
contrived financial environment where we're just backfilling stuff. You don't
need real risk managers because it doesn't matter. Every time
there's a real risk that pops up, the FED steps
in and sanitizes it. Right, So you see this writ
large did why did Harvard run their The problem that
Harvard's got right now is not the size of their endowment.
The problem that Harvard's got is too much if it's
a liquid and like Ackman says, if they want to
make it liquid, they got to take big right downs.
And the reason they got to take big right downs
is they bought into something that we've been laughing at
for the last decade, which was by private equity. Because
you're going to get stock market returns with fixed income
risk okay, meaning you're going to get the returns of stocks,
but with the volatility of bonds. And you know what
I have to say to that, No, you're not. No
you're not, because it doesn't work that way. There is
no cash flow stream that grows at the pace of
an average equity like trading on the S and P
five hundred that has fixed income vall that doesn't exist.
That it's not meant to work that way. So equity,
by its very name, is more volatile than debt.
Speaker 1: So it's the same thing. So you're using the bank
scenario we have. We're told Harvard has these smartest people
in the world. They produce the smartest people in the world.
They're the people who should run things. Everyone should be
there from Harvard or Yale. If they're going to be
on the Supreme Court, except for someone from pen. This
is the pedigree everyone wants. I remember the Microsoft days.
Oh we get this guy's coming in. He's a Harvard MBA.
Oh well, then hire him because clearly he knows what's
going on. And their fund managers are looking at a
fifty three billion dollar endowment that if they today wanted
to make liquid, it would turn into more like a
thirty billion dollar dumbit. If they wanted to make this liquid,
if they.
Speaker 4: Had to, could be worse, could be worse. And the
reason why is because private equity, though their private equity
private business right right, private business does not have a
legal obligation to report its financials.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 4: So theoretically, when you're carrying let's say you and I
have let's say you and I are running a private
equity fund, that is that we own private businesses. It
is totally allowable for us. And let's say three years
ago we raised money for a group of our for
one of our private businesses in our portfolio at a
ten billion dollar valuation. But let's say over the course
of the last four years, since we raised money at
a ten billion valuation, let's say things really haven't worked
out that well and revenues decreased, we do not legally
have to write that down. We can still carry that
investment on our books as being worth ten billion, even
though if they've got to if their revenue has declined
thirty percent since they last raised money, they ain't worth
ten billion dollars, right. But because it's private equity, this
is why I was telling people, do not buy any
of these private equity ETFs that are coming out. Blackrock
was launching them. These literally are exit liquidity for institutional investors.
Speaker 5: To pawn this off on the public.
Speaker 4: And that's why we've been like, do not touch the
private equity et apps. They are a roach motel.
Speaker 1: And yet Harvard is long, loaded up, loaded up, long
and thick on this then the debt. So when President
Trump came out and said, hey, you know what, I
might pull your funding, part of me was like, wait, well,
Harvard's got fifty three billion dollars, what do they care?
Speaker 2: I mean, it's you know.
Speaker 1: And so then when I hear this analysis from Acman,
I got to think President Trump knew this because I
could see Trump, because this is this is finance, dude, Trump.
I could see Trump looking at the books, going, you know,
you guys don't get it. They need government. They don't
want to admit it. But without government, they're dead. Without
our grants, they're dead. This is their debt to income ratio,
and this is what their donors know. I mean, apparently
Trump knew this, so this threat is real.
Speaker 4: I Ackman really knows this stuff, so I I have
not looked into Harvard.
Speaker 5: The other thing is he went to Harvard.
Speaker 4: So I mean he's this is this is personal to him,
and he's been He's been on the Harvard case for
a while, so I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna totally
trust his numbers here.
Speaker 5: But part of me is they're going.
Speaker 4: To have an endowment that large and have the government
backing that you have.
Speaker 5: For that debt.
Speaker 4: Why do you even have the debt? Why do you
need debt? The other thing is is you'd expect any
debt to just be completely asset back. So maybe yeah,
Like so, if you told me this on the face
of it, and I'm assuming this isn't the case, or
Ackman wouldn't be talking about it like this, but I
would assume it was a tax advantage strategy. But you
know what, then I'm talking to myself. Now, they're a
five on one C three, so they don't need to
worry about that.
Speaker 5: No, the debt.
Speaker 4: The reason I was thinking that is a lot of
times I've known some very wealthy people, okay, that are
worth billions of dollars, and what they typically do is
they take loans against their money, against their assets, against
their stock portfolios for tax advantages. Right, So a lot
of times they're not spending their own money, they're taking
loans against their securities or their portfolios or whatever. And
at first, blush, you would think that's what happened here
with Harvard. But like I said, they're a five oh
one C three, so they don't have any advantage to
try to take advantage, you know, they don't need to
manipulate things like that on a tax side. So yeah,
they're just racking up debt. And with what Trump's doing,
I love it. I don't understand why in the world
are we when you look at the garbage that Harvard
is spinning out, when you look at the fact that,
in my opinion, Harvard is an enemy of the state. Okay,
now here's the beautiful thing about America. They're free to
be that. I'm not gonna say they can't do that,
but why in the world are we funding it when
they have a fifty five to sixty billion dollar endowment.
It is nuts. And I actually disagree with that one.
I agree with the ethos of what she said, but
the redistribution.
Speaker 1: Of the money from the elites back to the working
class by virtue of investing the trade schools, right. Zach Abraham,
chief investment officer Bulwark Capital Management, was going to say, what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, I was going to say, it's not really
a redistribution, because you're not. It's not money that Harvard
good point, right, So it's it's it's a reallocation of
government resources. And when I'm sitting there looking at trade
I don't even need to look at the financials of
trade schools. Let me just look at them optically from
the outside and then look at Harvard with their sixty
billion dollars in endowment and going, that's our priority, right,
I mean, we're literally built like I feel like when
you look at Ivy League, to me, it's like the
management or we're like we're training the management of you know,
the next you know, Chinese communist regime or something like that, right,
she made She made a reference that as well. So, yeah,
I mean, what are we doing. Why would we be
granting that we know the anti American drivel that they're
supporting and doing all that yank they're funding.
Speaker 1: This is the part that I wish people would recognize.
I didn't when Trump.
Speaker 2: Started to do this, I said, Okay, this is awesome.
Speaker 1: He's going to put pressure on them, bully pulpit, He's
going to embarrass them. He's going to call them out
as sponsoring anti Semitism. And they go and give awards,
financial rewards to two of their employees who block a
Jewish student from going on campus. They give them awards,
they give them a shout out at graduation. They're not
just winking at anti Semitism, they're sponsoring it. They're paying
for it.
Speaker 4: They violating the Constitution.
Speaker 2: Right right, his civil rights and ours with our money.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I guess I'm looking at this as someone who
comments on politics for a living, going.
Speaker 2: Okay, good bully pulpit.
Speaker 1: But if actman's right, and I'll take your word for it,
I mean, if you say he's a solid guy, he's
a solid guys.
Speaker 2: I see it Trump could end Harvard. And this to
me is it's a you know, it's a hunger Games thing.
I love.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty radual system that can be brought down
by just a few berries. Herard must be a pretty
fragile place if it can be brought down by just
a couple of words from a president or taking away
the tax exempt status. So, as I read this, if
Trump did succeed in yanking the tax exempt status, Harvard
is done.
Speaker 4: Well. I don't think it would be done, but I
think that this iteration of it would be done because
guess what what would Harvard have to do. They'd have
to go back to their donors. Well, they've picked a
lot of their donors off big money people, including Acman,
and Ackman's got several other stories where he's donated money
to them and they specifically did exactly what he asked
them not to do with the fund with his money. Yeah,
he gave them. He gave them a chunk of stock
from a company called Koupeng and it was not IPO yet,
and he was saying, I will give this to you.
At the time, it was valued at ten ten million,
because that's what he bought in for but he knew
what it was going to IPO for, which was like
eight to ten times that amount, right, and so he
effectively gave them a hundred million with a ten million
dollar cost basis. Well, a few months after he did
the transaction, he finds out about this. Afterwards, they turned
around and sold it and tost themselves the appreciation of
all that the company, the company, these people are so
stupid they turned around and sold it for that same
price back to Kupeng right before the IPO.
Speaker 2: This is Harvard.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and you sit there and you're laughing because you go, hey, guys,
if a company that's about ready to go public is
making aggressive tenders offers for its shares on the private market,
you don't hit that bid, right.
Speaker 4: And the reason you don't hit that bid is because
they know that if they want to buy more equity
outstanding before ipoing, that tells you all you need to know.
And they did exactly what he asked them not to do,
sold it and then cost themselves ninety million dollars in
the process.
Speaker 1: And that's why we have Zach Abraham, Chief Investment Officer
board couple of managements. It is Know Your riskpodcast dot
Com on the show. Thank you for Zach for that.
I want to wrap up with consumer credits and the
debt markets here and it's a pretty simple question, and
I'll ask you this after we talk about consumer well
not consumer credit, but personal credit being intermingled with business credits.
Really really, really important that people understand the difference. So
let me paint the scenario. You built up a small
to medium sized business. You've got employees, You're busy. If
your business owner like me, you're doing sixty seventy eighty
hours on a regular basis. There's days that are twelve
fourteen hours, you know, the drill. Then there's the business travel.
Like you know, I've done more this year than I've done.
I've got another speech coming up, I've got Mexico coming up.
If you're like Zach, you've got the you know, reports
you need to fill out, You've got the sec stuff,
you have your team, so you have this all going
and somewhere in the back of your mind, you know
you know that you should have corporate credit. You know that,
and if you don't, I'm telling you there's a big difference.
If you don't have actual corporate credit based upon your
employee identification, number, your EI in everything you're doing at
your business is actually putting you at risk. Your home,
your retirement account, your college funds for your kids, all
of that is at risk if God forbid, you make
a mistake, something happens, you get sued. Okay, that's you.
Your bank knows this. They put your name on the
credit card, in the debit card, but they didn't base
it upon your EIL.
Speaker 2: So now if you.
Speaker 1: Did know that, you still have the sixty to eighty
hour weeks, you still have the business travel, you still
have the sec stuff.
Speaker 2: In Zach's case, in my.
Speaker 1: Case, you've got the paperwork for advertising affidavits and this
ad you need to record, and this radio affiliate wants
you to do a whole bunch of announcements, and it's
all good stuff. Right when do you have time to
turn around and then go activate actual corporate credit. This
is why Zach became a minority investor in Bisible. And
I realized A nice lady sent me a note saying, man,
I'm trying to go to a bi What was she saying?
A bidable or bibbable is bisible b I Z A
B l E. The website is go Bisible they do
this seven easy steps. The rest of it you do online.
It's like two or three things you do online at
their website. It's gobisible dot com. They give a free
new obligation console time where you're going to learn things.
This gets taken care of for you. To me, no brainer.
I'm a client, now you're a client, No brainer for you, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and and and literally it's not I became
an owner because of who runs it is. It started
and run by a very good friend of mine that
I trust implicitly. But the other part of that when
when you understand the value proposition for the price that
they're putting every if you have not established corporate credit
on your own, you need to. You are just passing
up free security and free protection.
Speaker 5: And it just it's just not a good idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and Zach was even in that position. I've been
in a position I'm you know, Bisible's digging me out.
They're digging Zach out. Uh So it's go bisible dot
com A B I Z A B l A just
think biz go bisible dot com.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: On the consumer side of things, Zach, I'm reading this,
rejection rates are rising for loans and financing, sheriff applications
rejected in Februar of each year, and yep, I see
credit card limits increases, mortgage refinancing being way way up
in terms of rejection, credit cards, auto loans. I mean,
it's everything is almost hockey sticked. Is this a correction
or how alarms should we be to this? And what
do we do with retirement when we're watching this stuff happen.
Speaker 4: Well, it's going to be really there's so many cross
currents and noise right now, because if you were looking
at things in a normal setting, like let's say you
know you're running two and a half to three percent deficits,
I would sit there and say, look, you're going into
recession right when you're running seven percent deficits, and that
spending looks like it's going to increase at least marginally.
It's a much more complicated scenario. Having said that, the
one thing that I think seems very clear to me
right now is that regardless of what Trump, because remember,
if you take all the good stuff that Trump is
proposing to do in the real economy, those things still
take time to have an impact.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: So let's say you passed a really big tax cut
or whatever. That's great and that can boost that can
boost you know, animal spirits that can boost people's feeling
about things or willingness to look at different jobs and
make different investments. But you're not going to see the
benefits of it economically speaking, feedback through immediately. And so
when you when you look at the state of things
right now and they look really shaky, what it looks
like is you've got a marketplace full of assets that
are priced for economic conditions that just don't.
Speaker 2: Exist right now.
Speaker 4: And that's the way it feels. Okay, Now, what do
you do on the investment side, Well, what we think
you do, and this is typically what you do, is
there are a lot of places around the world right
now that are not like us, that are the exact opposite,
where their markets look like they're bombed out and they've
gone through a great depression, and the flip side is
is they're actually starting to ramp up right and they're
doing better. So you need international diversification for sure, you
need you need exposure to natural resources inflationary type investments
because inflation is not going away. I think it's going
to be something that we're battling periodically for maybe the
next you know, eight to fifteen years. I would say
based on historic you know, based you know, and those
things can change, But based on history, I think that's
a fair it's kind of a fair guess, fair estimate,
but what you need to do. And I'm not just
saying because we you know, I know that there's a
lot of people that will listen to this, that won't
ever call us and won't ever become clients. And that's fine,
but something we're really passionate about. And I gave our
employees a big Rara speech about this the other day
where I said, look, guys, we're all in this, defeat
our families and make a living. But one of the
reasons we've been successful is we believe in the mission,
which is we think that a lot of people and
I think history and data backs this up. We think
the vast majority of people are invested completely inappropriately and
diversification has gone out the window. They've become consolidated into
the same few stocks in the same market.
Speaker 5: Valuations are ridiculous.
Speaker 4: And yeah, we think that there's all kinds of ways
to account for this, but one of the just one
of the main ones is the United States isn't the
only game in town, and we don't need to be
anti US investments. But this is where valuations matter, and
I think Warren Buffet's built a pretty good track record
paying attention to fundamentals and valuations, which is is the
price we're paying for this stock? Does it make sense
on a financial basis? And when people are paying sixty
two times earnings for Costco who's growing at five and
a half percent a year with two point seven percent margins,
I don't care how much you love the company, that
investment don't pencil and it's probably gonna have horrific returns
over the next ten years.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: It reminds me you remember the days, right Microsoft? Remember
how everybody was down on Microsoft because for ten years
the stock went nowhere? Yep, And they're like, oh, Microsoft's
if you go back and look at that ten year
period of time, Over that ten year period of time,
Microsoft crippled their revenue in ten years, that's unbelievable growth.
Then people go, well, why did the stock go anywhere?
Because you bought it at one hundred times earnings. It
needed a decade to grow into that multiple. Okay, you
were buying cought You were buying Microsoft back then in
the dot com bubble at one hundred times earnings, and
Microsoft was growing at thirty percent a year. Today people
are buying Costco at sixty two times earnings and it's
only growing at five Like it's You look at.
Speaker 5: Them and go, well, what do you think is gonna happen?
I go, I don't think it's gonna happen.
Speaker 4: I will tell you that over the next indefinite period
of time eight ten years, Costco is going to dramatically
underperform the performance. The reason you're still holding Costco right
now is because of what it's done, not what it's
gonna do. And I love the company. It's not their fault.
Speaker 5: The stocks irrationally priced.
Speaker 4: But you look around the world tod and there's just
so many and there's opportunities in the US too. The
problem is is that's not the They're not the five
or seven that everybody's looking at. So we, like I've
said before, a you need to rethink things as a
as a retail investor, and you need to become not
so US centric, and you need some precious metals exposure,
and you need the portfolio you have was built for
a deflationary period of time that work between the age
the years of nineteen eighty five to twenty twenty five.
The world we are living in is very print.
Speaker 5: Your portfolio needs.
Speaker 2: To mirror that good we've called givel evil will be
called good. Down is up up, us down? Thank you,
Zach Abraham.
Speaker 1: You can go to Know your Risk podcast dot com
schedule a free now obligation consultation with Sach.
Speaker 2: This is the Todd Herman Shaw.
Speaker 1: Please go, be well, be strong, be kind, and just
go out and walk in every way you can in
the light of Jesus Christ.