Everyone Back in the Boat (EP. 460)

Summary

Animal Spirits Podcast – “Everyone Back in the Boat” (EP. 460)

Hosts: Michael Batnick & Ben Carlson
Date: April 15, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Michael and Ben dive into the messiness of tax week, discuss the shifting landscape of tax enforcement, and explore big themes in investing, technology (especially AI), labor markets, generational wealth, and life’s trade-offs. The conversation flows from practical annoyances (tax liens and leaf blowers) to big-picture market sentiment, sector rotations, and societal trends. The tone is fun, self-aware, a little grumpy at times, and grounded in lived experience.

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Key Segments & Insights

1. Tax Week Realities & The Importance of Tax Planning

[01:24 – 04:56]

• Both hosts lament tax week and celebrate their firm’s decision to bring tax expertise in-house.

  • Ben: “One of the best decisions we’ve made at Ritholtz Wealth Management over the years is adding a tax team.” [01:24]
  • Michael: “I would rather have tax alpha because I can control that piece of it. And so I think that’s been a huge sea change.” [02:38]

• Michael shares a personal “annoying tax story” involving state bureaucracy and a $3,000 tax lien from Michigan, resolved—eventually—through persistence.

  • Michael: “Guess what they did last week. Put a lien on me.” [04:33]
  • Ben: “Hold the line, Ben.” [04:46]

2. IRS Funding, Tax Enforcement & Complexity

[06:41 – 11:01]

• Discussion of a WSJ article about declining IRS audits among the very wealthy, despite a growing population and more complex tax returns:

  • Ben: “Audits of people with at least $10 million in income dropped 9% last year…on track to decline another 39% this year.” [06:41]
  • Michael: “But what’s the decrease in tax revenue from that?” [08:23]
  • Ben: “They estimate $643 billion.” [08:26]

• IRS efficiency, resource constraints, and the notion that tax enforcement is ripe for AI disruption.

• Anecdotes about how both hosts (and clients) rely on accountants to handle government correspondence and tax issues.

3. Celebrating Consistency & Goals-based Investing

[11:01 – 15:24]

• Michael pays tribute to Ben’s writing and podcasting output, referencing a recent Barron’s profile:
  • “You are like the exact embodiment of the more you practice, the better you get.” [12:19]
• Ben reflects on his early, critical perspectives on the wealth management industry circa 2013:
  • “A lot has actually improved because…people were making decisions that weren’t really tied to their goals.” [13:29]
• The rise of goals-based investing and improved investor behavior over the decade.

4. Market Resilience Amid Geopolitical Turbulence

[15:24 – 18:17]

• The S&P has stayed resilient despite geopolitical shocks; investors who stayed the course benefitted.
  • Ben: “If you stayed the course…you survived another one and you’re now a better investor for it.” [16:17]
• Oil did not spike, stocks did not crash as feared—“oil prices want to remain stable, stock prices want to go higher.” [16:24, Michael]
• The expectation that a true reckoning for the bull market would come from tech/AI, not geopolitics.

5. Sector Rotations: Software vs. Semiconductors

[18:17 – 26:18]

• Major flows and volatility between software and semiconductor stocks:
  • “Semiconductors are now a larger slice of the S&P 500 than software, which is kind of amazing.” [18:56, Ben]
• Discussion of the huge drawdowns and subsequent rebounds in software and AI names.
  • “There’s a lot of stuff that’s in my too hard pile. Sorting through stuff like this…” [20:08, Michael]
  • “This time feels different to me…picking in the AI loser bin is way harder.” [21:31, Michael]
• Noted how “dead money” can bounce and the market's ability to over- or under-correct.

6. The Complicating Role of AI in Labor Markets

[27:00 – 38:43]

• Labor market data is difficult to read post-pandemic and amid AI uncertainty.
  • Ben: “The best way to describe the labor market right now is confusing.” [31:16]
• Anecdotes and listener emails on the struggles of young/entry-level workers in a market transformed by technology and automation.
  • “I think young people are going to be okay…people are going to figure this out.” [38:01, Michael]
  • Ben is more skeptical: “Why would you hire as many entry level employees as you have in the past when literally the AI can do it for you at a fraction of the price?” [38:20]

7. Generational Wealth & Housing

[39:00 – 51:14]

• Debate over who had it harder, boomers or millennials; reviewing charts on income, home affordability, and net worth.

  • “Every young generation goes through something like this…now seems scarier than ever because of AI.” [41:03, Michael]
  • Friendly banter about economic and emotional challenges across generations.

• The hosts and Bill McBride discuss future housing supply as baby boomers age; prices may stagnate as demographics shift.

  • “We should also see a pickup in retirement community construction…” [50:31, Michael on McBride’s analysis]

8. AI Venture Capital & Corporate Inequality

[43:53 – 47:42]

• Historic amounts of VC funding poured into AI companies in Q1 2026.

  • “Q1 2026 was the largest venture quarter ever by a lot…venture capitalists finally got to put some of that dry powder to work.” [44:19–44:58]

• Some AI companies are orders of magnitude more efficient (revenue per employee) than even large tech names.

• Concerns about the wealth concentration among AI founders and workers:

  • “If you can create a company this efficient and the money goes into the hands of so few people, they better start building libraries and…give back to humanity.” [46:36, Michael]

• Growing likelihood that AI will become the defining political and economic issue of the coming years.

9. Technology, Knowledge Work, and Disruption Limits

[56:01 – 59:12]

• Innovations such as Claude (AI) offering the ability to query company metrics and analyses almost instantly.
  • “It just got me thinking…You used to have to send away to get quarterly reports…now people have the ability to answer any question and parse this data…” [56:01, Michael]
• Barriers remain: not all ecosystems (e.g., ticket marketplaces, Twitter) allow AI bots to scrape or summarize info.

10. Life, Retirement, and Happiness: Health Is Wealth

[60:32 – 62:42]

• Discussion of how most people have a relatively limited window (possibly just 12–15 years after age 60) of good health in retirement.
  • “You want to frontload your spending in retirement because that’s when you can enjoy it.” [62:42, Michael]
• The importance of prioritizing experiences (e.g., vacations) and family memories over more conventional types of “lifestyle creep.”

11. Closing Thoughts: Pop Culture, Recommendations, & Existential Wisdom

[65:23 – End]

• Movie and TV recs: “The Last Kings of Hollywood,” “DTF St. Louis,” “Paradise Season 2,” and “Bone Temple.”
• Reflections on the feeling of letdown after achieving big goals:
  • “The most dangerous year of a man's life is the one right after he finally gets what he wanted.” [69:24, Ben]
  • “The anticipation is a… Everything’s firing off in your brain. And then when you get it…it’s just, oh, I got what I wanted. Of course, I did move on.” [70:38, Michael]
• Reminder that markets, like life, are never ‘out of the woods’—there’s always something to worry (and to be excited) about.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On taxes:

  • “I would rather have tax alpha because I can control that piece of it.” – Michael [02:38]
  • “People are being cowboys about not being caught, but still, $100 billion worth of enforcements.” – Ben [10:37]

• On investing & market cycles:

  • “If you stayed the course and you didn’t let the market dictate your outcomes, then you survived another one and you’re now a better investor for it.” – Ben [16:17]
  • “The market usually doesn’t get it that wrong.” – Ben [22:37]

• On labor and AI:

  • “The upper hand has gone from the labor back to capital. Right? The business owners have the hand right now.” – Michael [34:02]
  • “Why would you hire as many entry-level employees as you have in the past when literally the AI can do it for you at a fraction of the price?” – Ben [38:20]

• On generational wealth:

  • “Boomers had it way easier than any generation in history.” – Michael [41:44]
  • “Life was never easy.” – Ben [42:12]

• On retirement health:

  • “You have 12 good years in retirement if you retire at 60 before your health starts to potentially make it harder for you.” – Michael [62:32]

• On life's letdown after major wins:

  • “The most dangerous year of a man’s life is the one right after he finally gets what he wanted.” – Ben [69:24]

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Episode Structure & Timestamps

• [01:24] Tax week, tax team, and anecdotes
• [04:56] IRS audit rates & enforcement
• [11:01] Ben’s output & goals-based investing
• [15:24] Market resilience post-invasion
• [18:17] Semis vs. software: sector rotation
• [27:00] Labor market confusion, AI’s impact
• [39:00] Generational debates, housing outlook
• [43:53] AI venture capital explosion
• [56:01] Claude AI integration, knowledge work
• [60:32] Retirement, health, and lifestyle
• [65:23] Pop culture, movie/TV recs, life’s ironies
• [71:24] Market check & sign-off

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Takeaways

• The world (and the market) is always in flux: Whether it’s AI upending the labor market, tax shocks, sector rotations, or shifting generational fortunes, the landscape is dynamic.
• Stay resilient and adaptable: Both in investing and in life, persistence and perspective matter more than ever.
• Question the narratives: What feels unprecedented may actually be part of a recurring generational cycle, albeit with new technological overlays.
• Enjoy the ride: Make time for vacations, embrace a little “lifestyle creep,” and appreciate the anticipation as much as the achievement.

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Contact the hosts:
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

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Transcript

[Michael Batnik]

Today's show is brought to you by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Serving financial advisors and their clients isn't just our business, it's our expertise. Goldman Sachs Active ETF GP IQ is intentionally designed with the aim of delivering consistent monthly income without sacrificing capital growth. Active ETFs from Goldman Sachs not just active Relentless. Find out [e-mail] Relentless investors can lose money by investing in the funds, and ALPS Distributors, Inc. Is a distributor of the Goldman Sachs ETF funds. Investors should consider a fund's objective, risks and charges and expenses before investing. Call 800-526-7384 to obtain a copy of the prosectus. Read carefully.

[Ben Carlson]

Today's show is brought to you by Janice Henderson at Janice Henderson Investors we believe working together is the way is we believe working together is the way to work better. Like combining your portfolio plans and our in depth strategy, your valued assets and our valuable insights, your mission and our vision. Always working in perfect harmony to find the right investment opportunities. Janice Henderson Investors Investing in a brighter Future Together visit janishenderson.com.

[Michael Batnik]

Welcome to Animal Spirits, a show about markets, life and investing. Join Michael Batnik and Ben Carlson as they talk about what they're reading, writing and watching.

[Ben Carlson]

All opinions expressed by Michael and Ben are solely their own opinion and do

[Michael Batnik]

not reflect the opinion of Ritholtz Wealth Management.

[Ben Carlson]

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for any investment decisions. Clients of Ritholtz Wealth Management may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. Welcome to Animal Spirits with Michael and Ben. It is everybody's least favorite week of the year. It's tax week, April 15th. There is a drain on liquidity. Usually not great for the stock market, but, you know, not always, obviously. And one of the best decisions we've made at Rith Wealth Management over the years is adding a tax team. It has been an incredible, incredible addition, incredible service for clients and it makes sense. Like everybody has to do their taxes. It's not option, not an option. You got to file them. No offense, I don't think anybody is. Well, that's not true. You might be married to an accountant. I was about to say nobody's in love with their accountant, but for the most part it's like, you know, sort of a fungible.

[Michael Batnik]

I love Bill Sweet. I'll say it.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, I love Bill Sweet too. I really do. You know, fun fact, Bill Sweet is the only man that I say not all the time, but I say I love you too. Like when I hang up the phone here is.

[Michael Batnik]

You don't say to me, here's one of the things I think the big realizations of the past 10 or 15 years that people have made, I think the transition has gone because of the index fund revolution. Transition has gone from finding alpha in the markets, which people still do. There's still plenty of money and brain power that goes towards that. But I think most wealth management clients have realized I can actually control the tax. I would rather have tax alpha because I can control that piece of it. And so I think that that's been a huge sea change.

[Ben Carlson]

So if your advisor is focusing on after tax outcomes, which increasingly advisers are, then it makes great sense to have the accountant in house. So I held off until the after, after tax season out of respect for everybody who's. Who's in the business. But we need enrolled agents and we need CPAs. We need to grow our team because there is more demand from our clients and supply of hours from the tax team. So Bill Arts and A squad worked relentlessly, relentlessly over the last couple of months coming up to the deadline. But the demand is not slowing down. So if you want to work on the team, please reach out to hiringitholzwealth.com if you want to reach out to bed and I directly, that's fine too. You know where to find us. And we look forward to hearing from you.

[Michael Batnik]

Can I tell an annoying tax story real quick?

[Ben Carlson]

Sure.

[Michael Batnik]

So back and forth on some tax things. Every once in a while, something slips through the crack. The state of Michigan sent me a letter. Bill Sweet says, you know what Ben handed to me? I'll. He's my accountant. He takes care of it. He sends them a letter. We get on the phone with them because they keep sending me letters about this thing. Hey, you owe us $3,000 for something. Okay? Bill says, no, no, you're wrong. We don't look it. Here's the paperwork to prove it. You're wrong. They send me this thing. He said, final notice. If you don't pay this money, we're putting a lien on you. A tax lien.

[Ben Carlson]

Ben replied, it's our final notice. Stop sending this.

[Michael Batnik]

We. We sent more letters. We sent. We got on the phone with someone. Don't worry about it. It's taken care of. Guess what they did last week. Put a lien on me.

[Ben Carlson]

Shut up.

[Michael Batnik]

For $3,000, Bill Sweet says, don't worry, Ben. We're taking care of this.

[Ben Carlson]

Hold the line, Ben.

[Michael Batnik]

He says, I think that. I think that the collectors don't talk to the tax people anyway. There's not enough people working in the taxes for the state of Michigan either, I guess.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, well, that's a great segue. Oh, by the way, thank you to Y charts for the snazzy looking hat.

[Michael Batnik]

I like it for listeners.

[Ben Carlson]

They got me a blue hat says, there he is. Very nice. Fits well. Love it. Thank you.

[Michael Batnik]

I bet you get some smiles when you wear that out in the streets.

[Ben Carlson]

I've. First time.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, let's see.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what? This is coming to D.C. all right. We're going for a walk tomorrow. It's like 90 in D.C. what in the world?

[Michael Batnik]

Suck it up.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay?

[Michael Batnik]

I don't complain about. I live in cold weather most of the time. I do not complain about hot weather.

[Ben Carlson]

I do.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, so we were in Florida last week and it got to like the mid-80s one day. Oh, it's so hot. No, you're not gonna hear me complain about it. I love the hot weather.

[Ben Carlson]

You know, if you're not complaining, you're even living. All right, Ben, I've officially, I've officially reached middle aged status because I've been

[Michael Batnik]

telling you this for years.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm listening to an audiobook. Phenomenal. My first foray in earnest, I might add, into World War II. There's a book by Max Hastings called Inferno the World at War, 1939-1945. And it is a. It's like from the lens of the people, so from the civilians, from the fighters. It's much less like top down. Of course there's top down stuff, but it's a bottom up story of the war. And it's wonderful.

[Michael Batnik]

Somehow I got into my World War II phase, was in college. I read 10 books on World War II in college. I don't know how well that's that.

[Ben Carlson]

Dude, that's weird.

[Michael Batnik]

That is when I visited, yes.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, okay, fine.

[Michael Batnik]

And my, my favorite book of all time, even though most people just know it as a series, is Band of Brothers. Read the. Read the book. It's. It's the. It's my favorite book I've ever read.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, well, maybe I'll give it a little. So. But anyway, I only brought this up to say that we, We, We. We are. We are lucky. Sobs. Everybody who's living right now that we weren't living, you know, right back then or really any other time in modern and in pre modern human history, things weren't great. So forgive me for complaining about the heat. But hey, we got used to good life. Okay? There was an Article in the Wall Street Journal. America's new tax mantra. The IRS isn't going to catch me. Probably true. Audits of people with at least $10 million in income dropped 9% last year, and they are on track to decline another 39 this year. Few charts in here. They're still. So we, we had like 90, 000 employees at the IRS full time, mind you, from 06 to, I don't know, 2010. And then there was like a, you know, a dip and a little bit of a rally into, I guess the. I don't know what this ramp up is, but it's still. It's still 70,000 people. And guess what? It's going lower. I feel like, like taxes. Taxes in like the bullseye sweet spot of AI efficiency, is it not?

[Michael Batnik]

But think about the. You would think so. Think about the fact that they. We have fewer people working at the IRS in 2006, and how many more people are in this country now? The population has grown.

[Ben Carlson]

And how many more people have more complex tax structures?

[Michael Batnik]

Yes, right.

[Ben Carlson]

Like a lot of. Of lot of things going on on people's tax returns. All right. The IRS workforce reduction so far would cut an estimated $46 billion in federal spending over the next decade, which seems like an outrageous number, but I guess, you know, 70,000 people working annually.

[Michael Batnik]

But what's the decrease in tax revenue from that?

[Ben Carlson]

So they estimate, they estimate $643 billion.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so you save $40 billion for the employees, but you lose out on. Okay, there he is. All right.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. And so the IRS says taxpayers as a group pay 85% of what they owe as they file returns, which to. To. To which I say. Good enough.

[Michael Batnik]

The problem is the tax code is so complex that you're never going to have it be perfect. Obviously.

[Ben Carlson]

Let me, Let me mute. I got the dinghies going on. All right, one last chart.

[Michael Batnik]

If you and I went to couples counseling, I would tell the therapist the first meeting. You don't need to. He never. He never silences his notifications ever. He always has dings going off. That's you. Is that fair?

[Ben Carlson]

That's actually not. It's. It's. It's fair or not fair. Like most of the times, because we do a lot of pods, but most of the times actually might. Do Not Disturb is on.

[Michael Batnik]

Duncan, come on. Michael has the most dings out of anyone.

[Ben Carlson]

I mean, you know, first of all, Josh does, but you don't notice when they're not digging. Listen, you. Your credibility is out the window after you Declared my word. That I've said six times in 2025. You have nothing. You have no leg to stand on, mister.

[Michael Batnik]

Hang on. Someone said that. Someone said Michael's word isn't ostensibly. It's directionally.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, that word. Watch for directionally, that word I use. Okay, Guilty as charged. Direct revenue from IRS enforcement actions. Check this out. All enforcements. A hundred billion dollars in 2025. Now, what's an enforcement? That's like, hey, we caught you, and pay up.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, like the letter that I got. Probably like, you. You were supposed to pay this tax. You didn't pay it. Pay up.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. And then. And then an audit. I don't know. I don't know how they define an audit. It's an audit just like a random. We're going to pick people above.

[Michael Batnik]

It's like we're gonna bend you over and give you a full body cavity search. That's an audit.

[Ben Carlson]

But I guess, how do they differentiate? What's an enforcement? Like, they caught you without doing an audit.

[Michael Batnik]

And enforcement is like a letter. Hey.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, like, Like. Yeah, okay, got it.

[Michael Batnik]

That's what I'm saying. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

So anyway, it says that, like, people are being, you know, cowboys about not being caught, but still, $100 billion worth of enforcements.

[Michael Batnik]

The thing is this stuff, the people who, like, try to just skirt by this, like, I. Again, I get, I don't know, one letter a year. Hey, this thing is different. And we have tax people take. Help take care of that for me. Like, if you didn't have tax people, what do you do? You wait on the phone for three hours to talk to an IRS agent, and they still don't answer your question.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. All right, Ben. I want to give you. I want to give you. I don't like the word flowers. I know. It's like a thing. Is that, like, the thing that people say, like, give that person their flowers? It feels weird. I feel like I can't say that. I want to give you some. A pat on the head. Sounds disrespectful. I want to acknowledge you. I love you. I want to give you a hug. What do I say? I want to give you some. Some respect. That sounds too formal. What are you typing?

[Michael Batnik]

Sorry, my do not disturb wasn't on.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, man.

[Michael Batnik]

My wife just texted me, and it.

[Ben Carlson]

Unbelievable. All right, Karma. All right, well, Ben, you deserve a ton of admiration because I. I read the. The baron's profile that they did of you, and they wrote, in just over a decade, he has written at least 3,660 blog posts, Co hosted more than 765 podcasts, and in May is publishing his fifth book, Risk and Reward. How to Handle Market Volatility and Build Long Term Wealth. So two things that, two things that I want to mention. You are like the exact embodiment of the more, the more you practice, the better you get.

[Michael Batnik]

Fair. I was a terrible writer when I first started off.

[Ben Carlson]

Your ability to write consistently high quality things like that, I just gave a pretty weak snap is amazing. And chart kid was blown away like he was. He was telling me like, oh my God, I can't believe how fast Ben did blah, blah, blah for like the chart report that we're doing for advisors. And I said, well, yeah, like he's, he's incredible. He's got his muscles, his writing muscles are bulging out of his face. So quite a few.

[Michael Batnik]

I again, I never liked writing before I started the blog. I like in college and high school. I wouldn't enjoy writing papers, but I viewed writing as a way of learning because I realized I did not know enough. I needed to learn more if I was going to enhance my career. And that was one of the reasons I started writing. And I thought, I'll give it up after six months when no one is reading it and that'll be that. And I'll have this thing to like whatever, show my kids someday or something. And then I just enjoyed the learning process so much and now it's just part of my routine. So yeah, it's, it's very, it's like second nature now.

[Ben Carlson]

But it's amazing.

[Michael Batnik]

If I stop for a year, it'd be harder to pick back up.

[Ben Carlson]

I'm sure when I tell you to write something or when I ask you to write something for like a client letter and you do it in an hour, I'm just, I'm always blown away. So. All right. They asked you, you wrote about getting started at Ritholtz in 2015 by criticizing the industry, what was wrong then and now, and you responded. It just felt like everyone and everything was negative. People were coming up with reasons to not invest and to change their investment plans. A lot has actually improved because I think one of the big things that was that people were making decisions that weren't really tied to their goals. They were freaking out about what happened in the markets with the crashes and the recessions. A lot of wealth management has changed and gone towards a goals based idea of investing money. That's one of the positives that we've seen. And I remember reading this when you Posted this on Josh's site. You reached out to Josh and you were disgruntled with the state of the industry, specifically the corner that you were in with all the alts and the returns, know, the lacking, whatever. And you wrote Confessions of an institutional investor in 2013. So for people, for newer listeners, for people that just discovered Ben, you know, in post. Post Covid, he's been banging this drum for a long, long time. You've been consistently fighting the good fight and champion, championing better outcomes for investors for a long time.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm not taking credit for it because there's a lot of people who came before me, who I'm. I read them after the fact, like, oh, this person's been saying the same thing I've been saying. But who, Who?

[Ben Carlson]

Like Charlie Ellis, Bill Bernstein.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Jason Zweig. Those are the, those are the, those are the three of them that I grew up, like, idolizing. And they're writing in words and. But I do think that this decade, you can see the. I think the behavior has improved for the better. Like all the people who have been espousing these messages over time. I think a lot of it is. And you. And I hear this all the time. Hey, I, I made it through this bear market because I listened to you guys or I read what you wrote or whatever, and I would have freaked out in the past, but I didn't anymore. That, that's. To me, that stuff is really cool to hear.

[Ben Carlson]

That's the best and. All right, here's another one. Ben. We made it through. The market just opened and we are higher than when the invasion began. And you know, that's pretty nuts. The market was right. The market was right and we sided with the market. So I guess, ergo, we were right. But the market did not whistle past the graveyard. The burden of proof was, in fact, on you. It's now earning season. And on the, you know, obviously not to minimize what happened. It's. It's horrific. And all that sort of stuff is, is obviously true. But through the prism of the market, the market got it right. And if you stayed the course and you didn't let the market dictate your outcomes, then you survived another one and you're now a better investor for it.

[Michael Batnik]

So the S and P is up 1% on the year or so. Emerging markets are up 12 or 13%. IFA is up almost 8%.

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

There was a lot of give back, but then it came rushing all the way back. Here's, here's my general feeling about this market Environment. Oil prices did not want to go higher. Like the, the $200 a barrel that, that all the oil and has been screaming about like it. And stock prices did not want to go lower. That's, that's my Captain Obvious take for what's. What's been transpired. Like, why aren't oil prices way higher? Why aren't stock prices way lower? They didn't want to go that. They didn't want to go that way. That's, that's my only explanation. Oil prices want to remain stable. Stock prices want to go higher. Not always. That's what it felt like in this particular cycle to me. Don't you feel like the reckoning has to come from AI? Like, if there's going to be a reckoning that everyone's waiting for, it's not going to be a war.

[Ben Carlson]

You would think that the reckoning. Yeah, yeah. You would think that the bull market ends whenever it will because something with AI. Maybe it's. Maybe it's the, the SpaceX. And open a IPOs like that would certainly suck a lot of liquidity out of the system. Who knows? But it's just whatever it's. If it's not one thing, it'll be something else.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes. I just think, like, people are looking for, like the thing to do it. Everyone. I think a lot of people immediately said, this is not it. This is not the thing. And maybe this lasts longer. I don't know. Who knows? Can I do a quick Seinfeld reference though, of what's going on? You're not a Seinfeld person, but George Costanza knew his girlfriend was gonna break up with him. He's like, what am I supposed to do? I have no hand in this situation. She's gonna break up with me. I can feel it. So Kramer said, no, you break up with her and George says, I'm breaking up with you. Okay, that's us blocking the Strait of Hormuz. No, no, you're not going to block it. I'm blocking it. I'm breaking up with you. That's my geopolitical analysis. That's all I got.

[Ben Carlson]

Not bad. Man. The market is just so interesting. Obviously, it's what we love. It's our passion. Ben, Oracle is up. Was up 15% yesterday. It's up another 8% today. Everybody threw in the towel on. On. On semis on software. Excuse me. I said it was looking uninvestable yesterday. Biggest bounce of the year.

[Michael Batnik]

Can you explain to me. Here's another one. Explain to me why intel fell like 30% and now is just taken off like a rocket ship.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't, I don't follow Intel.

[Michael Batnik]

This thing was in a 50% drawdown and it came screaming back all the way higher, back to new highs.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, all of these, the, the, the semiconductors are on fire. They are now a larger slice of the S&P 500 than software, which is kind of amazing.

[Michael Batnik]

I got this chart in here. This is, this is from Duality Research. Okay. So today software makes up about 25% of the technology sector. A record low weight. Not that long ago, on January 2020, it was 54%. And you can see semiconductors have eaten into it. Hardware is basically the same. So this is, so that's a, that's an enormous. This is just in the tech sector. Went from 54% to 25%. Software did. Holy cow.

[Ben Carlson]

I know we spent a lot of time talking about this, but the moving the software names really is amazing. And not just the Megas, like not just Salesforce and Workday, which we spent a lot, and Adobe, which we spend a lot of time talking about, but like a name like Snowflake. Snowflake was at $280 in November of 2025, which is six months ago. It went from 280 to 120. 280 to 120 in six months.

[Michael Batnik]

There's a lot of stuff that's in my too hard pile. Sorting through stuff like this, the AI winners and losers and trying to pick like, no way, I, I would not want to try to do that. I know you and Josh have been dabbling.

[Ben Carlson]

I made a lot of money. Well, decent amount of money. All right, a little bit of money in the, in the February, the early February, the late February, early March bounce. And then I sold credit to May and then puked again. But if you. I guess this is at the risk of sounding totally ridiculous, like the software. So software went to as low as IGV went to $76. It bounced. It fell at undercut let though. And that was like the highest volume, obviously. Like when you make a new low, it's like, oh no. Like we're going so much lower. And not always, not always, but oftentimes that is how bottoms happen. Where it's like the second puke, where it's like literally get me out at any price. And if you were bottom fishing and you didn't sell the second puke, you have to ask yourself, like, who was left to sell? So completely disconnected from the fundamentals, what I might or might not do to this group. Like if you didn't puke on the second rollover, there's no, there's no more sellers left. So it's not to say that, that they're going to recapture a quarter of the bounce. Half the, half the, half the loss. I mean who knows? But this, these names could be dead money for a year or two. They could be tradable bounces and stuff.

[Michael Batnik]

But this is when you really need to determine is this a trade or an investment. Correct. Because you and I always say like listen, the market's not stupid, but the market has puked up names 50, 60, 70% in this cycle and they have come back like that has happened. So you could say like maybe it made sense at the time, but so that's what people are trying to grapple with now is like gosh, these stocks down 60%. Why wouldn't I go hand over fist on this? I think this is, this time feels different to me that trying to pick in the AI loser bin is way harder.

[Ben Carlson]

I agree this is very difficult but most of the time I don't, I don't know that I could say for, well, I would bet that most of the time when industry groups get rocked like this, there's a damn good reason. And guess what? AI is a damn good reason. Now 60 too much. Who, of course, who knows? But like at the individual stock level there's so many examples of like Nike is a great one of oh like this has got to be a buy, this got to be a buy. And like it just, the market usually doesn't get it that I made that

[Michael Batnik]

I made that mistake. Luckily I, I got up quick enough and didn't compound my mistake.

[Ben Carlson]

The market usually doesn't get it that, that, that wrong. So maybe soft throws, bounces 20%, maybe bounces 30%, who knows. But going to be an interesting couple of years, that's for sure. So I, I, I said a few minutes ago like just how fascinating the market is. I saw a chart from Todone this morning. There were more flows into semis and it did tech like in general and people were done with the, with the Mag 7. Could you imagine? I mean of course like you can imagine it's happening right now. The Mag 7 comes back and the market's up another 15% on the year. Could easily see that happening.

[Michael Batnik]

It's possible.

[Ben Carlson]

So we are now the S and P is I don't know, percent and a half, maybe even less from a new all time high. And if the Qs get their Mojo back. For whatever reason, like the narrative shifts on AI maybe, you know, for whatever reason, it doesn't matter. But like, look at the move in Amazon. Insane move over the last four or five sessions.

[Michael Batnik]

That's the bull case. Yes, that and I think this is what most market participants were thinking. AI is going to matter more than geopolitics. And that seems to be what's, what's winning out right now. The Wall Street Journal. You got a cool thing in here about how sometimes things change. It's like gold prices versus real interest rates. And the idea was that they tend to follow each other, but it's inverted.

[Ben Carlson]

So inverse.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. So if real rates are lower, that's good for gold because gold doesn't pay any dividends.

[Ben Carlson]

It's not an income producing asset. Right.

[Michael Batnik]

And it completely changed after the, after the war in Ukraine and now it's just a supply and demand thing. And that, that macro thing went away. I thought this was a good lead into the Wall Street Journal had a thing about energy stocks. Energy stocks are having a moment and they show the percentage of energy and tech, tech in the S and P and they're both at the exact same spot in 1996, which is insane to think about. Energy and tech had the same weighting. It was like 9%, 9% tech weighting in 1996. Unbelievable, right? I'd say in the 1970s, energy made up a quarter of the index. According to Carlisle. I think it was close to 30% in 1980. Today it's like 4%. It got as low as, I think two and a half percent or something in 2020 when oil went negative. That's any, that's a 40 year re rating. 50 year rerating in sectors. I don't think it ever goes back. Comes close to going back. Like energy never gets above 10% again.

[Ben Carlson]

That'd be weird. Oh, it never gets above 10%. Maybe. I mean 30, forget about.

[Michael Batnik]

So I found another AI rerating. Can't remember where I found this, but the consulting firms, Accenture, Booz, Allen, Gartner, they're all down 50 to 70%.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I mean those are that, that's it.

[Michael Batnik]

So McKinsey is a public company. If McKinsey was a public company, it'd be down the same as these companies, right?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

So wait, so I looked at the, I also looked at the SMH, which is a semiconductor ETF versus IGV. This is over the past five years. IGV in the past five years is up a total, a grand total in five years. Of 6% not annualized.

[Ben Carlson]

Total IGV.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

And the biggest name says like Microsoft's. The biggest name in there is Meta in igv.

[Michael Batnik]

No, no way.

[Ben Carlson]

Oracle, Oracle and Palantir are so.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, 5% or 6% in five years.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what else is bouncing bigly?

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, you're right. Microsoft is in there in Palantir.

[Ben Carlson]

No, I know Microsoft's the biggest name,

[Michael Batnik]

but SMH is a semiconductor that's up like 260%. So again, it totally consumed it.

[Ben Carlson]

I did sell the lows in Blackstone, by the way. Happens the actual lows. The alternative asset managers are bouncing pretty aggressively too.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, so we've moved on because we can only worry about one risk at a time. Private credit risk worries are. Have subsided.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know for now. Well, I don't know. Separate things. Private credit worries have not subsided, but the equity is bouncing. Not separate things.

[Michael Batnik]

But don't you think investors, eventually, unless there's more headlines, investors are going to get bored of that story because it's a slow moving story. It's not something that happens in private markets. Things don't blow up overnight. Typically.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

Slow move. Especially in credit like that.

[Ben Carlson]

Where are we going next?

[Michael Batnik]

Economy.

[Ben Carlson]

Let's talk about the economy.

[Michael Batnik]

How much, how much would pod. How much would podcasters pay for a silent leaf blower like an EV leaf? Do they have electric leaf blowers that don't make noise?

[Ben Carlson]

This is loud, isn't it?

[Michael Batnik]

It's pretty loud. Boy, do I love a good. As a middle aged dad, I love a good leaf. My kids always make fun of me because I'm constantly blowing dust out of the garage and getting the wood chips off the sidewalk. That's a great.

[Ben Carlson]

It is great leaf blowers. Not something you thought that you would be spending money on when you were younger. So I'm skipping ahead in the doc. Somebody had, somebody had a good response on my rejecting of the title lifestyle creep.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Somebody said, man, we've got a lot of doc this week. My bad. We've been moving slowly here. Very nonchalant podcast we've got today. You know what I mean?

[Michael Batnik]

Good word.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. This person says lifestyle creep should be referred to as the expense curve. Not bad.

[Michael Batnik]

That's not bad.

[Ben Carlson]

He said lifestyle creep implies you are voluntarily spending more money on an inflated lifestyle. But as you get older, there are not inflationary cost step ups embedded in everyday life that you cannot escape. Property taxes, kids consume more as they get older. Kids start playing sports, participating more activities. Catbash products come up leaf blowers, college tuition. So even if you try to keep your lifestyle spending fixed, there's no way to escape the expense curve.

[Michael Batnik]

That's true. I also believe that you should allow lifestyle creep into your life. If you make more money, you should prioritize spending it on nicer things. I'm totally okay with that.

[Ben Carlson]

And Ben is not just talking the talk. He told me how much money he spent on his Airbnb, and I was very impressed.

[Michael Batnik]

I told my wife, next year, we're not spending as much. Wow.

[Ben Carlson]

Ben very loose with the purse strings. No, I love it. No, you're 100% right. Like, that is what the money is for.

[Michael Batnik]

You know, my wife. My wife told me. My wife told me four years ago, here's the one thing in our budget I want to prioritize, because my wife, she doesn't spend a lot of money on clothes or purses or shoes. Like, I probably spend more on my wardrobe that my wife does. She's, like, very minimalistic in that sense. She said, I want to prioritize vacations. That's. That's the thing I want to do with our. That's like the carve out for my piece of the pie or whatever. That's what I want. So that's what we've prioritized.

[Ben Carlson]

That's the number one thing.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, it is.

[Ben Carlson]

And the memory, the memories come with you forever.

[Michael Batnik]

It is.

[Ben Carlson]

And your kids, more importantly.

[Michael Batnik]

I think we got a text from our friend Michael Antonelli about this. I. We talk about the vacations, the big vacations we went when I was a kid, and there weren't as many. We talk about them all the time still. I'm sure my kids will remember these vacations more than anything else they got for their birthdays or Christmas or whatever it is. Any toys, any whatever. No doubt the memories of that stuff go away immediately.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, so back to the economy. A couple of quotes from the transcript, which is phenomenal. Highly recommend.

[Michael Batnik]

They're really good about just pulling out the little paragraphs you need to. Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. So Walmart cfo. I would start with the fact that I am probably more constructive on the consumer than what one would glean from reading the headlines of news publications. There are a lot of alarmist headlines about the impact on the consumer, but the consumer continues to be very resilient. I think the consumer has shown resiliency and probably is little healthier than what one would.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, that's interesting coming from Walmart.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Dick's Sporting Goods. Our consumer is very, very healthy. So in addition to everything I said about the sport and culture coming together, the consumer is obsessed with sport. We haven't seen trade downs from best to better and better to good. And one more Levi Strauss cfo. We continue to closely monitor this consumer response to pricing actions. And to date we have not seen an impact on demand.

[Michael Batnik]

That's a pretty wide assortment there. I anecdotally, everywhere in spring break was busier. We've been going to the same place for four years. Everywhere was busier than we've seen it. More people spending money. Boy, trying to get out of a restaurant with a, with three kids in a meal. The ceiling keeps raising or the floor

[Ben Carlson]

keeps going higher for the price.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, yeah, right. It's like, wow, this is what I spent on a meal with. Because the kids got chicken fingers and Mac and cheese. This is life now. People don't care. All right, let's talk about the labor market because I think the way that the best way to describe the labor market right now is confusing. If you're trying to make a hard stand on the labor market right now, I think you're crazy. So last week we talked about the unemployment rate. People said, ben, stop using the unemployment rate. It can be fudged. So I said, all right, fine. U.S. labor force participation rate. Prime age is 25 to 54. Because you want to take out the people who are older because they're retiring is near the all time highs of 1999. It's within a stone's throw and it was way, way lower through much of the 2010s. So you say the labor force participation now this is again, the people who are in the labor force actively seeking a job or want a job, have one. But a lot of other people poked holes in this theory. Right. I feel like there's a lot of data and anecdotes that could support either side of the equation. Fair, you've got some in here.

[Ben Carlson]

I did think this was interesting. I, I had the unemployment rate from 16 to 24 year olds. And remember we were talking about this going higher like back in the summer fall and we just stopped talking about it. Well, because it started going lower again. And I was like, hm. So we got a few emails. One person said, I fully agree with Michael on the labor market impact based on AI. I've been hiring some junior folks straight out of college within a few years of graduating. And it is absolutely grim out there talking to an old professor of mine in computer science, what used to be almost every student getting internships and post Graduation jobs has dropped down to around a quarter of students. Even if it's not fully in the data yet, the vibes are grim for that age cohort. And it definitely seems like that is only going to continue getting darker. A listener sent us. Derek Thompson did a podcast about this. I listened to it recently and I found they referenced a report by Adam oh and Nathan Goldschlag called AI and young Adult Jobs the real mystery. Start by using the right measures. So they said the unemployment rate only counts someone as unemployed if they were actually looking for work. The problem with this becomes obvious when glancing at the labor force participation rate, which shows how many people are either working or looking for work. The labor force includes both as a share of the total given population. Over the last year, non college young adults aged 22 to 25 have disproportionately given up looking for work. These discouraged workers won't count as unemployed, which means that the unemployment rate is lower than if it did count them. A misleading sign of the labor market health. So look at this chart. Young worker employment rate. It shows 26 and up, young college and young non college. And the young non college is. It's not crashing, but it's certainly heading in the wrong direction. It's not great.

[Michael Batnik]

Here's my problem with this chart. It only goes back to 2021 and the number today is way higher than it was. Not way higher. The axis is very low here. I think it's really hard to make comparisons this decade about the labor market because we went from the literal hottest labor market we will ever see in our lifetime in 2021, 2022 to today, where things are slowing down. And I think trying to figure out what is AI and what is that? Because remember that we had the. The wage growth for people who change jobs versus didn't change jobs in the gap between the two is about as large as I've ever seen it. People who were changing jobs were getting huge raises. And that's not happening anymore. And it's the. The upper hand has gone from the labor back to capital. Right? The business owners have the hand right now. And I just, I think.

[Ben Carlson]

How about. How about both? How about both? We are coming off the hottest labor market ever. More than more than full employment overemployment. That's true. And it's also true that probably even absent that the AI fears and the data would show and the anecdotes and the vibes would feel that people are slower to hire young people because.

[Michael Batnik]

And the reason the vibes are so Bad right now is because of the uncertainty. Obviously. I don't want to sound insensitive, but I've seen a terrible labor market for young people. I lived it. That's after, after the gfc. That was a real crisis. But back then people kind of told us, you should be happy, you have a job you want to raise, get out of here. You know, like, yeah, that was the kind of the mentality back then because that was a real bad labor market. Now the hard part is the uncertainty is so much higher. That's the part I get why the vibes are so bad. But the, the actual, the other thing is not, as. You're right, close as bad as it was back then. No, get out of here.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, true. But also like, I don't want to. Minimum. I don't want to. Like hindsight. We, we. You could say that things were probably going to get better post gfc, but like right now it just feels like we're, we haven't even seen how bad it's going to get.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, right. That's, that's the concern. Are we falling off a cliff here?

[Ben Carlson]

Look at this. Average number of applications per entry level job. So there was a stupid article. Anxious parents are spending upwards of $50,000 to land their kid a job. No, they're not. I mean that, that's like, that's like saying my brain just broke. I was about to use a bad analogy. Whatever. On the, on the fringe there is a parent or dumb idiots that are doing this. Those are the same people that are spending a million dollars on their kids to get into college. But there are, but there are legitimate, like job coaches for younger people that, you know, parents are spending $3,000, $5,000, whatever. Anyhow, the point is that the average number of applications per entry level job is so much.

[Michael Batnik]

If you're a parent, historically, save your money. Just talk to people in your network. That's how you get your kids a job. Not by spending money on a life coach.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. All right, not to belabor the point, but one last email.

[Michael Batnik]

Hang on, don't you. So it shows the average number of applications per entry level job is way higher. Isn't that just because it's easier than ever to do? You can have, you can have chat, GPT, write you up a cover letter and a resume. And don't you think this is. This number is never going back down? Yeah, it's. You're going to have your AI agent applying for every single job they can for you in the years ahead. It was just like when, when the. When the Careerbuilder.com came out in the mid 2000s, late 2000s, and you could apply to a job online. You could. You couldn't do that before. It was way hard. It was way harder to find a job because now more people could apply to jobs easier. Instead of like going to a company website and writing a letter and sending a resume, it got easier. So this is. This number is never going back down.

[Ben Carlson]

That's. That's right. We got an email that corroborates what those guys were saying about the labor force participation rate. So I have a take on Torson's belief that AI is not impacting the recent grad unemployment. These recent grads aren't hitting the unemployment rate because they're just picking up jobs at restaurants, retail, et cetera, just to make ends meet. I luckily finally got a job after a year. It's not the best, but it's adjacent to what I want to do. But I'm definitely overqualified with my degree and such. I can give you stories of friends, people I graduated with, just taking a job, bartender so they can pay their bills. Meanwhile, they have business analytics or finance degrees from good schools and we're good students. I'm a data guy, but I don't think the impact is on the data yet.

[Michael Batnik]

This is what happened in 2008 too. This is not a new story. I'm just. I don't want to. Again, don't be insensitive. This. This has happened before. It has. I think young people are going to be okay. Maybe I'm in a minority. I think. I think it's going to be all right. I think people are going to figure this out.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't.

[Michael Batnik]

You don't. All right. You don't think young people are going to be okay?

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know, man. Not to be so. So grim, but like, why would. Why would you hire as many entry level employees as you have in the past when literally the AI can do it for you at a fraction of the price?

[Michael Batnik]

Who's going to be the middle employee eventually? Eventually I think companies are going to realize, I don't know who's next in line. We need someone, I don't know to step in here who takes a lower wage too.

[Ben Carlson]

People. But businesses don't. Businesses don't think that way. Business don't think. Well, what happens when these people are 35? Like who's going to be the 35 year olds here? That's not how they hire.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, you're right. The transition Period may be bumpy. I think eventually business.

[Ben Carlson]

No, no, no, it's going to be bumpy. I just hope it's not as bad as people think.

[Michael Batnik]

Fair. And there's going to be a ton of baby boomers retiring in the years ahead too. That's the. There's something has to give there. All right. Speaking of baby boomers, the Wall Street Journal had a piece. You, you, you hate these topics. The generational warfare. Did millennials or boomers have it harder? We went searching for the answer. So there's some really good charts in here.

[Ben Carlson]

You know why? Because all of this stuff, I'm just, I'm about bringing people together. This is divisive and I don't like it. Like, there's enough, there's enough divide in

[Michael Batnik]

this country, but this is like going to a bar and arguing about Jordan versus LeBron. There's never going to, there's never going to be an answer. But it's fun to argue about.

[Ben Carlson]

Not for me it's not.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Jordan is the best. And that's out.

[Michael Batnik]

It's settled, obviously. So they looked at the total median total income by age group, Boomers and millennials and 25 to 34. 35. And millennials are higher. Not. And this is. Everything is inflation adjusted. Not like noticeably higher, but it's, it's, it's higher. This one is going to make people mad. How affordable was the house? So they look at inflation adjusted median price of a new home in $20 $25 based affordability is based on median household income and mortgage rates. They're saying in the late 70s, early 80s, it was more, way more expensive for boomers to buy a home than it is for millennials today. And for much of the 80s and 90s, it was as high as it is today or higher. This is surprising, right? This boomers would say, see, told you we paid 18% mortgages was harder for us. I still don't quite believe it. Because they could refinance all the way down.

[Ben Carlson]

And the houses are so much nicer today that, that millennials are buying.

[Michael Batnik]

They are. Yes. It's. I agree. Then they also show average household net worth. Now some people would say, hey, I'm, I'm not an average person. I'm a medium person. But they did average. And millennials average net worth now exceeds baby boomers at similar ages. And it's by decent amount too. And someone shared this with us a long time ago. This is from Money in the. It mentioned this in the Wall Street Journal article. The baby boomers can they ever live as well as their parents, their prospects for job, housing, and having children in retirement. And it's basically saying like, baby boomers are screwed. And this is in 1983.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, well, I'm sorry. They did feel screwed.

[Michael Batnik]

This is my point that I just feel like every gen, every young generation, goes through something like this. And I know now seems scarier than ever because of AI, but this is a rite of passage for younger generations. Everyone has it, except maybe Gen X. No one cares about them. Let's be honest. Gen X pretended to have a hard time in the 90s, even though it was the greatest decade ever. Right. Reality bites and Fight Club and all that stuff. Like, come on, get out of here. 90s were great. Best decade ever. Gen X trying to. They were trying to. What's the opposite of aura Farming? I don't know. Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

All right.

[Michael Batnik]

But let's be honest. Boomers headed way easier. It's just, it's true. They had the. They're the easiest generation of all time. It's not even close. I'll die on that hill. I know you don't want to make a pronouncement, but it's true. Boomers had it way easier than any generation in history.

[Ben Carlson]

Then how come the divorce rate amongst our parents, mine included, was so much higher?

[Michael Batnik]

Because when life gets easy, you try to make. Make a. I just reject that.

[Ben Carlson]

I think. I think life is just constantly not easy. I think it's nonsense.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Our parents had it so easy on

[Michael Batnik]

a relative basis, taking care of their.

[Ben Carlson]

Of their World War II depression parents. My dad. So, okay, my parents got divorced, obviously, but my father had to pay for three young kids, which he couldn't afford, on top of paying for his parents to make ends meet because his mom didn't work and his dad was pushing carts in a grocery store. And it didn't do great things for my family. And that is a very not unique story. Like, life was hard and it always is hard. That's like, that's the basic point. Life was never easy.

[Michael Batnik]

Fair. I guess I'm thinking economically, like the overall economy, but also.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay, but think about it. Fine. Go back to our parents. How my, my, My parents were in their young 20s. Like, my dad had probably just graduated dental school when they started having babies. And the pressure of being a child yourself raising babies and wasn't easy.

[Michael Batnik]

I guess the thing is, like, my dad paid 50 a semester for college. Finding a house was easy. Finding a job was relative. These kind of things that young people worry about today, I think that was tough with easier programmers.

[Ben Carlson]

I think the. We moved the goalpost bigly. With the benefit of hindsight. I don't think anybody felt that life was so easy back then. I mean, it's just nonsense. Come on.

[Michael Batnik]

You could also say that the boomers being such a large cohort were one of the, one of the reasons that we're doing so well today. Like they're spending in their. Like the boomers charged the stock market. Like they were the ones who like brought it out of the doldrums of the 70s, essentially by getting into.

[Ben Carlson]

Anyway, anyway, I love my parents, so I will die on that hill.

[Michael Batnik]

Oh, that's going out on a limb for a take.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, let's talk about venture capital. So actually artificial intelligence. So Q1, this is from A16Z. Q1 2026 was the largest venture quarter ever by a lot. This is like the charts from COVID the unemployment charts that just broke everything forever. So this is obviously open AI anthropic. Open AI did their $190 trillion round or whatever it was.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, it's all.

[Ben Carlson]

And when you look at like AI companies in terms of their fundraising, again a broken chart. Q1 was $242 billion. Q1 2024 was 16 billion.

[Michael Batnik]

So did AI save venture capital? Because it was all these unfunded commitments that they were waiting on.

[Ben Carlson]

And I was. But it's so concentrated in these mega rounds and the mega funds. Like think about how many. Think about how much money is being let on fire right now. All these bullshit AI companies that are just straight up zeros.

[Michael Batnik]

True, but just all the dry powder people were sitting on it, finally got it out of there and invested.

[Ben Carlson]

So Ramp. Who's the economist at Ramp? I can't remember his name, forgive me. We had him on the show ara. Okay, so ARA has a chart showing the Ramp AI index. Anthropic sees its largest monthly increase to date up 6.3%. They're showing the share of US businesses with paid subscriptions to AI models. And it's at 50%. Obviously it's going way higher. Anthropic is going vertical and it's going

[Michael Batnik]

to pass open AI within months.

[Ben Carlson]

They're showing. So the. So Redpoint did a, did a deck on this about software and AI and they have a chart called AI is enabling Unprecedented efficiency. And they show the ALR divided by the full time employees.

[Michael Batnik]

Hang on back to that ARAS chart here. So they have OpenAI, Anthropic, Google XAI and Deep Seq on here. Do you remember the Deep Seq? Freak out.

[Ben Carlson]

I do.

[Michael Batnik]

That is obviously a distant memory at this point.

[Ben Carlson]

Matter of fact, Nvidia is. Nvidia still not recovered from the Deep Seek? Nvidia is right at pre Deep Seek levels.

[Michael Batnik]

No. Are you sure?

[Ben Carlson]

I'm positive.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, that doesn't sound right to me.

[Ben Carlson]

I bought Nvidia on Friday, I think the first time I ever owned Nvidia. Probably not. Maybe I can't remember, but no.

[Michael Batnik]

We both bought Nvidia in the Liberation Day thing.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, that's right. I made a ton of money on Nvidia. How could I forget? Yeah, that's right. So a company called cursor has $6.1 million in AOR per full time employee. Lovable is 3.4 million. I'm not familiar with these companies. Works OpenAI is 1.5 million. And Anthropic is 1.2 million. Salesforce, five hundred and forty grand. Data Dog, 51, five hundred and ten grand.

[Michael Batnik]

This is the inequality stuff I was talking about. If you can create a company this efficient and the money goes into the hands of so few people, they're gonna, I mean the, the AI people who are gonna create so much wealth themselves, they better start building libraries and they better be, they better turn into Rockefellers or they're, they're already some of the most hated people on the planet. It feels like they're gonna have to do something to really give back to humanity for this because they're going to get so rich.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, people are angry. Sam Altman's house has been attacked twice I think in the last couple of weeks. Not great, but you know, not, not, you know, I'm not trying to like suggest that he deserved it or anything, but the message that they are putting out into the world is obviously deeply, deeply, deeply unpopular.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, and so you saw that anthropic news that they created this and me semblance wrote a piece about it yesterday. They created this new, new program that could essentially look for holes in cybersecurity. And they said they found millions of them. Like we could, we could go and, and hack every. This system could go in and hack everything right now if it wanted to. We're going to have something go off the rails. Something's going to go off the rails here at some point.

[Ben Carlson]

And unfortunately this is going to become a political issue because it can't, not this government.

[Michael Batnik]

This is going to be the political issue for the next presidential election. AI is going to be the issue. Unless we're going through a big recession.

[Ben Carlson]

Does Anybody trust government to step in and protect us?

[Michael Batnik]

No way. There's no way they understand half of what's going on right now.

[Ben Carlson]

So we've spoken a lot about what Microsoft's performance in a negative way is a straight up reflection of, you know, a public proxy for OpenAI. Somebody emailed us. I'm sure you are aware of this already. I was not aware, but in case you're not. In 2023, the South Korean firm SK Telecom invested $100 million in Anthropic. Today that stake is worth over $2 billion in the latest round. And look at this stock.

[Michael Batnik]

Holy smokes.

[Ben Carlson]

Going vertical.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. Interesting. That's not bad. It's up 75% year to date.

[Ben Carlson]

I thought this is notable. I bought Bitcoin on Friday. Haven't bought it in a while. It broke so in, in late February when the SAS crash really started to happen, or mid February whenever it was. There was a lot of charts showing. Actually it turns out that bitcoin show software all along. Remember they were like one for one.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

And no longer. So Matt made two charts. One showing like Bitcoin finding support. The other one showing software breaking down. Now software has since, you know, bounce for the last two days. But look at the bottom chart. Like they, they've, they were tracking damn closely. And I don't know if Bitcoin is going to lead software higher hopefully, I suppose.

[Michael Batnik]

But it is kind of crazy how close these charts look though. And that's like the gold versus real switch chart. It, it looks great for a while and eventually it'll break. Somehow one will go up and it'll. The relationship will change, but for now it's pretty darn close.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

All right. Bill McBride, my favorite real estate analyst. Sorry, Logan. Logan's number two at calculated risk has a piece about housing demographics and he kind of pours some cold water. A couple weeks ago, Nick Maggi was on s compound and he asked what's going to be worse returns for the rest of the decade. Housing market or private investments like private credit? Private. And I think housing would be the easy one there. Obviously it's hard because both use leverage and calculate returns. Whatever. So here's what Bill says. My sense is there will be a pickup in boomers selling their homes in a few years and lasting until 2040 or so. These homes will be older and most will need updating. You and I've talked about this. But many of these homes will be in prime locations. We should also see a pickup in retirement community construction during that time period. And he shows this chart that says, like that boomer selling. So he says that the biggest two cohorts are in their 20, like mid-20s and mid-30s. So he's saying the second circle, which is the mid-30s, suggests less home buying demand in the next decade and more existing supply. There are other factors, but this lucky hold down housing prices. We saying the fact that boomers are getting older and likely selling and a big cohort of millennials are now kind of through that home buying age in a lot of ways means housing prices for a while at least could be just kind of stagnant, which would make sense with the amount of pull forward we had.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Who's bullish on housing prices? I'm not.

[Michael Batnik]

That's a good point. I don't think. I haven't heard many bullish cases for

[Ben Carlson]

housing recently in terms of returning your investment. I mean, not. Not to open that can of worms, but there is no return on your investment. It's where you live and it's damn expensive.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes. Keeping up with. If housing prices keep up with inflation for the rest of the decade, I think that'd be a win.

[Ben Carlson]

I haven't had hot water. My hot water, like ebbs and flows. Remember I told you I'm like the type of person I was just like. Yeah, it's. I'm slow to like, fix things.

[Michael Batnik]

Still having problems with hot water.

[Ben Carlson]

Well, here's the thing. The kids get the fresh shower and they get the hot water and it's not like cold, but it's not hot. And I did call plumber. He didn't respond. I will. I will get this fixed. But I'm. But it's gonna. I'm probably gonna need a new navient, which is like $8,000 for the privilege of having hot water.

[Michael Batnik]

Gotta have a hot shower. My wife runs it really hot. Like she would be mad, extremely mad at me if I was doing what you're doing.

[Ben Carlson]

One of the. One of the things in that World War II book is. And this is going to be. And I'm very consciously saying the word directionally right here. If it's not 100% accurate. 17,000 US soldiers lost limbs during the war. A hundred thousand Americans lost limbs in factories preparing for the war.

[Michael Batnik]

Wow. Because it was such a big ramp up. Holy smokes.

[Ben Carlson]

100,000 people. Factory workers lost them so I could take lukewarm water. Know what I mean?

[Michael Batnik]

Okay. This book has really put things in perspective for you, huh?

[Ben Carlson]

I have great perspective. I'm always enjoying life. But this is. Yeah. This is a, this is a big one.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. What else on Housing Bound? Oh, this is a good one. Lance Lambert, the current housing market bifurcation. So we talk about this all the time. That housing is discussed as this monolithic thing. And it obviously isn't. It's very regional. Check this out. So Lance Lambert has a shart.

[Michael Batnik]

Did that get created on Long Camp Poly?

[Ben Carlson]

You know, it's so funny. I literally was watching it this week and I thought I had the exact same thought because Philip Seymour Hoffman, they're at an art gallery. And he goes, dude, we gotta go. I just started that.

[Michael Batnik]

Might have been the first time I've ever heard it.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, I had the same thought. Like, is, did he, did they invent it? So the chart shows the median days to pending in February at the onset of spring across the country and in California, in New York, in the Midwest, Ben homes are selling really quick, but in the Sun Belt they're just not at all 70 days.

[Michael Batnik]

I think eventually people are gonna, I think it's gonna turn and like, they, they've gone into like the correction phase earlier than the rest of the country. And they're gonna be the first ones out of it, don't you think? The Southeast, Sun Belt, whatever could be.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't know.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, all right. You talked about Nike here.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, this is just. This just blew my face off. So. Found this in transcript for this quarter. Revenues were flat on a reported basis and down 3% on a currency neutral basis. Nike Direct was down 7% with Nike Digital declining 9% and Nike Stores declining 5%. Holy. Gross margins declined 130 basis points. My God. So, all right, last five years, Nike is down 66%. The market is up 76%. Last 10 years, Nike is down 16%. The market is up 300%, almost down 16% versus the market up 300. Nike going back to 1993 has lost its edge compared to the market. Obviously at one point in time, Nike was, you know, trouning the market. So I, I had a friend over, we were talking recently about, I don't know, the stock market came up. And he was saying that, like, he, you know, the things that he bought, he's like, I knew they were going to bounce. They always do. And I couldn't help myself. I said, well, not always. Like, listen, do the, do the great companies usually bounce when they're selling off? You know, whatever. And I was like, sometimes like, he's like, I learned my lesson. I said, no, but you're learning the lesson for this Market environment. It doesn't always work this way. And, and even now like you could have said that about Nike. And there's a lot of stocks, Nike United. I mean there's a million of them. Yeah, Disney's a great one.

[Michael Batnik]

I don't view Nike as a brand that has been totally tarnished either. It's. I still feel like I see I wear a lot of Nike still my kids. Like maybe this is just anecdotally. It doesn't seem to me like it's a tarnished brand that people don't wear anymore.

[Ben Carlson]

No, it's such a good point. I feel like it's, it's a shitty investment and the company is legitimately not doing great. Obviously stores are down 5% but like it's still the premier brand in footwear and in athletic retail. But from an investment point of view it sucks shit.

[Michael Batnik]

Sounds like.

[Ben Carlson]

And it is, it did. It did and is losing market share.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, it does sound like their big thing was they said we're just going to sell direct, we're not going to sell on Amazon.

[Ben Carlson]

Horrible mistake.

[Michael Batnik]

And they just. Horrible mistake. And now it's kind compounded.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, horrible mistake. All right. Did I put this in here? I did Quarter Claude integration.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I did because I think it's interesting. So Quarter said that they've, they've integrated Claude and they said what it is. You can ask any question about any company, any event, any speaker, any metric and get answered pretty quick. And it's funny, I was going through this the other day. I, I was asking about like recession comments and it was like would you like me to break this down by all companies or just. Companies are well known. It like the prompts back to you are so amazing. And it just got me thinking. You and I have read all the Buffett books probably he had those stories where he would go to the Geico CEOs. He knocked on Geico offices on the weekend and he sat down with the CEO to talk about the company. And he used to have to use to have to send away to get quarterly reports from companies. Like they wouldn't just have them out there. You'd have to ask a company, they would send it to you in the mail, this huge thick thing. And now people have the ability to answer any question in parse this data and it's just there and it's not like you even have to go digging for stuff anymore. It's just you can ask for it and it'll give it to you.

[Ben Carlson]

It's amazing.

[Michael Batnik]

It really is kind of amazing. And this just shows also why investing is harder than ever. It was kind of fish in a barrel.

[Ben Carlson]

Everyone knows everything. But that's a great point for knowledge workers. AI is incredible. I mean, obviously hot take. It works. You know what's interesting it there, there. I saw on, on the demise of software, the. So the playoffs start on Saturday and prices for Knicks tickets has went up a ton. And last year, like, so I split tickets with my friend, we go together to the playoffs and we were very pleasantly surprised about the prices for last year. Like they were reasonable and this year they're a lot higher. And we were thinking about, like, hey, should we just like sell one game, one round? Um, because, well, certainly for the Raptors, we were very confident that we were gonna like Hawks would be a little bit harder. Who cares? Be that as it may, I went on to Claude and I said, what is the cheapest ticket on Stub up or Ticketmaster in the lower bowl in the 100 section at Madison Square Garden for, for round one or Saturday? And it couldn't get in. There's no, there's no API allow to access it. It's like in JavaScript or a different sort of thing. So I think a lot of people are just overestimating, like, the ease with which these things can integrate and operate.

[Michael Batnik]

Right. Because they don't. They don't want the AI to help you parse through that market.

[Ben Carlson]

Correct. Another great example of that is. So there are people that write like basically blog posts on Twitter.

[Michael Batnik]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

And I was curious to read one, but I didn't really feel like spending the time. So I asked Claude to summarize it for me. This was about like, what's going with Mythos, the, the, the new Claude thing. And I, I don't have time for that. And I needed to summarize because I want to understand 90% of what I'm reading. Right.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

Not surprisingly, Twitter blocks Claude blocks chat.

[Michael Batnik]

Because you have to use Gro.

[Ben Carlson]

It doesn't, it doesn't block Gro. So I want a grock. And Gro works.

[Michael Batnik]

Interesting. Yeah, that makes sense. Barriers to entry are going to make

[Ben Carlson]

it harder in a lot of ways. All right, let's just do some survey stuff real quick. Index. So University of Michigan consumer sentiment hit an all time low. And look at Covid. Covid broke everything.

[Michael Batnik]

Yep.

[Ben Carlson]

Forever. Forever and ever. It just broke everything. The response rates, it didn't break that. That was in secular decline. But nobody responds to these surveys anymore.

[Michael Batnik]

And crazy that it used to be 90% response rate.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. And not long ago in 2013. Now, on the flip side of consumer sentiment, or consumer survey sentiment, I should say, to be precise, Zakari shared a chart of bank of America total credit card and total credit and debit card spending per household. It rose 4.3% year over year, marking the strongest growth since early 2023. Now, is some of this gas prices. Yeah. Probably not a small amount of this and maybe, you know, fueling the frustration, but people are still spending.

[Michael Batnik]

I was thinking about this in terms of the sentiment readings being so bad and the watch what they do, not what they say. So the, the number is something like 60 to 65% of all households own stocks. Right. By that metric alone, people have some optimism about the future, regardless of what they say about the economy. What's going to happen? Going like. So that's the disconnect between these surveys. If people still hold stocks, they're optimistic about the future. That's my, that's my read and the sentiment service. Right.

[Ben Carlson]

That's a good point. Like you ask somebody like, are you optimistic? No. How much stocks do you own? It's like a complete, like.

[Michael Batnik]

Well then, yeah, exactly. All right, good email. About the millionaire thing. We talk about a million is the worst, worst amount of money last week for those of us in decent paying jobs, but not elite jobs, maybe we have a great year at work, but then they throw us an extra $3,000 bonus or something. But if the market has a great year, someone with a million dollars could see $250,000 gains more than their salary. So you don't have enough money to retire, but you're still at a point where your investments matter more than your labor. It's just a different mindset is all. And maybe it's also more common than it used to be with prior generations. You worked to some specific date and collected a pension. That's a fair point. But I think that also just shows how important the markets are to people. Right. Like if, if, if you can make that much money in the markets by compounding and saving and investing, like that's why you save and invest, because the payout is much better. That's like a good thing for it. You don't want to touch that money. All right. One more thing we talked about last week, we talked about, I said I saw these old people in Florida. They were kind of crouched over and got a lot of response from people about like, you know, you're right. That's a big mindset. Change is like health is wealth, right? Like you enjoy While you can. So this guy, Dan Hallett, someone sent us, a bunch of people sent us this, this substack. It says in the UK a 60 year old man can expect to live on average around 84, a 60 year old woman to around 87. Those are the headline numbers, the ones that make retirement planning calculators that have you prepare for 25 to 30 years. But those numbers don't tell you that most of those later years aren't healthy years. He says the data shows from someone who's 60 today, you're looking at roughly 12 to 15 more years before health limitations start to intrude in meaningful ways. So his number, his baseline is you have 12 good years in retirement. If you retire at 60 before your health starts to potentially make it harder for you, you don't want to travel anymore, you don't want to sit on a plane, you don't want to go for those walks on a tour or something. And again, these are average numbers. Obviously. My parents are both, my dad is turning 80 soon. He looks like he's still like 50.

[Ben Carlson]

He looks great.

[Michael Batnik]

He still goes on walks all the time. And my parents are both in good health. But this, for the averages, I think this is probably not a bad way to look at it. You want to front load your spending in retirement because that's when you can enjoy it.

[Ben Carlson]

The counterpoint is, and I agree with you, the legitimate counterpoint is like senior living facilities that you're going to want.

[Michael Batnik]

Expensive, A fortune. Yeah. Oh yeah. I remember my grandmother, when she moved into one in her 90s, it basically sucked up all of her savings. It was gone.

[Ben Carlson]

Right. And yeah, so there's like obviously levels, there's tiers. So my grandfather, Sergeant Batnik, rest in peace, died in one of the shitty ones. And it was horrible. It was the most depressing place in the world.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, not fun places ago. Alternatively, at that point, the kids can take care of you, right?

[Ben Carlson]

What do you mean?

[Michael Batnik]

Sorry, sorry kids. You're paying for my senior living. I paid for your whole life. You pick up the tab. Now

[Ben Carlson]

assuming that your kids have the money, it's like, it's, you know, it's like 100 grand a year.

[Michael Batnik]

By the time we're, by the time we're that age though, we're gonna have robots take care of us. We're not gonna have to go in a senior living center, we're have two robots taking care of us.

[Ben Carlson]

I want to die with a human by my side.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, but couldn't like if you wanted to, could you? Tell the robot to kill you or think there's gonna be an on off switch. Like, hey, I'm done.

[Ben Carlson]

Strangle me, Ben. Box office is up 26% year over year. Scott Mendelssohn at Puck wrote article is a family friendly box office revival. For real. There are 26 PG rated movies slated for wide release this year, up from 18 to 2024. This year we had Hoppers, Mario Goat, Hail Mary. Like there's a lot of.

[Michael Batnik]

Lot of winners. Family stuff is carrying this year.

[Ben Carlson]

Lot of winners. So he said studios tend to suffer when they default to legacy IP Tron sequel, Springsteen biopics, the Snow White remake, by the way. I think that is done. I hope. I know there's still like a lot of garbage that's like, you know, we're still working our way through. Like, there's another Mortal Kombat coming out, by the way, Master of the universe. I don't know if I said this last week. The he man looks horrendous.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, they're already doing a live action moana, which looks terrible.

[Ben Carlson]

I know, but. But, yeah, but that was like, in the hopper, like that. They didn't, you know, snap their fingers. They made that two years ago. I think that there's like a. Hopefully, like a sea change in terms of studios being wise to, like, giving the audience what they want. And they don't.

[Michael Batnik]

I hope so.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. This made me laugh.

[Michael Batnik]

Fun roller coaster, though.

[Ben Carlson]

Great roller coaster. This made me laugh. In Texas or the south in general, we'll say soda sometimes, but never pop never. Usually we say Coke as an all inclusive name, which can lead to conversations that go like this. Me driving. Hey, you want to pull over and get a Coke at the next town. Wife. Sure, what do you want? Wife do die. Dr. Pepper.

[Michael Batnik]

That one doesn't make sense to me. That's why. That's why I say pop. Yes. The coke thing, that. That's a southern thing, right? They call everything coke.

[Ben Carlson]

All right, Ben, some recommendations. I listened to a book about Spielberg, Coppola. So really, Coppola was the guy. And then Spielberg and Lucas. And the book was called.

[Michael Batnik]

Wasn't like the Three Kings or something like that?

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, something like that. Is that what it was called? Three Kings?

[Michael Batnik]

I don't know.

[Ben Carlson]

That does sound familiar. Whatever. It doesn't matter. Well, actually, it doesn't matter what it's called. In case somebody wants to read it. The Last Kings of Hollywood.

[Michael Batnik]

Ah, there you go.

[Ben Carlson]

And there were some really. You know how I love this stuff. Like the. The could have beens for movies.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So check this out. First of all, Star wars was a joke at the time to the point where, like, Harrison Ford was an architect. Was not an architect. That's being very generous. He was like a carpenter. He was like Brad Pitt and Once upon a Time in Hollywood.

[Michael Batnik]

Right.

[Ben Carlson]

You know what I mean? Like the handsome guy with a shirt off, like, doing like, you know, fixing houses and stuff, building fences and whatever. Harrison Ford and the cast on Star wars, like the original one, were like laughing and mocking him because he had no idea what he was doing. They, they, they didn't. Obviously, when you're making a movie, you don't know what the final screen is going to look like. So it was just a complete debacle of a production. They wanted Han Solo to be played by Alucino.

[Michael Batnik]

That would have been weird.

[Ben Carlson]

Could you imagine? Here's another very, very weird one. They wanted Christopher Walken from the Mark Hamill role.

[Michael Batnik]

That would have improved the movie. My. My one Star wars take is that Mark Hamill is awful. He ruins the movie.

[Ben Carlson]

He was terrible. This is widely known. I knew this. Tom Selleck was cast as Indiana Jones, but then he had to do. What was that? The. What was the Tom Squ. In the. In the 70s, 80s, I guess.

[Michael Batnik]

Magnum P.I.

[Ben Carlson]

yeah, that one. He. He was in contradicting Magnum P.I. good. Paul last an I thought was interesting. Harvey Keitel, he played the Martin Sheen character in my brain really is breaking in Apocalypse Now. They shot him for a month and Copa was like this. This isn't working.

[Michael Batnik]

I feel like you would read a whole book about this. Like it could have been cast in a movie and didn't.

[Ben Carlson]

It's great. Well, this. The. The movie about the book about creative artists had a lot of this stuff.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, that's what I mean.

[Ben Carlson]

The craziest one was Belushi and Carvey in Bad Boys.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah, I did listen to that book.

[Ben Carlson]

I don't think that would have worked. All right, DTF St. Louis ended. Gotta I. I love that show. That was freaking awesome.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay, I gotta pick stuff back up because I. I essentially unplugged for a whole week. We didn't watch any shows. The only thing I watched was college basketball. A little bit. Final Four and spring Break. We unplugged. I didn't watch any shows. I don't watch any movies. I only read, like, beach books. I didn't really. The only thing I watched was that crime 101 that you recommended or not recommended, but you said you didn't like it. I was really Bummed out when I turned it on, it was two hours and 20 minutes. Like, no action crime movie should be that long.

[Ben Carlson]

Did you finish it?

[Michael Batnik]

I'm almost there. It's just. It's trying to be Heat, and even Heat was probably too long.

[Ben Carlson]

It's just not. It's just not that good. Right. Like, at all.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Try to. I don't know. It's just too much. So. So you think I. So I'm. I don't know. I'm three episodes into the DTF show. Keep going with it. It ends well.

[Ben Carlson]

It's only seven. I loved it. It's just the quality of HBO that we've all come to know and love.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah.

[Ben Carlson]

It's unmatched.

[Michael Batnik]

I will say, screw this up. Paramount.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah. Somebody. Somebody recommended recently to finish or to jump Back into Paradise Season 2. Because I was sort of like, eh. So I. I am. I'm halfway through it. And I will say, credit to Hulu. Like, it's. It's not HBO at all, but, like, it's pretty good.

[Michael Batnik]

And it's a totally different show in season two. It's completely different.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, did you finish it?

[Michael Batnik]

No, we watched a few episodes, but it's good. It's a show.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah, it is good.

[Michael Batnik]

I'm. I'm surprised. It's better than I thought it'd be.

[Ben Carlson]

All right. I forgot to mention a few weeks back that I watched Bone Temple. Holy. Was that movie awesome.

[Michael Batnik]

Okay.

[Ben Carlson]

Like, it. Obviously it's not. It's not a. It's not a U movie, but, like, those movies have no business being as

[Michael Batnik]

good as they are better than the 28 years later or not. Because the ending of that was just hilariously bad, so.

[Ben Carlson]

Oh, you thought so you don't remember

[Michael Batnik]

the ending of that movie? It was just very weird.

[Ben Carlson]

Like, the. The. The literal last scene where there was wild boys came on.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

So that was the. That was how. That was how this. This one followed those crazy guys. So it was just. It was just. Yeah, it was. It was awesome. Very gnarly and grizzly and extremely violent. It was. It was great. Lastly, this is a bummer of a way to end it, but attend the episode. But I saw a tweet. The most dangerous year of a man's life is the one right after he finally gets what he wanted. And in the book. In the Spielberg Coppola book, each of them were, like, pretty depressed after. After Jaws and Star wars and Godfather.

[Michael Batnik]

I can see that. Because it's like, I've climbed the mountain now what?

[Ben Carlson]

Right.

[Michael Batnik]

I'VE I've the peak of my professional now.

[Ben Carlson]

So life is. So life is, I guess it's always, you know, growth and. And once you get what you want, there's like an obvious chemical letdown.

[Michael Batnik]

Well, in your money, in your brain. Jason Zweig says that the anticipation is a.

[Ben Carlson]

Your.

[Michael Batnik]

Everything's firing off in your brain. And then when you get it, it's like a. You're nothing in your brain. Nothing hits anymore. Like, you get it and you go, oh, there's like. There's no, like, relief. There's no h. It's just, oh, I got what I wanted. Of course, I did move on.

[Ben Carlson]

Same thing with vacations. I mean, obviously, vacations are great, but it's at least as much fun. Looking forward to it.

[Michael Batnik]

Yes.

[Ben Carlson]

Than getting what you want. So that's it. That's one of the, you know, one of the tragedies of being human being. I suppose getting what you want is not as. As good as a should be.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. You got to move on to something else.

[Ben Carlson]

Yeah.

[Michael Batnik]

All right.

[Ben Carlson]

Okay. Nope.

[Michael Batnik]

No.

[Ben Carlson]

That's it.

[Michael Batnik]

No. Give me a stock market check real quick. Stocks are up.

[Ben Carlson]

Everybody back in the boat more than.

[Michael Batnik]

Yeah. Nasdaq's up more than a percent. Gold is up again.

[Ben Carlson]

Everybody back in the boat are not far away.

[Michael Batnik]

All right, but let's be honest. Something's gonna happen to my. And then it'll reverse, and then something happened the next day, and that'll go reverse again and double reverse.

[Ben Carlson]

And so we're never out of the woods. We're always in the woods. It's. It's fun. The stock market is fun. Okay. Animal spirits@the compoundnews.com hiring ritholswealth.com we want to hear from you if you are interested in joining the tax team. Hope everybody is enjoying life. We'll see you next time. Okay?