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Wall Street Veteran Reveals: The $1T Debt Crisis You Can't Ignore | Ross Mandell DSH #982
00:37:39
Wall Street veteran Ross Mandell reveals the shocking $1T debt crisis that's about to impact every American. From his days as a power player in the 1980s Wall Street boom to his current role as a financial educator, Ross shares explosive insights...
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- [00:01]
A
Coming up in the 80s on Wall street it was like a big thing. What was so crazy about the 80s? Prior to about 1980, you couldn't cold call, you couldn't sell securities over the telephone. So all of a sudden a bunch of very aggressive young guys, you know what, I don't want to wait for clients to walk in. They came up with this whole plan. They went to the ftc, the Federal Trade Commission. And all of a sudden Wall street was introduced to Main Street.
- [00:28]
B
All right, guys, got a legend here today. Ross Mandel. What a crazy first time meeting. You knew the previous guest's father.
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A
Isn't that crazy?
- [00:35]
B
Small world.
- [00:36]
A
It's a small world. It's a shock. She was a very good looking woman. I just thought she was somebody else. And I wanted to say hey. And she says, annabella Rockwell, a shout out to Thorson Rockwell worked for me in the stock market years ago. So that's pretty cool.
- [00:52]
B
Yeah. You said you've employed over 100,000 people?
- [00:54]
A
Well, well, I wouldn't say 100,000 people. Thousands and thousands. Yes, thousands of thousands of stockbrokers I worked with or they worked for me or we worked together and all that stuff.
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B
Wow.
- [01:04]
A
Yeah. Coming up in the 80s on Wall street, it was like a big thing. And people say, why? What was so crazy about the 80s? Well, you know, prior to about 1980, you couldn't cold call something that everybody's so used to the phone ringing, hanging up on people, you know, telemarketing, all that. But prior to the 80s, you couldn't sell securities over the telephone. So all of a sudden a bunch of very aggressive young guys, Sidney and Lehman Brothers on 55 Waters said, you know what, I don't want to wait for clients to walk in. They came up with this whole plan. They went to the ftc, the Federal Trade Commission, and they got permission and approvals through corporate, through their firm and all that to Cold Call Securities, Telemarket Securities. And all of a sudden Wall street was introduced to Main street for the first time in history. And you know, it's created a whole bunch of growth. And that's why when they talk about the bull market of the 80s, this is what blew it up. Because prior to that, you know, you had to be a wealthy guy or an institution and you would make an appointment to see your financial advisor and you come down to Lower Manhattan or Chicago or, or la, and you'd go up into this ivory tower and you'd sit down, you make an appointment and you lay out all your stuff. All of a sudden you got a bunch of very young hungry guys calling you in your house, calling you in your business, calling you, you know, everywhere.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so that's how, what's, what really caused the markets to blow up. So when I started the business, the Dow Jones was at about a thousand, geez, twelve hundred. Okay. It took four or five years just to get to two thousand. That was a huge, huge deal today. The market went down over a thousand points today. Talk about inflation. What? I mean that's a crazy story if you think about it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know, it's come full circle. I mean all of a sudden I used to be the young, crazy, the crazy young wild stockbroker. And then all of a sudden now I'm like the old stockbroker. I'm the old man, I'm the O.G. you know, I'm. Yeah, of course I'm not in the business anymore, but very close to the markets and created a, a curriculum called the Wealth Formula. Because over the course of my life, people have been coming to me, you know, Mr. Mandel Ross. I've been training people on Wall Street. I've been training some of the most alpha of alpha males on Wall Street. And then, you know, I went to prison. And when I was in prison, I was teaching the stock market the wealth formula. How to turn an idea, a product or service into a business. How to go from zero to a million dollar business. You know, not everybody went to Rutgers, not everybody went to University of Maryland. Not everybody has a Wharton, Stanford mba.
- [03:55]
B
Yep.
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A
And kids don't know. I mean I was in a place where kids never had got kids, 30 year old people never had a checking account, never filed a tax return. And all of a sudden they know these are not just not stupid people. They just grew up in a bad neighborhood, they had no guidance, the streets were all, they knew the neighborhood, etc. And you know, they had no nurturing, no parenting. And so they were sort of off the reservation if you will. And they will come to me and they say, Mr. Mandel, I got a great idea. You know, my wife, my girlfriend, my cousin, my aunt has this, has that. How do we turn that into a business? And like, well, do you know how to incorporate? They're like, what's that? I mean, so I created a sort of a one stop shop program. It's called the Wealth Formula. You can go to RossMandel.com, 2S is 2L's and it actually goes on sale. My partner is Bradley in Nevada. Lightspeed VT one of the best companies, if not the leading company in this genre anywhere. And we're launching the wealth formula with 108 page text with about 250 hyperlinks that shows you where the source material comes from. And then 13 modules of video of beautifully produced video. That's very entertaining. That helps walk you through the actual text because we all know text can be a little boring.
- [05:25]
B
Yeah.
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A
And we live in a sort of a show me society and people want to see video. And so I do my best to make it entertaining, energetic, funny, and I literate with personal experiences along the way. I don't just tell you something, I tell you how I learned it and I give you an experience. You know, I give you a history lesson from what deal it was done in, all this and that. And it's really incredible, comprehensive course.
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B
Nice.
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A
Yeah. So I'm very, very excited. It goes on sale next week.
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B
That's cool. I like when you can take action right away.
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A
Yeah, you have to.
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B
I'm not a fan of the courses where they just teach you like hypothetical situations.
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A
Mine is real life. And, you know, it's. My story is very public. My story's out there. So.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And I tell stories, legit stories, how I got screwed over on Wall street and that's how I discovered X and how I did this deal. And that's where I got, you know, got to Y. And so it makes it a lot more relatable. You know, you're looking at a guy like me. I'm a plain speaking fellow, you know, I'm not highfalutin. I'm not a Rockwell just playing and. And people can relate to me because I keep it simple.
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B
Right. And you had humble beginnings too.
- [06:40]
A
I had very humble beginnings. I really did, you know, When I was 16, I grew up in a middle class family, middle class neighborhood. And we were living the American dream. We had everything we thought. And then my father passed away suddenly. He just died of a heart attack. 16 years old. I was 16 years old. He was 48. My mother was 39. And I woke up a day later and found out that everything we owned was mortgaged, borrowed or leased.
- [07:09]
B
Damn.
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A
The American dream, bro. We own nothing and we're just living, you know, they were just grinding my parents to pay for a better life for their kids. Can you relate to that? Anybody out there? And I became very angry and very bitter. I just sort of kind of went nuts. I was like the kind of kid you stayed away from. I went from being a great kid on a wrestling team, the Football team, team a straight A student. And I went sort of crazy.
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B
Wow.
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A
And I was very angry. I was angry at God and I was angry at circumstances and I just acted out. I just said screw it. If you could just drop dead like that, what the hell am I, you know, toeing the line for? I drank, I smoked, I took pills, I had random wild sex with strangers and I just went nuts really. And. And luckily I had been such a good kid and such a good student. I got into all these colleges early. So right away they pushed me through and I was in school and I hooked up with a very aggressive crowd. You know how it is in school, right? You find like minded people. So I would all the kids that like to do drugs and party and hang out and run around with women, we all found each other somehow and we had this crazy great time in college. But when we got out, which, you know, I actually graduated early, which is a crazy story. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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B
Because you were still doing good in school.
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A
Well, here's the thing. I didn't. But like we figured out a way to finagle our way through and because I was a reader on my wife and I love to read and I'm very book smart that way and so I was able to get through school. In fact, they guys used to skill steal exams, you know, before the test and bring them to me and I fill in the answers for them. Wow, I'm good like that. And I used to be at least and I got out early and they put me in a family business. I was selling ladies handbags and I became, we found out I became a pretty. I was a pretty good salesman. I happen to love people I love. I'm chatty and I'm a guy's guy. I love women and women found me cute and we're doing great. But you know, I was with a bunch of very aggressive young kids in college and back in 1982, they found Wall Street. We used to go to the clubs in Manhattan and we'd see these guys. Everybody's waiting. Outline at Studio 54. There'll be thousands of people on 54th Street. Outline don't let people in. And we'd watch all these celebrities going in. But there were some guys pull up in Ferraris and limousines, you know, and Bentleys, Lamborghini, you know, you name it. And they always had the hottest women. And they come out and they toss the keys to some valet kid and they go. The ropes would open, thousands of people waiting and they would go right in.
- [10:09]
B
Wow.
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A
And they would be sitting at the best tables in the best section in the clubs. And, you know, I'm an aggressive type of kid, usually stoned. And I would just go up to these guys and I would be like, excuse me. You know, you're like a really cool guy and you're with the best looking woman and you got a great car and you're sitting at the best table. Can I ask you, what do you do? And you know, men generally like to talk about themselves.
- [10:37]
B
That's true.
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A
You know, that's why you got me here. That's why he's got the number one podcast in America, this kid.
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B
I have on a lot of guys that like to talk about themselves.
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A
What. And women. And woman people generally like to chat about themselves, you know. You know, when someone asks me about myself, I get to talk about myself. It's on my own favorite subject.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know what I mean? So guys would say, yeah, I'm a trader or I'm a stockbroker, or I'm an investment banker. I'm an Arbitra. Be like, what's that? Well, we take advantage of economic dislocations. I'm like, I don't know what that means, but like, sign. Where do I sign up? So in 1983, I went down to Wall street and I, I got, I, like everything else in my life, I finagled my way in and got into. Because I was still using and drinking heavily. And I, I got, I. I got into the E.F. hutton training program. And at that time, there were like three training programs that were like legit heads, heads and shoulders above everything else. There was Merrill inch, there was E.F. hutton, and there was Dean Witter. And everything else was like just sort of a lower level way of trying to get it to the markets. It was much more difficult. And, you know, when you are addicted to drugs, addicted to alcohol, addicted to that life, it's expensive, Sean. It is not cheap to be in Manhattan living it up, you know, spending money, going out every night, drinking, drugging. And so I needed money. So I learned how to sell stocks and do investments, so to speak, over the phone. And I became like, sort of a stud, a celebrity at that. And it didn't matter how difficult the situation was. On a day like today, most financial guys are hiding from their phone. You know, when Mrs. Winthrop calls, they're like, tell her I can. I'll call her back in the meeting. People get nervous, anxious, shy. I'm telling you to spend all your money on X and all of a Sudden X is down 20% and you're like, what? And I was never afraid to speak to people in the worst of times. And I always made my fortunes in the worst of times. And I can tell you this, today we are heading into the worst of times. Wow, this country is fucked. And I love this country.
- [13:09]
B
What if Trump wins?
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A
Trump is a hope we have. Trump is a business guy, he's a smart guy. I lived in Trump Towers, I lived in Trump World Tower for six years. I did, did a couple of deals with Donald Trump and a lot of people have an opinion of him. They don't. They never met him, they never spoke to him and they never did a deal with him. Well, I lived in one of his buildings and I did two deals with him. And I could say one thing, he's a tough guy, but he's honest. He's a straight shooter and he lives up to his word. And, and I bought two apartments from him and sold and lived in a building and it was the best experience that you could have. I wrote a book called Rock Solid, also available on my website, the ebook Rock Solid by Ross Mandel, RossMandel.com and I say for any of you that think that money can't buy happiness, you never lived in a Donald Trump building because that was the bomb, bro. I had a beautiful 2,200 square foot apartment, floor to ceiling, 10 foot glass windows, eastern exposure, southern exposure and western exposure, corner apartment magnificent, all glass, you know, smoked out glass, 90 story building. And I actually lived in most of the time in Florida or London, but I kept an apartment in the city and myself and my family loved it and felt. In fact, my oldest daughter learned how to swim down in the swimming pool in Trump Tower.
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B
Nice.
- [14:37]
A
Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful.
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B
That's cool. Yeah. He could probably prolong it a bit, but I think the economy is pretty.
- [14:42]
A
Well, look at the country. Imagine, imagine this country with 35 trillion in debt. The interest just to carry that debt is a trillion dollars a year. That's more than our entire defense budget, which is the biggest line item in our upper. We're suffering from terrible inflation right now. The inflation rate is slowing, but the prices are huge. We're struggling with an energy situation, job problems with jobs. There was the open border, inner cities laden with crime. Right now, all my friends left New York City. Wow, it's so bad there, it's so dangerous.
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B
Damn.
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A
Friends that have been living there that said, I'll never leave, they all left. Companies moving out, Chicago, Louisiana, New York cities are a wreck. If Trump wins, there's a chance we can write this ship. But in order for the ship to right, the markets have to correct themselves. The markets, the free market is a self correcting mechanism. It'll go up, it'll go down. There are certain economic principles and psychological principles that apply to it. I think that if Trump wins, it's going to be very good for corporate America and very good for America, especially economically. But there's going to be a lot of cultural issues. You know, the Democrats are not going to go quietly into that good night. You're going to have riots and all these different things and there's going to be a lot of, a lot of upset liberals, et cetera. And I'm not political. And if Kamala Harris wins, I don't know what's going to happen. But I can tell you we're still a trillion dollars. We owe a trillion dollars in debt. And that's, that's before we paid off a penny of principal Crazy. And we're still borrowing. We're borrowing every day. So Japan's market crashed 12 and a half percent last night. The bank of Japan dumped 24 trillion dollars. United States Treasuries. How long before China and Russia do the same? You know, there's a big movement now internationally to remove the dollar as the reserve currency. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. And you know, Trump is so smart. He comes out and he says, bitcoin crypto. He sees that there's no other way. The dollar's gone, it's toast. The BRICS countries, the BRICS alliance is bigger than the Western alliance now. Brazil, Russia, India, South Africa, I mean, you're talking about. They're bigger than we are from a GNP standpoint. We have really. If this country is the corporation of the United States, gross mismanagement. Everybody would be, all of Washington be fired. I mean, let's just keep giving the Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars while we're in debt for a war that can never be won. Does that make any sense to anybody? You know, not to me. It's all political. Everybody's getting kickbacks and all kinds of crazy shit's going on there. And I'm not a political guy, but whoever wins, the market is going to, has got to go down. And I would say roughly and a half.
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B
Damn. It's already pretty low right now.
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A
Well, it's down a few thousand points. This is nothing, bro.
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B
Really.
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A
In 1987, I was sitting on Wall Street, I had $100 million of managing. And the Dow Jones goes down 25% in one day.
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B
Damn.
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A
And that's just the 30 most important biggest companies in our world went down 25% in one day. That's the equivalent of today. It went down 10. If it goes down 10,000 points, we only went down 1,000 points. But what you don't hear about that day, the rest of the market, the rest of the stocks went down 40, 60, 80, 100% in one day.
- [18:33]
B
Geez.
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A
Yeah, it was just bad, bro. And it's gonna be, it's gonna be. It's gonna be rough going for this country. And for most, most businesses. My man is in the right business, and I'm going into the media business. Raw Media is a company that is being developed right now in conjunction with some really smart guys and Bradley and in Nevada. And I'm talking to your boy Justin as well.
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B
Justin Waller.
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A
Your boy Justin Waller.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Yeah. And it's. This is the new media. People don't watch cbs, abc, NBC anymore. Most people don't buy televisions anymore.
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B
Most young people, only smart TVs.
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A
Right. And my kids, my kids watch TV on their phones. They watch Netflix and watch, know, Hulu and, you know, that sort of thing. And so there's been a, there's been a change because when we say the media business, my generation, people in the marketplace, they look at the traditional media and that's already gone. You're getting more eyeballs than almost 90% of any TV scheduled show.
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B
Yep.
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A
But yet you're not making that money.
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B
No.
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A
You're not charging advertising.
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B
I am, but it's, it's not enough. Yeah.
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A
Well, you're not charging the advertising that someone on, on the major networks, charging. That has a fraction of your eyeballs.
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B
Yeah. You see Mr. Beast dealing with this too.
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A
Correct. So now if you put together a few guys like yourself, like Brad, like. Mr. You know, the boys, as a group, you've got your, you got your own network. There's a media company. It just has to be positioned. It's got to be tweaked. There's got to be an architect, there's got to be a little financial engineering, but that's it. The hard work's done. The hard work's done. It's an unbelievable thing.
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B
It's a good model. Yeah. Patrick by. David's doing it.
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A
Correct.
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B
Ben Shapiro.
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A
Correct. They see it. They see it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Patrick. But David, very smart guy.
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B
Very.
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A
Yeah, he sees it.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And so. And there's power in that. There's power in the eyeballs Absolutely.
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B
So you're fully out of stocks right now?
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A
I have fully out of stocks right now.
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B
Wow.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So you're not taking this loss that everyone else is dealing?
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A
I'm very happy right now.
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B
Any crypto?
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A
Depends who's asking.
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B
Ah, smart answer. I got wrecked this week.
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A
I'm sure you did, dude. Yeah.
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B
Holy crap.
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A
I'm sure you have.
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B
But crypto is pretty volatile, so. I've seen this before.
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A
It is, it's a great, I think it's a great opportunity to buy Bitcoin. It's a great entry point for Ethereum. Really? Like Ethereum long term.
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B
That's my biggest bag.
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A
Yeah, that's the way to go. And if bitcoin gets a little cheaper, I think it becomes more exploitable. You know, the, the big boys are in him now.
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B
Yeah, yeah. The ETFs. Right.
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A
Blackstone, Vanguard, Fidelity. You know, these are, these are, this is like my generation.
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B
You think that's good or bad because you were dealing with these guys years ago?
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A
I think that it's, it's a very good thing.
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B
Okay.
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A
It means that there's, it's not going to take as long for them to come back. They're not going to ever get as beat up. They'll get beat up. But you know, you have that underlying support. You know, these, these boys control trillions and trillions of dollars. So when they put some capital to work, there's a, there's a underlying layer of support. You know, prior to them coming in, something like Bitcoin could go down to 3,000 a coin. It could go back down.
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B
Wow.
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A
If they weren't in. But see, I know these, these guys are greedy. They'll never let it go that low because they're in their vested. Now, you understand there's an underlying level of support because you know, they have more money than most countries do.
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B
Right. So they would do that with stocks.
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A
They do that with stocks. They're gonna have to backstop the market. Sure. But they're also gonna buy. You know, I've made the majority of my capital in the worst of times. You know, with. Times are good. We tend to whatever our income is. You know, when you're a kid, you know, and you're struggling in business, you make it 3,5000amonth. You know, you spend it, you know, you save a little bit, but you spend it. And then all of a sudden, you know, you do great. You know, you're making 10, 20,000amonth. You know, you get a better car, pay more insurance, you get a Better apartment, you spend more money on rent, you take your girl off for better dinners, you go on better vacations. Before you know it, you're spending your income the way real wealth is. Is, is created or constituted, is from earning chunks of equity. Like, I hate to say, but the majority of people in this country have little or no net worth. Basically, they moved in a home, they lived there 30 or 40 years. They bought it for like 30,000 and now it's worth a million three. And when they sell it and they get their condo in, in Florida, they just became millionaires. They have a million dollars. That's how the majority of, you know, sort of my generation have done it. Right, Your generation is much more clever with crypto and just sort of cool stuff that a lot of people don't really understand.
- [23:37]
B
Internet money, they call it.
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A
Yeah, I love that. See, I don't even know that expression.
- [23:42]
B
Wi Fi money.
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A
Wi fi. I love that. I love it. And it's, it's, it's, it's relevant. I mean, it's, it's the real thing. I have a very open mind and open eye to all these. You know, I think that great vision is had by the youth. The up and coming guy. Not the regular youth, the regular regular youth. A bunch of young stupid kids. But look at the guy. Like you look at Justin, you know, your kids in Rutgers, and look what you made of yourselves. You had a vision and you worked hard and you stuck at it. And, you know, there's something special about you. And I watch guys like you, guys like him, and I watch his whole podcast movement grow. I mean, you know, there were people that didn't believe the Internet was going to be around.
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B
Right.
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A
How crazy. I mean, it takes a minute for, for it. For an establishment to become fully accepting. They still haven't accepted digital currency or cryptocurrency. No, but that's, that's coming. So smart, smarter older people would starting to buy some, you know, It's a very, very interesting proposition.
- [24:46]
B
Yeah, it took podcasts years. Rogan was doing it for like five years before people really started making them.
- [24:51]
A
He was. And, you know, it's. It just so. It makes such sense. It makes sense. I record your podcast. You know, I go to YouTube. I watch when I want, you know, no, no interruptions. I can stop it and start it. Come back in an hour. I could see who are your guests. To see who's intriguing to me or who's interesting. I mean, it's amazing.
- [25:14]
B
Yeah. It doesn't feel forced. Sponsors love it. I know shows where my friends will go on. They'll make 100k in a day.
- [25:19]
A
Yep. Yep.
- [25:21]
B
Just happened to my friend the other day.
- [25:22]
A
Really?
- [25:22]
B
They go on the right podcast, offer the right product. Boom. 100 grand in an hour.
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A
I get it 100%.
- [25:28]
B
Yeah. These lives are like insane. I mean, Trump just did a live. Did you see it?
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A
I heard about it and see it.
- [25:33]
B
So 2 million viewers with Aiden Ross. He's streamer.
- [25:35]
A
How crazy.
- [25:36]
B
If they promoted a product or a donation link even would have done $10 million just like that, easily.
- [25:42]
A
Yeah. So the lives are really where it's at, right?
- [25:44]
B
Yeah. The lives, podcasting, I think that's the future.
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A
But I think you need to be. You need to see. This is my take because I've been looking at the industry. You need to offer a product. So I'm in the. I'm an educator now.
- [25:57]
B
Yeah.
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A
This was something that I wanted to do. I mean, some magazine just wrote a story about me.
- [26:02]
B
Oh, yeah. Good or bad?
- [26:04]
A
It turned out it was the best story anybody's ever written on me.
- [26:06]
B
Really.
- [26:07]
A
And I had no idea it was going to be like that. Yeah. Called simply the best magazine. And it's a. It's a Florida magazine. They have a hundred thousand people that subscribe to this.
- [26:15]
B
Wow.
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A
And it says that a former Wolf of Wall street has turned. Turned educator. And that's what I'm doing. I want to educate, I want to share. I'm in a situation now where my experience and my resume allow me this opportunity. It's not like I'm forcing it. I'm not, like, faking it. You know, I think one of your guys over there in your production crew said no, you were really an og. I am. You know, I. I was. I was famous. I was on the front page of newspapers long before social media and the Internet.
- [26:47]
B
Wow.
- [26:48]
A
You know, most guys in this sort of business we're in now, before 2015 or 2010, try seeing what they've done. They'd never really done anything. I mean, I was already. I was in Forbes magazine, you know, front page, Wall street journal. Front page, 100 different newspapers. Good stuff, bad stuff. You know, like I always say, good, bad and ugly. But I was a big name, and I was accomplishing great things. I was the first American to take a regulated company public, a regular American business public, on the London Stock Exchange, that stock exchange 100 years older than the New York Stock Exchange. And I did it twice before anybody else did it once.
- [27:27]
B
Wow.
- [27:28]
A
Yeah.
- [27:28]
B
Well done.
- [27:29]
A
Yeah. And I created that footprint that blueprint, I actually did something. I'm not famous because I'm big on social media. There was no social media. I was making millions and moving markets and had thousands of people working for me and getting in all kinds of trouble and raising all kinds of hell.
- [27:48]
B
I love it.
- [27:49]
A
What I mean, so it's real. I'm real. I always say, you know, you put me on camera, people say, who the hell is this old guy? Big mouth. But when they look at me, when they Google me, they say, whoa, this guy's OG is real. And so there are things that I can teach even guys like you, smart guys like you, and people that are maybe not as smart as you and not as fortunate as you. And so I become an educator. And that's sort of my hook, because that enables a company that I create the opportunity to create revenue, profitable earnings. Now, once you have a company that's making 5 million a year, 10 million a year, 20 million a year, 40 million a year, you know, Brad has companies under lightspeed that make 5,6 million a month. And I expect to be at that level soon enough. And so now that gives you the. It gives you the leverage and it gives you the ability to pivot. You can go left and go right. There are different opportunities. Again, this is, again, an advantage that I have in. I have founded, funded, and floated, taken public over 100 companies.
- [29:05]
B
Dang.
- [29:06]
A
There's not a handful of people in the world that can say that you.
- [29:09]
B
Might be the number one.
- [29:11]
A
I'm right up there. I'm right up there. But I'm also, you know, doing it since 1983.
- [29:15]
B
Yeah, Chamath might be up there too.
- [29:17]
A
Oh, there's a few. There's a few guys, but, you know, most of those guys are not going to talk about it.
- [29:21]
B
No, he did it through SPACs too.
- [29:22]
A
Yeah, listen, my. My crew, the guys I grew up with in the business, we created SPACs.
- [29:28]
B
Oh. Yeah.
- [29:29]
A
We were doing SPACs in the 80s.
- [29:30]
B
Wow.
- [29:31]
A
And the SEC shut us down.
- [29:32]
B
I didn't know it was around back then.
- [29:34]
A
Nobody did, because they said, this is criminal. This is illegal. You guys are out of control. And then 30 years later, everybody's doing it.
- [29:40]
B
Wow.
- [29:41]
A
Right? We did the first pipe transactions, you know, private investment on public equity. That's what they prosecuted me for in London. Now this, now Today, they're doing $35 billion every month in American stock exchanges.
- [29:58]
B
Holy cow.
- [29:58]
A
They prosecuted me for bringing that to London.
- [30:01]
B
You're like the weed dealer. Before weed was legal.
- [30:03]
A
Thank you. Thank you. I actually did Time with guys that were in jail for 20 years for some pot.
- [30:09]
B
That's crazy to me.
- [30:10]
A
And they tell the story that now right in the neighborhood where they doing time. They. They said the crime was committed. Getting. They were prosecuted and jailed for. There's dispensaries all over. It's legal.
- [30:23]
B
Not.
- [30:24]
A
And they're in federal prison.
- [30:26]
B
Still wrong time.
- [30:27]
A
And it's still a Schedule 1 drug. Like heroin, Just so you know. Right now, weed Right now, federally, what, like heroin? Methamphetamine.
- [30:34]
B
Lowered it by now.
- [30:35]
A
Et cetera. Fentanyl. They intending to. The Biden administration has threatened to, you know, reduce it, to take it down.
- [30:40]
B
That's terrible.
- [30:41]
A
It's still somewhere between. In. Somewhere in Congress. Think about that. How crazy.
- [30:47]
B
Nuts.
- [30:48]
A
This is our government that's telling us what's right and wrong and who to lend money to, that they have marijuana as a schedule class one drug all these years. Does that make any.
- [31:00]
B
Makes no sense. Look how much money Colorado's bringing in.
- [31:03]
A
Right.
- [31:03]
B
All the states where it's legal bringing in so much money to its residents.
- [31:06]
A
Right. In a country that's 35 trillion in debt and we're still jailing people for it. Paying 35,000 a year for these guys to be in jail every year.
- [31:17]
B
Terrible.
- [31:18]
A
It's terrible. Think about the broken families on welfare and all this and that. It's just. It's just the decisions that come out of this. This Washington is just. It's frightening.
- [31:28]
B
It upsets me because I pay hundreds of thousands of taxes a year and I see where it goes.
- [31:32]
A
When do you start paying millions?
- [31:34]
B
Probably next year, man.
- [31:36]
A
That's your goal, baby. That's your goal.
- [31:37]
B
That's a good problem.
- [31:38]
A
You know, I have a friend, he said, my goal. My goal is just pay 10 million a year in taxes. Why not? Probably make it 150 million at that point, right?
- [31:47]
B
Yeah. Depends if it's business or personal, but yeah.
- [31:49]
A
Yeah, Tool. You know, let's do it.
- [31:52]
B
Yeah. You've made and lost millions multiple times in your life.
- [31:55]
A
Tens of millions. Yeah, absolutely.
- [31:57]
B
Yeah.
- [31:57]
A
This is Ross 3.0.
- [31:59]
B
Wow. So this is the third time.
- [32:00]
A
This is 3.0. Yeah. This is actually, you know, it's. Yeah. This is my third real business life.
- [32:07]
B
And third time's the charm, right?
- [32:10]
A
I'm telling you, bro, this is it. This is it. I'm 67. I mean, you know, I got another five years. You know, let's do it. But you know, what the hell?
- [32:19]
B
I love how you still have this energy at 67. That's impressive.
- [32:22]
A
Oh, my God. You know, I'll be talking when I'm in my coffin, probably.
- [32:26]
B
Wow.
- [32:26]
A
Yeah. You know, it's. I love this podcast because they say, all right. I said, what do I have to do? They said, just go talk. So what do you mean? Just go talk. Be yourself. All right?
- [32:34]
B
That's why podcasts are successful. It's not fake like the news.
- [32:37]
A
It really. It's so. It's not staged. There's no agenda. Right. I don't need. You know, there was no prep. Right? No, we didn't discuss it. You didn't say, ross, I want you to do this. I just know it's a digital social hour.
- [32:47]
B
Yep.
- [32:48]
A
And it's a business podcast, essentially. Right. But, you know, you're so clever, bro.
- [32:53]
B
Thanks, man.
- [32:54]
A
You know, guys know he's six foot six.
- [32:56]
B
Yeah. People don't know that.
- [32:57]
A
And what a head of hair you got, bro.
- [32:59]
B
Yeah.
- [32:59]
A
You know, when you get older, you start noticing everybody else's hair. When I was younger, who cared, Right? When you get older every year, does that guy have. I wonder how old that guy is. Does he color his hair? I don't know. I don't see any gray hair. It's the. Funny that, you know, your. Your perceptions change what you look at and how you think. It's really, really cool, bro. Wow.
- [33:19]
B
Noted. I'll keep that in mind.
- [33:21]
A
Yeah. And you know something? So, you know, someone said to me other day, you know, aging really sucks. And, you know, I was nodding my head. But then the alternative. What is the alternative? Dying young. I don't know. It's horrible.
- [33:34]
B
Well, there's guys aging backwards now. Have you seen that?
- [33:36]
A
Yeah.
- [33:37]
B
Brian Johnson. Few people reversing it, you know, today.
- [33:40]
A
With peptides and medicines and all these therapies and, you know, you know, it's amazing, really. It's like 60s. The new 40. When I was a kid, 40 would. I was 40, like, so old, you know, 67. I would be in a home already. Instead, I have this young, hot wife and, you know, hanging out, young guys, guys like you. We're podcasting, we're making content, we're posting on social media. I'm doing selfies in Publix, you know, in house, Whole Foods, talking about the price of these eggs.
- [34:12]
B
Those are expensive, bro.
- [34:14]
A
If that. I tell you some funny story. So, you know, they have these, like, sort of, I guess, jobs at some of these supermarkets. And some of these kids are special. You know, the corporations give them jobs as package. So I'm doing a selfie about these eggs. They're organic. God forbid I bring home something that's not organic. God forbid. You know, I'm banned for the house. Dad bring it back. And then they have to be pasture raised. That's the new thing. God forbid my cow didn't get massages or had to live in a ca. You know, he had to be free to roam the countryside. Right? These cows are living better than we are. And that's half and half. Gotta go.
- [35:01]
B
Yeah, no, five minutes, we're tight.
- [35:03]
A
These eggs, I said, what are these magic hens? 1149 a dozen. They're little brown eggs, but they're organic and they're pasteurized. And so I'm complaining on the selfie. And then the guy goes, yeah, but mister, these are the best eggs. You bought the best egg.
- [35:24]
B
A tolerant egg.
- [35:25]
A
And you know, he's like, you know, some kid and he's like lecturing my audience.
- [35:29]
B
Crazy. Used to be a dollar for 12 when you were growing up. Probably.
- [35:32]
A
You have no idea.
- [35:33]
B
Now it's a dollar an egg.
- [35:34]
A
I hate being, being like these old guys that talk about, I used to be a doctor, you know, I used to buy two slices of pizza and a Coke for a dollar.
- [35:41]
B
Damn inflation.
- [35:42]
A
When I was a kid.
- [35:43]
B
This isn't sustainable, man.
- [35:45]
A
It's not sustainable. And I hate to say this, but inflation is the death of capitalism. Everyone says, who cares? I make a lot, I make more money. Inflation, Inflation equals the death of us, of our society as we know it. And I'm not going to explain that to you because that'll take a half an hour.
- [36:00]
B
Well, the average person can't out earn inflation, in my opinion.
- [36:03]
A
I agree.
- [36:04]
B
I think guys like us possibly can.
- [36:06]
A
But we can and we.
- [36:07]
B
I have, I have too, but most people, no, don't have that skill.
- [36:11]
A
Struggling people are struggling.
- [36:12]
B
If you're working a regular job, it's. You're not going to out earn it.
- [36:14]
A
Impossible. It's terrible. You know, someone said the average cost of living now in. In subsidiary is $250,000 to be middle.
- [36:22]
B
Class in San Fran, right?
- [36:24]
A
What?
- [36:24]
B
Yeah. Crazy.
- [36:25]
A
What in San Fran. People sleeping in the streets, there's needles everywhere, people getting robbed, stores are closing. I mean, that was my favorite city for many years.
- [36:34]
B
I don't even wear a watch there anymore.
- [36:36]
A
You ever go to San Fran?
- [36:37]
B
Yeah, but I don't wear any jewelry or anything.
- [36:39]
A
You can't, they'll steal you. Yeah, even if you got to be careful with your phone.
- [36:43]
B
You can't even leave a backpack in your car there. No, definitely not even if it's empty, right?
- [36:46]
A
No, no. That's like asking for trouble. Yeah, but if a six foot, six inch young dude is worried, what chances an old guy like me have.
- [36:54]
B
Crazy, man. You know, Ross, it's been fun. Where can people find you? Get your course and learn more from you, man.
- [37:00]
A
Rossmandel.com R O double S M A N-E-Double L.com I'm on Facebook. Ross Mandel. Boca Raton. Instagram. Ross h. Mandel. It's YouTube. The real Ross Mandel. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Tick tock. I mean, you know.
- [37:17]
B
Boom.
- [37:17]
A
Boom. An old guy doing on Tik Tok.
- [37:19]
B
Actually, old people get a lot Tik Tok.
- [37:22]
A
Having fun? We're having fun. We're making content. Thank you, my brother. Wealth formula hits up next week. Sign up. You will not regret it.
- [37:29]
B
Boom. Thanks for coming on, man.
- [37:30]
A
Sure. Thank you for having.
- [37:32]
B
Thanks for watching, guys. See you tomorrow.