21: Time to Bet Against America (w/ Ed Elson)

Summary

FYPod Episode 21: "Time to Bet Against America" (w/ Ed Elson) Summary

Release Date: May 3, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Co-Host: Cameron Caskey
Guest: Ed Elson

---

1. Introduction and Guest Welcome

The episode kicks off with hosts Tim Miller and Cameron Caskey warmly welcoming their special guest, Ed Elson, co-host of Prof. G Markets alongside Scott Galloway. Tim humorously comments on Ed’s attire, setting a lighthearted tone.

Notable Quote:

• Tim Miller [00:24]: "I'm Tim Miller and this is FYPod. I couldn't be more excited to have a new guest today."

---

2. Ed Elson’s Background and Prof. G Markets

Ed Elson provides an overview of his role in Prof. G Markets, a podcast focused on markets, business news, and economics. He shares his journey from London to the U.S., his internship at Princeton, and his collaboration with Scott Galloway.

Notable Quotes:

• Ed Elson [02:25]: "I've been doing this podcast with Scott Galloway for two years now. We cover the markets, we cover business, business news, economics, all of the above."
• Tim Miller [11:20]: "Ed, how did you get the job of being Prof. G's cam? Like, what happened there?"

---

3. Economic Challenges Facing Gen Z

Ed delves deep into the economic struggles of Generation Z, highlighting skyrocketing costs of housing, education, and the disconnect between income and expenses. He emphasizes that Gen Z is facing unprecedented financial hardships compared to previous generations.

Notable Quotes:

• Ed Elson [14:00]: "The cost of a house today is now six times the average annual income for someone my age. For our grandparents, it was three times their income."
• Ed Elson [16:00]: "A third of Gen Z still live with our parents. 50% are still supported financially. 4 in 10 say we're barely getting by."

---

4. Investing Advice and Critique

The conversation shifts to current investment trends among Gen Z, with Ed critiquing popular but risky avenues like cryptocurrency, drop shipping, and day trading. He warns against following "false idols" like Andrew Tate, who promote get-rich-quick schemes that often result in significant financial losses for most individuals.

Notable Quotes:

• Ed Elson [18:28]: "Crypto skyrocketing. Gambling is way up. Zero day options trading. Day trading, as you said, way up."
• Ed Elson [25:22]: "You need to save more than you spend. And four, you need to invest that money into the stock market."

---

5. The Future of American Economy and Stock Market

Ed discusses his bearish outlook on the American economy, influenced by Trump’s tariffs and institutional divestment from U.S. equities. He suggests that investing in diversified foreign markets, particularly Europe and China, may be prudent given current economic indicators.

Notable Quotes:

• Ed Elson [36:39]: "The price of stocks have skyrocketed, the price of college has skyrocketed, the price of housing has skyrocketed."
• Ed Elson [36:48]: "We need to diversify your portfolio across foreign markets as well. You should be thinking about buying the European stock index."

---

6. Cultural and Social Issues

The hosts engage in a light-hearted yet pointed discussion about cultural dynamics, including Gen Z’s approach to identity and the clash with older generations. Cameron shares personal experiences related to identity, emphasizing the importance of authenticity while navigating societal expectations.

Notable Quotes:

• Cameron Caskey [59:06]: "I came out to the world as something resembling bisexual... People get so annoyed at people who are not straight up straight or straight up gay."
• Ed Elson [56:35]: "Our generation is very active with our opinions on social justice... but unbelievably lazy with our actions."

---

7. Boomer Mailbag Segment

In the interactive segment, the hosts address questions from a boomer perspective, tackling issues like Gen Z’s lack of gratitude for monetary gifts and the complexities of identity labeling (e.g., LGBTQIA+ terminology). Ed provides thoughtful insights, advocating for personal responsibility and the importance of taking actionable steps beyond verbal support for social causes.

Notable Quotes:

• Tim Miller [50:25]: "My Gen Z relative... Why is that? My solution is to just not give them gifts."
• Ed Elson [53:39]: "We have the lowest voter turnout of any generation by far... Why don't you take action and show up to the polls."

---

8. Concluding Remarks

The episode wraps up with further banter between the hosts, highlighting the contrasting perspectives and the importance of strategic financial planning. Tim proposes marketing ideas to make responsible investing more appealing to Gen Z, while Ed reiterates the necessity of moving away from unreliable investment schemes.

Notable Quotes:

• Ed Elson [30:44]: "Have fun being poor."
• Tim Miller [46:40]: "Maybe we could ruin the MAGA brand with bros by making Scott Besant the face of it."

---

Key Takeaways:

• Economic Pressures on Gen Z: Gen Z faces unprecedented financial challenges, including higher costs of living and education, leading to increased financial insecurity.

• Investment Strategies: Ed advises against high-risk, speculative investments like crypto and drop shipping. Instead, he recommends saving diligently and investing in stable, diversified stock markets such as the S&P 500 and international indices.

• Institutional Divestment: There is a notable trend of large financial institutions moving investments away from U.S. equities towards European markets, driven by economic uncertainties and policy changes.

• Cultural Identity: The discussion underscores the importance of authenticity in personal identity while critiquing superficial labeling and the need for meaningful action in social justice.

• Intergenerational Dynamics: The Boomer Mailbag segment highlights the communication and value gaps between generations, emphasizing the need for Gen Z to take proactive steps in addressing their financial and social challenges.

---

This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic landscape affecting Gen Z, practical investment advice, and a candid reflection on cultural and generational issues. Ed Elson’s insights offer a sobering perspective on the current state of the American economy and the shifting tides in global financial markets.

Transcript

[Tim Miller]

Foreign.

[Cameron Caskey]

Hey, everybody. I'm Cameron Caskey.

[Tim Miller]

I'm Tim Miller and this is Fypod. I couldn't be more excited to have a new guest today. And also to be here with Sporty Spice Cam in a Mets jersey. Really kind of getting butch. And also we've got a new guest that we've been lovingly calling Prof. G's Cam, but he also has a real name. It's Ed Elson. What's going on, man?

[Ed Elson]

Good to see you. Thank you for having me. I should have brought the jersey out today.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, you should have. And you might be my favorite of Pop G's co hosts. I know I told you offline you were my second favorite, but you might be my favorite. I don't know. He's got three different ones. He's got as many podcasts as well.

[Ed Elson]

That'll be a compliment if I were your favorite co host of all podcasters. It's not that much of a compliment, Tim.

[Tim Miller]

It's pretty good. It's Jesse Tarloff and Kara Swisher. So it's pretty good competition.

[Ed Elson]

That's right. Okay.

[Tim Miller]

It's pretty good competition.

[Ed Elson]

I'll take it.

[Tim Miller]

But I found myself more drawn to your pod as we enter the Donald Trump recession, you know, because, like, you're learning me things that I don't know, rather than listening to his politics talk. But so for people who don't know you, who've not been listening to, you know, the Prof. G Markets pod, give us a little first date, like, you know, tldr, who are you? Et cetera.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, well, my name is Ed Elson. I co host Prof. G Markets, which is a podcast that I do with Scott Galloway. You might know Prof. G. Professor Galloway, the marketing guru, business expert.

[Tim Miller]

You're from Wisconsin?

[Ed Elson]

From London. Moved to the US So I. I consider myself an American now. My parents are American. Timing. So I have the US passport. So I haven't talk about where we as a collective are headed. And usually that means America.

[Cameron Caskey]

I can see you're probably headed to El Salvador.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, so I've been doing this podcast. What's that?

[Tim Miller]

Do you have any tats?

[Ed Elson]

No. No. I should think about that, right?

[Cameron Caskey]

No, he doesn't need a tattoo. They just need to Photoshop MS.13 onto his fingers.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly. But yeah, so I've been doing this podcast with Scott Galloway for two years now. We cover the markets, we cover business, business, news, economics, all of the above. And it's been a good time.

[Tim Miller]

Guy stuff. Okay. We need a little bit more, though. I need a little bit more. Like, I want to know about your personal life. You know, like, are you in a polycule? You know, do you have any interests outside of the markets?

[Ed Elson]

I'm not in a polycule, but I've heard that's kind of the rage.

[Tim Miller]

Right.

[Ed Elson]

Maybe I should do that.

[Cameron Caskey]

Do they do polyamory in old Britain?

[Ed Elson]

They've got to, right? I mean, everyone's doing it. Everyone's doing it.

[Tim Miller]

They got a lot of free time without the dentistry. A little more time to add.

[Ed Elson]

You got to spice it up.

[Cameron Caskey]

Do you ever say, blimey on the podcast, or is that an old thing?

[Ed Elson]

No, no, that's sort of an old thing.

[Tim Miller]

People.

[Ed Elson]

People want me. Probably want me to be saying more Britishisms. People always say, oh, do you guys say, pip, pip, cheerio? It's like, no, I don't think anyone said that since Oliver Twist. Pretty much.

[Tim Miller]

No. My British friends pretty much only say cunt. Cunt is pretty much the only thing my British friends say.

[Ed Elson]

Actually, the. The nice thing about being English is you can say cunt and it's not offensive. There's something about the way we say it where it sounds a bit more, I don't know, tongue in cheek. In America, if you say it, it's a really big deal. So you're probably gonna get cancelled now, Tim. Or maybe you're uncancellable.

[Cameron Caskey]

Cunt has had this interesting comeback where I think the gay community has also sort of turned it into a bit of a compliment. Like, oh, my. Like, if I hear somebody say, that's so cunt y about an outfit, I assume that they mean that it's like a huge slay and everything, but we don't say cunt.

[Ed Elson]

That's actually a great point. There's been a shift in the past probably one or two years, the gay community in America specifically has revived cunt as slay. But, yeah, in England, it's still. It's sort of like, you're a douchebag. You're such a cunt.

[Tim Miller]

That's sort of how you say the Mets jersey outfit is not very cunty. Cam.

[Cameron Caskey]

Listen, I would like to make an official announcement right now. With my Mets jersey and my baseball cap, even though I'm a Milwaukee brewers fan, I don't even like the Mets. FYpod is entering the manosphere with our first sked guess at Elson. We're going to be talking about money and finance and stocks and the type of shit the dudes like in upcoming episodes. We're going to get into fishing, auto repair, hunting, and just typical stuff for dudes. Tim is stuff. I was about to joke that Tim was going to do sports highlights, but he actually does that shit. So.

[Tim Miller]

Auto repair. I can do sports. I can do sports. I cannot do fishing or auto repair or golf or cigars. Do you know. Are you good at any of those things, Ed? Do you know? Could you bring.

[Ed Elson]

No, but I'm willing to learn more. I want to be as manly as possible. If it means repairing cars, then sign me up when we need more. If there's anything we've learned from the past couple of years is that we need more podcasts because they just aren't enough at the moment. So we need more on phishing and on auto repair. I think it's a great idea. I think you should go for a camera.

[Cameron Caskey]

We're putting a subtitle on FYpod. Sebastian's going to throw this up on our. It's Fypod quotes. Finally, a show for men.

[Tim Miller]

Real men. For real fucking men. You know, real men who can know how to change a tire. Ed, you managed to avoid telling us anything about. Are you. Are you. Are you secretive? Are you. Is this style? Do you have a life?

[Ed Elson]

I'll tell you a little fun fact. I live in Williamsburg. Cam and I have bonded over living in New York. I have a girlfriend. I don't really talk about who she is or give details.

[Tim Miller]

We don't need to hear about her. But are you purely heterosexual? You might be our first heterosexual male on the podcast.

[Ed Elson]

Purely Heterosexual.

[Cameron Caskey]

I think Harry J. Sison is heterosexual.

[Tim Miller]

That's a great point.

[Cameron Caskey]

DMs say anything.

[Tim Miller]

I forgot Harry Sisson and that fat ass.

[Ed Elson]

The right would beg to differ. That's sort of their big. That's the big thing they say about.

[Tim Miller]

Two straights so far. There we go. Okay, so you got a girlfriend.

[Cameron Caskey]

How old are you?

[Ed Elson]

26 years old.

[Cameron Caskey]

Very cool.

[Tim Miller]

What are you drinking there? Is that like, espresso coffee here?

[Ed Elson]

It's, you know, I'm not being English enough. Yeah, I'm drinking.

[Tim Miller]

Do you have a favorite football match? Football squadron.

[Ed Elson]

Favorite football match at Squadron Football Club is what we call it. My favorite team is Chelsea. It's been a terrible year. We had a really nice start at the beginning. For those that don't know, Cole Palmer was sort of our hero. And Cole Palmer has fallen off recently. We went from second in the league table to now I think we're seventh. But I'm a big lifelong Chelsea fan. Grew up supporting Chelsea. Going to Stamford Bridge. Still Support Chelsea here in New York.

[Tim Miller]

That's interesting. I don't know anything about football, about soccer or tables. The only thing I had to learn, just enough. I got into a Twitter battle with this guy named Haral Bob, who's like a gambling guy and a sports commentary. You know this guy, he's like.

[Ed Elson]

I don't know this guy.

[Tim Miller]

He's like a bill. He made a bunch of money. He made like a hundred million dollars gambling. And he's on the Bill Simmons podcast sometimes. He was a friend of Cubans and then I think they had a falling out. Anyway, he went full Trump and we started tweeting at each other and he bought a soccer team with his gambling winnings. A football team. But they're in like the third league.

[Ed Elson]

This is the new thing that people do. They make a little bit of money. It's kind of a lot of money. But then they go and they buy these shit clubs in like the third, fourth, fifth division. And then they say, hey, yeah, I'm a majority owner in a football club. Oh, what club? Oh, the. Like in Paddington Wanderers or whatever. Whatever it is. I mean, just irrelevant clubs. And you know who else has done that? Tim.

[Tim Miller]

Who's that?

[Ed Elson]

Scott Galloway. He bought a mid tier Colombian club.

[Tim Miller]

Really?

[Ed Elson]

In Bogota? He. Even worse, actually. He accumulated a minority stake in this football club. But this is so embarrassing. Scott Galloway embarrassing the guy. The guy talked a big game about money and he's out here buying mid tier, mid tier football clubs.

[Tim Miller]

Oh, this. I hope we can do more Scott Galloway gossip because this is just horrible. I mean, you're such a cliche, barely rich person, Scott Galloway. I would hope, though, maybe since he's on the side of the righteous, unlike haral Bob, maybe C.D. castleton. That's who Haralbab bought. And the Bogota team, maybe they could have a friendly or a not so friendly because I had to tweet about where he was in the table and he was on the bottom of the table, and I felt like that's how I won the Twitter battle.

[Cameron Caskey]

Haral sounds like something that a confused Muslim person would say, because Haram is bad.

[Tim Miller]

I think he's great.

[Cameron Caskey]

Halal. Halal is good, right?

[Ed Elson]

Sort of a combination.

[Cameron Caskey]

Yeah, it's like the ship name for Haram and Halal. So for those of our listeners who don't know who Scott Galloway is, he's a professor of money.

[Tim Miller]

He's the only one grinding in the fucking content mines more hours a day than me. I mean, bro is like, bro is out there content creating what does he.

[Cameron Caskey]

Think about the tariffs?

[Ed Elson]

So Scott is generally quite liberal. He would.

[Cameron Caskey]

Hell yeah, my fucking man.

[Ed Elson]

Shout out Prof. G. He doesn't like the tariffs, but that's not saying much. He is a professor of NYU professor of Marketing. He's written a ton of books. Some of them have been super successful. You might have heard of the Four, which was one of his first books on big tech and what big tech is doing to our society. He sort of, you know, antitrust was a topic that was at large, but he sort of popularized it. He's also been talking a lot. You might have seen his TikToks and reels talking about the struggles of young men. That's one of his big topics that he talks a lot about, and we do a lot of research into that. He talks about politics a little bit, mostly economics, mostly markets. That's what we do on our podcast. We try to, you know, have a no mercy, no malice view on everything. We try to be unbiased. We both land, I would say, left of center ultimately, at the end of the day, but we talk about anything that relates to money. And Scott has a proven track record. He's gotten rich himself. He's written a lot of books on this. He wrote this book most recently, the Algebra of Wealth, just describing what people need to do in order to get their money and their finances in order. I have less of a track record, but I'm like his padawan. I'm sort of learning alongside him, asking the questions, and then slowly but surely establishing.

[Tim Miller]

I kind of want to trade cams. Like, you can tell already that Ed comes prepared. He does his research.

[Cameron Caskey]

Girl Monday, I literally had a legal pat. How could you be more prepared than a legal path?

[Tim Miller]

Ed, how did you get the job of being Prof. G's cam? Like, what happened there? Did he, like, were you at the Stern School or No, I was not.

[Ed Elson]

At the Stern School. I was at Princeton. I was in my senior year. And I reached out to him through a friend of mine. His mother knew him, and so I reached out to her and I said, please connect me to this guy's got gallery. I'm a huge fan. Scott took the call. I started out as doing an internship.

[Tim Miller]

Scott took a cold call from a fanboy.

[Ed Elson]

This is early days. I don't know if he would do it. I mean, to be fair, actually, Scott does take calls, but it's just, he gets so many now. But it was sort of earlier days, but I was still very grateful that he took the call. I interned with him for my Final year of college. And then I went and worked for him, being his analyst and doing all. I mean, you might have seen his TED talks, do a lot of work, putting his decks together, putting his newsletters together, working on his books. And then two years ago he said, ed, we're going to do a podcast.

[Tim Miller]

When did he decide to graduate you from butt boy to co host?

[Ed Elson]

It was about two years ago, like over.

[Tim Miller]

What, what was the moment? Did you ask him? Did you ask him to do it?

[Ed Elson]

I'm not really sure and I'm just, I just sort of rolled with it. He said that he wanted to do a podcast that was specifically focused on markets, that was less tech focused, less politically focused. And he said, and I need someone to kind of read the news for me. So I sort of started out just being like, today the S And P rose 5%. And he sort of reacted to that. And I was. My job initially could have been done legitimately by ChatGPT. It still probably could today, but less so. But it was fully an AI equivalent job.

[Tim Miller]

You add a lot of color to the cut to the podcast now. You've got the accent, you have familiarity with things that 25 year olds do. So you've had some.

[Cameron Caskey]

I might not be as smart or resourceful a cam, but ChatGPT isn't pulling out Foghorn Leghorn references. It's not using the word elucidate. You got to give me some credit.

[Tim Miller]

It hasn't made me laugh about climate change topping jokes though, yet. So that's, that's something. So do you have any. I want to get to your market's advice and wisdom. Things don't seem that good right now. And I, and I, my, my Charles Schwab account isn't looking nice. So that's really why I invited you. I want you to help me with that. But, but first, do you have advice for like, other youth, other, you know, struggling youth at Princeton? You know, people at these kind of little niche universities that are like, looking for their, looking for a way in. Like, what would you, what would you say to them? What have you learned?

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, an important topic. And yeah, I think your, your Princeton refere. I don't think the people who go to Princeton need that much advice. They don't need that much help right now, people like myself. Because as we all know, going to an elite university is a massive leg up in society. It completely transforms your earnings potential. That's always been the case.

[Tim Miller]

You got friends with moms, you know, people at the club.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly. That's that's so look, we got, we got to be, we got to be honest here. If you went to a, one of these top, top schools then you're likely going to be fine is what I would say. I live in New York. I see a lot of people my age who are doing well. I look around, people seem to be doing pretty great in New York. And then you look at the data and it tells a very different story about what's happening in the rest of America where the cost of a house today is now six times the average annual income for someone my age. For our grandparents it was three times their income. For my parents it was four times their income. You look at the cost of College which is 42% of our annual income today. For our grandparents it was 13%. Scott talks a lot about this, but this for the first time, we have never had this. But the average 30 year old in America today is now making less money than his or her parents. That's never been true in America before. It's true for the first time today. You can look at the cost of the stock market. For example, you said that your Charles Schwab account is hurting. We've seen this correction after the tariffs which is important. But if you take a long term view, if you take a macro view, you look at the price to earnings multiple of the s and P500 today. Essentially what that means is how expensive are stocks today? On average the S and P is trading at 26 times earnings. You look at what that was for my parents, for my parents generation when they were my age it was 11 times earnings. So we've seen that the price of stocks have skyrocketed, the price of college has skyrocketed, the price of housing has skyrocketed. And so the thing that Gen Z is facing today is we can't really afford anything. And you know we can look at, we could talk about the statistics and we get to talk about the economics and I can go on to about the price to income ratio, et cetera, et cetera. But you can also just look at what I would call like the lifeonomics, like how are people doing at a very basic level. And you know one statistic I would point you to is the fact that a third of Gen Z, a third of us, and this is people who are older than 18, a third of us still live with our parents. That's never been true before. 50% of our parents are still supporting us financially. 4 in 10 of us say we're barely getting by. So Look, I'm doing okay. I was very lucky. I'm fine. I know people who are doing okay. But the larger trend in my generation is Gen Z is not doing very well. And I think we need to think very critically about how we can address this. Because the long term trajectory for our generation, economically speaking, is just not very good.

[Tim Miller]

Are you living with Scott, Ed?

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, I'm camped out in his basement. Vapor, playing video games.

[Tim Miller]

That's good. Look, we could do the rest of the pod shitting on the boomers and how they've left Gen Z in this sort of situation. Plenty to talk about there. But like practically I'm wondering what that means. What's a smart thing to do? What can it be done? And you see, I think this explains somewhat why you see increased popularity of dabbling in crypto and other things. Like this is a way to make money to solve this problem, right? Like quick, quick get rich possibility. It explains like the day trading stuff, you know that like the barstool guys, like you see the Portnoy out there talking about day trading stuff like that's very popular. Talking about guy stuff including fit, not, not just fishing and auto repair, but also misogyny. But like that those also could be big losers. So I don't know, I mean like when you kind of assess that and like there's some rational reason to like look into the, you know, that kind of like alternate type of investing. But then on the other hand, like, you know, they're pro and you know, gambling also is increasingly popular on this front. On the other hand, like, you know, only a handful of people are going to succeed doing that probably.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, yeah. I mean this is what's popular. And you're right, crypto skyrocketing. Gambling is way up. Zero day options trading. Day trading, as you said, way up.

[Tim Miller]

Are you dabbling in any of that?

[Ed Elson]

I'm not, no.

[Tim Miller]

Crypto, no. Day trading, no gambling, Zero.

[Ed Elson]

Look, these guys have gotten very, very popular over the past three or four years. The Dave Portnoy's of the world, the Andrew Tate's of the world, because they correctly identified that young people, especially young men, are upset. And this whole message that Andrew Tate put out there was, okay, you now need to take the red pill and you need to escape the Matrix, which I agree with, you do need to escape the Matrix based on everything that I just told you about our economic situation. But what was the Andrew Tate Escape the Matrix plan? One, get into dropshipping. Two, trade crypto and shitcoins on Coinbase. Three, operate a cam girl ring on OnlyFans, which is equivalent to a prostitution ring.

[Tim Miller]

Four, one of the names for this podcast that we didn't go with was Camboys. I thought that would be funny, which would be good. We decided that maybe it wasn't. That's giving people the wrong message, but I'm sorry, continue. So three, it was drop shipping, crypto and cam girls, what else?

[Ed Elson]

So drop shipping, you got crypto, you got OnlyFans, and the fourth thing that you do is you sell online courses on how to do 1, 2 and 3. That's the Andrew Tate Escape the Matrix plan. And if you do all of those things, then you too can have a shot at living in a shitty compound in Romania and taking pictures with Lamborghinis and Rolls Royces. That could happen, sure. The thing I'd like to check in on is how's it going, everyone? Is it working? Genuinely, I'm asking the question, and I would point to. I mean, we hear a lot of stories from a very select group of people who have these massive followings who say that this is the way out and they got super rich doing this stuff. And I trade crypto and I made millions. What about all of the hundreds of thousands, probably millions of stories of all the people who lost money getting involved in this total fucking bullshit? That does not make you any money. I mean, look at Trump Coin for example. There were 31 traders when Trump Coin was launched that made $700 million trading that thing, you think, wow, that's a lot of money. There were 800,000 traders who lost in total. When you combine their losses, $2 billion. So this is the problem. We're not, we're seeing all these stories of all these guys who make their money in crypto and their drop shipping and their courses on and on and on. And sure, maybe a couple of them are making a little bit of money. It's a rigged game though. The rest of the people who are signing up for this stuff, I'm telling you, they're losing money. And I think what's about to happen is the flip, the script is going to be flipped and people are going to realize we followed these false idols, these people like the Andrew Tates we got into, we got obsessed with gambling, we got obsessed with crypto. And here I am, I'm still in a shitty situation, I still can't pay off my student loans, I'm still living in my, in the, in the basement of my parents house. And this was obviously going to happen because all of these financial strategies make no sense at all. So look, that's the. That's the Andrew Tate Escape the Matrix plan. My prediction, everyone's going to realize it didn't make any sense. People are going to realize they don't actually have any money. They lost all of it gambling and paying. Paying for online courses and hookers and only fans. This is another huge issue. Okay, what can we do?

[Tim Miller]

Just really quick, before you get to. What can we do? I'm going to ask his Cam is too embarrassed to ask. What is drop shipping?

[Ed Elson]

Drop shipping is.

[Cameron Caskey]

Wait, can I try first?

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Cameron Caskey]

Okay. I think dropshipping is when you buy a bunch of shit, keep it in your garage, and then relist it at a higher price.

[Tim Miller]

No, I don't think that's right.

[Ed Elson]

It's. It's basically that. It's. It's. Yeah, it's basically that. It's. It's going online and sort of front running an inventory of sort of bullshit products and then advertising them online. And then once you get the orders, once you. Once you get the purchases, then you go and you order all of these dumb, stupid objects from mostly China to be shipped to people. It's a very. It's a very stupid.

[Tim Miller]

So there's no garage, though? There's no garage.

[Ed Elson]

Well, there's a garage somewhere. It's just that you're not your. It's not your garage. It's a garage.

[Tim Miller]

Not a full yes on exactly.

[Cameron Caskey]

Let it be known though, that me getting that like more than 75% right. Ed, I want you to know that just saved my career because you're such a bright, sharp lad or chap or whatever the fuck you people say that. I think Tim was getting Cam's remorse.

[Tim Miller]

So I definitely have fucking Cam's remorse, but I think I'm stuck.

[Ed Elson]

No, you pretty much nailed it, Cam.

[Tim Miller]

You're about to give us some substantive advice and the Gen Zs out there are desperate for some substantive advice, you know, about how to get out of the basement.

[Ed Elson]

So look, there's obviously no silver bullet to this because these issues are complicated. I think the first thing that our generation needs to do first, we need to admit our situation. This is sort of the great line in no country for Old Men where Anton Chigurh, the psycho murderers has the gun against the seized victim. And the guy's pleading, what if I give you money? What if I do this? He says, I think you just need to admit your situation. So that's step one. One. Let's admit our situation. Let's just acknowledge the Fact that we have it a lot harder than our parents did. Not just from an economic perspective, which I went over, but also in terms of the mental health issues. The fact that depression rates have more than doubled since 2010. Anxiety rates have more than doubled since 2010. The fact that more than 1 in 10Americans today say they have zero close friends, up from 3% in 1980.

[Tim Miller]

Frazier and Seinfeld aren't on the air anymore. We've lost.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly. Those are the real problems.

[Cameron Caskey]

Plucking my heartstrings right there.

[Ed Elson]

So that's the first thing. One, I think you need to admit your situation. Okay, then what do you do? I think you need to. I think everyone needs to identify their talent. You need to figure out what you're good at, and you need to monetize that talent by getting a good job. And this is very simple stuff. And I'm sorry if it sounds like I'm babying you, but the reality is that you got other people here saying that you should buy Cumrocket and Fartcoin. So I do think we need to go back to the basics here.

[Tim Miller]

Hold on. Can you pitch me on comerocket thought coin, though, for a second? Because I'm kind of intrigued all of a sudden. You just threw two options out there. That's like, get a job and work.

[Ed Elson]

Or come rocket fault coin. All you need to know about those two things is that there's probably one winner. And for every winner, there are about 10,000 losers. So the odds are stacked against you. Don't even bother.

[Tim Miller]

But maybe it'll be me on the come Rocket.

[Ed Elson]

The third thing you need to do so you need to identify your talent. You need to monetize your talent by getting a good job. Simple stuff. Three, you need to save more than you spend. Again, a very simple. A simple lesson. And four, and this is what I think we don't do enough of, you need to invest that money into the stock market. It is as simple as that. It's the only way to do it. It's the way our parents did it. Granted, they were blessed with a historically cheap stock market and historically cheap housing, but that basically just means that we need to work doubly as hard. We need to be even more diligent about figuring what it is that we can provide into the real economy, what value we can provide. We need to identify what it is that we're actually good at and that people will pay us for. We need to be very diligent about saving. We need to think about what is my Budget. How much am I spending? Do I really want to finance these Coachella tickets and this taxi delivered burrito with buy now, pay later, which I am going to have to pay an interest on in the future because it is credit, despite what these, what these companies would tell you. And most importantly, we need, we need to invest in stocks. I mean, we really need to get away from this crypto stuff. It's been a total disaster for most people. You need to invest in the stock market, the s and P500. It is a miracle. It's returned 10% over the past 30 years. We need to be investing in these things. We need to start owning assets because that's the leg up that the other generations have on us.

[Tim Miller]

Are you raising your hand or giving a thumbs up?

[Cameron Caskey]

I was raising my hand for raising your hand.

[Tim Miller]

It's your podcast.

[Cameron Caskey]

So what is the s and P500? That sounds like a NASCAR race.

[Tim Miller]

You have no stocks, Cam, just as a baseline here. Stocks. How many stocks do you have?

[Cameron Caskey]

I have my financial priorities set in some very interesting and engaging ways. But I'm asking for you, Tim, so you can learn what the s and P500 races.

[Ed Elson]

So, so the S&P500 is the top 500 most valuable companies in America. And basically you invest in, and it's called an etf, which is basically another term for just a basket of these companies of shares in these companies. So if you invest in the S&P 500, you are basically investing a little, little bit in the combined value and the combined businesses of all the top 500 companies in America. So it's essentially a bet on corporate America. So people always talk about, oh, corporate America is screwing us. There's a way to get on corporate America's side and it's to buy shares in their business. It's a very simple strategy that people older than us have been using for many, many years. The only question now, so that's the very basic thing you need to invest in stocks. You shouldn't be doing it in crypto. You should be getting into the stock market. And the best place to start is the S&P 500. Because, yes, corporate America is incredibly valuable and incredibly ambitious and you want to own a part of that.

[Tim Miller]

So I've got, I've got like one major issue with this which I think is going to align me with what I'm trying to envision what Prof. G would say here. I'm trying to channel him with just better hair. And it's just this. Is that like that all sounds Fucking boring. I mean, like, boys or men still, like, want to do, like, they still need a thrill, you know, it's like old Ed is, you know, Andrew Tate's over here talking about the cam girls and the crypto, and you get the rush of the daily up and down of the Robin Hood trades of the day trading in the stock market. Like, that's getting your juices flowing. And then on the other side, you're saying, you got to get a job, you got to save. You shouldn't go to Coachella. You got to invest in the S&P 500 and that'll pay off in 15 years. Like, you know, I mean, don't the. I agree with everything you're saying, right? Like, but don't the EDS of the world have to have some. Some pizzazz to that pitch? Like, where are the sluts? You know, where's the rush where Tim.

[Cameron Caskey]

Is just projecting because he's embarrassed that he went to Coachella?

[Tim Miller]

I mean, I am projected. I have weaknesses. You know, I'm a man. I've got, you know, I want. I'm a responsible father. But, you know, like, I was at the gay bar till 3am last weekend. People got to be able to have to have fun. You got to be realistic. You know, if you're going to pitch 24 year olds on a new path, that's not Andrew Tate. You got to give them something. Right?

[Ed Elson]

Yeah. So there's this saying in crypto, which is, have fun being poor. That's my response to those people. If you're. You need such a level of distraction that you can't figure out a way, a way to save a little bit more money than you spend. If you're so bored by the phrase s and P500, which is not that big of a deal, and it's actually not that complicated. If you just do a tiny bit of Googling, My response to you is, have fun being poor. That's what I would say to you.

[Cameron Caskey]

Reading me for filth.

[Tim Miller]

Eat that shit, Cam.

[Ed Elson]

Have fun being poor again, Tim. I'm not gonna have a fight with these people. I'm not gonna try to compete with the Andrew Tates and try to tell you that there's a way to make living a sustainable life way more sexy. Yeah. I mean, we can go rent Lamborghinis and we can take pictures of them, but I'm really not interested in that. And sure, maybe people won't listen. The people who don't listen are gonna live terrible lives. And it's all coming due around about now, people are suddenly realizing what believing in false idols and following them actually does to you. We're seeing in politics, suddenly the whole stock market is seeing, oh, my God, this guy's a little bit crazy. We shouldn't have believed him. Or at least we should have. I mean, they said the tariffs, that they wouldn't happen, that he was kidding about them. And I talked with Anthony Scaramucci on my podcast. I asked him that question. He said, you got to fucking believe this guy, actually. You got to believe he's going to go through with it. So, look, it's the same thing that I would say to the people who supported Donald Trump, who thought they were going to reshore all these jobs into America. And now we've got tariffs, which is a tax on consumption, which is going to largely affect poor people. Have fun being poor. That would be my response.

[Tim Miller]

That's pretty good. Have fun being poor. Can I help you market really quick? And then I'm going to let Cam talk to you about Moosh. Because I was a PR guy, you know? Okay. All right. Can we get you in a tank top? Okay. Can we get you, like, showing off some muscles and being like, hey, I'm ed. I fucking have cash. I'm not an incel, and my life is fucking good. Look, muscles, cash, sex. There we go. Boom. You can do all that, right? How about that?

[Ed Elson]

You send me the tank top, you send me the creatine and the protein powder, and I will do it. You have to.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know anything about creatine, protein, power. I'll ask my husband, though. I'll get you on a program, and maybe we can just kind of spice it up a little bit. I do like the nagging. The nagging also is pretty good. Cam, did you have any naggings? You look very excited to talk about something.

[Cameron Caskey]

I mean, I was. I was grinning ear to ear because you mentioned personal friend of Cameron Marley Caskey, Anthony Scaramucci, who I really ought to. I ought to text for some stock advice. Although I do think he would tell me to buy crypto, because when I went to the 20th anniversary party, he's a crypto of. Of Skybridge Capital, which I did not know that I was going to. I texted his son, Mooch Jr. Like, hey, do you want to hang out with us tonight? And he said, yeah, come to this address. And I show up to the address, I'm dressed like shit, and it's the fucking Skybridge Capital 20th anniversary party. I'm like, emoji. Didn't think to say, like, hey, come to my dad's finance party. But. But we get in there and the logo is Skybridge, right? Skybridge Capital. And I've learned that the bee in Skybridge is now the bitcoin B. So I feel like if I text Scaramucci for stock advice, he might say the opposite of what Mr. Elson is saying.

[Ed Elson]

So, look, Scaramucci is a crypto guy, but we should be clear about what exactly he's invested in. He's not investing in Cumrocket and Fault coin and Trump Coin and Hawktua Coin, and on and on and on and on. He's primarily investing in bitcoin. Now, bitcoin I do consider to be a slightly different thing. I'm not a huge fan of bitcoin, but when it comes to crypto, bitcoin, in my view, is the only thing that you could argue is a legitimate asset. It has proven over time that it is comparable to gold. People call it the digital gold. And I actually accept that argument. The only difference is I'm not interested in investing in gold. I'm interested in investing in companies that generate cash flows and that contribute to the real economy. Companies like Nvidia and Google and Meta. These are real companies that contribute into the economy. I'm not that interested in gold. So that's my view on bitcoin specifically. I'm not a huge fan of it, but I don't consider it to be in the same realm as all of the meme coins and the rug pulling and the grifting that you see with all of these other companies. And they're not actually companies, they're projects, which is their way of not being regulated. So Scaramucci would. Would. I think he actually would agree with my distaste towards meme coins. He would. I mean, we were just texting about Trump Coin and what a giant grift that is. Where he would probably disagree with me on is bitcoin. And I think Scaramucci is a sensible guy. I don't think he's scamming anyone. There are people in the bitcoin space who I think are. Scaramucci is not one of them. So we have a slight difference in certain types of cryptocurrencies in terms of where we land. But overall, he would agree that Hawk to a coin is not a good investment.

[Tim Miller]

All right, so here's. Now we get to the point where I get financial advice from Adam, because I think that we're probably aligned to this. Maybe you're not. I'm of the view that things are about to get really fucking bad. I think that the market is over confident about Trump pulling back on some of these tariffs. And I think that we're probably about to hit an additional stock market dip here once reality of how bad this is going to be sets in for people. I just think a lot of people are pretty sanguine about the seriousness of what's going on economically, I guess. Part A, do you agree with that? You see storm clouds on the horizon. And B, if you do agree with that, what should I put in my little basket? Because I don't know, maybe the s and P500 is wrong. If it's got to have a correction down towards the 11% that you were talking about of earnings, multiples, et cetera.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, this is an important question. It's probably the ultimate question of our time when it comes to investing in markets.

[Tim Miller]

Look at me, Cameron, I asked the ultimate question of our time. What have you been doing?

[Ed Elson]

Ultimate question. Look, there's no real way to model out what Trump is going to do. And we have seen this play out. We can't predict whether there's a recession on the horizon. I mean, we can look at the surveys and the surveys would say 60 percentage chance that this year we will see a recession. We're increasingly seeing it in earnings calls. 40% of companies are now reporting and saying the word recession in their earnings calls. So recession is certainly on the horizon. And the chance, as you said, that the S and P is too, and the markets are too optimistic about these tariffs is certainly a possibility. And that's what we have to grapple with right now. A year ago or two years ago, I would have told you, never bet against America because we've looked at the last 30, 40, 50 years of history. America always pulls through. I'm not so confident about that statement anymore. Fuck. And the what we're seeing at the moment at the institutional level, these large hedge funds and these large banks and these massive capital allocators, they are rotating out of US equities out of American stocks by their largest margin ever. That's what we saw in March. Allocations to US equities among financial institutions had their largest ever drop. And where are they relocating into? They're going into Europe. So that's why the European stock market is year to date up 18%. You look at the S and P, which is down so far, year to date, 6%. This is why we saw this massive sell off in US stocks and also US debt. This is what we saw with These you might have seen on Twitter. Everyone freaking out about the yield on the ten year treasury, which skyrocketed, which is an indication that people were selling off US Treasuries, American debt. And also we're seeing a sell off in the dollar. The dollar has been massively weakening this year. So it's this trifecta of badness for the American economy. And the question of course is where is the money going? What we have seen so far is that the money as of today, as of what are we. April 30, 2025, the money appears to be going to Europe. But I think the thing to highlight here is that this is going to be, if this is true, if the world is shifting away from the us, the investment world specifically, it's going to be a long, drawn out process. We're talking at trillions of dollars. This is not like bank of America suddenly says, oh, we don't like the US anymore, liquidate, move to Europe. No, this is going to be an extremely long process. It's going to take years, possibly even decades to fully play out. So I think the thing that you need to be thinking right now, two years ago I would have said S&P 500 invest, no brainer. I think we now need to be a little bit more cautious. And the thing you need to be thinking about is diversifying your portfolio across foreign markets as well. You should be thinking about buying the European stock index. Maybe you want to think about buying companies in China, in India, maybe even in Vietnam. Whatever it is, I think it's worth thinking about getting an understanding of these foreign markets, trying to understand what the companies there are doing, looking at those indexes, looking at those price to earnings multiples. And maybe you want to start diversifying a way out, but about shorting, not shorting, and certainly not selling today and then just switching everything and going all in on Europe because again, we don't know. That's the thing with Trump, you never actually fucking know.

[Tim Miller]

But if I did want to bet against America, hypothetically, let's say I wanted to make a bet, not everything. I'm not putting my mortgage on it or anything, but with my messing around money, wanted to make a bet against America, you would say just generalized Europe stocks. Or is there something else gold.

[Ed Elson]

You can get into? Gold, I don't think you're going to make a real return. Ray Dalio would disagree with me. Gold is considered to be, it's sort of the doomsday asset when everything's going to shit in the world. People Buy gold. And I think the implicit thinking there is. I mean, you got to think, why are people buying gold? I mean, they say, because we don't trust America anymore. We don't trust China anymore, We don't trust Europe anymore. So now we have to buy gold. My question is, what are you going to fucking do with that gold? If it really is doomsday, if it's Apocalypse now, then now you have gold. If the stakes are that high, don't you want food? Don't you want water? Don't you want shelter? I mean, McDonald's. So, right. So I'm not a huge fan of gold, but other. Others would disagree with me. That's just my personal perspective. I don't think it makes that much sense. But, yeah, the answer is, as of now, I would say buy a diversified index fund in probably Europe and China. That would be my first. I haven't made these moves myself.

[Cameron Caskey]

I was going to say, you know, Ed, I don't want to be. I don't want to be a Debbie Downer here, but part of me is wondering, gee, so this guy comes in to my fucking country from Europe, and with the platform that he's been given by some guy named Prof. G. Doesn't even have any fucking hair, he's telling us to invest in Europe. That doesn't sound a little funky to you, Ed? You're not necessarily on the. On the Queen's payroll.

[Ed Elson]

If you listen to the podcast, a year ago, I would have been telling you vociferously, invest in the US I'm only saying this now because I'm watching what is happening in terms of the. At the institutional level. When you look at what retail investors like you and I are doing, actually retail investors like me and you, regular people.

[Tim Miller]

Cam is not an investor. Cam is a retail spender, a retail purchaser of clothes.

[Ed Elson]

He's a consumer.

[Cameron Caskey]

I literally have run out of outfits for FYpod, and I now have to borrow my cousin's clothes because I've used every outfit that I have. And we're like, we're going to have.

[Tim Miller]

Ed's going to put you on a budget. Okay. Could you. Could we do that as like a kind of payment for offering you this platform? You can just sort of review.

[Ed Elson]

Take a commission.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, review.

[Cameron Caskey]

I don't have indulgences. Ever since I stopped drugs. Like, I don't really have shit that I spend. I read fucking books.

[Ed Elson]

Oh, maybe you should go back to the drugs then, Cam.

[Cameron Caskey]

We'll keep that in mind.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, look, the institutional divestment away from the US is something that you need to acknowledge. And my point was, regular people are actually buying stocks because they're seeing the diplomatic and the correction that's happening. And they're going and buying because they're like, we think it's going to go back up. And maybe they're right. But what I would just point you to is look at what the big institutions are doing. Look at what the big banks are doing, the big hedge funds, they're all getting out of America not overnight, but slowly and surely. And my point is, this is the first time that that's happened in the history of modern America. We literally have never seen this. So that's why I say, and I wouldn't have said this to you a year or two years ago. I mean, Europe is slow and dead for many reasons. I mean, there's a reason I left the uk, which is I didn't think that the prospects in the UK were that great. There's a massively unentrepreneurial culture in the UK that extends throughout Europe, and it is a problem and it does affect European markets. But what I am simply addressing is that something happened after tariffs. And what happened was big investors, the big capital allocators, they got freaked out, and now they are slowly but surely rotating out of America and into Europe. I am simply identifying a trend that is happening.

[Cameron Caskey]

And is part of that the fact that other countries are just never going to see us as a reliable trading partner again?

[Ed Elson]

It's a huge part of it. And in fact, China is now gallivanting around Europe. They are relieving the sanctions on the eu and they've sent their trade delegations into Europe to Hungary and to Germany and to Sweden, trying to rekindle those trade relationships and say, hey, look, I know you guys didn't trust us in the past, but look, can you really trust America right now? So we want to renormalize these relationships.

[Cameron Caskey]

Pave Nadia's belt road, baby.

[Tim Miller]

I've got one more marketing idea for you, Ed, before we go to the boomer mailbag. I do have to observe that as kind of a audio signal of the fact that Cam has no money. He's, like, clinking together his two quarters left that he has his name right now. It's like, clink, clink. And so that's if you're listening, if you're hearing something, that's what it is. My idea for you is, instead of using Andrew Tate as your foil, we use Scott Besant as your foil. I mean, this man, this is not a manly man. This is a poofter that lives in a Barbie house in Charleston. And maybe the men, the young men of our society could be like, I could be like Ed, you know, responsible investing in ETFs, budgeting, or I could be like Scott Besant humiliating myself at the altar of Donald Trump. It's really sad that first gay Treasury Secretary is the worst treasury secretary. It's really bad for our people.

[Ed Elson]

Well, actually, what's interesting is that Scott, Scott Besant, I mean, is the least stupid of the fools right now. What he is doing is advising. He's the only one who's telling Trump to sort of tone it back. So I think, look, I mean, two things I would say to you. One, Cam doesn't know who Scott Besant is. So I would imagine that many people don't know who Scott Bessant is. So in terms of a foil to compare against for young men specifically, I would argue Andrew Tate is the household name. And the only people who really know who Scott Besant is are the people who are watching the news.

[Tim Miller]

Maybe we could ruin the MAGA brand with bros by making Scott Besant the face of it. Nobody wants to be like this affected fool.

[Ed Elson]

Yes, and I'm willing to run with that. However, I think that the MAGA brand is on its way to death and destruction anyway. I mean, what we've seen so far is just so many levels of crazy, you can't even begin to describe it. And of course, this Trump guy is a total phenomenon. He seems to be impenetrable in a lot of ways, but I think there is a limit. And I think that what he's doing and the fact that he has so much power and he's using it in this administration and the destruction he is levying on both the stock market and also the main street economy. This is the thing. I mean, you can be MAGA pro Trump all you want, but if your business goes bankrupt and you have to lay off all your employees or you get laid off, which is what is going to happen with these tariffs. It's not a debate. It's going to happen. It's already happening. We're already seeing that this is one of the worst job markets to graduate into. If you're a graduating senior in college. We have all of these companies who are paring back their hiring because the markets are in a. It's, it's total paralysis right now. If all of that happens, can you really be pro Trump after that? I mean, realistically.

[Tim Miller]

Well, the Morons can.

[Cameron Caskey]

They'll figure it out. They were, they were pro Trump after the, after the attempt to overthrow the Capitol. So I'm sure the money stuff, which I feel like is. It's harder to wrap your head around and therefore it's easier to kind of.

[Tim Miller]

Well, except if they get poor.

[Cameron Caskey]

Yeah, but you know how MAGA is. They'll convince them that it's the fucking commies.

[Tim Miller]

I agree with you, but I'm not talking about fucking the crazy 60 year old person who's like brainwormed from Fox who's going to the rally. I'm talking about like the 28 year old bro who like thought it was cool.

[Ed Elson]

Yeah, he saw him on Full Send. He saw him on Nelt Boys. He saw him on Theo Vaughn. This guy's kind of a dude. He like hooks up with chicks. That's sick. At a certain point that runs out. It really. I mean, the half life is tiny on that. I mean, we'll see. And I'm not. You're the, the political strategist, not me. So maybe I'm wrong, but my sense is when you follow these people's advice and you follow them into this foxhole that ends up blowing up, I think at a certain point you feel upset and you feel lied to and you feel angry about it. And I think that there's only so much bullshit that people can take. And there's just. There's no debating this. The guy is feeding them bullshit. And if you don't believe me, look at the stock market. Look at the bond market. They are the adults in the room. They're telling you what the ground truth is, God willing.

[Tim Miller]

All right, let's go to Boomer mailbag. Boomer mailbag. Mr. B, a boomer has a question. My Gen Z relative.

[Ed Elson]

That's an amazing segment.

[Tim Miller]

Oh yeah, it's a really great segment. You guys should steal it. Some of the questions we get are unbelievable. My Gen Z relatives do not say thank you for monetary gifts. They tell me their generation doesn't do that anymore. Why is that? My solution is to just not give them gifts. Also, what's with all the Alphabet labeling? Why not join the human race and quit making excuses because of your Alphabet? That's from Mr. B. Do you want to take either of those?

[Ed Elson]

I'd love to address that. I think those are great questions. Alphabet. Is he saying lgbtqia? Is that what he's talking about?

[Tim Miller]

Do you think that's what I think he's talking about? Yeah, probably. Yeah.

[Cameron Caskey]

The alpha. Yeah. Wait, can you Ask part two of that question again because I was so. Because, Ed, you probably think of Alphabet as the stock.

[Ed Elson]

Correct. But I just wasn't sure.

[Tim Miller]

Also, what's with all the Alphabet labeling? Why not join the human race and quit making excuses because of your Alphabet?

[Ed Elson]

Yep. So I actually kind of agree with this guy in sentiment on both points.

[Tim Miller]

You are the Gen Z Boomer.

[Ed Elson]

I'm the Gen Z Boomer. That's right.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Ed Elson]

Really?

[Tim Miller]

Is that true? I guess. Let's take the first one first. Is that true that you guys don't say thank you for gifts?

[Ed Elson]

I think that is true, and I think that it is. I mean, there are a lot of things wrong with our generation. We are late to almost everything. We generally have bad manners. We're generally not very respectful of people's time. We're not respectful of other people's efforts. And I do think he's probably right that we don't say thank you. I haven't experienced it firsthand. I don't have a kid who's not thanking me for giving him or her gifts, but I would believe it. And I think it is a problem. And I'm not exactly sure what to blame it on, but my instinct would be, shouldn't we be blaming it on our parents? I mean, if you're upset that your kid is not saying thank you, isn't that your fault? That would be my first response. And I mean, you're probably correct in the diagnosis, but let's think about what is the underlying cause.

[Cameron Caskey]

That is like, the most important theme to remember in the Boomer mailbag segment is that most of the things the boomers come over here to complain about are things that our parents did not discipline us hard in.

[Tim Miller]

Right. I would say as somebody that is closer to the monetary giver than the monetary receiver part of life, I don't know, man. I guess I would say to Mr. B, the joy is in the giving. Who gives a fuck? It's nice. If you want to give your little nephew or grand nephew an extra 30 bucks, they can go to the pub. Yeah, I don't know. That's fine. That's good. That's okay. Don't stress about it. Maybe ask him to send you a selfie instead of a thank you so you can see that they're enjoying themselves.

[Ed Elson]

And part of the key in what he said there is that I'm thinking about not giving the kid gifts. Okay, then that's what you should do. You've already addressed it clearly. This isn't meaningful to you. And you're not giving feeling the rewards of giving. Most people do. So, yeah, just stop giving the kid gifts and see what happens.

[Cameron Caskey]

This is an answer for everybody in every generation. If you are giving somebody a gift, expecting something in return, I think that a thank you is always appropriate. I. I profusely thank people even for gifts that I didn't even want. But I think that when you give somebody a gift, it is the most spiritually healthy thing for you to do, to not draw any expectations of what you are going to get in return. That's the point of a gift. And if, you know, like Mr. Ed said, if they don't say thank you, don't reward their lack of a thank you. Just don't give them another gift.

[Tim Miller]

Cameron, do you know about the cultural figure Mr. Ed?

[Cameron Caskey]

No.

[Tim Miller]

The horse?

[Ed Elson]

Nor do I.

[Tim Miller]

You don't know?

[Ed Elson]

No.

[Tim Miller]

Your name is Ed and you don't know?

[Ed Elson]

No.

[Tim Miller]

There's a horse named Mr. Eddie.

[Ed Elson]

Oh, wow.

[Tim Miller]

It was on Nick. Nickelodeon.

[Ed Elson]

Oh, really?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, it was a famous horse named Mr. Ride. Okay, really quick, we're out of time, but I'm fascinated. I need to know what you are on his side on the Alphabet labeling. You don't like it? I want to give you a chance to do something homophobic before the podcast.

[Ed Elson]

Exactly. I'm with him on the sentiment and I'll explain what I mean. My issue with our generation is that we are very. Well, I'll tell you what I like about our generation. I actually like that we're very active with our opinions on social justice. I actually respect it. I respect that we take these things seriously. We take gender inequality seriously, income inequality, racial inequality, sexual orientation inequality. We're very tapped into these issues and that's what came about, you know, the alphabetization that this guy, Mr. B, is complaining about. And on that front, I respect our generation for taking these issues seriously and really caring about them. So many of these other generations are so cynical and so ironic that they can't even address these issues. The trouble with my generation is that while we are very active with our opinions, we are unbelievably lazy with our actions. And this is the thing that really pisses me off, that we were the guys who were championing sustainability, who were championing issues of equality, who basically created esg, and yet we have the lowest voter turnout of any generation by far. 42%. In the last election, it was lower than 2020. It was even lower than 2016. So this is the problem, and this is why I can sort of relate to the Sentiment like, okay, you really care about the issues. Stop just fucking talking about it and choosing these letters that apparently are supposed to empower you. Why don't you take action and show up to the polls, show up to the voting booth, you know, follow through on these issues. And that's my big problem with Gen Z, which I would love for us to address in these next elections.

[Tim Miller]

Also, some of your letters aren't real.

[Cameron Caskey]

I would like to respond to the question. I have made a point to not say okay Boomer. I think the okay Boomer thing is so annoying and I think that it's disrespectful and I think that people freak out about it too much. But it's just, I don't like saying okay Boomer. I think it's demeaning and rude. But to the Alphabet question. Oh, fucking K F cking Boomer, shut the fuck up. It's like, look, I understand why Gen Z's hyper fixation on our own identities is something that is a lot to swallow, especially for a generation of people who are famously repressed from sharing their identities with people. But I'm going to give a kind of rogue dark horse piece of advice to any Gen Z's listening comment down below, of course, if you agree or disagree with me here. But I came out to the world as something resembling bisexual a couple years ago because part of me said, you know what? It is who I am and I can either, you know, as Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones said, wear it like armor and it could never be used to hurt you. I could do that, or I could just hide in the shadows and everything. And I had X amount of followers on the Internet, including a lot of young people. And I said, you know what? If I can make one young person who's trying to figure out their identity feel even less alone in this world, then for that one person, how much that could mean for them, it's worth it. And I don't regret sleeping with men. I don't regret pursuing men and doing the gay stuff that I've done. But I do regret telling people because when you identify as something like a bisexual and you are not either like completely gay or completely straight, people are going to interrogate you. They're going to interrogate your identity. People get so annoyed at people who are not straight up straight or straight up gay. And the amount of conversations I've had with people where they're like, why do you only date women? And it's like, because they're cute. The are you talking about? Like when was the last time you slept? None of your fucking business People feel so entitled to like get private information about you people think it's so appropriate to ask questions like this to the Alphabet kids and it's like look I don't I'm not telling people to die in the closet but I am telling you to a certain degree you are entitled to your own private information and I don't think it is intrinsically tied to self acceptance for you to go and tell other people that because other people are going to have their own party with it and at the end of the day do it when you want to do it but remember that it's just for you Cameron that was.

[Tim Miller]

Beautiful I have 80 follow up questions to it but unfortunately I forgot to go talk to Senator Chris Van Holland thank you to Ed Ellison everybody else I'm going to follow up with Cameron and his self identity in another episode SA.