Trump's Countries, Paramount's HOSTILE TAKEOVER + Dems Affordability HOAX? | PBD Podcast

Summary

PBD Podcast Episode Summary

Episode Title: Trump's Countries, Paramount's HOSTILE TAKEOVER + Dems Affordability HOAX?
Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Patrick Bet-David (Pat)
Main Guests: Dan Pena, Tom, Adam, Brandon, Rob
Theme:
This episode dives into key political, economic, and cultural events shaping 2025–2026 America, with headline topics including Trump’s statements on affordability and immigration, the Paramount/Warner Brothers hostile takeover bid with Middle Eastern and Kushner-linked funds, the evolving “requirement” to be attractive in the labor market, the US housing affordability crisis, and generational divides in economic perception. Guest Dan Pena brings blunt, occasionally controversial business and generational wisdom, while the Home Team offers diverse counterpoints.

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EPISODE OVERVIEW

The episode opens with a light introduction of Dan Pena, setting the stage for a rapid-fire discussion of current events, polling, market data, and leadership messaging in the age of Trump, Biden, affordability crises, and shifting economic structures. The hosts debate cause, effect, and solutions to housing, job market, and affordability issues facing young Americans, and transition into the details of media conglomeration, international investment strategies, cultural trends, and personal financial advice.

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KEY DISCUSSION POINTS & INSIGHTS

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1. Affordability Crisis & Political Blame Game

• Polling Thunderbolt:
  • CNN’s Harry Enton poll shows Trump’s net approval among 18–29-year-olds dropped 56 points in 10 months (from +10 to -46).
  • Main issue: Affordability (Housing, car insurance, general cost of living).
  • See [08:18–09:46].
• Underlying Causes:
  • Millennials/Gen Z struggling: Even STEM grads feeling jobs are hard to find (Tom, [09:51]).
  • Inflation “down,” but housing/insurance costs remain painfully high: “Cost of housing, cost of insurance… these are the top two.” (Tom, [10:13])
• Generational Divide:
  • Dan Pena’s take: “The kids today… are lazy. We don’t have an affordability problem, in my opinion… Affordability to me is a matter of choice.” ([11:43–12:51])
  • Brandon: “It’s an objective fact that it’s a much different generation… it took two years of an average salary to buy an average price house in the ’70s. Today it takes like nine years.” ([15:43])
• Messaging Problem:
  • Dems are “out-messaging” on affordability, and Trump’s messaging doesn’t land: “He’s got to change.” (Dan, [13:07])
• Trump’s Direct Response to Affordability:
  • [Trump, 20:44] “Affordability is a con job by the Democrats… The word affordability is a Democrat scam.”
  • “[They] have a new word… affordability. So they look at the camera and say, ‘This election is all about affordability.’”
• Actionable Solutions (requested by Pat):
  • Tom: Cut red tape, release city land to build smaller homes, fix state insurance regulations, and reduce obstructionist permitting ([24:52–27:29]).
  • Dan: “That’s three to five years… We need a problem solved yesterday.” ([28:38])
  • Brandon: “Common theme is regulation – with homes, zoning laws add 20–30% to price of a house; with cars, emissions requirements push up car costs. All policy-driven.” ([36:04])
  • Penalty of inaction leads to socialist movements as middle class weakens (Brandon, [15:43] & Pat [29:21]).

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2. Tiny Cars & Regulatory Riddles

• Trump’s Push:
  • Push for “tiny cars” as an affordability solution ([29:56–35:11]):
    • Inspired by European/Japanese models (e.g., Fiat Topolino).
    • Significant regulatory and safety challenges—US emission standards incentivize big cars, SUVs and trucks are 75% of 2024 registrations.
• Death Rate Objection:
  • Dan Pena: “You had a less than 50% chance of surviving a head-on accident in these little things.” ([37:18])
  • “Average American doesn’t want and shouldn’t get a 50-year mortgage or tiny car because Trump says so.” ([44:17])
• Systemic Issues:
  • US urban planning, insurance, and the “chick magnet” factor all discourage adoption of tiny cars ([45:40–46:09]).

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3. Immigration, Messaging, and “Trump’s Countries”

• Trump’s Controversial Riff:
  • [Trump, 46:45] “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden?”
  • “We always take people from Somalia… filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime.”
• Panel Response:
  • Dan: “Those countries (Norway, Sweden) take care of people from womb to tomb… nobody’s starving to death. Why would they leave?” ([48:25])
  • Tom: US should defend legal, merit-based immigration and avoid “refugee central.” ([49:01])
  • Adam: “Not all immigrants are the same… If your country runs on Sharia law, it’s not going to work in America.” ([51:36])
  • Brandon: “It all changed in 1965 when US quotas shifted away from Europe.” ([60:13])
• UK & Global Perspective:
  • Dan on UK: Foreign money (Russian, Saudi, etc.) propped up West End property, but London/UK have since deteriorated in services, policing, and the grandeur of the monarchy ([53:03–56:14]).

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4. Paramount/Warner Brothers Hostile Takeover—Middle East/Jared Kushner Funding

• Deal Breakdown:
  • Netflix and David Ellison’s Skydance (Paramount) in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery ([65:04–68:54]).
  • Middle Eastern funds (Saudi, Qatar, Abu Dhabi), backed by Jared Kushner, commit $24B—possibly for both financial return and influence.
• Business vs. Influence:
  • Dan: “Like Al Jazeera—[the goal is to] get positive influence around the world in media... they’re concerned about what happens in the next 100 years.” ([76:31])
  • Tom: “Probably 2/3 investment, 1/3 influence... but they’d absolutely like to influence narratives.” ([80:12])
  • Adam highlights Israeli innovation and regional diversification: “You can’t just rely on oil.” ([78:38])
• Ray Dalio’s Take:
  • [Excerpt at 83:04] “This is a Silicon Valley of capital management... it creates this vibe like Silicon Valley of investing.”
• Potential Effect on US Media:
  • Paramount bid would shift news and content focus “back to truth” per Ellison. Fox News, Disney, and other big players are watching closely. Trump sees the deal going Paramount’s way due to regulatory concerns ([72:48]).

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5. Being Hot is a Job Requirement?

• Emerging Trend:
  • Emily Reynolds, PR exec: “How long will I be professionally relevant, perceived as attractive? When I’m not, what happens to me professionally? That’s the thing I think about daily.” ([108:09])
• Panel Agrees:
  • Dan: “Yes. Most top female assistants to major execs are all good looking. No old hags.” ([108:09])
  • Adam: “Pretty privilege affects women more than men… outer beauty gets you in the door, inner beauty keeps you there. For men, status/money count more.” ([109:27])
  • Tom: “Looking sharp matters; being disheveled hurts. But, ultimately, ability and references matter most.” ([111:13])
  • Pat: “Hygiene, grooming, and confidence make a huge difference for most—not just model genetics.” ([112:50])
• Self-Deprecation/Social Feedback:
  • Adam: “Men need to be comfortable being offended… being told you’re fat, ugly, or sloppy motivates change. Women can’t criticize each other the same way.” ([120:30])
  • Dan: “80% of U.S. employees under C-suite cry at least once a week—mostly men.” ([122:08])

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6. Housing Market—Delisting Surge & Strategic Moves

• Data:
  • Delistings up nearly 45% in 2025—sellers not getting their price, especially in hot pandemic-era markets like Miami, Denver, Houston ([123:23]).
  • “Refuge markets” (Grand Rapids, St. Louis, etc.) are now booming.
• Interpretation:
  • Tom: Rising delistings signal a market peak; prices may moderate or drop ([125:03]).
• Advice:
  • Dan: If it’s an investment property, sell now. If it’s your home, ride out the market—family stability is more important. ([127:13])
  • Brandon: “We need to stop acting like owning a home is the number one asset for someone’s life.” ([128:37])
  • Pat’s final wisdom: Consider moving to business-friendly, low-tax red states with long-term supply/demand upside. ([128:58])

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7. Investment Advice for the “Average” Person

• Dan Pena’s Blunt System:
  • “Find the five best funds… 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 year results, mix them, invest monthly for 10–20 years—wake up with a big gob of money.” ([91:08])
  • “Don’t trade unless you’re a full-time, skilled investor. 65–87% of trading investments lose money.” ([92:10])
• Pat’s Stats:
  • Number of 401k millionaires at Fidelity is at all-time highs: Steady investing and dollar cost averaging works ([93:23]).
• Bitcoin Stance:
  • Dan remains skeptical, preferring “1% of all farmland in the US over Bitcoin,” and holding mostly cash waiting for a market correction ([97:04]).

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QUOTES & MEMORABLE MOMENTS

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“Affordability is a con job by the Democrats. The word affordability is a Democrat scam.”

— Donald Trump, [20:44]

“The kids today… are lazy. We don’t have an affordability problem, in my opinion. …Affordability to me is a matter of choice.”

— Dan Pena, [11:43]

“You have to viciously attack that issue… but it’s an objective fact that it’s a much different generation than it was when you were my age. …Today it takes like nine years to buy an average priced house.”

— Brandon, [15:43]

“The common theme in all of them is regulation… policy driven outcome. If we get the policies to make those things cheaper, they could build more of them.”

— Brandon, [36:04]

“You had a less than 50% chance of surviving a head-on accident in these little [tiny] cars.”

— Dan Pena, [37:18]

“Not all immigrants are exactly the same. …If your country runs on Sharia law, it’s not going to work in America.”

— Adam, [51:36]

“I’m a big believer in succession never works out like you plan. Man plans, God laughs.”

— Dan Pena, [74:35]

“80% of employees in the U.S. below the C-suite cry at work at least one time a week… and it’s mostly men.”

— Dan Pena, [122:08]

“There are only two times you make a first impression: when you walk in the door, and when you open your big mouth.”

— Dan Pena, [116:33]

“For men, status, money, your game matter more than looks. For women, outer beauty gets in the door, inner beauty keeps you there.”

— Adam, [109:27]

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TIMESTAMPS FOR CRITICAL SEGMENTS

• [08:18–11:42] – Polling and young voter swing; the affordability issue and its drivers
• [12:51–13:38] – Dan Pena’s take: generational laziness vs. true affordability crisis
• [20:44–21:46] – Trump’s clip: “Affordability is a scam”; response to Democrat messaging
• [24:52–27:29] – Tom’s specific solutions for housing market reforms
• [29:56–36:47] – Deep dive: tiny cars, auto regulations, and failed attempts to “go small”
• [46:45–48:20] – Trump’s “shithole countries” immigration riff and reactions
• [65:04–69:43] – Paramount/Warner Bros. hostile takeover, Middle Eastern funding, influence vs. investment
• [83:04–85:25] – Ray Dalio on Abu Dhabi as “Silicon Valley of capital,” debate over credibility
• [108:09–111:13] – Being hot in today’s job market: privilege, perception, and presentation
• [123:23–127:44] – Housing market delisting data and practical real estate advice
• [91:08–97:17] – Dan Pena on practical investing for ordinary people, 401k stats and why not to day-trade

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CONCLUSION

This episode of the PBD Podcast offered a whirlwind tour of 2025’s most pressing economic and political worries—from the hard numbers of affordability distress and the complexities of US housing/insurance markets, to the psychological and cultural divides between “boomer” and “Gen Z” approaches to work, money, and self-improvement. The hosts and Dan Pena sparred over the real roots of malaise (policy or personal willpower), lamented regulatory missteps, and prodded each other for more creative solutions to existential issues like homeownership, job search, and whether a pretty face really is your competitive advantage.

The conversation regularly circled back to leadership, political messaging, and whether modern America is losing or finding its edge in a world where “tiny cars,” Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, and social media polling all sway the future of business and the American dream.

Memorable for its brisk pace, sharp-tongued insights, and raw directness from Dan Pena, the episode is a must-listen for anyone concerned about where the US economy and culture are heading in the mid-2020s.

Transcript

[Tom]

Did you ever think you were made.

[Dan Pena]

For me, Adam?

[Tom]

What's your point?

[Pat]

The future looks bright.

[Unknown]

My handshake is better than anything I ever saw.

[Tom]

It's right here.

[Pat]

You are a one of one. I think I said this.

Okay, we have a fair warning for the audience today, folks. We've warned Adam in advance, whatever you do, don't ask our guests today about climate change. We've told him 50 times I said, don't play this BS game because when you talk about climate change, he loses his shit. The man just came from visiting the Pope six weeks ago. Don't mess with him. He's in a very good place. We have the one and only, the entertaining Dan Pena in the house. Dan, great to have you on here.

[Dan Pena]

My pleasure.

[Pat]

You look amazing.

[Dan Pena]

Thank you very much.

[Pat]

Yes. Okay. All right, so we got a lot of things to go through. There's a poll that we're going to cover today that is shocking, absolutely shocking, that CNN played Harry Enton, that Tom was just talking to us about this a minute ago of what demo the president has lost that's had the biggest plus minus just in the last 10 months. That is very concerning. And it comes down to one topic. And on one topic is affordability, which we have to talk about. We will. It's probably going to be the first thing we're going to be talking about. The president yesterday gave a talk, in his talk, he gave some very friendly compliments to people like Ilhan Omar calling her dumb and stupid. Tim Waltz going after Tim Waltz, again, more compliments. Mtg, not some nice stuff about mtg. I think in an interview he said Jerome Powell shouldn't be the, you know, the Fed chair because it was auto pen that Biden signed, so he shouldn't be it. And then the things he said about immigrants. He says, why are we not getting some immigrants coming here from Sweden? We need some European immigrants. Why are we getting so many? Anyways, we'll talk about that on his speech. And then aside from that last night shocking event, folks in Miami last night, Mayor Suarez, who's the guy famously known for that tweet when Elon Musk was not happy about what Gavin Newsom in California were doing to him and Tesla during COVID And he comes in and ask a simple question on Twitter that blows up. And it was called how can I help? And they put together one of the best business conferences Miami's ever put together, the America Business Forum. Everybody was here. Just last night they elected a new mayor, Democrat, that won last night replacing obviously Mayor Suarez did his time but beating out the Republican Emilio Gonzalez. And apparently Byron Donald's tried to help this man win. DeSantis Trump. And she won. And you know what? She ran on affordability. So we're definitely going to be talking about that as well. On top of that, Trump greenlights Nvidia's AI chip exports to China. Touts 25% U.S. share. He calls affordability a Democrat scam. That's going to be a topic today. Diamond on Trump media debunking. People have to grow up here. That's Jamie Dimon. Trump says he will sign the one rule executive order to federalize AI regulation. Some like that. A lot of people don't. We'll talk about that. Trump threatens Mexico with a 5% tariff over the water dispute that they have.

He struggles to persuade Trump struggles to persuade Americans regarding the affordability issue. Again, this goes back to this thing here. We cannot be looking past this. Maybe Dan's got a different angle that we'll talk about here today as well. 20 signs there's an affordability crisis. US layoff soar past 1.1 million in 2025, highest since the pandemic. This next one is a very technical, you know, topic that I think it's important to some employers nowadays. And this is a Business Insider story. Being hot is now a job requirement. Not hot as in it's hot 88 degrees, but physically hot is now a job requirement. And HR is actually okay with it. I don't know how they do that. Oh, no, but it is.

[Tom]

My getting fired.

[Pat]

No time. It's just you're a little too hot. Okay. Fed. Fed is expected to deliver third straight rate cut this week amid labor concerns. I think it's going to happen sometime today. This afternoon, Americans suddenly more optimistic slightly about the economy. That's a Forbes story. Ray Dalio says Middle east is becoming a Silicon Valley of capitalist David Ellison promised White House sweeping changes at CNN if they allow them Paramount to buy up, you know, Time Warner, which I think that comes with it. Jared Kushner back fund is part of the Paramount Warner Brothers bit. There's some news stories that just came out that Tom's going to be sharing with everybody. Saudi, Qatar and Abu Dhabi want to put billions into Paramount and Warner Brothers. Why? We'll explain to you why. Tom's definitely got a breakdown on that. Mamdani fake. Miami Realtors report 166% spike in inquiries from wealthy New York City residents. New York City luxury buyers reportedly flood Miami beach real estate market after Mamdani's mayoral election. Home delistings ready. Delistings surge as sellers struggle to get their price. So I put the house on a market and I'm going to delist because it's not selling, am I? Realtor says it's been on the market for 320 days. Let's take it out for two months, put it back on as if it's only been on there for one month and change the price a little bit. Gen Z is obsessed with renting big short. Michael Burry is doubling down and defending his call for a stock market bubble and predicts a Netscape fate for open AI. And then we got a couple other stories that were leaked yesterday that came out. JP Morgan Lake warns of higher costs for 2026 and a few other things I will definitely get into in regards to cars, the idea of the tiny cars. I don't know if you guys have been following this tiny car story. Not tiny dancer. The president wants to introduce tiny cars in America, but it's a problem because it's very complicated on how to introduce these tiny cars. Rob, later on when you can pull up the tiny car stuff. But having said that, we are roughly three weeks away from 2026. Once a year we host a business planning workshop. I want you to watch this video. It's this Friday. We go through a 200 page manual. If you haven't yet registered for this is your last chance. Watch the video. Go ahead, Rob. Business is a lot like Jenga. Every piece matters. You need a vision carefully.

You need capital. You definitely need capital.

Put this here. Oh listen, hanging on on one piece here. By the way, you need the right team for sure. You need sales. As good as this looks, if your foundation isn't built on a good business plan, you know what happens?

[Adam]

No.

[Pat]

The whole thing crumbles. If you have big plans for 2026, on December 12th I'm hosting an event called the Business Planning Workshop where all day we go through the 12 building blocks of writing an effective business plan so this doesn't happen to you. If you haven't yet registered, click on the link below. Let's spend an entire day together on December 12th. Looking forward to seeing you there. All right, we're going to put the link below. Go get registered. December 12th. We'll be with you guys. Bring your teams, bring your family. We'll be going through a lot of different things, especially my own Plan for 2026 that I reveal in this event that we do once year. Having said that, let's get right into it. Affordability keeps coming up and it's annoying a lot of different people. Tom. Dan, it's just so frustrating right now that that affordability topic on what they're saying yesterday, the president, Harry Enton, I want to go into right off the bat, Rob. Harry Enton shows this poll on what's going on with the younger generation. Okay. Trump's net approval rating from ages 18 to 29 from February to now. Go ahead, Rob.

[Rob]

As you know, Donald Trump put in the best performance for a Republican presidential candidate among young voters since George W. Bush did back in the early 2000. And you know, he started off his term, his net approval rating among voters under the age of 30 at plus 10 points. Hey, that's pretty gosh darn good. But you come over now. According to CBS News YouGov, this isn't falling into the water. This isn't going underseas. This is going into a deep, dark black hole. Look at that, minus 46 points. That is a shift on the net approval of 56 points in the wrong direction since February. My goodness gracious. You know, I love looking at these swings, looking at how the electorate changes. You rarely, rarely ever see swings.

[Pat]

We look at a lot of polls. We almost never see drops this big this quickly.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Any sense of why, what issues may be driving it?

[Rob]

You know, look, we've been talking about it. You were talking about it last segment with Mr. Matt Eagan. It's the economy, stupid. I mean, just take a Look here. Age 18 to 29 on Trump in the economy back in October of 2024. Who did those under the age of 30 trust, Harris or Trump? It was Trump by 10 points according to the Marquette University Law School. Paul, look at where his net approval rating is now on the economy, minus 52 plus points. Very similar to what we saw in The CBS News YouGov poll in terms of his overall drop in support on the net approval rating. And this minus 52 very. Yeah, it's just stunning. It's just stunning. I mean, John is here with me.

[Pat]

Can pause it right there. Tom, I'm going to come to you first, then. I'm coming to you then. Go ahead, Tom. Why do you think this is happening?

[Tom]

Well, Harry pointed it out. Well, the number one issue in the economy right now is there's actually a couple. And I'm going to leave the iceberg for last. The people are looking for higher paying jobs. They're looking for jobs where they come out of college. And I'm not talking about the kids that studied you know European art, history and like, gosh, what can I do with that degree? Those are the kids that are mismatched and never should have been studying those topics I'm talking about college graduates are saying, it's increasingly difficult for me to find a job, even STEM jobs. We see layoffs happening, but the number one thing is affordability. What happened under Biden, and we can talk about it all day long, all the inflation was Biden's fall and inflation is back down. Well, it is down. It's down to 3% versus 2%. So it's down. But what happened under all that inflation is cost of housing, cost of insurance, and those are the top two. Car insurance affects the youth, 1829 and housing. And they refer to this, everybody's referring to it properly as affordability for the up and coming generation. So they're like, we supported you in here. Now we're looking for change and we're looking for. And we need to see change so that we can afford to live and we can launch our, our lives and careers. And that's what's happening with this group. Now, the Democrat messaging has been hammering through the media that all this is all Trump's fault. Inflation is Trump's fault. So there's a lot of stick that they're getting on that. But the fact is Trump's policies are going to make things more affordable, but it's not happening as fast. These people that are looking housing and listening to launch their careers and lives want. And the Dems are pushing it. And the president can say it's a hoax by the Dem, it is a messaging hoax, but you have to counter it with messaging of your own and definitive things that help bring prices back down.

[Pat]

Dan, how do you address this?

[Dan Pena]

Well, I don't like to disagree with on the first topic, but my kid, when he got out of undergraduate school, my daughter took seven months to find a job and our son took nine months to find a job. And they both found jobs. And it was a recessionary time in both cases by making hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of phone calls, hundreds and hundreds of letters out, going on dozens and dozens and dozens of interviews. And the kids today, because I have a fairly large consortium, almost 40 companies, and the kids go one or one interview and they don't even call back to find out how they did. So they, the elitist of that generation, in my opinion, are lazy. I mean, we don't have an affordability problem, in my opinion. All I know is when I bought my first house and my dad bought his first house that we couldn't afford. He went out and worked overtime. He got another job. The kids don't want to have another job. They expect right out of school to make all kinds of Horatio crazy money, six figure money. And they have no experience whatsoever. So I don't. The affordability to me is a matter of choice. They're not looking hard enough and not working hard enough to get a job.

[Pat]

Now, what do you think when you see a plus, minus 62 points, right, with 18 to 29. And let's just say the president comes up to you and says, you guys are having dinner, it's just the two of you. And he says, Dan, what do you think we focus on to fix with affordability? What would you say?

[Dan Pena]

Well, we sent the wrong message. Ok. I believe that the Democrats and I don't believe that they do much right. But this particular case, they're doing the messaging better than we are. And so we have to up our game in messaging. And I don't know who's advising the president on giving this message, but he's got to change and he's got to change. Full disclosure, I knew the president in another lifetime and he's not quick on change. He's quicker now than he used to be. And he likes to be right, as we all at this table know. He likes to be right and he abhors people that tell him he's not right.

[Pat]

Okay, so, so messaging would be one issue. Got it on. In regards to the kids, you said your kids, one of them took seven months to get a job. The other one took nine months to get a job. A little bit more persistent. Maybe that's a good message for the younger audience. But some of the, some of the folks may say the following. They may say, and Brandon, I'm going to come to you with this one and see, see what you, you think about this. Last night, the mayor of Miami who has been Francis Suarez for the last, I don't know, eight, 12 years, I don't know how long he's been there. He's been there for quite some time. And his father was also the previous mayor of Miami for another 8 or 12 year ex Javier, if I'm not mistaken. Right. And he famously tweeted at Elon, how can I help? Elon responds back, hey, let's bring jobs to Miami. You know, France is saying, but last night, the mayor who won last night beating Emilio Gonzalez, the conservative, was a Democrat named Eileen Higgins, okay? She won last night in Miami, a member of the Democratic Party she previously served as a member of the Miami Dade County Commission from 2018 to 2025. Higgins ran in 2025 and defeated Republican candidate Emilio Gonzalez in a runoff, making her the first woman ever and the first Democrat since 1997 to be elected. We're talking 30 years, right? So you got Miami just went from a conservative mayor to a liberal mayor. First time in 30 years. You got New York goes from a liberal mayor Adams to a democratic socialist mayor Mamdani. Two big markets that we're talking about. Brandon, you just turned 30. Yep. When you see this happening, you're a guy, you know, you got bachelor's and master's in national security. You went into school the right way, you know, and then shifted, not wanting to go into national security, you wanted to get into business. What do you think is going on here? You think, is it messaging? Is it actual issues? Is it actual things that's bothering that younger audience that's sitting there wanting to get their life started and saying, hey man, we gotta do something about this. What do you think is going on?

[Brandon]

Yeah, I, I have to agree and disagree with you, Dan. So first of all, the job thing, yeah, I agree. You have to viciously attack that issue. You have to, you know, apply like crazy. You know, I, I did a lot of crazy things to get here and you know, I could tell that story. But when it comes to affordability, like it's just an objective fact that it's a much different generation than it was when you were say my age, you know, because the cost of living, like, like think about how much money we added to the economy just in the last five years alone, like we doubled the size of the money supply. So you know, we always talk about how it took like two years of an average salary to buy an average price house in the 70s. Today it takes like nine years of now to buy a natural priced house. So I know they're like exceptional people, are going to make it happen no matter what. But it's like the Pareto principle. 20 of people are like above average and 80 people are kind of just average people. And when those people can't get by with like just food, housing and energy, those basic things, you know, that's when you risk socialism because like I think the, like this, the real pillar of a society, like the, the foundation of a society is a strong middle class. And if you don't have a strong middle class, then you start to have these like socialist tendencies. So that's why I think we're seeing what we're seeing in New York and Miami. And I don't think Trump is handling it well because he's kind of gaslighting by saying that the issue doesn't exist. Like, it is a fact that it takes more than half of an average salary to pay for, like, the basic essential things to live. And that's not a good situation.

[Dan Pena]

Well, I'm not, excuse me, I'm not aware that it costs half the. That's 50 years ago for me. I just turned 80. I'm not using that as an excuse. But the numbers, every generation has a reason why they're not happy with where they are economically going back to 1900 and the fact that Trump is one year younger than I am, and a lot of the people that advise him are almost his age there. It's a different reality. It's like, it's surreal. And he's got his Kushner, who appears to be a very bright guy, but he's a billionaire. I mean, these guys that are advising him aren't 30 years old, struggling.

[Pat]

That's a very good point. It's a very good point you're making.

[Brandon]

And lotnik to the commerce.

[Pat]

I really like the point that you're making because sometimes, you know, you'll have people around you, around your age, and if you're not paying attention to what is going on with that generation, you're not in communication with them. Even if he speaks to his son, Baron. Yeah, Baron. He's not the guy to speak to. Right.

[Tom]

It's.

[Pat]

And by the way, this is why I believe the turning point USA audience is very, very important, because they're the ones that are the 18, 19, 20 year olds coming up that are going to school, that are seeing the issues, that are about to get married, that are wanting to buy a house, that are wanting to have kids, that are like, listen, I'm feeling it.

[Tom]

Yeah.

[Pat]

I think there's a, I think TP USA could do a great job right now with their audience on running a survey with their audience of the 16 to 29, 18 to 29, and asking them questions to get some intel back from that. Do you see what I'm saying?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Because that's, that's the audience they need to hear. Right. On what they're going through to, to be able to figure this part out. And again, this is a big, no matter what anybody says, if Charlie Kirk was here right now speaking to his younger audience, what message would he be giving to them right now, to his turning point USA audience? Adam, where are you at with this because you're a Miami guy. You've been here your entire life, minus the one year when you lived in your dream destination, Addison, Texas, with the beaches there. Well, what, what do you think is going on here?

[Adam]

I'm with Dan Penny on this. I think we have to stop focusing on the Oval Office and look in the mirror and fix your life. Trump's not going to fix your life. Biden wasn't going to fix your life. Obama, the list goes on. You have to fix your life. Everyone's complaining about affordability. Well, you know where it's pretty much affordable outside of every single major city in America, it's called supply and demand. So, yes, if you're going to move to New York City, yes, if you're going to move to Boston, yes, if you're going to use the la, San Francisco, Miami, number one city in the world at this point, yeah, things are going to be a little bit more expensive because everyone's trying to move there. Nobody trying to move to Bumble F or to Des Moines, Iowa. Everyone wants to move to the best cities in the world. That's like everyone wants to date the hottest chicks. All girls want to date the richest guys. Everyone who lives in the best cities. So Miami, just under Mayor Francis Suarez, just became, in my opinion, the number one city in America, if not the number one city in the world. You're in America, you're in Miami, Louisiana's in decline. San Francisco's in decline. New York's in decline. Miami's on the rise. Dallas is on the rise. Certain Southern cities on the rise. Listen, if life is unaffordable and you're young, get a roommate. There's no guarantee that I'm an American. I get a house. That. That's B.S. so you may not be able to afford a house. Cool rent. Have a roommate. So the affordability thing, like Tom mentioned, it's the economy, stupid. James Carville. It's always the economy. It's always.

[Pat]

I'm with that. Here's what I want you to think about. Here's what I want you to think about. Tom, I want to come to you next. So here's first, Rob, if you want to play the clip of Trump reacting to affordability, and I'm going to come back to you, Adam, if you can play this clip, go for it.

[Trump]

Affordability is a con job by the Democrats. They say affordable. I watched the other day where some very low IQ congresswoman talked about affordability.

[Dan Pena]

Affordability, affordability.

[Trump]

She had no idea their prices were much higher. The Word affordability is a Democrat scam.

[Pat]

Okay, so that's the clip that he's talking about. And then he's. Is this the talk yesterday, Rob, or go ahead.

[Trump]

You know, and I said it the other day and a lot of people misinterpreted. They say, oh, he doesn't realize prices are high, prices are coming down very substantially. But they have a new word. You know, they always have a hoax. The new word is affordability.

So they look at the camera and they say, this election is all about affordability.

[Tom]

Now.

[Trump]

They never talk about it. They never talk. Thank you very much. They say I'm not allowed to run. I don't know what the hell that's all about. But that's okay. They said four more years. You see the new hat? We have four more years.

[Pat]

By the way, while he's saying this, gas prices dropped to the lowest in December 2025. And the last time they were this low, which is around $3 right now. December 2025 was four years ago when Trump was president. 2021, that's gas prices. Right? But what I want you to think about is what he just said right now. A minute ago, Dan said affordability could be a messaging issue. And then the other part, also Dan said, which is you may need some of the younger audience around you to get a pulse and see what they're going on. What is it right now? National average gas price 294. Rob, can you go a year ago to see what the national average was exactly a year ago of where was that? But this is what I want you to think. Okay, so give me actual ideas because the part about the house, it took three and a half times your salary to buy a house 40, 50 years ago. It takes eight, eight and a half times your salary today to buy a house. That's a real number. Okay, so people, numbers again. Okay. Took around three and a half times your salary to buy a house 50ish years ago. So you're making 20 grand a year. You could buy a house for $70,000. That's three and a half times today. It's taken seven and a half to eight and a half times salary. You're making $70,000 here. Do the math. You know, four hundred and fifty, whatever you want to put there. Right? Five, sixty. So those are real numbers. Car prices in America, sky high. You know, first time, $50,000, average car price. Right. But then the income is not going up at the same levels.

[Adam]

Right.

[Pat]

What do you do? Trump asks you just purely a camera's off, you're just talking. What do you think we can actually do? Not messaging. What do you think we can actually do to address a few things.

[Adam]

So as far as individual economy or.

[Pat]

The affordability, I want to find a way to make things a little bit more affordable for 18 to 29 year olds. Give me specific feedback. What do you say?

[Adam]

Listen, since COVID the game has changed permanently with AI technology. We're not playing by grandpa's old rules. I say this all the time. The days of I get a job, I go to college, get a job, get out of the workforce, work for the Same company for 40 years, get my gold watch, retire, live on the system. I live till 65 and retire. So that, that is so out the window. It's an outdated, antiquated approach. People are living longer. Affordability is an issue. But affordability has been an issue when the.compuzzle.com bust. Affordability was an issue right after I graduated college 2008.

[Pat]

That's not what I'm asking you. No, don't give the greatest hits. What I'm asking, what I'm saying is if you don't have it, I'm going to go to town.

[Adam]

I'm telling you right now, give me the ideas. The ideas is you have to change your own system.

[Pat]

No, that's not what I want to do.

[Adam]

You're going to buy a house.

[Pat]

That's not, that's not what I want. That's not what I want to do.

[Adam]

We still think that you're going to buy a house.

[Pat]

So then I'm going to come to you. Tom, you're not, not asking you that. I understand what you're saying. Everybody in this room is self sufficient. Everybody. This is not this room that we're talking about. Everybody in this room gets up, pays their bills, takes care of their family, takes care of all the stuff that they need to do. We find ways to improve ourselves. This is not this. You just saw a plus minus of 62 points, Tom, he asks you, you can be an analytical thinker, what 1, 2, 3 steps do you give to do things with this?

[Tom]

I'll give you three steps but first I'll give you the one simple stat. The day he, from the day he was inaugurated, Biden 2021, January of 21 to the day Trump was inaugurated, January of 25. The rents in Miami went up 38% in those four years and that is from numbers from the Miami Dade Commission. So this is self reported by a Democrat group who probably is rounding it down a little bit. But I saw numbers that said it was really closer to 60% in with young professionals that were making 75 to $80,000 a year professional job coming to Miami looking for a place to rent, not a white picket fence not to do all that. So in other words, we have incredible cost and they have insurance that's real. So don't use the word affordable. Just say how do we bring down insurance cost and find affordable housing for people that want to make Miami great. A financial analyst and wants to earn 80 grand to move down here. Pat, here's what we need. We need very active engagement to reduce the red tape and regulation on builders and we need the city to open up. There are city land that is sitting in previous industrial areas that are still owned by the city. That was long term leases and stuff. They need to release some of that land. So we saw in Dallas how they built Central Town Frisco, a lot of apartments and a lot of nice areas for people who are going to work there. We saw Central Town downtown Dallas. We saw the Central Town in Addison. Remember those Pat? Of course these were planned areas where someone like you, you know, making 75, 80 grand a year, getting the start and living in good safe affordable housing. And yes, it is going to be more export then. So I think number one, my number one point Pat is the city has to take active engagement with the entrepreneurs that are building affordable housing, number one. And number two, the state insurance commissioner needs to get their act together because the, the regulations restrictions you put on insurance companies causes too many to leave and then there's not enough insurance and the price goes up, people. So I need the state on insurance, I need the city on building permits and I need them to start talking about that so that people can hear oh, someone's out there. And by the way, if there's more un out there then the relative rents are going to come down thanks to supply. That's what they, that's what I would be pushing on if I was mayor because those stats are real.

[Pat]

So why don't we, why don't we think about this. Okay, when, when Dan, when we are in our. And Brandon, you could go to this one as well. But I'll come to you for a stat. So let's think about our top expenses. When you're 25 years old to 30 years old, it's going to be rent or car payment, right? Would you put anything above that? It's probably going to be are you married? You're not married yet. 25, which is you're not married housing.

[Adam]

Transportation and then food.

[Pat]

Okay, so let's.

[Adam]

In that order.

[Pat]

Would you say in that order. Housing. Housing is transportation and food. Overall budget.

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Okay, so address each. Address each. So if you got housing, how do we address it? Build the car, how do you address it? So Tom just said housing incentivize, which we've talked about builders to build smaller homes because we're no longer building starter homes. Two bedroom, three bedroom. You've talked about this many, many times. It's now we're building four bedroom homes. We've seen the charts how to decline from 45% to now 10, 15% of homes we're building are two three bedroom homes. Right, so four bedroom because. For many different reasons. Right?

[Brandon]

Yeah.

[Pat]

But think what do we do with housing? What do we do with car and then what do we do with food?

[Dan Pena]

Housing is a three to five year. What he suggested and I agree with him. It's three to five years. You got to change the zoning. Did that happen? I mean the councils etc have to vote on it. The, the people have to land bank. The builders are going to have to go out and get land and do the planning and get all that approved. That's three to five years before mass permitting. Yes, exactly. It's before you. You put one shovel in the dirt. We need a problem to be solved yesterday, not three to five years.

[Pat]

How do you do that though, Dan? That's not easy to do.

[Dan Pena]

No, no. But the guy that won in New York City.

[Pat]

Mamdani.

[Dan Pena]

Exactly. He pretends like his system or the socialistic system can do that. But again, it's just as slow, if not slower.

[Pat]

You know, every time you see when the economy is bad for the younger audience, you know, the memberships and communism goes up. Membership for communism and socialism goes up. You always see it. You're like, okay, it kind of goes like you remember after the Great Depression. You should see the memberships into the communistic party after the Great Depression. During the Great Depression it was skyrocketing because the messaging was what? The rich people are getting richer, the poor getting poorer. If you vote communism, the government's going to take care of you and they're going to give this. And that's kind of like the younger kids that just came out of college that have been brainwashed for four years by economists and professors who are on the liberal side and are part of pro union. They're like, yeah, yeah, the rich people are the reason why you're poor and the reason why you don't have a job. I hate rich, rich people. You know movies like Joker comes out, where the joker kills the rich guy in the movie, and, you know, these are the bad people. And then you see Luigi Mangioni, boom, let me go take out this insurance guy. Because of what they're doing. And then. And so temperature all of a sudden elevates, right? The one thing that I like. Are you following this tiny car thing closely? Are you see. Are you following that closely, Tom, on what's going on with the tiny car? Can you pull up the tiny car Trump idea? So here's a couple challenges that we have. If you just go back and, and type type in tiny car and go to news. Go to tiny car Trump. Tiny car news. Pick one of them of what they're doing. Trump's tiny car dream. Okay? Next one, if you don't mind going, rob that one. Third one says, Trump's tiny car dream has problems. Okay, so what are the problems? You see that, that Japanese Kai cars that he's talking about, if you pull that up, what do they look like? Yeah, forget about what they look like. Honestly, when you're younger, you don't really care about what they look like. You're trying to find the thing that you can afford, right? Like even what you want them. What you can't afford are two different things. Look what happened with car regulation in America, okay? During the 70s, gas prices 3x in a decade. During the 70s, gas went from 30 cents to a dollar in a decade. Who gets elected next? Reagan. Reagan comes out with something called the cafe. Rob, can you tell type in Reagan cafe cars, okay, the regulation, which stands for corporate average fuel economy under Reagan, that he came out with this, you know, issues on how to address this. So then there was a couple different things that we looked at during that time. This led to through 2008, 2011, 2012, they came out with new emission standards that the bigger the car was, the easier it was for your car to get approved on the emission standards that we had. So. So think about this, Adam. I don't know if you have this chart or not, Rob. If you don't have it, I'll send it to you. Here, check this out. Just show this year and. And let me send you Trump's tweet on tiny cars. This is so interesting for all of us to be looking at because I think this is at least something that they're doing. Let me know when you got it. All the three ones, one of them is his tweet, and then it's the pictures of the emission standard cars and how ridiculous it is what we've done to the market with cars we have incentivize companies to build bigger cars. He wants to introduce an 11 foot car. Not 11 foot car, a small sedan. Right now is 12 and a half to 13 and a half feet. Okay? Then you have trucks that go from 13 and a half to 16 and a half feet. And then you have the SUVs that go 18 and a half and you have the bigger trucks that can go all the way up to 22ft. A truck can go all the way up to 22ft. And they do this because car companies like Ford are sitting there saying, hey man, this is allowing us to build bigger cars. Bigger cars allow us to go with lower standard emissions that we have in place. And we're making a shit ton of money. You know where we are right now? 75% of registrations of cars today, Dan, are either SUVs or trucks. 75% of cars being registered in 2024 are SUVs or trucks. Guess who's making all the money? The automatic. They're like, hell yeah, let's keep doing this right now watch this. That one right there. Rob, if you can, if you can make that one bigger. So check this out. 2025. Go back to that one, right? 2025 standard. On the vehicle footprint. The bigger the car, you see the footprint up top and a miles per gallon. The bigger, the smaller the car, the more miles per gallon it needs to have. But this, the bigger the car, the less mile per gallon needs to have that it gets approved. So they're, they're sitting there saying, you know, here's what we're going to be doing. You know, so Ford's going to say, guys, keep doing this because we're selling cars and car prices are going to 50, $50,000. We're making a ton of money selling these trucks. And then Trump comes out with this saying, I have just approved tiny cars to be built in America. Manufacturers have long wanted to do this. Just like they are successfully built in other countries. They can propelled by gas, they can be propelled by gasoline, electric or hybrid. These cars of the very near future are inexpensive, safe, future, fuel efficient and quite simply amazing. Start building them now. Thank you to doj. Okay, this was inspired by a car called the Topolino, the Fiat Tapolino. I don't know if you've seen the Fiatapolino, which it's the name of the car. It is 8 1/2ft and it gives you fastest. It goes is 28 miles an hour, and it's 50 miles. Range is what it has, but it's cheap. Okay? And so then the argument on why these things, they're not fans of. The other argument on the regulation is America has the widest lanes because we had so many accidents that was taking place because in Europe, cars go like this because their lanes are very tight. If you notice the roads in Europe, you go to Italy the other day, I'm in Italy driving a car. I got stuck. I was like, 45 minutes. Do you remember this time? I was like, 45 minutes. These guys are waiting for me. I'm like, I don't know how to get out of this. I'm literally in a car.

[Tom]

We're just driving. We didn't do anything crazy.

[Pat]

And they're like, this the dumbest thing to do in Italy when you rent Escalades and we're in a road. I'm like, vinnie, how do I get out of this? Vinnie has to get out of the car, come back, do this. We're doing all the old school, Middle.

[Tom]

Eastern stuff, by the way. There was no edge to the pavement.

[Pat]

Zero.

[Tom]

It wasn't.

[Pat]

But that's why they build cars like this in America. They build wide, wider lanes, fewer accidents. They saw the range of doing that. So to me, this could be a major opportunity for some automakers to come out and say, I'm going to build the tiny cars. I'm going to build the starter cars. Maybe we go Back to a $10,000 car, $15,000 car, new $5,000 car. Use some of these cars looking like this. By the way, Rob, if you want to make it bigger, I don't know. I think it has to be something to do with homes where they live, rent, and house. Something to do with cars. And I'm glad he's going there, but there needs to be actual solutions of what to do. What do you say about this, Brandon?

[Brandon]

Yeah, the common theme in all of them is regulation, because I didn't know about the EPA thing right there. That's interesting because, you know, with homes, it's like zoning laws. They say add an extra 20, 30% of the price of a house, and then with. With that, that's obviously jacking up the price of it. So, like, the. The solution to it is to, like, make it more feasible to build more of it. Make it, like, create circumstances, which it's profitable for the producers to build more of it, and then the price will come down. But, like, they've. They've put policies in place that make it more expensive to build things. Like there's no reason that like lumber and steel and like electronics, like all the inputs of cars and houses cost more than they ever did before. Like that's a, that's a policy driven outcome. So like if we get the policies to make those things cheaper, then they could build more of them, then they'll be okay.

[Pat]

I'm going to come to you with this one Dan, because a part of these new emission standards that Biden was pitching, that by 27, 2035 they want to get to certain levels and they want to lower gas powered cars and they want to increase, you know, hybrid, you know, driven cars. And that model is kind of, these regulations are preventing people from building cheaper cars because the regulation is tighter and some of it has to do with climate change. And I know how you feel about climate change. What do you say about this?

[Dan Pena]

Let me just go back a second. So far none of you have talked about the higher, higher death rate in these cars. And there was a study in the UK four or five years ago that you had a less than 50% chance of surviving ahead on accident in these little things. And so a lot of the country, especially Germany, who used to build tanks, you know, backed off it. And so environmentally.

The gig is that.

Right now the American Petroleum Institute says we have, let's say, say 15 trillion barrels of reserves around the world, okay? And that's probably off by a factor of least three to five because countries like Saudi Arabia, countries like Kuwait, who I had a 10 year relationship with Venezuela, all don't cheat the numbers, but they downplay the numbers. Okay? The Aramco, which is Saudi Arabia, basically tried to go public for 25 years and couldn't go public. They went to NASDAQ, they went New York Stock Exchange, Hong Kong, Beijing, etc. Nobody would take them public because to go public they had to have a reserve report, meaning they have to have riders guy to one of the big engineering companies to say how much oil you really have, how much is proved producing oil? No, but they wouldn't produce those numbers. So finally Saudi, the kingdom decided, well, we'll go public and Saudi, so we'll take it ourselves. Nobody participated. So they made all government employees mandatory that they had to buy 50 shares or 350 shares out of their own paychecks to get it away. And so they only sold or took 2 or 3% of Aramco public and they had more than a trillion dollar valuation. If you knew this audience, knew how many oils, barrels of oil reserves were really in the world. In my estimation, oil would be 5 cents a barrel.

[Tom]

That's a great point.

[Dan Pena]

Because there's 10, 20, 30 times more oil reserves. And they keep coming up with secondary and tertiary methodologies to extract the oil. For example, the North Sea. Bob Dyke, who was my partner when I went public many years ago, he founded the North Sea in Argyle in 79, and he said, this is going to. At that time, it was only supposed to last 20 years. So by the year from 79 to 2000, North Sea should be done. Well, the north sea still got 50, 60, 70 years left because of all the oil reserves that are still there.

[Pat]

Great point.

[Dan Pena]

Okay, and so. But those cars, you wouldn't want.

I normally say, you wouldn't want your wife driving that car. Maybe you would, but maybe.

[Pat]

So. Listen, my wife and I are having problems. Buy her a Topolino car, fixed within six months.

[Tom]

That's right. You have an suv. She has a little car, you know, My God, I don't want to see those accidents. I do not want to see an accident.

[Dan Pena]

This is hard for me to relate to. I've been driving rolls since 71, when I was a senior in college. And I've got.

[Pat]

Drove a Rolls of senior in college.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pat]

How'd you drive a roll?

[Dan Pena]

It was 30. Silver Cloud was 35 grand at the time. I scraped a three grand because I was in sales. The other guys were driving town cars, El Dorado Cadillacs. And my sales manager, who was a biased, racist guy, a lawyer from Mississippi, said, peanut, young boy like you ought to be able to sell everybody that walks through the door. But you got to differentiate yourself from the other salesman. The other salesmen were driving Cadillacs and Continentals. So I went and got a Rolls, 35,700 bucks. And I've been driving Roses ever since.

[Pat]

Since 1971.

[Dan Pena]

You won.

[Pat]

What do you love about roses?

[Dan Pena]

And not many people have them.

[Pat]

Just that.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, I'm a Three Wolves family now and have been for a long, long time. I could have flown up the airport first thing I thought, why did I land here? Why do we have to drive an hour?

[Pat]

But anyway, yeah, most people. Most people fly and land here. John Morgan from Morgan and Morgan was here a few days ago. He lands on the airport, and then he asks his driver. So, driver, how long do we have left till we get to the office? He says, three minutes, sir. How the hell is that possible? Well, it's on the airport. Brandon, what do you say about this?

[Brandon]

That's a Fantastic point you bring up about the oil. And I've been meaning to show these two charts on the podcast for a while. So look at this. These are the biggest oil reserves in the world. That one's production says I show that one second. So biggest oil reserves in the world. You know, the US is way down at the bottom there. But then if you go to production, US is producing the most. So imagine if we got the full potential of oil production out of those largest reserves in the world. Like, yeah, there's an abundance of oil that we're not using.

[Pat]

You got to be kidding me. So go back. So look at this. Venezuela's number one in the amount it's sitting on.

[Rob]

Yeah.

[Pat]

But production, you don't see it in the top 10. Go, go to the next one, Rob. Look, in production. Yeah, they're nowhere in the top eight. So what does that mean, though? What does that mean?

[Dan Pena]

They're holding back.

[Tom]

You need a power plant to run a refinery.

[Pat]

But, but then is it holding back or is it because the president's. The US has put sanctions on Venezuela.

[Adam]

Both.

[Pat]

Which one. Which one's a bigger pressure?

[Dan Pena]

Well, the sanctions just started. So Venezuela has been doing this for 30 years. So the sanctions just started.

[Pat]

Why would they hold on to it, though? Why do they hold them back?

[Dan Pena]

Because they know that someday, irrespective of what Elon the Musk says, someday, that oil is going to be worth its weight in gold, pun intended. But the real, the big money, the guys like you, they're investing in water.

That much water will cost more than a barrel of oil 15, 20 years from now. The big money, this is what they're investing in. I know that. What. Not what this podcast is about, but I mean, so, but. And it's proved producing reserves are the ones that they normally use. But in Saudi Arabia, it costs about A$40 to get a barrel of oil from under the ground to the surface.

[Pat]

Buck 40.

[Dan Pena]

A buck for call two bucks. Call two bucks. And East Texas, it costs about 50 bucks. In the Gulf of America, formerly the Gulf of Mexico, it costs about 120 bucks. In the North Sea, it costs about 200 bucks. And it's a buck 40.

[Pat]

How is that possible?

[Dan Pena]

You can, you can pick up the oil with your hand. When J. Paul Getty founded oil in Saudi Arabia back In the late 20s, early 30s, he was looking for water and there's this ugly black that kept coming out. The Bedouins out there. What is this stuff? And then he. And of course, and he got rich as. And Then he wouldn't pay ransom for his, his kid or grandson.

[Pat]

I can't remember nothing he wouldn't pay.

[Tom]

They sent him back with one ear.

[Dan Pena]

Eventually and then he told him I got 11 more grandkids. So you got a lot of people to cut their ears off of.

[Adam]

Savage.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, he had a payphone in his.

[Brandon]

House and quick thing on that too. And tell me if you would agree with this. I think the scariest thing in the world for oil companies is oil going below 60 bucks a barrel.

[Pat]

So I think that the oil 65 is where. The 65 is where they make money.

[Brandon]

In U.S. yeah, 60, 65 to 80 is their comfort Z. So I think they have a vested interest too in withholding that oil and not opening up Venezuela's oil.

[Adam]

I got something for you.

[Pat]

Go ahead.

[Adam]

Well, you compare United States to Saudi. It's not even, it's not even close in terms of production. Texas actually is a bigger economy, produces more oil than Saudi. And Saudi is known. Saudi Aramco what $2 trillion market cap. Texas is bigger than Saudi. So people, oh Saudi. All these countries that are producing oil. America is the biggest top G on the block. Regarding tiny cars. My opinion is the average American dude does not want a tiny car. The average American person should not get a 50 year mortgage just because Trump throws things out there. It's bombastic at the big beautiful bill. There's going to be recalibration, there's going to be negotiation. Listen, if you're Jean Claude in Paris, go get yourself a tiny car. If you're Giuseppe in Italy, go get yourself a tiny car. If you're in America and your name's Rick, you want a Ford F150, you're not driving these tiny cars. I used to drive these little tiny cars around Miami. They before Uber hit Miami in 2012, 2013. Right around that time 2014, Miami dropped off, I think a thousand of these cars all over the city and you would tap it when you would go in and you'd use it for five minutes at a time. You do not want to drive these cars on the highway. Talk about accidents. You drive it to Miami, to Lincoln Road, whatever. You leave it on the side of the road. It's kind of like just renting a bike. But it's a little tiny car.

Do not, do not get a car like this if you actually want to get laid. Yeah, now I had a girl at the time.

[Tom]

So you're saying there's no room to jump into the non existent back.

[Adam]

There's no back Seat.

[Pat]

Okay.

[Adam]

Exactly.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Dan Pena]

Still get cars. So there's the standard magnets.

[Pat]

Go ahead.

[Dan Pena]

Still want a car as a chick magnet?

[Adam]

Yeah. Some guys.

[Dan Pena]

The new generation.

[Adam]

Yeah, of course.

[Dan Pena]

Okay. I didn't think about the vaccine angle.

[Adam]

But you always think about the backseat.

[Tom]

Okay.

[Dan Pena]

Dan, there's plenty of room in the Rolls.

[Pat]

You're not going to have a hard time with that gentleman.

[Adam]

Go get yourself a rules. Follow Dan. Paintings.

[Pat]

By the way, this transitions into, you know, the next story I want to get into, which is the president talking about immigration in his speech, and he asks a question. He says, why are we getting so many immigrants? Rob, you know which clip I'm talking about? The one where he says, let's get some immigrants coming here from Sweden. Okay. Let's get some immigrants coming from Eastern Europe.

[Adam]

I agree.

[Pat]

Why are we getting some, you know, folks that are coming here from. I'll just let him tell you for here's the President. Go for it.

[Trump]

I've also announced a permanent pause on third world migration, including from hellholes like Afghanistan, Haiti, Somalia and many other countries.

I didn't say shit. All you did.

Remember, I said that to the senators. They came in, the Democrats, they wanted to be bipartisan, so they came in and they said, this is totally off the record. Nothing mentioned here. We want to be honest, because our country was going to hell. And we had a meeting and I say, why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can't we have some people from Norway, Sweden? Just a few. Let us have a few from. From Denmark. Do you mind sending us a few people? Send us some nice people.

[Dan Pena]

Do you mind?

[Trump]

But we always take people from Somalia. Places that are a disaster, right? Filthy, dirty, disgusting, ridden with crime. The only thing they're good at is going after ships, but they don't go after our ships. You know why? Because that same missile that knocks the crap out of them, that with the drug dealers from. From Venezuela and others.

[Pat]

I like the guy in the back. Persians for Trump.

[Dan Pena]

Gotta love it.

[Pat]

So what do you think about what he's saying here? Why are we getting folks from Somalia, Afghanistan, what we're not getting from Norway, Sweden?

[Dan Pena]

In those countries, it's from the womb to the tomb. They take care of you. I mean, they don't. They don't have a lot of the problems that the people that are from Memphis, Tennessee, or, or Chicago, Illinois, because from the time you're born, you're part of the system. And you stayed a part of the system till they bury you. And they always. Nobody's starving to death.

[Pat]

So why would they leave? Why would they come? They don't want to come here. They like their homeland.

[Dan Pena]

Exactly.

[Pat]

And by the way, I think that's what the lady screamed in the background, right? Because she said it's because they love where they're at. I think that's what she said in the background. Tom, what do you think about the speech on what he's saying about shutting down from certain countries and then the comments about why we're not getting people from certain countries?

[Tom]

Well, if you like your homeland, you can keep your homeland. I'm going to make sure of it. You know, it's sort of things that we saw in Southern California, where we saw Mexican people who had immigrated legally that were in some of those Northern states where the cartels were such a horrible influence. And so they literally want to leave a country that is horrible. And they would come to the United States legally. And we used to see in Southern California those people saying, I came here for opportunity. I came here legally. And every time I turn around, people think I'm here illegally. And, you know, but they wanted to come here. The guy yesterday, the Vietnamese guy that was in the car demonstrating that not only did he learn to speak in English, boy, he learned how to swear really well in English. Is he was pointing out that he came here from Vietnam and he learned the language and they built a business. And sure, he lived in a neighborhood with other people from Vietnam, but he came here to be an American, to live in America, because what he was leaving is a country that had a lot of problems. And this is the statement that is on the bottom of the Statue of Liberty. Right on it. Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse from your teeming shores. I memorized that when I was in school because the message was, hey, we've got something better for you if you want to come here legally. And. But when the Democrats turn us into refugee central, that's where all of America draws the line, says, wait a minute, these aren't families and good people wanting to come for opportunity. You're just opening up the doors and we are going to become the city dump for all the people that are coming over here. And there are bad apples in that lot. And that's where it begins and ends for me. And I'll defend those Mexican people in. In LA who would have people say things to them. And I'd say, hey, dude, that family came here legally. Do you know their story? And get off their back. You know, you're perceiving. Are you Mexican? Hey, when did you walk across. No, no, no. They're good people that came. There was also a lot of bad people that just came across when the Dems opened the doors to refugee status. And it's the refugees we don't want. It's the honest people that want to come here for opportunity that we welcome.

[Adam]

Adam. Well, to me, it's. It's a culture issue. So not all immigrants are exactly the same. Listen, we're all children of immigrants. We're all moved here from somewhere. Your family is. Came from Iran. I know you live in Scotland now.

[Dan Pena]

Right, but my family's from Mexico.

[Adam]

Your family's Mexican. Brandon, you're Italian of some capacity. Tom is Canadian. European. My family's Russian, Ashkenazi, Jewish. But not all agreements are the same. The biggest issue is not so much. He lame. He named a couple countries. For instance, he said Afghanistan. There's a culture issue between Afghanistan and the United States. I'm sorry. Major culture issue in Somalia. Difference is, you have Cuba, you have Haiti. I grew up in Miami. Half my friends are Cuban, Haitian, Jamaican, Venezuelan. There isn't a massive cultural difference. There's still the same framework of religion, culture, family, society, values. Not that people from that side of the world in the Middle east don't have the same culture. But let's be real here. If your country runs on Sharia law, it's not going to work in America if you're in Cuban. The biggest issue I have with my Cuban friends in Miami, I've said this before, there are people who've been here 10, 20, 30, 40 years. You're telling me you've been here 30 years? You speak zero English, Pedro.

But if you just want to be broke and Cuban or Haitian and never learn English in Miami, you can do that. But we don't worry about these people. They're working, they're doing whatever. They're not trying to dismantle America. Like a lot of the Islamist culture that comes into America speak English.

[Pat]

How often do you go to uk? How familiar with what's going on in uk?

[Dan Pena]

Well, I live there.

[Pat]

So you're there. Is it like nine months out of the year? Ten months?

[Dan Pena]

I travel three and a half months, and I'm there the rest of the time.

[Pat]

Okay, so what have you noticed happened there with. Specifically? Because I just saw something that said you've lived in Scotland since 84, right? Or 84 when you bought your, I think, the castle that you have in Scotland. Yes. What have you noticed happened to UK London from 84 till today.

[Dan Pena]

Well let's go back to the 70s and first the Russian money. 70s and 80s the Russian money propped up property prices triple, quadruple. Mayfair. What most people don't know is property prices in Mayfair have gone down 21 of the last 25 quarters. Nobody puts it in the newspaper because it'll be a self fulfilling prophecy. After the Russians then came the Saudis. The Saudis, they would buy a Mercedes and if it ran out of gas, they left it on the road, they go buy another Mercedes.

And say they propped up prices the same in Beverly Hills California as is the my states. The, the guys that are around me that have been there 7, 8, 900 years, they.

Their properties, some of them cashed out and retired. They never even though the property's been in their family 500 years. When a Russian or an oligarch comes and comes in, offers you 10, 20, 40 times what it's worth, fine, you want the furniture, the napkins, the pictures.

[Adam]

Thank you. I'll leave my wife here if you want.

[Dan Pena]

Exactly, exactly. So I've seen that she's in a small car. I've seen that. And I've also seen that the liberalization. Now we have about 1 2/3 of the police that we used to have.

[Pat]

We have now 2/3 of the police used to have, we used to have.

[Dan Pena]

We used to have a less police.

[Adam]

You mean a third less?

[Dan Pena]

Third less, yeah, a third less. And the cops there, if you watch, they make fun of them, sometimes they go viral and you know, four or five cops trying to arrest two immigrants. Okay. And you can't hit them, you can't do this, you can't do that. You go to Germany, you go to France, boom, boom, boom. You know, it's, it's the old. Not in U.K. no, not in the U.K. you have to really do something awful. And the, and in parliament, which is archaic. I'm a UK citizen and a U S. Citizen. Parliament is probably should have been done away with two, 300 years ago. It's an old system but they, they like the pomp and circumstance. But that's a reason for 30% of the people that visit the UK is for that pomp and circumstance. The changing of the guards, you know, under the old queen and now the current king, it's, but it's deteriorated before the 50 to 75 billion pounds a year that it used to cost to support the royal family wasn't even thought about. Now the budget is down to around 20 million pounds which is still a lot of money. But you go to Buckingham palace. Last time Sally and I were there, not being braggadocious, it looks worn out. I mean, it's like, you know, when you see a carpet that's been walked down 40 million times, that's what it looks like. Okay.

[Pat]

At Buckingham Palace.

[Dan Pena]

Buckingham palace, correct. And the king doesn't want to live there. He lives in another house down the street, which we would consider a palace, but it's not a palace to them. The only thing that they keep new are cars, because Rolls gives them the cars. They're not buying those cars, okay? And so I've seen a deterioration. But our daughter was born there. Our two sons started their education there. But. And when I went there in 81 and I bought in 84 for somebody, that was. For me, it was like Pandora's box. A young, aggressive guy. I mean, I just made hay while the sun shined. And now it's less that way. But it's still. It's a foothold for Europe. And when I first went there, the wall had already come down. But remembering back when I was a young army officer, they had Iron Curtain, okay? And East Germany, who got liberated, supposedly in West Germany, merged with him. But Europe's a different place. But there's two different lifestyles. If you're in Spain, Portugal, Italy, as opposed to the countries that we talked about that they take care of you from the womb to the tomb, it's like Mars and Venus, okay? And the UK is kind of in the middle, but it's a great place to visit. I'm there. It's the only house I have anymore. Not exactly a house, but it's the only place up we have anymore. And it's absolutely terrific. But the business opportunities today vis a vis Trump, and one of the reasons I'm still working, I extended came out of retirement, is Trump is good for my business. Trump is good for business, period. They sneeze in New York and they catch a cold in England three years later. Okay? And so he's good for the economy. We all know that everything he does, he has a propensity, like I do, of having his hummingbird alligator mouth overloading his hummingbird ass.

[Adam]

What does that mean exactly?

[Dan Pena]

Pardon?

[Adam]

Alligator mouth.

[Dan Pena]

Alligator mouth overloads his hummingbird ass.

[Adam]

What does that mean?

[Dan Pena]

That means he sticks his foot in his mouth.

[Adam]

Oh, okay.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, we all do from time to time.

[Pat]

Well, I know he does it at a whole different level.

[Adam]

Can I. Can I. Great point. Can I just say one thing? Back to this in a Story, by the way, it comes down to leadership. Trump saying things that are shocking, inappropriate, offensive. But are they wrong? I would argue that he's saying exactly what needs to be said. If leaders in Europe started speaking like this five, 10, 15 years ago, would Europe have this problem? I think not. The biggest problem with Europe, all their leaders are weak, feminine men. The leader with the biggest, toughest, strongest balls in Europe is a woman named Georgia Maloney. You know, digest that for a second.

[Dan Pena]

They rather be liked than effective.

[Adam]

Exactly. Trump is saying the quiet part out loud that everybody's thinking, hey, do we really want these Somalians here? Do we really want this gaze for God?

[Pat]

Do you go to dinner in London? Do you still go to restaurants in London?

[Dan Pena]

Yeah.

[Pat]

You do? Do you feel safe like you did 40 years ago?

[Dan Pena]

Well, 40 years ago, the IRA were blown restaurants up. They used to have sandbags. If you were a new customer, they put you at the front door where the bombs went off. If you were an old customer, they put you in the back of the restaurant. So I've seen that transition, but for the most part, yeah, I still feel safe. Sally and I were in Dublin not too long ago, and we were in Northern Ireland not too long ago, and, you know, they attacked the bus still. You know, I was on a tour giving speeches and, you know, people. And these little people from Iowa sitting there, I felt sorry for him, you know, my age. But, I mean, they were peeing their pants because these people were rushing the buses and throwing themselves in front of the buses. And I. I kept yelling, run them over. Run them over.

[Pat]

Yeah, yeah.

[Brandon]

So I'll tell you whose fault this is exactly. It's LBJ's fault. So nobody talks about this, but the Civil rights bill, like, there's all these little time bombs that are hidden throughout, like, bills and policies in U.S. history. So they changed the quotas for immigrants that the US had taken. In the civil rights bill, before 65, it was 85% people from Europe. After that, they flipped it, and it was 85% of people outside of Europe that were allowed to immigrate to the United States. So that drastically shifted the type of types of immigrants we got. And that's where it all changed. That's why it's different. Same thing happened in Europe, and he.

[Tom]

Sold it to the Americans as the Great Society.

[Dan Pena]

And it actually changed. Before that, after the Civil War, who was against having the slaves freed? The Democrats, you know, 82 Republican senators or whatever, three of which were black. And so whenever I see. And I lived in the south for a while. And the. Whenever you hear the civil. Back when they had black and white bathrooms, you hear them screaming about civil rights. But they were no friend to civil rights from the very beginning. And it was the Republicans. But now they flipped that. They flipped that somehow. And as they flipped a lot of things. But you know, unfortunately, I mean, you know, there are places in the Democrats they get. When they were talking about gerrymandering, switching the. What do you call this around, they, they did it under Lyndon Johnson and they've been doing it ever since. The fact that we. I say we the Republicans because I'm a registered Republican, but there's parts of the south you don't tell people you're a registered Republican. You just don't. When I, I keep thinking of my next door neighbor in Rolling Hills in Palos Verdes, she was the daughter of the Doc Shah's doctor shot. Okay. And you know what, Shaw I'm talking about. Okay.

[Pat]

Of course.

[Dan Pena]

And. And they always talk. They came with a T shirt on the back. And, you know, and to live up there, you had a lot more than a T shirt on the back. And then her. Her brother came to visit one day and how they were talking about the people that trained cars full of money and gold and antiques and. And of course, the shots. Doctor left a year before the hit the fan.

[Pat]

Wow. 77.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Dan Pena]

And so she now, now she's. She must be 75 now because a shot would be what, 100 and something?

[Pat]

Yeah, he would be in his. Yeah, he would be in his late 90s or early hundreds, something like that. Yeah. Very, very interesting when you're going through this to see what's taking place. Let me get to the next door here. Next story I want to go to is with what's going on with Time Warner, who's going to buy these guys. Right. Netflix offers 72. Then you get. By the way, that's a beautiful castle. Whose house is that, Rob, did you just buy or is that Dan Pena's cast castle?

[Adam]

That is, sir.

[Pat]

Wow.

[Adam]

Dan Pena.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Adam]

To be correct.

[Pat]

What. What can you tell us about this castle? You've been there since 84.

[Dan Pena]

Correct.

[Pat]

How many bedrooms, how many square feet? How safe do you feel there?

[Dan Pena]

5,000 square feet.

[Pat]

55,000 square feet. And right now it's just you and your wife living there, four dogs and some staff.

[Dan Pena]

But it was given by James, this fifth of Scotland to Sir John Guthrie in 1468. The land, they got 2 million acres. Land along with that. When I bought it, it only had 156 acres left. And so the.

[Adam]

Were you in the market for a castle?

[Dan Pena]

No, I was in the market. I wanted to be near the Houma Golf and that's very near St. Andrews. And so. And I thought I was retiring and 84.

But the guy that I left to be CEO at 40 had a heart attack and dropped dead. And so the shareholders. The shareholders brought me back this time, but nine years later, the shares holders threw me out. So I've been full circle, Dan.

[Adam]

I don't see any cars, no Rolls Royces. Maybe there's a tiny car park somewhere, I don't know.

[Dan Pena]

But the car park is to the right over the trees. It's a big.

[Pat]

So if it's 55, 000 square feet, it's just you and your wife. What room haven't you been to for years?

[Dan Pena]

The game room.

[Pat]

You haven'?

[Dan Pena]

Into it, which is up in the tower, which has got, you know, modern games that the kids play, a snooker table and stuff like that.

[Pat]

Got it. There you go.

[Adam]

Twist my arm, Dan. I'll move into the camera.

[Brandon]

It's fine.

[Pat]

So we got Netflix that tries to buy Time Warner for 72. Then you got Ellison comes out with hostile takeover, $108 billion offer. David Ellison yesterday says. Do you have that clip that he says he promised White House sweeping changes at cnn. I don't know if you have that clip or not, but here he is.

[Tom]

Talking about his conversation with the President about the.

[Brandon]

The merger.

[Pat]

Got it. So watch this here, folks. This is David Ellison trying to buy Time Warner. Go for it. A couple of real quick things before we wrap up. I mean, cnn, I assume you would combine the news gathering operation with CBS's if in fact you did own that asset. Yes.

[Rob]

Look, we've been really clear since by the last time we're here what we want to do with news.

[Pat]

Yes.

[Rob]

Which is we want to build a scaled news service that is basically fundamentally in the Trust business, that is in the truth business. And that speaks to the 70% of Americans that are in the middle. And we believe that by doing so that is for us kind of doing well while doing good. And we believe in that business model and we believe it's essential.

[Dan Pena]

And do you, do you think the.

[Tom]

President embraces the idea of you being the owner of cnn, given his criticism.

[Pat]

Obviously for that network in the past?

[Rob]

By the way, we've had great conversations with the President about this, but I think. What. But, but I don't want to speak for him in any way, way, shape or form.

[Pat]

Got it. So, Tom, what do you know about what's going on? Because you just showed me something right before we went live. What's going on here with this deal?

[Tom]

Well, right now, this is like an auction going back and forth. But unlike an auction where we all sit around a table and we all have a number that we hold up, maybe we bid for a baseball card or a rare car or a piece of artwork, at an auction, right now, it plays out in the media. And you have two bidders that are now in an auction for, you know, Warner Brothers Discovery. On one hand, you got Paramount, which of course is Skydance, and the Ellisons, you just heard from David Ellison. And the other side you have Netflix. And right now, Netflix put a bid up. And the good folks, Warner Bros. Discovery, said, we like that bid. We're going to take it. We're going to work with you exclusively. And Paramount said, wait a minute. We don't think that this was a fair process and we're not going to sue you, but we're going to say this. Attention shareholders, we're offering you $30 a share, and that's called a hostel. And then people respond to it, such as this guy, Mario Gabelli, who runs Gabelli Asset Management. 31 billion under management. This guy's a player. He's worth $2 billion. Well known. He's like 82 years old, but 31 billion under management. He came out and he said, hey, I have bought a good amount of Warner Brothers discovery that's owned by many of the people that I'm managing their money. And I have to tell you, we like the $30 a share offer, and I'm inclined to take that. And this is exactly. And then they find out, okay, how much does he own? Three and a half percent. Okay, well, we got three and a half percent now voting for it. So now this is going to play out, and this is what the hostel does. Now you've got people saying, I'm behind the Paramount hostel offer. I want $30 a share, not the $27 a share. And now the question is, is Netflix going to get behind it? Then people said, here's story number two. Pat, where are you going to get all this debt? And all of a sudden, some names popped up.

[Pat]

Here we go.

[Tom]

Jared Kushner said, I've got plenty of friends and we've got money from Saudi funds. He didn't say pif, but people assume it was the Saudi PIF Fund. And he spoke up then a consortium of large institutional investors from. Tell me we've heard this word, Qatar and Saudi and.

Yabu Dhabi came up and said, well, we've got plenty of money and we could put it behind. So all of a sudden, it's like you're at a gang fight and five guys with a lot of money stand up, you know, behind Ellison and Skydance and says, we're backing them up. You know, two guys going to fight in the street. Pat, hey, man, I'll kick your butt. Who's backing you up? And all of a sudden, these guys stand up, up. We're backing them up. And that's kind of what you have here. Now you've got him, people saying, do you have the ability to do this at 31 share that and more. So that's where we are right now. But it's very interesting. This is how the hostile takeovers work. And you got guys like Mario Gabelli going to the microphone and saying, I'll take the hostile offer. It's better for my shareholders.

[Pat]

Yeah. So Saudi, Qatar and Abu Dhabi are going to put up 24 billion, which is 2x what Ellison's are putting up 11.8 billion for the takeover. And having Kushner involved. This is Tom, this is almost making it so. So then here's the question. You're in the Netflix boardroom. Netflix, just a week ago, not even a week ago, four days ago, three days ago. They're like, this is. This is over. We're picking it up. They came out of nowhere. We're going to. They're celebrating. Yes, we're going to get all this new stuff on Netflix now from Time Warner. It's going to be great. Catalog. What do you do now? If you're Netflix, who you calling? What influence do you have? Who's on your side? Who you gonna call that doesn't like those? Abu Dhabi, Saudi Kushner. Who you calling if you're Netflix or you just saying, guys, it's over.

[Tom]

You gotta ask yourself, if you're Netflix, how bad do we really want this asset at this point? I mean, we want it bad, but are we willing to pay this much to get it? And what was the price really gonna be to us? And in terms of operational leverage and the interest on debt that we're going to have to pay? We want this bad, but do we want to pay that kind of a price long term to operate it? That's the question for Netflix. You know, as everybody has looked around, I mean, the rationalize in the room, and I think I'm among them, have said, you know what? I kind of Like Warner Brothers Discovery here with Paramount. I kind of like Netflix, which is now very huge. And I kind of like Disney and I kind of like the three of them competing each other, each other for the consumer. I kind of like that. I'm not sure I want Netflix to get even bigger. So, you know, and I think I'm one of the rational guys, in my.

[Pat]

Opinion, you know what I would be looking at right now from Netflix? I'd be looking at Bob Iger. Okay? Because the perfect case study is who has done this in the past before? Or it's only one guy and that's Iger. What did Iger do? He bought Star wars, he bought this, he bought Marvel, he bought everybody, right? One by one, by when he was going around buying everybody, how did that do? Did it work out? Maybe it did work out. Maybe it's the woke stuff that didn't work out for them, you know, but, but, but when you think about what's in the Time Warner catalog, top three, largest library in Hollywood, okay, You got DC Universe, you got Harry Potter, you got Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, the Matrix, Mad Max, the Conjuring Universe, Stephen King's library elements, Godzilla, Lego Movies, Creed. Then you have the old school stuff, the wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Singing in the Rain, Rebel with a Cause, Ben Hur, and then you have the HBO because that comes with it as well. Game of Thrones, which is legendary, Soprano Succession, the Wire, Euphoria, True Detective, Sex and the City, Curb youb Enthusiasm, Board Walk, Empire. And then you have a couple other things. You got real sports, Hard Knocks, decades of award winning documentaries that HBO has done. On top of that, you get Friends, the Series, you get the big Bank Theory, A Young Sheldon er, West Wing, Gilmore Girls, Pretty.

Pretty Little Liars, Supernatural, Two and a Half man, and then additional the Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, Final Destination, Nightmare on Elm Street, Rush Hour, Blade. By the way, if I keep going here, you're going to sit there and saying, are you freaking kidding me? So how many chances is Netflix going to get to buy a catalog this big that they just fit into it?

[Tom]

Well, this is why one and this is why it's now a public hostile takeover with an open bid.

[Pat]

Are you saying it's done?

[Tom]

I don't think it's done. I think.

Ultimately Paramount wins because they're in startup mode and they'll be more willing to take a little bit of pain and go forward. And I believe Ellison is a longer term thinker and I just don't want think that Netflix is gonna be able to stomach the price.

And then now you handicap this fight. Federal Trade Commission.

[Pat]

I think this is done, Tom, because of one comment Trump made. I think this deal is done. It's going to Paramount. I think it's done. Let me tell you what the comment was. Trump made that one comment and said, look, I had a great meeting with Ted. It was phenomenal.

[Tom]

Ted Sarandos.

[Pat]

Sarandos from Netflix CEOs.

[Tom]

Yep.

[Pat]

He's a very smart guy. However, they're gonna have to look into if this still can even get done because they're gonna get too big, too powerful. So if I'm on the Netflix side, Netflix is sitting there saying, will they even allow us to buy it? FTC will. Brandon Carr. Is that the guy that runs ftc? Am I saying it correctly, Rob? Will they even allow this thing to happen? And is Brandon Carr gonna side with us at Netflix? Are they going to side with Ellison's? Because look what Ellison said. What did he say? He said we want to focus on the 70% of Americans that want the truth and they want it to be fair, not the 30% that's looking for what, you know, hysteria and, you know, whatever kind of reporting. They want to go back to that and who love.

[Tom]

Not like, but love hearing that.

[Pat]

Yeah, I think, I think, of course they love hearing that. And you know who's probably sitting on the sidelines worried about Ellison's picking it up. A company that's been dominating for two decades. Fox News. Fox News. Because you don't think secretly Trump would like Fox News to have competition. You don't, you don't think, you don't think Trump wants Fox to have some kind of competition? Cuz nobody knows what's going to happen with Murdoch's kids. Nobody knows what Lachlan's going to do.

[Tom]

And we've seen, you know what I'm saying? And he ain't his dad.

[Pat]

What do you think about this, dad? Do you have an opinion on this?

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, well, I'm a big believer in succession. Never works out like you plan. Man pans, God laughs. And so getting back to Murdoch, the. He thinks the oldest son that is apparently the, the winner of the battle is going to do what he wants. He may do what he wants while he's still alive, but that doesn't mean he's going to do what he wants. The old man, when the old man's gone, the. And I wouldn't be surprised if somehow Murdoch didn't stick his thumb in this deal. But I said if you remember back about four or five months ago, there was an MMA fight president. There was Elon the Musk on one side of the President and the head of the Saudi sovereign fund on the other side of the president. And they were whispering, whatever they were whispering, and the future is coming from the Middle East. You know, even though I think that Dubai is Las Vegas without slot machines. They're going to have slot machines someday and they have all the money in the world and then some, and they're not even tapping their real wealth.

And the other thing is that the Middle Eastern, after being partners with the Kuwait government, the Al Sabahs for almost 10 years, they're 50, 100 year planners. They're not planning for the next quarter, you know, and they know someday in 3,000 years they're gonna run out of oil. Okay, not in 30 years or 50 years. And so that's why there's been such a outflow of money and they've been building up the Middle East. So do you think they're doing it.

[Pat]

Purely, do you think, Tom, Dan, do you think they're doing purely for investment purposes or do you think they're doing it also to have some influence? Because I wonder what level of influence, influence you think that's what it is. So, so what, what, what? Give me an ideal three things that they would like this new media platform do as influence to highlight Saudi, to help Qatar and to help Abu Dhabi. What does that look like?

[Dan Pena]

Okay, one, like Al Jazeera. You know, they, they look at whatever happens in the Middle east where they are not such a biased eye. Okay? I'm not saying it's not biased the other way, but so they're going to get positive influence around the world in the, in the media. And they need that the next generation of Middle Eastern managers, the, when you get outside the top two or three guys are young guys. Someday they say there's gonna be a young gal there, but I don't believe that they're young guys. And so they think very much like this young man does about things differently than we think, or at least my generation thinks so they're going to get a different flavor and they need that going forward. But they're not concerned what happens in the next 50 years. They're concerned what's going to happen in the next hundred years. And right now there's no US investor that I'm aware of that is concerned about the next hundred years. They're concerned about the next quarter.

[Pat]

Do you think it's investment or do you think it's influence. If they're going to be 12 billion of the 24 billion, they're kicking in 12 billion and they're kicking in 24 billion. And Ellison's family is putting 11.8 billion. Do you think they're going to be having some sort of influence, hey, we want you to make us look better. We want you to make us look grand. Middle East, Saudi, Qatar, Abu Dhabi. Or do you think it's just a chat?

[Adam]

You know, there's an article here.

About how Ray Dalio says the Middle east is becoming the civic capitalist. Yes. Which I wanted to discuss. So you asked the question, is it business? Is it marketing? What was the question like?

[Pat]

The other day, I bought a into this company that we talked about on the podcast a few months ago. Tom and I called them, boom. Deal is done. Money's in. We're happy. But it's. It's in. It's an investment. I'm not looking for it as influence. Do you think they're just sitting there saying, we want to put some money there and diversify? 24 billion because we think in the next 10 years that 24 billion is going to be $100 billion, or do you think they're putting 24 billion saying, hey, man, you better make us look good as well sometimes? Don't be too harsh on us. Don't be too harsh on Qatar, Saudi and Abu Dhabi.

[Adam]

Well, it's a little bit of both. Because if you look at it from, you know, this perspective of who's actually running the Middle east, you know, this. This article was written by cnbc. Conveniently left out who's arguably the undisputed champion of the Middle east when it comes to Silicon Valley, which is Israel. All these other countries, whether it's Saudi, whether it's the uae, whether it's. You mentioned Kuwait, whether it's any of these Middle east and Gulf countries, they have number. Their number one only export is oil and gas. That's it. That's all they got. What Israel is doing is actually building tech technology. Water. You mentioned water. What Israel is doing with water and desalinating water is going to save the Middle east in a lot of countries. Talk about peace deals. A lot of these deals are going to be framed. We need water because we're in the fricking desert and we're all thirsty as hell and we're going to need Israel. So a lot of these countries are going to have to use this for survival and forget their jihadi tendencies. So as far as diversification, you can't just rely on oil because in the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years, how much the world is going to run on oil? Significantly less. Right. Going green, green technology. So they're diversifying. The other component is, yes, they do want to modernize. They want to do enter the modern world. They don't want to be left in the Middle Ages or the Stone Ages when Muhammad was running around. They need to step into the middle, into the modern world and compete. So a lot of these countries, their only foundation is oil and they need to diversify and have other things going on.

[Pat]

Tom so.

[Tom]

Well, I appreciate the segue to Israel, but to focus on just these investors here coming on a Netflix deal, there's a little of both going on. They got into F1. There's like three races that are out there on the peninsula. Fantastic tracks, a lot of Western people that are there, incredible hospitality. I've talked to a lot of people that were there. I'd like to go to one. And then you've got what they did with Liv Golf and you see how Doha is being built. We just talked about the housing in Doha. I did more research after the podcast yesterday and it's only five hours for from London. So it is a short tripe. It takes you less time to get to Doha from Southern Europe, Pat, than it would take us from LA to get to Honolulu. So it's actually a convenient place to go. And it's clean, it's new, it's all kinds of things going on. They are doing three things. They've been Western, ifying up to a point, Come here, enjoy yourself, bring your dollars. But you know, on the back end, it's still Muslim country. They have been. Some people called it sport washing, you know, instead of whitewashing sport washing by investing in all the sport to bring people there. But they've also been investing. This is not their first investment. PIF put a giant amount of money into wework. PIF money is in, I believe in Uber. Very large amount in Uber. Check me on this. Before Uber went public. And so, number one, they're increasingly shrewd investors, Pat. But in this case, there is also the opportunity to carry messaging to say, hey, there's nothing wrong with Jetta, there's nothing wrong with Doha. Come on over here, enjoy yourself, be part of it. So if I had to split it, I'm probably thinking I'm going to go one third, two thirds, two thirds, it's investment. Because at their core, they're pretty astute business people. And one third, it absolutely they'd like to influence perceptions through programming, like product placement, and then they'd also directly like to, you know, influence news.

[Adam]

It also comes down to leadership. Look what MBS is doing in, in Saudi. I mean, we were at the American Business Forum put on by Mayor Francis Suarez, who we talked about earlier with pif. That was all sponsored by the Saudi PIF Fund. So they're modernizing. And every country wants two things, peace and prosperity. And the Middle east has been ransacked by lack of peace and a lack of prosperity. So leaders like MBS and, and the. And the Kingdom of UAE say we need to do what we can to basically have that in our country.

[Pat]

What's right? What's Ray Dalio saying here?

[Adam]

Ray Dalio is talking about capitalism.

[Pat]

Yeah. He's talking about Saudi Arabia and how.

[Dan Pena]

It'S slowly becoming the new Silicone Valley.

[Pat]

Is this what Adam quoted earlier? Is there anything unique in there outside of that, or. That's pretty much it.

[Adam]

I think his take is.

[Tom]

Sorry, Adam. A little bit better.

[Pat]

Whose.

[Unknown]

As you say, I've been coming here for 32 years, so I've watched it evolve from the founder, Sheikh Zayed, to his children. And I think it is a. The closest thing we get to a paradise in a world that's increasingly in trouble. And they have a great investment management expertise because they have lots of money that they manage for themselves. But when it's coming to money management, that creates a community in which other investment managers come here. And it creates this vibe like a Silicon Valley of investing. So this statement of capital, of capital is not just a buzzword, you know, our slogan. It is that if you want to be in almost the Silicon Valley of investment management, there's an excitement to being here, and it's particularly enhanced by the combination with A.I. you know, I would say these are the two biggest commitments. We think of Abu Dhabi as being oil, and of course it is.

[Pat]

Is.

[Unknown]

But really now asset management, because of the amount of assets they have and how they're doing it. And also I, because of the commitment that they made earlier and now is creating that kind of vibe, and that's bringing together very interesting people to create a happening environment.

[Pat]

There you go.

[Adam]

I must, as Ray Dalio, what his point was, but I just. I want to refrain from doing anything like that on this.

[Brandon]

He's been saying a lot of crazy stuff lately. I don't know how much credibility I give that. Like the stuff he's been saying about China. I don't know. I. I don't think there's any questioning Ray Daniel's credibility?

[Pat]

I am.

[Brandon]

I know that sounds a bit absurd because he's the. The most successful hedge fund manager of all time, but what do you think.

[Adam]

He lacks credibility in?

[Brandon]

No, it's just like I know that the Middle east is deeply worried about their dependence on oil. And he's making it sound like they're much more successful in like tech and. And tourism than.

[Pat]

Well, I mean, listen, it's very simple. How much of his. Rob, can you find out how much of Ray Dalio's net worth is tied to China and is tied to here? He was talking about who Middle East.

[Adam]

Saudi and the Middle East.

[Pat]

Is he talking Middle east or is he talking.

[Tom]

I think he was being very specific about Abu Dhabi coming here for 32 years. I knew the prince. That's how he started.

[Pat]

So can you say how much of Ray Dalio's net worth is tied to China and Abu Dhabi? How much is he investing into that? Yeah, let's see.

[Brandon]

Yeah, it's a good question.

[Pat]

Yeah. How much is he investing into that? Which, by the way. Okay, let's see. Because to me, I don't know if I see that as a. Let's zoom in a little bit. $15 billion to Nathan. Okay. For example, Tuna Bridgewater reportedly managed about $7.5 billion in China specific funds. Okay. But that's as firm at times. I manage billions of dollars in China. We've always known that. As far as Abu Dhabi, Middle East. Dalia has recently supported initiatives there back in a global a finance center index at nyu. Abu Dhabi has spoken positively about the regional potential.

Public sources do not break down the network tied a $3 billion figure of Chinese businesses refers to investments in Chinese business, but doesn't necessarily reflect current value. Okay. All right. So you know. Right. Tom, what are your thoughts on what Ray just said there?

[Tom]

Well, he started. I cling to. First of all, I'm not team Dalio one way or the other. And what I heard a guy say. I heard a couple things. Number one, I've been here for a while and so I know what I'm talking about. I've seen the evolution in a new generation. Number two, he said it's the Silicon Valley. It's not becoming Silicon Valley. He was using Silicon Valley metaphor. It's become a Silicon Valley of money management and investing, which I think is correct. And he says they have a lot of their own money. And so the first thing they do is they've been managing the home team is what I heard him say. Managing their own money. Now, does he have a lot invested there? Well, we don't know. But for Bridgewater to succeed, it probably has to be a global fund. It can't just be an isolationist fund. And so he's probably, you know, being nice to his hosts because where was he sitting when he said these nice words? And he's probably being nice to some of his investments because I think there's a zero chance that he has zero invested. And so I, I think that he's knows what he's talking about. They have managed their money very, very well. They do manage their money first. And yes, some of the things he says can be a little wonky, but that's what I read. From what he said, I didn't see anything that I would say, ah, wait a minute.

[Pat]

Well, let me, let me, let me kind of share something with the audience. The other day I saw something, Rob, if you don't buy pulling up what Kevin Durant has done quietly with his investments. Have you seen this? Kevin Durant, basketball player? Okay, watch this here. Very interesting when you watch some of this stuff on how quietly what he's doing, he invested in. Rob, you are all the way at the end, I believe. You got to go all the way to the front. Is that the first one? Okay, keep going. Okay. Kevin Durant's investment track record is elite. Watch this. Go to the next one. He invested in WAP Series B in 2017, valued at $100 million. Now is valued at 3.6 billion, 36x return. Meaning if you would have put 2 million in it, it's now $72 million. Go to the next one. Invested in Robinhood Series D, 2018, valued at 5.6. Now it's worth $119 billion. That's 21x. You put 2 million, you have $42 million. Go to.

[Tom]

Also a voice for Robin.

[Pat]

He was a voice for Robinhood. Invested 250 in ACORN Series B in 2018, valued at $150 million. Now valued at 2 billion. 13x return. Keep going. Invested in DraftKings Series D in 2017, valued at a billion. Now it's 17 billion. 17x return. Keep going. Is that it, Rob? Okay. Invested 215. Coinbase Series E in 2018. That's E valued at 8 billion. Now 75 billion a 9x return. Keep going. InvestED in Postmate Series D in 2017, valued at $170 million. Now was acquired five years ago for 2.65 billion. 15x return. Go to the next one. Invested in Overtime series A in 2018 valued at 40 million. Now it's valued at 800 million. That's a 20x return. So when you hear stories like this one, I don't know Kevin, but good for him for doing things like this. You need more examples of this in the NBA. But a lot of this stuff that. When you hear about stories that he has, you know who else had a story like this? Magic Johnson, who just became a billionaire when he worked for Jerry Buss. He would always talk about that. Jerry, the benefit of playing for Jerry. Jerry was able to do something he can't do in the NBA anymore. I don't know if you remember this deal, Tom, but I think Jerry gave Magic 5% equity of the Lakers. Can you pull that up, Rob? If he did give him 5% equity of the Lakers. So Jerry sat there with my, with Magic and said, look, I'm not only just going to help you with. Because I'm not going to help you with the game, but I'm going to help you with business. And Magic sat there and said, man, I want to listen to this rich guy, see what he's going to say. Magic's a billionaire today. Guy went from being a basketball player. I believe he was at Michigan State, if I'm not mistaken, Tom. He goes from that to being. Yeah. So the commonly number is that Magic got 4 1/2% stake, reportedly paid about $10 billion for the shares. Johnson later on sold his shares in 2010 to Patrick Sung Sion, who's a multi billionaire and bought the LA Times for I think $500 million.

[Tom]

Correct.

[Pat]

That same guy who was trying to help people out with cancer. Right now there's very interesting stories with him. He's become a very interesting character. But if you're watching this, the average person. Dan, I'm going to come to you with this one. Say I'm an average guy. I don't make a lot of money. Say I make 80k a year. I make 100k. Okay. I make somewhere between 80 to 250 per year.

[Dan Pena]

Is that considered average?

[Pat]

Let's just say 80 to 250. Our audience, our audience, they're business people. Your average is 50,000 median income. 50, $70,000. But I'm going to somebody that's doing 80 to 250. What should I be looking for? Where should I be investing my money? I'm not a business owner. I'm a either an executive, a manager, somebody that's doing their job. Right. What should I be looking at with investments? For the next 10, 20 years. So I have some opportunities like this as well.

[Dan Pena]

Unless you're going to be a full time investor, meaning you're not going to work at a job. You can do research all the time. I tell you, I tell people to go and look at the five best funds, Fidelity, et cetera. 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 year results and take a mix of that and put your money in. And I, I recommend they invest monthly and so it comes out of your paycheck, etc. And then you wake up 10, 20 years later and you got a. Assuming the country doesn't bust with a big gob of money. The guys today, if you look at the ads on, on the television and at the bottom, if it's, if it's trading or if it's a derivatives or whatever it says on the bottom between 65 and 87% of all these investments don't make money. Nobody reads that part. They just put their money in and when they wind up losing it, they go to. What's that column on the Internet that you say bad things about people?

[Adam]

The valuetainment podcast chat.

[Pat]

No, no, he's talking about not is it X or. No, you're not talking X. He's talking about what is that place that everybody talks bad about you.

[Dan Pena]

It didn't work for me. Okay, okay.

[Pat]

By the way, just so you know what you just said, there's a story that came out yesterday, maybe two days ago from Wall Street Journal, okay. To the average person who doesn't put money in 401ks. Watch this. 401ks are minting a generation of moderate millionaires. Steady saving by many Americans and a third consecutive year of big gains for U. S Stocks have swollen account balances as 2025 comes to close. Many individual investors are finding holiday cheer and statements showing they have crossed a million dollar Milestone in their 401 case. As of the third quarter there were 654,401k millionaires at just the brokerage you just mentioned earlier which is what Fidelity. Just Fidelity. Not, not American funds, not trans, not any of these guys, just fidelity. 654 in 401ks over a million the highest levels in record going back to the early 2000s around 3.2%. More than 3 million accounts tracked by benefits provider A Light had balances above $1 million as of the third quarter double the figure at the end of 2022. At T Rowe Price, roughly 2.6% of participants balances above $1 million and up 1.3% at the end of 2022. That's crazy. In the last three years, just that T row of 401k accounts, over a million dollars has gone from 1.3% accounts to 2.6% accounts. It has doubled 100% for the first time. Half of private sector workers are saving in 401ks, which allow workers to invest money directly from their paychecks without subtracting. And it's got a couple other stats here, so it kind of validates what you're talking about to the average guy.

[Dan Pena]

Absolutely. But we're at the top of a bull market where most of the pundits, myself included, would say that we're overvalued right now and we're going to have a correction. I keep talking about a black swan. That's going to happen and we'll see what those numbers are two years into the bear market. Okay. But the idea is to keep it 15, 20 years and not trade it. Most of the guys and the kids that I know are trading and most traders at the end of their career save two or three don't make any money. You know, and the. It's like with bitcoin, which I'm not in favor of, but I tell. When Bitcoin hit 117,000 the first time about three years ago, I said, I'm not in it, but if I were in it, I'd sell a third, keep two thirds. And it hit in the hundreds of thousands two more times. I said, sell a third, keep two thirds. And so now you'd have about an eighth or a sixth of it left, but you'd still have the benefit of that bull market. But most of the kids, they read two books on trading and they think they're traders. And I tell you, or I tell anybody that will listen, a lot of books on sex, right? Thousands and thousands. Is any of those books as good as getting laid? The answer is they're not.

[Adam]

Dan.

[Dan Pena]

Huh?

[Adam]

They're not.

[Dan Pena]

Okay.

[Pat]

Very, very deep.

No pun intended.

[Tom]

Deeper, deeper.

[Pat]

But.

Tom, I wasn't paying attention. Yeah, I know you weren't. So, but, but talking about bitcoin, talking about bitcoin, you've been critical of bitcoin before and in the past, I think think says something about bitcoin is tied to Russia. CIA is your.

[Dan Pena]

No, I said, I said seven or eight years ago, I said there's two people that would benefit from the collapse of the finance financial markets in the U.S. china and Russia benefit from the benefit.

[Pat]

Which is true. Yeah.

[Dan Pena]

And three or four Years ago, China banned it because it was making their economy collapse, not ours. And the. The fact that a lot of people think some Japanese guy in a cave invented Bitcoin, that's the hand job of all time. I mean, that's. That's so much horseshit. That is unbelievable.

[Pat]

Do you still think it was somebody from China or Russia? Who do you think?

[Dan Pena]

No, no, not China.

[Pat]

Do you think?

[Dan Pena]

Well, no.

[Pat]

In a different language means the CIA.

[Dan Pena]

Well, I do know nothing would have happened in Russia without Putin knowing it. Now, I've trained six of the oligarchs in Russia.

[Adam]

Six.

[Dan Pena]

There's eight. I trained six of them, and they've never told me any secrets. I had the son of one of them just at the last seminar in November. Okay. I'm now training second generation of these very wealthy guys, and we'll see. I'm not as dogmatic about it as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. I almost said the late Warren Buffett. I almost slipped the current Warren Buffett who's just stepping down. But, I mean, I would rather, as he says, I would rather have. Instead of 1% of Bitcoin, I'd rather have 1% of all the farmland in the United States.

[Pat]

Over Bitcoin.

[Dan Pena]

Over Bitcoin.

[Pat]

So you still don't own any Bitcoin?

[Dan Pena]

No, my wife bought some for our grandchildren, so she manages a small portfolio for our grandkids. And I think her average price is probably.

50,000.

[Pat]

Okay, so she bought it. She bought it a couple years ago. Got it, got it. But would you advise others to buy Bitcoin today? You're still advising against.

[Dan Pena]

No, I'm in cash.

[Pat]

You're in cash, so you're waiting for a fall?

[Dan Pena]

I've been in cash for a long, long time.

[Pat]

Okay?

[Dan Pena]

And the. And people say, what about inflation? Well, Bunker Hunt told me a long, long time ago when I used to be the partners with the Hunt family. Danny, if you got to worry about inflation, you're not making that fucking money, okay? He said the same thing about taxes. Of course, he never paid taxes. That's why one of the reason he went to jail. But if you're worried about taxes, Danny, you're not making enough money.

[Pat]

Is this him? This is Bunker Hunt.

[Dan Pena]

Bucky, my boy. We used to sit in American Airlines. He'd take up three seats.

[Pat]

Holy. How big was he?

[Dan Pena]

4, 450.

[Pat]

Stop it.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, I was part of the silver deal that they got in trouble with.

[Pat]

What did he die from?

[Dan Pena]

Heart failure.

[Pat]

Yeah, that's a big boy.

[Dan Pena]

But I used to be able to. He. I got to fly in his G2 at the time. That was the plane. He had G2, but reconfigure G2, you know.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Dan Pena]

But his wife. This is a great story. His wife, Mrs. Hunt, used to pick us up at the DFW airport. And, you know, if you've been to the DFW, you know, the luggage comes out, goes around a circle. And so she. We're in there, 77 Buick, and there's a crack from the lower left hand front window to the upper right hand crack. And she says, I'm sorry, Mr. Pena, but Bunky won't let me get it fixed because insurance won't cover it. I said, it doesn't bother me, ma'. Am. It doesn't bother me. You know, as long as it doesn't shatter in my face, I don't care. And they used to have a transistor radio swinging from the mirror, and there'd be a hollow place where the radio is supposed to go because he didn't think the transistor radio added in a value. So he. The radio in the car didn't add enough value for the extra 140 or 50 bucks. I thought I'd never see that again. Well, you know who had a similar car is the current senator from Florida, Rick Scott, who I trained. He was my lawyer, and I sent him off to found Columbia Healthcare. He had a crack in the window, and he had a transistor radio hanging from the the mirror. And I used to say, when it was more Vogue, two of the cheapest. Well, it sounds off a white man that I ever knew.

[Adam]

You're just about to get canceled, bro.

[Pat]

Yeah, he actually takes that as a compliment. You say you call that to Adam. Adam's like celebrating white guys.

[Adam]

So question for you. So you're not a believer in Bitcoin?

[Dan Pena]

No.

[Adam]

You're a cash guy. Do you have a 401k?

[Dan Pena]

I haven't had a paycheck since January 92.

[Adam]

Okay, so, respectfully, nobody's on your level. Meaning you said you're about to be 80.

[Dan Pena]

More money than I do.

[Adam]

You're about to be. No, I don't mean it like that. Meaning you're about to be 80.

[Dan Pena]

You said I'm 80. I turn 80.

[Adam]

Well, you look great. Great. Great color jacket. But your advice doesn't work for the average person.

[Dan Pena]

No, I know it doesn't. That's why I follow certain things.

[Pat]

But he gave the average advice. Yeah, he gave very good advice to the average guy. When I said 80 to 250. He said, Find the five funds on what they're doing. Compare them. 5, 10, 15, 25 years.

[Dan Pena]

Correct.

[Pat]

Diversify. Then he said, put money in a dollar cost averaging, which you're four dollar cost averaging and works out. And then that's when I went to Fidelity Zone for the first time to have 665 401k accounts. Over a million bucks, but go ahead.

[Adam]

Well, for me, you know, I always say more is caught than taught.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Adam]

The reason that I'm a 401k millionaire is because someone that I worked with was teaching me about a 401k. It happened in 2008. He goes, how much did you lose in the market? I don't have any money in the market. He goes, well, now's a great time to maybe start investing. And I was like, okay, I couldn't even spell 401k at the time. And now 2008, almost 17 years later, boom, you have a 401k millionaire. The reality is most people don't think 401ks are sexy. The reality is most people, they're going to need a 401k to retire with money. So unless you want to get house rich and cash poor, you're going to sell your house in order to have money.

[Pat]

If you're with a company that matches for sure 4%, 100% of your 401k, at least put in the match.

[Adam]

I agree.

[Pat]

Get that money. If you're not, that's double dumb. Okay? Like you said, if you're not a day trader where you're studying all this, I'm not. The guys that you talk about that read two books and think they, they're traders. If you're not and you're getting 100% match, go do it. Yes, take advantage of it. Well, Mario started putting stuff in his 401k, you know, just a few years ago. The other day I'm asking how much you got in your 401k. He says, Pat, you won't believe how much. I said, what do you have? He gives. I'm like, you gotta be kidding. He says, no, Pat. I'm like, are you? He says, I can't even believe it. I haven't checked the four minutes. But that's the benefit of the match. If you're not getting a match, don't do it. And that's if you are getting the match double down.

[Adam]

Then if you're not getting a match, you might want to consider Roth Harry. One thing I just want to say, because Obviously, you and I are NBA experts over here. Kevin Durant, if you go back to what we're talking about with that, being an investor, you notice that all those investments happen after he left Oklahoma City and went to Oklahoma and went to Golden State. So this started around 2016, 27, 2018. You know, they say that like, show me your friends or show your future. You show up from okc, by the way, number one team in the league right now, to Golden State with Steph Curry. You become the two time NBA champion, and all of a sudden you're blocks away from Silicon Valley. Opportunities are going to come your way. So you said they invested in X, Y and Z, all these companies. So location, location, location is not just in real estate, but it's also investing. Look who's in his ear. Andre Iguodala is one of the most famous, you know, six men of all time. He's not an NBA hall of Famer, arguably, but he's an NBA hall of Fame investor because he played for Golden State and basically changed his framework of his career. And now he's a multi, multi, multi.

[Pat]

Millionaire outside.

Your one amazing voice in your ear from changing your life. Who was that for you when you were younger, by the way?

[Dan Pena]

It.

[Pat]

Yeah, you are that to a lot of people. Who?

[Dan Pena]

Constantine Grazos, the CEO of NASA Shipping, the right hand man of Aristotle. NASA's for 60 years.

[Trump]

Wow.

[Pat]

Onassis was to me one of the most. He was, he was my mother's favorite favorite guy. But Onas says, if you've never read the book on this guy, do you know this guy marries Jackie Kennedy and you know what they put in place for every year she's married to him? He gave her 10 million bucks after being together for five or six years. You can correct me on this. Onassis, she, she. They get a divorce. I think they separate or something happens and she's like, you need to give me XYZ amount of money. She says, no, that 10 million, I gave you more than that every year with the amount of money you spent, you're getting nothing from me. Gave her nothing. If you've never read the book on Onassis, he is one of the most underrated names for the younger generation that you don't know about. This guy was a G. But please.

[Dan Pena]

I just, I just got to Onassis after He died and Mr. Grazos took over. Constantine Grazos, he lived at number one Champs Elysees was his address. My wife and I in recent years have gone back to one. Now it's he lived in the attic with the rats. But he said he always had a tan. So he put aluminum foil around his neck like this.

[Pat]

This was Onassis or Onassis.

[Dan Pena]

He wanted people to think he was either on a boat, a tennis court or a golf course. So he always had a tan and he always spent more money than he made, which is quite easy for my wife to do. It's a little harder for me.

[Pat]

But what did you learn from Constantine? What did you teach as a young.

[Dan Pena]

Manassa Shipping had 107 ships. This is when I was there. All a Panamanian registry. All paid for, no debt. NASA's. And they have the Olympic Towers, the building. And he said we used them in Olympic Airlines. We gave the airlines back to the country because we couldn't figure out how to run an airline and make money at it. The onassis Towers was 40% full and 60% empty when I was in it. And I used to use Christine Onassis office that looked down Fifth Avenue at St. Patrick's Cathedral. And he said that the two biggest levers you have in life are other people and other people's money.

[Pat]

Opm. Opm.

[Dan Pena]

Opm.

[Pat]

Onassis An Extravagant Life is the book. If you've never just buy the audiobook, folks. Go buy it. Listen to it. Life changing. You will be entertained. Onassis was extremely strange, unique. Psycho competitor. The level of psycho competitor this guy was. And you know, right around 45 years old he started having bladder problems. I know another guy at 45 years old started having.

This is like six podcasts. I know he stepped away.

[Dan Pena]

By the way.

[Pat]

I don't know if one has had bladder problems at 40. I know this guy, but this guy does.

[Adam]

He drinks a lot of water.

[Pat]

Can we put a gar shook for this guy? To all the Armenians that listen, can you please send him a gar right down here. So pvd.

[Adam]

I already have multiple gar thanks to the fans out there.

[Pat]

So let's have they actually send you gar.

[Adam]

Of course. Do you know what a gar shok is?

[Dan Pena]

No.

[Adam]

We're going to send you one. Don't worry.

[Pat]

Gar in Armenia, in Russian, Armenian is little potty. Like, you know how kids you sit on those little g. I think Adam needs a gar. Like maybe like a save that money gar. But let me, let me get to the next story.

[Tom]

You're in trouble.

[Pat]

Yeah, the problem I'm going to get into the next story here. I want to get to. So this next story, maybe it doesn't have to do with economy? Maybe it does. Being hot is now a job requirement.

[Adam]

Okay, how do you think I got this job?

[Dan Pena]

Pat?

[Pat]

So in the age of Ozempic and microlifts, the pretty privileged gap is growing. Emily Reynolds runs a PR company Me. And with that responsibility comes the pressure to look young. She tells me she's 44 but often passes as younger. Rob, can we see what she looks like? She often passes as younger and that's by design. Reynolds has tried Botox, filler razor, laser facials, hydro facials and invests in expensive skincare products. She has a peloton and does intense workouts. This LaBarry's Boot Camp. She's walking the pre precarious line. And she tells me between looking mature enough to show she's an experienced professional who can run and mentor a team and young enough to be relevant. Even as she thinks critically about beauty standards imposed on women, Reynolds worries about what would happen to her business and professional reputation if she abandoned her rituals and routines. And what's going to happen as she continues to age. How long will I be quote, quote unquote publicly relevant, perceived as attractive? Reynolds says and when I'm not, what happens to me professionally? That's the thing I think about daily. What a thing to be thinking about daily with that. Do you think it's extremely important to be hot and if it's a job requirement today, meaning the better you look, the more likely it is that you're going to get the job. Dan, what do you think?

[Dan Pena]

Absolutely.

[Pat]

Absolutely.

[Dan Pena]

Yes. Okay, so it's not, it's no coincidence that the former personal assistant to Gates jobs when he was alive and more recently.

Elon is the same woman. She's written a book and how she set up to go after jobs first and then Gates and then Elon. She didn't have any kids with Elon because Elon likes to have a lot of kids but not with her. And most of the the top assistants female I'm talking about to the big Wall street guys are all good looking. There's no, no old hags, you know that look like Volkswagens.

[Pat]

Do you think it helps? It helps guys as well or to guys it doesn't matter whether they're good looking or not to make money. Does it help to be good looking to be in shape in business for men?

[Dan Pena]

Depends. My hall of fame doesn't have one six pack on it. I've got 145 or 50 guys. Two girls.

[Pat]

Not one six pack, not one, not one.

[Dan Pena]

I've got some Guys that take steroids and have big muscles, but no six pack.

[Pat]

Got it. Adam, what do you think about this?

[Adam]

The question is what this lady, give me the question.

[Pat]

The question is, how important is it to look good? Does it help you advance in your career?

[Adam]

Hell yeah, it does. You think I know anything about anything? I'm just good looking. No, the reality is this.

[Pat]

A lot of people made. You know, I'm reading the comment section, Adam. They know they're not about very ugly. They're worried about you having to use a bathroom every single day.

[Adam]

I'm drinking a lot of water, but my voice sounds good. Here's the reality. There is something called pretty privilege, and it affects women way more than it affects men. So women have to understand this, that inner beauty and outer beauty is completely different. Outer beauty will get you in the door anywhere, but inner beauty will keep you in the house or keep you in a job or keep you employed. So there's a lot of hot girls relying on pretty privilege these days, but that only goes so far. So what's your character? What's your DNA? What's your values? What's your principles? Just being hot will not keep you there long enough. You need to do more than that. Now, as far as a man, for a man to have status, you have multiple factors that you can rely on other than looks. Looks, if you ask, women are not even the number one thing. It's status. It's money. It's your. Your game. So, so to speak, are you funny? Are you humorous? Are you bombastic? Do you got a swag? Do you have a castle? You got a castle? Doesn't matter if you're a couple pounds overweight. So the reality is I don't even know if this chick's married.

[Pat]

And.

[Adam]

And not that it matters per se, but if she is not married, you may want to take a step back from your career and focus on family and kids before it's too late.

[Pat]

Who is. Who is this girl anyways, Rob?

[Dan Pena]

She's supposed to be hot.

[Adam]

I don't know, Dan. I don't know.

[Pat]

Can you go to another one that says Emily Roberts?

[Adam]

Emily Reynolds.

[Pat]

Is it Roberts or Reynolds? Reynolds? No relation to Ryan?

[Adam]

No.

[Pat]

Okay, Tom, where are you at with this?

[Tom]

So I believe that there is something to coming into an interview and looking sharp. Okay, looking sharp. But I'll tell you, the further along I've been in my career, the more I've looked at it. What can you do? When can you do it, and who can I call to confirm it?

[Pat]

I thought you were gonna say, who can you do? I was like, tom, what can you do?

[Tom]

When can you do that?

[Adam]

Tom, literally, Tar Dan Pena here, you're gonna say things like this, please. That's it.

[Tom]

Now, if you come in looking disheveled, that makes a difference. But if you come in looking sharp, you don't have to be handsome or particularly beautiful by, like, modeling standards. You just need to be sharp and put together. Like, you take care of yourself. I'll tell you, there is a bias, and it is a factual bias. And no one's going to want to hear this. And this is not fat shaming, but people that are incredibly overweight. There is an perception about employers. Are you taking care of yourself? And if you care enough to take care of yourself, will you care enough to take care of the job that I'm hiring you for? And what's going on here? So there is that bias. But you don't have to look like a model. You have to come in and say, this is my background. This is what I've accomplished. This is what I'm capable of. Here's my references. I'm ready to go. And that is. And I think that's. That's the attitude now, younger people. Do women that are more beautiful get hired into, you know, a role like an assistant or like this? Sure, I. I'd be a fool to say that that doesn't happen, but for the broad spectrum, we're looking for people to get the job done, not to surround ourselves with everybody we work out with at Equinox.

[Pat]

Okay. All right. So to me, I think when it comes down to this, you have to. I used to work at Bally's, and when I would work at Bally's, guys would come in and, you know, I would have some fun with them, but I would also, you know, be. It was 50 fun, 50 series. I would have them stand up. I'm like, okay, so are you single? I am. When's the last time you had a steady relationship? Not in a while. Do you own a gym membership? Obviously, I don't. Okay, you look at me like I said, look, man, what are you gonna do to make this work? Okay, so then I would. I'm like, listen, can I just talk to you openly? Yes. I said, stop trying to grow a beard. You don't have one. It doesn't look good. You either have it. Do it. You don't have it. You don't have it. Don't do it. All right, number two, what is this hairdo you got here? What Is this all about, like, what are you doing with this hairdo? I said we got to get rid of this hairdo. It's a pretty shitty hairdo. We got to fix this thing here, right? It's not going to work. Go to somebody and I would introduce them to one of my guys. Go get a nicer haircut. This is embarrassing. You can't go around looking like this. No girl's going to want to date you. And if she does, I would question her integrity. Like, what she's doing this for then? It's the way you dress. Tell me how you dress. Tell me what you wear. What is unique about your brand? When you walk into room, what's going to be different about you? What do you dress that's just different than everybody else? What do you do? Okay, great. Here's what I do. Working out energy. Do you smile? Do you take care of yourself? And I think this is like, even when we license 60,000 insurance agents in 50 states. So I had a lot of younger guys that would come in, and I've had many conversations where I would sit down, I had a kit. I would say, first of all, you smell horrible. Okay? So hygiene is extremely critical. If you can't figure out your hygiene, I don't know if you realize or not. It's hard to be around you. And stop talking to me like this.

You smell. Fix your breath. Have people tell you if you have your breath, have one of these. What do you call these. These mint things that you put in. But that's a shortcut as well. Floss. Two, three times a day. Have these flossing stuff that the stuff gets out of your teeth because that's what smells bad. As you get older, you got to take care of this stuff, and you got to figure out what you got to do to. For your breath to smell better. Hygiene. Blow dry yourself after a shower. Okay? Blow dry any area that sweat stays there. Just don't burn your private parts. But blow dry yourself, right?

[Tom]

Blow dryer, not curling iron.

[Pat]

I'm actually being that serious with you. Blow dry yourself. Blow dry between your toes, on your feet. That's what makes your feet smell because it's nasty. Blow dried after you get. Because it's wet, yeast, stuff stays in there. And then it's like, use this deodorant. Try this shampoo.

[Dan Pena]

Do.

[Pat]

Try this ax. Take a shower. Do it this way. And then eventually, three, six months later, they smell better. Give them a cologne. Hey, start off with this Perielis, this 112 clone, this Jupe clone, whatever. The old school clones were not the, you know, Creed clones. You're not going to go around handling Creed or Stefano clones to people. But maybe not stop. But I'm just being very honest. And then eventually you're like, all right, so look what you look like, you smell better, you look better, you're taking care. And then you see the confidence. And then all of a sudden they're walking like this. You've been doing this your entire life to younger guys. And you're like, all right, now he's got a girlfriend. Now he walks in a different way. Now he's got a little bit of a swagger. Now he's got self worth. Now he's got some money in the bank. Now he's got some. And then good things start happening. But I think the comment Tom that you made, I think it's extremely right because Tom's message applies to 90% of people. If you're handsome, you're good looking, you know what you can do? Many times you can have shitty hair. Okay? You cannot fix everything on your hair, your face. And there's these people that can. They wake up and they look good. Look around 1% of the world. But to everybody else, I think it is important. I think it works. And then I'm going to give you the final thoughts on this year.

[Dan Pena]

You have two times I make a first impression. One when you walk in the door, she walks in the door. The next is when you open your big mouth. Okay? A lot of people can pass the lip chest. Good point. But then they stick their foot in their mouth. And so communication skills are paramount. And the current generation, actually the last two generations, have piss poor communication skills.

[Pat]

Bill Ackman, worth 9.2 billion, the other day gave a tip to people on X and it went viral. He said, here's a tip to young men. When you want to ask a girl out, ask her, may I meet you? Okay. And the amount of people that tried to troll him for saying may I meet you? Was nonstop. He got trolled nonstop all day. What, what, what is your line? If that's what Ackman says, what would Dan Pena say?

[Dan Pena]

As a single man or as an 80 year old man?

[Pat]

No, no, no. Single. As an 80 year old, you can get away with anything. But as a single man.

[Dan Pena]

Okay, your place of mine, that's what you really.

[Pat]

That's open. She's like, I live in a one bed.

[Adam]

He's like, I'm in a castle.

[Dan Pena]

So, okay, your place of mind.

[Adam]

Come meet me at my Crib.

[Pat]

Which do you. Rob, can you.

[Adam]

Do you, like, cast?

[Pat]

Can you run a poll? Which do you prefer? May I meet you? Or put. Your place or mine? Run a poll.

[Adam]

Go with Dan.

[Pat]

Fellas, ladies, which one? Let's see what's going to happen.

[Dan Pena]

Can you pull my picture of my wife and I. That is in our city.

[Pat]

He'll find it, okay? We'll find it. Rob, start that poll. I'm curious, folks. Start voting.

[Dan Pena]

When did that.

[Tom]

When did that. When did that line start working? When Dan, when did that line start working?

[Dan Pena]

20, 21.

[Adam]

Once I had a castle.

[Tom]

Once you had a Rolls.

[Dan Pena]

No, no, no, no, no. Hang on.

[Tom]

Once you had a. I had a.

[Dan Pena]

Rolls when I was 24. So when I was commissioned an officer, a young guy at NATO. I mean, your place or mine? And actually I got it from a woman asked me during a lunch break, you know what, your place or mine? And so I.

[Adam]

She asked you when you were working.

[Tom]

That's when you were working in NATO. Yeah, that was that nice Russian woman that said, tell me all about your job.

[Pat]

Which picture Is it? The way.

[Tom]

Is there.

[Pat]

Is there a picture?

[Dan Pena]

The one.

[Pat]

Younger picture of.

[Dan Pena]

No.

Can you go to my website? Oh, but wait, stop, stop, stop. See those pictures on the right? That's my wife last year. And that's my wife 30 years ago.

[Adam]

All the way to the right.

[Dan Pena]

The one there. That, that, those two. Thirty years ago, Last year.

[Pat]

Wow.

[Dan Pena]

Rocking the same, the same vibe. But she used to be a big sailor. She, she was winning that race across the Atlantic and that's serious.

[Tom]

She's wearing a sailing harness. That's a big time sailor.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah, she is. Well, she was a big time set, but she looks the same.

[Tom]

That's when the boat's up at 44 degrees.

[Adam]

Can I add.

[Tom]

Leaning into the wind?

[Pat]

You can add one thing.

[Adam]

Okay, I'm just imagining, you know, the guy walks into Bally's for the first time and he's Valleys.

[Pat]

Is that Ballytota Fitness Nautilus? Bally, please.

[Adam]

I'm just imagining the guy walks into.

[Pat]

Your place of mine is winning. That's swag.

[Adam]

Right?

[Pat]

May I meet you? Your place or mine? It's close. It's close. That's 1400 people just voted in the last minute.

[Adam]

As close as my point the other day to like or hate.

[Dan Pena]

Adam, can I meet you as woke?

[Pat]

May I meet you as woke.

[Adam]

Meet me here.

[Pat]

May I meet you as woke? Your place or mine?

[Dan Pena]

And I know, I know Fortune 50 CEOs that, you know the names that they can make it vulgar. More vulgar. No, more vulgar than your place or mine. I mean, they.

And that's just.

[Adam]

Let's not go there, because then we're going to trigger Tom and then.

[Tom]

Well, some men are pigs, man. Some men are pigs.

[Dan Pena]

I know, but they've been pigs since caveman.

[Tom]

That's exactly right. When they bonked her on the head and dragged her.

[Dan Pena]

Exactly. I should have lived then.

[Adam]

What I was gonna say is this. Like, I could just picture the guy that walks into Bally's and Pat walks in and goes, you're fat. You smell, your hair's all messed up. You're.

[Pat]

You'd be amazed how many guys came back being thankful.

[Adam]

But that's my point, is that they're open to feedback and they're coachable. That's the one thing I've noticed between certain men and. And not certain men and certainly between men and women.

[Pat]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Is that men are more comfortable being offended. Our guys will tell each other, we bust balls, bro. You're fat, you're gross. Clean it up. And it's like, all right, cool. I will. Women can't say each other to each. To each other. That's why they're all tens. Okay, how do I look? I'm a 10. I'm a 10. I'm A 10. Women don't want to be offended. For a man, you need to be comfortable being offended. And people, you need to be told, you're fat, you're sloppy. Clean it up. You're a loser. Don't end up being a loser. That's how you motivate young men. That's a different.

[Dan Pena]

How you're willing. Men are willing to engage in self deprecation, and women aren't.

[Adam]

I've seen. Not that we need to rehab. Just some of the things you've said online. It's not for the. For the faint of heart.

[Dan Pena]

No.

[Adam]

But you say f. You clean it up, stop being a. And that's how men actually receive feedback. Right. Like. Like, have you ever had a football coach or basketball coach or a drill sergeant? They go, get down, mother. And you do it. Women don't respond to that. You can't go to a girl and say, you're fat, you're ugly, you're overweight. Clean it up. They're gonna start crying in the corner. For a guy that's gonna make or break. If you say that to a guy and they clean it up, that means they're resilient. If they start crying in the corner, then they're weak and they'll probably never get laid anyway.

[Dan Pena]

Forbes magazine put out a survey last year that 80% of employees throughout the United States of America cry at least one time a week.

[Adam]

80% of employees from.

[Dan Pena]

Below the below. The chairman and CEO, the C suite, I guess they call it cry. So I asked my two kids to work for big companies and my, my daughter who's 39 now, she was 38 then. She says more than once a week, dad. And it's mostly men cry at work. Yeah. That's where we are.

[Pat]

Wow. I don't want to say this publicly, but last week I saw Adam in the gym. This happens routinely on Fridays. He was crying. It's normally it's Wednesdays because he's like, you know, Brandon. I'm like, yeah, so. But normally, honestly, like the solution, one good hug wraps it up. Thank you.

[Dan Pena]

Right?

[Adam]

Or a pow pow. Either way, I suck it up.

[Pat]

No, no, but obviously that's a joke. But, but the point, but the point I'm trying to. The point of what you're saying here is taking the feedback from somebody that's giving you straight up. Let's do last one before we wrap up. We got four minutes for this one. Okay. Home delistings surge as sellers struggle to get their price. This isn't good. They're trying to sell. No one's willing to pay the price. The Realtor comes and says let's take it off because it shows that it's been for sale for 328 days. And let's start it all over again. Here's what CNBC had to say about it. Go for it, Rob.

[Brandon]

Housing market.

[Pat]

But this year could be worse than expected as sellers seem to be giving up. Diana Olich joins us us to explain why.

[Tom]

Diana.

[I]

Hey Mike. When a seller takes their home off the market, it's called a delisting. And they're now happening at an unusually high rate. Delisting in October, which are reported with a one month lag, were up 45 and a half percent year to date and up nearly 38% from October of last year. That according to a new report from realtor.com now this is the highest delisting year since they began tracking in 2022. Delistings began to rise in June and have remained elevated for five straight months. About 6% of active listings have been coming off the market each month, which is typically, typically something you only see in the dead of winter. All right, so why is it happening? Uncertainty in the economy. Stagnant and high mortgage rates. And of course a still Pricey market. Locally, Miami, Denver and Houston are seeing the highest ratio of delistings compared with new listings. Those are also markets that saw some of the biggest price gains in recent years. And in addition, and because of that, more potential buyers are now heading to what realtor.com calls refuge markets. More affordable markets. Grand Rapids, St. Louis, Cleveland, Milwaukee and Pittsburgh are all seeing much bigger price gains now than the rest of the country because demand there is suddenly surging. Now later today we do get earnings from luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers buyers. We haven't had any government data on the homebuilders since before the shutdown. But Toll has been outperforming simply because its buyers are less reliant on mortgage rates. Now they did guy, they did guide to lower home deliveries. We'll see how much lower when we get those results this afternoon.

[Pat]

Okay, Tom, what's going on here?

[Tom]

What's going on is they said delistings. This is the highest it's been since they started measuring it. What happens with delistings when people finally decide to sell? They're usually selling into a roll up market. They're seeing prices roll up around them. They're seeing prices go up. Honey, maybe it's time to, you know, sell the house and buy something smaller or maybe now's the time to, you know, move across town to something bigger. Well, what happens with delistings. Delistings is what happens. Delistings increase, which tells, you know, the market observers that the peak of the market prices and the current point may be upon us, Pat, when prices peak, delistings happen. What it says is that there's, guess what, there's now prices may be starting to go down a bit. So number one, you look at, you see, are we seeing the D listings as a signal we may be at the top of market and prices are now going to moderate, go down a little bit. And remember, these prices have run up for a while. So it's not like these are going to drop below mortgage value like the, you know, the great financial crash in 2008, 2009. So but this is a sign. Now what do we also see? Two weird stats. Number one, the layoffs have increased over the summer. From July to now, layoffs have increased, but job openings have also increased, which might mean that we don't have the people in the right places or the right skills for the right jobs.

[Dan Pena]

Jobs.

[Tom]

Because you have layoffs on one hand and then you have job openings on the other. But this I believe is a sign that in these peak markets we're about to see pricing start going down because I, I put it up saying, hey, honey, it was a million. Let's put up at a million fifty, see if we get any takers, because things have been up around us. But what if the real market for your house is really 975 right now because it's peaked a little bit? Well, then the realtor says, look, we don't want to go drop, drop, drop, because people will price under you. They'll think maybe you have to move somewhere for a job. And there's some psychology in buying. Let's just do this, take a breather, and then we'll put it back out at 980 and go get your 975. There's strategy to it as well.

[Pat]

Dan, what feedback do you have to say for people that are not homeowners or homeowners to homeowners, Do I sell or do I keep to if I want to buy, is this a good time to buy? Do I wait? What do I do?

[Dan Pena]

If the house is a house that you're living in as opposed to an investment? If it's an investment, I think the market's going to go lower. So, I mean, depending on, can you be without a home or without a real estate, piece of property without a fourplex, etc. Etc. I'd sell. But if it's your house, I just write out the market. I mean, your home, I just write out the market.

[Pat]

Common sense.

[Dan Pena]

Yeah.

[Pat]

You want a house, family, somewhere to live, and you're going to be there long term, five, ten years. Just go buy, do your thing. Okay, Adam, your thoughts on this?

[Adam]

Of course. Is it a, Is it a lifestyle thing as an investment thing, or is it something for your family? Those are three different things. I've said this before. I'll say it again. The best investment you can make is into yourself, is into your business. Then assets like the stock market or Bitcoin, and then housing. You know, housing is a lifestyle thing. Yes. If you wait it out 5, 10 years, you can make money on your house. Of course, nobody's denying that, but is it the best investment? In my opinion, no. And for the, for the matter, for young people, it's taking longer and longer and longer. For all of life's milestones, loans, buying a house, having kids, getting married, it's all taking almost 10 years longer than it was a generation ago. The average home buyer right now is 40 years old. You know, a generation ago, the average home buyer was 28. So things are taking longer, good things Take time, play the long.

[Pat]

Brandon.

[Brandon]

Yeah, we gotta stop acting like the, the owning a home is the number one asset for somebody in their life. Like it's like a retirement vehicle or it's like their end all bl. Because like it would be good for the most people if home prices went down. Like that is what should happen if we build more houses. So, you know, people are acting like it's going to be a national crisis. Home prices go down because that like psychology has been built in. But that's like a bad way to think about it.

[Pat]

Yeah, I think there are certain markets that are going to be impacted more. Certain markets are not. I suggest looking if you're comfortable moving, look into red cities, red states, pro business, pro friendly, no income tax. A place that you know others are going to move to if it's in places that is blue state. The other day I saw a clip of Gavin Newsom with Charlie Kirk and you know, he talked about how, hey, we have, you know, and then Charlie kept saying we got the fifth largest, third, fifth largest economy in the world. And then Newsom says, I'm glad you know that. He said, but you've been losing a lot of people. He says, not last year. We got people coming in. He says, but the way you got people coming out last year was some illegal immigration. And Newsom was stuck. He didn't know what to say. So if you take blue states, people are leaving a lot of these blue state, high regulation, slow speed on permits and they're going to low regulation, red state with no taxes. Position yourself better where you know people are going to go there. Not only a place to raise your kids, not only a place where business is going to be attracted to go. If you go there, you know, people are going to keep going their next 5, 10, 15, 20 years and guess what? Supply and demand says, says you're going to be fine with the property you buy. Anyways, last call here then. If you haven't been to his website, go visit his site. We're going to put it below Rob with all the details on his QLA program. Dan, it's great to finally have you here. We had a great conversation. You're a very, very interesting man.

[Dan Pena]

Thank you very much. All my stuff's free. I don't sell anything. So just there you go.

[Pat]

Go to. And what's the website called? It's called dampenia.co.uk yeah, yeah, we will put the link below. All stuff is free on his website. You can go pick it up and learn. God bless everybody. We will do this again next week. We don't have a podcast Friday because of business planning workshop, but we will have it next Monday. But we do have a podcast that's going out tomorrow, an interview going out tomorrow with a with a very interesting Rick Allen Ross, who's a deprogrammer of people that join cults. You have to watch it. Take care, everybody. Bye, bye, bye, bye, bye.