Geopolitical Risk Is Spiking. Here's Why You Should Do Nothing. SB1828

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "Geopolitical Risk Is Spiking. Here's Why You Should Do Nothing."

The Stacking Benjamins Show | SB1828 | April 13, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Stacking Benjamins Show dives into fears around geopolitical risk, inflation, market volatility, and surging oil prices—and why most investors should stay the course instead of making knee-jerk changes to their financial plans. Hosts Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, Doug, and Chris break down why geopolitical headlines feel scary, but history shows the stock market tends to recover from shocks. The crew also shares a practical three-bucket investment planning system and fields community updates and trivia, all while keeping their trademark light-hearted, approachable tone.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Geopolitical Risk & Market Volatility

[11:21–32:36]

• Current news climate: The hosts acknowledge headlines dominated by war, oil spikes, tariffs, and inflation, all of which can spook investors.
• Historical perspective:
  • Markets are volatile by nature, but this is normal, not exceptional.
  • Pullbacks and intra-year drops (commonly up to 14% from that year’s high) are expected even in “normal” years.
  • Geopolitical shocks (wars, oil crises) are typically temporary. Historically, markets recover post-crisis.

Doug [12:59]:
“Volatility is totally normal. Volatility sounds like a scary word. So I'm going to just change it and say variability … If you had a plus 23 day and you know the average is 10, we got to have a zero to offset the plus 23 to get back to average 10. Right?”

• Technical vs. fundamentals:
  • Technical analysis (watching charts) can feel dramatic, but fundamentals matter more. Most big companies are still sound, with growing corporate earnings and, now, meaningful bond yields.
  • The “apocalypse du jour” is ever-present, but business drives on.

Chris [16:56]:
“There’s always something that is ... ending everything as we know it. This time is different, you know, whatever. But underneath all of that are people who run companies whose only goal it is is to make money for their company.”

• Market leadership is broadening:
  • Unlike prior years where AI/tech led, more sectors and companies are performing well—a sign of a healthier market.

2. Diversification & Capital Flows

[18:59–25:00]

• Broad-based, diversified investments capture global capital flows automatically—whether sectors rotate, regions shift, or regulations change.
• The market naturally reallocates to efficient opportunities (e.g., ‘nearshoring’, overseas labor), so investors don’t have to preemptively jump from sector to sector.
• Sprinkle in some international, small-cap, and even “fixed income” exposure to benefit from this constant global rebalancing.

Doug [24:08]:
“As you think about this, ... by being invested in diversified, broad-based type of stuff, you are capturing all of that movement all of the time. You don’t have to guess, you don’t have to be the guy or gal in charge of like, wait, is it time to sector rotate ... No, it’s doing it automatically for you.”

3. Media, Social Feeds & Investor Anxiety

[25:12–32:36]

• The “worry machine”:
  • Social media and 24/7 news are engineered to maximize your attention (and ad dollars), keeping fear top of mind.
  • This reinforcement can make short-term noise feel existential, even when it’s not.

Doug [27:18]:
“Every single solitary thing that you interact with has one purpose, and that purpose is to keep you in that platform for as long as possible. ... Their job isn't to preach the good news. Their job is to preach chaos.”

• Key advice:
  • Don’t confuse headlines with strategy.
  • If your goals haven’t changed, your plan likely shouldn’t either.
  • Volatility is the price of admission for long-term growth—it isn’t the true risk; inflation and outliving your savings are.

Chris [30:23]:
“Don’t confuse the headlines you see every day with strategy. News is short-term, plans are long-term. Check your plan, not your phone.”

4. Do Nothing: The Power of Staying Put

[32:00–32:36]

• Doing nothing in the face of scary headlines is hard, but effective.

OG [32:23]:
“If I was branding something right now, I would see like, keep calm, carry on.”

Joe [32:29]:
“That is deeply unsatisfying, OG—and incredibly effective.”

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[40:00–48:51] Segment: Three-Bucket Investment Strategy with Anna Allum

• Bucket 1: Foundation

  • Emergency fund and any expenses needed in the next 1–2 years.
  • Provides a buffer against market swings in riskier assets.

• Bucket 2: Bridge

  • Medium-term goals—big purchases known but at least 2+ years away (e.g., car, home renovations).
  • Should be safely invested; not as risky as long-term, not as cash-heavy as the foundation.

• Bucket 3: Engine

  • The growth engine; long-term, diversified investments for retirement and big, distant goals.
  • This is where most long-term growth comes from.

• Goal-based planning:

  • Match your assets (and investments) to specific goals and timeframes. The farther the goal, the more it can be in the “engine.”

Anna Allum [45:01]:
“This isn't really expense-based. This is more so goal-based. ... It's not necessarily that we're asking you to put your assets into each category ... but also where those goals land for you and updating that as you see fit.”

• Pro tip:
  • As you approach major expenses (e.g. tuition), move money into safe vehicles several years ahead of time to avoid sequence of returns risk.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Volatility reframed:

  Doug [12:59]: “Volatility sounds like a scary word ... I'm going to just change it and say variability.”

• Media and anxiety:

  Doug [27:18]: "Every single solitary thing that you interact with has one purpose ... to keep you in that platform for as long as possible."

• Strategic simplicity:

  Chris [30:23]: “Don’t confuse the headlines you see every day with strategy. News is short-term, plans are long-term. Check your plan, not your phone.”

• Doing nothing as a strategy:

  Joe [32:29]: “That is deeply unsatisfying, OG—and incredibly effective.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [11:21] – Main topic begins: Geopolitical risk, investing fears, and historical market context
• [12:59] – Volatility, variability, and what’s “normal” for market pullbacks
• [16:56] – Focusing on company fundamentals vs. just technicals
• [18:59] – Sector rotation and the logic behind broad diversification
• [24:08] – Capital efficiency and how markets (and investors) adjust
• [25:12] – How media/social channels amplify anxiety
• [30:23] – Headline news vs. solid strategy; staying the course
• [32:29] – Summing up: “Do nothing” as the right approach
• [40:00] – Three-Bucket Investment Strategy with Anna Allum
• [45:01] – Aligning buckets/goals, practical homework for listeners

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The Takeaways (from Joe and Doug, [55:11])

1. Times of geopolitical risk are the worst time to make moves in your portfolio.
   – As deeply unsatisfying as it is, staying put is nearly always the correct move.

2. Stocks work if you leave them alone.
   – Long-term returns come from patience; churn and attempts to “outguess” the news work against you.

3. Diversification and goal-based planning win.
   – Plan your buckets according to your life, not the cycles of panic in the headlines.

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Quick Hit – Podcast Tone & Extras

The entire episode blends useful financial insight with the show’s quirky, freewheeling humor and fun rapport—references to sports, movies, and running jokes about college applications and family birthdays enhance the friendly atmosphere.

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For Further Learning or Feedback

• Read the referenced Michael Kitces blog post (linked in show notes at stackingbenjamins.com).
• Download the free investment “scorecard”: stackingbenjamins.com/scorecard
• Sign up for The 201 newsletter for deeper dives on the show’s topics.

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This summary covers all essential themes, practical tips, and memorable quotes for listeners—whether they missed the show or want a concise reference guide to the episode’s wisdom.

Transcript

[Narrator/Advertiser]

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[Anna Allum]

K Pop, Demon Hunters, Haja Boy's Breakfast

[Chris]

Meal and Hunt Trick's Meal have just dropped at McDonald's. They're calling this a battle for the fans. What do you say to that, Rumi?

[Anna Allum]

It's not a battle. So glad the Saja boys could take breakfast and give our meal the rest of the day.

[Chris]

It is an honor to share.

[Anna Allum]

No, it's our honor.

[Chris]

It is our larger honor.

[Doug]

No, really, stop.

[Chris]

You can really feel the respect in this battle. Pick a meal to pick a side. And participating McDonald's while supplies last. Well, gentlemen, massive congratulations are in order because some team, OG that's affiliated with the school that you went to and Doug, where a son of yours went, just won the national championship.

[Joe]

More importantly, where giant bags of money of mine went, does that help you

[Chris]

recoup some of it? Like a little feeling of joy that goes against the money.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Joe]

When Dusty May showed up, the basketball program had about 500k in nil money. And in a year, he had 10 million to buy this team. I feel like part of my bags of money went to buy the team. So, Yaxel, you owe me, man.

[Chris]

I do think OG we should turn this into a university now so we get some of that sweet nil money.

[Doug]

I could have told you that Michigan was going to win because it also potentially cost me money because when they won the national championship in football, my kid was a senior and it was like, oh. Or he's a junior and he's like, oh, I'm definitely applying to Michigan now.

[Chris]

Out of state school.

[Doug]

And. And so now William is a junior and he's like, actually, you know what? That does look like a cool place to go. Look at how cool that was at Chrysler, Dad. Like, they were just really like, I could get behind that.

[Joe]

So that $150 admission application fee, or however much it costs to apply, that's part of your contribution?

[Doug]

Yeah. That's not the big worry. The big worry isn't the $50.

[Chris]

Oh.

[Doug]

The big worry is the 75,000 on the back end of them saying yes. To the $50.

[Chris]

So something I could say yes to besides once in my lifetime saying, go blue. Oh, God, did I say that out loud? Yeah, but it was great. It was great. And as a guy who.

[Doug]

It was a terrible basketball game, though. I felt it's really kind of lumpy and chunky. A lot of fouls.

[Chris]

And every time that UConn would get something started, man, Dusty May and company, to their credit, Michigan would just shut it down every time.

[Joe]

But it was just frantic the whole time. Like our show.

[Chris]

Yes. And you know, like somebody else. OG the men and women serving in our military who are working their butts off right now. Double time, triple time. I hope some of them got to watch the national championship game if they like sports. So I think while we salute the big blue in Ann Arbor, we also have to salute the men and women who are serving our country right now. Thank you so much for all you do, for the overtime you're working right now, for all the hard work you're doing on behalf of the men and women at Mom's Basement Making podcast and the men and women around the world who you're protecting. Here's to you.

[Joe]

Thanks, everybody.

[Chris]

Let's go stack some Benjamins now.

[Joe]

What a filthy job. Could be worse. How? Could be rainy. Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and are you worried about inflation, geopolitical risks, or rising oil prices and how any of those could wreck your portfolio? Today, we're going to help you steer your ship through treacherous waters and trying times. Plus, OG and Anna will tackle another basic idea in financial planning. And of course, I'll swoop in just in time with maybe your favorite trivia question of all time. And like, 1000% without any hyperbole. And now, two guys who put the fun in financial talk. See what I did there? It's Joe and. Oh, Jaja. J.J.

[Chris]

Hey there, stackers. And happy Monday to you. We're going to talk investing all day today. So get your investing hat on, Stackers, because we are bringing it. Maybe get out all of your investing pie charts. Think about how you set up your investments, because today we are going to assuage some of your investing concerns and help you make a better portfolio. So assuage. Assuage.

[Joe]

Did you do that just to bait me?

[Chris]

I did. I have to admit, I did.

[Joe]

I feel like this is a theme now. People are talking about it in the basement.

[Chris]

That one's good because I got OG A little bit too.

[Joe]

Like what I saw. Conquest. Head.

[Chris]

Both your heads turn sideways across the card table.

[Joe]

He said. He said it.

[Chris]

How are you guys doing? What's going on?

[Doug]

OG oh, what is going. What's not going on? Busy week last week. Fun day this week for everybody who's paying attention. Wednesday. Circle that day. That's a sporty, exciting day in the history of mankind. We're all really excited about my brother's birthday coming up on Wednesday.

[Chris]

That's the big news coming up on Wednesday. It's your brother's birthday.

[Doug]

Yeah, no, of course. I mean, he's two years younger than me. Let's see, how old is Justin going to be? Justin is going to be 40 and 6 years old. So 46 is your big birthday for him. Celebrate every year the same way I do. I donate a large chunk of my personal net worth to the government, to the federal government.

[Chris]

So happy birthday, Justin. Here's a check in your year.

[Doug]

I send him a card and I go, a donation was made in your honor.

[Chris]

Do you put that in the memo section of your IRS check?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Justin's birthday.

[Doug]

Justin's birthday. So everybody wish Justin a happy birthday next Wednesday or two days rather. But that's what's good. And then we're on the other side of that. Then we don't have to think about that crap for another 364 days.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Chris]

Exciting day coming up on Wednesday. I think for a lot of Americans, for those people outside the US it is tax filing day. But you know what's taxing OG Is the amount people worry. And you know this more than others because of what you do. A lot of people worry about geopolitical risk and what to do. And we're going to talk about that today. We've had a stock market that is, you know, it's always, it always bounces around. But it's been little bouncier lately. And partly because people wonder, what should I do with my money? This episode is brought to you by the letter I I for investing today. Also brought to you by the Vault. Now coming soon. The Vault is going to be a great place to track your net worth and track your budget stacking. Benjamin.com/vault. We also have a couple sponsors who help us keep on keeping on. We're going to hear from them and then, oh, gee, Doug and I, we're going to tackle geopolitical risk and your money, well, there's nothing that relieves stress more. When you have had a long day, you are completely fried and you're thinking to yourself, maybe I'll just go out to dinner. But then you think about all those calories, all that money out of your wallet and then you realize that you can eat healthy because you found Factor Factor is ready in two minutes. Factor shops, preps, cooks and delivers straight to your door so you have more time for everything you love this spring. And you don't have to worry about eating healthy and going outside your budget because you've got the food sitting there in the fridge that you had pre planned. What is Factor? Well, Factor has meals built around your goals, whether that's weight loss, overall nutrition, more protein or GLP1 support for strength and workout recovery. Check out Factor's Muscle Pro collection. Every meal is crafted with functional ingredients, lean proteins, colorful veggies, whole foods and healthy fats. Factor bans 175 plus ingredients, no artificial colors or sweeteners, no high fructose corn syrup, no refined seed oils, just nutrient dense foods. It's fresh, Never frozen, over 100 rotating weekly meals including globally inspired flavors like Mediterranean and Asian. So there's always something new to look forward to. I use Factor. I think you're going to love it too. Head to factor meals.com/sb50 off stackers and use code SB50OFF and you're going to get 50% off and free daily greens per box with new subscriptions only while supplies last until 9272026 well, running a small business as you may know like I do it is super fun. But it can also be very tough. And when it's time to get a loan, it can feel impossible to find the lender that you actually trust. Big banks say no. The Internet? Well, that's full of sketchy offers with sky high rates and fine print you can barely read. Whether you need help covering payroll, managing cash flow or investing in growth, you deserve better. And that's why I recommend the small business Marketplace Fundera, which is powered by Nerd Wallet. It's a free, easy to use platform. It lets you compare real financing offers from trusted lenders and it's all in one place. And what I like is that you don't need perfect credit to get started. There's no spam, there's no bait and switch, just personalized options that fit your business needs. Nothing I like better than a place that treats me the way that they would want to be treated. Using Fundera is a super way to quickly compare options and make your best funding move the way any great business owner would. Here's the best part though. For a limited time. When you visit nerdwallet.comsb and fill out the no obligation form, you're going to get VIP treatment and talk with a real person who knows all the ins and outs of small business lending and you can tell them specifically what you're looking for. They can tell you specifically which options you should probably consider most. Don't risk your business on unreliable lenders. Go to nerdwallet.com sb to learn more and find the funding you deserve. Fundera Inc. NMLS ID number 1240038

[Doug]

hello darlings. And now it's time for your favorite part of the show, our Stacking Benjamin's Headlines.

[Chris]

Well, if you've looked at the news lately, you've probably seen words like war, oil spikes, tariffs, inflation, basically all the stuff that makes your portfolio want to hide under the basement stairs here. But there's a recent piece guys from Michael Kitz's blog and I really like what they've done here because of the fact that this blog is made for OG advisors like you and it's addressed at Advisors talking about how to help your clients get through the threat of geopolitical risk. And the big question in the piece, of course is is this different or is this just another chapter in this same story? Let's go through where we're at in the story. Lately, markets had a strong 2025. We had this first pullback of 2026, of course, OG we've got headlines that drive fear, right? The conflict in Iran, oil spikes. Because of that, tariffs and policy uncertainty, inflation still feels sticky. Markets react with some volatility.

[Doug]

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

[Chris]

But it seems like OG I mean this is we always have fairly high expectations, but because markets were so high in 2025 and have been so high fairly consistently the last several years.

[Doug]

2321.

[Chris]

Yeah. Do you think 19 number one is we parse through this. Do you think maybe it's time to reset our expectations to what the stock market was? Really? Does an average 10 year period just versus what we've had lately?

[Doug]

Well, I think it's always important to recognize a few facts around investing. The first thing is volatility is totally normal. Volatility sounds like a scary word. So I'm going to just change it and say variability. And so if you think about the average return and say the S and P averages 10%, so I just put in 10% in my plan, that's fine. But we also know that the market rarely even lands within 2 percentage points of 10%. So it's rarely between 8 and 12. It's more extreme than that in terms of its variability. And what we find as investors is that we're really okay with variability that happens in our favor. But it's like, boy, I really like that variability when it's like +23. Those are really fun variability days. Just think about this logically. If you had a plus 23 day and you know the average is 10, we got to have a zero to offset the plus 23 to get back to average 10. Right? That should intuitively make a little bit of sense. Now the reality is that it doesn't work that linearly. It's not like, oh, this year was up 20, next year is going to be zero to even it out. That's not how it works. But you can string together some data points and you like you said, well, 15 of the last 17 years the market's been positive. So can I take that and assume it's going to be negative? No, but it wouldn't surprise me if it does. The second thing that I would think about in terms of variability is what's normal in terms of the ups and downs within a calendar year. And so if you look at performance data and say, okay, the market averages 10% and I can go back and say, well, what did it do in 23 and 22 and 21 and so on and so forth. And I can draw this chart all the way back to the 1900s, early 1900s of reliable what did the market do? You'll see it's all over the place. But then if you look into each year individually and say, well, yeah, 1966, the market was up, but what did it do in the year? It didn't just go bum boom. There weren't two data points. Jan 1, December 31, there was 270 data points. What we find in the in between time is that sometime during the year, on average, the market's down 14% from the high water mark of that year. If I put those two things together and that's the normal piece that, hey, over time we're going to average 10. If we strung together a bunch of pluses, maybe we have a negative. That would sound reasonable. And in between the times, those Data points of January 1st and December 31st, we're going to experience a minus 14. Normally that's a normal year. When we see things like, oh my gosh, the market's down 7%, what do we do? That shouldn't really, it shouldn't even Be on the radar screen yet, probably not even aware of it, honestly.

[Chris]

Yeah, well, what strikes me as you're talking, og, is that, you know, if you're watching the chart, if you're watching the chart go down, even as normal as it is, even during times that you're reframing as normal, which it is, you're looking at what pros would call the technical analysis. Because when you're looking at charts and graphs, you're looking at just the technical stuff. And any pro will tell you that if you're, quote, trading or investing based on technical analysis, it's voodoo. It is voodoo because people believe it. The other type of, of analysis that we really want to focus on, I think if we're investors, is the fundamentals. And fundamentals is. Is the patient, okay, are markets performing the way that they should be? Is there something weird going on that shouldn't be going on? And certainly while we look at conflict and we look at some of the other things I said underneath all that noise, og, when you look at the fundamentals of the companies, the big companies most of our stackers are invested in, the fundamentals look pretty okay.

[Doug]

Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, you want the people who want to run the companies to make you money, no matter what goes on in the market. And at any time you could point to something that's chaotic right now. Middle east oil, inflation, whatever. You can look at that and go, that's chaotic. Six months ago it was tariffs, five years ago it was Covid and inflation. And people are dying left and right. There's always something that is the phrase that I like, the apocalypse du jour. There's something that's ending everything as we know it. This time is different, you know, whatever. But underneath all of that are people who run companies whose only goal it is is to make money for their company.

[Chris]

And let's talk about how well they're doing because there's lots of data right now. Oh, gee. That prove your point out that this year in some ways is better than last year. And let me tell you why now. Definitely not on the short term score sheet, but again, that's looking at the technical stuff. If you don't need the money right now, let's look at the broadening. Corporate earnings still growing, median above average. Bond yields finally meaningful again. We're going to talk about that in the second half of the show. You and Anne are going to talk about that, about why we really don't care about bond yields. Market leadership is broadening and this Is the thing. If you look at the stocks that won in 2025, it was mostly big AI oriented tech that even with the pullback beginning at the end of last year was the case. Well, now OG you look at the broadening out is something that we really want. I think as investors, we don't want one sector winning. We want to have multiple sectors, many sectors. And so to see the market kind of broaden out where it's not just 1, 2, 5, 10 companies carrying the flag, that's a healthier market. So pullbacks are normal. This isn't a broken market. This feels like a much more regularly functioning market maybe than even last year.

[Doug]

And when you look at effectively what's happening, the cycle of investing, and this is, and this is why you want to have a broad based investment approach, not just the top performing companies from last year or something like that. Because again, just think about this logically. If Nvidia has run up in terms of its stock price, what people are saying is that we're willing to spend a lot of money to own a piece of the future earnings of this company. We think the future earnings are worth it. Even though it might take us 20 years to get paid back or 30 years to get paid back. That future number, that run rate is growing so fast that I want a piece of that. And it would make sense that eventually that number would top out. Like somebody would say, I'll pay you 20 years worth of earnings, I'll pay you 25, I'll pay you 30, I'm not going to pay you 31. Right. Eventually that caps out. Well, what's happening simultaneously, other companies are saying, well, hold on, you can buy our earnings for two, you can get paid back in two years, in three years, in four years. And so it just makes sense again, if you look at this kind of piece by piece to say, I understand why after something has gone up, people would say, that's great, but now I want to take my winning and oh, look at this thing. This thing I can buy cheaply for whatever reason because it fell out of favor. That's the Wall street answer. But I can buy this thing that's less expensive on a dollar earnings basis and be a part of that. The fact that it's not growing at the same rate of Nvidia is okay, because I'm buying it so cheap that any sort of growth on this is great. And even, you know, I'm paid back in 2 years anyway, so who cares? Or 5 years or 10 years.

[Chris]

What have we seen over the last 10, 20, 50 years. OG when an area of the market has underperformed for a while, that's where innovators then come in. Right. If it stays low for a while, you've got these very smart people. To your point, these smart, greedy people going, you know what? I can bust this open. I can create something because I can buy these companies cheaply. I can get in and I can run this company for nothing. And all of a sudden, in this sleepy part of the market, do something that people have never done before.

[Doug]

Yeah, well. And it's not only just, you know, your S&P 500 stocks, but then you can broaden that to different areas of the economy. Big companies versus small. Right now we're seeing small companies do really well over, you know, this period of time, but then it expands beyond that too. You, you look at different areas of the world in terms of economy. I was talking to a consultant the other day about some project that we're working on for our company. And I was interviewing this consultant, this management consultant to hire them to do this project. And she said, if I were you, I would explore. And she used a phrase, and I think she said, near coast. I want to say that that's the phrase she used, but I was like, I don't know what that means. Near shore, probably near shore. There you go. Thanks, Doug. And you know, because I'm not a consultant, you are. So I needed the consultant.

[Joe]

You need the lingo. That's half the job is just having like phrases that don't make any sense.

[Doug]

Make any sense.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[Doug]

What we were talking about was hiring of some virtual assistants, basically in this area, some fractional assistants. And she said, have you considered near shoring it? That's what she said. Nearshore.

[OG]

And I go, I don't. That.

[Doug]

I don't know what that means. She said, you can find people in other countries that have a different standard of living, different cost of living, and hire really great people for 50 cents, 70 cents on the dollar versus their counterpart who lives in Los Angeles. And I never explored that in my mind. It never dawned on me. And for the type of project that we were, that we're working on, it didn't matter that it was a US based person. And I thought, my goodness, what a great opportunity for us, for me as a business owner to say, okay, I can solve this problem for a lower cost to the overall company that's good for shareholders. I can work with other people who are maybe a higher tier talent than what I can afford because they charge Less money. But now take that little example of me and now expand that to all investing the entire universe of time. Capital is always flowing to the most efficient output. And this happens at very big global trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars of scale. Where if there's a new regulation in the United States that makes drilling for oil more expensive than drilling for it in the Gulf of Mexico or whatever we call it now, guess what? Companies are going to drill for it in the Gulf of Mexico. They're not going to say, well, sorry, we got all this, all this, you know, we got to do it in Texas. They go, no, we're doing in the ocean. And when the ocean gets expensive, we'll do it in Texas again. And when Texas and the ocean are expensive, we're going to do it in, you know, wherever it gets even more expensive.

[Chris]

We'll put up more of those windmills that we see when you go to West Texas.

[Doug]

Well, yeah, just, you know, we don't care. Like capital flows to the most efficient, the most efficient use of it on a big global scale. So when you're an investor, as you think about this, how do you kind of use this information? It's like by being invested in diversified, broad based type of stuff, you are capturing all of that movement all of the time. You don't have to guess, you don't have to be the guy or gal in charge of like, wait, is it time to sector rotate from tech to communications, from industrials to, you know, pharmaceutical. No, it's doing it automatically for you. And you're getting all of that all of the time, which makes it super easy. Now sprinkle in some international, some small companies and emerging markets and God awful fixed income if you have to have it. And all of that happens automagically, as they say.

[Chris]

You should say automagically. Tm I think that's an OG phrase.

[Doug]

Come at me, Disney.

[Chris]

Wouldn't it be awesome if Disney sued us for something like that?

[Joe]

Best thing that could ever happen to this show.

[Chris]

We would make so much hay on that deal. So to circle this back to where we began to this geopolitical risk that people worry about and rightly so right now. Geopolitical shocks, if we just go back and we look historically, oh gee, because I think this is, this is what gets lost every time we got. The new worry is that we forget to go back and look at history, what's happened when this has happened before. Geopolitical shocks usually have these temporary market drivers, oil spikes that we have right now, guess what's happened, OG Every time we've had an oil spike, things happen and then the market recovers. The market adjusts to the spike. When we have wars, we have crises, we have a market that reacts and then it recovers. There has not been a time when we've had a conflict where the market hasn't recovered, because that's what markets do. So I feel like to some degree, it's because of the fact that we've got this worry machine in the palm of our hand that we can go and we can flick from one person worrying to I flick my thumb again. Another person.

[Doug]

Doug's nickname in college.

[Chris]

Yeah, I think that was Doug's nickname. And that definitely is our phone. But look at the difference. OG we sit and how, how many times you've been around people like this? I was, I was around somebody just a couple days ago who was just spending time. I was watching them just flick their phone. And you know what? No matter what social media channel you have, you just, you know, you watch a video for 10 seconds and there's another one. And every single one of those, if you want it to be, can be another reason why today's different.

[Doug]

Isn't the phrase, you're the average of the 10 people you hang out with the most or five people you hang out with the most? If one of those people is a crazy psychopath on TikTok, and it's an amalgamation of.

[Joe]

Oh, good point.

[Chris]

If you spend, you know. Yeah. If your five people are on TikTok, because you spend more time with TikTok

[Doug]

than anybody else and that's a reality. Right. Like, right, you are going to adopt this. That's. That's how algorithms work. You go, I want to search for this. And they go, you know, you might like this sort of stuff. And so now you get more of it. And it's this reinforcement of echo chamber, of chaos and everything. Whether it's The News at 6 o', clock, the newspaper that rarely do we get delivered to the house anymore, but is online or however you get it, magazines, TikTok, YouTube, all of the. Every single solitary thing that you interact with has one purpose, and that purpose is to keep you in that platform for as long as possible. Because the more that you stay there, the more they can charge for advertising for your eyeballs later. It's very, very, very simple process. That's why on CNBC they don't say, at 8 o' clock on Monday morning, hey, everybody, the market's about to open. We don't really pay attention to the day to day market movements. You should rebalance your. Hey everybody, it's January 2nd. You should rebalance. Here's the annual report for the stock market. It was up 23% last year. We'll catch you all again January 2nd of 2027. Tune in then. That's why that doesn't happen, Right?

[Chris]

Right.

[Doug]

Because that's not their job. Their job isn't to preach the good news. Their job is to preach chaos. So you want to stay. I'm even noticing this with AI tools. I'm very engaged with that. I love playing around with it and experimenting with all the different ways to use this stuff. But I noticed on chat, probably within the last four months, three months maybe, every time I post something, it gives you the answer, like what it thinks is the answer. And then it will say, if you want, I will tell you the three things that most people forget when cleaning their bicycle.

[Chris]

Right. It feels a lot more like clickbait, a thousand percent.

[Doug]

And I've said to it a million times, because, you know, it learns from you.

[Joe]

Right?

[Doug]

I'm like, please stop doing this. If it's relevant to the conversation, put it in. The conversation goes, roger that, boss. Absolutely. That's my name in chat, by the way, is boss.

[Chris]

So it did take that.

[Doug]

It learned that you were able to

[Chris]

train it on that.

[Doug]

And then I'll go, you know, I've got this problem with my bike. Like, how do I fix it? It'll be like, okay, here's how you do it. If you want, I can show you the top two things that most bike people don't do. It's like, my God, you a hole. Stop doing this.

[Chris]

The top five scars people have gotten from on their leg when their leg got messed up in the chain.

[Doug]

But think of it like, what are they trying to do? They don't want me to go, you know what, I'm going to go ask Claude. I'm going to go dump this into Google instead. Gemini, they want you to stay on the platform forever. That's why there is no end to TikTok. You don't get to the end and they go, you've seen it all, congratulations, here's a star. Come back tomorrow, we'll show you more stuff. It doesn't end. I don't want it to.

[Chris]

I think the way to wrap this up stackers is don't confuse the headlines you see every day with strategy news is short term, plans are long term. Check your plan, not your phone. If your goals are the same and I think that's, that's probably og. The question to ask yourself, are your goals still the same? If the answer is yes, likely no change or diversification is doing its job. We talked about leadership is rotating. The market doesn't have just one single leader now. It's broadening out, which is good volatility. And this, I think OG is my favorite thing that you said and continually say here. Volatility is not danger, it's the price of admission.

[Doug]

Yeah, that's the only trade. Because if you are only looking at this from a up and down standpoint, the variability, you said volatility, I'll say variability. Everybody wants no variability. If I got to design my investment account, how much, how much risk do you want? Well, none actually. But the interesting thing is reframing what the risk is. If you're investing for the long term, the biggest risk is in volatility. The biggest risk is running out of money or having the purchasing power of of your dollar declines such that you don't have enough money. The only way to offset purchasing power risk over a lifetime and then into a lifetime of retirement is by owning the things that actually cause or influence the actual inflation itself. You want to own the companies that do the inflating. That's all there is to it. Yeah. Volatility is the deal.

[Joe]

Hold on a minute. If I've been following along correctly, I

[Doug]

doubt you have to carry on.

[Joe]

Just give me the benefit of the doubt here. You're saying the world is complete chaos. Markets are wobbling and bumping along down the road like they got three wheels on them, but they're moving and you're telling me do nothing? Just sit back and chill, man. Just do nothing.

[Doug]

If I was branding something right now, I would see like, keep calm, carry on.

[Joe]

That is deeply unsatisfying, OG and incredibly effective.

[Doug]

That was Doug's nickname in college.

[Chris]

We will link to this in the show notes@Stacky Benjamin.com of course, we have a wonderful newsletter called the 201 where we dive deeply into topics like these with hot takes like do nothing. It's unsatisfying and the perfect thing to do. Coming up next. We say often here that you should own stocks. Why do we say own stocks? Anna and OG diving into that next. But first, get your pens ready because we're going to help you look cool with all your friends as you share with them the answer to today's trivia question.

[Joe]

Can't give them the answer until you've got a question. Hey there, stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug. And today is the anniversary of the Pony Express, which, kids, was not the name of a new fast food chain. Although if it had been, you'd expect a 10 day delivery window and cold fries. Because on this date, the first delivery made it all the way from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento in just 10 days. 10 before that. Getting something to the west coast could take months. Which means back then, Amazon prime was just called Amazon Eventually. Now, while people think of the Pony Express with a sense of old west romanticism, it was actually a financial disaster. In today's dollars, you'd pay hundreds of Benjamins to send a letter. A letter. Which might explain why it only lasted. Brace yourself. Just over a year. That's right, the Pony Express had a shorter life span than most of Joe's New Year's fitness goals. Speaking of money, that feels a little unusual on this date in 1973, the new $2 bill was released into circulation. So here's today's question. Whose face is on the two dollar bill? I'll be back right after I go clean out the el Camino. It's $2 taco night at the Sizzler and Joe's mom is buying. We we are backing the truck up on this deal. Hopefully literally.

[Chris]

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[Joe]

Hey there stackers. I'm taco enthusiast and now apparently guy riding shotgun to the Sizzler with Joe's mom Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Quick update. Joe's mom is not not paying for $2 tacos. She generously offered to drive me so I could pay for my own tacos. Which given gas prices and the El Camino's relationship with fuel efficiency, I think means I'm way, way getting the better end of this deal. Anyway, big day in history. The Pony Express wraps up its greatest hits tour in about a year. And the modern $2 bill hits the scene. Our question, whose face is on it? The $2 bill, not the Pony Express thing. While older versions featured a few different people, including George Washington, the current $2 bill features our old buddy TJ Thomas Jefferson. And now two people who deliver financial guidance faster than the Pony Express. And today, for significantly less than a few hundred Benjamins, it's OG and CFP Anna Allum.

[OG]

Okay, Anna, so we've been teeing this up for a little bit. Today's the fun day out of the cycle. Today's the day we get to talk about investing.

[Anna Allum]

Yep. The most exciting of the topics.

[OG]

You can't do investing. You can't invest unless you have everything else laid out correctly first, right?

[Anna Allum]

No, just ignore this. If you haven't started with the first one.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[OG]

Go back and start. So today, three buckets for your investing. We call it foundation, bridge, engine. You can call it whatever you want. Bucket one, bucket two, bucket three. Lay out your, you know, get out your piece of paper, get out your note card. You know, there you go, three buckets. Let's talk about each one of these. Anna, give us the. Give us the layout of the first bucket, if you will.

[Anna Allum]

Okay. Bucket number one is your foundation. We already went through this with the emergency fund, essentially. Emergency fund or any other expenses that you have coming up in the next one to two years, I would say.

[OG]

And the whole purpose of building out this emergency fund is it acts as a buffer against the volatility of the third bucket, your growth engine bucket. Right. At the end of the day, you can't be all equities. You can't have all your money in stock and be okay with a 20 or 30% pullback if you don't have the supporting cast, as it were, the supporting cast of cash that give you the opportunity to still spend and live your life. That's the whole purpose of building out that foundational cash piece first.

[Anna Allum]

Next part, bridge. You kind of alluded already to the fourth bucket, the engine, which is the investment. The bridge is the middle piece where you might have some goals that you know about, like you need to buy a car, but it's still two years out. You just know it's. It's coming at some point or even the house. Anything that could be coming down the line. You want to get new windows, anything that's like a big purchase.

[Doug]

So fun.

[Anna Allum]

I just know windows cost a lot.

[OG]

Honestly, I've thought about that. I'm like, you know, we could stand to get some new windows around here.

[Doug]

Tell me, tell me you're middle age without telling me you're middle age. When you get all the excited for new windows.

[Anna Allum]

New windows. So that's that middle piece.

[Chris]

Yeah.

[OG]

And this kind of lines up with some of our other thinking as it relates to other intermediate term goals. Let's say like for example, in 529 plans. And maybe we'll talk about college funding at some point in time. But in 529 plans, what we suggest is in your freshman year of high school, you take your freshman year of college, 529 money, and move it to something safe and secure. The money market fund, the bond fund, the Treasuries, whatever, is just there because it takes away that sequence of returns risk, the risk that the market's gonna go down the day before you actually need the money. And so you're taking away some growth opportunities, but you're also locking in your goal attainment. At the end of the day, the only thing we care about is getting to your goal.

[Anna Allum]

It's not worth risking it by keeping it invested up until the day that you need it because you never know where the market is going to be at that point. And you don't want to be worry about that on a day to day basis.

[OG]

You know, if the goal is flexible, if you're like, hey, at some time in the future I'm going to need a new car, or we really want to buy a lake house, but we don't have the time frame, well then fine, keep it invested long term. But as soon as you start locking in some time frames, you know, we build out retirement or cash flow plans for clients. Sometimes they'll say, hey, every seven years, historically we've bought a new car for the family, like put that in the plan. We can, that's totally fine because you know, the timeframe, that money's not going to be in your emerging market value fund. It's got to be in something that's a little bit more secure because we've got a known goal in a known timeframe. So once it kind of breaches that five year number, let's get it something safe and secure. Doesn't have to be cash can be short term, fixed income can be Treasuries. You know, there's lots of different options there. And then our last bucket.

[Anna Allum]

This is the fun, the engine room for me, what drives all your growth, where your long term goals are invested in? Typically going to be in a diversified portfolio. So hopefully not as volatile as just like the regular market and or individual stocks like we are still diversified. But this is where you're going to get primarily your growth from. This is where you're getting your retirement assets or even if you're in retirement, just your longer term retirement assets. When you're retired, you might be retired for 30, 40 years. So we need to still have a lot in the engine bucket so that it can sustain you for that long period of time.

[Doug]

So do you think as we're just

[OG]

kind of piecing this out, do you think that we need two years of cash, five years of whatever, Treasuries, and then are we building this kind of sequentially? If I'm just getting started, am I building up all of my cash first, then building up five more years, then building up everything else? How do we think about that?

[Anna Allum]

This isn't really expense based. This is more so goal based. We want, if you're working, we already talked about the emergency fund. You should at this point know what that multiplier is, what that number is going to be. So that's what it's in that first foundation cash bucket. That middle term bucket is only there for those shorter term goals. It's not necessarily there to fund any sort of expenses for five years. It's just for anything, any goals that fit into that bucket. So when we're tying this back to the homework piece of this, where we have these different columns or these different buckets, whatever you want to look at the lens through, it's not necessarily that we're asking you to put your assets into each category. Yes, that's part of it. So know how much cash you have in figuring out that emergency fund. Know what you have in that short bridge bucket, and know what you have in that longer term engine bucket. But it's also tying the goals to those. So how far out are we from that car purchase or the house purchase or the window purchase, as Josh and I are getting new windows and knowing where you stand generally with retirement, are we seven years out from there? Plus then all those assets should be in the engine bucket. So it's not just figuring out what assets go into each category, but also where those goals land for you and updating that as you see fit so that the assets are being tied to where those goals are.

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

Ultimately, when you tie your money to a specific outcome or tie your money to a specific goal, it Becomes a lot easier to see where it's supposed to be. And it's a lot easier to tolerate whatever is going to happen. You know, if you're looking at your retirement account and you're like, I'm 40 and retirement's 20 years away and it goes up and down, you know, percentage points a week because of, you know, whatever's happening politically or globally or whatever, that's a way easier thing to stomach than if your kid goes to college in August and it's still in stock and it's going down 2, 3, 4, 7% for the quarter and you're like,

[Doug]

oh crap, I gotta break this check.

[OG]

The time to have that money safe and secure was five years ago. And you take a little bit of

[Doug]

growth off the table potentially, but, but

[OG]

you're gaining the goal attainment piece because you go, this is when I need to write the check. It's August of 2026. I absolutely need to have 15 grand in the 529 ready to write a check for that year's, that semester's tuition.

[Doug]

So I think this is a great

[OG]

way to think about this. Goals based investment planning.

[Doug]

A couple of things for us before

[OG]

we kick it back to Joe.

[Doug]

We created a scorecard for this.

[OG]

You can score yourself on this plus a bunch of other different categories. Get your score immediately. It's stacking benjamin.comscorecard. you get your number and then some feedback about that. And then the other thing that I wanted to send out to everybody is

[Doug]

so we have two more of these

[OG]

coming that we are done with this season and then we go to our one week break. Anna and I are building out our kind of, I would say our itinerary. That's not right.

[Doug]

Agenda, agenda, course guide.

[OG]

I don't know, what do you want to say? We're building out the next eight weeks. How's that? Trying to figure out what you guys want to talk about. So I have an idea of what we should talk about, but I want to hear from listeners what's kind of top of mind for everybody. So if you want to tell us what you want us to cover in these segments in the next season, send me an email. It's ogsackingbenchmans.com just hey, cover this, cover this, cover this, cover this. We're going to compile all of it. We'll try to put it together in two weeks. We're going to start writing those shows in probably 2ish weeks from now. So over the next couple weeks, if it's interesting to you to Vote on what you want us to cover. Just send me an email. Ogstackingbenjamins.com okay Anna, adios. Let's kick it back to Joe.

[Anna Allum]

Thanks og.

[Chris]

This is Chris from Heavy Metal Money. When I'm not raging in a mosh pit, I'm stacking Benjamins. Thanks to Anna for hanging out with us again on a Monday. OG Nice work. Let's journey out on the back porch here and we've got a lot going on in the Stacking Benjamin's community. If you're new here, join our Facebook group because there's a lot that goes there. Stacking benjamin.com basement is the quick way to get there. It's a little longer URL or just put in the search in Facebook. Stacky Benjamin's basement. Also, if you're on our mailing list for the 201, that'll make sure that when we come to your area, which I've got some more traveling coming up, guys. If we come to your area, we can maybe hang out in person and have a foamy beverage or a non foamy beverage together. But speaking of stackers getting together, we got a brand new group of stackers getting together for the very first. They've had a meeting already, Doug, but this is the first official right, Benjamin's after dark meeting.

[Joe]

It was sort of like a market test meeting they had before and they realized that the demand was real. And so now on the most auspicious day of the year, April 15 from 6 to 7 at the Catalina Brewing Company, the Tucson Bad group is getting together to, as Joe would say, assuage all of their tax woes and and drink away their woes. But also get together and talk about financial.

[Chris]

Is it personal finance? Assuage.

[Joe]

Assuage. I think that's how Doug, I think

[Doug]

the topic is a little off. We've already established that April 15th is Justin's birthday.

[Chris]

Oh, they're celebr Justin's birthday.

[Doug]

Only assume they'd be celebrating his birthday, as will all Americans, as they do every single year with a donation in his honor to the United States Treasury.

[Joe]

Joe, do you feel like OG lost a bet to his brother Justin and is required to say this like 11 times on this episode?

[Chris]

Something happened.

[Doug]

Well, I feel like I've thrown so much shade at stake brother that it's time to bring the other brother into the equation for the next 20 years

[Chris]

so he can clearly differentiate between the brother he likes and the brother. Well, maybe tax day brother.

[Doug]

Wait till I get to my sister, everybody. That's where it gets real sporty. Speaking of, oh, my God, today is my sister's birthday as we record this.

[Chris]

Is it really?

[Doug]

Well, no, no, it's as of the Monday. I didn't even think about that.

[OG]

That's so funny.

[Chris]

As of the day.

[Doug]

Yeah. She's the 13th.

[Joe]

That's great.

[Doug]

Happy birthday, sister.

[Joe]

On her birthday.

[Chris]

We're staying. Happy birthday to the others. What's the biggest way to say screw you to a sibling? Say happy future birthday to a different

[Doug]

sibling on that sibling's birthday. That is awesome. That is peak OG Moment right there.

[Joe]

Wide open, gushing chest wound. And OG is pouring salt all. All of it in there.

[Doug]

Oh, man, that's great. That is fantastic.

[Chris]

Oh, but, but you know, the Tucson Stackers are waiting for you to come down and do the breakfast burrito meeting.

[Joe]

Yeah, I want to make that happen. I really genuinely do. I'm not just. I'm just paying you lip service. I really want to come down there and meet with you guys and have two or three breakfast burritos and then just sit there saying, I ate too much.

[Chris]

I want to say a big thank you to. To Jay Davis, who's the head of personal finance and entrepreneur relationships for Texas A and M Texarkana. When I went to him and said, hey, let's see if we can bring these different voices to our town. The fact that he said yes and got our local Red River Federal Credit union to underwrite that so we could do it was just amazing. We had our first event last week with Paula Pant and guys, I sent you stuff from. We did a little kind of VIP party the night before with leaders from the city and some of the community leaders in the city from different groups and some of the amazing students who they represented the university so well. I couldn't be more proud of just the kids there. The questions they asked Paula about how she created her brand, what she did, the questions you're going to hear on Friday, the actual show that we recorded live. So that's coming up at the end of this week. But big thanks to Jay Davis, big thanks to Red River Credit Union. And guys, I can't wait till we do the full party of the Stacking Benjamin show there when it's the three of us with Jay because Jay's assured us that this partnership, we're going to try to do this every quarter so we can bring the full. The full party to Texarkana and have a really good time. But great for our little town. The last thing I had for our whole community if you get the guides, we have these guides to your college planning, to taxes, to your human resources. We update them every month. Check your spam if you didn't get an email from me because we've updated all three of the guides last week and go in, grab those, grab the new versions every single month. We update them. We keep up so you don't have to you pay for it one time. We update them forever. Stacking benjamins.com guides if you don't get the guides and you need help in those areas, we're happy to help and to make sure that it's a useful reference. Whenever you're doing your taxes this week or you excuse me, you're celebrating Justin's birthday this week and trying to make your donation for Justin's birthday or it's open enrollment, whatever it might be. Stacky benjamin.com guides and of course, a reminder, OG said this already, but to get your scorecard on how you're doing with your money. Stacking benjamins.com Scorecard all right, thank guys. That puts pin in it. Today, Wednesday, one of OG's favorites. And now one of my favorite writers on getting more. You know, the reason you want more Benjamins is because you want to have your best possible life. The coach to so many professionals and top athletes, Jim Murphy joins us on Wednesday. If you've never heard of Jim Murphy, I think it's a can't miss episode. All right, Doug speaking thing we don't want to miss, we want to make sure we got our to do list in order. What are the three things that were the biggest takeaways from today?

[Joe]

Well, Joe, first, take some advice from our headline Times of Geopolitical Risk. That's the worst time to make moves in your portfolio. As I said earlier, while that's deeply unsatisfying, it's 100% the right thing to do. So second, it's the right thing to do because stocks perform better if you leave them alone for the long term. Even though indexes rise, some investors still lose because either they're in the wrong investment or because they're too busy buying and selling to let the markets work their magic. But the big lesson, if you're going to ride with us over to the Sizzler, do not ask Joe's mom her favorite joke. I think she may need to wash her mouth out with soap again.

[Doug]

Man.

[Joe]

Woman's salty. Coming Wednesday. Wonder what all this Benjamin stacking is about. More living, right? I'm excited because the man behind the New York Times Best Selling Inner excellence joins us to share how to live our best lives. Jim Murphy. This show is the property of SP Podcast, LLC, Copyright2026 and is created by Joe Salsihai. You'll find out about our awesome [e-mail] along with the show notes and how you can find us on YouTube and all the usual social media spots. Come say hello and oh, yeah, before I go, not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don't take advice from people you don't know. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and we'll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show. Sa.

[Chris]

Guys, it has been a long time since I've seen a blockbuster movie that really was more than just three quarters good. I think Formula one was pretty good. Like, Formula one was a blockbuster movie where I was like, okay, that's pretty good. I. I like that little formulaic, but such a fun movie. But I gotta tell, you guys finally made it to see Project Hail Mary last week. That's a blockbuster that was deeply satisfying. Like, very, very.

[Joe]

Ryan Gosling, maybe.

[Chris]

Ryan Gosling, he talks to himself most of the time. And so it's Ryan Gosling on screen. And it is so good. Of course, it's based on the Andy Ware book, which was, of course, which, well, which was a bestseller. But if you like the Martian, he also wrote the Martian. Oh, I don't want to bring that up, because the Martian, if you like the Martian, this is. While it's different than the Martian because it's the same author, you're gonna love this movie as well. So I don't know. Oh, gee, did you see the Martian? Yeah.

[Doug]

And regarding this movie, my kid went and saw it. He said other than going too late in the evening, he went to the 10 o' clock show, which made him very tired. He said it was freaking awesome.

[Joe]

Wow.

[OG]

He said it was.

[Doug]

The music was great, the storyline was great. He loved Everest.

[Chris]

Yeah, it's like 2 hours and 40 minutes, I think. Oh, gee. So you're right. He's getting home late.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[Chris]

I was very excited to see Hollywood do something this good as a movie that's made for wide audiences, because it's been a long time.

[Joe]

So is it part of the. Help me understand, is it part of like the Marvel universe or like, which one? Because they don't make movies anymore that aren't part of one of those metaverses so.

[Chris]

Which maybe that's what was refreshing, Doug. But leading up to it, the good news is we had previews for the new Spider man movie.

[Joe]

Oh, yeah.

[Chris]

And the new Star wars movie. Yeah, thank God, because we got to get this thing back on rails again, right? Oh, gee. What's going on in your world?

[Doug]

You know, last week, guys, the. There's a little space project that happened. Obviously, you went and saw the movie. I thought the best thing that I saw about all the space stuff, which is super inspiring, watching the rocket take off and, you know, Lord willing, everything's still good. We're recording this a little bit early. They've already turned back toward Earth, so hopefully everything happens according to plan. But they interviewed on cnn. Did you guys catch this? The CNN interview? No. You know, there's a ton of people down at Kennedy Space center for this. So they capture one young, enthusiastic space viewer. This kid's probably 12. And they're like, hey, so what is, you know, like, why are you here? Basically, like, what's the. What's the vibe?

[OG]

And they.

[Doug]

They interviewed this guy, and I thought he had a pretty good response to the question from cnn. Why do you want to be here? Why do you love space?

[Chris]

Why do you love being a part of history? We're going back to the moon. That's why. On behalf of the men and women in mom's basement, make a basement. Making basement.

[Joe]

Making babies.

[Chris]

Cut that, Steve. Three, two, one.

[Anna Allum]

The word is curriculum.

[OG]

Curriculum. How about that?

[Chris]

Oh, gee. Doug and I going to taco. Geo. Going to taco. We're going to tackle. We're going to tackle geopolitical risk and your money. Geo. Taco.

[Joe]

You just made me feel a little better. Thanks for stumbling there.