Gold Prices Hit All-Time Highs (What's That Mean To Us?) SB1747

Summary

The Stacking Benjamins Show — “Gold Prices Hit All-Time Highs (What's That Mean To Us?)” SB1747

Date: October 13, 2025
Hosts: Joe Saul-Sehy, OG, and Doug
Podcast Description: The Stacking Benjamins Show is known for its light, approachable, and humorous take on personal finance, breaking down serious financial news and trends for everyday listeners around "Joe's Mom's Basement" card table.

Episode Overview

In this lively episode, the team tackles the headline-grabbing surge in gold prices, exploring what it means for everyday investors and whether gold—or any “safe haven”—deserves a big spot in your portfolio. With the Wall Street Journal reporting gold hitting $4,000/oz for the first time, Joe, OG, and Doug debate the reality and relevance of gold as an investment, safe havens in volatile markets, the seductive danger of reactionary investing, and what actually works for long-term financial stability.

Expect spirited takes, pointed trivia, a lottery-winner tax lesson, practical investing insight, and the ever-present SB humor and camaraderie.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gold’s Historic Surge — Investment or Distraction?

[08:05]

• Joe opens with the Wall Street Journal headline: "Gold surpassed $4,000 an ounce for the first time in history, signaling an investor rush into alternative assets at a time of concern about the U.S. economy and its place in the world."
• The team notes gold has doubled in less than a year, far outpacing historical surges, including those during past crises and the inflation shock of 1979.
• OG’s immediate reaction: “Who cares?” [09:39]
  • OG singles out gold as a non-producing, non-compounding asset: "A lump of metal that doesn't do anything ever, ever... it never does a thing."
  • He relates Warren Buffett’s classic take: Had Buffett put $10,000 in gold at the end of WWII, it would be worth ~$1.2 million today. If instead invested in the S&P 500, it would be about $100 million.
• Notable Quote (OG, 13:58):

  “Your $10,000 invested in the greatest, most well capitalized companies… has grown to be worth $100 million. Or it’s grown to be worth a million dollars [in gold]. Which one of these two is going to be a better return over inflation?”

• The hosts highlight that the S&P’s self-cleaning, compounding nature outpaces gold massively over time—even accounting for inflation.
• Joe cites CFTC warnings: “Gold is no safe investment. The truth is, gold and other precious metals are highly volatile and past performance is not a good predictor of future returns.” [21:50]

2. Safe Havens — Misconceptions and Market Timing

[10:00–12:00; 34:38]

• The narrative that gold is a “safe haven” during uncertain times is examined—and debunked.
• OG: The stock market is near all-time highs; panic-driven moves to "safety" are overblown. The real safe haven is sticking with great companies.
• Joe underscores that, per research and government data, gold’s volatility exceeds that of stocks (8x higher on a daily basis).
  • “If I’m worried about the stock market, why am I jumping into something that’s eight times more volatile?” [22:11]
• They warn listeners about the ever-present doom-and-gloom crowd:
  • Reference to Robert Kiyosaki’s many failed crash calls, reminding listeners that following fear-mongers can cost big gains.

3. What Actually Works: Diversification, Asset Allocation & Staying the Course

[34:38; 48:21]

• The hosts review advice from AdvisorPedia on managing volatility and stress-test its recommendations:
  • Diversification: OG and Joe emphasize its value—not for absolute stability, but for smoothing the ride and rebalancing effectively.
    • “Diversification allows you to get the entire return of the world just in a random order.” [36:08]
  • Asset Allocation: It should be based strictly on your personal goals—not market swings or feelings.
    • OG objects to adjusting allocation based on market conditions: “Why would you change your allocation during market conditions?... That’s just asking for it.” [42:55]
  • Rebalancing: Should be done to stay aligned with your goals, not as market timing.
    • Joe explains: “Rebalancing doesn’t mean going to gold. It just means keeping your same stuff but changing the allocations.” [47:06]
  • Dollar-Cost Averaging & Emotional Control: Automatic contributions and “stay the course” behavior are key for most investors.
    • OG: "Why would you try to guess which days to put money in? Just take it out of your paycheck the same two times a month like you do everything else." [48:11]
• Both hosts roundly mock advice that encourages portfolio shifts into gold or defensive assets during uncertainty.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• OG on Gold vs. Stocks (Buffet Parable):

  "So your $10,000 invested [in the S&P] is $100 million vs. $1 million in gold. ... Why would you want to just keep up with inflation? ... Your whole life has proven that's not the way to do it." [14:04]

• Joe on Media Fearmongering:

  "There’s so many people that profit off the doom and gloom. I got a piece here from the Motley Fool: Rich Dad, Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki predicts a stock market crash. ... He’s called 28 of the last two downturns." [23:12]

• OG on Alternative Assets:

  "Alternative investments, while they sound enticing, for the vast majority … it’s more the liquidity. … There’s plenty of people who’ve been wildly successful with real estate, but it’s illiquid." [37:32]

• On Rebalancing:

  "Rebalancing means keeping your same stuff you were using but changing the allocations ... It can smooth out the bumps in the road a little bit." [47:06]

• On Market Timing:

  "You don’t know that you’re in a bear market until you’re in the bear market … we won’t know until a year down the road and go, remember October 15th? That was a good day." (OG, [44:51])

• Summary, OG:

  "All of today [about gold] is … Who cares?" [50:31]

---

Special Segments

TikTok Minute: The Lottery Winner Dilemma

[51:41]

• Featuring lottery lawyer/CPA on lump-sum jackpots.
  • Advice: Take the lump sum (instead of annuity). Careful with advisors who pitch annuities or mutual funds—they can be tax-inefficient.
  • After-tax, a hypothetical $605 million win nets about $160 million.
  • Lawyer says: Invest for ~3.5% tax-free income, “a little over $5 million you can use and live off of” without touching principal.
  • OG objects: If you’ve done the hard work to amass wealth, don’t just let it sit in munis for tax reasons; aim for growth and be willing to pay a little tax.
    • "Wouldn't you rather make $16 million and pay a little tax, than $5 million tax-free and never have it grow?" [55:06]
  • Joe: Be cautious with annuities—good for the advisor, not for investors. Average listeners still need their money to grow.

Math Story: From Stacker Gene

[60:01]

• Retired math teacher Gene uses permutations at Olive Garden to win a pasta pass; illustrates to students how real-life math can yield tangible rewards (and free food).
  • Joe: “How about being able to brag about that with your class?”

---

Additional Fun & Listener Engagement

• Doug’s trivia is unusually macabre, referencing the “Alive” plane crash movie and cannibal survival (as an HR hazard).
• Light-hearted asides include Kroger self checkout rants, the merits/drawbacks of real estate, and poking fun at “the two millionaires’ secrets.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Gold Surges and OG’s Rant: [08:05 – 18:58]
• Gold vs. Stocks (Buffett story): [11:28 – 14:26]
• Historical returns: gold, CPI, S&P: [15:00 – 16:33]
• Volatility and safe havens debunked: [21:50 – 22:11]
• Doom-and-gloom predictions & reality: [23:12 – 24:00]
• What to do instead: Diversification & asset allocation: [34:38 – 38:49]
• Advice review: Why you shouldn't adjust for the market: [41:44 – 43:51]
• Correct rebalancing explained: [46:45 – 47:06]
• Dollar cost averaging & emotion management: [48:11 – 48:21]
• Lottery lawyer TikTok, OG/JOE reactions: [51:41 – 57:44]
• Listener Math Story – Olive Garden: [60:01 – 62:36]
• Classic SB close and laughter: [63:26–END]

---

Episode Takeaways

• Gold’s surge is headline fodder, not a call to action. Its long-term returns pale beside equities and don’t outpace inflation meaningfully.
• Beware advice urging dramatic portfolio changes for “safety”—especially moving to gold or “defensive assets.” Portfolio stability comes from broad diversification and sticking to a plan.
• Embrace asset allocation aligned with your goals. Avoid attempts to time the market or chase past performance, no matter how compelling the headline.
• Stay the course: Use dollar cost averaging, rebalance for your goals, and resist emotional decisions during volatility.
• Skeptical about gold, annuities, and doom-mongering headlines? Good. Your wealth will thank you.

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The Stacking Benjamins Tone: Fun, Relatable, Unfiltered

With their signature blend of wisdom and wit—“Who cares?” (OG), “I don't get it” (Joe), plus Doug’s offbeat trivia and lawyer jokes—the team makes the week’s hottest finance topic feel approachable, and sometimes, downright silly.

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For listeners: If you’re worried about market volatility and lured by headlines about gold (or other “safe havens”), this episode offers clarity, a bit of tough love, and some real laughs. Keep stacking—just not gold bars.

Transcript

[Joe]

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[Doug]

But.

[Joe]

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[Doug]

Anytime I'm on the right side of the grass is a great Monday.

[Joe]

Joe OG was here as usual, five minutes early because what did they say? Og, what have you always said about being on time?

[OG]

Just slide in right at the buzzer.

[Joe]

That is not at all what you've said, but we'll go with it. You know what else we'll go with? The same thing we do every Monday, which is our salute to our troops on behalf of the men and women making podcast Mom's Basement and the men and women at Navy Federal Credit Union. Big salute to the people who kept us safe all weekend while we were messing around. Thank you so much. Let's all go Stacks and Benjamins together now, shall we?

[Doug]

Thanks, Everybody. You see, Mr. Powers, I love gold. The look of it, the taste of it, the smell of it, the texture. Live from Joe's mom's basement, it's the Stacking Benjamin Show. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and there's gold in them bar hills. Gold hit a new high last week. So what does that mean? Should you invest in gold?

[OG]

Oh, sorry to interrupt.

[Doug]

I'm working here, man.

[OG]

That's my outside voice when I meant to have my inside voice. Apologies.

[Doug]

Yeah. Should you invest in gold, what other investments are best for a potential down market? We'll cover all of that and more on today's show. Plus, what if you won the lottery? We'll share a TikTok minute with some advice you won't want to miss. And we'll also share a math story. I was told there would be no math. Anyway, we're going to share a math story from a stacker who's flexing her skills at the Olive Garden. And even after all that, you'd better believe I'm bringing you some fresh money trivia right out of the oven. Well, that's bad foreshadowing right there, Joe. And now two guys who spend their days wondering how to help you earn more, save better, and spend more wisely. It's Joe and. Oh, jj. Jj.

[Joe]

Yes, Doug, you're right. We have an action packed agenda today. I don't like it.

[Doug]

I don't like where that's going.

[Joe]

It's going to be a wild ride on the Stacking Benjamin show today. Hey, everybody. Happy Monday. Buckle up, buttercup, because we're bringing it. We're talking about gold. And the gold on this podcast, we called him Goldilocks. Mr. OG is here. How are you, man?

[OG]

I did not approve this subject matter today, just for the record.

[Joe]

Well, we got some big news on gold. We got some huge news.

[OG]

No, we didn't. You think we did.

[Joe]

It is amazing news.

[OG]

Stop.

[Joe]

And I'm glad, Doug, who got OG right in the right mood for this particular topic.

[Doug]

How do you know it's a slow news day when your headlines are about gold?

[Joe]

I don't. It was front page, top of the front page of the Wall Street Journal last week. So whatever. You guys can.

[OG]

Like, do the announcements, you know, at a football game and they're like. And now the visitor starting lineup, you know, playing left tackle Bob Smith, and the whole stadium goes, who cares? And then. And then they're like starting right tackle Jim Johnson.

[Joe]

Who cares? The Wall Street Journal does their headline. Who cares?

[OG]

This is my entire. This is going to be my answer to all of this. I'm just. You said something about foreshadowing, Doug. I am for. I'm just not even there. There's no shadows. This is just the sunlight. Who cares?

[Joe]

This is gonna be such a great episode.

[OG]

All right, so you said you do.

[Joe]

Not want to miss this. And you know, OG there are people who are seeing well the headline I'm going to mention and they oh sorry. And they are wondering h should I get into this? And there's a bunch of other questions that are going to flow from this.

[OG]

Actually yes, everyone should to leave more stock for me.

[Doug]

We're going to get like 15 minutes into this and OG is going to start saying warm up the bus. Warm up the bus.

[OG]

Take this ass beaten like a man and get up on the bus. Get on out of here.

[Joe]

We're gonna warm up the podcast heaters. It sounds like we're already heated up and ready to go, but we got a couple sponsors to make sure we can keep bringing it to you like we're going to today. So we're going to hear from them and then og, Doug and I getting into it talking about Gold Introducing your new Dell PC with the Intel Core Ultra processor helps you handle a lot. Especially when your holiday to do list gets to be. Well, a lot like organizing your holiday shopping and searching for great holiday deals and customer questions and customers requesting custom things. Plus planning the perfect holiday dinner for vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians and Uncle Mike's carnivore diet. Luckily you can get a PC with all day battery life to help you get it all done. That's the power of a Dell PC with Intel inside battery backed by Dell's price match guarantee. Get yours [e-mail] deals terms conditions apply. See dell.com for details. This episode is sponsored by Navy Federal Credit Union. Buying a car could be like a long road trip. There's negotiating prices, lots of fees and a difficult process. But with the auto loan from Navy Federal, you're on the highway to higher savings. We want our members to save more on their next auto purchase. That's why we offer great rates, military discounts and pre approvals that are good for 90 days plus. We offer most decisions in seconds. You could even get $200 when you refinance your auto loans from another lender with us. So if you want to save more on your next auto purchase, learn more and apply for an auto loan@navy federal.org auto loans Navy Federal Credit Union Our members are the mission Navy Federals Insured by NCUA Credit and Collateral subject to approval. Terms and conditions apply for Military Discounts Refinance Loan must be at least $5,000 to be eligible for the $200. Terms and conditions apply. Visit Navy federal.org auto loans for details.

[OG]

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

[Joe]

Headlines headline of the Wall Street Journal last week. Last Tuesday, in fact, gold prices top $4,000 for the first time. This is written by David Urbooty and Ryan December record run for futures comes amid concerns about the economy's outlook. They write gold surpassed $4,000 Detroit ounce for the first time in history, signaling an investor rush into alternative assets at a time of concern about the outlook for the US Economy and its place in the world. The price of the precious metal has surged this year more than it did during some of America's biggest crises, rising more than 50%. Futures run up in 2025 has outpaced rallies during the pandemic and the 2007. 2009 recession. Not since the inflationary shock at 1979 has gold catapulted. I love that word, catapulted. So much higher in a year. Big news for gold.

[Doug]

Well, as long as they weren't bombastic about it.

[Joe]

Didn't. Didn't get all excited. Well, 1979, I mean, oh, gee, that's been a long time since we've seen this type of a rush on gold. I mean, if you take a look at what, fourth quarter of last year we were sitting at $2,000 an ounce and now we're over 4,000. Price of gold in less than a year has doubled.

[OG]

Hold on, let me get my, my note out. What did I write here? Oh, yeah, who cares? Sorry, do I need, do I need to. Can we just end, like, move on? This is. Please, please don't make me do it.

[Doug]

OG Tell us why some other people care about this, not you.

[Joe]

You said this would be a fun show.

[OG]

I know.

[Joe]

The piece of this that I really want to focus on and the piece that I know is that investors are going to read and go, oh, should I do something? Might not be about gold. And we'll get back to gold here in a moment. But before we do that, halfway through this first sentence signaling an investor rush into alternative assets at a time of concern about the outlook for the US Economy and its place in the world. So what the Wall Street Journal is saying here is because of worry, people are looking for a safe haven. That's why gold up huge in the past year. So let's not focus on the gold. Let's focus on this idea of searching for a safe haven. Okay, OG because you can't read a first sentence in a Wall Street Journal piece and not think to yourself, oh, should I be doing something? I mean, you know, there's a ton of stackers out there just going oh, all these people buying these, quote, safe assets. Should I be doing something? We'll go back to gold. But this flight to safety, I, I.

[OG]

Don'T even see that. The stock market's at darn near an all time high. The government hasn't been working for like three weeks. Everybody's like, well, that sucks. Except it doesn't because they don't really do anything anyway. And the market's just chugging along, oh.

[Doug]

He'S bringing it today.

[OG]

You know, there's people in the government that work really hard. Generally not our elected officials, but the servicemen and women that we just talked about. Air traffic controllers need to make sure our planes get to where they need to go, and law enforcement people and so on and so forth. But it doesn't hurt my feelings that the elected guys are taking a little mid semester break. You know, they can't screw anything up while they're all sitting at home. But what are we worried about? What do you think is going to be better? The greatest, most well capitalized companies in the entire history of mankind, a lot of which do a lot of business here in America? Or a lump of metal that doesn't do anything ever, ever. It doesn't produce anything ever. It never does a thing. I was looking for this article because as soon as you started talking about gold, I remember this piece that I read about Warren Buffett and gold. And Warren Buffett very famously bought his first stock sometime just after World War II. And I don't know the exact date, but there's the story of him having $100 and he bought his first stock. And that sparked his curiosity into investing and of course buying the, buying Berkshire Hathaway. If Warren Buffett would've invested, and he told this story, if he would've invested $10,000 in gold when he bought his stock, his first stock, he would have purchased 300 ounces of gold, right? And so Warren Buffett takes his 300 ounces of gold and puts it in a nice safe deposit box that no one can ever touch and lets it sit until today. How much money does Warren Buffett have? Well, you just told me that it's $4,000 an ounce right now. So Warren Buffett bought 300 ounces back in 1942, right after Pearl Harbor. And that gold has grown from whatever the hell he bought at $10,000, 300 ounces. Today it's worth $4,000 an ounce. Today he has 4,000 times 300 is 1.2 million. Right.

[Doug]

I was going to say that.

[OG]

Pretty good return. What has the S and P returned over that same period of time? Just give me a ballpark guess. You just. Okay, we all know that the number is more, but what do you think?

[Joe]

Let's go 10x.

[OG]

So 12 million instead. Dougie?

[Doug]

I was going to say I think it's gone up. I don't know. 10,000?

[OG]

Yes. A thousand X. So, so that'd be 10,000% I guess, right?

[Doug]

Yeah.

[OG]

So a thousand X. So your $10,000 invested in the greatest, most well capitalized companies in the entire history of the universe at all times, by the way, because it's self cleaning has grown to be worth a hundred million dollars or it's grown to be worth a million dollars.

[Doug]

I'm interested in the self cleaning part. How do I get in on that? Because showering takes up way too much time.

[Joe]

Well, it's actually really cool. I mean when you invest in an index you are only buying the 500 companies that represent that economy. Let's say the s and P500. You're, you're buying those 500 companies. When a company does poorly enough that it no longer represents that index anymore, they take it out. You don't have to do anything.

[Doug]

Sent out of the miners.

[Joe]

Yes.

[OG]

Relegated.

[Joe]

Yes, relegated. Right? Yes.

[OG]

And then a new team comes into the Premier League. I've got another piece that I found that I actually have at the ready. I like literally have this on my desk at all times because it's the most updated one that has some other interesting inflationary data from 1980 till present. Again, thinking about gold inflation hedge and maybe that kind of dovetails a little bit, Joe, into your topic around worries about the economy or whatever. In 1980 gold was $800 an ounce and today you said 4,000. So roughly a 4 1/2x return over that 45 year period.

[Joe]

Right.

[OG]

4.5X the CPI was 78 and today is 350, roughly 4.5x. So you'd say, well see, I told you gold is a perfect hedge of inflation. If of course you could actually use gold for anything in your day to day use. What was the S and P in 1980?

[Joe]

Oh man, I'll tell you.

[OG]

Today we can say it's maybe 6,000 plus or minus depending on the day. Whatever. Okay, 6,000. What was it in 1980? So gold 800 to 4,000, that was a 4.5x return. CPI 78 to 354.5x return S&P today 6,000. What was it before then?

[Doug]

1980, 62.

[OG]

Not a terrible guess. 115. So 115 to 6,000. So by my back of the envelope calculation, let's go 50x return. So you got 4.5x or 50x. Which one of these two is going to be a better return of inflation? In fact, the dividends have grown at a rate faster than inflation of your S and P holdings. Under no circumstances should you look at gold as an investment marginally a store of value, where you might say, well, it's going to keep up with inflation. Okay, I could agree with that. But I would ask you from an investment standpoint, why in God's name would you want to just keep up with inflation? Like, to what end? You need to outpace inflation so that you can account for ups and downs and investing and all that other sort of stuff that happens in life. And if you're at the point in your life where you are at a point of success, whatever that looks like, you've saved a million dollars, you've saved $5 million, you have some amount of money, why in the world would you now say, okay, all that hard stuff, the 30 years that it took me to get to this point, now I'm going to finally start being able to compound this at some good rates. Hold on a second. I don't want to do that anymore. I had this huge success over my entire life compounding, using the markets, investing, and watching it grow. And now I've got a sum of money that I'm going to say now, I never want this to grow ever again. I never want this to compound beyond, you know, so whether it's gold or cash or fixed income or annuities or whatever the heck you want to look at for safety. Why would you want to do that? Nothing in your life up to this point has proven to you that that's the way to do it. Go pull up your net worth statement from 10 years ago and look at it today, and it's probably grown 2, 3, 4x. If you've been saving and investing money. So you've already demonstrated the ability to have 300, 400x or 3 or 400% returns on your own net worth by saving and investing in the market and so on and so forth, why would you want to now just go, well, thank God I've got $5 million. I don't want to do that ever again. Keep doing it. Do the thing that worked. You already have the recipe card and all of this other sort of stuff. Your whole life you've disregarded, oh my gosh, the economy and the market Might go down tomorrow.

[Joe]

But.

[OG]

But now all of a sudden you should do that. So dumb. So shame on the Wall Street Journal for this nonsense. I get that it's 4,000 an ounce.

[Joe]

All they're doing OG is looking at just a point in history. It is a point in history. Gold prices are higher than they've ever been before. Yeah.

[OG]

But all the other sort of stuff around, like because people are concerned about the falling economy and the lowering of the US in the world, whatever the hell they said. It's like what? I haven't heard that at all anywhere.

[Joe]

I've heard it. I've heard it from Jamie Dimon. I've heard it from people on CNBC nearly every day.

[OG]

I guess maybe I don't listen to that ever.

[Joe]

So, yeah, people saying that the economy might be coming down over the, over the short run. But let's get into that.

[OG]

Oh, so. So let's predict that the markets might go down sometime in the future.

[Joe]

Well, I can predict that right now. The answer is yes. Wow. The answer is it's going to happen. When they were talking about the price of gold, what we're talking about here, stackers, are gold futures, right? These, these futures get traded and the price of gold. The price of gold and looking at where gold's going to be in the future. So taking delivery.

[OG]

I blame Costco. They're selling of their little gold nuggets lately that they've been doing that Costco's.

[Joe]

To blame for all this. Yes. I would love that as the Wall Street Journal first line. But Costco run up on gold.

[OG]

Costco effect. They can't charge more than A$50 for a hot dog and a Coke.

[Joe]

But, but they make it up on gold.

[OG]

They make it up on gold. Gold futures.

[Joe]

That's where they get you. They get you with a little gold coin. When we take a look at just this idea of, first of all, we'll get to safe haven, but let's talk about gold in particular. OG As a safe haven. I have a piece right here that we'll link to in our show, Notes from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is a U.S. government agency. It's, it's cftc.gov is the website headline. Headline. Why every time that we talk about safe havens over the last 15 years, do people always run to gold? Every single time they run to gold, the cftc, the government agency looking out for people, says gold is no safe investment. That's the headline. OG from the government agency. Gold is no safe investment. And this is what the government writes on this piece. Maybe you've seen the commercials on tv, videos on the Internet, or received something in the mail. They predict economic instability and use graphs of past performance to, quote, prove gold, silver, or some other precious metals, not only your safest bet, but is destined to double or triple in value. The truth is, gold and other precious metals are highly volatile and past performance is not a good predictor of future returns. If sales pitches also include a lot of doom and gloom or high pressure sales tactics, they could be setting you up for fraud. And then it goes into who does buy gold and why people buy gold. But I remember a great journalist named Walter Upgrave several years ago talking about gold being eight times more volatile on a daily basis, just on a daily basis than the stock market. Eight times.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

So if I'm worried about the stock market, why am I jumping into something on a daily basis that's eight times more volatile? And back to your original point. Also something that doesn't grow where the stock market has one eighth of the volatility on a daily basis and grows over time because you're buying the biggest companies in the world. Don't get it. I don't understand. And yet people profit off this stuff. Og I mean, there's so many people that profit off the doom and gloom. Just profit off it. I got a piece here from the Motley Fool. Let's go back to February 4th of this year. Here's the Motley fool headline. Rich dad, Poor dad, author Robert Kiyosaki predicts a stock market crash in February. What should investors do if he's right? Robert Kiyosaki, by the way, not only wrote Rich Dad, Poor dad, he's also called 28 of the last two downturns that we've had.

[OG]

Yeah.

[Joe]

Since February 4th. Since you've been qu, you've been quizzing us on the S&P 500 long term. Just this year, what's the stock market done if you reinvested dividends, if you bought the S&P513 and you reinvest. Sorry, 13 since February 4, only 8. Only 8? Yes. It's gone up 8%. There has been no monster, monster downturn that Robert Kiyosaki predicted.

[OG]

Weird.

[Joe]

If you'd taken his advice.

[OG]

So just something else to chew on here for just a quick second. Is it that gold is going up or is the dollar value going down?

[Doug]

Yeah, I think that's an excellent point, an excellent question. The first time somebody said that to me, it kind of blew my mind.

[OG]

What about the second?

[Doug]

Because it never occurred to me.

[OG]

What about the second time?

[Doug]

It was a long time ago.

[OG]

Did I give you a little something? I was trying to hang onto that little nugget, get it to the very end, and then just set that off to the side and just see if that was a solution.

[Doug]

Early on in my adult life, I remember an older guy saying that the value of gold has never changed. It's the value of whatever currency is sort of based on it. I was like, whoa. Never thought of that.

[Joe]

One of the nation's biggest advisors, Peter Mallouk, when he was on the show, talked about whether it was 500 BC, 1700s or today, the same amount of gold bought a suit. So if you wanted to dress up nice in 500 BC or you wanted to dress up nice in 1700, you want to dress up nice today, you'd use about the same amount of gold. Great store value. In fact, I think his quote was 2 OG that if I was getting into a time machine, then I wouldn't take dollars or stocks because over 5,000 years, I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know which currency is going to be there. So I don't know whether I'd take dollars or. Or euros or what the heck. I yen. I don't know what I'd take, but I would take gold because I know that what I'm buying today is I'm gonna have exactly the same amount.

[OG]

It's so funny that you said that because I just put something in chatgpt just to see what it would say. And it literally says, over centuries, gold's purchasing power is fairly stable. One ounce of gold bought a fine men's suit in ancient Rome, a fine men's suit in 1942, and a fine men's suit today.

[Joe]

Even chat GPT listening to Peter Maluk on our show. Yeah.

[OG]

Or is it the other way around?

[Joe]

No, it's chat GPT Spy and honesty. You know, we all know that.

[OG]

Always listening. Sam Altman, Always listening.

[Joe]

So frustrating. After the break, we're going to talk about what do you do if you're worried? It's understandable at any point that you're worried about market volatility. I sane people worry about volatility. What do you do? We told you what not to do. Don't buy gold. Don't fall for the sales pitches. Don't look into these guarantees. We may get back into that again, but we've got some direction for you after the halfway point, which we're going to call that right Now, Doug, you've got today's amazing, I'm sure trivia question.

[Doug]

Sure do, Joe. Hey there, Stackers. I'm Joe's mom's neighbor, Doug, and. Hey, Joe, you know, it's October. Feel like we should be cranking up the scariness in the trivia, don't you think?

[Joe]

Well, the scary of money. I mean, let's do it. What do you got? Mine?

[Doug]

Oh, I got one. I was wondering what the insurance claims would have been for these people. Check this out. Today is the anniversary of the crash of the plane filled with Uruguayan. Is that even a thing? Is that what we call those folks? The rugby team from Uruguay that crashed in the Andes?

[Joe]

Yep. Let's not do that one.

[Doug]

Wait a minute. Hold on. Just hear me out. They made a major movie about it. You remember the story. The crash survivors would have to resort to cannibalism to survive the 72 days until their rescue. Only 16 of the 45 people on board made it through. 12 died in the crash or shortly thereafter. Another five died by the next morning. And one more succumbed to injuries on the eighth day.

[Joe]

Oh, God, I remember this. Isn't this where they.

[Doug]

Yup, that's exactly. And I think this is a good time probably to remind everybody that today's episode is sponsored by Sweet Baby Ray's Great on the other white meat.

[Joe]

Nope. We're not doing it. Nope.

[Doug]

Okay, all right, fine. Look, look, I'll clean it up a little bit. Okay, here's the question. What was the name of the Benjamin stacking movie about this catastrophe?

[Joe]

Stackers. I love to keep my days busy, which is why often my diet's like a yo yo. In fact, this is scary. My phone recently told me, you know how it tells you how close you are to your house? It told me how close I was to Firehouse. Like it literally said, at noon, hey, Firehouse is only X amount away. Which made me realize I might have a problem. But I've been offsetting that problem with exercise, with maybe not going to Firehouse quite so much. And with AG1, AG1 helps me get started right first thing in the morning. And because I don't always have the healthiest diet on those busy days, it makes it hard for my body to get the key nutrients that it needs. It's super easy to use first thing in the morning. The original formula works great for me. First thing in the morning on an empty stomach. Just some cold water and a deliciously simple scoop of AG1. The health benefits I could feel right away. Number one from gut health, to energy, to making sure I get those daily nutrients that I need, and to immune support. They're all there with AG1. And now AG1's clinically backed formula is flavor packed with new delicious flavors like Tropical berry citrus in addition to my favorite just the straight on original. In an industry where not everybody invests heavily in research, they go to great lengths to continually invest in rigorous peer reviewed clinical trials. AG1 replaces the need for a multivitamin, for probiotics, and for less than $3 per day with a subscription, you're getting more than $7 worth of daily nutritional support. So with AG1, it's vitamins, minerals, probiotics, prebiotics, greens and superfoods, antioxidants and digestive enzymes. I use AG1. I think you should too. So head to drink ag1.com SB that's drink ag1.com SB stackers and you're going to get a free welcome kit including a bottle of vitamin D and free AG1 travel packs when you first subscribe. That's drink ag1.comSB shopping is hard, right?

[OG]

But I found a better way. Stitch Fix Online Personal styling makes it easy. I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want. No subscription required and he sends just for me pieces plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest. It's so easy. Make style easy. Get started [e-mail] Spotify that's stitchfix.com Spotify.

[Joe]

This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan.

[Doug]

Real United Airlines customers.

[OG]

We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Kath and Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat. I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.

[Joe]

That's Andrew, a real United pilot.

[OG]

These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight.

[Joe]

Deck will stick with us forever.

[OG]

That's how good leads the way.

[Doug]

Hey there, Stackers. I'm Trivialover and guy who's starting October by risking my employment with this one. Joe's mom's neighbor Doug. Ah, Hollywood. They can take any catastrophe and turn it into millions, can't they? This is how bad the Uruguayan. Again, not sure that's the term we're looking for. It could be Ur Gwaliites. Anyway, the rugby team from Uruguay had it here's how bad they had it. After managing to survive 16 days, the few survivors left were hit by an avalanche, killing eight more survivors.

[Joe]

Oh, my God. But.

[Doug]

But for one man who lived, there was a strangely happy ending. Shortly after the movie about the calamity came out, survivor Jose Luis insearte won a 2.5 million dollar lottery jackpot, sharing it with his family. Man, how lucky was that guy? I bet the other survivors would have given an arm and a leg to win that lottery.

[Joe]

Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

[Doug]

But what was the name of the hit film about the horrible incident? It was called Alive, ironically. And now two guys who like to say it's alive whenever the market goes up. Back to Joe and og.

[Joe]

Hi, I'm Jamila Sufrant, and when I'm not helping people launch to financial freedom, I'm stacking Benjamins. I have to say, I never wanted to see that movie. I heard what a hit it was. I heard how disturbing it was.

[Doug]

I didn't see the original Alive, but I saw the foreign language film that. Well, it just won the Oscar for best foreign language film two years ago. Society of the Snow.

[Joe]

Same thing.

[Doug]

Quite good. Yeah.

[Joe]

About the same incident.

[Doug]

Oh, yeah, sorry. It's the exact incident. It's just an updated version of it. And I. I would say it's definitely worth watching. I didn't see the other candidates that were up for that particular Oscar. Not sure it was like Best, but I would watch it. I would. I would recommend it.

[Joe]

Society of the Snow, another horrifying disaster. Wasn't it called Alive? The Jon Krakar book? No, that's into thin air, isn't it?

[OG]

Into thin air.

[Doug]

Into thin Air. Yes, I read that.

[Joe]

And, oh, my. Just so.

[Doug]

And then they also made the Christopher McCandless story out of a John Krakauer book called into the Wild. Similar, but that was just one guy. But both excellent books. I actually preferred into the Wild more than Into Thin Air, but neither of those was, you know, had to resort to cannibalism.

[Joe]

No, no, thank you for bringing that.

[Doug]

Up over the top.

[Joe]

Thank you for bringing that up again. I appreciate that. Let's move on to what maybe different people are saying you should do with your money. If you're worried about the economy, if you're worried about volatility, this comes to us from advisorpedia.com. let's see how this one fits. OG we're gonna look at this like we're looking at new suits. You know, we talked about the price of gold being worth the fine suit shielding your portfolio. Start smart strategies for market volatility. Are these smart? I'm just going to skip to what they say. Number one thing AdvisorPedia says in this piece, oh gee, is be diversified. Diversification is your biggest, biggest key to stability.

[OG]

Well, I don't know if stability is what you're looking for. The trade off of equity investing, the reason that you get your 10% return in the S and P is because of the volatility. If you only got stability, you would not get 10%. That's the trade. The trade is some days you're going to look and it's going to go up and some days you're going to look and it's going to go down. What diversification does is it allows you to smooth out that ride a little bit because not all economies or all sectors of the economy are likely to do the same thing at the same time. So for example, the US might be doing great, but Europe might not be. And now Europe might be doing great, but the US might not be. And by owning both sides of that, you get the upswing. The ups happen and the downs and the downs happen, but you get the total return of the entire world over periods of time. The other added benefit is if you're rebalancing once a year, you have an opportunity to say, oh, the US went up and Europe didn't. Well, I can take some of my winners, I can sell some of the US at a profit and reinvest into Europe at, you know, that didn't do as well. And I buy more shares of that for the potential, you know, recovery, if you want to call it that, or when that area of the economy, you know, does well. So diversification allows you like a built in rebalancing structure and it also allows you to get the entire return of the entire world just in a random order.

[Joe]

And I think random's the key word. Like we mentioned earlier that the answer is yes, the market's going to go down. Kiyosaki was right. If he would have stayed with the markets going down. Calling that it was going to go down in February of last year ended up being slightly ridiculous. This piece goes on to define diversification. Says a diversified portfolio may include stocks, growth oriented assets with long term appreciation potential, bonds, fixed income investments that provide stability and regular income alternative investments, assets such as real estate, commodities and REITs that help hedge against inflation. I look at this stocks, bonds and alternative investments and I think what do we, what are we doing? Why am I so overly diversified? What are your thoughts when you hear stocks, bonds, alternative investments, all in a quote, well, diversified portfolio.

[OG]

I don't see any reason to ever have fixed income other than for short term funding goals. I think cash or something that looks a lot like cash will accomplish the same thing and allow you to stay fully invested in the areas of the economy that are going to actually grow. Lending money to somebody is a guaranteed outcome, but then you don't get any real return. We've talked about that. Alternative investments, while they sound exceptionally enticing.

[Joe]

Because.

[OG]

The articles that you read about this are always, this is how wealthy people invest. This is how the 1% do it. And it's like, well, the 1% do.

[Doug]

It with two things millionaires don't want you to know.

[OG]

Yeah, the 1 percenters do it with 1%, so they're not doing it with 20. But the problem with alternative investments, for the vast majority of people, whether you're talking about real estate or real estate investments, or God forbid, commodities like we're talking about here, it's more the liquidity. I don't have a problem with real estate investing. There's plenty of people who have been wildly successful making tons of money and being financially independent by owning lots of real estate properties. But it's illiquid. It takes a while to sell that. And as you're growing that side of your portfolio, if you all of a sudden need a little something, it's, it can be a little challenging to get that cash out. And if it's a real estate investment where it's, there's a third party between you and the property ownership, it's actually even harder to get your money out because now there's another layer of people in the way that say, well, we can't just give you Money. We own 37 apartment buildings. We don't have your a hundred thousand dollars lying around with, you know, we're using it right now. So come back later.

[Joe]

Christine Benz at Morningstar OG about a week and a half ago kind of brought the heat against real estate investing. She said, and you and I both know, and she knows a lot of people have done really well with real estate. She just looked at the camera on this video I was watching and said, you don't need real estate in your portfolio. Like, if you want it, that's fine, but you do not need to have real estate in your portfolio. But partly because the correlation between that, that investment class and stocks, while they react differently, they still react similar to similar market conditions. So if you keep hearing about how Great real estate is. And you don't want it. She said, don't worry, you don't need it.

[OG]

Well, the reason, yeah, I mean, we can. I don't want to turn this into a real estate show. But the primary reason why individually owned real estate properties works mathematically is because of leverage. And what's mind boggling to me is that if I said to you, Joe, or if I said to you Doug, hey, I have a great idea. Instead of investing your million dollars in stocks, why don't we instead invest $1 million in stocks? But because you're investing a million in stock, we can go ahead and buy 5 million of stock. So let's go borrow $4 million from Schwab and we can buy 5 million worth of stock. I mean, this is a great idea, right? You know, it's leverage. This is going to be fantastic. And everybody in the universe will go, what, are you crazy? I don't want to have to pay interest on borrowing money. And what if the market goes down? Then Schwab can come and take my stuff. And that's a really terrible idea. I go, but what do you think is a better leverage? You leveraging your million dollar S and P fund against another 5 million or 4 million of the world's greatest companies, most well capitalized, most well professionally run companies in the universe? Or the one beach condo in Destin that you want to buy, right? You do the same thing. Or the apartment complex in Columbus, you're like, oh, no, it's great. I put $200,000 down and go buy a million dollar property. That's not risky, but apparently it's risky to take 200,000 and buy a million dollars worth of stock of the biggest, best companies in the entire universe. I don't get it. I mean, I understand. I would never do that. But I'm saying when you say it in those terms, it kind of really opens up how the leverage works. Your return of stocks would be the same as your return on real estate if you levered it the same. Because they're to your point before Joe, they return approximately the same and have a relatively similar correlation. The difference is the bank won't come and take your house as long as you make your payments, no matter the price volatility. And number two, you don't see the price volatility every day, so you can't freak out.

[Joe]

Next on their list, asset allocation. Finding the right balance. I love the idea, OG of protecting yourself by beginning with yen. And mine start off with, hey, my goal is way out here, what type of thing has gotten me there, what mix of assets historically has got me there, and then use those and rebalance. So initially I like where this piece is going. Asset allocation, I think we can agree is, is great. Choose investments. Don't, don't get into gold. If you've got a long term goal, you're just going to neuter your chance for growth versus, as you mentioned earlier, buying equities. This is the part that I don't like though. After talking about what a well balanced portfolio might include, they say this says in big letters how to adjust asset allocation based on market conditions. And I went, what? Why would you, why would you change your allocation based on market conditions? You would change it based on a change in your goal. If my goal moved up or my goal moved back, well then I'm going to change it. Why would I change it during market conditions? We're just asking for it. But listen to this. In bull markets, this piece says increase your exposure to equities for growth opportunities. Let's talk about how that plays out. OG the market's humming along, your cab drivers telling you about Nvidia stock. Everybody is super hot on equities. All you're reading about every day is how well it's doing. So you go by, generally you buy when the market is heated up is, is hot and then the time you sell is in a panic. When it goes down, you're like, oh, I thought this was a hot market. Well, turns out that my time that I thought that things were going great turned out to be my time of maybe the bigger risk of investing versus a time when everybody's bailing out and at that point investing. Well, that's not what this says. In quote, bear markets, you, you should shift toward bonds and defensive sectors to preserve capital. What the hell you talk. Just wanted to scream. And then third, during economic uncertainty.

[OG]

Oh well, that's, that never happens.

[Joe]

We just heard about in the Wall Street Journal. OG we're there now, right? Everybody's worried about economic uncertainty. I don't know.

[OG]

It's certainly a lot better than the economic certainty we had two months ago, that's for sure.

[Joe]

During economic uncertainty, consider alternative assets like gold or real estate. So now I should be shifting me guess.

[OG]

Sponsored by the gold people. Is this article, is there a bunch of ads of gold in this article?

[Joe]

There are no ads. It's just a horrible piece. It's just horrible.

[OG]

We'll see. I think you're going to get to the bottom and go click here for William Devane's Gold Report Mark Fabers doom.

[Joe]

And gloom Defensive investments For market stability. This is what you should invest in. Invest in defensive stocks. Add bonds to your portfolio just to make sure your portfolio never grows again. Explore alternative investments.

[OG]

I mean, the thing here is, on paper, all of this sounds really good, right?

[Joe]

100%.

[OG]

I want to do all this market stuff. When it's going good, I want to take it out. But the reality is, is that you don't know. You just have to think through this logically. You don't know that you're in a bear market. Let's say until you're in the bear market, right? Like, what is the trigger for you to say this is the case? Because you can't prove to me that today is the high watermark for the next year any more than I can prove to you that it's the low. Right? Like, we won't know until we get a year down the road and go, Holy crap. Remember October 15th. That was a good day, man. We should have got out that day. We should have doubled, doubled down that day. That was an awesome day to get, get out or to get back in you. Right? Like, we don't know that until it's already happened. And so if you use the standard definitions of like bear market, which is a minus 20%, you're going to go from a million dollars down to 800,000. And then what? Get out. And then how do you know you're back in a bull market? That's the problem when you go back to the even money. So you took the minus 20, you took that on the chin and then you just sit around and wait until it goes back to where it was. By the time you get the minus 20, you have to understand you're that much closer to the end. Like, it seems darkest right then, but it's like you're. The hard part's over. I mean, yeah, it might go down another 10 or 12, but we're really close to the end part of this now. And how many times in the last 25 years has the stock market gone down 19.9 and gone back up from there?

[Joe]

And quickly and quickly it's.

[OG]

Well, I mean, it's a rubber band. You know, the faster that it goes back, the faster that thing's going to snap forward.

[Joe]

I like the fact that they start this OG with rebalancing. I don't like the fact that all of a sudden they turn rebalancing into what you're talking about, which is this gambling game.

[OG]

Yeah. Try to Market time, it's not going to work.

[Joe]

It's crazy. People don't know what rebalancing is or if you're new to the stacker universe. Rebalancing is where let's say you start off and you've got, you know, and I'm going to use a ridiculous allocation. 50% large company stocks, 25% international stocks, 25% small company stocks. Again, not advice and not what I do, but I'd start with what I need for my goal and work from there. But let's say I have those. And let's say large company stocks do really well. And Instead of being 50%, now, a year later, it's 60% of your money. Well, now to reach your goal, you sell off the 10% that's above your allocation, your 50, you get back to 50. And that means then you're buying back to the 25s, which now are lower percentages of your portfolio in the two that you missed. And that's what rebalancing is. But that's based on your goal. That's not. That doesn't mean shifting. Oh, rebalancing means go to gold. No, it doesn't. Rebalancing doesn't mean going to gold. Rebalancing doesn't mean going to bonds. It just means keeping your same stuff you were using but changing the allocations and that. OG can smooth out the bumps in the road a little bit. Yeah, they do have some practical strategies here for managing market fluctuations. Remember, number one, dollar cost averaging. This is what people are doing their 401k. OG this really helps because whether it goes up or goes down, you're putting the same amount of money in every month.

[OG]

I mean, why would you try to guess which days to put money in and which days not to. This is take it out of your paycheck the same two times a month like you do everything else. Yeah, it works out.

[Joe]

Number two, portfolio rebalancing. Again, based on your goals, not based on where the market is. Number three on this list is avoid emotional investing. If you feel emotional, put the keyboard down, go for a walk. Just, just please stay away from your Schwab account. And that means staying the course during volatility. It's amazing. They end this piece OG with by saying, stay the course during volatility. And yet halfway up the piece, they tell you to change the.

[OG]

I mean, the most recent example of this, and I mean, I saw this work out in real time because it really was kind of an interesting time for us because it's right during our review season when the tariff stuff kind of came up in April for some people. We talked to them in March and reviewed their financial plans and everything was great. And then, you know, and then we're doing financial planning reviews, let's say the middle of April and the tariff news had come through and the stock market had gone down 20% in seven days. You know, that doesn't feel very good. But reviewing financial plans and they're still fine. And then we talk to people in May and reviewing financial plans and they're still fine. But the people who got stuck in the middle.

[Joe]

Right.

[OG]

The person who we chatted with on April 15 had occasion to look at their stuff. That's when they noticed the person who reviewed their plan in March. And then we talked to them again in September because we kind of visit every six months, give or take. It was like blissful ignorance. It was like, yeah, you know, I'm up 12% for the year. It's pretty good. Like, yeah. Did you see the minus 20 that happened three days after we chatted? Wait, what? How long is this huge roller coaster ride? No, I didn't because I just stick to the plan, you know, and the person in May who we talked to in November will have the same, the same reaction.

[Joe]

I think it's like with your real estate. Oh, gee. That you're talking about earlier. The difference is you don't see your house fluctuate every day. Yeah, you probably do what I do. You go to Zillow a couple times a year and what do you do normally go. Oh, wow. Oh, cool. And that's it. Oh, neat.

[OG]

Yeah. Interesting. I mean, the sync to Monarch. So I little, I see little ticks along the way, little bumps, but yeah.

[Joe]

Not tracking on a daily basis.

[OG]

So basically the whole summation of all of today then is about gold is. Who cares?

[Joe]

I'm glad we walked through it. Okay. I'm very glad we walked through it. And the whole idea of changing your portfolio around. If there is volatility, there will be volatility stackers at some point. There will be stock markets upgrade.

[OG]

Every day is volatile. It's not. No, every day is volatile.

[Joe]

Okay? There will be a downside.

[OG]

Volatility is only a downside. Volatility is both ways.

[Joe]

There will be a downturn. How about that? Get the semantics right. On this note, let's go to the tick tock minute because we talked about avoiding emotional investing. And what's the time when you get emotional? Well, you just won the lottery back in mid September. Fratu9 sent me this Tick Tock saying, you know, you got to play this because, well, this has a lot to do with people that have a lot of money. They worry a little bit about. They were not even a little bit. They worry a lot about what might happen to it. Are we about to see some tick tock brilliance from frat29 OG, or are we gonna see. Well, maybe not so brilliant, no.

[OG]

But I have a great lottery winning story too.

[Joe]

Well, let's see if this one's great. This is from lottery attorney CPA on Tick Tock.

[Kurt Penousas]

Hi, I'm Kurt Penousas. I'm a lottery lawyer and CPA. Today is August 18, 2025, and the Powerball jackpot is 20 set at $605 million. The cash lump sum amount they're reporting is $273 million. That's less than 45%. Why is it less than 45%? It's because of interest rates and inflation. The government, the lottery commission in this case, can only invest in certain types of investments that are secure. They Basically use the five year treasury rate. The five year treasury rate today is a little over 3.8%. In 2021, the start of 2021, that interest rate was 1/2 less than 1/2 of 1%. The general rule has always been take the lump sum amount because your advisor should be able to outperform the treasury rates. Stay away from advisors that want to put you in annuities and or mutual funds because they're very tax inefficient and not the best way to invest your funds. So if you win tonight, 605 million, the government will take out 24% or withhold it from the initial payout, which will be about $65 million. Let's say you happen to live in a state where there's a state income tax and that tax is 5%. That'll be another $13 million. That'll be withheld. And of course, next April 15, when you file your 2025 income tax return, you'll pay the balance, which will be another 13%, 37% in total, or $35 million. But your net after all taxes will be about $160 million. A good advisor should be able to get you about three and a half percent, most of which will be tax free, without taking really any investment risk. And you'll still have the $160 million growing for you. So of course that three and a half percent will be worth more each and every year, but it'll basically be a little over $5 million that you'll have tax free, that you can use and live off of and spend without ever touching your principal again. My name is Kurt Penuster.

[Joe]

All right, it goes into his name again. But what do you think about that, OG for somebody who's maybe going to win a ton of money, you could live off $5 million a year.

[OG]

Absolutely you can. I mean, I would start. I would think so. I mean, probably not. You two guys, you guys burned through that like crazy.

[Doug]

This seems like we should play that clip from succession again about how 5 million.

[OG]

Poco loco, my friend. The problem with the thesis here is you did all the hard work. In this case, you got lucky. But you did all the hard work of getting $160 million in your investment account and you're going to just dump it into munis so that it's tax free. I mean, that's nice for you, but it ain't going to do anything. In two generations. It's still going to be kicking off 5 million bucks. And guess what? That won't be as much money in a generation or two from now. I agree that being tax smart is important, but I do like quoting Warren Buffett twice in an episode. But we're going to have to. I do like how he said he wanted to be the most taxed person in America. That means I made the most money. I'm good with that. There's an idea of being tax efficient and then there's tripping over.

[Joe]

What do you do?

[OG]

Trip over dollars to pick up pennies? Is that the phrase? I mean, wouldn't you rather make $16 million on your 160 million of growth? Have a little bit of dividends on that? Oh, my God, I got to pay a little taxes. Yeah, But I made 16 million, so of course I'm going to pay some taxes on that. Well, no, 5 million is better. It's tax free. Well, 5 million is not more than 16 million minus a little bit of tax. It's like when I went to the car dealership and the guy was like, you qualified for the 1.9% financing for 72 months. And I said, well, based on your chart, I also qualified for the 0% financing for 60 months. He said, yeah, but that costs more. I go, no, it doesn't. Zero percent for 60 months is less than 1.9% for 72. He's like, no, it's not. It's more.

[Joe]

What? What?

[Doug]

He was probably going to say that your monthly payment was more because you're paying it over 60 months instead of 72.

[OG]

That's what I'm saying, which is what he said. He's like, but you just pay more. I'm like, no, I don't. It's an absolute dollar amount. I pay less. So I would rather have $16 million of income and pay a little tax on it than $5 million of tax free income and never have it grow.

[Joe]

What he meant was I get more, he gets more. That's what he meant. You know, I think there's a couple different ways to play this OG I think number one is if you win that type of money, number one, you're playing a different game. And this is the problem. When you hear phrases like you mentioned earlier, Invest, like the 1%, the 1%, like this CPA said you might not care about legacy planning or intergener, you know, multi generational wealth. And that's, and that's okay if you decide not to do that. But that's not our average stacker. Our average stacker needs their stack to grow. You have to have your stack grow, otherwise you're never going to get where you want to go. And so you can't do the same thing that lottery winner does. But thinking like the lottery winner who does want intergenerational growth, to your point, why not grow it? I was with him in annuities. Don't put them in annuities. They're inefficient. They're, it's, it's going to make the adviser a crap ton of money and it doesn't do much for you.

[OG]

What if you're an advisor, would you sell yourself in an annuity to get a big commission?

[Joe]

Make money on both sides.

[OG]

It's a great idea.

[Joe]

Making money on my money by, by selling myself a bunch of crap.

[OG]

I'm going to take, I'm going to, I'm going to, let's see, with 160 million, I'm going to do a $50 million whole life policy and then $110 million in an annuity. I'm going to make, you know, $30 million of commissions on that.

[Joe]

I wonder if, seriously, I wonder if the inefficient and the horrible returns you get will be offset by the monster commission you get. So your ROI ends up being used.

[OG]

Because you're getting both sides of the deal. You get slapped around because you're the owner of the policy. But you're the, but you're the broker, so you get the huge commission.

[Joe]

So this is what you do when you, when you win the lottery. Become an advisor, become an annuity broker.

[OG]

Learn how to sell. Get licensed to sell annuities and go get yourself a 12% annuity commission, 10 year annuity.

[Joe]

You truly want risk free returns. Become an annuity salesperson and sell it to yourself.

[OG]

Sell it to yourself. You can ladder them. Like do 16 million a year for 10 years.

[Joe]

The hell you doing, Steve? Well, you know.

[OG]

And our number one producer again, leading the company, working one minute a day, a year.

[Joe]

Mr. Billion Dollar Lottery winner. Yeah. And everybody else is jealous because of what you did. And you're always winning the free trip to Cancun. Free trip to Cancun.

[OG]

Get the cool little diamond ring. Because your diamond status.

[Doug]

If you could pull that off, you'd solve the ultimate question of being a grower and a shower.

[Joe]

You've got it. It's the circle of life.

[OG]

Camobius loop.

[Joe]

But I think there are a couple things there. He lost me mutual funds. I mean, not a ton mutual funds could be inefficient. I think exchange traded funds might be a better way to solve that. That problem if you're not in a. In an account. But again, I'm not solving for taxes. I'm solving for more money. That's a goal. Thank you frat u9 for sending that to us. And yeah, perfect time for us to play. That was going to be today. I was waiting for a time when we were talking about emotions and money and there's a big one. All right, before we say goodbye today, let's wander out onto the back porch because we got a. A gr. You've been showing me this letter over and over and over and how excited you've been, Doug, about this note that we received from Stacker Gene.

[Doug]

Yeah, this was a fantastic note to receive from a stacker. Here she goes. Hey, Joe, I just listened to episode. I don't know why I assume she had a southern accent. Hey Joe, I just listened to because.

[Joe]

People in the Carolinas love math. Is that.

[Doug]

I just listened to episode 1715 from July 29th about using math. I'm a retired higher ed math teacher. Some of the fun things I did in my classes were, were often related to financial planning like compound interest asking students to crank through that exponential formula to really understand how compound interest can make you rich.

[Joe]

And before you keep going, Doug, what she's referring to stackers was that back earlier this summer, episode 1715 was Ted Dinter Smith who talked about how to make better decisions using math and was talking about our high school curriculum. And we challenged our Math teachers to step up and tell us what they do. So Gene Jean's bringing it, man. With the financial planning questions around, compounding interest for her class.

[Doug]

Yeah, I used to love it when my math teachers, you know, first day of class, they'd be like, but I'm here to make math fun. And everybody's sitting there with their arms crossed against their chest, and they're like, all right, teach, we'll be the judge of that. Well, Gene actually involved food, so I was in on this one. She says, my most fun example involved the Olive Garden restaurant. They had a contest where they were giving away one of those unlimited pasta passes where you could go in and order as much pasta as you want, or you can get two orders to go if you didn't want to eat in the restaurant. I decided to try to win the contest by explaining how to use combinations, slash permutations for how they serve their pasta with the pasta on the bottom, then the sauce and. And then the toppings as the third layer on top. I showed the math. I showed the math on how many combinations of pasta meals you can get at the Olive Garden, and I won the contest.

[Joe]

Wow.

[Doug]

I know. I use that as an example to my students of how you never know when you can use math to get something cool. Anyway, thanks so much for your podcast. I enjoy listening to it. And, you know, then she signed off with something stupid and ridiculous. Just proving, go green.

[Joe]

No, go green.

[Doug]

I won't read it. I won't go green.

[Joe]

That's beautiful. Gene said, that is absolutely beautiful. Gene, thanks so much for the note, and congratulations on winning.

[Doug]

And I got.

[Joe]

How about being able to brag about that with your class?

[Doug]

I got one more thing. Here's how you know that Gene is an ultra, ultra math nerd. Her email address includes the phrase math rocks. Like, you are committed. You are totally committed. If that's your email address, that's somebody.

[Joe]

Who is truly teaching is a passion, like teaching what they're super passionate about. And for that, Gene, we say, fantastic. Love it. Thank you so much, Gene, for the note. And thanks to all of you for hanging out with us today and talking about volatility and getting OG's hackles up. It's always fun to hear OG start shaking. We mentioned gold.

[Doug]

It's always Easy to get OG's hackles up. Thanks for today's example.

[Joe]

Yeah, but today was the ultimate poke. When I saw that last week in the Wall Street Journal, I'm like, oh, it's. It's like manna from heaven. The gift that keeps giving.

[Doug]

You're just setting it on a T for me.

[Joe]

Thank you, Wall Street Journal writers. I love you, too. Coming up on Wednesday, we are getting our cruise on. You know, one of my favorite things to do is not to drop out of the workforce, but to enjoy what I do and make it enjoyable for other people. And Richard Fain, who is the longtime CEO and and chairman of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, joins us to talk about bringing the wow to everything that you do and nothing more fun than. Than watch people's eyes light up because you made their day with something you did. So that's coming up on Wednesday. But today we end every show by talking about what are the three things that should be on your to do list? And for some reason, we delegate that duty to. To Doug. No idea.

[Doug]

Why was that necessary? We were all getting along so well, and then you just come out of the corner swinging. All right, Joe, I don't know. Let's see if I could just fall on my face on this one. First, take some advice from today's headline gold. No, thanks. Diversification? Yes, please. Second, winning the lottery or trying to control volatility? Annuities can be an answer, but watch out for who's peddling them. But the big lesson, maybe run your can't lose trivia ideas by your boss before going live with them on air. Now I gotta go down the hall and see Gertrude and HR again. This show is the property of SB Podcasts, LLC, Copyright 2025, and is created by Joe Saul Sehive. Joe gets help from a few of our neighborhood friends. 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. Oh, yeah. And 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.

[Joe]

Sam Foreign. I recently went to Galveston for Cheryl's birthday. We went and saw the Savannah Bananas, by the way, which was super, super fun. Highly recommend. We could talk about the bananas another time, but I want to talk about this, which is. We went to Kroger because we were staying in this nice Airbnb condominium. We just got a few things for the beautiful weekend down by the beach. And we go to the self checkout. It's late at night and there's only one main checkout open, and there's people with all the carts. And the self checkout had an open. Once we go there, we get to 20 items and it stops us. And we had 23 items. And the person came over and they had to put a code in because we had violated the 20 item rule for the self checkout cheater. Well, which brings up a question that, that I'm wondering if, you know, you've got. We didn't know we had 23 items at a time. But I will tell you this. If I'd known I had 23 items, I. I was just thinking about this. I don't think I would have gone through the self check. I think I would have stood in the dumb line just because I'm like, well, I don't know, because I'm a rule follower. But if you had 23 items, Doug, and you knew you had 23 and the sign said 20, would you go through the quick line?

[Doug]

Well, first of all, I had no idea that those self service lines had limits. I thought they wanted to push everybody.

[Joe]

There as much I feel like most places are. I was surprised too. I had no clue.

[Doug]

I mean, in the old days when there was like a line with a person manning that line, there was always a little sign hanging over the entrance. And I always, yeah, I'm a rule. I mean, like, I was a boy scout. I was an eagle Scout, and that, like, it's a law. We don't have a choice. We have to follow the rules. And I will. I remember standing there, like, hovering outside the entrance to that line. Two, three.

[Joe]

Oh, I got 21 count.

[Doug]

Do you count the three bags of Cheetos as one item, or do you count it as three? Like, I remember doing all of that.

[Joe]

Calling three bags of Cheetos one. Is that cheating? Cheating Cheetos.

[Doug]

Oh, I see what you did there.

[Joe]

OG what do you do?

[OG]

Well, this is kind of a silly question because the real answer is buy that on Instacart and have them deliver.

[Doug]

I was just gonna say OG hasn't. Hasn't checked out himself in decades.

[Joe]

I question the premise.

[OG]

This is foolish on so many.

[Joe]

Wait a minute.

[OG]

When someone would have, like, literally brought you all the stuff you wanted to your doorstep.

[Joe]

But there is an. Go and shop for your own groceries.

[OG]

I'll play.

[Joe]

Is this mysterious place.

[OG]

Yeah, no, I'll Play. I would 100% go in the other line. And then on top of it, I would make a giant scene about the fact that I was at 20, and then I would be like, well, guess I got to start another order because they won't let me do 22 items or 23 items. And I would take that away and then I would like stand there with my three and I'd restart and I put my code in and then I'd scan my three and do it again.

[Joe]

Yeah.

[OG]

Cause that is a ridiculous thing. The limit. Okay. I don't know why the limit exists. The checkout is for me to go fast, not for you to limit how fast I can go.

[Joe]

Right.

[OG]

That's my philosophy on this. If you want to. I think like, Doug, you were saying they're trying to shovel everybody to these. Like. Like, I was at Costco the other day and There was like two normal lines and like 700 DIY lines.

[Doug]

Yeah, yeah.

[OG]

You know, this is crazy. I waited in line for that one because the people were moving. The Costco people will move faster than the people people.

[Joe]

Okay, but you and I have had this before. Let's put the shoe on the other foot though, because you've had this before. Somebody's got like 26, 27 items. You're in the 20 item and less line specifically. Because I can't trust that you're going to go fast. Get me wrong, now that I know you, I know you want nothing more than to get the hell out of there. Like, you are going. You're the first guy get line behind because there's no grass growing under OG's.

[Doug]

Feet while he stand checking people out of the way.

[Joe]

But you don't know, right? You don't know which line to get in. So I get behind you. You've got 27, 28 items, and then I got to sit there and watch you, Mr. Rule Breaker, make a big ass scene. Well, I don't know. They limited me at 20 and now I got to do another one. You know how pissed I'd be if I was in behind you?

[OG]

I guess you guessed wrong, buddy.

[Joe]

You would be the same if I did that to you. If you were behind me and I was doing that, how would you feel?

[OG]

I would put my headphones in and just open a pack of gum and start eating it.

[Joe]

That is Doug. You know that's a lie.

[OG]

There's too many crazies. There's too many crazies in the universe, man. I'm not going crazy in a. In a grocery store about somebody else's behavior. I'll go crazy and make a scene on my Own. But I'm not going to go crazy about somebody else's scene.

[Joe]

I feel like Maury Povich. I just looked at your blood pressure, and that is a lie.

[OG]

I. This is why. I mean, it's such, like, you can't put me in that scenario because I'd never be in that scenario. I've. I've walked into grocery stores and seen the lines and just walked out. Like, I don't need it that badly.

[Doug]

What kind of crazy would OG Go sovereign citizens, review his videos to find out how they can go over the top.

[OG]

I've done an entire grocery shop and then found the lines to be too long and just, like, literally left the cart where it was and walked away. Like, this is ridiculous.

[Doug]

Well, as long as you're rational about it, right?

[OG]

I can put this all back in my Instacart.

[Doug]

Unreal.

[OG]

Between here and the car.

[Joe]

He takes that financial planning concept seriously. The one about sunk cost. Don't evaluate sunk cost.

[OG]

Yeah, the fact that I spent an hour putting all this in the cartoon, it has no bearing on anything from here on out.

[Joe]

It does not matter.

[Doug]

It's funny how protective you get over your cart. Like, I've just hunted and gathered this food for my family. Don't. Don't you take anything out of my car. Protect your cart.

[OG]

Have you done that? Have you ever taken anything out of people's carts before? Like, oh, where did you guys get the popsicles?

[Joe]

No, But I do like the videos that I've seen recently.

[OG]

Me neither. I mean.

[Joe]

I do like the videos I've seen recently, though, about how, you know, in my family, I'm always wrong. Like, I'm always wrong. It doesn't matter. If somebody else brings something up, it's fine. But if I bring it up, Cheryl's like, no, why would we do that? Have you seen the one where the guy's shopping with his spouse and he takes stuff out of the cart that she found and then he presents it to her and she looks at him and is like, no, we're not buying that.

[Doug]

Yeah, they're like, in the produce section, and he hands her an apple, and she's like, no, he's going through everything.

[Joe]

That she already bought, and she's vetoing all of it.

[OG]

Fake. Oh, I don't know.

[Doug]

It's fake. But we're laughing about it because we know there is an element of truth.

[Joe]

In that buried in that 100% element of truth.

[OG]

I don't laugh at fake stuff. Fake.