Ukraine Strikes Moscow, Trump Bans CNN & Greenland Deal Shocks NATO | PBD #859

PBD Podcast

The episode covers a wide range of geopolitical and economic developments, starting with the escalation in the Russia-Ukraine war following drone attacks on Moscow. The hosts discuss

Key takeaways

• The New York Yankees reached a $16.25 billion valuation after raising $2.6 billion from Apollo.
• A MarketWatch report indicates that 50% of workers would accept a pay cut to ensure job security in the current economy.

Main topics

• Russia-Ukraine War escalation
• US-Greenland strategic relations

Notable quotes

Most workers would take a pay cut for job security right now.

Conclusion

The episode provides a multifaceted look at how geopolitical shifts an

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm supposed to take sweet victory. You know this life meant for me. Adam, what's your point? Speaker 3 (0:11) The future looks bright. Speaker 4 (0:13) A Speaker 3 (0:14) handshake is better than anything I ever signed. Right here. Speaker 2 (0:18) You are a one Speaker 6 (0:19) -on-one? My Speaker 3 (0:19) son's right there. I don't Speaker 2 (0:20) think Speaker 3 (0:20) I've ever said this before. Speaker 2 (0:26) You guys just missed a very special moment because we, Tom didn't have his headset foot on, and we made Tom feel like the podcast started, and we were literally doing a podcast, and then the music went on, and then Tom looked at us pissed off. Tom, the podcast is officially live. I wasn't pissed off. You were furious. Your face turned red. By the way, that tie by Stefano Ricci, great tie, beautiful tie that Tom's got on. Also the same tie that the president wears, by the way, just so you know. I Speaker 5 (0:52) think Speaker 2 (0:52) it's so loud and proud. That's correct. Okay. All right. And by the way, it makes sense. President of Lion Holden, President of Speaker 3 (0:57) the Speaker 2 (0:57) United States. I mean, you know you got two different things. So, folks, I hope you had a good weekend. There's a lot of crazy stuff that's going on here. Speaker 2 (1:05) Elon posts a video that says, here's what the future of the world could look like and where many of us would be living in. And it literally looks like a movie. But the reality of it is, if you know this guy, he's got the money. He's got the backing. He's got the work ethic. He's got the vision. He read a book many, many years ago that got him to believe he's going to be doing this. So we'll talk about that video. Greenland. At first, everybody's like, Greenland. What are you talking about? We're going to take over Greenland. This guy's crazy. Why does he keep talking about stuff like this? Guess what's getting done? A deal's getting done with Greenland, where U.S. is going to have a presence there to have a clear shot. If Russia all of a sudden decides to go crazy, we got a clear shot. So it went from this guy's out of his mind to, well, maybe we're doing this deal, and it's actually happening. And then aside from that, a couple other stories that happened. The holdout juror. that we found that based on a couple of the jurors that doxed him saying he's a black man. And, you know, oh, my God. And, you know, all these other shows that came out talking about it. He posted a picture with him and his kid. And we'll get into that. And Patrick Clancy was on 60 Minutes. And on 60 Minutes, they were asking him questions about if his wife, Lindsay, ever asked for an apology or not. You have to hear his answer. And he explains holding his eight-month-old, which you were talking about. And we'll address that as well. Trump banning CNN, Politico, MSN Now. I'm not sure that's a good idea. But Obama came up and said, imagine if I were to. say that Fox News can't do this, and there's a clip of him literally doing that, which kind of wasn't a good weekend for Obama. I'm sure he still had a decent weekend, but a lot of the older stories came out. Lane Kiffin leaves Ole Miss, goes to LSU. They play against each other. I don't know if you're following this or not. Crazy ending, but the story's even crazier. We'll talk about that a little bit, maybe five minutes at the end of the podcast, but it is an interesting story. Yankees, out of nowhere over the weekend. raised $2.6 billion from Apollo, who comes in at a 16 % position of the company, putting the Yankees at a $16.25 billion valuation. At that number, I think the Yankees would be the most valuable sports team in the world, maybe tied with the Cowboys. That's how close it would be. Will we be able to Speaker 5 (3:24) buy players like the Dodgers? They're getting money now. So if they're getting money, what Speaker 2 (3:30) they choose to do with that money is going to be on strategy, a couple moves that they'll make. But that was a big one because everybody in baseball officially made – if you own a sports team, you made money this weekend. If you own any shares in sports teams, you had a pretty good weekend this weekend. That's not sarcastic. That's true. No, that's true. Every Speaker 6 (3:46) owner should be sending the biggest, baddest bottle of wine to Halstein Renner and saying thank Speaker 2 (3:50) you. No question about it. And aside from that with a couple other stories that we've got going on with Russia. And Ukraine, Putin preparing to escalate war. And, you know, the president saying they want to build a military base in Poland. It's like, wait, you're building a military base? I thought you guys are not going to keep going east. No, we are going to build a military base. Why are you building a military base? And on the weekend, Zelensky thanks Trump. Yet at the same time, Ukraine launches thousands of drones at Russia, including hundreds fired at Moscow in largest attack ever. This happened this weekend. And this is according to CBS, and it's all over the place. So they're saying that there's a lot of movement in Europe right now, a lot of countries that haven't been moving. They're moving, and they're kind of getting ready for something to potentially happen. And some are saying this could be a real thing. And then you've got a story that came up. that says, I'm willing to take a pay cut, just please don't fire me. This is a story by MarketWatch. Most workers will take a pay cut for job security right now. I can't deal with the stress anymore. And then Goldman Sachs comes out and says, consumer sentiment in the dumps, despite a solid economy, Goldman Sachs blames lower happiness is the reason for it. Lower happiness is the reason for it. And the fellow that's saying this. What's the guy's name? Let me see. Something Briggs. Joseph Briggs, I think, is his name. Economist Joseph Briggs. Economist Joseph Briggs. Joseph, we're Speaker 5 (5:15) going Speaker 2 (5:15) to talk about you today. I hope you're going to be okay with that. And then a couple other stories outside of that if we get into it. Caregiving. A Yahoo finance story comes out this weekend that it's not fair what's happening to a lot of millennials today because millennials have to care give to different people today. their parents and their kids, and it's unfair on them financially that they have to be doing that, that's the story came out, which we'll get into in an open AI anthropic, you know, are overselling AI fear in a way, which is very interesting. It's a strategic but a little dark. Let me explain to you why it's dark and a little strategic. Some of these guys that have already had massive market share and massive lead, they're trying to now get the U.S. to create new regulations that prevent smaller guys to come and compete with them. It's almost like when vaccines were being given and then all these major vaccine companies got a, you know, immunity to what they can be sued to like 2072. I don't know what the number was. It was like a 50 year thing. I think it was 2072 because it was from 2022. And so imagine some people are speculating saying this is what these AI companies are doing. Speaker 1 (6:27) And then last but not least, one story that Tom and I want to get into is. Speaker 2 (6:32) What should entrepreneurs be doing right now with rates staying elevated, with AI investment continuing, with global competition intensifying? What should founders do? Hire now or wait, buy companies, hold more cash, invest in AI, prepare for recession or expansion. We will talk about that as well at the beginning of the podcast. But with that being said, if you're wondering why I'm wearing this, let me tell you why I'm wearing this. Insiders at the Vol Conference and BitDavid Consulting know exactly what this is. This is a Letterman's jacket that we came up with. These jackets, custom ones, they sell for $300 to $500. Many of you guys have that in your closet of sports teams you played or something you did at college you went to. But this is a numbered one that we have here, and there's only 250 of these, of which only 70 have been left because most of them were sold to our vault insiders who attended the conference and some of our clients that we contacted to give them the ups. Some of you guys are saying, well, I'd like to be part of that list. We will share with you on November 1st. how to do that, but this jacket here that I'm showing you, then on the back it says, future looks bright, absolutely sick, American flag on it, number each of you guys that ordered this, will be out of 250, you'll have your number on it, 250 year anniversary one, and when you open it up, it's got a bunch of Valuetainment logos on the inside, and then Adam's got the other jacket that's not numbered. which has got the Viettami flag, U.S. American flag, red, white, and blue, and on the back, can you turn around real quick to see what the back shows? Yes, sir. The back shows, I believe, also Future Looks Bright. Sick jacket. Sick jacket. Winter is coming. This is a jacket to be ordering for yourself. The the one I'm wearing is limited. There's a limited supply because they're numbered I think there's 72 or 71 left the one that he's wearing I think there's 155 or 160 left of those because they just we couldn't keep them it was going off the shelves immediately So go to FLB comm place the order especially if it's the limited ones because if you don't do it now It'll be on eBay. You know how this works. Everybody contacts us. That's not fair the benefit of watching it early You get these limited things early And the ones that wait, they're going to have to pay four, ten times the value on eBay because that's how it works. We can't control that part of it. Having said that, let's get right into it. So, Tom, I want to talk business with you. So a lot of people are asking questions who are small business owners, founders, who maybe have some money in the bank or they're running a good-sized business doing $100 million a year, $80 million a year, $6.8 million a year. And a question that's coming up with the rates being elevated, with AI investment going where it's at, with gas prices, oil prices, diesel, you're seeing what's going on in the economy. Then businesses can range, right? Should people be hiring today or wait? Should people be holding on to their cash today or wait? Is there a possibility of a recession or should I be expanding today? What would you say to founders, small business owners that are sitting there saying, I'm a little worried. What decision should I be making today? Speaker 6 (9:21) So it's interesting you're talking about this because you and I are both getting these exact questions on the neck. You reach out and we'll let you know. But what's very, very interesting to me, I look at, first of all, I look at capital. Then I look at people. And then I look at a company. So on the capital side, I would be really careful about new debt right now. But what I would be making sure is I've got a relationship with a local community bank, not with the Wells, Chase, Citi, and B of A. Those are the big banks. Businesses, you'd be surprised how the community banks are willing to work with you. In Dallas, there is a bank called Happy State Bank, of all things. The community banks usually have better programs for the small business person. But I'd be careful about new debt unless it was just, hey, man, you're a roofer. and you got to roll over the lease on those trucks that they've come up and you have no choice. But I would be cautious about new debt, number one. People, I would be sitting down, have a frank conversation with my top people. But I would be protecting my best people. I would say, look, we may be going through a recession. I need your best. We may need to put a little bit more in and drive. But I would be protecting my best people by being very transparent and open with them and driving them. I'd be careful about hires unless it's a critical skill. If it's a critical skill, you've got to go hire it. Like you have a roofing company. You don't have an estimator. You lose your estimator. You've got to go hire an estimator. But on other things, I'd be careful and I'd be really giving other people opportunity in the company. Say, look, if you can stretch a little bit and do this, you know, I can take care of you. If we save on one hire and we all can come together, I may have a little bit more for a raise for you. And then in terms of the company, I would keep my powder dry. And I'm going to speak to smaller businesses, Pat, because we consult with a lot of those and be ready to maybe pick up the smaller guy across town that doesn't make it through if there's a recession or something. So I would be keeping my powder dry and being ready to be opportunistic. As Warren Buffett once said, when it's raining outside. I've kept my capital ready, and I run outside with a washtub. And that's his message was during tough times, sometimes there's opportunity. Speaker 2 (11:34) Yeah, you know what I would say to you? Think about a few things. Very valid questions. We get them regularly. Every time money comes to me, I always want to have cash because I know many opportunities come up. A few years ago when I wanted to buy a blue-chip share into a company. Okay, Yankees. came up and said, hey, you know, this is the valuation. I was like, oh, that's high. That's high. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do this. Well, I invested into the Yankees June of 2023. We were at Bermuda, wherever we were at. At that time, it was a $5 to $7 billion valuation. It's at a 16 and a quarter valuation because the Yankees just hit a $2.6 billion round. And so money went. If that money would sit for too long, it wouldn't duplicate. It wouldn't be where it is right now money-wise. Anthropic. If you would have put $10 million, if you put $100,000 in Anthropic just five years ago, you know what it would be today? If you put $100,000 in Anthropic just five years ago, today it's $150 million. Let me say that one more time. If you would have put $10,000, let's make it even smaller, it's $15 million. If you would have put $1,000 in Anthropic, it's $1.5 million. The average person has $1,000. $1.5 million, what kind of money is that? So you've got to keep your eyes open right now with investments. I'll say the other part with, you know, what everybody could do at a time like this is I'm always interested in this. I want to get the pulse from the market. I want to get the pulse from my executive team. I want to get the pulse from my investors. I want to get the pulse from everybody. So last week we had one of our clients. They do $100 million plus out of Canada, Toronto. It's a pharmacy company. And they had 40 of their franchises all flying on Friday, and they came and met with us. And we went through a two-hour engagement that we did. They brought all their franchisees together. Thank you so much. Each of the franchisees, they do between $2 million to $7 million a year in their own revenue as a franchisee owner. And they sat there and they're like, hey, here's what we're going through. What should we be looking at? What should we be concerned with? And I started off and I said, hey, do you know what the recent 10 acquisitions have been in your industry? No, we don't. So I went and started pulling up some of the numbers. I said, did you know XYZ Company, Shopper something, Shopper is a pharmacy company in Canada. I said, you know, that company sold for $12.4 billion. They said, what? I said, yeah. You know how many locations? I gave the locations. You've got to be kidding me. No. I went through all the acquisitions. Then I said, let's go through everyone's concerns here to see what they're worried about, what they're thinking about. Everybody get their set of concerns, their own set of motives, assumptions, fears, and asks. And then we unified the whole group together on the same message. We identified what the messaging should be moving forward. And then from there to go expand and have a vision of 200 locations within the next five years and then eventually exit for multi-billion dollars. They're very excited about that. But I think if there's anything you ought to do while you're going through this phase, hiring, firing, raising, doing any of that, get your leadership team together. Have an off-site session for a few hours. Talk to them to see what everybody is thinking about. Sometimes they will give you a lot more information than you're thinking. Ray Kroc said once at McDonald's that 90 % of the ideas came bottom up. The customers gave it to them. The employees gave it to them. But if you're not communicating with your employees and your clients, you don't know what those ideas are. We just got back from the vault. We do a massive survey, and we read every single survey on how to improve the events and what we do with our clients at the vault conference. You can do surveys with your employees. You can do surveys with your customers. You can do surveys to see what people are thinking, what people are worried about, and then pick and choose which ones to go address. But I think right now talent is available. You know why talent is available? Story comes out, and I'll start off with this, why I say talent is available. Most workers would take a pay cut for job security right now. This is a market watch story. I can't deal with this stress anymore. A lot of people are concerned. if their job's going to be around or not. Is someone going to fire me? Am I going to be let go? And a lot of people may be getting fired. And these are good quality people they can hire at a different company. So this is also a very good time to be looking for solid talent. I'll read this to you in time. I'll come to you with this. For decades, standard career advice. was to follow the money, which is by far one of the worst advice somebody can give you, in my opinion, and I'll give my argument on it why. Now with layoffs rippling through white-collar industries, a grown share of workers say they would gladly take a trade pay for peace of mind. According to Mosner's 2026 job security report, half of workers would take a pay cut for job security and 61 % would give up some part of their compensation. Of those willing to take less, 26 % would accept a... cut up to five, 28 % would take 5 % or more, and 11 % would surrender more than 10%. Workers are exhausted, said Monster Career expert Vicky Salemi. They're telling us, I can't deal with the stress anymore. She cited one worker who turned down a $240,000 a year in-person job for $120,000 remote role, prioritizing flexibility and stability. The anxiety is grounded in a cooled labor market. Job leads expert Jan von Hollen said searches that took five to six weeks a few years ago now routinely take three to six months with candidates submitting 100 applications without landing an offer. Tom, what do Speaker 6 (17:09) you Speaker 2 (17:09) say to that? So what I Speaker 6 (17:10) say is articles like Speaker 2 (17:11) this usually grab Speaker 6 (17:12) a couple big, big tomatoes and throw them at you. This person turned down $240,000 so they could work from home at 120. Well, you don't know this person. You don't know if this person was going to have to move to Chicago and maybe they've got a relative they're caring for. You just don't know. However, the underlying beyond the sensational example that they like to throw at you is reality. And right now, reality is we're seeing little layoffs now and then. We're seeing consolidations in tech companies. And we're seeing areas where people are saying, hey, you know what? It's not 2021-22 where I can go hold my employer hostage. Maybe I should appreciate my employer. Maybe, you know what, I should stay here. And on the other side of it is they can read and they know what's going on in their industry. Speaker 6 (18:00) Vinny, like you knew in the Air Force, Space Force, you knew when something was coming down with early retirement and stuff like that, and everybody would talk about it and either created excitement or stress. Oh, no, we're going to have no leave for six months. That means we're going to go do some military action somewhere. And the organization would feel it, wouldn't they? Of course. Yeah, see, well, it's the same thing here. So people are feeling it, and people are like, you know what? I like my job. I want to be seen as a hard worker. And, you know, I'm willing to give up a little bit. I don't like the situation. I don't like workers under stress. I don't like to see that. But, Pat, what we're seeing right now is very natural. And the smart ones are saying, maybe I need to surf it out right now in my industry. I don't want to be laid off. And you know what? Maybe Speaker 7 (18:42) here is a pretty good place to be. Adam. This is the number one question in America right now. It's like, where should I work? How am I going to make my money? I break it down to the three categories because I think the average person, I think, has 12 different jobs in their work life, right? Like you go from a job to job to job to job. What you don't want to be doing is going from job to job to job to job every three to five years. The number one thing for me is what industry are you going to be in? Number two is what's your specialty? And then number three. How much do you value your loyalty? So, like, I've been at my company, Welcome Funds, for since 2007. I'm going on my 19th, almost 20th year. And here's the thing for me. Do you know how many times I've been offered a higher-paying job to go to a different company for a different opportunity? But you can't put a price on loyalty. So I've been with you, you know, as your co-host for six years. Speaker 7 (19:40) If I had any say in it, I want to be here for another 20 years. Growing with a company is probably the best thing you could do, especially if you can increase your market value, especially if you can get equity in a company. A lot of people we saw during COVID were going for a higher-paying job, and then a year later, they're gone. So loyalty to me is the number one thing, whether it's a relationship, whether it's Speaker 2 (20:03) a Speaker 7 (20:03) work relationship. That's kind of what it comes down to. Speaker 2 (20:05) Yeah, I think that's a good point. I do think. There's two sides as well. Because for us, you know, in the insurance side, we never lost the vice president. And the reason for that was we had a very simple rule that we followed. Every day we wake up, and I would tell this to our home office, our job is to make the company better today than it was yesterday by 1%. And I think sometimes employers don't take that mentality. Sometimes employers take, let me just take profits off the table and, you know, whatever. Let me just take the money off the table. There are some employers. that don't think about what is the right thing for the employee. But the employee's job is like choosing a wife. Go choose a company that you can marry instead of date. Yes, when you're younger, you're going to date a few different frogs and all this stuff. You're going to go through it. But eventually, you should find a wife. And the industry should also be something that you're finding a wife, like a 10, 20-year commitment. I made a commitment to the insurance industry. I was going to be in it for 20 years. I sold my business 20 years and nine months after having been in the industry. Literally, that was my timeline. where I sold the business after 20 years and nine months. At the Vol Conference, one guy named Walter, whom I met five years ago, he was on our... consultant calls, and I always would feel something was special about this young man. And at the time, he was 22, 21, 23 years old, and he would go to our events, and I would always see, man, this guy speaks very well. He got up and he said one of his mentors told him something one time, and he said, here's how it works. If somebody doesn't do a good job at the company, it's four things that I have to do as an employer. One, I have to find you a boss that you can no longer report to me. You need to find somebody to report to. Number two, I have to find you a peer, hire somebody that can help you because you can't do all the job by yourself. I have to find somebody direct report to you to be able to take some of the weight off your table. Or last but not least, guess what it is? I have to fire you. Speaker 7 (21:55) And Speaker 2 (21:55) those are the decisions companies have. If you're not carrying the weight, whatever your job may be, that employer is thinking I've got to hire you a boss, hire you a peer, hire you a direct report, or fire you and move on. And typically that only happens when that individual is not improving. and recreating themselves. And if you're sitting there, you don't understand, you don't understand, you're talking from your chair, you have all this money, you can keep talking like that all you want, nothing's going to change, nothing. Coach doesn't love me, I know he doesn't love me. You can bitch all you want about your coach. Kids, I have kids who say, your coach is, you know, you got to go and train on the weekends. A Sunday, I'm like, hey, we got to work on something. What's that? We went and ran two miles with Dylan to get us running and all this stuff because we've got to work on different areas. You can say whatever you want today. My company doesn't love me. The industry this, the president this, the politician this. All this stuff you can say. What companies are always looking for is people that want to find a way to improve that company. It's very hard to find people like that. I got a guy the other day who was calling a reference from one of our employees. And he says, hey, what can you tell me about this one employee? Reference. I said, let me tell you what I can tell you about this one employee. My guy who runs the property here, Barney, you guys know Barney is the only guy that's gotten outstanding three times in our calibration. He says to me, and Tom says to me, he says, every time I go to the studio, some of the guys that work in the studio sometimes, let's just say they just do audio, let's just do this, they do that. He says, if this guy, there is nothing going on, we never see him on his phone. Sometimes the other guys will stay on their phones. This guy will never stay on his phone. He's always working on fixing something at the office here, at the studio here. And he says, it's funny. By the way, I'm not here to see that. I don't have eyes here. I'm not running cameras to see what everybody else is doing. Speaker 2 (23:46) But others who treat the company like their own company, they see it and they talk. And then when we get into the meetings and they'll say, hey, let me tell you, man, that one guy. So I told this story to the other guy that wanted to ask for reference. He said, I said, that's the guy. He says, that's the guy. I said, you're getting that guy. He said, well, that's good to know. I said, we gave a great reference. So people are going to talk when you're doing the right things behind closed doors. Eventually enough people will realize you're not the one that's lax and casual. And it's very, very hard to find people like that. Let me get to the next story now. Goldman Sachs, we're still going to get to the other stories. Goldman Sachs, Tom, talks about it's because it's happiness. Consumer sentiment is in the dumps. Despite a solid economy, Goldman Sachs blames lower happiness. Tom, do you agree with this lower happiness? Because a study that came out, you know, University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, it's a record low this year, falling 13 % year over year in September, will drop. of almost 8 % from August alone. Economists have puzzled over why sentiment has stayed depressed since the pandemic, even with the economy having gone up. So this person says, Goldman's economist Joseph Briggs told clients this week that downward pressure may stem from a broader pessimism in society. Low reported economic sentiment likely reflects a more fundamental downbeat assessment of the state of the world rather than the economy, Briggs wrote. To be sure, he said, inflationary pressures are likely hurting confidence too, but lower happiness at large can partially explain the disconnect between sentiment and other measures. Tom, do you agree with him? So what are economists supposed to do? They write Speaker 6 (25:24) opinions in papers. And Harry Truman, Vinny, you'll like this. You know what he said once? It's kind of a math problem, but not. He said, I don't understand. If I laid all of my economists end to end, they still wouldn't reach a conclusion. And so I agree with Harry Truman on that. Speaker 2 (25:42) I don't know if Vinny got that. Can I Speaker 6 (25:44) be completely honest with you? Go Speaker 5 (25:45) ahead. Speaker 6 (25:46) But I get where he was going. So Briggs is looking at a happiness survey, and he is looking at an accurate survey. This guy works for Goldman Sachs. He's a highly paid economist. And they said that happiness in America never really recovered from the pandemic. Okay. Fine. But what he's doing, he's making a correlation to maybe say consumer sentiment is down and consumers aren't buying because of happiness. No, it's because we have a legitimate economic crisis right now in terms of affordability. Gas is expensive. That's not helping the consumer. That takes out of their budget. Expensive gas, expensive energy, expensive electricity. That's hurting the consumer. And then insurance is up. And then we also have diesel, which is having six dollar diesels putting pressure on goods and services. So this is an economist, Pat. I disagree with the way he put his argument together and I disagree with the conclusion he reached. And that's why CNBC turned it into a headline story. It's not just the happiness. We may not have recovered from the pandemic and we may still be a little pissed off inside about that. Yeah, sure. But it's not our happiness at the bell that's affecting the December sentiment. I Speaker 2 (26:56) got a question for you. Speaker 6 (26:56) I can't go to the grocery store. Speaker 2 (26:57) I got a question for you. So let's say the president had the support that Obama and Biden had from mainstream media where 95 % of the reporting is positive. Okay? So let's just kind of say that. Because you know how it is. 95 % of media. is not going to be on Trump's side. Let's say 90%. The only one that's on Trump's side is who? Say Fox News, mainstream, okay? And nowadays, including social media, he doesn't have a lot of support, right? From a lot of people, from the woke right, the left, the woke left, whatever you want to call it, he doesn't have a lot of it. Do you think if an Obama was president today, or if a Biden was president today, and if the president, Trump, got the level of criticism, that Biden got Obama, which is not a lot. Mainstream wouldn't criticize him. Do you think half the battle of the happiness is because of the amount of noise mainstream media makes at whatever this man does wrong? Which, by the way, some of the stuff he earns the right to get criticism for. Do you think some of that is the reason why people are not happy? One of my friends who runs a trucking company says, I don't know why. Every time a Democrat is in the office, there's just less noise. I said, so you're... decision-making is based on a Democrat being in office is less noise. He says, yes, every time a Republican is a president, there's riots, there's protesting, there's issues, there's that. I said, that's exactly what they want you to think and believe. You know what I'm saying? So how much of this happiness index is purely based on how much fear porn is being sold every day by mainstream media? I Speaker 6 (28:35) agree with that point 100%. Because, you know, they kept saying this about Obama. Obama and health care. Let him fix it. Give him time to fix it. They don't say that about this president. They constantly hammer it. And I believe that that does hammer on American psyche. Now, some of the things we're talking about, 650 diesel today, that's real. But what the media is not saying is give him time to fix it. Hey, refineries were closed. That wasn't all the president's fault. That's what the media would be saying if it was Obama president. You're making a very good point on this, that some of this noise would be turned down because they'd be giving their guy a pass or giving him time. Let him fix it. The president's working on it. He's got things going on. They never say that about Trump. Speaker 5 (29:20) I don't think we have a happiness problem. I think we have an everything costs too damn much to be happy problem. And I understand where you're coming from, where the media coverage, obviously people are getting... depressing news all the time. But Pat, I just flew to California. My mom had surgery. She's probably listening to this right now. A plane ticket that would normally cost me $450 to $500. It was $900 with no additions to fly to California. Then I get to California, regular gas, Tom, regular