The Exchanges

Q Yeah. What else do you think shows up on like every broke person's account? That's like immediate standard.

A You have your Klarna's, your firm's, even PayPal paying for, which honestly, personal favorite of mine. I've used it. I'm good with it. I'll use it today. I don't need to, but I mean, it could be nice splitting just a payment in four. That's fine. But what you start seeing is when people get on Klarna, they feel like they have access to money and then they finance it like anything else. And a Klarna loan immediately gets you up to like 35%, where even like the highest credit cards, we're talking 30%. So it's one of the worst things that I see on people's finances today that is getting way too normalized is using those Klarna's and affirms.

AI assessment note: “You have your Klarna's, your firm's, even PayPal paying for”

Q How much of Gen Z's financial situation are because of the big things, house and salary increase, et cetera, as opposed to their daily decisions?

A In my own personal experience in the four years of doing three to four episodes a week, um, It rarely comes down to their actual price of housing, even though that is the largest percentage of single item we typically have in a budget, people have made mistakes and they've gotten rent more than they needed an extra bedroom that they didn't need. And then we proved to them by pulling up on Zillow that no one, their city, there's like 1500 places and non bad crime areas that they could afford the, to go in with two, 300 dollars cheaper. So, but I mean, it's not that that's insignificant, but it is more the personal choices. The death of a thousand cuts is really something you never see because you're stopping at the drive through. It doesn't seem like anything, but most people, it kind of blows their mind when they come on the show and they see it for the very first time, how much money is actually going to bullshit. A thousand dollars going out to eat a month is not uncommon on our show. And a thousand hours a month, 12,000 dollars a year is an insane amount of money. Compounding at eight to 10% a year in the S&P 500 over the course of decades is crazy money. It's a great down payment on a house. It's crazy money. So it is a, it is those personal choices. It doesn't mean housing's great and where you are, it's going to be worse. San Francisco, LA, New York, it's going to hurt. I…

AI assessment note: “It rarely comes down to their actual price of housing... it is more the personal choices”

Q you want to make more money and have a better life, and you think that it's in your purview to actually do it. And so, um, those are my people, and I think they find you too. You know, like, you've said a lot about cars. You've talked a lot about how cars could be good or bad financial decisions. Like, is buying a car a bad financial decision, typically?

A No. Cause oftentimes in our car infrastructure world, you have to, unless you live in a few blessed places in the United States, you need a car to get a job, to get a car. It's the amount of car, the kind of car, the year, the car, where you are financially, when you're getting your car, those are the big things that matter. Americans think they need their mega Ford F one 50 with a thousand dollars a month at 12% interest to go pick up groceries once a week. That doesn't make sense. Americans are stupid with the cars we get. You can get a five, six, seven year old car that is used, that you get checked out by a mechanic, that's the clear part, you know, a couple different independent mechanics outside of the dealership, outside of the lot, you get a little seal of approval, maybe not the perfect deal, but a good car that's going to be safe, reliable, and lasts a while without a lot of maintenance, and there's, I mean, there's used electric cars, I mean, not everyone can do it, because not everyone has access to the charging, but it's incredible what you can get for that 10 to 25 dollar range instead of the 50,060 thousand hour cars that Americans feel like they have to get, or else their family's gonna die if they get in a car crash. Yeah. So Americans are just really silly with our car purchase. We'll justify anything to get the nice new car. It's cause it's a toy. It's fun. I…

AI assessment note: “No. Cause oftentimes in our car infrastructure world, you have to”

Q Yeah. No, I can't imagine many significant others are stoked about that. I don't even know if most people realize how bad the American debt crisis is, how bad Americans finances are. So could you maybe paint a picture like what is happening to the average American financially today?

A Well, if we look at the country before even looking at the average, if you look at the country, we're talking trillions at this point, I think credit cards in the trillions, student loans in the trillions, mortgages in the trillions and mortgages can be good, but you know, there's people get into houses they can't afford and, uh, uh, 11% of student loans right now are going into default, which is absolutely crazy. And that's not a loan you want to fuck with, like getting it with, that doesn't go to collections like the other ones that garnishes your wages. That starts getting really, really bad. When you can get on a payment as low as one percent of your income, why have it garnished up to 20% of your income? I don't really, that's such a weird personal choice at the end of the day. Um, but for the average person, again, 40% of Americans can't afford a 400 dollar emergency. Not a thousand dollars, but just a 400 dollar emergency. 40% can't afford. Insane. The amount of times that I was driving Delivery driving Jimmy John's in college and lost the tire or something or popped a tire. That's an expensive fix. If we, if 40% can't do a 400 dollar emergency, I don't know what their future looks like. It's a future of only debt. Cause that means every single time anything happens to you, you're going further into debt, which prevents you with those new minimum payments from saving up …

AI assessment note: “40% of Americans can't afford a 400 dollar emergency.”

Q what your show At least doesn't like, hopefully this conversation today is try to figure out who are the people that you want to be around, because that's going to be your biggest indicator of like, I mean, you probably don't see too many really, really rich. One side of the couple was really, really broke other side. Like everything sort of gets pulled down by one. Is that true?

A Absolutely. I call people out all the time when they're, uh, you know, I use it in a different way. Cause sometimes anchor means good, like the ink of a relationship where they're just, You know, they want to go forward, but they've dropped them in the middle of the ocean, and they can't go anywhere. And it's just, it is very common, honestly, unfortunately, and in couples episodes where one person is the villain, and that is very common, instead of both of them being a villain. Um, and it's really sad to see, because I feel empathy for the other person, because the other person loves the person who is making mistakes to death. They're kind of trapped there, because it's like, what are you going to do? Just give up the love of your life? Well, maybe that person's not going to Change their behavior. So now you're stuck with that as well. It's, that's a brutal choice to make sometimes.

AI assessment note: “Absolutely. I call people out all the time when they're”

Q So the opposite of the dumbest thing that you've ever seen, what do you like? I put so much money in this. Nobody else does or more people should. This is the type of investment that I actually really like.

A I mean, I usually just talk to retards, so it's kind of hard. You don't really see much people doing good things. Um, You know, I don't think people need to buy houses. It's kind of, that's been passed. You know, right now you can just, your money from a down payment or anything or going to a mortgage instead in the S and P 500 will just be housing any day, every day. So you don't need to buy a house. It's okay to buy a house, but I think for the average American, even though it might not be the best return on investment compared to investing, I think it's nice to get their money locked up where they can't touch it. Of course you can with the key locks and stuff, but when people can't touch it, that's actually nice because you're not going to withdraw it like that, like a four one K people would draw from four way in case all the time. So maybe for the average American, they do need to be babied and having it in an asset that they can't just touch like that is actually a good thing.

AI assessment note: “your money from a down payment or anything or going to a mortgage instead in the S and P 500”