Trump's Credit Card CAP, Musk's Iran Move, 50% OnlyFans Tax + Efran Soltani Execution | PBD Podcast | Ep. 718

Patrick Bet-David, Tom Ellsworth, and Brandon Aceto are joined by Mark Moss as they break down Trump’s proposed 10% cap on credit card interest rates, Elon Musk’s Starlink actions amid Iran protests, a controversial 50% tax push on OnlyFans earnings, and the looming execution of Iranian protester Erfan Soltani. ------ 👨‍💼 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: https://bit.ly/3YteHzu 📺 SUBSCRIBE TO MARK MOSS' YOUTUBE CHANNEL: https://bit.ly/4qiakmR 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 Ⓜ️ CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4kSVkso ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4kSVkso Ⓜ️ PBD PODCAST CIRCLES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4mAWQAP 🥃 BOARDROOM CIGAR LOUNGE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4pzLEXj 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4lzQph2 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is more than caring about the latest and greatest. It's also taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are with personalized financial strategies that help protect what matters so you can preserve your progress while creating a path forward. The key to being rich is knowing what counts. Let's find your rich together. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG: HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  Adam, what's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever signed, right here.

• 1:17Patrick Bet-David?

  You are a one of one?

• 1:18Speaker 02

  My son's driving that. I don't think I've ever said this before.

• 1:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, gang, great to be with you guys. Business Wednesdays today, a lot of stories to cover. A number was dropped on BNPL. How catastrophic it's looking right now for BNPL and specifically Gen Z. Tom's got an entire report on it. We got a special guest with us here, Mark, who has a YouTube channel himself. Mark, you got about what? You got a million subscribers yourself? Almost, we're getting there. Million subscribers? Maybe this will help. Yeah, well, listen, you are helping yourself, you know, as a guy that's doing a great job. We've been watching you for a while. Brandon always would rave about you, and we met at the Manect event at Soho House. Yep. So we're excited about Mark Moss's views today on different things. Thank you. But let's go through some of the stories, some of the stories that we got. So, um...

• 2:10Patrick Bet-David?

  NPR reports yesterday 2,500 people Iranian civilians killed by the government CBS says 12,500 we'll definitely get into that Trump says any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% US tariff last time they did this Iran was suffocating they're already suffocating the government it's about to get even worse Google co-founder Sergey Brin joins California Exodus and he's another one of those billionaires that left as well and remember Chamath said there's about a half a trillion dollars of net worth of business owners in the state of California that are leaving so he's one of those half a trillion dollar guys that he was talking about and then there's nothing we can do

• 2:55Patrick Bet-David?

  the great millennial career crisis as workers given up on ever owning homes or paying off their student loans you know this is Brandon's story he wants to talk about this because you know he's not happy with affordability we'll definitely cover that probably the best story that I have here is what Argentina did with the two and a half billion dollars if you guys remember America's gonna bail out Argentina I told you these capitalistic ideas are not gonna work out it's a bunch of BS well guess what he just returned the two and a half billion dollars yesterday like wait what he returned it we'll cover that as well today on the Argentina story this next one is a little bit disappointing because I want to see this happen Nissan cancels the Versa America's last new car

• 3:39Patrick Bet-David?

  for under $20,000 as automakers lean toward wealthier buyers Trump vows to slash mortgage rates revive American dream while blaming Biden housing failures and a truth post will address that Trump to bring Musk in for key Iran mission I believe they're starting to realize that Elon's got a tool that everybody needs he's becoming a linchpin with his Starlink technology that he has and then Trump floats one year 10% credit card interest rate cap what could that mean for your money last night we're having dinner Tom and I with four

• 4:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Investment bankers and advisors from JP Morgan Chase. And this was one of the topic of discussion of what happens if you cap credit card rates at 10%. Does it help the people you want to help? Or does it hurt the people you want to help? And help the people that don't need help? I don't know if that makes sense. We're going to talk about the soul credit card situation. Bill Ackman didn't think it's a good idea. He tweeted about it, then apparently what Tom was sharing with me is he took the tweet down. Nobody knows why. Wall Street on edge after Trump takes aim at credit cards, home buying. And then how American high schools are teaching capitalism? This is a little bit of a serious issue to be talking about because if kids are coming out of high school, spending all this time with their teachers.

• 4:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Last night, my health and guidance teacher from 14 years old wrote me a letter. Every three months I get a letter. We're pen pals today. She wrote me a letter, everything. Politically, if she only knew how complete opposite sides were in, but we absolutely love each other. When we have this relationship, but how American high schools are teaching capitalism? Do you really think school teachers are sitting out there teaching kids how awesome capitalism is? Or you think they're bashing it? This is the lowest percentage of support we've had from young Gen Z on capitalism ever in the history of America. The percentage is isn't high. You'll see the numbers there as we get into it.

• 5:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Canadian trips to US plunged 28%. That's a real number in 2025 amid Trump's tariffs, 51 state jabs. I know, Mark, you talk about tariffs a lot, so we'll come to you on that as well. Americans just spent a record $20 billion with buy now, pay later. Here's what to do if you overdid it. By the way, this is a real, real issue that we need to talk about because again affordability. Wait till you see the numbers on what percentage of Gen Z's are making even the first payment after they bought something from the holiday season? The number is scary to say the least. Tom's got some charts. To show you guys their escrow payments rising nationwide with homeownership less attainable. The dream of a Florida retirement is fading for the middle class.

• 6:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Paramount plans proxy fight to push hostile Warner bid. And it doesn't look like those guys want to sell to Paramount. I don't know if they want Ellison as a buyer. They keep lobbying for Netflix to buy them. Something's going on behind closed doors there. We don't know about gold silver hit record high as inflation data cements Fed rate. Cut bets mark this is your specialty will come to you with that as well. Mike Tomlin, I just put this out, we gotta say this. I mean, for a guy that loves Mike Tomlin, I think he's a phenomenal coach. Hasn't won a playoff game in the last nine years, so he's being criticized. Ending 19 year run with the Steelers, which some are happy about it, some are not. I think the guy's going to pick up a job within half a second. Whether he chooses to be a coach or goes and becomes one of these commentators. I think he's going to do a great job.

• 7:13Patrick Bet-David?

  What the US withdrawal from the 66 international bodies means for American business. And last but not least, Meta cuts more than 1,000 in Bay Area tech. First big tech layoff of 2026.

• 7:28Patrick Bet-David?

  For those of you that run small businesses, this is one thing that most people are not aware of. We run a consulting firm ourself called Bedavid Consulting where we do engagements with around 10,000 businesses from 60 plus countries. Around the world and this is 75% of our business. It's one of the best kept secrets we have in our company that no one knows about. If you come to our office and you see. How we grew nine employees just a couple of years ago to now 165 full time employees. And if you go downstairs and where Bedavid Consulting is at, the energy there is electrifying. If you're a small business owner yourself, anywhere between 10 million plus half a billion dollar revenue.

• 8:07Patrick Bet-David?

  If you're on that range and you want to find a way to get strategies because each phase of a company goes through five phases. And each phase you have five challenges you face. If you want to know what those things are, go to bedavid.com all the way to the bottom. Fill out the information will give you that 18 minutes breakdown of what those five by five are. And then if there's a way. We can help you take your business to the next level, whether you're raising capital, whether you have a compensation plan that needs to be readjusted. We just had the most incredible meeting last week with our firm on Tuesday and on Thursday. Whether it's comp, whether it's LTIP, equity, whether it's expanding in a new market, regulation, marketing, podcast, different ways of getting your story out there. You want to learn more about how we can help you out, go to bedavid.com,

• 8:52Patrick Bet-David?

  fill out your information, one of our consultants at the firm will get ahold of you. Having said that, Mark, if you don't mind taking a minute, share with the audience your background, that'd be great.

• 9:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks. I'm from Southern California, like you, and I cut my teeth buying bank-owned repos right out of high school. In the mid 90s, the banks were sitting on a glut of repos after the housing crash in California from like 89 to 92, and they were giving away zero down. And so I was fixing and flipping them and up in a young white boy up in South Central Compton Watts. And yeah, that's what we did. That's what we did.

• 9:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Straight out of Compton.

• 9:33Speaker 04

  I built up two different tech companies, a high-tech medical equipment company, internet company that I started in 2001 after the dot-com crash, got laughed out of the room, two big exits, but then 2008 came. And when I got knocked over the head, let's just say, right? I was all in Southern California real estate, which is one of the worst markets in the world. It made me go, shoot, I'm pretty good at business. I made a lot of money. I've had some big exits, I've built some big companies. But what is this global financial system that just has all this power over my life? And I'm not even paying attention to it. So after dusting myself off and vowing to my wife that this would never happen to us again, then I've spent the last, whatever now, 12, 15 years digging into macroeconomics and understanding the financial system. And I quickly understood that it's fiat currency and the over-leveraging the debt system,

• 10:16Speaker 04

  and I became a gold bug, and then I became a Bitcoin guy, and now I'm a sound money advocate. And I've been now talking about Bitcoin and macroeconomics, you know, on YouTube, as you mentioned earlier, for about seven, eight years now. Speaking on big conferences, I have a venture capital fund. We fund Bitcoin companies. I sit on the board of two publicly traded Bitcoin companies and just trying to spread wealth.

• 10:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Respect.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:39Patrick Bet-David?

  And more importantly, married 22?

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Married 22 years, had two beautiful daughters.

• 10:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Two beautiful girls. Respect. So all-around winner. It's great to have you on, buddy. It's very good to have you on. Okay, let's get right into it. Argentina's the first one I want to get into. And Tom, I'm coming to you with this one. Argentina, folks. Has repaid US for currency swap deal. If you remember when this was first taking place, everybody was saying, you guys got behind Millet. You thought this was a good idea. It's a horrible idea. There's no way this is gonna work. Where Millet came out and repaid the United States for currency swap framework. It provided to the South American country last year to stabilize the economy. The US Treasury, Scott Besant, an Argentina central bank, said on Friday, Rob, is that the tweet that you have?

• 11:28Patrick Bet-David?

  I am pleased to announce that reflecting its strengthened financial position, Argentina has both quickly and fully repaid its limit, limited draw on the swap facility with the US, such that the exchange stabilization fund currently does not hold any pesos. Besant said in a post on X, we look forward to continuing our enthusiastic support of President Millet and Argentina, he added. Again, this is Scott Besant. In a separate post, Argentina Central Bank added that it had settled the swap line in December, two months after it was announced. According to local newspaper La Nación, two and a half billion dollars of a possible $20 billion had been used in that time. A source with knowledge of the matter told Reuters

• 12:13Patrick Bet-David?

  that the agreement remained in force under the agreed terms. Tom, what happened here? Why is it such a big deal?

• 12:19Tom Ellsworth?

  This is a big deal because do you remember when all the banks were being asked, oh yeah, would you like to do this deal with Argentina? And Trump opened it up to the US banks. And all the US banks says, well, we would want a backstop. Well, what a backstop is, is someone's gonna stand good for the loan. And so all these US banks were really asking you, me, all of us, US taxpayer in the form of the US government, to be the backstop for this $20 billion for Argentina. Meanwhile, Millet was down there, got inflation under control. You remember him with the chainsaw and the whole thing running? Well, he went from the chainsaw to the pen, and it was afuera, like I'm getting, which I think means.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  Kill it off.

• 12:59Tom Ellsworth?

  Take it off. And it was like, okay, Department of Nothingness and Trees, afuera. Remember, he took all those, those labels off the board and said, this is the government we need. We need defense, we need police, we need fire, we need pension for our people, we need a working government. All the rest of this stuff, afuera. Well, then he went to the US government and says, hey, getting this under control to float the peso, you know, we need a little bit of liquidity. We need several billion dollars of liquidity. So this was a currency support line that the US banks didn't want to do. And so instead, it got done through IMF and the US government. And guess what?

• 13:41Tom Ellsworth?

  They only needed 2.5 billion of the 20 billion line, number one. And number two, they stabilized the peso with the IMF, International Monetary Fund. And now Besen comes out and says, by the way, all of you who doubted, it's working. So what Besen is really saying, it's working. Inflation is down, they've stabilized the peso, they want to make a fund where the peso will peg with the dollar on a more consistent basis. And Besen is saying, and by the way, ladies and gentlemen, the American taxpayer made tens of millions of dollars in interest on the 2.5 billion over the amount of time that the loan was dating back to the election

• 14:25Tom Ellsworth?

  they had end of last year in Argentina. So this is a big deal. Pat, this is the kind of intervention that's good. You're not, your intervention, hey, I need a loan to help myself and I need this. And you find great leaders with a reliable risk.

• 14:41Speaker 04

  And you do it and then the taxpayer gets paid back. So this isn't just foreign aid going into a bucket somewhere and never to be seen again. And so this is no less than Scott Besant saying, hey, it worked. It worked for Argentina, it worked for Malay, and it's worked for the American taxpayer and we've been paid back.

• 14:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me tell you why I think this is a big deal and then Mark, I'm going to come to you. I want to hear your thoughts on this. You know why this is a big deal when I looked into it is imagine you go to a guy. Do you have that one person that every time they borrow money from you, they've never paid? Think about that person. Everybody has that friend, right? You may be that friend to somebody, but we all have somebody that never pays back the debt, right? You're watching the same man, I'm kind of that person or Johnny, my cousin, my brother, whatever.

• 15:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Argentina was that person. They came, they got that 82, they never paid it back. They defaulted 89 defaulted, never paid back. Oh, one defaulted, didn't pay back and it happened two more times. So the entire world looks at Argentina says this is the one country that if you give them money, guess what? Never expected back and then all of a sudden boom, here's your money back. Wait, what? To pay it back the two and a half billion portion of it and to do it this fast. Their credibility went to the roof. He gets in inflation, I think is at 200%. Now it's at 31 and a half percent. He's telling the entire country, we're not going to be printing money. I think as an operator, the world is now looking around, looking at countries that if you can lend them some money to make interest and expect that money to be back.

• 16:09Patrick Bet-David?

  I think Argentina officially moved from one bucket that nobody trusted to give money over here. And I think that's a very, very big thing that's happening to Malay. Mark, your thoughts on this?

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I could see the initial pushback on this with it's just more government intervention. And so there's a knee jerk reaction to that and I understand that. But to the point that you made about Malay and what he's done in Argentina, I mean, a complete turnaround. I mean, what he's been able to do in a short period of time is nothing short of a miracle. But really what I think is when I look at this is I just look at the absolute competence in the Trump administration. Scott Besant is a complete surgeon. He understands rates, he understands currencies, he understands swaps and think about the competence that we have in the administration. Administration compared to previous administrations that we've had. And for him to be able with his expertise, right? Helping George Soros break currencies. He understands currencies. He was able to help a country out, a country that needs the help.

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Uh, benefit the United States taxpayer, the United States citizen. And so, you know, all in all, I think it's a really good deal.

• 17:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, and by the way, what a great hire, right? At first, when everybody heard Scott Best and you're like, wait, what? Who is this guy? And the more and more you listen to him, you're like, this is a very qualified guy. He's been the right guy. Uh, on my list of guys, the executives that's been hired. He's probably number two or number one on the list of doing a great job so far. Brandon, your thoughts on this?

• 17:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's like the concept of um, good debt versus bad debt. It's not like we're just giving them money just because they need it. Like it's an emergency situation. We don't know what they're gonna do with it. It's like a credit line for a business. There's a reason that most businesses will take out a line of credit so they could operate and then pay their expenses and then they'll make enough money to pay it back quickly. So it's like the concept of taking out a line of credit to do something productive rather than taking out a loan where you don't know what's, if it's gonna be used for something productive. So yeah, no, I'm all for it. Uh, that's what the swap lines are created for in the first place, I believe. Like after 2008, we set up those swap lines so we could inject money into Europe or other places around the world if need be. So yeah, I think it's really important that we keep this anti or counter socialism movement going in South America. Like so, you know, we got Argentina now, now we got Venezuela, right?

• 18:15Speaker 06

  So one by one, hopefully we desocialize or desocialism, uh, South America.

• 18:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, you know, you know, it's crazy. When you, when you think about this, taxes were supposed to be this way. In 1860 something, 1861, when civil war comes to an end. And Lincoln needs money. We're in debt, we're in debt a lot. He goes to the American people and says, listen, guys. We need to create a tax. You guys gotta pay us and help us out. So he creates a progressive tax. Rob, can you pull up, was it a flat tax? It was, uh, uh, I thought it was three tiers or something like that. The 1861 tax was a flat tax. 3% on incomes over $800. And then the later modify, okay, there you go. Later modified to progressive tax. You know what happened with this? They said, we need to pay this off and we're gonna put this tax until we pay off the debt. How long you think that tax lasted?

• 19:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Seven years. Seven years later, after it was paid off, they eliminated the taxes. This is how taxes were before. Today, God forbid, they launch a new tax. It is never going away. They're just gonna raise it. This is why a lot of billionaires from California are escaping. No, in California, just wants to tax people to death. Let me go to the next one here. Something that's happening that is not necessarily taxes, but is really hurting a lot of different people is this BNPL concept. Buy now, pay later concept. That is hurting a lot of people. This one story I want to read to you. Rob, what page is that BNPL on? There it is. It's on page 11.

• 19:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Americans just spent a record $20 billion with buy now, pay later. Here's what to do if you overdid, overdid it yourself. Now, I'll read this story. I'm gonna give you the quick tips it gives in the article. This is a market watch story. As 2026 gets underway, some consumers are facing overwhelming debt. This is especially true for those who took out multiple buy now, pay later loans to cover their holiday shop in a move known as stacking. And more people are using the loans than ever before. Shoppers use the buy now, pay later spend a record $20 billion from November 1st to December 31st. According to Adobe 2025 Holiday Shopping Trend Reports,

• 20:31Patrick Bet-David?

  9.8% increase from 2024. BNPL typically comes in the form of pay in for loans that don't charge traditional interest. Although the late fees can be charged if a payment is missed, lenders say the option expands access to people who are underserved by traditional credit. But critics say it can lead to worrisome debt accumulation. Tom, why is this so concerning? I know you have some charts on how late people are on payments, but why is this so concerning to you?

• 20:58Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data. UKG turns workforce intelligence into real time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay and Workforce Management.

• 21:43Tom Ellsworth?

  You have to go and kind of go upstream a minute and look at it. In the middle of the COVID crisis, I don't know if we have this chart. The credit card debt in America reached $777 billion as people paid off a lot of it. And I think that was right Q2, there it is. Q2 2021, we hit 777. The sharp drop down was because A, we weren't shopping. We were locked in our homes. We had lockdowns and everything going. B, people took 1,400, 1,500, 1,700 dollar payments from the government, Pat, and paid down their credit cards.

• 22:23Tom Ellsworth?

  So all of a sudden, here we are, Q1 2021, we are at $777 billion. That has gone up since we were all allowed to go back outside and play. We are now at an all time high of $1.26 billion as we have the first

• 22:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Trillion dollars.

• 22:42Tom Ellsworth?

  Trillion, 1.26 trillion as we are in the first week of 2026. So that's what's going on with credit card debt.

• 22:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a scary sight, just looking at that.

• 22:52Tom Ellsworth?

  Correct. But now here's what happens. Along comes BNPL and BNPL isn't on your credit report. Well, it wasn't on your credit report. Whenever you have your credit report run, the industry uses what's called FICO 8. That's how they look at your credit report. And if your parent paying LifeLock or somebody, they say, hey, there's been an inquiry on your credit report. Boom. Meanwhile, over the same amount of time, while America is maxing out its credit card Pat, look what happens to growth of BNPL. So people's credit cards were maxed out, but they still want-

• 23:27Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the number of users? Because I can barely read. It says "number of users" on the left, right?

• 23:31Tom Ellsworth?

  Correct.

• 23:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 23:32Tom Ellsworth?

  So this is basically, the number of users of BNPL shoots up like a rocket. At the same time, credit card debt is going up to 1.26 trillion where it is today. And there was calls in Washington that says, "Hey, BNPL needs to be put on people's credit reports." Because we want to kind of protect, some consumers need to be protected from themselves. And the only one, a firm said, "Okay, I will let you know what my pay-in for statistics are." Pay-in for months. A firm agreed to do it. FICO created what's called the FICO Score 10, which includes BNPL. A firm was good.

• 24:14Tom Ellsworth?

  Klarna and Afterpay said, "No, we don't want to report it." The reason they don't want to report it is because if there's a FICO score out there and there's a way to regulate it, then all of a sudden, people wouldn't use it. And Klarna and Afterpay wanted people to keep using it. Well, what happens? Guess what? Credit cards are maxed. This isn't on your credit report. You go into Best Buy, you want to buy that 4K TV for a thousand bucks. They'll say, "Hey, just put on Klarna. Sign here, do Klarna." Well, guess what? 63% of BNPL users over the last 24 months, Pat, now have multiple BNPL accounts. Number one.

• 24:53Tom Ellsworth?

  41% of BNPL users missed at least one on-time payment last year.

• 25:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you say 41%?

• 25:01Tom Ellsworth?

  41% of all BNPL users-

• 25:04Patrick Bet-David?

  This is not the youth. This is anybody and everybody that uses BNPL.

• 25:06Tom Ellsworth?

  Everybody, everybody last year missed at least one payment. And it gets worse when we go to the youth. Gen Z. The reporting on Gen Z is horrifying. 50% of Gen Z BNPL users missed one payment since holiday spending. That's, that's three months ago. November, December, January. In the last 90 days? 50% of Gen Z have missed one payment. So.

• 25:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, what is the, there is a concept that we, when you miss a payment, doesn't it like the interest goes to the roof or the fee is an extremely high fee?

• 25:42Tom Ellsworth?

  You miss a payment, it's wham bam. And this thing becomes, your, your foot is in the bear trap.

• 25:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but what does that mean, wham bam? I want to know exactly what wham bam means.

• 25:51Tom Ellsworth?

  My understanding is that suddenly you're on an equivalent of a 30% a year.

• 25:56Patrick Bet-David?

  That's exactly what I was thinking about. So I was thinking, Rob, can you pull up on ChatGPT, what happens to BNPLs when you miss the first payment? What happens to the results?

• 26:07Tom Ellsworth?

  They'll say, oh, it's just 2% of balance, but you gotta multiply that times 24.

• 26:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, 12.

• 26:11Speaker 06

  It ends up being worse than credit cards if you miss a balance and they, they make it really sneaky. I remember we uncovered that before.

• 26:18Patrick Bet-David?

  You're usually charged a late fee, okay? So at, after PayClarna zip, late fee kicks in quickly. After a few days, some cap total late fees per order. Affirm no late fee. Your account is often frozen instantly, blocking you from making new purchases. Your credit profile may be impacted. Providers that report to credit bureaus, in many cases, or they're now reporting.

• 26:40Tom Ellsworth?

  No.

• 26:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Clarna affirming.

• 26:42Tom Ellsworth?

  Some plans they report. See, that affirm reports. Clarna is not reporting across the board and not reporting to all agencies.

• 26:49Patrick Bet-David?

  So why don't they though?

• 26:52Tom Ellsworth?

  Hey, if I'm Clarna, I don't really want this on the credit report because I'm Plan B. And I want people to take the risk on Plan B of their own free will.

• 27:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's, it's a funny business model. Mark, where are you at with this?

• 27:06Speaker 04

  Well, there are a couple of things. So first of all, when we look at the credit card debt going up, we have to take into account consideration of the inflation. And not just the CPI inflation, but the increase in the money supply. So I see here it's gone up by 9.87 or 9.8% since 2024 BNPL, BN P, BNPL use. So 9.8 since 2024, but the money supply has increased faster than that. So when we look at sheer numbers, we have to take that into consideration first of all. But what I would say to this is it sort of kind of goes back to two things. Number one, we, you, you referenced some of the news we're going to talk about. One, Trump capping rates. And so when lending restrictions get tightened, people will turn to options like this. So you cut out, you cut rates at 10% on credit cards, people are going to go to loan sharks. Number one. Number two, the way

• 27:50Speaker 04

  I think about it is you also mentioned.

• 27:52Tom Ellsworth?

  They run out of credit balance.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 27:53Tom Ellsworth?

  Or they run out of credit balance.

• 27:54Speaker 04

  Or, or credit balance. The other thing I want to, I would go back to is you'd referenced earlier, a news story to get to later is. The education system and capitalism. And if people were taught how to use debt in a good way. You've mentioned good debt versus bad debt. And so we are in a debt-based system. We're in a credit-based system. And so we use debt to grow. Donald Trump was the king of debt before becoming the president. But if you don't learn how to use it properly, it can become extremely dangerous. If you use it properly, it's extremely powerful. So I just see a failure in the education system, first of all. I see a failure in the banking system and people are turning to this. But overall.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, it can end up bad.

• 28:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon, what do you have with this?

• 28:36Speaker 06

  You know, it's amazing how it's so much more difficult a lot of times to get something as simple as a small business loan with a solid plan versus being able to have access to, you know, twenty to fifty thousand dollars worth of credit card debt to, you know, do frivolous shopping with. I mean, I never really thought of it like that, but it's crazy. Like, it is a much more complicated process to take out a small business loan than to get a few credit cards. But it's unfortunate, like I always complain about government regulation. But now here, this is an example of what happens, like, and why the government sometimes has to get involved and protect people because of the, I guess, like incompetence of some people and, like, the predatory nature of certain companies to put people in a situation like this.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  Because, yeah, these are credit cards or loan sharks. They're probably more expensive than paying off a credit card when you really boil it down. I remember the rates you have to, like, fifty percent sometimes if you miss a few payments. So, so, yeah, it's a disaster.

• 29:34Speaker 04

  But is it the government's job to protect people? Or are they smart enough to read the paperwork and understand what they're signing?

• 29:39Speaker 06

  I guess you could say that's survival of the fist to a degree.

• 29:43Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but I agree with Mark.

• 29:44Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:44Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree with Mark, but please, Mark, finish your thought.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Because if they're not gonna get this, they're not gonna read the paperwork and they're not gonna read the fine print. That's on them. And if they don't get it there, the government protects them from getting it. They'll go to the back alley and they're gonna get it from the loan shark and they're gonna get their legs broken. So it's like, they're gonna take the risk either way. At least it's disclosed and it's transparent. And like, again, it should be on them to be smart enough to understand what they're signing. They can take that contract and run through ChatGPT today. I mean, there is no excuse for the ignorance of that.

• 30:12Tom Ellsworth?

  No, I agree with that. And I think that one of the good things of the Consumer Protection Bureau is to ensure that there is fine print.

• 30:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:19Tom Ellsworth?

  But I think fine print needs to be regulated because there's what's called plain talk, fine print. And plain talk summaries, I believe in where you have to pat right there at the top. The plain talk summary, like when you get a car loan, plain talk. You're getting this much loan, you will pay this much interest. The vehicle will ultimately cause this, it costs this, and this will be your payment for these many months. Boom, and here's your interest rate. I believe in those plain talk summaries, but it should be on the consumer to read it. But I like the fact that we force companies to, hey, put the plain talk at the top and then the consumer makes a choice.

• 30:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Make the decision for yourself. Yeah, I like that part. But Tom, you know what's the weirdest thing I'm looking at? So Rob, can you do me a favor? Go on chat GPT, ask this question. What is the market cap of top BNPL companies the last five years? Okay, now I want to know if they're going up or if they're going down. Because I want to know what patterns will notice. If to me, what it says here is a firm, which is one of them, they went public since January of 2021. Look at this. January 2021, $28 billion is early 2021 peak. Look at 2022, post pandemic drop. It drops to $2.8 billion market cap.

• 31:31Tom Ellsworth?

  Nobody was shopping.

• 31:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, nobody was shopping. Then it goes to 14.8, then 20 billion, then 25 billion. It is still not back up to the 28 billion it was when they went out in 2021. So then if you go a little bit lower, that's a firm. Go to the next one. Uh, after pay 2025 block overall market cap has been reported around 49, 42 billion dollars. Okay, pre 2022 after pay market cap was initially 30 billion. Okay, so it's gone up, say 40%, right? Exactly 40% from 30 billion to 42 billion. Go a little bit lower. Klarna went from $45 billion valuation in 2021. Peak, this is when they were private.

• 32:15Patrick Bet-David?

  2022, still private, they go to 6.7 billion. Uh, IPO 2025, 15.1 billion. And now it's roughly 11 to 12 billion dollars. Now here, here's the, what this makes me think about. Do I think this is something that's going to be around 20 years from now? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. And the reason why I'm asking this is. Remember when everybody was looking at how fast Groupon was blowing up? And there was another company. Living social. Yeah, living social, like living social. Tom, we even had a meeting one time in Woodland Hills, California in 2011, 2012, that we were gonna launch our own Groupon living social. Do you remember the name of it? I mean, let me see if you remember the name of it. Do you remember the name of it?

• 32:58Patrick Bet-David?

  If you remember the name of it, dinner's on me, Tom. I do not remember that. It was called Goodie Squad. Oh, Goodie Squad. It's called Goodie Squad. We had all these, you know, personalities and this stuff. Remember I had this meeting? I brought all of you guys in. It was like a CEO of a massive insurance company. And Einstein, the little white dog? Yes, yes. So we had this thing we're gonna do, Goodie Squad. And everybody's looking at me saying, yeah, I don't know about it. We never ended up doing anything with it. But, but the point is, is this a Groupon, you know, hype that it's coming out? It's gonna be great and then it's gonna go away? I don't know. All I can tell you is, parents, wherever you are, okay, parents, talk to your kids. They're going off to college. They're 18 years old. They can apply to this stuff. It's horrible for them. Horrible.

• 33:42Patrick Bet-David?

  If you can't afford to buy it, do not buy it. Sometimes the most basic principles are making a comeback. Yeah, look at this. This is Groupon. Look where Groupon was at at one point. What is that date, Rob? November 2011. Oh, that's the date. I just said 11, 2012. November 2, the guy's on the cover of Fortune magazine, Forbes magazine. Everybody, he was offered for someone to buy his company for $6 billion. He turned it down. Do you remember this? Google offered it and they wanted the consumer data. Google offered it to buy it $6 billion. What is the market cap of Groupon? Right there, look at that. Go back to that article. Go back to that article. 10 years ago, Groupon turned down Google's $6 billion offer. Here's what happened ever since. They have a nice little conference room now. Go a little bit lower, Rob.

• 34:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Go a little bit lower. What happened to them since? Zoom in. I think it's half a billion dollars right now, Pat. What is the market cap? The rejection came during heady times for Groupon, which launched in a way with a 241 pizza deal at Chicago Bar, quickly became Chicago's tech darling. By 2010, it had grown to 1,500 Chicago area employees. Go a little bit lower, Rob. What, I wanna know what the market cap of Groupon is today? What is the market cap? That on that chart that you had up. What is the same market? Six fifty-four? Six billion dollar opportunity. Oh my. To six fifty-four. Rob, what is their revenue? Just type their revenue. What is Groupon's 2025 revenue is what I care about. I want to know actually what kind of numbers they're bringing in today.

• 35:12Patrick Bet-David?

  2025 revenue.

• 35:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you? Can you do me a favor also run a poll? Still not a bad revenue, by the way.

• 35:21Speaker 04

  Half a billion.

• 35:23Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not a bad revenue. They're still pulling in a half a billion dollars. Can you do me a favor, Rob? Ask a question on, uh, run this poll. Who still, who has used Groupon in the last 12 months? Ask the question in a poll. Who has used Groupon? Groupon? Have, has anybody here used Groupon last 12 months? Have you used Groupon? Mike, have you touched Groupon? You have? Where was it at? Massage parlor used Groupon. Wow, okay, well, I guess that makes sense.

• 35:53Patrick Bet-David?

  By the way, this is brought to you by that massage parlor. We're gonna put the link to their website.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  I know my wife used to use it all the time and I never hear her talking about it anymore. And I think what I, what I've heard is the retailers really found out that it wasn't really a way to get good long-term business. So they were selling all the lost leaders, but then they never recoup the difference of the lost leaders.

• 36:13Patrick Bet-David?

  The business owner, the business owner.

• 36:15Speaker 04

  So I think the appetite went down from the business owners. Um, and I think that was a big drawdown on that.

• 36:20Patrick Bet-David?

  So it benefited the customer, but it didn't benefit the business owner.

• 36:23Speaker 04

  But, but even from the customer, they didn't really establish relationships with the retail establishment. So for example, they went to the, the massage parlor or whatever. They went to get the botox, but they would just chase the best deal and they wouldn't actually, um, develop a relationship with that provider. And so I don't think either party really benefited. Didn't turn into a long-term, uh, plan. But back to the BNPL, I think it will have staying power because people are always gonna need to borrow money.

• 36:46Patrick Bet-David?

  That's my worry.

• 36:47Speaker 04

  The, the, the need to borrow money will always be, there's always gonna be people who have money that want to loan it.

• 36:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  And there's always gonna be people that need to borrow it.

• 36:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I think you're right. I hate to say it, but I think you're right and, and, but I think it's gonna mess a lot of people up. And we gotta get educated with it. Okay, so this leads me to the credit card 10% that the president is proposing. Uh, let's see, what page is that on? Here we go. Trump floats one-year 10% credit card interest rate cap. What that could mean for your money. Rob, I think you got a clip on this one if you want to pull it up. I'll read the story and then I'll come to you. Uh, ba, ba, ba, ba, ba. Here we go. Effective January 20th, is this when he's saying that by the way? Or is that, uh, he wrote it on Truth Social?

• 37:30Tom Ellsworth?

  This is where he talks about the credit card company.

• 37:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, uh, go ahead, play the clip.

• 37:33Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.

• 38:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you go back a little bit, Rob? We missed it.

• 38:25Speaker 07

  Well, then they, then they're in violation of the law.

• 38:29Speaker 07

  Very severe things. No, I want a cap on credit card interest rates. Because, you know, some of them are 28, almost 30%. And that, the people don't know they're paying 30%. The people out there, you know, they're working, and they have no idea that they're paying 30%. No way. We're putting a one-year cap at 10%, and that's it. They know it. They, they really, they've really abused the public. The credit card companies have totally abused, I'm not gonna let it happen.

• 38:58Patrick Bet-David?

  All right, so abuse, let me read this. Effective January 20th, 2026, I, President Trump, this is on Truth Social, I'm calling for a one-year cap on credit card rates at 10%. A credit card rate cap is enormously popular with Americans, said Matt Schultz, chief credit card analyst at LendingTree. That's why we've seen big names on both sides of the aisle propose credit card rate caps in recent years, including President Trump, who also floated the idea on the campaign trail 2024. Currently, about 175 million people in the US credit card, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. While some pay off the balance each month, roughly 60% of credit card users have revolving debt.

• 39:40Patrick Bet-David?

  The New York Fed said that means they pay interest changes, charges, on the balances they carry from month to month. About 61% of credit card holders. With credit card balance have been in debt for at least one year. Up from 53% late 2024, according to Bankrate Survey, the average credit card interest rate in the US fell to 23.79% in January. Mark getting the lowest level since March of 2023. Mark, I'll come to you first. Thoughts on the story?

• 40:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think when I, when I hear this, I just think about the late-stage fiat system that we're in, a systemic to that. It's, it's a it's the same reason why Trump and Powell are openly fighting right now. Uh, we have inflation that's raging, people can't afford to live. And at the end, what the leaders always try to do is try to appease the people by price fixing. It always comes down to that. We can't stop prices going up because we can't stop printing money. So how about we'll just cap prices? And so whether that's rent controls, Elizabeth Warren wants to cap the price of turkeys for Thanksgiving, or it's credit card rates. The problem with price controls is we have a thousand cases of it not working and just from, from philosophical level, you can understand why. So for example, credit cards, banks is a very competitive industry.

• 40:53Speaker 04

  Credit cards are very competitive and they're trying to get as many customers as they can. And they're constantly trying to undercut each other. In order to get more customers, who cares what credit card you have, you think about the rate. And so it's very, very competitive. Uh, and so they want to get as many customers as they can without blowing themselves up. And so they're already trying to get rates down as low as possible. They understand that people can just change balances from one card to the next. And so if they could lower rates, they certainly would. The problem is when you cap it at 10%. First of all, he said it's illegal. So there are already caps, right? There are usury laws. So there are already caps, but he wants to lower it to 10%.

• 41:30Patrick Bet-David?

  What is it right now, by the way, Mark? Do you know what it is right now?

• 41:33Speaker 04

  I was a California finance lender. I should know. It was in the high 20s.

• 41:37Patrick Bet-David?

  It, it was in the high 20s.

• 41:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you pull up, uh, what the numbers are right now, what the current cap is right now? Mark, finish your thought. I just want to-

• 41:44Speaker 04

  So what I was saying is that it's already competitive. Uh, credit card companies are already competing to bring the rates as low as possible. And what happens is if you cut the rate to 10% or 8% or 18%, whatever that number is, everybody that wouldn't qualify for that rate is then left without credit. And that will then drive people either to the BNPL or drive them to their back alley, you know, neighborhood loan shark. And so people need money, especially like I said, with this fiat system as we have today, people are falling further behind. They're using credit to augment their lifestyle. And yeah, if you cut them off at 18% or 15 or 10% as Trump is floating out, it just cuts off a huge segment of the population that needs it.

• 42:21Patrick Bet-David?

  It's an interesting, Rob. Is it really saying there's no existing cap right now on credit cards? No existing cap? That's really what it says? So there's no cap right now on credit cards?

• 42:32Speaker 04

  Usury laws don't apply to credit cards is what it says.

• 42:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that what it's saying? What do you see there? Oh, state usury laws generally don't apply to credit cards because most major issuers locate themselves in states like Delaware, South Dakota, Missouri that exempt credit card debt from strict caps. Wow. Okay. Tom, go for it. Thoughts on this?

• 42:51Tom Ellsworth?

  So there's a couple of things here that we can go back and look at real case studies. In 2000, late 2021, early 2022, credit card companies reduced people's credit limits across the board because the economy was tough. And so they were handicapping the fact that, you know, a lot of people are probably going to go for cash advances because money was tight, but they were going to have issues paying it back. So during the COVID crisis, credit card companies across the board went in and adjusted down caps on the lowest third of consumers. It happened. And guess what? What that means is we've seen the playbook. We know how they respond to stress. So that wasn't the government

• 43:32Tom Ellsworth?

  telling them. That was all of us in the boardroom of Visa saying, hey, the lowest third is starting to take a lot of cash advances, guys. Should we lower? I mean, these people have a $25,000 limit. Should we lower it to 20? Just send out the notice, lower it right now? Yes, let's do it. Because they were mitigating risk. So we've seen, we've seen that happen. Point one. Point two is what you have right now is the credit card companies are competing with each other. The reason the rates are coming down a little bit is because the federal rate was cut a little teeny bit. So the rates are coming down because they're trying to compete with each other. This is why Capital One has spent

• 44:13Tom Ellsworth?

  billions of dollars in the last five years on consumer advertising, what's in your wallet? They want it to be the Capital One card. So they're competing with each other very, very stridently. What's going to happen if you put the cap? It's just like COVID. They're going to lower the limits and people are going to turn to BNPL or other things. Now, this is well-intended by the president during a time of affordability, but I, I think right now, the credit card companies operate in states that are most favored to them, sure, but also they're competing with each other. If, if one of them could get more customers

• 44:54Tom Ellsworth?

  by going to 19.99%, you'd see one of them do it tomorrow morning and be shouting from the rooftops, "Hey, your alternative to Capital One is me. Get Tom's credit card. Maximum 19%." They would be competing with each other. There is a active market and it's working well, and I don't think it needs this control on top of them. Like, they haven't discovered this is lead-based paint.

• 45:19Patrick Bet-David?

  I, I wonder whose idea this was. Like, I wonder if Scott, where Scott Besse lies with this idea. I really wonder what Scott's had with this. Brandon, go ahead, because I got a bunch of, I got one number I just pulled up right now that when I share it with you guys, you're going to be blown away when I share this number with you in a minute, but go ahead, Brandon.

• 45:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's funny you say that, because I was just thinking, it's as if they're sitting in a room saying, "All right, this cost of living thing is becoming a problem. Everybody's still talking about it. What's something that we could, what's a bone that we could throw at the public and appease them a little bit, make them feel like we're doing something?" And this is a, a good start to that. I, I think it's a good idea. I mean, I think maybe student loans would be a better place to either cap or move interest rates, because I think they've already been paid back a lot of time in, in terms of, like, without, without the interest. Like, I think that just paying back the loan would be enough. But, um, yeah, like, this, it's an example of lobbying, the reason that I don't think there's a, a limit on it. That's, that's probably why, because it's like the same thing as loan sharking. It's just like legalized loan sharking in a lot of cases.

• 46:17Speaker 06

  But, um, I, I don't, I think it's good for inflation, because, you know, like, more debt equals a higher cost of goods and services. So, like, it, it would create probably a crash-type situation, like, the Great Depression's like the biggest example of like deflation, but, um, That's the thing that's unfortunate is like you have to like weigh like an economic downturn versus the cost of living. You can't really have both of them be ideal.

• 46:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so affordability like there's a story that came out that the president reached out to Elizabeth Warren. About the, did you see that story this morning, Rob? I thought I saw it correctly. Can you type up? Trump Elizabeth Warren affordability. I may be wrong, but I thought I just saw it early this morning. Is that it? Yeah, there's stories today about the phone call. On affordability. Okay, so they had a conversation this morning. And keep in mind, this 10% idea. Do you know whose idea this was? If I tell you right now, who proposed this idea? Last February 2025, who do you think it was?

• 47:11Speaker 06

  Was it Warren?

• 47:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Nope, but a person like that. Who do you think it was?

• 47:14Speaker 06

  Bernie?

• 47:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Bernie Sanders. Bernie proposed this idea last year. He put this on the. Table, I think. Can you type in Bernie Sanders 10%? Credit card. Uh, there it is. Sanders Holly. Introduced bill cap and credit card interest rates at 10%. Now, both of those. Are heavyweights on each side. Holly's a heavyweight. Sanders is a heavyweight. For a socialist slash communist. To agree with a capitalist conservative. On the 10%. This is where the independent in the middle will look at this and say, well, if both of these guys are on it. I'm willing to entertain it. So libertarian independent will say, maybe this is not a bad idea, but here's what you gotta be thinking about. So if you lower it to 10%.

• 47:57Patrick Bet-David?

  The banks are gonna sit there and say, our profits got hit. This is what the gentleman was saying last night to us. And then they lend less. If they lend less, the small business owner takes a hit. Cause who will they always lend to? They're always gonna lend to the guy that doesn't need money. They're all, how much you need? Hundred million dollars, 50 years? Take it, take it, whatever you want, right? Because they know. That guy's gonna pay the money back. But this is the number. Where? I do believe. There's an argument there and some people may say, well, Pat, if you really believe in free market capitalism. What's wrong with this? Here's a question for you.

• 48:36Patrick Bet-David?

  What is, what is an average business's EBITDA? Restaurants EBITDA is what? What's a restaurants EBITDA?

• 48:41Speaker 04

  10%.

• 48:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Lucky if you're there, 5 to 10%. They get their asses handed to them, restaurants, right? Okay. What is a healthy business's EBITDA? What do you think it is?

• 48:51Speaker 04

  10 to 20?

• 48:52Patrick Bet-David?

  10 to 20 would say pretty healthy, right? Now, if you're running a software, technology difference. So, let's set those aside, the 30, 40%, like I'm talking Salesforce. What do you think is the, what do you think is the profit margin of what these credit card companies are making? What do you think it is? If you, don't, don't pull it up yet, because Rob, I want to see what they're going to say before you. Ask the question. What are profit margins at credit card companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express? But don't press enter yet. What do you think the number is? 30%? That's a lot.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  I'm going to go more in line with restaurants.

• 49:27Patrick Bet-David?

  5 to 10%. Where are you going to be, Tom?

• 49:30Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, they're charging interest rates on one hand, at the rates we're seeing. But on the other hand, they're only making 2.5% on the actual transaction. So, I'm going to blend it and go 4.

• 49:43Patrick Bet-David?

  You're about to be shell shocked. Go ahead, Rob. Ask the question and show them what it is. Net profits for Visa is 47 to 52%. Mastercard is 45%. Amex is 14 to 20%. So, to me, are you flipping kidding me?

• 50:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:02Patrick Bet-David?

  They, they're printing money. Like, every single year, I remember I bought Visa stock like 10 years ago. And all you had to do was keep it.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  But, but, but are you getting a credit card with Visa or are you getting with Capital One? So, are we looking at the wrong number? Because Visa's making the money for processing transactions, so their fee, their net profit's very high. American Express is the card issuer, and so see how much lower their rate is.

• 50:24Patrick Bet-David?

  14 to 20%.

• 50:25Speaker 04

  So, I think really we have to look at Capital One, not Visa, right?

• 50:29Patrick Bet-David?

  You're thinking, you're thinking more, but I, you think they're targeting Capital One? I don't think they're targeting Capital One.

• 50:34Speaker 04

  Visa's making all the money from processing the transactions. They don't have the cost overhead, the risk. They're not making the slim margins on the spread. So I think you'd have to go to the actual card issuer, like a Capital One.

• 50:43Patrick Bet-David?

  That is giving the debt to the clients?

• 50:45Speaker 04

  That's giving the debt, because they're the ones that are making the spread. They're using the Visa network to do that.

• 50:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So why don't we do this then? Let's ask the question with those guys. What is the profit margin? What are the five credit card companies we want to put? We saw Amex 14 to 20%.

• 50:57Speaker 04

  Scroll back up a second, where it said Amex? So see where it said, uh...

• 51:00Patrick Bet-David?

  14 to 20%.

• 51:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, but see what it says right there? Amex also acts as a credit issuer and bears credit risk.

• 51:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Amex is slightly different though.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  So MasterCard and Visa don't, they're not issuers? They don't bear credit risk?

• 51:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, why don't you give the companies? What are the top five credit card companies? Give the names. Capital One. Okay, so let's say, what are the profit margin?

• 51:18Speaker 04

  Discover.

• 51:19Patrick Bet-David?

  So why don't we do Discover, Citi, Capital One? Maybe let's ask the question this way. What are the top five credit card companies in America? What are the top five credit card companies in America? So to me, it says the top five credit card companies in America are, it says Visa.

• 51:43Speaker 04

  Bank of America.

• 51:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Global Payment System, 55. It says MasterCard. So I'm trying to see, what are the credit card companies? Citibank, you see, goes back to Chase, B of A. So why don't you ask?

• 51:56Speaker 04

  I would exclude the banks, because obviously they're going to have profits from other areas. But I think Amex, I think Capital One.

• 52:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Citi's also a bank though, right? So if you put Citi...

• 52:05Speaker 04

  Right, that's why I said Capital One.

• 52:06Patrick Bet-David?

  So let's look at Capital One. Rob, if you want to do this.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  Maybe Discover, that you called earlier.

• 52:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Why don't you do that? Do Capital One, do Discover, and, what was the other one you said? Capital One, Discover, and add one more. Was there one other one that we wanted to add?

• 52:22Tom Ellsworth?

  I thought Capital One swallowed Discover, but anyway.

• 52:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, let's just see, what is their profit margins? What kind of money they're making?

• 52:32Patrick Bet-David?

  What is their margins here?

• 52:34Speaker 04

  Well, we're waiting for that to come up. I mean, just, uh, price, price is 101.

• 52:38Patrick Bet-David?

  19% for Amex. We saw that one.

• 52:40Speaker 04

  Look at Capital One right there.

• 52:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Barely making any.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  Negative 8.8.

• 52:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What is Discover?

• 52:46Tom Ellsworth?

  25.

• 52:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Minus 25% based on recent trade.

• 52:50Tom Ellsworth?

  That's not a minus. That's an approximate.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  But again, but again, Discover.

• 52:53Patrick Bet-David?

  25. So Discover makes 25%. Capital One makes 5%. Amex makes 14%.

• 53:02Patrick Bet-David?

  More traditional bank with significant loan book. Margin varies with credit cycle. Discover pre-merger performance showed solid profitability, stronger than many. What does that say, Rob? Banks?

• 53:15Tom Ellsworth?

  Bank issuers.

• 53:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Bank issuers. Okay. How do you process this?

• 53:18Speaker 04

  If you go up and read Discover, if you scroll up just a tad right there, you'll see Discover also has additional income that's sort of like a Visa, Mastercard network. So really the best proxies for this, I think, are American Express and, and, uh, Capital One. Because they're like the credit issuers. They don't benefit from people using the network.

• 53:36Patrick Bet-David?

  So then let me ask you, if they're doing this, and if they remove the interest rate from what it is to 10%, how do these guys make money? If that's the case. Cause Visa and Mastercard, they're printing money.

• 53:48Tom Ellsworth?

  They'll make money on the top half, you and me, and they'll start to bleed on the bottom half and they will have to reduce, um, uh, you know, credit available balances, credit limits. They'll have to reduce them.

• 54:04Tom Ellsworth?

  This is what he was saying last night. They'll go wham and stop everything at the bottom and then leave everything at the top.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  Well, what they'll do is they're gonna call you and they're gonna triple your credit line, cause you're gonna pay it back. And then everyone else are gonna cut theirs.

• 54:16Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you make money off me, though?

• 54:18Speaker 04

  Well, you, cause you'll use your credit card and you'll pay it back.

• 54:20Tom Ellsworth?

  Transaction fees.

• 54:21Speaker 04

  Transaction fees.

• 54:22Patrick Bet-David?

  But how much is that, though, Tom? I'm gonna pay back. And I pay back on a monthly basis.

• 54:27Tom Ellsworth?

  They'll make 3% every time you use it.

• 54:29Patrick Bet-David?

  So it's really the 3% of usage?

• 54:31Tom Ellsworth?

  Correct.

• 54:34Patrick Bet-David?

  You now wanna lower it to 10 points?

• 54:39Speaker 08

  In deepest jungle, Cartier's Panther spies a wandering bird that circles the skies. A lovebird, lost and missing his mate, is far from his pass in lonely state. Dry your tears, now there's a start. Follow my steps to heal your heart. Panther stalks through the leaves with silent grace. Through the power of scent, she finds the trace. Behold, two lovers reunite in the skies. A most precious thrill sparkling in their eyes. Together forever, they shine each day, bound by the beauty of Cartier.

• 55:27Speaker 09

  Real traders still hear the noise. They just know when to stop listening to it. Find and research opportunities to fit your strategy with Thinkorswim trading platforms from Schwab. Discover features like robust charting, nearly unlimited customization, and built-in risk management technology. Plus, get 24/7 support from real trading specialists. That's Schwab Trading. Learn more at schwab.com/trading.

• 55:56Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know. What I like, the fact that Holly and Sanders are both entertaining it. Do you think this is a net-net good thing for low, middle-income families?

• 56:05Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah, does the product market need scrutiny? Yes. Does it need to maybe tighten some things up, plane talk disclosures and things like that? Sure, it can always benefit. Does it need the government to put a cap on how much profit it can make? No.

• 56:26Speaker 04

  Business 101, if there is a fat margin to be made, competition will come and eat the margin. That's just the way it works.

• 56:33Patrick Bet-David?

  How is Visa and MasterCard not had anybody else that come in?

• 56:36Speaker 04

  Well, that's because they own the network.

• 56:37Patrick Bet-David?

  They're making forty-five to fifty-five percent.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  But they did have Amex come in, they did have Discover come in, but now they've also had PayPal, BNPLs. They are having lots of competition now, and now we're seeing stablecoins that will start taking over. So I think they do have some competition, but they have the benefit of owning the network. And you know, owning a network is where you reap the rewards.

• 56:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Make a big money. It has to flow through you.

• 56:57Speaker 04

  The network effects.

• 56:58Patrick Bet-David?

  What'd you say, Tom?

• 56:59Speaker 04

  The tollbooths. They own the tollbooths.

• 57:01Patrick Bet-David?

  What a business to be in though, if you think about it, right?

• 57:03Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:04Patrick Bet-David?

  What is the biggest crypto credit card? Is there a Bitcoin, is there anything like that right now where it's a competitor of what a Visa and a MasterCard would be?

• 57:14Speaker 04

  I mean, there are, but they're through the banks, so they're credit card banks, because the credit card bank is still issuing the credit. Yeah, it's still a credit product.

• 57:23Speaker 04

  So like Gemini, for example, released one, right? Or Coinbase released one, but it's with a major issuer. I think Coinbase is through Amex, I believe, so they use a credit issuer for that.

• 57:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you do me a favor? Just go to Visa, go to Visa market cap, go max. Go Visa market cap, go max.

• 57:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, go max all the way to the right. Look at that.

• 57:47Speaker 04

  Jeez.

• 57:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Zoom in, look at that. It's like, how do you lose money with this?

• 57:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:52Patrick Bet-David?

  This is one of those things, six hundred and twenty-five billion dollar market cap. What was it in twenty-eleven? Go to twenty-eleven market cap, twenty-eleven, Rob?

• 58:01Speaker 04

  This is a Warren Buffett efficient capital business.

• 58:04Patrick Bet-David?

  It really is, if you look at it.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  They just own the network, they own the, it's like Coca-Cola, right? They own the patent on the syrup, but they don't even make the bottles.

• 58:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Look at this, market cap in twenty-eleven, sixty-seven billion. Market cap today, six hundred and fifty billion. It's, you know, this is not a recommendation to you guys, but if some of you guys are conservative and you want something long-term, you almost have to go through this network. Visa, Mastercard, okay, let's go to the next story. Trump says any country doing business with Iran will face a twenty-five percent US.

• 58:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Tariff, 25% US tariff. President Trump said on Monday, "Any country doing business with Iran will face a 25% tariff on any and all business being done in the US." "That new tariff on imports from Iran's trading partner is effective immediately," Trump said in a truth social. "The disorder is final and conclusive. Thank you for your attention to this matter." Further details about the tariff announcement were not immediately clear. A White House official declined to answer. This apparent effort by Trump to economically isolate Iran comes as in, as the...

• 59:15Patrick Bet-David?

  That was good. "As the oil-rich Middle Eastern country struggles to suppress an ongoing swell of massive anti-government protests, dozens of those protesters have been..." Well, it's not dozens anymore. The report was 2,500, and CBS reported allegedly 12,500 killed. Tom, 25% tariff on people doing business with Iran, as if they're not already suffocating with inflation being 55%, water issues, right? Unemployment issues. The average worker making less than a gram of gold per month, $110 a month. How bad is this when he puts this on them?

• 59:54Tom Ellsworth?

  Okay, so it goes like this. My dad got really upset with me and grounded me. So I have to go to my room when I get home from school. And I'm sitting in my room. Then he gets home the next night, and my mom says, "Hey, the report card just came in the mail. The report card sucks, too." He knocks on the door to my room, and he says, "You're not grounded for one week. You're grounded for two weeks." Well, I'm already grounded. So really, I looked at this when it came out, and I said, "Really? What's he saying? He's saying anybody that's doing business with people that I'm already punishing..." And remember, India's part of this. He said, "Then, okay, we'll put another 25% on anybody doing business." So in other words, I already have China tariffs. I've already got sanctions on Russia, and I've already got sanctions on Iran.

• 1:00:37Tom Ellsworth?

  But if anybody wants to even look like they're doing a backdoor deal on Iran, with Iran, for, I mean...

• 1:00:49Tom Ellsworth?

  Russia's buying drones, there's some black market oil being sold. So anybody caught doing that, now it's another 25%. So the really, I think that what really happens here is that he wants to cause what few customers that Iran has to even lower what they're buying, which points to China. Because China's trying to buy, they buy black market oil. So he's like saying, okay, we're gonna put another 25% on China. So this is really like hitting again a dog you've already been hitting for a month.

• 1:01:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon, your thoughts on this?

• 1:01:26Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, it's, I think they're at the breaking point where something could happen here, like where the, you know, leadership change could happen. And this is, you know, you just gotta keep like piling like layers on top of it to see what breaks. And I don't think an organic revolution, leadership changes ever happened without the assistance of an outside powerful force. So, you know, I think he's in favor of a leadership change. I think he's trying to do whatever he can without putting boots on the ground to make that happen. I think it's close to happening, but yeah, it's interesting. Like we were talking about last week, how China's real power, their edge in geopolitics is getting cheap oil from Russia and Iran. So, you know, we're kind of putting them in a situation too, where it's more difficult to get that cheap oil from Russia and Iran. So maybe China could be helpful here, I don't know.

• 1:02:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And do what?

• 1:02:09Speaker 06

  And, you know, like go somewhere else for oil in the meantime and instead of Iran.

• 1:02:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Why would they? They're getting it at a massively discounted rate.

• 1:02:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, well, that's where negotiation comes in, like it's like, what do we care about more?

• 1:02:19Patrick Bet-David?

  For US to say, stop doing business with them?

• 1:02:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, take a pause.

• 1:02:22Patrick Bet-David?

  You realize this 25% is really, who's he talking to with the 25%?

• 1:02:27Speaker 06

  I think China, yeah, China and India.

• 1:02:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, so China's gonna sit there and say, yeah, I'm pretty much getting it for free. I'm not paying anything for it. And you think, you think he's really gonna come through with this 25%?

• 1:02:40Speaker 06

  I no, I think it's a good threat, but you know, now we have Venezuela to oil that we get up. We could um, put on the table.

• 1:02:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you just imagine if you're the accountant, like you're the Comptroller General of the US? Who the hell is the Comptroller General of US right now, Rob? He used to be a guy named David Walker 20 years ago, who whom I interviewed one time. Who is the Comptroller General of the US today? We're not even talking about this guy. This poor CFO must be having, there's no way this person is sleeping. Can you, this is the CFO of America, folks, let's give him some credit. Can you pull up his picture, Rob? Who are you? And no one's even talking about you. Yeah, she's the Comptroller General of the US. Okay, go to her, is she really the?

• 1:03:23Speaker 06

  I think there's a better picture than that one on the American flag there. She looks kind of crazy, doesn't she?

• 1:03:28Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no, but I'm actually being serious. Is this truly the Comptroller General of the US today?

• 1:03:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Is she the Comptroller General of the US or a state?

• 1:03:37Speaker 06

  Began December 2025.

• 1:03:39Tom Ellsworth?

  She's the acting comptroller who sat in the chair following the retirement of Jean Dorado, who retired just a couple of weeks ago on December 29th.

• 1:03:48Patrick Bet-David?

  So who's the new one?

• 1:03:50Tom Ellsworth?

  She's the acting and it hasn't been named.

• 1:03:52Patrick Bet-David?

  So they haven't announced the new one yet?

• 1:03:54Tom Ellsworth?

  Right.

• 1:03:54Patrick Bet-David?

  And this is just a couple of weeks ago. Well, go to Jean Dodaro. Who is, so Jean Dodaro was the one that was doing all the stuff in 2025?

• 1:04:02Tom Ellsworth?

  Correct.

• 1:04:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you go to Jean, please?

• 1:04:04Tom Ellsworth?

  He was official.

• 1:04:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Who is Jean Dodaro? Funny that we don't even know who this person is. This guy's probably aged more in the last 12 months than the last 40 years. The amount of every day 25%. It's like, it's like working for a sales company and the CEO keeps changing the comp plan every day. Okay, you have change it here, change your commissions to this here, change your commission to there's a, it's like this constant, you know what I'm saying? Like that, that's,

• 1:04:30Patrick Bet-David?

  that's what it is working in that environment. But uh, the threat is you're suffocating Iran to have no choice, but for everybody to stop doing business to eventually give up. He's trying to get these guys to quit and give up. Do you think it'll happen, Mark? Iran.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  I think there's a bigger problem at play here. And so while I certainly hate what's happening there and I hate to see the people getting slaughtered. I mean, it's just absolutely insane to think that people still live like that in today's day and age is insane to me. But the bigger problem that we have is China. And so what China is doing is they're setting up a a new parallel financial system. The dollar is the reserve currency of the world. The US dollar is the payment network of the world, back to Visa and Mastercard. The US dollar is the payment network of the world. And so the US is able to sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. But eventually you kick so many out of that payment network, that financial system, and they go find a new one. And China is setting up a parallel system through Hong Kong that's being settled in gold.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  And they've now set up swap lines with 32 countries, almost every country except the United States. And so now all of these countries can do business with themselves, using the RMB, being settled in gold in real time. And they don't have to use the dollar network. And so this is happening and it's happening very, very quickly. And the more that we weaponize the dollar and the more that we slap sanctions, the more it drives people to that network. And so what happens is this has diminishing returns. And so while I certainly would love to help the people in Iran and I would love to see the United States somehow change this. You said it needs an outside power to affect this. The problem is, is that it's accelerating the demise of the dollar.

• 1:06:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Very good point because behind closed doors, this is getting people to say, well, I want to independently do it. So let me lean on China to help me out with this. If that ends up actually happening, you know who behind closed doors is celebrating right now? With Iran getting hit left and right and they're hoping Iran doesn't have a revolution? You know, it's the one country that is hoping Iran doesn't have a revolution, Iranian people don't become free. Iran doesn't become a democracy. Humberto said it in the back and you know who it is?

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Saudi.

• 1:06:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Saudi Arabia. Saudi is sitting there saying, no, man, like, let them stay like this. Let the sanctions stay on. Let people not do business, keep it like this. This is more business for us. Saudi is quietly sitting there saying, please stay chaotic. Please don't get rid of IRGC. There's no other country in the world that is probably quietly supportive of IRGC than Saudi. Quietly, in their own way, not in a way that they're helping them out, in their own way. Brandon, you look like you want to say something.

• 1:07:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, I do agree with you, same with the demise of the dollar, but the renminbi, I've never thought of that as like something the rest of the world would rely on.

• 1:07:23Speaker 04

  They're not relying on it. They're not relying on it. It's only used as liquidity and it's all settled in gold. They're relying on gold.

• 1:07:30Speaker 06

  Held in China, though?

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  It's not. They're settling it. And so it's not fully functional yet, but it's rapidly accelerating. It's all happening through Hong Kong. So the Shanghai Gold Exchange is working or partnering with the Hong Kong Board, and so it's all being used only as liquidity, but again, settled in gold. And so we're seeing the reserve currency of the world, the US Treasury, has been dropping right from 60% down to just under 50% in just like the last decade. But we've seen gold now rise to about 30%. It's happening very, very quickly.

• 1:08:02Patrick Bet-David?

  And you had closed doors. Isn't it if you, Rob, type up what country has been buying up the most gold the last five years or four years? I think China's at the top.

• 1:08:11Speaker 04

  Well, China doesn't report it all, so we don't really know. But to answer your question, nobody's gonna trust Chinese currency. It is not a free, oh, it's not an open capital market. Nobody will trust it. They don't have to. All they're using it is for the liquidity and then the gold is what's settling it.

• 1:08:26Speaker 06

  Yeah. So you're not saying that China's a threat to be the next reserve currency at all, right?

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  No, gold. That's why gold's 4,600 bucks an ounce right now.

• 1:08:35Speaker 06

  Really?

• 1:08:38Speaker 06

  Interesting.

• 1:08:40Speaker 04

  That's a whole conversation, but yes. I mean, that's what's happening. We've seen, like I said, US Treasuries has dropped below 50, gold's up over 30% in reserves right now.

• 1:08:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me get to the next story. Next story here is Trump to bring Elon Musk in for key Iran mission. Rob, I think you have a clip on this one, Rob. I'm gonna read it, then I'll come to you. So President Trump indicated on Sunday that he planned to reach out to Musk to speak about Starlink. Asking, asked during a Sunday gaggle aboard Air Force One, whether he is going to send Starlink service to Iran amid the internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime. President Trump indicated that he planned to reach out to Elon Musk. We may get the internet going if that's possible. We may... Do you have that clip, Rob?

• 1:09:26Tom Ellsworth?

  I have Caroline Levitt, let me look for the Trump clip.

• 1:09:28Patrick Bet-David?

  We may speak to Elon, because as you know, he's very good at that kind of thing. He's got a very good company, so we may speak to Elon. I'm gonna call him as soon as I'm finished with you. Uh, there has been an internet blackout in Iran, a regime brutally, uh, crackdown. Amid protests starting, because apparently providing some connectivity in the region, Brandon.

• 1:09:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, so, um, uh, for Starlink, yeah.

• 1:09:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, starting.

• 1:09:52Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, I mean, this is a, it's a game changer. I mean, like, the fact that Elon said what he said about Trump, and Trump is like publicly, um, comfortable reaching out to him and, uh, asking for help, it shows the power of Starlink, and, you know, it's literally gonna like change the way that everything works in terms of like telecom networks and cell phone networks. Like, when you're in a plane right now, you can literally connect to Starlink, so, I, like, I think this could single-handedly cause an aid revolutions and get information out that is, was formerly incapable of getting out. Like, imagine what we could learn from what's happening inside Iran right now, like, if, if they hook up to Starlink versus what we were able to have access to before that, so, I think it's a total game changer in the, the revolution space and like helping countries that try to cut off their population from the world to have access to the rest of the world.

• 1:10:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Who else, who else is a competitor to Starlink?

• 1:10:36Speaker 06

  Nobody.

• 1:10:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, is there another Starlink? Like, who else is building a Starlink outside of Elon? What a linchpin.

• 1:10:44Speaker 06

  Big barrier to entry to like, put a bunch of satellites in outer space.

• 1:10:47Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, I get it's a big barrier to entry, but it's gotta be somebody, because the, the reason for it is if only one person controls it and says, "No, I don't want to turn it on", what are you gonna do?

• 1:10:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:10:58Patrick Bet-David?

  How much control does that individual have? I don't like the fact that there's only, so there is, yeah, there's somebody that's building another competitor. Major current and emerging competitor, Starlink, Amazon, uh, how do you pronounce that? Cooper? Amazon Leo is one of the biggest direct competitors to Starlink, and it deployed thousands of, uh, Leo satellites to provide broadband internet globally, okay, that's good. One web is a UK-based Leo satellite, don't, no one's gonna trust the UK one. Uh, Chinese Megastalliances, uh, Guangan Qfan.

• 1:11:30Speaker 06

  That's firewall, so no one's gonna use that.

• 1:11:32Patrick Bet-David?

  So no one's gonna use that. Go a little bit lower, Rob, to see if there's any one of them. And then IRIS is European Union Satellite Internet Secure Communications. Constellation planned with hundreds of satellites and LEO in medium earth orbit. Is there any other ones that they're doing? Okay, I like the fact that there is some competition here because I don't like the fact that only one person has a star link.

• 1:11:52Speaker 04

  Don't you still have the HughesNet, you still have like DirecTV, right? You can still get that.

• 1:11:55Tom Ellsworth?

  Those are olders. When you see the Leos, that's the modern technology. That's where they can launch 16 of those in a single rocket. LEO stands for Low Earth Orbit. And baby, Arthur C. Clarke, remember him, wrote 2001? He defined the Clark Belt, which was, I think, 23,200 miles above earth. Where if you throw a baseball, it stays there. Gravity won't pull it to earth, but it can't get away from earth. It'll just spin forever. So that's the Clark Belt, where all the major satellites, the big TV satellites, high-power go. Leos are the small satellites that are up there lower. And there's not very many. UtilSat came out of Europe. They had one that was built, but it never got commercial viability. ViaSat built one.

• 1:12:37Tom Ellsworth?

  It gave you very moderate, as you recall, internet on aircraft. And so, and then HughesNet, that was the one you would see the girl advertising to get you internet in the middle of nowhere. Right? But it wasn't very, very fast. Starlink is newest, fastest in LEO, and then Amazon's building a LEO. The LEO networks are what is important, and we need three of them. You gotta have three competitors, in my view.

• 1:13:03Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 1:13:03Tom Ellsworth?

  Otherwise, you do have the problem of, what if, what if Elon's not in a good mood?

• 1:13:08Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't like that at all. I don't like that at all. I don't like the fact that I only have one phone call to make, because you have a monopoly, you're begging the individual.

• 1:13:15Tom Ellsworth?

  Sorry for the lesson on all this, but I used to live in here.

• 1:13:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I will do it if you give that $7,500 thing back on the table, and you're like, no. Well, then I'm not giving it. He doesn't, I don't like only one option. Mark, thoughts?

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I mean, first of all, I think Elon is not the controlling interest. I think he has a minority shareholder of Starlink. So it's not like he's a dictator of the company.

• 1:13:35Patrick Bet-David?

  So can he, can, can, can Starlink be approved without needing to call Elon?

• 1:13:40Speaker 04

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

• 1:13:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Can you see that?

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  I don't know the corporate board governance, but I believe Elon, because I remember when in Brazil, they went to sanction Starlink. And thinking about how can they sanction an American company, an American, but he is a minority owner of Starlink, I believe. So I don't think he runs it like a dictator at the top of the board. I think there's a board there, number one. It's not a separate division of SpaceX, probably, huh? Oh, okay.

• 1:14:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Short answer, yes, mostly because most of the caveats, how Starlink is structured, not a separate public company, it is a division of SpaceX, which is privately held, controlled by Elon.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  Forty percent of voting control.

• 1:14:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Forty percent of voting control and even more through super vote. Oh, then it's over. It's ninety percent, eighty percent.

• 1:14:23Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:14:23Patrick Bet-David?

  He's probably got a setup in Delaware where two X is it. You know which one I'm talking about, Tom. So then that means Elon has de facto control over SpaceX and therefore Starlink. So yes.

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  Well, I stand corrected and I absolutely agree with you. I mean, I'm all for competition and to your point, we need, we need competition, always brings better products, better services, better prices, but it also prevents somebody running away, getting crazy and trying to do something that could be detrimental.

• 1:14:53Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know about something like this, Mark, you know, like if you think about for you to have that kind of control.

• 1:15:00Patrick Bet-David?

  But the president has to say, I'm gonna call Elon to get it.

• 1:15:05Speaker 04

  He's more powerful than the president, especially in wait till the robots come online with the, you know, the robots.

• 1:15:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Wait till the what?

• 1:15:10Speaker 04

  The robots come out and they're actually.

• 1:15:11Patrick Bet-David?

  But at least the robots were gonna have competition. There's a difference between the robot and internet.

• 1:15:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Internet is, people don't know how many people are being massacred in Iran right now.

• 1:15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23Patrick Bet-David?

  We don't know, it's off, right? So for us to not be able to see. The media, CNN is reporting, you know, it's, you know, nothing's really going on and they're giving their own reporting in this, so the mainstream media is not covering it. What is the great equalizer to mainstream media? What does the mainstream media hate the most? What completely disrupted mainstream media? What the podcasting YouTube independent like right now, just think about today's conversation. Democratization of the conversation. How many people here have been, you know, held stand corrected? How many people here? Me, Visa, Mastercard, him, just right now. Everybody. So that is, that is what keeps you honest.

• 1:16:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Before, if this was CNN, Fox, just three or four, uh, NBC, guess what? People are gonna be like, well, that's what the truth is. That's what the truth is. No, we need more Starlink. I'm glad a couple of these other guys are doing it as well. As much as I, uh, love, uh, innovators at the highest level, I like competition more than I love innovators. Yeah. Cause an innovator without competition is control. Right.

• 1:16:27Speaker 06

  It's gonna be tough to compete with those rockets with how good he is with the, like, the rockets are the, the thing that allows him to put so many Starlinks up there.

• 1:16:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, yeah, no question about it. Okay, let's get to the next story. Next story I want to get to is, uh, let me see which one of these I want to go to, cause we got quite a few good ones here. Let me go boom, boom, boom, boom. Let's go to this. Where's the, where's the house, um, and what they're doing with the loan, Tom? What page is that on? You know which one I'm talking about, Rob?

• 1:16:52Speaker 06

  Page three.

• 1:16:53Patrick Bet-David?

  There it is. Trump vows to slash mortgage rates to revive the American dream while blaming Biden housing failures in Truth Social. This is a Fox story. So let's go to this. Um, President Trump said he is directing representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds to drive down rates, blaming former President Biden for what he called a broken economy marked by inflation, crime and an American dream, he says. His administration is restoring Biden ignored the housing market and instead was immersed with high crime, open borders, runaway inflation. The Afghanistan disaster and military that he left in chaos and confusion, Trump wrote on social. Everything was broken, but I, as the President of the United States, have already fixed it.

• 1:17:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Now I'm giving special attention to the housing market because I choose not to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in my first term, a truly great decision. And against the, uh, advice of the experts, it is now worth many times that amount in absolute fortune. And as $200 billion in cash, he continued, because of this, I'm instructing my representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. This will drive mortgage rates down, monthly payments down and make the cost.

• 1:18:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Of owning a home affordable again, Tom.

• 1:18:08Tom Ellsworth?

  This is only one part of the puzzle. So he's obviously working with Bill Pulte, Fannie and Freddie. We assume that Bill Pulte isn't mentioned, but Bill Pulte runs Fannie and Freddie. And so they're going to put $200 billion in mortgage bonds. That is available liquidity for FHA compliant mortgages, basically, right? So it's a stack of money. However, those houses still cost the same if housing prices don't moderate. And we have a limited supply of new building because building from Toll Brothers, Pulte, Lanier, there's like four of them that are the majority, haven't had a chance to catch up with building yet. So you need supply to catch up. So the price of the houses will come down a little bit.

• 1:18:54Tom Ellsworth?

  And then, yes, you've got a mortgage that's a more affordable rate. However, a related story is escrow balances are going up. And that's where people are being asked to have set asides, your payment plus a small escrow balance. That balance is like a little savings account to pay your property tax at the end of the year. And escrow balances have been going up. Why? Because the value of the home went up. We cross 1231 and certain municipalities, depending where you live, reassess you based on 1231 and give you a new property tax. So this is a little bit artificial to take all that cash to go put the bonds out there. So there's money available to lend. The bigger issue is still that the homes are expensive.

• 1:19:39Tom Ellsworth?

  There's not a big supply of new homes as alternative to purchase. And the insurance and property tax are linked to the current value of the home, which is still high. So this is a good start, but it's not a magic elixir to fix the whole market.

• 1:19:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Brandon.

• 1:19:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it's just another name for QE. So, you know, if you're artificially pushing down the price of interest or the, yeah, the, the level of interest rates, then that's quantitative easing and it's gonna, you know, make it more appealing for people with extra money to buy houses because the rate's lower. So it's gonna ultimately push up the price of houses. Like that's, that's when housing prices went up like crazies when we dropped rates to zero. It, it went up from like an average of 350,000 to an average of 475 nationally from 2022 today. So, yeah, I, I don't think it's a long-term good idea. Like maybe it's a short-term, sounds good, looks good type of thing. But no, it's not, it's not a good long-term strategic plan. The only thing that's gonna

• 1:20:36Speaker 06

  fix it is if we build a ton of houses at a much more rapid pace than ever. Like maybe if the government subsidizes or like, if, if they're gonna drop rates or anything, it should be loans for home builders so they can build houses faster.

• 1:20:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Mark.

• 1:20:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think that sort of misses what's happening here. I think, uh, building more homes isn't necessarily the answer because it's not just more homes. We have supply and demand in key areas. People need to live near city centers. They need to live by airports. They need to live by business centers. And so we can build more homes in the middle of America, but what good does that do? We can't build more homes where we actually need the homes. I think on top of that, the price, the, the mortgage payment is only one piece of it. So we've seen insurance rates. I mean, you're in the insurance business. In California, in some areas, it's impossible to get insurance on homes. Uh, I have a place in Texas in Austin and rates are up like five times.

• 1:21:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Rates are up five times?

• 1:21:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, my, my insurance went, we have a ranch property there and my insurance rates went up like crazy. And so, um, it, that's really affecting the, the home building market. On top of that, you have all the regulations that have piled up. So the cost to build a home, not just the hard cost of lumber and, and steel, et cetera, but the regulatory costs and stuff have gone up so much. So there's a lot of problems that are, that are holding the uh, price of homes up as well. If you look at the US median average of homes, it's like a perfect proxy for inflation. It rises with M2, rises with the Fed balance sheet. So I think inflation is in the seat here. Sure, we can lower rates a little bit and that helps a little bit. But at the end of the day, the last thing I'll say is that nobody really buys the price of the home. They buy the payment.

• 1:22:10Tom Ellsworth?

  Correct.

• 1:22:10Speaker 04

  Right? And so even if I can bring the rate down, I'm still gonna buy the max amount I can afford to buy based off of my income. And so the price of homes is just gonna go up when rates come back down.

• 1:22:23Tom Ellsworth?

  Rob, go back to the story you had just a second ago so we can see the, um, the escrow effect. And what it said is the property tax. You were just there 30 seconds ago.

• 1:22:35Speaker 04

  And if, and if we could, look at the insurance rates.

• 1:22:38Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah, they were right together. You had them right together, just.

• 1:22:41Speaker 04

  Was that GPT?

• 1:22:43Tom Ellsworth?

  One screen ago.

• 1:22:46Tom Ellsworth?

  Hang on one second. No, it was, anyway. It, it showed that since, um, 2019, how much the, um, property tax rates were up in the escrow. And then right below it, it had the insurance. You were, you were just on one of the other tabs. It was like only one, there we go.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  Forty-five to 62?

• 1:23:07Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Escrow payment for homes in the US has increased approximately 45 to 62%.

• 1:23:11Tom Ellsworth?

  He had it a minute ago. It was just one page back on one of those tabs.

• 1:23:13Patrick Bet-David?

  What was it? What was it saying?

• 1:23:15Tom Ellsworth?

  It was saying that over five years, that the, uh, the pressure on property taxes had gone up, um, 27% over five years, just property taxes.

• 1:23:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, go to each page you're on and just go back one page on each of those pages you're on.

• 1:23:30Speaker 04

  I already closed, I had closed it out. That's why, so when I go back.

• 1:23:33Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying, if you go back, that could, okay, I got it.

• 1:23:36Tom Ellsworth?

  And then it also talked exactly what Mark was talking about. The insurance cost, because the insurance cost chases rebuild cost, number one, and then changes loss cost. So if your house becomes more valuable, then your insurance goes up in a static market because of rebuild cost. However, then you have loss cost disasters and insurance.

• 1:24:00Tom Ellsworth?

  Raising cost of capital and loss risk, suddenly it all goes up. And you end up even in Boston, Texas, 5X.

• 1:24:08Speaker 04

  But then it gets worse because then you have the state of California. We had the wildfires. And then you have regulatory problems where they've driven the insurance companies out of California. So now many homeowners in my area, you know where I live in Orange County. I'm considered a high fire zone. I live on the beach, but I'm a high fire zone. And many of the people I know in my area, they can't get insurance. So now they have to buy into like a state funded insurance. It's the only way they can get it. And the rates are enormous. There's competition has gone.

• 1:24:36Patrick Bet-David?

  And the state funded insurance, it only covers the 20 and a half million or something like.

• 1:24:39Speaker 04

  Friends of mine that are in the insurance business, many times they have customers and they can't get them insurance. They're not even able to get them.

• 1:24:45Tom Ellsworth?

  This is the historically named Fair Plan.

• 1:24:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Fair Plan.

• 1:24:48Speaker 04

  A lot of the brokers have been driven out because the insurance companies had to cut brokers because they can't even afford to pay the brokers.

• 1:24:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you at a point that you guys are talking about leaving or not yet?

• 1:24:57Speaker 04

  No, not yet.

• 1:24:57Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not yet?

• 1:24:58Speaker 04

  Mike Tyson told me it's expensive to live in heaven.

• 1:25:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that what it is?

• 1:25:05Speaker 04

  That's what it is.

• 1:25:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So that's the, so can anything ever happen that you would leave the state?

• 1:25:10Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:25:10Patrick Bet-David?

  What's the turning point that you would say?

• 1:25:12Speaker 04

  I mean, sure, I mean, during the pandemic, Newson wanted to be, you know, the most strict state as far as lockdowns. I won't live lockdown for sure. I left the state in 2021. That's why I bought my ranch in Texas. But, you know, I don't eat top ramen in McDonald's every day either. I pay a little bit more for food. I could pay a little bit more for a quality of life. But yeah, what would change would be something that would restrict my daily life, like restrict my freedoms. That would be something. The other thing is back to this billionaire tax that are seeing this mass exodus. I do have friends that are now working on moving out of the state. And so at some point that could potentially drive me out, we'll see.

• 1:25:47Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 1:26:02Speaker 01

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data. UKG turns workforce intelligence into real time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay and Workforce Management.

• 1:26:34Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, if it gets passed, remember they only have to move one letter. Change the B to an M.

• 1:26:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Tom Ellsworth?

  And now it comes after the rest of you.

• 1:26:41Speaker 04

  No, I know, I know. And then, and then, you know, they floated the idea of having it retroactive, right?

• 1:26:46Tom Ellsworth?

  To January 1st, 2026, right now.

• 1:26:49Speaker 04

  Right, so, uh, you know, but they floated ideas in the years past of it even going back longer than that.

• 1:26:55Tom Ellsworth?

  This is a scam. We've talked about it before, but people need to hear this. You know, Ro Khanna says, oh, you know, this is a ballot initiative. You know, Gavin Newsom says, oh, this is a ballot initiative. Wait a minute. SEIU, Service Employees International Union, which is a giant union in Nevada that happens to have a very high membership in the state of California with government employees, is the sponsor of the ballot initiative. So all the politicians are saying, oh, this isn't a bill. This isn't a tax that we're putting in. It's a ballot initiative and the people are putting it up. The union blue collar workers are putting it up. Yeah, but who's putting the union up to do this?

• 1:27:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:27:37Tom Ellsworth?

  And the answer is the politicians are. And at the end of the day, people believe and accusations have been made that at the end of the day, we're going to find Gavin Newsom and Ro Khanna's fingerprints on this somewhere. But right now, it's a ballot initiative, which means that the emotion of the voter driven by half a million of these union workers and then the lower half, it's going to pass by 55. It can't, you can't get less than 55% of the vote on this. And so it's going to pass, which is why everybody is handicapping, saying, well, this is a ballot initiative. It's gonna pass because there's no way for it not to pass. How do you find 51% of the people in California that don't, are not in favor of, hey, you

• 1:28:22Tom Ellsworth?

  make 50 grand a year, tax the rich. Yeah, okay, proposition X, I'm in.

• 1:28:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:28:27Tom Ellsworth?

  That's what's going to happen. And so people are out. You read the bill and you gotta go in that bill. You read the ballot initiative and there's a scary part at the bottom of it. They call it the billionaire tax, but it's like giving the government a knob and they, what do they do with the knob? They just turn it and it's gonna extend to others. With a, with one click that's inside the ballot initiative, you can go down to half a billion net worth. So what does this mean?

• 1:28:53Speaker 04

  Every homeowner in California.

• 1:28:54Tom Ellsworth?

  The more, which means the more in trouble California is, this becomes a tool they're gonna use.

• 1:29:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, Tom, let me tell you how, let me tell you how I view it.

• 1:29:02Tom Ellsworth?

  It's not a billionaire tax. It's an asset seizure progressive over time for bankrupt California.

• 1:29:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me tell, let me tell you how I, how I view this.

• 1:29:10Tom Ellsworth?

  Sorry.

• 1:29:10Speaker 04

  No, I, I appreciate that.

• 1:29:11Tom Ellsworth?

  I've had coffee.

• 1:29:12Speaker 04

  I appreciate the color on that.

• 1:29:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Somebody sends me a monet this morning about decision making, developing, you know, building people, all this other stuff. And this one guy, hey, you know, what if I don't wanna do this because of this? I said, listen, the, the way I make decisions is long-term, okay? Parenting, long-term, you know, finance, long-term business investments. We're going on a 40-year run. We got 38 and a half more years left on a 40-year run, long-term, right? So if you sit there and you're playing the long-term game, you have to ask yourself, do you think California is more likely to be more business-friendly? Do you think they're gonna be more likely to be less woke or more woke? Do you think they're gonna be a safer environment for your kids? Do you think they're gonna be, make better decisions for fires, for earthquakes?

• 1:29:58Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you think they're gonna manage crises? If your level of confidence and optimism says, I think long-term they're gonna be fine, go for it. If it's not, you have to start really thinking about long-term. This guy, uh, who is running for governor, I met him a couple of years ago at a debate. He was, I believe, working with Vivek. Young guy, I wanna say he's 31 years old, this guy right here. He proposed a crazy idea, okay, for state of Florida governor that he's running for. And he, I'll let you listen to it and then I want you to see who got pissed off at him. A girl named Sophie, Sophie Rain, uh, Brandon, am I saying it correctly?

• 1:30:32Tom Ellsworth?

  Yes.

• 1:30:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Sophie Rain responds to him. I'm asking Brandon because Brandon, yeah. So if you wanna.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  Why Brandon?

• 1:30:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, go ahead and play this clip.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  You can tell me later.

• 1:30:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Here's a guy who's running for governor. Look what he wants to do with OnlyFans. Go ahead, Rob.

• 1:30:47Speaker 10

  And so if I'm governor of Florida, if I'm elected on August 18th, 2026, as the Republican candidate to succeed Ron DeSantis, we're passing a 50% tax on all OnlyFans income. And guess what? For Sophie Rain, who is a proud resident of Florida, that means she's gonna have to pay $42 million, $42 million, Charles, to the state of Florida, which I'm gonna use for two purposes. We're gonna increase public school teacher pay, and we're gonna improve school lunches, something that Michelle Obama promised and never got around to. And so if I'm governor-

• 1:31:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So guess what? This gets out there, and guess who responds to it, Rob? I send you the tweet. So she responds, go, go to the next one. She responds on the top right, go a little bit closer to the top right. "Sounds like you subscribed and got buyer's remorse after dropping your annual salary on an OnlyFans girl." He responds, "Sophie, pay your taxes or quit OnlyFans. Those are your choices. I'm running for governor, uh, governor of Florida to stop smart and capable women like you from being exploited by that disgusting platform." What do you think about this, Mark? How do you process this?

• 1:31:50Speaker 04

  Well, as a father of two daughters, it makes me sad to think that these girls, that's the only value they can provide to the world. That's what I think. Like, they have so much more capability. Why is that all you can provide to the world? But, but, but that's how I feel as a father. If I zoom out, OnlyFans is a platform for content creators. Now, I'm big in the action sports world. We were just at Anaheim One, the big Supercross kickoff, and OnlyFans is sponsoring Supercross riders, where they're having sponsors come on and help them offset their cost of their motocross racing, and they have subscribers that way. So there are other people than just girls that get naked or whatever they're doing on there, right? So, um, I don't like that girls do this. I think it's sad. I think it's also

• 1:32:32Speaker 04

  systemic for the end of a fiat currency, where people can't afford to live anymore, and they turn to, unfortunately, whatever they call that, the oldest, you know, job in the world. Um, but I don't like that. This is a Bernie Sanders type. This is a socialist type. I'm gonna take 50% of your incomes. I don't like what you're doing, and that's wrong.

• 1:32:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. By the way, apparently this Sophie Rain girl made $95 million plus gross earnings through late 2025. That's why he says 50% you would pay 40 some million bucks. She's shown allegedly that her annual profits, annual earnings is around 40 to 50 million dollars per year based on one of her own screenshots. Okay, one of her own screenshots. Tom, your thoughts on this story, this idea of 50% tax on OnlyFans?

• 1:33:20Tom Ellsworth?

  So, I believe the government should step into markets when lead-based paint is discovered to cause birth defects and cancer in young kids. So we can't have lead-based paint in households. When tobacco is discovered for what it is, carcinogenic. However, if free markets are operating with services that are that are legal and are operating legally, I am deeply against the federal government interfering with those markets.

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  Or even state government. Or state governments as well.

• 1:33:53Tom Ellsworth?

  Or state government. I'm against that. Now, if we don't like what a business is and we discover what we discover about lead-based paint, we discover what we discover about dioxin, we discover what we discover about Roundup weed killer, and we scientifically come back and we say, hey, this is no good. This is no good. We can't, we can't, you know, we can't be doing this. Then now for the greater good, we're doing it. But if this is a legal industry, then the problem that we have basically is the morality of the populace. And we need a better moral compass. And if you're upset about the moral compass, then let's work on that. But if it is legal and you're going out there and you're attacking a market, I'm against it. Because remember, one man's demon is another man's saint.

• 1:34:37Tom Ellsworth?

  So, one governor says, I want to take 50% of Sophie Rand's OnlyTax earnings. The next governor says, you know what's even worse than OnlyFans? Social media creating cutting and depression in young girls. I want 50% of Mark Zuckerberg's earnings. You can't do it. If you want to go out and you want to, that's the wrong way to do it. And I'm against it and I'll defend it. But if we come together and say, this industry has a problem, it's here, it's here. Hold congressional hearings and then put regulation, right? Then do that and don't let paint factories dump, you know, byproduct of slurries into the river. That's good government coming out saying, we can't do this.

• 1:35:17Tom Ellsworth?

  This is populist positions and the only difference between him on this position and the ballot industry in California is two different states. You're going after something, you know, in the name of something else and you're interfering with the market that's operating on businesses that are legal, even if you don't like those businesses, said the father of two girls.

• 1:35:39Speaker 04

  I might say this is worse because at least in California, they're bankrupt and they need the money and let's get it from the billionaires. Here, he says it right in that last line, "I refuse to let smart and capable young women like Sophie Rain be exploited." So this is a moral framing. This is not like we're bankrupt, we need the money, let's get it from the billionaires. This is like, I'm going to use lawfare or I'm going to use taxes to try to change the moral compass of the people? I mean, it's a terrible take.

• 1:36:03Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a terrible take. By the way, this is James Fishback. Brandon, where are you at with this?

• 1:36:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think it'd be...

• 1:36:10Patrick Bet-David?

  It looks like you're 50/50.

• 1:36:12Speaker 06

  No, no. No, I respect the hustle, I guess, in one sense. Like it is reflective of where society is, like for both men and women. It's sad that you see situations like this with like the outliers where somebody like her can make $90 million, then probably a couple thousand girls try, don't make any money, but ruin the reputation. So that is sad, but also this guy, I'm calling BS. I think he's just trying to act like Trump and be outrageous and say like a big, you know, audacious claim and get some attention that way. But no, it's ridiculous. You can't just like weaponize the government against things or ways people are making money that you don't like. And by the way, it would be a massive waste of money, probably even more of a waste of money than spending money on OnlyFans to give it to public school teachers.

• 1:36:54Speaker 06

  Because, you know, no offense to public school teachers, I'm sure there are some great ones. But, you know, they're a part of society that's a big problem too with like the unions and everything. So, yeah, that's a bad idea.

• 1:37:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, listen, according to what Adam tells us, if this were to pass, Miami would change.

• 1:37:12Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:13Patrick Bet-David?

  The nightlife of Miami would change. You would see a lot of school teachers at nightclubs instead of a it'd be a very, very different climate and you know, he would definitely not support this. He'd be very disappointed with this.

• 1:37:24Tom Ellsworth?

  Parting shot. You make a good point about the moral compass. Remember, if we as a country just valued life above all else, Roe v. Wade wouldn't matter because we would ignore that. Because we would say, no, no, no, we value life. That law doesn't matter. The moral compass trumps laws because people behave by their moral compass.

• 1:37:42Speaker 04

  You cannot regulate morality.

• 1:37:44Tom Ellsworth?

  Exactly.

• 1:37:46Patrick Bet-David?

  No, you cannot. You cannot. I will tell you though, I like that a person like him is running, proposing wild ideas and allowing the market to agree or disagree. You as a candidate have to be willing to put some crazy things out there and then see how the market reacts to it. Like last night I was saying this to the folks we were with at Casa di Angelo. Is, look at how Trump works. Here's how Trump works. Yeah, we're gonna cap credit cards at 10%. Let the market hash it out, debate? No, we're not gonna do it. We'll move on. Yeah, we're probably gonna be, we're thinking about coming out with a 50-year loan, mortgage loans. What we're gonna be doing? Yeah, yeah. And then Bill Paulty comes out this week. Yeah, we're not doing it. Why?

• 1:38:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Market, you know, you have to almost like pressure test the idea with the market and see. And it's such a great way because you know James is gonna watch it. James and I were talking last night on X and I, you know, this is a smart guy. But you gotta be willing to test out ideas like this and have smart, fair, reasonable people rip it apart or support it based on their reasoning and then you say, alright, good. Let's move on to the next idea. I don't mind a candidate being risky and coming up with some crazy ideas every once in a while. Alright, next one here.

• 1:39:03Patrick Bet-David?

  There's nothing we can do. The great millennial career crisis has given, uh, has workers given up on ever owning homes or paying off their student loans. This is a market watch story. Uh, Rob, I don't think you have a video on this one here, but uh, I will, I will go to the store. If you got the article you want to bring up, there you go. Uh, Christopher Drake, 39, has made a nice career for himself as a process engineer, but he isn't where he'd like to be at this point in his life and career due to what he says are broken promises from growing up as a millennial. It sucks. There's nothing we can do. Drake from Corning, New York told Market Watch, "Our age bracket was told you have to go to college, get a degree to be successful."

• 1:39:45Patrick Bet-David?

  But he found out that even those who worked hard instead of partying during their college years got a serious reality check after graduation. And in the years since then, the jobs aren't there. Drake left college a decade ago with $120,000 in student loan debt, which he says sits at around 150 today despite years of payments due to high interest rates on his loans. A lot of my friends and I discuss how uh, there are a lot of people our age that have just given up. Drake is going through what many of his peers online are calling the great millennial career crisis, a generational struggle defined by burnout, financial insecurity, and a lack of stability by adults ages 29 to 44. Videos of these frustrated 30, 40 something Americans discussing their personal traits have garnered hundreds of thousands of views on

• 1:40:29Patrick Bet-David?

  social media, particularly on TikTok. Brandon, your thoughts on this?

• 1:40:33Speaker 06

  Yeah. So, um, I mean, it's a victim mindset for him to say this, but it is true that uh, you definitely have to approach life differently today. I think for than um, you did 20, 30 years ago because of the way that uh, things are going with inflation, the devaluation of money. I do think that it is like a bad situation for you if you just rely on a salary. If you're starting your, your career off now, like I don't think that a hundred or 200,000 is going to, you know, take care of yourself and the family. So I think that if you don't start a business or if you're not like in a commission based job where there is like um, uncapped upside for you, you're in a tough situation. But it's a victim mindset to say that it's helpless and you're giving up. And I think you just have to be more exceptional than ever today as a young person. And that

• 1:41:15Speaker 06

  doesn't happen overnight, you know, it's a rigorous thing that um, you have to be as obsessive about. And not everybody's going to do it because it's probably like an 80, 20 thing where with people who are willing to do what it takes to be exceptional. But uh, that's my opinion on it.

• 1:41:28Patrick Bet-David?

  How do you feel about it, Mark? Because you know, you have two daughters, married 22 years. So this is something where you know, you probably talk to your girls about, you know, their friends probably come over and say, "Hey, Mark, what do you think I should do?" All this other stuff. How does this language make you feel? And do you agree with them?

• 1:41:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, so he says here that due to broken promises. The broken promises are that he went to university. And the problem is that the university gave him an, uh, he was, went to a industrial era university that gave him an industrial era lens and equipped him for the industrial era world. And he's now graduated and find out that he's no longer in an industrial era. And we've left the information age and we're now in the intelligence age. So they're unequipped. They don't have the right tools. They don't know how to look at the world. And so now the broken promise is that the world that they were equipped for and trained for no longer exists. That's the problem. The paradox is this. It's never been harder to survive right now with a college degree because wages haven't kept up with prices.

• 1:42:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Which is true.

• 1:42:25Speaker 04

  But the paradox is that it's never been easier to make money than it is today. We have $20 trillion that was printed in the last five years that's sloshing around in the economy. And with a laptop and some AI, you could go make a hundred grand or a million or 10 million very quickly. So it's never been harder with industrial era lens. It's never been easier if you could realize that the world has changed. So how do I answer this as a father of two? Uh, neither of my daughters are going to college.

• 1:42:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:42:52Speaker 04

  No, no way. No way. The number one-

• 1:42:55Patrick Bet-David?

  What grade are they in right now?

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  Uh, I have a 21-year-old daughter and a 16-year-old daughter. So one's a junior, one's out.

• 1:43:00Patrick Bet-David?

  So the one that's out, what does she do?

• 1:43:02Speaker 04

  She's learning how to make money.

• 1:43:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Hmm. Is she having a hard time doing it?

• 1:43:06Speaker 04

  No, she's making money. She's making money very easily. So she's, she went, she went to a trade school.

• 1:43:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:43:12Speaker 04

  She went to a trade school. She became a holistic health coach.

• 1:43:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:43:15Speaker 04

  So she spent $10,000, uh, $5,000 plus another $5,000 in a trade school, right? Uh, she's a holistic health coach. She's doing holistic chefing. She just got her Pilates certification. She, uh, has built up a decent audience. She's selling diet plans and like, she's making money. She's not looking for a job. My kids never look for a job. They just learned how to make money.

• 1:43:37Patrick Bet-David?

  How was she in school? Like, what was her GPA? Was she a high 4.0?

• 1:43:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, she was, yeah, 4.0 all the way.

• 1:43:43Patrick Bet-David?

  So no problem with grades?

• 1:43:45Speaker 04

  Sort of like me. She was, uh, didn't have to try. She, she did very well. But, uh, there was no university for her, I believe, in the intelligence age, even the information age. The single most important skill is creativity. Because now we have technical workers at our disposal. So now I have to see a problem, have a creative way to solve the problem, and I have to organize the orchestra to play the song that I want, right? And so, school is specifically designed to remove creativity. That is the intended purpose. To remove creativity and keep people in a box. The number one thing we need today. That's why people like this get out and they can't see all the opportunity because they have zero creativity.

• 1:44:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so this is a great, folks, this is phenomenal for you. Let me explain to you why. You have two girls, 21 and 16. Neither one of them, you're saying, are going to college. Tom, you have two girls, 19 and 14, right? Am I saying it correctly?

• 1:44:35Tom Ellsworth?

  That's exactly right.

• 1:44:36Patrick Bet-David?

  So that, that means exactly your girls are two years apart. The oldest, they're five years apart, five years apart, right? So he's behind you by two. Your oldest goes to a very well-known school. She got a 15, 60 on her SATs, and she's going to the college route. How different is your position than the one Mark just gave?

• 1:44:54Tom Ellsworth?

  Well, my oldest is majoring in two STEM. Uh, she's a double major, statistics and analytics. And she is spending herself looking over my shoulder at startups and the engine of new business. So I would not have sent her simply to be a chemical engineer. And come back with your degree.

• 1:45:17Speaker 04

  Or a liberal arts degree.

• 1:45:19Tom Ellsworth?

  Oh yeah, well, that's off the table. We had a joke at our house and went like this. If you want to go study European art history at the Sorbonne in France, I hope your boyfriend has wealthy parents that love you more than I do.

• 1:45:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:45:32Tom Ellsworth?

  That are willing to pay that bill. So that was always off the table. So she has a mentality of, right now, she's coding in R, she's coding in Python, she's in statistics, and in five years, she will have a double major and a master's of stats.

• 1:45:45Speaker 04

  Amazing.

• 1:45:45Tom Ellsworth?

  However, our focus on this is that weaponizes you to do what you want or to engage with a startup. Last year, her freshman to sophomore summer break, she did six weeks with a startup.

• 1:46:02Tom Ellsworth?

  Working with them and before that her break between senior year and freshman year. She did nine weeks with a startup. That one was remote, but I'm putting her in the river of creativity of people are doing things for the future. But if that wasn't available, she wouldn't. Her funny, we bring this up. Her little sister, we often talk now because I talk more to the little one than the older one because the little one's now an only child.

• 1:46:31Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:46:31Tom Ellsworth?

  Because her five year old, her sister is at school.

• 1:46:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:46:34Tom Ellsworth?

  And so we've had these conversations recently. You know, if you, if you think of something, maybe you're Mark Zuckerberg, maybe you don't go to college.

• 1:46:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:42Tom Ellsworth?

  But I want to put you in the river of creativity so you can see what new businesses are doing and what they're thinking.

• 1:46:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:48Tom Ellsworth?

  Because she has a non-blood uncle that's sitting right over here and she knows his educational background and what he built and where he went and what he did. And she has seen the conventions and the result of it. So we're a, we're a split household right now.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  Here's where we align. I, I believe that colleges is an important path for many people. I certainly want my heart surgeon to have gone to college if I were to have heart surgery. Uh, but college was never meant for the masses. So college was for elite people to get elite training, to get elite jobs. It was never for the masses.

• 1:47:21Tom Ellsworth?

  Like cardiologists or nuclear physicists.

• 1:47:23Speaker 04

  Right. And now you have the masses that are in there and it's a supply, demand thing. There's not enough elite level jobs. So the old days was go to school, get a good job. But, but that, that's past. It's not, it's not mass. Uh, number two, what I would say to that is that, um, if you need that specialty training like the STEM and follow her dad, that's great. Most people don't. A trade school like my daughter went to, I think is good enough. And I would just also reframe what I think trade schools are today. So I think trades, if you break it down as a specialty skill. So we typically think of it as like a blue collar skill, welding, plumbing, framing, something like that. And if I wanted to build a house or a building, I would call in trades. Right? Um, but today we have digital trades. We have soft trades. So if I want to build a business, I also call in trades, a social media person, an accountant,

• 1:48:07Speaker 04

  a bookkeeper, a video editor, and those are also trades as well today. And so I think a lot of people could just go to school or learn how to be a video editor or learn how to be a social media manager or learn how to be a copywriter. And they could make a lot of money applying those trades to multiple businesses. I think the world's changed and most people just need to capture.

• 1:48:26Patrick Bet-David?

  I like what both of you guys said because what I, the way I judge people's kids is in the following way. And I'll test them all the time and they don't even know I'm doing it. We'll go to dinner and I'll just ask pointed questions. So Bailey, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Brooke, what do you think about it? What happens with kids with this? What are kids in school right now saying about what happened with Charlie Kirk? What are they saying about what's going on with Iran? What are they saying about this person that's a content creator? What do they think about this? And I'll do this with Grace, I'll do this with my niece. You know, she asked me questions about Israel. She'll ask me questions about Iran, like controversial topics. I want to ask them to see how their, if their brain is creative enough to process the issue. And then I'll ask someone, I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, who?

• 1:49:11Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I don't know. I don't care. I don't know this. That's a lazy way of thinking and your parents made you think that way. So you can have two parents. One goes the university route, one goes the, you know, no college route. And they can both end up being successful because their parents are teaching critical thinking. There's too many empty conversations like yesterday. Dylan and I are sitting and he's doing homework. It's another one of those nights, Tom, till 11:30 he's doing homework. Now, here's the part. He had a basketball game and practice yesterday. And he had a three hour soccer practice. So the guy leaves school at 3 o'clock.

• 1:49:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Basketball till 4:30, soccer till 9:30. Comes home, showers, 10:15, sitting with me. We're there till midnight doing homework together and, you know, I'm stuck on this thing. Why are you stuck on it? Well, if the area of the triangle is 15.3 and the base is four and a half. I'm giving you the exact numbers, four and a half. And the formula is area equals half times base versus height. What is the height? Well, okay, what is half of, you know, 4.5, 2.25? Okay, what is 15.3 divided by 2.25? I don't know how to do that. Yes, you do. What's 1530 divided by 225? Well, I can do that. Well, then just move a couple of decimal points. Go ahead and do it. And what's the number? Comes out with 6.8. That's exactly the number I run to. What happened here?

• 1:50:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I got the number right. Yeah, you know how to do this stuff. Like you gotta push critical thinking. You gotta push for them to come up with a solution. And, and sometimes I think we waste too much time talking nonsense. Like even if you're watching football, ask the question, do you think that was a right play? Do you think they did the right thing? Do you think they should have called a timeout? You think the timeout was at the right time? Should he have, you know, what do you call it? Intentional grounding? Or should they have done that to save the timeout? That would have taken six seconds. Why did they call a timeout? These are moments to use the brain to do critical thinking. I don't know what percentage of parents do that. If you're in our environment, and I bet it's probably the same with you as well, we're always asking stuff like this. And it's strategic. Tom, I think you want to say something.

• 1:51:13Speaker 08

  In deepest jungle, Cartier's panther spies a wandering bird that circles the skies. A lovebird, lost and missing his mate, is far from his pass in lonely state. Dry your tears, now there's a start. Follow my steps to heal your heart. Panther stalks through the leaves with silent grace. Through the power of scent, she finds the trace. Behold, two lovers reunite in the skies. A most precious thrill sparkling in their eyes. Together forever, they shine each day, bound by the beauty of Cartier.

• 1:52:04Speaker 09

  Real traders still hear the noise. They just know when to stop listening to it. Find and research opportunities to fit your strategy with Thinkorswim trading platforms from Schwab. Discover features like robust charting, nearly unlimited customization, and built-in risk management technology. Plus, get 24/7 support from real trading specialists. That's Schwab Trading. Learn more at schwab.com/trading.

• 1:52:27Tom Ellsworth?

  Because what you just said was so funny because Bailey and I spent time watching NFL playoff game that had teams that we didn't really care one way or the other about. We're just waiting for the Niner game so mom can go crazy. None of us, rest of us are Niner fans. And we were talking about coaching decision-making. And Bailey came to conclusion at the end, says, well, no wonder they're talking about firing that guy, even if they win this game. Because we're talking about decision making. We're talking about football. What a great play. What an athlete. No, it's like, why would he make that decision like that? Why would he risk that? Why would they do that? And I said, well, maybe the guy's hurt. Maybe he's here. Well, it certainly didn't turn out well. And he owns the decision, doesn't he? I said, he sure does. Well, no wonder people want to fire him.

• 1:53:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Yeah, and I just think that's the muscle, that if parents are watching this, and they're kind of like, well, I'm part of Mark's camp. No, I'm part of Tom's camp. As long as you're part of the critical thinking camp, your kids are going to be fine long term. If you're not having these types of questions you're posing to them, you're going to have your kids that don't know how to think for themselves and make arguments. Present your argument why you believe this is the case.

• 1:53:32Speaker 04

  If I could just add on to that just real quickly, I would just frame this as that I am not against education. I'm 100% pro voracious education. But education is something that you're interested in, that helps you solve the problem to take you to the path that you want to go down.

• 1:53:48Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree. Brandon, you going to say something, or can we move on?

• 1:53:51Tom Ellsworth?

  You can move on.

• 1:53:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, let's get to the next story. Brandon, when you have two girls that are five years apart, I'll come back to you.

• 1:53:56Tom Ellsworth?

  Okay.

• 1:53:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Until then.

• 1:53:57Tom Ellsworth?

  Hurry up, hurry up.

• 1:53:59Patrick Bet-David?

  All right, next story, which I have some opinions on and some creativity. I want to know what you guys think about this. Nissan cancels the Versa. Rob, can you pull up what the Versa was supposed to look like? Nissan Versa? America's last new car for under $20,000 as automakers lean towards wealthier buyers. Okay? So the sub $20,000 car has debt. Nissan has canceled last new car for sale that was supposed to be under 20K. In a statement, the company said, in line with Nissan's product strategy, the Nissan Versa ended production in December for 2025 for the US market. Versa sedans under $20,000 were already a near myth.

• 1:54:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Only the bare bones base model, the Versa S qualified and few dealers stock them trim, stock that trim. Its formal cancellation however means you can't order a new car under warranty for less than $20,000. The Versa joins a long list of subcompact model cars that were canceled in the recent years. The Chevy Spark, can we see what the Chevy Spark looks like, Rob? The Chevy Spark, America's latest least expensive new car for several years, left the market in 22, so did the Hyundai, wow. So did the Hyundai accent, let's see what the Hyundai accent looks like.

• 1:55:16Tom Ellsworth?

  These all look like European city cars, don't they?

• 1:55:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, then the Kia Rio and the Mitsubishi Mirage followed in 22. That looks like a good car, good starter car, and then the Mitsubishi Mirage, if you want to pull it up. KBB research showed that the Versa S, virtually impossible to find, the last sub $20,000 car. In 2017, they built 61 models priced at $60,000 or more. By the end of 2025, they built 114. At the other end of the market, in 2017, they offered 36 models priced at 25K or less. So, is this a good move? Is this just a new reality? Mark, your thoughts on this?

• 1:55:55Speaker 04

  Well, again, we kind of have been talking quite a bit about free markets. And so if there was a demand for that and they could produce that car at a good profit, they would, obviously, they would continue to do that. The profit margins of automobile manufacturers are extremely thin. We've talked about this, I believe they're single digits, right? So, they're extremely thin. Most of the cars, a lot of the cars that they sell specifically around the hybrid and EVs are losses for them, right? And so they're, they're dealing with governments forcing them to build certain types of cars. They take losses on those, Ford makes money back on their F150s, they can even it out. But, yeah, I would say back to the free market, right? If they could produce these cars at a good profit, they probably would. The reason why they can't is again because of the regulations.

• 1:56:36Speaker 04

  On Twitter, maybe in my echo chamber, I see quite a bit, in other countries, they have these like Toyota trucks that are like, everybody wishes they could get in the US, they're like $15,000 and they're really cool and like...

• 1:56:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this the one Humberto talks about? Can we pull up which ones you're talking Toyota trucks?

• 1:56:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's like a Toyota truck. It's sort of like a military vehicle. Yeah, like $15,000. The Hilux and these are in other countries and people are like, why can't we get this in the United States for 15 grand or whatever, right? But they don't pass safety. They don't pass EPA. They don't pass whatever, whatever, whatever, right? And so unfortunately, because of the regulations that we have here, just like we talked about with Holmes earlier, the cost to produce a car in the United States is just too expensive. And so it cuts out this bottom part of the market, not because I'm sure there's demand for a cheap car, but they can't produce it at a good margin. Tom, thoughts?

• 1:57:24Tom Ellsworth?

  Yeah, I agree with that and I won't repeat it, but I'll bring something else up is that the modern generation is increasingly getting to be a rental generation on vehicles.

• 1:57:33Speaker 04

  That too.

• 1:57:34Tom Ellsworth?

  You see kids are getting trained. I'll give you an example. Where Bailey goes to college, the campus is in a large US city. However, there's not enough parking. So until you're a junior, you can't get a parking permit on campus because there's simply not enough space.

• 1:57:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:50Tom Ellsworth?

  And so what most of the students do is they're, they go Uber. And Bailey's got a credit card. I can see what's going on on there. She's very good, keeps a very tight allowance, very responsible, but I see where she goes. Oh, they went down and saw the Astros. Why the hell would you go to the Astros? But okay. But she took, obviously she went with some friends and I guess what? Then I see her checking account and I see, oh, 20 bucks from this person, 15 bucks for this person. Looks like Bailey paid but got paid back. Okay. And I'm seeing the way, Pat, the youth and the new generation consumes automobiles and they are increasingly permanent renters.

• 1:58:31Tom Ellsworth?

  We had a highly compensated woman that was here that was leading a technology project. She didn't own a car and she had a high-end degree from a high-end school and was a high-end performer, but she was Uber. Uber here, Uber back, Uber to Uber to lunch. And so you also have the increasing with the cost of insurance and need a garage, need a place to store it, people turning to the Waymos, which are going to be more rather than less, and Uber and Lyft, and they just, they will just pay.

• 1:59:04Tom Ellsworth?

  For the portion of the car they need, which is a trip to work, trip back. And so that takes demand also away from the low end cars.

• 1:59:11Speaker 06

  I live in a rural beach community, so not in a city, and I'm also seeing the same thing. So my friends, or my daughter's friends who are teenagers, a lot of them are delaying getting their license. They're 18, they're 19, they're 20, because they're just using Uber and Lyft.

• 1:59:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, that's becoming a norm. A lot of people are talking about that. We got a 46-year-old that's going through that right now. I don't want to give him any shout-outs right now. But Brandon, go ahead.

• 1:59:35Speaker 06

  That's funny. Now, something-

• 1:59:37Tom Ellsworth?

  Who still lives at home, sits on the couch?

• 1:59:41Speaker 06

  Something's deeply wrong here. Where, like, normally, the laws of business, or manufacturing, or creating a product is that it gets cheaper and easier to make over time. So, you know, something's fundamentally wrong here with, like, the structure of things, or something, like, one piece of it, where it's somehow getting more and more expensive to manufacture, because you're supposed to be able to make it cheaper and then have better margins on it. So, like you said, the fact that there's all these regulations involved. You know, it also goes down to the cost of materials, and like, those are a whole nother thing. Why that's expensive, like steel and components and copper and all that. But, yeah, like, this is a core function of the cost of living, like, food, housing, transportation.

• 2:00:24Speaker 06

  Always say, those three things, like, that's what creates poverty, non-poverty. Like, if people could afford those things reasonably with an average salary, then-

• 2:00:31Patrick Bet-David?

  The question becomes, what do you do? I mean, to me, like, when I'm thinking about, if we put a room together of 10 people to debate, maybe seven people to debate this, on cars, what to do to bring affordability. Would we leave it to free market, or if there's a place for the government to intervene? Remember when EV companies were getting the $7,500 rebate? And it was kind of a thing that drove it. The rebate went away, it's kind of like, eh, maybe I'm not doing it, right? What if you gave a $5,000 rebate for a company that produces a car less than $20,000? What if you put that there? What if you create that incentive? Now, I want you to tear it apart.

• 2:01:09Speaker 04

  We can get the Toyota truck in here for 15 grand right now.

• 2:01:12Patrick Bet-David?

  But the part of it is, you know why the cars, the average truck size 40 years ago was 14 feet? You know, and now the average truck size is 22 feet. We have 22-foot trucks. You know what 22 feet is, by the way? 22 feet, that's not the average truck size, but that's the big ones that they make. 22 feet is- Three of me plus three more feet. That's insane for a truck to be that big. So they created regulations for trucks to be bigger. But what I'm saying is they sit in a room. They eliminated some of this nonsense regulation that they have in place. Uh, uh, and then the automaker problem that they have marked is there is federal regulation. There is state regulation. So these automakers are sitting there saying, I'm not going to produce this car. Why?

• 2:01:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Forget about federal, whatever your laws are. California is the one that screw me over. Right. So I'm, uh, yeah, I'll, I'll produce the car, but for what? Kansas? For what? Idaho? I need to be in LA. I need to be in New York. I need to be in Illinois. And these are the places that are over regulating. So then does the president come over executive order and no state can do this? So it's a little bit complicated, but if they were able to sit down, kind of like the Sanders and Holly. And, and they're trying to figure out this 10% thing and debate it out. If we created incentives for companies to create, you know, less than $20,000 cars. Now I'm going buying a $19,000 car. Say the company gets a $5,000 bonus on the backend for producing a car like that. Now kids coming out of college can buy a $19,000 car.

• 2:02:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I don't know. I think, I think there's creative ways of doing it. The, the, the problem with automakers is not federal regulation, it's state by state. Yep. That's preventing a lot of guys from getting involved. Brandon?

• 2:02:52Speaker 06

  Should it be like the AI thing where they did the federal AI bill? And I'm, I'm not saying that's a good idea. I'm just tossing it out there. You think that'd be helpful if there was like a federal emissions standard like in Connecticut and in California, New York? You have to pass the emissions test every year. They have to build a car to emit a certain amount of emissions or eliminate a certain amount of emissions. Would it be beneficial, do you think, from a like regulatory standpoint? If we did, had a federal, uh, laws like that?

• 2:03:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:03:16Speaker 06

  No?

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  The reason I'd say is we need less laws. We need less regulations. And so the problem is we just continue to add more and more and more and more and more. It gets too many. So, uh, I believe in Trump's first term for every new regulation. I think three were removed. I think he's way outpacing that right now. And so really it's not more laws. It's reducing the laws that we have.

• 2:03:34Speaker 06

  To take away the ability for a state to put an emission mandate maybe then?

• 2:03:38Speaker 04

  Uh, I mean, I'm not an auto expert, so I don't know all the different costs, but like, we can certainly understand a lot of those. Why Toyota can't sell that truck in the United States?

• 2:03:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, yeah.

• 2:03:47Speaker 04

  Like, that would be the, that would be the question.

• 2:03:49Patrick Bet-David?

  But it's states.

• 2:03:50Speaker 04

  Why can't Toyota?

• 2:03:51Patrick Bet-David?

  You're right, so good question you're asking, for sure.

• 2:03:53Speaker 04

  Who sells cars in the US, why can't Toyota sell that car here?

• 2:03:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes, I agree. But it's, it's truly, we've done this, you and I put this case study together, it's purely regulation by state, not federal. He controls federal, he doesn't control state. So even if he deregulates federal regulation,

• 2:04:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 2:04:09Patrick Bet-David?

  he can't deregulate state regulation.

• 2:04:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:04:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Newsom's gonna sit in front of him and says, "No, I want to keep this regulation here." If Newsom was okay losing Musk,

• 2:04:17Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04:17Patrick Bet-David?

  you think he gives a shit about losing like a couple of these?

• 2:04:19Speaker 04

  No.

• 2:04:20Patrick Bet-David?

  No, he doesn't care about that kind of stuff. Tom, I'll give you final thoughts and I'll do one story and we'll wrap up.

• 2:04:24Tom Ellsworth?

  No, I agree with that. I mean, you take a look at what's happening with AI. The states are coming out with AI regulations on their own, which are complicating it. But some of the AI regulations got nothing to do with AI. Has to do with data centers increasing the cost of electricities for average communities. Because they put a data center here, it sucked all the electricity.

• 2:04:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, Tom, can you talk about what Trump did with Microsoft?

• 2:04:45Tom Ellsworth?

  Oh, I love it.

• 2:04:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Just real quick, give that one minute on the way he managed that project with Microsoft.

• 2:04:50Tom Ellsworth?

  Microsoft, he negotiated with Microsoft, and Microsoft has agreed that they will not build data centers that put the burden of energy demand into a price increase on the consumer. That if they're building the data center, that they will figure out power, either they'll self-subsidize, or they will build their small nuke, Generation 5, Generation 6, I believe they're called, small nuclear reactor that's there to provide electricity for the data center. So that, so that what happens is, good expansion and creation of jobs, a data center, people say, "Well, it only creates so many jobs." Yeah, I've heard it creates 300 jobs to build it, and then 30 jobs to live there. Okay,

• 2:05:33Tom Ellsworth?

  but it's jobs. But data centers use a lot of power. And when you use too much power, the surrounding area, the price of power will go up because there's a shortage. So Trump negotiated with Microsoft and said, "Hey, I want you..." To pay for the electricity so that you don't impact the affordability of the community and guess what they agreed so this is good leadership with that regulation because they came to an agreement on this without a law without a regulation.

• 2:06:02Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 2:06:03Speaker 04

  What I would say though is they would love to do that but the regulations prohibit them from building the smart nuclear reactors. I think of a quote from Ayn Rand. She said that when you have to ask permission to produce from men who produce nothing.

• 2:06:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh.

• 2:06:17Speaker 04

  That's where we're at.

• 2:06:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Man, where's Ayn Rand? We need her today. Going back and watching her interview with Phil Donahue and all the other stuff. But anyways, let me wrap up with the story here. FYI, you guys heard the second company that just crossed $4 trillion in valuation is officially Google. Not Apple, not Microsoft, is officially Google is now the number two $4 trillion company. And the two founders both moved to Florida. One bought $174 million. He bought two homes at $174 and I think the other one's buying something as well. I don't know what it is. I think the other one moved to Florida and I think one of the guys moved 46 LLCs, which is really the big one that Tom was talking about. But let me tell you a story, Rob, if you want to pull this up. This is why Iranians around the world are talking about bringing

• 2:07:05Patrick Bet-David?

  back freedom to Iran. Look at the story here. This is Arafan Soltani. The Islamic Republic is set to execute Arafan Soltani today. He was arrested last week during Iran's 2026 uprising. His only crime is calling for freedom for Iran. And while you go a little bit deeper into understanding how Iran works, all this guy did is he says, hey, I just don't want this current regime. I don't want the IRGC. Okay. And so Iranian authorities have charged him with waging war against God. Can you imagine if you can have that in a country you're living? You choose that God is not happy with you. Did God text you? Did God email you?

• 2:07:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Did your God send a notice? Did you get a package from him? That came from heaven? How did you know that God? Or did you just decide? Who your God is and what your God thinks about it? It's kind of like pastors that they'll read scripture and they'll say, based on the scripture, I have a feeling what God was telling me last night that you need to give 40%. You know, these preachers that they're doing all these interviews, the guys that are using their scripture to get money out of people. That's what Iran is doing today. So, we're praying for Erfan Soltani, this 26-year-old man. For the people that are out there that the mainstream media maybe is not covering this enough. These are stories that need to be out there because this 26-year-old boy, all he's saying is, he's saying, "Let us be free."

• 2:08:30Patrick Bet-David?

  And we are hoping this noise of the people that they're making around the world gets to Iran, gets to them realizing what's going on with the fear that President Trump is imposing on them to realize, "Leave these people alone." This is why people don't want your regime anymore in Iran. We're praying for them. I'm about to jump on, I think I'm about to jump on, the truck is outside. I'm about to jump on one of the shows and I'll be talking about what's going on with Iran here in a minute. But Mark, I actually really enjoyed having you on, man. This was great. Really? Like, I like your very, the way you process issues and the way you answer it is in a very structured way of me being able to consume what you're thinking about. No wonder your YouTube channel is blowing up and you've grown the way you have the, in six or seven years of doing what you're doing. Folks, if you're watching this,

• 2:09:15Patrick Bet-David?

  you like what Mark had to say. Here's his channel. He's not only smart, but he's also kind of Hollywood. He's got that Hollywood look. Can you just tell when you look at him, he's a Hollywood look? Listen, maybe Mike Tyson was right with Mark. I don't know. It's expensive to live in heaven. I can't live in the heaven. He lives in California. But aside from that, we'll forgive him with the California stuff. Everything else, go support this man. His channel is right there. Wealth is not earned, it's engineered. Go to Mark Moss, Rob, let's put the link below so people can subscribe to his channel. With that being said, we have a podcast on Friday. We may do a couple other things the next couple of days, but we definitely have a podcast on Friday. Take care, everybody. God bless. Bye-bye, bye-bye.

• 2:10:08Speaker 00

  At Edward Jones, we believe rich is about taking care of what gives your life meaning. That's why your financial advisor personalizes your plan to help you preserve your progress and create something that lasts. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones. Member SIPC.

• 2:10:23Speaker 01

  UKG is the workforce operating platform with unified HR, payroll, and workforce management. Built to solve the unique challenges of frontline work. Powered by People First AI and decades of labor data, UKG turns workforce intelligence into real-time decisions around staffing, pay, compliance, and productivity, enabling every worker to confidently take action as work happens. Because when work works, everything works. Learn more at ukg.com/work. UKG, HR, Pay, and Workforce Management.