Prediction Markets with Rebecca Ungarino and Nick Devor

In this week’s Better Offline, Ed is joined by Rebecca Ungarino and Nick Devor of Barron’s to talk about the legalities of prediction markets, their effect on society, and how everyone is operating on the bleeding edge of financial regulations. Nick Devor: https://www.barrons.com/authors/nick-devor https://x.com/nickdevor_ Rebecca Ungarino: https://www.barrons.com/authors/rebecca-ungarino Story (from both of them!): JPMorgan Is Considering New Prediction Market Guidance for Employees https://www.barrons.com/articles/jpmorgan-kalshi-polymarket-prediction-markets-rules-9f871a65 Save $10 off a year of my premium newsletter: https://edzitronswheresyouredatghostio.outpost.pub/public/promo-subscription/gzqwkv54e1 - I’d be so grateful! YOU CAN NOW BUY BETTER OFFLINE MERCH! Go to https://cottonbureau.com/people/better-offline and use code FREE99 for free shipping on orders of $99 or more. Buy our new “FUCK DATA CENTERS” shirts today! --- LINKS: https://www.tinyurl.com/betterofflinelinks Newsletter: https://www.wheresyoured.at/ Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/BetterOffline/ Discord: chat.wheresyoured.at https://discord.com/invite/QUUQUP9szv Ed's Socials: https://twitter.com/edzitron https://www.instagram.com/edzitron https://bsky.app/profile/edzitron.com https://www.threads.net/@edzitron Email Me: [email protected] mailto:[email protected] See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

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• 3:05Ed Zitron?

  Welcome to Better Offline. I am of course your host, Ed Zitron.

• 3:20Ed Zitron?

  Now we're back in the studio in beautiful New York City, New York State. You need to check out the show notes, of course, because we have these beautiful Fuck Data Center t-shirts, subscribe to my newsletter, and so on and so forth. But today, joining me, it's Swaggage Claim, are two of Barron's finest reporters, the legendary Nick Devor, who handles the gambling industry, and the Wall Street reporting legend, Rebecca Angarino. Thank you so much for joining us. Now, Nick.

• 3:48Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 3:49Ed Zitron?

  We have had so many people emailing about prediction markets and you cover the gambling industry as well. How are they different? How are they not the same thing? Because they very much seem similar.

• 3:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think from a consumer point of view, there's very little difference between these products. You put money on the line. If your team wins, you get paid out.

• 4:09Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 4:09Speaker 06

  So from like a layman's point of view, I think there's very little difference. However, there is a difference. On a gambling, in gambling, you're betting against the house. So the betting firm sets the odds that you're betting against, right? Whereas in a prediction market, your counterparty is another trader. So trader or prediction markets are just essentially brokers that are putting two traders together on one contract. And I can explain that in a little more detail if you like.

• 4:38Ed Zitron?

  Please.

• 4:39Speaker 06

  So prediction markets sell what are called event contracts. So event contracts are futures contracts. They're also called binary options. And they're built around yes or no questions. So each contract is worth $1 and it has two traders. There's a trader on the yes side and there's a trader on the no side.

• 4:56Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 4:56Speaker 06

  So like, will this podcast go well? We can make that a prediction market. I hope.

• 5:01Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 5:01Speaker 06

  I hope it goes well.

• 5:02Ed Zitron?

  Let's get this, I'm just gonna set that up right now.

• 5:04Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 5:05Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 06

  So if if person A thinks there's a 75% chance that it will go well. And person B thinks there's a 25% chance that it will not go well. Person A pays 75 cents and person B pays 25 cents.

• 5:19Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  So if it turns out yes, the yes trader gets the 25 cents put up by the no trader. And makes and now has a dollar contract. Now, let's say on a second contract, person C thinks there's a 25% chance of yes. Person D thinks there's a 75% chance of no.

• 5:38Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 5:38Speaker 06

  So these two contracts where the odds are flipped average out and there's a 50/50 chance that this podcast goes well.

• 5:45Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 5:45Speaker 06

  Right. So the price of the contract is the predictions and and prediction markets are just brokers. The businesses themselves are just connecting two traders.

• 5:53Ed Zitron?

  So where's the? Crypto side as well, because I remember when Polly Market started, it was a weird crypto thing, but is it still that?

• 6:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, I would say it's still a weird crypto thing. They, most of their business is still their international side, where they just take, I think it's USDT, or it's some stablecoin.

• 6:13Ed Zitron?

  One of the stablecoins, yeah.

• 6:15Speaker 06

  All of the contracts are traded on that. That's Polly Market. They're an offshore-run company.

• 6:21Ed Zitron?

  Cool.

• 6:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, offshore, meaning.

• 6:22Ed Zitron?

  Great, I love this.

• 6:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, meaning not regulated in the US, not a US-based company. Contrast that with Calci. Calci was the first registered designated contract market by the CFTC. That's the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. They regulate all of this stuff. And so Calci was the first firm to actually do this in what we would call like the legal way. Whereas Polly Market does not have to abide by the US regulations because they are not a US firm. And they're trying to become, they've gotten permission to operate in the US, but they're like slowly rolling that out.

• 7:05Speaker 06

  A lot of people in the US don't have Polly Market US accounts yet. If you want to trade on Polly Market in the US, you're mostly using a VPN to do so.

• 7:14Ed Zitron?

  But you need crypto to do it.

• 7:15Speaker 06

  Yes, yeah, for the international site.

• 7:17Ed Zitron?

  This feels like it'd be rife with manipulation, though.

• 7:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think that there, because Polly Market operates, you know, on the blockchain, it's generally all anonymous, and it's very easy to get any kind of market you want created. There's a lot of concern around manipulation. I think a helpful example is there was some football game or some sporting event, and there was a market for will someone streak at this event, you know, run onto the field naked? And someone did end up streaking, and the person that ended up streaking was someone who was trading on the market, you know, betting yes that someone would end up streaking, and then they went and did it. And so they made, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, paid a small fine relative.

• 8:04Speaker 06

  To the sporting people and you know, now we have. So you get into this question. I think a hopeful metaphor is like our prediction markets. A thermostat or a thermometer? Are they like accurately pricing the potential outcome? You know, are they saying that something is going to happen? Or by their very existence, do they make something more likely to happen?

• 8:26Ed Zitron?

  Right. Rebecca, how are the bankers dealing with this? How's Wall Street looking at this? Cause this it's it's tough to really grasp whether this is gambling or a futures contract, like betting on the chance of stock will go up or go down.

• 8:41Speaker 07

  And there's such a big difference right now. Um, the it's really interesting because the banks themselves, and this is separate from like the market makers or like, you know, high frequency trading firms. The banks themselves are very highly regulated by like three main agencies, the OCC, the Office of the Controller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve and the FDIC. So they're very highly regulated and then they have a bunch of like state agencies that regulate them too. So far, the biggest banks have stayed pretty quiet on how they're thinking about these and they're, you know, kind of waiting for this regulatory, you know, clarity. It reminds me a little bit of, you know, Bitcoin and crypto going mainstream, you know, 10, 11 years ago.

• 9:21Speaker 07

  We're waiting for regulators, we're waiting for regulators and banks are, they're really complex. They have a bunch of different businesses where they could come in and, you know, for example, on the banking side. The investment bankers, you know, have an interest in, well, do we want to help them raise money? Do we want to help them raise capital or take them public?

• 9:38Ed Zitron?

  Oh, they're not even touching any of the fundraising?

• 9:41Speaker 07

  They they could. My understanding, you would know better than me on Caloshi and Polymarket, who their investors are as a VCs, a PE?

• 9:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's, I think it's mostly VCs right now, but they're both targeting, there was recent reporting in the Wall Street Journal that they're both, Polymarket and Caloshi are targeting $20 billion valuations.

• 9:59Speaker 07

  Now, it's not crazy.

• 10:00Ed Zitron?

  It's like a very clonable business, though.

• 10:03Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's, that's kind of the thing is there's not like the, there's not a lot of difference between trading on Polymarket and trading on Caloshi. Like you're trading the same kind of.

• 10:14Speaker 06

  The same contract in effect, like it's the same kind of product that's being traded. So you kind of get into a similar thing that the sports betting businesses had to deal with, where FanDuel and DraftKings are essentially, you know, identical products, selling, you know, identical products and trying to differentiate themselves. And so we'll see in the coming months how how that ends up working.

• 10:36Ed Zitron?

  Rebecca, on the, on the, well, actually, go ahead.

• 10:39Speaker 07

  Well, I mean, and on the trading side, it's a whole other, like on the other side of the house.

• 10:43Ed Zitron?

  That's actually kind of where it was going to.

• 10:44Speaker 07

  Exactly. Yeah. And like at the bank. So like, you know, these massive trading businesses, it's so some of the reporting that we have so far, and we're, you know, working on this now. And again, the banks are being very tight lipped on what they're saying about what they're getting involved in or not getting involved in. This is something that, so the investment banks, they're like the bankers, the trading desks, and then the research. And that's totally separate. And there's like this firewall, right? So research analysts are definitely like looking at these things, just like any other input, any other source of information. Of course, it's, yes, there are differences, but it's like, okay, well, what is Kalshi saying about this? When, you know, maybe a commodities analyst who's looking at metal.

• 11:22Ed Zitron?

  And it might be kind of a sentiment analysis at that.

• 11:23Speaker 07

  Exactly, exactly. And just another input to look at. So that's all well and good. You can look at that. On the trading side, though, it's more complicated because again, the CFTC, like Nick brought up, the Commodity Futures and Trading Commission, that, you know, regulates crypto and, you know, is now regulating some of these prediction market activities, they have to weigh in and they have, you know, to some extent, but they're waiting for kind of a more complete look at, okay, Goldman Sachs, you know, traders or enter any other like big bank traders, like what are we able to trade? Now, that is still kind of out there, right? There are event contracts, like political elections and, you know, things like that. Quote, event contracts, right? And then there are other

• 12:05Speaker 07

  markets where on securities where it's like, that Kalshi or Polly Market?

• 12:10Speaker 06

  Polly Market, you can, you can do like, will Nvidia stock end the day up or down?

• 12:15Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Like this is something that is happening every day, right?

• 12:19Speaker 07

  Exactly. And that's a little more complicated because then you are dealing with securities rather than just like some amorphous like event contract. So it's like complicated.

• 12:26Ed Zitron?

  But legally speaking, I'm sure someone will argue, well, this isn't a security because I'm betting on an outcome rather than security itself.

• 12:32Speaker 07

  Totally, totally, totally.

• 12:34Ed Zitron?

  Doesn't this also set us up for something kind of dystopian, though, if these? If banks or traders start trading on these markets, where you have some of the bank interest and whether, I don't know, a guy streaks.

• 12:46Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 12:47Ed Zitron?

  Or whether a place gets blown up, like, this is where I think the fringes of insanity begin.

• 12:53Speaker 06

  Definitely.

• 12:54Speaker 07

  Completely. And I just, like, I'll want you to weigh in more here a bit. But like, it just opens a whole new, for banks that are so tightly regulated.

• 13:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 13:02Speaker 07

  It opens up a whole new source of, like, potential liability and, like, you've done more reporting on that.

• 13:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, we've, we've, from what we've heard, there, the banks are not as interested in those kinds of markets just because there's no, like, you know, they don't have an election every single day and, like,

• 13:18Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 13:18Speaker 06

  these desks need to make money, right? So there needs to be, like, a sustainable, constant kind of liquidity and, like, enough events for them to actually, you know, participate in the markets.

• 13:29Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 13:30Speaker 06

  And the kind of, like, securities-related markets that maybe these banks would be more interested in, that they would have a better edge on, whatever, those are still mostly on polymarket. And I really doubt that, you know, a tightly regulated, like, US-based bank is going to want to be trading, like, in stablecoin, like, on polymarket against, you know, potential insiders, all of this stuff. That just doesn't sound, like, appealing, I would imagine.

• 13:54Ed Zitron?

  But what about asset, like, the Ares of the world or, like, private equity firms or private credit firms? Aren't they different and might they be dumb? Like, might they get, might they get themselves involved in? I just like.

• 14:09Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 14:10Ed Zitron?

  When I see the data center stuff, when I hear all this private credit, the private credit stuff like Tricola and First Brands and Positgen and, uh, I forget what, uh, was it? There was the, there was the one, there's now one in Europe where it's just.

• 14:21Speaker 07

  MFS.

• 14:22Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, yeah, the random ones where it's just like, yeah, you know, when we said, we promised you this collateral, we also promised it to 17 other people. Sorry!

• 14:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 14:31Ed Zitron?

  I worry that they are going to start, like, are they allowed to?

• 14:35Speaker 07

  It's a great question and my reporting and it's a great story. It's a great question. I'm not entirely sure like where, if and how they're coming into these things. In other words, I wouldn't be surprised. I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if one of the big private credit players, which is again, like some of these things are, they are just very lightly regulated banks, like to be clear, right? Like they are lending money like and private credit. Yes, it's a huge point. So cool.

• 15:03Ed Zitron?

  It's so good.

• 15:03Speaker 07

  So good. Um, I love that. Um, it's a huge debate right now. Like is private credit means a lot of different things, whatever. But at the end of the day, it is lending outside of the banking system. Okay. Like that is safe to say. So I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's, you know, like a Calci, like a poly market. If there is, you know, kind of lending from these firms, I don't know, but they are becoming the private credit. You know, players are becoming so much more active in the private sector and, and just all these private, privately held companies where there's a whole matrix of like areas where they could become involved. I don't know that and I would be curious.

• 15:40Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 15:41Speaker 07

  But it's probably an input that they're looking at too, like just a research, you know, input, right? Like, you know, we, like, we look at, oh, what is it saying about that? We take it with a grain of salt, but like, you know, it's still something we're going to look at. But it's an interesting question.

• 15:55Speaker 06

  They are, the predictions, sorry, they are, they are quite accurate. The, you know, there's, you know, we can, there can be arguments made about whether or not they are like good for society. Whether it's like an okay thing that we can bet on, you know, every single kind of, um, I think the, the Calci CEO, Tarek Mansour, his quote is that, you know, we want to make a monetizable asset out of every difference in opinion.

• 16:19Ed Zitron?

  Jesus Christ.

• 16:20Speaker 06

  Which is like, that's like, yeah.

• 16:23Ed Zitron?

  To paraphrase Will Manaker of Chapo, when he was seeing a video of a new sport where two guys run into each other.

• 16:30Ed Zitron?

  You see, this is the kind of thing you do in like, uh, RoboCop. Yeah. This is like a RoboCop thing.

• 16:35Speaker 07

  That's what it's giving.

• 16:36Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. It's like, yeah, we can.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  It feels very like near future dystopia.

• 16:40Speaker 07

  It is dystopian.

• 16:41Ed Zitron?

  Well, as someone who spends a lot of time, lives in Vegas, I just want to say this is an insult to my beautiful gambling. Yeah. Beautiful, honest odds of a dice roll. Even our craps, craps are not this crappy. Yeah, for real. It's very strange. And as I think we've discussed this-

• 16:56Speaker 07

  That's the new state motto, by the way. I really like that.

• 16:59Ed Zitron?

  What?

• 16:59Speaker 07

  Our craps are not this crappy.

• 17:01Ed Zitron?

  Exactly.

• 17:01Speaker 07

  I love that.

• 17:02Ed Zitron?

  I love that. I'm gonna run it-

• 17:02Speaker 07

  You should look into that.

• 17:03Ed Zitron?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna put it on a T-shirt.

• 17:04Speaker 07

  I love that.

• 17:05Ed Zitron?

  No, it's, it is really scary, though. Someone, I feel like someone's gonna die from this. Like, it's gonna, it's gonna be, this person dies by December 31st, and they're gonna get hunted like Running Man.

• 17:16Speaker 06

  Yes. Yeah, that's, um, okay, so we're almost there.

• 17:19Ed Zitron?

  Yay!

• 17:20Speaker 06

  So, recently, actually, there was a bit of controversy over, like, um, I guess what we would call death markets on Calci. Um, so, when the US attacked Iran, there were lots of markets on both Polymarket and Calci related to military action in Iran, whether it would happen or not, by when it would happen. Usually, these are formatted in, like, um, you know, military strikes in Iran by X date, right? Um, so, one of the contracts that both Calci and Polymarket had was, um, uh, Khomeini out by X date.

• 17:57Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 17:57Speaker 06

  So, this is the supreme leader of Iran. Um, will he be out as supreme leader by this date? So, the, like, layman's interpretation of that would mean, um, if he dies, he's out, right? You know, that's probably how you would, oh, is he in office anymore?

• 18:14Ed Zitron?

  He can't come back in.

• 18:15Speaker 06

  You know, he's, he's dead. You know, he's probably out, right? Um, so, when, on that Saturday, um, Trump announced that he had been killed on Polymarket, Polymarket resolved, uh, their contract. Yes, he is out, right?

• 18:27Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 18:27Speaker 06

  But Calci did not do this.

• 18:30Ed Zitron?

  Oh, no.

• 18:30Speaker 06

  They, um, froze, well, they, like, paused the market for, like, eight hours to, like, figure out how to handle this.

• 18:36Ed Zitron?

  And what is the consequence of pausing the market? Just home clear?

• 18:39Speaker 06

  Oh, it's just that there's no more trading happening.

• 18:41Ed Zitron?

  Right. Does the price move at all? So, it's just frozen?

• 18:43Speaker 06

  It's just frozen.

• 18:44Ed Zitron?

  I've got it.

• 18:44Speaker 06

  Um, and what they did is they reset, um, when they made their decision, they refunded everyone their stakes, um, the value of their contracts at last traded price before death. So, if there was, like, a 74% chance that he would be out, um, at 12:59, and he died at 1, then they would, the yes contract would pay out 74 cents, right?

• 19:09Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 19:09Speaker 06

  So- They did that in order to isolate the death component, right? Because Calci, in what they have told me, they don't want to allow people to profit on death. That's just not something they're interested in doing. Right. However, there was very large controversy around this because all of the Calci traders who hopped on the Calci and were like, oh, cool. Yeah, he's probably going to be out. I'll, I'll bet on this. They, they were suddenly, they did not get the money that they expected to. Right. And Calci had like in its rules, in its rulebook that was like laid out, there was like some fine print. But yeah, we get into this like weird question of like. Why didn't they pay? Because he was out, like what was the debt?

• 19:53Speaker 06

  They don't want people, uh, death was a carve out. There was a death carve out. So out by any other means but death. Now, uh, the Khomeini was like in his mid eighties. So it's kind of hard to imagine that he was going to resign or like, you know, they don't hold snap elections in Iran. So I don't really know. So it was just resignation? I guess that, you know, or like, um, uh, kidnapping, like we saw in Venezuela, um, maybe, I don't know.

• 20:18Speaker 07

  That was its own, own whole episode.

• 20:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, that was its own thing, you know, um, was, was what happened in Venezuela? Does that count as like a war or just like an encouragement? This is. So we get into all these really weird questions when the, the quote unquote oracle of these prediction markets is only resolving based on very specific outcomes. And so at a certain point, the entire point of these prediction markets is that they provide ways to hedge outcomes that you can't find in other markets. Yes. There's no way to like hedge against that happening in the stock market in like a clean way, right? Yeah. But if like, like, okay, so let's say that I'm a business owner. And I want to hedge against the possibility that Trump does not finish this term in office. Okay. Right?

• 21:05Speaker 06

  From my point of view as a business owner, um, if he dies or resigns or is impeached, none of, all of those three things fulfill the same thing for me and I need to hedge against all of those outcomes. But if we don't allow these markets to resolve. On death and you know, we can argue whether or not we could, we should. They by definition become less valuable hedging tools. Right. And so you kind of get into this point, spot where you're like, what are these actually for? Like, who is the person that's hedging against Kameni resigning? Like, yeah.

• 21:38Speaker 08

  Completely.

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• 24:17Speaker 10

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 24:28Speaker 09

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 24:33Speaker 11

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 24:39Speaker 09

  So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.

• 25:02Ed Zitron?

  It feels like, I don't know. I have a weird view of this in that I think prediction markets are scary and vile and they enable something. But I also think they're a condition created by the stock market. Galaxy Brain take. But I think that the stock market has stopped being logical in any way, shape or form, and regular people do. Despite, I would say it was like three or four years ago when Robin Hood went really nuts on options. Yeah. I think that regular people do not have access to a logical or rational way of investing. Like you can't just invest in a company for being good. You can't invest in a clean outcome because you're going to go up against hedge funds and whoever fast trading and such that you couldn't possibly keep up. They have information you don't have. Yeah. There's no way you could possibly keep up. I'm not saying prediction markets are good.

• 25:47Ed Zitron?

  I think they're terrifying. They are Robocop sheer. Yeah. But it feels like something that could only occur in a world where there is not enough other ways to accumulate wealth.

• 25:57Speaker 07

  I could not agree more. And I think that one thing like to this point, it was a few weeks ago, and I might have even sent it to you, but there was an ad and I, I don't want to say for certain it was either Calci or Polymarket, but it came up on Tik Tok or Instagram. And it was an ad or like a user generated content type thing where a woman was holding a coffee. And the, did we talk about this? And the tagline, again, it was for one of them. I don't want to misspeak, but it said, you know, like, um, my bet will pay for my coffee, you know, like my, you know, da, da, da. And I was like, oh my God, that is so bleak because

• 26:29Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 26:29Speaker 07

  it, it really speaks to this broad, like, and again, financialization of everything, you know, that's a big conversation right now. It's talking about a world in which it is hard to accumulate wealth. I mean, to state the most obvious thing, you know, and like, you know, just broad inequality. My bet will help me pay for my, like, and I get it. Like, I get that on, I get why that would be an advertisement and like, I, I understand, but that is so, you know, it's like a young woman, a young person. And it's like, oh my God, that is what, that is a symptom of, you know, sort of like the world we're living in. And I'm not saying that's

• 27:11Speaker 07

  good or bad. I mean, it probably, it's bleak. It's like very bleak.

• 27:15Ed Zitron?

  It's the same thing with sports gambling.

• 27:17Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 27:17Ed Zitron?

  And sports gambling seems for now like a lot more exploitative because they have the account managers who come and are like, hey, you've lost three grand. Why don't we give you two grand worth of credit?

• 27:28Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 27:29Ed Zitron?

  And all of these, these ways that you could leverage that. It is exploiting the fact, because if you think about how the stock market is these days, what the fuck are you meant to do? If you, if you actually, if you invest in a company based on its fundamentals, you're going to lose money probably. Yeah. Like, it's like Oracle is 12% up right now. I think we're just going out in a week. So who knows where it'll be, even though they had like negative $24 billion cash flow, they're obviously misleading people when it comes to how like their capex because they're going to spend. And only fifty billion this year and they've already spent over forty. Yeah. Not really sure that worked. But if you, if you, because the market and the hedge funds have decided there's something else they'd like to do.

• 28:11Ed Zitron?

  You cannot join that. So what are your other options? You've got, I don't know, betting on the slap fights. Yeah. The literal slap competition. You've got sports gambling and you've got this big impenetrable thing of the stock market. Mm hmm. But then you've got these seemingly honest, easy bets of, oh, I can just bet on an outcome. Mm hmm. That's fair. Yeah. Unless the outcome is full of asterisks. Yes, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:36Speaker 06

  I think there was some, there was some research recently, I don't know how I should, I saw this on Twitter disclaimer.

• 28:44Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 28:44Speaker 06

  Um, that like only thirty two and a half percent of prediction market customers are profitable. Right? So two thirds of players are losers.

• 28:53Ed Zitron?

  I mean, that's gambling.

• 28:54Speaker 06

  Right?

• 28:55Ed Zitron?

  That's gambling.

• 28:56Speaker 06

  You know, um, so, yeah, I think, yeah, we, when we get into this, I think Gen Z especially, there's a certain amount of financial nihilism. Um, just general like dread, um, vis a vis the future. Um, and how am I ever going to have a house and et cetera, et cetera? And oh, here's Polly Market, they let me bet on, you know, whether Trump will say China in his speech.

• 29:21Ed Zitron?

  And how many times he'll say it.

• 29:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. This could be a fun thing that I could make money on.

• 29:26Ed Zitron?

  They're carrying, they're like, you could make, you could pay for your coffee with it.

• 29:29Speaker 07

  Yes, yes.

• 29:30Ed Zitron?

  I will admit, my favorite Cowshy story is the one that I'm sure both of you have read where it's, uh, they tried to hire a fifteen year old streamer. And I quote, yo brother, legal team confirmed that we can't work with minors RN. Kind of sad, DBH.

• 29:43Speaker 07

  The RN and the TBH are really the cherry on top.

• 29:46Ed Zitron?

  It's really like, that's yo brother.

• 29:48Speaker 07

  It really just brings it all together.

• 29:49Ed Zitron?

  It really brings it together, but also, you need to watch Running Man because all of this just reminds me of that movie. Just like, just like the, I get your slop in a bowl and bet on whether Trump was, will say a difference, call nuclear the N word. Like, how many times will he do that? And he's done that many times, by the way, I'm not joking.

• 30:08Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 30:08Ed Zitron?

  Which is yet another dystopian thing.

• 30:10Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 30:11Ed Zitron?

  It just. It feels like the actual solution here would be more regulation of banks and also getting rid of all of this. I think sports gambling, I I know you probably can't come out on this directly. But I think sports gambling is like one of the most noxious things because living in Vegas gambling is everywhere, but it's also very, very regulated. Yes, indeed. If you look anything close to twenty one, they will come and card you. Yeah. And they will chase you around like they will follow your up. I'm coming up on forty and they still ID me sometimes. I'm beautiful enough, but um. Yeah, you look, you don't look a day over. I look youthful. Twenty and three hundred and sixty four days. But nevertheless, it's you, it's because they know that gambling is scary and that it's addictive.

• 30:56Ed Zitron?

  And that a win can make you think every other win will happen. Except now it's just you can do it anywhere. You can just do it in everything. Yeah. Phone, you've got every device you can gamble. Ah, there are Instagram accounts. Yes. That that just there's, there's this one with a guy who just dresses up like an old man and has a beer full of bush, uh fridge full of Bush Light and it's just him being like, and he's on a gambling site. Yeah.

• 31:20Speaker 07

  See, that is extremely, extremely bleak. And I think it's, yeah. And I I think that like it is prompting like in the more traditional like so in banking and kind of like. I think it is prompting these bigger questions and kind of existential questions about like, yeah, what is the difference? You know, in what we're doing and and kind of like, what is, like, what are we doing here? I mean, you know, again, it's like, it is, um, going back to the regulation. That is playing out right now, and that is why it's such an interesting conversation where you do have the Trump administration rolling back so many aspects of banking regulation, separate from prediction, you know, forget prediction markets for a minute.

• 31:57Ed Zitron?

  What kind of things?

• 31:58Speaker 07

  Different. Um, so one example is, you know, for years, banks have tried to get regulators to go a little bit. Um, uh, make the stress testing process, you know, again, super important.

• 32:09Ed Zitron?

  What is the stress testing process?

• 32:10Speaker 07

  Where regulators every year will kind of simulate different like disaster scenarios, you know, again, like totally hypothetical. Um, employment shoots up, um, stock market crashes, you know, these hypothetical scenarios. And they test the banks currently like with the amount of capital that a Wells Fargo or JP Morgan has, can you weather this? Can you withstand? They always do very, they always do very well. Um, with caveats, obviously, but you know, they come and say, okay, you know, that could be a weakness. That could be a weakness. Private credit has also introduced an interesting, you know, kind of wrinkle here because it is by definition, there is, you know, kind of this hidden leverage and regulators have talked about that.

• 32:47Ed Zitron?

  But they're not banks, so they don't.

• 32:48Speaker 07

  But they're not banks, correct. And so that's a whole other fascinating, you know, kind of ecosystem where it's like, okay, you are a bank, I'm going to stress test you. You are lending, you bank are Ed Bank, okay, Incorporated, you are going to lend to private credit lender. Okay. But when you lend to there, there's not as much tracking what that, what your borrower is lending to. So and you can see it is hard to track where that money is going.

• 33:15Ed Zitron?

  And I read the other day, I think it was mid, middle of last year, the Boston Fed, I think it was, said that 14% of large banks loans went to private credit and private equity.

• 33:25Speaker 07

  It's a massive, it is a massive chunk and of loan growth overall. And I think that like when you go to, so when you take prediction markets and you kind of take like the current regulatory backdrop, it's like, and adds an interesting wrinkle because it's like, okay, by and large, a lot of the financial regulators are like, yes, we want to be like, the bottom line is they are rolling back like traditional guardrails, you know, like around the banks. But now prediction markets like, okay. And, and that is currently being like, you know, kind of, um, that is being sorted out right now. So we'll see. And like the CFTC, I want to say is like the only regulator, again, it's like the most relevant one here. That's like come out with like some guidance, but it remains to be seen. So,

• 34:08Speaker 07

  you know, we'll, we'll see kind of how the administration handles that.

• 34:11Ed Zitron?

  I just, I feel like right now, this personal opinion not held by the, I guess, I think that there is a massive regulatory problem with lying because right now, I, my favorite example is, uh, OpenAI. So OpenAI signed a deal with AMD, except they didn't. It was just an agreement without any formal contract. AMD has not increased guidance. Oracle, $300 billion deal with OpenAI, can't afford to serve it, don't have the, uh, has to raise debt, data centers aren't built. Um, SK Hynix and OpenAI, Samsung and OpenAI signed a big deal to take forty percent of RAM. Except they didn't. It was a letter of intent. All of these stocks have popped off of these deals.

• 34:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 34:53Ed Zitron?

  Nothing happened. It's very obvious. There was never anything official. There should be regulate because people in the audience might hear this and say, that's not stock manipulation. But what is?

• 35:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 35:07Ed Zitron?

  If that isn't, if that isn't, and people could say, oh, it's marketing.

• 35:11Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 35:11Ed Zitron?

  Oh, we used Weasel words, but it's like, it feels like things like this will lead to outcomes that lose a lot of money.

• 35:20Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 35:20Ed Zitron?

  There's a lot of people, a lot of money. And unless we do something soon, it's only to get, only going to get worse because every time someone like this is not stopped. Someone else does it. They're just like, fuck it. Why would we bother?

• 35:32Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:33Ed Zitron?

  That will lead into the prediction markets as well because you could just start saying whatever.

• 35:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 35:38Ed Zitron?

  But that's actually, that is the biggest thing with prediction. You can just say stuff now.

• 35:41Speaker 06

  There's like a, the, the, the extent to which, uh, the stock market is reliant on like increasingly complicated bits of semantics.

• 35:48Ed Zitron?

  Yes.

• 35:49Speaker 06

  It's like, we've just never, we're at like a semantic, the semantic indexes.

• 35:53Speaker 07

  The asterisk and asterisk and asterisk, like, like totally.

• 35:56Ed Zitron?

  Letter of intent.

• 35:57Speaker 06

  Yeah, like.

• 35:58Ed Zitron?

  Agreement, consideration to.

• 36:00Speaker 06

  They're all deals.

• 36:01Ed Zitron?

  They're, they're deals, they're agreements, but we've not changed guidance. We've not put any money. No one's actually doing anything, but you know, it's, it's just.

• 36:10Speaker 07

  Let's we forget a memorandum of understanding.

• 36:12Ed Zitron?

  Memorandum of understanding. MOUs are the best. I love a good MOU. They mean nothing, but they mean absolutely. Everyone, I love an MOU.

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• 38:43Speaker 09

  Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At The Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.

• 38:57Speaker 10

  People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.

• 39:08Speaker 09

  And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.

• 39:14Speaker 11

  One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.

• 39:19Speaker 09

  So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.

• 39:43Ed Zitron?

  It's frustrating because I am not a particularly sophisticated trader. I may have only recently started putting money in the S and P 500 after, after a period of not, but it's, and that's in an index, by the way, it's.

• 39:59Speaker 07

  Very responsible of you.

• 40:00Ed Zitron?

  Very responsible of me.

• 40:00Speaker 07

  Very responsible.

• 40:01Speaker 06

  But Ed loves the 80 20 portfolio.

• 40:03Speaker 07

  We love diversification.

• 40:04Ed Zitron?

  Here's the thing. My worry is, is that it's very obvious how you manipulate these markets and without regulations to stop people, it's only going to get more ridiculous. You're just going to get CEOs that say things to create a market, possibly creating them themselves. And if they're a private company, that's not illegal, I believe?

• 40:25Speaker 06

  Yeah. So when we talk about like, mention markets are a good example of where I think a lot of the like manipulation concerns are. So a mention market is like, um, okay, during this podcast, will Ed say fuckwit? We're like, we're betting on that.

• 40:42Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Speaker 06

  Like that.

• 40:43Ed Zitron?

  That's a good one.

• 40:43Speaker 07

  The odds are high.

• 40:44Speaker 06

  The odds are high. You just did it. Okay.

• 40:47Ed Zitron?

  I resolved the fuckwit bet.

• 40:49Speaker 07

  I won.

• 40:50Speaker 06

  Yeah. So like, will Caroline Levitt at the next White House press conference say the word China?

• 40:56Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 40:57Speaker 06

  People, these are mention markets. So we're literally just betting on the words that will come out of someone's mouth.

• 41:02Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 41:03Speaker 06

  So a very high profile example of this is Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong.

• 41:10Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 06

  You know, at the end of an earnings call, there was a Polly market, mention market for what will Brian Armstrong say on the earnings call? And at the end, you know, literally like right before the like moderator was like, thanks for joining everyone. Like right before he's like, oh, someone just handed me the Polly market for what I'm going to say. So I'll just get through all these, uh, you know, Bitcoin, Web three, just like went down the list and like paid all of them off. Right? So.

• 41:38Speaker 06

  He has come out and said that he was not trading on that market or involved in any way. But like, we are opening ourselves up to like new ways that we can like manipulate markets.

• 41:49Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 41:50Speaker 06

  Insider trade. And like, when we create a market for everything and everything can become a bet, more people than ever can become insider traders because there's just so much more things to insider trade on.

• 42:03Ed Zitron?

  Well, here's a question. How do you, how much is necessary to create a market? Like, what, how much money does it require?

• 42:12Speaker 06

  This is a good question. So, um, Polly Market PR has told me that the primary criteria for if a market can be created, because they, they field suggestions from their users.

• 42:25Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 42:25Speaker 06

  The primary, um, criteria is if there's evidence of demand for the yes side and the no side.

• 42:32Ed Zitron?

  Right.

• 42:32Speaker 06

  That's it.

• 42:33Ed Zitron?

  What is evidence in this case?

• 42:34Speaker 06

  Um, you know, if there's activity on Twitter about it, if people in the Discord are like, please, I want to bet on this. It seems pretty ad hoc. I don't have much more detail than that because they did not give me more detail.

• 42:47Ed Zitron?

  I imagine they don't need to.

• 42:48Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:49Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 42:49Speaker 06

  Um.

• 42:50Ed Zitron?

  So it's not money?

• 42:51Speaker 06

  It's, I mean, it's just like evidence of trading demand, right? And then they'll open it and then people can start betting on it, right?

• 42:58Ed Zitron?

  But you don't have to, they don't have to be so.

• 43:00Speaker 06

  They don't have to be like, alright, you all have $500 ready to go on this? Like, there's nothing like that. Like, there's just, as long as, um, they can see that people will want to trade on it, they will make it.

• 43:11Ed Zitron?

  Makes sense.

• 43:11Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 07

  And that kind of goes to the question of just like thinly, like with banks, like thinly regulated versus not. Or thinly traded, excuse me, versus not, right? It goes to the question of like, when banks look at something, they're like, we can't make a market out of like, you know, trading on this one sports game.

• 43:27Speaker 06

  This one thing that has like $200,000 in volume. Like, there's just no way that like, a huge bank is ever going to like, yeah, you just open yourself up to so much.

• 43:36Speaker 07

  So it goes back to that.

• 43:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 43:37Ed Zitron?

  Yeah. I mean, also, I guess banks, I didn't even think of that, but yeah, banks wouldn't want to touch it because there's not enough money in it.

• 43:44Speaker 07

  I think it's when I think of like a thinly traded like stock.

• 43:47Ed Zitron?

  Well, liquidity.

• 43:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, exactly. It just goes back to liquidity and like the volatility and like if banks can find a way to make money on something legally, they will.

• 43:56Ed Zitron?

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 43:57Speaker 07

  They will. And so it's I, you know, you could see a world in which, and I'm not saying like there is no regulatory framework that would allow this. No, I'm not saying that because in the future, in the future, you could see it like, who knows what that could look like. And so the banks are just like, okay, we're gonna like wait for the regulators to say something. But like, it comes to a question of also like internal enforcement, like banks all have like very, um, very clear, you know, kind of rules around insider trading. Someone has non-public information. Um, if you trade on that, you will be fired. Like, you know, that's very like well-worn, you know, kind of like, but now with prediction markets, how do you enforce that? It is hard. And so banks are like actively, and again, I'm just like talking about banks specifically.

• 44:41Speaker 07

  You could also talk about like tech companies, healthcare companies, whatever. But banks where like we have talked about this a lot, like being this nexus of the markets and they do have a lot of information that, you know, okay, that's different from someone in another sector, like how does a compliance team enforce that? That is an open like question right now that banks are like actively figuring out. And it's a really interesting question of compliance and enforcement, you know, internally.

• 45:04Ed Zitron?

  It's just, it feels like the walls are breaking down around everything. Cause before we do the prep call for this, we talk about analysts, for example, and I named someone. I'm not going to name people on this just for professional reasons, but people know who I mean.

• 45:17Speaker 07

  We're very professional.

• 45:18Ed Zitron?

  We're all very professional. I never say fuck. Um, but there are these, I named someone and you were like, that's not an analyst.

• 45:25Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 45:25Ed Zitron?

  And it's becoming obvious that because they're on CNBC, they're on Bloomberg. It's like, you've got these people pretending to be analysts. You've got these entities like private credit pretending to be banks. You've got. Prediction markets, but they need to be stocked. Yeah. It just feels like the walls are being torn down. And I, I know that this is gonna, people aren't gonna like this. I don't think most people should have access to the stock market or gambling. I think that they are dangerous. And I think, or at least, they should be regulated in such a way that it's less dangerous. Hmm. Not just open season. Yeah. And then every third guy on Twitter is like, I'm an analyst. Mate, you are a poster.

• 46:01Speaker 07

  Well, that's the interesting question. And I mean, like, I couldn't help but think in that moment of journalism.

• 46:05Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 46:06Speaker 07

  I mean, like, obviously, okay, there are journalists and writers. And then there are like, people who do not have the same, are not held to the same standards. And that's a whole other conversation. But like with analysts, yeah, totally. I mean, like, it's, there are very clear, kind of like, you are regulated by FINRA, which is the self-regulated, you know, they're a regulator and they regulator, they regulate the brokerage industry and like any quote, sell-side analyst. So like, you know, an analyst who is, again, held to these standards, like industry standards of disclosures and like conflict of interest and things like that, like that is quote, an analyst. Yeah, you can be an, of course, there are like other ways, but like, that you can be an analyst and that is legitimate in like another sector or like another, like, on the buy side, okay, fine, that's all legitimate.

• 46:50Speaker 07

  But there are certain standards that you're held to if you're like, for example, you know, like a FINRA analyst. And like, that's not always-

• 46:56Ed Zitron?

  Capital A analyst.

• 46:57Speaker 07

  Capital A analyst. And that's not always clear to like, a viewer of CNBC.

• 47:00Ed Zitron?

  This is actually a question. What is a sell-side analyst? Because I have listeners who have asked this before and I realize I haven't really defined it myself very well and you would know.

• 47:08Speaker 07

  For sure. Um, you're at a brokerage, something like a brokerage inside a big bank? Or you're just like a standalone kind of brokerage? Um, a Morgan Stanley, uh, great, great example. They have their investment bank. And that's like, okay, they have their bankers over here and on the other side. And it's not this simple, but like on the other side, you have the sell side. And that is, um, these analysts who are, uh, writing research reports. They are held to FINRA Rule 2241, I think, section six. Or 2241. Go Google it. That covers everything that like a sell-side analyst must be held to. They are on the sell side versus the buy side. So they are selling, um, you know, like research and, you know, versus like they're not managing a fund, right?

• 47:52Speaker 07

  Like they are, um, giving information, they're issuing a buy, hold, sell. They are giving price targets. They are looking at financial models. They are in a different spot than again, someone on the buy side that is like

• 48:05Ed Zitron?

  What does the sell part mean?

• 48:07Speaker 07

  Selling, selling research, selling, uh, selling knowledge and wisdom. I don't know how the SEC defines that. I'll be very clear. And it's kind of like, I mean, it's kind of outdated at this point. You know, it's almost like an antiquated thing, sell side versus buy high. Just, just kind of how like a wire house, like that's a very antiquated way of saying like a big wealth manager.

• 48:26Ed Zitron?

  The biggest thing that's getting me at the moment, and I'm not naming anyone specific for, for professional reasons. But why is it that these analysts always set these massive targets? And don't seem to be affected by reality? Because there is a non-specific prominent data center analyst who quite literally went out on television yesterday and said the oracle was a goodbye. And it was that it's actually better when you look at the report. This is factually incorrect. It's not even an opinion thing. The sell side analysts always seem very positive. Even when reality isn't reflecting that, shouldn't they know better? Is there a reason they would be more positive in general? Not talking about this person.

• 49:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, I mean, it's like, this is like one of my favorite issues. It's just, it's really fascinating because it kind of speaks to like this proliferation of like, anyone can put out research and like anyone can kind of like a lowercase a analyst versus capital A analyst. I think that the thing to always go back to is, you know, 2001, I think 2002, new regulations were put in, you know, spearheaded by Elliot Spitzer, who was the New York AG at the time. After, you know, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, um, put, you know, certain analysts had put out research that were like, was super bullish and was total mismatch to how they were privately describing Amazon. You know, Henry Blodgett famously, um, you know, put out a report banned from the industry. That's all well, you know, chronicled.

• 49:53Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 49:53Speaker 07

  All new regulations were put in place around, from security regulators around like, okay.

• 50:00Speaker 07

  You are an analyst, okay, you have to include all sorts of new disclosures, which is great, I mean, you know, and again, it's a very high standard.

• 50:07Ed Zitron?

  What could a disclosure be?

• 50:08Speaker 07

  A member of my household, I think the language is something like me or a member of my household owns a security in XYZ or something like that. And also, you know, kind of these charts you'll see at the bottom of a report where it shows the stock price, like a Apple, for example, the stock price relative to like where their price target is, to hold them accountable for like, you know, kind of what that's looking like and.

• 50:34Ed Zitron?

  But that would require someone to hold them accountable.

• 50:36Speaker 07

  Yes, exactly. And analysts are like, by and large, I mean, there's plenty of data on this, but like, they are a very like bullish group. I mean, it, the data, if you just look at buy, hold, sell, like, they continue to be that. And, and the whole industry has really evolved where, you know, and this is a whole other conversation, we talked about this a little bit, but like, people should be aware that like corporate access is, you know, just a much bigger part of the analyst job and all that.

• 51:05Ed Zitron?

  When you say corporate access, what do you mean?

• 51:06Speaker 07

  Yeah, like, you're an analyst at a, again, a Morgan Stanley or a UBS, and just to call out two random ones, you, your clients, like a hedge fund investor, you know, like a big institutional investor, access to the management team of the company that I cover as an analyst. So I'm covering, I'm covering the, you know, I'm a healthcare analyst and I'm covering Johnson and Johnson, and like, I can connect, you know, like the investor who's reading my research with the CFO of Johnson and Johnson. I'm just calling out random companies.

• 51:39Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the example.

• 51:41Speaker 07

  But it's that connection, it's that like link and it's, well, it's access, it's just access.

• 51:44Ed Zitron?

  That feels, that feels like a bad thing, like that doesn't feel like it benefits.

• 51:52Speaker 07

  It is definitely, you know, it's one of these things that analysts have to manage. And like these, one of these, and I don't want to call it a conflict because it's not inherently a conflict, but it is another kind of piece of the job that frankly, and there are many fantastic analysts out there who do manage that well and put out, you know, have great relationships, but put out critical research, you know, substantive research and you just have to manage that. And there are many fantastic analysts who do, but I even said it's not unlike sometimes being a beat reporter where you have to maintain just like good working relationships with the people you cover, even if you're going to say an accurate, but like critical, fair thing. And then you just have to like move on. Again, very different from

• 52:34Speaker 07

  the role of an analyst, you know, but it is, there are similarities.

• 52:38Ed Zitron?

  I don't know if it's different.

• 52:38Speaker 07

  There are similarities.

• 52:40Speaker 06

  I just wait, I just want to make sure I have it clear.

• 52:42Speaker 07

  Please, please.

• 52:43Speaker 06

  Right. So a sell-side analyst writes reports about companies in a certain sector and puts those reports out publicly and disseminates them to other banks, et cetera. And then hedge funds can go to the analyst and say, I want your specific research that you've done on these companies. And also can you introduce me to their management team?

• 53:03Speaker 07

  That's part of the offering. Exactly.

• 53:05Speaker 06

  I see. And therefore to be able to connect clients to management and make money for your firm, you have to, maybe you have to be a little more positive in your report on that firm than you normally would in order to be able to connect your clients with them. That's it?

• 53:23Speaker 07

  That would be the cynical take, absolutely. But the very fair criticism, I would say, yes, absolutely.

• 53:30Ed Zitron?

  I don't think that should be legal. I do not think, I don't think it should be legal.

• 53:35Speaker 07

  Cynical take, but, but, but it is, it's just like a feature that, and again, they're like excellent, excellent, excellent analysts who just like manage that.

• 53:43Ed Zitron?

  That's why we're being non-specific.

• 53:44Speaker 07

  And we're being, but, and who just manage that. And it's just like being, and again, yes, okay, there are differences, but it is not unlike. Um, you write a tough story on a company, you are fair, and then you gotta move on, and then you gotta like move on, you know what I mean?

• 53:58Ed Zitron?

  But the thing is, I don't know.

• 53:59Speaker 07

  I know, I know.

• 54:00Ed Zitron?

  I think access journalism is bullshit, and I think we're in the beginning of history, as I wrote.

• 54:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 54:04Ed Zitron?

  Last week, it, it is, it's no longer useful to do access. Access journalism doesn't work, it doesn't get you anything. If a PR firm or a PR person at a company doesn't answer your question because they're mad at you, that's their fucking problem. This is not the opinion of my guests, this is just me. I just, when you told me this for the first time on the pre-call, I was kind of, I sat and thought about it a lot, because it's like, you don't have to agree with me here. It feels antithetical to good analysis to be like, well, I can't be too mean, especially when your job is, hey, should I invest in this? And it's like, well, you maybe should, because I gotta, I gotta get you the company, I gotta make sure the company,

• 54:43Ed Zitron?

  fuck that. I, I don't know. This is the thing, though, gets back to my wider feeling about the stock market. It's like, that feels rigged. It feels like you've got analysts who go on CNBC, Bloomberg, and I'm sure people will say, oh, Bloomberg, real traders use the terminal, whatever, but it's like, the growth of retail investors is what makes this dangerous to me. The fact that it's the easiest time ever to invest in stocks. If I felt like buying a stock right now, I could do so in a few taps.

• 55:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:11Ed Zitron?

  If that's the case, having, or that should be the disclosure, here's a, here's a good centrist path. I think that they should have to write down every introduction they've made. They should say every time, every time they've introduced a hedge fund, and they don't even need to name them, there's the same made introduction on this date. That way we could see, because, ooh, I bet there'd be a lot of them.

• 55:33Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 55:33Ed Zitron?

  Also.

• 55:34Speaker 07

  I'm, I'm getting all new ideas for FOIA requests.

• 55:36Ed Zitron?

  Do it.

• 55:37Speaker 07

  Not that they would be, not that I, many would actually fall into that at all, because it's all private sector. But that's, you know, like, but I'm just, I'm just getting ideas, I'm just getting ideas, again, totally different, but.

• 55:47Ed Zitron?

  No, but this is the thing.

• 55:48Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:48Ed Zitron?

  This is what good journalism is, because it's like, these messy little lines between information that are not disclosed.

• 55:54Speaker 07

  Exactly.

• 55:55Ed Zitron?

  And it wouldn't be as big a deal if they disclosed this stuff, but.

• 56:00Ed Zitron?

  Also, the term analyst is used very vaguely these days.

• 56:04Speaker 07

  Totally.

• 56:05Ed Zitron?

  And the term-

• 56:05Speaker 07

  It's confusing to people.

• 56:06Ed Zitron?

  Citrini Research, for example.

• 56:08Speaker 07

  Right.

• 56:08Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:09Ed Zitron?

  Oh, my God, did you see that?

• 56:10Speaker 07

  People who are, for example, again, get to the heart of people who are like held to an industry, you know, regulated industry standard that like is very like closely held, closely watched versus not.

• 56:20Ed Zitron?

  Yeah.

• 56:21Speaker 07

  Um, that's a perfect example.

• 56:23Ed Zitron?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 56:23Speaker 07

  Perfect example.

• 56:24Ed Zitron?

  All right, I think we're gonna wrap it there. We've had a great time. Where can we find you two?

• 56:28Speaker 06

  Um, I'm on X at nickdever underscore, or you can check out my newly launched website, nickdever.com.

• 56:35Speaker 07

  That you vibe-coded and it's beautiful.

• 56:36Speaker 06

  Sorry, don't cancel me, Ed. I can't believe you outed me at the end.

• 56:40Ed Zitron?

  I'm gonna vibe-

• 56:41Speaker 06

  That I literally used-

• 56:42Speaker 07

  Fuck!

• 56:42Speaker 06

  Fuck! Never mind. Uh, or barrons.com.

• 56:45Ed Zitron?

  Yes.

• 56:45Speaker 07

  You can find me on barrons.com.

• 56:47Ed Zitron?

  All right, everyone, you can find me, of course, where's your ed at, betteroffline.com, this podcast that you're already listening to. We'll have a monologue later in the week. Thank you all.

• 56:56Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 57:05Ed Zitron?

  Thank you for listening to Better Offline. The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song is Matt Osowski. You can check out more of his music and audio projects at mattosowski.com. M A T T O S O W S K I dot com. You can email me at [email protected] or visit betteroffline.com to find more podcast links and of course my newsletter. I also really recommend you go to chat dot where's your ed dot at to visit the Discord and go to r slash betteroffline to check out our Reddit. Thank you so much for listening.

• 57:37Speaker 08

  Better Offline is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 58:10Speaker 02

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