All right, Kathy's, we are back with another episode of Group Chat.
We're coming in hot. We have a huge meeting happening right now in China, California,
aka San Francisco. The red carpet, and I mean red, communist red carpet that San Francisco is
rolling out for Xi Jinping is out of control. One, we talked about the cleanup already.
The whole city is beautiful, you know, Gavin News, I'm just getting roasted for the,
yeah, of course, you know, we cleaned it up for this guy. Today, Biden and Xi Jinping are meeting
right now. Yeah, so Xi came to San Francisco last yesterday afternoon. I watched the rival
in Bloomberg. Yeah. It's very ceremonial. Obviously. And the military was greeting him.
What I thought was actually funny is, you know, there's like a whole army of SUVs and
bulletproof cars. And obviously the one that he's in, there's two Chinese guys that run next
to the car like secret service. Yeah, there's secret service. And they run only for like 10, 20
feet, and then they disappear. Okay. And that's on the tarmac. So what do you think the security
protocol is like, is it just to show off like, hey, I have these two Chinese guys running?
Because what are they preventing? Because they stopped after 10 feet. Yeah, I mean, I think a
little bit of a showmanship, a little bit of is just some protocol that they probably do in China.
And they're just, they just have to recreate it. The amount of logistics that probably took to
get him to San Francisco. Yeah. From a security perspective, I taught, I had to zoom actually with
someone in San Francisco this morning, he said it's a complete disaster. Yeah.
She's actually meeting Biden right now in Woodside, Cal, San Francisco or Woodside, Northern
California. Yeah. Friend and lives there said there's arm guards everywhere. Yeah. Arm guards
at the coffee shop, arm guards at the restaurants. Well, I mean, it's the two most powerful people on
Earth. And everyone's making fun of the US for doing the parade where he like drove through San
Francisco and the Chinese National Anthem. Yeah. Was blaring a little ridiculous.
It was pre-negotiated. Yeah. These are how these meetings happen.
So if you're on the line, if I'm going to come here, come to the US, I'm going to come to San Francisco.
It's already like bedding the knee because he hasn't been here in six years. Yeah.
So they're like, we need, we need some concessions. Yeah. You got to make it look like you're kissing
your ass. Yes. Yeah. So I still think it's a massive deal. So she showed up to San Francisco.
Yeah. G these are the first early highlights of the conversation.
G tells Biden protectionism is weighing on global economy. So that's clearly he's saying that
it's affecting Chinese trade. G tells Biden planet Earth is big enough for both countries to succeed.
That's amazing. G tells Biden, US China should be fully capable of climbing above differences.
And lastly, he says they should have a they shoulder heavy responsibility for
world and history. So it's pretty like it's a pretty monumental meeting in my opinion because
all we've heard is that we're at the brink of war with China. Yeah. I mean, if we're at
an information war, we know that we've been talking about that. They're spying on us. We're spying
on them. But they know they're the only two countries that matter. Yeah. And you both need each other.
There's only two economies that matter. I would say India is like India. I never was a believer in
India. India is 20 years ago from where China was. Yeah. I would say take it. I mean, because technology
exists, it's going to happen faster. I think it's 10 years. Yeah. I think it's 10 years. It
divided by two. But if you look at where they are right now, they're probably 20 years behind
that they'll make up. But the middle class in India is happening so fast, which is what change
China, right? Consumption change China. All of a sudden their middle class had money. They were
buying real estate. They were buying clothes. They were traveling. That's happening in India now.
But yeah, I mean, look, this meeting is very important for world. And even conceded on
fentanyl. He's like, we need to work on that. We need to stop killing your people. Yeah.
That has got to be a lot tougher because he would have to just clamp down on 100%. He can't just
let some fentanyl come into the market. I think he'll just crack down on like 30% of their cartels.
Yeah. So if we see reduction opioids, yeah, you would have to see a mega reduction for me to
believe anything was done. Not 10%. I'm talking. The, the laws could drop at 10%. Like the real
thing is going to be. And honestly, everyone has been scared of China invading Taiwan. The fact
that G showing up. That's probably off the table in the near term. Yeah. I don't think there's
that threat anymore. There's probably, I don't know what was discussed regarding Russia, Ukraine,
because I would say that is a matter that everyone's discussing. There's no indication of their
opinions on what's happening in Israel and Gaza. I didn't see any opinions on that yet.
The one thing that did come out of, I guess, one of the reporters asked Biden and the White House
in general that they are confirming that the hospital in question is where Hamas is located.
So if the US is acknowledging that, then that means the IDF is just going to go after it.
Full force. If US is saying yes, they're there. Yeah. I mean, I think they were looking for that
dating back to Bill Clinton. They're speeches that are coming up resurfacing from like 2016,
where he said, this is how they work. Yeah. So I think, but I think Israel needed that cover
to continue doing what they're doing. Otherwise, they're going to continue to get backlash, too.
But I think this gives them, it's true. This is what's happening. And so they have the ability
now to go full force. So look, politically, there are a lot of things that are very scary right now,
but between what's happening in Israel, what's happening in Russia, Ukraine, and a lot of people
China's kind of loosely involved with everything, too, like how the US is loosely involved with
everything. So I think it'll be really, I'm curious to see, I'm sure there's private discussions
and public discussions, but what are the discussions happening privately? Because there is a lot of
like war stuff going on. Yeah, but I do think this meeting, for me at least, is a big relief.
Because that's the elephant in the room in the world. Obviously, there's terrible things going
on in the Middle East. There's terrible things going on in Russia, Ukraine, but if US and China were
to be in an immense conflict, the whole world ends. Yeah. And him showing up after Putin went to China,
you know, less than two months ago. Yeah. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. And it's of all the
turmoil that's going on. I think it's comforting that the two most important countries in the world
are trying to work together. Yeah, that's great. It's exciting. And it's great timing. And it shows,
honestly, a few things, forget militarily, China's economy is in the shambles. Yes, that is,
and she had to show up to basically fix his economy. Yeah, because one is the Trump tariffs
are still in place. That's not been repealed. That is a problem still to this day. Like, that should
be off the table now. It's only going to help the America. You want deflation. Fucking get rid of
tariffs for a year. Yeah. You'll get insane product coming into this country. I can't wait to
read however the event was because it all released the photos. Yeah. Whatever's happening right
now and tonight. Yeah. Like, where's he staying at Google that I couldn't find it? Maybe he's not
staying in, he's not, may not be staying. He got in yesterday. Oh, the meetings today.
I used to call you at their offices founder of Sequoia's house. They're big China.
Yes, Sequoia's huge in China. So I just googled it. She's staying at the St. Regis in San Francisco.
Oh, downtown, downtown. That's a horrible neighborhood. They cleaned it up for him though.
You know how dangerous that area was or is. Yeah. Well, obviously there's a 50 million
arm guards there. What are you going to do? Yeah. I've been to that hotel.
All right. Let's move on to other big news. Prices are officially falling.
There was a producer price index and wholesale index. All of it showed a decline in the month of
October. There's a chart here on CNBC showing the deflation that's happening in certain categories.
Eggs. Down of it. 22%. Butter. Down 3.7%. Fresh fish and seafood. Down 3.6%.
Whole milks down. Cheese is down. Fresh, fresh and frozen chicken parts are down. Energy.
Fuel oil down 21%. Yeah, they said 80% of the producer price index is consists of gasoline prices.
And so we saw the drop happen in what the latter part of October is when gas started tumbling.
And November, it's continued to tumble. So you should see a pretty big decline in prices in
November. And then gasoline itself went down 5.6%, which is annoying because fuels down 20%,
but gas is only down 5%. And the CPI cooled off. Yeah. So it was expected 3.3%
inflation. It was 3.2. Health insurance is saying it's down 34%. I do not know where that's
coming from. That I do not believe. That seems like rot. That health insurance is doing. Yeah,
let's push it. Who is paying less health insurance? But I think from the economy perspective,
just if you think about the stock market, so stock market and real economy are completely different,
the Fed's neutered. Yeah. So now the markets are pricing in a Fed cut in the first half of next year.
So they're betting on a March cut and they're betting on 1% next year.
Uh, there's a UBS analyst that thinks 2.5% next year. Cut. Well, I mean, that's just,
that's just, that's building your book. So March, I think it's like a 30, 40%
anticipation, like the odds market. I don't believe in March at all. So, but the first half,
so I call it June, they're saying it's baked in. There's a cut. What the cut is is 25 is at 50
basis points, but it has a massive impact because real estate becomes investible again
if rates start coming down. You saved the real estate market. You saved the real estate market.
And the stock market, we love, love is no interest. Love's low interest. So what we, what I've realized
in my adulthood is nothing matters in the real economy and it pertains to the stock market.
All it matters is interest rates. Yeah. So the market ripped this week, yeah, solely based on
this odds market saying the feds neutered. It's insane. The markets on fire, markets on fire. And I
think you're going to see like a 15, 20% jump next year with rates coming down. Yeah. I, I think
I find it hard to believe March will have an interest rate cut. If March happens, holy shit. Yeah.
I think the only way March happens, I think all the inflation targets are going to hit.
I think on March happens if the real estate market is just like single-family homes collapse
for some reason, like that will scare. I don't think commercial real estate scares the fed. They
don't give a shit. No, they don't care because it's a very niche group that it affects. Exactly.
So they don't care about that. I think if single-family homes get affected, like you start seeing
price decreases in the big markets, then I think the Fed does it. Otherwise, I think summer,
they have to, they have no choice. They'll have to do it. What the Fed accomplished by
raising interest rates as quickly as they did because they've created regional banks,
regional banks are not in the business of what they're supposed to be doing. Meaning they're not
deploying capital. They're not able to raise loans because it's a function of deposits. So you need
a lot of deposits and then based on the regulations, you're allowed to loan against those deposits.
Yeah. All they've done is created King Jamie Diamond because he's the only one with, like,
I was trying to think about it. If you're a rich guy, a rich company with a lot of cash outside
a tech because I know Silicon Valley Bank has there a lot of favorable stuff they do for tech
companies. Why would you put your money in a regional bank? Because they can't even
loan anymore. Yeah, there's no point. With interest rates at the way they are,
because how they got rich people to go to regional banks is to give favorable loans
for apartments and buildings that you wanted to buy that JP Morgan and Wells Fargo wouldn't do.
Now that's off the table. So I would assume there's just going to be a bleed of deposits
away from regional banks because there's no incentive. Well, if the interest rates go down,
I think it'll change overnight. I think the party starts fast. So they start giving the
ridiculous loans they used to? That will never change. Like once the interest rates go down,
everyone's feeling good. It's probably 18 months away though. Maybe because that's to go down
significantly. If you only cut a point next year, points a lot, but for a regional bank,
because they're not attracting deposits. Like if you came in, let's say you sold your company
and you had a, we're just making up numbers, a $250 million windfall. Where are you banking?
With Jamie fucking diamond. Exactly. That's my point. $250 million in fucking Pac West.
That's my point. But I think, but I think the where you get, they'd be like, I'll get you that
$50 million house. Give you $49 million loan. Yes. And then do it. That's what First Republic did.
First Republic took care of the wealthy people. People have 0% loans from First Republic
just to get them to give their deposits. So maybe, I don't know, I've never had money like that.
Fuck, maybe I'm, maybe I'm with Pac West. They're like, here's zero down. Here's a $50 million
house. Do whatever you want. Yeah. That's how they got all the deposits. Yeah. Maybe I'm a regional
bank guy. Yeah. Hopefully you sell your business and I can't wait to see where you bank.
It's like one of those like chop chop banks. Like I went one branch and like friends know
the farmers bank. Yeah. I'm sure they're just handing that loans.
That's amazing. Really, really, really interesting. So I've had a Delta American Express card
for 21 years. I don't know why. I think I was at an airport right out of college. And they were like,
Hey, if you sign up for this credit card, we're like upgrade to today. Something crazy.
You know, it was like, it was a time when airports were not busy. That's what I remember. And
I signed up and I sporadically used the card, you know, in probably my first 10 years of
having the card. And then maybe the last three with five years, I actually started using the
card because that was exclusively flying Delta. So I saw like the benefits of getting points
and miles and whatever. So I'm a loyal Delta American Express holder. Sounds like
nearly everyone else is. The spending on Delta's American Express card is nearly one percent
of the entire US gross domestic product. Delta collects nearly seven billion in revenue from
American Express on this card. That's nearly equal to the amount the airline generated from
flying passengers in 2022. What's the hit 10 billion? What? What's the hit 10 billion? So the long
term goal is to get the 10 billion in fees from the card. Yeah. And that will equal once they
hit 10 billion. Yeah. That's insane. So it's just profit. It's just profit. So the airlines just
are marketing because airlines don't make money. There's like sub five percent margins.
So it's just a marketing angle to get you to use their credit card because that's where the profit
is. Yeah. And people that use these cards to be clear, once you get a lot of points,
unless you're those like million point users, it's just completely useless. I have whatever
the highest status is, platinum, medallion, diamond, medallion, whatever the fucking highest thing is,
I have it. And you still don't book a coach flight to get upgraded because you don't get upgraded.
Yeah. Like I mean, I, if I go to San Francisco, maybe I get upgraded. If it's a short flight,
I don't pay for, you know, but LA and New York searchers, I've never tried it and the flights I take
are actually inexpensive because they're red eyes, like the business class is relatively inexpensive.
If I were to fly like the four PM, those are like four grand, where it's like substantially
cheaper. It's like 50, 60, 70 percent cheaper. If you fly like shitty times, I take the six AM
out of JFK. Yeah. Business people don't want to work. No, they want to chairman. Yeah, the chairman
for the 10 AM. Yeah, 10 AM, you lose the whole work day. That's what they want.
Sell right into dinner, sell right into dinner cocktails.
But man, it really makes you think about like in all of these major businesses, where do the
profits really come from? Like they're like hustling to run this airline. I think you're
sitting seven billion of cash. I mean, even Amazon from forget the cloud business, the margins
and the ads business. Yeah. It's growing like crazy. Yeah. That's full margin.
Well, I think there's a saying in marketplaces is basically every market place's goal is to be
an ad business, right? Like you have that much traffic. Just get the traffic and get the, yeah,
you need a critical mess. But holy shit, that's unbelievable. Yeah, I would have never guessed that.
Yeah. But why Delta? Does that mean the United card is doing the same? I think,
yeah, I mean, I, because United and Delta, I would guess are similar in volume. I think United
has not an AMEX like a chase or I see a lot of people with it when they pay for shit.
But this is like unbelievable. It's fascinating, fascinating. They also,
because I had to book a few flights and they try to scam you and check out to make you get the card.
So you can get 20% off the flight. Yeah. It works. I'm sure it works. I don't know. Do you have any
people book trip insurance? Yeah, people sign up every day for trips. Have you ever tried to
redeem money from an insurance claim that you like, so bought insurance, missed the flight.
You're apparently I've never bought insurance. So I bought insurance on a flight that I knew
was 50, 50, whether we could go. And we couldn't go. It was a lot of money. Yeah. It took
four to six months to get the money back. Yeah, the joke. And you had to keep giving paperwork,
paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. And they now taunt you because I don't book flights like you do.
But the last few flights, they say, whoa, when you say no insurance,
literally put whoa with the exclamation point. I want to scare you. Try to scare you to give them
the insurance money. That's predatory. It is predatory. Like, how can you say, whoa?
Yeah. Glory, black rob. None of the Gen Zs and again, that reference. I think that should be
that should be some sort of consumer protection. Yeah. Just say, okay, cool. You don't want insurance.
Yeah. I mean, I agree. I think it's, it's rough. I mean, obviously, we are not running Delta. So
can't help them there. But every airline doesn't. Yeah. The other day, I booked United
to go to San Francisco. And then the flight was like 150 bucks. And then we went to go select the
seats. This is to go to San Francisco. To select any seat, I had to pay $25 to see
any seat. I'm like, I'll take any seat. You charge me $25 to see
fucking nuts. And they still can't make money. With a credit card.
All right, moving on. I think the big news is really that oil is tumbling. I actually think it's
like mega news that it's tumbling. The big thing that everyone is, I think I'm surprised,
surprised by the most is Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran are cutting oil production. United States
grew its export of oil, grew the production of oil. And the prices keep dropping. So
and everyone even says that in China is now starting to see demand back. But it's still
pretty predominantly weak. So we may have escaped like a serious oil shock or it's temporary.
We don't know. It's not the cold winter yet. So we'll have to see how that plays out. But
the fact that oil is just not an impact on pricing right now is like it's kind of mind boggling
to me. That means demand is so low in the global economy. Like I think if we think US is slow,
like Japan contracted in the last quarter, GDP. Yeah, China's GDP is fake, but so they contracted.
So imagine what it really was. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, it's it's a I mean, if they're cutting supply,
it's interesting because the economies are still relatively strong. America definitely.
We don't know what's happening in the rest of the world. That's true. We don't have a sense of
what's really happening. I could tell you that like early indications that consumer spending
in the Middle East has softened because of everything that's happened there. Like there is tension
there. And you can't ship to Russia unless you want to use random countries that have ties.
Yeah, it makes sense. I guess demands soft because you have like now two regions of the world
that you can't really ship to. Yep, exactly. And they're forecasting it so they have to cut the
prices. Yeah, exactly. And then the fact that they're just aggressively cutting
supply means that they're worried that demand is so weak that the prices are going to collapse.
Did you see that a container that was carrying liquid natural gas, they paid four million bucks
to jump the line in the Panama Canal to get through? Yeah, I heard about it. I didn't follow
the story because you can't have it not stored properly long enough so the container would just be
worthless. And I didn't know you could just pay to jump the line. You could pay to jump
any line. I know you can like privately. I didn't know it was going to be so you could publicly do
that. I mean, yeah, I don't maybe it wasn't intended to be public. But yes, you can jump the line
anywhere in life. That is a big takeaway. But why is the Panama Canal jammed up still?
Is it? I mean, if this company had to pay four million bucks, I think there's just a line
generally in Panama Canal. I don't know if it's like any more worse than it normally is.
We should ask Pete Buttigieg. What happened that guy? Is that right? They kind of side-lined him.
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's an idiot. Yeah. What are you going to let that guy?
By the way, it was going to be my loser the week, but it's such an important topic
that I want to address it before we move on to winners lose content.
In LA, as of Saturday, so if you live in LA, you know what's happening. If you don't live in LA,
let me explain it to you. The 10 freeway. The 10 freeway is basically, if you think about
downtown as the heart of the city, like literally a heart, and there are valves that go into a heart.
I feel like it's the way to get to downtown from Santa Monica is the 10 freeway.
The way to go. The entire west side of LA flows through the 10 freeway to get to downtown.
And there's so many millions of people that live between the ocean and downtown.
And there's other arteries. There's like the 101. There's, you know,
there's on the other side, there's the 60 and 5 and all these ways to get to downtown LA.
And even beyond beyond. I mean, the 10 goes across the whole country.
It goes to Florida. Yeah. Yeah. So let me tell you something, if you're in Santa Monica today and
you want to go to Florida, you can't. Okay. The entire booking freeway is closed because of the
fire that happened over the weekend that was clearly started by a homeless encampment. They're
calling it arson. No one, no one set the fire to fuck up the freeway. No, they set fire to,
they were probably trying to keep warm and burn this damn structure to the ground.
They then came out and said that it's three to five weeks to fix.
Do you understand the cost, the productivity loss? Do you know how bad the traffic was in LA
last night? I couldn't go fucking mile. The freeway, the roads are, we're not even close. We're
eight miles away to go home. Yes, it took me 30 minutes. Every street going, you know,
depending on the flow of traffic. So like going east at night is so slammed. It's insane.
All this to say is that people don't realize the secondary impact of just bad policy.
Like on the homelessness front, like I'm begging G to make a stop in LA tomorrow. Yeah, we say
that. Just do a little drive by. Quick drive by because look at the impact. The homeless and
homeless encampment. Do you know how many people have to leave for work early, are going to be late
to work, late to drop off their kids, childcare issues, how much more time we're all going to sit
in the cars. This is costing $10 billion. Our friend who lives in Calabasis to get West Hollywood.
I've done the drive. It's probably typically 45 minutes to 55 minutes. He said, took an hour and a half.
Yes. Next five weeks is going to be like that. Yeah. Because you have to go that way.
You just go around. Yeah, you can't. And everyone is going every which way. Like it was
yesterday last night. I left the office at like six-ish. It takes me normally 12 minutes
here at home. I got home 630 and I'm going north. Bear in mind, I am not even going east. Every
street was slam going east. I was at one of the venues we frequent with you know. And you know
where I live. It normally takes four minutes. It took 17 minutes. Yeah. Because I'm sure it's
because of bottleneck of this. Yeah. Because everyone's like, I can't go down to the 10. Yeah.
Just go on any street that's going east. Even in the morning today, going west, holy shit.
Sunset was so crowded. Yeah. Sunset. Yeah. It was bumper to bumper. It took me seven minutes
to go block today. Yeah. It was it was it's pretty crazy. Because it's a 10 from where to where
that's close. Downtown to where. Just in that whole pocket. It's just like you have to close
all freeway because you can get through. Yeah. I got a notice. I don't know if you did it
at 615 last night that said someone driving the wrong way on the 10. I think people have lost
their mind. It's like, fuck it. I'll go the other way. I mean, I don't know when you were going
to the warehouse, you said you said people on the one on one just walking around. Oh yeah. All day.
Always people are still happening. I don't know. I haven't been down there in a while. I have to
check. I mean, I guarantee you people are going to lose their fucking mind and traffic. Yeah. Because
if you're adding 50% to your commute time, by the way, do you know what the busiest travel day
of the year is? It's coming up. Fucking Wednesday. Next Wednesday. Yeah, the 10s closed.
The 10s closed. I mean, it may need to be a federal holiday. I wonder if LA getting the LAX.
Have you gone since the 10s closed? No, no, no, no. I go next week though.
I mean, disaster. I have to leave seven hours before you're flying. Yeah. I'm actually going
tomorrow. The disaster. You should take a train if you can. There's no train that gets you
to LAX. There is. You have to go downtown. Yeah, I'm a getting downtown. Take a train.
It's so, fuck, the 10 closed is so insane to me. Do you know how bad the traffic's going to be
for the holidays? It's just it's three to five weeks from this week. So I might go through
Christmas. Yeah, it could easily flow through Christmas. And you know, to me, late. It's not five.
Yeah, it's years eve. It's probably the second week of Jan. Yeah.
And why can't they build it faster? They didn't burn down the whole freeway. It's just one section.
I think it fucked the structure of the freeway up pretty badly. It's insane. They better clear up
every encampment underneath a freeway now. It's getting cold. What do you think they're going to do?
They're going to start a fucking fire. What do you do when it's cold? And yet did anyone even get
arrested? I didn't see anyone get arrested for it. Why would you get arrested? No one gets arrested.
Or what? The crime you have to commit to get arrested. We saw what? Yes, it's murder.
By the way, another hot piece of content if you live in LA. This is insane, actually.
On Wilshire Boulevard yesterday. Full blown murder. It looked like a scene of the
negotiator, no majoring myself. We're just fugitives at fugitives, just cops everywhere.
Well, you do more like it because it was US marshals. And they had a command post, which is
I've never seen. Yeah. So apparently the LAPD has this like size of two trailers. And they
just set up like calms, yeah, cops. US marshals basically gunned down a suspect in front of
our office. It's insane. It's literally insane. In the middle of the day, everyone in the
shots, 11 am. What was really suspicious is the suspect was killed by US marshals.
And security kept increasing throughout the day. Yeah. The guy was already dead. Yeah.
That was very little scary. Why do you keep bringing more security? Well, you know, got to
cover up starts. Deep state. Deep state. Definitely was deep state. Yeah. The Clinton,
huh? Bill Gates, Clintons. Maybe he's expected Epstein. I mean, it's just you never know. Everything's
on the table as far as I'm concerned. So I can give you a little more detail because we obviously
have been here for over 10 years. The guy who got gunned down went to the pharmacy that I've known
the pharmacist for every 10 years picks up medication. And because I talked to her yesterday after it
happened. And she said he walks out. There's a you have to walk in through a very small lobby.
Yeah. And there's an elevator to like the medical buildings. And she went off, went on about her
business. And all of a sudden, US marshals storm in and just fucking murder this guy. Wow.
Didn't say we're never going to find out what really happened. But this is why people get
suspicious of whatever gets reported. It's not if it makes sense, in my opinion.
Yeah. I mean, we agree, right? That's the deep state.
Yeah. Okay. All right. Let's move on. Winners, losers, content.
What do we got? My winner of the week is San Francisco. They finally got the playbook
of how you could clean up the city. Yeah. Just get just you could do this now. If you can do this
for a week, you can do this forever. I don't know where they put all the people, where they put the
drugs, where they put the fentanyl. But you can clean the city up. I've said this a few weeks ago
that I'm bullish on San Francisco as a city, coming back. And she just made SF a viable place
again. And now the local politicians don't have any excuse. That's fair. I'm curious to see how
it is in two weeks. I mean, the population should just revolt if they come back in a week once
he's gone. You don't know like that's only a certain there's a group of people you have to
understand that I think everything is mistreating people. So and San Francisco has a lot of those
people. They do when they don't like how many hippies are still in the city. It's too expensive.
Yeah. They've just been there forever. All right. My winner is RFK Jr. RFK Jr. is
catching some real steam in the polls. And very interesting how it's going to play out. And
if he's going to go the distance and basically fuck one of the parties up or if he's going to drop
out and you know, like I'm dying to know how this plays out because clearly he's made an impact.
He has real numbers. He's not pulling 1.2 point. He's double digits in every poll.
That's enough. Obviously, you know, right now Trump's leading in most national polls. Biden's
down a little bit. And then there's so it's a coin flip from Trump and Biden at this point.
And then RFK is just out there basically stealing votes from I think stealing votes from both.
But who does he steal more from? I think he steals more from people that
work in a vote democratic because they were fed up with the party or fed up with this like left
agenda quote unquote. And they were looking for another candidate. And they probably they might have
voted for Nikki Haley. They might have voted for, you know, one of the more, it's just
antists. Yeah. And now they're voting for RFK. Like if you think about the all in guys,
they were all done with sleepy. Yeah. And they're like they're looking for man with that
looking for a home. Yeah. And they were, you know, talking about dissantists. I think even
Jekyll, who is the only liberal on the pod, he seems like he wants to find a new home too. Yeah.
And I think that's a lot of people. I think a lot of people are looking for a new home.
Yeah. But interest rates are too high.
And interest rates are too high. But yeah, another winner is the Biden administration. They
keep executing. And everyone wants to make fun of all the social media clips. But he got
G to America, yep, to bend the knee. Economies, very strong GDP growths, 5% less quarter,
job growth, low unemployment, inflation's being slayed. If he has like the main thing,
clicked in saying the 90s, this is the economy. Yeah. So I agree. I don't think anything
matters. If we, if we're sitting here 11 months from now, and gas prices are low,
and we're not in a recession, and inflation is tamed, he wins. I had no doubt he wins.
Because that's what it is. Because that's all anyone cares about. Yeah. Well, you also look at
your own life. Like, what's your life, where it's four years ago? That's how people vote. Yeah.
And if your life, if you're still able to pay your rent in your mortgage, you're still able to
take your two, three vacations a year, kids are in school. Yeah. So the problem is, if the economy is
just okay, then you start going down the list of things that matter to you. And that's where I
think Biden loses. I think the immigration thing, he's not going to win on that. He would have
to change his tone on that. The crimes continues to be an issue. As long as the economy is humming,
then the rest of it doesn't matter. If the economy softens at all, we contract in Q2 of next year,
then he has to then fight the other issues. Similar to like Republicans, if Biden's economy is
humming, Republicans have to turn on abortion. They have to change their view immediately. Otherwise,
they can fight him on an economy. But we can't even talk about the other issues if the economy is
good. Or if it's bad, then that's all anyone cares about. They'll be interesting. All right, loser.
My loser's actually perception of social media. We have our own friend this morning was like,
Biden's the worst president of our history. Yeah. This is the worst time of our life. But all
indicators of the opposite. We came out of a pandemic. We have roaring inflation, ever
and predicted doom and gloom. But if you choose to consume that media, you think he did a terrible
job when all objectively America came out of this great and it's undeniable. I would say,
yeah, financially, we came out of it great. On other fronts, we have failed.
I mean, every administration will have things that go bad. Of course. I'm not saying I would
criticize anybody. But we always say the only thing that really matters to the average person
is their economy economy. And do you have money in your bank account? Can you pay for your
so I think I think if you pulled people in the general population on the low income side of
things, I think they would they're no better off than they were for years. They're no worse off
because they go on good jobs. They have jobs. But I don't think they feel like if you if you
took the temperature of confidence of the economy in the country, I bet you it's very low. I think
I also think that I think it's really social media. I think makes you think people care about
aren't actually what people care about. They care about money. But I think inflation was so
bad the last year that I do really think it affected Joe Biden. Like people were paying so much
for food and gas and this and that like, but that's not a talking point anymore. Inflations
down. I know, but you got you remember that's recency bias is that you were dealing with that as
of a month ago, right? Inflation was an issue as of a month ago. Now this month. So if it for
the purpose of election, if all of these prices come down, come October of next year and we're
unemployment stays relatively low and home prices stay. Yeah. If those stay 100% Democrats winning,
even if it's not Joe Biden, Democrats win. The only is if the economy tumbles at all, which
you could, then that's different. Do you think I was just thinking about this? Newsom had to go to
China as part of the pre-negotiated deal that he's coming to San Francisco. Yeah. They're like,
we need someone to show up. Yeah. Cause no one has showed up to China. You see Jenny yelling
getting in and out before she showed up to she, she was at in and out wherever the San Francisco
airport is. Yeah. And from the in and out, got had her burger and then went straight to that's
American. I like that. And greeted you. Yeah. As he came off. That's amazing. I like you think she
brought him some moon and out. No, he's not in that shit. He probably doesn't trust anyone.
Food. Yeah. Fuck. No. I mean, did they bring the one ingredients to you? Like someone tries
all his food before he's it. Yeah. Or they bring their own ingredients. You can't trust.
He of all people can't trust any country. I don't even think he could trust his own chef.
No, he can't. Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. My loser, I kind of went on the tangent on earlier.
It's it's definitely L.A. The traffic. What's going to happen the next four weeks in the city?
I can't even explain to you how fucking bad it is. Yeah. And how much is going to hurt just daily
life for people to get around. So if you live in L.A., you're coming to L.A. plan plan ahead.
Yeah. All right. Content. Just got an notification. The rock is on Joe Rogan.
Oh, I'm going to tune in. That is cool. I know what he's talking about.
The Keela. Maybe very interesting. All right. I got actually got so you know, I was talking about
Dominic soccer last week. And so I got a lot of DMs about parents saying like, oh, send me the
drills. But I'm like, I don't have my drills are irrelevant, right? I'm three drills are a member
from the one time I got at a coach. But Tommy Thompson, who plays for the San Jose MLS team. Yeah.
I actually DM me and said, check out my YouTube. It's at Tommy Thompson. I'll share the link
in my Instagram. And here are a mix of some drills. He's like my dad played in the 1984 Olympics.
Same drills. He took me and my brothers through. We all ended up pros. So here you go.
Giving you the playbook. If your kid wants to play soccer, check out Tommy Thompson's YouTube page.
He has all the drills. I checked it out. So I'm going to I need to get some cones. That's the one
thing we're missing. But it's pretty awesome. That the drums give me a pro. Yeah. Why not? We great.
I just like the drills. I think it's important. Like he just wants to kick the ball there. I
rather give him drills. So now I give him drills in the morning. So it's like something to look
forward to. There's something to accomplish. You know, I will say if a if a young kid
takes any sport seriously and actually does it drills, the footwork, it's not like you're going to
go pro, but you're a really good youth player. Yes. And until it separates when it's just genetics
takeover. Yeah. And for me, it's not even that. It's just the discipline. Like the discipline you
develop for training for something. It's the same reason like why I like to like why I ran a
marathon or did a triathlon that discipline and required for me for a period of time to do
those things is such a accomplishment. And it had such an impact on the rest of my life. So that's
really why I think it's great for young people to be involved in sports. Yeah. I agree.
All right. So that's my content. The only other content is I have been watching. I've watched
Sylvester Salone's documentary on Netflix. Amazing. If you grew up on Rocky, it's so awesome.
His life story is incredible. What's he talking about? Just I mean, that dude came from nothing.
And then like at 30, try to pursue becoming an actor, couldn't get gigs, wrote Rocky.
And you know, he didn't sell the rights to it. He said he had to direct it. He had to act in it.
He owned the rights to it. He went on to go do, you know, 50 Rockies and Rambos and just a pretty
amazing life and career. And he's smart as shit. He is not the character in Rocky. He's extremely
articulate. Yeah. I think any A-list star that has lasted as long as any of these guys, they have
to be just really smart. Yeah. And they're insanely disciplined. Yeah. I mean, he's still jacked.
And you hear the stories of like the Kevin Hartz. They work 25 hours a day. Yeah. They love it.
All right, shout outs. One shout out I want to start out with, it is Complex Con this weekend.
The birth of Group Chat. The birth of Group Chat six years ago actually. So if you are heading
out to Complex Con, I'll be there. Then we go Saturday afternoon. So, you know,
look out for me. We did give a code. Use the code Group Chat 10% off on the Complex Con website.
Shout out to Mark for that. But I think it's going to be epic. I think the Neil and Aaron and
all the OG guys are back and involved. Our good friend Mark's involved. They're really put together
incredible lineup. So I'm excited to go see it. And I love just going to things where it's all
young people. It's always going to pulse on the culture. Love to see what everyone's wearing,
what they're wearing. The brands. Where are the biggest brands you're going to see?
Because it's a uniform. Yeah. So type of. I would say the hottest brand. And I know this because
of what I do is Hellstar. There's a brand out of the valley call Hellstar. On resale, it is hot.
It is the brand streetwear. Yeah. Once you know that I told you every athlete's wearing it,
every rapper is wearing it. Who's behind it? What's the what's the gimmick? It's just really well
marketed. They've done a good job of like creating hype. It's like the new, it's like a kind of like
what a gallery department. How it started and now gallery departments. So it must be expensive if
athletes are wearing it. Oh, yeah, it's expensive. Yeah, it's not cheap. It's hard to get.
But I would say that is the specifically in Southern California and LA area. That's a
for streetwear kids. That's the brand. I have a question. I got a DM. I was looking for that. That's
how's on my phone. Must work at fanatics asked to come this listening to one of the pods.
He asked what jersey you want. And I didn't know. I was like, maybe CJ Stroud.
As a gift. Any sport? Any sport? DM me again, because I don't I can't find the DM.
What sport? I see one. Really? Come on. I get a love in Matt Liner. Aren't you, Matt Liner? Sure.
But you're a front runner. USC. You got to, you got to ditch USC again. Yeah, I mean, but
are they going to basketball now? They lost yesterday. Yeah, so. Buckham. But they have the point guard.
He's going to go. He's number one prospect. I don't care about individuals. I need team wins.
What's the jersey? CJ Stroud seems like the bandwagon you want to be on. Young.
I know. It's just not clear. I probably get Jalen Hertz.
First place. I need first place. I can't go with like five and five CJ Stroud. That doesn't work
for me. There you go. There's Jalen Hertz. I think it's number one too. Like the number. I like that
one. All right. Next shout out from Eric Jager's. Shout out to my beautiful wife Kelly on the
incredible birth of our daughter, Vera Lynn. Thank you so much for making me a father. I'm so proud
of how strong you were over the last nine months. Hashtag proud girl dad. Well, we know he's
listening because he's not sleeping. Yeah. You just had a baby. It's a lot of podcasts. Yeah.
Shout out to you. Having a baby is an incredible experience. Very tough. But there is a payoff.
It's just like in three years though. The payoff is in three. It's soccer drills.
I mean, like miles is like a two two and a half is when like he became like fun. It was very tough
till then. It's still tough now. And check out our friend's brand Dad Gang. Hot brand. They're
doing really well. And it's for all the dads out there. Next is from Kevin Weatherman. Shout out
to Vene for breaking four hours in the NYC marathon. Oh, this is just a shout out competition.
Vene gave Kevin a shout out. Yeah. Let's give him a Vene. We talk about Vene a lot on the spot.
Vene is just a weekly, weekly shout out. Well, good for you guys. From Dan Thompson,
shout out to Taylor Desin, a Kathy on his anniversary trip right now with his lovely wife.
Turned me on to group chat two years ago and became my must listen to podcast. We also brought
a few Kathy's onto our podcast unicorn finders where we talked to founders of companies
at seed and series A rounds about their products. Amazing. Well, enjoy that trip Taylor.
I'm sure a well-deserved break from Daniel. Shout out to Tao from her husband Daniel.
They recently got married a couple months back and our die hard group chat listeners found them
during COVID and haven't stopped listening to every episode. All right, shout out guys. Yeah,
shout out. Where are you guys living? Where are you listening to us? Let us know. We want to know
where everyone's located. All right, Kathy's. That's all we have. Have an incredible weekend.
If you live in LA, just no reason to go anywhere. Just cancel all your plans for the next month.
Have a great weekend. Peace.