Brian Wesbury explains why cutting government spending could be painful in the near-term but boost longer-term economic growth, similarities and difference between Trump and Reagan, and how he thinks about investing in an overvalued market.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe Here to the ROI Podcast & other First Trust Market News
Website: First Trust Portfolios
Connect with us on LinkedIn: First Trust LinkedIn
Follow us on X: First Trust on X
Subscribe to the First Trust YouTube Channel
Subscribe to the ROI Podcast YouTube Channel
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ryan (00:03):
I wouldn't even be back in this industry if it wasn't for
you.
I blame you for the podcast.
I also blame you for when Ifinished grad school and came
back.
It was supposed to be a shortstint at First Trust and I don't
want to get too into thephilosophical reasons, but it
was kind of like I was a salesguy and I just didn't really
(00:24):
believe anymore.
It was like I wanted to sellstuff to make a lot of money.
Brian (00:29):
And.
Ryan (00:29):
I was pretty good at that, right, but I was like, well,
what's the meaning behind it?
Is it a good thing or a badthing?
Right, and that's because Ididn't really understand, like a
lot of the economics and a lotof like the freedom equated to a
lot of the economic theoriesthat you talk about.
And I think without that Iwould have lasted another year
(00:51):
or two back at First Trust, butI'd be gone.
Brian (00:54):
You know, entrepreneurship is an amazing
thing because it it's where allwealth is created.
And then there are a lot ofpeople that believe the
financial sector is just thissort of I don't know parasitic
thing that hangs on to whateverybody does.
But without the financialsector, none of this stuff gets
(01:15):
done.
I mean, if you're a homebuilder, you can't build a house
without insurance, without abank, without the lumber company
being banked, and so it'sessential, and one of the key
things about the United Statesis the depth and breadth of our
(01:36):
financial system.
And then it all runs likeseriously on integrity, and you
have to be able to trustpeople's word and that, and, and
so when I look at you knowpeople that are in heads of
major financial institutions,you know I may disagree with
them politically orphilosophically about clean
(01:59):
energy or dei or something likethat, but in the end, integrity
and honesty and doing what yousay you're going to do it's
absolutely essential in thefinancial world, and if you
don't do it, you fail.
Ryan (02:15):
It's what allows capital to be supplied, and if you can't
supply the capital through thecapital markets, then all the
growth that businessesexperience because they can
access that capital doesn'thappen.
Brian (02:27):
Yeah, and everybody keeps trying to find better and
cheaper and more efficient waysto do it.
And you know, I mean we've beendoing this for a long time.
I mean I don't mean just WallStreet, I mean this goes back to
the Roman Empire and thebankers of, you know, austria
and all these rules and kind ofthe costs of finance.
(02:49):
You know, it's almost like whenyou look at a realtor why is it
6%?
Well, they worked their buttsoff, you know, and I know that
the new rules came down, butit's like the costs have kind of
been set because that's therisk of markets and that's it's
the cost of doing business, andyet the benefits that come from
it are greater than the cost.
Ryan (03:10):
Otherwise we wouldn't do it hi, welcome to this episode
of the first trust ROI podcast.
I'm Ryan Isakainen, etfstrategist at first trust.
I'm joined today by BrianWestbury, chief economist at
first trust.
I'm gonna ask Brian aboutWestbury, chief Economist at
First Trust.
I'm going to ask Brian aboutwhat his views are for the
economy as we head into anothernew year, 2025.
(03:32):
We'll talk a bit about the newadministration, what some of its
policies, what the implicationsof those policies might be.
We'll also talk a bit aboutstocks, valuations and
artificial intelligence.
Thanks for joining us on thisepisode of the First Trust ROI
Podcast.
You're still an outlier.
For years, you were an outlieron the bullish side of things
(03:57):
and we've talked over the lastyear and a half on the podcast
and otherwise, and you're now anoutlier still on the bearish
side of things, and that's true,I think, of the economy as well
as the equity market.
So why are you such an outlier?
Brian (04:12):
Yeah, exactly, I think.
I mean.
Obviously I don't want tocriticize my peers in the
industry that have forecasts,but almost everybody right now
has an S&P 500 forecast of over7,000.
We've had two 20-plus years,20% growth years in a row 25, 26
(04:34):
, and they just think we'regoing to have another one.
And every model I look at sayswe're overvalued.
I'm partial to our model, thecapitalized profits approach,
that takes a look at profits andthe discount rate, the interest
rate, and that model says we'reovervalued right now by about
(04:55):
20% roughly.
And this is not a trading model,don't go short.
This is a 30,000 foot view downand it just says the market is
expensive and we all know it'sreally at the top of the market,
the top seven or 10 companies.
They make up a huge part of theS&P 500 and their PE ratios are
(05:19):
even higher than the rest ofthe market combined.
That's number one.
Then you start looking at othermodels.
Schiller does a 10-year kind oflooking back growth and
earnings PE ratio and we're atthe highest level since 1999.
If you look at I've alwayscalled it the Buffett model, but
(05:42):
he looks at market cap as apercent of GDP and that's at a
record high right now, the S&P500 market cap never been a
bigger share.
It's over 150% of GDP.
And then there's a Greenspanmodel and that's the equity risk
premium and it's the inverse ofthe PE compared to the 10-year
(06:05):
treasury and right now you canearn more on the 10-year
treasury than the price, theearnings yield, of the S&P 500.
So every one of these modelssays the same thing, and the
last time they said this, all ofthem said this was 1999.
(06:27):
So I hate saying that, because Idon't expect 2000.
I'm not looking for a dot-comcrash, I'm just the market's
overvalued.
We're frothy.
Look at all these meme coinsTrump coin, I get it, people
love Trump but it has nointrinsic value, zero whatsoever
(06:48):
.
It's not part of blockchain,it's not part of the crypto
world in any way.
It's just a meme coin and it'sworth tens of billions of
dollars and these kinds ofthings.
These are the things that happen, you know, like tulip mania,
meme coin mania.
These are very expensive stocks.
(07:09):
These are the kind of thingsthat happen when you have too
much liquidity and people getused to the momentum.
So I think a lot of theseforecasts to come back to your
question are based on momentumand they're not really looking
at valuation.
They could still be right.
Just because we're overvalueddoesn't mean we can't get more
overvalued.
That's what happened in 97, 98,99.
(07:31):
I just keep thinking we'regoing to see a slowdown,
especially if Trump issuccessful at cutting deficit
spending, because that's beenhalf of our GDP growth in the
past couple of years.
Ryan (07:43):
All right, that's a rabbit hole I want to go down, because
I've heard you talk about thisbefore as well the size of
government and how that canactually, over the long term,
impede economic growth.
So let's say the Trumpadministration is successful in
cutting a lot of the governmentspending in that part of their
(08:05):
policy.
Does that slow down the economyor is that good for long-term
growth?
Brian (08:09):
It's great for long-term growth.
What I worry about is it'stough for short-term growth.
So, yeah, keynesianism I don'tbelieve we ought to run deficits
to cause the economy to grow.
I think it's a highlyinefficient way.
It's way better to cut taxes,cut regulation, let the
entrepreneur loose, and so I'mjust not a fan of Keynesianism.
(08:33):
That doesn't mean that if thegovernment throws a bunch of
money in, they can't create somejobs.
Now they're going to cost otherjobs, but it's going to look
okay on paper, if you will.
So what they did with the GreenNew Deal basically that was the
Inflation Reduction Act wasreally the Green New Deal, and
(08:56):
so they've been investing tensof billions of dollars in green
energy.
Well, that's investment.
It's windmills, solar farms,all those kinds of things.
At the same time, they've beengiving tons of money to states
for Medicaid, and one of thefastest growing job categories
in the United States is you canget paid by Medicaid to stay
(09:20):
home and take care of a familymember.
So it's like in-home carefunded by Medicaid, and if
they're not hiring a nurse,they're hiring a grandkid.
And in New York State, kathyHochul, the governor of New York
, actually said in a speech lastyear the majority of jobs
created in the state of New Yorkwere created with that.
(09:41):
So it's really justredistribution from people
paying taxes or governmentborrowing and then creating jobs
.
And if you take out governmenthealth care and social services
social assistance from the jobsnumbers, we have about a third
(10:01):
of the job growth.
That's showing up like 2.2million jobs created in the past
year, only 890,000 withoutgovernment, without health care,
without social assistance.
So the private sector has beenslowing down.
It's the government spendingthat has been keeping job growth
up, and if you get rid of thatand Trump wants to go after it
(10:24):
you're going to slow down theeconomy, and so that's the short
term and I joke, it's likequitting heroin, and I don't
know this personally, but I'veseen it on TV.
It hurts.
So I think we're addicted toall this government spending.
It hurts.
So I think we're addicted toall this government spending,
keynesianism, deficits andgetting unaddicted, going cold
(10:50):
turkey.
It hurts, so it hurts us in theshort term, even though we win
in the long term.
Ryan (10:57):
So we're recording this on January 29th and who knows what
happens between now and when itairs, but I think it was this
morning that I saw just aheadline, and I haven't had a
chance to dig into it at all,but there was a headline that
suggested that the federalgovernment was basically
offering I don't know if it wasto everybody or certain
categories the ability to youcan leave and get paid through
(11:20):
September, and I think on aprevious podcast we talked about
that right after the electionas maybe something that it would
do.
Is that actually?
That's actually happening.
Brian (11:30):
Yeah, we talked about this before.
So Elon Musk had an interviewwith Joe Rogan before the
election I forget September orsomething like that and he's
like hey, you're going to cutmillions of jobs from the
government.
Evidently that's what you wantto do.
I mean, then you're going tothrow people out of work.
I mean, the headlines are goingto be terrible and everybody's
(11:51):
going to be worried about theeconomy, like I just said
because take away pay frompeople, and then what do all
these people do?
and they're unemployed, etcetera, et cetera.
And Elon Musk mused that that,hey, um, we'll just pay them and
and take you know, I.
And I added I don't rememberhim saying this, but I added
take away their phone, take awaytheir computer, take away their
(12:13):
office, send them home, don'tlet them do anything, and pay
them.
And I thought the tax payerswould be better off like it
until they find another job orsomething like that.
Well, they made a littlemodification of this blanket
thing that I was talking aboutat the time.
Yeah, so they're saying is look, you have to come back to the
office, but you don't have to,and if you don't, you can work
(12:37):
remotely until September andwe'll pay you, but after that.
So it's like sort of a you haveto work in the in a lot of jobs
you get, they'll give you a sixmonth severance package or
something like that, but they'rewhat they're saying is
basically we'll pay you to stayat home for, I guess, the next
nine months.
Now, yeah, and that's brilliant.
I.
I actually think it's abrilliant plan.
(12:59):
It will cost taxpayers, but itis kind I don't know what the
right word is because you'regoing in and this isn't like
coming into a private companyand laying off 2,000 people.
This is potentially four or500,000, a million it's
potentially that many.
(13:20):
And so being kind but shrinkingthe size of the workforce, I
think would be magnificent, andthen these companies can get
more efficient.
We can use AI, we can usecomputers.
The government is still runningcomputers that you and I and
anybody watching this wouldlaugh at.
(13:42):
You have a better computer foryour kid to do their homework on
than the government.
Employees have computers intheir offices, and so Elon Musk
is the perfect person to upgradethe technology and get us more
efficient, and we have to do itfrom the outside because, as we
saw with Obamacare and all these, whenever they do it from the
(14:03):
inside or hire some politicallyconnected consultant, it just
all falls apart.
So this is a great opportunityto make the government more
efficient.
It's going to cost taxpayers,it's very generous for nine
months, et cetera, but they'regoing to use the opportunity of
making them come back to theoffice to give them the chance
to retire.
Ryan (14:23):
Retire, or they could re-enter the workforce and do
something that's maybe moreproductive, and they're going to
add more to the economy than itwould have otherwise.
Brian (14:31):
Yep.
Well, that's why I say cuttinggovernment spending actually
makes us better off in the longrun because we get more
efficient.
Ryan (14:38):
Regulation is the other part of what the DOGE was kind
of focused on.
I think it's at least theheadlines suggest that it's more
towards cost-cutting now, butyou think the regulation making
things more efficient is stillgoing to be a big part of the
Trump policy platform goingforward.
Brian (14:57):
I definitely think it will.
I mean, in his firstadministration he didn't have a
doge, but I think it was a rule.
I mean you can quote me, butplease, like I think I remember
this Like if you had aregulation you got to get rid of
two or three, whatever thatnumber was.
And it worked.
We actually shrunk the FederalRegister, and so they'll be able
(15:19):
to do that.
It's interesting you bring upthe spending versus regulation,
because Vivek Ramaswamy wasgoing to do the regs and Musk
was going to do the spending andthen Vivek decided to run, and
I know everybody speculates.
He got fired, got chased out,whatever.
Who knows, it doesn't matter,he's going to go run for
governor in Ohio.
(15:40):
That leaves Musk.
So what happens to theregulation?
I still think they'll focus onit.
Okay, and and and.
But I'm really glad that.
I was glad to hear that they hadactually divided it into two,
because we can cut spending.
And you know, I mean I don'tknow either.
You can ask me this but theseNGOs which is the NGO stands for
(16:04):
non-governmental organization,which is a farce because they're
funded by government, they'rejust not a government agency and
a lot of them have beendesigned and received money to
help immigrants come across theborder, to put them up once they
get across the border, to helpthem navigate the system of
(16:26):
welfare and how to move into theUnited States.
Ngos are over in the MiddleEast, they're everywhere, and
the government is funding themto the tune of billions and
billions and billions andbillions of dollars and Trump
cut their funding off.
He froze it.
They got a lawsuit that saidyou can't do that because these
(16:46):
were congressional votes thatsaid we're going to fund all
this, and I think Trump backedoff on that.
So spending is hard to cutbecause you can't do it directly
with an executive order, andmost spending is Social Security
, medicare, medicaid, theseentitlement programs where I
(17:09):
hope they really go as acombination of the two.
I'm not sure the exact number,but I think we have something
like 140 different welfareprograms in the United States.
140 different programs withtheir own entire bureaucracies,
their own entire staffs, theirown entire rules and, first of
(17:31):
all, navigating.
It is a nightmare but it'shighly inefficient.
And I believe bringing all ofthat together making welfare
dependent on work, like whatClinton did, and welfare as we
knew it If you don't have a jobwithin two years, you can't stay
on but combine all that make itmore efficient, and so I think
(17:54):
they're going to make headway inthis.
But some of the easy like theythought it was low-hanging fruit
.
Let's just cut off the NGOs.
Then they got sued intooblivion.
Ryan (18:03):
Yeah, I mean all the recipients of that money.
I mean there's constituenciesthat are pretty happy to receive
those funds, and then they haveCongress people, and then you
know, everyone wants everyoneelse to be cut, but they don't
want themselves to be cut.
So that's, that's the challenge.
Brian (18:19):
You know I look at.
I look at the group of peoplethat Trump wants to head
agencies, and I don't want toget into personalities or all
the crazy conspiracy stories anddrinking and whatever.
That doesn't matter.
What I want to see is somebodythat wants to head an agency,
that wants to get rid of it, andso far I haven't seen one.
(18:42):
And my hero of all time is aguy named Alfred Kahn, and I've
been talking about him.
Ryan (18:49):
I love the story.
Brian (18:51):
Carter hired him to take over the Civil Aeronautics Board
in the 70s and people don'tremember this because it's been
gone so long but they would setthe price of every seat on every
airplane flight you had to go.
If you were an airline, youwent on bended knee to
Washington.
Like you know, I want to raisethe price by $15 a seat or
(19:13):
whatever.
Then they would have to agree.
Well, like Alfred Kahn thoughtthis was insanity and he came
over, took over the CivilAeronautics Board, got rid of it
, deregulated the airlinesMagnificent story, only one I've
ever in history of the UnitedStates I've ever known to do
that, at least to a major agency.
And there are hundreds andhundreds and hundreds of
(19:39):
temporary government like, let'ssay, research projects or a
committee to study the effectsof aircraft carriers and like
whatever it is like.
You can make up whatever youwant.
It's probably in existence andthey're still there.
You know it doesn't meanthey're employing a bunch of
people, but there still existand they were started 20 years
(20:02):
ago and we need to go find allof those and get rid of them and
they can do all of that andthat brings, I mean, I'm not
sure where you want to go next.
But I love all these things.
These are like cut taxes, cutregulation, cut spending, cut
the size of government and we.
It will be a huge benefit andthere are a lot of Trump
(20:27):
supporters out there that Italked to that are they just
think this is going to usher ina golden age tomorrow, today,
and I agree that all thesethings should be done.
But Reagan wanted to do thosetoo, and the stock market did
not fare well in the first yearand a half of his presidency.
(20:52):
Because when you go in and youmake those changes, another way
to say the same thing is JavierMalay in Argentina has had a
great deal of success.
I'm certain they really do havea budget surplus because he was
able to cut spending.
They've slashed regulations,gotten rid of many government
programs altogether.
He really did take a chainsaw.
(21:13):
The problem is they have anunemployment rate in Argentina.
It's about 40%.
That economy is not.
You hear all these good thingsand people that want smaller
government are really excitedabout Javier Mele and they are
getting it done and it willbenefit Argentina hugely.
But that economy is not doinggreat right now.
(21:35):
It's still in recession, and soI just worry that when we cut
spending.
Get rid of that stimulus togrowth.
In the short term we'll pay aprice.
And then what I really worryabout is the Fed comes in, cuts
rates and starts printing moneyagain to compensate for the
(21:55):
lower deficits, and that's whatcreates the inflation to come
back.
Ryan (21:59):
How accurate do you think, or how fair is the comparison
between Trump and Reagan?
Is Trump like the new Reagan,or what are the similarities and
differences.
Brian (22:09):
Yeah, I think it's the best parallel that I could use.
I mean they both wanted astrong defense, a military.
I mean Trump, I believe, justcalled for the Iron Dome, which,
reagan?
Ryan (22:25):
it was Star Wars is what we called it.
He got ridiculed for that.
Brian (22:30):
Yeah, he got ridiculed for that.
But now, because the Iron Domein Israel is so successful,
trump's not going to getridiculed, but they, because of
the Iron Dome in Israel is sosuccessful, trump's not going to
get ridiculed, but they bothwant strong defense.
They both wanted lessregulation.
Reagan was fond of saying howmany words is it For worse?
Nine eight, seven words in theEnglish language.
(22:50):
I'm here from the government,I'm from the government, I'm
here to help.
Yeah, and so they're the same.
That way, trump is morepopulist than Reagan was, and I
always get worried a little bitabout the phrase populism,
because what I hear is notcommunism really.
But oh, we're just going to dothings to make people happy or
(23:12):
give them things, and that's theway we reach the populace, and
that always scares me a littlebit, but it's a pretty good
parallel.
They both want smallergovernment.
They both want lower taxes.
Trump has now called for gettingrid of the income tax and
replacing it with a sales tax, anational consumption tax, which
(23:34):
I always get worried a littlebit about that, because if
you've paid taxes all your lifeon your income and you saved
money to retire on, now you'regoing to have to pay taxes on
everything you spent, so you'redouble taxed.
And so I never did like thatbecause of that.
But I've sort of changed mymind and the reason is that it
(23:58):
would be a much simpler taxsystem.
You wouldn't have peoplespending hours of their lives
and tens and tens of thousandsof dollars to file taxes or more
and having this much paperworkand all of that Just tax
consumption.
The only reason you work is toearn an income.
The only reason you earn anincome is to consume.
(24:18):
It doesn't matter where you taxit Income when you earn it or
when you spend it.
So let's start taxing it whenwe spend it.
It'll make the tax systemsimpler, even if the generation
that is alive right now and issaved after tax has to pay.
The greatest generation went towar.
Guess what?
(24:39):
This generation can pay taxestwice.
I mean, it's not that much of asacrifice to ask.
Ryan (24:45):
Do you think that those proposals have a chance of
actually kind of progressing?
Because I can hear theobjection already like this is
regressive, it hurts the poorthe most.
You're just trying to, you know, make the rich happy, and
they're not going to spend theirmoney anyways.
They're just going to put itsomewhere that's sheltered and
(25:05):
then they don't have to paytaxes.
Brian (25:07):
Oh yeah, no, it's going to be demagogue to death.
Oh yeah, yeah, the odds of itmaking it into law are minor,
taking it into law are minor.
But what I'm getting to?
I mean Reagan wanted a flat tax.
I mean there are similarities.
That's sort of where I wasgoing.
Sure, I totally.
I mean all those arguments aregoing to be brought out.
You just articulated themperfectly.
And this Congress?
(25:28):
There is no way they'll do that.
Yeah, and that's really kind ofthe big thing they have to do
is extend the Trump tax cuts.
But they're already horsetrading.
And I worry, you know, reagan, Iwould argue Reagan is more of a
philosophy, like they're bothsort of philosophical.
We don't want this biggovernment, and why?
(25:52):
Because big government harmsour freedoms, harms our growth,
and we want to get rid of itbecause it increases freedom,
increases entrepreneurship,increases growth.
As a result, both Reagan andTrump were kind of that way.
They come at it a little bitdifferently.
The problem is then you go froma philosophy to a transactional
(26:14):
Congress.
So they've already given up onthe salt deduction, like so we
had knocked it down to 10 000.
I mean, trump's already saidit's going up to 20, maybe even
more, and and so that's nowthey've started horse trading
and what I'm getting is hey, yougive that to new jersey, what
are you going to give to iowa?
You have to have subsidies forfarms and windmills or ethanol.
(26:38):
So the minute you start thattransactional, that's where the
consumption tax runs intoproblems, because Congress can't
vote for it, they can't votefor anything clean, they all
have different constituencies,and so where philosophy meets,
transactional is when governmentreally, in my opinion, kind of
breaks down.
(26:58):
You don't always get the mostefficient.
You get the political,transactional system, not the
most efficient economic way ofdoing things.
Ryan (27:09):
We've talked before about the potential for Trump using
tariff policies and he, I think,talked about the external
revenue service.
Now, and there was justrecently the use of the threat
of tariffs with Columbia to kindof shove them into taking back
some of the people that may havebeen illegally in the US.
(27:32):
Where do you think we land withtariff policies?
Is this like?
Is this just a tool, or is itsomething that the Trump
administration really wants tohave kind of across the board?
Brian (27:44):
Right, I remember we were .
I was watching one of theplayoff games I think it
might've been the Bills Chiefswhen I read to the table that I
was watching the game with, ohmy gosh, colombia refused planes
of deportees, right.
And Trump is like no visas, 25%tariffs, going up to 50 in six
(28:08):
hours if you don't die.
And I'm like listen to this.
And we all, everyone at thetable is like I wonder how long
it's going to take them to saydon't fly them here, we'll come
pick them up.
And it was like four hourslater Columbia caved.
And so I am okay with usingtariffs as a tool, but you have
(28:32):
to also be willing to use allthe tools.
We're going to drop out of NATOI'm not asking us to or saying,
but that's a tool too.
We're going to take away USAIDfrom Egypt if you don't do it.
Not just terror, like we'regoing to put a tariff on.
We're going to take USAID.
We're going to revoke yourvisas.
This company can't trade.
You have to use all the tools.
(28:54):
If it's a tool, it can't be theonly tool, and what I'm fearful
of, or what I have been alittle fearful of, is just this
general cross-the-board tariff.
Universal tariff is what wewould call it, and Trump has
already come out and said he'snot going to do that.
Now he'll do it.
(29:14):
I mean, it's not a trueuniversal tariff.
If he goes after Canada andMexico, that's a Canadian and
Mexican tariff.
Universal would be everywhereand that's what Herbert Hoover
did in 1930.
And most economists believeit's a huge part of the Great
Depression.
So please, let's not dosomething like that.
(29:35):
If you tariff us, we shouldtariff you.
If we're trying to get you tostop close the border, tariffs
are a tool, but there are othertools too, and so this can cause
some dislocations until we workthings out.
I think Mexico, they're alreadybuilding tent cities, they're
(29:56):
already stopping migrants at theborder.
I mean, I don't know if you'veseen the numbers on immigration,
but it's gone from like 2,500people a day to 40 and shown up
at the border.
I mean, people know not to come.
Number one, mexico's stoppingthem.
Number two, and I think thesetariffs have a lot to do with it
.
So I wouldn't be surprised ifMexico hasn't already done
(30:19):
enough to avoid the tariff thatTrump's talked about.
Canada, they seem to be.
You know they're going to pushback against Trump and so
it'll—anyway.
That's another thing, you know.
So when I talk about the marketbeing overvalued, I worry
because there's chips in theglass, like you know.
(30:41):
Like if you squeeze a glasslike that has no chips in it.
I mean, I'm not strong enoughto break this glass, but if you
put a little crack in there andthen I squeeze it, it can
shatter a lot easier and I andtariffs put a little chip in the
glass, like it's like you startchanging flows and trade
(31:03):
patterns and things like moneyflows, that's.
That's the kind of thing thatcan.
I'm not talking about it's nota depression, it's not a massive
collapse, it's not 2000 again,it's not not 08.
It's none of that.
But those are the things thatcan kind of start like the
market's overvalued and it couldhave a pretty good correction
(31:24):
just because it's overvalued,and these are the kinds of
things that could be a catalystfor that.
Ryan (31:30):
So the market, after two really strong years, valuations
get expensive.
You know, we saw again we'rerecording this on the 29th.
On Monday, there was, over theweekend, the DeepSeek AI
announcement and that caused ahuge sell-off in some of those
stocks and I think a lot ofpeople look at that and say,
well, it's just kind of asell-first, ask questions later,
(31:51):
but it's more likely whenthings have done well and
they're kind of expensive, right?
Yeah?
Brian (31:57):
they're expensive.
They're priced for perfection.
They weren't.
They were not priced for, and Iknow there's a huge debate.
Did they have the nvidia superchips or right?
Did they spend more?
Did they steal stuff, likethere's always like, like
questions, right, but the theshocker of that was they did it
with a lot less resources,energy, money, time, chip
(32:23):
capacity and, of what I've read,it looks like they could have
done this, like they reallydidn't steal it.
And then the other thing isthey made it open source,
because if you're Google and youhave your own AI, you don't
want to make it open sourcebecause that's how you make
(32:45):
money.
But if you make it open sourceand available to anyone, why do
they need Google?
And so I think this was one ofthe cracks in the glass.
It may have a little bit ofnefariousness in it somewhere,
but it's not all nefarious.
And I believe there are Musk,figured out how to put up a
(33:08):
rocket for $1.50 at the cost ofNASA.
And if you're going to tell methat, the biggest companies in
the world Google, meta, they arehighly centralized.
They only have their engineersworking on stuff.
They just come at things with aton of bricks.
We're going to spend $50billion and we need a nuclear
(33:30):
reactor to power our thing.
We're going to brute forceeverything and our AI is going
to be a god.
It's going gonna knoweverything.
To me, that's a perfect example, something that must would go
after yeah, like and simplify it, and that's what the Chinese
did that we're not using 32-bit,we're using 8-bit.
He uses 10% of electricity andthat's plenty like, and we're
(33:53):
not gonna.
We're not gonna make our thing.
God, we're, we're going to usean engineer.
We need an engineer, a lawyer,when we need a lawyer, a doctor,
when we need a doc, as theexpert.
It's called the, the.
It's called the experts.
Ryan (34:05):
Yeah model of experts.
Brian (34:07):
Model of experts yeah and um and and so ours kind of puts
them all together, makes themgod.
They just said no, we'll justuse.
If it's an engineering problem,use the engineer.
And it just made it way moresimple.
Yeah, and you didn't have tohave all this wasted energy and
time and I think there'ssomething real there.
Yeah, and I'm not trying to saynvidia is going to collapse or
(34:30):
go out of business.
I'm not saying any of that.
I just think there there areways to make this way more
efficient and there's going to.
In the tech world, what have welearned?
I mean, have we learned nothing?
I mean, palm Pilot owned themarket and basically the Palm
Pilot in the late 90s was theApple iPhone.
(34:52):
I mean it was clunkier andwasn't as good, but all that it
could do the Apple iPhone does.
And yet those guys 3Com wentout of business, and so it's
like this idea that they'reuntouchable.
That's where people make amistake and I think people are
(35:16):
overly euphoric.
Trump's policies are great I'mnot going to argue that but
they're not great tomorrow.
It isn't going to change thewhole world tomorrow.
Reagan didn't.
It took him a year and a halfbefore we bottomed and finally
took off, and so we have to live.
I still believe we have to livethrough some pain before we get
(35:39):
to the game.
Ryan (35:41):
It kind of reminds me of like a technology hype cycle,
like a new technology whetherit's AI or whatever comes out
and immediately people begin toimagine all that it could add
and all the good things, andthen so the related stocks start
moving higher and then it'slike, well, it hasn't happened
yet and we get a littleimpatient and it still hasn't
happened, and then things selloff, but then finally you start
(36:02):
to see some of those innovationskick in and then profits, and
it seems like there's a sort ofsimilar analogy with the new
administration where you knowthere's a lot of the first month
after the election stocks wereflying and then, because
everyone's excited, and thenthey kind of come back down and
it takes a little bit of time,and it seems like an analogy
(36:24):
between those two things.
Brian (36:26):
I totally agree, and the Palm Pilot's the historical
reference that I use.
It was unbelievable yeah it was, and yet it was 10 years too
early.
Yeah, and everybody like themarket was unbelievable yeah it
was, yet it was 10 years tooearly.
Yeah, the market was right.
This thing is going to changethe world.
It just turned out it wasn'tthat thing made by that company,
right.
We had to go through a lot ofpain before we got to when the
(36:49):
technology finally got intoenough hands to become a network
benefit.
Ryan (36:58):
Okay, so you've used this morphine analogy for the economy
for a while.
When does the morphine wear off, and how do you tell when the
morphine has worn off?
Brian (37:11):
Yeah, I thought it already had.
I mean, the money supplyclearly is down, that's part of
the morphine, and so the other.
But the deficit actually wentup.
I mean, john Maynard Keynes,who's the king of deficits, like
the economist who soldeverybody on using them.
He's spinning in his grave likea tornado right now Because
(37:35):
under 4% unemployment, no worldwar, major war, and we are
running $ trillion dollardeficits over six percent of GDP
there.
It's the most irresponsiblebudget I have.
It's mind-boggling howirresponsible it is.
So I would you know what I'mthat, but that's morphine.
And so now Trump's in there andhe's gonna cut it and and so
(37:59):
the bottom line is is that Ithink the morphine's out and and
then, and then I've all to goalong with this.
All that morphine it.
It boosted the value of assets.
So equities clearly, housesclearly, you know.
So assets went up.
(38:20):
Uh, oil prices you know anybodythat's involved in those things
.
One if you don't have assets,you lost and, and we're seeing
so from the.
I kind of look at this one as akind of a bottom-up.
Um, slowdown in the economy,defaults rising, banks are
(38:42):
turning down more and more loanapplications, credit card
applications getting turned downmore and more so.
The inflation killed peoplewithout assets.
I don't mean kill literally,but financially destroyed them,
and that's why it was such animportant issue in the election.
And right now it kind of itstill feels at the top of the
(39:07):
income spectrum, thateverything's fine, when in
reality it's not, and so we'restill living off of that
morphine.
There's still some left in oursystem, but it eventually wears
out, especially if we cut thedeficit and the Fed does not
increase the money supply anyfrom here.
Ryan (39:25):
So I was talking with one of our financial advisor clients
and they were opining on yourcall that we're about 20%
overvalued and they said well,what do I do with that?
Does that mean I shouldn't ownstocks?
Or I don't know what to do withthat, because Brian said you're
not a trading model.
So how would you answer that?
Brian (39:47):
Yeah, I own stocks, I just don't value.
Okay, and I know you talked toDavid McGarrel, who's our chief
investment officer.
He knows he has forgotten moreabout stocks than I ever knew,
and so I always tell everybodyif I had a thousand bucks you
know people that people ask melike what do I do if you?
Hey, westbury, if you had athousand bucks, what would you
(40:08):
do with it?
I'd pick up the phone and callDave McGarrel and what he tells
me to do is don't, don't wait.
39% of your money in sevenstocks.
They're expensive.
The other 493 are way lessexpensive and the bottom 100 are
way less expensive than themiddle 200.
And so what I've moved istoward value and I've
(40:32):
underperformed because I've beenhere for a while.
My model's been saying forabout a year, we're overvalued
and so I've underperformed ifall you did was buy the S&P 500,
but I believe I will outperform.
I'm fine, I've been cautiousand I believe I will outperform.
(40:53):
I think value investing willjust like it did in 2000, 2001,
2002, is about to have its dayand so I want to be careful
buying those really expensivestocks, not because they're
going to it's different than 99,because back then they didn't
have any earnings.
(41:13):
Earnings were bad back then.
Now they're making hundreds andhundreds of billions of dollars
combined entities, but they'respending tens and tens and tens
and hundreds maybe of billionson the AI.
And now there's a big questionabout whether they're going to
get returns for that that areanywhere near what they're
(41:35):
spending.
And so you know, and so far AIhasn't paid off yet.
So it's sort of like the PalmPilot was there.
It was there, it had everything.
I mean, you could flip up thatlittle antenna right on the
screen like get on the internet,you could do it all, and that
(41:55):
company still went out ofbusiness.
It was unbelievable technology.
Ai is unbelievable technology,but is it going to pay?
Can you spend $50 billion andget paid back for that?
Ryan (42:07):
I don't know.
Yeah, and it's.
I think another takeaway isit's tough to pick the winners
and losers this far in advance.
I have very little doubt thatthere will be some massive,
massive winners, but I think ifyou're choosing the companies
that have done well so far,those could be far different
from the ones that ultimately,when we're talking a decade from
(42:29):
now, are the big winnersexactly, and one of the things
people do is they're buyingthese Nvidia chips, building big
.
Brian (42:37):
You know, I call them AI factories.
I like to call them factoriesbecause everybody thinks
technology is clean.
It's not clean.
They need so much electricityand they're not getting it from
solar and wind.
They're getting it from nuclearor from natural gas, coal and
oil, but so I call themfactories.
(42:59):
There's people that build thesefactories and then they rent
out time on these chips.
And what's just happened?
Because of DeepSeek, the rentalprices have fallen and there's
a big question about whether youcan buy an NVIDIA chip and
actually earn enough in rent tomake the purchase.
It's like building an apartmentbuilding.
(43:21):
If you can't charge rents thatare high enough, you lose money,
and that's what a lot of peoplehave done.
They went ahead and ordered abunch of chips, believing if
they got these chips first, theycould then rent them out and
make a profit, and all of asudden, the rents fell.
And so this whole thing isfascinating and Trump dominates
(43:46):
the news, ai dominates the newsand Dave McGarrel talks about
this, but that's creating a lotof noise.
But underneath, we know thedrivers of the market, and what
they say is the market's alittle overvalued.
I still think we're going tohave a recession.
We haven't had one in a longtime.
The Federal Reserve, the moneysupply has shrunk, the deficit's
(44:12):
going to be cut, the morphinedrip is over and, yes, all these
things are good for the longrun, but in the short run, I
think we're going to pay a price.
Ryan (44:23):
All right, last question for you what are you reading?
Book recommendations You'vegiven us a bunch of great book
recommendations in previousepisodes.
What are you reading today?
Brian (44:33):
Yeah, well, I'm going to give you one.
It's a heavy one, I mean, man,is it a slog?
I wish Jordan Peterson wouldwrite a little bit more
accessibly.
He's so academic and kind ofbrilliant.
But this book is amazing andit's called we who Wrestle With
(44:55):
God.
Okay, and it's Jordan Peterson.
You know he talks about theBible all the time and I believe
the way I would describe him ishe believed that.
You know he talks about theBible all the time and I believe
the way I would describe him ishe believed that.
You know, the Bible is one ofthe greatest books ever written
because it's got all humanpsychology in it and he's a
(45:16):
psychologist, so he's like man.
Look at this.
I mean it was written 2,000years ago, et cetera, et cetera.
And so he and I don't believehe's a Christian, but man he
seems like he's this close andso he's wrestling with God and
it's really.
It's fascinating, there's somany.
(45:39):
He actually talks about AI inthere, does he?
Yeah, in large language modelsand builds it up from, because,
you know, god created man andthen man created, like with
God's help, I guess you'd saywith the language, and then with
spelling and language andparagraphs.
That's how large languagemodels learn.
They analyze our writing, ourtalking, and so then you look at
(46:03):
lawyers and you find out whichwords go together.
I mean, because these aremachines, everything's a zero
and a one to it.
It doesn't really hear.
It breaks it down into lettersand paragraphs and sentences,
and all this came.
God created man and called himvery good and then gave him a
method to communicate, andthat's where it all came.
(46:27):
And so these AI models aretrying to, in a sense, become
God and anticipate what we wouldsay to this or that, but really
all they're doing is readingthe Internet and by having this
massive amount of humancommunication in there, they
learn how to communicate withhumans, even though they're not
humans, and and.
But it's all statistics thatare doing it.
(46:49):
It's all zeros and ones, soyou're not really communicating
with another being.
You're communicating with azero and one, and, and it's all
based on the statistic.
Anyway, he writes about thisand which is fascinating.
So, yeah, right next to Adamand Eve, and why she ate the
apple.
And then your next thing youknow you're talking about AI.
It's a fascinating book, oryou're reading about AI.
Ryan (47:12):
Yeah, I've seen that it's on my reading list.
I've listened to a lot ofJordan Peterson podcasts and
things and he's always aninteresting guy, very insightful
, especially with that sort ofclinical psychologist, uh lens
that he views everything throughall right.
Well, we'll add that to thebook list.
Um, time's flown by once againhere, brian, thank you for
(47:33):
joining us on the podcast, umand uh, providing your insights,
as you absolutely right.
Great to be with you all right,and thanks to all of you for
joining us on this episode ofthe First Trust ROI Podcast.
We will see you next time.
I wouldn't even be back in this industry if it wasn't for
you.
I blame you for the podcast.
I also blame you for when Ifinished grad school and came
back.
It was supposed to be a shortstint at First Trust and I don't
want to get too into thephilosophical reasons, but it
was kind of like I was a salesguy and I just didn't really
(00:24):
believe anymore.
It was like I wanted to sellstuff to make a lot of money.
Brian (00:29):
And.
Ryan (00:29):
I was pretty good at that, right, but I was like, well,
what's the meaning behind it?
Is it a good thing or a badthing?
Right, and that's because Ididn't really understand, like a
lot of the economics and a lotof like the freedom equated to a
lot of the economic theoriesthat you talk about.
And I think without that Iwould have lasted another year
(00:51):
or two back at First Trust, butI'd be gone.
Brian (00:54):
You know, entrepreneurship is an amazing
thing because it it's where allwealth is created.
And then there are a lot ofpeople that believe the
financial sector is just thissort of I don't know parasitic
thing that hangs on to whateverybody does.
But without the financialsector, none of this stuff gets
(01:15):
done.
I mean, if you're a homebuilder, you can't build a house
without insurance, without abank, without the lumber company
being banked, and so it'sessential, and one of the key
things about the United Statesis the depth and breadth of our
(01:36):
financial system.
And then it all runs likeseriously on integrity, and you
have to be able to trustpeople's word and that, and, and
so when I look at you knowpeople that are in heads of
major financial institutions,you know I may disagree with
them politically orphilosophically about clean
(01:59):
energy or dei or something likethat, but in the end, integrity
and honesty and doing what yousay you're going to do it's
absolutely essential in thefinancial world, and if you
don't do it, you fail.
Ryan (02:15):
It's what allows capital to be supplied, and if you can't
supply the capital through thecapital markets, then all the
growth that businessesexperience because they can
access that capital doesn'thappen.
Brian (02:27):
Yeah, and everybody keeps trying to find better and
cheaper and more efficient waysto do it.
And you know, I mean we've beendoing this for a long time.
I mean I don't mean just WallStreet, I mean this goes back to
the Roman Empire and thebankers of, you know, austria
and all these rules and kind ofthe costs of finance.
(02:49):
You know, it's almost like whenyou look at a realtor why is it
6%?
Well, they worked their buttsoff, you know, and I know that
the new rules came down, butit's like the costs have kind of
been set because that's therisk of markets and that's it's
the cost of doing business, andyet the benefits that come from
it are greater than the cost.
Ryan (03:10):
Otherwise we wouldn't do it hi, welcome to this episode
of the first trust ROI podcast.
I'm Ryan Isakainen, etfstrategist at first trust.
I'm joined today by BrianWestbury, chief economist at
first trust.
I'm gonna ask Brian aboutWestbury, chief Economist at
First Trust.
I'm going to ask Brian aboutwhat his views are for the
economy as we head into anothernew year, 2025.
(03:32):
We'll talk a bit about the newadministration, what some of its
policies, what the implicationsof those policies might be.
We'll also talk a bit aboutstocks, valuations and
artificial intelligence.
Thanks for joining us on thisepisode of the First Trust ROI
Podcast.
You're still an outlier.
For years, you were an outlieron the bullish side of things
(03:57):
and we've talked over the lastyear and a half on the podcast
and otherwise, and you're now anoutlier still on the bearish
side of things, and that's true,I think, of the economy as well
as the equity market.
So why are you such an outlier?
Brian (04:12):
Yeah, exactly, I think.
I mean.
Obviously I don't want tocriticize my peers in the
industry that have forecasts,but almost everybody right now
has an S&P 500 forecast of over7,000.
We've had two 20-plus years,20% growth years in a row 25, 26
(04:34):
, and they just think we'regoing to have another one.
And every model I look at sayswe're overvalued.
I'm partial to our model, thecapitalized profits approach,
that takes a look at profits andthe discount rate, the interest
rate, and that model says we'reovervalued right now by about
(04:55):
20% roughly.
And this is not a trading model,don't go short.
This is a 30,000 foot view downand it just says the market is
expensive and we all know it'sreally at the top of the market,
the top seven or 10 companies.
They make up a huge part of theS&P 500 and their PE ratios are
(05:19):
even higher than the rest ofthe market combined.
That's number one.
Then you start looking at othermodels.
Schiller does a 10-year kind oflooking back growth and
earnings PE ratio and we're atthe highest level since 1999.
If you look at I've alwayscalled it the Buffett model, but
(05:42):
he looks at market cap as apercent of GDP and that's at a
record high right now, the S&P500 market cap never been a
bigger share.
It's over 150% of GDP.
And then there's a Greenspanmodel and that's the equity risk
premium and it's the inverse ofthe PE compared to the 10-year
(06:05):
treasury and right now you canearn more on the 10-year
treasury than the price, theearnings yield, of the S&P 500.
So every one of these modelssays the same thing, and the
last time they said this, all ofthem said this was 1999.
(06:27):
So I hate saying that, because Idon't expect 2000.
I'm not looking for a dot-comcrash, I'm just the market's
overvalued.
We're frothy.
Look at all these meme coinsTrump coin, I get it, people
love Trump but it has nointrinsic value, zero whatsoever
(06:48):
.
It's not part of blockchain,it's not part of the crypto
world in any way.
It's just a meme coin and it'sworth tens of billions of
dollars and these kinds ofthings.
These are the things that happen, you know, like tulip mania,
meme coin mania.
These are very expensive stocks.
(07:09):
These are the kind of thingsthat happen when you have too
much liquidity and people getused to the momentum.
So I think a lot of theseforecasts to come back to your
question are based on momentumand they're not really looking
at valuation.
They could still be right.
Just because we're overvalueddoesn't mean we can't get more
overvalued.
That's what happened in 97, 98,99.
(07:31):
I just keep thinking we'regoing to see a slowdown,
especially if Trump issuccessful at cutting deficit
spending, because that's beenhalf of our GDP growth in the
past couple of years.
Ryan (07:43):
All right, that's a rabbit hole I want to go down, because
I've heard you talk about thisbefore as well the size of
government and how that canactually, over the long term,
impede economic growth.
So let's say the Trumpadministration is successful in
cutting a lot of the governmentspending in that part of their
(08:05):
policy.
Does that slow down the economyor is that good for long-term
growth?
Brian (08:09):
It's great for long-term growth.
What I worry about is it'stough for short-term growth.
So, yeah, keynesianism I don'tbelieve we ought to run deficits
to cause the economy to grow.
I think it's a highlyinefficient way.
It's way better to cut taxes,cut regulation, let the
entrepreneur loose, and so I'mjust not a fan of Keynesianism.
(08:33):
That doesn't mean that if thegovernment throws a bunch of
money in, they can't create somejobs.
Now they're going to cost otherjobs, but it's going to look
okay on paper, if you will.
So what they did with the GreenNew Deal basically that was the
Inflation Reduction Act wasreally the Green New Deal, and
(08:56):
so they've been investing tensof billions of dollars in green
energy.
Well, that's investment.
It's windmills, solar farms,all those kinds of things.
At the same time, they've beengiving tons of money to states
for Medicaid, and one of thefastest growing job categories
in the United States is you canget paid by Medicaid to stay
(09:20):
home and take care of a familymember.
So it's like in-home carefunded by Medicaid, and if
they're not hiring a nurse,they're hiring a grandkid.
And in New York State, kathyHochul, the governor of New York
, actually said in a speech lastyear the majority of jobs
created in the state of New Yorkwere created with that.
(09:41):
So it's really justredistribution from people
paying taxes or governmentborrowing and then creating jobs
.
And if you take out governmenthealth care and social services
social assistance from the jobsnumbers, we have about a third
(10:01):
of the job growth.
That's showing up like 2.2million jobs created in the past
year, only 890,000 withoutgovernment, without health care,
without social assistance.
So the private sector has beenslowing down.
It's the government spendingthat has been keeping job growth
up, and if you get rid of thatand Trump wants to go after it
(10:24):
you're going to slow down theeconomy, and so that's the short
term and I joke, it's likequitting heroin, and I don't
know this personally, but I'veseen it on TV.
It hurts.
So I think we're addicted toall this government spending.
It hurts.
So I think we're addicted toall this government spending,
keynesianism, deficits andgetting unaddicted, going cold
(10:50):
turkey.
It hurts, so it hurts us in theshort term, even though we win
in the long term.
Ryan (10:57):
So we're recording this on January 29th and who knows what
happens between now and when itairs, but I think it was this
morning that I saw just aheadline, and I haven't had a
chance to dig into it at all,but there was a headline that
suggested that the federalgovernment was basically
offering I don't know if it wasto everybody or certain
categories the ability to youcan leave and get paid through
(11:20):
September, and I think on aprevious podcast we talked about
that right after the electionas maybe something that it would
do.
Is that actually?
That's actually happening.
Brian (11:30):
Yeah, we talked about this before.
So Elon Musk had an interviewwith Joe Rogan before the
election I forget September orsomething like that and he's
like hey, you're going to cutmillions of jobs from the
government.
Evidently that's what you wantto do.
I mean, then you're going tothrow people out of work.
I mean, the headlines are goingto be terrible and everybody's
(11:51):
going to be worried about theeconomy, like I just said
because take away pay frompeople, and then what do all
these people do?
and they're unemployed, etcetera, et cetera.
And Elon Musk mused that that,hey, um, we'll just pay them and
and take you know, I.
And I added I don't rememberhim saying this, but I added
take away their phone, take awaytheir computer, take away their
(12:13):
office, send them home, don'tlet them do anything, and pay
them.
And I thought the tax payerswould be better off like it
until they find another job orsomething like that.
Well, they made a littlemodification of this blanket
thing that I was talking aboutat the time.
Yeah, so they're saying is look, you have to come back to the
office, but you don't have to,and if you don't, you can work
(12:37):
remotely until September andwe'll pay you, but after that.
So it's like sort of a you haveto work in the in a lot of jobs
you get, they'll give you a sixmonth severance package or
something like that, but they'rewhat they're saying is
basically we'll pay you to stayat home for, I guess, the next
nine months.
Now, yeah, and that's brilliant.
I.
I actually think it's abrilliant plan.
(12:59):
It will cost taxpayers, but itis kind I don't know what the
right word is because you'regoing in and this isn't like
coming into a private companyand laying off 2,000 people.
This is potentially four or500,000, a million it's
potentially that many.
(13:20):
And so being kind but shrinkingthe size of the workforce, I
think would be magnificent, andthen these companies can get
more efficient.
We can use AI, we can usecomputers.
The government is still runningcomputers that you and I and
anybody watching this wouldlaugh at.
(13:42):
You have a better computer foryour kid to do their homework on
than the government.
Employees have computers intheir offices, and so Elon Musk
is the perfect person to upgradethe technology and get us more
efficient, and we have to do itfrom the outside because, as we
saw with Obamacare and all these, whenever they do it from the
(14:03):
inside or hire some politicallyconnected consultant, it just
all falls apart.
So this is a great opportunityto make the government more
efficient.
It's going to cost taxpayers,it's very generous for nine
months, et cetera, but they'regoing to use the opportunity of
making them come back to theoffice to give them the chance
to retire.
Ryan (14:23):
Retire, or they could re-enter the workforce and do
something that's maybe moreproductive, and they're going to
add more to the economy than itwould have otherwise.
Brian (14:31):
Yep.
Well, that's why I say cuttinggovernment spending actually
makes us better off in the longrun because we get more
efficient.
Ryan (14:38):
Regulation is the other part of what the DOGE was kind
of focused on.
I think it's at least theheadlines suggest that it's more
towards cost-cutting now, butyou think the regulation making
things more efficient is stillgoing to be a big part of the
Trump policy platform goingforward.
Brian (14:57):
I definitely think it will.
I mean, in his firstadministration he didn't have a
doge, but I think it was a rule.
I mean you can quote me, butplease, like I think I remember
this Like if you had aregulation you got to get rid of
two or three, whatever thatnumber was.
And it worked.
We actually shrunk the FederalRegister, and so they'll be able
(15:19):
to do that.
It's interesting you bring upthe spending versus regulation,
because Vivek Ramaswamy wasgoing to do the regs and Musk
was going to do the spending andthen Vivek decided to run, and
I know everybody speculates.
He got fired, got chased out,whatever.
Who knows, it doesn't matter,he's going to go run for
governor in Ohio.
(15:40):
That leaves Musk.
So what happens to theregulation?
I still think they'll focus onit.
Okay, and and and.
But I'm really glad that.
I was glad to hear that they hadactually divided it into two,
because we can cut spending.
And you know, I mean I don'tknow either.
You can ask me this but theseNGOs which is the NGO stands for
(16:04):
non-governmental organization,which is a farce because they're
funded by government, they'rejust not a government agency and
a lot of them have beendesigned and received money to
help immigrants come across theborder, to put them up once they
get across the border, to helpthem navigate the system of
(16:26):
welfare and how to move into theUnited States.
Ngos are over in the MiddleEast, they're everywhere, and
the government is funding themto the tune of billions and
billions and billions andbillions of dollars and Trump
cut their funding off.
He froze it.
They got a lawsuit that saidyou can't do that because these
(16:46):
were congressional votes thatsaid we're going to fund all
this, and I think Trump backedoff on that.
So spending is hard to cutbecause you can't do it directly
with an executive order, andmost spending is Social Security
, medicare, medicaid, theseentitlement programs where I
(17:09):
hope they really go as acombination of the two.
I'm not sure the exact number,but I think we have something
like 140 different welfareprograms in the United States.
140 different programs withtheir own entire bureaucracies,
their own entire staffs, theirown entire rules and, first of
(17:31):
all, navigating.
It is a nightmare but it'shighly inefficient.
And I believe bringing all ofthat together making welfare
dependent on work, like whatClinton did, and welfare as we
knew it If you don't have a jobwithin two years, you can't stay
on but combine all that make itmore efficient, and so I think
(17:54):
they're going to make headway inthis.
But some of the easy like theythought it was low-hanging fruit
.
Let's just cut off the NGOs.
Then they got sued intooblivion.
Ryan (18:03):
Yeah, I mean all the recipients of that money.
I mean there's constituenciesthat are pretty happy to receive
those funds, and then they haveCongress people, and then you
know, everyone wants everyoneelse to be cut, but they don't
want themselves to be cut.
So that's, that's the challenge.
Brian (18:19):
You know I look at.
I look at the group of peoplethat Trump wants to head
agencies, and I don't want toget into personalities or all
the crazy conspiracy stories anddrinking and whatever.
That doesn't matter.
What I want to see is somebodythat wants to head an agency,
that wants to get rid of it, andso far I haven't seen one.
(18:42):
And my hero of all time is aguy named Alfred Kahn, and I've
been talking about him.
Ryan (18:49):
I love the story.
Brian (18:51):
Carter hired him to take over the Civil Aeronautics Board
in the 70s and people don'tremember this because it's been
gone so long but they would setthe price of every seat on every
airplane flight you had to go.
If you were an airline, youwent on bended knee to
Washington.
Like you know, I want to raisethe price by $15 a seat or
(19:13):
whatever.
Then they would have to agree.
Well, like Alfred Kahn thoughtthis was insanity and he came
over, took over the CivilAeronautics Board, got rid of it
, deregulated the airlinesMagnificent story, only one I've
ever in history of the UnitedStates I've ever known to do
that, at least to a major agency.
And there are hundreds andhundreds and hundreds of
(19:39):
temporary government like, let'ssay, research projects or a
committee to study the effectsof aircraft carriers and like
whatever it is like.
You can make up whatever youwant.
It's probably in existence andthey're still there.
You know it doesn't meanthey're employing a bunch of
people, but there still existand they were started 20 years
(20:02):
ago and we need to go find allof those and get rid of them and
they can do all of that andthat brings, I mean, I'm not
sure where you want to go next.
But I love all these things.
These are like cut taxes, cutregulation, cut spending, cut
the size of government and we.
It will be a huge benefit andthere are a lot of Trump
(20:27):
supporters out there that Italked to that are they just
think this is going to usher ina golden age tomorrow, today,
and I agree that all thesethings should be done.
But Reagan wanted to do thosetoo, and the stock market did
not fare well in the first yearand a half of his presidency.
(20:52):
Because when you go in and youmake those changes, another way
to say the same thing is JavierMalay in Argentina has had a
great deal of success.
I'm certain they really do havea budget surplus because he was
able to cut spending.
They've slashed regulations,gotten rid of many government
programs altogether.
He really did take a chainsaw.
(21:13):
The problem is they have anunemployment rate in Argentina.
It's about 40%.
That economy is not.
You hear all these good thingsand people that want smaller
government are really excitedabout Javier Mele and they are
getting it done and it willbenefit Argentina hugely.
But that economy is not doinggreat right now.
(21:35):
It's still in recession, and soI just worry that when we cut
spending.
Get rid of that stimulus togrowth.
In the short term we'll pay aprice.
And then what I really worryabout is the Fed comes in, cuts
rates and starts printing moneyagain to compensate for the
(21:55):
lower deficits, and that's whatcreates the inflation to come
back.
Ryan (21:59):
How accurate do you think, or how fair is the comparison
between Trump and Reagan?
Is Trump like the new Reagan,or what are the similarities and
differences.
Brian (22:09):
Yeah, I think it's the best parallel that I could use.
I mean they both wanted astrong defense, a military.
I mean Trump, I believe, justcalled for the Iron Dome, which,
reagan?
Ryan (22:25):
it was Star Wars is what we called it.
He got ridiculed for that.
Brian (22:30):
Yeah, he got ridiculed for that.
But now, because the Iron Domein Israel is so successful,
trump's not going to getridiculed, but they, because of
the Iron Dome in Israel is sosuccessful, trump's not going to
get ridiculed, but they bothwant strong defense.
They both wanted lessregulation.
Reagan was fond of saying howmany words is it For worse?
Nine eight, seven words in theEnglish language.
(22:50):
I'm here from the government,I'm from the government, I'm
here to help.
Yeah, and so they're the same.
That way, trump is morepopulist than Reagan was, and I
always get worried a little bitabout the phrase populism,
because what I hear is notcommunism really.
But oh, we're just going to dothings to make people happy or
(23:12):
give them things, and that's theway we reach the populace, and
that always scares me a littlebit, but it's a pretty good
parallel.
They both want smallergovernment.
They both want lower taxes.
Trump has now called for gettingrid of the income tax and
replacing it with a sales tax, anational consumption tax, which
(23:34):
I always get worried a littlebit about that, because if
you've paid taxes all your lifeon your income and you saved
money to retire on, now you'regoing to have to pay taxes on
everything you spent, so you'redouble taxed.
And so I never did like thatbecause of that.
But I've sort of changed mymind and the reason is that it
(23:58):
would be a much simpler taxsystem.
You wouldn't have peoplespending hours of their lives
and tens and tens of thousandsof dollars to file taxes or more
and having this much paperworkand all of that Just tax
consumption.
The only reason you work is toearn an income.
The only reason you earn anincome is to consume.
(24:18):
It doesn't matter where you taxit Income when you earn it or
when you spend it.
So let's start taxing it whenwe spend it.
It'll make the tax systemsimpler, even if the generation
that is alive right now and issaved after tax has to pay.
The greatest generation went towar.
Guess what?
(24:39):
This generation can pay taxestwice.
I mean, it's not that much of asacrifice to ask.
Ryan (24:45):
Do you think that those proposals have a chance of
actually kind of progressing?
Because I can hear theobjection already like this is
regressive, it hurts the poorthe most.
You're just trying to, you know, make the rich happy, and
they're not going to spend theirmoney anyways.
They're just going to put itsomewhere that's sheltered and
(25:05):
then they don't have to paytaxes.
Brian (25:07):
Oh yeah, no, it's going to be demagogue to death.
Oh yeah, yeah, the odds of itmaking it into law are minor,
taking it into law are minor.
But what I'm getting to?
I mean Reagan wanted a flat tax.
I mean there are similarities.
That's sort of where I wasgoing.
Sure, I totally.
I mean all those arguments aregoing to be brought out.
You just articulated themperfectly.
And this Congress?
(25:28):
There is no way they'll do that.
Yeah, and that's really kind ofthe big thing they have to do
is extend the Trump tax cuts.
But they're already horsetrading.
And I worry, you know, reagan, Iwould argue Reagan is more of a
philosophy, like they're bothsort of philosophical.
We don't want this biggovernment, and why?
(25:52):
Because big government harmsour freedoms, harms our growth,
and we want to get rid of itbecause it increases freedom,
increases entrepreneurship,increases growth.
As a result, both Reagan andTrump were kind of that way.
They come at it a little bitdifferently.
The problem is then you go froma philosophy to a transactional
(26:14):
Congress.
So they've already given up onthe salt deduction, like so we
had knocked it down to 10 000.
I mean, trump's already saidit's going up to 20, maybe even
more, and and so that's nowthey've started horse trading
and what I'm getting is hey, yougive that to new jersey, what
are you going to give to iowa?
You have to have subsidies forfarms and windmills or ethanol.
(26:38):
So the minute you start thattransactional, that's where the
consumption tax runs intoproblems, because Congress can't
vote for it, they can't votefor anything clean, they all
have different constituencies,and so where philosophy meets,
transactional is when governmentreally, in my opinion, kind of
breaks down.
(26:58):
You don't always get the mostefficient.
You get the political,transactional system, not the
most efficient economic way ofdoing things.
Ryan (27:09):
We've talked before about the potential for Trump using
tariff policies and he, I think,talked about the external
revenue service.
Now, and there was justrecently the use of the threat
of tariffs with Columbia to kindof shove them into taking back
some of the people that may havebeen illegally in the US.
(27:32):
Where do you think we land withtariff policies?
Is this like?
Is this just a tool, or is itsomething that the Trump
administration really wants tohave kind of across the board?
Brian (27:44):
Right, I remember we were .
I was watching one of theplayoff games I think it
might've been the Bills Chiefswhen I read to the table that I
was watching the game with, ohmy gosh, colombia refused planes
of deportees, right.
And Trump is like no visas, 25%tariffs, going up to 50 in six
(28:08):
hours if you don't die.
And I'm like listen to this.
And we all, everyone at thetable is like I wonder how long
it's going to take them to saydon't fly them here, we'll come
pick them up.
And it was like four hourslater Columbia caved.
And so I am okay with usingtariffs as a tool, but you have
(28:32):
to also be willing to use allthe tools.
We're going to drop out of NATOI'm not asking us to or saying,
but that's a tool too.
We're going to take away USAIDfrom Egypt if you don't do it.
Not just terror, like we'regoing to put a tariff on.
We're going to take USAID.
We're going to revoke yourvisas.
This company can't trade.
You have to use all the tools.
(28:54):
If it's a tool, it can't be theonly tool, and what I'm fearful
of, or what I have been alittle fearful of, is just this
general cross-the-board tariff.
Universal tariff is what wewould call it, and Trump has
already come out and said he'snot going to do that.
Now he'll do it.
(29:14):
I mean, it's not a trueuniversal tariff.
If he goes after Canada andMexico, that's a Canadian and
Mexican tariff.
Universal would be everywhereand that's what Herbert Hoover
did in 1930.
And most economists believeit's a huge part of the Great
Depression.
So please, let's not dosomething like that.
(29:35):
If you tariff us, we shouldtariff you.
If we're trying to get you tostop close the border, tariffs
are a tool, but there are othertools too, and so this can cause
some dislocations until we workthings out.
I think Mexico, they're alreadybuilding tent cities, they're
(29:56):
already stopping migrants at theborder.
I mean, I don't know if you'veseen the numbers on immigration,
but it's gone from like 2,500people a day to 40 and shown up
at the border.
I mean, people know not to come.
Number one, mexico's stoppingthem.
Number two, and I think thesetariffs have a lot to do with it
.
So I wouldn't be surprised ifMexico hasn't already done
(30:19):
enough to avoid the tariff thatTrump's talked about.
Canada, they seem to be.
You know they're going to pushback against Trump and so
it'll—anyway.
That's another thing, you know.
So when I talk about the marketbeing overvalued, I worry
because there's chips in theglass, like you know.
(30:41):
Like if you squeeze a glasslike that has no chips in it.
I mean, I'm not strong enoughto break this glass, but if you
put a little crack in there andthen I squeeze it, it can
shatter a lot easier and I andtariffs put a little chip in the
glass, like it's like you startchanging flows and trade
(31:03):
patterns and things like moneyflows, that's.
That's the kind of thing thatcan.
I'm not talking about it's nota depression, it's not a massive
collapse, it's not 2000 again,it's not not 08.
It's none of that.
But those are the things thatcan kind of start like the
market's overvalued and it couldhave a pretty good correction
(31:24):
just because it's overvalued,and these are the kinds of
things that could be a catalystfor that.
Ryan (31:30):
So the market, after two really strong years, valuations
get expensive.
You know, we saw again we'rerecording this on the 29th.
On Monday, there was, over theweekend, the DeepSeek AI
announcement and that caused ahuge sell-off in some of those
stocks and I think a lot ofpeople look at that and say,
well, it's just kind of asell-first, ask questions later,
(31:51):
but it's more likely whenthings have done well and
they're kind of expensive, right?
Yeah?
Brian (31:57):
they're expensive.
They're priced for perfection.
They weren't.
They were not priced for, and Iknow there's a huge debate.
Did they have the nvidia superchips or right?
Did they spend more?
Did they steal stuff, likethere's always like, like
questions, right, but the theshocker of that was they did it
with a lot less resources,energy, money, time, chip
(32:23):
capacity and, of what I've read,it looks like they could have
done this, like they reallydidn't steal it.
And then the other thing isthey made it open source,
because if you're Google and youhave your own AI, you don't
want to make it open sourcebecause that's how you make
(32:45):
money.
But if you make it open sourceand available to anyone, why do
they need Google?
And so I think this was one ofthe cracks in the glass.
It may have a little bit ofnefariousness in it somewhere,
but it's not all nefarious.
And I believe there are Musk,figured out how to put up a
(33:08):
rocket for $1.50 at the cost ofNASA.
And if you're going to tell methat, the biggest companies in
the world Google, meta, they arehighly centralized.
They only have their engineersworking on stuff.
They just come at things with aton of bricks.
We're going to spend $50billion and we need a nuclear
(33:30):
reactor to power our thing.
We're going to brute forceeverything and our AI is going
to be a god.
It's going gonna knoweverything.
To me, that's a perfect example, something that must would go
after yeah, like and simplify it, and that's what the Chinese
did that we're not using 32-bit,we're using 8-bit.
He uses 10% of electricity andthat's plenty like, and we're
(33:53):
not gonna.
We're not gonna make our thing.
God, we're, we're going to usean engineer.
We need an engineer, a lawyer,when we need a lawyer, a doctor,
when we need a doc, as theexpert.
It's called the, the.
It's called the experts.
Ryan (34:05):
Yeah model of experts.
Brian (34:07):
Model of experts yeah and um and and so ours kind of puts
them all together, makes themgod.
They just said no, we'll justuse.
If it's an engineering problem,use the engineer.
And it just made it way moresimple.
Yeah, and you didn't have tohave all this wasted energy and
time and I think there'ssomething real there.
Yeah, and I'm not trying to saynvidia is going to collapse or
(34:30):
go out of business.
I'm not saying any of that.
I just think there there areways to make this way more
efficient and there's going to.
In the tech world, what have welearned?
I mean, have we learned nothing?
I mean, palm Pilot owned themarket and basically the Palm
Pilot in the late 90s was theApple iPhone.
(34:52):
I mean it was clunkier andwasn't as good, but all that it
could do the Apple iPhone does.
And yet those guys 3Com wentout of business, and so it's
like this idea that they'reuntouchable.
That's where people make amistake and I think people are
(35:16):
overly euphoric.
Trump's policies are great I'mnot going to argue that but
they're not great tomorrow.
It isn't going to change thewhole world tomorrow.
Reagan didn't.
It took him a year and a halfbefore we bottomed and finally
took off, and so we have to live.
I still believe we have to livethrough some pain before we get
(35:39):
to the game.
Ryan (35:41):
It kind of reminds me of like a technology hype cycle,
like a new technology whetherit's AI or whatever comes out
and immediately people begin toimagine all that it could add
and all the good things, andthen so the related stocks start
moving higher and then it'slike, well, it hasn't happened
yet and we get a littleimpatient and it still hasn't
happened, and then things selloff, but then finally you start
(36:02):
to see some of those innovationskick in and then profits, and
it seems like there's a sort ofsimilar analogy with the new
administration where you knowthere's a lot of the first month
after the election stocks wereflying and then, because
everyone's excited, and thenthey kind of come back down and
it takes a little bit of time,and it seems like an analogy
(36:24):
between those two things.
Brian (36:26):
I totally agree, and the Palm Pilot's the historical
reference that I use.
It was unbelievable yeah it was, and yet it was 10 years too
early.
Yeah, and everybody like themarket was unbelievable yeah it
was, yet it was 10 years tooearly.
Yeah, the market was right.
This thing is going to changethe world.
It just turned out it wasn'tthat thing made by that company,
right.
We had to go through a lot ofpain before we got to when the
(36:49):
technology finally got intoenough hands to become a network
benefit.
Ryan (36:58):
Okay, so you've used this morphine analogy for the economy
for a while.
When does the morphine wear off, and how do you tell when the
morphine has worn off?
Brian (37:11):
Yeah, I thought it already had.
I mean, the money supplyclearly is down, that's part of
the morphine, and so the other.
But the deficit actually wentup.
I mean, john Maynard Keynes,who's the king of deficits, like
the economist who soldeverybody on using them.
He's spinning in his grave likea tornado right now Because
(37:35):
under 4% unemployment, no worldwar, major war, and we are
running $ trillion dollardeficits over six percent of GDP
there.
It's the most irresponsiblebudget I have.
It's mind-boggling howirresponsible it is.
So I would you know what I'mthat, but that's morphine.
And so now Trump's in there andhe's gonna cut it and and so
(37:59):
the bottom line is is that Ithink the morphine's out and and
then, and then I've all to goalong with this.
All that morphine it.
It boosted the value of assets.
So equities clearly, housesclearly, you know.
So assets went up.
(38:20):
Uh, oil prices you know anybodythat's involved in those things
.
One if you don't have assets,you lost and, and we're seeing
so from the.
I kind of look at this one as akind of a bottom-up.
Um, slowdown in the economy,defaults rising, banks are
(38:42):
turning down more and more loanapplications, credit card
applications getting turned downmore and more so.
The inflation killed peoplewithout assets.
I don't mean kill literally,but financially destroyed them,
and that's why it was such animportant issue in the election.
And right now it kind of itstill feels at the top of the
(39:07):
income spectrum, thateverything's fine, when in
reality it's not, and so we'restill living off of that
morphine.
There's still some left in oursystem, but it eventually wears
out, especially if we cut thedeficit and the Fed does not
increase the money supply anyfrom here.
Ryan (39:25):
So I was talking with one of our financial advisor clients
and they were opining on yourcall that we're about 20%
overvalued and they said well,what do I do with that?
Does that mean I shouldn't ownstocks?
Or I don't know what to do withthat, because Brian said you're
not a trading model.
So how would you answer that?
Brian (39:47):
Yeah, I own stocks, I just don't value.
Okay, and I know you talked toDavid McGarrel, who's our chief
investment officer.
He knows he has forgotten moreabout stocks than I ever knew,
and so I always tell everybodyif I had a thousand bucks you
know people that people ask melike what do I do if you?
Hey, westbury, if you had athousand bucks, what would you
(40:08):
do with it?
I'd pick up the phone and callDave McGarrel and what he tells
me to do is don't, don't wait.
39% of your money in sevenstocks.
They're expensive.
The other 493 are way lessexpensive and the bottom 100 are
way less expensive than themiddle 200.
And so what I've moved istoward value and I've
(40:32):
underperformed because I've beenhere for a while.
My model's been saying forabout a year, we're overvalued
and so I've underperformed ifall you did was buy the S&P 500,
but I believe I will outperform.
I'm fine, I've been cautiousand I believe I will outperform.
(40:53):
I think value investing willjust like it did in 2000, 2001,
2002, is about to have its dayand so I want to be careful
buying those really expensivestocks, not because they're
going to it's different than 99,because back then they didn't
have any earnings.
(41:13):
Earnings were bad back then.
Now they're making hundreds andhundreds of billions of dollars
combined entities, but they'respending tens and tens and tens
and hundreds maybe of billionson the AI.
And now there's a big questionabout whether they're going to
get returns for that that areanywhere near what they're
(41:35):
spending.
And so you know, and so far AIhasn't paid off yet.
So it's sort of like the PalmPilot was there.
It was there, it had everything.
I mean, you could flip up thatlittle antenna right on the
screen like get on the internet,you could do it all, and that
(41:55):
company still went out ofbusiness.
It was unbelievable technology.
Ai is unbelievable technology,but is it going to pay?
Can you spend $50 billion andget paid back for that?
Ryan (42:07):
I don't know.
Yeah, and it's.
I think another takeaway isit's tough to pick the winners
and losers this far in advance.
I have very little doubt thatthere will be some massive,
massive winners, but I think ifyou're choosing the companies
that have done well so far,those could be far different
from the ones that ultimately,when we're talking a decade from
(42:29):
now, are the big winnersexactly, and one of the things
people do is they're buyingthese Nvidia chips, building big
.
Brian (42:37):
You know, I call them AI factories.
I like to call them factoriesbecause everybody thinks
technology is clean.
It's not clean.
They need so much electricityand they're not getting it from
solar and wind.
They're getting it from nuclearor from natural gas, coal and
oil, but so I call themfactories.
(42:59):
There's people that build thesefactories and then they rent
out time on these chips.
And what's just happened?
Because of DeepSeek, the rentalprices have fallen and there's
a big question about whether youcan buy an NVIDIA chip and
actually earn enough in rent tomake the purchase.
It's like building an apartmentbuilding.
(43:21):
If you can't charge rents thatare high enough, you lose money,
and that's what a lot of peoplehave done.
They went ahead and ordered abunch of chips, believing if
they got these chips first, theycould then rent them out and
make a profit, and all of asudden, the rents fell.
And so this whole thing isfascinating and Trump dominates
(43:46):
the news, ai dominates the newsand Dave McGarrel talks about
this, but that's creating a lotof noise.
But underneath, we know thedrivers of the market, and what
they say is the market's alittle overvalued.
I still think we're going tohave a recession.
We haven't had one in a longtime.
The Federal Reserve, the moneysupply has shrunk, the deficit's
(44:12):
going to be cut, the morphinedrip is over and, yes, all these
things are good for the longrun, but in the short run, I
think we're going to pay a price.
Ryan (44:23):
All right, last question for you what are you reading?
Book recommendations You'vegiven us a bunch of great book
recommendations in previousepisodes.
What are you reading today?
Brian (44:33):
Yeah, well, I'm going to give you one.
It's a heavy one, I mean, man,is it a slog?
I wish Jordan Peterson wouldwrite a little bit more
accessibly.
He's so academic and kind ofbrilliant.
But this book is amazing andit's called we who Wrestle With
(44:55):
God.
Okay, and it's Jordan Peterson.
You know he talks about theBible all the time and I believe
the way I would describe him ishe believed that.
You know he talks about theBible all the time and I believe
the way I would describe him ishe believed that.
You know, the Bible is one ofthe greatest books ever written
because it's got all humanpsychology in it and he's a
(45:16):
psychologist, so he's like man.
Look at this.
I mean it was written 2,000years ago, et cetera, et cetera.
And so he and I don't believehe's a Christian, but man he
seems like he's this close andso he's wrestling with God and
it's really.
It's fascinating, there's somany.
(45:39):
He actually talks about AI inthere, does he?
Yeah, in large language modelsand builds it up from, because,
you know, god created man andthen man created, like with
God's help, I guess you'd saywith the language, and then with
spelling and language andparagraphs.
That's how large languagemodels learn.
They analyze our writing, ourtalking, and so then you look at
(46:03):
lawyers and you find out whichwords go together.
I mean, because these aremachines, everything's a zero
and a one to it.
It doesn't really hear.
It breaks it down into lettersand paragraphs and sentences,
and all this came.
God created man and called himvery good and then gave him a
method to communicate, andthat's where it all came.
(46:27):
And so these AI models aretrying to, in a sense, become
God and anticipate what we wouldsay to this or that, but really
all they're doing is readingthe Internet and by having this
massive amount of humancommunication in there, they
learn how to communicate withhumans, even though they're not
humans, and and.
But it's all statistics thatare doing it.
(46:49):
It's all zeros and ones, soyou're not really communicating
with another being.
You're communicating with azero and one, and, and it's all
based on the statistic.
Anyway, he writes about thisand which is fascinating.
So, yeah, right next to Adamand Eve, and why she ate the
apple.
And then your next thing youknow you're talking about AI.
It's a fascinating book, oryou're reading about AI.
Ryan (47:12):
Yeah, I've seen that it's on my reading list.
I've listened to a lot ofJordan Peterson podcasts and
things and he's always aninteresting guy, very insightful
, especially with that sort ofclinical psychologist, uh lens
that he views everything throughall right.
Well, we'll add that to thebook list.
Um, time's flown by once againhere, brian, thank you for
(47:33):
joining us on the podcast, umand uh, providing your insights,
as you absolutely right.
Great to be with you all right,and thanks to all of you for
joining us on this episode ofthe First Trust ROI Podcast.
We will see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.