Charles Payne: How to Take Back America & Win Again | Episode #1 - The American Capitalist Show

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
There's something I read about a briefcase story.
She said, I believe you.
She says, yeah, you will.
That's all I needed.
You're going to keep making mecry, man.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's without her, man.

SPEAKER_00 (00:14):
From the streets of Harlem to the television studio,
Charles Payne has led the way onFox Business for over a decade
with his hit show, Making Moneywith Charles Payne.

SPEAKER_01 (00:22):
There is nobody, and I'm not just saying this to blow
smoke, there's a reason you'renumber one, that cares as much
about the average person as youdo and tells it like it is.
And I know you put yourself atrisk for doing this.
I was 13.
So I came home from school oneday and my mom said we're
leaving.
So me and my mom and my twoyounger brothers got on the bus.
Leaving your dad.
Yeah.
And then it hit me.
The energy.

(00:43):
So every car blasted.
When I heard Harold Melvin andthe Blue Nuts, oh, man, what the
hell is this?
I never heard nothing like this.
Bad luck.
Oh, snap.
Then, of course, the boom boxes.
Oh, my God, the boom boxes.
Here I go, my dumb ass, man.
You know, like a little whitekid.
Hey, guys! Oh, shit.
Ping!

UNKNOWN (01:04):
Ping!

SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Ping! Woo! The ass whoopings.
One thing I didn't really eventruly understand is, like, when
I moved to Harlem, is everythingthat was good was white.
Like, if you got good grades,oh, you think you white.
And this is a self-fulfillingthing when you put yourself down
as a race.
I was so good at bagginggroceries.
I'm telling you right now, ifthey ever had an Olympics for
that shit, I'd have been likethe Mark Spitz of that shit,

(01:26):
man.
I was like, I had a fight with aguy who had to last at least an
hour, you know, and he coveredtwo blocks.
I don't know how that happened.
We started like 143rd Street,now I'm 145th Street.
I don't know how the hell thathappened.
I'm sorry that your OnlyFansaccount and your Grubhub and
your Uber.
I'm sorry, but...
I don't care.
At the end of the class, theinstructor said, listen, the
test is Saturday, so you're notgoing to be able to pass it.

(01:48):
So I'm nodding at him at thesame time.
I said, my man, you don't knowme.
I didn't say it out loud.
I'm just looking at him like,champ, you do not know me.
You do not know me.
He said something that changedmy life.
He said, you read real well, butwhat do you want?
After I hung up, I tore up thescript.
Charles Payne, man.

(02:09):
I'm...
Dude, I'm so excited that you'rehere.
I've been thinking about doing apodcast now for about a year and
a half.
Everyone's saying there's toomany podcasts out there, too
many YouTube shows.
But I was just talking, being onyour show, three-minute clips...
It's tough, man, to get itacross.
I get all these questions frompeople.

(02:30):
So my hope is, in long-formcontent, we're going to get to
break things down, give peoplethe actionable stuff that could
really change their life.
Because I'm worried about thecountry right now, man.
I'm worried about things likeAI.
I'm worried about the schoolsystem.
And I think I've been tellingpeople, I think the wealth gap,
unfortunately, is going to getworse in our country, man.

(02:51):
Yeah.
So I've been thinking about,okay, who do I bring on as the
first guest?
This is a big thing.
I've got my heart and soul, mywife, my team into this.
We really want to make an impactwith this.
And I reached out to you and I'mlike, guys, this is going to be
a long shot, man.
I don't know if he's going to doit.
He's busy.
I can barely even get him toreturn a text.

(03:11):
That's because I'm old.
I told Savita, man, I got anemail that Charles landed.
Charles sent out an email.
It's It's better than smokesignals, man.
But look, man, today, everyoneknows the Fox business, Charles.
They know that side of you.
And I was talking about youbefore you came here.

(03:33):
It's like, I know you, but Idon't really know you, right?
I've done your show numeroustimes.
You've even been to my house,but I think it's been more of a
business level.
And this show, I want to reallybreak down who's Charles Payne
because your success, I mean,it's crazy, man.
Yeah.
11 years now, I think, runningFox Business, Making Money, your
own show.

(03:54):
You're on every other show overthere.
Wall Street Strategy, youstarted in 91.
We got a lot of comedy.
You started out of your bedroom.
I started out of my bedroom.
You're blowing up over therenow.
Air Force Veteran, which themilitary community, for me, man,
I owe everything to them.
Another reason I'm doing thisshow is we're so grateful for
everything we're giving.
So I thank you for your service.
And, you know, I've been doingmedia now.

(04:17):
all these news networks formaybe 15, 16 years.
There is nobody, and I'm notjust saying this to blow smoke,
there's a reason you're numberone, that cares as much about
the average person as you do andtells it like it is.
And I know, man, you putyourself at risk for doing that
sometimes.
Thanks for being here.
Thank you very much, man.
That's a beautiful introduction.

(04:37):
I really appreciate it.
And all the things you justmentioned are the things that
I'm worried about, I have beenworried about, I'm concerned
about.
And, you know, it's interesting,the American capitalist, right,
it's, you know, you talk aboutgetting in trouble for speaking
your mind or saying differentthings.

(04:57):
And this, I feel like we getwedded to capitalism.
to either being a Democrat or aRepublican or being a this or
that.
We're always affixed to beingcertain things.
And then we kind of defendourselves to be those things.
And I think, you know what?
Life is much more complicated.

(05:18):
And so I have people I agreewith on 90% of things, but I
disagree with on 10%.
And I think that's the way lifeis.
And then the question is, how doyou communicate that in a
respectful way, in a way thatmaybe both sides listen and
learn?
And I think of all these issuesyou're talking about, the
inability to do that is one ofthe reasons those things are

(05:39):
getting worse.

UNKNOWN (05:41):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (05:41):
I'm glad you said that, man, because every
situation I'm looking at rightnow, I look at the riots that
are going on in L.A., I look atwhat's going on across the
border.
The thing that really irritatesme, I think people are going to
look at you and say, OK, he's onFox, super conservative, right
wing.
He's just going to follow thatno matter what.
I think people tend to think I'mthat way also.
It's just not the truth, man.
You know, I voted for Trump.

(06:02):
I like a lot of what he's doing.
There's some things I don't likewhat he's doing.
And I think, you know, theproblem is.
And not to bash Trump, because Ithink he's been put into this
political structure where if youwant to get elected, here are
the things you have to do.
I might be wrong, but I thinkthere's things he has to do that
he doesn't agree with, things hehas to say or else he wouldn't
be there.
And I think he's kind ofplaying, if I can get 80% of

(06:23):
what I want across, that's goingto be good enough for this
country, which is kind of sad,man.
I mean, I don't know how youfeel about it.
80% is a lot.
80% would be a lot.
No, really, it would be a lot.
I mean, take, for instance, onething that I've been getting a
lot of pushback for in tariffs.
It's something I've talked aboutfor a long time.
Ten years ago, I was talkingabout it, and I have the guys
from the Wall Street Journalshoot me down.
And there's a couple things.

(06:47):
You know...
First of all, I'm a student ofhistory.
I love history.
Everything I read is a historybook.
Even if it's a thriller, it'sbased on history.
There's certain writers whointertwine history with that
kind of stuff.
Yeah, like when the terroristsfirst came up and everyone was
going on TV and it's going to beinflationary, it's going to do

(07:08):
that.
Then they would mentionSmoot-Hawley.
It blew my mind because, andit's pretty, you know, it's
right there.
It's in the history books.
Smoot-Hawley was the greatestdeflationary period in American
history.
Not inflationary.
Now, if you think there aregoing to be issues with it, yes.
But I don't look at it.
I look at it as, for instance,you have these purists who will
say, well, Ricardo and AdamSmith and comparative advantage.

(07:34):
And I don't know that people areconnecting all the dots.
All the dots get back to whatyou just talked about, the
wealth gap, especially since2009.
Something's gone wrong.
It's called the financializationof America.
And people need to think, if youcould pull up corporate profits
from the last 100 years, they gosteadily like this.
All of a sudden, since 2009,they've gone like this.

(07:56):
I mean, when I say parabolic...
Parabolic.
It's crazy.
It's been amazing.
Great for the stock market.
Amazing for the stock market.
Right now, I think S&P operatingmargins are around 13.5%.
They've been there for a longtime.
I've got a video of WarrenBuffett saying years ago that
any company that can do 6%operating margins for maybe

(08:21):
three or four years in a rowIt's lucky.
So we've got a brand newstandard out there.
But this has come at the expenseof the average American.
And you look at these things.
You look at assets and labor andtheir share of GDP.
Labor, if you worked hard, yougot most of it.
But all of a sudden, it's gonethis way.
And it's dangerous.

(08:42):
It's very, very, very dangerousbecause at some point, the
people are going to revolt.
And the Trump vote is a sort ofa revolt vote.
That's why, particularly amongstmen, young men, might have
normally voted Democrat.
Young blacks, Hispanics, it's arevolt vote.

(09:04):
Something is wrong.
They don't know exactly what itis.
It's hard to understand itbecause it is a complicated
system.
I'm studying it.
I don't have all the answers.
But we know something is wrong.
And so I feel like I got tospeak out.
And so people say, well, you'renot a capitalist.
I'm a capitalist.
But I also believe in humanbeings.
Something is wrong in thiscountry.

(09:25):
And somehow they have gotteneveryone to wake up every
morning.
And their number one mission isto make sure Wall Street gets
fed.
And that's what, I mean, I don'tknow how they pulled it off.
I don't know how they pulled itoff, but they have pulled it
off.
And so when people saycomparative advantage, Well, the
way Ricardo worked is if youwere better at making shoes and

(09:47):
I was better at making shirts,I'd make the shirts, you'd make
the shoes, and we'd buy themfrom each other.
But it would equal out.
I'd buy the shoes from you for$10.
You'd buy the shirts from me for$10.
This is not comparativeadvantage, what's happening with
our relationships.
And the reason I back thetariffs, what's happened is you
had China, which was smartenough to subsidize particularly
critical industries.

(10:08):
And so it wasn't a levelcompetition.
It's like someone takingsteroids and someone not taking
steroids.
And the country that took thesteroids looked like they had
better comparative advantagethan we did.
And so Wall Street said, fine,let them have it.
Why?
Because Wall Street is themiddleman.
They get paid no matter what.
They get paid a fee, right?
They make the money, especiallythose fat corporate profits.

(10:32):
In the meantime, we havehollowed out this nation.
And so that's just one area.
More recently, where I've Thinkabout this for a moment.
And if China, I'm going to goback a little bit because I
think it's important for peopleto understand.
I have some knowledge of China'shistory and how China was

(10:55):
amazing.
They were headed to the West bigtime.
China and India had once weretogether 50% of the world's GDP
for a long time.
Then they started trading.
You know, the West showed up,said, we want to trade with you.
Initially, the emperor said no.
But then they said, OK, fine.
We'll sell them jade, porcelain,silk, these things.
So now around the world,everyone knows China is amazing.

(11:17):
That stuff starts to go intoEurope.
Well, what comes out of Europe?
Silver.
You got to pay for it.
All of a sudden, so much silvercame out.
Like, you know, they're lookingfor ways to mine silver.
They discover a new world.
All right.
So now.
45% to 50% of all the silverfrom Peru, from Mexico, ended up
in China.
So Europe is panicking now.

(11:39):
Panicking.
A sidebar to that was that theworkers there couldn't keep up.
And they were dying.
And a bishop out in Portugal,Spain, said, hey, maybe we could
replace them with the Africans.
And that was to spark theAfrican slave trade.
But In Europe, they were saying,okay, what the heck do we do?

(12:01):
How do we fix this?
What do we?
So they, opium.
They introduced opium to Chinaas a miracle drug.
And so opium gets widespread,wide used.
And then the British show up,late 1700s, say, you know what?
We need you to open five ports.
And Emperor's like, what are youtalking about?
Open five ports?
I'm not opening five ports.

(12:22):
We're not asking.
So they went to war.
Now, remember, China had thegreatest military ever.
They were so far advanced.
They had gunpowder and all thisstuff.
They were just ahead.
And they probably thought theystill were, but they didn't
realize that Europe had a warevery week.
I don't even know.
There's got to be a book thisbig with all the wars.
If you can name all the warsthat Europe has had.

(12:44):
But every skirmish, what gotbetter?
The fighting technique, themetals, the cannons, the ships.
So they're getting betterbecause they're fighting.
There's other stuff, you know,sitting in the port.
It was great.
Like, you know, 1408, you werebad.
You were no joke, right?
Anyway, they lose the firstopium war.
You know, the emperor calls intothe barracks.

(13:05):
Half the people are high.
They couldn't even fight.
No, they were smoking opium.
They were on the opium.
And then the ships were raggedy.
I mean, so they lost.
Well, a few years later, theycome to British again.
We need you to open up five moreports.
Emperor's like, no.
Opium war number two.
Crush them.
Crush them.

(13:25):
So now all the silver is leavingChina.
As opium comes in, they've losttwo wars.
They're destitute and thepeasants rise up.
It's called the BoxerRevolution.
They were so beaten down theycouldn't even fight that.
So China has to ask the West andJapan for help.

(13:46):
So imagine you got Japan,Russia, France, America, all of
these nations.
Okay, we'll give you money andsome of them send troops.
But the VIG, oh my goodness.
I mean, John Gotti would blessyou.
Would they charge Chinainterest?
I think they still owe interestpayments now.
So that created the 100 years ofhumiliation.

(14:07):
That's what drives China.
The irony of all of this, thereason I say this story, is it's
the exact opposite.
The same thing is happening butto us.
And sadly, you know what ouropium is?
Cheap crap from China.
A cheap beach ball from Walmart.
That's our opium.
We have to go out and buy thisstuff.
And so guess what?

(14:28):
Our silver is going to China inreturn for cheap crap that ends
up in a landfill six monthslater.
So people say, well, yeah, butit's cheap, right?
And a comparative advantage.
Is it really a comparativeadvantage?
If China owns, let's say, 25% ofour bonds, and we pay a trillion
dollars a year, China is getting$250 billion a year in interest

(14:50):
from America.
Isn't it ironic that poorAmericans and all Americans who
pay taxes are actuallysubsidizing the company that
makes the beach ball?
So now their owners, they ownour assets, they own treasuries,
they own farmland.
And all we got was a beach ballthat's going to end up in a
garbage can.
And that's why I fight againstit.

(15:11):
Something is wrong with thesystem.
Why does a house in New YorkCity with a certain amount of
square footage go for$5 million,but the same square footage in
Mississippi is$150,000?
All I'm saying is there'scertain things that are embedded
in our system that's wrong.
And I think the short-termismwith the captains of
capitalism...
That's all it really is, isshort-termism.

(15:32):
If we were smart and just say,okay, let's bring back
manufacturing, even if it meansinstead of 14% profit margins,
for a couple of years, you got12%.
But now you've created...
More workers here.
So now you've created moreorganic demand here.
And by the way, if you createmore factories, the prices are
going to come down, supply anddemand.
So the rents won't cost so muchmoney.

(15:53):
The things that give them anykind of, we'll never have slave
labor, but we look at it thewrong way.
It's a race to the bottom.
We want things to be cheaper.
I think wages go up, then that'sinconsequential.
More Americans are working, it'sinconsequential.
But it's the political will.

SPEAKER_02 (16:09):
Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 (16:09):
There's no real political will.
If both parties, if the leadersof both parties right now came
out and said, we're going toback tariffs to a degree, no
matter who wins the nextelection, they're going to be
10% for the world and 30% forChina.
We would have a manufacturingboom in this country because now
businesses know they have to doit.
They can't game the system,right?

(16:30):
Right now, some are playingcute.
Trump's only going to be inanother three years.
The next person comes in couldbe a Republican that doesn't
want to do this, and certainly aDemocrat won't do it.
So they can kind of play it off,but bluff their way.
But if we ever took thisseriously and understood that
China went through this already,China knows the blueprint
already.

(16:50):
It has been used against them.
They were the greatest, the mostwealthy nation in the world, and
they gave all of their wealthaway.
all of their wealth away becauseof an addiction.
And now we are addicted tolooking good materialism, all
this kind of crap.
And by the way, during all ofit, we've gotten lazier.

(17:11):
So when they went to thebarracks to get those troops,
they were high.
Our folks are just lazy.
You can do everything, right?
I mean, I know people in theprojects.
that we use Grubhub to orderMcDonald's.
Like what the hell, get on theelevator, go outside and walk
three blocks.
So we're in a predicament andI'm seeing it and I'm screaming

(17:32):
and I'm yelling because it's, atsome point you can't return from
it.
So how do you, I mean look,Here's what I'm concerned about
with that, though.
And I agree.
Look, we're addicted to cheapshit.
The only thing we're exportingis entertainment.
We're not doing anything at allto subsidize ourselves.
And like you said, they can pullthe plug.
They have us by the stringsright now.
And the problem is to get thesefactories up and running and do

(17:53):
all these things, there's goingto be this long transition
period.
And so the policy to subsidizethat, the will on both sides
aren't going to be there becauseobviously the Democrats don't
want terrorists, the Republicansdon't.
So we're not going to be able toget any medium to get us through
this.
The other challenge that I'mworried about is how do we, get
people to want to go and work infactories.
Like you said, especially not tobeat up on this new generation,

(18:14):
and I blame a lot of it forCOVID, where people were stuck
at home, they were gettingpaychecks, PPP loans.
We had two years of everyoneloving not working anymore, and
now it's hard to get them outthere.
You've got people that aretaking, we're talking about
this,$20,000 vacations, and theygo back home and crash on mom's
couch for a while.
How do we change that?
How do we educate these people?
How do we tool them to be ableto do that?
I think education is a big partof it, but I think no

(18:36):
alternatives.
I think America public would beshocked at the number of
assistance programs that are outthere.
I do know people who are 50years old, never had a job.
Never.
This is before COVID.
Never.
They're alive.
They're healthy.
They're overweight.
Let's talk about that a littlebit.
What are they doing?
Because I grew up that way too.

(18:57):
Here's the challenge, Charles.
You're black.
I'm Hispanic.
I grew up in thoseneighborhoods.
You got these people.
I call it the...
the white guilt, and not to putit out there, where they get to
this point, I look at some ofthese people, they've never been
there, they've neverexperienced, they have no idea,
they're so far removed from it,they're here to save the world,
and they don't understand aboutthe people that are getting food

(19:17):
stamps, selling drugs, sellingthe food stamps, they're playing
the system, like you said,they're using people's dead
social security number, likethere is so much fraud that's
going on out there right now,but if you call it what it is,
you're racist, you don't careabout people, you can't say
anything in this countryanymore, and you just said it.
How do you solve for it?
No alternative.
I didn't have any alternative,man.

(19:37):
If I didn't go out there andwork at 13 years

SPEAKER_02 (19:39):
old,

SPEAKER_01 (19:40):
my mom was so strung out.
She had to apply for foodstamps.
She wasn't doing that.
If I wasn't out there working,washing cars, doing what I was
doing, I wouldn't have eaten.
It's been that way my wholelife.
I knew there was no safety net.
You either work, you pay for anapartment, or you're homeless.
And that's the other problemwith some of these parents out
there that are enabling that.
I think, you know, at the end ofthe day, not everybody wins.

(20:01):
You got to fail.
And if you don't have that fearof failure, you're not going to
put in the work to win.
Right.
You're not.
I mean, and there's no fear offailure because.
And that's another reason whythe trade thing is intriguing,
because this cheap stuff allows.
people that don't work still tofeel like they're participating.
So you have the same things thatwealthy people have, not the

(20:23):
same quality per se.
You don't live a destitute life.
You go to the beach with thatcheap beach ball.
And so it's all part of thesystem.
And so why does it exist?
Power.
I mean, the people who allow itto exist, I don't know that, I
think it's less white guilt andmore white power, liberal power.

(20:43):
Yeah, I mean, look, it's calledliberal guilt.
Right, right.
But the thing is, I don't knowthat they feel guilty.
I think they understand thepower of keeping people in a
certain position.
So it's a Faustian deal.
Hey, I'm going to find a way foryou to never have to work.
In return, you'll always votefor me.
And they'll have the powerbecause...

(21:05):
We're such a large enougheconomy that even our poorest,
like if Mississippi was acountry, it'd still be one of
the top countries in the world,the poorest state.
And if Canada was a state, it'dbe 51st state in terms of
wealth.
So that's just how rich we areas a nation.
Our poorest state would be richanywhere else.

(21:28):
So it's...
Again, I'm still seeking all ofthese answers.
I'm a student of everything.
I watch things.
I listen.
I've traveled a lot.
I read a lot.
I try to pay attention.
I do think, though, that havingall of these alternatives,

(21:48):
though, again, and these areprograms.
I see people, you know, I'm inthis program, I'm in that
program, and one lasts sixmonths, one lasts three years.
The next thing you know, you're40 years old and you've never
worked, but you eat.
Right.
You know, it should be like at acertain point, if you don't
work, you don't eat.
Because then you will look forwork.
You know, we have 7.2 millionjobs out there, right?

(22:11):
People, you know, either on oneend of the spectrum Well, I went
to school for this.
I want this class, this job.
And on the other end, peoplecould afford to turn down
certain jobs.
And then I think the educationpart about the knowledge, like
going to work at McDonald's.
There are people, I think it'sbeen studies that would show in

(22:33):
maybe 30 states, 40 states, youactually take a pay hit.
An income hit, not pay.
If you go working at McDonald'sversus subsidies.
Right, rather than keep gettingyour subsidies.
So you take an income hit.
So the thing is you have toexplain to people, yes, but if
you get on the ladder ofsuccess, even if you start, even
if the second rung is here, evenif you have where you are now,

(22:53):
even if you have to go down tothe first rung, you are now on
the ladder.
That's a great point.
And you can start climbing thatladder.
You can start climbing thatladder.
The problem, though, is peoplehave to believe they can do it.
That's the other part of thisequation.
They don't believe they can doit.
They've been told they can't doit.
They don't believe they can doit.
And so they've settled.

(23:15):
They've settled.
And again, our poor people wouldbe relatively well off in 95% of
the world.
So now we see generationalpoverty, generational folks
living...
paycheck to paycheck or programto program for generation after

(23:38):
generation.
And it's really gone intooverdrive.
Of course, I think since LyndonJohnson, since the 60s, this has
been one of these things.
Let me tell you who wrotesomething really great about
him.
I can't remember verbatim.
Arthur Burns.
Arthur Burns, for folks whodon't know Arthur Burns, was a

(24:00):
Federal Reserve Chairman.
during the Nixon years.
And he's become infamous for notbeing tough with policy.
He raised rates, and then hebrought them down too quickly.
And we had two recessions, thedouble-dip recession.

(24:21):
Anyway, he's synonymous withbeing a poor.
He's considered the worstFederal Reserve chairman in
history, at least modernhistory.
He wrote a paper soon after yougot out that is so amazing.
And he talked about all of thisin that paper, how there were
sort of three stages that wewent through as a nation.

(24:43):
We were always this country thatprided ourselves from pulling
ourselves up by the bootstraps.
Rugged individualism.
That's what made America.
And it's true.
The 1800s, we had a civil war.
We had four...
four panics, which are theequivalent of the Great
Depression.

(25:04):
In fact, they were so severe,everyone agreed, next time we
get something like this, let'snot call it a panic.
They said, well, what should wecall it?
They said, how about adepression?
So hence the Great Depression.
We had four massive panics.
We came out of the Civil War.
And we did, during all of that,especially in the second
industrial revolution, we just,rugged individualism.

(25:24):
We just did it.
We just did it.
We introduced the world toconsumer discretionary, right?
That Chicago World's Fair, Ithink it was 1893, we introduced
consumer discretionary.
You could buy Wrigley'sSpearmint Gum.
You could take your girlfriendon a fair as well.
First time any of this stuff hadbeen seen, right?
All of this stuff wasn't, beforewe were living, Year to year,

(25:46):
hoping that the crop would comein okay.
If the crop didn't come in okay,you had to have good neighbors
or you were in trouble, right?
And now all of a sudden, peopleare moving to cities.
We're urbanizing the nation.
We have extra money.
Oh, my goodness.
It was on full display there.
But all of that was done throughrugged individualism.
And we were that way until 1929,until the Great Depression.

(26:07):
And that's when we had all ofthese programs that came in,
right?
The New Deal.
And we changed as a nation,right?
from that I can do it to we needthe government to help.
That was a massive blow to whowe are as a nation.
And then Arthur Burns explainsagain in the 60s how this became
even more perverse.
And we wanted to help everylittle niche out there, every

(26:30):
niche.
And so every niche was helped,but helped too much.
It's one thing to give someone ahelping hand, a hand up, but
this is like, no, we will holdyour hand forever.
From birth to death.
And it may sound good, but guesswhat?
You never get up there.
This is your Faustian deal.

(26:50):
And so I got it.
I think it's called The Anguishof a Central Banker.
The word anguish is in there.
If anyone Googles it, it's soamazing to read.
And so it's been a process, andwe've lost it.
And, you know, we have remnantsof it because we're such a big
country.
And this is a great country toget rich in.

(27:11):
There are individuals who riseabove it all like you, right?
But before it was ingrained inevery American.
You know, it was ingrained.
And it didn't matter.
It didn't matter, you know, whatrace, nationality.
It did not matter, you know.
And it was a beautiful thing.
That's how we got to the top ofthe world in a short period of
time.
Yeah, you know, it's...

(27:33):
And to be honest, I didn't knowall this history.
And I think that's why what, andyou were a student of history.
And I think that's probablyleads to a lot of your success
because you're able to look atwhat's going on today and it's
not shocking you.
Right.
Like this, this whole processwhere you're saying it started a
long, long time ago, theweakening of America,
essentially the reliance oncheap goods, the reliance on
handouts and not having to, likeyou said, you know, back in the

(27:55):
day, you didn't hear this.
You got to go out, farm your owncrop.
If it's not there, you're notgoing to eat.
And, but I guess the, You know,my problem today is, though,
it's like people are running outof time, man.
And I don't know what you think.
I think artificial intelligenceis only going to expedite this
problem.
It's going to make it worse.
Like you said, I think thecompanies are going to be fine.
They're going to do good.
It's actually going to probablyincrease their profitability.

(28:17):
But you know who I care about isthe people I work with, the
small businesses, because, youknow, let's just be honest,
tariffs.
Intel is going to be fine.
Apple is going to be fine.
Cummins is going to be fine.
One of my clients, though,imports flooring from China, a
distributor in L.A.
He's getting crushed.
So this is my reply to thatbecause everyone has done those
stories.

(28:38):
We're hurting small businesses,and they've gone and interviewed
the business.
Take one of the biggestindustries hurt by China and the
textile, the furniture.
So I can show you a chart in2000.
There were 500,000 workers intextile.

(28:59):
Now there's less than 50,000.
Here's my point.
No one has interviewed any ofthese people, the 450,000.
And I know we feel bad for these50,000, but look where the chart
is going.
If we don't change somethingnow, come back in a few years
and they're going to be gone.

(29:19):
So I know it hurts people now.
And this gets to the point.
about what are we willing tosacrifice?
What are we willing to do?
I mean, this is a war.
In war, there are casualties.
In wars, there's uncomfortableperiods of time.
And if we had the leadershipthat could articulate that on
both sides and say, okay, andwe'll try to find ways to

(29:39):
scramble and make sure thosethings are better, right?
But we know that if we, the sobstory, and we all are
susceptible to it, The problem,though, is we have 450,000 of
these people lost their jobsalready.
And these people aren't going tokeep theirs.
They're going to lose theirjobs.
It just happens we stop at thehere.
We just started this war back 15years ago.

(30:02):
Then we would have said we'velost 50,000.
instead of now losing$450,000.
So I understand that, but thestatus quo is not going to save
their jobs.
That's my argument.
It's the situation now is notgoing to save their job or not
going to save their industry.
And it's certainly not going toturn the tide, right?
And so I want to say Friday orThursday, Restoration Hardware

(30:27):
reported their earnings.
And the first time they reportedwas this year.
The tariffs had just come out.
And the CEO is very, veryflamboyant.
We're sitting on restorationhardware chairs.
I love restoration hardware.
Yeah, I follow him.
Yeah.
So the CEO, he's really a realshit-talking dude, right?

(30:49):
So he was going off on thetariffs.
He went fucking crazy, lost hismind.
So Thursday, they come out.
Stock was up huge.
Yeah, I saw it.
So they took...
They were doing about 16% oftheir sourcing out of China.
It's down to 2%.
In one quarter, they brought 51%back to America.

(31:09):
In one quarter! In one quarter!We keep saying we can't do it,
but we haven't tried.
We keep saying it's impossible,but we haven't tried.
We keep saying it would take twoyears.
Guess what?
It's a short-term investment fora long-term gain if you want to
change the tide.
Because the way the tide isgoing right now, we are going to
lose.

(31:30):
We have lost already.
We're going to keep losing.
But again, it gets back toshort-termism.
And we all think like WallStreet.
How does Wall Street think?
In three-month increments,quarterly earnings reports.
That's how it's short-termthinking instead of long-term
thinking.
And people are like, well,China's going to win because
they played a long game.

(31:51):
Well, why the hell don't we playthe long game?

SPEAKER_02 (31:54):
Yeah.

UNKNOWN (31:54):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (31:54):
It's not, you know, this year, a couple weeks ago,
they said, okay, the push-tushor the tush-push, whatever the
hell the Eagles do, it's legal.
Well, guess what?
Every team's going to have tolearn how to do it.
That's the rules of the game.
Right.
I mean, but every team, like theEagles, they got unfair
advantage.
They keep doing this push-tushthing.
Well, get yourself, you know, astrong-ass quarterback, even if

(32:16):
he only comes in at fourth andone.
Push the tush.
And push the tush.
That's the game.
Don't hate the player, hate thegame, right?
That's the game.
You can't change the game.
You can't change the game rightnow.
We have to play within this.
And again, it drives me nutswhen we say we can't.
We never were a country ofcan't.

(32:38):
It's going to take time, but itmust be done.
We should be right now drillingfor rare earth.
I don't know how long it willtake.
It's not that rare earth isreally rare.
Yeah.
With the problem with rareearths is that it's just usually
hard to get to, dangerous.
Where it's

SPEAKER_02 (32:55):
located

SPEAKER_01 (32:56):
is going to create political problems.
China doesn't mind.
They'll put 10,000 people in themine.
They kick off, bring another1,000.
So we have rules and stuff, andwe don't want people to die.
And by the way, they're gettingmost of this stuff from Malaysia
and places like that.
But isn't that the problem,Charles?
You talk about the tush push,right?
Those are the rules of the game.
If we're a global economy,right, and the rules are way

(33:19):
different for the Chinese, laborlaw, all these things, how do we
compete with that?
Well, we have no choice if wedon't want to stop the silver
from leaving our country.
We don't necessarily have totreat people the way they treat
people.
We don't indoctrinate people.
We don't have them in camps.
But if we go back to Ricardo,what is their true comparative
advantage?
They're not better than us.

(33:39):
Now, Tim Cook tried to suggestthat, and I debunked him pretty
good.
So I found this piece onTwitter.
Foxconn.
And the average worker there,you know, I could go to a local
McDonald's and they have thesame brainpower.
Yeah.
So it's not that they'rebrilliant, you know.
They're sleeping there, though.
They're working 20 hours a day.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, the thing is,though, it's, you know, what

(34:01):
they're trying to do is, thefolks who make all the money, is
change the argument.
That, well, it's not really thatthey work cheap, it's that
they're smart.
Now, I will give them this.
They probably do work harder.
There's no doubt in my mind theyprobably work harder than we do.
And I had a friend.
It's actually a friend of mywife.
She must be 100 now if she'salive.

(34:23):
But she used to talk about whatthey had to do in school and the
rigors of school.
I mean, physical and mental.
They would swim every day.
They had to learn English, andthey had to go to school on
Saturdays.
I mean, the rigors, our parentsare like, oh, Bobby,

SPEAKER_02 (34:37):
it's

SPEAKER_01 (34:38):
too much homework.
Are you, okay.
You know, I mean, that's thekind of stuff that if we
acknowledge that we're in thisbattle, that we have been in a
war a long time, but we just,most Americans don't realize
that this trade war has gone onnow for a few decades.
We're only the first time we'refighting back.
They said, well, Trump's tradewar.
No, it's been a trade war for along time.

(34:58):
There's a great book calledGolly, it was a little nation
that could.
Anyway, it's a great, greatbook.
It's this little tiny country.
It was a duchy.
And they declared war onAmerica.
We didn't even know it existed.
And so they sent their navy,which is like a ship of four or
five people.
So...

(35:19):
They just happened to land inAmerica.
Something big was going on.
I forgot what it was.
So they get to Manhattan, andthey're walking around
Manhattan, and there's no onearound.
I think everyone was at a paradeor something.
And they just happened to walkin a building where they just
created this amazing bomb.
It was better than a nuclearbomb.
And they took it back on theirship, and they went back to
their country.
So all of a sudden, they hadthis bomb, and the world had to
negotiate with them.

(35:40):
The point is that we've been atthis war.
They were at war with us, but wedidn't know.
China's been at war with us.
We haven't known.
We're at the football game.
We're at the hockey game.
We're at the club.
They've been able to roam ourstreets and take all our things

(36:00):
and grab our knowledge.
And we've just been sleepwalkingthrough the whole thing.
All right, well...
This is a great history lesson,I think, of why we're here.
And it helps me because I lookat all these things and it's
just so frustrating.
But like I said, there's peoplelike you, people like me, you're
just going to pull yourself outby the bootstraps and you're
going to figure it out.
But the point is, that's how allAmericans used to be.

(36:21):
And we've taken that away fromthem.
And I agree with you.
I've been vocally a little bitoutspoken in terms of the
terrorists because I seepeople...
that are hardworking people,Charles.
These are people that are me andyou.
And they don't have bankaccounts with 20 million.
They're doing okay.
They're doing well.
But these are the people thatare getting crushed, man,

(36:43):
because everyone at the top isdoing well.
The people at the bottom,they're just happy living there
and whatever I can hand to them.
It's the guy who's out therebusting his ass making 200, 250
grand a year, which, by the way,people say those are the rich
and wealthy.
Those guys, if you live inCalifornia, you're barely
getting by there.
Those are the guys that getscrewed at every turn.
They're the guys that havestudent loans, but they're

(37:04):
making too much money to qualifyfor this forgiveness, so they're
paying off other people'sstudent loans.
And when you talk about thiswhole transition, my client, I'm
telling you, who's got thisflooring company, He could
survive if you give him just alittle bit of a bridge.
Give him a bridge loan.
Low interest rate.
Help him out.
Get to the next side.
He can do it.
But we're not focused on there.

(37:25):
Those are decisions that are notbeing made.
Look how we bailed out WallStreet.
After Wall Street created thecrash, they changed the rules
for them.
We bailed them out.
We bail out all of these largeindustries.
They have no reason not to takerisk because when the shit hits
the fan, it's the Americantaxpayer money.

(37:45):
And since that bailout, that'swhen it got worse.
That was the beginning of thefinancialization where
everything we do is focused onone thing, corporate profits.
Our whole society now iscentered on corporate profits.
And so, yeah, I mean, we need tofind a way to help these folks
or try to help them as best wecan But it's also got to be a

(38:07):
sort of situation where we haveto all be in.
When I think about Martin LutherKing and the Montgomery bus
boycott, that was hard.
There were people, like yousaid, who said, well, if I don't
make it to my job, I'm going tolose my job.
I'm the only person making moneyin my family.
That person could have took thebus.
That person didn't.
Now a neighbor gave him a ride,they walked, they biked,

(38:30):
whatever it was.
The only reason that wassuccessful is individual
sacrifices, but others ralliedaround them to make it happen.
And then they were able to turnthe tide.
So, you know, we've been in thissituation before as a nation.
It's just that we just, it'sjust not, the folks who are, who
are, most comfortable with thestatus quo on everything in

(38:50):
terms of communication, all theTV shows, all the major media
publications.
And so they're against it.
But you just got to go outsidesometime and see what's
happening and see how the middleclass has shrunk.
And again, the gulf between thehaves and have-nots is so bad.

(39:10):
And it's masked, right?
And this is what frustrates metoo, particularly economists.
I think almost every Everyeconomist comes on, I have a
fight with them.
So you've got 10% of thepopulation who do 50% of the
buying.
So the Fed looks at that andsay, we're OK.
Now, my whole thing, this is whyI tell people they need to look

(39:32):
at this.
Imagine that there's a busdepot.
And across the street, there's abar.
And almost every night, nine busdrivers go and say, before we go
home, knock back a couple ofbrews.
So you've got these nine guys inthere knocking back the brews.
Elon Musk comes in.
So economists who look insidethe bar, you know what the

(39:53):
economists will say?
There are 10 billionaires inthere.
Right?
And that's how they look at oureconomy.
And it's so skewed.
And the irony is that theirpolicies were going to be
restrictive.
We're going to strangle thiseconomy.
Oh, well, these money markets...
$7 trillion in there, richpeople are getting richer.

(40:17):
Their dividend checks, you'restrangling the people that have
already said no mas a long timeago.
You got me, Fed.
Pal, you killed me, baby.
I'm done.
Why do you keep strangling?
There's nothing left tostrangle.
And that's how our system isbuilt.
Even the Federal Reserve thinksif wages go up too much, they
want to raise rates.

(40:37):
They see Main Street Prosperityas inflationary as this and
that, everyone's conspiring tokeep people down to a certain
level, keep them happy at acertain level.
They go out because you knowwhat?
All of the money eventually goesinto the pockets of the 1%.
Well, I mean, Trump's beenpretty vocal about what he

(40:58):
thinks of Powell and interestrates.
And I mean, there's a case to bemade.
Yes, you can lower interestrates right now.
There's also a case to be madebased on looking at the economic
data.
Maybe we don't need it.
The data is bad.
The data is awful.
The data is awful.
You think we need to cut rates?
Oh, yeah.
And again, it's for the reason Isaid.
They're like, well, people aregoing to go out and spend money.
Right now, I think people, ifthey had a break, would probably

(41:20):
pay some of their credit cardsoff and save a little bit right
now.
But the idea that Main Streetwould have any breathing room,
it scares the shit out of thepowers that be.
You're not hurting rich people.
If we have to wait for richpeople to stop spending, we'll
be annihilated.
Rates are too high.
Credit card rates at 23%.

(41:41):
You can't buy a house.
Look what they've done to thehousing market.
How can this small person buy a

SPEAKER_02 (41:45):
house?

SPEAKER_01 (41:46):
First time home buyer.
You know how old the averagefirst time home buyer is now?

SPEAKER_02 (41:49):
I don't.

SPEAKER_01 (41:50):
56.
Used to be 30.
Used to be less than that.
The first time home buyer,because those are only people
with cash.
And they're usually buying cash,right?
Because who's going to pay a 1%to 7% mortgage?
So yeah, I think they have tocut rates.
But the narrative

SPEAKER_02 (42:06):
is it's the wealthy that are

SPEAKER_01 (42:07):
going to benefit from the rates, right?
They benefit from the higherrates.
Exactly.
I agree.
That's my point.
No matter what the Fed does, thewealthy benefits.
That's the problem, Charles.
People don't get that simpleconcept.
Right.
That's ironic.
The stock market's at 1% fromthe all-time high.
Exactly.
And we've had restrictive rates,right?
We have the most restrictiverate hike in history So that
didn't stop rich people fromgetting rich.

(42:29):
And by the way, Warren Buffett,why is Warren Buffett sitting at
$360 billion in cash?
Why doesn't he have to investit?
Because he's making more.
He owns more than half apercent.
He owns T-bills.
Right, right.
So if he could buy T-billsbecause rates are so high and
you can get money markets.
And you have to take no risknow.

(42:49):
You don't have to invest in asmall

SPEAKER_02 (42:50):
business.

SPEAKER_01 (42:51):
If I'm very wealthy, I don't have to invest my money.
I don't have to spread itaround.
This is worse for Main Street.
I don't have to take any risk.

SPEAKER_02 (43:00):
I agree.

SPEAKER_01 (43:00):
So, yeah, you know what?
The way the Fed is set up, lowrates help them, high rates help
them.
But I know high rates hurtpeople who want to buy a house,
they can't.
The mortgages are out.
Whose credit card bill just wentfrom 16% to 23%.
I know they're the ones whocan't make it.
So I want to see them lowerrates.
Yeah, I think that's important,man.

(43:21):
Like you said, if you look atthe credit card debt numbers,
they're rising and rising andrising back to the point where
people aren't going to cut theirlifestyle, they're going to take
on more debt.
And if you look at thatexpenditure of surplus income
where that's going.
It's going to Citibank.
It's going to JP Morgan.
It's going to Wells Fargo.
And that's the thing.
If you can get that backed inthe pockets of people, then
maybe that's one of the offsetsof these tariffs that you're

(43:42):
talking about, right?
There's a lot of ways to sort ofoffset it, to be honest with
you.
One, it's just not to buy thiscrap.
You know, I think what I likedabout this last earnings season
that I saw is that people aresaying, you know, we're going to
wait.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (43:55):
yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (43:56):
It's okay.
It's okay.
It's okay.
The last four personal incomeand spending numbers, Incomes
came in better than expected.
And that could be a lot ofthings.
Sometimes it's just transferpayments.
But incomes have come insubstantially better than Wall
Street anticipated all yearlong.
Spending has actually gone down.
So our savings rate, which waslike at four, is at five, near

(44:17):
five.
And so people are sort of doingthis on their own.
Households are smart, man.
People are smart.
They have bad habits.
But when the shit's about to hitthe fan, they will buckle down.
They'll figure it out.
And so they've been bucklingdown.
So our savings rate has gone.
up wall street hates that ohthey hate it don't save money
you know uh and so our savingsrates are going up i think just

(44:40):
keep you know buy local rememberthere's no tariffs on local shit
buy local if you can you knowdon't spend your money don't
send any more of our silver tochina You know, we need to make
sure that there's pain on China.
And they've got their own pain.
I know the media tries to playthem up as unstoppable.
They've got the fertilitycrisis.

(45:01):
They've got a housing crisis.
They've got a lot of issuesgoing on.
And by the way, the fertilitycrisis is really acute because
where the areas that make themost money, there's no babies.
There's none.
I mean, it's just there's no oneto replace their engineers.
It's just really dead.
You know, they have some kidsout in the rural areas.
So, you know, we can win thiswaiting game.

(45:23):
We can win this waiting game bigtime.
But the media has been scaringthe shit out of people, and
mostly because they hate Trump.
But also, a lot of people justbenefit from the status quo.
And I'm really thrilled thatwe've seen now three months in a
row where the worst casescenario didn't pan out this
week.
So in March, everyone did thesestories about running to the car

(45:46):
dealer before car prices go up.
I hate to say it, Fox Businessdid one.
I was cringing.
So used cars have gone downthree months in a row.
I've seen that.
Yeah, three months in a row.
So yeah, that used car that youpaid 25 grand for is probably 20
grand now.
The media scared the shit out ofpeople in a way that's never

(46:07):
happened before.
University of Michigan, Peoplejust mention tariffs or they're
afraid of government policies.
Higher, three months ago, it wasthe highest ever.
Like, it dwarfed COVID, aonce-in-a-century pandemic.
Tariffs, which is imports of 14%of our GDP, 14%, it dwarfed

(46:29):
COVID.
It dwarfed the great financialcrisis.
It dwarfed 9-11.
It dwarfed all of that, thefear.
We've never been this afraid.
They did this.
Mm-hmm.
And so I'm glad to see thosenumbers are coming down.
And there'll be a time when theCPI number will come in a little

(46:49):
bit higher.
It goes up and down.
It doesn't just go straight upor straight down.
And they'll jump on it and sayit's the end of the world.
But we started the year, Ithink, CPI.
I forgot where we started, butwe're 3.0.
So we're 2.3, 2.4 now.
I don't think we'll get pastthat number we started the year.
We won't have Biden's 9.3%.

(47:11):
And that was from a lot ofmoney.
Let me tell you the secretthere, too, since I brought it
up.
But here's another thing that wegot to understand.
And I mentioned earlier, all themoney is going to go to the top
1%.
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
Sanford did an amazing piece.
It's probably two years old now.

(47:32):
February, I think it was 2023maybe.
And it shows you exactly theBiden 1.9 trillion, how it goes
to the top 1%, how they end upwith all of this money.
And by the way, it's by design.
It's the most beautiful thingyou can do as a politician if

(47:52):
you don't give a fuck about thecountry.
Give out$2 trillion and say, Icare about you.
People spend it and your GDPnumbers are huge.
Look at what I did for theeconomy.
But one thing, unfortunately,that we do is, and the thing is
called propensity to consume.
We all have certain levels ofpropensity to consume.
The bottom 40%, because theynever had a nickel, spend as

(48:15):
soon as they get it.
When those STEMI checks used tohit, I used to go to the mall
and check it out.
You know, Louis Vuitton had thevelvet rope, you know, outside,
you know, everyone's Ferragamo.
It wasn't just Louis, right?
Lines and lines that peoplecouldn't go in, couldn't wait to
go in.
And so you see, like, I rememberone time being in Neiman Marcus,
so someone, I saw him, theybought two sneakers and they

(48:37):
came out to$1,400.
But then they bought one morething because this was free
money.
So they were only spending$700of their own money, right?
And that's what happened.
So it's called propensity toconsume.
Immediately, That money, allthat free money is immediately
spent.
Then over another period oftime, the middle class will
spend theirs too.

(48:58):
All of this money makes its wayto places, bottom line,
corporate bottom lines, and thendividend checks, and then
ultimately the top 1%.
But it's done on purpose.
It's done...
Biden, it was a brilliant movebecause Biden could say...
Pumps the economy.
I had a strong GDP...
But what he was really doing washe was rewarding his

(49:18):
benefactors, his donors, the top1%.
And you look at people whodidn't have to pay rent.
When they had to pay rent, theydidn't have any money.
Why?
Because the money they wouldhave spent on rent, they spent
it somewhere else.
All these people who didn't paycollege loans, how come their
debt levels went up?
Should have gone down.
They understand the psychologyof this.

(49:39):
They really do.
And they use it against us allthe time.
Nancy Pelosi called it themultiplier effect when she
argued for higher food stamps.
And she even admitted out loudwhat they're trying to achieve.
So our system is designed in acertain way.
And it benefits certain people.
But it's not just on the moneyside.
They really have framed it in away that anyone who tries to

(49:59):
attack it is seen as a badperson.
Right, right.
Heartless person.
Right.
Mean-spirited.
Losing careers sometimes.
But the people who actually...
Perpetrating this are the oneswho don't give a fuck about you,
but they've insulated themselvesbeautifully.
All right, so let's talk alittle bit about this, because
I'm one of these believers whereI think long-term, the reason
I'm even doing this show, if Ithink people speak up, they

(50:21):
educate people, they get them tochange minds, it changes votes,
it changes the outcome, and itdoes all those things, but it's
a long-term game plan.
And in the interim, people gotto survive.
People got to be able tonavigate what's going on right
now.
They got to be able to take careof their family.
So I want to talk a little bitabout you.
A little bit, your upbringing, Iknow a little bit about it.
Tell me a little bit aboutCharles.

(50:42):
Where did Charles start?
I want to hear a little bitabout your path of how did you
become this success in the faceof a lot of adversity.

UNKNOWN (50:49):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (50:49):
Well, I had two childhoods.
And the first childhood wasgrowing up on Army bases.
My father was in the Army,career Army guy, loved the Army.
I was born in New York.
Then we moved to Pittsburgh.
Then we moved to Texas.
Then we moved to Germany.
Then we moved, I think, back toPittsburgh.
Then Japan, Texas.
I lived in Alabama, NorthCarolina, Virginia.

(51:11):
My high school was the onlyschool I went to two years in a
row.
Wow.
Yeah.
And I loved it.
I mean, you know, I loved it.
We moved around a lot.
I think it did give me the skillset of being able to make
friends quick, you know, andthat kind of stuff.
And then, you know, we lived inFort Lee, Virginia, two-story
house, beautiful house, neverlocked the doors, played all the

(51:32):
time, you know, just rode ourbikes, played football.
It was just a beautiful life.
Really, it was sort of, though,it was very misleading in the
sense that 60s and 70s, or late60s, early 70s, were so...
rough in this country, right,from a social point of view.
And I was kind of shielded fromall of that.
I didn't know any of that wasgoing on, right?

(51:54):
None of us did.
It's a pretty good experiment,though, because one of my best
friends, my first best friendwas white, and I had a white
girlfriend, black girl.
I mean, just, it was like this,nobody, no one was beaming
messages at us, so we wereallowed to live, and it was just
kind of a beautiful thing, youknow what I mean?

UNKNOWN (52:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (52:16):
So I came home from school one day and my mom said
we're leaving.
So me and my mom and my twoyounger brothers got on the bus.
Leaving your dad.
Yeah.
We got on the bus and we leftFort Lee, Virginia and we went
to New York.
How old were you?
I was 13.
And that was it, man.
That was the transition.
It was so amazing.

(52:37):
I mean, the first day, Iremember the first day we got
here and getting off the bus andtaking the train.
The Iron Horse, that bad boy,man.
And back then, they used to havesome old-ass trains that still
ran.
They were rust.
I mean, they were like, makingall this damn noise.
They even had a few real straphangers.

(52:57):
They called them strap hangers.
Really, they were straps.
They were leather straps, canvasstraps.
So we take the train.
This is exciting as hell.
We get out in the trainplatforms.
Back then, the train platformshad all kinds of newsstands.
This one had a food You know,and they had a knish.
I've never seen a knish, right?
And then all this kind of stuff,you know, and it smells good,

(53:17):
right?
Hot dogs, like, oh, man, golly.
So we walk up the steps, andthese buildings, these are tall
buildings, right?
I mean, I lived in a lot ofplaces, but mostly military
bases.
So, you know, I didn't see anyskyscrapers, right?
And then it hit me, the energy.
Rob, the energy is amazing.
I just...
You immediately liked it?
Oh, I just...

(53:38):
It was like you couldn't avoidit, right?
It was like so powerful, right?
I mean, first of all, all thesepeople, you know, and then the
music.
Oh, my God.
So every car blasting.
Every window.
What year was this?
70...
I'm going to say 73, 74.
That's some good music, though.
Oh, my goodness.
Let me tell you.
So...
Because it's so funny because,like, you know, listen, I was

(54:01):
like...
Elton John, right?
Philadelphia Freedom.
I dig it.
Yeah.
But...
When I heard Harold Melvin andthe Blue Nuts, oh, man, what the
hell is this?
I never heard nothing like this.
You know what I'm saying?
They were like, bad luck.
Oh, snap.
So the music and then, ofcourse, the boom boxes.
Oh, my God, the boom boxes.

(54:21):
So the energy.
So we walked down the hill.
And then I look over and I seethese girls double dutch and
jump rope.
I've never seen that before.
Oh my God, this is amazing.
So then we get in the elevator,like this is the coolest thing
ever.
Somebody lives in a building.
Your house has an elevator?
And we got in there.

(54:41):
It smelled funny.
It smelled weird in there.
Anyway, so we get upstairs andall four of us lived in a room,
the same room.
Brothers, sisters, how many?
Two younger brothers, me and mymom.
Okay, okay.
So all four of us lived in aroom.
Okay.
And, you know, so then, youknow, you go outside, and here I
go, my dumb ass, man.
You know, like a little whitekid.

(55:02):
Hey, guys! Oh, shit.
Ping, ping, ping, ping.
Woo! The ass whoopings.
Oh, the ass whoopings, Rob.
And what was it?
It was just you weren't inthe...
I wore the wrong clothes.
I spoke the wrong way.
I sounded like a white kid.
I just, oh, my God.
You got indoctrinated prettyquick.

UNKNOWN (55:24):
Whew.

SPEAKER_01 (55:24):
My God.
So the violence, I'd neverreally seen anything like that.
I mean, I had a couple of fightsgrowing up, but they were so
fast.
You'd be finished, you'd playfootball or whatever.
But these are fights, you haveto fight to the death.
Me and this one kid fought forlike...
I had a fight with a guy who hadto last at least an hour.

(55:45):
And he covered two blocks.
I don't know how the hell...
We started like 143rd Street,now it's 145th Street.
I don't know how the hell thathappened.
You know?

UNKNOWN (55:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (55:53):
So I never saw anything like that in terms of
violence.
And then, of course, thepoverty, you know, winos are
bad.
Where were you living in thecity at this point?
In Harlem, central Harlem.
And so, again, I never seen thatkind of violence, man.
Like it's like this shit wascrazy.
So between the violence and thenthe poverty, I never thought

(56:16):
about money a day in my life.
What was your mom doing formoney at the time?
Well, we just got there.
So, I mean, you know, she wasn'tdoing anything initially.
First thing everyone said, yougot to go up to Dyckman Street
and get on welfare.
That was the first thing.
You got to do that.
And then, you know, she was ahousewife.
And it was amazing to me howquickly she just started
working.

SPEAKER_02 (56:35):
Figured it

SPEAKER_01 (56:36):
out.
Yeah, you know, and she nevermade a lot of money.
But she was amazing, you know.
And the anniversary of her deathwasn't long ago.
And one of the...
This one girl sent me a text,and she was like, man, your
mother was so good to everybody.
Because she ended up gettingeverybody, all the people on my
block jobs.
Wow.
Because she worked for a bigmicrofiche company, and they

(56:58):
landed this huge contract.
I think it was MetropolitanHospital.
So we're just talking warehousesand warehouses and medical
records that they had to film.
And the guy asked, you know, soshe got everyone on my block a
job.
They loved my mom, man.
She was beautiful.
And so, you know, we're poor,right?
I mean, I...
Never.
So a couple months later, youknow, we got an apartment.

(57:20):
And, you know, again, everywherewe lived, you go and you turn on
the faucets.
And, you know, the one with theH, you turn it, hot water came
out.
Not this time.
Yeah, yeah.
So our first winter, we had noheat or hot water.
So I'm like, nah, I got to help.
You know, I'm the oldest.
I got to step up.
So my first gig was the papertowels and the windex,

(57:42):
stoplights and stuff like that.

UNKNOWN (57:45):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (57:46):
I shoveled snow.
I did different things.
I bagged groceries, man.
I was so good at bagginggroceries.
I'm telling you right now, ifthey ever had an Olympics for
that shit, I would have beenlike the Mark Spitz of that
shit, man.
I was like, I was so good.
That's an art form, man.
I'll tell you, we just came backfrom Japan.
And all the stuff that, it wouldtake eight bags here to get into
one bag.

(58:06):
So there is an art form.
I'm telling you, man, I was sogood.
Oh, I was so good.
And I remember my best day ever.
I made$13.
I tell you, I mean, I felt rich.
That's a lot of money.
It was a lot of money.
It was rough, though.
One lady, I took her bags homewith her, and she lived on the
top floor.
Oh, God.
But she gave me a dollar.
Now, you got to remember, somepeople throw a penny in there.

(58:27):
Yeah, for sure.
You know, nickel.
Quarter was huge.
Quarter was huge.
A dollar?

UNKNOWN (58:31):
Woo-hoo-hoo!

SPEAKER_01 (58:33):
So anyway, I said, I got to make some money.
So like everybody, you thinkabout Wall Street, you think
about money.
And so I started getting theWall Street Journal.
How old was that?
13, that same year.
Wow, same year.
Well, I was trying to read it.
Bunch of weird lines on there.
And it was different than thejournal now.
It was all lines and numbers.

(58:54):
It was like probably nocommentary, right?
It was just all lines andnumbers, all lines and numbers.
Yeah.
But I was lucky because I wouldgo to the newsstand.
And I'd go to the part of thenewsstand with the candy bars.
About four people were like...
Watching every move.
I walk away by the Wall StreetJournal.
No one.
So I was able to steal it.
I had no problem stealing theWall Street Journal.

(59:16):
It was so easy.
They never thought.
Not the candy, the Wall StreetJournal.
I couldn't.
They were watching me like ahawk.
That's what they thought youwere going to do.
Yeah, yeah.
What do you want?
What do you want?
What do you want?
What do you want?
You walk away.
They're not even botheredwatching.
That kid ain't going to stealthe Wall Street Journal.
Come on.
So I had no problem getting it.

(59:37):
I had a problem learning it,though, reading this bad boy.
But I started to get it, startedto learn it, started to like it.
So when I was 14, I said, youknow, I'm going to work on Wall
Street.
So I told my mom, I called myfather up.
I said, Daddy, I'm going to workon Wall Street.
He said, man, I saw it on TV.
A bunch of white dudes throwingpaper in there.
Ain't no black people downthere.

(59:57):
He said, I saw it on TV.
Ain't no black people downthere.
You don't have a shot.
Everyone said I didn't have ashot except my mom.
I was going to ask you, becauseI think that's where it stops
for a lot of people, thislimited mindset and belief.
So it was your mom that told youyou had a shot.
Yeah.
What did she say?
She said, I believe you.
She says, yeah, you will.

(01:00:18):
That's all I needed.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's without her, man.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that's all it takessometimes, man.
For me, it was a police officer.
I said, what are you doingaround these guys, man?
You're better than that.
It's that little thing.
You need one person at least.

(01:00:39):
I always say you're lucky if youhave at least one parent and
maybe one or two schoolteachers.
Because I did have a couple ofteachers, too, who kind of made
me feel special.
In third grade...
I forgot her name, that's why Iregret so much, but I had a math
teacher, and she used to maketwo students stand up at the
same time, and she would ask aquestion.

(01:00:59):
Whoever got it right, the otherone had to sit down, and another
one would stand up.
I wiped the whole damn classout.
Wipe them out.
And what was good about that is,one thing I didn't really even
truly understand, it's like whenI moved to Harlem, is everything
that was good was white.
Like, if you got good grades,oh, you think you white.
Right, right,

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:18):
right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:01:18):
And I never had that self-defeating psychology
because 95% of my class waswhite that I just wiped out.
You know what I mean?
I just wiped them out.
Just people.
I never thought they were betterthan me.
And this is a self-fulfillingthing where you put yourself
down as a race.
And then people who do succeed,you hurt them.
Like, oh, well, you think youwhite.
And so it's still pervasiveright now in the black

(01:01:40):
community, big time.
And it's bad.
And so...
So at 14, I said, I'm going towork on Wall Street.
And I just, again, I just kept,in my block, we call it, they
didn't call it hustling.
They called it scrambling.
Okay.
And I just, I was alwaysscrambling.
And let me tell you, I admiredscramblers, man.
Like the lady who worked at likea factory, but used to sell

(01:02:01):
French fries out of first floorwindow.
Yeah, yeah.
Or the person who was like themail, the postman, but also took
the numbers.
You know, like I always admiredpeople that had two or three
gigs, you know.
If you scrambled, I was like,oh, that's my man, you know.
And I used to do that.
And I used to gamble a lot.
Craps?
No, we used to play silo withthree dice.
Okay.

(01:02:22):
Yeah, silo.
I was like...
Head crack! That was so good,man.
That was so good.
And we also have this gamecalled Chuckaluck.
Okay, I've heard of it.
So Chuckaluck is an interestinggame because you have a guy who,
the way back then, the saltcontainer, the cylinder, cut the
top off, you pour all the, Imean, you cut the top off,
right?
The cardboard Morton's type.
Right, right.

(01:02:42):
So you put three dice in thereand you have a board.
One, two, three, four, five,six.
And he shakes it up, he puts itdown, and while it's down and
covered, people place theirbets.
So let's say you bet on a one,and two ones, you get paid
double, right?
And so he used to play ChuckLuck all the time, right?
So one day I'm kind of chilling,you know, right next to the dude
doing it, and I caught himcheating.

(01:03:05):
Almost by accident.
It was a smooth-ass move, sowhen he would put the dice back
into the cup, he kept one in hispinky.
And so while everyone wasputting the...
things down, like say no one hada two, no one put anything on
two, he would make it a two.
So your odds were downdramatically.
I saw that shit, I was like,holy shit.

(01:03:26):
Hello.
So right before you pull thecup, wait, hold on a second.
$10 and two.
So first I started with a buck,right?
Now I'm making money.
That's kind of, that's the startof insider trading, Charles.
Yeah.
But this is how you learn,right?
That the world is crooked.
Right, right, right.
I mean, this is a firsthandacknowledgement that, hey, you

(01:03:47):
know, something ain't, you know,I tell people, people say, man,
the market is crooked.
It is.
It is, right.
But you still got to play it.
Right?
So, so, First, I started like,you know, buck, buck, I started
making money and shit.
So I'm bumping my thing up,right?
I mess around, put a 20 down,which would be like, that was a
lot of damn money, right?
He gave me a look.

(01:04:08):
Rob.
This look was like, I willfucking take you behind a
building and kill you.
Really?
No, no.
The look.
He gave me that look.
I went back to betting a buck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was like, okay, you can makemoney.
Yeah, but you're not going to doit that size.
Yeah, yeah, because I will haveto hunt your ass down.
I mean, he gave me that look.
He would have.
Yeah, yeah.
It was pretty clear to me.
And I was a little kid.
I was like maybe 14, 15.

(01:04:30):
But again, you learn lessonsfrom that.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, man.
I went upstairs and gave my momall that money.
Oh, it was like Christmas.
My family, my brothers werelike, where did you get all this
money?
I put it on the bed like, oh,shit.
That was a hero, man.
That was a good day.
That was a hero.
Yeah.
All right.
So what happens at 18?
How do you get into Wall Street?

(01:04:50):
How does your career start?
So I bought my first mutual fundwhen I was 17.
Wow.
I had to co-sign.
And this is how life isinteresting.
So I played football.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:00):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:00):
And I And one year there was this woman who was a
photographer.
She took pictures of the team.
And she also worked on WallStreet.
So she helped me get through thething, you know, with the mutual
fund.
My mom had to co-sign.
To open the account up.
Yeah, I think I put a grand in.
Do you remember what fund itwas?
Nah.
Okay.

(01:05:20):
I signed up for the Air Force.
Okay.
I went to the Air Force, and Iwent to college while I was in
the Air Force.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:26):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:27):
So first, Minot State College in North Dakota.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:30):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:30):
And again, man, none of my friends took any classes.
Wow.
None.
None.
And you were

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:36):
getting it paid for

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:36):
through the military.
It was essentially free.
I think I paid$10,$5.
It was essentially free.
They just didn't see it.
What was nuts about it is I'd beheading to class and they're
grilling and shit, drinkingbeers, talking shit.
I caught up with them bymidnight.
I was in the same spot.
By midnight, I'm fired up too.

(01:05:57):
And I just couldn't talk any ofthem into it.
I just could not.
Same thing.
I was stationed in Guam for twoand a half years.
I went to Central Texas Collegethere through a program.
And that's where I had a greatteacher.
This guy was in charge of...
What's the name of this entity?
It covered more than just Guam.
I think Steve Austin from BionicMan, he worked for them.

(01:06:20):
Anyway, he was huge.
He had a huge job, a huge title.
I know you're retiring inFlorida.
I always wish I could find thisguy or he would reach out to me
if he's alive.
But I sometimes in the military,you know, you have these
maneuvers and stuff.
So, you know, you have to be younever know.
Right.
You can always make the class ona particular day.

(01:06:41):
Right.
So I know we were doing somekind of training and I couldn't
make it.
So he graded on a curve system.
And so I came in and they hadalready taken a test.
He says, well, here's the curve.
And he says, right now, if yougot an 87, you'll get an A.
Then he looked around and said,but once Ace takes the test,
it's going up.
Once Ace takes it, it's goingup.

(01:07:02):
And I got 100 on it.
And it just feels good to havethose kind of people in your
life.
And so I got out the Air Force.
I was married.
My daughter was like one and ahalf months old.
And the same thing.
We got a room in an apartment inHarlem.

(01:07:24):
A room.
A room.
And this was a small-ass room.
I had a pull-out sofa thatalmost touched the wall.
Where was this at?
Lenox Avenue in Harlem.
Okay.
So back to Harlem.
Yeah, back to Harlem.
Your mom was there.
Yeah, yeah.
She's on Broadway.
It was a little nicer onBroadway where Lenox was rough.
Lenox was central Harlem.

(01:07:45):
There was a place on...
I think it was like 146th Streetin Lenox, where more black
people have been murdered thanany place outside of Vietnam.
Like, it was crazy.
Like, yeah, yeah.
Lenox, rough.
Rough.
Rough.
That was like the last area theyjust defined.
They're still a little worriedabout that one.
They're like drawing straws forthe white folks going, that one.
Like, I don't know, Bob.

(01:08:05):
You know?
Rough.
OK?
So I got out.
You know, she got me a job, youknow, because she had the
microfiche on.
I signed up for Baruch College.
I had another part-time thing Iwas doing.
And I went down to Wall Streetto try to get a job.
Now, I didn't have a degree.

(01:08:26):
You know, I went to school.
And I didn't know anybody.
And so I went to this oneagency, and the guy was like,
you know, you're really not whatthey're looking for in terms of
pedigree, but I'm going to sendyou over there.
And I interviewed.
And so...
I'll never forget.
So, you know, the guy whoseapartment it was, the phone

(01:08:46):
rings, you know, like the sameday or the next day, that night.
And he says, Charles, the phone.
So, you know, I go down and pickup the phone and I got the job.
Wow.
Rob, I can't believe, I can'tbegin to tell you how happy I
was.
How old was your daughter at thetime?
She was about, at this time,about six months, three months,
six months.
She was a baby.
And I was just like, I mean,again, I was...

(01:09:10):
through the roof,$13,000 a yearbefore taxes, you couldn't tell
me nothing.
You couldn't tell me nothing.
And listen, I tell people, Iused to make my lunch Or
sometimes Burger King would havetwo breakfasts for a dollar,
that kind of thing.
I had to be in, I think I had tobe in at eight or nine.

(01:09:33):
I always got in at least 30minutes to an hour early.
I never took full lunch, and Ialways made sure I left after my
boss.
That's what helped me a lot,too, asking a lot of questions.
And I always tell people, verysuccessful people love...
You can say brag, but they loveto tell you.
And, you know, just, hey, howdoes that?
Come here, kid.
Let me show you.

(01:09:53):
There's this thing called M1.
Like, you know, like every this,you know, like, oh.
And I'm just soaking it all in.
Just soaking it all in.
And so one day I'm out for lunchand I bump into the woman from
the mutual funds, thephotographer.
And she's working down there fora small firm.
And she says, you know, I say,you know, she says, you always
wanted to be a broker.
She says, you want to meet mymanager?

(01:10:16):
Because I was working at A.F.
Hutton.
Okay.
And they weren't going tosponsor me when I had a college
degree.
And so I went and met this guy.
He said, man, I kind of likeyou.
He says, I tell you what, we'llsponsor you for the test.
But you have to study it on yourown.
Is it Series 7?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he says, all right.
So, you know, they sent me thematerials and I'm studying this.

(01:10:36):
And there was a guy.
What did you think when youfirst saw those materials?
I was scared when I first heardabout it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
When I saw options, I was like,I better figure out a second
career.
Yeah, yeah.
No, it was a lot.
It was a lot, man.
It was a lot.
And, you know, there was a guywho was taking a test.
EF Hutton was sponsoring anotherguy in the building.
And we kind of became friends.

(01:10:57):
And there was a program, like,prepping them.
Okay.
And so he said, you should cometo my thing.
I said, let me in.
He said, yeah, yeah, come.
So I went with him.
It was a Wednesday.
And...
I met the instructor.
He said, yeah, sit in, sit in.
So they gave a bunch of practicetests and whatever.
And for the most part, I wasgetting 75s and 76s.

(01:11:17):
So at the end of the class, theinstructor said, listen, the
test is Saturday.
So you're not going to be ableto pass it.
He's looking at my thing.
He says, well, you should takeour full course.
And I'm like, so I'm nodding athim at the same time.
I said, my man, you don't knowme.
I didn't say it out loud.
I'm just looking at him like,champ, you do not know me.
You do not know me.
I called in sick the next twodays.

(01:11:39):
I went from I went to mymother's apartment because, you
know, she had a big glasskitchen table, spread all the
materials out, study my ass offThursday, Friday.
The test is always on Saturdays,six hour test, finish it in less
than four hours.
Only one person finished beforeme and my the manager and then
they would work on Saturday.
So this is that Murray BurchamHigh School wasn't too far.
And it's in the Wall Streetarea.

(01:12:00):
And I walked over to the officeand I went upstairs and said,
well, I passed.
He says, well, let's wait forthe results.
I said, no, I passed.
You knew it.
I passed.
So On my way from Murray Burchamto the office, I was singing
this song called Overjoyed byStevie Wonder.
There's a line in this songthat's my life.
And though the odds sayimprobable, what do they know?

(01:12:24):
And though the odds sayimprobable, what do they know?
That's how I live everything.
That's why I feel the way,that's why I question
everything.
That's why I question tariffs.
That's why I questioneverything.
Because things that everyonetells you are improbable, who
are they to tell you it'simprobable?

(01:12:46):
You know?
You allow that to your mom?
Yeah.
There's something I read about abriefcase story.
I do my research.
Yeah, yeah.
Tell me a little bit about that.
Oh my God, the briefcase story,man.
You're going to keep making mecry, man, talking about my mom.
That's not the goal, but I wantto know who you are because

(01:13:07):
there's other people out herelistening.
Yeah.
They need to hear this.
So my mom, man.
So my mom, it's, she, it was ourfirst Christmas in Harlem.
And I was struggling, right?
I mean.
I was a weird kid.
So the year before that, I got adesk for Christmas.

(01:13:30):
You're still in the Wall StreetJournal, and you got a desk for
Christmas.
I had a desk for Christmas, andwe were all together, and I
lived with my pops, right?
I used to sit in my bedroom.
It was so cute, right?
And I had my desk.
The year before that, I got amicroscope and a chemistry set.
I used to like stuff like that.
And I always wanted to be abusinessman.
So I told my mom, I want abriefcase.

(01:13:50):
But I said, don't worry about itthis year.
I didn't really even ask.
Honestly, I didn't.
This is when you were in Harlem?
Yeah, our first year.
So we just got the apartment.
We fucking went cold.
It's like, oh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, I just can't.
She's working.
She's working her ass off.
I just really didn't expectanything, honestly.

(01:14:11):
But Christmas came, and shehanded me the briefcase.
Yeah.
And then I opened it, and therewas a bonus gift inside of a
calculator.
Oh, man.
So it was one of those oldschool plastic briefcases.
Anyway, so the Christmas holidaywas over.

(01:14:32):
Went to my class, and again,here I am.
This is the white kid in me.
Jesus! Everyone's looking atyou, what the hell is this?
What is she so happy about?
Oh, God.
I messed around and left thatbriefcase in my homeroom class
and we went and we didsomething.
I came back.
They tore that bad boy up.

(01:14:52):
Done.
They cracked it.
They beat it with something.
They cracked it open.
They destroyed it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:57):
Kids are

SPEAKER_01 (01:14:58):
bad, man.
Broke my heart, man.
Broke my heart.
Yeah.
It broke my heart because mymom, I don't know how she even
afforded it.
And I'm going to tell you rightnow, Rob, real quick, because
this is one thing about me, too,like with my mom.
She was very generous, right?
One time my mother hit thenumber.

(01:15:19):
So the illegal numbers for folkswho don't know used to be before
lottery in New York.
And you play three digit number.
If you get it all right, you winlike six or 700 bucks.
You could play two numbers.
You could play single numbers,right?
I was amazing at the numbers.
I used to be in a number hole.
Oh man, I was so good at pickingnumbers, man.
So good.
That was not sorry.
My first charting too.

(01:15:40):
They said this thing called thechicken Chong and the newspaper.
And then another thing, thisblue book.
And they had all these differentformulas in there that you can
kind of figure out what thenumber would be.
That was my first time charting,I guess, or whatever.
So anyway, my mom hit thenumber.
I walk in the house with a buddyof mine, and she says, I hit the
number.
Like, oh, snap.
So she gave me$20, and she gavemy friend$20.

(01:16:01):
So anyway, me and my boy, we'rein the back of the planet or
whatever.
He leaves, and I'm like, why'dyou give him$20?
And she says, God wants us toshare our gifts.
So she taught me all of thisstuff, man.

UNKNOWN (01:16:12):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:13):
I never asked you, I never really heard you talk
about it, but where do you standin terms of faith?

SPEAKER_01 (01:16:20):
Oh, man, I'm a strong believer in God.
I'm so-so on church.
Yeah, I think a lot of peopleare.
But in terms of God, I cannottell you how much I feel God has
blessed me, but mostly to blessother people.
I feel like I've always been avessel for God.
Not that I've done anything toearn anything, anything special,

(01:16:42):
but I do believe that God hasused me during my lifetime to
help others.
And so I have so much faith inGod.
That's why I never get down.
Never truly.
I could lose a job.
Anything could happen to me, butI just believed in God so much.
I agree, man.
I think you're doing a prettygood job with that gift that
you've been blessed with, man.

(01:17:02):
All right, so...
This is who you are.
You get into Wall Street.
You start crushing it.
When does the transition come toWall Street Strategies, Fox?
What does the timeline look likebetween those two?
So I became a broker.
And the disillusionment beganalmost immediately, right?
Because I had sort ofromanticized being a broker.

(01:17:25):
As you know, you go, you do allthis research and you find these
amazing investments for yourclients.
Right.
And so I was I found thiscompany called Burrell's
Welcome.
They had a new drug called AZTfor a new disease called AIDS.
And I said, you know what?
So I was getting people to signup and buy that stock.

(01:17:46):
But it wasn't a house stock.
So I wasn't, I was signing up.
I mean, this

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:50):
wasn't one you're really supposed to be pitching.

SPEAKER_01 (01:17:52):
Right.
The ones you can make money onthat they had an inventory,
right?
Like the crap, the crappy stuff,you know, like the penny stock
stuff, right?
The real stuff they want

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:59):
you pitching.

SPEAKER_01 (01:18:00):
Right, right.
But I was opening up accounts onBurroughs Welcome.
And so payday comes around.
Now, my first full month in thebusiness, I opened more new
accounts than anybody else in myoffice.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:09):
Wow.

SPEAKER_01 (01:18:09):
Yeah, I was killing it.
Oh, and real quick, I'll tellyou one of the reasons I was
killing it.
This is how intervention is soamazing, man.
My very first week in there.
So they give you a script.
And they say, good luck.
And you go in the back and yougrab phone books.
These old-ass phone books thateverybody's used.
They're dusty as hell.
I remember those.
Yeah, I'm calling these peopleon their phone book, and I'm
looking for lawyers and doctors.

(01:18:30):
And I get on the phone.
The guy picks up.
I read the spiel to him.
And he said something thatchanged my life.
He said, you read real well, butwhat do you want?
So he opened a new account.
After I hung up, I tore up thescript.
Never used the script again.

(01:18:51):
Just talk to these people.
So that was a hell of arevelation.
So I opened more new accounts inmy first month.
Payday comes around.
They're handing out the checks.
Oh my God, these people, thechecks.
They had me my check.
I'm like, it was so small.
It was so tiny.

(01:19:11):
It's because you weren'tpitching the stuff they wanted
you to pitch.
And these guys, they ordered thelimo.
They ordered the Coke.
They went to the strip club.
I'm like, yo, you just got todrop me off in front of my
apartment building in a limo.
I just want the people to see megetting out the limo.
And I hate to say it, man, but Iwent back to work that next
Monday and I was selling thecrap.
I was selling that crappy stufflike crazy.

(01:19:35):
And so my disillusionment beganthere.
So I was able to take eventuallymy passion for research and
knowing that people were sellingcrap.
And I started Wall StreetStrategies initially to sell
research to brokers.
It was a big directory.
I called it the Red Book.
I don't know the official nameof it, but it has essentially

(01:19:57):
almost every broker in Americais in there.
Or at least the firm.
If you didn't have a broker, youcalled the firm and asked for a
broker today.
And so at night, I would writethe research at night.
and call the people in thedaytime.
And it's just me working bymyself doing that.
Then I started doing a littleokay and I hired one guy.

(01:20:18):
This was during the crackepidemic.
So I got an apartment in Harlem.
Yeah, got me an apartment inHarlem.
And like I was in a brownstone.
Yeah, I got a little brownstoneapartment that was like, the
brownstone's probably worth sixmillion now.
You know, you could have boughtthe whole thing for maybe 50
grand.
Like it was the crack epidemic,it was bad.

(01:20:39):
And so I hired my first person,doing it, doing it.
Next thing I know, I get anoffice in Broadway.
I'm broad, 50 broad.
Wow.
You know, and I'm doing it, I'mdoing it, I'm growing, you know.
And, you know, I remember onceit's so weird because people
come into your life at the righttime.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:58):
Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:20:58):
And this one guy helped me out, man.
He got a he had a big, biggerfirm, a big firm.
They had an old phone systembecause I had I had started
hiring enough people.
I had people sharing a phone.
Like when someone was off andworking, like after they spoke
to someone, filling out thenotes, I had someone else pick
up the phone and call.
Oh, you were grinding it up.
Oh, yeah.
Remember, I come from ascrambling background, baby.
You're scrambling.
We're scrambling, baby.

(01:21:19):
We're scrambling.
You know, so it's just startingto grow, right?
It's starting to grow.
And all my clients initiallywere mostly brokers.
So I'm building this reputationamongst brokers, the brokers
community.
One thing that also startedhappening is I would get like
certain good tips on things,right?
And I think people were usingme.
Like, let's just say, forinstance, you were a broker and

(01:21:41):
you had a client who owned amobile home company that was
publicly traded.
And he got an offer.
He was thinking about taking it,you know, but not sure.
And you're the broker, like, howthe fuck, how can I buy this
stock?
But you couldn't.
Unless somebody wrote about itin a newsletter somewhere.
Like, now it's public knowledge.
So, you know, so anyway, allkinds of things are happening.

(01:22:01):
And the business is growing.
And we're grinding our ass off.
And then I get a phone call oneday from CNBC.
I'm like, oh, snap.
I don't know how to, you know,some broker told him about me,
whatever.
And so you want to come on.
I left the office.
I went to where I was buying myclothes.
There's a place calledShabanata.
And I get to Shabanata andthere's like 200 people outside

(01:22:23):
of Shabanata.
I weave my way in and I look as,you know, glass.
I look through and there's MikeTyson.
Wow.
He bought all his clothes fromthere.
And so I knock on the thing.
My man lets me in.
I said, yo, I'm going on TV.
I'm going on CNBC.
I need a new shirt and a newtie.
He says, all right, I got you.
So now Tyson's a little curious.
Like, who's this?

(01:22:44):
Because no one else was in thestore.
They kicked everyone else out.
So I ended up rapping to MikeTyson for about 25 minutes, 25,
30 minutes.
I used to root against MikeTyson because I thought he was a
bully.
Man, I fell in love with him.
He was a nice guy.
I felt like he was getting used.
But what really was amazing tome, so it was a big store.
And I was in the back trying onshirts and stuff.

(01:23:05):
And so he was leaving.
I said, Mike, take it easy.
So he leaves the front.
He walks all the way to theback.
And I, you know, went to go givehim a pound and he hugged me.
I felt like, man, this guy,like, it felt like he was really
lonely, even though he had allthis fame.
Turns out, like, even thatstore, everybody was stealing
from him.
Everyone.
That store, they made millionsoff of him.

(01:23:25):
His boys would come in and allthe stuff, you know, the Gators
and all that stuff, you know.
So I went down, I did the show,you know.
And it was just amazing.
They started asking me to comeback.
What show was it?
I forgot.
I forgot, yeah.
I remember Sue Herrera, but Idon't know if it was her.

(01:23:47):
But anyway, and then CNN-effingcalled me up, said, hey, you
know, and CNN-effing, they lovedme a lot.
You obviously crushed it, thatfirst appearance on CBC.
I crushed it.
I crushed it.
And they were having me back.
Like at CNN-effing, they askedme to come.
Then they had this thingwhere...
They would have you co-host onFridays.
And what they loved about it isthey did a call-in thing, and I

(01:24:09):
would know every stock.
Like, you know, they used to,producers said, you know this
one?
Yeah, yeah, put him through.
You know this one?
Yeah, yeah, put him through.
Oh, so you had callers callingin to ask you an

SPEAKER_02 (01:24:18):
opinion on that.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:18):
Right.
And the guy, the producer waslike, what the fuck?
How does he know all this shit?
You know this?
I said, yeah, yeah, put himthrough.
And I would know all that.
I knew all that shit.
You know, I knew it.
And one of the camera guys said,man, you could do this.
You could really do this for aliving.
I said, yeah.
You know, I didn't even, youknow, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 (01:24:31):
You

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:32):
weren't thinking, but.
Not really.
And so then, again, the businesshas gone well.
I ended up getting a, moving myoffice to, yeah.
of a building that was built byshipping giants.
Is this helping the businessgetting your name out?
Oh, God, this actually changedmy business model.
Because when I would go back tothe office, the phones are
ringing off the hook.
And now it's all these retailclients.

(01:24:52):
And so I had to retool theproduct a little bit, you know,
from a broker-centric product toretail.
To

SPEAKER_02 (01:24:59):
retail, okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:24:59):
Right.
And I mean, just ringing off thehook, you know?
So, and you know, we, and backin the day, whenever we, our
credit card machine had the tapethat would come out, you know?
And that bad boy was all theway.
Yeah.
That bad boy was like, you know,you don't make much money in TV.
You're monetizing it throughthis business.
Right.
Right.
Right.

(01:25:19):
Right.
I was a guest.
I wasn't making any, you know,it was just like, yeah, you
know, and just like, just offthe hook, man.
So I got, you know, I ended upgetting, um, an office, the
whole entire floor of an office.
This thing was amazing.
It was on one side of thebuilding, had an angle of the
New York Stock Exchange.
On the other side, it had...
You made it at this point.

(01:25:40):
Yeah, the other side.
Yeah, I mean...
We're at Harlem.
We came all the way down.
Yeah, now I got the entirefloor.
I got 50 employees, you know?
And so this is Yahoo Financethat started.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:52):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:25:52):
And same thing.
Like they'd say, you know, canyou come on like, you know, once
a week?
Right.
Then they say, hey, can you, youknow...
It got to the point whereeventually they said, hey, can
you just do a show?
So I ended up doing a show at 4o'clock.
And as soon as the marketclosed, we put the green screen
down.
And I had three cameras pivotingall different areas.
I could get you the Statue ofLiberty on one side.

(01:26:14):
Shipping giants, shippingmagnets built this building.
So I had a view of the harbor.
And it also viewed as New YorkStock Exchange.
It was beautiful.
So I was doing that.
And then the crash came.
Wow.
You know, I even, I even, mycompany.
2000.
Yeah.
My company, I went, I did areverse takeover.
So I was a publicly tradedcompany.
Okay.

(01:26:34):
Yeah.
On, on paper, I was like, oh,forget it.
And my peak, back then, my peak,I hit 275, 275 million.
Wow.
I was invited to all kinds ofshit.
I mean, they were inviting me tostuff like, huh?
Okay.
You sure you want me?
I mean, they saw my cash.
Oh my God.
They invited me to so muchstuff.
Like, my man, I remember goingto this house, the CEO from

(01:26:57):
Citi.
Oh, golly.
Anyway, I got a mental block.
He had a big fundraiser.
He had a big fundraiser for theAlbany School, dance school,
because his wife, she loved it.
And they had Judith Jameson, whowas the main dancer at the time,
the architect.
So I'm up there with my wife,and he's like, hors d'oeuvres.

(01:27:19):
This is at his penthouse, right?
It's like chilling.
All of a sudden, this is whenthey start putting the arm in
everyone.
So now they're going around theroom, right?
All right, and the Rosenbergs?
We'll put in two million.
Okay, and the Smiths?
Put us down for five million.
And they're going around theroom.
I look at my wife.
We got to get this.
Follow me.

(01:27:42):
Let's get in the dumbwaiter andget down in this one.
Time to go.
Because they got to me.
I've been like, hold on onesecond.
Put me down for, wait a minute.
Put me down for 3G.
Yeah, put me down for 3G.
I was nervous as hell.

(01:28:03):
They were moving quick aroundthat room.
That reputation was about to geta ding to it.
Paper wealth is amazing.
Yeah, it's worth$270 on papers.
Anyway, I'm like, okay.
We have to go.
So we dipped out of that badboy.
But then...

(01:28:23):
I got, I honestly, this is, Ijust, it was got things.
It was just too much money.
I was making a lot of money.
I was really, I drifted awayfrom the person I was.
And of course we had the marketcrash.
I mean, that was a hell of acrash.
I mean, we, we years of

SPEAKER_02 (01:28:37):
it.

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:37):
Yeah.
Three, we, three years we wereon the, um, I invented work from
home.
Yeah.
We, we lost our office.
Yeah.
Now let me tell you.
So, um, I don't know why Ididn't get along with whoever
was running the building.
So we weren't paying the rent.
And finally, they came up tokick us out.

(01:28:58):
We had that one day.
They didn't get to check thatday.
So I'm scrambling, trying tonegotiate, get some money in,
raise some cash.
So they come up with the guys inthe buildings with drills.
And they're drilling my locks.
They're changing the locks.
And there's two marshals withthem with the guns on the hoster
on the hip.
And I'm sending out emails toeveryone in office, keep

(01:29:19):
working.
Don't fucking stop.
Keep working.
Keep fucking working.
Keep working.
And the marshal says, you got toleave.
We're not leaving.
And I said, the marshal reads,you got to leave.
I said, give me a second, man.
Give me a second.
Don't fucking stop.
But people are scared.
There's a marshal out there,Charles.
You got a dude with a gun.
I'm like, keep working.
How many people do you have inthere?

(01:29:40):
We have about 30 people.
Oh, OK.
I was thinking like eight or 10.
30 people.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
And so, yeah.
Then Marshall, he came over.
The third time he came over, hewas pissed.
He said, I'm not going to askyou again.
You have to leave now.
And at that moment, my COO ranin a building with the check.
The wire came.

SPEAKER_02 (01:29:58):
What?

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:59):
Yeah.
It was almost inconsequentialbecause we were out of that
fucker about two months later.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But we dodged the bullet thatday, literally.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, we invented work fromhome.
I had people working from home.
So you kept going.
You just downsized it a bit.
We had no office.
I said, take the leads home.
So we actually invented thatyears ago.

(01:30:19):
So, yeah.
Okay.
And, you know, then things gotbetter and better.
Mm-hmm.
You know, I always thank God forthat crash.
Because I was just, I was crazy.
I was losing it.
Changed the

SPEAKER_02 (01:30:30):
person who you were headed

SPEAKER_01 (01:30:31):
towards being.
Yeah, I was too arrogant.
You know, I was just, I justwasn't the person my mom raised.
I needed to come up and it'sreal bad.
Really bad.
So when did you transitionfull-time into over five?
I assume it was Fox where youwent full-time into it.
Yeah.
So...
I think when Neil came, NeilCabuto came over from CNBC.

(01:30:52):
First of all, when he went fromCNBC to this thing called Fox, I
thought he was crazy.
Honestly, I'm like, my man, whatis wrong with you?
Why are you leaving CNBC?
Every bar, every restaurant youwent into, everyone was in a
market, cab drivers.
It was like, are you nuts?
He went to this thing calledFox.
I'm like, okay, bless him.
Did you know Neil?

(01:31:13):
Yeah.
So I get a call.
Neil wants you to do a show atthat Fox thing.
I feel like I was doing him afavor.
All right.
You know?
So I get there.
You know the building.
So the escalators, the first twodeals were downstairs.
So I take the escalatordownstairs.
I'm in the studio.
This is lit better than that waslit.
Okay.
I mean, oh, it was like, I'mlooking at Neil.

(01:31:33):
The table was like missing aleg.
I'm holding part of this shit upwith my knee.
I'm like, I'm like trying tohelp.
The whole time I'm looking atNeil, my man, you know, you're
in a mess.
You know, you're in a mess up.
There's this movie, like thisreal famous scene.
This guy's getting interrogated.
This one kid said, You knowyou're fucked up now, right?
That's how I was looking atNeil.
You know you're fucked up,right?
No, no, you know you're fuckedup.

(01:31:55):
Neil, you know you're fucked up.
So anyway, we do this show.
I'm like, oh my God, Neil blewit.
And of course, it didn't blowit, right?
But Fox started to grow.
So I was doing all of thesenetworks at one point.
And then Fox, when they offeredme a contributorship.
So you get paid per appearance.
It was like, so...
But what's really interestingabout it, though, and this is a

(01:32:18):
good lesson for a lot of people,even though I was good or
whatever, one of the decidingfactors, one of the top
producers there, she said, Iwant to show you something.
So she played a recording.
There was one day I was supposedto be on the show.
I was very sick, and I calledin.
I told them I'm feeling likecrap, but I'm still going to
make it.

(01:32:38):
And I did.
And that meant so much to them.

SPEAKER_02 (01:32:42):
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:42):
that I was reliable.
Didn't matter how smart I was,that they knew no matter what I
would show up.
And that was one of the decidingfactors in making me a
contributor.
Wow.
Yeah.
So when did you get offered thefull-time position?
Oh, it just kept growing andgrowing.
They were like, man, it's thisbecause I'm scrambling.
They're like, you know, I'mdoing four or five hits a day.

(01:33:03):
So I'm submitting that, youknow, the thing.
They're like, damn, my man.
So let's get him on a flat fee.
Scrambling again.
Yeah.
So they gave me a flat fee andthen, you know.
They didn't want to pay forappearance.
Yeah, they got rid of that paperappearance thing, man.
So, you know, just whatever.
Just kind of negotiate it andnegotiate it, whatever, you
know.
And it just kind of, you know,kept drifting a little bit

(01:33:23):
higher, a little bit higher.
Became a little bit more than astipend, you know.
Yeah.
And then they launched thebusiness network.
But I didn't have a showinitially.
It was very frustrating, youknow?

SPEAKER_02 (01:33:34):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:33:35):
Yeah, it was very frustrating.
Even to this day, there's stillpeople there in the top of our
management who don't appreciatewhat I bring to the table fully,
fully.
They just don't, you know.
What do you think it is, man?
I don't know.
I see some of the people they'reenamored with sometimes, and
it's a look.
I don't know what it is.
But, I mean...
Like, if you watch my show, I'mtelling you, and I try to be

(01:33:55):
humble, there's no show like myshow on any financial channel.
The thought process that goes inthere, connecting the dots,
having fun, just the creativity.
The creativity is so, it's anamazing show.
Like, you know, I do the clipsin the A block.
I like doing the clips.
So I'll give you an example.
So I was talking about smallcaps recently.

(01:34:19):
So what I love about this yearis, is that the retail investor
was buying when institutionswere selling.
So they bought the lot, boughtthem, the dumb money bought.
And now I'm seeing little signsthat may be small caps, the
under love stocks.
So it's the small investors andsmall caps.
It's been a long time.
Yeah, I know.
So I did this thing and I did mylittle spiel and I talked about,

(01:34:41):
and I use underdog as my clip.
Yeah.
Right.
And the reason I use cartoon.
Right.
Old cartoon.
But underdog was a shoeshine.

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:49):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.

SPEAKER_01 (01:34:50):
It's true.
So one of the great stories onWall Street is the legend of the
shoeshine boy and Joe Kennedy.
Yeah.
You know, Joe Kennedy is acaptain of finance.
He's killing it.
He's getting a shoeshine and ashoeshine boy looks up and
starts talking about the market.
Hey, what do you think aboutso-and-so?
So Joe Kennedy looks down atthis kid like the riffraff is in
this shit now, goes upstairs,sells everything.

(01:35:13):
And the market crashes the nextday.
That's the lore.
That's the myth.
That was the dumb money.
As soon as the dumb money wantedto buy, smart money got out and
the market crashed.
So that's how long the myth haslasted.
It's kind of like 2008 when thewaiter became the realtor.
Right.
And so it goes that far.
And so Underdog was a shoeshineboy.

(01:35:34):
But he ended up being asuperhero too.
So that's why I use it.
So I put this work into it.
Man, it's so good.
It's so creative.
But I just, you know, there's alot of things that just I try to
get that I just don't get.
You know, I put my hat in thering for stuff.
Just don't get it.
So it's very frustrating.
I mean, recently, I think youwere looking for a different

(01:35:54):
spot.
Yeah.
Well, not different.
I wanted to do both.
You know, I mean, it's like Ican do it.
I can do it.
You know, it's just and what'scrazy about is the audience
loves me.
They love you.
The audience loves me.
I was on a plane with a bunch ofFox talent.
Everyone came over to me.
Everyone, you know.
gave me, you know, five highlove, you know, let's take a
picture, like walk pasteveryone.

(01:36:15):
They, people do.
It's like, it's just, justsomebody at the very top.
It was just like, you know, butit's, and it's, so it's, it's
tough.
It's tough.
You know, it's been tough to bethere.
You know, because on one hand Ilove doing the show.
The show itself, I love helpingpeople.
On the other hand, it's reallytough, though, to think maybe

(01:36:36):
you just can't break through towhere I think I've earned.
This is reverse DEI.
This is something, I'm killingit.
I'm amazing.
I'm great.
Treat me that way.
So let's talk about, I mean,there's man, why am I doing
this?
I said, I'm never doing apodcast.
I'm never doing YouTube.

(01:36:57):
I'm never doing any of thatstuff.
And then I started seeing whatwas going on, the transition,
the Tucker Carlson's, the MegynKelly's that are leaving.
And I don't know exactly whatthey're making, but I pretty
much understand what's going on.
I think they're doing prettydamn well.
Kind of funny though.
I think they got picked up byRed Seat Ventures.
Well, I'm getting picked up byFox again anyway.
So I think that's good.

(01:37:17):
What do you think about thistransition though of media?
And let me just tell you this.
Because I think, you know, thereason I started, I started with
CNBC too, and I've been doingthis for 15, 16 years.
The whole idea is let me get onthere.
It gives you some third partyvalidation.
It helps you monetize some ofthe things that you're, you're
doing outside of there.
And I built a wealth managementfirm and I benefited a lot from

(01:37:39):
that, similar to what you did.
And then I sold that firm.
When I sold that firm, someonesaid, you got to try this social
media stuff.
I'm doing Fox.
Let's see.
I'm not doing Instagram or anyof that stuff, but I'll tell
you, man, I monetized mybusinesses more in 12 months
than I did with social mediathan 14 years that I did.
I made way more money.

(01:38:00):
So the proof's in the pudding,man.
That's where everything's going.
And I think, you know, mydaughter doesn't watch, 17 years
old, she doesn't watch Fox orsee, she's watching YouTube and
TikTok and all the advertisingdollars are going there, man.
If you see where these deals aregoing, the podcast and
everything, Who's Your Daddy,Mayan, Tucker, I mean, these are
big deals, man.

(01:38:21):
What's your thoughts about allthis?
Well, I'll be honest with you,man.
I've thought about it for a longtime.
I mean, two contracts ago, I wasready to go and do the podcast.
And then the last contract, Iwas this close to saying, in
part because, you know, onething about me, man, is like,
you know, they wouldn't sponsorme.
I went somewhere.
I was like, I don't dwell on,you know, there's something, a

(01:38:45):
barrier there.
Go around the barrier or find adifferent way, right?
Don't sit there

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:48):
and bitch and whine

SPEAKER_01 (01:38:49):
about it.
Right, right.
So, you know, and I've doneenough bitching and whining that
at some point, like, that dooropens or, you know.
And so I've looked at this forthe last two cycles of my
contract.
I look really hard at thepodcast or the YouTube thing.
And, again, because I'm socreative, man.
And I already have ways in mymind I know I want to do it.

(01:39:10):
I had some buddies of mine whodid a thing, but they were just
too early, called Jag Notes.
There was a company called JagNotes.
Yeah.
And they had their own show.
The whole network, the whole biton YouTube, on whatever, online.
I just think they were a littlebit too early.
I don't know that the pipes werebuilt out fast enough.
Even when I was doing YahooFinance, I got a lot of clients

(01:39:30):
from other countries becausethey had better fiber optics and
all that stuff.
Americans, they couldn't get it.
So they were early, but whatthey did was amazing.
It was beautiful.
It was beautiful.
In fact, Fox Business took oneof their anchors.
It was one of their firstanchors, right?
Yeah.

(01:39:51):
No, from the Dag Notes.

SPEAKER_02 (01:39:52):
Oh, okay.
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (01:39:53):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Barnes.
Peter Barnes.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
He was an anchor on their thing.
So it was interesting, right?
And again, I have ideas.
I mean, I write every singlenight.
Yeah.
I'm a prodigious note taker.
I write to my subscribers everynight, every day.
I study everything.
You should see all the things.
And I read everything.
And I feel like I'm verycreative.

(01:40:15):
And my goal is I'm the PiedPiper of the stock market.
I want retail.
I want individual investors toown stocks.

SPEAKER_02 (01:40:21):
And

SPEAKER_01 (01:40:22):
there's a way that I think they should do it.
And it's not what's being taughtto them.
What's being taught to themkeeps it wealthy.
It's like the old book, whereare the customers' yachts?
I agree.
I think it's got phenomenalpotential.
I mean, just phenomenalpotential.
You know, it's just I wear a lotof hats already.

SPEAKER_02 (01:40:39):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 (01:40:40):
So that's the one thing.
But it's appealing.
It gets more appealing everysingle day.
It does.
It does.
Every single day it gets moreappealing.
And you say your daughter's 17.
My son's 27.
He was really the one to turn meon to it when he was like 10
years ago maybe watching JoeButton or something.
And so, yeah, he's saying, yeah,I'm watching it with him.
And the first thing that really–caught my eye was just no time

(01:41:03):
limit.
So I had a radio show.
I had a radio show at KFI.
And let me tell you, it was thenumber one station in America at
the time.
Number one, biggest audience.
And so I used to go on as aguest and they offered me a show
on Saturdays, a two hour show.
But because I've been doing somuch TV, man, I was done in
three minutes, five minutes.
I was like, all right.

(01:41:24):
So because that TV, you know,one minute, two minutes.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:28):
get

SPEAKER_01 (01:41:29):
it, man.
It's hard.
Right.
So I was like, they're

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:30):
talking to my ears.
Shut up.
Hurry

SPEAKER_01 (01:41:32):
up, bro.
I'm like, OK.
You know, what do we talk aboutnow?
It's a different.
Different skill set.
It's a different skill set.
It is.
But it's a beautiful skill set.
It's like.
But that's you though, man.
I mean, I think, look.
Everyone's readingteleprompters.
I think the best you is thisCharles.
You've done the research.
You know the history.

(01:41:52):
You know what it takes.
You've done it yourself.
It's so hard to get that acrossin the clip.
Even you, it's your own show.
You don't have an hour.
You have five minutes of yourown?
It's hard, man.
It's hard to articulate it all.
It's hard to get the right guestbecause I don't want the
bullshitters.
I'm sorry.
I like accountability and I likepeople who know.

(01:42:15):
I don't I don't care if youagree with me or not, but you
got to know, you have some sortof basis.
Right.
And, you know, like the bookers,like, well, so-and-so is
bullish.
The cab driver was bullish thismorning.
What does that mean?
You should see.
I mean, I hate to say it, but Iget the, you know, a lot of
people, they send in their POVs.
We call them POVs, point ofviews.
Yeah.
And it's like they're areporter.

(01:42:35):
Well, the market's going througha turbulent time.
Yeah.
No, no.
What's your opinion?
Right, right.
We know that.
How do we navigate it?
Like that part we got.
It's like...
But no one wants to go out on alimb, man.
No one wants to.
I mean, I don't want to saynobody, but half them don't.
Yeah, but the thing is, though,we're not doing right by the
viewer.
You're not helping people.

(01:42:56):
Right, right.
I mean, it's like put out yourthoughts.
Put out a little bit of yourthesis behind it.
And people will respect itbecause they don't expect
everyone to be right.
I think like a Jim Cramer blewhis credibility because he tries
to be right.
Every time.
On Monday, he hates technology.
Friday, he wants to, how comeyou're not long technology?
Well, didn't you tell me youhated it?
Yeah.
And I have guests like that.

(01:43:17):
And they want the fuckingbarbell.
I'm going to barbell.
What exactly is that?
I like risky stocks andnon-risky stocks.
I'll play it at all.
Yeah.
I'll be right or right.
Yeah.
And then you come back.
I told you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You were half right.
Yeah.
Or some of them get a littleslick.
Sometimes I get angry at theanchors for letting them get

(01:43:37):
away with this one.
Two things they do.
Would you buy the dip or someshit like that?
Would you buy it down here?
Yeah, yeah.
Or they say sell.
A lot of times people say, well,you should probably be selling
your tech names in the strength.
Sell the Mag 7 at the strength.
You don't have a right to reallysay that unless you bought it.
Were you buying it?
No, you didn't like Mag 7 at$2million.

(01:43:59):
telling me to sell it at 200,but you insinuate that you had
it.
We would take profit.
We would, but we didn't have it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:44:05):
I don't have any profit.

SPEAKER_01 (01:44:06):
Right.
So you really shouldn't, youknow, like they do the slick
stuff.
I hate that slick stuff.
Don't get slick and act like youwere, you know, like you were
doing something for, and likeyou were right.
You were wrong.
First of all, you admit that youtold people not to buy it, you
know?
And so you were telling them tosell it since 20, it's 200.
Keep telling them at some point,you'll be able to come back and
say, I told you it went from2000 to 1800.

(01:44:27):
I was right.
You know, but so there's allthose games, right?
So it's not just what I have tosay.
I got to try to make sure Iprotect the viewers and get the
best out of them.
And it's a grind.
How much control do you haveover that guests that come on
your show?
The problem is I, you know, I,I, you know, I don't let anybody
on if I think they're BS or, butI can't, I try and I can't wear
every hat.

(01:44:47):
Right.
So,

SPEAKER_02 (01:44:48):
you

SPEAKER_01 (01:44:48):
know, it's hard because people who are my
bookers, they don't knowanything about the market.
So they're working hard.
They're nice people.
I'm trying to, you know, I'masking for more help.
I just need some people.
who love the market.
Just give me a couple that love,and I say love it like, You
know, like...
Like how you felt when you firstgot...
Like if Broadcom was reportingafter the close, let's book one

(01:45:09):
guest on the show that day whohas an opinion on it.
Yeah.
To have no guests on a trilliondollar stock that's reporting
after the bell, that's whatwe've booked.
It's crazy, right?
Or if I'm talking aboutsomething on Monday and there's
no one to...
You know, like, you know, I wasreally kind of passionate about
that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How come we don't have at leastone guest to follow up?
Or, you know, we just have to...

(01:45:30):
It's just bad.
You know, it's just bad.
You know, so it's...
But you can't do all...
You can't do all of it.
You can't do it all.
All right.
So I can't have you on herewithout asking you, okay?
Young, old, wherever it is.
Look, I'm making 60 grand a yearright now.
I'm 30 years old.

(01:45:51):
What do I do?
What's the career to have rightnow?
How am I saving?
What am I investing?
What are you telling your sonright now?
Your son, you said, is 27 yearsold.
What's the advice for theseguys?
Well, he's not making any money.
He's trying.
My son's trying to hit a grandslam.
I don't want to discourage him,but I did the grind.

(01:46:12):
He wants to come out the gatehitting a grand slam.
So he's got some things, ironsin a fire, you know.
He hits one of these things,it's gonna be like, you know, It
will be a grand slam.
He's in the art world right now.
He understands a lot of things.
He's very smart.
Smarter than me than I was athis age.

(01:46:35):
Tim Symes is smarter than me.
He doesn't have my grind though.
I hear most parents at my agesay that about their kid.
It's not unique.
Especially people who had tocome up grind their way up.
He doesn't have that grind butHe's so much more intelligent
than I was at that age.

(01:46:55):
And even now, he speaks.
You know what I used to do whenhe was a kid?
I used to get The Economistmagazine.
So The Economist has lost itsway.
It's an awful magazine.
Sometimes they have some goodfactual stuff, and you could
just ignore the author'sopinion.
But their obituary page isamazing.
It's amazing.
Have you ever read that?

(01:47:15):
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:47:15):
have.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (01:47:16):
yeah, yeah.
So I cut out the obituaries.
I used to cut out the obituarypage and have him read it out
loud.
It was so beautiful.
He speaks so...
I've heard him speak.
I have a little bit of a speechimpediment to begin with, and I
just don't have a greateducation.
Like, you know, he's...
And plus, it was good.
You know, I love history.
And one thing I do like aboutthe economy is they have these

(01:47:37):
guys 94 years old and they didsomething that really like saved
humanity.
If they'd only died that year,they'd be famous.
Right.
But they lived another 40 yearsand no one knows who the hell
they are.
So.
So, you know, he's he's in agreat position.
Yeah.
He's a nice person.
You know, he doesn't have I havea much bigger chip on my
shoulder than he does.
Right.
He has no chip on his shoulder.

(01:47:58):
And I think that helps him.
You know, he doesn't he neversees anything in color.
He never thinks anything isracist or that.
Some parts of it I think are alittle naive, but I don't want
to mess with

SPEAKER_02 (01:48:11):
them.

SPEAKER_01 (01:48:11):
One of the great gifts my mother gave me was she
grew up in Alabama.
They were lynching black people.
They grew up with no indoorplumbing.
I heard some pretty bad stories.
Just to give you an example, mygrandmother...
Used to sleep.
She didn't never use the pillow.

(01:48:32):
She slept with her arms crossed.
So she could hear the KnightRiders.
So they grew up with some toughshit.
And she never ever.
Knight Riders

SPEAKER_02 (01:48:39):
are people that are coming to lynch people.

SPEAKER_01 (01:48:42):
Yeah.
So she.
My mother never talked about anyof that.
Although on Sundays she wouldclean the house.
And play gospel music.
And tears would just come out ofher eyes.
And you just had to imagine thepain.
But she didn't make me feel thatpain.
Because she didn't want me tothink that the world hated me.
And so I try my best not to messwith where my son is.

(01:49:05):
You know, like he's sooptimistic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's so he believes so much.
And he knows that if he just, heknows, like he knows his stuff.
He is brilliant.
He's brilliant.
You know, he grew up, I took himto all the museums, but he
knows, he knows these artists.
He knows that he, oh, he knowseverything about it.
You know, I'm telling you, he islike a historian already.

(01:49:26):
So I don't mess with him.
Yeah.
You know, I just want him tocome through with it.
So, you know, career wise, it'sso tough, right?
Because this AI thing, and I'veread where in a few years, maybe
five years or so, 60% of thejobs don't exist right now.
So we don't know what the hellthey're doing, right?
We spent 10 years telling girlsto code, which was almost a
waste of time, except no skillis a waste, right?

(01:49:49):
But the job may not be anycoding jobs for you.
So you have to be, I think themost important thing is to learn
to love learning.
That's my advantage.
I love learning.
learning when people say he's astock market expert i always say
no

SPEAKER_02 (01:50:04):
yeah

SPEAKER_01 (01:50:05):
i'm a student of the market i'm a student of life i'm
a i'm a student forever i am astudent forever there's so much
stuff out there to learn even aican't learn at all right so um
but if you love to learn thenyou always you'll always be
positioned you'll always bepositioned when the opportunity

(01:50:26):
comes You know, I've had friendswho said, man, you were lucky.
We know luck, the definition ofluck is when preparation meets
opportunity.
So if you're just alwayslearning, always thinking,
always curious, curiosity, andjust, and then when these things
come, either you're alreadyprepared or you can adapt
quickly, right?

(01:50:48):
And I'm, of course, a lifelongproponent of investing.
And it doesn't have to be thestock market.
I just find a way to make yourmoney work for you.
Find a way to make your moneywork for you.
And just budget.
you know particularly young youdon't have to be at every party
you don't have to you know youdon't need Grubhub you don't
need OnlyFans you know I meanreally you just they whine and

(01:51:10):
complain and I just you know Ijust talked about my mom she
grew up with no indoor plumbingwhenever they tell me a bitch
about how expensive it is tohave kids I just and then her
grandmother my grandmother washarder than that I just can't
I'm sorry but it's hitting deaf

SPEAKER_02 (01:51:23):
ears

SPEAKER_01 (01:51:24):
I'm sorry that your OnlyFans account and your
Grubhub and your Uber I'm sorrybut I don't care because you
don't understand how coddled youare.
That's the problem.
It's getting worse.
My first full year back when welived in that apartment, every
night we ate ramen noodles.
Every single night.
You buy three for a dollar.
Three or four for a dollar.
I remember 10 for a dollar, 10cents each, 12 cents each.

(01:51:46):
Woolworths, whatever.
The whole first year I got outof Air Force, that's what we
ate.
That's what it takes.
What you said, you've got tolove learning.
And I think that just goes bypeople or whatever you tell
them.
But you got to love learning,man.
Because I think today you've gotto be excellent at something.

(01:52:07):
Because information is free,man.
You can Google it.
But until you're excellent likeyou are at something, you're not
going to impact people's livesin the way that Google won't.
And definitely not the way AIwill.
I mean, it's scary how good AIis getting.
But unless you do that, unlessyou learn, unless you grind, and
you set it to adapt...
You're not going to get there.
I don't think enough kids hearthat.

(01:52:28):
Or they'll hear the stockmarket.
The thinking has even gottenlazy, man.
I'm not going to get that.
I'm not going to understandthat.
It's like me when I saw options.
Again, I had no options, though,but I'm like, shit, okay, I'm
going to learn options or I'mnot going to eat.
I'm going to learn options.
Then you know what?
Two years later, I was an optionprincipal for that firm.
I got my Series 24 because Ibecame so damn good at options

(01:52:49):
because that was my only wayout.
But I learned, and that led tothe next thing and the next
thing.
Investing.
You talk a lot about stocks.
I talk a lot about stocks.
And Warren Buffett has aconcentrated portfolio of eight
stocks, but he tells everyone tobuy the S&P.
What do you think about that?
Because Warren Buffett, whathe's essentially saying is what

(01:53:10):
you just said, that they're notgoing to put the work in to know
these companies.
That's the

SPEAKER_02 (01:53:15):
sad part.

SPEAKER_01 (01:53:15):
When people work for me, my analysts, I say one thing
you have to do is learn aboutwhenever we see a stock that we
like, we go back and we researchthe founders.
Because often the ethos of thefounders live on with the
company.
Warren Buffett, two papers ago,his annual letter, said that
Berkshire Hathaway is going tobe run the same way 100 years

(01:53:35):
from now that it's run rightnow.
And these companies that sort offollow that, the ethos of their
founders, find a way and they dovery well.
So I always love to learn thefounder story.
And those stories, I could do amovie every month, a movie on
these guys that would be, peoplewill go see.
It's just, we've had so manyunsung heroes in this world, in

(01:53:57):
this country.
Just beautiful, just amazingstories, Rob.
Oh my goodness, right?
So, and then, You know, do thework into the company, find out
what they do, whatever.
And people don't want to dothat.
You know, and that's why he saysby the S&P.
Because he knows that peopledon't want to do the work.
And that's why there's thisthing, one of these hypotheses,

(01:54:21):
the efficient market hypotheses.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (01:54:22):
yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (01:54:23):
yeah.
I say it can't be.
It can't be efficient.
And I used to argue with BenStein about this all the time.
And his thing was like, well,all the information that's out
there that you need to know ispublicly available.
That's true.
But who's read it?
Well, you think about theefficient market hypothesis,
which kind of created modernportfolio theory.
It assumes people are rational.
And they're always going to makethe rational decision.

(01:54:44):
I think we see that's not thecase.
Right.
And part of it, though, isbecause they don't know.
They don't know.
Right.
If you know, if you if you ifMichael Jordan in his prime and
his in his prime.
If Chicago Bulls are losing by12 points with two minutes left
in the game and they wereplaying in Chicago and you had a
chance to bet$1,000 to get backfive, to get back even 2,000,

(01:55:06):
you would do it.
Why?

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:08):
Michael Jordan.

SPEAKER_01 (01:55:09):
Right.
So you understood thefundamentals of the team.
And so you weren't afraid.
Stock goes down a few points.
You don't know what the hell youown.
That's exactly it.
So you cut bait.
Why is it down?
You sell it.
You don't know if it's good orbad.
It's just a symbol.
Everyone's talking about it.
It's been hot.
It broke out.
I saw the chart.

(01:55:30):
And that's what Warren Buffett'stalking about.
If people would only take thetime to learn, and you only have
to learn a few of thesecompanies.
I agree.
And then the people.
I always believe in people.
One of my best stocks in thelast four years has been GE.
And it got hammered.
It got crushed.
Everyone wrote it off.

(01:55:51):
Larry Culp came over.
I read Larry Culp's biography.
I kicked myself in the ass andbought the stock.
Yeah.
Loaded up.
I don't even know how much I'mup because it's three stocks
now.
It's just, you know.
That's an important pointthough, man, because I do the
same thing in investing.
I'm looking at the CEOs.
I'm looking at leadership.
I've got CFAs that work for me.
They give me all the data,right?

(01:56:11):
These guys are really good datapeople.
But at the end of the day, thestrategy that they're putting
out there, if they don't havethe people to execute on it, the
data doesn't mean anything.
The pitch deck doesn't meananything.
It's the people.
When I started this business, Ileft, sold the firm.
My first investor, man, in thisbusiness said, you're starting
something?
Here's a million dollars.
I'm investing in you.
Didn't even know what I wasgoing to do, man.

(01:56:31):
Right, right.
But that's such an importantpart.
And that's what I'm trying totell people.
Back to your point of learning.
You've got to become excellent.
You've got to become passionate.
Because if you're that personwho's excellent and passionate,
people are going to believe inyou, invest in you.
That's all I did, man.
I'm not that smart of a person.
I just grinded.
I learned.
And I was honest with people.
I under-promised,over-delivered.
I think you're doing the samething all the time.
It's a culture.

(01:56:52):
It's a culture.
I think it was Michael Lewis.
It was Michael Lewis who wrotethe new, new thing.
So Michael Lewis...
Or who's the other?
There's another guy.
It might be him, though.
They both write these books,Wall Street books or whatever.
So he was doing a book on, Ihate that I'm having all these

(01:57:12):
mental blocks.
This guy started three separatebillion dollar companies.
Three separate billion dollarcompanies.
So he's writing a book and he'sfollowing them around.
So he created three businessesthat turned into a billion
dollar ride, which is almostunheard of.
Exactly.
So he's following them around.
And so one place, there's thisguy from India with him.
And he's like, you know, sort oflike a right hand man.

(01:57:34):
He's like, you know, can I havepermission?
You know, do you mind if Iinterviewed him?
And the guy said no.
So so he's talking and he'stelling a story about being from
this is in the new new thing.
OK, this is he's telling a storyabout he lived in rural India,
rural India.
His city, his cousin was fromthe big city, a little bit older
than him.

(01:57:54):
So she came to visit.
He came home one day, and she'sgetting all dolled up, right?
Now, she's beautiful.
She's the finest babe in thewhole joint, right?
Like, you know.
So she's getting all dolled up.
He's like, oh, what's going on?
She says, I have a date.
So he says, well, who?
And when she told him, he'slike, man, he's like the ugliest
guy in the village.
You know what she said?
He's the smartest.

(01:58:14):
He's also the smartest.
Look it around.
Look how many Indians are CEOs.
First it was tech companies.
Now it's Pepsi.
Now it's FedEx.
Yeah.
A culture.
A culture.
We don't have it.
A culture of excellence.
A culture of the smartest guygetting the prettiest girl.

(01:58:37):
Not the guy who can dunk thebasketball.
That's a cultural thing.
We could pick that up.
We need to find ways to pickthat kind of stuff up.
And so all of that begins at thevery beginning, expectations.
But we live in a society whereexpectations are lower and lower
and lower.
I agree, man.
And I think at the end of theday, like this is the greatest

(01:58:59):
country in the world, man.
I've studied in India.
I've studied in China.
You get to see what povertyreally is.
You get to see if you're bornpoor, you stay poor.
Right.
Like that has no bearing on whoyou're going to be now in life.
But like you said, the culture,the mindset, man, people like
your mom stepping up, peoplelike a police officer for me,
telling people they can'tbelieve in my game.
But then importantly, youbelieve in that.
Yeah.

(01:59:20):
So what's next for Charles, man?
Where's Charles?
I don't know, man.
I don't know.
Um, I feel good, though.
I feel good.
I'm working out.
You look good.
I was going to say, man.
I feel good.
I never get on the scale, but mytailor.
That's all.
The scale doesn't mean anything.
He's like, oh, man, he's blownaway.
So I bought a thing twoFebruaries ago.

(01:59:41):
And there's also all the freecrap at Fox.
It's been that same year.
All the crap food?
Yeah.
I don't touch that.
I can't.
My diet's still a little so-so.
But, I mean, I'm in there, man.
I'm pumping my ass off, man.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm hitting the weights fouror five days a week.
I feel good.
I feel good.
Ultimately, I want to find a wayto help people and education.

(02:00:03):
So I was on the board of acharter school in the South
Bronx for a while.
And that's now this one area isnow the poorest congressional
district.
Yeah, this part of the SouthBronx.
And over half the kids arefirst-time immigrants.
A lot of them from Africa.
It was hell the first day, man.
I go out there to help.

(02:00:24):
I'm trying to read these names.
So boom-ba-bop.
Huh?
And then the thing would bug meup.
They'd be like, no, that's Fred.
Oh, how the hell did you getFred?
Ain't an F in no word.
All right, Fred, come on in,babe.
You know, like, what the hell?
Yeah.
What's going on here?
So anyway, and I loved it, buttoo many liberals.

SPEAKER_02 (02:00:42):
Yeah, yeah,

SPEAKER_01 (02:00:42):
yeah.
I'm telling you, theirexpectations for these black
kids are so low.
You know what I'm saying?
When you say that, it's not apolitical statement, man.
It's just people...
When you're saying, look, youjust don't believe in the power
of these kids.
They don't.
They did not believe in thesekids.
They did not believe in thesekids.
And everything was watered down.
And like, you know, no, theyhave to have the toughest
curriculum out the gate.

(02:01:03):
Like, you know, you just, youdon't think they can do it.
Right.
That's the truth.
Right.
And so I stopped doing that.
I'm on a board of the HarlemBoys and Girls Club now.
It's, I don't know.
I'm always going to help them,you know, because when I got to
New York, they helped me.
They were

SPEAKER_02 (02:01:19):
there for you.

SPEAKER_01 (02:01:19):
Yeah, I played on their football team.
And, you know, long story short,somehow someone sent me an email
a few years ago, about fouryears, five years ago.
You know, they were raisingmoney and I sent some money in.
And so some woman called me upand she was crying.
She said it was the biggestcheck they ever got.
And so then I guess the peoplewho were running it didn't
realize I actually used to gothere and used to be on the

(02:01:41):
football team.
And they found these pictures ofme and my brothers and all that.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm on the board, but it'stough.
It's a tough one, man.
Anything in New York City isgoing to be tough.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (02:01:53):
politics

SPEAKER_01 (02:01:54):
are tough there.
Yeah, it's just, again, just...

SPEAKER_02 (02:01:56):
So

SPEAKER_01 (02:01:58):
I got ideas.
So eventually I want to dosomething educational-wise.
I have some ideas that I want todo educational-wise.
A few years ago I went to lunchat one of the Koch brothers, and
I pitched them because I wantedto raise money for it, but they
didn't help me out.
But I got some ideas that Ithink are going to be
quasi-revolutionary on thatfront because that's my

(02:02:21):
ultimate.
You've got to help these kids,man.
And it's all about just I waslucky enough.
that by the time we moved toHarlem, I knew enough about who
I was.
So I never thought being smartwas being white.
I never thought reading was awaste of time.
My favorite topic was socialstudies.
So I had enough in me by 13 thatI couldn't be deterred.

(02:02:46):
I got to find a way to helpthese kids so that at some point
they could go on their own andnot be deterred.
Well, look, man, I think you'redoing an amazing job.
And again, look, as a kid whogrew up in the streets, same
thing, man, no running water,electricity turned out.
I don't think I was ever in morethan one school one year in a

(02:03:07):
row, eviction to eviction.
I'm sitting here now, man, likeyou grew up, I'm sitting here
now with Charles Payne andjust...
By the grace of God, man, onerelationship led to another, to
another, to another.
That's why I'm here right now.
I don't even know why youagreed.
We don't know each other thatwell.
Why you flew out here on aSaturday.
It was going to launch on July4th because I think it's a

(02:03:30):
pretty impressive day.
But this is the day beforeFather's Day.
You got kids.
You took time to come out hereand invest in me, man.
I really appreciate that.
There's something special aboutyou, man.
I appreciate that, man.
I see something in you.
I really do.
You're a good man.
Appreciate it, man.
I think we're going to end itthere.

(02:03:50):
All right.
All right.
Okay.
Thanks, man.
You got it.

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Charles Payne: How to Take Back America & Win Again | Episode #1

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Charles Payne: How to Take Back America & Win Again | Episode #1