January 15, 2026 • 26 mins
(January 15, 2025)
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to discuss investing in Pokemon cards, the Polymarket craze, and timeshares making a comeback. The obscure bank collapse that sent Iran into a tailspin. Welcome to Greenland, an economy reliant on subsidies and shrimp.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Funny AM six forty handle here on a Thursday morning,
December fifteen, and real quickly before we get to Joel,
we are helping Kono purchase the car. His car blew
up on his way here a few days ago, and
it's he needs a new one. And he works here
(00:30):
at KFI, which means he has no money, and he
drives seventy two miles each way from his meth lab
home in the Inland Empire. And so here is not
a meth lab, okay, So it's a neighbors. Okay, his
neighbor's a meth lab. All right, fine, And here's how
we're helping him, and that is it's a GoFundMe campaign,
(00:53):
and go to the only way you can do it
is go to our web page, our website, and then
we'll send you over to the link because that means
the money is going to go exactly where it should go.
Go to KFI AM six forty dot com slash con
o KFI AM six forty dot com slash con o
ko n O, and you know, help us help him.
(01:14):
He's a good guy and he is walking seventy two
miles each way. I mean, I gotta tell you that
gets old really quickly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm clipping that. By the way, I am a good guy.
Thank you. Yeah, you are.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Actually, otherwise we wouldn't be helping you. That's absolutely true. Okay,
it's a mercy stop. I mean, there's no question about.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
That, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Joel Larsguard is with us how to Money Sunday's twelve
to two pm. Social addresses at how to Money joel website,
howdomoney dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Joel, Good morning, morna bill.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, Pokemon cards, I mean that's become big news Pokemon,
and I think it was Lego is issuing a whole series. He's, uh,
you know, in combination with Pokemon and the five big
figures Pokemon and Grumpy and Sleepy and Dumpy or whoever
(02:12):
those Pokemon characters.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Are your thoughts on that? Do you invest in those? Oh?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I thought you were wondering if I like the
Pokemon characters themselves, which my son he's six, he does,
and he has some Pokemon cards as well. He just
like loves to look at him and uh and collect
them and just be like, oh, I get this one.
It's super cool. But there it's it's also becoming Pokemon
cards are becoming like a collector's item, and a lot
(02:39):
of people once it kind of reaches that status, there's
and and some of those cards go up significantly in value.
You you start to see people speculating right on something
as as silly as a Pokemon card, and and then
you start to see influencers get into space and they
try to kind of drum up even more into your
(03:00):
start to point people down that path of like, hey,
you should probably start buying some Pokemon cards and consider
yourself a Pokemon card investor. Uh, And it's it sounds
kind of cool, especially like appealing. I think if you
are younger and you're like, yeah, I should be investing,
but the stock market seems so boring and bland, Like
why don't I invest in something a little bit cooler,
(03:21):
something I understand a little bit more. Hey, I know
a lot about Pokemon cards, and guess what, I can
go out there and buy some packs and keep them
in mint condition, and then I don't know, maybe listen
on eBay from time to time.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
The problem.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
The problem is, of course, that this is not a
stable market. It's totally speculation and a lot of people
could find themselves being burned buying trying to buy a
bunch of Pokemon cards that yeah, maybe they go up
in value for a short period of time, but they
probably don't stay, you know, stay highly valued for a
long time.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Any one of these things. I mean, this really amazes
me that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
There is value to a lot of this because you
have a company like Pokemon that decides they're going to
issue a very limited card and we're only going to
have a hundred of these, and out they go and
they're worth a bucket of money. And it all depends
on the company. That isn't real collecting, it's that they
control it. If every year they come out with a
different card they issue, there's only three all of a sudden,
(04:18):
Now there's value there, which I don't get. I mean,
there's there are real collectibles out there, but I find
these kind of dumb.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I really do.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, And there's something to stand the test of time, right,
Like there is something about Rolex watches, let's say, or
Burken bags that are they're hard to get, they're made
in limited quantities, and when you look at how those
items hold up against something like stock market performance, they
they tend to do pretty well and potentially outperform even
(04:50):
something like the stock market during certain periods, and so
I understand that, but then you also I think we're
just in a phase where alternative investing is becoming more
fascinating to people. And part of that is cryptocurrency. Part
of that is just a bunch of websites that make
(05:11):
it easier right to invest in something like in real
estate or in wine or in art, and it seems
like it seems like fun, and a lot of the
language on those websites essentially telling people, hey, this is
not only fun, but this is going to make you
more money than you would make investing in the stock market.
And the truth is, after fees and all the other
(05:33):
things that come along with that are known quantities, when
investing in alternative investments, there's actually a decent chance you underperform,
and the fees are essentially this hurdle that you have
to overcome that makes it even harder for you to
make more money than you would just investing in a
low cost index fund.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
One of the things about collectibles, or for example, flipping houses,
and we hear these ads all the time. You can
flip a house and I'm going to teach you how
to do it, and you're going to make a bucket
of money.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
You really have to know your stuff in order to
do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I mean there, you just don't take a two week
class or a five hour seminar. Same thing with wine.
You can make a lot of money with wine, but
you really have to know the wine.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, it's one hundred percent true. And that is especially
like in a market right now, there's been more and
more written about home flippers and how they are. They're
not doing so hot right and when prices start to
moderate and maybe you spent a little more than you
should have on the home and then guess what, Oh,
tariffs like hit you in the face when the cost
(06:39):
of renovating actually went up by a significant amount, and
now your margins are a lot thinner, your house is
staying on the market longer. And if you don't have
much experience and you were just kind of hoping that
this would work out, a lot of people are finding
that it's not working out for them.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah. Now I do commercials for direct buyers. For example.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It's a company that buys homes and in terms of
around and sells them and the level of expertise. Matt,
who owns the company that it takes, has been at
this for years and years. He can actually figure out
the home, the value of the home, and what it's
going to cost to renovated from the sidewalk without even
walking in. That's the level of expertise that you really need. Well,
(07:21):
and he's probably also planning ahead. He's probably got a
little bit of buffer built in. They're like, oh, oh yeah,
behind that wall that we don't know about, then I've
got an extra twenty grand.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Just in case.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I'm still going to make money, absolutely, absolutely, and
so all the levels of expertise that you want. Anybody
that's going to tell you how you can make money
taking their course, buying their seminar, you know, buying their DVD.
You know, why would they teach you to do it?
If they can do it them sells and make all
(07:49):
the money. If I'm making a fortune doing this, why
am I going to sell anything to you? I'm making
a fortune. Why spend the time? Okay, So, Joel, I
want to talk about time Shares for a moment. Give
you a a quick story, and that is I was
hearing time shares commercials like crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I decided I was going to see what it's about.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I went to one of these time share seminars
where you get a free vacation two days or you
get whatever, because they give you what sounds like a
great deal. So I've never seen such pressure in my
entire life ever. Yeah, it's just I was astounded. I
mean they were hard, hard selling and a couple of things.
(08:29):
They won't give you the contract. I said, I'm a lawyer.
I want to see the contract for a time share.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
They wouldn't give it to me.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And then I said, you know what, I'm going to
think about this, and they wouldn't let me out the door.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, we're going to give you this. We're going to
give you this. I mean, it was hard, hard pressure.
And then I'm just about to leave.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They actually stopped me before I hit the door, and
I had to say to that salesperson, are you stopping
me from leaving this room?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know that's kidnapping. Do you want me to call
the police right now? And immediately got he got out
of the way. It's that crazy with time shares, Yeah,
And it was, and they sell it like it's worth
something that you can inherit. They sell it as property,
and it's no longer even property. It used to be.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You'd get a deed for one fifty second of a
piece of property for a week.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
That doesn't even exist anymore. Now it's just points. Yeah,
I'm talking about vacation clubs there. Yeah. Yeah, and you
can't get out of them. You can't get out of them. Yeah.
And Bill, I mean you're so right.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I mean you're you're highlighting all the worst issues of
time shares and vacation clubs and the high pressure sales
tactics are certainly.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Like I stayed at a timeshare my first time ever,
like this past fall, and it was because someone I
knew had extra dates and they were like, hey, just
want to hear here's some for free. They're on me,
which was incredibly kind. And then while I was there,
they were like, hey, do you want to attend a presentation?
Maybe get one of your own, And just as someone
(09:58):
who does work in this personal finance space, I was like, yeah,
I totally want to attend the presentation, but I had
my wife and kids there and they wouldn't let me
attend without my wife, and so it just wasn't. I
wasn't able to make it happen because we have the
three kids on hand as well. But it's one of
those things where I really want to experience what this
is like, because I've heard these horror stories and this
(10:21):
is just what a lot of people. This is why
a lot of people sign on the dotted line because
they just get browbeaten, they get beaten down. They're in
there for an hour and a half, two hours, and
they're like, let me just sign.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Something, you know, so I get out of here. Now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
There are some time shares that are actually worth a
bucket of money. Disney time shares are valuable. Those you
can sell, but the rest of them you just for
the vast majority of time shares, you can't sell them.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You just can't. You're there, You're stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And so and they're making a comeback now, they're coming back.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They are, they are And so this seems to and
I think part of it is the vacation in Club Mantra.
That's that's part of it. But it seems like especially
the time Share, the time Share deal is starting to
tick up an interest amongst younger people, and it's it
used to be seen as like this old person saying, well,
(11:15):
the new the new way to book travel. You don't
you don't need a timeshare anymore, right book you're on.
So there's Airbnb and and and in other ways to
take a vacation without kind of that partial ownership way
of thinking. And I just think I hate to see
something that bad kind of come back and grow in interest.
But and when you look at the resale market for
(11:37):
time shares, to me, that's like one of the biggest
blinking red lights showing how bad of a purchase they
typically are. Because you can buy someone else's time share
for pennies on the dollar of what you'd pay if
you were to go in person when and buy that
timeshare from the timeshare salesperson.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
They're very expensive.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Not only do you pay money for the time share,
and that that's a given amount of money, but you
have to pay maintenance suit And what they don't tell
you is the maintenance. There's no limit to what the
maintenance costs are. They can charge you whatever they want
and you get stuck. And I get questions like this
all the time on my legal show. As I am
(12:16):
in a timeshare, can I get out of it? And
I go that's tough. You signed a contract. Now, there
are companies that will let you get out of them,
that help you get out of them, but that is
predicated on who which company owns the timeshare. Some are
willing to let you go, most do not. And it's
an albatross. I mean, you're handcuffed to that. And it
is vacation rental. And you've got here's two hundred places
(12:39):
you can choose. You know, we have one in Hawaii,
we have one in Majorca, we have one in Europe
in France.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The problem is everybody wants to go during Christmas, everybody
wants to go during holiday periods during the summer, and
you pay buckets more for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, And if you don't like a place you stay,
if you book on Airbnb or you book a hotel room,
you don't even have to stay there again, right, you
could be like, you could chuck it up to a
bad experience, leave a subpar review. But if you don't
like the timeshare that you got into, it hangs around you,
right for decades. So and yeah, like you said, the
(13:19):
maintenance costs could go up at a significant clip. You
weren't planning on that.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
It breaks your budget.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I've just heard too many timeshare horror stories to make
it seem like anybody should really be interested in those.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah, I would not. And if you do want one,
you can buy.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've seen them for a dollar a time share, just
so people get out of them. So buying one at
one of these seminars, I mean, if you enjoy hard
pressure where they take a sledgehammer to your head until
you buy, then you'll really enjoy one of these, especially
and they offer you a three day vacation if you come.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Believe me, you're paying big for that.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
All right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday twelve to
two pm right here on KFI. Now we're looking at
what's going on in your wrong and it is horrific.
Where the mula is this a theocracy where the Mula
is control all of well control Iran. And the demonstrations
have exploded around the country and the regime is dealing
(14:16):
with the demonstrations by mowing down demonstrators.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So how did this all happen? Why are they protesting?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Why are the you have these people out on the
streets and risking their lives. Well, because there's no money.
The economy is basically gone. The oil was a huge
amount of revenue that has stopped. The president is made
sure that oil is not being sold, and it's hey,
(14:44):
they're in a mess. But when you look at what
actually ended up happening, how did this all happen? It
actually was one bank, one bank that sent Iran into
a tailspin. Uh, and things were about to fall apart.
The big us harbinger was the sale of where it
was the collapse of this one bank, Allende bank run
(15:07):
by the regime cronies, saddled with nearly five billion dollars
in losses on a pile of bad loans, and it
went bust. That happened last year. And what the government
did is take the bank, folded it into a state bank,
and printed a massive amount of money to try to
paper over all the red ink. Well, you know what
(15:27):
happens when the government prints money. It becomes useless. The
money is worth less and less to the point where
if you look at the Weimar Republic, for example, in
Germany in the twenties, he used to take a barrel
of paper money to buy a loaf of bread, where
the value of the paper itself is worth more than
(15:50):
the currency. And that's basically what happened, and this failure
became both a symbol and an accelerant of this economic
unraveling that then triggered the protests and now the most
significant threat to this regime that you have seen since
the founding of the quote the Islamic Republic as they
(16:14):
call it, half a century ago, and that happened in
nineteen seventy nine where I Toolda Humani came back, it
was in France, came back and took over the country
and the demonstrations to have him back were extraordinary and
people didn't realize how horrible it was going to be,
absolutely horrible. So the bank's collapse is making it clear
(16:41):
that the financial system is basically well, it's collapse. Years
of sanctions, bad lending, reliance on this printed money and
the whole thing has become insolvent and ill liquid. And
you have five other banks in the country are thought
to be as weak. And then the crisis hit at
(17:02):
the worst possible time. Okay, you had the twelve day
war with Israel and the US in June, and it
showed that Iran couldn't defend his population. They talk a
lot about, oh my god, we are.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
We're going to destroy the Satan America. The Satan and
they were.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
We were thought they had a very strong military. That's
what the intelligence and the thinking was that they could
really fight back.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
They did nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
The attack went unfettered, and they went after the nuclear
facilities there, so Iran couldn't defend his population from the attack.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
The leaders would.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Not budge in negotiations over the nuclear program, keep on
saying that it was all about the nuclear plan. The
nuclear program was all about peaceful use of uranium. It
was all for peaceful use is electricity, which is a
croc because what they were doing is developing weapons grade uranium.
(18:07):
And there's no other reason. They just blatantly just look
at you. We just lie. And so in November, Israel
and the US together threatened to hit him again if
Iran tried to reconstitute its ballistic missile arsenal, which has
taken out to a great extent by the US. So
(18:29):
here's what you have. You have the currency the real
started going downhill. Country had virtually no ability to stop it.
US enforcement actions, I said earlier, cut Iran off from
the flow of dollars from Iraq, and that reduced its
hard currency earnings from oil sales put its overseas reserves
(18:52):
of foreign exchange out of reach because all those foreign exchanges,
the foreign money they had, the assets were fro Most
countries out there put a pile of money in the
United States because the United States, as weak as the
dollar is, and it's fairly weak relative to history, it's
(19:14):
stronger than any other currency out there, and so countries
put money into the US, They buy US bonds, they
buy treasuries. Well, that money is frozen.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
In the US.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Russia has three hundred and something billion dollars frozen in
the US.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Iran frozen in the US.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The story of the collapse of the Iranian economy, and
that's really what caused these protests more than anything else.
It was not the fear of the regime, although there's
plenty of that.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
It's the protests that started it all.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And of course now the regime is dealing with it
by killing thousands of people wholesale and calling them American
and Israeli agitators that we were the ones that have
put up these hundreds of thousands of people to protest.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
So it all had to do with one bank that
started all of this.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I end a bank, which is a big bank that
basically an entire system just collapsed because it started the run.
So there was engineering workarounds. This is when the economy
is really teetering. These flows of cash, shadowy flows of
cash to keep this battered economy functioning. And frankly, Iran
(20:34):
at that point and this just happened, reached the dead end.
No tools to deal with this economic crisis or meet
the needs of a desperate population because there wasn't even
money to eat. There was no money. There is no money.
Hundreds of merchants. Now the merchants were usually on the
side of the government, Well they've run out of money.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
They were sort of bastion.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
They ran out of money and they are part of
the demonstrations. A former former deputy Director of the Middle
East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, the International
Monetary Fund, said this was a very well connected bank, corrupt,
underscored the banking system in itself as a channel for
(21:22):
the enrichment of the well connected, complete corruption, and he
described the failure as a crescendo of loss of legitimacy.
After the Israeli attack was founded in twenty thirteen, it's
only twelve years old, thirteen years old. There was an
Iranian businessman who was playing all kinds of games. He
(21:43):
merged two state owned banks with another one, and then
he got the government involved, and he basically just called it.
He was financing the Iranian paramilitary, the businesses, organizations, the
Revolutionary Guard, and they're just done. And when you run
(22:04):
out of money, when you have a currency that is
completely out of control. And one of the things about governments.
The state of California cannot print money. The city of
la or the city of Orange cannot print money. Governments
can print money, and the problem is there's a very
(22:24):
fine line that they have to toe because too much money, inflation,
not enough money, recession, stagnation, and of course Iran went
completely the other way, went just nuts. And one of
the largest investment this bank made was the Iron Mall
open to twenty eighteen, this huge mall. It made no
(22:47):
sense because the economy was in so much trouble. It's
twice the size of the Pentagon. It's a city within
a city, Imax movies, library, swimming pool, sports complexes, indoor guards.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I mean, just out of control spending.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And this was this guy who put it all together
with the federal Iranian federal money, and it's just all collapse.
So as you see what's going on in Iran, I mean,
there isn't enough money for cooking oil, which is a
staple food bread, And you're not going to see the
protests stop anytime soon. Well maybe if they kill enough people.
(23:26):
They're already into the thousands. If they kill twenty thousand people,
thirty thousand people, maybe the protests stop. On the other hand,
what do you have to lose if your family isn't eating.
So it's really financial that started all.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Of this, and the title.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
When the Iotola came in nineteen seventy nine, it was
because the Shaw was so corrupt.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I mean, it was pure corruption among the shop.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But he was an alive of the United States and
people eight so it wasn't a question of people starving.
Today it's a question of people starving.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Right, we're done, guys.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I was gonna do a segment on Greenland, the money
part of Greenland, which is kind of fun, and how
nuts it is for the United States to grab Greenland.
I mean it makes sense, but hey, it'd be great
if we own France too, because then we get our
brie for free.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
By the way, that would that would be the.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Demonstrations going on all over the United States if we
were able to grab France.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Free Bri, Free Bri.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
We're done, and tomorrow we're going to start January, because
I think you've been saying that it was December all
day to day.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Oh really, okay, we're going to start.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Okay in a second, okay, all right, I want you.
I want you to look at this. I want you
to see what that says. That An said.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Are you showing me the rundown says December? And yes,
you well I do.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I look at what I do is I look at
the look at the rundown for the date. And because
I don't pay attention, I don't pay atten and the
next topics and the next topics coming up. It tells
me what the next topics coming up are, so I
can deal with it. Yeah, it says Thursday, December fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
This is Ane's fault. You didn't go, hey, it's not December. Oh,
here we go.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I've got one that's Thursday, January fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But that was one. I think she sends me dozens
of them.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Okay, So that's why I kept on saying December fifteen.
You should have stopped me. By the way, why would
you stop me? All right, because you enjoyed me making
an ass out of myself.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, okay, catch yourself. Oh stop nodding? Will for God's sake?
All right? Coming up, Andy Rice Mueller, the Reiche whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, this is j Yeah Gary Hoffman. Yeah, So Andy
is with us? With you because I'm getting the hell
out of here. And we do our regular show tomorrow
as we always do, and then don't forget its Foody
Friday tomorrow with Neil and me all things foody, and
then at eight thirty ask Handle anything which is always.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Talking about Christmas dishes. Wow, I'm not going to let
it go, are you, Neil? You're just not going to
let it go. The reason for the season. Oh, you've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Funny AM six forty handle here on a Thursday morning,
December fifteen, and real quickly before we get to Joel,
we are helping Kono purchase the car. His car blew
up on his way here a few days ago, and
it's he needs a new one. And he works here
(00:30):
at KFI, which means he has no money, and he
drives seventy two miles each way from his meth lab
home in the Inland Empire. And so here is not
a meth lab, okay, So it's a neighbors. Okay, his
neighbor's a meth lab. All right, fine, And here's how
we're helping him, and that is it's a GoFundMe campaign,
(00:53):
and go to the only way you can do it
is go to our web page, our website, and then
we'll send you over to the link because that means
the money is going to go exactly where it should go.
Go to KFI AM six forty dot com slash con
o KFI AM six forty dot com slash con o
ko n O, and you know, help us help him.
(01:14):
He's a good guy and he is walking seventy two
miles each way. I mean, I gotta tell you that
gets old really quickly.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm clipping that. By the way, I am a good guy.
Thank you. Yeah, you are.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Actually, otherwise we wouldn't be helping you. That's absolutely true. Okay,
it's a mercy stop. I mean, there's no question about.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
That, all right.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Joel Larsguard is with us how to Money Sunday's twelve
to two pm. Social addresses at how to Money joel website,
howdomoney dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Joel, Good morning, morna bill.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay, Pokemon cards, I mean that's become big news Pokemon,
and I think it was Lego is issuing a whole series. He's, uh,
you know, in combination with Pokemon and the five big
figures Pokemon and Grumpy and Sleepy and Dumpy or whoever
(02:12):
those Pokemon characters.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Are your thoughts on that? Do you invest in those? Oh?
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I thought you were wondering if I like the
Pokemon characters themselves, which my son he's six, he does,
and he has some Pokemon cards as well. He just
like loves to look at him and uh and collect
them and just be like, oh, I get this one.
It's super cool. But there it's it's also becoming Pokemon
cards are becoming like a collector's item, and a lot
(02:39):
of people once it kind of reaches that status, there's
and and some of those cards go up significantly in value.
You you start to see people speculating right on something
as as silly as a Pokemon card, and and then
you start to see influencers get into space and they
try to kind of drum up even more into your
(03:00):
start to point people down that path of like, hey,
you should probably start buying some Pokemon cards and consider
yourself a Pokemon card investor. Uh, And it's it sounds
kind of cool, especially like appealing. I think if you
are younger and you're like, yeah, I should be investing,
but the stock market seems so boring and bland, Like
why don't I invest in something a little bit cooler,
(03:21):
something I understand a little bit more. Hey, I know
a lot about Pokemon cards, and guess what, I can
go out there and buy some packs and keep them
in mint condition, and then I don't know, maybe listen
on eBay from time to time.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
The problem.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
The problem is, of course, that this is not a
stable market. It's totally speculation and a lot of people
could find themselves being burned buying trying to buy a
bunch of Pokemon cards that yeah, maybe they go up
in value for a short period of time, but they
probably don't stay, you know, stay highly valued for a
long time.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
Any one of these things. I mean, this really amazes
me that.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
There is value to a lot of this because you
have a company like Pokemon that decides they're going to
issue a very limited card and we're only going to
have a hundred of these, and out they go and
they're worth a bucket of money. And it all depends
on the company. That isn't real collecting, it's that they
control it. If every year they come out with a
different card they issue, there's only three all of a sudden,
(04:18):
Now there's value there, which I don't get. I mean,
there's there are real collectibles out there, but I find
these kind of dumb.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I really do.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, And there's something to stand the test of time, right,
Like there is something about Rolex watches, let's say, or
Burken bags that are they're hard to get, they're made
in limited quantities, and when you look at how those
items hold up against something like stock market performance, they
they tend to do pretty well and potentially outperform even
(04:50):
something like the stock market during certain periods, and so
I understand that, but then you also I think we're
just in a phase where alternative investing is becoming more
fascinating to people. And part of that is cryptocurrency. Part
of that is just a bunch of websites that make
(05:11):
it easier right to invest in something like in real
estate or in wine or in art, and it seems
like it seems like fun, and a lot of the
language on those websites essentially telling people, hey, this is
not only fun, but this is going to make you
more money than you would make investing in the stock market.
And the truth is, after fees and all the other
(05:33):
things that come along with that are known quantities, when
investing in alternative investments, there's actually a decent chance you underperform,
and the fees are essentially this hurdle that you have
to overcome that makes it even harder for you to
make more money than you would just investing in a
low cost index fund.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
One of the things about collectibles, or for example, flipping houses,
and we hear these ads all the time. You can
flip a house and I'm going to teach you how
to do it, and you're going to make a bucket
of money.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
You really have to know your stuff in order to
do that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
I mean there, you just don't take a two week
class or a five hour seminar. Same thing with wine.
You can make a lot of money with wine, but
you really have to know the wine.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, it's one hundred percent true. And that is especially
like in a market right now, there's been more and
more written about home flippers and how they are. They're
not doing so hot right and when prices start to
moderate and maybe you spent a little more than you
should have on the home and then guess what, Oh,
tariffs like hit you in the face when the cost
(06:39):
of renovating actually went up by a significant amount, and
now your margins are a lot thinner, your house is
staying on the market longer. And if you don't have
much experience and you were just kind of hoping that
this would work out, a lot of people are finding
that it's not working out for them.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah. Now I do commercials for direct buyers. For example.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
It's a company that buys homes and in terms of
around and sells them and the level of expertise. Matt,
who owns the company that it takes, has been at
this for years and years. He can actually figure out
the home, the value of the home, and what it's
going to cost to renovated from the sidewalk without even
walking in. That's the level of expertise that you really need. Well,
(07:21):
and he's probably also planning ahead. He's probably got a
little bit of buffer built in. They're like, oh, oh yeah,
behind that wall that we don't know about, then I've
got an extra twenty grand.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Just in case.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
So I'm still going to make money, absolutely, absolutely, and
so all the levels of expertise that you want. Anybody
that's going to tell you how you can make money
taking their course, buying their seminar, you know, buying their DVD.
You know, why would they teach you to do it?
If they can do it them sells and make all
(07:49):
the money. If I'm making a fortune doing this, why
am I going to sell anything to you? I'm making
a fortune. Why spend the time? Okay, So, Joel, I
want to talk about time Shares for a moment. Give
you a a quick story, and that is I was
hearing time shares commercials like crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
So I decided I was going to see what it's about.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
So I went to one of these time share seminars
where you get a free vacation two days or you
get whatever, because they give you what sounds like a
great deal. So I've never seen such pressure in my
entire life ever. Yeah, it's just I was astounded. I
mean they were hard, hard selling and a couple of things.
(08:29):
They won't give you the contract. I said, I'm a lawyer.
I want to see the contract for a time share.
Speaker 3 (08:35):
They wouldn't give it to me.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And then I said, you know what, I'm going to
think about this, and they wouldn't let me out the door.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, we're going to give you this. We're going to
give you this. I mean, it was hard, hard pressure.
And then I'm just about to leave.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
They actually stopped me before I hit the door, and
I had to say to that salesperson, are you stopping
me from leaving this room?
Speaker 3 (08:56):
You know that's kidnapping. Do you want me to call
the police right now? And immediately got he got out
of the way. It's that crazy with time shares, Yeah,
And it was, and they sell it like it's worth
something that you can inherit. They sell it as property,
and it's no longer even property. It used to be.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You'd get a deed for one fifty second of a
piece of property for a week.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
That doesn't even exist anymore. Now it's just points. Yeah,
I'm talking about vacation clubs there. Yeah. Yeah, and you
can't get out of them. You can't get out of them. Yeah.
And Bill, I mean you're so right.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
I mean you're you're highlighting all the worst issues of
time shares and vacation clubs and the high pressure sales
tactics are certainly.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
Part of it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
Like I stayed at a timeshare my first time ever,
like this past fall, and it was because someone I
knew had extra dates and they were like, hey, just
want to hear here's some for free. They're on me,
which was incredibly kind. And then while I was there,
they were like, hey, do you want to attend a presentation?
Maybe get one of your own, And just as someone
(09:58):
who does work in this personal finance space, I was like, yeah,
I totally want to attend the presentation, but I had
my wife and kids there and they wouldn't let me
attend without my wife, and so it just wasn't. I
wasn't able to make it happen because we have the
three kids on hand as well. But it's one of
those things where I really want to experience what this
is like, because I've heard these horror stories and this
(10:21):
is just what a lot of people. This is why
a lot of people sign on the dotted line because
they just get browbeaten, they get beaten down. They're in
there for an hour and a half, two hours, and
they're like, let me just sign.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Something, you know, so I get out of here. Now.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
There are some time shares that are actually worth a
bucket of money. Disney time shares are valuable. Those you
can sell, but the rest of them you just for
the vast majority of time shares, you can't sell them.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
You just can't. You're there, You're stuck.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
And so and they're making a comeback now, they're coming back.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
They are, they are And so this seems to and
I think part of it is the vacation in Club Mantra.
That's that's part of it. But it seems like especially
the time Share, the time Share deal is starting to
tick up an interest amongst younger people, and it's it
used to be seen as like this old person saying, well,
(11:15):
the new the new way to book travel. You don't
you don't need a timeshare anymore, right book you're on.
So there's Airbnb and and and in other ways to
take a vacation without kind of that partial ownership way
of thinking. And I just think I hate to see
something that bad kind of come back and grow in interest.
But and when you look at the resale market for
(11:37):
time shares, to me, that's like one of the biggest
blinking red lights showing how bad of a purchase they
typically are. Because you can buy someone else's time share
for pennies on the dollar of what you'd pay if
you were to go in person when and buy that
timeshare from the timeshare salesperson.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
They're very expensive.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Not only do you pay money for the time share,
and that that's a given amount of money, but you
have to pay maintenance suit And what they don't tell
you is the maintenance. There's no limit to what the
maintenance costs are. They can charge you whatever they want
and you get stuck. And I get questions like this
all the time on my legal show. As I am
(12:16):
in a timeshare, can I get out of it? And
I go that's tough. You signed a contract. Now, there
are companies that will let you get out of them,
that help you get out of them, but that is
predicated on who which company owns the timeshare. Some are
willing to let you go, most do not. And it's
an albatross. I mean, you're handcuffed to that. And it
is vacation rental. And you've got here's two hundred places
(12:39):
you can choose. You know, we have one in Hawaii,
we have one in Majorca, we have one in Europe
in France.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
The problem is everybody wants to go during Christmas, everybody
wants to go during holiday periods during the summer, and
you pay buckets more for that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
Yeah, And if you don't like a place you stay,
if you book on Airbnb or you book a hotel room,
you don't even have to stay there again, right, you
could be like, you could chuck it up to a
bad experience, leave a subpar review. But if you don't
like the timeshare that you got into, it hangs around you,
right for decades. So and yeah, like you said, the
(13:19):
maintenance costs could go up at a significant clip. You
weren't planning on that.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
It breaks your budget.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
I've just heard too many timeshare horror stories to make
it seem like anybody should really be interested in those.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Yeah, I would not. And if you do want one,
you can buy.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I've seen them for a dollar a time share, just
so people get out of them. So buying one at
one of these seminars, I mean, if you enjoy hard
pressure where they take a sledgehammer to your head until
you buy, then you'll really enjoy one of these, especially
and they offer you a three day vacation if you come.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
Believe me, you're paying big for that.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
All right, Joel, we'll catch you this Sunday twelve to
two pm right here on KFI. Now we're looking at
what's going on in your wrong and it is horrific.
Where the mula is this a theocracy where the Mula
is control all of well control Iran. And the demonstrations
have exploded around the country and the regime is dealing
(14:16):
with the demonstrations by mowing down demonstrators.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
So how did this all happen? Why are they protesting?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
Why are the you have these people out on the
streets and risking their lives. Well, because there's no money.
The economy is basically gone. The oil was a huge
amount of revenue that has stopped. The president is made
sure that oil is not being sold, and it's hey,
(14:44):
they're in a mess. But when you look at what
actually ended up happening, how did this all happen? It
actually was one bank, one bank that sent Iran into
a tailspin. Uh, and things were about to fall apart.
The big us harbinger was the sale of where it
was the collapse of this one bank, Allende bank run
(15:07):
by the regime cronies, saddled with nearly five billion dollars
in losses on a pile of bad loans, and it
went bust. That happened last year. And what the government
did is take the bank, folded it into a state bank,
and printed a massive amount of money to try to
paper over all the red ink. Well, you know what
(15:27):
happens when the government prints money. It becomes useless. The
money is worth less and less to the point where
if you look at the Weimar Republic, for example, in
Germany in the twenties, he used to take a barrel
of paper money to buy a loaf of bread, where
the value of the paper itself is worth more than
(15:50):
the currency. And that's basically what happened, and this failure
became both a symbol and an accelerant of this economic
unraveling that then triggered the protests and now the most
significant threat to this regime that you have seen since
the founding of the quote the Islamic Republic as they
(16:14):
call it, half a century ago, and that happened in
nineteen seventy nine where I Toolda Humani came back, it
was in France, came back and took over the country
and the demonstrations to have him back were extraordinary and
people didn't realize how horrible it was going to be,
absolutely horrible. So the bank's collapse is making it clear
(16:41):
that the financial system is basically well, it's collapse. Years
of sanctions, bad lending, reliance on this printed money and
the whole thing has become insolvent and ill liquid. And
you have five other banks in the country are thought
to be as weak. And then the crisis hit at
(17:02):
the worst possible time. Okay, you had the twelve day
war with Israel and the US in June, and it
showed that Iran couldn't defend his population. They talk a
lot about, oh my god, we are.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
We're going to destroy the Satan America. The Satan and
they were.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
We were thought they had a very strong military. That's
what the intelligence and the thinking was that they could
really fight back.
Speaker 3 (17:29):
They did nothing.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
The attack went unfettered, and they went after the nuclear
facilities there, so Iran couldn't defend his population from the attack.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
The leaders would.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Not budge in negotiations over the nuclear program, keep on
saying that it was all about the nuclear plan. The
nuclear program was all about peaceful use of uranium. It
was all for peaceful use is electricity, which is a
croc because what they were doing is developing weapons grade uranium.
(18:07):
And there's no other reason. They just blatantly just look
at you. We just lie. And so in November, Israel
and the US together threatened to hit him again if
Iran tried to reconstitute its ballistic missile arsenal, which has
taken out to a great extent by the US. So
(18:29):
here's what you have. You have the currency the real
started going downhill. Country had virtually no ability to stop it.
US enforcement actions, I said earlier, cut Iran off from
the flow of dollars from Iraq, and that reduced its
hard currency earnings from oil sales put its overseas reserves
(18:52):
of foreign exchange out of reach because all those foreign exchanges,
the foreign money they had, the assets were fro Most
countries out there put a pile of money in the
United States because the United States, as weak as the
dollar is, and it's fairly weak relative to history, it's
(19:14):
stronger than any other currency out there, and so countries
put money into the US, They buy US bonds, they
buy treasuries. Well, that money is frozen.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
In the US.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Russia has three hundred and something billion dollars frozen in
the US.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Iran frozen in the US.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
The story of the collapse of the Iranian economy, and
that's really what caused these protests more than anything else.
It was not the fear of the regime, although there's
plenty of that.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
It's the protests that started it all.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
And of course now the regime is dealing with it
by killing thousands of people wholesale and calling them American
and Israeli agitators that we were the ones that have
put up these hundreds of thousands of people to protest.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
So it all had to do with one bank that
started all of this.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I end a bank, which is a big bank that
basically an entire system just collapsed because it started the run.
So there was engineering workarounds. This is when the economy
is really teetering. These flows of cash, shadowy flows of
cash to keep this battered economy functioning. And frankly, Iran
(20:34):
at that point and this just happened, reached the dead end.
No tools to deal with this economic crisis or meet
the needs of a desperate population because there wasn't even
money to eat. There was no money. There is no money.
Hundreds of merchants. Now the merchants were usually on the
side of the government, Well they've run out of money.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
They were sort of bastion.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
They ran out of money and they are part of
the demonstrations. A former former deputy Director of the Middle
East and Central Asia Department at the IMF, the International
Monetary Fund, said this was a very well connected bank, corrupt,
underscored the banking system in itself as a channel for
(21:22):
the enrichment of the well connected, complete corruption, and he
described the failure as a crescendo of loss of legitimacy.
After the Israeli attack was founded in twenty thirteen, it's
only twelve years old, thirteen years old. There was an
Iranian businessman who was playing all kinds of games. He
(21:43):
merged two state owned banks with another one, and then
he got the government involved, and he basically just called it.
He was financing the Iranian paramilitary, the businesses, organizations, the
Revolutionary Guard, and they're just done. And when you run
(22:04):
out of money, when you have a currency that is
completely out of control. And one of the things about governments.
The state of California cannot print money. The city of
la or the city of Orange cannot print money. Governments
can print money, and the problem is there's a very
(22:24):
fine line that they have to toe because too much money, inflation,
not enough money, recession, stagnation, and of course Iran went
completely the other way, went just nuts. And one of
the largest investment this bank made was the Iron Mall
open to twenty eighteen, this huge mall. It made no
(22:47):
sense because the economy was in so much trouble. It's
twice the size of the Pentagon. It's a city within
a city, Imax movies, library, swimming pool, sports complexes, indoor guards.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I mean, just out of control spending.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And this was this guy who put it all together
with the federal Iranian federal money, and it's just all collapse.
So as you see what's going on in Iran, I mean,
there isn't enough money for cooking oil, which is a
staple food bread, And you're not going to see the
protests stop anytime soon. Well maybe if they kill enough people.
(23:26):
They're already into the thousands. If they kill twenty thousand people,
thirty thousand people, maybe the protests stop. On the other hand,
what do you have to lose if your family isn't eating.
So it's really financial that started all.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Of this, and the title.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
When the Iotola came in nineteen seventy nine, it was
because the Shaw was so corrupt.
Speaker 3 (23:49):
I mean, it was pure corruption among the shop.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
But he was an alive of the United States and
people eight so it wasn't a question of people starving.
Today it's a question of people starving.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Right, we're done, guys.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
I was gonna do a segment on Greenland, the money
part of Greenland, which is kind of fun, and how
nuts it is for the United States to grab Greenland.
I mean it makes sense, but hey, it'd be great
if we own France too, because then we get our
brie for free.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
By the way, that would that would be the.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
Demonstrations going on all over the United States if we
were able to grab France.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Free Bri, Free Bri.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
We're done, and tomorrow we're going to start January, because
I think you've been saying that it was December all
day to day.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Oh really, okay, we're going to start.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Okay in a second, okay, all right, I want you.
I want you to look at this. I want you
to see what that says. That An said.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Are you showing me the rundown says December? And yes,
you well I do.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I look at what I do is I look at
the look at the rundown for the date. And because
I don't pay attention, I don't pay atten and the
next topics and the next topics coming up. It tells
me what the next topics coming up are, so I
can deal with it. Yeah, it says Thursday, December fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
This is Ane's fault. You didn't go, hey, it's not December. Oh,
here we go.
Speaker 2 (25:14):
I've got one that's Thursday, January fifteenth.
Speaker 3 (25:18):
But that was one. I think she sends me dozens
of them.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Okay, So that's why I kept on saying December fifteen.
You should have stopped me. By the way, why would
you stop me? All right, because you enjoyed me making
an ass out of myself.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yeah, okay, catch yourself. Oh stop nodding? Will for God's sake?
All right? Coming up, Andy Rice Mueller, the Reiche whatever.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah, this is j Yeah Gary Hoffman. Yeah, So Andy
is with us? With you because I'm getting the hell
out of here. And we do our regular show tomorrow
as we always do, and then don't forget its Foody
Friday tomorrow with Neil and me all things foody, and
then at eight thirty ask Handle anything which is always.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
Talking about Christmas dishes. Wow, I'm not going to let
it go, are you, Neil? You're just not going to
let it go. The reason for the season. Oh, you've
been listening to the Bill Handle Show.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
Catch my Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am,
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
The Bill Handel Show News
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