August 23, 2025 • 39 mins
In this conversation, Chris Markowski, the Watchdog on Wall Street, discusses the current economic landscape, emphasizing the importance of understanding financial realities and the impact of tariffs on businesses. He critiques conventional financial planning and the media's portrayal of economic issues, advocating for a more independent and informed approach to investing. Markowski introduces the concept of anti-fragility in financial planning, encouraging listeners to prepare for market volatility and take advantage of opportunities rather than succumb to fear.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, no one altered. Investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, trainer.
Chris Morkowski is the watchdog.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Do you want to answer exposing the lines and myths
that the big brokerage firms, the mainstream press, and the
government are pushing to keep Americans away from financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You can't handled the true.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Proof bringing America the truth about what really happens in
the financial world.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Ladies and gentlemen, We're not here to indulge in fantasy,
but in political and economic reality.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is the watchdog on Wall Streets.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Dan Straightcourt political and economic reality, and we're going to
start off with the economic news. That funny how it's
being spun in various different ways. Left has their way,
the right has their way. Can we give you this
in regards to what's going on behind the scenes. We've
talked about the CPI, the PPI, We talked about the
(01:06):
jobs numbers and everything that's.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's kind of lingering underneath the surface.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Several law several years ago before the whole uh inflate, Well,
the inflation was there and they were telling you powers.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That be everyone was telling you was transitory, no big deal.
Not there.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We said, no, no, it's it's there, and it's bad
and it's going to get worse. And we talked about
the storm clouds that were out there, Well, you know
what I'm seeing right now, storm clouds. Lots of them,
lots of them going across the board. Here again, the
information that I'm able to gather based upon the business
(01:44):
that we run and the reach that we have all
across the country, the fact that we're dealing with small
business owners out there, and it's not just us. Some
of these surveys that are coming out that are not
being reported on is the fact that small businesses out
there their number one concern is the fact that their
sales are poor. Home sales selling at the slowest summer
(02:06):
pace in over ten years. Consumer confidence just plunged. It's
levels that we only see during deep downturns. Taking a
look at valuations and the stock market and where well
where the assets, which assets have actually risen and which
ones have not, You could take a look at what
(02:29):
the BLS might be doing in regards to jobs revisions,
moving forward, company news, John Deere laying people off due
to tariffs, other companies warning that the tariffs are starting
to hit. I was Walmart this past week as well,
companies saying that, hey, you know what, we've been eating
a lot of these costs. In fact, sixty four percent
(02:52):
of tariff costs so far have been eaten by companies here,
not overseas, but here in the United States. Come the fall,
that's gonna flip, sixty seven percent are going to be
borne by the consumer, you know, not to mention the
fact that we still have a lot of uncertainty out there.
We just saw this past week they expanded the fifty
(03:15):
percent steel in aluminum tariffs to include four hundred and
seven additional product types. We're talking about fire extinguishers, machinery,
construction material, specialty chemicals, anything that's shiny. Anything that's shiny
includes aluminum or steel, auto parts, you name it, furniture components.
(03:39):
It's it's getting hit unless it has some sort of exemption. Again,
I try to make heads or tails out of this,
and I can't. It's like Howard Lutnik is dropping a
lot of LSD and he's just coming up with things
that are just again lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Sounds like sounds like the Beatles tune. Yeah you marmalade.
(04:02):
This and what your it's nuts. I can't make heads
or tails at it. And quite frankly, this is part
of the problem. Businesses can either. Businesses can't either. Big
businesses can deal big businesses they it's much easier for
them to deal with this.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
They've got cash positions. Uh they've been able to pay
the tariffs with these cash positions.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They're not going to do it forever. They're not. And
I will explain this to you.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The CEO, the CEO of a company has a duty,
a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. They do and they're
going to do everything and anything they can to again
increase the bottom line, grow their company, increase the bottom line.
Now they can do that. They can do that. You know,
when they're getting hit with with bigger bills for a
(04:57):
period of time, they're going to adjust. Okay, we'll spend
some cash here, but okay, if this is the way
it's gonna be, and these are the tariffs we're gonna
have to pay, we're going to we'll do a multitude
of things. We'll pass some of the costs on down
to the consumer. And on the other hand, you know
what will start laying off workers and we'll cut costs elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
It is what it is.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You got to go back, you want to go back
the same thing, you know, tariffs at tax you know
so is a regular corporate tax. Barack Obama, we had
the highest corporate tax rates in the world under Barack Obama.
What happened? What did companies do? Many companies moved overseas.
It's called tax inversions, and we discussed that at great length.
(05:40):
And I remember, oh, these are unpatriotic companies. Listen, they're
doing the right thing by their shareholders, which is what
they're supposed to do. Is what CEOs are supposed to do.
All of this is working its way through. We have
youth unemployment right now at over ten percent, that's right,
(06:02):
twenty four and under youth unemployment is at ten percent.
Companies now are signaling big companies out there, we are not. Basically,
we're not doing anything when it comes to entry level
jobs at this point in time, again not only dealing
with tariffs, but they're also trying to figure out how
they can go about using AI to replace workers. All
(06:24):
of this uncertainty again makes business much more difficult.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And again many people point to the.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Stock market, you know kind of like tattoo from Fantasy Island. Deplane,
deplane the stock market, the stock market looking at.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
A high easy killer.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Okay, take a look at the companies that have driven
the market higher. Been great for us, be great for
our clients. But yeah, the breath really hasn't been there,
which is again one of the reasons why talk about
this a little bit later about rotating assets, and we
talked about it last week, and how we go about
(07:04):
handling that again, storm clouds, I see a bad moon.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Horizon and we tell you all the time, so then
you know, what do you do?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So we sell sell, Mortimer sells. We try to trade this.
One of the one of the CNBC gurus out there.
All right, we could probably see a ten correction between
the month of September and October.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's nice, that's nice. That might happen, might not happen.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
You know, if you're right, they'll bring you back on
the program and they'll patch on the back. If you're wrong,
they'll forget about it. We don't do that. We don't
do that. And again, this is one of the things
we try to teach teach here and also how we
we apply to all of our portfolios. All across the
country for all of our clients. It's all about navigating
(08:00):
financial storms, corrections, and volatility. Quite frankly, quite frankly, sell
offs they event just they excite me.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
They they do it again. It's a it's a double age,
a double.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Edged sword for us here at Markowski Investments, because when
there are markets sell offs, people inevitably do really really
dumb things with their money. They do they freak out,
you know, they start playing you know, r E M.
It's the end of the world as we know it,
and oh my god, what's going to happen? And this
is terrible and we've got to get out again. We
(08:40):
we went off on a many arants in regards to
all the nonsensical tariffs from Liberation Day and what that did,
what that did, and what it meant, and we told you,
you know, hopefully, God willing, these things will come off,
cooler heads will prevail. And again the market's forced the
president's hand and he dropped them down a bit. Now,
(09:06):
if you were freaking out, didn't end well for you.
It didn't if you were smart. If you were smart
and you understood that, guess what, Okay, this is going
to be a temporary hit, just like it is every
single time, and you're able to take advantage of those dips,
you are going to do well. Now again, it's all
(09:30):
about people. We're going to talk about this later on
the program today, to talk about the media, business press,
the conventional wisdom, the narratives that they push on you
for whatever reason it may be.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
They're trying to sell something.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
You understand business programming for all intents and purposes. Again,
it's it's a television show. They're trying to get ratings.
We have a way of doing things here, and I've
explained this before and it's it's not again, it's I
wish I thought of it.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
This guy's one of the smartest guys in the world,
and I wrote a book about it. One of the
most prolific financial authors slash philosophers that I know of
modern day. Without a doubt, people are going to be
reading his books hundreds of years now. Okay, It's not
like the normal bestsellers which are forgotten a week later.
This guy is a genius. I've talked about him before.
(10:23):
Nasa Nicholas Talib and you might be familiar with this book,
The Black Swan, but his concept and again I never
really thought about it that way.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
He did. Again, very bright man.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Anti fragility, anti fragility, it's not the opposite. It's not
about being resilient. Okay, this is what's key. This is
what we do and this is how we structure our
portfolios for our clients. It's not just being able to
weather the storm. You know, you want to weather this. Yeah,
(11:00):
that's all well and good. It's not about weathering the storm.
It's about taking that storm, taking it in and coming
out on the other side stronger and better. This is
why you take advantage of financial storms. Manni manus, Manias, panics,
(11:25):
sell offs.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Whatever it may be.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
You keep it cool, you take advantage when things are
going down.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You're gonna these things when they when.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Market sell offs, it's the best buying opportunities going Now,
I get it. Not everybody has enough powder all the time.
Everyone's situation is a little bit different. Just to several
months ago. Market's selling off the whole Liberation Day thing.
My you know what my clients are doing. It's clients
that were well to do. They were actually planning on
buying boats or second homes and various different other things.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
How do you have to call them they're calling me up. Yeah,
I'm gonna hold off on that, this, this, this, this,
and this. We're buying here.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Ah, I've trained you well, they got it, they understand
they understand that again, it's not the end of the
world as we know it. This again they make you think,
They make you think that you're able to time and
(12:36):
pick and get into the market and get out of
the market. I watched these portfolio managers out there talking
about how they're changing the allocation for their clients and
their portfolios.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
What what a waste of time? What a waste of time?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Because again, you know, it's like if you're betting on
a coin flip and you have to bet right twice,
and like you're you're supposed to know exactly when to
get in and when to get out and how.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
To go about time.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Do you understand how ridiculous that is when you don't
have to all you need and again, these were the
two additions to the Markowski Investments Rules of the Road.
When it comes to investing, all you need to have
is a little bit of patience and a little bit
of courage. Sometimes there don't even have to be that patient.
(13:27):
I mean, you thought of what the Liberation Day sell off?
What about the COVID COVID crash that didn't last that long?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
A great recession? Did great recession did?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Most certainly needed some courage during that point in time,
because every damn news story out there was telling you again,
it's the end of the world.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Even during COVID, some of.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
The jerks out there, Bill Ackman, some of the others
out there going on see NBC telling you're gonna shut
the country down for this period of time, not let
anybody out of the house.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It was spooky stuff. What were we telling you to do?
Hold the line, Hold the line, Bear them no mind.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
They have their own hidden agendas and interest and they
don't align with you.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Man.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
It's one of the things that people fail to understand.
You're watching these people on TV, watch these portfolio managers
making their picks, making these calls here there. You ever
go back and actually see how well they do, you
know what you do as well? Some of them, You
can actually go and see how much money they manage. Peanuts, peanuts.
(14:42):
They get invited on these programs because they do exactly
what the producers tell them to do. Get into arguments
on TV. They're small potatoes. We don't play that game.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Again. Fiduciary duty is to you.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It's my listeners here on this program and my clients
of course, all one and the same.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Your interests come first now easy? Yeah? Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We put you into this fund, get paid by this guy,
get paid off by the Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The sooner you learn to tune all of that noise
out to get your get your your financial get your
portfolio arranged properly in the service of your goes where
you want to be in life, doing everything that's fundamentally sound.
(15:46):
You understand that's what's gonna make you wealthy.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Gotta take a break. You're listening to the Watchdog on
Wall Street. So Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Get there, sign up for our personal c FO program
because that's what we are where you're family CFO.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We're our family office for everyone.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com or give us a call
eight hundred four seven one fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Eighty four.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Taking Wall Streets liars, crooks and cheets out behind the woodshed.
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I have to say that, Uh, you know, we've
been pretty disgusted over the past for well for some
time now. Again, anybody listening to this program knows. I
let it rip here on the program, and I show
my frustration often. But you know, we've had a massive
influx of new clients and new portfolios coming into Markowski
(17:06):
Investments and these cookie cutter fininance your plans, your plans
that are offered to everyone by all of these McDonald's
esque investment firms put together by very very very simple
algorithms taking in certain dates of time, which again I
(17:30):
don't even know how you go about doing that. How
you speople setting dates for their retirement when they're twenty
two years old?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Are you kidn me? Man?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Humanity life never part of the equation? No, no, no, no,
never a part of the equation. I like you, like
those those old four oh one k plan questionneers, Hey,
wait wait, what ags?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Are you planning on retiring twenty two years old? How
the hell do I know? What's your risk tolerance? Again?
You think young people have any idea in regards to this.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And the funny thing is it's unfortunate because you're putting
these numbers down and people sometimes get caught up, caught
up in their twenties and their thirties, and they put
limits on their lives, limits on their future, limits on
their overall happiness based upon this. And I'm going to
say it again. I say it often here on the program.
(18:29):
You want to make God laugh, tell them your plans.
What we do at Markowski Investments is we build wealth
by doing things the right way. If I have to
see another ridiculous retirement commercial out there, I'm going to
be nauseous.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I am.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
It's almost like they trick you, They force you, They
want you to do that because they want you to
buy into this system. Why again, you know I wanted
to I'm less than tenure collect Social Security?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Then what, I'm sure that that's what God wants me
to do.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, he wants me to stop helping people, stop working,
you know, stop you know, stop building my business and
employing more people. Sure, sure, I'm sure that's exactly what
he wants.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's what God wants me to do. Come on, people,
give me a break.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Don't play into the verrea, the conventional wisdom, the crap
that they keep pushing you into all the time. It's nonsensical. Again,
you have to take into account that you're gonna be
presented in life with a ton of opportunities. You want
(19:52):
to be able to recognize them, and you also want
to be able to take advantage of them. These cookie
cutter portfolios, the sixty forty nonsense that has been shoved
down everyone's throats for so long that again, this is
why people's people's finances are a mess. Even if they
want to retire, they can't because their portfolios have underperformed
(20:13):
for so damn long.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
More on this when we get back, don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
You're listening to the Watchdog and Wall Street show again,
get to our website, our podcast, our newsletter, of course,
our personal CFO program. We are here to help you
Watchdog Andwallstreet dot com or give us.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
A call at eight hundred four seven nine eighty four.
We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street. This is
(20:59):
the Watchdoor on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Welcome back. One of the one of the reasons why.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
We've been so successful over the years is because we
don't buy in to the bull ex commit we don't
buy in to the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We've donn have for thirty years. Our COWSKI investment.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
This radio show twenty five years and even starting out
in the business, you get all of these various different
software programs I'm talking about thirty years ago, and they've
got their models in their Monte Carlos scenarios and all
these things that tell you you put your punch in
a bunch of numbers, You ask some questions from the clients,
(21:51):
and they spit out all this stuff and they put
together these portfolios. And you know, quite frankly, I looked
at these things when we started and I laughed.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I laughed again.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
We were lucky to understand when we first started out
that you know, most of the garbage it's being shoved
down every throats, was just.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That it was bull excrement.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And I'm gonna I'm gonna prove this to you because again,
back back when we started, we were telling people, no,
this sixty forty stuff is not gonna work. You're gonna lose.
You're losing too much value. You're losing too much value
of your dollar. And I wasn't wrong. Okay, thirty years ago,
thirty years ago, you had a dollar, you had a dollar,
it's worth forty eight cents.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Today it's worth forty eight cents.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So if you you're not, everybody's not working hard, I
mean hard, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Busting it. I'm not talking you know.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You think about like a gym workout where you people
are just dogging it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, your money.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Has got to be nineteen seventies Arnold swore it's and
agger in the gym, throwing the bloody weight around, working
for you or you're losing. You know, the the total
return of the S and P five hundred over the
past thirty years. Again, this is adjusted for inflation, eight
(23:21):
hundred and seventy four percent. Eight hundred and seventy four percent. Yeah,
that's you're dealing with all the ups down, sideway backward
for that's just doing nothing. So you know better, you
know how to time the mark. You're gonna go in
and out. You're gonna gonna go to cash. Are you
(23:43):
gonna buy some stupid annuity that's paying five percent?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You're losing? Man, I got I rant.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In and raved about all the damn annuities that are
being sold over the past twenty thirty years.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Ill advised.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Okay to people, it's being sold to some sort of
cureral to all of your finances.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
What a load of bunk. It's guaranteed and you're gonna
get a bonus.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah, you're not gonna get garbage. You can't take your
money out and look at the rate of return that
you're getting. You're losing money. I'm seeing five percent. Yeah,
but the value of your dollar is going backwards. Did
you see that changing anytime soon? Or thirty seven bloody
trillion dollars in debt? No, this is the terrain. I'm
(24:34):
I don't like it, Okay, I don't like it. When
we spend tons of time talking about the needs to
cutting waste and and you know, solidifying this economy and
cutting all the garbage out there, and how much better
it would be for everyone.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But no, do I see any sort of change. No. Now,
I'll let you know when I.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
But again, why don't you take a look at our
budget deficit this year compared to last year.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's more. We went over that last week on the program.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
What does that mean we have to borrow more money,
We have to print more money, which is gonna what
devalue your money? What it also does as well, you
do have asset inflation because of this. If you don't
think that the stock market is where it is where
it is. It's because of some of this, of course
it is. But again, you have to participate properly. And
(25:35):
often what times we see happen as well, people getting
caught behind the eight ball.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
This other thing too, people getting.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Caught behind the eight ball recognizing, oh, I'm supposed to
retire at sixty two or sixty five, I'm not gonna
have enough money to do that. Oh, so you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna speculate with my portfolio.
Oh god. And then they start taking ridiculous risks in
their orfolio. And what do we tell you? Never ever
(26:03):
ever let risk lead to ruin. And that's what people do.
And you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You don't have to. You to just build wealth.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Slowly, as my mother in law would say in Greek,
see got sigt little by little over time, compounding those gains,
rotating assets, being.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Smart dollar cost averaging.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
It's not a matter of if, no matter when you're
gonna become wealthy.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
This is what pulls my hair out all the I
can't seem to understand this all the time. People.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Hell, I'm young, and it's my four oh one k
and I got, I got, you know, twenty five thirty
years before I can access it. So I should speculate
what why Why would you do that? Why would you
take undue risk? Okay, it makes no sense if the
endgame is if you just are smart, are smart, build
(27:06):
wealth in a conservative manner.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Obviously obviously gotta outgrow.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I'm not talking sixty forty portfolio or anything like that.
Like I said, you do that, you're gonna be wealthy.
You do what you do. Oh, okay, you might get
rich quick. Probably won't because you're taking undue risk and you're.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Gonna end up. You both situations, you're gonna end up
in the same place.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Unless you take risk, then you're not going to So
why do it in the first place. It makes no sense.
There's no logic or reason behind it. Again, we're here
to help people get to our website, Watchdog on Wallstreet
dot com again, personal CFO program, podcast, newsletter, all sorts
(27:50):
of great stuff there Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com or
give us a call eight hundred four seven to one
fifty nine eighty four.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
The only man who is taking on the Wall Street establishment.
You're listening to the Watchdog and Wall Street with Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
We'll go back hiddles.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And I mentioned the anti fragile financial plan, and again
I don't like the phrase financial plan. I'd rather call
it financial preparation. Talum again, is most famous book is
The Black Swans. Basically and short. Things that happen that
you don't see coming obviously obviously got to be prepared for.
(28:53):
That concept needs to be taken into account. However, again
we at Markowski investments, rather than plan for a retirement,
we prepare, we prepare. And again this philosophy is applicable
to everything in life. Isn't it interesting how that works?
It's interesting. It's just just laws of the universe are
(29:16):
applicable to everything, whether it be to athletics, whatever it
be military. It doesn't make any difference running of business,
how you live. Then, everything in life that is meeting
value of worth involves work, time and effort. That's applicable
to everything. But again, the thing about plans. Think about plans,
(29:38):
you know what they can get screwed up, right, And
I talked about I've talked about this before here on
the program. Navy seals get on a battlefield train and
conditions are different than what you expected. What do you
do you go with the terrain? Warren Buffett mentioned this
before in the program It's two thousand and seven annual
message to shareholders. He wrote it in the form of
(30:00):
a help wanted advertisement. Wanted a young man or a
woman with the potential to manage a very large portfolio.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
The ideal candidate must be.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Someone genetically programmed to recognize and avoid serious risks, including
those never before encountered.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Other key requirements independent thinking, emotional stability, and a key
understanding of both human and institutional behavior. Again, things are
going to happen sometimes, and again we're pretty darn good
at calling them here on the program ahead of time,
(30:36):
Very very good. Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
The problem is is that all the people on TV
that make the predictions and tell you what to do,
it's an arrogance.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
They don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
It's called in psychology, it's called the Dunning Krueger effect.
It's a cognitive bias in which people of low ability
have this illusion of superiority and mistake. Can we assess
their cognitive ability as greater than it is? Okay, you
want to avoid people like that? Again, Shocks shocks, Some
(31:11):
things benefit from shocks. They thrive and they grow when
exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder. This is what you want
your portfolio to do. Got to take a break.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com again, become part of our
family at Markowski at Spens, our personal CFO program.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Don't go anywhere, We'll be.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Back this Markowski is the Watchdog on Wall Street bringing
(32:00):
America financial freedom one listener at a time. You're listening
to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski in
the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Something. I've had a bit of a I want to
put it a bug up my buttlocks this past week,
and you most certainly, most certainly heard it on my podcasts,
going after a lot of the business press, the financial
press out there, and just how bad it is. I
(32:30):
watched these people that come on again, who's that person?
What do they run? I take a look. They barely
run any money whatsoever. They're useful, quite frankly to many
of these producers on these business programs out there, because
they do what they're told. A little insider baseball in
regards to business press and business news. And I'm going
(32:52):
to take you back in time to when I was
I was a kid. You're talking almost thirty years ago.
We're a bit of the whipping boys at Markowski Investments
during the nineteen nineties because we were contrarian. We were
pointing out the ridiculous valuations in these dot com companies.
We were pointing out that their business models really didn't
make much any sense whatsoever. But I got a lot
(33:14):
of attention when I wrote a column entitled Understanding Enron, and.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You can see it.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
All my columns are archived up on our site. And
in that I basically laid out the case against Enron.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Now who in the world, every Wall Street firm out there,
strong by Strong, by Strong by Strong, by.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Fortune Magazine, most innovative company in the country five years
in a row. I think maybe one, maybe Chanos was
against Enron, maybe a couple others, not many.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I didn't get it. I said, two plus students did
not equal twenty. But that's what they keep saying.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
None of it made it much sense to me, And
I wrote the column and the stock proceeded to go
higher for like the next ten to eleven months. Yeah,
making fun of me, Oh, you know what you're talking about,
until it didn't anymore, and it proceeded to tank and
do exactly what I said it was going to do
what I thought it was going to do, and I
got a phone call gain us. It would have been
(34:09):
a big coup for Markowski Investments. At the time, we
were only a few years in. Remember back this is
back in the nineties when the still the evening news,
the six thirty news, National news was still kind of big.
And I was invited to talk about you know, n
run and I get a phone call from the producers,
because this is what they do, they do pre interviews,
(34:30):
do pre interviews, and they started asking me questions and
they didn't like the answers I was giving.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I could tell I was slated.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I was supposed to fly from New York to DC,
going to go on the program there to put me up.
Was exciting for me. It's going to be great for
Markowski Investments. Until I started telling them the truth and
how many of the big investment firms were involved with
this and all the behind the scenes stuff that was
going on, and then I got canceled. You know, you see,
those big investment firms happened to be pretty big advertisers.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You see, same same.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Thing held through during the financial crisis was I was
regular on CNN, regular on CNN, and they'd have their
you know, their producers call me, and you know, I
would be kind of COI, kind of COI with them,
and then you know, I started getting some blowbag. You know,
you didn't say that during the pre interview. I said,
you didn't ask that. You know, I don't understand why
(35:25):
you have to pre interview me in the first place.
This is a conversation, is it. But it's not. That's
that's not how television works. It's all prepared. The people
that are asking the question, they got to have stuff
in the teleprompter fed to them, and they can't stand it.
They can't stand it when a guest will throw them off.
Case in point, I'm on with Don Lemon talking about
(35:48):
student loans and I have to break down and explain
to them how student loans in aid are making the
cost of college go up.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And he was like a deer caught in headlights.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I don't play their games, so I don't go on
these programs anymore. They want you to, oh, send us
what your buys are, so all this stuff, and they
want to find somebody that's going to be against you
so you can battle out. You could be fight fight, fight, fight, fight,
like you're back in eighth grade, fighting outside the cafeteria
after lunch.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
What purpose does that serve? None? None? And again they
had the same people. What's the point?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
What it's the same panelists, same answers to questions. Oh oh,
all of a sudden, Oh, you know, there's some risk
in some of these IPOs. You know, you might have
wanted to maybe mention that rather than having their CEOs
on the program and kissing their buttocks again and again
and again, you know, before and then the stock tanks
(36:48):
and everybody loses a ton of money. You play a
part of this. You tout these things. You know, nineteen nineties,
every every dot com company CEO with a goatee, was
it coming on the program to tout their company? You
don't even ask difficult questions for crying out loud. Dug
Cast portfolio manager put out a funny bit this past week,
(37:09):
and he actually quoted Dean Wermer from Animal House, Fat, drunk,
and stupid is no way to go through life, son
and basically said, smug, condescending and full of hubris is
no way to invest. And that's how these people act.
You see, I'm aware. I'm aware that I don't know
(37:32):
what might happen tomorrow, and I know this, and guess
what our portfolios are prepared to deal with. This column
I wrote again twenty years ago, Financial planning reality. I've
talked about it then, conventional wisdom being poison.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Poison, It didn't matter.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Financial advice coming fromjournalists shlockbrokers is always the inverse of
what is prudent for individuals.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
You need to understand that Wall Street and the business
press are.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Enriched, enriched when people are essentially brainwashed into this culture
of buy, sell and hold. Yeah, financial independence top twenty.
Put that out there.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
You understand that that business programming is just entertainment. Financial
journalism is an oxymoron, if there ever was one. You
need to understand that then make any difference whether it's
mad money for crying out loud. There's an actual fund
out there that does the exact opposite of what Jim
(38:50):
Kramer tells you to do, and it does pretty well
for crying out loud. Get your financial plan, preparation, practice,
proper fundamentals. That's what we do. That is what is
going to.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Make you wealthy. There are no other shortcuts.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Watchdog on wallstreet dot com, Watchdog on wallstreet dot com,
We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You're listening to the watch Dog on Wall Street
Well, no one altered. Investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, trainer.
Chris Morkowski is the watchdog.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The Wall Street.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Do you want to answer exposing the lines and myths
that the big brokerage firms, the mainstream press, and the
government are pushing to keep Americans away from financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
You can't handled the true.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Proof bringing America the truth about what really happens in
the financial world.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Ladies and gentlemen, We're not here to indulge in fantasy,
but in political and economic reality.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
This is the watchdog on Wall Streets.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Dan Straightcourt political and economic reality, and we're going to
start off with the economic news. That funny how it's
being spun in various different ways. Left has their way,
the right has their way. Can we give you this
in regards to what's going on behind the scenes. We've
talked about the CPI, the PPI, We talked about the
(01:06):
jobs numbers and everything that's.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
That's kind of lingering underneath the surface.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Several law several years ago before the whole uh inflate, Well,
the inflation was there and they were telling you powers.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
That be everyone was telling you was transitory, no big deal.
Not there.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
We said, no, no, it's it's there, and it's bad
and it's going to get worse. And we talked about
the storm clouds that were out there, Well, you know
what I'm seeing right now, storm clouds. Lots of them,
lots of them going across the board. Here again, the
information that I'm able to gather based upon the business
(01:44):
that we run and the reach that we have all
across the country, the fact that we're dealing with small
business owners out there, and it's not just us. Some
of these surveys that are coming out that are not
being reported on is the fact that small businesses out
there their number one concern is the fact that their
sales are poor. Home sales selling at the slowest summer
(02:06):
pace in over ten years. Consumer confidence just plunged. It's
levels that we only see during deep downturns. Taking a
look at valuations and the stock market and where well
where the assets, which assets have actually risen and which
ones have not, You could take a look at what
(02:29):
the BLS might be doing in regards to jobs revisions,
moving forward, company news, John Deere laying people off due
to tariffs, other companies warning that the tariffs are starting
to hit. I was Walmart this past week as well,
companies saying that, hey, you know what, we've been eating
a lot of these costs. In fact, sixty four percent
(02:52):
of tariff costs so far have been eaten by companies here,
not overseas, but here in the United States. Come the fall,
that's gonna flip, sixty seven percent are going to be
borne by the consumer, you know, not to mention the
fact that we still have a lot of uncertainty out there.
We just saw this past week they expanded the fifty
(03:15):
percent steel in aluminum tariffs to include four hundred and
seven additional product types. We're talking about fire extinguishers, machinery,
construction material, specialty chemicals, anything that's shiny. Anything that's shiny
includes aluminum or steel, auto parts, you name it, furniture components.
(03:39):
It's it's getting hit unless it has some sort of exemption. Again,
I try to make heads or tails out of this,
and I can't. It's like Howard Lutnik is dropping a
lot of LSD and he's just coming up with things
that are just again lucy in the sky with diamonds.
Sounds like sounds like the Beatles tune. Yeah you marmalade.
(04:02):
This and what your it's nuts. I can't make heads
or tails at it. And quite frankly, this is part
of the problem. Businesses can either. Businesses can't either. Big
businesses can deal big businesses they it's much easier for
them to deal with this.
Speaker 1 (04:22):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
They've got cash positions. Uh they've been able to pay
the tariffs with these cash positions.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
They're not going to do it forever. They're not. And
I will explain this to you.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
The CEO, the CEO of a company has a duty,
a fiduciary duty to their shareholders. They do and they're
going to do everything and anything they can to again
increase the bottom line, grow their company, increase the bottom line.
Now they can do that. They can do that. You know,
when they're getting hit with with bigger bills for a
(04:57):
period of time, they're going to adjust. Okay, we'll spend
some cash here, but okay, if this is the way
it's gonna be, and these are the tariffs we're gonna
have to pay, we're going to we'll do a multitude
of things. We'll pass some of the costs on down
to the consumer. And on the other hand, you know
what will start laying off workers and we'll cut costs elsewhere.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
It is what it is.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
You got to go back, you want to go back
the same thing, you know, tariffs at tax you know
so is a regular corporate tax. Barack Obama, we had
the highest corporate tax rates in the world under Barack Obama.
What happened? What did companies do? Many companies moved overseas.
It's called tax inversions, and we discussed that at great length.
(05:40):
And I remember, oh, these are unpatriotic companies. Listen, they're
doing the right thing by their shareholders, which is what
they're supposed to do. Is what CEOs are supposed to do.
All of this is working its way through. We have
youth unemployment right now at over ten percent, that's right,
(06:02):
twenty four and under youth unemployment is at ten percent.
Companies now are signaling big companies out there, we are not. Basically,
we're not doing anything when it comes to entry level
jobs at this point in time, again not only dealing
with tariffs, but they're also trying to figure out how
they can go about using AI to replace workers. All
(06:24):
of this uncertainty again makes business much more difficult.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
And again many people point to the.
Speaker 3 (06:33):
Stock market, you know kind of like tattoo from Fantasy Island. Deplane,
deplane the stock market, the stock market looking at.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
A high easy killer.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
Okay, take a look at the companies that have driven
the market higher. Been great for us, be great for
our clients. But yeah, the breath really hasn't been there,
which is again one of the reasons why talk about
this a little bit later about rotating assets, and we
talked about it last week, and how we go about
(07:04):
handling that again, storm clouds, I see a bad moon.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Horizon and we tell you all the time, so then
you know, what do you do?
Speaker 3 (07:16):
So we sell sell, Mortimer sells. We try to trade this.
One of the one of the CNBC gurus out there.
All right, we could probably see a ten correction between
the month of September and October.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
That's nice, that's nice. That might happen, might not happen.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
You know, if you're right, they'll bring you back on
the program and they'll patch on the back. If you're wrong,
they'll forget about it. We don't do that. We don't
do that. And again, this is one of the things
we try to teach teach here and also how we
we apply to all of our portfolios. All across the
country for all of our clients. It's all about navigating
(08:00):
financial storms, corrections, and volatility. Quite frankly, quite frankly, sell
offs they event just they excite me.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
They they do it again. It's a it's a double age,
a double.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Edged sword for us here at Markowski Investments, because when
there are markets sell offs, people inevitably do really really
dumb things with their money. They do they freak out,
you know, they start playing you know, r E M.
It's the end of the world as we know it,
and oh my god, what's going to happen? And this
is terrible and we've got to get out again. We
(08:40):
we went off on a many arants in regards to
all the nonsensical tariffs from Liberation Day and what that did,
what that did, and what it meant, and we told you,
you know, hopefully, God willing, these things will come off,
cooler heads will prevail. And again the market's forced the
president's hand and he dropped them down a bit. Now,
(09:06):
if you were freaking out, didn't end well for you.
It didn't if you were smart. If you were smart
and you understood that, guess what, Okay, this is going
to be a temporary hit, just like it is every
single time, and you're able to take advantage of those dips,
you are going to do well. Now again, it's all
(09:30):
about people. We're going to talk about this later on
the program today, to talk about the media, business press,
the conventional wisdom, the narratives that they push on you
for whatever reason it may be.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
They're trying to sell something.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
You understand business programming for all intents and purposes. Again,
it's it's a television show. They're trying to get ratings.
We have a way of doing things here, and I've
explained this before and it's it's not again, it's I
wish I thought of it.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
I didn't.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
This guy's one of the smartest guys in the world,
and I wrote a book about it. One of the
most prolific financial authors slash philosophers that I know of
modern day. Without a doubt, people are going to be
reading his books hundreds of years now. Okay, It's not
like the normal bestsellers which are forgotten a week later.
This guy is a genius. I've talked about him before.
(10:23):
Nasa Nicholas Talib and you might be familiar with this book,
The Black Swan, but his concept and again I never
really thought about it that way.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
He did. Again, very bright man.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Anti fragility, anti fragility, it's not the opposite. It's not
about being resilient. Okay, this is what's key. This is
what we do and this is how we structure our
portfolios for our clients. It's not just being able to
weather the storm. You know, you want to weather this. Yeah,
(11:00):
that's all well and good. It's not about weathering the storm.
It's about taking that storm, taking it in and coming
out on the other side stronger and better. This is
why you take advantage of financial storms. Manni manus, Manias, panics,
(11:25):
sell offs.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Whatever it may be.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
You keep it cool, you take advantage when things are
going down.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
You're gonna these things when they when.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
Market sell offs, it's the best buying opportunities going Now,
I get it. Not everybody has enough powder all the time.
Everyone's situation is a little bit different. Just to several
months ago. Market's selling off the whole Liberation Day thing.
My you know what my clients are doing. It's clients
that were well to do. They were actually planning on
buying boats or second homes and various different other things.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
How do you have to call them they're calling me up. Yeah,
I'm gonna hold off on that, this, this, this, this,
and this. We're buying here.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Ah, I've trained you well, they got it, they understand
they understand that again, it's not the end of the
world as we know it. This again they make you think,
They make you think that you're able to time and
(12:36):
pick and get into the market and get out of
the market. I watched these portfolio managers out there talking
about how they're changing the allocation for their clients and
their portfolios.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
What what a waste of time? What a waste of time?
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Because again, you know, it's like if you're betting on
a coin flip and you have to bet right twice,
and like you're you're supposed to know exactly when to
get in and when to get out and how.
Speaker 2 (13:05):
To go about time.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Do you understand how ridiculous that is when you don't
have to all you need and again, these were the
two additions to the Markowski Investments Rules of the Road.
When it comes to investing, all you need to have
is a little bit of patience and a little bit
of courage. Sometimes there don't even have to be that patient.
(13:27):
I mean, you thought of what the Liberation Day sell off?
What about the COVID COVID crash that didn't last that long?
Speaker 2 (13:34):
A great recession? Did great recession did?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
You?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Most certainly needed some courage during that point in time,
because every damn news story out there was telling you again,
it's the end of the world.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Even during COVID, some of.
Speaker 3 (13:50):
The jerks out there, Bill Ackman, some of the others
out there going on see NBC telling you're gonna shut
the country down for this period of time, not let
anybody out of the house.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It was spooky stuff. What were we telling you to do?
Hold the line, Hold the line, Bear them no mind.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
They have their own hidden agendas and interest and they
don't align with you.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Man.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
It's one of the things that people fail to understand.
You're watching these people on TV, watch these portfolio managers
making their picks, making these calls here there. You ever
go back and actually see how well they do, you
know what you do as well? Some of them, You
can actually go and see how much money they manage. Peanuts, peanuts.
(14:42):
They get invited on these programs because they do exactly
what the producers tell them to do. Get into arguments
on TV. They're small potatoes. We don't play that game.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Again. Fiduciary duty is to you.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
It's my listeners here on this program and my clients
of course, all one and the same.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Your interests come first now easy? Yeah? Oh yeah, sure.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
We put you into this fund, get paid by this guy,
get paid off by the Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3 (15:26):
The sooner you learn to tune all of that noise
out to get your get your your financial get your
portfolio arranged properly in the service of your goes where
you want to be in life, doing everything that's fundamentally sound.
(15:46):
You understand that's what's gonna make you wealthy.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Gotta take a break. You're listening to the Watchdog on
Wall Street. So Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
Get there, sign up for our personal c FO program
because that's what we are where you're family CFO.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
We're our family office for everyone.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com or give us a call
eight hundred four seven one fifty nine.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Eighty four.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Taking Wall Streets liars, crooks and cheets out behind the woodshed.
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
Welcome back.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Yeah, I have to say that, Uh, you know, we've
been pretty disgusted over the past for well for some
time now. Again, anybody listening to this program knows. I
let it rip here on the program, and I show
my frustration often. But you know, we've had a massive
influx of new clients and new portfolios coming into Markowski
(17:06):
Investments and these cookie cutter fininance your plans, your plans
that are offered to everyone by all of these McDonald's
esque investment firms put together by very very very simple
algorithms taking in certain dates of time, which again I
(17:30):
don't even know how you go about doing that. How
you speople setting dates for their retirement when they're twenty
two years old?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Are you kidn me? Man?
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Humanity life never part of the equation? No, no, no, no,
never a part of the equation. I like you, like
those those old four oh one k plan questionneers, Hey,
wait wait, what ags?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Are you planning on retiring twenty two years old? How
the hell do I know? What's your risk tolerance? Again?
You think young people have any idea in regards to this.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
And the funny thing is it's unfortunate because you're putting
these numbers down and people sometimes get caught up, caught
up in their twenties and their thirties, and they put
limits on their lives, limits on their future, limits on
their overall happiness based upon this. And I'm going to
say it again. I say it often here on the program.
(18:29):
You want to make God laugh, tell them your plans.
What we do at Markowski Investments is we build wealth
by doing things the right way. If I have to
see another ridiculous retirement commercial out there, I'm going to
be nauseous.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I am.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
It's almost like they trick you, They force you, They
want you to do that because they want you to
buy into this system. Why again, you know I wanted
to I'm less than tenure collect Social Security?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
Then what, I'm sure that that's what God wants me
to do.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, he wants me to stop helping people, stop working,
you know, stop you know, stop building my business and
employing more people. Sure, sure, I'm sure that's exactly what
he wants.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
That's what God wants me to do. Come on, people,
give me a break.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
Don't play into the verrea, the conventional wisdom, the crap
that they keep pushing you into all the time. It's nonsensical. Again,
you have to take into account that you're gonna be
presented in life with a ton of opportunities. You want
(19:52):
to be able to recognize them, and you also want
to be able to take advantage of them. These cookie
cutter portfolios, the sixty forty nonsense that has been shoved
down everyone's throats for so long that again, this is
why people's people's finances are a mess. Even if they
want to retire, they can't because their portfolios have underperformed
(20:13):
for so damn long.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
More on this when we get back, don't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (20:19):
You're listening to the Watchdog and Wall Street show again,
get to our website, our podcast, our newsletter, of course,
our personal CFO program. We are here to help you
Watchdog Andwallstreet dot com or give us.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
A call at eight hundred four seven nine eighty four.
We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street. This is
(20:59):
the Watchdoor on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Welcome back. One of the one of the reasons why.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
We've been so successful over the years is because we
don't buy in to the bull ex commit we don't
buy in to the conventional wisdom.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
We've donn have for thirty years. Our COWSKI investment.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
This radio show twenty five years and even starting out
in the business, you get all of these various different
software programs I'm talking about thirty years ago, and they've
got their models in their Monte Carlos scenarios and all
these things that tell you you put your punch in
a bunch of numbers, You ask some questions from the clients,
(21:51):
and they spit out all this stuff and they put
together these portfolios. And you know, quite frankly, I looked
at these things when we started and I laughed.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I laughed again.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
We were lucky to understand when we first started out
that you know, most of the garbage it's being shoved
down every throats, was just.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
That it was bull excrement.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And I'm gonna I'm gonna prove this to you because again,
back back when we started, we were telling people, no,
this sixty forty stuff is not gonna work. You're gonna lose.
You're losing too much value. You're losing too much value
of your dollar. And I wasn't wrong. Okay, thirty years ago,
thirty years ago, you had a dollar, you had a dollar,
it's worth forty eight cents.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Today it's worth forty eight cents.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
So if you you're not, everybody's not working hard, I
mean hard, okay.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Busting it. I'm not talking you know.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
You think about like a gym workout where you people
are just dogging it.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, your money.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Has got to be nineteen seventies Arnold swore it's and
agger in the gym, throwing the bloody weight around, working
for you or you're losing. You know, the the total
return of the S and P five hundred over the
past thirty years. Again, this is adjusted for inflation, eight
(23:21):
hundred and seventy four percent. Eight hundred and seventy four percent. Yeah,
that's you're dealing with all the ups down, sideway backward
for that's just doing nothing. So you know better, you
know how to time the mark. You're gonna go in
and out. You're gonna gonna go to cash. Are you
(23:43):
gonna buy some stupid annuity that's paying five percent?
Speaker 2 (23:46):
You're losing? Man, I got I rant.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
In and raved about all the damn annuities that are
being sold over the past twenty thirty years.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Ill advised.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
Okay to people, it's being sold to some sort of
cureral to all of your finances.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
What a load of bunk. It's guaranteed and you're gonna
get a bonus.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
Yeah, you're not gonna get garbage. You can't take your
money out and look at the rate of return that
you're getting. You're losing money. I'm seeing five percent. Yeah,
but the value of your dollar is going backwards. Did
you see that changing anytime soon? Or thirty seven bloody
trillion dollars in debt? No, this is the terrain. I'm
(24:34):
I don't like it, Okay, I don't like it. When
we spend tons of time talking about the needs to
cutting waste and and you know, solidifying this economy and
cutting all the garbage out there, and how much better
it would be for everyone.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
But no, do I see any sort of change. No. Now,
I'll let you know when I.
Speaker 3 (25:01):
But again, why don't you take a look at our
budget deficit this year compared to last year.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
It's more. We went over that last week on the program.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
What does that mean we have to borrow more money,
We have to print more money, which is gonna what
devalue your money? What it also does as well, you
do have asset inflation because of this. If you don't
think that the stock market is where it is where
it is. It's because of some of this, of course
it is. But again, you have to participate properly. And
(25:35):
often what times we see happen as well, people getting
caught behind the eight ball.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
This other thing too, people getting.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Caught behind the eight ball recognizing, oh, I'm supposed to
retire at sixty two or sixty five, I'm not gonna
have enough money to do that. Oh, so you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna speculate with my portfolio.
Oh god. And then they start taking ridiculous risks in
their orfolio. And what do we tell you? Never ever
(26:03):
ever let risk lead to ruin. And that's what people do.
And you don't have to.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
You don't have to. You to just build wealth.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Slowly, as my mother in law would say in Greek,
see got sigt little by little over time, compounding those gains,
rotating assets, being.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Smart dollar cost averaging.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
It's not a matter of if, no matter when you're
gonna become wealthy.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
This is what pulls my hair out all the I
can't seem to understand this all the time. People.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Hell, I'm young, and it's my four oh one k
and I got, I got, you know, twenty five thirty
years before I can access it. So I should speculate
what why Why would you do that? Why would you
take undue risk? Okay, it makes no sense if the
endgame is if you just are smart, are smart, build
(27:06):
wealth in a conservative manner.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Obviously obviously gotta outgrow.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
I'm not talking sixty forty portfolio or anything like that.
Like I said, you do that, you're gonna be wealthy.
You do what you do. Oh, okay, you might get
rich quick. Probably won't because you're taking undue risk and you're.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Gonna end up. You both situations, you're gonna end up
in the same place.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Unless you take risk, then you're not going to So
why do it in the first place. It makes no sense.
There's no logic or reason behind it. Again, we're here
to help people get to our website, Watchdog on Wallstreet
dot com again, personal CFO program, podcast, newsletter, all sorts
(27:50):
of great stuff there Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com or
give us a call eight hundred four seven to one
fifty nine eighty four.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
The only man who is taking on the Wall Street establishment.
You're listening to the Watchdog and Wall Street with Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
We'll go back hiddles.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
And I mentioned the anti fragile financial plan, and again
I don't like the phrase financial plan. I'd rather call
it financial preparation. Talum again, is most famous book is
The Black Swans. Basically and short. Things that happen that
you don't see coming obviously obviously got to be prepared for.
(28:53):
That concept needs to be taken into account. However, again
we at Markowski investments, rather than plan for a retirement,
we prepare, we prepare. And again this philosophy is applicable
to everything in life. Isn't it interesting how that works?
It's interesting. It's just just laws of the universe are
(29:16):
applicable to everything, whether it be to athletics, whatever it
be military. It doesn't make any difference running of business,
how you live. Then, everything in life that is meeting
value of worth involves work, time and effort. That's applicable
to everything. But again, the thing about plans. Think about plans,
(29:38):
you know what they can get screwed up, right, And
I talked about I've talked about this before here on
the program. Navy seals get on a battlefield train and
conditions are different than what you expected. What do you
do you go with the terrain? Warren Buffett mentioned this
before in the program It's two thousand and seven annual
message to shareholders. He wrote it in the form of
(30:00):
a help wanted advertisement. Wanted a young man or a
woman with the potential to manage a very large portfolio.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
The ideal candidate must be.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Someone genetically programmed to recognize and avoid serious risks, including
those never before encountered.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Other key requirements independent thinking, emotional stability, and a key
understanding of both human and institutional behavior. Again, things are
going to happen sometimes, and again we're pretty darn good
at calling them here on the program ahead of time,
(30:36):
Very very good. Okay.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
The problem is is that all the people on TV
that make the predictions and tell you what to do,
it's an arrogance.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
They don't know what they don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
It's called in psychology, it's called the Dunning Krueger effect.
It's a cognitive bias in which people of low ability
have this illusion of superiority and mistake. Can we assess
their cognitive ability as greater than it is? Okay, you
want to avoid people like that? Again, Shocks shocks, Some
(31:11):
things benefit from shocks. They thrive and they grow when
exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder. This is what you want
your portfolio to do. Got to take a break.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com again, become part of our
family at Markowski at Spens, our personal CFO program.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
Don't go anywhere, We'll be.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Back this Markowski is the Watchdog on Wall Street bringing
(32:00):
America financial freedom one listener at a time. You're listening
to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski in
the kitchen.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
Something. I've had a bit of a I want to
put it a bug up my buttlocks this past week,
and you most certainly, most certainly heard it on my podcasts,
going after a lot of the business press, the financial
press out there, and just how bad it is. I
(32:30):
watched these people that come on again, who's that person?
What do they run? I take a look. They barely
run any money whatsoever. They're useful, quite frankly to many
of these producers on these business programs out there, because
they do what they're told. A little insider baseball in
regards to business press and business news. And I'm going
(32:52):
to take you back in time to when I was
I was a kid. You're talking almost thirty years ago.
We're a bit of the whipping boys at Markowski Investments
during the nineteen nineties because we were contrarian. We were
pointing out the ridiculous valuations in these dot com companies.
We were pointing out that their business models really didn't
make much any sense whatsoever. But I got a lot
(33:14):
of attention when I wrote a column entitled Understanding Enron, and.
Speaker 2 (33:18):
You can see it.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
All my columns are archived up on our site. And
in that I basically laid out the case against Enron.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
Now who in the world, every Wall Street firm out there,
strong by Strong, by Strong by Strong, by.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Fortune Magazine, most innovative company in the country five years
in a row. I think maybe one, maybe Chanos was
against Enron, maybe a couple others, not many.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
I didn't get it. I said, two plus students did
not equal twenty. But that's what they keep saying.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
None of it made it much sense to me, And
I wrote the column and the stock proceeded to go
higher for like the next ten to eleven months. Yeah,
making fun of me, Oh, you know what you're talking about,
until it didn't anymore, and it proceeded to tank and
do exactly what I said it was going to do
what I thought it was going to do, and I
got a phone call gain us. It would have been
(34:09):
a big coup for Markowski Investments. At the time, we
were only a few years in. Remember back this is
back in the nineties when the still the evening news,
the six thirty news, National news was still kind of big.
And I was invited to talk about you know, n
run and I get a phone call from the producers,
because this is what they do, they do pre interviews,
(34:30):
do pre interviews, and they started asking me questions and
they didn't like the answers I was giving.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I could tell I was slated.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I was supposed to fly from New York to DC,
going to go on the program there to put me up.
Was exciting for me. It's going to be great for
Markowski Investments. Until I started telling them the truth and
how many of the big investment firms were involved with
this and all the behind the scenes stuff that was
going on, and then I got canceled. You know, you see,
those big investment firms happened to be pretty big advertisers.
Speaker 1 (35:00):
You see, same same.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
Thing held through during the financial crisis was I was
regular on CNN, regular on CNN, and they'd have their
you know, their producers call me, and you know, I
would be kind of COI, kind of COI with them,
and then you know, I started getting some blowbag. You know,
you didn't say that during the pre interview. I said,
you didn't ask that. You know, I don't understand why
(35:25):
you have to pre interview me in the first place.
This is a conversation, is it. But it's not. That's
that's not how television works. It's all prepared. The people
that are asking the question, they got to have stuff
in the teleprompter fed to them, and they can't stand it.
They can't stand it when a guest will throw them off.
Case in point, I'm on with Don Lemon talking about
(35:48):
student loans and I have to break down and explain
to them how student loans in aid are making the
cost of college go up.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And he was like a deer caught in headlights.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
I don't play their games, so I don't go on
these programs anymore. They want you to, oh, send us
what your buys are, so all this stuff, and they
want to find somebody that's going to be against you
so you can battle out. You could be fight fight, fight, fight, fight,
like you're back in eighth grade, fighting outside the cafeteria
after lunch.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
What purpose does that serve? None? None? And again they
had the same people. What's the point?
Speaker 3 (36:27):
What it's the same panelists, same answers to questions. Oh oh,
all of a sudden, Oh, you know, there's some risk
in some of these IPOs. You know, you might have
wanted to maybe mention that rather than having their CEOs
on the program and kissing their buttocks again and again
and again, you know, before and then the stock tanks
(36:48):
and everybody loses a ton of money. You play a
part of this. You tout these things. You know, nineteen nineties,
every every dot com company CEO with a goatee, was
it coming on the program to tout their company? You
don't even ask difficult questions for crying out loud. Dug
Cast portfolio manager put out a funny bit this past week,
(37:09):
and he actually quoted Dean Wermer from Animal House, Fat, drunk,
and stupid is no way to go through life, son
and basically said, smug, condescending and full of hubris is
no way to invest. And that's how these people act.
You see, I'm aware. I'm aware that I don't know
(37:32):
what might happen tomorrow, and I know this, and guess
what our portfolios are prepared to deal with. This column
I wrote again twenty years ago, Financial planning reality. I've
talked about it then, conventional wisdom being poison.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Poison, It didn't matter.
Speaker 3 (37:57):
Financial advice coming fromjournalists shlockbrokers is always the inverse of
what is prudent for individuals.
Speaker 2 (38:08):
You need to understand that Wall Street and the business
press are.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Enriched, enriched when people are essentially brainwashed into this culture
of buy, sell and hold. Yeah, financial independence top twenty.
Put that out there.
Speaker 2 (38:27):
You know what.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
You understand that that business programming is just entertainment. Financial
journalism is an oxymoron, if there ever was one. You
need to understand that then make any difference whether it's
mad money for crying out loud. There's an actual fund
out there that does the exact opposite of what Jim
(38:50):
Kramer tells you to do, and it does pretty well
for crying out loud. Get your financial plan, preparation, practice,
proper fundamentals. That's what we do. That is what is
going to.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Make you wealthy. There are no other shortcuts.
Speaker 3 (39:11):
Watchdog on wallstreet dot com, Watchdog on wallstreet dot com,
We'll be back.
Speaker 1 (39:27):
You're listening to the watch Dog on Wall Street
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