EP 45: Recession Or Not?

“Are we headed for a recession?” is a simple question that almost always gets a sloppy answer, so we decide to do it the hard way: slow down, challenge the headlines, and ask what the numbers actually say. We talk inflation the way normal people experience it at the gas pump, then pull it back to core inflation and long-run context, because a true point turns into nonsense the moment it becomes a meme.

From there, we zoom into South Florida as a live laboratory for policy tradeoffs. Labor supply changes, contractor licensing, and immigration enforcement ripple into wages, project quality, rents, and occupancy. We wrestle with the uncomfortable part: you can “fix” one problem and accidentally break three others, which is why tidy talking points rarely survive contact with housing and labor markets.

Then we go after education and misinformation. We argue about college ROI, student loans, and why the goal is not only earning power but also basic civic understanding so you do not get played by rage-bait posts. Finally, we bring it into the present with AI and ethics: how underwriting models can bake in bias, why “data-driven” still needs human judgment, and a surprisingly revealing example involving Apple devices versus Android.

If you like smart arguments, real-world examples, and a little nostalgia about the first time an iPhone blew your mind, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves debating the news, and leave us a review with the stat or headline you want us to fact-check next.

Real Estate Talk Podcast with Jesus Castanon - @retalkpodcast: The Ultimate Real Estate Unveiling! Raw, Real & Revealing insights from industry experts

Dive headfirst into real estate's most electrifying depths with industry legends - Jesus Castanon, Josh Cadillac, and Richard L. Barbara. Why legends? With billion-dollar deals, groundbreaking innovations, and wisdom that's transformed the landscape, they've not just witnessed the game; they've been the game-changers. And if that's not enough, they're joined by a parade of industry-expert guests, spilling secrets and dishing advice that you won't hear anywhere else.

Expect RAW, REAL strategies that shook the market, REVEALING insights, and timely takes on today's market, coupled with actionable advice.

This isn't your typical real estate chitchat. This is RETalkPodcast - where the titans and top minds of the industry unite. Dive in, and prepare to have your real estate perceptions rocked!

Meet The Legends:

Jesus Castanon: Visionary CEO of Real Estate EMPIRE Group, transforming property transactions into success stories.

Josh Cadillac: Renowned real estate coach, national speaker, and author; revolutionizing the art of 'closing for life.'

Richard L. Barbara, Esq.: Florida's legal luminary, pioneering change and setting the gold standard in real estate advocacy.

Transcript

Recession Talk And Inflation Claims

SPEAKER_05 0:00

All right, Richard, let's get right to it since we don't have a lot of time today. So you think we're going into a recession? I have no idea, frankly. Uh Costco seems to think so, and so do some other economists. Costco, huh? That's where we're taking our financial advice from now? Not me. That was your uh cruise director. You agreed with it. You agreed with it. No.

SPEAKER_06 0:22

On the contrary, I said that I don't think it's possible to go into recession because we have Mr. Trump as president. And with Mr. Trump as president, inflation's gonna go down even though it's up, the debt's going down even though it's up, the deficit's going down even though it's up, inflation's going down even though it's up. So, like up is down. So I I don't I don't think so at all. On the contrary, I couldn't be happier.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

So I'm curious. I have to ask. I love the inflation is a thing. It's up from what? It's up from what you know, if if you're talking about having to deal with the adult decision of going and dealing with Iran, which is somebody somebody needed to do at some point. And the bullshit argument that everybody loves, oh, well, we paid them not to do it, and they haven't come up with one yet. What's the one thing they're holding to right now that they want? They don't want, they want to keep their uranium. So the idea that they are not a bad actor and they're not trying to do this, this had to be dealt with. And unfortunately, right now, it has to hurt at the gas pump a little bit. But the thing that concerns me is the 0.2% growth from 2.6 to 2.8 that we have been running and core inflation. But as soon as you pull fuel out of that number, it's 2.6 to 2.8. It's actually right in keeping with where inflation has been for the last 40 years. So like saying it's up is is kind of well, it's kind of not as factual as I'd love.

SPEAKER_06 1:53

Well, I mean, it's it's as misleading as the Trump phone or less misleading? Is it as mis wait, is it as misleading as like no new wars or more misleading? Is it as misleading what about the energy costs? Remember the super clip I sent you that you guys conveniently ignored? Are energy costs down or up? I mean, I'm just asking. Listen, none of this bothers me. I don't give a shit. I filled up today, cost me$489. I realized that if I go to the marathon on 37th Avenue and like 22nd Street, I pay$489. If I go to the marathon on Dixie by UM, I pay$4.99. And between you and I, the$10, I don't give a fuck about the$10 cents. I it's just a matter of where I'm at. But it's not what I remember. I mean, I remember I remember hearing that, bro, it was gonna be fucking paradise. This is the thing that I don't I don't mind. Listen, it doesn't when this when how was the stock market under Biden, Jesus? Because you no no, because you see, no, no, no, because you and your buddy Caballero used to say that it was fucking trash and propped up by sticks. And I mean, I don't get it, bro. What like why can't you guys say, damn, it's pretty fucked up, man? You came out, you said we're gonna have a phone, it's American made, it's gonna have the biggest phone dick in America, it's all American, and there's no fucking phone, bro. There's and there's not gonna be a phone, bro. And then you're gonna call me and say, no, no, it's a startup, there's risks.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Bro, get the fuck out of here, bro.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, see, this is this, this is the kind of I mean, I this is what I have no problem with. I have no problem with that kind of argument. It's when they throw out this absolute clickbait bullshit, inflation is up kind of stuff. That's what bugs me. You want to take and talk about the phone? It's it's predicated, it's predicated on people that are don't understand the basics, the stuff that Richard complains about all the time. I mean, I know he's throwing the argument out there just to take and stir the pot because I know he knows the difference. I mean, he's just totally breaking balls. You can see the smile on his face right now, the ball busting pleasure that he genuinely gets from this. Uh, and that's the thing. Like, I don't I I I like the good arguments, just they throw the bad ones out at the same time. It deteriorates the value of the good arguments that there are out there, the things that there are to really complain about.

SPEAKER_06 4:34

I don't think there's honestly, I don't think there's anything to complain about because ever since January of 2025, I mean, this is like a utopia. I mean, this is the bet uh it's the greatest place ever. I mean, let's face it. We kicked out a bunch of fucking grannies, gardeners, carpenters. I mean, fuck these people. Not only that, not only that, but I feel so much safer. I mean, I go out and I'm over what I'm hit with a you know what's hilarious to me?

SPEAKER_00 5:08

A tsunami of safety. I I love I love the insulated ivory tower that you live in. Because as a general contractor, my friend, I can actually almost make a livable wage now because the market is unfortunately now not inundated with people that are unlicensed, uninsured, coming in and devaluing the quality of work. That I have gone through the very arduous process of being licensed, the hardest state in the union to get licensed as a contractor. And I went through that bullshit. I pay for the very expensive insurance, and these gardeners and grannies that you're talking about have been deteriorating my ability to be able to charge in parts of the country that don't have that.

SPEAKER_06 5:53

I'm glad you said that because I was just about to say, you know, man, it's the double-edged sword of South Florida. The double-edged sword of South Florida. Meanwhile, your real estate business is booming, whereas in fucking Kentucky, they're fucking eating cable, right? As the Cubans say. So it's like, yeah, you know what? Here, you gotta deal with that, you gotta deal with that. But you know what? The properties always sell here.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

I mean there's there's that piece, but there's the one other big piece that there is in the real estate market, which is rents have softened, which is a factor of them removing people from the country. And that has hurt the investors. I mean, there's there's a case to be made that there's all these unintended consequences. I'm I'm a big believer in Thomas Sowell's rule of unintended law of unintended consequences that he talks about so much. You know, you take and you now pull people out. What are you doing? You're driving up the cost of doing certain things that the work that those people did. Also, who were your tenants? Those people needed a place to live. They're not here anymore. Now what? Now your rent of soft, and we can take and blame it on the short-term rental market, we can blame it on a lot of things, but there are fewer human beings to take and fill those spaces. It is, it is a thing. It's messy. Acting like it's not messy, acting like it's simple, acting like these talking heads have the actual answer on on media, it's just not so. These things are a lot messier than what they at what Mr. Trump and what every other politician makes it sound like. It's a lot messier than what they say.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

Yeah, I agree. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

I'm I'm on the road, but I mean I can try to zoom. I I don't Kevin should have told you that. I I can't do it on Friday. Um I'm teaching from eleven to two.

SPEAKER_06 7:55

I don't know what's wrong with Kevin, but he's been a little off lately. What's going on here, buddy?

SPEAKER_00 8:04

And this for our listeners is what goes on behind the scenes.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

What time what time are you starting at?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Ten o'clock? All right, I I I don't want it eleven, so I can give you like ten to ten thirty, ten forty-five. Um, and and try to give you something strong to to uh to kick it off if you want.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Thursday I can do.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

What time Thursday is perfect. I got nothing on Thursday.

SPEAKER_06 9:34

It looks okay for now. Yeah, I mean I don't control my life unlike you, bro. So you know, it looks good.

Immigration Crackdowns And Local Labor

SPEAKER_00 9:50

And send me a calendar invite, please. All right. Awesome. I have something to do on Thursday now. I'm supposed to. I'll tell you, you want to know about something that's really a bloodbath? Agents are not showing up to education anywhere in the country right now. It is bad. So Tampa, I did it, I I I I side hustles, they're they're not they're not closing what they need to. Agents are are really um Yeah, bro.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Everybody wants to be an agent when the market's good, bro. As soon as the market is not that good, then it used to be more.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

It used to be that they would show up to education when the market wasn't as good because they would try to figure out what they could do to make things better. They're not showing up. And so, like Tampa, this year, Tampa's canceled maybe a dozen classes on me. And it's uh it's it's really interesting. Um well, I think that COVID taught agents the thing called side hustles. And so they're driving Uber, they're doing other stuff to take and try to make ends meet because uh since the beginning of the year, uh things have picked up in most of the markets that were struggling, but it's picked up an activity, but the number of closings hasn't really spiked. So people are interested in real estate, they're sniffing around uh the market, but it it seems like the number of actual transactions uh has people people aren't closing as much as a lot of agents need them to, um, is part of it, is kind of what I'm saying. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

Architect? Architect engineer, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Architect engineer, yeah. I mean I would say I would say degrees like in high finance, so folks that are are gonna go to like Wall Street stuff like that, um, where they uh you know, you're gonna have to understand that a little bit more that differential math.

Real Estate Agents And Training Dropoff

SPEAKER_06 12:42

You also have to ask yourself, like, what is your barometer for utility? Like what what in your mind makes it worth it? Well, I mean, I I would say for example, like like and let me just give you an example, okay? You can go and get an undergraduate degree in any number of fields that aren't gonna make you rich, but they are going to like you are going to learn like about you know basic things that people yeah, well, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, YouTube doesn't offer like a curriculum. You can search how do I build an airplane on YouTube, but like you're not subjecting yourself to a structured curriculum, and there's no there's no verification that that video is actually teaching you how to properly make a plane. Okay, let's start with that. But let me give you an example. I have a friend who shall remain nameless. And this, oh, you sure do. And this friend of mine is a clickbait rage monster. I think I know who it is. And so, and so one day this guy sends me this this uh, you know, he sends me a um a link or a or a post to like a meme, okay, or like one of these things. And I'll never forget it. Was like vote no on referendum 485, which will increase the cost of ammunition nationwide to like a zillion dollars, because this is how they're coming after the Second Amendment. Okay, and this person gets this somehow their algorithm produces this meme for them, and then they send it out to everybody, and they're fired up. They're like the Democrats are trying to take the Second Amendment by making ammunition tax 4,000 percent. We gotta vote against it. Okay, and and that person's all wound up, and he sends it to 20 of his friends. Let me finish, let me finish. 18 of which are as stupid as, or let me let me let me rephrase. Let me rephrase 18 of which are as ignorant and and as uneducated as he is. So those 18 people, they get wound up, and then they they forward it along to their friends, like my father-in-law, for example, who I love to death, who gets it, gets all wound up. Okay, and and he turns around and sends it this. So we're spreading this cancer of stupidity. And what happens is that a guy like me looks at it and I and I remember saying to this friend of mine, I'm like, are you gonna vote no on this? And this friend of mine's like, absolutely. And I'm like, me too, because I'm a gun lover. I I love guns, I have guns, and the last thing I want is this kind of law to pass. So I want you to pick me up that day, and we're gonna go together to the polls to vote against it. But the reality is that that person is only fired up about that because they lack basic education. Like they didn't go to school where they would have been taught that that's absolutely not how it works in the United States, that there's no scenario on which guys like me and you are gonna vote on a bill like that. Because that's not the way it works. So if if you think like like you do, where it's like the only purpose of education is to make money, then of course, bro, of course, of course, go on school. But but no, hold on, I'm not doing it yet. You can as soon as I'm done. But but if you understand that the value of education is so that you can't be tricked by some fucking internet troll into thinking that you can go out and fucking go, that's just not how, again, honestly, that's just not how most people think. You could go to law school, okay, and spend a bunch of money on your degree. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You could want you could go to law school and go work for the state attorney's office, bro. Because you want to eventually be a criminal defense lawyer. And and most successful and wealthy criminal defense lawyers work for the government first. And you know what? It's the lowest paying job there is. Like it right now, the state when I was graduating from law school, I went to work at the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Can I no no no no no? We we want our kids, we want our no no, no, no, that's not what I said.

SPEAKER_06 19:04

What I'm saying is that what I'm saying is that that's no, no, no. What I'm what I'm saying is that it's not the only consideration. Like, can I can I weigh it on your guess? Yes, but the but yes, but but but the issue is do you have to get out and make six figures on day one? That's not the way it works in life sometimes, bro. You go, you pay, it's like going to the fucking military. Let me ask you this, bro. Should you serve your country if the fucking, if you when you walk in as a pirate, as a private, you make only a little bit of money? Like, what are you saying, bro? That only if they're gonna pay you six figures, should you go to the military?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I I I I I I want to ridiculous argument. We need infantrymen. I want to I want to go back to the the the crux of your argument because I believe actually, Rich, there's a little bit of a self-defeating piece in your argument, which is that 18 of 20 people got roped in to that argument. That was your that was your your distribution.

SPEAKER_06 20:11

You're not gonna tell me 18 of the 20 people to which my buddy said.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

All right, so so so let me ask you a question, because I know how you feel about our education system and what a failure it is. If they didn't go in to get a degree in law where they specifically talk about how this goes on, what percentage of college graduates actually know that?

SPEAKER_06 20:35

No, actually, it's it's fun. I'm so glad you said that, Cadillac, because you know what? I agree with you. The one thing that I think we agree on wholeheartedly across all topics is that the American education system is a fucking disaster. But the reality is that how a bill becomes a law is taught like in the fifth grade with a nursery run. Like I wish, I wish that we had the technological capability for me to right now pull up and show for our viewers the little cartoon like song of I'm just a bill, just a little old bill, and I'm making my way through Capitol Hill, right? Because it's like what happens is our education system is so bad that guys like Jesus, who were shown that video, don't remember it, and yet they passed. Like this guy's like, I only graduated from high school. It's like, well, it's a miracle because they taught how a bill became a law way before high school.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

But but here's the quote, here's the question What is the incentive? Where are the incentives placed in the schooling system that we have? It's it's paid based on passing the test, not retaining the information. And so what I'm saying to you is he is a success story based upon where the where the incentives lie. If the incentives are set up and so Such a way that you regurgitate information long enough to pass the test and then immediately control all, delete, get rid of all of it. So if that's where the incentives lie, and so this is the thing that you know, I I understand what you're pointing to, and I can I can concede that there are ancillary benefits to higher education. Yet in my own higher education journey, which was truncated, I only went for two additional years, I found it to be a not only a waste of time, I think I was dumber from having gone by virtue of some of the dumbest people I ever met, as far as like very well educated, but like stupid about how the world worked, were the professors that I had. Like these were people that genuinely didn't know how the real world worked, but because of their installation by their job, their job is very risk-averse. I don't have a my brother's a college teacher, so like I I I don't have a problem with it, but it's a risk-averse career. You're gonna get a paycheck. You know, you don't, you're not really what's that? Do you remember the movie Cocktail? No.

SPEAKER_06 23:01

Oh, yeah, cocktail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He shipped on his professor and gets kicked out of the class because like he writes this paper in his business class in college about like um the proliferation of these like bars. You know, like these francs, he wants to franchise these bars all over the place. And the professor, who speaks like in a British accent, of course, like shits on his idea, you know, and like when he's making fun of it, I I don't remember the exact context, but like Tom Cruise makes a sarcastic comment about like the got the professor's critique. And he's like, Oh, you know, you can't handle like some constructive criticism. And Tom Cruise replies something like, Not from some con who hides here because he can't hack it in the real world. And he's like, Well, let's see how you hack it with an F in this course. And he throws like his paper in the air. So that that concept is age-old, you know. And by the way, in in law school, we have the same thing. We say, A students become professors, yeah, B students become judges, and C students make all the money. So, I mean, I get it. Academia is the refuge of the risk averse, no doubt. Um I just I just think that the value of education lies in something more than if I had a son, if I had a son and I had any input, uh other obviously other than as his as his father, but you know, like again, my father wanted me to be a Marine. Okay, and I I wiped my ass with that. So let's face it. So so if I had any input, I I would probably want my son to be a doctor. I don't know. You you asked me what you asked me what degree I would want my son to be some kind of doctor. And if you if you ask me why, the answer is because number one, doctors by and large are financially stable, successful people. They may not necessarily be billionaires or even mega millionaires unless they invent something, you know, like a stent. Like the guy that invented the stents, a guy named Barry Katzen. He's a dear friend, he's at Baptist, he's a zillionaire, you know. So unless you do something like that, you're probably not gonna become a uh a zillionaire, but they they're stable, they're well educated, and 100% of what they do is to help people. Whereas in my business, as a lawyer, as a lawyer, if if you if you're a litigator and you do a very good job for your client, that's great. You're doing a great job for your client, but the better you do for your client, the more harm you're causing on a super human.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

Right? Horrible. It's horrible, horrible. That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_06 26:21

Yeah, yeah. That's why I'm saying that's why if I had if I had some input, I would say doctor, because again, not only do you get all the financial benefits that we're talking about, but but you you can also say that 100% of the time you're trying to help people. You you might not always win, your patients die, you have horrible outcomes, you might fuck something up, you take out the wrong organ, all kinds of shit. But but at least you're trying to do good all the time. You know, and I don't think that's true.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

It's it's not true of lawyers.

SPEAKER_06 27:15

In the business world, I guess I would say maybe a degree in finance. You know, go to New York, get an internship at a big um financial firm, a Morgan Stanley, uh, you know, Solomon Smith Barney, JP Morgan, um, learn a little bit about things like our friend, our mutual friend, Alex Montegong, you know, who's been a wildly successful individual. The guy went to Balen. Yeah, he went to Balen. He was an amazing student, and then he went to an Ivy League school, and then he went to a big you know fund and a firm, and he learned, and now he's an incredibly successful entrepreneur. And and I think that's it due in no small part to his higher education and his mastery of finance and numbers and things like that. He teamed up, I don't recall offhand, but I mean he went to Balen. Um, and from there he went to a um a big school, you know, and um, and then he did his time like working for a hedge fund. Um and, you know, like I said, he he got himself all the background, the intelligence, again, the patience. That was the whole thing. Like Montecong is a guy that if you ask him, you know, he might have been making six figures when he came out of school, but he did all the school in the world. Like he went to graduate school. You know, it's the same thing with these doctors. Like, you know, these doctors, they do residency, like they're it's they're 36 before they get their first like real paying job.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

Yeah, they're broken in debt.

College ROI Versus Civic Literacy

SPEAKER_06 28:43

Yeah, so if your like objective is like I gotta be 24 and graduate and making six figures, then maybe it's not for you. Maybe school's not for you, but that's not the way everybody sees it. You know, there's this concept of paying your dues that people have forgotten.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

I I think that there's there's uh a piece of what you said that uh I kind of want to latch onto a little bit, which is the idea that you know, by going to school you become educated. And I think that one of the things that's kind of uh beautiful and amazing about the world that we live in is there's so many other ways to educate yourself now that I think uh the ROI factor on it can be can be a lot better. Um I find that I learn more in a lot shorter periods of time when I go to things that are uh adult education oriented, where they respect the fact that you know I have a limited amount of time and they're gonna try to give me bang for the buck. I think, hey, Seuss, you you went with me to CCIM. I mean, I would stack that up against a year in college any day of the week because I mean it was you know, all day, every day they were they were really making you making you go. And I mean, audiobooks, YouTube videos, all these kind of things. Obviously, your point to your point.

SPEAKER_06 30:20

Yeah, I mean it used to be a big encyclopedia. Yeah, I mean Yeah, ask your kid what an encyclopedia is. Yeah, like that that's that's the point you're making, bro. Like if you wanted to know about the fucking Australian, you know, bat beetle, which I just made up, you had to go to the fucking encyclopedia. Like you didn't have a phone in your hand.

SPEAKER_03 30:42

No, and I mean I I don't. Of course not. Of course not. Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

I think that's that's kind of the point. I I I and this is the thing. Like, I think you we could probably all agree that we've all agreed that the education system leaves something to be desired. It's also very monolithic. And the fact that the government has blanket just anybody that wants a loan, we're gonna give them a loan to go to go to school for whatever degree you want. Like, we're not gonna really underwrite it, we're not gonna check whether or not you're gonna have any ability to pay this back based upon the degree. It it is so far, it hasn't really changed while the world around it has changed so much, which which has to lead you to believe that it's it's it's not doing the job as well as it should, by virtue of the fact that it's being artificially propped up by the fact that there's just this incredible access to capital because the government is willing to back all of these loans or float these college not back, but float these college loans for just about anybody that wants a degree in anything. And it's it's allowed them to stay um unresponsive to how the world has changed as far as uh you know teaching people more and and getting better results and changing how we're teaching based upon how the world is.

AI Knowledge Access And Self Discipline

SPEAKER_06 32:07

So I I think that's right. And and and I want to answer Jesus's question with with some um yeah, yeah, the the access to knowledge and the AI one um and and Cadillac's um supplement to it about how you know, hey, we don't underwrite. Like, you know, if you want to go to school and you want to have a degree in liberal arts or whatever else, or underwater basket weaving, or fucking, you know, the uh you know, like the suppression of uh cultural expansion, all this bullshit that you can get yeah, that yeah, that you can get at the team, yeah, and and he may not you you you want to you want to bet? Bro, make one today. You know, and so and and and Cadillac's point of like we don't have a business view of these things, so we don't go through this process of like, hey, if we give this person fifty thousand dollars to pursue this this topic, what's the likelihood that they can pay us back? And you'd have to get into like, well, what what what field can they get into, etc.? And so we don't do any of this, okay? And that's what Cadillac is saying. And he and he's and I think, okay, and he can correct me if I'm wrong. And the system, the the system that we have that administers these processes has been the same for 50 years, wherein like in the past 10 years alone, the world has changed radically. As you're pointing out, Jesus, AI, you know, and the amount of access to information we have. And so I'll give you this example. When Cindy and I, for the audience, that's my that's my wife. When Cindy and I were dating, okay, way back, and we've been together 28 years now, we were dating. Early on, they they made a movie out of a famous book called The Time Machine. Okay, and the Time Machine is this very famous book. The author's name is escaping me right now, but it's a great book, and the whole concept of the book is that this guy who's a scientist, his his girl, his fiance, gets killed in this tragic accident. And so that sets this guy off on this obsession to discover and crack the secret of time travel because he wants to go back in time and correct the problem so that his fiance survives. And he, of course, invents a time machine. And at the beginning of the movie and the book, by the way, he goes back 50 times. And every time he goes back and he changes something so that, like, and by the way, let me start like this: the original death is that she's like, you know, this is like early 1900s, okay? So horse and carriage is still a big deal, and it's winter time and it's Christmas time, and they're making their way through like Central Park, and she comes out into the street and she gets run over by a horse-drawn carriage, okay, and she dies. And so, of course, the first time when he builds the machine, he goes back in time, and the first thing he does is try to attempt a different way out of the park. He's like, hey, we're not gonna go out on that street, we're gonna go somewhere else. Okay, and they go somewhere else, and guess what? The chick dies again. Okay, and so she dies again and he goes back again and he changes it, and she goes back again and he changes it, and finally he realizes he's like, the answer is not in the past, the answer is in the future. So he starts taking the machine into the future to figure out like why he can't fix this problem. And along the way, and this is an aside, he stops like in a modern society. So let's say he he goes forward like 150 years. So imagine from like 1910, he goes to like 2016. Okay, and when he gets out, it's exactly like you'd imagine shiny buildings, bro, and flying cars and shit and these subways and blah blah blah. And he he gets out and he's looking around and he goes into this museum, which just happens to be right across the street. Okay, and he walks into this museum, and what does he see? Is a class of like students, bro. So there's like 20 students, and like the teacher, and they're doing a field trip of the museum, and she walks them to this exhibit, and this is the point of the story with my girlfriend, and this exhibit is a piece of glass, a thin piece of glass, like a flat panel TV in the middle of the museum. And when they walk up to it, a hologram of a man appears, and they can ask it whatever they want. They're like, hey, talk to me about mango trees. And the guy's like, sure. And he goes like this, and he puts on the screen, bro, mangoes and the history of mangoes and the variations and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And it's amazing. And and our scientist, who's from 1910, he's observing this like from behind this group of kids, and he's bro, he's mesmerized. He's like, right? And so when the kids move away, he walks up to the glass, and sure enough, the hologram comes out, and the hologram is like an AI, okay, to your point, like it interacts with him, and he's like, and the hologram's like, Can I help you? And he's like, Yes, what are you? And the hologram's like, Oh, I'm the knowledge 5000, I'm a complete compendium of all human knowledge, and so the scientist now he's like, Oh, you are. He's like, Okay, well, uh, talk to me about time travel, and the AI rolls its eyes, he goes, science fiction, and he like puts up all these topics, and the doctor's offended. He's like, No, no, no, no, no, no. Practical application, you know, and like then it starts to show him like the few humans that took it seriously. Point is we he the guy, he he so can't believe the thin glass that has like, you know, from a different time, he goes like this, and he looks behind it to see if the person's you know actually behind the glass, right? But the point is that when we leave the movie, I say to my wife, I'm my then girlfriend, I'm like, man, that thing at the museum was so awesome. Can you imagine being able to go to like the museum and like talking to a computer that has like all human knowledge in it? Like in my mind, that was like, imagine the work it would take to take everything we know and put it into like a database that we could then access. I'm like, that going to a place seemed to me like no inconvenience at all. Think about it. If you had to go to the library to Google, how do you Google? Or use AI like it's better, they gave it to us. Look, in our in our pockets, bro. We that museum exhibit, we walk around with it in our pockets. So the answer to your question is our access to education right now is is it's ridiculous, it's unlimited information. No, it does not because what happened, it it does not. Let me tell you why it does not. Because there are many people in the world that can't learn or work out or uh get better on their own. Okay, like me, for example. I can't like be expected to work out consistently if I have to go to the gym by myself. Okay, like I just won't do it, bro. I need somebody in front of me telling me what to do, counting. Okay, like listen, if you tell me to do 15 if you tell me to do 15, yeah, if you if you if you tell me to do 15 reps, and you're not counting, I do 12.

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Okay, like if you're not counting, I will do 12.

SPEAKER_06 40:27

Okay, so so what happens is yeah, the the access to the information is out there, but I I would submit that for some, for some people, like listen, we always talk about goodwill hunting or or even Cadillac. Guy, if you can have a library card and learn and go teach yourself everything, God bless you. You're a different kind of genius, bro. You're not only educated, you're a genius. Me personally, I'm too stupid. Okay, I need somebody to teach me, I need them to tell me, hey, we got to go through this process. Same thing at the gym. You gotta do this many reps, you gotta count. I'm counting, no, do it right. So, so the infrastructure remains important. I agree with Cadillac, it requires modernization. And by the way, I'm not a fan of our education system. Our education system is shit. It's shit. The problem is once you get to higher education, college and graduate school, you have some control over making sure you get the most out of it. Right? Like in law school, like I was just a very good student. Like, I I remember areas of the law that my contemporaries have no fucking idea because I just liked it. Like I learned it, I remember. But most people don't do that. They become horrible. I got kicked out of high school. But I graduated college with like literally like a 2.1 GPA. I couldn't go to any law school with that GPA. The only thing that saved me, as you will recall, that what you laughed at me about for years is 163. That my LSAT, I had scored up right, 163. My my yeah, my test was like big deal.

SPEAKER_03 42:08

Like it's like, oh, who cares about his grades? He can obviously do the work. No, no, no, my LSAT score.

SPEAKER_06 42:39

He used to send me a one of my when when when memes became something they weren't by the way, we're so old they weren't even called memes. Okay, it was just funny pictures that sent a message. It's the perfect side shot of a sheep in a field. No, a guy with the attention span of a fucking knack, you're trying to explain a complex topic.

SPEAKER_00 43:38

So I I th I think this actually ties in with what we talked about last week when we were talking about the the academic disconnect when it comes to licensure and what people actually need. I I think that that disconnect exists in higher education as well. And we we kind of referenced that last week as well with what we talked about. And and the the question I I then Becomes in a world where people have so many options. Um how does education better meet the needs of the modern student? Now, I mean, like what is the what is I know this is not our our our place to kind of answer that. We're not in the education business, but to some extent I kind of am. And for sure.

SPEAKER_06 44:24

You're you you're an unorthodox specialty education. Um, but but but but for sure.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

And so the the question then becomes how to how do we bridge that gap, fill that gap in in a way that's that's giving better ROI? Because I think that people's time can be used andor squandered in in much greater swaths than it used to be. The ability to squander time now with that little device you held up a minute ago is is unparalleled as well.

SPEAKER_06 45:18

He's like a Michelangelo, bro, like a Galileo. Unborrowed vision. I wouldn't put Elon Musk even even close to it as as much respect as I have for Elon Musk as Steve Jobs. Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Elon Musk is Elon Musk is more of like well, like for example, like for like for well, um I kind of get where you're going with this, I think. I I think first of all, first first of all, Steve Jobs, I think I don't want to say most people, but I think many people don't know that he wasn't actually like the designer behind a lot of like uh he wasn't the tech guy. Right, these crazy, crazy products, much like neither is Elon Musk. Like the guys that founded Tesla and created the technology, like he he kind of like he got the better of them, you know, like in a merger deal that he did with them, just like McDonald's. Like the like McDonald's, like the McDonald's brothers were humans, and they came up with the speedy system, and they ended up getting a million bucks, and Ray Kroc became a fucking billionaire. Okay, like Ray Kroc didn't invent anything other than the system for expansion, and that's what these guys are really good at. That that said though, I I I just from what I've read, I've read the Steve Jobs book, and then I've read some things about Elon Musk. I still think Steve Jobs was much more of a um visionary and an inventor than than Elon Musk is.

SPEAKER_00 46:59

Like it's so I I I I I I I think what what what and that's what I was thinking you were gonna say, Rich, is that the more creative of the two. I mean, like the unborrowed vision. I mean, I think that the thing that Musk has has maybe maybe has over him as the diversity of products that he's been successfully able to uh to thrive in. Um whereas Steve Jobs kind of was that that technology computers, microcomputer cell phone kind of thing.

SPEAKER_06 47:26

Uh whereas, you know, rockets, Tesla, PayPal, like I mean, I think the response to that is without the things that the guys like Steve Jobs did, the Musks couldn't do. Like, I mean, that you know, like when you were at Steve Jobs' time, like you just couldn't get into rockets.

SPEAKER_00 47:45

Yeah. You know, I mean I think I think we're always, you know. And there's there's a good argument for this. I was actually just having a conversation with somebody else the other day, uh, you know, whether we're smarter now than we used to be. And I I always I I say to people, you know, well, yeah, we're building on the shoulders of giants, I think. The the idea I said, okay, who do you know that's smarter than Socrates? Because that was like 3,000 years ago, and that guy was pretty freaking sharp. Uh and Pythagoras and all these guys. And these guys were coming up with it out of whole cloth. They were they were making this up. This didn't exist. And so now we're taking the basis of what they have and building on.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Well, they also had more time on the range.

SPEAKER_06 48:34

It wasn't exactly like that, but this goes it's kind of like a shiny example of the shortfalls of the American education system is Hashis' supposition as to how yeah, that's how they did it. I I I No, all bullshit aside, do you remember where all bullshit aside, do you remember where you were when you saw your first iPhone?

SPEAKER_03 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:25

By the way, for the audience, not not Yao Ming the basketball player, but in our endless disrespect for culture and identity, we we refer to like this tall Asian Cuban kid as Yao Ming.

SPEAKER_03 49:44

This is the pseudonym he's been assigned, yeah. I did not know that.

SPEAKER_06 49:55

Okay, but go ahead, go ahead. So Yao Ming gets in the car. Do you remember the first time you saw an iPhone?

SPEAKER_00 51:01

I I I I can't really say when I remember the first time I saw it was. I mean, I was I was a flip phone guy for a long time.

SPEAKER_06 51:08

I I like that. Then this is like I think a fair pool because it's gonna be two-thirds. Because let me tell you something, bro. I will never forget the first time I saw an iPhone. And it was, I was already a lawyer and I was working. I had my first law firm job. I was like Cole Scott and Cassane, and I was learning the concept of like my phone was a work device where I had email and everything else, and I had a black, I had no, no, no, I had a Blackberry 8700C. I'll never forget 8700C. This would be cool, like if we could put it on screen right now, people would be like, oh my god, I had that phone too. So I had this Blackberry 8700C, and I thought it was a great device. And it was a phone, and it had a fixed keyboard and the whole thing, an email, bam, bam, bam. It was great for work, it was wonderful. And um I went, it was a Thursday night, and and Jesus will love this, it'll be the uh the source of endless jokes. I got invited by my fraternity to come back and speak. Pick up, yeah, pick pick up grapes with your ass and things of that nature. Yeah, hazing. And so um I was asked to come and speak to the pledges, the new members, the people that wanted to be new members about the benefits of the fraternity, and blah, blah, blah. You know, like I was a leader of the fraternity, so I asked to come back. And sure enough, I go back, and after I do my thing and I'm talking, the meeting's over and I'm getting ready to leave. And and some of the then current undergraduates are there and they want to talk to me and they want to ask questions and all this shit. How can I can I intern for you and five? And I'll never forget this kid comes up and he's like, Can I have your number? And I'm like, Yeah, and he's like, Oh, I want to call you, I come maybe have lunch with you, and you know, I can pick your brain about things I want to do. And I'm like, Yeah, perfect. And he grabs his phone, and I'll never forget that he goes like this, and he goes, and I saw that the thing said slide to open. Yeah, and he goes like this, and then like in the screen, like all the apps like came up and it was like and they populated the screen, and I was like, and it had no buttons, right? And I was like, What? I was like, what the fuck is that? It had one button. The first iPhones had a button at the bottom, right? It had a button at the bottom, and I was like, what is this? And he goes, Oh, this is an iPhone, and I hadn't heard about it, but I was like, iPhone, Apple, get the fuck out of here, bro. I gotta work. And when I saw it, I was like, Oh, I have to have this one. And the very next day in the morning, I called, I called my assistant in the morning and I said, I need you to track down an iPhone. I have to have it today. And let me tell you, bro, I've never never never looked back.

SPEAKER_03 54:35

I mean, it's unbelievable.

AI Ethics In Underwriting Plus Wrap

SPEAKER_00 55:09

Can I give you some ammunition for that? I'm gonna give you some ammunition. You're gonna love this. So my brother is taking a master's degree right now in artificial intelligence. Because um he's yeah, well, because he's going to parlay that with his philosophy degree for ethical compliance uh in AI, because it's a big, big issue, right? They're they're looking for ethics, all people that understand ethics to to take in and work with AI. So um one of the big issues that they have is when AI does underwriting, which one of the big places they're using AI a lot for is underwriting stuff. It's taking in a whole bunch of other stuff that it knows about people and using that to make underwriting decisions that are problematic, like that can violate fair housing and things like that. One of the ones that he said is that folks that have Apple devices are far more likely to repay their loans than folks that have non-Apple devices.

SPEAKER_03 56:10

I love you, dude.

SPEAKER_06 56:17

It's not Samsung, it's it's not Samsung. It's it's not Samsung, it's Android. You have to be an it's an Android user, and I agree with you, bro. I I try not I try not to associate with too many Android people. It's a disaster. And by the way, these people that they by the way, there are many Android users, and dude, we're about to piss off a shitload of people. But there's a lot of Android users out there that they they take like this weird pride in like not having an iPhone. They're like, no, no, my Android, my Android and my Android has been doing the shit your fucking iPhone's been doing since I'm Android 1. Yeah, and it's like guys, I got guys, I got news for you, bro. You guys have a special void in your heart, bro. Like, you guys don't know what it is to love an iPhone.

SPEAKER_00 57:16

One of these days I'll have to get Timothy to come on here and talk to you guys about some of the stuff he's seeing with the with the AI stuff and the ethics. I I think you it it's it's mind-bogglingly interesting.

SPEAKER_06 57:26

Um I'm gonna go ahead and I'm not sure we discussed anything overly productive today, but it might be entertaining.

SPEAKER_00 57:37

I I think I think it was definitely that.

SPEAKER_06 57:43

Yeah, hey, hey, Kevin, what the fuck? Are we ever gonna post the last one? Or just let me know if you're here to waste my motherfucking time.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

All right, guys. Don't sign off just yet. Hang on.