Welcome back to meet! Kevin report episode number 19. A lot to talk about today. We'll talk about the new bare bets that are being made in the market. We'll also talk a lot about uh, what's going on with pricing, what's going on with jobs? what kind of inflation data are we actually seeing Beyond just the sticks.

What are we seeing happening in politics? and what's some other news that's going on? Let's get it all covered. Let's get started first. I'd like to mention this and I haven't been able to confirm this. I Just saw this pop up but uh, here's someone who I was actually having a debate with yesterday on uh Twitter and they just posted the following: Just got a DM from someone who worked for Google on the AI demo.

Remember that Google's AI demo had the failure of fact uh regarding one of the telescopes and which telescope first saw exoplanets blah blah I'm not a scientist but either way it went wrong. The uh Bard gave wrong information it. Apparently this individual says that 168 people were laid off and all they did was prepare slides for the demonstration Google executives are upset. Uh, and the the quote here has mean a bunch of co-workers so isn't that my co-workers and I anyway I just got laid off from Google for the AI demo gone wrong.

it was a team of 168 who prepared the slides for the demo. All of us are out of jobs. First of all, how the hell do you need 168 people to put together a slideshow? You know, like I mean if if the product works well, you shouldn't need more than one person to put the slides together, if the product actually works well and then let other people review it. what? Maybe 10 people total 168 people to put together a slideshow and then they still can't get it right? Oh, that's pretty embarrassing now.

Google Uh, Google Stock did drop about uh gosh, probably over the last five days. it's down, likely somewhere around 10 percent. Um, mostly because of this uh AI phenomenon here. Uh, we are, uh, we are actually year to date on Google up six percent.

Uh, but from its peak, it's down 11.73 just in the last few days on this, uh, flub, Turkey's earthquake. uh, has some devastating information associated with it in that now, not only are we on the 100th hour of, uh, incredibly survivors still coming out of the rubble, including a 10-week old, a baby. Now there are 22 000 Fear Dead with many actually confirmed that. uh, many thousands of more expected? Unfortunately, potentially tens of thousands of more uh, buried under the rubble and dying or dead.

which is absolutely terrible. now. What was also extremely terrible is that apparently the BBC exposed uh, the Turkish government for essentially taking uh, what they called amnesty payments. But let's be real, they're more like Paya pay a bribe or a higher tax and we'll let you skirt some of the earthquake requirements.

see yesterday I Was talking about how generally newer construction buildings have a high, much higher earthquake standards. especially out here in California where we're clearly in an earthquake zone. Well, I'm Unfortunately, the BBC provided an exposed followed by their reality check they call it where this right here is a photo of a building that's just a few years old that ended up collapsing. In fact, here's the video of that building that is only of course a 30 second ad.

Okay, we'll just go to the picture right here. Uh, so before and after a recently built apartment block uh, in one of the regions devastated and you can see here, the left part of the building still standing and the right part completely collapsed just sheared completely off the center of the building over here. And the question now is why is a building that's relatively new falling apart? Well, it turns out that up to about 75 a thousand years of the video, up to about 75 000 newer uh, or just buildings in general have either suffered catastrophic damage or have collapsed with in Turkey in a substantial portion of newer buildings, paid for amnesty programs to essentially exempt them from new construction requirements and so or were earthquake requirements and so these are basically payments that say Hey look you uh, if you pay us a little bit more money, you don't have to comply with as much of the earthquake requirements. Some of these buildings being built in 2019 and still collapsing in an earthquake? Pretty ridiculous.

And it really goes to show that the Turkish government has either entirely failed at setting the proper standards for earthquake building and retrofitting, or has failed to enforce those. And the failure to enforce is potentially due to these amnesty payments that basically went to the Turkish government to say, hey, look, you know we don't have the money to spend on all these earthquake rules and such. You have, uh, just you know, rubber stamp us and let us get through the process and uh, we'll be fine, right? Apparently not. Apparently not.

so. uh, it was pretty terrible to think about. uh, this, this, uh, a lot of This Disaster potentially being avoidable had the Turkish government actually done what it was supposed to do and protect people and properly, uh, establish building and safety requirements. That's the point of the building and Safety department, after all now.

Uh, what's also pretty devastating is that you've got a government that already doesn't have a lot of trust. I mean the inflation in Turkey exceeds 64. At the time of this recording, about a month ago, it was exceeding 69 and a month before that, it was exceeding 80. So clearly the government already has a massive lack of trust.

and unfortunately, it's just gotten even worse now that, uh, the government is being exposed for their nonsense uh around building and safety which is just really devastating. Thinking about the fact that tens of thousands of people have died I You know we were looking back at how many people died uh in World War II from the uh, atomic bombs? uh, you know, nuclear warheads on Hiroshima and Nagasaki And uh, we're looking at somewhere between uh, 80 to 100 000 deaths, you know, in one city and then maybe another 40 or 50 in another. And what's what's crazy is that if we end up getting to 40 or 50 000 deaths here in Turkey, we will be near the equivalent of basically really an atomic bomb going off in one of the cities. And and that is just I Think it puts some of the magnitude on how devastating this is.

What's really happening in Turkey I Mean if you think about it, when a plane crashes and 200 people die, that's devastating, right? I Mean it's it's it makes headline news, and it's It's absolutely terrible. If you divide, uh, 22 000 dead by 200 people per plane, you could literally have 110 planes crash and everyone on board die. and it would essentially equal just the death toll where we are now. Uh, that's absolutely insane to think about it.

I Mean one crash is devastating. Imagine 110 all on the same day. It's insane. I Mean the numbers are so so remarkably high.

It's it's hard to even. uh, you know, picture it or fathom it. It's terrible. Uh, okay.

so now, uh, Russia has been launching some cruise missiles over the last 24 hours, again targeting Ukrainian infrastructure. This has led Olaf Schultz to reiterate the plan to send Uh tanks Panza to Ukraine Uh, the Germans expect to deliver about 80 tanks by the end of March you've got Expedia which uh, they're blaming a terrible Q4 on a weather-induced travel forecast or or travel chaos whether induce travel chaos. but uh, I don't know about that. We're going to do a piece here later in the video talking about this disaster of the consumer and so we'll dive a little bit deeper into uh that in just a moment.

Uh, Russia cut its oil production by about 500 000 per a day. This has led oil prices to jump in the free market. This is deemed retaliation for Price caps on Russian oil. However, their oil output has has already rebounded substantially from lows where we were right around the beginning of the war to now closer to 11 million barrels per day.

A 500 000 cut represents Uh 500 000 Barrel per day cut represents about 4.6 of Russia's output currently. Brent Oil does your International blend is up 2.24 sitting at 86 bucks. We were starting a downtrend and whoops right back up after this. Uh Russian Oil Cut Uh, you do still have OPEC maintaining production.

although there have been talks of cuts you have WTI Crude that's the Western blend uh, increasing 2.18 here in the free market Tesla A semi small update on that Pepsi has taken delivery of all 15 of the Tesla semi trucks. Apparently the California Air Resources Board paid for half of one of them now. I I Don't actually think each of these semis cost around two million dollars, but the report on this indicated a 30.8 million dollar project as what these 15 semis were a part of. Be nice to get some more details on this since we don't know exactly how much those semi trucks are selling for now.

Uh, it's also worth breaking down why I was having this debate with this person on Twitter and uh, I I Think it's um, let me put it this way: there is a tendency of people on the internet to mislead other people, especially when they are lowly educated on things that they're talking about. Unfortunately, most people are lowly educated on real estate investing, and that's why I believe that there is a substantial opportunity for people to build massive wealth in real. estate. And honestly, the more I see this sort of lack of understanding by normal people on the internet when it comes to real estate, the more excited I get because I know how to make a lot of money in real estate I know it's an in-person business I know it's a people business and I know I got to be there to make money.

That's why I have a housing startup, But let's talk about what this individual says. and let's break this down because this individual let me just be up front and say they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about. Does that does that mean at all? I don't think so because I think I'm right. But anyway, recession Confession says my neighbor bought a house for 650 000 last year he lost his job at a tech company.

His house has been on the market for 45 days. Nothing. The only bid was for 350 000. He is running out of money.

The real estate market is going to crash so hard. This tweet got 1 million views. five thousand, three hundred likes because it's dramatic. It sounds intense.

Oh my gosh, this sounds terrible. but guess what's missing in his post now? He'll end up giving me this info because I call him out on it. But what's missing when you first read this? Well, most people they read this and they think oh My Gosh! bought a house for six hundred fifty thousand dollars. That and he's only got a bid for three hundred Fifty thousand dollars.

Holy smokes, That means the property's Fallen By essentially half, that's the signal that this individual is trying to manipulate people who are uneducated in real estate to believe. So the individual wants you to believe that real estate prices went from 650 000 down to three hundred fifty thousand dollars. And keep in mind I Sold my real estate at the beginning of 2022, expecting not only to start a housing startup, but also expecting real estate prices to come down. So if real estate prices came down 80 uh or well, let's see here.

350 divided by 650, real estate prices came down uh, 53.8 percent. Uh, as in this uh oh no, 350 is 53. So this would be a this would represent to be exact here: a 46.2 percent decline in real estate prices. For me to believe that real estate prices came down 46.2 percent.

would actually reiterate why I sold and would actually reiterate the benefits of me being able to start my housing startup. But the problem is I I Don't base my decisions on uh, misleading information like this. but why is this misleading I mean Kevin After all, if the house it was bought for 650 000 and today a the only bid is 350 000, doesn't that mean the market price is 46.2 percent lower? No. First of all, that's not how real estate works.

The real estate industry is a people business and when a property is overpriced for six hundred fifty thousand dollars, people won't make an offer on it. Normal home buyers will not make an offer on it. The only people who will lowball properties listing price are generally investors or people who are brand new to the market. People who are brand new to a real estate market will often throw low balls out left and right and they'll just end up offending a lot of real estate agents and sellers and they'll end up getting nothing and they'll end up very devastated.

The proper way to lowball is actually to get on the phone with the listing agent or your your agent. get on the phone with the listing agent and work through the issue in the presentation before you present a low ball. You don't just go spaghetti lowball. That's stupid.

Now some people do that and you'll generally only get cash offers or investors basically trying to bottom feed right. They see something and they say, oh, let's send a local offer to every property that's been on the market for more than 30 days. Let's spaghetti them out. We'll call them.

We don't even call the age agents, you just throw them out. That's very normal, but it's not actually the definition of what where the real estate market is And see, that's because we know a few things. First of all, we know the psychology of a home seller and a home buyer is very simple. Most home buyers realize that a seller's probably going to be upset with an offer that exceeds a 10 reduction in the listing price, and as a result, most home buyers won't even bother making an offer unless it's within a striking range of around five percent.

Now, that's actually really interesting, psychologically, because that means if this 650 000 seller If instead of waiting 45 days realize that most offers happen within the first 10 days and then they just drop their price by day 14 to 599 000, they could have potentially knocked an offer out for 550, but you actually won't get the 550 offer. even if you're worth 550. When you're listed at 650, you're too far away to act actually attract the home buyers. That's because the home buyers who are qualified and ready to close don't.

Spaghetti offers. This is Not eBay People don't throw offers out like they do on eBay It doesn't take one second to make an offer. It actually takes an agent probably 30 minutes to write an offer. It takes the client another 30 minutes at least of their own time to actually read it.

If they read it and go through it, you know, Who knows, Maybe they're blindly signing it. Fine, Then you can cut that out. but then the agent has to put it together and prep it in an email and contact the other agent and submit it. There's a lot of work involved relative to putting it a bid in on.

you know, sort of the free market stock market or Ebay There's a lot of work involved and that's not to say that the market isn't efficient. but let's be real, the real estate market is not efficient. Okay, there are a ton of inefficiencies in the real estate market. That's actually why sometimes people do these low balls because they realize the property could be worth 550 if we pick it up for 350.

My gosh, it's a steal. That's because of the way the market works. The real estate market is not purely efficient. You do not have perfect information because there is no open bidding on real estate.

If if this was an auction and this property was listed for 350 000 I guarantee you I don't even care where the property is I guarantee you the property would get 37 to 50 offers. Boom like that. How do I know that? Well, this is where we can actually use data. See The nice thing is we know that the most real estate prices have fallen throughout the country off of peak and this assumes the individual bought the property at the peak in April or May depending on the particular area.

If the individual bought the property at Peak The peak real estate decline that we've seen throughout the country is about 21, not 46. 21 would represent a price of about 513 000, which would indicate that if this seller listed the property for 4.99 they would probably get multiple offers and may even sell for closer to that 550 which is not that full. Uh, a 21 reduction. That's because real estate is a people business.

It does not work the way people think that it does. But that's okay. it creates opportunities for people who understand that. So this individual is essentially creating this tweet that has gone viral, misleading people into thinking the real estate market has dropped uh 50, essentially 46 to 50 percent.

And as a result of this anecdote, not as the result of any actual data, the individual says the real estate market is going to crash so hard, so bigly. This is the kind of information that in my opinion, you're stupid to believe. Now, it would be concerning if we could actually get facts like what's the property address, how much was it actually listed for? Is the property a massive Fixer-Upper or is it move-in ready? Is it under high tension glow-in-the-dark power lines or what's wrong with it and I guarantee you if I look at the address I could tell you the property's overpriced, probably by a range of 15 to uh 10 to 15. probably somewhere in that range.

And if they do, if they lower their price, it would sell. There's no reason for a property to be on the market. If it's if it's a normal property for more than 14 days, it doesn't take more than 14 days to sell property. If a property is on the market for more than 14 days, guess what? The problem is price.

So now, I I Agree. the property is overpriced. I Agree. The individual paid probably closer to the peak of the market for the property.

but does that mean because the only bid is 350 000 that the property is worth 350. Absolutely not because that's not how the real estate market works. Now you know that this individual is, uh, clearly uninterested in providing uh, actual data because the individual comes out and says, oh well I don't want to dox the person so of course we're not going to get the address. uh, and on top of that, the individual then resorts to add hominin attacks and says oh well Kevin hasn't lived through a bare market so he doesn't know.

Oh, fantastic argument. As if as somebody who's actually educated in the real estate space can't understand how markets function because they're younger. Okay, brilliant argument. In my opinion, this is the kind of Internet idiocracy if that's even a word.

I may have made that up, but that misleads people. My goal on this channel is always to provide you perspective I don't care if I'm right or if I'm wrong on what's going to happen on the market tomorrow, what's going to happen with CPI data I Do my best I try to increase my odds and hopefully we can increase your odds as well. But when you provide misleading anecdotes I get upset because they lack logic. Logic is actually something that I teach in my courses by Stocks and Psychology of Money Group My Elite Hustlers group my real estate investing course.

but most people on the internet don't want to post logical tweets because those don't get as many views. they're not as potentially viral to post logic. It's much easier to just resort to ad hominem attacks which are at person attacks and try to offend somebody in a way that's really just a red herring. It has nothing to do with the fundamentals of how real estate work uh, how real estate works but then again, like I said every time I see stuff like this I actually get excited and I rather than saying they're an idiot which they are I I may as well just say thank you thank you Mr Recession Confessions for being a complete uneducated idiot about real estate because you make it easier for me to make money in real estate and that is true.

So next up we we have uh hey hey whoa whoa Alexa just shut up. Oh my gosh, here it goes again. Yeah, you know once you have Alexa we just switched Wi-Fi networks and once you have her starting to talk, she just does not shut up. It is so annoying I think I just want to take them and throw them all against the wall.

Uh, but anyway, apparently Alexa's actually talking about potentially ending the whole uh or Amazon's talking about ending the whole uh Alexa division which I thought was oh my God I keep triggering it all right? Anyway, Uh, this morning we are going to get the University of Michigan consumer uh confidence read will also get inflation expectations this morning. this is a survey of just over 500 individuals and we'll be getting that information. Uh, in about uh, an uh, hold on. Let me see.

Yeah, it comes out at 7 00 a.m California time 10 A.m uh, Eastern time. so stay tuned for that. The expectations on that are that in one year, inflation expectations will hold at four percent and the five to ten. Actually, that's a one-tenth of a percent increase from three, nine to four, and a five to ten year outlook will sit at two nine.

All right. So let's see. Uh, okay, like what I mean look I appreciate you being a member here. but In fairness? Why would you say that? Okay, so we've got an individual here foodle who says I Have to ask this, Do you think facts even matter when it comes to the market due to sentiment scoring? Yes, Absolutely.

Facts matter. Facts fundamentally always matter. My goodness, the worst thing we could do as a society is to actually ignore facts and reality. Uh, like I I make my decisions based on facts.

when the facts change I change my mind. That's scary. Gas man says the story is made up. You're probably right.

He probably did make up his story actually just to create a uh, some sort of viral tweet. Uh, in my opinion, it's it's just I mean that honestly, at that point, it's just fraudulent, right? that that's actually A really interesting part? Uh, let me see here. I want to make a mention of that? So now think about that. if the story is completely made up and the person just made up the story to get a viral tweet, and therefore, it makes sense why they're not providing city data, uh, location data, anything about the property, which look, we're not asking for.

Uh, you know, let's publicly send the address everywhere. How about you even just privately send it to me? I Look at properties all day long, privately send it over. Let me let me take a look at it. Let's look at the actual data.

Oh no, no, wouldn't want to do that. Hey, want to ask your friend? uh, if he's okay with Kevin looking at it and giving you a free expert consultation on why your property isn't selling? Who knows. Maybe I could tell you to make a small little adjustment and it'll make a big difference. Oh no, no, no, wouldn't want to do that.

Yeah, because the story is probably made up. and in which case, if the story is made up then then what's even more disgusting is that if people believe these stories, they're being completely misled. But they don't have a reason not to believe this person because he's getting a lot of likes on it. It's it's disgusting.

It's an abuse of social media, and this is exactly the kind of stuff that that just leads to a further, uneducated, uh, society and and ultimately people reiterating why they're living. Paycheck to paycheck. And it's not their fault, it's our schools don't teach logic. Sad.

Absolutely sad. All right. So now let's talk about uh oh man. All right, this is an interesting one.

Okay, so on the note of of logic uh, and studying logic and and perspective? oh, you're gonna. y'all gonna love this one? Uh, this is. this is pretty incredible. Now we're we're not trying to put on our tinfoil hats here.

We're going to do our best to be as, uh, neutral and unbiased in our analysis of what I'm about to show you. But I'll tell you it, uh, it, it doesn't look good. Stand by while I get this out. Okay, here we go.

So here we go. One second. All right. We've got to talk about the Chinese Spy balloon and the complete allies that uh China proposed on the internet.

Now what's really incredible about this is how they actually use YouTube to trick us. Now this is pretty incredible and I want you to come with me for a moment In Fairness, it takes a little bit of tin foil adding, but let's be real. this is probably exactly what's happening and the reason I say that is even though the source that we're going to look at that potentially confirms our tin foil hat is not one that generally people who wear tinfoil hats like. But I'll tell you, it's pretty damning.

So first, we're gonna start by understanding that there are people who live in China who post videos about China and we also obviously know that there has been a Chinese uh spy balloon quote-unquote spy balloon And that's because China calls it a weather balloon. And now the United States government says look, this is a spy balloon that's capable of intercepting our communication signals. And the people's Liberation Army is basically using this weather balloon because it's a low-cost way to spy on your uh, your uh, you know, oppose uh opponents Communications And weather balloons. Weather balloons.

Balloons can actually float in the air substantially longer and go undetected substantially longer than planes can. If China flew a spy plane by, it'd be obviously a big slap in the face. Planes can't fly that long without refueling, whereas a balloon can float around for weeks, potentially undetected. As in the past, the United States has admitted they have failed at detecting other spy balloons until it was too late until they've already been able to explore, so to speak.

Anyway, China's latest spy balloon is potentially spanned Uh, 40 countries of spying and you two spy planes that we use have that have flown past this balloon revealed, uh, an array of active surveillance equipment. Now we're actually waiting to take apart, uh, the Spy balloon. Some of the initial reports are that some of the pieces that were used to manufacture the balloon were actually made in America they've got English writing on them. Uh, but obviously it sustained a lot of damage from the missile that struck it.

and I Imagine we're not getting everything yet in terms of what this balloon actually consists of. But let's be clear, the position is from the United States This is a spy balloon. The position from China is that this is just a weather balloon. Now what I like for you to think about is the following: Look at this guy.

This guy has a YouTube channel. It's called living in China And the idea here is that he's just a normal dude who's making videos, telling you about what it's actually like living in China And so he'll tell you hey, how bad's covet out here. You know what? Whatever he'll try to give you sort of the reality and so he writes it. makes this video.

China Trolls America with spy balloon. Now what's really interesting about this first of all is that you've got a video and a channel. This individual usually gets around 50 to 80 000 views. Uh, per video, which is actually pretty good.

Somebody who gets 50 to 80 000 views would probably expect somewhere around 500 to, uh, maybe 2 000 Patreon subscribers. Especially if the fee is less than five dollars. You know, maybe about a one percent conversion would be very reasonable, right? So we go over here to his patreon and we can see that the lowest option to be a Patreon member is one dollar per month. And what's fascinating is this individual has a grand total of 39 patrons.

Now that's interesting because wait a minute. Why are the views so high, but your conversion to patrons so low? When in every video, you also pin and Pitch it. And then what's also interesting is, listen to the sum of the comments here. Let me get this straight: U.S spends three trillion dollars on its defense budget annually, but can't stop a Chinese hot air balloon first spotted by civilians in Montana looking up at the sky.

Well, first of all, that's not true. The United States and Canada detected it when it was off the coast of Canada before it ever even came to the United States And the U.S defense budget is actually slightly under one trillion dollars. It's closer to 900 billion dollars. which means this is a 3X exaggeration.

and they're trying to describe this as a hot air balloon rather than what it actually is. And they're misleading Us in terms of who first saw it and it's got a lot of likes. It's got a heart from the Creator We've got some more comments. As a country independent, a country that all independently owns a space station, it actually wants to use balloons to monitor the US I Laughed so hard when the balloon was shot down.

No explosion, just a shredded rubbly balloon falling from the sky. To use a 1.1 million dollar missile to shoot down a weather balloon that cost perhaps a few thousand dollars is great and basically every single comment here is making fun of America this one I'll give it to them. This one was actually pretty good China was actually searching for intelligent life. didn't find any.

Okay now so but what's interesting is all of these comments are pro-china anti-us Every single one of them, No patrons and every single comment is pro. China Okay, now watch this. Okay, what does the guy have to say I don't remember the exact point so we're just gonna hop in somewhere around here. Let's just listen to the way he's talking about this balloon for a moment and then I'm going to show you a big reveal.

Okay, this is like an exposed video. sorry I hope the Chinese don't come for me I'm probably not invited to China Anyway, there's another part I saw I think it was on Fox again or CNN and it was like it was saying. the balloon was uh, was flying over very sensitive areas of America and and Military air bases. Let me tell you one thing.

Military America's military bases right? If you fly anywhere in the world, you're gonna fly over one of their their military bases because they've got that many I Know why they should have asked the uh, the Pentagon guy? they should have asked him and said hey, excuse me Mr Pentagon Man, do you know how many military bases do you have around the globe? All right. So you kind of get he's making some you know kind of arguments about like ah, come on, they're military bases everywhere. Fine Oh here we go with the weather. Okay, let's let's see here.

let's keep going down the balloon. It poses no threat because obviously they know that it's so. it's a weather. It's a weather aircraft and um, but you know they're just twisting it.

They're twisting it because it fits their narrative. They can use it. There was like because it came out that they've been following this, tracking this thing for like three or four days. But then all the stories only just come out like it today.

So you can see they've been thinking for a few days like oh, how can we? How can we twist this It's just some weather balloon I Don't know what's going but it's come out, it's come over here. How can we twist this? Ah yeah, say it's a spy balloon. Yeah, that's a great way. The American citizens, they'll they'll believe it straight away and all right.

So you see what he's doing right. He's manipulating his audience against the United States narrative. Which don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the U.S narrative is correct. The U.S bullshits us all the time.

The North Stream Pipeline is probably a fantastic example of this, but what I'd like to do is introduce you to everyone's favorite Source in the world. I'm kidding, obviously, but it still has very interesting perspective ready for it. Check this out: 2020 Uh 21 Article: I Actually read this in print I Know that sounds crazy because I um I I Still get the print paper but that's how I don't miss stuff like this and I I save stuff like this. But anyway, how Beijing influences the influencers now.

I'm not going to go through all of this, right? But basically, listen to some of the allegations the New York Times made here. The videos of these Chinese influencers have a home spun feel, but on the other side of the camera often stands a large apparatus of government organizers, state-controlled news media, and other official amploy amplifiers. As part of the government's widening attempts to spread pro-beijing messaging around the world, they basically have offices of hundreds of Chinese people leaving positive comments. They're not actually Bots but they're they're like troll.

Farms is basically what they are: state-run news outlets and local governments have organized and funded pro-beijing influencers travel. So basically, the creators don't need to actually make money on Patreon because they're getting paid by the Chinese government. They have paid or offered to pay creators. They've generated lucrative traffic for the influencers by sharing videos with millions of influencers.

so the government of China is sharing these to prop up the views while they're paying them. And what are they saying? Encouraging! Most of the YouTubers have lived in China for years and say their aim is to counter the West's increasingly negative perceptions of the country. They decide what goes into their videos. they say, not the Communist party, but even if the creators do not see themselves as propaganda tools, Beijing uses them that way.

Chinese Diplomats or Representatives have shown their videos at news conferences and promoted the Creations on social media, blah blah blah blah. the synthetic voices. this is an effort to control The Narrative of course Okay blah blah here. look at this one.

uh, in the in the spring. So and so talks about how it's totally normal here. Look, people are enjoying kebabs, people are doing their job and living their lives right. This is like the the anti kind of covet narrative, right? And it's fascinating because I Actually, that's so funny that they the New York Times mentioned this over here because if I go back to this guy's videos and I go to his channel, what you're gonna actually see is watch this.

Okay, look at this. So videos you go over here. First of all, look at the titles. uh China Trolls America with spy balloon America can't compete with Chinese Infrastructure Family fun and Shenzhen uh, what do we have over here? Oh yeah, everyone is infected with Covid in China Okay, so it's it's obviously clickbait.

but anyway, you click on it and we'll look, look at uh what? What you get? You say that again I Will dasany hold on? Went back back up a little bit. So what does that tell you? Now they're trying to suppress the the the truth about China and I'm not going to say it's positive what I'm showing I'm just it's the truth. really? Um, so you know you gotta watch out. not only Western media but also these kind of Western uh social media platforms.

They're also. they're not. They're trying to hold back and suppress the truth. So there he slams Western media.

Uh, there's a part where he walks around and he's like look, people are happy here. where where is it? they're not wearing masks sometimes I wear a mask where I think it was right here. You can see lots of people around most people not wearing masks. um look at this.

look at this guy. he just straight up looks like he works for the government I've been planted there like okay, good, good honey, we're in the shop. uh we're in the shot. Act happy, act happy.

I've already had Kobe Cules uh I mean it's it's ridiculous I mean look, who knows. Maybe it's true, but when you align the extremely biased narrative with uh, what we know about logic and what we know about the government's desire uh to spin things, uh, remember it's a Communist Party of China right? They control the state media, right? Uh, Along with this, it's kind of like yeah, it doesn't look good along with like the Patreon issues that we saw, right? It just it just doesn't look good now. I've gone through all of this. Uh, and one of the things they even went as far as saying is that they're actually potentially scripts I don't know, remember where they said it? Maybe they didn't use the word script, but I think it was like somewhere in the article they talk about how the Chinese government will essentially even go as far as giving these people bullet points and like, hey, maybe you can massage the message like this.

It will pay you more if you say this. you know, maybe try to manipulate people into into realizing that Western social media platforms are the ones that are misleading you. It's not us. Uh, who knows.

but like this was interesting Stuart Wiggins Channel The Chinese Traveler does not indicate that he works for the People's Daily. yet that was how Mr Wiggin who is British was identified by another state newspaper China Daily in his coverage of date with China campaign. So in other words, the guy. here's an example where uh, somebody who has a YouTube channel uh, the the Chinese Traveler uh, is actually someone who works for the Chinese state-run news agency China Daily but doesn't disclose that on the channel.

So it's very, very, interesting. Uh so anyway I thought I would share that because personally I am not surprised that China is doing that at all. I don't believe a war China says and I'm not here to say you should believe everything you hear of in the United States I Just want to wake up a little bit more this idea about the Chinese propaganda machine and boy I think it's a lot stronger than we actually realized or ever thought. It was all right.

let's listen to Gensler for a moment. What does he have to Gap about and investing at need to properly comply and disentangle these bundled products? The business model that they've set up as is Rife with conflicts and so we've been very candid with them. I've done it in multiple speeches since I came to. the agency will continue to engage with technology neutral, but if this field has any chance of survival and success, it's time tested rules and laws to protect the investing Public Disclosure: Full, fair and truthful disclosure, address conflicts and disaggregate these bundled businesses and don't have your hand in the customer's pocket using their funds for your own.

Um, but in terms of the the larger industry and whether the I mean you even seem to suggest large ones, you may or may not survive. Um, you know one of the pieces of that survival to some degree I think has been this idea that one day there may be something like a Bitcoin ETF or something else grayscale as you know, appealing. Uh, the Sec's Bitcoin each ETF decision which is effectively to say it can't happen. Is there any path at which you think either that specific ETF or something like it could the past? I'm not going to speak about one, but let me generally say Andrew The path forward is well trodden.

whether it's large companies that you follow every day. The Apples and the and other tech companies for the automobile companies, manufacturing companies know how to register their offerings. The exchanges like the New, York, Stock, Exchange, and NASDAQ and so forth know how to be compliant and come into registration. The big broker dealers and the small thousands of broker dealers.

The mutual funds, right? I Dare I Go on. We have tens of thousands of registrants that properly and good faith comply. They register, they make the proper disclosures, all right. Denzel Here is basically making the argument that hey, like, get into compliance and then we'll list your Bitcoin ETF uh yeah.

I Think that's gonna be very difficult for, uh, for uh, anyone in the crypto space to really get into substantial compliance. Uh, with the exception of like some of the brokerages. But in terms of like, actually getting some of these coins listed, it's probably going to be a while before we get a Bitcoin ETF I know Kathy Woods Going forward. you've got a lot of companies going for I Don't think the SEC is going to go for crypto for a while.

They're not a big fan of crypto. I'll just share sort of an anecdote with you and it's an anecdote, so take it for what it's worth. But I've talked to a lot of Securities attorneys over the past really three four years. I mean I've talked to banking attorneys I've talked to crypto attorneys I've talked to Nft attorneys I've talked to real estate attorneys I mean you name it, any kind of a fund attorney that exists I've almost talked to and uh, what? I regularly hear is that anytime you put something in front of the SEC that even mentions crypto once, your processing time will probably 3x.

This is kind of an interesting anecdote. All right. Oh now now now we gotta talk about a bear case scenario. But first, a quick little look at Futures it does look like the Futures are trying to recover a little bit.

You've got uh, the NASDAQ down about eight tenths, a tenths of a percent right now Tesla's down about 1-6 Disney you down? Uh, about 0.82 You did have a massive sell-off on lift, which we'll talk about Lyft a little bit later with the consumer, you're down about 32 here in the pre-market on Lyft Uh, let me just put it this way. no PP no PP which what have I always said about the taxi companies? No PP Now don't get me wrong, Uber did well, but still. taxi companies, no peepee. All right.

Now it's time to talk about the Bears. Oh, the bear case scenario. All right. The Bears are a back and we're going to start with a report by who is now known as the Cocaine Bear.

We're going to start by looking at a perspective from the Cocaine Bear. We'll talk about what's actually happening in the Bond market. It's a massive red flags that are popping up in the Bond market. but those red flags could potentially turn bullish.

I'll talk about how those red flags could turn bullish. We'll also look at Morgan Stanley's bear case. So if you're looking for fun, this is probably your video. But that fun could actually turn bullish.

and I'm going to show you how it could turn bullish towards the end of the video. So if you want some fear, uncertainty, and doubt and see what the Bears are saying, but you always want to elevate your perspective, let's get started with the Cocaine Bear from Rubberbank. I Get quite a lot of direct and indirect feedback to the global daily. some of it positive, some of it negative.

However, yesterday for the first time, I was told I was on cocaine for arguing that higher rates can in some cases lead to higher inflation. Okay, this is actually a very traditional argument that initially when rates go up, the cost of doing business goes up and therefore you end up actually in the short term increasing inflation when you start increasing interest rates. This is not wrong, and it's not actually the fundamental point of what I want to show here. However, what I want to show is that this individual reports what exactly what I'm seeing in the bond market as well that Bloomberg or finitive Reuters we are seeing all over the place that Traders and journalists are and analysts are betting that U.S interest rates may go as high as six percent, which is the opposite bet that we have been seeing getting made.

Now, unfortunately, this is starting to actually materialize in the Fed's Terminal Rate. We have been sitting at a Fed terminal Reign. We've been pretty much range bound I'm looking at the chart right here between October and the end of January So January 31, October 1 and January 31. we have been range bound between 5.13 and 4.9 as a terminal rate of where the Federal Reserve is going to end.

So basically pretend it's been very, very volatile between that on rate projections. Well, since the jobs report, this terminal rate has actually taken a solid leg up. and that's what it looks like now is a solid leg up to currently. the Fed's terminal rate being priced in is actually 5.33 Which is higher than what the Federal Reserve projects of a 5.1 percent terminal rate.

Now that's actually interesting because the Federal Reserve use usually likes to massage markets and dialogue before they actually make any kind of rate decisions. Now, this move up was on Jobs data. Jerome Powell's already tried to explain down the Jobs report by suggesting oh of financial conditions tightened as soon as the report came out, which is not wrong about financial conditions did tighten right afterwards, but it's not stopping people from making bets that rates could go up as high as six percent and some are even going as far as calling for eight percent rates. Now, what's interesting as well is this individual is basically making this argument that we might end up seeing a structural shift in America that ultimately we build more of our things at home.

He calls this the global Neo mercantilism. Basically, hey, you know what, We're going to encourage sending stuff out and selling stuff to other people, and we are going to discourage bringing stuff in because we want to create more at home. It's basically the deglobalization argument. So here you've got one particular bear who says, look, we could face higher Uh rates which will actually push inflation higher combined with deglobalization.

Now you're in a situation where you have a recipe for disaster. Rates go going up. Inflation's still going up leading more inflation pressures because rates keep going up and what ultimately ends up happening. Well, you end up in a situation of stagflation.

This is your classic stagflationary argument, right? Unfortunately, the problem is, you're actually seeing now the market try to start pricing in more inflationary concerns and higher rate concerns. In fact, yesterday's Bond auction was terrible. Suggesting that markets expect rates to go higher. When rates go higher, bond yields fall.

or sorry, a bond prices fall. Bond yields go up right. Rates going up. Prices fall.

Now that's interesting because yesterday's auction was so terrible. Why? Well, because basically people think that why would I pay that price for your auctions I think the price of those bonds is going to go lower. So I'll just wait until it's lower. And sure enough, if you look at the 10-year treasury yield today, what do we see? We see a 3.69 this morning.

we're sitting at a 3 7, 7 handle. We're basically trending back to that four percent level on the 10-year treasury, which is not only bad for the cost of doing business for companies, but it's also bad from the point of view of real estate. And this is why money is pouring into option bets, betting on higher rates. This is a very clear and consistent belief across the board.

Uh, from Wall Street right now. and one of the reasons is that CPI forecast for next week is not fantastic. The fact that that CPI forecast for Valentine's Day is suggesting we might see CPI month-over-month data reads coming in at point. Five percent, which is a six percent annualized rate, is leading a lot of people to say holy smokes, when that print comes out, the Market's going to sell off.

especially if we beat it and it comes in higher, right? Worse, the number comes in higher. Uh, then uh. then we want to be positioned and hedged. So what are you starting to see? You're seeing a lot more inflows into hedging.

You're seeing a very negative of Outlook in terms of where where the stock market belongs to go or should be going. And even this morning, there was a lot of talk from Wall Street analysts about how the only reason we had a rally in January was a short covering temporarily under multiple expansion. Which the last thing you want if you're going into a recession is multiple expansion since usually the first thing that collapses in a recession are stock multiples, then earnings fall and stocks fall even more. But if you're getting multiple expansion then you're kind of having this bat that everything's good.

You're betting on sort of the fairy tale that inflation's going to come down. jobs will stay strong, which means we won't go into a recession. It's a you know, that's obviously the hope that's the soft Landing bet. but people aren't buying it.

They're not buying it So much so that previously as of just eight days ago, the implied policy rate curve looked like this on screen. Now you will see the implied overnight rate and the number of hikes that you expect to see from the Fed. and what you see is a Peak at 4.9 percent with cuts starting in July And then you have this bar that goes really low on the right because those are the number of uh Cuts basically cumulatively, Incorporated and you're looking at over 1.5 percent in cuts by January That's pretty consistent with the belief that we have over 1.7 percent of cuts priced in by the end of the year. That chart has completely changed in the last eight days.

Since the Jobs report, the chart does not look anything like what you just saw or heard about. depending on if you're listening to this on Apple or Google podcasts or Spotify This particular chart right here shows you what things look like As of last night, you can see Zero Cumulative Cuts priced in and this is why we've had a few you read days over the last few days here. What do we have? Zero Cuts Priced in that's not great. What do we have over here? January 31st No Cuts Priced in and look at that Peak that peak in July actually potentially suggesting a 25 basis point hike in June and July that Peak Now sitting around that 5.3 level.

Uh oh so what does this mean? Again, more bearish bets being made on the CPI report coming out now. I Mentioned to you that there could be a reason that this would end up going bullish, right? Yes, stand by for that. We're going to talk about that. But first, we got to talk about what Morgan Stanley says and particularly I Want to look at what Mr Wilson says now Mr Wilson is your big bad bear.

He's not the cocaine bear, He's just another bear. He is a pretty big bear. And this individual says that look, while it may take longer for the market to price in materially are below consensus view on earnings and the Fed's restrictive policy. We reiterate that this new bull market is nonsense and that essentially the market is going to go down a lot more.

This individual suggests that forward earnings expectations are way higher than they should be. We're finally getting negative revisions and ultimately more multiple expansion is not why we should be rallying right now. Uh, now. it's worth noting.

and I wrote this on the side here that sixty percent of S P companies that reported through January 27th beat and 69 uh beat on on EPS Uh at 69 60 beat on Revenue 69 beat on EPS I Gotta fix my little note there on the side. But anyway, Uh, He suggests that hey, look based on their research, forward EPS growth is now negative for just the fifth time since 2000 and history therefore shows that price downside is in front of us, not behind us and he creates this chart over here which shows you, uh, that we've had negative forward EPS in 2001 And sure enough, prices via the S P 500 fell afterwards. you had a negative hit in 2008, lower stock prices. Afterwards you had a negative hit in two thousand and 15..

Now this one, I'm going to call a little bit of a false flag. This is interesting because yes, even though there was some temporary turmoil in the stock market, that turmoil was really nominal. You're talking about maybe three, two to three months of a little bit of pain. But that negative signal right here was a bad time to sell because the market is up way substantially from that, So that was a bad signal.

That's where his chart and graph falls apart. obviously negative forward EPS in the coveted pandemic. And then now. But if you take out, let's do this for a moment.

Let's try to dismantle this if we take out Covid. If we take out now because now has not happened yet and if in 2015 we're like, well, this is bullcrap. Let's take that out because nothing happened in 2015. Like you would have been better not to have sold then right? that would that would you would have missed out a lot.

So if you take out what hasn't happened yet Covid and 2015, his chart doesn't look that impressive anymore. Now you're only suggesting that hey, well, stuff was still worse in the pan or in in the.com bubble. Sure, but our stock market today has fallen three times as fast as the.com bubble. And if you look at the structural problems of 2008, you kind of Wonder like are we really going to face the 2008 or if inflation goes away, Could we potentially avoid that right? So you know? obviously the Bears have their arguments and the Bulls have their arguments and that's fine EPS Surprise He says uh on in terms of growth even though it's positive.

it's the lowest that we have seen since the great Financial crisis. Uh, and he does actually suggest and I this is not actually what I'm seeing a lot of. But but you are seeing a a more long exposure here in January than you have seen since September. Now this is true though, because you and based on surveys, you have a lot of Institutions suggesting they want more exposure to like Tech and growth for example, in January than they did in September but it's still lower than what we've seen throughout 2021.

And he kind of cuts this chart off in September of 2021 because quite frankly in my opinion the chart would be a lot higher to the left of that than to the right of this. But but whatever. So he's obviously he's trying to make his case over here. He also then talks about while some of the upside surprise can be attributed to okay, this I think is the Jobs report Yes, this is the Jobs report Friday's blowout Jobs report.

While some of the upside surprise can be attributed to seasonal and longer term adjustments to the data, it's hard to argue the labor data is not strong. Which means there's really no reason for Equity investors to get excited about cuts and rates now. In Fairness: The market has already removed rate cut pricing over the last few days. So like if you think the Market's still excited about Cuts in 2023, wrong, it's already been removed.

which on one hand, and this is kind of leading to where my conclusion goes. Uh, but. but my conclusion, don't worry, it's says some more to it. Uh, it's actually kind of bullish in some degree, because like, if the Market's already removed price cuts from 2023 and how much has the S P Fallen like nominally I mean let's look for a moment, let's go to the Spy and let's go to the day chart on the spy and what do we have on the day chart of the spine.

I Mean, look at that. There's like no downside movement over here. So we ran to 418 for a moment at Peak within the day. we didn't even close at that.

we closed at 4 15. right now, we're at 405. Okay, well, 405 divided by 415. What are we down? Two and a half percent? A big whoop.

Who cares, right? If if a two and a half percent downside on the S P 500 is all it took to price in No. Cuts in 2023. it doesn't sound too bearish to Me Maybe. We're all okay with higher rates for longer, you know? Uh, but anyway, this individual makes the the very strong claim or in their opinion that hey, look, no rate Cuts 23.

well, you got more pain coming. That is their argument, right? And if you combine that with the cocaine bear, you have a story that's kind of like yes, interested in the good right now. What you also have is this potential that yeah, rates could stay higher longer. In fact, Ken Rogroff, who is a Harvard Professor suggests that look generally as populations grow and economies mature and democracy is mature generally looking back over the past 700 years.

Generally, over the history of financial markets, we tend to see a downward Trend in the natural rate of interest. However, in that 700 year span, we actually go through substantial periods as long as 15 years where you have deviations from Trent 15-year deviations from Trend or a long time. And basically Ken is making the argument Professor Ken is making the argument that hey, keep in mind it is possible for rates to stay a lot higher for a lot longer than anybody expects. We could be in a higher rate regime for five years.

Potentially changes everything. We don't necessarily have to go back to zero in 2024.. So interesting argument. And there's also of course, the potential that, well, there are really three outcomes and any of these is possible at this point.

Look, sure, we can have orderly disinflation and basically inflation goes down towards two percent. You don't cause substantial damage to jobs and growth and things are better. or you have sticky inflation inflation Falls to like three or four percent, but then you get stuck. Then you kind of hope that the Federal Reserve pulls up Fate out of the bag, which they've been kind of refusing to mention because I think it's a tool on their tool belt that they're not telling the mainstream media in the world about.

but I've been yelling about for the past six months like it's gonna come. They're gonna pull that GD out of the bottle or you can have you a u-shape of inflation where basically these higher yields do exactly what the cocaine bear says and you end up seeing a second wave of inflation, right? Higher rates with higher inflation? it's all possible. It's all very bearish now personally. I think this bearish positioning that we're seeing getting priced into the market right now that actually is barely moving the indices.

As I mentioned, the S P 500 not that far down, down two and a half percent simply by removing raid Cuts in 2023. That's a nominal move to the downside for what seems to be a lot of bearish positioning and this is just my opinion. but I think there's a chance we have a lot of bearishness today and Monday going into the CPI print and if we get a a good CPI print, you could end up seeing another rally to the upside. now another another large leg to the upside.

I Don't even think that a big Miss on CPI would bring us back to a new low like October or below. I Don't think most individual investors or institutional investors actually think we're going to break a new low I Do think it makes sense to bet uh, or Hedge for the potential another leg down, but you do have people like Mike Wilson who are like, oh no, no, no, the real Big Leg Down is still coming. Look at my charts which obviously I've dismantled one of the charts of one of his primary charts. but hey, you know what that doesn't mean I'm going to be right I Just want to share the perspective again.

Write these numbers down: CPI month over month projection: 0.5 That's way higher than the negative point one that we had last month. That's a problem. That's headline inflation went up up right. Headline inflation that's led by energy.

It's really led by energy. But you also have Core. Oh, they just revised core. Oh that's fantastic.

Uh, they uh. the survey for core is now 0.3 That is in line with the 0.3 previously. That is a revision down from yesterday which actually suggested Core would be 0.4 on a month of a month basis. CPI headline 6.2 estimate and CPI core estimate of 5.4 Interesting, We will see.

Obviously, we'll see. but uh anyway. uh let's uh I want to see what some of y'all are saying here are: Cuts Not A Bad Thing Usually the economy crashes after the FED pivots God damn it Anybody who watches my videos is like oh no, here we go again. dude.

Foodle funnel man, you might be new around here I appreciate you being a member. but I think I have made like 17 videos talking about how the FED pivot and the market crashing after the FED pivot is straight. I'm gonna just simplify it like my I mean and you can just type this into YouTube and get my details on it. but literally yesterday morning I talked about it the day before.

In the morning I talked about it and you could just type into YouTube meet Kevin fed pivot and you'll see me dismantle it. But let me just try to sum it up in in 30 seconds. Yeah, people are Charlie's like foodle has to be trolling. Maybe maybe I'm getting trolled here.

but but let me just try to sum it up in like 15 seconds. Okay, the FED will only pivot down in this recession. When inflation is convincingly falling, Inflation is the only reason we are going into a recession. If The Fed pivots.

It means inflation is getting conquered. Which means the problems are going away. Which means we go up, not down and and watch my other videos for for why, the FED pivot is just nonsense. oh God it's Lord Hey Kevin How can I send you a gift 9452 Telephone Road Ventura California 93004 Oh yeah yeah, Fed made it clear that they needed to tackle inflation.

otherwise people will lose face faith I'll I'd say higher for longer exactly. but the higher for longer argument actually reiterates why when the FED actually does pivot, it's actually a good thing, right? Also, tell us where you got that jacket. This jacket was a gift from my father. It is a Robert Graham jacket you know Robert Graham usually puts like a a number on each of them of of how like all of the products he makes are numbered and uh yeah it's a really cool jacket.

but but they they have like a uh how many they've made or whatever I don't I don't know I mean this is probably this is one of my favorites because it makes it look like you're wearing a double jacket but it's it's clickbait. It's the best. Uh, nobody knows clickbait better than I do foreign anyway. uh what are we gonna title this video something about uh, prepare for the market crash I don't know I actually I think the stuff is a really good video I mean I I think the content's really good.

Uh but uh, some people just read the titles and and they don't actually watch the video and and for those people, sucks for you. They've only had a dollar for every time Kevin has said fed pivot in the last two months I could retire. Utwo is a cash position. If you ever see Utwo in an ETF it's It's basically a cash position.

It's not a bet on anything other than just holding cash. Oh oh good lordy lordy lordy. 10-year treasury hits highest level since Jan Sixth. Oh oh this is a good piece.

Oh oh oh this is fantastic. We gotta cover this. but I'm gonna die if I don't go. uh, do something really quick.

So I'm gonna be right back. Give me like a minute. Okay here we're gonna listen to this talk about 10-year treasure yields that relative to Meta. This goes back to the end of 2019.

So essentially right before the pandemic and boy, they were treated as basically the same stock on the way up. Right. Tremendous amount of perceived stability here. The platforms just kicked off profit the whole thing.

And then first you had Meta falter with sub growth and then the massive spending on Metaverse that was completely rejected by the street. So they took their medicine. and now you see this faltering and that looks like a pretty big top in alphabet as people question the business model of search. Uh, in the kind of AI w