Welcome back to episode 21 of the Meet Kevin report. Hey, we've been going for 21 days straight. That's awesome. And that means I've been waking up on three o'clock hour for 21 days straight anyway.

Uh first. uh, obviously. I think by now you've probably heard that uh, well, uh. Canada in conjunction with the United States is shot down.

Uh uh. Well, now we've together shot down two UFOs in addition to a weather balloon in just the last month. Kind of incredible, we had the Chinese weather balloon AKA spy balloon we've had now two shiny silvery objects and cylindrical style objects, one over the coast of Alaska and uh, one now in Canadian airspace in the Yukon Territory shot down yesterday by an F-22 Kind of weird. now.

all of a sudden we've got all of these floating around now uh, Justin Trudeau and the Canadian government as well as the US government are refusing to speculate on where these objects may be floating in from, whether it's from outer space or Russia or just more objects coming over from China just to bother us. But what we do know is every time we shoot one of these suckers down, the missile alone costs about four hundred thousand dollars. The Sidewinder missiles cost 381 to 399 000. And if instead of using a real missile, you were to launch a training missile to practice how to shoot the real ones, well, then you could take 50 off.

It's about 209 000 for training one of these missiles, which is kind of interesting, but I think what's more interesting is what the heck are these things? Some folks speculate that these are metallic balloons the size of a small car and that they're essentially similar as the weather balloon that, uh, the quote-unquote weather balloon that blew off course according to China and uh, that these are just smaller versions of it flying also at a lower altitude flying around forty thousand feet. Which is unfortunate because forty thousand feet is absolutely within the height of, uh, traditional air travel for Americans whether they're private planes or commercial planes. Either way, 40 000 feet is sort of right at that that level where we've got plenty of plane activity. So a little bit of an odd level.

Although it does make you wonder if they say oh, it's flying around 40 000 feet was it really at like 48 000, you know and uh, that was close enough to call it a threat to shoot it down to try to go pick up the pieces. I Don't know, it'll be interesting, but what's not interesting is that now all of a sudden, the death toll for those of the Turkish and Syrian earthquake has risen to 28 000. Just pretty terrible and devastating. I Remember, just a couple days ago, we were talking about the BBC's piece on terrible earthquake standards in uh, in Turkey leading to the collapse of even newer buildings.

Pretty disgusting. Uh, pretty sad and hopefully substantial reform comes to a building in in Turkey Although we do know there's a there's a lack of money. That's one of the sad things about uh about the state of developing countries right now, but especially as we go through a recession and potentially and high periods of inflation. Wild Absolutely wild.

So uh, now we've got uh CPI to talk about because well, we have a big old CPI report coming up on Tuesday and I think it's worth touching on the latest and greatest regarding that CPI report regarding the latest CPI numbers. Boy oh boy. the numbers are expected to come in hot, hot and it's not great. We're gonna go through two pieces here.

one from JPM, one from Barclays We'll talk about a pipeline inflation, we'll talk about the potential for a recession and uh, well, we get a brace brace for impact because right now the expectations of for inflation coming out Tuesday 5 30 a.m California time I will be live streaming in the meet Kevin report as well as I do every single day. So obviously you're encouraged to join me every single day. but we'll be covering the report live at 5 30 a.m California time that's 8 30 a.m eastern time and uh, markets are tensing up. the Federal Reserve's Fed Funds terminal rate projection is a 5.35 Now that's well up from the 4.9 where we've been sitting.

Bond Markets are a tightening, mortgage rates are rising, the 10-year treasury yield is over 3.7 percent, and all of this is anticipated in anticipation of a hot CPI report coming in because even if we meet this CPI report, it's still hot now. This will probably be the largest economic release and I think generally what happens is bears like to say let's wait for the CPI report before buying anything and then as soon as the CPI report comes out, no matter what that CPI report is, we'll end up having the Bears say let's wait for the next CPI report in March It seems to be pretty consistently what happens February 14th is Valentine's Day At 8 30 a.m we'll be getting the CPI report uh, eastern time. The next one comes out basically exactly uh, a month later on March 14th, just one day before the Ides of March and then April 12th thereafter, followed by May 10th. But most importantly, now, we've got to focus on February And for February thanks to a potential increase in medical service costs and used vehicle prices which seem to potentially have at least in the short term, hit a bottom and are starting to rise, Use Vehicles make up about a four and a half percent weight of the CPI, we expect that core CPI month-over-month data, we'll be coming in at point four percent.

Now it's important to realize how important a loan that used vehicle pricing is because if you uh and we'll draw this out on screen here. but if you take a 4.5 waiting, it's roughly four and a half percent. So we're doing a tiny little bit of round rounding there. So if that is the weight for used cars, we'll just write UC Used Cars if that's the weight for used cars and you multiply the Uh rate at which used car prices increased in just the month of January over December which is uh, 2.5 percent.

Well, you'll actually get is a result that looks like this: 0.11 And now what's fascinating about that is last month's inflation reading for the month over month core was negative 0.1. So just to show you the impact of what just one piece of this CPI report can have is that if we had this used car price increase last month, we would have actually been slightly positive. On month over month inflation, that entire 0.1 would have gotten eradicated by used cars alone. It shows you how powerful that is the used car sector, so even if inflation were going to be zero percent on everything except for used cars, it would actually come in at positive 0.11 Thanks to solely used cars.

That's a lot. That's That's a pretty dramatic impact there just from used cars. And that, by the way, a lot of people ask me they're like Kevin How do these economists come up with these estimates so they just pull them out of thin air? No, they generally I mean it often feels like they pull them out of thin air, but generally they look at other reports and other data sets that would give them clues or indicators to say. Okay, well, how can we calculate this to show that a month over month inflation is at a certain level or whatever? The best case scenario that we could hope for is that we actually start seeing some form of housing disinflation.

Unfortunately, we're really not expecting to see any kind of housing disinflation until the second half of this year. And that's problematic because it does mean we could lean towards higher CPI Results: That's devastating because, well, the housing inflation has been pretty dang brutal in the last three months. In fact, if you zoom in to Rent of Shelter at a moment, it felt like it was going to get better. Take a look at this in uh, in the December CPI report, uh, four, or in the December release for November.

Basically, what we ended up getting uh was a 0.7 So in November we had a 0.7 percent increase from shelter. Okay, and shelter is really important because rent of shelter alone all of housing works out to let somewhere like a 42 percent rate weight. for last year. it's going up to about 44.4 percent next year.

But anyway, just rent of shelter works out to a weight of 32.5 percent. So in this case, if you take 0.325 and you multiply it by Point, uh, seven, you get a loan just from shelter. a 0.22 increase to the month over month numbers for uh, the the Core CPI read so literally just simply from used cars and potentially housing. Coming in at 0.7 you could go 0.22 plus 0.11 Boom.

3.3 for core. That's how simple it could be just taking two pieces of the puzzle that only weigh about 46 ish or 36 together. In this case, rent of shelter, not all of housing. uh, in total, which would include lodging and some of those other things.

Uh, and used cars. So just rent a shelter and use cars. Boom. you're at 3.3 If we were to come in at that point seven.

now what we're really waiting for is rent of shelter to actually come in negative, right? Because if we could get like, at negative 0.02 or 0.2 percent for example, oh my gosh, you would be you would be having a negative month over month read already of two-thirds of a percent. If you came in with a negative point three on housing at some point in the future because rents are falling, you'd be almost negative. A full percentage Point it'd be phenomenal. It'd be remarkable for how much of a weight we could get to.

The downside? uh, on, um uh, on for just from housing alone. So anyway, the point of that is just to say that what we're really hoping is that soon we actually start seeing a deterioration here in housing. We haven't found that yet. So the November data was 0.7 The December data uh or sorry the uh yeah this.

Hold on. let's see. November December January No January is about to come out. so I'm actually what I had this is October November December There we go.

Okay so October came in at point seven November came in at 0.6 and December popped back up to point Eight. That sucks because it's such a large weight in that CPI read right. So really the best we could hope for because we know that used car data is coming in hot. The best we could really hope for is some start to softening in housing.

Next big section that would be great would be Medical Care Services which did was starting to fall came in at negative 0.6 negative 0.7 But then all of a sudden boom it's back to 0.1 So uh, obviously some weakness there would be nice. transportation services Recreation services, insurances, all that, service sector right? Education and communication, miscellaneous personal services. These are things where we really want to see some more disinflation, so hopefully we get that to sort of lower some of these results that are currently being expected. So what you want to write these down: CPI month over month is expected to go from 0.3 Uh, that's up from point three last time to to uh sorry, hold on a second here.

This is the month over month core sorry month over month core from last time of 0.3 is expected to go up to 0.4 Uh, last month. Headline: month over month from negative 0.1 to 0.5 and uh, here you know what. I'll just put them on screen for you so you can see them here. and then that way you could just take a screenshot of this if you wanted to.

Headline inflation expected to go uh to uh. the the headline number. Uh, hold on, hold on a sec. Why did I write this down so weird.

Uh. headline numbers was 6.7 There we go. Uh, so headline inflation expected to go to 6.2 percent year over year from 6.7 and uh, core expecting to go to 5.5 from 5.7 So there you go. Those are the latest Uh reads that we have as of this morning.

So those are the expectations. and and you know where we're looking for softness. We're looking for softness in housing and medical and personal services, but we're not really expecting those. so we could be getting a meat on inflation here.

Uh, based on what the Econo Economist projections are, I Don't know that a meat would be that great, even though certainly we don't want to come in super. You know, hot or above the expectations. but even a meat is kind of like, dang dude. if we get a Mead at month over month core 0.4 that's still 4.8 percent inflation.

That is, by no means suggesting that the disinflation process has started yet on housing or personal services, which is going to be a little bit of an issue for the Federal Reserve because that's what they're looking for. That's what they're waiting for now. Bank of America I think I mentioned earlier JPMorgan was actually Bank of America Bank of America has a piece out on this. Uh, and and they suggest that there's a risk of what they call pipeline inflation now.

Pipeline inflation I think is really interesting. So I'll just sort of explain Lane pipeline inflation first and we'll go through a little bit. What they're talking about pipeline inflation is basically this idea that hey, look food costs for let's say animal Foods at Chewie for example, because this is exactly what you'll see in the chewy earning skull. you go through the chewy earnings column.

what do you see? Oh, the chewy earnings call says hey, we still have to increase prices in Q1, but we expect to be stable by Q2 Q3 Uh and then we expect not to have to raise prices anymore. This is basically saying there's still Embers of inflation that we have like it's not over, right? There's still Embers of inflation that are still propping up inflation and we're going to see those continue to come through now. as long as we can see an inflection point in those great fantastic. maybe we could finally hope for an end.

And so far it looks like that inflation point is really expected to be eq2 Q3 That's what everyone's expecting for the inflection. Will it actually come? Well, we'll see everyone's hoping for it. But and again, hope is not an investing strategy now. Bank of America here suggesting the recent slowdown does not mean that disinflation is coming.

Worth noting: that's the recent economic slowdown and some data that we've seen in December though we've seen some of that even re-accelerate since then. Uh, you've got uh this argue argument by Bank of America that actually took so it takes a look at the M3 money supply. The M3 money supply is generally deemed to be the more liquid form and what you'll find is uh, this piece right here I'll read it to you because I think it's interesting and then I'll show you the chart for it. So they suggest the following.

In our view, M3 performs three functions in modern Financial systems. First, it serves as the primary vehicle for payments. So in other words, M3 is that money you have ready to pay. It's that money that's like in your Venmo and your PayPal right and higher balances that exist in M3 Money Supply suggest higher spending and higher inflationary pressure.

Second, M3 Money supply is a safe form of savings and they could be seen as a sign of risk aversion. So in other words, High M3 Money Supply risk aversion but also the potential for spending more. It's kind of like being at the top of a roller coaster. You've got a lot of kinetic energy and the capability to spend.

Uh, now. the desire to hold money though, rather than to spend money would signal lower inflationary pressure, right? Because you're nervous, you're worried about the market unique today. M3 balances are a form of deferred spending. Suggest Bank of America When the service sector shut down, many households allow their excess spending power to pile up in bank accounts.

This was particularly the case where there were also record fiscal transfers to the household sector. It's basically saying, look, we didn't spend money, we got a lot of stemi checks to fill us up. So what is the recent flattening of the M3 money supply mean In the view of Bank of America, the third story dominates. Households are drawing down excess liquid savings to maintain real consumption in the face of inflation? Here, the U.S stands out as a country with the largest amount of excess savings, the largest amount of money Printing, and stimulus that we did and hence the biggest rundown of those Savings in the last year.

and unfortunately, they suggest it's unclear when that rebalancing will end and that as of today, excess balances are still quite High Ai and supportive of spending. And so here they provide a total organization of economically developed countries and they show you sort of the measure of M3 money supply which is this dark blue line and you can see it's obviously not growing anymore because the stimi payments have stopped, but the actual draw down in the M3 money supply has been nominal. You're basically only seeing a seeing a flattening of it. You haven't seen it fall yet, but you've seen a flattening of it and that flattening suggests.

Look man, pipeline inflation could keep going for a while. hate to say it, but there's a lot of money still left in the system says Bank of America Now of course. That then begets the idea that, well, what if all that extra money could just end up leading to no recession? Well that's a potential. But the biggest concern that everybody has right now is hey, if the Federal Reserve is looking at all this extra money and all this potential leftover pipeline inflation and we're still seeing lags.

And when we actually expect Housing Services housing itself and personal care services to start showing declines in CPI, then all that does is reiterate the fact that we have to stay higher for longer. Now higher for longer is too folded. right higher would mean potentially a higher terminal rate like 5.5 percent or maybe even as high as six percent, which some of the Bears are now calling for. But it also means no Cuts in 2023, which the Federal Reserve has been telling us.

but the market did not believe no Cuts in 23 until basically, uh, last week, which is pretty remarkable. So in other words, for the past like two to four months, we've been confident that there would be Cuts in 23 And as soon as that job's data came out, whoop, Those ideas went out the window. So how do you prepare for for this crazy potential CPI release? Uh, well and then and then what other kind of data do we have? So we've got a few things to go through. uh, first and to kind of interject here what my thought process is I Think there are kind of two ways to look at this.

Obviously, it goes without saying. it kind of sounds redundant at this point to suggest uh I would be very cautious to be in margin I would really limit margin, right? Obviously, limit margin. but potentially what you do is you, you can double play this right? And this is something that we're going to be doing in in a in sort of a trading challenge that we're starting next week and it's going to be uh, my entire team and myself working the trading challenge together. uh, for uh, course members in the stocks and psychology a money group link down below.

But anyway, something that we're thinking of is the following: first while you limit margin for trade purpose, maybe what you do is you look for low Vol plays on things that could momentum move right So low Vol with momentum play would be your upside back low Volentum place your downside bet would probably be Oh, and then and then these would be plays that have sold off or have sold off or are at a low price, right? So something that's low price and low Vol and his has some momentum attitude to it. Perfect potential upside play in case inflation comes in. Good downside bet: You probably want to look at something that has low Vol but has recently run a lot like a recent double. Uh, and then if you take something that's low Vol and potentially a recent double, that's something maybe you look at shorts or puts for.

So that would be sort of your way to bet that this inflation report ends up. you know, potentially slightly ugly. Uh, so. or you play both of them right and you basically straddle this.

That's an option. So uh, identifying those companies and coming up with a an exact trading plan is something that we'll be, uh, talking about tomorrow. Uh, midday. So uh, in the course member and either in the course member live stream, or after that, we'll post something anyway.

now. Uh. Easing Bank of America Goes on here to talk about these Easing Financial Conditions that have actually made it a little bit easier for people to spend money. Do keep in mind that mortgage rates ticked up quite a bit here recently.

Uh, and there's this talk about credit standards tightening. No credit standards tightening is something that we haven't quite yet seen in the Fannie Freddie space for residential housing, but we are starting to see it in commercial real estate Now they they say here: Residential Mortgage Loans But when I actually looked at the FED survey Fannie Freddie Loans weren't seeing any tightening. Those are your typical 30-year mortgages, but you were seeing it in non-conventional Residential Mortgages so more commercial style. Residential Mortgages your non-30-year fixed bid mortgages.

Uh and uh. and you are seeing a tightening in Consumer loans Autos Credit cards, consumer lending. Uh, you're seeing some tightening in the buy now, pay laters and such. Those are things that could also help sort of reduce maybe some of that excess demand, that excess spending and maybe help push inflation down.

Uh, but you've still got this lingering pipeline inflation and that that being the big fear that uh, that that everyone is looking at right now. Of course we did also have an acceleration again of energy prices, which we think would be hopefully a temporary phenomenon, but we'll see as China reopens if that temporary energy shock will go away now. Barclays Also has a piece on what to expect for inflation sort of going forward and the first thing they talk about and we've we've really talked a lot about this already is this idea that oh, maybe China's reopening is going to create this insane, uh, you know, explosion of inflation. And so far what we're seeing is that the Chinese are not spending as much on Goods they're spending more on services, so you're seeing a lot of travel.

you're seeing. uh, more hotel and entertainment spend on the reopening of China than you are on good spend which, which kind of makes sense, kind of aligns with what we've seen out here that could potentially keep pressure stable though on manufacturing and Supply chains and commodity prices which is good. Obviously still expect some kind of boosting Commodities potentially unless that's already priced in by Traders but this service is spending uh, could be good in my opinion. I've mentioned this quite bit.

For a company like Starbucks we'll see, uh, and and here even Barclays talks about the idea that maybe manufacturing will remain stable and that ultimately any kind of positive shock in China probably ends up benefiting a country like Europe or a country like Germany or other countries in Europe more so than it does in the United States based on sort of the spillover effects related to Uh Europe and Chinese trade. Regarding the United States you have uh Barclays under this belief that, uh, you know, maybe maybe we'll be leaning in sort of a potential super shallow recession. Uh, and they suggest over here that Global Pmis really indicate that we may have hit a bottom in the fourth Quarter. Now that's really interesting because if we hit a bottom here, then then is there a risk that inflationary pressures come back as we come out of this potential manufacturing bottom? and I think the answer to that is yeah.

absolutely there's a risk of that. In fact, you have a piece over here where they start looking at the 12-month wage tracker I Didn't like that they looked at the 12-month wage tracker I Think they should be looking at the three-month wage tracker because obviously wages Impact Services inflation. So I went and undugged that data myself and I looked at the wage tracker on a three-month rolling basis and and you do have declines. You could see that on screen here.

This is the wage growth tracker and even though the declines are are slow on overall wages, you are starting to see that disinflation occur in wages. You're seeing it in job switchers. You did see a slight tick up, which I thought was weird in the median wage growth for people with colleges. I Thought it would have been the opposite that you would have seen a slight take up maybe in the like hourly, uh, retail and Hospitality workers.

you didn't actually see that you actually saw that in college degree folks. Which is weird because it seems like that's where more of the layoffs are happening. Here's for example, you're paid hourly where you see that inflection the downside services to the downside. but maybe this is a good thing.

So all in all, you have a setup for what's going to be one of the most widely paid attention to inflation reports here in a while. And the reason it's going to be paid attention to so closely is because it's really one of these inflation reports where we already know it's coming in hotter than previously. right? It's coming in hotter than before. And part of that is because of uh of of energy prices shooting up for headline.

Part of it has to do with used autos, and that's unfortunate. So we already have this Baseline expectation that it's not going to be a clear disinflation, right? We already expect it won't be clear disinflation. We hope it will be. But again, hope is not an investing strategy.

So so the the fact that the expectation is no clear disinflation is initially not great because it means the market is probably going to position itself bearishly right bearish positioning. Because what are the headlines going to be? The headlines are going to be inflation re-accelerates if we hit those expectations. Now the Hope scenario uh is that we end up getting some kind of Miss right? That's the Hope scenario. A Hope scenario in a miss would probably be more bullish than a meat would be bearish.

I'll say that again. if a meat has already been priced in, which is possible maybe a meat is priced in, then any kind of Miss like a softer number would actually potentially be very good. Uh uh, any kind of any kind of miss. that would be the Hope scenario and probably one that there isn't much upside hedging for.

So I would expect that there's limited upside hedging. These would be like shorter term call options, right? and that's an assumption. But I think you want to look for particular stocks. For example, you look at a company like Tesla You can see that the put call ratio just moved up from 1.3 to 1.5 on a put call ratio.

Which means you've got about 50 more puts than you have calls. And in my opinion, that's very bearish positioning because Tesla has run so much right? So you wanna? In my opinion, look for those sort of opportunities where because there's such bearish positioning, maybe there's an opportunity to, actually, in a weird way, take a limited upside hedge in that sort of positioning that doesn't mean you want to be, you don't want to be hedged to the downside as well. So that's that's just something else to think about as you're going into this. CPI report on Tuesday It's probably going to be a bigger deal than the prior CPI reports that we've gotten because the prior CPI reports have just been Trend down Trend downtrend down trend and now we have this what we already expect to be a move Up Now I've previously said in the past I like it when the expectations are high because it's easier to be to the downside and that's still true, but you know it's a little.

it's a little. It's a little bit hopium so you know we'll see. All we could say here is fingers crossed. Uh, obviously we expect Why disinflation by the middle of uh of 2023.

but uh, to plan for it now is uh, is certainly uh, hope-esque Dare I say anyway? good luck on Tuesday I'll be streaming it live so you'll see my reaction I should probably get some tequila out and have it ready because uh, it would be tequila and nap time if it comes in bad. All right. So let's take a peek at some of some of your all uh comments here. Is there really room for a Miss sure there is.

Uh, let's see here. then we've got Tesla due for a pullback. Well, you got a lot of people saying that, but then it also suggests that you know it's it's prior. Uh, its prior.

Fall was fundamentally based. You know, right? Like no. Six months ago, nobody would have told you Tesla 200 is due for a pullback. People Be like man, that's low.

Um, yeah, let's see here. the balloons are not detected as fast as a missile there for they are loading the balloons with bombs. Oh gosh, that's a jaded way to look at it. Uh yeah we do.

I mean we talked about Bonds a lot yesterday. I mean I'll reiterate the bottom line for you. Yeah, we're at the greatest inversion since the 80s, which implies uh, you know, substantial Cuts in the future because something's likely to break and potentially you have a recession over the next. Uh uh, you know, year and a half or so when? when that is, you know it's speculation at this point.

Fannie Freddie or tightening as the new level price is just I've not seen that on the Fannie Mae loan level. Price suggestions: loan level: Let's see price adjustments: Fanny Freddy I I Mean maybe maybe there was a res like I haven't seen that in the last adjustment report. They seemed relatively stable. but I'll look at it.

yeah. I only have the the one that we got for January basically showed that uh, they made it. They loosened credit standards for lower credit standards and high, uh, increase some of the standards for higher credits. I mean they basically averaged out how much does the balloon cost to make? That's a good question.

If we knew what was on it, maybe we could tell you. That's the big thing right now is you've got a lot of folks. uh yeah, who who uh, are frustrated that we haven't yet revealed all the pieces that go into this balloon. So uh, you know we'll we'll see.

Uh, let's see here. Balloons being sent. Throw Out Diagnose I Used to diagnose situations as a job in the past. Sometimes you throw some testers out there and see how systems respond.

Yeah, so China's probably like oh, looks like all three of our balloons made it. Who knows, Maybe they launched 15. Oh, it's kind of wild. Nobody knows.

Yeah. I'm not the biggest bull unboxable. Honestly? I'll I'll Um, I'll I'll give you my my sincere thoughts on uh, boxable. Okay, now now these are just my thoughts.

Uh, and I don't want these to be construed as like in any means. Let me rephrase this. Okay, I won't be clear about this when talking about boxable I'm not the biggest bull and I want to just be very, very careful with what I say because some of the things I say are potentially based on outdated information. Maybe I'm being too bearish.

but let me be very clear. this idea that you can build a fifty thousand dollar Casita Great. Maybe before the pandemic and that was done. but the fifty thousand dollar Casita And this is something that bothers me as somebody who used to be a licensed contractor operated the licensed contracting business passed the licensed Contracting test.

I I've gone through real estate investing for uh, well over a decade and I deal with this sort of stuff. What's remarkable? Almost 13 years. It's crazy. What's remarkable about the Boxable Casita is that you have to remember the fifty thousand dollar.

Casita pre-inflation days does not include a roof. It doesn't include cladding on the outside of the building which would be like your stucco or siding. It does not include the foundation. It does not include the plumbing or electrical lines to get you there.

It does not include the permits or the architecture fees to get you there. It doesn't include all of those things. What you're getting is a box for fifty thousand dollars pre-inflation That's probably now a seventy thousand dollar box post inflation. and you're getting limited customizability obviously.

And that makes sense because you're trying to manufacture these in Mass. However, the massive concern that I have is that most of the sales of Boxable Casitas have been demo units or they have been to the CIA for Guantanamo Bay and Guantanamo Bay. According to a very detailed report from The New York Times I know a lot of people they put the tinfoil hat on. they're like I don't like the New York Times I don't trust the word they say.

that's fine I don't particularly like the New York Times myself I have the honor of having a a post about me in the New York Times Uh, actually I think I have two. No one's not that bad though. But anyway, so I have the honor of being in the New York Times so I okay I get to bag on them too. But the point is they have a very and you can just search this yourself.

Boxable Casita Guantanamo Bay Okay, yeah, that's where you go like waterboard and torture Terrace okay, uh, unofficially. officially anyway. uh, apparently the CIA ordered 50 150 approximately of these boxable Casitas And because they don't come with a roof, most of them ended up turning into a moldy crap show because you have a massive logistic nightmare of basically okay here are your 150 units and then it's like, well, great, but the roofer's not available yet and so the time like being able to time to deliver these is a problem, especially in the tropics. So they cover them with blue tarps and now they're like molding up.

Now you can point the finger at Guantanamo You could point the finger at the process. You could point the finger at Boxable I Don't know. But the point is when when Boxable tells us that they have manufactured a hundreds of these boxable Casitas The reality is 150 of them are molding in Guantan Bay and most of the other ones are just freaking demo units so the company can raise more money. So in my opinion, What? what? I'm seeing with Boxable is a company that has apparently a manufacturing line number one which is really just for like five units of a demo unit or whatever.

Maybe that's where they somehow came up with the first 150? I'm not sure. Then they have the Vegas facility which which I I would like to be proven wrong on this. So I'd like to tour. uh the boxable uh Vegas facility I Don't know if after this video that survive me I just I want I want to be upfront with people.

Okay, when when I I like to give my reasonable criticisms because if anything I want the company to succeed. We have a massive housing crisis. Housing is unaffordable, right? And so the idea of a fifty thousand dollar box which is probably now seventy thousand dollars plus Foundation architecture uh, roof and cladding? you're probably at 125 to 150 000 project right? Being real Here, the idea of 50k is pretty much clickbait. you're probably at about 150 000 project.

I'd like to be proven wrong though. and again, just like with Arkimoto I made a a warning video after I met with the CEO I'm like you should not be going into bikes. You should not be trying to license out your projects so that other people can manufacture them. You should take one thing, the Deliverator or whatever you want Mass produce it as soon as possible.

But I think once they realize that manufacturing is hard, they shut down, they gave up and now they're going bankrupt I gave that warning over nine months ago. well before actually no, it was. it was somewhere around March No, it might have been March yeah, maybe March of 2022 or so when the stock was still worth a whole lot more I posted that warning. but anyway.

uh, the point is, those are the similar kind of warnings that I'm seeing with Boxable I'm seeing this warning with Boxable that, uh, now they're they're raising more money because manufacturing is hard and they're not actually able to properly manufacture out of their second facility. So now the idea is. well, we have a lot of reservations. Well, of course you do because it's an underpriced, unrealistic unit.

You're not going to sell these things for 50. Grand anyway, but these reservations help you raise more money from investors. And now because you realize your second facility is already inade adequate even though it's new, you want to have a third. Factory This sounds bad.

I'm probably one of the only people that's actually bearish unboxable right now, but I I Maybe I'm too critical. Okay, maybe I'm being too critical. but I'm just saying. I I understand costs I understand how hard it is to hire people I understand how hard it is.

Uh, and and understand I I Know very little about manufacturing. but I know it's very hard. Uh, and anytime I look at companies that are manufacturers I see the pain I feel the pain I Get it. Manufacturing sucks, especially in an environment of supply chain issues.

especially in that sort of environment. And then the reality is boxable. Got a massive boost because lumber prices were skyrocketing and they don't use Lumber So everybody's like this is fantastic. You have a lumber alternative.

Well, that was fantastic during the pandemic. But guess what's happening now? Lumber prices have plummeted. It's probably cheaper to build a guest unit or a casita out of lumber than it is out of the Composites that they use right now. So you've got massive issues with boxable manufacturing issues.

The fact that the reality is, the 50 000 units probably not fifty thousand dollars anymore. So the original price is clickbait. But beyond that people don't. People who are investing into boxable in my opinion, aren't realizing that you have to get cladding for the outside of the property.

You have to get a roof on the unit. You've got to get a foundation. You got to get electrical. You've got to get Plumbing You got to get a sewer line.

You got the water line. The gas line. You got to get all these things run to the property. Maybe you don't do gas.

Maybe it's just electricity. That's fine. but in some areas gas is actually more affordable unless of course you. You don't want to go for a gas stove over cooktop because that's unpopular now in certain areas, or they're getting banned in some of the liberal areas, which there are a lot of people who are frustrated about that.

uh, this this idea that uh, uh uh, you know, oh, it's it's you know. Woke to go for an induction cooktop. uh, you know what's in insane and I I Don't know if I have that video posted somewhere, but uh I used to I used to have it on my website but it's been a long time. but uh, about uh, 12 years ago I uh I had.

uh, let me see if I can find it about 12 years ago. I Uh, it might have even been longer ago. About a long time ago. I posted a video and it was short.

It was like 30 seconds. It was before short videos were a thing before. Tick Tock was the thing. I posted a video talking about induction cooktops and how phenomenal they are.

Uh oh, here it is. July 13th, Uh. 2013. this is insane.

Uh, it is. Is it public sometimes? Oh yeah, here it is. Okay. hold on I'll just show it to you.

Uh okay. You ready for this? This is insane. This is a long time ago. I don't even know why I'm showing this.

but I'm gonna do it anyway. You ready for this is 42 seconds long. Look at that posted nine years ago I Get asked Hey Kevin Why did you buy an electric induction cooktop when you could have had gas? You have the gas line right there. Well, here's my answer.

The first reason: it's easier to clean. There are no grates to scrape or clean under. it's flat. Second reason is safety.

I've been heating this for a couple minutes. probably shouldn't eat it anymore. There's no flame. Boom.

Put my hand right on it. It's cold. The only thing that heats up is the bottom of The pan. The third reason: it cooks faster.

Some say 30 faster than gas that way when I need to cook organic corn pasta I can do it faster. That's stupid. Oh my. God So again, I don't know where that came from.

Uh, but uh. But the point is uh uh uh. This is like a giant tangent uh uh on induction cooktops. but uh, big fan.

Okay, and this is before the whole like oh, you're woke if you go induction like induction's awesome, You want grates, barbecue outside induction is phenomenal. And don't talk to me about conduction like the stupid spirally electric ones. The ones you have in like the Poor Apartments which I grew up in I grew up with a stupid little spiral coils that turn orange and it's the cooktop that's really old because you're poor and you don't have a new one and it sucks and it takes forever to heat up and it's really hot. You burn yourself on it's trash.

Not talking about that. Induction's great. Anyway, off that rant. Um, let's now get back to basketball.

So so you have massive problems with uh, boxable in my opinion. Again, number one, it's the real cost of being done with the project, probably exceeds the actual cost of just conventional framing. The second problem that you have is I don't think the company is capable of properly scaling manufacturing. They show off their manufacturing facility.

but I am very nervous that the manufacturing. facility. they're scaling. uh, or they're they're showing off.

they're already suggesting they're outgrowing. That makes me more nervous. uh. and then the third thing is I think that um, so number one would be uh, the all of the extra costs that go into it.

number two would be the inability to scale and number three is I think the inflationary costs are going to make the fifty thousand dollar unit seventy thousand. So the base price can be a lot more expensive. So I'm I'm a bear I'm I'm not very very bullish on uh, unboxable so you know I appreciate the question here. Uh, and these are just I hope to be proven wrong.

but because again, I do think that we we are in a massive housing crisis and I think we need cheaper housing. We also need uh, cities and and states that are willing to support more housing. I was blown away by this. but the LA Times uh, actually just exposed Governor Newsom for something I've been talking about for a long time long time.

I mean ever since this bill passed, this Sb9 uh, passed. I've been complaining that basically it's impossible to build homes. uh, through Sb9 in California So Sb9 came out and the suggestion was oh, we're going to let people turn garages into guest units or build guest units in their backyards and the city has to approve that within 60 days. I Spent two years going through the approval on process on two properties and it was Hell.

It was hell to get approval and I still didn't get approval on one of them because they said oh well, we just decided it's in a fire zone and we don't want you to build there and it's like after two years you tell me that y'all are I Mean that is is California right? But look at that Sb9 and this was supposed to actually be a Big Boon to companies like boxable because people could then get approval and then go build a unit in a single-family home and throw a boxable down. This is actually more bad news: Sb9 was introduced two years ago. This was while I was running against Gavin Newsom for governor and uh, he's over at the Google campus bragging about how he's passing this new housing bill. But then again, Governor Newsom's a total fraud and a failure at doing anything with balls in the state of California because he wants to run for president and he doesn't want to rock the boat fine.

But here's the LA Times who's basically the mouthpiece for Gavin Newsom bagging on him, saying the bill he passed so far is failing. Uh, and so the bill received bipartisan support to add housing. Whatever. Whatever, Neither argument for adding housing has been proven so far.

Across 13 cities studied in the state, Sb9 projects are limited to non-existent according to UC Berkeley Hey, I got into Berkeley I didn't end up going to Berkeley I went to use CLA instead. but anyway, the report focused on cities considered high opportunity areas for duplexes because they've reported significant increases in the construction of Adus known as granny Flats Casitas or Adus in recent years. Adu Small, freestanding homes, whatever, whatever. whatever.

The cities are listed right here. Okay, great. San Diego Anaheim So on and so forth. By the end of November cities had collectively received 282 applications for Sb9 projects had approved only 53.

dude, I'm one of the people getting screwed by this. Los Angeles accounted for the bulk of applications receiving 211 and only proof 38. What a fraud these cities are. What a freaking fraud.

You have this and I mean we should know this about California already. but you have the governor who's like we are going to allow people to build guest units so people spend tens of thousands of dollars with Architects to to do what the state law says and what is the the city government say? Yeah, we'll sit on these because we're the city of Los Angeles and we're a real fraud. Oh my. God California's governments suck.

Applications for divided Lots seem even less popular. Just 100 applications were submitted. only 28 had been approved. Uh, Sb9 is only in its first year of implementation.

We should give it more time to judge if it's effective. No. David Garcia Why don't you spend two years and fifty thousand dollars on paperwork trying to get two projects turned into Sb9 projects yourself and then tell me if we should give it time. It's ineffective because the cities don't give a and you're an idiot who obviously doesn't realize it.

Sorry. I'm upset because I'm trying to provide more housing in the state of California and it's basically impossible. And when the LA Times and a study from Berkeley both very liberal institutions are reiterating that the government of California is an abject failure, you know it's probably worse than it even is being talked about. So so to Circle back into boxable California was supposed to be one of the markets where it was easy to plop a casita down in a boxable den.

That's why they're manufacturing them in Vegas because it's right next to California which are supposed to be a big old market for building Casitas easily. Yeah, there goes that idea out the window. So if you need a fourth reason why I'm nervous about boxable, it's because California is a fraud. But then again, here I am still living in California and and complaining about it.

The good news is I've learned my lesson And the lesson I learned is don't build guest units in California instead buy single family homes and basically over the long term watch them go up in value because the government is too stupid to add more housing or housing availability. So if you want to get rich in California just buy real estate. And yeah, you've got a nice little market dip over here because mortgage rates skyrocketed thanks to the Fed. That's the macro cycle.

But in the long term, California is probably a great place to buy housing because the government is moronic and that's not good for boxable. So how's that for a rant about housing for you move to Texas You know. Actually, yeah, if you move to Texas you could basically just buy some two by fours and start building. Well, obviously a little exaggerated, but uh, yeah, but by a tough shed and drywall it into a mini home.

You know if the problem with that okay and then fairness to California The problem with that is you are in an earthquake zone and you do need to build things according to standard. Okay, what credit score should I have before buying a single family house for yourself? Who cares? Just get a good deal and buy when the market is right. I Think the Market's going to be right later this year. Obviously the higher credit score you have, the lower the pricing is.

But if you get a good deal, who cares, Man, Once you fix your credit, you can. You can, uh, hopefully be in a position to refinance to a lower rate. But I think if you get a great property, uh, you know what a great deal, you can increase your net worth. It doesn't matter if your credit's 620 or 740.

you know 740 is obviously ideal, but I wouldn't you know? wait to be perfect to buy? Kevin Closing on a house in three weeks Should I lock my rate before? Okay, well, I mean that's just pure speculation, right? Uh, I mean at this point I Think markets are positioning in a bearish mood. if we get a Miss on the CPI you could actually, in my opinion, see a substantial plummet in rates. Uh, you know. Here's the thing though, and this is evil.

Okay, you wanna? You know this is. this is why you watch my channel. Sorry to the lenders who are going to hear this, but um, here's the the move. The move is you lock your rate and then if rates go higher, your rates locked, you're good.

If rates plummet. After you locked your rate, you call a different lender. Okay, that's it's really mean, but that's one way you can double hedge yourself. Sorry.

Okay, listen, that's why people sign up for programs on building their wealth. Link down below because Kevin's got a whole ton of ideas that nobody talks about on the Internet that you get a nice list and the real estate investing course and do yourself Property Management Course and the Stocks and Psychology of Money course I'm chock full of ideas like that. Anyway, Okay, so um, all right, let's move on here. So what would that was a lot? So that was.

um I was a long housing rant there. Uh, anyway, let's see what else we have. Yeah, oh my gosh, almost at 30 000. Now that's incredible.

Uh, all right. so groceries continue to go up. I don't know ma'am if you're shopping at Whole Foods they're starting to lower prices. Best money I've ever spent.

Oh thanks man. Appreciate that. Play the game. don't be played.

Uh yeah yeah. Homemaker Home builders are screwed. That's right. Robin Robin says call me Fornia is right.

yeah I mean you think about Nano Dimension I don't know. Uh, you know it's uh, it's uh I'm not a big fan of 3D printing I don't I I've you could actually search my video back when the sucker was like 16 bucks where I'm kind of like very bearish on it, but just type into YouTube meet Kevin Nano Dimension and you'll get my full opinion on it. Hey man, can I spend two hundred thousand dollars to speak with you in your private jet? No, you could actually shadow me for a lot less. but yeah, if you do want to Shadow me uh, you can Shadow me uh we might go fly uh, somewhere.

but uh uh, we're upgrading the plane right now I should have it back this week. Uh, and then we're we're gonna be uh, probably exploring with a lot of Shadows uh either locally or flying places or whatever. but yeah, you can Shadow me uh, it's linked down below. it's like I don't know.

it's like three grand through 3900 something like that I don't know the the length to Shadow me is down below and uh yeah you you can absolutely shout me, it's kind of cool. We'll be traveling a lot. Uh, most people. a lot of people recently have just been shadowing me in person but in in our office.

but that's because they don't really care I mean I don't think anybody's shadowing me to go travel somewhere it's shadowing to uh to Shadow to talk real estate and and to brainstorm. Yeah, so it's been kind of fun so looked into the northern Virginia Market no I haven't yet. Uh, househack's pretty excited. Uh yeah I I should be back up in the air this week I'm hoping Wednesday we're back up and flying so my schedule is basically perfect perfected now which is really fun.

but I should be back up in the air on um on Wednesday which is going to be really fun. Uh, it's actually been a nice little break though from flying it's been about a three week break and uh, as our as our windshield gets upgraded it. It's basically one of the heating elements in the Uh on the Uh, just one portion of the Uh Captain's windshield. Uh, had a warranty upgrade and uh, that's done now uh so uh and we also got our Wi-Fi enabled which is six we got 5G Wi-Fi it's great.

uh I'm gonna come I wanna I'm tempted to compare that to uh Starlink and uh the the the SpaceX service but just to install a starlink Wi-Fi antennas like 200 Grand So it's kind of kind of insane. could house hack go International it's called stalking not shadowing I don't think it's style. Honestly, we've had such wonderful Shadows come everybody's been been uh, it has been fantastic. uh that that we've had.

What if we want to Shadow you in a specific area? um you know we don't do that at this point. Uh, you know we might be able to do that if we're like Hey we're already going to a certain place and you can meet us there but you know we we don't provide. we're not like a transportation service. you know we we.

you know, like that's not what we do. it's not like you can call me and be like yo I Want to fly here? I don't do that. You know, uh, it's uh, it's if you want to Shadow me you're coming for me and if we're traveling that day, then we're either driving or we're flying. or if we're local that day, then we're local that day.

So oh but uh yeah. Anyway, um, course members get a discount on shadowing. Yeah, absolutely and just uh, use the course member code which we talk about in Discord or Uh just, email Kevin.com But yeah, um, we're really excited to be flying again. Do you like your playing? I'd Love it.

Would you buy the same with the knowledge you have now? I would because of the efficiency of it I I'm very tempted by the ideas of, uh, larger planes, but the problem with larger planes is, uh, the fuel economy. The next leg up on fuel economy, you're looking at a double. Uh, I don't need it for my mission because my mission is mostly day trips and larger planes go further distances. But I don't need to go further distances because further distances would imply no longer day trips.

so the mission profile is not a fit. and then for larger flights, you end up having more wear and tear on your tires, on your brakes. Uh, you're burning more fuel in the sky with a larger plane and the sucker I have goes fast man. I Mean we're talking 535 miles an hour? This suckers fast.

It's really, really good. Uh, they're it's It's fantastic. So I'm very excited. T-Mobile offers 5G Wi-Fi Not that big of a deal.

45 a month? Um, plain. Wi-Fi is like five grand a month? Uh yeah. so uh. home and vehicle industry is about to embark on a time no one has seen before but feared what? I don't know what you mean.

If you work at a company like Rivenia, they give you stock. Would it be good to just sell it? you know I think I I Generally like the idea of uh of if if you're at a a risky company like Rivian diversifying Uh, mostly because if you if the company goes bankrupt now you've lost your stock and your job and you're in a pretty bad situation right? Uh yeah, that that would be that would be not great No. I I Don't think the seller sold me the plane because he knew the windshield needed replacing and he did this. He disclosed the issue of the the uh this this warranty upgrade coming for this heating element so it's not like that was a big surprise I think the big surprise was the time it would take to do the upgrade.

maybe uh you know but I I don't I don't suspect there was uh there was a maliciousness in the intent there. uh so no. I I would I would never say anything bad about about my my seller so at happy I could tell by your comment. okay uh interesting.

Anyway, interesting questions yes you all have here. Do you like poodles? I like Labradoodles uh okay so let's see what else do we have to cover here? We got another piece that we want to cover here but I'll look to see if there's uh, any last minute question here and then we'll go into this next piece. Okay yeah, usually usually we do 100 write-off year one for the play. Absolutely, who cares about a Lambor Ferrari when you own a job? Yeah, it's expensive.

man. 13 million dollar planes a lot. Uh uh. so windshields are like 60 Grand Yeah, nothing to fear but fear itself I Love that quote.

All right Someone says Nick T did nicotine really just tweet? oh yeah, oh, that's so funny. That's my next piece. Uh is is what Nick T's talking about here. That's so funny.

My next piece is the no dude, are you serious? That's literally my next piece. Oh Nick come on man, that's so funny. Yeah, because it's it's it's his own piece. but that was that's funny.

So uh yeah, he's just retweeting his own piece. That's funny. Uh uh yeah, that's it's the same article. Yeah, he just tweeted the hard Landing or no Landing uh, right here.

that's his piece. And literally the piece that I was going to talk about next was that and I already have it highlighted and everything. That's fine is that. But but there's I've more going into I have the basis of where his piece comes from as well.

so we'll talk about that. Uh, and that's from I believe that was the JPM piece. Get that ready all right, but we'll get into it I I like Nick T I Like covering his stuff. so I'm a big fan I Think you should follow him on Twitter Big fan and it's just funny.

All right, let's get that ready here and then we'll get going. So yeah, okay, we talked Builders Oh right. and then I've got that prepared. I've got Pepsi and Unilever because he mentions that and we've got the JP Morgan view.

Okay, good. So first come by. Okay, Oh yeah, yeah, this is the transitory of disinflation, please. Okay, all right good.

Uh, how much is jet fuel per gallon? It depends where you fuel it up. Is it casts or diesel? It's jet fuel. It's jet fuel. Kerosene is what it is.

Um, but it depends where you fuel up. If you go to a big airport, it could be eight bucks a gallon. If you go to a small airport, it's like five bucks a gallon. It's crazy that the the disparity.

So basically only go to small airports. Big airports suck anyway because you sit there and uh uh and and you end up fighting uh for takeoff Kevin is copying Nikki T no I actually don't uh I I talk about Nikki T and I think I add value to what he's saying. uh and the he looks at a lot of the similar articles I think or Economist reports that you get from Morgan Stanley or JPM or otherwise. Uh, that everyone does in the industry including myself.

So I don't think there's copying I think I Know there are a lot of people that just copy other people's content I Like to give credit and add value. That's my thesis. I Think that's very different from from copying content. Copying content is that's very normal on Tick Tock Right on.

Tick Tock People: it's like, oh, what? what? what? Well people just copy the script to someone else and then say the same thing with a different face and and The Tick Tock Algo still pushes it. Uh, it's pretty insane. Uh, but uh yeah. Oh yeah yeah.

Oh yeah. yeah. Okay, so uh. let's go.

Uh, the cost for a larger aircraft is rationalized by number of passengers transported. Sure, But you have to ask yourself, how many do you really need I Mean you know my plan carries nine passengers and two pilots Like it's a lot of people. Man, that's already a lot of people. It's a lot of people.

Uh Kevin I've never hear your opinion on term life or educate people on term life. Oh yeah, generally I think the fees on a lot of those things are agonizingly High Yeah so anyway, okay, let's talk now about this. No Landing idea and no I mean I I Like to call it the recession is canceled. Oh, that sounds juicy, doesn't it? Here we go, Recession is canceled or is it And that's the big question we've got to talk about now because now there's a big debate going on on Wall Street about are we going to experience a hard Landing a soft Landing or no landing at all.

That's what's being debated by economists now and the Fed's mouthpiece Nikki T is adding some insight and some commentary into it and we'll analyze that as well as providing more perspective. But first, we got to look at what JP Morgan has to say and JP Morgan isn't very excited. JP Morgan suggests that disinflation that we are seeing in markets now might end up just being transitory which this is basically egg in the face of the Federal Reserve It's the idea that hey, Federal Reserve y'all thought that inflation going up was going to be transitory and what ended up happening. it ended up skyrocketing and Lasting a whole lot longer and being being a whole lot bigger than you thought it was going to be.

And while that might be what every woman in America wants to hear, it's not what we want to hear in economies. Now you've got folks like Marco Klonovac over at JPM suggesting hey, hey, wait a minute. Now you're arguing we're seeing disinflation Mr J Powell Yeah, well, we think your disinflation might end up being transitory. In this next upcoming CPI report could show us how transitory it ends up being.

That disinflation? in other words, right back to inflation. and JP Morgan of course picks up on this idea that jobs growth is pouring cold water on the idea of a soft Landing Uh, that. uh. ultimately jobs growth is reheating the economy.

They also suggest that at 68 of S P 500, companies have beat EPS estimates. Now, while that's lower than the long-term term average of 75 percent, it's still pretty good. It shows things aren't actually as bad as it seems and wage growth. While it seems to be tentatively moderating because of higher job openings, Pmi's starting to rotate back up again, and uh, reports from Uh from earnings showing that maybe things aren't that bad, Maybe we might end up having to crimp the economy substantially further, which this is basically JPM arguing hey, you know you've got a situation right now.

Where look, you might end up having a fad that has to type tighten a lot more than they think, while at the same time companies are choosing well. Do we lay off people or continue to see margins suffer because margins are the big buffer right now and JPMorgan suggests in their belief, the stock market is going to end up hitting an air pocket in Q2 or Q3 This is all in reference to kind of like the the soft Landing idea and it's basically suggesting hey, if the plane comes in for a soft Landing that's one thing JP Morgan thinks we're still flying, but we're gonna hit an air pocket and kind of fall in like a sort of turbulent pattern in Q2 and Q3 And the reason we're going to do that in their opinion is because the Federal Reserve is likely to hike more aggressively and that is going to end up hitting earnings and especially stocks a lot more than individuals are expecting. In fact, JP Morgan throws cold water on this idea that hey, look, we broke the 200-day moving average. There's a golden Cross.

We've got all these technicals suggesting to potentially the beginning of a new business cycle. what does JP Morgan say No, we are not at the beginning of a new business cycle or or you know, uh, economic cycle. we are actually at the tail end of the current crash and that actually means there'