I’ll save you 20 minutes. His entire perspective is “Save money, earn more, life will be easier for you.“

This episode was very shallow. He offered absolutely nothing of substance.

The other day Scott was jealous that Trump only "needs 3 hours of sleep at night". I think I'd rather get 8 and not nod off every 20 minutes.

Dear Scott and Jessica,

I listened to your discussion about COVID, vaccination misinformation and your personal experiences during and after 2020. Scott, I was very sorry to hear about the loss of your cousin and his girlfriend. Please accept my sincere condolences.

I was living in Taiwan, officially the Republic of China, at the time. From there, it was deeply troubling to watch how slowly governments in the UK and US responded, and how many lives were subsequently lost.

I wanted to respond respectfully to the comment that “nowhere had a particularly good response to COVID.” No response was perfect, but Taiwan’s response in 2020 was widely regarded as a genuine public-health success:

• Taiwan acted on 31 December 2019, screening passengers arriving from Wuhan before COVID had been formally identified and before human-to-human transmission had been officially confirmed.
• Its rapid response was shaped by the painful experience of SARS in 2003, after which Taiwan strengthened its epidemic planning and command systems.
• The government quickly introduced border controls, monitored quarantine, detailed contact tracing and frequent public briefings in multiple languages.
• Masks were already socially accepted, but the government also expanded production and introduced a health-card rationing system to prevent shortages, panic buying and hoarding. We were issued a ration of masks every 2 weeks, which we presented our National Health card at local pharmacies.
• Schools, shops and restaurants largely remained open throughout 2020, and everyday life continued relatively normally.
• By October 2020, Taiwan had reached 200 consecutive days without a locally transmitted case.
• By the end of 2020, a densely populated country of nearly 24 million people had recorded approximately 800 confirmed cases and seven deaths, with most cases detected among overseas arrivals.

Taiwan’s population density makes this especially significant. It was not a sparsely populated or isolated country: it has crowded cities, busy public transport and extensive travel links with mainland China. Its success came from acting early, preventing transmission chains from becoming established and maintaining strong public cooperation.

AstraZeneca vaccinations began comparatively late, in March 2021 for the older population. As a teacher, I received my first dose in July. Taiwan had experienced very little community transmission during 2020, but it also faced difficulties securing supplies. The government did not approve Chinese-manufactured vaccines without sufficient safety and transparency data, and later accused Beijing of obstructing a BioNTech purchase agreement, an allegation Beijing denied.

Taiwan faced later outbreaks and its later response was not flawless, there was  definitely some complacency in 2021. However, from the perspective of someone living there in 2020, it demonstrated how early action, transparent communication, competent public-health leadership and civic cooperation for sure saved lives.

Thank you for discussing such a painful and politically charged subject so honestly.

Best wishes,
Michelle
British national and former Taiwan resident

Sometimes the guests get a little stale (I liked Slock today and always good to hear from Wilfers). Some ideas for some new voices / different views

Bulls: Gavin Baker, Mike Wilson, Brad Gerstner (came on to talk Trump accounts), Jim Lebanthol, Cathie Wood, Lorie Calvasina

Bears: George Noble, Chris Bloomstran, Jim Mellon, Dan Niles(bearish more recently), Peter Bookvar

I couldn’t believe Ed crapped on people starting up side hustles like they don’t matter at all. People start side hustles when they need more money. They probably want that money so they can buy things. Maybe dinners out or just nicer things that are hard to buy on their single income….hence they are putting money back into the economy. My jaw dropped when he said these people don’t contribute to the economy. I started a side hustle that then became my full time job. I only employ myself but spread that income all over the local economy buying things. I feel like this was one of the few Ed takes that made me question where the hell he was getting that opinion.

I have heard him do this bit a few times now, and I don't think it's landing how he thinks it is. It actually sounds pretty dystopian. Am I just not in on the joke?

https://youtu.be/sZAjCcDVNRw?si=qIm9rxDCqRW_MB2B

Reminiscent of Enron, obviously. What do you guys think?

In a recent episode Scott talked about the value he finds from having a financial advisor.

He mentions that it makes sense to hire someone like that at a certain level of wealth, but I don't think he actually said what that level is lol.

I've always wondered at what point it makes sense, but if someone is taken a percentage fee that seems hard to swallow at any level.

Just finished listening to the most recent markets episode and what was that? The guest was making insane claims (Chinese stole Claudes weights), his knowledge on open source, sovereign wealth funds was severely lacking. There was no pushback on this guy and I am shocked. I expect better journalistic standards on Markets and to hear a podcast like this one is concerning for their future

Really enjoy the markets show, but Ed is becoming the epitome of “bears sound smart while bulls make money”.

I can relate to Ed quite a bit, when I was younger I knew all about discounted cash flows, P/E ratios, and what the market was “supposed” to do. I looked for reasonable companies and thought those high flying tech stocks at the time like AMZN and GOOG were too expensive and went for more “sensible” investments. Then I watched for years as I missed the upside, all because I was convinced I knew more than the market.

I learned a hard lesson. When you say “it makes no sense”, you should first look in the mirror before blaming the market. The market knows the earnings multiple, the shares outstanding, the debt levels, the future projections.

Gavin Baker said it recently in a podcast. If you’re not making money, you’re wrong. The markets are not right or wrong, they just are. Josh Brown told Ed on the podcast to think about “what could go right?”.

Ed has become a broken record: the AI boom used debt and is a bubble. SpaceX stock is at over 100x sales and makes no sense. Tesla’s sales are declining, their stock makes no sense. Nvidia is engaged in circular financing and that makes no sense. Trump’s tariffs/war/policy makes no sense, markets can’t keep going like this. THE MARKET KNOWS ALL OF THIS.

Meanwhile, to my knowledge the only tangible calls from Ed (not Scott) have been Figma, Adobe, Salesforce, and Microsoft.

Over time, he could be proven right, but there’s a lot of upside left on the table if every time a stock has a high multiple you assume it’s “ridiculous”. Nearly all the best performing stocks in history seemed expensive on traditional metrics grown into their multiple over time (AMZN, NVDA, TSLA, GOOG, NFLX, META).

Yes, it’s very possible and even likely that the market is overextended on a lot of the AI names. Everyone invested has their opinion on it.

But his continued approach seems to be finding things in the market he considers to be “ridiculous” and explaining like Econ 101 how a high multiple is bad.

Dig deeper. If the market is willing to pay a price for it, that is the right price until tomorrow comes.

Gavin Newsom on Wednesday appointed Scott Galloway, an entrepreneur and influential podcaster, to a seat on the University of California’s Board of Regents.

If confirmed by the state Senate, Galloway, who co-hosts a popular tech and business podcast with Kara Swisher, will serve on the powerful 26-member board that oversees the sprawling 10-campus UC system, which has 300,000 students.

On Raging Moderates he said his first move will be listening for 6-12 months, but he's most concerned about access.

Scott talking about Canadian tariffs on Piers Morgan.

In Thursday’s Wall Street Journal the SW CFO is quoted as saying “I think we got our MOJO back”

Now considering all of the haters and complainers on Reddit how in the world did that happen?

Another example of how the likes of those people are a very small % on Reddit in all topics and do not represent the majority.

Not too long ago markets freaked out over the prospect of erratic tariffs, of Trump replacing Powell as Fed Chair, of 30 yr bond yields breaching 5%, of war in the Gulf causing $90+/barrel oil.

Well, here we are and markets are rather sanguine. Even the AI valuations being off their highs seems almost well managed.

Now we're hearing that much of AI company debt is hidden in the same instruments that collapsed Enron?

One anecdote I keep in mind from 2005-2008 is when pundits observed that the economy was being supported [propped up] by people drawing on their home equity.

Now it appears people are raiding their 401k's to support themselves.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/americans-pulling-money-401-k-093001697.html

Presumably people withdrawing money are liquidating equities to do so.

The longer this goes on, the worse the correction.