Conceptual Art is Literally Bananas
58:38 Share

Hello, welcome to sleep money, your guy to the business and finance news of the week. I am feel like exam the back you I am back from many huge things to anish mani of racers who stepped in for me over the past five weeks. And you are incredible and amazing and probably Better than me.

And if you miss a well, I do already as well. We're with you on that one. But we have the old team back together.

I have anyone package from x OS. Hello, welcome back. yeah.

Thank you very much. We have a list with spare here. hello. And we are going to talk about the latest front of from a treasury and elsewhere and what effect they may may not be able to have on economic policy doing forwards.

We are going to talk about Warren buffer s latest letter about how he wants his money to be spent after he dies. And of course, because we have to, we are going to talk about the six point two million banana because i'm back, people. So we have to talk about it's all coming up on sleep money.

Slate money is sponsored this week by give well, this is, of course, thanksgiving week giving tuesday week. This is the week that we wanna give away lots of money because that makes us feel good and also because it's for rest IT. But there are over one and a half million non profit organizations in the united states.

There are millions more around the world. How do you know which ones can make the biggest impact with your donation will give? Well, was found IT to help done. As with that exact question, they pour over independent studies and charity data, and they helped donors direct their funds to evidence that organizations that are saving and improving lives. They have now spent over seventeen years researching charitable organza, and they only direct funding to a few of the highest impact opportunities that they find, over one hundred thousand donors have used, give well to donate more than two billion dollars, and according to very rigorous evidence, these donations will save over two hundred thousand lives and improve the lives of millions more. Give well once as many donors is possible, to make informed decisions about high impact giving, so you can find all of their research and their recommendations on their site.

You can make textual donations to the recommended funds, charities, and give well takes no cut, if you've never used, give well to donate, you can have your donation match up to one hundred dollars before the end of the year, or as long as matching funds last to claim your match goes to give if world dot fog can pick podcast and into slate money and checking, make sure they know that you heard about, give well from sleep money to get your donation again that give well dot or gue to donate or find out more want to a shop walmart like friday deals first one more plus members get early access to our hottest deals enjoy now give fifty percent off for one year annual membership shop like friday deals first with warm r plus c terms warmer plus okay. So i'm back. I feel like I didn't really miss anything.

Nothing much happened except for there's a whole new present elects whose rolling out cabinet picks and we got some pretty important ones. We got the most important one, probably for our purposes, which is exactly a guy named scot person, which got excited about we, the U. S.

Trade rap. We had the commerce secretary. We had various, uh, we had the N.

C. Is Kevin has. So we've had a bunch of announcements and a list bit.

I wanted to start with you and you, my politics, go to a person, how important is any of this ultimately in a Donald trump t cabinet? Is everything just always going to be sort of a chaotic can be whatever Donald trumps wim is that morning? Or just the actual identity of who's in what he really make a difference.

I think IT IT makes a difference because there are certain people that he wants to impress. You know, he's always had a bigger and figure complex and the economic picks are not going off of his earliest pics, which just a monogamy of deep sits a percent. And let me they're not as extreme as some of the other picks. And partly because I think he does listen to people on the business community more than he does on other topics.

So so let me just jump immediately and say, like if he was listening to people in the business community, i'm just gonna come out and say that he wouldn't be posting on truth social about how is going to immediately impose a twenty five percent terf on canada and mexico, who are our allies, who he signs the U. S. M, C, A free trade agreement with us, his own agreement. Apparently he wants to terror.

That was what was so fun about about this week in trump land, was that on one day this week, early this week, we've got, late last week, we ve got the best and announcement. And everyone in the markets in the business press was like, this is great basin's.

very moderate on tariff act Normal. He called trump a free trade, or at heart, which everyone like, what?

And the markets calm down, like treasury ods fell a bit. And like literally a day or two later, trump goes on truth social and says, what we're going to do is put twenty five percent terabits on our closest strating partners, meaco in canada. And everyone's like, well, so much we're moderating .

the standard. And the thing the best is actually written. And the standard move from the financially sophisticated trump supporters when and they see this kind of thing, is to say, this is an negotiating taxi, he's not going to do IT.

But by threatening to do IT, he's going to be able to get something, something, something and I think that on some level that's true. Like I yeah, it's very dangerous to make predictions about donal trump because literally anything can happen. But my prediction would be that you can say the end of q one twenty twenty five once he's had a minute to be able to do terrace and that kind of thing. We are not going to have twenty five percent terrorists .

on his mind. It's not a negotiating tactic. But what will happen, I think, practically, is that republican congress is going to have problems with IT because they don't want to alienate their .

own voters will hit that's my question, right, is the congress can abstract fiscal policy that he wants to do. But the whole point of him using time of this a weapon is that he doesn't need congressional provo. Why would he listen to congress if he's not listening to his own?

He also listens to people like in volume, one person telling him something you'll ignore IT. But if he gets IT repeatedly dly, and if he feels like he's losing his own supporters in that way, then he responds to that. But he said, I think being strategic about any of this, I think he does not fully understand the impacts that terrace would have egleton. Lily talks about a trade war with zero awareness of what that would actually look like whenever he is pressed on IT. So I think he means IT right now, like maybe there will be a moderating effect because of some of these picks, but I don't think it's in his mind and negotiating tactic.

So that's my question. Let's say the trump wants to impose Harrison makes go in canada. Are you saying that he will as long as he wants to do IT, that he will do IT? And the only way that he won't do IT is if a lot of people, including a lot of his supporters in congress and a lot of his cabinet, tells him not to yeah like what are you saying in terms of how this is going to play out in practice?

I'm saying he is a populist in a kind of nyalong tic way and if he gets a big up backlash from his hard core supporters and that might persuade him. But I don't think that there is any kind of rational policy process that would change his mind, nor any single individual. I think that would have to happen you with a big collective backlash.

So if you if you put your your neck out here, assuming that you're not going to get a bunch of hard core maga types saying no terrorists, no terrorists, which I think is like highly likely they are not going to say that you are saying we aug to see these serves .

and I think we will. And then whenever I think there will be a backlash, everything you know intensively expensive and you might roll them back. But I think he's the kind of guy and stood drive the car and as the wall and make sure that is painful. So I I take for some pain there.

I so Emily is shaking her head.

yeah. Well, have two reasons. So I mean, as you kind of single za beth, trump does respond when there is a big backlash that we saw that with gates most recently when he pulled his nomination because he realized like, okay, he doesn't have the votes like there are senators who don't like this guy.

So with the high eros, I don't think the mega crowd will protest, but I do think there will be political blow back from republican senators, probably maybe from Scott basin, and we will get to see how influential he is. We know that save milton was sort of like a moderating force when I came to tariff s and he's the case that you'd make. For IT does matter who is in trust cabinet, he does sometimes listen to people.

What what we had in france cabinet, remember, was gary cot, who is also a moderating for us as the director of the economic council. Now we have is IT. How would latin in that role? No erth commerce. It's economic.

Councillors has IT. Yeah and he's a tariff guy. To the other wild d card I wanted to mention is last time we had Robert lights' as the tariff guy, as the head of the international trade commission, he put through all the tariff policy.

He made sure I was kind of like bullet proof and he was going to happen. And IT would you know the clear whatever litigation hurdles there were. He's a very experience guy. Now they're putting in this guy named greer. What's his name here?

James and greer? He's just like light houses number two.

light hazers number two. But I was on a show on the BBC I guess he was last night and there was some guy on the shows, the trade expert, he was saying, like greer, yes, he was an equality of light higher, but not necessarily as good as light iser, like when feeling x one away. And I had to step and and and write the markets newsletter.

You know, it's not the same. It's not the same when you have like you know the other one doing the thing, like he's not as experience, he might not be able to like get things over the finish line. Plus I mean, these are crazy areas like we get, I think, half of our fruits and vegetable ever to IT down. But I do I need to like tell you, we get a lot of our fruits, vegetables from mexico. Car parts like Prices will go up a crazy amount.

There is no yeah I think seventy seven percent of our fits and vegetables that are imported .

come from mexico. Yeah like whether the avocado, right.

people will freak out. So I I going in direction one is that there is this kind of intuition that if you place to twenty five percent tariff on mexican avocados, then the Price of mexican avocados is going to go up by twenty five percent. And that's just not true.

Like that's not how consumer crisis work. You don't have to maintain your percentage margins the whole way through the chain. So depending on the amount of money that you actually paid for that advocated in mexico, like is going to be maybe, I know, a third or or less than half of the Price of the avocado o that you are paying in your grocery store, right?

So the amount that gets terrified. Is not the full Price of the avocado is like just a bit that you imported. And so the amount of the Price rise is not gone to be the amount of the terrace for some things that is right. So for like if we're importing bit man from canada, the margins there basically you one percent that really .

really to know a bit .

much is like shae loyal, you know like some kind of like commodity, right? O K great patrol chemical. If you're importing that from canada and then you are selling IT in the united states, trading IT in the united states, like the trading Price in united states, is almost identical to the import Price from had.

So for there, in that case, like you've slap on the twenty five percent terror in the U. S. Is gonna. Up by twenty five percent. But for things like avocado, we don't know how much the Price rise would be and we don't know how quickly that would happen.

On the other hand, the the one thing that we know that trump doesn't really understand is this whole concept of supply chains in the way that all of north amErica is one big manufacturing location, and not just also manufacture anyone in the manufacturing industry, whether it's bowing or anyone, is just constantly moving a parts and supplies back and forth to be mexico o and canada, united states and all of the american efficiency and manufacturing goes up and smoke if you put a blanket twenty percent term, all of the moving back and forth that you do naturally as part of supply chains and manufacturing industry. So this would absolutely hobble U. S. manufacturing. And I think at some point, given the number of ceos in manufacturing who are closing up to dom, they are going to be able to persuade him that this would do much more harm than good for exactly the industry that he's trying to boost here, which is domestic us manufacturing.

So there are also two other factors. I don't think that matters as much. You know the extent which things are more expensive, where matters is where consumers noticed that, right? So even if the terrorists don't mean, you know twenty five percent on top of everything you buy, things are going to get more expensive.

And you saw the way that, particularly the voters reacted to inflation post pandemic when I was happening for reasonable reasons. But the other two factors are, trump really underestimates the extent to which some of these countries could retaliate with their own terms. S, he never acknowledges he was sort of threatened the president in mexico with all the stuff a couple of days ago, and he said specifically under the guys, if you, if mexico doesn't fix their drug problem and the fit, no problem, that's what the terrible are about, or that's part of IT.

And SHE could have responded well if amErica will fix their guns problem because that's where of our weapons are coming from. We can have that conversation. But the other thing is, if he manages to deport however many people look at where these workers are coming from, they're coming heavily from the agricultural sector.

So that's just an added cause. You know, the cost of labor will go up. And I have to believe, and I do think consumers, voters recognize increases in food and gas Prices in the way they don't, almost anything else.

I say two things there. I'd say, one, the pandemic c inflation screwed everyone's sense of Prices up so much that like a one percentage point increase in C P I R P C E, which is the fed's preferred inflation gage, which are you so tired of reading that?

Anyway, just a one percent increase in inflation for fruits and vegetable les, which is a lot probably won't feel like that much because we are all now used to higher Prices and Prices being crazy higher all the time. So even if trumps tiffs happen and raise consumer Prices, I think people won't notice because yeah, their sense of reality and Prices are a bit messed up in a bit like influx at the moment. The second thing I would say is he did put a lot of terrible s in place on products from china the first time.

And correct me from wrong, I don't remember a lot of people freaking out because they should they buy at walmart or target, got a little bit more expensive because the stuff was so cheap anyway. You know. I mean, I don't think .

people notice that they were much narrower. They didn't really affect food and gas. Well, I think that's .

a big factor. I feel like i'm here on this one that these twenty five percent north amErica not gonna happen eliza's seems to be saying they are happen. Emily, all the tie break. Well, they are.

Will they not happen? I think they will not happen. I think they .

will be moderated. So that's that's why I think like IT in the first instance, that's the question right is not like what would the effect of them be in the first instance? The question is like what are they even going to happen? Because if they're onna happen IT doesn't matter what .

the effect would be. Well, I hope you're right for everyone sick.

I want to pay a lot of money for a piece of fruit. Felix, do you?

I mean, what could the banana cost? Six point two million.

When IT comes to smart money management, one of the best pieces of advice is to make your money work for you. Well, discover is accepted at ninety nine percent of places that take create cards nationwide, and you automatically earn cash back on all your purchases. That means there's plenty of opportunities to make that money work.

So shop smarter, not harder. Basically anywhere you go into wide IT pays to discover, based on the february twenty twenty four nilson report, learn more. A discovered that com slash credit .

card slate money is sponsored this week by give, well, this is, of course, thanksgiving week giving tuesday week. This is the week that we wanna give away lots of money because IT makes us feel good and also because for the rest. And but there are over one and a half million non profit organza in the united states.

There are millions more around the world. How do you know which ones can make the biggest impact with your donation will give? Well was founded to help donors with that inside question. They pour over independent studies and charity data, and they helped on us direct their funds to evidence that organizations for the saving and improving lives. They have now spent over seventeen years researching Christal organza, and they only direct funding to a few of the highest impact opportunities that they find. Over one hundred thousand donors have used give well to donate more than two billion dollars, and according to very rigorous evidence, these donations will save over two hundred thousand lives and improve the lives of millions more. Give well once as many donors is possible, to make informed decisions about high impact giving, so you can find all of their research and their recommendations on their site. You can make textile donations to the recommended funds for charities, and give well takes no cut, if you've never used, give well to donate, you can have your donation match up to one hundred dollars before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last to claim your match goes a give well dot work pick podcast and into slate money and checking make sure they know that you heard about give well from slate money to get your again that give well dot or gue to donate or find out more let move on because we really should talk about how much could a banana cost anyway and only, what's the answer.

felix? If you tape the banana to a wall, IT can cost as much as six point two million dollars, apparently. And according to you, and i'm sorry to you alone, this makes person, this makes perfect sense because there was an art auction and an artist who sold an artwork that was a banana taped with duck tape to the wall.

Everyone has seen the photos by now. And IT sold at auction to a crypto rich guy named Justin sun for six point two million dollars. And there are so many headlines about IT, and you are on sebastian. And I was like, where is he? I need to know what to think about the muti million dollar banana.

So and I was, I actually went to to like slack you from sabic. I the discourse around this banana is so unbelievably dumb, I will literally gone back to work just on the same .

and not all heroes worker.

The number of like intelligent articles that were written about this sale is almost exactly is zero. And the number of like spectacularly stupid articles so are written about IT is like infinite. And that phenomenon on the loan is fascinating to me, and it's a little bit trump y sort .

of have to explain why the takes are so bad. Like what what are the takes?

I will get that in the minute, but I just wanted like start off by saying this concept of like Normalizing scone and pride for ignorance. And I don't know anything about this, but I know that this is stupid. It's kind of trumpy in its own way. And I saw so much of that and I saw so many people saying, like, oh, this is a sign that this is you been as though they even though they kind of knew that they didn't understand that. So let me let me go down the list to answer the first question.

Let me go down the list of the sort of objections to this artwork selling to six point two million dollars and just kind of talk a little bit about why they don't make a lot of sense and not only and others will feel free to provide your own. But the first one is very much just, it's a banana. I can buy a banana for one hundred and cents.

Why would I pay six point two million dollars for banana, right? Which is it's basically denied the whole concept of art having value, right? The whole point of up having value is that you take things that don't have a lot of value or don't have a huge amount, intrinsic global of oil paint, bit of canvas, you mix them together in like a new and interesting way.

And then suddenly someone is like, oh, wow, that's really valuable. I want to pay for IT if you don't have an objection to paintings selling for six point two million dollars. And you know, in exactly the same auction season, we had A A greet selling for one hundred and twenty seven million or something. We had a russe selling for sixty eight million like we had like very expensive painting selling and no one blink tonight.

If you don't have objection to painting selling for that much when they are also ceiling for way, way more than the value of the materials that went into them, then it's a bit weird to say, well, this is worth more than the value of the materials that went into IT and therefore it's stupid. That's like the first objection. But there are others.

There was a subjection Justin son who bought the banana. Sad that he was gonna eat IT, which is funny, right? And and this is actually one of the reasons, I think, quite people hated IT so much as because people like the attribution of serious financial value to comedy.

Where is your cataline the artist? He works in a comic vein, right? He's one of the few artists who's not a self serious access.

He is a comedian, and the name of this work is comedian. Cattle is always described as a prank ter. This is relatively rare in the odd.

And so when Justin sun, like, buys into the comic press of the work and says, i'm gna eat the banana, that is, again, like incomprehensible to people and they don't understand that that is IT just makes the work even funny IT IT doesn't destroy the work in anyway. I like the whole point of the work is the work. Work is the right to be able to tape banana into a war and have IT be the outward.

But I have that right right now. I can go downstairs and tape a banana .

to a wall for free. IT wouldn't be the atland work called the what's .

the difference?

The artwork is the concept which they they did like three editions of IT. This is not the only one. And IT just basically if you have instructions for doing that and it's, you know, certificate basically yeah .

so so so the real thing that he's paying for certificate t authenticity. Sy, right. That's the thing that is changing hands. That is the thing that makes IT a genuine mitsuo cataline network rather than just a banana duck tape to the war OK.

That I think I didn't understand until maybe even last night that in addition to the banana and the dark tape, you get like you get some kind of certificate or something and some kind of object to certify that you have an expensive thing, which is like all that art work kind of, is you get an object but signifies that you have an expensive thing, I guess. But in this case, IT was a banana. Is the .

original banana anyway, because that, you know, the work was presented to twenty nineteen. Bro.

this this is the thing that really annoyed me about the the people. So, oh my god, is going to eat IT is like, what do you want him to do with that? Just right in the compost like that Better like the banana is going to decompose. So like, why not eat IT? Like, well, I mean.

the whole thing is like, why would you spend six million dollars for something that you can eat and be done with? I think that is that is the issue people had it's really hard to grasp the idea of conceptual artwork. Like I understand what you're saying, like a painting is just the materials don't cost a lap.

And then we describe a lot of value to IT, because this guy, you know, painted in two hundred years ago, but like a painting you can see, is this beautiful, permanent object that you always can have. Where's a banana? Is not. So that, I think, is the banana is like.

this is the whole point about the conceptual work, right? Is the precise because it's the conceptual work. The banana lives as a meme in our minds, even now the justice and is eating IT like IT lives on.

It's still an artwork, is still funny. It's still a thing, right? So the artwork edition, the thing that he bought, rather than the physical fruit, does continue to exist. And IT can be exhibited in in various different configurations.

Suddenly, like one of the more interesting exercises you could do would be to compare and contrast the way that IT was accepted as such, the vest, the way that IT was expected bottle. And those two ways were kind of interestingly different. No one really did that.

There's an analyze here for a work that I think people do consider pretty serious. It's an artist felix console as tourists, and he did a work called a portrait rational. And it's, and I forget the concept about IT, but IT was a statement about the eight crisis.

And it's a pile of Candy. And it's been displayed at the artist status to chicago. And their work is designed so that visitors can come in and they can take a piece of Candy.

You're right. Like three is, consider the stories is a famous conceptual artist and that pieces of very famous piece of his, and you know, it's all about the idea of his lover, like wasting away of the time.

And they also about the you know the the transparent antium food into flash unit, like because pillions was a catholic and that's a piece up at the world academy called old tree by Michael crag marking which is also about that, which is a glass of water on the shelf that the R. S claims he is transfer antibody basically into an oak tree and IT looks like a glass of water. Bit, in fact, is an old country like conceptus.

M has been around a long time. You know, you can date IT back over a hundred years to myself to shop, taking a bottle rack and saying, like, this is an artwork that was in one thousand fourteen, we had solo IT showing work politico, a gallery in one thousand sixty eight, which was just. I'm going to give you the instructions for how to draw lines on your wall.

You are going to have to find someone to draw lines on the wall. You have to draw the lines on your wall, your self. But the instructions s for how to do IT is just as much a part of the workers, the actual lines on the war themselves.

And that artworks, you, an artwork people bought the instructions for creating IT rather than the object, right? And all of this is over fifty years old. And the thing that really strikes me is we really only just learning about this.

Now a lot of people are there and you your point about the trumping ess of IT is valid. But you have to sort of consider that a lot of people don't even like anything that's abstract. You there is a famous by magazine article titled my kid could do that and they had a bunch of children paint a lot of abstract stuff, and they hung ted in gallery, and they asked them, professional critics, to come in and evaluated.

Yeah, but that was my point, right? That was like the eighties, you know, when the cake gallery bought the car under on, quote, piles of bricks in one nine hundred and seventy two, there was a big controversy about IT, but that was nineteen seventy two. I feel like we should have moved on from that kind of level of discourse at this point, but we haven't and we seem to be moving backrest .

honestly can't believe that you don't understand why people would make fun of a banana taped to a wall that cost sixteen million dollars. Like how are you not at least blocking that? Journalists wouldn't quite get IT. I mean, you who still probably would argue that crypto currency makes no sense and bitcoin being worth nearly hundred thousand dollars makes no sense because IT has no inherent value, but at the same time think that conceptual art has some kind of value that's worth millions and .

millions of dollars. So yes, so this is my point, right? If you want to make the case that the entire art market is a lucques clusterfuck of money and foo and hubris, you can totally make that case.

And you can talk to, like, how on what is that, that actually sold for sixty eight million dollars. And you can talk about the muscle, do some piece that just so, but with shovel that sell for three million dollars, okay, it's just a shovel. IT was made in one thousand nine hundred and sixty four.

He called the in advance of the broken ARM. IT was sold by the estate of joe kaus, who was also a conceptual artist. And like so its conceptual artist all the way down. And the number of people complaining about isn't IT lucques that a shovel just solve for three million dollars is zero. My point is that no one is making the case of making the this entire edifice of modern nut and conceptual is gold shit like maybe there are people in, you know, the new criteria and or somewhere like, you know, making that case in using many words.

But the thing that asks me about the banana discourse is IT is so focused on this one piece when in the contact of the entire art world, that one migrate cattle amp's selling for six million dollars is not particularly interesting or know where the the thing that no one seems to have pointed out, except one person called feel examine x us, is the mario catlin's auction record is seventeen a million dollars, right? IT is not surprising that a meritocratic might be was six million dollars when we know that a meritocratic and we was seventeen million dollars. And this is movie who cattle's most famous work.

You have all this nitch knowledge that everyone writing about. This just doesn't have. I think this must happen. All IT happens all the time.

Here's, here's rare instant where I I will agree with felix. Importantly, because I love cattle, but hit a big google exhibit several years ago where all of his work was strong from the ceiling. And just to give, you know, list, if you're not familiar with the artist, feel exactly or something like comic. And most of his stuff is not conceptual. It's it's you know concrete to tack very all .

a little bit conceptual.

Well, you know what I mean?

Like like for instance, one of his famous species is is a solid gold toilet he installed at the golden time, right? And like you can say that it's the toilet, but like the concept is important thing.

Yeah but one of my favorite pieces is got daddy, daddy and it's a pennoyer that's just face down in a pool and they put IT at the bottom of the pole in the goga time during that period. But if you don't know who this guide is or why he might do a work like this, and I can see where you would seem a little bit luter cous, but the people who are writing about this should understand .

exactly like if you're gonna write about with your cattle le, and you should know who he is, I feel like that's like tables kes. I will say that as you go up the levels of sophistication, the complaints don't go away, right? So people who do know about who may go cattle hand is one of the complaints that i've heard about this piece is, but this wasn't him being serious.

This is just some dump that he came up with the last minute for people in the arbon, my ami beach. And this isn't serious cattle piece. This is just a joke catalan piece. And I feel like that just misses the point .

of catalan entirely .

agree with then like one level beyond that, you get people saying this is not an actual ratification of the value of the catalan because IT was brought by a cypher o who has no idea what he's talking about. He's only two years old. And the guy who was like the underbidder on the people N F.

T. That sold for sixty nine million. And then so like this is just done. Crypto sideshow more than IT is an art story. And there was this whole weird parallel controversy about a meme coin that was associated with the word which the head of N F T southers bez created, this mean coin that was at one point worth like two hundred and fifty million dollars, which is obviously much more than six point two million dollars.

right? There is a bunch of cyp to bablon ously surrounding this work, and I do think that did contribute to the score with which IT was received. But also, I think there is just like the you, we bring scorn back these days and people feel much more comfortable being scowl about things. And they did even a year ago.

I don't think so. I think every so often, a piece of art rises to the public's consciousness. And we all realize for a moment, like some people have so much money, they can spend IT millions of dollars, unlike a funny concept, joke thing.

And I can afford to buy avocado s anymore or whatever. Like it's just so outrageous, right from just like a populist kind of perspective that there exist these objects that have no like actual no one needs them really. I mean, you could argue people need art.

but saying that just in the sun is very.

yes. And I think every so often there's, you know, summary antin t moment. And everyone is like, what the hell is happening? Why do some people have so much money? I don't have a lot of money. This is bulls shit. And journalists writing these stories are people who think that because we all know how much journalists make, it's not a lot despite what people tell me when they email me.

So it's really .

easy to understand why there was a total freak out over a very expensive piece of art that is just a banana taped to a wall. Also, I wanted to say, my other joke that I wrote down is this is how much fruit will cost if trump gets to impose his heros. Thank you very much.

This episode is brought to you by public dot com. Did you know you can log in a six percent or higher yield with a bond account, a public dot com? The federal reserve announced another rate cut, and there could be more rate cuts this year and in twenty twenty five as well.

That's good news if you're looking to buy home, but IT might not be so good for the interest you earn on your cash. So if you want to log in at six percent or higher yield with a diversified portfolio of high yields and investment grade bonds, check out public dot com IT only takes a couple of minutes to sign up. Once you lock in your yield, you can earn regular interest payments even as rates decline.

Log in a six percent or higher yield of the bond account, a public decon forward slashed sleep money, but remember your yield does not locked in until you invest brought you by public investing member fera and sipc. As of september twenty six, twenty twenty four, the average annualized yield to worst across the bond account is creative. Six percent yal towards is not guaranteed, not an investment recommendation. All investing involves risk visit, public outcome, slash disclosures, slash bond dash account for more info.

Ryals here for I guess, my hundreds mid commercial. No, no, no, no. I see when I started this, I I only have to do like four of these unlimited to premium wireless for fifteen dollars.

And how are there still people paying two or three times that much? So I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give me a try, a mid mobile disco flash safe whenever you're ready forty five dollars .

up from payment equivalent fifteen dollars per month new customers on first three month plan only taxes and fees. Extra speeds slower abo forty gig see details.

Let's leave bananas behind and talk about this whole conception of people have so much money that they're done, even know what they're going to do with that. And I am an old, as we all know, i've been around on this plant long time. I am enough to remember that for basically my entire formative years, the richest man in the world was this man in Warren buffett.

T and he was the poster child for being ludicrously, improbably, wildly wealthy. And he's back in the news because, as we have discussed on this show, I think just less a few months ago, he has decided that he is going to give his three kids the job of giving away his money after he dies and go back and listen to that segment. We will have a link to IT in the show if you want to hear me rent about how completely stupid that is.

But we're not going to talk about how completely to put that is. I think we have a couple of new things to talk about because we put out a letter on the shanto com this week explaining the logic of that decision. And one of the more puzzling parts of the decision was that he's going to require all three of his children to sign off on any ground that gets made from this trust.

IT has to give away well over a hundred billion dollars, no one that exactly how much it's going to be until more and radie IT could be two hundred billion dollars. It's going to be an insane, enormous amount of money they have to give away. And they won't be able to give away a single cent unless they can all agree on where that sent is going.

And these three kids are incredibly different from each other. You can almost not imagine three kids who are less aligned so of the logically and in terms of how they live in how they think. So getting them to agree on this is where we to spend a hundred billion dollars is going to be incredibly difficult as a recipe for stasis and just not giving away anything at all. And but IT addresses this objection in his letter. C, he's like a lot of people have written to me saying, this doesn't make any sense what the fucker you doing and his reason for doing this is objectively batched er on one of the crazier things i've ever seen come out of warm buffett's mouth, like one of the things that you do when you read warm butts's letters as you kind of not longo, that's really common SE, that's really common sense. And this thing you like, wait.

what? So what's the reason? explain?

You want to try and explain what you want me to do IT.

Well, he says that the reason he wants all three of his kids, which can we just say there seventy one, sixty nine and sixty six years old named susie, hoi and Peter, they are not kids or children anyway. He want, before they can give away money, the three have to agree on where they're giving in or whatever they have to be unanimous ous. And the reason is because IT makes IT easier for them to say no.

So if someone goes up to seventy one year old sue and said, I think she's the seven one hundred and says, you know, we really want you to give a billion dollars to the banana foundation because the Price of bananas has gotten so high, and trams, amErica a and SHE can say, oh, you know, I really wish I could. But how you and Peter would never go for this so warm buffer s reasoning is that IT makes IT easier for them to say no because they can just have this excuse, much like we've all used in our workdays where we say, oh, I would love to make that change for my editor won't let me it's kind of like a similar kind of thing. So that is reason. And I guess it's .

objectively batch is what feel IT i've had to i've had ask billionaire for money before when raising money for companies. And they all have a whole class of people, usually called dr. Advisers, who advise them about where to put their money. So if the point is he wants to give them a mechanism to say no or to blame IT on somebody else that already exists yeah.

every single foundation, and like all three of these children, have been running foundations for decades. We can argue about whether any of these foundations tions have been particularly successful or to change the world in any meaningful way, but they've all been doing IT. We've all been receiving these requests for decades. And the idea that after all of these decades of running, you know, large foundations and being asked for money on a regular basis, they have no ability to say no and they need to be protected from these requests by this ultimate requirement is, yeah, IT is objectively insane.

But so, okay, so let's play psychologist, armchair psychologist. And devin, to the real reason, warn buffet is waning. This unanimous ity thing obviously has never seen succession or read an article about murdoch and his children. Setting that aside, like what is going on.

One of the things that's going on, and buffet has written about this in the past, is that he admires philanthropy he thinks is a high and noble calling. He appreciate that it's not easy, is that he quite a difficult thing to do? And he basically has said, look, this is not what i'm good at.

I am not a fan, rop ist. My ability to work out where money should go is constrained and limited. And in save as that, I have given the way a lot of money of my lifetime, I basically just all of that to my friend bill gates, which is true that he has given the gates foundation and absolutely enormous amount of money.

And to his eternal credit, he didn't just say i'm going to give the gate foundation a lot of money. He said, i'm gonna give you guys four billion dollars yeah. And every year you're going to have to give away that four billion dollars.

You can just put IT into the endowment ment and and wait for like an opportunity is to come up. You need to find a place to spend that four billion dollars every year. And they did.

And I really turbo charged the work of the games foundation that effectively doubled the amount of money that they gave away every year. So he did do a good job of giving away like four billion dollars year, but he did IT by basically just phoning up bog and saying, can you do this for me? He, for various reasons, the various people have speculated about the may may not volte.

He has decided that he no longer wants to give foundation to be in charge of giving away. The residual for is left over once he dies. And instead he's gonna give that job to his kids.

And that is just some weird, the nesty ship. Because no matter how bad you think bill gates is, is giving away money. And I would argue that he's actually quite good at giving away money. No one in their right mind would think that, like some weird series, three headed monster of how is susie and beat a buffet are going to be Better.

You said that was a dynasty thing. So this is just buffet at ninety four years old, really thinking about legacy and dynasty.

So he explicit, does not want to be a dynasty, right? He explicit says in this letter that he wants his three children to give away all of the money before they die.

But IT does seem like if he really didn't want to do the dynasty thing.

he wasn't money.

Give the kids the money? yeah. It's like, actually scioux ly probable.

He doesn't leave this and not leave his kids his wealth at all. And that's why. And maybe he wants them to stay close to each other. I'm trying to read buffett's mind in the most positive while like he wants the kids have a nice relationship yes, although I don't think this is gna breed .

a nice relation in the relationship between the this is .

the day yeah there there was .

one good piece of advice in the letter, though, and I say this from when I was writing the Peter column, for ninety percent of my questions were about inherences. And the eyes involved family disputes, and some of them were insane. Sometimes the parents would say, I wanna cut my daughter out of the will, but I don't wanted to know until after I did there.

There are also just people engineering this drama. And so he says, in the letter, before you sign your will, you should make sure that your children and read IT so that you can deal with any confusion or economy before you. You go and IT doesn't turn into chaos.

And then nobody knows what you wanted. Nobody has a chance to make their case. And that is actually good advice.

I ve thought that was good advice too.

No, this is very good advice. And specifically the before you sign a bit and buffet says this is another piece of good advice, he says, like, I update my world every couple of years. I like smart. Like there's no reason why should only have to update at once every twenty years like the rest of us. But also this idea of show your beneficiaries is what you are going to sign before you sign IT and have a conversation with them rather than not is not just rather than them finding out only after you die, but is also rather than you just like putting together a will and then sending them email saying, direct children, this is my new will love that bring them into the process when you are doing IT, rather than presenting IT as a fate complete.

But then is there like if you're the parent showing your kids that will do you have like some deep seated fear that then the kids will root for your death so they can receive the money and our property that you are telling member you're gona give them like are afraid of that a little bit.

but they are going do that even if don't .

get right, but you gotta baLance IT so they're still like in your lives like if you if you're like, this is my will, this is what you're getting. Maybe some of the kids your fear might be, will be like, okay, i'm getting a lot of stuff. I don't need to deal with you dad anymore warm, you're such a pain my bug. But i've been kissing your ask for the past thirty years, waiting on these millions and millions of dollars. Now I know where you are and what i'm getting peace.

That's why you revise your will every two years so they be out. You can change your man.

There you go. okay. So that's that's good advice.

I need to ask both of you, if you were billionaire, how would you distribute your wealth by your alive? And then in your will, is IT really that hard, corny question to give away this money? Feels like it's not hard to give away money. That's just me, someone who doesn't really actually give away any money. I do think .

that people without billions of dollars always underestimate how difficult is to give away billions of dollars. And you know, this is a standard like Emily is making faces at me. Think, how hard can that be?

how? How could I be? Just write a check and send IT to your neighbor there done?

no. But the point is, if your neighbour ts to check for a billion dollars, and all you are doing is you're giving them that problem, the problem of actually giving away the money, of actually putting that money to use is a real problem. And people are loading machen's scot, for instance, for like just like writing massive hundred million dollar checks to various organza. But really all she's doing is she's outsourcing that problem to other people like these organizations, then find themselves with hundred million dollars downs and then they need to work out how much of that are we're going to keep in investments, how much we're onna give a way, how much are we're going to give away per yeah and so on. So the actual putting that money into two good use in the field is surprisingly difficult. And the most effective way you can do IT weirdly in some way, and you are allowed to do this, and some people do, is to just give IT to the government and say, like, you know, well, the governments in charge of spending the public money, this is, you know, I don't this money and was not my money, money that, so give IT to the government and the government, no one does this, like three people.

That one mystery guy, that mystery guy who paid IT a lot in the tax that .

we about a few weeks ago. If you give money to the government, give that the government is running at a massive deficit every year, you know, for a fact they're not just going to sort of put IT in an enduring and little their fingers and wind up, you know, hiring a bunch of expensive consultants who wind up spending all on the luxury hotels and not actually doing anything good. What if you just .

divide IT up and send IT out to a lot of people, like were always talking on this post about give people money, give people cash. That's the best way to do IT that people know what they need money for, so give them the money. So what about that? What about to send out checks?

Yeah, we had worries you on this show from from gift directly. And yeah, I I think that if you really wanted, make sure that the money actually gets distributed to people who need IT, then give directly should be very, very, very near the top .

of your list. Or you can just give directly yourself, just go outside, go into new york city, start handing out hundreds handles for .

everybody that doesn't scale.

If there is a difference to between allocating funds to a foundation and giving directly to a charity. So a lot what maconie Scott has done is to give directly to the organizations, you know. So SHE is written big jugs to, I think, plant parent hood, several H B C S. And they know how to spend that money because that's what they exist to do, know.

But no, at least way if you look at what those the recipients of that micaceous es got money as done with IT. SHE very explicit does not put any springs on that. And SHE very explicit does not say you need to spend IT and most of them have to a greater or lesser extent, created some kind of a permanent and diamond out of that cash.

really.

That's a bad thing that i'm .

not saying it's a bad thing. I think they're not .

giving IT away. A lot of these organs don't give away money like plan parent hood of services.

All right? It's not being spent. It's not being spent in the real world that is being invested into security and being put into hedged funds and enrich ing hedged fund managers is IT is not just going out there and being spent on like tuition for students, say, years.

Can I just say a few more things about this letter? People should read the letter because it's really interesting. He has this line about how his kids aren't preoccupied by wealth, which is the thing only rich people say, like, we're not preoccupied by wealth, which is how arias, it's like, after right thanksgiving dinner this week, I will not be preoccupied by food.

Do you know he means like. And the other thing is, the letter also brings up bananas. So across the three segments, bananas are a commonality, a born buffer, t says, because he has not stepped on any banana peals, he remains alive today. You.

the banana is everywhere.

I'm sorry I had IT all down. You can all .

the jokes out IT.

This episode is brought to you by edley. An edley makes the team collaboration software that powers enterprise businesses around the world, including over eighty percent of the five hundred. With A, A, I, I like a, you'll have more time to do the work that matters. In fact, at less in customers experience, at twenty five percent reduction in project duration per year, unleash the potential of me at com.

I think we just need to move on to a numbers around Emily. What's your number?

It's twenty six days. That's the amount of days from black friday, which is day after thanksgiving to Christmas eve that is the court on official holiday shopping season. And this year, that is the shortest possible holiday shopping season we can have. And retailers were worried about IT. But ryan comings in the yuma oni at stanford university, which maybe you've heard of their economists, they did this work of looking at retail sales growth and comparing IT.

You know, when we have the short holiday shopping season twenty six days versus the long one thirty two days and all the days in between, and found that IT doesn't really matter, everyone kindly spends the same, no matter how long be official season is. Retailers these days start the holiday shopping season in August, so everyone has plenty of time to buy stuff. And I also, in writing about this, learned about Frank's giving that time when Frankland delena rosell moved up, thankful for giving to the third thursday in november, not the fourth, causing chaos throughout the land.

Democratic states were like, that's a great idea. They move thankfu giving. But the publican states did not move thanksgiving, so that there were two thanksgivings in america, two americans, the two thanksgiving.

Nobody liked that. Everyone was upset. The farmers were upset was like a whole thing.

No one was grateful.

No one was grateful. Yes, for after our efforts, and he abandoned them pretty soon .

after this with .

so my number is three point eight. And this comes from watching post story done by their data journalism department, where they took all this data from to sort of figure out where people were the happiest and and what activities they were the happiest and and what interests in me with the least happy places for people. On a bus was a fourth one six. Your workplace was three point nine out of six, and a bank was three point eight out of six. Apparently the banks are the most miserable places.

but they give up free. Lily pops.

I am going to the wrong bank.

You get a free pen sometimes. If they don't have them on a little string.

i'm definitely to the wrong. My number is nine. I don't think you guys have talked about this while I was off on my service.

But as of january the fifth, that is the amount of dollars that IT is gonna people to drive into manhattan. Kathy, hold the government of new york after killing congestion pricing has been killed IT and it's been signed off officially by mai p. And so it's going to happen and IT is happening.

A lower Price point than an originally intended IT was virgin men to be fifteen dollars, raising a billion dollars here because I had to raise a billion dollars here and now is going to be nine dollars since can read about half a billion doll. No one quite knows how that works in terms of the bond issues in the capital, what stuff. But even though it's modest compared to initial plans, new york city is actually gonna a have the first ever contest pressing plan in why did you change her mind again?

Do you know why? I don't know. Yes.

we know why. We know why you did this. No one will admit why did this, but we know why you did this. SHE did this because her, kim jeffrey twisted her and said, this is deeply unpopular in various congressional districts that neighboring new york city. Can you please kill IT? And then the minute the election was over, he was like, well, okay, the elections over, you can do this.

Do you think I made any difference in the election that democrats still lost the majority?

I think if you actually wide speaking, if you look at those congressional districts, you know, round about where you live and in longer island and stuff like that, they didn't go as red as people had fears. And maybe I made a any other difference. I have no idea.

Can't wait to spend nine dollars to come into the city by car time.

You came into the city by A.

You can say, you can say, okay.

well, that is IT for us this week, unless you are just like this member, in which case you will get to hear all of my i'm going to use the word I hate learning from vacation mainly. Number one, learning being anything I can do, how many pet can do Better? Thanks for listening.

Thanks for emAiling us on sleep, money or sleep got come. Thanks to justman Molly of seaplane, a mother and general for producing. And we will be back next week with even more slit money.

At don Miller sub u west, we believe in being a positive force in our local community. Together with our customers, we have been able to sponsor and support local charities and non profits. Don Miller super u west has once again partnered with a lukie a and loma society of the upper planes region. Our donations have helped on cutting edge research to cure cancer and improve the quality of life for so many helping those in need. That's the sub ruud love promise down Miller sub u west, more than a car dealer.