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Keith explores how investors can build legacy wealth by owning productive teak timber and the land beneath it in Panama.  Mike Cobb, an international real estate developer with over 30 years of experience, explains why Panama's legal framework, economic stability, and U.S. dollar economy make it a compelling destination for first-time offshore investors.  They discuss the long-term return profile of teak, its resilience as a hard asset, and common mistakes to avoid when investing internationally, along with how a sawmill and vertical integration can enhance returns.  This discussion highlights how the strategy can diversify both geography and asset type while also opening doors to potential residency options abroad. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/615 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host Keith Weinhold, talking about a legacy investment. You can profit from this real asset long term, and so can your heirs. It's real estate, but not housing. It's a diverse and more primitive use type. Today on Get Rich Education, you know. Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider. I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties. It's an executive coach. For nine years now, their CEO Terry Kerr and his COO Pat Mix have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one-on-one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to DanielThomashind.com. H-I-N-D. That's DanielThomashind.com, and sign up before spots fill.   Keith Weinhold  1:35   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056. They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Caeli Ridge while it's on your mind. Start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com.   Speaker 1  2:08   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  2:24   Welcome to GRE from Cherokee, North Carolina, to Cherokee, Panama, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Welcome back to another Wealth Building Week. You are inside Get Rich Education, where financially free beats debt free. Today we're talking about a specific investment that is not residential real estate. In fact, it's a more primordial real estate type that predates housing. So therefore, it is lucid and intelligible. It's easy to understand. Sort of the opposite of more arcane investment like AI data centers or crypto mining. At a basic level, this makes it easy to understand, and there aren't any tenants to manage. It also does not pay you as often as monthly, though as you'll learn, there is income and appreciation is expected too. Now, if you invest outside your home country, you're probably going to want to be diligent and select a politically stable nation that also has an operator based in that region with a fantastic track record. It helps if they're close to the U.S. This small nation is close to the U.S. in both geographic proximity and economically. Their currency is even the U.S. dollar. They even share an electrical system with the U.S. with the same outlets and voltages. As you might be guessing, where I'm talking about, this nation also has a consumer culture somewhat similar to the U.S. with American restaurants and retailers and brands in our real estate world. What we find more important is how, like the U.S. this nation is a constitutional presidential republic, and both nations have these separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the three branches and elected presidents, in these competitive multi-party elections, and both America and this place have market-oriented economies that emphasize private property and private enterprise, banking and financial services, international commerce, logistics, ports, and aviation.   Keith Weinhold  4:49   Today, we're talking about the opportunity for you to own productive timber and the land beneath it, teak hardwood trees in Panama, a quarter-acre parcel. At a time with your name on the deed, that direct ownership is known as fee simple ownership. I have directly invested in Panama for about 11 years myself. Now, though teak might be able to survive in a climate like Hawaii, mere survival is not enough in the U.S. It is difficult to impossible to find anywhere that grows productive plantation teak. Here in the late 2020s decade, we've had bouts of El Nino or La Nina a lot of places in the world, and that has severely weakened some crop types. Other providers of different agricultural investments are failing, but not this teak. They're resilient, and we'll get into the physical properties of the teak. I'm going to ask today's distinguished guest about that. He and his business partners planted some select timber 27 years ago, and they've been offering teak hardware parcels to investors for that long, 27 years, and for about the last 10 years to GRE investors. Hundreds of you are participating now, but I'm going to wait to ask more about the physical teak product itself until later, because what's more important are the investment environment and the strength of the operator. So learn more about this and what the projected investment returns are, and just how much exactly does a quarter-acre parcel of teak cost? If you so choose, owning teak parcels also gives you the option of residency status in Panama, and you only need to spend two days there every two years in part of maintaining that status, they offer investor in-person tours of the teak plantations too because they're proud of what they do there. I expect a fascinating discussion with Mike, the teak company co-founder and CEO. This week's guest has become a friend since I met him about 10 years ago. He co-founded and is CEO of an international real estate development company. He's got active projects throughout Central America. He's been doing it for more than 30 years, so he's not a tinkerer and not trying out project concepts.   Keith Weinhold  7:26   And at this point, he's helped thousands of North Americans diversify their portfolios through international real estate ownership and residency planning, and even lifestyle investing. And if you've ever attended an investment conference on something like global diversification. You might have seen him speak there because he's such a frequent, recognized speaker and voice, and he's authored multiple books on real estate, financial freedom, expat living, and just unlocking a better lifestyle. Hey, welcome back onto the show, Mike Cobb.   Mike Cobb  7:59   Oh Keith, nice to be with you. And you're right. 10 years, we've enjoyed one another's company at many conferences. It's always great to be back with you virtually. I look forward to seeing you again personally one of these days as well. And yeah, thank you for the very kind words on the intro.   Keith Weinhold  8:14   Yeah, if I'm teetering on whether or not to attend a conference, I ask myself, is Mike going to be there? That's right.   Mike Cobb  8:20   We'll hang out,   Keith Weinhold  8:22   100% And you know, Mike, he's also an avid reader of GRE's "Don't Quit Your Daydream" newsletter. So then, clearly, he's even smarter than you've ever thought. You heard him on the show before, so you knew he was smart, but now he's even smarter than you ever knew since he's a reader. Tell us what you like about the newsletter.   Mike Cobb  8:40   You know, Keith. I gotta say, every issue that comes in, I read it. By the way, today's issue said read before Thursday, so you give me a couple days tomorrow at least to read it. Anyway, no, you know what? You are so powerfully succinct. The charts that you put in are wonderful. You were a geographer major, and and so spatial things are important. I also recognize. I love the charts. I love the graphs, and I hate to even say I love sort of the I hate to call it the trivial information, but you know enough data points that seem trivial when you put a theory around them actually become meaningful. And what you are able to do is you're able to connect dots that most people don't connect. That's the hallmark of genius, and I think you are a genius, by the way. And I think your newsletter shows that. And so, thanks for putting it out. Your readers are very, very fortunate to have you there, giving them the kinds of information that are super relevant in the marketplace at one level and on a specific level. But even more important, creating the theoretical constructs that allow them to understand the why of something's happening because you know if you understand the why of something you know it makes a lot more sense first of all but it also allows us to maybe forecast the next what coming down the pike and if we can be on the front edge of something or you know being able to look over the hill or around the bend that's. Powerful in the marketplace, and and you bring that power to your readers. Well done, man.   Keith Weinhold  10:04   Thanks. Yeah, it's not just what; it's why this matters. And that was an incredibly kind thing to say. I write every word of the letter myself, and you, the listener, you can get the letter free now@greletter.com I send it about weekly, and Mike, I know that U.S. investors, including some Get Rich Education followers, they've been increasingly looking offshore for one thing many perceive the political risk has palpably higher than it was a few years ago. So, just broadly, tell us more about what North American investors seem to be looking for.   Mike Cobb  10:42   Sure, I summed it up earlier today. I was talking with a conference organizer, and he was really giving me the hard sell on why I should come to his conference. And it's probably not a good fit. But I heard myself say it for the first time. What we really help folks do in certain spheres, but maybe in this sphere, is help people get a good night's sleep, you know, peace of mind, right? And when you've got the political turmoil, you wrote an article or a newsletter a couple weeks ago, and it was about inflation, the kinds of things that were happening, and it was so spot on. And I think your readers, and not just your readers, but people who are tuned into what's really happening from a political standpoint, a financial standpoint. There is no way you can print this much money. There's no way you can have these kinds of things going on all the time that create a huge run-up of debt, right? And it's not even the debt; it's the implications of the debt. What's going to happen next? How's this thing going to unwind, right? And so when you have all of this stuff going on. You have people who are really, really worried about their future. It's a financial future. I say there are two train wrecks. There's a train wreck of debt, which is what I just talked about, and there's a train wreck of freedom. And that train wreck of freedom is really, in some ways, a result of the train wreck of debt. But when you've got a train wreck or two train wrecks happening, we really have three choices. We can ride it out, right? Take the ride and go for the crash, right? We can do something about it, but we really have to do something about it before. I'm going to mix a metaphor here, but if you know a hurricane's coming in three or four days, you don't wait till the wind's blowing 150 miles an hour to put up the plywood, right? You get out there while the sun's still shining. You put up the plywood, and then when the hurricane hits, like you got plywood over the windows, and you can ride out the storm. And this is where I think so many people are today. They're recognizing this hurricane is coming. The problem is, is that I don't think people always know where to go get plywood, right? What do I do? How do I protect myself and my assets, right?   Mike Cobb  12:38   And what this conversation right here is about is here's one kind of plywood you can put up on your window and the diversification overseas the diversification internationally into a hard asset that is not really inflation proof because I'm not sure there is such a thing but largely inflation proof or a big a great hedge against inflation real stuff hard assets real estate timber commodity right this is. what so many people are now looking at, and then the other piece of it is you can layer in a residency, which starts to give you that political plan B. You've got an economic plan B, kind of the hedge against inflation, but you've got this residency component that gives you sort of a hedge against the political uncertainty, and 1000s of folks have moved in this direction. Several 100, I think it's about 600 folks now, have picked up the residency as part of their timber investment as well. So a lot of different things going on, but I think they do circle all the way back to this train wreck of debt and a train wreck of freedom, the political divisiveness kind of what's happening.   Keith Weinhold  13:40   Now, what if someone hasn't invested in a hard asset overseas before, Mike? I'm thinking some people might come ask you. You know, why would I do this? For example, I live in the United States, where we have a rule of law and stable, mature markets and high property ownership rights. So, why should I look to diversify internationally with hard assets,   Mike Cobb  14:01   yeah, I think there's a general answer, and then maybe a couple specific answers. Generally, you know, I would never bet against the U.S. the U.S. economy. We're the largest economy in the world. I would never bet against it, right? But I think that for prudence, we would all want to have at least another basket for a few of our eggs: 5% 10% 20% Pick. Pick a number that's comfortable, but have some of your investable net worth outside your home country. Like that's just prudent, right? Why would you have everything all in one basket? And so we see that as a general answer. Specifically, a country like Panama, where we do have artique plantations, they have public title escritora publica. It's fee simple title, but in the civil law, so it's called escritora publica. The rule of law is strong in Panama. And then the other thing about Panama that I absolutely love is you have the canal, and the canal provides both economic stability and political stability. On the economic side, it generates just. Under $5 billion a year of cash flow, year in year out, right? So just it's like an ATM machine for a country with a population of about 4 million people. Do the math on that; like that's a huge amount of money on a per capita basis, right?   Keith Weinhold  15:13   Narrow water passages have really been newsworthy for a long time now, too.   Mike Cobb  15:16   Well, they have, and just like the Strait of Hormuz, right? You know, people sometimes go. I hear it said, "Oh, the canal is a vital strategic U.S. interest. That is absolutely 100% correct. But if you're a country that produces any goods that ship, or you're a country that receives any goods by ship, that canal is a strategic interest to you, and by definition, that's every country in the world. Every country in the world wants that canal open and transiting, right? Because everybody either produces or receives or both, right? And so you've got the political stability element as well as the economic stability element. You've got the rule of law. Panama is a great, great place for that person who you mentioned who's never done an overseas investment, never gone offshore, right? What's an easy place to start? What's one of the safest places to start is Panama, and it's in this hemisphere too, so it's close. I mean, you can get there for three hours from Miami, three and a half hours from Houston. Flights all over to U.S. Canada. It's easy. So I think a lot of folks see Panama as a very, very easy way to make that first step overseas.   Keith Weinhold  16:25   I happen to know that you just flew in from Panama. You're in the United States today, but you're constantly going to Central America. You span time zones more often than almost anyone I know. You mentioned fee simple ownership in there. For those that don't know, I think of that as direct ownership, where you don't have some weird administrative government layer in there that can dilute your hard asset.   Mike Cobb  16:47   Right, you can own it in your own name, you can own it in a corporation, so it's easy to own it. But yeah, no layering, right? By the way, the Constitution treats owners who are Panamanian the same exact ways it treats all foreign owners, and actually, we do business all over Central America. The one thing that we look for is a a legal regime that protects foreigners and foreign investors the same as it does domestic. Panama does that.   Keith Weinhold  17:12   Yeah, so investing in hard asset in Panama is a bit like investing internationally with training wheels on, due to its close relationship with the United States bolstered by the Panama Canal, but yet if someone hasn't invested internationally first, there are still a few mistakes to avoid. Maybe things that one isn't aware of. Can you tell us more about that?    Mike Cobb  17:33   The biggest danger people have when they make their first foreign investment is what I call margarita madness, right? And a lot of times it happens. You're on vacation in Cancun. You're having the time of your life. You're you just went parasailing, whatever. You're walking down the beach, and some developer says, "Hey, come on up here and take a look at my condo project. You know, and we'll buy you dinner at Senior Frogs tonight. We'll give you a coupon or whatever, right?   Keith Weinhold  17:55   Right.   Mike Cobb  17:55   And a lot of people do that, and then later that night, that's Senior Frogs. They're celebrating the condo they just bought, right? I mean, it's not how we transact real estate in the U.S. and Canada. There's a due diligence process. There's a due diligence period. It takes weeks or months to transact on a property, not hours, right? And so the single biggest mistake is that, and the way that we really can resolve it. I mean, my book is all about this. In fact, you have a copy, and I think you've helped some of your your readers and listeners get copies as well. It's called "How to Buy Your Home Overseas and Get It Right the First Time, and it really boils down to three simple principles: buy what you see. Is it there? Right. Own community. Right. Make sure it's in a place where you have people around. Right? Because there are a lot of ghost towns out there, and then know the developer. Do your due diligence on the developer himself, right? So you've got these three principles, and if you follow those three principles, you could do a lot better. But I actually think there's even a better way, and it has to do with character. It has to do with us, and you know when we move to the developing world, anywhere outside of you know North America, Northern Europe, maybe Australia, New Zealand, right? We're moving from the land of seller beware, right? Think lemon laws, think Ralph Nader, think advocacy groups, you know, lots of laws and regulations that control the seller, to the world of buyer beware, where none of those laws exist, and so now you're on your own. And because we've been living and transacting our whole lives in a seller beware environment, in a bubble of protection, we're protected by the government, right? We think we are. We'll just say that anyway. But we're protected. We're in a bubble, and we move to the land of buyer beware.   Mike Cobb  19:38   The problem is we don't really know how to transact. We don't know the right questions to ask, and our single biggest advantage, our single biggest attribute or asset that we have, is actually humility, because we don't know what we don't know, and we have to forget what we think we know. Assumptions, right? We can't bring assumptions with us that hold true. Some do some. Don't right. If we approach a transaction overseas with humility, there are no dumb questions. I'm going to ask every question I can think of. I'm going to do as much research as I can within a limited period of time. I'm not going to not analysis to paralysis forever. I'm going to say, look, I'm going to spend the next 30 days. I'm going to do a ton of due diligence, and at the end of 30 days, if I like what I say, I'm going to transact, right? So you're you're not getting the deer in the headlights never to do something, right? But you know, several weeks, maybe a month or two, depending on what it is you're doing, is enough time to do really, really good due diligence. Ask all the questions you can think of, but approach it with humility. And when we do those things, we transact so much, so much better than if we just rush into it with Margarita Madness.   Keith Weinhold  20:44   Right? People get caught up in those emotions with Margarita Madness and end up with a timeshare that they can't get rid of, or something like that. You said something so interesting there, Mike. When you move from the developed world to the developing world, you move from a seller beware world, like with some of the things you have to be aware of, and like you need to give disclosures and such into a buyer beware world. I hadn't thought of it that way before.   Mike Cobb  21:08   Yeah, and really, a lot of my book and a lot of the presentations that I've given, you've seen me give over the years, really deal with what I call a change in thought process. Because mostly in presentations, right? My goal in a presentation is to help somebody change how they think, to take away the bubble and understand that they're on their own, right? It's not really their own. They have you, they have me, they have other resources, right? But they don't have this bubble of government or regulations or laws out there protecting them anymore. Now it's the individual, and as an individual, I don't want to be rugged individual. I want to find other people that can help me, right? But I have to do that as opposed to it's just there for me, right? So if I can help people change how they think, they will transact so much better. They'll make better investments. They'll make investments that work for them in ways that they want them to work for them, right? They'll achieve the goal or the dream in a much, much, much higher percentage of the cases,   Keith Weinhold  22:04   we're talking about investing antique tree hardwood plantations, principally in Panama, like you mentioned, and we're talking about one mindset about crossing borders with our investing, and another is oftentimes, at least for GRE listeners, we're crossing asset use type because we're so used to residential rental housing. So when you cross into agriculture or forestry, I guess as it is with teak, what are some of the bridges to cross there as we change use type?    Mike Cobb  22:35   The reason I love timber generally and teak specifically in Panama in this case is that most people, most people, and I hope that many of your readers aren't most people. Most investors look at 20-five years and they simply say themselves, "No way, no way. And I love that because right now teak timber is being cut down 10 to 12 times faster than anyone is replanting it. And the reason people don't replant it is because most average investors come along and say, "Oh, it's 25 years. I can't wait 25 years. Well, you know what? Good, because the folks who do decide to move ahead and plant the teak, what that means is the price of teak is very highly likely to continue to increase in value far beyond inflation. Teak wholesale teak prices have gone up five and a half percent a year on average for the last 50-three years. I think that number is going to increase largely because there's this huge psychological barrier. People think, "Oh, 20-five years, but back in 1990-eight I bought 100-acre cattle pasture in Panama, and we had a professional forestry company plant it and maintain it for the last now 27 years, and two two and a half years ago, we started building a sawmill. Our sawmill is up and running. In fact, was just down there and brought back one of our first retail products. We're producing lumber. Our first container of lumber is headed out to a distributor in Colorado next week.   Keith Weinhold  23:56   Mike's holding up a nice cutting board for those in the audience.   Mike Cobb  24:00   Nice cutting board. We're setting up an e-commerce site. We're going business to consumer with cutting board, bath mat, shelving, tables, chairs. We have our whole production facility ramping up with new retail products. So the bottom line is, is yeah, man, it does take 25 years. You know.   Keith Weinhold  24:15   The lantation to harvest cycle. That's the 25 year span you're talking about here. The patience it takes for an investor.   Mike Cobb  24:21   Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And then, as we cut down this mature plantation that we we are now harvesting right now, it gets replanted, and the next 25 year harvest. I'm 61 Maybe I'll make 86 I don't know. Maybe not. Right. But my kids probably will, and they'll get the big harvest in 25 years, and then it'll replant, and maybe they'll get a next one, or maybe it'll be the grandkids, right? And so what we found savvy investors, people who are really not your average bear, right? And they think to themselves, how can I create generational wealth stewardship? I have enough money coming in. I mean, Keith, that the I mean, you can own teak for 10 grand. You can. Own a quarter acre of teak. You own the land. You own the trees. 10 grand, like it's 9000 something or other, but 10 grand, right? I mean, the bottom line is it's such an affordable, easy investment, right? And it turns into well over $100,000 in today's numbers. Who knows what inflation? But in today's numbers, buying power, you know, 10,000 turns into 100,000 right? Over 20-five years, and so most people who do this recognize the fact that they might get the first harvest, but it's their kids, their grandkids, their great grandkids who are going to get this harvest every 20-five years thereafter. And so the 20-five year thing becomes a wonderful thing, not a bad thing. Right, it keeps many people out, which keeps the price of teak high and growing, which we like. But it also creates this cash flow period. People go, "Oh, it doesn't cash flow. I'm like, "Absolutely, it does. It cash flows phenomenally four times a century. Like you have an internal rate of return of almost 11% 10 point something, right? You have an internal rate of return of 11% and it cash flows four times a century. This is a phenomenal cash flow investment. You might get to see the first one or the second one, but you're probably not seeing three or four. But somebody else in your lineage, your family, your heirs will see it, and they will all be so happy you made that decision to own teak.   Keith Weinhold  26:22   We're talking about the ability for you to own teak parcels and the land beneath it, title in your own name, one quarter of an acre at a time. We're going to talk more about that with Mike when we come back. You're listening to Get Rich Education. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Flock Homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now mom and pop landlords can 721 their residential real estate. Request your initial valuation. See if your properties qualify at flockhomes.com/gre. That's flockehomes.com/gre.   Keith Weinhold  27:09   Let me ask you something: If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. And full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed. But with a track record of consistent, on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text family to 66866 That's family to 66866.   Ken McElroy  28:12   This is Rich Dad advisor Ken McElroy. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  28:29   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. We're talking about international investing with teak tree plantations. This isn't something experimental. We're not talking about a tinkerer here. You have to be more careful when you go overseas, and we're talking about with the owner of an international company that's been doing this for 30 years, providing international investments. But the teak tree plantation, I think, began in 1998 or 1999 Is that right?   Mike Cobb  28:56   Yeah, 98 was the purchase of the property, and in the rainy season of 99 we planted the first 100 acres. Yep.   Keith Weinhold  29:03   Yeah. Well, talk to us more about that because you talked to us about how historically teak appreciates at about 5% per year. Tell us about how we get to that 11% internal rate of return.   Mike Cobb  29:15   Yeah. Sure. I mean, so two things. One, you've got the five and a half percent a year kind of calculated out over a very long period of time, 50-three years. So that's a pretty good statistical baseline. And then the fact that your trees actually physically grow, right? I mean, back in 2008 my joke is from 2008 to 2012 While the rest of us in real estate were hating life, my trees just simply kept growing, right? They just kept growing. And so what you start off with is about 100 maybe 110, I think, trees on a quarter acre, and in the end, after all the thinnings, you end up with somewhere between 22 and 25 trees per quarter acre, and each of those trees produces about 1.2 to 1.6 cubic meters of timber. For lumber, by the way, one of the things that we are working on, and you know, look at the end of the day, you had a walk, jog, run, right? And we're in the walk stage right now, but we're harvesting out all of the other elements of the teak tree. Your lumber piece, that just you know, sell it as boards, you know, one by fours, one by sixes, one by eights, whatever it is. Ship that stuff off. That's your 1.2 to 1.6 cubic meters, but you've got other pieces of the tree. You've got stuff that's too thin, the root stock that can be turned into other things, including cellucrete with cellulose, the ground up, the sawdust itself. We're saving all the sawdust. We're going to use that for cellulite. This is the math on this. Our investors get 80% of the net proceeds after processing costs, which is 15% my company gets 20% and so we, my company, has the highest incentive to drive the highest possible return to the investor possible because I get 20% of whatever I make for the investor, and so all the numbers we use are always the net investor number, right? And we have a business plan. All the numbers are laid out. It's all there, and it's pretty easy to see how the IRR gets up. About I think it's 10.6, 10.7% I can't remember. Just under 11% but it's all in the business plan, Keith. And again, this is part of that due diligence process, right? Get a copy of the business plan. Get on the phone with one of our property consultants maybe take a trip to Panama. I just got back. We just took a group of people. Yeah, we got tours. Yeah, we have tours, and so like as part of the due diligence process, come visit, come see the trees, come see the sawmill. Right? If it's something that makes sense from a an investment standpoint, yeah, the material, the facts, and the due diligence is all there for people to be able to pick up and do over a you know several week period, you know 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever it is.   Keith Weinhold  31:47   Well, let's back up because seemingly you have had really good prescience. Because when we look at world agriculture today, we see some problems. Whether some people want to call it erratic weather, other want to call it climate change, and how that's really ravaged some crops and created disruptions in certain produce. Or with coffee, you know, we've also got a cattle production problem, for example. But you've chosen something that's been really resilient. Tell us more about that resilience and just why teak of all crops and forestry.   Mike Cobb  32:22   Let me start by saying, who was it? Yogi Berra says, you know, predicting is hard to do, especially when it's about the future or something. Exactly. Yeah. Right. But I mean, look, we're talking about the future. I mean, who the heck knows, right? I mean, that's what makes it investing rather than you know something else. But teak has been grown in plantations for almost 400 years. It was started by the British in India, what was then Burman throughout Southeast Asia. And one of the things the Brits did so so well is they documented everything. They had statisticians keeping track of altitude, rainfall, soil types, different stock. I mean, just anything and everything that you could imagine, and so by the early 1900s, some of the best books about teak and teak plantation farming was written. I actually read those books in order to interview the forestry management companies in Panama that we would hire them to manage our plantation, because I don't know anything about it, right? But I wanted to be prepared to do the interviews, so I was. What amazed and fascinated me was this incredible track record of production for almost 400 years of teak as a commodity in the marketplace, and then for the last 50 years, 53 years, you know, seeing what's happened to the price of teak in that time period. Look, nobody can predict the future. Weather patterns change. Teak as a species, is very very resilient. You know, the highest quality teak is grown in very specific conditions, and the Darien province of Panama has exactly the conditions to produce the highest quality teak. If those conditions change, maybe the quality of the teak goes down. Maybe the quality of the teak goes up a little bit. Who knows, right? I mean, at the end of the day, we don't control weather. We don't control weather patterns. We don't control the future. But that thing goes back to the idea of diversification. Like, how can we mitigate against the future? I think we do that by just simply broad diversification. And if we have all of our assets and stocks, bonds, and rental real estate, we're pretty concentrated, especially if it's all in the United States, right? Our home country, for example, and so some diversification into other sectors probably makes sense. I know it makes sense for me because I think that's my way of hedging against the uncertainties of the future.   Keith Weinhold  34:37   Let's talk about the tree quality and then the sawmill, because some people don't understand that teak really has pretty special properties that maple or black cherry or oak doesn't have.   Mike Cobb  34:47   It does. It has a very very high oil content and it has a hardness that makes it extremely resistant to rot fungus, which is why it's used in the marine environment. If you look at Chris Craft. Boats or yachts. You always hear about teak, teak, teak. Teak is used in maritime environments because it holds up to the salt water-not just salt water-holds up to water, but even more so, salt water and the environment, which makes it unique. And so, even if you don't treat teak, right, you just leave it out. It turns gray, but it doesn't rot. And then you can come back. You can you know sand it and varnish it and turn it into that beautiful, rich color. It's a beautiful, beautiful wood. It's funny because it has furniture uses, outdoor furniture, patio furniture, things like that, decking. But now they're starting to use it in hardwood floors. They're using it in gates and fences and soffit materials. Again, outdoor uses, but it can be used indoors as well for very very fine furniture, which at the end of the day teak has a panache that a lot of these other woods don't have. Mahogany is certainly one mahogany. The thing about mahogany is it's softer, right? It's a softer wood. It carries some qualities in terms of the grains and the colors that make it a a very favorable product for cabinetry and other things. We actually looked at mahogany as a species to possibly grow, and it's about a 30-five to 40-year harvest cycle. And so, when we looked at that, we said, you know, we can get our heads around 20-five, and and maybe someday we will do some mahogany plantations as well. But for now, we we started with teak. Actually, when we did the analysis, I don't know if this is still true, but 27, 28 years ago, when I did the initial research and analysis, it had the best time value of money ROI.   Keith Weinhold  36:29   Ah, that's the first time I learned that. And some of these durability properties that you've been talking about really go back to my earlier question about how some more sensitive crops have been ravaged lately.   Mike Cobb  36:39   Yeah, it holds up very very well to the environment. By the way, it'll do well in pretty much everything but desert, right? If it rains too much, the teak will grow faster. Actually, it produces a less quality. The quality of the teak is less. If so, if panama's rain system changed and it started raining every day of the year, where we have it growing, teak trees would grow wonderfully. The quality of the teak would be lower, right? Still, be teak. It'd still be valuable, but not as valuable in the marketplace. So.   Keith Weinhold  37:08   Now you've been here to talk about teak before, but something that you added a few years ago was a sawmill to really bring some vertical integration there. And now you're not at the mercy, perhaps, of the price that you would need to sell to a lumberyard. Can you tell us more about how it's going with that?   Mike Cobb  37:22   Yeah, absolutely. Well, the bottom line is, is because we earn 20% of what we earn for the investor on their wood, our goal is to sell it for as high a possible price. And lumber does pretty well. I mean, you can sell logs. Let's just start there. You can cut the trees and sell the logs for X. You can turn the logs into lumber and sell it for you know whatever 578 x. You can turn it into things like cutting board, chairs, tables, a finished product, and there you're talking about you know not just five to 7x You're talking about another 10x on top of that. So that's like 30x right? I mean it's an incredible difference. So from log to finished product, it's about a 30 times differential in what you ultimately achieve out of the marketplace for return. Right now it takes longer to do it. There's more work involved, but at the end of the day, because you make more of the investor, we make more. Some of the teak is going to go out as finished product, and so we get a blended return of lumber. We don't do logs, but we're going to have a blended return of lumber and finished product that will push that yield up maybe higher than we've anticipated, which would be just fine with everybody.    Keith Weinhold  38:30   ll right, all right. Diversifying your exit, then. Well, before we learn about how we can get a hold of more information, is there any last thing that we should know about investing across international lines into teak, maybe something that I didn't think about asking you, Mike.   Mike Cobb  38:45   The only thing there is two of the teak farm parcels can be bundled together for a half acre with about a I don't know it's a seven $8,000 legal piece government fees to achieve a residency. So you can actually become a resident of Panama with the teak investment, and again coming in on about 600 folks have done the residency as well as the investment and ownership of the teak farms. So I would say that's a piece. Again, if people aren't sleeping well at night, they're worried about inflation, they're worried about social disruption, polarization, where things are headed, right? And they like the idea of the teak investment, then you know it may make sense to just do the extra government legal piece and get the residency card. I mean, I just did that. By the way, I think you know I'm a I'm a Nicaraguan resident because I lived in Nicaragua for 14 years.   Keith Weinhold  39:34   Mike is holding up his Nicaraguan ID.   Mike Cobb  39:37   but last summer I also got my Panama residency card, so now I have, y'all. I'm a U.S. resident, U.S. citizen, and I'm also a Nicaraguan. I think I held up my West Virginia driver's license. Hold on, let me go. Here's my Nicaraguan residency. Sorry, I was like, yeah. Wait a minute. Anyway, so right. So I'm a U.S. citizen, and I'm a resident of both Nicaragua and Panama. And so, this is something that a lot of folks choose to do because of the uncertainty, the political and social uncertainty in their lives. The teak itself will help with the economic uncertainty, but the residency then helps with the other two elements.   Keith Weinhold  40:15   Next time you fly in and you're doing customs in Panama City or Managua, show them your West Virginia driver's license and see how they like it. See what happens.   Mike Cobb  40:22   It wouldn't work. Hahaha.   Keith Weinhold  40:25   Well, the prices are low. You do not need to be an accredited investor in order to do this. So there's really no qualification bar to clear. There's really no limit in the number of parcels that you can buy. Some people like to purchase 10 parcels, but you can buy as little as one, and tell us more about that price.   Mike Cobb  40:42   Yeah, in fact, we've introduced Keith since the last time we talked a financing program. Oh,   Keith Weinhold  40:48   I didn't know that yet.   Mike Cobb  40:49   We did. That's a fairly new. It's a this year thing, right? So the teak parcels, I think 9890 or something, whatever. Call it 10 grand. The parcels just under $10,000.   Keith Weinhold  40:59   Okay.   Mike Cobb  40:59   Yeah, and they have a down payment and a credit card thing. I think it stretches maybe over a year or two, so it's a fairly short period. Let's people who don't have the entire 10,000 upfront who want the teak investment to be able to acquire it. And if they're doing the residency piece, the residency piece can only begin after the teak farm piece is acquired, right? But it can also lead to the residency piece over time. So yeah, and then there are some discounts on three of them and 10 of them. So we have a lot of people that actually end up getting them for. And and here's a really cool thing because it's titled in your own name, it can also be titled in a child's name or a grandchild's name. And so we have a lot of people that actually acquire them and they don't take ownership. They put it in their kid's name or their grand name. Yeah, so it's a wonderful way to move that asset already right out of the gates into the next generation or the next generation.   Keith Weinhold  41:52   So we're talking about diversifying at least twice, both internationally and then in a different asset type as well. This has been fascinating to learn about, Mike. It's just fascinating alone, I think, to learn about the geography and the teak itself. And like we touched on earlier, they do organize tours. Any reputable provider should do that. They're proud of what they offer there. Tours in the Darien province of Panama, in this case, to see your teak tree parcels. It's a really approachable price. If you want to learn more and get a report and perhaps purchase some parcels, Mike's one of our GRE marketplace providers. You can visit gremarketplace.com/teak or talk to your GRE investment coach. Mike has been fascinating as always. It's been great having you back on the show.   Mike Cobb  42:40   Nice to be here. Thank you, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  42:48   Teak is one of the more durable crops that there is. The demand for teak hardwood is substantial, and it's really growing. They have also had the same tree manager for all 27 years since the teak was planted, some real continuity there. The name of the manager is Heyo Forestall. There's a little to manage with the teak hardwood trees, like performing thinnings, and those thinnings do give investors like you intermittent income. So you're not waiting for absolutely everything for 25 years, but the income from the thinning is really small. Most of the return takes place in that 25 years, and it's interesting to me to see the profile of the GRE investor in teak because it attracts young investors, and maybe that's because the cost of entry is so low. It also attracts older investors because they more often have an eye toward passing along something productive to their heirs that is going to outlive them. A lot of them don't want to give their heirs money because money can be spent on fleeting trivialities. Also, the older a person is, they just have an easier time visualizing the fact of 25 years and knowing that it really will pass by. And yes, in-person tours are offered there in the Darien province of Panama, and there were 13 to 14 attendees on a recent tour. They do need to limit the group size, and the tours are for you, whether you're an existing investor or not. If you're just checking it out, that's for you too. If you believe that you want to attend a tour and you don't want to buy, I understand that you can get your money back from the tour.   Keith Weinhold  44:35   The next tour is in September. Each quarter-acre newborn teak parcel costs $9,680 $9,680 and over 20-five years, it's projected to produce about 110k in today's dollars. And yes, now with financing, we've talked about this investment on GRE before, but it's the first time where they now have financing in place, so you don't even need. 9680 to get started. Also, retirement funds might be eligible for use here. And really, when you think about the long-term horizon of this investment, retirement funds make sense. If this is potentially interesting to you, get a hold of the report that goes into the details and shows you some projections and more. You can do so by either contacting your GRE investment coach or visit gremarketplace.com/teek. Money may not grow on trees, but sometimes trees grow into money. Until next time, keep growing your means and maybe a few trees. You could visit gremarketplace.com/teak. Until next week, I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 1  45:53   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.    Keith Weinhold  46:21   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. getricheduceducation.com  

"Nobody goes there anymore - it's too crowded." Yogi Berra said it, and sometimes, we live it when searching for great hunting ground. But what if you adjusted your expectations, settled for second-best to access uncrowded territory that might, just might, have some decent hunting? That's today's soapbox session, as I encourage you to seek out the runners-up states, regions, and places that don't end up on magazine covers. I'll share some of my own stories, offer some strategy and tactics you might employ, and provide incentives that might get you far from the madding crowd. Our social session covers favorite post-hunt libations, and "Fix It" suggests some help wearing your strap vest that allows you to carry more water and shoot better. And it's all brought to you by: Mid Valley Clays and Shooting School, CableGangz, TrulockChokes, Pointer shotguns, ClayCopter, USA Clay Target League, Purina Pro Plan Sport and FindBirdHuntingSpots.com.

Keith explores when the U.S. median home price could realistically hit $1 million and what long-term drivers like inflation, construction costs, and housing scarcity mean for investors.  He reveals the hidden issue of America's aging housing stock, explaining how outdated and inadequate homes quietly distort inventory data and reshape opportunities for renovation and build-to-rent strategies.  Keith also draws lessons from former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan and unpacks why some of the "worst" high-crime cities can still offer strong rental fundamentals, helping listeners think more clearly about risk, market selection, and long-term wealth building through real estate. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/612 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. When will the median US home value hit the $1 million mark? I have the best answer for the exact year that it will happen, and it's probably sooner than you think. Also, there's a big hidden problem in America's housing market today, and no one is talking about it. It's not prices, mortgage rates, affordability, nor is it inventory. I'll tell you about it and more today on Get Rich Education.   Speaker 1  0:30   Since 2014 the powerful Get Rich Education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord, show host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad Advisors, and delivers a new show every week. Since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show guests and key top-selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki. Get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps. Build wealth on the go with the Get Rich Education podcast. Sign up now for the Get Rich Education podcast, or visit getricheducation.com   Keith Weinhold  1:14   You know, Mid South Home Buyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider, I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties. It's an executive coach for nine years now. Their CEO, Terry Kerr, and his COO, Pat Nix, have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners, his name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one on one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to danielthomashind.com h i n d, that's danielthomashind.com and sign up before Spotsville Flock Homes helps multifamily owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your sixplex or a 50 unit apartment through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management. Request your initial valuations. See if your property qualifies at flockhomes.com/gre that's F L O C K homes . com / G R E.   Speaker 2  3:00   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  3:16   You're listening to One America's longest running and most listened to shows on real estate investing, not flipping, not speculating, not whatever the latest hot thing is, but prudent long-term real estate investing. This is Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. You've got to believe that you were not put on this earth to live a mediocre life and waddle in the safety of mediocrity. Your investing should be a reflection of that. You've got to believe that you can obtain financial freedom when you're young enough to enjoy it. What would be the point of deferring financial freedom until you're old, like, what would that point even be? I mean, just imagine a rich elderly version of you. It cannot buy youth. Youth cannot be bought. Look, right now, if someone offered you $20 million to be age 85 tomorrow, the probability that you would take it is pretty much zero. So then build sustainable, durable wealth now today, and with a sense of urgency. That's what we're doing here. A $1 million national median home price. When do we get there? Well, back in 1990 the median national home price was about 120k and you know, funny as it sounds, you can read about how back in 1990 people thought that homes were highly priced, even overpriced, and that maybe they'd need to start. Going down, why was that? Well, just three years earlier, in 1987 they crossed over 100k for the first time. So psychologically, six figures for a home price, that was still a fairly new phenomenon. In 1990 mortgage rates were 10% then for a 30 year fixed rate loan, and by the way, 10% mortgage rates didn't feel too bad to homeowners and real estate investors in 1990 because as recently as 1984 they were 14 and a half percent. Roll it back a little earlier to 1981 and mortgage rates were over 18% then, and of course, mortgage rates are a friendlier six to 7% today, but remember we're talking about home prices here, and when it comes to the trajectory of home prices, rates are really just trivia, because as I've discussed here on the show for years, to many people surprised, mortgage rates have almost nothing to do with home prices, contrary to popular belief, but to those people in 1990 that were still somewhat freshly getting used to six figure prices that were now 120k at that time today's median home price of 429,000 to $300 would have sounded as absurd as paying $18 for airport trail mix and $24 for airport beef jerky, yet here we are.    Keith Weinhold  6:36   All of those prices are true. That's where we are today, all right. Well, from 1990 till today, home prices have nearly four exed. So, with that backdrop from recent history, what about a million dollars? When do we get to that point? Well, home prices only need to go up about 2.3x from here. Yogi Berra said it's tough to make predictions, especially about the future, and I want to credit Dr. Lawrence Yuen, any our chief economist, for doing this analysis and sort of getting this conversation started, because when we look at the national median home price hitting million dollars, this forecast assumes zero price growth for this year, although home prices are now up 1.8% year over year. Here we go at 3% price growth from today, we get to a million in 2056 at 4% it's 2049 at 5% price growth, it's 2045 and it's 6% home price growth, it's 2042 and that's just 15 and a half years away. One part that I really want to credit Dr. Yoon for is that if you take the actual price trend from the last 25 years with all of its ups and downs, which also gives you an average annual gain of four and a half percent, by the way, and you project this into the future, that path reaches $1 million in 2048 just over two decades away, so taking the past quarter century, then, and extrapolating it into the future means we hit a million dollars in just a little over 20 years. So, therefore, perhaps the most prudent and sensible projection gets us there in 2048 But look, it's easy to make the case that growth is going to be on the higher side of these estimates, I mean, just look at what's going on now.   Keith Weinhold  8:45   Already, inflation is over 4% and there are all kinds of forces that are poised to push that inflation rate higher. I've talked about those in recent episodes. Today, 42 out of 50 states show annual home price gains. Near-term sparks to more home price growth are energy and material price volatility from tariffs and wars, which are poised to push up the replacement cost of homes. And you know, when your property's replacement cost rises, all capital values tend to rise as well. There's also pent-up demand and still paltry supply in most US regions. I'll get to that, but regulatory costs alone are now $132,000 for a new single-family home. You heard that right? Yes, the cost of zoning and other regs is now 132k and that figure is sticky. That does not tend to come down, and then you've got these longer term bonfires, not just the short term sparks that I mentioned, but the longer term bonfires that could make million dollar median home. Dollars occur before 2048 This construction of data centers and all the resources that it takes, and chips, and copper, and electricity, that's all inflationary for our society. When we're building that infrastructure, our currency will keep getting diluted to deal with huge debts like defense and social security payment commitments and interest payments themselves, I mean that part is plain as day new household formation that's expected to push up demand until at least the late 2040s and after that demographically things could turn, but the base case remains 2048 here for the million dollar median home, so this million dollar mark, you know, it's not some sci-fi housing fantasy where your realtor shows up in a flying car, okay, values are already approaching a half million, and this figure of a million that is just 1000 1000, it's not some incomprehensibly gigantic number that's shooting for the moon and the stars, so really the bottom line here is that a million dollar median national home price is an almost inevitable destination and is being pushed up by appreciation, inflation, replacement costs, and scarcity.    Keith Weinhold  11:25   The real question is not whether this happens, but it's when it happens. That's why I gave you the year of 2048 as the base case. I want to talk more about housing scarcity shortly, but first, for some historic perspective, do you want to know how much my parents paid for their home in 1974 I thought I knew the figure, but I wanted to check with Dad, and he let me know, and it was what I thought. All right, first, I think I've shared with you before that my parents still live in the same Countersport, Pennsylvania home, the old smallish Victorian style home built in 1917 They've lived in that continuously since Richard Nixon was our president. And you know, when I go visit my parents, I get to sleep in the same bedroom that I have since I was an infant, just amazing. Also, do you know that that home where I grew up, and they still live in.. Do you know that home is location? Do you know where that location is? On what I'll call the urban to rural spectrum, it's interesting. The home is not in a city, it's not in the suburbs, it's not in the exurbs, it's not in the country, and it's not in a planned community either. What's left? Do you know where it might be? Maybe you're thinking too hard. It is in a small town, that's the answer. A small town with a gridded street pattern and Main Street, that's called Main Street, and old brick businesses. It is a standalone community with its own identity and a really slow pace of life. Its population was about 2600 at the turn of the century, and it's down to about 2100 residents today. And Cowder Sport, Pennsylvania, is a remote place, it's over two hours to the nearest international airport in Buffalo, New York, and there really aren't that many flight routes out of Buffalo either. So, for that detached single-family home that does have a big yard, my parents bought it in 1974 for $20,000 exactly 20k and they quickly got that home paid off back in the day, about 58 years ago.   Keith Weinhold  13:48   The only financing they had, it wasn't a mortgage in the traditional sense, rather my mom's parents gave them a small loan to put toward that 20k and it was an interest-free loan, and the seller kind of gave them my parents there this adjacent grassy lot, practically free. The person that sold it said they didn't feel like mowing it. That wouldn't happen today. Real estate is just more coveted and calculated, I think. It'll just go throw in a lot, and you can guess who had to mow that adjacent grassy lot more than a few times? Yours truly. And hey, I might even mow it again this year when I visit my parents, and my dad listens to this show, and he sure hopes so. It's not a bad looking home today. I definitely did not grow up dirt poor, but just modestly, there was only one bathroom for our family of four that we all shared, and yes, what this meant was patience, timing, and the ancient art of knocking on the bathroom door with urgency sometimes, and we all took baths only until I was age eighteen, there was just simply no shower until then. We all shared one car, a Subaru station wagon, definitely not deprived in a great childhood, just living modestly. Well, today's median home price is now 22 times the 20k that my parents paid for their home in 1974. Homes in countersport are a lot cheaper, so maybe it's just 12x there. But see, the point is that the home doesn't have more utility because it doesn't have any more than the same three bedrooms today. It's got about the same amount of usefulness they did add a second bathroom. What happened is that our currency has just debased enough to be worth about 1/12 as much as it was in 1974 That's why the price is up 12x Before I get to national housing scarcity factor, maybe you've always wondered where I get my abundance mindset from, since I grew up in a small simple remote place, I'm not sure it's just an internal confidence gain from somewhere. Sometimes I wonder if where I grew up actually contributed to growing my means rather than living below my means, because at some point subconsciously I might have thought before that, you know what, if I fail big in life, then I could always move back to old counter sport and own a decent home for just 200k in a town where I know people, maybe it worked that way, and I moved away from that home for good at age 23.   Keith Weinhold  16:44   By the way, that's when I left the nest. As you know, I like to say the most important thing here is that I won the parent lottery - decent, stable married parents. That means considerably more than inflation or economic factors ever could two grade A parents now getting back to housing's scarcity factor. Did you know about what's happening with the available inventory of homes now after four years of rising supply? The inventory trend has flipped. There are now fewer homes for sale nationally than there were a year ago, and this has really thrown off some forecasters that thought inventory would climb about 10% this year. Instead, we have fewer one to four unit properties on the market today than we did last year. This matters because it could signal the next phase of the housing market, it's important to identify these inflection points right here, if it truly is one, because shrinking inventory, that means fewer options for buyers, more competition, and eventually upward price pressure, if the trend holds, but that's not here yet, we haven't seen home prices really take off. A decade ago, there are about one and a half million available homes. The pandemic low in 2022 is where we hit a jaw-droppingly low, 350,000 available homes. I mean, really scraping the bottom, those were the days when there were 40 people in line to see one open house, that was nuts.   Keith Weinhold  18:28   Okay, from those scarce, scarce days that has rebounded to 1.1 million available homes the past year or two, and this year it stepped back a little to about 1 million available homes for sale in this nation, so bigger picture today we have 30 to 35% fewer homes available now than we had a decade ago, and remember we've also got to account for the fact that we've had population growth since that time as well, that's why demand continues to exceed supply, so really the housing shortage is a little worse whenever you factor in population growth. So this really speaks to the scarcity, and so does something else here. And there's a big hidden problem in America's housing market today, and nobody, like no one is talking about this, it's not prices, it's not mortgage rates, affordability, nor is it inventory, it's the fact that America's housing is aging with the median now 45 years old, that's older than America's homes have ever been, and 45 is also about the median age of a TikTok user's parents, I think. Now, an 80s built home isn't exactly ancient, but this really factors in here. Now, in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, the typical home predates 1960 in Austin and Raleigh, it. Is post 2000 so it feels like the Northeast is replacing avocado green appliances, and the Southeast is just replacing Ring camera batteries, because, as you'd expect, fast growth areas have a young housing stock like Florida and Texas and Tennessee to a lesser extent, and at the beginning of the month, I sent our newsletter subscribers this terrific national map that shows the median age of homes by city, a rare map that's pretty fascinating, and in fact, the oldest homes in the nation are in Elmira, New York. They are about 70 years old, not far from where my parents live in Countersport, Pennsylvania, and this is such an under-discussed part of the housing shortage. See, a market it can technically have what seems like available inventory, but still not actually have habitable, financeable, insurable, affordable housing, and older housing stock that creates friction with repairs and appraisals and insurance and affordability.    Keith Weinhold  21:10   Harvard's Joint Center for Housing studies found that 3.6 million renter households, that's 8% live in inadequate housing with problems in multiple structural deficiencies like water leaks or serious problems with electrical HVAC or other systems, and this is a real threat to NOAA housing. Are you familiar with this term, NOAH? NOAA stands for Naturally Occurring Affordable housing, and it means properties that are affordable purely due to free market conditions, not public funding. What's interesting is that America isn't just not building enough. See, we're also retaining a lot of older homes longer than generations past did in the mid 20th century, what cities routinely did is that they demolished obsolete housing, and they rebuilt aggressively. Today, that just doesn't work in most places. Replacement happens slowly, because of higher construction costs. In this not in my backyard bickering, and zoning restrictions, and labor shortages and environmental rules. I mean, it just doesn't work that way anymore. Now, here at GRE, we introduce you to providers across the nation that do deep, extensive quality rehabs, but much of America, they just kind of keep patching their homes like it's a 1998 Honda Accord with 280,000 miles in three glowing dashboard warning lights, that's what they're doing, that's why the average age of the home keeps going up. All right, so what are some of the big takeaways for real estate investors with America's homes being older than ever? Number one, it's supply. America still needs more housing, even in cities with stable populations. A lot of them are going to see more units become obsolete than will get built. That's why when you see a headline like inventory is up, all right, that can be true, but it can also be misleading if it's a 1952 duplex with knob and tube wiring, and a furnace that's held together with hope and duct tape. All right, a surprising amount of America's housing stock is basically running on CPR and Lowe's rewards points. The second takeaway with this aging housing stock is that obviously more renovations are required again, that is, if you're not buying new or turnkey, so therefore states like New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts, they all have busy Home Depots.   Keith Weinhold  23:56   When obsolete properties get renovated, okay, well, then rents have to increase to support those costs, and then you know what happens a lot of times. Cynics call that process right there gentrification. Aging homes are going to be a major policy topic over the next decade. There is this tension between keeping buildings affordable and keeping them standing, you can't preserve what's falling apart, but see, then fixing it prices some people out, and then the third investor takeaway with this aging housing is yet again the arrow points here one more time, build to rent housing, yeah, new build rental homes, they're often the way to go. Usually the trade off for you is that you pay more upfront, and then you have fewer maintenance and repair costs. It usually works out for you, and today this is really tilted to your advantage, because home builders are still doing. Generously buying down your mortgage rate to perhaps 5% it depends on the builder, but this is a rare setup for you in this cycle of the market. New property, low maintenance, and mortgage rates that feel like they came from a different decade, you're getting them now. Not only is our housing aging, hey, so are we. The median age of all Americans is 39 Back in 1980 it was just 30, so this is a massive demographic shift in a short period of time. I mean, you and I are both older than we ever have been, of course, and we're both about 20 minutes older than when you and I started talking today. That is why I endeavored to make this show well worth your time. The bottom line with the aging homes is that by most measures, US housing stock is older than it's ever been. New construction has not kept up with population growth, and this is going to shape housing affordability and construction trends and investment opportunities across America, perhaps for the rest of your investor life. I need to tell you about America's worst cities for crime shortly, because it includes a lot of cities popular with investors, including cities that we frequently talk about here. So, what is going on? This is something that I've wanted to tell you about for a long time. Hey, if you like learning from me, you are in luck. This week and next week, it will be monolog episodes, just you and I together. I'm Keith Weinhold. More for you straight ahead here on episode 612 of Get Rich Education.    Keith Weinhold  26:41   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group, NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone, because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal, and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com That's ridgelendinggroup.com    Keith Weinhold  27:12   Let me ask you something. If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call, or text family to 66866 that's Family 266866.   Speaker 3  28:14   This is Hal Elrod, author of The Miracle Morning, and listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  28:28   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. America turns 250 years old this coming weekend. That's our semiquincentennial, which is a word that sort of sounds like it should come with a Latin tutor and a necktie. If you live in the US, like I do, happy birthday to us. Enjoy it, celebrate it, be grateful for it. We're living through a milestone that only comes around once every two and a half centuries. Remember that, despite our differences, we still get to live in one of the most remarkable nations ever built. Warren Buffett said, No one has ever been a success betting against America since 1776 and they're not going to be a success in the future doing it either. End quote. Before I discuss the worst investor cities for crime, Alan Greenspan died last week. Let's learn from history with this long-tenured Fed chair. He served for 19 years, from 1987 to 2006 And then I'll talk about what it means to you. And I actually met Greenspan in person, just briefly, at the New Orleans Investment Conference several years ago, he led the Federal Reserve under four presidents from both parties, and really he was regarded as somewhat of a celebrity economist. He shaped economic policy during this period of massive wealth creation, again 1987 to. 2006 almost two decades, Greenspan was held for his well-timed interest rate moves to fight inflation, all while promoting economic growth, but you know, a lot of prominent economists, they also blamed his big financial deregulation for causing the 2008 global financial crisis. Greenspan and Nomics were really about entering government during the Ford administration after he co-founded a successful economic forecasting firm, and then Greenspan really became known for basing his decisions on this sort of meticulous data analysis, not textbook economics, and he ultimately gained this guru status for really capable monetary policy, including during one of the longest economic booms in the country's history, between 1991 and 2001 all years in which he reigned, and he helped engineer a swift recovery from a massive financial crash during the late Reagan administration, and he did that by slashing interest rates, and then pouring tons of money into the economy, and you know, yeah, everyone is popular when they slash interest rates and print tons of money in the short term, because that makes everybody feel really prosperous, but I think you know what that leads to. Say it with me, inflation in the mid 90s. He presided over rate increases to stem that price growth without causing a recession, and that is a tough balancing act that's known as a soft landing. Jerome Powell basically did that too, despite his faults. But anyway, later Greenspan didn't pay attention to people that wanted him to keep jacking up rates, but he got it right to hold off from doing that.    Keith Weinhold  31:50   There was an economic upswing because Greenspan correctly predicted that we'd have all these productivity gains from personal computers that would help tame inflation. He got that part right, and Greenspan, he was like famous for using these hard to decipher pieces of jargon known as Fed speak. I mean, it was unforgettable in 1996 when he dropped the term irrational exuberant, so that really just means these unduly escalated asset values, and he also pioneered these interest rate change announcements as a way to help guide the markets, instead of surprising everybody. But, on the other hand, you know, anyone that shapes the economy is gonna get some criticism. A lot of people said that Greenspan would just always rescue the stock market, and investors sort of knew that he would come rescue it, and that made investors make these riskier and riskier bets. He was an acolyte of libertarian Ayn Rand, and so Greenspan lobbied for this sort of light touch financial regulation during the Clinton years, and that combined with his refusal to raise interest rates and rein in subprime mortgage lenders to stamp out the housing bubble in the 2000s that's really what caused people to say that he was partially responsible for the global financial crisis. His influence definitely remains today. Alan Greenspan lived from 1926 to 2026. Now we've all seen those lists, like America's worst cities or the highest crime metros in the US, floating around on social media, in articles like Newsweeks published for decades, and everywhere in between, right.   Keith Weinhold  33:42   It's like the 10 places where your wallet, your hubcaps, and your will to live disappear, something like that, in some form. When you consider real estate markets that you want to invest in, the quality of the area absolutely matters. A bad neighborhood. Oh, that's going to contribute to stagnant rents, flat or declining values, higher vacancy, and you'll probably attract a tenant who treats your property like it's a borrowed jet ski. All right, not where you want to be, but a faulty modus operandi is that a reader? They often see a list like this, and then they extrapolate an area's crime or their public safety issues and blankets them across an entire city. Now, one of these lists came across my desk recently, the 50 worst cities to live in in the United States, and the cities are ranked, and here's what struck me as wild, paradoxical. At least seven of the top eight cities have areas with strong investment fundamentals. Actually, so the eight worst, in order, are Detroit, Memphis, Jackson, Mississippi. St. Louis, Baltimore, Cleveland, Shreveport, Louisiana, and then eighth worst is Birmingham, Alabama. Most all of these have good investment pockets in them. Now, I've never visited Shreveport, so that's one that I can't speak to. All right. Well, what is going on here? Why am I calling them good investor cities if they all make this list, and by the way, I was born in the 34th worst on this list, Redding, Pennsylvania. One of my degrees is in geography, and I get out and see the world, and what's weird, and you'll see this over and over and over again in society throughout your life, and that is when people talk about their own city that they live in. Oh, they understand the nuance. Okay, you know your own city has posh areas and rough places and working class areas, and that city that you live in has improving neighborhoods, and it also has don't stop there for gas after midnight areas, but see, when there's another city that people aren't familiar with, or they haven't visited, well, then suddenly the entire area gets slapped with one label, like, oh, that's nice, or that place is a dump, or the world would be better if that entire city slid into the ocean. Well, that's lazy thinking. Almost every city has sections that they're proud of. And then, well, the garbage collector has to live somewhere. Take Memphis, for example.    Keith Weinhold  36:38   It has long been one of America's most real estate investor advantaged cities, and it is a favorable place for income property owners, because it's got landlord friendly laws, a deep base of blue collar distribution jobs, a high ratio of rent income to purchase price, and Memphis also has such an embedded renter culture that tenants appliances actually move around with them, but yet Memphis, like I said, is a dreadful number two on this worst cities list due to high crime. Okay, that's the problem with citywide statistics. Bad neighborhoods can skew stats for an entire city, in fact, since we just mentioned them here on the show last week, take a reputable Memphis-based income property provider like Mid South Homebuyers, they renovate and provide investors with property in neighborhoods like Fraser and White Haven, but wait a moment, you can easily read about crime and blight and disinvestment into these same exact two Memphis neighborhoods, Fraser and Whitehaven. That's real, and that is accurate. And simultaneously, Fraser is anchored economically by nearby world-class hospitals, a massive Amazon presence. You've got Nike's largest distribution center in the world. I mean, that's not exactly a tumbleweed economy. Drive down Fraser's Pamela Drive, and you're going to see an established leafy middle-class neighborhood, mostly built in the 60s, with these modest, well-kept properties, and you can see that if you pull up Pamela Drive, Memphis on Google Street View, and they're often three bed, one bath ranch homes, about 1000 square feet in size, with two tenths of an acre lots. I mean, everything I just described there is ideal for cash flowing rentals, driveways, lawns, normal life - it's not posh, but pride of ownership is apparent here. People mold their lawns, trash stays picked up, you see orderly cars, maybe a jogger or a baby stroller, or a neighbor watering flowers.   Keith Weinhold  38:58   You do not see dumped furniture, no cars on blocks, no front yards that look like a failed episode of storage wars. Community stalwarts live here, like our police officers, nurses, public school teachers. So, see, there's substantial variation in investability, even within Fraser in Whitehaven, it's almost a block by block phenomenon, even within one neighborhood. So, to mentally stigmatize every neighborhood in Greater Memphis as bad due to their high crime areas is a really gross aberration. So, when one isn't familiar with an area, there's often an inclination to broad brush stroke at all. I mean, gosh, I wonder if people in Kazakhstan think that you are an abject degenerate simply for sending your child to school because they read that America has lots of school shootings. See, it's. The same principle here, and just like any provider the GRE tells you about, Mid South Homebuyers wants you to visit their neighborhoods in person. In fact, they frequently arrange investor tours and even welcome your visit so much that you'll get a $500 credit on your first property for attending the tour, they will pay you to come see Memphis effectively, and the bigger picture, national crime rates of all kinds just keep plummeting, because everybody is on their phone. Frankly, a lot of places on worst cities lists, like Memphis, they can be dangerous to invest in without a free consultation from our GRE investment coaching or a resource like Mid South Home Buyers.    Keith Weinhold  40:51   So, the bottom line is that investors, they don't buy a city, you're going to buy one specific house on one specific street with one specific tenant profile in one specific property management system. Micro locations are what determine your ROI, and by the way, Mid South Home Buyers has good income properties, some of them for about 200k or under 200k and right now they're offering investors their triple five program. This means they buy down your mortgage rate to 5.5% or maybe a little lower, and have a property management fee of just 5% for the first five years on every new turnkey property purchase. That is currently one of the best deals in the nation for income property. You can learn more at Mid South homebuyers.com If that sounds interesting, hopefully you've learned about real estate today and have helped clear up some misconceptions. Million dollar median homes are not some far-fetched fantasy. 2048 is my best guess as to when we reach that point. Housing is more scarce than you think, especially when you consider that America's homes are older than they've ever been, and when we look at one city's crime or demographic statistics, that broad brush strokes quite a wide area. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode, there's a way to get more out of it for you and others, that is by telling two friends about the show, I love it when you do that, and I'm grateful for it. Text them this episode right now. Until next week, I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 1  42:37   Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.    Speaker 1  43:05   The preceding program was brought to you by Your Home for Wealth Building, getricheducation.com  

A young Yogi Berra battles his own pitching staff just as Dalton Rushing struggles to call pitches for Shohei Ohtani, Casey Stengel drags Yogi into the Joe McCarthy mess in Washington, Lefty Grove throws at a catcher and Dorothy Thompson tries to help war refugees. And John McGraw thought tennis-playing pitchers were effeminate? All that and more in this week's episode! The Infinite Inning is a journey to the past to understand the present using baseball as our time machine. America's brighter mirror, baseball reflects, anticipates, and even mocks the stories we tell ourselves about our world today. Baseball Prospectus's Steven Goldman shares his obsessions: history from inside and outside of the game, politics, stats, and Casey Stengel quotations. Along the way, we'll try to solve the puzzle that is the Infinite Inning: How do you find the joy in life when you can't get anybody out? Ambient battle noise: swords and shouting by pfranzen; Epic Cinematic Music: Let's Go to Zanzibar by lena_orsa

Watch your national team over the years and you might find yourself having a sense of "Deja Vu all over again", as Yogi Berra once said (and apparently sang by John Fogerty). Losing you? Watching England can do that to you, as Zeff wll explain. 

A Saturday game in May can be both an inconsequential checkmark in a season and a game that can be looked back on as a captivating moment in history. It's impossible to look back at 1972 and ignore the first players' strike that disrupted the first two weeks of the season. Spring training was curtailed, and both hitters and pitchers are still struggling with timing in May. 86 games were wiped from the schedules, never to be rescheduled. The Padres will end up playing just 153 games, while the Mets will play 156.Also looking to find his way in the season is Mets manager, Yogi Berra. Following the sudden passing of Gil Hodges, Berra is finding his feet and beginning to understand the core of the Mets' line-up. It's an intense spotlight that will shine brightly on him during the 1972 season, as the Mets finish a credible third. That core would head into 1973 ready to claim the National League pennant.The biggest name in the Mets' line-up is surely Tom Seaver. He has already posted two 20-win seasons (with 25 wins in 1969 and an on-the-nose 20 wins in 1971) and has a Cy Young to his name. Facing him was seen as a near-automatic loss. Not only that, but his record against the San Diego Padres is even more impressive. In terms of overpowering presence, he's less Mr Terrific and more Mr Terrifying.Can the Padres, with rookie pitcher Bill Grief, hurl the ball and swing the bat to find some magic?Ewan Spence and the Classic Baseball Radio team bring you this recreated radio broadcast from May 6, 1972. This should not be considered a complete or fully accurate historical record. Nevertheless, this is our story of the game.We thank Retrosheet, Sports Reference, Sports Logos Net, Tom R Audio, and  Crafting The Call.** Links **You can find the boxscore here:https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN197205060.shtml A deep look at the legendary life and career of Tom Seaver, detailing his journey from Fresno, California, to his status as the premier pitcher of his generation.  https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/tom-seaver/Why is Tom Seaver the undisputed Franchise player of the Mets, and how does he compare to other players?https://sny.tv/articles/mets-all-time-team-26-manProfiling Bill Grief, the durable 6'5" right-handed Texas native who out-duelled Seaver on this afternoon, examining his high-strikeout velocity and post-baseball academic achievements.  https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/bill-greif/A tribute to Nate Colbert, the Padres' first true superstar, recounting his 163 franchise home runs and his devotion to youth ministry.https://www.mlb.com/news/nate-colbert-diesAn account of the sudden passing of Mets manager Gil Hodges just days before the delayed 1972 season, detailing how a grief-stricken clubhouse transitioned under Yogi Berra's leadership.http://www.centerfieldmaz.com/2020/04/remembering-mets-history-1972-mets.htmlYogi Berra's 1972 Hall of Fame Induction, including context for his managing duties with the 1972 Mets. https://baseballhall.org/discover/inside-pitch/berra-koufax-inducted-amid-star-studded-class-of-1972The history of the youth-heavy Padres rosters, Buzzie Bavasi's ticket-promotion strategies, and the physical toll of injuries on the 1972 rotationhttps://eastvillagetimes.com/the-history-of-the-san-diego-padres-volume-1-1969-1973/2/.  A comprehensive breakdown of the historic 13-day player strike in April 1972, analysing how it changed labour relations and shortened the schedule.https://sabr.org/journal/article/the-strike-of-1972-when-cooperation-failed/How the 1972 player strike served as Marvin Miller's first monumental victory, earning players pension increases and third-party salary arbitration.https://blogs.fangraphs.com/marvin-millers-legacy-and-the-decline-of-labor/

Megalo Man: Scottie has some insight on the Corey Feldman / Michael Jackson 9/11 beef that resulted in Megalo Man.Pat Patterson: Scottie gets called out on his friendship with noted predator Pat Patterson. Also showing ScoCorey's Hog: Scottie gives us confirmation on Corey having a hanger. Also Corey's Twitter addressing the haters.THE BEAR!, FUCK YOU WATCH THIS!, WHO'S ON THE LINE!?, CHET MARTIN!, JACKIE GLEASON!, MICHAEL JACKSON!, TRANFORMING!, WACKJOB!, COSPLAY!, JUGGALO!, SHMUCKALOVETZ!, DICK DONNER!, MAGNIFICENT!, MAJESTIC!, RUNAWAY!, ILLEGITIMATE CHILD!, JOE JACKSON!, SAHARA CHARLESTON!, LAS VEGAS!, MEGALO MAN!, 9-11!, WORLD TRADE CENTER!, NEW YORK!, LEGEND!, PRICELESS!, CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!, WWF!, WRESTLING!, WRESTLEMANIA!, RODDY PIPER!, PAT PATERSON!, PREDATOR!, SEXUAL!, THEY LIVE!, PERSONAL EXPERIENCE!, APOLOGY!, DR DREW!, HOLLYWOOD DEMONS!, BEEF!, EDITING!, TRAUMATIZING!, STATUTORY RAPE!, 1984!, SEXT TO THIS DAY!, HIGH SCHOOL SWEETHEART!, MUSTACHE!, COMMERCIAL!, YOGI BERRA!, BRAD PITT!, LEO DICAPRIO!, BRAD PITT!, HANGER!, HAMMER!, 10 INCH!, PACKING!, BALLS THAT CLANK!, THE GOY!, COUSIN PAULIE!, COREY'S TWITTER!, HATERS!You can find the videos from this episode at our Discord RIGHT HERE!

Harvey Araton is not quite ready to set down his pen. After covering sports for more than 40 years for the Staten Island Advance, the New York Post, the New York Daily News and The New York Times, where he served as a "Sports of the Times" columnist for more than 15 years, he continues to write. His latest book, The Goal of the Game, a soccer novel for young adults about a seventh-grader who discovers the power of the beautiful game to hurt and to heal, was just published by Koehler Books. The book takes its place on Harvey's ever-expanding bookshelf alongside one of his best-known books, When the Garden Was Eden: Clyde, the Captain, Dollar Bill, and the Glory Days of the New York Knicks, which was later adapted for an ESPN "30 for 30" documentary, and now appears especially relevant as the Knicks are once again captivating Madison Square Garden crowds in pursuit of another championship. Throughout his career, Harvey has written mostly about basketball, but he's also written about baseball—never more compellingly than in his New York Times best-selling book, Driving Mr. Yogi, about the unlikely friendship between Yankee legend Yogi Berra and then Yankee ace Ron Guidry. He's also covered 10 Olympic games, the Super Bowl, and virtually every major tennis tournament, and contributed regularly to every section of the newspaper, including the obituary section, where he continues to write advance obits for many of the athletes he used to cover. Join us for a conversation on what it takes to report on the athletes who roam our fields of play, and to be on the constant lookout for ways to write about sports that transcend the game and speak into the human condition. Learn more about Harvey Araton: Website Instagram Facebook Our Last Season: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship Please support the sponsors who support our show: Gotham Ghostwriters' Andy Awards Ritani Jewelers Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog Daniel Paisner's SHOW: The Making and Unmaking of a Network Television Pilot Heaven Help Us by John Kasich Unforgiving: Lessons from the Fall by Lindsey Jacobellis Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Libro.fm (ASTOLDTO) | 2 audiobooks for the price of 1 when you start your membership Film Freaks Forever! podcast, hosted by Mark Jordan Legan and Phoef Sutton Everyday Shakespeare podcast A Mighty Blaze podcast The Writer's Bone Podcast Network Misfits Market (WRITERSBONE) | $15 off your first order  Film Movement Plus (PODCAST) | 30% discount Wizard Pins (WRITERSBONE) | 20% discount

Jeff Taylor, executive director of global partner ecosystem and operations for Lenovo There are not many conversations where you get both the global architect of a vendor’s partner program and the Canadian channel chief in the same room. In this episode of In The Channel, recorded the week after Lenovo 360 Acceleratewrapped up in Austin, we had both: Jeff Taylor, executive director of global partner ecosystem and programs at Lenovo, and Craig Taylor, senior director and Canada channel chief. The headlining number from the conversation is the dramatic simplification of Lenovo’s incentive structure. Jeff confirmed that Lenovo has reduced its active global incentives from 2,300 down to approximately 200 – a 92 per cent reduction – while maintaining the same total investment pool. The analogy he reached for: the same pizza, fewer slices, each one bigger. The earning power stays; the complexity goes. For Canadian partners, Craig noted that over 90 per cent either maintained or improved their tier status in the move to the new Lenovo 360 Authorized, Gold, and Platinum structure. Craig Taylor, senior director and Canada channel chief at Lenovo The conversation moved quickly into services. Lenovo is targeting a 15 to 20 per cent partner revenue mix from services and solutions within the next one to two years. Craig pointed to TruScale as the on-ramp, noting Canadian partner feedback has consistently positioned it as more flexible than competing offerings in market. On AI, Jeff described a “reimagination of enablement” – moving partner portals from static, backward-looking data tools into agentic AI-driven platforms that are intuitive and forward-looking. Craig pointed to Lenovo’s CIO Playbook as the practical tool helping Canadian partners move customers from proof of concept to proof of execution on their AI investments. Read Full Transcript Robert Dutt: Hello and welcome to In The Channel from ChannelBuzz.ca, bringing news and information to the Canadian IT channel community for the last sixteen years. I’m Robert Dutt, editor at ChannelBuzz.ca and your host for the show. You want to understand how a global technology vendor thinks about its partner program, not the press release version, but the actual mechanics of how design decisions get made and how they land in markets like Canada. Today’s conversation is a fairly rare opportunity. We have at the same time the global architect of the Lenovo partner ecosystem and the Canadian channel chief. Jeff Taylor is executive director of global partner ecosystem and operations for Lenovo, responsible for the Lenovo 360 framework that governs how the company works with partners worldwide and for the new consolidated partner ecosystems and program structure for the international markets that Lenovo unveiled earlier this year. Craig Taylor is senior director and Canada channel chief at Lenovo, a 2026 CRN channel chief and the person responsible for translating all that global framework into real outcomes for Canadian partners on the ground. We recorded this conversation just after Lenovo 360 Accelerate, the company’s annual North American partner event wrapped up in Austin, Texas. So this is about as fresh a read on the state of the Lenovo partner ecosystems you’re gonna get. We covered the dramatic simplification of Lenovo’s incentive structure, the push towards services-led selling and recurring revenue, how AI is reshaping both the partner conversation with customers and Lenovo’s own approach to enablement, and how Canadian partners should be thinking about a volatile period in hardware pricing. And yes, they’re both named Taylor. We had asked some questions. Let’s get right into it. My chat with Jeff Taylor and Craig Taylor. [Music] Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time. Jeff Taylor: Hey Robert, how are you? Robert Dutt: Very well, thank you. Craig Taylor: Excellent. Good afternoon, Robert. Robert Dutt: Interesting situation, one of those channel journalist dream situations, chatting with both the global architect of the partner program and the Canadian channel chief at the same time. And as fate would have it, you’re both just coming back from Austin. Jeff, for people who weren’t there in the room for Accelerate this year, the event was themed “unified as one” — pretty deliberate choice of words, I dare say. What were you trying to signal with that framing? Jeff Taylor: Yeah, well, I mean, obviously one with our partners is probably the first and foremost thing, but also to represent Lenovo holistically. From Motorola all the way through our devices, tablets, PCs, etc. and then into the data center. So we are one company and as an extension of that, one company includes our partners and the whole intent of the event was to bring everybody together and unify. Feedback has been really, really positive and it’s, you know, it’s only been a week, but lots of really good discourse and wonderful event. Robert Dutt: Craig, from a Canadian perspective, what did the Canadian attendance look like and what did Austin feel like compared to previous Accelerate events from a Canadian partner point of view? Craig Taylor: Yeah, our Canadian partners had very positive feedback to Jeff’s point. We’re always very well represented in these types of North American based events. We always punch above our weight class, I’d like to say. So all of the key strategic partners across our ecosystem were there in present and actively participating in our discussions as to how we’re going to strategize for our next fiscal year. Robert Dutt: Jeff, one thing that stood out for me from Austin was the choice of putting Jay McBain, Steve Brazier and Tiffany Bova on stage together, three analysts who ostensibly compete against each other in the market. Curious what the goal was in putting them together and what came out of that conversation that you think partners should take away. Jeff Taylor: Yeah, I think a couple of things. First of all, the moderator of that panel was with Alex Smith. So we had four great analysts all on the stage at the same time. I think if you take a step back and just look at the theme overall, what we’re trying to accomplish at Accelerate, it was really about industry topics. So we had representatives from the US Department of Energy as an example, talking about power and what’s happening at a governmental level. And part of that was to get these four analysts together who, as you say, they mix in a lot of the same circles, but they’d never been on the stage at the same time. And the idea was to propagate a little bit. And in some cases, they were aligned in a lot of their messages to the channel. In some cases, they differed. And it was a really lively and engaging conversation. And folks at Lenovo, we engage with these folks all the time, but having them all together, kind of representing their unique perspectives on the market right now was super valuable and engaging. Robert Dutt: So to dig into what you guys have been doing on the partner side of things, back in March, you announced the new consolidated partner ecosystem and programs, International Markets Organization. Now that Accelerate’s happened, partners have had a chance to hear it explained in person. What’s the clearest way to explain what operationally changed and what didn’t? Because from the outside, centralize where it makes sense can go a lot of different directions. Jeff Taylor: Yeah, look, I think the easiest way to explain it is we now have a single common framework across the globe. That framework is a guidepost, very intentionally set up as a framework, because execution has to remain local. And the input, the guidance, the feedback that we receive from our Canadian partners, from Craig, representing the viewpoints of those Canadian partners is absolutely critical to what we’re doing. And so by, you know, over time, as we had a lot of different markets and a lot of different geographies kind of expand over time as the company grew, there was similar objectives happening in multiple markets. And maybe the execution model was slightly different. And we thought by kind of bringing some of that together, we could simplify and we could gain efficiencies for our partners. But it’s really important to understand that the execution happens locally, sales happens locally, channel partners happen locally. And so it’s one really about standardizing the framework and not centralizing execution. Robert Dutt: How has that landed here in Canada, both with Canadian partners and in terms of how things operate for you, Craig? Craig Taylor: Yeah, the feedback has been really positive, Rob. You know, from a Canadian perspective, it’s all about leveraging our local teams and our local relationships, which haven’t changed. And feedback from our partner community is we are often best in class when it comes to how we represent our organization in front of the partner ecosystem. What I think is what more exciting for me now is we’re elevating those relationships to be consistent as to how we’re going to market with our partners. Consistency in the programs, consistency in the incentives, and also how quickly we can execute. What that means is our partner facing team can spend more time in market with our partners trying to win opportunities together with our mutual customers. Jeff Taylor: And if I could add, Rob, real quick, I mean, this was a very thoughtful process. This wasn’t something that happened kind of quick and without a lot of forethought. We have been working on this for years through the introduction of Lenovo 360 as that kind of framework itself. And then over time, as we’ve built some meat on the skeleton, the timing was just really right for us to go do this. But again, that premise of local execution is probably the most important thing. Robert Dutt: Well, I know that internally you guys have kind of had the mantra of “global might, local fight” internally for a while now, kind of being applied to the partner org, it seems here. I guess I’m still a little curious where there is a certain tension between global consistency and local relevance. You’ve kind of unpacked it, but where does that actually land in terms of which side takes the lead? Jeff Taylor: Yeah. So let me give you some real tangible numbers and examples. Three years ago in market across the globe, we had 2,300 active incentives in the market. I’m going to repeat that. We had 2,300 active incentives in the market. So if you think of your investment pool as a pizza, right, and you divide that 2,300 ways, the relative impact of those individual slices can be quite small. Now, what we found in talking to markets was that there was absolutely a consistency and intent. And maybe that intent was new customer acquisition, or maybe it was growth targets, or maybe it was something else. There was consistency in intent, but the execution was different, and that created operational complexity. It created our ability to report seamlessly and consistently over time more of a challenge than simplification. So in just the last two years, we’ve gone from that 2,300 partner incentives to about 200. So almost a 92% reduction without any change in investments, any negative change in investments, because the intent was still there, right? The intent was consistent across the globe. So that’s one where we centrally can look at the forest through the trees. We can see an opportunity for simplification. Then we can bring that to the markets while still driving that strategic intent that we want to accomplish with our partners. So that’s just one example. Craig Taylor: Yeah, well said. Just to add to that, Rob, one of the things that was very important was to make sure we had local input to the global framework that was being created at Jeff’s level. So we had many conversations as to what our market needs and demands were, and make sure that we shaped it to be properly represented within the framework. That worked out very, very well. We also are allowed to have some nuances in this organization as well. And so what we’re allowed to do is perhaps if a certain pathway doesn’t make sense to the Canadian market, for example, being more of an SMB-based market, we’re going to pivot and we’re going to make those changes to make sure that we service our partners the best that we should. And kind of beef up that SMB-facing side of things. Robert Dutt: Yeah, that makes sense. Jeff Taylor: It’s really interesting. It’s interesting, Robert. From day one, we called Lenovo 360 a framework and not a program from day one. And the whole idea was that we wanted to ask three basic questions like, how do you best engage with your partners? How do you best connect with your partners and how do you best grow with your partners? But depending on the conversation, the answers to those three questions might be different. So as an example, if you’re talking to a traditional hardware solution provider, you have answers for those three questions. If you’re talking to a GSI or an MSP or an MSSP, same questions may be very different answers. And so the whole idea with this framework was to be able to flex accordingly. And that went down all the way to the market level. So Craig mentioned that Canadian being more oriented towards an SMB type of approach, the framework has to flex to be able to support that. Whereas in other markets, it may flex a slightly different way, but it’s still all about engaging, connecting and growing. Robert Dutt: OK, back to your pizza point, Jeff, and one of my favorite, probably apocryphal Yogi Berra quotes, “cut my pizza in four slices, please, I can’t eat eight.” Curious, though, for a partner who looks at it and says, “all right, well, I used to have three incentives applied to my business and now there’s only really the one. The math doesn’t work for me.” What’s sort of the answer for them? Because the earning power says we didn’t take away the earning power. Jeff Taylor: So again, it’s the intent stays the same. The earning power stayed the same. The whole idea now is operationally, it should be easier for… the intent was that it would be easier for the partners to have a path towards that earning power. So instead of Jenga or a very complicated jigsaw puzzle, the intent here was to simplify that. So it’s a clear path to that earning potential with the same intent around growth, acquisition, those types of things. Craig Taylor: Yeah. And Robert, one of the things our partners have been asking us for is to provide more direction, focus as to where they want us to go win together in the market. And I think by simplifying these programs, it’s also allowed us to provide more focus to our partner community in the ecosystem to make sure that we’re winning together in the areas that we want to win. Jeff Taylor: And Robert, it goes beyond just traditional incentives programs, too. So we’ve simplified things like our certification programs. I’m going to get this number slightly wrong, but in the ballpark, in the last two years, we’ve driven 80,000 new certifications globally through some of the simplified changes that we’ve made. So all of these things, it’s look at the globe and then apply it locally. And again, with the full intent of making it as easy as possible for the partner. Robert Dutt: As with most partner programs slash framework changes, updates, you’ve acknowledged that some partners will land at a different tier under the new structure. How are you managing the transition and what should a partner do if they feel the new placement doesn’t reflect where they’re actually at in the relationship with Lenovo? Jeff Taylor: We’re very conscious about that. And I think, Robert, you know, any time there’s even a small change in some type of construct within the program, there’s some unfortunate circumstances associated with that. But we really tried to minimize it. And I’ll just give another example to hit a tier level. We have a volume requirement. OK, that’s the framework. But what that volume requirement is, it’s going to differ by market. So, you know, it might be very different in the U.S. than it is in France, than it is in Canada, than it is in Indonesia, as an example. And the whole intent there was through our analysis was to kind of minimize those impacts as much as possible while still creating the right type of incentive and the right value associated with each of those tier levels. Craig Taylor: And to that point, Robert, it was very thoughtful in Canada as to what the thresholds should be in order to properly reflect our market. And what’s happened as a result of that is over 90 percent of the partners have either maintained or actually improved their tier status as a result of the simplification and restructuring. What we’re doing with that remaining 10 or less than 10 percent is getting out in front of our foot, making sure that we have those discussions, working together through joint business plans to determine how we’re going to get them not only to the next threshold, but have a future plan to get us to the one after that and up-tier them as we continue our relationships with them. Robert Dutt: The services shift. Jeff, you put out a specific target there in recent interviews. 15 to 20 percent of partner revenue mix coming from services and solutions over the next year or two. The services business, as I understand it, has grown in the channel for the last five years or so with channel growth outpacing overall growth. That’s certainly real numbers and real growth. What’s driving customers towards the as-a-service and TruScale model specifically right now? Jeff Taylor: Yeah, I think it’s one word. It’s complementary. Our strategic approach is to have complementary services to those of our partners. We want to be able to ensure that our mutual end users are getting the best possible experience that they can get. In many cases, those services are provided 100 percent by the partner themselves. But in other cases where they don’t have those capabilities, our job is to complement those with the service capabilities that we have. The idea is that, first of all, I think you know Robert, the services space, like the TAM, is massive. There’s so much opportunity really for everybody to play in a meaningful way. You just have to be smart about it. I think that’s the first thing. The second thing is communicate. If there is an instance in which maybe there’s a perception of competing for services revenue, we’re going to communicate. We’re going to talk. We’re going to figure out what the best solution is for that end user and then move forward that way. Craig Taylor: Yeah, the other thing I would add and maybe another word for thought is flexibility as well. Feedback from our Canadian partners is that the Lenovo TruScale offering is much more flexible than other competitive offerings in market. Because we understand that not all customers look and feel the same. So this allows our partners to scale with us during their journey as they create more of a services-led go-to-market motion for their customers. Jeff Taylor: One of the conversations, Robert, that came out, you mentioned the Accelerate event last week in Austin. Obviously, a lot of discussions around AI and a lot of discussions around how do we best build an AI practice to go serve customers, whether they’re small businesses or large enterprises. And that’s a really scary thing for a lot of solution providers right now because they see that market exploding and they want to get it right. And this is a great example of where Lenovo can come in and partner with our partners on developing an AI practice that includes not just hardware and software, but also services. Robert Dutt: Craig, for a Canadian partner to whom Lenovo still means primarily ThinkPads and infrastructure hardware, what’s the first move usually looked like for a partner who wants to shift towards services with you guys and where are most partners sitting today against that 15-20% target? Craig Taylor: Yeah, great question. I think Jeff mentioned it earlier. It’s about communication. Often, it’s a miss when we don’t understand the partner services capabilities. We are a channel-led organization. We’ll continue to be with our services engagement in order to scale and address the Canadian customers. We need the channel and we will continue to work with the channel in order to win in services, but we have to understand what it is they can offer. So our team is working very closely with our partner community through this joint business partner plan in order to understand and make sure that we’re aligning their services capabilities with the needs of those customers. That’s first. Second of all is internally, we’re making sure that we have a motto of sell with, sell for, and sell through the channel. And so our Lenovo customer-facing sales teams understand the importance and the value that our partners are bringing to our mutual customers. And together, we’re winning more than we ever have before. Jeff Taylor: Hey Robert, there’s almost like a macroeconomic driver here as well. So partners are, and we’re seeing this globally, that there’s a realization that to maximize the value, to increase the multiple on their valuation, a move towards MRR or ARR models is extremely important, right? And those are services-led models. And so we are seeing a lot of these traditional partners who are very accustomed as us being a PC or an infrastructure provider, really needing our help in moving towards this recurring revenue model that’s going to increase their valuation and their multiples. So we’re seeing that trend everywhere right now, probably more so in North America than anywhere else, but it’s definitely happening globally. Robert Dutt: To that point where I wanted to go next was the MSP pathway. 3,000 partners signed up globally, 150 million or so last year for you guys, real proof point. You’re expanding to new geographies. What can you tell me about where that pathway is at in Canada? And as you’ve expanded geographically, are there any new developments on the Canadian front, either announced at Accelerate or along the way? Jeff Taylor: Why don’t I take kind of the big picture and then Craig can go deeper into Canada? Again, this move towards recurring revenue models is happening everywhere. And so not only has Lenovo’s growth in that space been even better than expected, dare I say, we’re seeing it, the growth of MSPs just in pure numbers globally is growing very, very rapidly. And again, I think it’s this financial macroeconomic driver that’s making that happen. To go back to our framework around engaging, connecting and growing, those answers are so different with an MSP than they are with maybe a traditional Lenovo partner. And so we spent the first year developing this program by listening, literally going to conferences, setting up a booth. We had MSPs coming up to us saying, “What are you doing here?” And we would be like, “We’re just listening. We just want to hear what motivates you and what is your business driver.” And so that was the genesis of creating this program because we wanted it to be bespoke specifically for those MSPs that are just operating in a kind of a different way than traditional VARs or traditional service providers. And now I’ll hand it over to Craig. Craig Taylor: Yeah, no well said. And you’ll see that the way that we’ve set up the Lenovo 360 for MSP pathway is the solutions hub within our online support and the way that we work with those partners looks different. The incentive stack is aligned to the needs, as per Jeff’s saying, and we have dedicated campaigns and road shows and community engagements in order to make sure that we’re addressing the needs of those MSP partners. What’s most exciting in Canada is it’s actually opened up a new route to market for us and new partner relationships where we haven’t had them before. You know, I would say that until this pathway was created, we were probably under penetrated from a Lenovo Canada perspective within the MSP community. Now the opportunity is vast. The partners, those MSP related partners are interested in working with Lenovo more than ever. And I think together we’re going to go win in the market. Robert Dutt: Are we still in the early innings of operationalizing that and realizing that or is that something that’s sort of matured with the program being out there? Craig Taylor: I think we already had a head start. And so, you know, some of the relationships with the key MSP partners in the Canadian ecosystem, those relationships already existed. I think this is now an opportunity just to extend our reach and better support the masses of MSP partners that are in the Canadian marketplace. So we’re well down the path, but no pun intended. But I think this framework actually allows us to go even deeper and have more intimate relationships with this set of partners. Jeff Taylor: I think globally, if I could interject here, we’re probably in the second inning of a nine inning game. There’s so much more we can and we’ll be doing with this MSP community. And at the same time, there’s tens of thousands of MSPs out there. So the opportunity is huge and our interest and our investment kind of matches that opportunity. But we still have many innings to play here. So we’re excited about it. Robert Dutt: I don’t know if you guys have noticed over the last few months, but memory costs have been a little bit volatile. You guys, you know, Ryan McCurdy was out in front of that publicly and the Top Choice Express model guidance for pricing some of the ISG deals. Real things that partners are navigating. How do you counsel a partner who’s trying to manage customer conversations when prices can shift before product ships? And what specific tools or protections do partners have inside Lenovo right now that they need to know about? Jeff Taylor: Yeah, again, I’ll just kind of take the big picture here. Lenovo culturally within our partner community has always been one based on trust and communication always. And we’ve navigated tough waters before, whether that was the pandemic or this situation that’s affecting the entire industry. And our approach is complete candor, open communication. We don’t hide behind any potential downside or any risk. We’re very communicative up front as we get information, we share that information. That can at times be frustrating for partners, but at the same time, if they, you know, at the end of the day, when they take a step back, they really appreciate Lenovo just being super transparent. It is a tricky deal right now. It is complicated and things are moving very quickly. I do not envy our sales folks and I don’t envy our partner sellers out there right now because there’s a lot of tricky, tough conversations that have to happen. You had mentioned Top Choice and Top Choice Express. We have invested in a model for Top Choice Express where we do have a supply. We can commit to an order to ship SLA that other vendors can’t right now. And again, I think that’s very well received by the partner community. It may be that the exact configuration is slightly different, but at a time like this, it’s a great way for us to service those customers collectively with our partners and with a high quality solution from Lenovo. Craig Taylor: Yeah, just to add to that as well, I would say resiliency and agility have always been built into our supply chain. We currently manufacture in over 30 locations in 10 different markets worldwide. That global footprint allows us to be more agile as we go to market during these challenging times. Recently, Gartner has rated us as the number eight most robust supply chain in the world. I think that’s going to work to our advantage as we go and continue through these challenging times. Robert Dutt: Switching to AI, you guys have posted 72% year-over-year growth in AI-related revenue. I want to unpack that a little bit. Jeff, where’s that coming from? Is that AI PC, infrastructure services, mix of all three through the hybrid AI advantage program and the Nvidia work? What does the enablement for a partner who wants to build an AI practice actually look like? Jeff Taylor: Lots of questions in there, so let me make sure I can get them all back. In terms of our mix, it really is cross portfolio. We are leading the way in AI PC, which is fantastic. I think we’ve just scratched the surface on that device side. I still think some consumers and users are wondering, what is the real AI value here? Those use cases will continue to come and we’ll continue to see that market expand. In terms of our infrastructure business, everywhere from being able to service the big hyperscalers all the way into the enterprise and the SMB space is a testament to the strength of our portfolio. That growth is represented from everywhere from the hyperscalers to enterprise to mid-market to SMB. Again, on the services side, we talked about that a little bit ago. It’s really about partnering to make that happen. We are very fortunate to have partners. You had mentioned Nvidia, also Intel, also AMD, all the silicon guys are very much working with us on making sure that, A, the solutions are there, and that, B, the way we’re enabling those solutions, which is also a little bit different, Robert. We have to be enabling around outcomes and not around feeds and speeds. You have to be talking to customers about what are they trying to accomplish. It’s not feeds and speeds anymore. How we’re enabling our partners, Craig had mentioned our Lenovo 360 Solution Hub as an example. It is an outcome-based platform where our partners can come in and learn what’s available from an outcome’s perspective. The solutions, the hardware and the software is really incidental to the conversation around the outcome itself. I think all of those things play together. Robert Dutt: Craig, where do you find Canadian partners are with AI at this point? There’s a spectrum with some building real AI practices, many still figuring out what the first customer conversation looks like. So I guess both acknowledging there’s a range of answers, where do you find partners are at? What’s the realistic, most common entry point for a mid-market focused Canadian partner? Craig Taylor: Yeah, to answer the first part of the question, it is a vast spectrum as to where each partner is on their AI journey. But rest assured, because of the Lenovo services portfolio, we can actually support each of those partners independently and complement their offerings as they scale their AI journey. I would suggest that many of them probably are moving from proof of concept with their customers to now proof of execution with their customers. More and more, there’s a demand on measuring an ROI on the AI investments that have been made. And I think that’s where partners and customers are looking for Lenovo for some direction. We recently created a CIO playbook, which actually helps our customers and partners be able to capture what that ROI is and what the financial returns are getting as a result of their AI investments. And feedback from that from our partner community has been very good. The other thing I would suggest is that because these AI workloads are now going from modeling into the cloud, now into being actually practically used within the customer sets, it creates a massive opportunity for our infrastructure solutions group business. And you heard Jeff mention that several times. One of the things we’re doing with our partner community is making sure that we’re over-investing with their technical architects and solution architects within the partner community to drive even more familiarity with the Lenovo solutions around AI playbook to make sure that we’re being suggested, recommended, and considered when customers are coming to them for advice. Robert Dutt: Jeff, Austin’s in the rearview mirror. You got the program changes out. New org is in place. What have you done for me lately? What does the rest of 2026 look like? And what would tell you by year end that this consolidation worked the way you wanted it to? Jeff Taylor: Yeah, first, I’m going to take a nap. I’m tired. There’s a lot that has to happen. I mean, the first thing is we have a commitment to our partners and to our partners like Craig, our internal partners, that everything continues to move from a local perspective, that we want to make sure that whatever changes we’re making, services our geographies, services our markets, and most importantly, services our partners. So that’s kind of the first priority in my mind to go do that. The second thing, and we briefly mentioned this before, is I think the world of enablement is changing quite a bit. And I think AI is driving that. And we throw around the word transformation quite a bit and things still aren’t really transformative. They’re more evolutionary. I actually think at this point, we’re at a transformative part in terms of channel management. So we are investing heavily in our digital platforms to move from just kind of basic LLM models into AI agents and eventually into agentic AI that’s going to completely change the way that we enable all of our partners, big and small. It’ll be more efficient. It’ll be more intuitive. It’ll be more timely. It’ll be more forward-looking than backwards-looking. I think, Robert, you know most portals are somewhat static and kind of represents yesterday and not tomorrow. I think all of that is going to change. And so a big focus for myself and working very closely with our IT and digital transformations organizations is this reimagination of enablement in this world of AI. And you’ll see more and more from Lenovo in that regard. Robert Dutt: I think that is going to be one of the most interesting things from a partner program structure point of view over the next couple of years is how you and your peers address those challenges and really potentially change the shape of what programs and enablement look like. It’s exciting. Jeff Taylor: It really is an exciting time for us channel nerds that have been around for forever. This is like, “Yes, we’re going to be able to rock the world. It’s going to be great.” Robert Dutt: Craig, for a Canadian partner listening to this, what’s the one thing that you want them to do differently or think differently in their relationship with Lenovo over the next little while? Craig Taylor: Yeah, I think we’ve talked about some of them already. We need to continue to protect and grow the core, which is our client computing and PC business. We have to grow at a premium to market. And I think we’re well positioned for that. I need the channel community to help us to continue to accelerate our ISG, our infrastructure solutions group business, around the data center to make sure we continue to drive relevance, focus on those technical relationships and leverage Top Choice Express, which will better service all of our customers by getting the right products in their hands quicker. We talked about helping our customers and our partners on this services-led selling journey. So we’re going to spend more time on that. But the last two, I think, are probably where a majority of my focus will be for the second half of the year. The one is continuing to make sure that we demonstrate ourselves as the easiest partner to do business with. So whether it be through our portfolio like Top Seller and Top Choice, whether it be the program optimization that Jeff and his team are doing fabulous work on, or whether it be the alignment of our portfolio coming together to represent one Lenovo, that’s going to be the key to our success and where our partners should continue to challenge us. Internally, I’m challenging my team to operate and act like an owner of your own business. And so we’re empowering our people to make decisions in market in front of their partners in order to have a more agile relationship with those customers. We’re enabling them with the right tools. And then finally, we’re educating them properly to make sure they represent this more complex portfolio of offerings that continues to be positioned in the marketplace and satisfy our customers’ business outcomes. So a lot for the second half of the year, but I’m very bullish that we’re positioned properly for success. Jeff Taylor: Robert, if you don’t mind, I would add just one quick thing there. And you had mentioned, like, we are in difficult times right now with memory and price increases and things like that. Partners are smart. They are going to lean on the partners that they trust, and they’re going to lean on the partners that have been there with them, or their partners that have been with them through these difficult times previously. And while nobody wants this situation, I think Lenovo is actually in a really good spot right now because we are that trusted advisor and have been for years. It’s not just words, right? It’s years and years and years of building relationships, the work that Craig and his team have done in Canada. You know, we have these relationships that allow us to navigate these waters maybe better than others. Robert Dutt: And my last super serious question to end this is, I’m basing this on an inference off a small sample size of two. But do you guys have any problems finding Taylors to run the channel orgs in all of the countries you operate in worldwide? Jeff Taylor: Go ahead, Craig. Say what you always say. Craig Taylor: Listen, I like to tease Jeff that he’s my dad, but our age delta is probably much more closer than makes that physically possible. But hey, listen, we’re going to take the best of the best. We happen to get two Taylors on this call with you, Robert. That’s what you’re getting today. And we’ll look for more next time we meet. Jeff Taylor: He’s definitely the better of the two. So it’s a funny thing. We were actually talking in Austin about how we might be able to mess with you a little bit, but we just don’t have to. Robert Dutt: Good to know. And Craig, I’ll send you the audio clip of him saying you’re the better one for your performance review. Craig Taylor: As long as that is your final edit, Rob, I’m happy. Robert Dutt: Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time. It’s been a fun conversation and we covered a lot of ground very well. Thank you. Jeff Taylor: Yeah, thank you, Robert. Craig Taylor: Yeah, look forward to seeing you soon, Robert. Thank you. Robert Dutt: There you have it. Jeff Taylor and Craig Taylor, both from Lenovo. I’d like to thank both Jeff and Craig for the time. It’s genuinely not that often you get the global and local perspective on the same conversation at the same time. And I thought the dynamic made for a richer discussion than either could have delivered on their own. A few things were taken away from this one. The incentive consolidation is real and it’s significant. Going from 2,300 active global incentives down to about 200, a 92% reduction, while keeping the total investment pool intact. Meaningful simplification. Jeff’s pizza framing is a good one. Same amount of pizza, fewer slices, each one bigger and more impactful. Earning power stays, operational complexity goes. If your business has been navigating a patchwork of overlapping incentives, the cleaner path to earning should be welcome. On the tier transition, Craig was direct that over 90% of Canadian partners either maintained or improved their status in the move to the new authorized gold and platinum structure. If you’re in the 10% that didn’t, the message was clear. Get in front of your Lenovo rep, build a joint business plan. There’s a path forward, but you have to start the conversation. The services shift didn’t seem like a someday conversation. Lenovo’s targeting 15 to 20% of its partner revenues from services and solutions over the next one to two years. TruScale is available and more flexible than a lot of partners probably realize. The partners who are going to win here are the ones who can articulate their own services capabilities clearly, so Lenovo can align around them rather than compete with them. On AI, I found Jeff’s forward-looking comments on agentic AI and the reimagination of enablement genuinely fascinating. Most partner portals are, as he said, static. They show you yesterday, not tomorrow. That is going to change. And how it changes will shape how partner programs actually function. Worth paying attention to across the industry. And for the hardware volatility piece, Top Choice Express is the practical answer right now for partners trying to manage customer conversations when prices are moving before product ships. If you’re not comfortable with it already, your first call tomorrow should be with your Lenovo rep. Oh, and yes, we did keep the clip of Jeff saying that Craig is the better Taylor. It’s in the edit. You’re welcome, Craig. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow or subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts. We’re on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, most of the major directories. Ratings and reviews are always appreciated and genuinely do help the show find a wider audience in the Canadian channel community. Until next time, I’m Robert Dutt for ChannelBuzz.ca and I’ll see you in the channel.

This week on The Gospel Jubilee Chip & Denny will be playing music by Master's Voice, Gerald Crabb, The Wisecarvers, The Sound, Sisters, The Littles, and their mystery artist of the week.   Here are all of the ways you can listen to the Gospel Jubilee On your Echo device say, Alexa, play the Gospel Jubilee on Apple podcast. For a direct download go to: https://api.spreaker.com/v2/episodes/71959116/download.mp3   Ocean Waves Radio ... every Wednesday at 5:00 PM Eastern time., www.OceanWavesRadio.com   Thursday afternoons at 4:00 PM and Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM  EST on Southern Branch Bluegrass Radio, www.sbbradio.org   Playlist:   Artists |Song Title   01. Gold City - Right now   02. Legacy Five - Be alright   03. Ernie Haase & Signature Sound - You'll find Him there   04. Master's Voice - Then & now   05. The Gaither Vocal Band - The difference is in me   06. Gerald Crabb - Something going on in the graveyard   07. The Childress family - I'm gonna leave here shoutin'   08. Liberty Quartet - Living by faith   09. The Freemans - I'm gonna make it   10. Tribute Quartet - Grace when I fall   11. The Wisecarvers - Silhouette   12. The Dunaways - When my tears wash the scars   13. The Sound - Be still my soul   14. Greater Vision - Remember the fish   15. The Erwins - The right thing to do   16. Our mystery artist of the week - Shoutin' time in Heaven   17. Karen Peck & New River - Calling   18. Mark Bishop - Wisdom of Yogi Berra   19. Sisters - Don't stop praying   20. Todd Tilghman - Still to come   21. The Littles - Good things   22. The LeFevre Quartet - Whatever hallelujah   23. The Browders – Lift up His name   Outro – Carrol and Donna Roberson – Happy Trails

(00:00-10:36) Trying to go to a classic Vin Scully ship but those pesky ads. Vin Scully with the "Mound City" call. Vin always had time for a story. Doug doesn't like the nickname "Mound City." Vin Scully big timed Doug. Sharpie on Yogi Berra. Trash Mountain. Pant sizes.(10:44-24:17) Doug might weigh people and check waist sizes at The Dotem. This Week In Baseball & The Baseball Bunch. Design Aire Heating & Cooling EMOTD.(24:27-30:02) Passive aggressive questions for Tim. Sometimes we're upside down towards the end of it.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

News, notes, and nuggets interspersed. How 'bout them Redbirds. Playoff atmosphere in San Diego. Gorman put Doug to sleep. Audio of Masyn Winn's go ahead triple in the 7th. Cowboys sharing tent space. Might have a developing situation with Soriano. Tim & Friends. Norwiegans love Charlotte golf. Papers gets a haircut and mails it in. TALK CALDER CUP!! Power outage. One year since the foot rub. Wonderful little TV broadcast tip. Let's get Martin on the 'gram. TMA Las Vegas. Martin's CBC is showing. Mayors Bets.Walker with a pair of doubles last night and Summer '98 rolls on. No post game sound out there. MLB problem, not a Cardinal problem. Need a Cardinal Colonel. Caller Ellen on the beat.Audio of Derrick Goold talking about the energy around the team and whether it will translate to renewed fan engagement. Success of young guys like Walker and Wetherholt. Seems like the guys enjoy going to work. Before The Morning After. No Vaseline ft. Doug Vaughn.The kinda song that makes you feel alive. Daryl Dragon. You gotta feel the moment when playing drops. Warring Sharons. Just a week away from The Dotem. The origins of "Dotem." Danny Mac shouting out the Dotems. Frank taught Deke all the naughty stuff. LIsa Ann and Iggy. Chairman wrote Free Dotem on Pesky's Pole. Meat & Feta Guy.Party Man. Mt. Rushmore of Prince songs. Drops of the Week. Harvesting from all of our sources. Jimmy Crooks with home run number eleven. Who did the Swarm beat?Movie Boi's take on "Michael." Still needs to see The Devil Wears Prada 2. MJ and Bubbles playing Twister. The best St. Louis sports moments since the turn of the century. Audio of Pat Maroon talking about wanting to get Arber Xhekaj. Coach Spags. Audio of Derek Holland talking about watching the 2023 Rangers win the World Series and thinking about how he was supposed to have that in 2011. Reliving Game 6 of the 2011 World Series.Trying to go to a classic Vin Scully ship but those pesky ads. Vin Scully with the "Mound City" call. Vin always had time for a story. Doug doesn't like the nickname "Mound City." Vin Scully big timed Doug. Sharpie on Yogi Berra. Trash Mountain. Pant sizes.Doug might weigh people and check waist sizes at The Dotem. This Week In Baseball & The Baseball Bunch. Design Aire Heating & Cooling EMOTD.Passive aggressive questions for Tim. Sometimes we're upside down towards the end of it.Hurry up and get your name changes in. You're special, we're all special. Big crowd at PetCo Park last night. Was somebody moaning there? Bullpen get 9 outs on 9 hitters. Playing good baseball against some good teams. Walker hot again after falling off a bit. Soriano might be the guy to add to Romero and O'Brien. Friend of the show, Michael McGreevy, gets the ball tonight. Turns out there IS a way to look it up. Who's made you laugh most in your entire life?An ominous return. Doug doesn't care about what the text inbox says. Nice going, Otter. Steve Ott was a world class pest. Audio from yesterday's BK & Ferrario dealing with texts meant for After The Morning After. Mt. Rushmore of rivers.And the winner of the Design Aire Heating & Cooling EMOTD is...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

FIELD DAY MOVE

Today we talk with Sensei Jay about the great baseball player, Yogi Berra.Whenever we have Sensei Jay on there's laughter and good stories. I'm attaching a couple of other episodes that Sensei Jay recorded with us. He did an episode about his dad, also a WW 2 vet back in 2021:https://www.buzzsprout.com/477379/episodes/8329162And since Master Kelljchian, and his individuality came up a few times in this episode. Here's an episode about him. We recorded it with Sensei Jay in 2020https://www.buzzsprout.com/477379/episodes/2384333 Because Yogi Berra was a WW 2 vet, here's another man from that era. Coincidentally, also a Sensei Jay episode. Audie Murphy:https://www.buzzsprout.com/477379/episodes/14969721We mention the link to support the show, here it is. Help out if you can. And thank you: Support the showThanks so much for listening and sharing the podcast with friends.  Reach us all over the web. Facebook and twitter are simply wildcatdojo. However, insta is wildcatdojo conversations. (There's a  story there.)On YouTube (where we are now airing some of our older episodes - complete with a slideshow that I tweak constantly)  https://www.youtube.com/@wildcatdojo9869/podcastsAnd for our webpage, where you can also find all the episodes and see some info about the dojo: http://wildcatdojo.com/025-6/podcast.html . And of course, we love it when you support our sponsor Honor Athletics. Here is their link:https://honor-athletics.com/Thank you for listening.

It's Friday. My wife's been out of town for a whole week. I spent the quiet time digging into famous quotes — the kind you've heard a thousand times but never sat with. Woody Allen. Yogi Berra. Will Rogers. Thomas Edison. The old voices still hit if you sit with them for a minute. Today, I ran seven of their best lines through Scott Logic. You'll leave with a simple way to show up, move when you're stuck, and stop rehearsing the life you're supposed to be living. Press play. Bring coffee. Featured Story My wife has scales everywhere. Kitchen scales. Bathroom scale. She weighs her food like a chemist measuring compounds. Twice a week, she hands me a perfectly measured bowl of ice cream. Four ounces, maybe five. It's good stuff. This week she's out of town. I found the half-gallon in the freezer and went to work. Night one. Night two. Night three. Somewhere around night three, I gave myself too much and realized exactly why she measures. Now I have a problem. Do I eat the rest and pretend it was never there? Do I buy a replacement and slide it onto the shelf? I'll tell you what I'm going to do. Important Points Your competition is mostly imaginary. Most never started or already quit, so showing up 70% puts you ahead of the pack. A wrong turn can always be fixed. Standing frozen at the intersection is where life actually runs you over for good. Figure out what you do naturally, without anyone pushing you, and you'll find the thing you should be doing for real. Memorable Quotes The competition is mostly imaginary. Half never started, the other half quit. Show up and the math takes care of itself. A wrong turn, you can fix. Standing at the intersection, you get honked at and hit by a truck. Life runs you over. Failure is just data. If you pay attention and collect enough of it, you accidentally become an expert in the room. Scott's Three-Step Approach Show up and pick a direction. Most of your competition never started or already quit, so being there puts you ahead. Keep moving when you stumble. Each mistake is just data that stacks until you accidentally become an expert in the room. Handle the unfinished business tonight. Don't let it fester until morning, or it will wear you out by tomorrow. Chapters 0:02 - Wife out of town, and the neighbors keep checking on me 0:41 - Half a gallon of ice cream becomes a real dilemma 3:18 - Why Woody Allen was right about showing up 80% 5:07 - Yogi Berra's fork in the road and how to pick 7:54 - Thomas Edison and 10,000 ways that don't work 9:35 - Why going to bed mad wears you out tomorrow 12:22 - Mae West's truth about living once, done right Connect With Me Search for the Daily Boost on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify If you enjoy the Daily Boost, you might like Notes From Scott. A few mornings each week, I send a short note with something I've been thinking about or noticing lately. Sometimes those ideas turn into podcast episodes later. You can sign up at https://notesfromscott.com. Email: support@motivationtomove.com Main Website: https://motivationtomove.com YouTube: https://youtube.com/dailyboostpodcast Instagram: https://instagram.com/heyscottsmith Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/motivationtomove Facebook Group: https://dailyboostpodcast.com/facebook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Harvey Araton is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, author and adjunct college professor based in Montclair, N.J. He has worked for four daily newspapers in the New York City area, including the Staten Island Advance, New York Post, Daily News, and the New York Times, where he served as a Sports of the Times columnist for 15 years, 25 overall, and still contributes on a freelance basis. In 2017, he was the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Award at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, M.A., given annually to print/digital and broadcasting members of the media. He has covered 10 Olympics, many Wimbledon, the U.S. Open tennis tournaments, the French Open, and the Davis Cup in Spain and Zimbabwe. He has also covered many NBA finals, World Series, Super Bowls and men's and women's Final Fours in college basketball. Araton is the author, co-author and editor of ten books, including "Driving Mr. Yogi", about the poignant relationship between Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry—a New York Times bestseller—and "When the Garden Was Eden", on the Knicks' championship teams of the early 1970's. The book was adapted for an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary, which Araton co-produced. His first novel, "Cold Type", was published in 2014. In 2020, Araton published "Our Last Season", about his friendship with Michelle Musler, a passionate Knicks fan who sat behind the team's bench for more than four decades. In December 2026, Koehler Books will publish Araton's middle grade novel, "The Goal of the Game". Araton has taught media and writing courses at Montclair State University and at the School of the New York Times, a summer program for high school students.

April 5, 2026 – Easter Sunday: May God's words be spoken, may God's words be heard. Amen. Well, I had hoped it would be a bit more Springy today. Still, even if the weather isn't sunny and bright, Spring truly is here – flowers are blooming, birds are singing, everyone is sneezing, and move aside basketball on TV – baseball is back! And Lordy, do we need all of that now, don't we? It's been a tough winter, and an exhausting year. Weather wise, this winter has chilled us to the bone, and drenched our spirits in the snow and icy rain. And the gloomy clouds matched a lot of our spirits with all that we were experiencing in the world around us. On Good Friday, we remembered when empire crucified Jesus. And this year, it seems we have been in a perpetual Good Friday. Day after day after day, we see Jesus being crucified. For we know, as this Gospel of Matthew tells us, Jesus taught his disciples where to find him. As I noted at the beginning of this Holy Week on Palm Sunday, and again on Good Friday, Jesus, using the setting of a final judgement, said about those who will be declared righteous, “…for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger (immigrant in today's terms) and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.” When perplexed as to how they had done that, the answer came, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” So, the part of the story of Holy Week, the shallow praise of the people as he entered Jerusalem, his prayer of grief in the garden of Gethsemane, and his execution on the cross by the Roman Empire – it feels very familiar now. It is a darkness that we have been experiencing for so very long as we watch our own empire grab people of color out of their homes, places of work, or even children in school and disappear them. As we see empire shoot and sometimes kill people outright in the streets. We feel betrayed. We grieve as we hear of the oppression of already marginalized people, our nation bombing a school for girls, and service men and women returning home in flag draped coffins. Our country has been in a very, very, long Holy Week. It seems that might has shoved right into a tomb and rolled over the stone. It sure must have felt that way to the first followers of Jesus too. And yet, that isn't the end of the story. Mary Magdalene and the other Mary… Honestly, can we just stop right there…what is up with that? I mean couldn't the author of Matthew give that other Mary a surname too? It's a little like on that old Bob Newhart Show – My brother Darryl, and my other brother Darryl. I know – showing my age here. But, really? Anyway, those two Marys went to the tomb expecting to care for the body of Jesus, their friend and their rabbi. Instead, their world was turned upside down – literally. There was a great earthquake – just like what happened according to this gospel account when he died on the cross, and the same effect was felt too as he entered the city of Jerusalem. God sure knows how to get our attention. And the only thing the women found that was dead were the soldiers – or at least they “became like dead men” according to the text. That was because just as they arrived, a messenger of God appears looking like lightening, who rolled away the stone and sat on it, you know – like you do if you are a messenger of God, I guess. Then the women were told that the tomb was empty, Jesus had been raised from the dead, and they were to go tell all the other disciples. They did, but before they could get very far, Jesus appears before them on the road. And if that wasn't crazy, it gets even stranger – he says “Greetings!” Seriously? It's like he's messin' with them. There they were, having experienced an earthquake, a lightening bolt angel, nearly dead soldiers, and a missing Rabbi, whom they were told has somehow been brought back from the dead… I mean – that's already a LOT to deal with, right? And then Jesus drops down on them and says “Hey you'all!! What up?” I don't know about you, but you could hardly blame her if Mary Magdalene said “It's five o'clock somewhere, I need a drink.” Instead, she and Mary the sequel grabbed his feet and kissed them. Note that they didn't need anything more, as the ones in Galilee would ask for – just him being in front of them was all that was needed. And, not for nothing, but as is needed to be pointed out every year – Jesus came to see the women disciples before Peter, James, John, or any of the other men. Jesus, in every gospel account, always appears to Mary Magdalene first (and any other woman who happens to be with her in the synoptics of Matthew, Mark, and Luke – in John, she comes alone). She, and if there are other women with her, are sent to tell the rest of the disciples. The women were the apostles to the apostles. The first ones sent to proclaim the good news. And what was that good news? That the cross, erected by empire to destroy love, to extinguish hope – it wasn't the last word. Or, to put it another way, since it is the early days of baseball season, in the immortal words of the great Yogi Berra, – “It ain't over 'til it's over.” Now, Yogi said that about the 1973 pennant race when the former Yankee was the manager of my hapless Mets. They were 13 games back, in other words, a usual season. The manager wrote a 1998 astutely named book: The Yogi Book: I Really Didn't Say Everything I Said. In it he said, “That was my answer to a reporter when I was managing the New York Mets in July 1973.” Of course, he also said other, what some call Yogi-isms: There's “It's like déjà vu all over again.” And of course, this classic: “Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't go to yours.” But, “It's not over till it's over,” still has a way of inspiring us. It sure did the Mets. They went on the win the pennant and got into the World Series! In true Mets fashion though, they lost. Well, here's the thing. Easter is when God offers the same message, “It ain't over till it's over,” but adds this note of hope: “And I am telling you – it ain't over.”2 It ain't over. Nope – God isn't dead or defeated, so neither are we. That is the first lesson of Easter – hope. But another is this. That is in these Good Friday moments, when the tomb looms large and empire seems to have their boots on our neck, God will always meet us there, in our darkest hour – when it seems that all hope has been lost. God will meet us on that difficult road and instill new life into us to send us on our mission in the world. God will do that, because God loves us – just as we are, unconditionally, and for all time. That is the second lesson of Easter – Love. God.Loves.Us. God.Loves.You! For Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, for the rest of the disciples in Galilee, and for each of you – God meets us where we are and calls us to new life, because of that great love. And God is with us now! That, my friends, is good news for us all! But sometimes we don't see it. Sometimes we don't lift our eyes to see Jesus on the road, we don't go to the tomb to encounter an angel waiting for us. When life throws so much at us in these difficult times of our lives, one of the things that can happen is that we, intentionally or not, turn away from the pain and chaos around us. We dismiss the pain in our body out of fear of a difficult diagnosis. We turn off the TV so we don't have to see people being hurt or killed by federal agents. We keep our heads down looking at our social media feeds of cat videos. We watch Hallmark movies (or, maybe that's just me). We turn to the things that comfort us, even sometimes self-medicate to ease the anxiety and the pain. Now, don't get me wrong – comfort is important. We all need it. We all need rest from what wears us down emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually. That is a healthy thing to do. But there is a difference between seeking temporary respite, and deliberately putting ourselves in the tomb and rolling over the stone. I am reminded of something I read once about lost sheep. “When someone asked a wise old shepherd how sheep manage to get lost and separate themselves from the flock, the shepherd said, “Sheep don't just get lost. They nibble themselves lost.” The sheep, in other words, never look up to see where they're going, or how far they've wandered from the flock. All they can see is the next succulent patch of grass: and the next, and the next. The grass is a good thing, and essential to life: but they follow it so single-mindedly, it leads them ultimately in the direction of death.”[1] A good patch of comfort to nibble on for a time is a good thing, but we must keep our eyes focused on what will really sustain us, so that we never get ourselves lost – so that we see God sending a messenger to give us hope, so that we see Jesus standing in front of us to offer us new life. Even in Holy Week, if we focus only on the betrayal, denial, anguish in the garden, the arrest, and the crucifixion, we will miss something else. There was also his great love in washing the feet of his disciples – even the ones who would deny and betray him. There are always the helpers, the ones who offer great love in all of the darkest moments of humanity's history. We just need to watch for them. And, if we really think about it, in these dark times we face, the comfort we truly need isn't to be found in self-medicating, isolating, or ignoring the world anyway. We shouldn't throw the blanket over our head on Sundays and attend the church of the Holy Comforter. No, it is here, at this table, where we are brought back from the dead by him whose resurrection restores our souls and reminds us that there is nothing in the world to be afraid of when we stay close to Christ Jesus. For by his death and resurrection we know that life is stronger than death, light overcomes darkness in the end, and love will always defeat hate. Every single time. By his death and resurrection, we know that the powers of this world are weak, and there is nothing to fear. By his death and resurrection, we know that the earthly powers of this world do not have the last say – God does. It was true of Rome so long ago, and it is true today. So, let us rise up from our despair, grief, and isolation. Let us step away from the tombs in which the powerful of the world have tried to bury the love of Christ. Let us lift our heads from the comfortable, to return to the true comfort of our shepherd – here at this table. Because make no mistake about it – God is telling us: “It ain't over till I say it is over, and folks, I am telling you it ain't over! It ain't over because Christ Is Risen! He Is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia! And that, my friends, changes everything. Happy Easter Everyone! For the audio, click below, or subscribe to our iTunes Sermon Podcast by clicking here (also available on Audible): Sermon Podcast https://christchurchepiscopal.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Easter-Sunday-Sermon-2026-1.m4a The Rev. Diana L. Wilcox Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge April 12, 2020 Easter Sunday – In A Time of Separation 1st Reading – Acts 10:34-43 Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 2nd Reading – Colossians 3:1-4 Gospel – Matthew 28:1-10 [1] Homileticsonline.com [2] Various sources on Yogi Berra’s statement

Suzyn Waldman is a sportscaster and former musical theater actress.  She was the first voice heard on WFAN, the first all sports, all the time (24/7) radio station in the United States.  She had various roles at the station, eventually becoming the New York Yankees beat reporter.  Since the 2005 season, she has been the color commentator for New York Yankees baseball, partnering with John Sterling and upon Sterling's retirement, teaming with former Baseball and BBQ, episode 162 guest, Dave Sims.  Suzyn acknowledges her role as a pioneer among women in sports media and the path to get to where she is now was not without its many obstacles.  She shares many stories, one of which is her role in bringing Yogi Berra and George Steinbrenner together, ending a 14-year feud which resulted in Yogi Berra returning to Yankee Stadium after a long, self-imposed absence. Matt Abdoo and Shane McBride from Pig Beach BBQ join us to discuss the 6th Annual BBQ Benefit for the Jeff Michner Foundation taking place at Pig Beach BBQ, 35 - 37 36th Street, Queens, NY 11106 on Saturday afternoon, April 25, 2026.  The foundation was set up in honor of Jeff Michner who passed away at the age of 36, but although young, meaningfully touched so many lives.  The organization embraces the things he loved best: family, friends, and great food. The Jeff Michner Foundation creates scholarships for culinary students as well as supporting families managing loss and grief.  The Jeff Michner BBQ Benefit celebrates Jeff with an epic barbecue featuring some of the countries greatest pitmasters.  This event will be a dine-around, where each participating pitmaster will prepare a tasting portion of their dish for the guests to sample. Participating breweries & distilleries will be offering a beer or specialty cocktail. Go to https://jeffmichnerfoundation.com/jmf-bbq-2026 We recommend you go to Rogue Cookers website, https://roguecookers.com/ for award-winning rubs, Chef Ray Sheehan's website, https://www.raysheehan.com/ for award-winning saucess, rubs, and cookbooks, Baseball BBQ, https://baseballbbq.com for special grilling tools and accessories, Magnechef https://magnechef.com/ for excellent and unique barbecue gloves, Cutting Edge Firewood High Quality Kiln Dried Firewood - Cutting Edge Firewood in Atlanta for high quality firewood and cooking wood, Mantis BBQ, https://mantisbbq.com/ to purchase their outstanding sauces with a portion of the proceeds being donated to the Kidney Project, and for exceptional sauces, Elda's Kitchen https://eldaskitchen.com/ We conclude the show with the song, Baseball Always Brings You Home from the musician, Dave Dresser and the poet, Shel Krakofsky. We truly appreciate our listeners and hope that all of you are staying safe. If you would like to contact the show, we would love to hear from you. Call the show:  (516) 855-8214 Email:  baseballandbbq@gmail.com Twitter:  @baseballandbbq Instagram:  baseballandbarbecue YouTube:  baseball and bbq Website:  https//baseballandbbq.weebly.com Facebook:  baseball and bbq   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

(00:00-18:00) Cam would dance around in a leprechaun costume. Martin's in Daytona. Wouldn't wanna date Cam's daughter. What sport would Cam prefer his hypothetical daughter date? Texting and driving. Wrestlemania. Larry Nickel is on the phone lines to confirm that wresting is real. Recapping us on last night's Raw.(18:08-42:50) Fenton is the Vegas of the midwest. Some audio from Spittin' Chiclets talking about the pressure on young kids in youth hockey these days. Parents treat the kids like superstars and celebrities at a young age these days. Youth sports discussion.(42:58-1:06:03) David Cline of Hedonism's version was better. Dancing and karaoke died with Chairman's sobriety. Can the price of youth hockey come down? Team sports teaching more than just athletic skill. Doug thinks there's plenty of NBA players who could be playing in the NFL. Cam wishes he woulda been a quarterback. Kellen Winslow. Best athlete to come out of St. Louis. Yogi Berra was Cam's shower partner. Oblong/Abnormal.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Yogi Berra's Son, Larry Berra Joins the NYS Halls of Fame Podcast to Discuss His Great and Beloved Father, a Member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame Enjoy Host Rene LeRoux, Executive Director & Founder of the NY State Baseball, Basketball, and Hockey Halls of Fame. Also have fun listening to the hosts of Baseball and BBQ Podcast Leonard Aberman and Jeff Cohen, as the trio collaborates to shine a bright light on the history of NY State Athletics.

Larry Berra was an attendee at the 2022 New York State Baseball Hall of Fame Dinner sporting a tie with his dad, National Baseball Hall of Fame member, Yogi Berra's number eight proudly displayed.  Two years later he was at the dinner again, but this time it was to be part of the ceremony posthumously inducting his father into the New York State Baseball Hall of Fame.  There is no doubt that Yogi Berra may be the greatest baseball catcher of all time, but he is also one of the most beloved players ever, both on and off the field.  Larry shares many stories of his dad and what made him a true fan favorite who received many honors, including his life story being on display in the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Montclair, New Jersey.  For more information on Yogi Berra and the museum go to https://yogiberramuseum.org Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Feelgood: The Shocking Story of the Doctor Who May Have Changed History by Treating and Drugging JFK, Marilyn, ElvisDoctor Max Jacobson, whom the Secret Service under President John F. Kennedy code-named “Dr. Feelgood,” developed a unique “energy formula” that altered the paths of some of the twentieth century's most iconic figures, including President and Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis. JFK received his first injection (a special mix of “vitamins and hormones,” according to Jacobson) just before his first debate with Vice President Richard Nixon. The shot into JFK's throat not only cured his laryngitis, but also diminished the pain in his back, allowed him to stand up straighter, and invigorated the tired candidate. Kennedy demolished Nixon in that first debate and turned a tide of skepticism about Kennedy into an audience that appreciated his energy and crispness. What JFK didn't know then was that the injections were actually powerful doses of a combination of highly addictive liquid methamphetamine and steroids.Author and researcher Rick Lertzman and New York Times bestselling author Bill Birnes reveal heretofore unpublished material about the mysterious Dr. Feelgood. Through well-researched prose and interviews with celebrities including George Clooney, Jerry Lewis, Yogi Berra, and Sid Caesar, the authors reveal Jacobson's vast influence on events such as the assassination of JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy-Khrushchev Vienna Summit, the murder of Marilyn Monroe, the filming of the C. B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments, and the work of many of the great artists of that era. Jacobson destroyed the lives of several famous patients in the entertainment industry and accidentally killed his own wife, Nina, with an overdose of his formula.https://amzn.to/4tIu6KjBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

He worked for two of our game's great players for five years, and Bill Pelham's wonderful read, "Burke and Demaret: The Wit and Wisdom of Golf's Most Colorful Duo," is a tribute to the men who created Champions Golf Club outside of Houston. Some of the stories that were legendary around the club are now told through this fun and poignant book. Pelham went on to play in five major championships and credits his time at Champions for making him the player he ultimately became. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Mickey Rooney, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Willie Mays. They're all mentioned in the book, as are Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.What a great read about two men who left their marks on the course -- five major championship titles between them -- and through Champions Golf Club, their legacy that continues to thrive today. 

Staring at the same Keepa chart for the third day in a row? Robin Joy introduces the concept of "data imprisonment" - when historical data becomes a cage instead of a compass.   Brian and Robin Joy break down why Keepa shows you evidence of what happened, not proof of what will happen for YOU. They share real coaching examples of hidden Amazon Fresh competition, geographic blind spots, and why the only way to escape analysis paralysis is to test more ASINs.   As Yogi Berra said: "In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."     Special guest at the conclusion of today's show, Jeff Schick of JeffSchick.com answers the question: "If my bank statements don't show the full account number, should I switch banks?" Use the coupon code "MISTAKE" to get your first month of services for only $1 with Jeff and his team!   Watch this episode on our YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/v-hNf1qjleg   Show note LINKS:    SilentSalesMachine.com - Text the word "free" to 507-800-0090 to get a free copy of Jim's latest book in audio about building multiple income streams online (US only) or visit https://silentjim.com/free11   SilentJim.com/bookacall - Schedule a FREE, customized and insightful consultation with my team or me (Jim) to discuss your e-commerce goals and options.   My Silent Team Facebook group. 100% FREE! https://www.facebook.com/groups/mysilentteam - Join 82,000 + Facebook members from around the world who are using the internet creatively every day to launch and grow multiple income streams through our exciting PROVEN strategies! There's no support community like this one anywhere else in the world!   ProvenAmazonCourse.com - The comprehensive course that contains ALL our Amazon training modules, recorded events and a steady stream of latest cutting edge training including of course the most popular starting point, the REPLENS selling model. The PAC is updated free for life!   SilentJim.com/kickstart - If you want a shortcut to learning all you need to get started then get the Proven Amazon Course and go through Kickstart.   SilentJim.com/thesystem  - (aka as 3P Mercury) - The complete workflow software we created on our team. "The System" automates your Amazon reselling/wholesale business the same way Khang (the creator) automated his $3million reselling business and made it HANDS FREE!            

visit: https://cougartribe.comvisit: https://www.byupathway.eduvisit: https://redmond.life/discount/ysguys15 - Use Discount Code: ysguys15 (to get 15% off!)The January 19 edition of Y's Guys lands on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and delivers one of the most comprehensive, news-heavy shows of the season. Dave McCann and Blaine Fowler open with a deep dive into BYU football as the transfer portal officially closes, breaking down who the Cougars added, where they rank nationally, and why BYU's relatively low number of departures continues to stand out in the Big 12. The hosts also examine early 2026 preseason polls, discuss where BYU is being slotted nationally, and preview the College Football Playoff championship while looking ahead to potential playoff expansion.Basketball remains front and center as BYU men's hoops navigate what Blaine calls “down time at the best time,” battling illness and fatigue while still sitting near the top of the Big 12 standings. Dave and Blaine recap a tough loss at Texas Tech, a gritty home win over TCU, and a dramatic road victory over Utah, before previewing a massive upcoming stretch that includes matchups with Utah and No. 1 Arizona. On the women's side, Delaney Gibb continues to lead a young BYU team through the heart of conference play as the Cougars face Baylor, Texas Tech, and West Virginia.The show also celebrates excellence across campus with the Re-Lyte Athlete of the Week, honoring AJ Cottle, a freshman middle blocker for BYU men's volleyball who delivered a historic performance against UC San Diego. Dave and Blaine highlight Cottle's perfect hitting night, elite wingspan, and rapid rise as BYU volleyball opens the season undefeated and prepares for a marquee series against UC Irvine at the Smith Fieldhouse.Multiple featured guests round out the episode. Softball head coach Gordon Eakin previews a challenging schedule loaded with national powers and breaks down a veteran-heavy roster with high expectations. Jared Stewart of TribeHouse introduces CougarTribe, explaining how it will connect fans, deepen engagement, and expand the Y's Guys community. Finally, John Balderree of BYU-Pathway Worldwide shares how technology access is changing lives around the globe through laptop distribution and educational opportunity. The show closes with Campus Notes, historic “On This Day” moments, birthdays, an inspirational Yogi Berra quote, and a look ahead to next week's guest, Brian Logan.#BYUSports #GoCougs #Ysguys #BYUFootball #BYUBasketball #Big12 #CougarNation #BYUVolleyball #BYUSoftball #BYUPathway #LDS #BYU Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Predictions feel comforting—but they're usually nonsense. In this episode, Don and Tom dismantle the illusion of foresight by revisiting last year's loudest economic forecasts around tariffs, inflation, jobs, recessions, and markets. Drawing from a Wall Street Journal retrospective, they show how both political promises and expert predictions missed the mark, with reality landing squarely in the messy middle. The takeaway is classic Talking Real Money: nobody—not economists, not presidents, not pundits, and especially not you—has actionable insight into the future. That's why successful investing isn't about forecasts or hot takes, but about building a diversified portfolio, rebalancing when needed, and tuning out the noise. The episode wraps with listener questions on teen investing accounts and Roth conversion rules, plus a reminder that humility beats hubris every time markets get unpredictable. 0:04 The future is unpredictable—even when we pretend it isn't 0:26 Why we crave predictions and mistake luck for skill 0:53 Being “right” once doesn't mean anything 1:58 Tariffs, Trump, and the great forecasting divide 2:27 Inflation predictions that never showed up 3:53 Jobs, unemployment, and why both sides were wrong 5:49 Who actually paid for tariffs (hint: not who you think) 7:08 Recession fears vs. reality—and the AI wildcard 8:55 Why short-term predictions fail and macro trends survive 10:41 The truth usually lives between the extremes 11:31 Lao Tzu, Yogi Berra, and why nobody knows the future 13:20 The most dangerous “expert” investors trust: themselves 14:43 Listener question: investing for a 16-year-old 17:29 Roth IRA vs. UTMA/UGMA and simple fund choices 18:06 Listener question: Roth conversions and the five-year rule 20:54 Humor, offense, and why everyone needs to lighten up 21:14 RetireMeet 2026 details and special guest preview 23:14 Apella Wealth philosophy and free help reminder 24:39 The number one word of the year (still shocking) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Questions? Comments?Predictions feel comforting—but they're usually nonsense. In this episode, Don and Tom dismantle the illusion of foresight by revisiting last year's loudest economic forecasts around tariffs, inflation, jobs, recessions, and markets. Drawing from a Wall Street Journal retrospective, they show how both political promises and expert predictions missed the mark, with reality landing squarely in the messy middle. The takeaway is classic Talking Real Money: nobody—not economists, not presidents, not pundits, and especially not you—has actionable insight into the future. That's why successful investing isn't about forecasts or hot takes, but about building a diversified portfolio, rebalancing when needed, and tuning out the noise. The episode wraps with listener questions on teen investing accounts and Roth conversion rules, plus a reminder that humility beats hubris every time markets get unpredictable.0:04 The future is unpredictable—even when we pretend it isn't0:26 Why we crave predictions and mistake luck for skill0:53 Being “right” once doesn't mean anything1:58 Tariffs, Trump, and the great forecasting divide2:27 Inflation predictions that never showed up3:53 Jobs, unemployment, and why both sides were wrong5:49 Who actually paid for tariffs (hint: not who you think)7:08 Recession fears vs. reality—and the AI wildcard8:55 Why short-term predictions fail and macro trends survive10:41 The truth usually lives between the extremes11:31 Lao Tzu, Yogi Berra, and why nobody knows the future13:20 The most dangerous “expert” investors trust: themselves14:43 Listener question: investing for a 16-year-old17:29 Roth IRA vs. UTMA/UGMA and simple fund choices18:06 Listener question: Roth conversions and the five-year rule20:54 Humor, offense, and why everyone needs to lighten up21:14 RetireMeet 2026 details and special guest preview23:14 Apella Wealth philosophy and free help reminder24:39 The number one word of the year (still shocking)Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textOld-time baseball isn't a museum piece—it's a masterclass hiding in plain sight. We invited Jim Koenigsberger, a gifted storyteller of America's pastime, to trace how legends like Yogi Berra, Jackie Robinson, Satchel Paige, Ted Williams, and Rickey Henderson still shape the smartest coaching on today's fields. What emerges is a fresh, practical lens on development, durability, and the decisions that win games.We start with Yogi's real greatness—RBI crowns on stacked Yankees teams, marathon doubleheaders, and humble service—then connect it to the coach's eye test that numbers can't replace. From there, we follow Jackie's path through a welcoming Montreal and onto a hostile national stage, using that journey to rethink how context unlocks performance. Jim brings the Negro Leagues into full focus, arguing that the Monarchs and Homestead Grays could hang with any era, and that their players' versatility should reshape how we teach roles, reps, and resilience.Development takes center stage as we challenge the two-pitch prospect pipeline and spotlight simple safeguards—pitch counts, rest rules, and patience—that actually protect arms. Ted Williams becomes our hitting blueprint: elite vision, relentless practice, and mentorship from Jimmie Foxx, all bookended by combat service that interrupted but never dimmed his prime. Finally, we reclaim the running game with Rickey Henderson's playbook, showing how intelligent aggression pressures modern defenses when paired with reads, jumps, and situational awareness.If you're a coach, parent, or fan who believes the past can coach the present, this conversation delivers tools you can use tomorrow—sharper practice plans, better development paths, and a renewed love for the craft. Subscribe, share with a coaching friend, and leave a review to help more baseball people find these stories and turn them into wins.Support the show Follow: Twitter | Instagram @Athlete1Podcast Website - https://www.athlete1.net Sponsor: The Netting Professionals https://www.nettingpros.com

Ellen Adair and Eric Gilde discuss the 2001 film "61*." They introduce the film (1:10), with an overview of the story, the cast, and filmmakers, and review the 20-80 baseball scouting grades for rating the film, with a new metaphor (5:51). In Amount of Baseball (14:41), they discuss the use of actual Mark McGwire footage, the strength of this tool throughout, and the impact of the authenticity. There is a player comp. Baseball Accuracy (20:39) starts off with discussion of Billy Crystal as Mantle's friend and "Rain Man" on set, and then delves into the history, talking about Ford Frick, Fay Vincent, and the asterisk itself, Roger Maris and Babe Ruth plate appearances, Maris and Mantle's relationship with the press, Pascual or Ramos, the imbalanced AL/NL in 1961, Babe Ruth breaking Ned Williamson's record, Maris trade rumors, Mantle running to first in three seconds, Joe DiMaggio Jerk-o-meter, Moose Skowron, Elston Howard, Billy Martin escapades, Maris signing an X on a ball, Rogers Hornsby, Casey Stengel and Mantle, the slick nickname, Mantle's arm injury, Hoyt Wilhelm and Tom Candiotti. Storytelling (54:16) considers everything added by the inclusion of the McGwire framing device, the function of Claire Ruth and Pat Maris in the story, the opening day scene, and the handling of exposition. There are a few small instances of Shakespearing. The scouts discuss the nuanced depiction of male friendship, the character of the media, the character of Bob Cerv, and the cinematography and lighting. The Score Tool (1:24:53) discusses the main theme, the volume of the score, and songs by The Ventures, Bobby Darin, and the Shirelles. Why TF is there a Lyle Lovett song? Acting (1:31:20) pretty much worships Barry Pepper, Thomas Jane, Bruce McGill, Michael Nouri, Richard Masur, Peter Jacobson, Seymour Cassel, Chris Bauer, Anthony Michael Hall, Christopher McDonald and Joe Grifasi, plus the rest of the ensemble. Delightfulness of Catcher (1:51:17) considers 17% of Yogi Berra and not enough Elston Howard. Delightfulness of Announcer (1:52:44) revels in both the accuracy and the high delight of the depictions of Phil Rizzuto, with all of his Rizzuto catchphrases and digressions, and Mel Allen trying to reign him in. Ellen has a (Rizzuto-esque?) digression into a comparison with "Eight Men Out." In Lack of Misogyny (1:59:51), they discuss Mantle's womanizing, and how it's tempered with Maris's point of view, consideration of Pat's perspective, and the existence of female fans. No spoilers on the following segments: Yes or No (2:04:31), Six Degrees of Baseball (2:07:28), Favorite Moment (2:08:09) Least Favorite Moment (2:11:04), Scene We Would Have Liked to See (2:12:52), Dreamiest Player (2:15:49), Favorite Performance (2:16:30), and Next Time (2:19:05).  Join Our Discord & Support The Show: PL+ | PL Pro - Get 15% off Yearly with code PODCASTProud member of the Pitcher List Fantasy Baseball Podcast Network Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In the festive spirit of Thanksgiving weekend, let me start with two trivial pursuit questions. Who famously said “It ain't over till it's over”? And what was the context for this observation?Answer: It was Yogi Berra who said: “It ain't over till it's over.” And he said it in 1973 when he was managing the underachieving New York Mets. Their season had been a long slog. They could not win consistently. After one particularly dispiriting defeat, reporters asked Yogi Berra if their playoff hopes were finished. That's when he answered, “It ain't over till it's over.” His words would prove to be prophetic.For the 1973 Mets, it was not over. The Mets rallied late in the season, they ended up making it all the way to the World Series, which they lost in 7 games. The 73 Mets emerged from their long slog to embody their manager's wisdom: “It ain't over till it's over.”Long slogs are not limited to baseball teams.I recently have been thinking about the long slog a writer of fiction named Virginia Evans who wrote eight books that never got published. She poured all her energy into writing eight novels. And eight times the answer of the universe was no. Virginia Evans started to write her ninth novel, but she was so shaken by her history of rejection that she considered abandoning her dreams of becoming a writer—and applying to law school instead.What are our long slogs? What is our ninth try?

“Predictions are hard,” Yogi Berra once quipped, “especially about the future”. Yes they are. But in today's AI boom/bubble, how exactly can we predict the future? According to Silicon Valley venture capitalist Aman Verjee, access to the future lies in the past. In his new book, A Brief History of Financial Bubbles, Verjee looks at history - particularly the 17th century Dutch tulip mania and the railway mania of 19th century England - to make sense of today's tech economics. So what does history teach us about the current AI exuberance: boom or bubble? The Stanford and Harvard-educated Verjee, a member of the PayPal Mafia who wrote the company's first business plan with Peter Thiel, and who now runs his own venture fund, brings both historical perspective and insider experience to this multi-trillion-dollar question. Today's market is overheated, the VC warns, but it's more nuanced than 1999. The MAG-7 companies are genuinely profitable, unlike the dotcom darlings. Nvidia isn't Cisco. Yet “lazy circularity” in AI deal-making and pre-seed valuations hitting $50 million suggests traditional symptoms of irrational exuberance are returning. Even Yogi Berra might predict that. * Every bubble has believers who insist “this time is different” - and sometimes they're right. Verjee argues that the 1999 dotcom bubble actually created lasting value through companies like Amazon, PayPal, and the infrastructure that powered the next two decades of growth. But the concurrent telecom bubble destroyed far more wealth through outright fraud at companies like Enron and WorldCom.* Bubbles always occur in the world's richest country during periods of unchallenged hegemony. Britain dominated globally during its 1840s railway mania. America was the sole superpower during the dotcom boom. Today's AI frenzy coincides with American technological dominance - but also with a genuine rival in China, making this bubble fundamentally different from its predecessors.* The current market shows dangerous signs but isn't 1999. Unlike the dotcom era when 99% of fiber optic cable laid was “dark” (unused), Nvidia could double GPU production and still sell every chip. The MAG-7 trade at 27-29 times earnings versus the S&P 500's 70x multiple in 2000. Real profitability matters - but $50 million pre-seed valuations and circular revenue deals between AI companies echo familiar patterns of excess.* Government intervention in markets rarely ends well. Verjee warns against America adopting an industrial policy of “picking winners” - pointing to Japan's 1980s bubble as a cautionary tale. Thirty-five years after its collapse, Japan's GDP per capita remains unchanged. OpenAI is not too big to fail, and shouldn't be treated as such.* Immigration fuels American innovation - full stop. When anti-H1B voices argue for restricting skilled immigration, Verjee points to the counter-evidence: Elon Musk, Sergey Brin, Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, Max Levchin, and himself - all H1B visa holders who created millions of American jobs and trillions in shareholder value. Closing that pipeline would be economically suicidal.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

In the mood for some baseball? Of course you are; it's still our national pastime, after all, despite the threat of encroachment by football, soccer, basketball, Nascar and Monster Trucks. And now that the innovation of the pitch clock has trimmed down the times of games, it's a little more dynamic than it used to be back in those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summers past. This World Series has been a humdinger, breaking several records, but it ain't over yet - The Toronto Blue Jays now have a 3 game to 2 advantage as they return to their hometown field and crowd. What had seemed like an inevitable win for L.A. after game three, now is in nail-biting doubt. Just goes to show you that, in the words of Yogi Berra - "it ain't over 'til it's over!"

(00:00-28:31) Papers, what do you got? I think it's gonna be a rock fight. Snickering occurred. Doug's still an Olympic caliber sleeper. Indigo Girls. Heading over to Sweet Sweet Kai's apartment. Jackson is adamant that Vincent Price is the most famous St. Louisan. Doug says Yogi Berra. Don't sleep on Merkle's Boner. St. Louisan Tony Vitello now the manager of the SF Giants. Putting out the Brad signal.(28:39-56:51) We're still getting texts about the most famous St. Louisan. If we're not counting Ulysses S. Grant, we can't count Stan Musial. Audio of Drink on with Paul Finebaum talking about his name being mentioned with some of the job openings. Trying to leverage an extension? Coaches with the highest approval ratings. Who's your grandma? Drink looking for his first win against a Top 10 team in the regular season. LSU/A&M. Jackson's a great wedding guest.(57:00-1:18:26) Who's more famous, Chingy or J-Kwon. Dan Devine's dog. Tim was chatting with Rene Knott in the hallway. Trailblazers coach Chauncey Billups and Heat guard Terry Rozier arrested on illegal gambling charges. Michael Wellington is on the phone lines to talk about his friend, Tony Vitello becoming the new manager of the SF Giants.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Doctor Max Jacobson, whom the Secret Service under President John F. Kennedy code-named “Dr. Feelgood,” developed a unique “energy formula” that altered the paths of some of the twentieth century's most iconic figures, including President and Jackie Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, and Elvis. JFK received his first injection (a special mix of “vitamins and hormones,” according to Jacobson) just before his first debate with Vice President Richard Nixon. The shot into JFK's throat not only cured his laryngitis, but also diminished the pain in his back, allowed him to stand up straighter, and invigorated the tired candidate. Kennedy demolished Nixon in that first debate and turned a tide of skepticism about Kennedy into an audience that appreciated his energy and crispness. What JFK didn't know then was that the injections were actually powerful doses of a combination of highly addictive liquid methamphetamine and steroids.Author and researcher Rick Lertzman and New York Times bestselling author Bill Birnes reveal heretofore unpublished material about the mysterious Dr. Feelgood. Through well-researched prose and interviews with celebrities including George Clooney, Jerry Lewis, Yogi Berra, and Sid Caesar, the authors reveal Jacobson's vast influence on events such as the assassination of JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy-Khrushchev Vienna Summit, the murder of Marilyn Monroe, the filming of the C. B. DeMille classic The Ten Commandments, and the work of many of the great artists of that era. Jacobson destroyed the lives of several famous patients in the entertainment industry and accidentally killed his own wife, Nina, with an overdose of his formula.https://amzn.to/4okPHoVBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.

Mike Evans and Brandon Stokley kick off the third hour with Mark Schlereth with some silver linings from the loss in Indy. They share some stories from card shows, including Stoke’s Yogi Berra story and Stink playing second fiddle to Joe Namath. Stink tells us all about how he doesn’t dress himself before Bo tells us what he saw from the Chargers’ defense on tape. The guys finish the third hour ranting about Urban Meyer’s non-issue with Jim Harbaugh.  

(0:00) Felger, Mazz, and Murray open the show discussing the Red Sox 6-0 win over the Athletics and the start of Connelly Early in the win. (13:48) The callers weigh in on the Red Sox. (23:11) Former Boston Bruins Kevin Stevens joins the show to talk about the Bruins and about his upcoming Gala for his Power Forward Foundation. (35:04) Thoughts on Aaron Judge passing Yogi Berra on the New York Yankees all-time home run list.

It feels like we are in the middle of a complete collapse by the Mets. The Mets are on the verge of not making the playoffs, and if they do make it, it will be short lived. To not get as far as last year after adding Juan Soto would be insane. They cannot let Sean Manaea pitch another game this season. Gio said they stink and have stunk for months. Jerry is here for his first update of the day and starts with Kyle Schwarber hitting his 50th HR last night as the Phillies beat the Mets. The SF Giants won, also not good for the Mets. The Yankees had a very rough 7th inning and lost to the Tigers. Aaron Judge passed Yogi Berra as 5th all time in Yankees HRs. Buck Martinez had quite the critique of the Yankees during the Blue Jays broadcast. Chris Long talked about feeling old while watching the YouTube NFL broadcast. In the final segment of the hour, we took calls from Mets fans who have come to expect this type of season.

Hour 1 It feels like we are in the middle of a complete collapse by the Mets. The Mets are on the verge of not making the playoffs, and if they do make it, it will be short lived. To not get as far as last year after adding Juan Soto would be insane. They cannot let Sean Manaea pitch another game this season. Gio said they stink and have stunk for months. Jerry is here for his first update of the day and starts with Kyle Schwarber hitting his 50th HR last night as the Phillies beat the Mets. The SF Giants won, also not good for the Mets. The Yankees had a very rough 7th inning and lost to the Tigers. Aaron Judge passed Yogi Berra as 5th all time in Yankees HRs. Buck Martinez had quite the critique of the Yankees during the Blue Jays broadcast. Chris Long talked about feeling old while watching the YouTube NFL broadcast. In the final segment of the hour, we took calls from Mets fans who have come to expect this type of season. Hour 2 Caleb Williams is using the same nail technician as Angel Reese. Gio's not sure if Chicago Bears fans want to read something like that. Boomer said he needs to get his head out of his ass and start listening to his coaches. A caller said this Mets season is karma for all the trash talking the fans did after they got Juan Soto from the Yankees. Jerry returns for an update, but first Boomer shows a picture from a Ryder Cup event he played in 20 years ago with a bunch of celebrities. Jerry starts with the sounds of the Yankees loss to the Tigers as they gave up 9 runs in the 7th. Sean Manaea had a rough outing in Philadelphia where the Mets lost again. Carlos Mendoza was asked after the game about the possibility of them not making the playoffs. The critics are out in Chicago as JJ McCarthy looked better in game 1 of his career than Caleb Williams did in start number eighteen. Ben Johnson talked about his struggles. Deion Sanders was asked about his starting quarterback for this weekend. In the final segment of the hour, C-Mac, who loves the Yankees, has officially given up on Anthony Volpe. A caller has a wager for Gio for this weekend's boxing match on Netflix. Hour 3 Who is more likely to win this week, the Giants over the Cowboys or the Jets over the Bills? Will the Jets offense look anything like week 1 or was that an anomaly? If the Jets can run the ball like week 1, they will be in every game this year. Gio wonders if Boomer was into the UAP video of a missile being shot at an orb and it bouncing off. We took many calls on the UAP orb. Jerry returns for an update, but first Gio asks him about the alien orb. The Jets are cutting Xavier Gipson because of his fumble this past weekend. Daniel Jones was on Pat McAfee and talked about his big game with the Colts and his poor play with the Giants. Micah Parsons talked about his move to Green Bay after camp. The Yankees had a terrible seventh inning and lost to the Tigers. In the final segment of the hour, a caller wonders if this Mets collapse will be worse than 2007. Hour 4 We talked about the Ryder Cup with Jimmy Roberts from NBC. The event is taking place at Bethpage Black in Long Island. Jerry returns for his final update of the day and starts with audio of Aaron Nola talking to the media and somebody farts and people laugh. Kyle Schwarber hit his 50th HR of the season as the Phillies beat the Mets again. The Yankees had a terrible 7th inning and lost to the Tigers. Daniel Jones was on with Pat McAfee and asked him what he learned in his short time with the Vikings. The Moment of The Day: Jerry talking like a space alien. In the final segment of the show, yesterday was 20 years ago that Gio walked in to WFAN to start the first day of his internship.

Jerry starts with Kyle Schwarber hitting his 50th HR last night as the Phillies beat the Mets. The SF Giants won, also not good for the Mets. The Yankees had a very rough 7th inning and lost to the Tigers. Aaron Judge passed Yogi Berra as 5th all time in Yankees HRs. Buck Martinez had quite the critique of the Yankees during the Blue Jays broadcast.

¡Bienvenidos a Baseball News, el noticiero diario de Grandes Ligas en español!

El béisbol no descansa y la jornada del lunes 1 de septiembre dejó muchísima acción y polémica en las Grandes Ligas: ⚾ Yankees caen ante Medias Blancas con cuadrangular de Lenyn Sosa. Aaron Judge pegó otro jonrón y empató a Yogi Berra en la lista histórica de los Bombarderos. ⚾ Dodgers dejan en el terreno a los Dbacks con cuadrangular de Will Smith en la novena entrada. ⚾ Jarren Duran conecta jonrón dentro del campo para dar la victoria a Red Sox sobre Piratas. Además, Aroldis Chapman firma extensión de contrato con Boston. ⚾ Bravos evitan la barrida en Philadelphia con vuelacercas de Drake Balwin en el noveno inning. ⚾ Tarik Skubal sigue intratable y guía la blanqueada de los Tigres frente a Royals. ⚾ Sandy Alcántara domina a los Mets en triunfo de los Marlins, en un juego donde ¡se vaciaron las bancas! ⚾ Azulejos frenan la escoba de Cerveceros con buenas actuaciones de Myles Straw y Nathan Lukes. No te pierdas este Baseball News lleno de batazos, récords, tensión y drama. ⚾

In the immortal words of Yankees legend Yogi Berra, “90% of the game is half mental”, and nobody understands this better than mindset coach Mark England. Adjusting the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what we are capable of goes a long way towards changing the external world around us. Luckily, the ways in which we self-sabotage with damaging internal monologue, negative thoughts, and a lack of structure are all fixable. Mark England has coached thousands of people to shed their limiting beliefs and transform themselves into the creative and successful person they always wanted to be. The Octopus of Global Control Audiobook: https://amzn.to/3xu0rMm Hypocrazy Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4aogwms Website: www.Macroaggressions.io Activist Post: www.activistpost.com Sponsors: Chemical Free Body: https://www.chemicalfreebody.com Promo Code: MACRO C60 Purple Power: https://c60purplepower.com/ Promo Code: MACRO Wise Wolf Gold & Silver: www.Macroaggressions.gold LegalShield: www.DontGetPushedAround.com EMP Shield: www.EMPShield.com Promo Code: MACROChristian Yordanov's Health Program: www.livelongerformula.com/macro Above Phone: abovephone.com/macro Promo Code: MACRO Van Man: https://vanman.shop/?ref=MACRO Promo Code: MACRO My Patriot Supply: www.PrepareWithMacroaggressions.com Activist Post: www.ActivistPost.com Natural Blaze: www.NaturalBlaze.com Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/macroaggressionspodcast Mark England: www.Enlifted.me

00:00-10:00: Cooperstown, 2010. Mike Lindsley sits down with HOF Whitey Ford and chats career, his relationship with Yogi Berra and more.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 150: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:45): One shouted question to which Trump didn't even bother to reply reignites the entire Trumpstein scandal and cover-up: "What did you think Epstein was stealing those women FOR?" It encapsulates the entirety of Trump's complicity: in the cover-up of Epstein's crimes, in his willingness to cut a deal with Ghislaine Maxwell, with his indifference to the suffering of the victims, to his belief the real victim here is him because Epstein "stole" Virginia Giuffre and other employees from him. It encapsulates Trump's worthless, despicable life. The moral vacancy, the lack of humanity, summarized in one reporter's question. And it re-emphasizes that Trump now confesses he broke with Epstein not over the child rape but because Epstein hired rape victims away from him, was STEALING Virginia Giuffre away from him, Trump paints a picture OF Mar-a-Lago where the tragic Ms. Giuffre who just killed herself worked for Trump as not Epstein Island but the Recruiting Station and Waiting Room FOR Epstein Island, Trump calls going to the Island a quote “privilege” and keeps re-igniting Trumpsteen and finding new things to admit to, and after ten years of watching the fascists beat democracy to within an inch of its life using democracy’s own loopholes, Senate Democrats finally found a loophole which may FORCE the Justice Department to release the Trumpsteen files including whatever deal with the devil his man Todd made with the pedophile pimp Gulaine Maxwell last week, or at minimum take Trump and his inflatable rubber Attorney General and tie them up in court forever and thus keep the Trumpsteen Scandal ALIVE forever. EVEN DEMOCRATS ARE DOING SOMETHING: Invoking federal law that says any executive branch agency SHALL supply any information to any group of five members of the Senate Government Oversight Committee. SHALL. Repeated daily, Trumpstein will end Trump's presidency. B-Block (43:00) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: MSNBC says it's getting great new offices (in fact, it's getting kicked out of 30 Rock by a parent that has disowned it). Analyze the polls any way you want to: Andrew Cuomo is losing to Zohran Mamdani in NYC by 20 to 30 points. The move to disbar the FCC fascist Brendan Carr. And at our expense Kristi Noem brings Corey Lewandowski with her to Argentina with her so she can spend all her time riding. C-Block (54:50) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: I surprised a new friend recently by mentioning the late Yankees' owner George Steinbrenner was my friend. In fact we were friends for more than 25 years and my exchanges with him were unexpectedly and always delightful. The blessing of only knowing George, never working for him. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You know that Yogi Berra quote about how Nobody ever comes here; it's too crowded? Actually, the first person to use this was actress Suzanne Ridgeway, who appeared in several movies with The Three Stooges. A new book shows that many well-known quotes were first spoken by women, but misattributed to more famous men. Also: a handy scientific word that should become mainstream: aliquot. And no, it's not a kind of hybrid fruit. Plus, an astronomical question: What's the collective noun for a group of black holes? A sink of black holes? A baffle? A vacancy? All that, plus Old Arthur, biffy, bowery, mikka bozu, Sauregurkenzeit, out of heart, vergüenza, and how to talk with children about a painful topic. Hear hundreds of free episodes and learn more on the A Way with Words website: https://waywordradio.org. Be a part of the show: call or text 1 (877) 929-9673 toll-free in the United States and Canada; elsewhere in the world, call or text +1 619 800 4443. Send voice notes or messages via WhatsApp 16198004443. Email words@waywordradio.org. Copyright Wayword, Inc., a 501(c)(3) corporation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our analysts Seth Carpenter and Serena Tang discuss why they believe the global economy is set to slow meaningfully in the second half of 2025.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Serena: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Serena Tang, Morgan Stanley's, Chief Global Cross-Asset Strategist.Seth: And I'm Seth Carpenter, Morgan Stanley's Global Chief Economist.Serena: Today we'll discuss Morgan Stanley's midyear outlook for the global economy and markets.It's Wednesday, May 21st at 10am in New York.Seth, you published a year ahead outlook last November. Since President Trump took office back in January, there's been pretty significant policy and economic uncertainty and quite a few surprises. With this in mind, what is your current outlook for the global economy for the second half of this year and into 2026.Seth: So, we titled the outlook Skewed to the Downside because we really do think the U.S. economy, the global economy, is set to slow meaningfully from where we were coming into this year. Let's start with the U.S.As you said, policy changes came in a lot this year since the new administration took over. I would say the two key ones from a macro perspective so far have been trade policy and immigration policy.Tariffs have gone up, tariffs have gone down, tariffs have been suspended. Right now, what we think is going to ultimately take place is that we will see persistent, notable tariffs on China, lower tariffs on the rest of the world, and then we'll have to see how things evolve. What does that mean? Well, it means for the U.S. higher inflation and lower growth. In addition, immigration reform means that growth is going to slow because the growth rate of the labor force is going to slow.Now around the rest of the world, the tariff shock matters as well. When the U.S. puts in tariffs on its imports from other countries, that's negative demand for those other countries. So, we're looking for pretty weak growth in the euro area. Now, I will note, lots of people were excited about possible expansionary fiscal policy in Germany, and we think that's still there. We just don't think it's enough to give the euro area robust growth.In Asia, China's a main driver of the economy. China is a big recipient of these tariffs. We think the deflation cycle that we expected in China keeps going on. This reduction in demand from the U.S. is not going to help, but there'll probably be a little bit at the margin offsetting fiscal policy.So, what does that mean put together? Lackluster growth in China. Call it 4 percent slow growth for yet another year. Overall, the global economy should step down. Will it be a recession? That's one of the key questions that we hear from clients, but we don't think so. Not quite. Just a meaningful step downSerena: Interesting. Any particular regions that seem to be bright spots or surprises -- or perhaps have seen the biggest shift in your outlook?Seth: I guess I'd flag two potential bright spots around the world. The first is India. India has been, for us, a favorite. It will have the highest growth rate of any economy that we have in our coverage area. And because it's such a big economy, that's part of why the global economy can't lose that much steam. India has lots going for it. There are cyclical factors boosting growth in the near term. But there are also longer-term structural policy driven reasons to think that Indian growth will stay solid for the foreseeable future.I guess I'd also throw in Japan. Now its growth rate isn't going to be anywhere near the kind of growth in number terms that we're going to see from India. But this has to be taken in the context of 25 years of essentially zero growth of nominal GDP. The reflationary cycle that we think started a couple years ago remains intact, even with the tariff shock. And so, we're pretty optimistic still that Japanese reflation will continue.Serena: And to what extent are U.S. tariffs contributing to global inflationary pressures? I mean, how do you expect the Fed and other central banks to respond?Seth: The tariffs are imposed by the United States on most of the imports coming into the country, whereas other countries, maybe they have some retaliatory tariffs just against the U.S., but definitely not as broad as the U.S. That means for the U.S. tariffs are going to drive up inflation domestically and drive down growth, whereas for the rest of the world, it's mostly just a negative demand shock. So, they will be disinflationary for the rest of the world and pushing down growth.What does that mean for central banks? Well, outside of the U.S., central banks are going to see this as slowing aggregate demand, and so it's pretty clear what it is that they want to do. If they were hiking, they can stop hiking. If they were going to hold steady, they can lower rates a little bit. And if they were already lowering interest rates like the European Central Bank, well they can probably keep going with that without having to worry. And that's why we think the ECB is going to lower its policy rate to probably 1.5 percent and maybe even lower, which is below where the market is expecting things.Now for the Fed, things are much more tricky. The Fed cares about inflation, the Fed cares about U.S. growth, and both of those variables are going in the opposite direction of what they want over the rest of this forecast. Right now, inflation's too high for the Fed, and history shows that inflation goes up first with tariffs before the growth rate hits. So, the Fed's probably going to wait until the hard data show a bigger slowdown in the economy, a worsening. And the labor market. That is a bigger concern for them than the already too high inflation that is set to rise further over the rest of the year.Serena: And in your view, how does trade policy uncertainty influence business investment, particularly in export-oriented industries or in economies tightly linked to U.S. demand?Seth: Yeah. I think it has to be negative and therein lies one of the biggest challenges is just how negative. And I can't say for sure. But what we do know is that an uncertainty tends to be very negative for business investment spending decisions. If you're trying to make a decision, should I build a new factory?This is something that's going to have a long life to it, and you're going to get benefits hopefully for several years. How big are those benefits relative to the cost? Well, right now it's not at all clear, and so there's an option value to waiting.And we think that uncertainty is depressing investment decisions right now. I think it has to affect export-oriented industries. There's a lot of questions about what sort of retaliatory tariffs, other countries might impose.But it also affects domestic driven businesses because, well, they're going to have to see what their demand is. And some of the ones that are just focused on the U.S. economy are selling imported goods. So, it affects businesses across the board. Serena: Right. And how do U.S. tariff hikes spill over into emerging markets, and how might these countries buffer against these shocks?Seth: Yeah, I think there's a range of outcomes and the range is as wide as there are different countries. If you stay close to home. Take Mexico. Mexico is a big trading partner with the U.S. and early on in this whole tariff discussion, they were actually the targets of lots of tariff threats. That could have hurt them directly because there'd be less demand for their exports to the United States.Now we've got some resolution. We have the trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, and most of Mexico's exports to the U.S. are exempt under those conditions. However, the indirect effect is important as well. Mexico is very attached to the U.S. economy, and so as the U.S. economy slows because of these tariffs, the Mexican economy will slow as well.But there's also an indirect effect through currency markets, and I think this is a channel that's more broadly applicable across EM. If the Fed is going to be on hold, like we think holding interest rates higher for longer than the market might currently think, that means that EM central banks who might want to lower their policy rate to support their economy are going to be caught in a bit of a bind.They can't afford to take the risks that their currency will misbehave if they ease too much too far ahead of the Fed. And so, I think there is a little bit of a constraint for EM central banks, thinking about how much can I attend to domestic matters and how much do I have to pay attention to external matters?Serena: Now, I know forecasting economic growth is difficult in even the best of times, and this has been a period of exceptional volatility. How are you and your economic colleagues factoring all of this uncertainty?Seth: It's a great question and luminary minds like Neils Bohr, the Nobel Laureate in physics, and Yogi Berra, everyone's favorite prophet, have both said, ‘Forecasting is hard, especially about the future.' And this time, as you note, is even more so. So, what can we do? We try to come up with as many different scenarios as we can. We ask ourselves not just what's the most likely outcome, because there's uncertainty. The policy changes could come fast and furious. We also try to ask ourselves, if tariffs were to go back up from where they are now, how would that outcome turn out. If tariffs were to go away entirely, how would that turn out?You have to start thinking more and more, I think, in terms of scenarios.Serena:  And does this, in your view, change how much or how little investors should focus on the macro economy?Seth: Well, I think it means that investors have to focus every bit as much on the macro economy as they have in the past. I think it's undeniable that if we're right – and the U.S. economy slows down materially, and the global economy slows down with it – longer-term interest rates are probably going to come down along the lines of what our colleagues in interest rate strategy think. That makes a lot of sense to me. I think the trickier part though is knowing where the macro economy is going.We've got our forecast, but we are ready to make a revision if the facts change. And I think that's the trickier part for investors. The macro economy still matters but having a lot of conviction about where it's going, and as a result, what it means for asset prices? Well, that's the trickier part.Serena, you've been asking me lots of questions and they've been great questions, but I'm going to turn the table. I'm going to start asking questions right back to you.But we probably have to save that for another episode. So, let's pause it there.Serena: That sounds great Seth.Seth: And to the people listening, I want to say thanks for listening. And if you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please leave us a review wherever you listen and share the podcast with a friend or a colleague today.

As our centennial series continues, listeners share memories of Yankee great Yogi Berra, who also played for and managed the Mets (about whom he said, "It ain't over 'til it's over").

Legendary comic Billy Crystal feels not sure about being Conan O'Brien's friend. Billy sits down with Conan to talk about his first ever stand-up experience, his iconic contributions to Saturday Night Live, sharing lifelong friendships with Yogi Berra and Muhammad Ali, and his new Apple TV+ series Before. For Conan videos, tour dates and more visit TeamCoco.com.Got a question for Conan? Call our voicemail: (669) 587-2847. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/conan.