Mark Vargas ｜ 01-15-26
Episode Stats
Harmful content
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Summary
While President Donald Trump and his doge reformers are trying to take a chainsaw to federal waste in Washington, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker appears to be playing a very different game, one that funnels massive amounts of taxpayer money into assets tied to his own family hotel empire.
Transcript
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Every week, the Payne family cuts straight to the real financial story.
00:00:04.460
The one question, Bob, everyone's asking is, are we in an artificial intelligence bubble?
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You've been through boom and busts. What do you think?
00:00:12.860
No hype, no myths, just what actually matters to your money.
00:00:17.440
Does feel very similar to what we experienced in the 90s. Where are we,
00:00:25.300
Listen to the Payne Points of Wealth on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:00:30.000
The Stone Zone, entertaining and informative on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:00:40.020
While President Donald Trump and his doge reformers are trying to take a chainsaw to federal waste in Washington,
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Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker appears to be playing a very different game,
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one that funnels massive amounts of taxpayer money into assets tied to his own family hotel empire.
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What we're going to reveal to you today is not some recycled political attack.
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It's a fresh information pulled straight from public records with conflict of interest written all over it.
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Joining me now is the editor-in-chief of the Illinois Review, Mark Vargas, to help break down the story.
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You have worked with me here in the last 48 hours to produce a blockbuster story,
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which essentially reveals that J.B. Pritzker, who is already a billionaire,
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has used the Illinois Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority
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to funnel more than $180 million in taxpayer money into the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place Hotel in Chicago since 2011.
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Pritzker appoints nearly half the members of the board of that authority,
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giving him enormous influence on how the taxpayer dollars are spent.
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But the point here most people may not understand is that Governor Pritzker, a billionaire,
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and his family own the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place.
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It really is remarkable, Roger, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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Given all the widespread and massive fraud happening,
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and that's being uncovered in Minnesota under the failed leadership of tiny dancer Tim Waltz,
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people are beginning to take a look at California and Illinois, for an example.
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And what we've uncovered, Roger, really answers the why.
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Because J.B. Pritzker has been so aggressive in attacking the president on a variety of fronts,
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whether it's illegal aliens over everyday citizens,
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or whether it's lawlessness over law and order.
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But in particular, he's attacked the president on DOCHE and rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government.
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And Governor Pritzker has called rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in government,
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That Governor Pritzker has spent his time before office,
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and particularly while in office, profiting off the backs of everyday Illinoisans.
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$8.8 million were spent for hotel infrastructure improvements for the Hyatt Hotel there in downtown Chicago.
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Hyatt Hotel obviously is owned by the Pritzker family.
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And when we learned that the board that you had mentioned, this MPEA board that approves the taxpayer-funded money,
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we also learned that Governor Pritzker controls almost a majority of the board
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And so they certainly are not questioning where to put those tax dollars
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or the fact that those tax dollars are going into the Pritzker family pockets that includes the Illinois governor.
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But it's much deeper than that, Roger, the $180 million.
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We've also discovered that Governor Pritzker, since taking office in 2019,
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his so-called blind trust has also held interest in 12 for-profit companies
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that have collectively secured more than $20 billion in Illinois state contracts,
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And there, Illinois has been raising income taxes, sales tax, business tax.
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Because the hard-earned money of everyday, blue-collar, hard-working Illinoisans,
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that money is not to improve government services.
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That money isn't being used to improve their lives, create a safe environment for their community.
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No, that money is going to line the pockets of Governor J.B. Pritzker and his closest allies and family members.
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The actual hotel facility is owned by a state authority,
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but the Hyatt Corporation, controlled by the Pritzker family,
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operates the hotel under a very lucrative management agreement
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that pays a percentage of gross revenue plus incentive fees tied to the profitability of the hotel.
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Now, as you point out in this groundbreaking piece at the Illinois Review today,
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this latest $8.8 million awarded to the hotel in fiscal year 2023
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was initially called Infrastructure Improvement.
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It was part of a $59.5 million renovation approved in December of 2024,
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which covers 1,258 guest rooms and additional projects,
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upgrading more than 93,000 square feet of common areas.
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Now, these, as you point out, are not routine repairs.
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HVAC, plumbing, electrical upgrades that directly increase occupancy,
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which increases revenue, which increases long-term profitability,
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which puts more money into the pockets of the Pritzker family.
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Why has Governor Pritzker been so opposed to any programs,
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any organizations, any groups wanting to explore waste, fraud, and abuse in Illinois?
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This answers it, because his hotel and his blind trust businesses
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have secured all of this money, all taxpayer money.
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We also know, Roger, that's not in this article,
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that it's been estimated that since Governor Pritzker has been in office since 2019,
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And this is separate from the taxpayer money going to his hotels
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and to line his business, the pockets of his business associates.
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This is on top of all of that, and that's a very, very conservative number.
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So obviously, we know that number is much, much higher.
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But the most conservative number is around $22 billion
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in wasted taxpayer money on top of what's been happening
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So again, I think this is making what's happened in,
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what's currently happening in Minnesota with Tim Waltz and his team.
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Every week, the Payne family cuts straight to the real financial story.
00:07:48.500
Does feel very similar to what we experienced in the 90s.
00:07:55.760
Listen to the Paying Points of Wealth on the Red Apple Podcast Network.
00:08:02.580
Discover the Chang School of Continuing Education at Toronto Metropolitan University.
00:08:07.500
Our programs are the perfect way to boost your success.
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According to Forbes magazine, Governor Pritzker's personal net worth is estimated at $3.9 billion.
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I recall an anecdote where he cheated the taxpayers when it came to property taxes.
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As I recall, because he didn't want any neighbors, he bought the mansion next to his,
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He bought the mansion, he didn't want any neighbors, he left it vacant,
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but he wanted to figure out how to cheat on taxes.
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He removed all of the toilet from the home, which makes it legally uninhabitable.
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And I think there were somewhere around the range of nine bathrooms.
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As a result, that home became legally uninhabitable, and Governor Pritzker was able to skirt over
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When that was discovered during his campaign, he was caught flat-footed, came up with lame
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And what was the key takeaway from this entire episode was that if Governor Pritzker knows,
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he knows how to skirt the rules, he knows where there are gaps, and he knows how to manipulate
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If he could do that regarding toilets and saving $300,000, imagine what he's doing with a state
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And we're seeing that with $180 million going to his hotel, and $20 billion in state government
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contracts all funded by the taxpayers going into the pockets of his business friends and associates.
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Mark, as I recall, it was you and the Illinois Review that exposed the fact that Governor Pritzker
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and Mayor Brandon Johnson, a man who is the mayor of Chicago, and if his IQ was one point lower,
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you'd have to water him like a plant, specifically passed an ordinance that said that the Chicago City
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police officers were not to come to the rescue or aid of ICE agents if they were endangered,
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which I believe you got a legal opinion that showed that the governor and the mayor could be personally liable
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if any of those ICE agents sustained physical injury.
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That's right. The governor signed an executive order, and federal ICE agents are experiencing
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an over 1,000% increase in attacks on federal ICE agents.
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And one of the largest perpetrators, pun intended, of that violent and dangerous rhetoric
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is Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who have called them thugs,
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They've now signed executive orders prohibiting local law enforcement from assisting federal ICE
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agents when they're surrounded by violent and dangerous moms when their lives are in danger.
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And we saw that example when on a 9-1-1 transcript where federal ICE agents were calling for backup
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and they were told by the 9-1-1 operator that leadership is saying they have the cops have to stand down.
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It's absolutely remarkable. Under his failed leadership, it's why some of the largest corporations
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in the country, if not the world, have left Illinois and Chicago altogether, like Boeing and Caterpillar
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and Citadel, because of the high taxes, because of the high crime, and because of the failed Democratic
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leadership of J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has an approval rating of just 6%.
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I do remember when, very bizarrely, Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago, said all of the civil unrest
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and crime in the city of Chicago was the fault of President Richard Nixon, who hasn't been in power
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in this country in over 50 years. Very, very strange behavior. Also reports that Mayor Johnson is in and out
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of the hospital constantly after suffering panic attacks. This does not sound like a man who's fit
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No, sources have shared that over two dozen times in just less than three years, Chicago Mayor Brandon
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Johnson has checked himself into Northwestern Memorial Hospital for panic attacks. They use the
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underground entrance. He uses a different, he uses an alias, a different name. He's identified by
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his birth date, but they've gone to great lengths. The city has gone to great lengths to make sure
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that they hide that. They also, he's also increased his Chicago Police Department detail to over 150
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police officers protecting him and his family. Yet they tell us that Chicago is perfectly safe and the
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idea that there's a crime epidemic. I specifically remember J.D. Pritzker, I think he was on CNN or perhaps
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it was Fox insisting that the published crime statistics from the FBI were wrong and that the
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neighborhoods and communities of Chicago were perfectly safe.
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It's remarkable that he can say that. Don't believe, believe me and not your lying eyes when
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you're looking at the statistic. Over in 2025, Chicago was the most dangerous city in America
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regarding shootings and murders. Chicago is more dangerous than New York City, than Los Angeles,
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than Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, D.C., the most dangerous city in America.
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Pritzker likes to say that President Trump has created a manufactured crisis. 67,000 dangerous
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criminals on the street because of no cash bail. That's not a manufactured crisis. 1,600 police officers
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short, resulting in over 220,000 high priority 911 calls going unanswered in 2023. That's not a
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manufactured crisis. And finally, over 90% of Chicago's most violent and vicious and dangerous
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criminals are freeing out on the streets. Why? Because they've never been identified or charged.
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That's not a manufactured crisis. This is reality for everyday residents and tourists to Chicago. It
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is a war zone. I really don't understand this concept of the blind trust. I remember when Dick Cheney
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was the vice president of the United States, his Halliburton stock, he was the president of Halliburton
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before becoming vice president, was in a blind stock. And of course, that stock became worth
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billions of dollars because he lied our way into the war in Iraq, falsely claiming that Iraq had
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weapons of mass destruction, yellow cake uranium to develop weapons of mass destruction, and the most
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outrageous lie of all claiming that Iraq had participated in the 9-11 attacks on America. But if
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you know that there's Halliburton stock in your blind trust, how blind can your trust be? J.B. Pritzker
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knows that there's Hyatt stock in his blind trust. And you pointed out that over $20 billion in state
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contracts were with companies tied to his own personal financial interests, all within his so-called blind trust.
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Mark Vargas has discovered that J.B. Pritzker is not the only 2028 aspirant who's got deep and massive
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corruption problems. When we come back, we're going to focus on Gavin Newsom, the would-be president from
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California. He's got great hair and a great line of BS. But it's possible that the epic personal
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corruption of Newsom could even dwarf that of J.B. Pritzker. Don't go away. We'll be right back with that story
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Thanks for listening to The Stone Zone with Roger Stone. You can hear The Stone Zone with Roger Stone
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00:16:23.140
new episode so you never have to wonder. What the heck is going on here? Every week, the Payne family
00:16:29.620
cuts straight to the real financial story. The one question, Bob, everyone's asking is,
00:16:34.980
are we in an artificial intelligence bubble? You've been through boom and busts. What do you
00:16:40.260
think? No hype, no myths. Just what actually matters to your money. It does feel very similar
00:16:46.840
to what we experienced in the 90s. Where are we though? Are we in 1995, 1997, 1999? Listen to the
00:16:53.760
Payne points of wealth on the Red Apple Podcast Network.