The Tucker Carlson Show - Jordan Belfort

00:00:00.000 The closer you've been following your equity investments recently, the jumpier you likely are.

00:00:16.440 A lot of Americans have concluded that the Wall Street game may be rigged.

00:00:21.420 The whole thing is kind of a scam, but there's still a huge amount of money tied up in it.

00:00:25.340 Not just in individual investing, of course, but in pension funds.

00:00:29.480 The whole world is tied up in the American stock market.

00:00:32.360 So how exactly do you succeed in it as an individual?

00:00:37.140 We thought the man to ask would be the man who's seen both sides of this business, legitimate and less than.

00:00:44.900 Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street, with a new book, The Wolf of Investing.

00:00:49.060 And he joins us now to explain how you can make a fortune on Wall Street.

00:00:53.580 Can you make a fortune on Wall Street?

00:00:56.040 You can, but it takes time.

00:00:57.460 I think, listen, the mistake that people make is that, the average person, is that you don't have that much money to start.

00:01:05.220 Let's just choose a number.

00:01:06.260 Let's say just $10,000, right?

00:01:08.120 It's a random number, right?

00:01:09.400 You say to yourself, if I'm going to really get anywhere as an investor, I need to make a big hit.

00:01:15.200 I get to turn that into like a million bucks.

00:01:16.600 I've got to find the next Apple computer, the next crazy crypto token, whatever, some wildly successful investment, right?

00:01:24.300 Which leads you to engage in, you know, wild speculation, short-term trading, trying to time the market.

00:01:29.520 And the truth is, is the opposite.

00:01:31.220 You don't need to start with a lot of money to end up with a lot of money by doing the exact opposite, which is holding for the long term and all the highest quality stocks and relying on long-term compounding and reinvesting dividends and making small contributions along the way.

00:01:49.460 But forgetting, like you said, the noise and people are worried about their equities.

00:01:52.760 This is the problem, because as soon as you start buying into that, like, you know what, I think the market might be going down or maybe it's going to go up next year.

00:01:59.140 You just have to time that by buying and selling, you create taxable events.

00:02:02.620 And also, human beings by our nature, we're kind of crappy stock pickers.

00:02:06.560 And when you try to pick individual stocks, you tend to lose most of the time.

00:02:10.280 Wait, okay, so here's what I'm going to do.

00:02:11.380 I'm going to give you my investment strategy, and I'm going to be as honest as I can be, and you assess it based on your expertise and tell me if I'm right or wrong.

00:02:18.360 Okay, so I'll get down to my rec room, big screen TV, with my dab pen and my laptop, and I'll turn on Jim Cramer on CNBC.

00:02:25.140 And when he tells me to buy, I buy.

00:02:27.500 And if he says sell, I sell.

00:02:29.340 Yeah, you're getting financially whipsed.

00:02:31.620 Is that working for me?

00:02:33.540 No, it's not going to work.

00:02:34.400 So I kind of buried Cramer in the book.

00:02:36.580 I guess I'm not going on CNBC anytime soon for any interviews.

00:02:38.900 Why would you bury Jim Cramer?

00:02:40.340 I mean, this is a guy with an uninterrupted string of correct calls.

00:02:44.580 Buy.

00:02:44.940 J.P. Morgan of this generation, Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX.

00:02:52.420 Listen, the best thing was, was it interrupted the string of terrible calls.

00:02:57.080 Oh, listen, he's had a lot of good calls because he's on both sides of the market.

00:02:59.780 He tells you to buy one thing on Monday and sell it on Wednesday and back, and vice versa.

00:03:03.040 This guy literally is telling you, they actually need a study on this.

00:03:05.860 They put up his recommendations of what he said on Monday and then on Friday.

00:03:09.060 The exact opposite.

00:03:10.120 Like, one day he's saying the market's going up, next day it's going down.

00:03:12.780 Buy this, go from this sector to that sector.

00:03:15.140 That's historically, mathematically, scientifically proven to be the worst possible way to invest your money.

00:03:21.840 They've gone back 100 years, the scientific, the academic studies, and the analysts can't pick the right stocks.

00:03:28.680 The hedge fund managers and the mutual fund managers can't beat the S&P 500, which is the overall border market.

00:03:36.180 And there's a reason for that, because all the information is out there.

00:03:39.160 So unless you have inside information, which is illegal, right?

00:03:42.740 And certainly the average person is not going to have that.

00:03:44.840 Or some other way to beat the market, whether it's high-frequency trading with computers that are lightning fast.

00:03:50.380 So some of the big firms, they'll time the market like a millionth of a second better than an average investor.

00:03:55.460 They get an edge.

00:03:56.260 But for everyone else, you can't beat the market.

00:03:59.440 It doesn't work, especially when you deduct all the fees, the commissions, and also the taxes from short-term trading.

00:04:06.500 So let's say a hedge fund returns 15% one year.

00:04:10.060 You say, well, that's pretty good, right?

00:04:11.320 But after they take their 2% managed fee, 20% performance bonus, right, suddenly it's not even beating the S&P 500.

00:04:18.060 And that's in a good year.

00:04:19.220 Most of the time, they don't even beat it without their fees.

00:04:22.080 So why would anyone hand money to a hedge fund?

00:04:24.640 So Warren Buffett asked this exact question back in 2007, made a big announcement, bet a million bucks,

00:04:32.040 that I don't care whatever hedge fund you want, you can't beat the S&P 500 over 10 years.

00:04:36.920 And at first, no one took the bet.

00:04:38.540 Eventually, someone did with what's called a fund of funds.

00:04:40.820 It was a hundred different funds, right?

00:04:42.680 And after year seven, they threw in the towel.

00:04:45.860 They couldn't even come close to the S&P.

00:04:48.020 And that was without all their fees.

00:04:49.860 And just so you know, the fees they take, so it's 20% typically is a performance bonus, right?

00:04:54.660 If the fund makes money, off the upside, on the upside.

00:04:57.620 But if the fund loses money the following year, they don't get any of the losses.

00:05:01.340 So it's heads they win, tails you lose, right?

00:05:04.220 The mutual fund industry is equally bad.

00:05:06.840 So they're engaging in, you know, basically asset gathering.

00:05:10.060 Because what they do is they try to gather as many assets as possible, money, right?

00:05:13.540 Because they get their management fees.

00:05:15.240 But the returns on the average mutual fund are dismal.

00:05:18.740 They don't keep up with the S&P 500, which is America's 500 biggest, baddest, most profitable companies.

00:05:26.980 And those 500 companies change.

00:05:30.020 So the S&P this year is not the same as it was last year.

00:05:33.340 So what happens when you buy that index as the centerpiece of your investments, right?

00:05:36.940 And just hold it.

00:05:37.560 You're always having the 500 top high-performing companies in your portfolio.

00:05:42.860 It's very tax-efficient.

00:05:44.600 Now, it's boring, but it compounds at about 11% a year.

00:05:48.720 And guess what?

00:05:49.580 If you invest $10,000, right?

00:05:52.520 And just compounds at 11% a year.

00:05:54.480 You put a little extra money in whenever you can each month or each quarter, right?

00:05:58.320 Over 30 years, 40 years, it turns into millions of dollars.

00:06:02.060 But I'm still caught up on the hedge fund idea.

00:06:06.700 So Steve Cohen, Ray Dalio, all these guys are billionaires.

00:06:12.580 World's biggest art collection.

00:06:13.960 So how did they get so rich if it doesn't work?

00:06:16.540 Well, for a time, it was like everyone thought, oh my God, they're so great.

00:06:20.080 The hedge fund sold for many in the 90s and 2000s.

00:06:22.580 The word was really like this mystique that you had these really high-performing hedge funds.

00:06:26.680 And there were a few.

00:06:27.760 There were a few people that actually can beat the market.

00:06:30.640 Ray Dalio is one who's done it consistently.

00:06:32.660 He's not taking your money.

00:06:34.180 The average, when they're really not good, they don't take the average investor's money.

00:06:38.200 They train their own money in a few very, very large institutions.

00:06:41.800 So those funds are not open to the average investor.

00:06:45.000 But then all the other hedge funders kind of suck, right?

00:06:47.920 They're bathing in the afterglow of the aura of the hedge fund manager we see like on billions, right?

00:06:53.600 See this mystical hedge fund?

00:06:55.160 Well, guess what?

00:06:55.720 Most of these guys suck, all right?

00:06:57.780 They're not beating the essence.

00:06:59.100 They're just not.

00:06:59.620 It's historically proven.

00:07:00.960 They don't beat the S&P.

00:07:01.980 And they take these massive fees when they do win one year.

00:07:05.680 And they always get that 2% management.

00:07:07.700 So watch what happens.

00:07:08.340 Let's say you're managing a billion dollars.

00:07:10.900 So before you even start, there's 20 million a year you're getting.

00:07:14.340 You're sitting with 40% even starts, plus 20% of all the profits.

00:07:18.740 And when you take those, and how about this, I'll go one step further.

00:07:21.500 And also, when you have a hedge fund, you have to show activity.

00:07:25.780 Because unless you're, you can't just buy the S&P and hold it.

00:07:28.420 Someone will say, well, why would I give you my money?

00:07:30.240 You're not doing anything.

00:07:31.240 So they almost have to show activity to justify their existence, which makes them engage in short-term trading.

00:07:36.580 And human beings are just terrible market timers.

00:07:40.480 And this has just proven over 100 plus years of studies that you cannot trade in and out of the stock market, buying, selling, selling, buying sector, this sector one day.

00:07:51.300 So it's just a trap.

00:07:53.160 The way I look at it is this.

00:07:53.960 So Wall Street creates massive value.

00:07:56.400 They do.

00:07:56.740 Wall Street's necessary.

00:07:57.660 You can hate Wall Street, despise them for what things they do wrong.

00:08:00.720 But Wall Street is necessary.

00:08:02.580 They create massive value for the economy.

00:08:04.680 They take companies public.

00:08:06.200 They finance the growth of America.

00:08:07.960 It's needed.

00:08:08.580 They maintain the debt markets, the credit markets.

00:08:10.760 That's the useful side of Wall Street, where they create massive value.

00:08:14.120 Then there's the not-so-useful, the dark side of Wall Street, where they create bubble after bubble after bubble,

00:08:19.780 where they have instruments of financial mass destruction they create for just gambling purposes,

00:08:24.420 where they churn you.

00:08:25.500 They have excess commissions and fees and rob the public blind.

00:08:28.780 So the question in the book was, how does the average person get the maximum exposure to the good side of Wall Street,

00:08:36.400 which is the great companies they take public and finance that become huge multinational?

00:08:40.840 So how do you maximize that but avoid the corruption or the churning and the burning and the financial bubbles and so forth

00:08:48.300 and play into what I call the Wall Street theme machine complex, which is this advertising monolith,

00:08:54.160 where basically they convince you, people like Kramer, to play the sucker's game.

00:08:58.640 Actively, if you go on CNBC, they're all day long trying to convince people to play the short-term trading game,

00:09:04.620 which is indeed a sucker's game.

00:09:06.780 So you go into a casino, right?

00:09:08.160 We spoke about Kerry Packer, gambling, right?

00:09:11.000 So they own casinos, the Packer family, right?

00:09:12.960 So in a casino, you go in there knowing that the odds are against you by, what, 5% depending on what game you play.

00:09:19.920 So the odds are against you and the house will win over time, right?

00:09:22.680 That's a legit casino.

00:09:23.880 The odds are against you.

00:09:25.060 But what if you go into a corrupt casino where they have loaded dice and are dealing from the bottom of the deck?

00:09:30.440 That's Wall Street.

00:09:31.200 So now not only are the odds against you because, you know, it's hard to pick winning stocks,

00:09:35.060 but there's people who have information that's more timely than you.

00:09:38.540 They're trading ahead of you.

00:09:40.080 They are charging excess fees.

00:09:42.020 And also, you have all these publications and new chatting in news with CNBC.

00:09:46.680 Bloomberg isn't as bad, right?

00:09:47.900 Because they cater mostly to professionals.

00:09:49.200 But still, trying to convince people that, you know, you could somehow figure out when you should buy oil

00:09:54.540 and then sell your meta and then somehow go into a steel stock and then go into overseas.

00:09:59.400 It's insane.

00:10:00.320 It doesn't work.

00:10:01.360 And people get financially whipsawed.

00:10:03.400 And I saw it myself, my own family member, very successful guy.

00:10:06.420 I start my book off telling his story.

00:10:08.220 About your brother-in-law.

00:10:08.820 Yeah, my brother-in-law.

00:10:09.520 He's a very smart guy.

00:10:10.820 And I watched his portfolio get decimated through short-term trading and using margin, all the things that they...

00:10:17.540 Was he doing it himself?

00:10:18.560 He was trying to do it himself and, you know, following tips he heard on TV or online.

00:10:21.940 And it's just so simple.

00:10:23.860 And what happened to him?

00:10:25.140 Well, thankfully, he successfully lost a lot of money.

00:10:27.840 And then he learned his lesson.

00:10:28.940 And I showed him what to do the right way.

00:10:30.480 And now he's building a proper portfolio for the long term.

00:10:34.020 So I think the distinction is this.

00:10:36.220 You can get rich in the stock market, but not overnight.

00:10:39.560 It's just, it doesn't work.

00:10:41.060 You can't do that.

00:10:41.900 And if you try to get rich by engaging in short-term trading or picking, like, one stock,

00:10:47.620 you're probably going to end up in the financial poorhouse.

00:10:49.960 So the solution I put in this book, which is ironic of where I came from, right?

00:10:54.340 Because I committed fraud 30 years ago, right?

00:10:56.600 So as you said, I've seen both sides, right?

00:10:58.300 So the solution in the book is, is really very simple to build a world-class portfolio

00:11:02.960 and secure your future.

00:11:04.440 Because I don't think you can rely on social security these days.

00:11:06.840 You'll be enough to pay for your diapers when you're in a nursing home when you get it, right?

00:11:09.800 So this is about, you know, empowering yourself financially.

00:11:12.600 And it's about doing less versus more, not hiring experts.

00:11:18.600 Less trading yourself.

00:11:20.380 Less trade.

00:11:21.220 It's about investing as opposed to speculating.

00:11:24.180 Now, there's nothing wrong with speculating.

00:11:26.140 It's fun, right?

00:11:27.400 And if you want to take 5% of your capital and speculate and buy and sell, that's great.

00:11:32.480 There's nothing wrong with that.

00:11:33.280 Now, I encourage people to do that because it's good.

00:11:35.480 You can have fun with that.

00:11:36.320 Maybe you'll make some money.

00:11:37.220 But that's not how you secure your retirement.

00:11:40.720 If you want to secure a great retirement, you start off young as possible, right?

00:11:44.680 And it's never too late, by the way.

00:11:46.240 And it doesn't matter how much money you have.

00:11:48.820 You can start with a little bit of money.

00:11:50.120 You don't need a lot.

00:11:51.200 But the key is making little, small, regular contributions and not worrying.

00:11:55.140 Just to an index fund?

00:11:56.040 Is that what you're saying?

00:11:56.600 Well, the main one is an index fund.

00:11:58.520 You want to have an index fund, low-cost S&P 500 index fund.

00:12:02.740 And you want to have it in certain types of accounts that are tax-deferred whenever possible and so forth, right?

00:12:06.760 Then you also want to balance that out with some, you need to have some bonds in there, a small amount, depending on your age, right?

00:12:12.860 And on top of that, some cash for an emergency.

00:12:15.540 And then if you want to speculate, you can have, let's say, 5% for speculation.

00:12:19.900 But the key is this.

00:12:21.700 Don't hire an expert.

00:12:24.280 For example, we've been conditioned.

00:12:26.200 This is the trap, right?

00:12:27.400 So you're a homeowner, right?

00:12:29.000 So if your pipes in your house burst, you're probably going to do a lot better off calling a plumber to fix your pipes than trying to fix them yourself, right?

00:12:35.780 Right.

00:12:36.120 Right.

00:12:36.400 Fair enough, right?

00:12:37.380 If you have an electric short, I suggest you call an electrician versus trying to go put on rubber gloves and not get electrocuted.

00:12:43.160 You'll get a much better result with the expert in that, too.

00:12:45.800 If you're sick, let's say your appendix is about to burst, right?

00:12:49.100 Don't do your own surgery, have your wife cut you open.

00:12:51.400 Go to a doctor that's an expert at doing surgery.

00:12:54.200 Let him do the surgery.

00:12:55.180 Fair.

00:12:55.400 Fair enough, right?

00:12:56.620 That's true for almost all things in life, except Wall Street.

00:13:00.900 It's the one exception to the otherwise pretty much steadfast rule about seeking out experts to help you get the best result.

00:13:08.560 On Wall Street, they don't get you a better result than doing it yourself.

00:13:13.260 They get you a worse result because of all the fees, the commissions, the performance bonuses, and also they can't outguess the market.

00:13:20.420 The market is too hard to beat.

00:13:22.940 Now, again, there's a few people that can do it.

00:13:24.640 They're not taking your money.

00:13:26.380 I want to focus on them for a second because, undoubtedly, they're the touts.

00:13:31.240 They're the people who convince the rest of us that this works because they're so rich.

00:13:36.940 How do those people get rich?

00:13:38.920 So, if you look at a guy like, you know, for example, like a Ray Dalio, he got in very early into the game, right?

00:13:45.520 And he's an incredibly brilliant guy.

00:13:47.760 He's a great stock picker.

00:13:49.200 And whatever his proprietary method is or a Warren Buffett, right?

00:13:52.380 You know, there's a few people out there.

00:13:55.140 And this is one of the great studies was from an economist named Paul Samuelson, right, in the 70s.

00:13:59.800 And this is really what started the shift into index funds.

00:14:02.600 He did a study that went back 100 years, all the way to the earliest days of record keeping, right?

00:14:07.980 He studied every mutual fund out there since the 1920s.

00:14:11.320 All the stock recommendations since the 1890s, right?

00:14:15.000 And he came to the conclusion, he goes, okay, maybe there were a few people who could outperform the S&P, but they remain remarkably well hidden.

00:14:22.640 He couldn't find any.

00:14:23.980 He couldn't find.

00:14:24.440 This is like a top, you won a Nobel Prize, the guy for this, right?

00:14:27.320 So, that was really the beginning.

00:14:28.900 That was like the shot across the bow.

00:14:30.400 Now, Wall Street did everything they could to suppress this.

00:14:33.360 So, the first guy to try this was Jack Bogle from Vanguard.

00:14:37.320 You know, Vanguard, right?

00:14:38.140 So, Vanguard is a great place where you can buy the best index funds with virtually no expense.

00:14:43.340 So, I strongly recommend Vanguard, right?

00:14:45.220 And there's a few others as well.

00:14:46.360 But Jack Bogle was the first, right?

00:14:48.460 But when he started Vanguard, Wall Street went out on the ultimate smear campaign for like a decade, suppressing everything about index funds, saying it's the stupidest thing.

00:14:57.840 Who wants to be average?

00:14:59.300 Dreyfus, which is a huge mutual fund company, said no fees, no way.

00:15:03.560 Like, actually, in the Wall Street Journal, full pages, like, if you don't, like, that was marketed to the people who were the gatekeepers to investors.

00:15:11.480 So, if they're not, because Vanguard doesn't pay fees, right?

00:15:14.820 So, if they don't pay you fees, don't put your clients in their funds.

00:15:18.020 Instead, put them in our high-commissioned funds, we'll pay you a lot of money.

00:15:21.060 So, for many, many years, Vanguard languished and was suppressed, right?

00:15:25.720 It finally got traction after the crash in 87.

00:15:28.960 For the first time, all of a sudden, you know, the mirage evaporated when everyone lost a lot of money.

00:15:33.320 And for the first time, Vanguard started to get a fair shake in the market.

00:15:37.200 And then, slowly but surely, they started to grow and grow.

00:15:39.900 And then, as the internet came about and the high-speed connections and platforms for direct communications with customers,

00:15:46.400 it suddenly became a mass exodus out of these, like, you know, sort of high-expense mutual funds, right?

00:15:52.460 Which, I think that, and Bogle saved the public probably a few hundred billion by now in fees.

00:15:57.100 Mutual funds were ripping people's eyeballs out forever.

00:16:00.740 Now, they still do crappy.

00:16:02.000 Their performance is crappy compared to the S&P 500.

00:16:04.720 But, for years and years, they're just ripping the public's eyeballs.

00:16:07.500 That was the most lucrative industry out there.

00:16:09.380 And Wall Street just spent, you know, countless hundreds of millions of advertising campaigns and whatnot, right,

00:16:14.880 to make people think this is the way to go.

00:16:17.780 So, your Merrill Lynch is bullish on those commercials, bullish on America, right?

00:16:21.820 Although, you know, T. Rowe Price, and I don't want to point the thing at any one of them, right?

00:16:26.220 But now, they all offer this ultra-low-cost index options,

00:16:30.540 which historically has outperformed people trying to pick individual stocks forever.

00:16:35.300 It just outperforms people because people are really crappy at picking stocks.

00:16:39.380 And also, you know, there's another part to it as well, right?

00:16:42.620 Just trying to time the market.

00:16:44.180 It plays into all our worst impulses.

00:16:46.840 So, like you said, right now, people are scared, right?

00:16:48.980 And, rightfully so.

00:16:49.840 The world seems to be on fire.

00:16:51.280 And, you know, I watch your podcast all the time, and it scares me sometimes.

00:16:54.820 It's a scary world, right?

00:16:56.500 So, you would think that, okay, the U.S. economy is laden with debt, right?

00:17:00.440 Which is true, right?

00:17:01.460 It's got fundamental problems.

00:17:02.780 China is going to take over the world, right?

00:17:04.580 Well, when I was, you know, just getting started, it was Japan taking over the world,

00:17:08.920 which turned to be a fallacy, and they had their own problems.

00:17:11.580 So, I don't know whether China is going to take over, be the biggest economy,

00:17:15.700 it's going to surpass the United States.

00:17:17.660 I don't know if the stock market is going to go up, down, sideways, or around in circles for the next five years.

00:17:22.380 I mean, how do you don't know?

00:17:23.580 Anyone who tells you they know that is lying to you.

00:17:25.940 So, to sit there and try to watch the news and trade against, like, what's happening in the economy

00:17:31.920 and what's happening in the world is a fool's errand.

00:17:34.840 You're not going to succeed like that, unless you're one of these rare individuals who's full-time as this unique gift.

00:17:42.200 So, but then again, though, look at all these massive companies that have been created in the last 20 years,

00:17:47.900 like, you know, Google, Meta, right?

00:17:50.400 These are huge companies, not Nvidia with artificial intelligence.

00:17:52.860 So, how do you get exposure to all that without having to pick the winners from the losers?

00:17:58.120 The answer is very simple.

00:17:59.340 You buy them all in one investment, which is the S&P 500,

00:18:04.180 and then you sit back and let time do the heavy lifting for you.

00:18:08.460 So, you don't have to watch Jim Cramer at all.

00:18:10.560 If you watch Jim Cramer for entertainment, if you like that kind of bloviating humor, good for you, right?

00:18:15.700 I personally don't like it.

00:18:17.180 The worst, even worse than that is if you watch Jim Cramer and you happen to opt in,

00:18:21.320 like, if you have to answer one of the emails on the website, they'll start barraging you with emails.

00:18:26.720 I did this as an experiment.

00:18:27.900 Like, I was like, you know, a guy that injects up with the virus to see how sick you get, right?

00:18:31.000 I actually opted into Cramer's, you know, little thing online,

00:18:34.060 and I started receiving a barrage of like 100 emails about join his special club.

00:18:39.320 He'll alert you to what stocks are going up and down in real time.

00:18:42.160 I mean, it's like, this is insanity, but this is a major network, right?

00:18:46.900 That's, you know, giving investors crappy advice.

00:18:50.880 Now, on the flip side, here's the weird part.

00:18:52.860 They also have good stuff on that network, like there's legitimate news, and that's the problem.

00:18:57.580 So, they mix in legitimate news, great reporting, interviews with great CEOs,

00:19:02.080 and you learn about the economy, what's going on in the world,

00:19:04.320 but they intersperse that with like this market-giving advice, and it's nonsense.

00:19:09.240 People can't beat the market, and I saw it play out with my brother-in-law,

00:19:13.900 many of my friends back in when the bubble burst in 2008,

00:19:17.400 and even worse, by the way, in 2000 with a dot-com bust, right?

00:19:21.180 So, every time the market busts out, all the bullshit gets exposed.

00:19:25.260 Of course.

00:19:25.800 All of a sudden, people thought they were expert day traders or expert market timers.

00:19:29.980 They were like basking in the globe, just an upmarket.

00:19:32.100 Like I say in the book, a rising tide lifts all ships, right?

00:19:35.320 And a falling tide, well, it lowers all ships, right?

00:19:37.520 So, you see the truth come out, as Warren Buffett says,

00:19:39.800 you know, until the tide goes out, you don't know who has no clothes on,

00:19:42.480 who's swimming naked, right?

00:19:43.320 So, you said at the outset that there are people who do succeed in the market

00:19:48.260 because they have inside information.

00:19:51.580 Right.

00:19:52.400 It feels like there's a lot of that.

00:19:53.820 There is.

00:19:54.480 Yeah.

00:19:54.920 How does that work?

00:19:56.400 So, I think there's different levels of it, right?

00:19:58.880 There's like the full-on criminal stuff, like you saw in the movie Wall Street

00:20:03.080 with Gordon Gekko, right?

00:20:04.220 Where like people are actually paying people in moles and stuff like that

00:20:07.660 to get, you know, information that's not public, paying off directors,

00:20:10.860 having inside links to the company or law firms that are doing deals, right?

00:20:15.080 That happens for sure.

00:20:16.260 And people do get in trouble from time to time and go to jail, right?

00:20:19.040 But Martha Stewart.

00:20:20.120 Right, exactly.

00:20:20.680 Right.

00:20:20.820 But she was like kind of, you know, a fall person.

00:20:22.860 She sure was.

00:20:23.820 Like, I mean, people did a lot worse than Martha Stewart, right?

00:20:26.260 I mean, why did they put her away?

00:20:27.880 You know, it's hard to say, but she's, you know, famous and she's a big target.

00:20:30.780 And, you know, it kind of sucks when you're famous in a big target and they want to come

00:20:34.120 get you, right?

00:20:34.940 Especially if some of your views aren't that popular, they want to come after you, right?

00:20:38.380 So, but that's sort of the cliched type of insider trading where they're just literally

00:20:42.720 buying and getting moles and that's highly illegal.

00:20:46.040 Then there's the softer side of it, which is where these big hedge funds have these

00:20:49.040 like analytical firms that are getting like research that's inside research.

00:20:53.100 So like, for example, they're like, I had a friend who was a very big short seller,

00:20:57.460 right?

00:20:58.260 And he actually had like people waiting outside of a warehouse, counting the number of trucks

00:21:02.380 that were leaving the warehouse and tried to like, you get it to see how they really

00:21:06.140 shipping the amount of goods to do is deep type of research, which sometimes crosses over

00:21:11.040 into inside information.

00:21:12.780 So what is the line?

00:21:14.220 I mean, you're allowed to be informed.

00:21:16.720 You're allowed to be informed, but theoretically, you should not be in possession of information

00:21:20.660 that is non-public.

00:21:22.220 Everyone's supposed to have access to the same information at the same time to make a fair market,

00:21:25.920 right?

00:21:27.920 And generally speaking, it's true for everybody, all the average investors, but there are

00:21:31.940 certainly people on Wall Street.

00:21:33.720 I mean, you'd be naive to think that, you know, an analyst that has special relationships

00:21:37.520 that's doing the investment banking deal.

00:21:39.440 So someone raises, you know, $500 million for a company.

00:21:42.000 You tell me the CEO and the owner of that firm are not like having little conversations,

00:21:46.280 little inklings here and there.

00:21:47.480 So I'm sure that's happening.

00:21:49.060 That's much more difficult to prove.

00:21:51.480 So it's, a lot of it is buried under like, you know, guidance and financial reports.

00:21:55.940 So they'll issue an analyst report, right?

00:21:58.060 And, you know, the analyst report will give sort of plausible deniability for why they think

00:22:02.040 a stock is going up or down, right?

00:22:03.840 But even then, I mean, I think that's difficult to prove, which is why you don't hear a lot

00:22:08.280 of those cases.

00:22:08.920 No, the SEC doesn't seem to bring many.

00:22:10.860 Well, the SEC, I have a whole history of the SEC in the book.

00:22:13.540 The SEC is a ridiculous organization.

00:22:15.760 So it was conceived, listen, the first chairman was Jack Kennedy, you know, or Joe Kennedy,

00:22:21.220 the original Wolf of Wall Street, right?

00:22:23.540 So like, you know, the bootlegger.

00:22:24.920 Yeah.

00:22:25.120 From the beginning, it was set up with a two-tiered system where the big firms basically were protected,

00:22:29.580 right?

00:22:29.900 And, you know, when they got in trouble, they did things so egregious that it was undeniably

00:22:34.000 egregious, they'd pay a small fine and move on, right?

00:22:36.540 Which is one like Goldman Sachs, for example, right?

00:22:39.020 Now, Goldman Sachs serves a vital function to the U.S. economy, and they're also behind

00:22:43.240 every great crime or the biggest crimes that are out there, including my movie.

00:22:46.920 That was, you know, the Wolf of Wall Street was financed by these Malaysians, right?

00:22:50.280 The 1MDB fund, that scandal, that was just coincidentally.

00:22:53.900 And who was the banker that paved the way for that?

00:22:56.440 Goldman Sachs.

00:22:57.660 Out of there, I think it was in Malaysia or Singapore office, a banker there that provided

00:23:01.320 the funding and, you know, got double or triple the normal fees for doing it.

00:23:05.400 And that money got siphoned off.

00:23:06.860 That's classic Wall Street.

00:23:08.400 So on one hand, they create massive value.

00:23:10.780 On the other hand, they rape and pillage the village.

00:23:13.900 And it's the average investor and the average person that bears the brunt of that.

00:23:17.660 The bailouts and subpar returns.

00:23:20.440 So...

00:23:20.940 Well, just to follow up on the Wall Street investment firm, I mean, information firms,

00:23:26.300 research.

00:23:26.880 Yeah.

00:23:28.340 I mean, everyone uses those, correct?

00:23:31.600 Hedge funds are very much using them.

00:23:33.860 So they got in trouble, though, in the past.

00:23:35.040 In some cases, they pay employees or former employees of companies to talk about what's

00:23:39.860 happening inside the company.

00:23:41.380 Right.

00:23:42.000 And that's very common.

00:23:43.140 Yes.

00:23:43.500 So that's seemingly obvious.

00:23:45.620 So how is that not insider trading?

00:23:47.220 I've always wondered.

00:23:47.740 Well, again, it's not...

00:23:49.120 If someone gives you an overall, you know, sense of what's going on, that's like nothing

00:23:52.480 that's not out in the public domain, but it's sort of like an insider's perspective versus

00:23:57.560 information on, like, are sales going down?

00:24:00.820 Is there a problem with manufacturing?

00:24:02.200 It's not public.

00:24:03.440 Right?

00:24:04.000 So that's when it crosses over the line.

00:24:06.200 And it's a gray area.

00:24:07.660 Right?

00:24:08.080 But it's very common in hedge funds to use these research firms that go out there and

00:24:12.340 get non-public information.

00:24:14.880 And there's a very fine line, like a drug trial.

00:24:17.000 There's a drug trial going on.

00:24:18.380 Like, you know, how do you know how the drug trial is performing?

00:24:20.880 Well, if you're...

00:24:21.620 Imagine calling up all the people or interviewing people that are in the drug trial and trying

00:24:24.480 to figure out yourself, or people that are intimately involved with administering

00:24:27.660 the placebo studies or double-blind studies.

00:24:30.100 They're all over that stuff.

00:24:31.200 It appears that members of Congress consistently beat the S&P 500 in their personal investment.

00:24:37.520 Nancy Pelosi.

00:24:38.600 And a lot of others.

00:24:40.040 Right.

00:24:40.280 Pelosi especially.

00:24:41.100 She's the famous one.

00:24:41.980 Yeah.

00:24:42.220 So how does that...

00:24:43.540 Is Nancy Pelosi, do you think, a stock-picking genius?

00:24:46.700 No, she has to be operating on information that's non-public or is it not...

00:24:50.700 Wouldn't that make her a criminal?

00:24:52.000 Yeah, but, you know, look at Joe Biden right now.

00:24:55.120 I mean, look what's going on right now.

00:24:56.800 Like, listen...

00:24:58.000 Do you think he's a good stock-picker?

00:24:59.720 Joe Biden?

00:25:00.160 No, I think he's great at laundering money, though.

00:25:02.120 Yeah, apparently.

00:25:03.360 From what I've seen right now, I don't get it.

00:25:05.900 Like, just imagine if it was Trump who was president.

00:25:08.240 Yeah.

00:25:08.700 Every single day in the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post,

00:25:12.040 and every other publication would be like, $40,000 check for $20,000 check from his brother.

00:25:17.440 Like, it'd be game over.

00:25:19.340 Cries for impeachment.

00:25:20.680 Oh, yeah.

00:25:20.960 It'd be like the world falling down.

00:25:22.720 He's in China's pocket.

00:25:24.260 But it's like we're living in an alternative universe right now where people in power,

00:25:29.000 especially on the left, right, can operate almost with impunity.

00:25:33.360 And Pelosi's a perfect example.

00:25:34.780 She's not the only one.

00:25:35.660 But it's inconceivable that someone could have that high a return on the mark when everyone else can't do it.

00:25:40.520 So what's the edge?

00:25:41.260 The edge is she knows key legislation.

00:25:43.880 And also, you know, maybe someone's whispering in her ear, okay, because, you know, they want to be on our good side, right?

00:25:50.100 So it's hard to prove, though.

00:25:52.140 But it's just prima facie, though.

00:25:53.220 So if what you're saying is true, and that is that the most sophisticated people in the world can't beat the S&P average,

00:26:02.060 then any member of Congress, and I think they are, on average, dumber than the population.

00:26:07.380 Especially the career politicians.

00:26:08.620 For sure.

00:26:09.180 Yeah.

00:26:09.940 There's no possibility they could do that without inside information.

00:26:12.740 No.

00:26:13.320 It's not possible.

00:26:14.140 But, again, so how do you go proving that, right?

00:26:17.240 They have the issue of subpoenas, and, listen, I think that in this case, the solution is they shouldn't be allowed to trade these people.

00:26:23.220 Yes.

00:26:23.580 They should not be allowed to trade.

00:26:24.880 It's insane that they're allowed to.

00:26:27.020 And, you know, as you said, it's prima facie, right?

00:26:29.640 You know, if it looks like shit, smells like shit, well, guess what?

00:26:32.060 Yeah.

00:26:32.380 It's shit.

00:26:32.860 Then that's, you know, or it's bullshit in this case, right?

00:26:35.040 So, listen, she's done incredibly well in an area where, like, the most professional investors struggle to even match the index.

00:26:45.020 So somehow she's doing three times as well.

00:26:47.000 I don't know.

00:26:48.200 Why has no one ever taken that seriously?

00:26:50.340 I mean, this is like a feature of Internet memes, but I don't know.

00:26:54.120 I mean, don't we have an SEC to look into that?

00:26:56.580 I mean, what?

00:26:56.880 SEC is not going to look into that sort of stuff because they don't want to make an enemy because they're funded.

00:27:01.140 Who funds them?

00:27:01.740 You know, they're funded by Congress.

00:27:02.860 The budget's tied to Congress, right?

00:27:04.280 There's a committee.

00:27:05.280 It's the Financial Services Committee, right?

00:27:07.860 So that funds the SEC.

00:27:09.300 But how does it make you feel?

00:27:10.240 I mean, you got in a lot of trouble for fraud.

00:27:12.240 But I deserved it.

00:27:13.200 So, like, I...

00:27:13.800 Right, but so do they.

00:27:14.800 Yeah, I know.

00:27:15.160 But, like, I never...

00:27:16.540 One thing...

00:27:17.200 Listen, I admit that after 2008, I got a little bit bitter.

00:27:20.920 I was like, you know what?

00:27:21.640 These people have bankrupted the world economy.

00:27:23.900 And no one went to jail, basically.

00:27:25.560 Someone in Germany went to jail.

00:27:27.500 Right?

00:27:27.680 So I was a little...

00:27:28.760 I said, you know what?

00:27:29.220 That's not really fair.

00:27:30.240 But, you know, I don't think it's, you know, an empowering way to live to say just because, you know, I went to jail, other people should go too.

00:27:37.740 I think jail is a terrible place, right?

00:27:39.320 And, you know, I did my time.

00:27:41.800 And I made the best that I wrote my first book in jail, right?

00:27:45.020 Which turned out to be a great thing.

00:27:46.200 But, you know, I learned from that.

00:27:47.580 But I don't then wish it on other people.

00:27:49.660 I mean, a lot of people go to jail.

00:27:51.600 A few write books.

00:27:52.520 How did you do that?

00:27:54.700 It's a great story.

00:27:55.460 So, believe it or not, when I go to jail, right?

00:27:57.940 How old are you?

00:28:00.640 I was 41 years old.

00:28:02.480 42.

00:28:03.280 It's a terrible time to go to jail, right?

00:28:05.080 I lost everything, right?

00:28:07.320 Two kids?

00:28:08.160 Two kids at the time, yeah.

00:28:09.340 Which was breaking the news to them was the most heartbreaking thing ever.

00:28:13.180 I mean, like, literally, it was like too much crying.

00:28:15.520 And I still get emotional about it, right?

00:28:17.200 I bet.

00:28:17.480 And I had to tell them, like, you know, daddy made mistakes.

00:28:21.440 And now he's hysterical.

00:28:23.380 They were 11 and 9 at the time, right?

00:28:25.520 So, I go to jail.

00:28:27.200 And it's not the worst jail in the world.

00:28:28.440 I'm not worried about slipping in the shower.

00:28:30.020 So, it's like a minimum security.

00:28:31.340 But jail sucks, right?

00:28:32.420 Who's my bunkmate?

00:28:33.760 Tommy Chong from Cheech and Chong.

00:28:36.140 What was he doing there?

00:28:37.060 So, he's there for selling, not marijuana, but bongs.

00:28:40.960 Bongs.

00:28:41.540 It was the most ridiculous thing ever.

00:28:43.660 So, he's doing a year and a day, a year and a day, for selling bongs.

00:28:47.440 I'm like, shit.

00:28:48.140 He's doing a year and a day for bongs.

00:28:49.500 I should probably get 3,000 years for bongs.

00:28:51.960 How long were you serving?

00:28:53.560 I'm 22 months.

00:28:54.660 Yeah.

00:28:54.860 Right?

00:28:55.300 So, he's there for a year and a day.

00:28:56.900 And, you know, the first few days, you know, there's not much to just tell each other stories.

00:29:00.360 And I'm telling him stories about my life, the insanity.

00:29:02.700 Did you know who he was?

00:29:03.780 Of course.

00:29:04.140 Yeah.

00:29:04.240 They put us together.

00:29:04.860 We shared ourselves.

00:29:06.160 Yeah.

00:29:06.540 Because they were both high profile.

00:29:07.740 So, they just put us together.

00:29:08.700 Right?

00:29:09.360 So, they could watch us both at once.

00:29:10.800 Right?

00:29:11.060 So, in jail, as in normal life, all the famous people know each other.

00:29:14.080 Basically.

00:29:14.600 Right?

00:29:15.220 So, he's a great guy.

00:29:16.940 And he was writing a book at the time.

00:29:18.820 And I'm telling him stories.

00:29:19.880 And he's just rolling.

00:29:21.100 He's laughing hysterically every night.

00:29:23.020 Right?

00:29:23.480 And the third night, he's like, you know, I thought you were making this shit up.

00:29:26.540 But my wife Googled you.

00:29:28.060 And it's, like, all true.

00:29:29.420 In fact, your assistant knows you from the part of my father from back in the day.

00:29:33.620 He was a friend of mine.

00:29:34.380 Right?

00:29:34.740 He's like, you actually psyched the boat.

00:29:36.580 You crashed these cars.

00:29:37.500 You did all this insane.

00:29:38.520 You made all this money and all these drugs.

00:29:40.600 He goes, you have to write a book.

00:29:42.300 And I'm like, really?

00:29:44.100 You think my life's exciting?

00:29:45.580 Like, because it's your life.

00:29:46.740 No matter how crazy your life is, it's yours.

00:29:48.460 Because you don't think, right?

00:29:49.500 You think it's just normal.

00:29:50.500 I'm like, he's like, I'm Tommy Chong.

00:29:52.420 I think your life is just insane.

00:29:55.000 Because write a book.

00:29:55.800 So, I started trying to write.

00:29:57.260 And I was a terrible writer.

00:29:58.580 Terrible.

00:29:58.800 I couldn't write anything.

00:29:59.400 I'd never written before like that.

00:30:00.640 You know?

00:30:01.120 So, after like a month, I'm like, oh, this is just not working.

00:30:03.600 I go to the prison library.

00:30:04.620 And I stumble upon a book called Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe.

00:30:08.480 Of course.

00:30:09.020 I pick up this book.

00:30:10.420 And I'm like, oh, my God.

00:30:12.840 I want to write like this.

00:30:14.760 So, I plowed through the book.

00:30:16.340 And then I started with the yellow highlighter.

00:30:17.940 And I used this book like a textbook.

00:30:20.100 And I taught myself to write by modeling Tom Wolfe.

00:30:23.920 So, it's like I had a model now.

00:30:25.200 And I spent about three months, just every, I mean, every metaphor, how he used grammar,

00:30:28.980 how he described locations, how he used conflict.

00:30:31.360 And I really started to see my writing dramatically improve.

00:30:35.100 So, I wrote about 100 pages when I was in jail.

00:30:38.860 And then I ripped them up.

00:30:40.420 I didn't think they were good enough.

00:30:41.320 I got out of jail with no pages.

00:30:42.780 But I had a skill now.

00:30:43.900 Right?

00:30:44.420 So, when I got out, I was like, you know, I don't know what to do with my life.

00:30:47.820 And I was like, maybe I'll just start trying to write again.

00:30:49.840 Right?

00:30:50.380 So, I wrote about 12 pages.

00:30:51.920 And I'm like, wow, I think those are really good.

00:30:53.800 I thought they were pretty good.

00:30:54.780 And I hate my own writing always.

00:30:56.000 Right?

00:30:56.180 It's like when you write, it's very, like you always hate what you write.

00:30:58.620 Right?

00:30:58.780 So, I'm like, I think this is pretty good.

00:31:00.540 I sent them to a few friends.

00:31:01.580 And they're like laughing.

00:31:02.700 Like, oh my God, it's the funny.

00:31:04.060 I'm like, really?

00:31:05.020 So, I sent it to a book agent.

00:31:06.540 I knew very casually.

00:31:07.420 Just a casual friend.

00:31:08.420 Right?

00:31:09.220 So, I called and said, I want to, you know, write a book.

00:31:11.460 He goes, oh, great.

00:31:11.940 Let's get you a ghostwriter.

00:31:12.880 I said, well, I want to write myself.

00:31:14.060 He goes, can you write?

00:31:14.820 I'm like, I'll send you the pages.

00:31:16.180 I sent him 12 pages.

00:31:17.720 Next day, he calls me back.

00:31:18.980 He goes, did you pay Tom Wolfe to write those pages?

00:31:22.000 It was that close to Tom Wolfe's voice.

00:31:24.420 My first draft.

00:31:25.460 Right?

00:31:26.080 I'm like, no, no.

00:31:26.620 I wrote it myself.

00:31:27.180 He's like, it's really good.

00:31:28.540 He goes, like, write 10 more pages.

00:31:30.440 So, I said, all right.

00:31:30.940 So, it took me a week to write 10 more pages.

00:31:33.040 I wrote another 10 pages.

00:31:34.460 I sent him the pages.

00:31:35.380 15 minutes later.

00:31:36.120 He calls.

00:31:36.460 She goes, stop everything you're doing.

00:31:38.960 You have no idea what's about to happen to your life.

00:31:41.020 This book is going to be a master head.

00:31:42.980 Master.

00:31:43.300 I'm going to get a movie made about this.

00:31:44.900 We're going to get Leo DiCaprio to play you.

00:31:46.720 Right?

00:31:47.020 I mean, right from the start.

00:31:48.860 Right?

00:31:49.140 I was like, I thought he was delusional.

00:31:50.720 Right?

00:31:51.120 But I didn't have much going on back then.

00:31:52.700 Right?

00:31:52.860 So, I was like, screw it.

00:31:53.700 So, I holed up.

00:31:55.120 And, literally, I had a little tiny apartment.

00:31:57.080 And, I spent one year, just like doing 18 hours a day,

00:32:00.740 writing the book, The Wolf of Wall Street.

00:32:02.780 Right?

00:32:03.300 About, on page 60, he took it down to Random House.

00:32:06.020 We bought the book.

00:32:07.100 And, I got a nice advance.

00:32:08.140 So, I could at least live.

00:32:09.020 Right?

00:32:09.540 And, then, when the book was finished, about a year later,

00:32:11.480 it went through seven edits because I overrode it.

00:32:13.320 Got it from 1,000 pages down to 500 pages.

00:32:16.300 And, then, when it was still a manuscript,

00:32:17.840 it became a bidding war between Brad Pitt and Leo DiCaprio.

00:32:21.660 Yeah.

00:32:21.980 It wasn't even a book yet.

00:32:23.460 I know.

00:32:23.780 It was crazy.

00:32:24.300 Right?

00:32:24.800 And, then, you know, Leo brought in Scorsese.

00:32:26.580 Now, we love Leo.

00:32:27.200 So, I sold to Leo and Scorsese after a nice bidding war.

00:32:31.300 And, so began, you know, the story of The Wolf of Wall Street.

00:32:34.660 What happened with the movie?

00:32:35.660 And, then, there was a delay, by the way, for five years.

00:32:37.840 Because, that was 2007.

00:32:39.400 And, then, the writer strike hit.

00:32:41.080 And, it got delayed.

00:32:42.600 Which, ended up being a great thing.

00:32:44.060 And, this is really empowering for all the listeners.

00:32:45.820 I'll tell you why.

00:32:46.340 Because, when they wrote the script, when the script was done,

00:32:49.580 by a guy named Terry Winter, who adopted the book.

00:32:51.740 He did an incredible job.

00:32:52.940 The first draft of the script was amazing.

00:32:54.240 Right?

00:32:54.840 But, it ended with me in jail.

00:32:56.660 Not because I went to jail and got out.

00:32:58.260 Right?

00:32:58.420 And, that was the ending of the movie.

00:32:59.800 Of the script.

00:33:00.300 Right?

00:33:00.900 There was this delay, then, for four years after the writer strike.

00:33:04.240 And, during those four years, I got very wealthy again,

00:33:06.720 going out there and speaking and training entrepreneurs

00:33:08.920 and teaching sales.

00:33:09.980 Right?

00:33:10.440 So, finally, four years later, when Leo called me,

00:33:12.540 because we're ready to go, he came back to my new house.

00:33:14.820 I was living in a mansion on the water.

00:33:16.040 He's like, what the hell happened to you?

00:33:17.540 Like, in four years.

00:33:18.260 I was in a tiny apartment, now into a very nice house again.

00:33:21.240 And, like, oh, I do this stuff around the world.

00:33:22.860 And, when I showed him my clips from live on stage,

00:33:25.760 and he's like, wait till Marty sees this.

00:33:28.220 He's going to go crazy.

00:33:28.880 They rewrote the third act of the movie and made it a comeback story.

00:33:32.580 Amazing.

00:33:33.060 So, that, yes, I kind of rewrote my life story.

00:33:34.820 When were you happier at the peak of your success,

00:33:39.320 pre-conviction, or on the comeback?

00:33:42.140 Comeback.

00:33:42.880 I was never happy before.

00:33:44.300 Why?

00:33:44.980 Number one, I was in massive drug addiction.

00:33:47.240 Yeah.

00:33:47.500 Like, I'm literally massive drug addiction.

00:33:49.660 What were you using?

00:33:50.420 Quaaludes and cocaine.

00:33:51.840 Quaaludes?

00:33:52.320 Quaaludes, yeah.

00:33:52.780 Is this the 70s?

00:33:53.940 70s.

00:33:54.400 Oh, yeah.

00:33:55.140 Where did you get Quaaludes?

00:33:56.740 I'll tell you how.

00:33:57.300 So, when I got really wealthy, you know,

00:33:59.380 they made them illegal in the United States.

00:34:00.840 Yeah.

00:34:01.160 They go a long time ago.

00:34:02.120 But, but, in Switzerland, and Italy, and Spain,

00:34:06.820 we were going country to country,

00:34:08.860 and, like, buying out the pharmacies of all the foods from overseas,

00:34:11.940 and bringing them back into the United States.

00:34:13.620 Just, not to sell them, just to take them.

00:34:15.240 Just to eat them all.

00:34:15.940 We weren't dealing with them.

00:34:16.520 Just consuming massive quantities of these Quaaludes, right?

00:34:19.020 And I got so wildly, I mean, I was taking about 10, 12 a day.

00:34:23.680 You get very difficult.

00:34:24.500 Yeah, yeah.

00:34:25.000 And, like, one of them would knock out a 200-pound Navy SEAL for eight hours.

00:34:28.300 I would take four and walk around.

00:34:29.880 So, what was the appeal of that?

00:34:32.640 You know, euphoria.

00:34:35.340 It's incredibly euphoric.

00:34:37.120 You get this, like, first, you get this tingle phase,

00:34:39.820 and then you get, like, the slurs, and the happy drool phase.

00:34:44.620 Anyway, it's incredibly euphoric.

00:34:46.720 And then I said, well,

00:34:47.420 What's the drool phase like?

00:34:48.540 The drool phase is when you're drooling as you're talking,

00:34:50.780 but you're like, well, drooling's not a big deal.

00:34:52.360 Baby's drool.

00:34:53.100 I drool.

00:34:53.500 You know?

00:34:53.960 And when you're slurring, you're like,

00:34:54.760 baby's slow, right?

00:34:55.560 He's always a justification.

00:34:56.980 But then the problem is,

00:34:57.840 is the fourth phase is unconscious.

00:34:59.040 Baby's drool.

00:35:01.020 That's great.

00:35:02.200 That's the best justification.

00:35:03.700 Phase four, though, is unconsciousness,

00:35:06.120 which is a problem.

00:35:07.140 So, what do you do then?

00:35:08.220 Well, a responsible drug act will then take cocaine

00:35:10.340 to make sure you don't go through the course, right?

00:35:11.920 So, I started to balance it out.

00:35:13.360 The yin and the yang.

00:35:14.280 Come on.

00:35:14.860 Cocaine, which is great.

00:35:16.120 Works great.

00:35:16.640 The problem is cocaine makes you anxious.

00:35:18.260 So, I needed Xanax to get rid of the anxiety, right?

00:35:21.200 So, I would take Xanax to call the anxiety,

00:35:23.320 but then I still need something to kick me over the edge

00:35:24.980 with sleeping.

00:35:25.820 So, I took some ambient to sleep,

00:35:27.080 and then some morphing for the pain I had.

00:35:29.120 And before I knew it,

00:35:29.900 I was taking 22 drugs at the same time.

00:35:32.080 It was like a human Petri dish, right?

00:35:33.960 And I was just incredibly high all the time.

00:35:36.720 You're lucky you didn't die.

00:35:37.880 I know.

00:35:38.280 I'm very lucky.

00:35:39.460 I know.

00:35:39.820 I don't, you know,

00:35:40.480 I always wonder why I didn't have any permanent damage.

00:35:44.140 Yeah.

00:35:44.420 I think most of them was not a big drinker.

00:35:47.180 I think alcohol is like that wild card.

00:35:49.600 Alcohol and Quaaludes would kill you.

00:35:50.620 Yeah.

00:35:50.860 It's a wild card.

00:35:51.760 It's like gasoline on the fire.

00:35:53.840 So, I was very fortunate.

00:35:55.920 I got sober in 97.

00:35:57.560 How?

00:35:58.420 Went to rehab.

00:35:59.600 I went to rehab.

00:36:00.300 I got sober.

00:36:00.520 What's withdrawal like from Quaaludes?

00:36:02.460 Not bad.

00:36:03.000 It wasn't that bad.

00:36:03.980 You know,

00:36:04.220 for me,

00:36:05.000 it wasn't so much withdrawal was the problem.

00:36:07.060 It was more like just,

00:36:08.040 I needed like an adult time out.

00:36:09.540 I was so done with it.

00:36:10.960 Like,

00:36:11.100 I think,

00:36:11.440 you know,

00:36:11.660 people can get sober in rehab.

00:36:13.680 People can get sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous,

00:36:16.420 right?

00:36:16.880 You can get sober anywhere,

00:36:17.800 but you have to be ready to get sober.

00:36:19.640 Yeah.

00:36:19.780 If you're not ready,

00:36:21.040 right,

00:36:21.360 you could be in the world's greatest rehab and you'll just relapse.

00:36:23.820 You'll run it.

00:36:24.180 You'll climb over the wall.

00:36:25.260 As soon as you got,

00:36:25.700 you'll use again.

00:36:26.160 I was done.

00:36:27.900 Like my life was so out of control.

00:36:30.340 I had my kids who were starting to get older now to four and five years old.

00:36:33.820 So I was like,

00:36:34.620 I got to end this.

00:36:35.800 So I know I was very happy to stop using drugs,

00:36:38.700 right?

00:36:39.140 So that was in 97.

00:36:41.120 I had a problem in 2009 where I had some terrible run of like five surgeries in this shoulder

00:36:46.980 and five soldiers in this shoulder.

00:36:48.940 I had really bad,

00:36:49.740 bad back,

00:36:50.320 the whole thing.

00:36:50.920 So I was taking Vicodin from the doctor,

00:36:53.180 from the doctor,

00:36:54.400 right?

00:36:54.580 And then I got off of that and went on something called Suboxone.

00:36:57.980 Oh,

00:36:58.280 of course,

00:36:58.660 which is a disaster in its own right.

00:37:00.020 But I could function.

00:37:01.020 And then I find it.

00:37:01.680 I will gain,

00:37:03.100 you know,

00:37:03.260 I booking.

00:37:03.760 Yeah.

00:37:04.100 And I got completely that.

00:37:05.600 How did that work?

00:37:07.020 Well,

00:37:07.300 you know,

00:37:07.600 I was on this low dose of Suboxone for like 10 years and it didn't affect me,

00:37:12.360 but it's like,

00:37:13.280 it's just not who wants.

00:37:14.700 Why did they do that?

00:37:15.980 Because the pharmaceutical companies make a fortune with it.

00:37:18.160 So they get everyone addicted to opioids.

00:37:20.160 Can you explain?

00:37:20.840 Yeah.

00:37:21.020 What that Suboxone?

00:37:22.120 So Suboxone,

00:37:22.960 so what happens is with the opioid crisis,

00:37:25.060 right?

00:37:25.260 Everyone's taking Oxycontin and Percodin and Percocet and Vicodin and all these,

00:37:30.360 right?

00:37:30.660 And they're giving them out like they're candy all over the place,

00:37:32.740 right?

00:37:33.220 So there's this massive opioid crisis,

00:37:34.820 right?

00:37:35.360 When they realized that especially Oxycontin and fentanyl was so addictive

00:37:39.180 and people were dying,

00:37:40.840 they said,

00:37:41.040 we have to have a solution.

00:37:41.920 So they put people on something called Suboxone.

00:37:45.080 Suboxone is what they call a partial opioid agonist,

00:37:48.320 meaning it binds to similar receptors,

00:37:50.540 but it doesn't really get you high.

00:37:52.800 And you can't really,

00:37:53.580 it's very hard to overdose on it.

00:37:55.020 It's like the modern methadone.

00:37:56.640 Exactly.

00:37:57.180 It's exactly what it is,

00:37:58.120 right?

00:37:58.280 So it's much more long acting and you could be on it and no one knows you're on it,

00:38:01.960 but in your mouth,

00:38:02.780 maybe a little bit drier and so forth.

00:38:04.420 You're a little bit tired at night,

00:38:05.700 but generally speaking,

00:38:06.680 if you're really careful,

00:38:08.280 then you know,

00:38:09.000 you can live on that.

00:38:10.160 And it's not the worst thing in the world.

00:38:11.780 Far better than-

00:38:12.320 Does it affect your cognitive ability?

00:38:14.360 Not at a very low dose,

00:38:15.640 but the problem is most people don't stay at a low dose.

00:38:17.740 They go up and they go up because they get a little bit of a high from it.

00:38:20.300 So they abuse Suboxone and it's like a life sentence.

00:38:23.500 And it's like,

00:38:24.060 you're not good for your liver.

00:38:25.600 You're taking an opioid,

00:38:26.960 right?

00:38:27.220 Yeah.

00:38:27.560 So I was on that for a long time at a very low dose and finally saying,

00:38:30.480 you know what?

00:38:30.780 I'm just,

00:38:31.480 I want to be up.

00:38:32.180 I don't want anything in my system.

00:38:33.500 So I went and did Ibogaine in Mexico,

00:38:35.520 in Cancun,

00:38:36.620 which everyone,

00:38:37.600 you know,

00:38:37.840 heard of Ibogaine.

00:38:38.660 Ibogaine is a naturally occurring plant,

00:38:41.080 right?

00:38:41.200 Africa.

00:38:42.040 Hallucinogen.

00:38:42.560 It's a very powerful hallucinogen.

00:38:44.560 But for some reason it binds to the same opioid receptors as,

00:38:48.600 as a,

00:38:49.280 as morphine,

00:38:50.120 right?

00:38:50.480 And,

00:38:50.660 um,

00:38:51.080 you know,

00:38:51.360 Vicodin,

00:38:51.760 right?

00:38:52.220 And it resets them.

00:38:53.360 So there's this weird thing.

00:38:54.260 It resets you.

00:38:55.120 It brings you back to pre addiction.

00:38:56.800 So when you're done with this 12 hour nasty,

00:38:59.220 I mean,

00:38:59.760 this trip is scary.

00:39:00.480 I talk,

00:39:01.060 right?

00:39:01.160 What happens?

00:39:01.960 It's not fun.

00:39:02.700 I'm like,

00:39:02.880 I'm see you do it.

00:39:04.040 I did it in a clinic in,

00:39:06.100 in Cancun called beyond,

00:39:07.500 which is a girl.

00:39:08.100 I mean,

00:39:08.200 I'd recommend this place to anybody.

00:39:09.440 It was amazing.

00:39:09.820 And they really did an amazing job.

00:39:11.620 Very safe.

00:39:12.340 Very old doctors,

00:39:13.260 supervise.

00:39:13.740 You always hooked up to a heart machine.

00:39:15.500 Cause it can be taught on your heart.

00:39:16.820 Right.

00:39:17.600 And,

00:39:18.040 um,

00:39:18.600 and they really like support you emotionally.

00:39:20.460 Right.

00:39:21.160 And when I did this to play,

00:39:22.440 but what happens?

00:39:23.360 So you take it,

00:39:23.880 I didn't show a guy tripped the scariest,

00:39:25.860 ugliest,

00:39:26.260 like terrible trip.

00:39:27.840 But like I was so,

00:39:28.520 I was petrified before I started by like,

00:39:30.420 cause you hear all these horror stories about Ibogaine,

00:39:32.780 right?

00:39:32.960 Well,

00:39:33.060 like you're seeing your,

00:39:33.680 you know,

00:39:34.100 dead people talking to you and your father's talking to you from the back,

00:39:36.660 you know,

00:39:36.840 my father's passed away.

00:39:37.580 Right.

00:39:38.040 So you see all these visions and stuff and you hear a lot of noises and like bugs.

00:39:41.900 It's terrible.

00:39:43.120 Um,

00:39:43.460 and was it as bad as you thought?

00:39:44.960 It was pretty bad.

00:39:46.160 It was,

00:39:46.540 I was so,

00:39:47.100 I was petrified.

00:39:47.860 I'll admit it.

00:39:48.560 I was petrified.

00:39:48.980 The whole time?

00:39:50.260 The first six hours is brutal.

00:39:51.620 The second six hours is you're like,

00:39:52.900 get me out of this room.

00:39:53.920 I want to like,

00:39:54.520 you're like diaper boy.

00:39:55.320 You want to do a primal scream.

00:39:56.820 Right.

00:39:57.220 But,

00:39:57.920 but what I did feel,

00:39:59.920 no,

00:40:00.100 no,

00:40:00.240 it's scary as shit.

00:40:03.080 All right.

00:40:03.320 I'm telling you,

00:40:03.920 it is not fun at all.

00:40:05.960 Right.

00:40:06.540 But I did feel it like burning out my wrist.

00:40:09.520 I can feel it.

00:40:10.280 My brain working.

00:40:11.140 Like I knew it,

00:40:11.960 like I knew as it was happening,

00:40:13.120 like I'm done with it.

00:40:13.800 Like I'm not going to need this stuff anymore.

00:40:15.280 Right.

00:40:15.880 So anyway,

00:40:17.080 so after it was over and like I recovered,

00:40:18.940 like that,

00:40:19.360 you know,

00:40:19.480 12 hours,

00:40:19.960 I got out.

00:40:20.720 I never did another,

00:40:22.260 you know,

00:40:22.800 um,

00:40:23.600 any morphine or any narcotics ever again.

00:40:25.600 That was it.

00:40:26.020 It was done.

00:40:26.880 Amazing.

00:40:27.320 Yeah.

00:40:27.520 It resets your receptors.

00:40:28.720 Did it affect you in any other ways?

00:40:30.880 Um,

00:40:31.260 you know,

00:40:31.560 some people,

00:40:32.340 I think have more,

00:40:33.300 more of a spiritual journey.

00:40:35.300 Um,

00:40:35.860 cause it's great for PTSD as well,

00:40:37.540 like for veterans.

00:40:38.120 Right.

00:40:38.320 So right now they're trying to fund studies for veterans.

00:40:40.180 It was very helpful with PTSD.

00:40:41.860 Right.

00:40:42.540 I didn't think it made that many changes in me.

00:40:45.040 I was in a pretty good place when I went in there.

00:40:47.460 I just literally had a physical,

00:40:49.060 like a physical addiction that if I didn't take this stupid drug,

00:40:52.240 I'd get uncomfortable.

00:40:53.320 And I didn't want to have that.

00:40:54.260 Like I'm traveling all the time.

00:40:55.360 Right.

00:40:55.840 So for me,

00:40:56.560 you know,

00:40:56.800 I didn't feel like I made any profound changes other than that,

00:40:59.840 you know,

00:40:59.980 for the first 45 days I had to learn to be like completely sober again.

00:41:03.880 And so it was even though I had no physical,

00:41:05.220 uh,

00:41:06.320 withdrawals,

00:41:06.980 I had some post-acute like mental,

00:41:08.780 I just didn't feel great.

00:41:10.600 But then after like 45 days and suddenly all the clouds lifted and I,

00:41:14.960 you know,

00:41:15.220 felt terrific again.

00:41:16.280 So it was an amazing gift that I gave myself and I would,

00:41:19.080 I would strongly recommend this to anybody who's suffering from,

00:41:21.720 you know,

00:41:22.060 opioid addiction right now.

00:41:23.380 It's certainly a better solution than Suboxone.

00:41:26.520 And,

00:41:26.840 um,

00:41:27.620 and you know,

00:41:28.040 for me it was,

00:41:28.520 it was life changing.

00:41:29.460 So it's great.

00:41:30.120 And so you've never been tempted to go back to anything ever again.

00:41:33.040 No,

00:41:33.880 never.

00:41:34.580 No.

00:41:35.140 But I mean,

00:41:35.540 I wasn't even,

00:41:36.820 see the thing was I wasn't using Suboxone to get high.

00:41:39.800 It was,

00:41:40.340 it was just a maintenance thing because I got addicted to these damn

00:41:43.440 painkillers when I,

00:41:44.340 after my surgeries.

00:41:45.000 Right.

00:41:45.480 So I was using it at a dose.

00:41:47.260 It wasn't like I was trying to get high.

00:41:49.220 So I guess if someone was like reluctantly put on Suboxone because they

00:41:53.140 were like a drug act and it was,

00:41:54.360 you know,

00:41:54.460 they just,

00:41:54.840 they had to because their life was so out of control.

00:41:57.680 Um,

00:41:57.920 I guess they'd have to probably work through some therapy as well.

00:42:00.120 afterwards.

00:42:00.620 But you know,

00:42:01.180 I think that it's really helpful for that too.

00:42:03.340 In other words,

00:42:03.720 some people that go through Ibogaine when they,

00:42:05.840 when they emerge,

00:42:06.440 they're like,

00:42:06.760 they get this new perspective on their life.

00:42:09.160 And why would I ever want to use opioids again?

00:42:11.200 It's like disgusting and terrible.

00:42:12.840 So,

00:42:13.640 um,

00:42:14.400 but it is incredibly powerful.

00:42:16.240 Like it is not,

00:42:17.320 no joke.

00:42:18.480 It is no joke.

00:42:19.340 Like I've tried ketamine,

00:42:20.340 you know,

00:42:20.860 like it's a great thing for that use ketamine now to expand your brain.

00:42:23.560 I've tried other hallucinogens.

00:42:25.220 I've tried mushrooms,

00:42:26.100 right.

00:42:26.740 You know,

00:42:27.360 Ibogaine is in a class of itself.

00:42:29.100 It's like not like no one would ever abuse Ibogaine.

00:42:31.520 You know,

00:42:31.720 you know,

00:42:32.480 like you're not doing Ibogaine.

00:42:33.560 Let's have a fun trip on Ibogaine.

00:42:34.760 It's like,

00:42:34.980 no,

00:42:35.320 it's like,

00:42:35.620 you know,

00:42:35.820 it's like,

00:42:36.080 let's go to the crazy house and like,

00:42:37.860 you know,

00:42:38.060 hold on for dear life for 12 hours.

00:42:39.760 And,

00:42:40.040 and then all your addictions are gone.

00:42:41.960 And it really,

00:42:43.080 it works.

00:42:43.860 It actually works.

00:42:44.720 That is wild.

00:42:45.900 Do you keep in touch with anyone you were on wall street with?

00:42:50.320 I do.

00:42:50.640 Yeah.

00:42:50.800 I still keep in touch with some people from time to time.

00:42:53.340 I speak to the,

00:42:54.160 you know,

00:42:54.480 Danny,

00:42:54.880 the Jonah Hill character,

00:42:56.640 other people that might mostly people that were my good friends before.

00:42:59.700 Yeah.

00:42:59.900 I still speak to,

00:43:01.020 you know,

00:43:01.240 but a lot of people were like,

00:43:02.740 you know,

00:43:02.860 we employed about 4,000 people at Stratton over the years,

00:43:05.900 probably more at five or 6,000 people.

00:43:07.680 And a lot of them,

00:43:08.620 you know,

00:43:08.800 they come and go,

00:43:09.420 I run into him from time to time,

00:43:10.800 but you know,

00:43:11.600 my new life is very different.

00:43:13.220 So for the last,

00:43:14.000 you know,

00:43:14.140 since 2009,

00:43:16.440 right.

00:43:16.700 I've been out there coaching and,

00:43:18.680 you know,

00:43:18.860 mentoring entrepreneurs and on how to build businesses and how to do sales and

00:43:22.960 increase their,

00:43:23.840 you know,

00:43:23.980 marketing capabilities.

00:43:24.900 Right.

00:43:25.540 And I never talked about wall street.

00:43:27.620 Never.

00:43:28.140 Like I never wrote a book and that was really my core competency.

00:43:31.000 Right.

00:43:31.840 And what really made me do is honestly,

00:43:34.100 it was my brother-in-law when I,

00:43:35.620 when I kind of just saw him like just getting whipsawed.

00:43:37.920 I'm like,

00:43:38.200 you know what,

00:43:38.980 if there's two sides to,

00:43:39.980 I think to retiring and being wealthy or at least comfortable.

00:43:43.100 One is you want to make money when you're in your working years,

00:43:46.300 right?

00:43:46.540 So that's,

00:43:46.920 we all have to do that.

00:43:47.580 And you want to make as much money as you can,

00:43:49.220 hopefully doing something you like.

00:43:50.340 That's part of the equation,

00:43:51.500 right?

00:43:52.100 The next part is what do you do with the money that you can save from,

00:43:55.420 from all the hard work?

00:43:56.660 How do you put that money to work in a,

00:43:59.200 in a very safe,

00:44:00.560 responsible way?

00:44:01.380 That's going to outpace inflation significantly.

00:44:04.360 That's going to compound and allow you when you're ready to retire,

00:44:07.220 have an amazing life.

00:44:08.400 I believe that people deserve that.

00:44:11.020 So I look at this book as it's a gift.

00:44:13.200 If you read this book,

00:44:13.920 really,

00:44:14.360 it's such,

00:44:14.620 it's a,

00:44:15.080 it's like a blueprint and it's really simple.

00:44:17.580 It's like not that complicated,

00:44:18.900 but you know,

00:44:20.000 I,

00:44:20.260 I knew that if I wrote the book in a dry way,

00:44:23.160 people would not read it.

00:44:24.120 So I wrote in a very funny and more story.

00:44:26.360 So it'd be really engaging.

00:44:27.500 But as you go through that,

00:44:29.760 you get this,

00:44:30.800 what I consider it to be a turn key formula for a portfolio.

00:44:34.460 It's like,

00:44:34.720 can I ask a dumb question?

00:44:36.220 So the S and P 500 is 500 stocks,

00:44:39.560 right?

00:44:40.540 But they're not all in the same tier at all.

00:44:45.220 I mean,

00:44:45.460 they're thriving,

00:44:47.200 emerging companies churning out a lot of profit.

00:44:50.300 And then there are a lot of older industrial companies.

00:44:52.200 Correct.

00:44:52.380 So why wouldn't you just take the,

00:44:55.260 make your own S and P 15 or 10 or 50?

00:44:59.600 Why would you?

00:45:01.040 Which ones though?

00:45:02.340 And how do you know which ones are going to win and which ones are going to lose?

00:45:04.620 So here's the thing,

00:45:05.400 right?

00:45:06.480 Human beings and even analysts,

00:45:08.480 I mean,

00:45:08.800 any,

00:45:09.040 even experts just,

00:45:09.960 it's terrible at picking the winning stocks.

00:45:11.680 It's too hard.

00:45:12.840 So you're,

00:45:13.460 just imagine everybody is trying to do the same thing.

00:45:16.320 What's the next winner?

00:45:17.500 What's the big winner,

00:45:18.180 right?

00:45:18.340 So all the money is chasing after this pool of shares,

00:45:21.680 right?

00:45:22.220 So the question is,

00:45:23.360 you know,

00:45:23.520 any given moment,

00:45:25.120 you know,

00:45:25.440 the way,

00:45:25.860 you know,

00:45:26.140 economics would say is that the market is fairly priced in this moment,

00:45:29.400 based on all the available information that's out there.

00:45:31.860 Yeah.

00:45:32.080 This is what every single individual stock is worth,

00:45:34.440 right?

00:45:34.520 Now over time,

00:45:37.180 right?

00:45:37.600 When you buy the S and P now,

00:45:39.300 remember the S and P 500 is the 500 biggest,

00:45:43.080 most profitable companies in the U S they're in 10 different sectors,

00:45:46.040 but the S and P,

00:45:47.460 the index committee,

00:45:48.620 every quarter will meet and say,

00:45:50.200 okay,

00:45:50.360 based on the U S economy is the waiting of each sector.

00:45:54.340 Correct.

00:45:54.620 Do we have enough information stocks?

00:45:56.340 Do we have enough in industrials?

00:45:57.940 How about healthcare?

00:45:58.860 Right?

00:45:59.280 So if you go back like 30 years,

00:46:01.060 industrials are one of the biggest sectors out there,

00:46:03.120 but then we exported our manufacturing base to China,

00:46:05.940 right?

00:46:06.460 And suddenly the financials become really big and also especially computers and

00:46:09.700 information and healthcare.

00:46:11.080 So the biggest ones are now healthcare and,

00:46:12.760 and computers information technology.

00:46:14.700 Those are your biggest sectors.

00:46:15.620 So what happens is the S and P will reweight itself every quarter to match the U S economy and any of the companies that are either underperforming,

00:46:24.800 right?

00:46:25.620 Or becoming less relevant to their sector will be replaced by companies that are doing better and are more relevant.

00:46:31.200 So you have at any given moment,

00:46:33.840 the 500 best companies all done for you for free by the S and P index to me,

00:46:39.180 who's selling that information,

00:46:40.200 making money in a different way.

00:46:41.140 They don't make the money.

00:46:42.140 You can't invest in the S and P index because it's an index.

00:46:45.240 You need a fund,

00:46:45.980 right?

00:46:46.660 That's so,

00:46:47.060 so there's a very big difference.

00:46:47.940 Cause when the S and P first came out,

00:46:49.260 you could only watch it.

00:46:50.740 There was no way to invest in it.

00:46:52.200 It was like a benchmark.

00:46:52.940 How am I doing compared to the S and P?

00:46:54.620 You couldn't buy it.

00:46:55.440 You'd have to go out and buy each of the 500 stocks,

00:46:57.800 which is a cost prohibitive and not,

00:46:59.580 you know,

00:46:59.800 you could just time prohibitive as well.

00:47:01.100 Right?

00:47:01.640 So when the first S and P 500 index fund came along,

00:47:05.520 it allowed people for the first time ever to buy all 500 companies in one trade,

00:47:11.660 right?

00:47:11.880 Which is incredibly tax efficient and time efficient.

00:47:14.040 Now what else happens once a company goes into the S and P or the institutions have to buy it.

00:47:20.240 So there's almost a self-fulfilling prophecy or part of it as well.

00:47:23.040 Right?

00:47:23.580 So if you have information like inside information,

00:47:27.140 you're one of those rare people that can somehow like one of 10 million people

00:47:31.320 or a hundred that could somehow figure out which stocks are going up.

00:47:34.160 We're going to beat the S and P God bless you.

00:47:36.560 Right?

00:47:36.780 But my chance,

00:47:37.520 the chance to have to everyone listening is that's not you,

00:47:39.880 right?

00:47:40.340 You're not going to be able to beat the S and P.

00:47:42.240 You don't think that's me.

00:47:43.120 You know,

00:47:43.640 even with my Jim Cramer strategy,

00:47:45.740 you don't think it's me.

00:47:46.480 So much,

00:47:46.820 so much talent as a speaker.

00:47:49.180 God would not give one man so much talent and so much insight.

00:47:51.520 Right?

00:47:52.980 So anyway,

00:47:53.800 so,

00:47:54.340 so I really,

00:47:55.960 it's been proven.

00:47:56.880 Like I'm not just saying this.

00:47:58.080 It's like it's been proven by every study.

00:48:00.240 When you read the book,

00:48:00.940 I go through every study in a very funny way.

00:48:03.440 And then when you like,

00:48:04.200 the last chapter is called meet the fuckers.

00:48:06.460 Instead of meet the fuckers,

00:48:07.280 I call it meet the fuckers.

00:48:08.360 Who are the fuckers?

00:48:09.020 Well,

00:48:09.120 the fuckers are the Jim Cramers of the world.

00:48:10.640 These are all the fuckers who are out there.

00:48:12.760 And he's just one of all the online,

00:48:14.360 the Charlton's on Tik TOK.

00:48:16.160 These five stocks about the moon.

00:48:17.920 What the fuck?

00:48:18.600 I mean,

00:48:18.740 come on.

00:48:19.360 Like this stuff is littered all over the internet,

00:48:22.280 trying to bait people into making stupid investment decisions

00:48:25.080 that are self-defeating.

00:48:26.740 It's the seminar guy who tells you to buy the magical trading system.

00:48:29.660 That's going to beat the market.

00:48:30.940 You can turn $50 into $5,000 in three months in your bathroom from home with my album.

00:48:35.700 Well,

00:48:35.840 it's so great.

00:48:36.300 How come you're not using it yourself?

00:48:37.360 Why are you fricking walking?

00:48:38.640 It's so ridiculous,

00:48:39.600 but this is what,

00:48:40.480 and people fall for it,

00:48:41.500 right?

00:48:41.660 They do it all the time.

00:48:43.080 And they end up getting destroyed.

00:48:45.240 And you know,

00:48:45.920 when it really hits them when they're 55,

00:48:47.680 60 years old and they don't have the money they should have.

00:48:50.020 If you follow the advice in this book,

00:48:51.840 which is an arguably the best advice,

00:48:53.560 Warren Buffett would give you this advice.

00:48:55.040 Seriously.

00:48:55.740 It's an arguably great advice.

00:48:57.140 And that is to play the long-term investing game,

00:49:00.240 relying on compounding.

00:49:02.280 Meaning you start off with a small amount,

00:49:04.140 as much as you can,

00:49:05.180 right?

00:49:05.420 And then add to it a little bit each month,

00:49:07.580 whenever you can,

00:49:08.320 as much as you can.

00:49:09.680 And then also reinvest your dividends.

00:49:12.040 So when you get quarterly dividends,

00:49:13.380 because the S&P pays a dividend,

00:49:14.820 reinvest those as well.

00:49:16.140 And just forget it.

00:49:17.240 Don't worry about what's going on in the world.

00:49:19.460 Like you say,

00:49:20.200 the U.S. economy is going to go to shit.

00:49:21.960 Okay.

00:49:22.340 Maybe it will.

00:49:23.040 Maybe it won't.

00:49:23.640 Who knows?

00:49:24.180 But here's the deal.

00:49:25.660 No matter how shitty the U.S. economy gets,

00:49:28.300 you're still going to have really big companies out there

00:49:30.520 that are raping and pillaging,

00:49:31.560 making a fortune out there.

00:49:32.640 Like even the S&P 500,

00:49:34.780 half the business is overseas.

00:49:36.360 They're multinationals, right?

00:49:37.940 So you're getting overseas exposure as well.

00:49:40.920 And, you know, listen,

00:49:41.940 I'm also, as much as America is broken,

00:49:44.080 I still am a believer in the American system of capitalism.

00:49:46.720 I've traveled the whole world.

00:49:48.160 I've never seen a country

00:49:50.120 where they had this,

00:49:51.040 like the drive and the ingenuity that we have.

00:49:53.040 The U.S. is a special place.

00:49:54.660 I don't care what's wrong with it.

00:49:55.760 It's a special place.

00:49:57.240 And also compared to what?

00:49:58.460 It's the best bad option out there, right?

00:50:00.240 So I really believe,

00:50:01.740 and then also there's a couple other investments

00:50:03.320 you want to make to balance out risk, right?

00:50:05.620 You want to have what's called a bond fund in there.

00:50:07.880 But again, none of this is about

00:50:09.300 trying to pick which bonds

00:50:10.860 are going to pay more than others.

00:50:12.600 You can't do that.

00:50:14.000 You're trading against bond professionals

00:50:15.380 and they're like going to rip your eyeballs out

00:50:17.000 every time you're trying to beat the market.

00:50:19.140 So you want to be engaging in these,

00:50:20.900 in these like index,

00:50:22.300 let's go passive investing.

00:50:23.780 Yes.

00:50:24.240 Not active, passive investing, right?

00:50:26.320 It's exactly the opposite.

00:50:27.380 I told people to do it in my 20s.

00:50:27.980 So if I could sum up your advice,

00:50:29.360 it would be ignore the experts

00:50:30.620 and be passive, not active.

00:50:32.740 100%.

00:50:33.460 Ignore the experts,

00:50:34.780 especially Jim Cramer, by the way.

00:50:36.840 I call, I'm not,

00:50:38.140 I call him a carnival barking ass clown.

00:50:40.680 Okay.

00:50:40.940 But I mean,

00:50:41.380 that's totally fair.

00:50:42.680 But it's fair.

00:50:43.220 And everyone used to,

00:50:43.900 like when I was doing my legal vetting

00:50:45.040 and they got like,

00:50:45.680 no problem there.

00:50:47.080 At least once a day,

00:50:48.440 I watched Jim Cramer on Sam Bankman-Fried.

00:50:51.620 So just to make myself feel good.

00:50:53.220 That's another story.

00:50:54.900 It's like the whole crypto world, right?

00:50:56.260 With Sam Bankman-Fried.

00:50:57.740 So he got,

00:50:58.420 I mean, listen,

00:50:58.720 I knew that was going to happen.

00:50:59.740 I think I was asked,

00:51:00.340 maybe I knew,

00:51:00.900 but what's going to happen with Sam Bankman-Fried?

00:51:02.280 I said,

00:51:02.440 this guy's going to jail.

00:51:04.080 I don't,

00:51:04.320 listen,

00:51:04.560 I hope,

00:51:04.920 I don't think he deserves life in jail.

00:51:06.280 No, I agree.

00:51:07.340 But, you know,

00:51:07.760 he's probably going to get 20 years.

00:51:08.880 Very few people deserve life in prison.

00:51:10.600 You know,

00:51:10.960 but he's,

00:51:11.580 he's getting for a world of pain.

00:51:12.840 The people who started the Iraq war do.

00:51:14.140 But other than that,

00:51:15.100 I agree.

00:51:16.880 Jordan Belfort,

00:51:17.420 thank you so much.

00:51:18.340 My pleasure.

00:51:19.020 Great to see you.

00:51:19.800 Thanks.

00:51:20.240 Thank you.

00:51:20.600 Take care.

The Tucker Carlson Show - December 30, 2023

Jordan Belfort

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