Cents of Things Episode 14 ===

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Jeff Kikel: Hey everybody, it’s Jeff and Ron here with The Sense of Things. Thank y’all

for being on today. We are super excited to get this week kicked off and or finished up

and give you guys an update on what’s going on in the markets, what’s going on in the

economy, and really just get everything kicked off.

Jeff Kikel: How about you,

Ron Lang: Ron? How are you doing today? Doing good middle of July. So I guess you can say

it’s basically middle of the summer. Pretty much everything, the way things have gone

you and I’ve been talking about the last four to six weeks was the summer pretty much happened.

We got a nice summer rally.

Ron Lang: As we talked about last time, the end of June economic and headlines have been

pushing the markets around a little bit, [00:01:00] we reached new 52 week highs today. As expected,

we gotta see how things pan out here towards the end of the summer. Yeah, it’s

Jeff Kikel: interesting. That stat that you talked about last week about July typically

being one of the best months of the year.

Jeff Kikel: Which I wouldn’t have thought, but but yeah, July is really kicking off to

be really strong already. The big major players are still kicking it hard. I just was walking

down to the kitchen to get some water right before this and notice that I think meta is

up like 4% today,

Ron Lang: so it’s more than doubled since the beginning of the year.

Ron Lang: Yeah. But the interesting thing is July is historically a very good month.

September and October or historically bad months. Yeah. And I guess if you think about

it the ebb and flow of a good summer, a hot summer rally, and then the economic figures

come in, people stop, are slowing their spending and then we have the confluence of events

where.

Ron Lang: All the credit tightening with the [00:02:00] banks. We talked about it last

time, the student loans. People are now going to be responsible to start paying those in

September. Credit card balances are out of time. All the key things that we continue

to talk about come into a head here in the next 45 to 60 days.

Ron Lang: Yeah, but I do have something fun. I know we like to talk about some pop culture

stuff and get off with that. Yeah I know it was a shame. Look, I know, obviously, and

it captivated, the U. S. and the world a little bit about the sub. And going down to the Titanic

and catastrophically imploded.

Ron Lang: Our, me, I can’t stand the far right or the far left, we just got to give the far

left a little bit of credit for giving us some fodder today. And apparently they didn’t

like. This has been out there though. Some people have probably seen this, but apparently

they didn’t like Subway’s little fun way of getting people to smirk a little bit and bring

some people in for some business.

Ron Lang: So I thought that this was a great little [00:03:00] slide. I think you could

see it now. Apparently people didn’t like this sign.

Jeff Kikel: I thought I saw that earlier this week.

Ron Lang: Think about it. How many people in the world that it affected? It’s not like

a ship with 4, 000 people went down and it affected, all their families and friends.

We’re going to talk about five or six people. It’s a shame. It’s catastrophic. It’s terrible,

but what’s the matter people.

Ron Lang: We we can’t have satire. We can’t promote, selling something. Come on, you got

to give me a break. Is it in bad taste? No pun intended. Of course it is, to shame them.

No.

Jeff Kikel: And then I saw something about Disney the other day, there’s a new supposed

ride that they’re thinking about at Disney.

Jeff Kikel: That’s a free fall into water. And Disney’s also the company that owns the

rights to Titanic, which I thought was just, okay, this is probably not the best [00:04:00]

idea. It was a ride.

Ron Lang: Okay.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Look they’ve done some things in poor taste over time. And if you take a

look at Disney stock, I know they had to bring Iger in. And, it’s amazing to me, you think

about it, all the streaming services, other than Netflix, the most part are not only are

losing money.

Ron Lang: They’re losing. Emerging money, including Disney. And I’m thinking about it.

I understand you got to pay for content. You got to pay to create this content, but the

distribution platform and the library that’s available, that people are. Are utilizing,

it’s got to be cheaper than typical cable or the theaters.

Ron Lang: I just don’t understand how many of them have not figured out to turn the corner.

I realized, they had to put out a lot of money to create content because content is King,

[00:05:00] but I don’t understand how they just haven’t figured out, the breakeven or

how to make money on it. Cause what’s going to happen is.

Ron Lang: Disney, Netflix, maybe Paramount Plus are going to be the three winners, and

they’re going to end up eating up all the other streaming services for their content.

Yeah, I

Jeff Kikel: mean, that’s the reality of it is, they all decided, okay here’s what we’re

going to do. We’ll create a streaming service.

Jeff Kikel: And I think the thing that annoys the crap out of me is okay I still have Dish.

So I pay a hundred and some odd dollars a month for dish, right? And there’s content

that, oh this is only available on our streaming service. What? So I’m paying you for your

main service and you’re not delivering to me new content on the that service because

you want me to pay for an extra streaming service.

Jeff Kikel: And I think it’s just starting to piss people off quite

Ron Lang: frankly. You know what? This is another problem when companies are public

companies. Netflix [00:06:00] pioneered this, right? Netflix. If you want to say it, Netflix.

Perfected it and you’re paying a subscription. And one of the great things about the subscription

is no advertisements.

Ron Lang: Nope. Reed Hastings has been pressured. Your stock’s not going up. You’re not generating

the revenue. There’s subscriptions. All they have to do is raise their subscriptions by

50 cents or a dollar. And the revenue into the top or to the top and bottom line increases

is unbelievable. Yeah. Now he’s being forced and pressured to do advertisements as a subscriber.

Ron Lang: I’m ticked off. Yeah, that’s the reason why I have a subscription. That’s why

I’m paying for. I don’t have to have advertisements.

Jeff Kikel: And if I need to pay an extra dollar or two, I’m okay with that. It’s only,

19

Ron Lang: or whatever. Supposedly they’re going to charge. I don’t know. Don’t hold

me to this 7, 8, 9 for a lower subscription with ads.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Okay. I get that. So for double that 15 or [00:07:00] 16 bucks a month, I

don’t get any ads, what’s going to happen. You see the trend within a year or two, they’re

going to be pressured to go to the upper subscription levels to start putting an ads either on select

content or all the content, and then they’ve just completely prostituted themselves.

Ron Lang: I have no other way of saying it. Yeah,

Jeff Kikel: yeah. And it’s to me, I’m okay. Even if they put it like right at the beginning,

it’s just do not break up. If I’m watching something on a streaming service, do not break

up my show in the middle with. Boom. An ad. Okay. That’s why I’m, that’s why I’m using

your service.

Jeff Kikel: Otherwise, I would just use normal

Ron Lang: cable. That’s why I’m paying a subscription. Yeah, I’m not paying. If you want to, then

they’ve gotta separate out, here’s your subscription with no ads, and here it is with ads. But

look, Netflix has been the clear winner in all this, all the other stares. It’s only

gonna get worse.

Ron Lang: Because they have no other way to monetize it other than subscriptions [00:08:00]

because their content costs are just too high.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And they’re going up and going up. You get, back in the day when it

was, Hey, we’re creating content, we’re basically using no name actors. to create really good

content.

Jeff Kikel: And now you’re getting, some pretty major players. I think, Kevin Cosner, a great

example of someone who, has only done movies and all of a sudden now he’s doing a TV show.

For however long it’s going to be, who knows? But but yeah, he’s basically doing a weekly

TV show.

Jeff Kikel: A few times a year, which I mean, those guys don’t come cheap and then you pile

on, some of these shows you pile on 10, 15, 20 of those type of actors and it’s just massively

expensive.

Ron Lang: Yeah. But what happens in those cases, the way those deals are done and struck

is. They’re going to take less than what they call their quote.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Because they’re going to get points on the show. So they get it on the

back end if it’s successful. And it ends up, they end up making more money. That, if it’s

successful, they’re [00:09:00] going to make more money on the back end. But, they’ve got

to do it in order to get the draw. So it makes sense.

Ron Lang: But every, look, I know people think we’ve probably been gloom and doom over the

last two or three months. All we do, all we are is just reciting facts and showing charts.

So I thought I’d take a little bit of a different slant this time and talk about unusual economic

factors.

Ron Lang: And when I was drilling, I heard about this a couple of weeks ago. I knew we

had to bring it. I did some research and I compiled a top list of these and I thought

it was interesting, not just for conversation and fodder, 2 or 3 are. And some of the all

time economists that also follow it. So I’m going to share my screen.

Ron Lang: We’ll go through it, have some fun. And I think it’ll be I think it’ll be fun

for our audience too. So coming in at number nine, there’s the garbage index. This has

been one of my investing thesis for a long time for clients, [00:10:00] water and garbage

and water and garbage. There are key waste, management companies and water companies.

Ron Lang: Everybody needs to consume water and everybody’s going to create and throw

out garbage. So the more garbage. That’s out there. That means what are we doing? We’re

consuming more, right? So if the garbage is going down, we’re consuming less so that’s

one, the garbage index, like this, the RV index, when people want to have fun and they’re

gallivanting all around the United States.

Ron Lang: Let’s go get an RV. When RV sales go down, that means a recession is looming

because they’re not spending money on vacations traveling. And I think we all know, some of

these RVs have a 50 or a hundred gallon tank and at four 50 to five 50 a gallon that becomes

an expensive proposition.

Ron Lang: So we got the RV index.

Jeff Kikel: Interestingly enough, I noticed commercials from a camping world lately. [00:11:00]

Where they’re really stressing like, oh, it’s not that expensive to have an RV. You can

get one for 5, 10, 30 or 20 a day, as far as that. And it’s interestingly enough, I

hadn’t really noticed that before and camping world traditionally has not done a lot of

television advertising, been doing a crap ton of it lately. So I’m not sure if it’s

because. they’ve garnered, they see more of an opportunity or if they’re starting to see

declining sales and they’re trying to keep that whatever is the people that are still

left that want to buy one, letting them know how affordable it is to have one.

Ron Lang: Also, it’s like you’ve got to look at it this way. Years ago, I heard this during

the housing crisis and everything like that, that for every new house that’s built, it

creates three jobs, right? There’s a technical effect. There are these are very similar.

If you think about it, you got to outfit the RV.

Ron Lang: So if you go into a camping world or Cabela’s or a Bass Pro shop, right? What

else are you buying for your RV? [00:12:00] You got gas that’s going to go in it. Then

you’re going to go to an RV camping ground because Walmart has a deal where if you have

an RV, you could park there. No problem. But if you go to a, an RV camping ground you need

to rent the space.

Ron Lang: You’re going to hook up electrical. You’re going to hook up all the other good

stuff. So there’s a trickle effect there with the RV.

Jeff Kikel: You’re going into a town. Typically they You know, yes, you have a kitchen and

everything else in your camper, but you still also want to you’re there on vacation. So

you want to go to restaurants and everything else you’re spending

Ron Lang: money.

Ron Lang: So here’s the next one, the cardboard index, which I heard of years ago, right?

When cardboard. When the cardboard sales, cardboard boxes go down, that means people

aren’t shipping enough, which is another reason why Amazon has bought paper companies, and

they’re making their own cardboard boxes.

Ron Lang: When you see cardboard sales, cardboard box sales go down. That’s another one. How

about the Big Mac Index? Oh, by the way, there’s also a Happy Meal [00:13:00] Index. When Big

Mac sales and Happy Meal sales go down, that’s a sign either we’re in a recession or recession

is looming. Okay. Here’s another one. The Lady Beauty Products Index, otherwise known

as the Lipstick Index.

Ron Lang: When ladies stop spending money on themselves, right? That means they’re sad.

That means that the recession is looming or we’re in a recession because they’re not spending

money on themselves. And I think we all know, right? Cause we love the ladies. They love

to, they love to, do maintenance, right?

Ron Lang: Yes. Beauty products is maintenance. I have a

Jeff Kikel: problem with putting lipstick. We’re not putting lipstick on the pig of the

market. Is what you’re saying?

Ron Lang: Your words, not mine, my friend, you get the comment section on that one. But

the other thing too, is so maybe they’re not on an every three to four week, Manny petty,

maybe they’re on a four to six week, man.

Ron Lang: But they’re still getting the Manny petty, you know what I’m saying? They’re not

going to eliminate it completely.

Jeff Kikel: Just a little shaggy when they get there. [00:14:00] That’s

Ron Lang: it. So your words, not mine. I got you. No cactus legs in my world, my friends.

Buttered popcorn index. For me, when people buy less popcorn or don’t purchase the butter

to add to the popcorn at the movie theater, then that is a sign of a recession.

Ron Lang: How in the

Jeff Kikel: hell they find this out is beyond me.

Ron Lang: Think about the nerds and the geeks that are translating all this data. All right,

so now we’re getting into some of the fun ones. This is an old one. The champagne sales

have dipped. A recession is looming during a recession. Champagne sales go down.

Ron Lang: Typically when it ticks a little higher, you know that, Hey, good times are

coming. Good times are on the horizon. Okay. All right. The headline index. I first heard

of this 2025 years ago, totally forgot about it. So you’re going to [00:15:00] love this.

Of course, you’re in Texas. I’m in Phoenix. Of course, we see this when ladies skirts

go higher.

Ron Lang: And are raised higher. Those are sign of good times. Okay. And the hemlines

go down towards the knees. That means a recession is looming or we’re in worse times. I’m not

sure

Jeff Kikel: if you’ve heard of this connection between. Lipstick, champagne, sales, and hemlines.

All I could see them all together.

Ron Lang: I just think we need to interview women on a weekly basis on these three things.

Ron Lang: Yeah. Stay with, stay out of slapping distance. And I think we should do our own

curating of the

Jeff Kikel: data. And invest the mark. Yeah. Invest the market from there. That’s the way

Ron Lang: I’m looking at it. So what a segue. So from ladies, we’re going to move on to

men.

Jeff Kikel: The underwear

Ron Lang: sales, when men’s underwear sales dip, a recession is looming or we [00:16:00]

are in a recession. So I need to speak to your wife because I know she likes to buy

you those leopard print banana hammock underwear, especially when you come back from vacation.

So I’m going to have to talk to her because if she’s not buying you this underwear on

a regular basis, we know what’s coming.

Ron Lang: But Oh, by the way. The economist that is noted for tracking this index, Alan

Greenspan, one of his favorite trackers of unusual economic indexes, as far as economic

trends towards a recession.

Jeff Kikel: Is these types of things, or is he the other

Ron Lang: men’s underwear sales, the underwear man, the

Jeff Kikel: underwear man.

Jeff Kikel: Okay. I like this.

Ron Lang: Wow. I don’t know which ones are your favorite or which ones you’ve never heard

of. But I think these are interesting, by the way, when I was doing some more research,

because what prompted me on this, I heard about one in three and I said, Oh, you [00:17:00]

know what? This would be a great conversation.

Ron Lang: So I started doing some research out there. I found tons of articles, top five,

top eight, top 20, top 10, unusual, and all these were commonplace across all those articles.

Many of them went back 5, 10, 20 years. Hilarious. So obviously There’s somebody that’s tracking

all this. Now, I know that in a podcast past, you have the LEI, the leading economic indicator.

Ron Lang: I think we need to have a UEI index of unusual economic indicators of all these

consolidated and see where it goes. So hopefully there’s some geek out there that’s listening

to this, that has access to the data and can come up with a run. Jeff. Sense of things,

U E I index, the U,

Jeff Kikel: the unusual economic index.

Jeff Kikel: I’m thinking we need to come up with this, bud. We can make millions

Ron Lang: on it. Let’s hire a bunch of interns. Cause we don’t have the time, money or resources

Jeff Kikel: to figure [00:18:00] this out, but I love it because it could be our thing.

We do the unusual economic index and see where things are going. Yeah, very interesting.

Jeff Kikel: Very interesting. I think. Yeah I’m not necessarily convinced on the men’s

underwear sales part because men just don’t ever buy underwear. I’m,

Ron Lang: yeah, seriously. That’s why they track the women buying it. Oh, but all of

these nine you have you can get real data on this. Number two, where’s the data on headline?

Ron Lang: Somebody’s going around with a tape measure to ladies and say, yeah, excuse me,

if you don’t mind. They need to measure the bottom of your skirt to the top of your knee.

How are they figuring that out? Or are they just taking creepy pictures of people and

figuring, I don’t know how they’re figuring this out.

Ron Lang: And

Jeff Kikel: trying to infer this throughout time. But

Ron Lang: obviously these indicators have not been around for years. Yeah. For decades

they’ve been following this. I just find it interesting. And Alan, when Alan [00:19:00]

Greenspan has been attached to men, underwear sales for over 30 years, as far as I know

the data goes back of one of his favorite indexes.

Ron Lang: And look, he was there 20 years as the as the fed director.

Jeff Kikel: So somehow that makes me even. That makes him even creepier than I thought

of him originally at this point.

Ron Lang: So come on, he doesn’t look creepy with those big glasses. Stop it. Big

Jeff Kikel: glasses. That’s how he sees men’s underwear is with the glasses.

Jeff Kikel: I’m just trying to, I gotcha.

Ron Lang: I gotcha. All right. How do you want to wrap this thing up? Let’s wrap

Jeff Kikel: it up with a little economics. A few interesting things that have happened

over the last week. One last Friday, we had our unemployment or the the employment report

and it was a massive miss. It was off by 40, 000 jobs.

Jeff Kikel: And interestingly enough, a lot of, it was a little bit of the service industry,

which was the good part. And a lot of the other stuff where the big miss [00:20:00]

happened in some of the higher paying jobs. So that’s something we need to keep an eye

on that is showing signs of, okay, the, both the capital markets and access to credit.

Jeff Kikel: I think that’s affecting businesses. And I think it’s the interest rates. We’re

starting to see that filter down into the businesses. So something to keep an eye on

there. I think the other two things that happened this week one yesterday, one today, we had

a core CPI yesterday. We went from a 4% year over year inflation rate to a 3% year over

year inflation rate in a month.

Jeff Kikel: And some of the things that the wind came out of, A little bit in the energy

field a little bit in even housing costs. down a little bit. It’s going to be interesting

to see here in Texas. We just, I think today we will pass a law that is going to massively

reduce [00:21:00] our our homeowners tax or our taxes, real estate taxes.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And real estate taxes. They Went from a 40, 000 a year, a 40, 000 a year

homestead exemption to if this passes 100, 000 homestead exemption, which is going to

be huge. Now it’s going to affect housing costs for us, for people that own homes. It

is not the interesting thing about homeowners here in Texas is the homestead exemption does

not affect people that own rental homes.

Jeff Kikel: So what’s been happening with people that own rental homes is we have a

homestead exemption that says they can’t raise our taxes more than 10% in a year. It doesn’t

happen with people that own rental properties. And the thing that was coming out of our,

legislature, some of the Democratic side was we need to figure out a way to reduce taxes

or we need to figure out a way to [00:22:00] reduce.

Jeff Kikel: Like rental rental costs or whatever. And it’s we can’t, if you’re going to keep

letting, our radio our real estate prices go up 30% and the taxes go up 30%. For the

people that own rental property. They’re just going to pass that on to the people that are

renters.

Jeff Kikel: And it’s just not going to be good from that perspective. And I think we’re

still going to have some challenges from there.

Ron Lang: So it has to be primary residents.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, it has to be your primary homestead. Which like I said, for a lot of

us, the homestead side, it’s going to be almost a 30% drop in our real estate taxes.

Jeff Kikel: So it’s huge. It’s going to be the largest ever in history. In the United

States, but it isn’t going to affect the rental market. And we’ve had a huge rental market.

A lot of people have come in here into the rental property market in Texas over the last,

4 to 5 years. So it’s, I think going to be an interesting thing because it’s, I still

see inflation, from a real [00:23:00] estate perspective, at least here in Texas is going

to continue to go

Ron Lang: up.

Ron Lang: I, we, I see it here in Phoenix. I see it in Philadelphia. It’s actually very

divergent. I think I talked about this before the top six. Most populated cities, right?

You got, in order you got New York, Chicago, I’m sorry, New York, LA, Chicago, Houston,

Phoenix, Philadelphia, and the last four years.

Ron Lang: 3 to 4 years. I think it’s 4 years now. Only 1 city had population growth. Everybody

else had a contraction. Yeah, Phoenix was the only 1 that had population growth, which

is another reason why in most areas in the Phoenix metro area, including Scottsdale and

whatever. Prices have gone up 25 to 40% or more, and if it’s a hot property, it’s going

over list.

Ron Lang: And it’s going to continue. Although the nice thing about where I am here in the

Phoenix area, [00:24:00] real estate taxes are still incredibly Reasonable. Yeah. Hopefully

it doesn’t change too much, which is another reason why people are migrating here because

especially if they’re empty nesters, they don’t want to pay for the school system, right?

Ron Lang: They don’t have kids at home. They’re not going to the local schools. So why should

I pay the higher taxes? So that’s why a lot of people on the East coast, especially Jersey

and California, two of the highest real estate taxes in the country. A lot of people move

out of Jersey when they become empty nesters.

Ron Lang: I know my taxes for my, the house that I’m in now, my taxes in New Jersey, I

kid you not would be. Almost eight times as much. Wow. Wow. Almost eight times as much

for a similar size house. What am I paying for? Oh if that’s where you want to live,

you’re going to pay for it. And, I’m using Jersey as an example, there, New York, Connecticut.

Ron Lang: Between their sales tax and all, and they’re in their state income tax. Yeah.

The [00:25:00] migration out of, Southern Connecticut, Manhattan the boroughs. They’re

trying to get a resurgence. But when you’re at a certain stage of life, why are you paying

for something that you don’t get the benefit of?

Ron Lang: And

Jeff Kikel: You get the winners and you get all that, it’s just, I think people are moving

towards places where it’s okay, we’re, we want you to come here. We want you to buy

homes here. We want you to live. Have a good quality of life. And, I think for us in Texas,

for people in Florida, for people in Arizona, we get to enjoy the outdoors more than a lot

of these folks that are up on the East Coast, and I love, don’t get me wrong.

Jeff Kikel: I love the East Coast. Boston’s one of my favorite towns on the planet. For

six months out of the year. And then the other six months out of the year are absolute hell.

Ron Lang: Yeah. And we’re in the middle of that right now. I think we’re going to hit

1 15 to 1 18 this weekend. Somebody said one 20.

Ron Lang: Does it really

Jeff Kikel: matter? Yeah, I love it. The East coast is just getting pummeled with water

and we’re all getting just [00:26:00] blasted with heat, I

Ron Lang: gotta tell you, I really am trying to get up earlier in the morning. I’m talking

four 35 because outside here it’s 90 degrees, but it’s wonderful.

Ron Lang: Yeah,

Jeff Kikel: because yeah, you get that desert cool, which I

Ron Lang: mean, it’s wonderful. The afternoon, you’re a rotisserie chicken outside, but the

mornings are fantastic. So we’ll see how it goes.

Jeff Kikel: That’s the one thing I will say is I don’t have to shovel heat ever, which

is that’s a good thing.

Jeff Kikel: And we have air conditioning. I’m completely convinced that most of the

Southwest. When the people that came across, they came across in like the spring or the

fall. If they come in the winter or come in the summer, they would have been just like,

I’m going straight to california at this point.

Ron Lang: So quick, funny stories. I just moved the movers. You know that a couple of

young kids, a couple of older guys and something fell out of one of the boxes and he picked

and I picked it up and I looked at hey, you know what this is, I’ll never need to use

this again. One guy that was originally from the North.

Ron Lang: I think he [00:27:00] was from Washington. I can’t remember, but he at least had gone

through some winners and one of the kids like, I don’t know what that’s for. I said, Oh,

it’s for the car. It’s a brush and an ice scraper. He goes. For what I’m like for the

winter, when you get ice on your car and you got to scrape the windshield, really?

Ron Lang: For

Jeff Kikel: why? Why

Ron Lang: would you do that? It’d be like, I’m a space alien. Like, why would you have

this? And I’m like, and the other guy is laughing his rear end off. He’s yeah, he’s never experienced

the winner. He doesn’t have a clue. No idea. What the hell an ice scraper is for,

Jeff Kikel: unless you go up to Flagstaff or something, that’s probably the only time

you’re ever going to need

Ron Lang: it.

Ron Lang: Exactly. Exactly. So what can I tell you?

Jeff Kikel: Cool, man. I think it’s a good week, folks. We do these for you. So love

to hear your comments. Please share the show with others. And we’re going to keep doing

fun stuff like this. And Ron and I are going to get to work on the unusual the unusual

economic index.

Jeff Kikel: And see if we can mon or see if we can monetize that with the

Ron Lang: world [00:28:00] here. You could work on the hemline. I may work on some of

the other ones. We’ll see. Yeah, we’ll do that.

Jeff Kikel: Actually I’d like to I think I’ll take the champagne index as well. I, that

one’s right up my

Ron Lang: alley, so Not a problem.

Ron Lang: All right. You’ll take two. I take seven. That’s good.

Jeff Kikel: I love it. . All right, man. Thank you guys and we’ll see you back here the very

next time.