TRANSCRIPT

good morning sense of things thank you

for joining us once again we’ve got a

lot of good stuff today so Ron’s going

to share with us uh a little bit about

some bankruptcies that happened last

year a lot of economic activity that’s

happened and some interesting fun stuff

so stay tuned we’ll be right back on in

just a second

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[Applause]

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all right folks welcome to the show Hey

Ron how you doing good morning Jeff I

know it’s our second episode of the new

year I got some fun stuff to share uh I

got to tell you before the holidays you

and I were joking about Watching Elf

watching Christmas Story You’re a fan of

Christmas vacation from that wasn’t

always one of my favorites but we and

this year we totally broke tradition

because we ran out of time and we

actually watched Christmas vacation on

Christmas day which was just it just

destroyed the whole Mystique of our

Christmas season watch and I got to tell

you I did watch it again there was still

there were some funny scenes in there it

it was one of my favorites it was good

and I’m a Chevy Chase guy so I got to

tell you so during the holidays there’s

some boredom right there not as much

activity with work things like that so

I’m rooting around the channels so I got

to share this because I’m telling you my

man I think we’ve hit a new low so I

believe it was on ESPN 2 but alternative

Sports they call it the oo like ESPN

from the movie Dodgeball that’s where

they took that from so you’re not going

to believe this so you’re familiar with

the UFC Ultimate Championship absolutely

with MMA yep now apparently I don’t know

if you’re aware of this oh actually

before I show this UFC I don’t know if

they bought it but they were interested

in buying it in the slapping contest yep

I actually watched a I watched an entire

documentary on Fox The Fox Nation

Channel about this idiotic sport yes and

these guys they they put chalk on their

hands and they sit there and hopefully

they got a mouthpiece and they just

whack each other to see who knock each

other out dumbest sport

on I’m going to probably one up you

because I don’t think you’ve seen this

make this next sport have some

credibility they brought in former MMA

fighters oh good lord ready for this so

you’ve heard of the UFC they now also

have the PFC the pillow Jesus Campion I

am not kidding you can go to this

website I was going to try and do

pictures of the fighters or a video but

I don’t know about copyright so I didn’t

do it so you’re going to love this so

here are their sponsors escaped is their

lead sponsor okay and here are official

pillow fight pillows that you could buy

from Harris pillow Supply so wow

basically a pillow with canvas handles

that you’re whacking each other and the

best part I really love the top there

combat pillows yes hold on I’m it’s G to

get better my friend so when you’re

watching this I love the announcer they

got a top they got a topnotch announcer

to try and make this sound like combat

guys right oh a spin aama things like

that so anyway where this fight was done

first of all they have ring girl okay

horse

yeah then there’s a $5,000 prize for the

champion of the fight now wow when they

were sh this it literally looked like it

was in a high school gym it was in rock

Rockland Rockville North Carolina so

here’s the best part when the announcer

is ready to announce the

champion he’s going through like the

nicknames do you remember with Sylvester

Stallone yep Apollo Creed the master of

disaster he great nicknames so here they

are these are some of the ones that they

have for the pillow Fighting

Championship so they add some taglines

for the new champion and I’m not going

to do it justice but there were three

fantastic ones but I had to pause go

back and write down for this here we go

king of pillow fism wait it gets better

the master of noal

knockout here we go the last one was the

of

my

God we so the Opera quick have we hit a

new low absolute low I thought honestly

I thought the slapping idiots was bad

this is awesome but hold on go to the

website they have some video of these

two

guys beating the crap out of each other

with a canvas pillow wow this is on EXC

not

a combat

pillow I I think the funniest part

though is that they’re also sponsored by

Dr Pepper so I’m trying to figure out

how Dr Pepper fits into this besides the

fact of somebody going I’m a pepper

you’re a pepper hit him in the head with

a pillow but also notice the logo of PFC

I wonder if UFC if this is a

subsidiary trying to Branch out into

anything it has to be and Dana White is

a genius when it comes to promotion but

yeah it it just sounds too much like

something that UFC is involved with yeah

all right wow Moving on but yeah you got

to check you got to check it out I was

afraid to use any pictures of the

fighters or the video but oh my god oh I

just got the master of nocturnal

knockout so here we are these were

companies that went bankrupt last year

now I don’t think most of them were

chapter 7 which was liquidation these

were chapter 11 but remember mid year we

were talking about Red Lobster yeah stoy

is interesting because I don’t know if

you saw the the thing that came out in

the last couple weeks all the alcohol

companies have been hurting in the last

couple of months because they’re saying

Millennials aren’t drinking as much

they’re really not yeah yeah I am a

vodka and tequila snob right I do not

drink any vodka or tequila owned or

endorsed by a celebrity other than skull

vodka which Dan akroy owns and he bought

the company to save a town in Canada

yeah but I got to tell you the one vodka

I always hated with stoy yep oh this is

interesting yeah it’s it’s really I mean

it’s a totally new world with the with

Millennials especially gen zers you know

those ones that are turning 21 and you’d

think they’d be out drinking and they’re

just it’s that’s just not how they’re

wired and when we were growing up in the

80s and the ’90s this was in its he days

but I to tell you I was at one about 10

years ago it seems like it’s been on a

steady decline for a while they tried to

give it a refresh with the Brandon

whatever that’s been St but it’s still

when you go into them they’re the same

kind of they just look like they’re from

the 80s it reminds me of what was it uh

the the prime rib place when we were

growing up God I can’t think of what it

was

tell no steak and alses you know it was

like they were a good place when we were

growing up that’s where you went for

your nice and all that and then they

just never changed and they just got old

and there’s just too much competition in

that world Y and the big locks doesn’t

surprise me I’ve been in one or two I

can’t remember but Dollar General and

all those other stores look at their

stocks in the last couple years yeah

they’re getting CR straight down at an

alltime high right yeah it’s you would

think that the trade down that okay

people are going there my wife and I go

to Dollar Tree all the time because she

does all kinds of projects and she

writes books on how to create help

projects and stuff like that from Dollar

General we’re in there quite a bit and

honestly it’s way the hell cheaper than

going to a Hobby Lobby I can get the

same stuff at Hobby Lobby for about

eight times more that I can get it

Dollar Tree so I don’t understand why I

just don’t think they’ve got enough

margin no that’s exactly right because I

was told if you’re going to get like

basic supplies like a luno foil or

whatever Dollar Tree Dollar General are

fantastic but they tell you never buy

food or even canned food there because

typically they’re getting it right near

exporation or past exploration on the

cheap for other little supplies I get it

all right moving on I thought this was

interesting Microsoft announced that

about for their AI expenditures in 2025

will be $80 billion half of that

domestically half of that globally and I

thought it was interesting wait a minute

they’re gonna spend 80 billion what are

the companies that are valued at 80

billion and under so these were just

some notable companies that I thought

were interesting you got mandes

Constellation Energy yeah sna that

Illinois toolworks which is huge

absolutely but here’s here’s a a little

bit of conversation uh or fod for

conversation door Deb yes 51 billion ow

you know what this is what always has

got me about this every now and then I

got a McDonald’s across the street on

the way in I’ll get an Egg McMuffin

right yeah got pretty good coffee but I

get an Egg McMuffin next to the the cash

register there are shells there for the

door Dash and the GrubHub people to get

that I’m thinking to myself if you’re

sick and you can’t get out of bed okay

makes sense

okay freaking McDonald’s has drive-thru

if you don’t want to be seen or get

dressed yeah if you are so late you

won’t even get off your lazy butt to

drive over to pay $25 for an eggc muffin

a coffee and a hash brown yeah by the

time you get done with door Dash fees

and gratuity yeah R rarely if ever can

you be more than about four or five

miles from a from any fast food

restaurant unless you live way out in

the middle of the country and you

couldn’t get a door dash out there yeah

the world has changed yeah get on a

freaking Ro get the car go your driv

through give me a break this is where

like

the excess of yeah I got a buck in my

pocket screw saving

50 ridiculous but I also had to look

them up D Das hasn’t really made any

money I think acted to make a profit

this last quarter but think about how

many

deliveries they have to

do oh and by the way their forward PE

ratio is like a

37 because that’s expected it’s expected

because they haven’t been making money

there’s no PEG ratio there’s obviously

no dividend I don’t know I don’t know

that’s the only thing they do I look at

Uber Technologies and Uber has they

they’ve so Diversified what they do it’s

such a better investment in the long run

not recommending you buy Uber I’m just

saying it’s a better investment but come

on Jeff give me a break here door Dash

has a higher capitalization than Target

Republic Services Northrup Grumman and

bed act yeah

just it’s

insane all right enough of that anyway I

just thought it was just some

interesting taking a look at what

companies are worth what Microsoft is

spending and then door Das just well and

Microsoft also they just announced what

was it three or four weeks ago that

they’re acquiring the former Three Mile

Island facility oh that was a while ago

yeah yeah so that they can power their

data centers and stuff like that that is

absolutely insane that these private

companies are basically building new

actors to be able to manage their data

centers and when they had their accident

in 1979 or 80 I was actually I lived 100

miles east of that

yay and by you know I actually dated

somebody that grew up near there and

apparently there’s a lot of adults that

are having that have had issues or died

of strange circumstances or of odd

things earlier in life there I didn’t

realize but there were studies done over

the last four decades on this and

somebody had brought it up to me she had

brought it up to me it was pretty

interesting we’ll see if they make the

improvements we’ll see yeah hopefully

all right so I thought this was

interesting because we always follow the

10-year yield and this the number what

happens in the cumulative change in

10year yields after the FED starts

cutting rates and I realize this looks

like a bunch of spaghetti here but

obviously when they start cutting rates

this is the beginning or during sluggish

time in an economy and I thought this

was interesting that this is only second

fastest increase in the 10year next to

1981 when Reagan came in and he had a

horrible recession it was shortlived but

everybody thought here we are is the

1970s all over again until he went

through deregulation and tax cutting and

things like that so we’ll have to see

what happens if this is a Reagan 2 .0

even though interest rates were much

higher then sure we’ll see I think

economy was way worse back then oh yeah

you and I both remember like sitting in

our parents’ cars where you had to go

every oppos odd day to get gas and stuff

yeah that was like 78 is yeah that was

the odd even and it was like if you had

an even number one day odd number the

next day and you had if you had a if you

ended with a letter I think it was a

through K was like the odd day and

day yeah it was insane so yeah it was

just like I said Carter was not the

greatest of presidents but he was dealt

a pretty tough hand to begin with so I

agree and then my last one I had to

bring this up because when we were going

through our expectations for

2025 Healthcare was one of my big things

and I really thought that was mainly

going to be because of of of a future

m&a but I saw this yesterday and I had

to borrow this slide um I did not

realize just the lack of m&a during the

Biden Administration look a lot of

people were not happy this we that’s a

whole separate conversation but you want

to talk about just absolutely putting

handcuffs on deals and maybe some of

them are well-founded as far as you know

again bad for the consumer whatever but

this chart is terrible I mean can’t even

compare it with 2020 because of Co but

just terrible it’s okay there was a

reason yeah okay there’s an economic

reason in 2020 2021 companies were just

okay we can’t make any decisions at this

point but this is just straight up

governmental we’re just going to put

every block in the way and not allow any

of these deals to come it’s wow but that

is that is a massive drop so hopefully

we’ll see some because there there’s a

lot of mess you think about all those

bankruptcies that you showed up there

were why were there not other companies

going hey let’s see if we can like stoy

okay you went bankrupt okay maybe

somebody else wants to pull that into

their portfolio like their assets there

they just got to refinance debt

yeah yeah wow interesting to some of

those things we more next week we’ll

have to see because m&a absolutely Spurs

the markets I don’t know how much we’re

going to see this year we’ll have to see

because there are other priorities but

um certainly if the market does

precipitously pull back which we’re not

wishing for but if it does m&a activity

should absolutely pick up it up a lot I

think the biggest will get bigger yeah

and we’ve seen that in the banking

systems and everything else the bigger

get bigger and the smaller struggle at

that point and that there’s a few

companies in the middle that are they’re

fighting for either direction at that

point yeah I think there’s always going

to be investment opportunities we just

have to find them and and deal with them

when we have that opportunity

so I hear you so I guess we’ll have to

give uh PFC pillow fight Championship

updates at least once a month and if we

can get the copyright permission got to

show a couple of Clips just to do an

outtake of our podcast I here’s my

absolute dream and I will leave it with

this all right the Florida

man

PFC series it would be

awesome king of pillow

pism that is awesome thank you for

sharing that because I I honestly I

thought you were going down the path of

the slap championships and you just

added so much value today oh my goodness

oh my goodness all right tell you I’ve

been holding those slides for two

weeks put it together and I I saved the

episode I had to go get say that is

awesome that is absolute awesomeness

folks go out there join the pillow

fighting championships and watch it it’s

on ESPN 45 I’m sure at this point

because it can’t have moved up that far

but we’re here for you welcome to the

new year can’t wait to share a lot with

you make sure you subscribe to this

Channel right now do it wherever you’re

at do it on the podcast channels do it

on the YouTube channel and make sure you

are listening because we’ve got all

kinds of fun stuff like that and we have

added a lot of value with the pillow

fighting championships this week so

we’ll see you here next week