TRANSCRIPT
it’s Jeff and Ron here for another
update on what’s going on in the world
what’s going on in the economy and
what’s going on with some fun goofy
little facts uh Today’s Show we’re gonna
really focus on really some interesting
facts about business around the world
Ron’s got some really great things for
us to cover
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of course we were coming into a very
weird week with the former president
almost being killed we’ve got the
Republican National Convention and just
the world’s weird right now Ron how you
doing brother good listen how many times
have we said it never a dull moment and
I don’t think that could be more more
true than today between events over the
weekend some economic news and obviously
just you know mid more the middle of the
summer the heart of the summer right now
I can’t believe I know we said this all
the time like we’re already more than
halfway through the year uh the back
half people mock me about 105 110 115
degree weather yeah it’s 100 degrees all
over the country now I know except for
Texas where we’ve been in the 90s for
weeks we just hit 100 again I think
we’ve had a total of 11 days over a 100
and we’re already mid July at this point
so just the weirdest year ever yeah
Massachusetts was like on the high 90s
which is hilarious for this time of the
year I know back east in New York jersey
and Pa and where I know a lot of people
they’re like they got heat warnings
they’re like telling everybody you
better carry water all that good if you
don’t have to go outside don’t go
outside it’s almost a thunderstorm
coming don’t go outside nuts in Texas we
just call that summer but just saying
yeah but you know what when you guys get
hail it’s not the size of a golf ball
it’s like oh no baseball we had we’ve
had like multiple storms throughout the
spring this year that had softball siiz
hail just literally people’s cars
getting destroyed out here and and I’ve
been lucky knockwood that we haven’t
really had anything at our house or at
our office again we had a bad storm a
couple years ago here at the office and
my former business partners vehicle and
my assistant’s vehicle both of them look
like golf balls by the time they were
done yeah not good I’ve been a part of
Hil and I’ve seen some decent Siz H but
nothing like what you guys get
everything’s bigger in Texas
dude that’s why you got to keep your car
covered at all times else you look like
a dimpled golf ball exactly exactly
you’ve got some cool stuff for us so why
don’t we kick off with with your fun
facts today yeah so I got two more fun
facts this is wrapping up my little
series and I always like the origin of
things I’m a real history guy nostalgic
this was interesting because at one time
you had VHS and betamax kind of go
competing with each other and George
Atkinson actually opened the first video
rental store in 1977 and this is what I
thought was interesting the idea came to
him after he saw an ad for 20th Century
Fox selling movies on VHS and betamax
and he was like wow what if I got this
and I rented it out because remember
then movies would cost like7 to $100 for
videotape yeah it was big 20 years later
you could buy it for 15 bucks he was
running a business renting out the super
eight movies and he’s geez somebody’s
going to rent these boom right place
right time right thought and then here
he was and then he rent used to rent out
movies and projectors for parties now
vhs’s remember at one time they were
like
$23,000 yeah and then they came down and
I think it really started to grow
exponentially when it hit about $1,000
doll for a VHS and then almost you had
one in at least almost every home I
don’t know when you got your first VHS I
think we got ours an 81 and it was it
was a portable unit I don’t even know
where my father got it from yeah it was
around then probably 81 82 somewhere in
that time period I I just don’t really
remember watching because we were in a
little bit of a different world because
my uncle was in the satellite business
so we had satellite and we had uh
Showtime so we had in the days when
Showtime was actually a terrestrial
antenna we had showtimes we always had
showtime and Cinemax I didn’t even know
Showtime was on the open air oh yeah
yeah yeah yeah it was it was you had to
have the special antenna for it all that
and the and the equipment that would
decode it but uh yeah my uncle installed
one in our house probably in the early
80s so we were getting like the brand
new movies and everything else and it it
really didn’t cost I think you just had
the you didn’t pay for the service you
just paid for the equipment back then we
got the equipment for free and so we
always had showtime in Cinemax and that
was the good days when it was skinx it
was the the good movies too for a young
young man yeah it was actually pretty
awesome but yeah I don’t remember when
we got our first VCR but it was probably
even later than that because we we had
new movies so there was no other reason
to go I I remember one of my friends had
one in 78 or 79 and this thing looked
like a piece of furniture yes they
couldn’t even put it on top of the TV it
was on like its own separate shelf it
was just crazy the new yeah the new
Russian mini cam but I thought this was
interesting with this guy he had only he
started out with 50 baby can you imagine
showing somebody like that back then
like a Netflix that has thousands of
titles oh my God they yeah their heads
that explode so it always reminds me of
the Moscow and the Hudson with Robin
Williams with the coffee scene where
he’s he goes into the he he comes from
Russ yeah and he goes into the the
coffee aisle and and he’s his people he
was staying with are like you know we
need you to go get some coffee so he
goes into the coffee aisle and he’s
standing there and he’s going and it’s
like everywhere and he just collapses in
the
aisle from all the choices wait you have
more than one type of bread yeah exactly
bread and we have coffee all right but
hell I figure if you had 50 titles at 50
bucks a pop man that’s 2500 bucks worth
of movies that that you’d have to have
years ago before we get into this
carefor which is like the Walmart of
France tried to come over to the us
about 30 years ago and failed miserably
yeah I didn’t know this because
Walmart’s pretty big in China Walmart
failed in Germany partly because it
didn’t care for the SM customer service
if you think about it like the German
comedian doesn’t smile stoic zombie face
and I thought this was interesting it
tried to go into Germany in 2008 had 84
stores in Germany and lost about a
billion dollars I’ve got a good friend
of mine that actually went over there
and was setting those up he was working
for Walmart at the time my insurance
agent he was working for Walmart at the
time and he was in Germany setting most
of those things up so that’s hilarious
and and the funny thing is you have a
product that you think all right this is
universal I’ll give you an example even
though I’m not the biggest fan of his I
think he’s as dry as chalk but Howard
Schultz of Starbucks yep can you imagine
the big ones to basically say I don’t
care that there’s over a billion people
in China drinking tea we’re g we’re
we’re gonna we’re gonna make them drink
coffee yeah these are people that 50
years ago had dirt roads yeah and had
done things the same way they had for
thousands of years and you’re going to
try and bring coffee in the China yeah
everybody wants something that’s
American right they want Coca-Cola and
they want Starbucks Coffee well it’s
fun China Kentucky Fried Chicken yeah I
can understand why Walmart wouldn’t they
don’t like that kind of big boxy type
stuff everything really mostly in Europe
is relatively small they’ve got like big
supermarkets and stuff like that but
they don’t have these big multistore
type places they’ve got a few of them
but it it’s few and far between is
Costco in Europe
I should you know I don’t remember
seeing any we’re mostly in the touristy
places so I don’t really remember seeing
any but I don’t think they are you’ve
got like marks and Spencer in in UK
which that’s I guess it’s Walmart esque
in that it’s like bolting a Target on
top of a really nice food market right
it’s basically the way I’ve always
explained them yeah no it’s interesting
all right no Smiley customer service we
don’t like Smiley customer service you
know what I was reading this article in
Yahoo finance I’m like hey you know what
this might be interesting to the
audience because I thought years ago and
I’m talking about years ago I thought
checks were good for six months okay and
then what and then what you end up
finding out is it differs by bank I
remember years ago I forgot I got some
kind of a refund for a buck 28 and I
held on to it for a year and I said ah
let me see if I can cash this thing and
I was able to but there are some banks
that do have limits on it after period
of time which I thought was interesting
because you would think that they should
be good for a year I don’t know if
you’ve ever run into this situation or
anybody’s ever asked you about this but
it differs by bank to bank just by the
way just like zel which I had to use
twice and I said what’s the limit they
said oh it varies from bank to bank and
I’m like wait a minute isn’t zel’s
separate service and some banks will
only do up to ,000 a month and other
banks will do up to 2,000 a month first
I didn’t even know that number one there
was a li on a transaction and number two
that there was a limit per month which I
didn’t understand and I couldn’t get a
good explanation but at least with the
checks I get it well and I think
probably the reason for the max per
month being a relatively low amount is
then they don’t have to go through the
process of filing because now of course
the IRS has gotten Uber
intrusive anti money laundering well
it’s not money laundering it’s just that
they want to screw all the people that
are doing like super small businesses
and things like that so they’ve gotten
to the point where they want to know
every transaction that’s happening for
people in PayPal and all that type of
stuff they’ve been on this kick because
we’re gonna Stick it to the billionaires
who are using PayPal at that point
so hey PayPal’s making money they might
not be making as much money but look
they’re milking a little few cents off
of every transaction well I’m not saying
pay but no they’re trying to go after
people that have little side gigs and
and stuff like that our our 80,000 IRS
agents that were gonna go after the
billionaires and all they’ve done is go
after little small people that can’t the
billionaires is a finite Universe you
don’t need 880,000 IRS people for that
not the slightest and they have the
money to to fight everything the the
little small guy they’ll just go after
the little small guy and and beat him up
the guy that’s driving Uber a few hours
a day that’s where they’re going to make
their billions back there’s an audit
trail of all that that’s
that’s why I use lift I like always
getting I always like working with the
company in second position because
they’re always trying harder and if you
ask most Uber lift driers that are are
hybrids they use both most of them will
say that they like lift better than Uber
because they pay faster and I think a
higher percentage I’m not sure but the
great thing about that you never have to
take cash out of your pocket no it’s I
like said in a lot of cases where I used
to rent a car when we would travel and
stuff like that we just don’t rent a car
anymore anymore just it’s cheaper in the
long run where I don’t have to park a
car I can have a vehicle when I need it
and in most cases we travel places where
there’s trains and everything else so
that we can if we’re going on a longer
trip we take the train if not you’re in
City why not just take a lifter City
yeah there’s no reason to rent a car all
right so the last one I thought this was
interesting because we’re always talking
about this in our country as far as the
average life expectancy and what we pay
for health and I thought this was
interesting that we have one of the
lowest life expectancies out of all of
the major countries and we have the
highest cost ridiculous amounts of money
on Howard Dean who ran for president
with the Primal scream back in what
9294 I didn’t know he was a doctor and
after he dropped out of the race he’s a
very actually smart and eloquent speaker
and he had talked about one of the major
problems with healthc care in our
country is we treat the sick and not the
healthy meaning the idea is that we
should be showing and teaching people
how to remain healthy how to live a
healthy lifestyle and obviously
tremendous amount is poor food choices
and lack of exercise but I thought our
life expectancy was around 80 78 for
women 80 for men but the cost per person
isn’t is insane it’s everybody always
laughs about Canada’s socialistic Sy
socialistic medicine system meanwhile
their life expectancy is higher than
ours and their cost
is yeah yeah it’s ridiculous like I said
and the the fact that you know one we
don’t treat that Japan I think is the
the best story I I caught an article
recently and I’d encourage people to go
look for it I’ll see if I can put it
into the the show notes but I caught an
article written by Ben Carson Dr Ben
Carson and it was just really
outstanding article talking about like
heart health and everything else and he
was talking about Japan and Japan like
40 or 50 years
ago F just completely focused on heart
health and everything else and they made
it a a major national cause and
everything else and obviously it’s
paying off because they’re not have
they’ve got one of the oldest
populations and they’re living forever
and they’re spending the least amount of
money of any major country on it but
don’t forget what is typically their
core diet Fish and Rice yep Fish and
Rice how of I I always said Do you ever
see like grossly obese people in Japan
and the answer is yeah the sumu
wrestlers Tucky fried chicken and
McDonald scary yeah the scary thing is
those guys are actually pretty healthy
and they eat a pretty damn healthy diet
they just eat a lot of it they eat a lot
of carbs yeah yeah but still they’re
such a small part of the population it
doesn’t make a difference but other than
that
pretty much the rest of the population
are extremely thin and big Walkers they
standard like walking after dinner
walking after a meal what do we do we go
from the dinner table to the couch you
know and watch TV yeah we overeat and
then sit there watch TV
so okay so that’s what I got for this
week pretty good stuff and got some good
feedback from some of our viewers some
of my clients they’re enjoying what
we’re doing I think they like the
shorter formats who knows but just want
to remind everybody to hydrate eat more
fish and rice and walk after dinner
please do and not not sit there and
watch The Boob Tube forever it’s
completely useless next show that we’ve
got coming up I’m gonna do a show for us
on five or actually six stocks that I’ve
think are just interesting stories
during the the upcoming earnings season
we just began earnings season so I’ve
got
six of them one of them is already
reported and it it turned out to be an
extraordinarily interesting story make
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