Jeff Kikel: Good morning, Cents of  things. It’s Jeff and Ron here again  

for another wonderful world of what’s  going on in the crazy world of economy,  

U. S., and just a few crazy fun facts  here and there. Hey, Ron, how you doing?

Ron Lang: Good

Jeff Kikel: morning,

Ron Lang: doing well. Based on  the last couple of podcasts,  

I hopefully have a lot of very useful facts for us  today because those were always some fun things.

Ron Lang: Always get some good comments.  So anything that’s useful is always good.

Jeff Kikel: Absolutely. Why don’t  we kick ourselves off? Of course  

we’re going into Memorial Day weekend  this weekend. And why don’t we kick it  

off with some of your fun stuff that  you have with bad business decisions.

Jeff Kikel: Cause that’s been a big kicker lately.

Ron Lang: Okay. All right. Let me

Jeff Kikel: and I have to give  props to you [00:01:00] because  

you did the bad business decisions  about red lobster and a week later,  

red lobster filed for bankruptcy.  So they listened to you.

Ron Lang: Anyway, I just read another article  yesterday. They are blaming not just the the all  

you can eat shrimp, but now they’re blaming  the largest investor and the former CEO.

Ron Lang: So they got to blame somebody. So

Jeff Kikel: yeah, it couldn’t be that we were  just a really bad business and it didn’t work. So

Ron Lang: no, and the consumer has been  changing in the last four years and he  

didn’t adopt. So what are you going to do?  All right. So I got two good ones here. RCA,  

I guess you have to be of a certain  age to remember this company.

Ron Lang: This company over a hundred  years ago was the the Amazon, the Apple,  

the Microsoft and the NVIDIA of its  world at the time because they were  

real big with radios. And then record  players, they basically controlled  

the dissemination of information and  entertainment [00:02:00] for decades.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah.

Ron Lang: And I thought reading this was  interesting, but I, if you read it in the  

middle here, It tried to expand right because it  couldn’t keep up with tv. Sure. So bought random  

house publisher I didn’t know this they own  hertz Okay, frozen food banquet maker banquet,  

which i’ve seen i’ve never bought any of that  stuff But they own both the publishing house,  

and hertz and then of course you can see in  the upper left here That its peak revenue  

rather ironically was 8 billion and 80 81  But I don’t know how much of that was their  

core business or How much of that was Hertz or  Random House, but I thought it was interesting.

Jeff Kikel: The funny part is that is the  complete, I think is an, I think this was an  

example that Peter Lynch gave in his book, One Up  on Wall Street, where he talked about companies de  

worcifying. And I think he gave RCA as an example  of diversification, getting into a bunch of  

[00:03:00] these random businesses that they don’t  know anything about and trying to be successful  

and all they end up doing is being not successful  with any of them, including their core business.

Jeff Kikel: You

Ron Lang: could make an argument on the  publishing with information and media  

and whatever. But I thought it was interesting  because obviously they just fell off the face of  

the earth in five years. And Jack Welch in 86.  Scooped them up for probably a major discount.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, and then  basically did nothing with  

it because they don’t even  use the RCA Brand anymore.

Ron Lang: No, but there still is an RCA Building  in Camden, New Jersey that they converted the  

condos Here’s one of my favorite ones american  motors I mean you want to talk about a poorly  

run company Missing the market with the japanese  invasion of their cars in the late 60s 70s and 80s  

And then finally they were bought out by another  struggling company that came up from the depths  

of disaster in 87 [00:04:00] people typically  remember american motors Three different ways.

Ron Lang: I’ll give you the best one.  The best one was in 1974 in the James  

Bond movie when he did a sideways loop  to loop over the ramp. That was what I  

was living. Let die. Yeah, I was living.  Let die in 71 or 71 or 73. And then,  

of course, they’re known for the Pinto.  Exploded. No. They are known to pacer.

Ron Lang: They’re not the pacer. Oh no. And the,  that’s for that third one, the pacer for the  

ugliest car in history. Yes. That last featured  and got a bump in Waynesboro, a 1982 movie.

Jeff Kikel: Absolutely. And it is one of the most  

collectible 1970s cars today. Next  to the And thing was they trying to

Ron Lang: make it look space age with all  the glass around it, with all the, which.

Ron Lang: Oh God, that was there.

Jeff Kikel: My favorite. I’m a huge I watch  tons of automotive media and all that,  

and there was a YouTube thing where it had a  fully blown [00:05:00] pinto, or excuse me,  

a fully blown pacer and a fully blown  gremlin racing against each other.

Ron Lang: Awesome. The two

Jeff Kikel: greatest cars  of 19, the Pinto, they were

Ron Lang: kind of similar cars.

Jeff Kikel: Oh yeah. No, the  Gremlin, the grimmy is the

Ron Lang: baddest of ’em all, but yeah. All right,  so I thought this was interesting. I saw this and  

of course you swipe it So looking at prices  of food going back five years ago to now Oh,  

so looking at the McDonald’s Taco Bell  and Chick fil a I love Chick fil a,  

but it comes back to bite me the next day  with all its sodium Not that everybody needed  

to know that but they do have the best vanilla  shakes Chick fil a has the best vanilla shakes.

Ron Lang: So I thought this was  interesting that basically almost  

all of this is a hundred percent  increase. Wow. Now, how much of the,  

how much of the input cost of this increases  labor versus actual food? I don’t know.

Jeff Kikel: [00:06:00] Yeah. You figure,  

some of these things, I’m all,  especially chicken, was massive.

Jeff Kikel: Especially in, you figure  in 2022 where we had that massive,  

they had to call all the chickens because  of the bird flu. That was going around.  

The price of chicken went through the roof there

Jeff Kikel: For several years. So  anybody that had exposure to chicken,  

that was probably pretty ugly.

Ron Lang: And I thought this was the other part  of this was interesting as another useless fact  

for our audience That you try to identify this,  the pigdottos identified the source of where  

they got the prices Do you know what figueroa  street is known as known for in los angeles?

Jeff Kikel: Not

Ron Lang: a clue prostitution  and drugs sweet Why they chose?

Ron Lang: That every the most random  place I have no idea. Yeah By the way,  

I don’t know from first hand  experience. I just i’m just aware

Jeff Kikel: just

Ron Lang: saying So another couple of  things I thought was interesting doing  

a little nostalgia instead of [00:07:00]  five years. Let’s go back 30 look at just  

the input of inflation into the economy and the  stimulus, as far as you take a look in 1994,  

of all these major companies and  of all these major companies,  

really only mobile and Walmart have really  grown and excelled in and flourished.

Ron Lang: IBM has gone up and down as trying to  make another comeback. AT& T is languished.  

Philip Morris is languished. Sears.  Sears isn’t even around anymore. And ge,  

everybody likes to look at their stock price, but  people don’t realize they did a one for 10 split,  

not a 10 for one split. Wherever  the price is now, you gotta look.

Ron Lang: Divide that by 10. That’s, yeah,  that’s where it was Pre-split. But it, all,  

that adds up to $841 trillion. The top stocks here  have surpassed it. Just Amazon and Walmart, or if  

you want to add it up, Exxon and Amazon surpassed  all those companies combined in 1994. [00:08:00]

Jeff Kikel: Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Amazing. And and it’s a kind  of an interesting split. You would think,  

oh, it’s all tech companies, but you’ve got  Chevron and mobile. That are in there. You’ve  

got McKesson, which is in its own industry,  Berkshire Hathaway. That’s largely been him  

just acquiring and acquiring companies that  were on the left side of the chart there for

Ron Lang: a while.

Ron Lang: Remember back in the day, 30 years ago,  

obviously IBM was a tech company and AT&  T were trying to make themselves Latino out  

to be a tech company and they were  not, but notice back, back then,  

even now, they’re just trying to. Give you a  comparison, where’s Microsoft and, Apple is, 1994.

Ron Lang: They were near the bottom. Yeah, Steve  Jobs didn’t come back to what 97 or 98. Funny

Jeff Kikel: thing as I look at Ford as an  example, I don’t think it’s moved in. It’s  

been in a trading range for as long as I can  remember back now It’s been dead money for

Ron Lang: 20 years. I think near 20.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, and gm’s  gone up a little bit, but ford  

[00:09:00] Literally, I look  at that and i’m just like okay.

Jeff Kikel: It’s not moved at all It’s amazing  to me that investors have hung in there

Ron Lang: Yeah, and just talking a little bit  about market conditions without getting too  

wonky about this So folks on the right  side, we’ve gone through this before  

Rsi relative strength index. Basically  anything below 30 is considered Oversold  

meaning that you’re going to look for a bump  and anything over 70 is considered overbought.

Ron Lang: We’re at 91 I mean you can’t stay up  here forever and we always see what kind of the  

downside is here But I thought this was a just a  quick interesting colorful chart You’re doing a  

good visual and then this is a different because  we’ve always done the cnn, green and fear index  

This is another one comparing a lot of different  sentiments out there that when they combine it all  

together you know the aaii most people familiar  with that’s the investment, Sentiment index  

and [00:10:00] obviously the VIX people  are familiar with and it’s an extreme greed  

conditions And it has been looks like for  the last six to eight months Which probably  

since last october when we hit bottom at  the end of october like around october 27

Jeff Kikel: Yeah,

Ron Lang: what are your thoughts here?

Jeff Kikel: I think it’s just you know,  once again people had that we saw that  

little poll I mean we saw a pretty decent  pullback in april You And then all of a  

sudden the market’s just right back up and  beyond that at this point, and the world is  

wonderful. I think we had a little bit of a  blip this week because once again people reading  

the feds minutes and oh they’re probably  going to raise interest rates again Okay.

Jeff Kikel: No, that’s not what it said Once  again, I heard that this morning Unlikely,  

it’s unlikely. Okay. Then that  means that it could be likely. Yeah,  

it’s as it also Is possibly as likely as  us seeing a meteor hit the planet. Yes,  

it could happen It’s very unlikely that it  will go up and it’s [00:11:00] very unlikely.

Jeff Kikel: I think personally,  

that it’s going to go down anytime soon. I  think we stay where we’re at the election

Ron Lang: unless there’s got to be a  catalyst or a trigger or something, horrible

Jeff Kikel: things going to have to  happen to cause it to go down. And  

I don’t necessarily see that  at this point, but I think,  

as we go into our next episode I’ve got some  stuff for that next episode where, it is.

Jeff Kikel: I think there’s some things  on the horizon that are starting to show  

up that we might we, we might have some issues  when it comes to that. So I’ll tease that for  

everybody watch the next episode and  I’ve got some kind of charts to show  

where the consumer is right now, at least  in some aspects from a credit standpoint.

Ron Lang: Yeah, definitely want to wish  everybody a happy Memorial Day weekend,  

honor our military and certainly get the barbecue  out. There’s nothing better. Yeah. Barbecue

Jeff Kikel: and saw this morning that  the Marines [00:12:00] and the Air  

Force actually beat their recruiting goals.  Army and Navy, not so much at this point.

Jeff Kikel: Now, Air Force did it by  adjusting their requirements to get in. That,  

although they were, they made a point  of saying that everybody that’s in is  

making it through training and getting  into better shape, but they had to.  

Change it a little bit because our current  recruiting crop is a little out of shape

Ron Lang: Yeah, and just as a tease and I  know we got to wrap up if all the recruiting  

goals are up, they lower the standards  to get people in to certain Branches,  

those are also considered government jobs,

Jeff Kikel: of course Yep we’ll  need that and we definitely need  

a whole bunch more on the army and the navy side.

Jeff Kikel: So we’ll see how  that works out All right,  

folks. Thank you for joining us. We love  doing these shows for you and we’re trying  

to make them as quick as we possibly can.  So quick hit and get off. So thank y’all  

for joining us. Make sure that you subscribe  to the channel because there’s going to be a  

lot of these coming out [00:13:00] and make  sure you give us an upvote or some comments.

Jeff Kikel: We’d love to hear  from you. So thanks a lot. And  

we will see you back here the very next time.