In this eye-opening episode of Rush to Reason, host John Rush delves into the pressing issues facing Denver and other major cities as they grapple with rising homelessness and declining interest from new residents. From top-tier fuel debates to the socio-economic factors affecting urban growth, John provides listeners with a thorough analysis of why Denver no longer ranks among the favorite destinations for relocation in the U.S. Colorado’s capital faces a myriad of challenges, from political leadership that falls short on campaign promises to a deteriorating urban environment that drives both longtime residents and potential newcomers away. Listeners will
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There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush.
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My advice to you is to do what your parents did!
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Get a job, Turk! You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
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It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
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And we are back, hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Appreciate you all joining me today. Had a message a moment ago that said, hey, thanks for all of the information today. It’s been a great learning day here on Rush to Reason, which my comment back was, thank you. I learn every single day that I do this show, and I’m not exaggerating. In the last decade plus that I’ve done this show, I will tell you that I am – Way more informed, and I feel intelligent in a lot of areas that I wouldn’t have been not doing this show. You study every day. You read every day. You really do things nonstop. Some of you have always asked me, how do you find time to prep and so on? You never stop. So you’re just constantly doing something, and then in my case, I find something, I add it to notes, find something, add it to notes, and then I go back in and kind of delve into that particular topic. But if I see a decent topic, I just keep adding it, and it’s just ongoing. I don’t ever stop preparing. And there are times that I dedicate to preparing for the show, and typically for me that’s early morning, but sometimes it’s in the evenings. It just depends on what my day looks like the following day. But my point is every day I learn something. So I know you all do, and I appreciate that, and you all send me things as well. It’s a great community that we have here, and I learn literally as much from you all as you do me. For example, I paid $2.29 a gallon for gas at Costco in Thornton today. Somebody just texted me that. So there you go. If you guys want cheap gas and you’re a Costco member, and Costco, by the way, sells top-tier fuel, which I talk about on Drive Radio all the time, $2.29 a gallon at Costco in Thornton. So there you go. Top-tier fuel, Charlie said for me to explain that. I talk about it a lot on Drive Radio, but not all fuel is created equal. So years ago, decades ago, the manufacturers came up with – because they were having issues with some of their vehicles under warranty, not performing well, having engine issues, things like that. And so what they did is collectively they got together and said, okay, we need to put a standard in so that fuel – has a minimum that it meets, and then we’ll recommend that to our customers that they run this particular fuel. I just talked about last Saturday on Drive Radio that Porsche, I got somebody sent me a newsletter from them the other day, and they were going through this exact same topic, even showing pictures of the inside of an engine, the valve train itself, the valves, and the differences in using brand new versus new. you know, X amount of miles with non-top tier with X amount of miles with top tier. And there’s a vast difference between those two. Top tier fuel has more consistency in the fuel itself. It’s got a different ad pack that’s in it where a lot of the other non-top tier fuels will not. And you can find all of the top tier stations in a particular area no matter where you live. Just Google top tier gas locations and it’ll take you right to top tier. I think it’s top tier gas or toptierfuel.com. and you can find all the locations there. And Costco is now a top-tier fuel. It didn’t used to be, but they since have gone through that process, and their fuel now is top-tier. And Costco doesn’t make its own fuel. They’re buying that from the rack somewhere, but it’s a top-tier rated fuel. And no, not all fuel is. In fact, one of the things I say all the time, not to throw anybody under the bus, but if you go to a station to fill up, and there’s an additive machine there that they’re wanting you to spend extra money on additives, drive somewhere else. That means it’s really cheap fuel. without much in the way of additives in it because they wouldn’t be selling you the additional additives if everything was in it already. In other words, you don’t need that with top-tier fuel. So drive out of that place, go to a top-tier station, fill up there and call it good. And yes, things will be much better using top-tier. I’ve had this argument so many times from even people that will text me and email me saying there’s no difference, all fuel is the same. No, it’s not. No, it’s not. I’m sorry. It isn’t. You can do all the different studies out there. There’s many a video out there on, you know, raw fuel taken from different stations and testing done on it and so on. And no, it is not all created equal. So that’s sort of a lesson on top tier. Sorry to get off on on on a different tangent here. I was going to talk about the sharp decline. And people wanting to move to Denver, which I can do as soon as we come back. So I’ll take a quick timeout and we’ll do that. That’s perfect timing. So anyways, at the end of the day, yes, run top-tier fuel in your car. $229 right now for top-tier fuel at Costco in Thornton, for those of you that live up north. And it’s not going to be the same at every Costco station. That I do know. It does vary across the city, just like every other station out there does. What you might find in Thornton might be different in Washington. which is different than Centennial, which is different in Aurora, and you get my drift. So shop around, but right now it looks like Costco’s got a pretty good deal on fuel in Thornton. All right, up next, Flesch Law. Kevin Flesch, civil, criminal, you name it, Kevin’s got you covered. 303-806-8886.
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This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. And it is Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Thank you all. Somebody also texted a moment ago and said, it’s dark outside. Do you like doing the show in the dark? No, I hate it. Charlie knows it as well as I. I hate it. So, yeah. Great question, by the way. And no, I don’t like it. The… Glass that I normally look out, that I look out of, out at the front range because we face west coming out of the studio 12 stories up. So we have a really fantastic view. But at this time of the night, I look at myself because you can’t see anything because it’s just a reflection back. And yeah, it sucks. I hate it. Absolutely hate it. I wish we would go on daylight saving time year round. I absolutely despise these short winter dark days. And I know a lot of you feel the same way. I would rather wake up in the dark and be able to work now in the light than the other way around. And I know that’s me, and I know everybody’s got their own opinion on that, but that’s mine. And no, I don’t care about the little kitties being at the bus stop in the morning in the dark, because they’re either in the dark then or they’re in the dark sometime. And by the way, kids ought to learn how to function, period, no matter what. And I have my own opinions on buses, bus stops, and all of that. A huge pet peeve of mine, not to get off on another tangent here, but… My pet peeve are parents that make the kids sit in the car and wait for the bus, and then they get out of the car and then get on the bus. It’s like, you know, for as long as you sat there waiting for the bus, you could have drove them to the dang school. What are you doing? And I’m not exaggerating. Those parents, and if you’re one of them, you drive me crazy, literally. Your kids are so stinking spoiled rotten, it’s ridiculous. Let them sit out there, drop them off, and off you go. Let them grow up a little bit. It won’t hurt them at all. Use having them sit in the car. And by the way, I’ve seen them do this no matter whether it’s snowing out, cold out, raining out, or it’s a 70-degree day. Your kid will be just fine walking to the bus stop 15 feet from the car and waiting for the bus to show up. They’ll be fine. They’re almost always in neighborhoods, plenty of people around. They’re not going to die. You don’t have to sit there and watch little Johnny or Susie get on the bus. Anyways, don’t get me started on the bus system in general. I think that’s a complete waste of taxpayer dollars, but I digress. So as you guys all know, I despise the public school system in general, and I despise the bus system that takes them there, the Marxist buses that drive the kids to school, to the Marxist school, so they can go through the entire process of being brainwashed in school all on my dime. So you guys already know my feelings on that, and I won’t go down that path right now. So Denver. has one of the sharpest declines in interest to move to, a new study finds. So America’s go-to cities, once prime destinations that people flock to, including Denver, doesn’t seem to be in style anymore. A new study from Move Buddha, Move Buddha, ranked the most popular cities to move to in 2026, but it’s not amongst the most popular cities that Denver, any other Colorado city on the list for that matter, found itself, it is falling towards the bottom of the list. Yeah, I can tell you why. This one’s easy. Just watch the news, drive around a little bit, and anybody that would look at Denver to move to would be a moron. Why would you move here? And Mayor Johnston, if you’re listening, this is on you. You’re in charge. You had initially ran on, I’m going to clean up homelessness. I think, Charlie, it was first 100 days, right? I’ll clean up homelessness in the first 100 days. Yeah, that didn’t happen. In fact, it got worse, not better. So, Mike, sorry, you didn’t keep your campaign promise. And frankly, you’re a crappy mayor. One of the worst I think we’ve ever had. And I don’t say that lightly because we’ve had some really bad ones. This one takes the cake. Homelessness, in my opinion, is easy to clean up. You just have to have the guts to do it. We don’t. He doesn’t, I should say. On top of that, you look at all of the other nonsense laws that Denver has implemented, and down the road we go, and the reality is, no, it’s not a fun city to move to. Nobody wants to live here. No newbies want to come live here. Now, I don’t know how the suburbs fit into this. According to this study, none of our Colorado cities rank high anymore. And we used to be really high on the list. It’s not so much anymore. And part of that is because what goes on in Denver, and for those of you that always wonder, well, why do you talk about Denver, John? You don’t even live there. And most don’t, by the way. Most of my listeners don’t live in Denver. They live other places. But as I’ve always said, and Charlie knows what I mean here, what goes on in Denver permeates out into the other areas, the suburbs. It does. Homelessness, for example. Let me start there. Anybody that lives anywhere around the Front Range, I guarantee you, unless you live in a cave blocked in where you can’t see out, no matter where you live across the Front Range here, homelessness has gone up. It has in my area. And I live in an area, by the way, where at one point in time, you didn’t see any homeless around, period. Period. They didn’t exist. They do now. And I am not afraid to run them off. I am one of those guys. I am not afraid to run them. I ran one off the other day. I think I told you guys all this not long ago. It was towards the end of the summer, and there was a guy rolling down the street. And I’m like, yeah, this is too close for comfort, and you picked the wrong part of town to camp out in, and no, it’s not going to happen here. And I ran him off. Yes, I will do that. It does not bother me one iota. In fact, if more of us did that, you wouldn’t have them. The problem is we make it far too comfortable for the homeless to hang around. And by the way, this is a guy that I can tell you because I’ve seen him around town. He is homeless by choice. He is not homeless because he’s down and out. He’s homeless by choice, and this is his lifestyle. You know what? Fine. Do your own thing, but don’t do it around me. That’s my motto. And where I’m going with this is there’s not enough of me around to run these people off, including politicians. No, we coddle them. We make it easy to be homeless. We make our police force turn a blind eye anytime they see one because I’ve watched it, by the way. Unless these guys are doing something really nefarious or something really wrong or it gets so bad health-wise, they just let them camp out. And it’s under bridges. It’s in the medians. It’s in between the medians on the highway. It’s on corners. It’s back behind certain buildings. It’ll be behind vacant buildings. Guys, I can go down the list of where you find homeless people. They’re everywhere. And it’s ridiculous. And it’s, in my opinion, why Denver itself and even a lot of the surrounding cities has dropped as a place to move to from outside of this area. Who would want to live there? Who would want to have a business in the downtown Denver area with the homelessness we now have? And again, this comes back to Democrat Mike Johnston. It’s all Democrats, but he’s the leader in regards to being the mayor of Denver. He’s it. This falls on him. Shame on you, Mike Johnston, by the way. You ran on cleaning up homelessness and you haven’t done it yet. You have a huge budget shortfall because you spend money on things you shouldn’t spend on in the first place. and yet haven’t done anything about homelessness. It’s worse now than it was when you took over office. So my feeling is, and I don’t think I’m wrong in this, the reason why we’re seeing a trend, a dropping trend in our cities across the front range of people wanting to move here is because of that. And it spreads, like I said a moment ago. Go look around any of the cities. I drive a lot of places, folks, on a regular basis, and you’re hard-pressed to not see homelessness. No matter where you go, even some of the upper echelon areas, you’re going to see homelessness. And you shouldn’t, but you will. And it will do nothing but get worse until we decide to snuff it out. And just as a side note, man, you could pick better places to be homeless in Denver, Colorado, where it’s cold in the winter. I mean, if I were going to be homeless and that was the lifestyle I chose, I’d be in Hawaii. I’d be in some other area where it’s pretty warm all year long. I get it being in Phoenix. It’s super hot in the summer. But you know what? That still beats the cold. You can still go find some shade. It beats being zero out or even freezing. So again, at the end of the day, if I were homeless, I’d be picking a different city to live in. But people pick Denver on the homeless thing for all sorts of reasons. I’m guessing one of them is there’s no repercussions for being homeless. You can be homeless and live here and really not have too many hassles. including, by the way, grabbing your own cardboard sign, hanging out on certain street corners, getting cash passed off to you on a daily basis, which if you do the math, in some cases, those guys are making more money than you guys listening are, all tax-free. Yes, that’s what happens. Doesn’t take long to figure out if they get X amount per hour, how that works at the end of the day. And there’s a lot of working stiffs out there that are putting in far more hours and doing far more work and paying their way versus the homeless guy with the cardboard sign. We’re getting scammed basically at the end of the day, folks. And it’s it’s on purpose by the Democrat Party. They love this. They loathe in this. They think they’re doing some sort of a civic duty or they’ll tell you that they’re doing some sort of a civic duty when all the while they know this is the core of Marxism. Create chaos. Overthrow things. Make it unbearable. Make it so that government has to be the answer. The only problem is it’s not. It never will be, but it’s not, as is in the case of homelessness around the Denver area. If government was the answer, you wouldn’t have any homelessness. But it’s not the answer, and they won’t do anything about it. In fact, all they’re going to do is make it worse. So I’m not exaggerating when I say some of these things, folks. It is, in my opinion, the homeless problem is a lot of what’s going on. Castle Rock, this is a text message coming in. Castle Rock had homeless in the Safeway parking lot and under the bridges on Plum Creek. Yeah. Again, proving my point. It’s not just Denver anymore where you see the homeless people. They have literally scattered abroad this entire front range. Trying to read a few more text messages here, folks. Let me see. The homeless were also inhabiting the parks all over Castle Rock. Okay. There’s another one that just came in. Okay. Let me see here. There is a barbershop on the main drag in Cheyenne, and there is an alley and the owners, who is a good guy. But a thug, but he and his people, probably drug dealers, will beat the crap out of the homeless junkies behind the shop in the alley. Okay, that’s a text message coming in. I can’t prove that, but that’s you guys texting that in. I don’t know. That’s probably not the way the homeless should be treated. They are humans, but we shouldn’t be beating them up. But there’s other ways to get rid of them, by the way. Other ways to get rid of them. Others of you, by the way, are texting in agreeing with everything I’m saying. And it’s partially why not all the reason why, but partially why Denver seeing a decline in people wanting to move here. And again, I’m getting more and more of you reiterating that that we’re spot on talking about what we’re talking about. So, by the way, thank you for that. I appreciate those text messages. And yes, homelessness can be cured. It can be fixed. It won’t be with our current leadership because, again, they believe in homelessness as one of the things that they can use as a tool against our republic. That’s how they look at it. So, again, this particular article coming out of KDVR, Fox 31, you can read it for yourself. And reality is there’s now other towns, other cities that have taken our place as the just right cities in 2026, meaning that there’s people wanting to move there versus move here. Here’s the ranking. I’ve got time to do this. Number one, Knoxville, Tennessee. Number two, Tulsa, Oklahoma. I wonder if Tulsa’s up on the list because of Tulsa Kings. And I’m being honest when I say that. I’m not laughing when I say that. I’m really wondering because of the amount of exposure that they’re getting from Tulsa King, which if you’ve not watched that series, it’s actually a really good series. It’s kind of cheesy and corny, but it’s good at the same time. And it highlights Tulsa. Sylvester Stallone. He’s a mob guy in Tulsa. So anyways, they’re number two. Vancouver, Washington, number three. Savannah, Georgia, number four. Tucson, Arizona, five. Tempe, Arizona, six. Frisco, Texas, number seven. Raleigh, North Carolina, number eight. St. Paul, Minnesota, number nine. which I can’t imagine Minnesota being anywhere on the list because I can’t think of a more godforsaken place to live when you’re that far north. But hey, more power to you. And number 10 is Virginia Beach, Virginia. So again, there’s all sorts of things they put into this equation as to how they came up with this particular list. You’re welcome to look at that. It’s currently right now on KDVR. I’ll put it in our show notes as well, but it’s easy to find. And anyways, Denver has now dropped completely off that list. And rightfully so, because of all the things I’ve talked about for about the last 15 minutes. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. Again, rejuvenate your current roof. Make it last longer. Save money on insurance. Make that roof last up to 15 years longer. 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 07 :
You’re listening to Rush to Reason. And we’re back. Scott Garlis joining us now from Bent Pine Capital. Scott, how are you? Hey, John. Well, how are you? I’m doing good. Always a joy to hear from you. Been a wild ride on Wall Street, though, the past, I don’t know, week or so. Explain why.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, again, a couple things. We touched on this last week about… Michael Burry’s attacking everything AI-related, basically just saying it’s fraud, that they’re using accounting scams to try to make their profits higher than they really are. And then you had some Fed governors were making comments leaning in the direction of possibly not lowering rates at the December meeting. So that has Wall Street jittery, too. Wall Street is looking for the Fed to cut again. A couple of the reasons there… We’re seeing defaults pick up a little bit on used car loans. The concern being is that interest rates have stayed too high. Look, I think the bigger problem there is people took out crazy loans on cars during COVID that they probably never should have. And they were overpriced.
SPEAKER 07 :
I mean, the cars at that time were also overpriced. People were paying a sticker and or above for a lot of cars, Scott, meaning they took out larger loans than they should have in the first place.
SPEAKER 17 :
That’s exactly right. And so as a result, that created sort of this problem. But the naysayers don’t care. They’re still going to point to it and say, well, it doesn’t matter. They took out a bad loan. Their defaults are picking up. It is what it is.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and by the way, I can’t say that I disagree with that, although, to your point, you have to look at all of the facts surrounding that, and that was a unique time. I’m not giving these people a pass by any stretch of the imagination, Scott, but I do think you have to put some context around why are they in the position they’re in.
SPEAKER 17 :
Exactly. I mean, you know, part of the problem, too, is like, if you have what was it, like $2.3 trillion in spending and handouts. And a lot of people start blowing money they never had before on things that they didn’t buy, pricing resets, they wipe out inventory, and that’s part of the problem there too.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 17 :
So if you pull back on some of that stuff or you don’t have all those handouts, maybe we don’t have this problem whatsoever. We don’t have the inflation problem and we don’t have to worry about the Fed cutting rates.
SPEAKER 09 :
True, true.
SPEAKER 17 :
Because it’s not a conversation. It’s not an issue.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, but it is what it is at this point, right?
SPEAKER 07 :
Speaking of AI and NVIDIA’s earnings, and I was reading today that they came out this afternoon, and they’re much higher than expected is what I had read.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, they were. They basically… They beat the number for the quarter, and they guided higher for the next quarter as well. They said next quarter sales are probably going to come in around $65 billion, plus or minus 2%. Okay. And Wall Street’s at 62%. They also said margins are going to rise. This is crazy to me. Margins were 73.5% for the quarter, and they think they could go up to 74.8% next quarter. Wow. Amazing. Yeah, it’s crazy.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay, so backing up. Let’s go back to Michael Berry talking about how they’re cooking the books, this, that, and the other. I mean, Scott, I don’t know. I haven’t looked at their books. Maybe he’s got information that I don’t have, and I don’t know what he’s exactly looking at. It looks to me like if you look at the amount of – I mean, I see videos on data centers. I see what AI is actually doing. I see the results of AI. I mean, I look at the new centers that are going in. I mean, unless somebody’s faking every one of these videos that I see where these particular centers are going in and they’re huge mammoth centers, I mean, unless – And I saw one the other day where it was literally a CBS tour of said facility. I mean, I don’t know how you fake that is my point. And they’re not fake or AI wouldn’t be where it’s at, Scott.
SPEAKER 17 :
So I’m agreeing with you. What Burry is saying is that Burry is saying that these guys are depreciating their assets. They’re extending the life of the useful life of their assets they’re depreciating. He’s saying they’re extending them to three to five years. They should be two to three years tops, maybe one. And so what he’s saying is that if they’re extending, and this is the people buying Nvidia’s chips. He’s saying they’re extending the useful life of these assets What they’re doing is they’re using an accounting gimmick to make their profits seem higher.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, they’re not depreciating as fast as maybe they could be, meaning their profits are going to be higher. And I guess the question really comes down to, and I didn’t know that Michael Berry was a chip expert. I mean, I guess the question is, how long will these pieces of hardware actually last? And I don’t know on the AI side. I mean, I know they’re working them really hard. They’re water-cooled. There’s lots of things going on. Yeah. On the same token, Scott, I know that regular chips in regular computers, depending upon how robust that particular unit is built, will definitely last more than three years.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, I just renewed my Apple… And I want to say it was like 8 or 10 years old.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, no, I get it. You’re not doing the same processing. That thing’s not running at 100% all day long, every day, 24-7. And I get where he’s coming from, but I think he’s being a little pessimistic in saying they’re only going to get a year and a half to two years out of those.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, completely. And so I’ll take it a step further. There’s a guy named David Friedberg who’s on the All In podcast. Are you familiar with that?
SPEAKER 07 :
No, I’m not. I’ll have to check it out.
SPEAKER 17 :
all in. Yeah, I think it’s the number one podcast right now. It’s basically a bunch of billionaires that have been in the tech world. They’ve made a lot of money, and they sort of give their take on everything. They know a lot of people. They bring them in to talk. It’s really, really interesting. It’s worth a listen. There’s another one, too. It’s called BG2, Brad Gerstner and Bill Gurley. Bill Gurley actually just left, but Bill Gurley’s like the godfather of private equity and Brad Gerson started Altimeter Capital back in 2008 with $3 million, and it’s up at $17 billion now because he’s such a good investor. But anyway, so David Freeberg is an ex-Google executive. I think he helped run their advertising division at one point. He said he’s been checking in with all of his buddies. He made a bunch of calls, people in the data center business and the tech business, and he said what they’re telling him is that the GPUs and the TPUs are more or less the same thing. They have seven- to eight-year-old TPUs and GPUs. They’re still sitting in the same data centers, and they’re still being used at 100% utilization. So he’s saying they’re not having any problems with these seven- and eight-year-old TPUs and GPUs. And he said, you know, Google started back in 21, taking it out to three to four years of depreciation, and then in 23 moved it out to three to five years because… they realized how much more life they’re able to get out of these things.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Okay. That makes sense by the way. I could buy that. That makes total sense.
SPEAKER 17 :
So he was saying on the all in podcast yesterday, he’s like, look, I, I think Burry’s got this wrong. Um, and he just said, he said the math that he’s doing is wrong because these hyperscalers are able to get a lot more life out of these things. Um, so it, it, I mean, look, I think part of the problem when we’ve talked about this is there are some people that are having a hard time coming to grips with how quickly and easily or fast the compute is evolving in AI and how well some of the technology is made. But so to Burry’s point is if these companies couldn’t depreciate the assets as long as they do, they wouldn’t be as profitable as they are. They couldn’t spend as much money on any of these AI products as they have been. And so if that were the case, you know, the demand for Nvidia would, would collapse and all these other things. But like you said, I mean, If you look around and look at all the things going on, we’re seeing things that very much contradict all of that.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, right. And again, I’m not – Michael’s a smart guy. He became very famous in the 2008 major housing bubble debacle. Of course, he’s in the one movie. And I get it. I mean, smart guy, although – In that one, he was lucky. I’ll just say it straight up. Yeah, he predicted things. He waited it out. He got lucky, although a lot of the folks around him thought that he wasn’t going to be lucky. He ended up being that way when it was all said and done. But I think in turn, those types of individuals can get a little bit of a pride going. I guess maybe Scott would be the way to say it. You know, like, every time I see this, it’s going to be right. Well, maybe, maybe not.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, and I think one of the things here, like CNBC miscategorized what Burry’s doing. He put on some puts. They’re dated out to 2027. He even clarified this, but the media hadn’t picked it up yet still. CNBC estimated this guy put on a short position. He bought however many puts. It was like 50,000 puts on Palantir that totaled like a $900 million. $20 million short bet against Palantir. Burry came out and said, it’s not the case. They’re worth $9.2 million. His fund was $150 million, so it wasn’t even big enough to technically put on a $920 million short position. On top of that, he recently yanked his registration. He said, my fund’s not shutting down, but it’s gotten small enough, which means it’s gone from $150 million to less than $100 million. And I think it’s because he really hasn’t done that well on the investing side. He’s been wrong on a lot of stuff recently. We talked about how he told everybody to sell the market in January 23, and that would have been a terrible idea. But once your assets drop below $100 million, you no longer have to register with the federal government. You only have to register on a state basis. So you don’t have to file all your holdings in these things. And maybe there’s pride in it for Burry, and he doesn’t want to admit that I lost assets. He’s like, I’m going undercover. I don’t have to file anymore. Who knows? But I get it. He’s probably just trying to make his case. He’s using his fame as a way to do it. And we’ll see how it plays out. But based on the NVIDIA numbers, It doesn’t look to be the case. I think NVIDIA was up like 5% after hours.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gotcha. Gotcha.
SPEAKER 17 :
For a stock like that, that’s a big move. What I would point out to people, if you look at this stock in terms of the days to cover and the short interest out there is 1.5 days to cover. NVIDIA trades about 180 million shares a day. At the current price, that’s like a $53 billion short interest. That’s a lot of money, and that’s a nasty cover rally if that happens.
SPEAKER 06 :
Gotcha.
SPEAKER 17 :
It’s the largest in the S&P 500, for whatever it’s worth.
SPEAKER 07 :
Gotcha. All right, let’s go back to the Fed cutting end of things. By the way, I think they have to be pretty nonchalant about talking about whether a rate cut’s coming or not coming. Yeah. I think you’ll see one, although maybe not. I mean, Jerome Powell is definitely against Donald Trump in rebounding the economy. He doesn’t care. He’s going to do anything he possibly can to stifle the 2026 midterms. I firmly believe that. Jerome Powell is an enemy of Donald Trump in this current administration. There’s no question about that. And I believe, Scott, at the end of the day, he doesn’t care about the American public. He only cares about himself and his own party winning the next election, which, by the way, is on the backs of the American public.
SPEAKER 17 :
It is. There’s an interesting article I was reading the other day. CNBC got this, and it was LinkedIn. They’re saying there’s like 2.2 million false job advertisements on there. So basically, there are 2.2 million ads out there for jobs that really don’t exist. And that goes into… some of this data that BLS uses to figure out what the JOLTS number is, which is the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. So the problem with that is that number’s been elevated too high by fake ads. And so now what you have is the Fed’s been making policy decisions based on they think the labor market’s tight because they look at the ratio of unemployed people versus available jobs.
SPEAKER 07 :
The reality is that those available jobs aren’t as big as they think.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. So like the recent 7.8 million number might be more like five or five and a half. And so that that means there are 7.4 million unemployed people that drives that ratio. That means there are about two thirds of a job available for every unemployed person.
SPEAKER 07 :
Interesting. And the other thing, too, the 908 don’t consider this, but the majority of the jobs that are, in fact, open right now are in the trades, and there’s just not enough skilled tradesmen to even fill those. That’s a whole other conversation. We’ve had some of that in the past, but the Fed doesn’t look at any of that, does it?
SPEAKER 17 :
No, it does not look at that at all. It’s just looking at the roll numbers. You’re correct.
SPEAKER 08 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 17 :
So I think the bigger thing to look at here, too, though, is You’ve got to remember, Powell’s tenure is almost up. That’s right. He’s out in May.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 17 :
Trump is saying he’s going to announce a new person soon. He’s probably going to go in the standard direction, which makes you think he’s going to go for one of the people that’s already at the Fed or worked at the Fed. My guess would be it’s going to be Chris Waller. He used to be the head of research at the St. Louis Fed. He’s probably the most prescient and practical or pragmatic person. of all the Fed governors, Waller is right now calling for rate cuts because he’s very worried about the labor market and what’s going on there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. And by the way, I think he’s right in that. I mean, if you look around at where we’re at, I had a long discussion today along these lines about, you know, where are we really at with the cost of food and goods and so on, and, you know, car prices are up and, you know, real estate’s not moving and so on. And I’m not saying that the economy is tanked, but… It kind of is stalemated. I don’t know that tanked is the right word, Scott, and I don’t want to use that word because it’s doing fairly well considering all that the Fed has done to stifle the growth. It’s actually doing fairly well in spite of that. If we got rates lowered, man alive, this thing would jump to life in a heartbeat. So given all of that, again, I’m with Waller. I think we need to have more rate cuts because the reality is it could be doing a lot better than it’s doing right now.
SPEAKER 17 :
You know, one of the head scratchers for me, the minutes of the meeting from October came out today. And in there, part of the conversation was basically a lot of these guys think inflation is to the point, if you look at the underlying drivers, it’s basically down to the 2% that they’ve been looking for. Right. And so they don’t think inflation is going to continue to be a problem. They think it’s going to back off the headline numbers you see, which were around 3% when we last saw them. Right. So, again, I’m like, well, if you feel that way and you see – and they’ve all said, they all agree that the risks are still to the downside in the labor market, just like you said. And so if you think risks are to the downside in the labor market and you don’t think inflation is going to be a problem – Why aren’t you cutting rates again?
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, exactly. Great question. Well, and you and I have been talking about this for a while. We predicted the rate increase that needed to happen all the way back when inflation took off, and they called it transitory. We started calling for rate cuts a long time ago. It still hasn’t happened the way it should be, and here we are. I mean, no offense, Scott. I don’t have the quote-unquote education and background these guys have, but I can predict it, and I’m not them.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, look, if you look at where inflation is and – You look at where the effective Fed funds rate is. They could cut by – and if you look at where inflation – it’s called the real rate of interest, which is Fed funds minus inflation. If you look at where that is traditionally, it’s negative 0.6% is where the Fed has averaged it there versus CPI since 2000. You know, you could cut by almost 150 basis points before you hit that so-called neutral level where basically interest rates aren’t hurting or helping the economy.
SPEAKER 07 :
One last question before I let you go. I read something yesterday, or maybe it was early this morning. I can’t remember, which I read so much stuff at times. I don’t bookmark that in my brain like I should, Scott. But either way, it doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, I read something that had basically a big scare message that had something to do with, you know, look at what Japan’s doing and what they’re doing with their own stock market. And the reality is, you know, they own this much of our market and they have this much of our debt. And they’re really doing a a bad thing, and their rates are going to increase, which is going to make our rates increase, and on and on we go. And I thought to myself, first of all, I’ve yet to see Japan really have any major effect upon what we do as a country. They were negative interest rates for the longest time, and we weren’t. So at the end of the day, Scott, I read all of that and sort of poo-pooed it, but maybe I’m wrong in poo-pooing it. Is there something to what’s going on in Japan, and will it have any kind of adverse effect upon us here in the U.S.? ?
SPEAKER 17 :
So we constantly see and hear this. You know, and it’s usually times like this in between when earnings are over and there’s a lack of a catalyst in the market, you start to hear these stories. We heard this a year, year and a half ago, and the stock market is significantly higher now than where it was then. So, you know, I don’t put a lot of weight in that. And I’ll be honest, I mean, if you look at the economic activity and where The data center construction is going, manufacturing is going in this country. Would you want to buy Japan’s bonds? No. Would you want to buy U.S. bonds? U.S.
SPEAKER 07 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 17 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Again, I read this whole thing and thought, well, you know, I’ll ask you today because you’re more of an expert in this area than I am. And, you know, yet at the end of the day, I’m reading through all of this and I get where maybe, you know, there might be a little tint, if you would, or hint of truth to some of what’s being posted. But as I go through each point, point by point, I’m asking the same questions you are. And I’m like, at the end of the day, no. And no offense, and you know this better than I. I have to go back and look, but last time I checked, I mean, we’re the largest GDP on the planet, bar none, and we far outpace anybody, including China. Last I checked, isn’t Japan quite a ways down on the list?
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I think Japan, they’re number three or four right around there.
SPEAKER 07 :
I’m looking right now, and let me look really quick, because I thought they were, they’re number four. So they’re number four, which, by the way, for all of you listening, you think, well, yeah, they’re number four. That’s high. Not in actual dollars, it’s not. We’re $28 trillion. China is about $17.7 trillion. Then you drop way down to Germany at $4.5 trillion, and then Japan’s at $4.5 trillion. So, Scott, even though they’re No. 4, there is a major gap between $28 trillion and $4 trillion.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, they used to be No. 2, like back in the 80s, when all the Japan- Right, right, right. U.S. trade tensions were going on, which people forgot about. But, yeah, if you look in – so I would take it a step further. I mean, does the website you’re looking at have the percentages? I want to say U.S. is like 23% of the global account.
SPEAKER 07 :
We’re 26%. Japan is 3.96%.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, so you just proved your point right there.
SPEAKER 07 :
Huge number difference.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
And some of you, by the way, I think some of the people that I’ve seen posted this might even be listeners. Reality, Scott, is, yeah, I wouldn’t worry about Japan as far as our economy goes. That’s just all I’m saying.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, I wouldn’t either. Look, we’re going to raise debt. We’re going to spend money. We’re going to raise debt. I mean, Americans own most of America’s debt. It’s not the outside world. So, yeah, I wouldn’t sweat it.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. How do folks get a hold of you, Scott? Sure.
SPEAKER 17 :
Go to bentpinecapital.com. You can check out everything I’m reading and writing every day. Away from that, you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook. Substack, or LinkedIn, C. Scott Garlis.
SPEAKER 07 :
Awesome, Scott, man, I appreciate it. We won’t talk next week, so have a happy Thanksgiving, sir.
SPEAKER 17 :
Same to you and your family. Thanks so much for your time.
SPEAKER 07 :
You betcha. I appreciate it very much, Scott. Great guy, very smart, and we think a lot alike. By the way, I’m not saying that I have Scott on all the time because we think alike. No, I like Scott because I feel like he thinks very factual in a way that I do and doesn’t take a lot of emotion or doesn’t put a lot of emotion to the things that he talks about, which I’m afraid a lot of people do. including even some of my listeners that text me different things at times. Take the emotion out of this. Look at the facts, just like I did a moment ago with Japan and that whole rigmarole versus what we’re doing here in the U.S. Golden Eagle Financial, if you want somebody to talk to directly when it comes to your future finances, your portfolio, and what you should do, talk to Al Smith today. Find him at klzradio.com.
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on our advertisers page at klzradio.com this isn’t rage radio this is real relatable radio back to rush to reason
SPEAKER 07 :
All right, Rush to Reason, Debra’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Somebody sent me a really long text message. I’m sorry. I will have to read this one after we’re off air even later tonight because there’s a lot in here. I apologize. I think it has to do with Epstein and some of that, and I will have to read that one later and potentially talk about that one tomorrow. And I’m sorry. These are hard to read and do all at the same time, and I had several of them come in. at the same time. Somebody also says, when John Rush reads, does he keep a notepad and take notes of what to ask a guest? No. No, I don’t. In fact, a lot of times, the booking agent for a particular guest, not somebody like Scott, but like the guest we had earlier, they’ll give you all sorts of notes and so on of what you need to ask the guest and so on. I rarely, if ever, use any of those. I just talk. I hardly ever do that. And Charlie will tell you that the interviewer loves that because it’s not scripted at all. I just roll off the cuff. I ask the questions that I want to ask. I think even you guys would want to know. And I do nothing that is pre-done. I’ll even have people that want to talk on the phone prior to actually doing an interview. I will not do that. Because it takes away from the actual interview if I interview them on the front side. So I don’t talk to anybody on the front side, including guys like Scott. It’s what you hear on the radio. It’s all raw, us talking, just like I were to call them on the phone and have a conversation. It’s no different than that. I don’t do anything on the front side whatsoever, nor do I take notes about what to ask a particular guest. It’s all what I think about when we’re talking to one another at that time. Great question, by the way. Thank you for asking. We’ll be back tomorrow. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
No Kings, No Clue: Protest Logic Falls Apart