The AI models are just so, I think their management teams are so freaked out and trying to feel around the room for what types of privacy they can violate. No one violates privacy like Meta. And as much of a fight as we all put up about it, we don't actually fight. This is the thing. Like you might say, oh, like trust Meta to handle your privacy. No one's going to go for that. It's like 4 billion people do it every single day because literally, as you said, 9 out of 10 internet users across the world are using Meta products. So, you're letting them invade your privacy already. And the question is, if you want to use an AI product, are you down to continue to let them invade your privacy? And I think the answer for most people is yes.
Today's number, 28,700. That's how many trades Trump made in the 17 months after his inauguration. More than all of Congress combined. True story, Ed. I was raised, as you know, as an only child. Drove my sister nuts. How are you, Ed?
I'm doing very well. Um, here in New York, went to a wedding last weekend. Now this weekend, I've got an engagement party. Uh, it just keeps coming. Never ends.
Any good destination weddings?
Uh, one in Greece next year. Actually, that's the engagement party that I've got this weekend, which is preceding the Greece wedding, which will be cool. Uh, I went to a wedding in Germany over the summer, which was fun.
Any of these close friends? Are you in any weddings?
Uh, no. Not in these weddings. These are friends, but not my best friends, but good friends. Yeah. Still waiting to be in a wedding. Still waiting to get the call up. Were you in weddings?
I was. Yeah. I've given three best man speeches. I told you my best man speech, right?
Um, this is the advice I believe to uh taking care of your wife, right? I think it's great advice, so why not? Why not share it?
Don't keep score. Always express physical and sexual desire and never let your spouse be cold or hungry. Pashmas and power bars all the time. And dual climate control upgrade. It's worth it. I look back, I'm not exaggerating, I look back on most of major blow-ups with my significant others, and I think they were either cold or hungry.
I think it's exactly right. How are you doing?
How am I doing? Um, I did the 92nd Street Y uh thing last night with just Harlo, which I didn't like cuz everyone likes her much more than me. They like and Scott Callaway and everyone sort of rolls their eyes and ply the claps and then they literally like treat her like she's [__] MC Jagger. I mean, it's her book launch. I'm not... People love her. Oh my gosh. Um, but that was good. We were sold out and then uh yeah, things I'm in New York. I'm really excited to be here. I love it here. And yeah, just I've in the last 7 days I've been in LAF, Mexico City, London, LA, and then back to here. So...
A little bit, little bit manic from traveling, but yeah, on the whole everything's good. I feel feel really good about and your show's killing it. You keep getting good guests and huge huge video views. So, as I said, if you keep working this hard, I will get my second Ferrari, which I'm super excited about. Uh, by the way, I don't own a car, just for those of you out there.
Eventually, you're going to have to actually get the Ferrari. Eventually, we're going to need to turn this bit into a reality.
I can't get in and out of a Ferrari. It's too low for me.
Yeah, I can't pull off a Ferrari. You need to be... So, what are we going to do instead? Maybe like a Lamborghini Urus or maybe like a a Brabus. I mean, you need like a massive vehicle, but it still needs to be a luxury sports car. That's sort of the the line that you're straddling here.
No, I go with the Midlife Crisis Range Rover. Range Rover.
It's a best car on the road is the Mercedes wagon truck. It feels like a sports car. It's Utah. It's a great car, but I like the British high. I'm I'm, you know, rich and classy Range Rover thing. But yeah, I I haven't owned a car in 5 years, and I love not owning a car.
My girlfriend does. What is it again? The Outback. Our favorite vehicle in the world. The Subaru.
Subaru Outback. Right. Okay. So, has she told you she's a lesbian yet or?
Should we get into our our stories? Got a lot to talk about.
Let's get into it. The Federal Reserve unanimously voted to raise interest rates last week for the first time since 2023. The quarter point rate hike was largely expected. On Cali, the odds of a rate hike had climbed to 88% ahead of the announcement. Still, stocks sold off after the press conference and Treasury yields rose. Hours later, President Trump somewhat lashed out at the Federal Reserve while notably leaving Chair Kevin Walsh out of his criticism. Here is what he said.
You know, very tough board. He's got a board that was put there by a lot of other people and the uh interest rates are too high. They're not appropriate. And I told I talked to Kevin and I said, "You might as well vote with the board because it's not going to matter. Uh the board is very hostile. They're very political. They're doing the wrong thing. They're a bunch of politicians or people put on by politicians. And uh it's a shame."
Essentially implying that Kevin Walsh didn't want to raise rates, but he sort of had to because he had to just go with whatever the rest of the board uh of the Federal Reserve wanted to do, which was to raise, which is quite an interesting statement. Not sure I agree with him or believe that it is even remotely true. Either way, uh we have raised rates 25 basis points, first increase since 2023. You and I had both predicted that this would happen. Um so pound on the back to us. What do you make of this, Scott?
Institutions are discovering that independence only matters when someone powerful wants you to surrender. That's the whole point of independence is when someone powerful asks you to do something that's not in the best interest of the country, that is why you're supposed to be independent. So what do you have? Canada's diversifying away from Washington. AR company, AI companies are being asked whether they can govern themselves and the Fed is resisting the president who appointed its chair. Everybody suddenly wants a prenup, so to speak. But I look, I think this was I think Worsh has established himself. This is a great move for him. It was the right thing to do. I believe the business school should be 15 months. I think we should take kids in September one, have them go through the summer or, you know, take them in August, charge them a lot less money. We invent the second year of business school mostly for networking and so we can charge them double tuition and then we let them take these ridiculous classes from FIPS what I call formally important people and where they bring in their friends and and that should be just London lunchon speakers and we charge them $7,000 for classes including leadership, sustainability, ethics, my favorite ethics. I can't get my 16-year-old to make his bed but I'm going to teach a 27-year-old how to be more ethical. Let me summarize every leadership and every ethics course offered at every great institution in America. Often times the hard thing and the right thing are the same thing. How? I just saved you $7,000. And all these leadership courses do is bring in some former CEO who's bored and to talk about how everyone was against him, but he did this and it ended up being the right thing. Meanwhile, he's probably in the Epstein files, too.
He's Yeah, he's That's right. But teaching about ethics and leadership, but I'm waiting to hear how this relates to the Federal Reserve.
Well, okay. Leadership. Kevin Worsh demonstrated leadership and independence here. What What economist? what anyone who doesn't have their head up their ass and has taken econ one who's come out and said this was the wrong thing to do. So the whole discussion is whether a guy who doesn't understand economics and now has brought us tariffs and what seems to be a never-ending war and exploding diarrhea and so much so much incompetence around a lack of regulation or guardrails around AI that we're all really anxious. This guy understands economics. I mean, this guy is the this guy's the one to decide what interest rates should be. So, to Worsh's credit, did the right thing. And this is going to be a footnote. In 48 hours, Trump's going to take that. He knows he can't. This is a losing battle. He knows he can't um [__] post Warsh.
I think there is actually a not stupid argument against hiking rates in this situation. To be to be clear, I agree with you. I think it was the right move. But I think the economist, the sensible economist who would who would argue that this wasn't the right decision would say that this is a supply shock that is related to one thing and one thing only and that is the war in Iran. That is the reason why inflation is running so hot because we cannot get oil out of the straight and we're dealing with an energy crisis and raising rates won't do anything to solve that problem. It'll slow down the economy overall and it will start to sort of bring down some growth and hopefully bring down prices at large. But the real problem which is the fact that we can't get oil out of the straight and the fact that oil is now above $100 per barrel for Brent crude that problem is not going away with any movement of the monetary policy. So I think the argument that argument actually is reasonable and I will be interested to see if this actually works because it could be a real problem if we decide to raise rates. We increase borrowing costs which will slow down the economy a little bit but more importantly it's going to increase mortgage rates for regular Americans around the country. And we're already seeing that mortgage rates 30-year mortgage rates are above 7% highest in over a year. And if prices also don't come down because this is so tied to the war and so tied to the energy crisis, then we're running into uh more of a problem. And I think you could begin to fashion an argument as to why this was not the right decision. Having said that, I think it is the right decision because this this is the only tool at the Federal Reserve's disposal. They can't talk the president out of his head assery when it comes to foreign policy and when it comes to the tariffs and when it comes to any of his economic policies when it comes to any fiscal uh decisions. But this is the tool that they have and they recognize correctly that inflation is getting out of control that it has been sustained for so much longer than any of us would have wanted. Many of us expected it including myself but we didn't want it. Um, and so they're they're using their only tool to get us out of this situation. But I do think the jury is out on if it will if it will actually work. And if it doesn't work, then we're in for even larger problems.
Yeah. But the Fed's mandate is the kind of two things they're supposed to be have their eye on are job growth and um inflation. And that's in reverse priority or order of priority. the if you have if you have unemployment that's bad inflation if it ever hits kind of runaway inflation where people start panic buying that's how economies and even societies fail and if you look at the numbers job growth is still you know the job numbers keep getting revised it's hard to even look at them anymore but unemployment isn't at unemployment is sort of at historical average is maybe a little bit below average the econ economy has been surprisingly robust in terms of growth. Some people would argue that's deficit fueled, but the reality is we're growing faster than most G7 nations still. I believe it's inflation I that's really really the scary thing here. So it just feels like on a balanced scorecard this was the right thing to do. It also just sets the right tone for an independent Fed. What I also think, and this isn't as true, I don't know if you saw Senator Cassidy giving director Patel a hard time um around this ridiculous conversation around beastiality.
