Ever wish a cheap plastic toy from Walmart could tell you the future? We sure do! And we try every year. It’s our annual Magic 8 Ball episode today with Paula Pant, Len Penzo and OG. Each year, we ask the Magic 8 Ball (yes, really, the one you can buy at Walmart) riveting questions for the upcoming year then reflect back on those questions at the end of the year. Today, we run through the answers to our questions from last year and ask new questions for 2024. How will the Magic 8 Ball perform this year? We’ll find out!
Deeper dives with curated links, topics, and discussions are in our newsletter, The 201, available at https://www.StackingBenjamins.com/201
Enjoy!
Watch On Our YouTube Channel:
Our Topic: 2023 Magic 8 Ball questions answered and 2024 Magic 8 Ball Predictions
Our Contributors
A big thanks to our contributors! You can check out more links for our guests below.
Paula Pant
Check Out Paula’s site and amazing podcast: AffordAnything.com
Follow Paula on Twitter: @AffordAnything
Len Penzo
Visit Len Penzo dot Com for the off-beat personal finance blog for responsible people.
OG
For more on OG and his firm’s page, click here.
DepositAccounts
Thanks to DepositAccounts.com for sponsoring Stacking Benjamins. DepositsAccounts.com is the #1 place to go when you’re looking to see if your rate is the BEST rate on savings, CDs, money markets, and even checking accounts! Check out ALL of the rates ranked from best to worst (and see the national averages) at DepositAccounts.com.
Join Us Monday!
Tune in on Monday when we’ll teach you how to conquer those goals with a woman who’s taken on immense challenges and climbed literal mountains, international speaker and author, Jenn Drummond.
Miss our last show? Check it out here: Make Goal Setting WAY Easier in 2024 (with Jon Acuff) – SB 1459.
Written by: Kevin Bailey
Episode transcript
Okay, it says right here in this account we have
$401,000
check put.
Nope. Uh, that says you have a 401k account. If
you liquidate that right now, you’ll
have maybe $5,000.
So what happened to the other
$396,000? What is wrong with the two of you?
Live from Joe’s Mom’s party basement hits the Stacking Benjamin Show.
I am Joe’s mom’s neighbor, Duggan. Today we are prognosticating the future and we’re predicting it too. And we’ve got a helper, the star of today’s show, a magic eight ball that Len Pezo purchased at Walmart. And speaking of, he’s the purveyor of truth and buyer of eight balls. Oh wait, no, not eight ball, eight balls.
Gotta get that emphasis right. It’s Len Penso and the guy who we predict will co-host a podcast in 2024. It’s og. And of course the woman with a documentary. So Beloved, it’s probably the reason Netflix stayed afloat in 2023. It’s Paula Pat, and now a guy who I predict will start talking right after this intro.
It’s Joe Saul. See Hi,
and happy Friday everyone. Sit back, relax. You found us. This is the Stacking Benjamin Show. And I am Joe Salsi. Hi, average show money on Twitter. I can’t wait for today’s episode to get rolling because much like uh, children wait for the holiday season. I wait for this every year to see if Mr.
Benzo’s Walmart purchased amazing lately. Amazingly pedestrian Eight ball is gonna be fantastic this year Before we go to Len to ask how the athlete ak the eight Ball’s doing and maybe do a pre-game interview with the eight ball. Let’s, uh, see who else is here with us. Mr. og. Happy Friday.
Gotta figure out how to do it.
There it is. Yes. Hearts.
Hearts for everyone. And on an audio podcast, he makes hearts, uh, for the YouTube people. Congratulations. You got that. And you get to see it to his right on the Zoom screen. Paula Pant from Afford Anything joins us from Manhattan.
Yes, I do. Hello. It’s amazing to be here once again.
Happy New Year. Happy 2024,
Paula. Well thank you. Thank you. Cheers to
that. What does a Paula Pant do on New Year’s
Eve? For the last two New Years in a row, I’ve been in Atlanta, so it’s very low key ’cause I’m with my parents and they’re 83 years old. So just mellow night at home with the 83-year-old partying like
an 83-year-old is what you’re doing.
Exactly, exactly. I know, man. I met your parents. I bet they can bring it. I bet they can bring it. Yeah. With, with
the walker, they, they disguise it, you know, behind that. That’s right.
You better keep the congoli moving or you get whacked with the walker. Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. And Mr. Penso, I know you’re here, but did you bring the champion with you?
I did
bring the champion here, as we can see right here. Uh, we’ve got the talking version. Yeah. I also have encased the talking version Peters out because, um, to be honest, my talking eight ball’s not been feeling well lately. So maybe I, real quick, I’ll just ask and make, see how it’s doing. Uh, magic eight Ball, uh, are you feeling better today?
A.
You can rely on that.
Oh, well that’s good. It’s in good mood. You know what though, Len, you take the magic eight ball the last few years, I would kind of call your eight ball a fibber a little bit. Well, well now wait a minute. I can’t
remember how it did. You know, the last time we did this, did it pull it out or did it lose?
I forgot. I, I, I can’t remember. It
was barely, it was right at that 500 line. I mean, it was the coin flip, right?
Neck and neck, yes. So, yeah. Yeah. So it, it can’t be better than a coin flip. That’s a lose. Yeah, that’s a lose. Well, hopefully, but, but I gotta
say this is the second eight ball we had. This is the replacement eight ball.
Remember the first one you had that got too foamy? That thing was amazing.
Still here. Still here. I can barely see the uh, answers in here, but if we need
to, I can always go to it. I don’t know. There’s a big piece of me that thinks we need to bring that one back. But you know, we need to do first to celebrate the fact it’s 2024.
What’s that? It’s this, but because it’s 20, 24 guys, we’re gonna double down and take this, check this out. Impressive. They don’t do that on afford anything. Paula.
Ooh, ouch. Those fighting words starting off the New Year. Salty.
Hey Joe. Uh, you should have asked the eight Ball if it wanted
to listen to an ad.
Well, let’s do it now. Eight Ball. Did you wanna listen to those brilliant sponsors of the Stacking Benjamin Show?
Yes, it’s certain. See?
Wow.
Wow. How about that? Wow. Magic Eight Ball supports the Stacking Benjamins podcast. It’s a team
player. It is a
team player. I gotta say Paula, because Paula and I part of the, uh, Cumulus Radio Network. I was sweating that one a little bit. I was hope it says, yeah, it’s, uh, John Ward.
Uh, can Theresa Gauge don’t fire us? Like if I get a call? And he said right after this, Theresa, uh, yeah. What are you looking for, Theresa? Pack your bags, Joe.
They’re like, well, we were just in a conference with the Magic eight Ball. That’s right.
Magic eight Ball said, we don’t want to hear from you, Theresa.
That always goes over well, when you talk to the corporate overlords, uh, we’ve got a great show today, magic Eight Ball. So let’s, uh, get moving.
We are gonna
start off reviewing, seeing how the eight ball did last year. And, uh, Paula, we began our questioning with this from you.
Will the US officially enter a recession in the year 2023? Oh boy.
Are we back in politics again?
Are we not in a recession presently?
Um, we’re technically, officially, technically we are not, uh, yet in what is officially defined as a recession.
According to what, two negative GDP quarters, right? Isn’t that the,
uh, no, no. So that, while that is the, um, common usage, like that’s sort of the pop definition, it is not the official sanction term. So there’s an organization that declares whether or not a recession. Has taken place.
Is this like pxi Tony Phil has to indeed see his recession shadow.
What has
that official organization used as their official diagnostic test for the last, I don’t know, 65 years? Two negative GDP quarters? You
know, I think that organization, they’ll
backtrack. Well, no. So I, I, I can look up the name of this organization. Uh,
you know, when we’re not, it turns out it’s the MBER.
Actually, I think that OG was about to say that there, but, uh, it’s the National Bureau of Economic Research. So we ask it if we are gonna go into recession. And by the way, the answer to that question, of course was no, we, we did not hit it. So no matter oh gee, how you felt at the time we side-stepped it as a lot of people said, do you guys think that’s gonna continue?
Well, maybe we asked the eight ball that later. I don’t know. Ooh. But,
um, but, but what did the eight ball say? What was the eight ball’s prediction? I. We, we, we’ll
get there in a second. Ah, I’m, I’m building the thirst, the
agony.
Speaking of thirst,
she’s like,
just, just tell us. All right. Fine, fine. We’ll find out what people
said.
No, no, no, no, no. Build, build, build, build. Let it linger.
Well, Paul, I was gonna ask you though it didn’t, to a lot of people, it didn’t feel like a good year. Like there was so much negativity in the zeitgeist.
Right. You know, what’s interesting is that this is the year in which economic data and economic sentiment have been miles apart.
I mean, sometimes that happens, but this year, more so than any other year, I think has been characterized by the gulf between the data and the sentiment. Sentiment is highly pessimistic, and that can be quantified by things like the number of people on glassdoor.com who are looking up, uh, layoffs, for example, who are anticipating, uh, a potential layoff, even though that hasn’t happened to them yet.
Right. You, you contrast that. I you say a number of people
on glassdoor.com who are bitching. ’cause there’s a lot of people on glassdoor.com any day that are bitching, but if that number goes up, you know, we’re probably looking at bad times.
Yeah, yeah. You know, and it’s like you look at that search data for people who are fearing a layoff, and then you contrast that against the unemployment rate.
Right. We have historically a 50 year low unemployment, and that’s just one of many examples. An example, uh, after example, after example, we see that the economy is doing incredibly well. We also see that people feel really bad.
Well, the reason they feel bad, and I’ll tell you that the real answer, the real reason is inflation.
So your purchasing power goes down. You feel like you’re not doing so well. And I think inflation has taken away a lot of people’s. Even if you
do have a job blend, well, even if you do have a job, you feel like your dollar’s not going as far is what you’re saying. Of
course, of course. If, if you feel your living standard is dropping, then you’re not doing well, even if you have a job.
So again, that’s in contrast to if you have a stock portfolio and stocks have been doing very well, so you know. Mm-hmm. I guess it all depends on your measurement. I think the average person out there, though, they probably use their purchasing power, that that’s their main gauge, and I think inflation has just bit into that this year.
The answer
to this question again, the question was, will the National Bureau of Economic Research show that the US will officially enter a renew a recession? In 2023 before December 1st, the answer was no. This is what the eight ball said.
The answer you seek is yes.
Well, we’re off and running, aren’t we? Ooh, the uh, eight ball gets it wrong.
Eight ball. Missed that one. It’s early. It’s early. I forgot the eight ball’s Had a name. Mr. Preo.
Mr. Preo, Mr. Maybe
predicting. Yeah, I’ve been just calling him the eight ball when in fact his name was Mr.
Preo. When
we look at it though, the eight ball might’ve been feeling the sentiment like I gotta give it to the eight ball. Certainly felt at the time like, man, uh, to OGs point there that we heard from early last year that maybe things aren’t that great. Uh, let’s move on. Len had the next question, and this is what he asked.
So I, bonds are got a lot of press In 2022, they were throwing off. Uh. Returns of, uh, I think over 9% May through November, and then the latest iBond, uh, was in at 6.89%. My question for the eight ball here is will the iBond interest rate that is, uh, announced in November of 2023, will that be. Under
6%. We went from, hold on to just everybody knows that isn’t familiar with this.
We went from an iBond that was at nine plus to an iBond that was at six plus. And you’re saying, is it gonna continue to deteriorate? That’s really kind of yes, what you’re asking here. Here, yes. Interesting. So will the go below 6% in November of 2023? The answer by the way, is it did, yes. It, it certainly did.
And it looks like, uh, Len may trend even lower.
Yeah. That’s where it’s going. I mean, it’s kind of a lagging indicator, but, uh, so yeah, right now, uh, there’s nothing to suggest it’s gonna go higher, but you never know. We’ll see. We’ll, I guess we’ll find out in May.
Yeah. Well, we’re gonna find out what the Magic Eight Ball said right here.
So the answer was yes. Did the eight ball think it was Yes.
Yes. Without question.
Wow. Very definitive there, Len. There we go. And that should be two points because it
was so confident. So we should give the a f ball two
points for that one. And you should have only lost half a point. ’cause it felt like we were in a recession. Do we? To put the applause in for the Yeah, that’s right.
We do. Gotta put some applause in, I think.
There
we go. Nice job. Very
good. Remember this is like my kids, the eight ball’s, like my son. So I, you know, I, I, I’m rooting for him
one to one. It kind of feels the same as the sporting events where the team’s down by a lot and the athlete spends way too much time cheering, like, come on, just play the game.
So here we go. Uh, speaking of play the game, OG had the next question.
Yeah. So I’ll just keep it going on the recession. Talk slash interest rates. Will the Federal Reserve lower rates in 2023?
So will they by December 1st. What do we want to ask? The rates are lower Will
lower rates, not rates are lower, but will they have a lowering
Oh, will there be a lowering invest?
So even rate, will there be a rate cut? Rate cut. Will there be a rate cut in? Yep. Will there be a rate cut in 23? Okay. This is interesting. The answer, of course, was that we did not get a rate cut during that time. OG close.
Next best thing was they said we’re good, which is what, uh, has caused the market to respond very positively.
Uh, one would think over the last, uh, well, what, maybe six weeks or so? It’s been kind of on a tear in
six weeks. It’s gonna be interesting to ask it what happens in 2024, because Sure. Feels like we got a lot of eight cuts coming. Shh. Oh, I don’t wanna pre ask the question. I got my question lined up. Well, I’m just settle down pontificating.
I’m not asking the eight ball. Let’s see what the eight ball said in this one. The answer was no. What did the eight ball say
that is?
Last year we took that as a yes. I think we took and uh, and it was a likely outcome. og It was definitely, it was definitely a likely outcome. And it, it didn’t happen. Didn’t
happen close though. I mean, next best thing. So to Lens’s point, because it’s one of his kids, we can award it half a point for being close, like horseshoes and hand grenades.
Uh, all right, let’s see. Uh, I’m up next in the first round. So we’ve got eight ball of one to two against. So here’s the last question around one. I’m gonna start with this question from, uh, longtime stacker. Matt Kramer. Matt’s question, this won’t be the official question, was, will Gold or Bitcoin be the better buy next year?
We can’t answer that because that’s be yes, no question, Matt. So I’m gonna change it up for you a little bit, buddy. I’m gonna ask, will returns of gold beat the return in Bitcoin? Next year. Interesting. Will the returning Golding between January 1st through December 1st beat the return in Bitcoin? How about that one?
I wanna know that answer. Well, this is, this is interesting ’cause at the time we asked this, we thought we were going to recession. I would’ve, and Bitcoin was in the can. It was in the crapper. Yeah. As, uh, the late Charlie Munger said, he called it, uh, crypto crap. Crypto crapo. Crypto crapo. Yeah. There’s the Munger quote.
Crypto was crypto. Crypto at the time. The crypto crapo did very good. May he rest in peace? Yes. Crypto crap did very good, Len, but, uh, gold. Um, how did our gold turn out for 2023?
Gold did very well, actually, but I don’t think it did as good as crypto. By December 1st it was probably up. I don’t know, 15% maybe.
Maybe by December 1st you have the answer.
Whatcha asking me for? I just had the answer about which one did better, and so the answer is, oh, okay.
Yeah, I think gold was up 15%, but I think crypto’s way up
Bitcoin was, yeah, Bitcoin was up. I think the number was a bazillion. A was a bazillion Yeah. In 2023.
Yeah. It almost probably almost doubled. And that’s why, by the way, as I told Jean Chatzky before our break, uh, that’s why all my money was in Ethereum was ’cause Bitcoin went up. If I would’ve had Bitcoin, it would’ve been different. But, uh, we’ll, gold appreciate more than Bitcoin. The answer here is no. Uh, the eight ball said, what’s the eight ball’s name?
Paula, what’d you say? The eight ball’s name was Mr. Preo. Mr. Preo. Mr. Preo said,
yes,
I am sure. Well, he was very sure and, uh, turns out he was wrong. Ah, Mr. PTO just like Che, GPT very confidently. It’s down three to one. Come on. That’s a good joke. Let me just
say this. The worst thing he can do is be 50 50 I, if he’s miserably bad, then we can do an anti Mr. Predictor. You can still make money off of Mr.
Predictive by doing the opposite, like inverse index. Yeah, it’s an inverse. It’s like an inverse. So, so that’s okay. If we’re gonna be crappy, let’s continue being crappy. What I don’t wanna see is a 50 50 again, that’s just ridiculous.
Yeah. I think 50 50 is the kiss of death, uh, for it. Yes. Uh, round two of this charade is, uh, Paula asks a great question during that question.
By the way, around crypto, we talked a lot about Sam Brakeman free, because that had just happened, right? Mm-Hmm. Sam Bateman freed ends up, was it incompetence, was it stealing? Paula? What do you think it was? Uh,
well, what was he formally convicted
for? He was convicted of seven counts of fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.
Well, there you go. Guilty of wire fraud conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Man, I’m looking at his, I’m looking at his Wikipedia picture too. Just, he looks like he’s over caffeinated. He looks like he’s over caffeinated. Just put it that way. Uh, but we go there with Paula’s. Next question. Let’s listen in.
You know what, since we’re on the topic, will Sam Bankman free go to jail in 2023?
Ooh, short and sweet Len. And the answer of course is yes. Sam Bateman free, did go to jail and, uh, did the eight ball agree?
There is no doubt.
Well there we, wow. Wow.
So, so, Mr. Predictor got
it right? Yes. That was an easy one. I thought. I thought that was a slam dunk. I threw him a softball. Yeah, that was a softball. Good one. Paula.
If you rub the magic eight ball, they’re lead in. Mr. Predictor goes duh.
Yeah, yeah,
right. Alright. Magic eight ball has two, four, and three against.
We move quickly into a lens and I wonder, will Len ask a question about precious metals?
I’m gonna ask, get a do-over on the silver price. Let’s hope. Uh, I’m hoping anyways. Will the silver price exceed $50 this year in 2023?
So the question there, will silver go above 50? I remember Len having one silver expert on our show saying that silver will frustrate you longer than you will stay solvent or even
alive.
It. I, it depends how, yeah. Silver’s a very frustrating medal.
Yes. Did silver get close to 50 this year? I didn’t follow it. No.
Not even close it. Uh, I think it peaked out this year around 26, 27 and then it’s kind of fell down and they’re around 22 and I now it’s sitting, you know, it’s in the mid, mid twenties
still.
I think so. Sounds like a goodbye Len. Sounds like, oh yeah. There
you go. There you
go. Nothing more fun than baiting le Penza on precious metals. Could be the year. It’s gotta be the year. All right, let’s listen here. If the magic a ball, the answer is no. It did not go anywhere close to, uh, 50 bucks.
You can rely on that.
You can rely on it. Again, I feel like that’s half the questions I asked. That was half the questions I asked Chet, GPT this year. It would vary confidently give me financial stuff that wasn’t, uh, in the
ballpark. Well, you, you gotta be confident, you gotta be.
Mr. Preo is down four to two or is it five to two?
Mr.
Preo now has missed easy. Paula has now missed on four and two. Still could make it that 500 game that Len doesn’t like by the end of round two, with a hope in the last round of making this, uh, making this an epic year. But, but we’re not there. He is gotta get the next two, right? So let’s, let’s see what, uh, OG asked it.
og uh, you are next up with your second. It’s my second one, right?
Question? Yeah. Okay. So just a real easy one couple of not so great months in 2022, stock market was down. At the time we’re recording it, there’s still time,
there’s still hope. Come on baby, if is positive. Come
on Santa Claus. Rally.
Big money.
No whammy. Big
money. No whammy. It’s gotta be a Fat Santa Claus rally. I’m not talking about FAT, I’m talking about it’s gotta be PHAT rally. It’s all right with me. We need a fat rally. Baby
needs new shoes. Come on, big bunny. No Miami stop. You can do it. I did read something and I’m not much of a market predictor or you know, I don’t kind of read into a lot of this stuff, but I did read something that said after the market’s down a certain amount, the statistically it’s, you know, over the next 12 months it’s gonna be higher, yada, yada, yada.
So this just real simple, is the s and p 500 in 2023 gonna have a return greater than 10%,
and that has to be by December 1st. Yep. Alright. And og it turned out to be, uh, a little bit of Santa Claus for the stock market this year.
It’s been fantastic. The last, uh, five weeks,
right? Yeah. And even small companies came around, not the s and p, even just Oh, bringing the other indices with it.
Well,
and you look at some of that stuff and you just figure that the, there has to be some regression to the mean, if there’s gonna be some big disparity. I think it was the beginning of November, the disparity between large companies and small companies was the greatest ever in terms of its underperformance, small companies, underperformance to large companies.
So you think, okay, well it’s not, it’s not a new thing. That’s gotta get back to even, I guess so it’s been a fun couple of weeks. It was
18%.
Everybody’s feeling super confident. There’s a big article at the Wall Street Journal that said. Don’t look at your 401k, like, don’t, don’t make decisions today based on how great you think you are, because it had nothing to do with you, was basically the moral of that story.
Oh, and how
many people are gonna take that advice? Yeah, exactly. Uh, the answer is yes, it did do greater than 10%. Mr. Predictor said
yes without
question. Whoa. Hey, so Mr. Preo now confident, confident, one away. Is this a rally? We get a rally. Wow. I don’t know what to do. This’ll be fantastic.
It’s like, what happens when you’re partying with Paula and it’s like three in the morning and you just, you’re like, it’s time to go to bed. And she’s like, no, it’s time to rally.
You’re up until 6:00 AM.
Like, really? And the night is so much more fun because of it. You’re, you’re not
wrong.
Let’s go to the last question in the second round. Len, I’m gonna take a question from the group. It’s gonna go back toward what you were asking that you weren’t able to ask because of Elon Musk taking Twitter private.
Tyler asked, will someone overtake Elon Musk as richest man in 2023? Oh, good question. So by by December 1st, which really would insinuate, right? I mean, because I think he’s probably on solid ground with his SpaceX work. Tesla might have some issues, but really Twitter’s gonna be the. The good, bad, or the ugly?
I think we could say Twitter was the good, bad, and the ugly. ’cause it’s not even Twitter anymore.
I think we, I still haven’t gotten used to that. The name change by the way, you
don’t even, the log in is X. You still log in as Twitter. Can, can you go to x.com and get to the same place? I don’t even know.
You can. You can. They
both work? Yes. Yes you can.
Uh, they both work. I had no idea. I still would go to Twitter every time I go to X. But, uh, the answer to this by the way, is interesting because somebody did overtake Elon Musk for a little bit and lend the name of the dude that overtook him. Uh,
is, I’m pretty sure it was Bernard Arno and I can’t remember what all he’s invested in, but I mean, it’s a lot of stuff.
I think he had, gosh, I way Hennessy and Louis Vuitton. Oh, that’s it? Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. That’s the guy. Yep.
Sorry. Louis Vuitton.
Yeah, but he lost it again. Musk got it
back. Tiffany. Christian Dior. Sephora, Hennessy.
It’s good stuff. Overtook him for a while and then, uh, Elon Musk though returned it. So the answer is, even though as we record this, Elon Musk is number one, the answer is yes.
He did get overtaken in 2023 Wild times. But what did the eight ball say?
Yes, I am sure.
Wow. Wow. The
eight ball Yes. Pulls into a
tie.
Yes.
Tide two rounds down. This episode is sponsored by Tide. Ah, wouldn’t that be great tied? If you’d like to sponsor our
show, I’m just scrolling through the list right now and I’m on number 2540th. I still don’t see my name. Dang it. Oh, I didn’t check.
New to the list. Lemme check. New to the list. Yeah. Still not there. There’s next year. Let’s go to round
three. Paula, what do you got for the eight ball ball? To finish your, your questions Well,
as longtime listeners know, every year I always ask a question about the British Royal family. This year’s question is Prince Harry is releasing a book called Spare that is set to be released around January 10th, 2023.
Will the book spare sell more than 5 million copies by December 1st?
Paulo, that’s a lot of copies. And, uh, we look this up. Do, do you know the answer to this? I
don’t know the answer to this. I assume it’s probably yes, but I don’t know the answer.
The answer is actually no, according to multiple sources, that it didn’t reach that far.
Whoa. I don’t know if it’s all the Harry and Meghan scuttlebutt with the family. I, I don’t know if it’s all the other stuff going on with that family, but it didn’t reach 5 million copies according to many sources. So the answer shockingly is, is a big no. Wow. But you probably read it three times, didn’t you?
You know,
I actually have not read it. Not yet. Not yet. Yet. Yeah.
The key there is yet, whoa. Waiting for the right moment. You know,
I did read Matthew Perry’s memoir, and I’ve gotta say that one was excellent.
I saw that the other day on the, on the shelf. Of course, nothing better than taking advantage of a guy’s death to make sure we sell more books.
Yes.
Or to get his word out. He wrote the memoir to get his story out.
Paula takes the nice view, Joe takes the cynical view. That’s good. Let’s, let’s, uh, dive in. Will the book spare sell more than 5 million copies? Answer was no.
Yes, I’m sure.
Well,
man,
gosh, back behind by one, but it can still do it. There’s three questions to go.
Yeah, it can, it can close, can close that gap.
Is there a tiebreaker
question too? There is a tiebreaker question, but we had a problem with this next one. And I just want, Len, I want you to tell the, uh, I want everybody to hear what this question is and then I’ll tell you what Karen our producer and I went through what hell we went through, uh, before we came up with our answer.
You know, there’s
been a lot of talk about UFOs and the military’s been hinting that there’s alien creatures out there. They’ve, they’ve seen the UFOs and, and they’ve been, they haven’t come out right and said that’s happened. But will there be definitive proof in 2023 that. Extraterrestrial life exists.
How? What are we gonna use? And I start asking the question, what are we gonna use as our proof? You guys remember what we said with the proof it had to be,
I think we said a major media outlet would have to report it.
Major media outlet. We looked at the Wall Street Journal, we looked at the New York Times, we looked at Reuters reporting.
We went to the ap. We looked all over the place. And what’s funny was when the hearings were going on about extraterrestrials Len, if you remember, there were some incredibly credible people there that were talking about their sightings, the things that they had seen. Mm-Hmm. From extra terrestrials and uh mm-Hmm.
Based on all of these different places and all of the credible people that said that they were real Karen, I decided that. Just based on the reporting and you had to pick one. So you picked the New York Times based on the reporting from the New York Times? We had to answer yes, even though I think there’s a lot of people in the audience going, what, what, Len?
Do you think that Yes is the right answer?
Well, I’m biased anyways ’cause I’ve always thought there was something out there. So, uh, have they come out flatly and said it? No, but I mean, if you just add up all of the testimony that happened in this past year, I would say yes. I, I think yes is a fair
answer.
I remember the testimony was amazing and nobody cared. The Yeah. All of the people talking about was amazing and the whole world went, I’m watching TikTok. I don’t, I don’t really care. Yeah. og you think the answer here is yes.
No, not even in the ballpark of being Yes. So far removed from the answer? Yes.
Did you see any of the testimony or the reporting in any of the major publications? This doesn’t make any
sense to me. Think about it. We told everyone when we landed on the moon. Could you imagine if we landed on Mars and there were other people? What would, what would or things or whatever, like what would we do?
Be like, oh, we’re not gonna tell anybody. We’d like capture one of ’em and take it back and like, look what we have the other people,
the things. Well, you
make that. That makes a good point. You do make a good point because I think the key word was definitive proof. Definitive proof. And maybe testimony is not definitive proof, right?
Maybe. So it
just, to
me, it just seems like for there to be another, whatever species that has the wherewithal to manifest themselves in Earth to earth, that they are so much smarter than us unless they’re living among us. Wait, hold on. Maybe. Are you guys aliens? Oh, Doug’s an alien. Doug’s an alien that answers a lot of questions.
’cause you know how he dresses, right? He doesn’t dress like a normal person. I don’t know
that anybody’s hiding anything. Nobody’s hiding anything. I mean, you look at these navy pilots, these are navy pilots.
I’m saying they wouldn’t hide. I’m saying the, the alien people wouldn’t be hidden like they could show up.
They come from another galaxy, like a bajillion light years away. They’re so much smarter than us and they’re not like, Hey guys, so listen hydrogen, trust us. This is how you wanna do it. Oh, that little ass computer that you’ve got, no, no, no. Check this out. Look what we can do here. Have this like, even if they’re like helpful elves or something, you know what I mean?
Like wouldn’t they want to, maybe they wanna, or they’d take us over and take all our resources. Like there would be some sort of. It would be like Independence Day. It is what I’m saying in the movie. Uh, you make a good case, don’t you make a good case? There’s never been in the history of mankind, a scenario where a superpower, except for the United States didn’t show up and go, oh, we can kick your ass, so we’re gonna just ’cause we want this land basically.
And the US did it. In the US part. We just haven’t done it to like Canada and Mexico or
anywhere else. Did the New York Times specifically say proof of extraterrestrials has been revealed? Well, I think
the answer then I guess Len has to be no. The answer has to be no. You are the final
arbiter. Karen had this as Yes.
Well, whatever I am with you, as long as it corresponds with what Mr.
Preto said. That’s right. We don’t care what it’s as long as the eight ball’s. Right. Let’s give it a listen and find out. The answer is no. What’s the eight ball say?
You can rely on that. Oh, you dummy. Oh,
you even said it the time Len. You said it at the time.
Jeez.
But you gotta admit they came closer. They even had that guy in Mexico and the Mexican government supposedly coming out with, we had an alien, remember? Yeah. Did
you see that thing? Did you see that thing? That was pretty impressive actually. I was
looking at that. I that was cool. Pretty impressive and pretty fake.
Did they
prove it a fake? Did they
prove that to be fake? I don’t know. I, I know the background of the guy that was trying to prove it was real and that was
sketchy. Oh, he’s a little sketchy. Okay.
Slightly. Yeah. Well then
I’m formally
protesting just like every year. This is not the Stacking Benjamin show without suddenly being under protest.
So we gotta have that. Alright, uh, next question goes to og. Right now we need, we need the eight ball to win the last two,
my kind of off the wall one. As, uh, something that’s gonna frustrate you. I think, Joe, a little
bit. I know where my question is. Know where I knew you were gonna ask this. What do you think I’m gonna ask?
I think you’re gonna ask Hold on, hold on.
Eight ball. Does Joe know what I’m gonna ask?
It has been determined, so, all right.
What, what am I gonna ask there? Mr. Joe? You were gonna
ask if the University of Michigan football team is gonna be in the national championship game?
Actually, no, I hadn’t even thought about that.
Mines a little, there we go. There’s the eight ball again for you. That doesn’t count.
It doesn’t count. Doesn’t count, doesn’t count. Redo, redo. This one hits a little firmer. Is Bob Iger going to resign from Disney before the end of 23?
Oh, he kind of, he kind of og wishes that he would’ve on some days. Some of the stuff he said around the Hollywood writer strike, uh, got him some headlines I don’t think he wanted.
Plus bringing back, uh, Disney Plus it turns out that, uh, maybe some of the problems weren’t all Bob Chap. ’cause uh, he’s, uh, I think now he’s in a world of regret that he’s back, but he didn’t resign. He didn’t get fired? Not yet.
Not yet. We’ll see. So see how long that stock price can stay at 90 bucks a share before people have people.
Well, there has been some pretty decent activist stuff going on, like in terms of people trying to get on the board and, and force some change and and, and that sort of stuff. So all kinds
of activist, board member stuff.
We’re gonna visit, uh, a mouse house in a couple of weeks, so I’ll,
I’ll report back.
You’re gonna prop up earnings single handedly. Well,
uh, a one day times five plus Genie Plus is $1,300.
I know Sheryl and I are going at the end of January and, uh, one day Park Hopper at, uh, Walt Disney World. $250 each. 500 bucks or two of us just for the ticket to get in 500 bucks. What is the
one you’re doing that’s 1300?
I
can’t say the words out loud because of where I am presently. Oh, okay. But it’s by you. Yeah. It’s the only one by you. Yeah, so,
and it’s
for a day, but I have five of them.
Five of them. Five people. Oh, that was 1300 for five of them. For five people? Yeah, five. Okay. Because I remember,
oh, now
it’s totally allowable.
Oh, that’s not, you know what, I used to get a season pass and it was for the family. It was 99 bucks a person. You know that, that those, that was 20 years
ago. He’s coming out about the same price a season pass. It’s very close to the same price. We paid about $250 just to get in. That’s crazy. Happiest place on earth.
Yeah. ‘
cause it’s a one day. Yeah. Yay.
Alright, here we go. Eight ball’s. Gotta run the table here. Is Iger going to resign from Disney before December 1st? He did. Not. Eight ball said
yes, I, I’m sure.
Mm-Hmm. When he sells out to Apple. Yep.
He sell.
And then we ask about selling out to Apple. By the way, we said at the time that we thought the eight ball may be taking a bender on these last few questions. The eight ball in the last three questions is, uh oh for three. We predicted it a year ago that the eight ball was probably wrong on these.
So that means the eight ball’s gonna lose. Yeah. Not doing good. What are we at? Uh, we are now two
below. Wow. Okay. So we wanna lose big, the
500 mark so it can only pull to one away. And, uh, let’s just do it because, uh, we’ve got a message from somebody who’s a member of our basement Facebook group. Will the Detroit Lions lose the 2023 Thanksgiving Day game again?
And the answer is, as a longtime Detroit Lions fan, lions are having a year. For those of you that don’t follow football, Detroit Lions having a great year. Very good year. Yeah, they are great year, but. But, but on Thanksgiving Day, we kept with the longstanding tradition of getting our ass beat on national TV by the Green Bay Packers.
Just fantastic fun, uh, to make sure that I didn’t have to watch very much TV that day, which was good. I got to enjoy the family time and, uh, stay away from watching my lions loose. So the answer is Lions lost. Uh, here we go. Is does the eight ball think that they were going to lose
everything points to Yes,
there it is.
Even the eight ball knew after that wild ride of thinking aliens were gonna be real and that Bob Iger was going to resign before December 1st. Even the eight ball got it right, that the Detroit lines would lose again. So to
recap, we’re we’re one behind, right? Eight, eight balls. The Mr. Preo is one behind Lost by one.
Eight Ball is one behind. Lost by one. Okay.
Well, it’s over. Yeah. Five right outta 12 questions.
Wow. Not only did the eight ball lose, but also it’s close to that 50 50,
right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. One, one away.
But that 50 50 question with the alien, it would’ve won if you’d have not switched the, uh, answer. It would’ve been up by one.
It it there wa it would’ve been a tie. Oh, it would’ve been a tie. It would’ve been a tie. It would’ve been six, right? Six laws. Yeah. Would’ve been a tie. I was, I was voting for you Len. Blame OG for saying Aliens aren’t real. Don’t
we have a tie breaker question? I thought there was a tie
breaker question.
We do have a tie breaker question, but we don’t even have a tie.
Uh, but we would, under Len’s Fantasy world, so, um, I would submit to the judges that I would take a tie. Just to hear the, the tiebreaker
question. Alright. The tiebreaker question. I’m not gonna go back and find this. ’cause for those of you that aren’t in on the production of this, it takes me about 18 hours to go back and find every single one.
But the question that we asked, and uh, Paula, you’re the one that asked this. Will the magic eight ball answer more questions Correct than wrong? Next year was the question you decided was the tiebreaker. We all agreed with Paula. The answer of course would have been no. If aliens were real, the answer would’ve been no.
That it did not answer more correct than wrong. And the eight ball answer did answer no. So the eight ball would’ve won by one on the tie breaker. Wow.
So if there was a tie, the eight ball would’ve won the tie breaker. And it was
actually, this is very meta, isn’t it? Yes, it was very meta. It was actually specifically Paula, how you ask the question when you said, will it answer more correctly?
And the answer, because it would’ve been tied, would’ve been no. And it would’ve, even though the answer was no, you would’ve won.
Right? Because it didn’t answer more correctly, which itself would’ve been correct. This is
deep. Yes,
this is deep. The eight ball’s not wrong. It’s the fact that OG doesn’t believe in aliens that wrecked everything.
Let’s be clear.
Wow.
I need a potty break. Wow. We’re gonna
all take a potty break. So we’ll let the audience take a potty break. We have, uh, our questions for 2024 for the eight ball right after this.
Welcome to the second half of our special round table episode, the Magic Eight Ball, where we’re asking the Magic eight ball. For those of you with short-term memory loss and have no idea what we were doing the first half of the show, for those of you that for some reason start your podcast in the middle, we’re gonna ask the magic eight ball predictions about, uh, 2024.
Paula, there’s gotta be something that you really wanna know the answer to when it comes to these next 12 months.
There are a lot of things. That I would like to know the answer to when it comes to the next 12 months. But let’s kick off with my annual tradition of asking a question about the royal family.
We’re going right to the Royals. Right To the royals. You know, it’s just for those of you who have listened to Stacking Benjamins over the years, who’ve, if we’ve grown up together, you know, there’s always an annual royal family question. What’s nice about these Magic eight Ball episodes is that each episode is a little bit of a time capsule into what was on our minds, what was in the zeitgeist at this 0.1 year ago.
And so to capture the royal family mood of right around the new year as, as we flow from 2023 into 2024, the big question right now is, will Harry and Meghan reconnect with the royal family? Or, or, or will the split be only continue to, to worsen? And so I think the way to quantify that is. Will Harry and Meghan both spend at least two months in the UK between January 1st through December 1st, 2024?
I don’t
believe they have a residence there anymore. I think they had to give that up when they rescinded their, uh, their positions. Correct.
They agreed to compensate the taxpayers for their renovations, 3 million in renovations that they made to their residents. And I do believe they gave up the cottage, but I’m, I’m sure somebody would let them stay somewhere where they should come back to the uk.
Well, you know what, let’s make it one month. Let’s make it
one month. Well, I I was just saying they could stay in the UK and still not be reconciled.
That’s true. But we just need some type of quantifiable way to, to answer this question. Right, because, like, did Harry have a heart to heart with William is not something that we could ever definitively know unless they made a public statement about it.
Uh, what source are you gonna go to to get this? Is it, um, are you gonna stay at Stand outside the house this year and, and just wait.
Let’s go with People Magazine as the reli most reliable source of celebrity news. We’ll go with People Magazine. Yes. According to People Magazine, will Harry and Meghan spend at least one month in the uk between January 1st through December 1st, 2024,
Len.
All right, Mr. Preo, you are up.
Ask later when the time is right.
It sounds like we’ve got a place of Barry White. And ask it again. Let’s try.
Oh, here we go. It is best not
to say now. Oh my
goodness. Oh my God. It’s Mr. Preo. It’s a little gun shy. This is ridiculous. He’s probably embarrassed after his performance from the last, uh, come on buddy.
Let’s just answer the question.
You can rely on that.
Oh, there we go. Can we rely on the fact that it doesn’t want to answer? Are we relying on the fact that
it’s a yes, we’re off to an ominous start? I know that.
I don’t know, but sounds like reconciliation, Paul. It might be in the air.
Right? Right. I mean, after the bombshell allegations that have come out, it, uh, it would be rather sweet to see Harry and Meghan get more involved with their family across the pond.
I wonder
with the resurgence of suits. Right. Uh, I mean, we’ve had a big resurgence in the show that she was a big part of Mm-Hmm. I’m wondering how much money that pays those, uh, residuals. I know from the strike that those residuals don’t pay what they used to. Nowhere close to what they used to pay, but I’d be curious to see if that resurgence really put some money in their pocket.
Yeah, I have no idea. Let’s go to Len, because you know what, Paula, I have no idea what len’s gonna ask. How about that segue? Well, I’m
gonna start with my traditional precious metals question. Of course, this time we’re gonna look at gold and I would like to know right now it’s sitting at about just above 2000.
I wanna know if it’s gonna get to 2,500 by what, what’s our usual date? December 1st? Yeah. Yeah. December 1st. Mm-Hmm. Of, of 2024. Will gold Mr. Predict o Will Gold hit $2,500 by December
1st just to give people an idea before you hit the eight ball. It’s a 25% return. Yeah. On the day we’re recording. I think I was about to say that.
Oh gee. I think that’s about a 25% return. It’s a big number Lynn.
That’s a big number. Hey, hey. We’re putting, we’re so okay. You could look at this as a soft, another softball for Mr. Predict. Oso. Let’s see what he says though. He could screw it up just like he screwed up the whole last year. So let’s see what, alright.
It has been
determined. So, uh oh, there it is. Gold’s gonna do, 25% could be good if
you’re
a gold bug. If the royals get back together and gold goes up 25%,
there’s probably aliens also.
Yeah. Do we, do we build the doomsday shelter then? Is that what we do?
Wow. I told you he’s not
feeling well. I guess not. Uh oh, gee, what do you got?
So my question, we’ve got a big, uh, presidential election coming up. Will there be a change in the executive branch in terms of party? Because, you know, there’s some question as to whether or not President Biden may, may run, may not run.
You know, so I, I don’t, I don’t know how that’s gonna all shake out, but will there be a change in the party, in the executive branch? In 2020? Well, it wouldn’t be 2024, so not
what? A different elections in 20, not what a different Democrat win it’s gonna be, will be Republican or some other party. Or independent.
Yes. I
don’t suspect an independent will win, but who knows. But will be a different party in the, in the White
House. Well, you know, Mr. Pico does have his bon of fee days in, in politics. I mean, he actually predicted that Trump would be elected. Yes. Back in 2016, if you remember that. That was a, that was quite the call.
That was quite
the call. I do recall 5 38 Mr. Preo, you know. Same. Same.
Okay. You wanna ask one more time? One more time?
Yes. Will there be a change in party in the executive branch relative to the election? Obviously we know it doesn’t take effect until 2025.
All right. Let’s see.
The answer you
seek is yes. Yes. The next president will not be a Democrat. Okay. Wow. There it is. The, you heard it here first, the political question outta the way I went, like I always do to our Facebook group and, uh, I got some great ones. The question, you know, we had the Bitcoin tear this year. Bitcoin being left for dead by some people a year ago.
Now Bitcoin with a big resurgence. Matt, in our Facebook group wants to know, will Bitcoin reach $50,000 by December 1st? How about that one? I like it very specific. Bitcoin 50. What do you thinking, Paula?
Well, so the next having event is, uh, supposed to take place in the spring of 2024, and so with every Bitcoin having event, historically, the price of Bitcoin has always shot up shortly after the having.
So I think that there’s a very good chance that it
will, that’s roughly a 25%, also a 25% gain.
I know there’s, we’re going for 20 fives here. All right. All right, Len, will Bitcoin reach 50,000?
I don’t know, but should we ask Mr. Preo?
Go
for it. Mr. Preo.
The answer
is no, it will not. Whoa.
Wow. That was
authoritative there. Wow. It’s gonna be interesting. Very interesting. If it does it, what’s the storyline gonna be? I mean, if it sits where it is or maybe gets a 10% return, that’s an interesting story. If it goes to the floor like it did a couple years ago, that’s a whole nother story, man.
All right. Mm-Hmm. Looking forward to following crypto next
year. Paper hands predictor. I know.
Let, let’s go to round two. Paula, what do you got?
:Alright. Well, on the topic of 25%, uh, rises in value, 25% gains. Since we’re running with that every year, I always ask a question about a Latin American ETF and so on.
Uh, keeping with that theme, the iShares Latin America, 40 ETF, ticker symbol ILF, will it. By December 1st, have year to date gains above 25%.
Looking at the iShares Latin America, 40 this year, it began the year back, uh, just below $23 a share. Today it’s trading it made it almost up to 30. It’s trading closer to 28 and a quarter as of today.
But still, mm-Hmm, uh, not a bad run from 23 up to 28. Big
gains. Yeah, big gains across 20 23, 20
5%. Len, will ILF do 25% or more from January 1st to December 1st?
Let’s find out
everything points to no.
I’m headed to Latin America, so, uh, I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be doing my best to keep the markets up. I do hope it goes down a little bit. Listen to this already.
What’s that?
So we have to listen to this already. Oh, about my trip to Peru.
I’m headed to Latin America. Scoreboard.
There’s a yes. So, uh, headed to Peru. Uh, gonna visit Machu Picchu and say hi from all of
all
of us. Joe wants tell these cool things. Lynn, do you ever get invited to to Joe’s Excursions? I mean, he goes to Bali, Spain,
Bavaria, Egypt. That’s pretty nice, isn’t it, Jordan? Yeah, everyone’s asked me. That’s pretty sweet.
That’s, uh, no, I don’t.
Uh, hey, what are you doing next Tuesday?
OG headed to Machu Picchu. If you’re bored, bro. I’m bored.
Hook me up. Going to Texarkana. It’s exciting. Hard pass.
I love
it. All right, so there’s Paula’s. Let’s move on. Len, what do you got for us? Uh, okay, so
this year it was very interesting. We had Times, person of the year was Taylor Swift.
I was. Looking into that a little bit. Did you know that prior to 2014, I think the first. Person of the year or man of the year at the time it was called the time zone started in like 1929 or something like that. It started a long time ago and up until 2014 there were only three individual females that had ever been awarded.
Wow. They covered there on the Times, times person of the year in all those years, three in all. And then from 2015 to this year, 2023 or the previous 2023, and we’re tailor one three. Since then, three more individual women have won now in the final, in the last 10 years. So that got me thinking, is it possible for the first time that the Times person of the year could be a back-to-back female individual winner?
So Mr. Uh, PTO will times person of the year for 2024 be an individual woman, therefore being the first time ever for a back-to-back female winner
without hesitation.
Yes.
Wow. How about that? That’s a very good question,
Len. So I guess the question is, who? Yeah, who could it be? Paula? Pam. Who could it be? Duh.
Could be Paula.
Could be Paula. I mean, it depends on what the big news stories are in the next year. I doubt I’ll be the center of any of them, but, but if I am in the center of a new story, I hope it says the, the good one.
Would you like to
make your acceptance speech now? Maybe you’ll
discover proof of extra terrestrials. That’s probably gonna be it. You’ll be the one Paula that’ll get you right
on that house. Or she’ll get arrested for hanging out outside of Harry and, and Meghan’s house for trying to figure out how many days they stayed in their
little home.
I don’t think that would garner person of the year status.
That might, might not, might be creep of the year, but, right. Seriously. All right. Uh, let’s go, let’s go OG to you, my friend. Uh, what’s your second one?
My second one’s gonna be a money question today. So, uh, we are talking a little bit about, uh, interest rates and inflation and, uh, recession from 2023.
Right now, the fed funds rate is, uh, somewhere between five and a quarter and five and a half. My question is, is will the Fed funds rate be lower than 4.25? So four 25% reductions, or four quarter point reductions, or, or one big giant 1% reduction? I don’t know how they’re gonna do it, but is it gonna be 1% lower than it is right now?
So 4.25 or lower? Yeah, by December 1st,
2024 by December 1st. So it doesn’t, what if it goes down and comes back
up? Ooh, that would be epic. I, I, I don’t, that’s not really a thing that they do, right? Is they don’t, it’s kind of a
trend.
No, but I, but the way you phrased it is like, is it good enough that it just drops, you know, to 4.25 at some point before December 1st, or does it have to be below December two, five on December 1st?
I would
say below by December 1st. Although I’d like to ask the judges if I may be allowed the meeting that happens in early December as also to be part of this. I, I know we say December 1st, but there’s a meeting in early December. I feel like I need that. You must
say December 15th on this one. Let’s say December 15th, 4.25.
Is that good enough for you, or under, on or near December 15th?
Highly doubtful. Mm.
I was thinking oog if that did come true. Not as much the loosening of the rates as we thought. Yeah. If that did come true though, does that signal it’s a pretty damn bad year in 2024 if they’re just dropping ’em that much?
I don’t know. I mean. They raised them that much, right? I mean it’s, it’s, it went from damn near zero to five and a half in two
years really fast.
But that was like record. That was record raising. I mean, they had never risen, wrote, risen rates that quickly before. I think it’s feed
risen, Len.
Yeah, but they will drop them fast. But the beer is kicking in on me here, Joe. So lightweight here. So, and
we’re recording this at six 30 in the morning too.
They’ve never done it before like this. Yeah, and I was singing, this is Fed. Guys are bull man.
All right. Hopefully, I hope the eight ball gets that one right because I think, uh, that much of a drop just signals too many bad things going on. If the Federal Reserve is Yeah. Going that crazy. We go to me and uh, back to the Facebook group and I like this one.
From Melvin. Melvin. I like where you’re going with your question. I’m gonna change it a little bit. Melvin asked if the magic eight ball’s gonna be replaced by chat GPT. Oh, never. Never. And by the way, we should have covered the eight balls ears before we even said that, that ask from this because we, man, eight ball needs all the confidence it can get.
But we did see a possibility, we saw some shaking. Yeah. At open AI this year, right? We saw a problem where the board tried to get rid of the CEO and then by popular demand, he came back. So here’s my question. Will there be a change in leadership at OpenAI? And it can happen one of two ways.
Either a OpenAI no longer controls their own destiny, they’re controlled by some other entity. Or number two, we have a different CEO we. That’s my question,
Len. Oh, that’s your que So either of those two? Either of those two is is, yeah. You wanna know? Yes.
Very good. Yeah. Will there, will there be a change at the top in one of those two ways?
Let’s see. That’s kind of a
softball for Mr. Uh, Mr. Predicta. Let’s see.
No, it’s good. What’s past is, past is what Mr. Preo is telling us. Things are gonna continue going crazy over there. That was
very, very definitive. One
word. No. Yes, it was very definitive. Yep. He had no, no other comment. He’s
just telling you No. If I made a Mr. Predictive, like if we came up with another one, I’d give it some other phrases like back off.
Yeah. Right. In your dreams.
Right, exactly. I like the
duh also. Duh. Would’ve been a good one too, like you said. We
do, we gotta make, we gotta make a new version of this thing. Yep. All right. That is the second round. We got one more round left. Paula, what else are you interested in learning about for, uh, the next 12 months?
All right. Well, Apple’s Vision Pro is coming out in 2024, so the spring 2024. It looks so cool, right? Doesn’t it? You know, spring 2024 is looking like it’s going to be a big time for tech. We’ve got the Bitcoin having event. We’ve got Apple’s Vision Pro coming out. So when Apple Vision Pro comes out, there may or may not be renewed interest in the Metaverse, and we’ll see how, how that unfolds over the span of the year.
And so I am curious in terms of general popular adoption of Apple’s Vision Pro, right? And, and the way that culture changes through the adoption of new technology. I would like to know by December 1st, will Apple sell more than 1 million units of its vision Pro
one. Million units. 1 million million Boy for a new technology like that, that’s
great.
Now is not the right
time to tell you. Don’t tell us what to do there, Mr. Predictor. We’ll
try again. Well, well we should ask him again. Ask nicely
this time.
Alright. Mis Mr. Predict OI would butter him up greatly. Love your input on the following question, will an entity known as Apple, which is a company based in the United States, will it sell more than 1 million units of a new device termed the Vision Pro in 2024 prior to December 1st?
The answer cannot be found at this point. He just wants you to keep talking like that.
He, I think he likes it. Talk even slower, Paula. Alright, Mr.
Preo.
Mr. Preo, you have no doubt heard, uh, the hubbub, the hoopla the Smat has around Apple’s Vision Pro. I am curious kerfuffle if the number of units sold by Apple of the Vision Pro prior to December 1st, 2024 will be a number that is at least seven figures, meaning 1 million.
Yes.
It’s certain God, I took him all day to answer that one. Now it’s certain. Now it’s certain.
Oh yeah.
You really
had to
think about it. Mr. Preo. Mr. peo, would you like to go out with Paula for drinks after the show? There is
no doubt.
Aw, very sweet.
Very sweet. Paula’s got a fan. Paula’s got a fan. All right.
That brings us to you, Len. What’s your last question?
Okay, so we’re talking to AI and I think Nvidia, I think they had a huge year this year. Huge. Uh, or the PA in 2020. Huge, huge year. My goodness. I think they were up more than 200% on the year, and now it’s. I think it’s over $400 is maybe pushing 500. So will this continue?
Because, and, and Nvidia it’s because of the ai, the whole AI thing. They were just capitalizing on this now. So, um, will that continue? Will Nvidia, let’s say, will the stock double again from the close of 2023? Will it double by December 1st?
By December 1st? We’re, we’re leaving that 25%, uh, thing that we’ve
been doing.
Yeah. But you know what I mean, this is huge, huge. I mean, the AI thing, uh, yeah. You know, it’s still, does it still
have room to run?
And by the way, before you, uh, ask it, let’s just kind of give the universe some information about Len and quoting stock prices. Uh, so this morning. It was at 4 99 18. So you said 500, which is fantastic.
Of course. Uh, as soon as you mentioned it, I noticed a pretty big sell off of 3% today or $15. So, so good job, Len. Down to four 80. 4 81, thank you. Down 20 bucks since the high water market stuff this morning. Anyways, so you want it to double again. Youre the SOB
It turns out the Chinese are big fans of the recording of this show can’t get a 10% return
like the rest of us.
Len, you only do doubles, huh? Alright, I get it.
Alright. Do I have to ask this again? I think we, we, we’ll, we’ll, Nvidia double again by December 1st, 2024. Mr. Preo. Hello?
The answer is yes, I’m
going all in. Wow. He was trying to sleep Len all
in Nvidia. Wow.
Yeah, he’s, I think he’s getting tired. Remember, this is a, this is not investment advice. This is
not advice. Entertainment purpose is
only one 40, by the way, was the opening price in 20 23, 1 40? It’s uh, four 80 something.
So up 240%.
Yeah. So was that, that’s more than a double. That’s more than a double. That’s more than a two bag, I would
say. Yes. Not too shabby. It is a quad almost. I would also like
to point out that anybody that heard what the eight ball did with last year’s a result would not consider that investment advice either.
Yeah,
true. But this might be the one that it gets, right.
All right, let’s go to the last question and, uh, og Yo, wait a minute. This is a penultimate question. Sorry.
Penultimate question. Correct. Ooh, uh, this one I got from the upstairs, AKA my boys. I said, was there anything that you’re curious about? We should ask the Eight Ball for.
And, uh, they’re big cowboy fans. They’re loving the cowboy stuff right now. Uh, so my son was very specific in his cowboy question, will it be the Cowboys versus the bills in the Super Bowl? Hmm. I I I was like, do you wanna, is it cowboys to win the bills part? I’m not so sure about, you know, and he said, no Cowboys versus bills in the Super Bowl.
Wow. In 2024. That particular,
that is very particular. Okay. That’s a toughie. That’s a toughie. Hey, let’s see.
Messenger Predict,
what’d you say? He is getting tired. Boy, he is not pon. There we go.
Definitely not,
definitely. Oh, but you don’t know if that’s negative about Texas or if it’s negative about uh, the bills. Like really? That could
go either way. I’m just glad he said No. I think the odds are No, he’s gonna nail that one. There’s just so many. Yeah. That’s very difficult to hit, right. When you’re picking two teams.
Like I, I, I, I understand. I think
he was smart. I, I think one of my sons is trying to play the, uh, yes. The, uh, what is that called? The super trifecta or whatever it is. When you not only guess the winner, but you guess the loser and also all the other stuff though. He’s trying to parlay it. I’m not sure. Hmm.
Ah, maybe he should stick to Nvidia stock.
I’ve got a bunch of great questions from, uh, people that I’d like to acknowledge that we’re not gonna do. Glen, Glen wanted us to ask about the Detroit Lions again. And, uh, OG Your kids changed that one. I don’t wanna ask two of those in a row. I. Julie asked, will the Spartans win the national championship?
Julie, have you seen the Spartans lately? In what curling answer’s? Probably not. Mike asked, will Joe visit Bali in 2024? Can he refrain from talking about it? There’s another one.
Uh, will the chiefs trade? Taylor Swift or Selena Gomez? John asks, nice, good one. Leave it to our, leave it to our stackers with some great questions, but let’s go to a financial one here. You know, we’ve seen a lot of talk about inflation this year. Of course, inflation finally may be settling down, but if we have, you know, an economy that struggles next year, maybe inflation heats up again.
So I think that Vincent asked this question in a great way. He says, on December 1st of next year. Let’s change this to the day we record Vincent. So it’s ’cause it’s gotta be a variable day. ’cause we gotta go to the store and see will a can of Arizona, Arizona tea still carry a price tag of 99 cents.
That’s almost like lens sandwich survey every year. Right.
Wow. Or it’s like the Costco hotdog special of a dollar 50. Right. It’s been that way forever. The hotdog and the coke and
the But. But Sell Aware. Sell aware for
that. For 99 cents. I’ve apparently it costs 99 cents. Now I have no idea because I’m pretty sure in
New York City it would cost more.
Well you know why? Because somebody’s gotta walk it from Arizona. Exactly. Does a can of Arizona in Arizona cost 99
cents? Wait, I dunno. Can I order it online? Hold on me, Arizona iced tea. Ooh. Actually on Instacart, 99 cents there for a 23 fluid ounce can of Arizona Green Tea with Jim Honey. There you go.
Let’s use
Instacart.
Okay. So, uh, yeah, we’ll use Instacart and, uh, I’m glad you went with the fluid ounces. Not the non-flu ounces.
Exactly. Not the solid ounces or the vapor
ounces.
I’m like, do we really need the word fluid? All right, well there it is. 99 cents on the day we record next year.
Definitely not.
Oh wow. Wouldn’t it be funny if it still was, but they were running a sale? I think that
would be awesome. I actually, so in, in, uh, in full disclosure, so what I’m seeing on Instacart right now, and this is of course, you know, Instacart knows that I live in New York City. So, um, I’m seeing New York prices.
But on Instacart right now, it is regular $1 and 9 cents, but on sale, 9% off for 99 cents. I can take a screenshot for posterity if you’d like.
Awesome. There it’s, thank you. You
just use Joe’s, Instacart?
Yeah. You just need the link for next time.
Just use the same link.
Well, so you can
look it up next time.
I can just Google, Instacart, Arizona iced
tea. Yeah. Or do that, that would work too. Or press the easy button.
That would, that would be fine. Whatever you think is appropriate.
All right. On that note, that will, uh, put the bow on our longest, maybe most fun episode. Uh, I love recording this every year. Do we need a tiebreaker?
Oh, we do need a tiebreaker number, number. Don’t, don’t put the bow on it yet. Paula, what’s our tiebreaker gonna be this year?
Well, I loved the, uh, well, the Chiefs trade. Taylor Swift for Selena Gomez. I love that question, but we’ll do a slightly modified version. I. By December 1st, 2024, will Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey still be in a relationship?
And that could be that they’re boyfriend, girlfriend, that could be that they’re married, but will they be in a relationship romantic? A romantic
relationship, or Paula, and this won’t be part of the official question, or will the name of uh, Taylor Swift’s next hit song be The Chief I used to Love? Aw, doesn’t she write?
She writes about every dude she dates and breaks up with,
doesn’t she? Aww.
Yes. I mean, everybody does. That’s literally like half the majority of songs that are out there are
love songs. Have you written songs about your breakups? I don’t write songs. Have you written? I’ve never written a song about my
breakup.
I’ve never written a song, period. Ever. Well, if I were to write a song, that’s likely what I would write about.
I’m pissed off about so and so. All uh, will they be in a relationship? All right, Len, what do we got
without hesitation? Yes.
Wow. Whoa. That means they’re sticking together, right?
Yeah, they’re sticking together. Travis and
Taylor. That’s interesting. How about that? Congratulations. We’ll be the first to say congratulations. Yeah. All right, let’s, uh, finally, now let’s put a bow on this thing. og, what are you doing?
This first grand, uh, weekend of the new year?
Well, speaking of your lions, I am, uh, gonna go watch a Lions football game this weekend. Dang.
Fantastic. Lions, uh, having a heck of a year. So go, go lions, Len, what’s going on@lenpenso.com? Man,
you know what we’re looking at, uh, tricks retailers use to, uh, trick you into buying things.
Oh, so there’s, uh, these are actual tricks that they do and a lot of people fall for ’em. So, uh, it’s very interesting actually. So stop on by lynn penso.com. Will you be stopping by Mr. Preo at
to read that article?
The answer is
no. Oh, we’re going to AI next year.
Have you heard about the kid with watermelons at the watermelon cart on the side of the road? Uh, a guy stops at the cart and says to the kid, so how much you selling watermelon’s for? And the kid goes, it’s $10 for one, or it’s $8 for two. The guy goes, wait a minute.
What? Yeah, it’s $10 for a watermelon, or it’s $8 for two. The guy goes, you’re, you’re, wow. Who came up with that pricing structure? And the guy go, the kid goes, I did. He goes, all right, man. I’m taking two. He’s like, $8. And so he grabs the two watermelons, he puts ’em in the back of his car, but then he starts to feel guilty, right?
That the kid just doesn’t get it. And he walks back and he says to the kid, he’s like, Hey, you just gotta realize, like you just sold me two watermelons less than the price of one. He goes, no. I used my pricing strategy to get you to buy two watermelons instead of buying one. Mm. Tricky. How about that?
Tricky. Yeah. Why the, did I bring that up?
I don’t know. But I’m gonna go back and shove that one in my article. Yes. So
before it’s, uh, before I bring reading, that’s exactly what I brought up. ’cause it’s a trick. Yes.
Arizona Ice tea. It’ll be like $50 for one. That’s right. Or a dollar 98 cents for two.
Right?
Yeah. Uh, that’s happening@limped.com. Paula, what’s going on at the Afford Anything podcast, which may be why you’re gonna be person of the year. ’cause it’ll be like Podcast of the
year. Aw, that would be very sweet. That would be very sweet. Well, we’re kicking off the year with an interview with Hal Elrod, who is the author of Miracle Morning.
Because it’s the new year, a lot of people have New Year’s resolutions and goals. Hal Elrod talks about how to have a great morning routine so that you can hit your New Year’s goals. And then, of course, today, the first Friday of January, we have our monthly first Friday bonus episode. So, uh, we’re talking about what’s happening in the economy.
We’re taking a snapshot of where we are. We’re doing a bit of a 20, 23 year in review and a 2024 look ahead. So tune into our first Friday snapshot of current events
episode. Great way to kick off your year, getting things right with Hal Elrod. What a great getting that morning together and then, uh, and then looking back at last year, just like we just did, but maybe a little bit more, uh, a little bit more compact than what we just did.
All right. That’s gonna put a bow on it. Uh, Doug. Well, why don’t you put the bow on this. What is our to-do list, uh, for today? So,
what’s stacked up on our to-do list today? First, take some advice from the Magic eight ball. Get your savings account into something higher yield. It won’t cost you anything. It takes maybe 15 minutes.
Your wallet will congratulate you. Second silver. Yeah, maybe don’t buy that investment better yet, look through your investments and see which are too esoteric for your goals. Seriously, if you’re out there picking stocks, are you picking or betting use indexes in 2024 for a more secure future. But my big to-do well.
This one is obvious. Buy rental real estate in England to help people catch Harry and Meghan’s sightings. Or maybe better yet, the big lesson is to base your decisions on your plan and not a magic eight ball. That would suck. Thanks to Len Benzo for joining us today. You can find len@lenbenzo.com slash I’m taking my ball and going home.
Thanks to Paula Pant for joining us. You’ll find her show afford anything wherever you are listening to us right now. And thanks also to OG for joining us today. Looking for good financial planning. Help head to Stacking Benjamins dot com slash OG for his calendar. This show is the Property of SSB Podcasts LC copyright 2024, and is created by Joe Saul-Sehy.
Our producer is Karen Rein. This show was written by Lisa Curry, who’s also the host of the Long Story Long podcast. With help from me, Joe, and Doc G from the Earn and Invest podcast, Kevin Bailey helps us take a deeper dive into all the topics covered on each episode in our newsletter called the 2 0 1.
You’ll find the 4 1 1 on All Things Money at the 2 0 1. Just visit Stacking Benjamins dot com slash 2 0 1. Wonder how beautiful we all are. Of course, you’ll never know if you don’t check out our YouTube version of the show Engineered by Tina Eichenberg. Then you’ll see once and for all that I’m the best thing going for this podcast.
Once we bottle up all this goodness, we ship it to our engineer, the amazing Steve Stewart. Steve helps the rest of our team sound nearly as good as I do right now. I wanna chat with friends about the show later. Mom’s friend Gertrude Stacey Doe and Julia Garib are our social media coordinators, and Gertrude is the room mother in our Facebook group called The Basement.
So say hello when you see us posting online to join all the basement fun with other stackers, type Stacking Benjamins dot com slash basement. For more interactive fun, join us in Instagram every Tuesday and Thursday for our Instagram lives. Kate Yakin and Joe Host these weekly. Not only should you not take advice from these nerds, don’t take advice from people you don’t know.
This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any financial decisions, speak with a real financial advisor. I’m Joe’s Mom’s Neighbor, Doug, and we’ll see you next time back here at the Stacking Benjamin Show.
Leave a Reply