1212: Stock Market & Economy Relationship CNBC, Empowered Self-Management, Commandment #21 Avoid Manias

Once we did encounter some challenges because we are part of your network and because I have an investment counselor, I always felt like I had somewhere to go for an answer. I always felt like I had somebody with more experience than me that I could lean on. And if Sarah didn't know the answer, she got the answer.

Welcome to the Creating wealth show with Jason Hartman. You're about to learn a new slant on investing, some exciting techniques and fresh new approaches to the world's most historically proven asset class that will enable you to create more wealth and freedom than you ever thought possible. Jason is a genuine, self made multimillionaire who's actually been there and done it. He's a successful investor, lender, developer and entrepreneur who's owned properties in 11 states, had hundreds of tenants, and been involved in thousands of real estate transactions. This program will help you follow in Jason's footsteps on the road to your financial Independence Day. You really can do it. And now here's your host, Jason Hartman with the complete solution for real estate investors.

Welcome to episode number 1212. Yes, 1212. Thank you so much for joining me today. I've got our longtime client and I guess I would say friend of the show. He's been very helpful to all of you. He plans to continue to be really giving and helping and just contributing to investors and helping more of them become more and more empowered. And that is our client, Drew Baker. Drew, welcome back. How you doing?

Hey, Jason, thanks for having me back.

My pleasure. So we were talking the other day about a self management success that you had. Another one. It's not a big deal, but there are two roads to wealth, as I think it was Ben Franklin that said this. Either augment your means or diminish your wants. In other words, make more money. In other words, more rental income or reduce the cost of running the properties. And either way, you will increase your return on investment. You got a flooring story for us, don't you?

Yeah. So when I acquired all my properties, they came with carpet as they usually do in kind of colder climates. Well, I thought that it made more sense because these are properties where tenants aren't really taking care of the flooring, so to speak, that it makes sense to have them switch over to a more durable approach with vinyl plank flooring. So I had my contractor bid it out, or. Sorry, I had my property management had their contractor bid it out. And this was probably five years ago.

Okay, so this was before you were self managing.

Absolutely.

Right.

Yeah. I mean, so I approved the bid and I worked with the Property management in some limited capacity to have them figure this out because it was a two story building. Figuring out how to do that vinyl plank flooring and the transitions going up the stairs, I had to basically hold their hand to get to the finish line. But I didn't get a choice of materials. I didn't get a choice of color or types of what they picked out. I had no idea. So they bid the job, I approved it, we were all good. You know, the house is about 1800 square feet, four bedroom, two and a half bath, you know, so it was kind of expensive. It was I think five or six thousand dollars at least. And so then when I took over the property, I had a chance to inspect it. I flew out there, which is of course more high maintenance than most people would be. But since I have more properties I guess than someone that it makes a little bit more sense for me. So I went into the property.

What you mean there is. You've taken a, a really active role in your self management and a lot of people that self manage they're not going to do that. And that's fine. You just really kind of wanted to dive into this and see what it's all about. I think in part you're really doing it for the education and also to sort of correct a lot of history with your properties over the past ten years or so. You know, things that haven't been done right, you know.

So yeah, I have a self management rule that is you should fly out and see your properties every 10 years.

Every 10 years. Okay.

Which I don't think is that unreasonable.

So you get a tax deductible trip to Memphis in Indianapolis every decade.

Yes. And if I decide to move it to a five year timeline, I'll tell you why. But you know, I think that it might make sense to do that if I decide to get more properties in my area and I want to explore because, you know, getting out and seeing the lay of the land and kind of how neighborhoods are transforming over the decades, it is helpful to kind of know where to go next. But anyways, back to the flooring story. So my handyman went to the property and said, hey, the property manager before put this piece of plywood down and just drilled it into the back door that leads out to the backyard. They just put a piece of plywood there. And it was a bit puzzling because they put it right where the, you know, right before where you step outside. So we talked to the tenants and the tenants said, oh yeah, we told the property manager and that the flooring, the sub flooring was starting to cave in a little bit and a little bit of the wood was chipping away. So the floor kind of in that little area that leads outside was sinking in. So they just put a piece of plywood and just put four screws down. And that was their version of fixing it.

That's what you call a band aid. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. So I get the property. When I tore the property, I said, this is just tacky. I mean, this is not going to be a suitable way of resolving this issue. You know, I want to get in there, I want to peel back the flooring, I want to put in a new subfloor area to patch it, and then I'll put the flooring back on. Well, the flooring that they picked was a glue down flooring.

I saw the pictures. Yeah.

Which you know, is the cheaper of the types of vinyl plank flooring to pick.

But that's okay. That's not the real problem. The problem is what I saw in the picture. Right. Yeah.

The problem is, is I did a massive house, you know, 1800 square feet. I mean, that's not massive, but I'm saying for a vinyl plank flooring job with all those boxes, they didn't give me any spare pieces to do any patching. So when I received the property, I had the tenant look up in the attic, try to figure out, hey, we need a couple spare pieces. I need five pieces to fix this.

They didn't leave any spares for you?

They didn't leave one spare. So I called the flooring company that did it. I managed to look through my invoices. I called and they said, oh, well, this company was acquired by another company and they have discontinued the product. Which, yeah, big surprise, that's my luck.

Then you went to Amazon.com, right?

Yeah. So then I went to Amazon.com, i found a similar looking flooring that was walnut and with the same dimensions was glued down and I bought a case of it which was like 16 boards or vinyl planks, and I shipped it off to the tenant.

How much was it?

$5.

Okay, so it was a $45 case of the planks. Okay. And so you have again, and I know we talked about this before, but you have all the addresses of all your properties in your Amazon account. So you can just, with a couple of clicks, you can just ship things off to the tenants, Right? Okay, good.

So I shipped them a case of it. You know, they used six boards. The handyman used six boards. To my amazement, it actually came out really good. And it looks close enough that it doesn't, you know, it looks like it was. It blends in fairly decently. So I was able to take care of the problem, get this piece of plywood out of there, and say good riddance to the property management maintenance team that totally goofed. So, yeah, that's my flooring story. And, you know, it's nice to be able to kind of do that problem solving and make sure it isn't done a cheap, cutting corners type way. I know now that that job has been done. I've seen the work. I have all the photos to prove it, and my tenant's happy.

And the great thing is, though, you can just go to Amazon, you order the product, you have all your properties, addresses in your Amazon account in the address book, and you just, with a couple of clicks, zoom, it's there. And you know, the other thing you. I know that one of your tenants became your handyman. That's great. So, you know, you could choose to just also have your handyman contacts and ship the item to the handyman as well. So that's great. That's. That's a great story.

The ironic part about it was my tenant who went and did the maintenance on this property, speak Spanish and was able to translate with the tenant to figure out what exactly had transpired. So I have one tenant telling me what another tenant. You know, it's just having that ability to just communicate. You know, we got on FaceTime, and I was able to talk to the tenant, and he was able to translate.

See the work. Yeah. That's awesome.

All that.

So you got a free translator. And I'm telling you, like I said before, listeners view your tenants as a part of your success team. Okay? View your tenants in a new way. They really do help you. Most of the time. I mean, the vast majority of the time, the tenants are super helpful. You know, we all hear these horror stories about tenants. Most tenants are just great people that want to help and want to have a good place to live. And if you're helping them fix up their house, they're super happy. Yeah.

Yeah. Jason, I don't think I ever told you this, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this particular subject. With my tenants. There's been a couple opportunities in the past where there's been bills that I could have easily pushed on them. And I've just decided to kind of take that not a miserly landlord approach, but to be generous and where it's due so, like, I'll give you an example. We had a remodel done on our property where they were kind of fixing up a few things.

And the tenant on one of the rental properties. Not when you say our property, it sounds like the one you live in is what you're talking.

Oh, I'm sorry. My wife and I's, you know, rental property that we have, we were doing some repair work. They replaced a storm door and replaced a vanity and really made the place look nice while the tenant was in place. And when the guy came that I found on Craigslist to pick up some of these spare, you know, leftovers, the old vanity and, you know, kind of stuff that the trash man wouldn't take.

Right.

One of the tenants said, hey, I have this old couch that looks horrible that I've been trying to get out of my living room. Could I pay him to take it? And I said, no problem. Just throw it in and I'll take care of it for you. So I talked to the guy, and I said, hey, if you'll take this couch, I'll give you an extra 10 bucks. And it was like the tenant was thrilled.

Yeah, totally easy.

Totally easy. And it makes me look like the hero. And something that I've done as sort of a favor to the tenants, but also something that I see gets done is sending them every year a packet of a dozen dozen air filters. And you can buy these air filters.

For the H vac. Yeah. They're cheap. Yeah. Yeah.

You can buy a package, a dozen of them for like, 30 bucks. And I think it just doesn't make you look like a cheapskate going, you need to go buy a filter at Lowe's.

Yeah. The reality is they won't do it half of the time. Okay, that could be true. And so you're getting. You're getting better servicing for your H Vac unit. And it's going to last longer if they replace the air filters. So. Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

I tell all the tenants every quarter, if you haven't replaced the filter, please do. So as the season's changing, I think doing it every month to them, most of them understand it needs to get done every month. And I'd say they're pretty religious about it. But, yes, you're right. There's probably most that just say, forget it.

And you just reminded me that I needed to do it in my own house, so. Good.

I don't think I changed it once a month in my house.

I understand the funny thing, too, about that sofa removal for 10 bucks extra, which is nothing, is that if the relationship ends badly with the tenant, you might end up removing that sofa after they move out anyway.

So. Yeah, that's.

Yeah. Well, now I have a guy that can come with a pickup truck and he can swoop in and take everything away and I don't have to mess with it. And I have that connection.

Good stuff. I want to talk about the community that we are building, and this is really exciting. You know, a lot of people have reached out to you and, you know, you came and spoke generously at Meet the Masters. Basically what we are doing is we are building a community called the empowered investor community. Okay. Where we will have a social network like a Facebook. Okay. We will have monthly conference calls, we will have educational materials and other resources where our members, our clients can come and they can exchange contacts in areas for the best handyman, the best contractors, you know, advice. And mostly this is geared toward people that want to self manage their property and they want to get rid of their property manager. But, you know, you can be involved if you have a property manager too. Okay. But kind of the emphasis is be empowered and take back control. Okay. And so, you know, if you want to have your property manager, fine, you can do that and you can still join the group. But the focus is on being empowered and not being beholden to anybody, including a property manager. So I just want to let you know that that's coming. It's going to be available for you, and we'll talk about that in the future. But, Drew, you sent me this great video the other day about the difference between the stock market and the economy. And I thought that was really interesting. I love the metaphor they made with walking the dog. I want to introduce a third party. This video talks about the overall economy versus the stock market. And many people have always said, you know, the stock market is a forward looking indicator of what's going to happen in the economy. So if the stock market is going badly, what does that say about the future, the economy? It's not positive. Right. A lot of people have said that over the years, and I think the jury's out on whether or not that's true. But that's not the point. But also, for decades, I have thought about, you know, the relationship between the real estate market and of course, the broader economy, but also thought about the relationship between the real estate market and the stock market. And that's been kind of interesting. So this video talks about two of these parties. I do think there is a third one. That we should consider. But let's go ahead and dive in and, and listen to it. Okay, Drew.

All right.

Okay, here we go.

As an investor, you will encounter days where the Dow is up a thousand points.

We have the Dow intraday chart you the biggest points gain ever. 1036.

You will also encounter days where the dow is down 800 points.

The Dow Jones industrial average tumbled by 831 points. That's 3.2%. The Dow dropping more than 650 points. The largest December decline since the Great Depression.

People ask all the time when they see a huge move in the market, does this mean I'm going to lose my job? Does this mean I'm about to have the best year I've ever had in my business? What is the relationship between what stock prices are doing each day versus what's happening on Main Street? What's happening in the real economy? I like to use an analogy of a man walking a dog across a park. Try to picture that. You got a guy, he's got a leash. There's a dog on the other end of it. They're walking in the same direction. However, if you observe the way the man crosses the park, his gait, his stride, it's fairly straightforward. Very few deviations. Kind of like an economic trend. Then when you think about what the dog is doing, the dog is running around like a lunatic. The dog is barking at people. It darts to the left, it darts to the right. It strains on the leash. Maybe it chases a squirrel, barks again. The thing with the dog is that's the stock market. The man walking the dog is the economy.

Well, that's certainly true of my dog. Now, one of the things I liked about this is that he says that the Wall street versus the real economy. Did you notice that even a Wall street guy said versus the real economy. And that is so true. Wall street is not the real economy. Hopefully that metaphor makes sense to everybody. You know, look at the man walking through the park with the dog is walking in a pretty straight line that represents the economic trend, right? And the dog is the gyrations in the stock market. So I think that's kind of interesting. And Drew, any comments or you want.

To go back into the video, we can keep going.

Okay. And by the way, this is a CNBC video from their YouTube channel. They've got some really great content there. So check it out.

I will say if I can change my mind, I'm like the dog. I just changed my mind. But if you talk about the broader economy, and you just look at things. It's pretty simple to see that if you try to time the market, you're going to lose, because nobody understands what's going to happen or what the psychological impact is going to be. And you know that famous quote that you can be right, but the market can be irrational longer than you can remain solid.

Yeah, yeah. The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent is the concept. And that's a good one. And, you know, it's so true, because every time I walk the dog, which is a few times a day, the dog has a completely different agenda than I do. I want to get somewhere. I'm walking over to the gym, or I'm walking, you know, around looking at nature. And by the way, I saw a whole family of ducks today. I saw one big duck and a bunch of little ones. They were so cute. Hadn't seen that before. Living in Florida, everything's so alive. I mean, there's just life everywhere. It's amazing. And I'm really starting to appreciate nature more living here, so I think this is good for me. But the dog has a completely different agenda. And I don't know what she's looking at. I don't know what she's hearing. I don't know what she's smelling. There are rabbits and squirrels and lizards and everything under the sun over here. So, yeah, that's a good metaphor. Okay, here we go back into the video.

End up in the same place. They're both sort of walking in the same direction most of the time. There's a lot less deviation in how the man walks than how the dog walks. And I think when you consider the stock market barking, jumping back and forth, straining at its leash, that's a really good way to control your own emotions and to say to yourself, okay, the economy is probably not fluctuating to the same extent that the dog is or the stock market is. So we use that analogy all the time.

Here's the S&P 500 plotted against GDP growth. You'll notice that in any one given year, you can have some divergence between the 2. Look at 2009, real GDP fell 2.5%. Stock market, meanwhile, went up 26% that year. The 1970s offer some examples of that. In 1975, real GDP, meaning inflation adjusted economic growth, fell 0.2%. Stock market was up almost 40% that year.

Now, this is quite interesting, given the show that I did with Doug last week. I mean, the difference between the GDP and the S&P 500 is something that is a, I think, a good long term predictor of where stock prices will go. Because basically you see a gap between the real growth in the economy and what the stock market is doing. And to me, that is something very significant cause for concern. And I talked about that with Doug on the show. You know, you already heard that interview, so. And if you missed that episode by chance, go back and listen to it because we really dissected that a lot. It's quite fascinating. Let's keep listening.

Again, they're related, kind of going in the same direction over long stretches, but in any one calendar year, they don't necessarily have to look alike at all. Now, here's something really important. All things being equal, even if I gave you next year's economic information, what would you do with it? You certainly wouldn't know what the reaction of the stock market or the bond.

Market are going to be.

You can have any economic outcome and have any stock market reaction to it, up to and including a terrible reaction, a great reaction, or no reaction. Now what about the reverse? Do stocks tell us what the economy is about to do? The answer is very unsatisfying sometimes. So stocks are thought of as a leading indicator for the economy, but a lot of times they get things wrong or stock market prices overreact. Good evening.

The stock market went into a free fall, losing more in one day than it did on Black Tuesday in 19. 1929.

I always point out 1987, that was a 23% crash. Within one day, the economy didn't even notice. I don't think anyone should panic because.

All the economic indicators are solid.

That's Ronald Reagan.

We've had examples where the stock market has been an accurate predictor of what would happen with the economy. And maybe the best example would be the 2000.com crash.

The worst day ever on Wall Street. All the major indices are now down for the year.

We had an incredible economy from 1982 until the year 2000. And then all of a sudden the stock market was saying, things have gotten way too hot, started to come down, got worse, spread from technology stocks into mainstream stocks, and within a year we were in a fairly long recession. So there are times where the market is giving you that signal. Then there are times where the market is giving you a signal that doesn't end up leading to anything. And being able to tell the difference between the two is nearly impossible, especially in real time. So whenever you hear someone make a stock market forecast based on how the economy is currently doing or how they think the economy will be doing. It's very important for you to remember how many other variables impact stock prices and the stock market. Everything from geopolitics, natural disasters, interest rates, tax rates, whether or not there's any kind of fiscal program that takes place, whether or not there's any kind of change in the law for things like buybacks or dividends. There are so many things that can happen that are not GDP that will affect the prices of stocks that it's nearly impossible to point to any one metric, whether it's jobless claims or economic growth or overseas economic growth growth, and say, this plus this equals that. If it were that simple, we would all be rich. Everyone would know exactly how to invest. And 2018 offers us a perfect example. Exciting live breaking news.

The American economy growing at its strongest pace in four years.

Payrolls rose by 250,000 jobs. So here's a year where you've got solid GDP growth. You've got the unemployment rate steadily dropping month after month. Millions of jobs being added. Really, no negative issues with the economy whatsoever. All of the ingredients that you can ask for to say, this is a good economy, this is a good environment for business. Stock market went down 5%. So you say to yourself, well, wait a minute. If you had told me at the end of 2017 that I would have all these great things, I wouldn't have expected a down 5% year for stocks. And that goes to show, you know, how many other ingredients there are that affect the outcome. By the way, expectations are one of the most important ingredients. We came into 2018 already expecting all of that great news. So stocks have been priced for the best. We got the best. And guess what? They were already worried about 2019.

See, that's one of the other things that I think really throws people off, is that the market prices stuff in. You know, you just don't know if the future economic scenario is priced in or not. You really have to be very, very sensitive to that. And we see this in the housing market as well. Whether or not something's priced in, right? Like, if the interest rates go up, is that already priced into the market? Or does that mean housing prices will decline and rents will rise? Because those are usually countercyclical, as I've talked to you about in my three dimensions of real estate concept. The question of.

I mean, look at the Trump trade deal. I mean, everyone was anticipating a trade deal, and then over the weekend, Trump says, nope, we're gonna go push the button on you guys and just go full board ahead on Your intellectual, you know, like, what's the telecon company that they're going after? Yahweh or something?

Yahweh, yeah, yeah.

And I mean, look at what happens as far as pricing and when the feds have meetings, you know, the market anticipates something to happen. And then once if there's a reversal or things don't go as expected, I mean, look at the market, it just immediately tries to figure itself out because it wasn't able to price it in.

Right, right. Everybody in the market is making a bet. They're trying to figure out the bet before everybody else and all those other market participants. So it is complicated and you just don't really know. It's only going to be an opinion whether or not something is priced in or not to any market in any scenario. Okay, we're almost finished.

The other thing I would mention, if you think about the dog analogy, walking through the park, a lot of stock market participants expect the Federal Reserve to watch the dog. And to some extent, the dog is worth watching. But I do think it's important to realize Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman, his real job is to focus on the man walking the dog. And so you may see a lot of volatility in the markets that doesn't necessarily get a reaction from the people who set monetary policy.

All right, good stuff. Good stuff. Thanks for sharing that video. And Again, check out CNBC's YouTube channel for more on that.

The way I heard the stock market described in other terms is that if you're pouring a beer, when you pour the beer and you get handed it, there's the beer and then there's that froth at the top. And I think a lot of people misunderstand the market as being just the froth, which is all that volatility.

And.

And they don't understand that underneath it, the beer is like the economy or, you know, that keeps chugging along. And if you try to just focus on that froth rather than where the market as a whole is going to go, you'll never be really trusting of the economy because it's so sporadic in a short duration rather than over a long time horizon.

Exactly. And you know what? That leads us to a good thing to wrap this up with. And that is my newest commandment. I started with 10 commandments, then I added 10 more years ago, and I added one more when we were in Savannah recently for the Venture Alliance Mastermind trip there. And it just came to me when I was on a radio station. And that commandment number 21. I already shared it with you on a prior episode. But it's, you know, thou shalt avoid manias. Thou shalt not invest in manias. Countless fortunes have been lost in everything from the tulip bubble to the Louisiana or Mississippi land deal with John Locke or John Law, I think it was. You know, I read my history, all about that. That was fascinating. I'm not talking about the Louisiana Purchase, by the way. Don't confuse that. This is just a private promoter. Okay? And now, you know, there's two manias that maybe we just want to quickly touch on. We should do whole shows on these. Obviously, they're big, big topics, but one mania where you've got like these fanboy cult members and a charismatic leader.

Or maybe charismatic, I don't know. I don't think so, but other people do. And the other one, you have no leader. It's completely decentralized, but it's also a mania. So these two that I'm talking about are Tesla and Bitcoin or maybe more broadly, cryptocurrency. But drew some thoughts on those.

If you look at the price action on Tesla lately, it's been a wild ride. I mean, basically the stock has halved since Elon Musk pretended that he was going to get a buyout offer at $420. Which those of you that know 420.

Specifically you, Jason, thought that was a joke, right? Yeah, that's what he tried to tell the SR SEC when they were fining him, what, $20 million. Right.

Which I called this one. When the stock basically halved, I was the one that called half baked on Elon and the stock. So the stock is now trading under the 210, which would be halving it. So I think right now it's at 180 something. So, yeah, it's really on hit. The thing is, when you talk about pricing and the expectations for future earnings and expectations, Tesla's a perfect example of that. For a while, they were able to always deliver cars. Every car that was made was sold. And then when everybody got their cars, the production started to deviate from actual demand. And then you hit the perfect storm of the federal tax credit, which was $7,500 halving on January 1st. So you had this crowding of people trying to get their cars to qualify for the tax rebate. And then the first quarter hits and the tax credit's half the amount. And Tesla was forced to lower all of its prices in order to accommodate this change in incentive structure. So they lowered the tax Incentive. They lowered the price more than the tax incentive had dropped, and they still sold fewer cars.

This is what's ridiculous, by the way, about tax incentives. And anybody who's interested in the operating Opportunity Zone. You know, we've discussed the Opportunity Zone scams that are out there. I mean, there's all these promoters, and this is a really complicated tax benefit if you can catch it. And it's really not that big a deal to most people. Okay, either. But whenever you distort the market with tax policy, be careful. That would be another mania, the Opportunity Zone mania. You know, Commandment Number 21, Thou shalt not invest in manias. Our investors, they understand the story of the tortoise and the hare, okay? They understand the slow and consistent, gets it done and always wins the race. These manias, like, I mean, Tesla is just, wow. I don't know. I think they've really lost their way. Yeah. Certainly think Elon has.

I mean, the thing is, is that, Jason, I was a true believer.

I know you were. And I used to criticize you for it all the time.

Well, I think I was largely responsible for you buying your Tesla.

I blame you. I blame you for both of those. I bought two Teslas, thankfully. Well, not thankfully, but the. The second one was a lemon. The first one was fine. I liked the first one, but I did end up selling it. And then I bought the second one. I should have just kept the first one, and I probably would have been happy. But the second one was just a total lemon. And after 10 months of haggling with Tesla, they finally gave me a refund. It was just a nightmare to get them to do that. But they finally did it. They really did finally do it. That was good. I'm glad I'm out of it, because that car was a terrible car. It really was awful.

Yeah. And I think this comes down to an important factor in terms of back to real estate, is that when Elon first started talking, I thought a lot of the things he said made sense. But then when the actions came into place, they deviated dramatically from the rhetoric. And I think when it comes to real estate, there's been property managers, there's been vendors that I've used where everything they say lines up. But then I talk to the tenant, and there's a completely different story. And the evidence shows that the property manager is showing the item in their best interest in their lens. And if everything is interpreted through the lens of the person in power and you don't look at the data, you can get tricked and that's why you go back to what your thou shalt.

Be in control commandment number three, Thou shalt maintain control. And you know what, Drew, you just gave me an idea. Maybe I should create a constitution. And then we'll have amendments. We'll have commandments and amendments. The commandments from God and the amendments to our constitution, our investor constitution. There you go. That's a good idea. Let's do that.

Yeah, let's just hope you're not God.

Yeah. Well, no, I got a riddle for you and the listeners. Now, this goes back to our last president, Obama. Those of you Trump haters might say it about Trump, but the joke was when Obama was president. And it says, what's the difference between God and Obama? Well, God doesn't think he's Obama.

Sounds about right.

Yeah. Anyway, okay, so we got to wrap it up, Drew, but any. Just a mention on bitcoin because we brought up the cryptocurrency thing.

Well, you know, back to China and bitcoin and the mania and all that stuff. You know, the problem is the Chinese economy is in such dire straits right now with how much debt they have, that people are trying to get out of their currency, get out of their economy. And so, you know, they were speculating and laundering money outside of the Chinese economy. And a lot of the Euro Asian bloc has just fallen in love with bitcoin. So whether it be Japan with negative interest rates, you start to see people trying to pull their money out of the system. And so bitcoin is that vehicle for speculation. So it's funny that I wouldn't have expected it to double off the bottom. So right now bitcoin is above 8,000. I haven't looked at it today. It could be 10,000. It could be below 8,000. It fluctuates so much. Hey, I don't even know. But it went down to below 4,000 and it's since doubled. So it's all over the map. And I think this could end horribly bad for anyone speculating on this non productive asset.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's an interesting thing. And you know, I mean, I've done extensive stuff on cryptocurrencies. I even have a whole podcast on it. And I, I thought I should call it the anti. I called it the crypto cast. But I kept thinking I should call it the anti crypto cast. Because every guest I interviewed, I kind of tore their arguments apart.

They're like, oh, yeah, cult leader, cryptocurrency is going to take over the world, blah, blah, Blah. And I say to them all, listen, I wish you were right. I'd love to be wrong about this. I'd love nothing more than to see a crypto cryptocurrency or some currency outside of the control of governments and central banks like a distributed democratic currency if you will succeed. But I just don't think it's going to happen because the powers that be are way too powerful and I've discussed that ad nauseam. So no need to get into it here. Drew, thanks for joining us. Of course we'll have you back on the show. We always appreciate it. Folks. Look forward to the this empowered investor community. It is coming. We'll tell you more about that in the future. Also, thank you to those of you who have forwarded your spam to us. Yes, we appreciate you forwarding your spam to us. So here's the thing. I'll just I haven't mentioned that lately, but some people in our business, some unscrupulous players, are spamming people. So if you have received an email or a phone call or anything from someone in the real estate business and you're thinking, how did I get this? I didn't subscribe to this. I never went to their website and subscribed. Please forward it to me at reviewsjasonhartman.com reviewsjasonhartman.com or you can always go to jasonhartman.com ask and tell us about it. But it's easier to just forward the email to reviewsjasonhartman.com and we will help you rid your box of spam and make the world right. And we really appreciate that. So please do forward that to us. Reviewsasonhartman.com until the next episode tomorrow. Happy investing. Andrew, thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for listening. Please be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss any episodes. Be sure to check out the show's specific website and our general website, hartmanmedia.com for appropriate disclaimers and terms of service. Remember that guest opinions are their own and if you require specific legal or tax advice or advice in any other specialized area, please consult an appropriate professional. And we also very much appreciate you reviewing the show. Please go to I iTunes or Stitcher Radio or whatever platform you're using and write a review for the show. We would very much appreciate that and be sure to make it official and subscribe so you do not miss any episodes. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

So we did something very interesting a long time ago on the show. One of Our clients was an expert in guided visualizations and the law of Attraction. And she was kind enough to come on the show and do a guided visualization for us. And she actually did this for us at a live event. I believe it was actually at one of our Meet the Masters conferences many years ago. What I wanted to do is offer you a little gift, and that is an extra bonus episode every week. This will come out on Saturday. A little bonus episode. And it's next. Nothing like a regular episode. It's totally different. It's going to be a guided visualization. I've hired an expert for this and she does a great job of guided visualizations and, you know, the power of visualization. Anything that the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. That's what Napoleon Hill, one of the early success authors of Think and Grow Rich, told us. And if you can get your mind, your subconscious mind, to conceive and believe things with multi sensory detail, that is a very powerful tool. So why don't we take this tool and make it specific to the principles of real estate investing that I teach. And we will do that. We are customizing guided visualizations. We hire this expert and every Saturday we will release a very short guided visualization as a sixth episode per week on the podcast. And you can take the weekend and listen to this and relax. And they're just a few minutes long, they're very short. And it will help you in your visualization of your bright future, your abundant future as an income property investor. So I hope you like it. It's just a little bonus for you. Look for this every.