Nelson Nash critiques Wall Street's addiction to what he calls "Hopium," its blind optimism. He disputes the "buy term and invest the difference" mantra, cites Kodak's failure to adapt to the iPhone, and uses the Carl Gauss math story to show how imagination beats conventional thinking.
This is an exercise in imagination, reason, logic and prophecy. Now, y' all know from. I'm from Alabama, right.
Are y' all aware of the impact that.
American football has, college football has on American citizens?
Are you aware of what it's like in Alabama?
It's a disease.
Yeah. Do you know who the highest paid person in Alabama is? Football coach Nick Saban. Coach.
Does that tell you something?
Now.
The other team had its main rival in Auburn.
Auburn University.
We have Auburn jokes there, Melody.
Now, in Texas, they have Aggie jokes. There's Texas and Texas A and M, Texas, Aggies. Now, I don't know whether the Aggie jokes start there in Texas and migrate across the Mississippi, but when they in Alabama, there. Aubrey jokes. So here's these two Auburn guys that's discussing what they're going to take next session in school. One said, I just signed up for that new course. Auburn's often in logic. His friend said, what's that? Said, look, I can learn a great deal about you in a relatively short period of time with just a few basic questions and the use of logic. For instance, do you own a weed eater? Yeah. Logic family. You're a homeowner? Yeah. Logic family. You're probably married. Yeah. Logic tell me that you might have children. Yeah, we have two. He said, well, logic tell me you're heterosexual. You see how it works? Yeah. I'm going to take that course, too. He signed up a few days later. He met somebody just signed up that new course always offered in logic. Guy said, what's that? He says, look, I can learn a great deal about you in a relatively short period of time with just a few basic questions and the use of logic. For instance, do you own a weed eater? No.
Logic tell me you're probably homosexual.
Wayne. He took a little bit of information and he reached an absurd conclusion.
Now, if there's a business out there that treated that way, it's life insurance.
Now.
Jesse, that's what you know very well, don't you? Because that's what Al Williams did. He took a little bit of information and he reached an absurd conclusion. And he got extremely wealthy off of milking other folks. Amen. Yeah, sure did. Yeah. You see, when I first put all this together and finally got around to writing my book, a marketer called on me. I did not call on him. About three sessions over a period of several weeks, he finally says, I can make you very wealthy.
But you got to be willing to compromise yourself.
Tell half truth.
Does the name Dave Ramsey mean anything to y'? All?
He Tells half truth. He lives in a seven million dollar house.
What the market said was absolutely true.
Life insurance. Say again? He also owns life insurance. Yeah, but you know, that's just it. They say one thing or another. All right. By the way, Al Williams said buy term and invest the difference. He didn't sell term insurance. He sold minimum premium. You will. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yes, that's right. Yeah, but that's. Yeah, but you know, people just like Megan showed you there a while ago, people love to believe lies. Yeah.
They are hoping that it's true. In fact, did y' all understand that Wall street is totally addicted to drugs? It's called Hopium.
Y' all ever read anything by P.J. o. Rook? Golly. Take that down. Go. That's fun. Reading anything PJ o' Rourke racked is fine. I. He used to be a hippie, Bob, but he was walking down the street one day in town and he saw his reflection in the window. He said, why am I doing this?
Look, his economics is perfect. But he wrote this book, P.J. p.J. O'. Rourke, P.J. o'. Ruk. But particularly read his book.
Eat the Rich. Eat the Rich. Anyway, he calls Wall street the greater fool theory. Say guy, he buys something, he hopes he'll find somebody to pay more money for it. That guy hopes you'll find somebody, pay more money for it. And finally he reaches the biggest fool of all and he comes tank crashing down.
By the way, I read something here recently. Y' all familiar with Eastman Kodak was coming. Do you know they had 170,000 employees in about three years time? It was all young. And all because of that iPhone you have. Yeah, yeah, but you know, nobody talks about that at Wall street, do they?
Amazing. All right. Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge or ability. Coming from him, that means something to me. Jesse.
Let'S work on the imagination. Back in the late 1700s, this German schoolmaster was having trouble with his boys. They were rowdy 7 year olds. Anybody got experience with 7 year olds? All right, you know what he's talking about. He wanted to do two things. Quiet them down and punish them. Gave them a problem. Add up all the numbers. 1 through 100 kids got down their slates, started working on problems. One little kid wasn't participating. He just sat there staring out the window. And presently he picks up his slate, writes down a number and turns it in. Would you believe he was the only one who had the right answer? All the other kids had wrong answers. Schoolmaster knows that. Son, how'd you do that. He says, sir, I visualize a line that one on one end, 100 on the other in the middle is 50. I cut it here. I flipped this over here. I had two lines. I had one through 50. I had 50.
Those added up to 101. These did too. 51 and 49 added up to 101. 99 and 2 added up 101. So did all the other combinations in between, don't they?
Well, how many sets do you have? You got 50. Can anybody multiply 50 times 101 in your head? My word. How simple does it get?
That's ridiculously simple, Jesse, and it's absolutely accurate. The young man got special tutoring. From that point on, he became one of the three greatest mathematicians who ever lived. His name was Carl Gauss.
Bob, Carl Gauss did not invent that. God invented it. It was always there. Why didn't these other guys see it? Why didn't the professor know this? Why didn't the other kids know this? It's all because of the way they think.
See, this entire concept is about how you think.
That's the title of my next book I'm working on. It's all about how you think.
One of these days I'll get around to it and finish it. But I've got about eight chapters that done so far. Now, we gotta have an examination from time to time. Will, this is a class. Gotta have an exam every once in a while, right? Will somebody give you the job of adding 1 through 100? Do you realize it now what you. Now that you know what you know, all you gotta do is take the middle number here and put the same number beside it. See, that isn't that simple.
Will, add up 1 through 1,000 right quick. Add up what way? Add up 1 through 1,000. What's the middle number.
Somebody? 1 million, 1,000. No, 1 through 1,000. One. One through 1,000. What's THE middle number? Half what we got more than thousand. 500. 1.500 beside what you got. 500. 500. Okay. Isn't that simple? Is it accurate? Yeah. All right, Richard, one through one million. What's the middle number? 500 or 500,000? Well, put 500,000 beside that. That's 500,500,000 in it. Is that accurate? It's simple. There's a whole kind of things like that actually out there that people don't see is because the way they think.
It'S always been there. I can't wait till somebody asks me that question again. And I'll get the answer.
