ESG Confusion & Why PEPs Aren't the Growth Engine

[0:02] JD: What's up, everybody? Thank you, Mark. I asked Mark to do that on cue. I appreciate that. [0:09] Bill Preston: Thank you. Standard early. Good. [0:13] JD: What's up, everybody? Thanks for tuning in. It's. It's good to have the whole crew back here. I'm sure everyone's tuning in. Exciting to see some of you guys that they've missed. And rumors were. Were about that you had been terminated. Today, everyone, we're going to talk about target day fund glide paths and how much there's. There's too much fixed income. I'm kidding. We're not going to do that again. [0:37] Bill Preston: Thank God. [0:38] JD: But I am going to start with a poem because it's been a while. Mark, tell me how excited you are for my poem. [0:48] Justin: Zero. [0:48] Bill Preston: I'll tell you at the end. [0:49] JD: Zero Excited. All right, Chad, don't take offense to this accent. Howdy, y', all, and welcome to the show. Did you know that Roby's sister married his bro? No, no, no, no. I'm sorry. That was a lie. But Chad does wear wranglers. In the middle of July, Here we are in front of our dirty rv, not making methods, but pouring malort in our sweet tea. Justin, the master of the drunk dial, even though it always ends in poor, sad denial. Let's giddy up, people, because this new look is rad. We got flamingos, dirty chairs, and the vibe is breaking bad. Hobbies like hunting and fishing and bailing hay. Retire holics. [1:47] Mark: Yippee. [1:48] Chad: Kaye. Well done, J.D. you've been holding on for a while. [1:54] JD: All right, let's spin the wheel of ice and get this started off right. Of course it is. Well, perfect timing. [2:15] Chad: Come on, open up that Woodford. [2:20] JD: I got to open up the Woodford. I got to crack the Smirnoff. I'm going to put it all in a robe guy mug. And it's great timing because. Justin, it's your time to intro our guest, so it's been a long time. Take it away, Italiano. [2:35] Justin: This bow tie wearing bourbon sip and son of a gun is a fellow third party administrator who might just be as nerdy as Mr. Nugget sitting right there. He works for one half of the Shamanda show, and the best part about him is that we'll all get a chance to talk today. Just like Rogue Guy. He and his wife are high school sweethearts who've been together since 1978. [2:55] JD: Bravo. Congrats. [2:56] Bill Preston: Thank you. [2:57] Justin: Wouldn't guess this by looking at him, but this man loves to hunt. Even more impressive, his weapon of choice is a crossbow. Ladies and gents, the senior manager of Pinnacle Plan Design, Bill Preston. [3:07] Bill Preston: Thank you. Thank you very much. I sometimes feel like I work for both halves of the Shamanda show, sometimes put in requests. So we'll see if I get any feedback on that. [3:19] JD: I'm going to put this to the side. Just a second. Hold in. Hold on there, everybody. I promise to drink it here. Bill, we're going to play some games today. We're going to play acro Send. That starts now. If you say any initialism or acronym, you must drink from your drink. Because everybody, Bill's just sipping on some bourbon, so it'll be doubling as a sipper and his penalty. That works. That works. We'll be playing chat. Our champion, last week's winner was the first ever chat bar champion to actually not really chat at all during the show. It was our guest sister and Kathy. We have delivered the following to your home from Corner Bakery that should be there soon. And they all meet your requirements of low carb, no red meat, veggies and fruit heavy, and no people. She will be the last one to give me fucking personal requests on dietary restrictions. This is not happening anymore. We are not setting a trend. We've got some apple, banana, overnight oats coming your way, a little fresh berry and yogurt parfait bowl, an extra large harvest salad, mixed greens, grilled chicken, blue cheese, walnuts, apple, dried cranber, balsamic vinaigrette, a fresh. I said that one. Chicken noodle soup bowl, a bottled water. Boring. And to wash it all down, another extra large spinach salad with. Yes, you guessed it, spinach. Locally sourced goat cheese. Not really locally sourced, but I threw that in there for effect. Strawberries, grapes, oranges, dried cranberries, green onion and strawberry vinaigrettes. Mark. Total calories, 79. I don't know. No, yeah, something like that. So there you go. There you go. Beer of the episode. Today's beer of the episode. [5:19] Mark: Chad. Chad. I can't hit the button. But you got one. [5:23] JD: Is from. Still under debate from Topotopa Brewing Company. It's called Level Line Pale Alex. And let's give it a try. I don't know. [5:42] Mark: What is it? [5:43] Bill Preston: Does it taste like most other pale [5:44] JD: ale from Topa Tope? Bring. Brandon has an image, he just can't find it. Brandon's sober this month and he works a lot less efficiently. Yeah, I'll give it four out of five robes. It's pretty good for a pale ale. Pretty good. See, I gotta drink this thing. So, Chad, can you just, like, keep the show going before I go to headlines. [6:07] Chad: You didn't even tell us what topics you wanted. [6:09] JD: We're not on topics yet. When do we ever know what happens? Isn't it headlines? [6:13] Chad: Bill, There's a big headline that traveled on Social Today, which is you found your way out of flying to Vegas and that someone is going on your behalf now. And she's ecstatic. I got text messages late last night that she can't wait to hang out in Vegas. What. What's. What's the D's there? Why are you pulling out? [6:32] JD: Bad question, Chad. Bad question. [6:35] Bill Preston: The short story is my wife is ill and. [6:38] Chad: Oh, yeah, yeah. [6:40] Bill Preston: 22291, Chad. Wow. [6:43] Mark: Chad. [6:44] Bill Preston: ER trips in the last six days. And I appreciate it. Just wasn't safe to travel and. And trying to get her better so I can go to Aspen a week. Hated to do it, but I just said ASPA again. [7:01] Mark: You can't say it again. [7:03] Chad: I'm sorry for such a horrendous question. I thought it would be funny with Amanda pinging you on social. Shame on her, Chad. [7:10] Mark: Every time. Every time you try to be funny, you it up. [7:14] Bill Preston: Thanks, Mark. [7:16] Chad: So much coming from you. [7:18] Bill Preston: It did make it better, though, because I was telling Mr. Carlson beforehand because I assume I can't use your initials. [7:26] JD: No, you can't. [7:27] Mark: No, you can. [7:28] Bill Preston: Okay. But anyway, I was telling beforehand that's the first time I'd ever had to pull out of a. Speaking or facilitating or doing anything at a conference. And. And I hated it. But she, you know, jumped in. It's a quick trip for her to fly out from Tucson. She's gonna fly up Monday morning and. And leave Tuesday evening. And so it worked out pretty good. I gave her all my notes, and I think she'll do a pretty good job. My guess is she won't do anything that I actually have in the notes. [7:57] Mark: I was gonna make it all up if you Bullet. Yeah, if you have bullet points. She's just gonna make it an essay. So you're fine? [8:05] Bill Preston: Yeah, I mean, supposedly. They're supposed to. They supposedly published what? I was going to facilitate the conversation. I don't know if they did or not, but I gave her what I put together and we'll see if she did it. So nice. [8:19] JD: And the only. The only bad news or the. The bigger bad news for us and all this is that we have to deal with Amanda in Vegas. But. Okay, let's do headlines. Let's do headlines. Headlines. Don't worry, Brandon. Don't worry, Brandon. I got you covered, buddy. [8:44] Justin: Can you start? [8:44] Chad: No. [8:44] Justin: There it goes. [8:47] JD: First of all, just real quickly, the dow gained about 830 points today, snuck its way back over 30k. So yeah, whatever. I don't know, is it sustainable? We'll have to ask robe guy at a later date. First headline, 3 and 4. Participants don't know what those three letters mean. Mr. Shlomo Benartzi wants to help. You can pretty much understand what this article says. They reached out to a bunch of regular folk and asked them, hey, what is. I'll drink for it. What does ESG mean? Since I can't spell the answer. And the great, great majority of them did not know. They gave different answers, but not the correct one. Bill, does this surprise you and are you happy to see Mr. Bernardzi? If I'm pronouncing that correctly, brush to the help here. [9:44] Bill Preston: Well, I think he's a brilliant person. I think he's now jumping into this and a little misguided on it. I think it's much ado about nothing. I think it's trying to force regular markets into areas that they shouldn't be. But to think nobody knew about it. Of course regular people don't know about it. Other people don't give a shit about it. [10:07] JD: Thank you. [10:08] Bill Preston: And it never will. So it just. [10:11] JD: And never will. [10:12] Bill Preston: Never will. [10:13] JD: Yes. I love you for that. Like that, that. When I read this, that was exactly my response was why? What like we, of course, this is a thing. By the way, regular participants, they also don't know what small cap value means or what it is to be in the technology sector or diverse or emerging markets, developing market. I don't know any of these things and I don't think, and I honestly don't think they need to. [10:40] Bill Preston: That. [10:40] JD: Let me ask you this, Mark. If you pulled 10 financial advisors, retirement plan advisors, how many of them would know what, what these three letters stand for? [10:52] Mark: I was going to say I'm. I would like to know what the actual question is. Like, is it just simply what the letters stand for or is it like. [10:59] JD: Yeah, what is it? [11:01] Mark: What is the all encompassing ideology of this? Right. I'll say this now, maybe a little different and more geographical. I'll be honest. [11:11] Bill Preston: Right. [11:11] Mark: Maybe the, no offense, Chad. Maybe the, the, the center of the country doesn't think too much of this, Mark. [11:19] Chad: 60 of the Missouri population is Edward Jones. So they're good. They know it. [11:24] Mark: I wasn't talking about the advisors. [11:26] JD: Right, the people. [11:27] Chad: I'm talking about the people. That's what I'm saying. [11:30] Bill Preston: They're all named Edward Jones. [11:32] JD: 60 of the people in Missouri are Edward Jones brokers. I thought they're like. [11:37] Mark: I just thought you meant they were named Edward Jones. So they all had the same mom and dad. [11:41] Chad: There's like nine Edward Jones offices in every town and there's only 800 people in each town. [11:46] Mark: Yeah. Well, anyways. [11:47] JD: Your point, Mark? [11:48] Mark: I think the California has a little different viewpoint. I think people are asking for it. It's. Oddly enough, I've probably had a conversation about this far more than I have recently than I ever have and. [12:05] JD: You mean participants are asking for it? [12:08] Mark: Not participants. [12:10] Chad: Okay. [12:10] Mark: The actual decision making. [12:12] JD: Fair enough. [12:13] Bill Preston: Yeah. Well, yeah, they're asking because it wasn't a thing three months ago. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, it's a bunch of made up stuff and the people are pushing it and, and wasting everybody's time and money. [12:29] Chad: What is made up, Bill? [12:33] Bill Preston: The issue is that what they're trying to do is use the money in the retirement plans to force what they want to have happen in the world instead of trying to make more money for the retirement plan participants. Yeah, the, the, the, the plans should not. What? Did I say something? [12:52] Mark: No, J.D. typed it out in the chat box. [12:54] JD: I drank for it. I drank for it. You could bring it up, but I drink for it. [12:57] Bill Preston: I just feel like the retirement plan funds for the most part should be. It's not going to sound right, but. [13:11] JD: No, no, you're making the decision. [13:13] Bill Preston: Yeah, it's. They shouldn't be making a lot of moral decision. Now if it's a sole proprietor and that person wants to invest in a certain way, I mean a sole owner, it's just his plan. I got her plan. I've got no problem with that. But pension fund managers should not be making their moral decisions based on how they invest participants money. [13:34] Chad: But, but, but is it, is it pension fund managers or plan sponsors making a moral decision or deciding based upon what their plan participants would like to invest in, that these should be made available in the core menu? I've yet to see, and I hope I never do see, an entire core menu full of environmentally social governance funds? [13:54] JD: You know what I think it is? [13:54] Justin: The participants actually understand what that is and actually care. [13:58] Chad: They do, though, in the right places, they do it. My time in San Francisco, they, almost every business that asked for it in San Francisco, the employees were calling for it because they wanted it and they were putting that presence there. [14:14] Bill Preston: They wanted it because they wanted to talk about it at the cocktail parties. [14:18] Chad: You're probably right. Or they, they wanted to feel like they were doing something good. Bill, there's nothing wrong with that. If they want to do something with their money that they feel good about, why donate to your church? Why donate to other not. You want to do something good with your money. That's what they think they're doing, which is fine. [14:36] JD: I love that you guys took it this far. This is off to a great start, this show. Originally I was just going to talk about. Do the participants need to know. We've gone. We've gone straight into this. This subject. Which is fine. And I'm going to jump on Bill's and his peers bandwagon the people that share his thoughts. Part of me does think when I see a headline like this and Shlomo is getting involved with some other company I think is voyeur. Someone is. Because Shlomo doesn't do that. He says it wants to help. He doesn't do it for free. Like they pay him to do this shit. And, and part of the, part of the pessimist in me thinks, well, the industry loves a new shiny mousetrap. And so if we can find something that attracts people. And I'm going to actually have another headline today that's talking about a little bit about index or passive investing outdoing actively managed and how defined contribution investment only people are getting beaten down by it. So wouldn't it be nice if you're a fun family if you could come up with a new sector that people are attracted to and if, if they're. You're telling me that 75% of participants don't get it? What if we got Shlomo to help us figure out how to spread the word better? Like there's some evil empire shit happening here too, right? [15:50] Bill Preston: Right. Oh yeah. Get in early and then. And then promote the heck out of it. [15:55] Chad: Very different things. JD but what you just stated could be an exact conversation about cryptocurrency and 401k record keepers looking to use a new silver and bring it in. I know. I'm not saying the investment side of it is the same. I'm just saying that the shiny new thing that they want to sell and find a way to get it in the. In their product offering. [16:17] Bill Preston: Right? [16:18] JD: Let's keep this going since we're on conspiracy theories. Uh, I'm pretty sure this is not an acronym and I don't even know how to pronounce it. Aon. The Aon Pooled Employer Plan hits 1 billion in plan assets. [16:34] Bill Preston: Aon is not an acronym, I don't think. [16:36] JD: No, I think it's a name, a consulting company. Yeah. So the article tells you. What you're reading there is that this pooled employer plan has reached a billion in assets since January of 2021 when it came out. And to give you some stats on it, it's. They say they claim success because they've got 30,000 participants and a billion dollars, obviously, and 40 plus employers. So I did the math. If it was 40 and 1 billion you're talking about, and someone check my math out there, but 750 employees on average and $25 million plans. I'm glad. Do you think the guys in the government, the guys and girls in government that created this legislation to help the coverage gap or are happy about Aon's success in the $25 million plan space? Like that's one point I get a little upset with. Secondly, I got a lot of private messages about this saying, look, JD Paps are succeeding. Oh, you're right. Sorry. Please out there, as a public service announcement, don't come to me with companies that already sell business and their own internal decision is to switch that business from standalone to pooled employer. Because that's just a left pocket, right pocket thing. What I mean is they were going to sell those plans anyway. And Aon is a massive company. So the fact that they've sold 40 plans in the last two years that they could have just as well sold in another version and they decided to throw into a pool and player plan because that helps them for a variety of things, not to mention control of the clients. Don't come to me with that. You need to come to me and say, look, independent advisors all over the country, you know, smart plan sponsors are choosing pooled employer plans. And we're seeing this big needle move. This is, this does not tell me that. This just tells me that this big company decided to start a pooled employer plan and has gotten some business over the last 22 months. Am I Bill, Do I sound crazy saying that? And please, if I do say so. [18:59] Bill Preston: No, it's. I, I doubt that the majority of it is generating any new business. They, they, it may. Like I said, it's moving from one pocket to another. You know, I'm exhausted in the one thing that exhausts me about the world I live in is constantly feeling like all we're doing is trading plans around instead of starting new plans. And I love starting new plans. Owner only plans or 3 person plans or 10 person plans or whatever. I love doing that because we can't continue to survive just trading plans around now. That has to happen because we're all going to screw up a plan from time to time. There's not much you can do about it. There are some vendors out there that screw up more than others and we love taking plans from them. If they start up a bunch of new ones and then we can get them after they screw them up, that's fantastic. But we've got to start new plans. And I seriously doubt that any of those pooled employer plans are new plans. They were moved somewhere else. [20:00] JD: Of course they're not. I mean that they don't even play in that space. So Daniela chimed in. I don't know if she has facts, but I do defend the company that Daniela is working for now and that they clearly have a business model to go after that coverage gap and go after startups and small plans. But no, this is. Oh, sorry. She said in the chat they're repapering some of their own existing clients. A lot of people come to me the success that Paychex has had and it's the same scenario. It's like look, they would have sold those plans anyways. They're just. And those clients would have bought whatever they sold them. So they decided to sell them a bold employer plan for their own selfish reasons. And you cannot call that pep success. One other thing I'd like everyone to be aware of, like be a smart consumer, drink again. [20:47] Chad: Yeah, you do have to drink. [20:50] Bill Preston: Very poor topic to talk about during this. [20:53] JD: I think they're all like this bill, but be a smart consumer, understand where these this news is coming from. This company put this press release out to and I got nothing against Aeon, but this is just their press release. And it goes out to 401k specialist. It goes out to plan sponsor. It goes out to every magazine and thing that's out there because if you go read it all it's the same damn words and it explains that they're doing. It's their own self promotion to say look at us, we're succeeding with Paps is trying to get their own business. My point is almost I owe to almost every time you see positive news about pooled employer plans, it's coming from whom? [21:35] Bill Preston: The people selling it. [21:37] JD: The people who sell it. And so can we look for some independent neutral fucking feedback on this instead of the motherfuckers that are selling it telling us how well it's going. [21:47] Bill Preston: But who would do that? Who would be the independent entity or person that could actually Gather that data and report on American Association. [21:58] JD: Sure. All kinds of. There's all kinds of. [22:00] Bill Preston: Yeah. [22:01] JD: Identities that could let us know and I think we're going to see some of those statistics down the line. You know they're going to let us know what it really really looks like. I haven't been able to pay attention to the chat bar. I gotta. [22:13] Bill Preston: Yeah. [22:14] JD: Okay. We'll move on from this. Or wait sorry, one last quick. And we won't. We won't dive into deep but I would like Bill, Bill, Chad, Justin, Mark. If I said the name Aquiline. Aquiline. I don't know if I'm getting that right. A Q U, I L I N. Aqualine. Does that ring a bell with any of you? No. [22:37] Bill Preston: I thought it was like a type of nose. Good, good, good. [22:41] JD: Aquiline. I wonder if any of the chat bar knows Alkaline. I'm sure they do. Is a private equity firm that is involved in. Let's see. Let me read for you what they do. They. They provide private capital and innovative leaders to innovative leaders in financial services and technology. They have investment in ownership in record keepers Wellness Solutions payroll providers. And they're involved in. They were involved in a census and the sale of the census. They're involved in the firm Alight. I believe that that bought the spin off defined contribution stuff from Aon. Look them up, check out their portfolio and understand that they're involved with a lot of these different companies. And I'm not saying this is bad by the way. We live in a capitalist society and I love that. But there's clearly a bigger play going on with this private equity firm that's got their money invest in these companies and do you think they would be a fan of a pooled employer plan? And I'm reaching here but were they were the companies they own they could then mix in the other companies they own. The Payroll providers, the three 38s, the this and that. And they stand back as a private equity firm that's really just maybe doesn't wholly own any of them. Or maybe some of them kind of. They're just making introductions that those boardrooms, those wood paneled conference room boardrooms where this shit's getting discussed in the buy and sell these companies. It's some gnarly bro. [24:21] Bill Preston: The, the. [24:22] JD: The color in that wood is dark. So check it out. Maybe more on that later as I start to learn more about it. You know me, I love a good conspiracy. Thanks. Hackler. Right, next one to find contribution investment assets. Take a big And a bid, big [24:39] Chad: bid, a bid hit, big hit, a bid hit. [24:43] JD: I had to spear off with bourbon in it in 2000, in the first six months of 2022, they interviewed, I want to say like less than 30 mutual fund companies, defined contribution investment only, specific stuff here. And they had a drop of 17% in the first six months of 2022. Half of those firms, by the way, had net redemptions during that time period. Meaning they, they lost more money than they brought in in the first six months of 2022. The exception was some of the large defined contribution investment only firms that had leading target date funds, you know, big time targeted funds, they actually had net growth versus those redemptions. Reasons for the drop. Chad. Chad's talking to someone. Bill, why do you think dcif? [25:37] Bill Preston: Well, one of the main reasons is the market would, I mean it crashing. I mean, come on. [25:41] JD: Survey says number one answer. Well done. Continue on. Explain this to everyone listening in. [25:48] Bill Preston: Well, I mean if anybody looked at their own account and I looked at mine as infrequently as possible, just watching, watching it go down over the last first six months of the year and even into the third quarter, it's been horrible return. Now you mentioned that the Dow jumped up again today, which I try to avoid looking at. So that's good news. But, but my guess is that was the main reason. It could be, I could be. But you said that redemptions, I mean, because that's not value of assets. Redemptions are actually assets leaving. [26:23] JD: Yeah. So. So Bill, to back you up, when markets go down, people's money leaves, typically. What do you mean? [26:30] Bill Preston: If they're going to cash or something. [26:32] JD: Yeah, right. [26:33] Bill Preston: Cash. [26:33] JD: I got a stable value. Yeah. Yeah. [26:35] Bill Preston: Okay. [26:35] JD: And especially if you're a defined contribution investment only person, your focus tends to be on, on funds that are equity heavy. Right. And like so. So your business is getting hurt by a falling market. You nailed it. That's exactly. [26:49] Bill Preston: Well, when you said that, I was. When I was thinking about redemption, meaning money out of the plan. You're talking about money out of those funds. [26:56] Chad: Both. [26:56] Bill Preston: So other funds. [26:58] JD: Yeah, both things. Remember, their sales were down 17%. The reason why their sales are down is because markets are down and people don't want to buy what they're selling. Right, right. And then secondly, the redemptions, same thing. You know, people are getting out, they're going to cash and. Or there's a second rate. So that's the number one answer. Any chat, any guess on what another reason might be. [27:22] Chad: I was yelling at. I was yelling at the kids. So, so I don't exactly. But my guess is based on the end of the topic that I was listening to, there would be. People are fearful of, of their cash flow so they're pulling back on deferrals. [27:36] JD: Oh no, that, that wasn't brought up. But that. I'm sure that doesn't sound inaccurate. I'm sure that could be a thing. That wasn't part of this article. The second one was. And again, I'm looking at what the struggles that define contribution investment only people are having. Like you guys know a lot of these people. I'm sure Bill does too. You know, they're, they're struggling to meet their goals in a lot of situations. And another big answer is an obvious one. I'm sure the chat bar has already said it, but it's, it's the passive, it's the passive trend. Right. So this index fund revolution that's happening is starting to hurt the defined contribution investment only companies. Do you know what their answer is? I'll just, I'll. I'll quit. [28:21] Bill Preston: The, the 40 year old index revolution started in the 80s and. [28:27] JD: Come on, Bill, it's way gnarlier now than it's been. [28:30] Bill Preston: Okay. [28:31] Chad: No, but. [28:32] JD: No, you don't think it is. [28:35] Bill Preston: I, I mean it's, it's probably, you know, coming back around. But I mean when I, you know, when I started in, in this business in the mid-80s and then 401k plans started, you know, in the early 90s, I mean that index funds were all the rage. I mean it was a Vanguard. The advisor that I worked with, Greg Caston in Lexington, I mean that's all he used was Vanguard funds a couple of T row price. But that's, that's all we did was in get index funds for, for most of the 90s, so it's not a new thing. It's just coming back around. [29:08] JD: Can't imagine, Chad, that core menus look the same today that they looked 15 years ago. [29:14] Chad: I think, I think they do. They had a. Well, I mean, not in share class. No, it's a jerk. [29:19] JD: Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. But sure, classified. [29:22] Chad: But it's, I've always seen a mix of passive and active inside core menus. And it's been what, almost 15 years for me, like it's always been the same way. [29:34] Bill Preston: Well, people started to live a little bit more side to side or side by side in that. But, but when again in the 90s when 401k plans really started to take off, you were in one camp or the other. I mean you were all active or you were all indexed and there was not a lot of of that's because [29:54] Chad: there was at that time. Bill, tell me I wasn't here. But the index options at that point were Vanguard, right? [30:01] Bill Preston: Sure. Yeah. [30:02] Chad: Now you've got DFA and BlackRock and all these other dang conventional. You got all these other options out there that are also passive solutions. [30:11] Bill Preston: Correct? Yeah. A lot of people jumped on the bandwagon and understand that and obviously there's [30:16] JD: a lot of competition. Competition in an index fund game isn't. Is a no win deal. Like I don't know even how that works. [30:23] Chad: But I have another difficult. [30:25] Bill Preston: But part of it too is pushback with a lot of the fee pressure that despite the fact that I think the DOL was way out of bounds and a lot of what they did there was some good with what they did in talking pushing some of the advisors out. Well, I'm just talking about with pushing people pushing advisors to have to decide are you going to be a broker, Are you going to be a fiduciary? [30:50] JD: Okay. I think you guys are wrong with [30:53] Bill Preston: the fee transparency too. So I thought that was very good because it, it. We're still not where we need to be on transparency, but we're a lot closer than we were 15, 20 years ago. [31:03] JD: You're right, Chad. [31:05] Chad: You're right. Yeah. So now that I know the actual question. Yes, that's what I would have said is that the majority of the assets are flowing into target date funds and not every, not every defined contribution investment only solution out there has a target date suite and many of them aren't. Some of the ones that are out there are not good. So I think a lot of the flows are going into a few fund families and it's making it difficult that [31:29] JD: that is a narrative that you will take away from this article and it's. Everything you just said was correct. Thanks, Ed. Is that the ones that have good target dates are succeeding and doing just fine. Others are struggling. But I do think you guys are missing the mark. I think the industry has trended towards low fees and I think advisors have have whether whether they wanted to or is a gun in their head, they've really moved to this kind of Vanguard index passive kind of thing more than we've seen before. And I'll back it up. Not with just my drunk surfer thoughts, but they interviewed these companies and 70% of the defined contribution investment only surveyed said that lowering fees and expenses was a top priority for them. Because of the passive wave. And so they are clearly feeling the pressure. So it's nice for you all to sit here and say times are the same, but if you work at those companies, you're feeling this pressure. Here's the interesting thing. Here's the interesting thing. Do you know what their solution is? And it's not to create their own index funds, although many of them have their own. The solution is collective investment trusts. [32:37] Chad: Yeah, I was just going to say some sort of collective investment trust or some modeled portfolio that they're creating. [32:44] JD: So what do you think about that, Bill? So, okay, how do I compete? I'm gonna. And I'm not gonna call collective investment trust the new environmentally friendly social governance fund. I, I don't think it's a, It's a shiny mousetrap. It's. It's a different thing. And it, it has lower costs for, For a reason. And I'm all. By the way, I'm kind of all for it. Like, it seems like it can replace a mutual fund, but it's just their way to like, come to the market with something a little cheaper. Right. So they're all creating new. They're all. Not all. [33:17] Chad: Sorry. [33:18] JD: More than half of them are launching new collective investment trusts as we speak. [33:27] Bill Preston: I think collective investment trusts are going to always face an uphill battle because of the lack of publicity and access to information. You know, back in the olden days when people were invested in funds, they would get the Wall Street Journal every day and, you know, pre Internet, and they would look up the prices every day. And, and you. And it's easier now, but it's still more difficult. [33:49] JD: Come on, Bill, you don't, you don't really believe this. That, That's a, That's a boomer bow tie thing to say. You're gonna, they're gonna have tickers, you're gonna go online. They're gonna act and walk and talk and quack just like a mutual fund. [34:04] Bill Preston: Well, we'll see. They. They haven't done it to date. And collective investment trusts have been around for a long time. Part of the issue is who is going to be the manager, the investment manager of the collective investment trust. Who is the fiduciary responsible for that collective investment trust? And are they going to be able to pull the trigger in firing that investment manager that supposedly help them set this up and make all the investment decisions? And they've been. [34:36] JD: Are you making the argument. I love that, what you just said. I've never even thought about that. Are you making the Argument for the value of a mutual fund over a collective investment trust. Right there. Sort of. Kind of. [34:47] Bill Preston: Yes. [34:47] JD: Yeah, yeah. [34:48] Bill Preston: Because it's much more independent. [34:50] JD: Very cool. [34:51] Bill Preston: Because you're going to have to. You're going to have to. You're going to have situations like you do with mutual funds where you've got a closed fund. Are you going to have a closed collective investment trust? What's going to be the standards as to when you're going to do that? [35:03] JD: Well said. [35:04] Bill Preston: When. When it can be profitable and when it can't be. And who's going to pull that trigger and trade out the collective investment trust for whatever the replacement fund is going to be? [35:14] JD: Good job. [35:15] Bill Preston: It's going to be very difficult decision. [35:17] JD: I like that. I didn't see that. And so I appreciate you opening my eyes to that. That's. That's a new take and that sounds very logical to me. [35:24] Bill Preston: Well, one thing I would like to comment on that's related to this and also to what Jim was talking about. We flashed the question earlier about revenue sharing. If nothing else would come out of this new push to index funds then complete elimination of revenue sharing. I would be completely happy with that. I can't. Sharing in mutual funds and having to deal with it. It's a bunch of crap. [35:47] JD: Push to passive because you can have an index fund that has revenue sharing [35:51] Bill Preston: but a push to push to institution. [35:55] Chad: Institution. [35:55] JD: Yes, institutions. [35:57] Bill Preston: Level sharing class. I don't care if it's actually. [35:59] Chad: But when there's. When there's distribution efforts there will always be some sort of kickbacks. [36:06] JD: Not always. [36:06] Chad: Because people in every line of business jdp. It's a sales and marketing tool. If there's distribution to be done, they're going to try to find a way to pay people. [36:15] Bill Preston: Yeah but why are they paying. But why are they paying third party administrators? [36:20] JD: You're talking. [36:21] Bill Preston: Why are we getting a transfer accounting fee? [36:24] Chad: No, no third party administrator is getting a revenue share from a mutual fund family. We're getting it from the record keepers. And the record keepers are doing that because we're distribution. I bring our record keepers a shit ton of business every year. And Bill you get your relationship. [36:38] JD: Revenue sharing to third party administrator to Chad's point is totally different because you could have an institutional index funds through everything with no juice and you can still have revenue shared to a third party administrator. So those two things are separate. But. And I will say yeah. So just so you know you can still get yourself a nice S&P 500 index for 1% if you want to these days, like those two things don't match up. [37:03] Chad: Bill, to your point though, there's, and I, I'm assuming this still exists, but there were a couple of broker dealers out there that would get kickback from the mutual fund families for the, the number of positions they held inside the mutual fund. So they would go to a client that had 100 participants and say, if you put these six investments in, we've got 100 positions and we do it as a model portfolio, that we're going to get enough revenue share to have no cost for this plan because the mutual funds were kicking back per participant, per position. [37:38] Bill Preston: But that's the point, Chad. It's not that there's no cost, it's that the employer's not writing the check. [37:42] Chad: Well, in that scenario though, this was a tricking of the system because they were still using institutionalized mutual funds in this platform. It was just that the broker, dealer, and these specific record keepers were leveraging the agreement that the mutual fund families had signed up on, not knowing, not thinking that they would create model portfolios [38:02] Bill Preston: and get seven or eight positions per participant. Revenue sharing. I've seen that. It's been a long time since I've seen it. And most institutions are getting away from that, but it's still not a no cost. I mean, so if the employer said, you know, I want, I don't want that money to come out of the fund. I don't, I, you know, is part of the expense ratio. If we're, if we don't use that, can you replace it back into the fund at all? [38:31] Chad: In the ones that I were seeing, was seeing larger plans, lots of participants, they would come back and say there's no asset based charge, advisors charging 25 basis points, direct, whatever it may be. And then the, the investment cost is all there was 14 basis points. [38:49] Bill Preston: So this revenue sharing that they're paying, it is, it's included as part of [38:53] Chad: the operating expense, as part of the investment. [38:56] Bill Preston: Okay, so would Fred Reich say that that is an asset of the plan or not? [39:03] JD: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Do you guys want me to text him right now? Because I can. [39:08] Chad: I'm not agreeing with it, Bill. I'm on your side saying that to me this was dirty and I was refusing. [39:14] Bill Preston: I used to argue with him a lot. And, and that I, if, if, if not taking that money doesn't add assets back to the plan, then how can that be an asset of the plan? [39:27] Chad: Does it shouldn't be assets back to the plan? [39:31] Bill Preston: If. [39:31] Chad: Yeah, it's Essentially covering the cost of the record keeper is. Is the way in which it worked out. [39:38] Bill Preston: So what you're saying is they're paying it out of the general assets of the institution of the record. Want. [39:42] JD: Yeah. You guys are not going to solve the world's problems right now. Bill, we. In theory, we totally agree with you. Anyways, your original statement. I too wish I could wave a magic wand and all rep. All third party administrator revenue share would go away. I think that would be phenomenal. It puts us all in a nice even ground. Everyone understands it. [40:05] Chad: Like. [40:06] JD: I totally agree with that. But I also do know that that topic is. Is very confusing for a variety of reasons because a lot of people treat it differently. A lot of people do different things. And I don't know if that magic wand's ever going to be waived by the way, because record keepers will continue. I'm drunk slurring tonight. Rekka keep us will continue to try to incentivize people to do business with them and. And put it under the shield of, you know, administrative support and help play a game. It's the. The totally original, never copied, coolest game on the planet. The. No, [41:01] Bill Preston: I don't think you ever played this with Shamanda. Because I don't recall seeing this game. [41:05] Chad: Nope, we did not. [41:07] Bill Preston: Nope. [41:07] Justin: It's totally new and original. [41:09] JD: Please don't use the word Shamanda. It makes me break out in hives. Okay, nope. Or dope. Do you Mark, I can't go to you first. Sure I can. It's my game. I'm going to you first. If I said no per dope on something and I called it a sushi butt, would you have any idea what I'm talking about? [41:30] Mark: A sushi butt. [41:32] JD: Yeah. Do you drink? Do you drink? Do you drink sushi? [41:36] Bill Preston: No. [41:36] Chad: Never. [41:37] Mark: Never have. The only thing I can think about when you say that is like when you. [41:46] Chad: When you. [41:47] Mark: I've never had this. I've never gone to one of these parties. But you know you have a person who's naked that has sushi on them. I don't know. [41:57] Chad: No. [41:57] JD: Yes. No per dope on that. Mark, are you. No per dope on that. [42:00] Mark: I'm. [42:00] JD: No. [42:01] Mark: That's big. No. [42:01] JD: Okay, I'll go to you, Bill. [42:06] Bill Preston: No. [42:06] JD: Yes. Good. We all. We all are. We all are. Well, not all of us, but. No. What I'm saying is I order sushi all the time and you get these beautiful rolls and then there's the end caps and on the end caps they got the little shrimp tail sticking out Sometimes it's been fried and. And they tend to cut it. So it's almost like it's like one and a quarter, one and a half regular sushi bites. And I gotta get that thing all the way in my mouth and pull out the tail. Like, come on. Am I the only one who experiences this? The sushi? But Bill, do you have a nope or dope? Thumbs up, thumbs down on this and explain. [42:44] Bill Preston: I would have to say nope, mainly because I'm not a huge sushi fan. I will eat like a spicy tuna roll, but that's about as far as I go other than all right. My wife loves it. I mean, she's probably the more sushi, the better, so bigger pieces, fine with it. [43:02] JD: Ask her next time you're hanging out what she thinks about the end cap on the sushi roll chat. [43:07] Bill Preston: I'll let you know. [43:09] Chad: I'm. I'm totally dope. Oh, yeah, because you get. You get. Especially when you have like a. A deep fried piece of shrimp in there. [43:17] JD: That's usually what it is. [43:18] Chad: There's a bunch of extra sticking out. [43:21] JD: Do you eat the tail? [43:22] Chad: Leaves me the ends? No, you don't eat the tail. You leave the tail there. But you get. You get more meat. [43:27] Bill Preston: Pick it up with the tail. [43:28] Chad: I would guess those pieces are always wide too. [43:31] JD: Did you hear Bill? Did you hear Bill? What a rookie sushi guy. He's like, pick it up with a tail that will fall all over your plate. [43:38] Bill Preston: Justin must not be wrapped well for [43:41] Justin: the same reason Chad says you get [43:42] Bill Preston: a little bit more out of it. [43:43] JD: Okay, Amanda's into it. Amanda. I knew Amanda be into it. Next. No, for dope. [43:50] Bill Preston: She's more adventurous than I. Amanda, there you are. [43:53] Justin: Wait, is she really on right now? [43:55] Bill Preston: I thought that was a live shot. It probably is a live shot. [43:59] JD: The. The security thing online, trying to prove that you're not a robot. Bill. And it says, choose between these nine squares, right? Which one of these is a bridge or a sign or a school bus? Nope. Or dope on this. [44:17] Bill Preston: And why I. Nope. I hate them. If somebody has a solution as to how to do what you want to do and avoid them, that would be wonderful. I often try to decide if. If what I'm getting ready to do is something I really want to do, because I have just abandoned what I was getting ready to do. Like, I'm going to go in and buy something from somewhere and they have one of those, screw it, I'm not gonna do it. [44:43] JD: Okay, Mark. Hey, next. No per dope rule. No Retirehogs group chat in the middle of a show. [44:51] Chad: I'm like, you just caught up. There was 75. [44:54] JD: I know. [44:54] Chad: Chatting. [44:55] JD: Chad. [44:56] Mark: No, for just not a retireholics group chat. [44:58] Justin: I'm not getting any return. [45:00] Mark: Right? Exactly. There's some crazy going on is all I can say. [45:05] JD: I'm. [45:06] Mark: I don't understand what's happening. [45:09] Bill Preston: Do we get a print out of this after the show? [45:11] JD: I don't know. [45:11] Bill Preston: I can read it because I haven't been. [45:12] JD: I don't know what's happening. [45:14] Bill Preston: All I've seen is. Is Ms. Amanda keeps saying that I'm lame. [45:18] JD: Chad, no. For dope on the. The robot wants to know if you're a robot or not. [45:24] Chad: I'm. I'm dope. I'm in. [45:26] JD: What? You like the security? [45:28] Chad: I like. I like the comfort. The security I'm in. [45:32] JD: Okay, I'm gonna skip this one for you too, Mark. I'm gonna go straight to you on Noper. Dope. Three in one shampoo. You know, it's shampoo, it's conditioner, it's body wash. Is this a good thing or not? [45:49] Mark: Huh? [45:51] JD: Do you have Covid, by the way? What's going on? [45:53] Mark: No, I just. I don't know. My. My wife and my son lost their voices, and now I feel like I might be or something. [45:59] JD: I don't know. [46:00] Mark: Anyways, all I can say is this, okay? [46:05] Bill Preston: If. [46:06] Mark: If. If three in one soap can clean all things, then for many, many years, we were being sold a bunch of that. You had to have different soap for your body, different soap for your face, and different soap for your hair. So if you can combine all of them, then we've just been lied to and money's been stolen from us from all these years. So I'm just going to say nope, because I don't want to. I don't want to think that I've wasted my money separate soap types for the entirety of my life. [46:40] JD: So. [46:41] Mark: No, no. [46:43] Bill Preston: But do you realize you don't actually have to spend money on a robe either, right? I mean, I don't. They've been lying to you about that too, Bill. [46:49] Chad: I don't know. The contributor to his robe. [46:53] JD: You pay him for that robe. You're. You're on his robe in a path. [46:57] Bill Preston: Wow. Yes. [46:59] Mark: And I would like to point out very specifically that Amanda sent the patch, and Amanda's a family friend of the show. [47:06] Bill Preston: Are we paying you revenue sharing now? [47:09] JD: Amanda, it's bad to ask Chad and Justin this question because I don't know how their opinion can be of any value, but go ahead, Chad. [47:19] Chad: My opinion is this because Justin made fun of me for this a couple of years ago. I have never once used any face soap either. I've not had hair for 20 years. Whatever I use in my body goes on my head. It covers my face. It's everything. Whereas people use different things to clean their. Doesn't matter. I'm using one soap, and it is everywhere. [47:38] JD: Okay, Just make sure you go to your face before you go to your butt. Justin, yes or no on the three in one? [47:45] Justin: Three and one. No, I mean, it's. It's not necessary for me by any means. [47:48] JD: Okay, last one. [47:50] Bill Preston: Wait, wait. So you mean you like three in one or you don't like three in one? [47:54] Justin: No, I don't like three and one. Not necessary for me. [47:56] Bill Preston: So, yeah, you want multiple products then? [47:59] Justin: Well, no, I only need one product, really. I guess kind of two. [48:01] JD: I have to. [48:03] Bill Preston: So then you're saying it's dope, then. So three in one is dope then, Right? Because you like it. [48:09] Chad: I don't need it. [48:09] Bill Preston: Am I misunderstanding the rules of the game here? [48:11] JD: No, you're doing. [48:12] Mark: You're doing Bill, by the way, you've taken JD's role in this game. [48:16] Bill Preston: I love it. [48:16] Mark: This is great. [48:18] JD: Love it. Did I ask Bill? I'll ask Bill. Sorry, you're just saying. [48:23] Bill Preston: I dealt with it. Sure. Yeah. [48:25] JD: I've got. [48:25] Bill Preston: I've got a product I use, and. And it just goes all over. [48:30] JD: You know what's odd is when. Is when someone's wearing a bow tie and they go, I'm dope with it. I'm not even gonna go. [48:38] Bill Preston: I'm not a narc. I promise. [48:40] JD: I'm not gonna go on the last one. The last one was going to be sober October, but we're running out of time, and everybody knows that that's. Nope. Okay, Chad, we talked about this a long time ago. I know. My wife's sober right now. Mark's sober. Chat. Everyone's sober around. Brandon's sober right now. [48:57] Chad: It doesn't look sober right now. [48:59] JD: Chat bar. [49:00] Bill Preston: Yeah. [49:00] JD: Brandon, your producer that you love and know and. And care about is sober in October. [49:07] Mark: But Brandon. Brandon in Vegas. Does the sober time kind of stop? No. [49:14] Justin: Yep. [49:15] Chad: It freezes. [49:15] JD: It absolutely does. [49:16] Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Vegas doesn't count for Steve. [49:19] Justin: There's no way Brandon can go to Vegas. [49:20] Chad: Veg. [49:21] JD: What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. [49:23] Bill Preston: Huh? [49:25] Justin: I don't want to be cleaning up his puke again. [49:27] JD: Several weeks ago, I came out with a headline that Jeff Bezos at Amazon was, or Amazon as a company led by Jeff Bezos was going to give $60 million I believe to their kind of distributors. These, these companies they had partner with that are the ones driving all this shit to our houses every day. But it came with some rules and I just, I want to. Can you set up this conversation for everyone listening in? Because you came to me and said JD we have some clients that are of this category and the way that you designed the plans for them, you and the advisor partner meant that they were actually, it didn't make sense for them to partake in this $60 million. And I thought that was really, really interesting and I think everyone would like to hear a bit about this. [50:15] Chad: Yeah, the very brief background here is that Amazon came out and they have what they call these delivery service providers which are all the groups, the individuals driving stuff to our house, as you're saying. And they came out and said $60 million to cover matching and expenses of the retirement plans that these, I'm trying not to use the acronym that these delivery service provider companies are offering to their employees. [50:40] JD: How cool, right? Like what a great, awesome. [50:42] Chad: Like love it. And, and as I make this comment and as we talk through this topic, let me really quickly state love what they're trying to do. Bridge the coverage gap, get access to these people, get them in the plan, talk to these, these delivery service provider owners and have them invest in their employees. 100 on board for all of that. But I picked a segment of the clients that we're helping which are most of them are 140, 150 employees, lots of tons of turnover. Many people last you know, 90 days, six months and then they leave low income drivers going back and forth from location to location. And many of these clients of ours came to us and said we want to do this, we want to take advantage of what Amazon is offering us and get the kickback from them to cover our matching costs and to cover our plan expenses. And I slowed them down for a second and I said well let's realize what we're doing here because part of Amazon's requirements are that you have to have eligibility after 180 days. You have to have auto enroll in the plan and you have to be 100% invested after 18 months in order for them to cover the match and to cover the, the expenses. [52:00] Justin: Full time, part time exclusions. [52:03] Chad: No, everybody has to be eligible after 180 days. [52:06] JD: These are their stipulations to get, their [52:08] Chad: stipulations to get Amazon's money. Again, wonderful for the right business that fits for this. But many of our clients are these, these service providers that have, when you use one year thousand hours and semi annual entry. They've got 12 employees. [52:25] JD: It keeps a ton of them out. [52:27] Chad: They've got 13 employees. They're avoiding an audit by, by using proper eligibility restrictions. They're targeting the key people that lead to the success of their company. And we have safe harbor set up for them and we have profit sharing set up for them. And they're heavily, they're heavily funding these plans to the, starting with 10 and maybe 20 people that are sticking around out of this. And I decided to slow them down and say, I get it, you want them to cover the cost of your match. Well, they can't cover the cost of the match that we're talking about. They're matching covers. If you're contributing 4%, they cover 2, they cover dollar for dollar on the first one, $0.50 on the next two, 25 on the next one and then 4. So they're covering 2%. If you contribute 4%, that's what Amazon will cover of your matching costs. So it's not enough to cover their safe harbor. And so all I did is say, this is wonderful, but you need to look at your individual situation. Is this right for you? And I got a, a heap of backlash when these conversations started coming out because it's, this is a great thing. Why would you stop, stop businesses from taking advantage of that? And I said I'm not stopping them, I'm just educating them on what is right for their business because not everybody is going to fit into this structure. And kudos to Amazon, but there are many businesses that aren't gonna, that aren't gonna benefit from this. [53:46] JD: That's weird, Bill. Right? Did you pick up on all that? [53:49] Bill Preston: And well, there's all, I mean you've always got to look at what the, the catch is to whatever somebody's offering you to do. And if, even if you fit within that and you accept it the first year, you know, how long is it going to last? Are they going to do it again the next year? Are they not? I mean, are you going to ramp up what you're doing? [54:11] JD: Change everything? [54:12] Bill Preston: Yeah. In order to accommodate it and then it doesn't happen a year later or something like that. So there are always catches that come with free money. [54:22] JD: What did I say to you, Chad? What did I say to you on the phone though, when you're explaining that to me? I was saying like, well, yeah, Chad, like I'm sure some of the decision makers that sat around that table didn't understand what you're talking about, that that was going to impact that. But what they did understand was [54:41] Bill Preston: to [54:42] JD: get this 60 million, we want these plans to be equitable in a certain way. You know, there needs to be a balance between the non hollies and the highly. And these are the rules, these are the hoops you need to go through. So God bless them for that. Like, I don't think that they weren't [54:57] Chad: trying to target the owners and the executives and the long term employees like we are. They were looking at this saying these are good, hardworking folks that are driving from location to location and we want to help benefit them. [55:11] JD: 100 and do most of these. [55:14] Justin: I know because you, you're the one that primarily works with all these guys. Do they have, you know, employees that or a team that can actually handle all of that process or are they all very. [55:23] Chad: No, they don't. It's the, it's the delivery service provider ownership and they have one, usually warehouse manager, but they're wearing multiple hats. These folks are. And honestly many of them are super young. They came out of an Amazon delivery center. They saw an opportunity. Amazon sells these locations. They say, okay, you get 50 square miles to open up your delivery service provider location because we have enough volume there to justify it. And, and then they sell another 50 miles to another individual. DSP is what they're called and there's a shit ton of them out there and they're all very different. And Bill, to your point, the, the, the access to this, the amount of time people need to be employed and I misspoke, it's 90 days. The amount of time people need to be employed. [56:12] JD: That's a big difference. [56:14] Chad: And the auto enroll and the, the setup of this, it's going to create so much back and forth operationally that the client is going to fail. The client's going to fail and it has to be with one of their approved providers. The client's going to fail, fail to operate this plan right. And it's going to lead to going through the voluntary compliance program. It's going to lead to fines, it's going to lead to issues. And that's what I think. J.D. to your, your point. Yeah, that the merit was there, the goal was there, the heart was there of what they were trying to do. They just didn't properly. In my point of view, much like many of the state mandates, they didn't consult with the people that understand the business deeply. [56:53] JD: There would have been a better way. [56:54] Chad: How can we better use this 60 million? [56:56] JD: I believe that Bezos, not that he's involved, but wants people to get that 60 million. They did it. It was such a great intention, but it's. [57:06] Bill Preston: It. [57:07] JD: There was a better way to organize it. So anyways, that was cool because I presented that as this great headline. [57:12] Chad: Hoo. [57:13] JD: Hooray. You know, look at this. Look what's happening. Employers are wanting to, like, do some great stuff for their partners. And Chad called me a few days later, and it's like, this is a clusterfuck and it's not working for a lot of our clients. So I wanted to share that with everyone, so I thought that would be interesting. So, thanks, Chad, for that chat bar. I agree with some of the comments in there. It's been a solid chat bar tonight. Rope guy. Like, we. I feel like they've been falling asleep the last few weeks, and maybe they just needed everyone back in form, Chad and Justin and what have you. But it's popping off in the chat, in the chat bar. So let's get to it, shall we? Justin, who's your vote for chat bar champion? And you can't. [57:58] Justin: Tony Davis. [57:59] JD: Tony Davis. A. I made the mistake this morning, everybody. Tony Davis called me on my way to work, and I answered that call. Son of a mark. Who's your vote for chat bar champion? [58:15] Mark: I'm going with Jim Sampson again. I think this is the second week in a row that I voted for him. And. And a lot of. It's obviously all night, doing great, but. But he just said that he left dinner, came back to the chat. That's. That's dedication. [58:28] Bill Preston: Pretty strong. That's pretty strong. [58:31] JD: I'm going to vote for Daniela, but I want a public service announcement real quick, like if Tony. I just gave you shit. Told you. Fuck you in the chat bar. If you haven't figured this out over the last eight years or what, however long it's been, If I. If I'm cussing at you and calling you names and making fun of you, Amanda, it just means you're part of my crew. Look at Chad, that fucking dip. I give him all the time. Bill, who's your. Who's your vote for chat bar champion? [58:59] Bill Preston: I. I gotta tell you, I. I wasn't paying that close attention to it. [59:03] JD: You dumb. All right, Chad, you go. [59:06] Bill Preston: But I am gonna vote for Tony. [59:08] JD: All right, Second vote for Tony [59:12] Chad: for me. JD it was one comment, and it was at the very end, which is that Amazon should open A pooled employer plan. And it was Elizabeth Heffernan. That' it made me laugh out loud. [59:23] JD: Elizabeth, bad advice, but very nice. You know who should have got in there advice. I feel like Sampo should have got in there. [59:31] Mark: But Chad, Chad, it wouldn't be a pool. It would be a prime employer plan. Just know that. [59:41] JD: Okay, Tampa's in. Did you get that sober boy over there? We got Daniela. We got Sampo. We got Tony. He's got it. [59:49] Chad: Elizabeth Heffernan. He's on it. [59:52] JD: He's on it. He's sober. [59:53] Mark: October, really let us vote. I don't understand why we can. [59:57] JD: You know what's going to be a bummer is when we're in Vegas, to not look over and see Brandon behind his producer desk with his red eyes, you know, bloodshot, like, hung up, drinking Pedialyte. [1:00:12] Bill Preston: So hopefully everybody's gonna go to. To my stand in and see Ms. Amanda. [1:00:18] Chad: Oh, yeah, we are. We're coming to the Hive, bro, Monday [1:00:20] Bill Preston: afternoon and Tuesday afternoon, so she's going to be there. [1:00:24] JD: Are you pitching? Are you pitching on my show right now? [1:00:29] Bill Preston: I bought advertising. I bought advertising on your show. Looks like on the road. So I should get a couple of call out. [1:00:35] JD: Oh, look at Sampo's running away with it, huh? Sampo, the winner of Chatbird Champion. [1:00:42] Mark: I do not believe in front of everybody. Jd, do we have a show next week? [1:00:47] JD: Do we have. Yeah, we have a show next week. Yeah, yeah. We're filming like four, actually. I don't know if we're home from [1:00:56] Bill Preston: Vegas and you won't be left for D.C. why would you have a show? [1:00:59] JD: I also think we're going to try to stream shows from the Vegas floor. So when we're in. Weird. Thanks. That was actually a perfect segue. Everyone, we are heading to Las Vegas on Sunday. The all the retireholics come say hi to us if you're there at the wealth at Work conference. It will. We will be. We won't be hard to miss. Like, we won't be hard to miss. Yeah, that's right. We'll be in a big corner. It sounds wrong. You can't. You can't miss us. Come say hi. We've got some games to play. We've got a fridge. We got a brand new little setup that will be very reminiscent of what you're seeing behind you here. And we'd love to say hi and chat. Talk some 401k with you. We're gonna have Kush on the show as a guest. We're gonna have Jeannie Sutton, formerly known as Jeannie Fisher. Hashtag 401k lady on the show. And we're gonna have Jeffrey Acheson on the show. [1:01:59] Bill Preston: And so yes, make him wear a light up bow tie. [1:02:03] JD: I'll give it a shot. I'll give it a shot. So yeah, that's where we're going next. And I think Brandon will try to stream some of that. As I look over nervously at Brandon, Brandon says this. Brandon goes, I don't know. So maybe and. But otherwise, yeah, Mark, we'll have a show on Thursday night. Everyone. Thanks for tuning in to another retireholics. You know we love you. We know we love you. Watch this. You want to see how much I love you? Everyone, you dipshits. I love you. And thanks to you Bill for being our guest. [1:02:39] Bill Preston: Glad to be here. [1:02:40] JD: Thanks to showing me what a bow tie looks like when it's untied. [1:02:43] Chad: That's never thought I would see Bill without a bow tie. [1:02:46] JD: Noper dope on that. [1:02:48] Mark: Whoa, whoa, whoa. This is a family show, buddy. [1:02:53] JD: Honestly. Best of luck to your wife and her. [1:02:56] Bill Preston: Thank you very much. [1:02:56] JD: And the medical attention she's getting. So we will all be thinking about you for that. Justin, Chad, it's great to have you back in your, your fold out chairs there. Like it's awesome to have you guys back and yeah, we'll hit an after show. Bill, you don't have to stick around but if you want to we're going to appreciate it. Talk about. [1:03:17] Bill Preston: I got it. I do have to go down for dinner but I appreciate it. [1:03:19] JD: Perfect. We'll talk a bunch of shit about you then. It's been another episode. See you everybody. Yeah, fuck. [1:03:24] Bill Preston: I'm going to see you on dc. Thanks guys. [1:03:29] Chad: Thank you. [1:03:29] JD: Play us some music, Brandon.