SVB Crisis: What 401(k) Advisors Need to Know | Retireholics

[0:00] JD: Foreign. 8 March Silicon Valley bank, which I know you all know this name now mostly by its three initials that I cannot repeat announced that it's, it's a small bank in the Silicon Valley San Francisco Bay area. I shouldn't say small bank shut it was the 16th largest bank in the country, not a small bank announced that it had sold to, was forced to sell a bunch of securities at a loss and was now going to try to sell some shares to generate 2.25 billion to kind of shore up their balance sheet, if you will. This triggered a panic amongst the Silicon Valley elite. One venture capital texted another venture capitalist all telling them to make a run on the bank. Let's get out of this thing. It's not, not sounding good. Thursday morning starts the company's stock craters. The bank run continues and before the end of the day the regulators have to step in. Quote Silicon Valley Bank's condition deteriorated, deteriorated so quickly that it couldn't last more than just five hours. But they're referring to is that normally they would do this thing at the end of day, at the end of day, at the close of the day but they had to step in in the middle of the day because yes everybody, this was a classic bank run. Someone just said in the JD closes account there. Well let's get personal, shall we? From what you hear in the news, the people in the Silicon Valley bank were startup elites, Silicon Valley fancy pants. And that's pretty much true for the most part. But there are also stories of small business owners with 30 employees, 20 employees losing their on Thursday, Friday and Saturday thinking that whatever money they had in these accounts north of $250,000 that was protected by the federal blah blah blah insurance. I don't know, somebody let me know Federal Deposit insurance something. [2:23] Mark: I'm guessing that it's that brown sign you used to see when you'd go into your bank teller. [2:27] JD: Nice mark. [2:28] Mark: Yeah. [2:29] JD: Above the 250 that this money was gone. That's what they were thinking like oh my God, how will I make payroll? What am I going to do? How can this possibly happen? I my father, when he started the company and back in the late 70s, early 80s we had a bank in San Mateo called Burrell that was our bank for a long time. When I say our bank, I mean Plan Design Consultants, our third party administration firm. My company, that bank was bought by Boston Private and that if you would have asked me last week who my bank was, I would have said to you Boston Private, that's what I log into on my Internet. Mark's shaking his head in acknowledgment because he would have answered it the same way because he spent some time in there. I knew of this news, but let me tell you guys all this. Guess who bought Boston Private? [3:23] Mark: So good? [3:24] JD: Silicon Valley Bank. So where was I on Thursday? I was in Denver with you guys. Did I seem stressed? Nope. [3:33] Chad: Nope. [3:36] JD: We're broke. We were doing a live retireaholic show. I was fine. I. I knew of this bank thing, but it wasn't my bank. At least that's what the dumb surfer was thinking. Friday, I flew home, had my 25th daughter's birthday party up in Disneyland. Somebody shoot me. Went up and did that. Saturday, I put on a party for my wife's 50th birthday birthday party at a very fancy resort. Tons of friends partying it up. Sunday, I had a hangover and surfed great waves. Monday, I'm driving to go surf, and I say to myself, I'm gonna research this bank thing because it might be a good topic for Thursday's show. I go out, I surf for three hours. It was epic. I come home and I go, you know what? I'm gonna do a YouTube explainer video to figure out what actually happened that made this happen. I hit play and the logo comes up on the video. And I go, I recognize that logo. I log on to my account. It's my account. Okay, let me be honest, everyone. I do have two business accounts, but the bulk of it is one's in Chase and one's in this one. But I had just north of $750,000 in Silicon Valley Bank. If. If I would have known this last week, I don't think I would have went to my daughter's birthday party. I don't think I would have thrown a party for my wife. I'm not sure what kind of show I would have given on Thursday in Denver, but thank God, ignorance is bliss. I didn't know. And then, as I'm telling Justin and Chad and Mark, Justin reminds me of that day the news came out. And you all know the government's going to back it whether you think it's a bailout or not a bailout or where you stand on it, you might all guess where I stand on the bailout debate. So anyway, so I was affected by that, but not the way I should have been affected by it. And so the kicker was, payroll was [5:35] Justin: due the next day. [5:36] Chad: Yeah. And. And we got a text of, hey, can you guys kind of check and make sure the Direct deposit hit your accounts. [5:44] JD: But can I tell you, as I drove, as I literally did my bank run, I drove from my house to local Chase branch to see if we could wire the money from Silicon Valley bank to Chase. You know that's my bank run, right? But guess what? Silicon Valley bank, no wiring, but shut it down. I wrote a check to Chase, they helped me. And, and then payroll. Tracy goes to do payroll. We get this big notification. I'll kind of wrap it up here. But. But at Tracy goes, payroll's not working. I don't know what's going on. Turns out it all worked out on Monday. And just like they said on the news and everywhere, like, the government took over my bank. They're running it with a new chief executive officer as a bridge bank and everything is running as normal. Well, I should say I don't have international accounts or this and that, but. But normal transactions are running as normal. I still think I'm bailing to Chase. I'll think. I think I'll just move on with Chase and kind of put them in the rearview mirror. But anyways, so that went down. How the hell did this happen? As I was driving to the bank with my wife, I was saying, we. We don't. And I'm asking everyone listening in right now, we don't live in this world, do we? At least I was naive enough to think that when I check that balance every day in my personal account or my business account, like that's safe. But I guess this, I'll drink for it. This FDIC thing is for a reason, right? If you got more than 250k, well, and doing some responsible things with it. I don't know. [7:15] Chad: And like Nevin saying, this whole too big to fail has. Is clearly coming. Is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. That's a. It's a scary thought for, for folks who are in the situation, they got money sitting there and they're going, I don't know how to access it. I don't know how to move it. And you, jd, you were reaching out to me, saying, hey, we've got a bunch of direct deposits coming from record keepers for transactional fees and rev share. Like now we've got to get all that moved over. It's a terrifying thing, not just for the one piece, but for every little piece of business that's going in there. [7:48] JD: Here's all the paperwork I'm working on to change money that comes to us from the record keepers. [7:53] Chad: You're thinking of this place all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Well, your money's in Joe's house, that's right next to yours and in the Kennedy House and Mrs. Maitland's house and a hundred others. [8:05] JD: That's actually a really relevant clip and very much how I felt as I was wondering if this is all really gonna, if I was all really gonna be protected. But let's talk about Silicon Valley bank and what went wrong. They were predominantly in this venture capital, private equity, Silicon Valley thing. They were that bank that was helping a lot of startups and through 2019, 20, 20, 2021 when interest rates were low and Covid was happening and free money was, was abound and the pigs were slopping around in the mud and enjoying it all. Silicon Valley bank was the recipient of lots of heavy cash flows. Right. Lots of deposits from these companies are doing well. I think their company like 7X, you know, in very short periods of time and was just, just crushing it. But at the same time we were about to experience a quick, quick increase in interest rates. And apparently a lot of their. We all know this, banks don't put your money back in some safe. Like Brandon's little clip there just showed us. It's, it's out there. Apparently they had a lot of theirs in fixed income that when I told you on Wednesday they had to sell to some tune of a loss of several billion. They were selling fixed income, they're selling bonds in a rising interest rates environment and taking a massive hit on it. That was the canary in the coal mine, Mark, that, that led that poor, poor bird. And so is there a lesson to be learned from this? Well, my lesson is going to be to put 250,000 in like a bunch of different banks. [9:38] Mark: No, I think, I think your lesson is knowing who you bank with. That's like number one, right? [9:43] JD: I think that's a great question. But I think about that and I, there's no way I could have done that analysis on and even if I did, that's also. That's so like Monday morning quarterback. Like I would have known to like pick it apart or whatever. [9:55] Chad: Yeah. It's not like you're logging into their website but, but also think about the decision. You end up there without knowing or really making a decision to end up there. We talk about acquisitions, we're going to get into acquisitions tonight on the advisor side. But think about that on the record keeper side. We've watched some, some big businesses be moved and a bunch of clients end up the record keeper they never chose and obviously we think those ones are stable. But you don't know. [10:19] JD: To Nevin's point, it's only teaching me personally that diversification is something more than just asset allocation. Like I can kind of be more diversified in terms of where my money is and how accessible is it to that point. I did have another bank account that I used for business, so I did have some money over there for some cash flow to kind of do some certain things. So if things did really hit the fan, I did have some options. But wow, that was a tough time for a lot of small business owners, not just Silicon Valley bigwigs. Over the weekend, how might I blend this into 401k? Well, let's be an with disruptors, by the way, guideline and best human interest and vessel all came out with statements claiming that they did have some connection to this bank, but it wasn't all of their money. They're kind of vague with how they put it. They should be safe, just like I'm safe. But I will tell you this part of Silicon Valley bank's demise is what all that money stopped flowing into their accounts because. News alert everyone. The whole venture capital thing has fallen apart. You know, those companies aren't getting the same money they got before. The ones that are struggling, that aren't profitable, are going under. There's no more free money for them to go grab from their investors. And that is exactly why the first domino fell for Silicon Valley banks. So read the tea leaves. The road ahead might be tough for some of these heavily companies that are not churning a profit. We'll move on. Last week we were going to talk about personal capital, but we ran out of time. Personal capital is the headline. Personal capital is now Empower Personal wealth. I'm going to kind of toss this one over to you, Chad, because I've been talking through the whole Silicon Valley bank. Give me your thoughts on this and what you think people should be aware about. And I think you got some. There's some little bit of intel too. [12:19] Chad: Well, yes and no. I mean there's been a bunch of worry from the advisor community, from our community, from everybody in this space that this move to having personal capital under the roof of Empower was going to lead to them trying to maintain clients, essentially clients that the advisor had brought to them. They've done a pretty good job putting up a wall and showing that that's not the effort that they're putting forth, but this change, the change that they're making right now to a marketplace that we know has been struggling as a whole to retain assets, which is the distribution space when employees leave, when employees retire, rollovers. This move to Empower Personal wealth and the avenues that they're taking to try to retain dollars when employees leave is a big one. We sat in a meeting and got some of the stats. I think the stats, it's been a couple of weeks now, but I think the stats were something along the lines of that the Advisor and Empower together were retaining somewhere in the range of about 18% of the assets for terminated employees. So someone terminates in the past. [13:28] JD: They were not getting a big chunk of this stuff. [13:30] Chad: They were not. Neither was the Advisor is the way in which they're pitching it. And so it's been three months that Empower Personal wealth has been test piloting. That's for you, Gush. This new approach of really embracing advisors but directly calling clients. [13:45] Mark: I don't get it. [13:47] Chad: Bringing the advisor in, his military background. [13:50] Mark: Mark Kush has a military background and I'm a pilot. I never would have expected the way [13:57] Chad: you fly drugs across the border. [13:59] Mark: Yeah. [14:00] Chad: Anyways, they're, they're, they're reaching out to the participant directly. They're looping the advisor in. They've been running it, this program for about three months and now they're retaining north, I think just north of 50% of the assets between Empower and Advisor collectively. So they're seeing massive jumps. [14:18] JD: Kush, how do you. I don't know if I've ever asked you this question. How do you feel and, or how do you think the typical financial advisor should feel about Empower buying personal capital now kind of branding it themselves and obviously putting some attention on it like they want it to work. Does that, does that, does that scare you? Step on your toes, piss you off or none of the above? [14:44] Michael Kushner: None of the above. I mean they're, they're capturing rollovers. I think it's good because people, you know, people are afraid of change. And just what happened with the banks last week, you know, people, you know, they know that their money is in one spot. It's not going to change, change hands too often. I think, you know, it's, there's enough of it to go around. I mean, [15:07] JD: Chad, that's what, that's what Ed Murphy getting the, the guy in charge there name right, was, was saying. Right. His kind of speech to the public is, look, advisors to your point of your stats, Chad, you guys weren't getting this stuff anyways. Anyways, you weren't capturing a lot of it here's. [15:24] Chad: The. [15:24] JD: I guess what he's trying to say is let me help you capture a little bit more than you used to or something. And we'll address. [15:30] Chad: And they're. And they're going to retain a large portion of it. Sorry, go ahead, Justin. [15:33] Justin: No, but do you guys think that that's the play right now? But long term, they know they're going to go after as much of it as they can. I mean look at the name, what they rebranded it to. [15:44] Chad: Yeah, well we, and we've gotten into that on prior shows in terms of the personal well side and the support to the average participant. The fact that they could call into a thousand plus licensed agents and get direct advice. Yes, I think that's always a fear the issue I have and B Shaw just asked it in the chat bar. Are they looping in the advisor? And here's what I've come to learn. Every advisor that has an Empower plan has to fill out a specific form dictating what the threshold is that they want to be contacted on and what threshold they're comfortable having Empower try to retain those assets. So let's say you only want rollovers of 200k. [16:23] JD: Yeah. Right. [16:24] Chad: Yeah, I, I want to be contacted on any asset rollover over 200k, anything under. I don't. The issue I have with that is it was black and white. If the advisor has not filled out that form, we will go after every distribution. [16:37] JD: Aren't they playing the automatic enrollment game? Meaning like most people will just procrastinate, not do anything and then they'll eventually be the winners of this. Okay. I don't want to be totally anti empower because we could do this. [16:50] Chad: We're not, we're being both ways because [16:53] JD: let me say out loud, if you're an advisor who doesn't see rollovers as part of or, or even like financial planning because this empower, personal wealth goes a little deeper than just rollovers. There are people sitting at people certified financial planners sitting at desk willing to help you with a, with a whole myriad of things that you're giving fiduciary advice. [17:16] Chad: They're, they're, they're a fiduciary on the transaction too. Like that's big. [17:20] JD: So if I'm a 401k advisor and I want to go out and sell a lot of plans, I can add this to my pitch of like this is a company I've aligned with. They have a great, really organized professional service around this and maybe I don't have one myself. So that's an advantage to advisors. And then on the flip side, if you do do it and you're willing to, to use the outside voice trading, if you're doing it and you're willing to fill out this paperwork and you can get it however you want. But let's not be confused. In the end, all the numbers are [17:52] Mark: going to slant chat bar Justin and, [17:56] JD: and they're going to get a ton of money and they can hopefully kind of deflect any accusations along the way by offering up these, these partnerships. That's fine. [18:05] Chad: Yeah. And the partnerships that they're setting up, my understanding is that it's only going to be for select kind of key advisors in terms of the one on one calls for distributions. That's where the majority of their assets sit. So I think it's a smart play for them to be efficient with those thousand licensed folks to the point that you asked earlier, Jess. And they're involved. A participant calls in, wants investment advice. Participant calls in, wants to talk about rolling over dollars into the plan. Participant. Any of those is going to lead to this personal wealth advisor guiding them, this employee of empowerment. And yeah, I think you're going to see some conflicts of interest. [18:49] JD: Well in that relationship I'll kiss Vince Morris's ass if he's still here. I'm more like, I'm more like the One Digital, you know, used to be resources vibe where they have their own people and their own company doing it. To me the power is more in the advisor's hands in that case and I don't like it. And I've said this a million times, I don't like it being in the record keeper's hands. Speaking of Vince Morris, One Digital Headlines, One Digital is added again, I believe this was a 4K specialist. I don't know where this came from. Brands. No OneDigital.com is the thing I sent Brandon. They're, they're buying another advisor firm. Not just an advisor firm. It's our old buddy, past guest and friend Renee Scherzer getting that money. You might say to yourself, wait a second, wasn't she already part of that group? And she was, she was, she was a, she used the tools, she was part of the family. But she had not sold yet to One Digital yet she not sold her actual practice. And this is more than just Renee. If you all remember, she shared this with us. Her husband works on the kind of group health insurance side of things and, and so he's also part of the package. And so One Digital is expanding in their footprint in the Arizona area. And they've got a great person here who is already part of their family. But this is a chance for Renee and her husband to cash in on some ebitda. [20:23] Chad: Everything around me queen get the money. [20:26] JD: Dollar, dollar bill, yo there. Dare I say she went back to making up. Renee's gonna get mad at me here, but dare I say the number started dropping and dropping. And she goes, vince, now remember that number you gave me last year? Can we still lock that thing in? And Vince is like, I don't know, maybe something close to it. And she's like, let's get it done. I'm making shit up. I don't know. [20:46] Justin: Vince, is that true? [20:47] JD: Comment let us know. He's like, that's, that's. [20:50] Chad: It seems likely that folks who were considering in the past right now are going like, hey, oh yeah, chance we can get what was once offered. [20:58] JD: Remember what we were talking about last year? Can we do that again, Justin? [21:03] Justin: Someone say a couple weeks ago the acquisition game was cooling? [21:06] Chad: Yeah, yeah, we did. [21:09] JD: Well, I don't know. [21:10] Justin: Does not seem like it at all. [21:13] JD: Justin, this is the time of the show. It's not the midro, it's not the intro. It's the outro. An outro. And you out there, you're going to rate Justin on a scale of 0 to 10. Do him a good one because his job depends on it. Who do we have? [21:26] Chad: I am. [21:27] Justin: I've been so good lately. I'm. I'm in such good clearance on that one. [21:30] Michael Kushner: I'm not even agree. [21:32] Justin: Anyways, ladies and gents, our beloved friend of the show is back for a night of debauchery. He's brought with him his six buckets of fireball and has assured us he will be hungover for his twin boys DMV driving test tomorrow. He's a three time chat bar champion, veteran of the United States Air Force, and volunteer pilot for angel flight East. Fun fact, his call sign is Kush. Not given into him because of his last name, but because he was a drug mule of the mess hall. And if anyone is wondering, Kushmaster General himself, Mr. Michael Kushner. [22:12] JD: Wow, that was a first. That's never happened. [22:16] Justin: You dared me. I had to do it. [22:17] Chad: Gosh. Welcome, buddy. [22:19] JD: 1010. [22:20] Michael Kushner: Good to be here. [22:21] JD: Well, Hackler's giving you a 42, but I think he meant a 420. [22:25] Michael Kushner: There we go. [22:28] JD: Your family, buddy. Your family, bro. It's great to have you here. [22:33] Michael Kushner: I'm curious, Roby, why would. Why did you Say earlier that you were shocked it didn't think I would ever be a military veteran. What? [22:39] Justin: Oh, he's being facetious. [22:41] JD: Oh. [22:41] Mark: Oh gosh. Do you not know what sarcasm is? [22:45] Chad: He was trying to stop me from dropping. [22:48] JD: Okay, we'll talk about chapter champions later. But we owed you kush because we had a snafu last week on were in Denver. We tried to send you like five baskets of. Of. What's that you're drinking? Fireball and party packs. Somehow Drizzly failed. I don't know what it was. So we tried again today. I got you three bottles of 750 milliliters of Fireball, one gift box of 15 times the 50 milliliter bottles. That's 3,000 milliliters of. Of Fireball. Just over 100 ounces of the stuff. So that's a good start. But we couldn't leave it at that. I was, I tried to order you a Whistle Pig 12 rye whiskey, but they were out of stock of the owner of your establishment out there where you live. Instead put in a bottle of Angels Envy rum cask rye. So that's from us to you for a little more expensive than that fucking Fireball shit you're drinking. So we just wanted you to have, you know, some of the good stuff up to sip on when you think of the retireaholics. Because we love you. [23:56] Michael Kushner: That's awesome. I'll be drinking it at my kids 50th birthday with the. The rate that I drink. [24:00] JD: So let's do it. [24:02] Chad: We'll help with that tonight. [24:03] JD: I don't like that. Let's get it done tonight. We can finish all that tonight. Let's. Let's spin the wheel of ice. That's what everyone's here for. [24:21] Chad: Oh, you've been like four or five times in a row. [24:25] Justin: I've not been hit all year yet. This has been amazing. [24:28] Chad: Really. [24:28] Justin: That's serious. [24:29] Speaker F: Well, good. [24:30] JD: Well done, Justin. [24:32] Justin: I've said that multiple times and I still haven't been hit. [24:35] JD: Hopefully it won't take me too long to pound this. But what we're gonna do is a segment we did. I think we did it two weeks ago. But remember when we brought on the dude JT from ah, From Beagle? [24:51] Chad: Yeah. [24:52] JD: Go find the old 401k plans. That was fun. People really enjoyed that. We got a lot of positive feedback. So we're going to continue with this little segment. Fifteen minutes, a spotlight on some type of product that you know, I think is unique or different out there. And we'll have someone come and talk to us about it. Today we've got Brian Price. Oh, sorry. We're going to call this segment. Going to call this segment. [25:22] Mark: That's good, that's good. [25:23] JD: Flashlight. Why are we calling it flashlight? Because Brandon thought that song would be fun, that's why. So Brian Price from is here with us. He's not just from attire, he's got another company he'll talk about. But attire. Is this like software for I'll drink CPA audits? Brian, as I pound my Smirnoff ice, can you kind of set the stage? Not for us just here, but for everyone listening in. Like what exactly are you up to? Tell us about this thing. [26:02] Speaker F: Well, CPA public practice. We audit 401k plans and so have. [26:10] JD: Finish your thought, but you owe a drink. But keep going. [26:12] Speaker F: All right. No, coach, this is for you, baby. [26:15] Chad: Yeah. [26:21] Speaker F: Clients hate the 401k audit. Your clients hate them, you guys hate them, Record keepers hate them. Everybody hates them. And so facts. We just created technology to automate it. So where the CPA firm could do it in 100 hours. 100 hours, I suck. [26:38] JD: Finish your thought. [26:39] Speaker F: Now we can do it in like less than 30. So the technology makes everything go faster. [26:45] Chad: What are you doing from a technology standpoint that's any different than pulling reporting from the record keeper right now. [26:51] Speaker F: So we developed what we, we've developed end to end software. So I will go in and I'll grab from the payroll provider every single paycheck for every employee for the whole year and I'll import that into my software, I'll log into the record keeper, download all of the critical record keeping data, import that, and then what's unique is like in four seconds I can reconcile to the penny what came out of everybody's paycheck to what goes into the plant. So whereas most firms are doing sample testing, I'm doing it. [27:22] Chad: Full population for everybody. [27:24] Justin: Yeah. [27:26] JD: Not to jump on your bandwagon, Brian, but I think if you think about most auditors, certified public accountant auditor firms, they're still very old school. You know, as a third party administrator that works with them, they're still very paper based, asking us for things. They beat the crap out of third party administrators for us to help them out. A lot of them, I run into them like, are you pulling the files from the record keeper? Do you even know that these things exist? And they're like, oh, I don't have access. Can you help me get access to the record keeper? I'm like, Jesus Christ, I thought you're Running a business here. Like, so. So there is a lot of, like, failure happening in that space. I'm sure there's other firms that are much more modern and doing better things, but I think Brian's on to what is. Aren't the best invention, sometimes the simplest. Like, I don't think that area of our industry has focused much on this. And Brian, tell us. Tell us some of the hours that you were telling me, like, the amount of time that's spent on these. These audits. [28:27] Speaker F: So we've gotten the audits down from 100, 120 hours to less than 30. So typically, my CPA firm, Price Quebeca, is probably now charging half of the cost of what most firms charge. [28:39] JD: That's your word, buddy. That's your word. [28:41] Chad: 1. [28:42] Speaker F: Dude, it's behind my name. [28:44] JD: And let's. Let's take a guess. Chat bar, Chad, everybody here. Average cost of an audit. I'll take a stab. What? 10 grand? [28:55] Justin: 10,000? Yep. [28:56] Chad: I say nine. Nine would be the average. [28:59] JD: Greg says 20. [29:00] Chad: What do you say? [29:01] JD: $1 million. What do you say, Brian? [29:05] Speaker F: Your average cost is between 15,000 up to 25,000, depending upon where you are in the country. [29:11] JD: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. Now, you mentioned a firm that you work for. So this. This is a. A proprietary thing that you offer within your own certified public accountancy employer, their firm. But it's not just that you want to sell this, lease this to other auditors all across the country, right? [29:35] Speaker F: Yeah. So Altair is the technology that does it. Price Go back. Is the firm that uses it to perform the audit. So I'm now beginning to license it to other CPA firms because I want. I want everybody to have access. God damn. [29:50] JD: Now, if I'm a. If I'm a local regional auditor, last [29:54] Speaker F: an hour in this show. I'll tell you right now. [29:58] JD: Let me play devil's advocate. If I'm a local regional auditor, why do you want to take away my magic, Brian? I get to charge 20 grand. Are you saying that I need to drop my feet on to five now? Like, I'm not sure I like this technology you have for me. [30:14] Speaker F: So you're not having to do any. You can charge whatever you want to charge. Here's the reality. You've got staff that are burnt out, and you don't have enough staff, and you have staff that are either too young that you're putting on these audits that don't know what they're doing. And so you've got a staffing problem. This technology actually helps you with the staffing side, because it tells, it makes you, if you staff can do it in 1/4 the time, they have more capacity, they're not stressed out. [30:41] JD: And you're not, you're not suggesting that attire is, makes the experience for the client totally digital or anything. You still have to consult with them. It's just, it's just the internal work. Yeah. That's done more efficiently. I saw someone like in that chapter earlier saying, are you going to make the annual meeting? Which these days it's an annual zoom, not an annual meeting. Right. But you can still do that as an auditor. You're just making the internal work more efficient. [31:09] Speaker F: I'm doing everything virtual so everything's more efficient, everybody. Whereas, you know, part of it is instead of hitting all your third party administrators with sample testing stuff or they. Sometimes I hear auditors are asking you guys to reconcile things. It's like you don't need to do that if you have the right data. The computer can do all of that within seconds. [31:29] Chad: Yeah. So you have recognition data or recognition systems that are looking at these W2s and making sense of the data, comparing that to the timeliness of deposits. On the record keeper side, you ever get folks coming back that have been used to getting five employees quality checks now going ship? Brian, you checked everybody and you found mistakes because you're checking everybody and not just five people anymore. [31:52] Speaker F: That's the only negative. The negative is if there's something wrong with this plan, I'm going to find it. And so, and then what happens is [32:00] JD: that's a negative and a positive. [32:02] Chad: That's what the account. That's what, that's what the auditor is supposed to be doing. And that's a beautiful thing, what they should be paying you to do. So I think it's a good thing. But we know the other side of that. As a third party administrator, when we're onboarding clients and we dig into prior work and we find they're not happy about what we find, they're like, yeah, that was the past. Don't worry about it. Just, just do our work moving forward. And we're like, yeah, it doesn't quite work that way. [32:27] Mark: That's what I tell my wife a bit. [32:28] Justin: They're gonna, they're gonna fix it going forward and it's not gonna happen. [32:31] Speaker F: You know, I wonder, just so you guys know, in our world is like we've got the Department of Labor and [32:39] Mark: yeah, good job, man. [32:40] Speaker F: We've got it right this time. [32:42] Mark: Catching on. [32:43] Speaker F: There's so much oversight that if they come into our audit and they find that I found a problem but I didn't go back in time, they'll disqualify the audit and say doesn't qualify. Do it again. [32:56] JD: Yeah, totally. [32:57] Speaker F: I'm going to go back and fix it. [32:59] Chad: So what's, what's your thought in terms of penetration with different. Way around the auditing? [33:10] Mark: Dad loves to make things awkward clients [33:14] JD: and he likes penetration in the market. [33:17] Chad: So. [33:18] Speaker F: Good question. My goal is to run a thousand audits through this year. So that should be, that should be around about 40 firms are using it at this point. So it just. And then what? And a lot of them, because I just started licensing it to other firms besides my own, they do a test and so they may test three or four audits and then once they get good at it, they'll go 50 the next year. So the numbers kind of, really. Kind of. [33:44] JD: But you, you have 40 firms using it right now. [33:48] Speaker F: I've got 20 using it now. My goal is to have 40 by [33:51] Chad: the end of the year. [33:52] JD: Okay, 20 using it now. Okay. But that's, that's not bad. Hey, part of the reason I thought it'd be fun to have you here is I thought that if, if some advisors out there, I know this is above and beyond for a lot of advisors, but they've got partners in this business, you know, that are, that do these audits and they would love to see a more efficient audit and be the hero in front of their client if they could kind of bring something like this to the table. So obviously you're, you out there as an advisor aren't going to be able to vet this product out in 15 minutes here on the show. But, but you could talk to Brian or talk to Tyrant. Sorry for the plug. And maybe this is, I mean I don't see any negative here. Is my point, like. Well, it seems like it's going to be a more accurate audit and it's going to be more efficient. You're just using tech. So someone point out the negative to me. [34:37] Chad: I have to say too, from a compliance administrator side, the thought of having software that could scour W2s and pull live data in. We talk about census collection and getting census information that's not accurate constantly. And going back to the client like that's a pretty attractive thing for anybody doing the compliance work, the tech side of it. [34:59] Speaker F: So what we're playing with now is we're playing with real time auditing. So it's really going to help the Pepsi. So our goal is to get integration of data [35:09] JD: before you get to the point and player plan about your real time. I'll tell you another. [35:15] Chad: I don't want to talk anymore. [35:16] Speaker F: I don't want to talk anymore. [35:19] JD: And, and like unlike the audience is thinking I'm willing to go to the pooled employer plan. Let's talk about it. We got a few minutes here. But the timing thing and being real time. Do you know how many clients I see emails going through my inbox that are like asking my team like hey it's the 5500 ready. And the answer is it's with the auditor. With the auditor. The auditor's finishing up a few things. I sit on big fiduciary review meetings and they're like oh it's still with the auditor. It's with the auditor. So that is a real another one. That is a real pain point where if it could be done quicker, everyone's going to like that. Yeah. [35:57] Speaker F: Plus as the auditor figure things out so they blame it on you guys anyways. [36:02] JD: You have a question, Chad? [36:03] Chad: I was just going to say truthfully, cheaper too. You were talking about how advisors should have interest in this. I mean if you're talking about a solid auditor and you're talking about cutting the cost, cost, the time, the bandwidth, the, the, the intrusion down plan sponsors should. And advisors should be super interested in that because nobody likes that colonoscopy. [36:23] JD: All right. [36:23] Chad: Nobody. [36:24] JD: Go ahead. [36:25] Justin: How much is that timeline reduced overall? [36:29] Speaker F: We they priced percentage wise. Yeah. So price Quebec last year with using Autire they did 340 audits and they [36:38] JD: averaged 26 hours and before it was north of 100. Justin. [36:43] Speaker F: 120 to 140 hours is most. What other firms. [36:46] Justin: Oh here he said that. Sorry I missed it three times. [36:49] JD: That's three times. That's that cushy we're taking off of earlier. Okay. [36:54] Mark: Sounds like you guys are just a bunch of part time employees now if you ask me. I have a question. Sorry. Going back to our other conversation, Brian, your logo and everything looks really slick and neat like you're like a tech startup kind of thing. Are you in that realm? [37:11] JD: Are you? [37:12] Mark: Are you a startup? Is this a new business? So all you have to say yes or no? Yes. Yes or no? [37:18] Speaker F: Yes. Oktar is yes. [37:20] Mark: Who do you bank with? [37:21] Justin: I didn't know you were going there. [37:22] JD: Thank God. [37:23] Speaker F: I bank with America. [37:25] JD: Whoa. [37:26] Mark: All right. [37:27] JD: I take personal events to that thank God comment. All right. Pooled employer plans, all the rage. Everybody loves these things. But one Thing that no one ever talks about is, oh, hey man, like it's gonna be one audit, you know, like one audit for the pulled employer plan. It's one plan. Not a, not a problem. It's gonna be so cool. I always thought about, like, I wonder what the certified public accountant thinks about that statement. Like they now have to go into a pool employer plan that has 100 plans, 200 plans, 50 plans, whatever. These are still 50 individual employers that you have to work with for different reasons. Tell me I'm crazy. Brian. This is a fact, right? [38:13] Speaker F: It's. I think they're going to be shocked when they start seeing audit pricing come through. [38:18] Chad: I love you, Brian. [38:19] JD: I love you. Unbelievable. Love it. So, yeah, when, when we still haven't seen that shoe drop, right? Like when the auditors really dig themselves into these food employer plans and how much time they have to spend and what, what new novel things come up for them to fix and solve. Like the price tag could be massive [38:42] Speaker F: if you take, if you, if you take, let's say 60 adopting employers. And it's not exactly an exact science, but we're supposed to rotate through the 60 in a three year cycle. So I got to select at least 20 employers of the 60, a third of them, and then I gotta select some number of employees for all 20. It's just a beat down. [39:04] Chad: It's a beat down. [39:06] JD: So this is to, this is to Rob's comment in the chat bar is you guys are as auditors, there's certain details that you need from the Department of Labor on how to go about this, but they, they are giving you some nuances to like take a sample size of what's going on. Interesting. [39:25] Speaker F: They, they're not gonna, they're not gonna give us that much guidance. They're gonna still let us, they're gonna let us have free rein to do what we, we need and then they're gonna tell us we did it wrong. [39:35] JD: They're not gonna tell you how to do it. [39:36] Michael Kushner: Interesting. [39:37] JD: Well, if you want more information on that, Brian, you can go to pepsuck.org you can, you can make a donation there. They're good people doing great work for humanity. Check them out. Seriously, go there, become part of the community. Thank you, Brian. Thank you attire for being part of our flashlight. And yeah, we, we like what you're doing. I tend to be very pessimistic with some of our guests, but I can't see any negatives here, so good luck to you. And if there's anything that the retire Alex or the retargs community can do for you. You know, ask us or send us free beer and maybe we'll do it. But now be gone, Brian. Be gone. [40:30] Mark: You're getting rung up, dude. [40:32] JD: That's good. I mean, I like things that I can pick apart a little more. I honestly feel very, like, optimistic about for the spotlight. [40:41] Chad: I kind of like someone that dazzles us like that. That's my flashlight. I kind of like it when they dazzle us like that. Not something I thought about. [40:57] JD: I. I am seeing faith. And she made a post that caught my attention. It was about a new record keeper. And what caught my attention was she was saying, look, this is two sisters that founded this thing. Eliza Arnold and Isabel Arnold started Arnie. You heard it, Arnie. A, R, N, I, E. Do I drink for that? You know, creative little name, naming it a person in, in. Oh, I don't know, Justin. Maybe there's an answer to that. Might be in late 2020. You can go to their website. You can learn quite a bit. I'm assuming some of you guys kind of jumped on there a little bit. [41:46] Chad: I did not. [41:47] JD: Oh, well, thanks for the research, Chad. [41:51] Chad: Well, send an email. [41:52] JD: JD if, if you bump around the website, I think what you're going to find is this is someone's attempt. Someone. This is these two sisters attempt to start a company that doesn't want to invest in mutual funds, they want to invest in stocks. And if you listen to her story, which I heard on Face Clubhouse, hold a refresh show, she was a participant in a 401k plan. She has certain ESG beliefs and in the Target Date fund that was made available to her, it was investing in things that she didn't like and she wanted to find alternative, but she couldn't have any. Classic entrepreneur, right, Experience a problem, try to fix the problem. So self admitted. She's not from a finance background, which starts to get my blood boiling a little bit when I listen to her. But we'll get to that because I'm kind of a fan and kind of not a fan. The inspiration was to have investments that would be more personally aligned to people. Okay. And again, not mutual funds, but actual stocks. She went to her sister Isabel, who did have a finance background in wealth management. And their concept here at Arnie is to create individual portfolios for each employee again by using actual stocks. Chad hates it. He's left the building dog needs to go outside. Oh, it's fine. So I don't know, I can get a little deeper into this But I kind of feel on a negative side since I've been so positive today, like, wait a second, we're going back towards stocks and equities and, and not mutual funds. And pre. Done for you, but more so. The way I think about this is it's more like a managed account kind of thing. Like we're gonna, we're going to ask you questions, learn from you, and kind of build your thing for you. So if you don't like firearms or, I don't know, is pornography a part of mutual funds? I have no idea. [44:04] Michael Kushner: Should be [44:09] JD: out. I don't know. It's innovative. I'm going to go to you, Mark. Actually go to you, Kush. Outside the industry, person coming in thinking uniquely different, like not following our old template. Do we laugh at this and ridicule it or do we go, okay, maybe we should listen, is there, is there something to this? [44:34] Michael Kushner: It, it's worth a try. I mean, I, I looked at their, their website and kind of read the story earlier. I know you. And you know, you did send out an email with all the information for today, so. And I did actually read it. [44:45] JD: That's a copy. [44:47] Chad: Oh, gosh, I didn't get an email. [44:52] JD: Did I leave chat out. Sorry, go on. [44:55] Michael Kushner: It's, it's, is it worth a try? I, I think it's worth looking into a little bit. The biggest part I got from that, though is, you know, who and what my thought right away went to. Who is the fiduciary, you know, who, who acts as a fiduciary on this? Because if you're giving everybody kind of carte blanche to do what they want and then things go south, who, who's responsible for it? You know, that's, that's what was my first thought. [45:17] JD: Let's be, let's be fair to Arnie. I'm gonna have to assume that they're still going to use diversification, they're still going to use asset allocation. They're still going to ask you some questions. It's just, they're going to be able to now do a screen and say, look, because we're using stocks and not mutual funds, we can leave out certain types of companies. Like, it's easier for us to screen these things. I mean, that's, that's her goal. That's her end goal. That's why she's using stocks, because she's using mutual funds. Her hands are tied in a lot of those scenarios. I think this kind of comes to the, the ESG argument. And if you listen to yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll drink for that. If you listen to Brian Graf's newest podcast on to find contribution geeks, there's a great conversation with a Washington guy about this which is he's basically saying, look, you can invest in tree hugger stuff if you want to, that's fine, but it's got to follow the same quantitative and qualitative measures that anything else would. Meaning that cannot be your reason for investing in it. Or it can be, but it better pass all these, these things. And so to, to Kush's point, fiduciary alarms went off for me as I listened to her speak about her dream for this product. And I think she's a self admitted outside the industry. I don't think she understands that this is the employer's responsibility to make sure that they're feeding the right investments to their employees. And instead she wants to give the right of each employee to figure out what's right and what's wrong. And that kind of blows up our whole thing, doesn't it? Sorry, Chad. [46:57] Chad: I don't think she's trying to give the employees that the decision making ability. I think that they're saying we have the skill set to do this and we want to do it in this realm and we want to customize it for individuals, but we're not letting them make the decisions. I believe they're signing on as a fiduciary to those decisions and helping the individual participant build out a model portfolio is the way I understand it. [47:23] JD: It's no different than a personalized managed account for each person, which we accept in today's day and age. [47:31] Chad: Except most of the personalized managed accounts we see right now are still investing in the underlying core menu funds or mutual funds or exchange traded funds or collective investment. They're not going to direct equities in most of the managed accounts that we're seeing. [47:45] JD: I mean Nevin couldn't have stayed here long enough with us. He's retired. But I got. [47:51] Mark: It's past his bedtime. [47:53] JD: Right, right. I got to think he could poke some holes in this. If you think about litigation, sure. This is, this is putting. [48:00] Chad: And it's not scalable. In what? In what's being pitched. It's not scalable. I think it's Admiral admirable for the type of people they want to service. And jd, to your point, I had to go back and look at emails because the moment I looked up their logo I went, I know that logo. Oh, I had to make sure I didn't Sign an NDA. But as they brought Dang them up. [48:19] Michael Kushner: Oh there you go. [48:19] Chad: Drink that clients I did. I was reached out by their VP of operations because they're selling bundled services with no compliance arm. And so what did they want? They wanted someone to private label compliance services and do the act back. [48:36] JD: Yeah she's transparent about that. So on face show she actually said that she had two third party administrators. I'm assuming they're Bay Area shops that she was working with and vetting out and she, she was very transparent. She goes I want to actually just have one at the end. So we're going to pick one of these two. Okay. Before we wrap this one up. Yes, it's a new record keeper. Yes. They put themselves under the label Disruptor. What gets my heart going is like it's two sisters with a dream and a mission. I kind of like that. But what gets me. What gets me like being an is listening to her on faith show nice enough. Such a nice person and, and everyone should have be able to follow their dream. But. And she self admits this but she has no clue about our industry. No you. [49:26] Chad: You take that so personally and you're gonna have to get past it for innovation to come. It's not just going to be within our. [49:34] JD: So this is my question to you then. Is that innovation, that naive innovation in something that has very strict fiduciary rules and I'll drink ERISA law. Is that good or is that dangerous? Because from I just experienced something very dangerous last week with my bank. And by the way 401ks are serious. I don't think they should be in the hands of people who don't know what the they're doing trying. [50:00] Chad: I'm not disagreeing with that. And I think they need counsel and they need people to step in that do know the legal side of these programs. But. But you say it about every person and any technology coming into our space. Not just people that are actually dealing with assets because they're dumb. [50:15] JD: They don't know. They're like children. They're like. [50:17] Chad: They don't understand yet. They don't understand the intricacies of our actual business. But for many of these disruptors it's not about how to run an. In an actual deferral percentage test. It's about how to get technology to a more within our space to a much more modern realm. I had this conversation today with and I won't name them because I think they're a wonderful group of people. But do it. [50:41] Mark: You just say it They've been trying [50:44] Chad: to sell us for a decade to move our internal client relationship management system to them. And I essentially said, like, look, you guys are doing nothing different than what we're currently using. And the problem with what we're currently using is this technology was out 10 years ago, like, when I worked at Vail resorts, what, almost 20 years ago now. Justin. The data input was so simple. And to this day, like, what Brian was talking about, we're still not scrubbing W2s with any real technology. We're using human brains for everything because everybody wants to keep the technology in house and not let outside people come in and disrupt. [51:24] JD: I would like to see that innovation come from within. I don't think we need naive people who don't understand our industry. You know what else I don't like, and this is why I get upset, is they all talk about our industry like we're some kind of archaic dinosaur. And what they don't understand is she actually was very nice. On Face Podcast, she goes, I never realized how many passionate people were in this industry that, like, loved it. Like, it was an eye opener for her. And that kind of pisses me off. It's like they all look at us like we're like these boring people in suits and ties on legacy software. [52:03] Justin: Should you be pissed off at them or pissed off at us for not coming, you know, coming to the table with the technology to do all this that we always talk about could simplify our lives. [52:13] JD: Well, I think we could be better. [52:16] Chad: And so I heard, from an operations standpoint, fair enough, are we not archaeological? [52:24] JD: But they marry that. They marry that to this, like, lack of passion or something. And I think they forget that there's a lot of people in this industry that are really good at what they do and understand things. I will give her credit. She did something I love that a lot of these disruptors haven't done. You know how I've been pissed off that they're all talking about the, oh, we'll sign you up in three minutes or less kind of thing. On facing, she said, look, I realized that the one thing that has to happen face to face is the design call. Like, the design meeting. [52:55] Chad: You. [52:55] JD: You have to sit with a client and figure out if the match is right for them, if the eligibility is right for them. You can't make that a digital experience. And I was sitting at home going, hallelujah, finally one of these fuckers understands that. So anyways, we'll see how it goes. If I had to place bets, I'D put this one in the, the SVB camp. [53:16] Michael Kushner: But JD Just to help with your, help with your blood pressure, J.D. i think they're going to start offering Pepsi also, so I'll drink for that one. [53:25] JD: They did talk about crypto. They didn't talk about crypto. Let's play. [53:28] Justin: You know what else can help with your blood pressure? [53:31] Chad: Breathing [53:34] JD: the kush. Is that scientifically proven? Mark, if you've got a jet, this is no longer a 60 minute show. We've, we've things breathes and lives like a, like a wild animal in the forest. So if you got to go, you just kick out when you got to go. [53:50] Mark: Well, I'll say before I do go, I'm going to lay down my vote for chat bar champion. [53:56] JD: Fair enough. [53:56] Mark: And I'm just going to remind everybody I put it in the chat. But Maya's selling girl Scout cookies again. Just an FYI, they're having some supply chain issues and not all the varieties of flavors are available for shipping. So my hands are tied. [54:11] Chad: I'm sorry. [54:12] Mark: If you really want certain kind, they just don't work. [54:16] Justin: Why do you got to leave early, Mark? [54:18] Mark: It's my daughter's birthday and we're going to dinner. [54:20] JD: I feel like the regulators. If the regulators step in for the banks, they should step in for the cookies. [54:25] Mark: Oh, dude, there's, there's corrupt. Do you want us. Sorry, real quick and then I'll bounce. But there's a new flavor of cookie this year and some people got their hands on it before anyone else could. They sold out in less than one hour from the date that they were like opened up to order. And the Girl Scouts of America is investigating people because they're on ebay selling for three thirty dollars a box. Dude. [54:47] JD: Wow. [54:48] Mark: Yeah. So. [54:50] Speaker F: All right, I'm gonna go. [54:53] Chad: What? [54:53] Mark: No, no. [54:56] JD: Everyone, a round of applause for Mark Rogue Guy Palmini. He was the last one on today's show and he's the first one to leave. [55:04] Mark: Isn't that what they say great leaders do? First, last in, first out. Anyways, Carla M. She's my vote for chat bar. [55:12] JD: Oh, hey, and if you want cookies, we need a video for Maya on the show. [55:15] Mark: I know, I know. It'll be, it'll be bill next week. [55:18] Michael Kushner: Yeah. [55:18] Mark: Well, here, here's the link again. Later. See ya. [55:22] JD: Ya. [55:23] Mark: Thanks, Kush. Good seeing you. [55:25] Michael Kushner: All right, we're gonna play a game. [55:27] JD: We're gonna play a game. We're gonna play a game. Nope. Or dope. We've done that the last few weeks. Getting tired. We're gonna play for me. I really like. [55:38] Chad: Oh, yes. Bring it. [55:41] JD: Come on, Brandon. Leave me hanging. For me I really like. For me I really like to. Do this in a while. That's a good one to send like a shit ton of. Oh my God, Samson. What if we. [56:11] Chad: Maya genius. [56:15] JD: What if I buy Maya out? What if I buy her for like the next two months and then we got to find out what her. [56:20] Justin: Her goal is. Remember, she's competing for this shit too. [56:23] JD: Oh my God. I think I'm going to do this. I like this. I like this idea. I don't know if that's where Samson was going, but we'll go next level with that. [56:30] Justin: Samson gets my vote. [56:32] JD: Okay, cool. Cool. Is that your what I really like or just your boat? No, no, we're gonna go to you Kush. The Cushionator. The master Kush General. What was he. What was the name you gave us? [56:48] Michael Kushner: Kushmaster General. [56:49] JD: Master General. It's simple. Anything in life. It could be a movie, could be a show, could be a. I don't know, a game you played recently, but anything. Tell us what you're digging in life right now. What do you really like? [57:03] Michael Kushner: Honestly, one of the things that I'm really proud of right now is both of my sons are about to become Eagle Scouts. All their paperwork's in there, are going to have their board of review next weekend, so. And there they are. Actually, I've been their, their leader since they were in kindergarten and they're both juniors in high school now. So, you know, it's been. It's a whole, a whole big thing for me. But I'm really, I'm really proud of them. I will tell you that they did take the Procrastination merit badge. I always joke around about that when new families actually come over to our troop. I always tell the families, if you're going to become an Eagle Scout, do it by your sophomore year of high school. Because that's when the fumes kick in. The perfumes and the car fumes. And then after that they take the procrastination merit badge. But they just finished up. My one son did his project, his Eagle Scout project. So they'll have their board of review on the official Eagle Scouts next week. [57:57] JD: I don't know the details of this. Um, I actually went to Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts and got California. I went to like the meeting where you sit down and I don't think they like long haired surfer kids. Somehow I wasn't invited back or something. I'm kidding. [58:14] Chad: I don't know. [58:14] JD: But I. But I bailed. I've always known that an Eagle Scout, at least society has taught me that it's a very big deal. Like, is it. How intense is it? Kush, it really is. [58:27] Michael Kushner: It's, you know, so just from a number perspective, less than 4% of boys that actually go through Boy Scouts actually earn the rank of Eagle Scout. It gets stapled to every job application, every college application you fill out for the rest of your life. I mean, it really is an elite core. And, you know, I mean, honestly, you know, when you look at it for me, I mean, I was in Boy Scouts for a year and I stopped going. And when I. When we have a Boy Scout, an Eagle Scout court of honor, I usually give a speech. And one of the speeches I talked about and I gave the one time was, you know, what is an Eagle Scout really worth? I mean, when you look at it to the Scout store, you know, it's about $25 to buy your neckerchief and your award to the military, it's about, you know, $3,000, because that's the difference between the pay grade, because Eagle Scouts go in at a higher pay grade right away. But, you know, to someone like myself and to other Scouts who, who didn't finish, it's invaluable because, you know, we'll never, ever be able to reach that, that goal. Never be able to get it. You know, once you turn 18, it's game over. So, no, they're. They're both 17. They'll be 18 at the end of August, so they'll get a chance to, you know, to wear their Eagle Scout neckerchief and go to summer camp this year as Eagle Scout. So it's. It really is. It really is an honor for them. And it's, you know, for me to see them go from. From kindergarten all the way through to this, this rank, it's going to be. I'll be an emotional mess next week when they have their board of review. I promise I'll have to send you a video of that. [59:57] JD: Very cool. I was gonna say a bad joke, but I'm gonna stick with very cool. Good job, coach. [1:00:02] Michael Kushner: What kind of joke? A fat joke? [1:00:04] JD: No, I was gonna say it, but it's also harder for them to get chicks, but they'll get past that. They'll get that later in life. Joking. I'm sure women love that stuff. Like, you're like a. You're kind of like a mini version of like John Jack Ryan or Something that's. [1:00:18] Chad: I don't know. I was just gonna say, look at more Keanu. [1:00:22] Michael Kushner: The funny thing is, you know, this is. It's a really funny story. I'll make this. I'll make this quick so we can. You can get on. But, you know, I. I gave a talk one time about this, and I had. There was a scout that was in my troop that was being bullied for being in Scouts. You know, he wears uniform and he was getting bullied all the time. So he finally said to this one kid who was giving him a hard time, he said, dude, what's your problem with Boy Scouts? And the kid said to him, it's not cool. And this scout, who was like 13 years old, replied with. He goes, I carry a knife, I light fires, I shoot guns, and I go camping. What's not cool about that? And it was like the end. I was like, you know what? Attaboy. So it's. It's pretty cool. [1:01:00] JD: Yeah. That's great. We do need a. We need a pr. Damn it. We need a manager for them to work on their public relations. We need to put them in, like, camo and shit and like. Like war face paint on them or something like that will be. Look, I think. Justin, give me your. What you really like. [1:01:18] Justin: It's back. Ted Lasso. [1:01:21] JD: What? [1:01:22] Justin: I didn't know. [1:01:24] JD: I didn't know. [1:01:25] Justin: This started last night, buddy. [1:01:28] JD: Can you binge it? No. Oh, my God, Justin. Like, welcome. This is why we do this segment. I think I could leave this show and walk over to my TV and watch this right now. Yeah, as you should. [1:01:43] Chad: Now we know what you're doing. [1:01:45] JD: How's. How's F1? [1:01:47] Justin: Oh, Nate's an. This is amazing, man. [1:01:50] Speaker F: It's. [1:01:51] Justin: It's good. It's gonna be good. [1:01:53] JD: And I guess, Justin, you would recommend to anyone listening if they haven't seen season one, season two, like, binge it. No brainer, right? [1:02:00] Justin: They're 30. They're with 30 minute episodes. You can get through the whole season in three hours. [1:02:05] JD: And this is like a feel good episode of Retireholics currently. But such a feel good show. Ted Lasso like it is, fills you full of love and comedy and makes the world seem like a great place. Okay, Chad, I have two. [1:02:21] Chad: I have two one ties to your comment to Kush earlier. I am hooked on the show Seals. I think that we've probably. It's. I never heard of it. It's old, but I'm hooked on it. So I'm on season two, like episode six. I Stayed up till midnight two nights in a row watching. It was very late. [1:02:40] JD: Just because it's old doesn't mean you don't let people know. Sometimes you find a nugget that and everyone nobody knew. [1:02:45] Chad: Yeah. And it was. It's. It's awesome. But what, what I was sitting on the couch watching till late last night was the wonderful baseball that is being played right now in the World Baseball Classic. Damn, that was exciting. Seeing Dominican fall, watching the US Win, seen the celebration. I don't know if Greg is still here, but seeing the celebration from Puerto Rico. [1:03:07] Justin: What about what's from the Mets? [1:03:09] Chad: Terrible. That's what I'm saying. The celebration from Puerto Rico and him go down like it's just. For a baseball purist like me, it's such a fun time to catch. What's going on? [1:03:19] JD: What's the buzz kill, Sampo? [1:03:21] Chad: Chad, the closer for the Mets was celebrating after the win last night, blew out his knee and is out for the season. And he's. I mean, I won't say arguably he's the best closer in the entire game. Like Diaz is incredible. He's done for the year. [1:03:37] JD: Kind of a scar on the Atlantic itself, right? [1:03:41] Chad: Absolutely it is. [1:03:42] JD: Why are we letting our athletes go do that if they're gon themselves up? [1:03:46] Chad: Well, it's. It's bigger than that. It's like the Olympics. It's like the basketball players playing in the Olympics and now golfers and other people who are have a season by season sport. But it's a big. It's a big thing for baseball. It's showing great because the competition is good and it's exciting. I will say as a nerdy dude, as you know, getting ready for my fantasy draft on Saturday, I'm not picking pitchers that are throwing in the World Baseball Classic right now. [1:04:12] JD: The. [1:04:12] Chad: As a pitcher starting that early, throwing this long, it's not good for you. Those are going to be the guys hurt by the end of the season. [1:04:19] JD: Just sense. So I not only disagree with you on pulled employer plans but. And you played baseball. I get why you're vetting yourself to make this opinion that you think it's like watching paint dry. I cannot wait for the baseball season to start. And I love watching the San Francisco Giants every day in my house. I totally disagree with you and I'm not a ghost sports guy, but I'm into baseball. You had another one chattered. [1:04:46] Chad: No, those two SEAL team, SEAL team [1:04:48] JD: and okay, well mine. I'm sure everyone's checked this box, but to Chad's point of. Of SEAL Team or whatever. You can go back. This isn't that old, but it's still old. I am watching with my father in law, by the way. My wife flew to Miami. I'm here with my mother in law, my father in law. That's fun. And my father in law and I are watching 1923, the Yellowstone before. In between the 18, whatever. And the. You know, the in between with Harrison Ford and what's that chick's name? Helen Mirren. Yeah. Oh my God, bro, we're on. So Kate Clark. So good. [1:05:33] Chad: Yeah. [1:05:34] JD: Oh, I can't. [1:05:35] Chad: She said so slow. Kate said slow. [1:05:38] JD: It is. [1:05:39] Chad: They drop. They drug out a couple of episodes. But that's kind of setting with the time. [1:05:43] JD: She's right. And I'm actually right in that slow period right now where we're waiting for Spencer to get across the ocean and back to. So I don't know what's going to happen yet. I still got a few left. But I. I just love that damn show. The only thing I don't like about it is it's only me and my father in law watching it. You know, he's as old as time. And you old people. Yeah. And then it's us, late night, sitting there. And then there'll be like there was only just a few episodes ago. There's like a naked sex scene. And it's just like you could cut the. What do they say? Cut the air with a knife. Like it's awkward for me sitting there with him when there's. Yeah, cut the tension. And there's sex happening on the screen. And I kind of want to look at papa and be like, yes, that's a naked woman. They're having sex. Should we talk about this? It's weird. We're just sitting here in silence watching it together. That's my only part. Kate's laughing at me at least. Okay, so yeah, 1923. Best ever in my opinion. Chopper champion. [1:06:43] Chad: Ouch. Kate. Nice. [1:06:44] JD: Kate. How do you think you know. Whoa. They had sex. Oh, God. Nana. Papa. My Lord. We. Last week we had two chat bar champions. Doesn't happen often, but we had a live audience. And hey, thank you to everyone that tuned in last week. Apparently it went off okay. We have not seen it ourselves or heard it ourselves, but we've gotten some feedback that the audio and the video were. Were halfway decent. So that was good news for us to hear. But we had two winners for chapter champion. Michelle Cobble Coble. She's in Oklahoma. I sent her when I Went to a local barbecue spot in her area. I caught my attention. I could order meat by the pound and I thought, that sounds interesting. So this is simple. No long list to go through. I just ordered her three pounds of sliced brisket, and I thought that a pint of Billy's barbecue beans on side would be good. You know it was Pinterest. Yeah, it was 110 bucks or something. She lives in Oklahoma, so three pounds of sliced brisket. Hopefully she can do something with that. I don't know if she's here. Oh, yeah, she's here. Who's yummy? Wow. Michelle, slow down. You ate all three pounds of it already. Jesus Christ. The other winner was Carla. I mean, this last name. Let me spell it for you here in the chat bar. This is her last name. G, O, E, D, T, K, E. [1:08:21] Chad: Hey, she got Mark's vote tonight, too. [1:08:23] JD: Pronounce that for me. Get key. [1:08:26] Chad: Get key. [1:08:27] JD: I think it's pronounced goetic. And Carla Goetteke from Minnesota. Oh, you betcha. Minnesota. [1:08:37] Chad: That's where your in laws are from. [1:08:39] JD: Well, depending upon how you look at this, you either lucked out or you lost out. There's so much snow and there. The delivery services would not go to her location. It's. They're not recommending travel in the area. I've never seen something like that on these apps. They said for the safety of our drivers, they cannot deliver. So again, depending how you look at this, we're just going to send you some swag. We'll send you some retireholic swag. You know, look at Kush. Can you model this? The hoodie? Maybe we'll send her something like that. So we'll send you stuff in the mail. There you go. Those are last time's winners. I feel like I've got one foot in the show and one foot out because I want to run and watch Ted Lasso. So, Justin, you're. Yes. By the way, Carla got her fart today. Oh, damn it. Oh, congrats. [1:09:29] Chad: Congrats. Accredited retirement retirement technician. [1:09:35] JD: She commented that she's trapped in a blizzard and. And watching Zoom meetings and she's, you [1:09:43] Michael Kushner: know, she's ready for some alcohol. JD if you can send her some alcohol. [1:09:46] JD: Well, I tried. Nothing could get her. Nothing. You get there. I just figured I'd go back and send her a hoodie or something later and a hat and whatever. But congrats to them because they were the audience champions of chat bar like. Okay, so let's vote for this week's chat bar champion. Whoever's still around. Everyone's still around. They all stuck around. God bless you people for hanging out. [1:10:11] Chad: You keep talking. [1:10:12] JD: I know, I know, I know. Should I keep talking? [1:10:17] Chad: No. [1:10:18] JD: What do you guys want to talk about? Okay, Chad, go, go, go. [1:10:22] Chad: I actually had Christina Jones in here, but she's gone. I'm checking right now to make sure the three that I wrote down are still here. [1:10:29] JD: Robi rules. They gotta be. [1:10:30] Chad: I'm using Roby rules, so. So Christina's out for me. Some of Kate's late comments were stellar. [1:10:39] JD: I. [1:10:41] Chad: It's a hard one. Hack had two. I'm mad at Mike Decento, so. You're not even close, Mike. Although you made, you made the top five. [1:10:48] JD: Why are you mad at him? [1:10:49] Chad: Because he's talking on baseball and how boring it is. [1:10:52] JD: Okay. [1:10:52] Chad: How many years I've heard that crap for? Just because you can't appreciate true beauty. [1:10:59] JD: So much hate on this show. I feel like I know it. [1:11:02] Chad: All right, so I'm going with. I'm go. I'm going with Kate Clark. Kate gets my vote. [1:11:08] JD: Okay. All right, all right, Kush. Who's your vote? [1:11:13] Michael Kushner: So it was really tough. It's, you know, it's interesting because I don't know how you guys do it, but I'm watching the, the camera and I'm also trying to glance over at the chat bar. It is hard usually, but I'm, I'm here, I'm just in the chat bar. But it's funny, the two comments that I was actually able to catch during this were completely inappropriate and sexual in nature. You like Tony Davis. I do, actually, but Tony Davis made. Made a comment with the flashlight scene or the segment and called it Fleshlight. And if you don't know, that is look it up. [1:11:43] JD: Okay. [1:11:43] Michael Kushner: Which was good. But I gotta be honest. Kate Clark's, um, last, uh, comment about your in laws having sex to make your wife. [1:11:49] Chad: Um, yeah. [1:11:50] Michael Kushner: You know, some things cannot be unseen, jd. So think about that when you're watching the show. What Your father in law tonight. Um, so Kate Clark is my vote. [1:11:58] JD: Well, Justin, we don't, we don't need your vote because I promised myself I was gonna vote for Kate as well. [1:12:07] Justin: He voted, bud. [1:12:08] JD: Oh, you did? Yeah. [1:12:12] Justin: Kind of like me earlier when the guest said the question. Yeah, the question I'd already asked three times. [1:12:16] JD: Although my excuse is not Mary Juana. I've been drinking tequila and vitamin C water, Budweiser and then Casamigos out of the bottle. Clearly lost it. So the winner tonight is Kate Clark. And Next week to send Kate. We're definitely gonna hop on. You're not getting food, Kate. That'd be too easy. I'm not gonna. [1:12:41] Chad: Can we team up? Can we team up for next week? [1:12:44] JD: Of course we can, because we did great last time we teamed up. Huh? [1:12:48] Speaker F: What happened? [1:12:48] JD: Cookies. Huh? [1:12:50] Chad: Are we not doing cookies? [1:12:51] Justin: Or is that in addition to it? [1:12:53] JD: Next week already? We'll do it after. Kate, you tell us, do you want girl scout cookies or do you want something that'll blow your mind? Let us know. Okay? [1:13:10] Chad: Yeah, she's gonna. She's gonna be in San Diego next week, right? I'll be national association of Plan Advisors. [1:13:15] JD: I won't be here for Napa week, but I'll be here for next week. The retire. Alex were not. We've talked about this before. We were not tired to work at Napa and I'm going surfing in Mexico. What's the ding ding? Me. [1:13:29] Justin: You said. [1:13:29] Chad: Yeah, you said. National association of Plan Advisors. [1:13:33] JD: How many times? [1:13:34] Speaker F: Twice. [1:13:35] Justin: You're not going to be here next week. [1:13:36] Chad: I'm going to sip some casamigos now. After seeing you sip that, I won't [1:13:40] JD: be here for na. The National Association Plan Advisor, whatever they call their conference because we didn't get [1:13:49] Chad: hired to do that. [1:13:50] JD: And anyway, we're. We're rambling. I'm rambling. So, yeah, it's been another great episode. Kush. Actually, that was a lie. It was a pretty decent episode. It was. Okay. I give it a 6.5 out of 10. How do you rate the episode out there? So Brandon gives it that you let us know right now. I want to keep. I want to do this. Actually, I. Every week you let us know 0 to 10 in the chat bar. How did you think tonight's. [1:14:18] Chad: I don't want to watch. [1:14:22] JD: Yeah, maybe if we go flow of six. Two weeks in a row. Retirehawks is over forever. [1:14:30] Chad: You know what I love we said this Kush when. When we sat and hung out. I don't remember where we were. Was that Vegas? [1:14:36] Michael Kushner: Vegas. [1:14:38] Chad: Like you sitting on the couch with us is just like another retireholic. We're so comfortable hanging out with you. It's awesome, dude. Thank you. [1:14:45] Michael Kushner: I mean, this is so awesome. And you know what's really funny? When I was watching Justin plays up when he was introducing me here. 420 is actually a Thursday night and you know, we. I'm available. I'm available if you want it again, but I know there's a million other guests. I mean, this is just an honor to be here. Two times in a row since October. So we've. [1:15:07] JD: We've talked about doing. [1:15:11] Chad: We have. We've talked about not drinking. I would be a damn mess. But I mean, hilarious. [1:15:15] JD: I mean, I would have to leave. I would have to leave for the ER in the middle of the show. Ambulance will come. I'll drink for that. We got an eight. [1:15:25] Justin: Still drink. But every actress just a hit instead that day. How about that? [1:15:30] JD: Yo, to back up, Chad Kush, thanks for being our special guest. Appreciate it. More importantly, thanks for being a longtime chat bar family retire. Alex. Family. We love it. We love you. I hope that bottle's okay. I wanted to get you whistle Pig. That's apparently a good whiskey, so try it. I don't know, man. It's. [1:15:52] Michael Kushner: It's a lot. [1:15:53] JD: Thanks to all you out there for tuning in and for sticking around. We'll see you next Thursday night. That's Silent J over there and that beautiful shiny head and that beard. That's nerdy. Chad. Chad Johansson in the quarter zip. Classic Chad. Quarter zip. The Kush, the Cushionator, Fireball Mic. And my name is is Fred Reese. And tune in next week. [1:16:25] Chad: Good night, everybody. Night, guys.