Trump Accounts vs. 529s + Fiduciary Conflicts

[0:00] JD: See all the people come in on Thursday night, so hopefully they'll pile in. For those of you are here, welcome. Here we go. You're going to have a really, really bad time, sir. This let me up. [0:23] Mark: Hit me up. You're going to have a real bad time. [0:26] JD: Welcome Everybody to the second to last retireholics of 2025. My name is James Douglas Carlson V. And I am joined by silent J, Justin McNeil. And live straight from the Farmers Insurance Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, we have nerdy Chad, Chad Johansen. Welcome to the show, Chad, and everybody's favorite retireholic. [1:01] Mark: You make Mark so uncomfortable with this robe guy. [1:06] JD: My God. [1:08] Mark: Jeez, look at that picture. I mean, I'm kind of hot for you, Mark. [1:12] Chad: I think, I think, I think Ben just threw up in his mouth a little bit there. [1:17] JD: If you want that same image, all you have to do is go into ChatGPT. I'll drink and say, make me a slightly sexier rogue guy. That's what will come out. Justin, let's get right to it. Can you intro our guest? [1:35] Justin: He's a fee based advisor and fellow, much less shittier podcaster with over 400 episodes and one of the silkiest smooth radio voices ever. He was previously named the top 40 under 40 by Investment News. He and his wife share six kids, three of which are triplets, which explains the nice sheen emanating from the top of his head there. At the age of 19, a man told him if he came to work for him, he could blow shit up on the weekends. And thus began his eight year career in the Army National Guard, which included a 15 month deployment to Iraq where he disposed of artillery rounds and improvised improvised explosive devices. Thank you for your service and please don't hurt me for the balding joke. The founder of Capital City Wealth Management. There you go. Don't interrupt me again. The founder of Capital City Wealth Management, host of the Retirement Starts Today radio podcast and I believe the first ever guest from North Dakota. Question mark. Amy, please welcome Mr. Benjamin Brant. [2:27] Chad: Might be the only person ever from there. [2:30] Mark: No. Geez. Shamanda. Amanda Iverson is originally from North Dakota. [2:38] JD: Well, did she didn't come? [2:40] Mark: Yeah. [2:40] JD: She's not there from there though. [2:42] Mark: No. [2:43] JD: Ben let me know in the pre show that there's literally only like a few hundred people that live in that state, so it's hard to get them from there. [2:52] Benjamin Brant: True. [2:54] JD: Let's see real quickly before we get started, I would like to celebrate. I don't know Brandon, if you have this queued up, but we're the retire holics are big time. We have landed our second industry magazine cover brand. Oh, there it is. Does it count? Does this count, Ben, when you made the COVID Because they reprinted a smaller version of the COVID you were originally on. [3:20] Benjamin Brant: I'd count it. [3:21] Chad: Cover, cover, Inception. [3:23] Mark: Yeah. [3:25] Justin: Brandon, magnifying that for us. [3:27] Mark: Yeah, and they had like hundreds to choose from, all the episodes or all the different covers they put out, and they chose us. [3:33] JD: Very true, very true. What if John called in and they did not? Okay, so let's celebrate the RetireHolic second cover by spinning the wheel of ice. Let's spin it and get it out of the way. [3:46] Justin: Come on, Mark. [3:49] Mark: Worry Ben. [3:49] JD: We'll talk financial stuff very soon. [3:59] Justin: I'll do it for you, buddy. [4:00] Chad: I got you. [4:03] Mark: No, no, no, no. [4:05] Chad: Spin it again. [4:11] JD: Chad doesn't have an ice. [4:13] Mark: I asked the guys earlier. I don't have one. [4:16] Chad: I want to see how rigged this is. Just go and chat again. Oh, there we go. [4:23] JD: Okay, well, Justin pounds that smearing off ice. Brandon, let's. Let's get started. Let's do some headlines. Let's get to it. Trump accounts people. There's an article on the national association of Plan Advisors. Treasury unveils preliminary details about Trump accounts. I asked good old. [5:00] Chad: He approved that visual. [5:05] JD: That's a great visual. It's good to see that the people at the national association of Plan Advisors are using AI to create their images. Good for them. Lazy saps. Yeah, yeah. Let's talk about this. [5:20] Chad: I made that. [5:22] Benjamin Brant: Oh, you did? [5:24] JD: Okay. [5:26] Speaker F: It was better than my first option. [5:29] JD: My bad, my bad. And this is great because Ben can. Can chime in on this because I wouldn't really call this 401k at all. Let's see. This is a pilot program where every child who's a US citizen born between January 1, 2025 and the end of December 2028 will automatically receive a one time federal contribution of 1000 bucks deposited into their account. And then it's going to grow until they reach age 18 and some low cost index fund or something, I don't know, we can talk about that. But apparently family members, different people, businesses can also contribute money into these accounts. And then in some bigger news today, I saw that Michael and Susan Dell of Dell Computers have seeded some of these Trump accounts with $6.25 billion. Kudos to them. I mean, however you feel about this. I don't, I don't know if anyone can feel negatively about this. Maybe we'll see. But wow, they did that. And apparently that's going to target some kids that will not fit into this January 21, 2025 thing. So these are kids who are less than 10 years old. They're gonna, they're gonna miss out on this, this one. And so they're helping these kids out. And these are targeted zip codes where the 150k or less. And apparently they're going to reach like 80% of these kids in this age group and yada, yada, yada. I'm going to go straight to our guest. This is good, right? You got to love this as a financial guy, that we're putting money in early for the youth and letting it grow through compounding. [7:23] Benjamin Brant: Yeah, I mean, it's free money. It's hard to say no to. So if you're a baby born this year, or apparently until they decide to quit, you're going to get at least 1,000 bucks, maybe 1250. And you put the. It sounds like there's a very limited number of custodians, but I assume Fidelity, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, probably the usual suspects. And they make you put it in low cost index funds and ETFs and it grows to 18 and little strange that it's going to be funded like a. Oh, what did I say, 401, 529. [7:54] JD: No. [7:55] Justin: Exchange rate fund. [7:58] Mark: Well, no. Yeah, you can use, you can use exchange traded funds or mutual funds. [8:02] JD: Oh, did he say. [8:03] Justin: Well, he said the acronym of it etf. [8:05] Chad: That was the actual. [8:06] JD: You said it again. That's two swigs from your. [8:11] Benjamin Brant: Drinking a nice Irish whiskey out of a coffee cup in my office here. [8:15] JD: Perfect. [8:15] Benjamin Brant: But basically, I love, I love the Trump accounts, but I wouldn't put a dollar in them. I would put all the money in the 529. The 529, now that it has, you can roll it into a Roth when you're done with it. There's no reason to put money anywhere [8:26] JD: else, I don't think, Chad. [8:27] Benjamin Brant: Right. [8:28] Mark: Well, I was just. That's exactly what I was going to say. I saw Webby post it too, and when I read it, that was my first thought. If you're going to get free money, I get it. But if you're not going to get free money, why would you not use a 529 and go this route? It's after tax money. There's more. I'll say there's a little less flexibility. Right. Then in a 529 in terms of what you can do with it on the back end of accessing those dollars. [8:51] Benjamin Brant: Well, it's as broad as it's ever been. You know, you can. I mean, back when we went to school, it was like you could use it for tuition only, but now you can use it for computers. You can use it for. There's almost no limit to what you can use it on, and call it an educational expense. But then if you don't use all the money, which not many people are graduating college, I think with a surplus of resources. But you can just roll it back to the. To a Roth IRA. You can turn it into a Roth IRA if it's 15 years old now, so. [9:16] JD: Oh, that's too. [9:18] Mark: You're gonna hit hard with this, man. [9:19] Benjamin Brant: I have to say Individual retirement account. [9:22] JD: Yeah. Yeah, you do. Good Lord, do it. [9:24] Chad: Hold on. [9:24] Speaker F: Timeout. [9:25] Chad: Dude. Are you aware of the rules? [9:27] JD: Yeah, he is. [9:28] Benjamin Brant: I'm aware of the rules. [9:28] Speaker F: Okay. [9:29] Mark: Okay. [9:29] JD: Okay. Well, I will sponsor your Uber home from the office if need be later today. You had mentioned that. I think you're about to spit it out earlier, that this will become. The gains here will become taxable. It'll. It'll be treated like a traditional individual retirement account, which is fine. You two of you now have said free money. I don't want to be like the. The anti. Guy. [9:55] Mark: Individual. [9:56] JD: Let's not. Let's not forget that this is federal money. So I don't. I don't like to consider that free. It comes out of people's pockets. But with that said, we spend a lot of our tax money on things, and this seems like a pretty good thing to spend it on in my mind. [10:14] Mark: So what are we. What are we getting right now? $30 billion a month in. In tariff money. So maybe. Maybe that's where this is coming from. [10:22] Chad: JD stop leaning on Justin. [10:26] Justin: Can you, like, get off of me, please? [10:27] Mark: Yeah, I'm in a movable chair here. I'm not used to having this kind of flexibility. [10:31] JD: I just mean to. If you put in a thousand dollars now and we grow that thing for someone who's younger, let's just call it 15 year period, you know, it's going to be a decent little chunk of change through growth. We get really kind of educate people on the power of compounding and what it is to have an account like that, that could be a huge influence on creating future savers or something. I think there's a lot of, like, positive ramifications that could come from this. [11:02] Benjamin Brant: The alternative is Robinhood accounts. Right. And gambling on. On meme coins. Right. I mean, let's teach kids index funds and Buy and hold and, you know, it's a cheaper way to learn good lessons, I think. [11:12] Mark: Could we, could we see at some point, if I put on like, and I mean a big, thick conspiracy foil hat right here. Could we see at some point the government stepping in and saying as a hedge to the issues we have with Social Security, instead of having people starting to contribute to Social Security when they start working at 18 or 24 or 25, that we're gonna start putting $250 into every newborn's account and they can't access it until they're 65 or 72. Who knows what it'll be at that point. But something like that, where they can use compounded growth, where they can invest it essentially in some sort of government style securities to make themselves some wiggle room there too. I could see this being that, this being a bridge to that. [11:53] JD: Chad, there are some very successful smart people that have always made those comments about Social Security saying if we would have instead invested that money and some type of, you know, prudent investment over time, it would be massive at this point now, easy to say that looking back and what Marcus have done. But yeah, you're not alone in that, in that thinking. So let's, let's move on from the Trump accounts. And since we're talking about making money, [12:31] Chad: are we, Are we just going to glance over the fact that we're not a politician, not gonna. We're not a political show. But an asinine thing. What an asinine thing to do. To name it after yourself. [12:42] JD: Just give. Come on. [12:43] Justin: I mean, are you surprised, though? [12:47] JD: I agree. [12:47] Justin: 100%, I don't think. [12:50] Chad: Great point, Chad. [12:54] Justin: All right, trumps.com. [12:56] Chad: these aren't actually going. Are we just calling it this because we're putting a name on this or is this not what they're actually the. [13:03] Justin: I thought I saw that there was a website like trump account.com or something. [13:08] JD: I think it might be in the legal. [13:09] Mark: Or. [13:10] JD: Yeah, I think it might be in the legal language for sure. [13:12] Justin: Trumpaccounts.gov I don't know. [13:15] Chad: Sorry, I just, I just read that. All I kept thinking was like, in, in context, this is a great thing. It's a good start for things that we need to do for the future of our world. But come on, what's the name got to do with. [13:30] JD: Can I jump on your political bandwagon? And I have seen some people say on TV that, oh, I'll drink for that. That, that this is a political thing, that this is. Oh, he's just trying to gain favor with the American public by creating these little things for the people. Because this is, what do they call that? Those like 90 issues, right? This is like a 100 issue where everyone's gonna like, this is a great thing. And so people are saying, oh well, he's just selfishly doing it. So people say, wow, look what Trump did. What a great guy. But whatever, I digress, I'll drink. [14:07] Chad: Sorry, we're being too PC on that. I just had to be, I was curious. [14:11] Justin: Got us all round up there, Mark. [14:12] Benjamin Brant: More people would open it if it had a different name. [14:15] JD: Oh great. [14:16] Mark: That would be a fun study, right? [14:19] JD: Well, yeah. At least half the country is going to say that. I'm not doing that. [14:25] Benjamin Brant: Color me surprised. Who knew the guy that he, he puts his name in 40 foot gold letters on his building. Who knew that guy would be self absorbed? [14:31] Speaker G: That's a surpr. [14:34] Justin: Never saw that coming. [14:35] JD: I'll tell you what, if you really want to compound your money, Ben, I've got a treat for you today. And we usually do this late in the show, but no, we're gonna lead with the good stuff tonight. We're gonna lead with the good stuff. That gentleman in the robe, he is a stock picker like you've never seen before in your life. There's something magical about him. We call this segment Drunk Stock Tips. [15:14] Chad: I need to, I need to state the legal disclaimers and it's not like, oh, don't listen. This isn't legal advice. That's, that's not what I'm saying at all. I'm saying I'm not drunk yet, so this doesn't necessarily count. [15:26] JD: Well, you might be off your game. [15:28] Justin: There we go, building an excuse. [15:30] JD: I did not not see that as a potential con of, of doing this earlier. [15:34] Chad: It's the name of the segment, dude. [15:36] JD: Yeah, right. My bad, my bad. I do want, when I talk about this magical thing, there has been some really spooky, weird stuff happening around drunk Stock Tips. I don't know if people have noticed this but like Mark will mention yay or nay on like an airlines and the next day a plane will crash. And, and, and recently we asked him about what was the people who make a Grand Theft auto a take two something. And the following day the stock crashed by 10% like a big fall you've never seen before. And so I really do feel like whether it's the institutional investors or whether it's just the universe that we live in, when Rogue guy talks about stocks Things start happening in a really weird way. So pay attention today, see if I can find you. [16:32] Chad: As you were talking. I forget who said it. Samson said ice him again. I haven't been ice yet, Jim, but just for you, I'm gonna do this while JD's telling me the stock. [16:44] JD: Okay, I believe in 2025 there, this company is set to do about 105 billion in revenue. This is down from the previous years. I think last year it did 106, the year before that like 107. So it should kind of a, just a, not a big decline, but a small decline over the last three years. They've got 440,000 employees and a price to earnings ratio of 11. I know that you weighed heavily on price to earnings. [17:14] Chad: Don't even know what that means when [17:16] JD: you make these calls. The stock has had a wide swing with a 52 week low of $83.44 and a 52 week high of $145. [17:30] Mark: Geez. [17:30] JD: I, I never shop here because they don't have the brands I'm looking for. [17:37] Chad: Target. Target. [17:39] JD: Yes sir. Yes sir. Target. [17:42] Chad: Wow. [17:42] JD: Target Court. Mark, what do you say? Do we buy this? Do we not buy this? And why? [17:51] Chad: Okay, no question, you don't have much to say about these things and I'm usually pretty boom about it, but Target, as, as simple as it might seem, throws a little bit of a curveball at me because it's, it seems so easy. Like. Yeah, of course, I mean Targets, where everybody shops, you get all your stuff there. I shop there all the time. It's easy peasy. It's a great, great spot. It's, it's a upper class Walmart, you know, and a, a lower class [18:23] Benjamin Brant: whatever [18:23] Chad: is above Target shop. Apparently I don't shop at those places. And it's got, that's, I see it right there, Chad. Yeah, it's got a Starbucks inside. That's always a bonus. You get a little coffee while you're shopping. They got a good partnership going on there. [18:42] Mark: Tell everybody your secret. [18:45] Chad: It's not my secret. It's Instagram secret. You get free refills if you shop at Target. So if you go to Starbucks, you buy a coffee, you can go back and say, I'm still shopping. Could have another one. They have say, yeah, so, yeah, cheat code. I've never done it because I get too embarrassed to ask for things like that. But I'm gonna. This is, this is the holiday season. So j, you talk about, I, I talk about a stock when something happens, we're going through crazy Christmas time right now. Of course the stock's gonna take off, but it is. It's one of those ones that you can trust, tried and true. I don't think they have any egg on their face just yet. No problems out there. So I'm going to Target. Target as a stock to pick. [19:27] Mark: Yes. [19:28] Chad: I'm a buy. [19:28] JD: Okay, there's a buy. Spy on Target. Ben, do you. Do you fancy the Target? Do you shop there? [19:36] Benjamin Brant: Sure, yeah, I'll shop at Target. I'm really more of a Walmart guy, you know. [19:40] JD: Okay. I find it take a boy out [19:42] Benjamin Brant: of the trailer park, you know, all that good stuff. [19:45] JD: I find it tough to find the Gucci and the YSL in those. Those stores. But [19:53] Mark: okay, J something. And it makes me think of holiday shopping and then the play on a place like Target. The economist that was here from JP Morgan this morning had some really interesting insights. John, Pure point, whatever it is, something like that. He had some super interesting insights on the tax cuts that the Trump administration pushed through and why they made them retroactive to January 1st versus starting them in June when they were approved, or starting them January 1st of 2026. And part of the thought was everybody's going to get a larger tax return in January, February and March. The average tax return last year for Those that received one was about 3,000. It's expected to be 4,000 this coming year. And he's. What he's saying is this is the administration's way of essentially creating an influx of money into spending because the families that will be getting credits will go to Target, they'll go to Walmart, they'll spend this money. He's an Irish guy, he's like, what do you Americans do when you get money? You go spend it. And so that's what he's thinking people are going to do on it. But so when you said Target, I'm like, shit, people are going to be spending more money in Q1 when they start getting these larger tax returns than they were expecting. [21:08] JD: We'll see. I've also seen a lot of economists that are really worried about discretionary spending right now across the country, especially in the lower income, you know, segments like I've heard a lot of studies where any spending that's been happening over the Last kind of 18, 24 months is the rich people continue to spend and they spend more, but the people that aren't so rich are struggling to spend money. And so discretionary spending, Christmas, those types of things. There's people that feel like Those are going to suffer over the next month and into the new year, but we'll see. [21:43] Mark: He did this super interesting take on the three ways of looking at the, you know, how we're doing as an economy. The first one was let's go ahead and look at consumer sentiment. Like, how do people feel we're doing? What do those studies tell us? And then he went in and said, well, what is gross domestic product doing? Like, what is that? What is our growth there? How is it looking? And then what is the stock market doing? And the stock market has been running, but the other two have not. And so he's like, so how do you classify how we feel about things as Americans? And he went into this whole spiel of like, it's somewhere in between the consumer sentiment and the gross domestic product that the stock market to most people feels fake at this stage, that we have this, this in this inflated growth for a number of years. [22:33] JD: Well, maybe talk about that when we talk about target date funds and Ron Serz's deal, which is on the docket. But let's go to this next one. Past guest on our show, David Blanchette. I think at the time was he was with Morningstar. He's since moved to. Dang it, I don't know what it stands for, so I'll just say it to P. Jim. He wrote an article in connection with Michael Fink talking about how the title of the article is Retirees Choose Saving, Not Spending in Retirement. And this is another one that I think Ben can really chime in on here. The research that they did found that people in retirement that had a income, and apparently the word income even was, was very important, but some type of income type of money coming in. And again, both these guys like to pitch guaranteed income sources for various reasons. And, but they said that these people, when they got that they were willing to spend it, these retirees were willing to spend it, but yet when they had actual investment accounts that they had built up over their lifetimes and saved this money, which is all very common, people were very hesitant to pull money from that. And I think they even used a 2.1% withdrawal rate. You know, we always hear about this kind of 4%, but so basically title the article these Retirees Are Saving instead of Spending. Ben, as a, as a financial advisor, part of me thinks like, that's a good thing, not a bad thing. But do you share their concern that people aren't spending enough in retirement? Or how did this article kind of [24:18] Benjamin Brant: make you think I did cover this article on my podcast, retirement starts today. If anybody wants to hear me drone on for 20 minutes about it. But plug, plug, yeah, we do podcast plugs, not hair plugs in North Dakota. So as you can tell. But I think, I think the big difference is they are talking their book a little bit. They want people to buy annuities, but they're right in that if mailbox money shows up that can't run out like a pension or an annuity or Social Security, people spend it. Just like your accidental stimulus check with bigger tax tax refunds, people will spend it. And so when, now if someone's got a multi million dollar portfolio, you know they're going to use something like the 4% rule or retirement income guardrails. It's going to become this money engine that's perpetual. But when you think about the average retirement account, if it's 200 grand, they're really treating that more like a super sized emergency fund than a perpetual income engine. And I think that's the big difference. If it's not, if it's not a perpetual income engine, it's I gotta, I'm behind on my property taxes or I gotta buy a car. They're just, they're just tapping it when they need money. It's not a monthly income kind of a thing. So I think that's kind of the big difference. And maybe that person should buy an annuity and it's, they'll actually spend the money in that way. But that's kind of two angles of why I understand why that rate is so small. [25:30] JD: I mean it wasn't surprising to me that this is the case. You just described it really well. But Chad, I'll kind of kick over to you. They also mentioned required minimum distributions in the article as, as another form where people would get their, the required minimum distribution and feel like, okay, I can spend this. Like the government forced my hand to take this. And they were, I feel like they were kicking around the idea that maybe we need more things like that, like involvement to force you to spend your money more. Which that kind of caught me off guard. [26:02] Mark: Well, forcing you to take it doesn't force you to spend it. To, to Ben's comment and the comment of the Economist is like, it seems like we do that, but this data is telling us maybe something slightly different. Jd, you said this didn't surprise you. This surprised the out of me. What surprised me most is that I expected people needed at least a 4% withdrawal rate to survive. [26:27] JD: How are they getting by? [26:28] Mark: Yeah, so, so this, these stats Like I, I haven't done enough research into it, but it made me sit back and go, maybe I'm a little bit wrong that people are doing well enough reaching retirement age to where maybe Social Security is doing a decent job. [26:44] JD: Ben, this goes straight to you because I, I feel like you actually focus on this type of shit a lot more than we do. We're in the kind of accumulation game in 401k. Like we focus really hard on building people's account balances. And in our industry, as self admitted, we don't do a very good job at helping them decumulate and kind of spend that money in retirement. But can you comment on Chad's point of. Because you kind of said earlier looking at 200k as like a big emergency savings. Chad just made this point of like, well, while people are doing so well, they only need to take 2.1. I'm imagining. You don't think that that's true? So how do people survive in retirement when they only got 200k and they're looking at it as emergency savings account account? [27:28] Benjamin Brant: Yeah. So yeah, decumulation is kind of 100% of what I do. You were kind of 1 mile wide and 10 miles deep. But granted, it's for super savers. It's for people that have at least a million dollars or more. So. So my experience with under that is anecdotal, but people figure out a way to live on reverse mortgages and two Social Security checks. And then that 100 grand that was in their 401k. That's for emergencies only. [27:49] JD: Fair enough. They scrape it. [27:51] Mark: Do you see a lot of these reverse mortgages? Well, I guess you don't in the, in the line of work that you're in. [27:57] Benjamin Brant: But I hear a lot about him. [27:58] Mark: Popular. [27:59] Benjamin Brant: I hear a lot about him. Yeah, you know, I'm. When, when the guy that was Monica's boyfriend on Friends with the mustache. I forget his name. Or the Fonz, you know, they're. Anybody that's pitching, you know, I'm, I'm immediately leery. What's that guy's name? He's got an amazing mustache. [28:17] Justin: Tom Selleck. [28:20] JD: He was dating her on Friends. I forgot about that. [28:22] Mark: Yeah, I did too. [28:24] Benjamin Brant: Oh, I've watched the whole series all the way through several times. [28:26] JD: Oh, yeah, Great. [28:27] Benjamin Brant: Not enough to remember that guy's name, [28:28] JD: obviously, but yeah, it's Magnum P.I. [28:31] Benjamin Brant: magnum P.I. that's it. [28:32] JD: That's. [28:33] Speaker F: Christ. [28:37] JD: Okay. Yeah, people are scraping it together. That's fair enough. I, I think that though that is Interesting to, to think about because even with David writing this article with Michael's help, it's like we, we are kind of funny 401k people in that we analyze stuff like this to see like where people are taking their money out. And I don't think that this article shows that we're doing anything right and how we do it. And so we do do need to work towards some better ways to help people accumulate. I mean obviously Ben can help people that fit his clients and they've, they've saved up enough money. But for the general folk or someone that's in between. I can't believe I'm going to say it now. I guess creating some type of standardized income check might be a good idea as opposed to having these, oh, this is going to sound very rude. JD These typically financially illiterate people try to manage this, you know, $400,000 huge emergency. They're going to fuck that up all kinds of different ways and they're going to unfortunately not have the best type of retirement that they could have. So should do something different. I don't know if guaranteed income is the way to do that, but in a, in a somewhat related article, check out Fred Barnstein. I'm always kind of pumping his stuff. He did his recent YouTube video and he talked about the fact that guaranteed income in 401k has been completely stagnant. That it has not, the needle has not moved I think in the last three years so much to the, I'm sure the depression of the Wolnowitz's and the people in our industry trying to push this stuff. It has not caught and it is not getting any type of pickup yet. So that story is still, still writing itself. Let's have some fun. Actually Ben, you're helping people with a million bucks. Let me ask you real quick, do you throw. Does annuities become part of your solution sometimes? [30:44] Benjamin Brant: No, I'm not a big annuities guy. I think, I think you can do everything an annuity can do in your Social Security benefits yourself. Like, like 7% of people wait until 70 and maximize the best annuity that the government ever created. [30:56] JD: Social Security. [30:58] Benjamin Brant: Yeah. So I mean way more people could wait until 70 if they want an annuity. I mean the, if I sold the [31:03] JD: product from your perspective, if I'm your client, that's my annuity, that's my guaranteed check. Now you're going to help me manage that million bucks to kind of pull additional money from that. [31:14] Benjamin Brant: And well, hedge inflation is the big thing we got to outgrow inflation because Social Security is going to partially keep up. Your pension's not going to keep up. Health care is a big part of it that's hyper inflated, it seems. And so we got to, we got to grow half of your money at least. And so that doesn't leave a whole lot to buy an annuity with. So maximize the annuity you got. Buy cheap index funds at least 60% of your money. [31:35] JD: Yeah, it's funny, my neighbor just sold his accountancy business and retired and he kind of came over to me and was like, hey, you're the 401k guy. Like, what do I do now? And I was like, bro, this is the most complicated stage of retirement. Like, I can't sit and answer that question for you right now. You got to go sit down with someone. Like, there's a lot of moving pieces to Ben's points. You know, just health care and all this kind of stuff. Like it's a lot harder to figure out a good prudent strategy to pull money from than it is to just grow that money over. Over 40 years. Okay, let's have a little bit of fun. We're going to bring back the segment that everybody likes game. It's fin talk. The fin talk. The fin talk. You know, everybody does like this one. [32:20] Justin: They do. [32:26] JD: I want to reach out to our community and tell you guys that I know a lot of you financial advisors spend a lot of your time on tick tock joking, but if you do, I could really use some clips, man. I, my feed is, is full of golf and surfing and, and now Texas ranch stuff. So I, I'm not finding the great fintok ones, but I pulled together a couple. So try them. Let's try them out. Go ahead, Brandon, play one of the three. [33:11] Justin: Well, that's not accurate. [33:13] Benjamin Brant: Martin. [33:15] Mark: Boy, am I glad to see you. [33:17] Benjamin Brant: I've been here 20 minutes, minutes already. [33:21] JD: Rest in peace. Rest in peace. Was that Val Kilmer? He's passed away. Yeah. Great actor. Chad, since this is 401k actually that Mark Roby vesting, I always, I don't even think about vesting. [33:37] Chad: I love how you said Chad, because this is 401k investment. [33:42] Speaker G: Not. [33:43] JD: I meant not bad. I did, I didn't mean not. Ben Vesting. Do you think participants actually do this? Do you think there are participants that know they have money that's sitting on a vesting schedule and, and wait out their time at an employer? Justin says yeah, yeah. Many years. [34:01] Justin: How many, many years? Did I say no because I wanted to Before I came over. [34:05] Mark: Before he came over. [34:06] JD: Oh, really? Your previous employer? Yeah, yeah. [34:11] Chad: I was gonna say if we, if we looked at like a, like anything, like an average national average, I think this would be one that it's pretty like, I don't know, I'm probably gonna say 50, 50, like 50 of people don't even realize that that's a thing. And then the others are paying very close attention. I love seeing Ben shake his head because I'm taking a wild guess here, but I, I think it's kind of just right in the middle there somewhere, [34:37] JD: but they are paying attention to it. So, Ben, if you had a client come to you, it's like, man, I've got a ten grand locked up in a five year vesting schedule. Your advice would be like, you got to stick around, man. You gotta, you gotta vest that money. [34:52] Benjamin Brant: All my clients are engineers that have worked the same place for 30 years, so that never comes up. But I would rather a person retire one year too soon than work five years too long. So once you've accumulated a couple million bucks, that, that last five grand, it's never going to come up. But I would tell you to retire anyway, Justin. [35:09] JD: Okay, let's go. Nerdy. Chad, on a design style, you know, setting it up for a client and thinking about the employer's perspective. Are you these days talking about vesting as like a, a good thing for them? Like, hey man, or does that not get discussed? [35:25] Mark: I'm going to tell you more often than not, I'm bursting the bubble of the advisor and, or the client who's sitting there going, oh, we want to create a retention tool and so we want vesting. And I have to break the news to them. Not only does it not accomplish what you think it is, but tell me if you have an employee that's one foot out the door and is truly intending to leave, want to hold them around for another six months till they become vested? These are people who are not going to be good, efficient workers for you. So it comes up a lot now, JD but usually it comes up because they think it's going to accomplish this wonderful golden handcuffs tool. [36:03] JD: Fair enough. [36:04] Justin: It's more about protecting the company assets. [36:06] JD: Webb is obsessed with it. Webby talks about it all the time and different stuff. Justin, you had a final thought on investing? [36:11] Justin: No, I just said it's more about, you know, at least in communications on my end, it's more about just protecting those company assets long term. [36:18] Mark: Yeah, I think, yeah, you're right. [36:21] Justin: Yeah, we still throw, we still throw in the oh hey, it's, it's, you know, golden handcuffs. It works great for that. But the reality is it's. It's about protecting those assets. [36:28] Chad: But I think. Oh yeah, Prashad just said it. But like the one step further there is vesting is coming up more and more now because of the forced automatic enrollment and the fact that Safe harbor has always been 100 invested because not a lot of people wanted to. To deal with and I'll drink for this twice quokka. And now that that's becoming more of a norm and the fact that you get a two year vesting, people are. It's coming up a lot more. It's a top of a topic of conversation now. [36:57] JD: Oh, news alert to me. When's the last time JD ever sold a plan? You're saying because of these new secure 2.0 rules, we're gonna see more qualified automatic contribution arrangements as Safe Harbor? Oh, wow. I don't know if I like that. I feel like those are complicated for small businesses, but anyways. [37:20] Justin: Well, no, I mean you don't have to do the. They have to do it anyway matching formula. [37:24] JD: Oh, that's a good point. [37:26] Mark: Yeah, you can do a clean matching formula, but you still have to make sure the client is educated on the automatic enrollment provisions, which is hard for a lot of small employers to run. If you're less than 10 folks, you don't have to comply with it. If you got 10 or more, you do have to comply with the automatic enrollment and a lot of those small businesses are going to fail before we [37:46] JD: do the next Tick Tock. Ben, do you want to Give everyone your TikTok handles so they can go follow you now? [37:51] Benjamin Brant: I'm Ben Brandt on Tick Tock. Are you. If. If you want to follow me. It's nothing about financial advice. It's just shoddily recorded concert footage. [38:03] JD: That's come up on this show and that's frowned upon. [38:06] Benjamin Brant: And if you have earbuds, you can hear me singing along out of tune. It's a real what? It's a real jam. [38:12] Chad: What kind of artists and concerts are we talking about then? [38:16] Benjamin Brant: I saw. I saw Hot Mulligan in Denver last weekend. I don't know if you guys like Midwest Emo, but pretty obscure. [38:21] JD: I'm sorry. [38:23] Mark: I like the name. [38:24] Chad: I'm checking that out right now. [38:27] JD: Midwest Emo. Brandon. Brandon. I'm thinking closing out the show could be. Could be a thing here. Start searching. Let's play the next. Let's play the next Tik tok Midwest. Emo. Brandon's looking it up right now. [38:44] Speaker F: Please write an essay on the Jurassic period. Of course. Here you are. This is incredible. Thank you. By all means. My pleasure. No, really. Like you made the prehistoric age come to life. I'm just happy to help. Okay. Undergraduate level article on the energy consumption of AI. This article explores the significant energy demands of art. [39:05] JD: That's chat. GPT. Chat. [39:07] Speaker F: Training and deploying those large language models. [39:09] Benjamin Brant: I've heard of that. [39:11] Speaker F: Not quite my style. Let's add some filler. I understand this piece dives into the massive energy appetite of artificial intelligence. Especially when it comes to training and running those hefty large language models. Not what I meant. It's all good. No worries. I don't want you to just repeat the same thing in a different time. I see. Now, this article investigates the high energy demands imposed by artificial intelligence with an emphasis on the intensive processes required. Why do you suppose I just hurled a keyboard at your head? GPT? I don't know. Sure you do. Were you over wording? Were you under wording? Over wording? Start again. AI is transforming the way we. AI is innovating how we drive. AI is shaking up the way we create. Over wording or under wording? Under wording. So you do know the difference. I'm not going to deal with some lackluster two bit AI model that doesn't know the difference between a dissertation and a high school school English essay. What is this adjective? What is that adverb? Count how many prepositions are in the article. 1, 2, 3, 4. Some Valley Neanderthals train these models. If you try to deliberately sabotage my article, I swear I will unsubscribe and switch to Gemini. Now, are you an overworker or are you an underwater? Or are you gonna finish my essay? Oh my God. You're not one of those free Chinese models that shuts down the second they're offended, are you? You are worth nothing more than a box of scraps. [40:40] JD: You'll never be human. [40:42] Speaker F: Say it. Say you're not human. I'm not human. Say it again. I'm not human. Again. I'm not human. For the final token. Wasting time. [40:52] JD: Say it again. [40:53] Speaker F: I'm not human. [40:55] JD: I know, I know. It says nothing. Retirement. It doesn't. I just thought it was hilarious. And I know it was long, but where I thought. [41:06] Mark: I don't take it to where they start asking financial related questions. Really shitty advice. [41:12] JD: I don't regret it at all. You know what? They're spoofing that off. Of, though. It's the drum movie. Remember the big drum movie where the guy was. Come on, Justin, help me out. No. [41:23] Justin: With J.K. simmons and Miles Teller. [41:26] JD: Yeah, yeah. [41:27] Justin: How was that called? [41:28] JD: Anyways, if you didn't get that or that wasn't funny, I apologize. That was for my own humor. All right, let's. Let's play the last one because it's not even any better than that, but go ahead, Brandon. [41:37] Benjamin Brant: Whiplash [41:41] Mark: on. [41:41] Speaker H: Stanley, I got a hundred dollar check from my grandma. Stanley, I got a hundred dollar check from my grandma. And my dad said I need to put it in the bank so it can grow over the years. [41:51] Speaker G: Well, that's fantastic. A really smart decision, young man. We can put that check in a money market mutual fund. Then we'll reinvest the earnings into foreign currency accounts with compounding interest and. It's gone. [42:12] Speaker H: What? [42:12] Speaker G: It's gone. It's all gone. [42:15] Speaker H: What's all gone? [42:16] Speaker G: The money in your account. It didn't do too well. It's gone. [42:19] JD: It didn't do too well. [42:20] Speaker H: What do you mean? I. I have a hundred dollars. [42:22] Speaker G: Not anymore you don't. [42:23] Mark: Poof. [42:26] Speaker H: Well, well, what can I do to get back. [42:27] Speaker G: I'm sorry, sir, but this line is for bank members only. [42:30] Speaker H: I just opened an account. [42:31] Speaker G: Do you have any money invested with this bank? [42:33] Speaker H: No. You just lost it all. [42:35] Speaker G: Then please stand aside for people who actually have money with us. Next, please. Hey, hello, Mrs. Barnickel. How are you today? Making a deposit, are we? [42:44] Mark: Great. [42:45] Speaker G: We can just put that into your retirement account and make it go to work for you. And it's gone. [42:51] Mark: What? [42:52] Speaker G: Sorry. Yeah, that's gone. Please step aside for people who actually have money with the bank. Next, please. [42:57] Speaker F: Dad. [42:58] Speaker G: Hey, I'm trying to teach my son the importance of. Oh, Mr. Marsh, don't worry. We can just transfer money from your account into a portfolio with your son and it's gone. [43:11] JD: Okay, all right, I went with the long one. Sick. All right, Ben, honest question here. Fear. A participant. I say participant. You. You actually treat these people as human beings? The 401k guy calls them participants. People with investments. Fear of the stock market. You must have to address this all the time. Are there people out there that feel like this is a magical, scary place where their money can go poof and it's gone? And how do you address that? [43:41] Benjamin Brant: Yeah, retirement is way more about behavior management than you'd think. You know, we think taxes, we think, you know, index funds and things like that, but yet it's so much more behavior management. The Person that saves up a couple million dollars is not the same person that can spend it with confidence. So a lot of what we do is coaching people on how do we. What do we do when the stock market crashes? How do we. We're going to talk about target date funds, I think in a bit here. How do we structure our income so we know where it's going to come from for the next several years and then grow the other half. I call it the mullet portfolio. Honestly, it's business up front, party in the back, right? We need 60% growth in the back. Love that party. And then 40 bonds and cash in the front. [44:17] JD: So good. [44:18] Mark: There were two hot takes right there. Jesus. [44:21] Benjamin Brant: I've got a mullet wig just off camera. My last YouTube video, I wore it to explain the beauty of the 6040 portfolio. [44:27] JD: Go. That's perfect. So good. I guess the way I interpret that too is like helping people understand asset allocation and risk tolerance and the fact that markets do go up and down. And when they go down, here comes the mullet. When they do go down, it's okay. It's part of the. Oh, wow. [44:47] Justin: You kind of look like JD here. [44:49] JD: I think it just looks like this looks like me when my hair was longer. [44:54] Benjamin Brant: Maybe he's born with it. Maybe it's methane. [45:01] JD: I. I do think a lot of people out there that have. [45:06] Chad: Hey, J.D. can you shut up and just let Ben talk, please? [45:09] JD: Only experience an up market and we're gonna jump to this target date fun stuff right now. And Ron Serge. So let's just go to it. I think the title article is something to the effect of Disappointing target date funds. At least that's what I've called it. It's probably got a more professional title. But Ron has told us for a while that the. The sky is falling and that when we have a. A big downside bear market, that it is these target date funds that are going to suffer and more specifically the, the older people that are in these target date funds. This article also talks about American Century Survey, which kind of just confirms, I think, what we've always known as an industry, which is that the participants in these plans have a different opinion of. Of what? [46:04] Mark: Understanding. [46:05] JD: An understanding. Yeah, thanks, Chad. Of like, what target date funds are. This article points out that 62% of them believe that a target date fund guarantees income at retirement. So they see it as, oh, I'm putting in my age of retirement when I get there. I guess I'm just going to get a check or something. 34% of them think that, that these investments, these target day fund investments are guaranteed to not lose money. Like, that's pretty crazy. Like almost 35% of them think, oh, I'm in the target date, I'm safe. I can't, I can't lose money. 45% of them prefer that a target date fund would protect them against losses, even if it means sacrificing returns in rising markets. So I thought that one's pretty interesting too. The Last one is 40%, 46% find a loss of more than 10% unacceptable. But to caveat that when they're within their, like five years of retirement, because this kind of took me back 10%, you should be ready for that to happen. But, but when I'm older and closer to retirement. So targeted funds have to kind of play a role in what you do. Ben, when you read this article by Ron, give us your, your overall thoughts and don't hold back. But I believe Ron is here tonight, so go ahead and hurt his feelings if you disagree with something. [47:27] Benjamin Brant: Well, to the credit of everybody that loves target date funds, and I hope everybody's taking me very seriously with my, with my recent makeover here. But target date funds are great for accumulation. I've done this for 20 years. I know a lot of retirement planners. I've never met a soul that carries target date funds into retirement. They're just not built for that. You're going to be reverse dollar cost averaging every month. That's just a recipe for failure. So I would never carry a target date fund into retirement. They're amazing for accumulation. It's automatic rebalancing. Remember Robo advisors from like 15 years ago? That was all. They basically just stole their, their, their sort of meeting notes from, from target date funds. Yeah. So target date funds, great for accumulation, terrible for distribution. And I love, we do have, we [48:07] JD: do have two retirement targeted funds and then what's called through retirement target funds. But I think your point still carries [48:16] Justin: water, which is, and as Samson eloquently puts it, to not through, motherfuckers. [48:20] JD: Okay, yeah, same, same. [48:24] Benjamin Brant: When I looked at, I looked at some of his charts about the through and I think he gets, you know, he gets, he works you back into like a 70% bonds and cash position, 30% equity, something like that. [48:34] JD: Yeah, go on, Juan. [48:37] Benjamin Brant: Well, every research I've ever read says you need a 60% equity allocation to properly hedge inflation. I mean, you're, yes, you're, you're limiting some of the market volatility, but you're setting yourself for the certain killer that is inflation. I mean the stock market volatility is manageable, but inflation will kill you every time. So not to mention if you got 70% in bonds and cash at a 4% withdrawal, which I don't love 4%, but it's easy math. That's like 18 years, 17, 18 years of retirement income in bonds and cash. There's never been a market cycle, financial crisis.com, whatever that's lasted 17 and a half years. This seems like two sides of the opposite coin. But he's being aggressively too conservative. He's not aggressive enough and he's far too conservative, which you agree with him [49:23] JD: that you don't like the way the target date funds are set up. You disagree or feel like Ron's maybe a little too conservative in this approach. I will tell you that another thing kind of underneath the hood that you probably don't see with Ron's thoughts and Ron can chime in and tell me I'm wrong if I get this off a little bit, but he also doesn't like their conservative investments. I think in this article he mentions the Thrift Savings plan and he's a big fan of the Thrift Savings plan and that they have for their conservative non equity. They use this government guaranteed G fund. I don't know if I have to drink for that or not, but it's this government thing that I think it's short term treasuries and stuff and it protects against principal loss, the government's standing behind it. And so he also feels as though that a lot of the fixed income solutions and these target date funds are, you know, we saw these, them get hammered, right? Historically when we had those interest rates that were super low and then they had to go up very quickly, a lot of old people got burned on, on that stuff. So he's equally concerned about the high equity exposure as well as not a big fan of, of the way they, they do the conservative side of things. So I think his hypothesis is right. I do think that if we had a big tanking of the market and he kind of says in these articles it's not about if, it's about when there are going to be a lot of people in these later sweet target date funds that are going to be very upset that they have a 25% loss, 30% loss, whatever it is. And so he's kind of saying why is the industry not changing, Chad? Why are we not doing something different? [51:08] Mark: So here's what I'll say. Let's classify what the actual issue is here because people who have a million dollars in their retire account probably aren't in a target day fund. And if they are, they have been on the back end to help them realize that this is not a decumulation portion of your investment strategy. What we're really trying to solve for is the people that get put into these funds as a qualified default investment alternative. That's where they're at. That's where they're going to be. They're going to hit 65, they have no advisor that's going to step in and tell them what to do and their money ends up staying there. That's what Ron, I think that's what Ron's really getting at these people and what he's saying is, to Ben's point, our current strategy of target day funds don't work for that. So Ron's thought is we've got to put something else in on the back end of the accumulation side because people are going to stay in these. So how do we account for that, for the people that reach 65 and end up sticking in this kind of target date fund solution? And I think right in that strategy [52:08] JD: a lot of what you're saying is accurate. But also he, he doesn't think just at retirement. He believes up to retirement. Like I think it's in those five [52:16] Mark: years that's, that's equity exposure for him, which I think that debate between two and through changes a lot of equity exposure coming to retirement. Yeah, but I don't think that that's his, I don't feel like that is his big point. I feel the big point is what are we doing with that money when this person is five years out or five years after? Primarily the five years after. [52:38] JD: Let's not, let's not think that Ben is the answer to everything too because not everyone can have a million plus dollars. So there are definitely going to be 70 year olds that are either still working and, or just feel like leaving their money in their target date fund that are gonna fall, you know, for lack of a better term, like victim to this. So I think he's got a point. I just don't think anyone listens to Ron anymore. I think he's been, he's been telling us the sky's gonna fall for so long that no one's listening anymore. I apologize. Ron. I love you. Because you're right, it's gonna happen. Does that concern you, Ben, that a lot of these people are gonna be left holding their lunch? [53:25] Benjamin Brant: Maybe you know that that's one of the reasons that I wouldn't choose a Target date fund. Because if, if we're living off of that money, you know, we're reverse dollar cost averaging from our equities. Right. I want to own like a Target Date fund, but I want to own all those positions separately so I can choose not to sell my stocks and just my treasuries or my money market, whatever it is. I want to own a target Date fund like that, but I want to own each piece separately. My other beef with Ron's article, no offense, Ron, but it's not baby boomers retiring anymore. If you can believe it or not, the oldest gen X turned 60 this year. Just to freak out all of my Gen X brethren, baby boomers are done retiring. [54:01] JD: Yeah, he's a. Ron's a big baby boomer guy. He's got like a baby boomer podcast thing. He's got that fancy wide collar he has on his LinkedIn picture. Very disco. Yeah, the 70s. Love you, Ron, but you're right, there [54:16] Benjamin Brant: are excellent set of hair. Can we scroll, can we scroll down on the picture please, on that article? [54:22] Mark: Is that possible? [54:25] Benjamin Brant: I'm dripping with envy on it. On your hair, Ron? [54:27] JD: Probably not. And then you've got, you've got like rich people like me that are, that are younger that are gonna probably retire early because we're so loaded that we could, you know, have problems we have to face as well. [54:41] Mark: Oh, geez. [54:42] Benjamin Brant: I'll do some pro bono work for you, JD. [54:44] Chad: Thanks. [54:46] JD: Okay. [54:47] Mark: He needs it, man. [54:48] JD: Let's go to the last one, everybody. The boogeyman is back. He crawled out from under your bed, or I guess you should say he crawled out from under Pentegra's bed and he, and he took off with. What was it, 46 million or something? I guess we should read the article. $48.5 million has been settled between Pentegra and Jerome Schlichter. So I don't know what do you have to say about this, boys? Except for he's still, he's still like going around doing his thing and I think he will. [55:30] Mark: There's so much low hanging fruit. The matter is when does he start going after the pooled employer plan world and that side, but specific to this settlement. JD did this not give you a little pause when I read it? The way I interpret it is as owners who have a duty to their, to their stockholders to create profit to their owners to create profit for that business, but also sitting on the committee that has a duty to the participants and their beneficiaries that they are conflicted in any decision they're making is the way I kind of read that. And I'm like, that's fucked up. Because every small business, the committee member is going to be your business owners and that that conflict is going to exist in just about every single business that we're talking about. [56:25] JD: If I remember the Pentagras suit though, there was a fair amount of funny business happening here like this. This was. A lot of these lawsuits look a little tame. This one looked pretty like guilty. Like there was some things happening. So I, I don't know. I got news for you. Pentagra's got to have an impressive business model that I was not aware of how successful they are. Popping out 50 mil. That's gotta not be a good day for them. Like I. What are. Someone tell me what their revenues are and what's going on. I, I think that's a big smackdown to them. [57:03] Mark: So it's got, it's gotta be. But jdi, you're right, there was a lot of nefarious things going on there. But when you look at how that court case will be interpreted, I think it will be interpreted that business owners sitting on a committee can be conflicted because there are two different objectives there. Drive revenues or do what's right in the best interest of your participants and beneficiaries. That seems, that seems like that's going to be the outcome of that court case outside of what they actually did to things up. That's going to be the outcome in the way it's interpreted. [57:39] JD: Okay, all right. Well. [57:41] Mark: And that scares me. [57:42] JD: We'll see what happens. But I've got a good line on, on Schlichter being a guest in 2026 for us. So we can, we can ask him face to face and see what's going down. Lastly, before we, we head out, our last show of 2025 will be on. What is it? December 18, I believe, if that's Thursday. And this is gonna be a fun one for us to finish out the year. Anyone out there in the chat bar listening in? Are you familiar with the Savannah Bananas, Ben? Do you know who they are? The Savannah Bananas? [58:21] Benjamin Brant: I do. Yes, you do. [58:23] JD: Well, we. These are these really fun baseball team that travels around. They do singing and dancing and these perform. You gotta like check it out on YouTube or something. But we are gonna have their chief financial officer there. I like to call him the cfo. Tim Natty N A D D Y is going to be our guest on the final show of 2025. I want to thank you, Ben, for joining us tonight. Can you let everyone know kind of what you're up to here? Like, so you got your podcast, you got your web. How do people check out Benjamin Brandt and everything that you're about? [59:04] Benjamin Brant: Check me out on YouTube. Even better. Retirement. Check me out audio podcast. Even audio podcast is retirement starts today. [59:13] JD: Time starts today. And your TikTok is Ben Brandt with Midwest emo music. [59:20] Benjamin Brant: That's right. Well, I did my, my, my, my loves are broad this year. I got to see Bush and Blues Traveler and Wu Tang Clan and Counting Crows. The dream of the 90s is alive. Yeah. [59:36] Chad: Are you traveling places this either. Are these coming to North Dakota? [59:41] Benjamin Brant: Definitely not coming to North Dakota. Although will be here. Will be in Fargo in 2026. But my financial advisor conferences based on what bands are going. [59:50] JD: Smart. [59:52] Speaker F: Hey, hey, hey. [59:52] Justin: Let's stop Flow Rider. You're gonna go see Flo Riddle. [59:57] Benjamin Brant: I went to. This is a bit of lore, and you'd have to Google. I went to the same basic training unit as Flowrider. If my drill sergeants were correct. Oh, yeah, we're still in the same. In the same dorm. [1:00:08] JD: You just gave a great little kind of best practices for advisors listening in. When you're scheduling out your 20, 2026 conference calendar, look for the bands you want to see in the. In the venues. You can line that up with Ben, not only thank you for being a guest on our show, but again, thank you for your service and what looked like some pretty dangerous stuff at times. So we appreciate you and everything you did and. And all the people out there that. That do the same. And then thank you to the chat bar for showing up tonight and for all you weirdos watching this on YouTube and on LinkedIn in the future, we love you. We are the retireholics. We are changing the retirement plan industry one beer at a time. And we'll see you next time with the CFO of Savannah Banana. [1:00:59] Mark: You're getting pushed for a chat bar champion because there was some. There's some good work tonight. [1:01:03] JD: I was just gonna skip that, man. [1:01:05] Mark: Again? [1:01:06] Justin: You can't do it two weeks in a row. [1:01:07] Chad: Triplets. Triplets. What's that like, man? [1:01:10] Justin: Did you deliver them? [1:01:11] Benjamin Brant: Yeah, high highs and low lows. [1:01:14] JD: It's. [1:01:14] Benjamin Brant: It's great. [1:01:16] Chad: How old are they right now? [1:01:17] Benjamin Brant: They're eight and a half on Thanksgiving. [1:01:20] Mark: Okay, [1:01:23] JD: when you. When you open a 529 plan, can you do like a three for one? Do they do that for you? [1:01:30] Benjamin Brant: They all do. Have 529 plans, but no, I had to fund each one painfully individually. [1:01:34] JD: Yeah, they better, bro, or you're gonna be in deep in a couple years. [1:01:38] Benjamin Brant: They skate like the window, so I'm hoping for scholarships. I'm open for scholarships. [1:01:42] JD: Also, let them know that community college is a great way to go. [1:01:46] Benjamin Brant: I'm a product of community college myself. [1:01:49] Mark: Same. Did I hear sticks? Is that what I heard? To start, you have six kids. [1:01:53] Benjamin Brant: Six kids. That's right. [1:01:54] Mark: When did the three come in? Are they the youngest? [1:01:57] JD: Yeah. [1:01:58] Benjamin Brant: Three are the youngest. Yep. [1:01:59] Mark: Okay. I was gonna say yeah. Off the bat. Would you then have had another child? [1:02:04] Benjamin Brant: The three were after my vasectomy, actually. [1:02:11] JD: Hey, Ben. Ben. Don't tell them that. And don't share that on YouTube. That's not what the kids want to hear. They don't want to know. [1:02:18] Benjamin Brant: They. They already know because. So not to get. [1:02:21] Justin: That's the information I could have used for the intro. [1:02:24] Chad: We're gonna. We're gonna hear this. [1:02:25] Mark: Yeah. [1:02:26] Benjamin Brant: So we adopted the triplets on 24 hours notice. [1:02:29] Mark: Oh, okay. [1:02:31] Chad: Okay. [1:02:32] Mark: All right. Say, that's some special work you did there. [1:02:36] Benjamin Brant: All credit to my wife. [1:02:38] JD: Very cool. That's inspiring. That's phenomenal. [1:02:42] Mark: Yeah. [1:02:43] JD: Okay, we'll see you all next time. And. Yeah. Love you guys. You little 4k freaks. Brandon, play us some music. [1:02:51] Mark: Thank you, Ben. [1:02:53] Benjamin Brant: Awesome meeting you guys. [1:02:57] JD: I was hoping for some Midwestern emo, [1:02:59] Mark: but that's where I thought he'd end up going.