June 30, 2026

You Can't Beat 'Em

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Don and Tom tackle the blurry line between free speech and market manipulation after the conviction of prominent short seller Andrew Left. They debate whether financial influencers should be allowed to profit from public stock recommendations, discuss why members of Congress continue trading individual stocks despite widespread public opposition, and explain why ordinary investors should avoid trying to outsmart people with superior information or influence.

The conversation then shifts into listener questions covering Roth employer matches, Roth IRA withdrawal rules, Roth conversion strategies for retirees, and whether paying taxes now simply to benefit heirs makes financial sense. Along the way, there’s plenty of lighthearted banter about soccer, politics, podcast reviews, and Don’s growing passion for his Litreading short story podcast.

00:05 – Introduction and Independence Day reflections
01:27 – Andrew Left convicted of stock market manipulation
03:24 – Is market manipulation protected free speech?
06:56 – Why Don opposes congressional stock trading
09:18 – Congress made over 13,000 stock trades in 2025
12:29 – Why public officials should be held to a higher standard
14:12 – The lesson for ordinary investors: you can’t beat insiders
15:27 – Podcast reviews, politics, and avoiding crypto
17:12 – Florida’s proposed property tax amendment
18:22 – Transition to listener questions
19:38 – Employer Roth 401(k) matching contributions
20:10 – Can you withdraw Roth IRA money before age 59½?
21:49 – Should retirees convert large IRAs to Roth accounts?
24:52 – Soccer, World Cup talk, and the “laws” of the game
26:44 – Don promotes Litreading and Short Storyverses

Questions? Comments? Click!

00:12 - Free Speech and Markets

01:34 - Defining Short Selling

03:24 - Ethics of Market Manipulation

06:56 - Congress and Insider Trades

09:22 - Congress Trade Shock

12:29 - Public Officials and Integrity

14:15 - The Lesson of Finfluencers

16:51 - Tax Cuts and Self-Interest

18:22 - Roth Match Questions

21:51 - Roth Conversions for Heirs

23:46 - Soccer Laws and Lumen Field

26:44 - Closing Remarks and Short Stories

SPEAKER_00

We're gonna do a really great financial future. Tom and Don are talking real money.

Free Speech and Markets

SPEAKER_03

Well, we're coming up on the 250th anniversary of these United States of America from the signing of that Declaration of Independence July 4th, 1776, to the Constitution to today. And there's one thing that we've sort of had that whole time. It's kind of interesting. Well, there's a money angle to this. You'll see in a minute. And that's the freedom to speak pretty much as we want to speak. But it does have limitations. And where are those lines and how do they affect you as an investor? Well, we're going to address that question or those questions. Hey everyone. Welcome to the Talking Real Money Podcast. I'm Don McDonald. That guy over there is Tom Cock. And we're here pretty much every day to make money make more sense and possibly entertain you just a tad with bad humor. And hopefully one of these days you're going to go, wow, look, these guys actually helped out. The proof, though, is we still get calls from people who said, I started listening to you like 30 years ago and I'm doing really well. Okay, it worked. So, anyway, let's talk about free speech. How free is free speech? Recently, a gentleman by the name of Andrew Left, a relatively well-known short seller who runs a company called Citron Research.

Defining Short Selling

SPEAKER_02

I think right there you should say again, describe short selling.

SPEAKER_03

Short selling means you sell a stock you don't own because you expect it to go down. Now that is perfectly fine. Anybody can short sell anytime, any place. But some people short sell and they have the money and the and the the soapbox, and then they write articles slamming the companies that they're short selling. This has been done. This has been done for a long time. Bill Ackman did it. You know, there there's a lot of this. Well, Andrew left recently in the last few weeks, was convicted of manipulating the stock market for profit and uh guilty of 13 charges where he uh he slammed uh companies like Roku and Nvidia and Tesla and made about $20 million. Now he faces about a million dollars a year in jail. 25 years.

SPEAKER_02

So according to the Justice Department, he made bold public calls on stocks, often using social media, and then exited the trade minutes or hours later.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Because little moves in the stock market.

SPEAKER_03

Is if you have followers, followers tend to do what well, what is it's it's built into the word. They tend to follow. And so followers would sell the stocks that he had already shorted. Yep. And so what it's in s in some parlance, it's called front running. He would influence the future price of that security because he's telling people get out of this. Yeah, and then he gets out of it before they realize that they need to get out. So is this legal or illegal? Hmm. That's the question.

Ethics of Market Manipulation

SPEAKER_03

Uh Tom and I actually have very different opinions on this.

SPEAKER_02

It's fascinating.

SPEAKER_03

And he knew. See, there's the thing: it's intent and knowledge. You know, he wasn't just a guy who had a position in his portfolio and wrote an article about it. Although, even if you do that in the media, you're supposed to say, I have a position in this company. That is a legal requirement. You're supposed to say that. But I think this exceeded that. It's not just free speech, in my opinion. It's just yelling fire in a in a movie theater? Kind of no. Okay. No, because it's not, it doesn't rise to that level of danger. But what he did do was use others to make him a prophet, knowing full well that these others would do what he told them to do because they'd done it before. But he said to do X and he did Y in some cases. Well, no, he did X first. And then he told them to do X. Yep. And then when they did X, he did Y.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Because cause and effect. He knows.

SPEAKER_02

So in his mind, he says the criminal case is an effort to regulate financial influencers.

SPEAKER_03

Mm-hmm. Okay. You can be a f a fin fluencer all you want as long as you're not playing the stocks you're talking about. But if I said here, wait a minute, we we've got an audience of thousands and thousands of people, tens of thousands of people. All right?

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

If I bought a stock today, today, and I went on this show and I said, Oh my God, this is an incredible stock. You gotta buy it, and you know, because 10,000 people put in buy orders, I'm watching the price and it goes up like 15%, boom, like that, and I sell. Is that should that be legal? If disclosed, I think you could say yes, right? I I even think it should be no.

SPEAKER_02

Fascinating. Yeah, that we're on the opposite.

SPEAKER_03

It's so but he may not be able to do that. I know I'm using you, I know I'm using you, the listeners, to make me money. Uh and manipulating the market to do so. I think that's wrong. Am I naive?

SPEAKER_02

I don't know because that in that same vein, then in some way, short selling itself should be illegal.

SPEAKER_03

No, I disagree. If I don't believe, like I think Nvidia is overpriced, and I'm not saying I do, and I short sell it and it goes down, I'm lucky. That's fine. I didn't tell you that I thought it was going to go down and rely on you selling it to make my trade work. That's the difference.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and the witnesses they had against him said his words carried special weight because traders thought he had skin in the game. You got it. And that's why they said, oh, well, if Andrew's in on this, I'm in. But he had in many cases sold out of the position uh, as you said, kind of along the way or before whatever it is to profit by it and then used other people's trades, you know, they're on their own. They either going against where he actually was at that moment. It's tricky. And let me ask you this.

Congress and Insider Trades

SPEAKER_03

You are, I know you are a huge advocate of laws that would not allow government employees and members of Congress to trade stocks, correct?

SPEAKER_02

We'll talk about that, those numbers, which I think are far from the same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I want to get to those numbers in a minute. But but let me but let me the question, though, is the the implication, the reason we don't want our representatives and our our government officials to own stocks and to buy stocks on their own is because they have knowledge that we don't have, and therefore they could, and of course, are. We're not naive. I mean, we're not that stupid. If these guys are making thousands of stock trades, some of them a year, they're making it on knowledge that they got somehow. Because they're doing really well. They're doing better than your average stock pickers. How is that different? How is that different from the short selling guy?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. But they aren't doing a head fake with the public, right?

SPEAKER_03

They're not saying they're kind of doing it. They're taking advantage of knowledge they have before the public gets it.

SPEAKER_02

Well, that's that's a separate issue to me, because that's insider. What he's really doing is using his influence to convince people to do a certain thing and then going against that.

SPEAKER_03

But he's kind of an insider, though. I mean, in the fact that he can move that he can move money, he can move markets. Can he? It's been proven he did, I think.

SPEAKER_02

Because listen to the numbers. He the trades he was making were relatively small. I think I read 20 million or something. Relatively small. Yeah. In a market where the daily trading is of one trillion dollars.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, but still that's a 20 million here and 20 million there. Pretty soon you're talking real money.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Um there are 70 to 75 million trades a day, roughly. Daily trading volume, somewhere around a trillion dollars around the globe. So I think his impact is pretty I'm not saying he's innocent, but I think when I read it, I was like, I think this will get overturned on appeal. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03

All right, but those those 75 million trades are in how many stocks?

SPEAKER_02

Well, I don't know how to say 10,000 for sake of argument. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

He's making 20 million on trades in one day on one stock. Yeah. It puts it in a much, much brighter light,

Congress Trade Shock

SPEAKER_03

in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, but since you brought it up, I think a far bigger issue is exactly what he said. According to Common Cause, in 2025, members of Congress made 13,324 trades, totaling $630 million. Um That's shocking.

SPEAKER_03

Well, although how many wait a minute? I okay, I'm gonna get in a little bit of political trouble. This has nothing to do with I I am not deranged for all of you who support the slightly deranged. I am not deranged. I am opinionated, but not deranged. Um so you said it was 13,000 trades? 13,000 trades, that's right. In what period of time?

SPEAKER_02

A year.

SPEAKER_03

How many trades were made in Donald Trump's personal brokerage account?

SPEAKER_02

I think we knew this because we talked about it once. Was it 3,000 or something or 4,000?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it was about 3,000. Um gee, that seems to me that's about 25 percent of what the entirety of Congress did. Trevor Burrus, Jr. But his isn't a blind trust. Trevor Burrus, Jr. It's not a blind trust. That's the thing. It's not a blind trust. Oh boy. No, but it literally is not a blind trust. If it was typically it would be.

SPEAKER_02

The president would have it in a blind trust. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_03

Right, but not in this case.

SPEAKER_02

No. But just to finish my thought on the congressional situation. Uh by the way, Senator Blumenthal, congratulations, you're number one. 406 trades totaling $76 million. Apparently they don't read much because traders generally don't end up with as much money as people that just buy.

SPEAKER_03

By the way, Mr. Blumenthal is a Democrat, and I find what he does appalling. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02

It's shocking. Let me finish the thought. In a world, as I was saying, where 86% of the public supports banning Congress from trading. Yeah. I think Nancy Pelosi said that when they brought it up last time. It's like, oh, well, that's just unfair to us. No, it's not. Buy a danged index fund. I know, but uh insider information, as you just mentioned, conflicts of interest over the top.

SPEAKER_03

And I find it appalling that Democrats and Republicans are doing it. I hate it with a white hot passion. And by the way, I just checked. Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children. Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's right.

SPEAKER_02

So it's not blind. He can sit down every night after work.

SPEAKER_03

He can pull up the numbers. They're right there in front of him.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

A blind trust requires an independent trustee, and the office holder is not informed about the investment decisions or the holdings until after the fact.

SPEAKER_02

Trevor Burrus, Yeah. How did I end up doing the last four years?

SPEAKER_03

Oh, well, sir, I made a really bad bet. Actually, it's probably a it would probably be better.

Public Officials and Integrity

SPEAKER_03

Unless, of course, there is some nefarious behavior. And the reason we don't like this kind of trading on the on the part of members of Congress and the executive branch is because there is a whiff of potential impropriety.

SPEAKER_02

You already said there was impropriety. There has to be. Right.

SPEAKER_03

In some cases we know of trades that were that happened prior to a war breaking out, for example.

SPEAKER_02

There were some oil trades that have been kind of here in the last few months.

SPEAKER_03

They happened right before a war started that nobody was supposed to know about because it was, I don't know, top secret? Classified? Congress, Wall Street, the president, wake up, other officials. You need to act better than everybody else. You need to set a better example for the world. And if you keep doing what you're doing, the example you're setting is that, well, if you can't beat 'em, cheat 'em.

SPEAKER_02

And what you're saying about where we started with this about Mr. Left is that this is unfair. And by the way, if it is, and he is convicted, he's been convicted of the city. He's been convicted of thirteen counts. If it holds, I want an investigation of every FinFluencer, all these people that are on the internet, et cetera, promoting this or shooting us whatever. I want to see their trading record.

SPEAKER_03

I think we should, but it's a it's a huge

The Lesson of Finfluencers

SPEAKER_03

job, and it would require uh a massive effort, and I don't think we're willing to do that. But there is a moral, though, to this whole story. No matter what side of it you're on, no matter what you think of the parties involved, there's a moral to this story. And this is a moral that we have carried throughout this program since its inception. And that is you can't beat these guys. They have too much power for you. A person sitting at home or sitting in your car listening to this podcast without a big audience, they you you can't beat them. You don't have the edge, and you probably don't want to cheat. Do you? Maybe you do. I don't know. It sure seems like a lot of people do. Members of Congress, it's cheating. It's cheating. You're just you don't want to admit it because you're greedy. You're just greedy. How much money do you need, really? Any of us. Anyway. I've ranted enough. Send us your questions. And by the way, okay, if you want to give us a bad review for something we said, you listen to the show. You know it's not a one star show. At least if you don't like what we say, put in three stars. You know, I kind of like the show, but sometimes I don't like what they say. If you're gonna do that, okay?

SPEAKER_02

But don't make it one star.

SPEAKER_03

One star means you absolutely hate the show. Then if you absolutely hate the show, why are you listening? I I don't understand. Anyway, moving on. Well, at least it wasn't crypto today. What was it today? No, we had a little politics, but no crypto.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, no crypto on the show, you meant today. No crypto on the show.

SPEAKER_03

Crypto always gets us into trouble. It's so funny. It's so funny to read the reviews and find that there are two things. There are if we ever say that the president is wrong about anything, even though I've said Biden was wrong about things, I've certainly said the Clintons were wrong about things, uh I there were some things Obama did that I did not like. You know, I have criticized every president that uh has come down the pike since I was a I was able to critique. I mean, I remember with Nixon, I had fights with my mother about Nixon, and then I became a Republican. After that, I don't know how that happened. Oh, money, probably.

Tax Cuts and Self-Interest

SPEAKER_03

Uh selfishness. That's why I became a Republican. You wanted the truth. It's the truth. I wanted lower taxes for me. Selfish me.

SPEAKER_02

And that's pretty much everybody wants lower taxes for moi.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my gosh. And speaking of lower taxes, this is a an aside, but what the heck, it's a podcast. The Florida legislature a few weeks ago passed a constitutional amendment to slash property taxes in Florida dramatically. Uh with the goal to eventually, hopefully, they want to eliminate property taxes in Florida. We don't have a state income tax. Right. I don't know how they think the local governments are gonna pay their bills, but kind of interesting. And it's gonna be on the November ballot.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, it is. Mm-hmm. And people are just, yeah, sure. I don't want to pay that all time. I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_03

I bet it passes. I bet it it needs sixty percent, by the way, to put to become a constitutional amendment. Getting 60 on anything is tough. I still think because people vote their self-interests. I mean, I looked at it and went, holy cow, this could save me like a thousand dollars a year initially on the first round.

SPEAKER_02

Yep.

SPEAKER_03

And I'm going. So do I vote my self-interest or do I vote what I believe is better for my community?

Roth Match Questions

SPEAKER_03

I haven't I don't know. What should I do? I'm gonna ask the listeners.

SPEAKER_02

You're gonna no, you're gonna vote what's right for your community. Come on, I know you.

SPEAKER_03

I probably should involve in your community. So all right, shall we get to the questions? Okay, by the way, the questions came in at talkingrealmoney.com, talkingrealmoney.com. Uh, these are the ones that you typed. If you type them, they go on the Monday through Thursday shows. If you go and hit the record button in the corner, the mic, and you speak them, they go on the Friday QA show. So here are some of those typed ones that Tom just loves ruffling, riffling, riffling between his fingers.

SPEAKER_02

Riffling between the fingers. Ah, from Hartzell, Alabama. Jamie writes, in the latest episode. Hartzel. Hartzel. Oh, I was wondering about that. Yeah. Yeah, it's not Hartzell. Hart Selly. Hartzelli. How about that? Uh in the latest episode, you if you you asked if anyone's employer matches with the Roth contribution. My employer's 401k is with John Hancock, and they do match 50% of my Roth 401k contribution. In other words, we had we had first I didn't even know that people that that was legal, so I'm shows you how out of time I am. And I didn't know anybody doing it. So a few people have written and said, Yeah, my employer matches with the Roth contribution rather than a pre-tax one. There's a change in the last few years, so that's that's really great. Uh but then Jamie went on, since I'm already here, a little weird, but you're not actually here. But since you're already writing a question, yeah, he's kind of here.

SPEAKER_03

He was there at the he was there in the moment.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Says I'm 54 starter Roth Iowa with Fidelity this year and plan to max it out each year. If I retire in the year I turn 59, could I go ahead and take distributions from it without penalty, even if I'm not fifty-nine and a half kinda. You can take the contributions out.

SPEAKER_03

You can take the contributions out. You can't take the earnings out.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Or the gains, the the increase in value.

SPEAKER_02

But if you did a conversion, you could not. But um so yeah, you can you can go I uh why would you do that though? Why would you save for the next five years and then start taking the money out? That doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_03

I I don't think see, that's not taking advantage of the biggest benefit that these accounts provide, which is tax-free compounded growth.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. So I would leave that there and probably pull money from other another place. Says thanks for all you do. Enjoy the podcast, and hope we get Don's Civil War book soon. I ordered it today.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, he ordered it today. Yeah. I thought you did. I was gonna say you ordered it a while ago. You ordered a bunch of them. You ordered 15 of them. I know. I've been giving them oil. They're hot case. He skewed my sales numbers.

SPEAKER_02

Popped them right up there. I'd love to.

SPEAKER_03

For that one day. It was a good day.

SPEAKER_02

I gotta find somebody else to do 15 tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03

I made like six.

SPEAKER_02

Wait, I gotta get a re how much.

SPEAKER_03

I made about seventy dollars.

SPEAKER_02

Wow. Okay. Well, every 70 bucks helps. Um from Blacksburg, Virginia, isn't that the Oh, the home of the hokies?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. Do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around.

SPEAKER_02

Spouse went there.

SPEAKER_03

I'm a I am what they call and at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, I am what they call a spokey. Because you're a spouse.

SPEAKER_02

I'm a spouse of a hokey. I'm a spooky. I never heard that before. Armendo.

SPEAKER_03

I love Blacksburg, it is a beautiful town, by the way.

SPEAKER_02

Um hi Don and Tom, great show. And you are the rock stars of financial podcast bar none. Well, Armindo, pretty much we're gonna do anything you say after that. You know that.

SPEAKER_03

So you're right about everything, and thanks for

Roth Conversions for Heirs

SPEAKER_03

writing. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Uh I was listening to one of your podcasts from 2021. Wow, we did this podcast in 2021. Were we uh

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, we've done it for a long time.

SPEAKER_02

You advised your caller to let his traditional individual retirement account grow forever. And when he passes the kids the money, when he passes the kids can take care of the taxes due on his IRA and they can enjoy the free money. Do you still maintain the same belief? In other words, many people want to convert everything over to Roth, pay the tax so their kids get money tax-free. Um trying to do that.

SPEAKER_03

Well, listen to me. I just have so darn much money that I I don't think.

SPEAKER_02

You may think that when I tell you what Armendo's got. They're not that kind of rich. They're not that kind of rich.

SPEAKER_03

Sorry? They're not that kind of rich, where you just like can willy-nilly convert Roth IRAs so your kids don't have to pay taxes over. No, it's a terrible reason to do it.

SPEAKER_02

So if you're doing it for you situation over time, sure. If you're doing it because you want to stay in the 22% bracket for a period of time and you don't want your RMDs, then maybe that does make sense to fill it all the way up there, do that. But just to do it for your kids, I I have the same opinion.

SPEAKER_03

No. Yeah. Like okay, they're they they could take it out over ten years and pay the taxes over ten years. And that means that you know they the for every hundred dollars, they end up with seventy-five after taxes, basically.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Good for them. And it might bounce them into another bracket, it's that okay. Still, I don't think that's a big

Soccer Laws and Lumen Field

SPEAKER_02

deal. Um, by the way, Armindo adds, hey Tom, keep up the soccer talk, especially now with the World Cup just days away. So this was sent before the World Cup started, which has now started. I know we're all sitting around our sets every day watching numerous games, debating VAR calls, trying to decide whether it really was offside or not. Don has been a lot of people. I don't even know.

SPEAKER_03

I I to this day, Tom has taken me to some soccer matches.

SPEAKER_02

That's true.

SPEAKER_03

We've gone to several, and uh I try to understand how that was offsides and that wasn't.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the first problem you have, there's no S at the end of it. It's just offside.

SPEAKER_03

So Oh my gosh. You mean there is only one side? And here's the other problem I have with football. Yes. Is that they don't call them rules. They're so pretentious they call them laws.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_03

It's almost biblical. You know, it's like Moses came down from the uh mount with tablets establishing soccer.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. He did the Ten Commandments and the FIFA laws.

SPEAKER_02

We put it back together for him.

SPEAKER_03

So who um who decides what the laws are? Who is the law giver and in the soccer world?

SPEAKER_02

I thought that was back to Congress. I thought that was their job. So I don't know. Uh I try to question.

SPEAKER_03

Dude, I try so hard. I have MLS. I have the MLS thing on Apple. I know. I know. I've gone to the Orlando City games. You've gone to the U.S.

SPEAKER_02

You've seen the U.S. men's national team play. I was there with you.

SPEAKER_03

I I have. I've watched the Seattle Sounders play. That's true. You've been there at Lumen Field. I've watched games on the telly. You were a luminary at Lumen Field. I just thought of that. And you know, watching them on the telly is actually easier than watching them on the real pitch thing. How's that? Look, I called it a pitch because the field is so damn big. Yeah. How do you think I feel running all over that field, huh? Oh my God, I don't know how you do it. Then I watched this 3D thing on my Apple Vision Pro about Barcelona. Uh was it Barcelona? No, it was Real Madrid. Real Madrid.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

About their stadium and their team. Their stadium is so amazing. The burn bow? Strips of the field move up and down. Oh, that's right. Yeah. They hide them down below where they nurse them into perfection. They actually have a dude who who who who rolls balls on it to make sure it's perfectly level and flat.

SPEAKER_02

It's an obsession. Yeah. Well, there's big money involved in all this, as you may know.

SPEAKER_03

So speaking of that'd be like seeing some greenskeeper on an NFL field down there with a pair of scissors snipping the little.

SPEAKER_02

That one's quarter inch too tall.

SPEAKER_03

That's what they do it in soccer, apparently. Well, it's very important. Balls to go to the phone. Because it's not just rules, it's laws. You could go to jail if the field is bumpy. It's a law. It's a law. Pay attention to the law, dang it. All right.

Closing Remarks and Short Stories

SPEAKER_03

Look at the time. Oh, I think that means we have to end. I think it does. We try to keep these somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_02

And about the average dog walk, because it seems like that's where most people are doing their listening.

SPEAKER_03

Dog walk, commute. A lot of people commute with us. You know? It's it's it's like it's like give you an analogy and a plug. Um it's kind of like an audiobook. Audiobooks are nice. They're good. You're on a long trip or whatever, but but short stories are audio short stories are so much nicer for short trips and you know standing in line and that kind of stuff, which is why I do all these short story podcasts that need more listeners, by the way. Oh, okay. They do. I was looking at the well no, this is a because here's here's the thing there's a guy, and I'm not gonna say who he is, but he does a short story podcast, and he does like two a week. And he's got so many listeners. And I try I've listened to him and I try to listen with a critical ear. He's horrible! He's a terrible narrator. But he does two a week. And yet he has more listeners than I do, and it bothers me. I can get that impression. It it bothers me. Lots more listeners.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

I work really hard on my short stories. I even write some of them. So go check out. If you want to find them all, here's the easiest way. Go to shortstoryverses.com or just go on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and look for me. Just look for me.

SPEAKER_02

The picture just pops up there.

SPEAKER_03

Does it really well, you know, now I better oh hold on. I may be wrong. Before I say that, I I'm I'm gonna check, see if my name does come up. It may not be me. Let's see, Don McDonald. No, it really doesn't. Uh so look for lit reading or short story.

SPEAKER_02

L-I-T, not L-I-P, by the way.

SPEAKER_03

Lit reading. I'm gonna have to change the name.

SPEAKER_02

I it confuse confusing.

SPEAKER_03

Because it bothers Tom.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it doesn't bother me. It's just a branding guy, it's kind of a concern, that's all.

SPEAKER_03

It means reading literature. Lit reading.

SPEAKER_02

Reading Liperture. So I get it.

SPEAKER_03

We gotta go now. We're done. We're totally apparently we are done talking real money.

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The opinions and views expressed in this podcast were current on the date recorded. Opinions, estimates, forecasts, and statements of financial market trends that are based on current market conditions constitute our judgment and are subject to change without notice, including any forward-looking estimates or statements which are based on certain expectations and assumptions.

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Although information and opinions given have been obtained from or based on sources believed to be reliable, no warranty or representation is made as to their correctness, completeness, or accuracy.

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