The Big Short – Sell it all Rickerty Split (with Book of Lies)

Full transcript of The Big Short – Sell it all Rickerty Split (with Book of Lies).

0:00KT: Hey, guys. Welcome back to For Your Reference. We're starting off with Quid Pro Mo, and we had the pleasure of having Brandi and Sunny onto our podcast this week. Thank you so much for coming on, and also happy early birthday to Brandi. Happy birthday. Now let's get on to the show.

0:19Sunny: Hi. I'm Sunny Hepburn.

0:19Brandi: And I'm Brandi Fleeks. And this is Book of Lies, the podcast, podcast.

0:28Sunny: Where we discuss liars, cheats, and thieves.

0:31Brandi: Scammers, and dirty rotten scoundrels.

0:34Sunny: So tune in for new episodes every Tuesday to hear about another low down dirty liar. And learn how to spot them. So that's Book of Lies podcast.

0:45Brandi: Find us on your favorite podcast player or on Twitter at bookofliespod, on Instagram at bookofliespodcast, and on Facebook at bookofliespodcast. And if you wanna send us an email, send us one at BookofLiesPodcast@gmail.com. Okay? Bye bye.

1:35KT: Hey, friends and lovers. Welcome back to For Your Reference. You've got your host, KT.

1:35Oti: And Oti.

1:35KT: And we have got a colossal, epic, problematic episode today, and we needed to bring the experts, a book, if you will. Can you please introduce yourselves?

1:55Brandi: Yes. Absolutely. This is Brandi Fleeks.

1:59Sunny: And this is Sunny Hepburn.

2:02Brandi: And we're from Book of Lies.

2:06KT: Oh, I love that. Oti, we need to get onto that. Yeah. We need to have a sync like, we need to have a little jingle going on. Get in sync. Well, thank you so much for joining us on this particular episode. If you guys For Your Reference listeners, if you haven't checked our Book of Lies, first of all, how dare you? How dare you? Where have you been? You.

2:30KT: Definitely check them out. We'll put the links in the show notes. But this is kind of their realm. This is where they live. So I'm pretty sure we've got some fact checkers for So let's get started. Let's go into the stats. This is a film based on a book by Michael Lewis of the same name called The Big Short. It's a film that came out in 2015, directed by Adam McKay.

2:58KT: And just a little snapshot of the cast, we have Christian Bale, who plays doctor Burry. We have Steve Carell, plays Mark Baum. And we also have Ryan Gosling, who plays Jared Vennett. And, obviously, I need to mention Brad Pitt, who plays Brad Pitt. I I know. How dare I? How dare I? How dare I? The budget was 28,000,000, and it grossed a 133,300,000 worldwide.

3:24Oti: Wow.

3:25KT: That's a that's a lot of bonds.

3:27Sunny: That is a lot of bonds.

3:29KT: It's a lot of Shorted. It's a lot of bonds to break, unfortunately. So let's get into it. Let's get into first impressions. Book of Lies. The ladies that control and handle all of the liars. Mhmm. I wish I could control liars. Give us give us a little tasting. Give us a little backdrop in regards to 2008, what happened, what was going on in your lives, where were we?

3:59Sunny: Oh, so sorry. She looked at me real sideways. I look sideways. That's I'm just saying. Just start talking. I will start talking. She looked at me sideways. Anyway, so in 2008, I was actually still living up in the Bay Area. I was working in Silicon Valley, and like, you know, Palo Alto, I was working for a website company. And I decided for some reason that I wanted to move back home. And I was after a dude, of course. Mhmm. And I moved back home. I quit my job.

4:35Sunny: I happened to cash out my 401k just because I was young and dumb, and I was like, oh, look at this money. And when I moved back home, I was in like the LA market. It was a different market, and then the market had crashed. Mhmm. And it was so hard to find a job. A decent job, a nice job, a job that, you know, I felt I was, you know, that met my experience and my skills. There were just no jobs out there. I had to take a job,

5:06Sunny: like in a call center, a shady call center. And that was just it. That was the status quo.

5:06KT: Think all call

5:15KT: centers come in the shady sort of variety.

5:15Sunny: They do.

5:20Sunny: A little shady. What about you, Brandi?

5:20Brandi: Yeah. So in 2008, I was working at a furniture store, and I was also going to school working toward my journalism degree. And I remember it was also an election year, so I remember a lot of people coming into the furniture store and of course they would use their tax money to make, like basically to refurnish their whole houses, but a lot of people were leaving. They were moving out of houses and so they were buying smaller furniture that would fit into apartments. And

6:06Brandi: there were a lot of vacant houses. I remember a lot of vacant houses everywhere. Oh. And so, there were houses that were for sale, but there were houses that just sat empty. People just walked away Yeah, from people walked away from their houses or they were foreclosed on. And so people were basically, like, moving from houses into apartments.

6:32KT: Wow.

6:32Brandi: So, yeah, that was our my 2008.

6:36KT: That's that's crazy. And I think because even in Australia, we didn't really understand what was happening. It was kind of just like headlines after headlines, something bad's happening, but we don't really understand what's going on. Did that hit Kenya? Well,

6:52Oti: We saw it on the news definitely, but it wasn't it was more like every day in Kenya is struggle street. So it's a different struggle. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not really going to affect you that much in terms of your day to day challenges, but we definitely saw we saw the news and we were aware of what was happening.

7:18KT: Yeah. And I I think because, you know well, at least at least from the film, they were saying, you know, millions of jobs were lost and millions of people lost their homes. And I think it was, you know, as a non American, I I think it was a good time to let people deal with their stuff and then bring this movie out. Like, it shouldn't have come out straight after all of this shit happened. Right?

7:42Brandi: Oh, no. Especially because that was an election year, so people were blaming the government. George Bush was basically he was leaving office. Mhmm. And know, Barack Obama was just elected at the end of the year. So there was like a lot of shit happening and then right after, they bailed out the banks. So the banks basically didn't get punished. Nobody got punished except one dude who nobody knew. And it was just like that whole year was like it was it was a struggle for most people.

8:18KT: But that's that's what I always say, you know, with the movie The Purge, how people are going out and killing the neighbor that they've hated for years. I would go and commit white collar crime. That's what I would be doing during The Purge so I can back up all that money. Give me the money. Yeah. Just a question, Sunny, in regards to the 401k. I think that's what Australians would call, like, a superannuation account.

8:43Sunny: Yep. Yes. Like, when you retire, that's, like, the money that you'll have to live off. So you can actually take money from there before you retire.

8:43KT: Is that a thing?

8:43Sunny: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's my money. I can do whatever the fuck I wanna do with it.

8:43KT: But you don't get all of it?

8:43Sunny: You have to just pay a tax. You have to pay a penalty on it. So it's a higher because like in your 401ks, you don't pay taxes on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's just money that's sitting there, but if you take it out before

9:13Sunny: you retire, you have to pay a tax on it.

9:16KT: Oh yeah, because we're not allowed to touch it here.

9:16Brandi: We

9:20Brandi: have social security, so that's what our when you hit a certain age, you can start collecting your Social Security. I think that's more like the superannuation. Superannuation.

9:33KT: Yes. I wish my annuation was more super, but it is what it is. You know? I'm counting my pennies that are in there, and it's fine. Count those duckets.

9:42Brandi: Yeah. No, the 401k is like, it's like a separate account that you pay into to go on top of your social security once you retire.

9:54Sunny: Yeah. It's like, you know, if you work for a good company, they'll match you on certain, you know, levels or amount of money. So it's like, you know, you put in this money, and if you have so much money in, they're like, okay, here's

10:07Sunny: $2,000 for free for the year. Have a great day.

10:07Brandi: Yeah. And in 2008, a lot of people lost their 401ks.

10:07Sunny: So I took my shit out. I was like, give me my money.

10:07Brandi: Yeah. Their bank the companies

10:19Brandi: and the banks that held the 401ks, they basically they lost all that money that they had in there.

10:19KT: Yeah. So I guess any any sort of experience was on, like, a human level. There wasn't really that big sort of picture of this is actually happening to millions of people

10:34Brandi: Mhmm.

10:34KT: Sort of thing.

10:34Brandi: No yeah. Nobody really realized how big it was until it was too late.

10:40KT: Yeah. Okay. Well, let's let's get straight into the film because we're already pretty much talking about it already. Feel free to add more facts because I really have a very simplistic sort of understanding of how this works. But we have we have Ryan Gosling's character with who is the narrator.

11:02Sunny: Mm-mm. He didn't look good in this movie. Remember what I told you, like, he has the dark hair, he's got the brown contacts.

11:13KT: Don't find him conventionally handsome and it's not because Oti's in the room. I just don't see it. I just I I don't see it. But, you know, power to you. Power to all the Ryan Gosling fans. It's when he just he has his shirts off. And you know what? Oti has actually watched The Notebook and I haven't. Sorry. I'm exposing you.

11:13Guests: I've never seen it either. I'm with you, KT. I've never seen it.

11:13KT: Blasphemy? It is blasphemy. No. Blasphemy is blasphemy is you watching it by yourself.

11:46KT: Is is that what those tissues were for, Oti?

11:46Oti: Yes.

11:46KT: Are these happy tissues?

11:46Oti: They're sad tissues. I think they start off one way and they turn off another way.

11:46KT: Yes. So Ryan Gosling is narrating the film, and we pretty much get introduced to the characters as we go along the way. Brandi and Sunny, actually, do you wanna choose someone specifically we can start talking about?

12:11Brandi: Who's this? My favorite character is Mark Baum played by Steve Carroll, who is Correll. Whatever. He is my this is my favorite character that he's ever played. And he puts on that voice, that high pitched Jewish voice, and he's an angry man, but he hates seeing injustice. I love it.

12:35KT: I think that's quite an interesting no. I think Little Miss Sunshine might have come out before this, but this is in the time where Steve Carell had left The Office, and he was starting to take on more serious sort of roles. I did enjoy him, but I also can't disassociate him from Michael Scott. Yeah. It just seemed like one of Scott Stocking intelligent things. And I think pretty much everyone who has watched The Office, and he writes this little espionage where he's like a spy and his wife is Catherine Zeta-Jones. Michael Scarn.

13:04KT: Yeah. Yeah. So when he said something serious, I was waiting for some ridiculous line, like, for him to say was something. Waiting for the comedic relief. Yeah. But

13:14Sunny: and he hasn't He didn't been smile once in this whole No. He didn't. He was Yeah. He was very angry. He, like, didn't trust anybody. He looked for the fault and everything, which I respected. He was just like, you know, let me investigate it. Let me make sure this is factual. I knew you were a fucking asshole.

13:30KT: Moving on. Yeah. And I think what Steve Carell had going for him is his voice had that sort of vulnerability in him, so you actually were rooting for him. So he was a dick. He he was a dick to the people that should have been dicks to. Right? Right. But he did have that humanity about him. And the fact that he was struggling, you know, with not, in his opinion, not helping his brother Right. That was also a underlying theme for the film as well. We also didn't mention spoilers, but, you know, it's spoilers.

14:04Sunny: Come on. You had, like, what, four years to watch it?

14:07KT: Yeah. Long time. But he I feel like he was one of the stronger characters definitely, At least to bring that human sort of element

14:17KT: back to the movie.

14:17Oti: Otherwise, you you know, made this movie really really cringey and hateable because, well, the fact that people went around knowing that everything is shit from the banks, including the bonds. You know when you're investing, like the bonds are those things that you just put your money in knowing that it won't tank. Yeah. And the fact that those bonds are made up of crap real estate and just

14:17Sunny: Well, that's that's let me bring you to my character.

14:47Sunny: So Christian Bale Mhmm. Michael Burry. Doctor Michael Burry. Mhmm. He was so kooky, but he was just like first of all, he had a glass eye. These are real people, by the way. These are real people, but Mhmm. I'll tell you anyway. Hang on. So Christian Bale, he just comes off like super awkward, socially awkward. He's talking to that guy. He's giving him his backstory. He's going deep. I thought he was like in therapy when he first was introduced. And he's in an interview. Yeah. He's interviewing a kid for a job.

15:21Sunny: And the guy's like, do I get a job? So the Christian Bale, he finds the fault. He finds the he knew the market was gonna crash. He looked in the numbers. He was like, remember when the market crashed thirty years ago? Find out what's in these bonds. So then he looks at the bonds. He evaluates everything, and he's like, this is garbage. This is bullshit. This is where we can make money. And then it kinda snowballs from there.

15:56Brandi: But and he he okay. He's Michael Burry in real life is on the spectrum. Of course. Mhmm. Duh. So he's not looking at it from a humanistic point of view. Like

16:10Oti: True. He's been entrusted to get people their money.

16:14Brandi: Yeah. He's an investment guy.

16:17Sunny: He's kinda he's kinda like

16:20Brandi: Madoff.

16:23Sunny: No. No. I'm just saying like his job. He's an investment broker. Investing his clients money into places where they will make money. So, you know, there's a part in the movie, spoiler, where they're like, give us our fucking money. Give us our money. He's like, no. No.

16:42KT: But he I I guess, you know, for most people that are savants or people that are experts in a particular field, they usually you know, in in lieu of human sort of soft skills, they have their specialized sort of skill. And he was all about the numbers. Right? And Correct. Correct

17:01KT: me if I'm wrong, but from the point of the film, he was the first one to discover it because he was the first one to actually lay everything out there and see from the banks, from the credit sort of ratings and that sort of thing. He was able to see where it was going or where it wasn't going.

17:19Brandi: Mhmm. Right. And everyone thought he was bonkers for it. He invested $1,300,000,000 of his investors' monies into, what were they called? Banks. It was the banks, the actual banks that held the mortgages. But he got yeah. But he got them to create the bond, the short the short bond.

17:40Sunny: Yes. That didn't exist prior to that. Yeah. They were like, we'll take your fucking money. Exactly.

17:44Brandi: We'll take your money. You're crazy. And then he's thinking you guys are fucking screwed.

17:52KT: But I absolutely love it because when the executives came in and they're like, you need to pull it out. Bring my money back. I want my money back. He's like, screw you guys. I've got it in the contract. You can't do anything about it. Yeah. Exactly. He's like, let me think about that. And I yeah. Exactly. And and it's one of those things. Right? And I I guess for him to not

18:14KT: to not really care or not really focus on that sort of element, you really need to back yourself To really have this sort of

18:23Oti: to to foresee something like this and to not be influenced by especially pressures from higher up, you really need to back yourself. So good for him. True. But there were moments in the movie where he was actually doubting himself because it kept on going up regardless of whether the bonds were crap or not.

18:23Sunny: I don't think he was doubting himself because He he he didn't understand why it continued going up.

18:46Sunny: And Right. Because it's this is going to shit. Exactly. Should it should the bottom should drop out, and it's not dropping. And what's the problem? Like, what's happening? And that was because the banks were hiding that shit. They were hiding it. Yep. And they tried to hide it as long as they could.

19:04KT: Exactly. And That sucks. So let's I guess, let's bring everyone along the journey for the movie before we talk about what happens midway through. So we've talked about Steve Carell's character. We've talked about doctor Burry. And, I was also watching a interview on The Hollywood Reporter. That interviewer was shit, by the way, but it's a good interview,

19:24KT: just to watch the cast talk about it. And Adam McKay, the director, was talking about how doctor Burry's character, like, the real life guy, actually had to have half of his stomach removed because of all that, like, all of that stress that he was dealing with. And we're not the mindfulness podcast, but it is important to note that if you are dealing with stress and you're not dealing with with it properly, it will manifest in your body.

19:48Brandi: Yes.

19:49KT: And that's how people get to and they were talking about how the people that's short on Wall Street look physically sick, and it must be that prolonged sort of stress

19:59Brandi: It is. For sure.

19:59KT: That goes on.

20:02KT: Well, we we haven't talked about the young guys, Jamie and Ben.

20:06Brandi: Oh, yeah. They're fun. Yeah. I love seeing Finn Wittrock as a serious character instead of Dandy from American Horror Story.

20:20KT: So these are some young guys operating out of their basement. And because I don't really understand this world, when they were pitching and saying that they made $1.10 to 30,000,000, I'm like, oh, this is amazing when you realize to be with the big leagues, to be with the big dogs, you

20:20Guests: Billions.

20:20KT: Need to be

20:37Brandi: Yeah. Billions.

20:40Sunny: Freaking sit at the table. Yeah. So their thing was they took some money that they, you know, earned or whatever, like you said, earned rowing or doing one the summer job. They got some clients, they invested their money wisely and they made what, $30,000,000, $50,000,000, something And like that's, I mean, hello to you and I, that's fucking amazing. Yeah. Yeah. But to want to play ball with, like, big boys like JPMorgan Chase. Yeah. These are with banks. Like, you guys aren't a bank.

21:12Brandi: You are little investors. You're a little broker. Yeah. You're a little firm. And so they're like, you need to be on our level

21:20Sunny: and you're not. And you're not. And they didn't even know how to be on their level, is kind of the sad thing. They like wasted their time and it was the end of the day on a Friday and like who takes a meeting at 04:00 on a Friday? Not me. But that's kind of where Brad Pitt's character is introduced. They know him. They met him in Colorado and I fucking love him in this movie. He's like such a hippie. I believe that seeds will be the new currency, like he's dead. But Brad Pitt plays

21:55Sunny: Ben Rickert who is a retired investment broker, something like that. Mhmm. So these guys call him in to help him out, to look at the because we did you talk about Ryan Gosling's character and like who he was?

22:14KT: No, we're going to come back to you can you can go into it. That's fine. So

22:19Sunny: the guys happened to find like a it's like a pitch book or whatever they call it. Mhmm. Their dossier. Mhmm. So they happened to find Ryan Gosling's dossier because Ryan Gosling is hip to the fact that Christian Bale's character has bought these bonds to short the mortgage market, the housing market. And then Ryan Gosling's character, Vennett, he does his investigating. He realizes that it is factual. So now he's trying to sell it to these banks. Nobody's taking him seriously because they're like, the housing market is super stable, fuck off. And

23:00Sunny: he was sitting in the lobby as well, kind of like those guys were, and he left his book on the table. Mhmm. And the way the story tells it is these two guys, they found his dossier and broke down what was going on and they wanted in to be able to buy these bonds or these shorts. So that's why they use Brad Pitt to come in because he knows he's well received and they have him verify what they think.

23:29Brandi: And Brad Pitt's awesome. Kinda weird. Thinks the NSA is listening to his fucking he has 15 different fucking phone numbers. What kind of crazy shit is that?

23:38Sunny: He's You're like calling me on the wrong number. I have to hang up.

23:41KT: He's like completely off the grid and I think that's what I guess that's what happens sometimes. If you have exposure to too much information, you can start to get a bit paranoid. Mhmm. I guess so. The Snowden effect. Tune in next week. But, yeah, that I don't know, man. This there there are so many different streams in this film, which is actually quite interesting because you see, you know, the the starting coming from doctor Burry's character, and no one's really believing him, but he's still going to do what he's doing. And somehow

24:16KT: with, you know, bankers I think it was that he was the way it was set up in the film, he was bragging about it in the club because that's what you do when you pack the bottles. In the club. In the club. Yeah.

24:29Brandi: And then because he they're like, oh, he he got us to make him this basically this this package that didn't exist before and he's crazy because nobody default on their mortgage.

24:41Sunny: Everybody pays Everybody their pays their mortgage.

24:47Brandi: No. And 2006 to 2008.

24:52KT: Yeah. So you have, like, different angles of people discovering and in in most ways, in big ways, benefiting from this sort of crisis. Right? So you have Ryan Gosling's character and, you know, him being laughed out of banks, like you just mentioned. And him having interactions with Baum's character and his little firm upon an accident. And then, you know, these these young guns, Ben and Jamie, also finding it as well. So you have different streams of them experiencing what's gonna happen.

25:24KT: And, you know, it's whether you wanna call it a faith thing or a facts thing, you really need to back yourself because it will be so easy, especially when they started to see I think it was in 2007, it actually started to rise. Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. So even though you know it's all it's all full of shit and everyone that is, you know, churning this shit is also made of shit, there's nothing you can do because there are too many regulatory

25:50KT: bodies that are backing each other.

25:50Brandi: Yeah. Right. And they're concealing information.

25:56KT: And that was an interesting scene when Baum went to the creditor lady or Oh, yeah. I'm not really sure what that's called, but they're the ones that assure the ratings.

26:06KT: Right? Something in pools.

26:06Guests: It's Standard and Poor's. Standard and Poor's.

26:06KT: Yeah. Yeah. And and and and then she had on these glasses because she was this old lady trying to play this little

26:06Guests: I think she got her eyes dilated.

26:06KT: Yeah. Did she? But I felt she to the eye doctor. I felt it was more I felt it was more like, feel sorry for me. I'm an old lady. I don't know what I'm lady. Where are the papers? Yeah. She's a lot old though.

26:31Oti: It was symbolism of the don't see shit. Yeah. Oh, wow. Or Right. Okay. Yeah. Right. I can't see shit. Wow.

26:38KT: Lady Justice is blind. Look at you.

26:41Brandi: Yep. You're welcome. Wow.

26:43KT: You are too deep for this podcast. Maybe you need to be on Book of Lies.

26:43Guests: He's super deep.

26:43KT: But in that scene, she you know, she's a quaint lady. She's like, oh, you know, I don't know. This is how it works. And then when it gets to the pointier end of the conversation when Baum is essentially, like, pulling her up on her bullshit, she starts to rear her thorns. And she's like

27:05KT: Mhmm. She's like, what are you benefiting? What are you benefiting out of this? And it it was How many do you own? How many of these how many of these these bonds do you own? Exactly.

27:15Sunny: And And he's like, that's none of your fucking business, bitch.

27:19KT: Rightly so. But something interesting that Baum's character says because she kept saying she didn't know, and we're just you know, this I'm just doing my job, essentially. And Baum's character says something very poignant. And he says, so does that mean you have no hand in this, that you're not guilty at all just because you're working and you're not in charge of all of that? I thought that was quite

27:42KT: poignant.

27:42Sunny: And I think she's like, I have bosses. She's like I have a boss.

27:46Oti: Yeah. Blame my boss. I'm just doing whatever it is that he instructs me to.

27:52Brandi: Yeah. Mean their issue was that if we don't rate it, they're gonna go to the competition.

28:00KT: Yeah. And I I think that was a nice little because they were as as fun and as satirical as this film was, there were some tasty sort of morsels for you to digest

28:11KT: and really think about. And that was one of those moments.

28:11Oti: Yeah. Because the the system has checks and balances which supposed to regulate everything and then if those are not doing their job and they're turning a blind eye on everything that's happening because every every bond that they're being presented, they're just giving a triple a triple a triple a. Right. Which is crazy. It's quite criminal to think that no one got arrested out of this apart from some bloke

28:38KT: Who was kind of doing what everyone was doing anyway. Yeah. Wasn't like him swinging.

28:43Sunny: There was so much fraud. So much fraud. So not just the banker who got arrested at the end of the day, but like, one character that they bring in, one celebrity that they bring in to explain something, you know, RIP, Anthony Bourdain. Yeah. But, you know, he explains the CDO. And this, the CDO is, is a combination of all of these different mortgages that are rated at triple A, double A,

29:15Sunny: if it's a triple B, B. Yeah, all the way down to like Bs. Yeah. As as it's Cs. I don't think they mentioned anything about Cs, but what they're saying is these mortgages are like the credit rates. So if it's like a triple A, it's like oh you have that 800 FICO score, you pay your bills, you're reliable.

29:36Brandi: Yeah, you're a safe investment. You're a safe investment.

29:40Sunny: So the housing mortgage is supposed to be built up of all of these different mortgages that are super reliable and stable, but they're not. They're built up of bees. Yeah. That's

29:53KT: I think that's I think that's a sound bite right there. The world is built up of bees.

30:00Sunny: Bunch of bees.

30:02KT: SO bees.

30:05Sunny: Right? And so, like, he was like, it's like, I'm gonna go ahead and revamp this bee and it's double A. And turning into triple A fish soup.

30:14Brandi: Yeah. Because you're just he basically, you're combining a bunch of b's and then turning it into triple a. Yeah. Just repackaging everything. Yeah.

30:22KT: Feel like the explanations were very spot on. Like, it literally helped me understand exactly, you know, what they were going through and all of the jargon that they were mentioning. So let let's talk about the celebrity sort of cameos. Our our residential Aussie, Margot Robbie. Mhmm. Apparently, she was In a bathtub with some champagne? Apparently, she was sipping on some vintage Dom Pérignon. Oh. And she had, like, 20 glasses of them. Yes, please. Yes.

30:52Sunny: Nice.

30:53KT: We'll call it the big reference, Oti. Go and get me go and get me some champagne. The big reference is also for another type.

31:04Brandi: God.

31:07KT: Margot Robbie is who we were talking about. But she she does quite well as well, I think,

31:14KT: in explaining her.

31:14Sunny: No. She's perfect. She's perfect. And it's like Yeah. When you were like, oh, she's delicious. I love her. She's in a bathtub and she's drinking champagne. I'm gonna listen to whatever you have to say in her explanation of

31:28Brandi: What it means to short a bond. Is spot on and you remember it because Margot Robbie. Yeah. She basically she explained what what shorting a bond means. And subprime as well.

31:41Sunny: Oh yeah, subprime is shit.

31:41Brandi: Well, okay, so a

31:44Brandi: subprime loan is basically a loan that they were giving out to people who were low income, or no income in some cases apparently, or people who had low FICO scores. They started them at a fixed low rate, and after a certain period of time that rate became adjustable. So it would jump up to about 60%. Mhmm. And it would fluctuate, and people couldn't pay that that 60% interest, so

32:17Brandi: they were basically defaulting on their mortgages.

32:17KT: Yeah. And we also have an appearance from Richard Thaler and Selena Gomez in the casino. Right? Because that's where things because Margot Robbie set a nice sort of precedence of shorting bonds and that sort of thing. But then things started to get quite complicated and Mhmm. Interwoven together. So this was pretty much explaining because we we get to a point where, okay, we understand what shorting bonds is. We understand,

32:46KT: you know, turning things into fish stew. But how are these people getting away with it? How the fuck is this happening? So in Selena Gomez's particular segment, they were talking about, you know, on that premise where they called CDOs. Yeah. But they called it about basketball, a hot hand shot or something. Oh, when they're taking, like, side bets. Yeah. Yeah. So when, you know, when you've won for so long, you're not going to fail the next time.

33:14KT: Right? So I think that crafted so yeah. And it it crafted so perfectly what that meant. And it's like, oh, okay. So everyone's trying to back something that they knew was shit all along.

33:25Brandi: Mhmm. And they're putting that into a bond and selling it as triple Love while you.

33:33KT: We were watching this, I was saying to Oti, like, what they're doing is shitty. But if it was it was like a corporate sort of scenario and it was just sales on products, that would be a different thing. But they're actually dealing with people's lives cause these are mortgages.

33:47Oti: Yep. Because they're just short of a man with his daughter who would have just bought a house and he was paying rent, but the the landlord wasn't paying the mortgage.

33:59KT: I just say can I just say I was watching The Breakfast Club and Jidenna was featuring on there? Apparently that happened to him as well. Oh, really? You know Jidenna the singer? Yeah. He

34:11KT: he I think they bought a mansion. They they leased out a mansion in like Atlanta, Georgia or something so they could create and work on their album. And for months, they've been paying the landlord and the landlord wasn't. So the cops showed up out of nowhere To evict them. To evict them. Oh, shit. And then Jidenna and his crew just went to Africa for a bit. So

34:36Sunny: shady and that happens a lot. Really? It's like you're paying rent. It happened. And no, it's I think it still happens a lot. People like are renting from people and they're not paying the mortgage. They're just collecting that rent and then you're out of a house once your freaking house is foreclosed on. They're trying to get you out of there.

34:53Oti: Yeah. Which is ridiculous. Surely, has to be some way to prevent that from happening to people. Because from that end, they're not doing anything wrong. They're still paying their bills. You know? They're paying them money. You're paying rent.

35:05Brandi: Yep. Well, you can try to sue the landlord, but he doesn't have any money. Yeah. He's

35:10Oti: bought the house.

35:14KT: It's crazy. It's crazy. And even in the film, you know, when Baum took his team out to actually go and look at places.

35:22Sunny: Oh my gosh. That was one of the best scenes.

35:25KT: But it it was crazy because, you know, they were talking to those two super tanned super tanned white teeth agent

35:33KT: guys.

35:33Sunny: Well, Did notice you notice who one of those guys was? Did you notice one was Max Greenfield?

35:39KT: I'm not sure.

35:39Sunny: Freaking Schmidty?

35:39KT: Really?

35:42Sunny: Who's Schmidt From the New Girl.

35:44Oti: Oh, we don't watch do you watch New Girl? Yeah. I used to watch New Girl, but I didn't recognize him. Schmidt.

35:50Sunny: Oh, there you He was like, yeah, strippers. You know, topless, strippers. And

35:57Brandi: that's where you find out that, like, they're freaking basically issuing these loans. Mortgage fraud. Right? They are garbage. Ninja they call them ninja loans.

36:07Sunny: No income, no jobs.

36:09KT: And then so so you have Baum's character asking, you know, is there is there a barrier to entry? Do you vet them? Do you do credit checks on them? And, you know, they're essentially saying no to everything. And Baum takes his team away, and he's like, why are these guys confessing? I thought that was funny.

36:09Guests: No. They're bragging.

36:27KT: And I think that's bragging. Yeah. I think that's quite a common theme in the film because if you're, you know, if you're selling these properties or if you're assuring them, if you're doing the credit ratings for them, you're not necessarily caring about the actual people. You're caring about the bottom line and meeting your targets and getting bonuses.

36:45Sunny: Yeah. And it's that industry. It's that it's that that boys club. They're like, oh, yeah. Show me you know, let me see your W-2. How much did you W-2 last year? Like, I used to work in that environment. Did you W-2? Yeah. Let's let's see your W-2. Let's see it. Like, I make more money than you. And they're just like, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm getting these bonuses. I'm getting these contracts. I'm targeting immigrants. I'm targeting strippers. People who aren't reading the fine print. They're

37:12Sunny: signing it, and then their payment doubles. It goes up 200%.

37:17Oti: It's ridiculous. Yeah. It's crazy. And that I went to that stripper and she took out five she has five houses and a condo.

37:25Brandi: In a condo.

37:27KT: That's Florida for you. Possibly, like, two loans on each. Because that's one of the things. You Oh, yeah. The the banks will give it, but you need a regulatory body to be like, dude, these guys can't afford it. You shouldn't be giving these loans, and it just wasn't happening because it was in their best interest to let this happen because they'll go to another company. Right? I think the onus get that assurance. Yeah.

37:27Oti: I think the onus also has to be on the people themselves because, yes, you're a stripper.

37:54Oti: How the fuck do you think owning five houses and a condo is ideal? At some point, common sense has to just kick in a bit. You know?

37:54KT: This is a For Your Reference PSA.

38:08KT: Oti's reflections on strippers does not reflect on KT. Continue.

38:17Oti: No. Throw those bills together, but I'm just saying, you know, it's it's

38:22Brandi: What I love is that they're like, all of these people that are making them money, like, okay, this stripper and these loan officers. None of them are actually putting their money toward working for them. Even the loan officers that are making money hand over fist should be like investing or at least trying to make their money work even though everything just tanked in 2008. I bought a boat. But yeah, you bought a fucking boat. How about you go and put that fucking money and invest it in, like, fucking Apple?

39:02KT: So what we see in the film, it's it's a modest sort of model. Right? The reason why it fails is because of the sheer population of The United States. Because if you look at the model as it is, you've got a layer of solid,

39:17KT: genuine, triple a sort of loans. Right? Right. And then, you know, just to offset the high risks of, you know, the b sort of loans, you kinda fit some of them into that stack. Yep. Right? So it's it's it's going to be fine, and it's stable for the most part. But, you know, America has, like, hundreds of millions of people. If you if you put it on that sort of scale, it was going to fail. It just made sense in the numbers.

39:47Brandi: And I think that was something that was missing as well. Yeah, the problem was that the people who should have been buying houses already had the houses that they wanted. They weren't buying all the houses. Yeah. And the American dream is to own a home. Mhmm. So all these people who could not afford to buy homes suddenly were being offered this chance to buy this house. And most of them knew they wouldn't be able to afford it and they were talked into these loans

40:19Brandi: by, you know, they were enticed by these low rates and they didn't read the fine print and find out that the loan was gonna go up, so all the people who shouldn't have been buying houses started buying houses and it's basically screwed them and screwed the country for a while.

40:39KT: Yeah. And I guess it's one of those interesting things that you see in the film because we did like we saw, you know, that man with his family their home. And then later on in the film, we see that they're actually hopefully trying to move somewhere, but they have everything in their car, and they're trying to make their way through. And I guess that's when it becomes more of like a human sort of story.

41:02Oti: Yeah.

41:03Brandi: Yeah. Like in California, it's expensive to live in this state and a lot of people and a lot of businesses are moving to Midwestern and Southern states because it's way more affordable. Places that they were focusing on in the movie was like Florida, New York, and California because those are some of the most expensive states to live in and that's where people were buying houses.

41:03KT: Yeah. So we pretty much get to the point of the film. I don't think we really see doctor Burry's, like, family,

41:40KT: but he does mention he has a son and wife. There's just a picture of them. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think is fine because we're not really focusing on, like, people's families anyway. From, like, aside from, like, Baum's character, get to see Marisa Tomei, who we fucking love. Marisa Tomei.

41:57Brandi: Yes. And they work together and

41:59KT: love Crazy Crazy, Stupid, Love. Crazy, Stupid, Love. Yeah. Yeah. Which is another film by Adam McKay. And Ryan Gosling's in it too. The whole cast reunited in that movie. Because Adam Adam McKay has done quite a lot of comedic stuff like Anchorman, The Other Guys, which I think is underrated, which I really Love it.

42:20Oti: Wait. Let me let me just ask you guys. How what do you how do you feel about Will Ferrell?

42:25Brandi: I enjoy Will Ferrell.

42:28Sunny: I think he has his moments. Yeah. Certain things, I'm just like, okay. This is funny. Like, I love him in Elf. But sometimes I'm you would think, like, these children would keep these children away from me.

42:28Brandi: She's obviously not a fan of Will Ferrell. Yeah. Clearly. She's definitely not a fan of Will Ferrell. She heard his name and she ran up here screaming.

42:51KT: I need to let the world know. It's not okay. There was a time I was obsessed with Will Ferrell, and that was during, like, Anchorman

43:01KT: time, and Oti just didn't. He's like I just don't get it. I don't see it.

43:01Oti: I don't I don't understand how it's a thing, but, you know.

43:01KT: If

43:12KT: you if you talk about, like, you know, the, you know, the the giants in American sort of comedy like comedians, I prefer him over Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler. I used to love Adam Sandler.

43:26Brandi: He's not so funny anymore because all of his jokes are the same. Yeah. And all of his movies are the same movie. Well, those are poetry themselves Yeah. Really That's terrible.

43:38Sunny: What? Jack and Jill when he plays his twin sister. Yeah. That's right. And he has that voice. Oh my gosh.

43:45KT: I think I think there are some there are some points where you see the poster and you you know it's not going to get better, so you just leave it alone.

43:52Oti: Yeah. No. But people love about the grand love. He gets he brings in the money. He makes a movie. People will go and watch it. Oh, yeah. There's Adam Sandler die hards.

44:02Sunny: Like, I like him. Like, I'll watch him on Netflix. I'm not going to the theaters to watch him, but I'll stream it on Netflix. He he cracks me up. He's funny to a certain extent. Like, I love that he's bringing Jennifer Aniston into the mix because, Oti, don't you talk about her because I know how you feel about Jennifer I will come for you. I love Jennifer Aniston. Oh, wait a minute. I I got it mixed up. KT, I I will come for you. She's

44:26Brandi: like, no. That

44:28KT: the was the universe.

44:35Oti: Because you guys have watched Friends. Right? I love Friends.

44:38Brandi: I you know what? I I can take it or leave it. Like, I don't really care about Friends.

44:44Sunny: I love Friends.

44:47KT: I don't want Friends. I do. I don't want one friend. I don't want Friends. I don't need Friends. I just aside from the fact that Aisha Tyler was on there, I like that.

44:58Brandi: Yeah. She's like the only person of color on there. Gabrielle Union was on an episode. An episode.

45:04KT: Yeah. After that counts.

45:06Sunny: But yeah. I Brad Pitt was on there too. Really? Yeah. He does. Yeah. He was like, take off your shirt take off your shirt, Will, and tell us. Is that where the Brangelina started?

45:16KT: Not Brangelina. Oh, they didn't have a name, did they? Brennifer? Brad and Jen.

45:22Brandi: They were actually married when he got on that show or when he went on there.

45:26KT: Yeah. But that was a good episode. Well, there you

45:26Sunny: He

45:30Sunny: hated her. You would love that episode KT. He hated Rachel. Oh good.

45:37KT: Oh good.

45:38Sunny: He hates her. He was like, we're in the I hate Rachel Green club. And remember the rules? You have to hate her for life. And then and then, like, he finds out that Ross and her have a baby and didn't marry her, and he was like, yeah. I

45:56KT: know what I'm doing after this. This is not the Friends podcast. Sorry. My bad. That's okay. So let's go back to the film in way of Brad Pitt because he says something quite interesting at the end of the film because Ben and Jamie were like, you know, thank you so much. Like, we really appreciate it, but why? Like, we really appreciate you doing this, but why did you help us? And then he he pretty much said, you guys said you wanted to be rich, and now you're rich. Is that really Perfect. A

46:29Brandi: Well, I wish somebody would do that for me.

46:32Sunny: Right? Yep. But

46:34Brandi: I guess he is altruistic about it and he's like, okay, I'll help you. I hope you get what you want.

46:40Sunny: But there's that scene when they're in Vegas when they decide to short the double A's or something like that. Mhmm. They make. Yeah. Because nobody was doing it. Because no one was doing it and they wanted to take less of a risk. But they were excited. They're screaming. They're high fiving. And Brad Pitt was like, stop fucking dancing. Yeah. And he was like, do you realize what we've done? If your if your bet pays off, the country's fucked. Knock it off. Don't dance.

47:07KT: And, again, I think that's one of the that's one of the moments where it brings it back to reality because, you know, especially when you're watching, like, a film, it's it's fun to get caught away in, like, the fanfare and, you know, the salaciousness of everything. But this really grounds that moment again where it's like, oh, fuck. Like, these are actual people, like, that are being affected right now. And it's like, take the money, but don't be a dick about it, essentially.

47:31Oti: You much. For me, it's more like, okay. It's all well and good in the movie for them to say, hey. People are gonna lose their jobs and shit. But where were they? They didn't tell anyone.

47:31Guests: They didn't. But also, nobody was gonna believe them. Are they Nobody was looking. Nobody was paying attention.

47:31Oti: Yeah. But where does that stop? Like, you could have gone to anyone.

47:52Oti: I know this Any news outlet. Yeah. Sure. Like, it's it's just ridiculous. They all made their money.

47:52Guests: But they went to the New York was it the New York Times? The Wall Street Journal. Oh, the Wall Street Journal. They did. They went to a writer. Oh, they went to their buddy. But the Wall Street Journal Yeah. And reports on Wall Street. And so they and most of the time they're

48:10KT: or at the time, they were reporting good news. It's interesting, isn't it? Death and doom. Because they they didn't wanna touch it. And I don't think is I I don't even know if there's a journalism side in America that actually pulls people up on their bullshit in regards to Wall Street.

48:26Brandi: Right? There is not well, actually, there are, but they're they're more underground. So there is not definitely not mainstream journalists.

48:35KT: Yeah. That's interesting. Have to go online to find that information. And if you do and if you do choose to cover a piece like that, then you've burnt your bridges. Even though Right. Even though you're supposed to be well, you know, as citizens, you would want to believe that there's an independence between, you journalism and who they're reporting on. But in the real world, that's not the case.

48:57Brandi: Mm-mm.

48:59KT: That's not the case. Rupert Murdoch. Hello. Yeah. Right? Oh, he's Bobby.

49:04Brandi: Oh, he's such a Yeah. Rupert Murdoch is an Aussie, and now he owns or he owns Fox Corp. Yeah.

49:11KT: There's there's a was it HBO or was it Showtime? They there's a recent miniseries with Russell Crowe Showtime. Called The Loudest Voice, which is kinda like the forming of Fox News as well. I'm not sure if you guys have checked it out. It it came out recently.

49:26Oti: Yeah. They're just talking about how Fox came to be because every every other media house was so focused on left leaning policies and politics. So So where do the right Where do the right go? What do the right watch? Yeah. Exactly. So you focus on your niche and you just

49:44Oti: go hard at it.

49:44Sunny: Yeah. And it's Did you just say niche? Like niche. I know.

49:54KT: For our For Your Reference listeners or if you've, you know, you've come from the Book of Lies town into For Your Reference, we mentioned this a lot where Oti didn't know that some Americans, not all, some Americans pronounce niche as niche. Yeah. They do. Is it is it a state by state thing, or is it just a person by person thing?

49:54Brandi: It's a it's a person who

50:17Brandi: refuses to speak English thing.

50:23Sunny: That's a category Where you tell it like it is.

50:26KT: And that's a category we need gloves to Oh touch. My goodness. But oh, wow. I think I I I really appreciated this film. And one of the interesting things about this particular film is it was the first directorial, like, dramatic sort of debut for Adam McKay because we did quickly mention his other movies as well. I think he did quite well in this sort of role. Yeah. I liked it. Yeah.

50:26Sunny: I really enjoyed this movie as well. I like I watched it on Netflix.

51:05Sunny: I didn't go to the movies to see it. But when when I did see it, I was just like, This is great.

51:11Oti: Yeah. It's it's great viewing. But the reality of it is just really shocking. And you're like sitting there after the movie thinking, fuck.

51:21Brandi: Mhmm. Yeah. It basically it it it pulled the the covers or the covers. It pulled the curtains back on what actually happened. Mhmm. Because if you've ever seen Too Big to Fail, that was from the banks point of view after this happened. Oh. Because the banks were were gonna die.

51:43KT: At the end of the film, they have those, like, sort of ending title sort of scenes and it was mentioning that in 2016 Bloomberg was saying that banks were reselling with a different term but it kind of looks like it's the same thing again. I'll say deals. Yeah. Yeah. It was called Tanche. Was it Tanche? Tranche. Tranche. Tranche. Yeah. So they were just they were just talking about how, you know, they said it wouldn't happen or it's never gonna happen again, and it might possibly start to happen again based on Bloomberg

51:43Brandi: History in '20

52:19Brandi: repeats itself and Americans are greedy. So those people that are sitting in those fricking banks making the money they're gonna try to do it again. It sucks.

52:30Oti: It's crazy and we've even had like not to this extent, but in Australia, we've been reading that banks are giving out loans to people regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay it. So there's a couple here that took a loan out to buy four houses. And then when the interest went off, they were like, fuck. We can't pay this. Oh god. Yeah. So they went to the papers and started crying about it. I'm like, fuck off, mate. What were you thinking? To lend a bank? Yeah.

53:00Sunny: Jeez. So you know for damn fucking well that you can't afford 400 You guys are it's gonna happen over there.

53:08KT: Get on it. Report call the news. Call the news. Call the news. And it's and it's like because both of both of my parents migrated from Tonga to Australia. So I grew up with, obviously, immigrant parents that would hide, like, money under the bed and behind the pillow and, you know, just like a really immigrant sort of approach to money. So even if we were offered a loan, I wouldn't take it because I know I won't be able to afford that, especially in Sydney. Are you kidding me? Fucking ridiculous. Like,

53:43KT: in areas that aren't even great, like, not even great areas. Like, for a three bedroom house, you're looking at 800,000 up. Oh my god. Really? Yeah. And I I wasn't sure if that would be shocking because I know you guys live in California and, like, real estate's weird there as well. But yeah. Really is, but we don't live like

54:02Sunny: in the LA area. Like honestly Not in Calabasas Yeah. With the

54:08KT: No. Calabasas houses go for Millions. Millions of dollars. Yeah. Yeah. But even if you wanna live in, like, in the city, like, in Sydney City, not even, like, a proper house, like, just a small couple of bedroom sort of apartment, you're looking at 1,500,000 up. And that's like Oh my god. And it's it it doesn't even make sense. Yeah. It's

54:30KT: they keep saying it's a bubble and it's gonna burst, and I don't really know. And there's a lot about, like, foreign what they said. That's what they said. And there's a lot about, like, foreign investors coming in and then, like, renting out properties as well, but it's it's ridiculous. It's crazy.

54:45Sunny: Well, keep storing that money behind the pillow and then once that bubble pops, get you one of those cheap houses.

54:52Brandi: Yeah. Because the the prices of houses will drop immediately. Like people, and that was the thing, people were trying to sell their houses and they were trying to at least recoup what they got and they couldn't get any money for those houses anymore.

55:08KT: Yeah.

55:10Brandi: Because Wow. The value just kept going up and up and up but it it dropped once once they tried to they tried to start selling their houses, they couldn't get what they paid for it.

55:20Sunny: Yeah. Because, you know It's a gully. We're in a gully.

55:25Brandi: Yeah. A gully.

55:27Oti: So I was just gonna say that, you know, when there's this saying, you know, fake it till you make it. And I've realized that a lot of people in whatever workspace of Ben, a lot of people don't really know the what the fuck they're doing. And I would just like to assume that in the banking sort of sector, you'd you'd get people who'd know their shit. You would hope. You would hope.

55:53KT: Because it's fake until you make it. Crop shouldn't be applying there when you're dealing with people's money. And you know what? They're probably the same people when the meeting's running over too late and the chair is like, does anyone have any question? There's always that one motherfucker, and his name's usually Greg. And he always asks questions. It's like, dude. Dude, I've got I've got mouths to feed. I gotta go home. Stop fucking asking questions.

56:18Oti: Greg, shut the fuck up.

56:20KT: No one cares, Greg. That's why your wife left you. No. I'm kidding.

56:27Sunny: Dumb bastard. Oh my god. Greg's out there. We're not talking about you. We're talking about you, Greg. We're talking about you, Greg. We're looking right at you.

56:41KT: Yeah. You know what I what I thought was quite interesting? And, you know, if we have any final thoughts for the film, we can go through that. But I just wanted to mention Michael Lewis, who wrote The Big Short, he actually has quite an expansive sort of portfolio. Because as I was looking into this, he's also wrote Moneyball, which Brad Pitt also stars in. Good one. So it's kind of related to this. But he's also wrote he he's also written Blind Side.

57:06Brandi: Oh.

57:07Sunny: Weird. Right? So he's, like, a real story. Yeah. It's true. Like, real life story. Yeah.

57:12Brandi: Not biographical.

57:13Oti: Wasn't there a controversy about Blind Side, though?

57:16Brandi: A controversy? Because it has, like, that white savior. The white savior kind Yeah. Of The white lady saving the poor black kid.

57:25Sunny: Come on. It was Sandra Bullock. I

57:29KT: I do feel like America's sweetheart. Do feel like sometimes because that movie was as far as I understood, people liked that movie when it first came out. And then, like, years later, people are now saying it's not okay. I don't know. They're they're scrutinizing it later. Like, she got her Oscar. They're mad.

57:48Sunny: And I mean, at the end of the day, it happens.

57:51Brandi: It, I mean, it happens. It happened. It's a true story. It's like, it's not a made up story. Yeah. And just, you know,

57:59Sunny: because rich white lady, how this poor black guy Well, wasn't even rich. They owned a bunch of Taco Bell's.

58:06Brandi: Oh, was that it? I don't know. I I I didn't pay attention to that movie. Well They always came home with Taco Bell. What was the black guy's name? Like, said that he wasn't even live talking. Something Oher. What was his name?

58:18Oti: Michael Oher. Yes. Michael Oher. He said that he He's a football player. He was a football player before Sandra Bullock came into the picture. Like, he knew about football Mhmm. From what I remember. So it was like, they just In the story, they were like, he wasn't really interested in football. Right? And Sandra Bullock taught him everything and well Well, you They yeah. They've been inception. She she taught the coach how to communicate with him. Well well, Will Smith didn't have a Nigerian accent. Are you gonna pull him up on that in Concussion?

58:52Oti: Why didn't they get a Nigerian actor? Will Smith can be anyone he wants to.

58:57Sunny: He can be a fucking genie, man.

59:00Brandi: Well, he is. Oh, goodness. Does that movie I think that movie

59:05Sunny: did Concussion? I don't think he did really good. No. Not Concussion.

59:08Brandi: What are you talking about? Aladdin? Aladdin?

59:10KT: Aladdin made 1,000,000,000 recently.

59:12Sunny: Well well, hot damn. I didn't. What did he say? Well, dog. Hot dog it.

59:20KT: My dream is to become a cowboy. Any final thoughts on the film?

59:30Brandi: I think

59:32KT: there anything we didn't cover that you guys wanted to bring up?

59:37Sunny: I think we went over everything. But, I mean, at the end of the day, like, I don't know if we, if you said it while my, my child was having a breakdown. $10,000,000,000,000 disappeared. So those 401ks, savings, bonds, pension, real estate, 5,000,000,000,000

59:56Brandi: That's what sucks. Like even when people didn't lose their jobs, they lost their money. They lost their savings.

60:04Sunny: 8,000,000 jobs lost, 6,000,000 homes lost. And that was just in The US.

60:10Oti: Wow. Sad.

60:12KT: But you know what? That's so discouraging, isn't it?

60:15Brandi: It sucks. And but and we're we're we were recovering, but now we've gotta Cheeto? Lord Cheeto? Yeah. Well, the orange dude thinking he can do whatever he wants. Oh, anyway. That's all. Not trying to get political up in here.

60:42Sunny: No, but it's a great movie. If you haven't watched it, watch it.

60:46Brandi: But you know what? People should watch it because it's it could and it it's likely to happen again.

60:54Oti: Yeah. Because no one learned anything. They got bailout from the government. Yep. They probably all got to get their jobs. Yeah. It's all ridiculous.

61:03Brandi: The bailout was supposed to help their freaking banks, and they gave themselves raises to CEOs. Fucking assholes.

61:10KT: Because they're the well, they're the ones creating they're the ones creating the rules. So, obviously, they'll create more rules to save themselves. Unfortunately.

61:19Brandi: You know what? Honestly, though, we need to just depose all of the rich white men that are sitting in their ivory towers and put people, real people in them and maybe we can do a better job. I nominate me.

61:37KT: I I I definitely agree with that, but I don't think they're going anywhere. I think you just have to wait for them to find their time, and then it's going to happen. Because we're watching just quickly, we're watching Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, who we fucking love. I will follow him to the ends of the earth if he asked me. But he was talking about incarceration

62:00KT: and how people that are incarcerated work these manual jobs or any sort of jobs, and they get paid in some cases 6¢ an hour. Right? And in one particular case, they were talking about, you know, sanitary products, and how you only get, like, 12 pads for the one cycle. And if you do want more, you need to go to the doctor, and the doctor will determine if you can get more sanitary sort of products. But in order to see the doctor, you need to pay for that appointment.

62:28KT: But at $6, you know, an hour 6¢ an hour, you're not going to get that. Right? But the reason why I bring this up is in the sort of tribunal, it was headed by an old white man, and he was squeamish at the at even the mention of menstruation. And he but he's genuinely in charge of, you know, the laws of women and how they're supposed to get sanitary products. So if he can't even take that topic seriously, where is that change going to happen? You just need to wait for It's disgusting. It's disgusting.

62:59Sunny: Go sit in your room. I don't wanna see your filthy face.

63:03Brandi: Get out of here. Disgusting.

63:06KT: I I love that. That's a great usually, like, that's like a character, like character acting.

63:13Sunny: You're you're totally right. Like, you can't even talk about it, why are you making decisions for me? If you can't even say menstruation, if you don't know, like, you know, the cycle's different and you know nothing, get the fuck out of here. Listen,

63:27Brandi: we've had people in high positions think that women can actually lock down their vaginas from being assaulted.

63:35KT: It's you. You're you're the problem, not the man.

63:39Sunny: Oh, of course. Because it doesn't take two.

63:41Brandi: Right. Yeah. Because what were you wearing when that happened? What were you wearing? Yeah. Well, why didn't you just lock down your vagina? Lock it down. Like, really, you're an idiot.

63:53KT: But I I have a lot another cute kind of related story. We went to Ethiopia, Oti and I, and we wanted to go and see this really nice sort of monastery. It was like an orthodox sort of church. So it was like super OG religious sort of church. And they had a sign at the front because most of them obviously don't speak English. And they had, like, rules on there. And it was like, if you're a woman and you're menstruating, you can't come inside of the monastery,

64:20KT: which Mhmm. And then they had, like, some other rules. And one of the rules was if you've had sex within the last twenty four hours, you can't come in there. And I'm a very honest person. I wasn't menstruating at the time, but, you know, I did Well, you know. I I I did have a good time within that twenty four hours. So

64:41KT: I was actually going to say something, and Oti, the most honest of honest people in the world, he was like He was like, shut the hell up. He's like he's like, no. We're fine. And then we went straight into the monastery. It didn't burn down around us. So I think It's the one thing. No. It's just ridiculous rules. I was prepared to not go in there. There

65:04Brandi: it's those old wives' tales. Like, there's an Italian wives tale where if you're making red sauce Oh, yeah. You're not supposed to be a woman can't have her cycle or the tomatoes will go bad.

65:16Sunny: My freaking my my wave ain't that strong.

65:20KT: It's not pulling the tomatoes. It's not turning them. Okay? So if if you're making your own red sauce, you can't make the red sauce. That's what's happening. Yeah. Right. Right? You you can't be making red sauce while you're making red sauce.

65:34Brandi: What a crazy world. What a crazy crazy world we've We've got a lot of them. There's this one from the South where women believe that when you're making spaghetti for a man, you want to keep him. No. You include, you know, your red sauce in that spaghetti. No. No. Oh, no. Yeah. There's some crazy stuff. And so people won't eat They won't eat people's other women's spaghetti.

66:03KT: Why are you looking at me excited, Oti? This is not this is this is not what we're doing, mate. We started we started we started a podcast to keep the love alive. We're not having love spaghetti. Okay? That is insane. That is crazy. I've never heard of that. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's an old wives tale from

66:28Brandi: Southern states.

66:29KT: Do you have any weird, not weird, do you have any sort of Kenyan

66:33KT: equivalent?

66:33Oti: No, off the top of my head. No, I can't think of anything as crazy.

66:40KT: Okay. We we won't expose your people today. They can have a break.

66:45Brandi: But and you know what it is? It's African American folktales.

66:54KT: So it's on Make sure. Oh, okay.

66:56Brandi: So Superstitious. So that's because we, you know, we have our own thing.

66:56KT: Yeah. Everyone's

67:02KT: on their own struggle street.

67:05Brandi: Struggle street. We're on the struggle bus.

67:09KT: You guys haven't heard that term before?

67:12Brandi: We we say struggle bus. Oh, okay. But you say struggle street. That was fun. We can't afford the bus. We'll get on struggle bus and we'll head to Struggle Street.

67:26Sunny: Where the struggle is real.

67:30KT: It's always there, unfortunately. But thank you so much guys for coming onto our podcast and bringing a lot of depth and a lot of information. Not to say we don't have that or not.

67:42Sunny: What we really you guys do have is depth and information.

67:45KT: Oh, you. This and I love how we've had little love fests in between. It's been very nice. But let's let's wrap things up in the segment we call For Your Reference. And for those of you that are listening for the first time, this is, you know, if you've watched The Big Short and you want some more of it or if you didn't enjoy it or, you know, just any sort of recommendations or references that you guys might enjoy. So, Book of Lies?

68:16Brandi: Well, you know what, Too Big to Fail. That one is a, that should be a follow-up to The Big Short. The Big Short, thank you very much. The movie we're talking about. Because it basically it follows up with why the banks got bailed out and what happened surrounding the bailout.

68:39Sunny: Cool. Anything when Ryan Gosling shirts off, boom. Oh god. The rapid shirts off or Christian Bale's yelling at somebody.

68:50KT: Isn't that always? Always. You know what I didn't realize? That he's British.

68:50Guests: He is. You didn't?

68:50KT: I've because I've never watched interviews of that man.

69:00Brandi: Mhmm. Wow.

69:02KT: Wow. Yeah. He's crazy. You know, Oti recently shocked me, telling me that Idris Elba's married because I didn't realize that.

69:02Guests: Now he just got married.

69:02KT: Unless I wanna be a homewrecker. Yeah. Unless I wanna be a homewrecker, I don't have a chance anymore. So you're welcome, Oti.

69:20Brandi: But I have I call dibs.

69:23KT: I'm behind you in the line. But, yeah, I didn't realize that Christian Bale was British because I've never watched interviews of him. Wow. Yeah. It's a crazy world out there. It is a crazy world out there. Yeah. We will reference is it Showtime? Yep. Showtime. The Showtime show starring Don Cheadle and Regina Hall, Black Monday. Oh my god. Love it. So good. You guys caught up on it?

69:51Brandi: I actually missed the last two

69:54Brandi: episodes, so I have to I have to catch up.

69:54KT: It's really good. And, you know, it's also got the Book of Lies endorsement as well. So definitely check that show out, if you can as well. But thank you so much. We've made it to the end of the episode. Book of Lies, Brandi, in particular, we did talk about, you know, The Big Short being a book. I do hear and we do know that possibly maybe you're also an author of books.

70:22Brandi: I am indeed. I have authored four books.

70:29KT: Cute. Three of them being fiction. Nice. And we can find that on Amazon. Right? Yes,

70:34Brandi: ma'am. So I I hate talking about my books.

70:34Sunny: So Brandi's

70:42KT: first novel. That's why I brought it up. That's why I brought it up.

70:46Sunny: Life, Love and Marguerite. It's Nice. By Brandi Fleeks. And she's done the two novellas. The, what's the series? It's the Withdrawal Series. The Withdrawal Series.

70:58Brandi: The first book is Smuggled Love, and the second book is Deception. No. Darn it. It's,

71:07Sunny: you see, can't even forget. Yeah, exactly. It's something with deception.

71:13Brandi: The subtitle is Deception and Betrayal. Okay, that.

71:19Sunny: And then, oh, it's double crossed. You

71:21Brandi: see, you see, I can't even, So it's double crossed, Deception and Betrayal. See? The first one is Slava, Addiction and Oh, jeez. Anyway, and that, the author's name on that is Brandi Hale, and that's my married name.

71:41Sunny: That's her married name. Yeah. And then you did like a financial book too. I did, and that one is called How

71:51Brandi: To, and it's a super long title, and that's also on Amazon. And that's written by Cash Carter, who is my my male alter ego. And it's Cash with a k. Actually

72:05KT: It's crazy. I can't I can't remember. I'll need to remember who the author is, but they write such different genres that they actually do have different pen names. Is that is that also why you've got a different one?

72:05Brandi: Anne

72:17Brandi: Rice. That's Anne Rice did that too. But yeah, that's why, to separate the genres from my names.

72:27KT: I I don't know. So

72:29Sunny: when they do an autobiography about her, and she's like, I'm this person, I'm this person, and I'm this person. Wow.

72:38Brandi: Yeah, you should get us all in the same room.

72:41KT: I don't I don't know if you were expecting me to bring that up, but I wasn't sure if you were going to and I definitely wanted to make sure we mentioned it.

72:49Brandi: Won't Casey.

72:52Sunny: All of her books are available on Amazon. They are.

72:55KT: And on a day to day, week to week sort of basis, where can we find you guys?

72:55Sunny: So you can find us always on Twitter.

73:04Sunny: I live in the Twitter. So bookofliespod,

73:08Brandi: on Instagram, bookofliespodcast, on Facebook, bookofliespodcast, on

73:17Sunny: online, www.bookofliespodcast.com. And you can email us too if you want at bookofliespodcast@gmail.com.

73:28KT: Nice. If this is your first time here or you just like to hear it again, on Twitter and Instagram, we are @ForYourRefPod if you wanna send us an email.

73:38Oti: At hello@fyrpodcast.com.

73:41KT: Also, if this is your first time sampling on the cliff notes for Book of Lies, you're most welcome. Please make sure you go over and subscribe to them. Also, leave them a rating on Apple Podcasts because it always helps us go through, obviously, five stars. You've sampled The Wiz. You know what it is now. And please make sure you give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Thank you so much, guys. We'll see you next week. Thank you. See you. Thank you.