#FinanceDaily 25 years!; $MAT $PSKY CondéNast 🪑; CMU Griffin; $MU; 🇩🇪 🚗

you know, the 1970s, which I was alive, but I certainly was not aware. You know, the 1970s was a stretch period of time where there was a lot of denial for a while, and then it all settled in. I mean, the numbers did keep going higher and higher, but you know, we've just spoken last week about how we haven't seen, you know, rates this high in 20 years. Well, now we're up to 25 years, and it's only been a week. You know, the housing market is just, to me, it's crazy because, yes, I understand how folks will argue, they say, you know, that a normalized interest rate historically certainly been higher than this on a 30-year fixed mortgage, but the argument back is, well, there's unaffordability in terms of, hey, prices of homes, relative to the amount of money that people either earn or either people have saved, and B, earnings power, I get that, but that being said, this goes one of two ways. Either housing prices come down or we just don't go up on housing prices for a very long period of time, so until such time as they become affordable, I don't see either of those things happening any time in the near term. I see housing prices continuing to climb. There's a dearth of inventory. There's not a real reason or motivation for builders to build, and it's just going to sit frozen, and we've been frozen for a while, and I know that talks to people's personal finances on the one hand, and then on the other hand, it affects, you know, lots and lots of industries relating to building raw materials, construction, so on. So, you know, and along with all the rate action, you know, at the same time you have, for those that are not aware, both in the UK and in France, they are currently in the midst of getting their budgets together, and it is a very different process than it goes on in the United States, and it does get done. They do balance a budget of some sort. And along with all that, you have a new leader in the UK, you have France under tremendous pressure. The euro has continued to slide. It's now at 1.127 to the dollar. The last time we saw that type, I mean, we're getting to parity, folks. It's been, you know, quite some time since we've been, you know, in that zip code. A 30 year bond is at 6%, it's the first time at 6% since 1998. I would bet hard that 50% of the audience was not alive. Let's say not conscious and aware in 1998. I would bet. And the 10 year in the United States, like I said earlier, highest since 2002 at 5.33, and it doesn't seem like it's coming down. And add on to that fact with respect to Europe. We have a slew of stories out of Germany relating to automakers that just doesn't seem to stop. The German labor union is obviously, obviously, anybody could have seen this from 100 miles away. They're pissed off with Volkswagen over wage deals. Of course they are. They're cutting 100,000 jobs over the next couple of years. BMW has now produced a three series car electric for less than they can manufacture the gasoline version, which is pretty interesting. But at the same time, BMW is going to cut 20% of their management positions because of AI. Yes, they said that dirty word. They're going to fire 20% of their management because of AI. Yes, of course, they're losing lots. They they they over invested in a in electric A B China has turned out to be a really unfortunate situation for all the automakers because of the slowing consumption over in China. China Oracle does a deal with 10 cent. Some people are saying this is a desperation deal that Oracle can't get anything done here in the United States. They're having difficulties with their data centers. So they go ahead and do a five year lease with 10 cent to Asia in their data centers 100,000 chips. But I don't I'm not sure. It's necessarily a desperation deal in leadership moves. We've got a game of musical chairs playing out between Paramount Skydance slash now Warner Brothers 2. They have stolen the CEO of Mattel. Yes, the toy maker is now going to be the CEO of the combined studio. So that is the CEO of Mattel and Mattel has stolen the CEO of Condon asked. Yes, the publication, the magazine media company, private, great book came out a couple of years ago about that empire in any event. So you've got media media media, but toys. I don't know if it makes sense. My con earnings were very strong as I think was generally expected because the stock really hasn't moved at all. It knocked it out of the park. Revenue was up only 380% year over year. So things are going swimmingly over there. A tip of the cap to Dave Nicosky, Leslie's pool supplies finally files for chapter 11. Essentially, they're just going to restructure that it was a company that was a darling of COVID. And then unfortunately, the reality came back to pool building. The normal pace of pools resumed after the COVID hangover wore off. And they had overextended themselves. They had over borrowed. You couldn't find back in the day, you know, any chemicals for your pools and people were doing whatever they could. And now there are an abundance of supply. So not a big deal. I think that's it on my opening rant here. Oh, sorry, breaking news this morning. Anthropic. Brandon and thropic, which is going to go an IPO at $2 trillion has taken $42 billion of financing from Broadcom. So for a company that is so powerful and mighty and so valuable, the fact that they are essentially borrowing money from Broadcom for their infrastructure build out just again overemphasizes the circular deal making that's going on here again. As with leverage, you know, I believe circular deal making is fine. As long as everybody realizes that if the music stops, it's going to be a very painful news me. A very painful and chaotic unwind from all that. All right, Justin, go ahead, your hand. Well, I just wanted to make sure we prioritize Robbie this morning because of the steel announcement a couple days ago. I know that he had or at least was looking into more information on that. I've been trying to run that story down locally. I have contacts from the legislature in the state. I've texted the regional SBA director. And from what I get in the more reporting that comes out the more digging, nobody knows where this location is. I don't think for the steel mill in Iowa. That doesn't mean it's not going through. But how would luck Nick did say it was a done deal, but on the ground, it doesn't look like it is a done deal just yet. And now the you may have covered this yesterday, but the Iowa governor Kim Reynolds has now asked for a special session from the legislature to pass tax cuts or tax incentives rather to for the steel mill. But you know, despite the fact that it was supposedly a done deal. So I'm hoping that Robbie maybe has a little bit more insight in there because we sure as heck do not have insight there that doesn't mean it's not a done deal, but it just means that there's a big question mark on this project because I think Trump said that they have already started building. But there's no there's no permits poll. There's nobody knows where the buildings happening in Iowa is not exactly like Siberia. We have we have people around, you know, we should know if something's being built. So I there is a big question mark on the project and I was hoping Robbie had some more information. I'm going to guess that Robbie does not have additional information just because he's on the Indian side of this and I bet that SR is quite far away from what's going on in the United States with their American on but go ahead, Robbie, dazzle us. So since I'm spending time in both the places, you know, what I understand is that the mining work has already started. That's the update I got, which was in I think it's Minnesota. So I think that work has initiated. But I've asked two people to speak to somebody. So I've asked two people to, you know, today or tomorrow to really make sure that we get the most authentic, but I know from the India side that this is a done deal and this is very much backed and it's still you know why it is critical because it's sitting on the larger. The partnership between India and US the BT that will be announced I think end of this month or the only next month. So this is just not like a you know just blind shot in the air, but hoping to get more information and also get you in touch with the right person just and I know I've seen your email and I'll make sure that that happens. But the first phase is really getting the mining and I know that Masavi metallics, which is a part of the company in Minnesota has been there. Right. So it's it's not that it's just coming out of nowhere. So there is a backstory to it. And I think there are very clear backing from both sides in terms of the political piece here. And we'll get you more information as soon as I have it. That's great, Robbie. Thank you. We would love to break that news on the show. That would be awesome. Paul Mangioni. Good morning. Hey, good morning. Yeah, I just want I posted in the upstairs there the US demographics by kind of decades. And just to give you a sense you were talking about the interest rates and the population. Like there's about so call it 20 to 39 year olds. There are around 20 years ago, but they have no sense of the where interest rates were back then. So that's approximately 92 million people. 27% of the population that is in that space where they've never seen interest rates this high. And so you just kind of think of that impact. And so it does to their psyche and how they're responding to how they consume. If they're going to wait, you know, it's like people to the last, you know, 10 plus year. People said, Oh, just wait. The rates will go down in a little bit or something like that. That probably is not the case right now. I don't see, but that's something to kind of really kind of keep in mind how much of the population is never seen rates like this. You know, we the rest of us have anyone under 20 is really paying attention. So it's just that 92 million people that are kind of in their prime. You know, purchasing period are dealing with these rates for the first time. Absolutely. And by the way, folks, even for those of us that have seen these numbers before, it's not as if we're greeting them with great splendor and happiness. I just don't know how we dig out of this or how it reverts at this point. I mean, I guess strength of US economy will help. And maybe a pause at the next but meeting and not another rate hike until December or maybe no more rate hikes at all. But it seems like right now that's where the focus is. The other thing to remember is is we're in at a point in time. In earning season that there is no earning season. There's nothing coming out. So the only discussions that are going on in the broader sphere. The regarding finance and economics is a lot of macro stuff. And that's why people are overly focused. The other part of this is, you know, these higher rates have woke, as I said, you know, they will continue to wake people up. If your risk free rate is at five and change or six, your equities portfolio has to do pretty good in order to, you know, take the risk that it's going to be taking on. And increasingly so as rates continue to climb. Brandon, let's talk about Carnegie Mellon and Ken Griffin and what this means for education, for Pittsburgh, for Florida, what it means for Chicago, for New York, for higher education. And what it means also about private capital, doing things that a lot of people expect state or federally or state.