Vegas Sphere, META in China, New IRS Tax Brackets, Exxon Going Lithium, AMC Stock, Whiskey Investing

hello everyone and welcome back to another show of Dirty Money my name's Mike I'm back like I never left today we got a real exciting show for you we're going to talk about the Las Vegas fear and how the place spent two billion dollars and is still losing money Facebook's going to try to re-enter communist China I don't know how that's going to look IRS is putting out new tax brackets the consumer price index actually dropped and this is big news truth is is that it's still going and another thing we're going to talk about is Exxon is now getting into lithium mining as well as whiskey investing is really taken off in the last decade and AMC the movie company is now offered $350 million in stock made their whole world go up and down but needless to say if you're listening to us on the podcast C please download us give us a festar rating that way we can get the information out to more people also if you're watching on any of the social media networks YouTube Rumble um Facebook wherever you see us make sure to give us a like and uh hit the ringer so that way you can listen to us anyway needless to say first on our list is the Las Vegas sphere if you haven't heard about the Las Vegas sphere here it's that huge Dome that is all paneled out so it can be a complete active screen where you can actually see the whole Dome I mean this thing's massive holds holds tons and tons of people and you can have a digital on the inside and on the outside it's all a big screen but the original plan was for for it to be about a billion dollars in cost and James Dolan who owns um pretty much half of all of the uh Communications in New York no I'm just kidding he owns the Madison Square Garden company cable vision Optimum Cable his brothers own the Guardians which are the baseball team formerly known as the Indians in uh Ohio but he spent a billion dollars or was going to spend a billion dollars on the sphere he ended up spending two billion dollar it literally doubled the budget and within the first quarter of it being open they lost $98 million in operations now I heard from a few different people that when youw was playing there they actually panels were starting to glitch already which makes me thinks where did he get the panels from I'm gonna guess China but anyway the when they announced that they were going to lose the money a week after that their CFO guatam range resigned and uh this he was the chief Financial Officer for the Spheres entertainment um you know he only served there for about 11 months uh but he's on the board of an American uh blat viid blav viid an American Media company and uh website based in LA and uh it's created for black Millennials and then the board of breakthrough New York which empowers motivated students for low-income backgrounds to graduate from college and pursue a fulfilling career in New York so Roni had a very very unique background but you know as soon as the the money hit the ceiling he he flew the coup pretty quick um interestingly he's also uh the Executive Vice President of strategic planning and business development at Paramount Global and CVS Corp now interestingly enough the comes full circle because Paramount sold MSG to cable vision or nit back in the 90s so cable vision is Dolan's company or his father started it now it's his and um he more or less pays attention to the Madison Square Garden company that's the same people that own Radio City Music Hall Madison Square Garden uh where the Knicks and the Rangers play but they also own the Knicks and the Rangers as a team as well so it kind of comes full circle with Roni being the CFO of the sphere which is funded 100% by Dolan's family and uh his Corporation um but he was also part of Viacom CBS a and uh Street Chief strategy officer at Argus Capital group so ranji um delivered his notice in the middle of a meeting with a handful of senior executive sitting there including Dolan uh so it's really interesting when you look at the the whole picture is like this guy definitely saw the writing on the wall but he also wanted to make a statement when he left the building and and he did that and you know Christine Spade uh is now the CEO of Dolan's cable TV broadcaster company AMC networks it's another thing Dolan owns um she also left the company in November after three Monon uh stint at the job so I think uh on the sphere there's a lot of people that saw the writing on the wall and recognize that this kind of technological undertaking on such a massive scale just had a lot of potholes in it and and essentially I think the place is going to continue to lose money um it is a site to see I'm gonna go to Vegas in the next week or two I'm gonna check it out um maybe we'll post one up on the Dirty Money Instagram a picture of it just to see what it looks like um but it but there's one thing you know there there's a saying in business as you see these people leave is uh people don't quit companies they quit managers and really fundamentally a good manager can lead a company through Times by winning the loyalty and the respect of of the staff that he has and a bad manager even when the company's doing great he he's uh gonna lose his employees because he just doesn't manage them correctly and I'm not saying Dolan's not managing him correctly but I mean it speaks for itself I think there's a lot of technical faults that came into play and a lot of different things going on talking about poor management of a company Facebook is now reentering the Chinese market so in 2009 the Chinese Communist Party decided to ban Facebook completely so now Zuckerberg after facing this incredible metaverse gonna run the world change my whole company name to meta didn't really didn't really do much I mean I think uh he he's at a huge loss with the metaverse he thought thought it was going to take off truth being told is you know three pounds on your face for more than 30 minutes is a bit much um so it never really went forward so he's gonna start partnering now with 10cent Holdings which is like a huge Juggernaut Global gaming industry uh but as you may or may not know when you go into China they have fire walls up that restrict information going to their citizens so their communication uh they block a lot of the truth that goes to and from the citizens in that country and when you come in and do business there you have to make agreements with the Chinese Communist Party especially on the large large scale when you're Google or your Facebook or Twitter or any of those things or X whatever you want to call it you have to make a deal with these Communists and yeah I'm gonna be clear with you communism fundamentally is the most evil thing on the planet that we have uh don't make a deal with the devil it's just cut and dry I mean you got a hundred years on this Earth it's not about money it's about you know people so uh Zuckerberg desperate to try to fix the metaverse and make sure that he can come out on top decided that he's going to go into China and collaborate with 10 cent and now how it's working is is that 10cent will control all of the actual software not the software but the actual uh apps and engagement on the headset devices but meta will get the money from selling the headsets in China and so that's where they kind of did all right about two years ago when uh the Google or The Meta Quest came out the pro or the two it did really really well they sold like 10 million of them they were in Costco they were pretty much everywhere and um that's what they're hoping to do in China I don't think they're going to see a lot of success there um they might sell more units than here it'll kind of be more or less a fad I look at it like the Nintendo Wii or uh things like that it's a fad unless you can get the weight and the price down so the reason the the quest actually worked is you could get the whole thing for about you know 400 bucks I've actually got one here I never really use it at all to be honest like got it uh checked it out learned about it but that's it um so he he's signing a deal that I don't think he should sign um but again he's trying to save himself by doing the the sales and get the numbers out and get the metaverse going like Horizon worlds was supposed to be like this virtual place where everybody lived I think there was a lot of a lot of amp behind it you know a lot of hype behind the whole thing uh especially with Ready Player One the movie all that stuff it was like you know are people going to really stop living in reality uh and I think over the last couple of years uh no one's really sticking with putting a headset on their on their head and just kind of living in the metaverse so we'll see what happens in China but again if I was if I was running that company I would not sell out uh for censorship because in order order for him to present any of the meta and the Facebook and all of that uh software application all that stuff he's he's gonna have to bow down to them uh with it and you know Ready Player one if you haven't seen it it's it's pretty cool and you can definitely check it out but the truth is is that it's it's gonna it's definitely going to compromise the information going in and out of that device for those people in China which it should never um speaking of a bit of a compromise the IRS has now come out with new tax brackets um basically they're increasing the taxes for everybody um and the truth is is that they're allowing you to write more off for everybody too so the income brackets which pretty much stay the same 10% 12% 22% 24 32 35 37 um you know they're they're just increasing those so uh if you make x amount of dollars you can see here that it kind of breaks down for how much you make and and what you're actually gonna spend uh on taxes every year so the deductions and all the above but if if you're making 12 10% you know you're making anywhere from 11,000 to or up to $1,000 you're going to get taxed about 10% which which really really seems like a lot for somebody making 11 Grand a year or 30 grand a year I don't think anybody should get taxed at that bracket at all um you know I don't know anybody that could survive in the United States right now on 30 grand a year as a family or 10 grand as a individual oh with with the cost of living housing and all the above I really think the the tax bracket should start at six figures uh personally but 12% you're at 11 to about 40 50,000 and then it jumps up you're going to go back up to around you know that that's when you see the big jump is from 12 to 22% and then you have incremental once you hit 37% that means as an individual you'd be making over $600,000 a year and as a couple you'd be making over $730,000 a year so almost the three4 of a million dollars you're taxed at 37% again I think that's pretty extreme too I think you know 10% maybe would be reasonable but you know ever since 1913 when we started to create the income tax was only supposed to be for a couple of years to get us out of the out of the hole here we are a hundred years later and they're increasing it playing with it every year and it it it's pretty it's pretty ridiculous to be honest uh if you don't know about how the tax uh act worked make sure to give this a read right here um it's it's pretty ridiculous um but they also did allow you to get more of a write off so it's gone up 5.5% on your standard deduction so you're making more they're letting you write off more again it's kind of like a game play uh so with everything put in there your taxes might be lowered a little bit but nothing really significant and that brings me to another thing which is our Consumer Price Index CPI now the CPI kind of dictates what's the inflation rates for going on in in the United States and where it goes so right now we're at 3.2% and everybody goes okay good we're not at 3.7% and we're not growing so for the last 12 months up until October the Consumer Price Index Rose every month over month over month and now we've got a decline and we're going to see that decline because interest rates went down quite a bit right so or I mean went up quite a bit not down and and the interest rates when they went up it allowed for Less spending uh money's really tight right now in the financial markets but but to be honest you know 7% interest rates pretty normal prior to 20 years ago uh 20 years ago that's what that's interest rates were money was was moving in that direction I mean there were times in the 80s and 90s and 70s where where you were looking at you know 12 13 14 15 15% for all kinds of loans um it wasn't until recently the last 20 years where we saw interest rates you know two and three% those are those are just ridiculously low for money and the truth is is that it's really controlled by the Federal Reserve um which is dictated by our Treasury and and they control how the interest rates work in the United States and those reflect how much money cost people to build houses to buy houses to get cars all the above so it's pretty interesting to think about you know that people are saying it's slowing for the CPI you slowing down we're not at 3.7 it's slowing down but when you really look at it it's like you can be in a car that goes 100 miles an hour and it slows down to 80 you're still doing 80 so it's like you know we're still cooking along at 3 .2% so you know that says whatever you bought last year for $10 is now $13.20 that's that's a significant number when you really think about it from that perspective what can you spend $3 on now that you have to spend it on the same thing last year that was 10 so you know it's pretty interesting um the biggest uh inflation uh Recreation category slowed by 0.1% for the month uh down from 0 4% in September and the prices are now up again so uh you know we'll see what happens and where it all goes but uh another company that's trying to get out of uh Lo losses like everybody else who's experienced a tremendous loss is Exxon if you don't know who Exxon is they're basically they were one of the wealthiest companies in in the world prior to the tech boom right so exom essentially controlled a big portion of the oil industry which was really 90s and 80s the the largest companies in the world they had the most money it's not until the 2000s and the 2010s and now 20s where the tech Giants have the most money but they're now planning to be leading producer of lithium for electric vehicles so so they they're seeing the writing on the wall as a company and uh they're going to open the first lithium mine in Arkansas um that's gonna happen so there there's a huge stack over formation in Southern Arkansas that's about 120,000 gross Acres that Exxon acquired like it's a lot of land um you know and they're going to start mining lithium there and really the they want to have control of what they're doing so in 50 years when you start to see these regulations come in from the United States government where where all these car manufacturers have to step away from oil exxon's Sitting Duck they're they're they're going to be up nothing uh so they obviously had to make the transition and make it fast and they've done it now um with this this is a big deal this is the going to essentially be one of the biggest mines um in North America so it's a it's a pretty prolific uh you know lithium resource and they they could begin production in Arkansas as early as 26 I'm really curious about uh what the governor of Arkansas has to say about this but I'm pretty sure she's gonna she's gonna say no problem um but also if you live in that area and you know you got a 120,000 Acres I they might make it to where you can't even see the mine itself unless you were looking at it with a drone or from the sky so you might drive right by it and never even know it exists that's kind of stuff that they would do uh I don't know how it's going to impact the environment I don't know if they're gonna try to go underground in mind forward strip mind forward I'm assuming it's going to be a strip mine and then that's going to be pretty interesting thing it will definitely provide a lot of work to that economy there you're going to probably see the same type of Boom you see in Texas and the oil fields uh over the last 15 years um and I think they're going to definitely see an increase in people moving to Arkansas for for mining jobs with uh with Exxon But ultimately how's it going to affect our trade too because we don't really produce a lot of the lithium here in America at all I mean the the these other you know third world countries are mainly the producers of lithium and so and will it have any real effect on our economy I don't know I think Arkansas it will definitely affect their economy I mean they've only got you know a small smaller population compared to the other states but fundamentally the big thing that you'd want to look for here is like the environmental impact what are they goingon to in that area what what you know endagered species exists there I mean in New York if you go and have an endangered rattlesnake on a piece of land and you're trying to build a few houses you have to have a completely separate study done to show that you're not going to impact that that uh species population so I'm curious if they're going to even be able to really make Headway there and get through the whole process uh for this mining it it would be the first of its kind on that magnitude in the United States um so we we'll see what happens if they do there there's definitely big money in it and I think axon will pivot more and you'll start to see more and more of this type of operation taking place with EV axon and they're going to try to you know they want to keep their shareholders happy they want to make sure that the shareholders you know can see positive growth and they don't start dumping the stock but another company that wants to see positive growth and doesn't want to dump this stock uh is AMC if you're familiar with AMC movie theaters uh it has nothing to do with Dolan's AMC networks which has the Walking Dead we were just talking about James Dolan this is AMC the movie theater chain um and AMC entertainment they they filed last week of perspectiv to offer up 350 millions of stock uh pressuring shares and and pre-market trading so so basically not only did the shares fall 18% it definitely uh had a big effect on the stock and they they kind of knew it was happening they they they sent a notice said you know it's gonna it's gon to be volatile um but their stocks been volatile before when they had the squeeze um I think that was 212 you know the Wall Street bets uh AMC was one of the stocks that just went through the roof um you know it went to hundreds of dollars and it made them a really valuable company but now that we're out of 2020 and all the covid nonsense there are there's people just aren't returning to the movie theaters like you would think you get a couple of good ones but AMC is also hitting the the SAG uh the all the SAG um protests and uh when they did the strike and the writer strike so there's not going to be a lot of movies coming out I mean uh Dune 2 was supposed to come out this year it's not gonna come out so that big push you see in the holiday season which is right around the corner you're not going to see it so much at AMC so so the guy's thinking how do I how do I continue to generate revenue for my company well I'll isue some more stock and then we'll get 350 million dollars to Keep Us Alive and that's exactly what he's doing he's trying to breathe a little bit of life into the company uh but the truth is is I don't think AMC is going to see see a lot of light uh in the next you know this quarter or the first quarter because there's no films coming out really the next time that you're going to get a huge boost in the in the movie theater world is going to be 2024 um and you know there I think there's ways to innovate uh me personally if you know there's a big sporting event coming up up or in a local area I think it would be a no-brainer to start advertising watch your favorite team on the biggest screen in town it only makes sense um but I haven't seen much of that at all you know and a lot of AMC's offer food now so I think if if if they did a little bit of pivoting uh in their world to to being a sports uh venue to watch you know your favorite team the local favorite at the local movie theater charge 10 or 15s I know I'd go um so I think that's a better way of pivoting uh in the long term uh because people are still watching movies at home you know there's a couple movies I wanted to see like the Creator I just never got in I never got a chance to go see it and I was like I'll just watch it at home it'll be out in a month or two and it was they release it December 12th and I'll watch it at my house so that that's the thing that they have to fight is you know what's worth watching on a huge scale that that's that that awesome and really you know the NFL is is a huge huge huge Market I mean they Trump everybody's ratings across the board when it comes to television so if if uh the CEO of AMC really wanted to step up to the plate I'd say let's pivot away from uh movies or at least D vge into another sector of actually doing um you know the doing NFL uh uh broadcasting in the theaters and so that would be cool obviously they'd have to create some kind of agreement with the NFL to do it um they're probably be a lot of upfront cost to them maybe that's why they're raising money they want $200 million to give to the NFL for 2024 I don't know but uh to me that's that's where the Home Run would be uh speaking of getting investment funding whiskey investing is now a real thing uh whiskey Rare whiskey returned 34% in the last decade making it the best performing asset uh you know that's according to night Frank luxury uh investment index and the majority of American whiskey Brands make Market themselves to Consumers as craft Boutique products however you know the reality is most of brand Source all the whiskey from the same same places large industrial contract distilleries um you know I was looking into it you can get a you can get a barrel of whiskey for around $1,600 I don't know how many bottles it makes or anything but you can buy a barrel of whiskey and you know have it at your house however you want to do it aged whiskey is better so it's like when you buy it you sit on it and then you make some more money but you the the spirits Market it really isn't slowing down on any level I mean everybody is drinking nowadays you go to you go to an event and people go to the bar and they go why aren't you drinking you know that that's that's a legitimate question if you're out and having a good time with friends and they say why aren't you drinking it's like wow I never realized that it was that big of a deal so it it's it's no surprise to me that this Market is a huge market and a lot of space to make money so uh it's expected to increase by 30% in 20 by 2025 so again huge numbers like you know that that's uh not not investment advice no way shape or form am I giving advice but you know to me that's a win you're you're looking at a 20 25 to 30% uh year-over-year increase like that's a home run you're going to definitely definitely see a lot of success there um you know just to give you a little bit of idea if you've never heard of night Frank luxury investment index it tracks the value of uh passion Investments like cars art watches handbag wine coins jewelry Furniture um diamonds and Rare whiskey so uh it's it's pretty interesting to look into Rare whiskey um you know you got the the different kinds and and there's bottles that uh go a lot so but in the last 10 years the number of craft distilleries in the US has increased from a 100 to more than 2,000 too so you have a lot of people doing craft distilleries um I I actually was at one um in the early 2000s that was one of the first craft distilleries in Michigan um and they were actually making vodka they weren't doing whiskey so so I think it's a good bet but again it's not Financial investment advice but you know alcohol always wins in the United States uh and if you want to make an investment whiskey is right now Off to the Races and winning so that's all I got for today if you enjoy what I say and you're interested in hearing more please leave uh comments below I will read them and I will respond and also uh if you're interested in certain topics you want me to research and go through I'm more than happy to do that and again thank you for listening and watching dirty money