How We Can All Become A Positive Force In Our Local Communities

In this week’s episode of the VALUE: After Hours Podcast Taylor, Brewster, and Carlisle discussed How We Can All Become A Positive Force In Our Local Communities. Here’s an excerpt from the episode:

Jake Taylor:
All right. I’ll try to keep this quick because I feel like we need to hit the question and answer session. But this has me thinking about how can I come out of this with having helped people who really needed the help. I don’t know. I think all of us are in a very fortunate position in general to where we are in life and that there are a lot of people much closer to the edge.

Tobias Carlisle:
I’m trapped at home with three kids, Jake.

Jake Taylor:
Well, I didn’t say it was perfect. Okay. So I’ll just run through some of the ideas that I had, and if anyone else wants to share some ideas, I would love to hear them because I’m looking for more ways to be helpful.

Jake Taylor:
But I love seeing that they’re doing special hours for elderly people only so that the stores aren’t as crowded for them, that they can do things like keep running life for them without putting extra risk. I’m trying to figure out a way that I can run errands for elderly people in a way that’s efficient without putting them in jeopardy either. Like just go pick up prescriptions for them, go pick up groceries, those kind of things.

Bill Brewster:
That’s a pretty good idea.

Jake Taylor:
I’m actually working with a friend, with Richi, maybe setting up some kind of little website that would be sort of a matchmaker thing where you put in your zip code if you want to help, and you put in your zip code if you need help. And we try to just like match you up so you can call someone and get some help.

Bill Brewster:
Shout out to Richi, one of the good people in the world.

Jake Taylor:
Yeah. For sure.

Jake Taylor:
I was thinking about setting up my own sort of office hours where for an hour a day or whatever it is that if anybody wanted to call, they could just call and talk to somebody and not feel like you were disturbing someone. Because I think all of us in isolation like this, it’s kind of like… We’re early on in this. I think it’s going to get harder mentally to not be The Shining at some point.

Bill Brewster:
Yes.

Jake Taylor:
I mean, honestly, people who are losing their jobs maybe going crazy watching their kids. There could be a lot of mental brain damage over the next however long it takes. And they may need, want to reach out to somebody, and I don’t want it to feel like someone was bothering me. So if you set up hours that make it explicitly, yes, this is the time you should call me, then hopefully maybe they pick up the phone.

Jake Taylor:
Likewise, reaching out to people in your life who you think maybe need to hear from you. Just pick up everyone’s spirits.

Tobias Carlisle:
Isn’t that why we’re doing this podcast?

Bill Brewster:
Yeah, we do it for the people.

Jake Taylor:
It is, yeah. Buying gift cards for family run, small, local businesses, restaurants, massage, trainers.

Bill Brewster:
Keep them afloat.

Jake Taylor:
They need float, right? They need some working capital to get through this for sure. [crosstalk 00:39:14]

Bill Brewster:
So what I was saying about the airlines back when I was accused of… Well, I actually did own them. So it was true. But I was spend your money on those credit cards. They need that.

Tobias Carlisle:
Are you out of the airlines?

Bill Brewster:
More importantly… What?

Tobias Carlisle:
Are you out?

Bill Brewster:
Yeah, man. I announced it on the Twitter machine. That’s where all declarations happen.

Tobias Carlisle:
That’s formal. I guess that’s official.

Bill Brewster:
The thing that sucks about talking about it so publicly is I don’t know how to get… This is why I say don’t follow people. It’s hard to tell people I’ve changed my mind. I try to do it, but yeah, I just… I got a transcript, and everything just was like… That’s when the light went off. I was just like, “Oh, this is a liquidity crisis. You can’t manage through this.” And I sold.

Jake Taylor:
Good on you for fighting the commitment consistency bias there.

Bill Brewster:
Well, let’s get back to good things that people can do.

Jake Taylor:
Good things, yeah. Like buying and squirreling away some toys for your kids. If you have kids at home that you can kind of pull out when you need them in strategic times where things are really rough and they need a little pick me up or something because they’re… Imagine their perspective. They maybe see you stressed out. They’re scared. They don’t know what’s going on potentially.

Bill Brewster:
My four year old’s running around telling me about the corona. I’m like well… But what do you do? I tried to show him the visualization from The Washington Post where it was like, “This is why we’re doing it.” They don’t get it. But I think they might get it. I don’t know.

Jake Taylor:
I don’t think they get it.

Bill Brewster:
There’s adults that don’t get it. Dude, my kids are gifted. Speak about your own kids.

Jake Taylor:
Yeah. The other thing is we, in our family, are doing a 100 pushups a day challenge where we kind of all do the pushups together, try to stay healthy. Funny side note to counter balance that. When I went for a little like panic buying session at the store a couple weeks ago or whatever it is, I bought like six bags of chips because I’m like the salt and vinegar chips I love them. This’ll get me through a long time. Well, it’s like I’ve already eaten them all basically. I got to re-up the chips now because it’s like I dramatically under appreciated my lack of willpower.

Bill Brewster:
I’ll tell you for real something that… And I don’t know how you can do it, and it would be tough. And it’s bound to have problems. But if this Mitt Romney sends checks to everybody idea gets actually passed, I really don’t need that check. I need to figure out a way to give it to somebody that does. And I think that there’s probably a lot of people in a similar situation. I mean, figuring out how to actually disperse it. I feel absolutely terrible for the restaurant industry. I mean, those people are sacrificing… I don’t even know how to say who’s sacrificing the most. What I know is that the burden falls on the lower class and the lower middle class, and I don’t even mean to refer to them that way. I mean it economically, and I feel for them. When this is over, I’m going to spend as much as I can to help them because it is terrible what they’re having to do.

Tobias Carlisle:
You’re going to go to restaurants a lot when this is done.

Bill Brewster:
I don’t know what I’m going to do, man. I don’t know.

Jake Taylor:
Steaks all day.

Bill Brewster:
No, it’s not that. I mean, tip your waiters a lot. It’s not a joke, man. These people are like losing everything. And I don’t know what the answer is. So I don’t know. It’s some messed up stuff. These are some bad cards to get dealt.

Tobias Carlisle:
So what’s the stock market done while we’ve been talking? Every time we record… Last time, it was up or down 5%.

Bill Brewster:
I don’t know. It’s nice not to look.

Jake Taylor:
I don’t know. Let’s poll the audience.

Tobias Carlisle:
So we’re getting to that… We’ve got 15 minutes. So let’s do some questions. You guys throw them into the-

Bill Brewster:
5%.

Tobias Carlisle:
… comments and questions.

Bill Brewster:
Hey, real quick.

Tobias Carlisle:
Up five?

Bill Brewster:
Yeah. Well, not since we were talking, just on the day.

Tobias Carlisle:
Just for the day. Right.

Bill Brewster:
Real quick. Look, part of what we’re doing here is trying to have a conversation like we would at a bar or whatever. I think that’s part of what makes the podcast great. I had said something about somebody allegedly pumping on Twitter. Steve, I’m sorry that I… I didn’t mean it in that way. I can certainly be accused of pumping Delta on Twitter. I meant it colloquially… however you say that word. But if I say something that offends people, sometimes I talk too much, and it’s not meant… I don’t know anybody that I’m talking about. Ray Dalio is probably a great guy that’s not getting blown up right now. But maybe he is. But for real, I am sorry. So that’s that.

Jake Taylor:
Also, this is for entertainment purposes as well. So don’t take anything too seriously here.

Tobias Carlisle:
This is not a flotation device.

Bill Brewster:
Not investing advice. Do not come here for that.

Tobias Carlisle:
There we go. Up five. VP up two. There we go. Value doing their thing. We have some questions coming in in a moment, and then I’ll throw them out to you guys. We got a little lag here.

Bill Brewster:
Titillating.

Jake Taylor:
Heck of a time, huh?

Bill Brewster:
This is like Tom Russo’s capacity to [crosstalk 00:44:36] investor capacity.

Tobias Carlisle:
Thoughts on Busters? Anybody got a view on Dave and Busters. I should throw that one up.

Bill Brewster:
No one’s going there. Next.

Tobias Carlisle:
Here we go, is it possible to short the bond market? This is a for the leveraged finance guys. Is to possible to short the bond market? Do you mean is it physically capable of doing it, or is it sensible to do it?

Bill Brewster:
Who you asking, me? Bonds aren’t my thing. I’ve been so wrong on treasuries, corporate debt, and anything else, I deserve to just listen.

Tobias Carlisle:
Graftech is up 24%.

Bill Brewster:
Oh.

Tobias Carlisle:
Here we go, here’s a Berkshire question. [crosstalk 00:45:19] You think Berkshire will use-

Jake Taylor:
Bam, take under.

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