The Liquidity Event Podcast: Episode 49

 

Episode 49: Aaron Burr Sir

It’s hot and heavy in Brooklyn and these podcast hosts are here to roast boomer senators for only passing laws that benefit them. We’re talking about the Secure Act 2.0 and a bill to expand the use of 529 college savings funds for retirement. While there are no IPOs to chat about, our hosts are staying entertained by some crazy s*** that went down in a SPAC merger at a Philippines casino. Finally, some good news: Slack’s program to help formerly incarcerated folks learn to code and get placed at high-paying tech jobs is working. This one is heartwarming.

Read the Full Transcript:

Speaker 1:

This podcast is for informational purposes only, and should not be considered tax or investment advice.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to The Liquidity Event, a show about all things personal finance, with a laser focus on equity compensation. Hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn FI. Each episode will take you through the week's news on fintech, IPOs, SPACs, founder wins and fails, crypto and whatever else these nerds think is interesting. Learn more and subscribe today at brooklynfi.com.

Shane:

Hello and welcome to The Liquidity Event. We are your hosts, Shane Mason ...

AJ:

And I'm AJ Ayers. Should I change my name to Ally Jean? Should I go back?

Shane:

I think that was a ... I thought that's a one way street. Can you go back?

AJ:

You can go back.

Shane:

Wait, your name is Ally Jane? It's Ally Jane Ayers.

AJ:

My name is Ally Jane Ayers, but I go by AJ professionally, and personal circles, but at-

Shane:

You actually bring this up fairly routinely. What is the issue with AJ?

AJ:

I don't know. I just like the name Ally Jane. That's my name, but I went AJ. I changed it professionally when I worked in music publishing, because men are disgusting, sexist assholes. So I wanted to appear not to be a woman, and I could hide behind AJ, but maybe I'm ready to come back to be Ally Jane.

Shane:

Wait, do we get all men are sexist assholes on the podcast?

AJ:

Not all, just the ones that I encountered routinely in the field of music journalism.

Shane:

You said men, there was no qualifier, there was no exclusion. What about your podcast guest host, regular host, friend and partner?

AJ:

Anyways, moving on, this is episode 49 with The Liquidity Event.

Shane:

Jesus. Coming in hot. How was your July 4th weekend is a more typical introduction.

AJ:

It was lovely. It was lovely.

Shane:

Wow.

AJ:

It was lovely. How was yours?

Shane:

It wasn't sexist or ... Wait, was it? Let me run through each day.

AJ:

Was it though?

Shane:

Let me do a play-by-play, there might have been something in there.

AJ:

Anyways, this is episode ... I'm sorry. This is, yeah, 49.

Shane:

This is 49. Next week is 50. What are we going to do for our 50th?

AJ:

Oh my gosh.

Shane:

Drink 50 beers?

AJ:

We're going to have a party. We're going to have a client party to celebrate our 50th podcast episode.

Shane:

Right. We're not going to record live at the party though, right? We're having a party in Brooklyn next week?

AJ:

Maybe we should. Not the full episode, but maybe a segment. Discuss that with our producer to see what the feasibility of that is.

Shane:

All right. Yeah, we're coming after a big hot July 4th weekend.

AJ:

Oh boy.

Shane:

Apparently our minds are flayed by the sun.

AJ:

How you doing folks?

Shane:

Haven't been working a little while, mentally.

AJ:

I look very pale for some reason on this camera, but I am quite burned. My July 4th weekend was getting burned. I went on a mega bike ride, and put so much sunscreen on, but I was sweating so much that it just kept sweating off of me.

Shane:

That's very Roman. That's very Russian Jew of you to be pale and burned at the same time. I'm not understanding, you look white, but you're on fire?

AJ:

I was like, "Wait, I'm tan, but ... What's going on? I'm wearing literally SPF 75 and I'm still getting burned." I don't understand, I reapplied four times.

Shane:

You look like you're wearing goth makeup. You look like you're at goth con.

AJ:

I know. I have bronzer on right now. Anyway.

Shane:

Did I say anything sexist there, when I was talking about your appearance? Just checking. What are you reading?

AJ:

I'm still reading Good Omens. It's great, and I'm enjoying it very much.

Shane:

All right. Gotcha.

AJ:

I talked about it last week, I'm not going to talk about it again. Our podcast listeners are so devoted that I don't need to go back into explain what I'm reading.

Shane:

Shout-out to the BK FI stans out there that know about AJ's book club.

AJ:

Shout-out to all the feedback I got about my hydration habits. I think that was my most interaction, most reach out about like, "Hey, I listen to your podcast, and I heard about your hydration goals. Me too."

Shane:

Hydration goals?

AJ:

Hydration goals, gallon of water every day.

Shane:

That's what you're proud of this year?

AJ:

I had three people talk to me about it.

Shane:

Speaking of, because your friends actually listen to the podcast, mine do not, they just want me to do their taxes and get out of the ... and fetch them a beer.

AJ:

You're only good for one thing.

Shane:

"Fetch me a refund, CPA boy." I got some feedback on the podcast IRL over the weekend as well. I ran into one of your friends. I was, dare I say, talking to a woman, and some guy just came up to me and said, "Hey man, love your podcast. Just a fan." Imagine talking to somebody, and then you seem famous for this podcast. You love this story.

AJ:

Oh my God.

Shane:

You love this story.

AJ:

Women getting treated poorly at every turn.

Shane:

How did she get treated poorly?

AJ:

No, she didn't.

Shane:

I paid for-

AJ:

I'm just comparing my experiences to your daily experiences. It's an experience where a random stranger comes up to you and talks about how great you are in front of a person that you're interested in. What a great experience.

Shane:

Indeed. Men gas each other up. What are y'all up to?

AJ:

Yeah, exactly.

Shane:

Talking about water habits. Sad.

AJ:

Wow, that was sexist. Actually, two of the people who reached out were men, so there we go. Anyways, moving on. Where in the world are you located these days?

Shane:

I'm in Greenpoint in Brooklyn.

AJ:

Oh, cool. Me too.

Shane:

It's good to be settled in until November.

AJ:

Nice, nice. There's no IPOs, right? No IPOs happening?

Shane:

No, you're skipping over what we're doing for fun. Your birthday's coming up. Don't you want your listeners ... This podcast is coming out on your birthday actually, on Friday.

AJ:

Oh, well happy birthday to me. I was going to skip it, because I knew you'd give me shit about talking about my birthday, so I didn't want to bring it up.

Shane:

Oh, I see, you're scared of me. No, yeah, you're turning 34. Not really the biggest event, the 34th birthday.

AJ:

Yeah. I was thinking about that. Last year was a big year for me in terms of health issues, so I really went and celebrated my birthday. This year, I'm like, "34, eh, let's have a nice dinner with my husband."

Shane:

That seems like a nice dinner with a couple of friends.

AJ:

Yeah.

Shane:

And some martinis. Bed by 11:00 situation there, the 34th birthday.

AJ:

That is the plan. That is the current plan, so I'm looking forward to it a lot.

Shane:

I noticed I didn't get invited to this small intimate dinner. This is why I'm bringing it up with listeners. All right, moving on to the articles this week.

AJ:

Moving on. Speaking of standoffs in Philippines casinos.

Shane:

Oh my God.

AJ:

Oh wow. This story is wild. So this story came across from one of our-

Shane:

What's the title?

AJ:

The title of the article is "Standoff in a Philippines casino shows risk of SPACs betting on foreign targets." So this came across my desk through one of our news sources for IPOs.

AJ:

Basically, we're talking about how SPACs, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, they go public, initially, with a prospectus that says, "We are going to find a company to acquire by X date." Typically, it's two years, five years? I always forget what the actual definition is for them to file as this type of company.

AJ:

Anyways, they're running out of time. So a lot of these SPACs were like, "We got to find a company to acquire." Not a ton of companies in the US right now looking to be acquired, given the current market, so they're looking abroad.

AJ:

And here is a story of what happens when maybe you don't do all the due diligence in the world. The company is called Okada Manila. It's a Philippine casino resort that's valued at 2.6 billion. So this SPAC is going to acquire this company, but they were interrupted. Shane, you want to tell us what happened when they tried to acquire?

Shane:

Wait, we're going to the Philippines in December. Do we get to go to ... Should we do some recon at the Okada Manila Casino Resort?

AJ:

I mean, you got to tell us what happened, because I want to write this screenplay. This is amazing.

Shane:

Yeah. I mean, this is some old school casino behavior. Well, I guess it was founded by a Japanese casino magnate, which is one of the coolest titles you can have. I prefer that over co-founder, or CPA, or president. I think Japanese casino magnate is pretty dope. He was also born in 1943, was the founder. And I guess at some point he had shifted ownership elsewhere, maybe sold this property to some somebody else. And apparently, just ahead of the SPAC acquisition, both him and, I guess a group of private security, 50 Filipino officers, and his boy Antonio "Tonyboy" Cojuango, illegally-

AJ:

You know if Tonyboy is involved, you know some shit is going down.

Shane:

Tonyboy, Ponyboy, you don't want to fuck with these fellows. And they illegally and violently entered and occupied the Okada Manila premises, and it's just theirs now.

AJ:

It's like a standoff. Yeah. Oh, they just occupied it, that's it.

Shane:

"That's my casino now."

AJ:

I thought it was a standoff.

Shane:

"I am the captain now."

AJ:

"It's yours." Yeah.

Shane:

Yeah.

AJ:

I got that reference.

Shane:

Hey. Yeah. You've looked at Instagram in the past four years. That's chill. Welcome. Yeah.

Shane:

So it was going to be acquired for $2.6 billion, and I guess the old fellow, who was born during a Japanese occupation of the Philippines, went back. Went back in 2022.

AJ:

Yeah, to reoccupy it.

Shane:

Yeah, to reoccupy the Philippines. And took it back ahead of the acquisition. Maybe he thought that he could become a part of the SPAC deal?

AJ:

Right. Right.

Shane:

I guess that might have been how things worked back when the mafia was still around?

AJ:

Right. Like, "Oh, we're getting acquired? Well, let me get in on that."

Shane:

Let me reacquire it before it gets acquired, just physically, not on paper.

AJ:

This is a pretty interesting hostile takeover, wouldn't you say?

Shane:

Yeah, "Hey."

AJ:

"Hey," zing, zing, zing.

Shane:

Yeah, so an executive-

AJ:

Speaking of hostile takeovers-

Shane:

No, no. I knew you were going to do that. That's not the transition. That's not the transition. It is-

AJ:

Wait, sorry, complete segue I feel like. I've sent you this guy on TikTok, or Instagram or whatever, or Boomer TikTok, which is Instagram, the guy who ... the comedian-

Shane:

Wait, did you just call ... Boomer TikTok is not Instagram.

AJ:

Yes, it is.

Shane:

Boomer TikTok is Facebook.

AJ:

Okay, fine. Millennial TikTok is Instagram, because I don't have TikTok and I have ... I get the TikToks two weeks after they blow up. Anyway.

AJ:

There's a comedian who keeps showing up on my feed, who his whole thing is he tells a joke. He's like, "I made a pun ..." It's hard to explain. Anyway, it's like two layers of jokes. He presents a joke, and then he goes one layer deeper and tells a better joke about the same subject. So sometimes I feel like you and I do that with segues, where I'm going to tell a joke, and you're like, "I'm going to take your joke and do you one better, and try to one up you."

Shane:

Are you talking about the guy that said, "My son says, do you know any plants with a mouth? And he said, Venus fly trap. And I said, no dummy, it's tulips?"

AJ:

Yes.

Shane:

That type of joke. Right.

AJ:

Thank you. Yes. Your memory is better than mine.

Shane:

Maybe alley-oop that one to me next time, and I'll take care of it for you.

AJ:

Okay. Come back around.

Shane:

Jesus. Anyway, the segue is, speaking of executives selling stock, we have this lovely Wall Street Journal article about 10b5-1 plans. Who else is talking about 10b5-1 plans on a podcast, AJ?

AJ:

Oh my God. You know that I love 10b5-1 plans. That's my favorite thing to talk about. I talk about them at parties all the time, legitimately. So I love when they make the news.

Shane:

Explain what a 10b5-1 is, even though we've probably done it four or five times already.

AJ:

10b5-1 is, if you have material information about your company, usually you're a high level executive, you have to tell the SEC, and really the public, all the trades you're going to make in the future, so you don't make trades, or make profits, based on information that the public doesn't have, is all it is. So it's a list of trades you're going to make. You file it with the SEC, and then you're good. And then those trades go on. And you can't trade that stock outside of the plan.

AJ:

A lot of executives get in trouble, or what this article is about, is executives putting these plans in place and saying, "I'm going to sell $5 million worth of my stock next month, because right now I don't have material non-public information." But the Wall Street Journal did a report, and found that it's possible that they did, and maybe we should look at some legislation about putting more of a time buffer on the time between executives plan their trades and the time that the trades actually start to execute. Because it seems like they know something the public doesn't know, based on the timing and profitability of these trades that are getting made.

AJ:

How does this impact real people in the real world? I think folks like our employees, who typically need 10b5-1 plans, because they're the head of the people team, or they're working on a marketing plan, and they literally can't trade stock. Like they can't sell their vesting RSUs, or they're vesting non-qualified options, unless they have a 10b5-1 plan.

AJ:

They're great, I love these plans. We do them all the time for our clients. But if we put more regulation and legislation to stop these tens of millions of dollar trades from happening, I worry that we'd hurt the rank and file employees who just want to sell their shares and move on with it, and not have to deal with the hassle of accidentally tripping up insider trading laws.

Shane:

Yeah. I think it's fun to think about the integrity of the market, and how important this is to it, because we definitely don't want people that have information that other people don't have, participating or acting on that information. Because if it happens enough, it's like this game is rigged, and we no longer have faith in the market.

Shane:

Because if you're selling your stock in the stock exchange, you don't know who you're selling it to. And the insiders don't know who they're selling it to. It's not like a normal transaction. Like if you and I were to sell shares of Brooklyn FI to people, it would be to someone that we know, like we know their name on paper, and we can divulge any information, and they can ask us any information that they want ahead of that transaction. Whereas these insiders, they don't know who they're selling it to, they're just dumping it. And do you want to be the person that's buying shares from somebody that's dumping them, knowing that they're probably going to go down?

Shane:

I do wonder how much this does impact the market? I don't think that we'll ever really know how this rocks integrity in the market, because by its very nature, we can't figure out who purchased from insiders. I don't think we can ... It's not like the blockchain, where we can trace. I'm sure we could, if we got some sort of divulsion from custodians. I guess we can get social security number to social security number, or something like that, but that seems really intensive. I mean, way more intensive even than this Journal analysis, which proved that these 75 ...

Shane:

They looked at 75,000 stock sales? That seems like a lot. That must have been a nice, big-

AJ:

Crazy.

Shane:

Yeah. And it proved that-

AJ:

Yeah. I mean, they're looking at the forms, they're looking at the 10-Ks, and the 8-Ks and all that fun stuff, to see what trades got blocked that quarter from executives.

Shane:

Yeah. And these 10b5-1 plans, the rules on them are not ... It's not like there's a very clear requirement on how quickly or slowly you can sell. You just try to come up with something that's reasonable. And if you can move faster rather than slower, then you'll be dumping your stock in a shorter period of time. And what they discovered was that the people that decided to sell earlier, rather than waiting, more often had more advantageous pricing. Which just goes to show you that there's insider trading happening.

AJ:

Right. But also, if I were one of those executives, I would argue that it wasn't insider trading, I just needed to sell my stock for my personal liquidity at that time, and here's evidence of why I needed to do that, because I-

Shane:

Well, yes, your honor, that is what you would say, but statistically what they've proved here is that you're insider trading.

AJ:

Right. But these cases are really hard to actually get people in trouble, as we've seen over and over again, it's really hard to prosecute white collar crime like this. There is a proposal to change the rules on these plans. There is a proposal to increase the waiting period between the filing of the 10b5-1 and the actual timing of the first trade. So we'll see if that gets picked up. I mean, half of Congress is in trouble right now for insider trading, so I don't know.

Shane:

Yeah.

AJ:

I do not know if they're down for passing this type of law, but there we are. How about some good news?

Shane:

Oh yeah. Yeah. I love this article about Slack's bet on formerly incarcerated employees.

AJ:

Yeah. I teared up reading this.

Shane:

Yes. It's pretty cool. Fast Company article, "Inside Slack's bold bet on training formerly incarcerated to be tech workers."

AJ:

So cool.

Shane:

Are you ever guilty of someone saying, "I'm struggling with my income, or my career choices," and just going, "Learn to code?"

AJ:

Yep.

Shane:

Just so you're done with the conversation.

AJ:

Yep. I'm totally, totally guilty of that. Yeah. Like, "What can I do?" Yeah. "Learn to code." And there are lots of jobs.

AJ:

Slack has really thought this through. It's not just like, "Go to code bootcamp." Sure, that's the first step, you need to learn the foundations. But it's really like, you need more handholding, and more reentry, to apply for these high paying tech jobs. And that's why this program is so cool, because typically, if you're incarcerated, your options for reentering the workforce are pretty limited, just based on employment forms. And typically, this article mentions, janitorial roles, or there's all those companies that will hire ... There's like a Bakers Behind Bars, I think is what ... It's an Oakland organization that will hire folks to make bread. So having these high paying, six-figure tech jobs with equity too is awesome, right?

Shane:

Yeah. We're talking about people that used to bag groceries now have RSUs, and have to worry about 10b5-1 plans potentially.

AJ:

Yeah. And it's a small program, they've successfully placed 30 apprentices. Now, 30 lives changed, that's a lot of lives. But it's cool, Slack is trying to do it at other companies as well. They've shown the success, so they're trying to roll it out to ... who else? PayPal, Asana, and Stash are some of the people, some of the other companies named that have signed onto this program. So I think that's cool.

Shane:

Yeah. I think that's incredible. And that is some really good news. We got to get those numbers up. We got to get those 30 up to 3,000. So shout-out to Slack for that initiative. I wonder if anyone ... And Slack has 2,500 employees. They were acquired by Salesforce, hopefully some Salesforce money will get involved in that program as well.

AJ:

You are definitely guilty of, "Learn to code."

Shane:

I can remember three times I've done it to people. I've done it to people in my own family too, like not really explained how complicated it is.

AJ:

Yeah, just learn to code. Just go to bootcamp. Yeah. Anyway, that's some good news. Some other good news-

Shane:

Wait, did I say my own company or my own family?

AJ:

You said family.

Shane:

Okay, cool. Cool, cool.

AJ:

Did you mean company?

Shane:

I was going to do ... I didn't know if I Freudian slipped my company family back and forth, which I don't like referring to people in the company-

AJ:

Your company is not your family, Shane.

Shane:

No, I know. I'm not a big proponent of calling people family that are willfully employed.

AJ:

Yeah. Any who, I don't have a good segue here.

Shane:

You don't have a good segue into the retirement plan update legislation from the incarcerated?

AJ:

Well, I was going to say, "Speaking of good news, but mostly only good news for Boomers, yet again, is that SECURE 2.0, which is the next phase of retirement plan change legislation ..." Shane's dog is really excited about SECURE 2.0"

Shane:

Charlie demands water.

AJ:

Is Charlie secure in his feeding-

Shane:

You literally need to do this article by yourself, I'll be right back.

AJ:

All right, I'll hold down the fort.

AJ:

SECURE 1.0 passed, I think it was end of 2020. SECURE 2.0, I honestly can't remember what's in this. There's a increase of the RMD age, just to put everyone to sleep, which is the Required Minimum Distribution. Meaning, that you have to start withdrawing from your 401k at a certain age, we're going to raise that up a little bit.

AJ:

There's some nice provisions in here. A little bit of a shout-out to Millennials, where you can use some of your ... You'll get credit for paying off your student loans in a tax advantaged scheme in your paycheck, which is cool.

AJ:

The point of this article is that, finally, it's going to pass, and we might see some legislation. But mostly this is increases for contribution limits for Boomers, who are maybe five or 10 years away from retirement, they realize they didn't save enough, they want to put a bunch more money in that 401k. That's great.

AJ:

Can't imagine there's a lot of Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z-ers right now who have an extra couple thousand dollars a year to put in their 401k. They're mostly concerned with rising rent costs, gas prices, and crushing student loan debt. So, yet again, more stuff that we're focusing on that impacts folks who are the same age as most of the senators and Congress people. Cool, good win for Boomers, but not for anybody else.

Shane:

Yeah. I mean, moving back RMDs from 72 to 75, that just means that Boomers pay less taxes.

AJ:

Yeah.

Shane:

That's the story of the last 30 years of legislation. But, shout-out to the 401k contribution matches for student loans, I guess there's a little bit-

AJ:

Yep. Yeah, that's huge. Yep. That's what it is, yeah. I couldn't even remember all the provisions, because we've been talking about this for two years now, and it's changed. And it'll probably change before it gets passed.

AJ:

Speaking of senators passing legislation that benefits mostly only them, or people like them.

Shane:

Excellent segue.

AJ:

This is a proposal. The title of this article is, "Senators want penalty free rollovers of 529s to IRAs." So just breaking that sentence down a little bit, 529 plans, tax advantage college savings accounts. And then IRAs, obviously, retirement savings accounts.

AJ:

Typically, folks contribute to these 529s to save for their children and grandchildren's education. Typically, these are more middle class, upper middle class, wealthy members of society. Basically, these senators are saying, "We got all this extra money in our 529 plans, that our kids didn't use for education, can we roll it over to our own IRAs?"

AJ:

And I called this. I've been talking about this for years. I've always told clients 529 plans are not going anywhere. In fact, the use of 529 money is only going to be expanded in the future. And here we are. Here is evidence of that.

AJ:

I don't know. It's cool. I'm excited. I've got money in a 529. If I don't have kids, I'd love to roll it to my IRA, but I don't know who ... This helps people who already should pay more in taxes, is my take on this.

Shane:

I mean, Obama got in trouble when he tried to take away 529 plans. Do you remember that? That was one of his most unpopular moves.

Shane:

It's a counterintuitive thing. Like, all right, you're allowing people to save for college, there's an education funding issue going on in the United States, which causes student loan payments to balloon, because they have to take out loans. So why is Obama trying to take away 529 plan accessibility from folks, because that'll help with tax advantage savings for retirement?

Shane:

The problem is, the only people that have discretionary funds sitting around to shield from taxation, are the people that already have a lot of other responsibilities covered, and they have that money. So it was really only benefiting people that could already afford to send their kids to college anyway. Not only, of course, but mostly the people that could already afford to pay for college and didn't need to take out student loans anyway. But when he tried to take it back, or get rid of 529s, powerful people said no.

Shane:

We've actually done the math. This is an interesting other thing here that we didn't talk about. And apparently the senators didn't do the math here. But if you put money into a 529 plan, it grows tax advantaged for 15 to 18, 22 years. Even though there is a 10% penalty for withdrawing it, you still come out ahead, as opposed to saving into a regular taxable brokerage account, which does pay taxes throughout all those years. Because the way that snowballing investments get to balloon in size when they don't pay taxes, the money that you don't pay in taxes gets to balloon as well. So the magic of compound interest means that we don't need to repeal this penalty, because people that have money in 529 plans are already winning, even without repeal.

AJ:

Already winning. Yeah. This is just like-

Shane:

This is smoke.

AJ:

This is just like icing on the icing on the ... This is glitter on the icing on the cake.

Shane:

This is one of those super complicated ... This is one of those things where complexity adds to the net worth of the rich, but only ... What does Galloway say? Complexity is a tax on the poor, and this is exactly what this is.

Shane:

If you don't know what a 529 plan is, it's because you're probably poor and have never been able to benefit from one, and you don't know what the hell this stuff is. And you just move along as if nothing's happening, and money isn't being shifted from your pocket, or from tax dollars that could have been used to pave your road, or fund your school, to help you have social mobility, up to people that don't need it. Because they can call their senator.

AJ:

Yeah. Imagine if a high school personal finance education course explained the power of compound interest, tested students on the power of compound interest, to make sure they understand it. And then said, "Hey, look what happens if you put $20 a month, starting now at a 18, into this 529 plan, let's see what happens. Oh, by the way, you can't touch it, so it's protected from you." I mean, you can touch it, but there's a penalty.

AJ:

I love tax advantage accounts so much, because it's that human behavioral thing. If I've got a brokerage account that's got a thousand dollars in it, and I want to go on vacation, I'm going to be like, "I'm going to sell my stock and go on vacation." But if I've got a thousand dollars in a 529 plan, that I told my younger self that I was saving for my future child's college education, I might think twice about pulling that money out. Also, I have to pay a 10% penalty on it.

AJ:

Whoever came up with that idea of how to protect these funds from ourselves, us humans, who like to spend money, I commend them. I forget the history of 401ks and IRAs, but love 529s. I'm sure this will pass, no problem. Senators have a ton of money in these accounts. Yay for our clients, who are mostly also wealthy. Win for everybody, sad for society.

Shane:

By the way, I think you'll appreciate this, my new gift to my friends that have kids, which is happening more and more often these days, is a 15 minute calendar link to set up their 529 plan with them.

AJ:

Oh, I've been doing that for years. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. Yeah, I do a-

Shane:

Oh, you had to slide that in, you couldn't just ... Wow.

AJ:

Well, I told you about that. You got that idea from me.

Shane:

I did not get that idea from you.

AJ:

Yes, you did. Oh my God. Yeah, I do ... If it's a family person, I'll do a couple hundred dollars. If it's a friend, I'll do a little bit. And it's like, "Here, I made this gift, set up time with me to set this up." And if the kid's a little bit older, then I'll do a whole financial plan with them, if we're close. I just gave my little cousin, for her bat mitzvah, she got a 529 and a finance lesson.

Shane:

Cool, cool, cool. So you also have this great article here about US history. Speaking of senators ...

AJ:

I just went on a bit of a rabbit hole, because one of the senators who proposed-

Shane:

I don't know what to say about-

AJ:

Yeah, there's nothing to say. You didn't see the asterisk that said, "Dumb AJ nerd shit."

Shane:

I see the notes. Yeah.

AJ:

The 529 bill was introduced, it's a bipartisan bill, by Senator Richard Burr and Rob Casey. Burr, the Republican. Casey, the Democrat. And I was like, "Richard Burr, sir, are you related to Aaron Burr?" And, in fact, he is. He's a great, great, great grandson, some relation somehow.

AJ:

In my little deep dive, there was a funny anecdote where another Senator was giving him some praise. And he is like ... What did he say? Like they say in Hamilton, "History has its eyes on you." And Richard Burr takes one step back and says, "Angus, I don't know if you want to quote Hamilton to me, since my great-great grandfather shot him." Boom, mic drop, it was so good. All I know about American history is Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton.

Shane:

I think that's pretty dope, that if you had someone in your history that won a famous duel-

AJ:

Yeah, no, that's a good ancestor to have. And I bet, throughout, there's definitely been some family tree reshuffling to make sure that last name got carried down through the years.

Shane:

You think every time that he pulls out a $20 bill, he chuckles to himself about how his family killed this guy on this bill? Do you think he would ever vote to change the bill to Tubman, considering ...

AJ:

To himself? Yeah.

Shane:

Oh yeah. "Actually, I have a write-in candidate here, it's me, since our family clearly won the duel."

AJ:

Yeah, it's Richard Burr. Wait, $20 bill, that's not Hamilton, it's Jackson.

Shane:

Is it? Oh yeah, yeah. That's the one we want to change because of the racist history.

AJ:

Yeah, because Jackson murdered all the Indians, amongst other people.

Shane:

What's Hamilton on?

AJ:

Nothing. He was never a president. Yeah, he's not ... Nope. Got to be president.

Shane:

He created the treasury though, didn't he?

AJ:

You haven't seen Hamilton? Come on.

Shane:

No. No. I don't have a 529 either. Or an IRA. No, no, of course I do. All right, moving on.

AJ:

All right, folks, that's enough, let's get out of here. You have been a great audience. Thanks for ... I feel like every podcast, we're just like ... we don't know what to do. You can find us online a brooklynfi.com/episode49. And we will see you next week, folks.

Shane:

Bye.

AJ:

Laters.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for listening to The Liquidity Event, hosted by AJ and Shane of Brooklyn FI. Head on over to Brooklynfi.com, where you can subscribe to the podcast or YouTube channel, or if you want to learn about their full service financial planning, tax, and investment firm, specializing in tech professionals and creatives on the path to financial independence. We'll see you next time on The Liquidity Event.