Super Terrific Happy Hour Ep. 26: The Downloadable Ringtone

**Grant Williams** (0:00)
Here's the bit where I remind you that nothing we discussed during The Super Terrific Happy Hour should be considered as investment advice. This conversation is for informational and hopefully entertainment purposes only. So while we hope you find it both informative and entertaining, to say nothing of Super and Terrific, of course, please do your own research or speak to a financial advisor before putting a dime of your money into these crazy markets. And now on with the show.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (0:30)
People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. Because you send your money out there working for you, a lot of times, it gets fired.
You go back there, what happened? I had my money, it was here, it was working for me. Yeah, I remember your money. We had to let them go.

**Grant Williams** (0:54)
Welcome, everybody, to a special festive, often rescheduled, but we finally got this done. Super Terrific Happy Hour. Joining me, as always, bringing all the adjectives to the party, is the wonderful Stephanie Pomboy. Hello, my friend. How are you?

**Stephanie Pomboy** (1:07)
I'm fantastic. I'm super terrific now. How are you?

**Grant Williams** (1:10)
I am cold, is what I am. I'm cold. I'm chilled to my bones for my first winter in I don't know how long. You know what? It'll be fine. It'll be fine. Other people do it. There's no reason I can't, Steph.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (1:22)
I mean, you did it for how many years as a kid? I guess back then, though, you don't feel cold. Do you ever remember being cold as a kid? I never remember ever being cold.

**Grant Williams** (1:30)
No, I don't remember being cold. I mean, I remember being told that I was cold and I should go in, but I am? Oh, okay. I didn't realize. So I don't know. But in fairness, the amount of extra fat I have in my body now, you would think it was going the other way, but it seems to be I must have porous fat, Steph, because I'm freezing.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (1:49)
You're ridiculous.

**Grant Williams** (1:52)
It reminds me of a joke about a polar bear, which I won't do now, but anyway.

**Stephanie Pomboy** (1:55)
Right now, you look like a polar bear with your white turtle neck sweater and your white bones. Yeah, so you're all bundled up.

**Grant Williams** (2:02)
No, the headphones are black, but that's the coating of snow on the headphones. But listen, before we get to The Super Terrific Happy Hour, we should talk quickly about The Super Terrific Happy Day. What do you think?

**Stephanie Pomboy** (2:12)
I'm so excited for this. That's going to be a blast. We had such a fun time last year, way more fun.

**Grant Williams** (2:18)
It really was, wasn't it?

**Stephanie Pomboy** (2:19)
I expected it to be, and so I'm really looking forward to this.

**Grant Williams** (2:22)
Yes, and for those of you that aren't aware, we are doing it again. Last year, we had the inaugural Super Terrific Happy Day in St. Petersburg, Florida, at the Vinoy Hotel. And thankfully, it wasn't just Steph and I that joined the audience, so you could really enjoy it too, because they asked us if we'd do it again. And the scheduling, we couldn't quite get it done within 2025, but we are getting it done very early in 2026, February the 17th, to be precise, again at the Vinoy Hotel in St. Petersburg. And you really should come and join us. We've got a whole bunch of people joining us. We've revealed some of their names. I don't want to get in trouble, Steph, by revealing people's names that we haven't officially revealed yet. Who do we know that we can tease before the official tease, after the preliminary tease and the original tease?

**Stephanie Pomboy** (3:01)
I'm really excited for Tom Hattick, the former Kansas City Fed guy, because here we are. The Fed just relaunched QE, although of course it's not QE as they describe it. And he famously just said uncle on his tenure at the Federal Reserve when they decided to re-up QE following the global financial crisis. So it'll be really interesting to get his observations on where we're headed and whether we can ever get out of this QE infinity situation that we seem to find ourselves in.

**Grant Williams** (3:36)
Tom's an amazing guy. I had the privilege to interview him last year. He's been one of my quiet heroes for some years now. When I used to go back and read all the Fed minutes, I found myself cheering some of the things he said during the depths of the crisis. So when these things got published, he was the only guy standing up to Bernanke. He was amazing really. And he was standing up to Bernanke at the time in the room. And obviously the world doesn't find out about that until years later when all this stuff gets finally released. And I think he was the tent pole around Chris Lennon's fantastic book, The Lords of Easy Money, which if anyone out there hasn't read that, you do yourself a favor and treat yourself for Christmas. It's a terrific read. And Tom's story is told in that. I spent two or three hours talking to Tom. And he was so candid and so gracious and so humble about the whole thing. It was a fantastic conversation. And I think for anybody who, like you and I, has observed what's going on at the Federal Reserve and actually would like to talk to someone who's been a part of it, who will actually stand there and not give off-the-run answers and scripted answers and avoid stuff. Tom is just a fascinating guy to get a chance to go and listen to first of all. And obviously with the format of The Super Terrific Happy Day, spend time chatting to over cocktails and stuff. He's just an amazing guy. He's going to be one of our speakers. As is my friend Mike Green. I'm really excited that Mike's coming. He's always just towering intellect and a fascinating guy to listen and talk to. But he went viral with, I don't know if he read his articles on the poverty line recently. They were fantastic, as all his work is on his sub stack, which is called Yes I Give A Feek. And those three pieces justifiably went viral. Mike was interviewed by The Great and Good about them. And the quality of Mike's thinking is just next level. And so I'm thrilled to get the chance to talk with him again. We'll talk about that for sure. And who knows what else will happen by the time we get to February. But Mike is another terrific speaker.