Weekly Roundup 06/19/26 (STRC under pressure, Illinois' crypto tax, Open weight AI vs the AI boom)

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Matt Walsh and Nick Carter are partners at Castle Island Ventures. All of these expressed by them or the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Castle Island Ventures. Guests and hosts may maintain positions in the assets discussed in this podcast. You should not treat any opinion expressed by anyone on this podcast as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of their personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:22)
Brought down by Bad Mortgage Investments, Lehman, which has 25,000 employees, will be liquidated.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:28)
The federal government loans American International Group AIG $85 billion.

**SPEAKER_5** (0:35)
The federal government is stepping in to stabilize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants that have been threatened by the housing crisis.

**SPEAKER_6** (0:42)
The Bank of England has pumped $75 billion more into Britain's ailing economy with a new round of quantitative easing.

**SPEAKER_1** (0:47)
You print a couple trillion dollars and all of a sudden people start to worry. So out of this worry, we have something called the Bitcoin.

**Matt Walsh** (0:54)
Welcome to On The Brink, I'm Matt Walsh.

**Nick Carter** (0:56)
And I'm Nick Carter.

**Matt Walsh** (0:57)
Recording this one a little late, but we'll get it out. We'll get it out. I was a little predisposed yesterday. Is that the US Open?

**Nick Carter** (1:04)
Yeah, tough day for you there. You're telling me before we started recording that the World Cup has has come to Boston that's begun to affect you personally. Is that right?

**Matt Walsh** (1:15)
Yeah, I am actually 180 degree reversed on this. I love the World Cup. I am rooting for the US, but I'm pulling for Scotland because we have we have been overrun by the Tartan Army up here in Boston.

**Nick Carter** (1:28)
They're ever so there's just a bunch of lunatic Scottish mostly men. I'm assuming guys running around in kilts drinking everything in sight. Is that right?

**Matt Walsh** (1:38)
They're drinking the city dry and they're actually like very pleasant. I don't think they're causing any vandalism, destruction. People love these guys. So I pulled this thing and said from Thursday to Sunday of last week, the Tartan Army drank four times as much Samuel Adams Boston Lager as would normally be consumed on a four-day holiday stretch at a local bar. The taproom opposite City Hall ran dry. These guys are literally drinking Boston.

**Nick Carter** (2:02)
Boston is a pretty well stocked city, alcohol-wise in the first place. I mean, I love the Scots. I spent five years with them. They're great people. They're not really that good at soccer, to be honest.

**Matt Walsh** (2:16)
They're not?

**Nick Carter** (2:16)
They did beat...

**Matt Walsh** (2:17)
I don't know. They're playing Morocco today, right?

**Nick Carter** (2:19)
They beat Haiti. So that's probably the worst team in the World Cup. They got Morocco today at Fox, bro.
You know what's so funny? Have you seen all this content about Europeans just being astonished that America has functional infrastructure and things like that?

**Matt Walsh** (2:34)
Yeah, yeah.

**Nick Carter** (2:37)
So the World Cup renamed all the stadiums, by the way. I don't think it's Gillette Stadium anymore.

**Matt Walsh** (2:42)
No, it's Boston Stadium.

**Nick Carter** (2:44)
And then MetLife, I think, became the New York, New Jersey Stadium.

**Matt Walsh** (2:50)
Oh, really?

**Nick Carter** (2:51)
Yeah, so they couldn't... The Europeans are coming over here, and they're seeing that we have big stadiums. They can't believe it.

**Matt Walsh** (2:58)
But don't they have big stadiums, too, for soccer over there?

**Nick Carter** (3:01)
They have some big stadiums, but they actually don't have that many, believe it or not. Like American, it's like college football stadiums, just kind of blows most of these European stadiums out of the water.

**Matt Walsh** (3:13)
So I took the ferry to get to the US Open in Long Island, and there was a lot of tartans on there, with their kilts, I guess they're called.
They're basically skirts. But I'd have to imagine that if you're European, you're probably like, hey, our trains are a lot better. So in terms of infrastructure, I think they have a speed on it.

**Nick Carter** (3:29)
Yeah. I think they just thought that American infrastructure was kind of non-existent. And it's not great. I mean, American, it's not like I would brag about American infrastructure. But we do have very big and impressive sports venues. That's true.
That part's true. So we're good at that. And then they really like Buc-E's and Costco and Bass Pro Shops and things like that.