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This Friday morning, about 120 central bankers will sit in a Wyoming lodge and listen to a 20 minute speech that could move mortgage rates more than anything else happening this month.

The whole conference is all these nerdy central bankers debating whether to tighten or loosen. In a place named Jackson Hole. Am I the only one that thinks that is hysterical?

It's a conference the Kansas City Fed has thrown since 1978. It started in Missouri and was boring. Then in 1982 they wanted Paul Volcker to show up, and Volcker was a fanatic fly fisherman, so they moved the whole thing to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. That is the actual reason. The most important economic gathering on earth exists where it does because organizers bribed a Fed chairman with trout.

Three days, dozens of academic papers nobody reads. Markets care about roughly forty minutes of it: the Fed chair's Friday morning speech. In 2022, that speech knocked 3.4% off the S&P in one day.

This year Kevin Warsh gives it for the first time as chair.

I love Kevin Warsh. Dude was a Fed governor at 35, the youngest ever, and served as the Fed's direct line to Wall Street through 2008. He was in the room for Bear, for Lehman, for all of it. He has seen the machinery break in real time. Almost nobody currently alive can say that.

Fed funds future markets say 67% of a hold, 33% chance of a HIKE. The vote in July was HOLD 9, HIKE 3.

In my mind, there's NO chance Warsh hikes. He's already signaled hiking isn't his preferred tool for this kind of inflation, and he's not going to start his tenure by looking like he caved to anybody, in either direction.

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Pizza Hut changed its name to HUT and I have been thinking about it for four days like a man who lost a girlfriend in 1987.

I grew up modestly in Cleveland. My three great loves as a kid were, in order: Pizza Hut, Indians games, and riding my bike to the Ground Round with my degenerate friends to throw popcorn on the floor, torment the waitstaff, and watch the Browns/Cavs/Indians/Buckeyes with my degenerate friends.

But Pizza Hut was the top of the mountain. Here's what made it great...

🍕 The red roof, visible from four blocks out. No other building in my town told you what was about to happen to you from that distance.

🍕 The stained glass lamp over every booth, which convinced me Pizza Hut was fine dining. I stand by this.

🍕 The red plastic cups. Textured, faintly translucent, perfect size, available nowhere else on earth. I have since eaten at restaurants with actual glassware and none of it has felt as correct in my hand.

🍕 The "Book It" reading program. They got an entire generation of American children to read for food and it worked on every single one of us. I would have read a 400-page instruction manual.

🍕 The salad bar, where my mother went to prove a point to a corporation that did not know she existed. My mother did not eat salad. She extracted value.

🍕 The pan pizza, essentially deep fried in its own pan. The FDA has never looked directly at it. Crispy on the bottom, burnt where the cheese hit the metal, and structurally about 40% oil by volume. You could see through the paper plate. That was not a defect. That was the receipt.

🍕 The parmesan shaker. Sticky. Always. Never refilled once in the history of the chain. You shook it like a maraca and prayed.

🍕 There was one booth with a Pac Man arcade game built into it. The arcade booth was the difference between a good night and a night where somebody cried in the car.

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I've given this presentation to lending teams all over the country this year. I’ve personally watched hundreds of people I coach or interact with that were invisible in this industry two years ago and now get called first.

Because the bar is on the floor. Be actually useful three times in a row and you'll stand out. That's not a high bar.

Two things are true right now. LinkedIn is showing your stuff to people who don't follow you at a crazy rate. And the VAST majority of your competition hasn't started.

Below is the 30 minute version of the broader 75 minute presentation that I delivered to the OMBA member base yesterday. Some good background noise today, even if you’re busy. Click below to view.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS: VENUE REVEAL

We didn't book a ballroom. We booked a resort.

193 guest rooms. 42,000 square feet of event space. Fifteen acres. Three patios. Two grand ballrooms (we'll be using them both), and then nineteen more meeting rooms named after trees. Two restaurants and a pub.
Two pools. Indoor and outdoor.

It is called The Ohioan, and it looks like the place a family drives to at Christmas in the kind of movie where everything works out by the end. Newly renovated top to bottom.

There is a hill on the property. There is no sledding. I checked. Twice.

Polaris is minutes from the front door. Easton is twenty. Both decorated to the nines, so you can finish your Christmas shopping between sessions and drop a toy at the Toys for Tots drive on the way in. Both two of the most elite outdoor shopping complexes in the midwest.

The Big Ten Championship is that Saturday. The playoff bracket comes out Sunday, which is the day everybody arrives, into a compound that contains a pub.

And on Monday night, in 6,000 square feet of ballroom, we are throwing the biggest Christmas party this industry has ever seen. There is a decoration plan. It is stunning and it is arguably too much. There are bands. Plural.

Home for the Holidays. December 7 and 8. The Ohioan, Columbus.

There are 193 rooms on site and there are going to be A LOT more than 193 people. Book it when you register, not after you think about it over the weekend.

One piece of advice I always give to friends and clients that has served me SO well.

Each week DM five people in the industry you admire, respect, or find interesting.

“Morning! My names Rich and I _____ and love meeting new people in the industry. If you have 5-10 minutes one day these next few weeks I’d be happy to send something over for our calendars.”

If you can’t find five every week … you’re following the wrong people. Expand your network.

At least 1/5 typically replies.

Not rocket science. Anyone can do it. Been doing it for 20 years and atill do it to this day.

I'm hiring. Here's what's on the table.

A sixty-year-old state trade association being rebuilt in public and growing fast. A national lender cooperative that is genuinely enriching to be around. Events people want to attend instead of tolerate. A newsletter that reaches 30,000+ people in this industry. And more interesting work in six months than most people touch in five years, with a lot more fun stuff coming.

And real opportunity. We've grown through the worst five-year stretch this business has had. If we can do that in this market, you can do the math on the next one.

Here's what I'm looking for ...

💖 A motor. Your last boss still tells a story about it.

💗 Someone just as comfortable on the phone with a bank CEO as they are stuffing 300 name badges at 7 AM, who doesn't think either one is above or beneath them.

😍 Someone who can be told they got it wrong without forty seconds of soft delivery first, and whose next message is the fixed version instead of an explanation.

❤️‍🔥 Someone who notices the thing I forgot, handles it, and then tells me it's handled.

💘 Someone who gets that two hours a day of outreach isn't busywork, it's the engine. It's how every deal here gets found, and the people who do it consistently make real money doing it.

🎅 Someone who thinks it's funny that we named a Christmas party the Mother of All Christmas Parties, and wants to help it live up to the name.

❤️ And above all, a genuinely good human. Everything I've built runs on relationships, and one careless person can cost me something I can't buy back.

MY RED FLAGS, STATED UP FRONT

Contract to start, because that's honest about where we are and it's the fastest way for both of us to find out. The money starts modest. The fall is heavy and December will run you over. There's no polished package here and no job description, because I don't have one.

WHAT I'M NOT LOOKING FOR

A title. I couldn't care less what yours was.

SWIPE RIGHT IF

You're willing to grind with a smile, you're not scared of the unglamorous part, and Ohio is a plus.

Email me and let's find out if this is anything.

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Fantasy football league draft prep

AUGUST

Aug 26 - NATIONAL DOG DAY
Aug 27-29 - Fed Jackson Hole Retreat (Warsh's first as Chair, and the one to watch after three dissents in July)
Aug 28 - FINAL NFL ROSTER CUTS FOR REGULAR SEASON!
Aug 29 - COLLEGE FOOTBALL RETURNS!
Aug 30 - US Open Tennis Tournament begins

SEPTEMBER

Sept 1 - JOLTS for July
Sept 4 - August Jobs Report
Sept 7 - Labor Day
Sept 9 - NFL SEASON KICKOFF, Seahawks host Patriots in the Super Bowl LX rematch (a Wednesday, not the usual Thursday)
Sept 10 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Sept 11 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Sept 13 - US OPEN TENNIS FINAL
Sept 14 - 78TH PRIMETIME EMMY AWARDS on NBC, going up against Chiefs vs Broncos on Monday Night Football
Sept 15 - OMBA NIGHT AT THE BALLPARK! Columbus Clippers party deck outing! Tickets here!
Sept 15-16 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 16th
Sept 19 - INTERNATIONAL TALK LIKE A PIRATE DAY
Sept 19 - Oktoberfest begins in Munich
Sept 20-22 - Uniquely TMC, Austin TX
Sept 21 - OMBA GOLF OUTING, The Golf Club of Dublin, 9:00 AM shotgun start
Sept 24-27 - PRESIDENTS CUP at Medinah Country Club, Snedeker vs Ogilvy
Sept 27 - MLB REGULAR SEASON ENDS
Sept 27-29 - MBA Compliance and Risk Management Conference, Washington DC
Sept 29 - MLB POSTSEASON BEGINS
Sept 29 - NHL SEASON OPENS, first year of the 84-game schedule
Sept 29 - JOLTS for August
Sept 29 - NATIONAL COFFEE DAY

OCTOBER

Oct 2 - September Jobs Report
Oct 7 - September FOMC minutes released
Oct 10 - mPowering You: MBA's Summit for Women in Real Estate Finance, Chicago
Oct 11-14 - MBA ANNUAL CONVENTION AND EXPO, Hyatt Regency Chicago
Oct 12 - Columbus Day / Indigenous Peoples Day
Oct 14 - Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation reading
Oct 14 - Fed Beige Book
Oct 14 - MBA Tech Exchange, Chicago
Oct 15 - Producer Price Index (PPI) inflation reading
Oct 16 - Import and Export Price Indexes
Oct 16 - NATIONAL BOSS'S DAY (your move, direct reports)
Oct 17 - SWEETEST DAY (invented in Cleveland in 1922, so Ohio gets the credit and the blame)
Oct 20 - NBA SEASON OPENS, Knicks raise the first banner in more than 50 years
Oct 23 - WORLD SERIES GAME 1
Oct 27-28 - FOMC MEETING, rate decision Wednesday the 28th
Oct 30 - Employment Cost Index, Q3
Oct 31 - HALLOWEEN, on a Saturday, and the night a World Series Game 7 would be played

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” - Stephen Hawking

Until the next one,
Swerb
[email protected]