Caleb Hammer

Joe Rogan opens by praising Caleb Hammer as "a very sensible person" who deals with "a lot of very unsensible people," and asks whether Hammer began in debt himself. Hammer says he did. In college he was "doing all the stupid American things": taking on student loans for a music composition degree, which he calls "a complete bullshit degree," and maxing out every credit card he had. He says one of the first pieces of financial advice he got from his parents at 18 was to max out a credit card to buy a piano he wanted. He frames this as ordinary rather than unusual: "it's just the average American experience."

During this exchange the speakers mention that "Almost one out of 10 default," apparently about credit card debt, though the transcript does not say who said it or give a source. Hammer adds that the US has more auto loan debt than credit card debt, and links that to Americans' taste for big pickup trucks. His own debts included a loan on a Nissan he thought made him look "sick," plus family debt. The turning point came in an apartment he "could barely afford," when he realized "the life I wanted to live just could not be sustained this way."

Rogan argues that people in debt often aren't stupid so much as uninformed. Their parents are usually in debt too, so good advice won't come from home, and many finance voices online are "very stiff" and not enjoyable to listen to. In his view, Hammer's blunt, combative style is what lets people relate to him. Hammer accepts the comparison his audience makes:

Yeah, they call us the Jerry Springer finance, which I like.

Hammer notes that schools now require a personal finance class, which he calls "big progress over the last decade." He doubts it reaches students like his younger self, who says he would have slept through it and "could barely pass math." His theory is that entertainment does the job better: the roasts, the drama and especially the couples episodes, because "there's always financial stresses in relationship." He says the show gets "millions of views per episode on all platforms," and that if this gets people into personal finance, "that's the best."

Rogan calls it "kind of a crime" that high schools don't explain how debt can become a problem. He singles out student loans as "the one you can't get away from." He keeps a nuance: "higher education's great," but spending "hundreds of thousands of dollars for an education that you aren't going to use at all" may not be wise, especially since at 18 "you don't know what you want to do." Hammer says the average American parent's message is to "go to any college to get any degree and borrow whatever it takes." Rogan explains that this used to be good advice, because a degree used to lead to a good-paying job, but the "insane amounts of debt" that come with it go unmentioned.

Rogan cites something he read: what borrowers end up paying over a 20-year payoff is "substantially higher than the initial loan." He doesn't give the figures and invites Hammer to supply them. Hammer doesn't offer numbers either. Instead he puts part of the blame on the borrowers: "Part of it is laziness, too." Graduates choose 20-year or 40-year plans so they can spend a bit more now on apartments, dates and trips, and they make only the minimum monthly payment.

His main analogy is a mortgage. Take a 30-year mortgage and stretch it to 60 years for smaller payments, and the total interest becomes "insane." He says the standard public student loan is a 10-year plan, but people stretch it to 20 years. He also describes the repayment assistance plan introduced under Trump, which he calls "the rap plan" (RAP). He says payments under it "can be as little as 1% of your income on a monthly basis," and predicts those balances will "never" be paid off. He mentions that the plan says the debt will be forgiven in 40 years, but hedges, "we'll see because, you know, it's new." His conclusion is that these borrowers will watch the debt "balloon" and then complain, "when they chose not to just take the standard 10-year plan."

Rogan mentions an article about retirees whose Social Security payments are being reduced to cover unpaid student loans, which he calls "fucking wild." The article isn't identified and no figures are given.

Hammer pushes back on sympathy for older debtors:

I'm starting to not have sympathy for the boomers. I'm really not.

He argues that older generations had the "Best job market ever" and the "Best stock market in the history of the world," along with the best housing, college and job conditions. He says every boomer or Gen X guest on his show "lived it up and spent all their money" and didn't set aside even 10% a month. Had they put 5 to 10% a month into the stock market, he claims, "Most of them would be multi-millionaires." Instead, as he puts it, "we're in a situation where I want a new BMW." This is based on his own guests and a hypothetical, not on population data.

To test the claim, someone in the studio, apparently Jamie doing a live search, runs a scenario: a 25-year-old in 1990 earning the average US salary for 40 years and putting 5 to 10% a month into the S&P 500. The answer read out is "around $2 to $5 million depending on exact assumptions," starting from a $21,000 salary. The wide range and the unstated assumptions are the main limits on this estimate. Hammer uses it to stress how much inflation has changed things, noting that the average salary in 1990 was $21,000, and to argue that even at that income people "could retire multi-millionaires." He also says "we have the best disposable income in the history of the world." Rogan adds a condition: "if you know how to do it."

When Rogan asks how an ordinary person would start, Hammer recommends low-cost index funds, and for most Americans, target date retirement funds from a provider such as Fidelity. You pick the fund dated within about five years of when you expect to retire. It invests more aggressively now and becomes more conservative near retirement. He also points to 401(k) employer matches as "free money."

It's so easy. There's no reason most people aren't doing it.

Asked whether he taught himself, Hammer says the basics come from almost any personal finance book or a couple of "dry YouTubers." He separates these basics from harder questions, such as choosing the right insurance or picking individual stocks.

Hammer says Social Security's trust fund runs dry in 2033, after which "payments get cut by 25%." He explains that once the fund is gone, every dollar paid out has to come from money coming in. The transcript isn't consistent on the date: right after the 2033 figure, someone says "That's projected 2030." Neither figure is checked during the conversation.

Rogan responds with a sarcastic aside, "we have to pay for transgender migrants," and after a sponsor break continues in the same mocking tone about some needing to be "on Social Security forever." Hammer brings up a clip from his show that went viral two days earlier, featuring a transgender woman in Colorado whose breast surgery was taxpayer-funded. He says he doesn't blame her, "the program's there," and he would take it too. His complaint is about where public money goes. He says the episode was filmed about two days after he wrote what he describes as a $4 million income tax check to the federal government, and he asks where that money goes, saying it isn't properly funding Social Security.

Rogan links this to the earlier point that Gavin Newsom wouldn't appear on Hammer's podcast. He suggests the scale of California's debt, spending, waste and "potential fraud" is like a garbage dump nobody wants to clean up. He cites "24 billions missing for the homeless" without a source. The discussion moves to California's high-speed rail, and here the two partly disagree in emphasis. Hammer isn't against the idea. He says America "should have incredible high speed rail," and he would like a train from Dallas to Houston in "a couple hours," adding "Maybe Texas could do it." His objection is to California running the project.

Rogan mentions an Instagram creator who compares what China built in the same period that California made little progress, but he gives no figures from those videos. Jamie's live search gives spending "roughly around $14 to $16 billion as of the mid-2020s," and separately notes that Brightline is private. Rogan's sarcastic guess of "14 feet" completed is corrected: the search says "119 miles are under active construction," on the Madera-to-Bakersfield stretch, and that "some of it is actually getting close to done." How much is actually finished is never answered precisely. The segment ends with jokes about homeless people resenting the spending and fare evaders using drugs on the finished train. These are jabs, not evidence.

Hammer says what scares him is that "people under 30, 60% of them are doing their portfolio trades based on the podcasters" they listen to. He gives no source for the 60% figure. He describes day-trading streamers on Kick and Twitch with "like 25,000 concurrent viewers" and "hundreds of thousands of views a day," whose followers can simply copy their trades. Rogan compares this to tracking Nancy Pelosi's stock trades.

Hammer admits he bought into a fund that tracks Pelosi's trades. He put in "only" $1,000 because he "was a little scared," and says it is "beating my own money, guys." He estimates his stake is "up like 20, 30% in just a couple months," compared with the S&P 500's average of about 10% a year. That's a short holding period on a small amount. The two agree that someone involved "knows something," and Rogan says "it's crazy that it's legal." He illustrates with a hypothetical, not a documented case: knowing a big AI chip deal is coming, buying lots of Nvidia stock, and seeing a "500% increase." When Rogan asks what the laws actually allow, Hammer doesn't answer and says only that insider trading is "hard to track."

Hammer turns to prediction markets. He says enforcement is reaching Kalshi and that "some of the people that were in the operation for Maduro in Venezuela" are getting in trouble, without further detail. He then describes George Santos, who he says recently got a pardon, publicly promising he would "100% be at the state of the union," then betting he would not attend. Hammer says "big investigation just opened up yesterday or today" and that "four people close to him" have been "working with the FTC on that." The timing and details are given loosely. Rogan's take is that Santos is "perfect for the camera" and should host a podcast instead of running scams.

Rogan says a prediction market, Polymarket or possibly Kalshi ("Probably both of them"), had listed odds on what his show would do, what would be said and which guests would appear. He saw how easily it could be rigged and shut it down in the studio:

I said, Jamie, shut that fucking laptop and do not open that website ever again.

Hammer admits he's tempted, "I'm not going to, but I kind of want to bet that I would be on here," and Rogan notes that someone could probably place a large bet "through some fucking offshore account." The section then cuts to a sponsor read. It's a revealing end to the segment: the two have just criticized insider trading by politicians, and they acknowledge that people who control a show's content face the same temptation on prediction markets.

The segment opens at the end of a sponsor read for SimpliSafe. The ad says the service has no long-term contracts and no technician appointments, that a custom system can be set up by yourself in one afternoon or sooner, and that listeners get 50% off a new system at the show's promo address. The conversation then moves straight to congressional stock trading. One speaker says Nancy Pelosi, among others, has been named, and that some members of Congress want to pass a rule limiting lawmakers to investing in large-cap index funds like the S&P 500.

The speakers argue the reform is going nowhere because lawmakers "don't care." They insist the problem is not partisan. Pelosi is called "the scapegoat" that everyone attacks, but they describe trading as happening "red, blue, across the line." Their evidence is a claim about wealth: members arrive poor and leave rich on what is described as a $100,000 salary. The speakers do not support the salary figure or the claims about individual wealth with any data in this segment.

They all go into Congress broke. They all come out rich as fuck.

The host asks for the George Santos story to be pulled up, describing it as fresh news. The account read on air says NPR contacted Santos about an insider-trading probe into activity on Kalshi, and that he answered, "Well, that's news to me." Asked whether he had a Kalshi account, he said, "I'm not saying yes. I'm not saying no." According to the same reading, Santos said Kalshi co-founder Luana Lopez-Lara is a fellow Brazilian he knows personally, and that he would call her to find out whether an investigation had been opened. He promised to update NPR but did not respond to its follow-up messages.

The speakers mostly see the episode as a wasted opportunity. In their view Santos had fame, a name and likability, and they say he had received clemency from the president. They argue he could have stayed on the "straight and narrow" and made "some real money" with a podcast or YouTube show. One speaker suspects he was simply trying to "get rich quick."

Nobody on air knows how much Santos supposedly made. One speaker says the coverage was "more about what he did" and gave no amount. Prediction platforms are described as hard to trace, and a speaker suggests that is why he used one. That speaker believes Polymarket and similar exchanges run on crypto "on the back end," but adds "If I'm not mistaken." The same speaker recalls hearing on the news that morning that four people close to Santos reported him. The host answers that someone who is "that kind of a fraudster, allegedly," probably has few friends he can trust. The repeated "allegedly" shows the speakers know these points are unproven.

those platforms are hard to trace

Producer Jamie runs Santos's background through Perplexity, and the speakers read the result aloud. This matters for how much weight the material can bear: it is an AI-generated summary read live, not reporting the speakers checked themselves. According to that summary, Santos built much of his public persona on false claims about his biography, finances and identity, and later faced criminal charges tied to deception and fraud.