Josh Vehovic

Quit my office job in CRE. Traveled the world. Built a life on my own terms. Writing about the leap most people are too afraid to take.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

A few years ago I was sitting in an office doing commercial real estate deals for someone else.

Good salary. Stable career. Complete feeling that something was wrong.

So I quit. Traveled the world. Figured out how to work for myself.

I’m not going to tell you it was easy. I will tell you it was worth it.

Writing here for anyone who is where I was.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Erik gets it

[Erik Voorhees @ErikVoorhees]

Remember that all government money is counterfeit.

Such money began as discrete quantities of a real commodity: silver or gold. Such money was used and trusted because it was a bearer proxy for this real good; the paper (valueless) a receipt for a quantity of metal (valuable).

And then the metal was stolen by the US Federal Government from all holders of the proxy instrument. The public was rugged, and now all government money is counterfeit, aka fiat.

That the world continued on without rebellion says something about how easily the masses may be deceived so long as a charismatic man with a flag pin stands before them.

When will he next appear before us? What illusion will we next be asked to believe?

The bill for this crime is paid every year by everyone holding fiat, as they see prices rise and struggle with the attendant consequences of being paid in an asset debased in perpetuity. They attribute their suffering to some phenomenon of nature, or to the greed of capitalists, rather than to that specific act of fraud on August 15 1971.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@ErikVoorhees This is why I’m here.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@MylesGinvest AI pulling an awful lot of liquidity from…everywhere. Not sustainable. Wild though. I think they subsidize a lot of use…not sure why everyone is rushing to be in day 1

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

I was $250k in debt, had just figured out I could no longer trust my business partners, and hadn’t taken a vacation in 10 years.

My buddies convinced me to go the BVI’s for a week. Probably the worst possible time to leave. I went anyway.

One afternoon I was sitting on the front of a catamaran sailing to the next island.

And the thought that changed the trajectory of my life came to me, almost like someone else had entered my brain:

“I’m never asking permission from another human being to do this again.”

One week later I went home and quit.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Yup

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Chicago lost the Bears this week. A team that's been in the city since 1921.

They didn't lose them to a bigger market or a better deal. The Bears decided they'd rather be a tenant in Indiana than deal with Illinois for one more year.

Think about how badly you have to run a place for that to be the smart move.

They lost them for two reasons.

The people running Illinois would rather villainize a builder than keep one. And they're bad at their jobs.

In 2021 the Bears spent $197M on the old Arlington Park racetrack.

Before they could break ground, Cook County valued the empty lot at $192M (Bears said $60M). They were salivating at the chance to extort a building that didn't even exist yet.

That fight dragged on for years.

The Bears were ready to put $2B into the stadium. All they wanted was a promise the county wouldn't reassess them into oblivion, plus $855M for infrastructure everyone uses. Roads, transit, utilities. A $3B project, two thirds of it private money pouring into Illinois.

Springfield had since 2021 to get this done. They dragged it to the final night of session, passed it through the Senate at 3:39AM, and the House went home without voting.

So now it's all gone.

The funniest part? This started because Cook County tried to grab the tax early. They knew a built stadium would pay $53M a year. Now they get under $4M on a vacant lot. No jobs, no buildout, no new anything.

Congrats on fighting for scraps and losing the whole prize.

Pritzker: they're "an $8.5B valued business" that doesn't need propping up.

But be smart for a second. Almost every NFL city throws in public money for a stadium. Not charity. The return is real. Tourism, hotels, restaurants, jobs, game days, property tax on a huge development. The math works.

Indiana did the math. While Illinois sat on it for years, Indiana passed a bill in months, put up $1B, and took the team.

And the Bears took a worse deal to get there. In Illinois they were going to own their stadium. In Indiana they rent it from the state. A team that wanted to build its own home gave up ownership just to escape Chicago.

Nobody won but Indiana. The Bears lost their stadium. Illinois lost the team, the $2B, and $53M a year in taxes.

Pritzker after they left: "I wasn't willing to give up billions of dollars of taxpayer money to give it to a billionaire-owned family or team."

There it is. "Billionaire-owned."

That's how Democrats talk about any business right before they run it out of town. Call them a billionaire, act like you're saving working families, take a victory lap while the tax base drives across the state line.

Meanwhile they're running the whole state into the ground. And you already know how this ends. You're living in it.

Pensions are $143B in the hole, worst in the country and not close. You pay $6,285 a year in property taxes, double the $2,969 national average, for a city that's $1.15B in the red. The mayor called its finances "the point of no return."

When you run things this badly, you sell what's left.

They leased the parking meters for 75 years to Morgan Stanley and a sovereign wealth fund in Abu Dhabi. Took $1.15B and burned through it in two years. The investors already made it all back, with 58 years left to collect.

Sold the Skyway. Sold the downtown garages. Every asset that made money, gone for one check.

But a fixed property tax rate for a team that's been here 106 years? That's "propping up billionaires."

Companies are leaving. Boeing for Virginia. Caterpillar for Texas. Citadel for Miami. In 2023 alone Illinois lost 56,000 people and $6B in income to other states. The ones who left earned a third more than the ones who moved in.

Indiana didn't outbid anyone. AAA credit, 16 years straight. A $676M surplus. Fourth-lowest debt per person in the country. They just weren't a disaster.

Illinois could have collected $53M a year. It chose zero. Ignore all the bad management but make sure to stick it to those evil, pesky billionaires.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@AndrewHires Prob a good thing for crypto long term

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Bears are leaving Chicago and crypto is radioactive. Hell of a Friday for me.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@alexlmiller What exactly do IL tax payers pay for?

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@ChicagosMayor @ChicagoMPO Losing the Bears is the most unforgivable crime an Illinois politician can commit. Literally everything else is let go over time. If they actually move this will be one of the all time fuck ups in IL history, and there have been many

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Where is all the wealth created by AI going to store value? Are there ways to do this by reinvesting in AI? Is it in compute? Data centers? Miners? I mean I like Bitcoin and a few others but that’s not going great…what are people seeing that I’m missing?

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@JoeCarlasare Nonsensical.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

I’ll prob buy zcash:native now, for the culture

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@Puncher522 When you guys unilaterally start ripping something it’s time to look at, no clue if it’s worth an investment but it obviously worries you all enough to X about something you have no exposure to

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

I have never considered buying zcash until now

[Samson Mow @Excellion]

The damage to Zcash is already done. There’s no recovering from this.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@GhostofWhitman @Puncher522 Correct.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Chasing this is the definition of retarded …I can say that because it’s 2026, I’ve been in crypto for 8 years and it’s genuinely retarded

[Dami-Defi @DamiDefi]

Realising Apple went public at under $2 billion and 15 times revenue in 1980.

SpaceX wants you to buy at $2 trillion and 100 times revenue in 2026.

That is not getting in early. That is being the exit for venture capitalists who have held this equity for years at a fraction of what you are being asked to pay.

Almost none of the retail investors buying this IPO will read the 300 pages before the book closes on June 11.

That is your entire competitive advantage right there.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

@ProofOfMoney Bitcoin is down 50%. You guys are insufferable.

[Josh Vehovic @JoshVehovic]

Don’t major IPO’s typically trade down 6 months after launch? What’s the rush to be in day 1?