Tomorrow's Urban Revolution Is Here
Discover IMAX legend Greg MacGillivray's vision of cityscape engineering marvels in cinema
Ric Edelman: It's Friday, March 15th. On today's show, mortgages in retirement. Do you have a mortgage? What's the interest rate? 60% of mortgages today are less than 4%. 25% of all the mortgages are under 3%. People are calling them golden mortgages because you're like golden handcuffs. You are never given that baby up. That's why a lot of homeowners aren't selling their houses. They know that if they sell the house, they lose that 3% mortgage when they buy their next house. It's at today's current mortgage rates, which are a lot higher. So good for you if you've got that 3% or 4% mortgage and compare that to the interest you're earning on a bank CD or a treasury; your mortgage might be under 4%, you're earning more than that in CDs and T-bills these days. Why on earth would anybody want to get rid of their mortgage? I pioneered this concept of carrying a big long mortgage and never paying it off. When I first started talking about it way back in 1989, that was incredibly controversial. Today that advice is standard among the financial planning profession, and deservedly so. There are lots of great reasons I have, by the way, 11 great reasons to carry a big long mortgage. Go read my first number one bestseller, The Truth About Money, which covers all of this in great detail. Available on Amazon and your favorite bookseller.
Bottom line is this: it makes a great deal of sense for 11 great reasons to carry a big, long mortgage. And yet, only 40% of homeowners over the age of 65 have a mortgage. 60% own their homes outright. This is a real problem because we all know that for most Americans, their largest financial asset is their home. We also know that most Americans in retirement struggle to have enough retirement income they didn't adequately save. That didn't occur to them. They'd live as long as they're living, never would have occurred to them. Their home would be as valuable as it is. And they followed the traditional American dream of owning the home outright with no mortgage. Their attitude is, gee, without a mortgage, I don't have that monthly mortgage payment and therefore my expenses are lower. I can live on the lower income from Social Security or my pension. All of that seems logical. It's good thinking, but it's all wrong. If you're in retirement, it doesn't matter what your expenses are. What matters is your income. What matters is access to cash, if you need it. You might have a half $1 million house or $1 million house, but if that's all you've got, equity tied up in the property, that doesn't put food on the table. You can't pay medical bills or buy food with that money. You're going to end up getting a home equity loan anyway. You're going to end up having to sell the house anyway. So go get a big long mortgage. You need to evaluate your ability to pay your bills, to have the cash you need to support your lifestyle in retirement. A mortgage is not debt. You hear everybody saying you should pay off all your debts. I agree with that. A mortgage isn't a debt. A mortgage is a financial planning tool. A mortgage is not like credit cards. It's not like cars that go down in value. It's not like student loans, which you pay off throughout your working career. A mortgage is based on an asset that rises in value over decades rather than declines. And if you're struggling with the increased cost of living because your retirement paycheck hasn't kept pace, either your pension or your Social Security check, you'd be amazed how a mortgage can be helpful rather than harmful. You should talk with a financial advisor. If you are a financial advisor and you have retired clients who own their homes outright, you ought to talk with them about the idea of refinancing. I'm Rick Edelman. On Monday's show, you’ve got to check out this BMW.
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Ric Edelman: You're listening to The Truth about Your Future. I'm Ric Edelman. This is a program about your future. And so I'm happy to tell you about a new film called Cities of the Future. I'm happy to bring on to the program Greg MacGillivray. He has produced or directed 40 giant screen films, and he's the first documentary filmmaker to reach $1 billion in worldwide ticket sales, and was nominated for two Academy Awards for The Living Sea and Dolphins. And his new film, Cities of the Future, is in IMAX theaters right now. So really happy to have you here with us today, Greg, thanks for joining us on the podcast.
Greg MacGillivray: Oh, thank you.
Ric Edelman: You must be pretty excited to have your latest film out in theaters right now.
Greg MacGillivray: You know, I think that it's the most fun thing to see the audience's reaction to a film that you've spent 2 or 3 years on. And these films are about 40 to 45 minutes length. So, it's not like a feature film that might be two hours, but when you see it with an audience, especially in a really big IMAX theater with a screen that's 7 or 8 stories tall, and the audience is sitting really close to the screen and they become immersed in the scenes... you see it in a new light. You all of a sudden are seeing it again for the first time. And that joy, that kind of expression that you see on the audience's face, regenerates all the enthusiasm that you had when you were starting the project several years earlier. And so, it's a real joy. It's the most fun that I have, except for maybe editing and tweaking things.
Ric Edelman: So tell us about the film, Cities of the Future. How would you describe it?
Greg MacGillivray: It's a movie about the commitment that civil engineers have to society to basically getting our living conditions in cities and towns safe and livable and fun and good for our health, and how engineers are having to address climate change issues, issues of overpopulation, all kinds of things looking out into the future, maybe 50 years.
Ric Edelman: And in fact, you're obviously not an engineer yourself. You're a filmmaker. You collaborated with the ASCE, the American Society of Civil Engineers. Talk about that collaboration.
Greg MacGillivray: It's been a good one for us, and I think for them too. We did a film before, about four years ago called Dream Big with the mission to try to get more young people all around the world, but particularly in America, interested in science and interested in engineering. Now, if you think about it, there are no stories or shows on TV about engineers. There's plenty of medical doctors, cops, all kinds of other people...
Ric Edelman: Well, come on, let's face it: engineering is not a terribly sexy field the way cops and robbers are, and hospital emergency rooms. So, yeah, there's not a lot of filmmaking about the daily life of a civil engineer.
Greg MacGillivray: Well, what we do is we make it interesting in our films. We make it life and death. We show how the engineers are designing buildings that will withstand earthquakes and curtail death in all kinds of calamities, including climate change. And so, it's just a slower process. It's not an immediate kind of disaster. So anyway, what we tried to do with our first film with The American Society of Civil Engineers, was get young kids energized towards science and STEM projects at school, starting at junior high. And we had a four year program, mainly a campaign financed by a number of engineering companies, including Bechtel, to basically get this project out to as many kids, to every classroom in America. And the civil engineers went to those classrooms when the film was playing and answered questions. And so it was a really good program to get kids stoked about being an engineer.
Ric Edelman: That is exciting because we all know that we aren't producing enough scientists and engineers. And we, my wife and I do a lot of work, as you may know, in the area of STEM education, having funded the Edelman Planetarium at Rowan University and the new Edelman Fossil Park at Rowan, because little kids, they love dinosaurs and they love looking at the stars. And what a great way to get kids interested in science, math, technology, engineering - because if we don't continue to produce the engineers, we're going to fall behind in our global leadership. So I'm glad that you are working so hard in that, in that focus. This film, which you did in conjunction with the American Society of Civil Engineers, uses a lot of CGI to show us what cities might look like in the future. You show the notion of cities filled with flying vehicles, aerial highways, solar energy that is produced in space - talk about these breakthroughs.
Greg MacGillivray: Well, they're all on the drawing boards are being done right now in a step-by-step process, basically trying to solve the problems that we've got here on the planet and it's exciting. Now, some of the film maybe five minutes or so is CGI showing what could happen 50 years from now in a positive way. But most of it is about what's happening right now, how the engineers at every city in the world are dealing with the struggle to get their cities to be more livable, to be more enjoyable, to be more accessible and open to everyone, no matter what your wealth is; you basically want to enjoy your city life because more and more people are moving toward the city from rural areas. And so this has been an issue that has to be addressed. And that's what the civil engineers are doing. And that's what we try to point out in this film. We follow one engineer from the city of Los Angeles who is one of the leaders in a campaign to get to LA, a big city, completely 100% sustainable by the year 2045. And they're on track. They're, in fact, even a little ahead of schedule. Yeah, it's really good. And they're building gigantic solar farms in the desert, creating all kinds of other usages, basically getting energy from all sources. There's about maybe 15 or 20 sources of energy for the city of Los Angeles. And they're streamlining each one of those.
Ric Edelman: Well, now, this is an interesting element because let's face it, to make a successful film, the key word that comes to my mind is entertaining. If it isn't entertaining, the film's going to be a dud. But on the other hand, doing the kind of project you're doing, it's essential that this be scientifically accurate. I mean, we watch movies about science all the time, movies like Apollo 13 and other kinds of stuff. And we always know science takes a back seat to cinematic entertainment, but you couldn't do that here. If this isn't scientifically accurate, you lose all credibility, and the film becomes pointless. So how did you balance the need for cinematic appeal with the need for scientific accuracy?
Greg MacGillivray: Well, you know, we're used to doing that. What we do is make sure that we vet every fact that's in the film, make sure that it... you know, the ten advisers on our committee of advisers, they have to argue it out and figure out exactly what words we use, exactly how we present the scene, so that it's 100% accurate. We can't foul up. You know, I've been doing this for 40, almost 50 years now. We started out doing films for the Smithsonian and their big IMAX theater in Washington, and I couldn't mess up, you know, otherwise the film was taken off the screen. They can't afford credibility problems. They're like the standard, the gold standard of authenticity and believability. Every fact in the museum has to be true and right. And in fact, the interesting thing is you if you poll the audience, poll the people in the street, the most trusted source of information is a museum. Not a teacher, not a book, not a TV show, but a museum because they don't have any ax to grind. They're not being paid by anyone to skew the facts. They basically have to look at every side of every issue, every question, and so they do a good job.
Ric Edelman: You mentioned Los Angeles as the focus of the story, but I've seen the film, and you don't shoot entirely in LA, you've shot scenes in Amsterdam and in the Far East, in Singapore. So talk about those.
Greg MacGillivray: Well, we wanted to - this goes to your entertainment idea - give the audience a sense of seeing other places. IMAX is the best medium in the world for experiencing environments and seeing places like you're visiting it on your own. And so, we researched all the cities that were leading edge in terms of looking towards the future, and cities that engineer Paul Lee had been in association with over the years, studying what to do in the future, how to solve certain problems. And so we picked Amsterdam in Europe and Singapore in the Far East, and basically did really wonderful sequences with people that Paul knew in those cities and solving the problems of each one of those cities, which are very similar to the problems that Los Angeles has, you know: over overcrowding, overheating, having to build up rather than out, no urban sprawl. You know, basically, the thing I like most is Singapore, because they're in the tropics and heat can be trapped by concrete. One of their solutions was to plant a million trees and become a garden city. And the city looks beautiful because there's green everywhere. But it keeps the city about three or four or five degrees cooler, because of those green shaded areas. Trees put out cooling moisture that ends up helping the environment. And, of course, you know, we get our oxygen from trees and plants. And so you end up with all kinds of wind propositions, including the proposition that the city becomes more beautiful.
Ric Edelman: You had an interesting statistic, the shots in Amsterdam, that there are more bicycles than people.
Greg MacGillivray: Yeah. And that's true. You really get excited about riding a bike there because it's a flat country. And so, you know, there's no mountains at all. And that causes a problem with what to do with sea level rise. But they're handling that by building even higher dikes. They've been known as the dike country for ages. And so you end up with the idea that there, because transportation can be costly for people in Amsterdam, it's really easy to get to work on your bike because the country is so flat and there's no mountains anywhere. They solve their problem with transportation by building bike lanes off to the side of every highway.
Ric Edelman: I couldn't help but noticing that you had a lot of panoramic scenes of cityscapes, of just people walking around and people on bicycles and so on. I didn't see anybody who was overweight in any of your shots.
Greg MacGillivray: That's true. You know, they eat well. They don't have processed foods like we have here. We're a convenience-based country. And so we've gone towards foods that are easy and fast to eat. I think we probably get more hours of work out of the day than anyone in the world, which is a good thing for our society. But it would be better if we didn't eat so many processed foods and ate more healthy.
Ric Edelman: I have to believe that all that walking and bicycling has to contribute too, to the healthy lifestyle.
Greg MacGillivray: Absolutely. I think most of Europe is pretty conscious of health and recreation, it's nice to visit.
Ric Edelman: So what do you hope that audiences are going to take away from watching your film, Cities of the Future?
Greg MacGillivray: Well, I know that they're going to take away the idea that engineers are out there working for us, for our own health and safety and our own future. And that's a nice feeling to have, that the people in government are considering how can we make this livable place even more livable? By building parks or solving the transportation problems or pivoting away from fossil fuel usage. Those kinds of things will help us in the future and make life more fun and more enjoyable for everyone. And you end up getting that feeling when you watch the film and getting all this knowledge, and you have a hope that those flying taxi cabs are going to be here sooner than later.
Ric Edelman: Before the end of the decade, in several cities around the world, including New York - this is an IMAX film, so where can people see it?
Greg MacGillivray: Mostly at IMAX museum theaters. So not at your traditional IMAX commercial theater, like a Regal. These films play at the science museums and the large institutions in the world. And so there are about 250 theaters worldwide that we play the film. And it stays in the theater for sometimes 6 to 12 months, sometimes 3 or 4 years. Dream Big is still playing in many theaters continually today. And so you end up with a lot of people seeing the film. Millions. You know, some of our films have been seen by 20 million people in IMAX. And that's pretty staggering.
Ric Edelman: We've got a link here that will help you find a theater near you where you can watch this. We're talking with Greg MacGillivray, who is the director of the film. But before I let you go, Greg, I have to focus in on a comment you made rather offhandedly earlier in our conversation that you've been producing and directing films for nearly 50 years.
Greg MacGillivray: Yeah.
Ric Edelman: Uh, may I ask your age?
Greg MacGillivray: I'm 78 now.
Ric Edelman: And you have additional projects, I'm guessing, but you're planning to do?
Greg MacGillivray: Yeah, you know, I'm busy.
Ric Edelman: So talk about this because we spend a lot of time on this program talking about longevity, the impact of people living longer and living healthier longer. And the notion of retirement is fast fading away. I mean, you should have, by traditional norms, retired 10 or 15 years ago, and I don't imagine that retirement is a word that is in your vocabulary.
Greg MacGillivray: Yeah. You know, how do you retire from your hobby? You know, I started this business as a hobby, and it's what I love doing. I've been making films since I was 14, and it's really what I do in my pass time. I think about the next movie and what it should be. I have a feeling if I did retire and take up golf or something else, that the reduced stress level might be dangerous to me. I've seen a lot of my friends get ill and die once they retired. I want to stick around. I love my family and grandkids are wonderful, got five of them, and they're all geniuses and so much fun to be around. And two of them are, like, super actresses. You know, they're like doing stage productions right now. It's just fun. You know, my wife and I enjoy the world and we enjoy challenging ourselves and love our family and try to make films that will encourage people toward a better life, toward more engagement in their lives.
And challenges too, both athletically and intellectually, read more books, get out and see the world. We do an IMAX film a year, usually each one of those films takes 2 or 3 years to produce. We try our hardest. We do not let the film out until it is absolutely perfect in our mind. And each film is different from the previous. We do have a mission of conservation and education when it comes to nature, and we want people to think very carefully about the environment and about the way we treat our planet. We even have a foundation, One World One Ocean, about ocean health. But the thing that I love is making movies. And so I'm going to continue for as long as I can. Thankfully, though, my kids, Megan and Sean are now running our business so I can do the fun stuff while they do all the business stuff and do all the hard work, and that.
Ric Edelman: Keeps it all on the family, which is a wonderful connection as well. So that's very exciting. Congratulations on your success. That's Greg MacGillivray, who is the director of the new film Cities of the Future, available at IMAX theaters across the country. The link to help you find a theater near you is available. And I suspect, Greg, you'll be making films for decades to come.
Greg MacGillivray: I hope so, thank you.
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Links from today's show:
Advisor Toolkit: https://dacfp.com/toolkit/
Investor Toolkit: https://dacfp.com/spot_bitcoin_etf_toolkit/
The Truth About Money (Ric's #1 best-selling book): https://a.co/d/g4TyyZA
Cities of the Future (IMAX film): https://citiesofthefuturefilm.com/
Dream Big (IMAX film): https://dreambigfilm.com/
Find an IMAX theater near you: https://www.imax.com/
Edelman Planetarium: https://sites.rowan.edu/planetarium/
Edelman Fossil Park: https://www.rowan.edu/fossils/
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