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Is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? · The Financial Exchange Show

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Speaker 2: Good morning, and welcome back to the Financial Exchange. It's
1:13
Speaker 2: Mike Armstrong, Mark Fandetti and Tucker Silva with you on
1:16
Speaker 2: a Tuesday, where, in the absence of new news on Tariff's,
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Speaker 2: equities continuing their move upwards so far and trading. We've
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Speaker 2: got the NASDAC up closing in on half a percent
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Speaker 2: right now, eighty four points, the SMP up seventeen or
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Speaker 2: a little bit less than a third of a percent,
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Speaker 2: and the Dow Jones Industrial average about a quarter a
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Speaker 2: percent to the upside. We're ninety six points there. Price
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Speaker 2: of oil sitting at sixty nine dollars and seventeen cents
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Speaker 2: barely budgeted today. Yields, which moved up yesterday are flat
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Speaker 2: to slightly down today, sitting at four point three two
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Speaker 2: percent on the ten year treasury. And yeah, I think
1:52
Speaker 2: the story to me right now continues to be look
1:54
Speaker 2: in the absence of new news on Tariff's. You know,
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Speaker 2: fundamentals of the economy look fairly good. Some concerns about
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Speaker 2: the future of things, but generally speaking, unemployment remains low,
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Speaker 2: investment remains high, and in spite of the volatility around policy,
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Speaker 2: investors are looking for some clarity and are seemingly willing
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Speaker 2: to buy stocks again should that clarity be delivered. But
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Speaker 2: I also want to be clear that I don't feel
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Speaker 2: like I got any sort of clarity around where trade
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Speaker 2: policy is going.
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Speaker 3: Even over the next thirty dollars, it's.
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Speaker 4: Going to continue to be a helter skelter, and that's
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Speaker 4: that's partly intentional. The president believes by keeping everybody on
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Speaker 4: their heels, if that's the right way to think about it,
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Speaker 4: he'll ultimately get better results the interest. The thing to
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Speaker 4: keep in mind about stocks, I think, Mike, is that
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Speaker 4: they do tend to go up whether you look at
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Speaker 4: them daily, monthly, or the relationship is particularly strong on
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Speaker 4: an annual.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not a coointless, it's close to a cointy
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Speaker 3: today basis.
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Speaker 4: You don't need it to be. You don't need the
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Speaker 4: odds to be overwhelmingly in your favor. Just a slight
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Speaker 4: tilting of the odds in favor of positive returns on
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Speaker 4: a daily basis is enough for enormous cumulative advantages to
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Speaker 4: equities over other things, which is why you don't want
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Speaker 4: to ever be not invested. If you're a long term investor.
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Speaker 4: Sure with a risk tolerance that can tolerate the ups
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Speaker 4: and downs of stocks.
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Speaker 2: The New York Times ask today, has the decline of
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Speaker 2: knowledge work begun? Specifically the sub headline here, the unemployment
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Speaker 2: rate for college grads has risen faster than for other
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Speaker 2: workers over the past few years, and how worried should
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Speaker 2: they be. We've addressed questions like this several times recently,
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Speaker 2: where you know, unemployment is still at very low levels,
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Speaker 2: but for certain employees it has been a tougher labor
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Speaker 2: market than others. If you work in tech hiring, for example,
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Speaker 2: if you are a brand new college graduate with a
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Speaker 2: degree in accounting or finance, it's been particularly high unemployment
3:53
Speaker 2: and you're seeing a lot of growth in areas well
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Speaker 2: over the last few years. I'm trying to think through
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Speaker 2: a lot of been a lot of gains and healthcare,
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Speaker 2: government work and construction and related you know, blue collar
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Speaker 2: type industries as well, but a weakening there. And New
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Speaker 2: York Times asks, hey, is this a bit of a
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Speaker 2: one off or something longer term? I'll give you my conclusion,
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Speaker 2: but do they lay out anything that's you know, compelling
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Speaker 2: to you in terms of evidence that, hey, we're seeing
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Speaker 2: a decline and demand for you know, college graduates for example,
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Speaker 2: or the knowledge based worker for any sort of cyclical
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Speaker 2: or long term trend. I have a tough time buying that.
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Speaker 5: That might be true.
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Speaker 4: But resources will get resources being us in this case
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Speaker 4: or humans. Yes, we'll find other stuff to do. The
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Speaker 4: hot professions when I was getting into college, we're accounting,
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Speaker 4: electrical engineering. Those are still hot, maybe not as hot,
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Speaker 4: but they're probably more in danger than they used to be.
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Speaker 4: Because it's going to take as more chip designers incorporate
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Speaker 4: AI into their processes, as the article alludes to, and
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Speaker 4: as you and Chucks Oata talk about, a lot, you're
4:58
Speaker 4: going to need far fewer design because a lot of
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Speaker 4: this stuff can just be cranked out by artificial intelligence
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Speaker 4: powered engines. So people will just will rotate into sectors
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Speaker 4: where the hiring is occurring in Some of that might
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Speaker 4: be training AI, or programming AI, or supporting the hardware
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Speaker 4: that AI runs on. If inded AI turns out to
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Speaker 4: be the boon that summer expecting.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's the main argument here is.
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Speaker 2: Look, artificial intelligence is now doing the jobs of some
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Speaker 2: of those younger college graduates that would traditionally go work
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Speaker 2: in coding or in investment banking, and I could buy that, right,
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Speaker 2: I could buy that. Eventually artificial intelligence could replace trying
5:36
Speaker 2: to think my brother's first job out of college. I'm
5:38
Speaker 2: going to pick on him for a little bit working
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Speaker 2: in investment banking where his you know, he was a
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Speaker 2: long hour's work desk jockey in New York City making
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Speaker 2: a lot of money preparing slides and financial tables for
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Speaker 2: higher level investment bankers.
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Speaker 3: Could some of that be done by artificial intelligence these days? Probably?
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Speaker 2: Probably you don't need quite as many of those people
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Speaker 2: as you once did. But the question, as with any technology,
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Speaker 2: then becomes, Okay, what new opportunities are created by that?
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Speaker 2: Is JP Morgan Chase, who just saved a bunch of
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Speaker 2: money on headcount going to then say, yeah, we're not
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Speaker 2: expanding anymore and we're just going to become more profitable
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Speaker 2: because we cut headcount. No, Typically they say, Okay, this
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Speaker 2: savings that we have accumulated here allows us to go
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Speaker 2: and invest in this new area, and we will need
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Speaker 2: people to do that in some way, shape or form.
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Speaker 2: So unfortunately, this could leave a lot of people severely disrupted.
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Speaker 2: Right if your job was to build spreadsheets or to
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Speaker 2: do coding and you're now finding yourself thirty to forty
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Speaker 2: percent more effective in that job. Yeah, you might get
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Speaker 2: paid a little bit more, but also there's be fewer
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Speaker 2: people that need those jobs. But almost every technology or
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Speaker 2: every technology that I can think of, over the course
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Speaker 2: of human history has just led to more productivity, more
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Speaker 2: jobs down the road in different areas that we can't
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Speaker 2: possible really right now.
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Speaker 4: You don't really need to look far for the evidence.
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Speaker 4: Just look around you, or look in your pocket, at
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Speaker 4: your smartphone, or in your wallet at all the means
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Speaker 4: you have to affect transactions or just around you, of
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Speaker 4: whether you're in an office or at home. Clearly, living
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Speaker 4: standards are higher. They're not growing as fast as they
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Speaker 4: used to in the twentieth century, but that was an
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Speaker 4: exceptional century for a lot of reasons. But living standards
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Speaker 4: even today are perceptibly higher than they were twenty five
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Speaker 4: thirty years ago in an inflation adjusted sense.
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Speaker 2: Artificial intelligence does some really amazing stuff. I am not
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Speaker 2: denying it. It will replace humans in certain areas, there's
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Speaker 2: no doubt in my mind. But for many others out
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Speaker 2: there to go and say that it is such a
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Speaker 2: revolutionary technology that it's going to work in a different
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Speaker 2: way in terms of the labor market than any other
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Speaker 2: technology that's ever existed. I have a really tough time
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Speaker 2: getting over that bar when somebody tells me it's going
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Speaker 2: to change things differently than any other technology has.
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Speaker 4: It could be that dramatically disruptive. But we should at
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Speaker 4: the same time be getting wealthier as a whole, and
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Speaker 4: we have to compensate, and I think we do a
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Speaker 4: pretty good job of this, not just short term unemployment insurance,
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Speaker 4: but retraining and education. Compensate those who lose out because
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Speaker 4: you know, on average we're getting richer.
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Speaker 6: This.
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Speaker 4: You could make the same argument about trade, and the
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Speaker 4: proponents of free trade have not made a good argument
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Speaker 4: for this. It's been on the run now for thirty years, really,
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Speaker 4: since we passed NAFT, or maybe since the Great Recession
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Speaker 4: when people started looking for scapegoats again. As long as
8:35
Speaker 4: you compensate people who lose out, in theory, it works
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Speaker 4: fine because you're growing faster.
8:39
Speaker 5: If you fail to do that.
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Speaker 4: People get disgruntled and act out understandably.
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9:16
Speaker 5: Mark.
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Speaker 2: We were asked a question yesterday from a listener who
9:19
Speaker 2: texted to the program.
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Speaker 3: We didn't get to it.
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Speaker 2: Which is is Social Security a Ponzi scheme? My answer
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Speaker 2: is definitively know, but I think we should answer why
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Speaker 2: because it's a reasonable question. It was that Elon that
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Speaker 2: called it a ponzi scheme.
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Speaker 3: First, I think he did. Yeah, so a ponzi scheme,
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Speaker 3: some people have he didn't come up with that.
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Speaker 2: Sure so, according to the SEC at Investor dot gov,
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Speaker 2: a ponzi scheme is an investment fraud that pays existing
9:45
Speaker 2: investors with funds collected from new investors.
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Speaker 3: And I think that's.
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Speaker 2: Probably the part that some have latched onto, which is
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Speaker 2: social Security payments are funded by other people paying into
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Speaker 2: the program. The key element that is lacking from calling
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Speaker 2: social Security a Ponzi scheme would be somebody at the
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Speaker 2: top who created it orchestrated it and is ripping everybody
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Speaker 2: off below them. And that piece I think we would
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Speaker 2: know had when was when was it created? Nineteen nineteen thirties,
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Speaker 2: nineteen forties, so Security administration, Yeah, yeah, so you know,
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Speaker 2: I think we would know if the the the beneficiaries
10:24
Speaker 2: of the first present to create Social Security were you know,
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Speaker 2: scheming and and taking a cut off the top, and
10:29
Speaker 2: there was a genuine fraud going on.
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Speaker 3: What I think is more fair to.
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Speaker 2: Describe the Social Security program is a system of income
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Speaker 2: paid to individuals, funded by those still working, and as designed,
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Speaker 2: did not account for changing demographics in our country. And
10:49
Speaker 2: so if ignored, we'll comp completely implode on itself, but
10:54
Speaker 2: not by ill intent.
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Speaker 4: Let me give you the honorary libertarian answer to is
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Speaker 4: it a Ponzi scheme?
10:58
Speaker 3: Yeah?
10:59
Speaker 4: Kind of it kind of. It's not based on anything.
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Speaker 4: It differs though from the criminal Ponzi scheme. And there
11:05
Speaker 4: was actually a guy happens to be Italian, unfortunately for
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Speaker 4: those of us who are tainted or who feel tainted
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Speaker 4: by that, But of course he was a clever Italian
11:14
Speaker 4: guy who wanted to pull one over on people Italian
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Speaker 4: American I should say he ran.
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Speaker 5: A postage stamp or something. Ponzi scheme.
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Speaker 4: This is from memory. There's a longer description on Wikipedia.
11:24
Speaker 4: But and made off also ran a Ponzi scheme. You're
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Speaker 4: paying new investors with money. You're paying old investors, excuse me,
11:30
Speaker 4: with money from new investors. There's nothing generative. Remember we
11:33
Speaker 4: talked about generator versus speculative in one of the last segments. Well,
11:36
Speaker 4: the Ponzi scheme is the ultimate, I guess example of that.
11:39
Speaker 4: In the technical sense, social Security is not a Ponzi scheme.
11:41
Speaker 4: It's run by the government. They have the power to
11:43
Speaker 4: tax and the muscle to back it up. But in
11:47
Speaker 4: a more playful sense, it is a Ponzi scheme because
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Speaker 4: there's nothing backing it up other than the government's promise
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Speaker 4: to pay benefits, which have to come from somewhere, but
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Speaker 4: yet they're not guaranteed. People like me who want to
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Speaker 4: be mischievous libertarians might say, so, who's to ensure that
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Speaker 4: I get my Social Security? That I get back what
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Speaker 4: I've paid And you didn't invest it. You used it
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Speaker 4: to pay out people prior beneficiaries who have long since
12:09
Speaker 4: left this earth in some cases. So in that sense,
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Speaker 4: it feels ponziish to me. And I don't know if
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Speaker 4: the questioner kind of thinks it is a Ponzi scheme,
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Speaker 4: it just wanted to get us going on it. I
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Speaker 4: think this comes down to where you stand ideologically, Mike.
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Speaker 2: Well, I think again, to me, a Ponzi scheme has
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Speaker 2: one compelling element that must exist to make it one,
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Speaker 2: which is some fraudster orchestrating the whole thing and taking
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Speaker 2: a cut off the top. And that's fundamentally not existing.
12:34
Speaker 4: No, But in the more general and playful sense, it
12:39
Speaker 4: is kind of a It is a bit of a scheme.
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Speaker 4: My benefits are not backed by anything other than the.
12:45
Speaker 2: Nor do your benefits sit in a bank account for
12:47
Speaker 2: your benefit later, right, they get co mingled with everybody
12:49
Speaker 2: else's and they sit there for you know, eventual payout.
12:53
Speaker 2: But in that same sense, then I think there's a
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Speaker 2: whole bunch of other things that could be considered in
12:58
Speaker 2: the same light.
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Speaker 5: I think you made the key. Oh sorry, go ahead now.
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Speaker 4: The key point is are we gonna fix it? We
13:02
Speaker 4: could argue until we're bluing the Facebook whether or not
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Speaker 4: it's a Ponzi scheme, I say, yeah, kind of is
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Speaker 4: maybe you say no, not really, dummy, because it's backed
13:10
Speaker 4: by the government's promise to.
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Speaker 5: Enforce the rules.
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Speaker 4: But how we all agree that in ten years the
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Speaker 4: trust fund goes to zero and Congress has to do
13:21
Speaker 4: something or everybody gets a twenty percent off the top haircut.
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Speaker 4: And this is approximately yeah right, yeah, I'm being a
13:28
Speaker 4: little glib here.
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Speaker 5: So what are we gonna do?
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Speaker 4: Are we going to privatize part of this sucker? Like
13:32
Speaker 4: George W. Bush wanted to do everybody he got run
13:35
Speaker 4: out of town. He'd been re elected. He wasn't concerned.
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Speaker 4: But that went over like a lead balloon. So that's
13:41
Speaker 4: off the table. The current administration doesn't want to touch it.
13:44
Speaker 4: If a Democrat succeeds the current regime, if we have
13:46
Speaker 4: a Democrat regime next, they ain't gonna touch it.
13:49
Speaker 5: Maybe they will raise taxes.
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Speaker 4: I don't know, but this the solutionaire, I guess My
13:53
Speaker 4: point is is gonna be hard.
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Speaker 5: It's gonna be a tough pill to distaste, thank you,
13:59
Speaker 5: And that's great.
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Speaker 2: The longer you wait to fix it, the tougher it's
14:02
Speaker 2: going to be. The Most recent news on soci Security.
14:05
Speaker 2: I think everybody has been getting a taste of are
14:07
Speaker 2: the cuts to the Social Security Administration staff? And I don't, well,
14:12
Speaker 2: I know why this is getting confused because media organizations
14:15
Speaker 2: like to dramaticize everything and make everything incredibly scary. None
14:19
Speaker 2: of the cuts that are being talked about are actual
14:21
Speaker 2: cuts to benefits. Likewise, Lutnick going out there and saying that, hey,
14:26
Speaker 2: retirees wouldn't really care if they missed a Social Security
14:28
Speaker 2: payment is crazy and you shouldn't say that type of
14:30
Speaker 2: thing if you're a representative of the government. He said, Look,
14:33
Speaker 2: only fraudsters would care if soci Security actually missed a payment.
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Speaker 4: To a bit better, he said, what have you said
14:37
Speaker 4: to the effect of if my mother in law missed
14:39
Speaker 4: it didn't get her benefit directly deposited.
14:42
Speaker 5: She wouldn't care.
14:43
Speaker 4: She'll just assume it's going to show up next month.
14:45
Speaker 4: Have you ever not followed up when you didn't get
14:46
Speaker 4: a payment?
14:47
Speaker 2: No, I would be quite in your life if the
14:49
Speaker 2: government stopped paying me. So that was misguided. But here
14:53
Speaker 2: is the reality. This program is in crisis. Not calling
14:57
Speaker 2: it so is a lie. Doing things like passing the
15:00
Speaker 2: Security Fairness Act, which I am in favor of it
15:02
Speaker 2: was I think a reasonable approach to, you know, make
15:05
Speaker 2: the program more fair. Fair is cutting off your nose
15:09
Speaker 2: to spite your face. It is, you know, not fixing
15:12
Speaker 2: any of the fundamental problems with it. And by the way,
15:15
Speaker 2: I think that's just as useless as cutting the staff
15:17
Speaker 2: at the Social Security Administration, because you're not going to
15:19
Speaker 2: fix the problems of finding security by cutting your employees.
15:24
Speaker 4: Why do you think they're focused on that? Is it
15:26
Speaker 4: just the theater of it, Hey, we're trying to do something,
15:28
Speaker 4: We're a Social Security.
15:29
Speaker 2: I think it goes if you want to take the
15:31
Speaker 2: best case, best case view to sign, it goes to, hey,
15:36
Speaker 2: we want to cut the cost of government across the board,
15:38
Speaker 2: and this is just one more administration to do that.
15:41
Speaker 2: If you want to take the most pessimistic view, which
15:44
Speaker 2: Center's Elizabeth.
15:44
Speaker 3: Warren and Ron Wyden are.
15:46
Speaker 2: Lobbing at the administration, it's to say, hey, we want
15:49
Speaker 2: to make this administration so useless, inefficient, and problem riddled
15:55
Speaker 2: by cutting the employees. That sentiment will shift around it,
15:58
Speaker 2: and ten years from now you'll have a push by
16:01
Speaker 2: the American public to say, forget it, just privatize this thing.
16:04
Speaker 3: Because the administration is.
16:05
Speaker 2: So impossible to work with, and so we want it
16:09
Speaker 2: privatized and for a you know, for profit entity to
16:14
Speaker 2: run to your.
16:15
Speaker 4: Mind, I don't get that explanation at all. Some have
16:17
Speaker 4: attributed very bad motives to the uh Trump administration's efforts
16:21
Speaker 4: to reduce staffing. They think they want to vandalize everything
16:24
Speaker 4: so as to break it, and then when people see
16:26
Speaker 4: it's broken, they'll conclude government can't do anything. Boy, that's
16:29
Speaker 4: a lot of levels yeah to a conspiracy. So when
16:32
Speaker 4: we get this straight, first we're going to break it,
16:34
Speaker 4: people gonna be mad as broken. They're not going to
16:35
Speaker 4: blame the people who broke it. They're going to be
16:37
Speaker 4: mad at government generally, and we're all going to become
16:40
Speaker 4: libertarians overnight. That would be my dream American Republic personally,
16:44
Speaker 4: but it ain't gonna happen. And that's a really roundabout
16:47
Speaker 4: way of doing it.
16:49
Speaker 3: Sure is.
16:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, So look, I'd be willing to bet that there
16:52
Speaker 2: are parts of the Socialecurity Administration that could be more
16:54
Speaker 2: efficiently run privatized. I think there's a really healthy debate
16:58
Speaker 2: to be had as to whether or not So Security
17:00
Speaker 2: Administration trust funds should be invested in a way that's
17:04
Speaker 2: different than they are today. I believe they're all sitting
17:06
Speaker 2: in US Treasury fund.
17:08
Speaker 5: To the extent that they're not paid out.
17:09
Speaker 2: That's and so you know, other countries have said, hey, no,
17:12
Speaker 2: we're going to take our state's pension fund and invest
17:15
Speaker 2: it in certain industries. We're going to invest it in
17:19
Speaker 2: stock markets. And I think that's a reasonable debate to have.
17:22
Speaker 2: I'm not saying we should or shu.
17:23
Speaker 4: It wasn't the privatization debate. The privatization debate allowed people
17:26
Speaker 4: the choice. It allowed people for this. I'm talking about
17:29
Speaker 4: the George W. Bush scheme. And I don't mean scheme
17:31
Speaker 4: in the negative sense. Sure, I think it was laudable personally,
17:34
Speaker 4: but he said, give people control, you can name beneficiaries,
17:37
Speaker 4: treat it sort of like an IRA, and you can
17:38
Speaker 4: invest a portion of it in something generative if you
17:42
Speaker 4: so choose. There was, of course, a lot of hue
17:44
Speaker 4: and cry from the left because that sort of undermines
17:47
Speaker 4: the general principle that everybody gets a minimum benefit. I
17:50
Speaker 4: always thought that those two things weren't exclusive, but that's
17:52
Speaker 4: what killed it twenty years ago.
17:55
Speaker 2: So I think my conclusions if you're a retirement out
17:57
Speaker 2: there that's worried about this, worried about the state of
18:00
Speaker 2: Social Security because a decade from now it's going to
18:03
Speaker 2: run out of money. I don't think i'd be immensely
18:05
Speaker 2: concerned about missing a Social Security payment because they're cutting
18:08
Speaker 2: a fifth of the staff. If you need to book
18:10
Speaker 2: an appointment, if you need to wait on hold, it's
18:11
Speaker 2: probably going.
18:12
Speaker 3: To become more annoying.
18:13
Speaker 2: But I'm not worried about you not getting your Social
18:15
Speaker 2: Security payment.
18:22
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18:27
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18:45
Speaker 2: Joining us now is Colin Hodge is a veteran entrepreneur
18:47
Speaker 2: from the island of Saint Croix, and join us Today's
18:49
Speaker 2: talk about the event kicking off on April eighth, Taste
18:53
Speaker 2: of Saint Croix.
18:53
Speaker 3: Colin, thanks for joining us, appreciate it.
18:56
Speaker 6: Yes, yes, good morning, good morning.
18:58
Speaker 3: How are you doing well? Thanks?
18:59
Speaker 2: I want to folks on the event itself, but before
19:01
Speaker 2: we even get there, you've spent most of your life
19:04
Speaker 2: on the island of Saint Croix. For our listeners who
19:07
Speaker 2: may have been to the Caribbean, may have not been
19:09
Speaker 2: to the US Virgin Islands. Maybe they've been to the
19:11
Speaker 2: Bahamas or Puerto Rico or other popular areas across the Caribbean.
19:15
Speaker 2: How would you compare the island of Saint Croix to
19:18
Speaker 2: those other destinations. What makes it most appealing to you?
19:23
Speaker 6: Our tranquilness. Obviously most of the islands have the san
19:29
Speaker 6: the sea, but the historic nature and the culture that
19:32
Speaker 6: makes up the seven Flags that has flown over the
19:36
Speaker 6: Virgin Islands is definitely the uniqueness the history that we
19:40
Speaker 6: have had, you know, being owned by seven different countries
19:44
Speaker 6: and having seven flags here, you have a culture that
19:47
Speaker 6: is so diversified, going back, you know, hundreds of years,
19:51
Speaker 6: so you will still see and feel a lot of
19:53
Speaker 6: the culture. I think he on Saint Croix even most
19:55
Speaker 6: so than I was Sister Islands and most of the
19:57
Speaker 6: Eastern Caribbean. So if you want to have on the sea,
20:00
Speaker 6: but you also want to feel the culture, definitely seeing
20:04
Speaker 6: Koi is the place to come. And you know, no
20:06
Speaker 6: passport required, so you can just pick up flying here tomorrow.
20:09
Speaker 6: If you want to.
20:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a huge appeal for a lot of folks.
20:12
Speaker 2: I'm heading down later in April. I'm going to miss
20:14
Speaker 2: this event, but huge appeal for the families that are
20:18
Speaker 2: coming down with me to not need to have those
20:20
Speaker 2: passports for the kids. But let's start off with the
20:22
Speaker 2: Taste of Saint Croix event. Colin, tell me about it.
20:25
Speaker 2: How long has this event been going on and when
20:29
Speaker 2: exactly does it kick off and what can people expect.
20:32
Speaker 6: Yes, so, twenty five years ago two friends of mine,
20:35
Speaker 6: one I worked with in the early nineties in a
20:38
Speaker 6: restaurant called Cafe Madlin on the East End. They approached
20:42
Speaker 6: me two thousand and one. I started my promotion business
20:45
Speaker 6: about five years prior to that and wanted guidance in
20:48
Speaker 6: the promotions area to show off, you know, what we
20:51
Speaker 6: call the best culinary scene in the Caribbean and the
20:54
Speaker 6: Taste of Saint KOI was bond that year. It was
20:57
Speaker 6: basically a celebration of our industry. You know, spent our
21:01
Speaker 6: life in it at the time and never thought that
21:03
Speaker 6: twenty five years later, you know, the event would still
21:06
Speaker 6: be around. But thank god, Kelly Odom and Catching POGLIESI
21:10
Speaker 6: were my associates at the time. I guided them that
21:12
Speaker 6: first year from a marketing and promotions perspective, and the
21:15
Speaker 6: rest is history. It grew to become a week long
21:18
Speaker 6: event at his peak in twenty fifteen, and of course
21:22
Speaker 6: we had two devastating hurricane in twenty seventeen that you know,
21:25
Speaker 6: basically put our focus back on the one night of event.
21:29
Speaker 6: But all in all, twenty five years later a taster
21:31
Speaker 6: Saint Chroix is here and we are celebrating with five
21:34
Speaker 6: days of event beginning April the eighth with City Crawl.
21:39
Speaker 6: City Crawl is one night you go into four different
21:42
Speaker 6: restaurants paying one price in the city of Christian Instead,
21:46
Speaker 6: which is our main city here on Saint Croix. And
21:48
Speaker 6: of course Wednesday we have what's called their five course
21:53
Speaker 6: Wine and Dying Dinner at the Guardian restaurant. That's April
21:56
Speaker 6: the night from six pm you have a five course
21:59
Speaker 6: dinner being created by Carribeane Chef of the Year, Chef Benji,
22:03
Speaker 6: and each course is being paired by Vitnor himself. Bamfi
22:09
Speaker 6: Wines will be flying in direct here to Saint Croix,
22:13
Speaker 6: one of the wine witness to peer each of these
22:15
Speaker 6: courses on Thursdays the hallmark event, the Taste of Saint Kroi,
22:19
Speaker 6: the twenty fifty edition, and of course we take the
22:21
Speaker 6: Friday off because we know that Tastes of Saint Kui
22:24
Speaker 6: is going to be a mega event, and we recuperate
22:26
Speaker 6: on the Friday and Saturday continue with Bubbly Brunch, a
22:30
Speaker 6: three course brunch which will be paired by sparkling wines
22:35
Speaker 6: and champagne. And we of course have a band coming
22:38
Speaker 6: in to give us a nice pool size after poolside
22:40
Speaker 6: after party. This band will be flown in from the
22:42
Speaker 6: island of Saint Thomas, our sister island, the Spectrum Band,
22:46
Speaker 6: very well known here in the Caribbean. And Sunday will
22:49
Speaker 6: be the finale Taste Sip and Golf with Governor Albert
22:52
Speaker 6: Bryan at the Balcany Hotel. Eighteen holes of golf, four
22:56
Speaker 6: holes of eating and drinking. Brings up us to the
23:00
Speaker 6: Culinary Week, which begins April eighth and will end on
23:04
Speaker 6: April thirteenth here on the island of Saint Croix.
23:07
Speaker 2: You'd be you'd be rolling me out of this. Can
23:12
Speaker 2: Can you buy tickets to each individual event? Or is
23:14
Speaker 2: this kind of a there's one does one ticket cover
23:16
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
23:17
Speaker 6: That is that is that is that's a good question. Yes,
23:19
Speaker 6: you can log onto a Taste of Saint Choix dot com.
23:21
Speaker 6: Each event is being sold individually. You can buy them individually.
23:25
Speaker 6: If you would like, as a company or cooperation to
23:27
Speaker 6: have us bulk a package together, we can customize that
23:30
Speaker 6: for you as well. But for ease, you can log
23:33
Speaker 6: onto a taste website and each event and the venue
23:36
Speaker 6: and the cost and everything is right there. You can
23:38
Speaker 6: click and buy tickets and go and browse and purchase
23:42
Speaker 6: a la carte any event you want on a Taste
23:44
Speaker 6: of Saint Kroi dot com.
23:45
Speaker 2: So once more, colin folks are considering a trip down
23:48
Speaker 2: to Saint Croix, Give give, give the dates and the
23:51
Speaker 2: information on how to get some more information on this
23:54
Speaker 2: one more time for our listeners.
23:55
Speaker 6: Yes, so that's April the eighth to April the thirteenth,
23:58
Speaker 6: five days of event. You can book tickets to come
24:00
Speaker 6: to the Virgin Islands on any major travel website and
24:04
Speaker 6: again no passport required, So there is no doubt there
24:07
Speaker 6: are some very good rates right now from the area
24:10
Speaker 6: that you're actually interviewing me. From most major cities on
24:14
Speaker 6: the island have connections to Miami or to Puerto Rico,
24:17
Speaker 6: so you can definitely get here in just a few hours.
24:20
Speaker 6: Most of the travel websites do have itineraries that travel
24:23
Speaker 6: easily and efficiently to the Virgin Islands.
24:26
Speaker 2: Colin Hodge join us today to talk about the event
24:29
Speaker 2: Taste of Saint Croix, coming up on April eighth. Colins,
24:31
Speaker 2: thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it and look
24:34
Speaker 2: forward to catching up soon.
24:35
Speaker 6: Thank you very much. Have a good day.
24:38
Speaker 2: Let's jump here now. I want to go to Tesla
24:43
Speaker 2: here for a moment. We haven't talked enough about Tesla recently.
24:46
Speaker 2: Most recent news here in addition to the events that
24:51
Speaker 2: FBI has been researching when it comes to Tesla and
24:54
Speaker 2: destruction of property, and I think the most recent one
24:57
Speaker 2: where the incendiary device is found in the Tesla dealership
25:00
Speaker 2: in Texas, which is terrifying.
25:02
Speaker 3: But their dismal run.
25:04
Speaker 4: In Euros cars or something else?
25:07
Speaker 3: Oh sorry, yeah, yeah, good one. Sorry the cars.
25:11
Speaker 5: Are not some have self combusted.
25:15
Speaker 2: No, not as much as GM vaults and stuff.
25:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'd like to elect your tricky substances.
25:23
Speaker 2: The problem that Tesla faces in Europe is frankly a
25:26
Speaker 2: similar one that he's facing here Andy Land. Musk is
25:29
Speaker 2: facing here in the United States as well. But UH
25:32
Speaker 2: sales dropped in February, down forty percent from a year ago.
25:36
Speaker 2: According to the UH the Automobile Manufacturers Association, Tesla sales
25:40
Speaker 2: plunged forty three percent in the first two months of
25:43
Speaker 2: the year, compared to a thirty one percent rise industry
25:47
Speaker 2: wide in EVY registrations.
25:49
Speaker 3: And there's some of this.
25:51
Speaker 2: I think you have to separate a piece of this
25:53
Speaker 2: because if you take a look at Tesla's sales year
25:55
Speaker 2: over year in Europe, they weren't terribly good for the
25:59
Speaker 2: last twelve but you seem to have accelerated the really
26:03
Speaker 2: bad sales that you are seeing across Europe when it
26:06
Speaker 2: comes to Tesla. And probably part of that's due to competition,
26:09
Speaker 2: but a lot of it continues to seem to be
26:11
Speaker 2: backlash against Elon Musk and his association with far right
26:18
Speaker 2: in Germany as well as the Trump administration.
26:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know why he would choose to be
26:22
Speaker 4: so polarizing about his job. He could just stick to
26:25
Speaker 4: cutting spending, take a green eye shade approach to it.
26:28
Speaker 4: That's not his way, though he's bombastic and he's a
26:33
Speaker 4: I guess you could say, a publicity hound. He risks
26:37
Speaker 4: both diminishing the importance of cutting government spend. If he
26:40
Speaker 4: doesn't succeed in meaningfully cutting government spending, we may not
26:44
Speaker 4: get another show. I say we, I mean people who
26:45
Speaker 4: think government spending needs to be cut by a lot.
26:48
Speaker 5: Not entirely clear to me what he's doing.
26:50
Speaker 4: By the way, I thought he was going to recommend
26:51
Speaker 4: eliminating a few federal departments that we don't need and
26:53
Speaker 4: that type of stuff, instead of going after instead of
26:57
Speaker 4: trying to reform computer systems and fire people and stuff
27:00
Speaker 4: like that, where the savings will be modest and realized
27:03
Speaker 4: only over a very long period of time.
27:04
Speaker 5: But that aside, I.
27:06
Speaker 4: Worry that he's going to taint the effort if he
27:08
Speaker 4: doesn't thread this needle correctly, because it was always going
27:11
Speaker 4: to be a really challenging eye of the needle to thread.
27:14
Speaker 4: So he may be jeopardizing that, which would make me
27:18
Speaker 4: sad personally, and jeopardizing what to this point has been
27:22
Speaker 4: a pretty storied and interesting business.
27:25
Speaker 2: I wonder what insurers are doing at this stage, like
27:28
Speaker 2: the destruction of Tesla vehicles, and you know, people in
27:33
Speaker 2: you know very light cases like keen the cars or
27:36
Speaker 2: you know, popping the tires, or in really dangerous cases
27:40
Speaker 2: like literally trying to set up incendiary devices and dealerships.
27:43
Speaker 2: I can't imagine being a private insurer and trying to
27:45
Speaker 2: figure this out and deal with it right now. I mean,
27:48
Speaker 2: you can price anything, and I'm sure that they are
27:51
Speaker 2: doing so, But like as a private insurance company trying
27:54
Speaker 2: to take a look at, Okay, do I ensure this
27:55
Speaker 2: new Tesla or not?
27:56
Speaker 3: That's a whole new risk category.
27:58
Speaker 2: That I I hesitate to think of any other car
28:01
Speaker 2: company in history that's had to deal with that, right Like,
28:03
Speaker 2: I don't think Volkswagen was importing into the United States
28:07
Speaker 2: back during World War Two. So I have a tough
28:09
Speaker 2: time believing that there's been ever such a significant backlash
28:13
Speaker 2: against an individual car company like this before.
28:16
Speaker 4: No, not to my knowledge, there was always There's always
28:18
Speaker 4: been hostility to imported carsso in the seventies and eighties
28:22
Speaker 4: than today is we've just become accustomed to them.
28:25
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break when we come back, Stack
28:27
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29:32
Speaker 2: My first reaction to hearing that Forever twenty one was
29:36
Speaker 2: going bankrupt was didn't even know they still exists because
29:39
Speaker 2: I don't step foot in shopping malls anymore. But they
29:42
Speaker 2: follow a long list of shopping mall retailers that, over
29:45
Speaker 2: the course of the last decade have fallen upon hard time. Specifically,
29:48
Speaker 2: they fall into that fast fashion industry that has just
29:53
Speaker 2: very much struggled to differentiate in a time when you
29:55
Speaker 2: can buy this stuff on Amazon fairly easily.
29:58
Speaker 3: But the Journal has a piece here.
30:00
Speaker 2: And by the way, my second reaction was, oh boy,
30:03
Speaker 2: another hit for shopping malls, and the Wall Street Journal
30:06
Speaker 2: piece today is actually the exact opposite of that, which is, hey,
30:10
Speaker 2: this is actually maybe surprising good news from all owners,
30:13
Speaker 2: because we seem to have hit a plateau when it
30:17
Speaker 2: comes to the demise of the American shopping mall. For
30:20
Speaker 2: most of the last I would say, what fifteen years
30:23
Speaker 2: since the Great Recession, we've had talks of shopping malls
30:26
Speaker 2: going under, rents coming down, you know, the demise of
30:30
Speaker 2: in person shopping. But according to the Wall Street Journal, yeah,
30:34
Speaker 2: there's still challenges, there's too much debt, but high end
30:37
Speaker 2: shopping malls are experiencing strong occupancy, rising rents, and leasing
30:41
Speaker 2: activity improving in even second tier properties here. And so
30:45
Speaker 2: the point that they make on Forever twenty one is, hey,
30:47
Speaker 2: you know, you had a locked in lease on a
30:49
Speaker 2: whole bunch of properties here that are suddenly going to
30:52
Speaker 2: create room for new tenants that apparently want.
30:55
Speaker 3: To take space in shopping malls.
30:58
Speaker 2: It's I guess, just a big reversal from kind of
31:02
Speaker 2: my expectation of the shopping mall industry and just how
31:06
Speaker 2: far it had fallen from it.
31:07
Speaker 3: When was like shopping mall heyday? When did mall rats
31:10
Speaker 3: come out? Oh?
31:11
Speaker 8: I think those ninety one? Let me double check that.
31:14
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking, is like,
31:16
Speaker 2: you know, they were the peak hangout place for much
31:19
Speaker 2: of the nineties and two thousands and since then have
31:22
Speaker 2: just been experiencing this kind of big backlash. But it
31:26
Speaker 2: goes into that same thing for me, which is people
31:30
Speaker 2: get overly.
31:31
Speaker 3: Concerned about the wrong thing.
31:32
Speaker 2: Like I can't tell you how many people I heard from,
31:35
Speaker 2: you know, in their investment portfolios were like, you know,
31:37
Speaker 2: interested in real estate, but want to make sure I
31:39
Speaker 2: have no exposure to retail whatsoever. And it was a
31:41
Speaker 2: bad performing sector for quite some time. But nothing ever
31:44
Speaker 2: lasts forever. And you're starting to see this change again
31:48
Speaker 2: for shopping malls, where once again there is demand for
31:51
Speaker 2: the real estate. Rents are moving up, and you know,
31:54
Speaker 2: part of that is just that it's a very good
31:55
Speaker 2: economy right now, but part of it is probably we
31:57
Speaker 2: haven't built any new shopping malls for a few years,
32:00
Speaker 2: a lot of them have closed down, and.
32:01
Speaker 3: Supply and demand has reached a new equilibrium.
32:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's an old maximum investments. I think it's attributed
32:08
Speaker 4: to Byron Ween or someone like that, the strategist, the
32:11
Speaker 4: stock strategists. I believe he's no longer with us, but
32:14
Speaker 4: others may have said this too. When everybody thinks something's
32:17
Speaker 4: gonna happen, something else is going to happen. And that's
32:21
Speaker 4: why it pays to be contrarian, even if you're just
32:23
Speaker 4: running your own four one K rebalancing as being contrarian,
32:27
Speaker 4: selling winners, buying losers, not shunning one sector of the
32:32
Speaker 4: stock market. In this case, we're talking about real estate,
32:34
Speaker 4: but there are other examples. As things go in and
32:37
Speaker 4: out of favor, and when the consensus all lines up
32:41
Speaker 4: on one side of something. Everybody thought at the beginning
32:43
Speaker 4: of the year was going to be another terrific year
32:45
Speaker 4: of about performance for US equities relative to develop market
32:48
Speaker 4: foreign and other foreign equity. So far, it's been the
32:50
Speaker 4: exact opposite. When everybody thinks something is inevitable, it isn't.
32:54
Speaker 4: And that seems to be the case with respect to retail.
32:58
Speaker 2: I also have been fairly impressed by how good shopping
33:01
Speaker 2: mall owners have kind of transferred their space.
33:03
Speaker 5: For a little while, the.
33:04
Speaker 2: Natick Mall is where I kind of grew up going
33:06
Speaker 2: as a kid, and today pretty unrecognizable. They still have
33:09
Speaker 2: a food court but a lot of high end dining.
33:12
Speaker 2: They have a what is it Level ninety nine I think,
33:16
Speaker 2: which is like a series of escape rooms activity, and
33:20
Speaker 2: they just opened a thirty one court paddle pickleball No.
33:25
Speaker 3: Twenty one courts of.
33:26
Speaker 2: Pickle ball in part of the shopping mall because again,
33:29
Speaker 2: really you know, jump onto the trends. There's a couple
33:31
Speaker 2: of bars there, a spa, like really really compellingly so you.
33:36
Speaker 5: Need to do is clean everything out and right.
33:38
Speaker 4: I mean that's actually that's a brilliant repurposing of what
33:41
Speaker 4: is essentially a big enclosed odd.
33:43
Speaker 2: Shape, especially here where you can only play this sport
33:47
Speaker 2: like four months a year outside.
33:49
Speaker 5: Have you heard Canadians are upset, Mike, They're upset at us.
33:52
Speaker 2: I was there in February and I got a bit
33:55
Speaker 2: of ear full of the backlash we get back.
33:57
Speaker 3: Pretty beat up, Yeah, guy.
34:01
Speaker 4: For Robin arm Canadian being rude is maybe not saying
34:04
Speaker 4: God bless you when you sneeze or yeah.
34:07
Speaker 2: I actually did not face any genuine rudeness whatsoever. The
34:10
Speaker 2: most affront that I felt was that there was no
34:13
Speaker 2: American wine in the grocery store at either the ones
34:15
Speaker 2: that I went to.
34:16
Speaker 4: That's the tariff angle. There's also the we're going to
34:20
Speaker 4: absorb you angle. We keep taunting them as the fifty
34:23
Speaker 4: first state. And for those of you who don't believe me,
34:27
Speaker 4: because the news you watch may not talk about this,
34:30
Speaker 4: it's happening every day. The administration is taunting candidate, telling
34:34
Speaker 4: them you're going to make a great fifty first state,
34:36
Speaker 4: calling their new prime Minister or Premieer whatever they call him, Carney,
34:40
Speaker 4: governor Garney.
34:41
Speaker 2: That is a whole, which, to be fair, I always
34:43
Speaker 2: did to my Canadian friends that live up there.
34:45
Speaker 4: But you know, when you do it, it's different from
34:47
Speaker 4: someone with an army behind them doing it.
34:49
Speaker 5: I guess well.
34:49
Speaker 4: Canadians are retaliating, according to the Wall Street Journal, boycotting
34:53
Speaker 4: US travel because of annexation threats and what they're calling
34:56
Speaker 4: aggressive border tactics. I'm not aware of any aggresive border tactics,
35:00
Speaker 4: but this could have a real economic impact, very local,
35:02
Speaker 4: but real economic impact. Yeah, trtential loss of two billion.
35:05
Speaker 4: I just want to give the numbers rather than just
35:07
Speaker 4: babbel me babbel two billion and potential losses estimates a
35:11
Speaker 4: trade group potentially fourteen thousand effective jobs if travel only
35:15
Speaker 4: declines by ten percent, if Canada to US travel, I
35:19
Speaker 4: would not have guessed that the impact would be anything close.
35:21
Speaker 2: To that hyper localized. I'd imagine too, right like you,
35:25
Speaker 2: I would imagine. I know, Cuba, for example, is a
35:28
Speaker 2: big destination for Canadians that Americans don't go to. And
35:31
Speaker 2: so you know, if somebody was considering a Caribbean destination,
35:33
Speaker 2: they might discount to US Virgin Island or Puerto Rico
35:36
Speaker 2: in favor of Cuba. In Portland, Maine, or you know,
35:39
Speaker 2: areas along the border this summer, I'll be interested to see, right,
35:42
Speaker 2: like they tend to get a lot of in Maine,
35:45
Speaker 2: especially main from Mounting New Hampshire, especially French Canadian visitors.
35:48
Speaker 2: Does that drop off significantly this year or.
35:51
Speaker 3: Is it all bluster?
35:52
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's a it's an interesting and compelling question.
35:55
Speaker 2: Markets are now in mixed territory A little bit given
35:58
Speaker 2: back since where we checked in all loven o'clock Dow
36:01
Speaker 2: currently off eighteen points, SMP up four, and the Nasdaq
36:06
Speaker 2: up fifty points, or about a quarter of a percent.
36:08
Speaker 2: We'll recap it all tomorrow here on the Financial Exchange.
36:11
Speaker 3: Have a great day of Buddy