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Mark interviews Editor of Breitbart News John Carney. · The Mark Simone Show

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  Speaker 1: Live from the WOR LifeVac studios, Mark Simone.
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  Speaker 2: Well, John Carney is the editor of the Breitbart Business Digest. Now,
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  Speaker 2: the best economist, the top of financial people. It's the
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  Speaker 2: first thing they'll tell you. It's the first thing they
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  Speaker 2: read every morning, the Breitbart Business Digest. It's free. You
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: can sign up for it. It'll come right to your email.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Just go to Breitbart and then go to where it
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: says newsletters and then sign up with your email for
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: the Business Digest. It'll come to you every morning. The
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  Speaker 2: editor John Carney is with us. John Carney, how are
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  Speaker 2: you doing?
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  Speaker 1: Very good. Thanks for having me, Mark.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, look at this survey. It says the majority of
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  Speaker 2: Americans think the economy is in bad trouble, the economy
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  Speaker 2: is going bad. That's not the case, is it? Why
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  Speaker 2: do they think that?
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  Speaker 1: So, yeah, I'm not sure they really do think it.
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  Speaker 1: I know that all the surveys show that people are
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  Speaker 1: really unhappy with the economy, but But when you look
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  Speaker 1: at how people are behaving, meaning look at retail sales,
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  Speaker 1: personal expenditures, they're actually behaving like the economy is doing
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  Speaker 1: quite well. People are spending a.
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  Speaker 2: Lot of money.
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  Speaker 1: Traditionally, when people start to worry that the economy is
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  Speaker 1: doing badly, they pull back on spending because they start
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  Speaker 1: saving for the rainy day that they think has already begun.
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  Speaker 1: But we don't see that anywhere in the numbers. So yes,
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  Speaker 1: when people are surveyed about the economy, they say they
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  Speaker 1: don't like it. But when people are, you know, when
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  Speaker 1: they go online to shop or when they go into
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  Speaker 1: a shopping mall, they are not behaving as if they
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  Speaker 1: think the economy is in terrible shape.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, look at that. Even I got fooled by the
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  Speaker 2: fake polls with their fake metrics. And so, uh, Uh, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So that's good to know that the economy is in
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  Speaker 2: good shape. And, uh, well, what about people that make
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  Speaker 2: the argument? Well, wall street's doing well, but not the
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  Speaker 2: rest of us.
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  Speaker 1: So wall street has done well. Um, if by that,
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  Speaker 1: you mean like stocks.
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  Speaker 2: Are up a lot.
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  Speaker 1: The thing is people underestimate how broadly stocks are owned
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  Speaker 1: in the U S yes, the wealthy own most of
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  Speaker 1: the stocks cause they're wealthy. Um, but, A large percentage
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  Speaker 1: of Americans, through their retirement plans, own stocks. And so
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  Speaker 1: it's not true that there is this strict divorce of
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  Speaker 1: when the stock market goes up, that doesn't help regular people.
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  Speaker 1: Of course it does.
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  Speaker 2: Everybody knows this.
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  Speaker 1: People have 401ks. They have IRAs. They have pensions. And
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  Speaker 1: these actually have benefited tremendously from the stock market doing
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  Speaker 1: as well as it has, especially over the last year
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  Speaker 1: and a half. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Also, when it's up, doesn't that lead to the businesses
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  Speaker 2: spending more money, creating more factories, jobs, that sort of stuff?
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely. It works on both sides. One of the reasons
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  Speaker 1: stocks are up so much is because the economy is
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  Speaker 1: doing well. Corporate profits are up because the economy is
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  Speaker 1: doing well. Investors expect it to do even better. Stocks
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  Speaker 1: aren't rising because rich people felt like paying more for stocks.
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  Speaker 1: They're rising because the bid for the stocks goes up
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  Speaker 1: because people are willing to pay more because they think
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  Speaker 1: the profits are going to continue to increase. And so, yes,
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  Speaker 1: on the other side of it, as you said, when
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  Speaker 1: the stocks are rising, companies actually tend to be able
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  Speaker 1: to invest more because one thing is they can buy
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  Speaker 1: things with their own currency, in effect. So they do
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  Speaker 1: acquisitions of other companies, buying them with their stock. And
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  Speaker 1: managers tend to take this as an affirmation that they
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  Speaker 1: should keep investing because investors are saying no. Yes, we
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  Speaker 1: like what you're doing.
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  Speaker 2: Keep going.
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  Speaker 1: So they continue to expand operations, which means more employment
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  Speaker 1: and more output for the economy.
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  Speaker 2: So the last year or two, wages are up, right?
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  Speaker 2: But they're up more than the inflation is. Are people
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  Speaker 2: actually taking home more now?
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  Speaker 1: Yes. So this is an important nuance that a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people miss. For a couple months this year, we
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  Speaker 1: had the– Hourly wages actually didn't beat inflation. Hourly wages
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  Speaker 1: were down slightly. But because people were able to work more,
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  Speaker 1: meaning their businesses were doing well enough that they said, hey,
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  Speaker 1: can you guys put in some extra hours? I also
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  Speaker 1: think people, because we stopped working, taxing overtime for a
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  Speaker 1: lot of jobs. People are willing to work more. So
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  Speaker 1: one of the things that we've seen is that weekly wages,
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  Speaker 1: which is actual paychecks, that's where people's spending power comes from,
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  Speaker 1: not an hourly wage. The weekly wages are beating inflation
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  Speaker 1: and have, for the past three months, they did fall
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  Speaker 1: short for two months out of the whole Trump presidency.
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  Speaker 1: So we have 18 or 19, depending on how you
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  Speaker 1: want to count, and only in two months did did
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  Speaker 1: weekly wages not beat inflation. By the way, that's a
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  Speaker 1: huge difference from what we saw under Joe Biden, where
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  Speaker 1: over the course of Joe Biden's entire, yes, there were
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  Speaker 1: periods where weekly wages beat inflation under Biden. But over
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  Speaker 1: the course of, because inflation ran so hot for so
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  Speaker 1: long under Biden's presidency, weekly wages fell behind over the
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  Speaker 1: entire time he was president. Whereas Donald Trump They're up
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  Speaker 1: for his presidency.
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  Speaker 2: John Carney is the editor of Breitbart Business Digest. Now,
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  Speaker 2: if you watch MSNBC, all I saw was that diesel
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  Speaker 2: prices are the highest ever. It's going to cost us
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  Speaker 2: all a fortune. Is that really the case?
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  Speaker 1: No. This is another thing where– They're just wrong about this.
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  Speaker 1: So diesel prices are up. And in terms of nominal dollars,
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  Speaker 1: they're up. But everything is up in terms of nominal dollars.
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  Speaker 1: If you adjust diesel prices for inflation, which is what
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  Speaker 1: you need to do to figure out whether diesel prices
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  Speaker 1: are especially high, they're high. But they are not at
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  Speaker 1: a record high. They were higher in 2022. They were
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  Speaker 1: higher actually back in 2008. So we're not– look– I
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  Speaker 1: would like diesel prices to come down. I think they
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  Speaker 1: will come down. They have come down, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: since their highs in mid-September, but they are not at
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  Speaker 1: a record high. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So oil prices, obviously the Iran war is affected. Obviously
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  Speaker 2: the Ukraine war is affected. Once all that ends, prices
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  Speaker 2: on oil and gas are going to plunge, aren't they? Yes.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, and in fact, I think they're going to
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  Speaker 1: plunge much faster than people think. Um, we're going to see, uh,
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  Speaker 1: a big decline in these prices right now. Brent crude,
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  Speaker 1: the international standard is about $ 101. Uh, before this all
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  Speaker 1: started happening, we were down in the sixties. I think
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  Speaker 1: we're going to see that crash back to those levels, uh,
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  Speaker 1: relatively quickly. The problem is, uh, The war keeps going on, right?
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  Speaker 1: And it keeps, in a sense, growing because we now
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  Speaker 1: have not just the Strait of Hormuz, but the Houthis
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  Speaker 1: attacking pipelines, attacking the Red Sea. So it's keeping prices elevated.
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  Speaker 1: When those situations get resolved, we will see it come
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  Speaker 1: back down. It is being driven by war. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Uh, for those of you listening in California, you will
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  Speaker 2: not see it come down.
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  Speaker 1: How do they, how do they do that? The war
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  Speaker 1: driven aspect of this is that one of the things
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  Speaker 1: that means is that it doesn't bleed as much into
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  Speaker 1: other prices. If oil prices are seen as being permanently higher,
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  Speaker 1: then you will see the price of shipping rise. You'll
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  Speaker 1: see the price of consumer goods start to rise, but
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  Speaker 1: because it is a temporary increase, Stores like Walmart and
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  Speaker 1: Target don't pass that on to their customers because, frankly,
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  Speaker 1: they don't want to drive away their customers. They are
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  Speaker 1: in a competitive world. They try to keep their prices low,
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  Speaker 1: and they are willing to absorb a temporary price increase
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  Speaker 1: where they might not if the price increase was permanent.
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  Speaker 2: That's interesting. Hey, you've got to give California credit. Gavin Newsom,
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  Speaker 2: how did they get the gas prices up to $ 6. 50
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  Speaker 2: a gallon? How did they pull that off?
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  Speaker 1: It's amazing. It's a combination of three things. One, they
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  Speaker 1: haven't allowed pipelines to come into California. So we make
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  Speaker 1: all of this gas out, all of this oil, and
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  Speaker 1: we make natural gas in the Dakotas, in Oklahoma, in Texas,
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  Speaker 1: and there's no way practically to get it over to
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  Speaker 1: the west coast of the United States because they haven't
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  Speaker 1: allowed pipelines. The other thing is that they don't allow
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  Speaker 1: them to build new refineries. This is all done because
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  Speaker 1: of climate change and environmental ideology. So California has to
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  Speaker 1: get its gas mostly from the Middle East. And it
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  Speaker 1: produces some oil at home, but decreasing amounts. And then
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  Speaker 1: they also impose a very large tax on gasoline. So
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  Speaker 1: between the tax and the pipelines and the crackdown on refineries,
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  Speaker 1: California has the highest gas prices in the nation.
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  Speaker 2: Well, congratulations to California. California. Hey, John Carney, great stuff.
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  Speaker 2: Breitbart Business Digest. It is the best thing to read
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  Speaker 2: every morning on this subject. You just go to Breitbart.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Go to where it says newsletters. Sign up for the
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: Breitbart Business Digest. It's free. It'll come right to your email.
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  Speaker 2: John Carney, keep up the great work. We'll talk again soon.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks, man. Can't wait to talk again.
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  Speaker 2: All right. Take care. Hey, don't forget, coming up at noon,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Buck and Clay, great show today. The most listened to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: radio show in America, Sean Hannity at three, Jesse Kelly
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: at six, and the very funny Jimmy Fallon. Great show
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  Speaker 2: every night, nine to midnight. It's here on 710WOR.