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Money Monday with Brian James · Brian Thomas

0:00
Speaker 1: Up on eighth six here fifty five kroc de Talk Station.
0:03
Speaker 1: It's Monday. It's time for Money Monday, all or financials.
0:05
Speaker 2: Brian James kind enough to.
0:07
Speaker 1: Join the program every Monday to talk about money issues
0:09
Speaker 1: and of course thinking about retirement. Give yourself a financial planner,
0:12
Speaker 1: so you got your situation. At least someone beyond you
0:16
Speaker 1: is looking out for your future and providing some thoughtful
0:19
Speaker 1: insight into retirement. Right Brian James, Welcome back, my friend,
0:22
Speaker 1: Happy Monday.
0:24
Speaker 2: Thank you, Brian.
0:25
Speaker 3: Somebody on arms length away who maybe has seen it
0:28
Speaker 3: once or twice before as people try to navigate that,
0:30
Speaker 3: I would agree it's probably a good idea to have
0:32
Speaker 3: in your corner.
0:33
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so thankful for having had one for so
0:35
Speaker 1: many years. Again, it's something that I don't really have
0:37
Speaker 1: to think about. I don't want to have to focus
0:39
Speaker 1: on my retirement. I want my investments in good hands
0:42
Speaker 1: and I want somebody's going to go over with them regularly.
0:45
Speaker 1: And then there's also that whole idea of someone doing
0:47
Speaker 1: that having a fiduciary obligation to me to maximize my
0:51
Speaker 1: return on investment. That's the key right there. That's an
0:55
Speaker 1: important factor too. I would agree, no doubt. That's why
0:57
Speaker 1: you've been a fee based financial planner. They owe you.
1:00
Speaker 1: Now do I read this is inflation dropping? Brian James,
1:03
Speaker 1: as I paid four dollars and twenty five cents for
1:05
Speaker 1: regular gasoline yesterday.
1:08
Speaker 3: Well, when you look at the algorithm and the calculation
1:11
Speaker 3: that they that they look at for for to calculate
1:14
Speaker 3: all of the CPI, yes, indeed we've had a slight
1:17
Speaker 3: step back. So July's CPI rose about three point four
1:20
Speaker 3: percent from a year earlier. That's down three point from
1:23
Speaker 3: three point five percent in June. So, in other words,
1:26
Speaker 3: June twenty five to June twenty six was up three
1:28
Speaker 3: point five percent. July twenty five to July twenty six
1:31
Speaker 3: was only up three point four percent. So, yes, inflation
1:34
Speaker 3: still exists, it's just not moving at the same upward
1:36
Speaker 3: trajectory that it that it has been. We've taken a
1:40
Speaker 3: slight step back. Is this cause for celebration? I don't
1:42
Speaker 3: think so. Not quite enough to say that we're we're
1:44
Speaker 3: where we want to be. We'd prefer to be somewhere
1:47
Speaker 3: in the two to three percent range, but that's not
1:49
Speaker 3: where we are now.
1:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, a little more does the slight downward tick. Those
1:54
Speaker 1: suggest we may be on a trend going. I know
1:57
Speaker 1: it's a big it's a one, Brian, and I know
2:00
Speaker 1: this requires speculating on so many factors that impact inflation.
2:04
Speaker 1: But does this suggest we're any downward trek trajectory?
2:07
Speaker 2: Perhaps, Well, that's why.
2:09
Speaker 3: We're talking about it, I guess, because it's what we're
2:11
Speaker 3: all looking for, and it's definitely not. Well, the argument
2:14
Speaker 3: we make is things definitely didn't get more expensive than
2:17
Speaker 3: they have lately.
2:19
Speaker 2: That's really all it is. It's a step in the
2:20
Speaker 2: right direction.
2:21
Speaker 3: So a little more encouraging inside this, remember we also
2:24
Speaker 3: have that thing called core inflation that strips out food
2:27
Speaker 3: and energy.
2:28
Speaker 2: Some people love it, some people hate it.
2:29
Speaker 3: But those are the most volatile things because those two
2:32
Speaker 3: items are struck by wars and climate issues, weather problems
2:39
Speaker 3: and all that that aren't controlled by human beings. So therefore,
2:42
Speaker 3: if we pull those out, the stuff that is controlled
2:45
Speaker 3: by human decisions human activity, core inflation is down to
2:49
Speaker 3: about two and a half percent. That's the lowest we've
2:50
Speaker 3: seen since February, So that might be the bigger headline
2:53
Speaker 3: inside the headline. So we're still not where we want
2:55
Speaker 3: to be. But we've at least taken a baby step
2:57
Speaker 3: for it at both the CPI level the core inflation level.
3:01
Speaker 1: All right, well, I it seems to me that, you know,
3:03
Speaker 1: if you want to blame a political party or a
3:05
Speaker 1: singular person like Donald Trump for inflation, you could probably say, okay,
3:09
Speaker 1: war with Iran. Straight to horr Move's closure, price of
3:12
Speaker 1: gas goes up, right because supply has been impacted, not
3:16
Speaker 1: the quantity of available oil or even refined gasoline, but
3:20
Speaker 1: it's just that war interrupted the flow of that. So
3:22
Speaker 1: I get that there's going to be inflationary reality that
3:24
Speaker 1: because of supply and demand. Supply has been interrupted by war,
3:27
Speaker 1: as opposed to we ran out of stuff to drill
3:30
Speaker 1: out of the ground, which would be out of someone's
3:33
Speaker 1: hands politically. Now, the other component of this is we're
3:36
Speaker 1: all reeling with inflation. But I have read several times
3:39
Speaker 1: in Brian's e if you got better information than me,
3:41
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear it. But the value of the
3:43
Speaker 1: dollar has dropped by about a third since what twenty
3:46
Speaker 1: or twenty nineteen or something like that because of the
3:48
Speaker 1: I guess the printing press. Now, I don't think most
3:52
Speaker 1: voters can appreciate the watering down of the value of
3:54
Speaker 1: the daughter alone dollar alone creates this inflationary because your
3:58
Speaker 1: dollar doesn't buy as much as it.
3:59
Speaker 2: Used to, and that.
4:03
Speaker 1: Transcends the current moment in time. I mean, you can't
4:06
Speaker 1: say inflation is the fault of anybody, because this is
4:08
Speaker 1: the problem with the printing press has been going on
4:10
Speaker 1: or multiple administrations, both Republican and Democrat.
4:14
Speaker 2: That's absolutely true.
4:15
Speaker 3: And we have not had the will to vote for
4:18
Speaker 3: anyone who truly will take the steps. And I'm not
4:21
Speaker 3: taking sides on a party here. Nobody's done it.
4:23
Speaker 2: You know.
4:24
Speaker 3: Everybody campaigns on the on deficit reduction and we're spending
4:29
Speaker 3: too much and all this stuff. Then the minute they
4:31
Speaker 3: get elected, we don't do it. And the reason for
4:33
Speaker 3: that is because I think those politicians don't believe that
4:36
Speaker 3: Americans are willing to make the sacrifices that it would
4:39
Speaker 3: require to spend less on certain things big. I just
4:43
Speaker 3: feel like as soon as they get into the position
4:45
Speaker 3: where they could pull the levers, they instantly shy away
4:48
Speaker 3: from it because people aren't ready for the bad news
4:50
Speaker 3: that we're required.
4:51
Speaker 2: Therefore, it makes a.
4:52
Speaker 3: Great headline during the campaign, but we can shove it
4:55
Speaker 3: into the corner after we're actually in charge. And again,
4:57
Speaker 3: this has happened for the last fifty sixty years on
5:00
Speaker 3: both sides.
5:00
Speaker 2: Yes it has.
5:01
Speaker 1: And that's why I bring it up, because this is
5:03
Speaker 1: a failure of our elected leadership, and we live in
5:06
Speaker 1: a representative country here. They're supposed to be watching out
5:09
Speaker 1: for the good of the order and not getting us
5:11
Speaker 1: into a situation where, oh, look, on your list of
5:13
Speaker 1: things to talk about, we racked our national debt up
5:15
Speaker 1: forty trillion dollars, Because that's forty trillion dollars to spend
5:19
Speaker 1: more than we actually took in. But we got to
5:21
Speaker 1: have our stuff in things from federal government. So let's
5:23
Speaker 1: keep feeding the kitty and keep churning money out and
5:26
Speaker 1: running the printing press, ignoring the fact that we've got
5:29
Speaker 1: now an interest to pay on that couple with the
5:31
Speaker 1: fact that the dollar's not worth as much as it
5:33
Speaker 1: used to be. I mean, I regularly refer to the
5:36
Speaker 1: national debt. Brian James, is probably the biggest existential threat
5:39
Speaker 1: we face. I don't think it's the Iranians with nukes.
5:41
Speaker 1: I think it's us just perpetually running the printing press
5:44
Speaker 1: and well running our currency in the ground and of
5:47
Speaker 1: course leading us down a path where it may no
5:49
Speaker 1: longer be the default currency for the world. There are
5:51
Speaker 1: other currencies out there in the world that compete with
5:54
Speaker 1: the dollar. The more and more we rack up the
5:56
Speaker 1: debt here and have to pay on that, yeah.
5:59
Speaker 3: There are, but I just don't see the world ready
6:02
Speaker 3: to line up behind any of those other countries. I mean,
6:04
Speaker 3: the next obvious one is China just on the size
6:07
Speaker 3: of the economy alone, but really nobody trusts them. And
6:11
Speaker 3: beyond that you've got Japan and Germany and those of
6:14
Speaker 3: Just this is just based off of size of economy.
6:16
Speaker 3: Anybody else who is healthier is just way too small
6:19
Speaker 3: to handle the burden of being the world's reserve currency.
6:23
Speaker 3: So I don't that one. I don't see changing anytime soon.
6:26
Speaker 3: I just don't see any other country having the It's
6:30
Speaker 3: because it goes more to the more than just the.
6:33
Speaker 2: Strength of the currency.
6:34
Speaker 3: It's what is the economy capable producing, how can it
6:37
Speaker 3: handle shocks and those kinds of things. The United States
6:39
Speaker 3: is still by far the strongest country in the world
6:42
Speaker 3: in terms of being able to handle that kind of
6:44
Speaker 3: those kind of ups and downs, and that a lot
6:46
Speaker 3: of that changed in the last twenty years as we frankly,
6:49
Speaker 3: as we discovered fracking, when we found enough oil under
6:51
Speaker 3: our own soil, that made us able to be a
6:54
Speaker 3: lot more independent now, so that almost brings into the
6:57
Speaker 3: fact and why are we sticking our nose in some
6:58
Speaker 3: of these other places because we don't need the oil.
7:01
Speaker 3: That's not why we're fighting in Iran. That is not
7:04
Speaker 3: the point that used to be thirty forty years ago. Yes,
7:07
Speaker 3: we used to want to have better access to the
7:09
Speaker 3: oil in the Middle East. Now we don't need it
7:10
Speaker 3: so much because we figured out ways to get out
7:12
Speaker 3: of our own ground. So you know why are we there. Well,
7:15
Speaker 3: that's a lot more political than it is economic.
7:17
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that involves, you know, trying to create better
7:20
Speaker 1: ties with our Arab friends, but also protecting Israel from
7:23
Speaker 1: the threats. And you know, then that takes us down
7:25
Speaker 1: the road whether we achieve me doing that, and it's
7:27
Speaker 1: the most complicated thing ever, probably politically in my lifetime,
7:30
Speaker 1: Brian James. But we are I guess I appreciate what
7:34
Speaker 1: you said. Nobody's ready to jump or throw the US
7:38
Speaker 1: dollar under the bus because we are as bad as
7:40
Speaker 1: we might be. Warts and all the best out there
7:42
Speaker 1: in terms of currency and our productivity and the money
7:45
Speaker 1: that we rate from this economy. But we're moving in
7:48
Speaker 1: the wrong direction. And the more we dig ourselves into
7:52
Speaker 1: this national debt hole and the more the interest paid
7:55
Speaker 1: on that, and I guess maybe even the less functional
7:57
Speaker 1: or economy is because they're going to have to start
7:59
Speaker 1: charging is more income taxes to try to stave off this.
8:03
Speaker 1: At least that's the Democrats solution to the problem is
8:05
Speaker 1: charge more for income tax to cover the debt. But
8:08
Speaker 1: they don't have a curb spending. So every day both parties,
8:11
Speaker 1: including move further and further toward a less certain dollar,
8:15
Speaker 1: our FIA currency, and a step further in the direction
8:19
Speaker 1: where the globe might turn its back. I mean, we
8:21
Speaker 1: may be decade down the road, but we're not doing
8:23
Speaker 1: anything to shore it up and make it well more
8:26
Speaker 1: reliable as the default currency.
8:28
Speaker 3: That's my concern, and we are not saying that at
8:31
Speaker 3: the ballot box despite the really will do these things.
8:36
Speaker 3: We tend to believe what we're told and we don't
8:38
Speaker 3: hold anybody to account.
8:40
Speaker 1: All right, Well, rate height in September, we'll ask Brian
8:42
Speaker 1: James about that and more. Second quarter earnings reports out.
8:46
Speaker 1: Hopefully there's solid We need some good information from Brian
8:49
Speaker 1: James this morning.
8:50
Speaker 2: Don't go away.
8:50
Speaker 1: We got more to talk about after these brief words.
8:52
Speaker 4: Fifty five KRC all right.
8:55
Speaker 2: Station.
8:57
Speaker 4: Eight seventeen.
8:58
Speaker 1: If do you have KRC detalk station found us with
9:00
Speaker 1: Brian James from all with Financia doing the money Monday
9:02
Speaker 1: thing we do every Monday for a few segments. Brian
9:05
Speaker 1: James pivoting over maybe a September rake kite. I guess
9:09
Speaker 1: during the last meeting of the Fed, they kept right
9:10
Speaker 1: steady and some one of them up, some one of
9:12
Speaker 1: them down, and inflation obviously a concern with the Fed
9:15
Speaker 1: giving your inflation reality report just a moment ago, slightly
9:20
Speaker 1: down but still north to three percent. Are we expecting
9:23
Speaker 1: a rate height in September from the Fed?
9:26
Speaker 2: Yeah? It's interesting.
9:27
Speaker 3: So not that long ago you and I were talking
9:30
Speaker 3: about when might the federal reserve cutbreak? Exactly as you
9:33
Speaker 3: were hinting at the conversation shifting to maybe something borrowers
9:36
Speaker 3: don't want to hear, or if you're about to buy
9:38
Speaker 3: a house or something like that, could the Fed actually
9:40
Speaker 3: raise rates in September?
9:42
Speaker 2: Markets seem to think there's a chance.
9:44
Speaker 3: So the odds of a quarter point increase are about
9:46
Speaker 3: thirty percent according to bond market activity. So that's still low, right,
9:52
Speaker 3: that's a lot of three chance. But on the other hand,
9:54
Speaker 3: it's not you know, a one out of one hundred
9:56
Speaker 3: chance either, So not a forecast. Of course, we don't
9:59
Speaker 3: know what the with the but the markets are at
10:01
Speaker 3: least somewhat bracing themselves for a potential rate hike, and
10:04
Speaker 3: we're going to find out. The next scheduled meeting is
10:06
Speaker 3: September fifteen, sixteenth, and so we're going to have more
10:09
Speaker 3: data coming out of the policymakers will have little more
10:12
Speaker 3: information at their hands before they make that decision. But
10:15
Speaker 3: you know, there is a decent chance of an actual
10:17
Speaker 3: rate hike if we can't get inflation to come down
10:19
Speaker 3: at all.
10:19
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I may have read this wrong, but
10:22
Speaker 1: I thought I read just that yesterday. The day before that,
10:24
Speaker 1: mortgage rates had ticked down a little bit. I wouldn't
10:28
Speaker 1: expect that to happen if we're anticipating an increase in
10:30
Speaker 1: the rate.
10:32
Speaker 2: I think I think that speaks more to the you know,
10:34
Speaker 2: the anticipation.
10:34
Speaker 3: Remember it's only thirty percent chance, so there is wonder
10:38
Speaker 3: in the market, right, some things are going nor, some
10:41
Speaker 3: things are going south. You know, the mortgages are generally
10:44
Speaker 3: based off of the ten year treasure, right, nothing is
10:46
Speaker 3: that mechanical, but you can watch that and see what
10:50
Speaker 3: you can expect out of mortgage rates. So it's not
10:52
Speaker 3: to me that makes perfect sense that some things are
10:54
Speaker 3: going one way some things are going to the other,
10:56
Speaker 3: because the market simply doesn't know. And that's why we've
10:59
Speaker 3: had kind of a bump stock market as well, because
11:01
Speaker 3: the market truly hates not knowing. If we can't see
11:04
Speaker 3: through the fog, then we can't predict what earnings might
11:07
Speaker 3: look like.
11:08
Speaker 2: Therefore the market's going to wander a bit.
11:10
Speaker 1: I say this only half joking with Brian James. What
11:14
Speaker 1: does polymarket have to say about interest rates one way
11:17
Speaker 1: or another?
11:18
Speaker 2: Well, that's a great question.
11:19
Speaker 3: And from what I haven't done in depth research with
11:22
Speaker 3: polymarket calls you or anything like that, but I do
11:24
Speaker 3: know that there are depending on how you ask the question,
11:28
Speaker 3: there's a difference between what those responses are. So yeah,
11:32
Speaker 3: that is an interesting measure that we can all pay
11:33
Speaker 3: attention to. Now, what does the general public think? It's
11:36
Speaker 3: almost like, you know what Google used to be where
11:38
Speaker 3: you could watch the you would watch what people are
11:40
Speaker 3: searching and get an idea for what people are thinking.
11:43
Speaker 3: That is a polymarket calls, you know, all those things. Well,
11:45
Speaker 3: I'm not a fan of them. On the investment side,
11:47
Speaker 3: I think it's just another form of gambling. However, it
11:50
Speaker 3: is fascinating to watch what people are actually willing to
11:53
Speaker 3: put their money on. It's one thing to punch a
11:55
Speaker 3: question into Google.
11:55
Speaker 2: It's another thing.
11:56
Speaker 3: To open your wallet in favor of one answer or
11:58
Speaker 3: the other that tells us what people really thinking. It
12:00
Speaker 3: does well, and you just walked yourself into a different
12:03
Speaker 3: conversation that I really wasn't planned on happening with you.
12:06
Speaker 3: But since you mentioned the gambling, there was an article
12:09
Speaker 3: I read yesterday in preparation for the show that young people,
12:14
Speaker 3: and a pretty decent chunk of them, are now turning
12:18
Speaker 3: to online gambling as an investment strategy for their future,
12:23
Speaker 3: which just even saying it out loud makes me kind
12:25
Speaker 3: of laugh at the notion. It's like betting the lottery
12:28
Speaker 3: and hope that that's going to help your retirement savings up.
12:30
Speaker 3: But this is actually really a concept taking money that
12:33
Speaker 3: the otherwise might have invested in four oh one k's
12:36
Speaker 3: or you know, Wrath four o one k's or whatever
12:38
Speaker 3: and going over to one of the betting apps and
12:40
Speaker 3: betting it. Yeah, And I really thinks that's part of
12:46
Speaker 3: a generational This is just me talking, but I got
12:49
Speaker 3: the microphone. So my opinion, and I've talked about this before,
12:53
Speaker 3: but we made a generational shift in the seventies away
12:56
Speaker 3: from retiring off of streams of income and instead converting
13:00
Speaker 3: to piles of money. What I mean by that is
13:01
Speaker 3: pensions started to go away. Congress and the IRS said,
13:06
Speaker 3: the companies have said pensions are too expensive, so therefore
13:08
Speaker 3: here's the four oh one k you get to invest
13:10
Speaker 3: your own dollars. And people started to has started to
13:12
Speaker 3: slowly shift to building a giant pile of money rather
13:16
Speaker 3: than putting their time in and working toward a stream
13:18
Speaker 3: of income because the government and companies pretty much took
13:21
Speaker 3: that option away with the reduction and pensions and social
13:24
Speaker 3: security pretty much being under endless attack. So we have
13:27
Speaker 3: changed the mindset toward you need a big pile of
13:30
Speaker 3: money in order to retire successfully. And I think this
13:34
Speaker 3: the idea of gambling is for some who perceive that
13:37
Speaker 3: I need a big pile of money. Here's the quickest
13:38
Speaker 3: way to get there. If I simply take chances gambling
13:41
Speaker 3: on these various sites. It's no longer about putting your
13:44
Speaker 3: time in, putting your years in. It's now about just
13:46
Speaker 3: get the biggest pile of money you possibly can't as
13:49
Speaker 3: soon as possible and retire early. Obviously this doesn't work
13:52
Speaker 3: for many people, but there are a lot of people
13:54
Speaker 3: out there willing to try it, especially those on the
13:57
Speaker 3: younger end of the spectrum, because they simply seen have
14:00
Speaker 3: not seen bad stuff happen to bad people as those
14:03
Speaker 3: of us with a few battle scars and you know,
14:05
Speaker 3: a few decades of experience with life, I have the
14:07
Speaker 3: benefit of.
14:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I've I know personally quite a few stories
14:11
Speaker 1: of how gambling has ruined people's lives. I mean, the
14:14
Speaker 1: cautionary tales that I paid attention to throughout my life,
14:16
Speaker 1: and some people just don't learn their lesson. It just
14:18
Speaker 1: is a sad thing. And I know how easy it
14:21
Speaker 1: is to gamble these days, and I just think that, well,
14:23
Speaker 1: there is enough information out there how bad it is
14:25
Speaker 1: for you, and so don't do it.
14:29
Speaker 2: Outlawing it.
14:29
Speaker 1: I don't know this is the answer, but that young
14:32
Speaker 1: people think that's inappropriate, like mechanism toward retirement comfort. The
14:38
Speaker 1: analogy could be drawn about that, like you talk about
14:40
Speaker 1: trying to individually choose a stock or stocks and buying
14:45
Speaker 1: and selling individual stocks. That literally is gambling too, isn't
14:49
Speaker 1: Isn't it pretty much?
14:51
Speaker 2: Yeah?
14:51
Speaker 3: I mean, and that's why I don't believe in that either.
14:53
Speaker 3: I said when I was younger, that was my form
14:55
Speaker 3: of gambling. You know, I threw I think I probably
14:57
Speaker 3: told you this story before too, but I threw a
14:58
Speaker 3: thousand dollars into some internet company whose name I've forgotten,
15:02
Speaker 3: sold it six months later for two thousand dollars, and
15:04
Speaker 3: thought I was a genius.
15:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
15:05
Speaker 3: Had I held that another couple of years, it would
15:07
Speaker 3: have been worth a quarter million dollars. And I had
15:09
Speaker 3: I held it a couple of years beyond that, it
15:10
Speaker 3: would have gone through two thousand and two when it
15:12
Speaker 3: went bankrupt. So, yes, that was gambling when I was
15:15
Speaker 3: coming through the system in the in the late nineties.
15:17
Speaker 3: Now it's literally pull out your phone and bet on
15:20
Speaker 3: a politician saying this or that, or you know, a
15:23
Speaker 3: player getting a certain type of foul or something like that.
15:26
Speaker 3: It's basically you know where we used to say, let's
15:28
Speaker 3: put a price or let's slap advertising on everything out there,
15:32
Speaker 3: including the backs of bathroom stall doors. Now it's let's
15:34
Speaker 3: put a bet on every possible binary income, binary outcome
15:38
Speaker 3: that can possibly happen. Did this happen or did it
15:40
Speaker 3: not happen. Let's bet twenty bucks and find out. That's
15:43
Speaker 3: where we are now, because it's so easy.
15:45
Speaker 1: Well, and I understand it's an appealing That's why I
15:47
Speaker 1: asked you about Polly Market where they were on whether
15:49
Speaker 1: or not that if I was going to jump rates
15:50
Speaker 1: or not. It's a poll. People are always asking the
15:53
Speaker 1: general public. Two thousand people surveyed their opinion on you know,
15:55
Speaker 1: blah blah blah blah blah. This is it's a huge
15:58
Speaker 1: quantity of people that will bet or guess. So you
16:03
Speaker 1: do you have, you know, an immediate testing of the water.
16:06
Speaker 1: What the vests are just infinitely larger than polling sample
16:10
Speaker 1: numbers of people believe one way or another. So I
16:12
Speaker 1: think there is some value in getting that public perception.
16:15
Speaker 2: There absolutely is.
16:16
Speaker 3: And actually been realizing that you did ask me that,
16:18
Speaker 3: and I kind of dodged it and went off on
16:19
Speaker 3: a rant. So where polymarketing calls you both are right now,
16:22
Speaker 3: they're about fifty to fifty on hike versus no change.
16:25
Speaker 2: So but that what that tells me.
16:27
Speaker 3: I think with polymarket, with those types of things you have,
16:30
Speaker 3: I think you still have an undercurrent of people who
16:33
Speaker 3: have a gut field that they know something unexpected is
16:36
Speaker 3: going to happen and they want to bet on it.
16:37
Speaker 3: So it doesn't surprise me that there's a little more likelihood.
16:40
Speaker 3: The bond market says there's about a thirty percent chance.
16:43
Speaker 3: Polymarket says there's about a fifty percent chance. But remember
16:46
Speaker 3: polymarket is simply taking the poll of if they got
16:48
Speaker 3: one hundred people betting on stuff, half of them are
16:50
Speaker 3: betting for a rate hike. The bond market says thirty
16:53
Speaker 3: percent of them are betting on a rate hike.
16:54
Speaker 1: All right, that's just one more little at a point
16:57
Speaker 1: data point you need to factor in your polymarket wage
17:00
Speaker 1: as well.
17:00
Speaker 2: Brian James.
17:01
Speaker 1: Don't go away because I understand you got some second
17:03
Speaker 1: quarter earnings reports which are coming out. I guess trickling
17:05
Speaker 1: out perhaps a better word. We're going to go over
17:07
Speaker 1: some of those. We come back with all our financials.
17:09
Speaker 1: Brian James be right back after these brief words.
17:11
Speaker 4: Fifty five the talk station, Talk station, Hey, twenty eight
17:17
Speaker 4: fifty five KC we talk station, Brian James from all
17:20
Speaker 4: we're financial on the phone doing our money Monday segment.
17:24
Speaker 1: We talked about inflation, we talked about rate hike potentials.
17:27
Speaker 1: We talked about the forty trillion dollars national debt earlier
17:29
Speaker 1: in the segment. Now let's talk about second quarter earnings reports.
17:32
Speaker 1: How are the businesses out there doing, Brian James.
17:36
Speaker 2: Frankly, pretty good.
17:37
Speaker 3: So we're getting more and more second quard to earnings
17:39
Speaker 3: reports and exceptionally strong headlines coming out. So most s
17:42
Speaker 3: and P five hundred companies have reported corporate profits are
17:45
Speaker 3: on track for about thirty one percent growth year over years. WHOA,
17:50
Speaker 3: I know, right, and that that's pretty strong. So you know,
17:53
Speaker 3: the other tallies that show a really high share of
17:56
Speaker 3: companies that are beating earnings expectations. A lot of this
17:59
Speaker 3: of horse Go figure. It's coming out of technology and
18:02
Speaker 3: AI and so forth. You know, that's a big part
18:04
Speaker 3: of the story. But it has expanded beyond just a
18:07
Speaker 3: handful of these megacap names. And that's good news because
18:10
Speaker 3: at the end of the day, we need it not
18:12
Speaker 3: to be a bubble in one area. We need other companies,
18:15
Speaker 3: to other industries to be benefiting as well, so that
18:17
Speaker 3: we can have a more stable market. So so far,
18:20
Speaker 3: so good on the earnings front. And you know, we'll see,
18:23
Speaker 3: we'll have to see what the what the remainder shows
18:25
Speaker 3: us here over the next few a few weeks.
18:28
Speaker 1: I think history is demonstrated, and I'm a firm believer
18:30
Speaker 1: like so many other people economists, at least some of
18:32
Speaker 1: the economists that you know, if you lower taxes, you
18:34
Speaker 1: end up with more tax revenue flowing into the government.
18:36
Speaker 1: And could we argue that these successful earning supports significant
18:40
Speaker 1: increases If you talk about year over as you just mentioned,
18:43
Speaker 1: that means more tax revenue going into the federal government.
18:46
Speaker 1: So the maybe one big beautiful bills paying off in
18:49
Speaker 1: terms of boosting business productivity and resulting in more tax revenue,
18:54
Speaker 1: well it can be.
18:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well we'll have to have to wait to see,
18:56
Speaker 3: you know, we get through the full tax here to see,
18:57
Speaker 3: you know, what has actually occurred there. Remember a lot
18:59
Speaker 3: of these companies have the best tax attorneys on the
19:02
Speaker 3: face of the earth. There a lot of the atements
19:04
Speaker 3: and freedom to do this out there, so they will
19:06
Speaker 3: get super creative, sometimes a lot more innovative on the
19:09
Speaker 3: tax side than they are with product research and development.
19:13
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, I'm sure there will be an impact,
19:15
Speaker 3: but they're not going to simply allow their income to
19:18
Speaker 3: hit the margins. Remember, businesses have a lot, a lot,
19:21
Speaker 3: a lot more flexibility as to how they label their
19:24
Speaker 3: income than your average W two employee who gets a
19:27
Speaker 3: who gets a ten ninety nine on a W two
19:29
Speaker 3: handed to them, with everything already pre categorized to make
19:32
Speaker 3: any decisions anymore.
19:33
Speaker 1: Well, and I go back to the days of Nathan
19:35
Speaker 1: Backrack and Ed Fink and the Greased Palm Index that
19:38
Speaker 1: they put together, and they track the amount of money
19:40
Speaker 1: and lobbying dollars that businesses funneled into Washington, DC as
19:45
Speaker 1: that translated into their businesses doing better financially in one
19:49
Speaker 1: area where lobbyists pump a lot of money and is
19:51
Speaker 1: trying to convince politicians to change the tax code to
19:54
Speaker 1: benefit their particular business. And lord knows, that's one of
19:56
Speaker 1: the reasons why we have such a complex tax code.
19:59
Speaker 1: As I pointed up multiple times, Brian, those aren't loopholes,
20:03
Speaker 1: those are intentional provisions in the tax code. You know,
20:06
Speaker 1: this isn't an accident that that is written in such
20:09
Speaker 1: a way some entity might take advantage of it. I'm
20:11
Speaker 1: thoroughly convinced it's in there to do exactly that.
20:13
Speaker 3: Brian, Oh, absolutely, as a lobbyist, get loopholes put into
20:17
Speaker 3: the code. You know, and you were speaking of, you know,
20:20
Speaker 3: the tax industry there into it.
20:22
Speaker 2: The creator of Turbo tax. That's one of the biggest
20:25
Speaker 2: lobbies that there is.
20:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, the worst thing that can possibly happen to that
20:28
Speaker 3: company and its ability to exist is for taxes to
20:32
Speaker 3: get easier. They can't afford that. That's why we don't
20:34
Speaker 3: have some of the direct file options anymore. And remember
20:37
Speaker 3: taxes on a postcard from the first Trump campaign. Yeah,
20:40
Speaker 3: that went away as soon as as soon as the
20:42
Speaker 3: election happened. That's all because into it has one product,
20:45
Speaker 3: one major product, that is and it relies on people
20:48
Speaker 3: being scared to death of their taxes. So as long
20:50
Speaker 3: as we let lobbying run rampant and you're not going
20:52
Speaker 3: to get any benefits, the benefits.
20:54
Speaker 2: All flow upward to the corporations. That's who gets the
20:56
Speaker 2: tax cuts.
20:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just also all the independent accountants out there
21:00
Speaker 1: that do taxes. I guess I'm kind of curious to
21:02
Speaker 1: know if that standard minimum deduction that went up so
21:06
Speaker 1: high and just sort of defeated the whole point of
21:09
Speaker 1: itemizing for individual taxpayers, if that resulted in a lot
21:13
Speaker 1: fewer jobs out there in the accounting world.
21:15
Speaker 3: Well, well, I'll say here's my experience with that. I
21:19
Speaker 3: don't do taxes myself. We refer to clients. We refer
21:22
Speaker 3: clients to folks who do, and those businesses have gotten really,
21:25
Speaker 3: really expensive because people don't want to do it anymore.
21:28
Speaker 3: It's now there's just not a whole lot of creativity
21:32
Speaker 3: to it's boring job.
21:33
Speaker 2: Frankly.
21:33
Speaker 3: People come in where there's stacks of W twos and
21:35
Speaker 3: there's stacks of ten ninety nine, so there's no decision making.
21:38
Speaker 3: They're simply spending all day taking this number out of
21:40
Speaker 3: this box and typing it into that box on the
21:42
Speaker 3: form taxes, frankly, should be done by the federal government.
21:46
Speaker 3: They already know what it is. Anyway, rest assured if
21:47
Speaker 3: you mess it up, they're gonna they're gonna come back
21:49
Speaker 3: to you. So I think it ought to be prepared
21:51
Speaker 3: and presented to us as here's what we the irs think.
21:54
Speaker 3: You o argue with it or pay it and then
21:57
Speaker 3: be done with it. But rather than putting the burden
21:59
Speaker 3: on somebody to pay a couple hundred bucks for a
22:01
Speaker 3: piece of software, or several hundred dollars sneaking toward a
22:04
Speaker 3: thousand for those accountants who really don't particularly in short
22:07
Speaker 3: their jobs anymore because it has just gotten so repetitive
22:10
Speaker 3: and they just can't have much of an impact.
22:11
Speaker 1: Well, I will address the listeners who are screaming at
22:13
Speaker 1: the radio about the trust factor we have with the
22:15
Speaker 1: federal government doing it. I know we're dealing with dollars
22:17
Speaker 1: in cents reality here, so there's less less ability to
22:20
Speaker 1: fudge the numbers. But you know, it seems to me,
22:22
Speaker 1: Brian James, that you know, we do have a world
22:24
Speaker 1: with into it and the ease with which we can
22:28
Speaker 1: do our taxes by throwing numbers into that thing. But
22:31
Speaker 1: we have artificial intelligence. Now, don't you perceive a moment
22:34
Speaker 1: in time like tomorrow, even in terms of how quick
22:36
Speaker 1: technology moves, that you could put your taxes into a
22:38
Speaker 1: chat ept and would automatically do them for you at
22:41
Speaker 1: no cost.
22:42
Speaker 2: Brian, you can pretty much already do.
22:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
22:44
Speaker 2: If you try, though, all right, you're still going to
22:46
Speaker 2: have to have another eyeball on it.
22:48
Speaker 3: So that's why when I don't want the government to
22:49
Speaker 3: file my taxes for me, I want it to do
22:52
Speaker 3: my taxes so that I can argue with the outcome
22:54
Speaker 3: rather than me spending the time doing it and have
22:56
Speaker 3: them argue with it.
22:57
Speaker 1: Well, at what costs you'd shoulder the American taxpayer with
23:00
Speaker 1: the team of IRS agents that be charged with while
23:03
Speaker 1: crunching the numbers on our individual taxes, thus growing the
23:05
Speaker 1: size of government, perhaps our national debt same time, Brian, maybe.
23:09
Speaker 2: We already do it.
23:10
Speaker 3: Remember, if you mess up your taxes, they know what
23:12
Speaker 3: they're expecting you to say because everything is already programmed in.
23:15
Speaker 3: So if you mess it up, within about three years,
23:17
Speaker 3: you're gonna hear back from them. There's already computers and
23:19
Speaker 3: robots working on it.
23:20
Speaker 1: There you go, the elimination to reverse the order, the
23:22
Speaker 1: elimination of IRS jobs thanks to artificial intelligence. There's something
23:25
Speaker 1: you can ponder as you criticize artificial intelligence generally speaking,
23:29
Speaker 1: Brian James all over the board today, But I thoroughly
23:32
Speaker 1: enjoyed it, as I always do talking with you thanks
23:34
Speaker 1: for stopping by as always on a Mond