Latest / Financial Survival Network / Consumer Confidence Crash: Recession Ahead? - Anthony Saccaro #6333

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Consumer Confidence Crash: Recession Ahead? - Anthony Saccaro #6333 · Financial Survival Network

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The economy.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: You know, our United States economy is driven by GDP,
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: it's by spending money on goods and services. Seventy percent
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: of our economy is GDP driven. So as goes the consumer,
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: as goes the economy.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: You're listening to Carrie Lutz's Financial Survival Network, where you
• 0:16
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• 0:39
  Speaker 4: And welcome you are listening to and watching the Financial
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz with US economic
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: expert fellow attorney Anthony Sakaro's with us.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Anthony, great to have you back on.
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: We're getting some economic numbers coming out of the Do
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: You Think Tank here the VIEWERU of Labor Statistics and
• 1:04
  Speaker 4: Commerce Department. All that consumer confidence what does it mean? Yeah, Hi, Kerry,
• 1:10
  Speaker 4: thanks for having me back.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: The Consumer Confidence Index report really talks about how consumers
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: are feeling about what's going on today in the economic environment.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: It looks at what's going on today, how are they
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: feeling today?
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: And then.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: A different index, the expectations index built into that report,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: has them looking at what they think is going to
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: happen in the next six months, and it's ticked down
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: since August by a couple of points. I wouldn't say
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: it's necessarily meaningful, but it seems that confidence has dwined,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and you then really have to ask yourself, like, why
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: has it you know, why has it gone down? Why
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: is consumer confidence declining? Because the stock market is at
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: all time record highs, and I think it ties back
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: to the labor market, and I think the housing market
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: have something to do with it as well too.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Inflation is you know, stuck around.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: Three right, just depending on the measure that you look at,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and the Federal Reserve is kind of, you know, in
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: a little bit of a quandary because their target is
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: too so we're fifty percent above their target, and yet
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: they can't wait till it gets to two to start
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: making action. They want to see it come down, but
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: it actually actually come down, it's actually ticked up a
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: little bit. The labor market, though, is where I think
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of the issues are, both with the reason
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: that inflation is sticky and also with regards to what
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: the Federal Reserve has to do, because unemployment is starting
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: to tick up at this point, I think the latter
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: is reading on employment is four point three percent, So
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: it's not out of the range by any any means.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: We're not, you know, heading towards a catastrophe at this
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: point with four point three there's nothing wrong with that,
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: but it is.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Starting to tick up.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And under the Federal Reserve mandates, right, it's it's you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: keep inflation reasons, will keep employment reasonable. So with the
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: labor market a year and a half or two years ago,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: there were something like two jobs available for every one worker.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: Now that number is normalized now it's like a one
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to one ratio and people are having a harder time
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: finding jobs. But I had to give raises to my
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: employees within the last couple of years, raises I normally
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: wouldn't have given because they could go out and find
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: another job because it was a very strong market. Well,
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: that has to be passed on to the consumers, and
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: if it's passed on to the consumers, that is a
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: part of inflation that's sticky. You know. Grocery stores can
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: adjust their prices based on commodity prices at any given
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: point in time. But you know, imagine what would happen, Kerry,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: if I tried to go back to one of my
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: employees and say, hey, guys, sorry, I gave you a raise.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: You know, that was when the labor market was tight.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Now I get to take it back with everything's loosened up.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: It just doesn't work that way. So that's a part
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: of why it's sticky. So the Federal Reserve has competing
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: interest at this point. They've got unemployment taking up a
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: little bit, which they got to keep an eye on,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and they have inflation that's sticky, and so what do
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: they do? So they decided the lower quart of a point.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: It's expected that there'll be another quarter of a point
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: or maybe half a point by the end of the year,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: but they will be data dependent, as their favorite term is.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, So.
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: But when all this is happening, you know, the Federal
• 4:15
  Speaker 4: Reserve has another mandate. It's a stealth mandate, and that
• 4:21
  Speaker 4: is to never let the stock market go down, right,
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I mean, isn't that what it's all about? Because it's
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: the stock market's going up, then you can always say, well,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: the economy is doing great, because the stock market's doing
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: great and you have the wealth effect.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: Well, that's right, that's the Trump mandate part of the
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Federal reserve, right, And it's interesting how he's trying to
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: manipulate with Lisa, I think, and you know, get the
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: you know votes that he needs to have interest rates
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: go in the direction that he wants.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So you're absolutely right.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: It's it's not a mandate, and there really is a
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: legitimate question as to whether Jerome pal is buckling under pressure,
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: whether the Federal Reserve really does buckle and it I
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: think there's lots of different opinions across the board. I
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: don't think they do, but I will say it's just
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: an opinion. The wealth effect is interesting too. The wealth
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: effect is simply saying that when people feel good about things,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: then they spend money, and the negative wealth effects says
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: when people don't feel good about things, they don't spend
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: a lot of money, and consumers have still been resilient
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: the economy.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: You know, our United States economy is.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Driven by GDP. It's by spending money on goods and services.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Seventy percent of our economy is GDP driven. So as
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: goes the consumer, as goes the economy and throughout COVID
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: that time period, consumer saved a lot of money. There
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: was a lot of free money given to them, and
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: so they still have money to spend still, but the
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: savings rates are going down, debt rates are starting to climb,
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and so the consumer is starting to crack, and you know,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: that then causes the wonder as to whether or not there,
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: you know, are they going to crack so much at
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: some point to where we are going to tip into
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: a recession.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: They're not out of the recession woods yet, but there's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: also nothing there that tells us that we're going into
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: one for sure.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: All right, So you know, if you're a betting man
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  Speaker 4: like me to some extent certainly that went through our
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: portfolios and our personal wealth, what are the odds we're
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: going into a recession here? Stock market crash give me
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: a percentage?
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Well, from research that I've done in looking at even
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: though where there's just the course of the last few days,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: economists and professionals are putting the odds of a recession
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: that somewhere between twenty and twenty five percent in the
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: next twelve to eighteen months.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: So that's what they're saying.
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: So it's not it's not a small chance, but it's
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: also not a large chance as well too. One thing
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: I think that people have to consider those that recession
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: is not bad. It's it's almost like this our word
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and the media makes it like we don't want a recession. Well,
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: the reality is that it's not true. It's there are
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: booms and bus there are good times in bad times
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: in life. There are good times in bad times in business,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: good times and bad times in economics, and it's not
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: bad when we go through a time where it's just
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: takes us a little bit of time to reset. Businesses
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: going to reset, you get us at your personal expenses.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Things can't go up.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: All the time. This is not the way life works.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: But we try to do everything we can to avoid
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a recession, and that falls back into the mandate of
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: what the federal Reserve doesn't want. They don't want a recession,
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: and Trump doesn't want a session because then it happens
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: to fall on that president and you know he would
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: not get his third term right if there's a recession.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: So the reality is is that it's not bad, but
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: no one wants it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Everyone seems to be running.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: Away from it, right, So it's just that old saying.
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: You know, difference between a recession and a depression, recessions
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: when you're out of work, depressions when I'm out of work.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Difference between minor surgery and major surgery. Minor surgery surgery
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: that you have, major surgery surgery that I have.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: But I do agree with you that.
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: Recessions are there to clear out the excessive speculation and
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: to basically forced liquidation of bad business decisions. Because but
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: look good at two percent interest rates or no percent,
• 8:18
  Speaker 4: doesn't look so good at five percent, And all of
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: a sudden you have this come to Jesus moment where
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: the debt just isn't sustainable. But speaking of debt, what
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: about the national debt here shows no signs of abating.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: Although maybe if we have a government shutdown and it
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: lasts for quite a while, we can reduce the debt
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: that way. The president's threatening to eliminate whole departments and
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: basically get rid of hundreds of thousands of people, fire
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: them what he evidently under the shutdown legislation, he's got
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: that right to do it.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting, let's defund the police while we're at it.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: To go back to that movement, that. I don't even
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: know if that's still around.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: But you know, the reality is it's it's a silly thought,
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: right to just go fire everybody. You have to do it,
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: you know, systematically if you want to not with that that.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Don't get me wrong, I think there was a huge
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: amount of government waste.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: You know, doge getting rid of all that government waste?
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I think it is.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: I think it's a good move, but in a you know,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: you don't just go fire everybody. But we also know
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: that Trump is a lot of I don't want to
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: say talk, I don't want to say hot air, because
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: he's shown it, right, he's done.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: But he's just he's bombastic, Yeah he is.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And that's a great way of saying it. He is
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: a negotiator, right, and and that's a good startup negotiation.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, there were what one hundred and
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: fifty company our countries that we're going to have tariffs
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: on and they were all going to be this massive things,
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: and you know, the stock market dropped three thousand points
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: in a day or you know whatever that was that
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: happened back on Liberation Day and then it just you know,
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: I was interviewed on that day by some network I
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: don't remember, and I basically said, it's going to smooth
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: all out. It's just a negotiation tactic, and that's exactly
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: what it is. And now Trump area is he's kind
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: of gotten his way and I feel like things are
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: a little more on a level playing field. And he
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: does talk a lot. But you and I both those
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: attorneys at a part of negotiation is talking and how
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: you say something right. You know, you can say something
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: in a believable manner or not, and you know he
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: tends to be believable. So of course we do have
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: a lot of trillions of dollars of debts. That's one
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: of the arguments for why he wants the Federal Reserve
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: the lower rates. For every quarter point that they lower rates,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: there are still hundreds of millions of dollars an interest
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: that are being safe, you know, in that federal debt.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: So that's part of his argument. What I think maybe
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: a lot of people don't understand, though I get this
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: question a lot from consumers, even clients, and that is
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that you know, by not having that, by not having
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: the taxes where they are, you know, keeping them suppressed,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: which is I mean, obviously individuals want that but then
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: it increases the national debt. Right, The reality is that
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: that the explanation I seem to have had to have
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: a lot is explaining to people that look, when when
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: you're productive and when you have a economy that's running
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: strong and you have a lower tax rate, the dollar
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: amount of taxes is actually higher because you've got a
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: strong economy. So a lower percentage of tax on a
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: higher dollar amount equals a higher dollar amount. And I
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: almost feel like sometimes people don't understand that I'm in California.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: You know that is left as you can get, and
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: so people tend to let their ideology and their their
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: their political points of view, I think kind of cloud
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: their judgment is to realism. And you know the reality
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: is that as we grow, you can still keep taxes low.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: You can still have a healthy, threave, thriving economy, people
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: working inflation intact low tax rates and still be doing
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: very well and eventually lower that debt.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: But it also takes time.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: I talk to people all the time that we put
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: their money in certain investments, and three months later they're
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: asking me how my investments are doing.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: It doesn't work like that. It's this is the lug
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: run and it's the same thing here. It's the long
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: and the challenges.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Then one term expires, and now you get into another
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: president with a different philosophy, and by the time they're
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: just getting rolling, their term expires and you don't seem
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: to go anywhere. But you know, the stock markets that
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: record highs as a result of that, and we do
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: seem to.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Be doing okay. So I'm not going to argue, but
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm glad taxes are lower and staying low. Sure.
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: So, well, we had a couple of tax cuts that
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: appeared in that bill. Number one was maintaining the tax
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: cuts and the bonus depreciation from Trump's first tax bill,
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: no tip on taxes somewhat, no tip on, no tax
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: on Social Security somewhat. And then I think, I don't
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: remember if they got it together or not. Did they
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: raise the state and local tax exemption.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: That twenty If I'm not mistaken orty, I believe it was. Yeah,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: was a health prey. Yeah, So it was a healthy
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: raise that they did throughout that bill, and I was
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: excited about that personally.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, but you know that.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Did And the other thing that they did too, is
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: they got rid of the windfall elimination provision in the
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: government offset provision in Social Security. And you know, if
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: you're a teacher or government worker, you know exactly what
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that means, because they really were penalizing you on your
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Social security if you had work sometime in a private
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: sector or the corporate sector where you paid into Social Security,
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: but then you became a teacher and you were paying
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: into cal PERSA, you became a government worker, you were
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: paying into cal stirs the retirement systems for those different entities.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: And what would happen is if you made, if you
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: got such a good pension from sturs or pers, then
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: they would ding you on the Social Security which never
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: really made sense to me, because why should you be
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: why should you be rewarded over here and then penalized
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: over here if the numbers work and something got rid
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: of all that. That was under the tax one of
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: the tax bills that came out, I think it was
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: January fifth of this year that went into play. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: the nice thing too is it wasn't an opt in
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: or opt out. It happened automatically, you know, so that
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: they regroated it back to twenty twenty four, and so
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: you know, the teachers and government workers got up checked
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: for the previous year and then you know, will not
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: be being going forward. So I think it makes a
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: lot of sense. And yeah, but add tax bill capt
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: rates lower. But they also added these other benefits as
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: well too, so.
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: That's going to add to the debt, no doubt. But
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: on the other hand, we got these tariffs and they
• 14:26
  Speaker 4: are offsetting and effectively the tariff regardless who pays it,
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: it doesn't matter in the end if it's not being
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: paid by the consumer because the exporter ate it. Basically,
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: then theoretically the price could have been lower on those goods,
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: so the consumer's paying it, and if they raise the price,
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: then the consumer's paying it. Effectively, it's almost a vat
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: tax or an import duty tax without having to try
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: to get it passed through Congress.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: I mean that you know, tariff tax gets passed down
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: to the consumer, you know, one way or another, especially
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: when you positioned it kind of the way that you've
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: positioned it. I don't know that you know, if there's
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a ten percent tariff that you know, the product's prices
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: go up ten percent for the consumers overnight because it
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: might be eaten, you know, in in that that that
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: export process by the manufacturers and and ultimately not come
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: down to the consumer.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But when you when you look at it from the.
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Other angle, that this means they could have had blower
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: prices all along, you know, then yeah, I guess that
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: you could look at it as the consumer is overpaying
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, though it does get
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: passed on to the consumer, and it certainly, you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: it certainly could help offset the tax loss deficit that
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: has been been increased or or that potentially will increase
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: as a result of the tax bill.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: So I haven't studied those numbers.
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: To see, you know, what offsets the other, whether it's
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: an equal reduction.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But I do know the general underlying foundation that if
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you're growth oriented, you grow the economy, you incentivize companies to.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Grow it, then it works out really well as opposed
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: to government spending. You know, even within my own business
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: is the fact that taxes are lower. I have employees,
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: and I've had to make decisions in the past years
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of you know, do I pay the tax or do
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I hire another employee. It literally comes down to a decision.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: And I'm a small business. When when those decisions go
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: up to fortune five hundred companies. You know, really that
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: that tax has the ability to urge companies to hire
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: more people, which is great for the economy, more people
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: spending more GDP and so on.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Or those tax increases can cause layops.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: You know, it's the same thing like the Social Security tax.
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: You see it as an employee and your paycheck, but
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: your employer is matching it, and then it's like you're
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: paying both sides of it. It's just you're not seeing
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: the other side because if you weren't paying, if your
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: employer wasn't paying it, that money could be available for
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: your paycheck and you'd be getting higher earnings as a result.
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: So the tariffs are kind of the same way. One
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: other thing, Doge, the Trump administration announced that by January twentieth,
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six, that's the anniversary of Trump's inauguration for
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: his second term here, that they're going to be cutting
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: one hundred thousand rules and regulations from the Federal Register.
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: I guess, effectively the CFR Code federal regulations, assuming they
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: can do it, which I have no doubt they can,
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: if the desires. They're using an AI tool to go
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: through every single rule and regulation all the outdated. What
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: effect do you think that's going to have on the economy.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so when you know mentioned one hundred thousand, I'm
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: thinking that's it, that's that's all fifty percent.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: There's two hundred thousand REGs. Fifty percent of the rigs
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: go out the window. We've already seen with mining, highway projects,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: infrastructure projects. Streamlining has you know, taken projects take ten
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: sometimes twenty years and move them up to two, three,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: four years. So we got rid of half all the
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: regulations and ignored the rest. Where does that leave us?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: The problem is that you know these regulations exist because
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: you know and I know as attorneys that it's the
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: letter of the law all the time.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Right. You can't have a subjective rule because then companies
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: are going to try to bend the rule. At least
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: that's what that's the idea behind having.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And that's why when you look at a contract that
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: basically says you and I are going to do business
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and I'm going to pay you this and you're going
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: to do this work, you know it has to be
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: a fifteen page contract that identifies everything. So the reality
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: is that if they're going to cut these regulations, I
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: mean Trump's done that before and it's worked out well.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: It hasn't been a problem.
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's almost one of those trust but
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: verify things. I think it does need to be well
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: rounded so that there are guidelines. You know, as a
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: financial advisor with Providence Financial Company I started twenty six
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: years ago, the SEC has some rules and regulations in there,
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: but it's subjective.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: There are windows.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So if you can't do anything deceitful, right, but the
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: seitful is a subjective word, what's that mean?
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: So it has to be within boundaries, and I think
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: if the rules of regulations had more boundaries around them,
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I think that companies will abide with those boundaries, just
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: like most financial advisors abide within the boundaries that they
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: are given.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: And ultimately it's great for the economy. Let us do
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: our job right, let us get out there and serve
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the consumer.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Let us get out there and help people. Are there
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: going to be mistakes that we make?
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Yes? There are.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: You know. In California where I'm at, the employment laws
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: are absolutely ridiculous. If I do one if I do
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: one thing wrong, literally, the employment laws can put me
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: out of business just for a mistake.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: It's like the vehicle code.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I was talking with the police officer the other day
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: and he threw out that there's like fifteen thousand codes
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: in the vehicle code and he basically said, oh yeah,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I know, right, and he said, you can't follow them all.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It is impossible to follow them all. It's the same
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: thing with employment law. It's impossible to follow them off
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: with the new PAGA rules and oh my gosh, it's
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: just it's ridiculous and the same thing.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: You hinder us from doing business. So many people are leaving, right.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: I think Elon Muskt left California if I because of
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: the rules and regulations. Let us do our job, Let
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: us go serve people. We're not out trying to screw everybody. Guys,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you know, and I understand that there has to be
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: some rules of regulations and that that are the one offs.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: There are the Bernie madeoffs out there, right, But the
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: reality is those guys go to jail, and when you
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: calculate the percentage of one Bernie madeoff or however many
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: of those individuals are relative to the several hundred thousand
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: advisors out there, what you're really doing is regulating everybody.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Because I'm the one person.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: Right, It's like the whole you know, one sailor is
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: drunk on the corner and the whole navy's drunk, right,
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and let us do what.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: We got to do.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So cutting the regulations, I think is a healthy step
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: for growth. If I know that, I can go and
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: hire someone, just realistic example. If I know and I go,
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I can hire someone, and if they don't work out,
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: I can fire someone.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: I will take a more chance on more people.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: But the fact is firing someone in the state of
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: California takes work, and there's a lot of liability there.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: So it comes back to hiring. I have a gal
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: right now, I'm thinking about hiring that that is potentially
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: a liability. If I have to fire her, I may
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: never hire her in the first place.
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: Just look at Europe. You can't fire anybody in Europe
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: and e youth. It's all but impossible. What Volkswagen's going
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: through now getting rid of one hundred thousand employees is
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: you know, the stuff of nervous breakdowns.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: So getting rid of these regulations.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: A lot of them are out of date, a lot
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: of them are obsolete. They serve the contrary purpose to
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: why they were passed, and a lot of them are
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: illegal now under the the repeal of the Chevron doctrine
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: of basically giving deference to regulations that are passed by agencies,
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: and kind of the court's looking the other way. Well
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: that's no longer the case. So we got really interesting
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: things because I think it's plausible that it could happen,
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: and that could unleash a tidal wave of growth in
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: the economy. Couldn't it just compliance? Let's forget about not
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: being able to do what you want to do, but
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: just trying to comply with one hundred thousand regulations is
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: billions upon billions of dollars, isn't it.
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's just it's ridiculous. It's silly. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I think they should. I mean, I think they could,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and I don't think a lot of I don't think
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: a lot of people would notice. I mean, I think
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: the employees will notice, the people that had affect. But
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's going to be a negative. The
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: positive is that economy is going to grow. We you know,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: get out of our way, let us go round our businesses,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and the economy is going to grow, that's for sure.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: That's going to be felt, but I don't think that
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: it would be felt on the back end as any
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: type of negative. What negative is going to come of that?
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: You know, I had to I had to terminate a
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: high level employee multiple months ago, and once we had
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: let this individual go, the rest of my leadership team
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: was looking around, going what did he do?
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: There was no hole. Normally, when you let someone go,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: there's a hole right has to be filled. I don't
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: think there's going to be a hole.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: I think there's going to be billions that allars saved
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: by companies like mine and you know on other companies
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: out there. I think there's going to be a net positive,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: But I don't think there's going to be a whole.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's going to be looking around going go,
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: We built that regulation win so now we can't know
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: it's not going to work like that.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: I think it's just going to happen. The economy is
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: going to grow as a result of it, and let's
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: move forward.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: Well, Hey, from your mouth to God's ears, Anthony, just
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: tell us where do we find you?
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: How do we connect with you on the web? Yeah?
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, A couple of ways you go right to my website,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Anthony Sikard. You go to Providence Financial ink dot com
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: or just search for Providence Financial Woodland Hills, California, Los Angeles, California.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: We come up all over the place, so thank you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Carrie excellent.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: Hey, any questions comments, shoot me an email kl at
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: Carrie Let's Anthony will give you an answer, I promise,
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: And while you're at it, go to Financial Survival Network
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: dot com and sign up for the free newsletter. We're
• 24:27
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• 24:31
  Speaker 4: break and slow down and get corrupted in all that
• 24:35
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• 24:39
  Speaker 4: you have done, actually it's closer to eighty. And you'll
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: get some useful information regularly. We promise you that. Anthony
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: appreciate you coming on. We'll talk to you again soon.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Gerry, glad to be here.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Carrie Letz's Financial Survival Network, your
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: solution to today's trying times. For the latest, go to
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Financial Survivalnetwork dot com. Financial Survival Network now more than
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: ever