Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Welcome themar Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 2: Well later on this afternoon, we're gonna find out what
Speaker 2: Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve are going to
Speaker 2: do as far as interest rates are concerned. Lion Jerry
Speaker 2: Powell and the gang to see what they're going to do.
Speaker 2: We've got some interesting information that proves my point. And
Speaker 2: I know I talk about interest rates a lot. I
Speaker 2: know that I harp on Lion Jerry Powell. I do
Speaker 2: that for a reason. In my opinion, I look out
Speaker 2: over the landscape. I look out everybody talking about all
Speaker 2: of a sudden, the Democrats, the liberals, and the spoon
Speaker 2: Federi gurgitators in the mainstream media are suddenly concerned about affordability.
Speaker 2: This is the same crowd that lied to us for
Speaker 2: a year and a half at the beginning of the
Speaker 2: Biden administration in twenty twenty one, when when inflation was
Speaker 2: down at one point four percent when Biden took office,
Speaker 2: one point four percent hit a high of nine point
Speaker 2: one percent a year and a half later in June.
Speaker 3: Of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: So only it took him a year and a half
Speaker 2: to go from one point four percent inflation up to
Speaker 2: nine point one. And we were told all during that time,
Speaker 2: this is just a this is transitory. This is this temporary.
Speaker 2: It's only going to last, you know, for a little while. Well,
Speaker 2: we saw gas prices go up a dollar twenty five
Speaker 2: between the beginning of the Biden administration until February of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. Then at February twenty two, once Russia
Speaker 2: invaded Ukraine, gas prices shot up to another dollar twenty five,
Speaker 2: so two dolls fifty cents increase in a gallon of gasoline,
Speaker 2: to the point in June of that year. In twenty
Speaker 2: twenty two, gas prices hit a high of across the
Speaker 2: board national average of five dollars and two cents.
Speaker 3: And where was the talk about affordability?
Speaker 2: I saw reports talking about, well, you're saying that gas
Speaker 2: prices are high because of the Russian invasion and because
Speaker 2: we're supporting Ukraine, and that's putting a crimp on the
Speaker 2: oil flow and everything. How long do you expect people
Speaker 2: to pay that higher amount? And the representative for the
Speaker 2: White House said, as long as it takes, because.
Speaker 3: We are in this to win it.
Speaker 2: We are all behind Ukraine, all right, So where was
Speaker 2: the push for the piece, where was the push for NATO?
Speaker 2: Where was the push to end this conflict? All during
Speaker 2: the Biden administration, just like the invasion on the southern border,
Speaker 2: they just turned a blind eye to it. And now
Speaker 2: all of a sudden they're lecturing us on affordability.
Speaker 3: Yet we had all.
Speaker 2: These supply chain issues, We had uh situations where uh,
Speaker 2: you know, we had certain things certainly that we're out
Speaker 2: of that were beyond control, bird flew and so on.
Speaker 2: But the response to that and how quickly the Biden
Speaker 2: administration turned their attention to that was very slow. And
Speaker 2: yet they're lecturing us now on well with interest rates
Speaker 2: going up because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates up
Speaker 2: from basically nothing up to what five and a half
Speaker 2: almost six percent as far as that overnight rate was concerned.
Speaker 2: And so that started the spiral spiraling of increased cost
Speaker 2: on your credit cards, increased costs in your car loans,
Speaker 2: truck loans, expansion mortgages, and so on. Mortgages back when
Speaker 2: Trump left office were right, we're under three three percent,
Speaker 2: down around two point eight seven, two point sixty seven
Speaker 2: something in that range and then shot up to almost
Speaker 2: seven percent during the Biden administration, who was concerned about
Speaker 2: the affordability. Then now all of a sudden, I start
Speaker 2: hearing about in January, Well, egg prices are still high. Well,
Speaker 2: birds are still dying, chickens are still being killed. You
Speaker 2: want to have diseased eggs? Do you want to get
Speaker 2: sick there when you have less When you have less chickens,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have less eggs. Oh, what about beef prices? Well,
Speaker 2: with the green news steel and the constant braidmen of
Speaker 2: the cattlemen saying that, oh, there's too much land being
Speaker 2: occupied by raising cattle and we got to cut that out.
Speaker 2: We can't allow and cutting off water flows because you know,
Speaker 2: just too many grazing pastures and so on.
Speaker 3: We're eating too much beef.
Speaker 2: And we're not you know, we're not being conscious of
Speaker 2: the environment, and so we wind up with drought situations
Speaker 2: where then instead of being able to feed grass fed
Speaker 2: beef out of the range, they had to start feeding
Speaker 2: them and cattle feed up because again laws is applying demand,
Speaker 2: because of Biden administration environmental policy and so on, So
Speaker 2: those prices went up. People started cutting their herds, and
Speaker 2: we wind up with herds that are down in the
Speaker 2: range where they were.
Speaker 3: Back in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Our population has doubled, but the amount of cattle available
Speaker 2: is down around where it was in the nineteen fifties. So
Speaker 2: we've got double the population with that much with no
Speaker 2: additional cattle in fifty years in terms of the total herd.
Speaker 2: And so laws is supply and demand affect that. And
Speaker 2: yet now we're being lectured on affordability.
Speaker 3: You have a situation.
Speaker 2: Where you bring twenty million illegal aliens into the United States,
Speaker 2: which are then given free housing, free food, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And when you put them in certain houses, those houses
Speaker 2: are there. We're not building a super number of houses
Speaker 2: and stuff availability around the country. Imagine twenty million people
Speaker 2: into the country, and so what twenty million people, Let's
Speaker 2: just say on average maybe three people per household, So
Speaker 2: you're talking about seven million new homes that have to
Speaker 2: be created. Have seven million homes been created during the
Speaker 2: four years of the Biden administration?
Speaker 3: Hell no.
Speaker 2: So what happens They are then taken and put into
Speaker 2: existing homes, which means that then people that want to
Speaker 2: move homes or move into a new location or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: The supply isn't there.
Speaker 2: So when the supply is low, then the housing prices
Speaker 2: go up. We have a median house median home price
Speaker 2: now above four hundred thousand dollars for just a regular house.
Speaker 2: And now they're talking to us about affordability.
Speaker 3: Unbelievable. And I hope lyon Jerry Powell.
Speaker 2: Or somebody close to him is listening to this program
Speaker 2: and tells him about this, because here's one of the
Speaker 2: statistics that they're not talking about. And nobody's talking giving
Speaker 2: much information and getting much discussion on home sellers are
Speaker 2: giving up at unusually high rate. According to realtor dot com,
Speaker 2: latefall tends to be the time when most homes come
Speaker 2: off the market so far unsuccessful. As so far unsuccessful
Speaker 2: sellers would rather not sit through the slowest winter months,
Speaker 2: so they don't want people tracing through the houses in
Speaker 2: the winter, and that's a not very popular time for
Speaker 2: people to go looking for homes. In October, however, d listings,
Speaker 2: which are reported with one month lag, were up forty
Speaker 2: five point five percent year to date and rose nearly
Speaker 2: thirty eight percent from October of twenty twenty four. According
Speaker 2: to a new report from realtor dot Com. The report
Speaker 2: calls it an unusually high rate. It is now the
Speaker 2: highest delisting year since Realtor dot Com started tracking these
Speaker 2: numbers back in twenty twenty two. Dlistings started with the
Speaker 2: rise in June and have remained elevated for.
Speaker 3: A five straight month.
Speaker 2: About six percent of active listings are coming off the
Speaker 2: mark Mart each month month, which is typically only seen
Speaker 2: in the debt of winter. People aren't moving the home,
Speaker 2: people aren't available that people can't afford the homes. People
Speaker 2: can't afford the interest rate that's being charged on that.
Speaker 2: And we've talked about that on this program several times.
Speaker 2: I've gone through the numbers. I said, here's what the
Speaker 2: interest rate, or here's what the payment would be if
Speaker 2: you had a three percent loan. Here's what it would
Speaker 2: be if you had a five percent loan. Here's what
Speaker 2: it would be if you had a six seven, six
Speaker 2: and a half percent loan. And the difference is almost
Speaker 2: from the three percent to the six percent is nearly
Speaker 2: seven hundred dollars a month for the same home. So
Speaker 2: imagine the home that you live in now, the mortgage
Speaker 2: that you have on that jumping seven hundred dollars per month?
Speaker 2: What would that do to your What would that do
Speaker 2: to your budget? So the fact that people are looking
Speaker 2: at that saying, well, I would have to pay seven
Speaker 2: hundred dollars more than what at three percent loan I
Speaker 2: can't afford to move into that house. And then when
Speaker 2: you take into consideration that if you look at the
Speaker 2: interest rate based on the cost of the size of
Speaker 2: the house, you can only afford a certain amount. They
Speaker 2: look at your income, They look at how much money
Speaker 2: and disposable income you have, and how much helm you
Speaker 2: can afford. Then factor in the rate the interest rate
Speaker 2: on that, and then that dictates the size of the
Speaker 2: house you can you can afford. So at whatever income
Speaker 2: level you are. The example I had, was it one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten thousand dollars? At one hundred and ten
Speaker 2: thousand dollars based on a three percent interest rate, you
Speaker 2: can afford a house that's about what was it five
Speaker 2: hundred or four hundred and fifty some thousand, Whereas at
Speaker 2: the six percent interest rate, you can afford a house
Speaker 2: one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars less than that. So,
Speaker 2: just a mere fact of three percent change in interest
Speaker 2: rates changes the amount of house that you can buy
Speaker 2: by almost one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. And this
Speaker 2: is the thing that we look at in terms of
Speaker 2: the real estate landscape, in terms of what where people
Speaker 2: can afford and what they can afford. We'll talk about
Speaker 2: a little bit more about this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon,
Speaker 2: America's Truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1: I need This is the breathing repoard on America's Truck
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Speaker 2: I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: Getting back to this story, home sellers are giving up
Speaker 2: at an unusually high rate. According to realtor dot Com,
Speaker 2: they're talking about the highest dlisting year since they began
Speaker 2: starting tracking this. I guess they started tracking the dlisting
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty two when interest rates started creeping
Speaker 2: up and they wanted to take a look at that.
Speaker 2: I don't know why they have been tracking this all along,
Speaker 2: but maybe it wasn't a problem before. Of course, if
Speaker 2: you've got three percent interest rate and booming economy, then
Speaker 2: houses on the market and the affordability is going to
Speaker 2: be there. It's only during the Biden administration when that
Speaker 2: all went to hell. In addition to most potential buyers
Speaker 2: are heading to what realtor dot Com calls refuge markets.
Speaker 2: It's almost like you should call it refugee markets. These
Speaker 2: are areas where home prices are much more affordable and
Speaker 2: didn't see the run up in prices during the first
Speaker 2: years of the pandemic.
Speaker 3: They say pandemic I call it. Now.
Speaker 2: What is also driving this up is that when people
Speaker 2: were cut out of work or you know, eliminated, jobs
Speaker 2: were eliminated. Of course, a lot of people hung on
Speaker 2: based on either unemployment and subsidies from the federal government.
Speaker 2: But then the people that still had a job and
Speaker 2: could work from home, they were taking that money. They
Speaker 2: were saving money because they weren't commuting, they weren't having
Speaker 2: that expense. They were improving their homes, they were making offices,
Speaker 2: they were building on they were going out and possibly
Speaker 2: not possibly, but they were going out and buying other homes,
Speaker 2: a larger home so that they'd accommodate both people working
Speaker 2: from home to have their own offices so that they
Speaker 2: could actually work from home productively. Then after and then
Speaker 2: people's thoughts started thinking in terms of, well, if I'm
Speaker 2: working from home and it doesn't look like I'm going
Speaker 2: back to the office anytime soon, why do I want
Speaker 2: to stay in Detroit, Michigan, or you know, a cold
Speaker 2: weather area. I could move to Florida, I can move
Speaker 2: to Texas, I can move to Arizona. I could move
Speaker 2: someplace that's more pleasant or an area that's kind of
Speaker 2: more of a resort area, I can work from anywhere,
Speaker 2: and so they moved to these hot spot areas. And
Speaker 2: of course, when you have more people moving in and
Speaker 2: you still have the limited amount of homes, build that
Speaker 2: many more homes during that period of time, so you
Speaker 2: had more people, higher demand, less supplied, those prices went up.
Speaker 2: Now we're seeing those prices kind of coming back down
Speaker 2: because again in those boom cities, some of the companies
Speaker 2: have said, hey, we want you back to work, we
Speaker 2: want you back in the office.
Speaker 3: And now you're you know, five hundred.
Speaker 2: Well thousands of miles away from your original home or
Speaker 2: your home office, you know, the company's office, and people
Speaker 2: had to make the determination do I quit my job
Speaker 2: or do I move back to that particular area. So
Speaker 2: that's some of the gyrations that are going on. And again,
Speaker 2: when you have high interest rates and you're forced to move,
Speaker 2: you're forced to buy, then those prices are going to
Speaker 2: go up. So they're talking about these things. Pre pandemic.
Speaker 2: Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor dot Com, said rising
Speaker 2: delisting and the growing of refuge markets captured the push
Speaker 2: and pull defining today's housing market. Hall does forecast at
Speaker 2: gradual improvement next year with potentially lower mortgage rates. Big
Speaker 2: surprise there, who's been talking about that on this program.
Speaker 2: More consistent supply, creating an increasingly balanced market between buyer
Speaker 2: and seller. Some of the cities that saw the most
Speaker 2: price growth over the past five years are now seeing
Speaker 2: large share of frustrated sellers. We had that story a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks ago where it talked about how the
Speaker 2: home prices in some of these hot cities back during
Speaker 2: the pandemic where people moved because they were working from
Speaker 2: home and they made the determination while hell, I can
Speaker 2: work from anywhere, those prices went up tremendously. In fact,
Speaker 2: they were saying in that particular story, if memory serves me,
Speaker 2: correct that from the time of the pandemic up to
Speaker 2: this point they had increased in value about sixty seven percent. Now,
Speaker 2: actually the terminology was from the last time the home
Speaker 2: was sold to the time now that home has come up.
Speaker 3: In sixty seven percent.
Speaker 2: Now, that may have include people that bought these homes
Speaker 2: prior to the plandemic, but during the plandemic, when prices
Speaker 2: were going up in these hot markets by ten fifteen
Speaker 2: percent on a periodic basis, that would account for some
Speaker 2: of that increase, But they had the story a few
Speaker 2: weeks ago that talked about in those markets prices could
Speaker 2: come down about seven percent. Well, if you're up sixty
Speaker 2: seven percent and your price value comes down seven percent,
Speaker 2: you're still sixty percent ahead.
Speaker 3: So you're not doing too bad.
Speaker 2: It's not like during the housing crisis back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, where your house
Speaker 2: and the amount of home you had took a forty
Speaker 2: percent haircut, where the value of your property almost overnight
Speaker 2: went down forty percent because of that housing crisis. So again,
Speaker 2: you're not having that kind of panic. You're not having
Speaker 2: that kind of a situation. You're having basically a market correction.
Speaker 2: So anyway, as she points out, some of the cities
Speaker 2: that saw the most priced growth over the past five
Speaker 2: years are now seeing the largest share of frustrated sellers. Miami, Denver,
Speaker 2: Houston saw the highest ratio of homes delisted compared to
Speaker 2: the new to With newly listed the medium price list
Speaker 2: price in November nationally was zero point four percent, four
Speaker 2: tens to one percent lower than in November of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four.
Speaker 3: According to realtor dot com.
Speaker 2: It is still however, thirty six percent higher than November
Speaker 2: of twenty nineteen. Pre pandemic new listings were up just
Speaker 2: one point seven percent year over year. So again Del
Speaker 2: and Jerry Powell get those interest rates down so that
Speaker 2: people can afford, you know, affordability in terms of homes.
Speaker 2: Price gains are much stronger in refuge markets like Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Speaker 2: where they're up five point five percent year over year.
Speaker 2: Saint Louis where they're up five percent. Cleveland, Milwaukee, and
Speaker 2: Pittsburgh round out the top performing refuge markets according to
Speaker 2: the report. The report, prices in these markets are still
Speaker 2: twenty to thirty percent lower than the national media average.
Speaker 2: Another troubling trend this vault canceled contracts. Roughly fifteen percent
Speaker 2: of home mortgage agreements were canceled in October. People get
Speaker 2: in there, they make the offer, they take a look
Speaker 2: at it, they say, okay, yeah, I think I can
Speaker 2: afford that.
Speaker 3: And the bank has given them the approval.
Speaker 2: But at some point in time they take a look
Speaker 2: at that and say, do I really want to take
Speaker 2: on that debt? Do I really want to take and
Speaker 2: commit myself to that. Do I think my job is
Speaker 2: strong enough? Do I think the industry that I'm working
Speaker 2: in is strong enough based on what I'm hearing from
Speaker 2: the spoon fed regurgitators of the mainstream media, so they
Speaker 2: hit the panic button. One person, I read an article
Speaker 2: where they were talking about that this person was actually
Speaker 2: talked out. Had a very strong job, stable job, upward
Speaker 2: mobility and so on, but a friend talked her out
Speaker 2: of buying the home because why do you want to
Speaker 2: be tied down to a mortgage, Which really doesn't make
Speaker 2: much sense to me, But that's some of the stuff
Speaker 2: going on. Regionally, San Antonio saw the most canceled deal
Speaker 2: with more than that was one of the hot markets
Speaker 2: where people moved to more than one in five twenty
Speaker 2: one percent pending home sales falling through in October. It
Speaker 2: was followed by Fort Lauderdale at twenty percent, fort Worth
Speaker 2: at nineteen percent, and so on down to Jacksonville, Florida
Speaker 2: at nineteen point two percent. Now, so when you look
Speaker 2: at these situations, and we look at these mortgage rates
Speaker 2: and the fact that people are backing out of contracts,
Speaker 2: the fact that people they are trying to sell her
Speaker 2: home and it's on the market and it's sitting there
Speaker 2: for a long period of time. They want to delist
Speaker 2: that because you know, they just want hopefully that the
Speaker 2: situation will improve. Now I've dug into this a little
Speaker 2: bit further, and I thought, you know, I got to
Speaker 2: thinking about, all right, I've been hearing things about how
Speaker 2: interest rates have been in other countries and how they
Speaker 2: are compared to the United States. Now I went through
Speaker 2: and I found this particular comparison United States. We have
Speaker 2: right now an average of where is that United States
Speaker 2: is at on average six point three three percent for
Speaker 2: a thirty year fixed mortgage. All right, go to one
Speaker 2: of the lowest in the world. Switzerland one point nine
Speaker 2: seven percent, the Euro Area all of Europe basically two
Speaker 2: point four to two percent, the Netherlands two point six
Speaker 2: eight percent, Italy two point seventy nine, Croatia three percent,
Speaker 2: Spain three point one point five one three, rather, France
Speaker 2: at three point four to three, Ireland at three and
Speaker 2: a half percent. Maybe that's why Rosie O'Donnell moved over there.
Speaker 2: It was cheaper mortgage. Germany at three point six percent,
Speaker 2: All these countries that are below four percent, and the
Speaker 2: United States is at six point what did I say,
Speaker 2: six point three to three we are down there near Romania, Moldava, Australia,
Speaker 2: Promote Peru, Jamaica and thereabouts. So we are let me see,
Speaker 2: on the list we are thirty six, So of the
Speaker 2: top of the lowest interest rates in the world, we
Speaker 2: are at thirty six as opposed to number one. So
Speaker 2: the affordability factor comes into play. What I was talking
Speaker 2: about earlier, the type of house that you can afford,
Speaker 2: the size house you can afford at three percent loan
Speaker 2: versus six point three percent is dramatic. And the fact
Speaker 2: that Lion Jerry Powell keeping these prices high. Hopefully we'll
Speaker 2: get some a little bit of a rate cut from him.
Speaker 2: I think it should be a half a percentage point,
Speaker 2: but more than likely it'll be a quarter percentage point anyway.
Speaker 2: Coming up, we've got information from the National Iteration of
Speaker 2: Independent Business, their survey. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck In
Speaker 2: Network seven hundred w LW.
Speaker 5: Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
Speaker 5: rest of the country and the Try State over nightclouds
Speaker 5: increasing with rain lightly near day break, the low down
Speaker 5: to thirty seven rain Wednesday, then a chance of rain
Speaker 5: and snow showers by late afternoon, hies into the mid forties,
Speaker 5: mostly Claudi Thursday and colder, a high of thirty three,
Speaker 5: mostly Claude Friday, with a chance of snow, then a
Speaker 5: chance of rain and snow in the afternoon a high
Speaker 5: of thirty seven. Nationally, several days of heavy rain seen
Speaker 5: in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, as snow will
Speaker 5: fall on higher mountain elevations. A strong clipper system bringing
Speaker 5: a thread of heavy snow and high winds across the
Speaker 5: upper Midwestern Great Lakes region, as well as portions of
Speaker 5: the interior, Northeast and Appalachians.
Speaker 2: Seven hundred w l W I Kevin Gordon, is America
Speaker 2: struck in network. I gotta apologze. I've got a little
Speaker 2: bit of stuffy nose today. Earlier, well this afternoon, I
Speaker 2: just to well, we had some plants that were, you know,
Speaker 2: on the deck and they've pretty much died off as
Speaker 2: the result of the frost and everything, and I thought,
Speaker 2: you know, this would be a good time to take
Speaker 2: those up to the dumpster and get rid of them
Speaker 2: and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know what was in there.
Speaker 2: I know that I've got, you know, allergies as far
Speaker 2: as pollen in the spring, and then we got hay
Speaker 2: fever in the winter or in the fall. I don't
Speaker 2: know what got in my nose today, but something's got
Speaker 2: going on, and I've been sneezing and hacking and all
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff. So I apologize for that, but
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm tough. We'll muddle through here. We
Speaker 2: had a report I got released from the Small Business
Speaker 2: Optimism Index. They call it the Small Business Economic Trends
Speaker 2: Report sb E t that almost I don't go into that,
Speaker 2: but a National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index rose
Speaker 2: point eight percent or eight points rather in November to
Speaker 2: ninety nine and remained.
Speaker 3: Above it's fifty two year average of ninety eight.
Speaker 2: So we're a full percentage point above the average over
Speaker 2: the last fifty two years. You would think that the
Speaker 2: mainstream media would applaud that. Hell no, they're trying to
Speaker 2: bury that. They're not talking about that. I guarantee you
Speaker 2: that if that was a full percentage point below what
Speaker 2: the fifty two year average was, we would hear NonStop.
Speaker 2: That would be leading the news cycle. But the fact
Speaker 2: that it's a good number. The spoon fed regurgitators of
Speaker 2: the mainstream media aren't going to applaud that because, again,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, they are trying to manufacture recession. They're
Speaker 2: trying to put the idea in people's head. Again, this
Speaker 2: is more gaslighting from them. These are the same people
Speaker 2: that allowed the current previous administration to tell us that
Speaker 2: the border was closed, told us lies about COVID, told
Speaker 2: us that Joe Biden was not suffering from age or
Speaker 2: dementia or whatever, that he was perfectly fit to be
Speaker 2: in office, And now all of a sudden, we've got
Speaker 2: these reports. We actually had a report the other day
Speaker 2: from the New York Times that said that, according to
Speaker 2: certain sources, Joe Biden was warned about the influx of
Speaker 2: migrant illegals at the border, and yet they chose to
Speaker 2: do nothing about it. They were warned about certain things
Speaker 2: all along, people were talking about there's books out now
Speaker 2: where they talking to Joe Biden. He didn't seem to
Speaker 2: be with it, and it wasn't part of the conversation
Speaker 2: that he the operations at the White House would shut
Speaker 2: down at ten o'clock in the morning and there would
Speaker 2: be any other public appearances or any of that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff.
Speaker 3: Now they're talking.
Speaker 2: About his decline where all along anybody that challenged that,
Speaker 2: anybody that brought that up, you just don't know what
Speaker 2: you are?
Speaker 3: You a doctor, Do you know what you're talking about?
Speaker 3: How do you know what he has?
Speaker 2: Well? How do you know whether he's suffering from demanchia
Speaker 2: or something along those lines. Now, all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they're medical experts as far as Trump is concerned. He
Speaker 2: gets a bruising on his hand or something like that,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you know, he's
Speaker 2: going to die tomorrow or something along those lines. It
Speaker 2: just it infuriates me that they told us how great
Speaker 2: the economy was under Biden when the prices went out
Speaker 2: of control, and now and we all knew.
Speaker 3: That they were out of control.
Speaker 2: Now they're trying to tell us how bad things are
Speaker 2: when things are turning around. When you look at energy prices,
Speaker 2: when you look at what's going on as far as
Speaker 2: oil and gas prices, we are now down below three
Speaker 2: dollars a gallon of gasoline, where just a few months
Speaker 2: ago we were up around three dollars and forty cents
Speaker 2: a gallon. It just infuriates me. And when people start
Speaker 2: talking about well, price comparisons compared to what I pointed
Speaker 2: out on this program time and time again. I do
Speaker 2: the grocery shop. I do the majority of the grocery
Speaker 2: shopping in this house, in my household, because I enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I'm one of the few men I know that enjoy
Speaker 2: that and going to the store looking at the prices
Speaker 2: on a regular basis and seeing how they will put
Speaker 2: certain things on sale this week. Then they will go
Speaker 2: back up to the regular price for a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks and then come back down depending upon when they're
Speaker 2: buying that.
Speaker 3: If you're buying that.
Speaker 2: In an up cycle, of course, the price is going
Speaker 2: to be up if you're not paying attention to what
Speaker 2: you're paying, if you're not paying attention to how much
Speaker 2: you're spending, if you're not taking advantage of the digital
Speaker 2: coupons or any of that sort of stuff. And I've
Speaker 2: talked about that on this program several times. I talked
Speaker 2: about this on our sister station when I filled in
Speaker 2: there right around almost day before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Eve, and
Speaker 2: I had a couple of people call in and they say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I talk to my family members all the time. They
Speaker 2: always talk about how they just go into the grocery
Speaker 2: store and grab what they need to walk out.
Speaker 3: I see that all the time.
Speaker 2: There's it's interesting when you go depending upon what particular
Speaker 2: store you go to, it kind of has a vibe
Speaker 2: to it depending upon what neighborhood it's in. If you
Speaker 2: go to a more established neighborhood, the pace is a
Speaker 2: little bit slower. But then there's a store near here.
Speaker 2: And we've got two stores within about three miles of
Speaker 2: each other. That one is in a more suburban area
Speaker 2: and then one is in more of kind of a
Speaker 2: hotspot type of thing. So you see people racing through
Speaker 2: the parking lot and I'm surprised there's not accidents there.
Speaker 2: I mean, driving thirty five miles an hour down the
Speaker 2: aisle of a parking lot and a grocery store. It
Speaker 2: just absolutely infuriates me. But anyway, that's the story for
Speaker 2: another day. But the way the store is set up,
Speaker 2: they have an entrance on one hand or one side,
Speaker 2: and an entrance on the other, and that flow in
Speaker 2: the suburban areas you go in. At least in our store,
Speaker 2: you go in, you go to the right, you start
Speaker 2: going up and down the aisles that way. But in
Speaker 2: this other store they've got entrances on both ends, so
Speaker 2: people will come in one entrance and come in the
Speaker 2: other entrance. And when you watch people instead of up
Speaker 2: and down the aisle, it's like they're crossing over. They're
Speaker 2: crossing in front of people. People are going instead of
Speaker 2: one direction down the aisle, there's like, you know, it
Speaker 2: seems like in a situation, there's like people going in
Speaker 2: three different directions. And then of course you have the
Speaker 2: people that are going down the aisle. They look like
Speaker 2: they're looking for something and they stop dead in their
Speaker 2: tracks and do a U turn and try to come
Speaker 2: back out. And the frenetic pace of some of these
Speaker 2: stores where and I guess it's more of the younger
Speaker 2: people stopping by after work or whatever. It's it's nuts
Speaker 2: and to the point where you go in there and
Speaker 2: you see these people and they just they're going down
Speaker 2: the aisle.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember years ago, there was
Speaker 3: a show where I.
Speaker 2: Can't remember the name of of the TV show, but
Speaker 2: it was one of these things where they ask questions
Speaker 2: and you depend upon the number of answers you had.
Speaker 2: If you won, you had like a minute to go
Speaker 2: through or five minutes to go through. The store to
Speaker 2: see if you can whoever went through the store and
Speaker 2: got the most groceries, they would win that particular contest.
Speaker 3: And you'd see these people running up and down the aisle.
Speaker 3: Just as they're running.
Speaker 2: By their grabbing stuff off the shelf and stuffing in
Speaker 2: their baskets. They run back to the meat as'll throw
Speaker 2: everything in there and just run up to the checkout.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it reminds me of that going into these stores
Speaker 2: where people are just grabbing stuff off off the shelf
Speaker 2: and not even taking the time to even look at
Speaker 2: the price, look at the expiration dates or any of
Speaker 2: that sort of stuff, and they just buy the stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's just franatic. But anyway, calming down looking at
Speaker 2: the grocery prices, knowing what patterns there are, looking at
Speaker 2: the different ads from the different stores to see what's
Speaker 2: on sale, and then play in your day or play
Speaker 2: in your shopping experience. Okay, if I'm going to be
Speaker 2: in this neighborhood on this particular day on my way
Speaker 2: home or whatever from work, this store here has the
Speaker 2: best price on a couple of items, so I'll stop
Speaker 2: in there, pick up a few items, and come home.
Speaker 2: It's just amazing to me how they try to talk
Speaker 2: about some of these I don't. The grocery prices that
Speaker 2: we use in the Gordon household are basically about the
Speaker 2: same as what they have been over the last couple
Speaker 2: of years, simply because they are the items that they
Speaker 2: put on sale, and you wait for the sales and
Speaker 2: you buy a couple at a time. So any of
Speaker 2: that so anyway, getting this National Federation of Independent Business Association,
Speaker 2: the National Federation of Small Business Optimism Index I guess
Speaker 2: I mentioned rose point eight points to November to ninety nine,
Speaker 2: which is above the fifty two year average or fifty
Speaker 2: two year average of ninety eight. An increase in those
Speaker 2: experiencing sales those expecting real sales to be higher contributed
Speaker 2: most to the rise of the optimism index. The uncertainty
Speaker 2: index rose three percent three points from October to ninety one,
Speaker 2: an increase of owners reportedly uncertain about capital expenditures, planning,
Speaker 2: and so on, according to the NFIB Chief Economists built
Speaker 2: Doug Dunkelberg. Although so optimism increased, small business owners are
Speaker 2: still frustrated by the lack of qualified workers. Despite this,
Speaker 2: more firms still planned to continue new jobs in the
Speaker 2: near future. So so much for a job market. Slowdown,
Speaker 2: pick this up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck
Speaker 2: In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
Speaker 1: News Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio Station Guarantee Human
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLW, HI Hard Radio.
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Speaker 3: When it's time to hit the road, time is we're talking.
Speaker 2: About this National Federation of Independent Businesses survey O the
Speaker 2: Optimism Report. And if you've missed that any of our
Speaker 2: previous segments for around of our shows, hit up that
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app brought to you.
Speaker 3: Buyer friends at Rust Truck Centers.
Speaker 2: One of the key things in here that they bring up,
Speaker 2: and it's kind of almost a throwaway paragraph. The average
Speaker 2: rate paid on short maturity loans was seven point nine
Speaker 2: percent in November, down point eight percent from October. Now,
Speaker 2: these are the short term borrowing that businesses do. If
Speaker 2: you're not familiar with that, you may have a situation
Speaker 2: where you're maybe a little short on payrolls, short on cash,
Speaker 2: not short on profits or whatever, but you just have
Speaker 2: a slow cash flow, so you need to borrow short term,
Speaker 2: like maybe thirty sixty ninety days. But the interest rate
Speaker 2: on that is seven point nine percent. Years ago, that
Speaker 2: was in the neighborhood of two and a half to
Speaker 2: three percent. So now all of a sudden, your borrowing
Speaker 2: costs on just that short term loan goes up dramatically,
Speaker 2: and of course, that affects your bottom line. Some of
Speaker 2: the other key features out of this, they were saying
Speaker 2: that out of these areas, I think what was it
Speaker 2: they said, out of the numbers that there were of
Speaker 2: the increases, there were ten out of eighteen that were
Speaker 2: up and in the positive direction.
Speaker 3: Some of them. Plan to increase.
Speaker 2: Employment of nineteen percent, up four percent from the previous survey.
Speaker 2: Expect economy to improve fifteen percent. That's down five percent
Speaker 2: from the previous period. Expect real sales to be higher,
Speaker 2: up fifteen percent. Let me see expected credit conditions. They
Speaker 2: expect that to go down by five percent. So again,
Speaker 2: a lot of these things are trending in the right direction.
Speaker 2: And when you have things trending in the right direction,
Speaker 2: they tend to go in the right direction, and that
Speaker 2: improves people's optimism. Now, cutting back to the survey or
Speaker 2: the overview commentary, let me get back here to that
Speaker 2: they're talking about. The economy has been doing reasonably well,
Speaker 2: and so have small businesses. Consumer spending is solid, but
Speaker 2: the real driver of GDP growth is the massive level
Speaker 2: of AI investment spending, including investment in electricity generation. The
Speaker 2: administration is making substantial policy changes elevating the level of
Speaker 2: uncertainty as owners weight for resolutions. Again, when you're making
Speaker 2: policy resolutions, when you're changing certain policies, those are for
Speaker 2: the better, such as the emissions controlled the miles per
Speaker 2: gallon being reduced last week talking about how that's going
Speaker 2: to affect the overall price of cars. Owners have been
Speaker 2: frustrated by the lack of qualified workers available to fill
Speaker 2: open positions.
Speaker 3: Job openings were above the historical.
Speaker 2: Average all year compensation has increased, So compensation has increased.
Speaker 2: That's not tariff related. So if prices are going up
Speaker 2: because of a payroll then that's a whole nother story.
Speaker 2: But few new workers were actually hired. Excluding government supported jobs.
Speaker 2: Private sector job growth was weak. The most recent report
Speaker 2: September inflation rate was three percent, still above the Fed's
Speaker 2: target range. Now listening of going through and some of
Speaker 2: the comments made by the respondents in this survey, we
Speaker 2: can expand, expand due to lack of raw materials and employees.
Speaker 2: This is from a business in Wisconsin, steady increase in
Speaker 2: pay over the years. We hire a ton of college
Speaker 2: students and it works out wonderfully. High school students as well,
Speaker 2: Struggling to find full time employees who will stay for
Speaker 2: more than one year. I am struggling with finding management
Speaker 2: and good responsible employees who don't have other responsibilities. Labor
Speaker 2: costs are always high, on the thirty five percent on
Speaker 2: average or more. That's from a company in Missouri from
Speaker 2: a company in California. The general cost of goods and
Speaker 2: materials have significantly increased consistently since twenty twenty. Well, of course,
Speaker 2: I mean you're talking about a five year period of time.
Speaker 2: Payroll taxes are higher, and insurance is almost impossible to
Speaker 2: afford health, liability and workers' compensation. How does that have
Speaker 2: anything to do with the tariffs? That is all government
Speaker 2: regulations and the government mandates. So it's that hidden cost
Speaker 2: of businesses. Taxes in general have increased, state and local
Speaker 2: and our property taxes have an itemization for tax codes
Speaker 2: a mile long. California is slowly suffocating and it is
Speaker 2: a desperate need of help. Many businesses, such as ours,
Speaker 2: have already closed. I fear that unless there are more
Speaker 2: positive incentives, tax breaks, cuts, and affordable costs and materials,
Speaker 2: many more will close, relocate, or downsize or leave the state.
Speaker 2: Now that's California from Florida, labor needs to labor needs
Speaker 2: are never met. The quality of workers is very poor. Now,
Speaker 2: is that the quality of workers in terms of education levels,
Speaker 2: what they know, what their ability to show up for
Speaker 2: work or something along those. Is that a reflection on
Speaker 2: our education system? Possibly? Job openings rise slightly after surging
Speaker 2: in September, fewer workers quitting their jobs. This is according
Speaker 2: to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey better known
Speaker 2: as JOLTS. JOLTS reported on Tuesday talking about the job
Speaker 2: openings increased twelve thousand to seven point six seven million
Speaker 2: in October. Hiring decreases two hundred and eighteen thousand, quits
Speaker 2: decline the most in nearly two and a half years.
Speaker 2: The number of people quitting their job is down to
Speaker 2: the lowest level in two and a half years. Again
Speaker 2: back to this no fire policy of where people are well.
Speaker 2: I guess in the past, when jobs were plentiful, people
Speaker 2: would actually quit their job before landing another job, thinking
Speaker 2: that the job market is so strong, you know, obviously
Speaker 2: it's generally the rule of thumb is that you make
Speaker 2: sure that you have a job to go to before
Speaker 2: you quit your current job. But the number of people
Speaker 2: quitting their jobs is down to a two and a
Speaker 2: half year low, which I think is a very interesting trend.
Speaker 2: Let's see anything else in here. With the labor market wobbly,
Speaker 2: fewer workers are job hopping in search of greener pastures,
Speaker 2: pointing to benign wage inflation. So people are not jumping
Speaker 2: because the informator of the stuff isn't out there now
Speaker 2: what we're seeing as far as gas and oil prices, again,
Speaker 2: the energy prices are important because they cross all segments.
Speaker 2: There isn't a business out there that doesn't rely on energy.
Speaker 2: Every business relies on electricity or energy to put on
Speaker 2: the lights, to run the machinery, to do anything within
Speaker 2: that particular company. Looking at West Texas Intermediate CRUIT, it
Speaker 2: is at fifty eight dollars, well below that's sixty dollars
Speaker 2: a barrel margin, which people said, oh, it will never
Speaker 2: get below sixty dollars a barrel. Again, that's fifty eight
Speaker 2: dollars and twenty five cents, down sixty three cents from yesterday.
Speaker 2: Just since January, the twentieth West Texas Intermediate creued is
Speaker 2: down eighteen dollars and sixty four cents of barrel, or
Speaker 2: twenty four percent. Talk about affordability. Well, when you whack
Speaker 2: off twenty four percent of the cost of anything, that's
Speaker 2: going to have an impact. As far as down the stream,
Speaker 2: Brent crude currently is sixty one dollars in ninety five
Speaker 2: cents of barrel, down a little over fifty cents a barrel.
Speaker 2: Just since January, Brent crude is down seventeen dollars and
Speaker 2: ninety five cents of barrel. That's a twenty two percent decrease.
Speaker 2: We're seeing gas prices come down. Current average gasoline nationwide
Speaker 2: is two dollars ninety five cents. Diesel is a three
Speaker 2: dollars and sixty nine cents a gallon compared to this time.
Speaker 2: And again I've been stressing this, and when you go
Speaker 2: back down to the Trumpet administration in the first term
Speaker 2: on this in twenty twenty, in December of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: gasoline was a two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon.
Speaker 2: And what I've been saying all along is that if
Speaker 2: we look at the fact that that oil prices have
Speaker 2: come down twenty five percent, I would have expected to
Speaker 2: see gas prices come down twenty five percent as well.
Speaker 2: So if you're talking about a year ago when gas
Speaker 2: prices worth thirty three dollars and two cents a gallon.
Speaker 2: I would think that a ten percent reduction of that
Speaker 2: of about thirty thirty cents would take the current gas
Speaker 2: price down to about two sixty more in line with
Speaker 2: that two dollars and twenty five cents. We're getting there.
Speaker 2: It's just a matter of time to get it down there,
Speaker 2: and that people that have its way to working its
Speaker 2: way through the economy, because if it's costing you less
Speaker 2: to fill up your truck, your cost of your operation
Speaker 2: is going to go up, or you know your your
Speaker 2: costs are going to go down and your profits are
Speaker 2: going to go up. There seems to be some discussions
Speaker 2: to whether or not there's going to be an oil glot,
Speaker 2: but we'll see on that in the coming months. Well, folks,
Speaker 2: that does it for us, Stay tuned for EDI Radio
Speaker 2: at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America
Speaker 2: Struck In Network seven hundred WLW