Speaker 1: This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2: Ware.
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Speaker 4: Got to start off with a update on Hurricane Melissa.
Speaker 4: If the eye has approached and is on Jamaica and
Speaker 4: it's a slow moving storm, and our hearts and prayers
Speaker 4: go out to the folks of Jamaica because this is
Speaker 4: a Category five hurricane, one of the strongest ones on record.
Speaker 4: And I, you know, I guess my geography is off,
Speaker 4: and I'm not all that aware or familiar with Jamaica.
Speaker 4: You know, you think in terms of all these commercials
Speaker 4: you see for those resort areas, and all they ever
Speaker 4: do is focus on the beaches and so on, and
Speaker 4: you just think, okay, that's pretty much it. But the
Speaker 4: the pictures and the stuff that I was seeing in
Speaker 4: terms of how Jamaica is built, there's an awful lot
Speaker 4: of hills there. And the one guy was talking about that,
Speaker 4: and I don't know if it's continuing to go on,
Speaker 4: but they said that Jamaica is basically a confluence of
Speaker 4: all these I guess plates in terms of the you know,
Speaker 4: the shifting of the of the land, and that these
Speaker 4: plates are pushing together and pushing the island actually higher
Speaker 4: out of the ocean, and a lot of these buildings
Speaker 4: are built on these hillsides, and with these steep hillsides,
Speaker 4: with the mount of rain that they're going to be getting,
Speaker 4: the amount of flow, I mean, you not only have
Speaker 4: the surge of the of the hurricane coming in off
Speaker 4: the water, but then you've got the foot of rain,
Speaker 4: two feet of rain, et cetera, hitting these mountains and
Speaker 4: then coming down and flowing into the cities, and it
Speaker 4: is just going to be an absolute mess. So again,
Speaker 4: our hearts and prayers are going out to those people.
Speaker 4: I was not aware of how high and how hilly
Speaker 4: that area of Jamaica is. All I've ever seen is
Speaker 4: pictures of the beaches and so on. Now, of course,
Speaker 4: once the hurricane Melissa is finished with them, moves on
Speaker 4: to Dominican Republic and then across the way and then
Speaker 4: goes into hopefully going to just hit the southeastern portion
Speaker 4: of Cuba, but that is the area where Quantanamo Bay is,
Speaker 4: and then they're talking about where it moves on from
Speaker 4: there on to the Bahamas. But again, the trajectory of
Speaker 4: this storm looks like it's going to be heading northeast
Speaker 4: away from this area, and depending upon how it turns
Speaker 4: and what it turns and where it turns, hopefully it'll
Speaker 4: miss part of the Bahamas and hopefully maybe just nick
Speaker 4: the ends of Cuba. But of course we'll keep our
Speaker 4: eye on that particular storm. It is just they were
Speaker 4: telling you about that this hurricane season. Now, we have
Speaker 4: not seen a direct landfall in the United States. This
Speaker 4: hurricane season began June first and ends November thirtieth, knock
Speaker 4: on wood that we won't have a direct hit. But
Speaker 4: we have had some storm surges as a result of
Speaker 4: some of these passing storms hitting the outer banks there
Speaker 4: around Cape Hatteras and whatever, North Carolina, and I think
Speaker 4: there were about twelve houses that are on stilts and
Speaker 4: whatever because of the storm surge actually got destroyed. But
Speaker 4: for the most part we have escaped. But they said
Speaker 4: that this is one of the most active. The record
Speaker 4: number of five category five hurricanes that have been in
Speaker 4: the Atlantic Ocean the record this is going to be
Speaker 4: the well so far going to be the second highest
Speaker 4: at three hurricanes that are category five.
Speaker 3: Now the other two pretty much stayed out.
Speaker 4: In the middle of the ocean and then veered off,
Speaker 4: so you know, I don't care how many Category five
Speaker 4: hurricanes there are out in the ocean that never make landfall.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're going to have ten out there for
Speaker 4: all I care, just as long as it doesn't hit
Speaker 4: the land. But apparently back in two thousand and five
Speaker 4: there were actually four storms that got up to a
Speaker 4: category five, so they still got about a little about
Speaker 4: a month and a half left, a little over a
Speaker 4: month and a couple of weeks anyway till the end
Speaker 4: of the hurricane season, and hopefully we won't have any
Speaker 4: more category five hurricanes, or if we're going to have them,
Speaker 4: stay the hell off the you know, out in the ocean,
Speaker 4: and so on. We talked yesterday about food prices and
Speaker 4: talked about inflation, and the thing that kept catching my
Speaker 4: eye just I am not downplaying the fact that there
Speaker 4: is some inflation. Okay, when you're looking at hot prices
Speaker 4: going up about two percent two and a half percent
Speaker 4: on a yearly basis, that adds up over time. But
Speaker 4: when you look at the way the spoon fed regurgitators
Speaker 4: in the mainstream media are characterizing this, this is the
Speaker 4: kind of talk, This is the kind of expectations I
Speaker 4: would have seen from the spoon fed regurgitators. Back in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, when we were
Speaker 4: having four and a half five and a half percent,
Speaker 4: we had one month where there was nine and a
Speaker 4: half percent increase in inflation in the month of June
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty two. We saw gas prices in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two getting as high as a national average across
Speaker 4: the board. Now in California it was a lot higher, obviously,
Speaker 4: but across the board, the average gas price in the
Speaker 4: United States was at five dollars a gallon. The average
Speaker 4: price now is around three h three to three h four.
Speaker 4: I think what's the number three? Yeah, three oh four,
Speaker 4: And so prices have come down considerably from there, and
Speaker 4: yet everybody wants to talk about, oh, fuel prices were
Speaker 4: up four point one percent, whereas I'm looking at numbers
Speaker 4: from last month and gas prices a month ago, we're
Speaker 4: at three thirteen and we're down nine cents almost ten
Speaker 4: cents a gallon from that. So where they're coming up
Speaker 4: with these numbers and every time they do one of
Speaker 4: these analysis, I think the Wall Street Journal, or was
Speaker 4: that the New York Times did an analysis a couple
Speaker 4: of couple of months ago, and they were saying, well,
Speaker 4: just take a focus on in New York at the
Speaker 4: Walmart center there, and there are some prices that have
Speaker 4: gone up fifty two percent. And pulling out that numbers,
Speaker 4: digging through the details and stuff, what we found or
Speaker 4: what I just looked at in terms of that was
Speaker 4: that this was a item imported from China. It was
Speaker 4: a pot and pan set from Drew Barrymore called Beautiful
Speaker 4: or whatever it was. That it went from ninety nine
Speaker 4: dollars up to one hundred and forty nine dollars. And
Speaker 4: this was an item imported from China. This isn't the
Speaker 4: best cookware available. There aren't other alternatives, not like there's
Speaker 4: not other alternatives out there. And if they want want
Speaker 4: to raise those prices, if the Chinese labor there, and
Speaker 4: we talked about at the time, how.
Speaker 3: The labor over there is so cheap that.
Speaker 4: They're only paying something along the lines of between five
Speaker 4: dollars and seven dollars an hour, whereas in the United
Speaker 4: States we're paying thirty six thirty seven dollars an hour
Speaker 4: and including benefits and so on. But that five dollars
Speaker 4: and seven dollars over in China includes no benefits, no
Speaker 4: vacation time, no workers, got none of this stuff. And
Speaker 4: yet our employers over here are paying thirty seven dollars
Speaker 4: on average for employees in terms of benefits and everything else.
Speaker 3: Now that's across the board.
Speaker 4: And so with that kind of a margin, the Chinese
Speaker 4: companies that are manufacturing these items, they could absorb some
Speaker 4: of these tariffs the importer. The exporter could absorb some
Speaker 4: of it the import. And we've gone through this scenario.
Speaker 4: So it was a basically the bottom line is a
Speaker 4: BS argument. BS article that was just trying to stir
Speaker 4: the pot. And I keep saying that if I keep
Speaker 4: looking at these stories from the spoon feder regurgitators in
Speaker 4: the mainstream media, and it appears as though that they
Speaker 4: are trying to talk down the economy, talk down what's
Speaker 4: going on as far as economic policy is concerned, and
Speaker 4: they are trying to manufacture recession, and they are failing
Speaker 4: miserably because things are humming along. We see that as
Speaker 4: far as the unemployment rate, we see that as numbers
Speaker 4: of the jobs created, although it's flat, there aren't very
Speaker 4: many layoffs, and we see the unemployment numbers where those
Speaker 4: aren't increasing dramatically, and when you see two percent increase
Speaker 4: in prices and stuff like that across the board, it's
Speaker 4: pretty much on average of what they were talking about before.
Speaker 4: And we'll get into a lot of this because we
Speaker 4: want to talk a little bit more about it. But
Speaker 4: the one thing that popped out it seems like when
Speaker 4: they're talking about food prices, all they were, you know,
Speaker 4: at the beginning of the year, all it was was eggs, eggs, eggs,
Speaker 4: eggs are up forty two percent. Fit Trump's not bringing
Speaker 4: those is down. Well, now that those prices are down
Speaker 4: compared to last year, all of a sudden, well they've
Speaker 4: got to shift categories and talk about coffee and beef.
Speaker 3: We'll pick this up.
Speaker 4: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network, seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 5: I do.
Speaker 1: This is the briefing repord on America's Trucking Network on
Speaker 1: seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 6: NASCAR holds its Championship weekend in Phoenix. The Truck Champ
Speaker 6: will be crowned on Friday, Xfinity Champion Saturday, then the
Speaker 6: Cup Champ on Sunday. Who will win the Cup Series
Speaker 6: twenty twenty five title. The King, Richard Petty and his
Speaker 6: longtime crew chief Dale Endment on their picks on the
Speaker 6: Petty Podcast, Will it be Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Kyle
Speaker 6: Larson or William Byron?
Speaker 7: Right now, it's the tasip and there's no way to
Speaker 7: predict it or anything. It'll wind up being the guy
Speaker 7: that wins it as the one that's supposed to. You know,
Speaker 7: that's a tough question. The way the twenty four run. Yes,
Speaker 7: you would say the twenty four, But racing probably owes
Speaker 7: Denny Hamlin as long as he's been running and good
Speaker 7: as he's run, and he's certainly a champion without winning
Speaker 7: a championship. And maybe I ain't gonna say one of
Speaker 7: the forward wheel.
Speaker 1: This is the racing report on America's drug A Network
Speaker 1: on seven hundred WLW sang Dennis or for.
Speaker 8: A t And on the podcast Health Stuff, we are
Speaker 8: tackling all the health questions that keep you up at night.
Speaker 9: I'm doctor PreO Kwali, a double board certified physician.
Speaker 8: And I'm Harry Kondebolu, a comedian and someone who once
Speaker 8: googled do I have scurvy?
Speaker 3: At three am?
Speaker 8: And on our show we're talking about health in a
Speaker 8: different way like our episode where we look at diabetes.
Speaker 10: In the United States. I mean, fifty percent of Americans
Speaker 10: are pre diabetic.
Speaker 8: How preventable is type two?
Speaker 10: Extremely?
Speaker 8: Open your free iHeartRadio app, search health stuff and listen now.
Speaker 11: The Color Recal Cancer Alliance want you to know a
Speaker 11: lot of things in life are preventable. Ooh, gas station,
Speaker 11: sushi that's preventable. Even colon cancer can be able. If
Speaker 11: you get screamed, I'm.
Speaker 12: Just going to tell my boss what I really think
Speaker 12: of it.
Speaker 3: Revailable.
Speaker 11: If you're forty five or older, talk to your doctor
Speaker 11: about the screening options available. Go to Colorrecal Cancer dot
Speaker 11: Org to learn more.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Colonel Greg Gatzon, retired Army colonel and former
Speaker 5: Garrison commander of Fort Belvoir and proud US veteran. I
Speaker 5: know from personal experience that the road to recovery can
Speaker 5: be difficult. If you've recently filed a VA disability claim
Speaker 5: and have to attend a VA claimed exam, you've likely
Speaker 5: got questions. Search Compensation and Pension Exam on VA dot
Speaker 5: Gov for the answers you need and the benefits you've
Speaker 5: earned your VA claim exam. Know what's next?
Speaker 3: Well to you A by the US Department of Veterans Affairs.
Speaker 9: You're one stop for advertising called eight four four eight
Speaker 9: four four iHeart.
Speaker 4: I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW. We're
Speaker 4: talking about inflation numbers and when they put out these
Speaker 4: items and they say, okay, we've got the inflation number,
Speaker 4: and then we've got the core inflation number and the
Speaker 4: core inflation number. What that does is it pulls out
Speaker 4: the more volatile items in the inflation category or the
Speaker 4: stuff that is bought on.
Speaker 3: A regular basis.
Speaker 4: And generally the two big categories there are food and
Speaker 4: energy because depending upon the year, depending you know, the
Speaker 4: time of the year, you've gotten the springtime, certain fruits, vegetables,
Speaker 4: et cetera that are readily available in the fall, and
Speaker 4: so on, so those prices will fluctuate. Energy itself fluctuates
Speaker 4: depending upon geopolitical issues, what's going on in terms of
Speaker 4: the sector, whether there's different refineries that are closing down
Speaker 4: or shutting down for maintenance, imports, storms on the seat,
Speaker 4: so all that's volatile. So they pull that out and
Speaker 4: say okay, put those off to the side, and then
Speaker 4: look at the other core items in the as far
Speaker 4: as inflation is concerned.
Speaker 3: When you add that back and they're talking.
Speaker 4: About the biggest driver of inflation this past was in
Speaker 4: the food area, and they concentrate on two items. They
Speaker 4: concentrated on coffee and beef. Well, it's almost like you
Speaker 4: have to pull those items off to the side as
Speaker 4: well to get a full idea or you know, because
Speaker 4: of the volatility in those areas, to see what the
Speaker 4: actual food prices are.
Speaker 3: And I just got curious.
Speaker 4: I thought, well, you know, they keep talking about tariffs
Speaker 4: adding to coffee prices. They keep talking about this, Well,
Speaker 4: what else is adding to the coffee prices? So I
Speaker 4: dug into it a little bit. We here in the
Speaker 4: United States, between Hawaii and uh, what was it, Puerto Rico,
Speaker 4: we only generate about one percent of the amount of
Speaker 4: coffee that is consumed in the United States.
Speaker 3: The rest of it has to be imported.
Speaker 4: So already we've got a situation where that stuff has
Speaker 4: to travel. But where you have a situation down in
Speaker 4: Brazil and Columbia, and you have these southern South American
Speaker 4: countries that produce the majority of the coffee. Now there's
Speaker 4: somehow that comes out of Vietnam and the southeast and
Speaker 4: so on. But the majority of the stuff that we
Speaker 4: drink here in the United States is from South America,
Speaker 4: and when you have a drought situation down there, that
Speaker 4: means their crops aren't producing as much, so there's not
Speaker 4: as much supply. And when you know, obviously, you know
Speaker 4: that when there's smaller supply and the demand is the same,
Speaker 4: the prices are going to go up. And yes, the
Speaker 4: tariffs have added to that to a certain percentage. But
Speaker 4: when you take into consideration the costs we've documented here
Speaker 4: on the program. We had the contracts that were signed
Speaker 4: by the West Coast and East Coast dock workers bringing
Speaker 4: those goods in, that's going to add to the product.
Speaker 4: Plus you have fuel prices and stuff being transported. Plus
Speaker 4: you have the drought down there in South America in
Speaker 4: these coffee bean areas, and that's adding to it. So
Speaker 4: break picking those out the amount of tariffs that are
Speaker 4: added to this. Now they keep saying that coffee prices
Speaker 4: are up. Okay, they're saying coffee prices are up from
Speaker 4: last year by nineteen percent. Now they're saying also that
Speaker 4: the tariffs on these on coffee is somewhere in the
Speaker 4: neighborhood on certain countries about forty percent. So if coffee
Speaker 4: prices are going up only nineteen percent. One of the
Speaker 4: things is is that I've talked about, and we've talked
Speaker 4: about on this program a number of times that because
Speaker 4: of the production costs, because of the availability, the big
Speaker 4: margins in some of these areas, some of these people
Speaker 4: are some of these companies are actually absorbing these increases.
Speaker 4: As far as tariffs, now, there's been some movement because
Speaker 4: there is a program that if you've got rare things
Speaker 4: that are not actually available in the United States and
Speaker 4: they have to be imported, they can be exempted from
Speaker 4: any tariffs on that particular country and those can be eliminated.
Speaker 4: There's a push now to eliminate the tariffs on coffee,
Speaker 4: which would be good. But in the story that I read,
Speaker 4: they talk about this. Nicky Bravo, the cow co owner
Speaker 4: of Momentum Coffee in Chicago, raised her prices by fifteen
Speaker 4: percent recently as to her coffee prices, and she talks
Speaker 4: about how, you know, she's paying fifteen percent more for
Speaker 4: the coffee coming into the country and coming into her business,
Speaker 4: but she's also roasting some of her own beans to
Speaker 4: try to offset that then you've got the added increase
Speaker 4: in terms of the sleeves, the cups, and all the
Speaker 4: different supplies that's got to be added into it. Plus
Speaker 4: the fact that she has her operation of her stores
Speaker 4: in Chicago and Chicago back in twenty twenty put forth
Speaker 4: a new minimum wage law where the minimum wage in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty was thirteen dollars an hour and has now
Speaker 4: jumped up to sixteen dollars and sixty cents an hour.
Speaker 4: In July the first part of July, that price of
Speaker 4: the minimum wage for their stores or for those companies
Speaker 4: that have employees went up two and a half percent. Now,
Speaker 4: when we have inflation at two and a half percent
Speaker 4: and we've got wages going up by two and a
Speaker 4: half percent, doesn't it stand a reason that some of
Speaker 4: the focus on this, and my point is what we
Speaker 4: need to do is we need to start not you know,
Speaker 4: the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media. Well, have
Speaker 4: you believe that all these price increases are a result
Speaker 4: of tariffs, Whereas.
Speaker 3: When you look at what is pushing.
Speaker 4: The prices here of tariffs, it's very low compared to
Speaker 4: the other things. In terms of what we have here
Speaker 4: increase in minimum wage two and a half percent for
Speaker 4: these producers, the increase in terms of the paper supplies
Speaker 4: and so on. So there are other facts in here
Speaker 4: that are adding to these prices, and to blame it
Speaker 4: all on tariffs, or to try to blame it on
Speaker 4: teriffs is misleading at the least and probably intentional on
Speaker 4: the part of the spoon, federalgirdstairs and mainstream media. Again,
Speaker 4: it's not like we don't know that prices are going up,
Speaker 4: but you know when there are other things that are
Speaker 4: causing that, whether it be drought, whether it be the
Speaker 4: wages that are being paid, Let's be truthful about that
Speaker 4: and talk about that as opposed to trying to pass
Speaker 4: it off as far as tariffs are concerned. But I
Speaker 4: thought it was interesting. I mean, back in twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: the effective rate was the minimum wage back then was
Speaker 4: ten dollars an hour, and then they immediately in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one raise that to fifteen dollars an hour, and
Speaker 4: then from that point on two and a half percent,
Speaker 4: depending upon inflation, was raised every year since then, so
Speaker 4: they jumped from fifteen dollars and eighty cents an hour
Speaker 4: up to sixteen dollars and twenty cents an hour as
Speaker 4: of July the first. So when they talk about the
Speaker 4: price of coffee and stuff, I mean they're talking about that,
Speaker 4: you know, these restaurants they're saying is September, the cost
Speaker 4: the average price for a cup of coffee was three
Speaker 4: dollars and fifty four cents compared to three dollars and
Speaker 4: forty five cents last year. Well, that's up two point
Speaker 4: six percent. So again, even with the increased terrace as
Speaker 4: far as coffee, the drought and so on, a two
Speaker 4: point six percent increase. But where were these people, Where
Speaker 4: were these people whining about inflation? Back in twenty one
Speaker 4: twenty two, we had gas prices go up a full
Speaker 4: dollar a gallon from the beginning of well from January
Speaker 4: of twenty twenty to the January of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: and then when Russia invaded Ukraine it went up another
Speaker 4: dollar twenty five.
Speaker 3: Where was the outrage? Then?
Speaker 4: All we heard was, Oh, it's transitory, it's going to go,
Speaker 4: it's only temporary. We don't have to worry about it. Well, now,
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, when prices are coming, you don't
Speaker 4: hear anything about eggs anymore. Do you eggs have come
Speaker 4: down considerably because of eradicating the bird flew and then
Speaker 4: some of these I mean, you know, if you have
Speaker 4: to if you have to kill an tire flock of
Speaker 4: birds and you don't have chickens, you're not going to
Speaker 4: have very many eggs. So there are reasons behind this,
Speaker 4: and not just because of an economy that's going to
Speaker 4: hell in a handbasket. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and
Speaker 4: Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: News, Traffic and Weather. News Radio seven hundred wl W, Cincinnati.
Speaker 9: Republican infighting spills out into the open on day twenty
Speaker 9: eight of the shutdown. It's your twelve thirty report. I'm
Speaker 9: Travis Lair breaking now. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, known
Speaker 9: for backing the Speaker of the House, now taking aim him.
Speaker 9: She says she confronted Mike Johnson over the GOP's lack
Speaker 9: of a healthcare plan, even calling out healthy House leaders
Speaker 9: on a private call. Here's ABC's j O'Brien in a
Speaker 9: break with her party. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green acknowledging she
Speaker 9: lashed out on a Republican call, accusing the gop of
Speaker 9: not having a plan to tackle healthcare costs. Green writing today,
Speaker 9: she confronted Speaker Johnson, saying, I have no respect for
Speaker 9: the House not being in session, and I demand to
Speaker 9: know from Speaker Johnson what the Republican plan for healthcare is.
Speaker 9: Forty million Americans now days away from losing food benefits
Speaker 9: as the standoff continues if Congress does not act now.
Speaker 2: The latest forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather
Speaker 2: Center on news radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 10: S heading for daybreak on Wednesday, A few showers develop
Speaker 10: and that will continue into the morning. Rush a seven
Speaker 10: am temperature of forty five now for the rest of
Speaker 10: our Wednesday, heavy rain toward the afternoon and evening. On
Speaker 10: the ride home, Gustie wins An, I have fifty two
Speaker 10: at night, more heavy rain and a low of forty
Speaker 10: four from your severe weather station, I'm nine first warning,
Speaker 10: Chief Meteorologist Steve Rawley, News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Right now fifty two degrees.
Speaker 9: In Cincinnati, Ohio, schools are urging voters to approve local
Speaker 9: levees this November as new state funding restrictions take hold.
Speaker 9: More than one hundred districts have measures on the ballot,
Speaker 9: warning that failure could mean larger class sizes, layoffs, and
Speaker 9: program cuts. Education advocates say recent laws limiting property tax
Speaker 9: revenue and eliminating some levee options have left schools with
Speaker 9: few alternatives. State leaders argue the changes will deliver tax
Speaker 9: relief to homeowners, but districts say it comes as at
Speaker 9: the expense of students and staff across Ohio. Now, Lee Mallen,
Speaker 9: let's talk about some sports.
Speaker 2: Man seven one hundred WLW sports.
Speaker 12: The Bengals on Tuesday least defensive tackle Mike Penal and
Speaker 12: play center Matt Lee and linebacker Shaka Hayward on the
Speaker 12: injured list, leaving Cincinnati with three open spots on their
Speaker 12: fifty three man roster. The Bengals host the Bear Sunday
Speaker 12: afternoon at one o'clock. Covington Catholic Boys soccer defeats South
Speaker 12: Otam in penalties to events to the KHSAA State Championship Game.
Speaker 12: The Colonels will battle the Louisville Saint Xavier Tigers for
Speaker 12: the title Saturday afternoon at four from the Lexington Sporting Club.
Speaker 9: Thank you as always Lee now and you will hear
Speaker 9: from Lee and our next update. At one o'clock, breaking
Speaker 9: news anytime. I'm Travis Lairs News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: Hey Cincinnati is former Bengal and Pro Football Hall of
Speaker 2: Famer Anthony Munos. In two thousand and two, I started
Speaker 2: the Anthony Munhos Foundation to provide Trittate youth with the
Speaker 2: same help I received throughout my upbringing.
Speaker 13: The Try State and the rest of the country. In
Speaker 13: the Tri State overnight mostly claudy, the low down to
Speaker 13: forty four, mostly claudy Wednesday, with rain likely especially by
Speaker 13: late afternoon. I hi A fifty two rain continuing Wednesday night.
Speaker 13: Then rain continues for the first part of Thursday, any
Speaker 13: by the early afternoon AHI fifty one. Nationally Overnight and
Speaker 13: into Wednesday, light snow will be seen over parts of
Speaker 13: the Northern Cascades and the Northern Rockies.
Speaker 4: Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This is America Struck
Speaker 4: a network. You know, last week we had the story
Speaker 4: talking about refinancing, that refinancing jumped up. Was it eighty
Speaker 4: one percent higher than it was this time last year
Speaker 4: thanks to falling mortgage rates? And we went to the
Speaker 4: whole scenario of these different refinancing how many people were
Speaker 4: refinancing their homes and so on.
Speaker 3: At the end of last week.
Speaker 4: We haven't had a chance to get to it, but
Speaker 4: lower mortgage rates push home sales.
Speaker 3: Higher in September.
Speaker 4: Now, one of the things you know, if you've listened
Speaker 4: to this program often enough, you'll know that one of
Speaker 4: the things I've been harping on from for the longest
Speaker 4: time is that Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve,
Speaker 4: who by the way, met yesterday was the first part
Speaker 4: of their meeting, and then later on today they will
Speaker 4: have the results of their meeting, and they will be
Speaker 4: making around two o'clock in the afternoon today they will
Speaker 4: be making the announcement in terms of what they're going
Speaker 4: to do on interest rates, whether they're going to lower
Speaker 4: them keep them the same. Now the thinking is that
Speaker 4: they're going to lower the interest rates by a quarter
Speaker 4: percentage point.
Speaker 3: Which would be good, but it should be.
Speaker 4: Closer to half a percentage point again to stimulate the economy.
Speaker 4: Every time they talk about stimulating the economy, every time,
Speaker 4: people look at what interest rates do when it affects
Speaker 4: your credit cards, when it affects your home loans, when
Speaker 4: it affects your your financing as far as if you're
Speaker 4: trying to buy a new truck, or fleets trying to
Speaker 4: expand their fleet, or if you're trying to expand your
Speaker 4: business by buying additional equipment or expanding the buildings you operate,
Speaker 4: and all these things require financing, and if financing is high,
Speaker 4: it may put you on the sideline to the point
Speaker 4: where you're not going to make that investment at that
Speaker 4: particular point in time. But lower mortgage rates are pushing
Speaker 4: home sales. One of the downsides of that, though, is
Speaker 4: that when interest rates come down, some of these people
Speaker 4: get it in their head that well, people are getting
Speaker 4: a break on their mortgage and they're going to be
Speaker 4: paying less, so maybe I can get a little bit
Speaker 4: more from my house now. There is that thinking. But
Speaker 4: part of what's driving that though, is that when interest
Speaker 4: rates come down, the affordability of homes are there and
Speaker 4: more people jump in. When more people jump in, you
Speaker 4: have a bigger demand. And if there's tighter supply, then
Speaker 4: those prices are going to go up because as we
Speaker 4: pointed out the other day, that some of the inventory
Speaker 4: of available homes is less than what it normally is.
Speaker 3: So let's just go through the numbers here.
Speaker 4: Sales previously on homes rose one and a half percent
Speaker 4: in September from August to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate
Speaker 4: of four point zero six million units. According to National
Speaker 4: Association Realtors, sales were four point one percent higher compared
Speaker 4: with September of last year. Now that you think would
Speaker 4: be celebrated and people were talking about that, I didn't
Speaker 4: hear a whole lot of conversation about that over the
Speaker 4: weekend and even up to this point. Again, apparently, if
Speaker 4: there's good news, then our friends, the spoon fed regurgitators
Speaker 4: in the mainstream media aren't going to cover it. All
Speaker 4: they want to cover is the doom and gloom. Now,
Speaker 4: when you look at some of these the numbers, the
Speaker 4: count is based on closing, so people signing contracts, likely
Speaker 4: in July and August when mortgage rates were coming down,
Speaker 4: but we're not as low as they are now.
Speaker 3: The average rate on.
Speaker 4: A thirty year fixed fixed grade started in July, it's
Speaker 4: six point sixty seven. It's now down to six point
Speaker 4: one seven and even lower. Because this is as of
Speaker 4: the other day so or actually towards the end of September,
Speaker 4: So that's a full half a percentage point. And remember
Speaker 4: we had a story a couple of months ago that
Speaker 4: talked about if interest rates come down at half a
Speaker 4: percentage point, something like one hundred and fifty thousand more
Speaker 4: people that are living in apartments jump into the housing market.
Speaker 4: And so when you have an influx there of one
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty thousand people jumping into the housing market,
Speaker 4: they are then well, they're going to be spending money.
Speaker 4: They're going to be going into a home. They're probably
Speaker 4: going to have a bigger home than the size of
Speaker 4: their apartment, which means that they're going to be buying
Speaker 4: more furniture, They're going to be doing some renovations. They're
Speaker 4: going to possibly be buying some carpet paint, maybe new
Speaker 4: appliances and stuff, which are good for the overall economy.
Speaker 4: And if the economy is good, that means that more
Speaker 4: stuff is going to have to be shipped, and you
Speaker 4: guys are going to be a lot busier out there
Speaker 4: hauling more and more freight because of this. And if
Speaker 4: you're talking about a half a percentage point that draws
Speaker 4: one hundred and fifty thousand people into the market, imagine
Speaker 4: when those prices come down even further. We're talking about,
Speaker 4: and we've gone through the numbers several times on this show,
Speaker 4: the difference between the type of house you can you know,
Speaker 4: what your price would be at certain interest rates, and
Speaker 4: what your monthly mortgage payment would be at lower interest rates.
Speaker 4: And we've seen that, and we've talked about what it
Speaker 4: would be if the affordability wise on a monthly payment,
Speaker 4: how much larger house you can afford, and the numbers
Speaker 4: are astronomical, and you know, I can post something about that,
Speaker 4: or I may talk about that later on, but I've
Speaker 4: talked about it three or four times now, and I'm
Speaker 4: sure a lot of people have heard it. But when
Speaker 4: these interest rates come down, the affordability comes down and
Speaker 4: more people can jump into the market. And the fact
Speaker 4: that Federal reserve their interest rates that they talk about,
Speaker 4: which is the borrowing rate that banks do when they
Speaker 4: need money and they you know, for cashing checks or
Speaker 4: whatever their cash needs for that day, they have to
Speaker 4: borrow from other banks, and the bank rate is that
Speaker 4: four percent four point two five percent. But as a
Speaker 4: result of that, that also affects the interest rates on
Speaker 4: credit cards, mortgages and everything that's financed. So when that
Speaker 4: rate starts coming down. That's when you start seeing a
Speaker 4: lowering of interest rates. And just with that quarter percentage
Speaker 4: point that the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates last month,
Speaker 4: we see a half a percentage point in mortgages coming down.
Speaker 3: That's a good sign.
Speaker 4: So again, if lion Jerry Powell is sitting around smoking
Speaker 4: a cigar and drinking whiskey right now, pay attention to
Speaker 4: this and tomorrow or later on today, go ahead and
Speaker 4: lower those interest rates down another quarter percent or a
Speaker 4: half a percentage point, because that is good for the economy.
Speaker 4: And so you know, I've been talking all along the
Speaker 4: thing that is holding this economy back, and I keep
Speaker 4: making the analysis that it reminds me of these movies
Speaker 4: I used to you'd see from the Oklahoma land rush,
Speaker 4: where on a given day the territory was opened up
Speaker 4: for people to go in and claim their stake. They
Speaker 4: could get sixteen acres or whatever the number was, and
Speaker 4: they all had to do was put a stake down
Speaker 4: and then have it logged in and you know, just
Speaker 4: register it and it was their land. And at that
Speaker 4: date everybody was lined up on the border. All these
Speaker 4: wagons and all these horses and everything were all lined up,
Speaker 4: and that it is. You know, the gun was fired
Speaker 4: off and everybody rushed in. That's how I see this economy.
Speaker 4: With lower interest rates, our economy will absolutely explode for
Speaker 4: the good. And I've been talking about all along. You
Speaker 4: see what we've seen as far as the just with
Speaker 4: things as they are, they were predicting that our gross
Speaker 4: domestic product would only be around one point eight percent.
Speaker 4: We already saw the effect of the resilience of the
Speaker 4: American people, the resilience of the American consumer, that that
Speaker 4: gross domestic product is up to three point eight percent.
Speaker 4: And I've said that if these interest rates come down
Speaker 4: and the way this economy is not even if the
Speaker 4: interest rates come down, with the way this economy is going,
Speaker 4: with the trade deals that are being cut, and we
Speaker 4: just had a bunch of trade deals with Trump being
Speaker 4: over in Asia, with Japan, and hopefully there's some signs
Speaker 4: that there's going to be something done as far as China.
Speaker 4: They're getting moved more closer and closer to making a deal.
Speaker 4: Those teriff rates will come down and we will have
Speaker 4: a lot more prosperity and a lot more free flow
Speaker 4: of goods. Fair trade. Fair trade as opposed to just
Speaker 4: free trade, and so if this economy, I still I
Speaker 4: am still maintaining the fact that by the end of
Speaker 4: this year, Okay, we've only got what two more months,
Speaker 4: basically at the end of this month, the end of
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, we will see that the gross domestic
Speaker 4: product will be somewhere between four point five and five percent,
Speaker 4: and I do seriously believe that inflation will be down
Speaker 4: around that two percentage point range. I'm maintaining that, and
Speaker 4: what we need is a little bit of cooperation from
Speaker 4: Lyon and Jerry Powell and the FED. I'm Kevin Gordon,
Speaker 4: America's truck and Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 3: Run a business and not thinking about.
Speaker 4: This is America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW IM
Speaker 4: Kevin Gordon. One of the things I talked about in
Speaker 4: the first segment, we were talking about inflation and where
Speaker 4: some of these inflation rates are coming from. We talked
Speaker 4: about coffee, we talked about some of the food items.
Speaker 4: The one thing about this administration, and no matter what
Speaker 4: the criticism from the main stream media, this administration is
Speaker 4: extremely flexible in terms of nothing, well nothing but certain
Speaker 4: things are not cast in concrete. On liberation, day, he
Speaker 4: put out and said that as of a date, certain
Speaker 4: these tariffs were going to go into effect as reciprocal
Speaker 4: teriffs if the other countries don't reduce their terraffs. And
Speaker 4: he had the different charts where it showed what they
Speaker 4: charge our goods going into their country versus what we charge,
Speaker 4: and we were going to reciprocate those terraffts. That was
Speaker 4: a negotiating tool to get them to the table to
Speaker 4: start negotiating and bring these tariffs down on our goods
Speaker 4: and opening up their markets to our goods, which would
Speaker 4: lead to more jobs, more exports, more volume, more freight,
Speaker 4: et cetera. Good for our country here and the people
Speaker 4: working that is been going forward very rapidly. They're now
Speaker 4: in the final stages trying to pull together a deal
Speaker 4: with China which should bring some of those prices down
Speaker 4: as well. But where there is an area that needs
Speaker 4: to be tweaked, you put on a fifty percent terra
Speaker 4: for something, then you look at some of those items
Speaker 4: within those exports coming into this country, what would penalize
Speaker 4: some of our people. He's done Exemptions one of the
Speaker 4: things they're working on. I talked about this in one
Speaker 4: of the previous segments talking about with the coffee prices,
Speaker 4: possibly putting in an exemption to that to bring the
Speaker 4: price of coffee down even though there's been droughts down
Speaker 4: there and so on.
Speaker 3: One of the.
Speaker 4: Other areas that we've seen where prices have gone up
Speaker 4: considerably is in meat prices. And when we've talked about
Speaker 4: how there are droughts out west this I think I
Speaker 4: saw a number where something like thirty percent of the
Speaker 4: area where cattle graze is are under drought conditions, and
Speaker 4: the feed costs are up. So when there's droughts, the
Speaker 4: cattle cannot grays on the open land. They have to
Speaker 4: be fed, and so with grain prices up, it becomes
Speaker 4: very expensive to produce cattle, and so a lot of
Speaker 4: people have thinned their herds to the point where we
Speaker 4: are at the level in terms of the herds that
Speaker 4: are in the United States are at levels we haven't
Speaker 4: seen since we're at the levels where they were back
Speaker 4: in nineteen fifty one. So we're talking about a seventy five,
Speaker 4: seventy seventy two, seventy four years low. So of course
Speaker 4: that's going you're going to have a dwindling supply. So
Speaker 4: a lot of the beef that we have been importing
Speaker 4: from other countries has been offsetting that to keep the
Speaker 4: prices a little bit low, last lower than what they
Speaker 4: would normally be. Trump suggested last week or last week
Speaker 4: suggests that the US will be buying more beef from
Speaker 4: Argentina and with that coming in should affect the prices
Speaker 4: a little bit. But there were the cattlemen were not
Speaker 4: too happy with that because they said that that would
Speaker 4: artificially push down the prices and that they wouldn't be
Speaker 4: making as much. And the way the story was written,
Speaker 4: it said why cattlemen say Trump talk of Argentine beef
Speaker 4: imports is no solution. Again, the headline didn't match the story.
Speaker 4: It talked about some of the stuff that they have
Speaker 4: to do and some of the things that they need
Speaker 4: to do, and well as far as one of the
Speaker 4: things in there talking about the drought conditions. The cattle
Speaker 4: ranchers in Texas and around the country are concerned about
Speaker 4: the screw worm, which is a parasitic fly that was
Speaker 4: once eradicated in the United States, is threatening a comeback
Speaker 4: on the Mexican border. They had an infestation of the
Speaker 4: infestation of that down in the southern parts of Mexico
Speaker 4: and it has already moved up almost halfway through the
Speaker 4: country and getting close to the border.
Speaker 3: Now. I won't go into.
Speaker 4: The details of this because it is pretty gross what
Speaker 4: this fly does and how it infects. But they have
Speaker 4: seen it's not normally passed along to humans, but it
Speaker 4: was passed on to a human And I thought it
Speaker 4: was interesting because they talked about the Centers for the
Speaker 4: Disease Control and Prevention identified a case of a flesh
Speaker 4: eating parasite and a person in Maryland who returned to
Speaker 4: the US after traveling to Al Salvador. H not where
Speaker 4: the Maryland dad was from and could it possibly be No,
Speaker 4: it's not Chris van Holland that went to his senator
Speaker 4: from Maryland. Remember he went down there and had Margarita's
Speaker 4: with kilmar Abrego Garcia. No, but it was apparently somebody
Speaker 4: else who traveled down to El Salvador and got this
Speaker 4: flesh eating disease. But what they've tried to do is
Speaker 4: put these sterile flies to go down there and breed,
Speaker 4: so it basically kills off. But these parasites if it
Speaker 4: was eradicated in the United States and been eradicated for
Speaker 4: Center for decades. Why can't that technology be put forth
Speaker 4: and eradicate those diseases down in Mexico. I don't I
Speaker 4: don't understand that. But again, that's one of the things
Speaker 4: that the Trump administration is trying to do. They're trying
Speaker 4: to be flexible in terms of importing beef or allowing
Speaker 4: beef to be imported from different areas of the world,
Speaker 4: to pull our prices down and get them back more reasonable. Now,
Speaker 4: with these trade negotiations going on with China them moving
Speaker 4: closer and closer to a deal, it's throwing closer one
Speaker 4: of the areas that I thought was a done deal.
Speaker 4: And I'm surprised that this is weird. Its ugly head
Speaker 4: is Canada. Canada? All of a sudden, well Trump is
Speaker 4: you know, we had they had that meeting with Mark
Speaker 4: Carney in the in the Oval office, what was it
Speaker 4: a week and a half ago, and they were chuckling
Speaker 4: it up. They were seemed like they were fast friends.
Speaker 4: It looks like they were, you know, really on the
Speaker 4: same page and talking about things. Well, all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: I don't know if he was getting some pressure from
Speaker 4: the folks back home that hey, you're cozying up to
Speaker 4: this guy.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 4: We are being it's a fair deal for the United States,
Speaker 4: but it's hurting us up here. And I'm going to
Speaker 4: go on a side note here. When I see some
Speaker 4: of these people in the media when there is a
Speaker 4: trade deal that is negotiated and it has accomplished, why
Speaker 4: do they have to It's not like the people in
Speaker 4: Canada can't watch our TV shows. And if our reporters
Speaker 4: and Fox News is guilty of this, I've seen this
Speaker 4: on a couple of occasions where they said, oh, you know,
Speaker 4: Trump went in there and he just beat them to death.
Speaker 4: They are now sucking up to him, and they are
Speaker 4: just they we are eating their lunch.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: You know, this is not.
Speaker 4: The type of thing you do in a If you've
Speaker 4: ever been involved in athletics, and apparently some of these
Speaker 4: hosts aren't, have never been involved in athletics and never
Speaker 4: been involved in competition, you do not, absolutely do not
Speaker 4: gloat over your opponent. If you beat that opponent, even
Speaker 4: if you beat them badly, you always hear the coach
Speaker 4: talking about, well, they put up a really good fight,
Speaker 4: they had a really good defense. We just had a
Speaker 4: really good day to Day, etc. You don't want to
Speaker 4: give them ammunition. But apparently there's been something that ruffled
Speaker 4: some feathers somewhere along the lines. Hope it's not been
Speaker 4: the broadcast talking about this, but there's been some trade
Speaker 4: negotiations between the two countries which has suddenly fallen apart,
Speaker 4: and Trump has suspended trade negotiations with Canada. Now that's
Speaker 4: happened once before and then eventually they got back to
Speaker 4: the table. Was probably a negotiating tool. But I don't
Speaker 4: know if you've seen this ad where I guess it's
Speaker 4: Ontario that is running this ad talking about Ronald Reagan
Speaker 4: where he was giving a speech talking about tariffs, and
Speaker 4: if you just look at that commercial on the surface,
Speaker 4: it looks pretty interesting from the standpoint of where he's saying,
Speaker 4: the terrorists may feel good, it may bring in more
Speaker 4: revenue and so on, but eventually the others are going
Speaker 4: to retaliate and it's going to be bad for American
Speaker 4: jobs and so on. They have spliced that speech out
Speaker 4: because I read I've pulled up the speech from the
Speaker 4: Reagan Foundation, and apparently the Reagan Foundation is suing the
Speaker 4: government of Ontario for falsely portraying Ronald Reagan as opposing
Speaker 4: all terrorists. And as a matter of fact, what Reagan
Speaker 4: was actually talking about in that speech was, and this
Speaker 4: was back in nineteen eighty seven, where he was talking
Speaker 4: about implementing certain terrorifts to balance the playing field. And
Speaker 4: if you listen to that speech and what he's saying,
Speaker 4: he said that it may feel good on the part
Speaker 4: and as he talked about as the United States feeling
Speaker 4: good about raising terroriffs, but other people raised, uh than
Speaker 4: raised their terrorists.
Speaker 3: We'll put the flip.
Speaker 4: Side on that and that that that that argument still
Speaker 4: holds true, but doesn't hold true in this situation. The
Speaker 4: other countries have already had their terrorifts on American goods.
Speaker 4: They have closed their markets on our goods coming in. So,
Speaker 4: in other words, and in terms of leveling the playing field,
Speaker 4: we have increased our terroriffs on their goods to make
Speaker 4: them more fair and free. And what they're trying to say,
Speaker 4: or trying to hint through this commercial is that because
Speaker 4: we are raising our terrorists, it's bad for the overall
Speaker 4: economy between the two countries. They forget that they have
Speaker 4: had outrageous terrafts on our products. Just in Pholtry, just
Speaker 4: in dairy products a two hundred and ninety nine percent
Speaker 4: tariff on our goods going into their country. Of course,
Speaker 4: we're not going to be selling anything going in there.
Speaker 4: Those markets are based in effect close to us, so
Speaker 4: the argument that they're trying to make should be flipped
Speaker 4: around on them. You guys have put these tariffs on.
Speaker 4: You may feel good about having these terriffs. You may
Speaker 4: be feeling good about collecting this money from the United States,
Speaker 4: but at some point in time, we're going to raise
Speaker 4: ours and level the playing field, which would be a
Speaker 4: more fair and more true way of looking at that.
Speaker 4: But I got to tell you, and that has upset
Speaker 4: the trade negotiations. That one commercial has been one of
Speaker 4: the areas that have been talked about of why the
Speaker 4: trade negotiations between the two companies and countries have fallen apart.
Speaker 4: Then you take into consideration that the Reagan Foundation looked
Speaker 4: at that compared to what the speed each actually was
Speaker 4: and said, this misrepresents what his speech was all about.
Speaker 4: So just if you see that commercial, know that it's
Speaker 4: a crock of crap and don't pay any attention to it. Well, folks,
Speaker 4: we're up against clock here. Stay tuned for ati radios.
Speaker 4: At the top of the hour, I'm Kevin Gordon, America's
Speaker 4: Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 2: News, Traffic and Weather. News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati.
Speaker 12: Could internal struggles be the key to the chiefs administrative leave?
Speaker 3: Well the top of the hour report I'm le