Speaker 1: Broadcasting live from the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio, the George
Speaker 1: Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong, Joe Getty.
Speaker 2: Arm Strong and Jetty I know he Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: I've got a sore throat and a couple other symptoms
Speaker 3: I won't mention. And as Joe mentioned, there's a quindemic
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 2: We're getting a lot of quinn depends who you ask.
Speaker 3: We're getting a lot of text from people have also
Speaker 3: been quite sick with either RSV whatever that is, monkey pox.
Speaker 3: Nobody's texted that has monkey pox, but that's going around
Speaker 3: bird flu, covid, regular flu. And then there's one other
Speaker 3: one going is there, I don't know. Oh, they have
Speaker 3: the biggest tuberculosis outbreak in the Midwest they've had in
Speaker 3: like a century or something.
Speaker 4: Then you got your measles among mostly illegal immigrants, and
Speaker 4: the AP says I should never use that term unvaccinated
Speaker 4: people as well breaking out and a certain you know,
Speaker 4: it's not a huge percentage, but a certain percentage kids
Speaker 4: die of the measles.
Speaker 2: It's not just you know.
Speaker 4: Red spots, hmmm, extremely high fever, problems with the brain.
Speaker 2: Terrible.
Speaker 4: Anyway, coming up, I on the economy, a couple of
Speaker 4: really interesting stories about you know, dollars and cents and
Speaker 4: that sort of thing. Now, Michael, I'm gonna challenge you.
Speaker 4: You remember when that was hot. Instead of saying, hey,
Speaker 4: this is something you gotta do, I'm going to challenge
Speaker 4: Michael to come up with some theme music for I
Speaker 4: on the Economy. That's not the same damn music you
Speaker 4: always play. I want a good Then you got like
Speaker 4: twenty minutes, almost half an hour to come.
Speaker 2: Up with it. All right, I'll come up with something.
Speaker 3: All right, Now, we need five things you accomplished last
Speaker 3: week to justify your employment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that too by noon. Oh so I thought I'm
Speaker 4: working on mine. I haven't come up with number three yet.
Speaker 4: I've got two solid ones, and I'm thinking I'm thinking hard.
Speaker 4: William Laugines Fox News unleashed this report Friday after our show.
Speaker 4: I liked it so well I reached out to the
Speaker 4: Fellows to chop it up and have it for you.
Speaker 2: It's not like it's plowing.
Speaker 4: New ground, but the facts are with our worth reconsidering
Speaker 4: yet again surrounding the so called bullet train in California.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: Among the greatest thefts of money, particularly taxpayer money.
Speaker 2: Perhaps in the history of humankind.
Speaker 3: Definitely could be. That's not hyperbole, that actually could be.
Speaker 4: When the pharaohs of old said, you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: be dead soon, and I need a gigantic tomb. How
Speaker 4: big like thirty feet mister pharaoh. No, no, no, like
Speaker 4: five hundred feet tall, twice as wide, and we're going
Speaker 4: to have people from all over the world slave away.
Speaker 4: And you all got to get more granite than anybody's
Speaker 4: ever seen in their lives, and you got to build
Speaker 4: me a monument that was a smaller theft of you know,
Speaker 4: community resources than the bullet trained. William Lauginext Michael, we'll
Speaker 4: start with eighty Yeah, you got that ready, Let's hear it.
Speaker 5: This is the biggest boondogo in the United States. California
Speaker 5: knows it.
Speaker 2: You know it.
Speaker 5: So does President Trump, which is why he has called
Speaker 5: for this audit, which could effectively kill the bullet Trained.
Speaker 5: And it's also why this is how the LA Union
Speaker 5: station looked like yesterday. Protesters, many union workers who depend
Speaker 5: on that federal lifeline, turned out to throw tomatoes and
Speaker 5: hackle Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
Speaker 2: If you want to go protest somewhere.
Speaker 1: If you want to shout at someone, go to the
Speaker 1: governor's mansion, Go talk to Democrats in the legislature who
Speaker 1: have brought us this crappy project.
Speaker 4: You notice it was not would be rail riders protested
Speaker 4: because they're so excited about the bullet. No, it was
Speaker 4: people profiting from it, and only people profiting from it.
Speaker 2: Next clip.
Speaker 5: Seventeen years and sixteen billion dollars later, the project has
Speaker 5: yet delay a single foot of rail.
Speaker 2: It was sold to voters.
Speaker 5: In two thousand and eight is a low cost, environmentally
Speaker 5: friendly way to get from LA to San Francisco in.
Speaker 2: Under three hours.
Speaker 5: Even then, the claim was wildly misleading or a lie,
Speaker 5: depending on who you believe.
Speaker 2: This is a failed project.
Speaker 4: It is a complete waste of money for California taxpayers
Speaker 4: and federal taxpayers.
Speaker 2: We want to say no to a king and yes
Speaker 2: to high speed rail.
Speaker 6: This is something that will help people for generations, will
Speaker 6: help take vehicles off their own and help people have.
Speaker 2: More options to get around California.
Speaker 3: By the way, I just for my birthday, I traveled
Speaker 3: to LA from northern California, like so many people do.
Speaker 3: It took fifty minutes. It was quite cheap and very handy.
Speaker 3: It's called Southwest Airlines three hours. Why would I ever
Speaker 3: want to take a three hour train ride to LA
Speaker 3: if I can fly there fifty minutes.
Speaker 4: Maybe take in the beautiful scenery along Eye five if
Speaker 4: you've driven ever driven I five between San Francisco and
Speaker 4: La Hugh anyway, Ah. In a transparent maneuver, which we
Speaker 4: talked about last week, the rail Authority and their union
Speaker 4: buddies put out a study that said a majority of
Speaker 4: America of California still support the high speed rail last week,
Speaker 4: and Jack despaired over that. I think it is clearly
Speaker 4: an example of and this is how it goes, which
Speaker 4: is why you have to be at least a little
Speaker 4: careful talking about issues pulling. The rail Authority commissioned a
Speaker 4: poll from I think it was Emerson or somebody like that.
Speaker 4: But the specific wording of the question is going to
Speaker 4: be incredibly important in this sort of poll. I'll bet
Speaker 4: they asked a high speed rail between LA and San
Speaker 4: Francisco where you can zoom between there, and it's environmentally
Speaker 4: beneficial and very inexpensive and it will always save a
Speaker 4: nice comfy seat for you.
Speaker 2: Are you in favor of that? Against it.
Speaker 4: They worded the question in such a rosy manners to
Speaker 4: get the result they wanted, just before the Feds stepped
Speaker 4: in and said, hey, this is a pilot crappen, a
Speaker 4: huge theft.
Speaker 2: We're not financing it.
Speaker 3: Are you in favor of supporting high speed rail which
Speaker 3: will save the planet and your child's life, or are
Speaker 3: you a bad person?
Speaker 2: Whichard?
Speaker 4: Do you want your children to die of black lung
Speaker 4: from the climate change?
Speaker 2: Next clip?
Speaker 5: So far, our federal taxpayers dumped about three billion into
Speaker 5: the project, with another four million promised by but not
Speaker 5: already spent from President Biden. How this audit could provide
Speaker 5: President Trump the legal authority to claw that money back.
Speaker 1: We're going to look at whether California High Speed Rail
Speaker 1: has actually complied with the agreements that they've signed with
Speaker 1: the federal government. And we can't just say we're going
Speaker 1: to give money and then not hold states accountable to
Speaker 1: how they spend that money.
Speaker 4: A minimum of seven billion dollars of Californians in the
Speaker 4: other states taxpayers money being squandered on them.
Speaker 3: Was that this is what gives the energy to doge
Speaker 3: and should four billion dollars Biden promised to give to
Speaker 3: an already stupid, obviously wasteful program, four billion dollars of
Speaker 3: people's taxpayer money from all around the country.
Speaker 2: Nobody will.
Speaker 3: I mean, they'll never be a train anyway. But even
Speaker 3: if there were a train, none of these people's tax dollars,
Speaker 3: These people are never gonna ride the dang thing.
Speaker 2: I can't quit just to hand out the money.
Speaker 3: Nobody's been ever to come up with a reason, Like
Speaker 3: we're just talking about why you would ride the thing?
Speaker 3: What are you gonna decide? You know what, today's day,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna spend three hours getting to La or San
Speaker 3: Francisco instead of the.
Speaker 2: Fifty minutes that would take me to fly right right.
Speaker 4: And it's a perpetual money printing machine too, because you
Speaker 4: got the environmental groups who can fundraise off. They're gonna
Speaker 4: put the track through the sacred habitat of the San
Speaker 4: joa Quen rat mouse. And then you've got all of
Speaker 4: the attorneys who are gonna sue over all the phony
Speaker 4: environmental claims and the rest of it. And we're not
Speaker 4: doing enough for this and that and the other. The
Speaker 4: point is to hand out the money.
Speaker 3: The Sanjuacin rat mouse needs to be protected, Yes, I
Speaker 3: wish we would all catch on. I've only got on
Speaker 3: in the last couple of years. The spending is the
Speaker 3: point that needs to be on T shirts everywhere. The
Speaker 3: spending is the point. They don't care if it actually
Speaker 3: accomplishes anything. They just need to get it, you know, allotted.
Speaker 3: If I'm Joe Biden and you asked me to be honest,
Speaker 3: I would.
Speaker 2: Say that care.
Speaker 4: But before he was completely senile, he'd say, yeah, the
Speaker 4: money's here March for the bullet train, but I don't
Speaker 4: care if they use it to preserve Pelican habitat, or
Speaker 4: build windmills or a library for BIPOC people.
Speaker 2: I don't care. The point is to hand out the
Speaker 2: money last clip.
Speaker 5: So the train is decades behind scheduling, about one hundred
Speaker 5: billion short. Governor Newsom wants to finish the Central Valley
Speaker 5: lag Even that needs another twenty billion, and without federal help,
Speaker 5: that's unlikely. Many say any money federal or state should
Speaker 5: be better spent on wildlife or wildfire prevention and water
Speaker 5: storage than.
Speaker 4: Trained in nowhere or any light lighting it on fire, yeah,
Speaker 4: or buying everybody in California pair of genes, or again,
Speaker 4: practically anything. I'm good by the way I need to
Speaker 4: get rid of clothes and I'm buy more.
Speaker 2: That's funny. Uh to have time for this before we
Speaker 2: take a break chair? Why not?
Speaker 3: The UN had their big vote on this. It's the
Speaker 3: three year anniversary of Russia invading Ukraine, one of the
Speaker 3: worst aggressions, if not the worst aggression by a major
Speaker 3: country since World War Two. The UN has adopted Ukraine's
Speaker 3: resolution condemning Russian aggression, so that's good, and demanding the
Speaker 3: immediate withdrawal of Putin's forces. But the US join Russia,
Speaker 3: North Korea, Belarus, and Hungry and opposing in the resolution.
Speaker 3: For the first time we opposed a resolution condemning Russia
Speaker 3: for the invasion.
Speaker 4: Trump thinks he can strike a real deal with lad Putin.
Speaker 3: These are meaningless. I mean, it's a meaningless debating society,
Speaker 3: and these are meaningless things.
Speaker 2: But it's that's something.
Speaker 3: The United States sided with Russia and North Korea, Belarus
Speaker 3: and Hungary and being against saying something is clear cut
Speaker 3: obviously true, as Russia's the bad guy here and they
Speaker 3: ought to get out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just Trump would say, why would I
Speaker 4: antagonize the guy We're about to go into negotiations I
Speaker 4: just think he's wrong. Is trying to negotiate with an alligator.
Speaker 4: You're not going to buy favor or intimidate or woo
Speaker 4: or anything.
Speaker 3: I understand the logic to a certain extent of sure. Look,
Speaker 3: your view of voting on the other side is right,
Speaker 3: But what is it going to do in terms of
Speaker 3: ending this war?
Speaker 2: Is it going to make it more likely or less
Speaker 2: likely to end it? Right? Yeah, that is his argument.
Speaker 2: We'll see how this turns out. Man. That is something
Speaker 2: more in the way. Bad attention on how to merge
Speaker 2: onto the highway.
Speaker 6: So you're going to be a dude at least the
Speaker 6: speed limit, not crawling under speed limit, not making other
Speaker 6: people break bad at tension.
Speaker 2: Did that no issues?
Speaker 6: You step on it, speed limit five ten above speed limit.
Speaker 6: You merge with no issues whatsoever. Stop holding up traffic.
Speaker 6: Mind your damn business in the right lane. Very simple, folks.
Speaker 3: Well worn topic. But what is the thinking of the
Speaker 3: people that enter the freeway so slowly?
Speaker 2: I'm being cautious and safe.
Speaker 4: To be cautious and safe, that means going slowly, simple
Speaker 4: as that.
Speaker 3: Right, Even though you were doing the most dangerous thing
Speaker 3: anybody on the road's doing. You you just rupped the
Speaker 3: likelihood of you dying in a fiery crash.
Speaker 2: By a lot, but at an end innocence as well. Yes. Uh.
Speaker 2: The interesting thing to me is how often I'll have
Speaker 2: that happen.
Speaker 3: Like I'm behind them getting on the on ramp and
Speaker 3: they're going like forty five and okay, first off effort
Speaker 3: I get I you know, check my mirror and get
Speaker 3: around them and go let but then they'll pass me.
Speaker 3: I'm going like eighty miles nor they're going driving faster
Speaker 3: than me. So they're more than willing to drive fast.
Speaker 2: They just don't.
Speaker 3: They can't enter quickly. Now I know someone, and I
Speaker 3: just wonder how many people are like this. I know
Speaker 3: someone why, like a lot who just finds it too
Speaker 3: like taxing on the car. They feel like it's too
Speaker 3: you know, it's too much demanding of their vehicle to
Speaker 3: like hit the gas and speed up like like that.
Speaker 4: Mm. They need to drive with me and my big
Speaker 4: giant engine.
Speaker 2: That's the fun Partah.
Speaker 3: Well. Anyway, speaking of driving, so I took probably I
Speaker 3: don't know, maybe a dozen lyft rides in LA, although
Speaker 3: I had been told this maybe this is a northern California,
Speaker 3: say I don't know where it is where you live.
Speaker 3: But I was told I had a problem with Uber,
Speaker 3: and somebody said, you use Uber, you gotta use Lyft.
Speaker 3: Lift is target, Uber as Walmart, and so I started
Speaker 3: using Lyft. Well, I had some bad experiences with Lyft
Speaker 3: in Los Angeles and somebody told me, no, it's the
Speaker 3: opposite in La by far. Oh really yeah, Uber, Uber
Speaker 3: is Uber is Nordstrom and and and Lyft is you know,
Speaker 3: your local convenience store.
Speaker 2: So okay, But anyway, I had a couple of really
Speaker 2: weird experiences with Lyft, who were.
Speaker 3: Like the people driving just had no idea to get
Speaker 3: to the where I'm going, And I had to get
Speaker 3: out my phone and look up away myself and start
Speaker 3: telling them how to get there, which was just weird.
Speaker 2: I've never had to do that ever. Got they got
Speaker 2: an app and I couldn't read it or something.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many times I circled my hotel.
Speaker 3: I was in no hurry, so I just circling it
Speaker 3: started going. I finally like said, uh, okay, or I
Speaker 3: just can't figure out how to get there, he said
Speaker 3: in a very thick Spanish accent. So I got out
Speaker 3: my phone. I turn left here, turn left here, turn
Speaker 3: right again. Okay, you can drop me off there. But
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know if he's a good driver
Speaker 3: on the rest of his life. But got this notice
Speaker 3: before one driver picked me up. Your lift driver is deaf?
Speaker 3: Please text instead of calling. Learn how to say hello
Speaker 3: or thank you an American sign language, which I tweeted.
Speaker 2: Out and responded with, got this notice.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, I'll just pick up sign language real quick
Speaker 3: while I'm standing here on the corner.
Speaker 2: No problem.
Speaker 3: But it brought me a bunch of hate from people,
Speaker 3: uh who believe I was being really like coarse and
Speaker 3: non sympathetic to our disabled countryman by not learning it.
Speaker 3: Oh would that really be too much to learn a
Speaker 3: little sign language for someone who's deaf?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 4: How about to say hello, I wave with a smile
Speaker 4: on face and to say thank you I give him
Speaker 4: a thumbs up with a smile on my phone. Or
Speaker 4: how about we I don't interact at all, which is
Speaker 4: my first favorite go to a proposal of marriage and
Speaker 4: or a threat.
Speaker 2: No, it's universally understood.
Speaker 3: Well, So aside from the hate for me being so
Speaker 3: lacking and compassionate for our deaf friends that I wouldn't
Speaker 3: learn sign language real quick. Well, I'm standing there with
Speaker 3: my bags on the corner. I don't pick up a
Speaker 3: foreign language, which it is real quick. Uh, A number
Speaker 3: of people texted. Now that's what the people do who
Speaker 3: can't speak English, so that they don't get out. It
Speaker 3: is not being able to speak English. It's very common
Speaker 3: in l Yeah, yeah, I took this job. I don't
Speaker 3: speak English. And to get around that, there are too.
Speaker 4: Many layers to modern life. I swear, oh no, no,
Speaker 4: you don't understand that this is going on. That and
Speaker 4: here in LA is posed everywhere else. And then the
Speaker 4: driver is going to claim to be Armenian because Armenians,
Speaker 4: of course have no thumbs, and if you have no thumbs,
Speaker 4: you don't have to turn right. Oh, this is too much.
Speaker 3: I would assume that it's a requirement to drive lift
Speaker 3: or uber you speak English, right, because how else can
Speaker 3: your passengers say no, drop me off here, or I've
Speaker 3: changed my mind. I'd rather go to blah blah blah
Speaker 3: if you can't talk to the person, or I vomited
Speaker 3: in your back seat exactly, But if the but if
Speaker 3: what we're going for here is some sort of agreement
Speaker 3: where there's no chit chat. Sign me up. I'm all
Speaker 3: day long, Pedro. I'm with you. Let's so you don't
Speaker 3: talk to me. I don't talk to you. We're all happy.
Speaker 4: I don't care if you're deaf or Guatemalan or Armenian
Speaker 4: and umbless.
Speaker 2: We're both happy here. Drop me off, just drive all city.
Speaker 3: Yeah, drop me off someone near near my hotel, within
Speaker 3: walking distance, and we'll call it good.
Speaker 4: It's the big one that says help not it right there?
Speaker 2: Oh that's right. You can't understand me, never mind right, wow, if.
Speaker 4: You don't lie on the economy coming up in a
Speaker 4: moment or two.
Speaker 2: Joe's I'm the economy.
Speaker 3: I've got an interesting nugget too about a consumer spending
Speaker 3: that we'll get to.
Speaker 2: Uh what was I going to say? I must say,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I've flip it out of my head.
Speaker 3: Anyway, if you missed a segment or now, you can
Speaker 3: get the podcast Armstrong and get you on demand.
Speaker 2: We do four hours every day. I mean, it's ridiculous,
Speaker 2: it's too much. I'm being held without against my will. Yes,
Speaker 2: stay tuned if you can.
Speaker 4: The economy stuff is actually really interesting, in thought provoking.
Speaker 1: Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to talk about it today, but the
Speaker 3: topic that's about to take over our lives for those
Speaker 3: of us who follow the news is the whole tax thing,
Speaker 3: that bill that you got to get to like in
Speaker 3: the next couple of weeks. There's a couple of giant
Speaker 3: bills that are going to be proposed in the next
Speaker 3: couple of weeks that are going to dominate the political
Speaker 3: conversation for like the next six months.
Speaker 2: Probably now.
Speaker 4: If you're listening a while ago, you heard me challenge
Speaker 4: Michaelangelow to come up with a good theme song.
Speaker 2: Jack.
Speaker 4: The tax bill might be in a future edition of
Speaker 4: I on the Economy like that.
Speaker 2: I'm Kent Brockman. That's good. Ten out of ten.
Speaker 3: The money, yes, that's oh wow.
Speaker 4: It's turned harsh there, but I don't mind it. This
Speaker 4: sounds like your local news in like nineteen ninety.
Speaker 2: Eight seven dollars.
Speaker 4: Hip it up a little bit and it's hi on
Speaker 4: the Galloway.
Speaker 2: I'm Joe Ketty.
Speaker 4: Oh that's beautiful. Just tightened it up and when they
Speaker 4: will be right in the sweet spot. So a couple
Speaker 4: of stories I found very very interesting.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: First of all, the weird weird housing market we're in,
Speaker 4: which everybody knows no matter whether you're in a house,
Speaker 4: hoping to buy a house, hoping to sell a house, renting,
Speaker 4: what have you. A nice piece by Alicia Finley in
Speaker 4: the Wall Street Journal White of housing prices keep climbing
Speaker 4: despite higher interest rates.
Speaker 2: Well, the Biden and it's been confusing to me.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Well, the Biden administration did some real activist
Speaker 4: stuff that was Obama esque and did not really get
Speaker 4: much attention. The federal government has allowed barwers to take
Speaker 4: out much bigger mortgages they than they can really afford
Speaker 4: to prevent foreclosures. That's bailing them out when they missed payments.
Speaker 4: Behold another subprime housing bubble. Ah. The problems began, Alicia Wrights,
Speaker 4: when the Obama administration eased underwriting standards by enabling more
Speaker 4: home buyers whose debt payments exceeded forty three percent of
Speaker 4: income oh to qualify for government backed loans forty three.
Speaker 2: A higher than that.
Speaker 4: So that sort of borrower is risky obviously, because they
Speaker 4: might not be able to make payments if their income
Speaker 4: drops or expenses rise, or you know, they blow all
Speaker 4: four tires or whatever. You as the home client prices climbed,
Speaker 4: the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration ensured more loans to
Speaker 4: financially stretch borrows with as little as three and a
Speaker 4: half percent down. Now, this was the Obama time, no
Speaker 4: skin off lenders backs if the bar was defaulted, since
Speaker 4: the mortgages were backed by the government. And you remember
Speaker 4: the whole Barney Frank Obama thing where if banks didn't
Speaker 4: write a certain number of mortgages to buy POC people
Speaker 4: or whatever they are calling them back, then we would
Speaker 4: bring the full weight to the regulatory state down on
Speaker 4: your heads. And the banks were like, well, then we'll
Speaker 4: go under, and Obama said, no, no, no, no, We'll
Speaker 4: have the federal government insure those loans, so the taxpayer
Speaker 4: will fund it, and the tax federal deal a tax
Speaker 4: payer will deal with it when they go under.
Speaker 2: Anyway, So listen to this, though. This is where it
Speaker 2: gets crazy to me.
Speaker 3: There might be a giant collapse again where prices drop.
Speaker 2: Those all are on the sidelines. That could never happen. Jack,
Speaker 2: We're kind of getting there.
Speaker 4: But in two thousand and seven, thirty five percent of
Speaker 4: new FAJA borrowers had deckted income ratios above forty three
Speaker 4: percent thirty five percent. By last year, fifty four percent
Speaker 4: did more than half wow, and his housing prices and
Speaker 4: inflation surged, borrowers became more stretched. The FAA kept ensuring
Speaker 4: mortgages to borrowers who were increasingly leveraged. About sixty four
Speaker 4: percent of FHA barers last year exceeded the forty three
Speaker 4: percent threshold. So the faja's loan portfolio is a lot
Speaker 4: riskier than it was just before the two thousand and
Speaker 4: eight housing crisis. Now, I don't know what percentage they
Speaker 4: may have mentioned it, how big that is within the
Speaker 4: the you know, the global housing market within the US,
Speaker 4: I don't actually know that. But the number of delinquents
Speaker 4: are heading for delinquent mortgages is rough.
Speaker 2: It's high right now. And Biden administration's gone now.
Speaker 4: But the house of cards they built could collapse if
Speaker 4: Trump officials dare to end some of these programs, because
Speaker 4: they're the only thing keeping people in their houses and
Speaker 4: paying their loan.
Speaker 2: Home prices are so ridiculously high.
Speaker 4: Though soft to happen, Oh, I know, I know it's
Speaker 4: got to burble down, but it just remember politicians don't
Speaker 4: care if they are presiding over the road to ruin
Speaker 4: if they are out of office when the ruin happens,
Speaker 4: they don't care anyway. Foreclosures would inevitably decrease, which cause
Speaker 4: home prices to fall sharply in lower income neighborhoods with
Speaker 4: more FAHA mortgages. More borrowers would then fall underwater, balloting
Speaker 4: tax payer losses. The homes might also become more affordable.
Speaker 2: What a mess. Who will get blamed not the folks
Speaker 2: who inflated the bubble?
Speaker 4: Alisha points out, She's absolutely right, and I thought this
Speaker 4: was really interesting and really easy to understand. They mentioned
Speaker 4: that many Americans are pinching pennies, high prices, stubborn inflation,
Speaker 4: but the well off are spending with abandon the top
Speaker 4: percent ten percent of earners top ten percent, which is
Speaker 4: households making around two hundred and fifty thousand or more
Speaker 4: per year. As we always point out, and for some reason,
Speaker 4: we're the only people who point this out. Quarter of
Speaker 4: a million bucks in La San Francisco, Manhattan, it's nothing.
Speaker 2: You're living inn Oaki. You're living a good life. You're
Speaker 2: living a fine life.
Speaker 4: If you're in Coonhauller, Kentucky, you're rich as hell. Anyway,
Speaker 4: the top ten percent of earners are splurging on everything
Speaker 4: from vacations to designer handbags. Bullied by big gains in stocks,
Speaker 4: real estate, and assets. The top ten percent now account
Speaker 4: for fifty percent of all spending, a record in data
Speaker 4: going back to nineteen eighty nine when Moody's Analystics first
Speaker 4: started looking at this.
Speaker 2: Sup this.
Speaker 3: This doesn't sound good. That just doesn't seem like on
Speaker 3: the face of it, it could be good. Two thirds
Speaker 3: of consumer spa or two.
Speaker 4: Half what half half of consumer spending is ten percent
Speaker 4: of population going to quote a different statistic.
Speaker 3: Okay, two thirds of the economy is consumer spending, and yeah,
Speaker 3: half of that is just the top ten percent.
Speaker 2: That ain't correct. That is not good. That is a
Speaker 2: setup for disaster.
Speaker 4: Three decades ago, the top percent was about thirty six
Speaker 4: percent of spending. So it's up by almost half, not
Speaker 4: quite up by forty percent as a percentage.
Speaker 3: I would like to see the next quintile or however
Speaker 3: they would break it down, because I keep talking all
Speaker 3: the time about you know, you see these statistics are
Speaker 3: how many people are paycheck to paycheck, and how much
Speaker 3: credit people have maxed out credit cards and all these
Speaker 3: different things.
Speaker 2: But you know, you go to Vegas. Yeah, you fly
Speaker 2: on a plane, you go to a restaurant.
Speaker 3: It seems like people are spending like crazy. So if
Speaker 3: if you got half of the consumer spending as that
Speaker 3: top ten percent, I wonder what the next ten percent
Speaker 3: of people account for?
Speaker 2: All bet a lot.
Speaker 4: Picturing Bernie Sanders yelling top ten percent as who the
Speaker 4: demon eyes gets bigger and bigger as we've predicted.
Speaker 3: But in other words, I'm I'm wondering if like the
Speaker 3: top twenty five percent income account for like ninety five
Speaker 3: percent of consumer spending.
Speaker 2: I'll bet you're right. I'll bet you your DAYMN close
Speaker 2: to right.
Speaker 4: All this means that economic growth is unusually reliant on
Speaker 4: rich Americans to continue to spend. Mark Zandi, Chief Economistic
Speaker 4: mood is estimating that spending by the top ten percent
Speaker 4: alone accounted for almost one third of gross domestic product
Speaker 4: between September of twenty three and September of twenty four.
Speaker 4: High earners increase their spending by twelve percent. Spending by
Speaker 4: working class middle class households meanwhile dropped over the same period.
Speaker 4: So taking together, well off people have increased, they're spending
Speaker 4: far beyond inflation, while everyone else has not.
Speaker 2: Here's a little of what you're asking for. The bottom eighty.
Speaker 4: Percent of earners spent twenty five percent more than they
Speaker 4: did four years earlier, barely outpacing price increases of twenty
Speaker 4: one percent over that period. So in real dollars, they
Speaker 4: only increase by four percent. The top ten percent percent
Speaker 4: spent fifty eight percent more. I realized, there's a hell
Speaker 4: of a lot of numbers if you don't have them
Speaker 4: in print in front of you. But again, so the
Speaker 4: bottom eighty percent really outpaced inflation only by four percent.
Speaker 4: The top ten percent outpaced inflation by thirty seven percent.
Speaker 3: I find this a fascinating topic, and I was thinking
Speaker 3: about it a lot on Friday, since I was in
Speaker 3: LA for my birthday and I was on Wilshire Boulevard
Speaker 3: and Rodeo Drive, really expensive area. Stuff like that. Look
Speaker 3: at it, stuff not buying, And how many things that
Speaker 3: are purchased in America don't need to be purchased at all,
Speaker 3: or even in things you do need to purchase, you
Speaker 3: could purchase a much cheaper version and be fine. Yeah, cars,
Speaker 3: you know, almost always you could. You could be perfectly
Speaker 3: fine with a cheaper car. Now I realized go ahead,
Speaker 3: and I just just it's it's interesting that as human
Speaker 3: beings we do that, and it would stop quite quickly
Speaker 3: a lot of it. Well, it's it's basically the difference
Speaker 3: between elastic products and inelastic products. But all that would
Speaker 3: come to a head really quickly in a bad, bad downturn,
Speaker 3: like a you know, a cataclysm.
Speaker 4: I gained so much weight over my birthday week. I'm
Speaker 4: really grateful, grateful for elastic products. Anyway.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all very top heavy.
Speaker 4: I wonder what well I was gonna say, I wonder
Speaker 4: what percentage of the GDP is based on status symbol purchases.
Speaker 2: But right.
Speaker 4: To a certain extent, does that even mean? I mean,
Speaker 4: like I have a nice car. I have a really
Speaker 4: nice car. It's also super zoomy and capable. It's an
Speaker 4: suv and it's fun to drive. I don't need that car. Clearly,
Speaker 4: is that a status symbol or what I mean? A
Speaker 4: bunch of people are employed making them and selling them
Speaker 4: and servicing them. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's all very very top heavy, though.
Speaker 4: It reminds me of do you remember it was probably
Speaker 4: I don't know, six months ago when somebody finally said
Speaker 4: out loud. Hey, you know how the S and P
Speaker 4: uh five hundred or the Nasdaq or whatever. You know
Speaker 4: how that's up eighty percent.
Speaker 2: It's just five stocks out of like a couple hundred.
Speaker 3: Just fine, right, unless you were those stocks, if you
Speaker 3: unless you were in those stocks, it didn't change your
Speaker 3: situation that much.
Speaker 2: Or in an index fund, which which helps obviously.
Speaker 4: But like the American economy is robust and growing, look
Speaker 4: at the S and P five hundred.
Speaker 2: I will never refer to the Dow again.
Speaker 4: The TAO is more idiotic than it's ever been as
Speaker 4: a measure of anything.
Speaker 3: Never look at the TAO because of the fashier lamb
Speaker 3: that it's dominated so much by Nvidia and Apple and
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff.
Speaker 4: No, No, the opposite the TAO is it would take
Speaker 4: too long to explain, but the way it's weighted, what
Speaker 4: it's composed of as a measure of the economy is stupid.
Speaker 2: It's not a measure of anything.
Speaker 3: I hate to sound like bird Bernie Sanders, but a
Speaker 3: lot of that kind of talk that you get the
Speaker 3: measures are for the ultra rich and investors.
Speaker 2: They're using measures that matter to them but don't matter
Speaker 2: to lots and lots and lots of the rest of us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well that's true, I would argue in the case
Speaker 4: of the Dow, that's not true. The Wall Street Journal
Speaker 4: editorial board is like, can we stop talking about the Dow?
Speaker 4: It's dumb anyway. Ah, But I'm reminded the same top heaviness. If,
Speaker 4: for instance, Taiwan gets invaded and we can't get chips
Speaker 4: in the numbers that we need, Uh, there's gonna be
Speaker 4: a global depression.
Speaker 2: That's almost certain.
Speaker 4: Because we're so relying on certain sectors and a certain
Speaker 4: you know, percentage of the population to do all the
Speaker 4: consumer spending.
Speaker 3: I feel like we're getting close to Glenn beck territory here,
Speaker 3: where he would write on the chalkboard and then start
Speaker 3: crying but how awful things are.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're having We're into that territory right now. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been poor before. I really don't want to be,
Speaker 2: but I'm not. I mean, I'm miles away from Bertie Sanders.
Speaker 3: But like watching the most conspicuous of conspicuous consumption right
Speaker 3: in La, I mean, second only to maybe do Bai.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just like it's hard to not come
Speaker 3: away from that and think why does this exist? It
Speaker 3: shouldn't exist. Shouldn't it just be condemned by everyone?
Speaker 5: I mean, just like.
Speaker 6: What is it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see your point.
Speaker 4: I mean like virtually every great religion philosophy has cautioned
Speaker 4: us against materialism and over luxury and the rest of it.
Speaker 4: But what are you gonna do with the money? I mean,
Speaker 4: if I'm in a business that you know whatever. I
Speaker 4: invested in Apple and it paid off like crazy, and
Speaker 4: now I got buttloads of money.
Speaker 2: What am I supposed to do? I didn't, by the way,
Speaker 2: And I don't.
Speaker 3: Buy a handbag with a certain name on it. That's
Speaker 3: just like any other handbag. But this one costs five
Speaker 3: thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: I shan't be doing that. We will finish strong. Next,
Speaker 2: are you not going to comply with it state federal laws?
Speaker 7: Well we are the federal law. Well you better do it.
Speaker 7: You better do it because you're not going to get
Speaker 7: any federal funding at all if you don't. And by
Speaker 7: the way, your population, even though it's somewhat liberal, although
Speaker 7: I did very well there, your population doesn't want men
Speaker 7: playing in women's sports. So you better comply because otherwise
Speaker 7: you're not getting any federal funding. See every state. Good,
Speaker 7: I'll see you and could I look forward to that.
Speaker 7: That should be a really easy one.
Speaker 2: Wow. See, that's the first time I've heard that.
Speaker 3: That's Trump arguing with the governor of Maine who wants
Speaker 3: to continue to let dudes play in women's sports, despite
Speaker 3: the fact that The New York Times has a poll
Speaker 3: out today saying eighty percent of Americans that includes two
Speaker 3: thirds of Democrats, think transgender athletes should not be allowed
Speaker 3: to compete in women's sports. So it's not even close.
Speaker 3: It's not even close among Democrats. But anyway, I saw
Speaker 3: these headlines about how this governor of Maine owned Donald
Speaker 3: Trump or shames Donald Trump or whatever, and that's not
Speaker 3: what it sounded like to me.
Speaker 4: No, Okay, go ahead, stand up for an issue that
Speaker 4: teens worth of percentages of Americans believe in.
Speaker 2: As perverse as it is, I.
Speaker 3: Know, the headline I saw the most was main governor
Speaker 3: tells Trump, I'll see you in court.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, Trump said, yeah, okay, I'll see you in
Speaker 2: court too. Sounds great. Yeah, I know, I know.
Speaker 4: How long is this madness gonna last? Keeping in mind,
Speaker 4: they have like the whole of the educational structure in
Speaker 4: this country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I became aware of a school where every
Speaker 3: teacher is wearing a lanyard with their pronouns on it.
Speaker 8: Whatever, beautiful, Jackie Clark, GISs time stop, Jack and Joe
Speaker 8: live God go and if they don't give can they'll
Speaker 8: be back tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Here's your Oas for final thoughts, Joe Getty, let's get
Speaker 3: a final thought from everybody on the crew to wrap
Speaker 3: things up for the day.
Speaker 4: There is our technical director, Michael Angelom, Michael laid us Off, removed.
Speaker 9: Lent from my sharpened a pencil, gave a coworker a
Speaker 9: nasty frown, watched a Great British baking show during hour
Speaker 9: or two, and finally cut my string cheese into five
Speaker 9: equal pieces.
Speaker 2: These are the five things I did on my job today. Excellent.
Speaker 2: I think you've justified your employment.
Speaker 4: Elon Musk is going to heave you out of this place.
Speaker 4: Katie Greener esteemed Newswoman. As a final thought, Katie.
Speaker 3: Yes, my final thought is I got a lot of
Speaker 3: entertainment out of Jack on Twitter this weekend, and I
Speaker 3: just there's a lot of people wondering if you got
Speaker 3: the vest.
Speaker 2: No, I did not find that vest. What the hell
Speaker 2: is that? That vest made a real statement. My statement
Speaker 2: was I'm a dope. Uh No, it's funny. Jack. A
Speaker 2: final thought, well.
Speaker 3: It's some company that Target carries. It was the same
Speaker 3: company that made that onesie denim thing, remember that I
Speaker 3: wore last year?
Speaker 2: Whatever that was. It was like the shortest onesie What
Speaker 2: is that company? Who's that for? To the I have
Speaker 2: a lot of Target clientele that need that stuff. Very odd.
Speaker 4: My final thought is, is the only status symbol I
Speaker 4: want is hiding away? Leave me alone. I don't have
Speaker 4: to deal with you people, not you people in general.
Speaker 4: The ability to disappear, that's all I ask. I don't
Speaker 4: need that watch, or that those leather pants or that handbag.
Speaker 4: Lord knows, I'm a myron. Why your status symbol is
Speaker 4: being a misanthrope? Yeah, exactly, Like just to give me
Speaker 4: a cabin in the woods. Okay, I'm poor now, I
Speaker 4: just can I take a walk in the woods.
Speaker 2: I'm happy.
Speaker 3: Speaking of being poor, That fixed into my story for
Speaker 3: the One More Thing podcast, which we'll record here soon.
Speaker 3: Armstrong in Geeddy wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.
Speaker 4: So if we haven't done enough, so many people, thanks,
Speaker 4: so a little time go to armstrong in geeddy dot com.
Speaker 2: Great hotlingks, drop us a.
Speaker 4: Note, mail bag at armstrong in geddy dot com, pick
Speaker 4: up some swag, Subscribe to the dang old podcasts. What
Speaker 4: the link is right there at armstrong in geeddy dot com.
Speaker 3: God, there's so many developing stories to stay on this
Speaker 3: week Ukraine, Doge and many others see you tomorrow, God
Speaker 3: bless them.
Speaker 2: I'm Strong and Getty. I think your star spangled at
Speaker 2: so good.
Speaker 3: All better off, We're all better off, we're all better off,
Speaker 3: and we're working together.
Speaker 2: And everyone knows this thing. Yeah, no, Joe, let's go
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 3: Is it possible to leave Trump out of this and
Speaker 3: just discuss the fact that Europe needs to get stronger and.
Speaker 2: To be able to defend itself? Does Spain even have
Speaker 2: a gun?
Speaker 1: On that?
Speaker 2: I note MS Strong and Getty