Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-21-25_TUESDAY_6AM

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Into the news of the day, is auto finance cracking? Paul Oster, Americas Credit Repair Man has that story and more.

The Bill Meyer Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. Mornings on KMED at 993 KBXG. Call Bill at 770 5633 at 770 KMED. Here's Bill Meyer. Got my coffee, got the phones, got my notes, got the Facebook live going. Hey, we're all here.

We're all in all right. 7705-63377. Okay, MED to join in. It is Pebble in your shoe Tuesday. How are you doing this morning? How are you feeling? Things going all right for you? If you're an Oregon Democrat, I don't think it's a really great day because finally a little bit of common sense came in there

and a two-to-one, by a two-to-one vote, a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up saying that President Trump does have the right to send National Guard to Portland. And, of course, that ended up trouncing Karen immigrants, Judge immigrants, earlier ruling about that. Now, two of the three that ended up ruling in his favor yesterday were Trump appointees.

The other one was a Carter appointee, but the immigrant, by the way, was a Trump appointee either, or also, I should say. But remember, the so-called appointee thing doesn't really make a whole lot of difference because remember, the judges ended up really going in there, usually at the suggestion of the U.S. senators. So it's essentially Merkley and Weiden who end up, Senators Weiden and Merkley, who end up holding sway over a lot of what happens. Okay, it's not like President Trump just goes to the Federalist Society and just automatically puts everybody in. Now, sometimes he does, but they always end up giving some deferment.

And given the way the state of Oregon is running these days, perhaps he'll be doing less deferring to widened and murkly. But who knows? Two to one. And they said, yep, you get to do this. And it makes absolute legal common sense, too, that the president has the right to do this. And I'll talk about it next hour. We're going to have a gentleman from Landmark Legal Mike O'Neill, one of the fastest talking lawyers on the planet. We got him here.

We're going to talk with them a bit about this. And what this might portend, where this is actually headed. Now, it'll be appealed. There's always yet another appeal. And I'm not exactly sure where this goes next, possibly to a full hearing of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rather than just a three-judge panel. We'll see about this. But overall, I'd say this is a positive development for President Trump, especially to bring the state of Oregon in Portland. Portland to heal. And I think it needs to be brought to heal. It's been disorderly for a long time. There's been a more than 100-day siege on the ice facility. You can't get anybody in and out of the building without tons of guards being around it. It's not, you know, it's not just, it's not normal. It's not normal. But, of course, you know, Portland would have you think that this is completely normalized behavior. Oh, it's peaceful. Yeah, I know. Yeah. At the same time, Portland gives them a land use violation because of

of the windows being boarded up on the first floor because of all the broken windows and the rock throwing that had been going on around the mostly peaceful protesting and most of the really peaceful protesting in scary air quotes goes on at night. So they're moving forward now and it makes perfect sense because this whole this whole pallet of nonsense

which has been coming out of the state of Oregon is that, okay, we're not going to allow you. We don't like ice. we're a sanctuary city we love everyone who's here you know except our own citizens we make our own citizens pay for all the unwelcome visitors too but um you're not allowed well we're not going to protect dice we're not really going to do a whole lot to keep order around there and guess what president trump you're not allowed to protect it either with national guard well that has been turned on its head now that's essentially what's been going on we won't protect it and

you're not allowed to protect it and then the court said well yeah yeah you are allowed to protect it this is one square block of portland and for all of these people let's see what we got here there there's an article in the uh in the oregonian that's talking about Oregon Democrats refused to bend the knee and yeah that's what this is all about really state leaders doubling down on the message that additional federal troops are unnecessary to quill protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Facility. Troops are not wanted or needed in Portland. Senator Jeff Merkley writes,

The fight continues to protect our community. Uh-huh. Jeff's, Jeff Merkley's community or idea of community is probably not the same idea that you and I would have about who our community is, I suppose. Attorney General Dan Rayfield, insurance Scheister-in-chief, has been fighting the National Guard deployment in court, urging people Monday to remain peaceful and keep their faith in the American judicial system. Translation, we've got leftists festooned everywhere. We got Marxists everywhere, buddy. That's all right.

We had a two to one here. We'll find some Marxists in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. You just wait. But anyway, Rayfield says, today's ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification. Now, it's putting National Guard in one square block of Portland. Just remember this. When you hear, oh, we have them controlling the streets. No, one square block of Portland. And for all the nomads that are going out there and saying that everything is perfectly peaceful,

if there's no problem with the National Guard there, there won't be much for them to do. Everything will be fine. Everything will be peaceful. ice will get to do what they do which I think is really the issue the issue has been about making sure that ICE is not able to accomplish its mission in the state of Oregon in sanctuary state Oregon

that's what this is really all been about you have national guard around there you no longer have to in other words you no longer have to part the red sea actually it's kind of interesting when you think about it in this particular case the red sea would be red commies and Marxist and the Antifa types around there. If they no longer have to part the Red Sea to be able to do their job, I think that

would be a good thing. As far as I'm concerned, the blue hive mine cities have brought this on themselves. They're going to say, you can't enforce the law here, and we're not going to enforce the law, and you're not allowed to come here and enforce the law either. Well, that's not the way it's going to be. So I think a very, very positive development. Okay? All right.

Javadi. Or Javadi, I don't know how you pronounce his name. Remember that state representative? Ostensibly, well, of course, he ran as a Republican, but one of the worst rhinos of all time who ended up flipping to the Democratic Party. Christian Honol, according to a Capitol Chronicle, is going to challenge Cyrus Javity, who's now running as a Democrat. In other words, he's telling the truth now. Honol is a retired tech, and he's running to represent Oregon's House District 32, stretches along the north coast from Astoravis. to the northern edge of Lincoln City.

It's kind of a purply place, but leaning Democrat. He'll have a tough, he'll have a tough go. But that's why Cyrus Javati was able to get in there and run as a Republican, wink, wink, nudge, and then the 14,000 or so Republicans in that district are going, oh, he's a Republican. There's an R next to his name, and so I'm going to vote to it. But Christian Honol will actually be a real Republican. I hope he's able to make it.

and he talked about feeling betrayed that Javadhi was such a turn code. Yeah. Yeah, I got a few of those there. He says he made promises to the Republican Party that he didn't keep. Hoddle said he voted the opposite of what he said he would. He said he was pro-life. He said he wasn't going to vote for any new taxes. And then he votes for the transportation bill and then converted to a Democrat.

I actually feel kind of betrayed, he said. Yeah, I would imagine a lot of people in House District 32 would feel that way. Hopefully, Java D is sent packing. We'll see about that. Let's see. K-OBI reporting OSU Extension Services ramping back up in Joe County. One month after the county board of commissioners voted to restore funding for the extension service programs. I don't know why they did this, but I'm not a commissioner.

The organization is now ramping up its offerings. At the time, this is in 2023. Some commissioners accused 4H of being woke. Ah, it's because it was. Was that too difficult to look into K-O-B-I? It was. Remember this was about the faithful farmers? Oh, you had a, remember you had a, if you had a cross on your t-shirt,

the 4-H didn't want you in there? No faithful farm. We don't want faithful farmers. If you have Marxist farmers, then the OSU Extension Service is perfectly okay with it. You know, Marxist farmers, fine. but I digress apparently Jackson County doesn't have that problem maybe we have a different OH

maybe we have a different OSU extension service down here but arguably the kids were walking away from it in Joe County but oh no they had to I don't know is the is the county commission in Joe County did they do this in order to to try to avoid being recalled

is that what this is about is that part of it I don't know I know that Andreas Black wants to come on show again i'm going to talk to him on uh on thursday we'll just see what is it just strange things going on in that josephine county as always but uh will allow some clarification going on and now another interesting story i should say on ko b i woman urges security cameras after parents home burglar leads to an arrest so woman according to jackson county

sheriffs had footage from a home security camera and it shows the dirt bag breaking into their parents' home. Suspect inside the residence, capturing the vehicle used in the crime, they were able to get the person busted and arrested, and so that's good, but, boy, that's creepy. 38-year-old suspect Christopher Jenkins arrested multiple crimes, first-degree burglary, rather, two counts of first-degree theft, first and second-degree theft, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Yes, stole the car too, apparently.

and and there we go. They're recommending security cameras for everyone. Security cameras for everyone. That sounds really good. Well, I guess it's certainly for security. I can't help, but ultimately security cameras end up being used for Big Brothers benefit. We're going to tie them all into the technocracy. I might talk with Diana Anderson about that later this morning.

Eight o'clock she's going to be coming in studio. She's putting on another seminar about telling you the Marxist underpinnings of everything we're dealing with here in Oregon and Southern Oregon for that matter. She's doing it over at the Central Point Library this coming Thursday. Okay. That should be an interesting story. OPB, government shutdown could leave three quarters of a million Oregonians without food stamp benefits. Yep, this is the Oregon Trail Card. Now it's getting

serious, folks. On Monday, Oregon Department of Human Services has started notifying more than three quarters of a million people currently getting snap, no food stamps, Oregon Trail Card. They will not be getting new benefits after Halloween. Happy Halloween. If someone has a remaining balance on their account after the end of the month, they can still use it. benefits usually get deposited into people's accounts the first week of the month. Of course, the bigger question in play here, where a state of 4.2 million people, isn't it a little scary that 750,000 out of 4.2 million people have difficulty feeding themselves? Shouldn't that be the bigger one? I'll have to talk with Congressman Cliff Benz about this. He's going to be on

the show tomorrow, 8.30. He's going to be popping into town. And I'm looking forward to about this because this is feeling like a real game of chicken with the Democrats. The Democrats, of course, are saying, we want illegal alien health care. And, of course, the subsidies for some Americans, too. We have to be honest about that. It is both sides of this. But everything's pretty unaffordable right now. And it feels like a game of chicken.

And at this point, the Republicans seem to be pretty calm about this, realizing that the Democrats don't have all strong of a hand. Maybe we will get a clean continuing resolution at some point. I don't know. I'll talk with Cliff about that tomorrow morning. I also want to talk about how the fact he doesn't want to do those in-person town halls anymore because of Indivisible. I talked with one of the gentleman from a rogue indivisible yesterday. I don't know if he's one of the reasons that Cliff doesn't do this stuff anymore, but we'll find out. Okay. So we got the food stamp battle. We have courts giving Trump the green light. What else do we got going on in here? Oh, an update on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline blow up.

Remember that nonsense the Biden administration was telling us a few years ago? There was the Russians. The Russians blew up their own pipeline. And we all knew it was nonsense then. Well, there was an interesting court case. I'll tell you about that here in just a second. Quite interesting what's going on. Yeah, big pebble in a lot of people's shoes. pebble in your shoe tuesday this is the bill mire show picture it a backyard party the grill is hi i'm amber rose with ciskew pump service and i'm on km ed 628 7705 633 it is pebble in your shoe tuesday got my ballot yesterday for the measure 15-238 whether or not uh i would like the meffron city council to raise hotel motel taxes from 11 to up to 13 percent and then uh stand

You know, getting the Eugene Emeralds to come in here and play ball in hopefully a less expensive than $90 million stadium and helping along this Creekside quarter. I guess the question really is, do we trust, do we trust the city of Medford, do we trust the city council to follow through on this and to be a good steward? I guess that'll be the question, and that's really the question we're being asked, because this really is a hurry-up kind of play. It's almost like, you know, Eugene Emeralds, of course, is running out of time over in Eugene, and so they come here, and they were pushing this plan to come to Medford at the same time. Urban renewal is saying, boy, we'd like to do something with that creekside quarter area, and we got the bums in Hawthorne and everything else. and do you trust them to be able to pull a rabbit out of a hat, I guess is the question. That's really what you're being asked, I guess, isn't it? Because you're right, the 11 to 13% raise possible doesn't necessarily affect us personally,

unless you're staying in motels all the time, and most of us aren't. It certainly would affect the tourism industry. I know that I had Mary Lynn who wrote me last night about this saying, Bill, I don't live in Medford, but I wondered, how do the motels and hotels of Medford feel about this tax increase on their visitors? I've always hesitated to vote in new taxes on other people in order to make my decision to vote for a tax. I always ask myself, is this really necessary? Is it good for everyone? Is it constitutional?

Well, in the case of the federal constitution doesn't apply. And if the residents of Medford aren't paying the tax, then why do they get to vote on causing a tax on hotel and motel visitors? because it is within all jurisdiction, Mary Lynn. And, you know, the whole idea is to tax the visiting rubs, I guess, because maybe they wouldn't complain much. To be fair, though,

11 to 13 percent, we have cities that have actually more of a hotel motel tax than that right now. The hotel motel tax was enacted by the state legislature a number of years ago. And it's about a racket of paying travel. Travel Oregon. Travel Oregon gets a cut. That means travel Medford gets a cut and all these other things. So the chamber types, you know, they want to be able to get more tourism here. And there's nothing wrong with tourism. But it's one of the very few businesses here that seems to want to go to the taxpayers for help in supporting their particular business. It is interesting. I'd like to be able to go to the city council and say, you know, I'd like to raise a particular tax because I'd like, okay, I'd like a new microphone.

phone, you know, in my studio, and my new microphone will make me sound even better, and I'll have even more listeners, and that will increase the, you know, the economy here in Southern Oregon. And, of course, they would laugh at me, but, you know, if you're a tourism and, you know, a hotel motel developer, hey, welcome, come on in, ballplay, hey, yeah, we'll do that. But it's really about who do you trust. It's not the worst idea of, you know, the conference center, it sure looks nice. It certainly looks nicer than a lot of the stuff, which is down to that area right now. It does feel a little bit hurry up, in my opinion, but we will see about that. So these are the kind of questions we have to ask you. Do you trust

the Medford City Council to move forward on this? Because the Medford City Council is asking us for this. Okay. All right. Now then, before we get on to the other news here, I had mentioned Nord Stream Pipeline. You must recall the nonsense a number of years ago when Nord Stream 2 was blown up. And we were being told that I'm scratching my hand going, one? The Russians blew up their own pipeline. That's what did it. They blew up their own.

Oh, that dastardly, Vlad Putin blew up his own pipeline. So that way the European Union had to buy liquefied natural gas from the United States. Yeah, Vlad Putin did. It was always nonsense. It was always nonsense. I was reading in Revolver.com news, all the lies about the Nord Stream pipeline explosion finally blew up, and it was in a quietly reported court case here, Michael Rashon reporting on X.

Breaking news, Polish court denies Germany's request to extradite a Ukrainian citizen, accused of blowing up Nord Stream in Nord Stream 2. The court ruled that if the explosions were part of a military action against Russia's war machine, they were an act of just war, not sabotage. And the judge went to the defendant said, Mr. Volodomir, you are a free man. The court ended up blasting the German request is unacceptable. So just part of a military action, nothing to see here? Now, I don't know.

was this another activist judge that was doing dirty work for the Western intelligence folks that have been in charge of a lot of the corruption in that neighborhood? I don't know, but one could be a little suspicious, but we'll see. That's all right, Mr. Volodomor. Go ahead. Nothing to see. Move along. We're not going to send you to Germany for trial. There we go. So much for the nonsense that Vlad blew up his own pipelines.

They were going to charge him, but nope, they won't give him up. This is the Bill Meyer show. We'll catch up on the other news here. in just a moment. Car loans. Car loans are getting a little sketchy out there. Paul Oster joins me in a couple of minutes. America's Credit Repair Man.

He's always great. We'll talk with him about that. Store closing commercials are supposed to be loud and in your face, so don't be at KBXG. News Talk 1063, KMED. You're waking up with the Bill Myers Show. I always enjoy talking with Paul Oster. And even though it's spelled OSTER, it is Paul Oster. and if you go to Betterqualified.com, you will find out all about him.

He is America's Credit Repair Man, and we're going to be talking about auto finance this morning. How you know, Paul? Welcome back to the show. Hey, good morning, Bill, and thanks for having me back on. You know, Paul, for years I have read ads in magazines, newspapers, heard ads on radio, television, watched them all in here. We'll pay off your car trade-in no matter how much you owe, right? And I've often wondered, okay, how does that actually work? And are the chickens coming home do roost right now in the auto industry?

What are the talk to you about that, how it's looking in the finance role, a little bit under tension right now? Oh, there's no doubt. And it's funny you mention that trade-in offer because right now, never before have we seen a more upside-down trade-in market, which means consumers are trading in cars that are worth less in value than they still owe on the loan. And part of that problem is they're now taking out eight-year auto loans. You know, the norm used to be three, then it went to four, then it went to five, then it went to six.

You know, now we're up to eight years. And the reality is by the end of that eight years, depending upon how much you financed, you're probably going to be in an upside-down car note. which is not a good situation. Yeah, about time the clear coat starts flaking off from being out in the sun all the time, like my car, right? You know, then you may have just paid off the car by that time, right? Wow. Absolutely, absolutely. Is this a relatively new development, or is this something which has been building for a long time?

And I'm wondering if maybe COVID was part of this. I remember used cars or older cars were actually hot there for a while. I don't think they're quite as hot at the moment, but I don't know. What are you thinking about that? Well, the latest articles that came out and this information is really telling, because it actually went all the way back to 2010. And what these surveys are showing us, delinquencies are up more than 50% since 15 years ago. So you could certainly throw COVID in there.

But I think most of the hangover from COVID is worn off. This is really just a case, Bill. people are overspending. I've been doing this for over 20 years, and we used to talk about warning consumers about being house poor, getting into a mortgage that even though the government says you can afford, and they got approved, but you really couldn't afford it because if there was any type of an emergency, you didn't have emergency funds. If any, you know, big maintenance and repairs had to happen, you know, they just didn't have the money to do that. So now we're talking about, consumers being car poor. I mean, when you tacked on insurance payments, a lot of people

are paying around $1,000 a month to drive a car, and that's just not sustainable, especially in this economy. Yeah. And not only have the prices of news cars soared, and I've talked about that with other guests at autojournalists I have on every week. We've been decrying this for a long, long time, but the insurance is also soared because when you have, you know, you end up striking or, you know, hitting, I mean, you may be driving a junker, but you end up hitting an $80,000 car, you're on the hook for paying for an $80,000 vehicle, aren't you? Yeah, so when you, this is like, this is worse than the perfect storm. This is prices, maintenance, insurance, and interest rates.

That's just for buying the vehicle. When you look at the broader picture with the cost of goods and services, inflation, we might be going into a stagflation period, which means the job market is not doing so hot on top of very high interest rates. Now it's really, really the perfect storm. And that's why we're in this situation. Unfortunately, along with the delinquencies, repossessions are way up, a record-breaking situation with repossession. So this is not a good situation at all. And you're concerned about this. By the way, I'm talking with Paul Oster, America's Credit Repairman.

His website is Betterqualified.com. You can find out more. If you've got any kind of hinkiness going on, you'd like to find out more about credit issues there. But is this something where you're looking at it as a canary in the coal mine, something to be of note? It'd be like if all of a sudden we're seeing a lot more of home default loans. Right. And you start going, okay, well, there's stress underneath it. Is this the early openings of the...

game so to speak this is so we this is usually coupled with credit card delinquencies the the last category for delinquencies fortunately are mortgages people will tend to forego car payments credit card payments utility payments but they're going to try and make that mortgage payment no matter what for obvious reasons but over the past 20 years and I don't care what the stock market is doing and this is doing I can tell you you know definitive when we start to see it in a very, very small microcosm of our clients, auto delinquencies, credit card delinquencies, again, unfortunately then followed by mortgage delinquencies.

And this has happened cyclically over the past 20 years. We see it very, very early. I try and sound the warm bells. People think I'm a fearmonger, and I'm just saying, listen, I've seen this before. The writing is on the wall. This is the earliest canary in the coal mine is. auto delinquencies and we're here we're we're really here and this is something this is your business so i trust you on this one uh paul when you say that uh you people are coming in they got

auto delinquencies it's a real thing is there a way to restructure auto loans so that way you can uh you know keep it uh well at least minimize the damage to your credit rating and also maybe even keep the vehicle are there ways to do this because i can't imagine that the car loaning people really want to take the car back, if at all possible. Isn't that right? They'll do it. They'll work with you. It's kind of like foreclosures.

It's kind of like foreclosures. The banks don't want your house. They take it out of the necessity and last resort, and it's the same thing. Car dealers do not want to repossess your car. It's normally not in good shape. It's not a good be-sale vehicle. So you can refinance your auto loan, or you can go to your bank and take out a a loan just to pay off the car loan, hopefully at a better interest rate.

But what you said about credit, hopefully, if you get a one-times 30-day late payment on your car, and a 30-day late payment doesn't happen. If my car payment is due today on the 21st, and I forget about it, life happens, and I pay it on Friday, that's not a 30-day late. Yeah, you're going to get a late fee from the auto finance company, but it doesn't get reported to the credit bureaus. that only happens if you fail to make the payment 30 days past the original due date. Oh, I didn't know that.

I didn't know. So just okay, yeah, you forgot to pay it on time or whatever it is, just a day or two. That's no big deal. They don't look at that as a problem. Okay. All right. That's good to know. Yeah, it never even hits the radar.

But the problem is when, if and when it hits the radar, a one-times 30-day late payment can easily cost you 25, maybe 50 points or more. your credit score. Now a bank will not refinance the auto loan or offer you a separate loan to pay off the auto. You have to make sure that you protect your credit scores at all costs, especially in today's environment. So if you're going to refinance, if you want to refinance your carlo to try to, you know, to kind of lessen the burden on your budget, at least temporarily, you do it before you're at that 30-day mark, right? You've got to do it. You've got to do it. do that. Absolutely. So you've got to be really proactive. Maybe go back to the dealership and downsize,

right? Downgrade into a, in a lesser, lower priced vehicle, refinance it the same way. Then at that point, the dealer will take your car back. It's a low mileage turn in and they can resell it, but you have to be proactive. You can't just keep waiting this out and hoping that things are going to get better. And let's take it even five steps backwards. This, all happens because the average person, consumer, and household doesn't have a household budget. They do very, very fuzzy mental math, sometimes not even before they go to the dealership, and they get down there, and these dealerships and finance guys make it seem like you can afford this. Hey, Bill, we'll get you into this card today for little or no money down.

What kind of payment? What kind of payment will it take, right? That kind of thing, right? Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, family. to plan is planning to fail. Not having a real concrete household budget in a place is setting yourself up and your family, by the way, for failure. So we stress it all the time. This should be a serious discussion between you, the family. This is what it's going to cost us. This is what it's going to do to our expenses. So we're going to have to cut some expenses. Let's start with some of the subscriptions that the kids now have. The average household is around $200. in subscriptions, Netflix, Spotify, Hulu, Roblox.

Boy, you're getting pretty darn close to a car payment when you're talking to $2.50 a month, right there. You're getting closer at least, right? Yeah, and then throw in, you know, $50 here, $50 there, stopping on your way home for a bite to eat or a drink. You know, do that a couple of times a month, and it's hundreds of dollars. So we have to be more disciplined and we have to realize, let's face it, we're all basically on a fixed income. how much money's coming in, how much money's going out. When we actually do this exercise with our clients, it's always an aha moment.

Oh, my God, I didn't realize I was spending a couple of hundred dollars a month at the convenience store. I stopped for coffee on the way to work. I stop on the way home. Oh, yeah. And it's not 99th-saint coffee anymore. Most of the time. Oh, I know.

Well, that is amazed me. I wonder how many car payments or mortgage payments get done. with everybody that I see in line. And, of course, God bless the coffee dealers. I know they've got to make a living, too, but I'm thinking, boy, you know, everything's about $5 a cup minimum, you know, these days or most of it, you know, in that neighborhood. You do that once a day, there's, you know, 100 and a quarter, 150 bucks a month or more, right?

Right there. Just that. Absolutely. So just getting yourself into a budget, you know, start to use discount shopping methods because some people just throw the bags in the car and they head to the store and they're just buying stuff, you know, at will because they want to, not that they need to. So they don't shop their pantry. They don't even realize what they have on hand. And look, if you're a person who likes beef, steak, now is not the time to be splurging on beef, you know, because that's one

of the highest increases in inflation. That got hit one of the hardest. So change your behavior, maybe slow down on the beef for a little while until things, you know, kind of work themselves out. But right now, if you don't change your behavior, you're not watching what you're spending and what you're spending it on, you're going to wind up in a very, very difficult, slippery slope because it's really, you know, debt sneaks up on us. And then it's, I'm not saying it's impossible because the good news is if you want to get out of debt, you can do it. You can't.

There's not a person out there that can't do it. Even if you had a file bankruptcy, that's an option for some people. And it's not the end of your life. It's actually the beginning of a new debt-free life. Obviously, the idea is now you don't ever get back into a situation where you have to file bankruptcy again. Yeah. But it does happen to people. Yeah.

Yeah. It happened to me 25 years ago, and I felt about as demoralized about it. I hated, you know, having it, because it was almost like putting up the white flag in a divorce and everyone's suing each other. And he just had no money. I mean, there was no money, you know? And there was just no way to do it. And ever since that time, though, it was great, but there's been a lot more financial discipline that was learned from what happened in those days. So it is possible.

It is possible to recover from that now, Paul. And that's the good news, the good side of it. Yeah, it's within a couple of years, there are some waiting periods when it comes to mortgages, FHA versus conventional. But the reality is within a couple of years, it could be like surfbro. Like, it never happened. You could have your credit score back in the 700s, be able to get financing, and again, you're debt-free. So if you got yourself into trouble, figure out how to get yourself out of trouble.

I think I've mentioned it on here, but I do, I speak all over the country, and one of the things I always talk about is it tugs on my heartstrings, it's a tragedy. People commit suicide because they're in debt, and they feel that there's no way out of this. And again, the message is very, very clear. There's always a way out of it. You just have to be willing to help yourself. In 20 years, we've never faced the situation where we couldn't help the client. So if you want to get out of debt, there's lots of different ways,

and you have to focus on credit card debt. You have people putting money away. And again, talk to your financial planner, talk to your family. But if you're putting money into a 401k or something like that, and you're carrying a credit card interest at 30%, you really have to step back and make sure that that's a sound plan. Yeah. Because if you're carrying any credit card balances,

the number one goal in your life should be to eliminate the credit card debt. If you only had, the average person is now over $6,000 in credit card debt. If you have $6,000 in credit card debt and you only make the minimum payments, it could take you over 20 years to pay off $6,000, and you're going to pay close to $20,000 when you attack the interest. So you have to figure out a way to get out of debt as quickly as possible. And if we have a couple seconds, Bill, one of the easiest things for people to do is to start making micro payments.

So if you're going to pay an extra $50 a month, even if you're not going to pay extra, you've got to make a payment in the middle of the billing cycle. It's called the micro payment. And the reason for that is credit cards are daily compounding interest. Tomorrow's balance is more than today's because of the accrued interest. If you paid $25 today, when they recalculate your balance tomorrow, it's minus the $25. So you're not paying 30% interest on $25. Add that up month over month over month.

People can save themselves a lot of money in interest, that money, more money than starts going towards the principal balance. That's how you get out of credit card debt. Paul, before we take off, we were talking, I forget the name of it, try color, try something, but there was a big auto loan, I guess a low-quality auto loan maker that went bankrupt here just a few weeks ago. And they did a lot of sales and, you know, the southern part of the United States. The name's not important. But is Wall Street going to make this decision for us that they're not going to perhaps finance these kind of companies that are that are going to be pushing the loans for the lower credit qualifying people. I'm just kind of

curious if they're going to start doing that. What do you think? Yeah, so a couple things. I had a couple seconds there, so I did go back and check our facts, and the name of that company was TriCover. TriColor, okay, yeah. And you're absolutely right. So when you hear the term, oh, there's a tightening in the credit market, that's exactly what that means. because you would be foolish as a bank to finance any subprime loans right now when the default rate is 50% higher than it was 15 years ago. So unless you have some magic voodoo that you can work to get your borrowers to pay, then it's a very, very risky, scary situation.

It used to be one of the safest finance products, and now it's by far the riskiest right now. So you are spot on when you say that. Unfortunately, again, there's going to be more dominoes to fall. These subprime lenders are going to start to fall. They just can't sustain carrying a portfolio where, you know, you have 25% non-performing notes. They just can't do it. I suppose the only good news out of this particular situation is that if you're looking for a relatively recent used car, there might be more on the lots here after a while if there are more repossessed, right?

that's one thing we can look out for, I guess. You might be right about that, Bill, but that's yet to be seen. Most recently, the secondary and used car market, the prices have never been higher. So a little bit of inventory could certainly drive those numbers down. That could be the silver lining here. Yeah, the silver lining, but a lot of people heard in the meantime, Betterqualified.com. You know, if you or someone you know needing some help on these kind of issues,

You've got a lot of free information in there, but, of course, if you need the other service, you're more than happy to provide that as something more in-depth, right? Getting people out of debt and getting them into a budget. In other words, doing what we should have been doing all along, right, Paul? Yep, sometimes, you know, it's like hiring a trainer or a financial planner. We can help you do it. It's not as easy as we think it is. Again, we're experts.

I'm a certified bico pro. I've been doing this for 20 years. we've literally helped thousands of clients, but you have to take the first step, identify the problems, and then figure it out. Again, the good news is if you want to help yourself, you can be out of debt, you know, relatively quickly, and people say it all the time, I wish I would have done this three months, six months, 12 months ago, because you'd be that much further along in the program. Absolutely.

Stop the bleeding, right? Paul Oster once again, America's Credit Repair Man, his website. better qualified.com. Great talk, and we'll keep an eye, and thanks for keeping us in the room on this story, okay? Big developing one, okay? Take care. Thank you.

Thanks, Bill. All righty-six-57.