George Kamel - Did I Just Unite America?

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

I recently discovered that Republicans and Democrats actually do agree on something: They don’t like debt. To prove it, I’ll be reacting to clips of politicians and political commentators on both sides of the aisle speaking out against different types of debt.     Next Steps: • 🎥 Watch my video Trump Just Changed the Rules—Again. • 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan. • 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app! • 🩺 Get guidance while shopping for health insurance with Health Trust Financial.   Connect With Our Sponsors: • Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. • Get up to 40% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE. • Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I don't mean to brag, but I may have just found a way to finally unite America. Because I've recently discovered that Republicans and Democrats, two groups that would ordinarily argue over the color of the sky, do actually agree on something. And no, I'm not talking about their love of taking credit for things they had nothing to do with. I'm talking about debt, baby. More specifically, they don't like it. And to prove it, I'll be reacting to clips of politicians and political commentators

on both sides of the aisle speaking out against different types of debt. And let me just tell you, I don't have any skin in the game. I have no political backbone. Do not at me. I am just simply responding to what they're saying. I don't know or care about who these people are except Bernie. Protect that man at all costs. Let's hop into the political water, shall we?

I mean, what's your profit margin? Mr. Patrick? It's circa 50%. Mr. Shady? Slightly higher. Higher than 50% profit margin? Slightly higher than MasterCords, yes. Yeah, that's incredible.

50% profit margin. I mean, that's absolutely unbelievable. What's the answer to the Walmart question, by the way, that Senator Welch posed to you? What's Walmart's interchange fee that you negotiate with them? I don't have it with me today. You don't have any idea whatsoever? Is it higher or lower than 2.5%? Walmart negotiates their rates based on the business that they do with us.

Meaning they're big. They're really big. They're gigantic. So they get a better deal than Mr. Callahan or most small businesses in Missouri. Is that what you're telling me? Yes, Senator, we have volume discounts. that we offer to some merchants. I suspect Walmart is one of them.

When you've got Walmart and other major competitors getting charged much less than you are, why in the world would you stick with these guys? I mean, why is it that small businesses continue to use Visa and MasterCard when you're getting charged so much more? It's, in my opinion, it's a matter of convenience for the customer

and customers matter to our business? Maybe is it because that Visa and MasterCard are effectively monopolies? They control 80% of the market? Certainly part of them. percent of the market. Let's talk about what you're doing to consumers who hold your cards. Last year, as I understand it, there were 726 million Visa and MasterCard's issued.

MasterCard credit cards issued the United States. It's about two for every one person in the United States of America. Either you know how much debt is owed on your networks, Ms. Kirkpatrick? It's $1.17 trillion. Got him. $1.17 trillion is what consumers now owe. on your credit card networks. Either you know what the average interest rate is

on your networks. Forbes magazine just estimated last week that the average, average credit card APR in your networks is 28.75% average. 29%, let's call it. 29%. It's nearly doubled in the last four years.

That right there was Republican Senator Josh Hawley from November 2024, grilling Visa MasterCard and others over how much they're screwing over American consumers. Now, he mentioned that the average APR across their networks is about 29%. What we're seeing is still 22% current average credit card interest rate. We're now over $1.2 trillion in credit card debt as a nation, just amongst the consumers, which is very scary. And I think we can all agree, part of it is making sure we're not

getting screwed by the major corporations out there, the monopolies out there, because when you make any purchase, you're paying that transaction fee. The businesses aren't just going to eat that. They're going to pass it on to you in the form of higher prices. And the fact that every business in America has to raise their prices, three, three and a half percent to make up for that interchange fee is insane. It is straight up highway robbery. So good on you, Senator. Keep up the good fight. Next up, let's head to Bernard. The medical debt crisis in America has become so horrific that about one out of every four cancer patients in America either declared bankruptcy or lost their homes to eviction or foreclosure

as a result of medical debt in 2022. Not enough that you're dealing with cancer. One out of four either declare bankruptcy or lose their homes. Now, how outrageous and disgraceful is that? Further, 42% of cancer patients in our country have been forced to deplete their entire life savings within two years of their diagnosis. And it's not just cancer patients

who are struggling financially with medical debt and the high cost of health care. In 2018, eight million Americans slipped out of the middle class and into poverty due to medical expenses. Again, punished financially for what crime that you're diagnosed with cancer? That should not be happening.

Man, you got to love the way Bernie puts it. Agree or disagree with his solution. he has a lot of empathy for the problem. And this problem at hand is that medical debt is crippling so many people. As of 2022, around 41% of adults in the U.S. had medical debt. And historically, one of the most common causes of bankruptcy is medical debt, which is frightening. And the solution here is obviously to have good health insurance that covers you. And a lot of people go without coverage or they have coverage that doesn't quite cover it, which puts them into medical debt. And especially people who are dealing with things like cancer, they shouldn't be having to. think about paying the bills, getting evicted, going into poverty, all because they were diagnosed with this condition. So it's a really sad state of how health care is handled in America. We have a long

way to go. But the solution, if you're watching this, make sure you have health insurance. Regardless of how expensive it is, find a way to pay for it. Get a high deductible plan if you can that has a health savings account attached. That's going to help keep that premium low. And you're taking on a little bit more risk with a higher deductible, but it's a great bargain for a lot of families out there who are worried about the cost of premiums. And of course, it's going to be cheaper if you get it through your employer. But even if you can't, go check out a place like Health Trust Financial. I'll drop a link in the description if you want to make sure you have the best coverage at the best price. This is a serious issue. And Bernie has it right on this one.

Today's money is gone. So Congress is spending tomorrow's money. The spending chart is a red line of red ink that goes on forever. When we talk about spending tomorrow's money, it's just not just the money that we need next month. It's the money we might need in a decade. It's the money we will need in one, two, three generations for now. For national defense, for infrastructure. This is the money that your children and your grandchildren will pay back with interest.

That right there was the junior senator from Kentucky, Rand Paul. And this video is from December of 2020, and let it be known. Whether you like him or not, he voted against the Big Beautiful Bill. He was one of three Republicans who said this. In deciding on whether to vote for the big Not So Beautiful Bill, I ask a very specific question. Will the deficit be more or less next year? He went on to say, even using the math, even using the formulas that the supporters of the bill like, the deficit will grow by $270 billion next year.

That doesn't sound at all conservative to me, and that's why I'm a no. end quote. Listen, you got to respect that. The guy has his principles, he has his values, and he means it to where he voted against the bill that could very well hurt his future political career. And here's what I mean by this. He's saying that he doesn't want to see his grandchildren pay the interest for spending money that is not ours. That future money that will come in is already being spent by Congress. That's how out of control this is. And the big beautiful bill, as you may know, is going to increase the deficit likely by $3.4 trillion, not. reduce it, not get us out of debt. We're just going further in, baby, and it's someone else's problem because the government keeps kicking the can down the road. And to prove it to you, here is the national debt clock, which is one of the most frightening websites in all the land. We're currently sitting at $37.26 trillion. And as you can see, that number is going up by hundreds of thousands every few seconds, which is not comforting, to say the least. And I probably shouldn't have made this my home screen, but I like a little anxiety in my life.

What can I say? What can I say? And speaking of people who don't like debt, let me tell you about my friends at Fairwinds Credit Union, a sponsor of today's video. Unlike those big national banks that slapped their names on the side of football stadiums, Fairwinds doesn't shove debt in your face. In fact, they encourage their customers to get out of debt. And their customer service team is the best of the best. So, no more dealing with this.

Ain't nobody got time for that? The best way to get started with Fairwinds is to sign up for their smart bundle. You'll get their spend smart checking account, their Save Smart High Yield Savings account, and free nationwide access to over 33,000 ATMs and 5,000 credit union partners. So go to fairwins.org slash Ramsey to sign up for the smart bundle or use the link in the description. Let's get back to more money in politics. Well, in 2009, Sally Mae's CEO said, quote, if a borrower can create condensation on a mirror, they need to get a loan this year

in order to put their subprime lending in. in place. Navian forwarded wrong information to credit reporting agencies saying that permanently disabled veterans had defaulted on their loans when they hadn't. Then you have ITT credit union issuing and using financial aid staff to rush students through an automated application process when they knew that they have projected default rates as high as 64%. Is that correct, Ms. Hugh? Yes. They knew that they were issuing loans that they knew. They knew that they were issuing loans that they knew had a default rate of 64%. Yes. So they were setting people up to fail. Wow. You heard it there. There's AOC from September of 2019, just ribbon into these student loan companies for screwing people over.

And this is crazy, and we're seeing more and more of this happen. Think about it. Most people who sign up for student loans were just sort of hurried through the process, signing on the dotted line. They're not reading through 19 forms and all the fine print. They don't know what's going on behind the scenes with these companies peddling student loan debt with insane rates without fully understanding what they were getting into. So I feel for a lot of the borrowers out there, yes, they sign on the dotted line. It's their responsibility. But it's not all their fault. This stuff was pushed so hard behind the scenes by predatory companies who intentionally were trying to screw people over, knowing that two out of three would default. They wouldn't be able to make the payments.

And I've reacted to multiple videos on this channel of people going, I paid my student loan debt for months, for years, and the balance didn't go down, it went up. Because they got caught up with these income-driven repayment programs, they didn't understand that their minimum payment wasn't enough to really attack the principal, and the interest was high enough that it grew the balance. And today, the average student loan debt per borrower, $38,8,883. And that's a lot of money for someone making $40, $40, $60K to attempt to pay off. So what do they do? They go after these programs that tell them, hey, don't worry about your payments. Put it in deferment or forbearance. Not understanding the interest can still accrue, making the balance grow, making it balloon, making it feel

impossible to get out. So here's the key. You got to attack it. You got to just work your way through it with the debt snowball. List your debt smallest to largest. Ignore the interest rates and just start plowing through it. Get your income up as high as possible, expenses down as low as possible, and just get rid of it once and for all because no politician is going to forgive this debt. We found that out the hard way with the Biden administration. They tried, Supreme Court shot it down, and it's not on the cards anymore. So, it's up to you to pay off your student loan debt, whether you like it or not, whether you understood what you were going through, or not. And I do think these predatory companies should just all go to jail.

That's my hot take. Here in Alabama, there are four times as many payday lending stores as there are McDonald's. Think about that. Because there are a lot of McDonald's. The folks who run these things, in theory, what they'll say is these loans help you deal. with a one-time expense. So your car breaks down. You got to get to work.

You go there, cash a check real quick, or get a quick loan. And then that's the end of it. In reality, most payday loans aren't taken out for one-time expenses. They're taken out to pay for previous loans. Obama is spot on there. This is from March of 2015. So it's 10 years ago, and this is still a major, major problem. And I recently was on my friend Ken Coleman show, front row seat, and he asked me this question,

if you could remove any financial practice or institution, what should it be? And I said, payday lenders, they are the most predatory in all the financial industry, and I said they should also be in jail. So I think Sally Mae and payday lenders, those old title loan places that used to be pizza huts, we should revert them back to pizza huts and put the title loan people in jail. Bring back pizza huts. That was good architecture, can I say. And Obama's right. A lot of them get stuck in these cycles where they take out a little bit and then they have to take out another one to pay back the other one because it's not uncommon for interest rates to equal three or 400 percent.

Which is insane. If there was a big sign that said 400% APR on loans, come on in, nobody would show up. But this is all hidden in the fine print and people are desperate, especially in low-income communities where they feel like they don't have any other option. So they walk into these places and get stuck in a cycle of debt. And it may not be a lot of money, but it can balloon. and balloon and drag and drag. And I stand by this, and Obama is spot on. All right, so we covered a lot of American politics as it relates to money,

but I want to see what's going on across the pond. So let's check in on the UK. See how they're doing. They have no questions to put to you. Are you saying they're advocating their duty to scrutinize me? Are you saying they haven't the guts to put questions, Jimmy? Great supine, protoplasmic invertebrate jellies. Okay, going to go ahead and Brexit out of that one real quick.

That was former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and what makes this better is this headline from Real Clear World. Boris Johnson proves he is the master of jelly-based insults. So, kids, if you ever think, who am I going to be when I grow up? You could be the master of jelly-based insults if you play your cards right. Okay, that's enough politics for today, but if you're not ready for the civic celebration to end, I've got good news for you. I recently made this video breaking down the ways that President Trump's big beautiful bill

will affect your wallet. So click here to watch it up next or use the link in the description. That's it for today. Be sure to like, subscribe, and leave a comment letting me know who you think I voted for in the 2024 election. No matter who you think it is, you're wrong. Thanks for watching. We'll see you next time because I voted for your mom.