The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Alex Urpí & Nickolas Urpí Were Live On “Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: February 22, 2024

Alex Urpí & Nickolas Urpí were live On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc, Castle Hill Cider, and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning everyone. Welcome to Today in Manñana. I'm Alex. This is Nick. We're very excited to have you joining us this morning on a chilly morning here at Charlesville, Virginia. But that's just a great opportunity to get into your cozy place, get some café con leche, preferably from Guajiros, and watch some Today y Mañana. And like and share, as Xavier likes to say. Oh, Nick is taking... Like and share. He's admirably taking Xavier's place and saying like and share and subscribe.

Oh, and subscribe, yes. But Xavier likes to throw in subscribe. He's a fan of subscribe. He's a YouTube person. Yes, he is. So we have a lot in store for you today. We'll look forward to having Steve Harvey from First Street Coffee Bar back in

the future. We've got lots of different things we can cover today. We'll do a little Charlottesville, a little music, a little UVA, a little finance. So we'll kind of mix it all in there. We've got a lot that we can cover this morning. And, of course, a big thanks to I Love Seagull Network being on the set here. We made it easy for Judah this morning. We're like, Judah, you just have to be just... Well, I was going to say, he had to do a little swap-a-roo

because Michael and Steve are both... We hope they both get better. They're both feeling a little under the weather, which is why we had to do the swap. It was a last-minute thing, but hopefully they'll both be returning to the set soon. And, you know, we are flexible. The show must go on.

The show must go on. The mail must go through. The mail must go through. And, of course, a couple of shout-outs. Thanks to Emergent Financial Services for being our presenter. Thanks to our great partners at Matias Yon Realty,

Credit Series Insurance, Castle Hill Cider, Forward Adelante. And thank you, of course, for joining us this morning. Be sure, as we get into some of these topics, if you have questions, comments, things you want to bring up, points you want to make, be sure to let us know and send them our way.

We will definitely read them and let you know. So I've got to start. This one is a bit of a curveball. Well, first, how are you doing, Nick? I'm fine. Give me the curveball. I always ask this to Xavier. But the curveball is UVA. So you've got doing it? I'm fine. Give me the curveball. But the curveball is

UVA. So you've got to talk a little bit about it because Michael and I promised last time we griped about UVA not playing so well. They went on the seven-day win streak. But now they're going to gripe again because they had a really bad game against Virginia Tech.

So our thinking is that we definitely need to look at other ways to figure out how to score. Because it certainly seems that teams occasionally figure out how to really just push our guys off the three line and make it difficult for us to score. And then we have real clonkers like we did. I mean, we struggled. The Pitt game that we lost was not great,

but they shot 50% from three, which is hard to beat anyone who's shooting 50% from three. But to lose 75-41 to Virginia Tech is not good. Now, do you see that as a defensive? Because you said that we need to find other ways to score, but was there? The 41 is more of a problem. I think when you can't score, it's hard to get back on defense

because the other team is running down the – because you missed and now the other team is running to score. Right, but can you slow that down with ball possession? You can try to slow that down, but when you only score 41, you're missing a lot of shots. Okay, that's true, yeah. You're missing a lot of shots. So I think that's a big picture of it.

And, I mean, all is not lost. I mean, we're still in third place in the ACC, and the only people above us are Duke and UNC, which is your usual suspects. So, I mean, we still have, you know, some hope here. We just have to play better. We probably got to win one game against Duke or UNC. We have UNC at home on Saturday.

Okay. And we have Duke away in a few weeks. And then definitely need to beat Boston College and Georgia Tech because they are not good. And you need to beat the teams that are not good. Okay. To go to the NCAA. So that's my gripe.

That's your philosophy to beat the teams that are not good? Yep, I'm really just saying this in the hopes that the magic works again. Tony Bennett listens to Today Manana. Does absolutely nothing. Doesn't tell me, ignores us completely because I really don't have great advice.

He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now.

He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now.

He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now.

He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now.

He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking notes right now. He's taking to take that back to me. Like, Alex Serpia.

That's the name I got to say. We can't lose to Boston College. If we need to find some other ways to score, I'm going to find them. I didn't think about that before. Exactly. He doesn't have to do any advice that I said, but this will spur the luck of another seven-game win streak.

Oh, okay. I didn't realize it was a luck thing. If we have another seven-game win streak, that would be fantastic. It probably means we win the ACC tournament and a game in the NCAA tournament, so let's do it. Seven-game win streak. You heard it here first. Seven-game win streak.

Another one. Got it. We'll chart that down and see if Alex is correct in the future. Place your bets in the comments section. Place your bets now. Is Alex wrong, or is he right? We'll see. There you go. I, I mean, I know you and Michael got to visit

take hold of a little music here in Charlottesville. So, Michael and I decided to go to the Tuesday evening concert series' performance of, it was Shostakovich's 3rd string quartet and Beethoven's 15th string quartet. And I know for a lot of audience members that may sound

a bit on the dull side. However, that's because you haven't been to a concert that had Beethoven in it before. So, and it was great. They always do a wonderful job because, you know, all the small groups in Charlottesville, especially, they get really top quality performers. They make the program interesting. And really that's part of the key too is that they have a variety of pieces that are very interesting that keep you engaged so like and and if you don't understand something because one of the things i always run into is that people say i don't understand classical music well you don't it's not about under there's nothing to understand it's an experience so you experience it number one number two if there's nothing if there's something you

don't understand it'll be in the program notes like the stories are always written down in the program so just read your program and you'll see exactly what the composer is trying or at least for the most part what is the consensus about like for instance Shostakovich's was composed in 1941 and he was very emotional when they had played when he heard performed for the first time because it was a piece written during the war part of it was a reflection on that kind of difficult time for Beethoven it was

just a matter of being it was his 15th string quartet the middle portion the very middle movement was composed at a time when he was sick and it was a recovery piece. Was that his last? Second to last. It was not, okay, so it's not second to last in the order he wrote them, it was just second to last by opus number, but it's also one of those things,

as Beethoven got later, and as he aged, he started writing much more creatively, so it's a lot more interesting to listen to later string quartets by Beethoven because they don't have standard movement structures because it was five wounds instead of four. And of course, for those who aren't aware, at Beethoven's time, that was a huge difference. A lot of times what he would do too, one of his movements, the middle movement,

was 15 minutes long and a 45-minute piece. So it took a third of the whole piece was the center. So it creates a lot of emotional weight driving towards the center. But it's also capped by these really exciting pieces that are full of, you know, melodies on top of melodies, counterpoint, all these things. So it's, and and you know the performers always do it so well and old cabal hall is perfect for these kind of performances because it's not too large exactly it's not so large that you couldn't hear for people playing on the stage absolutely yeah yeah so it's just it's a give it a shot like the tickets aren't really expensive it's like 30

dollars to go for a good seat 12 dollars if you're all the way in the balcony. So if you want to just give $12 on a Tuesday night a chance, go ahead, because these performances, they're absolutely wonderful. We're blessed to have such quality of music here at Charlottesville. Obviously, we've got the Tuesday evening concert series. We went to the UBA Symphony recently. Of course, you've got David McCormick from Early Music America coming on

next week. Yeah, he's coming next week. They always have great performances. There's a lot of groups here. Just keep your eye out. Oratory Society. Yeah, absolutely. They have an upcoming concert on March 9th. That's soon.

At 4 p.m. at First Presbyterian right here on Park Street. So, I mean, it's going to be music from the theater, so maybe a little more, if you've never experienced maybe a weighty classical music piece before, you can kind of ease your way into it with some music from the theater.

Well, a lot of those music... You know, music works from your opera, operetta, Broadway. Maybe there might be some things you're You know, music works from your opera, operetta, Broadway. Maybe there might be some things you're familiar with, some things that are going to be new to you. There'll be a little on the shorter side, right? So you're not jumping into it with like a one and a half hour, you know,

today thing. Yeah, exactly. You have time to ease your way into it. So there's so many great things leading up. Of course, that's all leading up to the big one that Nick and I are looking forward to in May. Another Beethoven. 200th anniversary. Anything with

Beethoven is hard to resist, especially for Alex and I that are big Beethoven aficionados. Aficionados, I doubt it. But I think we have great opera. I mean, music in Charlottesville. Oh, the Charlottesville Opera, exactly. We saw Leanne at the Tuesday evening because she met Michael for the first time

because he's never been on the show with Leanne because I always insert myself on his opera. So I promised him I'll put him on one time. Absolutely. And there's just so many opportunities to enjoy. And I think people know that that's the case for music, a little more popular music, you know what I mean? Right.

Folk music, bluegrass, you know, things that are around here. Obviously Dave Matthews' band was from here, right? So I think people know about that on the Charlottesville side, but the classical side is just so good for a town of our size that you don't really need to travel up to New York or Washington, D.C. Or even Richmond. You don't have to go as far as Richmond to get what we have here.

Absolutely. So it's really fantastic and I would definitely encourage people to check out Tuesday Evening Concert Series, check out Oratorio Society Virginia, check out Early Music America, and we'll have David on next week to talk a little bit more about that,

kind of share that with the audience. Exactly. Don't want to spoil too much in advance. No, don't do not. We do not want to. You just have to tune in next week. Tune in next week. Exactly what we'll be talking about. And then switching to our main topic for today

in a sense, which is finance topic. Exactly. Which is always a big crowd pleaser. I know we always get some good questions with finance topic. So I think we have a nicely sophisticated finance audience that watches today and manana. But a number of things we didn't talk about,

not sure where you wanted to start. I think we wanted to start with what Xavier actually sent us because he was like, guys, talk about this. I can't go on. But Judah, if you have a moment, could you pull up the inflation graph? So this is a new updated version of a graph that's, thank you, Judah, that we've seen before. And what it is is it highlights the inflation of different sectors

and different things that we are all exposed to. Let me find this graph for myself so I can describe it better. Before you do that, I want to shout out to Ucrumana de Dawson Agnelli, watching the show this morning, mom of Claudia Cruz from Dulce de Leche. Dulce de Leche joined us this morning. Muchisimas gracias. So if you check out the graph, you will notice that obviously some things have continued to skyrocket

in recent years. The inflation levels, I mean, it's unbelievable. The different things that have grown at different rates. It's such a spider graph. I mean, it's kind of ironic because you always compare the bottom and the top. Hospital services up 243 percent versus

tvs which have continuously declined over time and just and you see this if you look at that entire blue section one of the things i like to note is like this is what from a historical perspective that is classic textbook capitalism at work because the price of the next thing is cheaper than the previous one. I mean, really, on that list, I mean, you're talking – just a key thing. So this is overall inflation. This is not year over. It's year by year. In other words, since 2000, almost everything, if you were to add everything up and average it, everything is up 82%.

Now, obviously, that's not 82% per year. That's 82% total since 2000. It's 82% more expensive, right? But it's interesting. And then you've got wages are up 114% since 2000, overall average hourly wages. So it's just amazing to look at that section of the more affordable and just see things.

I mean, TV's down 97%. I mean, that's wonderful. You didn't see it. I mean, remember when flat screens came out? Flat screens, $1,000, $2,000. I mean, you got the flat screens, 55-inch flat screens in Costco now are like $370. Yeah, they're getting cheaper.

So, of course, then the other question is why is college tuition and fees up 184%? Hospital service is obviously the one that just blows everything out of the park. 240%. But there are reasons for that. First of all, the Affordable Care Act did not actually result in lower prices across the – Nothing's changed. I mean, that line is a straight line from 2010 and from 2010 to now. So nothing has changed.

And accompanying this graph, there was a statistic that there was so much red tape that it takes 15 years to get a new drug on pharmacy shelves, and doing so costs $2.7 billion on average. So think about that. It costs you to get a new drug on the market $2.7 billion on average. So think about that. It costs you to get a new drug on the market $2.7 billion in 15 years. That is a lot, and that's going to show up in the prices of what you're buying.

It's going to show up in the price of the drug. It shows up in the price of the drug because you have to recover $2.7 billion before you even start to make money. So that's part of the issue we're seeing here is that these things have gotten way out of hand, and it's only getting worse. We talked about it with recent guests too also

just the administrative nightmare that is insurance in the sense that, I mean, you told me today for every one doctor there are 400 insurance administrators. And so that costs

money and that money is paid by people who go to the doctor or use hospital services. You know what I mean? Especially hospitals. I mean, if that's bad enough, I would imagine of the 400 administrators per one doctor, that's not in your internal medicine general practitioner office. That's hospitals. Yeah. That's places you go when you really need help.

I mean, I've heard, and I don't know how to say this, I've heard that ambulance, just the cost of an ambulance taking you to the hospital can cost almost $50,000. Wow. And you just sort of like where, you wonder where the cost, and you know that there's a reason why these hospitals are charging these exorbitant fees, like for these things. Where, how do you solve it?

All that is really, it's a difficult problem to untangle, partially because the government has gotten so tangled up with health care that It's hard to know how to untangle. How do you untangle it from a policy There are roots of this that go back to the 1930s. Insurance companies are tangled in with it too as well. Well, no, but in the 1930s, they made health insurance premiums. Obviously, the premiums you pay for health insurance are taxable unless your employer is the one providing them to you.

And that goes back to the 1930s. So the origin of all the issue of, oh, if I lose my job, I lose my health insurance. I mean, that's a 1930s thing that has just continued to be an issue. Right. Exactly. And I mean, one thing I will also point about at the graph, for those of you who had paused it or if it's still up. Oh, thank you, Judy. Put it back up. The food and beverage, and I believe housing maybe maybe housing kind of cut it right there food and beverage was oh yeah housing is there they they were below the overall inflation line until 2020 so if you look up there 2020 is kind of like this cutoff period where like after the pandemic housing food beverage passed the overall inflation so that means obviously they were they were still

inflating, but they were the ones that were inflating the least. Now they have passed the point at which everything else is. And that's including the fact that hospital services outlier dragged up everything up. But I mean, that's also important

because, and one of the things Xavier wanted me to point out from the article that had this graph especially, was that all this is amplified depending on the income bracket you're in. So upper middle class, like a lot of the consumer spending that we have been seeing that's been carrying the economy has been coming from the upper from the upper classes the wealthy whereas middle classes and the lower lower middle class you know um i guess the low income brackets they're all struggling right this is all stuff that would cause them to struggle more not not less so this is inflation is always the hardest on the people who have the least amount of money, partially because wealthy people are more protected from inflation by having assets, which tend to do better during inflationary periods. owns two or three houses, housing goes up, the value of your assets goes up. Most of the time, all these companies are making more money, more revenue, so you're making more money as a stockholder.

Absolutely. The more you invest in stock market, the more you're able to weather something like this. The more you are in cash, the more inflation. Because remember, inflation eats away at cash. Just cash and zero. I mean, yeah, money market up to 1%. I mean, it was 1% for most of us. But think about it.

Effectively, cash is like in your pocket. So inflation eats away at the value of cash. If you have an asset which increases its value over time, that mitigates the effect of inflation on you. Because you now have things such as a stock portfolio that go up also now they may not go up the same amount of inflation but if you did about inflation goes up if inflation has been up 80 since 2020 and the stock market which i'm pretty sure the stock market is up more than 80 since uh 2000 sorry 2000 so yeah i'm pretty sure the stock market

but let's say the stock market had failed to keep up with inflation, and it was only up 40. Well, that's still 40 versus 80, as opposed to if you're in cash, it's zero versus 80. You've recovered some of your value by exposing yourself to something that is also going up in price and value. So I think that's something that we wanted to show right away because I think this is a fairly new chart. This has been updated since... Well, and I think it does to show you that the problem is the average inflation number is not... This continues to show that the average inflation number that you see, which even though it wasn't good this past month already, is a bad barometer for what the average person has to

deal with. Because since 2000, the average person, if you think about what you buy most, right, and you look at what's down on this list on the more affordable side, new cars, household furnishings, in fact, I'm going to take out new cars and household furnishings, they're up. But if you think about what has gone down in price, clothing, cell phones, toys, computer software, and TVs, those are not the things that you need most. I mean, maybe cell phone is the only thing in there that you absolutely need, right?

And if you look at the flip side on things that have gone up greater than 20% since 2000, new cars, housing, food and beverage, medical care, and hospital services. I mean, those are things that everyone is going to mostly use in your life, right? And those are outpacing the actual, the average inflation rate. So just to remind you that the inflation number is not a very good barometer of what the actual person is seeing because most of what you buy is growing up faster than the actual inflation number. Right.

And I would imagine – it's not on this chart, but I would imagine if you put energy in here, you're also dealing with gas. I mean, to be honest, gas is also – gas going up is also going to make everything else go up as well right it's it's part of that so and and and it's also one of those things that i always say like if you look at somebody's well let's say we're using extreme wealth maybe as an end as an example but let's say you buy you know a yacht and you're going to maintain your yacht like maybe the price of the yacht goes up one percent but that's the proportion of the amount that you'd have to own to have all these different things, they're not going up as much.

The proportion of things you need, somebody in a low-income bracket versus a high-income bracket, is much higher, and that's the point. Yeah, the fact that yachts barely went up in price, right, is irrelevant to the average person, because the average person isn't buying a yacht.

Right, because they have to focus on other things that are already taken care of when you have extreme levels of wealth. So it's one of those circumstances which is not, it's harsher, inflation is harsher on the lower income brackets. Many economists, I mean, Milton Friedman used to talk, I believe that that's the tax on the poor.

The progressive tax, because most of our taxes are progressive, meaning the wealthier you are, the greater percentage you pay. Inflation is a regressive tax. The poorer you are, the bigger you're hit by. Exactly. It is a tax on the poor. Which is ironic because today we have economists like Paul Krugman who said that if you take out food and travel and— It was food, energy, housing, and new cars. Yeah, if you take out all that stuff, inflation...

And used cars. Yeah, inflation hasn't been that bad. I might have spoken like a man who doesn't spend a lot of his income on... Food. Gas, new and used cars, and housing. Exactly. If you're getting paid $100,000 for a single semester,

you're not really worried. Yeah, you're not really worried. Yeah. You're not impacted by that. You're not impacted by any of this. So I, and there's, that's why it's more important to understand the numbers that you see here, because like whether or not the,

especially with inflation, there's so much noise about it. That's better. Like, this is a view of like, this is how much something has actually gone up. It shows you and it's like a number that's a little bit more concrete rather than a year over year number a

month to month exactly where it's harder to gauge where you're at where this is like this is where we're at that's that is a little bit hot something that you would have paid for in the hospital cost 257 percent more than it did in years ago. And that's the story. I'm looking at this chart, probably about 100% more than it would have 10 years ago. Yeah. So, I mean, we're seeing, I mean, yeah, pandemic amplified a lot of things,

but this has been an ongoing trend for a lot of these situations. Like you said, the issue is the pandemic clearly amplified housing and food and beverage. It pushed two things, which had been under average inflation to be now greater than average inflation. And unfortunately, those are two very important things. Yeah, and so I think that's where people are, because there's always been, I've seen a lot of surveys seeking out, they're always doing these surveys for inflation. And they're saying that, you know, people feel more hurt than the actual inflation number.

So they're trying to, a lot of these economists are trying to figure out why people feel more. And I'm like, because they are feeling more hurt. Because the inflation number takes everything at once, not the things that you care about the most. And so I think that's part of the problem is that people feel more hurt because it actually is hurting them more when the most important things are going up dramatically. So that's something that I think we wanted to cover and, you know, make, make clear to everyone. Like you're, if you're feeling the hurt, it's because you're getting hurt. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that it's just you or you're doing

something wrong because how come economists are telling me that, you know, it's not so bad for me but I feel like it's a really tough situation. It's because for you it probably is a really tough situation. Very wealthy politicians and economists are going to tell you it's not that bad. It's because it's not that bad. It's like Hoover thinking, remember when Herbert Hoover

there was this famous story from the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover thought the Depression was over but that's because he never left the White House. And like that's the same situation. If you don't leave the White House, you're not going to see what's out there on the street. Absolutely. Which I think leads into what we're seeing in terms of credit card debt. I mean, credit card debt is now at $1.13 trillion, with an average balance of $6,000.

Wow. And so serious delinquencies, which is 90 days or more, so being 90 days behind on paying your credit card, is increased to 6% in the fourth quarter, up from 4% a year earlier. So it's having a major impact on people's – it's now translating from I can't afford to now I have debt. And the problem is many credit cards are now charging just over 20%. And I think this is something that I think, that you maybe have credit card debt,

but have some means of paying it off. In other words, if you are flat out of money, and you're living off credit card, there's not too much that we as a financial advisor could give you an advice other than to look at the expense side. You know what I mean? We can't magically increase your income. We can't magically increase what's in the expense side. We can't magically increase your income. We can't magically increase what's in your savings account. We can't magically increase your assets. The only thing we would have left is to say what is left on the expense

side, which, I mean, given that food, gas, and housing are such a big thing, there may not be much left. But we do occasionally get individuals and families that they're like, do I pay off credit card debt or do I use some of my savings or do I leave my savings and roll over this credit card debt? And I think it's important to keep in mind just how damaging credit card debt is at the rates that we are seeing now. And I mean, you've seen this with people.

Sometimes I think it's easy to not realize what the impact of that can be. And the example, and Xavier gave us a great example. He said if you only make, let's say you have that average credit card debt, which the average person has, so $6,360, which may not be the average person, but it's the average of all credit card debt, which the average person has. So 6,360, right? Which then may not be the average person, but it's the average of all credit card debt divided by all people. So some people

have more, some people have less. But if you were to take that average balance of $6,360 and your rate was 20.75%, your annual rate, that's your credit, which is pretty much where most people are living at right now. And'd, and you only do the minimum payment. So you get your credit card statement and there's that little number there that says your minimum payment for this month is $30, right? And you're like, oh good, I can just pay that. I don't have to pay the balance.

I can just pay the 30. You will be in debt for 218 months to pay off this balance, which is a bit more than 18 years. It would take you 18 years to pay off this $6,000, and you will end up paying not $6,000. You will end up paying $9,542 in interest plus the $6,000 in principal.

So in other words, instead of six, you will end up paying $15,000. Wow, so that's 100% more. Nine of which will be interest. Okay, wow. Because of only paying the minimum payment. So, you need to always look at,

I mean, it's a tricky thing, but let's face it, credit card companies kind of want you to just pay the minimum payment. Yeah. Right? They want you to think,

oh, if I pay the minimum payment, I won't be in default, my credit score won't be negatively impacted, and I won't be that bad off. It's like, no. The way to not be bad off is to pay the balance. Exactly. The way to pay $9,000 of interest

is to pay the minimum. But the credit card company would be thrilled if you only paid the minimum and it took you 18 years to pay off this debt. Well, they're making 100% off their loan. But you have to think of it as the bank is lending you money to buy your goods and then you're paying them back. Now, you can either pay them back at nothing. They pay back what you borrowed, 0%.

And with the cashback stuff that they do now, you gain 1%. Or you could pay them back at, what would that be, like 100% more? Well, it's 20% annualized over 18 years. I mean, that's an insane number. Yeah, so think about that. You'd be paying, even just as a total, you're paying or you could pay them twice as much. It's basically over 150%. It is.

It's over 150%. Almost. Because of $6,000 of debt and $9,000 of interest, overall, you paid over 150% of interest. Yeah, so you're paying $100, so you can either borrow from the bank at zero and maybe make a percent or you can borrow

at 150%. Now, if you went to someone and said, hey, over 18 years, you can buy everything you want, but your interest rate will be 150%, would you do it? Yeah, exactly. The answer is no. You wouldn't do it. You wouldn't do it at all. But with the situation that we have now where

people are are just relying and so the the question i have and and i i i i struggle with this too because i know is this an education problem or is it just a matter of i can't or is it a matter of as you know it doesn't matter to me if i pay 150%. I'm buying stuff I can't afford anyway, so I'll make it later, and then just pay back. Because unfortunately, you do hear that story a lot, where it's like, well, I can't afford this now, so I'll borrow the money, and then I'll just pay it back. And then all of a sudden, you get caught in a debt trap,

which is basically just a vicious tornado cycle where you just get sucked further and further down. I think the advice is there for people who, again, if this is how you're making ends meet, there's not much that can be done. Exactly. But if you are making a weighted cost between having money that you're not using or purchasing things you may not need and paying off your credit card, you need to realize just

how big that is. And don't be fooled by the minimum payment thing. Kevin Hiddens, thanks for watching, has a great question, which is how do you think history will view Powell, Fed chair, and his management of the real cost crisis, essentially?

I think he's exactly right. He makes the point. I don't feel like most Americans connect with the word inflation as much as they do with knowing how much a gallon of milk is. Exactly. Which is, I think, exactly our point.

In other words, the average American is not encountering the inflation rate. The average American is encountering food inflation. They're encountering, I walked into the grocery store and food is

20% more expensive than it was two years ago, which you can feel and see. Well, to be fair, economists have the inflation rate so that we can understand why the price of milk goes up. That's what it is.

The problem is, at the point at which you massage the inflation rate so much that the inflation rate does not accurately – I mean, it may accurately depict the economy as a whole, but if you massage the inflation rate so much that it no longer bears resemblance to when I walk in the store and see the price of milk, because I'm like, oh, man, milk feels like way more than 2% higher.

Right. Yeah, because it is. Yeah. And the inflation rate is no longer helping you understand that. Well, interestingly enough, and we'll answer, Kevin, we'll answer the first part of your question in a moment because I think this is something else that I think a lot of economists always talk about. There was a while, especially during the Obama administration

with Janet Yellen, who's now the Treasury Secretary, I believe. She was... She was Fed Chair at the time. She was Fed Chair at the time. She was She was Fed Chair at the time. She was Fed Chair at the time. She was encouraging inflation, which was low during Obama's administration because they wanted to push what's called the Phillips Curve, which is where

if, it was an economic phenomenon that a economist named Phillips discovered, so he didn't create... Pre-70s. Pre-70s. He discovered it in the 70s. He discovered this in the 70s, that if inflation ticked up a little bit... Unemployment would go down.

Unemployment would go down because producers would think that prices were going up a little bit, something was more valuable. Not that it was worth less, that money was worth less, that they thought it was more valuable. So they'd produce more, expand their businesses, hire more people,

and create a situation where wages went up more than inflation. So it was a very, very small, finicky phenomenon. And the problem is… That was a natural phenomenon, which is the key. It's a natural phenomenon that Phillips observed, not created. Janet Yellen and the Obama administration in particular were looking to exploit the phenomenon by encouraging inflation on a small scale. Remember, they began to exploit the phenomenon even back in the 70s. Oh, they did? Okay, right.

Yeah, so the moment he discovered it, economists began saying, well, just boost inflation. I mean, yeah, because obviously Janet Yellen was a big proponent of this. And so was Ben Bernanke right before her. Right. And he just basically offloaded tons of money into the system to try to do this, right? The problem is the moment they attempted to exploit it, in other words, the moment the government said, well, let's intentionally cause inflation to lower unemployment, it stopped working.

There has been no Phillips curve connection since 1970. You can no longer observe it why because people get on and well wait a second this is not really more valuable it's just my money well and part of the it's it's the old i don't know if you've heard of the two of the it was it was a chinese paradox called the camera in the room if two people in a room having a conversation the conversation will not be the same if you put a camera in the room because they know it's there so if you declare

that you're going to pursue the Phillips curve openly and which is what Yellen did part of it is that I do think that one of the things that they did say was that Yellen was one of the most vocal about admitting that she was pursuing it is that you've destroyed the essence of the Phillips curve which is that it's mental the producers think that things are more valuable, so they're creating more.

Absolutely. How do you answer the first part with Powell's history? The first part is a great question, Kevin, to be honest. I think Powell, like most Fed chairs, probably overestimated what he could do by increasing rates. But at the same time, he's been handed an issue whereby here he is trying to suck money out of the system. Because if you truly believe inflation is too much money seeking too few goods, in other words, coming out of the pandemic, we had pumped all this money into the economy. Obviously, you had the stimulus that occurred in 2020 when everything was shut down, but you also had the 2021 stimulus even when things were coming back up. So you pump all this money in, and there's not a lot of goods out there because production hasn't caught up. So you have too much money, too few goods. So Powell's like, let me suck money out of the economy by increasing interest rates.

That's what that does. But here he is doing that, and here on the fiscal side, Congress is printing more money than ever before for the past three years. And they passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which didn't – Yeah, exactly. Which did not – Inflation Reduction Act, which spends $2 trillion, right? Right. So here he is sucking money out of the economy, and the other arm of the government is pouring money into the economy. So on the one hand, what he's doing clearly has not worked.

Yeah. Right? I think it's safe to say inflation has not gone away. It's not down to zero. It's still going up month to month, right? Right. So now he's in the bind of saying, economy is not looking too great. People have a lot of debt.

Consumer spending has now downed it. But I can't lower rates because I just spent so much time increasing them to suck money out. But on the other hand, everything he's doing has been undone by the other hand. Yes.

So I think his management will not be looked favorably upon. but I think at the same time a rational economist in the future will say that everything he was doing was basically being undone. Exactly. huge Powell fan, but I'm not going to say that I think the entire thing was his fault, because I think that if everyone, if the entire government had been working to solve the problem, then the problem might have been, we wouldn't be seeing it as

horribly managed as it is now, is basically what it is. I think part of it is if you, because at the same time, think about it, they have not also taken strides to solve a lot of the other issues we're seeing. If gas is still high, transporting goods will still be high. Now, part of the issue is there's a conflict between the current administration's desire to, for environmental concerns, not pump gas. But, of course, that drives up the price of gas.

And so as a result, that does not combat inflation. So on the one hand, you're sacrificing one, you're paying for it in another way. So I think that it's just one of those, I just think it's one of those things where if the government and the Fed, because the Fed is just really just one, I mean, it's not even a branch of the government,

it's a private bank. So part of it was like, how much can a private bank that's kind of like sanctioned, a nationalized bank do when the government is not trying to assist at all? So basically part of it is, I don't think it's really...

It's like the Sisyphus thing. I mean, Powell's trying to roll the boulder up back up the hill right but the boulder keeps getting bigger yeah i mean other socio and socio sociologic socioeconomic situation i was gonna say demographic problems i should have just stuck with that demographics is also exacerbated this because you had a situation where all of a sudden because of the pandemic all these millennials are looking for home they're pushing out they're trying to they were playing catch-up from years of you know being i guess traumatized if you will by the 2008 and now

remember there was almost also traumatized yes but also there was almost no economic growth from 2008 to 2017 it was the worst recovery in U.S. history. So part of the problem is you have the worst recovery in U.S. history. You enter a pandemic. I mean, you had a small period where it started to grow back. You have a pandemic that kind of just throws everything muck. Millennials decide that they're not going to wait anymore. They're going to start looking for homes.

And home prices are higher. Home prices are higher. So there's been a lot of other democratic problems, demographic problems that have exacerbated this issue. Exactly. Kevin says, great comments on credit card debt. Our citizens owe an all-time

high amount, but the government is much worse with debt. I mean, it's easy to focus on credit card debt being an all-time high, but obviously all forms of debt, including government debt that we owe, is at an all-time high. He says we're lucky you guys are around. He sees the business similar to health care right now. So many people need your care, which we appreciate. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it.

I think you're right. We're in a place where people need more advice than ever before because it's becoming difficult to manage. And I am going to say the idea of using a national credit card, that is absolutely correct because I remember there was an economist who was doing a study in this. Again, because it's not popular, it doesn't get a lot of attention. She wrote that the higher the national debt, the less effective the money multiplier on spending is. So what that means is that, think about it, you're the government. So this is just So what that means is that, think about it, you, you're the government. So this is just for everyone that can illustrate the point. I, let's say I have no debt whatsoever. I'm president X and I, I'm like, I'm going to spend

$1 billion to build a road to bump the economy back up. It gives me a 3% economic GDP because it's done something. It's a highly productive use of money. Now $1 billion in debt. Now I say, well, if that works, so I'll go another billion dollars in debt and build another bridge somewhere else so that I have two bridges instead of one. It does not get you

six. It only gets you half. So now it's only four and a half. Now multiply that by our 100 trillion dollars of debt and you see how ineffective it starts it's gotten so bad that she put she during and this was her her work came out during during obama's one trillion dollar stimulus bill so this is what 2010 this was 2010 she was saying that it's already entered the point at which government spending might be a negative multiplier because of the effect of debt. So now we're saying like instead –

And now we're 10 years later. And now we're 10 years later, and we haven't slowed down at all. So just keep that in mind. So these things may – whether or not we get, again, the big R word, the recession everyone's always talking about. Are we in one? Do we get one? Do we – we had a mini one. Now are we going to get another one?

It's hard to predict, but these things aren't good. So it's important to be prepared. Absolutely. Shout out to Bill Machese. Thanks for watching this morning. Heather Wirt, thanks for watching this morning and a happy birthday. Happy birthday, Heather. I believe today is her birthday. So just a big happy birthday to Heather Wirt. Thanks for watching us this morning. Avera D'Adnese, thanks for watching this morning. Appreciate everyone who's tuning in. You touched a little on homeownership. And that, I think, connects to something else that we had probably been talking about before the show,

which is just households, but also what we know about home ownership as an asset means but the other type of asset that people can hold is retirement accounts okay and that's what has confused retirement accounts here right okay home ownership is one means of an asset but retirement accounts is another one and so the percentage of households that have a retirement account. And you had this great chart. I don't know if Judah has this one. Yes, Judah. It's the Hispanic chart.

About the percentage of Hispanic and general population households that have a retirement account. Thank you, amigo. Gracias. Thank you. The unfortunate thing is that if you look at it from 2000 to now, the first thing I noticed about this

chart is that nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. And that's more... So the group that puts this out, the Hispanic Wealth Project, they noted to a great applause that

the Latino line and the general population line for homeownership, the gap between them is closing. It's closing. So that's really important. That's good news. That's very good. I don't want to even do that. General relational wealth is mostly formed by homeownership. We applaud all that.

We're all happy with it. However, one thing, there's two things that concern me about this chart is that the general population has not increased their retirement. Like most people, half of people aren't, don't have a plan for retirement. They're not waiting for my retirement. They aren't ready for retirement. And the Latino gap, not only has it not closed, but it's dipped. It has dipped between 2016 and 2019, and that's not good. I mean, I think the credit card debt problem has exacerbated it, right?

I think that's one important situation. But I thought it was an education piece. I mean, I think so many people don't know what retirement accounts are. I think most people just think if my employer doesn't have a 401k, that's it. There's no retirement account I can do. Well, business, and see, the thing for me, I thought that was the most interesting,

is that business, Latinos are opening more businesses than ever before. So they're opening more businesses at a higher rate even than Caucasian Americans or I guess white Americans, whatever you want to call it. General population. General population. Well, more than general population, but white is, I think, second to that.

I don't like the term white, but we'll go with it because that's the only thing we have that they measure. So more so than white, which are the second highest, but they're not opening retirement accounts for business at which they'd have great advantages from a tax perspective. And the other thing, there's a focus on education for your children. That was another thing pointed out, that funding for education for Hispanics as well. It can be done through a retirement account too.

So there's all these options, and home ownership. If you think about a Roth, if you open a Roth, you can, one of the qualified withdrawals is buying a home for the first time. So part of what, I guess what I wanted to make aware for our Hispanic audience and our audience in general is that especially if you own a business, that's a great, it's a great tool to have

is your retirement account. And you don't need to start a 401k. There are much simpler things you can do. Everyone just immediately asks, you know, 401ks are expensive. How do I start it? How do I do it? Your situation,

especially if you're starting off small, may not need a 401k. They're expensive. They have a lot of administrative costs. They're kind of unwieldy to use. Yeah, you can put a lot away, but most of time you're not more than you may be even able to put away anyway some people it's more than they're making at the point at which they're starting their business so you don't need a 401k you should be looking at other options that are are are

different for you and especially given your tax bracket, especially if you're in a young, low tax bracket, a Roth is a great opportunity. You start funding that because it's not tax... It's not saving your taxes now, but it's giving you so much savings in the future and so much flexibility. Exactly. At the point at which you retire and it's flexible for now

because you can, again, qualify, withdraw for education, for housing. You can withdraw what you put education for housing you can withdraw what you put in for any reason whatsoever your contributions your contributions exactly so there's a lot of right off the bat and then at the point at which you start making and this is the thing i think people don't realize that you don't just open up you don't have to just open up one the point at which you're like hey i'm making enough now that i can cut my taxes if i fund an ira you know because that's a doctor you swap over or you do both and you can have both

open both available you're ready for a 401k open a 401k like all these things can be available to you all the tools are available you just have to learn about it, talk to someone, figure out what works for you, and go ahead and do it. Because to be able to, especially in a Roth, where you can grow your money tax-free while you're saving for a home. Exactly. The tax drag itself, instead of paying capital gains, instead of paying income tax on your cash dividends, you can be making that tax-free.

That's a huge advantage, especially if you have five, ten years to save. I mean, anybody that's even just making, that's working, if you're still in college and you're working and you're able to save some, you want a house in the future, Think about, even if you just fund a little bit. I mean, we repeat the statistic over and over. If you fund... I mean, this is the match, but if you do the match only for eight years,

which is $6,000... $6,000 a year, the maximum is now higher, but between the ages of 22 and 30, you put away $6,000 a year and then you never save another penny for the rest of your life. That grows put away $6,000 a year and then you never save another penny for the rest of your life. That grows to like $750,000.

So imagine retiring with $750,000 by the time you retire. For something you did for eight years when you were young and then never did again because you couldn't afford it anymore.

Or even if just a matter of, hey, I'm just going to do this. Roth is going to be my retirement piece. I'll have $750,000. And then everything else you put is gravy, right? You put some in your IRA. You put some in your 401K.

Or just vice versa. You fund all that for your retirement, but now you've got this chunk. You want to buy your kid a house, $750,000. At least buy a decent home. Yeah, I mean, think about it. You can do that. So I think there's so many advantages to having a retirement account and exploring the different kinds that are available that I'd like to see that number with the Latinos go up.

I'd like to see the general population go up. I mean, the general population is sitting at 50%. Yeah, I mean. You'd like to see that go up, especially the Latino debt from 25. I mean, and that's the thing is that there's a lot of push for homeownership, and I fully support that. But I would like to see the gap close. I mean, I'd like to see it all go up. But again, I want to see the gap close on that, especially given the fact that Latinos are opening up businesses.

You've got business advantages for that. This isn't how much you have in a retirement account. This is whether or not you have one. In other words, I don't expect that Latinos are going to suddenly become just as wealthy as people that maybe, you know what I mean, as generational wealth that's probably in that

general population number. But we can at least close the gap in whether or not you even have one. Because that's the first step to closing the gap to everything else. Because, again, it's funny because you always hear, like, don't, you know, our parents always did things this way. The previous generation always did things one way. But you got to hand it. But they knew how to create wealth.

Yep. And if there's something that you should at least amplify in one way like i don't care if you don't like anything else about boomers boomers made money like and so if you want to be like that go ahead and do what they did you put the retirement account you buy the home you you you you find ways to save you utilize all the accounts that are available and then you you i mean the government's telling you you can do all these things. And we won't tax you. Like, it's one of the few times the government tries not to tax you.

You should do it. I mean, 100%, you should do it. And think about just going from inflation to assets. Like, if you're sitting in cash because you're afraid, you're just basically telling the government to go ahead and just take... And take your money with inflation. Take 5%, 3% every month out of your bank account. So would you rather do that or would you rather make...

Have it grow a little bit. Yeah. Because everyone... It's funny because everyone always compares like, oh, the market's down 1%. And I'm like, well, if your money's worth down... The inflation's 3%, so it would be even worse. Well, no, well,

you have inflation plus you're down one. Exactly. The point is over time. It's never down one. It's never down. The market's always up over time. Exactly. Exactly.

That was my point. Exactly. Poorly phrased. I mean, there is some, I mean, I thought you had some interesting good news that I want people to think we're only Debbie Downers

because obviously we had the news there, but I mean, definitely some interesting things happening. I don't want people to think we're only Debbie Downers, because obviously we had the good news there. But, I mean, definitely some interesting things happening in the sense of, you know, maybe nuclear is coming back to help with the energy, you know, issues that we're having. I mean, Microsoft wants to power the data centers with, like,

mini nuclear reactors. So, mini nuclear reactors is the new thing. So, everyone's talking about the smoke. Nobody wants a smoke stack in their backyard, which I can understand. They're kind of tall. But it turns out that there's new technology now. You don't have to. In fact, I don't think, if I'm correct,

I don't even think Lake Anna has a smokestack, the nuclear reactor there. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I have not seen it. But it is smaller, and they're apparently even smaller now. Now, interestingly enough, part of the issue, of course, is funding, right? You can't get approval.

They're funding. They're difficult to approve. Politicians don't really like nuclear reactors, mostly because constituents tend to worry if it's in their backyard, things like that. Nobody wants it, yeah, not in my backyard kind of thing. But Microsoft is training an AI model to slash the time it takes to get nuclear power plants approved by 90%.

Wow. So, and I'm going to be honest, like everywhere, we've read the research on the investor side, not on the political side where it's a lot of noise and there's a lot of... Yeah, on the side where the money's going. Yeah, where's the money going? How do we actually solve these problems?

There's only really one solution. The issue is that where we are with renewables is not going to get us to where we need to be to provide energy full-time without burning coal. The only other way to provide energy for the entire country, that zero carbon emission and makes everything cheaper is nuclear it's the only thing we have right now now there's hope i always have hope right yeah of course always hope that we'll get fusion which is safer but until that's here

until that's here one thing i will say is that they have said that nobody has gotten sick from Fukushima. Oh, the Japanese reactor? From the Japanese reactor that had a lot of things go wrong. Yeah. No one has gotten sick. I mean, they got hit by a tsunami. Yeah, they got hit by a tsunami. That's not the last thing you would want to happen.

The only time someone has gotten ill from a nuclear reactor breakdown was Chernobyl. And Chernobyl is different because they intentionally kept people trapped there. Exactly. Because they didn't want to admit that they had messed up. So it's a lot safer than you even think it is. And I think the problem is it's the only choice we have. So I think little by little, we will see quiet change. So part of the thing is this.

Nobody wants to come out and say, build a bunch of nuclear reactors. Nobody's going to. There's no politician that's going to run on, I'm building all the nuclear reactors from California to New York to Florida. We're going to cover the country in smokestacks. There's nobody that's going to sit York to Florida. We're going to cover the country in smokestacks. Nobody's going to sit on that campaign. What they're going to do is they're going to sign it at 12 o'clock

and midnight on Christmas Eve and nobody's going to pay attention to it and the news is not going to report it and then you're going to get one that's a mini nuclear reactor that you didn't even know was there. If it comes out of them, it's water vapor. Don't they call it smoke stacks though? I don't know if it's supposed to be called a smoke stack.

I think that is the reactor thing, but it's not a smoke stack. It's water vapor. You're not really burning anything. Smoke stack sounds like, oh man, there's smoke. I'm going to burn my lungs. It's like when you boil water

in your kitchen. It sounds like the Industrial Revolution with the smokestacks and the children working to... Charles Dickens. Yeah, Charles Dickens, yeah. Which, of course, it's not. And that's part of the thing, too, is it's not. And the key will be getting...

So a lot of the research I read is always the same. You have to get a baseline of energy provided by nuclear, subsidized, supplemented. Supplemented. My vocabulary is struggling today. It's supplemented by renewables because you'll have fluctuations

in energy consumption because during the day people use energy, at night people turn the lights off and there's less. So nuclear, because it And energy consumption, because during the day, people use energy. At night, people turn the lights off, and there's less. So nuclear, because it provides a baseline, you'll have, okay, well, we're going to store a little extra from the wind, right, to provide during the day. And then, okay, everyone's turned off their lights, just turn off the wind turbines. And then just get back to the nuclear level. And that's what you're going to, and I do believe that that's what we're going to see as we go forward.

So there's technology, there's good news. I mean, and I do believe that that's what we're going to see as we go forward. So there's technology, there's good news. I mean, I thought it was all good news, to be fair. Maybe not the first chart, but the whole. But some of the others are, yeah. Everything is just a matter of hope. There is hope out there. We don't want people to think there's no hope. It's good to be aware of what the challenges are

and what are some things you might be able to do to mitigate or at least not fall deeper into them. Exactly. So I thought this was a great show. I thought it was fun. Enjoyed it. Enjoyed being on. Had some great comments.

Really appreciate everyone who tuned in today. Heather Ward, Utramana, Dustin Angeli, Elvira D'Adnesi. Kevin Higgins with his great questions. There's always more that I don't catch. There's always a bunch that I don't catch. There's a little eyeball thing. So it's like 10 people, but I can't see. There's always a bunch that I don't catch. There's a little eyeball thing. So, you know, ten people, but I can't see who they all are. And then, of course, Kevin Higgins.

Thanks for the great comments and questions today. So it was a fantastic show. Really enjoyed being on with you. It's been a while. Been a while since I've been on with Nick. And next week, going to have on David McCormick from Early Music America. Awesome. I love having David.

Looking forward to that. Be sure to check it out. Check out the music we got going around town. I believe, are we going to have on Oratorio Society before the March 9th concert? I don't know about

the March 9th concert, but we are having them on. They're coming back. They are coming back. I know they are. But if not, don't forget about the March 9th concert

together in song music from the theater. So be sure to check that out for the Oratory Society of Virginia. It's always a fun event that they put on there. Look forward to next week. Appreciate it being on with you. We'll see which Earpie joins you next week.

Absolutely. I will see. Hopefully. Now it's a roulette. Russian roulette. No, not Russian roulette.'s a, what's it called, the roulette. Russian roulette. No, not Russian roulette, just a roulette table. You put the ball in and we figure who it is. It's like, who's on the show today? Everyone draws the revolver.

Yeah, I don't think so. We don't roll that way today, man. It's a little too hardcore. First, thanks to Judah behind the camera. Then, especially for his great work when there's last minute changes that have to happen. Getting some great charts on air for us. Really appreciate it.

I love Seville Network, of course. Thanks to Emerging Financial Services. Thanks to our fantastic partners, Castle Hill Cider, Matias Yon Realty Credit, Sirius Insurance. Thanks to all of you who joined us. We look forward to seeing you all next week. Maybe Nick or maybe someone else. We'll find out.

We'll find out. Maybe I won't even be here. Maybe you won't. Yeah. Who knows? We look forward to seeing all of you next week. Until that time, stay safe, stay well, stay warm, and have a wonderful week. And hasta mañana. Thank you.