The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Does CVille & Central VA Economy Need Hard Reset?; What Does An Economic Reset Look Like For CVille?

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

The I Love CVille Show headlines: Does CVille & Central VA Economy Need Hard Reset? What Does An Economic Reset Look Like For CVille? Cherry Ave Grocery Will Not Receive Federal Funds 3 Affordable Housing Projects May Miss Federal Funding Should Downtown Mall Streets Be Closed To Cars? Tom Tom Shows DORA Could Work On Downtown Mall What Can AlbCo Learn From CVille Zoning Disaster? Office For Rent $475 Monthly All Utilities Included Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air The I Love CVille Show airs live Monday – Friday from 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The I Love CVille Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible, Rumble and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Monday afternoon, guys. I'm Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the I Love Seaville show. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys on a gorgeous and glorious spring afternoon in our downtown Charlottesville studio, the home to the I Love Seaville network. And our network continues to grow in viewership and listenership. We are live streaming on every platform you can live stream.

And we are archiving this show on every platform you can archive digital content upon. And the whole concept of the show is to create an hour of localized programming for you, the viewer and listener, where Judah and I can discuss topics that we find important and also relay ideas that you may find important to the masses. For example, one of the topics on today's show was shared with me by someone I respect tremendously in James Watson, he's a key member of this family,

and he shared a link about federal funding being a point of concern for the Cherry Avenue grocery store. The co-op that's being applied being planned with the Fifeville Neighborhood Association and that co-op that Cherry Avenue grocery store is probably not going to get federal funding and and and now Piedmont Housing Alliance are are and strategic partners of PHA are trying to do their best to pass the hat

from a public or private sector standpoint and ask the community to help give them money to bring a grocery store to a food desert in a historically marginalized neighborhood called Fifeville. So we'll talk about that and I think it's it's it's difficult for me to say because we've had in my 25 years of being in Charlottesville I came here as a first year at the University of Virginia, old dorms, Dabney Hall room 101, fresh from Williamsburg, Virginia, my first real time of independence away from my parents who ruled the house with a iron fist and with the close eye of a devout Southern Baptist mom and a hardworking and alpha entrepreneur father.

And as I left home in Williamsburg to come to Charlottesville and the University of Virginia for independence for the first time, real independence, being on my own, I fell in love with this community and realized immediately at my time at UVA that the upside was here for me to pursue a career as someone who was self-employed. Always knew I wanted to be in business for myself because I had the mindset of this entrepreneur and a mindset of an entrepreneur is one who doesn't always follow the rules

and one who's willing to break things and proverbially and physically and see if they can put them back together in better fashion. One who's always looking for opportunity or seeing better ways to do things. And I did that throughout my time at UVA, above board and below board.

And I did that often while out of UVA, always above board at that point. And my 25 years in this community, 25 years at the end of August, so very near future, is 25 years. I've only gone through one recession as a professional or one recession in my adulthood. And that was the one of 2008, 2009 tied to the housing

bubble and the fact that every Tom, Dick and Harry or every Sally, Jennifer and Kelly were getting loans from banks on properties. They shouldn't have gotten the loans either because of credit score concerns or because they couldn't afford them or because they were over-leveraged. But banks were lending money like it was candy, because homes were appreciating so quickly. So equity was accrued very fast in 2006, 2007.

And then things came to a screeching halt. The house of cards crumpled. The massive appreciation that property owners were enjoying stopped and then homes started losing their value. And when homes start losing their value and you can't sell them quickly, you start seeing foreclosures

and you start seeing folks short selling and you start seeing folks taking a bath and declaring bankruptcy. And that housing bubble of 2008, 2009 that I still remember very well, I bought my first property, the villas at Southern Ridge at literally the wrong time in 2008, 2009. Literally, I was so proud as a 26-year-old

to afford $180,000 condominium off of old Lynchburg Road at the villas at Southern Ridge. And I'm like, I got something that I can call mine. I'm proud that I own this and then I saw as I purchased this that the value of my property plummeted and it went from 180,000 when I purchased it down at one point to like 120, 130. So you're talking someone that's losing 40, you know, 35, 40 percent of value of something that they just purchased a year ago. And it was demoralizing. It was disheartening. It was depressing. I also have passed along on this show, that was when I decided to go into business for myself. 17 years on the 29th of May. So goodness gracious, on the 29th of May I will have been self-employed for 17 years. And

I decided in 2008 to quit my job doing writing for the Daily Progress and doing broadcasting for ESPN radio on 12 various affiliates in three different states and two TV shows at NBC 29. I had no quality of life. I was working 85, 90 hours a week, no weekends, showing up to the studio at like 3 and 4 in the morning on Saturday and Sunday. Some cases incredibly hungover, other cases still buzzing from going out the night before because I was still trying to live the life of a normal, you know, 27, 28, 29-year-old who was single and ready to mingle, but also doing this while trying to work a schedule

of 80 hours a week and it just was not panning out. And I was burning the candle on both ends and I was incredibly burnt out. And I decided in 2008, enough of this. And I remember my parents and my girlfriend at the time and a couple of my friends hosting an intervention at the Villas at Southern Ridge condo that I own. And they begged me not to quit this job.

These jobs where I was working basically two jobs and clocking, I don't know, somewhere between 80 and 90,000 a year in pay. I was, had money in the bank, had money to launch a business, had savings, but I had no life. And I said, guys, I don't want to do this. And they begged me not to do it.

And that was really the first down market. That was the only down market really that I've experienced. And some would say COVID was a down market. Some would say COVID was a bear market, was a recession. But the bounce back with the pandemic was one that was very quick. And I understand there was tremendous job loss and tremendous devastation with COVID. And we're still dealing with that. There are a lot of small business owners that assumed a hell of a lot of debt.

They took equity out of their homes. They took third mortgages. They took HELOCs. They took these idle loans. I mean, goodness gracious, I was in the process of brokering a business deal late last year and early this year on a very well-known business. We got this business under letter of intent, both parties, letter of intent, ready to go, verbal agreement in place. This was many six figure deal, a seller finance

deal that I had structured with a very known brand in this community. And right before we got to signing the letter of intent, the seller of the business mentioned to my side, I was representing the buyer, you know what I got this idle loan from COVID and of course this idle loan is just going to transition to you guys when you buy the business. And I said what? You wait until the last minute to tell us about an idle loan that you got during COVID right before us signing the letter of intent, after we've spoken with your landlord, after we've spent money on council to review the lease that we're going to assume, after we've purchased

assets to position into your business, improve the assets in your business, the equipment in your business, and now you're telling us about an IDA loan that you think is just going to transition at sale, at closing? And I said, dude, it doesn't work that way. And the man was offended. I mean, he had been in business since the 80s, running this institutional local business. And I said, we're not going to take on a couple hundred thousand dollars of your debt and this transaction. You should have been up front with us from the beginning and said that you had this debt tied to COVID and an idle loan when doing this deal. And the deal imploded. And such is the life of a broker. Such is the life of a deal maker. But I'm not going to

allow our clients nor would our clients who are sophisticated go down this road. So I understand that there was collateral damage and devastation during COVID. But that down market, it rebounded much quicker than the rebound you saw in 2008, 2009, 2010. Now, Charlottesville and central Virginia were insulated compared to other, you know, compared to macro trends and the macro devastation. Charlottesville and Almaro County in particular were insulated, but it was still a down market. And probably the only true down market we've seen since 2000 in Charlottesville, Almaro and in Central Virginia. Folks, I got to be very straightforward and make sure those one shot

on this monologue is dynamic like we talked about many times on the show, Judah, with various shots. I need to highlight this, and I'm not a doom and gloom kind of guy, okay? But I am a guy that is not willing to bury his head in the sand and do absolutely nothing when problems arise.

You see points of concerns or cracks in the concrete retaining wall, if you may, really manifesting themselves now. And those cracks in the concrete retaining wall are UVA and Jim Ryan saying, look, we're freezing salaries right now for all UVA employees. We're not going to give them cost of living raises, we're not going to give them performance based bonuses, and we've frozen discretionary spending.

Now the talk around UVA health and the talk, ladies and gentlemen, around the University of Virginia as a whole is pay cuts may materialize for UVA staff, UVA faculty, UVA employees. They may actually have pay cuts here. You saw a little bit of that pay cut happening during the pandemic and some during the 1990s, but it's been a very long time where that's materialized. That's all happening at the same time that federal funding is impacting nonprofits left and right. We're about to relay a story and make sure you're making that one-shot dynamic,

J-Dubbs, not just the picture in picture over a studio camera. There's various shots that you can use there. There's folks, federal funding impacting Piedmont Housing Alliance as it's pursuing a grocery store on Cherry Avenue. I mean, you have a grocery store that we've been talking about for what, a couple of years now that has a deadline at the end of this year and now the executive director of PHA is saying we're probably not going to get the federal funding for this grocery store. You have the same organization, PHA and other nonprofits

saying these affordable housing projects we've been working on for a while, and Judah's going to let you know the three of them, are in peril as well because there's going to be a lack of federal funding. You have the government sector, which is the second largest driver of our local economy, government contracting, INGIC, the spies, the alphamets, the government sector. What, in 2023, the Chamber of Commerce authored a white paper and said the economic driver of this category of business, the sector of business,

was $1.3 billion a year. That's facing scrutiny from Trump and Musk. And you have lending. Goodness gracious, we're working on a deal right now where clients are buying some commercial space in Alamaro County. And this is a good little deal we've been working on since December.

Finding traditional funding or traditional lending for this transaction. Good luck with that. We had to go do a seller finance deal. Now, the upside of the seller finance deal, that's my favorite kind of deal, when done correctly, the upside is significant for both the seller and the buyer. But the banks were saying no, despite a significant amount of cash on hand and a willingness to put 30% down on a million plus purchase,

still the lending environment was so stiff that they didn't want anything to do with our buyers. So you're starting to see some cracks in the concrete here. And those cracks in the concrete have Judah and I asking this question. And I'm going to weave you in here in a couple minutes. I'm going to give some love to Charlottesville Sanitary Supply, Judah, in a couple minutes. I want to highlight the fact that our firm, the Miller Organization, has an awesome executive office for rent.

It's $495 a month and I cover all utilities, including TIG fiber internet, and you're on the downtown mall. We can even furnish it for you if you'd like. DM me if you're interested in an office space that's flex and sexy and awesome on the mall. I left asking this question, all right, well, if UVA is not hiring and UVA is not offering the basic cost of living raises for their thousands of employees 3% and they're not giving performance based bonuses and now UVA the scuttlebutt you talk to anybody

That's a heavy hitter at UVA even upper management is he but hearing this scuttlebutt is that they're talking about maybe cutting pay Okay, that's happening at the same time the Board of Visitors is talking about sl cutting pay. OK, that's happening. At the same time, the Board of Visitors is talking about slashing the yearly budget. At the same time that government contracting, the government sector is facing either return to office challenges, where some of these transplants in the Charlottesville area may be asked to return to DC to work

or may lose their job and perhaps certainly lose the flexibility of work from home. How's that going to impact us locally? Okay, the frontline sector, the food and beverage and retail sector has had vulnerabilities since prior to COVID and certainly COVID devastated that sector even more. The employment base just is not there. That's why you're seeing these big time food and

beverage institutions close. And I'm left asking this question, okay? I'm going to ask it with Judah and I want to have the conversation with you. With you the viewer and listener. Is the Charlottesville and Central Virginia economy on the cusp of a reset? Does the Charlottesville and Central Virginia economy need a reset? And what exactly does a reset look like for the Charlottesville and central Virginia economy? This is a conversation we're going to have.

I think Jude and I's opinion on this is going to be very different, which should make for compelling commentary on the show, compelling fodder. And then I want to weave you, the viewer and listener, into the topic as well. Some other topics I want to cover on the show is this Cherry Avenue grocery store,

when do we eventually put a fork in it and say, look, this is not going to materialize? I mean, we're now in the bottom of the eighth inning and the executive director of PHA is basically saying I'm going to have to go to the city of Charlottesville and beg them for money or some private benefactors and beg them for money? Should the city of Charlottesville and private benefactors keep alive a grocery store that's not really going to work out long time? And I also want to talk about on today's show the positives of the TomTom Festival and no I'm not going to highlight the gunshots that went off on Saturday night in the downtown mall. But yes, I am going to highlight the designated outdoor

refreshment area, the Dora success, having a cup of beer or having some wine or having a cocktail and walking up and down the mall. And I'm going to ask you, the viewer and listener, if it's finally time for us to cut traffic on the through streets on the downtown mall. TomTom was awesome this weekend. So much to cover on the show.

Judah, let's give some love to Charlottesville Sanitary Supply. 60 consecutive years in business for John Vermillion and Andrew Vermillion. The Vermillions do business the right way, the honest way. Online at CharlottesvilleSanitarySupply.com and located on East High Street, where they've owned the real estate,

Charlottesville Sanitary Supply, the Vermilion's doing very good things. Judah Wickauer, Studio Canberra and a TwoShop, you highlighted in our pre-production meeting that maybe a hard reset was in fact good for our country, and a hard reset with the economy may have some upside across the board. Very curious to hear your thoughts on this.

Well, first I'd like to hear what you think of as a hard reset for Central Virginia. What does that mean to you? I think I just outlined it in my monologue, right? Did you? What does it entail? I'm not really sure what you think it entails. UVA faculty not getting cost of living raises. Is that a reset or is that just?

The number one employer in central Virginia not offering its employees 3% cost of living raises where their actual disposable income year over year in inflationary times is going to stay flat, which basically is a loss. Well, freezing of their open positions, cutting discretionary spending, and now the talk is that UVA staff may in fact have their pay cut. This all happening at the same time that the second driver of the economy, the government sector, a $1.3 billion impact in 2023 is facing more headwinds than it has faced in my 25 years of being in this community locally.

All while the food and beverage sector, the retail sector, and other frontline small businesses struggle to find affordable employment, all while housing has increased at a price point or increased in value to levels never seen in Central Virginia history, all while mortgage rates are at 7% or higher, the most expensive it's been in maybe the last 25 years to get lending from institutional financing vehicles to buy homes, I mean all while floating debt is more expensive than it's ever been,

all while local jurisdictions like Alamaro County in the city of Charlottesville are talking about a four cent real estate tax rate increase like Alamaro is doing, all while our special assessments uptick to the highest values they've ever been. This is what a hard reset looks like. This is the precursor, this is the foreshadowing of a hard reset. These are the chapters that build to a climax. Okay. If you're a reader of books, we're in the early chapters of a book building to the climax

of something happening here. Yeah. And is that climax a hard reset? That's what I'm talking about here, Judah. So again, I'm going to ask you… I don't know if that climax is a hard reset. I don't know what that climax is. You've labeled a lot of things, but I'm not really sure what you think it's leading to. When you talk about… Judah, it's called a recession. When you talk about the Piedmont Housing Alliance and whether they're going to have to go to

private benefactors to get it done and you say maybe we should just stick a fork in it, should we do the same thing with UVA? What happens if all of the private benefactors leave UVA? Do we really gain anything from growing UVA's bank account? That they're not allowed to use for anything unless it's earmarked for what, another building? Is that really useful? Or would that private benefactor money be better used to create a grocery store for the Cherry Avenue area?

Judah, do we think that a grocery store in Cherry Avenue that will be the smallest grocery store in Central Virginia, that has a business model of selling fresh produce and expensive meats to a neighborhood that is financially strapped, a neighborhood that has absolutely zero experience running a grocery store, but right now has the bright idea that they will be the ones running the grocery store in co-op fashion. Do we think that this business model is actually going to work?

Or do we learn from the Reeds family who said, we can't make this work despite being in business for nearly 100 years? I think you've just highlighted reasons why private benefactors would greatly assist something like this if it's something that we feel is worth having. If you went to somebody, if you were Piedmont Housing Alliance,

and you went to a wealthy person and said, wealthy person, I want you to fund a grocery store on Cherry Avenue that's gonna be run by the neighborhood and the residents that have no experience running a grocery store at a time where the economy for a locally owned grocery store is more difficult than it's ever been in American history. Why do you say they have no experience running a grocery store? Because it's a

co-op. They don't run grocery stores. They live in the neighborhood. They've never literally have never run a grocery store ever. Do you understand what the co-op concept is? Do you? Yeah. Explain to the viewers and listeners what's happening here with the grocery store and the co-op. It's a group of people that work together to run something. Okay, and have those group of people ever done that before? You know that there have been co-ops running things for decades.

100%. But those co-ops that have been running things for decades haven't done it at a time where the grocery store three blocks away literally said this market and motto will never work anymore. Or at a time where the... Did they say that? Yes. Or is that you saying that?

Because they closed. They said that. They said we cannot make this work anymore. Okay, but they're not the only people trying to do this. You're right. And there are other people that are succeeding. Okay but they're not the only people trying to do this and there are other people that are succeeding. Okay is it gonna be our friend Ted Anderson who's selling it under a tent on Ivy Road? Is what gonna be Ted Anderson? What's another example here? I mean we're getting in the weeds here about the grocery store here. I really, you know, you really believe that this grocery store is going to work on Cherry Avenue?

I'm asking you that question. Do you believe this grocery store will work on Cherry Avenue? I'm asking you a question. I specifically stated at the beginning that perhaps they need private benefactors. Private benefactors just means them giving people money, wealthy people giving somebody money to do something. The benefactors aren't going to be providing expertise. I know that.

They're just going to give them money. Yeah. That doesn't mean that they show them how to do it. You don't think that over the course of months and potentially years, they will learn best practices for their grocery store? OK. We're getting in the weeds on this here, on the grocery store. I agree.

But I'd like to point out the fact that do we think private benefactors giving millions upon millions upon millions of dollars to UVA is a better use of that money? That's a great question. That is a great question. The private benefactors that are giving, Paul Manning given $100 million to fund the Biotech Institute, is that a better use of his money than funding our grocery store on Cherry Avenue? That's a great question. Are we not better off and and I'm and it's a slam dunk answer by the way but go ahead. I'm only using the Cherry Avenue grocery store as a stand-in for the idea that people who can and will as you said Paul Manning, give $100 million to UVA.

How many neighborhoods could that support? I don't even know what that means. How many neighborhoods like Cherry Avenue that would like to have a grocery store and stop being a food desert, could that kind of money help support? Okay. Paul Manning is not going to give $100 million to food desert, could that kind of money help support? Okay, Paul Mayne's not gonna give $100 million to neighborhoods around Charlottesville to build grocery stores.

And the only food desert we really have in the city of Charlottesville is this Fifeville food desert. Fifeville, Star Hill, that's the food desert. There's grocery stores everywhere else. It's a small city. You could say that there's nowhere in Charlottesville it's food desert. The idea. We all know that's not true. The idea that anyone would want to get in this space is insane to me because it's about as competitive a space of business that you could find in Elmorrow in Charlottesville.

Grocery stores. They're everywhere. Okay. I will push back on this. Yes, giving $100 million to fund a new school is a much better driver of the economy than giving $100 million to fund grocery stores, as you said, around Charlottesville. Because funding a new school will create hiring to the school, like the 800 scientists that are coming to the Biotech Institute with their quarter million dollar salaries and then the thousands of peripheral jobs that will be created around the biotechnology school. But haven't we discussed what a problem that's going to be for this area? It's going to be pros and cons to it. But if you fund the grocery store on Cherry Avenue, that grocery store is going to limp

forward for a few years and then you know what's going to happen? It's going to go the exact same way that Reid's went. It's not going to last. And we can, this is documented on the internet. I've made a boatload of statements like this on this show in the past, and folks, my crystal ball of things materializing is at a pretty high clip of being right. We have documented why it's not gonna work here. Now, it leads us back to our initial question

as you're rotating the first two lower thirds on screen please. What does a hard reset look like for the Charlottesville area and do you think the Charlottesville area? And do you think the Charlottesville and Central Virginia areas need a hard reset? I wanna have this conversation with viewers and listeners folks. With you chiming in with commentary, viewers and listeners.

I'm very, I would love for you to relay to what you said to the viewers and listeners before the show starts about these — we're in a trade war with China right now. And China, late last night, early this morning and into today, basically flexed their muscle and said, we're not going to back down to Trump and his tariffs, and we will also punish any country that makes Beijing the redheaded stepchild of the World Trade War. China is basically saying if Donald Trump is trying to stigmatize China and Trump is

basically saying any country that does business with China, the United States will punish them with tariffs. That's what Trump's doing. And China's responding to Trump's threats by saying, you know what, President Trump, we will respond the same way in any country that has beef or causes friction with our economy, we will respond in similar antagonistic way to your country. We're in a trade war that's going on right now. And that trade war over the last two weeks has sent markets, Wall Street absolutely crashing

and in the red. And the word everyone's using right now is uncertainty with what they feel with the 2025 economy. And this central Virginia economy, the Charlottesville and Alamaro County economy specifically, absolutely tied to UVA, absolutely tied to the government sector. But one of the most underlying insulators for our economy, protection points for our economy, the condom of the economy for Charlottesville and Alamaro County is the portfolios of people, their 401Ks, their assets,

their investments. And when those portfolios, those assets, those investments, the condom of the Charlottesville and Alamaro County economy are strong and insulated, people feel confident and they spend. And when those protection points are weak and crumbling and vulnerable, people rear back and spend less. And that's what's happening right now. And I've been years and I have not seen this kind of uncertainty wait and see hey I'm on my Merrill account or on my on my trading platform and I'm seeing 15 17 20 percent reduction in value that I had even a month ago and that's all happening at the same time UVA is going through what I highlighted at the beginning of the show with spending, hiring freezes and soon budget cuts with the government

sector, with assessments going up, with taxes going up. The fact that Alamaro County right now and its government is suggesting a four cent real estate tax rate increase while all these other factors are points of concern, shows how out of touch the Alamaro County Board of Supervisors is. For the Board of Supervisors of Alamaro County, the sixth largest county in the Commonwealth of Virginia, to say we want four extra cents on the tax rate while your assessments went up, while your portfolios are down, while your floating debt is more expensive, while your groceries are more expensive, while the number one driver of the economy is on shaky ground, while the number two driver of the economy is on

shaky ground, and while small businesses can't hire any people, that just shows that you have six people on that board that aren't in tune with what's going on with life. I mean they do have a budget they need to cover, right? They have a budget that they need to cover that got a huge influx of money when assessments popped. They could have kept the tax rate the same and still had a significant uptick in revenue because assessments went up on real estate. But does that mean that they're just adding the tax rate increase? They're spending more money.

And the money that they're spending additionally on is housing affordability, and the money they're spending additionally on is police, fire and rescue. And there are times to do it and there are times not to do it. And this is obviously a time not to do it. When you're a household budget, when a family is managing their household budget and one of the two family members or income drivers is unemployed or had their hours cut, does the family go out and choose to buy more Trek bicycles for Johnny and more horseback riding lessons for little Kimberly and a brand new set of Titleist Golf Clubs for Dad

and eight or nine spa treatments and facials for Mom? No, it cuts back. So I'm gonna ask it a different way here as we have this conversation that the comments are coming in very quickly. Neil Williamson and John Blair, I'm gonna get to your comments first. A hard reset, it's the R word, okay?

And the R word's not reset, it's called recession. What does that look like for Charlottesville and Central Virginia? And all for the commentary, please, I'm trying again, that you gave before the show about is this good locally for the community? I don't think I ever said it was good for the community. I don't think I ever said it was good for the community locally. I think that I think that we're

overdue for some kind of reset. I don't know about recession. I don't know about a full reset, but I think that looking at the the stock market the last few years, it's I don't know what it's propped up on. It's certainly not propped up on on rationality. Every time I've heard people talk about, oh, we had that thing in 22 or 23 or whatever, and I'm like, two days of a down market

is not a market reset. I don't know how true the plunge protection team is but I think there's somebody in the government, whether it's the Fed or I honestly don't know, but somebody's pumping money into the stock market and when it does fall it's not gonna be hedge funds who it and when it does fall, it's not gonna be, it's not gonna be hedge funds who are losing money. They're gonna, they're gonna pass the buck and it's gonna be to you, it's gonna be to me, it's gonna be to, to the, the retirement funds, it's gonna be to the other funds that they've essentially been selling, you remember what they said in the big short about wrapping you know what in more you know what and packaging it and selling it?

They never stopped doing that. When we do have a reset, I really feel bad for any of these funds that have invested in what the hedge funds have been selling because they're going to be hurting. And sadly, I think we are headed for a reset, whether it's a recession or there's just too much, there are too many toothpicks propping up like actual businesses, actual like what you see on here. Does anybody wonder why it's going down now?

It's not just because of the tariffs. It's all of that instability was built in in it just required something to set it off it's like the big bad wolf and blowing the house down this is the big bad wolf trying to blow the house down now I'm gonna push back on Judah here okay I I'm in a complete agreement that there was too much froth already. And when you have that much froth, you're going to have one major macro-impactor start sucking that froth out of the market, and that's what's happening. And that major macro-impactor is what Trump is doing, where he's literally bluffing or playing a game of poker with our entire world's economy right now.

This is not about politics. This is not about binding. This is not about Trump, Republican or Democrat. You have a man that is dark triad in personality that believes he's the smartest person in the room playing a game of poker with the world's economy and Sitting across from the poker table right now is China and They're just flexing their muscles at each other to see who will blink first. It's like a staring contest That's what's happening. Who's gonna blink first? Okay, now I'm gonna push back on Judah if That's what's happening. Who's going to blink first?

Okay. Now, I'm going to push back on Judah. If we do have this hard reset, which is a recession, a nice way of saying a recession, you know who's going to be impacted the most by that? Go ahead. It's not going to be the wealthy. It's not going to be the folks with diversified investments. It's not going to be the folks that have stocks and equities, cash savings, gold, and real

estate. The folks that are going to be most hurt by this are the ones that are paycheck to paycheck. Or have limited savings. Because the layoffs are going to happen. But the fact of the matter, things haven't been getting better for those people recently anyways. I get that. But the folks that are living paycheck to paycheck are saving very little paycheck to paycheck

Scraping by there's one thing to scrape by and save little every two weeks when you get paid and there's another thing altogether To lose your job. I know to miss your car payments and have your vehicle repoed Yeah, and to fall behind on your mortgage Mm-hmm. That's a completely different level of hardship and struggle. I agree. And the terrible thing is when you hear news stories about… It's not the wealthy that's going to… If anything, the wealthy are going to capitalize on that with the paycheck to paycheck struggle.

Go ahead, Judah. What's worse is hearing news stories about corporations, big business, having their best year ever. Yeah, it's called UVA. And then causing exactly what you were talking about. It's what UVA is doing right now. They have 14 billion dollars plus an endowment. They just, the number one company in the Central Virginia region has had their best year ever. They launched a data science school,

they launched a biotechnology school, and they're building a development, a housing development where they're giving the land, owning the land, but allowing the land to be developed in North Point. And now they're telling all their staff and their faculty, the number one people that work in this area, group of people, that you won't get 3% rates or a bonus, and you're probably going to get a pay cut and have to do more with less.

So when you hear about it in the news, don't say I hear about it in the news. Straight up say UVA. I wasn't pointing at UVA specifically. I was talking about the other multitude of times that we've heard about this type of thing over the last year, two years, three years. But it's one thing to say it when you hear it on the national news. It's another thing to say it when it's literally happening in our home That's fair. Okay, cuz that's what you are doing my argument for me No, I the point that I'm arguing is when this hardship hits the lower class

When this hardship hits the lower upper class when this hardship hits the middle lower class, the middle class and the upper middle class, you're going to have the upper class, folks that have dry powder and folks that have sophistication and know how, use this as an opportunity to pounce. Yeah, they're always going to do that. And that's going to happen locally. They're always going to do that though. This hard reset, the folks that say on the Reddit boards, the folks that say on social media and clamoring that we need this hard reset, this restart, it's going to impact the folks that are asking for that the most. Yeah. The problem is, the problem is, imagine you've got a fixer upper house that's got walls covered in mold,

and you're like, you know what, we're just going to paint over it. And then the mold starts to seep through, and you paint over it again. And we all know that that's, you're not fixing the house, you're just making it look good for a little while. And I'm afraid that's what has happened to the economy at large for years. Fair point, it's a fair point. We keep painting over it and we're not fixing the issues.

And that's why I think that a hard reset and I'm not advocating for you know for people to go broke and I'm not advocating for the big guys to make more money but that's gonna happen anyways nobody's coming to help the guys at the bottom and nobody's stopping the guys at the top from skimming money from wherever they can, you know, get their grubby fingers. Nobody's fixing the problems. And if you think that stopping this and letting the, you know, the plunge protection team get the stock market going in, you know, in the up direction nonstop again is the right

thing to do. Let's just put another code on. Judah Wickhauer, comments are coming in. Bill McChesney says, Judah, apparently Donald Trump went after Fed chair Powell today and the market dropped another thousand points. We are down five years worth of gains right now. That's a retired man in McIntyre living off his retirement. I'm not saying those are a good thing.

Neil Williamson says, here are eight photos on screen. Mr. McChesney's photo first on screen. We appreciate William. This is the president of the free enterprise forum, Neil Williamson. As it flashes on the board right now, our TV on the board, the healthcare sector has hit a 52 week low. Neil Williamson. As it flashes on the board right now, our TV on the board, the healthcare sector has hit a 52-week low. Neil Williamson says this, here are eight pros of a recession.

Correction of overvalued assets, reduction in inflation, improvement in trade balance, opportunities for business restructuring and innovation, lower interest rates for consumers and businesses, elimination of inefficient and weak businesses, labor market adjustments and upskilling, investment opportunities in depressed markets. These eight pros of a recession almost all cater to sophisticated and well-heeled dry powdered movers and shakers. These eight pros of recession absolutely do not apply to someone that missed a car payment, got behind on their mortgage, or is getting evicted from the house that they're renting. John Blair on LinkedIn, his photo on screen. A few things to consider about the local economy, fellas.

The two biggest headwinds in Seaville are the Trump administration has obviously made up its mind that higher ed is going to face cuts and tax increases for the next four years. Currently income on endowment funds is taxed at 1.4%. They're looking at increasing that tax rate up to 14% per sum reports. Additionally, they're looking to cut student financial aid programs. So UVA is going to have a tough go through, is going to have tough sledding

through January of 2029 at the earliest. John Blair continues, second, look at the 10 year. Even with all the Doge cuts, the 10 year is still at 4.4. I think the home building sector isn't going to expand at any time in the near future because interest building sector isn't going to expand at any time in the near future because interest rates don't really seem to be coming down. I think the Fed can try to cut interbank rates, but I'm not sure that's going to affect the bond market as much it has in the past. What's interesting is throughout all this trade war, new cycle.

The 10-year has not really dropped. And indirectly tied to the 10-year are mortgage rates. And as of close of business last week, mortgage rates were at a multi-month high. We're not seeing rates drop. Mortgage rates were at a multi-month high. We're not seeing rates drop. We're not seeing home values drop. We're seeing home values increase at the same time that rates are increasing, at the same time

that job market stability is fragile, at the same time job growth opportunity is limited at the same time cost of living is escalated. Unbelievable. Comments coming in faster than I can keep up with. We'll get to some of these. Let's go to Isle of Seville. Albert Graves, Warrior AG. $14 billion endowment, more proof that schools like UVA

do not need federal money that the week to week worker is paying for, and more proof that the university should be paying their property taxes. I appreciate the comment from a man who's been interacting with our content for nearly two decades in Albuquerque raves. I appreciate Warrior AG.

And he's basically saying this, I'll put it succinctly, what he's saying. They got a $14 billion endowment and they're not gonna use it because the people that gave UVA the money have it earmarked for spending a certain way, most specifically building capital improvement projects, buildings where their names can be on it, as opposed to funding payroll.

And when you fund payroll and direct deposits every two weeks to staff, no one remembers that you gave the 15 or 20 or 30 or 50 million dollars to the university because you can't put your name plate on direct deposits and payroll, right? The endowment is for people that want to see their names on stuff. That's what it's for. It's not for operation costs.

And Albert Graves calls BS on that. He's saying, UVA, how much does it rely on federal funding? Well, I have that number. In 2023, $384 million UVA got in federal funding in the year 2023. Number one in the Commonwealth by far of any educational institution with Virginia Tech a very far second place.

James Madison University in 2023 got a paltry seven million in federal funding. Seven million, folks, versus the 384 UVA got. So you're seeing the university at the very same time having its federal funding threatened while the Board of Visitors, which in July will be all Glenn Youngkin appointments, in July the entire board will be Glenn Youngkin appointees. And in July the speculation is you're gonna see some significant change

starting to happen at the University of Virginia, maybe with Jim Ryan as president, and maybe with the budget. Bert Ellis on this show a couple of weeks ago said, I want $500 million slash from the $5.8 billion yearly UVA budget. So if the federal funding is being held in funding purgatory, $384 million via the year 2023, and if the Board of Visitors that are all

Yonkin appointments in July, say we want UVA to spend less so we can make the school more affordable, says cut 10% off the budget, that's 500 million plus the 384 million. You're talking nearly a billion dollars of a $5.8 billion yearly budget. Something's gotta give.

And unfortunately what's gonna give is the people. That's always how it happens. Something's got to give. And unfortunately, what's going to give is the people. That's always how it happens. It's the people. And it's the people that are going to take it up the, have their bank account impacted? And I'm wondering how that's going to impact us here. And I'm asking some uncomfortable questions. Vanessa Parkhill, her photo on screen. Margaret Thatcher said the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money Vanessa says our federal government has put us deeply in debt if any company or any household Operated the way that Congress has thrown money around they would have folded some time ago

Physical conservatives have been calling for belt tightening since at least as far back as the 1980s with thoughtful leadership We will come come out OK, but it's going to be a bumpy ride. Jeremy Wilson's watching the program in Tennessee. Mr. Wilson says, what is wrong with cleaning up federal or any government wasteful spending? Mr. Wilson says, yes, it looks scary, and maybe it will be. But for me, I want a smaller government that runs like a well-oiled machine. Remember it's our money that they are wastefully spending.

Albert Graves says, hell yeah, we need a reset. We have 200, 300, and 400-year-olds getting Social Security checks. We need a reset. And Albert Graves says, when the city keeps losing taxable real estate to UVA, it also continues to lose taxable revenue, which is in turn a tax increase. Yeah.

And he's right. And this is where the payment in lieu of taxes idea has been floated around. But think about it now if you're the University of Virginia. Think about it now if you're the University of Virginia. And if UVA during the really, really good times when Biden was in office and in 2023 they were getting that $384 million in federal funding.

And in 2023 when Ralph Northam had his appointments on the Board of Visitors and the BOV was pro-Jim Ryan and pro-spending and pro-capital improvement and pro-debt and pro-bloated payroll tied to administrative personnel and pro-DEI in 2023, imagine if UVA said, yes, we'll do a payment in lieu of taxes program. We'll roll it out in two years. That would be the year 2025. And now if they had a pilot program and I'm all for UVA having a payment in lieu of taxes program for all the reals that they own. But now if they had that pilot program at the same time, Yonkin, which

surprised people by beating McAuliffe because McAuliffe was a bonehead and he said parents shouldn't have a say in their kids education in public schools in the Commonwealth that gave Yonkin the win then Yonkin gets his appointments on the board his appointments on the board are saying slash the spending at the same time Trump wins at the same time Trump says no federal funding then that pilot that pilot payout to the city in Alamora County would have been really costly for UVA. You see why UVA didn't want that pilot program and has fought so hard against the pilot program? I mean it wouldn't be any more costly.

How so? It wouldn't have been more costly. They're not doing the pilot program now. It would have cost them tens of millions of dollars. At the same time, the BOV is trying to slash 500 million and the federal government is trying to cut 384. What do you mean it wouldn't be costly? It would cost them, of course it's going to cost them more to do it than to not do it.

That's the point. Okay. If they had to do the pilot program, it would have cost them more It would have been pay people less money Where would the money have come from? It's not gonna come from the endowment Okay, where would the money come from the pilot money right now, where would it come from? I don't work in in UVA finance. Yeah, but you're a smart man.

The money with the endowment, we already know. You're saying they would have taken it away from, they would have fired people. Yes. Done what every big corporation does. Yes. Avoid actually spending money. Yes.

I mean, yeah, sure. Right? Am I right? Are you excited to be right about that? I'm not excited to be right, but I'm making the point. If they had the pilot program and they had to pay in lieu of taxes because of all the real estate they own, they would have had to fire more people.

OK. Deep Throat highlights the fact that Chariavity residential component to the Piedmont Housing Alliance plan, the one next to the grocery store, is very dubious to him as well. Their Virginia Housing Grant application showed up as having the highest cost per square foot of any application in Virginia this cycle. Remember, Piedmont Housing Alliance is a developer. Yeah. And he's saying this project that they're trying to build where the Kim's grocery store is going to be, where it's going to be a grocery store, the Music Resource Center, home to some nonprofits and some residential housing, the plan they put in place, the highest price per square foot for development that's out there. He says that's very dubious to him, deep throat.

Is the suggestion that some of the money is coming off the top to go into pockets? I think... Or just that they're misusing funds and doing a poor job building? Or they just don't know what they're doing. That and doing a poor job building? Or they just don't know what they're doing. That's what I meant by that. I think that's the suggestion. I think his suggestion is not nefarious in that they're skimming. I think his suggestion is that these folks aren't truly developers that know how to develop

at an efficient price per square foot project. I think that's what he's saying. I don't want to put words in deep throat's mouth right there because the guy's a very smart guy, but I know him pretty well and I think that's what he's saying right there. So I'll ask the question one more time at the 133 marker. And he says, I'm just saying it is an inefficient project and therefore probably not likely to get state funds either. That's fair. There it is.

And what are the three other projects that are facing federal funding shortfalls, affordable housing? We've got Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville and Piedmont Community Land Trust. Keith Smith's team at the land trust. The three biggest developers of affordable housing locally. Three of the four, right?

CRHA is in that mix. So you got Habitat. They bought the trailer park on Carlton. Good God. Would Habitat of Humanity, would Habitat of Humanity Charlottesville, what is it? Habitat, what's the Habitats? Is that what it is? It's Habitat of Humanity, Habitat for Humanity of Greater Charlottesville.

Thank you. Would Dan Rosentz-Wack and Habitat of Greater Charlottesville have purchased the Carlton Avenue? They're also working on Southwood. Would they have purchased the Carlton Avenue Trailer Park for all those millions of dollars where they went to the city and said, give us a bridge loan for this Carlton Avenue Trailer Park

and then we're going to go find the funding elsewhere? Buying that trailer park when no one anticipated Trump was going to win the election? And Trump, geez Louise, hell's bells, he hasn't even been in office 120 days. Has the man been in office 120 days? Right around there. In the first 120 days, look at what he's done.

Would Dan and Habitat have purchased the Carleton Avenue trailer park if they had a time machine and a DeLorean and a flux capacitor and had been able to go to April 20th, 2025 and known what we know now? Probably not. They probably wouldn't have asked the city for a bridge loan saying we'll find the funding down the road to pay you back on this loan, to buy this trailer park, to keep 63 families into trailers instead of letting the private market buy it? Think about that. Think about that, folks. That's why you've got to be really, really, really careful. Really, really careful when you're forecasting or you're taking chances and risk.

Or Judah, do you not have to be careful when you're taking chances and risks, when it's the government money? That's a good point. Is the city of Charlottesville going to go to Habitat and Dan and say, you know what, you probably can't pay us back anytime soon. We're going to call the loan on you and we're going to take the collateral, the trailer park and we're going to own it. Are they just going to say, aw shucks,itat, just keep the money. We're going to write this off.

I mean, you laugh, but I'm not laughing in the past. I'm not laughing. We both know what's going to happen. The city's not going to take the trailer park from Habitat because the city don't want to own the trailer park. They're just going to say the loan. Well, we made a mistake. We're not going to get paid back on this because of the macro

environment. Could be. Crazy. Crazy times. And Vanessa Parkill says, government money Crazy times. And Vanessa Parkill says, government money is our money. Everyone remember that. It's our money.

Oh, man. And that's why I just ask these questions, man. I'm just trying to ask questions. Might be uncomfortable questions, but just asking you questions. Because a hard reset is looking pretty real to me. It's looking pretty real to me. Mm-hmm. So figure out what you're going to do to manage it.

What I'm going to try to do is to make sure I'm as diversified as possible. What I'm going to try to do is to make sure the real estate rentals are full, even if they have to be at a little bit of a discounted rate right now. Some is better than nothing. What I'm going to do to make sure they're in a good spot is to have some cash on hand. I'm not going to pull out of stocks and equities because eventually it's going to rebound. I'm just going to sit there and take it in the nuts until it does. I'm going to make sure we under promise and over deliver on our consulting business and do really well by our clients and the deal making business. I think we're positioned really well with the brokerage business because I think a lot of other sellers are going to say we need to sell what we have here.

Will you help us do it? And I'll say, yes, I'll help you do it. I'm going to use this I Love Seville network that has a lot of followers and our sophistication of 25 years of doing this to help you out. And then we work hard for them. But whether we want to admit this or not, when there's a boatload of roadkill, is on the horizon. All right. Got a couple other topics I want to give you.

I want to save this for tomorrow's show if you want to put this in the headline for tomorrow. This will be the lead headline for tomorrow unless something else pops up. Tomorrow, what can Albemarle County's government and its Board of Supervisors learn from the city of Charlottesville, new zoning ordinance disaster? Judge Worrell has said the lawsuit will move forward. The city of Charlottesville seems to have some clowns arguing its case. And now the plaintiffs have to figure out how they're going to afford to fund a lawsuit that lives to fight many more months.

And that's not a cheap fight. Regardless, development projects in the city of Charlottesville have stalled. The new zoning ordinance, the whole plan was to stimulate development, additional supply creates affordability supply and demand and all the new zoning ordinance has done is iced development stalled development at a pace that was slower than before the new zoning ordinance was enacted and that's That is a reflection of the city of Charlottesville, cow-towing and bowing down to activists, as opposed to listening to folks that actually do this for a living.

We'll talk about that tomorrow. I also want to highlight on tomorrow's show how incredibly positive, outside of one Saturday night shooting on the downtown mall, which sucked, but how incredibly positive the Tom Tom Festival was for downtown Charlottesville. And I'm going to ask yet again, should the cross streets be closed to vehicle traffic and should a designated outdoor refreshment area from the Omni Hotel to the Ting Pavilion be allowed or shoppers and tourists and students and locals alike can walk from the Omni to the Pavilion with cold alcoholic beverage in hand while enjoying our pedestrian mall. with cold alcoholic beverage in hand while enjoying our pedestrian mall.

Judah Wickauer did a hell of a job. My name is Jerry Miller, and this is the I Love Seaville Show on Monday, April 21st. Thank you...