The Megyn Kelly Show - Dave Ramsey on Capitalism, The Value of Working Hard, and Wealth Equality vs. Wealth Equity | Ep. 82

Episode Date: March 29, 2021

Megyn Kelly is joined by Dave Ramsey, best-selling author and host of The Ramsey Show, to talk about capitalism, meritocracy, avoiding debt, adapting and thriving in life post-COVID, parenting, the value of working hard, why "the credit card is the cigarette of the financial industry," the future of radio and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms:Twitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShowFind out more information at:https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show. Today, what a treat you are in for, Dave Ramsey. There is a reason this is one of the most popular broadcasters in America. He's a great talker. He's a great thinker. And he's got real life practical advice for you, for all of us, for the country, to dig yourself out of the hole you probably fell into this year financially, one step at a time, and he'll walk you through it. And for the country at large, right?

Like the debt, the deficit, what on earth? So he's got some thoughts on that and the crazy spending we've been doing and just real life practical advice. I love dave he's always been good to me and i had him on my show a bunch while we were at fox and i just think he's like he's sound he's somebody who's sound he's like got a foothold in real america he lives down in tennessee he's got a huge media conglomerate now underneath him and uh because he's in touch with, I think, I'd still call Tennessee the heartland. He makes sense, right?

In a way that you kind of need to live off the coastal regions to do. Present company accepted. Anyway, you'll hear from Dave in one second. But first, this. Mr. Ramsey. Hey, how are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. Good. Thank you for doing this with me. How's life in Tennessee? It is absolutely good. Life is good. I'll bet it is. I'll bet it's a totally different lifestyle than I have here in New York. I think about it all the time. We have folks come in and visit from California and other states, and they're just like, totally different lifestyle than I have here in New York. I think about it all the time. We have folks come in and visit from California and other states, and they're just like,

they feel just like they're on another planet or something. It takes them a little while to get emotionally acclimated to everything being open and virtually maskless. I talked to my friend, Kathy Lee Gifford, who moved down there a couple years ago. She's just delighted to be there. She's so happy. Yeah, she's a neighbor about four miles from where I'm sitting. She lives about four miles from where I am. Yeah, that's where we live. Okay. That's where we're sitting.

That's where our offices are. One of these days, Dave, I'm going to get down there, and then I can get lured in at some, I don't know, crazy estate that has helipads, according to Kathy Lee. I don't know what kind of lifestyle she's leading. She does anything she wants. Yeah. So Shapiro's guys all just moved here too. Yeah, I know. I know they're like everybody. Honestly, Doug and I took a hard look at it, but our moms are both still in the Northeast. All our friends are in the Northeast. So I was like, our kids are little. For now, we got to be here. All right, let's talk money.

Here's the first thing I wanted to ask you about. By the time this airs, the COVID package will likely have passed. Looks like it's going to be 1.9 trillion bucks, another round of stimulus. Those who want it say you got to do it because it's the government's fault. Most of these people were kicked out of their jobs. And so it'd be unfair to just let them sit and suffer. What's your thought on it? Well, what I've spent my entire life doing is helping people who were struggling with money and or just trying to do better with money. And the problem is that personal finance is 80% behavior, and our behaviors come from our beliefs. And the sad part for me is that people are now believing that their government is actually helping them. And so they're going to their government to solve their problems, and it doesn't really solve their problem. I got a lot of criticism a few weeks back because I said, if $600 fixes your life, you didn't have one.

And that was a little cold, probably. But mathematically, it was a correct statement. And because, you know, you had other things that you needed to go fix. When you take personal responsibility for your life, that's where abundance comes from. Abundance never comes from the government. And so the idea that the government has actually helped someone with $600 or $1,400 is mathematically laughable. Did it pay a month's rent? Sure. Or did it help a little bit? Yeah, it did. But the problem is that the emotional weight that people put on this in their personal lives was it's as if everything's going to be okay. I see it generally as the problem itself.

But in this particular instance, they caused the problem, right? Like they told people, like my old guest, Lindsey Graham, a woman from the Pacific Northwest, you got to shut down your seven hair salons and tanning salons and gyms. And she spent her lifetime building up this business. She actually wound up in an act of civil disobedience opening up anyway, but then got slapped with a bunch of fines, blah, blah, blah. But isn't this a different scenario because the government caused the problem for people who were working? I completely don't disagree. But when we send her $1,400, when she lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, mathematically, that's laughable and act like you did something

you didn't do anything when you send someone that lost hundreds of thousands of dollars or let's just say you made sixty thousand dollars a year and you've been unemployed for one year because of this you lost sixty thousand dollars not sixteen hundred or fourteen hundred or six hundred sixty thousand and for the government to stand up and you know this island of misfit toys called congress and thump their chest and act like they saved america with this is freaking laughable mathematically and and the problem is not from that standpoint the problem is just that people then become this idea that the government's going to save the day. And they change their behaviors based on that instead of going where abundance can actually be found. So what's, I mean, I'm sure you've been dealing with this on your show.

What do people do who have been, who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own this past year? The government interfered in an unprecedented way. They couldn't pay their bills. And now let's say, you know, New York, for example, where the restaurant industry is, they've done their level best to kill it entirely. That's like the lifeblood of New York city, right? So what are they supposed to like, or, or take, take one of the actors who can't work on Broadway, right? They get cast in their dream role. They're not going to open up Broadway. They're not going to open up Broadway. God knows when they're going to do it.

So like, what is that person supposed to do? It's a horrible scenario because, you know, you lost your job. You lost your livelihood. And you can't go back to that location. And if you go back, it's not reopened in that location. And so it's much like a natural disaster, like when Katrina hit New Orleans a few years ago. What were those people to do? Their businesses were completely wiped out.

Many of them did not have hurricane insurance. They had hurricane insurance. They didn't have flood insurance. And the flood surge is what took them out. So they literally completely lost everything. and you know what ended up happening a whole bunch of moved out of new orleans permanently and there have been cajun restaurants pop up all over america ever since katrina due to this diaspora this this uh shift in population and where it lives because they couldn't make a living there in the 30 30s, we had a dust bowl,

and the number of people that moved off the cotton farm in Arkansas or in Oklahoma to Detroit to make cars because that's what they had to do to eat, and they've never gone back. They've never gone back. John Grisham's old book, The Painted House, is a fictional account of that. But there's always been a, you know, when there is a disaster and you cannot do what you did before in the same locale, there's always been people that had to move. And it's sad.

I don't wish that for anybody. It's sad. I don't wish that for anybody. It's horrible. But there's not going to be magic fairy dust from the government unless they decide that they're going to reopen the freaking economy in some of these areas. That is going to allow these people to get their livelihoods back in that locale. And it may be they change careers completely. But I'm not going to sit in New York City and starve to death as an actor waiting on someone else to fix my life. I've got to go do something else, at least for temporarily. So I'm going to be in Kansas City serving steaks somewhere, right? Where they're open until this blows by, or it might be that it permanently changes my life.

So you can be ticked off. You can be resentful that the government has put you in this position, but you got to do something. You have to use that emotion to fuel behavior on your part and not just bitterness. Because from a very practical standpoint, not just philosophically and not just politically, but from a practical standpoint, they're not coming to help you. Yep. Their best help was they sent you a check of around $1,000, which in Manhattan will last about 26 minutes. Right. But what about the unemployment hike?

Because Biden now, he raised it from an extra $ to an extra 400. And now they say as a result of that, 62% of the recipients of this could have happened to them is sitting on their tail collecting a government check because they make more that way than they used to make at their real job. That tells us that their real job, they needed some career adjustment. I mean, if I'm making minimum wage, I'm going to go do something else. That's not enough to eat. I've got to change it. These are personal responsibility decisions, though. And the problem is when the government with economic moves like this

or moves that are symbolic in nature because the math is laughable cause people to not go be the best version of themselves, that hurts that person 15 years from today. Now, 15 days from today, they're a little better off. I'm not arguing that at all. but it did not really fix their life. And I'm concerned about loving that person well. And the lies that are spread with this mythology is just hurtful to people. You know, I think about it sometimes. I thought about it before I launched this show, and I've thought about it with respect to others now. When you build a podcast, and thankfully, our show's done

very well, so it's been a nice surprise, but it tends to be slow going. It's not like when you're given the 9 p.m. show on Fox News and you inherit 3 million viewers from O'Reilly and your goal is just to hold on to as many as possible and then build, which we did. But when you're starting a podcast, you're starting from zero. You know, you don't start with any subscribers. So my philosophy was, I said it to my husband, Doug, and I said it to my team, just keep rowing. You know, we're just going to keep rowing. And it's turned out to be something I think about a lot when I see people struggling out there, like forward motion, just keep rowing. Whatever you have to do, keep rowing. When you stop rowing, bad things happen. Yeah. The number of people that I've talked to that have gotten out of debt on my show that do their debt-free scream on the Dave Ramsey show, that their income went up during the pandemic is almost every one of them. They call in and yell.

Now, why did their income go up? Well, they, you know, they delivered Uber Eats. They drove and delivered pizzas. They, you know, they lost their job over here on the left hand, but on the right hand, they picked up four other jobs. And, you know, they made more money than they've ever made in their life. Now they've worked harder and it's been really freaking scary, but they went and took control of their own destiny and abundance instead of waiting on a $400 check. to go off to law school. I couldn't find a job. This is back in 1992. So the economy wasn't so good. And I actually took a job. I had to wear a little like cheerleading uniform and serve meals. It's a long story, but I didn't wind up actually having to do the job. I got a better waitressing

job, which I took, but I was ready to do it, Dave. I was going to serve food in a cheerleading uniform to get the bills paid. I realized people have had to humble themselves worse than that, but your point is well taken. It's like, it may not be your dream job. It may not be something you even feel very dignified doing, but work is dignified. Well, and again, it's temporary and it is the long-term answer. You took that waitressing job, but I'm not talking to you all these years later, and you're still doing it. Right. It was a short-term stopgap until I could move up and do the next best thing, and then

the next best thing, and then the next best thing. And that's called a career path that is not called government subsidies. Think about it sometimes with my kids. If they immediately foist their problem off onto me, they're like, I don't get it. And they just want you to explain it. Or like, I can't find it. And I want you to do the looking. That's the stuff that irritates me way more than being a grump or being not nice to your brother or sister, it's like apathy or unwillingness to work for something. That's a problem. Like that's a character trait that we need to work on.

Well, and it's called being a great parent because you love your kids is why that aggravates you, because you can see that that character trait projected into the future, that the 37-year-old version of them has really got problems if they don't take the initiative to walk out the door and solve a problem, to walk out the door and get something done, to bust into something when in doubt, as you said, row. Yep. I'm going to confess to you that numbers scare me. And when people start talking about the debt and the deficit, that scares me too. I understand that deficit, this is my layperson's explanation. That's how much we've gone over budget on an annual basis as a country. And debt is the big number that we've

spent beyond what we owe. And that's my understanding. So what I'm being told now by the Congressional Budget Office is our debt is, of course, getting out of control, that our debt is going to rise this year to $22.5 trillion, which now for the second year in a row is over 100% of the country's GDP. So our gross domestic product, our work output is lower than our debt. Have I accurately summarized these issues and how bad is that? Well, it's not as bad as many of us feel like it is in our emotions. I mean, I remember a book, Bankruptcy 1984, that came out. Wow. You know, didn't happen.

And that was Peter Grace of the Grace Commission working for Ronald Reagan. And they ascertained that the hockey stick debt was going to drain the economy, that the interest being paid on the debt was going to crash the economy in 1984. Didn't happen. There's lots of books predicting the end of the economy based on the weight of the debt. And so we can argue about that. I made myself a promise. The older I get, I'm not going to be the financial guy that writes a book on the end of the world. I'm just not going to be that guy because a lot of my peers have. And I'm just not. Even if I feel like it's going

to end, I'm not writing the book. So I don't think that's what's happening here. But it is still, you know, what is of concern is that there doesn't seem to be any end to it. They have no, there is no indication of any coming austerity or discipline or ever anyone having the political capital to ever look at the voter base and say the word no. They just continue to write checks. And it's almost as if they don't think it's real money. And the concern is, is that there's no curbing of it. There's no appetite to even discuss it. And that is more scary than the actual debt, because with that attitude, you could double this in three years. And the other piece of it that concerns me is, you know, you've got right now Joe Biden reinstating a bunch of regulations and cracking down on energy and sort of reversing a lot of these Trump policies that we were told by the experts got the economy moving. Now, I don't

know whether that's true or not, but that was the conventional wisdom over on the Republican side. And so I see these numbers rising and I see these sort of the big government thumb coming down. And I think, where's that going to take us? Yeah. Well, Art Laffer, who was in the Reagan administration and also helped write a lot of the tax bills for Trump, is definitely a free market, low tax guy, if there ever was one. You know Dr. Laffer, he's a friend of mine, lives here in town with us. And yet he was a huge fan of Bill Clinton economically, because that's the last time we balanced the budget, by the way, was the Clinton administration. But how do you balance a budget? Well, you do two things, just like you do in your home. You cut spending and you raise income.

The income during the Clinton administration was up dramatically because the economy was booming. Thus, incomes were up. Thus, the income tax collected was up. So the income coming into the IRS during the Clinton administration was at an unprecedented high because of a booming economy. And that's how, partially, how that the budget was actually balanced. Also, there was actually a little bit of restraint, a little bit of discipline in both parties to actually curb spending somewhat. And so, you know, a booming economy is part of the formula to raise taxes, actual dollars paid in taxes, not percentages.

Right. And well, I mean, I don't know what to expect under Biden. He says he's going to roll back the Trump tax cuts. And so we're going to get taxed more if you make over $200,000 a year and the debt is skyrocketing. It just seems like, well, as somebody who makes over $200,000, I think, how much more can we pay? How high could we go to the Bernie Sanders 78%, 80% tax rate? How high could it climb? Yeah. I mean, the problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money. I know you call yourself a capitalist pig. Yes, probably. You said you'd make your receptionist work on commission if you could. I would.

That was kind of a cute summary of the heart of capitalism, meaning eat what you kill. You will get paid according to your output and how good you are. It's a complete meritocracy. Is that, like, how would you sum it up? Yeah, it's just, I grew up in a straight commission household. Mom and dad were in the real estate business. And I've always either been a straight commissioner or run my own business, one of the two my whole life.

And so it was up to me to provide value and then I would make an income. And by the way, if I put the receptionist on straight commission and she was really, or he was really amazing, they might be the best paid receptionist in the state. And I would be okay with that too. You know, it's not that I was trying to cut their pay, not at all. No, I think you're trying to espouse a philosophy. And I think it's interesting. Because we hear these terms thrown around a lot, right? Capitalism, now we hear socialism, we hear Marxism. And as somebody who's in the money game, what does it mean to you? What does capitalism as a practical matter mean to you?

Well, if you bring service to the marketplace, then the marketplace will pay you. One of the core values at Ramsey Solutions, we've got almost 1,000 team members, and we've got these core values all over the walls, is if you help enough people, you don't have to worry about money. And that's capitalism. Capitalism is not greedy, take advantage, some crooked guy with a bunch of cigars in the back room somewhere trying to figure out a way to steal from the little man. Those people don't stay in business in the real world. If you go to get your car repaired and the guy doesn't fix the car and overcharges you, you tell all your friends to stay away from that guy.

He's a crook. If he does a great job and it charges you reasonably, you have found a wonderful thing, a car repair person who's honest and efficient. You send all of your friends there. That guy should become wealthy in a properly run economy because he's providing service that is beyond what he costs. If I go to a restaurant and the food is bad, I tell my, the service is bad, I tell my friends to stay away. If I go to a

restaurant and they do a great job, I tell my friends to go. My friend Rabbi Daniel Lappin says that profit is the, he said that when you do well for people, they give you certificates of appreciation with president's faces on them. That's good. That's capitalism. That's like the line from Mad Men, right? The paycheck is the thank you. Yeah, it's exactly right. So, you know, if I write a book that doesn't help anyone, it shouldn't have to sell. It should only sell if it helped someone or entertained them or whatever the

purpose of the book was. But no one was mad when I sold 10 $10 books. But then when I sold 20 million $20 books and helped 20 million families purportedly with those number of book sales, then all of a sudden I'm an evil capitalist, which is absurd. Is that where your book, The Total Money Maker, Makeover is now? It has done 8 million. I've sold 20 million total of all titles. Oh my, that's insane. I mean, that book is so popular. I know you published it, I don't know, going on 20 years ago now. And it's still, it's still always on the bestseller list. Just a couple of years ago, it was number four on the journal's hardcover business. That's crazy.

Why do you think it's so popular? Why are you so popular? Well, again, it just helped someone. It isn't me. It's just, they had a problem and we showed them how to solve it and they went and solved it. They're actually the hero in the story. I'm just showing them how. And that's, again, that's a sanctified type of capitalism. It has a moral component to it called service, not greed. And so, you know, the reason your podcast is popular is you provide solid information. People trust you. They trust your brand. They trust who you are, where you've

been and the things you've said. And so they want to hear what you've got to say next. And that's a service. Coming up next with Dave, is there a wage gap between women and men? And also, what does equity mean? We'll get into it, but first this. Well, you know what we're hearing now, that that mechanic had a leg up in life because he was born a white man and that our system needs to change because it disadvantages. There are these systemic problems that disadvantage various groups, right? Those with immutable characteristics recognized by the law, right? Like the skin color or lady parts, what have you. I didn't say what color the mechanic was, by the way. But you know that right now it doesn't matter because if there's any black

mechanic not doing as well as the white mechanic, we go back to Kamala Harris's little ad right before the election, which is just the inequality in outcome is an indictment of the system itself. Well, I mean, systemic racism is real. It's there. And, you know, so is a, you know, there's all kinds of different barriers that everyone faces, some of them higher than others. And, you know, two of our personalities, the Ramsey personalities that speak for us and write for us are African-American. We've had some wonderful discussions, Chris Hogan, Anthony O'Neill, and you know Chris

pretty well. But we've talked about this a lot, and they are highly successful and sought after as speakers, as guests on shows, and their books are bestsellers, number one bestsellers. And it has nothing to do with their skin color. But I will tell you this. The truth is that there are some jerks out there that maybe still did not buy a book because the person's face on it was of a color that they didn't like. And that's on that jerk. But Chris and Anthony have chosen to say, in spite of that guy being out there, and he is out there, in spite of him being out there, I'm still going to go be successful.

Well, what do you make of the push now for more socialistic policies in the name of fighting, quote, inequity? Well, wealth equality is unfair. I just want it to be fair, they yell. It's not fair for wealth to be equal. It's not fair for incomes to be equal, because different levels of service and excellence are provided. You know, Tom Brady plays football at one level, and there are other people that don't play at that level, and he creates more income for his team, and so he should be paid more. It would be unfair for him to be paid the same as someone who doesn't perform at that level. You know, not everyone plays guitar like my friend Brad Paisley,

and not everyone has the work ethic that he's got. Works like a maniac. And so, you know, he makes more money than people who don't have the same level of talent and work ethic. And it would be unfair to take his wealth away with his work ethic and talent being superior and give it to someone else. That's unfair. I mean, this is one of the problems that we get to when we talk about the wage gap for women, because I've been criticized for not jumping on board this train in the past, but I see the argument on the other side, which tends to be the more conservative Republican side, which is, look, if I see the argument on the other side, which tends to be the more conservative

Republican side, which is, look, if I didn't take any breaks, if I worked my tail off, if I had the same qualifications and the same background or better than my male equal at a firm and I didn't get paid as much, now we're talking. Now we got a problem. But what happens is women do take time off. Women do take time off from maternity leave. Or I think, and I know I'm called a sexist pig, but I do think women have a biological need to be with their children at times even more than the men. And they will craft a life accordingly. And there's nothing wrong with that.

And there's nothing wrong with the women who choose not to do it either. But I think there's a reason so many women do create their lives so that they can feed both masters, right? Their children and their need to be with them and their work life. And that's okay. We don't then have to come back to the workforce after doing all that, which is laudable service and say, now I need to be on par exactly with the guy who never took that time, right? Like who was here sweating it out at the office. You say that, especially as a man, you get killed. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to even, I'm not going to even join the conversation. No, my mom, when I was six years old in 1966, got a real estate license. Real estate was sold

100% by men in those days. Now it's 85% sold by women, right? Yeah. But in those days, it was unheard of. And she dared to wear a pantsuit instead of a dress. And we got hate mail in the mailbox with all kinds of horrible things said. Over her pants? Over the fact that she dared enter the business to start with over a pantsuit versus a dress. 1966.

Okay. Shortly before the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, was put forth and the women's movement really got nasty, you know. But Mama never said, I can't get ahead because I'm a woman. She just went out and sold more houses than they did. She just outperformed them. Now, was her barrier higher? Yes. Was her starting point lower? Absolutely. And she still kicked their butts. This is what Eli Steele was saying to me. He and his son produced a documentary recently called What Killed Michael Brown. And, you know, he's a heterodox black thinker, intellectual, really important mind. And he was saying, there's no question that there are

structural disadvantages for blacks in certain industries. But he, he thinks the solution is the same as you think, which is, you know, for, for better, for worse,'re just going to have to try harder. And that's always been my approach as a woman too. Like they're there. I know they're there. Come on. Let's not pretend there's not sexism and there aren't other weird harassment or related burdens in the workplace that women have to deal with. But it doesn't do a hell of a lot of good to just try to lament the system and ask people to just add like a reparations type bonus onto your paycheck. What worked in my own experience is just nose to the grindstone. And most people love hard workers and they love great work product. And I think most people, while there are racists and there are sexists out there,

I think most people are looking to make money off of their employees. And if you do well, they'll pay you. Let's fast forward Mama's story, right? She started in an industry where she was a sole female virtually in our town, outsold them all. And now we fast forward all these years later, what is it, 60 years later, and the industry is dominated by women. And so the way you solve these systemic problems is you overwhelm them with excellence. The way, you know, if I meet someone that is racist,

I usually meet someone who has not been exposed to quality people of a different color. They don't get out much, and it makes them ignorant. They live in their own little backward world where they never see people of a different color who perform at an excellent level, who are quality human beings. And once you see that a time or two, anybody who has a level of intellect struggles to be a racist at that point. The same thing with a lady in a situation. I've got ladies on my operating board. I've got ladies all through my leadership team. And you better not tell one of them they got their position because they're a lady. They will kick you. Yeah, that's right. They got their position because

they get her done, baby. They know what happens. They're quality, high-level executives and, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue coming into this place every year, and they are one of the reasons. And no other reason did they get the position. It just happened to be that they were female. But if they sit and say, well, women can't get ahead, and they don't work as much because of childbearing years, and they don't do this. And they use all of that as a reason to not go be excellent. Then this talk of systemic whatever has caused that individual to underperform. And again, back to our other discussion, has caused them to not live their best possible life.

And that's the sad part of the whole discussion. It's not that these things aren't real or hurtful. They are very real and very hurtful, and they are very difficult to overcome. But the only answer for the individual is not to sit around and wait on the systemic thing to be fixed by some outside force. It's for them to pierce through the darkness with their excellence. Yeah, pierce through the darkness. When I was young and up and coming at Fox, they gave me an opportunity to host here or host there. I wasn't yet like a real anchor.

And I saw a director. He was, you know, like the directors are tech guys. And he directed somebody's show and he said, how's it go? Like when you go out there, how's it going? I said, it's great. And he said, how are the ratings, you know, when you sub in? And I'm like, you know, they're pretty good. And he's like, well, you got to make them go up. You got to make the rating spike when you come on. I'm like, well, I'd love to, how do I do that? He's like, just keep practicing, keep working it. And I was like, okay, I see his point. You know, I mean, I don't know exactly how you make the rating spike,

but I'll just keep preparing and keep trying to do my best. And hopefully someday they will. And lo and behold, the more I worked, the more I did it, the more the ratings would spike. And it gave me and had nothing to do with being a woman, had to do with with somebody who shall go nameless for the purposes of this discussion about who was going to get a particular opportunity on the air. It was for a special night and this other person wanted it as a guy and I wanted it. And this person said, well, I have this title and sort of just throughout this sort of fancy title. And I, by that point, after all the scrappiness and many, many years of hard work, said, my ratings are twice what yours are. I had my own power.

And you know what? I got it. I won. But I won based on my- And you didn't win because you were female. No, it had nothing to do. It had to do with blood, sweat, and tears. You were excellent. And excellence wins. And it felt good. Yeah. Yeah. And you won on the

basis of performance. And yet you had a higher hill to climb than he had. And you still kicked his butt. Yeah. And I never even like to think about that. One of the things I object to about the way our society is turning right now and embracing victimhood, even if the victimhood is real, is I've always found that so destructive. I found that just the worst way of thinking about oneself. In fact, one needs to think about oneself as totally empowered, even if you're not, and forge forward with that wind at your back. Fake it till you make it is another way of saying it, but that works. Positive thinking works, and the belief that you are capable and can do anything has propelled me from somebody with no family money and no family connections, and certainly no connections in journalism, to where I am now. It worked.

Yeah, it does. And that's the problem for those of us that love people. And that's why we start hating talk of systemic this or systemic that. Those things are real. We're not, you know, intelligent people can't discount the fact that systemic whatever exists. It does. But the discussion of it being first and foremost, and we're here to help you with that, that's where the falsehood kicks in. That's where the mythology kicks in.

Because then you're telling people that by saying that it's systemic, that it's all going to be fixed. It's not. It's not. The way it gets fixed is you go own the industry you go be so stinking good that that you push through on an individual basis now it's wonderful on a macro basis i guess from a political perspective i don't have those tendencies to work on big problems like that, like a systemic whatever, and try to help fix it. I don't have a problem with that. But it's never fixed by telling the victims to sit and

wait on it to be fixed. Well, I know you've said many times and in many places, no one accidentally wins at anything, and you are not the exception. And that's an empowering statement, right? Like if you want to do well, you've got to work it. And if you don't believe it's true of everyone, just look at the various fates of white men, right? Like those are the ones that we're told have all the power, at least did up until recently. I'm not so sure anymore. Some do very well, some do very poorly. There's a differential depending on how much effort they put into it, how much they sat back, how much they got off their tail and busted it, right? This is a point you're trying to make. It doesn't matter

what your disadvantage is or if you're totally equally situated, it's up to you. It's up to you to win. Yeah. And you have inherent advantages that are given to you and inherent disadvantages, and you've got to work what was given to you. I got a face for radio. My daughter Rachel is a beautiful young woman, and the camera, like you, loves her. And she loves the camera, like you, loves her. And she loves the camera. And so she does much better and just can walk into the room as a speaker, as a thought leader, a best-selling author, and carry the room in a way that I never was able to in my entire life. And it's before she even opens her freaking mouth, you know. And so her good looks have an advantage have given her

an advantage she's got the disadvantage of whatever sexism that she will run into and whatever someone wants to limit her because they don't want a woman in that position versus so she's got an advantage and a disadvantage now she can sit and discuss which of those she's going to use to go win. And so she's got to prove her brain works in spite of the fact that she's pretty, because that also is sometimes the, you know, automatically assume someone that's beautiful, their brain doesn't work well, and that's not true in her case or yours. And so beautiful intellect as well. But so you've got to go prove yourself again, you know, in spite of that.

But this is the card you were dealt. Play the hand that was dealt you in such a way that you still win and take the chips off the table. That's funny because I was not always attractive and I was not always a hard worker, but eventually I got there. And then when you get there, right, you're like, I'm looking better. You know, I lost some weight and I changed my hair and I fixed that space in between my two front teeth. And I'm working hard and I go to law school and you get out and you're like, look at me now. And the world's like, screw you.

That's a new challenge you have to get beyond. Yeah, and I'm worse than that. I'm a 60-year-old boomer. So there you go. Okay, boomer. Up next, how are credit cards like the cigarette industry? Dave's got thoughts on why you should chop yours up and throw them away. The horror. Or not. Stay tuned, but first this. Let's talk about debt, can we we because speaking of law school i always talk about how i've been rich and i've been poor and when i was poor personally my family's always middle class upper middle class

depending on the year um it was when i was in law school because i put myself through law school my mom paid for my college and then then when I graduated from college, she said, the financial umbilical cord is cut. Okay. So I didn't have a bunch of savings. I had really nothing. So I went to law school, did take out loans to put myself through, but I only took out loans to pay for the tuition. And every other thing I spent, I earned by teaching aerobics. And I'll just give you a little background. As a first year law student, I think at most schools, you're not allowed to work. First year is so grueling and so demanding and really the most important year of law school. They forbid you from working outside

of the school because they just know you'll do it and you'll undermine your main effort. So I got around it because I had been an aerobics instructor for about seven years by that point, six, whatever it was. And I said, well, it's fitness, you know, so if they're willing to give me a paycheck for the fitness, why wouldn't you let me? And they said, okay. Then I exploited it. And instead of just doing five classes a week, I wound up doing at some point 17 classes a week. So it was a ton of exercise in super good shape. And I made money. And I'm so grateful to this day I did it. And then I lived at home. That's one of the reasons I went to Albany Law School.

So I could live with my mom. So the umbilical cord wasn't totally cut. And it worked, Dave, because I amassed debt, but not so much that I couldn't handle it after the fact. But I did go into debt and it was stressful. And I had the shittiest credit ever. I mean, I wasn't paying my bills in college and so I went off to law school with that saddled around me. And I know this is your big thing. So let's just spend a minute talking about how evil you

think debt is and how seriously you take the threat of carrying credit cards around in your wallet. Well, again, it's kind of been, I guess, our theme today is what is good for people? I don't really have some macro axe to grind until it brings harm to people. And I've spent the last 30 years almost on the radio and on stages and writing books helping people. And so I want that single mom that's working three jobs to get ahead. I don't want her stuck there. I want that young couple who's got overwhelming problems with debt and they're behind on their car payments and the pandemic caused them to lose their job. I want to give them some things to do that they can go do today to start taking control of their destiny.

And what is the shortest distance for those people that I love between where they are and abundance or wealth? And the shortest distance has been proven time and time again to avoid debt and or to get out of the debt because you're limping along carrying Sally Mae on your back and two fleeced cars on your back and a bass boat or a snowmobile payment and a couch that was 90 days same as cash that turned into 34% interest and a credit card or seven. Um, and it's all normal. It's normal, but normal is broken. Normal sucks out there. Normal is making a lot of money and having none. And, uh, because it all goes to some stupid bank or some stupid financial institution, because we signed up and signed our life away, buying stuff we couldn't afford with money.

We didn't have to impress people. We don't even really like. And it's just, it's taking people's future away. It's taking away their shortest distance to abundance. And so we've spent decades now showing people how to get rid of that debt because that helps them. And if you start with that premise, then you go, okay, what's wrong with a credit card? Well, you know, we did the largest study for Chris Hogan's book, Everyday Millionaires, Ramsey Solutions Research Team, with an outside research firm, airtight study, the largest study of millionaires ever done in North America, 10,167 millionaires were interviewed. Not a single one of them, not one, said, Dave, you know, I made all my money with my airline miles that I got on my credit card. Not one of them said that Discover Points is how I got ahead.

That's exactly what people point to, the airline miles. They act like they are heading towards abundance. That's true. And so they have believed a lie. We know this because millionaires don't do it. Do they use a credit card? Some of them. But do they sit around and go, I'm getting wealthy getting my airline miles?

No, that's a dumb butt statement when you think about it. It's really asinine and so points guy he's he's to blame he's so destructive yeah i mean but i mean it because he's again i'm not mad at him i mean there's nothing about that but the credit card is basically i i think it's the cigarette of the financial industry i think we're going to look up in about a decade or two and what used to be really cool and everybody thought was no big deal, and the cool kids all had one, you know, puff, puff, all of a sudden you can't smoke anywhere except outside the building by the air conditioner.

So do you just use an ATM card? Like how do you charge your – I use debit cards. I've got debit cards on my business and on my personal account. It does every single thing a credit card will do. It has the exact same fraud protections, only you just have to have freaking money in your account or you can't buy stuff. What a novel idea. Well, do you worry at all?

Like one of the reasons I use my credit card is I worry about online fraud and Amex will shut it down, right? Like if somebody messes with their account. Yeah, they do with debit card too. Debit card has 100% coverage on online fraud. All Visa products and MasterCard products do, whether they're debit or credit. So if I get ripped off with if someone steals or identity theft, obviously, those kinds of things, 100% of the money is put back into my account. It is in the, you know, if you just pull up Visa's website, it's in there.

They have these policies, it's in there. You know, they have these policies and they're protected, but no one wants to talk about that because they want an excuse to buy things they can't afford. And so adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good. Well, I know you say like, don't, you're not doing your kid any favor by encouraging them or helping them get a credit card, you know, to get sort of get their credit started. That's, that's a bad idea. Just keep using cash. Use cash. Use your ATM card. Don't submit to the plastic gods. Yeah. I mean, pour your 13-year-old a beer and hand them a pack of cigarettes. Why not? I mean, why wouldn't we do that? Because it's harmful. It doesn't turn the 33-year-old version of them into somebody good.

Now, is it the end of the world if somebody smokes or drinks a beer? Absolutely not. I'm not mad at you if you do those things. That's not the point. It's a metaphor to point out that you don't bring things that are questionable like that into a child and suggest that this is normative. When your kids were little and you were, you know, how much time did you spend talking about money when you were raising them? Or do you think, because I have my own thoughts on this, do you think an attitude toward money is sort of a character trait?

Oh, definitely there are different character traits. Some people are spenders naturally, some are savers naturally, some are more free spirits and more nerds, we call them. And Rachel's latest book, Know Yourself, Know Your Money, goes into a bunch of the reasons that we handle money the way we do and which of them are okay and which of them, you know, you need to really look at. So those are very, you know, very, very, it's a great topic to dive deeply into. But the bottom line of the whole thing is that, did we teach it, did we have little mutual fund parties for our 13-year-olds? No, no.

Rachel and I did a book years ago, it was her first number one called Smart Money, Smart Kids, teaching kids how, teaching adults, we were teaching adults how to teach their kids how to handle money. And in the Ramsey household growing up, we talked about money maybe 20 minutes a week, maybe. And that was more like, did you do your chores? So are you going to get paid? Because you didn't get paid if you didn't do your chores. We didn't have an allowance, your own commission.

And so back to our earlier discussion, right? But we didn't sit around and have these long teaching sessions with 16-year-olds or 6-year-olds about money because more is caught than taught. But they saw us being generous. And so to a person, all three of our grown kids are generous they saw us save and to a person all three of our grown kids save money and they saw us spend and enjoy money and to a person all three of our grown kids spend and enjoy money

with their spouses and their kids my grandkids and. And so, you know, but they watched us and saw us and breathed it. We didn't hide it from them. We talked about, hey, here's, we're going to do this. Oh, we can't do that because it's not in the budget. What's a budget? Well, we have a plan and the plan tells us when to say no to ourselves so we can say yes later. I like that. It's caught, not taught. That is so good. I mean, that sums up 90% of parenting, frankly, right? It does. Because how many of us have opened our mouth and our mother came out or our father came out? Too many, especially now that I get older, right? You hear it exactly. Well, you, sir,

have helped a lot of lives in the process of becoming the success you are. Number three radio show in the country now. I mean, you were three behind Rush and Hannity. So now what do you think happens with Rush's listeners? And does this make you officially number two in the country? Well, based on numbers, it does. Yeah. We have 644 radio stations and about 10 million listeners on radio

and about another 11 million on podcasts. So about 21 million a day, roughly. And I actually have more stations than Sean has, but he has more listeners than I do. And so, and we both know Sean, he really wants to be number one so he can be number one. I'm perfectly fine being number two, Sean. I love you. You're doing okay. So it's working out for me. So, you know, we were in talks with a lot of those radio stations and have been for the last year because we knew this sadness was coming. And Rush did, too, uh, I think that, you know, they're going to attempt to put, apparently they're going to attempt to put some different, uh, talent in those seat in that seat for a while.

And, uh, hopefully some of it'll catch. Um, it's just hard to be the act that follows Elvis. He invented rock and roll, you know, and I don't, and so, uh, we'll probably end up picking up some of those slots here or there. Uh, and I'm sure they of those slots here or there. And I'm sure they got Buck Sexton in there. Buck's a wonderful guy and doing a good job. And there's talk of other people sitting in that seat, but it's a very, very tough seat to sit in.

And so I suspect it'll be a little of everything. I don't think there's going to be one person that comes in and completely takes over the thing. I think it'll be different people will pick up different pieces of it just because that's the way the marketplace works. But there's no question that whoever it is or wherever we are in those situations, we're following a legend. Yeah, the man with the golden mic, and the man who made so many careers possible. I mean, I don't think Fox News would have existed without Rush Limbaugh, so who knows whether I'd be sitting in front of the microphone I'm in front of right now. But I have to say, I know you're more financially oriented, and obviously Rush was very much political, but I get why you've been so successful. I mean, I'm sure our audience can hear it here. You have this folksy manner, but what you're saying is really brilliant. You have an

amazing ability to condense dense information into a way that's really digestible. That's a gift in any job that requires communication as its mainstay. And it's fun listening to you because even somebody like me, who's kind of dense when it comes to finances, can understand. You make it simple. So you kind of idiot-proof your messaging, which I appreciate. Well, you're very kind. Thank you. Well, thank you for the promo. You had me on your show and I appreciated it. And I hope you'll come back and help us as we deal with these numbers that we were talking about at the beginning of the show and see how they're actually playing out in our economy.

Anytime. Anytime. Honor to be with you. I'm proud of what you're doing and excited for all your success. You deserve every bit of it. And while I have you, don't forget to go and subscribe to the show. Go ahead and subscribe. That way you won't miss any episodes and download the show and five-star reviews. Would you do it? Would you do it for me? Five stars. And how about a review?

Because I'd love to know what you thought of Dave, what you've been thinking about any of the episodes we've been doing and who you would like to see on the show. Who would you most like to listen to? Give me some suggestions because we get a lot of our guests actually from those suggestions. You can do it online. You can do it on our social media, wherever you do it, do it because it's helpful to hear back from you guys. And we'll talk again soon. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. The Megyn Kelly Show is a Devil May Care media production in collaboration with Red Seat Ventures.