Dueling Ideology

The opinions expressed in this program are for general informational purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry to determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results. Any endices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested in due directly.

Any references to performance of securities are thought to be materially accurate and actual performance may differ. As always, please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. Please seek advice from a licensed profession. And we are back with another of the most scintillating hours in finance radio.

Now, I don't suddenly say that anymore because we are not on finance radio. That was a shout out to the original folks. You know what? There are probably listeners we got to the podcast and don't realize that we started out not podcasting.

We started out doing a radio show in Seattle. And so everyone saw, if you hear me throw in the word radio or whatever it's old hat. And I actually threw that one in today just because I'm just saying that. I realized it's kind of one of those out.

Well, I always said that it was a true statement because it was a one horse race, which was my favorite kind of race. There's not a lot of finance radio out there. So we got to be the self-entitled, most scintillating hour in finance radio. Anyway, unfortunately, I will not be joined by the brain trust himself as a chase tailor.

He's got some family in town. So I'm managing the dots. We'll probably have more of the day those days like this this summer where it's one or two of us. And for those of you in the finance industry, you got to get your breaks in in the summer because otherwise it's pretty unyielding.

Somebody asked me, what do you like the most about your job as a young kid? What do you like most about your job? And you like the least? And I was like, you know, the thing that is the least favorable about the job is there can be times in the year where the market being open is just oppressive.

You just feel like you just can't get a break. And I said conversely, what I like about my job is that everything's constantly changing, right? So kind of two sides of the same coin. But anyway, got a good show planned for you today.

Not a crazy day in markets, not a whole lot going on. I think there's some certainly some interesting stuff going on underneath the surface. But we'll kind of address the market as a whole here and then move on to some other things that I think are a little more interesting, a little more entertaining, a little more prescient considering what we're looking at in the world today. So like I said, fairly quiet day, not a lot going on.

You're back to the good old days of the NASDAQ being green while everything else is flat to negative. I doesn't surprise me considering that you're breaking to new all time highs here. And a big component of the way this market works is muscle memory, meaning, you know, I definitely think that the average issue on the NASDAQ is ridiculously overheated. And we all know that at the same time, people have said that for a long time.

So, you know, we've long said that when the NASDAQ puts being the best performing index, and I'm not saying that those days are here, I think that I think the days are here where it's going to be the best. It's relative performance to the rest of the world and other indexes is going to be considerably muted compared to the last 10 years. But, you know, these, like I've said before, right, this isn't going to happen in one fell swoop. There is still one asset class around the world that the rest of that every money manager in the world is scared to death to not be long.

And that's US tech. I mean, it's been basically a guaranteed 25% winner every single year and outperform the S&P every year. Okay. And when you get those kinds of long running moves, they take a while to dissolve because, like I said, you always get to the point where the price gets too high and stocks get ahead of themselves and they're not good investments.

But you also have a period of time it takes people to realize that. So you're going to have those reflexive days, but truthfully, not a whole lot going on. We had the, it'll give you the exact breakdowns here, but NASDAQ was slightly higher. I believe we were about, let's see, point up point three one S&P finished down point O two.

So flat on the day, Russell 2000 down 1%. I've got to believe that was probably, yeah, rates didn't do much of anything. 30 year ticked up point two, 7%, point zero, one, three, nothing big. I wouldn't expect that to help small caps, but I just think you're going to see a little bit of the reversion trade, right?

Like, you know, even weighted stuff, small caps did really well considering or on a relative basis to big caps in tech at the first part of this year. And I think you got a lot of market participants. They're just trying to fade the other side of that. I think it's a fool's errand, but you know, could see a play out shortly here.

In terms of other interesting thing, you know, and I was mentioning this yesterday, I think if you look at a chart, it's not going to surprise you. But as somebody that's watched this for a really long time, man, gold is acting strong. And I hate to even bring it up because usually if you say that, probably get a big down day tomorrow or something like that. But you see it gets smacked down.

And my feel of that, you guys, here's my feel. My feel of what you see happening with gold is I think you have traders getting crossed up with fundamental demand. And the reason I say that is you see these sharp moves lower for gold. Remember, just like I was talking about oil, remember, immediate price movements are always defined by the seller or the buyer of margin, right at the margin, meaning the most recent transaction.

Okay, so when you've got these high frequency traders and they're like, Oh, well, the feds get to do this. They said, do that. That's going to make the dollar rally. They were for short and gold in an environment like that.

You'd expect to see short term blips come in and hammer the price of gold and then you'd expect it for the fundamental buyers, central banks, a lot of people in China and India increased interest here in the US. You'd expect to see those sharp smackdowns get met with gradual recovery. So far, that's happened every single time. So typically what you'd see in the inverse in a bear market in a commodity like that is the exact opposite.

Right. You'd see that steady trend downwards with some occasional sharp moves to the upside. Maybe it's short covering, maybe it's speculation, things like that. You know, it looks really good.

I don't think the chart is looking at you. You're at 3347. You got to top in of this move right around 35 and change. I don't think it's screaming that this thing's about ready to get away from you, but that strength, especially compared to the way gold has behaved over the last 10 to 12 years.

It's nothing to shake a stick out. Again, nothing guarantees outcomes, but it's really acting well. Let's see. What else do we have in video?

I guess some analysts put out a mark today. What's he saying? An analyst predicts an AI golden wave. OK, like there hasn't been one already, but anyway, Nvidia led the way.

It doesn't surprise me again, considering the backdrop and also considering the demand that you're seeing on the chip side. I can tell you this, even as somebody that owns Nvidia. Now, we own it a little bit differently than most. We haven't been writing it up for the last five years, but we picked it up earlier this year, right around 100 when these things were getting slammed.

It I'll tell you, obviously, we hold the stock. I'll tell you, it felt a lot better owning it at 100 than it does at 150. We've taken some profits on it, but we're letting it run a little bit. And truthfully, if you look at the profit outlook next year for Nvidia, now, if they don't if they don't meet that profit outlook, the stocks can get absolutely destroyed.

But on the face of it, it looks very expensive. It's a very expensive stock. Don't get me wrong. But when you look at the projection for earnings next year, it's not crazy.

It's not cheap. It's not cheap. But but it's not crazy. Why is it up four and a half percent today?

I don't know. I don't like to see that. And the reason I don't like to see that is these analysts and this to me is more evidence of just more retail in the market. When I first got into this, you know, sometimes you analysts, if they've got a good track record, they might move a stock watching the way stocks respond to bullish analysts movement.

So it's just it's it's comedy gold. Why? Because the analysts are just as dumb as everybody on Twitter. And in most cases, they've got even worse track records.

The other thing is with analysts, you have no idea what the motivation behind that research pieces. Are they trying to win that company's investment banking business? So, you know, when I see stocks responding to that, like on a flat to negative tape and pushing a stock, like in video 4.3%, that doesn't make me feel happy. Even though I mean, don't get me wrong.

I'm glad I own the stock and I'm glad it's up 4.3%. That doesn't make me feel good about things though. That tells me that it just tells me for the most part, again, maybe it's not true this time. Maybe that analyst is correct.

But when I see stocks that expensive responding on movements where the rest of the markets are flat and they're up almost 5% on a day where no other news came out other than that. I don't like that. And the reason I don't like that is it tells me I'm on the same side of the trade as a bunch of retail people. And guys, I'm not dogging you if you're a retail trader.

Hopefully the fact you listen to the show means you listen to others and hopefully you're more well informed than the average retail trader. But let's face it. Go out there and talk to them. The average retail trader is a belligerent speculator.

They think they're an investor. They're not. They're just chasing prices. And why does that scare you if you're in it?

Because you know, when you know that a lot of fluff is priced into that stock price. And why is that a problem? Because fluff can disappear rather quickly, right? But you know, you look at the whole chip sector too.

The whole chip sectors get to run. You know, honestly, as expensive as the chip sector is, I think on a relative basis, I would expect them to have very strong earnings, especially as it's related to the market. Because I think the rest of the market is ignoring some troubling signs as it relates to growth and things like that. Again, not crystal clear signs.

But you know, as we've said before, if you're looking for the stock market to give you insight into how the economy is doing, don't do that. Because this stock market at these levels, at these valuations, it is absolutely not a reflection of the underlying economy. It's just not doesn't mean things are horrible, but it ain't it ain't like this. So you definitely want to watch.

Definitely want to keep an eye out for those things. And again, I'll just continue to say if you are doing this on your own, broaden out your vision. There are other markets outside of the United States. Some of the value we continue to find is just mind blowing.

And unfortunately, you know, that the average investor isn't going to isn't going to do that until the momentum shows up, meaning their price chasers. So when are they going to figure that out? They're going to figure that out after their portfolio is getting hammered for 40 to 50%. And then they look around the world.

They're like, Oh, look at that. Poland's up 60. You know, Brazil's up 55. I'm going to make the switch, right?

They're going to chase it just like they chase crypto just like they chase Tesla just like it tastes and that's what they do. So in an environment like this, it's also something you got to consider, right? Which is you want to stay one step out of the crowd. I'm not saying always do the opposite of what these people do.

Saying sometimes if you kind of figure out where they're going, like one thing that I'm kicking myself for is we made some decent money on Palantir stock, but we made it between the prices of like 15 to 30. And the reason I kept getting involved in is first they've got really good company that puts out some excellent stuff and they've got some incredible software. And they sell to the US government. So among other places, but you know, US government's going to be a big client of theirs.

So they have a tendency to pay their bills on time. But more importantly, it had all of the earmarks of all of the stocks that retails imagination runs wild on and it goes through the roof. And that was part of our thesis of owning it. And like most places, we took our profit.

I think we ended up making 65, 75% on it or something like that. But I'm just kicking myself because I underplayed it. Now, would have I ever held it to 145 wherever it is? No, I don't think I can recall a stock I've ever seen be more expensive.

It's good company. Great products. I just the price is just so insane. I mean, you know, it feels to me like horse betting.

Could you make money on it? Sure. Could you lose a lot? Absolutely.

And most of the times you buy something price like that, you will. On the flip side, Tesla's giving up some of those gains, which makes a lot of sense. I'll just continue to say it. Tesla's in a tough way.

And when I listen to most Tesla investors talk about it, they just don't get what's going on. I am not saying that they're not going to figure out full self driving. I am not saying that they're not going to be a big player in autonomous taxis. What I am saying is everybody's reading it as if this is over.

This isn't this is a beta test. They don't even have a product to put out on the street right now. This is a geofence beta test with with a driver in the car. And then when you look what's happening to their core business, it's in serious trouble.

And I'm not saying they can't get out of it. But what I'm saying is is they're a price that I pay for Tesla stock right here. Yes. Where's it at?

A long ways away from here. And the bottom line is if you look at the stock, the only way you can justify this price is if you're part of your thesis is that you believe they either are or in short period of time will be one of the leaders in full self driving. Um, that's not going to happen. They don't have a tech.

Now, could they be in the next year and half? Sure. And I don't know exactly what those timelines are. But guys, this is not this is not the beginning of the release of robo taxes.

They're still in part of the process of getting approved. So yeah, I that one's still trouble. Apple, same thing to me. Uh, you know, they've got, I mean, again, I, they don't have this.

They're not facing the same kind of issues that are as pernicious as what Tesla's facing and they're not as immediate. But man, on a valuation basis, when you look at what their underlying performance has been and the trends, it's not, it's not good. Um, silver still, it still hasn't busted through that key level, right? That 37 and a half, 38 level that is really the green light.

So, uh, it's back and away from that level again, which it's done several times. And that's not unheard of. Um, right? Usually it usually it takes multiple attempts to break through those, those support levels.

So we'll see where it's going, but it hasn't proved itself yet. Uh, copper up, uh, today, 4.9. Um, kind of surprising when you see the housing data. Um, but you know, who knows what, who knows what that's about.

Uh, crude oil up on the day, 1.3% nat gas down four. Um, if that sounds crazy to you, it doesn't, you have a watch, nat gas. It is, it is a normal occurrence for nat gas to move four to six percent a day. Um, what that probably was, I chase usually watches all that stuff, but I'm sure they probably got, uh, some cooler weather than anticipated somewhere in the US.

And therefore nat gas demand will be a little lower than they projected, but that continues to be a pretty, uh, and it will for some time. And that's, that's just a noisy, noisy market. Um, let's see. Let's take a look here where we at.

Um, now interesting today though, um, European markets were negative on the day. Um, and, and not crazy, but down, you know, 50, 60 basis points in there. Asia pretty much was green across the board. So kind of mixed signals there.

Um, but interesting things, interesting things going on. And like I said, now we said this earlier, this time of year, you're probably not going to see a lot of groundbreaking stuff. Now we've got some serious geopolitical stuff on the back burner. So the setup here is a little different.

We, who knows what we can see here in the next couple of weeks. Um, but you know, I would extend the news flow has not been hot and heavy. I would expect it to not get so you just always see the pace of the stuff. So down in the summer, so don't be surprised by that.

Um, don't be surprised by that at all. Now little side note, and we'll stay on the investment side as this relates to investing, but, but a little bit of foray into politics here, because I was looking at two different stories today that I think really illustrate one of the biggest problems we face in this economy as a country and in this culture, this culture writ large. And what I've kind of written down here is just dueling ideology, right? And I think we're at a point that is a little bit unique in the sense that I think both ideologies, both traditional political approaches of the right and left, um, I think both of them have serious holes in their playbook when it comes to dealing with these particular environments.

And I think I've got a pretty good example of that. Um, and it just so happened that they rolled down, you know, on the same day or within a day of each other. And that is this two different things. A, this mom dining character getting elected as mayor of New York and then B, an article written by Steve Forbes, I believe it came out yesterday.

Maybe, maybe it was even today. Um, but criticizing the Fed for interest rate policies and saying that the Fed is completely political and the only reason they won't lower rates is because of Trump. Now, why do I bring these two things up? Because I think these are perfect examples of one of the problems that we have in society today and forgive me, I'm going to get a little bit on my high horse here and preach a little bit at you, but it's also not preaching.

It's also, um, we're a show based on investing. Okay. Now when we're talking about investing and allocating capital, it's, it's not an ethm, it's not, um, it's not a hot take. And I don't think it's controversial whatsoever to sit there and say that investing and allocating capital and making financial decisions are probably best made with a minimum amount of emotion evolves, right?

I think we can all probably agree on that. And that's one of the reasons why I've always said as best as a human being can do, I try to keep my politics and my investing separate. Do I look at both politics and investing through the lens of each, meaning, will I look at politics with my investment lens on? Yes.

Will I look at investments with my political lens on? Yes. But when I do, I'm trying to make darn sure that I'm accounting for that bias that's inherent and these two kind of dueling ideologies that are represented in both of these stories, again, the election of mom, Donnie is mayor of New York. And then the article out by Forbes, I think it lays out a perfect example.

Now let's start with the new mayor in New York, because that's obviously low hanging fruit. Okay. But you've got a guy that pretty much guaranteed that he's won the election for mayor of New York that's running on a platform to make the city more affordable and more accessible to everybody. And the way he's going to do that is by increasing government's role in the local economy and effectively making public, many, like for instance, he wants to start a government run set of grocery stores.

So here's what's frustrating to me. Um, look, I think there's a lot of things that we can talk about in this country, like entitlements, tax policy, where I think that any answer or any solution that's brought forward would be best off if it incorporated some of the ideas of both sides, right? Like a compromise. And there are other things like this that are just idiocy, meaning all I would say to those people is, look, I understand that you think that there are things that are unfair in the United States.

I understand and don't disagree with you that you think that there are things that are borderline criminal because they're so unfair. I think that there are things that are legislated in the United States that are hurting people on the poor end of things that aren't giving them a fair shake. Okay. But that doesn't mean you throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And what I would ask them is give me one example where socializing parts of a free market made things more plentiful or more affordable for just giving one example. And here's what's frustrating about it. That's not the case because Republicans and conservatives are so smart and liberals are so dumb. It's not the case because the way that conservatives look at the world is the right way and the way liberals just stop and take a step back.

It's that way because for the most part, especially when they're regulated correctly, free markets allocate capital based off economic criteria. Governments allocate capital along and according to political ideology and political criteria. Now, if you've ever run a business, you'll know this to be true. Allocating capital efficiently and in a productive way, allocating resources is hard enough when you're trying to do it.

When you're not trying to do it, it's impossible. And that's where you have always seen. So I'm not sitting there opposed to Montdani because he's a bad socialist and socialist agreement. It's it's not bad.

I disagree with him. Like I would disagree with somebody telling me to wear Bermuda shorts and a tank top when it's 20 degrees and a blizzard outside. Right. I disagree with him and people that are voting for him because almost out of like solidarity, all looking out for them saying, no, no, no, I'm against his election as mayor because all of these problems, he's going to make worse for you.

No, I don't think that's his intention. I take that 30 idealistic 33 year old at face value. I don't even want to get into the inherent problems of hiring a 33 year old who's never held down a real job. I think that's a problem in and of itself because at 33 when you have only worked for your mother, you have not experienced life.

As a matter of fact, when you're 33 and you've only worked for your mother, I now understand why you have proclivities towards socialism. That's effectively the world you've lived in. Right. You have this benevolent leader, your mom, right, that has provided money that you almost assuredly didn't deserve, right?

I don't know what percentage nepotism played in his job in him getting that job, but but I'm sure it played a role. But here we are, the greatest economic power in the history doesn't mean we don't have issues, doesn't mean that there are problems with capitalism too. But here we are, the greatest economic engine, the richest that's built off that economic engine, the richest society or culture or political experiment in human history. And their answer is to throw the baby out the bathwater and adhere to an ideology that has created poverty every time it's been instilled.

And at the very least, if it has not created abject poverty, it has created massive economic underperformance. And again, it shouldn't surprise everybody. That's a feature not a bug. When you go down the socialist platform, what you are saying is that your cultural ideology and your culture, your cultural definitions of good and evil and what we think is fair and what we think isn't fair, that it puts precedent above the efficiency of the allocation of capital.

That's what you're saying. Now, are there some cases where we should think like that? Yes. Right.

Like for instance, health care is a good example, right? It costs it costs hospitals and in turn us buying health insurance. It costs us a lot of money, the fact that emergency rooms are open to everybody. That's not an economically efficient thing.

But I do think it's a good idea. I think that we should make provisions in parts of the health care system that help offset that and help mitigate that cost. But it is a good idea. I don't like the idea of people dying on the street corner because they can't go anywhere to get medical assistance.

But when you're talking about things like the cost of food or he's talking about price gouging a store, the average profit margin for a store is like 3%. What do you think the chances are that that government store is going to have 3% margins? I think the chances are almost 100% that that government store loses money. So then the question you have to sit there and go is now you're saying that you're delir- A, I bet you it loses money and averages higher costs for consumers.

So then you got to sit back and go, okay, well, how much is it costing consumers and how much money are they losing? And is this thing even a net net benefit on that level? And I will bet you dollars a sense that it won't be. And it's not because I hope socials and look, I wish socialism worked.

If it did, things would be a lot easier. We could guarantee outcomes. Those guaranteed outcomes are going to make people productive and we're going to be this happy, get along, everybody's good, everybody's shared money. It just doesn't work.

We've tried a hundred times. If we want to roll forward, we have to quit picking up broken ideas on the trash heap of history. Do I fault people that gave socialism a run? No, it was a new revolutionary concept thought up by Marx and on paper, it had some compelling parts to it.

But how many times have we seen that, right? That's a really good idea. You tried out and actually, here's what we didn't think about. Here were the unintended consequences.

Here was this. One section of the country just keeps running back to that over and over and over. And so like I said, it's not me sitting here, you know, pillering them and saying how horrible they are and how stupid they are. They're all, but it's me looking at them and saying, you don't want to do that.

It's not a good idea. Why? Because it's going to do exactly what it does every single time it gets rolled out. And it just kills me because when you have a two party political system, and I know it doesn't feel like this at times, but for all of you, conservatives out there and I happen to know for a fact, I am more on the traditional conservative side of things, 100%.

I know that the majority of our listeners are too. So when you're on the conservative side of these things, sometimes the things I'm saying can be a little controversial and you might sit there and go, Oh, Zach's going away. No, I'm not. I'm just saying, look, there are things that there are parts of the system that will resemble more socialism, right?

And it's like the emergency room analogy I was using and we're willing to deal with that lack of efficiency because the alternative is so unpalatable, right? No, we don't want to see people dying on street corners. But when you're talking about something simple that isn't life or death, like the price of a bag of Doritos, there is zero. As a matter of fact, all the evidence is 100% of the contrary that a government allocation of assets in a way that that will ever work, that government controlling that will make it more efficient.

I mean, it's just ridiculous on the face of it. Now, what's what's the here's what I was going to say? Why, why do I want Democrats to get away from that? For the same reason I want them to get away from woke ideology.

A, I think it's extraordinarily pernicious in damaging to our culture in our country, but B, it does not help us regardless of what side of the political aisle we are on when one side is off the rails and out of their mind, right? And why is that? Because it doesn't demand as much from the other side. Meaning if, if, if, if regardless of what side of the political aisle we're on, we should want competent, smart and honest people in power because it's going to make the, their opposition smarter and more honest and more capable, right?

You want competition. Competition is good, which is why free markets work. The opinions expressed in this program are for general information purposes. Only are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or any specific security in a reference to performance of security.

So not to be materially accurate in actual performance may differ. Now the flip side of that is an article in my opinion that came out from Steve Forbes, traditionally on the conservative side of things. And his argument was there's more than enough data to support a big Fed rate cut like Trump has been calling for. That the only reason the Fed isn't doing this is totally ideological.

They don't like Trump. They're anti-Trump politics. But what, okay, is what Steve Forbes saying, is it false on the face of it? And do I know that he is wrong?

No, I do not find it hard to believe when you consider the way that Trump has talked about the Fed, when you look at the people that are on the FOMC, the federal open markets committee, when you look at where they went to school, when you look at who they hang out with, it would not surprise me at all if there was a political part of this. Okay. Now on the flip side, when you're talking about a hundred basis point cut or 150 basis point cut and the stock market is all time highs, things like Fartcoin or over a billion dollars in market cap, housing it as a record in affordability and unemployment at 4%. I would sit there and say that has never, ever justified that big of a rate cut.

You know, I'm not saying Trump is wrong. I'm not saying that we'll look back a year from now and realize they should have been cutting aggressively. I totally get that. But I'm just saying that the data does not support that level of a cut.

It just doesn't. Okay. Now, do I think that the data supports a 25 and potentially even a 50 basis point cut? Yes.

I like, and you know what? I'll be honest with you. Look, just as a guy looking at the data, if you were asking if we were supposed to, if we should cut another 25 to 50 basis points or do nothing, I don't know. I'd have to look through the data even a little bit closer and I know it pretty well.

And the reason why I say that guys is because of what happened in the UK. Okay. So much like AOC and all of our folks over there in New York, much like they are just blind to the reality and just he's going to fix it. New York, right.

Just we're going to throw all evidence out the window and we're just going to live on a political, politically ideological plane. I think Steve Forbes comments are kind of the counter, the other side of that coin. We go, whoa, whoa, Steve, I'm not saying you're not right. But what I'm saying is that is factually incorrect.

There's a lot of data. There's a lot of data that would say, you better be a little careful with those rate cuts. Now, there's another thing that Steve did mention at all, which is losing control the back end of the curve. And quite honestly, I think the Fed is more afraid of that.

And I think they should be because that's kind of what a stagflationary environment looks like, right? It appears that growth is slowing here in the US. If growth slows and the back end of the curve starts going up, that's stagflation, guys, that's the worst of both worlds. And so what I'm saying is the thing that we are all relying on to present us the answers to so many of these tough questions that we face economically and culturally and politically, these are the very lenses that are letting us down at present that we need to think outside of them, that we need to be factually based.

I think if you look at the data, I think you can make a database argument for no rate cuts. I think you can make a database argument for 25 to 50 and with all deference to President Trump. And I like a lot of what he's done. And you guys know I'm not anti-Trump, but I just sit there and I go, when I look at the right, no cuts, 25 to 50 basis points or 100 to 150 basis points, I think you can make cases for all for two of those.

I just, the data cannot be made. Like just go look back in history. The last time that you saw a hundred basis point cut or bigger when you had both the stock market and housing at all time eyes, you're not going to find it, especially when there's 4% unemployment. But you guys see what I'm saying.

Like you see how we create a political maelstrom over this, where when you just look at it independent of the data, you sit there and go, no, yeah, you probably shouldn't cut a hundred basis points. Oh, you're anti-Trump. No, I'm just looking at the data. Hey, pro-shinal like that guy from here.

That's really big. Oh, you just hate it. You're all about rich people that you're like, no, I just don't think you want to make prices go up on people do you? The other thing is this, guys.

We were actually looking at companies today that own large swaths of land in Florida. Why? Because a bunch of these people aren't going to put up with this. They're going to move for them guaranteed.

What does that mean? That means an exiting of more tax dollars out of New York. And right now we as the populace get stuck in between this. And look, I am not sitting here.

If you think I'm making an argument that, like I'm much more on the conservative side of things, but one of the things I'm on the, the reason I became more conservative was always the reliance on a more fact-based approach. Right. When I looked at, and I, and I, and I, to a large part, I think it's true today, which is, I think liberal ideology is more about heartstrings, right? And, and in most cases, for all the right reasons, meanwhile, the conservative arguments always seem to be more rational to me.

Now, now obviously there are times where those roles are in verse and things like that. But it always seemed more rational to me when I see people that tend to agree with me in terms of basing things off rationale and reason and not just blind emotion. I'm discomverted when they quit asking the hard questions. I understand why they support Trump.

I understand why they feel Trump is their biggest ally against, you know, the state and the deep state and all those different things. And in many aspects, I agree with them. But it doesn't mean that everything he proposes is going to be right. And it certainly doesn't mean that when he's wrong or we think he's wrong, we don't will say something.

But that to me is just a perfect example of the schism that we have here ideologically where in both those cases sit there and go, well, hold on a second. It's not just political, man. You got unemployment at 4%. You got the consumers, personal balance sheet has never been better.

You have record and affordability of housing and stock markets at all time, high trading at 30 times earnings. And you think that justifies a hundred to 150 bit spaces point rate increase. Now, I don't think that that's as crazy of an argument as electing a socialist to run New York, but it's, but it's, but it's just as a little fact based, right? Flip around and go, wait, things are too expensive in New York.

And so you think increasing taxes and government taking a larger role in the market is going to fix that? What is the evidence that you point to? What is the proof case? Where's the Harvard Business School study that lays that one out?

Well, there isn't one. Why? Because that's not the way it works. And what I would challenge you, especially if those of you on the conservative side, truth wins out.

And while we need to push back against ridiculous ideology, and in my opinion, you know, backing things that will allow grown men to go into a stall next to my daughter, right? We need to vociferously push back against that stuff because it compromises and it dangers and and and potentially hurts some of the most vulnerable people in our country. But there are other parts of it where we need to speak truth to the power on our side of the aisle, right? We need to clean our own house.

And if we don't do that, I don't see how I don't see how we move on from here. If we keep going back to the trash heap of the past and the trash heap of political ideology and keep recycling broken ideas, I just there's no path forward. And you know, the old adage change begins with you. It sounds cliche, kind of kitschy, kind of stupid, right, kind of campy.

It's true. We need to learn how to reason and think in this country. We need to learn and people on the left need to realize that they need to be they need to see capitalism and free markets like a guard dog, right? As long as you got a good fence, I.e.

sensible, smart and effective regulation, a guard dog's a wonderful thing to have. Your house is much safer. You're much less likely to get broken into. You're much more likely to preserve the value of the things that you hold inside of that home.

Conversely, if you leave a hole in the fence, let it run around. Probably gonna get sued, right? Well, same as true with free markets and capitalism. And and and pointing to a failure of that regulation, pointing to an issue that was created via excess greed and people who take advantage of it should not make us or inspire us to throw the whole bloody thing out the window.

That's insanity. And you do it in the name of caring for people. We've brought more people out of poverty than any other country in the history of humankind. We have fed more people than any other country in the history of humankind.

We have saved more people via medication and vaccination than any other country in the history of humankind. How can you look at the economic engine that drives that and think that that's entirely the problem? Now, could you have critiques of it? Absolutely.

And there should always be critiques. Why? because we're humans and we don't do anything perfectly. By any system that we put in place should be a system that is under constant maintenance and improvement because by definition, whatever system we roll out is not going to be perfect.

And we'll keep making it better over time. But to sit there and see things backing up and society and go, OK, we're just putting this whole thing in reverse. We want to model states that have had complete economic collapse. That's the way we go forward.

The flip side going over to Steve. The only reason the Fed is at cut rates is politics. No, could it play a role? Steve, absolutely.

But look at the underlying data. Show me another Fed head or another FOMC that voted for 100 to 150 basis point cuts when unemployment was at four, when consumer balance sheets were at record, when housing was at record in affordability and the S&P was an all-time high trading at 30 times earnings. It hasn't happened. So by definition, to say it's completely playcabey.

It's never happened for. So truthfully, I don't really know. My point is, and I don't want to lecture anybody politically here, but I just, it's so frustrating to me. And we were talking about in the office today, even with people on the right, I'm like, listen, don't think what attracted me to conservatives, what attracted me to Reagan and all the, what was, there was a level of thought and reason at that time that was put ahead.

And I still think it's true today. I mean, obviously when you consider well, can all this other crazy stuff, I generally think the conservative side is definitely is the home of more thinking. But it doesn't mean that we don't have our blind spots to like sitting there saying the Fed decision is completely political. I just don't, I just don't see how you categorize it that way.

I just, I just don't see it. Now, if you want to call into question the cuts, the timing of the cuts and the size of the cuts before the last election, I honestly think that that's an area where there's more room to dig. I think there's more room for criticism, but not cutting right now. I just, I think it's kind of a toss up.

I can absolutely see the data that would make me sit there and go, you know what? Let's give another quarter, especially when you look at the history of inflation, meaning history is like inflation is like Dracula, but you think you got to kill so many times and it'll just come back at you. Like I said, it's like a grease fire. It's almost impossible to put out.

So anyway, as always, guys, if you're listening to this, you can watch us. The video feed is out. Just go to YouTube and search for no your risk podcast. Go to knowyourriskpodcast.com and subscribe.

Got another great interview coming up for you. And I'm like, schedule in front of me. It's either before the end of this week or beginning of next, or maybe beginning of next. I think you might have to bump it to July 3.

Anyway, it's going to be, it's going to be a little bit different. We'll talk some investing, but I'm also talking to a mentor of mine that actually happened to play in the NFL and started off being a high school football coach of mine and has built a incredibly successful business on his own. And he's been a mentor and a guide for me all along my path of building bulwark. He was there at the very beginning and he's been there throughout the whole process.

And so much of what I've done in terms of building bulwark, so much of my daily routine, so much of these things came directly from him. And they changed my life. And so we're going to basically go through and divulge all of the different things that he did for me and talk about those different things and talk about how to be more productive and how to build something and the right mindset and all those, how you structure your time and your day and how to win. And we're going to have that conversation and I think it's just as important because so much of what he teaches is so relatable.

He mostly gets hired by big corporations to come in and help with their efficiency at their executive level. Like an inspirational, well, there's a part of that, but more dollars and cents like brings him in and goes, look, here's your process. Here's here's kind of consultant slash motivational speaker, right, teaching them how to be more effective practices, principles. But anyway, we're going to have them on next week.

And it's something like I said, he's changed my life, transformed it. Um, and I just want to share that experience with you guys too. So watch out for that episode. Drop it next week.

Anyway, we got to run. Like I said, hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, my handles at K Y R radio, uh, for Instagram, just look for bulwark capital. Get on YouTube search for know your wrist podcast. You guys know the drill.

Have a wonderful evening. We'll see you tomorrow. You're listening to know your wrist podcast, download and subscribe to know your wrist podcast.com. Investment advice cannot be given without a client service agreement.

Zach Abraham is an investment advisor representative of Trek Financial, an SEC registered investment advisor bulwark capital management is marketing name only and does not carry a separate registration.