In this episode, John Rush speaks with Elaine Parker from the Job Creators Network Foundation about the rising optimism among small business owners, despite ongoing challenges with inflation and energy costs. Together, they explore how policy changes and leadership could create opportunities for Main Street entrepreneurs.
Later, John analyzes the Federal Reserve’s latest moves, explaining their implications for interest rates, inflation, and small business growth. With engaging insights and practical advice, this episode prepares listeners for the economic shifts on the horizon and equips them with tools to plan for success.
SPEAKER 06 :
This is Rush to Reason. You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush. My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 15 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 16 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind? It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, welcome. Hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Thanks for joining us. Elaine Parker joining us now. Elaine, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 17 :
Hey, John, thanks for having me. I’m doing great.
SPEAKER 18 :
I appreciate it. Job Creator Network Foundation monthly poll found that small business owners are feeling really hopeful for this next year and even beyond.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yes, tons of optimism. I don’t think you can walk down the street right now without finding optimism in everybody. But the small business sentiment in our post-election polling shows on the economy that small business sentiment has risen to a 40-month high. Wow. And and it’s all looking at the future outlook. Because right now they’re still concerned about inflation. They’re still concerned about high energy prices. They’re still concerned about the economy overall. But when they look at futuristically, they have lived under the policies of the Trump administration the first time around, where we had low energy, low interest, low inflation, low groceries prices. low gas prices, and all of those things they know are the types of policies that they want because they can survive and prosper under.
SPEAKER 18 :
I am a small business owner myself. I coach small businesses, and I cannot disagree with anything you’re saying. We all, I mean the folks that I’m coaching, myself included, we look at it exactly the way you’re talking. The other thing that is just beyond me, I know there was a Fed meeting you know meeting today they came down a quarter point but the one thing the fed still doesn’t understand when it comes to especially small businesses those rate ups or downs really have a huge impact and i don’t think they understand uh how that works but they have a huge impact especially on small business because as you know elaine a lot of small businesses rely on you know lines of credit and things along those lines to help with everything from Cash flow at different times of the year, meeting payroll, you name it. The reality is the majority of them use that. And as that borrowing cost increases, their prices have to follow suit. And what I’m getting at is the Fed doesn’t even realize that they’re trying to combat inflation with high rates. They actually add to it at times.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, today’s rate cut is really, you know, kind of a double-edged sword, bittersweet or whatever saying you want to use. I mean, because what we saw last month is that inflation, core inflation is rising again. And so the Fed kind of backed himself into a corner with this rate cut on the quarter point. And while it may allow small businesses to borrow money at a cheaper price, It doesn’t cut the cost of inflation and energy, which is their biggest worry right now. It does not. Exactly. And so whatever the Fed is doing, you know, it just it. It’s not that it doesn’t matter. It’s that this doesn’t really help them that much.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, I’ve said for a while now, Elaine, and I get different people that will argue with me on this and even have some disagreements with different guests and such that I have on. And I’m by no means a financial guru, expert, and so on. I understand the small business world very well. But the one thing that I know is that I don’t feel – and I think this is something that the Fed, frankly, just doesn’t realize – Our economy is such and has grown such that they don’t have the same tools in the toolbox they once had. And what I mean by that is some of the things you just mentioned, high energy prices, that alone drives up the cost of everything. If gas and diesel goes up, so does everything else. And the reality is the Fed doesn’t control anything along those lines whatsoever. It’s our energy policy and what we do in Washington that And what comes out of the White House, frankly, that has as much to do with that as anything else. So in reality, the Fed doesn’t have the same impact they once had.
SPEAKER 17 :
No, and in defense of the Fed, they’re probably doing everything that they have the power to do.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, they just don’t have as big a toolbox as they used to have.
SPEAKER 17 :
Exactly. And the part of the problem has been, you know, on day one, there was an increase in basically strangleholding the domestic energy production in this country by the Biden administration. And because of that, it drove up the cost of energy, which drives up the inputs overall. for most small businesses, and that’s what’s driving up the cost for everybody. And so what the Trump administration has vowed to do is increase domestic energy production to bring down those energy costs. And it will literally be a domino effect. It may take some time. I mean, you can’t put a time limit on it. I mean, there’s a lot of damage here to undo. But when you start bringing down those energy costs, other costs are going to follow and it’s going to be more affordable. Right now, we’re in just a cost of living crisis for most people. We’ve suffered 21 percent inflation over the last four years. There’s a long way to fall.
SPEAKER 18 :
Cumulatively, it’s more like 30 when it’s all said and done since 2020. So, you know, you’re spot on when it comes to that. And you’re right. And as I say all the time, and I think most people agree with me, there’s only one thing that creates inflation. People want to blame it on businesses, small businesses and so on. And no, that is not where inflation comes from. Inflation comes from government and government alone through whatever policies they’re enacting. And you said it well, Elaine, the day one, day one from the Biden administration, when they decided to just just Shutting down the Keystone Pipeline. I realize it wasn’t putting anything production-wise into the economy at that point, but just that message, the signal that that sent was enough to drive things up.
SPEAKER 17 :
Absolutely. And there’s been a continuous restriction on domestic drilling and the policies of the administration. And that has helped to drive up the cost and really destabilize the oil in general and energy in general. And, you know, our small businesses… have suffered as a result under the inflation. But our polling also shows that six in 10 of the small business owners are optimistic about the incoming Trump administration and how those types of policies will help Main Street. I mean, frankly, small businesses supported Donald Trump by 17 points in this election, according to our polling. So it’s huge. They understand that those policies You know, in 2016, while Trump was in office, starting in 2016 with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the deregulation, that was probably the most under-told story, John, was the deregulation. Trump came into office and said, for every new regulation, I’m going to get rid of two regulations. And he ended up getting rid of eight regulations for every new regulation. And he’s vowed to come in and try to hit 10 regulations for every new regulation. And that’s massive because it’s just red tape and just strangleholds our small businesses.
SPEAKER 18 :
It is. You’re right. I mean, at the end of the day, nobody’s benefiting from that. It adds costs. It’ll be interesting to see what Doge does along some of those lines because a lot of what you’re talking about, frankly, Elaine, in a lot of cases, entire departments and agencies could literally be eliminated. A lot of these things are duplicated at the state level. They just don’t need to exist at all. And a lot of owners out there, myself included, will come along and tell you exactly that. We don’t need the redundancy from the state to the feds. Cut one or the two out. And I’d rather cut the feds out than the state. Let the state do their thing. But, yeah, the other thing, Elaine, really quick that I wanted to mention was in talking to a lot of the folks that I consult with and talk to and so on, we’re ready to hire. We’re ready to expand. We’re ready to do things. But a lot of the owners literally are sitting back waiting, A, to see what the election was going to do. Now that that’s passed, they’re just waiting for the economy to kind of get inaugurated, get things in high gear, and they’re ready to move forward.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, 40 percent of our small business owners have told us that they are going to hire in the next 12 months. So the optimism is there. You know, the hope that the that the policies are going to turn around and that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will be not only extended, but also expanded further. You know, President Trump has talked about reducing the corporate tax rate to 15%. He’s talked about, you know, no taxes on tips, no taxes on Social Security, no taxes on overtime. All of those things, those tax cuts will help stimulate the economy. But on the other side of the coin, for those of us who are looking at the debt climb and the deficit climb, because under this administration, we’re going to hit $2 trillion in a deficit this year. We’ve got Doge who’s looking at how do we cut, how do we become not only more efficient as a government, but more effective. And I think we have somebody in place there in Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy who can make those changes and those recommendations to make us not just efficient, because to me that’s kind of corporate speak, but effective.
SPEAKER 18 :
I agree with you. Absolutely. All right. How do folks find you guys, Elaine?
SPEAKER 17 :
They can go to JobCreatorsNetwork.com.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay, JobCreatorsNetwork.com. By the way, as you can tell, you speak our language. You are welcome anytime. I appreciate what you’re doing. And as you can tell, we are definitely, at least I know I am. I got a lot of listeners that are small business owners as well. So we are definitely on your side.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER 18 :
I appreciate it very much, Elaine. Have a great night.
SPEAKER 17 :
You, too. All right.
SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Joe, what’s going on, sir?
SPEAKER 07 :
John, I need a favor. I might be coming to Denver next month, and I was wondering if you know of a tattoo shop where I can get a tattoo of Luigi Mangione on my neck while I’m there.
SPEAKER 18 :
How stupid is this?
SPEAKER 07 :
Did you talk about that yet?
SPEAKER 18 :
I have not. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 07 :
Article out today, there are people all around the country going out. Of course, Luigi Mangione was the guy who shot the UnitedHealthcare CEO, shot and killed him. There are people literally getting tattoos of this guy on their face, their neck, their arms. And they’re even putting part of the tattoo, you know, the shell casings. We had the three shell casings where with the felt tip marker he had deny, defend, depose. They’re actually getting those shell casings as part of the tattoo. His face with the three shell casings. How sick do you have to be?
SPEAKER 18 :
Pretty sick, Joe. I mean, you’ve got to be sick to even just think that this guy did something that was heroic in the first place. I mean, how sick and twisted are you that you’re now going to celebrate somebody that took someone else’s life?
SPEAKER 07 :
By the way, I saw a poll yesterday, and they did it by age group. Something like 17% of the people aged 19 to 29 thought what he did was good and necessary.
SPEAKER 18 :
Good and necessary. And I guess, Joe, the question I would have for these individuals is, by doing this, what do you think is going to change moving forward? Because frankly, Joe, as you know, in that position, they replace it and keep going. Am I wrong?
SPEAKER 07 :
John, you’re 100% correct.
SPEAKER 18 :
So other than taking his life, what was accomplished, Joe?
SPEAKER 07 :
Nothing, absolutely nothing. And by the way, the hypocrisy from being online, many of these same people that were celebrating and praising this guy are the very same people that are opposed to the death penalty in capital murder cases. So on one hand, yes, it’s great that you murdered this CEO.
SPEAKER 18 :
So you gunned down, cold-blood murder, premeditated this CEO. That’s okay, but capital punishment, sending gals to death row is wrong.
SPEAKER 07 :
That’s right, John. I can’t speak for 100 percent of them, but I know for a fact a great many of them.
SPEAKER 18 :
No, it wouldn’t surprise me, Joe. I mean, that would be the mentality and the hypocrisy once again where, oh, it’s OK to be behind a guy that guns down someone else and takes their life and leaves, you know, orphans and a widow behind. That’s OK. But somebody that really has committed these atrocities and then put them, you know, give them a death sentence, that’s wrong.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and by the way, if he was, of course, New York State doesn’t have a death penalty, but can you imagine the hypocrisy that if he was being tried in the state and got the death penalty as a sentence, how many people would be protesting that the death penalty is inhumane? A lot. A lot. a lot. John, I bet you there’d be tens of thousands of people.
SPEAKER 18 :
John, I mean, all you can do is, you know, shake your head, and then, at the same time, I mean, these are also most likely, don’t know for a fact, like you said a moment ago, but these are most likely the same sorts of individuals that would vote for Kamala Harris, they would vote for, you know, student debt forgiveness, I mean, basically going against everything that it really takes to actually run a society they would be against.
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. It’s just So question – The hypocrisy of the left. There is no logic.
SPEAKER 18 :
And I guess the question I have is why, Joe? I mean, I get it. Our school system is designed to create some of this and to generate some of these kids at the end of the day. But, I mean, I still have to ask the question, why?
SPEAKER 07 :
You know, John, I think you put it particularly – I think it’s among – and by the way, 76% of high school graduates are going on to college today, which is up from like 56% 30 years ago. And I think it has to do with college, the indoctrination, because a lot of people 18 years old go into the military, and I’m willing to bet that only a fraction of 1% of our military people, people in that same age group, are celebrating this guy, praising Luigi May. So I think it happens… More in college, particularly the liberal arts college, not so much the engineering schools.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, we know, and it’s a fact, and you probably know the stats better than I, that the brain is not fully developed, especially young men, not fully developed until they’re in their, you know, what, 24, 25 years of age or so. So the reality is that still formable years. where they’re in college, their brains are still being molded at that point in time, and much like we mold soldiers, these are getting molded in quite the opposite way.
SPEAKER 07 :
And, of course, we all know that college professors overwhelmingly are liberal Democrats.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 07 :
Very, very few. They’re Marxists, Joe.
SPEAKER 18 :
They’re not even Democrats. They’re Marxists.
SPEAKER 07 :
they’re Marxists, and the very few who are Republicans have learned to keep their mouth shut if they want to keep their job.
SPEAKER 18 :
They want to keep their job and stay, yeah, they don’t have a choice. And again, when I say Marxist folks, trust me when I say that, I mean that with full intent, because if you look at the behavior of, Joe, what you’re talking about right now in regards to what these kids are now celebrating, they’re Marxists.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, and then it gets back to, here’s another Marxist thing. Now, of course, Social Security is in trouble, it’s been in trouble, and Unless something changes, it’s going to run out of money by 2034, after which time, with no changes, that there will only be enough cash coming in to pay out promised benefits at the rate of $0.80 a dollar. Well, all the Marxists, their solution is uncap the contributions, because right now it’s capped at $168,000. So if you make more than $168,000, you’re a CEO. You’re done. You don’t pay any more. You don’t pay any more, and you don’t pay FICA on stock dividends or capital gains if you sell stock. Well, the Marxists want to make stock dividends and capital gains.
SPEAKER 18 :
In other words, they want non-wages taxed FICA. They want FICA taxed on non-wages, where right now it’s only on wages.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s only on wages, and it’s only on up to 160, but here’s that. But then when you point out to them, well, you do know that the equation that calculates your benefits, the more you put in, the more you get out. So what you’re talking about is people getting a $50,000 a month. Oh, no, no, no. We would want to cap the benefit. So what they’re basically saying, they want to redesign Social Security into a new and different wealth redistribution program.
SPEAKER 03 :
Correct, which is Marxist.
SPEAKER 07 :
They want people to put in millions of dollars. Well, they want somebody to put in a million dollars a year. into the program, but only get a $4,400 check when they retire.
SPEAKER 18 :
Right. Be capped when they get it. That’s right.
SPEAKER 07 :
Be capped when they get it. So they want to uncap the contribution. but kept the benefit. That’s Marxism.
SPEAKER 18 :
And what they don’t understand is if you did something whereby you FICA-taxed all non-wages, Joe, you would have an ultimate revolt in the corporate stock world and so on. People would just either, A, hide all of their money, they would be doing things on the side, they wouldn’t report things, they would move, they’d go to a different country. Reality, Joe, is that that’s not going to happen, period. Not going to happen.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, let’s talk about moving. John, two years ago, I think I sent this to you. Two years ago, we already had 6,600 millionaires leave the country. By the way, if you just leave the country and you’re still a citizen, you have to pay U.S. tax. But we had 6,600 millionaires leave the country and renounce their citizenship, taking their wealth and their tax dollars with them. Now, by the way, a lot of these same people, they want to go back to the Eisenhower top tax rate, which was 91%. Which nobody paid. You know what happened when the top tax rate was 91%? People leave. Well, actually what they did back then, John, is they all put their money into tax-free government bonds. So they just shifted is what they did. They shifted. And today, at a 37% top tax rate, the top 1% alone are paying almost 46% of all taxes. Back when the top tax rate was 91%, They were only paying 11% because at a 91% top tax rate, you’d have to be an idiot to take any sort of investment risk if you could only keep $0.09 on the dollar. So they just said, screw this. We’re just going to put our money in tax-free government bonds. And they paid almost – so it was a 99%, 91% rate. but nobody paid it because they put all their money in tax-free bonds.
SPEAKER 18 :
These kids, sorry, I don’t know how else to say it, but these kids forget that people that get to that level aren’t dumb. In other words, they understand how the system works and how to maneuver things around, much like what you just explained a moment ago, and that’s exactly what they’ll do. They’re not going to lose anything on this. They’ll just figure ways around it.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right, and they want to impose a wealth. So let’s say they impose the wealth tax where every year they’re going to take 5% of your wealth. So if you’re Elon Musk, who’s worth $400 billion today, 5% is $20 billion a year. How long do you think it would take Elon Musk to pack up his bags and move to Costa Rica? A month.
SPEAKER 18 :
A month.
SPEAKER 07 :
He’d be gone. It would be him, Bezos, Bill Gates. racing for the exit.
SPEAKER 18 :
And what these same kids forget is those particular individuals you just mentioned, while some of them I don’t care for very much, they still do a lot to add value to the economy through things that they own and things that they do and things that they donate to. In other words, they employ all sorts of people that contribute back into the economy. Whether you like them or not, that’s what they do.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah. Walmart today in the U.S. employs over a million people Amazon employs a couple of hundred thousand.
SPEAKER 18 :
And what these kids forget is each one of those employees have FICA tax matched by said employer up to that mark you said earlier, the $168,000. So the reality is those businesses are also participating in that. So, again, I guess the question I would ask, too, Joe, is if they want you to pay Social Security tax on non-wages, at what percentage? Do they want the full 15%?
SPEAKER 07 :
Absolutely. They want the full 15.
SPEAKER 18 :
Gotcha. Yeah, that’s not going to fly.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right. So, again, there would be a stampede. You know, you and I both know about the tale of the goose that laid the golden egg. Apparently these kids— They’ve never heard that. They’ve never heard of it, because I guarantee you, if I was an Elon Musk and I said, well, we’re going to tax you $20 billion a year, which is 5% of your wealth, before that legislation ever got signed into law, he’d be gone.
SPEAKER 18 :
He’s gone. That’s right. So would everybody else along those lines.
SPEAKER 07 :
And by the way, Elon Musk, for those who don’t know it, is the single largest taxpayer in the history. Last year he paid $11 billion in income taxes and holds the record as the single largest taxpayer in the history of the IRS.
SPEAKER 18 :
Amazing.
SPEAKER 07 :
Amazing. And you tell people this and they don’t believe you.
SPEAKER 18 :
No, they think you’re lying.
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, I’ve been called a liar, a bootlicker. I tell them that the top 1% pay more in income taxes than the bottom 90% combined. And they laugh. They call me a liar. They get nasty.
SPEAKER 18 :
Those are stats they can go look up.
SPEAKER 07 :
IRS.gov. Right. Go look it up. And their ignorance, John, their ignorance is astounding what they don’t know. Unbelievable. They get all of their information from these left-wing propaganda Facebook sites.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep, which are totally wrong.
SPEAKER 07 :
Totally wrong. Yep.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s frustrating.
SPEAKER 07 :
Frustrating and disappointing. All right, John.
SPEAKER 18 :
Joe, no, you’re good. Appreciate you, man. Have a great night. Thank you very much. Hi-Fi Plumbing is next. Don’t forget, they do electrical as well, which you might need some things done as we head down this Christmas stretch. Give them a call today, 877-WE-HIGH-5.
SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
Now, back to Rush to Reason, presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Scott Garlis joining us now. Scott, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, John, I’m well. How are you?
SPEAKER 18 :
I’m good. Always a joy to hear from you. All right, give us an update. Saw a little bit of news today on the Fed. I have a question, though, because I don’t think a lot of people talk this way, but a few do. What is the dot plot from the Federal Reserve? If you Google it, you can find it, but most people don’t talk about that. Can you explain that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so let’s start with what happened from the Fed today, and then I’ll jump right into the dot pot.
SPEAKER 03 :
Perfect.
SPEAKER 05 :
Because the dot pot was a really important part of the outcome.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, perfect.
SPEAKER 05 :
So going into the Fed meeting, markets were kind of bouncing around up a little bit, but nothing crazy. So what we saw was the Fed cut interest rates by another 25 basis points. And that got the, I believe, the federal funds rate down to about, heck, where did it go? It is down to about 4.4%. Okay. So that is 100 basis points or, let’s say, a full percentage point worth of rate cuts since they started in September. So back in September, we were at 5.4% on the overnight borrowing rate, and now it’s at 4.4%. Okay. So every quarter, the Fed meets eight times a year, once in the first month of the quarter, once in the last month of the quarter. It’s basically how it works. In the second meeting of each quarter, they produce basically a chart, a layout, or a packet called the Summary of Economic Projections. It’s also known as the SEP for short. So what that does is, every board member and regional Fed president, they give their expectations for where they think economic growth, the unemployment rate, CP inflation, core inflation, and the federal funds rate will wind up at the end of, in this one they did 25, 26, 27, and then what they call the long run. So it’s sort of, where they think everything settles out over time. So what the Fed does when all of these people give their indications, they literally have a dot for every single person, and they plot it out on a chart that has a bunch of ranges for each year. So it’s known as the dot plot. But the dot plot is important because the median expectation of those dots is is what’s used as the guidance for interest rates moving forward. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep, it does.
SPEAKER 05 :
So, yeah, dot plots are really, it’s a very apt title because that’s exactly what it is.
SPEAKER 18 :
How accurate does it end up being?
SPEAKER 05 :
It does not always end up being very accurate. Okay. And so, well, here’s what happened with the dot plot. So, back in September… they did guide for interest rates to finish this year at 4.4%. We got there. But they guided 2025 to 3.4%. So what they guided for was another 100 basis points worth of rate cuts over the coming 12 months.
SPEAKER 18 :
And we’re probably looking at realistically a half, or am I wrong in that?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s exactly what happened. Look, this was very much expected, but they backed it down to a half. So now, instead of guiding for interest rates of 3.4%, they’re guiding for 3.9%. All that said, last year, they started out with one number, and then they reversed that. So last December, they started off at 4.6%. By June, they were saying interest rates were going to end the year at 5.1%, and now here we are at 4.4%. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Interesting.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so I say all of this because typically, and you can look at this in corporate America too, when a company reports their first quarter earnings or they set guidance for the following year, they’re usually very conservative because typically, As you know, if you’re doing, say, like an investor presentation or trying to tell people about your business, the last thing you’re going to do is say, hey, in 12 months from now, my business is going to be on fire.
SPEAKER 18 :
You don’t overpromise.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, it’s a lot harder to predict what things will look like 12 months from now. But typically what we see is corporate America, after they report second quarter earnings, they’ve got six months in the bag. They probably already have half of the third quarter, and that’s when they say, OK, now we can tell you what the rest of the year is going to look like, because to tell people, you know, even after the first quarter, what the next nine months, that’s still tough. So to me, I look at it this way. When when the Fed is giving this guidance for the next 12 months, they’re going to start out very conservative and they can they can let it get more aggressive toward the end of the year.
SPEAKER 18 :
OK. Yep. And I think what they’re looking at, too, unless I’m reading this wrong, is they want to see what the new Trump presidency and economy will look like, some of the things that he will do, what will Doge do, what’s going to happen with Congress and spending and so on. I think, frankly, Scott, they’re going to take a look at all of that and then determine what to do based on that.
SPEAKER 05 :
So that leads me to the next part of it. The other thing that what really caught Wall Street’s attention today was was the Fed said, hey, inflation’s going to end the year for 24, 2.4%. But then for 2025, they took headline inflation, their growth estimate, back up. In September, they said 2.1. Now they said it’s going to end 2025 at 2.5. And then it’s going to fall off in 26, 27. That sort of got people concerned because they’re like, well, How can you cut rates if you’re saying inflation is going to end the year 2.5 and you were 2.1? Again, I look at that as they’re being conservative. They don’t know. Powell even said there are some people that probably included Trump policies in their expectations because they don’t know. So what you said is exactly right.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, and I – you and I have talked about this before. Trump comes in, energy prices will most likely go down. That alone cuts prices. You’re going to have some – not deflation, but you’re going to have some price adjustments that will help with the inflation sides of things. Again, will he help with supply and demand? I was going to ask you about tariffs as well. But before we get into that, I also just – I don’t know why yesterday – I don’t think a lot of people do this. I went and looked up the board makeup, the Federal Reserve Board makeup, and I thought, how many of these guys have actually been in the private sector and or ever written a paycheck? Number one, none of them have ever written a paycheck. Number two, only a few of them have been in the private sector, and if they were, that was in banking. Other than that, these guys are lifetime, what I call, I know politician maybe is a stretch, but these guys are lifetime embedded in government, and that’s who runs the Federal Reserve Board.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, now, Jay Powell was an investment banker for a long time. But he did work at some think tanks as well in D.C.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, these guys are, you know, they’ve worked in academia and professors and things along those lines, and they’re, you know, economic quote-unquote experts. And my point with all that, Scott, is, as I always say, these are guys that have no idea what goes on on Main Street.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, and if we go back to the end of 2018, when, you know, I think it was September when Trump said he was going to start going after China with trade tariffs. I don’t know if you remember, but like Powell came out in October, at the beginning of October and said, you know, we still plan on raising rates and we’re, you know, full steam ahead. And the market fell 20%. And by the end of the year, Powell, you know, end of year, beginning of January, Jay Powell said, you know what, that’s a bad idea because if we do that, if we plow forward with rate hikes, we’re just tight policy, it’s going to kill the economy. And they started cutting. because they knew they had to. Otherwise, they were looking at economic disaster.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep. Again, I will continue to stand by my statement that they understand maybe Wall Street. I’m not sure even all of that they understand, but they understand Wall Street more than Main Street, and they have no idea. And I also keep saying this. I said this to a guest a little bit earlier. in this hour, Scott, they also don’t have the same tools in their toolbox that they once did. And I think that’s frustrating in defense of them. I think it can frustrate them because some of what they do, thinking that they’re going to get one result doesn’t happen because it’s not the same tools they used to have. The economy is different than it used to be.
SPEAKER 05 :
I would agree. And they’re definitely, you know, back to the, conversation, but there’s way too much stimulus thrown at the economy after COVID, and that’s part of the residual problem. But the flip side of all this, too, is the fact that they reduced rate cut guidance and these other things, and inflation guidance goes up a little bit, whatever, because they’re being conservative. But it also says You know, we’re not in a disaster scenario right now. So, I mean, that’s a good thing, because if the Fed was massively slashing interest rates, that would be really bad. Right. That would also be concerning from the standpoint like, hey, wait a second, we’ve got a big problem here. So inflation is a big problem, but it’s coming back slowly to 2%. It’s going to be under control. I just think what they did today was, let’s be conservative out of the box. Let’s see how this plays out. And I would bet you that it’s not going to be as bad as they think it is. But things will play out. Maybe they might wind up having three rate cuts next year instead of two. We’ll get to be seen.
SPEAKER 18 :
Scott, as always, I appreciate it. What’s the best way for folks to find you?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, sure. You can go to Twitter. You can go to LinkedIn. Look up C. Scott Garlis.
SPEAKER 18 :
Scott, Merry Christmas to you, your family. Happy New Year. We won’t talk again till the new year because of the way the holidays fall, but I appreciate all you do for us.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, man, thanks for your time. I always appreciate it.
SPEAKER 18 :
You betcha, Scott. Have a good one. Great holidays ahead of you as well. Affordable interest mortgages next. Again, all of these rate cuts, the different things that are happening and so on, how does that affect mortgages? We’re going to talk to Kurt directly tomorrow at the 5 o’clock mark. But in the meantime, if you have a direct question for him, just call him, 720-895-0500.
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SPEAKER 06 :
It’s time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, welcome back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. All right, one last little segment here before we take our last break. Finish up this Wednesday edition of Rush to Reason. The U.S. is now weighing a ban on another Chinese company. It’s not TikTok. That’s going to the Supreme Court now, trying to figure out what to do with TikTok. That’ll be an interesting thing to see how that comes out. But in this particular case, this isn’t an app. This is hardware. And for a lot of you listening, you may very well have this piece of hardware in your home because it’s very popular. In fact, a lot of small businesses have it as well. And it’s a brand name for routers, modems, things like that called TP-Link, TP-Link. And you may know that name very well. I did when I saw this. A lot don’t, but you might want to look around at some of the hardware you have in your house because right now we as a country are weighing a ban on those particular products. And the reason is those are made in China and they are linked to Chinese cyber attacks all over. So what’s happening is the Chinese are selling these devices online. People are buying them. It’s the most popular device sold on Amazon, by the way. There’s a backdoor already built into these things whereby it gets really easy for the hackers to enter in, and voila, they’re into your system, learning everything about you, your bank accounts, and so on. So my point is, is if you’re running anything that’s TP-Link, you may want to switch to another brand. You may want to do that anyways because if these things become, quote-unquote, outlawed, it won’t mean that you’ll have to surrender what you have, but you probably would want to. But what you have will become obsolete, and there won’t be any updates, things like that for it. So reality is I would be looking right now at what hardware are you running in your office, work, home office, your home network, whatever the case may be, and determine if that, in fact, is one of those devices. My advice would be replace that with something else. because you’re liable to not be able to use it in the not-too-distant future anyways. Furthermore, I don’t want to be hacked. I don’t think anybody does. The pain that you have to go through after that isn’t worth it. So my advice would be go figure out what hardware you’re running. I’m not an IT expert, and if you know somebody, go ahead and ask them. But I think once they read this, they’re even going to look at this and say, okay, wow, we probably should even be informing our customers of all of this and be making some changes. So that’s going on as we speak. To me, I’ll be real honest, this is a much bigger deal than TikTok. Once again, showing how ignorant a lot of the folks that we have on Capitol Hill are. They’re more worried about an app that, you know, the Chinese own, you know, supposedly tracking what everybody’s doing. And yet we’ve got these hardware devices running around that give access right into what you actually do with your banking and purchases and credit cards and so on. And yet we’re not… Congressionally speaking, doing anything about that, we’re worrying about TikTok instead. So Veteran Windows and Doors is next. 40% off entry doors, including free labor to put them in. Just go to our website, klzradio.com, and find Veteran Windows there.
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SPEAKER 06 :
Suck it up, Buttercup. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, we are back again. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, closing things out on this Wednesday. Don’t forget National Crawford Roundtable comes up right after this, so hang tight. You get a chance to listen to that as well. We had a good discussion this morning about drones and all sorts of things going on along those lines. But yeah, once again, really quick, TP-Link, Charlie asked during the break there, why do people buy that? Well, we both said almost in unison, because it’s cheap. Well… What’s that old saying? You get what you pay for. Again, if I had TP Link, which I don’t, but if I did, I would be making a change along those lines because of the things we just talked about a few minutes ago. All right, we’ll be back tomorrow. Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House will be with us in hour one. Guys, have a great night. Be safe. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
