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John Rush engages in a captivating dialogue on the complex relations between the United States and China. As President-elect Trump suggests audacious proposals—such as renaming the Gulf of Mexico and annexing Greenland—John examines the strategic rationale behind these ideas. Listen in as we delve into the historical significance of the Panama Canal, discussing why Trump wants it back under American control, and what implications this has for national security and global power dynamics. Get ready for a thought-provoking episode that questions conventional views and urges critical thinking in today’s fast-changing world.
SPEAKER 13 :
This is Rush to Reason.
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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.
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With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 13 :
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.
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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.
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Are you crazy? Am I?
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Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, Cooling, and Electric, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, I’ve got other things to talk about today, and if I don’t get to it, I’ll get to it tomorrow as well. But this article in Nine News today just caught my eye. And I don’t look at a lot of local news stuff. I’ll occasionally browse through it just to sort of see if there’s anything major going on that made the local news. But Nine News is about as far from center as it gets. This article proves my point. And this is probably a reprint from something else. AP Science Writer. So this is a reprint out of the AP. Why more frequent cold blasts could be coming… from global warming. I’m sorry, I just have to laugh. I mean, I’ve lived here my whole life, as a lot of you listening have, or like Charlie have been here for a very long time, maybe not his whole life. It’s still long enough to remember through all of the different winters that we’ve had in this Front Range area. And we are known to have, you know, Indian summer days where I remember Christmases as a kid growing up where it might be 70 degrees outside. I remember one year for Christmas. We got these Cox, made these little airplane engine. You know, you could have the Cox airplanes and so on. Well, my dad got us these little dune buggies. And they ran off a little Cox engine. And I remember one Christmas, we got those that year. And I can’t remember what year it was, and I’d have to go back in pictures and look. But it was warm enough outside where I can remember my brother and I being outside playing with those things for hours on Christmas Day with no coat on. 65, 70 degrees. Now, I can also remember Christmases where there was two feet of snow and it was bitter cold. And I can remember everything in between. This whole idea that we’re going to somehow have more cold blasts than what we’ve had in the past is absolute. This is just lunacy. And as I read through, by the way, because I did do this. As I read through the people that are reporting on this, not shockingly, and we’re going to have Gregory, or sorry, we’re going to have, let’s see, I’ve got to remember who’s coming on tomorrow, Power of the Future, Larry Behrens, Power of the Future tomorrow. We’re going to talk a little bit about this tomorrow at 5. But interestingly enough, the people that are reporting on the very things I’m talking about that are in this article, of course, get government funding. So one of the things that I always look at when it comes to any type of a study is where’s the money coming from? Who’s funding this? Because I also know from talking to a number of different meteorologists over the years, weathermen and women, that most don’t believe this. In fact, by and large, the weather community, those that predict weather, don’t believe in this nonsense. You don’t hear much from them. Most of them are censored, silenced, whatever, and or they know better than to talk about those things because if they do, they’re discredited and nobody will follow them on some of the other things that they do. And I know this directly because I’ve talked to some of these individuals one-on-one. So point being, despite what the rest of media would want you to believe, all weathermen don’t believe in this crap. A certain amount do. And they’re around. I mean, Mike Nelson just retired here in town, and he was one of the biggest proponents of this nonsense. And good riddance, Mike, as far as not being on TV anymore. One of the biggest proponents of this nonsense there was. And again, most of the time, not always, but I get it. Sometimes it’s a core belief because they’re total Marxists themselves. But in a lot of cases, these guys believe in this stuff because they don’t have a choice. If they were to somehow go against this, they lose all funding. I’ve interviewed many an expert in this area on this program over the years, and all will agree that if you get down to where there’s no funding in a particular area, you’ll get a lot more honest answers as to what’s going on climate-wise. Now, do I believe in climate change? Yes, climate changes. It cycles. I’ve seen it in my lifetime here in Colorado. I can remember really bad winters. I can remember really mild winters. I can remember some of those recently. I can remember some of those when I was a kid. I can remember back when I was a kid. We may have a year, and this is typical for Colorado, if the wind blows a lot in the winter here in the Denver area, we’re not going to have much snow. It’s just the way it is. If we get good, strong, you know, those 80, 90-mile-an-hour windstorms, typically speaking, we don’t get a lot of snow. On the same token, if we don’t have much of that, we’re typically going to probably have a little colder air and some snow. But this whole article on 9 News is talking about how these polar vortexes, they’re calling them now. I don’t know whatever happened to the term Arctic front that used to come down from the North Pole. But they’re claiming that we’re going to have more of these because of, quote-unquote, you know, climate change, global warming, whatever you want to call it. And as I was reading through this, I just had to laugh. And I did look up a few of the individuals that were on here. Of course, I already know that AccuWeather is very much funded in that way. And a lot of these folks are, by the way. In fact… There are very few, National Weather Service as well, that don’t have government funding attached to them some way, somehow. NOAA, which a lot of people will go to to look and see what the forecast is for the next few days, very, of course, government-owned, very heavily funded with your tax dollars. So, of course, they can’t say anything that would ever go against that climate mode, or they get discredited. Now, I bring guests on constantly that discredit this stuff on a continual basis. And so, again, when I read these things, I just have to chuckle a little bit because it’s like, okay, really? Really? And they’re even saying in this article, winters globally on average are 1.1 degrees warmer than 25 years ago. 1.1 degrees. Now, for all of you that are out there, I’m sure you’re like me. Can you even feel 1.1 degrees? In other words, if it’s 31 or 32 out, can you tell the difference? Or if it’s 100 versus 101, can you tell the difference? If it’s 90 versus 91, you get my drift. 1.1 degrees. That’s not feelable. I know that’s not the right word, but you can’t feel that. It’s not measurable that way. But yet these are the foundations that these particular individuals are using for all of their climate fear. They’re fear-mongering because that’s exactly what it is. They’re trying to scare people into doing things, and it’s all about money. At the end of the day, it’s not about climate. It’s not about saving people. It’s not about any of that. It’s all about cash, taking it from one pocket and putting it somewhere else. And hopefully on January 20th, as Trump is inaugurated, we start getting rid of some of this nonsense for at least four years and maybe beyond if we can continue the winning streak on the conservative side of the aisle. Flesh Law is coming up next. And when it comes to… Having yourself represented properly, whether you’re looking at an insurance claim or you’ve got a civil suit, a criminal suit, whatever the case might be, or criminal charges, I should say, whatever the case may be, trial tested, trial ready. That is Kevin Flesch, 303-806-8886.
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This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. All right, we are back.
SPEAKER 16 :
Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. All right, President-elect Trump, who for all intents and purposes is running the country as we speak, even though he’s not actually in the Oval Office. He has – and again, is some of this tongue-in-cheek? Is he really going to follow through? I don’t have any idea. He’s talked about changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. I like Charlie’s idea. Call it the Gulf of the Americas because back in the day, that’s what it would have been. I’ve always just as a side note wondered, why is it the Gulf of Mexico when you really look at our shoreline? And I get it. If you look at the way they do the shoreline measurements, Mexico has a few hundred feet more than we do. But I question where those measurements start and end, because by the time you get around to the Cancun area, you’re in the Caribbean Sea now. You’re out of the Gulf of Mexico. So you get way down in Mexico. And I don’t know how much of that they’re considering. But if you look at a map and just kind of finger, you know, take your finger measurements of the map and look at it, it’s like, wait a minute. I think we actually have more than they do. And I’ve always wondered why it was called that in the first place. And I’m not a historian. So anyways, regardless, Trump would like to change it to the Gulf of America. Now, again, is that just rhetoric, him talking? I honestly, I don’t know. Donald Trump says all sorts of things. Could it happen? Yeah, I suppose it could. I don’t know what that involves and how that works. I’ve honestly not read up on it because, frankly, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I don’t care, really, one way or the other. He’s also, though, this is the interesting one. He’s talking about having Greenland become a part of the United States. He wants Denmark to basically join us, take Greenland and make it a part of the United States of America for security reasons. Trump’s point is if you stand on the banks of Greenland and look out, all you’ll see are Chinese and Russian ships off of its shores. in that, frankly, we have a base there, but we need a lot larger presence than what we have right now if we’re going to keep things in check. That’s Donald Trump’s point. That one I can’t argue with. I also know there’s lots of resources there that potentially could help us as a country. And, again, this is way above my pay grade when we start talking about taking over other territories and things along those lines. This gets into more of what I would have to have somebody come on that’s an expert constitutionalist and so on and how does this actually work and so on. Now, I guess if you just write a check – and buy it much like charlie the louisiana purchase or alaska or some of the other things that we’ve done i suppose you buy it we own it and that’s that’s a possibility now what would that look like what would the cost be i haven’t foggiest idea but it is it’s that one is the most interesting and it’s being talked about again because of a national security end of things more so than anything now the other one that’s really interesting is panama Panama Canal. Trump wants it back. Now, that one, I’m a thousand percent in. I don’t know why we ever gave up in the first place. I was I know Jimmy Carter. He’s going to be laid to rest, I believe, either tomorrow or Friday. Is it the 9th or 10th, Charlie? Is it tomorrow or Friday? I can’t remember. It’s one of the two. And I’ve never minced any words, and I’m not trying to talk bad about somebody that’s now deceased, but worst president ever. I’m not sure who’s worse, him or Joe Biden. It’s a toss-up. Now, the difference is, and I think it’s fair for me to say this, Charlie, I think Jimmy Carter is a better person or was a better person overall than Joe Biden. The things that Jimmy Carter even did after becoming president, Habitat for Humanity, and a lot of the things that he did as a Christian, I think you could look at and say he’s a much better person than Joe Biden. But still an awful president. And giving the Panama Canal away was one of the dumbest things I believe he ever did. I never could understand why we gave up something we bought and paid for. Keep in mind, if you go back and look at the history of the Panama Canal, nobody else could finish it. No one. No one on the planet. And I’m not exaggerating when I say this. No one on the planet could finish the Panama Canal. Only we could, the United States of America. And we did. And we finished it. And we owned it and operated it for a very long time. Until Jimmy Carter came along in the 80s and essentially gave it back to Panama. Which it wasn’t really theirs to begin with. I mean, the land is, it’s on their land, but they couldn’t finish it. Wasn’t it the French initially, Charlie, that wanted to start the Panama Canal, and they couldn’t do it, and several other countries tried? Anyways, long story short, we finished it. We made it happen. We had the engineering skill, the manpower, and back then they fought malaria and all sorts of other things along those lines to build that thing. You know, a lot of individuals, men died, you know, doing it because of that. But in the end, we built it. And frankly, that’s one that I think we should take back. Now, I will tell you this much. That’s not how the Panamanians, am I saying that right, Charlie, the Panamanians? That’s not how they see it. They want us to just stay far, far away from that. Well, of course they do. Because right now, what is unbeknownst to most Americans is China right now has heavily influenced what’s happening in the canal. Sorry, I can’t hear you. Say that louder, Charlie. Forty percent. OK, 40 percent of the construction people died. OK, wow. So 40 percent of the men that built that died. That’s huge, Charlie. And it was our men. Those were Americans that did that. So, again, I’m one where I’m on Trump’s side on that one. And I know a lot of the rest of the world probably wouldn’t see it the same way. And maybe some Americans wouldn’t. But that canal, which, by the way, is very important to the movement of goods and so on across the world. is right now being heavily influenced, if not controlled thoroughly, by the Chinese. And they are making a boatload of money off of it, by the way. So I think what Trump’s looking at is, wait a minute, we should take that back. It was ours to begin with. Never should have gave it away. We need to figure out a way to take it back and run it and operate it and handle things from this point forward, again, for national security’s sake. And it’s always funny. The left is always the first one to say that Trump is in China’s back pocket, which, again, nothing could be farther from the truth because everything Trump does pokes the eye of the Chinese. Him talking about tariffs, him talking about EVs, him talking about the Panama Canal, him talking about Greenland. I mean, all of these things literally are two fingers poking in the eyes of the Chinese and their leadership. So any lefty out there that would say, oh, Trump’s just in their back pocket. Are you really that stupid? Are you that dumb? And I would ask, prove it. Show me something that would prove Trump is in China’s back pocket. Because, by the way, there’s a lot more proof that Biden is. Way more proof that Biden and the Biden regime has been. So it cracks me up. As usual, the left is always the first to point at something that they’re doing themselves. Oh, Trump’s just in China’s back pocket. He’s just working for the Chai comms. No, actually quite the opposite. The majority of what he does is literally angering them. making them mad. This conversation, even talking about, by the way, the Gulf of Mexico, Greenland, the Panama Canal, Canada, making it a 51st state. Yes, all of those are poking in the eyes of a lot of other foreign countries, but especially China. And here’s why I believe even talking about Canada pokes them in the eye. China doesn’t want to see us get any bigger. Ever. They already know we’re their number one adversary, and we are. And the last thing they want to see is us get bigger. So even Trump talking about Canada is poking an eye at the Chinese, pointing a finger at them. Literally. Because, again, at the end of the day, the Chinese would love to see us shrink and not grow. Anybody out there that thinks China’s on our side, yeah, think again. No, they are not. They’re not even close to being on our side. They would love nothing more than to see us fail, go under. Fortunately, they’ve got a lot of their own problems going on at home that we talk about a lot. We’ll talk about a little bit of that with Scott Garlis here in just a few minutes as well. Hi-Fi Plumbing is next. Again, don’t forget about their great garbage disposal deal they’ve got going on right now. $75 off. 877-WE-HIGH-5.
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SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Scott Garlis joining us now. Scott, welcome. How are you, sir?
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, John, I’m well. How are you? Happy New Year.
SPEAKER 16 :
Happy New Year to you as well. I noticed today that the market kind of responded in a not-so-good way to some things that President Trump said, or President-elect Trump said.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, the last couple of days, going into the end of the year, we talked about how the Fed sort of upped their guidance for inflation next year to 2.5% from 2.1% prior, but it’s really not much of a change, 24 to 25, whatever. But what the governors who changed their inflation outlook cited was uncertainty related to Trump’s tariff policies. Right. Ever since then, the media has really latched on to this negative inflation narrative, and I get it. So we’ve had some economic data came out earlier this week from the Institute for Supply Management that showed on the services sector that prices paid picked up. So that’s food people. And then we also had a piece of data yesterday in the jobs market from the BLS showing that job openings increased significantly. in November versus October. So they worry that that was inflationary.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay. Now, question for you is, I mean, first of all, I guess, what’s the real numbers say? How much were those ticks up? And what are your thoughts?
SPEAKER 04 :
So I look at a couple of different indicators. First was like the BLS stuff. You know, it really wasn’t inflationary. First off, that number’s an estimate. It’s revised multiple times before we get the real number. Secondly, what you have to do is you have to think about that number relative to the number of people that are unemployed currently. Now, in November, that number picked up. So there are more people out of work as of November than there were in October. So when you look at the ratio of job openings versus unemployed people, it said 1.1, meaning… There are 1.1 jobs available for every unemployed person. Well, that’s where we were in 2019. So we’re back to pre-pandemic numbers. So I look at that and I’m like, that’s not really inflationary in my book.
SPEAKER 16 :
And I would agree with you. And you know my feelings on a lot of this. And I think in some cases, some of this stuff, frankly, I’m sorry, I’ll just say it straight up. I think some of this stuff is in a way to sabotage Trump. And one thing I was going to ask you along those lines is there’s some folks out there, even on the conservative side, talking about how there’s a recession coming. The left is going to do everything they possibly can to make sure that it comes. They want to do what they can to make Trump look bad. You know, even Biden’s announcement of what he did on the energy issue. front, which we’ll get into in a moment as well as another tie into that. So I guess the question I have for you, do you see a recession coming?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t. I think things are, you know, I really look at things like AI. And I just, again, I always to myself, I sort of frame AI in terms of what we saw with the sort of the dot-com boom and what that wound up doing for operating efficiencies for companies, how companies started doing more things online. And look, AI is just in its nascency. We are going to see these efficiency improvements for lots of businesses over the next couple of years as they figure it out and how it benefits their business. And we’re going to see profitability improve, but we’re not going to see prices take off. So that’s going to be a really good thing for the economy. I think also what we’re seeing is I look at this gauges I look at for inflation. What I see over the last six months, inflation is decelerating rapidly. It’s basically running at an annualized pace of 0.9% right now, headline CPI. That’s way below the Fed’s target. So that also tells me, you know, let’s say, Trump throws all these tariffs out there, he moves forward with it, puts a tariff on, you know, if he puts these 60% tariffs on China, the CBO estimated it would increase inflation by 1%, but that would basically drop off after a year, because it would be a one-time thing. So, you know, if we’re running at 0.9% annualized, and we increase that by 1%, that’s at 1.9%, that’s still below the Fed’s 2% target.
SPEAKER 16 :
Right, that’s nothing.
SPEAKER 04 :
Interest rates are at 4.5%. That tells me There’s a 2.5% cushion. of rate cuts that’s available.
SPEAKER 16 :
Got it. And again, that’s the other side that they never want to look at is if you do that with China, either one of two things will come out of that. Either they get more fair on the trade that they need to do with us and they start buying more from us and things adjust there and our economy improves, or because of that, we start doing more things at home and the same thing happens. That’s the other side of the equation, Scott. They never throw in, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I would agree. It’s going to be a good thing for domestic companies. Another interesting thing to that angle is that the amount of trade we’ve done with China has dropped to just 10% from I believe it was like 15% four years ago in terms of Chinese exports. So we are less dependent on China now. than we were back when Trump started letting these tariffs.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and I think, and you and I have talked about this many times, reason being is because back then, a lot of those companies said, wait a minute, we don’t want to be caught in this. We don’t want to be caught in this again down the road. Let’s move operations to other places that we don’t see this coming, Taiwan, Korea, wherever, and we’ll change, you know, Vietnam, we’ll change some of these things around or bring it back to the U.S. even. But at the end of the day, we can do this outside of China as easily as we can inside.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, and that’s right. And so what we’ve also talked about is how when you pick up a manufacturing base and you move it out of a country and you move it somewhere else, there’s a big investment that happens with that. Exactly. And if you were to go back, it’s going to be a long time. And so one of the things that’s really interesting to me is, there are a lot of people wall street there’s struggling to figure out why is the chinese economy doing so poorly right now well i can tell you why that is exactly why because they lost all this lost all this manufacturing business and it’s not coming back And they can’t figure out what levers to pull to make things better.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, Scott, I agree with you on that. Again, you and I have talked about that for the last couple of years, and the reality is they’re not doing well. They’re trying to figure out why. To me, it’s as simple as the nose on their face. They… Didn’t play ball very well under the first Trump administration. They’re not going to play ball again in the second administration. I talked earlier before you came on that even some of Trump’s talk right now in regards to making Canada the 51st state, the Panama Canal. Greenland and so on. I mean, at the end of the day, Scott, all of these things are and I don’t think people really quite understand this. These are all poking the eye of the Chinese because China doesn’t want to see us expand at all. They control the Panama Canal. They run right through Greenland and that end of things. So the reality is what Trump is really saying is, hey, China, watch out. We’re coming for you. That’s what he’s really saying. Yes, and he’s calling them out for a lot of things, and they don’t like that in the least. No, they hate that because, as you know, they hate losing face.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and China thinks they can play a long game because they only have one guy that’s president. They don’t go through an election cycle. Yeah, and it’s a lot of games, but China has one end goal, and China wants world dominance. That’s right. And I get it with what Trump is saying with stuff like Greenland. He’s saying, look, there are rare earth minerals in Greenland that we could use, and they would be great in terms of national security and national defense. We don’t have to go through China or be reliant on China to get these things. I said this earlier, Scott, on paper –
SPEAKER 16 :
Like the canal. I mean, it makes total sense why we ever gave the canal up in the first place is a whole nother discussion. The reality is I’m not in disagreement with either of the things he’s talking about along those lines. I’m just not so I’m not sure logistically how that all works out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And, yeah, I don’t imagine these things would happen, but I get where he’s coming from.
SPEAKER 16 :
By the way, the way Greenland happens, that one’s easy in my opinion. What’s the check need to be? How much are you writing the check for at the end of the day? That’s what that one comes down to.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, this is fair. Most likely, yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
I mean, it’s Denmark, controlled by Denmark at this point. I mean, the reality is it’s not a huge country. They can take all the cash they could get. At the end of the day, they’re not using anything out of that land. I mean, what do they have to lose? If they can get a nice fat check out of it, they win.
SPEAKER 04 :
They named it Greenland because it was full of ice, and Iceland, they gave it that name because it was so green.
SPEAKER 16 :
Well, and at one time, as you know, it was opposite anyways. We go back in time long enough, they were opposite. But bottom line… And again, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t have a crystal ball. My whole point on this was back to our whole China discussion. What the media and even the left doesn’t understand, I’m not sure even some of the right does. This is Trump’s posturing against China, basically telling him or telling them there’s going to be a new guy in town and you’re not going to get by with what you once did.
SPEAKER 04 :
Amen. And so one of the other things that happened was the Washington Post put this story out, I believe it was yesterday, saying Trump’s not really intending to impose tariffs. And Trump said that’s just factually wrong. I mean, if you’re negotiating with anybody, why would you say that’s true and give up your leverage point?
SPEAKER 16 :
You wouldn’t.
SPEAKER 04 :
It doesn’t make any sense. And if people look back to Trump’s first time in office… That was the leverage point for him. I mean, the thing today is saying that he’s going to declare an economic emergency to impose tariffs, too. And the article, it’s funny, the article then, after it got people hyped up about this, went through and detailed how he did this with Mexico last time around. And Mexico, because he said Mexico is not helping us protect our border. And then Mexico said, okay, we’ll stop all the people trying to come into the U.S. at the southern border of Mexico, which… You know, again, it’s just Trump is using this as a leverage tool, and you’re exactly right. He gets people. He does a great job of getting people very worked up by throwing these things out there, and they just blow them way out of proportion. But economically, he did very good things for this country. You know, and the tariffs on China, it wasn’t people focused or focused on the inflation part of it right now. We didn’t see inflation really pick up before. What happened was the Fed had to cut rates because they were worried about what might happen from a growth standpoint. Right.
SPEAKER 16 :
And by the way, they may very well have to do the same thing depending upon how things move forward, despite what they’re even telling or announcing. And again, I think they’re very, how should I say this? I know the Fed isn’t supposed to be political, but they are. And I will tell you right now that I feel that that current makeup of the board that’s there now does not want to see Trump succeed. That’s just my own two cents.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, you know, what’s really interesting from that end is, who is it, Barr? Is it Michael Barr is his first name? Yeah, I think that’s right. So he’s been the head of regulation at the Fed. He was appointed by Biden. And he tried to push Basel III on this. a country which the Obama administration even said, we’re not interested in doing this. Tim Geithner shot it down because it was so onerous on banks and the capital cushion that the U.S. said, we’re not interested. So, you know, he tried to bring this back, and it would have jacked the capital cushions up massively, and it would have just— It would have crippled a lot of small to medium-sized businesses. Completely. It would have killed all the excess capital that banks have to lend. In other words, the biggest banks with the most propensity to lend, they wouldn’t have been able to lend. And they wouldn’t have been able to lend for years because he’s like, well, they can build it back up over the next couple of years. Well, what’s that going to do for the economy?
SPEAKER 16 :
Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
It kills it.
SPEAKER 16 :
It strangles it right off the bat. Again, I’m one where I just don’t feel like these guys that are there now really are on the side of Trump. They look at things completely different. We’ll see how this all shakes out once we get to January 20th and we start moving forward. I’m with you. I think Trump, in a lot of ways, he’s posturing with especially change. China, even his conversations. And I know it really ticks a lot of the Canadian folks off. I was listening to the guy in charge of, you know, Ontario and all of that. And he’s all you know, he’s all been out of shape at Trump’s comments. And it’s like, you know, do you really understand? He’s not saying this directed at you. He’s saying this directed at Russia and China.
SPEAKER 04 :
But that’s exactly right. And in Canada, I don’t think Canada is going to be the 51st state of the United States.
SPEAKER 16 :
Nah, not going to happen. Not going to happen.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think Canadians love their country, and they want to say Canada. Yeah.
SPEAKER 16 :
So you would know better than I. No, it’s not going to happen, even though I think there’s a lot of folks in Canada that would love to see that happen. Bottom line, it’s not going to happen. And I will say, they’re going to end up with a new prime minister that I think is going to get things rocking and rolling in a different direction. It’s going to be a lot like the U.S. anyway, so… They’ll be right in line, and that’s, again, another thing that China doesn’t like. Really quick, just to kind of close things out, because China’s a big player worldwide. I believe what you said earlier is correct. They’re looking for total world dominance, but they’re struggling right now because they’ve got a lot of things working against them. including what I just said about Canada, including Donald Trump taking over as president of the United States, including what’s happening down in Mexico because of what Trump is doing there. I mean, the reality is they’re losing the battle. And I know they play the long game, but can they afford to at this point? Probably not. I mean, it’s… At some point, Scott, the money runs out, right?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I mean, China’s debt to GDP… People are barking up the tree about, oh, my God, the U.S. debt to GDP. But, you know, the government has to facilitate things, too. But China’s debt to GDP is like 300-some percent. They won’t tell anybody what it is because they don’t want you to know.
SPEAKER 16 :
No, they don’t want you to know. That’s right. They’re not honest.
SPEAKER 04 :
But, I mean, I think the thing people forget about, or maybe they don’t, and they don’t want them to be successful, but Trump was, again, very successful getting the economy going, and he looked at… things like the stock market and investments as a statement on his presidency. And Trump is going to do, if he did what he did last time, he’s going to do everything he can to ensure that the economy and the stock market do well. And you know what? And for investors, I think that’s a very good thing. And for people that save and they’re putting their money to work in S&P 500, or right now, you know, with rates going back up, I think bonds are a great investment here. I think people that have a long-term view and put money to work now, it’ll reward them handsomely down the road.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay, so give us some specifics as to what they should be looking at.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I would look at the Vanguard small cap ETF. VTWO, Victor Tom William Oscar, is the symbol. I would also look at something as simple as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF. SPY is the symbol. And then I would also look at something like the SPDR 20-plus year Treasury bond ETF. The ticker symbol there is TLT because as rates come down, prices will go back up. Lower rates will also help the economy, demand, and stocks.
SPEAKER 16 :
Okay. All good to know. And, again, what happens in China, and I’m not trying to be coy there, Scott, because I realize that it does affect us to a certain degree, although I guess I’ll close with this. If they utterly failed, does that really have any impact on us? No. It doesn’t, does it?
SPEAKER 04 :
I don’t think so.
SPEAKER 16 :
I don’t either. I mean, at the end of the day, yeah, to your point, there’s some manufacturing and things that come out of there. But at the end of the day, if they totally collapse, which, again, isn’t going to happen. Some other country will come along, bail them out, something along those lines. But at the end of the day, it will reduce their overall power, let’s just say that. And that, I do believe, is coming. It’s already happening.
SPEAKER 04 :
Look, I wouldn’t be surprised if they collapse, if the U.S. wound up being the people who went in and bailed them out. And helped resurrect them. You know what? I hadn’t thought of that.
SPEAKER 16 :
Yeah, I hadn’t thought of that. Oh, you could be right. Interesting. That would be a flip-flop of what it’s been in the past.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, very much so.
SPEAKER 16 :
Interesting. All right, Scott, how do folks find you?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, sure. Find me on Twitter or LinkedIn, C. Scott Garlis.
SPEAKER 16 :
Awesome. Scott, as always, I appreciate you, man. Looking forward to 2025.
SPEAKER 04 :
Completely, John. Thanks so much. You bet, man.
SPEAKER 16 :
Have a great night. Appreciate you very much. And I appreciate these guys, by the way, Scott on the East Coast, because I know how late it is for him, almost 8 o’clock, and him calling in and taking time out of his family and so on. And I appreciate you guys on the East Coast and doing what you do. I mean that sincerely. Affordable Interest Mortgage is next. Kurt Rogers, speaking of rates and everything that are involved mortgage-wise, give Kurt a call today, 720-895-0500.
SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
All right, and speaking of all the things we just talked about with Scott, we have somebody locally that you can talk to one-on-one. That is Al Smith. He is our financial advisor. Give him a call today. Find him at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 11 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 16 :
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SPEAKER 06 :
It’s time to leave your safe space. This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 16 :
All right, that’s going to wrap us up for today. And again, thank you all for listening. I appreciate Andy and everybody filling in when I was gone over the holidays. And much more in store for you tomorrow. Dr. Kelly Victory and Steve House will be joining me in Hour 1. typically do. We’ll start the year off correctly with them joining us. We’re going to talk about all sorts of things, including the news media burying all sorts of information when it comes to the things, by the way, that we talk about every Thursday as well. So be sure you tune in at three o’clock tomorrow. Have a great night. Be safe. If it snows in the morning, be safe in the snow as well. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
