Elaine Parker, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation, joins John to break down the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and its overwhelming support from small businesses. John shares personal insight as a business owner into the bill’s key provisions—like bonus depreciation and increased deductions—and their real impact on hiring, investment, and wage growth. They also take on broader economic policy, the dangerous rise of central bank digital currencies, and what Americans can do to protect themselves. Later, financial advisor Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial explains tax strategies in retirement, and Christian Briggs from Hard Asset Management issues
SPEAKER 11 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 10 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 10 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
SPEAKER 19 :
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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SPEAKER 19 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 12 :
And welcome. Hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. As I said earlier, Elaine Parker joining us now, president of the Job Creators Network Foundation. Elaine, welcome back. How are you?
SPEAKER 06 :
Hey, John. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 12 :
Always a joy. And you guys took a poll recently on what small business owners are thinking about the current administration and what things look like for their future.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, small businesses, I mean, I’ll bottom line it for you. Small businesses overwhelmingly support the Republican legislation to expand and make the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent. And what you need to remember is, in many ways, this bill really is just keeping the status quo because it’s on schedule to expire at the end of this year. If nobody does anything, we can all sit back, put our feet up and basically taxes are going to go up by four trillion dollars on our economy. It will be a devastating blow to everyday ordinary Americans and to our small business owners who were really the biggest recipients of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And that is why they overwhelmingly support it. 70% of them in our polling say that they will create jobs, expand operations, boost worker wages, and reinvest in their communities, which is exactly the types of things that they did in in the first term under the Trump administration when it was passed. And, John, when you get 70% in any poll, that’s nonpartisan.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s a big number.
SPEAKER 06 :
That’s a massive number.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, in their defense, and I’m one of them, and one of the things that, you know, folks like I look at on the small business end of things, to your point, you know, and there’s a lot of things that folks, you know, don’t like inside of the big, beautiful bill. There’s things in it that we like as well. And at the end of the day, it is what it is. I mean… You can try to lobby against or for or whatever, but at the end of the day, it’s going to end up being what it is. One of the things that’s in it, though, that I think myself included, small businesses look at is you’re talking about the tax cuts. One of the things that to the average person may not matter, but to small businesses, it does. Currently, bonus depreciation is starting to phase out. Already started in 2024. It’ll be bigger in 2025. But if this passes, it’ll bring it back in 2026 to a full 100%. And Elaine, for small business owners, that’s a huge thing. And for folks that don’t understand it, just go look it up or text me afterwards, and I can explain why this is such a big deal. But it is, Elaine, because it encourages small businesses to spend money on things that will help their businesses grow. It then helps them out reverse on the tax sides of things. But it’s a big deal for small business owners across the country.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And that that provision, you know, is probably one of the biggest drivers. Absolutely. Absolutely. In 2018 and 2019, when the bill was first passed, it was really the biggest. Our small business owners tell me I’ve got some members who have told me who are manufacturers. That was a game changer for them. It was about expanding facilities. It was about buying machinery. It was about creating jobs and hiring new people and boosting wages and being able to write off an expense. Those investments in the year that they were made was huge because the alternative is is expensing over, you know, 39 years or something like that.
SPEAKER 12 :
At least five. I mean, that’s the minimum. And to your point, yes, as small business owners, we take big looks at that. And I’ll just tell you straight up, as a small business owner myself, when it comes to those sorts of investments, especially as you get towards that, you know, Fourth quarter of the year and you start looking at where you might be tax wise. OK, we made this investment. We could do this with the taxes and so on. And with bonus depreciation, you have a lot more options than what you normally would have, Elaine. And I’ll tell you, business owners and I coach other owners. We take advantage of those things when they’re there.
SPEAKER 06 :
100%. That is exactly what small business owners do. And they did it a lot in 2018 and 2019 pre-COVID. And they did it because it was a great opportunity. They were the drivers of this economy. And not only that, in this bill, in this particular bill, as you know, the small business tax deduction is 20% currently. We’ve been pushing and we’re so happy to see that Republicans increased that tax deduction to 23 percent. Nice. That’s massive when you multiply it by the 26 million small business owners that utilize that deduction. It’s huge. These are massive numbers.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. Well, and Elaine, as you know, too, when you’re running a small business, depending upon how you’ve structured your sub-S corporation or your LLC or whatever, the reality is you’re still paying personal taxes as well. So those tax cuts on that side also help. So, yeah, I mean, I’ve got to believe I am. And one of those where if you were to poll me, I would look at it exactly the same way. I’m excited about the future. These are changes that need to be made permanent, which is exactly what we’re doing here. That’s the other thing I think we need to remember, Elaine, with this is if this passes and goes through, it’s not one of these things like and I get it, another administration come along and make big changes, but it has to be done in this manner. This is going to make permanent some of the things that we’ve seen happen in the last go around, you know, four years ago. And this will solidify those things, you know, quote unquote, permanently until, again, another administration would come along and change it. But, you know, as well as I, Elaine, when you make things permanent and people get used to them and then somebody wants to come along and take those away, that’s usually political suicide.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, exactly. And look, I know there are things to criticize in this bill. Absolutely. I get it. I do too. But that’s called passing legislation. That’s how you do it. And there are things in there that I’d like to see differently, but I can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And I know that… You know, Elon Musk is dominating all the headlines and saying the bill doesn’t do enough to cut spending.
SPEAKER 12 :
And by the way, Elaine, as a business owner myself, it doesn’t. But, you know, what’s that old saying? Beggars can’t be choosers. I mean, I also understand, and there’s a lot of people out there right now probably mad at me for saying this, but you have to have some compromise in some of these areas or you’re not going to get anything that you want. And I want as much as I can possibly get knowing I can’t get the whole enchilada.
SPEAKER 06 :
Exactly. You just have to read page one of the conservative governing playbook, which says cut taxes whenever, wherever and however you can. That’s right. And when we have such a small majority in the House, we’ve got to take advantage of it right now.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, and again, Elaine, I would be the first to say, are we doing enough? No. Do we ever do enough? No. Do we have way more in government spending even still than what we need? Yes. Are there entitlement programs, i.e. Social Security, that we need to get in and revamp or we’re not going to have them on down the road? Yes. And I also know, Elaine, that no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, some of the things I’m mentioning aren’t going to be touched because, again, it’s political suicide. Yes, it needs done. It’s not going to get done because of that. So in turn, we take what we can get when it comes along.
SPEAKER 06 :
exactly and really you know this the only way to truly fix our fiscal you know situation is through strong economic growth we saw in 2017 despite all of those dire predictions from you know the congressional budget office this was going to cost 1.5 trillion and the media and the democrats when you look at inflation adjusted federal tax revenues not including tariffs They have significantly grown as a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. And last year alone, tax collections were a half a trillion dollars higher than the CBO predicted.
SPEAKER 12 :
And that same thing will happen again. That’s my other complaint, Elaine, with a lot of the naysayers on both sides, by the way, is, okay, number one, you don’t have a crystal ball. You don’t know exactly how it’s going to work out. You’re not factoring in some of the job growth and economic growth that will come from doing the things that you’re doing. You guys are flatlining a lot of these things. You’re putting very, very small increases, and the reality is the economy could explode. I hate to go this direction, Elaine, but if we could now get the Federal Reserve to help in some of this as well, i.e. lowering rates, it would also help a lot of small businesses with lines of credits and buying equipment and some of the things that we’re even talking about. If you could get the Fed to participate, we would have an absolute explosive economy.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. And that is the piece that we haven’t started talking about yet. But yes, the Fed needs to move. I mean, inflation is under control. We’ve got energy prices have come down. Grocery prices have come down. But I mean, inflation is at that magic number where the Fed could cut. And we watched them cut under the Biden administration a couple of times. Don’t get me started. Don’t get me started. Yes.
SPEAKER 12 :
They are behind. It is political, even though they say it isn’t. I’ll have a guest on tomorrow. We’ll talk even more about this, Elaine. And he and I will argue on this because I know it’s political. This is becoming a stalemate between Jerome Powell and the Trump administration. It shouldn’t be. He should be cutting. He’s already, in my opinion, late to the game. And as a small business owner, and I’m not even in the housing world, Elaine, if I was, I would even be more that way, because we’ve got to get things jumpstarted on the housing sides of things. And right now, you know, Trump and Besant and so on, they can do as much as they can behind the scenes. But the reality is the Fed is the only one that’s really going to affect that at the end of the day.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and he was slow when inflation was increasing.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 06 :
You know, they kept saying it’s temporary. It’s transitory. That’s right. Transitory. Thank you. I forgot that word. I heard it so much back then. But, you know, they were slow moving. And I realize they’re working on looking at data that’s already happened, things that have already happened and then trying to move. But they kept saying it’s transitory, it’s transitory. They were so slow moving. That’s right. We ended up with a massive problem with massive inflation, and they didn’t move. And here it seems like the Fed is doing exactly the same thing in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. You are right. And, again, A, I appreciate you and what you’re doing. I’m on your team, as you can tell, not only as a business owner but talking about these things on a daily basis. And I know this. I say this a lot, and I know I sound like a broken record sometimes. But small businesses, we are the backbone of this country, and sometimes we don’t get near enough credit, Elaine.
SPEAKER 06 :
One hundred percent. That is absolutely true. And that’s why we’re here trying to fight for them as much as possible.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, we sure appreciate you very much. Again, Job Creators Network Foundation. How do folks find you, Elaine?
SPEAKER 06 :
They can go to joinjcn.com. Find out all about us.
SPEAKER 12 :
I appreciate it very much, Elaine. You’re welcome anytime. You’re in great company, as you can tell.
SPEAKER 06 :
Thank you.
SPEAKER 12 :
Have a great night. You bet. Appreciate it very much. And up next, Golden Eagle Financial. Al did a great interview the other day with Travis. So stay tuned to listen to that. We’ll be right back after that.
SPEAKER 03 :
Al Smith from Golden Eagle Financial and the show you love, Retirement Unpacked, is here with me. How are you today, Al? I’m doing great. How are you, TJ? I’m doing great as well. I have a couple questions for you. As a financial advisor, do you also do taxes?
SPEAKER 15 :
No, I don’t prepare my clients’ taxes. I do, however, spend a lot of time talking to them about taxes. To use a sports analogy, tax preparation is like doing a recap of the game. What I do is more like creating a game plan and then following up over time to see how it’s working.
SPEAKER 03 :
And how much are taxes a part of that game plan that you create?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, with so many different taxes we’re faced with, it becomes an important thing to take into consideration. It’s not how much income you have, but how much you get to keep. In addition to federal and state income taxes, there’s property taxes, state and local sales tax, and fees. And they all play a part in shrinking our income.
SPEAKER 03 :
What about people who already have really healthy balances in 401ks, IRAs? Won’t they be facing significant taxes as they draw income from those accounts?
SPEAKER 15 :
Well, it depends. Everybody’s situation’s a little bit different. There’s no one size that fits all when it comes to tax planning. But often when I work with people, we’ll create a strategy where we will convert traditional IRAs to Roth over time. And that not only reduces taxes in the future, but it will also lower the tax they’ll be paying on their Social Security.
SPEAKER 03 :
Is that kind of strategy really only for the wealthy?
SPEAKER 15 :
Not at all. Many of my clients who have modest IRAs have chosen to convert to Roth over time. They enjoy the freedom of having a tax-free nest egg that they can access on their own timeline rather than an RMD schedule.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that is excellent. And how can people reach you if they want to learn about their own taxation in retirement?
SPEAKER 15 :
You can reach me through KLZ or contact my office at 303-744-1128. And when you call, I’ll provide you with a summary of all the tax changes for 2025.
SPEAKER 03 :
You heard it here, folks. Good things from Golden Eagle Financial and Al Smith. Again, you can reach them at 303-744-1128 or just find them on the advertisers page at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 20 :
Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management, LLC. A registered investment advisor. BCM and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other. Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.
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SPEAKER 08 :
This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right. I don’t normally meld drive radio stuff into the daily Rush to Reason show, but I’ve had two text messages that I just have to address because a lot of you are out. It’s the time of the year where you may be looking at new cars and doing different things and shopping and so on. So I might as well explain this now as opposed to Saturday because these questions are coming up. Number one. Somebody asked me because I was talking about doing my own oil change on my vehicle here recently, and this particular person thought that’s illegal, that’s not okay to do because the dealership requires you to go back to them for all of your services. That’s actually against the law for them to even insinuate that. There’s a Magnus Moss Act that was passed a long time ago. I don’t know exactly what year. I’d have to go look it up, but it’s been a long time, decades. And in that law, it required any manufacturer that requires you to have them do the service to do the service for free. And the example they give is if Maytag required you to use Maytag soap to keep your washing machine under their warranty. In other words, if you use Tide, it voided the warranty. The law says they have to give you the soap. The same would be true for any dealership telling you that you have to come back to us for the oil change or it will void your warranty. If they, in fact, say that, the service has to be free. Otherwise, they’re breaking the law. And the reality is nobody does that anymore. And any dealership telling you you have to come back to them for any kind of service under warranty, tire rotation, oil changes, even filling the washer fluid, if they tell you that, A, they’re lying, and, B, they would have to provide that for free. So, no, you can even do oil changes yourself at home if you have that ability to do so. And all of that is still under our law, federally, federal law. That is all legal. more than fine for you to do, and the dealership still has to keep the warranty on that vehicle intact. The manufacturer, I should say, not the dealership. The manufacturer has to keep that warranty intact. So if you hear anything other than that, they’re lying and walk away. That tells you that’s not a good dealer. Second of all, I’ve had this particular comment from several, three people so far texting me this since like last Thursday, and I didn’t get a chance to talk about it on Saturday. I apologize. I’m going to talk about it now. That is ceramic coatings. It’s becoming a bigger and bigger deal for ceramic coatings. And you’re hearing ceramic coatings on all sorts of stuff now. You can do it on your countertops. You can do it on your car. You can do it here. You can do it there. Now, on the vehicle sides of things, I don’t know about everybody else as far as all of the other things that are out there that can be ceramic coated. But I do know when it comes to your vehicle. Number one, there is no such thing as ceramic coating that can be done while you wait. And I’ve got a sponsor on Saturdays, ProTech Auto Shield, that does ceramic coating. So I can tell you firsthand, I know all about the whole ceramic coating end of things. And if it’s done correctly, number one, the paint on the vehicle has to be prepped. meaning you take out any high-low spots. It has to be perfect before you put ceramic coating on because you’re really sealing. Think of it this way. You’re adding a layer of sealant, quote-unquote, ceramic sealant to the paint, and no, that cannot be done while you wait. Just the paint correction alone on the vehicle will take several hours, to get done. And then as you’re doing the ceramic coating, in some cases you’re putting one coat or two coats on depending upon what’s needed and what the customer’s paying for and has agreed to. But either way, one or two coats. And in that process, the dry time even between coats is lengthy and it’s an overnight, at least 24-hour dry process. on the actual ceramic coating that you do so there’s no way if a dealership is telling you they can do that while you wait is it legit ceramic coating it it’s not it’s probably something coming out of a spray bottle that you literally could go home and do yourself so so whatever that money is that a dealership’s trying to charge you for ceramic coating just walk away because it’s not true on top of that There are dealerships out there that will tell you that the ceramic coating is hail-resistant. It’s a protection against hail. It is not. That’s another lie. And even the folks, again, that I know at ProTech AutoShield, Roy and Dietze, they will straight-up tell you. In fact, one of the only reasons they agreed to come on as a sponsor of my program on Saturday was that we would dispel that myth because that’s exactly what it is. It’s a lie. It’s a myth. Ceramic coating helps with the paint protection. Helps with a lot of the gunk and the garbage that we get during the winter months especially. The salt, the mag chloride, all those sorts of things. Tree sap, the UVs, all of that. It helps against all of that. It will not help protect against a dent. Period. Period. For example. I get my vehicle ceramic coated. Roy and Dita take great care of me. And I park down here at the station. And a lot of times the parking places are fairly close. And I was over at Roy’s one day and he walks out and says, hey, you know, you got a dent in the passenger side of that door over there. And I’m like, oh, great. I hadn’t noticed it. And I’m like, yeah, sure enough, I do. He said, OK, well, we’ll take care of it. You know, we’ve got PDR. We get paintless dent removal and so on. My point is this. It was ceramic coated and yet got a door ding. If the ceramic coating protected against hail, it would also protect against a door ding. It doesn’t. Now, did it help in the scratch-resistant part of it? Yes, it did do that, and it didn’t get scratched. They were able to take the dent out, no problem. But if you have a dealership at any level telling you that ceramic coating will help against hail, anything else, any other kind of natural occurrence that would be out there, they are 100% lying and walk away. In fact, I wouldn’t buy a car… car from anybody that’s lying to me on that level. And if you get some sales guy that tries to BS his way around what ceramic coating actually is, you can tell them to call me, text me, and I’ll straighten them out because the reality is they don’t know what they’re talking about. They’re talking out of both sides of their mouth in a lot of cases. They’re trying to basically get you to buy a car for all the wrong reasons, and I would never buy anything from anybody that’s lying to me straight up. Sorry to get into some drive radio things today on Rush to Reason, but those are things that I think a lot of you can apply. Some of you, evidently, I wouldn’t be getting these text messages if you weren’t out shopping for cars right now. So those of you that are, remember these things that I just said and never, ever, ever deal with anybody that’s going to lie to you. I’m sorry, just don’t. Now, if you find a car you really like, and they’re trying to sell you all these add-ons, and you can walk out the door without having them, and you still get the deal you want, that’s up to you. If you want to buy the car from them, that’s fine. But I’ll just tell you straight up, you cannot put ceramic coating on while somebody waits. It takes longer than an hour or two to get done. So anybody telling you that, again, either A, doesn’t understand what ceramic coating is, or B, has been lied to internally to sell you something that frankly isn’t what it is, or three knows all of that, and they’re still trying to lie to you and sell you a car and make some money on top of that. In this particular case, this dealership was asking $600 for the ceramic coating. And by the way, that is about half, probably a third of what real ceramic coating costs when it’s all said and done, meaning they’re using a spray bottle, they’re spraying it on. They don’t have, I’m not exaggerating, parts and labor and everything in that. They don’t have 50 bucks in that whole application. They’re charging you $600, and I am not exaggerating when I say that. That’s how much upcharge costs. They’re making on that all the more reason to run and, frankly, go find a car someplace else at the end of the day. All right. We’ve got a guest that will be joining us here in just a few minutes, so I won’t belabor that any longer. Geno’s Auto Service, speaking of cars and all of that, and speaking of even maintaining your vehicle for you under warranty, Geno’s can do all of that for you. Geno’sautoservice.com is the place to go, and Geno’s starts with a J.
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 14 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, and Kevin Flesch, he is there to help you out on the civil side or criminal side of the law. If you need representation, he is your attorney. Call him today, 303-806-8886.
SPEAKER 17 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
The best export we have is common sense. You’re listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 12 :
And we are back, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. One last thing on ceramic coating before I move to Christian Briggs is somebody asked in a lot of states, in this case Texas, because we have listeners there as well, they were saying down there at dealerships that the ceramic coating will improve fuel economy. Hogwash. No, it won’t. That’s another lie that’s coming out of the dealership world. And so, yeah, it does not do that either. So add that on to the things I just talked about a few minutes ago as well. Christian Briggs joining us now. Christian, welcome. How are you? Great. And thank you so much for having me on your show. I appreciate it. All right. You are an expert on all things economy and you’re an expert. You talk on national syndicated shows and all sorts of things as well. And you’re a CEO of Hard Asset Management. I should have said that to begin with. So thank you again for joining us. And question, and this is in my notes, and I’ve got a question on this as well, because I talked even during the first hour when you weren’t able to join us about the cryptocurrency end of things. But there’s all this talk all the time about the central bank and digital currency, and are we going to go to a digital dollar, and, and, and. And Christian, I don’t know, I have my own thoughts when it comes to cryptocurrency. I’m not against it, but is it for everybody? No, I don’t believe it is at this point.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I’m not sure we have a choice. It’s kind of like taxes and death, right? I think those are the two things that we can pretty much turn on during our lifetime. So let’s just quickly define something very fast so your listeners can understand between the parallels here. We have what they call central bank digital currency, and we have what they call Bitcoin or decentralized cryptocurrency, and they’re completely different. Digital may be the means of which they transfer money from A to B, from a seller, buyer, and what they call a tokenization. But at the very heart of the matter, and I know people have heard this before, centralizing power means that you allow a very few people to control a very large amount of people. In other words, the classes will control the masses. So the difference between these two forms of payment is as such. we are moving into a centralized platform and the reason we’re moving from a decentralized bitcoin is because when you centralize the payment system or centralize anything you’re allowed then to surveil contain control and because we already run on a centralized system for payments like bank wires and so forth the way banks pay each other and what individuals would call the swift That’s called central bank. That’s why they call them central banks of the world. The difference we’re talking about today is cryptocurrency runs on what they call a decentralized system, which means it runs with complete anonymity. And that allows users not to have any, I call it the crypto cops. In other words, people of which that would stop the direct payment. Let’s say I want to buy a car from you and you say, great, let’s do it in Bitcoin. I push a button. It goes to you. It goes into this wallet. No problem. When you have centralized systems and I want to pay you, and the government determines that, well, you know, that’s a diesel truck. I don’t like diesel trucks. We might get somebody in there on the Democrat side that doesn’t like the way in which the products or services were bought. They can then immediately cut it off. That’s called programmable money.
SPEAKER 12 :
Makes sense. And by the way, a little bit of that’s even happening now as we speak. For example, if you’re… And not that I’m against this, Christian, but if you’re somebody that doesn’t normally buy cars and things like that, and all of a sudden there’s a transaction that’s happening and you’re going to the bank to withdraw $15,000 to go pay Joe Schmo for the used car you just bought, you may get a lot of questions out of your bank. And by the way, I’m not against that, but to your point, you’re going to get a lot of questions.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, you’re going to get a lot of questions, and those questions are going to be because red flags are going up everywhere. Bells and whistles are going off as if you just robbed a bank or something. That’s right.
SPEAKER 12 :
And unfortunately, it’s because of the nefarious individuals that aren’t doing things correctly on the sales of those that create some of this, although it doesn’t create all of it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Correct. If you look at any kind of regulatory environment, I don’t care if it’s a small business that’s selling jet skis or some of the biggest businesses like coal refineries, there’s always going to be nefarious systems, and people that run those systems, that’s why we have over-regulatory environment. Look at going to the airport. You ever seen the TSA lately and the screening of everything? That’s right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Talked about that last week, actually.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I mean, it’s only getting worse, but… Those things come about because of bad people. That’s right. But the problem is we’re going to automatically put people into an arena where we’re going to centralize their wealth. We’re going to centralize their assets. And we’re going to have overseers at some centralized system, whether that’s in D.C., New York, who knows. Or it may be randomly done through satellite offices by government-controlled people. But at the end of the day, we’re going to have this. And I’ll tell you how close we are to it. In October of this year, the European Union is expected to launch the e-euro. Now, everyone is wondering, what is that? Well, I’m glad you asked. The e-euro is the paper version of the euro digitized on a centralized system. It’s expected to launch October 18th, at some point within that realm, maybe the 20th or 25th. And what that’s going to do is, that’s going to be the first introduction in about 40 countries globally of a digital currency that doesn’t exist, it’s an algorithm, uniquely tokenized with unique serial numbers that identify each euro, and it’s a digital form, to pay people or to be able to receive monies, whether you’re getting paid directly from an employer. The problem is that the leader, Legrand, she’s the one that runs the IMF, International Monetary Fund, which is basically the third version of Central Bank for Europe. Right. She said, oh, but understand it’s very programmable. And if we determine that you’re buying something that we don’t like, well, we’ll not let you do that. Or if you’re not spending your money every month that you need to to keep the economy going, well, we’ll tell you to spend it, like either spend it or lose it. So we’re entering a phase of complete government surveillance and control. And that’s the worrisome where crypto is a decentralized system. So it’s free to roam and run and do whatever it needs to do between parties for buying and selling and what forth. But the centralized system or CBDC, central bank digital currency, is now the ultimate control. Because if you control people’s wealth, You control them, period. Where are they going to go? Are they going to leave?
SPEAKER 12 :
And so being, you know, I’ll just be devil’s advocate here because the same thing would apply here to the U.S. and maybe not quite the same as it would in the EU. What happens with all of the floating around paper money? Do they just do away with it? It now becomes illegal to use paper money? Or how do they handle that? Because, as you know, to do what you’re saying, you’ve got to get away from paper money altogether. Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
Correct. So two years ago, just a little over two years, no, actually about two years ago, I was over in Europe. And when I got to London and I had brought a few thousand dollars worth of British pounds with me, what happened was I immediately, when I was in the cab leaving the airport to go to the hotel, I was reminded by the cab driver, not knowing this, that that money had become worthless. And I go, what are you talking about? September of 23rd, They basically said they had converted from paper to more of a synthetic kind of a plastic currency, not digital yet, but currency, and they gave their citizens 30 days in which to turn in the old for the new. Now, the only way you can do that was to deposit that into a bank account. Now, if you had nefarious issues or systems and you didn’t declare that cash as income somewhere, then it would, well, you just write it off or burn it. So that’s exactly what’s going to happen. As we kind of enter into the new phase, there was a Treasury mandate here recently, about in the last month or so, where the Treasury Department has now issued a warning to banks all over the world that if there’s any suspicious cash transactions, they’ll be notified. We are creating an environment that in the next 18 months, will make cash toxic. You go to the bank and you try to withdraw $5,000, they look at you, they ask you questions, you draw $10,000 or more, and that’s red flag city. So even if it’s not something that is being done in such a bad manner, maybe you want to buy a jet ski or you want to buy a boat or car, and you don’t know the person you’re buying from, they probably won’t take your personal check. So cash has been symbolizing a lot of ways in which to do transactions. Those days are numbered, I can assure you. Within the next 18 to 24 months, and it may happen before Trump leaves office, we may be a predominantly digital society, cashless, and I can give you stats to back that up.
SPEAKER 12 :
Man, not that I’m disagreeing with you, but if they do that, you’re going to see a civil war because there’s X amount of people out there that are not giving up their cash. I can just tell you that right now. Not going to happen.
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m one of them. And I couldn’t disagree with you. That’s the problem. But let me give you statistically what’s happening. That 18 to 30-year-old has now been programmed and conditioned to go digital. 88% of transactions. under the age of 26, I believe, or 25, is all digital. They don’t even know what checking accounts are. Yes, an 18-year-old. Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
And actually, I think, Christian, for most people in that figure, I’m not saying you’re wrong, but, man, that even gets up into people that are in their 40s and 50s in a lot of ways.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, you’re 100% right. I didn’t want to go that far and release all the numbers we have here in my office because I’ve got number crunchers. I’ve got some of the smartest PhD brains on the planet that all we do is crunch numbers statistically to determine what are conclusiveness within theories. And I can tell you what’s conclusive, and that is This year, well over 60% of all transactions in this country will be in digital form. Some crypto, some credit cards, that’s all digital. Debit cards, digital. Venmo, digital. It’s all digital. And it’s growing to the point where by 27, our estimate is if it’s not close to 100% by 27, it sure will be by 28. That’s a cashless society by definition. True.
SPEAKER 12 :
True. Yep, won’t deny that. And at that point, then it just becomes easy to move into what you’re talking about. And again, and I have said this for years, it will go totally digital 100% when all the old guys like me still carry cash. When we’re gone, it’s done.
SPEAKER 05 :
Correct. I would say within the next five years, and I think I’m going to actually turn out to be wrong, I think it’s going to happen within three and a half to four years, that cash is going to be made toxic, that it’s going to be like Europe. Take Europe, for example. If you’re caught spending more than 1,000 pounds in the UK, that’s a criminal act. If you’re caught spending more than 1,000 euros without permission or predetermined in telling the government what you’re going to use it for, that’s a criminal offense. It’s a felony. In fact, it’s up to that level. If you try to withdraw over 10,000 or I think the max is 10,000 euros, you’ve got to have a certification of what’s the purpose of the money going to be used for? Who is it going to be given? Find out a person. They need to find an affidavit. You’re buying something. You’ve got to go through such hoops so they can track the cash that it’s almost a deterrent. And that’s what they want to do. You remember the old story is government doesn’t want you to do it. They may not come out and say you can. They’ll just make it so incredibly difficult that you don’t want to do it in the first place.
SPEAKER 12 :
No, I can see that. And to your point, that’s exactly how, as time goes by, they’ll continue to wean even the old guys off of it. They’ll just make it just, you know, not necessarily a legal Christian, because if they do that, they’ll have a revolt. But they just make it hard to use.
SPEAKER 05 :
They just make it hard to use. It’s kind of like what Biden was – well, let me take a step back. Obama tried to make owning a gun very challenging, certainly buying one, owning one, owning a suppressor. And then Biden came in, and what did he do? He goes, well, if I can’t make you not own a gun or prevent you from owning a gun, I’ll make it impossible for you to own ammo. What happened to ammo prices? They skyrocketed because he went out there and cut back on the ability. He took about two-thirds of the gun dealers out, and he tried to take about 50% of the ammunitions dealers and manufacturers in this country out as well, saying, look, you can have all the guns you want. That’s what the Constitution said. But it didn’t tell you anything about bullets.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right. Good point. You’re exactly right. That’s exactly how they’ll implement some of these things. So I guess question for you, what do we do? How do we fight against this? How do you still keep your investments solid, make money at the end of the day? Because as you know, as time goes by, we still got to feed our families.
SPEAKER 05 :
You do. And if we weren’t getting down to this path… That you and I are speaking to right now, and I know your listeners are probably their heads are hurting a little bit because there’s a lot of information, but it is truthful. I’ve always said at some point, and I’m going to answer your question, but I’m going to make this defining point to get to the answer that everybody. who loves the Lord, will realize the entire Bible is true. Not just parts we want, but the entire Bible is true.
SPEAKER 12 :
Great point.
SPEAKER 05 :
And we are now in the new world order. We’re in the great reset. We’re actually seeing the evolution. I call it the evolution, where there’s a revolution. Remember the old saying is, they don’t want you to see the revolution, because that clearly shows the bad guys are coming with their guns and what have you. So they call it an evolution, where evil will reside in a very… quiet manner, but yet, just like an elephant has to be eaten, small bites at one time, and then over the months or years, it’s all gone. The evolution is to treat the way of which we’re being programmed and conditioned. Crypto was one part of it to go into digital. So the answer to your question is this. What is God’s true form of money? Mentioned 93 times in the Bible. It’s the only asset that that is truly known as a little child, we all know the intrinsic value. We don’t have to be told that’s gold, that’s silver. And if you look at gold, if it wasn’t coming to the digital age of transformation of currencies, doing away with the paper to go digital, gold is up 300% in the past five years. Now, that’s astonishing. That never happens. If you look at hard assets in general, I don’t care if it’s rare cars, rare coins, or even rare Art, it’s all skyrocketed over the last five, six, seven years in some form, some better than others. But granted that you’re starting to see the dynamic shift into hard assets that are more mobile. that are more liquid, but offer value that goes far beyond just the intrinsic. So the answer is diversification, one, which we should do that anyway. That’s a good long-term portfolio. And two, go back to God’s money, but you can buy it in different forms. But hard assets are not cyclical this time. This is different. This isn’t like a financial crisis that’s going to wean itself somehow off mothership because the federal government’s having trouble with the debt. We know this to be true, $37 trillion within the next couple, three weeks. And number two… Even if Trump’s bill goes through, and I do expect it to go through, it’s still going to increase the debt by at least $4 to $6 trillion over the next three to four years. And that’s not payable back. So even if digital currency wasn’t on the forefront of the evolution that we’re now experiencing, especially in Europe, in less than four months, Europe transitions to digital from cashless. Not right away, but over the next 18 months, it’ll slowly move cash out of society. We will also. And then you’ll have to understand that that’s all part of what was supposed to happen with, what, one world government, one currency. And here’s a third thing that people aren’t aware of. Apple, two weeks ago, started introducing the first chip that goes in your brain that you can buy and sell with, as well as it will then take the place of your mobile phone, if you want to look that up.
SPEAKER 12 :
Interesting. Mm-hmm. Not denying any of it. I mean, again, as you’re saying, a lot of this is what happens as we get down that path. And you’re the same as me. I don’t know exactly when or how. I just know the warning signs and what’s happening and just be prepared.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’ve got to be prepared. The way the Americans think is the next five to ten weeks, maybe we even get a little bit in the next quarter, two quarters of the year we look forward. If you look at the rest of the world, it’s the next quarter century or at least the next five or ten years. further down the road you’ve got to start thinking not as a microwave or a drive drive-through that’s right rather as a crock pot you’ve got to understand that the time it takes in which to do these things is just like eating an elephant tiny bites you never see it that’s right but eventually it goes through so you’ve got to start protecting your your assets your wealth your family’s interest today and i’m not saying stocks are bad what i’m saying is if the stock market dropped 30 or 40%. And Goldman Sachs came out today and actually said that this may be one of the worst economies in decades because of a number of different factors, that we may actually only have about a 1% GDP, which I’m even disagreeing with that. I think it’s going to be negative, not maybe every quarter, but certainly as an average, it may actually be break-even. at best because we have the tariffs aren’t working like they should be the debt’s not being paid down doge did not go through with any of the three to four hundred billion in cuts i believe the codified number was 9.3 billion which is that’s like not even one percent of our entire budget of the united states government it’s nothing it doesn’t have any material value And the next thing is you’ve got reports out there that Elon Musk and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant were having physical or certainly verbal altercations, and that’s one of the reasons. And that’s not an environment that gives a lot of people the warm and fuzzy feeling.
SPEAKER 12 :
True. All right. Good stuff. I’ll leave you with that. Christian, how do folks find you?
SPEAKER 05 :
You can find me on X. It’s BMC, Bravo Mary Charlie, underscore ham, H-A-M, BMC underscore ham, or on our website. You can call us directly. I’m happy to take a phone call. It’s BMCHAM.com. Call us up anytime. Ask for me, and I’m happy to chat with anybody.
SPEAKER 12 :
Christian, I appreciate you very much. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER 05 :
You’re very welcome.
SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
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SPEAKER 12 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
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SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
This isn’t Rage Radio. This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we are back one segment left here, and I did notice this today, and this is where I always want to caution our side, that be very careful of what you post and or repost, because I saw somebody, and I wanted to mention this because I wasn’t able to verify this, so my gut feeling is this particular picture is an old picture, and it just resurfaced today, and it’s a picture of Polis and another person and our lieutenant governor, hoisting up a Mexican flag at the Capitol or someplace. But the picture and the caption make it sound like Polis is hoisting up a Mexican flag at the Capitol. Now, I looked everywhere I possibly could to see if there was any other place where that had actually taken place, and I couldn’t verify it. So yet our side is – now, here’s the problem. It wouldn’t be that hard to believe that he and his administration would do that because it’s something he would do. But did he do it today in light of what’s going on in L.A.? Nowhere that I can find. I can’t find a single place. So not that I’m defending Governor Polis because the guys are Marxists through and through. I talk about that constantly. But did he and his lieutenant governor hoist – the Mexican flag today at the Capitol, not that I can verify, folks. So if you or anybody you know have posted or reposted that, please take that down because I can’t verify that, and I don’t think you can either. And this is the kind of stuff that on our side of the aisle really bothers me at times because it makes us look really stupid. We’re trying to be accurate. We’re trying to hold our own. We’re trying to fend off the left and the Marxists and so on, and yet we can’t take—in my case, I took two minutes— to see if I could verify that that picture was actually from today. And I didn’t even throw it into AI. I probably could have even found where the picture originated from. But I couldn’t see anything about that happening anywhere today, yet it’s getting posted on our side of the aisle in different groups that I’m a part of on Facebook, and it shouldn’t be. So those of you, if you’re listening to me and you posted that, please take it down. I didn’t comment. I didn’t want to get into that whole rigmarole. I’m not going to be that Karen that’s on Facebook trying to tell people to take certain things down. But if you can’t prove that it’s real, don’t post it. It’s that same rule of thumb I constantly try to feed into all of you guys as listeners is if you can’t prove that it’s real, even though you might want it to be, even though it looks like it might be, even though it would pass off for being, please don’t post it unless you know for a fact it’s real. Because when you do, and it turns out that, like in this case, it’s not real, then it makes us really look bad. And everything going on in L.A., there’s already a ton of stuff going on. It’s a huge advertisement, by the way, already for the Republican Party and for Donald Trump, despite what Newsom and Newscombe, that’s what a lot of people call him, and all of his cronies are saying. Reality is it’s a huge advertisement for Donald Trump. You can see how out of control California is. And I’ll just say it this way and end it this way. I have no use for anyone that would fly another country’s flag while burning down a city. That just makes no sense to me whatsoever. Go back to where you came from is my advice on that. We’ll be back tomorrow. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.