Join John Rush for a comprehensive discussion packed with practical advice for first-time homebuyers. Special guest Kurt Rogers breaks down the essential financial incentives that newcomers to the property market can leverage. Meanwhile, Alan Hibbert brings his expertise on the significant rise in gold’s value, comparing it to the unpredictable nature of cryptocurrencies. This episode is a treasure trove of financial know-how, delivering clarity on how to augment your portfolio with precious metals.
SPEAKER 07 :
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.
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My advice to you is to do what your parents did.
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Get a job, sir. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
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It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush, presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, hour number three, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Kurt Rogers, time for our Monday Mortgage Minute. Kurt, welcome. How are you?
SPEAKER 17 :
I’m doing fine, John. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m doing very well. First-time buyers. We’ve talked about this in the past, but what is a first-time buyer?
SPEAKER 17 :
First-time buyer, according to the loan programs that are out there, is someone who has not owned a home either by themselves or jointly with someone else in the last three years.
SPEAKER 03 :
So it’s not like you’ve never owned one. It’s just not in three years.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. And it’s kind of important now because with loan programs out there, they’re trying to get more first-time homebuyer, younger people into buying homes. So they got some great incentives for first-time homebuyers.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. So what does that do to help them save money at the end of the day?
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, normally a first-time homebuyer is not going to have the normal 20% down. It takes time to come up with that. So what they’ve done is they’ve given first-time homebuyers a lower interest rate, and in addition, they’ve almost eliminated the mortgage insurance that goes with it. So you can put a list 3% down and get a better rate strictly because you’re a first-time homebuyer and just a small portion of $20, $30, $40 a month in mortgage insurance, and you’re able to buy the home. In addition to that, they give you higher debt-to-income limits because they’re really trying to get more younger people into buying homes, and that seems to help.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, makes total sense. Now, when it comes to that end of things, if they qualify, they haven’t had a home in those three years and so on, realistically, when they’re looking at budgets and so on, A, what kind of credit score do they need? B, how much down payment money should they be trying to save up?
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, I would try to save up, the minimum would be 3%. There are some first-time home buyer programs out there where you can borrow a large portion of the down payment and only have to bring $1,000 or $2,000 to the table.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 17 :
But the loan will normally go quicker with a better rate if you bring at least 3%. Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right.
SPEAKER 17 :
So in other words… And when you’re looking, you’re just trying to figure out, does that fit into my budget? Well, it may fit into your budget, but you’re not comfortable with it. And that’s a good thing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 17 :
You might qualify for more home, but buy something that fits your budget that doesn’t make you house poor, as we call it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Makes total sense. All right. Haystack Help Radio, tomorrow, noon to 1. What are you covering tomorrow?
SPEAKER 17 :
We’re actually going to be taking this farther in depth. Talks about different non-occupying co-buyers that can help first-time homebuyers, how a first-time homebuyer can buy a duplex home. We’re going to show you all kinds of ways of doing other things than buying a home.
SPEAKER 03 :
Kurt, as always, I appreciate you joining us. And for those of you listening, 720-895-0500. That’s how you get a hold of Kurt directly. And, Kurt, enjoy the great weather tonight. Thanks, John. All right, man, appreciate you very much. That’s Affordable Interest Mortgage, again, 720-895-0500.
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All right, Golden Eagle Financial is up next. And what I will tell you is Al can help you devise a plan if you don’t have one, review your plan if you do, make whatever adjustments are necessary. That’s Golden Eagle Financial. Talk to Al today. Find him at klzradio.com.
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This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560. And we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Alan Hibbert joining us now. Alan, welcome. You’re a money specialist at goldsilver.com. Welcome, sir.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thank you, John. I appreciate the time.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. Gold is literally at an all-time high. Never seen it high this high in my entire life. Talk to us a little bit about precious metals and how that can work for some people.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, so we’re over $3,100 an ounce in gold, and this is pretty remarkable. If you remember February of last year, just about 13 months ago, gold had dipped below $2,000 an ounce. So it was in the 1900s, and now we’re over $3,100. This is pretty amazing. It’s up over 50%. from just about 13 months ago. So yeah, gold is really just the way to protect your purchasing power. So if you’re concerned about inflation, the rising cost of living, groceries, or anything like that, gold is the tried and tested way of protecting your purchasing power. It’s worked for thousands of years. It’s working right now. It’s beautiful.
SPEAKER 03 :
When I was a kid buying class rings, this will date myself, of course, Alan, we all thought it was high at 300 an ounce.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, well, it’s 10x now.
SPEAKER 03 :
Add a zero to that now.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly. As long as we keep printing dollars, there’s no limit to how high the price of gold can go.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that was going to be my next question. You kind of took the words out of my mouth. I mean, I think for a lot of people, they’re always asking, you know, where is that top end when it comes to, you know, gold, silver, some of the precious metals that are out there? Of course, you know, what is the top? And what you just said is there is none.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, exactly. So gold might be infinite in the universe, but it’s pretty scarce in terms of what humans are able to get their hands on. It takes a lot of energy to dig new gold out of the earth. But when it comes to U.S. dollars, we can just click a button and print a billion of them, click another button, print a trillion of them. And so if you look at the exchange rate between the two, which is really the price of gold, it can go to infinity, you know, because dollars can go to infinity. So there’s really no top for the price of gold or really the price of any asset as long as we keep printing those dollars.
SPEAKER 03 :
Talk to me, and this is something that, again, I’m kind of a novice at, know a little bit about it, but I’ve not really studied it much, and I don’t have a lot of money invested in, and that is crypto. And does crypto have any negative effect upon gold, or does it help it?
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s a great question. And the first thing that I would say is that it’s important to distinguish between Bitcoin and everything else. I think Bitcoin is a unique cryptocurrency. All the other cryptos I would stay away from unless you’re a super expert at the particular niche cryptocurrency. that that crypto is focused on. Most people are not.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you know what? It’s funny that you said that because I tend to agree with you. And even for me personally, Bitcoin, as you know, it can be very – it isn’t can be. It is very volatile. A lot of things that happen in the marketplace, unlike gold, can affect crypto greatly. And I think it’s one of those things where you need to be in that one for the long haul.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, exactly. So if you’re, if you’re a retiree, you can probably safely ignore Bitcoin. It’s not worth it. You know, don’t worry about it. If you’re a younger guy like me, I’m in my mid thirties, I’m very interested in Bitcoin. I’ve spent 10 years learning about it. And so I am absolutely interested in holding Bitcoin for 10, 20, 30, 40 years. Um, so you really have to pay attention to the longterm and you have to do a lot of research or to figure out what it is and how to hold that investment properly. So there’s a learning curve there with Bitcoin. With gold, I think it’s a little bit easier, gold and silver. I think it’s more intuitive for people. You can hold it in your hand. It’s easier to understand what it is. So it probably makes sense to get started with gold and silver while you continue to learn about Bitcoin. That’s what I would say for most people.
SPEAKER 03 :
Do you recommend buying physical gold, or how should people own that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, generally speaking, the reason that you want to own physical gold or silver is because there’s a crisis in leadership in the world. You’re basically saying that the leaders of various countries or companies or currencies, they’re not doing a good job. There’s a lot of uncertainty. You don’t know which way they’re going to move. You don’t know what rules they’re going to implement or if they’re going to be able to execute effectively on those rules. And so as a result of all that uncertainty, you go to something like gold or silver because it is so certain. You know what it is. In the case of gold, it’s atomic number 79. It’s not going to change. There’s no leader who has to enforce the properties of gold. It’s something that can happen in a decentralized fashion. So that’s the appeal. But it only works if you hold it in your own hands. So if you have someone else custody or hold that gold or silver for you or if you buy it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now you’re reliant on them, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, then you rely on them. And if they default on their promise, then you haven’t really achieved anything. So you’ve got to take physical. That’s kind of the bread and butter.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, meaning that you need to be a little bit savvy. You’ve got to have a place to store it. If you’re going to hold it physically, is it going to be safe? I mean, the more value is in it and then the higher it goes up, the more you need to make sure it’s protected. And to your point, it doesn’t take much for it to continue to go up, meaning that that investment needs to be very well protected, correct?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, that’s all true. And so for getting started for smaller amounts of gold and silver, you probably can store it at your house. One ounce of gold is over $3,000. So if you think of something the size of your cell phone, that’s maybe five ounces. So that’s like $15,000 worth of gold. So you could kind of scale up from there. You might be able to store all your gold in a shoebox, for example. But again… After a certain dollar amount or a certain quantity, you might think about diversifying in different geographic locations. Maybe you have a friend or a relative who can store some of your metal for you. That way it’s not all in the same place. And professional storage is an option. But again, you have that risk, that potential risk of a custodian who has to keep track of it for you.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, now, when it comes to a lot of the things that you just said a moment ago, you know, the storage of, the buying of, and so on, I think this is where it gets a little confusing for folks. Maybe they would like to go ahead and buy, you know, an ounce or two or three or whatever, like you said, even a cell phone size 15 grand worth. Where do they go to buy that?
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you can buy online. It’s as easy as buying something on Amazon, right? It’s a couple clicks. You just have to make sure you go to a reputable dealer. So, of course, I’m biased towards my own company, GoldSilver.com. Very easy to remember, GoldSilver.com. But there are many sites out there. You just want to make sure that they have good reviews, that they’re not a scam. Do a little bit of research and don’t be enticed by… A lot of ridiculously low prices that are below the spot price. That’s probably going to be a scam. Unfortunately, the way the market works is you’re going to have to pay spot price plus a little bit of a premium. Don’t be surprised by that. If anyone’s trying to entice you with a ridiculously low price. they’re scamming you somehow. So make sure you go to a reputable dealer.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. Is there any value in buying a coin over just buying a bar, that sort of a thing? Does it matter one way or the other, or does it make any difference?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, generally speaking, it’s not a huge difference. It does boil down to personal preference. However, if you’re buying a bar, you might get a little bit more bang for your buck. So if Bars tend to have a higher purity and a lower premium over spot. Now, that doesn’t necessarily make them better, but if you are going to hold for a long time and you don’t have any other particular uses with them, then, yeah, a bar is probably a slightly better bang for your buck. However, there could be some tax advantages to getting coins depending on where you live and what jurisdiction. So, for example, American Eagle gold coins have favorable tax treatment in the United States.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hmm.
SPEAKER 05 :
But generally speaking, it’s not a huge difference between coins and bars.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay. You know what? You just told me something I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody say before on the tax sides of things. Actually, all of you listening, that’s something that I would definitely check out on the front side as well because here’s another question I have. How – I mean – Do they really, IRS-wise, do they really have the ability to track how much you paid versus how much you sold, or is this a lot like cash?
SPEAKER 05 :
I’m not totally sure. And personally, I’m not trying to play the game where I can dodge taxes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 05 :
I agree. Man, it’s just not worth it.
SPEAKER 03 :
I get it.
SPEAKER 05 :
I don’t know what the IRS has, but all of these companies… Because stocks, things like that, there’s ways of reporting and so on.
SPEAKER 03 :
But owning physical gold that you would buy, let’s say, for example, maybe you bought it… 10 years ago, I mean, the reality is, Alan, I mean, if you bought that 10 years ago and you sell it 10 years from now and there’s a 20-year time frame, I mean, no offense, I highly doubt they’re going to know exactly what you paid versus what you sold it for.
SPEAKER 05 :
I see your point. I do not disagree with you at all. I definitely see your point. And I’m not sure what the IRS is doing.
SPEAKER 03 :
And I’m not telling anybody to dodge taxes or anything along those lines either, Alan. I’m just saying that, you know, how is this any different than, no offense, a guy that owns an old car that you bought for $500 and all of a sudden today, because of other things and values and so on, it’s worth $100,000. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. Those things can happen. And that guy goes and sells it. I mean, the reality is they don’t know anything.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. And it’s just like, you know, cash tips.
SPEAKER 03 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 05 :
A lot of workers don’t declare those. I mean, everyone just makes their own decisions. So I think you’re right. It is probably hard for the IRS to keep track of what everyone is doing all the time. But I believe there is a rule for American eagles. I think you can sell up to 10 of them per year. So at current prices, that would be, you know, 30 grand worth of sales per year. and I believe there might not be capital gains tax on that. Don’t quote me on that. Everyone’s got to look into that because I’m not a lawyer. I’m not an advisor.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I’m not either. Really quick, we are not giving tax advice. We’re just talking out loud. You and I are spitballing. For all of you listening, this is not advice on what to go do or not do. We don’t have any idea. We’re literally just throwing some ideas out there, and you’ve got to go do your own research.
SPEAKER 05 :
Exactly, exactly.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, a question I have for you as well, because this is another one I think I hear occasionally. Is there ever a time not to get into precious metals, gold and silver? In other words, there’s folks saying, well, it’s $3,100 today, it could be $2,100 next week. Well, I’m not much of a financial guru, I’ll just tell you that right now, because I don’t know what the future holds, but I can almost tell you on that one, it ain’t going to happen.
SPEAKER 05 :
yeah i agree with you and it’s a great question there are definitely times you don’t want to buy gold and i would i would reference 1980 right that was the last high gold throughout the 1970s went up by a factor of 25. a factor of 25 went from 35 an ounce to 873 in the 1970s then from 1980 to 2000 it dropped by 70 percent so a brutal 20-year bear market Well, now we’re in a bull market and eventually we’re going to hit a top, but I don’t think we’re anywhere close because if you look at the long term ratio between stocks and gold, right, the Dow gold ratio, for example, we’re still at elevated levels, which means gold is still underpriced. It has a lot of room to increase in price relative to stocks for probably the next four to five years at least. So I think gold is still a fantastic buy for the next little bit until Get this, until the Dow gold ratio hits about one. So back in 1980, the Dow was at 873 points and the price of gold was $873. They were the same. So every 30 to 40 years, they have the exact same quantity, right? Number of points, number of dollars. If you look now, the Dow’s up in the 40,000s. Gold is only $3,000, so imagine those being the same price. So either gold has to go up to $40,000 to restore that ratio, or the Dow has to come down, or they have to meet somewhere in the middle. So even though gold is at all-time highs, it’s still underpriced relative to where we expect it to go.
SPEAKER 03 :
In reality, and this is my opinion on this, Alan, until they get the spending under control, which I realize this administration is working on, but they’ve got a long way to go. Until the spending gets under control and the printing press stops, you’re not going to see gold drop. That’s my opinion.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, I completely agree. And it’s much easier to make a mess than to clean it up. So I am also optimistic for the current administration. But just the basic realities of economics is things are going to get worse in the next 12 months or so before they get better. You know, all the tariffs, Doge, all these other things, they’re all inflationary. And there’s going to be a lot of printing. Even if they do make slight cuts to the budget, it might not be enough. quickly enough. We’ll see. It takes a long time to reorganize all these resources, people and dollars, effectively. It takes a long time. So I think inflation is going to get worse before it gets better.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. GoldSilver.com, Alan Hibbert. Alan, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate it. I’ve learned a lot. Thank you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, thank you, John. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re very welcome. Have a great rest of your day. Geno’s Auto Service coming up next. One thing, by the way, you need to take into consideration and stay on top of is your car. They’re not going to get any cheaper either. I can assure you of that. You’re not going to see new car prices dropping. If anything, they’re going to go up, so are used car prices. So keep your car lasting as long as possible. Go to Geno’s today and make that happen. Geno’sautoservice.com. Geno’s starts with a J.
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SPEAKER 09 :
The best export we have is Common Sense. You’re listening to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. All right, I’m going to play something, and I can’t play all of this because there’s some language in it that I did not have time for Charlie to get cut out, and I know where the language is. But I’m going to play enough of this where you’ll get the gist of what’s going on. And this is an interview that Jon Stewart, who’s a lefty, by the way. Last time I checked, he was, right, Charlie? He’s a pretty hardcore lefty. Did an interview talking about expanded broadband, $42 billion allocated towards this, and I want you to hear what he has to say. And again, I did my best to double-check this, and if there’s a bad word, we’ll dump it and keep going, but I think I’m good up until a certain point, but I’m going to go ahead and get started. Here we go.
SPEAKER 06 :
days. That’s step one. Step two, which all 56 state applicants completed, is states who want to participate must submit a letter of intent. After they do that, they can submit a request for up to $5 million in planning grants. Then the NTIA, step four, has to review and approve and award, again, planning grants, not broadband grants. planning grants and it’s still at the nti it’s still at the first step all right so the nti a must issue nofo within 180 days states who want to participate must submit their letter of intent uh step three they can request up to five million dollars in planning grants just planning Just planning. Step four, the requests are reviewed, approved, and awarded by the NDIA, which currently all 56, you know, three years later, all 56 applicants had passed through at least step five. It took at least it took more than three years. So it’s a long time. States must submit a five year action plan. The states kind of go back and they kind of think about how they’re going to do this. And they don’t just say, OK, you know, thank you for the money. We’re going to spend it and you can see how it worked out later. We’re like, here’s our five year action plan. Then the FCC must publish the broadband document. data maps before NTIA allocates funds. So having done the NOFO, the letters of intent, the request for planning grants, then the review, approval and awarding of the planning grants, then the five year action plans. In between that, the federal government has to put forward a map saying where it thinks we need rural broadband subsidies. And then, of course, the states need an opportunity to challenge the map for accuracy.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, I’ll stop it there because if I play much longer, some bad words come out, which, by the way, I can’t fault Jon Stewart for having a bad word there, knowing all of the rigmarole that you just heard that has to happen to get broadband, which, by the way, could have been an easy, easy, maybe two-step process. through Starlink, give them the contract to provide this, make there an application process, which, by the way, I could have made, based upon where you live, what kind of access do you actually have to broadband, And I can tell you firsthand that depending upon where you live, you might only have a couple of choices, and some of those might be other satellite-driven services, which, by the way, are worthless. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. HughesNet, Viasat, they both stink. Some of you that have had experience with those know exactly what I’m talking about. They suck. There may not be any other options. And by the way, this is really easy for anybody out there to double-check to determine whether this particular applicant is actually being honest with what they’re putting down on the paper or not. I can look it up from my desk anywhere that I’ve got internet connection from and determine whether that person has any other options or not. It’s really not that difficult. You literally could make this a two-step application process by those that are in the rural areas to determine should they have any kind of… quote unquote, subsidy. which is debatable. I’m not even talking about that. I’m just talking about the existing earmarked money. How do we get this out to folks and actually make it happen? Because keep in mind, not one single household yet has been hooked up. That’s the whole point of this interview that Jon Stewart did. Not one single house, three, almost four years later now, not one single household in rural America has been hooked up to broadband. Not one. And yet, we have Starlink that becomes very easy to hook up to. In fact, in a lot of cases, it doesn’t cost any more money than what they would be spending for other broadband in their area. Again, I could have devised a plan on how to do this in a matter of hours. I could have even devised the form that needs filled out in a matter of hours. And I am not… I am not boasting in that. This isn’t that complicated. If you know a little bit about the IT world, which there’s plenty of people that do, unfortunately most of them don’t work in government, but you go find those people, Elon Musk and others, and determine, okay, what’s the application process need to look like? oh, by the way, we’re not going to give you this for free. We’ll give it to you at half off. And so every one of these, Mr. Musk, that you guys at Starlink sign up, instead of you getting your full, whatever it is, $129 fee, you’re going to get half of that from the customer, half of that from Uncle Sam. Done. Done. Meaning that that person could have broadband via Starlink for a matter of, I don’t know, $65, $70 a month, which they’re going to pay anyways no matter what. No, it shouldn’t be free. And case closed. Done. Move on. $42 billion of UNI’s tax dollars, which is the tax time of the year. You’re all going to be, you know, not all of you, but some of you will be sending checks in in roughly 15 days. I’m one of those. I pay, yes, and some of you would ask why. Because if you allow the government to send you money back, you’re letting them use your money all year long interest-free. Why would you do that? That’s me. And I know some would say, well, but I want money back. Okay, so you want a savings account that’s non-interest-bearing that Uncle Sam is already wasting. You want them to give you that back at the end of the year. Why not just figure out to where you owe a teeny bit, save that little bit up, and pay that at the end of every year instead of getting money back? That’s my motto. Lots of ways to figure that, which you and your accountant or whoever does your taxes can sit down and figure out. But yeah, I’m not one that believes in getting money back. That’s probably a conversation in and of itself for one whole segment that I can do at a later date. I don’t tell people how to do things. I don’t want to get into your personal business as to how you do taxes, but I’ve never understood why you would want to get money back. I pay. Some would say, well, I don’t want to pay. So budget. Figure that out. Put a little bit of money aside into an account you don’t touch. You know you have to pay taxes out of that at the end of every year, whatever the situation. And some people pay a big check. Some people pay a little check. It just depends on how much money you made that last year. It depends on what kind of deductions and all sorts of other things that were going on. Point being, it’s that time of the year where people think about this more than they regularly do. And I, for one, when I write that check out, all I think about is, you know what? I would be better off turning these into $1 bills, standing next to a bonfire where I can throw a bill in at a time and at least enjoy the warmth from it because otherwise I’m not getting a single thing out of this. Yes, I live in a free country. Yes, I have infrastructure. But the reality is that money is literally being burned away just like I would be doing it myself. And I’m not exaggerating when I say that. I just gave you case in point. $42 billion for broadband rural access, not one home hooked up, and that’s a part of the reason why. Goes back to proving my point. The federal government is inefficient at literally every single thing it does. Charlie asked, who’s charged with making all of that happen? You know what? That came out of the Biden infrastructure bill. So, yeah. Oh, Kamala Harris. That’s right. Kamala was in charge of the broadband. That’s right. Thank you, Charlie. Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about that. Yes, Kamala was in charge of all of this. Thank you, Charlie. You can already tell what a disaster that’s been. Now, there’s been other people that have been involved in this from the FCC and others and so on, and you heard some of that on there. And, you know, the states can submit and then they can challenge the map and this, that, and the other. I mean, what a load of garbage. You don’t even need all that. You don’t need all that. You literally could just say, okay, here’s a form. The requirements are you only have one option. Maybe two, to get broadband service to your home. And by the way, broadband would be considered X. You need a certain amount of up and down load speeds to be able to even qualify for this. I can tell you that the house I had in Granby, for example, it had two choices. There was nothing via cable or wire or anything that you could get for any kind of high-speed access. The only choice I had was HughesNet or Viasat. That was it. It was the only two choices. So that’s an easy address to look up and say, okay, this person has no other choice, but one of those two things, they qualify for Starlink with whatever subsidy we want to give them. Done. Easy. Done. Believe it or not, my house in Golden, up until a year ago, I had one choice. Minus the satellite companies. I had one choice. And it sucked. I won’t say the name on air because I’m not going to do that. But I had one choice, and it was awful. I should have qualified for some sort of a whatever to be able to get high speed, which I was even looking at the satellite end of things with Elon at that time, and I did qualify through him because I only had one other provider. As it turned out, another provider came in. I’ve got high speed now. It works great. I saved money. But I went for a very, very long time spending far more money than I needed to for broadband because I, in Golden, Colorado, had no other choice. And some of you are going to think, geez, that’s in the city. Yeah, that’s the problem. There are places literally even inside of cities that have very slow Internet access. It’s ridiculous in this day and age. By the way, blame that on some of the cities. They’re the ones that are at fault for this. They and their lack of planning are at fault for that. And yet, federally, you and I as taxpayers are picking up the tab for improper planning from a lot of these seats. Now, I get it. The person out in Timbuktu, there’s no lines, there’s no nothing. Okay, I get that. That’s not any kind of a county or city’s fault. It’s not a city anyways. It would all be county. No, that’s not the county’s fault. That’s an exception. And I get there’s some of those around. But I also know that there are areas whereby a… 20-acre site gets developed out into one-acre homes, and it’s far enough away from the quote-unquote internet grid that they don’t have high speed either. And frankly, I think that should be part of the development agreement that if you’re going to develop these lots out, you’ve got to figure out how to get broadband into these people. We’re not going to put this on any kind of a federal subsidy thing. You’re going to figure this out, Mr. Developer, Mrs. Developer. You’ve got a neighborhood that’s X distance away. You figure this out. We should be making them do that. There shouldn’t be any federal program to help out a developer. Even as much as I typically am on the side of a developer, that is not the proper role of the federal government at all. At all. So again, just a little clip to play as to how badly our federal government can screw things up and take your tax dollars in mind and literally, literally burn them away. And I’m not exaggerating when I say burn them away, because I just gave you an example of what they’re doing with my money and yours. Flesh law is next. 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SPEAKER 09 :
This isn’t Rage Radio. This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right. I had a few questions, by the way, coming in asking, okay, wait a minute. We’ve never heard a situation where, you know, the city or the county or whatever has an impact upon who’s now servicing your home when it comes to Internet, TV, things along those lines. Well, let me tell you how that works. Typically, this has been years ago. Most of these contracts have most likely now ended, although I think there are still a few of these still out there floating around. And I was one of those individuals up until, like I said, about a year ago. And let me explain. When there’s expansion and or when the Internet first started to expand and broadband became a thing, it could have been done a couple of different ways. which, again, is still copper, but two different forms of delivering it to your home. So a lot of cities put out requests for proposals with different companies that would come in and provide said service to their community. So in my particular case, it was a company that had agreed evidently to provide XYZ service to this portion of town. And oh, by the way, the only way we’re going to agree to come in and put that infrastructure in is we want an exclusive contract for X amount of time. So until that time goes away, no other company can come in and get the approvals necessary from the city to lay the groundwork to put in the other high-speed options that are now out there. So believe me, government has a lot to do with what goes on in some of these things I’m talking about, not necessarily in quote-unquote rural America, but it can definitely happen in cities, towns, and so on because of what I just said. And if you’re a victim of that, you’re at a point where… You really don’t have much choice when it’s all said and done as to who you can use for Internet access. Jim, go ahead. Hello. Hello, Jim. Yeah. You there? Yes, I am. Go ahead, Jim.
SPEAKER 10 :
Hey, just real quick, I wanted to touch again on the precious metals deal and a little bit more information for you if you’ve got a minute. Sure, go ahead. Yeah, so… Most dealers are required, if you go in and let’s say you need to sell something, let’s say you need to sell something, you need to do repairs on your house or something like that. Right. You’re required to fill out a 1099 if it’s over $10,000. Gotcha. The caveat to that, one of the caveats to that is if you buy pre-1933 gold coins, so $20 gold coin, $5 gold coin, stuff like that,
SPEAKER 03 :
Those are exempt because they’re considered a collector’s item and you sold a collector’s item, basically.
SPEAKER 10 :
That’s right. Ah, gotcha.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, makes sense. I did not know that. Thank you. I didn’t know that, Jim.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, there’s actually a lot of dealers that don’t know that, but that’s a law. That’s a U.S. law. One of the dealers I buy from can recite the code for that, but I don’t have it off of me right now. Okay. So that’s one thing. So I like to… Try and do pre-33 if possible. But there’s bars, there’s coins, there’s eagles, stuff like that. No problem. I see. Also, another thing to bear in mind if people want to do a little exercise. If you Google the average price of a home in 1965 is around $20,000. Okay. And gold was $35 an ounce then. So ounces to buy that house… would be 571 ounces okay today national average is 425 000 but in denver it’s over 500 000 right right 425 000 divided by 3100 an ounce is 137 ounces so 571 ounces to buy a house in 65 1965 only 137 ounces today. Yeah, okay. That’s where it protects your purchasing power. Pretty good return on investment. Yeah. And really, gold’s not a great investment. It’s purchasing power.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s a hedge against inflation is what it is, right, Jim?
SPEAKER 10 :
Exactly what it is. Also, in the early 1900s, J.P. Morgan was in front of Congress, and he testified. They were asking him questions and said, AP Morgan said the only true money is gold. Everything else is fiat. And it’s been money for 4,000 years. So, you know, it’s not going anywhere. It’s going to help your purchasing power. It can go up and down. But since year 2000, it’s outperformed the S&P 500.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, I think he alluded to that, that other than that little dip we had in the 80s or so there, it’s performed very well since.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right, right. And just dollar-cost average into it. Just buy some. You can buy smaller amounts. You can buy one-tenth ounce coins or grams. You get five-gram bars, 500 bucks. Yeah, good idea. Just dollar-cost average and buy some silver here and there, and that’s your wealth protection. And it’s hedged against all that stuff.
SPEAKER 03 :
Makes sense. Makes sense. And again, yeah, and all you listening, that’s Jim’s advice. Don’t listen to me. I’m not giving out any kind of financial advice whatsoever, nor can I. So you guys do whatever you think you need to do.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, absolutely. Don’t have all your eggs in one basket.
SPEAKER 03 :
Diversify. Absolutely, Jim.
SPEAKER 10 :
Precious metals. You know, have your investments. Have a little real estate. Just try to diversify as much as you can, and when things go south, you’ll be okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
You should be fine. I agree. Jim, I appreciate that. Thank you very much. No, thank you. Back to broadband really quick again. I hope I explained that well enough because, again, I think some people get confused at times as to, well, how could you end up even in a metro area outskirts of, you know, how could you end up with only one provider? Well, I just gave you the reason for that. And what cities should have done back then was to have said, hey, you know what? Instead of us being locked into one person, they get cheap, cities get cheap. Instead of us being locked into one person or one company, I should say, for all of our broadband, we will help offset some of the cost of doing so. and we’re going to shorten up that contract, or we’re going to allow competition, or, or, or, or. Or the other thing, by the way, I don’t think they do well enough, is let’s get several bids and see who else will come to the table and make this work at the end of the day. And by the way, cheapest bid isn’t always the best bid. So anyway, that’s it. That’s a whole other conversation on how cities, by the way, I think are very mismanaged at times, and this is where city managers get involved and so on, which I have an utter disdain for. You all know my thoughts on city managers. I haven’t talked about that for quite some time. If you are one, I’m sorry. I just don’t believe your job should exist. I think city councils should do their job. What they’re hired to do and city managers shouldn’t exist because most of the time what happens is city councils, you know, put their duties off onto city managers and he or she becomes a scapegoat all the time. And instead of doing what they’re supposed to do, they make the city manager do it. and it still ends up costing all the taxpayers of that city and that community a lot more money than it needs to because they pay these guys an outlandish amount of money to do what city council should be doing in the first place. And my thought is if you don’t have the time, ability, energy, or wherewithal to do your job on city council, then don’t run. I know that’s a hard-line stance, but that’s how I look at it, and city managers should be outlawed. They shouldn’t be allowed. Cities should run on their own. City managers should not exist. That’s another conversation for another day. All right. By the way, I got this comment a moment ago. Loveland, Fort Collins, and Longmont have their own Internet service that is owned by the cities. Again, that’s another thing. Not the proper role of government. Not the proper role of government. They shouldn’t. They shouldn’t. Now, maybe it works. If it does, great, but they shouldn’t. That is not the proper role of government. By the way, I’m against cities being utilities. In those cases, some of those own their own utility as well. They shouldn’t. They shouldn’t. Not the proper role of government at all. That’s another conversation probably for another day. All right. I got another text message that came in and said, what are my thoughts? And I don’t usually name names, but I will in this case because of what happened over the weekend. What are my thoughts on? The Imers, who is a family that is very well known on the far right of the equation here in Colorado. And I’ve helped some of them, mom and son, in the past, you know, radio interviews and things along those lines. And they started their own PAC program. Political Action Committee, I don’t know, sometime last year, I want to say. And it’s come to my knowledge, I didn’t know this, but it’s come to my knowledge through a text message today, that they are telling everybody, do not donate to the Colorado GOP in the future because of the change that was just made this last Saturday. Donate to our PAC instead. Weston? Laurel, which are the two names, you guys should be ashamed of yourself. That’s not how this works. That’s not building unity. That is not getting on the same team. That’s just wrong. I’ll call you out on it. You’re completely wrong. You are doing what the Marxists do, by the way, and I’ll call you out on it. It’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re no different than the left when you do things like that. You’re undermining what needs to be happening when it comes to letting the process work its way out, which it did. Yes, I’ve been calling for days removal for two plus years. I don’t run the party. I’m not integral like you are. The reality is Dave was still a schmuck and he still is. I’ll go to the grave saying that. And by the way, you two are acting the same way now. And I’ll call you out on it. I don’t normally do that publicly, but you two are behaving badly, shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing. Shame on you for saying that and asking that. And those of you that brought that to my attention, thank you for doing so, because no, that is not the way things should be working. And Weston and Laurel, you both should be ashamed of yourself for doing what you’re doing. And your pack, by the way, should be shut down. Veteran Windows and Doors is up next. 35% off three windows or under, or 40% off if you do four windows or more with free labor. Find Veteran Windows and Doors today at klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 09 :
Suck it up, buttercup. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, Andy and I will be back tomorrow. Again, we’re going to interview Britta Horn, who is now the new Colorado GOP chair. We’ll find out from her what her plans are moving down the road and get an update on the party itself and have other conversation as well. But guys, have a great night. Thanks so much for calling in and talking to me today via the text line and all of that. I appreciate it very much. Have a great evening. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
