Beyond the economic realm, John Rush takes listeners into the geopolitical landscape involving the tensions between Iran and Israel. With careful analysis, he explains the strategic maneuvers of Donald Trump in handling these international issues, showcasing the intricacies of negotiation and the ever-present risk of military escalation. Join John as he offers practical advice on maintaining situational awareness in uncertain times while engaging in a discussion on the intersection of politics and music, highlighting the challenges businesses face when navigating political landscapes.
SPEAKER 09 :
This is Rush to Reason. You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you pegged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes. With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 02 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did! Get a job, Turk! You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 04 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 15 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 16 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by Cub Creek Heating and Air Conditioning.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, Hour 3, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Thanks for listening. Scott Garlis will be joining us here at 530. Before then, though, Donald Trump said this before the Fed made their announcement today. Jerome Powell, who, again, I said this last hour, do I always agree with Donald Trump? No, there’s some things he does and says that, you know, I’m not always a fan of. But for the most part, I am. And this was a quote from him today, talking about Jerome Powell. We have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed, Trump said. He probably won’t cut today, which he didn’t, by the way. That’s my words, not his. Europe had 10 cuts, and we had none. I guess he’s a political guy. I don’t know. He’s a political guy who’s not a smart person, but he’s costing the country a fortune. You know what? That is one area where I will agree with Donald Trump 1,000%. Jerome Powell’s an idiot. I’ve said it before. I said it all the way back, by the way, in 2021 when he kept calling inflation transitory, and it wasn’t. He was late to raise rates, then costing the country a fortune, by the way, at that point in time. And he’s done it again because now he’s costing people in reverse. It’s costing us a fortune to pay the debt, which, by the way, he was on board in helping create all the way back when. Let’s not forget that. So do I consider Jerome Powell a smart guy? Some of you listening do because you’ve texted me on this periodically. I don’t. I think Jerome Powell’s an idiot. I think Jerome Powell looks at one thing and one thing only. It is Wall Street. He doesn’t look at Main Street. He doesn’t care anything about small businesses. He doesn’t care anything about medium-sized businesses. He doesn’t care anything about the American worker, the American population itself. He does not care because, by the way, if he did, he would have already made two or three rate cuts by now. He hasn’t. He won’t. And right now, it’s literally a contest between he and Donald Trump. It shouldn’t be. He’s using all of us as pawns in this, by the way. We are the receivers of his little game that he is playing with Donald Trump. And I have no respect for Jerome Powell whatsoever. Zilch. I haven’t for a long time, by the way. He’s one of those people. Amy Comey Barrett’s another, but he is one that I really wish Donald Trump would have never, ever put on the list and appointed to be in charge of the Fed. I’m just being straight up honest. Jerome Powell has done nothing, in my opinion, to help this country move forward. There’s been a lot of other things that have worked behind the scenes to help the country, financially speaking. Jerome Powell’s not one of them. So I know some of you are a fan of his. I’m not. Not at all. because he’s not helping the country move forward economically speaking. And he could be right now. He could be in Trump’s camp really helping to open things up when it comes to the economy. But he frankly, he just refuses to. And you heard Bob Duco even talking a moment ago about some of the things that are happening in regards to the economy and where we’re at and where inflation’s at and what really is happening and where the numbers are and so on. And Jerome Powell is literally oblivious to all of that. I mean, he has to be. He has to just plain be either he’s oblivious or he’s just dead set on he is not going to make any changes while Trump is president. It’s one of the two. I don’t know what. I’m not in Jerome Powell’s circle, so I can’t answer what his thought process is. But it’s got to be that it doesn’t really matter what any of the numbers say. It doesn’t matter that I’ve been wrong all along on what I think the economy is doing. And at the end of the day, I’m just going to do what I’m going to do because I’m going to poke Donald Trump in the eye. That’s all Jerome Powell is doing right now. It has nothing to do with the reality of the economy and the situation. It really comes down to, I’m going to make sure that I poke Donald Trump in the eye when this is all said and done. That’s all Jerome Powell is doing right now. Because as I said a moment ago, he is not helping anyone, including those of you that are listening. Now, I guess if some of you are listening and have a lot of money and savings accounts and so on, and you like high interest rates, maybe he’s helping you in that way. But he’s not helping the economy, which ultimately doesn’t help you. So at the end of the day, it’s not a help. So this is one where I will agree with Donald Trump. He is a stupid person. And I will agree with Donald Trump in that. And some of you say, well, you really shouldn’t call someone stupid. Well, he is. You know, let’s let’s get rid of that nonsense as well. You know, words are words are words. Words matter. And at times you need to call somebody what they are. And he’s not smart. He’s stupid. He’s just not playing this correctly. So we’ll get Scott’s opinion on that, of course, at 5.30. But, you know, going back to the Iran-Israel end of things, and right now, currently, as we speak, we, as a country, are bulking up our forces. We had one destroyer there. I believe there’s now going to be three destroyers parked out in the Mediterranean. So we are showing some force. I do think that whatever Donald Trump does, there will be no boots on the ground. I think I can almost assure any of you of that. I would be shocked if there’s actually any armed forces that end up on the ground in Iran. But do I predict we drop the big bunker buster? I’m sorry to say, folks, yes, I do. Yes, I do. I think we drop. And the reason I say that is I don’t think we have a choice. Trump wants a deal. He is a dealmaker. He wants Iran to come to the table with a deal. He’ll broker that deal between the other countries that are there, Israel being the main, us included, and he would broker a deal. But when you can’t get Iran to actually come to the table to get a deal done, what are you going to do? Basically, your hand is being forced. And I do think this. I do think Donald Trump is being very, very careful and calculated in all of this. I think he’s even making some things public. In other words, leaking some things out like, yeah, this has all been approved and I’m ready to drop the hammer, but I’m not. And I think what he’s showing the rest of the world is restraint because he easily could have done this by now. So I think what he’s really doing is he’s playing all the cards that he’s got. He knows we can make one phone call right now and have this over. I think that’s ultimately what’s going to happen. But I do think the delay is that he’s showing the world that, yes, we are in control. Yes, I could have already made this phone call, but I haven’t. I am giving all of the parties that be as much time and ability as there is to really get this deal done at the end of the day. And I’m giving everybody ample time and ample ability to make this happen. But at the end of the day, I’m not going to allow Iran to have nuclear weapons, and I will stop them from doing so. And if Israel can’t get it done, we will. That, to me, is what Donald Trump is saying in the message that he’s sending to the rest of the world. And trust me, folks, when I say this, there’s other phone calls and things that go on behind the scenes to make sure that if he were to proceed and we were to drop the big bunker buster, two of them most likely, on that particular facility, he’s already got his backside covered with a lot of the other world leaders saying, listen, you know what? If this happens, here’s why. Not saying it’s going to, but if it happens, here’s why. So trust me, a lot of those phone calls, you know, the Marco Rubios of the world and so on, they’re already working on a lot of those things as we speak right now to make sure that as much as possible we can avoid any collateral damage if, in fact, we decide to pull the trigger. That’s my thought. Again, I’m not an expert in this by any means. I’ve told you guys that before. Some of you out there listening are probably a bigger expert on this than I am. But I am afraid that it’s getting to the point where Donald Trump is not going to have any choice. And Iran is making it so that there’s no choice because what can I say? They’re knuckleheads. They’re absolute knuckleheads. They don’t realize, you know, this is where, what’s that old saying in Scripture, pride comes before a fall? This is it. Before destruction. Yeah, pride comes before destruction. They’re thinking that they’ve got the upper hand. They don’t, folks. That’s how prideful they are. They think they have the upper hand. You know, there are threats to even us as Americans that, you know, the last thing we would want to do would be to attack because, you know, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We wouldn’t like the outcome. What a bunch of malarkey. I mean, they really believe that? So here’s my point with everybody. I’ll talk a little bit more about this on Friday on Ready Radio as far as being prepared and so on. I mean, yeah, right now, given everything happening in the world, walk around with your head on a swivel. I’m not saying don’t go to sporting events and gatherings and things like that. I would never say that because I would never tell anybody to disrupt their lives over fear. But just pay attention to what’s going on. If you’re in the supermarket, if you’re walking out of a supermarket, if you’re walking into the shopping mall, out of the shopping mall, if you’re going to any of the larger events that we may have even over this next couple of weeks, Independence Day and so on, yeah, pay attention to what’s going on, which we should be doing all the time anyways, by the way. You should be always looking at what’s going on. You know, is that situational awareness around you? Church services, things like that. Really pay attention to what’s going on around you. Who’s coming and going? Is there somebody that doesn’t just look right? It looks out of place. Or you’re at the movies and something doesn’t look right. I mean, whatever it is, you could just be out to dinner. You could be walking down the street. Pay attention to what’s going on around you. And if something doesn’t look right, then say so. So many people, and I’m not joking, so many people walk around in a daze and have no idea what’s going on around them. Right now, we really haven’t been able to do that for quite some time, but especially right now, can’t do that. Pay attention. Watch what’s going on. I’m not trying to instill fear in anybody, but I do think we’re at a time where you really need to be paying attention to what’s going on around you. Flesh Law coming up next. We’re going to have Kevin joining us tomorrow, by the way, at 4 o’clock. We’ll have him in about an hour and a half. And we’re going to talk through some things regarding what do you do in a traffic stop? What can and can’t you do? What should you and shouldn’t you do? I’m even going to get into some of the sovereign citizen garbage that’s out there that we’ll talk about as well. And we’ll talk about also what happens if authorities come and knock on your home door. We’ll get into that with Kevin tomorrow. In the meantime, Kevin’s number, 303-806-8886.
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, Dr. Scott Faulkner, where if you want something medically speaking, he is your guy. He is a full-bore doctor. On top of that, though, he looks at things differently than big pharma and big medical do because he’s got the ability to do things that they honestly can’t and won’t do. 303-663-6990.
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SPEAKER 06 :
This is Rush to Reason on KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, a couple of you texted in, too, by the way, and said, man, yeah, the situational awareness thing. You can almost walk around anywhere you want to go and just see how clueless a lot of people are in regards to how they’re acting, what they’re doing, and so on. And again, I’m not trying to tell anybody to run around in fear. I would never do that myself. But you know… Walk with a purpose. Pay attention to what’s going on around you. Those of you that are men, I mean, I do my very, very, very best. Rarely do I ever sit with my back to a door. I want to see the door and what’s going on in case somebody comes in that just doesn’t look right. Those are the things that I’m talking about. All right. Speaking of knuckleheads, though, and maybe this is a band that I should know, but I don’t. So there’s a rock band, Frontman. That is declaring Trump voters not be allowed at his shows. Red jumpsuit apparatus. The singer claims that woke predictions about Trump have come true while slamming the president’s Christian supporters. So the lead singer of the alternative rock band, the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, who I’ve never heard of in my entire life. Have you heard of them, Charlie? Do you know these? Charlie knows who these are. Okay. Told supporters of President Donald Trump that they are permanently banned from his shows this past Saturday. Frontman Ronnie Winter made a declaration in a video posted to the band’s official Instagram page saying, if you voted for Donald Trump, do not come to my shows forever, not just these four years. He specifically attacked Christian Trump supporters, stating, if you’re Christian and you voted for Donald Trump, shame on you. You’re not allowed to come to my shows. I don’t want you there. Don’t come to my shows. By the way, what a moron. Just saying, what a moron. This is a guy that I guess feels like you guys’ money and mine as well doesn’t matter, and because you have a different political belief than he does, that I guess you’re not allowed to come to his shows. Now, I don’t know who this person is. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard any of their music, probably won’t ever hear any of their music, and at this point don’t want to hear any of their music because this guy’s a total nutjob. What a wackadoodle. I mean, literally, what a wackadoodle. By the way, what a really solid way to ruin your music career. A lot of people like this think that, oh, yeah, if I make this statement, I’ll have that many more fans coming to see me. Ask Bruce Springsteen how that’s working out for him, by the way, and others that are like this. Typically doesn’t end well. Now, if you’re a guy like Springsteen that’s made all that money over all those years, yeah, you can pretty much say whatever you want to and probably be okay at the end of the day because he piled enough money away that he’ll probably be fine. But this guy isn’t. I don’t know what this particular individual’s net worth is or what his income level is. Frankly, don’t care because he’s a total nut job. And, you know, I don’t know who he is. I won’t go to any of his concerts. I don’t even know who he is and don’t care. But I’m guessing now there’s probably a lot of. of, you know, quote-unquote Christians that may have gone—and I don’t know what kind of music this guy even plays, alternative rock. I don’t know that I even know, Charlie, what that necessarily means. So I’m way out there when it comes to some of that, because I don’t know that I really would understand what that means. I’m guessing it’s the kind of rock I’m not used to, since it’s alternative rock, because it’s not the kind of rock and roll that I grew up on, probably. So at any rate— And I always get that question, too. What kind of music do I like? People text me that. All. All except for probably alternative rock. I’m not a big classical guy. I mean, I’ll listen to some of it, but it puts me to sleep. I mean, if there’s something you want to make you go to sleep at night, just turn on classical. It’s like boring. Fall asleep with that stuff. And then… You know, and some of you may take offense to this. I’m sorry. I’m not a huge jazz guy. Some jazz is okay. Some’s not. I mean, I can tolerate it, but it’s not my ultimate favorite. But I’ll listen to pretty much anything else. You name it, I’ll listen to it. I’m not a big rap guy, actually. That’s probably another one that I’m not a huge on. But some isn’t bad. It just depends on what it is. But I’m one of those guys where it’s kind of like food. If it’s on, I’ll probably listen in and I’m okay. I’m kind of weird as far as that goes. Food, same way. You lay it out there, I’m going to eat it. But yeah, this particular band member… And I’m guessing that it wouldn’t be on the band’s website if the whole band itself didn’t feel the same way. And again, this is a band that I know—I’m going to Google them right now because I literally know nothing about these individuals. Looks like there are five members of the band. Again, they were formed in— in middleburg florida in 2003 there’s five members of the band and i’m sure if i played any of the music i would know i would not know any of it and i i again i don’t know the type of music they play don’t know of them all i know is this came out as headline news here over the last couple of days and you know andy and i talk about this a lot this is an individual that evidently knows nothing about marketing And is really, I guess, really big on himself because I guess he feels like he can make some sort of a stand along these lines and he’ll still have plenty of customers and it really doesn’t matter at the end of the day. Not what I would recommend him to do if I was his coach, by the way. Not what I would recommend. Now, as a business coach, do I always tell people stand on your principles and your values and so on? Absolutely. Absolutely. But to publicly come out and say, you know, because you don’t believe the way I do and you don’t look at things the way I do, you’re not allowed to be a customer. That’s really stupid, by the way. If you’re a business that does that, you don’t deserve to stay in business. If you’re going to alienate people just because they have a different political view than you, that’s really dumb. And I’ll give you some examples of that. When I had my stores, you know, I had two automotive stores for a long, long time, three decades or so, and I’ve been in the automotive industry my entire life. And I will tell you, in Boulder, Colorado, where one of my stores were located, you can probably imagine a lot of the customers that I had. Now, I had a lot of conservative customers because, believe it or not, there’s always conservatives in every area, even in the most liberal of places like Boulder, Colorado. On the same token— I had a lot of liberal customers as well. I had some I had literally, you know, customers that were probably from every walk of life, rich, poor, lots of trust funds, by the way, that were up in that area. A lot of gay and lesbian couples that would come in. I mean, you name it. I had it all. And by the way, I treated every one of them with the same respect I did the last customer because I wanted their money. I wanted to take care of their car. I didn’t care. Honestly, I didn’t care if they were lesbians. I didn’t care if they were gay. Their money spent just like anybody else’s did. In fact, in a lot of cases, their money spent better because they had more of it. I didn’t care. I’d wait on them all day long. Not a problem. Is that me? No. Do they have the same belief system I have? No. Is there a lot of things we would disagree upon? Absolutely. Did we ever talk about it? No, because it’s not the appropriate time or place to do so. I wanted to fix their car and collect their money for doing so. It was as simple as that. And I had all sorts of other people, all, you know, every, again, from professors at CU to you name it. I mean, I had all sorts of individuals that would come in my place, high level executives that were in charge of things like storage tech and level three and IBM and so on, all the way down to folks that, you know, maybe the kid was just 15 years of age and he was trying to build something. So when he turned 16, he’d have a really nice vehicle to drive. I had everything in between. And I never turned anybody away. because of their political belief system, even though they might have had whatever bumper sticker on the back of the car. Didn’t bother, didn’t matter to me. I’d still take care of them, wait on them, and take their money at the end of the day. That’s what you do in business. This guy here is an absolute dodo head. He’s as dumb as Jerome Powell. Maybe dumber, because he has no idea what his market is like, and here’s my hope for him. I don’t normally say this, but here’s my hope for him, that he loses a gob of money. I hope his shows diminish in the amount of people that show up, and he has to, at some point in time, realize that, oh boy, that was really stupid on my part. I do hope that happens, because that’s what he deserves. Anybody that would come out and come against Trump supporters and Christians and so on and say the stupid things that he is saying, honestly, doesn’t deserve to have any following whatsoever. And here’s the other thing. If this were a Christian band… And their lead singer had come out and said, you know what, if you are a Biden supporter or if you’re anybody that didn’t vote for Trump, you are not welcome at my concert. You know what I would be saying? The exact same thing. I’d be telling them the same thing. You don’t know your market. You don’t know who you’re trying to reach. You’re being really dumb in your decisions. You shouldn’t say that. And I wish you the best, but it’s not going to turn out well for you because you just turned out a large portion of people that would be coming to see you. I’d be saying the exact same thing, folks. Just because these folks are on the other side of the aisle, evidently, doesn’t matter to me. If this were a Christian rock band and they had done exactly the same thing, only in reverse, I would be saying the exact same thing. How stupid can you be? totally the wrong way to do business. So, all right, I’ll leave it at that. Scott’s going to join us here in a few minutes. We’ll talk about what the Fed meeting today and some other things that are going on out there and what you can do to protect against some of these things and hedge in the right direction. Roof Savers of Colorado coming up next. And again, Don’t call the insurance company before calling Dave Hart. And the reason for that is you may even just call your agent thinking, oh, it’s not a big deal. I’m just going to get some advice from my agent. Well, depending upon who your agent is, that agent might actually say, yeah, you know, Charlie called in and said that he might have some storm damage, and they’ll take a little note of that, and that goes into the system, and you don’t want that. You want to avoid all of that. So call Dave first before you do anything else. 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 12 :
All right, to recap, Charlie sent me something that said the red jumpsuit apparatus is actually considered a Christian ban, so even more disappointing. I’ll talk more about that maybe next week. We’ll see how it goes. Somebody also asked, am I concerned that Iran would retaliate against the U.S. in a nuclear way if, in fact, we did some of the things that I mentioned earlier? And no, I don’t, because right now that’s the whole point. They don’t have that capability, no matter what some other folks out there may say. They don’t have that capability. Now, you know, China and Russia and some others do. But, you know, no offense, China is not dumb enough to do that. Even Russia is not dumb enough to do that. That’s just not going to happen. So reality is this would have to come from Iran. And no, I don’t worry about that happening, coming from them in any way, shape or form. So Scott Garlis joining us now. Scott, how are you, sir? Hey, John, I’m well. How are you today? Disappointed, although I don’t know why, because, you know, even Donald Trump said it himself today. Jerome Powell is an utter moron.
SPEAKER 13 :
Certainly feels like it.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, again, I’m using Trump’s words, and actually, let me say this. His exact words were, we have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed, Trump said. He probably won’t cut today, which he didn’t. Europe had 10 cuts, and we’ve had none. I guess he is a political guy. I don’t know. He’s a political guy who’s not a smart person. And you know what? I can’t disagree with Donald Trump on that one at all.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I would certainly categorize him as stubborn.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah, right now it’s becoming a political, sorry for my language, but it’s a political pissing contest right now between Donald Trump and Jerome Powell. Jerome Powell is not going to give up. Although I will say this, Scott, Jerome Powell is not being very smart in this because as time goes by and as the history books get written, this is not going to bode well for him because as time goes by and inflation doesn’t take off, which it’s not, if it was going to, it already would have. It isn’t. There’s so many things out there even showing that we’ve seen some decline in some prices from the cost of certain goods. The reality is it’s just not there, and yet the Fed isn’t making any moves to help really the average American out at the end of the day.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I mean, he was asked this question by a number of people. So there’s a big sort of tone change during this press conference today. There’s a statement change where Powell said, well, we’re trying to be really forward-looking with our policy, and ever since, I don’t know, late 21, early 22, they’ve been nothing but data dependent. And all of a sudden, they’ve gone away from this, wait a second, for three years you told us you’re data dependent, data dependent, and now we’re changing gears. And it threw a bunch of people off in the meeting today, and they started asking questions, and he was really evasive on his answers. And it just, I mean, there’s a lot of numbers. So I know oil has shot up recently, but if we go look at the EIA, the average price for a gallon of gasoline so far in June for the first three weeks, it’s down 9% year-over-year. Right. That’s a big deal in terms of inflation. And then we look at home prices. The I think it’s the listing price per square foot through May, according to Realtor.com. It’s like sub 0.5% growth. We haven’t seen that since the Fed was in the rate hike cycle back in 22, 23. And then we listened to somebody like Lenar, a big home builder that builds a lot of new homes. They just reported this week, and they said prices are down 6% on houses. Right. That’s a big deal.
SPEAKER 12 :
It is. That’s a big part of it. It is a big deal. And these are the things that I just, you know, and I said it, I know why Jerome Powell is doing what he’s doing. I think he’s sorely mistaken in that. He’s, again, costing a lot of people, Americans and businesses and so on, the economy itself. He’s costing it a ton of money. And at the end of the day, this, I think, is what’s so frustrating to Americans. folks like me, Scott, is, you know, the guy just doesn’t care. I mean, he’s got this snub sort of attitude that, you know, I can sit in my ivory glass tower and it really doesn’t matter at the end of the day. I’m going to be fine and all the rest of you paupers won’t be. He just doesn’t care.
SPEAKER 13 :
He made this comment at one point that businesses aren’t complaining to us about the level of interest rates. And I’m like, really?
SPEAKER 12 :
Yeah. Where is he at? I mean, who is he talking to, Scott? I have no idea.
SPEAKER 13 :
It’s another interesting statement, though. He’s like, well, we’ve been seeing these surveys that are telling us that inflation expectations are going up. And, you know, the New York Fed, it’s a really important inflation expectation gauge. They just put one out last week. And based on their numbers, their inflation expectations are they picked up briefly and now they’ve come back down. And the longer term ones have gone below where they were. They’ve actually kept dropping. It’s so… It’s crazy. Yeah, it’s just sort of some of the answers don’t sort of fit with the data narrative. No, they don’t. No, they don’t fit.
SPEAKER 12 :
And even, you know, talking about the oil side of things, I started watching things as things were developing between Iran and Israel last Friday. I started watching prices. They went from, you know, kind of a $66 to $68 a barrel price. They went, I think, at one point all the way to $78. They dropped back down to like $72. They’re at $75 now. They’re fluctuating, and I think some of that, Scott, is natural. You’re going to see some of that with some of the unknowns, although you’ve already had, you know, even some places like, you know, Saudi Arabia and others say, you know, we’ve got, you know, roughly, and this is pretty well known, right now Iran is pushing out about 1.8 million barrels a day. China buys 90% of that, meaning they’ve got the most at stake here of anybody. But at the end of the day, you know, those Gulf states over there, if you would, they are those Gulf countries, I should say, have already said, you know what, we can up production by just turning the spigot up by about 3 million barrels a day. So reality, Scott, is… You know, it doesn’t really matter what happens to Iran. None of their fields, by the way, have been targeted. Probably won’t be because at the end of the day, folks know we need those for other things. I mean, do we? Don’t we? I don’t know. That’s another another topic, given the fact that we can supplement that other ways. But nobody wants to just go burn oil fields to burn oil fields. So Israel hasn’t done that. We’re not going to do that, of course. So at the end of the day, I don’t think you’re going to see much drop in production. It’s more of what happens with the regime and what happens in regards to the nuclear deal and so on. And, you know, do we go in there and bunker bust Iran? that facility? I mean, those are questions that nobody has the answers to. But at the end of the day, Scott, oil itself is still going to move around the world. And really, as I said a moment ago, the only buddy that really has a lot to lose here is China.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah. So the speculation, the prices in the Strait of Hormuz is a really narrow pathway to get the oil out of the Gulf. And so it borders Iran. So people are worried that the Iranian gunboats, helicopters, they’re going to board ships and try to attack them. I think Iran’s got a lot more things to worry about.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right now, they’re just trying to protect their own. They’re losing helicopters and planes and things strategically on literally an hour-by-hour basis right now, Scott. So, yeah, at the end of the day, they’ve got a lot more things to worry about than that.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes, yes. But even Powell said he’s like, look, if we go back and look at a lot of the past instances where we’ve seen things like this, they tend to be very short-lived in terms of the price spike. So you can’t really… His point being is that you can’t really make any future policy decisions based off a short-term jump in oil prices, because it probably won’t last long. And I would tend to agree with him. From all the stuff I’ve seen in the 30 years I’ve been watching markets, it’s just, yeah, that’s a short-lived scenario. But back to your point before, Saudi Arabia and the other OPEC countries are already saying they’re going to up oil production anyway. So, I just don’t feel like I heard a lot of forward-looking thought from the Fed chairman today. It was really disappointing that somebody is saying they’re doing that. And I get it. Look, they’re worried these prices are going to materialize. But… To what you were just saying, they haven’t yet. I don’t think they’re going to.
SPEAKER 12 :
You and I have talked about this numerous times here on our program, and the reality is I just don’t think it’s going to happen. I mean, you’re already seeing some of the trade deals continue to get developed. No, they’re not all done. It’s going to take a while to get them all done. But at the end of the day, it’s really not going to have – and this is finally, I think, even what Americans are starting to realize – You can talk about all this tariff stuff you want to, but at the end of the day, I’m still paying less, you know, to go home and do what I need to do than I was prior. Who cares?
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, and then you get, you know, if Trump and Besson have been talking about extending the tariff pause for another 90 days beyond July 9th, you know, then you’re in October. And that’s… That’s a long time to keep rates where they are. Again, it does feel like things are getting more and more painful by the day. If that continues to be the case, think about the economic damage that could be done in three months’ time. My worry, I think we talked about this last time, would be if you really start to see housing prices roll over, what does that do for asset values? What does that do for bank loans? It could have a cascading effect. So, you know, we’ve talked about this in the past. Like, what’s the harm that’s going to be done by cutting interest rates by 25 basis?
SPEAKER 12 :
Zero. I mean, thank you for saying that, Scott, because I guess that’s ultimately how I look at this with Jerome Powell himself. It’s like, OK, wait a minute, timeout. You know, you could even go as far as to say, Scott, a half a point. at the end of the day, is really not going to do a lot. And as far as the Fed is concerned, if all of a sudden, you know, let’s play this scenario out, you lower them a half a point, let’s just say, okay, you know what, we can see some things, but we’re still going to be a little bit careful, we’re going to be cautious, we’re going to go and drop a half a point. And part of that’s because we know we’re probably a little bit behind, we can admit that we’re a on rate cuts we’ve watched what’s going on around the rest of the world and so on and we’re a tad behind but we’ve got plenty of room and here’s the thing if we start if we all of a sudden start to see you know huge increases in inflation and so on you know what we may take that half a point away and add it right back in but for now we’re going to go ahead and take that half a point we’re going to lower it and just see how things go you could have easily done that today
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, you could have easily done that and say, hey, you know, we’ll do 25 in June, 25 in July, just kind of gradual.
SPEAKER 12 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, it’s still, you know, let’s bring down those high credit card costs for people a little bit. Let’s bring down borrowing costs in the home a little bit. Yeah, it would do a lot of economic good, and it really does feel like so. I’ve got a 12-year-old son, and I’m going through a lot of this, and it reminds me of being a kid, right? But he has these moments with me where he says, Dad, you’re telling me to do stuff, and it makes me not want to do it. I’m like, okay. So I get it, but that’s sort of what it feels like. And Trump isn’t telling Powell to cut rates. He’s saying you should be cutting rates. But it sort of feels like this to me, where Powell’s being like my 12-year-old kid. He’s being childish.
SPEAKER 12 :
I’m just not going to do it.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, I’m not going to do it because he says you’re not going to tell me what to do. And it’s disappointing because, to your point earlier, this affects a lot of people all over the country.
SPEAKER 12 :
It does. And whether people – you know, I said this earlier, Scott, before you came on. I know there’s some folks out there that may have a lot of money they’ve tucked away. They’re now living on – you know, savings if you would. And so the higher rates they enjoy and that’s all great. But what I reminded even them of is that’s all fine and dandy, but the reality is everybody else around you and all of the other businesses that you are involved with, by the way, they’re getting hurt by this. And if the entire economy doesn’t do well, I don’t care how well your little interest rate is on your, whatever, you know, whatever your fund is that you have at the end of the day, it still doesn’t bode well.
SPEAKER 13 :
Well, I’ll, I’ll throw it. I’ll take it a step further. Um, There are a lot of retirees that talk to people and asset managers, and they’re seeing some of the retirees experience some of these problems where, you know, because interest rates have been so low for so long since the financial crisis that they own a bunch of bonds that are paying like a couple percent. And what Powell’s doing right now is it’s really damaging to them because if they were to sell those to get into a higher-yielding bond, they’ll have to take a big loss.
SPEAKER 1 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
Otherwise, they’re stuck not taking a loss, but they’re getting a really low yield.
SPEAKER 12 :
Very low rate, right.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah. So still hurting them. Yeah, it’s still hurting them.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, so really quick, so explain to me and everybody else, if those came down to like a halfway point to where they’re not taking as big of a loss, but they could still up their yield, they would is what you’re saying. Am I hearing that correctly? Yeah.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yes, yes. It would be less painful to do so. And so take that even another step further. Think about what that means for the balance sheets of all these banks. Like all these guys like to say, oh my God, Bank of America is going under because they own all these 1%, 2% bonds on their balance sheets. And yeah, obviously if you sold them in market or you took them out to market, it’d be a problem, but they can afford not to, right? Because they hold them with the Fed and they can ride them out. But You know, you’re killing those guys because you’re damaging lending capacity to the economy because that’s money they can’t use to lend out. And so you’re hurting economic demand. spending lots of things right there as well. Go ahead. Sorry? No, go ahead, Scott. Not to mention, let’s not even get into the government interest payment part.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, yeah, okay, yeah, that’s a whole other conversation. What I was going to say is, given everything even that you’ve just said, we’ve got housing that could be doing a lot better than it is. We’ve got some jobless claims that are actually rising. Some larger companies have even talked about even doing some cutbacks and so on. But even with all of that, Scott, All in all, the economy not in that bad of shape, meaning, this is where I’m going with this, meaning that if you could get the Fed, and Trump has said this, if you could just get the Fed to get a little bit of a jump start, you know, quarter point here, quarter point there, ultimately get a point out of this deal, the economy would explode overnight, literally.
SPEAKER 13 :
It feels like that, and certainly, too, like, I use AI more and more. Me too. I just find it’s the things I’m able to do with it are pretty incredible. That’s right. When I write things, think out things, it cleans it up, and it compacts it. It makes it shorter, easier to read sometimes, for lack of a better term. That’s right. But it creates operating efficiencies. And again, I’ll go back to what the Internet did for business and And that’s coming. And whether people want to admit it or not, and yes, some people may lose work, but they’re going to change and there’ll be new industries. But right now, you know, Powell didn’t really talk about this, but I keep seeing all this data and these numbers. I’ve been reading articles in the Wall Street Journal about this. College grads can’t find jobs.
SPEAKER 12 :
Right. Right. So really quick, what you’re saying, and I think I know where you’re headed is, the reality is if you get the economy booming again and there’s a lot of other job growth, maybe not in that particular area that that person’s in right now, but they could shift to something else where there is some explosive growth, that gives them that opportunity to do so. Right now, we’re not doing that because the Fed hasn’t given that ability to unleash the – where we’re at in regards to what the Fed hasn’t done. But just think what it would be like, I guess I should say, Scott, if they would release it. And then, of course, everything else explodes and some of what we’re talking about would be fixed because these people could go and find a job somewhere else.
SPEAKER 13 :
Exactly. You’re sort of hurting ingenuity and growth from pushing new boundaries because you can borrow cheaper and people are more willing to take risks. Yes, that’s exactly right.
SPEAKER 12 :
Yep. And given the fact that the Fed is holding that back, again, this really is affecting everyday Americans because they’re not going to have that ability.
SPEAKER 13 :
And so along those lines, if you can be in Europe and borrow money and do those same things in Europe because it’s cheaper, it hurts. It makes the U.S. less competitive.
SPEAKER 12 :
Good point.
SPEAKER 13 :
Because companies are usually involved in technological change and growth. It takes them years to become profitable, so they have to borrow heavily.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay, so again, dumb question. Why is or is the Fed just ignoring some of what you and I are talking about?
SPEAKER 13 :
I wish I knew the answer to that, but it is possible. Look, all he kept saying was, well, the unemployment rate’s really low, and it’s 4.2%. So you look at 4.5% is considered an economy with full employment. And you think, well, it’s really low, it’s really low, it’s really low. I’m like, okay, you know what? You’re right. It is really low. But if you keep saying here, it’s not going to be really low for long. It’s going to pick up. Okay.
SPEAKER 12 :
Well, and I think the other thing that he’s not looking at, which I also do and I know you do as well, is, yeah, it’s really low by the numbers coming out of government, but we also know there’s a certain amount of people, depending upon their situation at home. In other words, if they’ve got the ability to live in mom’s basement and not really have a job and still get Medicaid to help them out on the insurance sides of things for health care, and, and, and, and, and, the reality is they are people that could be working but aren’t, but yet they don’t get factored in anywhere.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, that’s how they drop out of the numbers, right.
SPEAKER 12 :
That’s right. They’re gone. They are no longer in those numbers, which, again, if they are in that mode long enough, they’re not there. And, again, I just at times, Scott, wonder, does the Fed really look at these things the way even you and I do? And I’m not college educated. I mean, come on, this isn’t that complicated.
SPEAKER 13 :
Agreed. It’s just, again, the concern becomes like, you know, how many times did we hear inflation was transitory, inflation was transitory, inflation was transitory? And now it’s like, well, you’ve got to give us a little more time. We’ve got to wait and see what next month brings.
SPEAKER 12 :
We’ve got to wait and see what next month brings. I mean, we’ve been hearing that now, Scott, for a year.
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, yeah. And so there was – he did not have a good answer for this. One of the reporters asked him, said, you know, last time you cut rates – You guys knew that all these tariffs were coming, and inflation was a lot higher, and you still cut rates. And now you have inflation lower. You got more clarity on tariffs, but you won’t cut rates. You just kind of, yeah, it wasn’t a great meeting. But all that said, the Fed did say they still plan to cut interest rates twice this year, despite raising their inflation expectation from 2.7% to 3%. And we’ve averaged 2.3% to the first five months of this year.
SPEAKER 12 :
Okay. Well, I guess we’ll see how it goes. Scott, how do folks find you?
SPEAKER 13 :
Yeah, sure. Twitter, LinkedIn, or Substack, see Scott Garlis.
SPEAKER 12 :
Always a joy, man. Appreciate it very much. John, thanks so much for your time. You bet. Have a great night. And Scott Garlis again, and he just gave you how you can find him. Great guy, by the way. I get along with Scott very well, as you guys all know. We’ve been talking to him for a very long time now. Golden Eagle Financial, if you want to do some investing and you want some advice on it and how to do it locally and you don’t have that ability to do things on your own, give Golden Eagle Financial a call today. Al Smith, find him by going to klzradio.com.
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SPEAKER 14 :
This isn’t Rage Radio. This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 12 :
All right, we are back and closing out. And Charlie and I were just talking through the break that, yeah, I believe that, you know, Jerome Powell really just has this vendetta against Trump. He’s not going to allow him to have any kind of a win any way, shape or form. It’s why he’s doing what he’s doing. We had a similar issue with him all the way back during COVID when it came to raising rates to try to slow inflation down because he was so late to do so. I am one where I’m not usually for inflation. you know, firing people like Jerome Powell at the Fed by the president. But I will tell you what, if I were Donald Trump, come July next month, if there’s not a rate decrease by the end of next month, I would be canning Jerome Powell and I would be replacing him. So I would not be putting up with this. I know that’s not, you know, essentially the way it is supposed to work. It can happen in extreme circumstances. And I tell you what, we’re getting, in my opinion, to that very precipice of it being an extreme situation because the economy is literally at the edge of being able to explode. And the only person, one person, singly is holding it back. That is Jerome Powell. So we’ll talk more tomorrow. Guys, have a great night. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
