The Zach Foust Show
We break down housing, growing wealth gaps, and the economy in a simple, meaningful way.
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The Zach Foust Show
Would GEN Z survive the 2010 economy? | ZFS 87
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The government says cumulative inflation since 2010 is 52.72%. I think that number is a lie and I have the receipts.
I spent time building out what I am calling the Real Inflation Tracker. I took real items that real 25 to 34 year olds buy every single week and I looked at what they cost in 2010 versus what they cost today. A McDonald's meal that was $5.29 in 2010 is now $16.79. That is not 52%. That is over 200%. A pack of bacon, ground beef, dish soap, car insurance, health insurance, rent on a one bedroom apartment, a college education, a new construction home. Every single one of them has gone up more than 100%. Most of them more than double the official number.
I also walk through what has gone up the least since 2010. Video games, smart TVs, streaming devices, hotel rooms, cell phone plans, Bud Light. Nothing you actually need. Just the things that keep you distracted and comfortable enough not to notice what is happening to everything else.
I break down Kevin Warsh's statement on price stability versus persistently high prices and why those two things are not the same sentence. I walk through the Dodge versus Ford 1919 court case that legally locked corporations into choosing shareholders over workers and why repealing it would do more for American wages than any tariff ever could. And I close with five things that would actually fix this system if anyone in Washington had the spine to do them.
They are lying about the economy on purpose. I am going to keep building the data to prove it.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OAbihkG-bQ70pCUPknM1Gzw-IpR1iPqcEZXnAubdNfM/edit?gid=0#gid=0
How do you make me laugh before every pod starts? It's so out of context. Welcome in to a beautiful day with a beautiful harvest of beautiful cucumbers. Can I show you real quick one thing I'm really proud of? One thing I'm really grateful for, Sean. Sean and I went to the garden this morning before our pod began. I wanted a little pre-roll. And look at this. I mean, look at this. This isn't just a two-handed cucumber. This this might be a three-hander, bro. This might be a three hander. Sean, can you come over here real quick? Can you can you come out from behind the desk? Can you fit your hand in the middle of this real quick? Um okay. Alright, and I this is a rare moment. Sean has never done this. I also can't see anything on the screen, but we'll get that taken care of. Sean, can you put your hand on that? Can you get in there? Oh my goodness. That is a three-hander. That is our first three-hander out of the garden. That's crazy, brother. If I wanted to just take a bite out of this, I couldn't like no, I'm not gonna do that. I couldn't actually physically take a full bite out of this.
SPEAKER_03I feel violated.
SPEAKER_01Ah, dude. It's a cucumber. The harvest is plentiful. We're eating like two a day between cutting them up for water with some lemon. Love cucumber lemon water. Great antioxidants, good stuff for you. Um, I hear lime water is actually calorie negative. Calorie negative? Is that true? I've heard it's true. I don't know science. Today we're going through the economy and what it felt like in 2010 versus today. Is it more or less affordable? Are you crazy? Are you lazy? Are you just somebody who's not working hard enough? Are you listening to the to the social media spheres and hearing the fears and hearing the talks about how everything is more expensive? Is that hoopla? Is that hoopla? You remember who you remember that that Spongebob Eppers everything hoopla hoopla hoopla hoopla? Yeah. Spongebob has a special file in my brain of one-liners.
SPEAKER_02It's is it hoopla?
SPEAKER_01Or are you the hoopla? Are you complaining? Are you joining in the complaining? Are you pointing out a problem that isn't really there? Because when you look at inflation, the Federal Reserve would say inflation is only and I quote, if you listen to the Federal Reserve, our central bank, the one who tracks inflation, known as the CPI index, the consumer price index, that they generate from a Bureau of Labor Statistics. And they, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the BLS, get it from taking about 20,000 to 30,000 different items and services. They track them, their indexes, the price indexes of those items, and then they put it into an index that's properly weighted based off what you need in your everyday life. It's weighted to ensure the items that mean the most to you are weighted at a higher level than those that don't. Your shelter is more important than pet insurance. Your grocery cart is more important than an airline ticket. So they weight it properly. And of those 20 to 30,000 items that they're weighting and tracking year over year, you know what they'll tell you? Inflation has been? Our Federal Reserve, our central bank will tell you it has been since 2010. It's 52.72%. It's 50. Can we bring that up real quick? Can you just go to a new tab real quick? Just inflation since 2010. Federal Reserve. It's all good. We'll have one more. Well, slow internet day. Here we go. Between 2010 and today, accumulative inflation in the United States is 52.7%, meaning $100 in 2010 has the equivalent purchasing power of about $152.72 today. Sean, how did does that feel about right to you? That $100 in 2010, if I gave you a crisp blue Benny, I gave you a crisp blue bill, and it's 2010. Does that feel like $152 today?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01Not okay, so why?
SPEAKER_03It just doesn't really I mean it'll get you somewhere, just not as far as it used to be.
SPEAKER_01You think?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean I could when I go grocery shopping, I could probably get like I may get a couple more things. Like it it's good. Anything helps. It's definitely not gonna be as good as it was back then.
SPEAKER_01So you're saying that that hundred dollars, like what what amount of money would I have to put in your hand today to give you the same feeling as a 2010 crispy blue Ben?
SPEAKER_03I'd say probably like double, like 200.
SPEAKER_01200.
SPEAKER_03Maybe 250.
SPEAKER_01250. Okay.
SPEAKER_03That would give me that sense of like awesome. But also, like, I don't want to sound like an ungrateful ass. Like, I'm gonna be.
SPEAKER_01And this is where we have the debate. Are you just being hoopla or is this hoopla being spit out to you? But what you're telling me is your feels are yeah, it's higher than the 52.72%. You're talking like 100 to 150%.
SPEAKER_03I uh I think like 200 would probably be good. Just just based off of you know, grocery shopping and and and that sort of thing, like the feel of that.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, we are gonna go through a document today, a document that has pricing from 2010. We have about 248 items on that list that we've been able to successfully track from 2010 to now 2026. They're verified numbers. This sheet is not going to get released to you today, but I promise if you subscribe and keep up with the show, we are gonna be releasing it slowly but surely. Our dollar club members, members of the YouTube channel are gonna get the opportunity to see this data and graphs as we release them in July. Happy July. And the entire thing is gonna be transferred into a website that will be publicly accessible by the end of the summer for everybody, including our Trump tracker, including our inflation index, our affordability index, and our corruption map. Five spheres of corruption from government, Israel, Epstein, tech, and banking, all in one. We're working on a lot of things that we can put in your hand that are sourced, that are trustable, that are non-biased, raw sources that can prove to you or others one way or shape or form that things are probably not as they seem, especially economically.
SPEAKER_04A lot of things are not as they seem, especially economically.
SPEAKER_011877 cars for kids, K A R That's not even the same as I thought it was. You just made a weird face. Have you not hear heard about the Cars for Kids thing? We'll save that for the end. Don't let me don't let me forget that. Don't let me forget the Cars for Kids. Okay. So I just said that the Federal Reserve releases data that says that the cumulative inflation since 2010 to 2026 is 52.72%. Sean says that that $100 back then should actually be closer to $200 to give him the same feeling. And that would be 100% inflation versus the 52% inflation. Based off the 248 items we've tracked so far, do you want to hear what cumulative inflation is across the majority of these goods? Yeah. It's a hundred and twelve percent. So if my math is mathing in my head properly, that would mean we're looking at two hundred and around ten to fifteen dollars. To get the equal feeling economically as that hundred dollars in twenty ten, you would need two hundred and twelve dollars today.
SPEAKER_03So I'm not crazy.
SPEAKER_01So you're not crazy. Exactly. Let's just get that out of the way. All right. Let's just get that out of the way. And I also want to get another thing out of the way. I want to let you know uh my uh educational background as far for as being an economist. I want to let you know my pedigree, and I want to let you know my history and my career in the study of the economy. Uh, first of all, I was kicked out of college, a small college in Delaware, while going after my associate's degree. It was only the second semester. A guy ended up knowing, ended up being the security guard, so that was kind of cool. Uh my pedigree is that I'm a real estate agent in a basement uh who's watched the American Dream get ripped out from everybody slowly but surely since 2022. And then that noticing allowed me to then dig deeper into the history of why things are the way they are. Um, and and the reason you should listen to me really isn't. I'm just another guy with an opinion. Um I'm another white man with a podcast, and we're here to bring you as much truth as we can because I'm frustrated at the lack of truth that makes its way into media. I'm frustrated at the creators that utilize being truthers as an opportunity to grift and grow a community that's more selfish than it is ambitious for those that follow along. And frankly, I want to build a platform large enough that we can one day create long-lasting economic change for both you and our future generations. So if we come together in community and like-mindedness, maybe one day that happens. Oh my gosh, I hit my cucumbers. And that's why we're doing this today, just to be very clear with you. So let's get into the document with no further ado. Can we pull this up? So at the very end, I told you I'm gonna talk about cars for kids. First, we're gonna go through, though, this spreadsheet that we've created. And right after this spreadsheet, I got a graphic for you. I'm looking at my clock. Give me 15 minutes. We're gonna walk through this. A little bit of light commentary, give me 15 minutes, and I'm gonna bring up a graphic for you that if you are between the ages of 25 to 34 years old, you need to see. Not clickbait, you need to see it because it's gonna be something you can screenshot. It's gonna be something you can uh look into yourself, verify, and it's gonna be ammunition for your own cognitive function that you are not lazy, crazy, or dumb. Okay. I lined up all the economic facts and receipts next to each other, did the math. If you made enough money then, you made the same amount of money with inflation now, how much would you be able to actually pay to live the American life? Are you worse off or better off in 2010 or 2026? And the numbers are pretty damning. Well, let's start here in this spreadsheet that I have aptly named 25 to 34 year old. This is our real inflation tracker, where if we can do a light little scroll down, we have tracked about 248 items uh everywhere from electronics, entertainment, financial, food at a restaurant, your garden, food at a grocery store, a lot of food at the grocery store. Look at all that food. Wow, so much food. Holy shit. Health, home improvement. By the way, him saying holy shit really matches his accent. I really hope he says that at some point. Transportation, travel, and utilities. I understand he drops the F-bomb sometimes to, like, you know, make people realize he means business, but sprinkle it in a little bit. I want to see a little sprinkle. What's one cuss word you want Trump to say? Is there a word or even a phrase? That's gonna be a cuss word. It could be a funny word. Shart. Shart. That's perfect.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I want to hear him say that.
SPEAKER_01I about sharded myself when I heard it. Those lazy Democrats. What item do you want to start with, Sean? What item do you want to start with? Pick it pick an item.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Pick an item.
SPEAKER_03Um what about car?
SPEAKER_01Car. Okay, so use car.
SPEAKER_03Let's start with that.
SPEAKER_01Average transaction price. So this is an interesting one you've picked. Reason being is because I'm probably gonna end up color-coding these or separating them uh to let me cat let me tell you why. Because the majority of these are monthly payments or one-time payments and are things that people casually could go to a department store and buy, or need to build a fence, or need to fill their groceries, uh, fill their grocery card. The used car, um, median home sale price, uh, and a and a couple other items in here are not those types of items. They're usually getting financed, right? So this one is one that is one of those larger payments. So it's interesting that we start here and then we'll probably get a couple more that are those one-time payments. So a used car. So the first thing we do in this document, and we do it for every single item. So I won't explain it this in depth every time, but here it is. We take the price via what's known as the web archive or what's known as the Wayback Machine. And we went back to June 1st, 2010 on a majority of items. Some I couldn't get exactly that date. I tried to get exactly that date for a consistent uh inflation number. I couldn't get that exact one for everybody. They had early websites, but the thing about these websites is they're locked in history. I've I can find old PDFs, old newsletters, oh, oh, old sales graphics. I can find their catalog online restaurants, I can find pictures of their menu. I've been able to go through like a treasure trove has been Yelp. People just be taking pictures of menus all the time. McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, IHOP, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebee's. It's everywhere. So we've been able to start to slowly bring all these in. And from that time frame of June 2010 or in or around 2010, I know a couple things to be true. Okay, so if I know the price, the next thing I need to know is how much money does someone have to pay that price? So for 25 to 34 year olds, the median income in 2010, the income then was 34,500 uninflation-related dollars. This has nothing to do with inflation. We are comparing like to like. What did it cost in 2010? What did they have in 2010? So these are real dollars. $34,500 annually was the median income for a 25 to 34-year-old in America. Now that income is $59,228. So a 25 to 34-year-old in 2026 on median, and to be clear, actually, this is end of 2025 data, is $59,228. That is what a 25 to 34-year-old is making in America today on median, not average, because that skews heavily. That skews heavily, and median, that's taking into account high school, bachelor's, associate, master's, doctorates, nepo kids, everything in between. Is what they're making now. $34,500 is what they were making in 2010. So that means monthly. Gross. Back then they were making $2,875. And now in 2026, they're making $4,936.
SPEAKER_00We could stop right there, Sean, and say, why are y'all being so lazy, crazy, and dumb? Look at that increase right there.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00That's almost a $2,100 increase. How can you not pay your bills? It's the subscriptions.
SPEAKER_03Bam, Starbucks. Keep going.
SPEAKER_00What is it? A Vien tea? You get a Vien tea? You keep getting your Vien teas.
SPEAKER_03I say I'm so tired of comedians using that stupid trope of coffees. Like, I swear to God, dude, it's like every comedian has to have a joke about like what is it, eventually macchiato, like a Apache helicopter? Like, shut up. Like, change your joke. I'm tired of hearing that shit. Anyway, sorry.
SPEAKER_01I like how you I like you're such a good friend. Because the way that you just told me that you hated what I just said by diverting it to other comedians is no no no no no. No, no, no, no. No one thinks take it. No one thinks it.
SPEAKER_03No, not you. I'm just saying, like, like these comedians that are making millions of dollars, but like, yeah, maybe I don't know, are making a bunch of money. Like they're up their own stage on Netflix, and it's like, we have to make a coffee joke, like, or like an avocado toast joke or something like that. Yeah, it's like, all right, man, we gotta we gotta move on from that.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's the fact that it's a joke that shows how untrue it is, too, because most people are paying more to make coffee at home than than some of the drinks are nowadays. You know, people are the cost of coffee, the cost of the milk that goes into it, the cost of creamer, sugar, all that's gone up pretty significantly as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so coffee in general is just like a that's a whole corporation that we could talk about one day about how it's systematically whatever. I'm not gonna go.
SPEAKER_02Do other countries love coffee as much as we love coffee?
SPEAKER_03I don't think so. I don't know. I don't know. Because all I hear is tea time. Yeah, I was gonna say, I feel like uh overseas it's more about tea and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01And that's probably vastly different between all the different countries in Europe.
SPEAKER_03But coffee is a band-aid for capitalism.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mexico loves coffee.
SPEAKER_03They have the great coffee. Oh, you're right, they have great coffee. They do. They do. They're pricey.
SPEAKER_01I don't know if your theory goes with that because Mexico coffee. I had um Columbia a Colombian cup of coffee. I might have been a coffee drinker when I was in Miami once. I was like, oh, this is actually really good. Yeah. Yeah. Had good deep flavor, it didn't taste like a bean juice.
SPEAKER_03Like cigars, like Cuban, Cuban cigars, or yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01They just be making some good stuff. No wonder we're trying to take them over. So monthly now, for a 25 to 34-year-old, $4,936. I'm watching the clock. I'm I'm gonna keep my promise. Give me eight more minutes. Monthly then, $2,875. That's a significant difference. But let's look at the cost difference. So if we look at the cost then, the median used car off the lot was $14,000. The median used car off the lot today is $28,500. More than doubled. So, what does that mean for inflation? That means since 2010, it has inflated 103.57%. You hear that? That means that the median used car in America has gone up 103,057% and 103,000, 103.57% over knocked out.
SPEAKER_05It's a million dollars soon.
SPEAKER_01No. The prices increase more almost exactly double. Almost exactly double what the Fed would say the overall inflation rate. Would you see a car as a necessity in most places? Definitely. Very driving country. We're not very walking biking friendly. People say driving's a privilege, and I'm like, it's it's not really the way, especially like a drive. Think Delaware. We're not walkable, we're small, but you gotta go 20 minutes on a highway to get anywhere.
SPEAKER_03You can't do anything without a car.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's a necessity. 100%. And then we went a step further. And again, this is where this is where uh I would go all the way to the right. I would skip the monthlies. We'll get to this and I'll tell you why one's red, one's not. If we look at six right there, we have percentage of then income. So if they were to buy it outright, we can see that someone 25 to 34 years old making the median income in 2010 probably shouldn't buy the car outright, probably shouldn't do that. If they have some savings, that's cool. But if they were to, it would be 40.58% of their yearly income. If they were to do that same exact thing now with today's prices with today's income, it would be closer to 50% at 48.119%. So as we can see, the percentage of income, the share of income has shifted dramatically since 2010. So we don't just have to look at inflation. We can see the inflation numbers dramatic. But one thing this graph also shows us is that if wages were to have kept up, there's really not a problem. Because it comes down to that last bar percentage of income. If the percentage of income remains constant, similar, even improves, high prices aren't a problem.
SPEAKER_02Is that making sense?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I just I I guess I thought it'd be more percent of the income today than then, because that's but that's but again, you picked an i you picked an item that is is a one-time purchase, large item. The other items we're gonna walk through are percent of monthly income, and and the hunt that's a hundred and three percent increase. Yeah, it's a hundred and three percent increase.
SPEAKER_03Right now, 577%.
SPEAKER_01And I gotta tell you, that's like right online with what the median of this graph is. So you're gonna see bigger numbers. You're gonna see bigger numbers. All right, we got five more minutes. Let's pick a few more of these real quick. All right, you go ahead. No, yeah, let's scroll down. Um, let's go to food, let's go to grocery. In fact, I want you to pull, go all the way back to the top real fast. Let's play a game. Scroll out till we can see the red. Perfect. So look to your right for my audio listeners on the right hand side in columns K and L in the future. When you have access to this document, we have percentage of the monthly income. Okay, so for a lot of these one-time items that are not giant purchases like a car, such as a banana or a pound, a bag of sugar or streaming device, the percentage of monthly income then versus the percent of the monthly income now, which is on the right. The right, if it is red, that means it is a larger chunk of monthly income now than it was then. And if the monthly then is red, well, that means that it actually has gotten cheaper to buy said item based off of income and cost. For example, we'll see new cars one of those. Well, that's a good a good indication, actually, that we're on track because new cars have started to come down in price because no one's buying. So that has started to see some pricing pressure. It's good to see that pricing pressure is now superseding what it was in the past. Let's scroll down though. I want you to see the red on the side as we scroll. Let's get to food restaurant. Let's get to grocery. Whoa, look at grocery. Look at the B category. All that light blue, all that's grocery. We got about 50 different grocery items here. Every single one, I believe except the last one. Last four, sorry. Cheddar cheese, bud light, bananas, and a chicken breast are the only items.
SPEAKER_03Or now it's just bananas. Per pound.
SPEAKER_01Chicken breast has gone out. Chicken breast per pound, banana per pound, bud light six pack, twelve ounces. And a pound of cheddar cheese. Those are the only four items that can go in your grocery cart that we are currently tracking. That oh, did I read that wrong? Yeah, it's bananas. Bananas, Bud Light Six Pack, cheddar cheese per pound, and whole milk per gallon. My apologies. So if you enjoy drinking milk, now's the time to rejoice. If you like your milk to taste like butter, even better, because whole milk is cheaper, baby. Um, by the way, I brought up whole milk on the last podcast, caught a lot of slander for it. Whole milk on our Cabin Fever podcast, we brought up raw milk. A lot of people said they love raw milk. Now a lot of people saying they love whole milk. Guys, y'all drinking milk. That's crazy. Like, milk as a whole is just kind of a nutty thing. Only animal that drinks another animal's milk. But regardless, whole milk, like I'll throw some 2% uh fair life into like uh some some mac and cheese, cream it up, you know, or maybe a random bowl of cereal. Because don't give me that almond milk. I'm just not a milk guy. But whole milk is you're on demon mode if you're just drinking that. Every other item that we are tracking, outside of my lovers for whole milk, cheddar cheese, bud light, and bananas, has gone up in price in terms of income. If we look at the price of the item when they were making that amount, $34,500 in 2010, versus today, making nearly $60,000. Nearly every single item has inflated. Let's pick one out. Let's go to let's go to hot dogs. Let's go to actually let's go up to shrimp. Let's go up to shrimp. Shrimp. Let's get some actual good macros in here. Okay, let's go to shrimp. If we go to shrimp, and I have one more minute to keep my promise. Let's scroll all the way over. Monthly then versus now. Okay, cost then six dollars and ninety-nine cents for a pound of shrimp. Today it's $12.99. You're going from $7 to $13. That's an 85.84 increase on shrimp, which brings it from 0.24% of your income to 0.26. But what's interesting is, can you go back to the inflation, the J? Okay. I want you to just scroll around. Do you see a similarity between all these numbers?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's like 80s, mid-80s.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're we're all in these like mid 80s, a little into the 90s, like systematically across the board, all these food items about 30% higher than their given inflation index.
SPEAKER_03It's like all of it.
SPEAKER_01Can I read you guys as we finish this off and go to the next tablet to bring up full screen? Can I read you the items that received the least inflation and the items that received the most? I read this on the last pod. I think it's worth reading again, so I'm gonna do it. The ones with the most inflation, and try to see if you can notice something in this Venn diagram of items. See if you can notice what I noticed when I started writing these out. The items that have the most inflation seem to have a similar thread in common, and those that have the least, for the most part, seem to also share a different common thread. You ready? Most inflation, in order from least to highest, deodorant, a stick of it, a baby stroller, a two by four by eight framing stud, denim jeans, a one-bedroom apartment, a two-bedroom apartment, a three-bedroom apartment, internet services, health insurance, an OBS sh uh piece of OBS sheathing, 7x16 inches, a plywood 4x8 sheet, median housing price for a used home, median housing price for a new construction home, four new tires, a push gas lawnmower, a toilet, ceiling fan, a 24-ounce container of dish soap, a five-pound bag of sugar, coffee, a crunchy taco from Taco Bell, ground beef, and car insurance. If you say the Taco Bell crunchy taco, uh we're gonna have to have a discussion. But do you see any of these items as non-necessities?
SPEAKER_03I think the crunchy taco. Especially car insurance. I mean, what the That's a pretty big one. The hell's up with that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the crunchy taco could maybe move its way out. And even a five-pound bag of sugar if you didn't want to have as much sugar in your diet.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, sugar. Yeah, I can go without it.
SPEAKER_01But if you need but here's the thing about sugar. If you're utilizing sugar out of a five-pound bag of sugar, you're probably making something better off for yourself than if you were buying it. Yeah, like factory bought sugar.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Maybe. I don't know. Let's look at least. Okay? See if you can notice a common thread. One terabyte of external computer memory, whole milk. There it is again. Renter's insurance, Nike Air Max 90s, the average cost of an American funeral, a hotel room from Motel 6, the median cost of a wedding in America, the price of a newly released video game, trip, checked bag fees, a Roku streaming device, a smart TV, and cigarettes and Bud Light.
SPEAKER_02Those are the items that received the least. Do you notice a common thread amongst the items that are of the least affected by inflation?
SPEAKER_01I'm not trying to throw on the full armor of God, my full tinfoil outfit, but uh all those items seem pretty, pretty debilitating, entertaining, bread and circusy, if you will. I don't know. I don't at least someone could get married for a lower cost today than the other, because weddings are expensive. Weddings are expensive. We need to bring those prices down hard.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I do you think weddings are becoming less common than they were before?
SPEAKER_01Maybe just due to economics. Yeah, I think so. I think more people are getting married out of like cool barns instead of churches. Like they're like renting a barn and it's like fit out for them and stuff. And yeah, like that, that's kind of cool. I haven't seen a lot of like the backyard marriages pop up lately. But you know what I think your generation's gonna do more and more of? Just show up to the courthouse, yeah. Yeah, just show up to the courthouse to have a party at the house with the close friends and fam.
SPEAKER_03But like that's yeah, that's that yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like, unless your family said, Yeah, we'll pay for it all. Like, A, I would say, could you just put it in an investment account instead? Or two, if you're paying for it, put it in an investment account instead. Like, it's really expensive, beautiful and awesome, they always are, but really expensive. It's also really expensive to die.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's uh that's an interesting one.
SPEAKER_01But according to this, price is going down. So the cost of beginning your life with your loved one and losing one of your loved ones, prices are on the way down. If you'd like to speed that up, cigarettes and bud light are also on the list. And for uh for my disparaged marriages, don't worry, new video game releases are on the low too.
SPEAKER_05Yes!
SPEAKER_01So that's good. The hotel room you're gonna have to stay at when you get kicked out, you're good to go. Motel 6 has got you covered. And when you lose your house due to the foreclosure because your taxes went up too much, don't worry, renter's insurance is also on the low. So, and you can also just chug some whole milk, you sicko. That's good. Let's get on to this graphic. Guys, uh, we went ahead and took some of the data from the spreadsheet that you saw earlier, and we're able to create this graphic that kind of showcases uh in an easier format for all of us. If you're a visual learner, highly suggest outside of driving, do not do that. Uh, looking at this graphic for a moment, I will also post it below. I fed Claude all of the data, and this is the one thing it did do well. Um, and what it did is take the data that we had already gathered and said, okay, let's scroll down a little bit. If we were to take renting a house, filling a grocery cart, transportation operations, which is your health insurance or your car insurance and your gas, health care, clothing, personal care, household supplies, their phone, a car payment. If we were to take all of these items, okay, if we were to take all these items, scroll up real quick for me. If we were to take all these items and put them together, what happens? We took all these items and we put them together. Um, I will say the monthly deficit has a 300x that needs to be added. So it's actually 340. But what we did is we took the gross monthly income from the last graphic. Go to the last graphic real quick so we can re remind. If we look at uh go over to the left, if we look at income then, okay, then we look at monthly then on the F column. I went ahead and took Social Security and taxes out of it too, because that's pre-taxes. So let's look at post-tax on the graphic. Post Social Security and tax, they're going to be left with $2,284 in 2010. And the after tax income in 2026 would be $3,978. Now, if we took all of the items, and if we scroll all the way to the bottom, I'll read it out to you exactly. If we took all of these items and we applied it to a single adult renter with one car, sourcing our gross index for 25 to 34-year-olds with confirmed pre-tax income, we use the federal standard deduction and the FICA 7.65 and the average 3.2% tax. We get a used car that's defined as a 412 payment then or now versus the 175 then. The tech is a full phone plan with an amortized device and digital services. The student loan for 2026 is the issue that came out for 350 and 284 would have been the average uh back in 2010 for the minimum. The uh higher payments could be anywhere closer to 526. So if you're paying a payment for your student loan that's 526 a month, I'm praying for you. Let's go up to the top real quick. What we'll see is if you were to take all of those items that you would have to pay for back in 2010 with the income that you would have been making on Median, you would have been making $163 extra dollars a month. Okay, it's nothing to freak out about, but you're not dying. You're not in debt, you're not losing money, you're not bleeding. It's not great, but you're not bleeding. And this is also assuming you're still not on the family phone plan. This is also assuming you're paying for a rental property, which if you can live with friends, family, roommates, you're gonna kill that cost. This is also assuming you're going hard on the grocery cart, maybe you're a ramen and chicken guy. You know, this is assuming your your job isn't taking care of your health care or your clothes aren't still hammy-downs. Like there's other things that you can do, obviously. But if we were to make all things equal, if we look at 2026 where the take-home was $3,978 a month, you would be losing money every single month to the tune of $600. Actually, I need to shave $350 off that $290. So you've gone from a surplus of $163 to now a deficit of $290. Sorry, that'd be, yeah, $290. Deficit of $290. On the fly math. I'm good at it. $290. So you're now bleeding. By the way, this all assumes the same things. You could possibly cut back in places, but one thing I didn't add in here was certain technologies like streaming services. I haven't even added eating out. You're not allowed to go to a music festival. You can't have a weekend away. You can't pay tolls while you're driving. You can't drive extra miles and rack up more gas. You can't have a more unlimited plan for your phone. This is also assuming you don't have a kid and you're not paying $14.50 a month for child care. Okay, this is assuming a lot. Uh, and and with the assumptions, the only thing we can do statistically is take two base cases and verse them together. Okay, we we can't just look at this 52% inflation and say, oh yeah, that's probably it, without looking at the facts. The facts show a different story. Let's scroll all the way to the bottom. It says of the total basket, the after-tax income increased 74%. You lazy payhole, you lazy dope, you lazy crazy Gen Z generation. Look at this. You have a 74% increase in your income. Sean, what are you doing, brother? What's your generation up to? You're you're making an extra 74% than someone in 2010. Sean's always in the predicament of either looking physically over at me or doing his job as greatly as he does and keeping an eye on the cameras and he looks at me through the camera. So actually, I should just look directly at the camera when I talk to Sean. Should I do this, Sean? Hi, Sean. Aye. How does that make you feel, brother? If I told you, okay, in 2010, let's play a game. How old are you in 2010?
SPEAKER_03Eight.
SPEAKER_01Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_03I'm eight years old.
SPEAKER_01Why weren't you buying a multiplex, bro? Come on.
SPEAKER_03I know, my bad.
SPEAKER_01Alright. About what age do you have a concept of money and salaries?
SPEAKER_0312.
SPEAKER_0112? Okay, so 2014. Let's say the increase since 2014 since 74% is the increase since 2010. Let's assume it's 58%. Okay?
SPEAKER_02You tell me. You tell me.
SPEAKER_01What do you think you could make out of high school? Back then. Like to be able to In 2014, if you were graduating high school right then and there, what do you think you could have gotten as a as a out-of-high school job? Income wise. Or hourly.
SPEAKER_03I would say income-wise, probably probably like 40k years?
SPEAKER_0140k. Okay, so it's like $20 an hour.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, 40k.
SPEAKER_01Okay. It's like 40k. If I told you that that was gonna go up, let's say again, like 58%. If I told you that was gonna go up 56, 58% over the next 12 years, would you say good or bad? 50 bad. Bad. You would say that that number's bad.
SPEAKER_03Wait, you're saying the income goes up? Oh, income. Yeah, no, that'd be good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, if that 40k if that 40k would now be what what would that be? 62K, 64K?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, that I would think with just that statement, I'd be like, yeah, this is awesome. I'm gonna be more money here in the future. And I'd probably be because this is right after high school, right? Yeah. So I'd probably be doing college if I have time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, maybe now you're stacking another 12k extra.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That'd be good.
SPEAKER_01Okay, agreed. And and and this is this is the reason why we can't look at anything, what's the word, like unilaterally, we we or or individually. We we have to take in multiple mesh points and connect them together to show where the problem lies. And an easy cope out of this debate is just this one that we started with. Okay, we have a 74% in income over a time where there's 52% inflation. That means you should be doing 22% better than the economy. But no one feels that way. So there has to be something. And that's where we're creating this document. And this is just an early graphic of what will initially ineffably be like a multi-graphic, multi-page, fully in-depth, fully sourced out website that'll be accessible to you and anybody you want to send it to to show them the the. And I hate to say the rock hard evidence on a data sheet where I have a misprint and a number, but at that point, you're watching us grow in public. Again, thank you. I've already stated that. You're you're you're you're watching something that I'm hoping is going to become, I know is going to become a bulletproof asset in how this economy is rigged in being taken away from the middle working class. And we talked about on the last show. The working class is the economy. The working class is the spine of everything that operates without the full-fleshed working class going to their worker bee huts every day that they do to type or or or lift or or or I don't what do people do these days? Consult go on Zoom meetings, type on the keyboard a couple times, make sure they're there. Whatever this workforce is today or in the future, if we don't have them supported financially, the economy is going to struggle more and more and more. So I do not think you're lazy, crazy, or dumb. You might be, you may be, I can't assume you're not lazy or maybe a bit crazy. Like maybe maybe you do see some hallucinations every now and then, and you stop telling people about them because they keep looking at you weird. When you say that Frank is here again in the corner, he's wearing the weird hat again, and they look over and there's no one there, and they say, Oh, Fred's weird. Like you don't want that situation, so you can maybe keep it to yourself. Maybe you are crazy. Maybe you are maybe you have not worked a day in your life and you're trying to live off welfare till you die. I would associate that with lazy in some form or fashion. Maybe you aren't pursuing your best goals in life. Uh, maybe you feel dilapidated. Uh, and and and I don't think you're dumb. You might be dumb, but I think there's a lot of categories to dumb, so I don't think you are. Uh, I think you're smart. I think you are put in a position where working the same amount of hours is not yielding the same result to live a normal life, to have housing and healthcare provided for you and the people that you love, seems like a pretty basic necessity that can be met by a society that is only benefiting off of your back. The entire system does not operate without the working class. The C-suite executives cannot keep their own companies running. And if we see consistent and constant through the last decade and a half, lack of wage increase mixed with prop propagandized inflation numbers, while the reality is much more stark, and mathematically, I'll just go ahead and say, the younger generation, I can just see from this math, and we're not even including people just graduating from college, mathematically, they're they're in a harder position. They're in a much harder position. A much, much more difficult economic scenario than you were in the past. Dad, mom, uncle, aunt, older sister, older best friend. You know, the person who will tell you that, you know, they were able to do it, why can't you? Not saying it's impossible. I'm just saying statistically, if I were to look at these numbers, I'm gonna go ahead and make a guess. Then when we look back at the data, 10 years from now, we're gonna see that the first-time home buyer is buying a whole heck of a lot of nothing in comparison to the prior decades before that. That more investors will be buying, more boomers will be buying, the Gen Xers will line up behind the boomers, buy up what they got, they'll get it in the will. Okay, it'll get willed. Not all of them are gonna hit the market. And the ones that the boomers live in like Southwest Florida and like around Orlando. Do you want to live in Kissimmee? Do you want to live in Kissimmee? Do you want to live in a 55-plus neighborhood in Camden, Delaware? Is that what you want? You want to live in Riverfront? Not on a river. The neighborhood's just named Riverfront. You want to live in Riverfront? You want you want to attend pickleball night? You want, you want Miriam can be your pickleball partner. That's what you want? I don't think it is. I think you just want a small square foot home with a little bit of land so you can have a little garden and have a dog, and and you and your spouse and maybe a kid or two can live a normal American life without having to worry about housing and healthcare. Meanwhile, you both work normal 40-hour jobs. The baseline for the economy should be if you're providing value to the economy, you should be able to keep yourself upright financially, if not being able to slowly thrive through it. And right now, people are drowning. They're not taking on a sprinkle to the face. They are drowning. They are they are being water tortured financially. And because they're being water tortured, they can't yell about it. So I see creators and I try to be a creator like them in stating no, this isn't the case. And that's what I'm trying to bring the numbers to the case of this is not reality. The reality you're being propagandized by your family, by the media, by anybody who wants to make themselves feel better, by the way, because if they were to admit that your economy is not nearly as easy as it was in the 90s or the early 2000s or even back in 2010, what does that mean for them?
SPEAKER_02What does that mean for them? What does that mean for them if they were to admit that it actually is a lot harder?
SPEAKER_01This AI thing is slowly eating jobs away. I don't know what tech will do to the labor market. What if they did admit that? What if they did? What if they really actually admitted that the home they bought for two blueberry cobblers and a stamp back in the 80s wasn't them just being financial savants? It wasn't their their work-hardedness, and they pulled their boots up by their bootstraps at the same time and made do. No, it needed one income, and you could support like your whole family staying at home, and you could buy a house, a car, you could afford four new tires, you could go to McDonald's and get a McDouble without having to pay $3.49 like it is today. Remember, that was on the dollar menu at one point. I'm just saying there's uh there's some math that would make the case for we're in a runaway economy in terms of affordability. And if something doesn't stop it or if wages do not increase, I'm just gonna say this very lightly. I don't say this very often on the show. Don't clip me to oblivion. I don't think it's even worth it anyway. It's not clippable, it's not very good, I'm not very energetic right now, but I would say that violence might be the option. I'm not lighting pitchforks or torches. I guess you could light the pitchforks too. We could put like little little things on the top. That would actually look kind of dope. It's a pitchfork and it's on fire. That's how you know they mean business. We could do that. And and I do I think that legislation at this point is gonna fix it when everybody in there is paid to be there or influenced by someone who has a lot of money that is already in there, or the next person in line is gonna get belittled by money to make sure that they can't stay in there.
unknownYou know.
SPEAKER_01Or the fact that our whole presidency is revolvering around of Zionist billionaires, like you think that I'm supposed to just sit here and be like, yeah, this will probably take a hard shift at some point. Like the wealth gap's been growing, the wealth accumulation of the elite's been growing exponentially. It looks like the gilded age. We're basically in a feudalist system of slave labor at this point that's only going to get more exacerbated by tech. And I'm not supposed to say, hey, maybe at some point someone's going to get tired of this, get a group together and do something violently.
SPEAKER_00I think they will.
SPEAKER_01If it goes on. It can be legislatively fixed. We talked about that on the last show, just a few ideas, and we've talked about it multiple times on the show. But I don't think it happens. So we're building out the proof of the matter. We are going to schedule meetings with congressmen and other people over the fall and winter as we have this full document good to go. Website fully fleshed, rock solid, sourced beautifully, all the numbers correct, unlike that one number on the screen, which is still bothering me. Sean, I saw you on mute. What were you about to bring to the table, baby?
SPEAKER_03I I I don't remember doing that. Maybe you didn't. Or maybe I was gonna do a disclaimer and be like, hey guys, uh, or hey you two, we're we're not promoting anything violent. We're just uh talking, you know, we're not or theory, theorizing, that's all.
SPEAKER_01It's just the theory around if something doesn't change, we have a vast historical evidence from the 40s in China and the late 1700s in France and the dawn of the millennia in Rome, that when the have yachts have significantly more than the have nots, that there is social revolt. And if something is not done to change the ingredients that are slowly lining up to form the jambalaya that's needed for such a thing to happen again, well we need to do something legislatively, and we can do it legislatively. The problem is the people in charge of said legislation are more worried about their own finances, profit over people. So unless we add a hard reset of Congress, I don't I don't see it. Maybe I'm pessimistic, but the fact is we need to have the facts so we can understand and come together around the facts so that we have something to fight for, whether with our voice, with our wallet, with our hands. I'd be a kicker in a riot, by the way. I'd be a kicker. A big kicker. I don't want to hurt your my n you know how many people punch people in the face and break their own knuckles.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do see that a lot in the city.
SPEAKER_01I don't want to break my own bones. That's not who who's ever punched somebody, broken their hand bone, and thought, yeah, I'd do that again.
SPEAKER_03That doesn't sound fun.
SPEAKER_01Doesn't sound fun. Have you ever seen the clip of the baseball guy who got so mad in the dugout that he punched the concrete wall?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Guess what happened to his hand? It's gone. It never works again. Sean, um you are one year shy of the age demographic we're talking about today. So when we when we showcase numbers that show that people that are even one to ten or I'm sorry, one to eleven years ahead of where you're at are in a struggling position. How does that make you feel honestly about yeah, beyond I you're looking at me like you sure? Like, yeah, I'm sure. Like, how does that make you feel honestly about the ecosystem you're walking into as a young man?
SPEAKER_03It doesn't make me feel hopeful, and it doesn't make me feel like there are actual attainable financial goals for my future personally. Like the I think the idea or the the ladder of goals that are very similar to others, like you know, starting with an apartment, saving up some money, getting a home, staying in that home, and then moving to another one, promoting it your job, you know, yeah, getting that equity, getting that stuff, and then yeah, you know, making your way up in the the ladder of the job or whatever you're doing, making more money over time since you're getting more experience. That those goals aren't goals anymore. That's not a thing anymore. Like, I'm sure in different places there are, and you know, I don't know. I I I think for my viewpoint, for what I'm seeing, it seems like like the goals that I wish I had, you know, even having a kid is is a goal for a lot of people. It's coming less of a goal, but whatever, you know, everybody can do their own thing. It's like it's not attainable. It's almost like there's no there's it doesn't seem there's any hope. And like I hate to be doom and gloom because I I love I love trying to be hopeful and excited for the future, and I'm grateful for what I have, but it's also like uh okay, like what are we actually doing? What's gonna change this? What's gonna flip-flop this? And it seems like for the most part, it's income not keeping up with what's happening, and and that and it's like, okay, well, what's the solution to that? You know, we're staying stagnant, and there's no solution. I mean, maybe there is, you know, we can legislatively there is, but man, like it's not gonna happen. Do you know why? Correct. Because of money, because of this, the the the billionaires, the people that need money.
SPEAKER_01You have to unweave a lot of elitist wealth to do it.
SPEAKER_03The system, everybody's needs to take care of themselves. It's all about us, it's all about us as individuals surviving, and that's just the way it is, unfortunately. So it's that, you know, that's that's how I feel about it. Like it's it sucks. It's like um, it's like I I almost like I wish like the goals that I had growing up, like when I was in high school and I and I was 15 or 16, and I'm like, I can't wait till I can get out of here, get a good job. Like I planned my whole life, I felt like. And I it's just like wow, I I was in La La Land, like compared to where we're at now, as far as the future goes. So not to be super doom and gloom about it, but it's not doesn't make me feel good. I'll put it that way. Long story short, let's I I just you know, I don't know. And I hate to think that like like I hate this idea that this age group is lazy because they don't they're not out of their parents' house or they don't have a house, they don't have that milestone that their parent has, and then they're dealing with the pressure of that as well, of society and their friends posting on Instagram of them doing, you know, oh, we got married, we got a house, we got a dog. It's like I feel like it's all these things, and it's like it's so easy to get fed up with yourself, even though it's not truly your own fault, you know? It's different if you're just sitting on your butt all day, but if you're doing the things that you can with the money, the time, where you're living, and you're still not getting somewhere.
SPEAKER_01At least you're bringing you're doing what your side of the deal is, you're bringing value to the economy.
SPEAKER_03Exactly. So, anyway, that's my long-winded answer. I'm long-winded at all. Wait for you to keep going. You know, and at the end of the day, keep doing what makes you happy. Fill yourself, meditate, journal, read. That's what I would say. Yep, go on walks, go on hikes.
SPEAKER_01I can't wait for a hike. Clear your mind. Yeah, definitely. You're getting your garden set up there at the apartment too.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, getting some basil, starting small, flowers, dude.
SPEAKER_01And and and you know, like you and people like you have have opened my eyes dramatically, like even getting to watch my brother. And it's just like that's somebody who works hard, is valuable to the economy, knows more how to do with his hands than I ever will on multiple fronts. And seeing him struggle is just like that's not that's not fair. Because at my age, when when I was his age, I was bringing less value to the economy, making more. And I kind of see that as a constant thread, that the struggle is harder, and those who have already made it in one way, shape, or form, it almost seems not necessarily easier, but at least neutral. It seems very neutral compared to the 2010s. Whereas the person getting started in life, having to face financing a car, whereas if the person's on their fourth car, they may not be having to be financing it, you know, financing a home. Now it's 300, 400k, used to be 180, you know, and and and somebody who's older and farther along in life, they've done their hop, skip, and jump from different properties. They got equity each time that they sold. You know, I'm I made 50 grand in the first home that I sold. First home that I sold, we bought uh let's see if I get this right, 2015, December of 2015. And it was 160K for an acre of land with a 1600 square or a 1400 square foot rancher with a horseshoe driveway across from a field. Uh, it was beautiful. Now that home is worth 350. Just just looking at, I could not afford we'd have to sell this house to be able to try to even barely pay the payment. Like the payments on that house, I'll put it this way, the payments on that house would be double what we're paying on this house right now. And that was our first house.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and that's insane.
SPEAKER_01It is insane.
SPEAKER_03Something wrong.
SPEAKER_01It is insane. And then people say, well, rates are gonna come down. How? Inflation is still the bane of the existence. As long as inflation here, it's a dual-edged sword of it's gonna make prices go up all while keeping bond rates high. And that's how we get mortgage rates. So how are financing costs supposed to come down? You know, it would take a, you know, you you you say to leftists earlier, like it would take some anti-capitalist legislation, some like maybe democratic socialist, I don't know where like the solution is, but I think a lot of people can at the very least agree that the past at least 35, 40 years, or maybe their own experience timeline of 10, 15 years, they don't want the pace we're on to continue on. Right. I think most people can all agree that the the the with the way things are going is not sustainable long term. I'm not gonna sit here and say what the solution is up front, uh, but I'm worried people take it into their own hands that solution because we don't present a real one. Right. Right.
SPEAKER_03Which could be, I mean, I don't know, but it could be something cool.
SPEAKER_01He said it, not me. He said it, not me, YouTube. It wasn't me. It wasn't me.
SPEAKER_03Who was that?
SPEAKER_01I don't know who that was. I think you used AI earlier to make me say that. I think that was an AI. AI joke. That was an AI deep fake mid-stitched into a live podcast. AI's getting crazy. Dude, do you think there's AI streamers out there? You think anyone's a fake streamer? Absolutely. You think there's somebody out there with a large following and they have no clue?
SPEAKER_03Oh god, maybe. Do you think? I hope not. I really, really hope not.
SPEAKER_01Dude, it's gonna happen soon. It's gonna happen soon. All right, we gotta end off. We gotta cut it short. Cut it off. We can ramp on different subjects for days, but uh one thing I do want to end with is uh I always try to end with at least something actionable. In this case, guys, it is cutting your your expenses. Um, let me let me talk to you real quick. If you are getting two haircuts a month, if you're getting your nails done more often than not, if you're getting your hair done, if you have multiple gym memberships, multiple subscriptions, you're ordering DoorDash, you have no room to state I'm poor, I'm broke, I'm struggling. You have to cut. You have to cut, you have to cut. I remember coming up 2013 through 2017. Was it more affordable by uh by income to cost? Absolutely. We just proved that. But at the same time, I was also cutting a lot of costs, wasn't doing a lot of things that are fun. Uh the fun was going to things that are free, like parks and trails and walks and bikes. Uh, but at the same time, I know it's more difficult. That doesn't mean you still can't do it. Uh, I would present three options for you. One, print your money, print your quarterly statement out from your bank account, and start marking everything that's an essential versus a non-essential. And then see, if you were to cut the non-essentials, what you'd be left with. Are you still underwater? Maybe not. Maybe so. It's a good start. Number two, if you don't think you're gonna be making 100K at your job within five years, I need you to start looking for a different career path. And I mean that wholeheartedly. I don't think this train stops. I think income keeps getting belittled. I think you need to look toward a world where that's possible. Okay, and that might be number three. I want you to look at your location. I want you to look at your location. The reason you can't afford life might have to do with your proximity to Manhattan or Miami. It might have to do with being in California. It might have to do with being in Maine. One thing I would consider is if your job is portable, if your skill set is movable, and if you can make a life out of either your parents' house, a friend's couch, or a more affordable state, it could help. And if you took all three things into consideration, you may be in a better position. Let me pray us out as we end our podcast. Dear Lord, thank you for this opportunity we have here today. Thank you for the power that you wield, and thank you for creating this universe for us to exist in. Thank you for creating the technology uh that allows us to even have this communication at this very moment, though I understand very little of it. Uh, I uh thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to utilize it. Thank you for Sean. I thank you for Joe, and I pray over Joe as he is uh sick today. He'll be sick for probably the next three, five days. We pray over him. And I pray that peace that surpasses all understanding and the mercy that you showed in those four gospels is shown upon everybody within the sound of my voice, and more so that are feeling the struggle of this man-made, evil, Zionist-facing economy. We pray all this in your holy name, Yeshua Jesus Christ. Amen. Let's play ourselves out with my favorite post prayer song. I feel Jesus would have liked this song. I feel that the 12 disciples would have been like, yeah, we rock with this. This guy's anti pedophile. That's new to us. We like that. We like that. I think you would have rocked with it.
SPEAKER_02Alright, guys, have a good one.