November 29th, 2025 - Black Friday Boom?

This week on the Van Wie Financial Hour, the hosts discussed various financial topics such as recent market performance, tax planning, and proposed changes to tax laws. Additionally, they engaged with callers, answered trivia questions, and shared anecdotes and statistics related to consumer behavior.

Transcript

Steven H Van Wie 0:00

It's Saturday morning, it's 10 o'clock. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 0:05

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey 0:06

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 0:08

And promises made, promises kept. It is the 29th of November, and we are here in the studio live, as Angela was too. I was pretty impressed there. And you can treat this like a live show because it is. Which means we'll spend the hour talking about what we want to talk about. Unless you would rather change the subject, which is done so easily. Just pick up the phone down 904-222-8255

Steven H Van Wie 0:36

and we will put you to the head of the class. All the regulars were getting toward the end of another year of gracious living, as they say, and it's because of you guys. As I've been saying lately, if you keep listening, we'll keep talking. And that's a good thing. If you're new to the show, found it by accident or got nudged or whatever, try to stick around for the whole hour. Not only is it a lot of fun, but you, you will pick up something you didn't know before or thought you knew that was wrong or whatever, but make it habit forming. And that's, I've said this many times too, the reason I open the show. The same way I want everybody to equate Saturday morning, 10 o', clock, family financial hour. That way you're less likely to miss the show because you wouldn't want to do that. Although you can pick it up on our website. Website later. But that's not the right way. Live shows are better for a reason. I, I've been, I don't know what the word I should use is, but you know, complain about all the various financial people who record their shows in advance and then do a lot of also reruns. It's just not good.

Joey 1:49

Things move too fast. You know, like we could talk about something that feels so real today. And by Tuesday, the entire cycle has changed.

Adam Van Wie 1:50

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 1:54

Yep.

Adam Van Wie 1:57

Well, I think actually this week is a very good example of erasing prior three weeks, so.

Steven H Van Wie 2:02

Yes, very true. Absolutely. But anyway, down to business. I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Adam through his usual family and friends party. And it was spectacular as always. And the weatherman cooperated very nicely, I thought, all things considered, beautiful. Good time.

Adam Van Wie 2:21

Definitely.

Steven H Van Wie 2:22

And you start looking at some of these kids in his arena and think, man, they're gonna have to come home for Thanksgiving next year because they're gonna leave us. Oh, man, I don't know how the hell you got that old because I.

Adam Van Wie 2:33

Yeah, at least two of them.

Steven H Van Wie 2:40

Anyway,

Steven H Van Wie 2:42

where was I? I don't know. We're gonna have a very good show today. We've got, as usual, lots of things to talk about. There is never a dull moment in our business and some of them are much more exciting than others. And despite it being a short week, we had some real exciting things happen this week. So let Adam tell you about it.

Adam Van Wie 3:06

Yeah, I don't always say this, but if you didn't pay attention this week and you want to go look at your 401k this morning, I actually recommend you do because you'll be pleasantly surprised. It was a really, really good week. It was shortened week because of the holiday but man, they packed a lot of good stuff into that shortened week. We saw four days of nothing but green and for the most part unwound pretty much all the damage that have been done from the prior three weeks and put the market right back near all time highs. Despite dropping, the S P actually had dropped below its 50 day moving average by, by a not insignificant amount. All of that gone. It's back up above. It's. I mean all we need is a new all time high to reaffirm this bull market and we're right back on track. So pretty crazy. What a difference a week can make, especially a really good week like that. The S P Just to put it in perspective, the s P gained 3.7%, Dow was up 3.2% and the NASDAQ was up kind of shocking 4.9% during the week. Yeah. Volatility these days for, for the month, only the NASDAQ ended up in the negative and that's just down 1.5%. All the other two were both positive. Slightly positive, but still positive.

Joey 4:10

Wow.

Adam Van Wie 4:25

I think it's even worthwhile looking at the point change on the Dow. The Dow moved up almost 1500 points during the week. The NASDAQ was up over a thousand points and the S and p tacked on 200, almost 250 points just this week alone. That's, that's crazy.

Joey 4:41

Any update on Michael Burry's short position?

Adam Van Wie 4:45

Well, his hedge fund is unwound, so no, I think that's the final update.

Steven H Van Wie 4:49

Yeah, I think the story's been told.

Joey 4:52

It's over.

Adam Van Wie 4:54

So because of the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I'd just share some Thanksgiving facts for the week. That the total number of Americans Traveling more than 50 miles from home for Thanksgiving topped 81.8 million this week. That's the estimate anyway. That's an increase of 1.66 million people over last year. Over 18 million of those are expected to travel by air, with a peak travel day being Tuesday. So I would have thought maybe Sunday, but I guess Tuesday is the big day. That's a 6% increase over last year. About 2.5 million people are expected to travel by bus, train or cruise while the rest will be driving. So most of those people are driving home on Sunday. So if you're driving home tomorrow, please be cautious and please, patience. It's going to be a mess. The cost of an average Thanksgiving meal for 10 people this year is $55.18,

Adam Van Wie 5:46

which is about 5% less than it was last year. This is the third year in a row that number has come down since it peaked in 2022. The biggest decrease was in the price of turkey this year, down 16.3%. However, on the flip side, the veggie tray saw the biggest increase, up 61.3% over last year. The pumpkin pie was essentially the same price year over year. That was the only thing that didn't that stayed stable. So enjoy your pumpkin pie. The stat that the President shared about prices dropping 25% was not accurate. It that was based on a Walmart holiday meal that they select, but it does not. It's different from year to year. And the number of items dropped this year and they changed out a few things and that's why it was down 25. So it was accurate. I wondered what that for the Walmart holiday meal, but it is not accurate for the overall cost of Thanksgiving, which was everything I read said 5 to 6% down, which is still great. And also is that not the cheapest meal we eat all year? 5.18 a head like that's insane. I can't eat anything for that.

Joey 6:51

I as I listen you say that I got something completely wrong because that wasn't even close to the number we.

Steven H Van Wie 6:57

Paid to like everybody.

Joey 6:59

I feel like we spent way more than that and we're happy to do it.

Steven H Van Wie 7:02

But Joey, one thing you'll learn as you're getting older now, there's a lot of difference between the cost of living and the cost of living.

Adam Van Wie 7:09

Well and those, those IPAs weren't factored into this equation either. Those aren't cheap. Yeah.

Joey 7:15

Oh man.

Adam Van Wie 7:19

So let's flash forward look to Christmas a little bit and total retail spending. This has shocked me. They're actually predicting it to go up this this year to between 1.01 and $1.02 trillion. That's the first time it's ever topped the trillion dollar mark. And it's an increase of about 4% over last year. The average person pulled in. The NRF's recent survey found that consumers plan to spend $890.49

Adam Van Wie 7:48

per person on gifts, food and decorations and other holiday holiday items. According to Gallup, that number is a bit higher. It's at about $1,007.

Adam Van Wie 7:58

That's up from $923 in 2023, but down from 1014 last year. The really crazy thing is that none of these numbers match up with consumer sentiment right now. Those surveys are so whacked out, everything's negative. But then you look at the, look at all these numbers. Everything's up year over year.

Steven H Van Wie 8:18

And that is how I'd like to open up when we come back after this very short break. So don't go anywhere. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 8:26

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 8:28

Adam Van Wie. 

Joey 8:30

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 8:45

And we do have a trivia question. As usual today, and as usual, sponsored by Paul Lloyd at First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888. Adam's comment right before the break was very germane to the things we've all been thinking about today. There is a disconnect out there between certain groups in society and a lot of people think this is the worst possible economy, et cetera, et cetera. And other people don't. Before I lead into the question, I have a new I keep on the top of my Saturday list a group of quotations that I really, really like. And once in a while I pull one out and I added one to it this week. A lot of you folks out there remember who Peter lynch is. Anybody who was in Fidelity magellan in the 80s knows exactly who Peter lynch is. He was a fantastic investor, made lots of money for himself and for others. His version of economics and investing goes this way. If you spend 13 minutes a year on economics, you've wasted 10 minutes. I love that one because you're not going to get anywhere doing that. But I digress. Anyway, because of the sentiment, there are a lot of people who are employed but are worried about losing their jobs. What percentage of employed Americans are worried about losing their jobs today? Very simple. Between 1 and 100. Very simple. Okay. You want to wrap up some more things? Got it, huh? Well, you know, when it's good enough, you don't have to talk about it too much. Let's go back to the, the differences in attitude out there. Everybody knows about Trump derangement syndrome and you would laugh about it and joke about it, but everybody also knows there's something to it. But I think I found the best example I have ever seen. So here it comes. And it's a, it's off of Reddit or something like that that nobody really cares about. But I liked it. The Sadie somewhere, North Carolina. I think she put a post on there that's worth a little bit of looking at. Costco is quietly slashing prices. This feels wrong. I go to Costco every week. It's probably the only thing I do consistently. I've been doing it for years and I know how prices move lately. Everything's discounted. I'm not talking about promo tags, a little manufacturer markdowns. I mean, whole shelves of items dropping 20 to 40% across categories. And it isn't seasonal. This isn't normal. Prices are supposed to be going up with tariffs, inflation, shipping costs, whatever. Instead, they're dumping inventory aggressively. They're complaining because prices are going down. That makes no sense. Except if you look at it this way. If prices go down, everything they're out there saying in the news these days is incorrect. So what do they do? They complain about the truth. I hope you're miserable, Sadie, and I hope you stay miserable for a long time, all the way through Christmas and New Year's. Just have a rotten time.

Adam Van Wie 10:14

Okay.

Adam Van Wie 10:19

No, that was it. Yep.

Adam Van Wie 12:05

Okay. It is true that the, the like survey data just does not match up with reality many, much of the time these days. And I think that consumer sentiment is probably the biggest, the biggest one. And we'll get back to it. But we do have a caller.

Steven H Van Wie 12:24

Well, yes, we do. Good morning, Bob.

Bob 12:28

Good morning, gentlemen. Well, one of the things, one of the things we're thankful for. Stryvis Wealth Partners. We had a very good November. We ended up in the month of November when November can be a choppy wind shear month.

Adam Van Wie 12:30

How's everything?

Steven H Van Wie 12:47

And it looked like it in the early part too.

Bob 12:49

No, it sure did. And one of the things we're extremely happy for is that Adam's comment on the price of turkeys dropping, what, 16%?

Adam Van Wie 12:59

That's right.

Bob 13:01

We blew through a 20 pound turkey in a day and a half out here. Yeah, we had a bunch of people.

Bob 13:10

Time to go grab another one out of the field.

Steven H Van Wie 13:12

No kidding. Well, make sure you don't get one of those. That was pardoned.

Bob 13:19

Yeah, we'll leave the pardoned ones out There they can freeze.

Steven H Van Wie 13:23

It's funny, I've heard so many people over the weekend on TV saying, I hate turkey. I hate turkey. What is the matter with you people? Exactly right.

Adam Van Wie 13:32

You're cooking it wrong then.

Joey 13:34

Well, I know I cook it wrong, so I made a brisket and that worked out well.

Bob 13:39

We've got neighbors out here that not only grow turkeys for Thanksgiving day, but they also are in the turkey sausage business. I guess that's the rage right now. So anyhow, I'll take a stab at your trivia. And I think it's got to be over 50%, otherwise you wouldn't be talking about it.

Bob 14:02

Let's see. Because I remember when I was working,

Bob 14:07

we were always worried about losing our jobs. So that was always on the back of our mind because the industry I was in, they always, right at Thanksgiving time, if they felt that they needed to address things financially, they'd lay people off. And that's one of the easiest ways to turn something around.

Bob 14:27

I'm going to say 70%.

Steven H Van Wie 14:31

70%. It's a bit too high. Your logic is good. And even that part, even that part about we wouldn't be talking about it if it were some kind of ridiculously low number. So you've. Yeah, you're thinking correctly.

Bob 14:39

Yeah.

Bob 14:50

Okay. All right. Well, I always set a benchmark. I mean, you know, either up a ceiling or a, or a, or a.

Steven H Van Wie 14:57

Floor, you cut, you cut the target range by quite a bit. So. Everybody else has a chance.

Joey 15:04

Okay.

Bob 15:06

Okay, very good. Well, you guys enjoy the show. I'm thankful that you're in. Also, on a Saturday, during normally a two day holiday weekend, there have been.

Steven H Van Wie 15:16

Times when the station wasn't open and we couldn't do it. But we kind of pursued it a week or so ago and Maureen kindly said, now we can do this. So she's in today instead of Roger and doing what needs to be done so that we can keep talking. We are very.

Bob 15:19

Yeah, I know, I remember that.

Adam Van Wie 15:36

And we are thankful for that.

Bob 15:38

Yeah. And, and you know, you know what, it would have broken your, your record. So, I mean, you're, you're setting a Guinness record here in terms of consistent.

Steven H Van Wie 15:48

Yep. Pushing 11 years now and I have never missed a show.

Joey 15:52

Yeah. Steve, Steve is the, the winner of that accolade for sure.

Bob 15:56

There you go.

Steven H Van Wie 15:58

It tells you a lot about having a purpose in life, I guess, and all that.

Bob 16:04

Got something to get out of bed for. And do. Yep. Same thing here out on the farm. You got a bunch of animals waiting.

Steven H Van Wie 16:06

Exactly.

Steven H Van Wie 16:09

Good. On you farmers don't get a day off, not even asleep.

Bob 16:14

No, we don't. We don't.

Steven H Van Wie 16:16

All right, well, have fun, and we will talk to you soon.

Bob 16:19

Okay, talk to you soon. Bye.

Adam Van Wie 16:20

Take care.

Steven H Van Wie 16:23

70%, the new upper limit. All right, what do we want to talk about? There's a. There's a lot to be said today about what's going on in the tax arena. And it's kind of weird to me, you. If you've been listening to Trump this week, he's. He's taken a look at the tariffs and all the revenues coming in and thinking now we might be able to replace the income tax with tariff revenue. And the first comment I'd make about that is that, well, it was very successful from 1776 to 1913, because that's how it was financed. So you also look at the other side of that, which is the Supreme Court is hearing the case, has heard it. They're deliberating the case right now to decide whether Trump has the right to do tariffs. Now, should they cut him down, which I don't think they really will. There are a couple other laws that he'll.

Adam Van Wie 17:26

Yeah, that's. That's just one specific use of tariffs that he may not be able to do. So there are. There's other things that he could still implement tariffs under a different set of circumstances.

Steven H Van Wie 17:40

Now, let's consider a moment, the impact of that possibility, however remote, on Roth conversions. What if you did a big old Roth conversion this year and phased out income taxes

Steven H Van Wie 17:58

before, during your retirement, you would have had a lot of money leave your account. That wouldn't have to if you waited.

Joey 18:05

I think if there's one thing I'm not afraid of happening, it's the elimination of the income tax. I just don't see it happening. I can see, you know, the history is interesting and all that, but I just. That is such a massive revenue source. And the whole system is. Everybody who's alive today has been built around the assumptions that exist in the current tax system some degree. And I think they can tweak it here and there as they do as new tax laws, but it's totally locked like that.

Adam Van Wie 18:09

I agree.

Adam Van Wie 18:12

No way.

Steven H Van Wie 18:29

It comes at great cost to the government, too, to implement the tax system, and that. That's something to think about. Nobody talks about weighing the savings on it.

Adam Van Wie 18:39

Yeah, I just don't think it's realistic. I think it's a great idea. And I've always been a fan of the fair tax, the sales tax way of doing this. Instead of using tariffs. Yeah, it's not the same thing, but it's, yeah. Similar.

Steven H Van Wie 18:49

But that's the same thing.

Steven H Van Wie 18:53

Well, I'm talking about the considerations if you're going to do a Roth conversion.

Adam Van Wie 18:57

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Steven H Van Wie 18:59

If, if you remember, I certainly am.

Adam Van Wie 19:01

Not advocating not doing Roth conversions because. You think that the income tax might go.

Steven H Van Wie 19:04

No, no.

Steven H Van Wie 19:06

No, I'm just bringing it up for just.

Adam Van Wie 19:10

Yeah, it would screw up a lot more than just that. That's a great example.

Joey 19:12

But yeah, I mean, think about all the benefits programs that are based on magi, you know, modified adjusted gross income. There's like six different ways to calculate modified adjusted gross income.

Steven H Van Wie 19:21

It's like the rate of inflation at the government level. It's either 2.6 or 5.8 or 10.9 or, or 1 of those. You never know. And supposedly you can put them all together. But I've been talking a lot over the last couple of years about the whole Roth conversion thing. And for years and years and years when it just got started, I got a little history I'll get into after the break. People talked about if nothing ever happened to tax rates, it doesn't make a bit of difference which one you do. And that's true. But the dumbest suggestion anybody in the world could ever make was, was that income tax rates won't change. That leads up to a discussion that we will get into after the bottom of the hour. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 20:12

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 20:15

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey 20:16

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 20:17

And I remind Everybody, lines are open. 904-222-8255.

Steven H Van Wie 20:22

And you could take a shot at our trivia question. What percentage of Americans right now are concerned about losing their jobs? And the number is somewhere beneath 70. Bob gave us a little break on that one. Okay. Just a little wrap up on that Roth conversion. A couple of things that people might be interested in. You have to be an old geek to remember some of this stuff. Fortunately, we have one of those right here.

Steven H Van Wie 20:57

The Taxpayer relief Act, or TRA, was in 1997.

Steven H Van Wie 21:03

And it did a couple things that were fantastic. So I did a little predating research this morning and looked it up. The history of capital gains when Bill Clinton was elected, inaugurated in 93. And the first thing he did was raise taxes because that's what he said he was going to do. And you can always trust a Democrat to do what they're going to say they do as long as it involves raising taxes. So he took the capital gains rate, the maximum loan from 20% to 28% which was really ridiculous when you consider that Ronald Reagan made the highest income tax rate 28%. It had been bumped a little by then, but still. Anyway, living through some experiences including a dramatic election loss and listening to Newt Gingrich. By 1997, when they were passing the TRA, he lowered them from 28% to 20%. Kind of undoing things a little bit. That's like admission that you made a mistake. I think the other thing, big thing that it did, two other big things. When you get to sell your primary residence and you can exclude capital gains of 250,000 a person or 500,000 a couple. I have always contended since 1997 that nobody in Congress read that bill or they wouldn't have voted for it. It is the best consumer oriented bill passed in the tax arena in my opinion, ever. What they didn't do and haven't done is indexing it for inflation. So it still sits at 250 and 500. That is egregious in my book.

Adam Van Wie 22:49

I, I saw someone do the analysis on it. It should be 500, and a million at this point.

Steven H Van Wie 22:55

Exactly right.

Joey 22:56

And they're talking about it now. At least they're talking about it now.

Adam Van Wie 22:59

They are, yeah. It would make sense. I mean if, I mean, yeah, look.

Steven H Van Wie 23:04

What happened to your houses and four or five years. My gosh.

Adam Van Wie 23:07

Yeah, yeah, it would. It would actually benefit Democrats more than Republicans because it would. California and New York are the places where it would make the most impact.

Joey 23:15

100%.

Steven H Van Wie 23:16

And the other thing that it brought us was the ability to do Roth conversions. Actually it gave it to us indirectly because in 1997 the Roth was invented. In 1998 they decided to convert the rules for converting any anything to Roth. IRAs were very, very strict. Their income limits and on and on. And it was essentially a decent idea given certain fundamentals. And I, I for years was on the negative side of that thinking. You know what? They're, they're never going to let the Roth money come out totally untaxed. It's just the government has only so many sources of, of never been taxed revenue and that's one of them. Well, they didn't figure and I didn't figure on the, the absolute mushrooming of popularity of the Roth ira. It got so big so fast that I had to even give up on that concept because if, if they had tried to tax the income on the Roth. And there's that much money out there with that many people, they're going to get themselves fired so fast we don't hold the door for them in D.C. so anyway, that's how it originally came up. And then for years it was talked about, well, there's no difference if the taxes are the same. But of course the taxes are not going to be the same. Everybody knows taxes are going up, and they point to the national debt as proof. The debt's getting so big, we're gonna have to raise taxes to pay for it. So while we were watching that, the Debt went to 3, 4, 8, 10, 12, 15, 19, 20, 25, 30 trillions of dollars. And what happened to tax rates? They came down a couple of times. They came down. So I don't buy the taxation argument on Roth IRAs in that I don't agree that tax rates are going to be much higher than they are now, ever. And I say that because what they really want up there is a flat tax, no deductions. You might get an allowance of 50,000 or something like that. Then everything is going to be taxed. That is where they want to go. And that does not involve raising tax rates in the future. What it would do if we got the flat tax at 15, 17, 18, 20%, whatever, it would allow them to raise that number and their work is done. How do you raise taxes? You change that percentage number just like that. So I'm always on the skeptical side of the Roth conversion thing, but we've had many cases in the office over the years where I think it's worked out very well.

Adam Van Wie 26:11

Well, you're looking at a little too static because There are probably 10 major reasons for a Roth conversion and another 50 minor reasons for a Roth conversion. It's not always betting that your tax rate in the future will be lower than it is today.

Steven H Van Wie 26:27

No. And a lot of it is that some people really don't want that much income. That's the way you drop yourself down tax bracket.

Adam Van Wie 26:35

Yep. So there's that there are income reasons in the near term to keep below a certain magi. There are just. There's so many reasons that you do Roth conversions. I. I think it would actually be fascinating if you could collect the data on Roth conversions annually and track the reason it was done, because it, it shows. It would tell you something about the. It's like a betting market almost. It would be fascinating to see the stats on why people did the conversions that they did and how that Changes over time. I would love to see that data.

Joey 26:46

There's.

Joey 27:16

Yeah. And I think the right way to think about Roth conversions is it's about expected return. No one's absolutely going to know today versus tomorrow. So you have to look at the factors that are present in your tax situation. And you say, it seems to me that there's a significantly greater chance that by doing a Roth conversion today, I've helped myself tomorrow.

Steven H Van Wie 27:34

And there's no the analysis or it.

Joey 27:37

Could be available or your kids or whatever. Right. And so expected return is relative to the goals that you have. Right. Whether it's legacy or getting health insurance marketplace premiums down because you retired at 62 and next year they're looking at your Magi

Joey 27:53

to figure out what are your premiums cost. Right. We've had several cases just the last three weeks where we've done a Roth conversion analysis. And from a pure tax bracket now versus later standpoint, there's no reason to do a Roth conversion. But when you factor in the fact that healthcare premiums are based on their taxable income next year, if we do a huge conversion this year, we literally have changed the premium by $12,000 a year for the next three years in those cases. And so it's just, you know, that's anecdotal cases. Not everybody's case is going to be the same. But

Joey 28:26

tax planning just has so many layers and Roth conversions are no exception.

Adam Van Wie 28:30

Yeah, I think it's a great tool to have in your arsenal. It's not for everybody, but man, if you use it right, you can really put yourself in a much better position.

Steven H Van Wie 28:37

And I think the bottom line here for everybody is tax planning is really important and it's really complicated. And we've acquired some new tools in that arena that allow us to do an even better job than we used to. A lot easier too. So.

Joey 28:45

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 28:54

Yep, we're going to have a couple of those conversations this week, so that'll be good. That'll be fun.

Steven H Van Wie 28:59

You know, it is small business Saturday, so. And we have a small business, so this might be a good time to start thinking about giving us a call.

Adam Van Wie 29:01

Oh, I didn't realize that.

Adam Van Wie 29:07

Yeah. Never a bad idea.

Steven H Van Wie 29:09

Little shameless. Self promotion.

Adam Van Wie 29:11

I like it. I wanted to talk about something. We've been throwing around a stat that's been widely distributed that the average age of a first time home buyer has crept up to 40 years old. And we've talked about it quite a lot. And it was put out by the national association of Realtors based on their annual survey so what we considered a pretty reliable source. I mean they certainly aren't trying to mislead people. However, there's a, there's some very vocal critics of that survey and I think they have made some valid points. And I want to talk about why the, the average age may not have creeped up as much as what their data suggested

Adam Van Wie 29:56

it as always, there's, there's more to the story. I, I was kind of bashing surveys earlier and this one deserves a good bashing. I think definitely it's. So what they do is they send out, they send out 173,000 surveys to all different new home buyers. I think a random sampling, I think it was of new, of people that bought homes in the last year. And that survey is 120 questions long and

Adam Van Wie 30:31

it comes in the mail. So you have to get this survey, open it, look at this 120question survey and think, yes, I will take the time to fill this thing out. Well, about 6,300 people actually took the time to fill that out. That's a, about a 3 to 4% response rate which is fairly similar that.

Steven H Van Wie 30:52

That 4% response rate. Things fairly similar to other studies about other kinds of surveys.

Adam Van Wie 30:58

Yeah, but it definitely, there's some self selection there where if you're a busy family with two kids, are you going to take the time to sit down and fill out 120 questions surveyed that you're not getting paid to do? I don't see it. I wouldn't do it. Would either of you do it?

Joey 31:19

Can I send it back with my child's yogurt thrown on it? Because If I'm doing 120 questions there's 100% chance. Child food or something on there.

Adam Van Wie 31:26

Exactly.

Adam Van Wie 31:29

So who's going to fill it out? I would suggest that people with more time on their hands such as retirees or the boomer generation. I mean it just seems like it's going to not include the key demographic that they're putting the stat out about, which is a major fail. I, I would suggest so a little bit more about that on the other side.

Joey 31:36

Probably.

Steven H Van Wie 31:50

Okay. I think it's an interesting topic. I always like it when other people are wrong and we're right. Don't go anywhere. We're right back. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 32:00

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie

Adam Van Wie 32:03

Adam Van Wie.

Joey 32:04

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 32:06

They got my voice held out in the Thule's somewhere today. Been struggling with that for a while.

Steven H Van Wie 32:14

Anyway, I remind Everybody, lines are open. 904-222-8255.

Steven H Van Wie 32:20

What percentage of Americans currently employed are worried about losing their jobs as we speak? And it's under 70. Make it easy. All right, Adam, you want to wrap up a topic here?

Adam Van Wie 32:33

Yeah. So there's been a bunch of vocal critics of this survey and the methods. And I think I was just saying during the break that I don't think that mailed surveys are a very good way of collecting mass information these days. I think there's got to be better ways to get in front of a wider variety of people than that. I, I just don't think people are interested in doing things the same way that it was done 30, 40 years ago. It doesn't make sense. Bill in the envelope or I mean use technology that you're, you have something that can deliver a more, more accurate, more faster, easier to answer survey.

Steven H Van Wie 33:04

They could at least put a dollar.

Steven H Van Wie 33:20

Here, take this holler, this website.

Adam Van Wie 33:22

It's just crazy to think that this, they're still using the same methods. And anyway, so the theory behind all of this is that maybe that really hasn't crept up. The other thing is that it went from 36 in 2023 to 38 in 2024 to 40 in 2025 or something like it's crept up two years every, every of the last three years. And the fact is home prices haven't increased in that time. So why would that be happening? Mortgage rates haven't substantially changed in those two years. That doesn't make sense. Why would that be happening? It, sure it paints a fun narrative to talk about, but is that what's really happening? I, I just have a hard time buying that.

Steven H Van Wie 34:07

I can understand that. So I think you're probably right. Yeah, we know that it would be a good thing if we could get younger and younger people into the first time home buying market. Sure, we know that. And that's one of the reasons we need mortgage rates to come down. We also need a good supply of entry level type homes, which could even be people moving out of their retirement homes or going into other homes. And it's those 3% and under mortgages out there that we've been talking about for a long time that are keeping people kind of confined to their homes.

Joey 34:46

Well, that and the capital gains thing, I mean, I think that's a really good way to loosen up without artificially subsidizing demand inside. You know, it's a really good way if you, for the capital gains thing, I'm talking about 250,000 for an individual or 500,000 for a married couple of capital gains are tax free if you sell a primary residence. We were talking earlier in the show about how that's on the table right now. At least Trump has brought it up that maybe we need to look at that because inflation, had it been increased at any point in the last 20, 30 years since it's been around, that's about where those capital gains exclusions would be. There's a lot of people, I think we see it even in our client base where people have been in a home for so long, there's a million dollars of capital gains in their home. They want to go somewhere smaller that's easier to maintain or do something, but they feel like they have to die in their home and get the step up in basis for their heirs because otherwise they're just going to pay $250,000 to get out of the home as far as taxes go and then they're going to take a 6% mortgage on a condo or something else if they're, you know, and leave their 3% mortgage behind. There's a bad set of circumstances that's locking up supply and those are probably a lot of great starter homes.

Adam Van Wie 35:55

Yeah, for sure. Think about this. If you have a million dollar home as a couple and you sell it, you get that $500,000 exclusion. So you have $500,000 of gains at long term capital gains rates. I mean you're, you're looking at what like $75,000 in taxes? That's not insignificant. No, that amount of money.

Steven H Van Wie 36:15

So of course the capital gain counts in the, in the development of your income level which can raise your capital gains rate.

Adam Van Wie 36:24

It can potentially. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But there is some good news on that front too. The Case Shiller index that came out recently showed that about half the metro areas in the index actually declined in price year over year. With Tampa leading the way down at 4.1%.

Steven H Van Wie 36:38

Good.

Adam Van Wie 36:43

Actually most of the cities that saw the biggest increases during the COVID post Covid boom are the ones that are start coming down right now. Not huge numbers like Phoenix is down 2%, Dallas down 1.3. Miami down 1.3 as well. And then on the other side you're seeing like Chicago up 5.5%. Now they, they did not experience the huge home price gains during, during COVID and that, that's pretty consistent. The change from the all time high looks a little bit different. San Francisco leads the way down. It's down over 10% off their all time peak. Whereas if you go over to the, to the other side of things, you're looking at like Chicago Is, is down 0.4% off their all time peak because they just didn't see that huge spike during COVID So pretty interesting. But. But all of them, all 20 metros are down off of their all time high.

Steven H Van Wie 37:40

Yeah, Covid, those years have really screwed up statistics. It makes analysis a little harder if you're trying to really figure out what's going on out there and you look at the changes over those five, six years now and it, it puts a lot of noise in the data.

Adam Van Wie 37:58

I think that's, that's another interesting one is the percentage change Since February of 2020, right before COVID Miami is up 75%. That leads all metro areas and then followed by Charlotte, San Diego, Tampa. So Tampa, even with that price decrease, is still up 64% from February of 2020. Wow. And then you look at the other side, you see San Francisco up just 32% from February of 2020 compared to those 75. Yeah. That area, pretty interesting data. Kind of makes sense though, based on what you might have thought would happen. The, the ones that boom, the most are coming back down the most at this point.

Steven H Van Wie 38:27

Pretty nominal.

Steven H Van Wie 38:41

Okay, here's. I've got a bunch of random stuff. This one's kind of fun. The shocking number of rich people who live paycheck to paycheck. 40% of Americans earning 300,000 or more admit to living paycheck to paycheck.

Adam Van Wie 38:58

Unreal.

Steven H Van Wie 38:59

That's the ones that admit it.

Adam Van Wie 39:01

Yeah.

Joey 39:02

I saw something this morning. It said 59% still struggle with credit card debt.

Steven H Van Wie 39:06

I'm not surprised. Wow.

Joey 39:08

I don't know what the source, I don't know, like how they collected that. So that's my asterisk there.

Steven H Van Wie 39:13

I got a real kick out of this one because it might be hard for some people to imagine, but we talked a little about this last week too. If you're making 300 grand in new York and you got a couple of kids, it started on childcare costs. By the time you pay your taxes and your childcare and so on, you really don't have that much.

Adam Van Wie 39:37

And housing being outrageously expensive. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 39:41

Whether you're renting or buying, it's ridiculous. All right, here's a question for you guys. What would you feel about this one? A bill just introduced into Congress would end all income tax on military pay and retirement pay from the military.

Steven H Van Wie 40:02

Something to ponder, right?

Adam Van Wie 40:04

Yeah. I mean, I generally like supporting Military in any way we can. That feels like a really big leap, though.

Steven H Van Wie 40:12

That.

Steven H Van Wie 40:17

Yeah. And I agree with you. My initial reaction reading it says, yeah, good idea. And then you think about it. It's only 6% of Americans that would be affected by this.

Adam Van Wie 40:29

That's still a large amount.

Steven H Van Wie 40:33

But one of the things I think about too is what are they really paying right now? Military pay is so low that in half of half of Americans don't pay any taxes anyway. Income taxes. I would imagine a lot of this is already covered by existing law.

Joey 40:49

Yeah, I think. You know, again, I agree with Adam. Like anything we can do to support people who are willing to live a military life and spouses that are willing to go along with that is a good thing. And listeners who know me know my wife works for Wounded warrior projects. We certainly care about this topic. I think military pay and active duty compensation, taxation, all of those things. Disability pay, that's one of the more thoughtful areas of tax code as it exists today. You know, like when people get their disability rating and get their disability pension that's totally tax free, never included a modified adjusted gross. It's the best type of tax free income there is. Of course, that requires some sort of injury, but most soldiers come out with something and.

Joey 41:35

Yeah, I don't know, that's a tricky one. I'd have to see more numbers to really have a strong opinion.

Steven H Van Wie 41:39

All right, how about this one? A New bill expands 529 plans to include childcare costs.

Adam Van Wie 41:46

I don't see how that's helpful.

Adam Van Wie 41:49

Well, maybe for the small amount of people who go to college and have kids already, but I mean, you're generally saving in a 529 while you're incurring child care costs. So you're not really getting the tax free benefit of it. I just don't see how that's helpful.

Steven H Van Wie 42:07

I think you just nailed it. It's a timing problem. Your 529 hasn't had. Well, first off, you can't deduct anything you put into a 500 college saving type plan. There are no deductible contributions to those things.

Adam Van Wie 42:09

Yeah.

Joey 42:21

The only thing not at the federal level.

Steven H Van Wie 42:23

Right. Yeah, you're right. Some states have a little difference in them. But if. If you really look at what impact that would make, I think it's one of those things that just sounds like a little bit of window dressing or something like that. Yeah, people are being creative. This one new bill allows federal taxes to be paid in Bitcoin.

Adam Van Wie 42:23

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 42:45

I mean, it's to me. It. It isn't a big deal. Like, if you want to pay your. If you want to pay your taxes and anything that has value, I really don't care. If you want to give highly appreciated stock and pay the capital gains on it, I really don't care.

Steven H Van Wie 43:00

My version of this is I want my payments to be made in something that says this is is legal tender for all debts, public and private.

Adam Van Wie 43:11

But just to be sure there's enough market for bitcoin that the government can sell it the minute it receives it and get the money. It's not. It's just not a big deal to me.

Steven H Van Wie 43:20

They're trying to do a big old bitcoin.

Joey 43:23

My question is, I mean, do I incur a capital gain the moment I pay for something with it? I don't know, because it feels like I should.

Adam Van Wie 43:29

What's the answer to the trivia?

Steven H Van Wie 43:31

55% of Americans are currently worried about losing their job. And half of them think it would take a minimum of 4, 4 months to get a new job. That's pretty high numbers, that is. All right, we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening. This is the Bandwidth Financial Hour.