January 17th, 2026 - A Frosty Discussion: From Credit Card Caps to Booming Markets

Steve, Adam, and Joey discuss the week's financial highlights, touching on intriguing proposals like using 401ks for home purchases and potential credit card interest caps. They engage with callers, explore global industrial trends, and debate economic strategies, all while maintaining an upbeat and informative atmosphere. The hosts emphasize learning and interaction, promising valuable insights into the financial realm.

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 Loss 0:07

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 0:08

And we are here at full strength today. Nothing better to do. It's too cold to go out and play.

Adam Van Wie 0:13

Although I think it's really not that bad.

Steven H Van Wie 0:15

No, it's. It's really tapered quite a bit overnight. It stayed pretty cold, not like the.

Adam Van Wie 0:21

Night before, I can tell you. Last night on the soccer field was a lot colder.

Steven H Van Wie 0:24

We were thinking about you. Adam was sending in some pictures from the soccer game.

Joey Loss 0:30

Do you think Justin inherited any Wisconsinite or is he a Florida boy?

Adam Van Wie 0:34

Oh, he's a Florida.

Steven H Van Wie 0:37

Yeah. Well, look, his mother, she's probably the Florida girl. Yeah, that's what I would say. Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 0:44

Growing up in Miami does not make you very hearty.

Steven H Van Wie 0:48

I'm. I'm actually shocked every time I hear you guys are going up to the mountains and that she's going with you.

Adam Van Wie 0:53

Yeah, well, you should see the amount of layers that she.

Steven H Van Wie 0:56

Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine.

Joey Loss 0:59

Anyway, my wife does the same. Yeah, I'm, like, shocked at the.

Steven H Van Wie 1:02

Oh, yeah, she's a Florida girl, too. Well, I don't know how many years it takes if you come down from the hinterland to get used to the cool weather down here when it happens. We're way past that now. If it isn't 70 degrees, then it's too cold.

Joey Loss 1:04

Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 1:21

Oh, yeah, I think it took us like a week.

Steven H Van Wie 1:23

Yeah, it took me probably three or four years. A little older, a little slower, you know. Anyway, I digress. I like to welcome everybody, all you regulars. We're just about to wrap up year number 11 on the show. And on the first Saturday in February, we'll start year number 12. So you keep listening, we'll keep talking. There's always something to talk about, and there's always something to listen to. We, we promise you that you'll learn something if you stick with us. And if you're new to the show, then try to stick around for the whole hour. And again, you'll probably learn something. And we'll sit here and talk about what the three of us want to talk about. Unless you pick up the phone and dial 904-222-8255,

Steven H Van Wie 2:08

at which time we will talk about what you'd like to talk about. So get your questions together. Any topic is fine. Almost everything relates to money anyway, and everybody is concerned about their own money, so keep it on. Any kind of Business side, that's fine. But if you have personal observations or comments, that's fine too. Just give us a call. 904-222-8255.

Steven H Van Wie 2:36

All right. Another interesting week in the market. It's we're just talking about this right before the show. It's so strange because if you look at the results for the week and it says the major indices were down but the week felt pretty good I thought.

Adam Van Wie 2:55

Yeah, it definitely felt better than what the results were. I was expecting green on the screen when I sat down to do the numbers this morning.

Steven H Van Wie 3:02

Got it. Small caps but nothing else.

Adam Van Wie 3:03

Yeah, well you actually got it in mid caps and small caps. Not, not the three major highly tracked indexes though those were all down but less than 1%. So my rule is less than 1% is a flat week. We saw the S P hit it. This is the other reason I think it felt good. The S P hit an all time high on Monday before drifting 0.4% lower for the week. So really not nothing bad. In fact, a lot of our client accounts were up this week and I think that had a lot to do with the the mid and small cap indexes. The Nasdaq which hasn't made a new all time high since October, performed slightly worse. They it lost, it lost 0.7% for the week. The Dow was the best performing index and it lost 0.3%.

Adam Van Wie 3:52

All three indexes are still positive for the year by more than 1%. So unlike their large cap peers, min and small cap stocks have been in a real breakout recently. The small cap index is up 8.1% to start the year and it's actually trading in extreme overbought territory. The other thing that is doing really well is the semiconductor index which is up over 11% to start the year. This got a boost from Taiwan Semiconductors strong quarterly report. However, the index has reached those highs without the help of Nvidia which has been essentially flat since since August. So the fact that you're seeing these highs in the semiconductor index and Nvidia, which is the largest company by market cap by far in that index, is not even participating is pretty remarkable.

Adam Van Wie 4:43

Earnings season is officially here and Delta Airlines kind of got things going on Tuesday morning. Delta was able to beat their earnings target by 1% but fell short on revenue by 1%. Management C sees accelerating growth in 2026 as demands are growing in both consumer and corporate travel. That is great news. Another interesting trend in the industry was highlighted in the report. For the first time ever, premium seating that's like first class, business class, etc. That brought in more revenue to Delta than main cabin seating. That indicates that passengers are willing to pay more for better seats, flexibility and service. Or on an alternate theory that I would propose, Delta has made flying in coach so miserable that people will literally do anything to get out of flying in coach. I think it's very possible.

Steven H Van Wie 5:36

I like it.

Steven H Van Wie 5:38

I think there's a.

Joey Loss 5:39

There's a blend of both.

Adam Van Wie 5:40

Maybe. Maybe. JP Morgan also released earnings on Tuesday with an earnings miss of 8% but a revenue beat of 1.2%.

Adam Van Wie 5:50

Overall it was a pretty mixed report. Wells Fargo was similar with a 5% earnings miss. Bank of America bucked the trend and beat earnings by 3% and beat by 5% on revenue. So really solid report for bank of America America. Citigroup also beat earnings by a healthy 12%, but Goldman Sachs really took the gold star. Their earnings beat was 22% higher than forecast and revenues were 12% higher. So pretty strong report there. Their equities trading revenue was actually the best number ever reported for a bank that comes on top of them, setting that record twice last year as well. And then Morgan Stanley had an earnings beat of 11. So on average pretty okay reports from the banks. But the market reaction to those bank earnings this week was to pretty much sell them off. So the market did not take the news very well. They were all down about 3 or 4%. Not all, but most of them were down about 3 or 4, 4 4%.

Adam Van Wie 6:50

Existing home sales came in 3% higher than forecast this month and the month supply on the market also dropped a bit as the housing market appears to be stabilizing somewhat. Median home prices also dropped slightly. Affordability is still weak, but it's now down to the 68th percentile of all readings. With home prices flat and interest rates dropping, affordability should continue to improve. So that's great news as well. CPI inflation came in weaker than expected with December up 0.2% month over month versus 0.3 expected year over year. It's at 2.6% versus 2.7% expected. However, if you remove rent from the calculations, core CPI is running well below the 2% target. PPI on the other other hand showed expected inflation in October and November higher than normal and currently running around 3%. So that's kind of flipped. PPI was running lower than expected for quite some time and CPI was a bit above. Now it seems to be the opposite. Initial jobless claims continue to come in low, very low actually with this past week showing print below 200,000. Continuing claims also remain low with the first release of 2026, very close to the trend from 2025. The trend from 2025 was notably higher than in 2024 and 2023. But 23 and 24 were kind of that Covid fueled just company scrambling for workers and couldn't find anyone. So that kind of makes sense. The current data shows a market that is much closer to historic norms. So that I, I think all of this is pretty good news. It seems like things are really stabilizing in 2026.

Steven H Van Wie 8:38

I go along with all of that. I have one interesting comment on on the home sales strongest pace since 23. But the problem is there's a declining inventory out there. I've only got a few seconds. I'm going to finish this sentence right after the break because I think you're going to love it. It's a little controversial. We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 9:02

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

Adam Van Wie 9:04

I'm Adam Van Wie. 

Joey Loss 9:05

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 9:18

And we do have, as usual, a trivia question sponsored by Paul Lloyd at First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888. A little different type trivia this morning. What country is experiencing an unbelievably strong industrial index, in other words, business in the old traditional industrials. What country is knocking them dead worldwide way be had way ahead of us and everybody else.

Steven H Van Wie 9:43

That's all I'm going to give you right now. But it has a point. Speaking of points, I was about to make one

Adam Van Wie 9:44

Okay.

Steven H Van Wie 9:50

when the clock said, wait,

Steven H Van Wie 9:54

this is a little off the wall. And I know there's other considerations, but the real estate market has really started to come back and Trump made a couple moves. They did some bond buying, that kind of thing. And there have been mortgages now going down just below six. Six is historically a very good rate anyway. But even at 5,958, there is interest in the market out there. There are buyers a lot of places. What they are finding is we had a bump in inventory of houses for sale and that bump has disappeared, got sold off and it's not being replaced. So I did a little kind of contro thinking or whatever this morning said, you know, if the Fed would lower interest rates, that would eventually trickle into the mortgage rate. And if the mortgage rates went down far enough, the people sitting on their 3 and 3.5% mortgages would be less reluctant to sell. So how about this? Why don't we have the Fed reduce interest rates and help the market? And then Adam had a point out like they'll stick in the mud that it can be. Well, well, they've got other things to worry about.

Adam Van Wie 11:11

They really do. I mean, you've got, they're dealing with.

Steven H Van Wie 11:14

I know, you're right, but it doesn't go along with my theory very well.

Adam Van Wie 11:20

I think that the fear there is that inflation is if you, if you start lowering interest rates, make money cheaper, that too much money starts to chase too few goods again and then inflation comes back. So that's, that's got to be the Fed.

Steven H Van Wie 11:35

Traditional logic. And it's probably worthwhile, but I just thought I'd take a, a sidelong look at the thing and see what would happen.

Adam Van Wie 11:36

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 11:43

I do think it would greatly unlock the housing market there. But the real problem, it still doesn't address the real problem. The real problem is we're 3 to 4 million units shy of having enough homes in America right now.

Steven H Van Wie 11:55

Yep. And we need to get that one straightened out big time. What you mentioned with the, the rental component holding the index up. First off this morning, did you guys check truflation this morning? 1.56.

Adam Van Wie 12:10

I did not.

Adam Van Wie 12:13

Wow.

Joey Loss 12:13

Wow.

Steven H Van Wie 12:14

It's the lowest number I've seen. And what truflation is, it's a, a group of people who track inflation day to day and it's, it's tracked on things you actually buy. So it's kind of like the chapwood index of, of inflation in indices. It's just a better look at it. And it, just a week ago it was over 2, and in fact, I think it got up to about 2.4, 10, 12 days ago, and now it's down to 1.56. So there was a little spike in something out there and it might have been the energy prices because there's been some popping around on oil prices.

Joey Loss 12:51

That could be one of the biggest. When I looked at the breakdown, one of the biggest increases was in like video game and video subscriptions was like 30% up this year. And that was an outlier. On the other hand, eggs were down 22%. So that one, we love Bob giving us eggs, but I can't help but feel like he loves us a little bit less. It's just not worth as much as it was last year when he was bringing them.

Adam Van Wie 13:02

Wow.

Steven H Van Wie 13:18

Sure. He's listening to that one too. Anyway, there are, every, everywhere you look, there are signs that things are getting Better. You still see some people with masks on nowadays. Covid isn't forgotten, although you wonder if some of those are not really because of any illness possibilities.

Adam Van Wie 13:39

Oh, it's an illness.

Steven H Van Wie 13:40

Oh, it is, you're right. Certainly is. He came to play today, huh?

Steven H Van Wie 13:48

I love it. Anyway,

Steven H Van Wie 13:52

well, while we're on the topic.

Joey Loss 13:53

Of homes, one of the things that we had sent around in our group chat this week was Trump has come forward with a plan that would let Americans tap 401ks for down payments on homes. And we pile. All we did was trade the headline and say, not going to talk about it until we're on the air. So now we're on the air. I'll just put a little context from the article I read and then open it up for discussion. So about 30% of first time home buyers said saving for a home down payment was one of the most difficult parts of their home purchase. According to a National association of Realtors survey that was released Last year, about 22% of first time home buyers surveyed said they used a gift or loan from a relative or friend as a source of their down payment. President Trump will issue a plan next week for Americans letting them tap their 401k retirement accounts for a down payment on a home. This is the latest in a series of proposals floated by the administration to address persistent anxiety over the cost of living.

Adam Van Wie 14:53

So one interesting thing. While home affordability ability is in the 68th percentile of all times measured,

Adam Van Wie 15:05

down payment affordability is like in the 86th percentile. So it's much harder to come up with a down payment these days than it is to pay your mortgage.

Steven H Van Wie 15:15

These are indices where you don't want a big number. On a small. I'm just showing Joey that article. Oh yeah, the same thing I read and I had labeled it this morning. Discuss.

Joey Loss 15:19

Right.

Adam Van Wie 15:20

Right.

Joey Loss 15:28

Okay, perfect. I wasn't sure if that's a discuss or dismiss and I just threw. You know.

Adam Van Wie 15:29

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 15:35

One thing,

Steven H Van Wie 15:38

when you take money out of your 401k, it's taxable. What they're talking about is the 10% penalty. And I don't know if 10% is going to be enough to change it a lot. It might make the difference for some. It's kind of like the people who, when you say 50 year mortgage, they tear their hair out. This is what you call options or choices. It's kind of what America was founded on, having choices. This would be one more choice. And if it tips the scales for some people to be able to get into a house,

Steven H Van Wie 16:18

everybody Makes the same mistake. Every time I read about any of this stuff, they say that you want to get the thing paid for so you got all this equity. But as I have been reminding people for a month now, home equity is not nearly so much about the payments you make on it as it is about being there over time in the market. Yeah, yeah. It's the same thing as general investing.

Joey Loss 16:45

And there's probably listeners who hear you say that and totally disagree. But the reason, if we're looking at the big data, people stay in their homes an average of seven years. And if you look at the amortization schedule of a loan to your point, you really haven't paid that much principal down by year seven. It's really after year 10, 15.

Steven H Van Wie 17:02

15 year mortgage, seven moves a little, right. 30 year, it hardly moves 50 year, it wouldn't move at all to speak.

Adam Van Wie 17:09

But most of the money is made in the appreciation.

Steven H Van Wie 17:12

So every month that you can assist people getting their first home is another month of long term growth potential for their own net worth. So anything you can do, I believe anything you can do to help them, you're helping the whole country by developing more equity. Because as we know from a few weeks ago, the unencumbered real estate in this country is a huge number, like 60% or something. We got to get more and more people into their own homes if we're going to solve this. It will also improve the demand because like Joey was saying, we got a. Or maybe it was Adam, I'm not sure. But we've got a shortage of homes overall. That's really adding a lot to the problem itself. I think so my only million we need.

Joey Loss 18:05

So as far as like if you take this idea in a vacuum, I don't have any good reason to have a problem with it. I think it's totally fine if it's the difference between a 24 year old savings, you know, $3,000 a year or $6,000 a year in this 401k and they don't have to worry so much about having everything in the right buckets because they don't know exactly when they're going to buy a home. I think that's great. But is it going to solve the problems afoot? Right now I kind of worry that any, anything we do that just increase arbitrarily increases the money supply but doesn't improve the housing supply could actually have the reverse effect in the short term. You know, if you have people that can suddenly access all this money in their 401ks to buy homes. And so you're getting more bids on homes. What happens to home prices? Right. They go up, theoretically. And, and the reason I, you know, we can pontificate about maybes in economics all day, but it turns out Australia actually did something like this in 2017. They started allowing one of their retirement programs to be accessed. You could contribute more to it and then you could access it for home purchases. They have not solved the supply issue, which building homes in Australia is very difficult to do compared to us for a lot of different reasons. And the prices have only gone up worse, worsening the problem in the short term. So it's not that I think this idea is bad. I actually think it's good in a vacuum. I just think we have to be. I almost wish that there would be more attention given to increasing the desire for supply to happen. Like, how do we increase the money supply, lower the burden for those that build homes? Because that's the real solution that we can control beyond mortgage rates.

Adam Van Wie 18:43

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 19:43

I also don't. The reason that I would push back on this is I would prefer that it was a loan from your 401k. As to pulling money out of your 401k, you can always do that. Exactly. But that is a much better solution because then you are paying yourself back, you're rebuilding that retirement savings while also getting equity in your home and you're, you're paying yourself interest into your 401k, so you're growing it. So I just greatly prefer the loan option to removing money from your 401k.

Steven H Van Wie 20:14

I do, too. But when you take that loan from your 401k, you're committing to a series of payments, at least four payments a year for at least five years. In fact, you can go 10, I think, for home purchase. And that. That's not going to be doable by everyone.

Adam Van Wie 20:30

Yeah, no, I get that. I just. If you have, if you're looking at two options and weighing them, I would prefer the loan.

Steven H Van Wie 20:37

Yeah, I would do. And I think if you were dealing with people on a professional basis, you would tell them exactly. All right. I want to talk about the Fed when we get back. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 20:53

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

Adam Van Wie 20:55

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 20:56

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 20:57

And I remind Everybody, lines are open. 904-222-8255 where you can take a shot of the trivia question which says what country's idustrial index, I guess you'd call it, is experiencing a boom way, way ahead of all others and not something that you're necessarily going to think about just off the top of your head. Right. During the break, we were talking just kind of following up on this home buyer proposal and so on. And I think there's a lot of reasons that the data we're working with probably does have some flaws. I was talking about the first time home buyers being age 40 and up, and Adam pointed out that he thinks there's a lot of flaws in that data, and he makes a compelling case. I think.

Adam Van Wie 21:54

Yeah, I think that number is complete bs. I don't think it's true. I don't think it's. I think it's risen, but I don't think it's risen by. By 40% or what, I don't know, 20%, whatever, over the last two years that they've been reporting. I just don't buy it.

Joey Loss 22:09

Yeah. And not off the back of, like a conspiracy. It's just antiquated methods. I mean, the point that was raised was that they're sending out physical surveys to people. And the reality. I'm 33. I'm probably, you know, historically, when you buy your first home, and if we got a survey in the mail, I'd throw it out because I'm busy. I have two kids under two and a half. I'm just not the type that's going to answer it. And, you know, if they had more accessible methods that were a little bit more modernized, we might participate.

Steven H Van Wie 22:36

So. So what you're saying is if we took the raw data instead of the survey, it would be likely that there would be a different outcome. And I agree with that.

Joey Loss 22:44

Probably.

Adam Van Wie 22:46

Yeah.

Joey Loss 22:46

I think we talked about this before. Aren't there 120 questions on this survey?

Adam Van Wie 22:50

It's really.

Steven H Van Wie 22:50

It is, yes. It's. Remember the day we were talking about.

Joey Loss 22:51

I mean, that is pretty difficult.

Adam Van Wie 22:54

About that? I can tell you there's a 0% chance that I would ever answer that.

Joey Loss 22:58

I might even start it and then just be like, all right, whatever.

Adam Van Wie 23:00

Yeah, if I got past page one, I'm out.

Steven H Van Wie 23:02

Yeah, I'll get back to that someday when my kids are in college and I'm retired.

Adam Van Wie 23:07

Yeah, exactly. Right. All right, so I think we generally agree that the. The tapping your 401k is an okay idea, maybe has some flaws, but in general, the sentiment is there. To help people get down payments is very important. And that's one possible way. So that's. We're okay with that. Trump also came out with a really bad plan this week, and I'm not. Yeah, he came up with a proposal that is clearly an appeal because it will be very popular, but the unintended consequences will be a freaking nightmare. He said he wants to cap credit card interest at 10%.

Steven H Van Wie 23:09

Like that.

Steven H Van Wie 23:31

Gonna know what you're talking.

Adam Van Wie 23:51

I could go on and on about why this is a bad. It doesn't matter. The time, it does not matter. This is a horrible idea. And I could go on and on about the reasons why. But what do you guys think before I go on. On a rant.

Joey Loss 24:06

Completely agree with your. The broad statement. I, I think it's a disaster. And the biggest thing that stands out to me is in. On the surface, it sounds like, wow, this is going to be great for people who are struggling. The reality is you're going to lose access to credit entirely because banks are not in the business of just being nice. You know, if the policy comes out like that, you will not have a credit card.

Adam Van Wie 24:16

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 24:26

I could not agree more. I think in Washington, D.C. there is a lack of understanding of the term unintended consequences.

Joey Loss 24:37

Absolutely fair to say.

Steven H Van Wie 24:38

Yeah. There should be a massive industry of consultants teaching congresspeople what unintended consequences mean. Yeah, they do things and there's no real basis in them, except it's a. Look over there. See that pretty little thing? A 10% interest rate on your credit card and you're struggling to pay your credit cards off. And then the next day, the credit card company calls the people and says it's due right now and we're reinking your card. And that's exactly what's going to happen. Because credit card people are in the risk management business.

Adam Van Wie 25:09

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 25:14

Think about, put it, try and couch it in a way that makes it more understandable. A heloc, which is a secured debt against a house, something that has a tremendous amount of value, is at, I don't know, 7, 8%, roughly. I don't currently have one that I'm paying on, so I don't know exactly, but let's just call it 7 or 8%. And that is a secured debt. So if you do not pay that, the bank can put a lien against your home, which I guess could be foreclosed on, and then they would, they would get paid back. A credit card has nothing backing it up. It's just the, the ability to pay of the consumer, zero security. So if the credit card company loans you that money and you don't pay it back, they are out, they lose that money, it's gone for good. There is no recourse that they have. And so think about the difference in what. When you're making a decision about lending someone money, would you want to lend someone money at slightly more than what you. For something that was not secured? So if the, if the person you're lending to doesn't pay you back, you get nothing, or would you rather lend something with a couple less interest, you know, points of interest and have it secured so if they didn't pay you back, you got paid back? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's a pretty easy call. I'd rather lend money at 8% secured than 10% unsecured. Now, if you say 21% unsecured versus 8% secured now, I have to think about it because that seems like a maybe not as bad of a deal because I am making so much more interest that it may be the. If I don't get paid back, I've at least recouped my principal by the time the person defaults. That is why credit card interest rates are where they are. And also interest rates are a measure of a person's ability to pay it back, their credit worthiness, their history of making payments on time. And so that's the way the market prices the ability to give you that credit. If you cap it at 10%, only the most secure billionaires will be able to get a credit card. It just, it doesn't make any sense. It's going to absolutely upend the industry and destroy credit card companies and they'll.

Joey Loss 27:38

Crush the point system, which I think a lot of us have come to like that.

Adam Van Wie 27:40

I would be very disappointed about that.

Steven H Van Wie 27:44

There's an analogy. If you go back several years in the state of Florida when Nelson was the insurance commissioner. And you know, good old Billy Bob Nelson, he. He didn't like the way that the insurers were treating people unequally. They were actually charging people more if they lived nearer or on the ocean than they were charging for people in Orlando, for instance. So he just decided one day that everybody had to pay exactly the same rates. 17 insurance companies left the state of Florida immediately. Now, try to get some insurance on your property. If you were buying right after that and nobody was interested in writing it, especially if you're thinking oceanfront or riverfront or any nice area, you couldn't get insurance. So

Steven H Van Wie 28:43

I would call that unintended consequences.

Steven H Van Wie 28:48

Good morning, Jim.

Joey Loss 28:50

Hey, guys.

Steven H Van Wie 28:51

What's that?

Speaker 3 28:52

I have some disagreements on capping the credit card rate at 10%, I think possibly. Possibly 10% above the prime interest rate or mortgage rates for either one. Something like capping it at that. There are people that have credit cards whose interest rates are like 28, 30%. That should be illegal. That's usury.

Steven H Van Wie 29:18

That's an argument that a lot of people would make.

Joey Loss 29:20

I mean, I think that's better.

Adam Van Wie 29:23

I don't think you'll get a disagreement here from us. I just think 10% is.

Steven H Van Wie 29:26

I actually like your proposals. Yeah.

Speaker 3 29:28

Putting it 10% as a cap. I kind of agree with that. Because people don't know how to manage money. They need to talk to you guys.

Steven H Van Wie 29:38

You're getting smarter by the minute.

Joey Loss 29:39

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 29:42

Yeah. That's very interesting and something, frankly, I've never thought about. But mortgage rate plus 10.

Adam Van Wie 29:50

It would.

Steven H Van Wie 29:50

Cut out many less people and it would give some people a badly needed break. I don't know. I'd like to see a test market.

Adam Van Wie 29:58

I know. I feel like this is a number that can't just be pulled out of thin air. I feel like a really intricate study needs to be done to figure out where the risk reward profile needs to. Where that number needs to be in order to, like, make this a feasible thing. And 10% is so arbitrary and just not the right number.

Speaker 3 30:19

Well, that's true, but you need. You talked about the unintended consequences of the Congress. You need look no farther than Glass Steagall. Look what happened when they let that expire.

Steven H Van Wie 30:30

Yeah, thanks, Billy. That was a Clinton thing. And it happened right when he first came in and everybody said, no, no, no. But of course, the young buck from Arkansas had to have his own way and it was a disaster.

Adam Van Wie 30:46

The other thing that I heard, a very good argument against the 10% thing was, okay, if you don't. If your credit card goes away because you're not credit worthy, where are you going to go? Payday loans. You're going to go to Vinnie, the local guy who lends money at 30%. Like, what are your other options? It's worse than credit cards. Yep.

Steven H Van Wie 30:58

Exactly.

Speaker 3 31:07

I don't mean to interrupt you there, but I think physical restraint on the part of people who've been issued these credit cards. This is becoming similar to Glass Steagall and the mortgage thing. If you can breathe, you can get a credit card. That's not right. They give your credit cards to people who have no fiscal responsibility.

Steven H Van Wie 31:30

Jim, are you old enough to remember when they mailed them to your mailbox?

Speaker 3 31:34

Oh, yeah, absolutely. There was a time within about a Three month period I suddenly had six different credit cards from six different banks show up in my mailbox.

Adam Van Wie 31:44

Crazy.

Steven H Van Wie 31:45

I remember it like it was yesterday. Great. Hey, would you like to take a shot at the trivia question? What country?

Lane 31:51

Yeah, what is.

Steven H Van Wie 31:54

What country has the hottest industrial climate right now based on orders and that sort of thing?

Speaker 3 32:05

Oh, that's a tough one. I would say probably South Korea.

Steven H Van Wie 32:06

It is.

Steven H Van Wie 32:10

That's a good guess, frankly, but it isn't correct. That's, that's okay. It's a good place to start and we appreciate it. We got to run and I, I like your idea. I'd like to see it talked about. So. Thank you.

Joey Loss 32:20

Thanks, Tim.

Joey Loss 32:27

Yeah, I think you gave some good thoughts to like set the framework for.

Steven H Van Wie 32:31

I love phone calls that make you think for sure. Good call. All right, we're going to take a break. I see we have another phone call on the line. We'll pick that up right after the break if you patient enough. Thank you. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is the Van Wie Financial hour.

Steven H Van Wie 33:06

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

Adam Van Wie 33:08

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 33:09

And I'm Joey Loss and The lines.

Steven H Van Wie 33:11

Are open 904-222-8255

Steven H Van Wie 33:14

except for the one that's occupied which is right here. Good morning Bob.

Bob 33:20

Good morning gentlemen.

Steven H Van Wie 33:21

What's happening?

Bob 33:24

Crisis now. But, but, but much like, and then I, I didn't hear the trivia question because I was, I had my head in a cattle water tr

Bob 33:35

but so I'm not going to be able to take a guess at the trivia question.

Steven H Van Wie 33:39

Oh, I can ask it real quickly.

Bob 33:41

In a multi species farm when you have cattle, chickens, turkeys, eggs and meat birds it points out that it's like, you know, you guys with portfolios, it has to be balanced and it has to be appropriate when one thing is down, something else picking up. So and just we're doing just fine even though our eggs, our eggs haven't come down that much.

Joey Loss 34:05

So really well you guys have the best eggs around. Yeah, it's a different ball. We're talking about mass eggs.

Bob 34:11

I just saw a video the other day. One of the largest egg producers in the country is supplementing Feed corn, which causes a lot of inflammation in the body once it's ingested. So they don't tell you that, but that's what's going on.

Adam Van Wie 34:25

It's a lot like. It's a lot like Delta, where people are willing to pay for the premium eggs. Yeah.

Joey Loss 34:31

Oh, my gosh.

Bob 34:32

We're going to do some traveling this year and we are definitely going to upgrade because, you know, I eat some sardines from time to time and there is definitely a sardine seat when you're in coach.

Steven H Van Wie 34:45

You want me to hand you the trivia question real quickly?

Bob 34:49

I don't, I don't. I didn't hear it.

Steven H Van Wie 34:51

What country's industrial index is really popping right now? The hottest country for industrials on the planet, and it's not South Korea.

Bob 35:02

Okay,

Bob 35:04

I'm going to say.

Lane 35:08

Taiwan.

Steven H Van Wie 35:10

Another good guess, but not correct. Okay, stay tuned to the end of the show and we'll see.

Bob 35:15

All right, thanks so much. Yep.

Steven H Van Wie 35:19

I wanted to say something about the Fed. You know, this feud that's going on between Trump and Powell is about the overruns on the remodeling. And I mean a billion. It's between 600 million and $1 billion in overruns. And I'll be right with you, Elaine. I want to bring this up. They said it won't cost us anything. The taxpayers are not paying for it. The Fed pays for it. Well, how about this? You know what the Fed does with its annual profits? It refunds them to the U.S. treasury. Starting in 2016, those refunds hit these are in billions. 92, 80, 65, 55 and $87 billion. That's $379 billion that the Fed paid back to the treasury in profits. Well, suddenly, here comes Joe Biden. Coincidence or not, I don't know. And The Fed loses 109 in 2021. Then they lost 75, and then they lost 116. And then for the two years 20, 24 and 25, they lost another 243 billion. If they turn profitable tomorrow, do we get that money? No, they have to pay back all of these losses. All of the ones I just told you.

Joey Loss 36:39

Yeah, that's a tough. I was getting prepared to defend 21 and 20, but when it continued into 24, 23, it's like, ah, okay, something's not right.

Steven H Van Wie 36:48

Yep. And therefore, when they say the taxpayers aren't paying for this thing, you just look them in the eye and tell them, Steve said they were. I'll take the rap.

Adam Van Wie 36:59

Okay. Will do. Okay.

Steven H Van Wie 37:03

Good morning. Lane.

Lane 37:06

How you doing?

Steven H Van Wie 37:07

Real fine. How are you?

Lane 37:09

Pretty good. Want to talk about housing first or trivia first?

Adam Van Wie 37:10

Good.

Steven H Van Wie 37:13

The trivia first.

Lane 37:16

Well, the. I don't want to take the money because I did some Internet snooping.

Steven H Van Wie 37:22

Well, that's. That's your right as an American.

Lane 37:24

Either save it or give it to somebody else or to charity. But looking at the list that popped up on my screen is

Lane 37:34

I. I'm fascinated to hear what your point is because all these tiny third world countries, you know, somebody's boosting industrial capacity there, and all those big, you know, huge sledgehammer countries are down. I noticed our friends in Canada making deals with China is at zero.

Lane 38:01

I. I don't know. I'm fascinated to hear what your point is on this.

Steven H Van Wie 38:05

Did I miss something in there that. Were you. Were you. Oh, so you want to take a guess?

Adam Van Wie 38:08

No, he hasn't said it yet.

Lane 38:12

What, Guyana?

Steven H Van Wie 38:15

Well, that's not what I have. We'll put it that way. We get our. Okay, we get data like this from some of the finest researchers in the world. And I can't give it out yet because there's still a phone call waiting after you. So let's talk housing.

Lane 38:28

Yeah,

Lane 38:31

but. Okay, so housing. You know, this is fascinating. We have to just focus on our state for a second. How county has a housing advising housing advisory council, and they wring their hands. And so I asked them, I said, how short are we and where does the data come from? And the answer from the director of growth management is, oh, no, we don't have anything. You know, I don't have a single source of that data. And I said, but you're running around screaming that we're short of houses. And you have, I think you guys a week or two or so ago talked about BlackRock.

Lane 39:20

You know, the convenience store clerk is competing against BlackRock in the market.

Lane 39:27

Then you've got, you know, folks that have two or three rental houses. You know, I can't fault them. I, emotionally, I don't like blackrock in there, but I can't fault my neighbor from struggling to buy some rental property. So there's. There's so many things in the mix.

Lane 39:47

And yet again, Florida and my county specifically, the big home builders come in and they wring their hands, too. But the county cuts them all sorts of slack to get the price down. And it's 350k.

Steven H Van Wie 40:06

Yep.

Lane 40:07

Now, a teacher can only afford 200 or less. Right. If you guys run the mortgage numbers, you know, they're running 50,000 a year. So we're doing what, 1300 in rent or house payment. So, I mean, it's all wonky. I. I don't know. Well, help me out.

Steven H Van Wie 40:28

Well, you know, we're gonna have to look into this and do it next week. I want to take one more phone call and we're right up against the clock.

Lane 40:36

Absolutely. You guys have fun.

Steven H Van Wie 40:38

Yeah. And I'll communicate with you between now and then, too. Thank you.

Lane 40:41

Yeah. Talk to you later.

Joey Loss 40:42

Bye.

Steven H Van Wie 40:44

Good morning, Greg.

Speaker 3 40:46

Good morning. So I heard that Guyana is on the list. Has anybody else called in with other names? I don't want to.

Steven H Van Wie 40:55

South Korea was also good. And Taiwan.

Adam Van Wie 40:57

And Taiwan.

Speaker 3 41:00

Okay, so South Korea, Taiwan. So

Speaker 3 41:05

industrial production leader. Is this for like 20, 26 or current numbers?

Steven H Van Wie 41:13

This country is booming in current numbers.

Speaker 3 41:20

I'm going to go with the United States.

Steven H Van Wie 41:22

Another good guess, but it's not correct. And I don't think we're going to have time to have anybody else guess. So I'm going to tell you because I want to make my point. You're always fun to make a point with. It's actually Sweden.

Joey Loss 41:35

That would not have been.

Steven H Van Wie 41:36

I would have never got their month over month. Industrial orders up 11.8%

Steven H Van Wie 41:43

with a 53% surge in transportation and 151% increase for six months that ended May.

Adam Van Wie 41:52

So that's. That must be their big shipping companies.

Steven H Van Wie 41:56

Partly. The first thing I thought of was Volvo. So are you guys all out there buying Volvos like crazy?

Joey Loss 42:03

No, I see more, but then I Polestars than I used to, which is a Volvo ev.

Steven H Van Wie 42:08

Well, I dug into it and Volvo is doing humongous business in cars, buses, construction

Steven H Van Wie 42:20

engines and hybrid drivetrains.

Adam Van Wie 42:23

Who knew?

Steven H Van Wie 42:24

So. Volvo cars, however, are owned by China. That was one of my points. My other one was a question you've heard. In fact, Adam talked about the semiconductors this morning. For the last decade or two, the semiconductors are the new transports. So my question this morning. Is it possible that transports are the new transports?

Bob 42:24

Wow.

Steven H Van Wie 42:51

Just a little CFP humor.

Speaker 3 42:54

I better get off the phone and start scanning stock.

Steven H Van Wie 42:58

Take care of yourself. Thanks. Okay.

Speaker 3 43:01

You have a great weekend. Thank you.

Steven H Van Wie 43:02

Thank you. Okay, we've just got a minute left before we go. Anything else?

Joey Loss 43:09

No. My guess. My guess was with Greg, it just kind of felt like. Yeah, that's what the question was. Wagging.

Steven H Van Wie 43:14

Yeah, you know, I. I see that coming. In a short time.

Joey Loss 43:18

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 43:18

I certainly would not have gone to Northern Europe.

Steven H Van Wie 43:21

Yes. No, that would. What caught my eye. One more thing. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. That was Elizabeth Warren's big thing. You know what she wants to do now or they want to do now. This is unbelievable. They want to take medical debt out of your credit rating. Now, if you're in trouble to medical debt and you have a high credit rating or if you need a higher credit rating and medical is going to be erased and you'll get it somewhere along the line. This goes right back to how we open the show. Somewhere along the line, the risk reward status of borrowers in general has to be acknowledged. The whole industry is cut out that way. But here's the way it should be done. And it is in some places. Equifax, Experian and TransUnion are doing some things like they're excluding medical debts of less than $500. Sounds very reasonable. Reasonable. And they have a year to sort out billing disputes.

Adam Van Wie 44:33

Now that that should be more like.

Steven H Van Wie 44:35

Three years because I agree with that. But they're starting to take some action. But you don't do it by saying if you're in medical debt, it doesn't affect your rating. That's stupid. On that happy note, we'll see you next week, same time. This is the Ben we Financial Hour signing off.