January 23rd, 2026 - Money, Markets, and Modern Challenges

Join hosts Steve Van Wie and Joey Loss on the Van We Financial Hour as they navigate through financial markets, political insights, and tech privacy alerts. Amid discussions of small-cap stock performance and the impact of regulation on local real estate, they sprinkle in humor and personal anecdotes. In this lively broadcast, listeners are treated to market analysis, tales of investment pitfalls, and the importance of safeguarding personal data in the digital age.

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. And the prodigal son is prodigaling,

Joey Loss 0:06

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 0:12

or whatever that word might be. He is off today seeking humor in his life, going down to see Seinfeld.

Joey Loss 0:21

What? He's seeking humor and left us behind? Yeah. Come on.

Steven H Van Wie 0:25

I know some people just don't quite get it and he must be one of them. Anyway, Joey and I are going to carry us through the hours we have done so many times. And I've got to thank everybody, all the regulars, for always being here. You keep listening, we keep talking. One more show after this one and we're done with the 11th year. Isn't that amazing? Where that went, I'm not really quite sure, but my lack of hair and the color of it probably attests to it as well as anything, but it has really flown by.

Joey Loss 0:48

Wow.

Joey Loss 1:02

Well, as the newest member of the band, I can say what a feat that is because I. I can appreciate how much goes into prepping for these shows and just the fact that it can endure for 11 years and we're still having fun.

Steven H Van Wie 1:13

You know that. See, you just summed it all up in those last words. We're still having fun. I. I honestly do look forward to every Saturday. And in fact, I have never missed one in 11 years. There were maybe seven, eight, nine that we couldn't do because it fell on holidays or there a couple times we. The city was evacuated for hurricanes, but every other time out of 52 weeks for 11 years I've been here, I feel like I'm right at home and I know that a lot of you have been right there on the other end of it, so I hope you feel right at home, too. If you're new to the show, try to listen to the whole thing. We'll promise you that you'll learn something in that hour because we talk a lot about a lot of different things and nothing impacts more people than money. And that's our main topic, money. So. Yep. Well, we'll see what you take away. And if you miss it, just go to the website. By Monday we have them all online anyway. And you can do it without commercials that way. That's. That's Megan's little way of making everybody happy. Cuts out the commercials for you. And we appreciate it. I'm sure you do. All right. Gosh, I don't even know where to start today, but Joey will do the market wrap shortly. And of course, we'll have on right after the first break, we'll have a trivia question. And from there we'll talk about whatever we want to talk about, unless you pick up the phone and dial 904-222-8255,

Joey Loss 1:19

Yep.

Joey Loss 1:26

Incredible.

Steven H Van Wie 2:53

and then we'll talk about what you want to talk about.

Joey Loss 2:56

Yeah. And last week we had a caller, Lane, submit some ideas for us to get into. And we've got some notes on that. So we're looking forward to that topic.

Steven H Van Wie 3:04

Unfortunately, that topic is so complex, I haven't gotten into it as far as I'd like to. But I know you took some time on it, too. And just, I'll give you a little heads up what he's talking about. The people we elect to political office, state and local, are doing everything they can to pack more people into Florida and to use up good farmland and all that stuff. And it's,

Steven H Van Wie 3:30

it's kind of scary looking down the road at what this could lead to. But that's, that's a topic for a little later. All right. We had a Trump reaction day on Wednesday. That's what I did.

Joey Loss 3:42

We did. And it was the first time. So Adam called out in the office, he goes, joey, the market's moving. What's happening? And this is the first time I went straight to Truth Social instead of Wall Street Journal's homepage to figure out what it was. And sure enough, two minutes before that, Trump had put something out and we pulled the thread and figured out what was going on. But anyway, so in the markets, interesting that the trend so far this year has been the smaller, the better. The two largest company pockets of the market, the Magnificent 7 stocks and the S&P 100, are the two stock groups that are down year to date. That's a big change from where we've been the last several years.

Steven H Van Wie 4:18

You haven't been able to say those words for a long time.

Joey Loss 4:21

That's right. And meanwhile, the smaller you go, the better the returns have been so far. In 2026, US micro cap stocks, the smallest companies in the US are up nearly 10% over the first three weeks of the year with the help of the bottom 400 stocks within this S&P 500 index, the S&P itself is up about 1% year to date, while the Nasdaq is up about 1.4%. Looking internationally, the developed international index is up about 4.1% and the emerging market index is up about 8%. If Adam were here, he'd remind you that moments like this are are among the many reasons why diversification matters. The important and positive takeaway here in our eyes, can be seen in the following piece of data. Since late October, The S&P 500 equal weight index has been outperforming the Market Cap Weighted standard S&P 500 index, signaling that the broader market is finally participating in this rally. This is a good thing for investors. It's difficult to keep faith in a market that continues to boom on the backs of less than a dozen stocks with or semiconductors alone, which we've seen at times over the last several years. On the jobs front, hiring has been weak with only 50,000 payrolls added in December, the weakest annual pace since 2020. But despite tepid hiring, the most recent jobs report shows initial jobless claims at a steady 200,000 or lower. This is lower than previous forecasts. This paints a picture of a relatively steady job market with a national unemployment rate holding stable around 4.4%. Turning to inflation, official CPI reports put the December year over year core inflation level at about 2.6%, while our friends at truflation signal a lower Trend closer to 1.7% year over year. This suggests that official reports from the government may continue to catch up to the cooling reality in the coming months. Even the Michigan Sentiment reports we've commented on in the past for being broken show a decrease in public inflation expectations from 7% during 2025 to to closer to 4% presently. On the housing front, mortgage rates hit a three year low this month at 6.06%, down significantly from the peak north of 7% last year.

Steven H Van Wie 6:28

I missed that number this week. That's a good number.

Joey Loss 6:31

Yeah, that's a very healthy movement. Active listings are up 20% year over year and the NAR or the national association of Realtors is projecting a 14% increase in home sales for 2026 as the lock in effects of historically low rates from the past five five years begin to fade. Just a reminder, the second year of any presidency is historically the weakest and most volatile for stock investors, so we should be expecting some movements in the markets throughout this year. This is because this tends to be during an administration when the hard policy decisions occur. Then on the commodities front, I'd be remiss not to mention the melt up phenomenon in the gold and silver markets. Gold is up 15% year to date and silver's up 39% year to date. While this is a lot of fun, analysis from analysts suggests that this pace is fundamentally unsustainable and driven by extreme illiquidity and momentum. We don't know what's going to happen there or when it's going to happen, but man, it is moving.

Steven H Van Wie 7:29

Remember Herb Stein, when he worked in the White House, was quoted as saying something that I've always remembered, anything that's unsustainable will stop at some point.

Joey Loss 7:42

That's the hard part, right? When is that point?

Joey Loss 7:47

But that wraps up the market rap.

Steven H Van Wie 7:50

All right.

Steven H Van Wie 7:52

I'm always reluctant to get into the part that's political, but how long do you suppose it's going to be before everybody watches Trump and says, I know what he's doing, I know where he's going, but it sounds bad getting there. That Wednesday thing, it was just so foreseeable what was going to happen when he got over to Davos, he's talking about, well, we'll do whatever it takes to get our way with Greenland and he wants to own it or buy it or whatever. And everybody knew what was going to go on. We're going to get our bases for the Golden Dome. So as soon as they settled on that, then, of course, out come the idiots again with the old taco thing. Trump always caves. Everybody knew where this was going and why people react like that, I'll never know. But I can't answer all questions. I just know what to do about it. I will take a quick break. Be right back. Don't go anywhere. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 8:56

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

Joey Loss 8:58

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 9:00

And we do as usual, have. Well, first off, lines open. 904-222-8255. We have a trivia question brought to you by Paul Lloyd at First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888. And I'm going to stick with the opening theme. I guess today Joey was saying that small is in right now the, the small cap index, the biggest one, probably most famous one, is the Russell 2000 and it has somewhere around 2000 stocks. You think that's a good guess, although most of those indices that have numbers on them don't follow them very much. But that's another story. Plus, of course, it's all impacted a lot by initial public offerings and private equities and all that. But let's say out of the Russell 2000 stocks, what percentage of them have ever turned even a penny of profit? And it's between obviously 1 and 100 because it's a percent and it's an even number. Don't get picky with it. And I got a little range on it. So that one what percentage of small caps has ever made any money? And it's an interesting discussion, I'll give you that because there's, there are a lot of dynamics in there. All right, I'm going to take a couple of minutes here and, and do my best Clark Howard consumer warrior stuff. There's some things you should know. One of them, if you have a reasonably new smart tv, and this is thanks to Kim Commando and those of you who do not know her, it's commando.com and commando is with a K. And she is the self appointed digital goddess of most of us who have been following her for decades. Anyway, if you have a new smart tv, it is probably taking screenshots of what you have on your TV every four seconds or so and it accumulates them and sends them back to headquarters where they sell them to people.

Steven H Van Wie 11:13

That's what you might get. All kinds of different advertising depending on what you want, that sort of thing. Because data is everything in this digital world. And this is another means of collecting data without telling you about it. And legally she has a section about how to turn that off. I'm not going to go through the details, but I'm going to give you a kind of overview for it. And I have a new Sony tv. It's in the new Google TV series and they do this kind of thing and for that one, you press the home button, go to Settings, device Preferences, usage and Diagnostics,

Steven H Van Wie 11:59

and then turn off everything in there and this goes away. So if you don't want to be, shall we say, called out where you're watching Preferences and you have one of these new TVs, get into the settings and preferences and somewhere in that line you're gonna find data collection and just hit the off button and you're good.

Joey Loss 12:20

That's fascinating because I've been like, man, the technology, like the TV tech. I just remember when I was 10 years old, if someone had a plasma TV, it was like a $20,000 epic thing that your friend's parents bought. And now it's like you can go to Costco and get a beautiful TV for 400 bucks.

Steven H Van Wie 12:37

That's what I paid for my Sony. Yeah.

Joey Loss 12:39

And I was thinking to myself, man, like, that tech has really come a long way. They must be way better at manufacturing. But no, they're subsidizing by selling your information every five seconds.

Steven H Van Wie 12:48

Kim says, why do you think you're not paying $1,500 for that, yeah, I.

Joey Loss 12:53

Should have known better because you are.

Steven H Van Wie 12:56

A commodity and your data is critical to a lot of things. And while I'm on that, I am going to tell you another one again. Commando. She's been on a consumer warrior terror.

Steven H Van Wie 13:13

Did you know that your telephone is probably collecting data on where you go?

Joey Loss 13:21

That I knew.

Steven H Van Wie 13:22

Did you know that there are five apps that monitor your driving and where you go and then sell the data? And you know that the biggest customer for that data is car insurance companies. So if you have some erratic driving habits or something that are aggressive or whatever, or you have kids that are learning to drive, you might start getting outrageous quotes on your car insurance. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it wouldn't be any fun if we didn't name names. So Here are the five apps. Life 360. Never heard of it. That's the family tracker and it sells driving data to a T, which is owned by Allstate. Yeah, Allstate. Gas Buddy. Huh? Gas Buddy is your buddy, right? Should be the nicest people in the world, right? Gas Buddy. Let's see the feature of rating your fuel efficiency. It's power powered by arity. And Gas Buddy is not worth having it alive on your. On your telephone. My radar. Innocent little weather app. Same tracking garbage hidden inside. Fuel Rewards saving you 3 cents a gallon while selling you out. And rootly R O U T E L Y marketed to gig workers monetizing your every mile. Insurance companies buy driving scores based on your speed, braking and so on. So if you have any of those on your phones and you're concerned at all that maybe your habits won't look good to the data collection people of the world, just turn the apps off or change your privacy settings on the phone and don't allow any of it. But know that your gas buddies and your fuel Rewards, they're not really your friends.

Joey Loss 15:31

I'm sitting here with a smirk because I've thought I have this insatiable habit of every time I walk into an establishment or I use an app, I'm like, how do they make. How does this work? How do they make money? How is this profitable? Is it profitable? And I've wondered that with those gas.

Steven H Van Wie 15:48

And now you know.

Joey Loss 15:49

Now I know. And I'm a little disappointed that I didn't find it myself.

Steven H Van Wie 15:53

Thanks again to Kim Commando. We monitor her. My wife monitors her constantly. And when any. Anything that relates to privacy and money comes up, she always tells me. And this, this week there were two. And I thought, well, that's just. That's a lot of information that I had no idea about. So I pass it along. All right, let's talk about

Steven H Van Wie 16:22

those of you who have listened to me for a long time know that when you get ripped off by a financial advisor, I point fingers, but I point them at you. It is so easy not to get ripped off by a financial advisor. This week a real goodie came up. A Georgia advisor out of Alpharetta,

Steven H Van Wie 16:45

selling to older people, mostly in St. Petersburg,

Steven H Van Wie 16:51

put together a $380 million Ponzi scheme that defrauded 2,000 investors. Now, why do I point my finger at you? Because as we have said, For 25 years I've been doing this, and probably more. If you can't see your money on an independent, well known third party website, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365,

Steven H Van Wie 17:21

shame on you. You do not do business with people who do not keep your money transparently on the web on somebody you know. And it's not their own site. You use a Schwab or you can use a.

Joey Loss 17:38

Fidelity. Yeah, Robinhood.

Steven H Van Wie 17:41

But the advisor should not be affiliated with that firm. The advisor handles your money with you, hopefully. And that firm is called Custodial Care. That's why they call these people custodians. So what happened? Real, he called it. R E A L. No irony there, is there? Real was pitched as a bridge loan strategy for real estate developers.

Steven H Van Wie 18:11

Investors were promised a 10% return every three months. He claimed the loans were short term, fully collateralized and secured by Real property. Prosecutors say that none of that was true. Come on, people. 10% returns every three months.

Steven H Van Wie 18:35

This guy's like a wannabe. Made off. He had his staff filling out bogus statements. They even showed pictures of property that they didn't own and some that didn't exist.

Joey Loss 18:50

How long did it survive?

Steven H Van Wie 18:51

I believe it was a few years. Let's see. And four years. Four years and $380 million worth of getting ripped up. And of course, as Mr. Ponzi taught these people so well, you use new money to send some money to older people. So it looks like it's legitimate. And as I think it was, Margaret Thatcher said, the problem is when you run out of other people's money. And that's what happened. He has a $2 million yacht, a luxury condo in Cabo San Lucas, $800,000 on luxury automobiles and vehicles, and high end SUVs, private jet travel, jewelry, designer clothing, and beauty treatments.

Steven H Van Wie 19:45

I don't know how else to put it. People. These people only get rich because you believe somehow that they're going to defy the odds and that just because it sounds too good to be true doesn't mean that it is. Well, it is. Did I mention he was not registered with the SEC? So remember this, go to brokercheck.org

Steven H Van Wie 20:13

before you deal with somebody and you stick in the name in the firm. You just check it out and they'll tell you, is this person registered? Yes or no. If not, run. Does this person have a bad track record? If not, good. If so, run. Do business with real honest to goodness honest people in a very transparent way. And if you don't, don't say I didn't warn you. We'll be right back. Don't go anywhere. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 20:44

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

Joey Loss 20:46

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 20:53

And I remind everybody the lines are open 904-222-8255. And you can take a shot at the trivia question. Out of the Russell 2000 small cap index, what percentage of companies in there have ever made a profit of even a dollar? And I'm not giving you any hints. All right, let's talk a little bit about Lane and what it was he's asking about.

Steven H Van Wie 21:16

You got to know a little something about him. Lane was a government contractor type for a long time. He can actually read contracts and understand them. I have been giving it a shot for a while this week, and it's, it's not my cup of tea, but his, his reasoning and his outlook are good. And I let's just spend a little bit of time introducing it, I guess, and then we'll get back to it in more depth later on once I've had a chance to really study up.

Joey Loss 21:46

Sure. So Lane called last week and he wanted us to dig a little bit deeper into what we've been saying about the real estate market. And, you know, as financial advisors, we're looking at the national data, we're looking at talking about Florida kind of at large. But we didn't really dig into some of the local legislative

Joey Loss 22:05

happenings that are influencing some of these home price changes and affecting affordability one way or another. So Lane sent us some good information to, to read about what's happening in Okaloosa county specifically. And so we've got some data that I can kind of throw out here. And maybe if Lane is listening and inclined to call in, he can help shed some light or tell me where I'm steering us wrong here. But affordability is not Just about mortgage prices and national supply and demand. Local legislative changes at the state and local level are making an impact on what affordability means for people. And so in Okaloosa county, the median barrier is. The median household income in Okaloosa county is about 79,000. Teachers, deputies and nurses typically earn between 50 to 52,000 annually. And for a family earning 50,000, a manageable mortgage rent or rent at 6% interest is about 1,300amonth, which limits them to a home price at about 200,000 or less. The median sale price currently in Okaloosa county is 353,000, and the average sale price is higher than that at 465,000.

Joey Loss 23:16

Rule rent for even a basic efficiency unit often starts at about 1300, which was that threshold we just described, and climbs quickly to 1500.

Joey Loss 23:27

Current future land. Current future land use and zoning in north okaloosa already allow 130,000 dwelling units, which is enough for about 350,000 residents. Instead of building on these existing vacant lots, developers frequently lobby to rezone prime agricultural farmland for new subdivisions to maximize profit margins. Sprawl into rural areas often creates a fiscal deficit where tax revenue. Lane had a great chart. Remember that chart that he sent? That shows us this. Sprawl in rural areas often creates a fiscal deficit where tax revenue from new homes fails to cover the long term cost of the new roads, sewer and schools that those homes require. And so you end up in a weird situation where you have developers coming to try and solve this supply issue we've been talking about, but the local infrastructure isn't really ready to support it. And unless that explodes in a massive way, you're not going to end up with enough tax revenue to cover the infrastructure costs. But if you let that happen, then you've kind of destroyed the sanctity of the town as it once was. And what's happening is my understanding is that state legislator is now overtaking local legislatures to force these things to happen and removing the power from the hands of the local people.

Steven H Van Wie 23:54

Yep.

Steven H Van Wie 24:44

The first rule of conservatives is you push all decision making down to the lowest possible level. That's why we don't want an education department and so on. You push it down to the state, they push it down to the county and then the school boards, and that's being violated, especially in Florida. And for those of you who live in St. John's county or even know a little bit about what's going on, I've lived in St. John's county for 33 years and 33 years.

Steven H Van Wie 25:14

Both Sarah, me, and everybody we know has said the same thing. What in the hell do they do with all that money? Our property taxes are outrageous. And you keep having McMansions built everywhere and charging them more, and they can't get enough, so they raise tax rates and so on, and it's just absolutely out of control. I agree. And speak of the devil, look who's on the phone.

Steven H Van Wie 25:43

Good morning, Lane.

Lane 25:45

Good morning, Lane. Excellent summary. Good, Joey.

Joey Loss 25:47

How'd I do?

Joey Loss 25:51

Good.

Steven H Van Wie 25:52

What do you think? Keep him.

Lane 25:59

So it's. Yeah, it's.

Lane 26:04

It's a conundrum. I don't have all the answers, but you all articulated it very well. The state legislature just went into session, and you have particularly this. Senator McClain from Ocala has just sponsored a slew of bills that continue to. You know, you gentlemen can petition your county government over what's going on in your county, particularly as you point out this development, if it hasn't been planned for. The legislatures, like to use the term concurrency. That's a fancy comprehensive plan term. But if they haven't planned for the infrastructure, all these subdivisions start popping up, your tax rates go up. Well, now the legislature's taking that power to control it away from the locals. So even if your local board were to say, oh, yeah, we're not doing things in the best interests of our public, we need to slow down, the legislature's blowing it wide open. And so, anyway, I don't know if I've confused things or helped.

Joey Loss 27:23

No, I think it makes sense. And one of the things I found as I was reading about this is there's two particular acts, the SB 208 and SB 948, which mandate administrative approval, which means no public hearings. So in a way, if you wanted to get semantic, you could say this is a version of taxation without representation. But the thing that makes it really confusing is you have the state telling,

Joey Loss 27:50

kind of directing development, but then the local county is the one doing the tax because they're the ones trying to raise the money to cover the infrastructure costs. They didn't have a voice in bearing. And so they'll say, well, no, you're doing the taxation, but it's. You gave us no choice. We have to build this out. It's a real mess.

Steven H Van Wie 28:07

Yeah. And I hate very. Well, I hate seeing that farmland go under, too. This is very important in the whole country that we keep our farmland producing and productive. So it's. It's not a fun topic, but it's. You get.

Lane 28:08

Yes, sir.

Lane 28:25

Yes, sir. You get Listeners in Jacksonville to make sure they know who their state legislative senator is and representatives. Yeah, nobody knows and be writing them.

Steven H Van Wie 28:39

Nobody knows those things. And I'm, I'm guilty as charged. I'll tell you right now, I'm guilty of that. Who, who was it that said you get the government you deserve?

Steven H Van Wie 28:51

Jefferson or somebody like that.

Lane 28:53

And I've been. Ben was the guy. Ben Franklin was. It's a good, good framework. The Constitution is a good framework, is good for a great country if you can keep it.

Steven H Van Wie 29:05

Absolutely right. Absolutely right.

Lane 29:08

A key word here by the way is apathy. If these legislatures hear from the public, I'll tell. I'll guarantee you they like oops, you know, what are we doing? But if they don't, they're just going to continue it.

Steven H Van Wie 29:22

Yep, you're right. All right, do you want to take a shot at the trivia before you go?

Lane 29:31

Let's see, that was how many of the Russell have turned a profit?

Steven H Van Wie 29:36

Yes, ever.

Lane 29:39

I'm gonna say 40%.

Steven H Van Wie 29:42

That's not bad, but it's actually a little low.

Bob 29:46

Wow.

Lane 29:47

Okay. Pleasantly surprised.

Steven H Van Wie 29:48

Well, yeah, I like it when people get it. You get on the right side of the thought pattern and you're, you're in there. So we appreciate it.

Lane 29:59

Okay, thanks. Very good.

Steven H Van Wie 30:01

Have a great day.

Steven H Van Wie 30:04

All right. Speaking of voting better, I have an example or two in Wyoming. This is voting good in Wyoming there is a state rep. Jacob Wasserberger, that's a mouthful, isn't it? Who is introducing the, let's see, he's a self described America first and that it's called the Wyoming Homestead Opportunity Program or YHOP and it would sell state land to wyoming residents for $1 per acre used exclusively for single family homes and barring corporations from ever taking over those homes. Minimum lot size 10 acres. Maximum lot size 25 acres. 10 bucks or 25 bucks. And hopefully that means that people will have enough money left over to put a house on it that'll always be a single family. And I say creative and well done. So they voted well.

Joey Loss 31:12

I think we need a branch in Wyoming. I love it over there.

Steven H Van Wie 31:16

And now let's talk about not voting so well. Virginia Abigail Spanberger, first female governor of Virginia, recently elected, been in office about a week and one way or the other they were going to get their first female governor. The other one was Winsome Sears who I thought was just the most stellar candidate that she could be. But Abigail Sandberger beat her out because she was in Congress and she's a self proclaimed moderate. Well, let's Talk about moderates here for a minute. I don't have time to do it before the break. After the break, I'm going to tell you what she introduced in the first 48 hours. And if anybody out there can tell me if this woman is a moderate, please call because I think it's gonna knock your hats off. It's really bad what's going on in Virginia.

Joey Loss 32:14

Yeah. And I have some comments about why I think this is happening. This is not the first place we're seeing this happen. Obviously, we've talked about mom dummies, but. Yeah. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 32:21

And that's your old stomping grounds, right? Well, we'll be right back. And wrap that up, too. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 32:33

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

Joey Loss 32:35

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 32:41

I remind Everybody, lines are open. 904-222-8255. And the trivia question in the Russell 2000 Small Cap Index, how many of those stocks have ever made a profit? And we know that 40% is low. Do a little bit more on how you vote. Abigail Spanberger, the self proclaimed Moderate Democrat in 48 hours. Here are a few of the things that she has introduced.

Steven H Van Wie 33:10

Eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for offenses including rape, manslaughter and the assault of a law enforcement officer. Introduce a quota for the use of small women owned or minority owned businesses in government contracting. Impose a tax on every retail delivery service including Uber Eats, Amazon and doordash. Double taxes for high earners.

Steven H Van Wie 33:38

Impose a 3.8% net investment tax. Authorize the statewide use of speed, red light and pedestrian crossing violation monitoring cameras. Require nurses receiving training to counter unconscious racial bias. Finally, VA government responsive to the demands of the people for more speeding tickets and higher taxes.

Steven H Van Wie 34:05

Moderate.

Steven H Van Wie 34:07

Lisa Mondame never called himself moderate.

Joey Loss 34:10

I don't, I don't even understand her. Double tax for high earners. How's that? Richmond doesn't have a city tax. There's a state tax. So what?

Steven H Van Wie 34:17

That'll be. Well, that. I'm sure that what she's doing is statewide. I, yeah, she, she has more power now than she used to.

Joey Loss 34:21

Oh, right.

Joey Loss 34:25

Right, right. She forgot about the governor promotion.

Steven H Van Wie 34:29

Yeah. And Joey was just telling me a little bit about the connection to your family. You go ahead and.

Joey Loss 34:38

Well, she's, she's friends with some people in my family and I didn't know this. It was a surprise to me. And I don't know, it's interesting. It's kind of hard to understand how that type of politics rose up in Virginia just based on my experience there. But I've been there for 10 years, so things change.

Steven H Van Wie 34:56

Yeah, well it has. And as I, as I remarked, the area in northeast Virginia is really Washington D.C. it's not Virginia. Good morning, Bob.

Bob 35:08

Hey, good morning gentlemen.

Steven H Van Wie 35:10

What's happening?

Bob 35:12

I was just looking at a bottle of Heinz 57 sauce. Have you ever used that?

Steven H Van Wie 35:16

Yeah, sure.

Bob 35:18

So that's my guess on the companies that have made a profit

Bob 35:23

57%.

Steven H Van Wie 35:25

You know, I sometimes wonder just exactly how that brain of yours works. This one makes a lot of sense and that scares me.

Steven H Van Wie 35:36

I tell you what, I'm going to give it to you. It's 60 and I had a plus or minus two on it. But at this late stage of the.

Bob 35:44

Game it was just, it was just a silly. I just came in from working in the field and I was listening to you going up and down the driveway and I said, you know, and then I wanted to make myself a little something to eat and I opened the refrigerator and there's a bottle of Heinz 57 sauce. And I said that's going to be my guess. I, I swear to God.

Steven H Van Wie 36:04

Outstanding. Well, I assume since we were a little bit lenient on it, you wouldn't mind if we give this one to charity.

Bob 36:12

That's not a problem.

Steven H Van Wie 36:13

Good. I like it that that's behind my problem.

Bob 36:17

Hey, you know, no wonder they go to Davos. I was watching Fox News and a couple of the evening people were pointing out all the nice things that they can do in Davos like ski.

Bob 36:34

Like we won't mention some of them.

Steven H Van Wie 36:36

But no, no, prostitution's legal.

Joey Loss 36:40

Yes, yes.

Steven H Van Wie 36:41

And apparently it's a good business and.

Bob 36:43

And apparently the food is either good or bad.

Steven H Van Wie 36:46

I saw that report.

Bob 36:47

Yeah, they were all who you're watching, you know.

Steven H Van Wie 36:51

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 36:55

So and I've been questioning each other as to how do you. Do you only go by invitation or you just buy tickets? So they actually invited the governor of California?

Bob 37:09

I don't think he was invited. I think he just showed up on taxpayers dime I'm sure.

Steven H Van Wie 37:14

No doubt. That's funny. That is very funny. Well it was entertaining

Steven H Van Wie 37:20

but all it's good for.

Bob 37:23

Yeah, and we'll see how it all shakes out. But anyhow, enjoying the program. And Joey, the market recap was fantastic.

Joey Loss 37:30

Oh awesome.

Steven H Van Wie 37:31

Great.

Bob 37:31

Yeah, it was good, good. Tell Adam we said hi.

Steven H Van Wie 37:35

We'll do, we'll do appreciate you guys.

Bob 37:37

Have a good rest of the show and a good weekend. Try to stay warm. I'm having to drip everything here on the farm and I'm one of those people that has the farm. They're not taking the farm away. I mean, you know. All right, earlier on the show you were talking about the farmland disappearing.

Steven H Van Wie 37:52

So very important stuff. Take care.

Bob 37:55

Okay, we'll talk to you soon.

Steven H Van Wie 37:58

All right, let's go back to voting. Well, again,

Steven H Van Wie 38:02

Florida has voted for Rick Scott twice for governor, at least twice for senator, that sort of thing. And he, that guy, he's a self made billionaire, doesn't need to work and yet he has worked for the people of Florida for a long, long time. But he introduced recently something that I got my eye on. It's called the more Affordable Care Act. Would you like that? And for those of you who aren't familiar with Rick Scott, he made his fortune in the healthcare industry. He put together United Healthcare and became a billionaire. Now, I don't know about you, but when I ask questions of someone about something that is so complicated, I kind of like to find experts who do this. He is one. Just a couple of his ideas here. Establishes Trump health freedom accounts, HSA style accounts that insure federal dollars to support families are delivered to them directly, not funneled through insurance companies. Offers more options for plans that will create market driven incentives to drive down costs. Allows Americans ready for this one to shop across state lines. Wow. I think I was maybe 21 when I first brought this up and you know, and I understand the rules. I used to sell insurance. Insurance is regulated by the states and that's why they've always decided that they want the state operation to be the state operation. But there comes a time when something is so broken and if your state can't fix it, you should not be punished for that. Let's see. Any health insurance plan approved by a waiver state's insurance commissioner shall be sold on easy accessible exchange. So it's not just a blanket. I'm going to go over to Georgia and buy a policy. That policy has to be approved on a waiver. That's just smart, I think. Enhances Trump's executive order to increase transparency in health care. In other words, before you get something done, you should know how much it's going to cost. I like that. Maintains protections for pre existing conditions, which was one of the two reasons Obamacare got through back in the old days. And I've been hampered by this in my younger life, too. There were two things that our insurance, health insurance policies at the time would not accommodate. There was a lifetime maximum When I first got into business, it was a million dollars. You know how long that lasts nowadays? So any lifetime maximum is not that good. And pre existing conditions, because we were not allowed to even go shopping because we had an employee whose son had a pre existing condition. So Obamacare solved those things by lying through their teeth and saying it would save you money. Well, it didn't. It became the unaffordable Health Care act. And now they're looking for ways to actively cut that down. And Rick Scott's on top of it mostly one more. It enhances the small business tax credit to encourage employer sponsor coverage. But mostly what I like here is that he knows what he's doing. And he added that little touch of, I call it humor. The more Affordable Care Act, I'll be following it, watching carefully and see what happens.

Joey Loss 41:38

You know what I like about that a lot? I feel like healthcare has become a big focus because it's just such a pain point and a big expense for people, especially if they decide to retire a few years early, which is common. Right. Like let's say you retired 62. The office, all the time. And sometimes people have more than enough to retire. And just knowing that they might face a $25,000 health insurance premium bill for the next three years until they get to Medicare age is enough to keep them working. And those are three precious years that they could spend enjoying themselves.

Steven H Van Wie 41:50

We fight that all the time in.

Steven H Van Wie 42:07

Absolutely true. And plus those jobs open up for younger people.

Joey Loss 42:11

Yeah. And so what I like about this bill is healthcare is so complicated. And it is one of those things where you can't just focus on 100% individual freedom because you need a system that works collaboratively. It's massively difficult to create a healthcare program that works. But then on the other end, you can't destroy the individual freedom to choose a policy that makes sense for your family and isn't affordable. And so ACA was the first attempt at it. And we have seen over the last many years all of its many flaws, but it did accomplish a few important things. And I think any movement to repeal and replace with something that captures the good and fixes what's broken is a huge deal for Americans. And I just think this is going to be one of the biggest topics for the next five years. It's not going away.

Steven H Van Wie 43:00

Oh no, it's not going away. And quite frankly, the Republicans have been sound asleep on it while promising something new. They never actually did it. So I think it's probably becoming big enough and prominent enough now. That we can look forward to having some changes made. And if the average policy for a couple with a couple of kids is 2,000amonth, that's ridiculous.

Joey Loss 43:24

That's more than the rent numbers we just put up.

Steven H Van Wie 43:26

It's exactly right. And it can't. It just can't stay that way and into your point.

Joey Loss 43:34

So I just want to add one last thing on that to your point about we want all of the potential market forces pushing prices down available to us. And I think that's the biggest takeaway from your comment about state regulation. There comes a point you said, and I totally agree. If we've removed the power of economies of scale and now we have 50 different markets that are independently acting, if we take it to one national market, spread everything around, let these companies get huge and push costs down, that helps us.

Steven H Van Wie 44:01

Well, you know, the last month or so, every week I've been talking about having choices. Americans are supposed to have choices. And that's what this is leaning toward. All right, few things I didn't get to, but we'll be here next week, so I'll get to them then. Thanks for listening, everybody. Have a nice weekend. Stay warm. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour.