June 18, 2025 • 22 mins
📈 Bryce Gill, our most popular guest ever, unpacks the real threat to America’s financial future, the truth behind the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and the fiscal smoke and mirrors of Washington.
They discuss:
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Why both parties are misleading you about the budget cuts
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How Elon Musk’s DC experiment fell flat
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Why the U.S. economy is both booming and breaking
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The growing intergenerational wealth crisis
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What the Fed vs. Trump battle means for your wallet
Plus: Bryce shares blunt advice for millennials trying to build wealth in 2025.
🎧 Listen now and get the economic truth no one else will tell you.
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Does The Big Beautiful Bill Actually Cut Spending?
05:22 - DOGE Was A Failure
09:17 - Trump Savings Account
13:51 - State of The US Economy
16:53 - How To Build Wealth Today
18:45 - Trump vs The Fed
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, everybody, I just have to let you all
know that our next guest has been the most popular
guest that we've had on the David Rutherford Show. His
show is the biggest show we've done so far. I
had a bunch of the iHeart executives tell me how
much they loved the show. And so, in the midst
(00:22):
of all the madness that's going on, what we thought
would be essential to do for you all is to
bring somebody on that knows the ins and the outs
of the economy, the markets, and everything financial to help
you get a better understanding of how all the chaos
is going to affect us as a nation and then
(00:44):
our position globally. So, ladies and gentlemen, my good friend
Bryce Gill, who by the way, is recently married, So
welcome aboard. Bryce.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah. Well, hey, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Dave, always an honor, and yeah, you're the first thing
I'm doing since I got back from the wedding, right,
so I'm always happy to do this with you and
your crew here.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And there's obviously it was plenty to talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, It's crazy thing is that as soon as things
were popping off with this one big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I'm texting Bryce like, hey man, I need you to
get you I need to get you on and He's like, uh, right,
I'm at my wedding and but I will as soon
as I get home. So I'm so sorry to interrupt
that incredible day for you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, not at all. Listen, the Big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
This is like seventeen news cycles ago, Dave, what are
we talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It's been all about war with Iran this morning. That's right,
they're right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
But the thing that really hits me about it, and
we you know, we did a little peace on it
was you know, I think everybody was so excited that
with Doge and Trump and their relationship that now is
like they're going through their breakeup, you know, remorse now
is you know that America was going to address the
(02:06):
spending problem, but when we look at this big beautiful
bill man, it's they're increasing spending pretty significantly. But what
I needed to do is I needed someone like yourself,
an expert, to come on and kind of break this
down for the audience and let everybody understand what this
is about and what you think the impact will be
(02:27):
long term.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, so you know, it really matters when we're talking
about these types of budget bills what the baseline is,
and what I mean by the baseline is like what
we're comparing in this new legislation, you know, hypothetical future too, okay.
And so you know, you have the Republicans saying, hey,
this cuts spending, it reduces you know, the nation spending problem.
(02:51):
You have Democrats saying, hey, this blows out the budget deficit.
It's like, how can both of those things be true?
It's because they're both comparing to a different baseline. So
if you take this big beautiful bill and you compare
it to current policy, like what currently exists today, okay,
it actually reduces spending and reduces the deficit versus like
(03:14):
if we just maintain exactly what we're doing right now, okay.
And that's because the big beautiful bill, Hey, it does
extend some tax cuts, right, but it also does cut
a lot of spending. It cuts spending surrounding Medicare, snap benefits,
solar wind, electric vehicle credits, and things of this nature.
And so like if the Trump tax cuts and kind
(03:36):
of like status quo today just continued, the deficit would
expand by I think like five trillion dollars over the
next ten years. And so the Big Beautiful Bill, Hey,
the deficit goes up three trillion dollars over the next
ten years. But that means, hey, they cut basically like
two trillion dollars worth of spending over the next ten years. Okay,
So versus current policy, it actually does reduce the deficit.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So what are the Democrats talking about?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The Democrats are basically they're comparing it to, hey, the
policy base on which just means like the Trump tax
cuts and like the current fiscal environment that we have
when they pass all this stuff in twenty seventeen, there
was a sunset clause.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Okay, So in like the.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Republic sayings cutting the deficit by like two trillion, Democrats
are saying expands by three trillion. That's because they're saying, hey,
all this current policy sunsets in twenty twenty five. The
Trump tax cuts are set to end, okay, and so
versus a like the current policy situation, Like if we
don't repass these tax cuts and all these taxes go up, hey,
(04:40):
then it leads to this situation where the Big Beautiful
bill like expands the deficit by three trillion dollars. So
when we're talking about like cutting spending, and I have
plenty of things to critique about this bill, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Happy to go into that.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Please, this does actually cut spending versus like the current status. Whoa,
it only expands the deficit if you're assuming, hey, all
this tax increases happen automatically. Okay, And so I'm for
expanding the tax cuts. This doesn't actually expand spending at all,
the big beautiful bill. It just extends the tax cuts
(05:13):
we already have.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Okay. Where I am?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I just think was How'm going to contique anything? It's
that they're not really attacking spending in like a significant way.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I think that's the big question, right is will you
bring in elon Mosk, You bring in as you know,
Harry Balls or whatever. That guy was my favorite, right
oh right, yeah yeah, And you you have these and
they dig in and we start to see this. You
know what, there was three point two million people one
hundred and fifty to one hundred and fifty nine years
(05:44):
old with social security benefits, right, we were seeing and they.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Never even gate.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
They dangled that little you know, hook in front of
us about how the corruption and Medicare and Medicaid and
the fraud and that, but we never got those numbers
or we not never got anything. So you know, give
us your insight on were there enough cuts and if not,
where do they need to focus on next.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, you know, it's disappointing, right because I feel pretty
confident saying at this point that, like the Doge project
has totally failed.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean listen, they found like one hundred and eighty
billion dollars of spending cuts that they could do. That
remains up to Congress and the President to actually do
those things right, But as of today, like I'm just
gonna be honest, it looked like it's like sort of
a PR stunt. I think Elon Musk is just my
personal opinion, right. I think that he came into this
like earnestly wanting to cut spending, coming into it with
(06:46):
like a CEO mindset, Okay, we're going to find the waste,
the front abuse, we're going to reduce this stuff that
we don't need to be spending on. And I think
very quickly it ran into the reality of Washington, d C.
Which is that government spending is the biggest honey pot
in world history. Right, Like, I mean, this is like
(07:06):
so many powerful people's pockets are being lined here and
Elon Musk ai tools these a bunch of these twenty
year old genius people or whatever. They came in and
they just hit sort of like the reality of the situation,
which is that, hey, the Pentagon's not going to let
you cut spending. Hey, we're not actually gonna eliminate some
of this this waste, brunt abuse in medicare, you know,
(07:27):
security payrolls.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We're not actually going to eliminate a lot of these
other issues that we have.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You can have USA, you can have some of these
other small things, but at the end of the day,
it's going to be business as usual.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And so.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think that's why Elon Musk ultimately left here, is
he just wasn't actually given the power to to finish
what he wanted to do. I think Donald Trump brought
him in, and Elon must helped him get elected obviously,
and Donald.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Trump, I don't think spending is really a priority.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
For Donald Trump, honestly, So that's where this fallout has happened.
I think Elon Musk, you know, I think he has
reasonable arguments to criticize this big beautiful bill. I think
the spending cuts don't go further for far enough. And
just to be honest, Dave, like to actually affect the
fiscal situation in the United States, you have to target
(08:19):
the biggest welfare recipients in the country, which is not
single moms, which is not you know, government bureaucrats, it's
baby boomers. The baby boomers are the biggest welfare queens
in America, Social Security, Medicare. All this spending goes pretty
much directly to them. The interest payments on the debt, right,
(08:41):
that's a trillion dollars a year. Now who owns all
the US Treasury bonds the baby boomers, right, So, I
mean you're talking about sixty seventy percent of the budgets
going directly to baby boomers. And listen, they paid in
the system, they deserve retirement benefits. Fine, but the system
has gotten so lopsided towards them. Unless you touch that spending,
you can't really affect a big change. And you know,
(09:04):
the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, the weapons contractors, whatever, we
can talk about all these industries and their influence on government.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
The biggest lobby in the United States though it's ARP right.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Did you just saw did you see Trump just initiated
that whole concept that if you have a child recently,
they're going to put one thousand dollars fun into a
market based of fund What are your thoughts on that?
Is that a way are they prepping the American public
and particular you know, definitely probably not. Maybe my generation
(09:39):
is going to be the first that has to swallow
that tough bill that you know, as I've been paying
in for my whole adult life, I'm probably not going
to get access to that and the meaningful way that
my parents did. But do you think that's what this
whole thing is as they're priming for a new system,
a new approach in the future. Okay, thank you so
(10:02):
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(10:25):
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Speaker 3 (11:48):
I don't know that they're trying to do like a
wholesale change to the system. I think they're trying to
tinker around the edges with what we call like pro
natalist policy, which is just like, hey, how do we
like pull some leverage and flip some switch in the
government to like incentivize people to have children.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And I mean, you can look around the world.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
There's other places that have done pronatalst government policy, and.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It just doesn't really seem to work very well. There's
not like a lot.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of evidence that I'm going to pay you one thousand
dollars to have a kid.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Is going to do anything.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The biggest issues I think with people having children is
housing costs, the cost of healthcare, and like the cost
of education. Right, So those are the real issues you
need to tackle, and like I don't know on all
three fronts, maybe a little bit less on like education.
(12:40):
But why is housing so expensive while you know, we
don't really build any housing. Why don't we build housing?
It's because in certain cities, like Baby boomers don't want
more houses around their houses, right. A lot of people
own investment properties. Baby boomers are one of the biggest
owners of investment property. They don't they trade up or
(13:00):
trade down. They sort of stay in their houses forever, right.
I saw some anecdotes of like baby borns are the
first generation ever to move into bigger houses as they retire,
which is just sort of hilarious. Right, It's supposed to
be the opposite, so they don't really retire from their jobs.
So I'm not trying to like rag on baby overs
only here, but I just think our system has become
(13:22):
so lopsided towards like retirees and older Americans that, yeah,
the younger people are coming up below and they're like, hey,
everything's sort of unaffordable. The system's really built to help
older people. Children are expensive. I'm not really gonna have
kids in this environment. So I think you got to
tackle like those three major chunks there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, that's a great.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Probably, you know, society just needs to incentivize it a
little bit more. Celebrate parents and celebrate children. We don't
really do that over in the West.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think that's a great little pivot point for us
to talk about the current state of the economy. What
does it look like if you're a thirty year old
you know, man or woman, you know, and you're looking
externally at the economy. What are you seeing right now
that should either give you hope or what should cause
some consternation.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, well, I guess you.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Only last time I was on with you was right
after all these tariffs got announced. Everybody's panicking. It was
the end of the world. The economy is going into recession.
Here we are, like three or four months later. It's
well after the tariffs have come out. We have a
lot of economic data, and what the economic data says,
basically is that inflation has continued to moderate and the
(14:35):
economy has continued to grow. Right, So it doesn't look
like any of this really disrupted things in a massive
way as I sort of predicted.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Okay, I'll pat myself on the back there a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But big picture, I mean, listen to this economy looks
pretty healthy right now. I think you've probably got consumers
are a little overextended, you know, certain credit card debt
or like auto loan debt is looking like, hey, we're
sort of getting later cycle but at the same time,
what you have is a massive investment boom happening in
the United States, right, Companies, businesses, everybody's sort of investing
(15:12):
in factory production, bringing industry back home because they want
to be behind the tariff wall. Because the United States
were like fifty percent of global consumption. So if you
lose ust, you lose half your revenue. So you know,
all that investment, what that's going to do is going
to drive hiring, it's going to drive wages higher, it's
going to make people more productive. And at the same time,
(15:33):
I think this is a really interesting part of the
recent labor market. Before we got last Friday, Okay, well
you saw is basically, hey, the labor force has shrank, Okay,
but it's driven entirely by foreign born labor. So basically
it looks like a lot of people are either getting
deported or self deporting right to get get out of this,
you know, this crack down on illegal immigration. And hey, meanwhile,
(15:56):
the domestic labor forces continued to grow. People will domestically
have less people to compete against in the labor market,
their wages are rising more rapidly, and so I think
it's kind of like a nationalist economic policy. Right, Domestic
Americans I think are doing pretty well. I think the
economy is going to continue to grow. I'm not saying
(16:17):
there's not problems, but we are reversing some of the
trends in the past thirty years. And I think the
biggest beneficiaries have been you know, kind of normal people basically.
So I do think there's some reasons for optimists about
the US economy right now.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's awesome to hear.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Man. You know, the biggest thing I when I'm talking
to younger you know, advisors or younger people just around
as as you and I both speak constantly around the country,
you know, I'm asking you know what do you what
are you telling your the people that are coming in
that are trying to set up portfolios, that are trying
to figure out how to generate some growth in their wealth.
(16:53):
You know, what do you evaluate is the right message
for what what should this next gener Those people who
you know are getting married, like yourself, who are thinking
about starting new families. Jordi himself's about ready to have
his first child. So you know, what advice do you
give you know, your generation of people about building wealth
(17:16):
right now? And what we're looking for in the future.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think building wealth is unfortunately
a pretty boring topic. Everybody wants to have like the
big stock pick to tell people about it at dinner party.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's really just discipline. It's building well.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's the same way you get like in really good
shape at the gym. Right, it's just showing up every
day and doing it consistently. And hey, I'm gonna eat, well,
I'm gonna show up to the gym. You know, I'm
not gonna make the bad decision consistently. You make the
good decision consistently.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Right. It's the same thing with building well.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So I'd say, like, listen, just contribute money into an
index fund in the s and P five hundred a
consistently every two weeks or every.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Month and whatever you can afford.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Don't even look at the balance and just kind of
let it, let it fly, and over time, that's going
to build, build, build build. Once you kind of have
that baseline, then you can get a little bit more creative, right,
you can start looking at individual stocks or whatever else.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right, So it's just.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
About discipline and consistency. Honestly, I wish I had a
sexier answer, but that's kind of the reality of it
being in the industry for over a decade. And also,
like go read every academic paper, they're going to tell
you the same this same thing. But by the way,
I work at an investment manager, right that sells individual
ETFs or kind of an individual like strategies.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But you're as an individual, go buy an index one. Right.
I'm not even trying to push you into what I'm selling, right,
all Right.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Last question is, and I think this is the one
that you know is slowly as as the world's on fire,
is buried, buried, buried, but it's still consequential.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Is the spat between Powell and Trump?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right, the war between the federal government and the Federal Reserve.
What's your take and what do you think are they
going to be forced to drop rates or why are
they holding hard where they're at right now?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, So, I guess the first thing I'll say is one, personally,
I don't have like an allergy towards like Donald Trump.
I think that's kind of the way to think of,
like people just have an allergy towards this guy, like
everything he does annoys them.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I don't really get that with Donald Trump. I'm happy.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I like some of the things he does. I dislike
some of the things he does. You know, I also
will say I.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Think current economic conditions would like I.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Think they support maybe like fifty basis points and rate cuts,
like a minor amount of interest rate cuts.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I sort of support that.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, all that being said, Okay, I think that central
bank independence, basically the Federal Reserve making its own decisions, separate.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And divorce from politics, is very important. Okay.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
So I have a huge problem personally with Donald Trump
trying to dictate FED policy or sort of bully the
Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
One, I don't think it'll work.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I think Jerome Powell frankly is just going to like
turtle up and wait even longer to cut interest rates.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Out of spite.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Right, Right, But two, like, central bank independence is really
important because you don't want politicians in charge of the
money supply, right Like, this is like a fundamental thing
that keeps us from becoming Zimbabwe or Venezuela or Argentina
or whatever. Right, anytime the central government and the central
(20:37):
bank get together and they just print money like crazy
to fix all the problems and paper over things. The
people that get hurt. The worst are investors as well
as normal people. Right, it's not just investors, right, it
destroys the economy. So listen, there's obviously politics involved at
the central Bank too. Frankly, they've been too involved in politics, right.
They care about like climate change and diversity and racism
(21:00):
and LB pipes and whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Okay, so they need to back off of that. But listen,
they need to focus on the money supply and interest rates.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And I think central bank independence is really important because
you don't want politicians in charge of the money supply.
We saw it, by the way, we saw what happened
when the federal government and the central bank worked together
during COVID. They shut down the economy. They printed five
trillion dollars, made the highest inflation in forty years. So
that shows you what happens when everybody gets on board together.
(21:31):
Nobody's thinking. Everybody's kind of panicking. I think the Central
Bank just needs to do its thing and they need
to ignore Donald Trump. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Roger.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
That all right, Bryce Gill, Where can people follow you?
Pay attention and what's next for you?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yes, sir, well, hey, First Trust Economics Blog, that's where
we write all of our pieces.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Everything gets posted there.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
If you want to follow along with our opinion as
a firm, that's the place to go. You can also
follow me on Twitter you want to. Don't really post there,
but hey, I like a lot of different content and.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You can kind of see what.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
My journal is internally. I guys, that's daddy fat stats.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That still kills me the most, man, Daddy fat Stats.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I love it all right, Bryce, God bless you man,
So happy for you and your new wife. And we'll
see in the short time in the near future.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
All right, guys, have a good one
All right, everybody, I just have to let you all
know that our next guest has been the most popular
guest that we've had on the David Rutherford Show. His
show is the biggest show we've done so far. I
had a bunch of the iHeart executives tell me how
much they loved the show. And so, in the midst
(00:22):
of all the madness that's going on, what we thought
would be essential to do for you all is to
bring somebody on that knows the ins and the outs
of the economy, the markets, and everything financial to help
you get a better understanding of how all the chaos
is going to affect us as a nation and then
(00:44):
our position globally. So, ladies and gentlemen, my good friend
Bryce Gill, who by the way, is recently married, So
welcome aboard. Bryce.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Yeah. Well, hey, it's great to be with you.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
Dave, always an honor, and yeah, you're the first thing
I'm doing since I got back from the wedding, right,
so I'm always happy to do this with you and
your crew here.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
And there's obviously it was plenty to talk about.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, It's crazy thing is that as soon as things
were popping off with this one big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Man.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
I'm texting Bryce like, hey man, I need you to
get you I need to get you on and He's like, uh, right,
I'm at my wedding and but I will as soon
as I get home. So I'm so sorry to interrupt
that incredible day for you guys.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
No, not at all. Listen, the Big beautiful Bill.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
This is like seventeen news cycles ago, Dave, what are
we talking about.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
It's been all about war with Iran this morning. That's right,
they're right.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
But the thing that really hits me about it, and
we you know, we did a little peace on it
was you know, I think everybody was so excited that
with Doge and Trump and their relationship that now is
like they're going through their breakeup, you know, remorse now
is you know that America was going to address the
(02:06):
spending problem, but when we look at this big beautiful
bill man, it's they're increasing spending pretty significantly. But what
I needed to do is I needed someone like yourself,
an expert, to come on and kind of break this
down for the audience and let everybody understand what this
is about and what you think the impact will be
(02:27):
long term.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, so you know, it really matters when we're talking
about these types of budget bills what the baseline is,
and what I mean by the baseline is like what
we're comparing in this new legislation, you know, hypothetical future too, okay.
And so you know, you have the Republicans saying, hey,
this cuts spending, it reduces you know, the nation spending problem.
(02:51):
You have Democrats saying, hey, this blows out the budget deficit.
It's like, how can both of those things be true?
It's because they're both comparing to a different baseline. So
if you take this big beautiful bill and you compare
it to current policy, like what currently exists today, okay,
it actually reduces spending and reduces the deficit versus like
(03:14):
if we just maintain exactly what we're doing right now, okay.
And that's because the big beautiful bill, Hey, it does
extend some tax cuts, right, but it also does cut
a lot of spending. It cuts spending surrounding Medicare, snap benefits,
solar wind, electric vehicle credits, and things of this nature.
And so like if the Trump tax cuts and kind
(03:36):
of like status quo today just continued, the deficit would
expand by I think like five trillion dollars over the
next ten years. And so the Big Beautiful Bill, Hey,
the deficit goes up three trillion dollars over the next
ten years. But that means, hey, they cut basically like
two trillion dollars worth of spending over the next ten years. Okay,
So versus current policy, it actually does reduce the deficit.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So what are the Democrats talking about?
Speaker 3 (04:02):
The Democrats are basically they're comparing it to, hey, the
policy base on which just means like the Trump tax
cuts and like the current fiscal environment that we have
when they pass all this stuff in twenty seventeen, there
was a sunset clause.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Okay, So in like the.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Republic sayings cutting the deficit by like two trillion, Democrats
are saying expands by three trillion. That's because they're saying, hey,
all this current policy sunsets in twenty twenty five. The
Trump tax cuts are set to end, okay, and so
versus a like the current policy situation, Like if we
don't repass these tax cuts and all these taxes go up, hey,
(04:40):
then it leads to this situation where the Big Beautiful
bill like expands the deficit by three trillion dollars. So
when we're talking about like cutting spending, and I have
plenty of things to critique about this bill, and I'm.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
Happy to go into that.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Please, this does actually cut spending versus like the current status. Whoa,
it only expands the deficit if you're assuming, hey, all
this tax increases happen automatically. Okay, And so I'm for
expanding the tax cuts. This doesn't actually expand spending at all,
the big beautiful bill. It just extends the tax cuts
(05:13):
we already have.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Okay. Where I am?
Speaker 3 (05:15):
I just think was How'm going to contique anything? It's
that they're not really attacking spending in like a significant way.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
I think that's the big question, right is will you
bring in elon Mosk, You bring in as you know,
Harry Balls or whatever. That guy was my favorite, right
oh right, yeah yeah, And you you have these and
they dig in and we start to see this. You
know what, there was three point two million people one
hundred and fifty to one hundred and fifty nine years
(05:44):
old with social security benefits, right, we were seeing and they.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Never even gate.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
They dangled that little you know, hook in front of
us about how the corruption and Medicare and Medicaid and
the fraud and that, but we never got those numbers
or we not never got anything. So you know, give
us your insight on were there enough cuts and if not,
where do they need to focus on next.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Yeah, you know, it's disappointing, right because I feel pretty
confident saying at this point that, like the Doge project
has totally failed.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
I mean listen, they found like one hundred and eighty
billion dollars of spending cuts that they could do. That
remains up to Congress and the President to actually do
those things right, But as of today, like I'm just
gonna be honest, it looked like it's like sort of
a PR stunt. I think Elon Musk is just my
personal opinion, right. I think that he came into this
like earnestly wanting to cut spending, coming into it with
(06:46):
like a CEO mindset, Okay, we're going to find the waste,
the front abuse, we're going to reduce this stuff that
we don't need to be spending on. And I think
very quickly it ran into the reality of Washington, d C.
Which is that government spending is the biggest honey pot
in world history. Right, Like, I mean, this is like
(07:06):
so many powerful people's pockets are being lined here and
Elon Musk ai tools these a bunch of these twenty
year old genius people or whatever. They came in and
they just hit sort of like the reality of the situation,
which is that, hey, the Pentagon's not going to let
you cut spending. Hey, we're not actually gonna eliminate some
of this this waste, brunt abuse in medicare, you know,
(07:27):
security payrolls.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
We're not actually going to eliminate a lot of these
other issues that we have.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
You can have USA, you can have some of these
other small things, but at the end of the day,
it's going to be business as usual.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And so.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
I think that's why Elon Musk ultimately left here, is
he just wasn't actually given the power to to finish
what he wanted to do. I think Donald Trump brought
him in, and Elon must helped him get elected obviously,
and Donald.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Trump, I don't think spending is really a priority.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
For Donald Trump, honestly, So that's where this fallout has happened.
I think Elon Musk, you know, I think he has
reasonable arguments to criticize this big beautiful bill. I think
the spending cuts don't go further for far enough. And
just to be honest, Dave, like to actually affect the
fiscal situation in the United States, you have to target
(08:19):
the biggest welfare recipients in the country, which is not
single moms, which is not you know, government bureaucrats, it's
baby boomers. The baby boomers are the biggest welfare queens
in America, Social Security, Medicare. All this spending goes pretty
much directly to them. The interest payments on the debt, right,
(08:41):
that's a trillion dollars a year. Now who owns all
the US Treasury bonds the baby boomers, right, So, I
mean you're talking about sixty seventy percent of the budgets
going directly to baby boomers. And listen, they paid in
the system, they deserve retirement benefits. Fine, but the system
has gotten so lopsided towards them. Unless you touch that spending,
you can't really affect a big change. And you know,
(09:04):
the banks, the pharmaceutical companies, the weapons contractors, whatever, we
can talk about all these industries and their influence on government.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
The biggest lobby in the United States though it's ARP right.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Did you just saw did you see Trump just initiated
that whole concept that if you have a child recently,
they're going to put one thousand dollars fun into a
market based of fund What are your thoughts on that?
Is that a way are they prepping the American public
and particular you know, definitely probably not. Maybe my generation
(09:39):
is going to be the first that has to swallow
that tough bill that you know, as I've been paying
in for my whole adult life, I'm probably not going
to get access to that and the meaningful way that
my parents did. But do you think that's what this
whole thing is as they're priming for a new system,
a new approach in the future. Okay, thank you so
(10:02):
much for listening today. Pardon the interruption, but I just
got to give a shout out to one of our
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(10:25):
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they support each other. This is that place, you know.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I've been up.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
I've been to their farm. I watch how they raise
their peppers with love. I watch how they process them
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they infuse them into this these this beautiful salt, the
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(11:00):
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this this spicy salt. But the thing I know is
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(11:20):
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(11:42):
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Speaker 3 (11:48):
I don't know that they're trying to do like a
wholesale change to the system. I think they're trying to
tinker around the edges with what we call like pro
natalist policy, which is just like, hey, how do we
like pull some leverage and flip some switch in the
government to like incentivize people to have children.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
And I mean, you can look around the world.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
There's other places that have done pronatalst government policy, and.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
It just doesn't really seem to work very well. There's
not like a lot.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
Of evidence that I'm going to pay you one thousand
dollars to have a kid.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Is going to do anything.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
The biggest issues I think with people having children is
housing costs, the cost of healthcare, and like the cost
of education. Right, So those are the real issues you
need to tackle, and like I don't know on all
three fronts, maybe a little bit less on like education.
(12:40):
But why is housing so expensive while you know, we
don't really build any housing. Why don't we build housing?
It's because in certain cities, like Baby boomers don't want
more houses around their houses, right. A lot of people
own investment properties. Baby boomers are one of the biggest
owners of investment property. They don't they trade up or
(13:00):
trade down. They sort of stay in their houses forever, right.
I saw some anecdotes of like baby borns are the
first generation ever to move into bigger houses as they retire,
which is just sort of hilarious. Right, It's supposed to
be the opposite, so they don't really retire from their jobs.
So I'm not trying to like rag on baby overs
only here, but I just think our system has become
(13:22):
so lopsided towards like retirees and older Americans that, yeah,
the younger people are coming up below and they're like, hey,
everything's sort of unaffordable. The system's really built to help
older people. Children are expensive. I'm not really gonna have
kids in this environment. So I think you got to
tackle like those three major chunks there.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, that's a great.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Probably, you know, society just needs to incentivize it a
little bit more. Celebrate parents and celebrate children. We don't
really do that over in the West.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
That's for sure.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think that's a great little pivot point for us
to talk about the current state of the economy. What
does it look like if you're a thirty year old
you know, man or woman, you know, and you're looking
externally at the economy. What are you seeing right now
that should either give you hope or what should cause
some consternation.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, well, I guess you.
Speaker 3 (14:14):
Only last time I was on with you was right
after all these tariffs got announced. Everybody's panicking. It was
the end of the world. The economy is going into recession.
Here we are, like three or four months later. It's
well after the tariffs have come out. We have a
lot of economic data, and what the economic data says,
basically is that inflation has continued to moderate and the
(14:35):
economy has continued to grow. Right, So it doesn't look
like any of this really disrupted things in a massive
way as I sort of predicted.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Okay, I'll pat myself on the back there a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
But big picture, I mean, listen to this economy looks
pretty healthy right now. I think you've probably got consumers
are a little overextended, you know, certain credit card debt
or like auto loan debt is looking like, hey, we're
sort of getting later cycle but at the same time,
what you have is a massive investment boom happening in
the United States, right, Companies, businesses, everybody's sort of investing
(15:12):
in factory production, bringing industry back home because they want
to be behind the tariff wall. Because the United States
were like fifty percent of global consumption. So if you
lose ust, you lose half your revenue. So you know,
all that investment, what that's going to do is going
to drive hiring, it's going to drive wages higher, it's
going to make people more productive. And at the same time,
(15:33):
I think this is a really interesting part of the
recent labor market. Before we got last Friday, Okay, well
you saw is basically, hey, the labor force has shrank, Okay,
but it's driven entirely by foreign born labor. So basically
it looks like a lot of people are either getting
deported or self deporting right to get get out of this,
you know, this crack down on illegal immigration. And hey, meanwhile,
(15:56):
the domestic labor forces continued to grow. People will domestically
have less people to compete against in the labor market,
their wages are rising more rapidly, and so I think
it's kind of like a nationalist economic policy. Right, Domestic
Americans I think are doing pretty well. I think the
economy is going to continue to grow. I'm not saying
(16:17):
there's not problems, but we are reversing some of the
trends in the past thirty years. And I think the
biggest beneficiaries have been you know, kind of normal people basically.
So I do think there's some reasons for optimists about
the US economy right now.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
That's awesome to hear.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Man. You know, the biggest thing I when I'm talking
to younger you know, advisors or younger people just around
as as you and I both speak constantly around the country,
you know, I'm asking you know what do you what
are you telling your the people that are coming in
that are trying to set up portfolios, that are trying
to figure out how to generate some growth in their wealth.
(16:53):
You know, what do you evaluate is the right message
for what what should this next gener Those people who
you know are getting married, like yourself, who are thinking
about starting new families. Jordi himself's about ready to have
his first child. So you know, what advice do you
give you know, your generation of people about building wealth
(17:16):
right now? And what we're looking for in the future.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think building wealth is unfortunately
a pretty boring topic. Everybody wants to have like the
big stock pick to tell people about it at dinner party.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
It's really just discipline. It's building well.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
It's the same way you get like in really good
shape at the gym. Right, it's just showing up every
day and doing it consistently. And hey, I'm gonna eat, well,
I'm gonna show up to the gym. You know, I'm
not gonna make the bad decision consistently. You make the
good decision consistently.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Right. It's the same thing with building well.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So I'd say, like, listen, just contribute money into an
index fund in the s and P five hundred a
consistently every two weeks or every.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Month and whatever you can afford.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Don't even look at the balance and just kind of
let it, let it fly, and over time, that's going
to build, build, build build. Once you kind of have
that baseline, then you can get a little bit more creative, right,
you can start looking at individual stocks or whatever else.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Right, So it's just.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
About discipline and consistency. Honestly, I wish I had a
sexier answer, but that's kind of the reality of it
being in the industry for over a decade. And also,
like go read every academic paper, they're going to tell
you the same this same thing. But by the way,
I work at an investment manager, right that sells individual
ETFs or kind of an individual like strategies.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
But you're as an individual, go buy an index one. Right.
I'm not even trying to push you into what I'm selling, right,
all Right.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Last question is, and I think this is the one
that you know is slowly as as the world's on fire,
is buried, buried, buried, but it's still consequential.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Is the spat between Powell and Trump?
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Right, the war between the federal government and the Federal Reserve.
What's your take and what do you think are they
going to be forced to drop rates or why are
they holding hard where they're at right now?
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Yeah, So, I guess the first thing I'll say is one, personally,
I don't have like an allergy towards like Donald Trump.
I think that's kind of the way to think of,
like people just have an allergy towards this guy, like
everything he does annoys them.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I don't really get that with Donald Trump. I'm happy.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
I like some of the things he does. I dislike
some of the things he does. You know, I also
will say I.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Think current economic conditions would like I.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Think they support maybe like fifty basis points and rate cuts,
like a minor amount of interest rate cuts.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
I sort of support that.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
Okay, all that being said, Okay, I think that central
bank independence, basically the Federal Reserve making its own decisions, separate.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And divorce from politics, is very important. Okay.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
So I have a huge problem personally with Donald Trump
trying to dictate FED policy or sort of bully the
Federal Reserve.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
One, I don't think it'll work.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
I think Jerome Powell frankly is just going to like
turtle up and wait even longer to cut interest rates.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
Out of spite.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Right, Right, But two, like, central bank independence is really
important because you don't want politicians in charge of the
money supply, right Like, this is like a fundamental thing
that keeps us from becoming Zimbabwe or Venezuela or Argentina
or whatever. Right, anytime the central government and the central
(20:37):
bank get together and they just print money like crazy
to fix all the problems and paper over things. The
people that get hurt. The worst are investors as well
as normal people. Right, it's not just investors, right, it
destroys the economy. So listen, there's obviously politics involved at
the central Bank too. Frankly, they've been too involved in politics, right.
They care about like climate change and diversity and racism
(21:00):
and LB pipes and whatever.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Okay, so they need to back off of that. But listen,
they need to focus on the money supply and interest rates.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
And I think central bank independence is really important because
you don't want politicians in charge of the money supply.
We saw it, by the way, we saw what happened
when the federal government and the central bank worked together
during COVID. They shut down the economy. They printed five
trillion dollars, made the highest inflation in forty years. So
that shows you what happens when everybody gets on board together.
(21:31):
Nobody's thinking. Everybody's kind of panicking. I think the Central
Bank just needs to do its thing and they need
to ignore Donald Trump. That's my personal opinion.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Roger.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
That all right, Bryce Gill, Where can people follow you?
Pay attention and what's next for you?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Yes, sir, well, hey, First Trust Economics Blog, that's where
we write all of our pieces.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Everything gets posted there.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
If you want to follow along with our opinion as
a firm, that's the place to go. You can also
follow me on Twitter you want to. Don't really post there,
but hey, I like a lot of different content and.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
You can kind of see what.
Speaker 3 (22:05):
My journal is internally. I guys, that's daddy fat stats.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
That still kills me the most, man, Daddy fat Stats.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
I love it all right, Bryce, God bless you man,
So happy for you and your new wife. And we'll
see in the short time in the near future.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
All right, guys, have a good one
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