Scams, Layoffs, and Teacher Pay Cuts | Let’s Get Real Ep. 24

This week on Let’s Get Real – we’re tearing into the headlines from the week of August 4th and not holding back. From FBI-confirmed pump-and-dump scams designed to leave you holding the bag… to TikTok layoff videos that could wreck your career before you even hit “upload”… to an Iowa task force actually floating performance-based pay and benefit cuts for teachers—yeah, they really said that.

I’ll break down exactly what’s going on, why it matters to YOU, and the moves you should be making to protect yourself, your money, and your future. No sugarcoating, no corporate spin—just straight talk and action steps.

Watch the full episode here: https://youtu.be/ZH5YSIMvW9Y
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Welcome to the No BS Wealth Podcast with Stoy Hall, your candid guide to financial clarity. In our third year, we're spicing things up by enhancing community ties and bringing you straight, no-fluff financial insights. Connect with us on NoBSWealthPodcast.com, and follow Stoy on social media for the latest episodes and expert discussions. Tune in, join the conversation, and transform your financial journey with us—no BS!

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Episode Transcript

Stoy (00:00):
You know what time it is, it's, let's get reels review

(00:03):
week of August 4th, of course.
And mind the hair.
'cause Barbara told me about twoand a half hours before that he
was gone.
So let's go ahead and just diveright into this.
So this week in review, asyou've seen, the shorts we're on
top, hop pump up.
Yep.
Yep.
TikTok.
TikTok Layoffs and why thosepost threats to both employers

(00:23):
and employees, and then a newone that just dropped, actually,
I'm filming this on Friday theeighth, and this one just came
out.
And just, just listen to thetitle of this Iowa Doge Floats
Performance Based Pay forTeachers in Eliminating IRS for
New State Hires.
Mind balling and shit.
We're gonna get into those.
We're gonna go through'em.
We're also gonna have you alittle bit of action step in
telling you, from my opinion, ofwhat you should do to either

(00:46):
benefit your life or avoid thesecrazy situations.
First up, pump and dump.
Yeah.
Well.
I know you probably shouldn'tGoogle that.
Um, you never know what you'llfind.
However, in the financial world,a pump a dump is essentially
this, right?
There is a stock that a group ofpeople are going to put a bunch

(01:07):
of cash in, market it, hype itup, say all these things in the
media to pump a lot of stuffinto it.
Since they hold the majority ofthe shares, as soon as it gets
to the price point that theywant, they then dump it, right?
Meaning that they sell all oftheir, um, shares out, which
then.
Drops the stock and dumps ithole, and you will be there
holding the bag.

(01:27):
For example, say, well, the onearticle we're talking about, um,
from Trading View is OST, OstinTechnology Group.
Not like you're gonna know it,but it's a small Chinese
electronics company.
Started the day at around 55cents.
They pumped it up, they got itto run all the way to, um, about
nine, four,$9 and 40 cents.

(01:47):
Those people, then, whoever theyare, the fraudsters would have
sold their stock and it came allthe way back down to roughly
around 55.
Cents about 93%.
So what that means is now youare stuck holding a bag at about
nine 40 or$9 or$8 or whatever,and it has dropped so low that
you're not gonna see your moneyback.
Now why do we bring this up?

(02:08):
Well, we're in a day and agethat there's a lot of meme
stocks, uh, and there's a lot ofinvestigation going on these
pump and dumps, um, that arehappening.
This one specifically is be, uh,investigated by the FBI and has
been found to be an actual pumpand dump, and you'll see things
come out, um, about who's goingto.
Whether it's prison or owe abunch of money because of this,
but ultimately this is why thememe stock craze, the, you know,

(02:31):
the Reddit stock craze, thosethings that when you see a stock
flying at a hundred percent aday, 20%, 30%, and they're just
keep going.
You need to be worried and waryabout is this a pump and dump?
Is this not a pump and dump?
Okay.
So if you like these stocks oryou want to get involved, have
an exit strategy and an exitplan.

(02:53):
Understand.
So this is my opinion pieceabout this AR article, have
always an exit strategy.
So if I wanted to get involvedwith this and I'm like, oh,
awesome, this is something Iwanna get involved with, it's
going crazy.
Whatever I purchase it at, Iwanna make sure I know where my
profit is.
So.
We'll use easy math.
If this is a$10 or a dollar ashare type stock, and I get in

(03:13):
at a dollar.
I know at a dollar 25, I want tomake sure I pull my profit out
or I set my stop-loss at adollar 25, so if it goes higher,
I can sell it for.
Much more if I want to, or if itcomes back down to a dollar 25
or a dollar 24, then I'mautomatically going to put that
trade in and sell it and lock inmy profit.
Other side of the coin, if I doget in and it is the high and it

(03:36):
is at a dollar, I'm gonna alsoset my stop loss for the other
side of it.
So if I know whatever this is, Idon't want to go down more than
10% and I get in at a dollar,I'm gonna set my stop-loss at 90
cents.
So no matter what happens.
I'm going to get filled at 90cents.
Now, there's some caveat to thatbecause trading's crazy.
It's all about liquidity andyour ability to get out.

(03:56):
However, you still need a plan.
I need a plan for profit and Ineed to plan for loss so you
don't end up holding the bag.
Next article of the week forreview, uh, written by the
financial Times.
And that is TikTok layoff.
Videos pose risk for posters,posters, posters for posters and

(04:17):
employers or employees andemployers.
So this is a double-edged, sosword with social media, right?
Um, it's great for marketing.
It could be huge for publicity,all of those things, but also
has the negative effect.
And that's what's happening whenit comes to these layoff videos.
It's doing two things.
It's telling everyone about theculture of the, of whatever
company, the business that'sgoing in.
It's.

(04:37):
Providing that transparency, butthat's also a bad thing.
Why are they letting people off?
Why is their culture like this?
Why are they in decline?
Right?
So now no one would wanna workfor them, or less people would
wanna work for them.
Flip side of that too, for theemployee who posted, employers
don't wanna hire someone who'sjust gonna make these videos and
show the insides of theirbusiness, and now you pose a

(04:57):
threat to not getting hiredbecause they don't want that
double-edged sword.
I, I'm all for transparency.
So lemme start there.
I love the transparency,however, you gotta be smart
about protecting yourself.
So my opinion on this is you, doyou boo boo?
Hey, you do you, if you want tofilm and talk about the layoffs
and everything, you go ahead anddo so, but make sure that you

(05:17):
also talk about.
Who you are as an employee, whatyou look for, and why you're
doing this one time video orthis one off video, that you are
not the person that's alwaysgonna air everything but are
trying to do the right thing forothers.
Even in your shitty situation,employers, I wouldn't
necessarily look at one of thesevideos as.
You know, cringe or the wrongthing to do.

(05:40):
I would try to ask morequestions if that person is
coming to me now.
So if I was gonna go hire her,um, the one who filmed this, I
would ask more about it andfigure it out.
Um, because that's moreimportant than the end of the
day of just writing people offthe final article of the week to
review.
And this thing tell you, I tell,I tell you what, this one I'm

(06:01):
watching, uh, just drinking somecoffee, scrolling my do my
thing.
'cause it's how I.
Come up with these things andthis thing popped up.
I got so visceral, mad for allof the teachers that I know that
are trying their damnedest andtheir hardest to do what is best
for these kids when, one, I knowIowa specifically is really bad
in education and doesn't supporttheir teachers to the degree,

(06:24):
which I think they should, letalone the United States not
doing.
So to have this article pop upand explain that the Doge task
force is floating around ideasto make.
Teachers be on a performancebased and cutting their
benefits, nah.
Mm-hmm.
Not gonna happen.
Um, so whoever you are, taskforce member, Terry Lutz, by the

(06:46):
way, knock this shit off becauseeveryone's gonna vote against
this.
There's no way that this shouldgo through.
Granted, where we live and the,you know, the United States
currently right now, this shitactually might go through, but
let's dive into what they'retalking about.
Okay?
They're currently talking aboutthe fact that.
Iowa has increased the spendingK through 12 over time, but
still ranks nationally, like inthe middle of the pack, like the

(07:08):
lower end to the middle of thepack.
So he is basically saying, we'reputting all this money in, which
is not a, like a big number bythe way.
They just increased spending notto the level they need to.
Um, he's saying, Hey, we'reputting all this money in and
we're still in the middle of thepack.
What's the point?
Let's cut costs and, and makethe teachers perform.
And then that way.
Or hopefully our grades andstuff go up.

(07:30):
So they recommend to pay forperformance and how they say
this would work would be basedupon the student's outcomes in
the standardized testing and,and test results, which by the
way, standardized testing hasits own issues and we already
know all about that, right?
That is a whole other topic.
We should get down to thatrabbit hole at some point.
However, this one would comparethe dollars spent with the

(07:52):
student's achievements, bothteachers and admins.
Administrators, you think aboutthat kid doesn't wanna show up,
kid does has a bad attitude, kidhas a terrible, um, family
situation at home.
Maybe they're homeless.
You name the issues that also gointo the performance of a child.
Let alone that they're in schoolfor eight and a half hours,

(08:12):
they're told that they have togo to this many days.
The teachers have to slow playtheir education because they
have to put those hours in.
So you're telling me a brokensystem that already doesn't pay
teachers enough, doesn't allowthem enough money to have the
resources to improve thestudent's performance now is
gonna be held to a standard thatthey are pay is based on
performance.
Get the fuck outta here, please.

(08:34):
Thank you.
The other part of it.
They were talking about, let'ssaid some state jobs have
healthcare and retirementbenefits that far exceed the
private sector.
Because it's not the privatesector dummy.
This isn't private.
We're not making schoolsprivate.
Right?
So he's actually talking aboutgetting rid of irs, by the way,
that is the state pension planfor all those others out there.
Every state really has a pensionplan, um, for their, uh, public

(08:57):
employees, specificallyteachers.
Uh, he's saying to cut that andget rid of.
Entirely, uh, because apparentlythe state of Iowa contributes
nearly 70% of the employee'sretirement plan, and he wants to
flip that to where a majority ofit comes from the employee.
So the same teacher that youdon't pay enough money, you now
want to take more money outtatheir pocket to put for their

(09:18):
retirement, that you're gonnaactually do a pay for
performance and not give themthe.
You see where I'm going withthis?
Okay.
This is absolutely asinine, uh,and absolutely ridiculous.
The task force is facing aSeptember 29th deadline to
deliver its finalrecommendations to the governor.
By the way, the governor that'son her way out as she should be,
um, tucking her tail and runninga little bit.
So we'll have another updatearound this, but that's just the

(09:40):
tip of the iceberg for theserecommendations, and it's
absolutely asinine.
And this is one that I willfollow.
Till the end of time.
Um, but you should go check outthis articles'cause it's in
there.
So overall, the week of August4th, some shit happened.
Some things happen.
I know we're over our 10 minutemark, but one, make sure you're
watching yourself.
You have a plan for any pump anddump situations that are going

(10:03):
on.
Two, if you're a teacher, let'sstand up.
Let's fight, let's do what'sright.
If you're not, let's stand up.
And do what's right for, um, ourteachers as well.
So that's the end of this week.
Look forward to next week.
Uh, stay tuned.