05 05 25 We talk with USC economist Dr Joey Von Nessen ... and Kristen Welker BRINGS THE HEAT and THE HEADLINES! ?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Jonathan and Kelly Show.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Jonathan Rush, your secretary of State, says everyone who's here,
citizens and non citizens, deserved to process. Do you agree, mister,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I'm not a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Kelly nash Well, the Fifth Amendment, it might say that,
but if you're talking about that, then we'd have to
have a million or two million or three million trials.

Speaker 1 (00:21):
I was elected to get him the hell out of here.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
The Jonathan and Kelly Show. Woc Ali vitally told me
first thing this morning at five o'clock, after I listened
to that interview again this morning at four, that Kristen
Welker knows how to bring the heat in the headlines.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
I don't know why Donald Trump continues to agree to
be interviewed by people like ABC, NBC. Ironically, CBS, who
edited the interview with Kamala Harris almost to the point
where she sounded intelligent during the the race for the presidency,

(01:03):
has nominated themselves for an Emmy Award for that interview. Literally,
not even joking about this, They have now put that
in for best Editing off an interview, which is again
the media knows no shame. You're gonna sue us for that.
That's fine, We'll take home an award.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
It's nearly like we're one step away with CBS News
from them promoting an interview with Donald Trump where they
ask questions and then they just do excerpts with Jim
Carrey from Dumb and Dumber and put it in as
the President of the United States. Donald Trump's answer.

Speaker 1 (01:36):
I guess Donald Trump has a special kick about like
putting his tongue into the electrical socket. He knows he
shouldn't be talking to these people, yet he does it
over and over again. And unfortunately, Donald Trump is not
precise with his words. He is not the great communicator.
He is a great president who is not great speaking

(02:00):
to people who hate him because you can find things.
He just gave you a lot of AMMO there. If
that was on the other side, we'd be shredding that
guy right now.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
Well, it's the same thing that happened the other day
with Michelle Obama when she said speaking as a black man,
and she was referencing the fact that she wanted her
brother who was there with her, to talk specifically to
whatever point it was. I'm sure something anti Trump as
his perspective and vocalizing that perspective as a black man.

(02:30):
But she actually came out and said, speaking as a
black man, I would like and that was a that's
a direct transcript of the words that she used.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
That's why the hashtag Mike Obama was trending exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
So you know, But Kelly, your answer was actually given
to me. You said, you don't know why he continues
to do these. On this weekend's Politics Nation with the
Reverend Al Sharpton, there was a round robin questionnaire going on.
Actually there's more like a lightning realm with one of
their guests, and the guest whose name skates me at

(03:05):
the moment, you've seen him repeatedly on MSNBC told you
and me and I was listening, you were not that
Donald Trump begs for and his entire life's mission now
is to get the approval of heritage or previously referred

(03:25):
to as mainstream media, legacy media, legacy media, and until
he gets at approval, he will not stop. Because he
has gotten the approval of the MAGA faithful and the
Republican Party, but he still wants the approval of legacy media.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
You know, there is one way to get it, and
it is surrender. If you just go ahead and do
what I want, you can have that approval. He is
a fighter. You'll never see a better display than when
he was nearly killed, shot in the ear, and the
first thing he does is get up. I mean he

(04:02):
was only on the stage on his face for what
maybe two seconds? Three seconds wasn't long and then so
it wasn't like he had an opportunity to think what
would be epic.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Would really cool?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Realcity? That is who he is. He gets up, covered
in blood, looks at the crowd and says, hang on
a second fight.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Fight.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
He's all about the fight. The guy wakes up thinking
about fighting. He wants a fight. So I don't think
he's looking for the approval of the media. I think
he likes dueling wits with the media and he will
spin this. He will spin what happened with Kristin Walker
in his favor Eventually. I don't know how he'll do it.
He amazes me over and over and over again. So
again he'll come out on top because all he does

(04:50):
is win, win, win, no matter what. But I don't
like it. I don't like giving them ammo that they
can run ads on Instagram, social media trying to get
more don nations for Donald Trump is a constitutional crisis.
Unto himself, he doesn't even know if he has to
uphold the constitution. You heard him say in his own words.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
There you go. That's why he has attorneys. Hey, we
got some South Carolina news to get to in a
few minutes. We're going to come out of the gate
as if sovereignty were running against journalism all over again.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Journalism thought they'd won, but not so fast, my friend.
Sovereignty rose up at the end.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
So we're going to have that coming up for you
in just a second. But wait a minute, it's the
Jonathan and Kelly hotline ringing. Actually it's not ringing. This
is a radio studio where it flashes Kelly Nash, Welcome
on the phone, doctor Joey van Nesson.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Good morning, doctor, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Well, I know, like most economists, you spent the weekend
pouring over the numbers from the jobs report that came
out on Friday. Your wife must have been exceptionally happy
to know.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
It's a crazy Saturday night.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Hey, let's talk about what it means for South Carolina
with that report that came out Friday.

Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, there's several important facts about the report, But one,
it was a very good report, undred and seventy seven
thousand jobs nationally, which is really right in the sweet
spot where we want to be. Remember that at the
national level we want to see between one hundred and
two hundred thousand jobs created per month. That's kind of
a goldilocks or a good report right where we want

(06:16):
to be. So that's the good news, and it reflects
a resilient economy and a resilient labor market going into
April given all the uncertainty and the back and forth
on trade policy. But we also see some what I
would call yellow flags, nothing too negative, but something that

(06:36):
we need to keep our eye on, and that is
the fact that we've seen a pullback in growth in
leisure and hospitality in South Carolina, so travel and going
out to eat and essentially more leisurely activities, and then
trade people are simply buying less overall. And then if
we combine that with the fact that we've seen also

(06:57):
an increase in initial unemployment and it's claims, those are
all yellow flags that suggest we are seeing a slow
down overall, but it's fairly mild to this point. So
just some things we need to keep our eye on
as we move into the summer months.

Speaker 1 (07:13):
Doctor von Nesson on the phone with us from the
University of South Carolina, and you're a much bigger brain
when it comes to the economy than Jonathan and I
will ever be but one of my understandings, and perhaps
you can correct me if I'm wrong. One of the
goals of the Trump administration is to address not only
the federal debt, but actually even consumer debt in the

(07:35):
sense that the economy, our GDP is based way out
of proportion on the amount of money that Americans are spending,
and we cannot sustain that level of spending due to
in debt. Most Americans have a ton of credit card debt,

(07:55):
so on and so forth. It's unsustainable. So could it
not be interpreted that less spending is actually a good
thing at this point, even though it does hurt things
like going out to dinner.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Well, I think one of the one of the elements
here is that the Trump administration is looking to onshore
more manufacturing and generate more manufacturing production in the US,
and part of that is also due to concerns that
we are too reliant on spending with other countries especially

(08:30):
when we're purchasing materials and supplies that are related to
national security, right, so we don't necessarily want to be
too dependent on foreign nations when we are as opposed
to producing our own materials and supplies for security related activities.
So there are a number of different goals there, and

(08:54):
I think that's certainly something that's important to address. And yes,
it's true that and you impose tariffs, that does raise
the cost of goods that that they apply to, and
that's part of the transition process. And and the real
challenge with tariffs, which is why they are so controversial,

(09:15):
is because there are costs and benefits, but the costs
typically show up first and the benefits come down the road.
And so when you have that type of lag that
that creates creates challenges. And so when you when you
impose a tariff, you do see those costs rise immediately,
but the benefits in terms of more on shoring, more

(09:36):
development of manufacturing within the US that that takes months
or even years to be implemented in terms of new
facilities being built out and operated. So there's just a
real difference there between when we see the costs and
the benefits and so that creates some uh, some temporary
disruptions as well that you allude to.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
You know, from your perch to the Darlamore School of
Business and your analysis for the state's economy overall, you
also do a lot of reports. I meet with a
lot of CEOs and the like of private sector businesses.
One of the things that we're hearing is that our
ports across the country on both coast will be hurt
by this tariff war with China in particular. Do we

(10:19):
see any of that already impacting our South Carolina ports
like Charleston.

Speaker 3 (10:24):
Yes. It's hard to get a good sense of that
data locally, because we've seen a surge really an import
activity because a lot of companies are looking to get
ahead of these terraffs. In other words, they're importing and
stocking up on their inventories before prices rise. So it's
hard to get a sense in the data of what

(10:46):
that looks like. However, if we look at new orders
coming in from China, those have been down significantly. We've
seen estimates ranging from twenty to thirty percent, particularly on
the West coast ports because the tariffs so far has
disproportionately focused on the trade relationships between the US and
China as opposed to other regions around the world, and

(11:08):
so many of the Chinese goods come in through West
coast ports, so they've been more affected so far. But yes,
that's definitely a concern, and we'll get more data as
we move into the summer months and get a better
feel for what that means, and especially whether the decline
and activity is the temporary blip or is it something
that's going to continue into the second half of the year.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Doctor von Nesson on the phone with us from the
Darla Moore School of Business. One of the things that
also happened on Friday, which I don't know that had
got much publicity outside of right wing media, is that
the was the ninth consecutive day of what we would
call a winning streak on the S and P five

(11:50):
hundred and at the end of the business day on Friday,
all of the losses in the stock market had been
erased since quote unquote liber day, we had all heard that,
you know, your four oh one k has been destroyed,
it's all gone. Donald Trump's an idiot, it's blah blah blah.
And yet it's the second longest win streak this century.

(12:13):
The last one would have been I think two thousand
and four, where they had ten days in a row,
and then you get the great jobs report on Friday,
one hundred and seventy seven thousand jobs. On top of that,
they cut another nine thousand federal jobs from that. It
seems to me maybe I'm just a little rosy, you know,

(12:33):
cheeked here the I got the glasses on. Am I
drinking the kool aid? Or things going better than it
would appear if I was to just watch media reports.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
Well, I think with respect to the stop market, I
think it's very hard to draw any conclusions from short
term fluctuations because they the stop market can go up
and down on a regular basis. It tends to go
up over time. But I think short run of fluctuations
are they are happening all the time, so I don't
do too much into any short run trends there. But

(13:06):
I think more generally, what we've seen this year is
a correlation of the market to tariffs. And when we
saw a lot of the back and forth, we saw
a pullback in the stock market, and once we saw
more certainty and we had this ninety day pause, we
saw recovery, and the reason is that investors businesses really

(13:27):
dislike uncertainty, and I think that is really the driver
of the back and forth on the market. When businesses
are uncertain about what their cost structure is going to
look like, what the market environment is going to be,
then they tend to pause investment decisions and just go
into a wait and wait and see approach, and so

(13:48):
that affects the market. And so as we've seen the
back and forth on tariff policy, and we see these
a movement more towards negotiations and away from the of
the high level of tariffs that we saw implemented initially,
then the stock market recovers there. And once we get

(14:08):
more confidence that this is more of a negotiating strategy,
that these high tariffs initially implemented are not likely to
be long lasting, then you see restoration in market activity.
And so I think that's what we're seeing. It's a
back and forth that corresponds to the back and forth
on tariff policy itself.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
You mentioned that we saw a little bit of a
dang on hospitality and travel tourism in our state. What
about agriculturally, because we keep hearing about how much the
tariffs are going to cost the American farmer. What are
you hearing from that particular sector.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
We hear that they are essentially in a wait and
see mode as well. They have a lot of concern
about the summer months on a number of different number
of different levels. But they are, like most other businesses,
just cautiously optimate stick but but but but concerned because

(15:03):
they are are are seeing a lot of uncertainty, just
like most other sectors. So so in general, businesses are
largely in weight and C mode. They're beginning to move
out of that again, and I think that correlates once
again back to the stock market and some of the
recovery that we've seen, but still a lot of uncertainty
in terms of where we are.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Mentioned that social sex should be. You mentioned that unemployment
insurance is paying out more now. The unemployment rate was
I think four point two to four point two, and
so why do you think that we're seeing more uh
people getting unemployment benefits.

Speaker 3 (15:42):
That that's a great question, and and that that corresponds
to the time the timing of the data. So what
are the challenges that we are facing right now? Is
that we are going through a very rapid change in
several in our economy, but all the data that we have,
at least for the most part, are backwards looking. So

(16:03):
when we get an employment report as we did on Friday,
that is typically reflecting data or the economy from two
to three weeks ago, so it basically goes through mid April.
But if we're looking forward and we want to look
at leading indicators where we headed next, initial unemployment insurance
claims are one of the best leading indicators we have

(16:24):
because those data come out on a weekly basis instead
of a monthly basis, and initial claims give us an
indication of how many people are being laid off from
their job, because if you were laid off from your
job in South Carolina, you can file for unemployment insurance
and it doesn't mean that you're going to necessarily qualify,

(16:44):
but you can apply for it, and so we can
actually track the number of people who are applying for
unemployment for the first time. So it gives us a
gauge of how many people are being laid off at
any given time. And so that's what we've seen kick up.
We don't know, we don't know why, and in terms
of which businesses are laying workers off, or whether it

(17:09):
refers to any particular within any industry or in manufacturing.
But we've just seen it go up for a couple
of weeks above what we've seen in the last few years,
and so the question is that a blip or is
that going to continue into the summer months, because it
suggests that that employment activity or the labor market activities
pulled back a bit. And that's why I say it's

(17:31):
a yellow flag because it's up. It's not up significantly,
but it is higher than anything that we've seen in
the last couple of years. So it's just something to
keep our eye on. And again, the reason it's such
a good metric is because it is very much forward
looking compared to the unemployment reports, which are typically backwards looking,
and we have to look at both when we're trying

(17:51):
to get an assessment of where the labor market is
and also where it's headed.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Given that your focus from the Ala Moore School of
Businesses South Carolina, though you mentioned the man they go
that businesses or don't like periods of uncertainty. To my knowledge,
there's only been one major manufacturing facility that's been put
on hold, and that was a battery facility close to Florence.
Are there any other large manufacturers that you knew that

(18:15):
had plans that they pull the plug on or put
on hold? Here in the state of South Carolina we are.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
So the short answer is no, not in terms of
specific specific firms. What we're hearing or specific announcements, I
should say, what we're hearing more generally is that as
they're looking to make strategic decisions over the next several years,
it makes it more challenging to determine when they're going
to move forward or what the market is going to

(18:44):
look like. So, in other words, if they're considering expansion plans,
what does that look like? Is if they're looking at
twenty twenty six or if they're looking at twenty twenty seven,
do they go ahead and make that decision now or
do they just wait and see what the what the
market landscape is going to be and maybe postpone that
decision till this summer. So there is so it goes

(19:07):
to a broader a broader discussion surrounding strategic plans for
the long run, for the next three to five years.
And we're talking about marginal changes right, So they may
be looking. Okay, we're going to make wait till the
summer to begin thinking about, let's say, making an investment
decision in twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven. But

(19:29):
to circle back to your question, no, we haven't heard
any major announcements in South Carolina that that any company
would specifically say this is because of the new terrify.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
All right, well, doctor Joey, we certainly appreciate your time.
We got to run, but thanks again for your insights
from the Darla Moore School of Business.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Thank you, guys, always my pleasure.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
You know, as we go back before we get into
our South Carolina news, and we mentioned that the General
Assembly is coming out of the gate tomorrow today tomorrow,
as if they were the horse is lined up for
the Kentucky Derby. Because we got a lot to get
done here in only a couple of days for the
last week of the General Assembly session, okay, and that's

(20:10):
when we'll have a lot of answers for our questions
like what's the tax plan going to look like? Because
we've talked over the weekend on the Jonathan and Kelly
Show about the State House Republicans putting up a fight
again and they're fighting for a zero tax rate. Now
I think they've realized we're not going to get there
this time. But that's okay. It's kind of like when
they were fighting for the original abortion bill in South

(20:32):
Carolina and they had to drop back and go for
the sixth week. You got to get what you can
get and then move forward in the positive direction. But
we don't know what it's going to look like probably
until Thursday night Friday morning.

Speaker 1 (20:44):
Yeah, I mean, was that old phrase in politics. I'm
sure I'm misphrasing it, but it's something like, don't let
you know perfect keep you from better something to that extent.
You know, as long as you're moving in the right direction,
you're not going to solve all of the world's problems
all the time, States problems, off your city's problems during
one legislative session, and even if that was possible, it's

(21:07):
still going to fall apart somewhere during the year. Somebody
will find loopholes and you'll have a whole new set
of problems to begin with. So it's one of those
things where you're trying to keep the ocean from coming
any further. You're just like digging sand hills or whatever.
It's a never ending battle in politics because ultimately society

(21:29):
is corrupt. Human nature is corrupt. We are born sinners.
According to the Bible, every one of us. No one
is good, no, not one, says the Bible. So when
you look at society and you're surprised that there's so
many people cheating the system, or you're surprised that there's
so much corruption, or you're surprised that there's so much inadequacies,

(21:51):
don't be surprised. And when somebody or some group of
legislators figure out a way to make it better, somebody
else will come along and find another way to exploit it.
It's just a never ending battle. But we certainly wish
that our legislators were better at their jobs or more
a tentative. I don't know exactly what we're looking for,

(22:11):
but they two are human beings, so they're flawed.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Seems like this day is going to be built around
a couple of things on the news that you'll see
most often unless you're watching exclusively the local news, and
that will be as Kelly mentioned in our interview with
doctor Joey von Nessen, if the market ends up today,
that will be a good sign for businesses or at

(22:34):
least for CEOs looking for some kind of stability inside
what it's going to be a transitional time, even as
Donald Trump said in the interview with Kristen Welker that
we are going to be in a transition period and
then they've been clinging hopefully to find something other than
just the Donald Trump doesn't know whether he's got to
pull the Constitution because that one kind of that argument

(22:57):
kind of fades fast once you realize the entire time.
But then the other comment that he made during that
that the news is trying to stick to the wall
is American families can live with three dollars under the
Christmas tree instead of thirty. So that is there. That's
as they proclaim it. That is Donald Trump's let them
eat cake moment.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, Doctor von Nesson didn't really address what I was
trying to ask him about, which is thirty seven percent
of the GDP is driven by consumption. In other words,
like if you look at China, ninety six percent or
something of their GDP is based on manufacturing. They what

(23:40):
they're putting out for sale. For us, we get credit
because we buy a ton of crap, which doesn't seem
like a fair measurement. I don't think that should be
considered part of your GDP, but it is. And when
you look at the national credit card debt, Americans are
swimming in debt. So at some point it has to

(24:02):
have a course correction, and part of that course correction
will be when prices continue to go up, particularly on
things like dolls. Like Donald Trump got into a big
debate with Kristen Welker yesterday talking about the cost of
baby strollers, and his whole thing was, but look at
the price of energy. Energy is far more important than

(24:24):
baby strollers. Food costs are far more important than clothing costs.
And there are going to be things that go up,
but there's also things that are coming down. And the
things that are coming down are what's important to the
American people. Dolls, strollers, tennis shoes, those types of things.

(24:44):
We don't need more of those. We actually need probably
less of those. And in the actual interim, if we
can get Americans to curb their spending and increase our output,
we don't put on a lot of crap. As Americans,
we're a service trade industry right now, We're all about hospitality.
We're we're not making things that we can sell. We're

(25:05):
all about nail salons and hair salons and massuses and
waits and waiters and waitresses and those types of things.
China is actually making things, as is Vietnam and a
bunch of other countries. We're trying to resure that and
so that'll affect our GDP in a big way. Hopefully
part of it will also be us as Americans consuming

(25:28):
less and making more.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Well. I know that Simone Sanders, Yeah, that's her name, Okay.
Simone Sanders was pointing out that no matter what.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Is she the humongously like aggressive looking black woman with
the shaved head. Yes, and you see her on uh'sh
She on MSNBC.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yes, she was on the Weekend show and she was
also on the panel for Meet the Press. And her
point was is that it doesn't matter how Donald Trump
tries to spin it, you can't convince the American people
they're not feeling with their feeling.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
On of that was that did MSNBC just announce after
four years of trying to push that narrative for Joe
Biden that they're now not going to do that anymore.
She thought that was a funny observation, and that would
it assaulted me and infuriated me to hear her laugh
behind that statement.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
I don't have the actual number in front of me,
so I may be misquoting this number, but I'm not
misquoting the significance of it. Over the last twelve months,
inflation has averaged now again over the last twelve months.
Obviously each month varies. Over the last twelve months, we
are now up two point three percent. That might be

(26:41):
off by a couple of points here or there. But
on top of that, for the first time in four years,
the amount that the average American worker is making has
risen more than inflation. So you're at three point five
percent for wage growth over the past twelve months. I
think the current hourly average is like thirty six dollars

(27:04):
and like twenty cents or something like that. Thirty six
dollars and twenty cents an hour is the median income
in America right now. So you have now outpaced what
was the big problem inflation. Inflation is still a tick
higher than they would like it. They'd like it at
two percent. It's two point five or so two point four,
but the amount of buying power is up over the

(27:28):
last twelve months. A lot of that came in the
first hundred days of the Trump administration. On top of that,
the whole thing about your four to oh one k
was gone. It was absolutely lost. On Liberation Day, CNBC
and the rest of them had to stand there shocked
and slack jawed on Friday and announce all of the

(27:49):
losses that were experienced in the stock market have all
been returned. And you just had the longest wind streak,
the second longest win streak this century. If we go
up today, we will have been tied for the first
for the longest wind streak in the history of the
S and P five hundred. You could break it on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (28:09):
Right, So today's big news will be following the S
and P and also the other big news other than
the fact that Mike Pins is going to be on
CNN tonight at eight o'clock to tell you what I
don't know. But the other big news is going to
be Diddy's trial, which kicks off of New York City. Yeah,

(28:30):
it seemed because it was the interview with Kristen Welker,
although she brought the heat and the headlines. According to
al Batally, they opened up This Morning, A Morning Joe
with a really funny skit about Trump off of Saturday
Night Live.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
I didn't watch that one, but oh gosh, it's hysterical.
It is that with a guy standing the nextion I'm
supposed to be Stephen.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Miller, I think, so yeah, out of here all right,
So we got we got all that coming down today
as we prep up for what I think is going
to be a big week here in South Carolina. We're
going to have big news coming out of the General Assembly.
This tact this budget bill is going to mean a
lot of difference here heading into twenty twenty five, excuse me,
twenty twenty six. So we've got big news coming down

(29:13):
out of the General Assembly. I'm very excited about it
because I think we're going to see some good stuff
for our state.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Well, let's hope. So, I mean, that's that's always the hope.
They have the opportunity. They got a super majority, so
the Republicans can do it all right now, Todd Rutherford
can't stop you. Dick Carpoolian is not even there. No