Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Tonight, we have some financial insight for you that you
cannot get anywhere else. To say I'm excited would be
a major understatement. You're listening to Simply Money, presented by
all Worth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner along with and I
feel like I want a drum roll here. One of
my favorite people in the world, a mentor to me,
(00:29):
a brilliant, brilliant man when it comes to money and
investing in your finances. He founded Simply Money alongside Nathan
Backrack decades ago and was here in the studio with
me hundreds of shows.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Ed Fink is back with us tonight. I'm just thrilled.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Amy.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
It's great to be sitting excuse me, it's great to
be sitting across the microm you here. And you know,
it's fun being back in the saddle here. And let's
see where we go with this.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, and you know Ed, I say maybe at least
once a week on the show, as Ed Fink always says.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
As Ed Fink always said, well, that.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Just means I was around for a long time. So
I said a lot of stuff. So I was around
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I think it means that you're pretty smart when it
comes to money and finances in when you retired, you
left us with so much stuff that still applies today.
And that's what I really want to get into tonight
is inflation. We have seen inflation over the past couple
years at forty year highs. For some of us, we
(01:33):
had never even thought much about inflation. I've been doing
the show for almost a decade. We didn't talk about
inflation a lot for years, and then all of a sudden,
it was like, WHOA, where is this coming from. It's
more expensive to get groceries, more expensive to get gas,
Your bills are costing more. People are struggling, I think,
to make ends meet when they weren't before. And we
can say this time is different. We've never seen this before.
(01:54):
You have a different perspective.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Well, I do, because I started in this business fifty
years ago in seventy four seventy five, when a group
of countries got together with four initials we had never
heard before OPEC, the organization Petroleum Exporting Countries, and cranked
(02:17):
and closed down the oil pipeline, and the price of
oil went through the roof. People were standing in line
get gas, stations were running out of gas. The price
of gas went through the roof, and along with it,
the price of everything else went through the roof, and
inflation took off like crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
When I say, you know, we've experienced inflation of nine
percent over the past couple of years, you saw far
worse than that during that time, Well, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I mean inflation was twelve, thirteen, fourteen percent and in
some periods of time over over short spurts. But you know,
you managed to get through it. It's horrible at the time,
you hate to see it. But the other thing that
was happening is wage were going up to maybe not
quite as fast as prices, but they were going up,
(03:05):
so to some degree there were and you know, it
starts becoming a snowball effect. Inflation causes prices to go up,
wages rise to meet the rising UH prices, and then
prices keep rising and pation starts going and then the
FED has to step in.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Speaking of the FED, the Federal Reserve, our nation central bank, right,
they have been tasked with bringing inflation down over.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The past couple of years.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You one of the things I've always loved about you
is you are a brilliant economist. What's your take on
how the Federal Reserve has done during this time. If
ED think we're the professor and the Federal Reserve was
in your class, what grade do you give them.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
I think they're doing a good job. And it's always
low hanging fruit to criticize the FED. Everybody's an expert,
everybody's got an opinion, and everybody go back. Everybody knows
that they did the wrong thing at the wrong time
and cause some problem to get worse than it would
have been. I've always said, you know, as an economist,
(04:07):
I see a lot of data, and I saw a
lot of data over the years, but I don't have
nearly the data that the FED is looking at. So
I have to give them a certain amount of leeway.
That they're looking at things that some of the rest
of us aren't looking at. And I think they've done
a pretty good job. And I think it's time to
pump the brakes. I think it's time to lower interest rates.
(04:27):
I think it's time. You know, unemployment rate is starting
to creep up a little bit, and that's one of
those things that potentially becomes an early canary in the
mind shaft for potential recession when unemployment rates starts sticking up. Now,
we just had though, the longest period of time of
(04:51):
sub four percent unemployment since the nineteen sixties, so at
a point in time some people who the way that
unemployment rate is calculated is if you're out of the
workforce and not looking for a job, you're not counted
as unemployed. But if all of a sudden you look
at it around and say, you know, it's a lot
of people getting jobs. My brother got a job, so
(05:13):
and so got a promotion. I'm going to start looking
for a job again. Now you're counted in there. And
I think there's a certain amount of that that's that
has i mean, into these increase rates. But still it's
something to keep an eye on, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And as we talk about, you know, the Federal Reserve,
you're doing a pretty good job. One name that has
bubbled up several times over the past few years is
Paul Vulker. And for those they don't know, Jerome Palell
was trying to avoid a Paul Vulker esque situation in
trying to bring inflation down. Let's talk about Paul Vulker
(05:47):
for a second and kind of the lessons learned from
when he was at the helm of the Federal well
Paul Volker was.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
A towering figure in Washington. I mean because he was
six ' nine. He was a big guy.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I've never heard that.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He walked in a room. He commanded the room.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Sixties.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, he was a guy.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
But he was brought in by Jimmy Carter in the
late seventies when inflation was running out of control. And
remember the Feds joined mandated stable prices and full employment.
Well stable prices aren't when you got double digit inflation
going on. So he was kind of the bad guy.
He was the sheriff that was brought into cleanup Dodge,
(06:25):
and you know, he got a lot of bad press
because he had to come in and do some things
that weren't popular. He had to hit the brakes hard
to slow down the economy enough to bring the prices down.
And unfortunately, what happened, and that's the nature of this
type of thing, you overshoot the market a little bit,
and we had a double dip recession of the late
(06:46):
seventies and very early eighties. We had a second recession
that came back, and then he continued his policy of
tight money to bring the interest right down, and eventually
he did, and it was at the price of a
double double dip recession, but we came back very nicely
and very quickly from it, and it's set the stage
(07:07):
for very solid growth in the eighties and end of
the nineties.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
You're listening to Simply Money present of my all Worth
Financial Immi Wagner thrilled to say that I am joined
in the studio by my dear friend Ed Fink. Gosh,
for those of you who've been listening to the show
for years, you are probably smiling right now. I'm glad
to hear this familiar voice. For those who haven't and
has done the show, Gosh, how long did you do
the show for?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Ed? Twenty twenty three, twenty four years? But who's counting just.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A couple of shows behind you.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And as we talk about the Federal Reserve, you know,
so much is going on in the economy and the
political landscape on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And that's why we love having you come.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know, take a day out of retirement for us
to come back in and give us your perspective.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Amy, I have such a busy schedule, you know, I
had the pence of this in like three months ago.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We called your assistance.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yes, because it's got people with your people.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Are people called your people?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Oh how about tomorrow? Yeah, I can be there.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
We're glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that you
think you think now is the time for the Fed
to sort of pivot. We've gone from raising interest rates
eleven times too. Maybe we're on the verge of next
month seeing starting to see cuts. There has been some
talk around a soft landing. Is it possible that the
Federal Reserve could bring interest rates or could bring inflation
(08:31):
down without hiking us into a recession.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It seems like a miracle on the Hudson kind of
a proposition.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
They're doing it right now. I was going to ask,
I think we're doing it right now. I think the
last six months of economic data, you know, show that
our economy is continuing very strong.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I mean, you know, I hear.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
People say that the economy is in the toilet. You know,
it really is a horrible shape. We are the envy
of the world as an economy. There is not a
country in the world who would change places with us.
We keep producing jobs at record pace over the last
couple of years. Inflation has come down very nicely from
(09:11):
those highs of the two years ago somewhere twenty twenty two,
Thanks in part to what the FED has been doing
with rates, consumers continue to spend. I mean, my gosh,
have you tried to get into a restaurant on a
Friday or sight Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
We're a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Airlines are making record profits. There's record numbers of people
flying on vacations. Our economy is going very strong right now,
and I think it's it is a delicate balance. Lowering
interest rates a bit to juice things a little, but
you have to look ahead. It's like Gretzky used to say,
(09:49):
I skate to where the puck is going to be,
not to where the puck is. And right now the
puck is heading a little bit in the direction of
a recession. And we're seeing that in the form of
some very early indicators of unemployment rates starting to tick up.
And that's something we need to keep an eye on.
And I think now is the time to get the
word that puck is going to be and that's by
(10:11):
lowering interest rates, you know, as.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You mentioned, some data sort of moving in that direction.
One thing I saw recently that did make me a
little nervous is the US savings rate, the average savings rate,
so this is you know how much you are saving
of what you're bringing home. During the pandemic, this was phenomenal.
We saw savings rates peak.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
At record highs of like thirty two percent.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
There's nowhere to spend money.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Where were you going to spend your money?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And every time you checked your account the government had
put more into it.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
That's stimulus money.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And we kept saying, this isn't going to last, this
isn't going to last. But I think the average shavings
rate is probably about five six percent somewhere around there.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We've now dipped to about three points in and that's
something to.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Keep an eye on. Yeah, there's no question that's something
to keep an eye on. And you know, we talked
about inflation how high inflation got here, but inflation was
a global phenomenon and it was driven by the snapback,
global snapback from the COVID shutdown around the globe where
people started getting out buying gas, buying stuff, traveling, doing things,
and there wasn't enough supply of product that people were
(11:14):
wanting to buy, and prices went up. At the peak
of inflation here in this country, in summer of twenty
twenty two, we were dead in middle of the G
twenty countries. We were right in the middle of our
inflation rate. Half had higher inflation, half had lower inflation.
But it was a global phenomenon. It's coming down much
better here in the US, and it is in many
(11:35):
other countries. I can tell you that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You don't have a crystal ball, I know, but what
do you think September we start to see cuts.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Oh I hope, Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So you and me both all right?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Coming up next, the key is to not make financial decisions,
of course, based on fear and greed. Next, we're going
to talk with that about the amount of times he
has seen people just.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Like you on the ledge in an election. Here, let's
get his perspective on that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
here on fifty five KRC, the talk station Financial Imani
Wagnara along with our.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Good friend Ed Fink tonight.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And if you happen to miss our show, you don't
have to miss a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We have a daily podcast for you. Just search Simply Money.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It's right there on the iHeart app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Coming at six forty three behavioral finance.
How does that have an impact on your money? Are
you someone who just can't stop thinking about your money?
We'll give you some perspective on that. And I think
one of the most brilliant things that has come out
of the show through the years is this line, we're
(12:41):
not red, we're not blue, we're green. We don't have
a political stance on what we think should happen. We're
simply saying, hey, here's how it should impact your money.
A couple of months ago, I got a text from
a friend of mine and she said, my husband and
I have been talking about it, and she said, we
don't care who wins the election, but we know there's
(13:02):
going to be a recession the day after the election,
so we're thinking about taking all of our money out
of the markets.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What do you think, Well, I think that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I understand it because everybody is so steeped in political
jargon right now, in political propaganda right now, from both sides,
that it's almost impossible to back away and say, you know,
I have to take a cold, hard look at my
investments and try to separate it from everything that's going
on politically now. Everybody's got a dog in this hunt
(13:33):
basically on who wins one way or the other this
coming election. But you have to take a look at
your investments. And I've said this multiple times over the years.
It's like in the old countdown days, when a cowboy
walked into dodge, he checked his guns with the sheriff.
He checked his guns at the door before he went
(13:53):
into that saloon. Well, you have to check your political
guns at the door before you walk into the investment saloon,
otherwise you're going to get in big trouble in that
investment salone. Because the problem is big good companies figure
out how to make money regardless of what the rules are,
and the rules changes, administrations change, and you look at
(14:16):
back down through the years, everybody's always thought, if the
other side wins, my four to one k is just
going to be worthless. It's going to tak it's going
to be worthless. I got to take all my money
out and sit on it until the next election when
my guys get back in. Well, that's an exercise and
impoverishing yourself and missing a lot of the upside of business.
(14:40):
Something I was thinking back on some about ten years ago.
I was doing a retirement workshop and there was one
hundred hundred and fifty people and they we're talking about
investing for retirement. And this was twenty fourteen, was halfway
through Obama's second term. And this is where this whole
subject of checking your political guns, that the door comes in.
(15:02):
This lady came up to me at halftime and she said,
do you think if we get Obama out of here?
When Obama gets out in two years in the next election,
that the stock market will come back? And I said
to her, do you realize that the last five six
years I won't been one of the greatest runs in
the stock market in your lifetime? And Amy, she looked
(15:24):
at me and she said, what did you just say?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And she had missed.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It well, but I know she didn't believe me. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
But see, that's the problem. You're hearing people tell you
that everything is terrible, and it's not necessarily terrible. Sometimes
it is, but an awful lot of times if there's
a political bias there, you're going to find out it
might be almost exactly the opposite. Is this lady did.
And apparently she had been totally out of the market
for the last six years. It's years up to that
(15:52):
point in time, and didn't this a great run.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You know, we have a lot going on in the
political landscape right now. You know, just in the past
few weeks, the attempted assassination a former President Trump. We
have President Biden announcing that he's dropping out of the race,
Kamala Harris seemingly taking his place there. I think there's
four words that we often hear from people. This time
is different. This election feels different, This is different, and
(16:19):
they seem to want to do something with their money.
It's funny because it's almost every four years in some cases,
it's the same people saying this time is different.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
What's your perspective on.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That every election is different? Everybody can say that every election,
and I've heard that every election. This time this is different.
We got to do something going in here, No, you don't.
You need to take a look at economic data. You
need to take a look at and say, are we
continuing to create jobs in this country and the numbers
that came in for last month we're in excess to
(16:51):
two hundred thousand. You don't go into a recession when
you're producing two hundred thousand new jobs in a country.
It's consumer spending still up. Are companies making profits. I mean,
over eighty percent of the S and P five hundred
right now is meeting, is beating their target on their earnings?
Are companies expanding their businesses? All of these different things,
(17:15):
And you say you'd step back right now, And you say,
all of those are moving in the right direction right now.
It doesn't matter who gets into the White House, and
I mean it matters, but it doesn't matter from an
immediate perspective of your investments that you need to be
taking a step back just because you think the other
(17:35):
guy is going to be getting in I think, or
a woman in this case.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
The truth that we need to all keep in front
of us is that the American economy is.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Bigger than the Oval Office.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And I think, yes, in the next few months, we're
all going to get bombarded with this person is to
blame for inflation, this person is to blame for infleation,
this you know.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's the back and forth.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And what you have to keep in mind is there
are so many facts that go into these things. You know, definitely,
just the American economy is bigger than the Oval Office,
regardless of whether it's your candidate or someone else's candidate
that's in that office. And one of the things when
we were doing the show regularly that we would come
back to is.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
What's keeping you up at night?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Is there anything when it comes to your money that's
keeping you up as you look at the political landscape,
as you look at where we've come from with inflation
and what the federal Reserve is doing, how are.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You sleeping these Well?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
You asked me that a couple of years ago during COVID,
and I said, one of my concerns was a supply
chain and disruptions and the supply chain and what that's
going to do, and that ended up creating a lot
of the inflation that we ended up having a lot
of product problems. I have to say right now, the
thing that concerns me the most is this loose talk
of tariffs right now, because tariffs are taxes, and those
(18:49):
taxes are paid by consumers. They are not paid by
the exporting country. The money comes into this country, it's
either paid. If you buy a watch overseas and it
comes in and there's duty on it, you pay it.
If a company is bringing in supplies that they need
for their manufacturing process, when that money comes into this country,
that's where the tariff is paid. It's not paid by
(19:12):
the country's exporting it. It's paid by the people bringing
it in and ultimately, almost all the time by consumer
as that's the type of thing that can really lead
I mean, you look back at what caused a great depression.
One of them was retaliatory care of among countries, and
it just brought the entire globe to a screeching halt
(19:32):
and caused that long, horrible depression of the thirties. So
that to me is one of the things that really
really concerns me. I think there's a lot of loose
stalk around that, and we need to step back, pump
the brakes on this one and really understand what we're
getting into before we jump in there.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Great perspective, as always ad here's the all Worth advice.
You know what, the events may change investing principles, though
they stay the same. You keep an eye on your
long term plan. Coming up next, tackling the financial issue
top of mind for so many social security. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial here in
fifty five krs.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
The talk station.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
You're listening to simply money persented by all Worth Financial
I mean wagnera along.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
With ad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
When it comes to thinking about retirement, for almost all
of us, a major component of that picture is your
social security And we just came across some new research
that shows only one in ten of you who aren't
retired have any idea how much money you can expect
to get on a monthly basis from social Security.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I don't know, does that surprise you?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You know, in a way, it does surprise me because
it is such like you said, this is such a
critically important component component of a lot of individuals retirement income. Yeah,
And the numbers are out there. They're easily accessible. You
can go to the Social Security website, set up your
account if you haven't done it, put your numbers in,
and get a rough idea of what you're going to
(21:00):
be getting. You'll owe it to yourself to do that. Now,
as I've talked to individuals about when do you take
social security? How do you look at social security as
part of your overall investment portfolio. I think there's a
couple of things that don't get talked about a lot.
One of them is this that is a fixed stream
of income that's going to be coming into you for
(21:21):
the rest of your life. And I think what you
need to do is look at that and kind of
as if the average Social Security benefit is about twenty
two thousand dollars a year, say twenty two, twenty two five.
I think at the last numbers I saw the average
Social Security benefit, that would be like having five hundred
thousand dollars in a bond portfolio that pays four and
(21:43):
a half percent. So if you're getting the average amount,
think of that as having a half a million dollars
and a fixed income portfolio. As you look at your
asset allocation, that gives you the luxury, quite frankly, of
being more aggressive with the rest of your funds, and
that will give you the leg up on keeping the
head of inflation and being able to grow your portfolio
(22:06):
long term.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I think that's a great perspective too, because for so
many people I find as they get closer and closer
to retirement, you go from this accumulation phase of there's
always going to be more money earned, always going to
be more money that I can put into this account,
to suddenly there's no more money coming in and in
the tendency is to curl up in the fetal position
around that money and say, let's get it out of
(22:28):
the market. I don't want to take on any more risk.
But we also know that people are living longer, you know,
life expectancy. We're running plans through the age of ninety
four now for the clients that we're working with. So
if you curl up in the fetal position, you take
that money out of the market, you're missing out.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
On a lot of growth.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And I love your perspective on social security becomes kind
of the shock absorber, which allows you to take on
a little more risk.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Well, here's the other way you look at social security
is when do you take it. Yes, the earlier you
take it, the less you're going to get further rest
of your life. And you know a lot of people
put a pencil to that and say, well, I better
take it early because if I don't, I have to
live to eighty two or eighty four or whatever it is,
or I won't get all my money back. That's not
your risk. Your risk is living too long. So if
(23:16):
you can do it, if you can do it in
any way, put off taking it as long as you
possibly can get the higher dollar amount if you die
before the break even point. You die before the break
even point, your risk is, like you said, iman, living
out into your nineties and having that there, you would
then have a higher stream of income for the rest
(23:37):
of your life that would continued an increase with the
cost of living in flavor each year. So your risk,
I think, is not so much getting back every penny
that you could possibly get in if you take it early,
as making sure that you get as much as you
possibly can as long as you can if you live longer.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
You're listening to Simply Money presented my all worth financial
I Memi Wagner along with Ed Fink joining us back
in the studio, back in the saddle today to get
his fantastic perspective on so much. We're talking inflation, politics,
and now social security.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And when we talk about social Security, we have people
coming into the office sometimes who say, count me out
for social Security. I'm not even I'm not even thinking
I'm going to get any benefit. I hear that the
system is going to be bankrupt. Let's explain what the
trust fund is and the possibility there and what that
can mean for those who might be coming up on
(24:31):
retirement in the next ten or fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Okay, the trust fund is most assuredly not a pot
of gold sitting somewhere in Washington, or or or bags
and bags of money. Yeah, the trust fund is made
up over the years his social security has evolved. In
the early years of social security, there was way more
money coming in than there was going out because.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
People, well, retirement age was sixty five. People weren't living today.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
They weren't living, they were dying sooner, there were way
more in the workforce. Now that that dynamic has changed,
just far fewer work and there's far more a retire RaSE.
So over the period of time that there were a
lot more workers than retirees, there was a built up
of surplus in there. And that's been referred to as
a trust fund. And what that is is, and it
(25:14):
has to be by law, government bonds. The money goes
into the US government bonds. Now people say, well, you're
spending that money on stuff they're spending the trust fund. Well,
of course they're spending the money. If a corporation issues
a bond and you buy a thousand dollars bond from
a corporation, they don't take your thousand dollars and put
it in cash. They take the thousand dollars and they
(25:35):
use it for planned expansion and equipment and R and
D and all the rest. The government is taking this
access and they're using it for day to day expenses
and various other things. And when it comes time, we
know it, they will issue more bonds to add that
money back in. But here's what's happening now. We have
reached the tipping point where there's more money going out
(25:55):
than there is coming in. So now I think it's
thirty thirty or twenty thirty four is roughly the time
when we actually run out of the trust fund runs
out of money. At that point, that doesn't mean there's
nothing there for you. If nothing happens, there will still
be enough coming in to provide eighty three percent of
the benefit you'll get for the rest of your life.
(26:18):
Now that's still that's not ideal. It's a cut in
your income. But we face the same thing. Fifty years ago,
two old Irish politicians, Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan, totally
opposite sides of the spectrum, got together and threw themselves
on that political hand garnade, and they solved it for
fifty years by having a slightly higher age for benefits,
(26:42):
taxing a little bit more. We can do it again.
It'll happen at the last minute. It'll happen at the
last second. Probably we can do it again. But even
if we can't get that political wherewithal together to address
it the way O'Neil and Reagan did the very worst,
you're still getting almost eighty five percent of the benefit.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
I'm just going to ask you what your take was
on that, because we've had you know, some people in
Congress on the show here through the years, and this.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is a political hot potato.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Right, they'll talk your ear off about any kind of policy,
but when you ask about social Security, oh, there is
a song and dance there.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, yeah, we know there's a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, well, senator, what do you propose that we do
to fix it?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Well, right, it's going to take some hard decisions. It's
going to take some real, real people with guts to
step forward and say, look, this is a problem, here's
out needs to be addressed.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And I know it's not politically.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Popular. A lot of the options, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
They are politically popular, but it's something we definitely.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Need to do.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
You don't have a crystal ball, I know, and you
certainly don't want to wait into the political realm here,
But as you look at the options, any way of thinking,
this makes the most sense for American people who are
looking for this program to stick around.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
And one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I don't like the idea of means testing, but I
think that may be one of the things that's down
the road. If you make a certain amount of income,
you may lose some benefits or pay a higher tax
on your Social Security I'm not a big fan of that.
I do like the idea of slightly higher age of
retirement for younger people, and I like the idea. I
(28:20):
think it's got to be a comment, just like o
Ne and Reagan dien has got to be a combination
of that slightly higher age for benefit and slightly higher
taxes on higher income people who now benefit from not
paying Social Security taxes above a certain level. That needs
to be part of the mix. And I know it's
not politically popular for me to say that or anybody
(28:42):
to say that, but I think that's what's going to
have to happen.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I think it's going to take some hard conversations and
some hard decisions. And yeah, I think we're going to
kick the can down the road as far as we can.
But I'm certainly hoping that by the time twenty thirty
four roles around, we do have some sort of vision
of where we're going to go with this moving forward.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Here's the all Way advice.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You don't have to be in near retirement to figure
out how much social security you could get.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Later in life.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
This is a big part of your planning process. Know
your number and understand even if nothing changes, you will
get what seventy five to eighty.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Percent of your promise benefit.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Coming up next, we're talking about the number one factor
that usually determines whether you're going to make it to
financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I'm going to give you a hint.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
It has nothing to do with the politics, with the economy,
with anything.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Outside of your realm. This actually has to do with
your mind.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial
here on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial Ammi Wagner
along with our good friend Ed Fink. Do you have
a financial question that's keeping you up at night? You
and your spouse maybe aren't on the same page. There's
(29:56):
a red button you can click them while you're listening
to the show. It's right there on the iHeart app.
Record your question and it's coming straight to us. It
never fails. Right clients come into our office, we can
show them charts, graphs, historical data doesn't matter, and they
have the strong feeling that they either need.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
To sell everything or buy things that don't.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Make sense for them. And this is behavioral finance. This
is a huge component. And I always say one of
the major things that we can do, one of the
major services that we can provide for the clients who
we work with is having them make sure that they're
not making mistakes with their money that they can't recover from.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Fear and greed. Amy.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Fear and greed, the two driving forces of investment, cause
people to make investment decisions many times at the wrong time.
And you know one thing that we heard many times
over the years when we'd be talking to an investor
as well, the stock markets at an all time high.
I can't invest now. I'm going to stay on the
sidelines and I'm going to get back in after it
(30:58):
sells off. When I when I my response always was
the people have said that was, yeah, the stock market
is at an all time high. Now what do you
expect if you look back at the at the mountain chart,
going back to the I think in the last hundred years,
it's the slope up.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's a steady slope up.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
If you take a magnifying glass and look at it
on a month to month or year to year basis,
it's a very jagged line looks on an electro cardiogram.
But if you look at it long term, it's a
very long, slow, upward slope. If you close your eyes
and you touch anywhere on that slope withoute hundred years,
you're going to be probably at an all time high
at that point. You take your finger away and see
(31:38):
how much further it went from there.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
There's so much research out there that that talks about
kind of one of the major things that affect us
when it comes to our four one K when it
comes to how well we end up in life when
it comes to kind of crossing that bridge into retirement,
is that we mess it up for ourselves. You know,
it's we want we want to blame, and you and
I have seen Brexit we've I've seen trade wars, we
(32:01):
have seen inflation, record high inflation, we have seen political thing,
we have seen a global pandemic.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Let's talk about the global pandemic for a second. You
want to say this time is different.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That time was different in the fact that the American
economy came to a grinding hult.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Well not just the American economy, economy.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yet, let's talk about your four own k and what
the markets did, and those people who were scared and
wanted to jump off a cliff and get their money out.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yet the market's rebounded.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, the market is rebounded very nicely from that. And
you look back at that period of time, and that
was very scary. I mean, none of us in our
lifetime i've ever seen anything remotely close to that that
would shut down the entire global economy. But what we
have to step back and realize is central banks around
the globe opened the spickets and threw massive amounts of
(32:51):
money at the problem. So in lieu of that, we
would have had an economic disaster the likes of which
we've never seen, what made the Great Depression look like
a walk in the park. But you know, the US government,
of the foreign governments around the globe opened the spickets,
produced a lot of money, threw it into the economy,
gave it to consumers, gave it to companies. There was
(33:14):
a lot of dispute. It's where that should have happened
at the time, but it pulled us out of that
very very difficult time. And if you if you stayed
in and wrote it out, it was a choppy waters
for a period of time, and it came back very
rapidly and very nicely and continues to this day.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
From your perspective, I mean, you help hundreds and hundreds
of clients retire and retire well through the years when
it comes to fear and greed and kind of just
getting out of our own way when it comes to money,
what would you say the biggest lesson you've learned from
working with clients through the years.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Was stop looking at your account every day. That's the
best piece of advice I can give to anybody. Stop
looking at your account every day.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You'll drive yourself crazy.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
You'll drive yourself crazy in a also many times trigger
exactly the wrong response at exactly the wrong time. If
you've gotten totally out at the depths of the COVID
global pandemic slowdown, you would have missed one of the
greatest bounce back rallies in the history of the world
(34:18):
in stocks. And you know, that's the fear and greed part.
The fear part would have said, I got to get
out and got to get as far away as possible.
I'll get back in later, but you never would have
gotten back in.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
As you're saying that, it reminds me of Andy Schaeffer.
He's on the show from time to time filling in
brilliant brilliant advisor that works with us.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You and I both know Andy and love him.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He had some really sweet clients who were in the
office several months ago, earlier this year, and they were
talking about this really great condo that was kind of
their dream in Florida to buy.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And they said, we've.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Been clients at Andy's for, you know, so long. We've
been with simply money for twenty years, you know, and
we're just so thankful to him that we were able
to buy this. So they left and I was talking
and he said, did they mention that they got out
of the market during the pandemic?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And I said, well, funny, they did not mention that.
And he said.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I called them every single day and said, I think
you're making a mistake. I think we need to consider
getting back in.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
He said. They got back in much more, much sooner
than they would have otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
They were able to write it out and that's why
they have that condo. If for anyone out there thinking,
you know, why do I need to work with an advisor,
I have been doing this myself for years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Exhibit A right there, right.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
It's so easy when you're checking those accounts to be like,
I need to do something. And man, if you check
the financial headlines every day, it's this is on the horizon,
So this is what you need to do, and this
is the next big investment. Get in, get out. The
sky is falling. All of these headlines and this information
that we're bombarded with about the election and so much
(35:55):
makes you think you got to do something with your money.
And I think the key to being successful is to
get your plan set it and then you just ride
it out long term exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Just be comfortable. You know you're in the right place.
And again, I know I've said this odd nauseum. Big
real companies figure it out. Big real companies make it
through hard times. That's why they're big, real companies.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Coming up next, some final thoughts with our experts.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I think you're listening to Simply Money presented by all
Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC, the talk station.
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
Immy Wagner along with Ed Fink, our good friend. Ed.
First of all, so grateful that you came back into
the studio with us today. We always appreciate your insight.
(36:41):
I quote you all the time, but the number one
thing that I quote from you actually doesn't have well,
it does have to do with money, but it has
a lot to do with parenting, and it is that
our job as parents is to give our children both
roots and wings. And my baby is heading off to
college in nineteen days, oh.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Amy, the three tough days in my life, I'm sure,
or the three days that that my three kids went
off to college. It's very difficult as a parent, but
you do have to get back to that roots and wings.
You know, did you set them on the right path
and now you have to kind of let them go
out make a few mistakes on their own, be there
to pick them up, dust them off, and hug them.
(37:19):
But you know, the wings part is the hardest part
of that equation.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I want to get your take on the wings part.
From the perspective of money. I see so many parents
come into this office who have kids that are in
twenty five, twenty eight. They're still paying cell phone bills,
they're still paying car insurance, They're still kind of paying
for their entire They're like the bank of mom and Dad.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
And I'm like, oh, you're clipping their wings.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You're clipping their wings, and just that good analogy, because
you got to get them out of the nest, and
you got to get them flying on their own. And
I think a couple of things that you need that
as you send them away from the nest has had
them understand very clearly that there's an entire industry out
there that is designed with one thing and one thing
only in mind. That's to get them in debt and
keep them in debt as long as possible. Credit card industry,
(38:06):
auto loans, house loans, anything that creates a debt going
forward for them as something that to be very careful of.
And the other one is, you know, we said in
the past many times on simply money, a fifty thirty
twenty year old, if you have income coming in fifty
percent for needs, thirty percent for wants, twenty percent for savings.
(38:28):
Of those three, fifty thirty twenty twenty is the critically
most important one. Get that twenty percent savings set it aside.
It's most difficult thing to do at any age, let
alone when you're young, and you may not have fifty thirty,
you may not have thirty percent of wants and maybe
eighty percent of needs. But if you can get that,
get in that habit of getting that twenty percent set
(38:49):
aside every month, you will be set for life.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Parents, I hope you are listening and listening closely because
if you can, if your children can understand this right,
even if you have grown up in debt, right talk
about breaking the cycle. These are the most important things
that your children can understand ed.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We are so so.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Grateful that you came in and shared your time and
you're just brilliant mind with us today.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
You've were listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth
Financial here in fifty five KRC.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
The talk station
Tonight, we have some financial insight for you that you
cannot get anywhere else. To say I'm excited would be
a major understatement. You're listening to Simply Money, presented by
all Worth Financial. I'm Amy Wagner along with and I
feel like I want a drum roll here. One of
my favorite people in the world, a mentor to me,
(00:29):
a brilliant, brilliant man when it comes to money and
investing in your finances. He founded Simply Money alongside Nathan
Backrack decades ago and was here in the studio with
me hundreds of shows.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Ed Fink is back with us tonight. I'm just thrilled.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Amy.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
It's great to be sitting excuse me, it's great to
be sitting across the microm you here. And you know,
it's fun being back in the saddle here. And let's
see where we go with this.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Well, and you know Ed, I say maybe at least
once a week on the show, as Ed Fink always says.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
As Ed Fink always said, well, that.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Just means I was around for a long time. So
I said a lot of stuff. So I was around
for a long time.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I think it means that you're pretty smart when it
comes to money and finances in when you retired, you
left us with so much stuff that still applies today.
And that's what I really want to get into tonight
is inflation. We have seen inflation over the past couple
years at forty year highs. For some of us, we
(01:33):
had never even thought much about inflation. I've been doing
the show for almost a decade. We didn't talk about
inflation a lot for years, and then all of a sudden,
it was like, WHOA, where is this coming from. It's
more expensive to get groceries, more expensive to get gas,
Your bills are costing more. People are struggling, I think,
to make ends meet when they weren't before. And we
can say this time is different. We've never seen this before.
(01:54):
You have a different perspective.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Well, I do, because I started in this business fifty
years ago in seventy four seventy five, when a group
of countries got together with four initials we had never
heard before OPEC, the organization Petroleum Exporting Countries, and cranked
(02:17):
and closed down the oil pipeline, and the price of
oil went through the roof. People were standing in line
get gas, stations were running out of gas. The price
of gas went through the roof, and along with it,
the price of everything else went through the roof, and
inflation took off like crazy.
Speaker 1 (02:33):
When I say, you know, we've experienced inflation of nine
percent over the past couple of years, you saw far
worse than that during that time, Well, yeah.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I mean inflation was twelve, thirteen, fourteen percent and in
some periods of time over over short spurts. But you know,
you managed to get through it. It's horrible at the time,
you hate to see it. But the other thing that
was happening is wage were going up to maybe not
quite as fast as prices, but they were going up,
(03:05):
so to some degree there were and you know, it
starts becoming a snowball effect. Inflation causes prices to go up,
wages rise to meet the rising UH prices, and then
prices keep rising and pation starts going and then the
FED has to step in.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Speaking of the FED, the Federal Reserve, our nation central bank, right,
they have been tasked with bringing inflation down over.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
The past couple of years.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You one of the things I've always loved about you
is you are a brilliant economist. What's your take on
how the Federal Reserve has done during this time. If
ED think we're the professor and the Federal Reserve was
in your class, what grade do you give them.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
I think they're doing a good job. And it's always
low hanging fruit to criticize the FED. Everybody's an expert,
everybody's got an opinion, and everybody go back. Everybody knows
that they did the wrong thing at the wrong time
and cause some problem to get worse than it would
have been. I've always said, you know, as an economist,
(04:07):
I see a lot of data, and I saw a
lot of data over the years, but I don't have
nearly the data that the FED is looking at. So
I have to give them a certain amount of leeway.
That they're looking at things that some of the rest
of us aren't looking at. And I think they've done
a pretty good job. And I think it's time to
pump the brakes. I think it's time to lower interest rates.
(04:27):
I think it's time. You know, unemployment rate is starting
to creep up a little bit, and that's one of
those things that potentially becomes an early canary in the
mind shaft for potential recession when unemployment rates starts sticking up. Now,
we just had though, the longest period of time of
(04:51):
sub four percent unemployment since the nineteen sixties, so at
a point in time some people who the way that
unemployment rate is calculated is if you're out of the
workforce and not looking for a job, you're not counted
as unemployed. But if all of a sudden you look
at it around and say, you know, it's a lot
of people getting jobs. My brother got a job, so
(05:13):
and so got a promotion. I'm going to start looking
for a job again. Now you're counted in there. And
I think there's a certain amount of that that's that
has i mean, into these increase rates. But still it's
something to keep an eye on, you know.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And as we talk about, you know, the Federal Reserve,
you're doing a pretty good job. One name that has
bubbled up several times over the past few years is
Paul Vulker. And for those they don't know, Jerome Palell
was trying to avoid a Paul Vulker esque situation in
trying to bring inflation down. Let's talk about Paul Vulker
(05:47):
for a second and kind of the lessons learned from
when he was at the helm of the Federal well
Paul Volker was.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
A towering figure in Washington. I mean because he was
six ' nine. He was a big guy.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
I've never heard that.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
He walked in a room. He commanded the room.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Sixties.
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Yeah, he was a guy.
Speaker 4 (06:03):
But he was brought in by Jimmy Carter in the
late seventies when inflation was running out of control. And
remember the Feds joined mandated stable prices and full employment.
Well stable prices aren't when you got double digit inflation
going on. So he was kind of the bad guy.
He was the sheriff that was brought into cleanup Dodge,
(06:25):
and you know, he got a lot of bad press
because he had to come in and do some things
that weren't popular. He had to hit the brakes hard
to slow down the economy enough to bring the prices down.
And unfortunately, what happened, and that's the nature of this
type of thing, you overshoot the market a little bit,
and we had a double dip recession of the late
(06:46):
seventies and very early eighties. We had a second recession
that came back, and then he continued his policy of
tight money to bring the interest right down, and eventually
he did, and it was at the price of a
double double dip recession, but we came back very nicely
and very quickly from it, and it's set the stage
(07:07):
for very solid growth in the eighties and end of
the nineties.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
You're listening to Simply Money present of my all Worth
Financial Immi Wagner thrilled to say that I am joined
in the studio by my dear friend Ed Fink. Gosh,
for those of you who've been listening to the show
for years, you are probably smiling right now. I'm glad
to hear this familiar voice. For those who haven't and
has done the show, Gosh, how long did you do
the show for?
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Ed? Twenty twenty three, twenty four years? But who's counting just.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
A couple of shows behind you.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
And as we talk about the Federal Reserve, you know,
so much is going on in the economy and the
political landscape on Wall Street.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
And that's why we love having you come.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
You know, take a day out of retirement for us
to come back in and give us your perspective.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Amy, I have such a busy schedule, you know, I
had the pence of this in like three months ago.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We called your assistance.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yes, because it's got people with your people.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Are people called your people?
Speaker 3 (08:07):
Oh how about tomorrow? Yeah, I can be there.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
We're glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
You know, you mentioned a few minutes ago that you
think you think now is the time for the Fed
to sort of pivot. We've gone from raising interest rates
eleven times too. Maybe we're on the verge of next
month seeing starting to see cuts. There has been some
talk around a soft landing. Is it possible that the
Federal Reserve could bring interest rates or could bring inflation
(08:31):
down without hiking us into a recession.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It seems like a miracle on the Hudson kind of
a proposition.
Speaker 4 (08:37):
They're doing it right now. I was going to ask,
I think we're doing it right now. I think the
last six months of economic data, you know, show that
our economy is continuing very strong.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I mean, you know, I hear.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
People say that the economy is in the toilet. You know,
it really is a horrible shape. We are the envy
of the world as an economy. There is not a
country in the world who would change places with us.
We keep producing jobs at record pace over the last
couple of years. Inflation has come down very nicely from
(09:11):
those highs of the two years ago somewhere twenty twenty two,
Thanks in part to what the FED has been doing
with rates, consumers continue to spend. I mean, my gosh,
have you tried to get into a restaurant on a
Friday or sight Saturday night.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
We're a Tuesday or Wednesday.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Airlines are making record profits. There's record numbers of people
flying on vacations. Our economy is going very strong right now,
and I think it's it is a delicate balance. Lowering
interest rates a bit to juice things a little, but
you have to look ahead. It's like Gretzky used to say,
(09:49):
I skate to where the puck is going to be,
not to where the puck is. And right now the
puck is heading a little bit in the direction of
a recession. And we're seeing that in the form of
some very early indicators of unemployment rates starting to tick up.
And that's something we need to keep an eye on.
And I think now is the time to get the
word that puck is going to be and that's by
(10:11):
lowering interest rates, you know, as.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
You mentioned, some data sort of moving in that direction.
One thing I saw recently that did make me a
little nervous is the US savings rate, the average savings rate,
so this is you know how much you are saving
of what you're bringing home. During the pandemic, this was phenomenal.
We saw savings rates peak.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
At record highs of like thirty two percent.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
There's nowhere to spend money.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Where were you going to spend your money?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
And every time you checked your account the government had
put more into it.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
That's stimulus money.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And we kept saying, this isn't going to last, this
isn't going to last. But I think the average shavings
rate is probably about five six percent somewhere around there.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
We've now dipped to about three points in and that's
something to.
Speaker 4 (10:53):
Keep an eye on. Yeah, there's no question that's something
to keep an eye on. And you know, we talked
about inflation how high inflation got here, but inflation was
a global phenomenon and it was driven by the snapback,
global snapback from the COVID shutdown around the globe where
people started getting out buying gas, buying stuff, traveling, doing things,
and there wasn't enough supply of product that people were
(11:14):
wanting to buy, and prices went up. At the peak
of inflation here in this country, in summer of twenty
twenty two, we were dead in middle of the G
twenty countries. We were right in the middle of our
inflation rate. Half had higher inflation, half had lower inflation.
But it was a global phenomenon. It's coming down much
better here in the US, and it is in many
(11:35):
other countries. I can tell you that.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
You don't have a crystal ball, I know, but what
do you think September we start to see cuts.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Oh I hope, Yeah, I hope.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
So you and me both all right?
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Coming up next, the key is to not make financial decisions,
of course, based on fear and greed. Next, we're going
to talk with that about the amount of times he
has seen people just.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Like you on the ledge in an election. Here, let's
get his perspective on that.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
You're listening to Simply Money, presented by all Worth Financial
here on fifty five KRC, the talk station Financial Imani
Wagnara along with our.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Good friend Ed Fink tonight.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
And if you happen to miss our show, you don't
have to miss a thing.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
We have a daily podcast for you. Just search Simply Money.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
It's right there on the iHeart app or wherever you
get your podcasts. Coming at six forty three behavioral finance.
How does that have an impact on your money? Are
you someone who just can't stop thinking about your money?
We'll give you some perspective on that. And I think
one of the most brilliant things that has come out
of the show through the years is this line, we're
(12:41):
not red, we're not blue, we're green. We don't have
a political stance on what we think should happen. We're
simply saying, hey, here's how it should impact your money.
A couple of months ago, I got a text from
a friend of mine and she said, my husband and
I have been talking about it, and she said, we
don't care who wins the election, but we know there's
(13:02):
going to be a recession the day after the election,
so we're thinking about taking all of our money out
of the markets.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
What do you think, Well, I think that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I understand it because everybody is so steeped in political
jargon right now, in political propaganda right now, from both sides,
that it's almost impossible to back away and say, you know,
I have to take a cold, hard look at my
investments and try to separate it from everything that's going
on politically now. Everybody's got a dog in this hunt
(13:33):
basically on who wins one way or the other this
coming election. But you have to take a look at
your investments. And I've said this multiple times over the years.
It's like in the old countdown days, when a cowboy
walked into dodge, he checked his guns with the sheriff.
He checked his guns at the door before he went
(13:53):
into that saloon. Well, you have to check your political
guns at the door before you walk into the investment saloon,
otherwise you're going to get in big trouble in that
investment salone. Because the problem is big good companies figure
out how to make money regardless of what the rules are,
and the rules changes, administrations change, and you look at
(14:16):
back down through the years, everybody's always thought, if the
other side wins, my four to one k is just
going to be worthless. It's going to tak it's going
to be worthless. I got to take all my money
out and sit on it until the next election when
my guys get back in. Well, that's an exercise and
impoverishing yourself and missing a lot of the upside of business.
(14:40):
Something I was thinking back on some about ten years ago.
I was doing a retirement workshop and there was one
hundred hundred and fifty people and they we're talking about
investing for retirement. And this was twenty fourteen, was halfway
through Obama's second term. And this is where this whole
subject of checking your political guns, that the door comes in.
(15:02):
This lady came up to me at halftime and she said,
do you think if we get Obama out of here?
When Obama gets out in two years in the next election,
that the stock market will come back? And I said
to her, do you realize that the last five six
years I won't been one of the greatest runs in
the stock market in your lifetime? And Amy, she looked
(15:24):
at me and she said, what did you just say?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
And she had missed.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
It well, but I know she didn't believe me. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
But see, that's the problem. You're hearing people tell you
that everything is terrible, and it's not necessarily terrible. Sometimes
it is, but an awful lot of times if there's
a political bias there, you're going to find out it
might be almost exactly the opposite. Is this lady did.
And apparently she had been totally out of the market
for the last six years. It's years up to that
(15:52):
point in time, and didn't this a great run.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
You know, we have a lot going on in the
political landscape right now. You know, just in the past
few weeks, the attempted assassination a former President Trump. We
have President Biden announcing that he's dropping out of the race,
Kamala Harris seemingly taking his place there. I think there's
four words that we often hear from people. This time
is different. This election feels different, This is different, and
(16:19):
they seem to want to do something with their money.
It's funny because it's almost every four years in some cases,
it's the same people saying this time is different.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
What's your perspective on.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
That every election is different? Everybody can say that every election,
and I've heard that every election. This time this is different.
We got to do something going in here, No, you don't.
You need to take a look at economic data. You
need to take a look at and say, are we
continuing to create jobs in this country and the numbers
that came in for last month we're in excess to
(16:51):
two hundred thousand. You don't go into a recession when
you're producing two hundred thousand new jobs in a country.
It's consumer spending still up. Are companies making profits. I mean,
over eighty percent of the S and P five hundred
right now is meeting, is beating their target on their earnings?
Are companies expanding their businesses? All of these different things,
(17:15):
And you say you'd step back right now, And you say,
all of those are moving in the right direction right now.
It doesn't matter who gets into the White House, and
I mean it matters, but it doesn't matter from an
immediate perspective of your investments that you need to be
taking a step back just because you think the other
(17:35):
guy is going to be getting in I think, or
a woman in this case.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
The truth that we need to all keep in front
of us is that the American economy is.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Bigger than the Oval Office.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
And I think, yes, in the next few months, we're
all going to get bombarded with this person is to
blame for inflation, this person is to blame for infleation,
this you know.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
It's the back and forth.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And what you have to keep in mind is there
are so many facts that go into these things. You know, definitely,
just the American economy is bigger than the Oval Office,
regardless of whether it's your candidate or someone else's candidate
that's in that office. And one of the things when
we were doing the show regularly that we would come
back to is.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
What's keeping you up at night?
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Is there anything when it comes to your money that's
keeping you up as you look at the political landscape,
as you look at where we've come from with inflation
and what the federal Reserve is doing, how are.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
You sleeping these Well?
Speaker 4 (18:26):
You asked me that a couple of years ago during COVID,
and I said, one of my concerns was a supply
chain and disruptions and the supply chain and what that's
going to do, and that ended up creating a lot
of the inflation that we ended up having a lot
of product problems. I have to say right now, the
thing that concerns me the most is this loose talk
of tariffs right now, because tariffs are taxes, and those
(18:49):
taxes are paid by consumers. They are not paid by
the exporting country. The money comes into this country, it's
either paid. If you buy a watch overseas and it
comes in and there's duty on it, you pay it.
If a company is bringing in supplies that they need
for their manufacturing process, when that money comes into this country,
that's where the tariff is paid. It's not paid by
(19:12):
the country's exporting it. It's paid by the people bringing
it in and ultimately, almost all the time by consumer
as that's the type of thing that can really lead
I mean, you look back at what caused a great depression.
One of them was retaliatory care of among countries, and
it just brought the entire globe to a screeching halt
(19:32):
and caused that long, horrible depression of the thirties. So
that to me is one of the things that really
really concerns me. I think there's a lot of loose
stalk around that, and we need to step back, pump
the brakes on this one and really understand what we're
getting into before we jump in there.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Great perspective, as always ad here's the all Worth advice.
You know what, the events may change investing principles, though
they stay the same. You keep an eye on your
long term plan. Coming up next, tackling the financial issue
top of mind for so many social security. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial here in
fifty five krs.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
The talk station.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
You're listening to simply money persented by all Worth Financial
I mean wagnera along.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
With ad thing.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
When it comes to thinking about retirement, for almost all
of us, a major component of that picture is your
social security And we just came across some new research
that shows only one in ten of you who aren't
retired have any idea how much money you can expect
to get on a monthly basis from social Security.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I don't know, does that surprise you?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
You know, in a way, it does surprise me because
it is such like you said, this is such a
critically important component component of a lot of individuals retirement income. Yeah,
And the numbers are out there. They're easily accessible. You
can go to the Social Security website, set up your
account if you haven't done it, put your numbers in,
and get a rough idea of what you're going to
(21:00):
be getting. You'll owe it to yourself to do that. Now,
as I've talked to individuals about when do you take
social security? How do you look at social security as
part of your overall investment portfolio. I think there's a
couple of things that don't get talked about a lot.
One of them is this that is a fixed stream
of income that's going to be coming into you for
(21:21):
the rest of your life. And I think what you
need to do is look at that and kind of
as if the average Social Security benefit is about twenty
two thousand dollars a year, say twenty two, twenty two five.
I think at the last numbers I saw the average
Social Security benefit, that would be like having five hundred
thousand dollars in a bond portfolio that pays four and
(21:43):
a half percent. So if you're getting the average amount,
think of that as having a half a million dollars
and a fixed income portfolio. As you look at your
asset allocation, that gives you the luxury, quite frankly, of
being more aggressive with the rest of your funds, and
that will give you the leg up on keeping the
head of inflation and being able to grow your portfolio
(22:06):
long term.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I think that's a great perspective too, because for so
many people I find as they get closer and closer
to retirement, you go from this accumulation phase of there's
always going to be more money earned, always going to
be more money that I can put into this account,
to suddenly there's no more money coming in and in
the tendency is to curl up in the fetal position
around that money and say, let's get it out of
(22:28):
the market. I don't want to take on any more risk.
But we also know that people are living longer, you know,
life expectancy. We're running plans through the age of ninety
four now for the clients that we're working with. So
if you curl up in the fetal position, you take
that money out of the market, you're missing out.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
On a lot of growth.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And I love your perspective on social security becomes kind
of the shock absorber, which allows you to take on
a little more risk.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Well, here's the other way you look at social security
is when do you take it. Yes, the earlier you
take it, the less you're going to get further rest
of your life. And you know a lot of people
put a pencil to that and say, well, I better
take it early because if I don't, I have to
live to eighty two or eighty four or whatever it is,
or I won't get all my money back. That's not
your risk. Your risk is living too long. So if
(23:16):
you can do it, if you can do it in
any way, put off taking it as long as you
possibly can get the higher dollar amount if you die
before the break even point. You die before the break
even point, your risk is, like you said, iman, living
out into your nineties and having that there, you would
then have a higher stream of income for the rest
(23:37):
of your life that would continued an increase with the
cost of living in flavor each year. So your risk,
I think, is not so much getting back every penny
that you could possibly get in if you take it early,
as making sure that you get as much as you
possibly can as long as you can if you live longer.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
You're listening to Simply Money presented my all worth financial
I Memi Wagner along with Ed Fink joining us back
in the studio, back in the saddle today to get
his fantastic perspective on so much. We're talking inflation, politics,
and now social security.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
You know.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And when we talk about social Security, we have people
coming into the office sometimes who say, count me out
for social Security. I'm not even I'm not even thinking
I'm going to get any benefit. I hear that the
system is going to be bankrupt. Let's explain what the
trust fund is and the possibility there and what that
can mean for those who might be coming up on
(24:31):
retirement in the next ten or fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Okay, the trust fund is most assuredly not a pot
of gold sitting somewhere in Washington, or or or bags
and bags of money. Yeah, the trust fund is made
up over the years his social security has evolved. In
the early years of social security, there was way more
money coming in than there was going out because.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
People, well, retirement age was sixty five. People weren't living today.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
They weren't living, they were dying sooner, there were way
more in the workforce. Now that that dynamic has changed,
just far fewer work and there's far more a retire RaSE.
So over the period of time that there were a
lot more workers than retirees, there was a built up
of surplus in there. And that's been referred to as
a trust fund. And what that is is, and it
(25:14):
has to be by law, government bonds. The money goes
into the US government bonds. Now people say, well, you're
spending that money on stuff they're spending the trust fund. Well,
of course they're spending the money. If a corporation issues
a bond and you buy a thousand dollars bond from
a corporation, they don't take your thousand dollars and put
it in cash. They take the thousand dollars and they
(25:35):
use it for planned expansion and equipment and R and
D and all the rest. The government is taking this
access and they're using it for day to day expenses
and various other things. And when it comes time, we
know it, they will issue more bonds to add that
money back in. But here's what's happening now. We have
reached the tipping point where there's more money going out
(25:55):
than there is coming in. So now I think it's
thirty thirty or twenty thirty four is roughly the time
when we actually run out of the trust fund runs
out of money. At that point, that doesn't mean there's
nothing there for you. If nothing happens, there will still
be enough coming in to provide eighty three percent of
the benefit you'll get for the rest of your life.
(26:18):
Now that's still that's not ideal. It's a cut in
your income. But we face the same thing. Fifty years ago,
two old Irish politicians, Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan, totally
opposite sides of the spectrum, got together and threw themselves
on that political hand garnade, and they solved it for
fifty years by having a slightly higher age for benefits,
(26:42):
taxing a little bit more. We can do it again.
It'll happen at the last minute. It'll happen at the
last second. Probably we can do it again. But even
if we can't get that political wherewithal together to address
it the way O'Neil and Reagan did the very worst,
you're still getting almost eighty five percent of the benefit.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
I'm just going to ask you what your take was
on that, because we've had you know, some people in
Congress on the show here through the years, and this.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Is a political hot potato.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Right, they'll talk your ear off about any kind of policy,
but when you ask about social Security, oh, there is
a song and dance there.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, yeah, we know there's a problem.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, well, senator, what do you propose that we do
to fix it?
Speaker 4 (27:23):
Well, right, it's going to take some hard decisions. It's
going to take some real, real people with guts to
step forward and say, look, this is a problem, here's
out needs to be addressed.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
And I know it's not politically.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
Popular. A lot of the options, yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
They are politically popular, but it's something we definitely.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Need to do.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
You don't have a crystal ball, I know, and you
certainly don't want to wait into the political realm here,
But as you look at the options, any way of thinking,
this makes the most sense for American people who are
looking for this program to stick around.
Speaker 2 (27:58):
And one hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I don't like the idea of means testing, but I
think that may be one of the things that's down
the road. If you make a certain amount of income,
you may lose some benefits or pay a higher tax
on your Social Security I'm not a big fan of that.
I do like the idea of slightly higher age of
retirement for younger people, and I like the idea. I
(28:20):
think it's got to be a comment, just like o
Ne and Reagan dien has got to be a combination
of that slightly higher age for benefit and slightly higher
taxes on higher income people who now benefit from not
paying Social Security taxes above a certain level. That needs
to be part of the mix. And I know it's
not politically popular for me to say that or anybody
(28:42):
to say that, but I think that's what's going to
have to happen.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Well.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
I think it's going to take some hard conversations and
some hard decisions. And yeah, I think we're going to
kick the can down the road as far as we can.
But I'm certainly hoping that by the time twenty thirty
four roles around, we do have some sort of vision
of where we're going to go with this moving forward.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Here's the all Way advice.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
You don't have to be in near retirement to figure
out how much social security you could get.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Later in life.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
This is a big part of your planning process. Know
your number and understand even if nothing changes, you will
get what seventy five to eighty.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Percent of your promise benefit.
Speaker 1 (29:17):
Coming up next, we're talking about the number one factor
that usually determines whether you're going to make it to
financial freedom.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
I'm going to give you a hint.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
It has nothing to do with the politics, with the economy,
with anything.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Outside of your realm. This actually has to do with
your mind.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial
here on fifty five KRC, the talk station. You're listening
to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial Ammi Wagner
along with our good friend Ed Fink. Do you have
a financial question that's keeping you up at night? You
and your spouse maybe aren't on the same page. There's
(29:56):
a red button you can click them while you're listening
to the show. It's right there on the iHeart app.
Record your question and it's coming straight to us. It
never fails. Right clients come into our office, we can
show them charts, graphs, historical data doesn't matter, and they
have the strong feeling that they either need.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
To sell everything or buy things that don't.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Make sense for them. And this is behavioral finance. This
is a huge component. And I always say one of
the major things that we can do, one of the
major services that we can provide for the clients who
we work with is having them make sure that they're
not making mistakes with their money that they can't recover from.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Fear and greed. Amy.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
Fear and greed, the two driving forces of investment, cause
people to make investment decisions many times at the wrong time.
And you know one thing that we heard many times
over the years when we'd be talking to an investor
as well, the stock markets at an all time high.
I can't invest now. I'm going to stay on the
sidelines and I'm going to get back in after it
(30:58):
sells off. When I when I my response always was
the people have said that was, yeah, the stock market
is at an all time high. Now what do you
expect if you look back at the at the mountain chart,
going back to the I think in the last hundred years,
it's the slope up.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
It's a steady slope up.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
If you take a magnifying glass and look at it
on a month to month or year to year basis,
it's a very jagged line looks on an electro cardiogram.
But if you look at it long term, it's a
very long, slow, upward slope. If you close your eyes
and you touch anywhere on that slope withoute hundred years,
you're going to be probably at an all time high
at that point. You take your finger away and see
(31:38):
how much further it went from there.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
There's so much research out there that that talks about
kind of one of the major things that affect us
when it comes to our four one K when it
comes to how well we end up in life when
it comes to kind of crossing that bridge into retirement,
is that we mess it up for ourselves. You know,
it's we want we want to blame, and you and
I have seen Brexit we've I've seen trade wars, we
(32:01):
have seen inflation, record high inflation, we have seen political thing,
we have seen a global pandemic.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Let's talk about the global pandemic for a second. You
want to say this time is different.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That time was different in the fact that the American
economy came to a grinding hult.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Well not just the American economy, economy.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Yet, let's talk about your four own k and what
the markets did, and those people who were scared and
wanted to jump off a cliff and get their money out.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
Yet the market's rebounded.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
Well, the market is rebounded very nicely from that. And
you look back at that period of time, and that
was very scary. I mean, none of us in our
lifetime i've ever seen anything remotely close to that that
would shut down the entire global economy. But what we
have to step back and realize is central banks around
the globe opened the spickets and threw massive amounts of
(32:51):
money at the problem. So in lieu of that, we
would have had an economic disaster the likes of which
we've never seen, what made the Great Depression look like
a walk in the park. But you know, the US government,
of the foreign governments around the globe opened the spickets,
produced a lot of money, threw it into the economy,
gave it to consumers, gave it to companies. There was
(33:14):
a lot of dispute. It's where that should have happened
at the time, but it pulled us out of that
very very difficult time. And if you if you stayed
in and wrote it out, it was a choppy waters
for a period of time, and it came back very
rapidly and very nicely and continues to this day.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
From your perspective, I mean, you help hundreds and hundreds
of clients retire and retire well through the years when
it comes to fear and greed and kind of just
getting out of our own way when it comes to money,
what would you say the biggest lesson you've learned from
working with clients through the years.
Speaker 4 (33:47):
Was stop looking at your account every day. That's the
best piece of advice I can give to anybody. Stop
looking at your account every day.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
You'll drive yourself crazy.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
You'll drive yourself crazy in a also many times trigger
exactly the wrong response at exactly the wrong time. If
you've gotten totally out at the depths of the COVID
global pandemic slowdown, you would have missed one of the
greatest bounce back rallies in the history of the world
(34:18):
in stocks. And you know, that's the fear and greed part.
The fear part would have said, I got to get
out and got to get as far away as possible.
I'll get back in later, but you never would have
gotten back in.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
As you're saying that, it reminds me of Andy Schaeffer.
He's on the show from time to time filling in
brilliant brilliant advisor that works with us.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
You and I both know Andy and love him.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
He had some really sweet clients who were in the
office several months ago, earlier this year, and they were
talking about this really great condo that was kind of
their dream in Florida to buy.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
And they said, we've.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Been clients at Andy's for, you know, so long. We've
been with simply money for twenty years, you know, and
we're just so thankful to him that we were able
to buy this. So they left and I was talking
and he said, did they mention that they got out
of the market during the pandemic?
Speaker 2 (35:06):
And I said, well, funny, they did not mention that.
And he said.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I called them every single day and said, I think
you're making a mistake. I think we need to consider
getting back in.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
He said. They got back in much more, much sooner
than they would have otherwise.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
They were able to write it out and that's why
they have that condo. If for anyone out there thinking,
you know, why do I need to work with an advisor,
I have been doing this myself for years.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Exhibit A right there, right.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
It's so easy when you're checking those accounts to be like,
I need to do something. And man, if you check
the financial headlines every day, it's this is on the horizon,
So this is what you need to do, and this
is the next big investment. Get in, get out. The
sky is falling. All of these headlines and this information
that we're bombarded with about the election and so much
(35:55):
makes you think you got to do something with your money.
And I think the key to being successful is to
get your plan set it and then you just ride
it out long term exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
Just be comfortable. You know you're in the right place.
And again, I know I've said this odd nauseum. Big
real companies figure it out. Big real companies make it
through hard times. That's why they're big, real companies.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
Coming up next, some final thoughts with our experts.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
I think you're listening to Simply Money presented by all
Worth Financial here on fifty five KRC, the talk station.
You're listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth Financial.
Immy Wagner along with Ed Fink, our good friend. Ed.
First of all, so grateful that you came back into
the studio with us today. We always appreciate your insight.
(36:41):
I quote you all the time, but the number one
thing that I quote from you actually doesn't have well,
it does have to do with money, but it has
a lot to do with parenting, and it is that
our job as parents is to give our children both
roots and wings. And my baby is heading off to
college in nineteen days, oh.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Amy, the three tough days in my life, I'm sure,
or the three days that that my three kids went
off to college. It's very difficult as a parent, but
you do have to get back to that roots and wings.
You know, did you set them on the right path
and now you have to kind of let them go
out make a few mistakes on their own, be there
to pick them up, dust them off, and hug them.
(37:19):
But you know, the wings part is the hardest part
of that equation.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
I want to get your take on the wings part.
From the perspective of money. I see so many parents
come into this office who have kids that are in
twenty five, twenty eight. They're still paying cell phone bills,
they're still paying car insurance, They're still kind of paying
for their entire They're like the bank of mom and Dad.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
And I'm like, oh, you're clipping their wings.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
You're clipping their wings, and just that good analogy, because
you got to get them out of the nest, and
you got to get them flying on their own. And
I think a couple of things that you need that
as you send them away from the nest has had
them understand very clearly that there's an entire industry out
there that is designed with one thing and one thing
only in mind. That's to get them in debt and
keep them in debt as long as possible. Credit card industry,
(38:06):
auto loans, house loans, anything that creates a debt going
forward for them as something that to be very careful of.
And the other one is, you know, we said in
the past many times on simply money, a fifty thirty
twenty year old, if you have income coming in fifty
percent for needs, thirty percent for wants, twenty percent for savings.
(38:28):
Of those three, fifty thirty twenty twenty is the critically
most important one. Get that twenty percent savings set it aside.
It's most difficult thing to do at any age, let
alone when you're young, and you may not have fifty thirty,
you may not have thirty percent of wants and maybe
eighty percent of needs. But if you can get that,
get in that habit of getting that twenty percent set
(38:49):
aside every month, you will be set for life.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Parents, I hope you are listening and listening closely because
if you can, if your children can understand this right,
even if you have grown up in debt, right talk
about breaking the cycle. These are the most important things
that your children can understand ed.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
We are so so.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Grateful that you came in and shared your time and
you're just brilliant mind with us today.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
You've were listening to Simply Money presented by all Worth
Financial here in fifty five KRC.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
The talk station
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