Dr. Ernie Goss Talks Summer Travel, Economy

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Ernie, good morning. Good tohave you back. Good morning, Gary,
and it's great to be a finallyget to be official. Oh you've
beneficial for a long time. Ernie, and I wanted to chat on a
couple of things this morning. Numberone, I noticed that you're looking for
it, and we've seen these reportsin the last few days. Here comes
a Memorial weekend and the launch ofsummer and increased gas prices, and yet

(00:21):
you're seeing, uh, you're seeinga lot of enthusiasm for travel. There
is, Garry. I mean,we got it. It's broken down into
three groups. So they got thosethat have experienced about a twenty two to
twenty five percent gain in stock prices. That's one group. They're going to
be traveling a lot more. Thenyou got the middle group about the same

(00:42):
as last year. And then yougot the lower group, which have been
cut, have had their prices growa lot faster than the income, and
they're going to be traveling less.When you put it all together, probably
up as much as six to sevenpercent from last year. Yeah, and
you know this stat makes me wonder, Ernie, are we seeing a growing
to buy not just between the superrich and the rest of us, but

(01:04):
between what we used to think ofas the broad middle. At the upper
end of that, it seems thatpeople still have enough discretionary income to travel
and do other things that they wantto do, and the people totally and
the people at the lower end whoused to do that aren't doing that much.
Absolutely gay. We've got between themen between the ages twenty five and

(01:29):
fifty four, that's prime earning groupof our prime period to earn, and
they're seven million of those men arenot working right now. In other words,
they're in the basement looking at keepingthem on their screens and not working.
So that's a real problem. Andwomen are now catching up in that
prime earning group as well. Sowe've got a lot of folks out there

(01:53):
that just aren't working, and that'sreally sad, and that's hurting our economy.
You think the oil prices and thereforethe gas prices will remain fairly stable,
they will, gary We've got thepresident who's going to be releasing from
the reserves anytime the price gets tooout of line and giving that so that

(02:13):
we get at least past the elections, So we'll have prices moving in a
range is so a bit higher thanmost would like to see, but still
not what we've not the growth we'veseen in previous years. Rosie and I
were talking earlier, hearkening back totwo thousand and eight crash and everything and
all of the mortgage disasters there,and you say, Freddie Mack is rearing

(02:34):
its heat again. Huh absolutely,Gary, today's javous all over again.
You know, in two thousand andeight Freddy Mack and Fanny May lost because
of delinquencies and Bankruptcy's lost the Americantax pay one hundred and eighty seven billion
dollars. Now they want to doit again. In other words, they're
wanting to make second mortgages. That'sreally a bad idea. It's going before

(02:57):
the f HFA the permission do that, and we now's the comment period where
taxpayers can comment on that. Iwould advise everybody to get out there and
say vote with your telephone, tellingthem no, no, no, don't
do this. Yeah. Well,you know the thing is, Ernie,
it's a political season and a lotof politicians win votes by promising stuff like

(03:20):
Bill Clinton, who said it's theright of every American to own a home.
And he says, my policies aregoing to make it easier for you
to own a home. No,it's not the right of every American to
own a home. It's the rightof every American who can afford it to
own a home. So they makepromises with government money, and then every
ten years or so we have amajor problem. Let me ask you about
the epic tax, Ernie. You'vebeen a supporter of that, and Steve

(03:43):
Erdman, the ernest senator from theGreat Nebraska Panhandle, says, I got
enough signatures, I'm getting close toput this thing on the ballot. And
after another failed legislative session relative toproperty tax reform, what do you think
think there's some real issues in termsof implement implementation. I've got real concerns

(04:03):
about how it's implemented and can youreally get it implemented by January the first
of twenty twenty six. So Ithink it's a great idea to move away
from property taxes and income taxes towardmore of a sales tax or a consumption
tax. But there are some realissues there and I am concerned. So
I am the concept is great,but the implementation I'm concerned about. Do

(04:28):
you believe that Erdman is on targetwhen he says if we have a single
epic tax of just ten percent,that will pay all of our bills.
Because a lot of folks who crunchnumbers for a living say, no,
I thought he was talking about sevenpercent. Yeah, I mean I'm going
to give him a break at sayten percent, which I think is still
reasonable. But some who crunch numberssay it needs to be twenty twenty five

(04:49):
percent, and that just is absolutelyundoable for a lot of American families.
Well, Beacon Heal estimated about sevenand a quarter percent. I don't think
so it's going to have to beabove ten percent. It's not going to
be assigh as twenty two percent,which another group estimated, is going to
be somewhere around eleven or twelve percentat least according to my back of the

(05:10):
envelope calculations. By the way,I just saw a stat from wallet hub.
They're looked at mortgage delinquencies are risingin all fifty states, and Nebraska
is number two. This is whatkind of storm cloud is that for us,
Ernie, that we're seeing a lotmore mortgage defaults. If you're will

(05:33):
in Nebraska, well we're going tosee it across the nation. And unfortunately,
with interest rates rising, and thosewho are in homes with these very
cheap interest rates and they need tomove because of divorces, job changes,
so on. That's causing some realproblems for those individuals to buy that new

(05:54):
house right now. Monthly housing prices, monthly housing this is how much is
consuming of your income is between fortyand forty five percent. For those who
are buying a new house, thatshould be below thirty percent. So that's
causing some really big, big problemsfor those who are in the market to
buy. And you buy another home, no doubt, and that's such a

(06:18):
big sector. Ernie great, alwaysgreat to have you on, Appreciate the
time. Nice, good to bewith you. There he goes the official
economist f AB's morning news doctor,Ernie Goss down there at the hill top.
Good great stuff. I just Ilistened to these politicos talk about the
epic tax and they say it's badfor the state. Well, they may

(06:42):
be detached, sadler, they maybe saying, oh, we can't have
this, but the average property owneris going, you know what, what's
worse than what I'm dealing with rightnow? That's right, the average Nebraska
scent well can we have anything.Yeah, you might say this is bad,
but I've had twenty to twenty fivesent increases in my property taxes for
a home in Elkhorn, Nebraska,for each of the last three or four

(07:04):
years. So tell me it wouldbe worse than this, you know,
No, it's not worse than this, Okay, And I mean, I
have reservations about the epic tax asit relates to underserved people. But man,
we can't keep doing this. Andthat's what Steve or Admind and Steve
Jesson are saying. Guys, we'vebeen talking about this for fifteen years and

(07:28):
you're not fixing it. Well.Nebraskans have fixed it in the past,
and I think they could do itagain in this fall. I really do
well. It could easily happen.I'm still waiting to see. What did
you talk to the gov yesterday aboutthe special session? I didn't have a
chance to. I texted him,you know, because he was surrounded by
you know, people that are moreimportant, and I hard for you to

(07:49):
admit. I said, how youdoing? And he goes, We're going
to get this done. He justwhat frustrates the governor And I'm not speaking
for him. This is just myobservation is there just isn't right information out
there, that the information has beenconvoluted, and he wants the facts to
get out. We shall see