December 10, 2025 • 42 mins
Kevin covered the following stories: Realtor.com reports the October delistings; U.S mortgage rates vs other countries; the National Federation of Independent Business released their Small Business Optimism Index; the U.S. Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics released the October Job Openings and Turnover Survey (JOLTS); Kevin has the details, digs into the data, puts the information into historical perspective, offers his insights and opinions along the way.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome themar Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Well later on this afternoon, we're gonna find out what
Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve are going to
do as far as interest rates are concerned. Lion Jerry
Powell and the gang to see what they're going to do.
We've got some interesting information that proves my point. And
(00:29):
I know I talk about interest rates a lot. I
know that I harp on Lion Jerry Powell. I do
that for a reason. In my opinion, I look out
over the landscape. I look out everybody talking about all
of a sudden, the Democrats, the liberals, and the spoon
Federi gurgitators in the mainstream media are suddenly concerned about affordability.
(00:54):
This is the same crowd that lied to us for
a year and a half at the beginning of the
Biden administration in twenty twenty one, when when inflation was
down at one point four percent when Biden took office,
one point four percent hit a high of nine point
one percent a year and a half later in June.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So only it took him a year and a half
to go from one point four percent inflation up to
nine point one. And we were told all during that time,
this is just a this is transitory. This is this temporary.
It's only going to last, you know, for a little while. Well,
we saw gas prices go up a dollar twenty five
(01:41):
between the beginning of the Biden administration until February of
twenty twenty two. Then at February twenty two, once Russia
invaded Ukraine, gas prices shot up to another dollar twenty five,
so two dolls fifty cents increase in a gallon of gasoline,
to the point in June of that year. In twenty
(02:03):
twenty two, gas prices hit a high of across the
board national average of five dollars and two cents.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And where was the talk about affordability?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I saw reports talking about, well, you're saying that gas
prices are high because of the Russian invasion and because
we're supporting Ukraine, and that's putting a crimp on the
oil flow and everything. How long do you expect people
to pay that higher amount? And the representative for the
White House said, as long as it takes, because.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
We are in this to win it.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We are all behind Ukraine, all right, So where was
the push for the piece, where was the push for NATO?
Where was the push to end this conflict? All during
the Biden administration, just like the invasion on the southern border,
they just turned a blind eye to it. And now
all of a sudden they're lecturing us on affordability.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yet we had all.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
These supply chain issues, We had uh situations where uh,
you know, we had certain things certainly that we're out
of that were beyond control, bird flew and so on.
But the response to that and how quickly the Biden
administration turned their attention to that was very slow. And
yet they're lecturing us now on well with interest rates
(03:22):
going up because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates up
from basically nothing up to what five and a half
almost six percent as far as that overnight rate was concerned.
And so that started the spiral spiraling of increased cost
on your credit cards, increased costs in your car loans,
(03:42):
truck loans, expansion mortgages, and so on. Mortgages back when
Trump left office were right, we're under three three percent,
down around two point eight seven, two point sixty seven
something in that range and then shot up to almost
seven percent during the Biden administration, who was concerned about
the affordability. Then now all of a sudden, I start
(04:05):
hearing about in January, Well, egg prices are still high. Well,
birds are still dying, chickens are still being killed. You
want to have diseased eggs? Do you want to get
sick there when you have less When you have less chickens,
you're gonna have less eggs. Oh, what about beef prices? Well,
with the green news steel and the constant braidmen of
(04:29):
the cattlemen saying that, oh, there's too much land being
occupied by raising cattle and we got to cut that out.
We can't allow and cutting off water flows because you know,
just too many grazing pastures and so on.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
We're eating too much beef.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And we're not you know, we're not being conscious of
the environment, and so we wind up with drought situations
where then instead of being able to feed grass fed
beef out of the range, they had to start feeding
them and cattle feed up because again laws is applying demand,
because of Biden administration environmental policy and so on, So
(05:07):
those prices went up. People started cutting their herds, and
we wind up with herds that are down in the
range where they were.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Back in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Our population has doubled, but the amount of cattle available
is down around where it was in the nineteen fifties. So
we've got double the population with that much with no
additional cattle in fifty years in terms of the total herd.
And so laws is supply and demand affect that. And
(05:36):
yet now we're being lectured on affordability.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You have a situation.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Where you bring twenty million illegal aliens into the United States,
which are then given free housing, free food, et cetera.
And when you put them in certain houses, those houses
are there. We're not building a super number of houses
and stuff availability around the country. Imagine twenty million people
(06:03):
into the country, and so what twenty million people, Let's
just say on average maybe three people per household, So
you're talking about seven million new homes that have to
be created. Have seven million homes been created during the
four years of the Biden administration?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Hell no.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So what happens They are then taken and put into
existing homes, which means that then people that want to
move homes or move into a new location or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
The supply isn't there.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So when the supply is low, then the housing prices
go up. We have a median house median home price
now above four hundred thousand dollars for just a regular house.
And now they're talking to us about affordability.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Unbelievable. And I hope lyon Jerry Powell.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Or somebody close to him is listening to this program
and tells him about this, because here's one of the
statistics that they're not talking about. And nobody's talking giving
much information and getting much discussion on home sellers are
giving up at unusually high rate. According to realtor dot com,
latefall tends to be the time when most homes come
off the market so far unsuccessful. As so far unsuccessful
(07:13):
sellers would rather not sit through the slowest winter months,
so they don't want people tracing through the houses in
the winter, and that's a not very popular time for
people to go looking for homes. In October, however, d listings,
which are reported with one month lag, were up forty
five point five percent year to date and rose nearly
(07:34):
thirty eight percent from October of twenty twenty four. According
to a new report from realtor dot Com. The report
calls it an unusually high rate. It is now the
highest delisting year since Realtor dot Com started tracking these
numbers back in twenty twenty two. Dlistings started with the
rise in June and have remained elevated for.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
A five straight month.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
About six percent of active listings are coming off the
mark Mart each month month, which is typically only seen
in the debt of winter. People aren't moving the home,
people aren't available that people can't afford the homes. People
can't afford the interest rate that's being charged on that.
And we've talked about that on this program several times.
I've gone through the numbers. I said, here's what the
(08:17):
interest rate, or here's what the payment would be if
you had a three percent loan. Here's what it would
be if you had a five percent loan. Here's what
it would be if you had a six seven, six
and a half percent loan. And the difference is almost
from the three percent to the six percent is nearly
seven hundred dollars a month for the same home. So
(08:38):
imagine the home that you live in now, the mortgage
that you have on that jumping seven hundred dollars per month?
What would that do to your What would that do
to your budget? So the fact that people are looking
at that saying, well, I would have to pay seven
hundred dollars more than what at three percent loan I
can't afford to move into that house. And then when
(08:58):
you take into consideration that if you look at the
interest rate based on the cost of the size of
the house, you can only afford a certain amount. They
look at your income, They look at how much money
and disposable income you have, and how much helm you
can afford. Then factor in the rate the interest rate
on that, and then that dictates the size of the
house you can you can afford. So at whatever income
(09:20):
level you are. The example I had, was it one
hundred and ten thousand dollars? At one hundred and ten
thousand dollars based on a three percent interest rate, you
can afford a house that's about what was it five
hundred or four hundred and fifty some thousand, Whereas at
the six percent interest rate, you can afford a house
one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars less than that. So,
(09:41):
just a mere fact of three percent change in interest
rates changes the amount of house that you can buy
by almost one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. And this
is the thing that we look at in terms of
the real estate landscape, in terms of what where people
can afford and what they can afford. We'll talk about
a little bit more about this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon,
America's Truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I need This is the breathing repoard on America's Truck
and Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Marcus Erickson will make his third start of the Rolex
twenty four at Daytona in January, driving the number forty
five Wayne Taylor Lamborghini in the GTD Class NTT IndyCar Series.
Driver Callum Ilott has joined at Wright Motorsports as a
full time driver for the twenty twenty six IMSO Weathers
Tech Sports Car Championship. Red Bull Motorsports advisor doctor Helmut
(10:35):
Marco has decided to leave the F one team, bringing
an end to two decades of influence as part of
multiple championship winning setup.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
I Love.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
This is the briefing repoard on America's Truck and Network
on seven hundred WLW, SAG Dennison.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
At N Progressive Commercial Insurance protext truck Owners with specialized
coverage a sport.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
Getting back to this story, home sellers are giving up
at an unusually high rate. According to realtor dot Com,
they're talking about the highest dlisting year since they began
starting tracking this. I guess they started tracking the dlisting
back in twenty twenty two when interest rates started creeping
(11:22):
up and they wanted to take a look at that.
I don't know why they have been tracking this all along,
but maybe it wasn't a problem before. Of course, if
you've got three percent interest rate and booming economy, then
houses on the market and the affordability is going to
be there. It's only during the Biden administration when that
all went to hell. In addition to most potential buyers
(11:42):
are heading to what realtor dot Com calls refuge markets.
It's almost like you should call it refugee markets. These
are areas where home prices are much more affordable and
didn't see the run up in prices during the first
years of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
They say pandemic I call it. Now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
What is also driving this up is that when people
were cut out of work or you know, eliminated, jobs
were eliminated. Of course, a lot of people hung on
based on either unemployment and subsidies from the federal government.
But then the people that still had a job and
could work from home, they were taking that money. They
(12:22):
were saving money because they weren't commuting, they weren't having
that expense. They were improving their homes, they were making offices,
they were building on they were going out and possibly
not possibly, but they were going out and buying other homes,
a larger home so that they'd accommodate both people working
from home to have their own offices so that they
could actually work from home productively. Then after and then
(12:46):
people's thoughts started thinking in terms of, well, if I'm
working from home and it doesn't look like I'm going
back to the office anytime soon, why do I want
to stay in Detroit, Michigan, or you know, a cold
weather area. I could move to Florida, I can move
to Texas, I can move to Arizona. I could move
someplace that's more pleasant or an area that's kind of
(13:06):
more of a resort area, I can work from anywhere,
and so they moved to these hot spot areas. And
of course, when you have more people moving in and
you still have the limited amount of homes, build that
many more homes during that period of time, so you
had more people, higher demand, less supplied, those prices went up.
(13:27):
Now we're seeing those prices kind of coming back down
because again in those boom cities, some of the companies
have said, hey, we want you back to work, we
want you back in the office.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And now you're you know, five hundred.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well thousands of miles away from your original home or
your home office, you know, the company's office, and people
had to make the determination do I quit my job
or do I move back to that particular area. So
that's some of the gyrations that are going on. And again,
when you have high interest rates and you're forced to move,
you're forced to buy, then those prices are going to
(14:02):
go up. So they're talking about these things. Pre pandemic.
Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor dot Com, said rising
delisting and the growing of refuge markets captured the push
and pull defining today's housing market. Hall does forecast at
gradual improvement next year with potentially lower mortgage rates. Big
surprise there, who's been talking about that on this program.
(14:24):
More consistent supply, creating an increasingly balanced market between buyer
and seller. Some of the cities that saw the most
price growth over the past five years are now seeing
large share of frustrated sellers. We had that story a
couple of weeks ago where it talked about how the
home prices in some of these hot cities back during
the pandemic where people moved because they were working from
(14:47):
home and they made the determination while hell, I can
work from anywhere, those prices went up tremendously. In fact,
they were saying in that particular story, if memory serves me,
correct that from the time of the pandemic up to
this point they had increased in value about sixty seven percent. Now,
actually the terminology was from the last time the home
was sold to the time now that home has come up.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
In sixty seven percent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Now, that may have include people that bought these homes
prior to the plandemic, but during the plandemic, when prices
were going up in these hot markets by ten fifteen
percent on a periodic basis, that would account for some
of that increase, But they had the story a few
weeks ago that talked about in those markets prices could
come down about seven percent. Well, if you're up sixty
(15:33):
seven percent and your price value comes down seven percent,
you're still sixty percent ahead.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So you're not doing too bad.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's not like during the housing crisis back in two
thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, where your house
and the amount of home you had took a forty
percent haircut, where the value of your property almost overnight
went down forty percent because of that housing crisis. So again,
you're not having that kind of panic. You're not having
(16:01):
that kind of a situation. You're having basically a market correction.
So anyway, as she points out, some of the cities
that saw the most priced growth over the past five
years are now seeing the largest share of frustrated sellers. Miami, Denver,
Houston saw the highest ratio of homes delisted compared to
the new to With newly listed the medium price list
(16:23):
price in November nationally was zero point four percent, four
tens to one percent lower than in November of twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
According to realtor dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It is still however, thirty six percent higher than November
of twenty nineteen. Pre pandemic new listings were up just
one point seven percent year over year. So again Del
and Jerry Powell get those interest rates down so that
people can afford, you know, affordability in terms of homes.
(16:55):
Price gains are much stronger in refuge markets like Grand Rapids, Michigan,
where they're up five point five percent year over year.
Saint Louis where they're up five percent. Cleveland, Milwaukee, and
Pittsburgh round out the top performing refuge markets according to
the report. The report, prices in these markets are still
twenty to thirty percent lower than the national media average.
(17:19):
Another troubling trend this vault canceled contracts. Roughly fifteen percent
of home mortgage agreements were canceled in October. People get
in there, they make the offer, they take a look
at it, they say, okay, yeah, I think I can
afford that.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
And the bank has given them the approval.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But at some point in time they take a look
at that and say, do I really want to take
on that debt? Do I really want to take and
commit myself to that. Do I think my job is
strong enough? Do I think the industry that I'm working
in is strong enough based on what I'm hearing from
the spoon fed regurgitators of the mainstream media, so they
hit the panic button. One person, I read an article
where they were talking about that this person was actually
(17:57):
talked out. Had a very strong job, stable job, upward
mobility and so on, but a friend talked her out
of buying the home because why do you want to
be tied down to a mortgage, Which really doesn't make
much sense to me, But that's some of the stuff
going on. Regionally, San Antonio saw the most canceled deal
with more than that was one of the hot markets
(18:18):
where people moved to more than one in five twenty
one percent pending home sales falling through in October. It
was followed by Fort Lauderdale at twenty percent, fort Worth
at nineteen percent, and so on down to Jacksonville, Florida
at nineteen point two percent. Now, so when you look
at these situations, and we look at these mortgage rates
(18:40):
and the fact that people are backing out of contracts,
the fact that people they are trying to sell her
home and it's on the market and it's sitting there
for a long period of time. They want to delist
that because you know, they just want hopefully that the
situation will improve. Now I've dug into this a little
bit further, and I thought, you know, I got to
thinking about, all right, I've been hearing things about how
(19:02):
interest rates have been in other countries and how they
are compared to the United States. Now I went through
and I found this particular comparison United States. We have
right now an average of where is that United States
is at on average six point three three percent for
(19:26):
a thirty year fixed mortgage. All right, go to one
of the lowest in the world. Switzerland one point nine
seven percent, the Euro Area all of Europe basically two
point four to two percent, the Netherlands two point six
eight percent, Italy two point seventy nine, Croatia three percent,
Spain three point one point five one three, rather, France
(19:50):
at three point four to three, Ireland at three and
a half percent. Maybe that's why Rosie O'Donnell moved over there.
It was cheaper mortgage. Germany at three point six percent,
All these countries that are below four percent, and the
United States is at six point what did I say,
six point three to three we are down there near Romania, Moldava, Australia,
(20:14):
Promote Peru, Jamaica and thereabouts. So we are let me see,
on the list we are thirty six, So of the
top of the lowest interest rates in the world, we
are at thirty six as opposed to number one. So
the affordability factor comes into play. What I was talking
(20:34):
about earlier, the type of house that you can afford,
the size house you can afford at three percent loan
versus six point three percent is dramatic. And the fact
that Lion Jerry Powell keeping these prices high. Hopefully we'll
get some a little bit of a rate cut from him.
I think it should be a half a percentage point,
but more than likely it'll be a quarter percentage point anyway.
(20:57):
Coming up, we've got information from the National Iteration of
Independent Business, their survey. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck In
Network seven hundred w LW.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country and the Try State over nightclouds
increasing with rain lightly near day break, the low down
to thirty seven rain Wednesday, then a chance of rain
and snow showers by late afternoon, hies into the mid forties,
mostly Claudi Thursday and colder, a high of thirty three,
mostly Claude Friday, with a chance of snow, then a
chance of rain and snow in the afternoon a high
(21:28):
of thirty seven. Nationally, several days of heavy rain seen
in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, as snow will
fall on higher mountain elevations. A strong clipper system bringing
a thread of heavy snow and high winds across the
upper Midwestern Great Lakes region, as well as portions of
the interior, Northeast and Appalachians.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Seven hundred w l W I Kevin Gordon, is America
struck in network. I gotta apologze. I've got a little
bit of stuffy nose today. Earlier, well this afternoon, I
just to well, we had some plants that were, you know,
on the deck and they've pretty much died off as
the result of the frost and everything, and I thought,
you know, this would be a good time to take
(22:09):
those up to the dumpster and get rid of them
and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Well, I don't know what was in there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I know that I've got, you know, allergies as far
as pollen in the spring, and then we got hay
fever in the winter or in the fall. I don't
know what got in my nose today, but something's got
going on, and I've been sneezing and hacking and all
that sort of stuff. So I apologize for that, but
you know what, I'm tough. We'll muddle through here. We
(22:37):
had a report I got released from the Small Business
Optimism Index. They call it the Small Business Economic Trends
Report sb E t that almost I don't go into that,
but a National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index rose
point eight percent or eight points rather in November to
ninety nine and remained.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Above it's fifty two year average of ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So we're a full percentage point above the average over
the last fifty two years. You would think that the
mainstream media would applaud that. Hell no, they're trying to
bury that. They're not talking about that. I guarantee you
that if that was a full percentage point below what
(23:24):
the fifty two year average was, we would hear NonStop.
That would be leading the news cycle. But the fact
that it's a good number. The spoon fed regurgitators of
the mainstream media aren't going to applaud that because, again,
in my opinion, they are trying to manufacture recession. They're
trying to put the idea in people's head. Again, this
(23:45):
is more gaslighting from them. These are the same people
that allowed the current previous administration to tell us that
the border was closed, told us lies about COVID, told
us that Joe Biden was not suffering from age or
dementia or whatever, that he was perfectly fit to be
(24:06):
in office, And now all of a sudden, we've got
these reports. We actually had a report the other day
from the New York Times that said that, according to
certain sources, Joe Biden was warned about the influx of
migrant illegals at the border, and yet they chose to
do nothing about it. They were warned about certain things
(24:28):
all along, people were talking about there's books out now
where they talking to Joe Biden. He didn't seem to
be with it, and it wasn't part of the conversation
that he the operations at the White House would shut
down at ten o'clock in the morning and there would
be any other public appearances or any of that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Now they're talking.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
About his decline where all along anybody that challenged that,
anybody that brought that up, you just don't know what
you are?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You a doctor, Do you know what you're talking about?
How do you know what he has?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well? How do you know whether he's suffering from demanchia
or something along those lines. Now, all of a sudden
they're medical experts as far as Trump is concerned. He
gets a bruising on his hand or something like that,
all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you know, he's
going to die tomorrow or something along those lines. It
just it infuriates me that they told us how great
(25:18):
the economy was under Biden when the prices went out
of control, and now and we all knew.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
That they were out of control.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Now they're trying to tell us how bad things are
when things are turning around. When you look at energy prices,
when you look at what's going on as far as
oil and gas prices, we are now down below three
dollars a gallon of gasoline, where just a few months
ago we were up around three dollars and forty cents
a gallon. It just infuriates me. And when people start
(25:48):
talking about well, price comparisons compared to what I pointed
out on this program time and time again. I do
the grocery shop. I do the majority of the grocery
shopping in this house, in my household, because I enjoy it.
I'm one of the few men I know that enjoy
that and going to the store looking at the prices
on a regular basis and seeing how they will put
(26:10):
certain things on sale this week. Then they will go
back up to the regular price for a couple of
weeks and then come back down depending upon when they're
buying that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
If you're buying that.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
In an up cycle, of course, the price is going
to be up if you're not paying attention to what
you're paying, if you're not paying attention to how much
you're spending, if you're not taking advantage of the digital
coupons or any of that sort of stuff. And I've
talked about that on this program several times. I talked
about this on our sister station when I filled in
there right around almost day before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Eve, and
(26:41):
I had a couple of people call in and they say, yeah,
I talk to my family members all the time. They
always talk about how they just go into the grocery
store and grab what they need to walk out.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I see that all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
There's it's interesting when you go depending upon what particular
store you go to, it kind of has a vibe
to it depending upon what neighborhood it's in. If you
go to a more established neighborhood, the pace is a
little bit slower. But then there's a store near here.
And we've got two stores within about three miles of
each other. That one is in a more suburban area
(27:14):
and then one is in more of kind of a
hotspot type of thing. So you see people racing through
the parking lot and I'm surprised there's not accidents there.
I mean, driving thirty five miles an hour down the
aisle of a parking lot and a grocery store. It
just absolutely infuriates me. But anyway, that's the story for
another day. But the way the store is set up,
(27:36):
they have an entrance on one hand or one side,
and an entrance on the other, and that flow in
the suburban areas you go in. At least in our store,
you go in, you go to the right, you start
going up and down the aisles that way. But in
this other store they've got entrances on both ends, so
(27:58):
people will come in one entrance and come in the
other entrance. And when you watch people instead of up
and down the aisle, it's like they're crossing over. They're
crossing in front of people. People are going instead of
one direction down the aisle, there's like, you know, it
seems like in a situation, there's like people going in
three different directions. And then of course you have the
people that are going down the aisle. They look like
(28:20):
they're looking for something and they stop dead in their
tracks and do a U turn and try to come
back out. And the frenetic pace of some of these
stores where and I guess it's more of the younger
people stopping by after work or whatever. It's it's nuts
and to the point where you go in there and
you see these people and they just they're going down
the aisle.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I don't know if you remember years ago, there was
a show where I.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Can't remember the name of of the TV show, but
it was one of these things where they ask questions
and you depend upon the number of answers you had.
If you won, you had like a minute to go
through or five minutes to go through. The store to
see if you can whoever went through the store and
got the most groceries, they would win that particular contest.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
And you'd see these people running up and down the aisle.
Just as they're running.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
By their grabbing stuff off the shelf and stuffing in
their baskets. They run back to the meat as'll throw
everything in there and just run up to the checkout.
Sometimes it reminds me of that going into these stores
where people are just grabbing stuff off off the shelf
and not even taking the time to even look at
the price, look at the expiration dates or any of
that sort of stuff, and they just buy the stuff.
(29:27):
And it's just franatic. But anyway, calming down looking at
the grocery prices, knowing what patterns there are, looking at
the different ads from the different stores to see what's
on sale, and then play in your day or play
in your shopping experience. Okay, if I'm going to be
in this neighborhood on this particular day on my way
(29:48):
home or whatever from work, this store here has the
best price on a couple of items, so I'll stop
in there, pick up a few items, and come home.
It's just amazing to me how they try to talk
about some of these I don't. The grocery prices that
we use in the Gordon household are basically about the
same as what they have been over the last couple
(30:10):
of years, simply because they are the items that they
put on sale, and you wait for the sales and
you buy a couple at a time. So any of
that so anyway, getting this National Federation of Independent Business Association,
the National Federation of Small Business Optimism Index I guess
I mentioned rose point eight points to November to ninety nine,
(30:30):
which is above the fifty two year average or fifty
two year average of ninety eight. An increase in those
experiencing sales those expecting real sales to be higher contributed
most to the rise of the optimism index. The uncertainty
index rose three percent three points from October to ninety one,
an increase of owners reportedly uncertain about capital expenditures, planning,
(30:54):
and so on, according to the NFIB Chief Economists built
Doug Dunkelberg. Although so optimism increased, small business owners are
still frustrated by the lack of qualified workers. Despite this,
more firms still planned to continue new jobs in the
near future. So so much for a job market. Slowdown,
(31:16):
pick this up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck
In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
News Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio Station Guarantee Human
seven hundred WLW, HI Hard Radio.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Over the years, you've brought them into your home. We
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us back, when your basketball star towards ACL Opioids helped
with the pain, and you held on to them just
in case. But did you know holding onto unused opioids
puts your family at risk. Opioids are powerful pain reducing
(31:56):
prescription medicines, but most people who are prescribed obioid don't
finish their prescriptions. So millions of unused opioids are sitting
at homes across the country, and tragically, more than one
hundred Americans die every day from overdoses involving opioids. What
can you do to protect your family? Remove the risk
(32:17):
of unused opioids from your home, pills patches or syrups
and drawers, purses and cabinets anywhere they might be hiding.
To find out how to dispose of them properly, visit
www dot FDA dot gov slash Drug Disposal.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
When it's time to hit the road, time is we're talking.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
About this National Federation of Independent Businesses survey O the
Optimism Report. And if you've missed that any of our
previous segments for around of our shows, hit up that
iHeartRadio app brought to you.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Buyer friends at Rust Truck Centers.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
One of the key things in here that they bring up,
and it's kind of almost a throwaway paragraph. The average
rate paid on short maturity loans was seven point nine
percent in November, down point eight percent from October. Now,
these are the short term borrowing that businesses do. If
you're not familiar with that, you may have a situation
(33:11):
where you're maybe a little short on payrolls, short on cash,
not short on profits or whatever, but you just have
a slow cash flow, so you need to borrow short term,
like maybe thirty sixty ninety days. But the interest rate
on that is seven point nine percent. Years ago, that
was in the neighborhood of two and a half to
three percent. So now all of a sudden, your borrowing
(33:34):
costs on just that short term loan goes up dramatically,
and of course, that affects your bottom line. Some of
the other key features out of this, they were saying
that out of these areas, I think what was it
they said, out of the numbers that there were of
the increases, there were ten out of eighteen that were
up and in the positive direction.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Some of them. Plan to increase.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Employment of nineteen percent, up four percent from the previous survey.
Expect economy to improve fifteen percent. That's down five percent
from the previous period. Expect real sales to be higher,
up fifteen percent. Let me see expected credit conditions. They
(34:20):
expect that to go down by five percent. So again,
a lot of these things are trending in the right direction.
And when you have things trending in the right direction,
they tend to go in the right direction, and that
improves people's optimism. Now, cutting back to the survey or
(34:41):
the overview commentary, let me get back here to that
they're talking about. The economy has been doing reasonably well,
and so have small businesses. Consumer spending is solid, but
the real driver of GDP growth is the massive level
of AI investment spending, including investment in electricity generation. The
(35:03):
administration is making substantial policy changes elevating the level of
uncertainty as owners weight for resolutions. Again, when you're making
policy resolutions, when you're changing certain policies, those are for
the better, such as the emissions controlled the miles per
gallon being reduced last week talking about how that's going
(35:23):
to affect the overall price of cars. Owners have been
frustrated by the lack of qualified workers available to fill
open positions.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Job openings were above the historical.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Average all year compensation has increased, So compensation has increased.
That's not tariff related. So if prices are going up
because of a payroll then that's a whole nother story.
But few new workers were actually hired. Excluding government supported jobs.
Private sector job growth was weak. The most recent report
(35:57):
September inflation rate was three percent, still above the Fed's
target range. Now listening of going through and some of
the comments made by the respondents in this survey, we
can expand, expand due to lack of raw materials and employees.
This is from a business in Wisconsin, steady increase in
(36:18):
pay over the years. We hire a ton of college
students and it works out wonderfully. High school students as well,
Struggling to find full time employees who will stay for
more than one year. I am struggling with finding management
and good responsible employees who don't have other responsibilities. Labor
costs are always high, on the thirty five percent on
(36:40):
average or more. That's from a company in Missouri from
a company in California. The general cost of goods and
materials have significantly increased consistently since twenty twenty. Well, of course,
I mean you're talking about a five year period of time.
Payroll taxes are higher, and insurance is almost impossible to
afford health, liability and workers' compensation. How does that have
(37:04):
anything to do with the tariffs? That is all government
regulations and the government mandates. So it's that hidden cost
of businesses. Taxes in general have increased, state and local
and our property taxes have an itemization for tax codes
a mile long. California is slowly suffocating and it is
a desperate need of help. Many businesses, such as ours,
(37:27):
have already closed. I fear that unless there are more
positive incentives, tax breaks, cuts, and affordable costs and materials,
many more will close, relocate, or downsize or leave the state.
Now that's California from Florida, labor needs to labor needs
are never met. The quality of workers is very poor. Now,
(37:49):
is that the quality of workers in terms of education levels,
what they know, what their ability to show up for
work or something along those. Is that a reflection on
our education system? Possibly? Job openings rise slightly after surging
in September, fewer workers quitting their jobs. This is according
(38:10):
to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey better known
as JOLTS. JOLTS reported on Tuesday talking about the job
openings increased twelve thousand to seven point six seven million
in October. Hiring decreases two hundred and eighteen thousand, quits
(38:33):
decline the most in nearly two and a half years.
The number of people quitting their job is down to
the lowest level in two and a half years. Again
back to this no fire policy of where people are well.
I guess in the past, when jobs were plentiful, people
would actually quit their job before landing another job, thinking
(38:57):
that the job market is so strong, you know, obviously
it's generally the rule of thumb is that you make
sure that you have a job to go to before
you quit your current job. But the number of people
quitting their jobs is down to a two and a
half year low, which I think is a very interesting trend.
Let's see anything else in here. With the labor market wobbly,
(39:19):
fewer workers are job hopping in search of greener pastures,
pointing to benign wage inflation. So people are not jumping
because the informator of the stuff isn't out there now
what we're seeing as far as gas and oil prices, again,
the energy prices are important because they cross all segments.
(39:40):
There isn't a business out there that doesn't rely on energy.
Every business relies on electricity or energy to put on
the lights, to run the machinery, to do anything within
that particular company. Looking at West Texas Intermediate CRUIT, it
is at fifty eight dollars, well below that's sixty dollars
a barrel margin, which people said, oh, it will never
(40:00):
get below sixty dollars a barrel. Again, that's fifty eight
dollars and twenty five cents, down sixty three cents from yesterday.
Just since January, the twentieth West Texas Intermediate creued is
down eighteen dollars and sixty four cents of barrel, or
twenty four percent. Talk about affordability. Well, when you whack
off twenty four percent of the cost of anything, that's
(40:22):
going to have an impact. As far as down the stream,
Brent crude currently is sixty one dollars in ninety five
cents of barrel, down a little over fifty cents a barrel.
Just since January, Brent crude is down seventeen dollars and
ninety five cents of barrel. That's a twenty two percent decrease.
We're seeing gas prices come down. Current average gasoline nationwide
(40:45):
is two dollars ninety five cents. Diesel is a three
dollars and sixty nine cents a gallon compared to this time.
And again I've been stressing this, and when you go
back down to the Trumpet administration in the first term
on this in twenty twenty, in December of twenty twenty,
(41:06):
gasoline was a two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon.
And what I've been saying all along is that if
we look at the fact that that oil prices have
come down twenty five percent, I would have expected to
see gas prices come down twenty five percent as well.
So if you're talking about a year ago when gas
prices worth thirty three dollars and two cents a gallon.
(41:28):
I would think that a ten percent reduction of that
of about thirty thirty cents would take the current gas
price down to about two sixty more in line with
that two dollars and twenty five cents. We're getting there.
It's just a matter of time to get it down there,
and that people that have its way to working its
way through the economy, because if it's costing you less
(41:49):
to fill up your truck, your cost of your operation
is going to go up, or you know your your
costs are going to go down and your profits are
going to go up. There seems to be some discussions
to whether or not there's going to be an oil glot,
but we'll see on that in the coming months. Well, folks,
that does it for us, Stay tuned for EDI Radio
at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America
(42:10):
Struck In Network seven hundred WLW
This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome themar Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning.
Well later on this afternoon, we're gonna find out what
Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve are going to
do as far as interest rates are concerned. Lion Jerry
Powell and the gang to see what they're going to do.
We've got some interesting information that proves my point. And
(00:29):
I know I talk about interest rates a lot. I
know that I harp on Lion Jerry Powell. I do
that for a reason. In my opinion, I look out
over the landscape. I look out everybody talking about all
of a sudden, the Democrats, the liberals, and the spoon
Federi gurgitators in the mainstream media are suddenly concerned about affordability.
(00:54):
This is the same crowd that lied to us for
a year and a half at the beginning of the
Biden administration in twenty twenty one, when when inflation was
down at one point four percent when Biden took office,
one point four percent hit a high of nine point
one percent a year and a half later in June.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
So only it took him a year and a half
to go from one point four percent inflation up to
nine point one. And we were told all during that time,
this is just a this is transitory. This is this temporary.
It's only going to last, you know, for a little while. Well,
we saw gas prices go up a dollar twenty five
(01:41):
between the beginning of the Biden administration until February of
twenty twenty two. Then at February twenty two, once Russia
invaded Ukraine, gas prices shot up to another dollar twenty five,
so two dolls fifty cents increase in a gallon of gasoline,
to the point in June of that year. In twenty
(02:03):
twenty two, gas prices hit a high of across the
board national average of five dollars and two cents.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
And where was the talk about affordability?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
I saw reports talking about, well, you're saying that gas
prices are high because of the Russian invasion and because
we're supporting Ukraine, and that's putting a crimp on the
oil flow and everything. How long do you expect people
to pay that higher amount? And the representative for the
White House said, as long as it takes, because.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
We are in this to win it.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We are all behind Ukraine, all right, So where was
the push for the piece, where was the push for NATO?
Where was the push to end this conflict? All during
the Biden administration, just like the invasion on the southern border,
they just turned a blind eye to it. And now
all of a sudden they're lecturing us on affordability.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yet we had all.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
These supply chain issues, We had uh situations where uh,
you know, we had certain things certainly that we're out
of that were beyond control, bird flew and so on.
But the response to that and how quickly the Biden
administration turned their attention to that was very slow. And
yet they're lecturing us now on well with interest rates
(03:22):
going up because the Federal Reserve raised interest rates up
from basically nothing up to what five and a half
almost six percent as far as that overnight rate was concerned.
And so that started the spiral spiraling of increased cost
on your credit cards, increased costs in your car loans,
(03:42):
truck loans, expansion mortgages, and so on. Mortgages back when
Trump left office were right, we're under three three percent,
down around two point eight seven, two point sixty seven
something in that range and then shot up to almost
seven percent during the Biden administration, who was concerned about
the affordability. Then now all of a sudden, I start
(04:05):
hearing about in January, Well, egg prices are still high. Well,
birds are still dying, chickens are still being killed. You
want to have diseased eggs? Do you want to get
sick there when you have less When you have less chickens,
you're gonna have less eggs. Oh, what about beef prices? Well,
with the green news steel and the constant braidmen of
(04:29):
the cattlemen saying that, oh, there's too much land being
occupied by raising cattle and we got to cut that out.
We can't allow and cutting off water flows because you know,
just too many grazing pastures and so on.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
We're eating too much beef.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
And we're not you know, we're not being conscious of
the environment, and so we wind up with drought situations
where then instead of being able to feed grass fed
beef out of the range, they had to start feeding
them and cattle feed up because again laws is applying demand,
because of Biden administration environmental policy and so on, So
(05:07):
those prices went up. People started cutting their herds, and
we wind up with herds that are down in the
range where they were.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
Back in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Our population has doubled, but the amount of cattle available
is down around where it was in the nineteen fifties. So
we've got double the population with that much with no
additional cattle in fifty years in terms of the total herd.
And so laws is supply and demand affect that. And
(05:36):
yet now we're being lectured on affordability.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You have a situation.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Where you bring twenty million illegal aliens into the United States,
which are then given free housing, free food, et cetera.
And when you put them in certain houses, those houses
are there. We're not building a super number of houses
and stuff availability around the country. Imagine twenty million people
(06:03):
into the country, and so what twenty million people, Let's
just say on average maybe three people per household, So
you're talking about seven million new homes that have to
be created. Have seven million homes been created during the
four years of the Biden administration?
Speaker 3 (06:18):
Hell no.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
So what happens They are then taken and put into
existing homes, which means that then people that want to
move homes or move into a new location or something
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
The supply isn't there.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So when the supply is low, then the housing prices
go up. We have a median house median home price
now above four hundred thousand dollars for just a regular house.
And now they're talking to us about affordability.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
Unbelievable. And I hope lyon Jerry Powell.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Or somebody close to him is listening to this program
and tells him about this, because here's one of the
statistics that they're not talking about. And nobody's talking giving
much information and getting much discussion on home sellers are
giving up at unusually high rate. According to realtor dot com,
latefall tends to be the time when most homes come
off the market so far unsuccessful. As so far unsuccessful
(07:13):
sellers would rather not sit through the slowest winter months,
so they don't want people tracing through the houses in
the winter, and that's a not very popular time for
people to go looking for homes. In October, however, d listings,
which are reported with one month lag, were up forty
five point five percent year to date and rose nearly
(07:34):
thirty eight percent from October of twenty twenty four. According
to a new report from realtor dot Com. The report
calls it an unusually high rate. It is now the
highest delisting year since Realtor dot Com started tracking these
numbers back in twenty twenty two. Dlistings started with the
rise in June and have remained elevated for.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
A five straight month.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
About six percent of active listings are coming off the
mark Mart each month month, which is typically only seen
in the debt of winter. People aren't moving the home,
people aren't available that people can't afford the homes. People
can't afford the interest rate that's being charged on that.
And we've talked about that on this program several times.
I've gone through the numbers. I said, here's what the
(08:17):
interest rate, or here's what the payment would be if
you had a three percent loan. Here's what it would
be if you had a five percent loan. Here's what
it would be if you had a six seven, six
and a half percent loan. And the difference is almost
from the three percent to the six percent is nearly
seven hundred dollars a month for the same home. So
(08:38):
imagine the home that you live in now, the mortgage
that you have on that jumping seven hundred dollars per month?
What would that do to your What would that do
to your budget? So the fact that people are looking
at that saying, well, I would have to pay seven
hundred dollars more than what at three percent loan I
can't afford to move into that house. And then when
(08:58):
you take into consideration that if you look at the
interest rate based on the cost of the size of
the house, you can only afford a certain amount. They
look at your income, They look at how much money
and disposable income you have, and how much helm you
can afford. Then factor in the rate the interest rate
on that, and then that dictates the size of the
house you can you can afford. So at whatever income
(09:20):
level you are. The example I had, was it one
hundred and ten thousand dollars? At one hundred and ten
thousand dollars based on a three percent interest rate, you
can afford a house that's about what was it five
hundred or four hundred and fifty some thousand, Whereas at
the six percent interest rate, you can afford a house
one hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars less than that. So,
(09:41):
just a mere fact of three percent change in interest
rates changes the amount of house that you can buy
by almost one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. And this
is the thing that we look at in terms of
the real estate landscape, in terms of what where people
can afford and what they can afford. We'll talk about
a little bit more about this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon,
America's Truck at Network seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I need This is the breathing repoard on America's Truck
and Network on seven hundred WLW.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
Marcus Erickson will make his third start of the Rolex
twenty four at Daytona in January, driving the number forty
five Wayne Taylor Lamborghini in the GTD Class NTT IndyCar Series.
Driver Callum Ilott has joined at Wright Motorsports as a
full time driver for the twenty twenty six IMSO Weathers
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an end to two decades of influence as part of
multiple championship winning setup.
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This is the briefing repoard on America's Truck and Network
on seven hundred WLW, SAG Dennison.
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At N Progressive Commercial Insurance protext truck Owners with specialized
coverage a sport.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
Getting back to this story, home sellers are giving up
at an unusually high rate. According to realtor dot Com,
they're talking about the highest dlisting year since they began
starting tracking this. I guess they started tracking the dlisting
back in twenty twenty two when interest rates started creeping
(11:22):
up and they wanted to take a look at that.
I don't know why they have been tracking this all along,
but maybe it wasn't a problem before. Of course, if
you've got three percent interest rate and booming economy, then
houses on the market and the affordability is going to
be there. It's only during the Biden administration when that
all went to hell. In addition to most potential buyers
(11:42):
are heading to what realtor dot Com calls refuge markets.
It's almost like you should call it refugee markets. These
are areas where home prices are much more affordable and
didn't see the run up in prices during the first
years of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
They say pandemic I call it. Now.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
What is also driving this up is that when people
were cut out of work or you know, eliminated, jobs
were eliminated. Of course, a lot of people hung on
based on either unemployment and subsidies from the federal government.
But then the people that still had a job and
could work from home, they were taking that money. They
(12:22):
were saving money because they weren't commuting, they weren't having
that expense. They were improving their homes, they were making offices,
they were building on they were going out and possibly
not possibly, but they were going out and buying other homes,
a larger home so that they'd accommodate both people working
from home to have their own offices so that they
could actually work from home productively. Then after and then
(12:46):
people's thoughts started thinking in terms of, well, if I'm
working from home and it doesn't look like I'm going
back to the office anytime soon, why do I want
to stay in Detroit, Michigan, or you know, a cold
weather area. I could move to Florida, I can move
to Texas, I can move to Arizona. I could move
someplace that's more pleasant or an area that's kind of
(13:06):
more of a resort area, I can work from anywhere,
and so they moved to these hot spot areas. And
of course, when you have more people moving in and
you still have the limited amount of homes, build that
many more homes during that period of time, so you
had more people, higher demand, less supplied, those prices went up.
(13:27):
Now we're seeing those prices kind of coming back down
because again in those boom cities, some of the companies
have said, hey, we want you back to work, we
want you back in the office.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
And now you're you know, five hundred.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Well thousands of miles away from your original home or
your home office, you know, the company's office, and people
had to make the determination do I quit my job
or do I move back to that particular area. So
that's some of the gyrations that are going on. And again,
when you have high interest rates and you're forced to move,
you're forced to buy, then those prices are going to
(14:02):
go up. So they're talking about these things. Pre pandemic.
Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor dot Com, said rising
delisting and the growing of refuge markets captured the push
and pull defining today's housing market. Hall does forecast at
gradual improvement next year with potentially lower mortgage rates. Big
surprise there, who's been talking about that on this program.
(14:24):
More consistent supply, creating an increasingly balanced market between buyer
and seller. Some of the cities that saw the most
price growth over the past five years are now seeing
large share of frustrated sellers. We had that story a
couple of weeks ago where it talked about how the
home prices in some of these hot cities back during
the pandemic where people moved because they were working from
(14:47):
home and they made the determination while hell, I can
work from anywhere, those prices went up tremendously. In fact,
they were saying in that particular story, if memory serves me,
correct that from the time of the pandemic up to
this point they had increased in value about sixty seven percent. Now,
actually the terminology was from the last time the home
was sold to the time now that home has come up.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
In sixty seven percent.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Now, that may have include people that bought these homes
prior to the plandemic, but during the plandemic, when prices
were going up in these hot markets by ten fifteen
percent on a periodic basis, that would account for some
of that increase, But they had the story a few
weeks ago that talked about in those markets prices could
come down about seven percent. Well, if you're up sixty
(15:33):
seven percent and your price value comes down seven percent,
you're still sixty percent ahead.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
So you're not doing too bad.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
It's not like during the housing crisis back in two
thousand and eight, two thousand and nine, where your house
and the amount of home you had took a forty
percent haircut, where the value of your property almost overnight
went down forty percent because of that housing crisis. So again,
you're not having that kind of panic. You're not having
(16:01):
that kind of a situation. You're having basically a market correction.
So anyway, as she points out, some of the cities
that saw the most priced growth over the past five
years are now seeing the largest share of frustrated sellers. Miami, Denver,
Houston saw the highest ratio of homes delisted compared to
the new to With newly listed the medium price list
(16:23):
price in November nationally was zero point four percent, four
tens to one percent lower than in November of twenty
twenty four.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
According to realtor dot com.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
It is still however, thirty six percent higher than November
of twenty nineteen. Pre pandemic new listings were up just
one point seven percent year over year. So again Del
and Jerry Powell get those interest rates down so that
people can afford, you know, affordability in terms of homes.
(16:55):
Price gains are much stronger in refuge markets like Grand Rapids, Michigan,
where they're up five point five percent year over year.
Saint Louis where they're up five percent. Cleveland, Milwaukee, and
Pittsburgh round out the top performing refuge markets according to
the report. The report, prices in these markets are still
twenty to thirty percent lower than the national media average.
(17:19):
Another troubling trend this vault canceled contracts. Roughly fifteen percent
of home mortgage agreements were canceled in October. People get
in there, they make the offer, they take a look
at it, they say, okay, yeah, I think I can
afford that.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
And the bank has given them the approval.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
But at some point in time they take a look
at that and say, do I really want to take
on that debt? Do I really want to take and
commit myself to that. Do I think my job is
strong enough? Do I think the industry that I'm working
in is strong enough based on what I'm hearing from
the spoon fed regurgitators of the mainstream media, so they
hit the panic button. One person, I read an article
where they were talking about that this person was actually
(17:57):
talked out. Had a very strong job, stable job, upward
mobility and so on, but a friend talked her out
of buying the home because why do you want to
be tied down to a mortgage, Which really doesn't make
much sense to me, But that's some of the stuff
going on. Regionally, San Antonio saw the most canceled deal
with more than that was one of the hot markets
(18:18):
where people moved to more than one in five twenty
one percent pending home sales falling through in October. It
was followed by Fort Lauderdale at twenty percent, fort Worth
at nineteen percent, and so on down to Jacksonville, Florida
at nineteen point two percent. Now, so when you look
at these situations, and we look at these mortgage rates
(18:40):
and the fact that people are backing out of contracts,
the fact that people they are trying to sell her
home and it's on the market and it's sitting there
for a long period of time. They want to delist
that because you know, they just want hopefully that the
situation will improve. Now I've dug into this a little
bit further, and I thought, you know, I got to
thinking about, all right, I've been hearing things about how
(19:02):
interest rates have been in other countries and how they
are compared to the United States. Now I went through
and I found this particular comparison United States. We have
right now an average of where is that United States
is at on average six point three three percent for
(19:26):
a thirty year fixed mortgage. All right, go to one
of the lowest in the world. Switzerland one point nine
seven percent, the Euro Area all of Europe basically two
point four to two percent, the Netherlands two point six
eight percent, Italy two point seventy nine, Croatia three percent,
Spain three point one point five one three, rather, France
(19:50):
at three point four to three, Ireland at three and
a half percent. Maybe that's why Rosie O'Donnell moved over there.
It was cheaper mortgage. Germany at three point six percent,
All these countries that are below four percent, and the
United States is at six point what did I say,
six point three to three we are down there near Romania, Moldava, Australia,
(20:14):
Promote Peru, Jamaica and thereabouts. So we are let me see,
on the list we are thirty six, So of the
top of the lowest interest rates in the world, we
are at thirty six as opposed to number one. So
the affordability factor comes into play. What I was talking
(20:34):
about earlier, the type of house that you can afford,
the size house you can afford at three percent loan
versus six point three percent is dramatic. And the fact
that Lion Jerry Powell keeping these prices high. Hopefully we'll
get some a little bit of a rate cut from him.
I think it should be a half a percentage point,
but more than likely it'll be a quarter percentage point anyway.
(20:57):
Coming up, we've got information from the National Iteration of
Independent Business, their survey. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck In
Network seven hundred w LW.
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the
rest of the country and the Try State over nightclouds
increasing with rain lightly near day break, the low down
to thirty seven rain Wednesday, then a chance of rain
and snow showers by late afternoon, hies into the mid forties,
mostly Claudi Thursday and colder, a high of thirty three,
mostly Claude Friday, with a chance of snow, then a
chance of rain and snow in the afternoon a high
(21:28):
of thirty seven. Nationally, several days of heavy rain seen
in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, as snow will
fall on higher mountain elevations. A strong clipper system bringing
a thread of heavy snow and high winds across the
upper Midwestern Great Lakes region, as well as portions of
the interior, Northeast and Appalachians.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Seven hundred w l W I Kevin Gordon, is America
struck in network. I gotta apologze. I've got a little
bit of stuffy nose today. Earlier, well this afternoon, I
just to well, we had some plants that were, you know,
on the deck and they've pretty much died off as
the result of the frost and everything, and I thought,
you know, this would be a good time to take
(22:09):
those up to the dumpster and get rid of them
and all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
Well, I don't know what was in there.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I know that I've got, you know, allergies as far
as pollen in the spring, and then we got hay
fever in the winter or in the fall. I don't
know what got in my nose today, but something's got
going on, and I've been sneezing and hacking and all
that sort of stuff. So I apologize for that, but
you know what, I'm tough. We'll muddle through here. We
(22:37):
had a report I got released from the Small Business
Optimism Index. They call it the Small Business Economic Trends
Report sb E t that almost I don't go into that,
but a National Federation of Independent Business Optimism Index rose
point eight percent or eight points rather in November to
ninety nine and remained.
Speaker 3 (22:59):
Above it's fifty two year average of ninety eight.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So we're a full percentage point above the average over
the last fifty two years. You would think that the
mainstream media would applaud that. Hell no, they're trying to
bury that. They're not talking about that. I guarantee you
that if that was a full percentage point below what
(23:24):
the fifty two year average was, we would hear NonStop.
That would be leading the news cycle. But the fact
that it's a good number. The spoon fed regurgitators of
the mainstream media aren't going to applaud that because, again,
in my opinion, they are trying to manufacture recession. They're
trying to put the idea in people's head. Again, this
(23:45):
is more gaslighting from them. These are the same people
that allowed the current previous administration to tell us that
the border was closed, told us lies about COVID, told
us that Joe Biden was not suffering from age or
dementia or whatever, that he was perfectly fit to be
(24:06):
in office, And now all of a sudden, we've got
these reports. We actually had a report the other day
from the New York Times that said that, according to
certain sources, Joe Biden was warned about the influx of
migrant illegals at the border, and yet they chose to
do nothing about it. They were warned about certain things
(24:28):
all along, people were talking about there's books out now
where they talking to Joe Biden. He didn't seem to
be with it, and it wasn't part of the conversation
that he the operations at the White House would shut
down at ten o'clock in the morning and there would
be any other public appearances or any of that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Now they're talking.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
About his decline where all along anybody that challenged that,
anybody that brought that up, you just don't know what
you are?
Speaker 3 (24:54):
You a doctor, Do you know what you're talking about?
How do you know what he has?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Well? How do you know whether he's suffering from demanchia
or something along those lines. Now, all of a sudden
they're medical experts as far as Trump is concerned. He
gets a bruising on his hand or something like that,
all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you know, he's
going to die tomorrow or something along those lines. It
just it infuriates me that they told us how great
(25:18):
the economy was under Biden when the prices went out
of control, and now and we all knew.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
That they were out of control.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Now they're trying to tell us how bad things are
when things are turning around. When you look at energy prices,
when you look at what's going on as far as
oil and gas prices, we are now down below three
dollars a gallon of gasoline, where just a few months
ago we were up around three dollars and forty cents
a gallon. It just infuriates me. And when people start
(25:48):
talking about well, price comparisons compared to what I pointed
out on this program time and time again. I do
the grocery shop. I do the majority of the grocery
shopping in this house, in my household, because I enjoy it.
I'm one of the few men I know that enjoy
that and going to the store looking at the prices
on a regular basis and seeing how they will put
(26:10):
certain things on sale this week. Then they will go
back up to the regular price for a couple of
weeks and then come back down depending upon when they're
buying that.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
If you're buying that.
Speaker 2 (26:19):
In an up cycle, of course, the price is going
to be up if you're not paying attention to what
you're paying, if you're not paying attention to how much
you're spending, if you're not taking advantage of the digital
coupons or any of that sort of stuff. And I've
talked about that on this program several times. I talked
about this on our sister station when I filled in
there right around almost day before Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Eve, and
(26:41):
I had a couple of people call in and they say, yeah,
I talk to my family members all the time. They
always talk about how they just go into the grocery
store and grab what they need to walk out.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
I see that all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
There's it's interesting when you go depending upon what particular
store you go to, it kind of has a vibe
to it depending upon what neighborhood it's in. If you
go to a more established neighborhood, the pace is a
little bit slower. But then there's a store near here.
And we've got two stores within about three miles of
each other. That one is in a more suburban area
(27:14):
and then one is in more of kind of a
hotspot type of thing. So you see people racing through
the parking lot and I'm surprised there's not accidents there.
I mean, driving thirty five miles an hour down the
aisle of a parking lot and a grocery store. It
just absolutely infuriates me. But anyway, that's the story for
another day. But the way the store is set up,
(27:36):
they have an entrance on one hand or one side,
and an entrance on the other, and that flow in
the suburban areas you go in. At least in our store,
you go in, you go to the right, you start
going up and down the aisles that way. But in
this other store they've got entrances on both ends, so
(27:58):
people will come in one entrance and come in the
other entrance. And when you watch people instead of up
and down the aisle, it's like they're crossing over. They're
crossing in front of people. People are going instead of
one direction down the aisle, there's like, you know, it
seems like in a situation, there's like people going in
three different directions. And then of course you have the
people that are going down the aisle. They look like
(28:20):
they're looking for something and they stop dead in their
tracks and do a U turn and try to come
back out. And the frenetic pace of some of these
stores where and I guess it's more of the younger
people stopping by after work or whatever. It's it's nuts
and to the point where you go in there and
you see these people and they just they're going down
the aisle.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I don't know if you remember years ago, there was
a show where I.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Can't remember the name of of the TV show, but
it was one of these things where they ask questions
and you depend upon the number of answers you had.
If you won, you had like a minute to go
through or five minutes to go through. The store to
see if you can whoever went through the store and
got the most groceries, they would win that particular contest.
Speaker 3 (29:03):
And you'd see these people running up and down the aisle.
Just as they're running.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
By their grabbing stuff off the shelf and stuffing in
their baskets. They run back to the meat as'll throw
everything in there and just run up to the checkout.
Sometimes it reminds me of that going into these stores
where people are just grabbing stuff off off the shelf
and not even taking the time to even look at
the price, look at the expiration dates or any of
that sort of stuff, and they just buy the stuff.
(29:27):
And it's just franatic. But anyway, calming down looking at
the grocery prices, knowing what patterns there are, looking at
the different ads from the different stores to see what's
on sale, and then play in your day or play
in your shopping experience. Okay, if I'm going to be
in this neighborhood on this particular day on my way
(29:48):
home or whatever from work, this store here has the
best price on a couple of items, so I'll stop
in there, pick up a few items, and come home.
It's just amazing to me how they try to talk
about some of these I don't. The grocery prices that
we use in the Gordon household are basically about the
same as what they have been over the last couple
(30:10):
of years, simply because they are the items that they
put on sale, and you wait for the sales and
you buy a couple at a time. So any of
that so anyway, getting this National Federation of Independent Business Association,
the National Federation of Small Business Optimism Index I guess
I mentioned rose point eight points to November to ninety nine,
(30:30):
which is above the fifty two year average or fifty
two year average of ninety eight. An increase in those
experiencing sales those expecting real sales to be higher contributed
most to the rise of the optimism index. The uncertainty
index rose three percent three points from October to ninety one,
an increase of owners reportedly uncertain about capital expenditures, planning,
(30:54):
and so on, according to the NFIB Chief Economists built
Doug Dunkelberg. Although so optimism increased, small business owners are
still frustrated by the lack of qualified workers. Despite this,
more firms still planned to continue new jobs in the
near future. So so much for a job market. Slowdown,
(31:16):
pick this up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck
In Network seven hundred Wlwright.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
News Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio Station Guarantee Human
seven hundred WLW, HI Hard Radio.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
Over the years, you've brought them into your home. We
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(31:56):
prescription medicines, but most people who are prescribed obioid don't
finish their prescriptions. So millions of unused opioids are sitting
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can you do to protect your family? Remove the risk
(32:17):
of unused opioids from your home, pills patches or syrups
and drawers, purses and cabinets anywhere they might be hiding.
To find out how to dispose of them properly, visit
www dot FDA dot gov slash Drug Disposal.
Speaker 3 (32:34):
When it's time to hit the road, time is we're talking.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
About this National Federation of Independent Businesses survey O the
Optimism Report. And if you've missed that any of our
previous segments for around of our shows, hit up that
iHeartRadio app brought to you.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Buyer friends at Rust Truck Centers.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
One of the key things in here that they bring up,
and it's kind of almost a throwaway paragraph. The average
rate paid on short maturity loans was seven point nine
percent in November, down point eight percent from October. Now,
these are the short term borrowing that businesses do. If
you're not familiar with that, you may have a situation
(33:11):
where you're maybe a little short on payrolls, short on cash,
not short on profits or whatever, but you just have
a slow cash flow, so you need to borrow short term,
like maybe thirty sixty ninety days. But the interest rate
on that is seven point nine percent. Years ago, that
was in the neighborhood of two and a half to
three percent. So now all of a sudden, your borrowing
(33:34):
costs on just that short term loan goes up dramatically,
and of course, that affects your bottom line. Some of
the other key features out of this, they were saying
that out of these areas, I think what was it
they said, out of the numbers that there were of
the increases, there were ten out of eighteen that were
up and in the positive direction.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
Some of them. Plan to increase.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
Employment of nineteen percent, up four percent from the previous survey.
Expect economy to improve fifteen percent. That's down five percent
from the previous period. Expect real sales to be higher,
up fifteen percent. Let me see expected credit conditions. They
(34:20):
expect that to go down by five percent. So again,
a lot of these things are trending in the right direction.
And when you have things trending in the right direction,
they tend to go in the right direction, and that
improves people's optimism. Now, cutting back to the survey or
(34:41):
the overview commentary, let me get back here to that
they're talking about. The economy has been doing reasonably well,
and so have small businesses. Consumer spending is solid, but
the real driver of GDP growth is the massive level
of AI investment spending, including investment in electricity generation. The
(35:03):
administration is making substantial policy changes elevating the level of
uncertainty as owners weight for resolutions. Again, when you're making
policy resolutions, when you're changing certain policies, those are for
the better, such as the emissions controlled the miles per
gallon being reduced last week talking about how that's going
(35:23):
to affect the overall price of cars. Owners have been
frustrated by the lack of qualified workers available to fill
open positions.
Speaker 3 (35:32):
Job openings were above the historical.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Average all year compensation has increased, So compensation has increased.
That's not tariff related. So if prices are going up
because of a payroll then that's a whole nother story.
But few new workers were actually hired. Excluding government supported jobs.
Private sector job growth was weak. The most recent report
(35:57):
September inflation rate was three percent, still above the Fed's
target range. Now listening of going through and some of
the comments made by the respondents in this survey, we
can expand, expand due to lack of raw materials and employees.
This is from a business in Wisconsin, steady increase in
(36:18):
pay over the years. We hire a ton of college
students and it works out wonderfully. High school students as well,
Struggling to find full time employees who will stay for
more than one year. I am struggling with finding management
and good responsible employees who don't have other responsibilities. Labor
costs are always high, on the thirty five percent on
(36:40):
average or more. That's from a company in Missouri from
a company in California. The general cost of goods and
materials have significantly increased consistently since twenty twenty. Well, of course,
I mean you're talking about a five year period of time.
Payroll taxes are higher, and insurance is almost impossible to
afford health, liability and workers' compensation. How does that have
(37:04):
anything to do with the tariffs? That is all government
regulations and the government mandates. So it's that hidden cost
of businesses. Taxes in general have increased, state and local
and our property taxes have an itemization for tax codes
a mile long. California is slowly suffocating and it is
a desperate need of help. Many businesses, such as ours,
(37:27):
have already closed. I fear that unless there are more
positive incentives, tax breaks, cuts, and affordable costs and materials,
many more will close, relocate, or downsize or leave the state.
Now that's California from Florida, labor needs to labor needs
are never met. The quality of workers is very poor. Now,
(37:49):
is that the quality of workers in terms of education levels,
what they know, what their ability to show up for
work or something along those. Is that a reflection on
our education system? Possibly? Job openings rise slightly after surging
in September, fewer workers quitting their jobs. This is according
(38:10):
to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey better known
as JOLTS. JOLTS reported on Tuesday talking about the job
openings increased twelve thousand to seven point six seven million
in October. Hiring decreases two hundred and eighteen thousand, quits
(38:33):
decline the most in nearly two and a half years.
The number of people quitting their job is down to
the lowest level in two and a half years. Again
back to this no fire policy of where people are well.
I guess in the past, when jobs were plentiful, people
would actually quit their job before landing another job, thinking
(38:57):
that the job market is so strong, you know, obviously
it's generally the rule of thumb is that you make
sure that you have a job to go to before
you quit your current job. But the number of people
quitting their jobs is down to a two and a
half year low, which I think is a very interesting trend.
Let's see anything else in here. With the labor market wobbly,
(39:19):
fewer workers are job hopping in search of greener pastures,
pointing to benign wage inflation. So people are not jumping
because the informator of the stuff isn't out there now
what we're seeing as far as gas and oil prices, again,
the energy prices are important because they cross all segments.
(39:40):
There isn't a business out there that doesn't rely on energy.
Every business relies on electricity or energy to put on
the lights, to run the machinery, to do anything within
that particular company. Looking at West Texas Intermediate CRUIT, it
is at fifty eight dollars, well below that's sixty dollars
a barrel margin, which people said, oh, it will never
(40:00):
get below sixty dollars a barrel. Again, that's fifty eight
dollars and twenty five cents, down sixty three cents from yesterday.
Just since January, the twentieth West Texas Intermediate creued is
down eighteen dollars and sixty four cents of barrel, or
twenty four percent. Talk about affordability. Well, when you whack
off twenty four percent of the cost of anything, that's
(40:22):
going to have an impact. As far as down the stream,
Brent crude currently is sixty one dollars in ninety five
cents of barrel, down a little over fifty cents a barrel.
Just since January, Brent crude is down seventeen dollars and
ninety five cents of barrel. That's a twenty two percent decrease.
We're seeing gas prices come down. Current average gasoline nationwide
(40:45):
is two dollars ninety five cents. Diesel is a three
dollars and sixty nine cents a gallon compared to this time.
And again I've been stressing this, and when you go
back down to the Trumpet administration in the first term
on this in twenty twenty, in December of twenty twenty,
(41:06):
gasoline was a two dollars and twenty five cents a gallon.
And what I've been saying all along is that if
we look at the fact that that oil prices have
come down twenty five percent, I would have expected to
see gas prices come down twenty five percent as well.
So if you're talking about a year ago when gas
prices worth thirty three dollars and two cents a gallon.
(41:28):
I would think that a ten percent reduction of that
of about thirty thirty cents would take the current gas
price down to about two sixty more in line with
that two dollars and twenty five cents. We're getting there.
It's just a matter of time to get it down there,
and that people that have its way to working its
way through the economy, because if it's costing you less
(41:49):
to fill up your truck, your cost of your operation
is going to go up, or you know your your
costs are going to go down and your profits are
going to go up. There seems to be some discussions
to whether or not there's going to be an oil glot,
but we'll see on that in the coming months. Well, folks,
that does it for us, Stay tuned for EDI Radio
at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America
(42:10):
Struck In Network seven hundred WLW
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