Money Monday with Brian James

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Always stronger than the setback, the comeback.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
The greatest comeback of all time.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Here America's comeback fifty five KRC the talk station, the
Shribato six here if you about GARCD talk station regular listeners.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
No, it is that time of week every Monday at eight,
beenning around eight or if five we talked to Brian James.
All were financials Brian James, and do that thing we
call money Monday. Welcome back, Brian James. Hope you had
a nice weekend. Get to enjoy this.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Good morning, and and you two, and welcome to NFL
off season. We need to officially start hearing what the
Bengals may or may not do, which probably means we
won't hear anything for a while.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
And we'll get to hear a lot about the stadium
lease negotiation. I suppose to little side show in connection
with you day yeah right, whatever, anyhow, beginning our first
top of your conversation, appreciate all worth financial learning out
for our listeners. Every Monday at this time, more tariffs,
this time on aluminum steel.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Tariffs, tariffs and more tariffs. It just seems to be
didn't we just talk about this, Brian? I think a
week ago. Right now, at this moment, we were talking
about tariff's SATs.

Speaker 3 (01:08):
You know what, next week, at this moment, we'll probably
be talking about them too.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
It seems to be the theme of twenty twenty five.
So quick review. So this is gonna sound a little
bit familiar, but let's talk about what we did talk
about last week. So last week, the announcement was that
we'd announced the United States announced new tariffs against Canada.
That was twenty five percent tariffs on most imports, just
just just a wide range of everything, and you and
I went through a list of weirdness of stuff that

(01:33):
was on there, and then also at only a ten
percent tariff on Canadian energy products that was there was
an announcement there that Canada was going to come back
and slap some tariffs back on the US in exchange.
And then everybody decided, hey, wait a minute, let's chill out,
let's give it a month, and let's just kind of
see how things go. Let's just all be friends. So
today the news is that the United States is going

(01:55):
to impose a twenty five percent tariff on all steel
and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico, and by the way,
let's not forget why are we targeting Canada and Mexico
because there are our friends, right, we want to target
our enemy that seems to have changed. Right. Canada and
Mexico are by far the largest trading partners of the
United States. So in twenty twenty three, we had eight

(02:16):
hundred billion dollars worth of goods and services exchange with Mexico,
seven seventy three with Canada, and then it starts to
drop off. China was five hundred and seventy five billion,
then Germany at two hundred and on down from there.
So we are basically slugging our best friends right in
the mouth to see how they react. This is a
trade war. It's what it looks like, is what it
feels like. And we'll see if President Trump is able

(02:38):
to get what he wants out of this, will we
stick to it. We'll see.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, the original tariffs we were previously talking about that
got put on hold for thirty days. President Trump specifically
stated it was an effort to get them to pony
up some help on border security, and in response, both
Mexico and Canada said, yeah, we will, and they allocated
resources and troops to go to the various borders and
help us control the illegal immigrant population. And so that's

(03:02):
why pause the tariffs. This doesn't isn't connected with any
specific announcement that I saw in cases like we are
doing this because fill in the blank. It's just because
we're importing the steel and aluminum from other countries, is it?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
You think?

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Has it been expressed somewhere that is Trump's hope that
this will bring back the manufacturing of steel and aluminum
in our country.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, I think that that underlies a lot of the
decisions you're going to see this administration make at the
end of the day.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, we want to stop the bad stuff from flowing
across the borders, and this is a great way to
get attention and do it. But another goal, and I
don't want to call it a secondary goal, it's just
another goal, is to impose the United States a little
more in the world order of how these goods and
services get traded. So we are we are an expensive nation.
You and I talk about this all the time. It's

(03:49):
expensive to produce things here because of all the rules
and regulations we have. Some are good and should be there,
some are a little probably a little overdone, and maybe
need to be reviewed, but currently all we're trying to
do because it's going to be harder to get all
the all the regulation and all that stuff out. It's
going to take more time, a lot more time to
reduce the impact of that. But we're simply making it

(04:10):
more expensive for other countries to compete with us, and
that to me, that's a band aid, right, that's simply saying,
in the short run, we can just make it more
expensive for other countries to push their goods into the
United States while in the background we're trying to reduce
That's why you're hearing about this department's gone and this
one's under review. Whether this stuff is constitutional. Who knows,

(04:31):
not a constant constitutional law expert here. But the goal
there would be to reduce the long term cost of
producing these goods in the United States. In the short run,
we're going to increase our competitiveness by just making it
more expensive for other countries to compete here.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Yeah, And I don't know if to get to point B,
which is making it easier to manufacture here, I mean,
do we have to go through the pain? I don't know.
Trump's got that. You know, if every one regulation that's
implementing got get rid of. It used to be two.
But maybe the ten regulations that we're getting rid of
might impact the cost of doing business in the United States.
I mean, we've created this expense here. We've got OSHA,

(05:10):
we've got EPA, We've got all these rules and regulations.
We've got you know, union mandates in terms of contracts
they negotiated for you really expensive hourly wages and mandatory
work conditions and everything just makes it more expensive. Of course,
if you can use slave labor like in China to
manufacturer steel, of course it's going to be a lot cheaper.
I mean, you know, we have kind of done it

(05:31):
to ourselves in many respects. Not to negate your legitimate
point that some of these rules and regulations are important,
it's just there's too many of them.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, that's right, and we've never really had at least
I can't think of in my adult memory. I'm about
fifty years old, and I cannot think of my adult
memory of any kind of major review or overhaul. Whenever
the idea surfaced in Congress to get some of these
things cleaned up, then it would be quickly shot down
from the other side. I look at the social security

(05:59):
argument we talked, but that doesn't work either, And bills
hit the floor every year, several times a year to
actually address that problem, but they're very easily shot down
by either side. Well, now all of a sudden, there
appears to be a third side that doesn't really have
to cowtow to the other two sides. Now again, whether
this stuff holds up in court, that's going to be
the challenge, because there's some things coming out of DC

(06:20):
right now that have nothing to do and go completely
counter to the Constitution. Whether they're good moves bad moves,
somebody is going to stand up and say, hey, this
does not go again, go with the words that are
in our constitution that we all agreed was a pretty
good idea a few hundred years ago.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
Yeah, And like all things, ultimately litigation will result and
we'll finally get some answer when it finally ultimately reaches
the Supreme Court if it goes out high. But you know,
you're talking multiple years for any of these things to
see the light of some final decision.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Absolutely, And I think that's why Trump's taking the approach
that he is, which is just let's just slam the
door on these things. Whatever happens, maybe the glass in
the door breaks, who cares, We'll clean it up. I'm
not waving the flag saying this is a great idea.
It is definitely a different idea, and it's a different
approach sort of that scorch and burn. Let's burn everything down,
tear it all apart, and we will rebuild the stuff
that we have to rebuild and leave alone the stuff

(07:12):
that apparently wasn't necessary in the first place. A lot
of that comes from Elon Musk. That that is Elon
Musk's way. If you if you read his biography, if
you see how he built those businesses, he would he
had very strict rules about same as you just mentioned.
If we're going to put one rule in place, we're
gonna get rid of five others. Every rule he creates
must have somebody's name attached to it, so that ten

(07:33):
years from now we can go back to that person
to say, why does this rule exist and do we
still need it, versus, like you said, regulations that have
been in place for decades that may or may not
have any application anymore.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Right, and many of them redundant, many of them you know,
just outlandishly expensive, too saying that's the keying. You got
to pay a legal department to pay attention to the
CODA FED federal regulations. And for every hour spent by
a lawyer, that is profit that's being taken away from
the company and time spent on something that most prudent
businesses really wish they didn't have to spend any time on.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Yeah, and that's the American way. The legal companies and
now they realize this is a huge opportunity. The more
the messier this is, the more confusing it is, the
more profit can be made. You know, look at look
at the TurboTax people. Oh, I know the biggest lobbies
in DC. Let's like people confused and unable to do
their own taxes.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Oh, if I could lay hands on a problem, I
think that would be the first place I go. The
United States tax code. It's insane and all it is
used for as a vehicle for the federal government to
manipulate businesses into doing things that they otherwise wouldn't do
as prudent in businesses. Any pause, We're going to take
an early, slightly early break eight fourteen. We'll bring him
back and we'll talk about your insurance rates are going

(08:40):
up stating the obvious, but why also how much you
planned on spending on Valentine's Day. One more segment with
Brian James this morning, be right back fifty five KARC
the talk station eight eighteen fifty five KRCD Talk Station
Brian Thomas with Brian James from Maulworth Mancher doing Money Monday. Wow,
Insurance r. I know insurance rates are going through the

(09:02):
roof ran. One might think immediately that it's because of
the natural disasters. You know, wildfires in California, you got
hurricanes hitting the Florida and you know running through in
the flooding in North Carolina, and all this obviously has
to be paid for by insurance companies, assuming insurance companies
are actually ensuring these these these dwellings. But as I understand,

(09:22):
it's large part the growing insurance rates are because of
litigation lawsuits at least a corner to this article from
Fox Business, I have Brian me there you are, yeah, go.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Ahead, there we are, sorry about that. Yeah. So they're
calling it the Torque tax. The average American household is
going to pay about forty two hundred dollars a year
through their premiums due to these litigation costs, which is
simply that that's just how we've grown as a society.
So we've always been a litigious society because at the
end of the day, in the good old United States,
a profit margin Suing people is a great way to

(10:00):
make money, right, we all kind of know this, but
it's gotten worse and worse. Just like anything else any anywhere,
it is recognized that a profit can be made, a
profit will be made, and it will be maximized and optimized.
So there are companies out there who solely exist to
take on lawsuits for people. For example, if you're if
you're involved in some kind of a medical malpractice suit,

(10:22):
there are plenty of law firms out there that have
investors behind them who are investing in the research of
that lawsuit. The person who was wronged by it will
financially benefit, of course if there's a win, but obviously
getting a much smaller percentage. These are literally like they're
starting to look like little startup companies. Right, something happens
to somebody and there's and there's a somewhat clear uh,

(10:42):
you know, medical malpractice type of a suit. Well, let's
not just sue the medical provider behind it. Let's get
as much as we possibly can, regardless of the impact.
This is just skyrocketing, and it's literally raising your and
my insurance premiums because the insurance companies have to react
to that as well as of course they have their
own profit motivations as well. So there's a lot going

(11:03):
on out there that is going to continue to raise
these costs.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Yeah, and I was really you know, I was a
litigation attorney for sixteen years. I involved I did defense work,
you know, towards liability or product liability that a lot
of those defended companies like Cooper Industries for injuries that
were claimed to be as a consequence of something that
their product did. But this idea that that attorneys are
expanding the expectations of the basically the jury pool by

(11:30):
advertising my client got twenty million dollars from this auto
accident and then going into court making wild, outlandish claims
for damages. Because you know, you got to start someplace.
It's like a negotiation. It's like Trump start now, you know,
I'm going I'm going to buy Greenland. Maybe just get
this the conversation started about how we can improve relations
with it or whatever. You got to start somewhere, but

(11:51):
they start these crazy amounts and juries get it in
their mind that, well, that's kind of normal, but it's not.
There's no connection with these wild claims of damage to
the reality of the injury that that person allegedly suffered.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, but you're right, those eight and sometimes nine digit
jury verdicts are becoming normalized, and that's why you have
these signs shoved in your face. You're just trying to
drive to work and run to the grocery store, and
you're seeing billboards that advertise this, We're seeing it on
social media. It's just a way that this industry. Then
I'm going to go ahead and call this an industry.
It's a low cottage industry, I would say, Yeah, is

(12:25):
affecting how you, as a potential juror might react. So,
in other words, when you finally do land in that
jury box, as all of us will probably once in
our lives, you won't blink at the idea of a
ten million dollar verdict that itself has a has a nickname.
Nuclear verdicts is what they're calling jury verdicts of ten
million dollars or more. The top one hundred of these
have increased by about three hundred and fifty percent in

(12:47):
the last six years. Overall personal injury verdicts since twenty
ten are up three hundred and nineteen percent, so we're
seeing a huge increase. Again, it's just a place, it's
it's just a new business. There are literally investors here, yeah,
hoarding law firms, like just like you would you you
would raise funds for a technology company or something like that.
They're supporting law firms who will go chase and prosecute

(13:08):
these quote unquote opportunities.

Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know what, this seems to me a just a
screaming cry for some uh some ethics reforms and some
rules governing the practice of law. Because this article points
out that foreign parties, for example, the Chinese Communist Party
are some of the investors who finance these lawsuits. I
mean the idea of some outside person financing and then

(13:30):
glombing onto some chunk of the award which should have
either gone to the plaintiff lawyers who did the legal work,
or to their client who they represent, but that they
have to shell out a chunk of this jury verty
can give to some third party investor. That just seems
to be just completely unethical. But who am I but a.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
Priorigation rationally thinking American. Unfortunately, we just put an administration
in place that is not going to lift a finger
to do that. Because to fight that, because that's going
to be more regulation, we're gonna gonna be going in
the opposite direction. You're going to hear more and more
about this.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Well, I don't know that it requires federal legislation. This
requires like state bar associations to enact rules that say
you just can't do that. As a lawyer in the
state practicing here, that is prohibited period. It could be
done grassroots efforts have to get the plaintiff's bar behind it.
Ha ha A good luck with that, all right, Brian,
The answer for me is nothing. I may buy a
card to celebrate the day of our engagement, but you know,

(14:26):
Valentine's Day is just like any other day of the
week from my perspective, and it's just an excuse for
people to feel like they've got to go out and
spend a lot of money, and apparently they do.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
They do. Indeed, so we're expected to spend twenty five
point eight billion dollars fees in this. Yeah, that's a
lot a lot of money. That chocolate just got expensive,
and we'll spend an average of one hundred and eighty
five dollars on gifts and experiences. Now, this is this
blows my mind. I hope Michelle James is not expecting
one hundred and eighty five dollars worth of gifts and
experience here. If you take she would flap me straight

(14:57):
across the face if I did that anything.

Speaker 3 (14:59):
That's why the first place, right, she's prudent, she's frugal.
She knows the value of a dollar, and she has
low expectations that you're gonna go out and shot a
boatload of money for well, just another day.

Speaker 2 (15:11):
She is so frugal that the first time I bought
her flowers a million years ago, she yelled at me
because flowers are expensive and they die and we've got
more important things to spend money on.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Sounds like you, very well the same kind of woman
as mine. My wife is very frugal and prudent. And
uh yes, that's that's wonderful. So maybe reflect on that.
And if you get yelled at for not spending a
whole bunch of money on Valentine's Day, you might want
to reflect on that too.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Brian, I really am not too worried that that's gonna
be it.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
You have be buff, brother, you have e buff. That's
why I'll be married thirty three years in June. It's
a one of the big reasons anyway. Brian James always
appreciate our conversations. And we'll do it again next Monday
for another edition of Money Monday. And thanksgeting to all
word for loading you out.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
You bet enjoy it. Every week we'll talk to you
them all.

Speaker 3 (15:54):
Right, look forward to it eight twenty five right now.
Coming up next, Mandy Agunna Sekhara with the book Y'all Fired,
Southern Bell's Guide to Restoring Federalism and Draining the Swamp.
We talked with her last October, bringing her back on
to talk about what she thinks about Elon Musk and
the Doge Department and the draining of the swamp. I
hope he can stick around.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
Fifty five KRC.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
The simply