June 15, 2026 • 24 mins
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Cincinnati and iHeartRadio station guaranteed Human fifty five krc D
talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I heard radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's eight o five, a fifty five KRCD talk station.
Brian Thomas wishing everyone a very happy Monday. It being
eight oh five on a Monday, it's time to talk
about another Brian Brian James. Monday Monday's Brian James. Thanks
to you all. We're finance for loading them out for
a little while. Get a few segments with them talking
about money matters. Welcome back, Brian, and happy Monday to you, sir.
Right back at you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Too many Mondays, too many Brian's this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I think that's okay. We have some interesting developments. Talk
about you know the market. Hey, the market's all fired up.
Looks like got a deal. We're gonna sign it on Friday.
I don't know what the deal says. I've scoured the
internet far and wide for every news site, from conservative
to ultraliberal Brian and I can't find any details of
the agreement we're allegedly entering into the Iranians and everywhere
it's posted talking about this deal, it says neither side
(00:59):
provided a specific big list of agreed upon details, and
I think what we do know is we will have
to negotiate over the next sixty days, what it will
mean for the nuclear dust or nuclear fuel there, whether
or not Iran's can negotiate a well, gonna be able
to acquire a weapon at some point, the opening of
the Straight of Horror moves and the release of the
ports so the Iranians can get chips in and out,
(01:21):
whether or not we'll be paying money, and what we're
gonna do with Israel and Lebanon, because that seems to
be part of the agreement in so far as the
Iranians are reporting, but I'm not sure the Israelis and
Hasbala have any interest in what the hell anybody does anyway,
Market's happy about it, right.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, you know, as Nancy Pelosi famously once said, we
got to sign it so that we can see what's
in it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's it. So that yeah, exactly right. What could go
wrong now? And we've been we've been through this before.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
This is of course a new headlines by tweet, and
that's what the market's reacting to.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
This has not been signed. Let's start with that point.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
There is there is apparently some kind of tentative agreement,
but as you just said, nobody really knows what the
agreement is. Those are unimportant details. We don't need to
get to that yet. The signing ceremony is supposed to
be this Friday of the nineteenth. There are some things
out there that have yet to be ironed out, and
now a lot of that to to for the for
you and I and the rest of the listening public.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We're not going to be privy to the bullets for
probably quite a while yet.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
There are some details supposedly that aren't out there yet,
and so that's going to be ironed out this week.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Hopefully this holds what we've been through this before.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
You know, President Trump does tend to like to move
the market and there's no consequences apparently when he does.
And so that's the announcement that was made on Friday,
And of course, as you might suspect, everything's through the roof.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oil futures are down five percent.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
We like that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, The markets are up one to two percent, depending
on the flavor you're looking at. So, you know, so
far a positive reaction, which is fairly predictable.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The market absolutely hates uncertainty. It can take conflict, It
can handle chaos, but it's when we don't know what's
going to happen and when it's going to happen. That's
what the market hates and that's why it drifts sometimes.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well you don't have to make an observation, but you know,
the market, I guess loves to manipulate the market, and
the market listens to what he says. I guess, considering
the collective of many, not all intellectual at least so
far as financial markets are concerned. Giants people who are
in the know. Are they that stupid that they would
(03:16):
listen to something he says and just act on it
or not act on it, or is there something really
behind the markets actually following those positive comments? I guess
you know, if somebody told me something I didn't believe it,
I certainly wouldn't listen to it. So how is it
that Donald Trump has any sway on the markets or
are the markets actually believing what he has to say?
(03:37):
Because I mean, this is four months We've been at this,
Brian James, and I've heard these types of comments before.
You know, it's going to be settled this week. We'll
have it done in a couple of weeks, right, you
were sitting down at the table with him. Theolrodians really
want to negotiate. Then we find out the hardliners and
around I'm like, what the hell you talking about? Bomb here,
bomb there? I can't make heads or tails out of it, Brian,
So that the markets, all of them, all spoke at
(04:00):
these big brokerage houses, and it could equate that to
a real positive influence on a market that so many
people trade in. That just says something, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Well, I think what it says is that everything is
treated speculatively anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, That's all we care about is what's the market
going to do? Right now?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Gone are the days of Peter Lynch buy what you know?
Remember that book he wrote that said with the big
story in that Well, my wife was buying yeah, pe ratios,
my wife was buying pantyhose in these plastic eggs, and
therefore I decided that was a good investment. Well, we
don't think that way anymore. We simply look for what
the initial what's the immediate reaction going to be. I
(04:39):
only really want to benefit from that immediate reaction because
I want to make a bazillion dollars. Look at SpaceX,
right you're not going to talk about a little later
this morning. But SpaceX, of course came out and in
made Eland Musk a trillionaire. It didn't make any of
the initial buyers a trillionaire because it only really went
up ten percent from about the time that you could
officially buy it as an individual online. But that's enough
(04:59):
for that many people to go throw money at it
because that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We want that instant hit ten percent year over year
over that's better than you normally get in a long
term you know, financial planning kind of eight percent on
average historical record. So I'd say a ten percent HiT's
pretty damn good. And if you had enough money to
throw at it and you got ten percent return, I
can imagine you could at least accumulate millions of dollars.
(05:24):
Who among us has that kind of jack to throw
it a stock?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Though?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
And the point I would make to that is that
if that's how you run your money, then you probably
don't have that much money. If you're trying to swing
for the fences with every last move, you know, I
look at you even the the right now, the place
to have been all year long, you could have gotten
to your point you could have gotten double that plus
more since the beginning of the year just investing in
emerging markets indexes. Right, I'm not poopooing SpaceX. That's and
(05:49):
I'm dragging us into that segment before we're there. But
my only point is that that the reason the market
reacts so quickly to this is because that's what we're after.
Everything is speculative. What's it going to do before breakfast?
What's it going to do right around lunch? What's it
going to do by the end of the day. Not
are these goods and products and services that they sell?
Is this something that can be productive over the long haul?
That's what the market looks for now. So everything speculation.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So am I to understand after all this and my
sort of comedic reference of price earnings ratios, which apparently
nobody looks at it anymore. It used to be a
guiding principle investing in suck. We now evaluation, right, I know.
So we now essentially lived in an immediate gratification meme
stock thing where you take a quick hit and then
dump real quick and move on with our lives.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, I mean, I really think over the long haul,
these are real companies behind this, But Elon Musk is
obviously not stupid. He knows how the market's going to react.
He knew very well that he could push it to
do what it did and push him over that trillionaire mark.
So now he gets to have that notch in his
in his belt. But yeah, I mean this is we
are a We don't deal well with delayed gratification anymore.
(06:55):
We want our bazilions and we want them right now.
And again that's why the IPO went on off the
way it did, because we just have this endless drive
to make a bazillion dollars tomorrow. So I didn't hear
a whole lot of buzz, you know it did, truthfully,
I mean my phone was not ringing off the hook
with people finding out that they really it's not that
easy to get into these IPOs and you're going to
have to jump through some hoops and you might not
(07:16):
get exactly what you what you wanted to and that
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So it does it seems a little different this time around.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Then it was when the first Internet boom about twenty
five thirty years ago, when I started in this industry,
that was everybody learned what an IPO was and how
it worked, and that it's not something that you just
walk to your corner store and get a hold of.
This one was a little bit more available than those
in the past, but well, I didn't hear the same
buzz about them clients.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
As you mentioned. We can bring that down a little
bit more in the next segment. I guess the bright
spot and this has been happening in advance of the
announcement over the weekend that they had reached this tentative,
you know, memorandum of agreement. Let's assume all that goes
forward and they will sit down at the table for
the next couple of months and try to hammer everything out. Great,
but the price of oils you pointed out the out
(08:00):
sis drop five percent, traded about what eighty two bucks
a barrel for Brent, And that's good, but we have
already been enjoying a lowering of gas prices. I mean this,
the drip and the dropping gas has preceded this announcement
by some weeks. Not dramatic drops, but at least we've
got the advantage of a cheaper gasoline. Is there something
behind that independent of whatever progress we're making with the Iranians?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Again, pure speculation. The market felt like, and give you're right.
The market has been pricing this in for a while
and it kind of makes logical sense. Right, We're not
going to stay in this war forever. There is a
midterm election, so there's just no reason that any administration
is going to continue dragging a country through an unpopular
war within a while facing an election. So at some
point the market knows that this was going to unwind,
(08:46):
and so it began to speculate. Now we've had some
bounces and oil prices over the past several months since
the war began. That's the market giving as headfakes. It
always wants to try to anticipate what's coming next. It's
not always right. Eventually it will be now, just because
we're talking about this here here on Monday the fifteenth,
four days before this thing supposedly gets signed, who knows, Brian,
we can see that same bounce again if something goes
(09:07):
sideways and we decide we're going to back away.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
From the table. This is not done yet, but right
now we're in a good mood of that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
And if I was a betting man, Brian James, I'm
sorry to be a little jaded and cynical about this
actually hammer it working out. But I feel like we've
been down this road many many times over the last
four months. I'm praying that it does. That's not me
thinking I want a war to continue, but we just
seem to have been miles and miles and miles apart
up until now, and I just don't see it going now.
That being said, real quick, before we take the break,
(09:35):
if it does get resolved, considering you said, this has
been baked into the cake, people expect it to end
at some point. We shouldn't see a dramatic drop post resolution, then,
should we. If they've already factored a resolution and an
opening of a straight up horror moves into the into
into the equation. But I mean that won't be a
result in another dramatic drop, and we've got pent on paper.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I wouldn't say dramatic, but I could see a slight
pullback off of it news because remember, remember how this
stuff works, We buy on the rumor and sell on
the news.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That doesn't affect a.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Long term financial plan because you shouldn't be behaving that
way anyway. But like I said, everything is about speculation,
so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see things
pull back just a bit, not enough to get your attention,
just an exhale, which will be the short term trades
from those super short term speculators unwinding their positions. That
wouldn't shock me in the least, but it doesn't change
what somebody should be doing with their long term plans.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Fair enough, we'll dive into the SpaceX IPO one. Maybe
Brian can better explain a little from IPOs and why
they're happy to be challenging to get involved in. But
I'm I'm really kind of curious what SpaceX does and
going back to a price earnings ratio, they sell profitable product.
Is this going to be a long term good investment?
Who knows? Brian James can maybe shed some light on that.
Plus also coming ahead, one hundred tariffs on French wine.
(10:49):
M Where did that come from? Eight sixteen? Right now,
don't go away and be right back fifty five krc
our Iheartrated talk station, Hey, nineteen fifty about pir CD
talk station. Brian T Come us with Brian James. Well,
we're financial joins us to talk about money matters and
investing long term is really the ultimate goal here and
doing the right thing with your money is so very important.
If you stick to a strategy and you continue to
(11:11):
sock some away, you are going to get a return
on your investment in the markets and pivoting over back
to SpaceX, I guess I seem to be a bit
of a traditionalist. I know there's meme stocks and markets
and things like that. We were just talking about it.
But if I was interested in participating in an independent
public offering which you can mention down the road here,
I would look and see what does SpaceX do? What
(11:33):
are the products, where's the demand coming from? Is this
something that's going to generate profit and income long term?
And apparently if Elon Musk is behind it, probably is.
He's got a pretty damn good track record for making money.
So evil trillionaire are is this a good company if
you'd looked at it from a traditional standpoint. Brian James
and I seem to have lost Joe Strecker as well.
(11:55):
It's a part of the room. While I'm supposed to
be talking with Brian James. I apologize, folks. We'll see
when Joe comes back. We might be able to get
him back on the horn, because it's very interested in
knowing about that. So anyhow, apologies. Now I've got to
regroup here and figure out what the hell I'm gonna talk. Oh,
I can talk about this, Yeah, something I wanted to
bring up with Brian James. I saw this article authored
(12:16):
by Peter Daisy Me no idea, but it was an
interesting thing. And this is where I think long term
investment strategy can really work for you, as long as
you just say no to maybe the frivolous, and notably,
Peter starts out with, you know, I know a person
that drives a twenty eighteen camera that happens to be
(12:37):
the wealthiest person I know. You know it three properties,
has two million dollars in investment accounts, and could buy
any car on any lot without even blinking. He chooses
not to, and his explanation is both simple and profound.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
A car is a tool that takes you from one
place to another. Everything beyond that is a payment for
other people perception of you now being a car guy.
I may take some issue with that, but that's because
I happen to be a car guy, one little category
in my life that I'm willing to spend more on
because of what I get out of it. Driving performance
and cornering and handling an acceleration are all really important
(13:16):
things to me because I really don't have any other hobbies.
So we'll call that my little extravagance in my life.
But for the most part, you're gonna find me buying,
you know, designer label clothes. And I've used this illustration
so many times. I'm as sick that I do it.
Like women who's paid, maybe even men who buy ten
thousand dollars five thousand dollars purses, it has no more
(13:37):
functionality than a plastic bag from Kroger. And I know
you don't what to hear me, now I can, Brian James,
sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You didn't I didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
All of a sudden I was talking and just just
unleashing some fascinating nuggets about space action.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Suddenly you weren't there, dead air I did. Sure.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
None of my listening audience didn't hear a word you said, Brian.
I apologize for that. I don't know where Joe is,
but we got you back on there. You can just
real quick here. I was talking about people's priorities and
where they spend money, because this is like a financial
planner's dream. This article I read and I wanted to
bring it up to you since I already started about it.
We can clump everything else in the next segment. But
you know why spend heap loads of money on things
(14:17):
that don't do anything but impress other people? Bringing up
you a person leasing a seventy thousand dollars suv.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You might have a.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Negative net worth, you know. Meanwhile, there's a person with
one point five million in the bank, wearing jeans he
bought from Target, driving a paid off Honda, and eating
dinner at home. These day to day choices. Expensive coffee
came up, and I've used that illustration a million times.
I've done the math. My two pound bag of costco
I've calculated out. I know how many pots of coffee
I can make. I know how many cups make in
(14:44):
each pot, and I know that I multiply that times
the five bucks I'd pay at Starbucks if I went there.
I'm getting a hell of a deal with the twenty
bucks I spend for two pounds of coffee. And I
don't feel that I'm suffering at all. There's so many
areas of our lives where we will overspend almost with
the idea we're just doing it to impress someone else,
and that apparently is a major major pitfall and hurdle
(15:06):
for people to be on the right financial path for retirement. Brian,
I hate to put you on the spot on that,
but I did want to bring it up.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh no, that's not the spot at all. That's my job, right.
You just described to my day to day.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So yeah, I would say there's a lot of people
out there who you know, just as much as there
are people who can't lift the hood of a car
and name a single component, there are people who cannot
do that with money. Those people have extraordinary strong skills
in other areas, but they simply don't put two and
two together when it comes. I'll give you an example.
So sometimes people will come in, we'll do a financial plan,
and they'll say, we'll go through what are all your expenses?
(15:40):
And they'll say, well, here, the mortgage is this, or
the rent is that, but that's covered by this income
over there, so I don't count that as an expense.
And my answer to that, and this might be like
a three four thousand dollars payment, Sometimes my answer to
that is, why are we not counting it?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's an expense.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know it's covered by some kind of income, but
we're talking about all of your spending. People have a
way of compartmentalizing. This expense doesn't count because there's because
it's nothing I can do about it. I can't adjust
it anyway, and it's covered by this ex payment that
I get, So therefore we're going to ignore that. And
so yeah, you kind of have to tear the band
aid off and pull it back. And I would also
say this goes back a little bit too. You know
what we like to refer to as the American dream.
(16:13):
Everybody you know the American dream, of course is having
a house and a stable life and all that kind
of stuff. Well what if your neighbor moves in and
all of a sudden they have a nicer house, right
then am I living the same American dreamers?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It a different American dream. It's just a human reaction.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And we live in a country where it is possible,
it's easier to better your standing in this country than
anywhere else, and that that sounds great, but it does
have its negatives, which is keeping up with the joneses.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That's what you're really referring to. But see they really
really don't like when we're behind.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
We let someone else's perception defind what our dream should be.
You know, the the greatest dream I ever had in
my life was just to be content and comfortable and
not have to worry about my retirement, you know, and
running around chasing after things that are you know, out
of your reach. Or we always bought, you know how
that were affordable, maybe a little bit smaller, maybe not
(17:03):
as nice a neighborhood, but it was fine enough for
my wife and me. This seemed like logical choices to me,
And I think, I don't live my life for someone else,
And I guess I struggled with the concept that that's
what a lot of us do. And I know this
is a criticism of capitalism sort of kind of, but
capitalism is designed to build the best products for the
best price. There's competition out in the world. That way,
(17:23):
you can acquire what you actually might need, what might
fulfill your version of the dream. But if you're buying
it just because somebody else is going to be envious
of you, at least believe that, then you're making a
bad decision. You're living their life for them and probably
suffering from it mightily.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Now, Yeah, I read a book about this a long
time ago that that actually this goes back to the
wh when human beings learned how to farm stuff, because
before that we were hunter gatherers, and if you ran
across a nasty bunch, you just wandered somewhere else. But
once we've learned how to farm stuff, we had to
have land. You can't move off that land, and if
somebody else comes in and wants a chunk of that land,
well now you have to fight them for it. I
(18:00):
think that was the very very beginning of making sure
I have carved out my place and making sure I'm
keeping up with, you know, the joneses of whatever band
is about to wander on to my farmland. Because that
also gave us the ability to have free time. Right
when you're doing nothing but wandering around the woods looking
for food, you don't have a lot of free time.
But when you build a system to provide food in
an ongoing manner, then all of a sudden, you have
(18:21):
free time. And that's where we get arked and all
these other things. But over thousands of years, I think
that has morphed into the idea that I have to
have something better than somebody else, or I can't be comfortable.
That's not everybody, that's not you, that's not a lot
of the people listening out here. But oh my gosh,
does capitalism want to take advantage.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Of KRC the talk station?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Hey thirty one, if you have kercd talk station, Brian James, Monday,
Monday doing that day and real quick, since we had
that communication breakdown, I was asking, you know, what does
SpaceX do like? If I was looking at it from
an old school practical do I really want to invest
in it as opposed to a mean perception? The products?
Are they generally in demand kind of thing? Is it
going to be a very profitable company? Because usually what
(19:03):
Elon Musk touches it turns to gold.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Brian, my old school profitability, I don't even know what
those words mean anymore, Brian Thommas. So yes, SpaceX is
a real company, of course. And what I mean by that,
I'm I'm juxtaposing it with the the the AMC Theater
and game Stop and all those kinds of things also
real companies doing real things.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But this is a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
The herd is still chasing SpaceX as much as you
chase those meme stocks for sure, and that's going to
run for a while. But let's look at some details
behind it. So before the IPO, remember IPO stands for
initial public offering, before it's publicly offered, it is of
course private, which means you don't get to know a
ton about it. But the espates where revenues were about
thirty five to forty billion dollars annually IBADAB about fifteen
(19:45):
to eighteen billion, net income eight to twelve, these are
all good things starlink, right, those things that you see
running across the sky in a line that look really
cool and people think they're alien invasions because they haven't
seen one yet. That is believed to account for more
than half their total profits. Launch services, that's what they're
most famous for. That's what we think of. Launch services
are high growth, but Starlink has become the primary profit
(20:06):
engine there. So that makes SpaceX kind of unusual because
it came public as the company was already generating significant
cash flow. Cash Flow does not equal profitability, of course,
So where we are right now, so at a two
point one trillion dollar valuation, investors are paying roughly fifty
to sixty times earnings or twelve to fifteen times revenue.
(20:27):
Those are extremely aggressive multiples, you know, even for a
mature company.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So that's what we're getting at.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well fair enough, Brian, We'll see how it goes. And
you know, why is it so hard to get your
foot in the door on an ipo? Generally speaking? Anyway,
the commonclave are never invited or rarely.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Invited supplying demand and men it's literally just what is
the availability and the fact that people could get to
this one at all. I saw the online quotes from
people talking about how they went through say Fidelity, and
they asked for you know, whatever they asked for, you know,
one hundred percent of their shares, they maybe got eight percent.
It was a small fraction of what they truly wanted
(21:04):
to buy. And it's just got to do with everybody
once in therefore, that drives the price up, which you know,
that's why we're talking about it today, that's why it's
such a big headline. But because so many people want it,
not everybody can get it. And this is we've seen this,
of course with a lot of these other big IPOs.
That's not a new part of all of this. That
has always happened. It's tough to.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Get in on these things.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Who was really in it, of course, it's the institutional companies,
and frankly the biggest of the big were in it before, right.
So it went public at you know, the price, it
went public at one hundred and thirty five, but it
was first available right, so as soon as it was
available to trade, it was one hundred and fifty. So
if you were not on the ends at the one
thirty five, then the soonest you could have got it
was one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Fair enough. And I suppose if you are in one
of those big mutual funds and traded multi stock traded
funds like your investors using, you probably got a chunk
of it in your portfolio somewhere, at least I speculate that. Anyhow,
Brian James, real quick, maybe going back to the point
I made earlier about what do you really need it?
Is it worth the extra money? And I got one
of my good friends is one of the top tier
(22:07):
saumiers in the world, and I'm sure there's a lot
of French wines he likes. But you know what, I
know a lot of really good California wines that I
don't have to worry about if we tax or we
tear a French wines at one hundred percent. What's the
motivation behind that? And I guess is are we really
going to be hurt by this at all?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Well, this is less about wine and more about digital businesses.
So this is about who gets to tax the profits
of digital businesses. So the headline part is wine because
that does hit people, you know where they might live
and they'll pay attention to that.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, So the threat is one hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Percent tariffs on French wine champagne unless France for peals.
It's digital services tax that is hitting big companies like Google, Amazon, Apple,
Meta and so forth. So you know, the traditionally tax
systems were built around factories, stores, physical presence, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Tech companies can.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Generate billions in revenue without setting foot in a country,
can stuck a lot of money out and not have
to pay any taxes. So European governments argue that that
tax code has not kept up with.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
A digital economy and how it all works.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
The US says, yeah, but no big deal, because it's
kind of cool we can make all this money. So
there are they're arguing that taxes disproportionately target American firms
and amount to a disguised tariff, which, eh, I can
kind of see what they're saying, because of course these
companies do happen to have been started in the United States.
But I can also see if I'm a country who
is seeing a lot of revenue and dollars exiting my borders,
(23:30):
I might want to react to that.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
So therefore I guess they've put some new taxes in place.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, Brian, why do you think they started here as
opposed to France in the first place. I think we
have a better economic environment for businesses generally speaking, anyway,
maybe that's the reason.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
We absolutely do.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And you know, again, like we were talking about earlier,
there's pros and constant capitalism, but that's one of the
big pros.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
This is the place where you.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Can get an awful lot of favors and tax deductions,
you get you get rules around how debt works, all
that kind of stuff is different whenever you hear you
know that, Why why companies want to come to the
United States, Why people want to come to the United States.
You've got the most leverage, the most ability to take
advantage of a system that is built around build something
and make it bigger.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Well, and you also have an administration that's willing to
step up to the plate levy taxes on foreign companies
or foreign countries that might levy taxes on your American
based business.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That helps.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That's worth a lot of money in and of itself.
Brian James, thank you so much.
Cincinnati and iHeartRadio station guaranteed Human fifty five krc D
talk station.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I heard radio.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
It's eight o five, a fifty five KRCD talk station.
Brian Thomas wishing everyone a very happy Monday. It being
eight oh five on a Monday, it's time to talk
about another Brian Brian James. Monday Monday's Brian James. Thanks
to you all. We're finance for loading them out for
a little while. Get a few segments with them talking
about money matters. Welcome back, Brian, and happy Monday to you, sir.
Right back at you.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Too many Mondays, too many Brian's this morning.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
I think that's okay. We have some interesting developments. Talk
about you know the market. Hey, the market's all fired up.
Looks like got a deal. We're gonna sign it on Friday.
I don't know what the deal says. I've scoured the
internet far and wide for every news site, from conservative
to ultraliberal Brian and I can't find any details of
the agreement we're allegedly entering into the Iranians and everywhere
it's posted talking about this deal, it says neither side
(00:59):
provided a specific big list of agreed upon details, and
I think what we do know is we will have
to negotiate over the next sixty days, what it will
mean for the nuclear dust or nuclear fuel there, whether
or not Iran's can negotiate a well, gonna be able
to acquire a weapon at some point, the opening of
the Straight of Horror moves and the release of the
ports so the Iranians can get chips in and out,
(01:21):
whether or not we'll be paying money, and what we're
gonna do with Israel and Lebanon, because that seems to
be part of the agreement in so far as the
Iranians are reporting, but I'm not sure the Israelis and
Hasbala have any interest in what the hell anybody does anyway,
Market's happy about it, right.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Well, you know, as Nancy Pelosi famously once said, we
got to sign it so that we can see what's
in it.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
That's it. So that yeah, exactly right. What could go
wrong now? And we've been we've been through this before.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
This is of course a new headlines by tweet, and
that's what the market's reacting to.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
This has not been signed. Let's start with that point.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
There is there is apparently some kind of tentative agreement,
but as you just said, nobody really knows what the
agreement is. Those are unimportant details. We don't need to
get to that yet. The signing ceremony is supposed to
be this Friday of the nineteenth. There are some things
out there that have yet to be ironed out, and
now a lot of that to to for the for
you and I and the rest of the listening public.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
We're not going to be privy to the bullets for
probably quite a while yet.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
There are some details supposedly that aren't out there yet,
and so that's going to be ironed out this week.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Hopefully this holds what we've been through this before.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
You know, President Trump does tend to like to move
the market and there's no consequences apparently when he does.
And so that's the announcement that was made on Friday,
And of course, as you might suspect, everything's through the roof.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Oil futures are down five percent.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
We like that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah, The markets are up one to two percent, depending
on the flavor you're looking at. So, you know, so
far a positive reaction, which is fairly predictable.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Right.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
The market absolutely hates uncertainty. It can take conflict, It
can handle chaos, but it's when we don't know what's
going to happen and when it's going to happen. That's
what the market hates and that's why it drifts sometimes.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Well you don't have to make an observation, but you know,
the market, I guess loves to manipulate the market, and
the market listens to what he says. I guess, considering
the collective of many, not all intellectual at least so
far as financial markets are concerned. Giants people who are
in the know. Are they that stupid that they would
(03:16):
listen to something he says and just act on it
or not act on it, or is there something really
behind the markets actually following those positive comments? I guess
you know, if somebody told me something I didn't believe it,
I certainly wouldn't listen to it. So how is it
that Donald Trump has any sway on the markets or
are the markets actually believing what he has to say?
(03:37):
Because I mean, this is four months We've been at this,
Brian James, and I've heard these types of comments before.
You know, it's going to be settled this week. We'll
have it done in a couple of weeks, right, you
were sitting down at the table with him. Theolrodians really
want to negotiate. Then we find out the hardliners and
around I'm like, what the hell you talking about? Bomb here,
bomb there? I can't make heads or tails out of it, Brian,
So that the markets, all of them, all spoke at
(04:00):
these big brokerage houses, and it could equate that to
a real positive influence on a market that so many
people trade in. That just says something, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Well, I think what it says is that everything is
treated speculatively anymore.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Right, That's all we care about is what's the market
going to do? Right now?
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Gone are the days of Peter Lynch buy what you know?
Remember that book he wrote that said with the big
story in that Well, my wife was buying yeah, pe ratios,
my wife was buying pantyhose in these plastic eggs, and
therefore I decided that was a good investment. Well, we
don't think that way anymore. We simply look for what
the initial what's the immediate reaction going to be. I
(04:39):
only really want to benefit from that immediate reaction because
I want to make a bazillion dollars. Look at SpaceX,
right you're not going to talk about a little later
this morning. But SpaceX, of course came out and in
made Eland Musk a trillionaire. It didn't make any of
the initial buyers a trillionaire because it only really went
up ten percent from about the time that you could
officially buy it as an individual online. But that's enough
(04:59):
for that many people to go throw money at it
because that's what we want.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
We want that instant hit ten percent year over year
over that's better than you normally get in a long
term you know, financial planning kind of eight percent on
average historical record. So I'd say a ten percent HiT's
pretty damn good. And if you had enough money to
throw at it and you got ten percent return, I
can imagine you could at least accumulate millions of dollars.
(05:24):
Who among us has that kind of jack to throw
it a stock?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Though?
Speaker 3 (05:27):
And the point I would make to that is that
if that's how you run your money, then you probably
don't have that much money. If you're trying to swing
for the fences with every last move, you know, I
look at you even the the right now, the place
to have been all year long, you could have gotten
to your point you could have gotten double that plus
more since the beginning of the year just investing in
emerging markets indexes. Right, I'm not poopooing SpaceX. That's and
(05:49):
I'm dragging us into that segment before we're there. But
my only point is that that the reason the market
reacts so quickly to this is because that's what we're after.
Everything is speculative. What's it going to do before breakfast?
What's it going to do right around lunch? What's it
going to do by the end of the day. Not
are these goods and products and services that they sell?
Is this something that can be productive over the long haul?
That's what the market looks for now. So everything speculation.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
So am I to understand after all this and my
sort of comedic reference of price earnings ratios, which apparently
nobody looks at it anymore. It used to be a
guiding principle investing in suck. We now evaluation, right, I know.
So we now essentially lived in an immediate gratification meme
stock thing where you take a quick hit and then
dump real quick and move on with our lives.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, I mean, I really think over the long haul,
these are real companies behind this, But Elon Musk is
obviously not stupid. He knows how the market's going to react.
He knew very well that he could push it to
do what it did and push him over that trillionaire mark.
So now he gets to have that notch in his
in his belt. But yeah, I mean this is we
are a We don't deal well with delayed gratification anymore.
(06:55):
We want our bazilions and we want them right now.
And again that's why the IPO went on off the
way it did, because we just have this endless drive
to make a bazillion dollars tomorrow. So I didn't hear
a whole lot of buzz, you know it did, truthfully,
I mean my phone was not ringing off the hook
with people finding out that they really it's not that
easy to get into these IPOs and you're going to
have to jump through some hoops and you might not
(07:16):
get exactly what you what you wanted to and that
kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
So it does it seems a little different this time around.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Then it was when the first Internet boom about twenty
five thirty years ago, when I started in this industry,
that was everybody learned what an IPO was and how
it worked, and that it's not something that you just
walk to your corner store and get a hold of.
This one was a little bit more available than those
in the past, but well, I didn't hear the same
buzz about them clients.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
As you mentioned. We can bring that down a little
bit more in the next segment. I guess the bright
spot and this has been happening in advance of the
announcement over the weekend that they had reached this tentative,
you know, memorandum of agreement. Let's assume all that goes
forward and they will sit down at the table for
the next couple of months and try to hammer everything out. Great,
but the price of oils you pointed out the out
(08:00):
sis drop five percent, traded about what eighty two bucks
a barrel for Brent, And that's good, but we have
already been enjoying a lowering of gas prices. I mean this,
the drip and the dropping gas has preceded this announcement
by some weeks. Not dramatic drops, but at least we've
got the advantage of a cheaper gasoline. Is there something
behind that independent of whatever progress we're making with the Iranians?
Speaker 3 (08:25):
Again, pure speculation. The market felt like, and give you're right.
The market has been pricing this in for a while
and it kind of makes logical sense. Right, We're not
going to stay in this war forever. There is a
midterm election, so there's just no reason that any administration
is going to continue dragging a country through an unpopular
war within a while facing an election. So at some
point the market knows that this was going to unwind,
(08:46):
and so it began to speculate. Now we've had some
bounces and oil prices over the past several months since
the war began. That's the market giving as headfakes. It
always wants to try to anticipate what's coming next. It's
not always right. Eventually it will be now, just because
we're talking about this here here on Monday the fifteenth,
four days before this thing supposedly gets signed, who knows, Brian,
we can see that same bounce again if something goes
(09:07):
sideways and we decide we're going to back away.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
From the table. This is not done yet, but right
now we're in a good mood of that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
And if I was a betting man, Brian James, I'm
sorry to be a little jaded and cynical about this
actually hammer it working out. But I feel like we've
been down this road many many times over the last
four months. I'm praying that it does. That's not me
thinking I want a war to continue, but we just
seem to have been miles and miles and miles apart
up until now, and I just don't see it going now.
That being said, real quick, before we take the break,
(09:35):
if it does get resolved, considering you said, this has
been baked into the cake, people expect it to end
at some point. We shouldn't see a dramatic drop post resolution, then,
should we. If they've already factored a resolution and an
opening of a straight up horror moves into the into
into the equation. But I mean that won't be a
result in another dramatic drop, and we've got pent on paper.
Speaker 3 (09:56):
I wouldn't say dramatic, but I could see a slight
pullback off of it news because remember, remember how this
stuff works, We buy on the rumor and sell on
the news.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
That doesn't affect a.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
Long term financial plan because you shouldn't be behaving that
way anyway. But like I said, everything is about speculation,
so it wouldn't surprise me at all to see things
pull back just a bit, not enough to get your attention,
just an exhale, which will be the short term trades
from those super short term speculators unwinding their positions. That
wouldn't shock me in the least, but it doesn't change
what somebody should be doing with their long term plans.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
Fair enough, we'll dive into the SpaceX IPO one. Maybe
Brian can better explain a little from IPOs and why
they're happy to be challenging to get involved in. But
I'm I'm really kind of curious what SpaceX does and
going back to a price earnings ratio, they sell profitable product.
Is this going to be a long term good investment?
Who knows? Brian James can maybe shed some light on that.
Plus also coming ahead, one hundred tariffs on French wine.
(10:49):
M Where did that come from? Eight sixteen? Right now,
don't go away and be right back fifty five krc
our Iheartrated talk station, Hey, nineteen fifty about pir CD
talk station. Brian T Come us with Brian James. Well,
we're financial joins us to talk about money matters and
investing long term is really the ultimate goal here and
doing the right thing with your money is so very important.
If you stick to a strategy and you continue to
(11:11):
sock some away, you are going to get a return
on your investment in the markets and pivoting over back
to SpaceX, I guess I seem to be a bit
of a traditionalist. I know there's meme stocks and markets
and things like that. We were just talking about it.
But if I was interested in participating in an independent
public offering which you can mention down the road here,
I would look and see what does SpaceX do? What
(11:33):
are the products, where's the demand coming from? Is this
something that's going to generate profit and income long term?
And apparently if Elon Musk is behind it, probably is.
He's got a pretty damn good track record for making money.
So evil trillionaire are is this a good company if
you'd looked at it from a traditional standpoint. Brian James
and I seem to have lost Joe Strecker as well.
(11:55):
It's a part of the room. While I'm supposed to
be talking with Brian James. I apologize, folks. We'll see
when Joe comes back. We might be able to get
him back on the horn, because it's very interested in
knowing about that. So anyhow, apologies. Now I've got to
regroup here and figure out what the hell I'm gonna talk. Oh,
I can talk about this, Yeah, something I wanted to
bring up with Brian James. I saw this article authored
(12:16):
by Peter Daisy Me no idea, but it was an
interesting thing. And this is where I think long term
investment strategy can really work for you, as long as
you just say no to maybe the frivolous, and notably,
Peter starts out with, you know, I know a person
that drives a twenty eighteen camera that happens to be
(12:37):
the wealthiest person I know. You know it three properties,
has two million dollars in investment accounts, and could buy
any car on any lot without even blinking. He chooses
not to, and his explanation is both simple and profound.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
A car is a tool that takes you from one
place to another. Everything beyond that is a payment for
other people perception of you now being a car guy.
I may take some issue with that, but that's because
I happen to be a car guy, one little category
in my life that I'm willing to spend more on
because of what I get out of it. Driving performance
and cornering and handling an acceleration are all really important
(13:16):
things to me because I really don't have any other hobbies.
So we'll call that my little extravagance in my life.
But for the most part, you're gonna find me buying,
you know, designer label clothes. And I've used this illustration
so many times. I'm as sick that I do it.
Like women who's paid, maybe even men who buy ten
thousand dollars five thousand dollars purses, it has no more
(13:37):
functionality than a plastic bag from Kroger. And I know
you don't what to hear me, now I can, Brian James,
sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
You didn't I didn't go anywhere.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
All of a sudden I was talking and just just
unleashing some fascinating nuggets about space action.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Suddenly you weren't there, dead air I did. Sure.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
None of my listening audience didn't hear a word you said, Brian.
I apologize for that. I don't know where Joe is,
but we got you back on there. You can just
real quick here. I was talking about people's priorities and
where they spend money, because this is like a financial
planner's dream. This article I read and I wanted to
bring it up to you since I already started about it.
We can clump everything else in the next segment. But
you know why spend heap loads of money on things
(14:17):
that don't do anything but impress other people? Bringing up
you a person leasing a seventy thousand dollars suv.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
You might have a.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
Negative net worth, you know. Meanwhile, there's a person with
one point five million in the bank, wearing jeans he
bought from Target, driving a paid off Honda, and eating
dinner at home. These day to day choices. Expensive coffee
came up, and I've used that illustration a million times.
I've done the math. My two pound bag of costco
I've calculated out. I know how many pots of coffee
I can make. I know how many cups make in
(14:44):
each pot, and I know that I multiply that times
the five bucks I'd pay at Starbucks if I went there.
I'm getting a hell of a deal with the twenty
bucks I spend for two pounds of coffee. And I
don't feel that I'm suffering at all. There's so many
areas of our lives where we will overspend almost with
the idea we're just doing it to impress someone else,
and that apparently is a major major pitfall and hurdle
(15:06):
for people to be on the right financial path for retirement. Brian,
I hate to put you on the spot on that,
but I did want to bring it up.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh no, that's not the spot at all. That's my job, right.
You just described to my day to day.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
So yeah, I would say there's a lot of people
out there who you know, just as much as there
are people who can't lift the hood of a car
and name a single component, there are people who cannot
do that with money. Those people have extraordinary strong skills
in other areas, but they simply don't put two and
two together when it comes. I'll give you an example.
So sometimes people will come in, we'll do a financial plan,
and they'll say, we'll go through what are all your expenses?
(15:40):
And they'll say, well, here, the mortgage is this, or
the rent is that, but that's covered by this income
over there, so I don't count that as an expense.
And my answer to that, and this might be like
a three four thousand dollars payment, Sometimes my answer to
that is, why are we not counting it?
Speaker 2 (15:51):
It's an expense.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
I know it's covered by some kind of income, but
we're talking about all of your spending. People have a
way of compartmentalizing. This expense doesn't count because there's because
it's nothing I can do about it. I can't adjust
it anyway, and it's covered by this ex payment that
I get, So therefore we're going to ignore that. And
so yeah, you kind of have to tear the band
aid off and pull it back. And I would also
say this goes back a little bit too. You know
what we like to refer to as the American dream.
(16:13):
Everybody you know the American dream, of course is having
a house and a stable life and all that kind
of stuff. Well what if your neighbor moves in and
all of a sudden they have a nicer house, right
then am I living the same American dreamers?
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It a different American dream. It's just a human reaction.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
And we live in a country where it is possible,
it's easier to better your standing in this country than
anywhere else, and that that sounds great, but it does
have its negatives, which is keeping up with the joneses.
Speaker 2 (16:38):
That's what you're really referring to. But see they really
really don't like when we're behind.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
We let someone else's perception defind what our dream should be.
You know, the the greatest dream I ever had in
my life was just to be content and comfortable and
not have to worry about my retirement, you know, and
running around chasing after things that are you know, out
of your reach. Or we always bought, you know how
that were affordable, maybe a little bit smaller, maybe not
(17:03):
as nice a neighborhood, but it was fine enough for
my wife and me. This seemed like logical choices to me,
And I think, I don't live my life for someone else,
And I guess I struggled with the concept that that's
what a lot of us do. And I know this
is a criticism of capitalism sort of kind of, but
capitalism is designed to build the best products for the
best price. There's competition out in the world. That way,
(17:23):
you can acquire what you actually might need, what might
fulfill your version of the dream. But if you're buying
it just because somebody else is going to be envious
of you, at least believe that, then you're making a
bad decision. You're living their life for them and probably
suffering from it mightily.
Speaker 3 (17:39):
Now, Yeah, I read a book about this a long
time ago that that actually this goes back to the
wh when human beings learned how to farm stuff, because
before that we were hunter gatherers, and if you ran
across a nasty bunch, you just wandered somewhere else. But
once we've learned how to farm stuff, we had to
have land. You can't move off that land, and if
somebody else comes in and wants a chunk of that land,
well now you have to fight them for it. I
(18:00):
think that was the very very beginning of making sure
I have carved out my place and making sure I'm
keeping up with, you know, the joneses of whatever band
is about to wander on to my farmland. Because that
also gave us the ability to have free time. Right
when you're doing nothing but wandering around the woods looking
for food, you don't have a lot of free time.
But when you build a system to provide food in
an ongoing manner, then all of a sudden, you have
(18:21):
free time. And that's where we get arked and all
these other things. But over thousands of years, I think
that has morphed into the idea that I have to
have something better than somebody else, or I can't be comfortable.
That's not everybody, that's not you, that's not a lot
of the people listening out here. But oh my gosh,
does capitalism want to take advantage.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Of KRC the talk station?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Hey thirty one, if you have kercd talk station, Brian James, Monday,
Monday doing that day and real quick, since we had
that communication breakdown, I was asking, you know, what does
SpaceX do like? If I was looking at it from
an old school practical do I really want to invest
in it as opposed to a mean perception? The products?
Are they generally in demand kind of thing? Is it
going to be a very profitable company? Because usually what
(19:03):
Elon Musk touches it turns to gold.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
Brian, my old school profitability, I don't even know what
those words mean anymore, Brian Thommas. So yes, SpaceX is
a real company, of course. And what I mean by that,
I'm I'm juxtaposing it with the the the AMC Theater
and game Stop and all those kinds of things also
real companies doing real things.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
But this is a little bit different.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
The herd is still chasing SpaceX as much as you
chase those meme stocks for sure, and that's going to
run for a while. But let's look at some details
behind it. So before the IPO, remember IPO stands for
initial public offering, before it's publicly offered, it is of
course private, which means you don't get to know a
ton about it. But the espates where revenues were about
thirty five to forty billion dollars annually IBADAB about fifteen
(19:45):
to eighteen billion, net income eight to twelve, these are
all good things starlink, right, those things that you see
running across the sky in a line that look really
cool and people think they're alien invasions because they haven't
seen one yet. That is believed to account for more
than half their total profits. Launch services, that's what they're
most famous for. That's what we think of. Launch services
are high growth, but Starlink has become the primary profit
(20:06):
engine there. So that makes SpaceX kind of unusual because
it came public as the company was already generating significant
cash flow. Cash Flow does not equal profitability, of course,
So where we are right now, so at a two
point one trillion dollar valuation, investors are paying roughly fifty
to sixty times earnings or twelve to fifteen times revenue.
(20:27):
Those are extremely aggressive multiples, you know, even for a
mature company.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
So that's what we're getting at.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well fair enough, Brian, We'll see how it goes. And
you know, why is it so hard to get your
foot in the door on an ipo? Generally speaking? Anyway,
the commonclave are never invited or rarely.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Invited supplying demand and men it's literally just what is
the availability and the fact that people could get to
this one at all. I saw the online quotes from
people talking about how they went through say Fidelity, and
they asked for you know, whatever they asked for, you know,
one hundred percent of their shares, they maybe got eight percent.
It was a small fraction of what they truly wanted
(21:04):
to buy. And it's just got to do with everybody
once in therefore, that drives the price up, which you know,
that's why we're talking about it today, that's why it's
such a big headline. But because so many people want it,
not everybody can get it. And this is we've seen this,
of course with a lot of these other big IPOs.
That's not a new part of all of this. That
has always happened. It's tough to.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Get in on these things.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
Who was really in it, of course, it's the institutional companies,
and frankly the biggest of the big were in it before, right.
So it went public at you know, the price, it
went public at one hundred and thirty five, but it
was first available right, so as soon as it was
available to trade, it was one hundred and fifty. So
if you were not on the ends at the one
thirty five, then the soonest you could have got it
was one hundred and fifty.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Fair enough. And I suppose if you are in one
of those big mutual funds and traded multi stock traded
funds like your investors using, you probably got a chunk
of it in your portfolio somewhere, at least I speculate that. Anyhow,
Brian James, real quick, maybe going back to the point
I made earlier about what do you really need it?
Is it worth the extra money? And I got one
of my good friends is one of the top tier
(22:07):
saumiers in the world, and I'm sure there's a lot
of French wines he likes. But you know what, I
know a lot of really good California wines that I
don't have to worry about if we tax or we
tear a French wines at one hundred percent. What's the
motivation behind that? And I guess is are we really
going to be hurt by this at all?
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Well, this is less about wine and more about digital businesses.
So this is about who gets to tax the profits
of digital businesses. So the headline part is wine because
that does hit people, you know where they might live
and they'll pay attention to that.
Speaker 2 (22:38):
Yeah, So the threat is one hundred.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Percent tariffs on French wine champagne unless France for peals.
It's digital services tax that is hitting big companies like Google, Amazon, Apple,
Meta and so forth. So you know, the traditionally tax
systems were built around factories, stores, physical presence, that kind
of thing.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Tech companies can.
Speaker 3 (22:55):
Generate billions in revenue without setting foot in a country,
can stuck a lot of money out and not have
to pay any taxes. So European governments argue that that
tax code has not kept up with.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
A digital economy and how it all works.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
The US says, yeah, but no big deal, because it's
kind of cool we can make all this money. So
there are they're arguing that taxes disproportionately target American firms
and amount to a disguised tariff, which, eh, I can
kind of see what they're saying, because of course these
companies do happen to have been started in the United States.
But I can also see if I'm a country who
is seeing a lot of revenue and dollars exiting my borders,
(23:30):
I might want to react to that.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
So therefore I guess they've put some new taxes in place.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Yeah, Brian, why do you think they started here as
opposed to France in the first place. I think we
have a better economic environment for businesses generally speaking, anyway,
maybe that's the reason.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
We absolutely do.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
And you know, again, like we were talking about earlier,
there's pros and constant capitalism, but that's one of the
big pros.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
This is the place where you.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Can get an awful lot of favors and tax deductions,
you get you get rules around how debt works, all
that kind of stuff is different whenever you hear you
know that, Why why companies want to come to the
United States, Why people want to come to the United States.
You've got the most leverage, the most ability to take
advantage of a system that is built around build something
and make it bigger.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Well, and you also have an administration that's willing to
step up to the plate levy taxes on foreign companies
or foreign countries that might levy taxes on your American
based business.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
That helps.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
That's worth a lot of money in and of itself.
Brian James, thank you so much.
Brian Thomas News
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.