May 22, 2025 • 12 mins
Host of ‘How to Money’ Joel Larsgaard joins the show to talk about people spending way too much money on news & newsletters, whether higher education s really valuable, and what Moody’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating means for your money.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It is time for Joel Larsguard and How to Money.
Joel has heard Sunday's here twelve to two pm. If
you want to reach him, his address is at how
to Money Joel. Good morning, Joel.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I think it's your award winning board op and your
award winning guests that really bring this show into award
winning territory.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
You know, it's wea that helped make your show so great.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You know, first of all, in terms of thanking everybody
else other than me, I'm surprised I can actually hear
you and understand you, because I thought you'd be talking
like this because your head is so far up someone's book.
But not too much. Thank you for all the credit,
all right, Joel heard every Sunday as I said, twelve
(00:42):
to two pm. And so let's get into some topics here.
One is that you gave me. People are spending way
too much money on news newsletters. And when I think
of newsletters, and this goes back years, the only subscription
I ever had to a newsletter, of course, was a
hard newsletter that came in the mail. But how big
a deal is a newsletter when you can get everything
(01:04):
and anything for free on the internet. Anyway, how do
people subscribe?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, it's amazing because it's one of those things where
I don't know that I could have predicted this five
or six years ago, and it seemed like everything was
going towards free and social media and everything was going
to be ad supported because, my goodness, no one was
willing to pay for news anymore. The Internet had broken
the ability to pay for stuff. It's almost kind of
like when when Napster made downloading music and movies free,
(01:35):
and it's like, how are you going to get this
genie back in the bottle? Well, when it comes to
a lot of high end writing, that the genie has
been put back in the bottle and people are paying
for subscriptions, whether it's to you know, a newspaper or
in particular a lot of different substack accounts. And what's
so fascinating about it is that people are paying fifty
(01:55):
to one hundred dollars a year to read the stuff
that they're favored all others are putting out there. I'm
thinking about like one of my favorite economists, for instance,
has a substack, and he's prolific. He's writing all the time,
and a lot of the stuff that he writes is free,
but then some of it's behind the paywall, and if
I want to read everything that he writes, well then
I got to pay the man. And so substack has
(02:16):
like flourished, and it's really allowed a flourishing of creators
to write content and get paid for writing that content
that they otherwise just didn't have. Like substack has really
facilitated this new way of writers to interact with the
people who want to read their stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, but I'm assuming it's pretty rarefied air unless you
are a huge fan of the writer. And usually I'm
guessing as financial or maybe entertainment. I don't know, but
usually financial. Certainly that was in my world. You just
you used to get it for free and you still do,
(02:51):
You're right, and then the substack behind it. But when
you talk about these enormously successful podcasters, for example, tens
of millions, hundreds of millions of listeners viewers on cable
for example, or on the internet, a lot of are
they moving towards subscription are they moving away from it?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So you know, it depends on the podcast and some
podcasts are have really signed up for the ad supported model,
but others are following this substack model too, and they're saying, hey,
half of the podcasts that we release are free, and
it kind of wets the appetite. But once we've kind
of got you hooked, then if you want the rest
of the stuff that we're creating you, yeah, we want
(03:35):
you to pay us the money to get those. And
and for the consumer, they might say, we've seen this
too with streaming, where people are like, hey, yeah, well
I could pay less and watch a bunch of ads, but.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And so I think some consumers are more than happy
to pay one to support their favorite creators, but then
on top of that to be able to avoid ads
completely and to get that extra content. And so it's
it's leading to this thing where gosh, talk about subscription
fatigue in our culture. We're in this place where when
more and more people are writing great stuff or creating
(04:08):
great content that you're interested in, that we're signing up
for so many newsletters or so many you know, substack
accounts for podcasters that we love, that we forget how
much we're spending on a recurring basis. And it turns
out some people are spending so much that they're forgetting like, well, yeah,
how much is it? What damage is this doing to
my budget? And by the way, it's hard for those
(04:29):
folks to actually read or consume all the content that
they've signed up for too.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Hey, can they make enough money just on selling the
information for people that go on to the newsletter and
selling it to advertisers, data data mining, that sort of thing.
Still keep it commercial free or subscription free and they
can do okay simply with the number of people that
log on.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Are you are they? Are you asking? Can people make
a living there? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I do they? Is that part of Is that a
model two that works so far? We're talking about free,
we're talking about with ads and then monetizing with no
ads whatsoever, and not paying a subscription and not selling subscriptions.
Is there enough money to be made simply by being
there and having enough downloads to where you've got the
(05:20):
platform be it Facebook or Instagram where just the number
of people themselves watching, there's enough money.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
To be made.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Maybe not from the newsletter perspective, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I mean there's a reason that some of the platforms
have at different times paid users to create on those
platforms to try to get people to stick around and
they're saying, hey, like, if we have the great creators
putting out awesome content, whether it's on Facebook or it's
on Twitter or something, there have at times been been
efforts by these tech companies to pay those creators to
(05:54):
stick around and create specifically on that platform to make
it stickier.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So yeah, I think that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
But from a from like an individual creator perspective, usually
you have to find out one of those models, right that, yeah,
we're're actually gonna get paid.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, And the model that I'm really loving now is
that you're paying a monthly subscription to have commercials thrown
at you on the various platforms watching TV, Netflix, Paramount plus,
Disney plus crazy stuff. Joel. Higher education, and it's one
of those things that it was a given you went
(06:27):
to you went to college, or at least I went
to college. I mean literally, I knew I was going
to college from the time I was five years old,
six years old. There was no issue. And of course
vocational training was all for the losers, you know, the
guys who weren't very smart. They would do wood shop,
they would do auto shop, and boy, those days have
(06:48):
changed dramatically. They turn out to be the smarter ones.
So let's talk about the value of higher education, because
I've heard both ways. One it's not worth it, or
it is worth it the long run, notwithstanding the cost.
Your comments.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Okay, So I think it's two things at once, right.
I think there's like a happy middle, and so much
depends on the individual as well, and so much depends
on what you're paying to go to college. So there
was this article in the Wall Street Journal, and it
highlights something that's been just increasingly true over the past decade,
which it was basically talking about how high school juniors
(07:26):
are getting job offers of seventy thousand bucks from companies
because hey, they're good with their hands, they are good
at welding, right, or they've got good shop experience. And
so because of this dearth of blue collar workers in
some of these important industries, we're starting to see like companies,
(07:47):
local companies come in and say, hey.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
You're pretty good at chop class.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Hey we're gonna actually we're gonna offer you a job
that you can start right when you graduate high school,
or hey, come and intern with us this summer. It's
amazing to think that kids are avoiding college, avoiding college
that starting off on a path with pretty good pay,
like above average American pay from the get go, right
after they graduate high school, and it just shows just
(08:12):
how much companies need kids like that with those kind
of skills. And it does throw a little bit of
cold water, at least on the idea that you have
to go to college. I mean, some of the stats
still remain that the average person, the average student who
graduates from college is going to make a million dollars
more over their lifetime. But again it's so nuanced. And
(08:34):
how much bet are you taking on and what are
your other alternatives? Those are really important questions too.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
What I have what I'm not hearing is the ceiling
that blue collar workers make. I mean, they make a
good living. So you walk into a job at seventy
seventy five thousand dollars, you're not going to make more
than one hundred and twenty five thousand or one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars because there is a limit to
(09:00):
physical labor doing technical jobs. And we don't hear much
about that. And I guess in college there is no
limit unless you're a teacher, unless you're a social worker,
and that takes college I don't know if we exempt
those people, but you know, what are your thoughts on
that one?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Well, so I think you might be right in one way.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But then if you if you want to be a
business builder in some of those blue collar professions, there's
the sky's the limit. There was a there was another
article I read the other day basically talking about how
some of the richest people under the radar rich people
in this country have started, you know, small to medium
sized businesses that are that are expanding to becoming like
(09:40):
a regional business in really boring industries, right like flooring
manufacturing or something like that. And so you could get
in the be in the blue collar field and yeah,
maybe those first few years you're making seventy eighty thousand dollars,
but you're you know, your compatriots are over there in college,
racking up forty in student loan debt, and they might
(10:02):
have a ceiling based on the profession they choose. Point,
and you might say, hey, I'm gonna build a business
out of my skill instead of just like working for
a wage every single year. So I think you're right
in one sense, but in the other sense, blue collar
workers can build a pretty cool business and employ other
people and build something meaningful and long lasting too.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know, one of the things I really enjoy about
you being on the show and doing the How To
Money segment is when I ask you a question and
you answer with Bill, you may be right, but you
also may be wrong. And Bill, you know you have
a point, but then you also don't have a point
(10:41):
that makes it makes it for a really good, good segment.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know that job I see the world in shades
of gray, Bill, and so it I mean, there's a
you always have to take all of the the all
the information into account. And so when I think of
when I tell people about what to think about going
to college, you have to think, well, what are you
gonna do that degree? And how much debt are you
going to take on to get the education? And you
have to really have those are big trade offs to make.
(11:06):
And so for people who go to one of the
most expensive colleges in the United States and they don't
have much financial aid and you're talking about graduating with
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in student loan debt,
well you better have a really good idea of what
you're going to do with that degree. And then it's
going to produce a significant income for you. And then
on the flip side, if you're like, I don't know
if I want to go to college, but hey, I've
got a lot of scholarships and I can go for
(11:27):
practically free, well then yeah, why not throw it against
the wall and see if it sticks. You can always
do blue collar work later on. But for a lot
of kids who are good with their hands, and that's
kind of the direction they want to go in. Anyway,
there are paths, more clear paths available to making money
than there were fifteen, twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
All Right, we're changing the format here, Joel. Starting next week.
Here's what I want to do. I come up with
any kind of a statement of fact or opinion. You
come back with that's right, Bill, And then I come
back with an another one and you answer with, you know, Bill,
you are absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I can do this.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Good. But that means Joel is actually going to be
here next week. Joel, you have a good one this
Sunday twelve to two. How to Money always a good show.
Catch over the weekend, Joel, and of course next week too.
It is time for Joel Larsguard and How to Money.
Joel has heard Sunday's here twelve to two pm. If
you want to reach him, his address is at how
to Money Joel. Good morning, Joel.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I think it's your award winning board op and your
award winning guests that really bring this show into award
winning territory.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
You know, it's wea that helped make your show so great.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
You know, first of all, in terms of thanking everybody
else other than me, I'm surprised I can actually hear
you and understand you, because I thought you'd be talking
like this because your head is so far up someone's book.
But not too much. Thank you for all the credit,
all right, Joel heard every Sunday as I said, twelve
(00:42):
to two pm. And so let's get into some topics here.
One is that you gave me. People are spending way
too much money on news newsletters. And when I think
of newsletters, and this goes back years, the only subscription
I ever had to a newsletter, of course, was a
hard newsletter that came in the mail. But how big
a deal is a newsletter when you can get everything
(01:04):
and anything for free on the internet. Anyway, how do
people subscribe?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, it's amazing because it's one of those things where
I don't know that I could have predicted this five
or six years ago, and it seemed like everything was
going towards free and social media and everything was going
to be ad supported because, my goodness, no one was
willing to pay for news anymore. The Internet had broken
the ability to pay for stuff. It's almost kind of
like when when Napster made downloading music and movies free,
(01:35):
and it's like, how are you going to get this
genie back in the bottle? Well, when it comes to
a lot of high end writing, that the genie has
been put back in the bottle and people are paying
for subscriptions, whether it's to you know, a newspaper or
in particular a lot of different substack accounts. And what's
so fascinating about it is that people are paying fifty
(01:55):
to one hundred dollars a year to read the stuff
that they're favored all others are putting out there. I'm
thinking about like one of my favorite economists, for instance,
has a substack, and he's prolific. He's writing all the time,
and a lot of the stuff that he writes is free,
but then some of it's behind the paywall, and if
I want to read everything that he writes, well then
I got to pay the man. And so substack has
(02:16):
like flourished, and it's really allowed a flourishing of creators
to write content and get paid for writing that content
that they otherwise just didn't have. Like substack has really
facilitated this new way of writers to interact with the
people who want to read their stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Yeah, but I'm assuming it's pretty rarefied air unless you
are a huge fan of the writer. And usually I'm
guessing as financial or maybe entertainment. I don't know, but
usually financial. Certainly that was in my world. You just
you used to get it for free and you still do,
(02:51):
You're right, and then the substack behind it. But when
you talk about these enormously successful podcasters, for example, tens
of millions, hundreds of millions of listeners viewers on cable
for example, or on the internet, a lot of are
they moving towards subscription are they moving away from it?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
So you know, it depends on the podcast and some
podcasts are have really signed up for the ad supported model,
but others are following this substack model too, and they're saying, hey,
half of the podcasts that we release are free, and
it kind of wets the appetite. But once we've kind
of got you hooked, then if you want the rest
of the stuff that we're creating you, yeah, we want
(03:35):
you to pay us the money to get those. And
and for the consumer, they might say, we've seen this
too with streaming, where people are like, hey, yeah, well
I could pay less and watch a bunch of ads, but.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And so I think some consumers are more than happy
to pay one to support their favorite creators, but then
on top of that to be able to avoid ads
completely and to get that extra content. And so it's
it's leading to this thing where gosh, talk about subscription
fatigue in our culture. We're in this place where when
more and more people are writing great stuff or creating
(04:08):
great content that you're interested in, that we're signing up
for so many newsletters or so many you know, substack
accounts for podcasters that we love, that we forget how
much we're spending on a recurring basis. And it turns
out some people are spending so much that they're forgetting like, well, yeah,
how much is it? What damage is this doing to
my budget? And by the way, it's hard for those
(04:29):
folks to actually read or consume all the content that
they've signed up for too.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Hey, can they make enough money just on selling the
information for people that go on to the newsletter and
selling it to advertisers, data data mining, that sort of thing.
Still keep it commercial free or subscription free and they
can do okay simply with the number of people that
log on.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Are you are they? Are you asking? Can people make
a living there? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I do they? Is that part of Is that a
model two that works so far? We're talking about free,
we're talking about with ads and then monetizing with no
ads whatsoever, and not paying a subscription and not selling subscriptions.
Is there enough money to be made simply by being
there and having enough downloads to where you've got the
(05:20):
platform be it Facebook or Instagram where just the number
of people themselves watching, there's enough money.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
To be made.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Maybe not from the newsletter perspective, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I mean there's a reason that some of the platforms
have at different times paid users to create on those
platforms to try to get people to stick around and
they're saying, hey, like, if we have the great creators
putting out awesome content, whether it's on Facebook or it's
on Twitter or something, there have at times been been
efforts by these tech companies to pay those creators to
(05:54):
stick around and create specifically on that platform to make
it stickier.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
So yeah, I think that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
But from a from like an individual creator perspective, usually
you have to find out one of those models, right that, yeah,
we're're actually gonna get paid.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, And the model that I'm really loving now is
that you're paying a monthly subscription to have commercials thrown
at you on the various platforms watching TV, Netflix, Paramount plus,
Disney plus crazy stuff. Joel. Higher education, and it's one
of those things that it was a given you went
(06:27):
to you went to college, or at least I went
to college. I mean literally, I knew I was going
to college from the time I was five years old,
six years old. There was no issue. And of course
vocational training was all for the losers, you know, the
guys who weren't very smart. They would do wood shop,
they would do auto shop, and boy, those days have
(06:48):
changed dramatically. They turn out to be the smarter ones.
So let's talk about the value of higher education, because
I've heard both ways. One it's not worth it, or
it is worth it the long run, notwithstanding the cost.
Your comments.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Okay, So I think it's two things at once, right.
I think there's like a happy middle, and so much
depends on the individual as well, and so much depends
on what you're paying to go to college. So there
was this article in the Wall Street Journal, and it
highlights something that's been just increasingly true over the past decade,
which it was basically talking about how high school juniors
(07:26):
are getting job offers of seventy thousand bucks from companies
because hey, they're good with their hands, they are good
at welding, right, or they've got good shop experience. And
so because of this dearth of blue collar workers in
some of these important industries, we're starting to see like companies,
(07:47):
local companies come in and say, hey.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
You're pretty good at chop class.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
Hey we're gonna actually we're gonna offer you a job
that you can start right when you graduate high school,
or hey, come and intern with us this summer. It's
amazing to think that kids are avoiding college, avoiding college
that starting off on a path with pretty good pay,
like above average American pay from the get go, right
after they graduate high school, and it just shows just
(08:12):
how much companies need kids like that with those kind
of skills. And it does throw a little bit of
cold water, at least on the idea that you have
to go to college. I mean, some of the stats
still remain that the average person, the average student who
graduates from college is going to make a million dollars
more over their lifetime. But again it's so nuanced. And
(08:34):
how much bet are you taking on and what are
your other alternatives? Those are really important questions too.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
What I have what I'm not hearing is the ceiling
that blue collar workers make. I mean, they make a
good living. So you walk into a job at seventy
seventy five thousand dollars, you're not going to make more
than one hundred and twenty five thousand or one hundred
and thirty thousand dollars because there is a limit to
(09:00):
physical labor doing technical jobs. And we don't hear much
about that. And I guess in college there is no
limit unless you're a teacher, unless you're a social worker,
and that takes college I don't know if we exempt
those people, but you know, what are your thoughts on
that one?
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Well, so I think you might be right in one way.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
But then if you if you want to be a
business builder in some of those blue collar professions, there's
the sky's the limit. There was a there was another
article I read the other day basically talking about how
some of the richest people under the radar rich people
in this country have started, you know, small to medium
sized businesses that are that are expanding to becoming like
(09:40):
a regional business in really boring industries, right like flooring
manufacturing or something like that. And so you could get
in the be in the blue collar field and yeah,
maybe those first few years you're making seventy eighty thousand dollars,
but you're you know, your compatriots are over there in college,
racking up forty in student loan debt, and they might
(10:02):
have a ceiling based on the profession they choose. Point,
and you might say, hey, I'm gonna build a business
out of my skill instead of just like working for
a wage every single year. So I think you're right
in one sense, but in the other sense, blue collar
workers can build a pretty cool business and employ other
people and build something meaningful and long lasting too.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
You know, one of the things I really enjoy about
you being on the show and doing the How To
Money segment is when I ask you a question and
you answer with Bill, you may be right, but you
also may be wrong. And Bill, you know you have
a point, but then you also don't have a point
(10:41):
that makes it makes it for a really good, good segment.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
You know that job I see the world in shades
of gray, Bill, and so it I mean, there's a
you always have to take all of the the all
the information into account. And so when I think of
when I tell people about what to think about going
to college, you have to think, well, what are you
gonna do that degree? And how much debt are you
going to take on to get the education? And you
have to really have those are big trade offs to make.
(11:06):
And so for people who go to one of the
most expensive colleges in the United States and they don't
have much financial aid and you're talking about graduating with
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars in student loan debt,
well you better have a really good idea of what
you're going to do with that degree. And then it's
going to produce a significant income for you. And then
on the flip side, if you're like, I don't know
if I want to go to college, but hey, I've
got a lot of scholarships and I can go for
(11:27):
practically free, well then yeah, why not throw it against
the wall and see if it sticks. You can always
do blue collar work later on. But for a lot
of kids who are good with their hands, and that's
kind of the direction they want to go in. Anyway,
there are paths, more clear paths available to making money
than there were fifteen, twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
All Right, we're changing the format here, Joel. Starting next week.
Here's what I want to do. I come up with
any kind of a statement of fact or opinion. You
come back with that's right, Bill, And then I come
back with an another one and you answer with, you know, Bill,
you are absolutely right.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I can do this.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Good. But that means Joel is actually going to be
here next week. Joel, you have a good one this
Sunday twelve to two. How to Money always a good show.
Catch over the weekend, Joel, and of course next week too.
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