Financial Issues - 07.24.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Financial Issues, where we join reality with truth,
helping you make the most of your money by honoring
God with your investments. Now listen man, as we give
you the practical tools and advice you need to become
a biblically responsible investor.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Good morning everyone, Welcome to Financial Issues. It is wonderful
to be here. Seth Ydnski hanging with you this hour.
Thankful for each of you, folks, Thanks for choosing to
spend your Thursday morning with us here.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
Great to have you this morning.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
We have a conference call scheduled for later today one
pm Eastern Time twelve pm Central time. Again, if you
miss that conference call today twelve pm Central time, one
pm Eastern time, I hope you'll join us. You should
have received an email with the conference call information. If
you miss that email, you can either check your spam folder,
or you can go onto the website. If you're a

(00:56):
partner the partner side of the website, click the conference
call button and the information for today's conference call should
be up there. It's both the calling information and the
access code. So I hope every single one of you,
if you're a partner, will join us today. If you're
not a partner. You can become one right now, and
you can join that conference call as well. You can
also take a listen to it afterwards. If you can't
join us today, I understand some of you might not
be able to make it. Not a problem. We'll post

(01:17):
it as soon as we're able to, probably later this afternoon,
so make sure that you make provisions to do that.
Wonderful to have you. I appreciate each of you this morning.
Thanks for joining us, whether you're listening on the radio
your morning, driving to work perhaps, or watching on television
social media. Happy to have you all, and on our
chat as well. Hello Chat family. Good to see you guys.

Speaker 4 (01:34):
Hey.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Later in the program, a nationally syndicated speaker and author
Alex McFarland is going to join me to discuss the
absolutely bonkers worldview surrounding the controversial new Democratic mayoral candidate
in the Big Apple Zoron Mom Donnie. We've talked about
Zoron at length on this show. We're going to get
Alex's take on this. I'm excited for you, gonna want
to stay tuned for that. Also, Joel Noble of Smart

(01:56):
Ministry is going to join me to discuss the latest
news concerning health, shafaring freedom. You don't want to miss
that as well. We got your partner questions and comments
coming up as well, and we'll hit some news headlines
early in the morning. There's been a flurry of headlines
to get to, so we'll try to get to them quickly.
Here once again, let me just remind you, folks, and
I apologize for the repetition, but we have a conference
call today.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Don't miss it.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Conference call one pm Eastern Time, twelve pm Central time.
Let's open our show in the scriptures, folks, Proverbs twenty two,
verse four says, by humility and the fear of the
Lord are riches and honor and life. I hope you
can be encouraged by this here, folks, that there is
a way to get riches and honor and life. The way, though,

(02:37):
is by humility and fear of the Lord. That means
being obedient to his word. And what I'm not saying
here is the prosperity Gospel, where if you're obedient to God,
he is then required to give you all the health,
wealth and happiness that your heart desires in this world.
What this verse is talking about is true riches, true honor,
true life, which really comes in eternity, and by God's

(02:58):
grace he gives us little bits of that here also,
depending on.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
His grace. It's up to him, it's not up to us.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
God gives as he pleases, and he blesses his people
as he pleases. He gives us what we need, and
I think most importantly, he gives us a contentment and
satisfaction in Him. That's my prayer for each of you
this morning, that by the humility and fear of the
Lord that you exhibit, you would experience true contentment and
satisfaction in Christ. That's a sweet gift, really is all right?

(03:26):
The markets yesterday, let's move there. So we saw some
good news. The United States new trade deal with Japan broke,
and the markets opened the day relatively strong. By midday,
all three indices were in the green. The Dow Jones
was winning. It was continuing its benchmark leading ways from Tuesday. Meanwhile,
the S and P five hundred hit another record in
the afternoon, and the Dow Jones was closing in on

(03:48):
a full percentage game. That's where they ended yesterday. Wednesday's
closing bell saw a good day for the markets. The
Dow Jones was up over a full percent, the S
and P up almost four fifths of a percent, hitting
that new record in the Nasdaq was more than half
a percent as well, So a good finish there for
the markets. Pre markets this morning, they are a little
bit mixed right now. They're kind of digesting a lot

(04:08):
of things. The dal Jones is currently down, the S
and P five hundred is currently at the flatline, and
the Nasdaq currently up around at fifth of a percent.
Let me just refresh my screen here so I can
give you the most up to date readings. So part
of the reason for that is there was some earnings
that broke yesterday, which we'll get to that in a
little bit, folks. But our top story today I thought

(04:30):
was kind of fascinating. So yesterday it appeared that the
meme lords were at it again, so shares of Crispy
Kreme and go Pro skyrocketed thanks to a swath of
retail traders. This happens from time to time where this
group of kind of I guess you could call them
troublemaker investors. I don't know if you really even call
them investors, more like traders will target a relatively cheap

(04:55):
stock and they'll mass buy into it and try to
drive the price of it up. So apparently that happened yesterday.
Reddit obsessed retail traders targeted wearable camera firm go Pro
and donut maker Krispy Kreme on Wednesday. They pushed shares
up around twenty percent eleven percent, respectively in morning trading,
so the cohort seemed to have already ditched their old

(05:16):
love open door. They did this with them a little earlier,
shares were falling around twenty two percent following a pretty
wild speculative run. It's interesting because both of these holdings
that we mentioned, GoPro and Krispy Kreme, they typically hang
at or close to penny stock territory. The donut maker
was trading slightly higher than the camera manufacturer and valuation

(05:36):
per share. According to my research, many of these rabble
rousers are using Wall Street Bets, which is the same
online forum that helped fuel the infamous twenty twenty one
run up of game Stop stock. So that was really
kind of the first of these meme stock run ups
that we saw in the modern era. What do we
make of this, folks, Well, let me just say this

(05:56):
right off the bat, there is something comical about the
ability of these troublemakers seemingly just for fun. It seems
like they just do it for enjoyment, certainly not to
do long term investing, and we'll talk about that in
a moment. They just like making some noise. They band together,
they cause brief rallies on cheap stocks. It's kind of
you know. I liken it to the same idea of

(06:17):
the craze around fail videos on YouTube. There was a
show back in the day called America's Funniest Home Videos.
It was one of my favorite shows. It was basically
just people uploading fail videos of themselves or other people,
and the funniest video would win a prize. There's kind
of a cult following with that on YouTube right now,
and I liken it to that. The thing about those videos,
though they're only funny from a distance, do you notice that,

(06:39):
guys that fails are only funny if you're watching from
a distance. If you're the one who's having the fail
happen to you, it's not as funny. It's quite a
bit more painful. I'll give you an example. Every day,
after I get home from work, I like to jump
on my trampoline with the kids. We have a full
sized trampoline in the backyard. We enjoy it, we love it,
We have a great time. There's always a little fear

(06:59):
in my mind though, that this is going to be
the time that I'm going to.

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Be the product of one of those fail videos.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
If someone were recording or not, I might jump too
high and fly out of the trampoline. I might break
my back, i might fall through the trampoline. It's hilarious
when you watch it, it's not so funny when it
happens to you. There's always that little fear in my mind.
There's some similarities folks with this type of investing. It's amusing,
but only from a distance. Only from a distance, this

(07:27):
type of investing, and I even hesitant even to call
it that. It's so different from what we offer here
at the Ministry. It's very short term. The short term
nature of it also requires investors to pay big upfront.
You buy a lot to drive up the price for
the hope of scalping the higher evaluation. It's speculative, it's
based on market timing. Nothing that we promote here at
the Ministry. Usually the target's chosen. Also are penny stocks

(07:50):
by the way. And you know we've said some things
in the past before about penny stocks. Our founder Dan
Celia had a few words to say about that right now, guys,
do we have that clip ready of Dan talking about
penny stocks. Why don't we tee that clip up right
now and hear what he had to say. Here's Dan
Celia talking about the kind of innate danger in investing
in penny stocks.

Speaker 5 (08:08):
I don't track penny stocks, don't like penny stocks, and
wouldn't invest a nickel in a penny stock. So I
can't really tell you what the next one might be,
but out of a thousand, there may be one that
might actually take off.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
So you know, it's a vert, you know.

Speaker 5 (08:26):
And you get all these newsletters and all these alerts
and all these emails, Hey, you know, this stock's going
to go from here to here, and they all list.
It's funny because when you look at these newsletters, you say,
this stock went from here it was a penny stock.
Now it's three dollars a share or whatever it might be.
And if you would have invested this, you would have
made all this money, you know. And they go on

(08:48):
and they talk about it, and if you look at
all the newsletters and the emails you get.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
It's the same stocks.

Speaker 5 (08:53):
They're always talking about the same stocks because it's pretty
hard to find some. So I would, you know, I
just I just would stay away from it. I mean,
it just doesn't you know, there could be one out there,
and I'm sure there is, but I can't help you
on it because I got way too much to do
and one of the things that I won't do, I'm

(09:15):
just trying to analyze and work on the good, solid,
big companies and good stocks.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
Yeah, so you know, I agree with Dan's words one
hundred percent. There, folks, listen, it's not like you can't
do something like this and succeed at it. There are
people who make a lot of money doing the memestock thing.
We're not saying that it's impossible. We're not saying it's impossible.
Also that there's penny stocks out there that could skyrocket,
of course, but this is.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
A principle of wisdom.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Here is really what we're saying, and we would advise
you to stay away from these types of investments. Enjoy
the meme stock runs from a distance, watch from a distance,
but don't get involved in it. What you should enjoy
up close is a good solid, long term investing strategy,
especially especially if your main goal is to please God
with his money, and so first and foremost you want

(10:04):
to get nice and close, cozy up to biblically responsible
companies that also have good, solid, long term trajectories there
for you. We believe that what we offer on our
by lists could give you a great example of some
of those companies. So if you're not a partner, folks,
and you're curious about learning more, and you're curious about
getting involved in that type of good, solid, long term

(10:25):
slow wealth building, again, it's all risk. There's always risk involved,
but it's good wise risk. You got to consider becoming
a partner today financial lisis dot org.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Consider doing that good stuff here, folks.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Will be back on the other side of this break
a couple big headlines to get to a couple mag
seven heavy hitters reported earnings, as well as some things
going on in the White House and the Federal Reserve.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
We'll be back right after this break.

Speaker 6 (10:47):
Stick with US.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
Security is offered through Ga Repel and Company, a registered
broker dealer and investment advisor member FINRA and SIPC opinions
expressed by Shanna are hers alone and are for informational
purposes only and do not necessarily represent those of GA
Repel or the outlet on what you are listening. You
should consider how the information applies to your situation prior
to personally implementing it, and consult any financial professional you

(11:25):
work with to make sure it's applicable to your financial plan.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
Appreciate you all joining us today, folks. Great to have you.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Just a reminder again, conference call. Please don't miss it,
please be there.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
We'd love to see you or.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
You know, metaphorically see you. Of course you won't be
seeing anyone, but that's the beauty of it. Actually, you
don't have to necessarily look nice for it. You can
just call right in and listen to Shanna's wisdom. I'll
be excited for it. I hope you all will make
provisions to join us as well. Again, if you can't
make it today at twelve pm Central time one pm Eastern,
you can always listen to it afterwards. But boy, we'd
love to have you on live today, so yeah, make

(12:02):
provisions to do that for sure. And again, if you're
not a partner and you're wondering what we're talking about,
check out the partnership. Do that today Financial issues dot org.
It's place to go.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Click that become a partner button. All right, folks.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
So we got some earnings numbers out that I'd like
to touch on for just a moment here. It is
a full swing quarter two earning season. And I mentioned
on Monday. Really the big earnings day was Wednesday, and
sure enough we got earnings numbers out for both Tesla
and Alphabet. So we'll start with Tesla here again, two
of the Magnificent seven heavy hitters. Tesla's had a rough go.
It's down about roughly eighteen percent for the year. Elon

(12:35):
Musk's electric car manufacturer, was expected to disappoint following pretty
volatile second quarter, in part I think due to a
flurry of political TIFFs between Musk and the Trump administration.
We'll get to that in just a little bit here,
but here's how they finished earnings per share forty cents
adjusted versus forty three cents their revenue. They did fall
short on revenue twenty two point five billion versus twenty

(12:57):
two point seven billion expected. CNBC interestingly seems to think
that Musk's initial involvement with Team Trump is to blame
for its slide. I disagree. I don't mind say actually
strongly disagree. I don't think that Elon Musk teaming up
with Donald Trump from the beginning to get Donald Trump
elected first of all, then to be part of his

(13:18):
cabinet with Doge, I really don't think that that was
to blame totally. I'm sure there are some people who
didn't like it, but I think more it's what's happened
since then. I think more it's Musk's eventual public sparring
with the forty seventh president. I think that's harmed the
image a lot. If you recall a little bit of
a timeline here. Back in May, Musk left the White
House under questionable circumstances. Even when it happened, when Trump

(13:39):
announced that, you know, Musk was going to be leaving,
all seemed well. They were pleasant with each other, but
there did seem like there was something under the surface
that we weren't really sure about. Sure enough, weeks later
it was revealed that it was actually in part due
to some pretty wild scuffles, both verbal and potentially physical
or not quite sure, but a possible physical diff with
Treasury Secretary Scott Besson. Sam and I got a big

(14:01):
kick out of that one. But then in June you
see more news becoming public of these spats, and finally
Musk really becomes the loudest public critic of Trump's big
beautiful bill. They went back and forth on x Musk
really criticized it hard. And then additionally, here's one other
thing with it, folks, I don't think we can ignore
the fact that EV's. I just this is my opinion. Again,

(14:23):
this is an opinion show. I get paid to share
my opinion, So here's my opinion. I don't think EV's
are all that popular as much as they were, or
at least seem to be back in the Biden years.
I think the national consciousness has moved back towards gas
powered vehicles. I think the Trump administration has made it
clear that that's part of their agenda, with drill Baby
Drill and other things like that. There was this green

(14:45):
energy crusade during the Biden years, and my apologies to
misuse the term crusade with that heavily in favor of
the true crusades that happened back in the Middle Ages.
But that's another story. It was kind of a green
energy crusade during the Biden years. That's now kind of
switched a little bit. The traditional gasoline auto industry really
seems to love Trump more than the electric car industry might.

(15:07):
I can't help but think that maybe the electric car
industry might take a little bit of a hit from that.
I think that's just common sense. So anyway, in pre
market trading, Tesla shares were down. They dropped about six
percent as a result. Elon is realistically, I think, predicting
the possibility of a few rough quarters ahead for the
ev maker. So fascinating stuff there. You know, it seems
like Elon does have somewhat of a realistic output here.

(15:30):
It's not really a surprise that Tesla's earnings disappointed considering
everything that happened with them last really in the last
three months. And you know, folks, I do think there's
certainly something to be said here for you know, wondering, okay,
is it really worth it for major corporations to be
as heavily involved in politics for better or worse as

(15:53):
Musk was. And again that's not an indictment on his
initial promotion of Donald Trumper, dorseman of Donald Trump, or
even joining Doge. I think it's more talking about how
it was handled afterwards with their fallout, So anyway, interesting
things there. Nonetheless, Alphabet also reported earnings, so again, that's
Google's parent company. If you're new to the show, you
don't know who they are. They reported earnings after the

(16:15):
bell yesterday, beat on revenue by over two million, and
eked out gains on earnings per share for the second quarter,
not really a surprise. Much of this was due to
the company's continual influence in AI, so Alphabet definitely did
much better than Tesla for sure. Both YouTube and Google
Cloud also beat on revenue expectations. They helped the tech
giants quarter two breakout. I wonder if the tech heavy

(16:38):
Nasdaq will be feeling good today. Right now, it's priced
in to open the highest of the three major indices,
so we'll see how that looks there for sure. Elsewhere, folks,
we got June home sales. They dropped as home prices
hit record highs. So sales have previously owned homes in
June fell two point seven percent from May.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Number is three point.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Nine to three million units on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis.
This is according to the National Association of Realtors Analysts
had expected a drop of just zero point seven percent.
Sales meanwhile unchanged from June of twenty twenty four. Now,
this report is based on closings, so contracts were likely
signed in April and May. That's when the average rate

(17:21):
on the thirty year fixed rate mortgage jumped above seven
percent a few times, never went below six point eight percent.
According to Mortgage News Daily, there was a quote here
from the chief economists of the NAR that's Lawrence Young said.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
High mortgage rates are causing home sales to remain stuck
at cyclical lows. If the average mortgage rates were in
decline to six percent, our scenario analysis suggests an additional
one hundred and sixty thousand renters becoming first time homeowners
and elevated sales activity from existing homeowners. So, folks, seems
like the American dream continues to remain out of reach
for most people, especially young people. And you know, I

(17:58):
hope I can give some wisdom and insight here as
someone who you know, God was really looking out for
me and my wife when we bought our first home,
because I think we were a classic case of buying
a home that you probably couldn't afford technically we could
afford it because we were preapproved for it, but realistically
we could not afford it. God looked out for us

(18:18):
heavily with that, and since buying that home, it has
greatly appreciated in value. We've been able to refinance, we've
been able to get a really good interest rate on it,
and so we're so thankful to the Lord for it.
We are also handcuffed to it. We can't leave, which
is for the most part a good thing. There will
come the question of will we ever outgrow it? And
then we'll have to ask the question, Okay, do we

(18:39):
try to break break the golden handcuff, as hard as
that would be, or do we try to scrounge around
the money to try to do an addition to accommodate
our growing family. But I do want to give some
insight for youngsters. If you're a young person listening to this,
maybe you're starting your first job and you want to
get into that dream home right away.

Speaker 3 (18:55):
I will tell you I felt some of that.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Pressure from whether it was family member's friends, are just
my own personal kind of insecurities coming to the light
that I needed to be in a home in order
to really have made it I needed to be in
a single family home. I was like, I'm not doing
a town home. I don't want to do that. I
want to be in a single family home.

Speaker 3 (19:14):
Why.

Speaker 2 (19:15):
Looking back, I'm not really sure, other than my own
pride probably, But just want to give some wisdom and
insight for you youngsters that there is nothing wrong with waiting. Okay,
there's nothing wrong with waiting and saving some money and
building up some cash to be able to put a
really good down payment on a home. You have to consider, folks,
interest rates are very high, prices are very high, So

(19:37):
it's if you're thinking about the home market, this wouldn't
be an ideal time necessarily just breaking down the numbers
to get into it. I'm not saying that it shouldn't
work for you to get into it. I believe that
home ownership is one of the best things that a
young person can do and a great, great long term investment.
But you just have to ask those questions, you know,
and when it comes down to it, I think the

(19:58):
most important question financially you have to ask is can
I live within my means by moving into such and
such a house or would it work better for me
to continue the situation when I'm in maybe you're renting,
maybe you have a small home and you want to upsize.
The question you gotta ask is can I live within
my means? And if you can do that in that
dream home, then I'd say, you know, you have the

(20:21):
green light. And then you got to consider the other things,
the interest rates, all that other stuff, and of course
the condition of the house and what costs might come
with that. But I think there's a great lesson in contentment.
I think there's a great lesson in living within your
means as well. Also, folks, interesting later today, get your
popcorn ready. Donald Trump is going to visit the Federal
Reserve in person. I am really excited for this, and

(20:45):
again I'm watching from a distance. Once again, this is
the first time in nearly twenty years that a sitting
president is going to make a trip to the Central Bank.
This has not happened in a generation. It's scheduled to
happen this afternoon at four pm Eastern time.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
I think that's purposeful.

Speaker 2 (21:00):
The markets are closing then, so if anything happens one
way or the other, it won't disrupt at least the
open trading markets could very well be folks. I think
some people are asking, could this result in the termination
of employment for FED Chair Jerome Pale? Again, that would
be unprecedented in the history of the Federal Reserve since
nineteen thirteen, that has never happened. It doesn't mean Trump

(21:23):
can't do it. Some people are saying, well, you know,
it's never happened before. There's not a precedent, so of
course Trump can't do it. Well, you could also use
that same argument to say he could do it because
there's no precedent for it, there's no law against it,
there's no legal code. So either way, I'm gonna look
at this optimistically and think that this could be a
good result, because my hope is one of two things happens.

(21:44):
My hope is that, well, first of all, I hope
that Trump and pal actually meet, which I assume that
they will. I don't think Trump would take a trip
to the Federal Reserve and not meet with the Federal
Reserve chair. Either Pale will be given a letter of
termination or this will be kind of an employee review
as it were. And as much as I dislike some

(22:05):
aspects of employee reviews because of you know, some of
the ways that they could be handled. And by the way,
that's not an indictment on any of my superiors here
at the Ministry. They've handled them excellently. I do think
that employee reviews are really good, and especially when you
have a lot of questions about your job performance, as
we've seen with the Federal Reserve. So I think Trump

(22:26):
will ask him about this. Hopefully if there is not
a letter of termination, then Powell will come out with
a little bit of a fire ltten under him, having
just gotten a visit from the boss. You know, and
when the boss visits you and says, hey, listen, we
need to talk about your job performance. Hopefully you listen.
So we'll see that, folks. We'll see if any news
comes from that tomorrow. By the way, tomorrow, Shannon is

(22:48):
going to be on the program. I'm looking forward to
that as well here, and we'll be keeping an eye
as well on Russia Gate. Not as much a financial headline,
but I think it's interesting that there is now a
lot of talk surrounding former President Barack Hussein Obama for
what is appearing to be his creation and conspiracy of
the false claims of Russia interfering with Donald Trump's twenty

(23:09):
sixteen election win. Very interesting here, folks, Tulsey Gabbard said, quote,
I'm leaving the criminal charges to the Department of Justice.
But as I've said previously, when you look at the
intent behind creating a fake, manufactured intelligence document that directly
contradicts multiple assessments that were created by the intelligence community,
the expressed intent and what followed afterward can only be

(23:29):
described as a year's long coup and a treasonist conspiracy
against the American people are republic and an attempt to
undermine President Trump's administration. Very interesting stuff happening there in
the nation's capital.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Good to be here with you, folks.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Hey, if you've got to run, I hope that you'll
consider joining us for the conference call today twelve pm
Central Time one pm Eastern Time.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
Joel Noble joins me next on financial issues.

Speaker 6 (23:51):
We'll back.

Speaker 7 (23:52):
Hey, folks, it's great to have you here on financial issues.

Speaker 3 (24:10):
Thanks for sticking with us here.

Speaker 2 (24:12):
I'm excited for this interview I've got with my friend
Joel Noble of Smaritan Ministries. Do hope you'll check them
out Smart Ministries dot org. We're so grateful for our
partnership with them. I personally, am so thankful for how
Samaritan and the smart Ministries family has blessed me and
my family. I think I shared this with you all
at a previous time, but I had a pretty serious

(24:34):
hernia surgery for my son Josiah about six or seven
months ago or so, and Smarton walked through it with
us every step of the way.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
We were reimbursed for.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
It, received so so many letters of encouragement for my son,
and so it was just it was a really incredible
experience making something that normally would be really tough, really
something that I'll look back on and smile about. So, Joel,
just want to share that with you and tell you
thank you so much for the work that you guys do, brother,
and it's great to have you today.

Speaker 8 (25:01):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you sharing that.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, Joel. So here's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
So, the national health expenditure that's the total amount paid
for healthcare through public and private means, has risen faster
in recent decades than inflation, household income, the gross domestic product, population,
and even the price of housing. It's according to report
from the Epoch Times. The report said, quote Americans collectively
spent four point nine trillion dollars on healthcare in twenty

(25:27):
twenty three, almost five trillion dollars. That's six times more
than on national defense. No other country spends this much.
The report also mentioned as a percentage of GDP, the
US spends more than one third Germany and France did,
and more than double what China spends. However, spending is
in everything. So not only that, Joel, but with all
the spending, Americans aren't even healthier than the people in

(25:49):
comparable nations, according to Leading health Care in Disease, and
they don't live as long either. So the report said
this quote, Americans spent an average of fifteen hundred dollars
a piece on out of pocket medical expenses. This was
in twenty twenty three. That's six thousand for a family
of four. But that's the tip of the iceberg. Total
spending was ten times that amount, almost fifteen thousand per
person and more than fifty eight thousand for a family

(26:11):
of four. So, Joel, we're spending a ton of money
on healthcare and we're not that healthy.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
Why is this happening?

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Why are Americans paying a massive amount of money for
their health care yet they're not really getting any healthier.

Speaker 9 (26:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's interesting you mentioned, you know, housing costs.
I mean i'd write recently too that healthcare is now
the number one expenditure. Used to be you know, your mortgage,
but now we spend more on health insurance than we
do on our mortgage. There's a lot of varying reasons.
I mean, we've now seen the baby boomer generation is

(26:47):
now in their seventies to you know, maybe even the nineties,
and so there's that largest generation is now consuming a
ton of health care. Health Care is getting more complicated,
you know, treatments, which is not a bad thing. I mean,
advancement in medicine is wonderful, but it comes at a price.

(27:08):
Things are much more expensive. And then, unfortunately, and you
see this a lot in higher ed that with subsidies
to health insurance, then providers are going to then raise
costs because they know a and health insurance is too.
And so health there's this constant battle. Health insurance does

(27:30):
not want to pay you know, more than you know
they need to, and the hospitals, you know, are going
to try to get as much out of them as
as they can. And so as health insurance prices go up,
they want to pay less, and it's constant battle with
the with the providers and so. And because that a

(27:52):
lot of health insurance is being subsidized, then they're going
to raise that because they know that the folks that
are getting subsidized health insurance are getting money from the
government to pay for that. And so much like higher
ed to where you know, just as you get money
for college, and then the college tuition goes up to
pay for that, and so there's just this terrible circle

(28:17):
of health insurance and healthcare costs both going up together.

Speaker 2 (28:24):
You know, Joel, I've found in my experience that it
seems like people who are not familiar with health sharing
ministries like Samaritan, they've just kind of grown up almost
drinking the water of kind of the big healthcare companies.
Maybe they have a healthcare program with their employer. They
seem surprised when they hear this kind of stuff. Why
do you think that is?

Speaker 8 (28:44):
I mean, we're very insurance minded country.

Speaker 9 (28:48):
I mean, you know, from car to home to apartment
to health insurance and I mean, and I was just
talking to someone yesterday. I mean that's sort of like
the goal of a lot of times of a job.
What kind of insurance does it? Does it come with
you know, I'm looking at this job. Does it offer
a really good insurance? And so we're almost putting insurance
up on this pedestal of well, that's the you know,

(29:12):
that's the end all I need to get, you know,
really good health insurance. And the idea of health insurance
is really not that I mean, it's only been in
the last less than one hundred years. With price controls
and wage controls around World War two, employer sponsored health
insurance became the thing to get folks in, you know,
in the door because you couldn't pay them, you know,

(29:33):
any differently uh than anybody you know, the other company
because of wage controls. So you offered health insurance and
then this became this thing of But before that it
was very much like like Samaritan, this non insurance approach
to where you know, you're part of a benevolent society.
Your neighbors came together, you bartered with the doctor. You know,

(29:54):
I'm gonna you know, you're gonna treat me. I'm gonna
provide you with you know, I am you know from
my farm, you know type thing. And so, and the
idea of insurance was only for you know, the catastrophic
type things, and now you know insurance is for everything.
I mean you you know, because also because they often

(30:15):
have these deductibles that have to be met. So it's like, well,
I might as well go, you know, wipe you know,
I'm gonna go every chance I can, so I can
wipe out that deductible as fast as I can. And
it's just a terrible you know, hamster wheel, uh to
be on a lot of times.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
Yeah, yeah, it really does make a lot of sense, man.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
So one other question that I had for you with that, Joel,
is you know, in your your experience, you've dealt a
lot with this.

Speaker 10 (30:40):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
I get a little bit schewed out by the very
idea of kind of the big healthcare industry really profiting
more off of sickness than off of health. And I
think that gets to what we were talking about in
that headline there from the Epoch Times that Americans just
aren't as healthy as other nations. And my fear and
concern is that that's actually what big healthcare wants.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 8 (31:05):
Yeah, I would agree.

Speaker 9 (31:05):
I mean a lot of the insurance there's really no
no health incentive and so and more and more, as
you know, we get more urbanized and you know, cities
and stuff, and just just the way our culture is.

Speaker 8 (31:26):
I mean fortunately, you know a lot of things are convenient.

Speaker 9 (31:30):
But with that comes you know, the the microwave, pizza
and everything else, which you know, I I love.

Speaker 8 (31:36):
I'm not knocking, you know, I love the jokes, students stuff.

Speaker 9 (31:39):
But with the convenience, yeah, we're not you know, we're
not sitting down cooking meals as much and stuff like that.
And so the previous generation I talked to, you know,
picking stuff out of the garden. They were, you know,
making this really healthy meal. And now you know, we're
popping something in, you know, in the microwave to be
able to you know, get to the uh, you know,

(32:01):
baseball game, you know, an hour later. And I was
on that I have four boys. I was on that
wheel too. It's like you're either eating at you know,
four o'clock or nine o'clock, and that just catches up
with you. And yes, we are. We are less healthy
than we've ever been, you know, in in the course
of our lives. And that, you know is unfortunately, now

(32:22):
we're paying the dues of that in healthcare.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
Costs absolutely well, you know, Joel, that's part of why
I love Samaritan ministries because you give people the opportunity
not only to share medical burdens with fellow Christians, but
also to actually, you know, maybe promote real true health. Uh, Joel,
give us just some simple dollars and cents here. How
are health sharing groups like Samaritan literally more affordable than
the big healthcare companies.

Speaker 9 (32:43):
Yeah, so there's no middleman is which is the big deal.
So I'm sending what we call my share so directly
to another member every month and with the exception of
the admin cost at Samaritan, and then we you know,
have the members send one time a year to the
office instead of members, and that's what we operate on,
which is very lean. It's just a little over ten

(33:06):
percent admin. So when you don't have that middleman, when
you're just sharing burdens member to member, that keeps the
costs low. I've been a member now of twenty four years,
and when I first started, my family was sharing it
one seventy five and we just had a share increase
that's gonna you know, go into effect next month in August,

(33:28):
and I'm when I looked back, I think I'm gonna
be a little over like four or five. So one
hundred and seventy five to four hundred and five dollars
has been the increase in my my time in twenty
four years, which is just nowhere near what you're seeing
in insurance, where you're seeing you know, hundreds of dollars
every single year, you know, huge increases, and so yeah,

(33:51):
it is more more affordable, and people you know will
gravitate towards that, but you know, the freedom that they
have knowing where their.

Speaker 8 (34:00):
Healthcare dollars go.

Speaker 9 (34:02):
I hear that more often and the you know, we say,
come for the healthcare freedom and then uh, you know,
stay for the cost, and so you know, it.

Speaker 8 (34:12):
Is more affordable.

Speaker 9 (34:14):
But we find more and more that folks like the
concept more more than the price.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Absolutely well, I tell you what, Joel, I can attest
to that the freedom that comes with Samaritan Ministries is
simply a gift. I mean, to not have to fear,
you know. I'll go back to the example with my son.
We were able to pick the hospital that we thought
was the best one. We didn't have to worry, we
didn't have to worry about Oh is it in my network?

Speaker 3 (34:37):
Is the doctor?

Speaker 2 (34:38):
We just we picked the one that we wanted, told
him we were cash pay and you know, rock and
roll baby.

Speaker 3 (34:43):
So Joel, thank you so much. Brother.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
We just appreciate everything that you guys do. Quickly, How
can we be praying for SamArt ministries?

Speaker 8 (34:51):
I would say, we.

Speaker 9 (34:54):
Just came off of a board meeting and so I
just say prefer our leaders yea, as there you know
that makes some decisions.

Speaker 8 (35:04):
I mean we're working.

Speaker 9 (35:05):
We've always been that share to share, working really hard
on trying to get a little bit more modernized with
some digital you know type sharing type thing. So yeah,
as we as we work on that, just play for leadership.

Speaker 3 (35:18):
We'll do it. Joel noble.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
Folks appreciate him so much. Joel, thanks for joining me brother.
Looking forward to the next time. We got more financial
issues coming up right after this.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
The opinions and recommendations expressed on this program do not
necessarily represent the opinions of the station or any of
the program sponsors. Additionally, all products or services offered by
the program sponsors may not be known by the program.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
Hey, folks, really appreciate you joining us. So Unfortunately I
have some sad news for you. We just got word
from Alex McFarlane's team that he's not going to be
able to join us today, so we're going to try
to get Alex back on at some point in the future.
He had another comitment he had to get to so
apologize for that. Here's the deal, folks, I don't have
a lot planned for this segment, so i'd love to

(36:07):
hear from you. If you've got questions, put them in
the chat. If you've got questions, put them on Facebook.
If you've got questions, you can put them on Rumble YouTube.
We'd love to get to talk to you. We'll get
to at least one of those later on here in
the show. And I know there's a lot of people
on the chat already, so I'll make sure to say hello.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
To each of you.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
We'll do a little bit of a deeper chat rundown
because we'll need it today. So but we're having some
fun here at financial issues. Nonetheless, we do have an
ag update from Craig Howgard, so I'd love to hear
what Craig has to say for our farmers and ranchers,
and then we'll get to your comments here.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
But first here's Craig Howgard with today's AG update.

Speaker 10 (36:40):
This is Craig Holguard with your financial issues. EGG update
for July twenty fourth. Well, the corn market returned to
trading US Weather and Brazilian exportable supplies yesterday. Brazil remains
slightly more competitive versus the US and the Asian markets.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Well.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
US Weather continues to.

Speaker 10 (36:56):
Build a case for bumper crop in this country this
coming fall number corn finished the a half cent lower
and four dollars seventeen and a half cents per bushel.
The announcement of trade deals with Japan and Philippines helped
some means get off to a strong start, but the
market faded is they likely do not.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Represent new global demand.

Speaker 10 (37:13):
Also adding price pressure are the extended forecasts, which continued
to point towards a bumper crop. November beans were two
and three quarter cents lower and they had ten twenty
two and three quarters weat futures decline. On Wednesdays, we
saw profit taking enter the market on heels of reports
coming out of North Dakota's spring wheat tour. News from
the first day of North Dakota's annual wheat tour reported

(37:34):
above average hard read spring wheat yields in the southern
regions of that state.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Now the US is going to be.

Speaker 10 (37:39):
Carrying over nine hundred million bushel carry out to next year,
which could then build to a billion bushels unless exports
start to pick up. Minneapolis September wheat was three and
three quarter cents lower at five eighty eight. Kansas City
dropped by nine and three quarter cents, closing at five
twenty three and a half, and we had Chicago nine
cents lower at five point forty and a half. Cotton
futures had a pretty onion ventful session. December futures ended

(38:02):
the session a single point lower at sixty eight twenty four.
Livestock futures all pressed higher. October live cattle we're two
dollars thirty seven and a half cents higher, closing at
two hundred and twenty three dollars and fifty cents per
hundred way September feeer cattle where three dollars thirty two
and a half cents stronger as they closed out the
day at three hundred and thirty one dollars and ninety
cents per hundred, and we had October leenhaw futures forty

(38:24):
cents better, as they ended the session at ninety dollars
and ninety cents per hundred way. Class three milk futures
closed lower for the third consecutive session. At the closing bill,
we had August futures down forty seven points as they
ended the day at seventeen ten. This has been Craig
howel guard with your financial issues egg update. We'll be
right back with more financial issues after this.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Always going to hear from Craig Folks on financial issues here.
The markets have opened twenty minutes ago. Dal Jones is
trending downward today about down a half percent or so,
I mean, while the S and P five hundred is
up about a fifth and the Nasdaq leading the way
up about three tenths of a percent. So that's where
we're sitting in the equity markets. Major indices US tenure

(39:11):
treasury yield is currently up around four point four percent,
and oil about sixty five and three quarter dollars a barrel.
All right, Elijah, let's do this before we get to
our chat run down. We do have one question in
there from a listener named John Paul. He's not a partner,
but he has a good question here. So I'd love
to address this one.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
What does he have to say?

Speaker 11 (39:29):
So John Paul says, Aloha, I listen to you from Hilo, Hawaii.
Sorry if I'm not pronouncing that correctly. He says, thanks
for your ministry. I'm looking for some help with financial investing.
I don't want to spend too much time in planning
as I am focused on a missions ministry development that
I only want to gain as much as I can,
as long as I as long as it don't have

(39:53):
to give too much time for it, for simplicity's sake,
wondering if it's wise to park money in I bond's
gold or whatever will at least not lose. I appreciate
whatever you share. Shaloha awesome, John Paul. I don't know
what that means, but that's awesome, very cool. Not your question,
I mean the shaloha.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
I'm not as well versed on Hawaiian but I do
know that hello, that aloha means hello and goodbye.

Speaker 3 (40:15):
I think I'm not anyway.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
So John Paul's wonderful to hear from you, brother, and
thank you for chiming in on the show today. Here's
here's what I tell you. You know right away for simplicity's sake.
Be as you said, wonder if it's wise to park
money and ibond's goal whatever will at least not lose
high yield savings account's not going to lose you either.
Our founder Dan Celia used to say, there's great value

(40:36):
in not losing. And so if that's that's what your
goal is, man, I think that's awesome. I think it's
very safe. I will tell you that I wouldn't want
you to be deterred from considering doing some actually some
more active investing. Also, we do offer a great strategy
here at the ministry that could be good for you. Now,
a couple of things that I'd want you to consider.

(40:58):
Would Number one be how in are you willing to
be It sounds like with the work that you're doing,
which by the way, is wonderful, that you don't want
to be too heavily involved in it. So we have
two different models that we offer. One is the regular
investment model that's for those who are more heavily involved.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
But we also have a fund model.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
So the fund model is based entirely on mutual funds
and ETFs, and those are actively managed funds. They're actively
managed by professional fund managers, so you don't have to
do the active management of those. Based on what you
told me here, if I had to pick one or
two of those for you, I'd probably picked the pick
the fund model for you. Now you also have to
consider your age as well. We have a couple different

(41:36):
age categories there. So if you're younger like me, you
probably have a higher risk tolerance, you have more time.
You would probably want to pick the more growth leaning model,
and again we have that in both the fund and
the regular model.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
If you're maybe a little bit older.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
And you want some growth but also some income, we
have growth and income model, and of course kind of
our last model being more that sustaining income model. So
you know, John Paul really is up to you. I
think it would be good for you to kind of
figure out what you're willing to do. If there's any
part of you that is willing to put a little
bit of this money to work a little more than
just letting it not lose, then I would consider urging

(42:13):
you to consider becoming a partner today.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
Man.

Speaker 2 (42:16):
And you know, I'm not trying to say that to
just you know, promote the partnership, but you seem like
someone who maybe you could benefit from it for sure.
So anyway, just a thought, brother, I think it's wonderful.
First of all, the work that you're doing in missions
ministry development. That's far more important than being an active investor, truthfully,
So you're doing some great things man. And then I
think secondly, your desire to not lose I think is

(42:38):
really good. So those things that you mentioned there again,
high yield savings, they're making anywhere, you know, usually anywhere
between two to five percent, and it's not going to
lose there. So I appreciate your question there, brother, and
I hope that can be helpful for you.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
And if you like what you hear, keep on asking.

Speaker 1 (42:55):
Man.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
If you have any more questions, I would definitely direct
you to say those to Pat send the pad at
financial issues dot org. You can also go to financial
issues dot org click the contact us button, and that
offers you it's really the same portal as the Ask
Shanna questions, except we give priority to our partners for
the ask Shanna questions. That contact us button, you can
ask a general question and if you're interested in the partnership, man,

(43:18):
you can check that out at Financial issues dot org
as well. And if you want to ask me anything
to you can send me an email as well. Seth
at Financial issues dot org. John Paul, thanks for that question, man,
I really.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Do appreciate it. That was a good one. All right, folks.
Let's see who's on the chat here. George, Hello, brother,
Good to see you George.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
Jason. Jason is having some fun on the chat. I
love seeing his zingers. They always make my day. As
I said in the chat, Brian in Missouri. Good to
see you, Brian. We've got Brian from Virginia as well.
The Brian Brigade is there. Let's see who else here,
you j Good to see you you, Jay as always, Lisa, Hello, Lisa.

Speaker 9 (43:55):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
Frank from Florida. Good to see you, Frank.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
Frank, you're can does Smart Ministry sponsori does FISM sponsor
Smart Ministry? So Smart Ministries is one of our sponsors.
But we also each of us full time staffers at
the ministry have a we are members of Smart Ministries
as well, so we have a bit of a mutual
mutually beneficial relationship there. Frank, good to see you this morning.

Speaker 3 (44:19):
Brother.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
I'm trying to see who else. Claude, Good to see you,
hope the move is going well for you as well
as Jason. Yeah, George, I was speaking into my watch.
There wasn't I it's like those old sci fi movies
where you're talking to the watch and yeah, anyway, silly,
silly stuff. I wasn't alive in the eighties, so I
didn't see the real good ones. Someone here had a yeah,
Brian from Brian from a Virginia an interesting comment. I

(44:41):
think pal will step down because of the two point
five billion dollar Federal Reserve Building funds disaster. Yeah, just
might be Brian. The other Brian was asking, where was
your question here?

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Brian.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
I'm gonna try to find that here, so forgive me
if I take a moment, uh speaking the gift of
gab while I try to find that. But I think
Brian from Missouri, he was asking about how the FED
is able to spend that much money, two point five
billion dollars, when that's oftentimes more than what an NFL

(45:11):
football stadium would cost. I agree with you, brother, I
think it's absolutely bananas. But the reason why it's so
expensive is because it's so lavish. If you remember some
of the things that are involved in this that we're
talking about a rooftop garden. You're talking about marble walkways,
private dining areas, different things like that. I assume this
isn't just a private conference room either. We're talking probably

(45:34):
the best of the best. If you remember when Sam
and I talked about this a couple of weeks ago,
Sam gave the reference that two point five billion dollars
is almost the amount that it might take to renovate
the Palace of Versailles.

Speaker 3 (45:45):
So think about that. That's kind of the idea here.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
And who lives in a palace an emperor, So that
might tell you what the Federal Reserve chair thinks of himself.
Of course, he might not be thinking that after four
o'clock today, but anyway, we'll have to see that. But yeah, dude, honestly,
I think that's part of the reason why I'm grateful
that we are seeing some serious accountability on the Federal Reserve.
And again, maybe this was what it took. Maybe something

(46:09):
like this, a crazy stunt like this is what needed
to happen in order for more eyeballs to be on
the Federal Reserve. I do hope that will see some
accountability out of this. Pal might not get fired, but
hopefully there's some accountability that will come.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
Nonetheless, so great to see you all this morning.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
I know we had some listeners on Facebook we weren't
able to say hi to, but know that you're appreciated, Facebook,
Rumble YouTube, all of you on financial issues. Wonderful to
be here one more time, folks. Remember we have a
conference call today. Do not miss it. Conference call twelve
pm Central time, one pm Eastern time. Again, conference call
twelve Central time, one pm Eastern time. I'll say it

(46:45):
one more time. Conference call today twelve pm Central time,
one pm Eastern time. And if you can't listen today,
it will be posted shortly thereafter on the website. I
appreciate you all so much. God bless each of you,
and Lord willing. We'll do it again tomorrow for more
financial issues. Remember it's all his. Let's be founded of
faithful stewards.

Speaker 6 (47:02):
It's the next time.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
If we ever forget that we're one nation under God,
then we will