Financial Issues - 08.04.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Financial Issues, where we join the 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 (00:24):
Welcome to Financial Issues. I'm your host, Shannabert. Thanks for
tuning in today. Financial Issues is a ministry and our
main goal is to educate, edify, and encourage people in
the ways of stewardship from the scriptures with a biblical worldview.
We hope that you're a partner with us. If you're not,

(00:45):
please consider becoming one. It's just one hundred and thirty
two dollars a year and you'll get access to our
biblically responsible investment strategy, which is a way that we
help you honor the Lord by screening companies out of
your portfolio that are maybe contributing to the darkness of

(01:05):
this world, so using shareholder money to support things like
abortion and pornography, the LGBTQ agenda, human rights violations, and
so many other things that we do not want to
be yoped with. So, if you're interested in cleaning up
your portfolio and showing God that you honor him by
keeping his stuff out of funding these causes, then consider

(01:29):
partnering with us. On today's show, we're going to answer
some of your questions. We're going to talk to Jason mcdale.
We're going to bring Jason mcdalll in in just a
little bit and we're going to be discussing the housing market,
home ownership, how that relates to, you know, Biblical marriage

(01:50):
and the things that we're that we are called to
do in the natural progression of as we live our lives,
we leave our parents, we become one with our spouse,
we start families, and you know, there's this issue of
home ownership that's always been the American dream that is
a little bit further out of reach for younger people today.

(02:11):
So you're not gonna want to miss it. Stay tuned.
We've got Jason coming on just a little bit to
talk about those things, and we're going to get encouragement
from the scripture. We're going to talk about stewardship as
we look at Psalm ninety one and two sys he
who dwells in the secret place of the Most High
shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty I will

(02:34):
say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress,
my God in whom I will trust.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
What do you think so well?

Speaker 4 (02:41):
You know, Shannon, I picked this verse knowing what you
and Jason are going to talk about later in the
show and mortgages, housing, things like that. But you know,
it got me to thinking, do we think often enough
about where we truly dwell? And by truly dwell, I
mean where we spiritually dwell From a spiritual perspective, do
we dwell with God or not? And those who trust
in God for salvation, the Bible tells us dwell with

(03:02):
Him and in him, He's our true home. He's our protection,
our fortress, much the same way Shanna that Noah and
his family were inside the Ark, and that's what protected
them from God's wrath. When we trust in Christ is
our for our salvation. We are in Christ. We're protected
from the wrath of God. In Christ, we dwell with Him.
So I hope that we'll do that today and every
day by drawing near to God. And we do that

(03:26):
first and foremost in salvation, But then it's also a
continual drawing near to Him where daily, every day we
grow more and more like him. I hope that every
listener will consider doing that today.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely so as we think about those concepts of
where we live and stewardship and how that's all connected.
You know, as Christians, whenever we make a profession of faith,
we make Jesus the Lord of our life. Well, Jesus
should also be the master of our homes as well,
our physical homes. And so, you know, I'm always thinking
about how do we connect the things that we're learning

(03:57):
in the scripture with our everyday life life. And you know,
I'm in the process of building a house right now,
and you know, it's it's a it's a bigger house,
and you know, we're gonna have plenty of room. And
I'm I've been thinking about and praying about, you know, Lord,
you know, thanking the Lord for the provision that he's
given me and my family and then asking him to Lord,

(04:18):
how do you want me to use this house? Like
you know, hospitality is is a gift, you know, a
gift that some Christians have more than others. But you know,
how do we use everything that we've been given by
God for his glory? You know, to bring glory to Him?
And so I've been thinking about that and praying about that.

(04:39):
I've been, you know, thinking about hosting Bible studies in
my home. And you know, my kids are teenagers right now,
so thinking of my home as being a refuge and
a fortress because kids are going through a lot these days.
And so I want my kids to be able to
invite their friends over. I want them to like to
hang out at our house, and I want them to

(05:00):
to know that Jesus is the master of our house.
And you know, maybe they'll feel comfortable, Maybe they'll feel
like that's a refuge for them in a place where
they can safely, you know, approach somebody about the issues
of life, you know, knowing that we'll be able to
give them a godly answer and be able to point
them to Jesus. So, you know, that's just one way
that we can we can connect that. And I would

(05:21):
encourage you to to ask the Lord. You know, if
you are blessed to be a homeowner, how does God
want you to use your house? You would probably be
amazed at some of the creative ways that God would
have us to use the stuff that we are managing.

Speaker 3 (05:39):
Great Shanna, all right, we do have some questions here
here the questions. Okay, yes, do it?

Speaker 4 (05:44):
Marcus up first, he's sixty three, says Shanna. I'm looking
to open a donor advice fund to manage my irma
bracket for when I turned sixty five. I currently use
the Schwab and Timothy platforms. Is there an option to
be biblically responsible with the investments in the DAF? I
manage my own portfolio because FISM and you all are
such a blessing. Thank you, Mark, You're blessing us man,
thank you. Would you have forum?

Speaker 3 (06:04):
Shannon? What do you think?

Speaker 5 (06:06):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (06:06):
So there are two that I use in my practice
that does allow for self management. Now I don't know
if that's on the individual level or just because you know,
because I'm an investment professional, but Waterstone and ren Trust
are two that that that I found freedom to self

(06:27):
direct and be able to choose investments. I know that
there was a certain DAFT that was mentioned on this
even on this show not long ago with the National
Christian Foundation, but and we've been doing some due diligence
on them, but they really don't offer a way for

(06:47):
biblically responsible investing. So for me right now, they are
they are off my radar as as a possibility of
using them for a DAFT So I would just say
check around, you know, ask all the questions. That's one
of the questions that you want to ask for sure,
is you know once because the way that a donor
advised fund works is that you're making an irrevocable gift

(07:11):
into a trust. So you're transferring ownership to the donor
advised fund custodian and the trust the way that they
manage it, and then you can offer advice on how
the money is managed. You can offer advice on how
the money is distributed, but there has to be that

(07:31):
that arms length worth of you know, distance between the two.
And because you do get a tax benefit whenever you
gift stock or money into a donor advised fund, so
the new custodian can reject the advice that you offer
them about where to give the money or how to
manage the money. So you want to ask those questions

(07:53):
upfront about what their policies are about how the money
is managed. A lot of times they'll they'll if they
don't allow self management, then they will tell you give
you some options about where the money is invested, and
then you can use our screening tool to see if
those things are biblically responsible. You also want to ask

(08:15):
questions about any kind of gifts that they are, any
kind of grants that they might reject. So I know
that there were some of the big ones. We were
hearing reports that you know, donors wanted to were recommending
gifts to certain organizations. Certain organizations were on a list,
kind of a black list of companies that were considered

(08:37):
to be hate organizations because they believe what the Bible says,
and they were interested in doing what the Bible says,
and they were not allowing gifts to those certain organizations
if they were found on that list. So you want
to ask all of those good questions as you're considering
donor advice fund good stuff.

Speaker 3 (08:56):
Shannon Blair's up next.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Blair sixty seven, plans to work for the next one
to two years, currently in the growth and income model
and just started social Security. When I hit full retirement,
he says, I'll have a nice core pension plan when
I retire. However, I'd like for retirement savings to provide
about forty to fifty percent of monthly income. So I
have two questions. First, is it wise for me to
stay in the growth and income model for now. And second,

(09:19):
i'm underweight and fixed income. Can I split between FX
sixty eight and FX fifty five? I prefer no CDs
at this time.

Speaker 3 (09:25):
We think yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
So the first question, is it appropriate to stay in
the growth in income model? I will say probably. So
I can't say specifically for you because I don't know
all of the details surrounding your situation. But the fact
that you say you're sixty seven, you're retiring, you're going
to start drawing some income. I don't know what your
risk tolerance looks like. You have some other income the

(09:47):
growth and income model, and if you go on our
website and read the descriptions for you know what they're
designed to do and how they're designed to work. I
think you'll have a good idea if it's right for you.
But you know, some of the information that you give
seems to to check a lot of boxes that says
that it's something good that you can consider. And then
as far as the two fixed income that you mentioned,

(10:09):
we much prefer I much prefer FX fifty five over
FX sixty eight. I think i'd use fifty five. Not
sure why you don't want CDs at this time, but
you know they can't offer good rates. We tend to
gravitate towards fixed income investments that are not going to
fluctuate a whole lot in value. All right, folks, I

(10:34):
hear the music that means we got to go, but
we're just going to take a break. We're going to
be back after the break and I'll have my friend
Jason McDowell come back on and we're going to be
talking about housing, marriage, the American Dream, all of those
good things.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
So stick around, we'll be back.

Speaker 6 (11:03):
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

(11:27):
work with to make sure it's applicable to your financial plan.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Welcome back to Financial Issues. Thanks for sticking with us
for the second segment of the show today. So I've
got my friend and Collein Jason McDowell back, and we're
going to talk about home ownership. You know, home ownership
is the American dream or part of the American dream, right.

(11:56):
It's everybody's desire to own a home. It represents independent
it represents the opportunity for wealth building. I remember I
bought my first home when I was twenty two years old,
when I got married. And you know, home ownership has
historically gone hand in hand with things like marriage. You know,
a man leaves, leaves his family and leaves to his

(12:16):
wife and they start their own family. And you know
you've got to have some place to live when you
do that. So starting a family and then home ownership
also contributes to building generational wealth. You know, we often
see that people have a good portion of their net
worth in their home even as they age and get
into the retirement years. But today's economic landscape is shifting

(12:42):
very dramatically and not necessarily in a good way when
it comes to that American dream of home ownerships. The
statistics tell us that the first time home buyer looks
much different today than it did in my day. Gosh,
you know you're getting old when you start in my day,

(13:04):
and for the twenty something year old, buying a starter
home has become somewhat of a pipe dream. So Jason,
welcome back, Thanks for being here today. I'm hoping you'll
share some of your own experience as I shared by
And you know, we're diving into a conversation that connects housing, marriage,
federal policy, and a potential whirl on the FED all

(13:25):
in one segment. How we get from here to there
by the end of this segment is going to be
a mystery to me.

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Let's try to do it.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
You know, home prices have increased around fifty percent since
pre COVID, and we're seeing record home prices in some
areas of the country.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
So you know, talk a.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Little bit about who's buying, what does that first time
home buyer look like, so on and so forth.

Speaker 7 (13:50):
Yeah, so who is buying in this housing market? Well, June,
home prices have hitten all time high since well just
for a long time here. But this has mattered for
mostly most of the US, about two thirds of the
US are seeing these home prices rapidly increase. But it
depends on your area. You can see some home prices

(14:11):
actually plummeting, so that of the third, there really all
depends on the demand, right, and then of course that
supply backs to simple economics. The average home buyer is
actually now fifty six years old. But this isn't the
purchase first. This is actually to purchase an additional home
that they're not spending time in, so these are infrequent.
So first time home buyers are now averaging just thirty

(14:31):
eight years old. I turn thirty eight in September of
this year, so I'm adding to the statistic here, maybe
Lord willing, but I'm holding out for my own personal reasons.
There's a lot of other things I might include, but
right now, buyers need to have about one hundred and
twenty seven thousand dollars to afford the average home. And
we're going to look at this as more so, how
much are you actually putting down? Probably the bare minimum,

(14:52):
maybe you have a mediocre credit score, There's some other
things that take place there. But this is number is
actually up from seventy nine one thousand to afford the
median home price just four years ago, so we're seeing
a change there. So last month, about fifteen percent of
pending contracts were actually canceled, which was thought to be
caused by insurance premium, so homeowner insurance and surprise inspections

(15:16):
that most likely were not going well. And of course
there was a volatility with the rates with the mortgage.
Of course, we're in a voltiple situation right now. We
don't know what the Fed's going to do, and so
there's some obvious cases for things like that.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
Yeah, that's true. I wonder how much of it is
appraisals too, you know, and how home prices are coming back.
There's a lot of things that go into that. But
let's talk about the wealth building aspect. So according to
the FED, the median net worth of a home buyer
is over four hundred thousand, compared to people who rent
with a net worth of about ten thousand. And the

(15:51):
deck really seems to be stacked against young people with
higher mortgage rates and bloated home prices and not enough
homes to buy. Yet the competition in the housing market
is fierce. Decades of cheap money have enticed many to
become landlords. Not only I mean I have lots of

(16:12):
friends that you know that really got into buying up
a lot of rental properties. But it's not just individuals, right,
it's it's corporation, So talk about that for a minute.

Speaker 7 (16:24):
Yeah, so corporations and cheap federal subsidized loans are actually
the focus of buyers right now, owning just one in
four rental homes, so they just keep buying those up.
So according to one Federal Reserve study, is that the
medium networth that you brought up there is that four
hundred thousand dollars, while the net worth of a renter
is only ten thousand. Just repeating exactly what you just said,

(16:47):
it makes me question. Rent always goes up everywhere I go,
and so I've been moving a lot to avoid that
cut down and expenses. You know, I have some flexibilities
that others don't. But if rent keeps going up, how
are these renters affording all this? So my question is
going to be how involved is the government going to
get in this? And that always isn't too good for

(17:08):
us as Americans when the government does not have to
save us.

Speaker 1 (17:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
So, you know, the Federal Reserve doesn't control mortgage rates.
They control the overnight rate, the overnight lending rates between
financial institutions.

Speaker 6 (17:21):
But you know a lot of.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
People think, well, if the Fed would just lower rates,
then people could afford homes, mortgage rates would go down,
and you know everything would be solved. But that's not
necessarily true. You know, mortgage rates stayed high even when
the FED cut rates last year. So you know it's
the short end of the yield curve that gets impacted
when when the FED cuts the most. So you know,

(17:42):
rate cuts might not might not really be effective for
bringing mortgage rates down. But what's what's another possibility?

Speaker 3 (17:50):
What else could.

Speaker 7 (17:53):
Well impossible scenario? I'll say nothing is technically impossible, but
if the Fed cells it's too true, you know, dollars
mortgage bonds, that would probably put people in the streets.
So that's one area the FED cutting rates would be
a good thing because that mortgage costs itself could cut
up to fifteen to twenty percent of the actual cost.
What actually would bring that qualifying income from one hundred

(18:16):
and twenty seven thousand down to one hundred thousand as
a possibility On the good side, that's really hard to
do for the young crowd. So we were, you know,
just talking about gen Z. You know, they're in the
workforce right now, they're in their twenties, so you know,
graduate college. Hopefully they did get a job and they're
not working side jobs that weren't in their field. How
are you going to add to that? So the question
can be also what about getting married? You know, is

(18:39):
that a possibility of combining Now I'm not saying getting
married to go buy a home and just so there's
a lot more.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Factors to that.

Speaker 7 (18:43):
Biblically, let's make sure there's qualifications. But you know, what
are we seeing right now with trends? So another one
is also just raising income. So the big problem is
that young people have lower incomes and that's also contributed
to why they're not getting married. So survey from Happily
Surveys talked about how young people aren't getting married right

(19:04):
now because of the stagnant incomes. So if you fix
the incomes, you might see more people getting married. But
the same time, it's almost a catch twenty two if
you combine those two incomes before children, and if the
wife isn't staying home for her full time job of
taking caring and raising for children, providing for the home
that way, then there could be that possibility where they

(19:24):
do qualify for these medium home prices, but they're still
pretty high as is.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
So yeah, and inventory is still an issue you know
that more homes need to be built. I mean, that's
a lot of times it comes back to a supply
and demand type thing. You know, small home builders, that's
what you know, my husband does. He's a he's a
general contractor. And you know, small home builders are really
at a disadvantage when you compare them to the big
corporations because these big corporations they can buy down mortgage

(19:55):
rates so they can build the homes and then they
can you you know, they can buy down the mortgage rates,
which makes the total purchase more favorable for you know,
the total cost of the purchase more favorable for people
who would be buying the homes. And you know the
issue with that, you know, like you said, it's never

(20:17):
a good idea for the government to get involved in
the private market, you know, because big, big home builders.
I mean, you can't force a company to produce something
or to do something when there it's going to be
detrimental to them. That's just you know, that's not fair.
If you were one of the big home builders, I
would I would suggest that you would say, the government
can't tell me what to do. They can't make me

(20:38):
build more homes if it's going to cost me money
or cause me to lose money. I mean, that's just
not the American way either. So and these big home builders,
you know, they're in business to make a profit. They're
not there to solve for the housing crisis that was.
You know, well, you know, economic crisises are a lot
of times self inflicted. I'll just say that. You know,

(21:00):
there's also Trump's idea to remove that capital gains tax
on home sales.

Speaker 7 (21:04):
Speak to that, Yeah, there's administration. This looks like this
administration is trying to help. I mean under Trump, right now,
the blue collar wages have been reported of hitting a
six year high. Does that count for all the twenty
year olds?

Speaker 3 (21:17):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (21:18):
It's just that particular industry dogs even started on federal regulations,
meaning they're looking into that could that help of the
housing supply? Possibly They're going to find a lot of
probably i legal regulations. And then of course you know
they're removing capital gains tax on home sales, so of
course that's to increase supply. Right, that's Trump trying to
work on that, and that act is actually.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
In Congress.

Speaker 7 (21:41):
So do I feel do I feel confident that something
can get through Congress very quickly after we just had
HR one. Probably not, but the capital gains tax right now,
there is a tax exclusion for those that are filing jointly.
There's a five hundred thousand dollars tax exclusion if you
five jointly on your first home sale as long as

(22:02):
it was lived in for at least two years of
the last five years. So that's that's opening that up.
Only so many people are going to qualify for that.
Latest data is the average homeowmner has gained about one
hundred and forty thousand inequity over the last five years,
So that's just not even counting the principal paydown as well.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
So I just don't know if that'll go a really
long way towards increasing the inventory, because even if they
sell their home, they got to buy another one, So
it doesn't solve for that inventory problem there. And you know,
I don't think that that's going to be an incentive
to get people to sell their homes. I think it
would be a different kind of incentive. But you know,
it's it's likely. I mean, it's really the corporations. You know,

(22:42):
if they own one out of every four homes, you
know what could what could happen to get them to
incentivize them to sell their homes so that people could
you know, have more homes to buy and home prices
could you know, come back into a in achievable range.
But you know, like you said, you'll have to get
Congress on board for that, and we all know how

(23:03):
hard that is because you know, you'll have those in
Congress that'll be screaming, you know, if you try to
extend that capital gains exemption to corporations or you know,
even individuals that may own you know, fifty rental houses
or something like that, you're gonna hear all of them
screaming about you know, well, that's just helping the rich

(23:23):
get richer. And you know, so we know how all
of that goes well. Jason, thanks for being with me today.
It's always a great conversation when you come on. And folks,
if you're listening on an outlet that only carries the
short version of the show, we wish you a farewell
for everyone else. Stick around. We've got more financial issues
to come right after this break. Find out more about
our ministry Financial Issues dot org.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Welcome back, Financial Issues, folks. Wonderful to be here with
you today.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I've got a special tree joining me on the show today,
my friend Frank Gaffney. Frank is the president of the
Institute for the American Future. He's an American patriot. Served
under the Reagan administration as Reagan's Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International security policy. Frank is a big believer in
the values that made this country great, and he's fighting
every day to restore and keep those values. Frank, I

(24:29):
appreciate you so much, brother, Thanks for joining me again.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
It's a privilege always to be able to do so.
Thank you so much for.

Speaker 4 (24:35):
Having me so absolutely so. I've several topics lined up
for today, brother.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
The first is this.

Speaker 4 (24:41):
You shared a statement earlier this week on your Secure
Freedom Minute spot on the radio concerning the looming threat
of possible taxation from in my opinion, and I'm sure
you probably agree with me, one of the most worthless,
evil garbage organizations in the modern world, that would be
the United Nations.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Tell us about this.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
What is what is this possible tax burden from our
benevolent overlords in the UN and how might it impact
us citizens if it indeed is implemented.

Speaker 5 (25:09):
Well, let me start by just affirming you're very poor
estimation of the value of this organization, and it's important
to do so, Seth, because it's also important to understand
that from its inception, the idea was to be hostile

(25:36):
to the United States, to Israel obviously when it came along.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
But also to the.

Speaker 5 (25:46):
I would argue free world more generally, and it was
a predictable upshot of giving in the General Assembly an
equal vote vote to every member state. And given you
know what happened with sort of postcolonialism, the spawning of many, many,

(26:12):
many states, most of them again hostile to freedom, hostile
to certainly the developed world, predictably we were outvoted, and
it became more and more toxic in more and more
of its agencies and more and more of its various

(26:36):
you know, committees and commissions and so on. My point
is this that when you understand that it actually had
baked into that hostility, the idea that the arrangement that
would ultimately arise from all of this would be not
just a place where people could get together and cast

(26:59):
votes that annoyed us, but rather to create a world
government that would essentially rule us as well. And the
thing that I'm warning about right now, which I only
learned about, you know, a couple of days ago myself,
is that for quite some time the champions of this

(27:23):
idea of world government have understood that in order for
them to actually pull this off, they needed not only
to get certain powers vested in them and you know,
certain arrangements that would establish, you know, a supremacy of
this kind of governance, they also needed a revenue stream.

(27:47):
And so they began thinking of various ways in which
the United Nations could tax the world, and they've come
up with one that is now quite far advanced. The
first I think of its kind, and that is a
tax on international shipping on the grounds that a lot

(28:10):
of the ships are dirty and produce lots of diesel exhausts,
and that that constitutes a threat to the ozone lay layer,
and that in turn creates global warming, and that in
turn causes you know, adverse repercussions, notably for islands in

(28:32):
the Pacific that will become below water lavel if the
seas continue to rise, and so on. So the idea
is they're going to tax these ships and the funding
that will be generated by it. And I've heard estimates
anywhere from ten billion dollars a year to maybe even
one hundred billion dollars a year, all of which would buy,

(28:56):
you know, necessity be added to the tax burden or
effect to believe the costs of people using what is shipped.
But the point is this would create a revenue stream
that could be used not just for fighting global warming,
already perennial of the UN, but also for funding the organization,

(29:19):
in other words, making it independent of the member support
that has heretofore been something of a break, particularly ours,
since we provide something like a quarter of the total
amount that funds the operations of the UN, we've been

(29:41):
able to say, hey, no, you're not going to do that,
not with our money, and that has to some extent
cause them to be a little less aggressive, a little
less insidious than they would otherwise be. But this taxing authority,
which would become, of course a precedent for a lot
more of it, you can bet, would change that power

(30:02):
dynamic very markedly, and I think to the great detriment
of again not just us our vital interests, but the
free world more generally.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
Frank, thank you for bringing that to our attention.

Speaker 7 (30:14):
Brother.

Speaker 4 (30:14):
It certainly is concerning stuff for sure. And you know
you had mentioned in your radio spot the idea. As
a historian, I appreciate this so much that we have
seen this before. We as a nation once fought a
war for our independence over this very concept taxation without representation.
Back then, we fought against the global power. Now it

(30:35):
seems we're also fighting against the global power.

Speaker 5 (30:38):
Or are we?

Speaker 4 (30:38):
And that's really my next question for you. Do we
have the same type of people that we had in
the seventeen seventies, the founding fathers, courageous men who were
willing to say, we're not standing for this, We're not
going to allow our people to be taxed by some
evil world ruling cabal.

Speaker 3 (30:54):
Do we have that now?

Speaker 5 (30:58):
It's a great question, Seth. I believe that the Trump
administration has communicated that it does not support what's going
on here, and certainly to his credit, the President has
said we're getting out of the World Health Organization, one
of the other vanguards of this effort to push forward

(31:21):
the agenda of global government. But you know, at the
end of the day, our founding fathers put on the
line their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to
fight that global power, and some of the paid in

(31:43):
all three categories by the way, others survived and led
us into the promised land of independence from Great Britain,
great power at the time. But I don't know that
revolutionary efforts are going to be required, but I can
tell you it is going to take a very strong

(32:05):
resistance to it. Maybe ultimately some would argue the departure
of the United States from the UN itself in order
to make sure that we are not stuck with the
consequences of all of this. I confess I have some
mixed feelings about that, because I think the UN would
go on to do even worse stuff if we were

(32:26):
not there. Not in the General Assembly that's going to
go on as it has where we get out voted,
but in the Security Council, which is the outfit that
has the real teeth. If we're not there to cast
a veto, you can bet an awful lot of even
worse things will happen. But that's where the rubber is
going to meet. The road is how much are we
going to do to resist this and prevent.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
It if we can so?

Speaker 5 (32:50):
Well?

Speaker 3 (32:50):
Said brother.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
I know I've asked you a similar question to this
before in previous interviews. But if you had the president's ear,
what would you tell President Trump to do?

Speaker 5 (33:00):
Of all, I think he needs to bring this the
attention to the American people. The whole issue of global governance,
by the way, is something that most of us have
no idea is even a foot let alone what threat
it would represent. We started, as you know, set the
group we call the Sovereignty Coalition for the purposes of
raising awareness about it and then pushing back against it,

(33:22):
particular in connection with this World Health Organization effort to
give an unelected, unaccountable bureaucrat the ability to tell us
when we have a public health emergency of international concern
and worse, what we must do about it. And we
had a taste of that with the COVID nineteen exercise,

(33:43):
as you know, and he didn't have that authority then,
but it kind of worked out that way, and it
was a disaster the American people. Remember, I think most
of us, you know, there's an old line about it,
conservative as a liberal mug by reality. I think a
lot of us were by the reality of the abuses
that flowed from the World Health Organization, you know, prescribing

(34:08):
what we were supposed to do about COVID. We need
to translate that abiding resentment into active opposition to any
other form of government that is going to substitute for ours,
our constitutional republic, our representative form of government.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
That's what's on the line, Frank. I appreciate your insight
into this so much.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
Unfortunately we're just about out of time here, but real
quickly tell our listeners where can they learn more about
this topic.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
And some of the other things that you're keeping an
eye on right now.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
Well, it kind of one stop shop is our Institute
for the American Future website and that is Usfuture dot org.
Pretty easy to remember. Yeah, that will give you access
to all of our various coalitions that we called our
special Force, the War of Ideas. They're interested in their
support possible.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
Frank, we appreciate you so much, brother. That's Frank Affey folks.
I appreciate the work that he does. Always a joy
to have him on the show. Looking forward to the
next time that we do it. We got more financial
issues right on the other side of this break. You're
not going to want to miss it.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Stick minutes.

Speaker 6 (35:30):
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 3 (35:47):
Been a good show, folks. Appreciate you all joining us.
Been a busy one. It's good to have Jason, Frank, Shanna,
the whole kitten kaboodle, as they say, Sam on the program.
The gang's all here. We're having some fun. Speaking of
the gang.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
We always appreciate so much your comments and questions, folks,
And boy, we got a good one here, Sam.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Why don't you read us Bill's question here? What we
got from Bill?

Speaker 6 (36:06):
Well, this is could be controversial, depending on how you
read it. Bill says, if anyone there is interested, that
is on the chat, he said, I'm using Xai to
supplement your by lists, and so far it seems to
be working quite well.

Speaker 3 (36:20):
So well, future is now, The future is now. Sam,
that's exactly right. Chat.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
Share your thoughts with us. We'd love to hear this Bill.
While the chat's doing that, I'll share my thoughts with you.
I appreciate you sharing, and I appreciate you giving us
this information. Let me say a few things about this. First,
your approach, Bill, is not uncommon.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
There are a.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
Growing number of Americans who are using AI to help
with their investments. Sam give us that study that you
found from March. What's the number of Americans that are
now starting to do this? And this is according to March,
so we assume the number might even be hired by
this point.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (36:51):
So that study found that about forty seven percent of Americans,
so about half of the people in the United States
now say they feel pretty comfortable using AI to help
with their investments and finances.

Speaker 3 (37:02):
So that means various things.

Speaker 6 (37:04):
It doesn't mean everyone's using it for investing purposes, but
I think most people from that study are at least
using it for budgeting.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
At this point. Yeah. Yeah, So it seems to be
the trend.

Speaker 4 (37:14):
As AI becomes more popular, which it will, it will
become more popular.

Speaker 3 (37:18):
The practice is going to become more mainstream. So let
me say this as well.

Speaker 4 (37:21):
Bill.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
You know, the FIS strategy really is a do it
yourself strategy. That's one of the beauties of it.

Speaker 4 (37:26):
I think maybe the thing that I enjoy most about it,
other than that it's God glorifying, it's do it yourself.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
That means anyone can do it.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
Regular guys and gals like you and I can do it,
and we can also use supplementary tools that we feel
could help us. So you can do stuff like this,
You can use AI to supplement your research. I think
that's cool. Also, I think there's nothing objectively wrong about
using AI to supplement your research when you're doing this
or anything. I think we can get into the weeds
a little bit and we can start to talk about,

(37:55):
you know, when it would be wrong to do that,
but it doesn't go against BRI principles. I don't think
it's necessarily sinful to use AI to help with your research,
and I'm glad it's working well for you so far too.

Speaker 6 (38:05):
Yeah, I guess the question is what is supplement exactly right?
Great where it might be helpful, but you have to
be careful because AI does get things wrong.

Speaker 3 (38:13):
Would be let's say you have two similar.

Speaker 6 (38:15):
Stocks on the by list and they're in the same sector,
they also do similar things, and you want to know
which one's right for me. I want to know what
they do. I want to make an informed decisions, So
AI might be useful in that situation. Just to give
you a little bit more information.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah, that's exactly right. I think that's a great way
to do it. So that's my first comment for you.

Speaker 5 (38:33):
Bill.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Now let me give you the other side of this. Okay, personally,
I would avoid it. I personally would avoid it. And
again an opinion show, I get paid to share my opinions.
Here's my opinion for what you're doing. I don't think
it's a good idea. And I say this with all love,
absolutely also understanding what Sam said that we don't have
a clear understanding of how you're doing this, but assuming

(38:54):
that it's what we think it is, this is not
a sin.

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Versus not sin issue. Can you explain what you think again?

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (39:00):
Yeah, yeah, So Bill, based on the way you phrased
your question, using AI to supplement your by list, is
that somehow you're using AI to look for companies that
could qualify as BRI I. So maybe you're looking for
additional companies that we might not have on our buy list.
That's what I'm getting from your question, and that's how
I read it too.

Speaker 6 (39:20):
I phrased my alternative as a potential of what he
also means. Bill, if this is what you mean, if
you're not as let us for our conversation right now,
we're going to assume that's what you mean.

Speaker 3 (39:30):
Yep, we're going off of what you said.

Speaker 4 (39:32):
And so if that's what it is, I personally would
avoid it, not because it's sinful, but I think because
it might not be the wisest thing to do. Let
me explain a couple of reasons. Reason number one and
this is by far the most important. We tried that
we actually so, Sam and I did an experiment late
last week where we put Rock to the test, asked
it questions about br I investing, and it failed the test. Sam, tell,

(39:53):
Bill and the rest of our listeners. What happened when
you asked rock AI to give us biblically responsible companies
to invest and what did it spit out?

Speaker 6 (40:01):
So I asked our robot Overlord's groc, what are the
best biblically responsible stocks out there? And to be fair
to Grock, it actually gave a pretty good definition of
BRI itself. That says it focuses on aligning investment with
Christian values. It wants to avoid things like abortion, pornography, gambling,
et cetera. So that's a pretty good definition, a pretty

(40:22):
good working definition.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
Definitely.

Speaker 6 (40:23):
I question though, overall it failed because they said what
are the best BRI stocks. It gave a couple of
good ones, and then it really goes off the rails
because it says Walmart, our friends over at Walmart, and
that is not a good BRI stock. They sell porn
at their store, they donate to abortion and LGBT causes.

(40:45):
But it thinks that it might be BRI because it
does have Christian roots Sam Walton, the founder was a Christian.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Right.

Speaker 6 (40:52):
It also says Tyson Foods would be a good BRI
stock because it has a faith friendly corps culture, but
again it also donates to LGBT causes. Many more companies
like this, Alaska Air Group and Jet Blue both not BRI,
and even Marriott Hotels, which runs casinos, also supports those

(41:13):
abortion and LGBT causes too.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Sam, thanks for bringing that up.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
So it seems like Grock got something's right, but got
some things really badly wrong. And I think across the
board it kind of seemed to fall into what many
people think BRI investing is, which is just as long
as the company has Christian roots, it's fine. We know
that's not what biblically responsible investing is. It's what a
company explicitly does with shareholder dollars, and if those shareholder
dollars are being used to fund things that God hates,

(41:38):
that company is not biblically responsible. Even if it's started
and founded and run by Christians, it's not biblically responsible.
So definitionally, GROC does not understand what it truly means
to be BRI, at least according to our experiment.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Bill.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
For that reason alone, that's.

Speaker 4 (41:52):
Why I would tell you I would avoid it is
because I don't think Rock is trustworthy to understand what
BRI truly is.

Speaker 6 (41:58):
Yeah, and actually it was pulling a lot of this
information from an article from twenty fourteen, so that's just
not right up to day data. So maybe it was
right about some of these companies, maybe Tyson, I can't
remember if it was or wasn't br right.

Speaker 4 (42:10):
I'm most positive that Tyson was at that point, because
I know Tyson was on our list at one point,
Sam and maybe Walmart two at that point.

Speaker 6 (42:17):
So it could just be pulling from bad data. But again,
that just shows you can't you really can't trust it
for these types of thing.

Speaker 3 (42:22):
Absolutely, absolutely, so that'd be reason number one. Bill.

Speaker 4 (42:25):
I think that's most important. I'll give you a few more.
Reason Number two, I generally distrust AI as a whole.
Please don't hear me say this, folks, that AI is bad.
I don't think it's bad at all. I think it
can be used for great things. I think it also
can be used for very bad things.

Speaker 6 (42:39):
It's like I use it for spellcheck just about every day.
That's exactly right. It's great to be used for spell check.
Probably not the best thing to do. If you're a
pastor and you're trying to write a sermon, might not
be the best thing to do. In the same way
that I trust a trained pilot to land a plane
more than I would trust a robot to land a
plane in a storm.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
It's the same idea.

Speaker 4 (42:59):
Or if I'm at major surgery, I would like a
skilled surgeon, I would not like a robot. I want
a skilled surgeon with human intellect making those decisions. Same idea.
There's something to be said for human intuition, God given intellect.
Those things cannot be replicated. I don't care how smart
the robot is. You cannot create God given intellect in
a machine. That is something only God can create, and

(43:22):
it's only created in mankind because we reflect the image
of God. He has that intellect in perfection. We have
it in imperfection because we've been marred by the fall,
but we still have it. These machines cannot have that.
So there's a general distrust for AI for me as well.
And then reason number three is based off reason number two.
I specifically distrust AI based on the fact that it

(43:42):
will naturally reflect the worldview of whoever creates it. So
what you have to look at with Groc, for example,
is GROC will reflect its creators, chat GPT will reflect
its creators. All these other ones, I don't know what
jud Gemini is. Another one I think, Sam, that will
reflect its creator.

Speaker 6 (44:00):
Was Gemini, the one that when it first came out,
people were asking it to make AI images of the
Founding Fathers, and it made me, I think, some black guys.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
Yeah when we wrote history because its creators were woke, right,
And so we've seen this in the recent past. I mean,
this is something that's happened with several different AI bots, Sam,
you mentioned one of them. Several of them are programmed,
pre programmed to think and react negatively to the Christian worldview,
and I personally, I wouldn't get involved with it for

(44:29):
that way. That's me merely using my god given intellect
as well.

Speaker 3 (44:33):
AI.

Speaker 4 (44:34):
You know, we think about it on a base level,
we would hope that it would just be an unbiased robot.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
It's really not.

Speaker 4 (44:40):
There actually is no such thing, because there's always biases
from the creators. We create things with biases. My favorite
AI robot, truthfully would be one that's biased toward Christianity.
I wouldn't mind that at all. I think there's the
truth that has one out there right now. I kind
of want to try it to.

Speaker 6 (44:55):
See how that might be a way truthfully it say,
it was like if you baptize chat GPT, so I'm
kind of curious. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (45:02):
Absolutely, it certainly won't be perfect, but it might be better.
None of these things are unbiased because they were created
by sinful humans with sinful agendas. So I think that's
really important something to be aware of.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
And as far as the market goes, yeah, there's a
level of irrationality and human behavior, especially at very large scale.
I mean, if you paid attention to the show, you
know the market is a pretty jumpy at times, and
sometimes for pretty silly reasons, and I'm just not sure
if a robot can pick up on that subtle human irrationality,
that behavior that you can't always calculate out why people

(45:37):
are doing things and what's going to happen down the line.
That seems like something you need a person who actually
understands human beings to.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
Work with, right data, Sam, you're touching on a topic
that our founder, Dan Celia was an expert in, which
is behavioral economics. And part of why he was such
a brilliant economist was because he focused on human behavior.
That's very important when it comes to investing, very very important.
All that to say, Bill, when you're dealing with something
as spiritually serious as biblically responsible investing, it would be

(46:06):
far better for you to trust number one, the word
of God. Number two your own intellect, your own God
given intellect and conscience. That's a far better tool for
you than using any kind of robot, no matter how
biased it might be, quote unquote hope that.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Helps you out. Bill.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
It's a great question, and I do appreciate you bringing
it up to us. My encouragement for you, you know,
if it's working for you, I think that's awesome. My
encouragement for you would be trust first in the word
of God, and your God give an intellect, so hope
that helps.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
Brother.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
I appreciate that so much, and I appreciate all of
you Sam as well. You thanks for sharing your insight there. Brother,
it was great to be here with you all today. Folks,
God willing, we will do it again tomorrow. Until then,
remember everything you have belongs to the Lord. Let's be
found good and faithful stewards with what God has given
to us.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
We'll see you next time.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
We ever forget that we're one nation under God, then
we will be a nation gone under Thank you for
joining us.

Speaker 6 (47:18):
This is