Financial Issues - 08.07.2025

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
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, folks, Welcome back to Financial Issues.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Great to be here.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
With you today. As always, it's always an exciting part
of the week. Here we got Thursday. Tomorrow, Shannon is
going to be back on the show. We got Bible
Study tomorrow morning. Been a busy week. I'm grateful for
each of you though being with us this week, and
excited for the show today. As always, Sam, ready to roll, Baby,
Let's do it one more time, shall we.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm not just ready to roll, I'm ready to rock.
It's gonna be crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
That's right, it's gonna be awesome, folks. We got a
special guest later in the show. Financial expert Mark Manilla
is going to join me later on. It's going to
bring clarity to the definition of biblically responsible investing. I
think it'll be a good conversation. If you've got questions
for Mark, you can get them in the chat as well,
especially on that topic. Also, experts are now pinning down
a potential pick for the next head of the Federal

(01:09):
Reserve after Jerome Anti Christ Pal as we call him,
steps down. Will reveal who that might be. Not the Antichrist,
but who the Federal Reserve chair might be. Sam and
I have this running joke that Jerome Pal is the Antichrist.
We don't actually think he is, but each of each
of his names, Jerome Hayden Pal has six letters in it,
six sixty six. Ooh boy, he's not.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
It's probably not. Man, it really makes you thick, but
you are. You are teaching Daniel right now.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I am Sam X. That's exactly right. Speaking of which,
we will be in Daniel seven tomorrow for Bible study, folks.
Funny story. Actually this is not a joke, but I
will be talking a good bit about the Antichrist and
even perhaps unveiling some of my opinions as to who
I think the Antichrist is. So if there was ever
a Bible study, I would encourage all of you to attend.
I think it's going to be tomorrow. You're definitely gonna

(01:56):
want to catch that one at six thirty Eastern time.
Do you hope you'll ask as well. On Tuesday, sell
alert for TXNM. It was bought out by a non
biblically responsible company, so make sure that you do that, partners. Hey,
I do want to kick things off, folks. We have
a very special thing happening right now at the ministry.
We want to use this megaphone for good and so
we have a petition right now that is live on

(02:18):
our website, financial issues dot org. I put the link
for it in the chat. If you go to financial
issues dot org and go to the resources tab and
click sign our petition, you can click it. It takes
you right to the petition page. You'll put in your
information and you'll join that petition. Who's it for, you
might ask, Well, sadly, it's for our old friends at Tesla. Unfortunately,

(02:39):
Tesla is no longer biblically responsible. Through some research that
we've done, we've uncovered some really troubling things concerning the
company's healthcare policies, mainly related to abortion travel as well
as transgender medical procedures. Of course, both of those policies
conflict with our biblical worldview. We want no part of it.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Despite that, those details are laid out in the Passion
if you have any question exactly that.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, you can look more into that petition. It's very
well written. It's directed right to Elon Musk, so we're
bringing this petition right to his feet. It's unfortunate because
he is an ally of ours in many ways when
it comes to conservative values, but when it comes to
biblically responsible investing, at least with Tesla, we need to
stand strong in the word of God. There's something more
powerful than just being conservative, and that's being followers of

(03:23):
Christ and putting our money into companies that are not
going to grieve God's heart. Unfortunately, Tesla is no longer
one of these, so this is for partners and non
partners alike. Folks. By the way, you can go to
our homepage financial issues dot Org and click that petition button.
Once again, you go to Financial Issues dot Org under
the resources tab and click that take action Now button
and that'll take you right there. We've already got several

(03:45):
hundred signatures on it. I'd love to get over a thousand.
I think that would send a big message to Tesla
for sure. And obviously, folks, you know, the hope and
prayer with this is that they will read something like this,
and perhaps we're not the only ones doing this. They
will read something like this and they will think, hey,
you know what, maybe we need to stop doing that stuff.
We're aligned with many at least our our boss is,

(04:08):
you know, at least aligned politically with many folks who
hate this stuff that our company is promoting through its
investor dollars. So we want to put a stop to it.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
Yea is not a fan of this, and I was
actually surprised when we did a little bit of that
research and we found himself appear they do have some
transgender healthcare policies at that company.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
I believe, very sadly. Unfortunately, Sam, I think you told
me this that Elon Musk has a son, a biological
son who has undergone transgender surgery. All that, you know, nonsense,
and it.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
Was really political in his political formation, in Elon Musk's
worldview becoming more right leaning because of all that with
his son.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, so we bring all this up to you folks
to tell you, listen, the ground is right for perhaps
Tesla to maybe change their mind with this, but nonetheless,
whether they do or not, we want to be faithful.
And so that's what this petition's for I would encourage
every single listener to go and sign that petition right now.
You can do it at Financial Issues dot Org again
if you're a partner or a non partner. All right, folks,

(05:04):
let's move to some headlines here, Sam, let's get it
started with the tariff news that we got the latest
tariffs that Trump increased on India. What can you tell
us about these ones?

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Well, it's still on India. It seems like they're the
punching bag for Donald Trump right now. When it comes
to the tariffs. The White House announced on Wednesday yet
again an additional twenty five percent tariff on India for
bringing in Russian oil, bringing total tariff levels on India
to fifty percent. Those new tariffs are set to go
in effect in just twenty one days, at which point
India will have among the highest tariff rates of any

(05:38):
US trading partner. For their part, however, India says it's
being targeted by both the United States and the EU
since other countries, namely the EU but also Turkey and
China are not facing similar penalties for buying Russian oil.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Sam, I appreciate you bringing that up here. So we
were talking about this yesterday. I gave this example. India
right now is using the classic argument that you maybe
came across if you were like me. I was homeschooled,
so I didn't get to experience this in a public
school setting. But I did go to church, and I
went to Sunday school growing up. And so in Sunday
school class, for example, you're with your friends and you're

(06:13):
goofing off a little bit while the teachers trying to
teach a lesson, say on Daniel or on Noah or
something like that, and you and a bunch of other
kids are goofing off, but you're the only one who
gets punished. And your response is, well, why aren't they
getting punished like I am? You know, you all goofed off,
but you're the only one getting punished.

Speaker 4 (06:31):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
I feel bad for India here, Sam. At the same time,
I think it's a good lesson on looking at your
own heart and not deflecting on other people when you
get called out. Here's my solution for Indian and Sam,
I'd love to give you the chance to respond to
this instead of complaining that a bunch of other countries
are also buying Russian oil and not getting punished like
they should. Maybe India should just stop buying Russian oil.

(06:53):
I mean, what do you think, Sam, is that am I? Am?
I coming down too hard on Them's what else is
going on?

Speaker 3 (06:58):
So, so first things first, I'm actually a fan of
the idea of we punish countries for buying Russian o oil.
But I do kind of agree with India that for
some reason they're being targeted here. Because let's take your
analogy of the classroom, this would be kind of like,
instead of your scenario, it'd be kind of like if
the teacher in front of everyone said, if I see
any of you doing X, Y or Z, you're going
to get punished. Then in front of everyone, the teacher

(07:22):
sees that like five kids are doing the exact thing,
but he only calls out the one student even though
he saw the other kids doing it. And then, to
make matters worse, one of the kids that was also
doing the bad thing calls out the kid getting punished
and says, yeah, you're being bad unlike me. That makes
a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
And in your example, Sam, the other group of kids,
it's not just India, but we're also thinking the EU Turkey.
I'm trying to think China.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
So it makes you question, though, why India. What's special
about India as opposed to say the EU. Well, think
about it. The EU is currently in the midst of
a trade deal with the United States, which makes me
think this really isn't about Russian oil at all. It's
actually just Trump adding another stick when trying to make
a deal with India. So I think the endgame is
not necessarily the Russian oil. That might be the icing

(08:14):
on the cake, but I think the real goal here
is getting a real solid trade deal with India. By
the way, if you do want to make it some
sort of argument with Russian oil, I think that'd be great.
But I do think the United States needs to help
India find other ways to bring in oil besides from Russia,
because right now they are very dependent on Moscow for
their energy.

Speaker 2 (08:35):
Well said Sam, I do appreciate that so much, and
I think you're exactly right. It seems like the game
Trump is playing here is he's just trying to get
a deal with India. We've seen this before. You know,
he's done this, He's played hardball, and he's gotten a
deal out of it. I think we'll see that again here.
I totally agree. All right, folks, Let's move now to
the markets. Yesterday. Market's ride and high at a good day. Yesterday,
Apple was really leading the way. This drove the major

(08:56):
indices higher. This is due in part to a headline
we'll get to in the next segment where Apple CEO
Tim Cook met with Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (09:03):
Again.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
We'll talk about that probably on the other side of
the break, folks, I do want you to check out.
Speaking of which, check out Shanni's commentary from this week
on how to think about these larger companies, particularly companies
in the Magnificent seven, driving up the major indices. This
happens a lot, It's happened recently. We saw that again yesterday.
Shannon and the team gives some great, great, you know

(09:24):
thoughts on just how we can think rightly about this
because that has happened and it's probably going to continue
to happen. Sure enough, by midday, the tech heavy Nasdaq
was leading the way, same with late afternoon. That's how
the major induses ended. The Nasdaq finished over a full percent,
SMP five hundred was about three quarters of a percent positive,
and the Dow Jones relatively muted at a fifth of
a percent. Positive. As we sit this morning, let me

(09:46):
refresh my screen really quickly. Here the pre market's continuing upward,
actually in much the same way. Dal Jones is priced
into open at a half percent positive, and the sp
five hundred two thirds of a percent positive, the Nasdaq
four fifths of a percent positive. So the markets continue
to feel pretty solid and strong. Here a couple quick
hitters for you, folks. AMD stock was slumping five percent

(10:07):
on an earnings miss amid China AI chip concerns. We
mentioned Tesla earlier. We've got that petition for Tesla. The
sales of Tesla are sinking in the Eurozone, particularly the
United Kingdom. Germany as well as Europeans are warm to
the Chinese rival automaker.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
And speaking of China and the whole tech sector, I
see Intel's taking a dip because Trump is calling out
their CEO for some let's say, suspicious ties to China.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
How fascinating, Sam, that we're seeing the markets so tied
to whatever the President of the United States says. That
might be something we'll have to talk about on the
other side of this break busy show today, folks. I'm
looking forward to and enjoying the rest of it with you.
If you've got questions for us, put them into the
chat there. We'll be back with more financial issues coming
up with fonds.

Speaker 3 (11:08):
Folks.

Speaker 2 (11:09):
Appreciate you all joining us today. Just a reminder again,
we have a petition that is live right now. I
want you to go to the resources tab clicks sign
the petition that's at the very top of the resources
tab there on financial issues dot org. Partners and non
partners alike, you can go sign that petition. We want
to make our voices heard to let TESLA know that
we are not pleased with how they have used their

(11:29):
investor dollars to fund the abortion agenda and the transgender
agenda as well. Again, this letter is directed right to
Elon Musk, so we hope that it gets to his eyes,
and we are hoping and praying that they will change course.
Whether they do or not, we want to be faithful.
So this is an opportunity for you to be faithful
and to let your voice be heard and use the
megaphone of financial issues for good. I see we already

(11:51):
have again several hundred people have signed that, which is great.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Let's keep awesome, folks.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
That's great, Yeah, really cool, So good to see so
many of you. I'm gonna do an early chat run
down today because I forgot to yesterday. We've got John
from Alabama. Ho to you, John, David, Darlene in Virginia,
Nelson in Louisiana, Brian and Virginia. Good to see you, brother.
Who else do we have? Lisa in Texas? I got you.
Great to see you, guys. Yeah, join us. Please do
say hello George and North Carolina. Great to see you

(12:18):
as well this morning. George. If I missed anyone, I apologize.
Make sure I saw.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
Lisa said I do rock, which I'll take that it's true.

Speaker 2 (12:25):
Did she say Lisa did see she rocks? Or no?

Speaker 3 (12:28):
She said I do you do?

Speaker 2 (12:29):
I mean I agree with both. But yeah, that's good stuff, Lisa.
I have to agree with you there. Sam's pretty cool,
all right. Speaking of funny things, Sam, I got to
kick out of this yesterday, folks. You got to check
this out. Trump posted this yesterday on truth Social. He
was bragging about his donation of his presidential salary to
the White House Historical Association. Now, for some context, this
was something that I think some people tried to sweep

(12:51):
under the rug in his first administration but he did
it during his first administration, and apparently he's doing it
now as well. I believe, Sam. Maybe you can research
this for me really quickly, but I think the president
makes I want to say, a four hundred thousand dollars
a year salary.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Off the top of my head, that's right.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, I believe that's right around what it is. And
Trump apparently is donating all of it. But here's what
he said on truth Social yesterday. He said, I'm proud
to be the only president with the possible exception of
the late, great George Washington.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
He had to clarify that George Washington, indeed he is late.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
Indeed he's dead. Yeah, he's been dead for two hundred three.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Maybe we're just talking about some guy down the street
named George Washington. He's talking about the George Washington in there.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
So he goes on to say, quote, my first paycheck
went to the White House Historical Association, as we make
much needed renovations to the beautiful People's House. Great improvements,
beautification is taking place at the White House at levels
not seen since its original creation. Make America great again.
I laughed out loud when I saw that, Sam at
Trump's balance of being remarkably generous, which I think is

(13:50):
what he is. He is one of those very very
wealthy people who's also very very generous. At the same time,
he's shamelessly prideful in announcing it. It's like, look, how
generous I It makes me laugh. It's not something we
should emulate, folks. If you have the opportunity to be generous,
you should be generous humbly. But nonetheless, it's pretty hilarious
to see this. It almost reminds me of a child.

Speaker 3 (14:11):
It's so boastful that it's almost humble in nature, like
it's almost not self aware. Actually, with Trump, I think
a lot of it is kind of tongue in cheek
that we've come to expect this from him, so he
plays into it.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
Absolutely. I do love the fact that he has donated
his salary. I did hear that he you know, I've
heard that in the past that he perhaps was the
only president to do so since George Washington, and there's
even a question of whether Washington did or not. I
think it's a great thing, though he certainly doesn't need
the salary.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
That's by the way.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
It is four hundred thousand dollars a year. Yeah, so
that's that's chump change for President Trump. But yeah, just
I had to share that with you folks because that
was pretty funny. So well, let's move on to slightly
related news here, Sam, it's looking like the Federal Reserve
expected next chair might be rising to the top here.

(15:02):
Who might it be, sad.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Well, according to the traders, they're putting their guess, it's
going to be Kevin Hassett White White House Economic Advisor
Kevin Hassett. Yep, they say there's about a fifty percent
chance right now that it's going to be him. But
it's right now the battle of the two Kevins, because
in a distant second place, about a thirty percent chance
is going to former Fed Governor Kevin worsh Trump says

(15:24):
he's considering both of the quote two Kevins, along with
two others for the position. He did not say who
they are, but we know one of them is not
going to be Treasury Secretary Scott Bessont. There was a
rumor for some time it might be Scotty Boy Besson,
but it's not going to be him. Trump said that
Bessont has told them that he wants to keep working
for the Treasury Department because he enjoys working with Trump

(15:45):
in the administration.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Very nice, cool, so interesting stuff. Sam. There's if you've
seen the meme out there, folks, there's this the meme
of there's two wolves inside of me, raging inside of me,
and one of them is this thing and the others.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Now you have the two Kevins inside you.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
Two Kevin's inside of you, Sam, Right now, act I
have three wolves raging inside of me, so it's a wire.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Are two of them named Kevin?

Speaker 2 (16:05):
One of them is actually one of them? Particularly gets
really excited about Kevin Kevin Hassett possibly replacing Jerome Pal.
It sounds like he knows what he's doing. In fact, Sam,
you had the opportunity to speak with him at Seapack
several several I think it was three years ago.

Speaker 3 (16:18):
Maybe yeh, yeh, in twenty twenty two. Yeah, he is
exactly as he seems, at least in my ten minute conversation.
Who knows what he's like outside of that ten minutes,
But whatever you see on CNBC Fox Business, that's exactly
what he was like with me, both on and off
the camera. So that's kind of fun.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
There's a word I would use to describe Jerome Pale,
and it's technically a compound word. It's two words. It
would be wet blanket. Kevin Hasset. Is not that the
sense that I get from him, as he's positive, he's jovial,
seems like he knows what he's doing, and he's also
I think this is the most important sam. He's a
product of Trump two point zero, unlike Jerome pal who
is a product of Trump one point oh and turned
out maybe not to be so good of a hire.

(16:55):
Hopefully Trump might be doing his due diligence this time around,
and maybe he's thinking harder about who needs to be
in this unfortunately very pivotal position in our country.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
To be clear, it was part of the previous administration,
but now he's a much more elevated figure within the
Trump circle.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Exactly. So one wolf gets me real excited. The second
gets gets me excited at anyone or anything replacing Jerome
Palell as head of the Fed, chair as head of
the Federal Reserve. I have started to wonder if my
five month old son Knox might be a better replacement
for Pale.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
He might actually do a bit No Trump was at
CNBC the other day talking about this and he said,
you know, I think anyone in your studio right there
could be better than Jerome Powell. Just some guy unwitch,
probably better than Jerome Peel exactly.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
And look, folks, it's a tough job, okay, be in
the FED chair. As we've seen, it's a tough job.
But just seems to be like pal just doesn't seem
to have it. So I'd be excited at basically anyone
or anything replacing Jerome Hayden Palll as head of the FED.
But then the third wolf, Sam, and I think this
is the one that is overpowering the other two wolves
inside of me right now. So it might be a bear,
or it might be more a bear or a lion,

(18:03):
or like one of the beasts we've been studying in Daniel.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
That might that might.

Speaker 2 (18:07):
Not be too good. This shrieks three little words inside me,
Abolish the Fed, abolish just kill it as an end result,
I think, And folks in the chat, let me know
what you think. I think most people with the shred
of common sense would agree with me that in an
ideal world that's what needs to happen. We need to
not have a federal reserve. The problem is how do

(18:28):
we get there? And then who is in charge of
everything that the FED is currently in charge of. That's tough,
that's tough to think about. Who would it be. Perhaps
the best solution right now, as I've said before, Sam,
is to write the ship from the inside, and it
starts with getting a competent FED Reserve chair in there,
I think so. I think it also is involved with
auditing the FED. I think we're seeing some of that

(18:48):
accountability happen, which is great. My hope is that mister
Hassett is the right man for the job. And so again,
but just by the eye test, by watching your interevy
that you did with him, Sam several years ago, it
seems like he could be a significant improvement from Jerome Powell.
But we'll just have to, as the FED has coined,
wait and see.

Speaker 3 (19:08):
How fed of you.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
That's right. So that's what's going on there, folks. We'll
keep an eye out on that. But yes, it does
look like mister Hassett is the leading man right now. Elsewhere, Sam,
let's look at what's happening with Apple investing one hundred
billion in the United States. I teed this up in
segment one. Why don't you open it up for us
a little bit more here? What's going on?

Speaker 3 (19:26):
Yeah, this was the big story yesterday. Everyone was eager
to know if it was actually going to happen, and
it did. Apple is investing a whopping one hundred billion
dollars in the country, as well as making billions of
microchips inside the United States, along with so many other goodies.
We do have a clip of Tim Cook, or as
Trump likes to say, Tim Apple, making some of those

(19:46):
announcements yesterday. Here he is.

Speaker 5 (19:48):
We're committed to buying American made advanced rare earth magnets
developed by MP Materials, which will become part of Apple's
devices shipped around the world. We're also thrilled to work
together on a cutting edge rare earth recycling line in
Mountain Pass, California, and third in Kentucky. We've worked with

(20:11):
our partners at Corning to build the world's largest and
most advanced smartphone glass production line, and I'm pleased to
announce that very soon. This is for the first time ever,
every single new iPhone and every single new Apple Watch
sold anywhere in the world will contain cover glass made

(20:32):
in Kentucky.

Speaker 3 (20:33):
Fun fact, I actually grew up about an hour away
from Corning, so that may be kind of excited, but
that's neither here nor there. This brings Apple's total commitment
over the next four years to a stunning six hundred
billion dollars. At the White House on top of that,
says Trump has secured approximately ten trillion dollars in investments
in pledges so far. So these aren't official investments yet,

(20:57):
but a lot of them are paper investments. So that's
led to some people in the media saying, well, actually,
these aren't real numbers. This is just paper investments. But
Goldman Sacks analysis shows about eighty percent of pledges during
Trump's first term we're actually realized. So if that number
equates out this time, that means Trump has about what
seven to ten trillion dollars in actual investments, which I

(21:19):
say is pretty good.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, absolutely, you know, Sam, it certainly seems like this
is a part of Trump's America First policy, and I
sure do like that. Like it or not, folks, And
as I say this, please keep in mind Apple nowhere
near biblically responsible. It's not biblically responsible, fails on numerous levels.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
But we do like American jobs, we made by American jobs.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
We sure do. And this is going to be key
in the ongoing tech war with China. I really do
think so. So having this kind of investment is going
to be good. As for what Goldman sacks there, Sam,
it seemed like Goldman Sachs kind of being the proverbial
wet blankets of this.

Speaker 3 (21:51):
To be fair, I don't think they were trying to
be the wet blanket. I think people reporting on that
or trying to be the wet blanket saying well, actually
it's really ten trillion dollars, It's only eight trillion dollars.
I'll take eight trilli.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
As we say, Sam, whooped, he do right, unbelievable, good stuff, Sam,
I appreciate you bringing that up for us. I think
we got time for a quick comment from Facebook that
we got yesterday, Sam, what's you going to read that
one for us?

Speaker 3 (22:16):
I can see why you like this comment, Seth. He says,
great job, Seth. This is from Rinaldo on Facebook. He said,
great job. You are transitioning into a great asset and
co host of Shanna Dan could see the potential in
you when he chose you. Godspeed, Rinaldo, thank you for that.

Speaker 2 (22:31):
Brother. That's humbling to read, and I do appreciate that
so much. I would include Sam in that as well.
I could not do what I do, you know now
as Sam and I have been hosting the show, you know,
three days a week, you know, in a row, and
then half the show on Monday as well, I can't
do what I do without Sam. He just does a
fantastic job. But Rinaldo, I appreciate your encouragement so much. Man.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
That's mostly because if I don't unmute him, he can't speed.
That's true.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well that listen, he has all the power. Sam's got
it right there at the board. But no, thank you, brother.
It's it's a joy to get to do this. It's
also a joy to get to learn. I feel like
every time I host the show, I do learn something new,
whether it's from the guests coming on or even from
talking with you all of you folks. And just an
absolute joy to do this every day. So thank you
all so much for those of you who have continued

(23:16):
to support us and stay with us. Man, we just
appreciate it so much. And if you want to continue
to use your investor dollars and use your voice. Well,
check out that petition we have right now. You don't
have to do anything with your money with that. That's
just us trying to right a wrong that has been
done by a specific company that we once told you
to invest in and now unfortunately I had to pull

(23:36):
out of because they're no longer biblically responsible and that
company is Tesla, So make sure that you check that
out right now. You can go to the resources tab
at financial issues dot org and you can sign that
petition right now. More financial issues coming up right after this.
Folks sick with this? Hey, folks, welcome back.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Well, it's good to be here with you today, folks.

Speaker 2 (24:09):
I'm enjoying the show. I hope you are as well.
Market's just opened up here. Wall Street now is busy
with activity. So let's see what they're looking like. My
screen is not refreshing quite as quickly as i'd like
it to. But the latest numbers I'm seeing is the
Nasdaq is up about four or four fifths of a percent,
the S and P five hundred about two thirds, and
the Dow about a half, so basically what it was

(24:31):
in the pre market. But that's what we're looking like.
This morning. All right, folks, I have a special treat
for you. Once again, my dear friend Mark, Manila financial
expert FISM contributor is back with me on the show today.
I'm so excited to have him Mark, Welcome back, brother.

Speaker 6 (24:45):
Thanks for having me. It's awesome to be here.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
It is awesome to have you, my friend. So you know,
today's topic, I want to talk about misconceptions of Biblically
responsible investing, and Folks in the chat, maybe you've heard
some of these. I'd love for you to share some
of yours. We get questions from time to time about
this and there's a lot of opinions and thoughts about
it out there. So I want to start with let's
focus our conversation within the church. So among Christians, what

(25:09):
would you say are some of the most common misunderstandings
about Biblically responsible investing that you've heard or you've come
across within the church.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
That's it, That's an excellent question. First thing that went
through my mind was when I'd meet with clients. Yeah,
and for the first time they'd find out about BRI,
there's usually one of two things they'd come up. It
was either you know this one or that one the
majority of time. And the first one was I just

(25:39):
didn't know, So let's put that one aside, because that's
the right heart.

Speaker 6 (25:43):
I just didn't know. Now I know, let's do something
about it.

Speaker 4 (25:46):
But the other was they'd start rebelling and say, well,
the Bible doesn't ever say anything about investing, and you know,
effectively what they're doing is coming up with arguments, and that,
you know, misconceptions generally aren't misconceptions as much as they
are arguments for not having to admit that God has

(26:07):
reign over all of our life, including our investments. You know,
So somebody's holding Tesla, which hurts to sell it right now,
you know, because we've been in it so long and
believed in it so long. So you know, the Bible
doesn't talk about investing. And I think that's uh, probably
the biggest one really, and I think that's just wrong

(26:31):
to say that for anybody who's studied the Bible. You know,
the Bible does talk about investing, and it talks about
concepts that deal with investing as well. But I mean
the one that starts stands out in my mind the
most is when Solomon talks about diversification and I just

(26:52):
pulled that up as we're talking here. Ecclesiastic ask these
the eleven two. God expects us to use and grow
what he to us, not hoard or waste it. And
that's what's really important. This is what it says, invest
in seven ventures, yes eight, you do not know what
disaster may come upon the land. You know, right off

(27:13):
the bat here it is he's saying invest, it's not
saying I mean, that's as director as you could get.
When you say I would think so, I would think so.
Then he talk tells us how to invest in general.
And that's what's so cool.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
You know.

Speaker 4 (27:27):
When I was preparing today to talk about the different
things that misconceptions I've heard over the years, when I
was reading through this again, I thought it was so
cool because of what Financial Issues does for its partners.
And it's probably the least of what's really talked about,
but all the asset allocation models it works on, prepares

(27:49):
and and does research on to bring it forward. The
asset allocation models are there in alignment with what Solomon
has said, what God has put in Solomon's heart. And
I think that's so important because I don't know from
me watching Financial issues. We don't hear a lot about

(28:10):
those asset allocation models, but there are more in depth
in most asset allocation models that I've seen historically in
the industry. And I think that's because Dan and then
Shanna and everybody on the investment committee really want to
make sure they're doing it right for their partners.

Speaker 6 (28:27):
And those who want to invest with biblical integrity.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
You know.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
So right off the bat we got Ecclesiastes, but you know,
we also could go to the to the verse about
the talents, and in there he rewards those who put
the money to work. Yeah, you know, and so how
is that not talking about investing?

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Absolutely?

Speaker 1 (28:51):
You know.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
So that's the.

Speaker 6 (28:53):
Biggest fallacy really.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
I think that's the number one for Christians when they
came into my office and stuff, if they weren't if
their heart wasn't already tendered and ready to accept the
truth that God does talk about everything in our life,
everything comes under stewardship, including investments, and it's all in
the Bible. And then we could go into oh, I

(29:15):
don't know, probably a thousand verses on concepts and different
things regarding not directly investing, but all aspects of our life.
All aspects of how we utilize finances and possessions, money
and possessions to the glory of God.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
Mark, I'm glad that you brought that up because I've
heard that same one as well. Christians will say, well,
why doesn't really talk about it. You just gave two
verses there that are explicit pro explicit right now.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
These aren't just talking about you know, things that might
have to do with that and everything else are explicit.

Speaker 6 (29:53):
It's a good word for it.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
You know, two things I just wanted to point out
with what you said there. First, in that verseon Ecclesiastes eleven,
where Solomon, you know, to invest in or you know,
the new king James has given a serving to seven
and also to eight. That's a lot. That's that's not
just saying, oh you could you should only have seven
or eight positions in your portfolio. That number seven in
scripture is a number of completion or fullness, so it's

(30:15):
a full amount of investments, and then eight is even
more it's even more exactly. And then the second thing
that I was thinking of, in the second example that
you gave of the parable of the talents, Jesus has
some pretty harsh words for the guy who does not invest,
for the guy who is afraid. Now, I tend to
believe that it's he's he's not cast into the outer

(30:36):
darkness necessarily because he didn't invest. Well, he's cast into
the outer darkness because he doesn't actually love his Master,
and his not investing is actually a an evidence of
him having no love in his heart for the Master.
And so I do think that can be really convicting
for us. Maybe a listener out there is even listening
right now and thinking, you know what, I'm sitting on

(30:58):
my money, but it might be time to put it
to work because I really can use it for the
glory of God.

Speaker 4 (31:03):
Well, and that goes right to the heart of the problem.
Do you believe in God? Are you just a fan
of Jesus or you just kind of know he exists? Well,
you know, even the demons believe in God. Yeah, yeah,
and they know the truth, but they're not following him
for sure. They haven't put their trust in him. And
that's that's the difference between client one that says, Mark,

(31:26):
I just didn't know, and then breaks down weeping that
they're in abortion and pornography and all sorts of ugliness
and the one who says, well.

Speaker 6 (31:33):
The Bible doesn't talk about investing.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
You know, the difference is one has given their heart
to Christ the other.

Speaker 2 (31:40):
Yet, well said man Mark, let's brought it out now
for just a moment. We've talked about within the church.
What about in the world in general, among non Christian investors.
What are some of the most common misconceptions when these
types of people hear about biblically responsible investing.

Speaker 4 (31:53):
Well, and we've heard this all the time. I think
we even talked about a little bit on.

Speaker 6 (31:59):
A couple other sh but.

Speaker 4 (32:02):
Biblical responsible investing, if you screen out everything that was
offensive to God, there'd be nothing left to invest in that.
I mean, we hear that across the board, from Christians
who are have made the market they're idol to secular
investors who just don't know the truth about this. But

(32:25):
the majority of stocks, I think it's over ninety percent
of the US stock broker is clean. According to I
think that's evaluators calculation, isn't I believe, And they're the
strictest screening company for biblical responsible investing. So if over
ninety percent of the stocks are clean, then you have
plenty to invest in. Well, and then the second argument

(32:48):
on that comes down to, yeah, but you can't invest
in those that are making the most, you know, those great,
big giant companies that have gone through the ceiling and
made everybody you know, one hundred percent a year and
stuff like that. Well, you know that's a great argument,
but the reality is those companies also broke people. You know,
we saw Tesla crash several times in my life. Since

(33:11):
since Tesla has been around, we've seen all sorts of
serious pullbacks and Microsoft and Apple and stuff, and people
panicked and got out. So, you know, it comes down
to when it really comes down to making money in market,
it's not specifically the stocks, so you need those to
be investing in and whatnot, but it's the managers and

(33:35):
that's what's so important. Also, if you look at every
major serious research done on investing with biblical integrity compared
to investing in secular, wide open ideas, there's no significant
difference in the returns. So both those are a total misconception.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (34:00):
In fact, I thought I saw, I thought I saw,
and it just came to mind, and it may have
been on financial issues website where there was research done
that showed that biblically responsible invested investments are usually more
stable than those that are under secularism.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
That's well said, brother. You know, there are so many
reasons I could think why that could be. I think,
first of all, the blessing of the Lord. I think
second of all, though, when you have an investment strategy
that ultimately is not bringing with it the end goal
of I'm just trying to make as much money as
i can make, but the end goal is I'm going
to glorify God. Then I do tend to think, you

(34:44):
know what, that's actually going to be a strategy that's
going to serve you a lot better in terms of
using wise risk as opposed to this kind of you
know what i'd call it, I guess risky risk or
foolish risk. That's great stuff. Mark. Hey, we're coming up
on a break here. I want to present to you,
coming on the other side of this, a couple of objections,
specific objections that we've heard the biblically responsible investing and

(35:05):
to get your thoughts on it. These are from real
people on the Internet, so I'd love to hear your
thoughts on it. Mark, Hope that's okay, Folks, We've got
more financial issues coming up right after this break. Make
sure to say hello in the chat as well, and
make sure to sign our petition as well for Tesla.
We've gotten several more signatures even during today's show, so
let's keep those rolling there. We'll be right back after this.

Speaker 7 (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 folks.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
It is a joy to be here with you all.
I can't remind you enough. I'm going to keep telling you.
If you haven't signed our petition to let Tesla know
we're not pleased with what they have done with their
investor dollars, please do that right now. You can go
to the resources tab Financial Issues dot Org resources tab,
hover over it, and there's an option. The top option
is sign the petition. Just click on that. That'll take
you right to that petition. It'll take you about ten

(36:09):
seconds to fill in your name, your email, all that stuff,
and click that sign button and join the hundreds of
listeners who have already signed it.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Actually set there's an even quicker way to do that.
If you go to the website, you're going to see
at the top of the page a little megaphone. If
you click that, it will take you right to the petition.
So that's your one stop shop right there.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
Click the megaphone, folks. We're trying to use the megaphone
of fism for good, So click that. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 3 (36:33):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (36:33):
Before we get back to our conversation real quickly, a
couple comments in the chat here. James saying love this
week's commentary by the way, James, I did too, is
a really good one. Very much enjoyed that one. There
was another, Oh yeah, Daniel from Tennessee saying Proverbs twenty
seven is another great verse talks about investing to know
the state of your flocks. Daniel couldn't agree with you more, brother,
That's a great one there. Yeah, so that's awesome. See yeah, yeah,

(36:55):
for sure. Good to see so many of you on
the chat. Once again, I appreciate each of you. All right, Mark,
let's get to some of these objections now here.

Speaker 3 (37:01):
Brothers, before we do, please go ahead, before we do.

Speaker 4 (37:05):
This letter that you're sending to Elon Musk I'm so
glad we're putting this petition together, but I want to
take it a step further.

Speaker 6 (37:15):
Don't just go out and sign it.

Speaker 4 (37:17):
Tell your friends, email them a link, let them know
what we're doing. You don't have to be a partner.
Let's get one hundred thousand, and let's get the media
to pick up on this, to see this and start
reporting on it.

Speaker 6 (37:33):
We can do this.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
I mean, if eighty percent of America is Christian, which
they say, I would say, maybe a whole lot less
our true believers. But even if it was just one
hundred million of us are, shouldn't we at least get
ten percent of that out there and get it on
this petition. So take that link that's on that megaphone,

(37:55):
copy it and send it to your friends and let
them know they can go out and.

Speaker 6 (37:58):
Do this as well.

Speaker 4 (38:00):
And let's get this to Elon, because I don't think
Elon's a believer at this time, but he sure talks
about God more intelligently than most Christians.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
You know what's you know what's really funny, Sam and
I were talking about this back in the first segment.
I believe it was the ground is right for the
harvesting with Elon musk In particularly.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Amen.

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Amen, he has a son who has gone through the
transgender stuff, and Elon has said it's eating him alive
on the inside. He's personally frustrated with it. I don't
know if he even realizes that his company is promoting
this stuff.

Speaker 3 (38:30):
I actually he may not does.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
But yeah, he may not even realize it. So, folks,
the more signatures we get on this, just like Mark said,
the more signatures we get on this gives us a
better chance to get this to him and to make
an impact.

Speaker 4 (38:43):
So yeah, and then secondly, yeah, as you send out
that email to ten people, at least think about that,
you know, ten people, ten believers, or maybe make flyers
and give him out at church or you know, a
little pamphlet. But as you do this, get on your knees,
pray about Pray for you Elin, pray for Tesla.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, great stuff, brother, I so appreciate that, folks. I
put it in the link in the chat. One more time.
You can follow what Sam mentioned clicking on that megaphone there.
It's everywhere you can get to that link in any way. There, Mark,
let's pick up our conversation here now with a few
of these sort of common misconceptions to be our I
that we have heard these are real people on the
Internet who have said these exact things. Here's the first objection,

(39:25):
and we spoke about this a little bit earlier, but
I think it's worth clarifying. The objection is this, Practically
one hundred percent of companies out there are unbiblical, so
you really can't do bri investing. What would you say
to that.

Speaker 6 (39:40):
It's just not true. It's just not true.

Speaker 4 (39:42):
Now, first, all you know, we can go through through
all theological concepts on this.

Speaker 6 (39:48):
Obviously, corporations don't.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
Have a soul, but those running in our and the
actions they take are reflected and force upon all the shareholders.
So effectively a corporation has made. But there is no
perfect corporation, just like there's no perfect person. That's why
Christ said to come and die. But there are corporations
who do not conflict with God's tenets of love. They

(40:14):
don't push ideologies that cause people to stumble on their
way to Christ or in their walk with Christ. They
don't cause people to participate in sins of the world,
like using people, abusing, encouraging people into addictive products, things
like that. So the majority, as we talked about earlier,

(40:36):
over ninety percent it's estimated, are clean are in alignment,
not on purpose, but because they're good businessmen. They're probably
good businessmen who don't have the money to waste on
secular ideals.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
Bottom line, yep, Mark, that's great. And you know, I
think further, even baked within this question might be the
misconception that in order for a company to qualify as
biblically responsible, they have to be a perfect company, meaning
the CEO never sins, meaning.

Speaker 6 (41:05):
Yeah, that's how we get to Heaven, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
Yeah, it's exactly right. And no, no, we get Davin
by the blood of Jesus exactly exactly right. So yeah,
I think it's so important here the definition of biblically
responsible investing. It's what the company does with shareholder dollars,
and it's how those shareholder dollars are used. I think
you're exactly right, well said right.

Speaker 4 (41:24):
It comes down to investing with biblical integrity. Really believe,
what you do with the resources God has entrusted to
you is between you and God yep. And God desires
that you utilize his guidance on that because He is
perfect all knowing, and he knows what would bring you

(41:46):
closest to him, the source of everything good.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Yeah, great stuff, brother, all right. Second objection here comes Mark.
Jesus commanded his disciples to just give all their money away.
So if we want to obey Jesus, we should not invest.
What are your thoughts on that one?

Speaker 6 (42:03):
I'm trying to think of that verse and I can't
bring it to mine.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Is that Mark Chapter twenty? Oh wait, there's no Mark
exactly Mark.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
You'd be so maybe not. You wouldn't be surprised. But
how many people I found saying something akin to this
when I was researching this topic. It's it's astounding.

Speaker 6 (42:23):
Yeah, you know what.

Speaker 4 (42:24):
What is true though, is part of investing is you know,
God calls us to make God our God, not the market,
but we are. There are some concepts like.

Speaker 6 (42:36):
Like charitable, being charitable.

Speaker 4 (42:38):
God wants us to realize it's not ours as hiss
and be a conduit of His blessings to anyone he
puts in your path and puts on your heart to
care for. And that's very important. From the basic giving
to your church to help support the pastors and the
buildings and the and the school teachers. And everybody else,

(42:59):
to helping that family that you ran into, that sleeping
in a tent on the street that God broke your
heart about. It comes down to being charitable, being given,
holding on loosely to what God is in, trusting you're
doing the best you can with it, so you can
utilize it to help others with it. So being charitable,

(43:20):
being giving. God didn't give that money to you just
so you could get more and more of it, because
we have found that when that's the go unhappiness, depression,
all sorts of things creep in and you realize you're
not being fulfilled.

Speaker 6 (43:34):
You're fulfilled when you walk in.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
The ways of God, and one of the ways of
God is caring for others more than yourselves. You may
have a friend who's out of a job. You may
have a neighbor who is having a hard time with
her bills because her husband passed away. There's so many
things that could happen. Guess what He's given you so much,

(43:57):
so much, He's entrusted so much to you that you're
not even spending it all on your basics, the food,
the shelter, the education, and the lifestyle that you believe
God wants for you and your family. This is the
froth of all the money God has blessed you with,
and now he wants you to invest and multiply that

(44:19):
so you can be prepared to help those who are
needed that God puts in your path. Caring for others
more than yourself is a biblical principle. I wanted to
look up the verse that I had but generosity. I
guess it was Proverbs eleven, twenty four and twenty five.

Speaker 6 (44:40):
I just want to throw that out. You can make it,
someone can look it up.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Well you know, Mark, in light
of that, that specific objection that this person shared, I
find it so fascinating. Nelson in the Chat brought this up.
Jesus is not talking to his disciples cohesively. There, He's
talking to one person. He's talking to the rich young ruler.
He told the rich young ruler, sell all you have,
give to the poor, then come follow me. The reason

(45:05):
he did that is not because money is evil. He
did that because the rich young ruler's heart was enslaved
by money, and his heart needed to belong to Christ.
And so money in itself is not evil.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
It's right.

Speaker 4 (45:16):
He had to repent on his idol that he was
putting before God.

Speaker 6 (45:22):
He was hanging on. His security was in his richest,
not in God. That's right, and that was a issue.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
What a tremendous lesson for us, folks, that God has
given us this gift of money to be able to
grow well. Growing your money is not a sin. Growing
wealth little by little, as you know Proverbs talks about, Mark.
You know, a righteous man grows his wealth little by little.
That's a good thing it now that you know. The
trick with money is it can be so dangerous, but

(45:50):
it needs to be utilized. It needs to be used.
If we gave it all away, you know, for example,
if I gave all my money away to the poor
and a charitable cause or to my church, I then
would actually not be doing my job of providing for
my family. That's another biblical command that I have to
follow as well. So yeah, Mark, it's so so important there,
and I'm so bummed. We have to unfortunately cut our
conversation off at this point because the show is about

(46:12):
to end right now, so we'll have to save the
next objection for the next time you come on. Mark, Man,
I appreciate it so much, brother.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
One last thing here is that you know, God does
talk about investing. He says you can do it wise
in godly Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
Absolutely, absolutely, folks, it's all on the scriptures. The reason
that we're here is because we believe that we believe
that money is a tool to be used for the
glory of God, and that's what we got to do
with it. Mark appreciates you so much coming on with me, brother.
I look forward to the next time. We'll pick up
this conversation next time.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Brother.

Speaker 2 (46:45):
For the rest of you, until then, remember it's all his.
Let's be found good and faithful stewards with the money
that God has given to us. Join us tomorrow for
financial issues. Shannon will be back. Catch Bible study early
on as well, six thirty am Eastern time, and make
sure to sign that petition. You can do that at
financial issues dot org. See you next time.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
If we ever forget that we're one nation under God,
then we will be a nation gone under