Financial Issues - 08.14.2025

Episode Transcript

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

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Good morning, folks, Welcome to Financial Issues. Well on the
back end of the week here and it's great to
be here with each of you today. Seth Dnsky, Sam
Case the studio a team rock and rolling.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Sam.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Ready to have some fun again, brother, looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Let's do it. Of course, it's Thursday.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
It's like the weekend. Eve almost here, baby, almost here. Hey,
we've got a busy show, folks. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson
is very optimistic about rate cuts. We'll see what this
morning's PPI numbers potentially due to that. We'll get that
in a second. But speaking of optimism, recession fears also
are going down among many corporate executives. We'll explore that shortly.

(00:57):
We'll get your questions and comments. Make sure to say
low in the chat or on social media wherever you're
watching or listening on the radio. Welcome to you as well.
Also our friend Mark Manila is going to join us
later in the show to discuss several issues, including his
thoughts and wisdom on some of the different BRI screening
tools at our disposal. Ie, No, this is a question
that some of you have posed, and so we're going
to tackle that with Mark later. I'm excited for that.

(01:19):
We'll talk about some other things with Mark as well.
The big news this morning, folks, Producer Price Index came
out this morning. Just a reminder if you're new to
the show, if you don't really know much about finances.
The PPI number is the monthly measure of wholesale inflation
changes in selling prices by domestic producers. That price rose
almost one full percent in July. It was zero point
nine percent. It's higher than expected, and it was a

(01:41):
zero point two percent increase for the month as well
for the previous month excluding food and energy, so that's
core PPI. The index came in at zero point six percent.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Sam.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
It's interesting because it seems like this could be exactly
what Lord Father Jerome Pal needs as an excuse to
not cut interest rates.

Speaker 4 (01:58):
Well, it's unfortunate too, because it comes off of those
good CPI numbers which was getting the market so excited thinking, yes, yes,
now's the time to cut rates. Now, maybe not so
much at least in the eyes of the Fed.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah, Sam, if you could keep an eye on this
for me. Yesterday, I believe the numbers were the markets
were pricing in around a ninety four percent chance that
there would be a rate cut in September. I'd love
to see what that number is once the markets have
digested this PPI news here. Sure, so that's what it's
looking like, folks. No reason to panic, that's the way
things go. But that's what we're seeing there. I'm wondering

(02:31):
if Jerome Palll is breathing a sigh of relief seeing this.
We'll have to see. But at any rate, interesting stuff
this morning.

Speaker 4 (02:37):
And he has a backup too, because we had a
FED president today or it might have been yesterday, saying yes,
rates are exactly where we want them for right now.
They're restrictive, but not too restrictive. So he does have
some guys in his corner that might support him at
the next meeting.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Absolutely have to see how that goes. That meeting in September,
I believe middle of the month, so we're about a
month out from that next FED meeting. Speaking of earnings,
we haven't talked much about earnings this week, partially because
it hasn't really been all that big of a week.
Not many well known companies reporting, and their performances are
pretty so. So we had Cisco reporting. Shares fell the
fourth quarter shares the only barely beat expectations. You might

(03:13):
be wondering why Cisco is reporting fourth quarter or earnings
while most others are doing second quarter earnings reportings. Some
companies follow a different fiscal year. They'll go a July
to June fiscal year. There go, they'll go a October
to September fiscal year, so their quarter numbers will be different,
even though it's the same quarter.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
The wrong ones.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Their calendars just rockly exactly. And that's we also have
a non December januarated to December fiscal year. Our fiscal
year is October except okay, so we can't judge that's
exactly right, that's right. Meanwhile, Deer had a third quarter
report that was mixed. Shares fell seven percent yesterday. Also,
really the big news with earnings, the really one of

(03:52):
the last big ones to report is going to be
in Vidia. I believe that's next week sam or maybe.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
The I think it's twenty fourth.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Okay, okay, so we'll have an eye on that one, folks,
for sure. We'll take a look now at the markets.
There was not a whole lot to digest yesterday. The
markets began the day with relative calm. Indices were mixed.
The Dow was the winner, the SMP and the Nasdaq
were around the flat line. All three indices did finish
the day in positive territory, which meant another record finished
for the S and P and the Nasdaq. Wednesday's closing

(04:20):
bell saw the Dow finishing up one full percent positive,
the S and P five hundred was up about a
third of a percent positive, the Nasdaq about an eighth
of a percent positive. Before the PPI number broke. This morning,
the pre markets were relatively flat as of right now.
They are. Let's see if I can refresh my screen
here real quickly.

Speaker 4 (04:39):
Well, you're doing that, set, I do have a quick
correction in videos announcing earnings on the twenty seventh, got it.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
So that's not gonna be another two weeks then, okay? Cool? Yeah,
the pre markets this morning relatively down, about a third
of a percent down. Each of them are the PPI
numbers did see somewhat of a spike in the US
tenure treasury yield now up around four and a quarter percent,
little bit of a spike there. So that's what we're
looking like there this morning. All right, Sam, let's move
to some something that's I think a little more optimistic. Here.

(05:08):
We are seeing fears of recession dropping, especially concerning I
think the opinions of those who we should pay attention to,
that is executives for companies. What do you have to
tell us there saying yeah, that's right.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
So yesterday we were talking about optimism among small businesses
and they're feeling pretty good. There's some hesitation, but overall
they think that things are going to be okay. And
apparently that's also the case with major CEOs as well.
I got this from Bloomberg. They say executives or companies
listed on the S and P five hundred have so
far mentioned an economic contraction fewer than three hundred times

(05:40):
during quarter two earnings calls, near the lowest in data
compiled by Bloomberg going back to two thousand and one,
so that is pretty significant. That's also a major drop
off from last quarter when it was something like eight
hundred and fifty companies and CEOs.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
We're mentioning the dreaded R words. So what do you
make of that?

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Seth think it's interesting, Sam, what we're what we're seeing here,
and this, by the way, this does have a lot
to do with some of what Shannon talked about on
the on yesterday's Partner Alert. What am I saying here?
It's the commentary commentary page thank you technical term yeh
technical t which is out posted. That's exactly right, So
make sure to make sure to check that out there, folks.

(06:21):
You know, I wouldn't be surprised Sam if the term
ghost recession was not even on anyone's consciousness until the
Biden administration shoehorned into the national consciousness when we did
see her buy the book Recession in twenty twenty two.
But then all of a sudden, it's not that. My
understanding is, I think these executives get it that the

(06:42):
dreaded R word is always going to be thrown around,
but until we actually see one for real, we can't panic.
And even if we do see one, that is not
necessarily reason to panic either. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (06:52):
No?

Speaker 2 (06:52):
No, yeah, definitely does because sometimes it's a correction absolutely.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
By the way, the betting markets not that they're always accurate,
but people are put money where their mouth is, so
polymarket predicts the odds of recession this year are around
fifteen percent. That's down from sixty six percent in May.
There's a couple reasons for this. One is, of course,
the booming stock market. We keep hitting those record highs. Also,
the increased potential for interest rates cuts, which you know,

(07:18):
maybe is now a little bit more iffy, but I
think the likelihood of at least some rate cuts this
year is very high, as well as strong earnings reports
and the general realization that while tariffs might cause some
bumps along the road, it's not going to be the
end of the world.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Yeah, that's good stuff. Thanks for bringing that up to
our attention there, Sam, It's good to see some optimism there, especially,
like you said, along with what we talked about yesterday
with the business numbers. Let me give you some quick
hits here, Sam, a couple things that I want to
draw our attention to. It's looking like mayoral candidate Zoron
Mamdani is in fact leading the New York City mayoral race.

(07:54):
By nineteen points. Folks, you may be wondering why we've
mentioned several times now a mayoral race. The reason this
is a big deal. Number one, it's the largest city
in the country. It's it's an economic powerhouse, economic heart
of the count exactly, very very important there. Number two,
it's what this guy stands for and it's the precedent
that it sets. If we have someone of his character,

(08:16):
which I believe is very low, and of his moral standing,
which I believe is even lower at the helm in
America's largest city, that could not bode well for us.

Speaker 4 (08:25):
Plus, the rise of socialism is just very disturbing. Republicans
are not going to be in power forever, so we
want to be aware what is the other side thinking,
What are they planning to do when they get in power.
I saw a very disturbing pull from earlier this week
talking about who are the most admired people in the
country right now? Number one, of course, is Pope Leo.
He's not been around that long. He's also a religious figure,

(08:46):
so it's easy to like him. But number two, guess
who it is?

Speaker 3 (08:49):
Seth is it mom? Donnie?

Speaker 2 (08:51):
No, it's Bernie Sanders.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Number two is Bernie Sanders. I think I think number
five was AOC. Wow, she might have been number four.
But it's really it really is.

Speaker 2 (09:01):
And you know the reason why it's bad, of course,
is because these these people have successfully deceived so many.
That's that's really what this is.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
See.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
The lie of socialism, folks, is a deception to believe
that if you trust in the all powerful government, you
will you will achieve utopia, perfect existence. We're not going
to get perfect existence until we get the perfect culmination
of the government resting upon the shoulders of the wonderful
counselor Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jesus is
the answer for that, not some socialist utopia. That's really disturbing, man, Yeah,

(09:35):
it really is. So I would urge you folks, listen.
You might not live in New York City, you might
not even like New York City that much, but if
you think about it, pray against the election of this
guy into the New York City mayor a race, because
we certainly cannot have that in this country elsewhere. Sam,
this was interesting you shared this with me yesterday. The
US national debt does continue to rise. It's kind of
been you know, we haven't really looked at it much.

(09:56):
But it's up to thirty seven trillion. Now that's also
not exactly a good thing. And I can't help but
wonder how a business would get away with debt like that.
No business could even match thirty seven trillion dollars in debt.
But just you know, think about this with me for
a second. You had that much debt and you're not
bringing in enough money to cover it. I can't imagine
that business would last very long.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I know.

Speaker 4 (10:16):
And it's also depressing too, because everything the Trump administration
is trying to do reduce the debt I applauded, but
in the end, it's going to just be a drop
in the bucket of this sea of debt we're just
drowning in.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, I do really believe Sam that if we're going
to address this, the solution is a total overhaul, where
we need people in the United States government who are
willing to stop the crazy spending. It just it has
to stop. It really has to stop. A lot of
other things happen in this morning, folks. We'll get to
some of them on the other side of the break here.
Grateful for each of you today, I hope you'll say

(10:48):
hello on the chat. We've got more financial isasuas after This.

Speaker 4 (11:01):
Security is offered through GA Repel and Company, a registered
broker dealer and Investment Advisor member FINRA and SIPC. Opinions
expressed by Shannon are hers alone and are for informational
purposes only and do not necessarily represent those of GA
Repel or the outlet on what you are listening. You
should consider how the information applies to your situation prior
to personally implementing it, and consult any financial professional you

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

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Welcome back, folks, financial issues here a couple of quick
hitters here to get for you. Trump is considering apparently
eleven candidates for the FED chair, including David Zervos and
Rick Reader. That's according to sources. So we've seen several Also,
weekly mortgage refinancing demand shot twenty three percent higher yesterday.
Risk your loans seem to be making a comeback, and

(11:52):
coffee and tea prices are also ramping up due to tariffs.
That is worrying retailers and importers. Folks did want to
get give you a reminder one of you, I believe
Stephen had asked about this or mentioned it in the
chat there. Looking forward to the next conference call, I'm
glad you are, Stephen. If you read the commentary, you
know that we do have a conference call coming up
a week from today, folks, So this is your first

(12:14):
announcement for it. You have not received the alert for
it yet, that's okay, but it will be a week
from today. Can mark your calendars for August twenty first,
twelve pm Central time, one pm Eastern Time. Again twelve
pm Central one pm Eastern a week from today, August
twenty first, So make sure that you make provisions to
join us for that, or make provisions to listen afterwards
if you can't join us for it. By the way,

(12:35):
Shan is going to be back tomorrow. I'm really looking
forward to it, folks. You're going to want to get
your calls queued up early in the call queue. Nine
oh five Eastern time is the best time to call,
so make sure that you do that. And speaking of tomorrow,
we will be in Daniel seven twenty six through twenty
eight for Bible study. We've been having a juicy conversation,
interesting conversation.

Speaker 3 (12:52):
Use the exact word. It was going to use seth.
It's juicy.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
It is very juicy. Sometimes I've wondered why in the
world that I picked Daniel, But here we are, and
there's getting out of it now.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
It seems when you read Daniel, even Daniel is wondering
why on earth am I writing this?

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Overwhelmed Even by the end.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
In verse twenty eight, we're gonna talk about this tomorrow,
Daniel is like tired and he's like, what did I
just see? And his thoughts troubled him, and then he
doesn't tell anyone it's ridiculous. He now he does write
it down for several billion people throughout world history to
then read, so in that way he does tell people
he's just I was kind of upset about this. It
was a little bit troubling, and it makes sense when
you saw the things that he saw. So we'll look

(13:27):
at that tomorrow. We do have a Tesla petition, Folks,
make sure to sign it. Pray for Elon Musk, Pray
for the Tesla executive team that they would turn from
there from the the things that they've been allowing to
happen in their company. Regarding the abortion agenda, the trans agenda,
we want to get as many signatures on this as possible.
We've done great. Over four hundred people have signed this.
I'd love to hit a thousand by the end of
this week. I think that's an achievable goal. So share it.

(13:50):
Sign it. If you haven't signed it yet, folks, go
do it right now on Financial issues dot org. Click
the pop up. When it shows up on your screen.
It'll take you right to the petition. You can sign
it there and I'll put it in the chat one
more time time as well. All right, Sam, let's look
at some of that optimism here. So Scott Besson still
feeling optimistic about rate cuts. What can you tell us
about this?

Speaker 4 (14:07):
Beston is kind of the market whisperer. Right when everyone's
freaking out, Beston's saying, no, it's going to be fine,
trust me, mama. So I mean he's got that great
smile and the perfectly quaffed hair, so it certainly helps.
But yes, he is feeling optimistic, extremely optimistic in fact,
about interest rate cuts. Maybe he's going to dial that
back a little bit and light of today's data, but
still this came from yesterday during an interview where he

(14:30):
said that to Bloomberg that there's a good chance of
a fifty basis point cut this September, which is much
more aggressive than people had been talking about. So here
he is talking about that on Bloomberg.

Speaker 5 (14:41):
I do think we could go into a series of
rate cuts here, starting with a fifty basis point rate
cut in September.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Fifteen basis rate cut in September. Is that signal that
the economy, though, is not doing well.

Speaker 5 (14:55):
That signals that there's an adjustment, and the rape are
too constrictive if you look at any model that the
we should probably be one hundred and fifty one hundred
and seventy five bases points lower.

Speaker 4 (15:13):
So, as I said, it's quite aggressive. He says this
is needed to make up for the fed's general sluggish
response the classic too late Powell, which he said has
been made all the worse by inaccurate jobs data. So
how this currently works, you know, Trump fired the head
of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. One of the reasons
is the job's data has just been so bad because
it's collected through what is basically a glorified survey Monkey

(15:37):
survey that's sent to businesses every month, and the response
rate has just been dropping off in recent years, and
because of that, the government officials have to fill in
the gaps and make up their own decisions of what
this actually means. And of course when you're just making
things up, when the real data comes in, you have
to make major retractions. Best In, however, is confident that

(15:57):
Trump's newly appointed head of Labor Statistics by the name
of EJ and Tony, will bring the data collection process
into the twenty first century. Here's best And again, I.

Speaker 5 (16:07):
Was there when EJ was interviewed, and he is incredibly qualified.
And I think the most important thing here is that
we get back to the integrity of the numbers, because
it just became okay, just like so many things in
our government, for it to get sloppy. So you know,
I just think like this idea that we're accepting this

(16:28):
mediocrity in government, Why don't we bring things into the
twenty first century, Why don't we bring it into the
digital age? Because I don't know about political bias one
way or the other, but what I can tell you
is that the sample response size kept getting smaller and smaller,

(16:48):
and then they they filled in the cells. And anytime
you get judgment versus data, then things become qualitative and
not quantitative. And I think EJ is going to do
a rape job of bringing back quantitative standards.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
So there you go, Seth, I sure hope, so yeah,
I sure hope.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
So Sam, I hope that Scott Besson is right. And
you know, here, here's something I'm wondering. Sam, just workshop
with this with me for a second. I think Scott
Besson is optimistic, but I do wonder if this is
as much pure optimism as it is a subliminal message
to Jerome Pal that it is time for you to
cut rates now, buddy, you better do it. You know,
And even I would say, this morning's PPI numbers does

(17:30):
not change that. You know, it might maybe maybe if
you ask Bessen today, maybe he'll say a twenty five
bases point rate cut instead of a fifty. But I
still think that he's going to be confident with it. Sam,
we had mentioned earlier in the show yesterday this, according
to Yesterday, there was a ninety four percent chance of
a rate cut in September from the Fed watchers. I
do wonder what that number will be after the PPI,
but I can't imagine that it won't be still optimistic

(17:53):
because I don't really think pal has any other option
before him. I really don't. It seems like it could
be career suicide otherwise.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
So, and there's change ups on the FED right now.
We had a governor recently resigned, so Trump gets to
put a new pick in there, who obviously is going
to be pro rate cuts. I don't know if they're
going to be able to get him in by the
time that they make this decision. But still the amount
of people on Powell's side is shrinking.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Yeah. Absolutely, all that to say, folks, you know this
does have a lot to do with the Partner commentary
that's out this week. It is a great commentary. I
can't encourage it to you enough. Go ahead and read
it today. You can get it very easily. Just go
to the partner's side of the website, your little Partner's
hub there and click on the commentary button. It'll take
you to the one from this week is at the
very top. There's past commentaries down there as well. If

(18:37):
you want Shannis commentary. You're not a partner, folks, become
one today. Financial Issues dot Org So easy to do.
I'd encourage you to do that right now. Speaking of
partner Sam. We did get a question that came in here.
Why don't we tackle this one from Jason?

Speaker 4 (18:48):
Yeah, this is awesome. This is Jason. He's forty three
years old. He said, high Team. I followed this ministry
and been a partner since Dan was on the radio.
I have a portfolio that's grown quite a bit. That's
kind of an understatement, as you're going to see, says,
and I was wondering if it's time to sell a
few stocks that are up significantly. Two are over two
hundred percent, one is over six hundred percent, and SETH
one is over one thousand percent. He said, I've not

(19:12):
made any changes in a few years and didn't even
know they'd grown so much. So good for you, Jason
for not being a hawk about this stuff and just
letting things go the way they're gonna go. But he
does want to know what he should do now. He says,
thank you for any guidance you can offer, and God
bless well.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Jason. That's great man, You've done really well and that
is absolutely awesome. My answer i'd give you is look
at your acid allocation and see if there's any rebalancing
that you can do, because I would I cannot think
of any world, sam, any existence that you're still in
balance with a thousand percent.

Speaker 4 (19:43):
Yes, unless literally all your other stocks are also growing
one thousand absolutely well.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Absolutely, with that much growth, I'm sure there's some out
there's some rebalancing that needs to happen. So again, I'm
just assuming that i'd need to take get eyes on
your perform. Actually seef that's true, but I'm guessing that's
probably the case. So being great, and.

Speaker 4 (20:04):
To be clear, with rebalancing, that's not just your pie chart,
which can, yeah, maybe be in balance. I doubt it is,
but let's say it is. You also want to look
up how much each individual stock is taking up the
percentage of those allocations. So if you do have the one,
the one that's over one thousand percent is now making
up twenty five percent of your portfolio, that might be
a time to cut back as well, even if your

(20:26):
overall sectors are still imbalanced.

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Somehow. I doubt that's true though, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (20:31):
So, Jason, I think that's awesome, man, And I would
tell you look at Shanna's commentary from last week as well.
I think last week's commentary so that was the one
that was posted on August seventh. I believe that will
give you some good guidance also, and if you've read
the commentary, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I'll
give you some good guidance on kind of what to
do if you are taking those profits and where to
park some of that money. So I would encourage there, Jason.

(20:54):
One more thing to say about this, Sam, I think
it's so cool to see that much growth. Jason, You've
done a great job. And to just remember, folks also
that you know this is this is part of that goal.
Is you want to be able to make that money
and then make it work for you to make more money.
So Jason, you have won. You've done a great job.

Speaker 3 (21:11):
Keep it up.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
That's really awesome, really awesome, good stuff. Sam. Let's take
a peek here. I think we got time for one more.
We got to chat comment earlier this week, so on
Monday we talked about student loans and Felix. Felix, I
do apologize because you had asked about this on Tuesday.
We didn't have time to get to it yesterday, but
Felix had had kind of a comment in response to
what we were talking about. Sam, you wanna AEAD and
read Felix's.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
Yeah, Felix says this is just something to think about.
He says, there aren't any good stats on this, but
I have a suspicion that many of the student loans
are for trade schools that were not completed or they
weren't able to get into.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
The field they went to for school.

Speaker 2 (21:45):
It may be a.

Speaker 4 (21:46):
Smaller loan, but those individuals are now trying to get
ahead and maybe making minimum wage, so that ten or
twenty thousand dollars is more like one hundred thousand dollars
to a college student. They advertise to these kinds of people.
These students should still pay the loan, of course, but
it's something to think about it.

Speaker 2 (22:03):
It's something to think about, Felix. I do appreciate you
sharing that, Sam, you had done some research on just
some of the stats here. Can you read some of
these for us as too.

Speaker 3 (22:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:12):
I get what he's saying, and in theory it makes sense.
I just don't think that the math would add up
because the share of student loan debt held by trade
school attendees is astronomically small compared to actual four year
college It's likely well under ten percent of the national total.
By the way, also the dropout rate among trade schools

(22:34):
is also much smaller than the traditional four year colleges
as well, and the debt rate is also just smaller
in general.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Yeah, so it really is. It seems to me, Felix,
it's just different beasts there when we are talking about this.
The general rule that I think we can come out
of this is to say that going to a traditional
four year institution, or for many of you you might
be considering for your children and grandchildren what they're doing,
going to that is going to cost more than it
would be to go to a trade school. And who

(23:03):
knows about the opportunities for jobs coming out of it
as well, especially if you get like a philosophy degree
or even a history degree versus if you get your
mechanics license, if you get your electricians license. The job
possibilities there, folks. I think the point here is when
you've got to be very mindful about debt about school.
For most kids, what is the purpose of college. The
purpose of college is to be able to get the

(23:24):
accreditation to get a job. So the end goal is
the same. Why not teach kids to do that without
necessarily needing to pay sixty thousand dollars a year and
go into debt to go into some you know, some
perhaps really nice institution, but also an institution that might
be teaching them things that are contrary to the biblical worldview.
Just something to consider. Maybe we'll talk more about that
on the other side, Field Souse, I appreciate you bringing

(23:45):
that up here. You have to leave us, folks, So
if you have a great day, Mark Manilla is going
to join us the next segment for more financial issues.
I just love the first book of Exodus. The king said,
all right, folks were back issues. Sorry, we weren't able
to get our bumper music in here. But we are
live and it's wonderful to be here with you today.

Speaker 3 (24:06):
The market to pull out your guitar.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Wonderful musician.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
I should have my.

Speaker 2 (24:10):
Own bumper music right exactly exactly. And you know what,
we have an extra voice on the program you're hearing
right now. Mark Manilla is back with us.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
We have extra seconds to play with now because we
didn't have a bumper music.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
That's cool, that's wonderful, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
That's awesome. Hey real quickly here, folks. So the market's
just opened up the dal Jones is down about two
fifths of a percent, the S and B five hundred
is down about a third, and same with the Nasdaq
as well, off of that wholesale inflation number being a
little a little hotter than what was expected there, folks,
I hope that what Sam and I said in that
last segment made sense for you. Felix, I really do

(24:46):
appreciate you bringing up that comment onto the chat. I
think what we were trying to convey Monday, and what
we'd stand by is to minimize as much debt as
possible and maximize as much employment opportunity as possible. And
it just seems calm and sense would tell me that
if you learn how to work a job instead of
you know, going to a four year institution which might
provide some of those skills but might provide some things

(25:08):
you don't really need as well, it's just better to
get there as quickly as you can. Sam, we we
have a one of our commercials if you watch our
TV feed, is with a Samaritan Ministries commercial and there's
a pastor in there who says, the quickest way from
point A to point B is a straight line, and
it's that it's kind of that, you know, same idea
that who would have thought, Yeah, common common sense, But

(25:28):
I digress.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
Great to have you back, brother, We're excited glad to
be so. Last time we had you on Mark, we
explored some of the common objections to biblically responsible investing,
and last week we got an interesting question that Sam
and I had a chance to address from one of
our listeners. But I'd love to tee it up for you,
brother and hear your thoughts on this. So the question
is basically this, with so many different opinions from some

(25:52):
of the big players in the BRI space, they throw
out names like Inspire, Evaluator, even FIM and others. Should
we just make up our own br standards?

Speaker 6 (26:04):
Well, unfortunately, that's one of the biggest problems with believers
is we make up our own Biblical verses. We make
up our own what we believe the Bible says, as
opposed to what it really says. The whole idea of
Biblical responsible investing. The reason we term that phrase, the
reason Dan Hart and others of us way back when

(26:25):
came up with that phrase, was because all the others
fell way short. Who is who is making decision. Who
is determining the direction? Who was guiding us? Well, if
it's just faith, what faith? Who's faith? I know my
faith is Though I may have enough faith to get
into Heaven, you know, I still stumble every day.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
So everybody's say sorry, just to jump in there when
you say that, that's in reference to within the Christian community,
the idea of Christian investing that there were other investing
ideas within the Christian community that weren't cutting it.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
Is that, right? Yeah, well that is true and there
still is.

Speaker 6 (27:02):
That's the issue is there's some major major players in
the Christian investment community that their screening is not cleaned.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
But the point being is that.

Speaker 6 (27:13):
Biblical responsible investing uses the Bible to determine what to
screen for. So any screening service that falls outside of
those tenets of you know, of honoring God not offending him,
those have to be questioned and be concerned about. Now,
the two major screening services right now, Evaluator Services, which

(27:35):
is the oldest and the strictest, is what I subscribe
to is what I really believe in. The Others have
over time maybe gotten a little better, but have had
issues in the past with being inconsistent and conflict of
interest with their own funds and things like that.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
So we've got to be very careful.

Speaker 6 (27:57):
First of all, look at a screening service and say
we can make up our own screens, because how would
you screen it? I know I spent I spent days
upon days every month trying to get corporations answer questions.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
To help me.

Speaker 6 (28:12):
Do I know we have the Internet, we have chat
GPT now it makes it a lot easier, but it's
still you're not going to know for sure. By using
something like Evaluator, you do, you know you're getting the
strictest and the most compliant. I know these people there,
they love the Lord. They would never conflict themselves with

(28:32):
what the Bible says. They want it to be as
perfect as humanly possible. So when you say make up
your own screens, I don't have any problems with that.

Speaker 3 (28:44):
But do you know what it's going to take to
do that.

Speaker 6 (28:46):
You're gonna have to become a full time analyst and
be out there all the time downloading. I mean it's
forty to sixty thousand, maybe even one hundred thousand now
just to download the information you need for all the
mutual funds. And everything to be able to screen them
for the to get get their quarterly downloads or their
day are now weekly downloads. It's it's outrageously expensive. So

(29:10):
you can make up your own and do the best
you can with it, and God bless you if that's
the way you want to go. But there are screening
systems available, Evaluator being number one, and they have their
free service, which is what is it.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
It's a check it.

Speaker 6 (29:25):
I can't remember what the name of the free system,
but Evaluator service.

Speaker 3 (29:28):
You can get to.

Speaker 6 (29:29):
It on financial issues.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
You go straight to it on financial issues screen.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
That out here here Mark, in case people are wondering, folks,
financial issues dot org resources tab. You go to the
resources tab, go down to the Evaluator button. You click
on that and you can follow that prompt and you
can do exactly what you're talking about, Mark, for no cost.
By the way, market is technically called the screen it
clean It screen.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
That's what it is. Screen it clean it. Yeah, thank you, yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:56):
Or you could subscribe if you wanted to, which is
not very expensive really. For somebody who's managing portfolios or
who has a large enough portfolio themselves. You can get
into deeper, deeper screening that way. So do I think
it's okay to screen it yourself. You know what, after
I use Evaluator, after I do some other things, I
do research on my own as well. I add things

(30:18):
to Evaluator I don't take away. You know, if Evaluator
says this is dirty, it's dirty. I sometimes might call
them and say, hey, I don't understand this, and they'll
explain it to me.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
So, yeah, you have.

Speaker 6 (30:31):
Tools at your service that the Lord has raised up
God lead people to run, so use them.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
That's my advice.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Mark. I'm so glad that you said that because you
had mentioned earlier mutual funds. There are a lot of
companies in mutual funds, and it is I'll tell you
this as a as a husband, a father of three,
with a full time job doing this and trying to
serve my church, doing other things like that, I just
might not have the time to do all the screening
on my own. I just don't. And certainly are people

(31:00):
who are a lot smarter than me who are doing
this screening for me, like you mentioned at Evaluator. Can
you speak to that Mark about the convenience that we
have with screening tools like this to be able to
take some of the weight off our shoulders.

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Absolutely. Last night, here's a perfect example.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
Last night, I'm thinking about artificial intelligence and whatnot, and
I'm like, you know, you know, what's really going to
make a lot of money.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
This was my thought. You know, there's a.

Speaker 6 (31:28):
Possibility of great gains in small cap and microcap artificial intelligence.
There's a lot of risk in it, but there's a
lot of potential there. I want to get a list
of twenty small cap artificial intelligence companies with good pe
you know, normal pees with that are expanding their market

(31:49):
that you know, just all the basics, you know, not
a lot of debt, that kind of thing. And I
got this list, and then I went over to Valueator
typed them in and it gave me a full screening
of each one. Luckily they were all clean, which is
really cool because now I got this great list that
I'm going to be working on here shortly. But on

(32:10):
top of that, I could go into each one and
see if it did have a problem, go into each one,
click on it, and go into each one and see
where they were offending God, where they were compromising biblical integrity.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
And that is just so cool.

Speaker 6 (32:26):
So it took me all of five minutes to evaluate
twenty stocks because of Evaluator services. Yeah, excellent, and it
could have done hundred stocks in that time. Yeah, that's
where would had taken me going out to all the
sites looking at everything, going out to all the ugly sites.
Because part of the way you Evaluator does this is

(32:48):
they have people that actually go out to all the
enemy sites and look at who's supporting them and stuff
like that as well, along with other ways they do
it for you. That's just like that Bysom does it
for you. As far as all the investing and making
sure everything that's here is clean. Absolutely, that's the easiest way.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Absolutely. Mark. What I'd like to do now is let's
let's switch gears for just a moment here. We're coming
to the end of this segment. So maybe kind of
as a sort of a bow to this conversation here,
speak to the idea of using the wisdom that God
has given to us appropriately with these tools that we have,
because this is a do it yourself strategy, but we

(33:29):
do have these tools here that are available. How do
we mesh those things together?

Speaker 3 (33:36):
That's a wide question.

Speaker 6 (33:37):
Yeah, there's a lot of great tools on your site,
which is really important, not only whether it's clean or not,
but there's tools there to help you understand asset allocation
or are reducing volatility risk by allocating across multiple sectors
and by within those sectors finding those stocks that are

(33:59):
made of wrong steal that have all the great metrics
to them. So by having all those you can pull
it together and then start making decisions on that. I
think utilization of your time is one of the things
we need to work on the most as Christian investors.
The one person wants to do it themselves. I've always said,
you can do it yourself if you got enough time

(34:20):
and money to do that. But if somebody else is
doing it for you, and you can trust them because
they have a history and they know what they're doing
and they've proven it, why not use that information, especially
since it's costs almost nothing, you know, maybe ten dollars
a month, eleven dollars a month, you know, that's nothing,

(34:40):
you know to get all that kind of information, But
then you need to pull all that back into who
you are, where you're at, and how you got there.
Because any investment portfolio is only good if it enhances
the positive aspects of what you believe the path God
has you on. If it doesn't match the you're in

(35:00):
the wrong portfolio.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
Yeah, market, So that's so well said, brother, I appreciate
that a lot, folks. We're coming up to a break here.
It's going to be a hard break here, so don't
be surprised. But on the other side of this, Mark,
we'll talk a little bit more. We'll switch gears and
look at kind of what's going on in the markets
and in the economy. So I'm looking forward to hear
your expertise on that. We'll do a little chat run
down for you, folks. Make sure to say hello if
you're in the chat today. We've got more financial issues

(35:23):
coming up right after this.

Speaker 4 (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 2 (35:46):
Great to have you here today, folks. Before we get
back with Mark here, just wanted to give a little
shout outs on the chat this morning, John from Alabama
saying FSM greatest value for your money. John appreciate that
so much, brother, and I would agree with you. It
is a great, great value. One hundred and thirty two
dollars a year. You get access to everything we offer.
Pretty cool man. Glad that you're enjoying it. Eddie, good
to see you this morning. Eddie agrees George from North Carolina, saying,

(36:09):
unfortunately quite a few kids are going to college and
coming out with a quote underwater basket weaving degree. That's true, George,
and they picked the highest cost college that they could,
hoping the prestige would carry them. George, it's not just
the underwater basket weaving degree. How about the International Women's
Studies degree or one of those other degrees like that
that might not land you a job very well, So

(36:31):
interesting there.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
Well, you know, if the local wreck club is doing
underwater basket weaving, that could be fun.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
Might want to do that on your side.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
That as a hobby.

Speaker 3 (36:39):
Exactly right.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Several of you have given some wonderfully kind comments about
my guitar playing skills, so thank you George for that,
as well as Lisa saying, Sir Serth has it going on.
I appreciate that I do enjoy playing guitar. I will
not do it on the show though, because that's not
the time and place for it. However, if we lose
the bumper music again, maybe we'll have to bring out
the guitar. So maybe we'll do that. But yeah, great

(37:01):
to see you guys. Nathan, Good to see you, Darryl.
We've got the other George, Big and Little George both
on the chat this morning. Steven from Oklahoma, Good to
see you there, Stephen, anyone else if I'm missing the
o Brian I think is there this morning, Say hello, David, Darlene,
you guys are there as well. Good to see you
all this morning. Make sure you say hello on the chat.
All right, Mark, let's just switch gears here for just

(37:21):
a moment. So you're a financial expert, you got decades
in the business. Tell me what do you make of
Trump's tariffs and all of a hullabaloo surrounding it? Just
to best it kind of, I know it's a thirty
thousand foot question, but what do you make of all this?

Speaker 6 (37:32):
You know, the question itself reflects the issue itself. Everybody's
focusing on these tariffs, Yeah, in and of themselves, and
not in the big wake of the ocean of economics,
because there's so many things that play in on this.
Everybody said, well, it's going to cause hyperinflation, or it's
going to cause inflation, more inflation.

Speaker 3 (37:51):
Blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 6 (37:53):
Yeah, yeah, we've seen it hasn't been true, but it
has been It just has been muted a bit by
other parts of the economy. We see that fuel prices
have gone down. That helped, We see that interst rates
haven't gone down, and that kind of helped actually with
maintaining the lack of money supply or the constriction of

(38:16):
money supply, so that inflation did not start coming back up.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
Not giving Pole any.

Speaker 6 (38:24):
Kudos, I don't think he did it for that reason,
because he has all the indicators, he sees all the levers,
he knows how they all work, and he should be
on top of that. So the whole idea what Trump
is doing is bigger than is being reported if you
really think about it. He's re establishing the United States

(38:44):
in the world, and he's doing so getting rid of
all these deals that all these people made gobs of
money off of in the United States, making the deals,
not how the deals came out, and giving away all
these different things and making friends and internationally and helping
to propel the One World Order and all that kind

(39:05):
of garbage that goes on that we never really hear
the depth about.

Speaker 3 (39:09):
So Trump is in there and.

Speaker 6 (39:11):
He's very seriously reorganizing everything to cut off to drain
the swamp, to cut off all the funding of the
international attack on the United States, to bring the United
States down economically, and he has to do these things.
Part of that is renegotiating all the trade deals so
that it works for the United States to be productive

(39:33):
and not dependent on the world.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Now, there's a thing called a J curve.

Speaker 6 (39:37):
Anybody's done any economics or any mathematics understands this grafting.
And what it means is when something starts happening, you
don't see the effects on it. Let's just say the
economy is headed down and you don't see the effects
of it at first, but over a little bit of
time it starts kicking in and then it takes off.
And that's what I think we're going to see with everything,

(39:58):
not just the the tariffs that are going on, because
we have to look at this and say, these tariffs
are one of many things. Yes, we have interest rates.
We have the dollar. Nobody's talking about the dollar anymore
and the strength of it. You know, throughout most of
my adult life, the idea was to keep the dollar

(40:21):
week so that we could help emerging markets be strong. Well,
I'm sorry, but the world right now, how many real
emerging markets are there? China is still considered an emerging market.
I don't think so it is, though, Well, we don't
want to keep them strong. We want to keep the
US strong so we can help the rest of the world.
So we got to look at how the dollar is doing,

(40:42):
We got to look at our debt. We got to
look at so many different things and start tweaking those
a little at a time. It's like using a thirty
one band EQ to set up the room. You know,
you move this this frequency a little bit, but this
frequency starts down, and you got to keep playing with
them till you get it all right. And that's what's
happening right now. Don't look at the terraffs in and

(41:03):
of himself. Think of it as part of the big,
beautiful plan to realign America to be great again. And
I'm not trying to promote anything but the truth right now.

Speaker 3 (41:14):
Yeah, you know, I.

Speaker 6 (41:17):
Love what Trump has done, I hate the way he
has done it. I really believe the Bible teaches us
to be more respectful and honorable, and I.

Speaker 3 (41:26):
Wish he would be a little more of that.

Speaker 6 (41:27):
But you know what, sometimes when somebody's thumping your chest
are starting to take a swing, it's not time to
be diplomatic or respectful.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
It's time to knock the guy out.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, it's well said, brother, it really is. You know,
in the aftermath of Trump's election, before he took office,
Sam and I Sam, I think you'll remember this, we
talked a lot about how listen, there's going to be
a clean up period and it might look ugly. There
were I mean, the Biden administration left a mess and
someone had to clean it up, and Trump's cleaning it
up right now. And I actually think the timetable has

(41:58):
been pretty darn good when you consider that it's only
been eight months and we got all these deals coming in,
we got all these things happen, the borders getting cleaned up.
That's pretty good.

Speaker 6 (42:06):
There's so much going on and happening so fast, and
quite frankly, I am amazed at how stable everything is
during this period of time. Our government right now, the
Trump administration is doing incredible things and keeping the balance
there and a lot of this. You know, there's so
many different things we got to think about. One is

(42:27):
we talk about inflation all the time. I don't think
most people really understand inflation. I just this week I
got asked a question. I was asked, well, if inflation,
if Trump's got inflation down, how come prices are still up. Well,
decreasing inflation does not mean decreasing prices. It just means

(42:49):
the rate at which prices increase slows down. Those prices
were raised up during the Biden administration. The only way
to get them down is to go into deflation, not inflation.
And if you look at the levers that need to
be pulled to stabilize an economy.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
On that, you really don't want that right now.

Speaker 6 (43:09):
I'm not saying it's not It wouldn't help over the
long run, but right now, it would be much easier
to let incomes increase over time to catch up with
the inflation damage done under the Bidens very important. Understanding inflation,
Understanding the strength of the dollar. Understanding investment returns, both

(43:31):
in the US and internationally, is very important in the
effect all those have on them, including the trade and
the tariffs, so all those things plinging.

Speaker 3 (43:41):
We're going to go through a cleanup period. It's just
like cleaning out the garage.

Speaker 6 (43:44):
When you're doing it, what a message is on the drive,
on the garage everywhere.

Speaker 3 (43:49):
But when you're done, Ah, that's nice.

Speaker 2 (43:51):
Feels nice, absolutely, and even a mess on yourself as well.
And spider webs, cod webs in your hair. That's what's happening.

Speaker 3 (43:57):
Brother.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Hey Mark, we probably only have time for one more
question here, so I'm gonna I'm gonna give you a
little doozy here to finish our show.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Try and keep it short.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
Oh yeah, that's that's all good, brother. What what does
the Federal Reserve actually need to do to serve the
American people? Well, I would love living in a world
where there is no Federal Reserve. But what are your thoughts?

Speaker 3 (44:13):
Well, you know, I said, I'm gonna keep it short.
Oh my god.

Speaker 6 (44:16):
Again, the Federal Reserve is something almost nobody really understands
why it was starting. You know, originally it was started
just to be give elasticity to the dollar so that
in bad times it could back up the banks and
stuff like that.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
Right now, I think I don't know who.

Speaker 6 (44:34):
Knows what the Fed is doing or why and what
what the power they have?

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Now, what do they have?

Speaker 6 (44:39):
Like a, uh, they have trillions and trillions of dollars
on their on their books. It's like, how did they
get all that money? They just made it up, you know,
by selling you know.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Uh.

Speaker 6 (44:53):
I would say that we need to get our debt
down in the United States is the most important thing.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
And part of being able to do that is the Federal.

Speaker 6 (45:02):
Reserve to work with the administration to help bring interest
rates down so we can issue lower debt. Now that
may cause a little inflation at first, but it will
help us get our debt down, and as our debt
comes down, will have a safer, stronger dollar, which as
we get a stronger dollar, than increases our returns in

(45:23):
the international investment It it increases exports, you know, it
increases every It just helps us do everything right, markt
and cheapens our imports.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
Yeah, it offsets those terairs with a stronger dollar.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
Well said, brother, looks like we're coming to the end here.

Speaker 6 (45:42):
Mark.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
But man, I appreciate you joining so much, brother and
hearing your expertise and always a joy to get to
have you man, and I look forward to the next time.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Folks.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Again, that's Mark Manila. Great to have Mark. Great to
have all of you there as well. A couple more
of you joining here in the chata.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
Claude.

Speaker 2 (45:57):
It's good to see you, brother. I hope that you're
the aftermath of your move has gone well. I got
Mariza up early as well. Mariza's from Oregon and it's
it's almost seven o'clock now over there, but you're up early.
Great to have you this morning, Mariza. Quickly here, folks
before we sign off. The markets trending up towards the
flat line from where they started. The dal Jones is

(46:17):
now trading right around three tens percent, SMP five hundred
out a fifth, and the Nasdaq is just below the
flat line. So we'll see what comes to the rest
of the day here. All great things here on financial issues. Hey, folks,
I do want you to remember, listen, everything you have
belongs to the Lord. Let's be encouraged. As well. As
we see the cultural tide turning, we also see the

(46:37):
Kingdom of God moving and advancing. I want to be
a part of that, and I'm sure you do as well. Folks.
So let's do that here with the investor dollars that
God has entrusted to us. I hope that you're encouraged
by today's show. I hope you'll join us tomorrow with
Shanna back on Bible study in the morning. It's going
to be a good day until then. Remember it's all his.
Let's be found good and faithful stewards with what God

(46:58):
has given to us.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
God bless you.

Speaker 5 (47:10):
If we ever forget that we're one nation under God,
then we will be a nation gone under