December 18, 2024 • 44 mins
Norm Blumenthal - an attorney for workers and consumers. Selected as one of the Top Attorneys in Southern California. Norm was inducted and recognized as one of America's Most Trusted Lawyers in Employment Law.
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Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
Connect with Bert: YouTube | Twitter | Instagram
Get a Free Copy of Dominating Your Mind: https://amzn.to/2XuM9Xr While supplies last, limited time.
About the host:
Bert Martinez is a successful entrepreneur and best-selling author. Bert is fascinated by business, marketing, and entrepreneurship. One of Bert’s favorite hobbies is to transform the complicated into simple-to-understand lessons so you can apply them to your business and life. Bert is also obsessed with exploring the mindset of the high achievers so you can follow their secrets and strategies.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for money for lunch, where we see your
brain and your business with super size portions of business.
I'm fine, that's too news. Now your host first Martinez.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back, man. It is going to be a great
show today today. Today on the show is Norm Blumenthal.
Norm Blumenthal is an attorney for consumers and workers like
you and I selected as one of top attorneys in
Southern California. Norm was also inducted and recognized as one
(00:36):
of America's most trusted lawyers and employment law Norm Blumenthal,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Nice to be back, bird, And I guess from here
on the question is what's next.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Here we have a new administration.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And sometimes when you want to ask a question of
what's next, you have to look and see what happened.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
And I think this.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Election is and time frame is kind of a what's
happened in the nineteen twenties, you know, if you study
your history.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
This is like the Roaring twenties.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
There's a lot of money out there, consumers are spending,
stock markets going up. There appears to be no ceiling,
kind of let like, let's the good times roll right,
And you know, we have to be a little cautious
because the stock market, contrary to popular belief, is in
(01:44):
a larger sense gambling. And the consumer is in our
economy two thirds of a gross domestic product. That means
the velocity of money going into the One of the
two thirds of it is consumer spending. And in the
(02:04):
event consumer spending drops, there's going to be an issue.
And I don't know if that's going to happen. But
you know, no tree grows to the sky, and so
we have to look up a little cautiously at what's
ahead and see what happened behind us. And so when
(02:28):
you look at the twenties and Coolidge was elected and
the war First World War was over, kind of like
when COVID was over. You know, it was the same
devastating effect around the world as if it were at war.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Actually it was a war of bacteria. So but we
solved it, and we solved the.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
First World War, and then there was great things happened
in the twenties.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
It was the time of change, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Then the automobile was coming and it was booming. Now
we have AI coming and there appears to be.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
No end.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So you know, I don't know what to say except
that it ultimately it ended in a crash, and the
reason for the crash was they passed.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Tariffs a trial.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That is absolutely correct a lot of people. I'm glad
you brought this up. Uh that that was the Uh.
That was the one of the reasons that we had
this massive crash was these these sort oftaliatory tariffs, if
you will, and go ahead, norm.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Yeah, that's basically and that happened.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
You know, the market and so do they fed at
that point in time and their infinite wisdom. I thought
the idea was to tighten the economy and pass these
prohibitive tariffs and you know, bring every everybody home and
make America great again. Because this was in nineteen thirty
(04:07):
after the crash and they were trying to come back.
In nineteen twenty eight, Hoover was elected. And I forgive me,
I have the name wrong. It's just like the Smooth
Party Act.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Yeah, that's correct. Smooth Hardy.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, that to.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
These two senators, correct, right, that was.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Named after them because they wanted to take credit for it.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
They were going to show the world that America didn't
need any trade with anybody else, that can make it
on its own.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Well, that didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And by when that came in in nineteen thirty that
it was kind of like throwing gasoline on the fire
of the stock market going down, and it continued to
go down, and unemployment it up, and it didn't change
until thirty two when Roosevelt was elected and took the
(05:06):
tariffs off, and lo and behold, we were by the
time everything we looked, we were in the Second World War.
And one of the big causes of that was, you know,
the fact that our tariffs went on and there was
inflation around the world, and in Germany it was so
(05:28):
bad because of the reparations they placed on Germany that
you literally needed a wheelbarrow full of marks to pay
for a loaf of bread. And so, you know, I
only say this because it looks like we're in a
situation where they're going to put tariffs on again, and
(05:49):
I know that they're just you know, it's kind of threatening.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Now they aren't necessarily doing it, but.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
It seems to be we should be a little were
cautious before we start throwing around, you know, one hundred.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
On anything, on anything and correct. Look, the uh, the uh.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
From my point of view, one of the reasons that
we have lost excuse me, we have lost so many
manufacturing jobs to places like Mexico and China and stuff
like that, is because it's just simply cheaper to do
it over there. If you and I are going to
(06:38):
have a manufacturing plant here in America, there are we
just have more regulations. And some people can point and say,
well that's bad. Well, you know what. The reason that
we have.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Some of these regulations is before these regulations.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
People were being killed, that they were losing limbs, they
were being worked to death, and and that's why these
unions started popping up and things had to change.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
And so maybe we've gone too far.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
But the reality is is, UH, as Americans, we don't
want to pay top dollar for a top quality product.
I always tell people, look at Walmart. Walmart is the
low cost leader. When you want something cheap, you're going
to go to Walmart. When you're when you want to
(07:23):
spend a high quality and you're looking for the top shelf,
you don't go to Walmart.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
In my experience, this has been my personal experience, when
my wife and I had five kids, uh living at
home with us, and you know they're all in elementary
school or whatever, we went to Walmart.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Why because it was cheap.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It kept us fed, and we could we could find
all sorts of cheap items there. And and of course,
as you start to get more money and and things
change in your household than and you start looking elsewhere.
But if all of a sudden, as Americans, we decided, hey,
don't we don't want cheap products anymore.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
We don't want to what do you call it, import
products from China.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And China's tough to compete with because their laws there
are very flexible. They can they don't care about copyright,
they don't care about child labor or labor in general
human rights, so they have a lot of flexibility. It's
tough to compete with them. But norm you're famous for saying,
vote with your dollars. And if we decided to vote
(08:39):
with our dollars and stop buying products from China, that
would change things.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We don't need a tariff.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We just need to discipline ourselves.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And that's tough to do.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And and again, when money is tight and you need
a pair of shoes to get you buy for a
few months or whatever, Hey, Walmart's god answer. And I
don't blame people for going there. But before we you know,
go down this whole rabbit hole real quick. I do
want to point this out, and this is a I'm
(09:12):
just going to do this sidebar, if you will. I
wanted to point out that when uh Mega Maga loses,
when Trump loses, when his supporters lose, they file lawsuits
and they and they spent tons of money promoting a
lie about how they got defrauded and how the system's broken.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
In this case here, the system hasn't changed.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
But Trump and Maga won, and they won by a
lot more than they won, which surprised me. And then
second of all, they won by a lot, which surprised me.
But you didn't hear a bunch of Democrats filing lawsuits
and screaming fraud and things of that nature. So to me,
I just wanted to point that out that there are
(09:59):
just the different and in the Maga inte integrity and
everybody else's integrity.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Anyway, back to the tariff thing.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The tariff, it's already been pointed out, is not the
way to bring the economy back to life. It's the reverse.
Because I believe in curtain. If I'm wrong, Norm Canada says,
if you teariff us, we'll teariff you. China said, you know,
if you teariff, us will teariff you, and so it's
(10:32):
going to be a no win situation. Mexico said the
same thing. You want to play this tariff game, We'll
play the tariff game. It's not going to bring jobs back.
It's going to make everything more expensive. And on top
of that, Trump has already said that, you know, as
(10:55):
far as you know, he's got to back the oil industry.
So I imagine those price is are going to go
up regardless of what happens. And I think that because
Trump is definitely pro management, things are going to change
radically as it is. And again, correct me if I'm wrong.
(11:18):
I believe that one of the things he's going to do,
or he's already done, or somebody maybe it was a
Supreme Court, I apologize, but.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
I believe that they're going to do away.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
With executive overtime or overtime, a salary overtime. So that
means that that they're going to they're going to be
able to make you work forty I'm sorry, fifty sixty
seventy hours and you're not going to get compensated for
that time. So things are going to radically change in
(11:57):
a bad way.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
There's a lot of things going on the table. Last
point on salaried overtime.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Both administrations are responsible for not taking more jobs off
the table and making them non exempt jobs instead of
exempt exempt jobs. It's a long, sad story on administrative
and executive and professional exemptions and the idea of limiting
(12:25):
those exemptions from overtime and the other work related benefits
for soured employees and hourly employees is a long way
to go. But on the macro level, yeah, really nothing
has changed. It's just like the minimum wage. Both sides
(12:48):
are guilty of leaving the minimum wage at seven dollars
and twenty five cents are federal, so you know, there's
there's both sides had some responsibility, and it basically the
Democrats because they weren't receptive to ideas that Bernie Sanders
(13:12):
brought up, which.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
The Republicans adopted. They lost their base.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
And now we have Mega coming in with the tariffs
and the trade Group BRICK, which is Brazil.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Russia, Iran, China, China.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
You have in South Africa among who's there now, and
there's others that are going to join as a trade group.
They're going to want to make a currency, which will
be the fiat currency, which is currently the US dollar,
which props up the dollar because you know, we're thirty
(13:55):
trillion dollars in debt, so they're kind of running away
from the US dollar, and that's where Trump threatened to
put if they tried to make it beyond currency, he'll
put one hundred percent tariff on all of their products, which.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Would clearly start a trade war, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So there's some scary things that can happen in the meantime,
but it seems like all of these have been washed
aside and it's the stock market is just doing fine.
And that's the games that Trump watches question is who's
(14:36):
going to get the tax reductions and who's going to
get taxed to try to bring the debt down and
at the same time keep the economy going. And it's
a real conundrum that Congress has failed miserably in trying
(14:58):
to correct, not all their fault of their own. They
they you know, we're thirty trillion dollars in debt, which
is about equivalent to the annual gross domestic product, and
it came about because of the you know, two thousand
and seven two thousand and eight real estate crash, which
(15:21):
was you know, another period of time where spend maybe
spend on housing and refinancing, and you know, the housing
market was going to the moon.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well it didn't happen and crash.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So that took ten trillion dollars to bail us out
of that one. And then we had COVID, and COVID
it took another ten trillion to get us out of
that one. So that of the thirty trillion, twenty of
it is the last two difficults that this country has
faced and successfully gotten out of. But as part of this,
(15:59):
they just washed the economy with borrowed funds.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So we're living on you know, borrowed.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Funds that we don't have, and there's no plans in
the horizon to at least stop bleeding, you know, stop
the continued debt. But no, and there's no talk about
paying it down any of the debt. Fact, they're talking
about adding another two trillion dollars this coming fiscal year,
(16:31):
so you know, must they have some good ideas and
to cut spending. The issue is are they going to
raise taxes on those that are that can most afford
to pay or.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Are they going to leave it alone and re renew.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
The twenty twenty sixteen tax cut that expires at the
end of this year, that expires at the end of
twenty twenty five, and if that expires, still be more
taxes on those that can afford to pay. And at
(17:16):
the same time, the idea is to have less of
a tax burden on those that need every dollar, because
you got to look at the velocity of money.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I mean, you can divide it into half.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
You know, are there people that live paycheck to paycheck
and need support and are there people that, fortunately for them,
have substantial resources that could pay their fair share, which
in the current environment they don't. So there has to
(17:53):
be a kind of a give and take here, and
it doesn't look like it's going to happen, But this
is where we are in our economy, and we're going
to put you know, more debt on it, and we're
going to have more deductions for those that can more than.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
For depending.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Certainly, and this is not just you and I talking
about tariffs and the economy. If if you google Trump's
economic plan, you will see people from both sides of
the aisle saying that this is not a good plan.
You cannot tax yourself into abundance.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
And this is what a tariff is.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And and Trump, bless his heart, believes that we're going
to that he's going to be able to place a
tariff on again these foreign manuf without any repercussion. He
(19:04):
somehow believes that they're not going to retaliate with their
own tariffs. Look, if that was the case, that would
be a beautiful thing. But that's not the case. It
doesn't make sense. And so I think that the situation,
(19:24):
again from what I've been able to read from both
sides of the aisle, is not one based on prosperity
or abundance.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
It's again it's just.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I guess he hopes to show how strong he is
or whatever, and he thinks that somehow it's going to
bring jobs back to America.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
Good luck. I hope.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I hope it pays off. I would love to be
proven wrong again. So I think that again, you put it,
put the the tariffs aside for a second. You were
mentioning the trillions of dollars. I think again, several economists
(20:11):
have come out again both sides of the aisle is
you know, and you're and you're looking at anywhere from
seven to ten trillion dollars being added to the to
the already large deficit. And again, this is not something
that they're that they're making up from thin air. During
(20:34):
the campaign, both sides said, hey, we're going to have
to spend money we don't have. I believe that that
Harris's economic plan was going to be roughly three to
four trillion dollars and Trump's economic plan was going to
be seven to seven to eight trillion dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
And my thought on that is, when the government tells
you it's going.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
To cost a dollar, is probably going to cost three
or four times that amount.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Sometimes we see it cost ten times more that amount.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So if they're thinking that it's going to be a
seven trillion dollars, it could be ten, fifteen to twenty
trillion dollars.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
We don't know your point on Elon Musk.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Look, if Elon Musk can come in and make the
government more efficient, I think everybody would support that.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Interestingly enough, we see an experiment in Argentina where the
new president radically reduced the government there and they were
able to see significant reduction in inflation. So again, do
(21:45):
we need to reduce our government. Absolutely, there's just so
much fat in there.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And this is a natural occurrence when people are not
accountable for their budgets in your house, my house, and
in your business. Don't manage your budget correctly, you're going
to go into bankruptcy. The way the government works, they're
not held to that same standard. They can just print
more money, which causes more problems, but they refuse to
(22:14):
look at at themselves and just reduce the size of
their spending.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I've said multiple.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Times that right now we spend I don't know, four
to ten billion dollars in subsidies to some of the
riches and most powerful industries. Sugar still gets a subsidy.
Corn still gets a subsidy. The beef industry, I belie,
(22:41):
still gets a subsidy. This is crazy. You know, every
time they roll out a new budget, the budget is stuffed.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
And this is just the way the government. Our government
is set up.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
The budget is stuffed with everybody trying to get their
share of the pie, and you get this massive budget
and then if you had the time to read through it,
you will find that both sides have added tens of
(23:18):
billions of dollars for their own interest.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
And sometimes those interests.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Are needed, you know, maybe they need more jobs in
a certain state, so they stick stick that into the
budget or something. But either way, the tariff thing, I
think is a poor choice. Again, I cannot remember the economist.
(23:47):
He is a Republican, but he says multiple times you
cannot tax yourself into prosperity. Or I think he said abundance.
And so I think that that maybe cooler heads will
prevail and they can come up with a better program.
(24:08):
And again, we as consumers, we vote with our dollars.
Every time we buy a product, a cheap product from
China or some other overseas place. We are telling our
government and those other governments that we want these cheap products,
and so.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
We get we get them. You know, let the good
times roll. We are in a good time period.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It's a famous quote about the fellow that jumps off
the one hundred story building and he gets to the
fiftieth floor and somebody asked him, how's it going, and
he said, so far, so good. So that's where we are.
You know, you mentioned Argentina. Well, Argentina brought the inflation
(24:57):
rate down from about two hundred and fifty percent, sent
down to twenty percent, and they think they're doing great
because they have bankrupted that country over and over again.
They've devalued the Argentine time pay so over and over
again because when the Parinistas were in power, all they
(25:18):
did was print money. And you know, that's what we've done.
For good reasons, I can't say, but we put out
a lot of money, twenty trillion dollars in debt, and
we aren't doing anything about it because, as you mentioned,
there's all these lobbyists that are protecting their part of
(25:41):
the pork barrel, and whatever they do, they don't want
the government to cut the pork for their constituents, which
as part of their job as a politician. But if
you don't do it across the board, and you've got
to just basically take that acts to it and say, okay,
(26:03):
a certain percentage of everything comes off, and then you
got it.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
At the same time, you got to do what Trump
was saying.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You got to make it easier on people going paycheck
to paycheck. So there's no tax on over time, and
there's there's no tax on tips, and so that hits
the lower end of the economy that are working paycheck
to paycheck. And so that's a big boost for them,
(26:35):
which it would be helpful to keep them from heat.
The safety net in there for those that could least
afford board. It increased the bedroom minimum waves take it
up to fifteen dollars, right, And so you know in
California we're at sixteen and you know, the.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
People did not a referendum, did not approve going to eighteen.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
But we're at sixteen, which is is there's no shame
in that.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
And people need money.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
The consumer he's spending, he can't afford a house to live.
They have to have a new paradigm for housing where
if you're a teacher at a school, the school like
they do at Harvard, supplies you with housing as well
as you're a teacher. You get below market rent and
(27:34):
you have loyalty to that school.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know, from elementary school on up.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Start there put in the police build housing for them firemen,
so you have police, fire and teachers are all have
a stake in the economy. They're able to afford a
place to live, you know, near the school or the
fire station where it may be police station. And so
(28:04):
you know, we can have new ideas coming in, but
it's unfortunately except for a very few of these ideas,
I don't see any of them happening. I don't see
the increase in the minimum wage, I don't see federally.
I don't see the no tax on overtime and no
(28:26):
tax on tips. I think it was a great political move,
but I don't see that happening. And so a lot
of the things that Trump said, I don't see happening.
And if the tariffs do happen, that could be one
of those straws that broke the Campbell's back like it
did to us in nineteen thirty. After you know, a
(28:48):
downturn in the in the stock market in twenty end
of twenty nine.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
That could do it.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
So, you know, there's a lot of money floating around
that has no home, and so this money is going
into the stock market. So the momentum of the stock
market feeds on itself. So if you're out there and
you see his stock going up, and it's going to
(29:18):
be like Warren Buffett, he is in this period he
has taken out three hundred and twenty five billion dollars
from the stock market because his.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Philosophy is that everybody's in.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You know, he wants to be out, and if everybody's out,
he wants to get in, right.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
He has that contrarian view.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
In the meantime, he doesn't look very astute because the
market keeps going up, but he thinks it's over value.
But who's to say. But that's where we are now,
and that's where the consumer is. If the consumer either
loses the job or decides not it's not going to
(30:03):
pay the prices because of the tariffs on these certain nights,
then you get a an effect where everything stops and
people get laid off. So there's some real dangers here.
And Trump does not have an easy job. This is
not going to be a cake walk, that's for sure,
(30:24):
and so we just have to see what's.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Going to happen. Now we're kind of spectators because you know,
we really have no horse in the game.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Maga is in control, and it'll be interesting to see
how they do.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
In control. You know what they come up with right now? There,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
The Fortunately they have a Wall Street economists as ahead
of Treasury, so he can have them.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
You know, poler heads will prevail on some of these things.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Absolutely absolutely, And.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
To your point, Trump doesn't have it easy being the
president of the United States is not an easy job generally speaking,
but I think when when you are combative twenty four
to seven, it just makes it that much harder. And
you look at the people that he is nominated so far,
(31:24):
Matt Gates, thankfully, Matt Gates resigned and now is going
to step down and says he'll never get back into
politics again. Good riddence, Matt Gates. He's nominated Cash Pattel again.
This was something that he tried when it was his
(31:44):
first go around, and.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
His Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
William Barr, would not do what he wanted him to do,
and the head of the director at the time of
the of the FBI would not do what Trump wanted
him to do. He wanted he had tapped Cash Paatel
to take over as FBI director. My understanding is Cash
Battel has no law enforcement experience whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
He is just totally loyal to.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Trump and will do whatever he wants and we'll go
after whoever he wants.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
So that's why he wants him in that office.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And he has tried numerous ways to get Cash Battel
in there his first go round.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
I believe all.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
The the best people in the FBI said if you
put cash Ptel.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
In there, We're all going to resign.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And so he was stopped, and including William Barr, said that, hey,
you know, what you're doing is wrong. And so I
think that President elect Trump is going to make things
harder on himself because he wants to skirt the vetting process,
(33:05):
he wants to skirt the law. He wants to do
things his way because he he's a genius and he
only knows the best ways. I think that we're gonna
have four years. You know this, you know we've already
(33:25):
we kind of know what to expect. We're gonna have
four years of the White House constantly hiring and firing
people just like we did the first time. We're gonna
have four years of of violent, decisive rhetoric. We're going
to have four years where I think very little will
(33:53):
get done. And here's the and here's the shame of it.
Here is really the sad part. Like any president, President
Trump will do some good. All presidents do some good.
And when I say some good, I mean things that
we all agree with. Right, Look, if Trump came in
and said, hey, I'm going to you know, I am
(34:14):
going to cut spending. Hey, we're all going to be
happy for that. I am going to create a budget surplus. Again,
he would get tons of backing on that. I am
going to not tax Social Security. Everybody would be happy
to hear that. But in between the good that he's
(34:36):
going to do, it's going to be so combated, so terrible,
so egregious, that the good that he does is going
to be smothered by all the other crap that he's
going to do. And so at the end of the
four years, it's hard to tell if he did any good.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
And so unless you can really keep.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Track of the policies, it's going to be difficult to
understand if we move forward at all. You may not
agree with everything Biden did, again none of us do,
but at the end of it, you can simply you
(35:21):
have to point out and say, look, when Biden took over,
the economy was a mess, Inflation was a mess, and
now he is delivering.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
An economy that's that's humming along.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
That inflation is coming down to a new administration, and
I don't think we're going to get that kind of
of traction with Trump two point zero for lack of.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Better terms, Yeah, I think you have to divide it
into the side show.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And you know, if.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
We're a carnaval act, you know, you have all of
the side shows that you'd have, but then you have
the money making operations, you know where that are there
for the carnival to make money.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And I think forget about all of the side shows.
I really kind of turned all of that off. I mean,
what they're going to do.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
But my concern is is that prices go up and
unemployment goes up and inflation goes up, and at that
point in time you started that spiral, it's very difficult
to turn it around. Right now, he's on a honeymoon
(36:40):
because Biden left him with a economy that inflation is down,
unemployment is down, basically employment is up, and so we
have a good, strong economy now and that'll be the test.
(37:02):
And in my mind, you know, cutting spending for government,
we all agreed for that. You know, hopefully you must
be doing a kind of good job that he's done
with his own companies and get this done. And you know,
we all want to see it, and we want to
see wages go up and keep inflation down and keep
(37:24):
unemployment down, but we don't know, Yeah, it goes out
base and these these tariffs could be the worst thing
that could happen from what I can.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Tell, and so we just have to see what goes
on there. But I don't I kind of turned off.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
All of the rhetoric between you know, who did this
to who and when it doesn't have much to do
with what the consumer is going to do, because if
the consumer stops spending all that's all.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Again, we the consumer, we the citizens of the United
States of America, can can vote with our pockets, our pocketbook,
and if we decided to cut back on our spending
and and and start in putting more money in savings
and investing, it's it's going to have a massive effect,
(38:26):
I think in a very positive way. Matter of fact,
because a lot of the stuff that we buy we
simply don't need, uh, And we have become a very
consumer oriented or very yeah, consumer oriented.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
Citizenship, if you will.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We sometimes because marketing works, we think that we need
to have the next iPhone when the current iPhone works
perfectly well. A lot of people make fun of the
fact that my phone is like five years old. It's
it's gonna it's an antique and and I just but
it still works. It does everything that a new phone
(39:05):
does and and other than the new phones might have
quote a better camera, but I'm not a photographer, so
a better camera doesn't mean that much to me. But
bottom line is, we are still in charge, believe it
or not. We still can can vote not only with
our pocket books, but we can vote to get better people,
(39:27):
uh in the midterms into into place. We can vote
h un tell our our politicians this is what we want.
And again it's it's real simple and not make not
necessarily an easy thing to do, because again, politics change everything.
(39:49):
When money is involved, people act differently. I I since
I don't have any skin in the game. If I
was president, I would have I wouldn't have a problem
cutting out these cities that are going to these wealthy industries.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
That's one of the first things I would do.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
But as a politician, I might be afraid to do
that because it's going to hurt my reelection.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
So politics change everything. Money changes everything.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
At the end of the day, everybody can watch because
you know everybody's got their own personal lives to deal with,
is watch the stock market.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
If the stock market.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Continues to go up, which in the momentum stays there,
everything else will follow in line. If the stock market
starts to turn, all bets are off because at that
point in time, the consumer will pull out of the
market and stop spending. And it's when he stops spending,
(40:50):
jobs will be lost, Unemployment will go up, jariffs will
cause inflation, and there's just a real danger here of
what we're.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Going to see. But you know, the barometer is, you.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Know, everybody doing what they're doing day to day life
is watch the stock market, because that's going to tell
you whether we're up or down. I mean, the first
indicator of the Great Depression was the twenty nine crash, right.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
And then after that all the wrong decisions were made.
They ended up in World War.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Two, right, And you know, and you've already you've already
pointed this out. Warren Buffett is pulled out because he
thinks the market is overvalued.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
And I intend to follow Warren Buffett, and he's not.
You know, he's like the at one point he.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Was the wealthiest man in the world, and that it's
all from his investing acumen. And so now he's dropped
down to number five or six or seven. He's still
in the top ten. But that's all from an testin
and and so when, in my opinion, when the world's
(42:06):
best investor says, hey, I'm pulling out of the market, now,
he's not completely out of the market. He still owns
a bunch of Coca Cola and some of his favorite stocks.
But he sold off a lot of a lot of Apple.
He didn't sell all of it off, but he basically
sold off a bunch saying specifically, I think it's overvalued.
And so he is a smart guy. And you mentioned
(42:28):
he's a contrarian. When everybody else is buying, he's selling.
And when everybody else is selling, that's when he starts buying.
Because it's just the way it works. And so I
love your idea of let's just watch the stock market.
As the stock mark changes. As it continues to go up,
then things are probably in good shape if it If
it starts going down, then you're going.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
To see everything changed.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Because the stock market is a great barometer of consumer confidence.
And when consumers lose their confidence, they pull out of
the market and they and then that again changes everything.
And you mentioned loss of employment. Companies don't don't have
capital to grow. All these things start a what do
(43:18):
you call it? An avalanche effect? So it's going to
be it's gonna be interesting. I can't wait to see
what happens in the first one hundred days of his administration.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
It's gonna be gonna be wild.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
And let's just, you know, hopefully the sake of all
of us, that they can do half of what they
said they're going to do, and at the same time
we can ignore all of the side shows and watch
the main event, which is the stock market.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And you're absolutely right, guys, I think that norm has
hit the nail on the head. Let's not get sucked
in by the side shows, all the pundits and all
the people pointing fingers. Let's just focus on the real issues.
Norm As always, thank you, my friend for stopping by.
Looking forward to catching up with you soon.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Okay, Burt, thanks for having me and enjoy our visit.
It's time for money for lunch, where we see your
brain and your business with super size portions of business.
I'm fine, that's too news. Now your host first Martinez.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome back, man. It is going to be a great
show today today. Today on the show is Norm Blumenthal.
Norm Blumenthal is an attorney for consumers and workers like
you and I selected as one of top attorneys in
Southern California. Norm was also inducted and recognized as one
(00:36):
of America's most trusted lawyers and employment law Norm Blumenthal,
welcome back.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Nice to be back, bird, And I guess from here
on the question is what's next.
Speaker 4 (00:51):
Here we have a new administration.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
And sometimes when you want to ask a question of
what's next, you have to look and see what happened.
Speaker 4 (01:00):
And I think this.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
Election is and time frame is kind of a what's
happened in the nineteen twenties, you know, if you study
your history.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
This is like the Roaring twenties.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
There's a lot of money out there, consumers are spending,
stock markets going up. There appears to be no ceiling,
kind of let like, let's the good times roll right,
And you know, we have to be a little cautious
because the stock market, contrary to popular belief, is in
(01:44):
a larger sense gambling. And the consumer is in our
economy two thirds of a gross domestic product. That means
the velocity of money going into the One of the
two thirds of it is consumer spending. And in the
(02:04):
event consumer spending drops, there's going to be an issue.
And I don't know if that's going to happen. But
you know, no tree grows to the sky, and so
we have to look up a little cautiously at what's
ahead and see what happened behind us. And so when
(02:28):
you look at the twenties and Coolidge was elected and
the war First World War was over, kind of like
when COVID was over. You know, it was the same
devastating effect around the world as if it were at war.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Actually it was a war of bacteria. So but we
solved it, and we solved the.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
First World War, and then there was great things happened
in the twenties.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
It was the time of change, you know.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Then the automobile was coming and it was booming. Now
we have AI coming and there appears to be.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
No end.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So you know, I don't know what to say except
that it ultimately it ended in a crash, and the
reason for the crash was they passed.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Tariffs a trial.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
That is absolutely correct a lot of people. I'm glad
you brought this up. Uh that that was the Uh.
That was the one of the reasons that we had
this massive crash was these these sort oftaliatory tariffs, if
you will, and go ahead, norm.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Yeah, that's basically and that happened.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
You know, the market and so do they fed at
that point in time and their infinite wisdom. I thought
the idea was to tighten the economy and pass these
prohibitive tariffs and you know, bring every everybody home and
make America great again. Because this was in nineteen thirty
(04:07):
after the crash and they were trying to come back.
In nineteen twenty eight, Hoover was elected. And I forgive me,
I have the name wrong. It's just like the Smooth
Party Act.
Speaker 5 (04:23):
Yeah, that's correct. Smooth Hardy.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah, that to.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
These two senators, correct, right, that was.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
Named after them because they wanted to take credit for it.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
They were going to show the world that America didn't
need any trade with anybody else, that can make it
on its own.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
Well, that didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
And by when that came in in nineteen thirty that
it was kind of like throwing gasoline on the fire
of the stock market going down, and it continued to
go down, and unemployment it up, and it didn't change
until thirty two when Roosevelt was elected and took the
(05:06):
tariffs off, and lo and behold, we were by the
time everything we looked, we were in the Second World War.
And one of the big causes of that was, you know,
the fact that our tariffs went on and there was
inflation around the world, and in Germany it was so
(05:28):
bad because of the reparations they placed on Germany that
you literally needed a wheelbarrow full of marks to pay
for a loaf of bread. And so, you know, I
only say this because it looks like we're in a
situation where they're going to put tariffs on again, and
(05:49):
I know that they're just you know, it's kind of threatening.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Now they aren't necessarily doing it, but.
Speaker 3 (05:57):
It seems to be we should be a little were
cautious before we start throwing around, you know, one hundred.
Speaker 5 (06:05):
On anything, on anything and correct. Look, the uh, the uh.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
From my point of view, one of the reasons that
we have lost excuse me, we have lost so many
manufacturing jobs to places like Mexico and China and stuff
like that, is because it's just simply cheaper to do
it over there. If you and I are going to
(06:38):
have a manufacturing plant here in America, there are we
just have more regulations. And some people can point and say,
well that's bad. Well, you know what. The reason that
we have.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Some of these regulations is before these regulations.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
People were being killed, that they were losing limbs, they
were being worked to death, and and that's why these
unions started popping up and things had to change.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
And so maybe we've gone too far.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
But the reality is is, UH, as Americans, we don't
want to pay top dollar for a top quality product.
I always tell people, look at Walmart. Walmart is the
low cost leader. When you want something cheap, you're going
to go to Walmart. When you're when you want to
(07:23):
spend a high quality and you're looking for the top shelf,
you don't go to Walmart.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
And so.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
In my experience, this has been my personal experience, when
my wife and I had five kids, uh living at
home with us, and you know they're all in elementary
school or whatever, we went to Walmart.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
Why because it was cheap.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
It kept us fed, and we could we could find
all sorts of cheap items there. And and of course,
as you start to get more money and and things
change in your household than and you start looking elsewhere.
But if all of a sudden, as Americans, we decided, hey,
don't we don't want cheap products anymore.
Speaker 5 (08:10):
We don't want to what do you call it, import
products from China.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
And China's tough to compete with because their laws there
are very flexible. They can they don't care about copyright,
they don't care about child labor or labor in general
human rights, so they have a lot of flexibility. It's
tough to compete with them. But norm you're famous for saying,
vote with your dollars. And if we decided to vote
(08:39):
with our dollars and stop buying products from China, that
would change things.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We don't need a tariff.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We just need to discipline ourselves.
Speaker 5 (08:50):
And that's tough to do.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
And and again, when money is tight and you need
a pair of shoes to get you buy for a
few months or whatever, Hey, Walmart's god answer. And I
don't blame people for going there. But before we you know,
go down this whole rabbit hole real quick. I do
want to point this out, and this is a I'm
(09:12):
just going to do this sidebar, if you will. I
wanted to point out that when uh Mega Maga loses,
when Trump loses, when his supporters lose, they file lawsuits
and they and they spent tons of money promoting a
lie about how they got defrauded and how the system's broken.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
In this case here, the system hasn't changed.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
But Trump and Maga won, and they won by a
lot more than they won, which surprised me. And then
second of all, they won by a lot, which surprised me.
But you didn't hear a bunch of Democrats filing lawsuits
and screaming fraud and things of that nature. So to me,
I just wanted to point that out that there are
(09:59):
just the different and in the Maga inte integrity and
everybody else's integrity.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Anyway, back to the tariff thing.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The tariff, it's already been pointed out, is not the
way to bring the economy back to life. It's the reverse.
Because I believe in curtain. If I'm wrong, Norm Canada says,
if you teariff us, we'll teariff you. China said, you know,
if you teariff, us will teariff you, and so it's
(10:32):
going to be a no win situation. Mexico said the
same thing. You want to play this tariff game, We'll
play the tariff game. It's not going to bring jobs back.
It's going to make everything more expensive. And on top
of that, Trump has already said that, you know, as
(10:55):
far as you know, he's got to back the oil industry.
So I imagine those price is are going to go
up regardless of what happens. And I think that because
Trump is definitely pro management, things are going to change
radically as it is. And again, correct me if I'm wrong.
(11:18):
I believe that one of the things he's going to do,
or he's already done, or somebody maybe it was a
Supreme Court, I apologize, but.
Speaker 5 (11:32):
I believe that they're going to do away.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
With executive overtime or overtime, a salary overtime. So that
means that that they're going to they're going to be
able to make you work forty I'm sorry, fifty sixty
seventy hours and you're not going to get compensated for
that time. So things are going to radically change in
(11:57):
a bad way.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
There's a lot of things going on the table. Last
point on salaried overtime.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
Both administrations are responsible for not taking more jobs off
the table and making them non exempt jobs instead of
exempt exempt jobs. It's a long, sad story on administrative
and executive and professional exemptions and the idea of limiting
(12:25):
those exemptions from overtime and the other work related benefits
for soured employees and hourly employees is a long way
to go. But on the macro level, yeah, really nothing
has changed. It's just like the minimum wage. Both sides
(12:48):
are guilty of leaving the minimum wage at seven dollars
and twenty five cents are federal, so you know, there's
there's both sides had some responsibility, and it basically the
Democrats because they weren't receptive to ideas that Bernie Sanders
(13:12):
brought up, which.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
The Republicans adopted. They lost their base.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
And now we have Mega coming in with the tariffs
and the trade Group BRICK, which is Brazil.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
Russia, Iran, China, China.
Speaker 3 (13:34):
You have in South Africa among who's there now, and
there's others that are going to join as a trade group.
They're going to want to make a currency, which will
be the fiat currency, which is currently the US dollar,
which props up the dollar because you know, we're thirty
(13:55):
trillion dollars in debt, so they're kind of running away
from the US dollar, and that's where Trump threatened to
put if they tried to make it beyond currency, he'll
put one hundred percent tariff on all of their products, which.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
Would clearly start a trade war, there's no doubt.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
So there's some scary things that can happen in the meantime,
but it seems like all of these have been washed
aside and it's the stock market is just doing fine.
And that's the games that Trump watches question is who's
(14:36):
going to get the tax reductions and who's going to
get taxed to try to bring the debt down and
at the same time keep the economy going. And it's
a real conundrum that Congress has failed miserably in trying
(14:58):
to correct, not all their fault of their own. They
they you know, we're thirty trillion dollars in debt, which
is about equivalent to the annual gross domestic product, and
it came about because of the you know, two thousand
and seven two thousand and eight real estate crash, which
(15:21):
was you know, another period of time where spend maybe
spend on housing and refinancing, and you know, the housing
market was going to the moon.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Well it didn't happen and crash.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
So that took ten trillion dollars to bail us out
of that one. And then we had COVID, and COVID
it took another ten trillion to get us out of
that one. So that of the thirty trillion, twenty of
it is the last two difficults that this country has
faced and successfully gotten out of. But as part of this,
(15:59):
they just washed the economy with borrowed funds.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So we're living on you know, borrowed.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Funds that we don't have, and there's no plans in
the horizon to at least stop bleeding, you know, stop
the continued debt. But no, and there's no talk about
paying it down any of the debt. Fact, they're talking
about adding another two trillion dollars this coming fiscal year,
(16:31):
so you know, must they have some good ideas and
to cut spending. The issue is are they going to
raise taxes on those that are that can most afford
to pay or.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Are they going to leave it alone and re renew.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
The twenty twenty sixteen tax cut that expires at the
end of this year, that expires at the end of
twenty twenty five, and if that expires, still be more
taxes on those that can afford to pay. And at
(17:16):
the same time, the idea is to have less of
a tax burden on those that need every dollar, because
you got to look at the velocity of money.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I mean, you can divide it into half.
Speaker 3 (17:31):
You know, are there people that live paycheck to paycheck
and need support and are there people that, fortunately for them,
have substantial resources that could pay their fair share, which
in the current environment they don't. So there has to
(17:53):
be a kind of a give and take here, and
it doesn't look like it's going to happen, But this
is where we are in our economy, and we're going
to put you know, more debt on it, and we're
going to have more deductions for those that can more than.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
For depending.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Certainly, and this is not just you and I talking
about tariffs and the economy. If if you google Trump's
economic plan, you will see people from both sides of
the aisle saying that this is not a good plan.
You cannot tax yourself into abundance.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
And this is what a tariff is.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
And and Trump, bless his heart, believes that we're going
to that he's going to be able to place a
tariff on again these foreign manuf without any repercussion. He
(19:04):
somehow believes that they're not going to retaliate with their
own tariffs. Look, if that was the case, that would
be a beautiful thing. But that's not the case. It
doesn't make sense. And so I think that the situation,
(19:24):
again from what I've been able to read from both
sides of the aisle, is not one based on prosperity
or abundance.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
It's again it's just.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I guess he hopes to show how strong he is
or whatever, and he thinks that somehow it's going to
bring jobs back to America.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
Good luck. I hope.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
I hope it pays off. I would love to be
proven wrong again. So I think that again, you put it,
put the the tariffs aside for a second. You were
mentioning the trillions of dollars. I think again, several economists
(20:11):
have come out again both sides of the aisle is
you know, and you're and you're looking at anywhere from
seven to ten trillion dollars being added to the to
the already large deficit. And again, this is not something
that they're that they're making up from thin air. During
(20:34):
the campaign, both sides said, hey, we're going to have
to spend money we don't have. I believe that that
Harris's economic plan was going to be roughly three to
four trillion dollars and Trump's economic plan was going to
be seven to seven to eight trillion dollars.
Speaker 5 (20:54):
And my thought on that is, when the government tells
you it's going.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
To cost a dollar, is probably going to cost three
or four times that amount.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Sometimes we see it cost ten times more that amount.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So if they're thinking that it's going to be a
seven trillion dollars, it could be ten, fifteen to twenty
trillion dollars.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
We don't know your point on Elon Musk.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
Look, if Elon Musk can come in and make the
government more efficient, I think everybody would support that.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
Interestingly enough, we see an experiment in Argentina where the
new president radically reduced the government there and they were
able to see significant reduction in inflation. So again, do
(21:45):
we need to reduce our government. Absolutely, there's just so
much fat in there.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
And this is a natural occurrence when people are not
accountable for their budgets in your house, my house, and
in your business. Don't manage your budget correctly, you're going
to go into bankruptcy. The way the government works, they're
not held to that same standard. They can just print
more money, which causes more problems, but they refuse to
(22:14):
look at at themselves and just reduce the size of
their spending.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I've said multiple.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
Times that right now we spend I don't know, four
to ten billion dollars in subsidies to some of the
riches and most powerful industries. Sugar still gets a subsidy.
Corn still gets a subsidy. The beef industry, I belie,
(22:41):
still gets a subsidy. This is crazy. You know, every
time they roll out a new budget, the budget is stuffed.
Speaker 5 (22:53):
And this is just the way the government. Our government
is set up.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
The budget is stuffed with everybody trying to get their
share of the pie, and you get this massive budget
and then if you had the time to read through it,
you will find that both sides have added tens of
(23:18):
billions of dollars for their own interest.
Speaker 5 (23:24):
And sometimes those interests.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Are needed, you know, maybe they need more jobs in
a certain state, so they stick stick that into the
budget or something. But either way, the tariff thing, I
think is a poor choice. Again, I cannot remember the economist.
(23:47):
He is a Republican, but he says multiple times you
cannot tax yourself into prosperity. Or I think he said abundance.
And so I think that that maybe cooler heads will
prevail and they can come up with a better program.
(24:08):
And again, we as consumers, we vote with our dollars.
Every time we buy a product, a cheap product from
China or some other overseas place. We are telling our
government and those other governments that we want these cheap products,
and so.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
We get we get them. You know, let the good
times roll. We are in a good time period.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
You know.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
It's a famous quote about the fellow that jumps off
the one hundred story building and he gets to the
fiftieth floor and somebody asked him, how's it going, and
he said, so far, so good. So that's where we are.
You know, you mentioned Argentina. Well, Argentina brought the inflation
(24:57):
rate down from about two hundred and fifty percent, sent
down to twenty percent, and they think they're doing great
because they have bankrupted that country over and over again.
They've devalued the Argentine time pay so over and over
again because when the Parinistas were in power, all they
(25:18):
did was print money. And you know, that's what we've done.
For good reasons, I can't say, but we put out
a lot of money, twenty trillion dollars in debt, and
we aren't doing anything about it because, as you mentioned,
there's all these lobbyists that are protecting their part of
(25:41):
the pork barrel, and whatever they do, they don't want
the government to cut the pork for their constituents, which
as part of their job as a politician. But if
you don't do it across the board, and you've got
to just basically take that acts to it and say, okay,
(26:03):
a certain percentage of everything comes off, and then you
got it.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
At the same time, you got to do what Trump
was saying.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
You got to make it easier on people going paycheck
to paycheck. So there's no tax on over time, and
there's there's no tax on tips, and so that hits
the lower end of the economy that are working paycheck
to paycheck. And so that's a big boost for them,
(26:35):
which it would be helpful to keep them from heat.
The safety net in there for those that could least
afford board. It increased the bedroom minimum waves take it
up to fifteen dollars, right, And so you know in
California we're at sixteen and you know, the.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
People did not a referendum, did not approve going to eighteen.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
But we're at sixteen, which is is there's no shame
in that.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
And people need money.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
The consumer he's spending, he can't afford a house to live.
They have to have a new paradigm for housing where
if you're a teacher at a school, the school like
they do at Harvard, supplies you with housing as well
as you're a teacher. You get below market rent and
(27:34):
you have loyalty to that school.
Speaker 4 (27:36):
You know, from elementary school on up.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Start there put in the police build housing for them firemen,
so you have police, fire and teachers are all have
a stake in the economy. They're able to afford a
place to live, you know, near the school or the
fire station where it may be police station. And so
(28:04):
you know, we can have new ideas coming in, but
it's unfortunately except for a very few of these ideas,
I don't see any of them happening. I don't see
the increase in the minimum wage, I don't see federally.
I don't see the no tax on overtime and no
(28:26):
tax on tips. I think it was a great political move,
but I don't see that happening. And so a lot
of the things that Trump said, I don't see happening.
And if the tariffs do happen, that could be one
of those straws that broke the Campbell's back like it
did to us in nineteen thirty. After you know, a
(28:48):
downturn in the in the stock market in twenty end
of twenty nine.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
That could do it.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
So, you know, there's a lot of money floating around
that has no home, and so this money is going
into the stock market. So the momentum of the stock
market feeds on itself. So if you're out there and
you see his stock going up, and it's going to
(29:18):
be like Warren Buffett, he is in this period he
has taken out three hundred and twenty five billion dollars
from the stock market because his.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Philosophy is that everybody's in.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You know, he wants to be out, and if everybody's out,
he wants to get in, right.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
He has that contrarian view.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
In the meantime, he doesn't look very astute because the
market keeps going up, but he thinks it's over value.
But who's to say. But that's where we are now,
and that's where the consumer is. If the consumer either
loses the job or decides not it's not going to
(30:03):
pay the prices because of the tariffs on these certain nights,
then you get a an effect where everything stops and
people get laid off. So there's some real dangers here.
And Trump does not have an easy job. This is
not going to be a cake walk, that's for sure,
(30:24):
and so we just have to see what's.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
Going to happen. Now we're kind of spectators because you know,
we really have no horse in the game.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Maga is in control, and it'll be interesting to see
how they do.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
In control. You know what they come up with right now? There,
you know.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
The Fortunately they have a Wall Street economists as ahead
of Treasury, so he can have them.
Speaker 4 (30:53):
You know, poler heads will prevail on some of these things.
Speaker 5 (30:58):
Absolutely absolutely, And.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
To your point, Trump doesn't have it easy being the
president of the United States is not an easy job generally speaking,
but I think when when you are combative twenty four
to seven, it just makes it that much harder. And
you look at the people that he is nominated so far,
(31:24):
Matt Gates, thankfully, Matt Gates resigned and now is going
to step down and says he'll never get back into
politics again. Good riddence, Matt Gates. He's nominated Cash Pattel again.
This was something that he tried when it was his
(31:44):
first go around, and.
Speaker 5 (31:47):
His Attorney General.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
William Barr, would not do what he wanted him to do,
and the head of the director at the time of
the of the FBI would not do what Trump wanted
him to do. He wanted he had tapped Cash Paatel
to take over as FBI director. My understanding is Cash
Battel has no law enforcement experience whatsoever.
Speaker 5 (32:15):
He is just totally loyal to.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Trump and will do whatever he wants and we'll go
after whoever he wants.
Speaker 5 (32:24):
So that's why he wants him in that office.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
And he has tried numerous ways to get Cash Battel
in there his first go round.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
I believe all.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
The the best people in the FBI said if you
put cash Ptel.
Speaker 5 (32:40):
In there, We're all going to resign.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
And so he was stopped, and including William Barr, said that, hey,
you know, what you're doing is wrong. And so I
think that President elect Trump is going to make things
harder on himself because he wants to skirt the vetting process,
(33:05):
he wants to skirt the law. He wants to do
things his way because he he's a genius and he
only knows the best ways. I think that we're gonna
have four years. You know this, you know we've already
(33:25):
we kind of know what to expect. We're gonna have
four years of the White House constantly hiring and firing
people just like we did the first time. We're gonna
have four years of of violent, decisive rhetoric. We're going
to have four years where I think very little will
(33:53):
get done. And here's the and here's the shame of it.
Here is really the sad part. Like any president, President
Trump will do some good. All presidents do some good.
And when I say some good, I mean things that
we all agree with. Right, Look, if Trump came in
and said, hey, I'm going to you know, I am
(34:14):
going to cut spending. Hey, we're all going to be
happy for that. I am going to create a budget surplus. Again,
he would get tons of backing on that. I am
going to not tax Social Security. Everybody would be happy
to hear that. But in between the good that he's
(34:36):
going to do, it's going to be so combated, so terrible,
so egregious, that the good that he does is going
to be smothered by all the other crap that he's
going to do. And so at the end of the
four years, it's hard to tell if he did any good.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
And so unless you can really keep.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Track of the policies, it's going to be difficult to
understand if we move forward at all. You may not
agree with everything Biden did, again none of us do,
but at the end of it, you can simply you
(35:21):
have to point out and say, look, when Biden took over,
the economy was a mess, Inflation was a mess, and
now he is delivering.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
An economy that's that's humming along.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
That inflation is coming down to a new administration, and
I don't think we're going to get that kind of
of traction with Trump two point zero for lack of.
Speaker 3 (35:49):
Better terms, Yeah, I think you have to divide it
into the side show.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
And you know, if.
Speaker 6 (35:56):
We're a carnaval act, you know, you have all of
the side shows that you'd have, but then you have
the money making operations, you know where that are there
for the carnival to make money.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And I think forget about all of the side shows.
I really kind of turned all of that off. I mean,
what they're going to do.
Speaker 3 (36:20):
But my concern is is that prices go up and
unemployment goes up and inflation goes up, and at that
point in time you started that spiral, it's very difficult
to turn it around. Right now, he's on a honeymoon
(36:40):
because Biden left him with a economy that inflation is down,
unemployment is down, basically employment is up, and so we
have a good, strong economy now and that'll be the test.
(37:02):
And in my mind, you know, cutting spending for government,
we all agreed for that. You know, hopefully you must
be doing a kind of good job that he's done
with his own companies and get this done. And you know,
we all want to see it, and we want to
see wages go up and keep inflation down and keep
(37:24):
unemployment down, but we don't know, Yeah, it goes out
base and these these tariffs could be the worst thing
that could happen from what I can.
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Tell, and so we just have to see what goes
on there. But I don't I kind of turned off.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
All of the rhetoric between you know, who did this
to who and when it doesn't have much to do
with what the consumer is going to do, because if
the consumer stops spending all that's all.
Speaker 5 (38:01):
Yeah, that's a very good point.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Again, we the consumer, we the citizens of the United
States of America, can can vote with our pockets, our pocketbook,
and if we decided to cut back on our spending
and and and start in putting more money in savings
and investing, it's it's going to have a massive effect,
(38:26):
I think in a very positive way. Matter of fact,
because a lot of the stuff that we buy we
simply don't need, uh, And we have become a very
consumer oriented or very yeah, consumer oriented.
Speaker 5 (38:42):
Citizenship, if you will.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
We sometimes because marketing works, we think that we need
to have the next iPhone when the current iPhone works
perfectly well. A lot of people make fun of the
fact that my phone is like five years old. It's
it's gonna it's an antique and and I just but
it still works. It does everything that a new phone
(39:05):
does and and other than the new phones might have
quote a better camera, but I'm not a photographer, so
a better camera doesn't mean that much to me. But
bottom line is, we are still in charge, believe it
or not. We still can can vote not only with
our pocket books, but we can vote to get better people,
(39:27):
uh in the midterms into into place. We can vote
h un tell our our politicians this is what we want.
And again it's it's real simple and not make not
necessarily an easy thing to do, because again, politics change everything.
(39:49):
When money is involved, people act differently. I I since
I don't have any skin in the game. If I
was president, I would have I wouldn't have a problem
cutting out these cities that are going to these wealthy industries.
Speaker 5 (40:03):
That's one of the first things I would do.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
But as a politician, I might be afraid to do
that because it's going to hurt my reelection.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
So politics change everything. Money changes everything.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
At the end of the day, everybody can watch because
you know everybody's got their own personal lives to deal with,
is watch the stock market.
Speaker 4 (40:27):
If the stock market.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
Continues to go up, which in the momentum stays there,
everything else will follow in line. If the stock market
starts to turn, all bets are off because at that
point in time, the consumer will pull out of the
market and stop spending. And it's when he stops spending,
(40:50):
jobs will be lost, Unemployment will go up, jariffs will
cause inflation, and there's just a real danger here of
what we're.
Speaker 4 (40:59):
Going to see. But you know, the barometer is, you.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Know, everybody doing what they're doing day to day life
is watch the stock market, because that's going to tell
you whether we're up or down. I mean, the first
indicator of the Great Depression was the twenty nine crash, right.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
And then after that all the wrong decisions were made.
They ended up in World War.
Speaker 2 (41:25):
Two, right, And you know, and you've already you've already
pointed this out. Warren Buffett is pulled out because he
thinks the market is overvalued.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
And I intend to follow Warren Buffett, and he's not.
You know, he's like the at one point he.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
Was the wealthiest man in the world, and that it's
all from his investing acumen. And so now he's dropped
down to number five or six or seven. He's still
in the top ten. But that's all from an testin
and and so when, in my opinion, when the world's
(42:06):
best investor says, hey, I'm pulling out of the market, now,
he's not completely out of the market. He still owns
a bunch of Coca Cola and some of his favorite stocks.
But he sold off a lot of a lot of Apple.
He didn't sell all of it off, but he basically
sold off a bunch saying specifically, I think it's overvalued.
And so he is a smart guy. And you mentioned
(42:28):
he's a contrarian. When everybody else is buying, he's selling.
And when everybody else is selling, that's when he starts buying.
Because it's just the way it works. And so I
love your idea of let's just watch the stock market.
As the stock mark changes. As it continues to go up,
then things are probably in good shape if it If
it starts going down, then you're going.
Speaker 5 (42:51):
To see everything changed.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
Because the stock market is a great barometer of consumer confidence.
And when consumers lose their confidence, they pull out of
the market and they and then that again changes everything.
And you mentioned loss of employment. Companies don't don't have
capital to grow. All these things start a what do
(43:18):
you call it? An avalanche effect? So it's going to
be it's gonna be interesting. I can't wait to see
what happens in the first one hundred days of his administration.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
It's gonna be gonna be wild.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
And let's just, you know, hopefully the sake of all
of us, that they can do half of what they
said they're going to do, and at the same time
we can ignore all of the side shows and watch
the main event, which is the stock market.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
And you're absolutely right, guys, I think that norm has
hit the nail on the head. Let's not get sucked
in by the side shows, all the pundits and all
the people pointing fingers. Let's just focus on the real issues.
Norm As always, thank you, my friend for stopping by.
Looking forward to catching up with you soon.
Speaker 4 (44:07):
Okay, Burt, thanks for having me and enjoy our visit.
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