The Dr. Doug Ramsey Show - 20241005

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The opinions and information expressed and discussed on The Doctor
Doug Ramsey Show or for informational and educational purposes only.
It is not intended to provide, and should not be
relied upon for accounting, legal, tax or investment advice. Please
consult with a professional specializing in these areas regarding the
applicability of this information to your situation.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
All things financing business leading you to success at work,
at home, and in live. It's the Doctor Doug Ramsey Show.
And now here's your host, Doctor Doug Ramsey.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Welcome to the Doctor Doug Ramsey Show. I'm your host,
Doctor Doug Ramsey, broadcasting on the mug of Radio Networks.
All Right, a lot going on in the world. AVAM
put out a show here in two weeks, and with
this Hurricane Helene that came blasting through, there's a lot

(01:01):
of economic questions and national policy questions that came out
of that. So I'm going to kick off the show
with this article about insurance. It's from the Washington Post
that came out on October third, on Thursday, and it's
talking about how thousands of uninsured homes we're in Helean's path.

(01:24):
And I'm sure everybody's seen the destruction on TV or
on YouTube. It's just terrible. So in this one county
in North Carolina, we're an entire town disappeared beneath floodwaters.
Less than one percent of households had flood insurance. In
unic Cooy County, Tennessee, I'm not sure and pronounce that right,

(01:48):
where dozens of residents were straight at the top of
hospital roof as waters rose.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
It was under two percent.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
So you got county after county that's got no coveraging.
I'm not sure sure through a one hundred year floodplanes
or if they've ever been flooded out before.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
You know, if you.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Haven't ever experienced it, you don't think it's going to
happen to you. So you get that tendency to potentially
underensure just because it hasn't happened to you in the past.
On average, is a tiny fraction of household in the
inland counties hit hardest by Hurricane Leen and its remnants
had flood insurance.

Speaker 4 (02:28):
According to a Washington Post analysis.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Of recent data from the National Flood Insurance Program across
seven affected states, only zero point eight percent let's less
than one percent of homes in the inland county it's
affected by the storm had flood insurance. By contrast, twenty
one percent of homes in coastal counties in those areas

(02:52):
had coverage. The Post estimated the share of homes of
flood insurance by using policy counts as of October provided
by the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA and housing unit
counts from the US Census Bureau. Experts say that lack

(03:13):
of insurance will prove deeply damaging for those households and
the years to come. Added the overall toll the devastating storm.
So far, there have been at least two hundred and
thirteen desks confirmed in six states as a Thursday, Available
disaster assistance funds are largely intended to pay for temporary shelter, food,
and water, not to rebuild homes, and thanks to a

(03:35):
combination of outdated policies and high prices, most people don't
know they should enroll in flood insurance or can't afford it.
Without insurance, people struck by floods have to rely on
a network of complicated federal programs your aid from nonprofits
to rebuild their lives. The Individual Assistance Program run by

(03:56):
FEMA can help provide urgent resources, but it is captured
around forty two five hundred dollars for housing and forty
two thousand, five hundred dollars for other costs. Most recipients
get far less. As of Thursday morning, femalist at one
hundred and eight counties in five states where people.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Are eligible for this aid.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
It's something people don't want to think about, said Craig Landry,
a professor of agricultural and applied economics at the University
of Georgia. The risk of catastrophic flooding. People have an
optimistic perception of disaster assistance, he added, and in.

Speaker 4 (04:35):
Reality it's not that generous.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
The post analysis shows that many of the counties affected
by Helene's flooding have seen declining rates of flood insurance
coverage in the past decade. In some cases, around half
of flood insurance policies have been dropped. Well, you know,
when you got a choice between putting food on the

(04:59):
table and cover basic living costs or paying for flood
insurance you think you're never going to use. I mean,
you can understand why people were making that decision to
drop coverage. Stephanie Buchanan, a resident of Bakersville, North Carolina,

(05:20):
didn't know she didn't have flood insurance until her belinings
had been swept away in rising creek waters. Buchanan and
her husband fled out the back door and watched the
water rise two feet up into their home, ruining furniture
and dragging their possessions into the garage. She called her
homeowner's insurance company, only learned that her policy didn't cover

(05:42):
floods and Mitchell County, home to Bakersville, FEMA reported just
thirty one flood insurance policies for more than eighty six
hundred housing units. Nobody said anything about it, Buchan has
set in a phone interview, the forty seven year old
has lived in the Bakersville area her entire life. Can't

(06:03):
remember any similar disasters, never face anything like this, she said.
Is someone gonna help us? Are we gonna be able
to have a home. That's exactly what I was talking
about at the beginning here before I jumped in the article.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
Is you know it's this mentality.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
If it's never happened to me before, so you know,
it's probably never gonna happen to me in the future.
I'm not gonna worry about it or not ensure it
against that hazard. The lion's share of flood insurance in
the United States comes through FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program
for homes that are in the one hundred year floodplane

(06:44):
where that have a one percent or greater chance of
flooding every year. This insurance is legally required to obtain
a mortgage and can pay out up to two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars for structures and one hundred grand
for contents, but experts say the flood maps are used

(07:05):
by the National programmer out dated, leaving many areas that
should have flood insurance without it. So I took a
really interesting class. It was part of my general ed
natural science courses. I had to take two of them,
and I took physics intro to physics, which was a
beating and the other one I took was environmental geology,

(07:30):
and physics was kind of interesting actually, but it was
a pretty rigorous course. So this environmental geology, they talked
about how in different parts of the world they're affected
by different geologic hazards and developments, For instance, the really

(07:52):
cold climate.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
She had permafrost.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
That permafrost layer just underneath the surface would freeze the
winter and get soft in the summertime. You had beaches,
and they're talking about just coastal communities and erosion of
the sand and how different cities and counties try to

(08:17):
deal with that erosion and mitigate that. You had the
earthquake zones, which I was really familiar with being they
were having grown up in Southern California, Tornadoes. I mean,
all different things, but one of the points that was

(08:38):
made in the course is that as you start to
build on communities and the population grows and you put
more and more structures on the surface, you put more
and more roadways, more and more sidewalks, and so forth,
then you create drainage issues. Those drainage issues, if you

(09:04):
don't address them properly, can lead to flooding and situations
where you get a lot of flood damage. So it
was an eye opener when I took it, And definitely

(09:24):
some of the stuff that I heard in that.

Speaker 4 (09:26):
Class is kind of ringing through here.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
As I'm going through this article, But anyway, you get
the point on the on the issue, I've heard that
the federal government's only coming up with seven hundred and
fifty dollars right now for just emergency funds, and they're
comparing that to and they're saying FEMA is out of money.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
But then there's saying FEMA was used to fund.

Speaker 3 (09:55):
Support for illegal immigrants that came in. And you know,
it's just a real political hot potato right now too
with the election. All right, So here's a natural resource
issue that has come out of this hurricane.

Speaker 4 (10:19):
So this is from the AP and it's talking about courts.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Two North Carolina facilities that manufacture the high purity courts
used for making semiconductors, solar panels, and fiber optic cables
have been shut down by Hurricane and Leen, with no
reopening date in sight. Sibelco and the Court's Corps both

(10:48):
shut down operations of the Appalachian town of Spruce Pine
on Thursday, ahead of the storm that swept away whole
communities in the western part of the state and across
the border in East Tennessee. The town is home to
minds that produced some of the world's highest quality courts.
With increasing global demand, Sibelco announced last year that it

(11:09):
would invest two hundred million dollars in to double capacity
at Spruce Pine. Since the storm, the company has simply
been working to confirm that all of its employees are
safe and accounted for, according to a statement, as some
were unreachable due to ongoing power outages in communication challenges.

(11:34):
Please rest assured that Sibelko is actively collaborating with government
age season third party rescue and recovery operations to mitigate
the impact of this event and or resume operations as
soon as possible, the company wrote. The court's court wrote
that restarting operations is a second order of priority. Our
top priority remains the health and safety of our employees

(11:56):
and their families, the company wrote.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
Spruce Pine Courts.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Is used around the world to manufacture the equipment needed
to make the silicon chips that underpin all of our
digital device is Vince Beisser, author of the World in
a Grain set, in an email. To make silicon chips,
you need to first melt down a highly purified material

(12:22):
called polysilicon, that can only be done in crucibles that
are themselves made of a material so pure it will
not react chemically with the polysilicon and is also able
to withstand enormous heat.

Speaker 4 (12:38):
He said.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
The best material for those crucibles is ultrapure quartz. Spruce
Pine is the source of the purest financial quartz ever
found on Earth. And I bet you anybody that's listening,
I bet you none of you knew that. I'd be
shocked if anybody did. I had no clue. An estimated

(13:03):
seventy to ninety percent of the crucibles to use worldwide
are made from Spruce Pine courts, he said. City officials
in Spruce Pine are focused on locating people who were
strained by the storm, said Wayne Pie, a member of
Spruce Pine's town council, But reopening the mines is important
to more than just the companies behind the facilities. Pit

(13:27):
estimated the around three quarters of the town has a
direct connection to the mines, whether that is a job,
a job that relies on the mines, or a family
member who works at the facilities. It's the underpinning of
our economy, he said, and getting the facilities back running
is going to be extremely critical for the people in
Spruce Pine. If there's no cash in, especially in accounty

(13:49):
with as many people on the poverty scale as we
have already, we're going to have a really difficult fall winner.
If that doesn't happen quickly, Pike said, Spirit Airlines not
fill in this Halloween spirit or the holiday spirit they're

(14:12):
considering filing for bankruptcy. Spirit Airlines is reporting discussions with
its bondholders about the terms of a potential bankruptcy filing.
The budget airline is also exploring restructuring its balance sheets
through an out of court transaction, but people familiar with
the discussions told The Wall Street Journal that recent talks

(14:33):
have been focused on reaching an agreement with bondholders and
other creditors to support a Chapter eleven filing. The move
comes just months after Jet Blue pulled out of a
merger agreement, but any bankruptcy filings will not be made imminently,
the Journal reports. In the meantime, the Spirit continues to

(14:55):
struggle with losses and declining revenue amid coming maturities and
it's three point three billion dollar debt load, including more
than a one point one billion dollars of secured bonds
that are doing less than a year. It also faces
in October twenty one, or twenty first, deadline from its

(15:16):
credit credit card processor to refinance or extend those notes.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
All right, so, I mean, here's the deal. Spirits balance sheet.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
The right hand side of the balance sheet, which shows
your liabilities and your equity. They've got a whole bunch
of debt that's starting to come do well. The only
way you can pay, especially if you're issuing secured or
unsecured notes. A lot of them have seven year maturities,
and a lot of them are interest only until you

(15:49):
get to the date of maturity, when you have to
pay one hundred percent of the principle back on that
date plus the interest that's do for that six months.
So in their case, you can imagine their cash flow
is not going to be sufficient to pay one point

(16:12):
one billion dollars of secured bonds in less than a
year that are due in less than a year. So
we'll keep an eye on that, but that's gonna be tough.
They're gonna have to refinance or you know, if they
do the more extreme action here, they're going to file

(16:35):
for bankruptcy, and then that'll give them a chance to
completely restructure that right hand side of the balance sheet.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
They would likely.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Take those notes, maybe replace them with new notes for
a lesser amount. You know, there's a total three point
three billion, so maybe they do something where for the
senior note es, they'll give them new notes of a
billion and a half with you know, five seven year

(17:08):
maturity on it, so they kind of reset the clock.
And then for the balance of what they owed on
the original notes, they'll give them new common stock.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
And if there isn't enough value to get down.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
To the existing common stockholders, they'll cancel the existing common stock.
And so effectively, when the bondholders get the new common
stock for you know, half of what the road, then
they become the majority owners of Spirit Airlines going forward.

(17:44):
So we'll see how it plays out, but that's a
real possibility.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
All right. Here's an interesting story. I just came across
this right before.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
I started recording, and this is from CNBC about a
fifty fifty two year old guy worked ninety hours a
week in an oil refinery that saved money for his business.
Now he's worth nine and a half billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
All right? Who am I talking about?

Speaker 3 (18:20):
When Todd Graves and Craig Sylvie came up with the
idea for a restaurant in southern Louisiana that only sold chicken.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
Fingers, you already know who it is. I'll keep going here.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
They probably didn't expect to get the lowest grade and
they start up pitching assignment for Sylvie's LSU undergraduate business class,
or to get rejected for bank loans when they tried,
and we're trying to make it a reality. So they
got the lowest grade and their startup class when they

(18:58):
did their pitch and couldn't get a bank.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
So what they do well?

Speaker 3 (19:06):
The concept which eventually became what did this thing do.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
Well? This article cut off? This is weird? All right?

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Well anyway, It propelled Graves to his debut Tuesday on
the Forbes four hundred and he's ranked among America's richest people.
He's reported to the country's one hundred and seventh richest person,
with an estimated net worth of nine and a half
billion dollars, largely driven by his ownership stake in here
you go drum roll in raising canes. If people tell

(19:42):
you something can't be done, it makes you strive so
much more to do it. Graves, now fifty two in
the company's co CEO, told students at Nickels State University
in two thousand and nine to raise enough money to
open the fast food chains first location. In nineteen ninety
s Graves moved to California from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to

(20:05):
work ninety hour weeks in an oil refinery and later
fish for salmon and alask According to the company's website,
he spent between forty and fifty thousand of his own money,
plus roughly one hundred and grand from friends, family, and
a small business administration loan to get his arstaurant off
the ground, he told the Trading Secrets podcast in May. Today,

(20:29):
Raising Canes, named after Graves's yellow lab Raising Cane, has
more than eight hundred locations internationally and brought in three
point seven billion dollars in net sales last year.

Speaker 4 (20:43):
Company spokeshurst Intel's CNBC.

Speaker 3 (20:47):
Graves owns more than ninety percent of the company has
no plans to take it public or sell his stake
to private investors.

Speaker 4 (20:53):
He said, I.

Speaker 3 (20:55):
Want my kids of the business to be able to
carry our values on after their mom and I are
gods and Graves they can turn this into a worldwide
business and continue to grow. When Graves and Sylvie, who
left the business in nineteen ninety nine, that's Sylvie who left,
opened their first location in Baton Rouge, Graves had zero

(21:16):
business management skills. He said he worked seven days per
week at the restaurant, from opening at eight am to
closing at three thirty am the next morning. He added,
as company guru, Graves figured out how to recruit employees
and develop leaders on the fly. He said, I was
building a plane while I was flying it. That's a
great quote. Most entrepreneurs finance their businesses with a mix

(21:40):
of debt and equity. Graves will led almost exclusively on
loans when starting out, He told the How I built
this podcast in twenty twenty two, he'd offer private investors
at fifteen percent interest rate on a loan, which he'd
then used to secure additional funding from community banks that treated.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
The debt as equity.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Said in retrospect, the approach is stupid. It nearly cost
him the business when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana in two
thousand and five, shutting down twenty one of his twenty
eight storefronts in the Baton Rouge area, but allowed him
to maintain his ownership stake while growing his company.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
He said, So, I didn't even know this.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
Was in here in this article about another hurricane disaster,
and it almost wiped this guy out and would have
kept him from becoming a multi billionaire debt to equity.
You should have proper balances in your business, and that
helps you get through tough times like a major hurricane.
But I levered everything, said Graves, who credited his business's

(22:46):
survival the reopening it as much as he could quickly
after Katrina passed. Luckily, I lived through that, but that's
when I really learned to balance risk. The company, which
turned twenty eighth this year, is on its third real
life yellow lab mascot Raising Caine. The third had its

(23:06):
first billion dollar quarter in sales earlier this year and
is on track to finish twenty twenty fourth nearly five
billion in sales, says the Raising Caines spokesperson.

Speaker 4 (23:16):
That's amazing.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
Contrary to the company's hard charging early expansion, Graves now
preaches the value not rushing into opportunities or growing too
quickly is his brand's expense. At his brand's expense, He's
told Trading Secrets.

Speaker 4 (23:31):
The vision of Raising Caines.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Is to someday have locations all over the world and
be the brand for craveable chicken finger meals, great crew,
cool culture, and active community involvement, Graves said, you have
to stay disciplined, because if you are successful, opportunities are
crazy and you can grow it towards something not special

(23:55):
at all.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
All Right, that's super interesting Patagonia.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
They've laid off staff and they've launched a big business
transformation to set it up for the next fifty years.
This is coming from Business Insider earlier in the week.
Patagonian laid off forty one staff members on Monday and
announced that major business transformation to prepare the company for

(24:31):
the next fifty years. It marks the second round of
layoffs this year for the outdoor apparel brand, after ninety
customer service staff were told in June to relocate to
one of the company's hub areas or leave the company.
While we remain profitable, we are vulnerable to the same
economic headwinds many companies in our industry are facing, The CEO,

(24:57):
Ryan Geller wrote on LinkedIn post announcing the changes on Monday.
Meeting our own standards requires embracing changes and focus, and
this week begins some major internal changes that are critical
for our success in the near term and foundationally important
for our next fifty years, he said on Monday morning.

(25:20):
Gellert also sent an internal email to staff, which Business
Insider has seen.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
The CEO told.

Speaker 3 (25:28):
Staff that the layouts are a sad and difficult decision,
but we're part of the company's transformation for.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
The next chapter.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
In the internal email, Gellert did not specify which teams
had been affected by Monday's layoffs, but ruled out cuts
to the customer experience, retail, warehouse.

Speaker 4 (25:47):
And international teams.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Those laid off we're given twenty two weeks of pay
increasing with tenure and support to cover health insurance costs
for a year. Two employees that Business Insider spoke to
on the condition of anonymity, so they were still processing
the changes and we're unsure what this meant. So the

(26:13):
health insurance, I don't know if that's a little bit
disingenuine or not. Because when there's a layoff under Cobra,
you have to offer insurance to the terminated employees. You know,
it's at their expense, at the ex employees expense going forward,

(26:36):
but at least they have the opportunity to get coverage
if they need it while they're transitioning into a new
they're into new employment, into a new job, and they're
making it sound like they're going to subsidize that because

(26:57):
it says support to cover health insurance costs, which if
they are paying part if that, that'd be great. That's
above and beyond what a lot of employers do when
they let folks go. So one of the employees said
they believe members of the environmental, communications and marketing teams
had been laid off, which indicated the company was undergoing

(27:19):
strategic changes. The people that are on these teams, a
lot of them have been at Patagonia a long time
and have believed in this company. The workers said. It's
hard and scary when you have to let those folks go,

(27:40):
though they are not were not affected. On Monday, retail
and distribution workers who had been talking in chat groups
were nervous about what would happen in the future.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
The employee added, so what are.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
They trying to do the last We're just part of
a wider company. Restructuring intended to transform the business and
ensure Patagonias future success. Roles across our inventor and reno
offices are changing. New roles are being created, and some
are being eliminated, and many are evolving, Galler told staff.

(28:18):
In the internal email, the company outlined three key areas
of focus for the immediate future. Creating higher quality products
that's one, Enhancing storytelling that's two, and generating more impact
through its grassroots activism and responsible business practices. Under the

(28:41):
new structure, teams are being created in other's merge to
meet those goals. Galler told staff to expect more details
over the coming days, weeks, and months. Ah, here we
get a part of it financial difficulties. Employees are also
provided with an internal FAQ outlining the reasons behind I'm
the restruction, which BI has seen a copy of as well.

(29:04):
In the document, Patagonia said the changes were not a
purely financial decision, but acknowledge that the company is not
as profitable as we could be and can't continue to
absorb the impact of market challenges. All right, well, we'll

(29:24):
see how they do. What article is that? Let's get
that one.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
All right.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
The largest ski operator in the world announces mass layoffs.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
They had a winner. Is a climate change? Is a
financial Let's.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
See what's going on here. The world's largest mountain resort
operator announced Thursday would eliminate certain positions that save costs
even a ski season approaches Veil resorts lands a layoff
under two percent of the company's entire workforce as part

(30:11):
of a two year plan. According to a company news release,
the anticipated layoffs would include fourteen percent of its corporate
workforce in less than one percent of the company's operations workforce.
Veil Resorts, headquartered in Broomfield, Colorado, employed about seven six
hundred year und employees and forty four thoy nine hundred

(30:35):
odd seasonal employees in the twenty twenty four fiscal year,
which ended in July thirty first, twenty twenty four, according
to a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing. So, yeah,
the number of seasonal employees is massive, and you could
imagine running the HR department for Veil Resorts and onboarding

(31:02):
seasonal employees, get them trained up, getting them, you know,
outfitted in uniforms or you.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Know, the Veil Resort jackets or whatever they have.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
To wear, and then it's only for the season. Then
you've got to off boardom and get any equipment back.
That has been a sign to the employee. That is
a lot of work, a lot a lot of work.
And it's kind of interesting if you go up to

(31:34):
I've been to Beaver Creek a number of times and.

Speaker 4 (31:38):
And they'll also and.

Speaker 3 (31:45):
The a lot of the ski lift operators, the school
ski instructors.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
They're from all over the world.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
They come over here, get those seasonal jobs, work work
their shifts, and then get some skiing in and just
have a good time as well. But they're from all
over the place. The loss of jobs for at least
five hundred workers in a firm is one of two

(32:15):
situations that signify a mass layoff, the US Department of
Labor said, citing the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
That's the WARN Act. If you terminate a certain number
of your employees, you have to give them the heads
up and you got to send notices out. There's a

(32:40):
there are a number of steps you have to do
under the WARN Act on that.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
The layoffs.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
They're part of a two year plan to transform the
company for future growth and global expansion impact, and employees
will have the opportunity to apply for open roles across
the company. The layoffs would mainly affect management and back
end staff, as only zero point two percent of the
frontline operational workforce staff will be affected, according.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
To the news release.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
No matter how big or small, the impact of position
eliminations We do not take lightly any decision that affects
our team members. CEO Kirsten Lynch said via the news release.
Our team members are.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
The core of our mission to create an experience of
a lifetime, and we have tremendous gratitude for their passion
and commitment to our mission, our mountains, and our guests.
We consider our employee relations to be positives, the company said.
In the SEC.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Filing, Veil Resorts net income from the twenty twenty four
fiscal years to two hundred and thirty point four million dollars,
down from two undred and sixty eight point one million
dollars for the twenty twenty three fiscal year. Lynch blamed
the company's recent fiscal struggles on both the failed or

(34:06):
fall in demand for skiing UH occasioned by adverse climatic
conditions across the company's North American and Australian resort and
post COVID business normalization. The second filing revealed, alright, let's

(34:33):
see what we got next year. I if you're a
undergraduate student listening, or you're apparent to a college aged

(34:55):
student or even a high school student, this is kind
of interesting this next article and it talks about the
young lady who waited to go to grad school and
how she thinks that was the right choice. And it

(35:16):
starts off and it says graduate school wasn't my backup plan.
It wasn't my plan at all. Wanted to graduate from
college as quickly as possible to save money. However, during
a meeting with the writing professor in my penultimate semester,
my plans changed. He suggested applying to a master's program.

(35:38):
His one piece of advice, make sure that I don't.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Incur more debt.

Speaker 3 (35:43):
Since many master's programs aren't fully funded, my search narrowed.
Heating his advice, I researched only a few programs that
fit the criteria. After graduation, I applied to one program
but wasn't accepted, so I threw myself into work in
the year years whipped by. After a half decade of
working in a profession that furthered other people's dreams, I

(36:08):
realized I had to start putting myself first. For me,
that meant advancing my education once again. Ended up going
to a fully funded master's program five years after graduating
from college, and it was the best decision I made.
I enrolled in an MFA program, where I wrote a

(36:30):
lot and often drew from my upbringing. Though I had
many defining, rich memories as a child and young person,
Waiting until I was in my twenties to go to
graduate school allow me to draw upon more adult life experiences.
Continuing to work and build my career helped shape my

(36:50):
background and gave me new perspectives I didn't immediately have
after graduating college. Since my graduate school program met not
I continued to work full time. If I had gone
immediately to grad school from undergrad where I worked multiple
part time jobs, I probably would have continued to cobble

(37:12):
together my income from various jobs, freelance gigs, and side hustles.
But having a full time job with benefits allowed me
to have a consistent schedule.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
To work around.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
That reliability allowed me to plan my work in academic
counter in a way that helped me establish a routine.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
It became a foundation for my success.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
Since I had been working full time for about half
a decade by the time I enrolled in graduate school,
I was able to have a small safety net. That
extra money went to buying books in the extra bus
rides I had to take to get to my school
several times a week for classes and other events. Working
full time also allowed me to make more than the

(37:54):
minimum payments required for my student loan repayments from my
own undergraduate degree. And nice bonus to graduate school was
that my student loans could be deferred, which meant I
could keep saving to repay them without the pressure of
having to make a payment to pray for graduate school,

(38:16):
I studied for the gre even though the program I
chose didn't knowtenly require them. The studying I did help
me revisit some educational foundations.

Speaker 4 (38:28):
Also, since I had time.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Off from the academic rigor of undergrad it was able
to recharge a bit before diving into another academic setting immediately.
This time off helped me get excited about learning and
ready to tackle education again in a thorough more meaningful way.
Working full time in my field was very intense and

(38:50):
time consuming. Since I was salaried often worked unpaid overtime.
Graduate school actually gave me a valid way to put
up more boundaries for a work life balance. Ultimately, attending
graduate school was a true honor, and it felt like
a respite from the hectic demands of my day job.

(39:10):
Graduate school was about making the work that I was
proud of, which was.

Speaker 4 (39:16):
A nice change in my life. In a way, it
helped me become my own boss.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
So I think there's a lot to kind of gain
from this article and it really helps the learning process.
And so I had my own experience where I wanted
to race through undergrad and graduate school. I passed up

(39:44):
the opportunity to go to the business school in Copenhagen
and regret that decision because I think that would have
been a fascinating experience. And I didn't start internationally until
I was forty, and that's and the only reason I

(40:09):
started traveling internationally because of Karate competitions. And once I
got a taste of traveling internationally, I'm like, I should
have started doing this when I was, you know, in college.
It's a fantastic experience and I recommend it to anybody.

(40:30):
So I had my wife and our kids, three kids
of two of them, and my wife went down and.

Speaker 4 (40:43):
They wound up doing.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Immersive Spanish and Costa Rica for two summers, got full
college credit. But I really started pushing it, you know,
with the family, to get on to get out there
and start traveling, Like I've got the opportunity to do
and you learn so much more about different cultures and

(41:08):
different you know, values and so forth.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
And when I went through so going straight.

Speaker 3 (41:17):
Into my NBA program at Invers Chicago, boy, we got
that was a rigorous program and we got ground up.
But I was burned out by what would have been
my sixty year of college in a row. Four years
for undergrad, two years for grad school, and I didn't

(41:37):
really have much in the way of business experience at all,
whereas most of my classmates had taken probably two to
four or five years off between undergrad and going to Chicago,
so they had some real work experience to draw from,
and I think it made their learning experien sperience definitely difference,

(42:03):
and they may have walked away with a better understanding
on how to apply some of the theories and things that
we were learning, you know, on the job. I wound
up really honing my understanding when I started teaching finance.

(42:24):
So when I got out of Chicago, I came right
back to cat POI Pomona, where I went undergrad and
got hired and started teaching finance full time for the
next seven years, year round, four quarters a year, three
classes a quarter, and that's where I really learned finance

(42:47):
and learned the theory and put what I learned at
Chicago got into practice because my lectures I pulled in
a lot of real world examples of what was going
on and how it applied, and so for me it
would kind of kind of worked in reverse a little bit.

(43:08):
But you know, everybody's different. But something to consider here.
I think getting some experience before grad school is great advice.
But anyway, if your parent think about that, if you're
a undergrad student, think about that as well. Important stuff there,
all right, let me get to the next.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
The Cheesecake Factory, of all.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Restaurant chains, they apparently oh a million dollars in stolen wages.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
So this is from where did this come from? The
Latin Times.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
Says hundreds of cheesecake factory workers owed part of a
million dollars settlement in stolen wages still have not been paid,
as Calfary claims it can't find them.

Speaker 4 (44:05):
Just forty two of the more.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
Than five hundred janitors have received their part of the settlement,
leaving nearly seven hundred thousand dollars in unclaimed state accounts.
A spokesperson for the Labor Commissioner's office told cow Manters
the former janitors were reportedly denied overtime pay and paid
rest breaks at eight locations in San Diego and Orange County.

(44:30):
Officials said, so they didn't get overtime paid, they didn't
get paid for the rest breaks either.

Speaker 4 (44:37):
That's crazy.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
Alma adel Fonso, a former janitor at the Escondido location,
told cow Manners that she and her four person team
were forced to work ten to twelve hour shifts after
they were given too much work that could not be
completed in eight hours. She told the outlet that she

(45:00):
worked her whole shift without breaks and that the chemicals
she used burned her chest. They told us, no, they
weren't gonna pay five people, she told cow Maners in Spanish.
Adefonso was paid twenty thousand dollars in back wages, which
she used to help buy a car and support her sons.

Speaker 4 (45:21):
However, she felt that it does not quite make up
for what she experienced.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
I worked sometimes thirty days in a row. I didn't rest.
I feel like it was very little what we got.
I feel like my coworkers also got little, because they
got even less. The settlement was signed in October twenty
twenty three and officially announced in January this year. The
Labor Commissioner's Office has since made several social media posts,

(45:50):
maintained a hotline for workers, and did an interview for
a Spanish speaking TV station asking the former janitors to
come forward to collect their payments. That's crazy, a cheesecake
factory ripping off their employees. Let's see what we got next. Well,

(46:18):
let's talk about this. If you haven't gotten an insurance
review or somebody look at your estate plan ever or
in the last few years, be sure you call my
good friend Tony Vacaro at two and four eight three
seven three five one to Tony'll give you a complimentary
review and.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
He'll tell you what he likes, so he doesn't like.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
And you know, if he gives any recommendations, you can
run with it and you don't have to use him
to execute on recommendations. And fact, a lot of times
as recommendations don't even involve him. It might he might
for you to recommend an estate planning attorney or you know,

(47:07):
somebody else.

Speaker 4 (47:10):
That is going to help shore up what you need.

Speaker 3 (47:13):
But he's just trying to make sure you've got a
good plan and you've got your family protected and your
you know, set going forward. He's been handling my family
stuff for a long time and he's a very trusted advisor.
So number again two and four A three seven three
five one two, And you can also go out to

(47:36):
his website which is TRIPLEW dot independent APG for Advanced
Planning Group dot com and make sure you tell him
the doctor Doug SENTI.

Speaker 4 (47:52):
Let's see, I've got a whole bunch.

Speaker 3 (47:54):
Of articles pulled up, but I want to find a
good last one to talk about here. Let's see, Oh,
let's do this one real quick. Leaving my financial irresponsible
daughter five hundred grand How can I do this without

(48:16):
her squandering her good fortune? So this goes back to
what I was just talking about, you know, with reaching
out to Tony Vaccaro, how do you make sure if
you're leaving some money to your children or of whoever
it happens to be, that is not just going to
get squandered.

Speaker 4 (48:38):
So this is like a Dear Abbey write up.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Again, this is the response from the person that is
given the advice that five hundred thousand dollars still a
lot of money and should not be given in a
lump sum. A revocable living trust, one that you can
change during your lifetime once you have put the assets
into it, and can become irrevocal upon your death. Is

(49:08):
used by estate planners to hold and protect assets during
your lifetime and ensure those assets avoid probate saving legal fees.
You also maintain the freedom to revise the terms of
the trust during your lifetime. You can instruct the trustee
a lawyer, accountant, family friend, or professional trust company to
release an income for your daughter and include certain provisions

(49:32):
that could withhold money.

Speaker 4 (49:34):
Reading between the.

Speaker 3 (49:35):
Lines of your letter appears that your daughter either has
substance misuse issues and or mental health problems that led
to her homelessness. So yeah, there's a little more to
this one. But even so, it makes sense to put
some guardrails around of spending of life. So I've got

(50:03):
in one of my trust provisions that any of the
kids or niece or nephew that wind up getting trust
money if they're under oh I think I put in
they're thirty five years old, that their money goes into

(50:25):
a new trust they get set up so that way
they just don't get a lump sum and they get
out there and blow it on a fancy car that's
just going to go down and value, and spend it on,
you know, a bunch of things that aren't going to
generate new cash flow and help them to build their

(50:48):
own estate and hand it down to their kids.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
So makes you you.

Speaker 3 (50:54):
Think about, yeah, getting to trust or setting up some
kind of annuity where they just can't get their rubby
little hands on the entire mount and uh.

Speaker 4 (51:08):
Been like they're out of control. So there you go.
That's a hot tip for the day.

Speaker 3 (51:15):
You've been listening to the Doctor Doug Range's show and
you've never been. You can't make you dough with that.

Speaker 4 (51:20):
But