November 18, 2025 • 15 mins
LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i
WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured
This segment tackles a familiar refrain on the right: “But he’s better than Kamala.” Yes, the host agrees—but argues that settling for “better than” isn’t good enough. From the affordability crisis to broken regulatory systems, from failing food supply chains to the strangling of small businesses, he lays out why America’s problems aren’t going to be solved with bigger government, subsidies, or political complacency. Instead, he calls for lower taxes, lighter regulations, revived “animal spirits,” and a government that gets out of the way so Americans can build, create, protect, and teach. Being better than Kamala might be true—but it’s nowhere near sufficient.
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i
WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:
https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured
This segment tackles a familiar refrain on the right: “But he’s better than Kamala.” Yes, the host agrees—but argues that settling for “better than” isn’t good enough. From the affordability crisis to broken regulatory systems, from failing food supply chains to the strangling of small businesses, he lays out why America’s problems aren’t going to be solved with bigger government, subsidies, or political complacency. Instead, he calls for lower taxes, lighter regulations, revived “animal spirits,” and a government that gets out of the way so Americans can build, create, protect, and teach. Being better than Kamala might be true—but it’s nowhere near sufficient.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But he's better than Kamala's. I hear that often. I
hear that quite often from man text messages, emails, phone calls,
debates that I have people who listen to this program,
you know, getting they're getting upset with the reality of
(00:37):
the terrain quite frankly, and some of the things that
this administration has been doing, going back to getting rid
of Doge Liberation Day, the direction he's taken, and the
things that I point out here on the program, like
to remind everybody as well, we point out problems here
on the program, we also, alike everybody else, we offer
(01:00):
solutions to these things. And what, Yeah, the line I
get all the time, what's better than Kamala would have been? Now? First, Yeah,
I happen to agree with that assessment. I do. I do.
I think there's many things that this administration has done
that that I think are great, And do I think
(01:20):
he would have been a better president than Kamala Harris.
Absolutely I do. Now, is there any way I can
know that for sure? No? Was he my first choice? No? No, again,
I am a multiple time loser when it comes to
my candidate for the presidency. Take that and put that
(01:44):
aside right now. Okay, take a look at the poll numbers.
Take a look at the poll numbers. Okay, no bueno.
We have a massive affordability issue in this country. It
didn't happen just this year. This has been building up
(02:05):
for some time. People who have been long time listeners,
people clients of OARS know this. We have been preparing
them for this and the complete the basement of your
purchasing power. We've talked about this in terms of how
(02:29):
we structure portfolios for our clients. That the nonsensical sixty
to forty portfolio that's been pitched since two thousand, maybe
even a little bit longer than that, quite frankly, and
we've pointed people to the lies that were being told
by the government. As far as inflation is concerned, cost
of living, a myriad of different things. We came up
(02:50):
with our own inflation index called the bare Necessities Okay,
inflation index, just based upon stuff that you have to
buy on a regulier basis. Who gives a damn about
the cost of your TV? How often do you have
to buy one of those? It's the stuff that you
purchase every day. Ken, I'm repeating myself. I've gone out
(03:12):
of this over this time and time again. Does anybody
out there actually think that the solution affordability problem here
is more government, more government intervention? Do you honestly think
that that's going to solve the problem? Now? Again, the
(03:33):
socialists do, and they've been winning. But I was asked
about this the other day now, and I said, I
I said, you know, free beer is pretty popular. Free
beer is a pretty popular slogan, and that's what they're offering,
free beer. But we all know there's no such thing
(03:56):
as free. It's the fallacy, okay, I call it the
fallacy of free There's no such thing. The money has
to come from somewhere right now, right now. And the
shutdown to me was a big disappointment, and the fact
that Republicans could have just taken a ball and run
(04:19):
with it over that period of time, when what did
they choose to do? They choose they chose to go
back to their districts, and you know, go on vacation
and hold fundraisers. That's what they did. They didn't really
get much of any work done. Fordability has been a problem,
not just and it didn't like I said, just not
under Biden, even though he went parabolic. Okay, but at
(04:42):
this number. Bill McGurn wrote about this today in the
Wall Street Journal. I didn't even know this. I mean
I've talked about this here on the program. When Biden
became president in twenty twenty one, the median age for
a first time home buyer was thirty three. It's now forty.
Think about that seven years. That's horrible. Okay, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's I can't even get, you know, begin to to
get my arms round just how bad that is for
this country.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Walter Isaacson, it's got a new book out. It's one
of my love His biographies are phenomenal. I've talked about
him here on the program. He's got a new book
that he was being interviewed this morning and he talked
about this specifically, and he name was this book has
to do with the greatest sentence ever written, look to
the Declaration of Independence. That's you know, opening, That's what
(05:45):
he talked about. But anyway, he was talking about these problems.
You know, we're entering our two hundred and fiftieth year
as a country, and he pointed this fact out right away,
you know, he said, you know, he's like he was
talking about my father's generation, my ramp that it was
affordable to live here in the United States. It isn't
(06:05):
any longer. There's so many different things. Yeah, yesterday I
made fun of Scott Bessett, which I'm Maria Bartiromo this
past weekend, you know, tried to blame the beef, the
beef prices of beef, blame it on it illegals. What
(06:31):
it was, one of the dumbest things ever. I got
to be wholl you know, we got we got this,
you know, screwed. I know about the the screw, just
like I knew about the avian flu. I understand all
of that. But that's not that's not the reason why.
That's not the reason why. Again, Amy, if a little different,
it's much quicker to you know, replace chickens that it
(06:51):
is cows. Okay, we have made it next to impossible
for ranchers here in this country due to regulations and
due to the meat assing plants and all of the
other nonsense that we throw at the regulations that are
out there. You know, I remember I was it was
like kind of a concept. It was a kind of
a tagline that many, you know, fancy chefs we're using here.
(07:15):
This is about about ten fifteen years ago. Farm to
table was the phrase. Farm to Those are farm to
table restaurant where they're getting locally sourced foods and bringing
it to market. And that's the type of restaurants I
like to go to. Okay, yeah, I don't quite I
(07:35):
like the stuff that's seasonal, what's in season, what's growing,
what can you have? You know, at this point in time,
we don't have that. It's very difficult to do that
here in the United States because the way that we
handle food. I live. I'm going to give you a
couple examples right now. Why not. I live here in
(07:57):
the great state of Florida. We got the Golf of
Mexico right over here, and I used to do a
lot of fishing. I just have it and a long
period of time go out there get snapper. Group are
also to fill my freezer up. I'm just way too busy. Funny,
(08:20):
you know, older, I get the busier I get, but
anyway neither here nor there. Okay, try to go to
a trying to find a fish market. Really isn't it?
Seriously no hard to find it. Can't find no fish
markets here? Really isn't. Oh you gotta go buy it
at whole Foods and I can take a go, oh
(08:42):
yeah it's fresh. I can take a look to you.
I know exactly that it's not fresh, no difference. I
was lucky enough we found a captain that takes out
charters and he catches fish, and then you know, you
can get on this little text list this is what
I have, and then I can get it that way.
Fresh restaurants can get it. Restaurant they get their little
(09:03):
cannecs and their hookups. But people can't. How does that
make any sense? How does that make any sense? I
can go to a I can go to a market
in Greece. I go market in Italy right there, and
I all lay it out. Quality of food is a
million times better. Same thing here. You know certain restaurants
(09:24):
we have in town, and that you can tell the
type of tomatoes. I going answer, where do you get
this from? Oh? We have this farm here that we're
able to get this from again. The way that food
is delivered here in the United States quite frankly sucks,
just does. Oh they're great at delivering crap food and
(09:45):
process food through grocery stores, but not the stuff that
actually makes Americans healthy. I drive, buddy, forty minutes to
go to the butcher. I don't mess around. I'm a carnivore,
for cryingel I'm a bloody vampire, and my stuff better be good.
I'm not gonna eat crap no way. And you can
see how you grocet. This is garbage. This is garbage.
(10:06):
There's a difference. And you go to other places in
the world, Okay, and theirs is better for everyone. Okay,
this is fixable, right, this is something we can do.
What how do you do this? You get rid of
nonsensical regulations. My brother professor for a whiley farm up
(10:30):
in Vermont and working with you know, milk and cows
and cheesey dough regulations, the hoops you gotta go through
just to sell cheese, wftdaf DA. Yeah, whatever, Yeah, you guys,
food or this country. You're making people healthy. Remember the
(10:53):
food pyramid. No one trusts your bs. What is the
point behind all of you I mean, honestly, have you
have you taken a look around the United States? Have
you gone to an airport anytime soon? Seriously? Anyway, anyway
Trump is McGurn said this today. Is that right? No
(11:17):
one is going to confuse Donald Trump with Adam Smith.
We got that. But what we need okay, uh yeah,
I'll do like the old bird backrack, what the world needs,
not what the country needs now is uh, lower taxes,
lighter regulations, unleash the animal spirits, the creative energy of
(11:43):
the American people. I always talk about build, create, protect,
teach that that's pretty simple agenda. That that agenda will
work if you go out and do it and listen,
I get it. Trump has done some He's done some
great things. Okay, Tariff's not so much. Tariffs so much.
(12:04):
You were on the right path and the animal spirits
were cooking. Okay, and this is not actotal. Listen, I know.
I'm I'm on the radio. I got two hundred fifty
radio stations around the country. I speak with some of
the managers of these places. They tell me, you understand
how excited people were, the amount of money that they
(12:25):
were pulling in and advertising. They were booming at the
beginning of the Trump administration. Everything went off the cliff
after Liberation Day. Everything because it's buying advertisements on local radios.
It's small business locally, it's not Coca Cola, it's not McDonald's,
not big companies. Small businesses aren't strangled right now. The
(12:50):
job of the government, bomb of the government, is to
allow and create the conditions so everybody can go out
there and build and create. I've talked about it in
terms of being a referee, an umpire. We don't I
don't want the Republican Party to manage the economy. Okay,
(13:16):
we don't need that either. That's not their job. That's
that's that's not truly what a conservati It's not about
managing the economy. It's about keeping the government out of it.
And again I talked about one of the worst you know,
Isaac Sinton talks about the greatest sentence one could argue,
(13:36):
one could argue one of the worst words that this
country has is basically utilized now for man a couple
generations is subsidies. Think about it for a second. Areas
of the economy, Okay, markets that affect Americans, education, housing, healthcare, right,
(14:05):
all heavily subsidized, all heavily subsidized, and look at those markets.
Sound it's a disaster. Okay, you have to go out
and you have to explain this at your job policy.
You gotta you gotta do the work, Okay, you gotta
(14:26):
get off off your fat buttoxes and you gotta go
out there and do the work. And you gotta give
the the big uh you know, middle finger to your
donors and the big businesses out there that want the
status quo because it benefits them. Again, but he's better
(14:50):
than Kamala. Yeah, I know he's better than Kamala. But
that's not good enough. I didn't I didn't vote for
you know. I voted for him because he I was
better than Kamala. But you know, I'm sorry, Okay, we
expected a lot more. Am I wrong? Watch Dog on
(15:12):
Wall Street dot Com
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact that we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But he's better than Kamala's. I hear that often. I
hear that quite often from man text messages, emails, phone calls,
debates that I have people who listen to this program,
you know, getting they're getting upset with the reality of
(00:37):
the terrain quite frankly, and some of the things that
this administration has been doing, going back to getting rid
of Doge Liberation Day, the direction he's taken, and the
things that I point out here on the program, like
to remind everybody as well, we point out problems here
on the program, we also, alike everybody else, we offer
(01:00):
solutions to these things. And what, Yeah, the line I
get all the time, what's better than Kamala would have been? Now? First, Yeah,
I happen to agree with that assessment. I do. I do.
I think there's many things that this administration has done
that that I think are great, And do I think
(01:20):
he would have been a better president than Kamala Harris.
Absolutely I do. Now, is there any way I can
know that for sure? No? Was he my first choice? No? No, again,
I am a multiple time loser when it comes to
my candidate for the presidency. Take that and put that
(01:44):
aside right now. Okay, take a look at the poll numbers.
Take a look at the poll numbers. Okay, no bueno.
We have a massive affordability issue in this country. It
didn't happen just this year. This has been building up
(02:05):
for some time. People who have been long time listeners,
people clients of OARS know this. We have been preparing
them for this and the complete the basement of your
purchasing power. We've talked about this in terms of how
(02:29):
we structure portfolios for our clients. That the nonsensical sixty
to forty portfolio that's been pitched since two thousand, maybe
even a little bit longer than that, quite frankly, and
we've pointed people to the lies that were being told
by the government. As far as inflation is concerned, cost
of living, a myriad of different things. We came up
(02:50):
with our own inflation index called the bare Necessities Okay,
inflation index, just based upon stuff that you have to
buy on a regulier basis. Who gives a damn about
the cost of your TV? How often do you have
to buy one of those? It's the stuff that you
purchase every day. Ken, I'm repeating myself. I've gone out
(03:12):
of this over this time and time again. Does anybody
out there actually think that the solution affordability problem here
is more government, more government intervention? Do you honestly think
that that's going to solve the problem? Now? Again, the
(03:33):
socialists do, and they've been winning. But I was asked
about this the other day now, and I said, I
I said, you know, free beer is pretty popular. Free
beer is a pretty popular slogan, and that's what they're offering,
free beer. But we all know there's no such thing
(03:56):
as free. It's the fallacy, okay, I call it the
fallacy of free There's no such thing. The money has
to come from somewhere right now, right now. And the
shutdown to me was a big disappointment, and the fact
that Republicans could have just taken a ball and run
(04:19):
with it over that period of time, when what did
they choose to do? They choose they chose to go
back to their districts, and you know, go on vacation
and hold fundraisers. That's what they did. They didn't really
get much of any work done. Fordability has been a problem,
not just and it didn't like I said, just not
under Biden, even though he went parabolic. Okay, but at
(04:42):
this number. Bill McGurn wrote about this today in the
Wall Street Journal. I didn't even know this. I mean
I've talked about this here on the program. When Biden
became president in twenty twenty one, the median age for
a first time home buyer was thirty three. It's now forty.
Think about that seven years. That's horrible. Okay, that's.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It's I can't even get, you know, begin to to
get my arms round just how bad that is for
this country.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
Walter Isaacson, it's got a new book out. It's one
of my love His biographies are phenomenal. I've talked about
him here on the program. He's got a new book
that he was being interviewed this morning and he talked
about this specifically, and he name was this book has
to do with the greatest sentence ever written, look to
the Declaration of Independence. That's you know, opening, That's what
(05:45):
he talked about. But anyway, he was talking about these problems.
You know, we're entering our two hundred and fiftieth year
as a country, and he pointed this fact out right away,
you know, he said, you know, he's like he was
talking about my father's generation, my ramp that it was
affordable to live here in the United States. It isn't
(06:05):
any longer. There's so many different things. Yeah, yesterday I
made fun of Scott Bessett, which I'm Maria Bartiromo this
past weekend, you know, tried to blame the beef, the
beef prices of beef, blame it on it illegals. What
(06:31):
it was, one of the dumbest things ever. I got
to be wholl you know, we got we got this,
you know, screwed. I know about the the screw, just
like I knew about the avian flu. I understand all
of that. But that's not that's not the reason why.
That's not the reason why. Again, Amy, if a little different,
it's much quicker to you know, replace chickens that it
(06:51):
is cows. Okay, we have made it next to impossible
for ranchers here in this country due to regulations and
due to the meat assing plants and all of the
other nonsense that we throw at the regulations that are
out there. You know, I remember I was it was
like kind of a concept. It was a kind of
a tagline that many, you know, fancy chefs we're using here.
(07:15):
This is about about ten fifteen years ago. Farm to
table was the phrase. Farm to Those are farm to
table restaurant where they're getting locally sourced foods and bringing
it to market. And that's the type of restaurants I
like to go to. Okay, yeah, I don't quite I
(07:35):
like the stuff that's seasonal, what's in season, what's growing,
what can you have? You know, at this point in time,
we don't have that. It's very difficult to do that
here in the United States because the way that we
handle food. I live. I'm going to give you a
couple examples right now. Why not. I live here in
(07:57):
the great state of Florida. We got the Golf of
Mexico right over here, and I used to do a
lot of fishing. I just have it and a long
period of time go out there get snapper. Group are
also to fill my freezer up. I'm just way too busy. Funny,
(08:20):
you know, older, I get the busier I get, but
anyway neither here nor there. Okay, try to go to
a trying to find a fish market. Really isn't it?
Seriously no hard to find it. Can't find no fish
markets here? Really isn't. Oh you gotta go buy it
at whole Foods and I can take a go, oh
(08:42):
yeah it's fresh. I can take a look to you.
I know exactly that it's not fresh, no difference. I
was lucky enough we found a captain that takes out
charters and he catches fish, and then you know, you
can get on this little text list this is what
I have, and then I can get it that way.
Fresh restaurants can get it. Restaurant they get their little
(09:03):
cannecs and their hookups. But people can't. How does that
make any sense? How does that make any sense? I
can go to a I can go to a market
in Greece. I go market in Italy right there, and
I all lay it out. Quality of food is a
million times better. Same thing here. You know certain restaurants
(09:24):
we have in town, and that you can tell the
type of tomatoes. I going answer, where do you get
this from? Oh? We have this farm here that we're
able to get this from again. The way that food
is delivered here in the United States quite frankly sucks,
just does. Oh they're great at delivering crap food and
(09:45):
process food through grocery stores, but not the stuff that
actually makes Americans healthy. I drive, buddy, forty minutes to
go to the butcher. I don't mess around. I'm a carnivore,
for cryingel I'm a bloody vampire, and my stuff better be good.
I'm not gonna eat crap no way. And you can
see how you grocet. This is garbage. This is garbage.
(10:06):
There's a difference. And you go to other places in
the world, Okay, and theirs is better for everyone. Okay,
this is fixable, right, this is something we can do.
What how do you do this? You get rid of
nonsensical regulations. My brother professor for a whiley farm up
(10:30):
in Vermont and working with you know, milk and cows
and cheesey dough regulations, the hoops you gotta go through
just to sell cheese, wftdaf DA. Yeah, whatever, Yeah, you guys,
food or this country. You're making people healthy. Remember the
(10:53):
food pyramid. No one trusts your bs. What is the
point behind all of you I mean, honestly, have you
have you taken a look around the United States? Have
you gone to an airport anytime soon? Seriously? Anyway, anyway
Trump is McGurn said this today. Is that right? No
(11:17):
one is going to confuse Donald Trump with Adam Smith.
We got that. But what we need okay, uh yeah,
I'll do like the old bird backrack, what the world needs,
not what the country needs now is uh, lower taxes,
lighter regulations, unleash the animal spirits, the creative energy of
(11:43):
the American people. I always talk about build, create, protect,
teach that that's pretty simple agenda. That that agenda will
work if you go out and do it and listen,
I get it. Trump has done some He's done some
great things. Okay, Tariff's not so much. Tariffs so much.
(12:04):
You were on the right path and the animal spirits
were cooking. Okay, and this is not actotal. Listen, I know.
I'm I'm on the radio. I got two hundred fifty
radio stations around the country. I speak with some of
the managers of these places. They tell me, you understand
how excited people were, the amount of money that they
(12:25):
were pulling in and advertising. They were booming at the
beginning of the Trump administration. Everything went off the cliff
after Liberation Day. Everything because it's buying advertisements on local radios.
It's small business locally, it's not Coca Cola, it's not McDonald's,
not big companies. Small businesses aren't strangled right now. The
(12:50):
job of the government, bomb of the government, is to
allow and create the conditions so everybody can go out
there and build and create. I've talked about it in
terms of being a referee, an umpire. We don't I
don't want the Republican Party to manage the economy. Okay,
(13:16):
we don't need that either. That's not their job. That's
that's that's not truly what a conservati It's not about
managing the economy. It's about keeping the government out of it.
And again I talked about one of the worst you know,
Isaac Sinton talks about the greatest sentence one could argue,
(13:36):
one could argue one of the worst words that this
country has is basically utilized now for man a couple
generations is subsidies. Think about it for a second. Areas
of the economy, Okay, markets that affect Americans, education, housing, healthcare, right,
(14:05):
all heavily subsidized, all heavily subsidized, and look at those markets.
Sound it's a disaster. Okay, you have to go out
and you have to explain this at your job policy.
You gotta you gotta do the work, Okay, you gotta
(14:26):
get off off your fat buttoxes and you gotta go
out there and do the work. And you gotta give
the the big uh you know, middle finger to your
donors and the big businesses out there that want the
status quo because it benefits them. Again, but he's better
(14:50):
than Kamala. Yeah, I know he's better than Kamala. But
that's not good enough. I didn't I didn't vote for
you know. I voted for him because he I was
better than Kamala. But you know, I'm sorry, Okay, we
expected a lot more. Am I wrong? Watch Dog on
(15:12):
Wall Street dot Com
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com