Watchdog on Wall Street: Podcast for Weekend of May 3 - May 4 2025 - Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Well, no one altered. Investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, trainer.
Chris Markowski is the watchdog on the wall street. Do
you want to answer exposing the lines and myths that
the big brokerage firms, the mainstream press, and the government
are pushing to keep Americans away from financial freedom.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
You can't handle the true truth.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Bringing America the truth about what really happens in the
financial world.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Ladies and gentlemen. We're not here to indulge in fantasy,
but init and economic reality.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
This is the watchdog on wall streets.

Speaker 4 (00:45):
All right, welcome everybody. And uh, well, you know what
it's may.

Speaker 5 (00:53):
Know it may is.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
You know how they always by coming up with these months.
This is actually a month I like, this is small
business Month. Yeah, I've been listening to this program. Knows
we're all about the small business owner, We're all about
the entrepreneur. We are all about work time and effort.
And yeah, I might gonna make the announcement. Okay, book

(01:17):
that been working on over the past year just came
out came out on Yeah, it came out on me first.
As a matter of fact, my first full length book,
Work Time and Effort. I've been writing columns now for
thirty years, various different places for our newsletter and other publications.

(01:39):
This is a little bit different. I came up with
the idea late last spring, early last summer. I got frustrated.
I talked about it here on the program. I started
calling the Wall Street Journal the Woe Street Journal because
it was one story after another story of failure and
how you can't make it.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
And how the deck is stacked against you.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
And there's no way you're gonna win here in America.
And I'm like, no, no, no, no, that that's that's
not the it's not the America.

Speaker 5 (02:12):
I know.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
That hasn't been my experience. That hasn't been the experience
that I've had with my wonderful client base and all
of my affiliate firms that work with us at Markowski Investments.

Speaker 5 (02:28):
And I decided, I said, you know what I'm gonna do.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
I'm gonna do a book about the people I work with,
my people, my clients, my partners. And what we did
is we picked a bunch, asked a bunch of people
to you know, sit down for interviews, and we went
through and we basically had them tell us all about
their story of success, how they built their business from

(02:56):
the ground floor up. And that's what the book's about.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
I say it every single week here in the program.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Everything in life that has meaning, value and worth involves work,
time and effort. And that's what these stories embody. You know,
that's the thing about this country. One of the things
that makes this country a truly wonderful place is you
can fail. You can fail, you can fall flat on

(03:28):
your face.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
Something might work. Whoops.

Speaker 4 (03:32):
I learned from that. I pick myself up and I
move on. Other societies, other cultures, No, they that's shame
that goes along with that fear of failure. You cannot
be afraid of failing. You cannot, in life be afraid

(03:53):
of struggle. You have to embrace it. We're meant as
human beings. I hate to break it to your people.
We're meant to struggle, and that's okay. We need to
revel in our struggle.

Speaker 6 (04:08):
Struggle builds character, Struggle build skyscrapers, Struggle builds businesses, Struggle
builds legacies.

Speaker 5 (04:21):
And in essential, that's what this book is all about.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
I remember years ago I wrote a column entitled when
the Boss Shrugs, and basically this is during the early
Obama years, and you know, I write a story about
like how other people sometimes will see someone who is
successful this is a bit of a problem we have
in our society, and rather look at that person and

(04:51):
say to yourself, wow, I wonder how they did it.
This is how my mind works. I see a business
to successful business, any type of business at all, and
instantly I think, what made.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
Him think of that idea? What a neat idea?

Speaker 4 (05:06):
I wonder what it took for that person to get
to the point in time that they're at right now.

Speaker 5 (05:13):
I do.

Speaker 4 (05:14):
I do another radio show now weekly. It's called work
Time and Effort. It's locally here in Tampa, and do
the same thing, talk to talk to business owners about
how they built their company up, what they did, and
what they see for the future, what they're looking to
do down the road. Because again, if you're not growing,

(05:35):
if you're not building your business, yeah, essentially dying.

Speaker 5 (05:40):
And in essence, that's what this is all about.

Speaker 4 (05:43):
So yeah, we released that book this week and it's available.
I don't even know if we put links up for
it on Watchdog on Wall Street dot com, orminvest dot com,
but you can go on Amazon work Time and Effort
to put my name and get it there and by
the way, throughout the entire program.

Speaker 5 (06:01):
We're gonna be doing this for some time.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Anybody out there, any of our new listeners out there,
you haven't signed up, haven't signed up for our personal
CFO program, haven't signed up for a personal CFO program.
You want to sign up for a personal CFO program. Again,
we're gonna explain to you what that is.

Speaker 5 (06:19):
Again.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
We help you with everything, the ins and outs, the
nuts and bolts, as far as financial preparation is, concern
everything that you need, accounting, legal, whatever.

Speaker 5 (06:29):
Maybe you know what we do here. Okay, guess what.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah, maybe every fourth or fifth person will get a
hard copy out to you, hardcover copy out.

Speaker 5 (06:41):
I'm still waiting for my copies to come in.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
It's going to be in for a couple of weeks
and we're going to be giving them out giving away
here on the program as well. So take advantage of
that if you want listen. I'm not a I'm not
in the book sales business. That's that's not why I
wrote this thing. It's not you know, I didn't say
the book and I gotta tell millions, No, that's not
what it's about.

Speaker 5 (07:03):
It's a celebration.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
It's a celebration of my clients, the people I work with,
and hopefully it's going to be a bit of an
inspiration to people out there. It's a great graduation gift.
So you've got a lot of books out there. Books
I love on Ken Langone or Elon Musk or Steve
Jobs and how they built their business and their business titans,

(07:26):
and they should be celebrated. But we also need to
celebrate every single day the small business owners all across
this country that really make this country work, the people
within your community that make this country run. I say
it again and again, this is where the job growth
comes for the United States of America. It's in companies

(07:48):
that are five years old and younger. That's where the
real job growth comes. That type of innovation, that type
of grit is truly what makes America right.

Speaker 5 (08:00):
And that's the books about. We're here to celebrate that.
A lot.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
We've got to go over on the program today. I
want to start off with this again. I get a
lot of emails, a lot of emails from people out there,
and you know what I have to say. You know,
the people that have disagreed with me on some of
the points that are making thinking that I'm maybe being
too hard on Donald Trump. Everything, everything that has been very

(08:27):
very respectful, which is great and that's a testament to
my listeners out there.

Speaker 5 (08:33):
But I'm I'm a little put off.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
Right now with the climate that we're seeing on social
media and the pundits in the news, liars, crooks, sheets
and grifters. Now you've heard, if you listened to this
program for a long time, you've heard me say, Okay, yep,
we take the liars, the crooks, the cheets out behind
the woodshed, and we do. We do goes back to

(09:01):
our infancy when we were going after in which we
still do Wall Street con artists, white collar crime, fraud,
all of the all of the stories, the hundreds of
not thousands of stories that we have broke over twenty
five years on air with this program. I again, I

(09:22):
consume a lot of media, I really do. But there's
there's a there's a real liar and grifter problem, not
just on the left but the right as well. You've
got a lot of people out there, a lot of disingenuous.

Speaker 5 (09:45):
Actors.

Speaker 4 (09:47):
The these are these are people that they're making their
living based upon the amount of followers they have based
upon the amount of file that. They don't have real jobs.
They don't have real jobs. Their jobs is to stir
the pot and get people going. They don't care about

(10:10):
the country, They care about their bottom line, and they
have access to people based upon the people that follow them,
and they can be bought. Do you have any idea
how many times I said, I've been on the air
for twenty five years, various different groups wanted me to

(10:31):
push this, that the next thing on this program won't
How many times I listened to them and took their
money zero.

Speaker 5 (10:42):
Zero?

Speaker 4 (10:45):
The right, the left, we got a grifter problem. These
are people that will say anything to advance themselves. And
I'm here to tell you, I'm gonna be honest with you,
many of them quite frankly actually. Jordan Peterson mentions, well,

(11:06):
these are these are degenerates behind the scenes. They really are.
And again they're not helpful. They're not helpful. I've I'm
watching some of the things that said. I was doing
my Bible studies about a week week.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
And a half ago and.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
Got into Proverbs, got into Proverbs, and Proverbs six sixteen
through nineteen lists seven things that God hates haughty eyes, pride.
God does not like pride and arrogance. He does not

(11:51):
like it when people look down on others and refusing
to acknowledge that. Guess what, you are broken? We are
all broken and acknowledging God's authority. Lying tongues, lying tongue
sign of dishonesty, lack of integrity. God doesn't like that.

(12:14):
Hands that shed innocent blood, killing the innocent. Obviously, heart
that devises wicked schemes. A wicked heart plots evil, plans harm.
It's a born to God feet that are quick to
rush into evil, acting hastily and doing wrong.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
God doesn't like that. Here's another one.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
False witness who breathes out lies someone not just someone
who lies in court, but someone who lies on air online,
twists things, twist things to fit their narrative because they're
getting paid to do so. And obviously this what happens

(13:00):
due to that. One who sows discord among brothers, creating
division and conflict. I've mentioned mentioned this word that I
learned a long time ago. It's a Greek word. It's
called filotimo. Some describe the word as love of honor.

(13:26):
It's not just that, it's much much deeper than that.
It's a word that's something that has no definition, no definition,
but impacts the world beyond imagination. It encompasses the concepts
of pride in self, pride in family, pride in your community,

(13:52):
and doing the right thing.

Speaker 5 (13:57):
It is a way of life, a.

Speaker 4 (14:00):
Quality of being trustworthy, decent actions, decent decisions. This is
something that I have tried, my darnness, my number one
job in the world, father to ingrain in my children
because this is how you are supposed to live your life.

(14:21):
You don't live your life in pursuit of celebrity and
pursuit of money. You live your life in pursuit of honor.
And that's what I try. And again, I'm a broken
human being just like this.

Speaker 5 (14:39):
I do the.

Speaker 4 (14:39):
Best I can every single day, on this show, on
the podcast, all the appearances that I make. I am
here for you, I am here for this country. I
want my kids to grow up in a world that
is better than the one that I grew up in,

(15:00):
and I am going to continue to work my butt off.

Speaker 5 (15:02):
To do that.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
I don't pick sides or tribes. Make this perfectly clear.
I am going to be brutally honest and tell you
what I feel, and I will back up my opinions
and my thoughts on things with facts with facts, and

(15:24):
guess what, sometimes I say it all the time. Sometimes
the truth is a jagged pill. And I wish, I pray,
I pray that people will tear down their stupid affiliations
and teams.

Speaker 5 (15:47):
And actually look for the truth in.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
Something we talked about a two weeks ago on the
show What is Truth? This is what this show has
always been about. Have come up short. We all come
up short, Each and every one of us comes up short.
But we're gonna continue to try. We have quite a

(16:13):
bit we got to go over on the program today.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com is our site, Watchdog on
Wallstreet dot com. Again, we invite each and every one
of you to become a part of our family, the
Markowski Investments Family. Sign up for our personal cf O program,
might get yourself a free copy of my brand new book,
our podcast, newsletter, all sorts of great stuff there at

(16:36):
our site, Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com, or give us
a call eight hundred four seven one fifty nine eighty four.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
This is the Watchdog on Wall Street.

Speaker 4 (17:10):
All right, Little welt John, Welcome back, everybody. It is
the watchdog on Wall Street Show.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
Again.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
This is the first said my thirty year plus career
in this industry.

Speaker 5 (17:24):
I've never seen this happen.

Speaker 4 (17:26):
Never seen this happen the month of April, as far
as the markets are concerned, as wild as it has been,
up down, sideways, violent moves on a regular basis, I
have to say, I've never seen individual investors keep their

(17:50):
cool like they did over the past month.

Speaker 5 (17:55):
It puts a big, fat you.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
Smile on my face when I see people doing the
right thing and not going out and being a greater fool.
It was a basically slaughterhouse this past month for hedge funds.
Oh yeah, blowing up here, there and everywhere. Now, my

(18:24):
long time listeners know that I have ripped, ripped into
hedge funds over the years in regards to how they operate.

Speaker 5 (18:35):
You know, they talk about the odds.

Speaker 4 (18:38):
You know, your kid, ever he wants to play center
field for the New York Yankees or the Red Sox
or whatever it may be, and all the odds of
becoming that, and the odds of doing that and slim
and none. Well, it's kind of like the odds of
actually working with a good hedge fund slim and none.
They have been blowing people up for decades.

Speaker 5 (18:59):
Now, and we've warned you again.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
I get pitched multiple times over the course of the day,
phone rings, emails, Oh can we set up a meeting
with you. We got this magical, magical hedge fund, and
we've got this proprietary trading software, and we're so smart.

Speaker 5 (19:18):
We got all these ivy League people. No, I can.

Speaker 4 (19:22):
See right through your bs and you know that there
are some good ones, and it's few and far between.
It's the same thing with private equity or anything else.
But they have democratized a lot of this.

Speaker 5 (19:38):
They have.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
And again, these hedge fund blow ups and some of
the other blow ups we're starting to see. I don't
know how much this is affecting the average investor as
of yet. I will find out over the next couple
of weeks. But as far as people's four to one
case and retirement accounts and long term assets are concerned,

(20:02):
people held the line. People held the line.

Speaker 5 (20:06):
Listen.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
I got a lot of phone calls, talk to a
lot of people, get people'school and guess what you did
the right thing again, Listen, people, we want we welcome
everybody to be a part of our family at Markowski
Investments in the watch Dog on Wall Street show again.
Sign up for our personal CFO program Watchdog on Wallstreet

(20:29):
dot com. Get there our podcast All sorts of great
stuff Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com, or again give us
a call at eight hundreds four seven one fifty four.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
Chris Markowski. It's the Watchdog of Wall Street, the only
man who is taking on the Wall Street establishments. You're

(21:03):
listening to the Watchdog and Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 4 (21:11):
Negative negatory, negative economic growth. Yeah, we got to talk
about that GDP number and some of the other things
that outlet are underlying the economy right now, and we
need to talk about them because again we got some
bumps in the road going forward. All right, First and foremost,

(21:34):
negative economic GDP growth. Well, Trump decided he went well,
he blamed it on Biden. And it's not Biden's fault, okay,
And this is part of the problem. It's part of
the problem with this country.

Speaker 5 (21:52):
Again.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
We've divided ourselves into two camps. So if you're in
the the Trump camp. If you're in the Trump camp, you're.

Speaker 5 (22:00):
Like bide, fault, bide and fault. If you're in the
Biden camp, you're like.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
Ah, look at that, yay, look at ah wonderful, Look
at GDP. Growth is down company the country's weakening. That's
a good thing. Do you understand understand how dumb this
debate is? Do we want to have positive growth? Don't
we all want the country to do well? Shouldn't that
be both sides modus operendi.

Speaker 5 (22:29):
It's a little bit.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
More, uh, a little bit more complicated than the pundits
and the talking heads are talking about. First and foremost,
the GDP number, while negative, wasn't nearly as bad as
everyone was making it out to be. The reason why

(22:50):
we had a negative print was because in the first
quarter of this year, companies, we're gearing up for Trump's tariffs.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
They knew that tariffs were coming. No, were they expecting
what happened, And.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
No, they weren't expecting that, but they knew that they
were coming.

Speaker 5 (23:09):
So let's just say you are a.

Speaker 4 (23:13):
German manufacturer of Christmas chotchkes and you sell them to
Christmas stores here in the United States, and you say, well,
you know Trump stretton, He's gonna put tariffs on you
know what. Rather rather than wait to ship all of
these Christmas items to the stores. We'll ship them earlier

(23:36):
so we can beat the tariffs. And that's that's what happened.
So we had a pretty big trade deficit. The way
that that works, as far as GDP is concerned, is
it forced us to have a negative print a lot
of shipping of items from overseas here to the United

(23:59):
States to beat tariffs.

Speaker 5 (24:03):
That's the reason why now some.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
Of the other numbers which we need to pay a
little bit closer attention to. First and foremost, there is
unease when it comes to hiring, without a doubt. Here
are some anecdotes also from some CEOs Southwest Airlines. I
don't care if you call it a recession or not.

(24:28):
In this industry, that's a recession. Chapolte saving money because
of concerns around the economy was the overwhelming reason consumers
were reducing the frequency of restaurant visits PEPSI. Relative to
where we were three months ago. We probably aren't feeling
as good about the consumer now taking a look across

(24:50):
the board as far as the numbers are concerned, right now,
this is facts, people, fact again, we deal in fact here.
We got the sharpest decline in Earning's outlook since twenty twenty.
New orders right now are collapsing. We have a pretty

(25:10):
sharp reversal and cap X spending cost pressures are increasing.
New orders are in correction. Territory. We talked about the
inventories that were rising before the tariffs took effect. Basically,
trade with China has come to almost a complete stop.

(25:34):
How are consumers responding? Consumer sentiment is declining across all
income groups. Consumers are worried about losing their job. Record
high share of consumers think business conditions are worsening. Consumer
inflation expectations down, consumer expectations, the business conditions are down.

Speaker 5 (25:55):
I can go on and on and on.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
I can get into truck sales that are down. A
myriad of things. People, this is the reality of the terrain. Now,
you might think, you might believe that all of a
sudden things are gonna take a magical turn for the better,
and all of a sudden, you know, on shoring is

(26:17):
gonna take place lickety split. We don't fall into that camp. Okay,
Do I think it's the end of the world as
we know it?

Speaker 5 (26:28):
No?

Speaker 2 (26:30):
No.

Speaker 4 (26:31):
The first show that we did after Liberation Day, what
did we tell you. Businesses will find a way. And
let's just be honest here. The administration is walking back
on many many things, many many things understanding that. Listen,

(26:54):
what they did and what they started was completely unsustainable.
Now the the end the camp.

Speaker 5 (27:01):
That says I saw by design. This is a master stroke.
This is the art of the deal. Okay.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
If it makes you feel better and you want to
believe that, fine, Now this is the art of reality. Okay,
this is the Trump administration dealing with reality. What they
put forward from the beginning didn't make didn't that make
any sense, didn't make any sense. And they're adjusting to

(27:29):
it now quietly, little by little, but you'll see little
announcements here and there. Lutnickel come out, Oh, we might
eliminate the deminimous exemption for small businesses. US Chamber of
Commerce came out asking the administration, you know you got
to give an exemption on tariffs for small business. Here,
you're gonna crush small business, gonna cause a recession. And

(27:51):
these things are happening little by little. This is good, Okay.
I'm happy to see the administration adjust. They continue to adjust.
Businesses get confident again, we get those animal spirits back.
We could be off to the races. Have to take

(28:13):
a break. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com. Watchdog on Wallstreet
dot com.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Is our site. Okay, become a part of who we are,
what we do, our.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
Personal CFO program, our podcast, newsletter, all sorts of great stuff.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com or.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
Give us a call eight hundred four seven one fine
eighty four.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
If you should believe in math not magic, you're listening
to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 4 (28:57):
Math not magic, Truth overlies. That's what we're about here
in the Watchdog on Wall Street Show. And again I
have no choke. I have to call out the administration.
This past week, I was, I was embarrassed, and I
was disgusted, really was. Scott Missent was giving a press

(29:18):
conference and Catherine Levette was there and they, I guess,
they had word that Amazon. Amazon was going to put
a little line item on the things that were being bought.
It was basically a tariff cost. So if you were
buying a.

Speaker 5 (29:37):
Eighty dollars.

Speaker 4 (29:40):
Vacuum cleaner from China, there'd be a line item there saying, okay,
it's eighty, but the tariff cost is going to be
forty five on top of that, and they were going
to let you know what the cost was for the tariff,
and oh my god, the Maga universe freaked out.

Speaker 5 (29:59):
You didn't put oh they didn't put.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
Any line items because of Biden's inflation. How do you
account for inflation in the price of an item? I'm
just gonna ask the question, how would you go about
accounting for inflation? Every item is different, Inflation affects different
items differently. It's ridiculous. I remember back in the nineteen seventies.

(30:23):
I'm growing up at that point in time. You'd go
to a gas station and they didn't just give you
the price for gas.

Speaker 5 (30:29):
They actually broke it.

Speaker 4 (30:30):
Down, showed you what you were paying in taxes, every
single one, what the state taxes were, what the local
taxes were, what the federal taxes were back in the day,
and caviin Levett, she takes the microphone steps in front
of Scott Descent and called what Amazon? What Amazon was
going to do as a hostile and political act?

Speaker 5 (30:53):
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Being transparent is hostile and political? In what way, shape, matter,
or form? Is that hostile or political? You are being honest?
For crying out loud during COVID Restaurants used to put
a COVID fee on the restaurant bills because they had

(31:16):
to pay extra for.

Speaker 5 (31:18):
A cleaning material. I don't know what kind of nonsense
this was, but this is an actual cost. Again.

Speaker 4 (31:25):
We got more on this when we get back. Watchdog
on Wallstreet dot com. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com is
our site again our personal CFOL program. Sign tonight you
make get our copy free copy of our book as well.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com. We shall return.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street bringing America
financial freedom, one listener at a time. You're listening to

(32:05):
the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Morkowski.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
I don't know about you, but I hate hidden fees.
I don't like charges.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
I don't like it when the government tries to disguise
various different taxes. They don't see what they are. This again,
you're in a perpetual state of paying taxes. You know,
you go out, Let's say you want to you know,
you want to buy yourself a six pack of beer.
Not only are you paying the sales tax, but guess what,

(32:37):
depending what state you are, can be you know more
than others. You're also paying an embedded tax on that
beer at.

Speaker 5 (32:45):
Some point in time.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
In so many things that we do, gasoline gasoline, if
you're paying whatever, three seventy five four dollars, how much
of that actually goes to the gas station, and how
much of that goes to your local government, goes to
the state government, goes to.

Speaker 5 (33:02):
The federal government. You don't know.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
Transparency is nice, and if actually they did show these things,
I think it would wake people up.

Speaker 5 (33:11):
A tariff is a tax.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
Period the end, and for the people say, well, you
know what, it's not good.

Speaker 5 (33:23):
You don't understand here, it's gonna hurt Trump. Well, let
me ask you a question.

Speaker 4 (33:28):
If people see that that vacuum cleaner that they're gonna
buy and is coming from China is going to all
of a sudden have a massive tariff tax on it,
and you see what it is. Doesn't that give you
the option of going out and buying something made in America?
It does, so you have to look at it from
different angles. But to watch again, to watch these people,

(33:52):
these disingenuous people on social media on TV. Now listen,
people like I said, I'm ann equal opportunity Basher. I
go off on the left wing media all the time.
We've been doing it over the years. But we're also
gonna go off on the right wing media when they
lie and that they prove to be dishonest. Like I said,

(34:16):
I don't like dealing with the liars, crooks, cheats and grifters.
And let me give you one this past week Charles
Pain Fox Business. He put out a tweet this past
week and he was talking about this.

Speaker 5 (34:32):
He said, I wonder.

Speaker 4 (34:34):
If Amazon will also explain to the American public why
its profit margin must increase every single year and how
much Jeff bezos five hundred million dollar wedding will cost
each customer.

Speaker 5 (34:47):
They are playing a dangerous and political game.

Speaker 4 (34:51):
See, Charles Pain is playing to people the lowest common denominator,
people who are gonna be like, yeah, don you tell
Charles people that are not thinking, don't be that person.

Speaker 5 (35:05):
Be someone who is thoughtful.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Okay, first and foremost, Charles Pain, you work on the
Fox Business network. Will your statement right there against companies
increasing their profit margin? Charles, let me explain to you something. Okay,
I actually manage money for a living. Charles Pain used
to manage money for a living, but he got thrown
out of the business.

Speaker 5 (35:28):
Oh he didn't know that, did you?

Speaker 4 (35:29):
Oh yeah he did, he lost his license. Okay, but anyway,
neither here nor there. I want the companies that I
own for my clients to increase their profit margin.

Speaker 5 (35:40):
I want them to become more profitable.

Speaker 4 (35:44):
Again, that makes me good at my job, buying companies
that will be able to increase their profit margin, companies
that will become more productive.

Speaker 5 (35:54):
That's what I want.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
And then he throws in this line because Jeff Bezos
is got it's basically semi retired, his semi retired always
having a five hundred million dollar wedding, did you honestly think?

Speaker 5 (36:08):
And again, Charles Pain.

Speaker 4 (36:10):
I know he knows this, but because he is a liar, crook,
cheat and grifter, he's lying.

Speaker 5 (36:19):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
And if he doesn't know this, he shouldn't certainly shouldn't
be on TV on a business network.

Speaker 5 (36:25):
Jeff Bezos doesn't get a paycheck from Amazon. He's not
gonna he's not.

Speaker 4 (36:31):
Gonna put his wedding on the corporate credit card. For
crying out loud, Jeff Bezos barely took a salary when
he was running Amazon. He started the company his money
is in stock. He either sells shares in the company
that he owns or he borrows against it. So Charles

(36:56):
coming out and putting this tweet, basically, I'm just trying
to get the people going. I'm just trying to draw
attention to myself through lies. That's not someone quite frankly,
that is very honorable in my opinion, in my opinion,
just saying anyway, I'll talk a little bit about this story.

(37:18):
I had a bunch of questions about this story hit
this past week about more and more Americans that are
claiming Social Security early because they're worried about whether or
not it's.

Speaker 5 (37:32):
Going to be here.

Speaker 4 (37:34):
Yeah, yeah, I listen, I get it. I don't have
I don't have any sort of magical crystal ball. What
I can see right now is that Congress is completely unable,
unable as it stands to make the necessary cuts and

(37:56):
the necessary adjustments needed to shore up Social Secure. They
are going to be cuts to Social Security within the
next ten years. It's gonna be cut by twenty five
to thirty percent.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
I know something saying, Oh, I could never let that happen.
They could never let that.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Happen, dude, Where they're gonna get the money from. Where
is the money going to come from?

Speaker 5 (38:26):
Again?

Speaker 4 (38:27):
You know, we get a lot of people saying, oh no,
you should wait as long as possible. Will listen, You
should probably work longer, you should probably save more.

Speaker 5 (38:39):
But we told you, okay.

Speaker 4 (38:42):
Before I had this radio show, okay, about five six
years mid nineteen nineties. I'm warning people. People thinking I'm nuts.
I'm telling my generation Generation X. I said, listen, okay, listen,
do not plan on getting Social Security. Save, put your
money away, grow your wealth on your own, because it's

(39:07):
not going to be there. Look at your little social
Security statement. What does it say in fine print? It's
going to be cut. Gotta take a break. Watchdog on
Wall street dot com. Watchdog on wallstreet dot com is
our site again, our personal CFO program, Take advantage.

Speaker 5 (39:26):
Watchdog on wallstreet dot Com. We'll be back.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
Chris Markowski is the watchdog on Wall Street. Well know
one author, investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, trader. Chris Markowski

(39:52):
is the watchdog on Wall Street exposing the lines and
myths that the big brokerage firms, the mainstream press, and
the government are pushing to keep Americans away from financial freedom.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
You can't handle the true.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Truth bringing America the truth about what really happens in
the financial world.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
but in political and economic reality.

Speaker 1 (40:17):
This is the watchdog on wall.

Speaker 5 (40:19):
Streets, all right, that whole story.

Speaker 4 (40:26):
Way wait, wait, a long time ago, long back, when
I was in school, I had the wonderful opportunity to
study in Florence, Italy, my favorite places in the.

Speaker 5 (40:38):
World to this day, and.

Speaker 4 (40:41):
Studying the European Union at the time, this is obviously
well before the euro was even into effect, stilling studying
Italian politics, and I also got to study Italian art
and all of these, you know, the electives you'd have
to take in class, and being actually able to see.

Speaker 5 (40:57):
The art rather than look at it at a slide.

Speaker 4 (41:00):
One day, the school had a beautiful courtyard in the
back and they were going to show an Italian movie.
They were going to show uh La dulce vita Fellini film.
So went back there and watched this, and I'm gonna
be honest with you, I couldn't make heads or tails
of what was going on. Sorry, sorry, And you know,

(41:25):
back in the day they didn't have like a Google
or a cliff Notes there to help me out to
try to figure out what was going on.

Speaker 5 (41:32):
It was it was bizarre, bizarre.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
And again that's how I'm looking at this entire trade
war at this point in time, and this tariff stuff.
It's like a Fellini film. I can't get my arms
around anything. Nothing really makes any sense one thing. Again,
like I stated at the beginning of the program, I
don't sign up on any team. Okay, sign a team.

(41:58):
I'm fully disclosed here. I voted for Donald Trump. I
voted for Donald Trump. I want Donald Trump to do well.
But just because I voted for the guy doesn't mean
I am not going to call him out when he
starts saying things that are just patently absurd, just things
that are not true.

Speaker 5 (42:19):
That's my job.

Speaker 4 (42:21):
I Biden's in office, Obama's in office, Bush's I don't care.
I have to call stuff out when it's just not true.
And again it's certain listeners out that they might not
like that. But what would you rather me do? Would
you rather me play along? Was to pretend that you

(42:42):
know some of the things that he said he didn't
he didn't say. Now we're going to go through all
of this tariff stuff because we have to.

Speaker 5 (42:51):
We have to.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
We'll start off with this, I'm wanna start off again.
We're gonna do it like a Fellini film here. It's
gonna be different little chapters like don't cha Vita, and
hopefully I can make sense out of them. This idea,
this idea that they're they're pushing out there that we're
going to have some sort of external revenue service, and
they're trying to sell the idea out there that households

(43:16):
making less than two hundred thousand dollars a year are
no longer going to pay taxes completely eliminated. Well, again,
the revenue generated from two hundred thousand dollars or less
is six hundred and seventy five billion dollars.

Speaker 5 (43:38):
Right now.

Speaker 4 (43:39):
I basically estimated that you would have to raise tariffs
across the board at anywhere between thirty five to maybe
fifty percent to come up with that type of money.

Speaker 5 (43:51):
That's that's not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (43:55):
Not to mention the fact that it goes against what
he's trying to do in the first place. Okay, this
is why I'm saying, it's like, it's bizarre. It's like
I said, it's like some foreign film. So you want
to create an external revenue service and collect tariffs. You're

(44:16):
going to replace the income tax. But at the same time,
you want manufacturing to come back to the United States,
so you don't have to pay those tariffs. So then
where's the money going to come from. You're following me here. Okay,
you can't want both things. Okay, you cannot want both things.

(44:41):
Either you want all of these businesses to come back
and you want this manufacturing to come back, or you
just want to keep it there and all of a
sudden tax tax these.

Speaker 5 (44:51):
Various different companies.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
That's tariffs which are just gonna get passed on down
to the consumer. That doesn't make any sense at all.

Speaker 5 (45:03):
At all.

Speaker 4 (45:05):
Another thing that Trump keeps saying, which is just it's
patently absurd, is this whole idea of all of this. Well,
how wealthy the country was at the turn of the century.
I'm talking from the nineteenth century into the twentieth century.
As past week, he said something just silly. He talked

(45:26):
about how we wouldn't have had a great depression if
we had tariffs in nineteen twenty nine. I'm sorry, mister president,
we had tariffs in nineteen twenty nine, and then after
the depression started, Hoover signed the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act,
this is in nineteen thirty and raised import duties by

(45:48):
an average of twenty percent.

Speaker 5 (45:51):
Trade suffered. Okay, that's just not true.

Speaker 4 (45:57):
And it's also not true that the country was wealthier
at that point in time. We had oligarchs that were
doing very, very well. But if you think the average
working person in this country was better off then than
they are now.

Speaker 5 (46:17):
You're nuts. Okay, you're crazy.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Okay, I've got immigrant grandparents. Okay, my grandfather my Italian side,
was fam who's born eighteen ninety six. For crying out loud,
he came here, came here and basically shipped them off
to fight in World War One. There you go through
the story and what they had to go through and

(46:42):
working on the railroad and the various different conditions that
they worked in.

Speaker 5 (46:46):
My mother had an outhouse for crying out lauds. You
don't have any door plumbing growing up, so stop stop.

Speaker 4 (46:54):
You know, they had union busting. The government sent into
bust unions up. The conditions were bad. They sent the
pinkertons in.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
The country.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
Wasn't wealthy then certain oligarchs were I trust me. I
live on Long Island. Look at the north shore of
Long Island. Oh yeah, there you go. I get the
Vanderbilt mansion there, this one, there, that one. Yeah, all
those big oligarchs, they were tied into the government. Andrew
Carnegie said, for crying out, I don't even care if

(47:25):
the government socialized to steal industry, because he'd be the
only game in town.

Speaker 5 (47:31):
We were not.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Wealthier, then, Okay, he needs to stop saying things that are.

Speaker 5 (47:36):
Just not true.

Speaker 4 (47:39):
Okay, I can't help myself. I know you a lot
of people worship at the altar of Donald Trump, but
he's wrong. Okay, And if you don't, don't even take
my word for it. Do I take my word for it.
You can do your own homework on this. Let's take
a quick look. Okay, we might as well. We're here,

(48:00):
do you know, we'll do a little bit one hundred days,
a little bit on the one hundred.

Speaker 5 (48:05):
Days, and a little bit in a mailbag too. Again.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
You take a look at the polls right now, and
the Trump administration is pushing back on the polls. They
said that all of these polls are lying. You know what,
I will take the polls, will throw in the garbage.
We'll pretend that the polls are not accurate. And it's
across the board. Okay, it's even Fox News poles. Again,
I can tell you. I can tell you from my interactions.

(48:35):
And you could say I'm anecdotal, but I'll tell you
right now. I said, you know, I've got a national
radio show, I've got a national podcast, I've got clients
all over the country. We've got twenty five offices. They're
a pretty good pulse. I can get my finger on
the pulse of what people are thinking and feeling right now.

(48:56):
And they're nervous, a lot of trumble for they want
the president to do all. I want the president to
do well, I really do. I voted for the guy.
But this is this is a bit of a problem again.

(49:18):
I go to some of the emails that that I
got over the past couple of weeks, and uh, people
basically saying, well, Chris, you know you're talking about the
stock market, and you know how the stock market is
reacting to Donald Trump and all of these things, and
you know you say that you shouldn't care about the
stock market.

Speaker 5 (49:38):
Listen.

Speaker 4 (49:38):
I want to make myself perfectly clear, because if I'm
getting these emails, maybe I'm not making myself clear. I
said the markets will take care of themselves. The markets
will take care of themselves. I'm not worried, and I'm
gonna say this again, I'm not worried about the markets.

(49:59):
Markets do extraordinary, they do bizarre things. Anybody that's been
following us at Markowski Investments knows how we have handled
every bloody calamity out there. Okay, this is why we
have the highest client retention rate going. Okay, we handle problems,
we know how to deal with them.

Speaker 5 (50:19):
Okay, we don't lose our head. We don't get emotional.

Speaker 4 (50:22):
Okay, I don't get emotional about the stock market and
the fluctuations of the market.

Speaker 5 (50:28):
I do, and I will freely admit this. I do.

Speaker 4 (50:35):
I get very, very emotional when it comes to my
clients and their business, when it comes to conditions on
the ground. You can go to my archives of columns
that I've written over the years, lamenting red tape, wasted
talent as a nation, government intervention, a myriad of different

(51:00):
things that hold holds business back. When I have to hear,
when I have to hear people that are right now,
don't know what to do, do not know where to
source certain items, aren't sure whether or not people are
going to buy their products when they have to price
in these tariff costs, when they have to get certain

(51:23):
input items into the items that they make and that
they sell. That do you think that makes me happy?
These are my clients people. These are small businesses out there,
and like I said, they don't have access to the
Oval office.

Speaker 5 (51:43):
They can't pick up the phone. They're not the CEO
of Home Depot or Low's or Target or Walmart.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
They can't call up and say, mister President, we need
to talk to you about these tariffs.

Speaker 5 (51:52):
We need some exemptions.

Speaker 4 (51:56):
They're the people that I've written about in work, Time
and Effort. This is the reason why this is the
past week US Chamber Commerce came out and said, you know,
begging the president, listen, you have to give some sort
of teriff exemption for small businesses and listen, I get it.

(52:17):
Many of the things that Trump has done in his
first one hundred days thrilled with, thrilled with and like
I said, I said to me, I don't understand this.
This is one of the greatest unforced errors I've ever
seen and no, I'm sorry, Okay, I do not believe
that this is by design, this is some sort of

(52:39):
art of the deal stuff.

Speaker 5 (52:40):
I don't.

Speaker 4 (52:42):
Okay, I'm sorry. But what I'm seeing right now, okay,
what I'm feeling. And again, you know, I have my connections.
They're slowly but surely walking things back, walking things back,
that they have come to the realization that we screwed up.

(53:06):
They're not going to tell you that they screwed up,
but they screwed up, and they need to pull back
from this. And again, people, this idea out there and
the ultimate goal. And I'm glad, I'm glad. The President
said it a few times this past week that he
doesn't want China. He instally said he didn't want China

(53:27):
to fail. He doesn't want people to be out of work.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
Good. Good.

Speaker 4 (53:34):
I have said this for years whenever trade has come
up here on the program. I want free trade, but
I want trade to be fair. And that's that's that's
the point we need to get to, and we can
get there. We can get there. This is right now.
This is one hundred day opportunity for the president. One

(53:59):
hundred day opportunity. You started gangbusters.

Speaker 5 (54:04):
You heard me here.

Speaker 4 (54:05):
On this program every day, cutting back on waste, doing this.
I'm like Holy Macros like Christmas, every single day, you know,
one wish after another, all these things fantastic came to stop.
The thing is that people have a short memory. We

(54:27):
need to we need to get back to you know,
that creative destruction, Donald Trump, That's what we need to
get back to. Where we're building and creating and the
animal spirits come back, and businesses are not afraid to invest,
they're not afraid to expand, because that's where we're at

(54:49):
right now. I know they make these announcements. This one
announces this investment, this one's planning on doing this, and
this one's planning on doing that. All well and good, Okay,
we'll see whether or not these things come through. I
hope they do. And it's that's all good news, that's
all good news. But we also need good news for

(55:12):
all of the all the small business owners out there
that are stuck right now, stuck, don't know where to turn,
don't know where to do, don't know what's up, don't
know what's down. Great opportunity, Great opportunity, because again I
want the president to do well, have to take a break.

(55:34):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com
is our site again. Become a part of the Watchdog
on Wall Street family, our personal CFO program, our podcast,
all sorts of great stuff Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com
or give us a call eight hundred four seven one
fifty nine eighty.

Speaker 1 (55:52):
Four Taking Wall Streets liars, crooks and cheets out behind

(56:14):
the woodshed. You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street.

Speaker 5 (56:20):
All right.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Again, this has to stop too, Okay, you know, please,
mister president. Okay, careful, I mean with the truth social
tweets out there. Sometimes again you make yourself look ridiculous. Okay,
he puts out this, this tweet he talked about. This

(56:44):
is Biden's stock market where you put this out on Wednesday,
not Trump's.

Speaker 5 (56:49):
I didn't take over until January twentieth.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
Tariffs will soton start kicking in and companies are starting
to move into the USA and record numbers. Our country
will boom, but we would have to get rid of
the Biden overhang. This will take a while, has nothing
to do with tariffs, only that he has left us
with bad numbers. But when the boom begins, it will
be like no other be patient. But a little over

(57:14):
a year ago, January twenty ninth, twenty twenty four, Trump
put out, this is the Trump stock market because my
polls against Biden are so good that investors are projecting
that I will win and that will drive the market up.
Everything else is terrible. Watch them at least and records setting.
Inflation has already taken its toll. Make America great again.

(57:37):
You can't have it both ways.

Speaker 5 (57:41):
You can't.

Speaker 4 (57:42):
You know, some people that's just Trump being Trump. It's
kind of like that's just Joe being Joe. By listen.

Speaker 5 (57:47):
I don't. I don't find it amusing. I don't.

Speaker 4 (57:51):
It's silly quite frankly. Again, people kind of brush it
under the rug. If your Trump supporter, come on, man,
don't have to b s. You don't have to lie, Okay,
just be honest.

Speaker 5 (58:05):
Some of the good.

Speaker 4 (58:06):
Things that I'm seeing happen with tariffs. Hey, we're getting
some promises here and there in regards to manufacturing coming
back and again we'll see I hope all this comes true.

Speaker 5 (58:18):
But some of the things that we're.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
Seeing now that dissent is announcing and little things here
and there, these are things that they should have done
from the beginning. Secretary of PSCENT announced that Trump is
going to allow companies that move manufacturing back to the
United States to be all of their factories, all of

(58:40):
their expenses fully expensed. Full expensing of factories. Again, this
has to go through Congress. You can fully expense the
equipment and the building. We will couple that with deregulation,
cheap energy, and regulatory certainty.

Speaker 5 (58:57):
This is great. This is all you needed to do.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
You didn't need tariffs. You didn't need tariffs. You never
needed tariffs as well. Education education we played Franklin. I
think they're coming to the realization right now. I've been
talking about this for years. Mike Rowe from uh, you know,

(59:20):
Dirty Job's Deadliest Catch has talked about, you know, the
poor what we're doing poorly when it comes to education schools.
We got rid of shop classes for crying out loud.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
What do we do? We lied?

Speaker 4 (59:36):
Okay, we lied to an entire generation of kids. We
got one point seven trillion in student debt on the books.
We got seven point six million jobs open right now,
most of them don't require a four year degree.

Speaker 5 (59:52):
I mentioned last week on the program we had close
to seven.

Speaker 4 (59:55):
Million able bodied men who are not only out of
the workforce, they're not looking. Okay, we got to get
enthusiasm for work back and that starts again in the
eighth grade. Hey, I'm more on this when we get back.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com. Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com,

(01:00:16):
our personal CFO program podcast, Take Advantage.

Speaker 5 (01:00:19):
We'll be back.

Speaker 1 (01:00:35):

Speaker 5 (01:00:40):
Welcome back, welcome back.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we decide. Oh yeah, well again,
it is big business in the United States. You can't
name you can't name one thing that has increased in
price in this country over the past four decades than
higher education. Nothing, Nothing has gone up more in price

(01:01:10):
than higher education. And quite frankly, by every metric, you
would think that with technology.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
You would think with.

Speaker 4 (01:01:19):
Technology, all of the innovation that we have, the price
should have gone down.

Speaker 5 (01:01:25):
Everything else did.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Price of just about everything else outside of healthcare and
real estate, for crying out loud, everything else has gone down.

Speaker 5 (01:01:36):
I went to college. I went to college again.

Speaker 4 (01:01:40):
You remember, going back in the day before the Internet
and Dewey decimal system and having a massive library and
microfiche and all of those things.

Speaker 5 (01:01:48):
What do you need that anymore?

Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
What do.

Speaker 5 (01:01:52):
I don't get it. Did did did? Did the laws
of physics.

Speaker 4 (01:01:56):
Change in the classroom over the past, you know, several
decades since I've got it's not but it doesn't make
any sense.

Speaker 5 (01:02:04):
Why is it so expensive?

Speaker 4 (01:02:06):
Big business? Big business? We took shop class out of
high school. We thought, yeah, I got to go to college.
Oh yeah, everybody's got a go to college.

Speaker 5 (01:02:16):
What how about?

Speaker 4 (01:02:18):
How about changing the dynamic of college? Why don't why
don't have a university? Why don't have a university that
will teach trades? Guess what, They're gonna have great sports
teams too, but teach trades a skill. We told a
whole generation of kids that what they were and essentially screwed.

(01:02:42):
If you didn't get a four year degree, you don't
need tariffs. I think about this right now. I several
weeks ago in the program, we talked about shipbuilding here
in the United States and how they can't even if
they can't find the people that can do the work.
Imagine if you know you're an eighth grader, you're an

(01:03:04):
eighth grader, and you you're afforded the opportunity hand you
be in eighth grade and you're four that say Hey,
we're gonna teach you.

Speaker 5 (01:03:10):
We're gonna have a class.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
We're gonna teach you, little by little how to build ships,
how to build submarines.

Speaker 5 (01:03:16):
Would you like that? That? That might be something you
might be interested in. Maybe not for.

Speaker 4 (01:03:23):
All the kids, but I know many would be. I
know many would be.

Speaker 5 (01:03:29):
Thrilled to do something like that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:33):
And you wiz, you graduate from high school, you don't
have any day you don't have to go to college.
Maybe an intern at an intern at the place for
a period of time while getting paid. You're making six figures.
That's what we need to do. Okay, that's that's It's
gonna take time, people, It's not going to happen overnight.

(01:03:56):
Another thing I gotta talk about. You know, you can
get a lot of the far right magat calling for
Thomas Massey said, calling for Rand Paul's head because they
dare follow the United States Constitution. This this bothers me,
It really does. Do you understand, people, we're gonna we've

(01:04:19):
gotta we got a new year, we got two hundred,
we got a big anniversary, two hundred and fifty years.
We're here two hundred and fifty years because we have
a rule book. We have a rule book that you
can fit in your back pocket, a rule book that
you can fit in your back pocket.

Speaker 5 (01:04:42):
I don't care.

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
I don't care how much you approve of Donald Trump's policies,
how much you love that.

Speaker 5 (01:04:51):
You could be the.

Speaker 4 (01:04:52):
Biggest maga person ever. You could put tattoos of Donald
on your arm. I'm sorry, you are not a patriot.
You don't love the United States if you think Donald
Trump should be able to do.

Speaker 6 (01:05:07):
Whatever in God's creation he wants to do.

Speaker 4 (01:05:12):
This is not what has allowed this country to survive
a civil war and be here for two hundred and
fifty years. We have checks and balances and all of
these people going nuts and going after Ran Paul and

(01:05:33):
Thomas Massey because they're actually asking for Congress to do
their job, do things the way that they're supposed to
be done.

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
Shame on you. Do me a favor.

Speaker 4 (01:05:45):
Take the flag down off the front of your house,
because you don't know what it means. You don't know
what it's about. We don't have kings, we don't have dictators. Okay,
we have checks and balances for a reason. And I
get fired up about this. They're gonna take a break,
right here and I'm gonna I'm gonna finish my thought

(01:06:07):
at my point when I get back Watchdog on Wallstreet
dot Com, watch Doog on Wallstreet dot Com again, become
a part of the Watchdog on Wall Street family, our
personal CFO program, our podcast, our newsletter, all sorts of
great stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:06:20):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com. We'll be back.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
The only man who is taking on the Wall Street establishment.
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
All right, all right, we'll start off with this to
kind of prove my point.

Speaker 5 (01:06:54):
And many.

Speaker 4 (01:06:56):
Many people very upset about judges and judges thwarting Donald
Trump's executive order and stopping his agenda. And we're calling
for the head of this judge and that judge, whatever
it may be. And hey, listen, okay, if a judge
should have he or she should have recused themselves because
they are conflicted, well then you know what, you have

(01:07:20):
a point. You have a point, no doubt about it all.
But what did we tell you? What did we warn
the Trump administration about even before he was inaugurated, said,
you know, Donald Trump started saying I'm gonna do this
on day one. I'm gonna sign this on day I
one to do this, And I said, okay. I said,
first and foremost, you better have an army of lawyers

(01:07:43):
because you're signing executive orders. Executive orders can be repealed,
they can be thwarted, they can be blocked.

Speaker 5 (01:07:54):
And that is a good thing. It's a good thing.

Speaker 4 (01:07:59):
Did anybody do you have any problem out there when
the courts stopped Joe Biden from saying, hey, you know
at one point seven trillion dollars that you owe the
federal government student mods.

Speaker 5 (01:08:13):
Eh, forget about. You don't have to pay that back.
Did anybody have any problem when the courts stop that?
You see?

Speaker 4 (01:08:24):
This is the thing, people, we have three branches of government.
I like the things that Donald Trump wants to do
with his executive orders, they just have to go through Congress.
You want to sign an executive order, fine, but you
know what you do. You go to Mike Johnson, you

(01:08:46):
go to John Thune, and you said, you know what,
let's get this passed. No, you're not going out a
two week recess. You can go home for the Easter weekend.
You get your butt back here. We've got work.

Speaker 5 (01:08:57):
To do here.

Speaker 4 (01:08:59):
Here's an example. Here's an example ken the left. The
left it the right's getting all upset about this. Judge
orders Trump administration to disperse twelve million in funding to
Radio Free Europe. The judge ruled. The judge ruled basically saying, hey, listen,
you know the president can't do this because they violated

(01:09:25):
the Administrative Procedure Act by terminating the grants agreement. He
said that the Trump administration must see congressional approval to
take such action. It has no residual constitutional power to
refuse to spend appropriations by Congress.

Speaker 5 (01:09:42):
Now, you might not like that decision. The judge might
not like that decision.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
I want them to cut the money too, But you
have to go through the proper channels.

Speaker 5 (01:09:57):
People, we've probably got a liker. We just we voted
for him. Go do these days things.

Speaker 4 (01:10:04):
We voted for Trump. We did not vote for a dictator.
We did not vote for a king.

Speaker 5 (01:10:10):
We have rules, don't you get it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:15):
If Trump doesn't follow the rules, well, what if you
get a president that you don't like in there and
decides to do the same thing?

Speaker 5 (01:10:26):
You get it?

Speaker 4 (01:10:26):
Now Congress has to actually start doing their bloody job.
Thomas Massey pointed this out why are we doing a
continuing resolution bill? You got all of these cuts that
those put into place, why not write it in They
didn't do it. You want these cuts for crying out loud.

(01:10:48):
They were just complaining about sanctuary city money. You just
gave them the money in the in the continued resolution
and then you want Trump to take it back with
a penstroke. Do your job. Watchdog on Wall Street dot com.
Watchdog on Wall Street dot Com.

Speaker 5 (01:11:08):
We'll be back.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
You're listening to the watch Dog on Wall Street. You

(01:11:36):
should believe in math, not magic. You're listening to the
Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Mar Thing, mar Thing, uh Rand, Paul h Rand. Paul
put forward an effort to repeal the tariffs, and uh
he lost two votes because they weren't there that day.
Mitch McConnell I think Sheldon white House wasn't there. They
had Democrats signing off on this as well. It ended
up going down forty nine to forty nine. And people

(01:12:10):
Trump also, why did you listen to what he had
to say? Did he say anything that wasn't truthful, that
wasn't honest? Now we have had again, and this is
something that bothers the right the right now up in

(01:12:31):
arms over the Patriot Act and all of the government
overreached that went along with the Patriot Act again, that
gave the president a ridiculous.

Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
Amount of power.

Speaker 4 (01:12:46):
Rand Paul comes up and he basically explains, you cannot
run the country based upon fake emergencies. Okay, Donald Trump's
tariffs that he's put on is based upon fe based
upon fetanyl. Okay, you want to say that we have

(01:13:06):
a fetanyl problem, a drug problem in this country. Absolutely,
I've said it's an emergency for some time. We're averaging
over one hundred thousand deaths a year for a long time.

Speaker 5 (01:13:18):
Let me ask you a question.

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
Does Switzerland send fetanyl into the United States? Does Monaco
send fetanyl into the United States? Does Mongolia send fetanyl
into the United States? Does Australia send fetanyl into the
United States? Well, then, why are you putting tariffs on them?

(01:13:41):
You said it's an emergency, you said it's you can
do these put these tariffs on because you've.

Speaker 5 (01:13:45):
Got an emergency.

Speaker 4 (01:13:48):
It's a stretch, okay, it is a very long stretch.
And just to show you just how weak weak these
Republican senators are. They know this, they know this but
they're going to continue to go along with for now.

(01:14:11):
For now, they're I guess maybe they're hoping that again,
Donald Trump's going to continue to pull back and compromise
when it comes to these things. You don't they're They're right,
you don't want to run the country this way.

Speaker 5 (01:14:28):
I know, I'm I'm old school people.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
But again, you know, the number one job of the
House of Representatives is appropriations. Why do we continue to
get continue resolutions? Do your job that that's where the
power is supposed to lie. You know, as far as
spending is concerned, legislating, it's with the people. I've I

(01:14:52):
have gone off on the executive branch of government in
all of the acronym agencies you didn't like. You didn't
like it when the EPA was overreaching and going after
farmers because they had a ditch in their yard with
water in it and they called it a navigable waterway,
allowing them to do whatever they want. That's executive branch overreach.

(01:15:17):
This is why we got to get back. We've got
to get back to what the Constitution says it's there
to protect to us.

Speaker 5 (01:15:27):
You get it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:30):
You can't suspend constitutional rules and your beliefs.

Speaker 5 (01:15:35):
Either you have them or you don't. Okay, like my
guy won, My guy, Oh, my guy's president right now?

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
Oh yeah, what, let's give him all the power in
the entire world to do whatever here see wants you nuts.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
Again. You don't want that again.

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
Take a good hard look around at where you live
and where we've come from as a nation and where
we are at today. You a little history for crying
out loud. You want to you want to give that up?
I don't, that's for sure. Anyway, I'm glad to see

(01:16:18):
so far, I'm getting word that Trump is pushing back.
There's a lot of a lot of Republicans, like I
said in Congress right now, they want their stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:16:29):
I said, give me, give me, give me where retards.

Speaker 4 (01:16:32):
They don't want to make cuts. They don't want to
make cuts. And Donald Trump has laid out some some
things that he wants when it comes to his big
beautiful bill. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime,
no tax on Social Security. And you've got Republicans in
blue states demanding, oh, we got to raise the uh

(01:16:53):
uh uh the salt tax state local tax deduction for
our state. And they're pushing on that and they're trying
to figure out, you know, how to go about making
this work. So many of these Republicans are saying, hey,
you know what, we'll just we'll raise taxes on the top.

Speaker 5 (01:17:12):
But we're not gonna We're not. We may go to
forty percent.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
Again, that basically thwarts everything that Donald Trump said about
his twenty seventeen tax bill and how well it did.
Why if it's if it's great, if it's wonderful, why
are you changing it? Why are you going to change it? Well, again,
it's because these people in Congress they don't want to
do the dirty work.

Speaker 5 (01:17:36):
They're in charge.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
They get in charge, they want to get paid, they
want to send money to their districts. They want their
handouts and give ways. They're both bad. Do you understand
to both sides, it's the same thing. This is why
nothing gets cut. This is why we just had another
continuing resolution. Elon Musk highlights all of this waste, all
this fraud, get rid of it.

Speaker 5 (01:18:00):
But they didn't. They didn't. I'm glad to see that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:03):
Trump said, well, least he's saying for now, saying for now,
he basically rejected the idea that was floated to raise
taxes on high earners. And yeah, every single time it's tried,
it fails. And he even said people will move, and
he's right. The UK just tried this, They just put

(01:18:27):
this into play and their tax revenue went down.

Speaker 5 (01:18:31):
People left the country.

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
It's not a difficult thing to do now, people, it
really isn't okay. You spend a few bucks here or
there in certain countries.

Speaker 5 (01:18:44):
Guess what, Waila, you got yourself paperwork.

Speaker 4 (01:18:47):
You can be a citizen and you can get out
and people will.

Speaker 5 (01:18:52):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com, Watchdog on Wall Street dot
com a lot more. We gotta go over.

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Don't go anywhere, but if you do our personal CFO program,
our podcasts, all sorts of great stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:19:03):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com, We'll be back.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
Chris Markowski is the watchdog on Wall streets. Well know
one altered investment, banking, consumer advocate, analyst, trainer. Chris Markowski

(01:19:29):
is the watchdog.

Speaker 5 (01:19:30):
On Wall Street.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Do you want to answer exposing the lines and myths
that the big brokerage firms, the mainstream press, and the
government are pushing to keep Americans away from financial freedom.

Speaker 2 (01:19:43):
You can't handle the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:19:46):
Bringing America the truth about what really happens in the
financial world.

Speaker 3 (01:19:50):
but in political and economic reality.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
This is the watchdog on Wall streets.

Speaker 5 (01:20:00):
One more quick example before we move on.

Speaker 4 (01:20:02):
We're talking about the courts and thwarting the president's agenda.
And now everybody's getting up in arms, and everyone again,
the entire right wing media social media out there freaking
out because of the court that pushed back. Federal judge

(01:20:26):
barred the Trump administration from pulling federal funds from places
it deems sanctuary cities. The judge said it's constitutional. Now again,
I didn't read the ruling. I didn't read the ruling. However, however,
these Republicans in Congress just funded these sanctuary cities with

(01:20:51):
the Continuing Resolution in March. Why didn't you defund them then,
like you're supposed to. Oh it's too much work, God's
too much work. Oh yeah, we're members of Congress, and
you know, we gotta do an investigation. We gotta go
raise the money, we gotta go out to eat. You know,

(01:21:12):
we're influencers. You know, we gotta get really fiery and
take videos and then post them up on YouTube. Do
your job. Do your job. You wouldn't have to even
deal with the courts if you did your job. Anyway,

(01:21:36):
Gotta move on. Have to talk a little bit about this.
This is a topic. Oh guess what, Mark Kowski's talking insurance. Yes,
I am talking insurance, because again it's something, quite frankly,
that many people do not understand, and we're seeing this
happen around the country when it comes to home insurance.

(01:22:01):
Right now in California, they've got a major, major issue
on their hand. Was a story in the Wall Street Journal,
Californian's dread receiving a letter from their home insurer as
much from the taxman. Insurance rates our skyrocketing, and they
may have to increase much more to correct for years
of government price controls. There's the key right there, government

(01:22:27):
price controls. Whenever the government gets involved.

Speaker 5 (01:22:33):
In anything.

Speaker 4 (01:22:36):
Anything, subsidizes it, subsidize it, tries to control it.

Speaker 5 (01:22:42):
They fail. They fail.

Speaker 4 (01:22:46):
Home insurance premiums have gone up, but nowhere as much
as they have in California. Basically right now, you're talking
personal injury property ninety percent in California over the past
six years, that how much has gone up fifty nine
percent nationwide, forty seven percent in Texas, fifty four percent

(01:23:08):
in Florida. And actually I get that all the time
because I just moved to Florida. Every so, how much
your how is your home insurance down there? Actually, my
home insurance is cheaper here than it was in New York.

Speaker 5 (01:23:22):
What do you mean? What do you mean? You don't
live far from the water. How can that be? Well,
you're right, I don't live far from the water.

Speaker 4 (01:23:30):
But I also knew enough to say, hey, you know what,
I'm gonna make sure that I'm.

Speaker 5 (01:23:34):
At least sixteen feet above sea level.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):
I built my house at any of the new construction
here in the state of Florida. The glass one hundred
and fifty sixty mile an hour winds. The yard is
graded properly. It's you know, built like a tank for
crying out loud. Nothing's gonna happen to it. I dealt
with two hurricanes in the span of a week this
past year, and yeah, believe it or not, got twenty

(01:24:02):
inches of rain had stormed at my yard.

Speaker 5 (01:24:05):
Was dry anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:24:09):
Anyway, It's called risk, and you have to price in risk.
When the government gets involved and has price controls, well,
then the insurance company can't price in risk.

Speaker 5 (01:24:26):
Essentially, you don't have insurance.

Speaker 4 (01:24:30):
Nine of California's top twelve home insurance companies have paws
or restrict a new business. Since twenty twenty two, seven
have disclosed plans to drop policy. An increasing number of homeowners,
especially in areas with high fire risk, have been forced
to obtain coverage from the states ensure of last resort
their fair plan. Shouldn't have it, shouldn't have a fair plan.

(01:24:52):
You know, we also shouldn't have We also shouldn't have
flood insurance, national flood insurance. Government should be involved in
the insurance business. That's right, that's right. You want to
know why I was talking about, Oh, look at the
devastation in California because of the fires California, and we

(01:25:17):
explain this has always.

Speaker 5 (01:25:19):
Had fires, always had fires.

Speaker 4 (01:25:23):
I explained to this through the eyes of a botanist,
and how certain vegetation doesn't even grow unless there is
a fire.

Speaker 5 (01:25:32):
For crying out loud, people were able to move to
these areas.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
Why well, because they weren't paying what the actual price
of insurance was. Listen, you're rich, you're rich. You want
to build your house on a cliff? In Malibu or
wherever it may be, and it could be in a
fire area.

Speaker 5 (01:25:58):
Good luck and God bless.

Speaker 4 (01:26:01):
But I don't think we should have to subsidize your insurance,
or if you want to have insurance, you should pay
the going rate. The same thing holds true. I see
it down here in Florida. And there's a reason behind this.
There's very powerful interests, the real estate lobby, real estate lobby,

(01:26:22):
real estate agents. They pressure the government all the time.
Oh yeah, you gotta subsidize all of these homes and
people got to buy them.

Speaker 5 (01:26:29):
I gotta be able to afford insurance.

Speaker 4 (01:26:31):
No, now, quite frankly, I could care less if people
couldn't afford these homes and you had to turn them
back to nature, Fine with me, find me, because that's
how that's how the free market is supposed to work.
Why in the world, again, it's the government. Subsidized insurance

(01:26:54):
is welfare for rich people, period the end.

Speaker 5 (01:26:59):
It's welfare for rich people. Oh yeah, it's nice.

Speaker 4 (01:27:03):
Oh yeah, you want to live on the live right
off the beach on the inner coastal down here in
Florida and have a boat in the back with your
lift and go out that that's all well and good,
but you want your fellow taxpayer to subsidize the insurance
on your place because of storm surge to flood your house. Sorry, no, no, no,

(01:27:28):
no no. In a sane world, Uh, that wouldn't happen.
It's called buyer beware. You better, you better build your
house up on stilts to protect yourself, or you know,
you deal with the consequences when a storm comes in.

Speaker 5 (01:27:44):
I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (01:27:45):
This is what insurance is, and this is this has
been going on throughout human history. That was a book,
I hammered the guy. It's it's the story of risk.
You don't think risk was priced in to when you know,
the ancient Athenians or the Venetian Empire, all of these
merchants of yesteryear trading around the globe.

Speaker 5 (01:28:07):
You didn't think ships went down, cargo was lost in storms.

Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
You don't think that the price was in regards to
the products that they were shipping, that that risk was
priced into those products.

Speaker 5 (01:28:21):
Of course it was.

Speaker 4 (01:28:25):
It's not up the government to subsidize any of this stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:28:28):
And quite frankly, and what.

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
If you can't rebuild because people can't afford to.

Speaker 5 (01:28:33):
Be revealed such as life such is life. Oh, that's
just too bad.

Speaker 4 (01:28:40):
That's just too bad that some of these areas, in
these high risk areas prone to fire, you don't rebuild
and they get turned back to nature.

Speaker 5 (01:28:50):
All darn. You wouldn't have had these problems.

Speaker 4 (01:28:55):
If that was the case, maybe certain areas, maybe you
shouldn't live there, just saying anyway, I got to talk
about this as well. This is another big see I
told you.

Speaker 5 (01:29:12):
So moment.

Speaker 4 (01:29:13):
Ah boy, we told you when the United Parcel Service
they you know, they had their Sean O'Brien there, the
teamster's boss put together that absolutely I'm sorry it was
a ridiculous contract for the workers there, that it was
going to lead to massive job loss, and we were

(01:29:37):
right again again. Just this past week, UPS announced another
twenty thousand job cuts, seventy three facility closures. She's last
year they announced twelve thousand job cuts and those were
just management. But again, you know, it's you're taking a

(01:30:02):
look at the contracts, and they are they're rich contracts.

Speaker 5 (01:30:07):
They're very very rich contracts.

Speaker 4 (01:30:11):
Again, if he thinks, I guess UPS is supposedly obligated
to create thirty thousand teamster jobs under this thing, that's
not gonna happen.

Speaker 5 (01:30:22):
That that's just not going to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:30:24):
The numbers don't add up tourism tourism. I gotta call
I gotta call the President out on this one too.
I don't know if you saw the interview that he
had was a very contentious interview with Terry Moran, and
it got pretty heated when they started getting into the

(01:30:46):
whole Ms thirteen thing.

Speaker 5 (01:30:48):
But I'm gonna let you watch it for yourself.

Speaker 4 (01:30:52):
And against Terry Moran playing a bit of gotcha to
so degree. But Trump, again, he was not telling the
truth when it came to tourism. Tourism is down big lely,
as Trump would say here in the United States. Quite frankly,

(01:31:13):
it's greater than Bigley. It's fallen off a cliff. When
it comes to visitors from Canada, it comes to visitors
from Mexico, when it comes to visitors from Europe, Asia
pretty much flat at this point in time. I don't

(01:31:33):
get it. I don't get it. Some people think it's
kind of cute. I don't get I. I I think
Trump might understand this since he owns hotels and golf
clubs and he's in the service industry. Why in God's
creation would you want to aggravate customers. Why in the

(01:31:55):
world would you do that? You know, again, I still
don't understand the whole Canada fifty first state thing. That's
patently absurd as far as I'm concerned, Why would.

Speaker 5 (01:32:03):
Why would you want to get it up? Give me
a state? They got socializedment?

Speaker 4 (01:32:06):
I mean, stop, but Canada be Canada, for crying out loud.
And you know, you listen to some of the conference
calls with some of the booking agencies, they're doing okay.

Speaker 5 (01:32:18):
You know, they're saying.

Speaker 4 (01:32:19):
That the as far as travel around the globe is concerned,
you know, people are still traveling, they're just not traveling
to the United States. They're changing their plans. Canadians are saying,
I'm not gonna go to I'm not gonna go to
the United States. I'm gonna go to Mexico. I'm gonna
go somewhere else.

Speaker 5 (01:32:35):
Again.

Speaker 4 (01:32:36):
It's I do believe it's a short term type of
a trend that we're seeing right now. I hope, you know,
the President would tone it down in regards to the
fifty first state stuff and try it again once again,
encourage people to come and visit the United States. Skin
Maybe uh, you know, maybe I'm biased with this, but

(01:32:59):
I've got a lot of clients that are in the
service industry, that are in the tourism industry, and they're
getting hit. So do us a favor stop wrecking their business.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com, Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Comgain
is our site. Become a part of the Watchdog on
Wall Street family, take advantage of all the great stuff.

(01:33:21):
We have a personal CFO program, our podcast, our newsletter,
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com. Or give us a call
eight hundred four seven one four.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
Bringing America financial freedom, one listener at a time. You're
listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 5 (01:33:57):
Well just see that. You see that they achieved.

Speaker 4 (01:34:05):
They achieved zero in Spain and Portugal this past week.
I'm sorry, you know, maybe I shouldn't make fun, but
how can I not make fun of this? I kids
you not it was I think it was on March. No,

(01:34:25):
exoot me, it was April April twenty second. I'm wrong.
April twenty second. Spain Spain announced and they patted themselves
on the pack.

Speaker 7 (01:34:36):
Look at us our power grand is running entirely on
renewable energy we got when we got fuller, we got
hydra power.

Speaker 5 (01:34:49):
Oh my god, for the first time ever.

Speaker 4 (01:34:54):
Ah yeah, that didn't last long. That didn't last long
because it is these things called physics and the power
grid lost inertia.

Speaker 5 (01:35:09):
Again. I can't explain it.

Speaker 4 (01:35:13):
Okay, I'm not an electrical engineer. I'm not read the
stories on it. I'm not going to even try to
delve into it here on the program. But guess what
not sustainable I'm blackouts. Everything was down, everything, sell service,

(01:35:34):
you name it. People had to climb out of trains
and tunnels, you know, hit all of Spain, Portugal, parts
of France and also I would looking some parts of
Greece as well. And the interesting thing is that we're
finding out after the fact that they became dangerously close

(01:35:57):
for an entire European blackout. You're talking the whole continent down,
electricity down now.

Speaker 5 (01:36:07):
Hmmm.

Speaker 4 (01:36:08):
I'm a businessman. I'm a businessman. Donald Trump is a businessman.

Speaker 5 (01:36:13):
Hmmm.

Speaker 4 (01:36:15):
I would be quite frankly, I would have my staffers
calling up European manufacturers saying, listen, okay, you want more
of this, because you're gonna get more of this. You're
gonna rely on solar, You're gonna rely on wind. You
guys shut down nuclear power. You see what your energy
costs are. How about this? How about you move?

Speaker 5 (01:36:35):
How about you.

Speaker 4 (01:36:36):
Move your business here to the United States. You pay
a fifteen percent tax rate, fully expense everything that you
build here, and you won't have a single energy problem.
That might be something you might be interested in. Again,
like I said, we don't need tariffs. We are already

(01:36:59):
a very, very attractive place to do business now, granted, granted,
one of the things I mentioned this earlier that we
need to obviously improve upon is our workforce.

Speaker 5 (01:37:10):
We definitely need more workers.

Speaker 4 (01:37:11):
We definitely have to get more again, those seven million working,
able bodied, working age men, we got to get them
back into the workforce. But it's been an absolute disaster
for Europe when it comes to energy.

Speaker 5 (01:37:29):
It's worked already for crime.

Speaker 4 (01:37:32):
BMW's biggest plant in the entire world. It's not outside
of Munich, for crying out loud, it's in South Carolina.
This I have to talk to and this is not
another idea that's been bounced around. Well, we got Republicans

(01:37:53):
in Congress wanting to give all sorts of child tax credits.
We ripped on that on the program. Donald Trump was
asked in an interview about her it might be a
good idea, baby bonus, cutting checks, cutting checks to new moms,
four grand here, five round here. He said, it's a
good idea.

Speaker 5 (01:38:12):
No, it's not.

Speaker 4 (01:38:13):
Now, it's not, and again he was speaking off the cuff.
I'm sure Donald Trump will look into this and see
other countries who tried this and having it be an
absolute failure.

Speaker 5 (01:38:25):
All that's going to happen.

Speaker 4 (01:38:27):
All it's going to happen is you're going to have,
you know, you give baby bonuses like that. You're going
to see people that obviously don't even care about having
kids having more kids just so they can get that
check Listen. It is the reason why we're having a
demographic problem here in the United States, just like they're

(01:38:48):
having a demographic problem in Europe, is because it's just
bloody expensive to have children.

Speaker 5 (01:38:57):
Period the end.

Speaker 4 (01:39:01):
You want to raise the American birth rate. This is
something that Elon Musk has talked about as well. You
need to bring the cost of living down here in
the United States. It's just that simple. Anybody who's again
smart people are gonna say, well, wait a second, how
much you know, can I afford to have a kid?

Speaker 5 (01:39:20):
How much does it cost to raise a kid?

Speaker 4 (01:39:22):
They talked about childcare if both parents are working, it's
over thirty percent of what people make in Massachusetts and
New York and other places as well.

Speaker 5 (01:39:31):
That's a lot lot. You need to bring.

Speaker 4 (01:39:35):
The cost of raising a kid down the cost of
living in the United States. You do that, guess what,
people will have more kids. Watchdog on Wall Street dot com.
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com again to come apart of
the Watchdog on Wall Street family. All sorts of great
stuff there at our site, personal CFO program, our podcast, newsletter,

(01:39:57):
you name it.

Speaker 5 (01:39:58):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot Com. We'll be back m hm.

Speaker 1 (01:40:15):
Taking Wall Streets liars, trooks, and sheets out behind the woodshed.
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Streets.

Speaker 5 (01:40:25):
This is terrific news.

Speaker 4 (01:40:28):
And this is something that again I am hoping and
I'm praying goes through. I'm hoping and praying that the
fighting will stop. I really am the The Trump administration
reached a deal on Wednesday with Ukraine, giving the United

(01:40:48):
States access to its mineral wealth.

Speaker 5 (01:40:54):
Again.

Speaker 4 (01:40:55):
There was some last minute paggling that was that was
taking place. But the deal is there's a step toward
a negotiated end to the war and Ukraine and hopefully,
you know, being able to rebuild this country. One of
the things that we dropped in the negotiation was our

(01:41:17):
insistence that the government allow Washington to recoup the money
that we already sent over there, the military aid that
we already sent. Here's a quote Scott sent as the
President has said, the United States is committed to helping
facilitate the end of this cruel and senseless war. This

(01:41:37):
agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is
committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign
and prosperous Ukraine over the long term. Again, hopefully we're
seeing relations improve between our two countries.

Speaker 5 (01:41:54):
Obviously got a little bit.

Speaker 4 (01:41:57):
Tit for tat there with you know what took place
at the White House and JD Vance. We all saw
the one on one meeting between Trump and Zelenski at
the Vatican ahead of Pope Francis's funeral. Again, you know,
maybe Pope Francis there's some divine intervention there. What's going

(01:42:20):
to happen in this agreement is there's basically going to
be an investment fund.

Speaker 5 (01:42:25):
That both the Ukraine and the United.

Speaker 4 (01:42:27):
States are going to contribute to and oversee. It's called
the United States Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund. It ensures that
the United States and allies will take the lead in
any reconstruction. No state or person who financed or supply
the Russian war machine will be allowed to benefit from

(01:42:48):
the reconstruction of Ukraine. This is from the Ukrainian Deputy
Prime Minister. Together with the United States, we are creating
the fund that will attract global investment into our country. Now, again,
this is going to be a way to help us
recoup some of the money that we spent there. But

(01:43:12):
basically what it is is we're you know, we're going
to split everything fifty to fifty when it comes to
this deal. Again, it looks right now, it looks like
it is a win win. They have rare earth minerals.
They're a wealth of things that are in this nation. Again,
any country. This is what separates the United States from

(01:43:37):
other countries that have large deposits of wealth in minerals, commodities, oil, gas, mining, agriculture.
Doesn't make any difference it's because we have that United
States Constitution. And guess what, you can own oil companies,

(01:44:00):
you can own, you can invest here in the United States,
and you can be a part of it. What happened
after the breakup of the Soviet Union, well again, they
have a lot, a lot of wealth, a lot of
oil wealth out of gas, well, a lot of mineral
wealth there. The oligarchs took it over and it's where
you get these very very powerful people there. And this

(01:44:22):
has happened throughout all of these former Soviet States republics
there that broke away.

Speaker 5 (01:44:29):
Same thing in Africa as well.

Speaker 4 (01:44:33):
You allow you allow the people to prosper off this
the right way. I'm talking socializing it, but allowing them
to own it as well. And again you're going to
see good things. That's that's where true wealth is going
to be built. We do not want to have a
situation where the oligarchs are going to take basically take

(01:44:55):
control of Ukraine and believe in me, Okay, there was
many here in the Unit States that wanted that outcome
because they were tied into it. Barisma Biden's hunter a
lot of money in that. I've explained it before. Okay,
there's a different there's a different type of wealth when
it's commodity wealth. Yeah, you got your your Bezos wealth

(01:45:17):
and your Musk wealth. That's stock and the companies that
they own, and they're great companies. But when it comes
to commodity money, it's like a faucet that you turn
on and money just flows out of it.

Speaker 5 (01:45:31):
And again, keeping the crooks out of this is key.

Speaker 4 (01:45:37):
That's what's going to be the key for Ukraine to prosper,
to get out all of the corruption, all of the fraud,
and we hope, God willing that will be the case.

Speaker 5 (01:45:49):
Got to take a break. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com.

Speaker 4 (01:45:52):
Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com again, take advantage of all
the great stuff we have at our site, our personal
cf all pro ram our podcast. You name it Watchdog
on Wallstreet dot com or give us a call eight
hundred four seven one nine eighty four.

Speaker 1 (01:46:22):

Speaker 4 (01:46:32):
Uh yeah, I want to talk a little bit a
little bit about this today, and again I think it's
something we're going to be bringing up a little bit
more often here on the program and it's probably do
a podcast or two on it. And it has to
do with the great wealth transfer that's going to be
taking place, and it is taking place. I I deal with,

(01:46:56):
like I said, many small businesses and families all over
the country. And one of the one of the dilemmas
the lem is that that these family businesses have is
who's going to take it over? What is the succession plan.

(01:47:17):
I'll give you example my business. My business, Well, I'm
I'm the oldest one. My brothers founders in the company
as well, younger than I am. My nephew works for us,
but we also have you know, twenty five offices people
working for us as well. We still buy law by law,

(01:47:38):
the sec requires us to have a plan of succession
something were to happen. Again, I get that. But again
I've told my kids. I told my kids I never
ever put pressure on them to follow in my footsteps
to do what I want to do. They have to

(01:47:59):
figure that out on their own. And actually, I'm gonna
be going to my son's graduation in two weeks. Two
weeks and we going to my son's graduation. And I
basically told him, told him, and actually my my brother Michael,
you know, and I just agree on this. My brother
Michael wants him to come join Markowski Investments right away.

Speaker 5 (01:48:23):
We need people, we need workers desperately.

Speaker 4 (01:48:26):
But I'm like, yeah, now, I want him to to
go out and do some things on his own, you know.
I want him to live in a you know, a
crappy you know, uh walk up apartment in New York
City or Boston or Nashville.

Speaker 5 (01:48:45):
It may be I want him to go struggle.

Speaker 4 (01:48:48):
I thought he wouldn't struggle working for us, and you know,
not to say that we're slave drivers or anything like that,
and it would work your tail off too. But I
want him to do something out of you know, out
of our umbrella and learn from that. And it's something
that I think is important, important, And again it's one

(01:49:10):
of the things that I have seen. I've advised people
over the years, a lot of again, proud parents, proud parents,
Do you oh, I got this business that I built
and I want to give it to my kids.

Speaker 5 (01:49:23):
Are you sure? Are you sure your kids can handle it?

Speaker 4 (01:49:30):
There's that great line, great line and Godfather won when
Don Corleoni was ripping Sonny because Sonny opened his mouth
when he shouldn't and he says, you know, I love
my kids something like this. I'm paraphrasing you spoiled, I
spoil them, okay, and they speak out of turn. Well, listen,
you know we all do it. We all do it

(01:49:52):
with our kids, and you need to be confident. You
need to be confident that your kids are capable of
handling it. You're not doing them any favors by making
it easy.

Speaker 5 (01:50:05):
You're not.

Speaker 4 (01:50:06):
And this again, this is part of what we do
at Markowski Investments. It's not managing people, just managing their
portfolios and taxing other stuff.

Speaker 5 (01:50:15):
It's also helping them out and.

Speaker 4 (01:50:18):
Advising them when it comes to succession and what is
going to happen next. The reality of the terrain people
is this, okay quite frankly, the statistically the numbers as
far as businesses that fail and the second generation pretty high.

Speaker 5 (01:50:36):
Family business, third generation, it's off the charts.

Speaker 4 (01:50:41):
You need to get a plan or a system in place.
You can't just hand someone the keys when they're not
ready for the keys. Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com, Watchdog
on Wall Street dot com, We'll be backry.

Speaker 6 (01:51:01):
Me give you my phone number.

Speaker 5 (01:51:05):
When you're.

Speaker 1 (01:51:18):
The only man who is taking on the Wall Street establishment.
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street with Chris Markowski.

Speaker 4 (01:51:27):
I know I'm gonna hear I'm gonna hear it from
I'm gonna hear people are on the office, Chris. You
didn't mention the book very much on the radio show.
You just released it.

Speaker 5 (01:51:36):
You gotta do that. I'm not much for self promotion.

Speaker 4 (01:51:45):
You know, I was thinking about this past week, you know,
how to buy handling it?

Speaker 5 (01:51:48):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:51:48):
What you popped into my head was the what a
great movie? What about Bob? You ever Richard Dreyfus's character
there and he's got his book Baby Steps, and he's
there in.

Speaker 5 (01:52:00):
His office and he's got like entire bookshelves filled with
his book. That's not me, that's not me.

Speaker 4 (01:52:10):
Listen, Labor of Love. It's something that I think you're
going to enjoy work time and effort. It's on Amazon. Listen,
you sign up for a personal CFO program, there's a
probably a pretty darn good choice. You're gonna probably get
one for free as well. Yeah, it's a celebration of
my clients. That's what it's all about. And just like

(01:52:33):
this show went from you know, two stations, you know,
twenty five years ago, grew it to where it is
today via word of mouth. Yeah, that's kind of how
I'm gonna do this as well, kind of handled the
same way. But again, yeah, it's available on Amazon if
you're interested. Work time and effort by Moir Chris Markowski anyway, anyway,

(01:52:53):
you know what I got to talk about this? I
am a again I mentioned here. I love athletics. I
love sports. Kids are all athletes. Again, didn't force them
into it with something they they enjoyed to do. But
I don't watch it much anymore. I really don't watch
much sports in the NFL. I do go to a

(01:53:16):
game or two every year. They go watch the Jets
play because my best friend and the gentleman in charge
of our accounting department for our clients and everything else
is he's got season tickets.

Speaker 5 (01:53:28):
And got I manned the grill when I'm there.

Speaker 4 (01:53:30):
We have one hell of a tailgate up there, and
I'm sure I'll probably get some Bucks games down here
in Tampa Bay this year as well.

Speaker 5 (01:53:40):
I don't know what is.

Speaker 4 (01:53:40):
I kind of get turned off by the entire thing,
and I think maybe it came from college football as well.

Speaker 5 (01:53:46):
I don't watch college football anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:53:49):
To me, it's college football is it's professional without contracts
and last week, this week, go again in the NFL
is great at marketing. They got their NFL Draft. Now,
came home from dinner, so Friday night or Saturday night,
had friends staying at the house. Flipped on the draft.

(01:54:10):
My friend asked me to flip an Honest, I don't
know any of these players, and they show one player.
They're talking about this player and they play as this position,
came to this college. And rather than have the the
players major and GPA because that's what they used to have.
Maybe again I'm dating myself. You remember when Bob Hope

(01:54:30):
used to do the call was it the All American Game?
Whenever he call the players out and you know, announced
them and they'd have their major and their GPA. Under
the ESPN cry on was has tattoos that symbolized da
da Da Da Da. I was like, you've got to
be kidney. Did they really just put this out there

(01:54:51):
and do me a favor? Stop you're insulting college students
everywhere by actually calling it college football.

Speaker 5 (01:54:58):
Okay, stop listen.

Speaker 4 (01:55:01):
When I went to Syracuse University, Okay, the head coach
at the time made sure made sure they coaches went
into the classrooms to make sure that the kids were
a class.

Speaker 5 (01:55:13):
They actually had to go to class.

Speaker 4 (01:55:15):
It wasn't online bs major nonsense where they never had
to go no, no, no, no, no, no, they were they were
students back in the day. I know that's not the
case nowadays. And you're trying to tell me that's that's
a good thing. And listen, I don't have any problem
with players getting money and dividing it up, but let's

(01:55:36):
let's cut with the ridiculous nonsense right now. Okay, you're
gonna give players that type of money that they should
be under contract. Oh they want to leave the school, well,
then maybe they should return the money that they took.

Speaker 5 (01:55:51):
It's a better gig than the NFL. College football is.

Speaker 4 (01:55:54):
A better gig than the NFL, which leads me to
my next thing. The big contry all over the news
Chadeure Sanders. Okay, Dion Sanders one of the greatest athletes
ever to play football. There's no doubt about that son.

(01:56:15):
He fell in the draft and everybody freaked out. And
the funny thing was he get all the race baders
out there. That's right, straight up racism, man. The first
pick in the draft was a black quarterback. How in
the world. Is it racism? One racism? It was the
fact that this kid has been acting like a jerk

(01:56:37):
for a long time, a long time. He set up
his own little draft setup. He's trying to come up
with his own brand legendary. He's wearing these big change
with legendary on it.

Speaker 5 (01:56:51):
He's making it about him.

Speaker 4 (01:56:56):
No, no, no, no, no no. You think that that's
gonna fly in the NFL. You haven't done anything. Players
come and go top draft choice spin. You think you're
gonna pull that nonsense and front of players that have
been there and done that. You think your offensive linemen

(01:57:17):
are gonna respect you, the ones that are taking the hits,
that that are in the trenches doing it.

Speaker 5 (01:57:23):
Are you nuts? I played offensive line. You need leadership.
For crying out loud, that's not a leader, that's someone
it's about him. It was funny too. There was a
video of him.

Speaker 4 (01:57:36):
They were showing a video of him and cam Wored,
the guy who got picked first, and he's trying to
convince cam Ward.

Speaker 5 (01:57:42):
To do rap videos. Oh, come on here, you can
do my brand new rap videos.

Speaker 1 (01:57:45):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:57:46):
I play football. I play football. I'm focused solely on football.
And again that's what leads to success. Kobe Bryant talked
about Tom Brady talked about that you need to be focused.
Remember I talked about priorities. You can't have priorities. You
have to have a priorit. Priorities plural doesn't exist. He's

(01:58:08):
lucky that I got picked up by the Browns. I
wouldn't have touched him with a ten foot poll.

Speaker 5 (01:58:15):
Anyway. Sorry, how to get that off my chest? God
bless everyone.

Speaker 4 (01:58:22):
Thanks for tuning in to The Watchdog on Wall Street
Show again. Become a part of the Watchdog on Wall
Street family. Get to our site, Watchdog on Wallstreet dot com,
our personal CFO program.

Speaker 5 (01:58:33):
We'll see you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:58:36):
You're listening to the Watchdog on Wall Street

All Episodes

Watchdog on Wall Street: Podcast for Weekend of May 3 - May 4 2025

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Watchdog on Wall Street: Podcast for Weekend of May 3 - May 4 2025