10-23-25 America's Truckin' Network

away from the southern tip of the United States. They're in the Key of Florida, Keys, and so with this being that close, I figure I'd bring it up just to give kind of a heads up. But the trajectory of this, what most of the storms have done this year is as they approach the United States, they veer off and go back to the east from whence they came, so to speak. So just a little bit of a heads up there. Saw this story the other day. It's

very encouraging. Now this has well. The headline is refine as demand is eighty one percent higher than it was a year ago thanks to falling mortgage rates. Now these are people that already have a mortgage and they're looking at the interest rates based on what they have and

what is available, and looking to refinance. Imagine throwing these numbers in there and saying, Okay, if interest rates come down even further, then new home buyers or people that are thinking about getting into buying a home and getting out of an apartment.

And if you're not expanding the economy, you're not creating more jobs, and therefore the job market is suffering.

oil industry. So if they recognize that, why doesn't the Federal Reserve So this story. Mortgage rates last week drop to the lowest level in a month, pushing more borrowers to refine finance. Potential home buyers, however, were not enthused again because it's not that drastic of a drop. The average contract interest rate for a thirty year fixed rate mortgage with a conforming loan balance of eight hundred and six thousand dollars or less decreased last week to six

point three seven percent from six point four to two percent. Folks, that's only a half point h five percentage rate decrease, which is not that much, but enough.

a year a go. According to Mortgage Bankers Associations seasonally adjusted index, the rate on a thirty year fixed rate was fifteen basis points higher a year ago a basis point is point zero one percent, So again this is down, not significantly in my opinion, but enough as far as this market is concerned in order to spur people in.

for adjustable rate mortgages rose again. Now, adjustable rate mortgages are kind of dangerous from the standpoint that you're betting on interest rates coming down, and it's interesting that if you're expecting them to come down, your mortgage rate would adjust lower, but if those rates go higher, then you're going to be stuck with that as opposed to a

fixed thirty year loan. ARM applications increase sixteen percent over the week, which pushed the armshare to eleven percent, with ARM rate more than eighty basis points lower than the thirty year fixed rate. ARM applications usually rise when overall interest rates climb, not when they fall. This increase speaks more to currently high mortgage prices than it does to rates. Buyers are doing everything they can to afford what's available.

Applications for a mortgage or to purchase a home dropped five percent for the week, and we're twenty percent higher than the same week, and so on.

six point eighty six percent. Now the interest rate over here in this story is down to six point three seven percent, so it's closer to you know, it's chopped off about what sixty fifty percent from where it was, half a percentage point from where it was at the beginning of the year. But again based on the numbers that I ran, because they've got these mortgage calculators that

you can look at the average sales of homes. The medium price of homes are now over four hundred thousand dollars, but most of the purchases and most of the transactions have been handling between three hundred and four hundred thousand dollars. So I picked the number in between of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. They talk about twenty percent down, which would be seventy thousand, thirty year fixed rate mortgage at six point nine five percent, where those mortgage rates

were at the beginning of the year. Your monthly payment, including they figure in property taxes and they figure in homeowners insurance and whatnot, would be two thousand, one hundred and forty nine dollars. Two thousand, one hundred and forty nine dollars now at six point two six percent interest rate again the same criteria. Now that six point twenty six percentage rate is around that six point three seven

that they're talking about in the story. But I had a story earlier in the year where I was looking at that and compared the numbers. So if you're talking about six point nine five percent versus six point two six percent. Your monthly mortgage payment would go down one hundred and twenty seven dollars a month. That's one hundred and twenty seven dollars in your pocket on an on

an annual or you know, on a monthly basis. And I'm sure that people we could use that where interest rates, in my opinion, should be the interest rates on that the Federal Reserve charges instead of being at four point twenty five percent for that overnight rate that banks borrow money from each other if they need money, that number is at four point twenty five percent in most of the other Western countries, Europe, Japan, all some of these

other areas, that number is down around two percent, which is where our numbers should be. And if our rates were down there, the overnight borrowing rate, the interest rates on credit cards, mortgages and so on, would come down. We'll pick this up on the other side. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW.

as Spire Motorsports new team anchor partner. TV ratings for last weekend's motorsports action around the NASCAR Cup Series race at Talladega Super Steve Very drew two point five to five million viewers. The United States Grand Prix, the Formula One race in Austin, Texas, compiled one point five million viewers. There is talk of changing the points system and the

playoff picture for twenty twenty six. Here's the King, Richard Petty and his Hall of Fame crew chief Dane Enman on the possible changes on the Petty Podcast.

you know, where they're out of one another. Championship were lost a couple as looking the other day of deal and if the championships had been canned like what they were with me, then Jeff Gordon would have won seven championships and Jimmy Johnson would have won four, they would have just swapped it back so again, and that kind of to me, that kind of shows that the championship should be a year long thing, not just one or two race deal.

to spur that kind of application increase is incredible. And I was just running through some of the numbers where I was talking about interest rates at the beginning of the year, starting off around six point ninety five percent, what the mortgage rate would be on that your payment on a monthly basis would be two thousand, forty two one hundred and forty nine. At six point twenty six percent, that payment would decrease by one hundred and twenty seven

dollars per month. Now, if interest rates were down where they should be, somewhere in the neighborhood of a five percent range of same scenario, you're talking about a three hundred and fifty thousand dollars home. You're talking about twenty percent down. At five percent, your mortgage rate would be one thousand, seven hundred and ninety nine dollars three hundred and thirty four dollars per month lower than what it

would have been at the beginning of the year. And that's why I have said that Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve as I said in the previous segment, they keep talking about whenever you're talking about oil prices, and there's always this blurb in there, lower interest rates spurs more demand and is good for the economy. Well, if it's good for the economy, why aren't the interest rates lower. It seems like lion Jerry Powell in the

Federal Reserve. As I said in the previous segment, they seem to think that lower interest rates leads to inflation as opposed to lower interest rates spurring the economy. Again, if people are jumping out of apartments and into homes and buying homes, they are going to be buying furniture, more appliances, more durable goods, and also spur you know again, spur those durable goods, and they're going to be spending

that money, and that filters through the rest of the economy. Now, the last time Trump was in office, interest rates were down below four percent. As a matter of fact, they were down in the three percent range. And just for fun, let's take a look at that and say, okay, based on the same scenario, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars home a twenty percent down thirty year fixed mortgage, your mortgage payment would be one thousand, four hundred and eighty

four dollars per month. That is six hundred and forty nine dollars per month lower than what that six point ninety six percent at the beginning of this year. So this is what as a result of the Biden administration, interest rates going up, up, up, up up, as far as mortgage is concerned. What that does to the individual

home buyer out there. If you're going to be spending six hundred and forty nine dollars more per month this year as opposed to four years ago, that's a heck of a chunk of change, and most people are going to be sitting on the sidelines and not wanting to jump into that now. To compound that even further and make it even more irritating, if you will, in terms of what mortgage rates does as far as the economy is concerned, the discussion comes into based on and again

these are not my numbers. These are numbers from different mortgage what is it bank rate, I think is the mortgage calculator over there, and from this affirm or this website called nerd wallet. When you're talking about interest rates again, if you're talking you know, you're talking about the type of home that can be purchased. They used it as an example. Somebody making our annual income pre tax income

of one hundred and ten thousand dollars a year. Again debt payments, and they go into what the average debt payment is across the board, eighty percent or twenty percent down payment at a six point eighty six percent interest rate, you can afford a home. Again, in that six point eighty six percent interest rate, you can afford a home

that's three hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars. Now, going to the scenario that I was talking about before, when Trump was in office the last time in interest rates were around three point five three point oh five percent,

Hang onto your hats, folks. At one hundred and ten thousand dollars income with a interest rate at three point oh five to two percent, the home price that you can afford at that interest rate is five hundred and forty thousand, almost five hundred and forty one thousand dollars.

So the difference between a six point eighty six percent interest rate and a three point oh five percent is you can afford a home that's one hundred and sixty two almost one hundred and sixty three thousand dollars higher.

in order to construct the home. And then as you go through that, and then you start buying furniture, appliances, of carpeting, painting, all that sort of stuff, what that does.

there again. I talk about the Federal Reserve how they are, and I can't stress enough the fact that when you look at the rate, the overnight rate the banks charge each other when they borrow money to handle their cash needs for that day, they are paying four percent, which is what the Federal Reserve sets that rate. That number then equates and adjusts as far as credit cards are concerned, then filters over into the mortgage industry and all that

sort of thing. So if you're talking about spurring the economy, I don't think, well, I know that lower interest rates because everybody talks about it spurs the economy. People spend more, and if they're spending more, then they're going to be stimulating the economy as opposed to causing inflation. I saw this story and this is almost going to seem like a plug for Walmart. And I'm not talking about a

plug for Walmart here. I'm just talking about that They've been in the news over the last couple of days over some of the stuff that's being done. One of the things I do is I will look at all kinds of different websites in terms of getting what news

that I can. And as I've mentioned before, sometimes when you go to some of these more liberal websites, very liberal websites, even inside those stories, once in a while, those so called journalists do commit journalism and they do actually throw in nuggets of truth and you pick that out and you can go on that based on the stuff that you pick up on other stories and piece those together in order to come up with some interesting things that people are not talking about in the marketplace.

And one of the things they're not talking about is this conversation. Smart was the CEO of Walmart, was part of a panel on CNBC and then he was interviewed by George Stephanopoulos and some of the things he had to say were very very interesting.

across these South central plains. Thursday night, a heavy rain threat emerges.

it's interesting. The one website I went to, it's called the Street and sometimes when you go to these different you know, when you're searching for a particular topic, you know, all these different stories will come up. And once in a while, I'll go into this website called the Street and they have a lot of stories that talking about companies, what they're doing in terms of they're increasing, decreasing. A lot of bad news in there in terms of companies

that are filing bankruptcy. And it's one of those things where you read the story. Within the story, they'll say, oh, for more news, check this one out, and then you check out this one, and then you keep going down this rabbit hole to where you're seeing about ten different stories from the same website, and they are a little bubble or two left of center.

He's absolutely nuts himself if he thinks that's the thing that upset people because single used bathrooms, especially for somebody trying to change a child or somebody that wants to just have a little bit of privacy, and especially you know, in the men's room, women's room, whatever.

bunch of crap. Then he goes into again this is very negative for the first page and a half or so, but when he gets into the actual meat of what this gentleman said, let me see John Ferner was talking in this business forum. Ferner actually spoke in favor of broad impacts of Trump's tariffs when he was on this panel cy NBC Invests in America Forum investing in US manufacturing and US operations. Sure, it's great for businesses, but it's also great for employment.

support terraffs essentially. Walmart executives said terraffs have forced companies, including his own, to invest in US production. He cited a new beef processing facility in o'laith, Kansas that will generate over six hundred jobs for Americans. It's, as he said, it's a big investment, and having quality products that are sourced in a more sustainable way that can deliver to

customers is really important. Walmart's CEO, however, made it clear that terraffs on foreign goods have also increased costs and

explained his company needs to source globally. But he goes into the example when he's talking about this, he's talking about how you know, coffee might be an example, and if you have if you're a coffee drinker and you've bought coffee over the years, and whether it's you know what, however you buy coffee, you will notice that there are certain times over the years where coffee prices have spiked, and it's spiked considerably based on the crop. You know,

it's an agricultural crop. So if you have a drought or you have a heavy rain season, that causes mold or causes problems in some of these areas you're going to have a bad crop. And so we see this, whether it doesn't matter whether it's corn, tomatoes, avocados, or whatever. If the growing season is bad and the amounts harvested is less than the prices are going to go up.

And so you know, in terms of what he cites here, in terms of even coffee, those prices and we have seen over the last year or so coffee price is going up considerably because of droughts in those regions, and there have been some tariffs added to that, but then those have been backed off because of realizing how sensitive that is in terms of pricing coming into the United States. So that was the story that was in this company

called The Street. Now something else that popped up the other day is the story where Walmart is talking about lowering prices this year around Easter, around Thanksgiving, Walmart is offering its lowest price in years for butterball turkeys this Thanksgiving, as the nation's largest food seller flexes its muscles to entice price sensitive consumers with deals. The company said that it will sell turkeys for ninety seven cents per pound, its cheapest price since twenty nineteen.

chicken prices. We saw that as far as the egg prices, that that had nothing to do with terrafs, that it had everything to do with a certain virus or the avian flu going through when we look at beef prices, when we start looking at the droughts in certain areas of the country and the fact that there's this screw warm fly or whatever that it's been infecting cattle and even some of the cattle that we used to or the meat that we used to import from Mexico, that

their herds have been devastated by that, and so that's causing the prices to go up, not having to do with terrats. And when people are like I said a few weeks ago, I was at a function and somebody that I hadn't seen in a number of years was saying, well, you know, you're really as conservative as you are on Facebook, Yeah, and every bit much. And she was saying, well, how can you be that way I go to the grocery store, food prices are out aside, Well, what are you talking about,

oh talking about meat? Well, meat prices have nothing to do with the terroriffs. It has to do with it being a commodity, which is something that is it's dependent upon route, it's dependent on grain prices, and it's dependent upon whether or not these cattle are producing fast enough, and whether or not there is a disease that is causing some of these herds having to be dwindled. The fact that our herds, the number of herds in the United States, those size of herds are down to the

size that they were back in nineteen fifty one. And I guarantee you if you take a look at what the population of the United States back in nineteen fifty one versus today, that is really going to be causing those problems. But again Walmart talking about Thanksgiving. Retailers typically offer major discounts during the holiday season to grow traffic and sales. Walmart deals underscored a height emphasis this year as families look to save as they navigate inflation concerns fueled by tariffs.

hardly recognizable. Walmart shoppers will have the option of buying individual products for the holiday, or an entire Thanksgiving meal basket of more than twenty items which costs less than forty dollars and serves ten people. That means that you can serve ten people for about four dollars apiece. Retailer said the basket price tag is the lowest sense it began the program back in twenty twenty two. Bentville, Arkansas based Walmart has been keeping food prices competitive in a

bid to pick up more market share. Its grocery business, as I mentioned before, contributes about sixty percent of its US sales, is less exposed to import duties than consumer products like car.

particularly funnier than heck. Once in a while, these members of the spoon feder regurgitators in the mainstream media, they are all pompous and they think that, Okay, if I just go ahead and say this, then this person's going to agree with me and we'll just move on from there. George Stephanopolos on ABC. Now they pawn him off as some sort of a journalist and they praise him for being a journalists. This guy is the furthest thing from being a journalist that you can possibly be. He was

Clinton's wingman. He was during the campaign. He was the one that was heading up Him and James Carvel were heading up what they called the Bimbo Eruption Room, where they tried to find out how many different women that Clinton had been with over the years, cheating on his wife and so on, and wanted to make sure that they pulled up as much dirt on these people as possible in order to discredit them if they dared to speak up. He was one of the most ruthless individuals.

In a matter of fact, there was a scene or a situation where he was talking to somebody and they were going to run a story and he called them, and he says, I guarantee you that if you run that story, you will never get an interview with this person again, and you will be dead to us, and all this sort of stuff. And he was yelling and screaming at these people, trying to intimidate them not to run a true story about somebody. So this guy is

a journalist, but this was funnier than hell. He was talking to Walmart's CEO, John Ferner, and he was saying he tried to argue the turkey prices were a up, but Ferner replied that Walmart's turkey prices will be back down to the twenty nineteen And it was an interesting dialogue because George stephanopolis and trying to look real serious and says, well, you know, we're going into the holiday season and these turkey prices, the prices of turkey are

way up, and food prices are really up due to inflation. And this guy goes, well, not really, We're gonna have turkey prices that are down ninety seven cents per pound, which is down a round where it was twenty nineteen, and the Thanksgiving basket will sell for fourteen dollars. You know, I'm sorry, it's fourteen dollars cheaper than it was last year.

So that is a decrease there the cheapest price that that basket of stuff we were talking about as far as for the turkey dinner, feed a family or feed ten people for forty bucks, and that is down fourteen dollars from where it was last year and down around the prices.

yellow tag or whatever on their.

Step Monopolis then tried to one last time to have Walmart CEO John Ferner attacked Trump administration, arguing Americans are tightening their belts right now, borrowing more to pay bills, falling behind on credit card payments, and wondered if that's affected the company.

tell me how cheap I am. But back then I was looking at different stuff and I was thinking, well, you know what, I'm going to try Kroger products just for the heck of it instead of the national brands. And they were a lot cheaper. And I was shocked at how much better some of their products are as

opposed to the national brands. Now, I made the comment about certain items like peanut butter and some of the cereal, and if you look at the products and themselves the cereal, the components in there are less harmful, a are more natural than the national brands. And as far as the taste and the quality and that sort of stuff is very much up there. Now when you get into stuff like ketchup and mustard and stuff like that, man, you got to go with the national brand in my opinion.

But again it's it's it pays to take a look at sometimes the Kroger or the store brands and just do a product comparison ingredient comparison.

taking drastic measures like using coupons. That's a drastic measure. Let's take a look quick look at oil and gas prices, because they have been bouncing around a little bit, and we really haven't talked a lot about those over the last couple of days. West sax Is intermediate crewed crolling is fifty eight dollars and fifty cents a barrel. That is up a dollars twenty six, So it was actually even lower than you know, lower than.

dollar twenty six. Again, even Brent crude was down in that sixty dollars range just since the first of the year. Oil prices, even at this rate, are down eight West Texas intermediate crude is down eighteen dollars and thirty nine cents. That is a twenty four percent drop. Brent crude is down seventeen dollars and thirty two cents. That is a twenty two percent drop.

than that. If you look at diesel Diesel cross the board national average is three dollars and sixty three cents a gallon. That is only about four or five cents a gallon less than what was this time last year, but it is coming down locally here. I found this interesting and this it pays to check those gas apps

that you have. There are several different websites that you can go out there and check in terms of gas prices in an area if you're looking for gas prices, I just do this on my zip code in the entire county. In my neighborhood, gas prices were at two dollars and seventy six cents, which is up seven cents a gallon from last week.

three dollars and thirty eight cents. Now, that's up nine cents from last week. And surprisingly there's usually about a ten or fifteen cent gap between the lowest and the highest.