This is America's Truncking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Welcome aboard, thanks for tuning in on this Thursday morning. Who says nothing good happens after midnight. Apparently people that aren't listening to America's struck a network that I can tell you. Hurricane Melissa is still turning away in the Atlantic.
And what is.
Interesting is that as it hit Jamaica, which the devastation there is incredible, and again hearts and prayers go out to the folks there. Once it crossed over Jamaica, it was going about nine miles per hour and it has
gone it has increased in speed about five times. It's now up around forty five to fifty miles per hour moving towards actually went through Haiti, went through the southeastern yes, the southeastern portion of Cuba, Guantana Obey, and it's barreling its way up to the Bahamas, which will hit probably later on today into tonight. So this is a fast
moving storm. But the trajectory of this is still where it's veering off away from the coast of the United States, so we're not going to get a direct hit there, but it's going to be veering off to the northeast from that point. But what we've been seeing in our outlying storm surges, and especially along the North Carolina coast. You remember a couple of weeks ago we had what was it about twelve structures that fell because of the storm surges. They're out there on the you know, they're
out there on the beaches, basically on stilts. Supposed to take into consideration that when the storm surges come in, that they're high enough to withstand that. But apparently the amount of water and the amount of the waves hitting those structures hit, those stilts broke and those houses collapsed, about twelve of them. There's been an additional four that were lost just this past well overnight. It was there around I think it was a Hatteras Island, Derek County, Buxton,
North Carolina. The four structures that came down were actually in Buxton, North Carolina. So again we're not getting direct hits. Up to this point, we've lost what sixteen structures compared to what would have had what has happened in the hurricane seasons over the last few years. That is remarkable and hopefully our good luck will continue.
The Federal Reserve Lion Jerry Powell and.
The fellas, ladies and gentlemen, I should say, lowered interest rates by a quarter percentage point. Now, I was waiting for the report at noon or at two o'clock generally they do their meeting and they come out at two o'clock and Lion Jerry Powell steps up to the microphone and gives his spiel as to why they did or did not cut interest rates or what they're doing and their explanation behind that. He actually ran a little bit late yesterday, didn't come out until about ten after two,
which is kind of unusual. And what was interesting is well, actually it was interesting some of the things that were said but not said as well. And it's funny. You know where I've stood on this for the entire year. I think interest rates should be down at least by a full percentage point at this point. That started the year off at round five percent. For four and a
half to five percent, I think it should still. I should think it should be down at four percent or below already, and then another quarter percentage point reduced this time, because that is the thing, in my opinion, that's holding back the economy. From day one, we kept hearing from the Federal Reserve that they're reluctant to lower interest rates because they won the inflation rate down around two percent.
We pointed out on the program that when they talk about the Social Security increases, that cost a living allowance that comes through every year, that's based on what the inflation rate is that year. That has averaged since two thousand two point six percent, So around over the last twenty five years, the average inflation rate has been two
point six percent. Why the Federal Reserve has suddenly targeted two percent and said that the inflation rate should be around two percent when history says it's around two point six percent has always puzzled me. Plus the fact that when you take into consideration when we look at the
different contracts that have gone through. I've spelled that out on this program, and numerous times we've had major contracts signed by the UAW, major contracts signed by the railroad workers, major contracts by both the East Coast and the West Coast dock workers, and then we've had railroad and UPS, Yes, UPS signed a big contract. So you've got these wages
that have gone up tremendously. As a matter of fact, they talked about that the wage increase, as far as UAW is concerned, would increase the price of a car by nine hundred dollars.
We started seeing the other day. It was a couple of weeks ago.
We were talking about the inflation having to do with cars, and they were saying, well, because of terraffs in this blah blah blah blah blah, that the price of a car has gone up, averaged up nine hundred dollars. And I said, WHOA, pull the reins back on that, folks. Let's go back to the story that was talked about when that contract was signed, that it would add about nine hundred.
Dollars to the cost of the vehicle.
So all this a lot of times, what we're seeing is that people are blaming cost increases on tariffs as opposed to cost increases based on salaries and wages. Wage increases we talked about just yesterday, we had talking about a story out of Chicago talking about this person who owns these coffee shops and the price of coffee and having to raise her prices by fifteen percent, and she's
talking about terrorists and all this. Yet when you look at the minimum wage in Chicago, it has gone from ten dollars an hour in twenty twenty up to sixteen dollars and sixty cents now, and it just went up in July. So everybody seems to be forgeting about it. And again I'm not talking I'm not saying that people don't deserve pay increases, but pay increases are increases.
And if the products that you're selling.
The products that you are providing are the cost of that. Built into that are salaries and wages. If wages go up, your cost go up. If your cost go up, you're going to pass those costs along to your customers. And so be be honest about it and quit this business. This is almost like going back to right after the pandemic. Remember all the stuff talking about supply chains. Now there were different supply chain issues. Because you can't stop an economy.
You can't shut down every manufacturing facility in the country, you can't close up every business that's around, shut down every restaurant, and then gear up and snap your fingers and everything goes back to normal. There is a gearing up. You're going to have to build supplies. You're going to have to go into these factories and start from scratch, put the raw materials together, process that and get it available.
So there were supply chain issues being able to supply what people were wanting, the whole thing in different service areas. I've talked about that on this program numerous times. The fact that we may recall when you went into the stores there were hardly in employees in there, and it was tough to find somebody or find some help to find anything. Customer service was at a premium because had been laid off, they were slow to well, they couldn't
rehire some of the people. And because of the stimulus checks that were being made available and then the state unemployment payments that were going out, people were saying, I can't afford to go back to work. I'm making too much staying at home getting stimulus checks and unemployment from the state. So that should have been backed off a little bit quicker so that people got back into the workforce.
So we had supply chain issues.
We had problems with employees being hired and being able to service, but everybody blamed it on supply chain issues, when in fact it was just a matter of the system gearing up and the employees being available. Same thing with these tariffs, all we keep all we've been hearing since Liberation Day on April second, that inflation was going to go out of control. People were predicting recession. People were talking about inflation was going to be in the
high single digits. And inflation has been below three percent since then. And every time the inflation rate comes out and they say, well, it's below three percent, it's gone up. It's crept up from two point six to two point seven or maybe two point seven to two point whatever it's been, it's been below three percent. And every time they talk about this inflation rate, they say, well, but
the effect of tariffs will be coming on later on. Well, you're now talking about from from basically April, May, June, July, August, September, October. You know, you keep saying that this is gonna happen, gonna happen, gonna happen, and it hasn't happened, and yet people keep saying, well, it's gonna happen.
We'll pick this up.
I got some of the comments that Lion Jerry Powell said about during his press conference. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's struck a network seven hundred WLW.
I love this is the briefing report on America's drug A Network on seven hundred WLW.
The Infinity Series Champion will be crowded Saturday night and Phoenix Connors, Zilich, Carson Gwaffle, Also, Justin Olgeyer and Jesse Love are in the Exfinity Final four. Danny Hamlin, who will run for the Cup Series twenty twenty five titles Sunday on Dirty Will Media, on his pick for the Exfinity champ.
The seven car last year was very, very dominant. You gotta think he's going to be pretty tough again, but you also got the eighty eight. I think it's still going to be a close one. Justin's experience at Phoenix will counter whatever success the eighty eight has had throughout the season, and so I think that's going to be a one A, one B type of race, and then Jesse will be right there near them, and then Carson is going to need to find some speed. Who's your pick?
Then I'll give the nod to Justin. His car is going to be just as prepared as the eighty eight. He's not going to get beat on equipment.
Remember last year, all the mistakes he had and to still come back and Yeah, they're lightning fast. Justin's my pick.
Sam Meyer has been suspended by NASCAR from Saturday's Exfinity Series race in Phoenix after wrecking Jeb Burton on the cool down lap last weekend at Martinsville. Alig Racing will pause its Exfinity Series program for the twenty twenty six season. Since debuting in the series full time in twenty sixteen, Colleague has won twenty seven races and ten seasons, including a pair of regular season championships from aj Allmendinger in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two.
This is the racing report on America's drugging network on seven hundred WLW.
Sake Dennis for reporting for a t N.
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Insure commercial vehicles from pickup trucks.
Vance Trek was basically from the New York Times. Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the second time this year on Wednesday, despite officials having only a partial view of how the economy is faring because of the shutdown. The Central Bank voted the lower barring caused by a quarter percentage point down to three point seven three point to four percent. Wednesday's decision, which brought interest rates below four percent for the first time since late twenty twenty two,
was a divisive one. Two officials descended for different reasons.
Stephen I.
Marin the newest member of the FED. He's also part of the Trump administration. He was appointed a FED. He wanted to see a half a percentage point decrease, which basically is agreeing with Kevin Gordon from americastruck a network. I think the interest rate should have been down at least a half a percentage point. Let me see was calling for a half percent interest rate reduction like he did in September.
Jeffrey R.
Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, one of the Federal Reserve, instead to hold interest rate steady at the previous level of four percent to four point twenty five percent. Is this guy smoking crack or something? Doesn't he Every time we talk about every time we hear about stuff.
I mean, we've had stories. Over the last couple of weeks.
We had what was the number eighty one The number of people refinancing their homes went up eighty one percent in the month of September because of the interest rates on home loans coming down. We just had the story the other day talking about that the number of houses that were sold went up one point five percent, that they're on track to sell over four million homes existing homes, and what's going on there because of interest rates coming down a half a percentage point. This is the thing
that spurs the economy. Anybody talking about adding a piece of equipment, Anybody talking about adding a new truck, fleets expanding their number of trucks that they are interested in. Somebody wanting to buy a piece of equipment, somebody wanting to jump into the new home market. It is all based on interest rates and what your cost of doing that would be. Now, again, I will stress that you need to sit down between now and the end of the year with your accountant, your tax attorney, or whoever
you get your tax advice. And if you don't, if you're not getting tax advice from somebody, pay the couple one hundred dollars or so to get the proper advice.
Because there is.
That Section one seventy nine deduction that is available for new equipment. You can deduct in a single year up to one million, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in purchases off of your income, lower your your prop Basically on paper, it's a paper number, it's not cash, but it shows a negative a loss for the year. You would actually not be paying taxes on that. So look at you know it's a it's a straight deduction off
your tax return. And if you're getting this one point two five million dollars, now you know if you're buy a piece of equipment for two hundred and forty five thousand or one hundred and eight whatever that equipment is, that is fully deductible in the first year. Now you have to weigh that off. And again you need to sit down with attorney or somebody that prepares taxes and somebody knows what the hell they're talking about for your
individual situation. I can't tell you what to do for your individual situation other than go talk to somebody about what you have, how you do things. So you need to weigh the possibility of purchasing a new truck or a new piece of equipment based on what your maintenance costs are up to this point, because if your truck is off the road, you're not earning any income, So
you got to factor that into it. Plus you also have to factor in what your maintenance costs are going to be, and then you have to balance that off what the interest rate on a new truck would be if you're borrowing that, But then what that would do to your year's income in terms of taking that as a deduction off your taxes and what you would be saying saying as far as taxes.
But again you need to sit down with your.
Tax accountant, with somebody that knows what they're doing as far as your individual situation and make that decision. So again, interest rates are an important factor out there, and that is what's holding a lot of people back from neither jumping into the housing market, jumping into buying a new truck, buying a new car, or anything along those lines, any of the major purchases. But again getting back to the
line Jerry Powell and his statement. In his policy statement, the Fed seemed to adopt a rosier view of the economic activity, but stressed that the labor market remained vulnerable. He has been downplaying the economy all year long, even though the information on a regular basis when they do retail sales, when they talk about a earlier in the year when they were talking about the number of jobs created, the number of jobs lost, or any of that sort of stuff.
Every how many times do.
We hear that retail sales beat expectations, new car sales beat expectations, and the economy has been turning along again because of the resilience of the American public and because of the American consumer. Some of these things are going on despite what the people in Washington and some of the pressure that they've put on us, and especially the overburden of interest rates that the Federal Reserve has created.
We are resilient people, and we have bounced back, and we are doing everything we can to spur this economy along. And it's remarkable that he says, well, the economy was expanding at a moderate pace and that the unemployment rate was still low. It's stressed that the downside risk to employment rose in recent months. Typically, the FED ques off the incoming official data to help justify its interest rate decision, while also citing alternate measures and surveys related to economic activity.
But the shutdown has effectedctively created a data blackout for the FED, at least from the government sources. Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Consumer Price Index report for September over a week late, back this past Friday, in order to meet the deadline for Social Security costs of living adjustments, but that is likely to be the last major data
release by the agency for a while. And again I have stressed even though during the government shutdown, the Goldman, Sachs, JP, Morgan and now all of a sudden city group and what is it nationwide have been able to gather the unemployment the initial jobless claims that have been filed at the individual state levels. They've been able to tap into that, find out what that is, and produce their own report, so they're not waiting on the government for those reports.
The Federal Reserve has I'm going to stress this again, the Federal Reserve has twenty three thousand employees. Twenty three thousand employees. My question is is we keep hearing that? Okay, when Trump was talking about wanting to replace lion Jerry Powell, and people were saying, well, if he does that, that will change the dynamic and it will make the Federal Reserve no longer an independent agency, which is a load of crap, because.
Every member of the Board.
Every member of the Federal Reserve has been appointed by a president, and so whether it's appointed by Biden, whether it was appointed by Trump in his first term or now in his second term, these people are people that are leaning more towards whoever is in office.
At that particular point in time.
And apparently a lot of these people that were appointed during the Biden administration seem to be not very with it in terms of the economic data. And so what we're seeing is that supposedly they're supposed to be independent, but if they're being appointed by the administration that's in office, it's by.
Nature going to be political.
You're not going to put somebody in there that is going to wreck or to put a throw a monkey wrench into the cogs of the wheel that you're.
Trying to do to build the economy.
So of course they're going to be leaning one way or the other, and to pretend that they're not is insane. But the fact is they got twenty three thousand employees.
These employees could be.
Looking at some of this economic data and coming up with these numbers, and if in fact they are independent, wouldn't they be more likely to have the proper data than bureaucrats in Washington who are far removed.
Because let's remember, you.
Got the Federal Reserve that has twelve different agencies or twelve different locations throughout the country, and you have Washington that is one location, and they being out in the market, in Atlanta, in Denver, in Cincinnati, and a bunch of other cities Chicago, they are closer to the people. They
are closer. They got members there that are aware of what's going on in those particular territories and would be able to better report what's going on in those regions to come up with a good idea in terms of what's going on as far as the economy. That's just my opinion, and you know I have an opinion, and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck In Network seven hundred WLW.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
Friendly Words in Bussan Trump and She talk trade and fantastic relations with your twelve thirty report. I'm Travis Laird breaking now. The two presidents met in South Korea to talk tariff's security and what both called a crucial partnership.
We will be having some discussions. I think we've already agreed to a lot of things. We'll agree to some more right now.
But President she is a great leader of a great country. I think we're gonna have a fantastic relationship for a long period of time.
The White House says the meeting was warm, but the real test comes when trade talks resume.
Now the ladies forecast from a train heating and Cooling weather center on news radio seven hundred WLW.
As we head for our Thursday morning, we'll continue to see rain heavy at times right into the morning rush. I have a seven am temperature of forty five. Now for the rest of our Thursday, a few showers tapering off though, and gusty wins a high of fifty one at night, gradual clearing a low down to thirty nine. Looks good for trick or treat. From your severe weather station, I'm nine first Warning Chief Meteorologist Steve Rawley, News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Right now, forty seven degrees in Cincinnati and rain in just about every direction. Meals on Wheels is expanding its reach in the tri State, breaking ground on a new headquarters in Columbia Township that will triple services for local seniors. The thirty million dollar facility will combine two existing locations and expand capacity from ten thousand to thirty thousand older adults each year. Leaders say it will feature a bigger, safer kitchen and a covered area for drivers to load meals,
boosting output to three million annually. The nonprofit has already raised more than twenty four million dollars for the project. And now, Lee Mawen, let's talk about sports. Buddy seven one hundred WLW sports.
Bengals quarterback Joe Flacco dealing with an ac joint sprain in his throwing shoulder and is fifty to fifty to play Sunday along with Flacko, Trey Hendrickson, Logan Wilson, Marco Wilson, and Dalton Reisner did not practice Wednesday. Bengals host the Bears Sunday afternoon one the number seventeen you see, Bearcats will be without running back Evan Pryor for the aim at number twenty four.
Utah.
Kick off is at ten fifteen Saturday night. Red's have outright and relief pitcher Ian Jabou at Triple A Louisville. He had a four point six two era and twenty five appearances last season.
Thank you as always, Lee Mallen. You'll hear from Lee again at one o'clock. Breaking news anytime. I'm Travis Laird. News Radio seven hundred wl W.
As a party and you backing the free iHeartRadio app live radio playlists for everything in the most podcasts.
Here's your trucking forecast for the Try State and the rest of the country. In the Try State, overnight rain the low down to forty six rain continues Thursday, which will come to an end during the early afternoon hours. A high fifty one Friday, mostly sunny as we dry out, A high fifty six, partly sunny Saturday. Highs again top out in the upper fifties. Nationally, rain is moving from the mid Atlantic and Ohio Valley into the northeast. In the northwest, late rain will move in Friday seven.
Under w l W. I'm Kevin Gordon. This is America Struck a network.
I'm going through this policy statement from Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve Chairman, has acknowledged that this is a risky strategy that could result in the central Bank either inadvertently fueling inflation or causing undue harm to the labor market. And better back
up and talk about the previous paragraph. Federal Reserve decision to lower interest rates again on Wednesday reflects the central banks belief that it can afford to focus on the risk confronting the labor market and take steps to shore it up, even though inflation is moving away from the two percent target. That's where it, said Jerome Powell, saying this is risky. Before the shutdown, monthly jobs growth had
slowed sharply and the unemployment rate had edged up. Some companies like Amazon have announced big layoffs, and the concern that more will follow the government shutdown and self represents a new risk to the economy so far consumed, Now get this. So far consumers have continued to spend helping to alleviate the concerns that the economy is on the verge of a significant downturn. That resilience has persisted even
as the President's tariffs have written. Now again, mind you, this is an article that's written by the New York Times, So there's going to be a little a bubble or two left of center in terms of their reporting that resilience has persisted even though the President's tariffs has raised prices for a range of goods, even though that's not reflected in the consumer price index, but you know, they have to throw that in there because that's what they've
been told to write. The overall impact has so far been more muted than expected, however, bolstering a widely held view within the FED that inflationary pressures tied to those levees will fade over time. What has concerned some policymakers, however, is that the services inflation, which tracks prices for things
like aircuts, car insurance, has stayed sticky. If that persists, it will take longer for the FED to wrestle inflation back down services section, who has been talking about inflation in the services sector for the last two months, digging into the inflation numbers the way I have, I have looked at that and said, okay, we've seen the bulk of this inflation for the consumer price index in the services area. It first popped up a couple of months ago because we had a resurgence in the stock market.
Remember after Liberation Day on April to second, the stock market took a dramatic downturn. The Pannikins as they were calling them at the time, were getting out of the stock market, and the smart people were saying, this is the time to buy, this is the time to get back into the market. Just since the first of the year of the stock market the other day I heard
is up just since the beginning of the year. This is the beginning, not taking into consideration the downturn in April, so anybody that would have jumped in back then would have done even better. But just since the first of the year, the stock market is up thirty six percent. Let that sink in for a moment. Thirty six percent. And the fact that when you look at the every time,
like day after day, they are hitting record highs. And we're not talking about record highs for the week, month, year, We're talking about overall for the history of the stock market, they are hitting record highs. And so that and anybody that's got a four h one K, anybody that's got some sort of an IRA or anything invested in the stock market through mutual funds or whatever, you're benefiting by this.
Your pensions are tied to that if you are part of a pension, And so the fact that that's doing well means that things going well as far as your portfolio is concerned. But what was going on at the time two months ago is that service inflation was way up about five percent for that particular and what happened was they looked well. According to the data digging into it, is that the rise happened to be from the fees charged by stockbrokers and in the investment community. And that's
not a matter of them raising their prices. It's a matter of the volume going in. Their prices are the same. They've just got more people coming in and wanting to get part of the jumping into the stock market and being able to benefit from the increases in the stock market. So they've got a larger volume of people coming in,
so there's more fees. So if you look at the fees one month versus the other, and you got a ton of people jumping in with the same fee, but you're doubling and tripling the number of people that are being charged that fee, that number shoots up tremendously. And when you compare that for one month or the other, that's where you were getting that discrepancy. And in here
again I talked about this last month. I talked about this the last time we had the consumer Price Index, and now suddenly the Federal Reserve is talking about this, and the New York Times is recognizing that, which, by the way, I should remind you that if you listen to Federal, if you listen to the American Truck and Network, you're going to be so far ahead of the curve
they're not even going to see your tail lights. Because now finally they're talking about being concerned about prices increases in the service sector for haircuts.
Car insurance have stayed sticky.
Now the last time I checked, the barber up the street is not being affected by terraffs. The car insurance is not being affected by terraffs. I don't think you have to import car insurance from another country and pay a tariff on that that is based on what they're charging now that may be up as a result of when you see some of these car prices and the replacement parts on them going up, and the insurance company is raising premium because the repairs are so much higher.
And plus the fact that you've got all these COVID crazies out there that are causing more accidents out there and the number of accidents are increasing because somewhere along the line, people forgot how to drive and they're getting a little bit more crazy. But again, these things are
not being affected by terrafs. And if you're talking about the service sector, if you're talking about you know, a barber, or you're talking about anybody in the service sector, it's going to be very tough for those prices to come down. You can't just say, oh, all right, I am charging you know, twenty dollars for thirty dollars for whatever you're charging, and then all of a sudden say I'm going to be backing that off by five bucks because you know
I can afford to. You know, those are the type of things they're going to be difficult to bring down. Also wednesday, FED said it would stop shrinking in size of the the They have bought a bunch of treasuries, so they hold a lot of bonds in order to prop up the bond market and make sure that our
credit rating is high. But I thought it was very interesting that some of the things that they are finally recognizing in here the resilience of the American public, the fact that we haven't backed off as far as spending. The fact that service sector is now one of the stickiest areas as far as trying to control inflation, and maybe that's something that they're just going to have to back off from and say, you know, people are charging
more for their services. They're having to there, you know, they're having to pay their employees more in order to work, so that bumps up their costs and then that has to be passed along to their customers.
We've got to report the other day, and this was.
Being talked about a lot by a bunch of people, the consumer confidence and what is we have there?
Are we are hearing more and.
More in the economic numbers and what people are talking about. This up about a couple of weeks ago when they were talking about the amount of spending that's being done, and they talked about how it appears as though that the upper income people and when they talk about upper income people, the top one percent or two I think ten percent is what the number was anybody making you know, as a as a household making more than one hundred
and seventy five thousand dollars a year. Those are the people in those areas that are doing a lot of the spending, and the part the point of the article was that this may be an artificial boost to sales and what the spending is doing because the people on the lower end, the lower end of the economy are not spending on a lot of things. However, the lower ends of the economy are still having you know, even
though they're working paycheck to paycheck, struggling to make ends. Mean, they're still buying groceries, they're still buying clothing, They're still buying the various necessities. Where this comes into play is that with discretionary income for luxury items, for certain other things that are not necessarily necessities but are things that people may want to have, and that started being talked about a couple of days, a couple of weeks ago.
Now you're seeing a lot of people talk about the divergence between the upper income and the lower income, but what they're failing to talk about is some of the other things. And we'll be bringing that up coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network seven hundred WLW.
Rising downtown violence and political pressure have catalyzed the chaos regarding the Cincinnati Police chief. While the interim chief steadies the ship. Will community leaders turned who had tried and true veteran to become police chief permanently? Or will a fresh face rise from within the ranks to restore calm and credibility. As speculation is swirling, keep it here for the latest on seven hundred l Jowutu.
The thought of my sons growing up without me inspired me to quit smoking. I talked to my doctors and then I threw away all my cigarettes, ashtros and lighters.
I started exercising instead of smoking.
Staying away from alcohol when I was first quitting was key.
I kept on trying learn something each time, do whatever it takes, no matter how many times it takes.
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Twenty twenty five I.
Heart This is America Struck in Network seven hundred WLWM Kevin Gordon. If you missed any part of our previous segments ornam our shows hit up that iHeartRadio app and of course that's brought to you by our friends at
Rush Struck Centers. Now talking about the two stages of the economy, I mentioned before that people were talking about, well, you've got the upper income people, the one hundred and seventy five thousand or above household that are spending a lot of money, and the people below cutting back on their spending or looking for more bargains and so on.
But the other part of the economy that I believe that people are not paying attention to is what I've got a story on this coming up that the perception or what the spoon fed regurgitators in the means mainstream
media are talking about versus what's actually happening. Is the thing that is surprising talking about consumer confidence report that came out and the title here is consumer confidence slips to a six month low, worries over job availability rising, Americans grow and then another story, Americans grow more uneasy about job market and the economy, and they talk about what's going on there now digging into.
This, well, let's just dig into it.
Us consumer confidence eased to a six month low in October amid worries about the availability of jobs and near term offering more ammunition for the federal reserve rate cut. And of course this was a story that was written two days ago. Conference Board survey on Tuesday also confirmed that economists described as a case shaped economy, with confidence declining among consumers making an annual income of less than seventy five thousand, but consumers earning more than two hundred
thousand a year are more upbeat. Economists argue that high income households are keeping the economy afloat through robust consumer spending, which is not necessarily true because the lower ends still have to buy food, clothing, and so on. Lower income households are struggling to make ends meet aid a higher prices, including from President Donald Trump's broad tariffs on import Even though they can't find inflation as a result of the tariffs,
they still have to throw that in there. This is a guy that I keep seeing and he just infuriates me every time I see quotes by him. Christopher Rupke, chief economists at Forward Bonds. Consumers are weary, and for good reason. The stock market records are not helping them get jobs or put food on the table, and with store bought goods inflation still rising, many Americans are being
left behind. In Trump two point zero, well, you know, if people are investing in the stock market, which are companies and the companies are doing well and they're going to have to sell to somebody. So as they increase and they start selling things, they are producing more jobs. And more jobs mean more people have stuff to spend. So you can't downplay the fact that the stock market is going up and say that that's not going to
affect the economy. And when you take into consideration the high percentage of people either through four on case or through their own private investment, that are invested in the stock market in some way or fashion somewhere along the line, and so for them to look at this and to come to these conclusions, conference boards said it's consumer confidence fell to ninety four point six this month, the lowest reading since April. Now that would have been true had
they not paid attention to the previous month. And what is interesting is that they are talking about that that number was revised from to ninety five point six in the previous month, which is interesting because the initial reading came out at ninety four point two percent.
So if they.
Look at that and say, well, all right, we're down the lowest it's been at ninety four from something around ninety seven the previous month, and then all of a sudden they get more details in. As I've been stressing, with these surveys that are out there, there is not a date certain where they have to turn this information in, and because it's delayed, they whoever is getting the survey numbers together and bringing that up, that there's a delay
in that. That's why there's an adjustment the following month. So even though you're getting this consumer confidence number, now, this may not be the right consumer confidence because again it was at ninety four point two percent, was revised up a full percentage point, and then the initial reading this time was below that revised number. So we're not getting accurate detail. But what they're doing is jumping the conclusions in terms of where this consumer confidence number is
based on, in my opinion, faulty information. And when you're doing surveys of people. Again, when you're looking at these things, whether it's that Michigan Consumer Sentiment report that comes out or this consumer confidence report that comes out by the Conference Board US Government, you you don't know what the
cross section of people that they're what they're surveying. We don't know the percentage of independence, we don't know the percentage of Republicans, We don't know the percentage of Democrats, So depending upon what pool of people they are relying on, that gives an indication in terms of where they're getting their numbers. And I tripped upon this. It was, you know, I do a lot of reading, I do a lot of research. I look at a different bunch of different things.
But I came across upon this thing, and it was, if this doesn't explain the as I said, we've got two economies. We got the economy that not only they're talking about the economy that affects the rich and the poor.
We've always had that. There's always been a different economy. You know.
Obviously people that have more money, they're got more things to spend in terms of vacation and the luxury items that they can buy versus the people that are in middle, middle class or lower class. So anyway, you've always had that going on in the economy. But we've got now is a perception between what the government and some of these officials are telling us and what the actual people
are experiencing. And the case in point, I don't know if you've seen this guy from I don't know if you've seen him, but he's one of these statisticians from CNN, and he's really over exuber I mean, he's just he's a character.
I got to tell you. He's kind of entertaining.
He's really you know, he's arms are flailing and he's you know, he's talking about when something goes down. He's standing there and he crouches down and goes these numbers are way down, and then his voice goes up and all the sorts of guys by the name of Harry Enton. And what was interesting is that he was talking. And what's interesting, Well, back up a little bit. What's been interesting is some of the polling numbers that he's come up with, where you know, CNN MSNBC have been downplaying
the economy or downplaying President Trump and the opinion. When he does his polling and he shows that all those numbers are up where CNN is trying to pull it down. The sour faces on the host of these shows you can see them, and they get them off camera real quick because you can see their faces, like, you know, where are you coming up with these? I can't believe
these numbers? But this was interesting. He was there the other day and he was showing about the top problem facing the US as far as economic is concerned, economic concerns. October of twenty twenty four, the top concern among people economic the economy was the concern of forty three percent of the American people. As of October twenty twenty five, the top concern among people it was twenty four percent. So the worries about the economy has come down twenty percent.
Despite what they've tried to do as far.
As talking the economy down, also talking about the average around the mid terms, because we've got the midterms coming up next year, the top one of the top of the concern of people, the average concern on the midterm elections as far as the economy is concerned, history throughout the history of the midterms has been around thirty five percent concern over the economy. This time twenty four percent,
a full eleven percentage points below. So people, we're being told by the experts that people are concerned about the economy, but when they're polled here and he takes a cross average across section, a good cross section Democrats, Republicans, and independence because he talks about how each are being affected in these So the average midterms economy being a concern of thirty five percent of the people, is only twenty four percent of the people now then talking about the
government shutdown, how much this is going to harm the economy. Back in twenty thirteen, when the economy was or the government was shut down, the worries about an effect on the economy was sixty five percent as far as the people were concerned. Today it is forty eight percent. So less than half of the people are concerned about how the government shut down is going to affect the economy. And this you talk about, and he mentioned in here
what a contrarian report this is. And quite honestly, with the information that we keep hearing from the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media, this is telling that the stuff that they're telling us is not what the people are feeling out there. Well, folks, we're up against clock. Stay tuned forver REDAI Radio Top of the Hour. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred wl HO.
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