This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Welcomeable, thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday morning. Coming up in the second segment, we're going to be speaking with Phil Flynn, senior account executive the Price Futures Group, author of the Energy Report and contribute to Fox Businesses and a good friend of the show and a good friend of mine here on America's struck A Network, So
looking forward to talking to him coming up. But first, last week we had the US weekly jobless claims and again because of the government shut down, this is coming from groups and other companies other than the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits eased slightly last week. Haver Analytics estimated on Thursday,
pointing to stable labor market conditions. Stable labor market conditions despite all the crap that we're hearing in the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media, lion Jerry Powell and the Fed talking about weakness and the job market and so on. The stable job market is the key here that could provide the Federal reserve cover to keep interest rates unchanged next month. If they care about the economy,
which of course they don't. You would think that lion Jerry Powell, based on some of the information we're going to have coming up in other stories, would be interested in lowing the interest rates to spark the economy, to keep the economy going. But I believe that Jerry Powell has a political motive. It is not independent as everybody claims that it is. I think he's got a grudge against Trump. Maybe he is in over his head, maybe
he's not as bright as everybody thought he was. But he certainly is not the right person for this particular job. Longest government shut down in his street ended on Wednesday night, and the Labor Department is likely to resume publication of the job as Claims Report next Thursday, which is coming up.
The forty three days shut down halted collection, processing, and publishing of official economic data, yet States kept collecting the claims data, which here analytics and Wall Street economists have extrapolated. Now over the last several weeks, we've had JP Morgan Chase, We've had City Group, we've had Nationwide, and we've had Goldman Sachs reporting on these, and Analytics has.
Come along and also done the same.
So we've got these reports, these unemployment numbers are being loaded into the federal system which is available to everybody or to these companies, and so they have been going into that database extrapolating the data, any of the data that's missing, like in this particular case, claims data were unavailed for Massachusetts and the assumptions were made similar to the Labor Department's practices.
So they've been doing.
This as opposed to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and I would wonder why, and maybe this is an opportunity that if this data is being uploaded into a system that is overseen by the federal government, we don't need to have those bureaucrats crunch those numbers and come up
with the report. These companies like Hare Analytics, JP, Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs can do the same, and it would be interesting to see their comparisons and to see what they come up with based on the data and the information available to make sure that Okay, when you've got competition, when you've got information coming out, if there's competition for that, it sharpens everybody's tools and they want to be the
accurate one. They want to be the one that everybody relies on, and so it might add a little bit of competition and be a little bit better too, for these other companies to handle rather than The Bureau of Labor Statistics initial claims for state unemployment benefits to dip to a seasonally adjusted two hundred and twenty seven thousand for the weekending November the eighth, down from two hundred and twenty eight thousand almost two hundred and twenty nine
thousand the previous week. So again, we're talking about a stable labor market. We're talking about a market that has been fluctuating or has it been working within. The unemployment rate has been running anywhere between the two hundred and ten thousand and two hundred and fifty thousand range that has been over the last several months and up to a couple of years even, and so as long as that number was in with that is within that range, that should indicate that, yes, there is a strong labor
market out there. There's been a lot of talk about the fact that we are in a no hire, no fire situation, and that is pretty much held true. Even though we've seen some of these announcements that have come out of potential layoffs.
What is it?
Challenger Gray and Christmas a couple of weeks ago put out a report that said, oh, there were going to be these massive layoffs. Well, those may be in the offings, but they're not current, and they may be into the future and layered in a little bit here, a little bit there, and a little bit over time, so that unemployment rate won't be affected by that and the market will stay stable.
The initial job is.
Claims, let me see a beal Reinhardt is an economists with JP Morgan, and initial claims remain pretty similar to recent years around this time and don't give the sense of any alarming rise in layoffs, especially when you consider that they may have been lifted slightly by the government shutdown, which was starting to become more disruptive this month. Labor market remains in a holding pattern. Some privates that will get this. Some private sector reports have implied the labor
market was deteriorating. One must have cautioned that these reports had had a poor track record of accuracy and suggested instead focusing on weekly jobless claims. While the government is expected to publish September's delayed unemployment report next week, and this story was from last week, so that will be reported next week. It could be months before the clear view of the labor market emerges. Why why should it take it could be months before the clear view of
the labor market emerges. We've got the data from the first moment. We've got from January. If you're talking about the current calendar year, you've got January all the way up now through November. And when the Jobless Reports initial jobless claims comes out at the end of this week on Thursday, we'll have that. So where is this disruption? Where is this We won't know what the labor market is.
We know what the labor market has been for the last eleven plus months, and we know what it was the year before, and we pretty much know what it's going to be like in the future given on what we're seeing as far as the economic trends. Now, if we could just get line Jerry Powell and the Fed to cut interest rates where they should be, we'd be in good shape and people could go out and invest, and people could build, expand their businesses and so on.
Let's see here.
Stephen Stanley, Chief US Economists that as Santandar Santandert Santander US capital markets. Not much has changed over the past six weeks. While this is not great news in the labor market was tap it at best bet the shutdown, it should help to allay the worst fears of policymakers and financial market participants alike, citing inflation worries and indication of relative labor market stability. More FED policy makers have signaled patients on further easing bs lower interest rates stimulate
the economy. They mentioned that every time I pick up a report, or every time I look at the oil prices for the day and look at what they're fluctuating, and so on, every almost every day, there's something in there that talks about, well, you know, looking at anticipation what the Federal Reserve may do next month or next week or whenever.
The Federal Reserve is supposed to be.
There's a line in there that says lower interest rates lead leads to more consumption and boost to the economy. Aren't we interested in boosting the economy. Yes, we're concerned about inflation. But as I've been pointing out on this program for the last several weeks, when you look at the again going back to where the cost of living allowance that has been added to the Social Security checks over the last several years, decades even, and that number
this year is a two point eight percent. And you look at that increase over the last several years, it's been around two point six two point seven, which tells you that the inflation rate, because it's tied to the inflation rate in the third quarter, that inflation has been around two point eight two point nine over the last several years. And the fact that our inflation rate right now is somewhere in the two point seven two point six range, because depending on what report you look at,
we are heading in the right direction. I think it is is stupid on the federal reserves part to be targeting two percent when the historic average has been above two point five percent on a yearly basis. I mean, what are they expecting from the Trump administration miracles? Well, we've gotten several miracles from them, you know, eight wars stopped and so on. Coming up, We've got Phil Flynn
coming up, so looking forward to speaking with him. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
This is the Racing Report on America's Trucking Network on seven hundred WLW.
Long considered drag racing's goat the greatest of all time, John Forest announced this reti Wireman after a record setting career.
It's time for me to retire.
And it all made sense to me, even though I knew I had medical stuff that I had to address that do I want to get back in the car and get it in the head and I don't. I've got new grand children coming with Courtney. She just had a little girl, and she's got two girls already, Harlan and Tinley, and.
We have Autumn. Of course, we have Jacob and Noah.
So I got a next generation that'll follow me just like my girls.
Force has said NHRA records for season championships with sixteen an event wins with one hundred and fifty seven that will never likely be broken. He launched his career in the early nineteen seventies and hand me down cars, his first NHRI victory coming in Quebec, Canada in nineteen eighty seven. Force won nine of ten World Championships in the nineteen nineties and won a record thirteen of nineteen races, appearing in a record sixteen final rounds in nineteen ninety eight.
Here's one of his daughter's Britney Force.
His energy comes from where his heart's at, and it's in this sport. It's being out here at the racetrack.
He loves it so much and you just see it.
Four through and fellow NHR fundy car driver Ron Caps.
He took everything that Snak and Mongoose and Big Daddy Dongars and Shirley Muldowney had built back in the day, the models we played with in the hot wheels, and he carried the sport and people. I just had a conversation a minute ago with somebody talking about Force and they felt like they were hanging out.
With him when they watched.
They sat back with a beer on TV watched John Force, and his interviews made them feel like they could just go hang out with him.
This is the Raething report on America's Drugging Network on seven hundred WLW.
Say Denas are reporting for a T N.
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Why would a guy in financial services pick a fight with the financial industry because in many cases.
I'm Kevin Gordon, americastruck at Network seven hundred WLW. Joining me is Phil Flynn, Senior account executive of the Price Futures Group, author of the Energy Report, contribute to Fox Business Network last Saturday in Fox Weather Channel as well, and my good friend and friend of ATN. Thanks for joining us this morning, Phil, I certainly appreciate it.
It's great to be here. Thanks for giving me off the road to you know, sit there and focus here. Thank you. What's for having me?
Yeah, that's my pleasure. We've been seeing some crazy energy prices. We've been seeing the oil fluctuations. I think if you look at since January twentieth, Oil West Texas are the two main components. West Texas intermedia crewed down twenty five percent, Brent crude down about twenty percent depending upon the day. We're not seeing that kind of reflected in the gas prices, and there's been some I guess geopolitical problems with that
refinery issues. So kind of for the people that follow this, where why isn't the gas prices coming down the way we'd like them to be?
You know, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, we should see lower gasoline prices. But even though we seem to have plenty of supply a crewed or at least what they keep telling us, when you look at the global situation for other fuels like diesel fuel and gasoline, supplies are not that ample. And we've been seeing warning signs in the market, and we look at refining margins and they're signaling to the market, Hey, don't get complacent about oil prices. We've got a problem Houston, and that
Houston problem is with low supplies of diesel fuel. No diesel fuel in like chat fuel and diesel fuel and all of those type of fuels are in tight supplies, and that's keeping the market rather elevated as refiners have to focus on that, and that's keeping those gasoline prices high as well.
And you've been focusing on your energy report.
Kind of this push pull between the International Energy Agency and OPAK, there's been kind of this push pull. We're getting kind of different comments in terms of what we're going to have in terms of whether we're going to have an.
Oil glut and oil shortage. It's kind of weird, it really is.
They're going after each other. It's kind it's kind of funny to watch, right, I mean, you know, it's kind of like one of these words. You know, you hate card tells, but you're kind of rooting for Opeck on this one because they seem to be talking common sense where they're saying, hey, you know, when we look at the supply and demand situation, we believe there's going to be a continuing need for fossil fuels in the future.
And this talk of a glot that the International Energy Agency is trying to sell us not as dangerous, right, They're worried that they the International Energy Agency, or we like to call it the International Climate Unism Agency. You know, it's more interesting, you know, pushing a green energy agenda as they are to you know, focusing on energy security, which by the way, is their mission, right, energy security
for consuming nations in Europe and around the world. But they've lost that mission, you know, they seem that they see their mission now is to push green energy. They're telling us, you know, a few years ago, oh, we're going to stop needing oil, stop investing in fossil fuels, We're going to meet our climate targets. Stop. Today they backed off of that, right, they have to keep pushing
them back. Oh yeah, we were wrong about the world not you know, oil demand stopping going to higher, It's going to continue to go higher, further and further out. And the ope's like, yeah, no kidding, you know, that's common sense. Look at the demand for you know, fuels around the globe that goes up every year, you know, the increasing demand from artificial intelligence. So yeah, so there is basically a showdown. In fact, the discrepancy right now
is the largest probably in history. I mean, the difference between what they see on demand is about one point eight million barrels a day. You know, that's that's like the entire oil production of France, right you know, it's it's pretty pretty big discrepancy and it's having an impact on prices, and which.
Is funny Phil Flynn, my guest, the fact that the International Energy Agency, who we would think in terms of energy would be focused on energy, went off on this green new deal, green new steel tangent and said, you know, we're going to focus on that, and now all of a sudden they kind of come back one to eighty and said, okay, well, you know, telling everybody to stop investment in fossil fuels and which I hate its natural resource, so telling them not to invest in that, Now all
of a sudden people took them out their words, stopped investing, and this is going to lead us a little bit, going to lead us a.
Lot short in terms of production.
And now they're going out and saying that they're the ones that are now talking about an oil glut, whereas OPEK is being more reasonable and saying, nah, not so much. So it's kind of like they can't figure out which way they're going.
No, they can't, and you know, it makes you wonder why they'd be predicting this glut. The glut, by the way that they're talking about is even bigger than when we shut down the entire autonomy right during COVID, which doesn't seem to make sense on any level at all. Right in OPEK is like no, And even though OPEK, you know, they were actually predicting last month of supply deficit in the globe and they OPEC did back off of that a little bit there. Now they're gone from
a slow deficit to a slight surplus. But that surplus is so small that you know, if if Kevin spoil a little gas at the gas tank, you know you're going to offset that bamplet, right, So that's how great height it is, you know, and you know I wouldn't you know, normally this wouldn't be that big a deal, but people, industry investors make decisions based off these reports.
Right in the markets moved based on these reports. And what concerns me is that these false reports put in overconfidence in the market that everything's going to be okay. You know, even though we're seeing the crackspread screaming, hey boy, we got tight supplies here. Oh gasoline, We've got tight supplies here. You know, while they're screaming that right at the end of the day, what we're seeing here from
the actual uh marketplace. You know, oil prices have been very, very complacent, So that complacency can bite us because let's say we get a real cold winter and we've got short diesel supplies, prices could spike up. We won't have the extra oil supplies because prices are artificially low, and that's one of the I think it's a real danger going into this winter.
Exactly.
My guess is Phil Flynn's senior account executive the Price Futures Group. I mean, it's not like we're talking small potatoes here, Phil is you know, energy crosses every business. I don't care whether you're an accountant, an attorney, whether you're in a manufacturing facility, or whether you're in any kind kind of business whatsoever. Energy is extremely important. You know, every time you flip on the lights, you're dealing with energy. So energy is a large.
Component component of the of the home.
Budget, the factory budget, the business budget, all across the way. And so if we're having problems in the energy sector, that's going to affect business. It's going to affect the bottom line, and it's going to affect your kitchen table budget.
So it is, and I'll tell you this. That's one of the things I hear from people all the time, you know, when they see me in Fox Business or Fox Weather, and they see me in the street and the work. They're always come up through what's can happen with gasoline prices because it matters so much because their life revolves around that, right, you know how much money they're going to have, and some of up that, you know,
suv driving the kids to school every day. Once that gets very expensive, that takes a big bite out of everybody's budget, exactly.
And it's something that has not gotten a lot of attention. And we've had well in this country. We've gotten away from focusing on oil refining and gasoline refining to the point where as we've said in the past that there hasn't been a new refinery built in this country since nineteen forty seven, and we're dealing with basically a limited
amount of refining capability. But they are working at about what is it about ninety five percent capacity, which most businesses, I don't know how many many people can many businesses can operate at ninety five percent capacity for a long period of time.
No, they haven't, you know, And they've been refining maintenance. I mean, if you look at refining capacity, they've been running at those high rates for a long period of time, and that means there's not a lot of room for marchants of error. And then of course you look around the globe. The refining capacity in Russia has been taking a big hit, right because Ukraine has been hitting their
oil infrastructure. And while that kind of pushed prices of oil down a little bit because Russia is trying to dump their oil, it hurt the global inventory of heavy oil when distill its that Russia likes to make. So you have this perfect storm of these predictions from the international energy agencies, but the realistic tightness of supply on the ground. Something's got to give, right. You can't have it both ways. You can have you know, rocketing diesel
prices and falling crude prices forever. Right, something's going to get but either the economy is going to collapse or oil prices are going to have to go up. And you know, unless they figured out a way to make diesel supply out of water, which I don't think they figured that out quite Yeah, I figured that out. You could work on that this weekend.
Yeah, I'll do that.
Maybe we could figure out a way, and.
Yeah, I'll figure that out.
We need to take a short break, and when we come back, let's talk about what's going on as far as the economy and tariffs and that sort of thing, and what you kind of are seeing as far as your end, and because you've been doing a very good job of talking about the tariffs and impact on the economy and whether or not there's inflation and so on. So my guest is Phil Flynn, Senior account executive of the Price Futures Group. I'm Kevin Gordon. America's struck a Network seven hundred w LW.
News, Traffic and weather. News Radio seven hundred w l W, Cincinnati.
Texas is new house man struck down for using race in redistrict ding with your twelve thirty report, I'm Travis Laird breaking now a three judge panel. A federal judge panel has ruled Texas's new congressional map is illegal, saying the redistricting was built around race rather than partisan advantage. The decision blocks the map from use in next year's midterms. Here's ABC News legal contributor James Sample.
The redistricting was designed around racial purposes, and in fact relied heavily on a letter from the Department of Justice that was all about race and did not mention partisanship one time.
The state's top Republicans say they will appeal to the Supreme Court.
Now the ladies forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather Center on news radio seven hundred WLW.
Heading for daybreak on Wednesday, we have got a chance for more rain, but it looks like we'll see more patche fog, little drizzle in the morning. We'll see a low of forty two. Now for the rest of our Wednesday day, it's cloudy and a high of fifty three. Maybe a few punches of sunshine. Otherwise, more clouds at
night and a low down to forty five. From your severe weather station, I'm nine First Warning, Chief Meteorologist, Steve Rawley, News Radio seven hundred WLW, right now forty four degrees in Cincinnati. The push to end Butler County's ice detention contract continued today as dozens filled the Board of County Commissioners meeting. The agreement allows the jail to hold federal immigration detainees, and activists argue it harms community safety and trust.
Members of the Butler County Immigrant Justice say they've been speaking out for months. Commissioners say they do not control the sheriff's policies, and one said he has no intention of seeking changes to the contract now. Lee Mawen launched the Sports Noise seven one hundred WLW.
Sports Trey Hendrickson, samaj p Ryans, Tamar Stewart did not practice for a second straight day for the Bengals. Burton and Lucaspatrick also not practicing. Joe Flacco and Bj Hill were limited Bengals at the Steelers Sunday afternoon. One Red's higher bullpen coach Oscar Marine Matt Tracy becomes the new assistant pitching coach Simon Matthews leave Cincinnati to become the new pitching coach of the Nationals and Cyclones announcing Ford, Ben King and goalie Ken Appleby are now with the
AHLs Toronto. Marley's Cyclones host The Walleye Friday night at seven thirty five.
Your next update is at one o'clock. Breaking news anytime. I'm Travis Laird. News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Switched to America's number one commercial truck and Sure visit progressivecommercial dot com.
A decade ago, I was on the trail of one of the country's most elusive serial killers, but it wasn't until twenty.
Here's your trucking forecast for the tri State and the rest of the country and the Try State. Overnight rain has moved out, as we'll see Patchee fond be low down to forty one, mostly claudi Wednesday high of fifty four Claudie Thursday with a slight chance of rain in the afternoon to hi fifty eight, cloudy with rain likely Friday, the high in year sixty Nationally. Scattered storms and heavy rain we'll linger Wednesday across lower Colorado, but won't be
as widespread through Friday. There was a risk of showers and storms that could bring instances of flash flooding in the southern plains Monerit. Heavy snowfall seen in parts of the southern Utah Mountains in Sierra Nevada Mountains. Meanwhile, well above average temperature scene in the south in the plains Tuesday through the southeast Thursday with a few record high as possible.
Seven hundred WLW. I'm Kevin Gordon. This as America struck in network again. Continuing our conversation with Phil Flynn, senior account executive of the Price Futures Group.
Phil, thanks for hanging with us. I certainly appreciate it.
Oh, it's great to be here. Take you.
We have been getting a lot of mixed signals as far as how the economy is going. At the beginning of the year, there was a lot of anticipation, a lot of optimism, and then all of a sudden, with the talk of terrafs, all of a sudden we had that on Liberation Day, the market fell, some of the so called x er it's the uh the economists, as we say, we're talking about the R word having a recession. Now we need to remind people and economists, as an expert who will tell you tomorrow, why the while, why
the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today. So again the mixed signals from them, and everybody was saying, or they were saying at the time, that we were going to have a spike in inflation as a result of tariffs. You were one of the few people and I here on America's struck a network and there's a few other people, I think Kevin O'Leary and a few other people on the Fox Business channel said, Uh, tariffs don't lead to inflation. It's the overspending of the federal government.
I have that right, And that's absolutely correct. You got it, absolutely correct. And and and you know, to be honest with you, I think the economy is doing great. Uh, it's doing so good. I think that's why the Democrats had to shut it down. Right. I think so market wasn't fit in the fit in their narrative, right. I mean, you know, they came out and said, oh my gosh,
tariffs are going to cause record inflation. You know, these are the same people that defended president of President Biden's overspending and fought it to the tilt that caused the inflation. And it shows you and even the Federal Reserve, which you would think would know better based off history, came out and said, you know, well, we're not sure about this. It could contemplation. But yet it's like, all right, guys,
you have a history book. You know, if you look at tariffs in the past, has it ever cost inflation? The answer is no. And they said, well it could be different this time, right, It's not different. Listen, I'm not telling you Kevin that there aren't some businesses that aren't going to feel the impact from tariffs. There are, There are a lot out there. But on the flip side of that, there's a lot of businesses that have been hurt by overseas tariffs that are going to get
some relief, right. And we've seen the dumping of solar panels and other products into this country to try to you know, drive us out of business and put unfair trade practices. If we can level that playing field, I think it's going to be in net win. And one of the things that we're seeing is something you and I predicted, uh, what we're seeing the trade deffic is to go down dramatically. Right. The trade deficit causes inflation because we have to spend more money to support the
you know, imbalance and trade. You know. And if we can start bringing back some manufacturing jobs to this country is opposed to shipping them off to somewhere, that's going to bring in more tax revenue. That means the government is going to have to print less money. And if they're brunting less money, how lujah, it's a miracle inflation starts to come down. So I think inflation is going
to come down. Now, we do have some cyclical problems in the market, you know, in the meat markets for example, you know, because of COVID, you know, uh, Turkey prices, because of the bird flow. There's a lot of things that you know, have caused you know, some markets to come up that has nothing to do with you know, normal inflationary pressures, right, and they're not going to go away. But I think you know, over time, those things are going to level off and you're going to see real
inflation start to come down. And you know, one of the funniest things I saw is some courts its outrage that we're putting tariffs on Italian pasta. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, how horrible is that We're going to have to eat American made pasta? Oh yeah, I mean it's pasta, for heaven's sakes. You know, come on, guys, I think we can make pasta in this country. I don't know about you.
I think we can now, you know, when they talk about food prices and stuff and of course overall inflation.
You know, I was looking at the Bureau.
Of Labor Statistics, came back briefly to come up with the cost of living index for COLA, for social Security, they were talking about, well, the social Security is going to go up two point eight percent. Now they were talking about this, and that two point eight percent has been you know, they base that on inflation obviously, but for the people out there that aren't aware of that, which tells me that they cost a living index over the last seveneveral years, ten years or so has been
around two point eight percent. And so if it's at two point eight percent, why is Lyon, Jerry Powell and the Fed trying to get that down to two percent and that's their target when it hasn't been down there at any time in the last several years.
Right, Yeah, I think it's it's a problem. It's a problem. And that's you know, I and I you know, sad to say. I think Trump poll you know, it's obvious he's become a little bit political, right, I mean, his feelings have been hurt by President Trump, you know, but if you look at his track record and you know, the poor guy, maybe he wasn't the right guy for the job, right because he wasn't a traditional you know, did not have a traditional FED chairman background. But I
haven't said that. I mean this is the guy that you know, sadly told this inflation was transitory because of you know, the tariffs. He was wrong about that, and sadly I think he's been wrong about by the interest rates, you know, not being more aggressive on rates. And you know, hey, it's easy to Monday morning quarter back, you know, but it does, you know, it does make you wonder either he's just been very wrong about stuff or maybe somewhat political.
I don't know what the answer is. It's a tough job. It's easy for me to sit back and say, Jerome Pile, you failed here, you fail there, you know, because in hindsight it's easy to do. But at the same time, I think we need to change, right, I think we need to change at the FED. You are seeing the FED officials. They're starting to rebel a little bit. You know, before it was like, hey, we're going to rubber stand this decision. We're seeing more discent in inside the halls
of the FED, which is a good thing. We need debate, we need to change, and I think it's coming. I think we're going to get a rate cut, and I think we need one, especially anybody wants to shop for a house, you know, definitely going to see some relief there or your credit card bills, so you know.
And every time I pick up something having to do with oil prices, Reuters does their reports or anything, they talk about interest and when they mentioned interest rates, they'll say, well, lower interest rates causes more demand and builds and makes the economy stronger and people go out and spend. So if you're interested in improving the economy, I would think the Federal Reserve would be interested in lowering those interest rates.
That would solve some of the problems as far as some of these kids wanting to get into a new home affordability. When you look at the difference in prices in terms of the interest rate, as far as the affordability of the type of home you can buy versus how much that's going to cost you down the road, it is one of the things I think that is holding back the economy. We're not seeing companies wanting to expand. And if you don't expand, you're not going to be
hiring and employees. If you're not going to be, in this case, buying new trucks or improving your fleet, you're going to be behind the eight ball. And because of the interest rates being so expensive, people are holding back thinking, okay, they may come down. I think that is the single biggest thing on holding the reins back as far as this economy exploding to the positive.
Yeah, I think so. And listen, you know, the FED has a dual mandate, right, they have jobs and they have inflation, right, and they know that under the last administration they failed miserably on inflation.
Right.
They did not react to the Biden administration's reckless spending. And if you look back and think about all the reckless spending, you know on green energy projects, what did we get for it? Do you see you know? Do you see you know, electric car chargers in every corner. You see people, you know, driving electric cars everywhere you go. No, it hasn't happened. They tried to force people to do it, right, and they and then they promised these wonderful green energy jobs.
I'm still waiting for those, by the way, where they right, the millions of green energy jobs, right they were supposed to create. So, uh, you know, and so the but the FED backed them on this, right, they were like, oh, okay, it's okay, you know, with this inflation. Yeah, we're seeing these policies are causing inflation, but we we think it's just gonna be temporary because of you know whatever, it's going to average itself out, you know. And then we're
saying that for a year. You know, we're hearing it from the Biden administration. We're hearing it from Janet Yellen. You know, the Treasury secretary was a former FED chairman, and we're hearing it from the Fed. And it makes you wonder, why didn't they see you know, what has happened over history that when the government prints money like a drunken saler, it always leads to inflation. Right, So if they really wanted to be honest, they should have
been early on fighting inflation. Now that war has been one, right, we've you know, we we beat the back of inflation with the tariffs under Trump. You know, inflation's trending down. So now you got to go the other way because if you let it go down too far, you're going to see more layoffs, more people out of jobs in front of the holidays. So I think, you know, if you know, if mister Paul wants to go down as the Grinch shoes so Christmas, he'll fight this interest rate
cut at the December meeting. I don't think he will, but you know who wants to be grinch. I don't think you could. You know you would look good in the hat.
I think yeah, I don't know for sure. Well, Phil, up against clock here. It's been great talking to you, and we need to do this more often. You're probably one of the brightest sponsing terms. You have been spot on as far as inflation, you've been spot on as far as the terrorists, and you are a great resource. And I can't say how much I appreciate you being on this program on a continuing basis.
Appreciate it.
I appreciate you being having me on. It's always a pleasure of working with you, buddy. Thank you so much.
My guest, Phil Flynn, Senior account executive the Price Futures Group. I'm Kevin Gordon. America's Struck a network seven hundred w l W.
Run a business and not thinking about radio think again, because more people are listening to the radio and iHeart today than they were its.
One seven hundred w l W. I'm Kevin Gordon. Thanks to Phil Flynn for joining me in the two previous segments. Always enjoy talking to him. He's always got a lot of great information. By the way, if you miss those segments or any of our shows, hit up that iHeartRadio app. And of course that's brought to you by our friends at Rush Truck Centers. National Association of Home Builders Wells Fargo Housing Market Index.
Was released yesterday.
A builder confidence in the market for newly built single family homes rose one point to thirty eight in November. Now, when you look at these indexes, according to the data, an index, the any index or the index for this is based on fifty. Anything over fifty is very good, anything under fifty is not so good. And as they describe at the index's measurement for builder confidence and the new single family home market rose one point to thirty eight,
but remains in deeply negative territory. An index really reading below fifty indicates that more builders view conditions as more view as poor than good, is what I'm trying to spit out here. So as far as their overall assessment of the conditions, now, what could be the conditions on that?
Could it possibly be interest rates? Maybe?
So anyway, getting into this report, current sales conditions increased two points to forty one. Sales expectations in the next six months fell three points to fifty one, but still above that fifty range. Traffic of perspective buyers posted a one point game to twenty six, a further sign of
ongoing challenges in the housing market. The latest eight HMI Housing Market Index survey also revealed that forty one percent of builders reported cutting prices in November, a record high in the post COVID period and the first time this measure has passed forty percent.
Now.
In defense of that a little bit, during the COVID times, yes, there were not very many well, there were some houses that were moving in the markets, but a lot of people were jumping into the housing market because of the boost that they were getting from the stimulus checks.
A lot of people who were.
Still working were getting kind of like a little icing on the cake there and thought, well, we're going to improve our home, see if we can sell it and then maybe move in upgrade into a bigger home, or because we're working from home now and a lot of companies shifted to moving to home. In the post pandemic era, we saw a boost in housing prices as well as housing sales because people were saying, well, what in our current living conditions, I need a home office if my
wife is working or the spouse is working. Also they also need a home office to work from. So the need to go out and buy a house that with the common both people working from home was some of the things that was boosting housing prices at that point, and the fact that people were moving and buying houses and selling houses at that point in time. So again this I'm talking about that the post pandemic or post
plandemic as I refer to it now. In this particular story, they talk about sixty five percent of builders reported using sales incentives such as mortgage rate buydowns and funds towards upgrades and closing costs, a share that's held steadies since September. Home builders have been dealing with a sluggish housing market, wary consumers, and unknowns around tariffs and construction costs throughout
twenty twenty five. Well, we've had eleven months now where we see where the whole the prices have gone in terms of the building materials and so on, and we still have that need out there. But as I pointed out on this program several times, the fact of when you look at at the current interest rate still above the six percent. The type of house that you can afford at six percent based on your income is far less than the type of house that you can afford
if the interest rate was down around three percent. We've run those numbers on this program extensive. We've talked about that three or four times on this program. Also, when you take into consideration not only the size house that you can buy, but what that is going to cost you in terms of outlays as far as your mortgage
is concerned. When you look at the mortgage rate at a six percent or a three percent rate versus a six percent rate, that fluctuates in terms of your monthly payment significantly, and the size house that you can afford changes dramatically as a result of that.
So the key factor here is interest rates.
Now, in the National Association of Homebuilders a report here they point out key factors that can impact the housing market index. Top of the list, interest rates have a significant impact on the overall housing market condition. When mortgage rates are low, housing demand is high. However, when mortgage rates are high, it becomes more challenging for many Americans to afford a monthly mortgage payment for a home.
That suits their needs.
As home prices rise, many would be home buyers are pushed to the sidelines, leading to a decreased demand in the housing market and a drop in builder sentiment. Maybe this should be a course that Drome Powell line. Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve need to hear when they do these interest rates and determine as far as what
the interest rates are going to be. Illustrating HMI Elevated interest rates also impact the cost of borrowing for builders and can affect their ability to obtain construction loans, because not only does it affect the buyers of these but these homebuilders are having to borrow money in order to build these homes. So if those prices are up, they're more reluctant to sit on the sidelines, or they're more likely to sit on the sidelines as well. Record number
of home builders are cutting prices. They talk about that sixty five percent of builders reported using sales incentives. Home builders have been dealing with sluggish economy and worry consumers and so on, and we've covered all that. So again, I can't emphasize enough what these homebuilding prices are, what
the interest rates are, and with lower interest rate. What that would do to the economy, not only in the home building sector, but also anybody in a trucking industry planning on buying a truck, adding trucks to a fleet, if it's a more than one person operation, expanding and manufacturing facility, expanding a business, or so on. That all requires money. And if you're building onto your business or you're adding equipment, you're going to have to finance that,
and that's going to cost you money. I want to say I went in the show with a kind of a very interesting I found this story extremely interesting. This past Saturday, Now this is probably going to be the one and only time I ever talked about Saturday Night Live. This past Saturday, Glenn Powell had a special guest in the audience when he hosted Saturday Night Live. During his opening monologue, the Running Man star revealed that he was originally supposed to host SNL four years ago, tied to
the original premier date of Top Gun Maverick. He and his family were celebrating when he got a call to host, a moment they shared with their ups driver, who happened to be delivering a package at the same time. So we all took a selfie with him, and this is the selfie to mark the occasion. Powell held up the picture of revealing the actual selfie of him and his family and the UPS Driver. But then my dreams got taken away, he continued. Top Gun got delayed because of COVID.
Due to SNL had to take back their offer. Lorne Michaels literally called me and said, without top Gun, and these are his words, no one will know who the fu are. Powell lamented that over the past four years, the UPS Driver might have thought that he was a liar, so when he got the call to host SNL again, he and his family decided to make things right. As he talks about, my sisters tracked him down. The women and my family are terrifying, he joked. They found the
cell number of the UPS guy. His name is Mitch. So to prove to Mitch that I'm not a liar, I flew him all.
The way to New York.
He thought it was a scam, but he still came and he's sitting in the audience tonight. Powell then called Mitch on stage and the two snapping another selfie together to bring things to a full circle for the driver and the whole Powell clan. I had to wait my entire life plus four years to be here, said, but if I have learned anything it's that the best thing in lives don't happen overnight, and no one knows that better than ups.
Folks that doesn't for us. Stay tuned for Retie Radio A Top the Hour.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America struck a Network seven hundred WLW.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred WLW Cincinnati.
Progress made on the bill to release the Fsteam files. But if your Top of the hour reports, I'm Lee Mawing breaking Dow