This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Welcome board, Thanks for tuning in on this Thursday morning. Well, Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates. We'll get to that in the moment. But first, yesterday during the afternoon, I was doing some show prepping, some work around the house and so on, and boy, we were having a bunch of wind gusts and I thought, well, what what what is that? I mean, not what is it,
but how high is it? And I looked and they were saying we were getting between thirty five and forty five mile per hour winds.
Now, where we live, it's up on a hill.
And I've described this before, and so we face west and so all of the most of the weather we get comes from the west, and so when the wind comes, it comes in pretty stiff. And I was looking up, and I remember during the hurricane season they were talking about tropical storms, that the tropical storms are forming and that's just below a hurricane status. But in order to qualify for that, that's got to be thirty five mile per hour winds up to seventy four mile per hour winds.
And I'm thinking I remember thinking that the time we'll shoot, we were always in a tropical storm or up you know, several days a month in a tropical storm up there on the hill, because that's kind of when we get but I guess during the winter months it's considered a gale storm or gale force winds or something along those lines.
So it was kind of a surprising day. I mean, we get win, but there are certain times when the gusts, and I guess the way it comes in is where you can really hear it and hear it outside and how things rattle, either on the deck or something along those lines.
I just thought i'd throw that out there.
Having gale force wins in the wilder Kentucky area, I guess mostly, and looking around the country there's.
A lot of wind going around a lot of other places.
Getting to Lion Jerry Powell and the Federal Reserve now, I called Lion Jerry Powell Lion Jerry Powell for a reason. I guess they should clarify that all along. You know, he keeps talking about that. Well, at least during the twenty twenty four year when they started right after they paused raising interest rates after inflation had gotten out of control up to nine point one percent in June of
twenty twenty two. I guess they finally decided that, well, you know, our mandate is we're supposed to keep inflation low. So they decided to start raising interest rates at that point. And then they paused in June July of around July of twenty twenty three, and so they hadn't done anything with interest rate increases or decreases. Well, all of a sudden, you know, they start talking about, well, our mandate is in we need to control inflation. Inflation needs to get
down to about two percent. Then all of a sudden, they got this jobs report which had come out in January of twenty twenty four.
We talked about that on this program.
And this job's report was that they looked back through the previous year and determined that about eight hundred and eighteen I think it was eight hundred and fifty or something thousand jobs had been overestimated during that period of time, which basically boiled down to I think something like overestimating the employment numbers by sixty five seventy thousand per month. And this report came out and just in that January
December January December of twenty twenty three. January of twenty twenty four is when I'm trying to spit out here, and it was a shock to everybody. And I remember talking at the point where then, you know, looking back through all this bragging that the Biden administration had talked about in terms of job creation since the pandemic and getting back and so on, started digging into the numbers and saying, well, you know, the plandemic ended pretty much
twenty twenty one. Then we had the supply chain issues, and they started bragging about the number of jobs created.
But if you go back to pre plandemic and what the jobs were at that time and how many jobs were lost as a result of COVID, they had lost something like we had lost something like twenty million jobs during that period of time, where restaurants closed, business, clothes manufacturing clothes, A lot of people were working from home, but for the most part, people were on unemployment or getting these subsidy checks or these stimulus checks from the
federal government. And so when the people started coming back to work, the number of people that came back to work was around sixteen million. And they're claiming that we've created sixteen million jobs. Well, no, you're not creating sixteen million jobs. You just finally opened the and people started coming back. Now, the real number was that, if it's sixteen thousand that came back, what happened to those other four million? They're not back to work, So what are
you not doing in order to bring them along? So anyway, in twenty twenty four, they started talking about, well, you know, we need to start paying attention a little bit to jobs or something along those lines. And it got a little bit you know, they started mentioning at that point.
But what was weird is that this report.
Came out in January indicating that these eight hundred thousand jobs had been overestimated. Well, the final report on that, for some reason, comes out in August, and when August rolled around, the report came out same number that they reported in January. Well, all of a sudden, everybody's going, oh, the job market is really slowing down. Oh this is you know, the job market is softening. The Federal Reserve needs to do something. They need to They had just
had a one of their meetings. They said they need to have an emergency meeting and cut interest rates immediately.
And so on.
Well, between that time and then when they met in September, things had pretty much evened.
Oubt.
People had kind of gotten used to where there was a job's report that came in that said things were improving and that this this eight hundred thousand jobs that were lost. They started explaining away that, you know, and explaining how that happened, which was bs but again they
overestimated it. So the numbers are what the numbers are. Well, in September of twenty twenty four, Lion Jerry Powell, who said that inflation rate has to come down to two percent before we start raising lowering interest rates, suddenly six weeks before the election, lowers interest rates a quarter percentage point, claiming that the job market is the thing, you know, because we've got this other mandate making sure that we've
got a strong job market. So all the line that he did during that year saying that, oh, no, we're focused on inflation. We're focused on inflation. In September of twenty twenty four was up around three point two three point three percent, but they cut interest rates by a half a percentage point. I said at the time it was a political move. He's trying to push Kamala Harris
across the finish line, which fortunately didn't work. But now all of a sudden, people are looking back on that and say, well, you know what, that was kind of a political move. Well, no kidding, but you know who called it out first, who talked about it first here on Americans Struck a Network.
And again I mentioned this over and over again.
If you listen to this program, you are so far ahead of the curve people won't even see your tail lights. Things we talk about on this program people start talking about weeks, months, even a half a year away from when we start talking about it. So anyway, that's kind of my point on that, and the fact that Federal Reserve line. That's why I call it lion Jerry Powell. Lion Jerry Powell again, because you can't trust what he's saying.
President Trump calls him too late Powell because of being too far behind, mentioning the fact that he was slow to react to the inflationary pressures during the Biden administration and twenty well actually from the beginning of the Biden administration up until twenty twenty two. After June of twenty twenty two, when inflation got up to nine point one percent, nine point one percent in one month.
Folks, Let's not forget that.
When you know those people on the other side, the Democrats and the Liberals, start talking about affordability, what were you talking about back then, is my question. And secondly, if your guy, if you guys are the ones that created the unaffordability problem over the four years of the Biden administration, what makes you think that we're going to trust you to come back in and fix it. So again Jerry Powell talking about you know that what their
mandate is. But then you know, as far as all the stuff he's keeps talking about that inflation needs to be around two percent, and yet he's and Trump keeps calling him too late because he was too late to react to inflation going out of control, and then once he started, once they started lowering the interest rates or raising the interest rates, rather then all of a sudden, when things started cooling down, he's too late to come in and start lowering the interest rates, which would generate
an increase in the economy and boost up gross domestic product and keep the economy flowing and running smoothly. But again, he's been very reluctant to do that, and then when you compare our interest rates to the rest of the world, we are in some cases double on the list. On the list of countries with their mortgage interest rates and so on, we are forty sixth on the list compared to the rest of the world. So we're not the
top ten, not the top five. We are forty six on the list in terms of lower interest rates, so we're in the six percentage rate.
Some are as low as one point ninety seven.
Coming up, we'll talk a little bit more about this Federal Reserve interest rate cut, because some of the things they talked about in here is kind of interesting. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW NEED.
This is the breathing reboard on America's drugging edwork on seven hundred wlwf.
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I'm Kevin gored in America Instructing Network seven hundred at w LW talking about this Federal Reserve interest rate cut that they did yesterday afternoon. I came out at two o'clock in the afternoon, Federal Reserve split over where is priority should lie lowered? It's key interest rate, key interest rate Wednesday, but signaled a tougher road ahead for further reductions. I cannot wait for May until Lion Jerry Powell is replaced,
and I wonder who that's going to be. A lot of people were talking about that Kevin Hassen, who is current advising President Trump on economic policies, that he might be the one. A lot of people are saying that there's a ninety some percent chance that he's going to be the one picked. It's called the National Economic Council Chair. Kevin Hassett is the front runner, but Lion Jerry Powell's got to go. As a matter of fact, again I
mentioned this that I had heard this. I think it was in March or so, and I'm really not sure who brought it up. It may have been Scott Bessen, could have been Larry Kudlow from Fox Business News, but somebody mentioned the fact that what Donald Trump ought to do, because he kept at that point, has been you know, he's been on Powell since he, you know, came back in office that he needs to start cutting interest rates a little bit more vigorously, and that Powell has been
very reluctant to do that. The fact that again going back to September of twenty twenty four, when he lowered interest rates a half percentage point a political move trying to get Kamala Harris elected.
So I don't think he likes Trump very much, even.
Though Trump was the one that appointed him to that position in his first term.
I just it's unbelievable.
But anyway, they were talking at the time that you can't unless you have just cause, you usually can't fire a Federal Reserve chairman, even though he does have the power to do that. History and tradition is that you don't.
And so what people were suggesting, again I don't know if it was Scott Besson, but said that what Trump ought to do is ought to pick the person that's going to replace Jerry Powell, have them go through the confirmation process, and so that he's sitting in or he or she is waiting in the wings, and that would then put pressure on Jerry Powell that when people are you know, it's kind of one of those things where Jerry Powell is giving a press conference or talking about
certain things, then they would turn to the new or the assume replacements.
Well, what's your opinion on that? What do you think?
How would you handle this if you were in that position, And it'd be a kind of a checks and balances if you were, if you will that okay, that Jerry Powell can't be out there all by himself prognosticating and talking about the economy. You got somebody that could possibly be on the same even footing talking about it as well.
I don't know why they didn't do it.
I thought it was an excellent I thought it was an excellent idea, but they haven't acted on it. Now supposedly by the first of the year or shortly after the first of the year. I wish it was done before Christmas. That'd be a nice Christmas gift for the American public to know who is going to be heading up the FED and what their ideas are, whether it's supply side or whatever they are. In terms of an economist,
it would be interesting to know who that is. But again, I cannot wait for Jerry Powell to be out of this office. Again, they're talking about that it's going to be a high hurdle in order of future interest rate cuts. Well, let's get another Federal Reserve chairment in there and see
what happens. Fulfilling expectations of a hawkish cut, the Central Bank Federal Open Market Committee cut its key overnight borrowing rate by a quarter percentage point, putting it in the range between three point five and three point seven five percent. Now in other countries, in England, France, some of those countries that number is down around one point five percent. Now, that key overnight rate, again is not the overall interest rates in our country. What it is is the overnight
borrowing costs that banks do between banks. If they have to borrow money from individual banks for check cashing purposes, or if there's stores that deal in a lot of cash and they have to have a lot of cash on hand at their individual store locations, maybe around the first of the month, middle of the month, something along those lines, around payday, whatever, there are cash needs, and they may not because you don't keep a lot of
cash in the banks anymore. Simply because of well liability issues, and plus if cash is sitting there, it's not somewhere gaining interest or being invested overnight in some funds. But anyway, it's a whole complicated issue there. But again, this Federal Reserve overnight rate in terms of borrowing is what this rate ties into. The three point five now going to be three point five to three point seventy five.
However, the move.
Carried caution flags about where the policy is heading heading or headed from here, and featured a some no votes in terms of three members, which hadn't happened since September twenty nineteen. Usually the Federal Reserve, when they do a vote, it's unanimous, but over the last few months there have been dissension. There has been people who have either voted no on an interest rate cut or one in particular that keeps voting no because he wants a higher rate.
So the nine to three vote against featured a hawkish and Dubvish descents. Governor Stephen Maren favored a steeper half point reduction, while original or while regional presidents Jeffrey Schmid of Kansas City and Austin Goldsby of Chicago backed holding the line. In fact, again they voted against an interest rate cut.
They wanted no interest rate cut this period.
Now, Stephen Maren has been a very advocate of what they call a hawkish hawkish member of the Committee, wanting interest rates to be cut even further, and I agree with it. I think the interest rate should have been the Federal Reserve cutting interest rate last time and even this time should have been a half a percentage point, but they keep doing it in quarter point increments. Stephen Maren said that it should have been a full half a percentage point, so he voted no against.
The quarter percent.
Now these two FED chairman or FED presidents, Jeffrey Schmid and Austin Goldsby, who voted against any rate cut, Let's not forget who Austin Goldsby is. Austin Goldsby was the chairman of the Economic Advisors in the Obama administration, so he's very liberal and of course very political. I remember seeing him on various shows, in various programs talking about, oh, how great the economy was and how great this was.
The Affordable Care Act would be super because it's going to cut the insurance costs of everybody by twenty five hundred dollars, when in fact, the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable care. It actually raised people's premiums on insurance by twenty five hundred dollars. They were supposed to save US twenty five hundred dollars, but in fact cost US twenty five hundred dollars, a five thousand dollars swing.
So he had been this mouth he's for the Obama administration, and then during the Trump administration was a critic of the Trump administration. Every time you talk about, wow, you know, during our time, we did this and and and this is where I recommend a.
Very liberal guy.
So the fact that he is dissenting and is and is part of the Fed, now you are not getting a supply sider. You're not getting a conservative voice.
Now.
They keep remember everybody keeps talking about when Trump was talking about getting rid of Jerry Powell, that the Federal Reserve is this independent body, that it's you know, a political that it that it only concentrates on economic policy and what's good for the country. Well, in fact, you've got some of these people on there that are a bunch of clowns, and they don't really understand economics and Austin Goldsby is a guy who is very liberal.
And is anti Trump.
So the fact that he is anti Trump and on the Federal Reserve, you mean tell me that we're supposed to believe that he leaves his political views at the door when he comes in to serve as one of the board chairman or one of the Federal Open Market Committee governors at one of the districts, one of the twelve districts around the country.
I don't think so.
And if you listen to interviews from him and go back and look at some of the stuff that he said, you know he's not a fan of Donald Trump and he's not conservatives. So again, the fact that he's dissenting on this and the fact that there is political movement within the Federal Reserve is again an indication when the spoon feder regurgitators in the mainstream media tell us that this is an independent body, not so much. Talk a
little bit more about this coming up. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW.
Here's our trucking forecast for the Tri State and the rest of the country. In the Tri Estate overnight, mostly Claudia with the chance of snow. The low down to twenty six mostly claude Thursday, a high of thirty three snow overnight Thursday into Friday, with one to three inches of accumulation possible. An additional inch of snow could accumulate during the day Friday. Nationally, rain over the Pacific Northwest
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Seven hundred wlw IM Kevin Gordon.
This is America Destrucking Network.
Turning in our conversation here about the Federal Reserve interest rate cut decision.
We've talked about Austin Goldsby, and you know.
In the previous segment about how he is so anti Trump and was a member of the Obama administration. So again he's got political leanings in that direction, and they talk about this interest rate being hawk ish, and I need to probably explain that. By the way, if you've missed any of our previous segments or into our shows, hit up that iHeartRadio app and of course that's brought to you by our friends at Rush Truck Centers.
And it was kind of interesting.
You know, in the parlance when you talk about a hawk or a dove, you know, hawk seems to be more aggressive, whereas a dove is more passive. But apparently the way the Federal Reserve and of course you know the Federal Reserve controlling interest rates, that of course they're going to be backwards from what would normally be there.
I get this, okay.
In Federal Reserve parlance, hawks are generally more concerned about inflation and favor higher interest rates, while doves focus on supporting the labor market and want lower rates. That seems to me to be a complete flip. Now, if you're caught talking about a inflation hawk, where you are worried about inflation and you want to keep that in check, that's one thing. But when you're talking about interest rates, interest rates should be in my opinion aggressive one way
or the other. If you've got and really, you know, the marketplace should determine where these rates are. And everybody talks in terms of these interest rates that if they are.
Low, it stimulates the economy.
We talk about that when we're talking about oil and gas prices. Every time there is a comment in there, they refer to that as a situation where if interest rates are low, then people will have more disposable income, they will buy and use more gasoline, which will then increase well, affect gasoline prices or affect the prices, because if the supply is low and the demand is high, the prices will go up and so on. So it's
just a matter of supply side economics. And so it's interesting to see the way they put this in consideration.
So anyway, getting.
Back to this particular, going back to what was going on, they're talking about the third consecutive time that Stephen Maron had voted against interest rate cut because he wants a half a percentage.
Point interest rate cuts.
And in this they say, the post meeting rate statement, Now get.
This, Okay, how lazy do you have to be?
All Right, you got twenty three thousand employees at the Federal Reserve, and you have a situation where they can come up with economic I mean they can get on the telephone, they can read the Wall Street Journal, the Business Insigner or whatever and get all this information as far as what's going on in the economy, and then when they're making their determination, they can come up with some original language.
But get this, okay.
The post meeting rate statement repurposed language from the FOMC meeting a year ago. They say, in considering the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the Federal Funds rate, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.
What did they just say there?
I mean, it is just so obvious, or you know, it's almost like stating the obvious.
It's almost like, you know, if you turn on the.
Radio between midnight and one am Tuesday through Friday, Kevin Gordon is going to be on americastruct A network. I mean, yeah, okay, why do you have to spell that out? So again, let's look at this particular statement, in considering the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range, in other words, adjusting the interest rate up or down federal funds rate. The Committee will carefully assess incoming data. Isn't
that assumed? Are we assuming that you're not you're just going to ignore the data, that you're not going to pay any attention to it, that you're going to fly by the seat of your pants. Well, of course you're going to consider carefully assess that the evolving outlook, what's going on at that particular point in time, what's up, what's down? What you know, even geopolitical issues are going
to come into play. So the Committee will carefully assess the incoming data and evolving outlook and balance the risks.
Okay, and what risk are we talking about?
Are we talking about that if the interest rates are down, people are going to have more money in their pocket. They'll be out there spending. Do they think that that will lead Some people think that will lead to inflation? Other people think that, okay, people having more money in their pockets is a good thing.
You know, we are a lot better stewards of what we want to do or what we need with our money.
Rather than having it confiscated by the federal government or confiscated in the form of interest rates on our credit cards and so on. If we've got more money in our pockets, we'll pay down our debt. Maybe we'll save a little bit more. But it's up to us to make that determination and not manipulated by some entity in some ivory tower somewhere. So again, this is some of the things that they, you know, sitting on high they
act as though that they are so brilliant and so smart. Well, if they're so smart, how did they let inflation get out of control during the Biden administration? And how did they tamp down economic recovery buy high interest rates and going into the area.
Now why are.
They pulling back on the reins and keeping this economy from flourishing again? These guys are the so called experts, but I'm not so sure how expert or how smart they are. Third consecutive rate cut is now in the books. That turned to where they're going to head from here, the closely watched dot plot.
Now what part of this is that?
Also as part of the meeting, everybody that's part of the meeting, they will say, Okay, what do you think or what you anticipate or what's your opinion on where interest rates should be in the coming year or in the upcoming meetings, and so some people will say, well, I think interest rates need to be reduced, either lowered
or raised or the same. And so they plot these out, so they, you know, talk about the individual meetings and okay, how many interest rate cuts a particular board member should see for the year, how many you know, and so on. So they plot these all out and then they kind of accumulate those dots on this board and kind of get a feel for how these individuals feel about certain things because they talk about that there isn't a whole lot of discussion. There isn't a whole lot of debate
during these meetings. So it's it's like, well, you know, what is the why.
Do you meet?
Why don't you not just phone it in? Why do you have to Why don't you just pick up the phone and say, all right, I think there should be a a half percent rate your meeting for two weeks, for two days. I mean, there's no debate during that period of time. The whole thing just kind of surprises me from some time from time to time. So again, and getting back to this whole thing, that a hawk is somebody who wants to raise interest rates, whereas a dove is somebody that wants to lower them.
I don't get that. That doesn't make any sense to me.
So anyway, on the economy ant, the Committee raised its collective view of gross domestic product for twenty twenty six, boosting this September projection by half a percentage point to two point three. The Committee continues to expect inflation to hold above two percent target until twenty twenty eight. Well, if they're expecting the inflation rate to be above two percent till twenty twenty eight, why are they saying they're going to hold back any interest rate cuts until it
hits that two percent rate. If they already figure that it's going to be there anyway, why not stimulate the economy, boost production, which would probably wind up reducing inflation because the more items that are produced that are produced at a lesser cost. I mean, you've got your fixed costs,
and you have your variable costs. But the more products you you know, the more products you sell, the more products you make, brings that cost overall down, which then has passed along to the consumer, and the consumer saves money on that. So again, apparently these people just don't understand economics on inflation. Prices remain stubbornly high in the FEDS preferred gauge, putting the annual rate at two point eight percent in September, the most recent month for which
data is available. They talked about in here that again timing of the federal rate cuts and talking about Trump signal that he will make a decision by the end of the year as to who is going to replace Powell. I wish he would have done that a little bit earlier. Again,
we've talked about in the past. How I think that you know that at the beginning of the year that they were talking about possibly firing Derme Powell and bringing somebody else in, and then they said, you know again that they didn't think that was a good idea, and that affect the independence of the Federal Reserve. Well, again,
they aren't independent. They're politically minded. And if you had and one of the suggestions was that somebody should you know, they should vote on who should replace Jerome Powell, have that person nominated, have that person go through the.
Confirmation process so that they'll be in place.
So if Jerome Powell makes a comment on the economy, they can turn to the new federal chairman and say, well, do you agree with that?
What do you think should be done? And so on.
So I think that should have been done along with this, and so I think that should have been done around the beginning of the year, but again it should be done by the end of the year. Coming up, we'll talk a little bit more about what's going on here and finish this up and get onto some other things, because these interest rate cuts are affecting other businesses and some of the projections that these businesses are making. I'm Kevin Gordon, America Struck a Network seven h under WLW.
News Radio seven hundred WLW and iHeartRadio Station Guarantee Human seven hundred WLW.
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Eight Again, I think it should have been a full half a percentage point. That would have been nice, but we take what we can get. Federal officials have had to operate, and I love this. Had to operate in an environment where much of the official data they use in decision making either has been trickling in well behind schedule or missing entirely due to the government shutdown. The
Schumer shutdown. Now, we saw during the Schumer shutdown, again, I got to reiterate the fact that the Federal Reserve has twenty three thousand employees that are supposed to be these economists, that they're stationed in different locations twelve different districts around the country, and so being in those individual districts, they would be able to gauge the economy in those particular markets by being out on the street reading some
of the business pages of the newspapers there, seeing what's going on in the economy in their own individual districts, and be able to report on this. We saw during the Schumer shutdown that there were companies Goldman Sachs, Nationwide City Bank, and a couple of others that would look at the data that the states put in on a weekly basis up to the Labor Department's website saying how much of the initial jobless claims were reported by those
states for that particular week. And so these companies were going to that site, gathering that information and coming up
with the initial jobless claims on a weekly basis. I'm sure that a lot of this data that is being funneled to I mean the federal government's got to be getting this information from somewhere, and that somewhere could be out there being distributed to them, but then tapped into by other people when the government shut down, and they can come up with these reports on their own, which leads me to believe that, or leads me to ask the question, why aren't some of these things being done
by an independent agency rather than relying on the federal government to do this and the federal the taxpayers. I'm sure there's a profitability in there where somebody could put this data together and sell it to the individual news agencies or whatever. But again, reliance on the federal government to come up with these reports. And again, if that information is available and other people can tap into that and come up with the same reports, why aren't we
kind of duplicating processes there. So again the fact that they say that they're operating it's almost as they're trying to say we're operating blind. Where again, you don't go to the grocery store, you don't go to the gas station, you don't go to the hardware stores, you don't go out and observe what's going on. You don't eat out, you don't go to any of these things in your own districts and get kind of the compilation what's going
on there. And people talk about that within the Federal Reserve twenty three thousand employees, So you got to kind of wonder what they do. I said, again, they're talking about that some of the numbers that they're looking at, what data they do have available indicator that the labor market is in a low hire, no fire, and client climate.
Well, that's been talked about often.
That's been talked about almost every week, talking about initial job as claims, talking about the employment reports, talking about what these companies are doing, what they're telling their board members, what they're telling their stockholders when they're having these meetings. Again,
this information has been well known out there. And they're talking about their unofficial data point from talking about heavier payroll reductions, and they cite this company that they're talking about that this Challenger Great in Christmas is saying that their estimates of future layoffs, based on some of the reports that these companies have said, is going to be one point one million people.
In the coming year.
Now, just last month they said they announced that there was going to be at one hundred and fifty some thousand people that were going to be laid off, well the following month, just a month later, they adjusted that by half. And so a lot of people have said that some of that employment data, some of that stuff that they gather and some of these other people isn't
as reliable as other data. So rather than focusing on and mentioning that unreliable data, the lazy part of the spoon fed regurgitators in the mainstream media, they don't bother going out and getting the actual data from the people that know what they're talking about. So again, if they're relying on something that is not necessarily accurate, I don't
know why they would do that. So anyway, Uh, one of the things that I saw, and again this is directly related to well directly relatable to what we've been hearing. You know, as I've said before, the Democrats have been whining and talking about affordability. Yet where were they concerned
about that during the Biden years? During the Biden administration when gas got up to at one point national average of five dollars and two cents a gallon, whereas today, as of today, gas prices across the board national averages two dollars and ninety four cents, So again, where were they back then? Talking about affordability, Phil Flynn has a very interesting editorial. Actually it's his energy report, but a lot of things in here. In this particular energy report
is very interesting. Gasline price is at the lowest level since twenty twenty one, making life more affordable, and seeing that affordability is the new favorite word of the left,
that should be a major win. Of course, the left will point out that the electricity won't point out will point out that electricity prices have been soaring, but that is directly attributable to the record demand that has happened because of power centers, and demand for artificial intelligence that is growing, and the economy and lack of investment in infrastructure that occurred due to democrat over regulation and the
push toward green energy. In other words, all this point push to green energy, all those grants that were put out there, the billions of dollars that were put into that from the federal government in the form of grants or tax credits to these green energy companies that are going to produce all these windmills, solar power, and all this sort of stuff which hadn't even been a blip on the radar screen in terms of and they talked about this would be more affordable because of the investment
in that, the shift to that from other reliable sources, and what they talk about in terms of fossil fuel. That has spiked these energy prices. As you know, when you start raising increasing the regulations on certain areas of energy production like oil and gas or gas cold powered plants in favor of solar power or wind power which
is unproven and unreliable. As they found out, you don't have as much infrastructure and you do not have as much electricity being produced, so you're not you're doing away with one and not replacing it with one that's even better or even substantial. So that led to brownouts and led to higher costs for the individuals because not only are there having to fund one area that is producing electricity, but developing another area that's well supposed to increase or
develop electricity that isn't being produced. So again, these costs and you know the you know, remember the Affordable Care or not the Affordable Care Act, but THEA was it called the Inflation Reduction Act. When the administration passed that Inflation Reduction Act. It was basically they might as well call it the Green New Steel Bill because there was an awful lot of funding in there for these green energy products. So we jumped a billions and billions of
dollars into those which really didn't pan out. So that's wasted tax money, that's wasted energy production, and again higher electricity costs. But it's a very good editorial. I'll probably posted this on my Facebook page. But getting to one of the areas where things are really important in terms
of how interest rates were affecting different things. Hot Home Depot issues it costs twenty twenty six Outlook Home Depot is offering costious preliminary outlet in the coming year, a sign that the home improvement retail doesn't anticipate the housing market to rebound in the short term. The company expects comparable sales growth to be in the range of flat to up to two percent for the year, below the average of estimates compiled by You and these other companies.
The US housing market has weighed on Home Depot as high interest rates prompt consumers to remain on the sidelines for big ticket purchases and projects that required refinement and required financing. While mortgage rates are lower than they were a year ago, Americans have been cautius amid higher costs across the economy. Some prices also remain high, remaining that the meaning that the housing has become more out of reach for a large portion of the population directly result
of interest rates. Now, what they are also saying in this report that Home Depot released, and we may talk about this a little bit more tomorrow, but they hosted this meeting and talked about these issues, but then added that if the market, if the interest rates come down, they're forecast for increases, They're in forecast for u profitability, and additional sales could jump up to four and a half to five percent increase. So again they're saying, here's
what we expect it to be. But if interest rates come down, here's what will happen. There'll be more people spending money, more people buying houses, and so on. So again, very important. That's why interest rates, That's why I talk about that on this program a lot. Well, folks, we're up against clock here. Time to step out, Stay tuned for REREDI raded at the top of the hour. I'm Kevin Gordon Americas struck in the network seven hundred WLW