Do you want to be an American idio.
We got pulled back on seven hundred wlw welcome to it. We'll jump right in with stuff because there's stuff. You know, we got stuff. Trump administration has decided to ease the fuel economy standards known as a cafe standards for vehicles, so roll back. Under Biden they required a two percent annual efficiency and improvement, so two percent annually they'd have to make better better fiel ecmomies, I guess the new proposal cuts us back to a half a percent, and
they're also rolling back the telpipe emission standards. So the question is what does this mean overall for the car industry Because cars we've hit American and consumers said we're not paying more for cars. We have had a breaking point in the costing new automobiles. What does that do for us? Brian Moody is the executive Adam Kelly Bluebook and Auto Trader.
Welcome Brian hy Ben.
Yeah, thanks, you're right. That does change things a little bit, but I think it could be for the good, even though temporarily the headlines are going to be bad.
Yeah, I think in the long term it seems good. You know, we have this quest to try and lower efficiency set you know, increase efficiency and how many more miles you would drive per gallon tank. And we know there's environmental impact there, and that's all well and good, but it feels like the screws have really been put to the auto industry itself and saying, Okay, there's a reasonable bound here, but we'ren't in the point of absurdity, aren't we?
Right?
I agree, it turns out the government is a terrible automaker, and not just ours, but as across the world. If you look in Europe, for example, it was government that incentivized diesel to the point where that became the dominant fuel type across Europle. It turns out that's not good for you. So when government is in the position of building consumer products, that's not great. And when it comes
to regulation, I don't think people understand that. They understand that the better shoe economy is good on one sense, so I think we all understand that. But what people don't understand is the regulation which leads to needs compliance, which costs money, which adds complexity, which adds weight, takes away certain things from consumers such as reliability, low cost, and the lightweight of the car, which could be a safety feature. I guess, for lack of a.
Better word, yeah, understand those masks. But the fact of the matter is we, as American consumers, have an insatiable demand for trucks and SUVs that's at odds with these outdated standards or two aggressive standards I guess under the by administration.
Yes, And here's the thing about trucks and SUVs. You could argue, well, are people buying those because they need it or because it's what they want? I don't really know. Consumer choice always benefits the consumer. But here's a great example of how trucks can become more efficient while also serving the consumer's need. For example, there's a Ford pickup right now called the Ford Maverick. It's a small pickup truck.
Well that hasn't been around for very long. Of course, the name goes way back to the seventies, but the actual vehicle that we have now, the Ford Maverick small pickup, has only been around for a few years. When they first introduced that, they couldn't make enough of those to keep up with demand. So that shows that consumers want something that makes sense. It's up to automakers to meet them where they are and give them the range, the price, the value and reliability they expect.
I thought I had rare or heard that they Maverick. The Ford Maverick is just basically what it's replacing, the Ford Escape.
Yeah.
I mean, the Ford Escape is a small SUV and we may end up seeing hybrid or plug in hybrid versions of that in the near future. The thing with the Maverick that was so I guess telling is that it doesn't have a big V eight, It isn't oversized, it doesn't cost sixty thousand dollars, it doesn't even cost fifty thousand dollars. It's low price. It has some nice features, but it arguably has much less capability than say a Ford F two fifty, which is probably a special thing
that some people do need. But the Maverick is a great example, and I bet you you'll see others when it comes to hybrids and electric cars, more right sized solutions for what Americans want today.
Yeah, I mean, you've seen the small pig and I guess I don't know what you categorize, but the small pickup truck you geep has a model It's like every manufacturer's rolling out a small pickup truck because they pick up truck aesthetic.
Right, Like there's a Hyundai Santa Cruz. You know what these cars all remind me of. It's almost like everything that's everything that's new, or everything that's old is new again. These small pickups like the Hyundai Santa Cruz and the Fort Maverick and some of the ones that you mentioned, what they kind of remind me of a a Chevy al Camino. It's small car based, right, not the Jeep, but the other ones are car based, fuel economy, and it occasionally helps you do some utility tasks that you
might need or might not need. But meanwhile, you can drive it around every day comfortably.
It can't be long before bring the station wagon back. You think that's gonna happen.
I'm hoping because here's what I have noticed, and I'm this is only anecdotal. My own kids, who recently became driving age, have said nobody wants those big SUVs because it's too hard to judge where you are and when you're learning how to drive. They both kids said they prefer a small sedan or a hatchback. Well, SUVs replaced all those cars. So what's going to happen when these younger people move into the place where they're like, I don't want SUVs. They don't want SUV's because why we
didn't want station wagons. That's what my mom drives.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And eventually we'll come back like trucker hats and fanny packs.
He's Brian Moody.
He's the executive editor of Auto Trader and Kelly Bluebook, talking about Trump's and the Trump administrations cut on cafe standards,
which environmentals are mashing their teeth over. But I think it's a good business simply because it's so hard for Detroit or all automaticers of American automakers, for manner doesn't have to be Detroit to try and keep up with that kind of stuff, And it totally does not mesh with what consumers demand, which are more trucks and SUVs and even smaller pickup trucks and SUVs for that matter too.
We also have to talk about evs.
I was blown away when I traveled this summer to Australia the number of Chinese evs that are on the market as Uber's there, and I thought the fit and finish looked pretty good in most cases. Sometimes maybe not so much. But how much a threat is that to our market here?
It's a big threat. That's how economic weapons work. I mean, they use their advantage to drive the price down, and they have working conditions and things in other parts of the world we wouldn't have here, But in other parts of the world they don't go by those same rules. Undercut the price of what's there and introduce it to a market, and then you can drive the other people
out of business. That's called an economic weapon. The idea that people would want these cars is not surprising because they're good, but there has to be some kind of protection all over the world, not just in the US, to make sure that it's living up to the standards that we all hold amongst ourselves in terms of where are the materials come from, how is it built, and who's building it well.
As we relax cafe standards for internal combusting engines. It looks like to me, and again it's a brief sample. You tell me, Brian, the global market continues to prioritize electrifications that kind of put us at a disadvantage in the next I don't know, within the next ten.
Years, maybe, But here's the thing. More realistic goals would be helpful. No one's going No one's arguing that, you know, oh, electric cars are going to go away. That's not true. I think if most people, the average American, if they were to drive an electric car, they would like it.
Now.
That means there's other things that have to be solved, though. What about the price? What about this durability? What about the resale value? What about where I charge it up? It's perfect for people to have their own home, because that's about eighty percent of people that have electric cars charge them up at home. What about everybody else? It's not the car that's necessarily the issue. It's a lot of other things that go into it.
Yeah, if I live in a metro city like Cincinnati and I don't have a garage, I don't have access to that. How do I charge my electric vehicle? I need a traditional internal combustion engine at least, So we solve that. But again, the market will decide.
That, right, the market should always decide these things. One thing that's a misnomer that I've heard often with electric cars is there's an argument that presumes that people who live in apartments or in mixed use housing. Let's say they don't want electric cars because they're too expensive, and the reason I think in an apartment is because that's
what they can afford. That's not true. There's many, many people in many cities across the country that choose to live in apartments, townhouses, or condos because that's what suits their lifestyle best. Not everyone wants to mow yard on a Saturday. Not everybody wants that. They just want come home. I have a place to go. It's all taken care of. And that's the thing that we need to solve next for how do you charge those things up? Also, there's just a mechanism of how long it takes to charge.
If you need ten gas pumps, you probably need thirty charging stations based on the duration of time it takes to quote fill up your tank with an electric car.
Yeah, it makes sense.
I mean, if you drive several hundred miles, for example, you road trip it, you're going to have to plan out how long and where you stop. It's going to take more time to get from point A to point B driving a electric you can do much more on a hybrid, which seems to also have fallen off the savors, And I mean my son has a hybrid, he's had one for years.
He loves it.
He's gotting like ninety nine miles of the gallon and when it's not charged, the internal combustion engine kicks in. It seems like a fair trade. Why did that follow a favor.
Well, because I think a lot of it is marketing. I think a lot of it is headline grabbing. But I think twenty twenty six will be the year of the hybrid. I really do think that people have kind of come to terms with the taxpayer funded incentive for EVS is gone. So the cars at current state are relatively expensive, about fifty eight thousand dollars on average. Hybrids are much more affordable, and you have brands like Toyota
that are moving to almost all hybrids. All of their cars either can be had as hybrids or in some cases like the Sienna and the Camera and the Crown, that's the only way it comes. So we're moving to a point when you look at Twita like as a leader in this area, right, they're moving to a point where it's not a choice about getting a hybrid, it's just going to come that way. And the way they
operate is normal for the most part, they've changed. Listen, anybody out there who's thought, oh, I was going to get a hybrid fifteen years ago, but they're terrible to drive, You've got to drive one. Today, they're much much better.
Yeah, technology improves, I mean in mevs. I drove up Tesla a few years ago and it was an incredible experience. You know, you're driving a computer, self driving computer for that matter. That technology is only going to get better. But I still think we I think hybrid bridge is a gap for a long time to comes. Brian Moody over Kelly Bluebook and Auto Trader talking about Trump relaxing the cafe standards, which is great for manufacturers. It's also
great for consumers as well. Are we going to see prices level off, if not drop because of this?
We may.
But here's the thing about any kind of those predictions. The cycle where automakers plan and develop and research vehicles is much longer than a year or two. It's more like six to eight years. So the few economy standards that we have now, yeah, there's a few things they can do in the short term, but planning long term planning, and this is probably a point where what President Trump has done might be a disadvantage because the back and forth can be hard on the automaker being able to
plan out their product portfolio long term. So it would be better to have a middle ground and just say, hey, we all agree, let's just keep it this way for the next twelve years. That would be better than up and down in the short term.
I guess get more granular here, Brian. What's the actual production cost difference between meeting the old two percent standard versus the half a percent standard per vehicle?
How much does that shave off a car? Any idea.
I don't know how much it shaves off a car in terms of production, but I know that it does reduce the cost of building cars in terms of compliance. For example, I spoke to this is. This is some time ago. I spoke to an executive at the company Renault, which is a French company, and one of the reasons they stopped making one of their cars with a certain powertrain I think it was a D power you know, subcompact. They said, we can't make money on this car because
thirty percent of the cost is compliant. So anytime you hear an additional piece of equipment being added or standards being changed. There's a cost for compliance, there's a cost for testing in addition to the actual production of the car let alone, whether or not you decrease driveability or reliability.
Okay, that's what we'll set that aside. That's an interesting perspective from them too. But the other element here too is, okay, we don't have the EV incentives anymore, so, you know, on no more ballouts for EV and relaxed standards. What happens with market share relative to EV since not hybrids but just electric vehicles over the next let's say, five to eight years.
I think they're going to level off at a certain there's there's going to be a point where it's going to feel comfortable as part of the market, maybe ten percent, let's say. However, I think that the elimination of the rebates, the taxpayer funded incentives for electric I think that's going to be good for electric cars in the long run.
What about the some costs that all automakers have gotten into with evs, and now that we're backing off of that, what happens with that?
That's hard. They're going to have to make some adjustments and we already see companies like Volvo, for example, maybe walking it back a little bit, and rather than saying, hey, we're going to force an ideological solution onto the consumers, they have recently said we're going to let consumer demand dictate what we do, so full electric by a certain time. Okay, maybe, but they're not going to artificially set those times. They're going to let, like you had said before, let the
markets aside. That's always going to work out best for the company and for the consumer, because what do we pick. We all picked the thing that we like best that we can afford.
Okay, But then, logically speaking, three years from now, let's say a Democrat gets elected. Does this all get wiped out and we start over again? And how do you plan that far ahead, if at all. If you're an autom manufacturer or a hell a car dealer.
That's a risk. I mean, that's definitely a risk. And some could argue that's a weak point in the system, that it's too prone to partisan back and forth. It would be better to have a middle ground that just says, hey, here's a good number for a fuel economy. Let's all agree. Let's have like a cross party committee that can just agree that this is a number and not politicize it.
Because most cars today, like the average car, you can get a car that's gackling only not a hybrid that can get forty miles per gallon on the highway.
That was unheard of twenty years ago, right because of well, how much of that is innovation and how much of that is government in that Hey, as soon as gas prices go up, people start selling their evs and big cars and get more fuel efficient things.
We have another oil prices. Everyone wants an EV or something that's going to get more miles to down. The minute it starts to go back down, we go back, whipsaw back to the other things. And that's again that's a consumer demand in the thickleness that we have there.
But I think it's valid, right, But consumers don't want a twelve mile per gallant car and a generation of go or less that was not an unusual thing. Today. People expect their car to get reasonable fuel economy, add hybrid to it, and like you said, I personally drove a plug in hybrid for three months. This won't happen to be a Volvo. I'm got seventy five to eighty miles per gallon plugging it in every day. So I know that's possible, and I think what happens is the
fuel economy adds convenience. You now have cars, especially hybrids, with a driving range of five or six hundred miles. That is a lifestyle changer. When I hear people with electric cars or who are electric car proponents say, well, on a long trip, it only takes an extra forty five minutes to charge up. That's true, it does only take an extra forty five minutes to charge up. But that sounds like someone who doesn't have toddlers.
Yeah, right, exactly, and we'll leave it at that again. Brian Moody Kelly Bluebook and the Auto Trader, he's the executive editor there. So I think this is a great thing, quite honestly, is getting a little bit more common sense back in. Manufacturers will thus still be incentive for them to reduce an increase fuel efficiency in the future. It's not like simply it's going to go well twelve miles a gal, and we won't stand for that anymore. It's
all about consumer demand, not what the government wants. And this one makes sense to me, Brian.
All the best. Thanks for jumping on this morning. Thank you appreciate. We've got some weather.
Moving in y'all over the next well all the way through the weekend almost to Friday as well. We'll full update their traffic just ahead someday, guys. I love the new cafe standards under President Trump. Something I do not like what he's doing with farms. We'll get into that just ahead here Sloaney seven hundred WLW Scott slowing back on seven hundred WLWT. Enjoyable day off yesterday.
Good.
So.
I was just talking to Brian Moody from Kelly Bluebook about lower mission standards helping the auto industry, and I think that's a smart move, quite honestly, because you know, you get these environmentalist policies in place that simply ignore consumer demand sentiment, and the fact of the matter is we are going to be relying upon fossil fuels for the rest of our lives and probably at least another
couple generations beyond. Doesn't mean we shouldn't take the environment seriously, but it always struck me as silly as to hold us to these high demanding standards when the rest of the world, developing nations and in particular, our frenemies in China, Indian elsewhere are allowed to pollute the environment with impunity. It doesn't mean you know that we can't do better, but it seems rather silly since you can't hold them to the same high standards you're putting yourself under. And
new hamsterring American industry and progress and everything else. And so one may also ask how real is that threat? To some degree, you know, there's a lot of younger people, especially environm mental types, I think the world is going to end next Tuesday. We heard that same cry when it came to the hole in the ozone layer. Hell songs are written about it, right and now we're learning, hey, it fixed itself. I'm not suggesting that that's entirely possible
with this climate emergency that we're in. At the same time, I look at it reasonably and go, Okay, there's only so much we can do right now. You're not going to be able to overdo it overnight. The result is is it really making all that much an impact to begin with? When you look at the amount of energy and environmental harm producing batteries at the rate we're doing right now. So I think that's all going to be factored in as well. So yeah, I agree with easing
up on a car manufacturers for sure. I think that's a good idea. Something I'm not too happy with, though, is what's happening when it comes to more bailouts. You know, Socialism, I guess is in the eye of the beholding party, because if you're a Republican and a Democrat does it, it's socialism. When a Republican does it, it's something else. It's kind of like that old adage of difference. But what's the difference between a terrorist and a patriot depending
on who is doing the terrorizing. So for farm bills in Terwmers, in case you haven't heard this, we're about to give eleven billion dollars to our farmers and probably a number of them listening at anyone stretched to my show right now. And it's not a me against farmers thing. Obviously, I like to eat. Look at me. I get what farmers do. It's an incredibly hard life. I have family members at are farmers. I totally understand that. But I
think you probably agree with me. Going eleven billion dollars in ball up money to farmers, does that make a lot of sense, simply because this is because of terrorifts. Now, at the beginning of this thing, when Trump said I'm going to do tariff's most beautiful world word in the dictionary, I'm like, well, I got some questions about that, but you know what, let's see how it plays out. Let's give the brother a chance. Let's see how we do. And so far, now almost a year into this, not quite.
It doesn't look really good. I'll be honest with you. And at what point you go, yeah, it's not to what we thought it would. The problem there is, though, I don't know, for the President is never going to go, yeah, you know what, I.
Got this one wrong.
It's just simply not in his vocabulary or any politician for that matter. We'll just pivot to something else. And now, as he focuses less than international diplomacy and more on America First, he's going to kick off that campaign, the year long campaign to make America first. This comes back into play, I think, and simply put right now, the tariffs have created the very problem they want to solve. You raise costs for farmers, the input costs for farmers,
and you're talking equipment, we're talking fertilizer. Talking all that and more at the same time, we close the export markets because of the tariffs. Now the second time around. They spent twenty eight billion last time around billing off farmers during the first term. I know, the eleven billion dollar barret of farmers.
What is that?
If the tariffs worked, will we be doing this? And the answer, of course is well, yeah, exactly right, it's not working. That's we gotta bill out farmers. Now, we do have collected so far about two hundred billion dollars in tariffs, and that is high cotton right there. We have never collected that much money ever in tariff. So that's eleven of the two hundred billion dollars. If you're
in manufacturing, if you're in construction, where's your check? Is this not unlike when we talked about, you know, bailing out while subsidizing college student loans and go, well, you know it's COVID and the kid you can't afford to pay these loans. Well, we're just going to pay your loans for you. And all right, when someone goes, hey, listen, I don't I'd never went to college, my kids, I don't have kids. Why am I paying for a rich kid to go to college. And it was Elizabeth Warren
that laughed at the guy. But that's a true statement, Like I'm not part of that. I have a try. I got to pay taxes in my truck. I got all these costs I have to pay for as a small business person or a contractor. In this case, where's my money? And that was true with Elizabeth Warren. It's true under Donald Trump right now. If you are at another sector besides farming, where the hell's your check? If you're building stuff, creating stuff, manufacturing stuff, there should be
money for you too, right. But isn't that the problem why we're collecting this money in tariffs to give it back to political favorites, in this case farmers who will support President Trump in the future. And it's just like I thought we were getting rid of this kind of behavior, and it's that certainly it's not socialism, but in line with the ten billion in taxpayer money we're buying companies, that's certainly of socialism. You know, I'm buying up ownershares.
Whether it's critical to national security or not. I can kind of give side out of that and going, Okay, we spend ten billion dollars in taxpayer money to buy parts of companies or certainly vested interests, if not majority interest in companies, and we'll have a say in how they run. Isn't that literally the definition of socialism that government controls the means of production that would be us
In this case, we're back to baillouts again. So we as consumers, then we pay higher prices because of tariffs on imported goods. Then our tax bunny funds billions and ballots to compensate those harmed by the same tariffs, and so we're essentially being farmers to absorb the costs of the tariffs that they voted for in the first place. Does this make any sense? It doesn't make any sense
to me. The ideological hypocrisy here. If you go back in time, and I remember in when was that we'd been an oes nine ten when we had the auto bailout because of yeah, it would have been two thousand and eight, two thousand and nine because of the housing market collapse. So we had to ballot auditustries saying hey, listen, you know what, we got to do this because they're too big to fail, and a lot of conservatives at the time who love this guy are just our signment
on this kind of stuff called that government overreach. Okay, well, if that was going to reach with the auto bailout, then how are we why are we supporting agricultural bailouts? And again, it's a government created crisis, like college debt or anything else, or the healthcare system. It's it's absolutely created by them, which I don't understand at all. And so you mean, you look at manufacturing for example, they're suffering.
Manufacturer's contribution to the GDP went from nine point eight percent last year to nine point four which zo point four percent is a lot in that sector, and we see manufacturing decline, declined, decline. Seventy percent of firms in the manufacturing sector report negative tariff impacts. About two percent see benefits because it raises costs for raw matials, media. It's just like farmers, and it's going to stifle competitiveness too. We saw this, you know, back to the farming. This
has been a problem for a long time. When it comes to the farm bill. I think we did the twenty eighteen farm bill and we just extended that one because it goes every five years. But the idea here is you know, the idea it's it seeks to remedy is to support the little farmers. Well, it doesn't because they widen the loopholes to make the mega farms exploit the commodity and crop insurance subsidies through they can even have like extended family members who never even worked on
the farm. Why not getting some of these credits, I guess. And tried to eliminate a thirty year old rule preventing big companies from receiving unlimited commodity payments.
That didn't work out.
And we talked about not funding SNAP during the shutdown, and you know, there's two parts of the farm bill, seventy six percent of the funding from that and when the nutrition programs. But the one that people don't complain about is a commodity and crop insurance that benefited the largest operators out there consumed about seventy five about the same amount of the farm program a portion about seventeen billion dollars and twenty eighteen dollars, which is a hell
of a lot of money. And so when you do this kind of stuff, it drives consolidation. It allows the big fish to eat the literal little fish. We call it capitalism, but it really isn't because the government is picking winners and losers here, and so we see small family farms get gobbled up. As that's where we're at right now. If you're into such you know, John Mellencamp kind of things, I suppose, But the idea here is that you know, they also had the crop insurance program.
It doesn't really address the needs of starting you know, there's other farmers out there, people are just farming for the first time, or organic farms, small scale operations alike, and it's just from what I understand, doesn't do anything to address any of that stuff. So I you know, you're going to have one side again if the difference between a terrorist and a patriot or someone who sees, you know, any government interaction of socialism, whether that's true
or not. But this looks like a lot like certainly with the bigger companies out there that we're buying parts of that's literally the definition of socialism. But this one is like, it's more bailout. So you know, if the if the administration is even admitting, hey, these these tariffs aren't working like we thought, so now we've got to bail out farmers. So they'll continue to support our administration
and our clause. That's all well and good, but one just like the college bailout, may wonder, well, I'm not a farmer, which is most of us. No disrespect to farmers, because we all like to eat and drink, and everything we get is from you know, basically, consumables come from farms in some way, shape or form. From the corn we eat to the pop we drink. It's all got corn and it so he means and everything else, and we close the markets off to the rest of the world.
So now we have to take money and give it to them to bail them out. And so what industry's dext if we got two hundred billion to hand out. It seems like this is just another level of government that I thought we're trying to get rid of. That government doesn't solve all problems, it creates more problems. Well, the twenty eighteen farm Bill in this latest ballout is indicative of that being one hundred percent correct. I'm willing to give tariffs a try, and certainly it sounded good
at the beginning. I had some doubts and skepticism, healthy skepticism of that, but I want to see. You know the plan either orks it doesn't work so far. You know, eleven months in this almost a full year quarter of the term, it really is not looking like what it's supposed to do at this point. So yeah, we'll see what happens. But I don't think that the administration is going to change their tune anytime soon. I'll just continue to do that now.
You know.
Again, the measuring stick here is I always look at the other side, whether it's a when a Democrat does something, I look at the reaction to Republicans and vice versa in this case and go, Okay, when Democrats are doing this kind of stuff, did Republicans call them out? And it would be absolutely yes. And when you do, when you could, when you do what the guy you're against
is doing in different ways but largely the same. And these ballots, I think you got to call their bs on it, which is what I'm doing today, calling out that BS. We got weather in news, and I know we've got some weather. I don't think it's going to be that bad quite honestly. You know, we're gonna get
little wet snow and mixing. And we'll get the full details here in just a second, but people already flipping out because we just had that early winter storm not too long ago, and it's nice to seeing it come back from the weekend.
The snow is all malted.
That's what I love about our town, the fact that the snow comes, it really doesn't stick around all that. It's not really a persistent snow, not at all. So we'll have that to factor in as we at the end of weekend. Actually is looking all right cooler. I'm cold obviously, but looks like we're going to dry out over the weeks. Anyway, coming up on the show on seven hundred WW she is the president of the Hamlin
County Commissioner and that would be Denise Treehouse. Back on last week, I had Commissioner Alisha reeson and she lobbed as she does. She brings the noise, all right, she's on its fire. Well, Denise three House heard some of Alicia Reese's comments and conversations. One of the big ones, of course, was that we're swimming in cash, that the county has all sorts of money. We are, we got roller I think Realisia said we rolling in money, We
rolling in money. I think Commissioner dree House is going to go I don't know where she's getting that from. Here are the facts. So, as you know, Hamlin County Commissioners just approved a four and a half percent property tax rebate for twenty twenty six. That is the low because we're promised what thirty percent back in the nineties when we're building stadiums for a while, got thirty percent. Now that thirty percent is long gone. She says, we just simply don't have the money to be able to
do that. That's not it's not feasible. But four and a half percent is the lawst number we've ever seen. She's going to come on and talk about other ways to get that money back to taxpayers and make you whole. At the same time, today approving the buildout for pay Course Stadium, and one may ask, okay, well, why didn't we simply go back to the Bengals and go this is what was promised on your behalf. How do we make the taxpayers the proper owners whole?
Good question. Denise's three House.
Next on The Scott Sloan Show and the home of the best Bengals coverage seven hundred WW Cincinnati Manican, My.
Scott's Flown back on seven hundred W heals it.
And so we heard the news that last week, how many kind of commissioners four and a half percent property tax rebate for next year. Of course, we all remember the thirty percent promise when voters approved the half cent sales tax increased back in the mid nineties to fund the stadiums downtown. Was also finding out that that's the lowest number we've had as far as a rebate goes. Now, the vote two to one. Commissioner Alisia Reese was dissenting
supporting it. Of course we're count we're our commissioner's Denise Treehouse, the Hamlet County Commissioned President, who joins us now on the show to talk about it on seven hundred WW Welcome back Denise Hau's life.
Yeah, doing well, Scott, how are you?
I'm good. I'm good.
I know you've got sexy budget meetings to get to and everything else because you're a numbers chick. So God bless you, God speed. You're better than I'm at that stuff. So let's look at and you know, your contemporary, Lisha Reese was on the show last week, and I know you had some things you wanted to get off your chest relative to that conversation without playing all the highlights
of that. But you know, you've been in county government and been around long enough to remember the ninety six stadium campaign, and looking back, do you think voters were given an honest picture of what that thirty percent property taxtorybit it actually mean? Or was there some bait and switch happening, Because I think if you surveyed, most taxpayers who were around then feel that there was a bait and switch and it was intentional.
Was your thoughts, Well, I'll tell you what I did want to come on just to correct some things. I mean, we can all have differences of opinion about what happened and why it happened, but the fact of the facts, and so I didn't want to have your listeners come away with the wrong impression on what has happened in
the past. And so, as you say, starting out, when this thing was offered to the tax payers, there was a sales tax and then the rebate, and for the first fourteen years they did a thirty percent they I mean, they promised it and they did it. But what happened
was the sales tax that was collected. It didn't keep up the revenue did not keep up with making sure that we meet the obligations of the fund, with the debt service and the pilot and all the things, maintenance of the stadiums, all the things, and the PPR, and so back in twenty eleven you saw a significant dip
from thirty down to seven point eight. And so this ebb and flow has been going on for a while, depending on what can be afforded through this fund, right, and so a number of years ago, probably three four years ago, the administrator offered a formula that said we need to keep about eighty five percent in the reserve. Okay, that's responsible, that's what's been advised by our consultants. That's great.
So let's create a formula where we keep the eighty five percent and then do the rebate according to that. And so that's something that would have offered us the ability to give a rebate. Wouldn't have been the thirty but it would have been a starting point. And then each year try to go up a little bit for
the property tax owners or the property tax payers. And we haven't stuck to the formula, and so when you do the thirty percent, it flows up the formula, and you can't afford to do that year after year.
I guess.
And the other way of looking at this too then would be, Okay, well, we have money for the homeless, We're going to give deputies a five percent increase. There's other things in the budget against not just the one thing, but I guess the taxpa mask Okay, I understand all that. Then why isn't this a bigger priority or based on the Matthew just described, it's impossible.
Well, no, I think the priority is providing relief for property owners, and we are doing that. This isn't the only game in town when it comes to how to provide property tax relief, and so let's not forget about what's going on in the legislature. I did sit on Governor DeWine's pass force with bill sits trying to come up with some ideas to provide relief. We had twenty suggestions for the legislature and some for ourselves, and so
we are starting to implement some of that. Not the lease of which it is House Bill three thirty five, which says that our revenue, the county's revenue, will be held our inside millage will be held to the rate of inflation. That is a reduction in revenue for the county and relief to the taxpayers, and so you will not see the spikes that we have seen in the past for property tax bills because we're going to be held to the rate of inflation. We're taking a hit
on that. It's probably about fifteen million a year, but we're willing to do that as part of the solution. So it's not as if the county is not working on property tax relief. We're giving some relief by the way through the PTR. It's just is not as much as the thirty percent. So there are other ways to provide this release outside the PPR.
So it would be a messaging kind of thing. Is that what you're saying is you're going to get the money back, it just won't be in the thirty percent property tax rebate.
Well, we're always trying to look at for the tax players and do as little increase as possible. But as I said, we've got partners in this fight here right in the state. I wish the state were doing more candidly, but we are doing our part. And we didn't have to support House build three thirty five, but we did that knowing that we were going to take a cut because we thought it was an important thing to do by way of the county to provide some relief to
people that are struggling. And let me say one other thing, because I heard it said that the tax players got written out of the Stadi Impact Seal, the opposite is true. The financial plan actually ensured that the PTR remains in the formula in the equation. It's a matter of degree, and that's always what we fight about. But we literally wrote it into the least negotiations with the bangles in the financial stack, and so we didn't write it out. We literally wrote it in to the financial stack.
Could the thirty percent rebate have been part of the new stadium deal the two hundred and eleven millions, which, by the way, I think you're voting on today.
Well, it is part of it. As I said, it's just a matter of degree. The PTR is in there. It's just the thirty percent abbs and flows given the amount of revenue that's coming into that fun Okay.
So what would then have find in subsequent years to ease three house? What can people expect as far as.
A rebakers, Well, what I would like to do is again go back to this formula and say we are going to do as much as we can and hopefully increase it year after year, so people always see that kind of increase. The other thing it does is structure something where it's more predictable and so that you should see the chart. I don't know if you've seen the chart where it goes up and down and up and down, and they're dramatic shifts, and so, I you know, I'm
a tax player. I would rather see something that is something I can count on and that I can budget for. And we're talking about maybe the delta between the four point five that was voted this year in the thirty is about seventy bucks. So we're not talking about hundreds of dollars. I know, seventy dollars is just a significant amount of money, but when it comes to your household budget, that's what we're talking about.
Well, but if you're a senior fixed income people on the margins, we are plenty of those people that are afraid they can't pay their property taxes because what the state's doing, and of course the reassessments and like you had this in there as well, and you know, eventually it's going to be a breaking point. I know, it's just seventy dollars. There's some people that seventy dollars there's a lot of money though.
Yeah, I agreed, and so we're trying to provide that relief another way. As I said, the PTR is not the only way to get this done, and so we're providing the release through these other mechanisms. And by the way, they're longer term, right untill three thirty five, is ongoing. It's not something that's decided year after year. It's going to be lost, and so we will be held to the rate of inflation, and so that release will be ongoing and so we won't have this debate every year.
That will stay in place.
Commissioner Denise Treehouse, President the Commission, and talking about the meeting today, the vote today two hundred and eleven for pay Corps. We also had word that it's only a four and a half percent property tax rebate for next year instead of the thirty percent promise, and we approve the ninety six stadium front buildout. So the truth is then going to be somewhere between four and a half and thirty percent. With all these ways of finance are
getting that money back to taxpayers? Denise, Are we ever going to get close to thirty Because while the four and a half percent right now, especially with the new deal, is bad timing on the part Forer, I think for a lot of homeowners and taxpayers, do you.
Agree, Well, you know, Scott, I have voted for thirty in the past, so when we could have I voted for it, and when I thought it was necessary for the tax players, I did it. The fact of the matter, though, is that you can't sustain that. You can do it, but you can't keep doing it because then you bankrupt the fund. So if we were to do a thirty percent this year the vote we just took, we would have reduced the fund dramatically, and so that hurts the fund.
By the way we're supposed to keep eighty five percent, we would have been way way down. The other piece of that, though, is that it impacts next year, and so if you do the thirty percent this year, then
you're in trouble next year. And that's what's happened. We did thirty percent last year, and I didn't vote for that because I didn't think it was responsible, and so now we're in a position this year, well, we can't do it again, so you know, year after year it all plays upun This is why I'm in favor of this formula. So we don't have this dynamic where we've got thirty percent and then we got to go to four point five. I mean, yeah, do I wish it
was higher? Yes, I do, but you know, we're looking at the finances as fund and not bankrupting the fund. So it is what it is. And I also was listening and heard that this idea that the tack players didn't get anything through the new lease with the Bengals,
and nothing could be further from the truth. Where we got the Bengals to pay one hundred and twenty million dollars into our asset, which is that stadium, we capped our cost to three hundred and fifty million, which has never happened, and we got a long term deal with the Bengals, and we got used of that stadium like in a way that we never do, right. And so then we get to have high school football games between
Elder and ex played at the stadium. So let's not forget about the community benefits that came through that lease. In addition to the financial benefits that we got as accounting.
Well we need to have.
I mean, that's all nice for Saint exe and Elder, but why aren't we using the stadium more? I thought initially when this happened, that we'd see a lot more activity outside the occasional Taylor Swift show, a lot more of what we're talking about with football. Why does it take well, twenty eight years in this thing and now we're going, hey, we need to utilize the stadium more for high school athletics. Why haven't we been doing that all along?
Because we didn't have control of the city, because the county didn't have control. And so through this new lease, we now have access to that stadium as we should. It belongs to the tax players, and so we had seen the first model of how that's going to play out in the years to come, where we do have more concerts, we have more events, we have more high school football games. That was the whole point of the community benefits agreement, and so the Bengals signed off on that,
and so this was our first foray into that. I thought it was a good model. It was beautiful nights, even though it was a little rainy, but yet and look to that in the future. That's exactly what we're trying to accomplish.
Yeah, but one may look at that and go wow, that is to not see the availability because that was something else was promised people. It's like, hey, yeah, you know the stadium that we're partners in this single bit
to use the stadium. We haven't been able to And I think that's just another And I brought that up to Denise because between that and the thirty percent, I think there's a huge disconnect between elected officials like yourself, certainly the Bengals in the front office, and what the community wants and they you know, I think everyone's looking at all of these deals and going Okay, I think we're just going to get screwed again because the pattern
is there. How do you how do you change that over the next ten, fifteen, twenty years.
Well, I wasn't there when this promise was made, by the way, for this thirty percent, that happened many years ago, and it wasn't a responsible promise. I mean, they had no idea. By the way, the reason where I'm having this conversation is because the revenue is a flat right, if the sales tax revenue was higher, we'd be doing all we'd be doing the thirty percent. We could afford it, we'd do it. I supported. That would be great. That's
just not the reality. And so to promise this so many years ago, for twenty five years, it's not responsible.
You shouldn't do that.
You can't budget like that because you don't know what the economic reality is going to be. You don't want know what the economy is going to be. So I try not to make unrealistic promises to people. I try to honor what I had said I could do and try to do as much as possible. Whether it's thirty percent or something less than that, we're trying to do
as much as possible. And I know something else that was raised in your conversation was MFD, which is another challenge for us because we're under the federal on you know, it's a mandate from the federal government, the Consent Decree, but it's not funded. It's an unfunded mandate, and so
we're under that. We've got a very old system, over one hundred years old, you know, with the pipes in the ground, and so we're trying to hold those rates as tight as possible, knowing that our counterparts in other counties are raised and rates higher than what's been suggested for us. So Franklin County is up eight percent next year, Akron's going up five percent, Tyahoga is going up fourteen or four point two percent. So it's not like we're
alone in this. But what we're trying to do is say, how can we keep these rates as low as possible and again make it predictable. And so next year you're going to see because we got rid of the bulk discount and I know it's kind of in the weeds, but anyway, we got to the ball discount. So next year people will not see residents will not see higher MSc rate and so that's good news, and you don't hear anybody talking about that, but they we're about to
pass that budget too. In years after that, we're hoping to have a fairly low predictable rate so that people don't see spikes in those bills either. So you know, it's not only this one issue. We're trying to play this out across the board and provide as much relief as we can, knowing that we're under some of these mandates and we have to respond to those.
Commissioner Denise's Threehouse. Last week, Alicia Reese, Commissioner ree said that the county's rolling in money. She told me, we're rolling them out. We got money all over the place with the banks and stadium revenues. You're saying we can't fund a full rebate and thirty percent is it can't be done, It's impossible.
Are we really rolling in money?
No, we are not rolling in money. I mean, we have our budget here, and we have a budget here in tonight as a matter of fact, and the revenues are relatively flack. We're doing what we can. But no, I mean it is it's very tight. Ask the sheriff, ask the prosecutor, ask the judges. The budget is very tight this year. I don't know what that refers to, but it is certainly not reality.
So not rolling in money. Maybe a little bit of money.
I thought.
I'm wondering what we're talking about now.
I don't know, I don't know what that The reality is this? What give me a reasonable number? What can you expect you? What can you tell taxpayers now? In handling count It's it can't be four and a half percent. You're saying it can't be thirty percent. What's the target?
The target is keeping eighty five percent in the fun and making sure we meet our dead ol. We got dead obligations. We have obligations through a pilot payment, we have construction, we have all these obligations. So meet the obligations, and then we have built into that formula this PCR. So we will have a PPR every year and knowing it depends on the sales tax revenue and what's coming in, and that will define what we can do by way of the relief. We can't spend money we don't have.
Is it? Is it closer to thirty percent or closer to four and a half.
For one next next time?
Yeah, next next.
Cycle, and then it's going to be changed. But you said you want to get to a steady number, and the number would everyone will be happy with would be what I guess the question or you just.
Simply don't know, Well how would I know? I mean I don't know what is going to come in by way to sales tax.
Well, I mean you have targets obviously otherwise we've been doing this, so there's got to be a number in your mind.
Yeah, well sure, and what I'm hoping for is an increase every year. So as we look at the four point five, we go up next year, and then we go up the year after that and go after the year after that. So it's predictable and we're doing and I and I anticipate, and boy, I hate the prediction because you know, we just came out of a pandemic not too long ago and not get an effect here right you. It's very hard and we had a recession and that's where you saw another dep so it's really
hard for me to predict. But the model is set so that we start out low and we continue to grow year up to year. So that is certainly my hope. But to make a prediction gets a little dicey.
Yeah, fair enough. We'll just say twenty five eight percent.
How's that?
Say what you'd like, and we'll try to hit.
That mark because I got to have we record. Everything's recorded. I want to bring this back later and then you know, rub your nose in it today.
That's like, please, Willie will do that? I would do it. I would not.
No, No, the EMBc. Let's get back to MSc because that's another one that I hear quite a bit about and so that rate we're trying to do a predictable rate across the board for the next ten years. We're trying to hit four point five, which is a pretty modest increase. Before I got to the Commission, by the way, those rates were quite a bit higher year after year. And when I got there, we were able to hold that flat for a number of years because we had a reserve, and so we spent on some of that
reserved keep for us rate flat. But now we're back to a reserve that's reasonable that we need to increase the rate modestly year a few years. So that is what I'm shooting for. Right If well, I can do a four point five increase for MSc for the next ten years, I think that's what people are asking me to do. Give us something predictable, make it as low as you possibly can, and that's what we're going to do.
And so that's what that's what I'm trying to do with the MFT, not to be confused with the four point five with the PCR. And now I'm just realizing that those numbers are the same. So I and the increase this year for ms.
I guess I guess resident, I've got to get going. We could probably talk about this for a long time, but you got to go. You got votes, you got work to do. To d Street Hoouse, Hamlet County Commission President, setting the record straight from hers perspective, I always enjoy having you back, and thanks for taking time out to explain.
Thanks that all the best to you, and we've got a news update happening now here on seven hundred WLW Tuesday morning, Scottslonde rolls on with you here seven hundred wl It's a tough one to as a consumer. I don't think I care at all about it. I'll be honest with you, but I'm gonna talk about anyway because it's just fascinating. Every time we have some sort of change agent occur, we have the same predictable reaction and I get it. You know you're trying to protect your
own territory. I'm gonna ask Andy Schaffer about this later. Till down on eleven thirty five from all Worth Financial to talk about the markets, investments, and just like a weekly money tune up as always, so Warner Brothers comes along and said, Hey, you know what, we're gonna sell our studio and our streaming service, and we're going to sell it to Netflix for almost eighty three billion dollars.
With the B and all the cable networks we own, we're gonna spend that in a new publicly traded company. Sound good? So Paramount who owns pretty much everything else, right, CBS and just you go down the list. It's incredible. Uh, And that consolidation has been going for a long time, all of a sudden, now it's a problem because it involves Hollywood. Okay, So Paramount skuy Dance says, you know what, we're going to do better shareholders. They go to the
existing shareholders instead of the Netflix deal. They said, well, if you go with us instead of Netflix, will give you two dollars twenty five cents more per share, which is like almost one hundred and ten billion dollar offer for the entire company. And so now you've got Warner's board saying it. You know that, some of the shareholders saying, well, you're unfavoring you're favoring Netflix unfairly, And it's just this
back and forth. It's fascinating. Now, if you own you know, a decent number of those shares, you're probably pretty happy because you're going to get paid. And ultimately that's how it works. You know, we own shares of companies, me and you and your four one K, your roth Ira, your investments, if you have a pension. It's all tied up in that. We know how the markets work. And on top of that, Aunt also they're also backed by Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law. He's got an investment
firm that's backing the paramount deal. So gee, I wonder which one's going to get done. But nonetheless, it's just interesting to see the reaction from from Warner people, or not even Warner people get that in a second. So the reality is, like any any business, any sector, any company, certainly, streaming is affecting the entertainment business in a big way. It's affecting my business TV and in this case film
the film is your Warner Brothers. Theaters for a long time had their exclusive window on new releases, and yeah, and I obviously took a hit during the pandemic in that and they still haven't fully rebounded though, because studios are right now they're trying to figure out which films
justify a theatrical release versus going straight to streaming. We've seen Netflix throw we Are one this week that Will Gans was talking about that literally is going to be in theaters for a week before it went on the Netflix. Because while they want to get an AFORE nomination and gets some more eyeballs, that's how it works. You're just looking that as a loss leader, basically going yeah, we just want we want the advertising from being an Oscar
nominated film. You can only do that if you're up for about a week or so, and that obviously with Netflix and Paramount and this, that's going to change. That's going to change the whole awards thing, right, So if you're an Oscar fan, I don't know too many of those, but if you're an Oscar fan, that's probably going to change how that works too. In addition to streaming, cutting in, production costs keep going up and the revenue models are
it's a big question mark. You're talking about three hundred million for a blockbuster to just make in market and you need a huge global audience just to break even. But if you're a mid budget film, which has been the majority of the films out there, they've disappeared because we're not quite sure should we do streaming. Should we do theatrically you're not seeing that anymore. And now we got the Writers Guild and like that are pushing back because of AI, and it's a whole. It's kind of
a mess. By and large are audiences, whether it's eyes or ears. Our habits have shifted. We're more selective about what we'll see in theaters versus seeing streaming at home. My wife and I wanted to see the Jeremy Ellen White Springsteen movie that was up in theaters briefly because it wasn't that mass appeal kind of thing, which I get, and we'll like, ah, we should go, and then you know, a week or two later, it's not there anymore because
we're like, Okay, no big loss. We'll just wait for to come out and watch it on our big screen TV. So technology, like anything in the world, whether it's automotive, whether it's medical, there's opportunities, threats, and predictably, the old Hollywood machine starts ratcheting it up the defense Jane Fonda,
of all people, she's still alive. Jane Fonda sent a letter to the trade news publications saying that the end of Warner Brothers is a standalone company is an alarming escalation and a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment interesty itself, the public deserves, and potentially the First Amendment itself. I'm not quite sure if this is a one a issue and how that would be, but that the public
somehow deserves an outdated business model. There's a trade organization called Cinema United that represents about three thirty thousand movie screens in the United States. Are a big one, and they said the acquisition of Netflix is an unprecedented threat and vowed to fight it because theaters will close, communities will suffer, jobs will be lost, and you're only getting Netflix only give token releases in theaters. And imagine the
paramounts can do the same thing, and what happens to us. Well, you know, it's interesting that the cinemas, and you know, history is always a great indicator of future behavior. That if you go back to the turn of the previous century, film was really coming to it. I mean, the golden age of cinema, right, the Warner Brothers literally came on. Silent movies became talkies and the big you know, nineteen twenties,
nineteen thirties, great depression. That was the one place you could go for some relief.
And they.
Did that for wow, one hundred years. Okay, great, awesome, they got that model. All on comes streaming lumps really cheap TVs. I's facing you get a big screen TV now for dirt cheap, like one hundred inch TV. You can get one for I don't know, like over just over thousand dollars. So yeah, the speakers of sounds is we got the soundbars. Now, it sounds good, sounds immersive, and it's like you're not for want for that whole cinematic experience in your own home. But the idea is
somehow we're going to close these theaters. It's funny because if you go back even to the early nineteen hundreds, the same theater operators, maybe their ancestors had no problem putting vaudevillians in local stages and screens.
I mean that's how we consider.
Before film, people would go to a theater to watch vaudeville, which would be a basically a variety show. You'd have comics, you'd have singers, you'd have impressions, you have all these things, and once movies came along, it was more streamline it was cheaper instead of having to hire all that talent to simply put it on celluloid. And you're like, well, I'm sorry, that's the way what happened in the same movie industry that really that crushed stage is now being
crushed by streaming. And it's the same argument that we've got to protect us. I'm sure there were Vaudevillians and the Vaudeville Union and the Theater Union and the stage hands, and they're all, you're not going to stop consumer demand. It's just simply not going to happen. Same for the
Writers Guild. They're calling for the government to step and then block any merger whatsoever because I represent about twelve thousand screenwriters and saying that the streaming companies in one of the streaming it was going to swallow one of its biggest competitors. Is what anti trust lawsuits are designed to prevent. Well, I think the concern is they're going to come in and go you know what, twelve thousand writings obs are going to maybe not all go away,
but we're going to lean into AI. And I would think too that I've said this before, there's a real that for actors and actresses. Isn't going to be just much easier to create a plot, have AI write a story or come up and kind of mesh out a screenplay or something like that AI assisted, and have AI do all the acting and production. And I mean, we're there now where you look at some of the shorts
on social media, we're there now. It's not going to be that much before we have animated movies, which you still need hard writers for I suppose, but you know, by and large, it's the industry itself is going to shrink immeasurably because of artificial intelligence.
It's almost going to have to happen.
A lot of the future shows that you will see will be entire AI created, I would think. I mean, there's got to be some human guidance in there and concepts, I suppose, but you know, by and large, that's what we're looking at. They're not going to be real actors. They're just going to be faxing on. How you patent
those and put copyright restrictions and stuff. Will be an interesting battle for sure, But any had to say because people are going to be displaced, But is it really any different than what happened with vaudeville back in the day, as I said, because a lot of vaudevillians were replaced, a lot of those went to the voices, went to radio, and then a lot of the radistars went to TV, and TV went to streaming. And it's part of this
whole evolution because of consumer demand, that's all. And the teamster is upset too because they should reject this deal, because the Teamsters represent a bunch of folks as well. So, yeah, you're about protectionism and you're about, you know, trying to save your own industry in particular. I get that that's nothing new, and it's not a shot at them saying they're foolish. No, you probably do the same thing if your industry where in jeopardy to collapse. But let's face it,
it is up the consumer. The consumer always decides in America. The CEO CO chief executive at Netflix said, right now, you should count on everything that is planned going on in the theater through Warner Brothers. Continue to go to theaters. You should continue to go to theaters. The keyword, and that, by the way, is right now. So right now you should count. It's like when companies merge, you know, we're taking over Kroger takes over a company.
Let's say we just had that happen here locally.
We're going to take over this company and look at it and go, all right, I do this particular job. There's somebody in this company does a particular job. Which one are they going to keep because they ain't going to keep both of us, So you better be damn sure you're great at what you do if you want to stay on. And that's just the nature of consolidation. See that happened many many times in my industry even but you know the idea that right now, yeah, right now,
as of today. Now, by January first, maybe a different story. And that typically how these things work out, as they send assurances to people going, yeah, listen, your job's not in jeopardy right now. Everything is fine right now, so just you know, just keep on doing your best right now.
And everyone happens once they figure it all out and the analysts come in and kick the tires and see how we can shave Because when companies take over the country, the company is the first thing they do is issue a letter going everything's fine, like no one's loosening their job. Don't worry about it, and then after a little period of time, what happens is that's when the acts starts to fall. Always does, because you've got enough pay for all of the money you spent about the company in
the first place. And largely what happens is, you know, we consolidated. We start looking around, going, all right, he can go, these guys, this department can go. We've got a lot of overlap here, and we've got a consolidation means we're gonna save money. So no, never buy the Hey, your job is fine right now because tomorrow is not right now. And that's just how it works, that's true anything.
But we're seeing an unfold before our very eyes with Hollywood. Now, I don't know, is a consumer like you you're gonna lose sleep over what's going on? Probably not you look at it going. I don't know Paramount, Netflix, Warner Brothers. I watch these shows. I have no idea who the helse produced. I have no idea that we don't. And the thing is today we're dumb and ignorant of this, and largely so because there's just so much content out there to jews froom, you don't care where it's coming
from and who's producing it. All you know is that there's more stuff to consume with your eyes and ears than ever before in the history of all mankind. So it's the new Golden Age for sure. But at the same time, you look, I can't watch or listen anymore. There's only so many hours in the day. There's only so many hours in the day. But you know, fighting for Jane Fonda. We need to save Warner Brothers. Why because well, it's a it's an important company. It's the
odds of consumers. The consumers decide what is important and what is not, and so it goes. Anyway, news on the way in just minutes. You may know the name Rosemary Oglesby Henry. She's a candidate Republican candidate for Congress. That she's also happens to be the lady attached to a horrific story, quaite, honestly, of someone who said she produced a gun and all these all these accusations it turned out to be not true. You wonder how that
may have hurt her campaign. I'm saying, yeah, she threatened me with a gun, and then she was the one arrested. And it turns out later on guess what the person making the accusations also running for office, made the whole thing up. It's an interesting story and we'll get into it next with her on The Scott Sloane Show, Home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred WW.
Since you want to be an American, Hi, Scott's loan here on seven hundred WLW.
You may know the name already.
Rosemary Oglesby Henry is the founder of nonprofit Rosemary's Babies. She's also the Republican candidate for Congress in Ohio in the first district, so she is going to be running against Grange Lensman. And the reason you may know the name is because she got jammed up in an abusive relationship. And normally you don't hear the stuff with politics and candidates in life, but I think it offers a really interesting, unique perspective.
And she joins the show. Now, Rosemary, welcome, how are you?
I'm good?
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm excited to be on.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. What made you decide to run?
So?
I just I just felt like we needed a change and we needed to flip that seat to someone that could bring some new opportunities to Southwest Ohio that just aren't happening right now, especially this administration. Like what so Well, my focus definitely is to ensure that we're bringing that we're training people in manufacturing, We're focusing on the urban core and making sure that small businesses are going and
sustaining in southwest Ohio. I think the current incumbent just isn't doing a very good job of focusing and focusing on our area, especially now that we've especially now that they've added Clinton County. I just think the needs of what of Warren and Clinton just won't be heard underneath system comments.
Relative to manufacturing, tariff's helping or hurting getting that message out.
I think that it just depends on which side that
you're on. Of course, the administration is supporting the tariffs are helping, but for some formers, they're they're starting to fill as the burn of that, and so we definitely need to make sure that some of those dollars are going back, that the industries wren't being hurt, that we're we're emphasizing for those small swarming communities in those communities, for the state and people to support those individuals in that area to buy the buy home take care of Ohio first.
Yeah, yeah, as somebody's listening to this going, oh yeah, Rosemary Oglesby Henry, I know that name.
You know.
Most candidates kind of kind of go through a life with a little less stress. You, on the o otherland, had a lot of stress recently. And it's an interesting story that I think you can honestly pivot and use to your advantage. And it all starts with a guy named Kevin Farmer. So if you don't know the entire story here, you were arrested in early November charge with aggravated menacing, accused of pointing a gun at him. He's running for a city councilor running for congress. Kevin Farmer.
Turns out he's making false charges against you, charged with burglary, violating a protection order you had against him after trespassing in your home and Halloween, you're out, the charges have been dropped. He's I believe, still in jail on a seventy thousand dollars bond. Voters here that and are like, wait, wait, you got as you know how voters are they here? You got arrested and that's the end of the story.
I guess. Give us some background what's the deal with Kevin Farmer? How did you meet?
You say he's a friend or was a friend anyway, and what was the nature of your friendship.
Yeah, so mental health is real. Health is real, and you never know what's going to be the stick that broke that camel's back. And we all have people that we might be around that might be struggling with these issues and we don't know. It could be the person working next to you, or it could be someone in
your family, your child is struggling with those issues. Of course, I had a professional relationship with Kevin Farmer and known him for several years and to have this turned on me and the charges be faught that that was an assault, But the the biggest was, oh my god, now I'm stuck in the system that I've always trusted to help me build the American dream and followed, so how do I get out of it? And as you know, while the charges were fast, the city dropped it said they
should have never filed them in the first place. The apology is never as grand as assault. And so what do you do from that is you emphasize the need for you know, the boys in blue and the courts and everybody to just review these actions before they take these steps. But more than that, for a trauma informed media, you know my kids, my families and everything. Before you run with this propaganda and basically became a person's name, you need to make sure that you're clarifying the facts
and that the facts are what they are. And so it was a very traumatic incident, but you learn from it, you move past it, and for somebody like me that is resiliently driven, you get the word out there to let your voters know I was Surean's parent, I said, and my authority and why I was doing it. I was still serving people and running my race, And those are the type of people that you need fighting for Southwest Ohio, not somebody who's going to book and fold.
Yeah.
I get that too. You hear the charges, most people already made their mind up. We go, oh, yeah, that's that lady got arrested, and that's certainly not true because you're the victim in this case as opposed to the perpetrator, and the truth came out and the legal system worked. Unfortunately, it's hard to get your reputation back in this day and age because there's so much information out there and you know, first impressions mean so much. How hard is
that going to be to overcome that? And on the trail and with the election.
Come out, you know, I think people love a good comeback story. You know, this is America. We love a wet we love a good rocky story. And as I'm out on the on the trail, you know, I'm thinking of that thing, you know, And there are a lot of people that know me. I've been a long time figure in Cincinnati, Ohio and around Ohio, and so it was kind of unbelievable in the first place. And so I just get back in front of people again. I
show people who I am. I spend firm and who I am and definitely believe that if I do what I say I'm going to do, which I always say, that the voters will change their minds. You know, I'm a regular person. You know, never expected this to.
Happen to me.
But I'm a regular person that life happens. And again, when these challenges happen, you want to see how people rise above it. In a very polarized environment where there are so many lawsuits and frivolous attacks coming against people daily, especially public figures.
We're seeing more and more of this, and.
Some of them buckle and vote Rosemary for US Congress, and first District doesn't vote. She moves forward resiliently and she challenges these these hits, you know, and she fights back. And that's, like I said, the type of leaders we need fighting for our communities, our urban core, our formers, and you know, for affordability and just changes for southwest Ohio. And I just think that we haven't seen enough of that in the last few years.
About fighting back.
Rosemary oglesby Henry on the show, first District congressional candidate and talking about her unique story in politics here. Uh, you know, final point on this too. So why would Kevin Farmer, a friend of yours business call associate, why would he final these false charges against her? You know, he said you had a gun, police let and search and said, well, she doesn't have a gun here, She
couldn't have done that. And then they learned the truth and it was Uh, he was the one making the story of violating restraining order everything else.
Why Why would he do that? Did it have to do with this campaign?
Yes, I unfortunately his campaign wasn't going I guess as well as he wanted. I've heard everything from jealousy to you know again, mental health to using the political machine. This guy was a gorilla marketer and he used non traditional ways to get people, you know, into elections and office public offices. I just never thought that that would be turned on me. Again, my children and my family, my kids, we're here, you know, my family was here watching.
The drug off.
And you know that's very hurtful too, because again you tell your kids, you know, to stand for justice, to be honest, individuals trustworthy. Like you said, there was no gun, there was no story, there was no argument, helping a friend and the just in a professional partner. You know that things just kind of turned left and again that morning. Never would have thought that my face will be on a mudshot. But we see what Trump deal with his mud shot. He turned it and he thought the entire
time he was running his race. And that is a huge example for me to use that he didn't he didn't turn back, and he walked straight into it and answered those questions directly for.
Anyone that want no good deed goes on a posh right exactly, that's a tough lesson learned right there.
So well, I think it is behind you.
Of course you're gonna have to answer that a lot on the on the campaign trail for sure, because.
People go, well, what what was the story with this whole thing? Hopefully you can put that back.
And I think it's a unique story too, Yours is is you know you literally we're the victim of crime.
That's unique for Cape.
Yeah, yeah, it really is. And you know, while while I'm sitting in the background, I have some very strong leaders from the community and just higher level leaders in the government that just kind of called me and reached out and was like, hey, you know, this is how you fight this.
I'm sorry you're going.
Through this again. I've run Rosemary's Babies for more than a decade, but I've also been a community leader for almost two decades in Ohio, you know, so I've had positions where I sat on policy and things like that for not only Ohio but across the nation in California, et cetera. So a lot of these great people reached out and it just so happens it happened twenty days after my campaign announced, Right, But you know, barriers don't break me. We turn those and the opportunities and you know.
On December nineteenth, I'm hosting an event with the Temptations. I'm hoping po will come out and give me an opportunity to be able to speak to what happened, but more than that, celebrate with me, learn about me. And I'm excited to have that. On December nineteenth, a Christmas concert with the Sensations review at bat Tom Smiths Brewery, host about Fernando and Jacqueline Cruz, who are small business
owners in Madisonville. They have this really unique beer brewery and they stood behind me through all of these things and as they know, that's not her and you need people like that, you do, you know that know you, that will speak for your integrity and I really appreciate that.
Well, you know on that point, Rosemary is you know you're not your candidate in early September, I believe, and then twenty days later, two weeks later, I'm reading these stories about you, going wow, that's gonna be the shortest campaign ever. And it turns out not to be true. You know, and I pay attention to stuff. Most voters don't have time to do this. It's not on them, it's not you know, people are stupid. It's just they they hear one thing and they move on. There's so
much out there is. But the thing is this damaged in any way, shape or form. So far you're fundraising, maybe volunteer recruitment, things like.
That, the well, not necessarily it's done. It's done some damage. You know. Of course your team starts and they're like, what's going on? And so it does have some turnaround. But you know, again, I'm a person that's resilient. You know, I came from the urban corep I built my nonprofit from nothing. You know, you want to talk about building yourself up from the bootstrap. I mean I didn't even
have boots at one point in my life. I started my life as a teen mom who built this, you know, million dollar non profit organization to be able to support teen parents. We're still the only organization doing that work. And you know, there were a lot of people when I first started saying, hey, you don't want to name your organization Rosemary's Babies. Hey, they're never going to support
teenage pregnancy. You know, just all of these things, there's never been a barrier that hasn't been put in my way. This is a new obstacle, but an opportunity for me to turn it around. Look at systems where we are toddling criminals at the frundians and pretending consequences don't matter on the back end. And again, I didn't hide, I didn't quit, I didn't pourt singers. I faced the head on, I told the truth and I kept serving. And that's
serving my nonprofit. That's serving a community and going out here at getting in front of this saying I'm going to serve Southwest Ohio, just the.
Same Holloway House I belive right off Writing Road. And how many young people teenagers you.
Serve so yearlyague So it's a resource center as well as a transitional housing. It's the only one Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana that is serving young parents under the age at eighteen. We can serve up to seven moms and a baby that are fourteen people total on site. But yearly Rosemary's Babies Organization serves over two hundred plus teen moms and dads between the ages and nine and nineteen. And since we still open our doors in twenty sixteen,
we've served over three thousand young parents. And again that's why I wanted to run too, you know, I.
Tell teen parents, you can change your trajectory.
We just have to from the point that they choose to parents, remind them that this is an obstacle, but it's an opportunity for you not to be dependent on the government system, for you to get an education, for you to ensure that your kids have educational success along with you. Because I'm all for educational options, I'm all for trades, I'm all for ensuring that these kids understand investments.
So we're doing all of the things that this administration has now put out here, and I was like, wow, I'm doing that. I've been doing that for the last decade, you know, teaching kids about stock and teaching kids, you know, especially these young people when they get jobs, to get the health insurance through their employer, and what it means to get life insurance.
You know.
I was a postal worker when I at nineteen, I started working at the post office. I was there for seventeen years, so understand that whole life. And when I went in at nineteen, I was like thrift savings five oh one. See, you know, yeah, like you weren't thinking about that stuff at nineteen, but here I am.
Much older, much more.
But sure, and I'm like, wow, what if I would have done that at nineteen. So that's why Trump accounts are so vital and educating those kids while they've given them, while they'll set them up for the parents to watch. We definitely need our school systems to understand help our kids understand understand what money means and how those can
secure over time and grow. So we need to implement those types of things in school systems too, along with you know the constitution and you know the Charlie Kirk feel and legislation that just recently is going through the state to be approved and everything like that. So along with that, we need to do more money education as well as education in our school system about set in order to feed the jobs in our economy and through manufacturing it and all of those.
Things we need.
We need these pipelines, you know, we need to do them earlier.
Rusmy real quick as a small business person, myself a small business person, and you hit on a bunch of touchdowns area, mental health, team health, the small business element of this thing too. Healthcare is such a big component. There's so many small businesses don't can't afford health care for their employees. You know, the bulk of Americans get
their healthcare from where they work. But you know, I've said for a long time, especially with the gig economy the way it is, if you could free healthcare from your workplace, my god, the economy would go gangbusters. Bringing a unique perspective to d C. What would you differently with healthcare plan the Republicans are offering.
Yeah, I mean, ultimately we do need to be able to have that open market. Of course, I looked at them.
I'm a nonprofit that started from the bootstraps at a small distance on her two and actually worked a part time job while I was starting my nonprofit so I could keep my health insurance, you know, because I had kids in a family, and so my perspective is very different and it needs to be affordable, while at the same time government can't hold up that weight, like what's happening with the Affordable Care Act for what people call Obamacare.
We can't continue to fuel that.
And you know, I do like the idea of giving a rebate that's the citizens for them to be able to go into the marketplace to get affordable health care or to buy into their health care or gets tax rebates if you get it through your employer. So I think that it has to be a mixed model. It can't just be one model because it's such a huge problem.
While it's the same time, you know, our health is vitally important as well, especially for those areas that can't get to hospitals or they don't have hospitals in those areas. You know, our clinics are vitally important because I'm all about safety net organizations. Are our clinics able to help and can people do people understands that they can utilize those clinics and urgent cares instead of going to hospitals
in order to reduce costs. One of the things that we always did it within our organization, we educated young moms, don't take your baby to emergency every time there's an issue. Their sellhealth. There's your primary care doctor for educating people at the lowest level, helping them read through their policies
and understand what's all entailed with that. Because a lot of these policies are offering and sent us for workforce development, I just felt like an HMO policy that they're offering workforce help and things such as that, and transportation to hospital and medical visits and gift cards if you go to your preventative care appointments and things such as that, and so there's so many things that are build seeing, but a lot of people don't understand and know that.
And as a safety that person that navigating the nonprofit and social service sector, we need to educate people. And it's not necessarily my job to do it, but as a government official, to listen to our constituents and ensure that they have the resources and tools necessary to be able to navigate their own lives.
That's what's now. Government is gotcha.
She is Rosemary Oglesby Henry, founder CEO Rosemary's Babies, Republican candidate for Congress, the first district running against at Greg's Lanceman. You know, Rosemary, thanks for taking time out. I appreciate it. I love your story, I love your your wealth of experience. Most of all, love your resilience, resiliency. Good luck in this campaign. I'm sure we'll talk again in the future.
Yes, thank you so much. Let's turn a Rosemary d And don't forget December nineteenth, the Sensations Review. You can find it on the website.
Appreciate it's a dot com.
Yes, ma'am, good luck, Thank you all right, see you later.
We got to get a time out ever like her a lot. We'll get a news update in and more to follow. Scott's Loland Show seven hundred W Time to talk.
About money, how to make it, how.
To keep it, and how to keep others off your stack.
This is all Worth Advice with Andy Shaeffer. Tuesday morning, we check on your money.
Money never sleeps, and our buddy Andy Shaeffer from All War Financial jumps on the show to discuss all this and more.
On seven hundred w W. Drew, how are you, good morning, Scott? How are you today? I'm doing well. I'm doing well.
Can you make sense of this whole paramount thing? I think you know, it's you know, typically we talk about numbers and we'll talk. We'll get into of course, you know what the Fed's going to do, and that's kind
of back room for a lot of people. But interesting, what's happening here in the in the shift, that's happening in Hollywood h so many it's intro I was pointing us out earlier, is how many you know the unions we at the team stairs, be it the screen writer Guild, everyone fighting against it, saying it's going to destroy theaters. But what drives American business is consumer demand, whether it's cars or movies. It's all about us deciding what we want.
Yeah, this is very fascinating to me, and I think I'd like to lead with the money that's involved first, and then we can get into the political landscape and what that means and as far as Washington is concerned. But essentially Netflix was approved to buy Warner Brothers. It was a seventy or seventy two billion dollar purchase and essentially, you know, Warner Brothers agreed to that, the managers did there.
And you know, when you look at Netflix, that's the company behind HBO, CNN, the Fame Movie O Studio, and so Warner Brothers is very attractive. You know, they have the Harry Potter franchise along with some other things. And
so we call that kind of a friendly takeover. And what that means is that the border directors for both Netflix and World Brothers kind of agreed to the deal and everything seemed honckey dory, and then all of a sudden, paramount comes in and they say, okay, well we're going to offer seventy four point four billion over top of them, and a bigger portion of that is going to be a cash buy out. And this is what's considered a hostile takeover. Netflix did not agree to this, and people say, well,
what does the hospital takeover mean? Well, essentially, hostile takeover is where corporation, the acquiring corporation it takes, attempts to take over the other corporation with the agreement of the target corporation's board of directors. Essentially, what they do is they offer the shareholders for their shares what's known as a tender offer, and if you have enough shares that are purchased, basically that acquiring company, you know, replaces the
current board directors with their own. And you know, it's it's not looked upon favorably from the acquiring firm's point of view. There's usually a lot of static intention, but it is a way to acquire a company. And you know, I think it's very interesting what's going on right now as far as those two corporations.
Won't after war Warner Brothers, Yeah, it is. It's theater in and of itself too, is that?
Uh, Michel like, well, we're not going to do this, fine, We'll just go right to your shareholders and we'll cut your throats.
That's okay, Yeah, yeah, I mean I kind of enjoy a hostele taker.
But but and that is important parcel do to They just want old Hollywood. You know, we can't get rid of Warner I think Jane Fonda wrote a letter right about how this is just devastating and Warner Brothers. It's like, yeah, that doesn't mean anything to people anymore. It's not this isn't the nineteen thirties and forties.
No, And I think there's some nostalgia that's wrapped up into that. You know, we grew up with Warner Brothers, su and so you know, there's even a little old studio that's down there by Central Parkway that I passed by and I look at it.
I was like, oh, that's kind of neat. Yeah.
But at the end of the day, it's about commerce. It's about the shareholders. When you have a large public traded, publicly traded company, their main focus is on.
Rewarding the shareholders.
And if you are a shareholder of Warner Brothers, both of these deals could potentially be attractive, and the one that Paramount is offering right now is a little bit more attractive now. You know that the board of directors for Netflix aren't happy about it, and the board of directors for Warner Brothers thought it was all wrapped up. But this is legal, and it's something that happens every
once in a while. You just don't see it with big name type of companies that are in the mainstream very often.
And we're not going to theaters like we once used to, and that is because of the advent of affordable, cheap, big screen TVs and surround sound systems, and it's just you look at it going there's a few things I might go to the theater for, but you know, another I don't know what, another tire George Clooney movie. I'm I'm not going to do that, and people just like, okay, wait till it comes on streaming. And that's how we're consuming content these days. I mean, our industry here and
radio is going through that. Everyone TV, everyone's going through that right now. I find a quaint though, when they talk about the historic with the Warner Brothers company and what it means to America and all the theaters that are going to go out of business because of this takeover and it's just it's going to just decimate small time. I don't know how many small towns have theaters anymore,
probably because people aren't going to them. And the other thing is, it's kind of funny because if you go back, I don't know, one hundred plus years, when you had the Tycoons and the Warner Brothers and the MGMs of the world essentially running entertainment in America, they didn't.
Seem to go, hey, you know what, what.
About all these poor vaudeville theaters and vaude billions that keep acting? What about their jobs? And it's kind of funny how you complain. You know, you take them and go, oh, that's technology, man, film, it's technology.
It's Charlie Chaplin. He's not going away.
And you fast forward to today and it's like, guess what, Charlie Chaplin's going away. But I got on my phone, I got out of my home theater. And we just simply don't care that small theaters and theater chains are going to go under because it's not how we are consuming content anymore.
No, you make a lot of good points, and theaters have been going by the wayside for years. Warner Brothers doesn't have anything to do with it. And a lot of times in small towns, you know, look at the theater and Oakley, that's more of an event center than anything else. Right, You have weddings there, you have parties
and things like that. You know, there's a theater out here on the east side of town that and Amelia were close to where I live, and you know, that shut down a handful of months ago, and finally it was reopened and you might see two cars in there, you know, in an evening. So you know, when you have the ability to buy a nice, big, cheap TV and sit in the comfort of your home and have the refrigerator nearby and make your own popcorn, not only is it a better experience, but it's more affordable for
most people. And so, you know, Warner Brothers, you know they're not going to be able to stop the transition from people enjoying movies from their home more than going to the theater.
At this point, Okay, well, let's pivot to what's going on. I saw this and this is the odds in America. Two things. A lot of households are nearing the end of the year saying well, I'm a little nervous about the economy, but we keep spending. We mentioned credit card debt being at an all time high, but people are throwing caution the winter, going hell, I got to live
for today. I'm going to have a good Christmas. At the same time as people look at their finances, there are one thousand new millionaires made a minute in the United States of America, and that's largely because of the stock market rating, as it has been about a thousand new millionaires a minute in the United States versus going I I'm just gonna max up my credit cards in order to afford Christmas. Explain the disconnect there to.
Me, Well, a lot of times these millionaires have money that's wrapped up in four to one k's four or three bs other types of retirement plans. And you know, I managed three hundred and fifty households approximately, And I see new millionaires with the clients that I work with almost every week, and it's always a fun meeting, and and you know, I tell them it's like, Hey, you.
Met a milestone here.
And you know, because the market's been so good over the last three years, if you've been patient and had poise and invested smartly, and stayed the course. Then certainly your accounts have benefited from that. I think as far as the consumer goes, the consumer is still spending. We are seeing credit card levels continue to increase. We are also seeing savings rates start to decrease. However, it hasn't gotten to the place where it's super alarming. The enemy
still is in decent, a decent place right now. You know, we are slowing from a growth standpoint. It's likely that we will see growth this year somewhere between one percent and one and a half percent. But I do suspect that when we start to get into rate cuts next year will likely be a little bit more positive. We don't have the threat of a government shut down immediately. Now, we'll we'll see what happens, you know, early you know,
late winter, early spring. But it does look like it things seem fairly positive moving forward.
Okay, let's talk about the Fed. They got the meeting this week, We got the interest rate cut that's locked in right now.
Quarter point yeah, yeah, I think at this point the market's already kind of baked that in. We expect a quarter point tomorrow is actually the meeting. We'll get the results at two o'clock. It's always fascinating to me to listen to FED Chairman Palett two thirty when he has
his press conference. You know, usually I try to set a little bit of time out of my schedule to watch it and listen to the questions that are that are being presented to And it's fascinating because every time FED Chairman Powell has an answer, you know, investors are looking for guidance. What does he mean by the answer that he's giving. What does that say moving forward as far as the pace of interest rate cuts next year?
And you can watch the market in real time respond to his comments at during that press conference, and you know, there's a lot of uncertainty there, but I think it'll probably be a pretty tame press conference tomorrow. We do expect a quarter percent cut, and I think at this point it's likely we see two more quarter percent cuts next year. But things are pretty calm, they don't have to move too quickly, and I think the FED feels like they're in a pretty good place right now.
All right, defense target for inflation is about two percent. We're well above that right now, and therefore, this is why we're going to see this cascade of rate cuts.
Yeah, well, you know, we are a.
Little bit above that, but we are seeing the signs of the inflation cooling. We also haven't seen the impact of the inflation heating up due to the tariffs like we expected. Furthermore, we're starting to see some cracks in the labor market. You know, it's likely that we see an increase in unemployment next year to tick up a little bit. And I think that the FED wants to make sure that they get out in front of the labor market and unemployment more than they're worried about interest
rates at this point. And so when they start to cut rates, that encouragees spending. It also gives businesses more flexibility to be able to hire, and so I think that's what the Fed is focused on.
Yeah.
Andy Schaeffer from Alworth on the show this morning Weekly tune up here with the money. This one jumped at me. The manufacturing index. So you look at the line that separates expansion from contraction, So you want to be above the line, obviously, and so for the ninth consecutive month and hitting, by the way, a new four month low. It went from forty eight points having a forty eight point two it doesn't sound like a lot, but it is.
Yeah, it is significant.
And so this is a data that's acquired by the Institute for Supply Management, and what they basically do is survey supply managers of major industries.
And it's very so simple how this works.
Essentially, the supply manager either scores one hundred if they feel that they're an expansionary phase, they scored a fifty if they think there's been no change, or they scored a zero. And so, if we get a number that's above fifty, that suggests expansion. If we get a number that's below fifty, that suggests contraction. And so the manufacturing index was below the fifty line. It's from forty eight point seven to forty eight point two. Well, you know
that's not ideal. However, manufacturing is not the major component of our economy anymore. Back in the early nineteen hundreds, manufacturing amounted to about seventy percent of our economy, and at that time services only amounted to about thirty percent of our economy. Well, that has been reversed at this point. Services now is now about seventy percent of our economy
and manufacturing is only thirty. And we saw the ISM Services Index improved to fifty two point four from fifty two point four to fifty two point six, and so that's the more important measure, and I think that really affirms that that, you know, most of the supply managers in the services industry feel pretty good about where things are moving forward.
Okay, so what do we see about payroll numbers? And that's actual jobs.
Yeah, payroll numbers unexpectedly fell by thirty two thousand and November. That's a sign that hiring is getting even more selective. You know, job has claims dropped to twenty seven thousand from twenty seven thousand to one hundred and ninety one thousand in the holiday shortened week of over Thanksgiving, but it was kind of distorted by Thanksgiving. So I think what this tells us is is not only our employers kind of freezing their hiring. If you have a job,
you probably will keep your job. If you don't, it's getting more difficult to find a job.
Okay, that makes sense.
So, you know, we have a slow growth economy, we have soft manufacturing, labor's starting to cool off.
What are we looking here for quarter four which we're on.
Yeah, I think you know, quarter four, we're probably looking at a modest one to one point five percent growth. I do think we'll see a rebound in quarter one next year. The shutdown effects have faded, and I think that, you know, we might see a little bit of you know, a little bit more activity from higher than normal tax refunds due to a lot of the new refunds that
have been implemented, you know. Moving forward this week, there's a number of things obviously, you know, I'm looking forward to hearing what FED Chairman Powell has to say tomorrow. We have the monthly US federal budget that's coming out tomorrow as well initial jobless claims on Thursday.
We get inventories on Friday, and.
We always, you know, as always, we'll get a number of FED speakers that like to tell us what they think, which.
Is which is pretty much a steady drumbeat right there too. He's from mixing earnings in there, and we got a week ahead here. He is Andy Schaeffer at all Worth Financial this morning on the Scott's Loan Show on seven hundred w WELW check it in every Tuesday morning. Their show Simply Money, airs weeknights at six on fifty five k our scene of course available always on the podcast, always informative.
Thanks again, brother, appreciate you. We'll talk next week, all right, SONI talking about you. Be well.
We've got news on the way in just minutes here on the Big one, seven hundred WW Bill Cunningham taking over at twelve oh six. Today we've got a little Bengals talk to get to. I'm sure there'll be a lot of that today as well. Enjoyed a three day weekend up in Buffalo. Saw a lot of folks. Cincinnati represented pretty well out there in Western New York. Nice snowy game.
I love that.
Had my car hearts on and screwing for my bills. So it was one of my tim two teams won, which is typically they both lose at the same time. I'm not quite sure, but hopefully had a good time. If you drove up at least the weather driving there and back, If you did the Friday Monday like I did, it was pleasant. So the snow hit just at the right time. It's pretty and people say you freezing to death. Now, it was actually as close as the seats are together. It's an I think you got a pay corps. You've
spread out a little bit more there. It's like they build a new stadium next to it, and it looks like a high school stadium next to.
The new one they're building. That's how small it is.
And so you're kind of cramped in there anyway, and snow is really not affecting you.
All that much.
Nonetheless, but moving forward here with news in just minutes. It's a Scotts Loan show back tomorrow nine oh six on the home of the best Bengals coverage, seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati