This is America's Trucking Network with Kevin Gordon.
Love the able. Thanks for tuning in on this Tuesday morning. We are now past officially past the Christmas season. The Christmas season just ended, what about five six minutes ago, after the end of the Twelfth Night. Again, Christmas season and the actual Christmas period begins Christmas Day and then goes for the twelve days after Christmas, not the twelve
days before Christmas. Today is the feast of the Epiphany, and according to the Bible and according to the legend, it's today that the Three Wise Men came and recognized and visited Jesus in the Manger and the Holy Family. So again, this is the end of the Christmas season and the Christian religion. It's a very important day. Now over the weekend, a little bit of excitement down there
in Venezuela. I guess Nicholas Maduro entered the FO stage as an f A FO talking about the Narco terrorism down there, and I tell you, I saw the dumbest interview from what is it, CBS Face the Nation. Margaret Brennan has this ability to be about as dumb as
a box of rocks. She's talking to Marco Rubio, which I'm surprised Marco Rubio goes on the show, but you know, when you know you're going to tear up the host and that the host can't you know, blow over you, or you know, confound you or confuse you, or ask you a question you're not ready for. I guess it's okay to go on these shows just to embarrass them. But she's talking to him about this effort, this military
effort that was done and says, I'm confused. There are two other or three other indicted people down there that are still in power. Why did you just go after this one person? And I will say that. At first, Marco Rubio's face was like, I can't believe that I'm actually that she's actually asking this question. And he responds
with you're confused. Now, during the Biden administration, they had put a fifty million dollar bounty on the capture of Nicholas Maduro, an indicted a drug lord, marco terrorist, head of a state down there in the country of Venezuela. So during the Biden administration even they recognized his threat to the Americans. Now, apparently there are some others. She put up a charter a picture of somebody who had
a fifteen million dollar bounty on them. So you know, you know, you don't have to be a mathematician to understand that the guy that has has the fifty million bounty on him versus the fifteen million bounty. I would say the guy with the fifty million is probably a little bit higher priority. Oh and by the way, the fact that he was the leader of the country, the de facto leader. He was the president of the country, even though sixty European countries and EU and all these
didn't recognize we don't recognize him as the president. Because there was an election that was supposed to take place once I was at twenty twenty three and thereabouts, and this lady her name escapes me, Miccado, Carlos, whatever her name, She was the one that won the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts. Now, she was one of the leading candidates down there when they were going to do the elections. Well, Nicholas Maduro said that his government said she was not
allowed to run again. Then she appointed one other person to go in her stead, and then that person was pushed aside, and then eventually the candidate that she supported actually apparently got the majority of the votes, but then Nicholas Maduro and his thugs said, no way, it's you know, it wasn't a fair election, and Nicholas Maduro was crowned
or was designated as the winner of the election. So he's not been recognized by the world down there, and he's got this fifty million dollar bounty on his head. And so they go in there and she's going, well, why didn't you pick up the others? And Marco looks at her and says, you're confused. We're gonna go in Okay, And he described this military operation. He said, we landed helicopters in the middle of the largest military base in Venezuela,
because Nicholas Maduro lived on this army base. Within a three minute period of time, went to where he was sleeping, kicked in the door, arrested him, read him his rights, got him on a helicopter, and with a three minute period of time, they were gone. And he says, you expected us to do this five other times in the city, in the country, with the operations, I mean just in the attacking the infrastructure and the radar screens and stuff,
so that they couldn't in the communications infrastructure. There was something like one hundred and fifty aircraft that were involved in this, not to mention the helicopters that actually went into the compound. And he said, so you expect us to be on the ground for like four days, rounding up all these other people. Look at the howls that there have been up to this point with what we did. Can you imagine if we were there for four And then she goes, but I'm confusing. She even repeated it.
She goes, why didn't you grab these other people? And it's like, you know, how ignorant can you be? I mean it's like you go in with she goes in with this narrative and nothing is going to break her from I mean, you present them with the facts, give them with the information, and they still don't understand. I mean,
they got this preconceived idea. But the fact of over one hundred and fifty different aircraft being around, flying through the airspace there glanding in the middle of a military compound, nabbing this guy. Not one US soldier was injured. I think there was a little bit of damage to one of the helicopters, but it was a highly successful operation. Nicholas Maduro is in New York and is going to be indicted and go on trial. So it is just
absolutely amazing that it was that they didn't understand. Now, what was funny is that all day Sunday all you heard was people like Mandani in New York, Zoran Mundani, the new mayor, the socialist, the communist mayor of New York condemning the operation. You had China condemning the operation, Iran condemning the operation, North Korea condemning the operation, and a wholesalel of democrats. So great company you're in there when you're siding with Iran, China, North Korea, all enemies
of the of the United States. Well, all these protests were breaking out, and of course the usual mob of you know, you know the you know, the Palestinian supporters that had been protesting and you know, from the river to the sea. Apparently, since that has resolved and there has ceasefire over there, they've got nothing to complain about. I guess the Russia Russia Russia hoax isn't available right now, So this is the latest thing that they were all
upset about. But Monday morning, I was shocked to see how many people weren't protesting, weren't criticizing. Different Senate leaders, different Democratic leaders around the country kind of started tamping down, said, well,
we want to take away and see approach. I guess they saw all these celebrations in the streets of Caracas, Venezuela, all the people saying chanting, USA, USA, USA, cheering, just millions of people in the street applauding the fact that we went in and took out this brutal dictator who had ruined their economy. Go back to ten fifteen years ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries in the South
America South America area. People were living well. All of a sudden, Hugo Chavez seizes control, a communist starts doing the collectivization that Mandani is now doing in New York, and the economy went to hell in a handbasket. The grocery stores were empty, just like every other communist country. The economy failed. The biggest resource that they had there, their oil, went from was this something like three hundred million barrels a day down to pretty much zero. And
so the people of there were suffering. And the fact that now mc nicholas Maduro is out. They are cheering like crazy Liberation Day, Independence Day for the people of Venezuela. And I guess the people here saying, well, gee whiz. If they're so that and we're protesting it, could we possibly be on the wrong side of this anyway. I'm Kevin Gordon, americastruck in Network seven hundred WLW.
I need This is the racing reward on America's Drugging Network on seven hundred WLW.
NHR seventy fifth anniversary season is set for twenty twenty six, and with the incredible landmark season comes a wave of special can't miss items and happenings throughout the course of the season. The sports most coveted prize, the Wally, will get an eye catching makeover for just the anniversary season,
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NHR Gator Nationals in March. Some of the special seventy fifth Anniversary highlights include commemorative tickets. They're going to honor NHRA legends at each event. Top seventy five driver list will be announced Top seventy five moments in NHRA history in twenty twenty six. There is a seventy fifth anniversary coffee table book available, a seventy fifth anniversary website. Seventy fifth anniversary apparel is being released at nitromol dot com.
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I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Trucking Network seven hundred WLW to take a look at transpired in Venezuela late Saturday night, earlyday morning capture of Nicholas Maduro and his wife being brought to New York to stand charges for drug trafficking and so on. I'm not sure of all the charges against them, but it will be very interesting to see how it comes out. Code named Operation Absolute resolved A
Chapter A chapter. In a wider campaign against alleged drug trafficking, US military unleased a wave of air strikes in Venezuela, neutralized their air defenses, and sent an eleas elite special forces. Result, Nicholas Maduau and his wife Cela Flores were swiftly captured in Caracas and whisked away onto the us uss EWOJIMA, then onto New York for narco terrorism charge. All prices took at a wild ride, tanking at first, only to roar back as Wall Street children cheered a strong dollar,
rising stock market and a booming demand. Expert projections the zero American casual was a plus. Vice President Delsey Rodriguez was reportedly installed as the interim leader under Washington's watchful I they are going to do apparently well, try to move towards elections as soon as possible. Trump administration wasted no time promising to rebuild Venezuela's energy infrastructure, inviting US
companies to take the reins. Now we had built their energy structure down there, We had apparently leases with them, Chevron and a lot of the major oil companies, and when Hugo Chavez came in and along with Nicholas Maduro, they nationalized all of the oil fields and the leases there and basically seize those leases and kicked the American companies out and said we got it from here, which
apparently they didn't. So again, the infrastructure in place down there after twenty years about of miss management and so on,
is going to require a little bit of rebuilding. But Chevron had gone back down there and with the permission of the US to start doing some of the drilling down there or some of the well production down there, because as you recall, back during the Biden administration, when he came into office, he started stopped selling the or stopped allowing the oil leases around the country, which is by law they were supposed to do. Seized oil production in the Gulf of Mexico, in Canada and a lot
of the different oil fields around the country. And then all of a sudden, we started importing more oil from overseas than we were producing here. And from twenty twenty, when we were energy independent for the first time since nineteen forty nine, all of a sudden, we became very energy dependent. Now coming into office, Biden criticized Saudi Arabia, saying that they were a pariah nation having to do with that Asam fascination or killing of Kosoji that Washington
supposed Washington Post reporter. But they were saying that we weren't going to deal with Saudi Arabia. Then also they put the clamps on Venezuela for being a communist country and they weren't going to buy oil from them. Well, all of a sudden, when you stop producing oil or cut back production in the United States, guess what you need production of oil. So then all of a sudden he goes over on bended knee to Saudi Arabia to bake for oil. They basically told him to pound sand.
And so then he started going to Venezuela, lifted the sanctions there and started importing oil from there, and allowed Chevron to go down there and run some of the operations. So again, back during the Biden administration, fifty million dollars bounding on Hugo or on Nicholas Maduro done by the Biden administration started dealing with Venezuela went already they had
add sanctions on them. So the idea that they're wavering, and you know, as they talk about the the Trump administration with the late raising of terrorists, lowering of terraces and so on, the bumpy ride or the inconsistent foreign policy. We'll just take a look at the inconsistent foreign policy with the Biden administration. We're not going to deal with Saudi Arabia. They're a prior. Oh by the way, we
need to grow. Hey, can we have some oil and we're going to put sanctions on Nicholas Maduro and Venezuela and oh, by the way, we need that crude oil in the United States, so hey, can we have some of it? So, you know, don't talk to me about how consistent they are. Energy infrastructure Chevron short lived return.
Back in the Biden administration, company ramped up this output three hundred million barrel three hundred thousand barrels a day, pushing Venezuela production back over a million, which they had been. I believe it's somewhere around three million per year per day. Rather so again, the United Nation Security Council, we hold
an emergency meeting. While they held an emergency meeting on Monday, I didn't even bother to hear what they had to say, because you know, they didn't stop Russia from invading Ukraine, even though there was a year and a half upswing or troop movement there indicating that they were going to invade. They didn't do anything to try to stop that, and they had advanced notice of that. They've done nothing in
order to end that war there. So now all of a sudden they're gonna, you know, because you know, they're just gonna condemn us. I would say, shut up, but I'm not even gonna bother hearing what they had to say. So again, upheaval in Venezuela pretty much for the good. It'll be interesting to see how that happens, how the free and fair elections come about, and whether or not that country can get back to some sort of normalcy as a result of being under the cruel thumb of
Nicholas Maduro and previously Hugo Chavez. So again, it'll be interesting to see what happens down there. Some interesting comments again before the new year, you know, we're starting to see this will come well, it'll come as a surprise to you. I don't know will it come as anyway. I've been talking about our economy. I've been talking about the effects of tariff since Liberation Day on April to second.
I because of going back to my days in school and seeing economics and learning about tariffs and so on, realized or said that the time, and some of the other people that I read and respect said tariffs don't lead to inflation. There are some temporary items that go up, but then other items go down, so overall inflation pretty
much stays the same. And the way this was explained as far as Trump talking about the charts that he had showing that the amount of terifts they charge on our products going into these countries versus the terriffts we charge on their products, and said, We're just going to do reciprocal tariffs. The tariffs that they charge us, We're going to charge them, and then if they want to have those are teriffs reduced on their goods, they can reduce the tariffs on our goods going in there again
a negotiating tool. So all the people with their you know, hair on fire talking about the economy is going to go a tank. It's going to be in a recession, rampant unemployment, rampant inflation, and so on. I guess they were kind of what was a channeling the Biden administration, which is that's exactly what happened during the Biden administration.
So all these naysayers started talking about it. Phil Flynn, who we talked to on this show regularly, was in the camp that tariffs don't add to inflation, it's the out of control government spending. Kevin o'lary from Shark Tank, Larry Kudlow from Fox Business, and Charles Paine, a lot of these people on Fox Business News and some of these other economists around the country actually supported the terroriffs. Mainstream media spoon fed regurgitators, Democrats all condemned it and
so on. But it's interesting to see what has happened as a result of that in how people have looked at that. We had the GDP numbers that were above, way above expectations, and all of these things that have surprised all these people all along. There was an interview, well, the Bank of America CEO had an unexpected view on the economy, and this was an interview with who the heck was he talking to? Oh yeah, oh I should be surprised. In an interview with CBS News Faced the
Nation with Margaret Brannan. Bryant moynihan, the chairman CEO actually CEO a Bank of America, had some very interesting things and we'll get into that coming up again. And I'm sure I didn't see the interview itself. I'm reading some of the transcripts of that. I'm sure that she was confused about that as well. I'm Kevin Gordon, america'struck in Network seven hundred WLW.
News Traffic and Weather News Radio seven hundred wl W, Cincinnati.
The Secretary of Defense responds to the Venezuelan attacks with your twelve thirty re parts. I'm Lee Mawin breaking now new information out about the Saturday morning attack that also resulted in the capturing of Nicholas Maduro.
Secretary Pete Hegseth saying Maduro and his wife unaware of what was happening until minutes before.
Nicholas Maduro got to meet Great America's very thank you you got three nights ago.
He didn't know they were coming three minutes for the erav fact twice, I think I hear their craft Health.
Hun those Special Operations Forces coming under heavy gunfire by maduro security grabbing Maduro and his wife as they headed for a safe room.
ABC News Chief Global Affairs correspondent Bartha Raddits.
Now the latest forecast from the Train Heating and Cooling Weather Center on news radio seven hundred WLWS.
Remit to Tuesday morning. We're mostly cloudy morning, low of forty one degrees. Now for our Tuesday, we'll see the clouds hanging around. Little breezy in a chance of sprinkles, but a high of fifty six at night, still cloudy, a low down to forty and some more significant rain coming up on Thursday night. From your severe Weather station, I'm nine first Warning Chief Meteorologist Steve Rawley, News Radio seven hundred WLW.
Still nothing on the radar around the tri State. We're at forty one degrees. Later, Today's shareholder A Fifth Third Bang Corp. And Kamerica will vote on approving a ten point nine billion dollar acquisition deal. It's considered the largest for the Cincinnati company. The deal was initially agreed upon October fifth, and it's seen as a virtual lock for each side. The deal would make Fifth Third the ninth largest US based bank. Regulators still need to approve this deal.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency already said yes, we're writing on the Federal reserve boards.
Go ahead.
Fifth third CEO Tim Spence told analysts and investors this deal should be finalized in the first quarter of twenty twenty six, that ends March thirty. First your next updates up one. I'mley Mawen. Who's Radio seven hundred WLW.
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Here's your trucking forecast for the tri State and the rest of the country. In the Try State, Overnight mostly claudy, the low only down to forty cloudy Tuesday, with a slight chance of morning ra highs in the upper fifties. Wednesday, mostly cloudy, sky's early gradually clear, becoming sunny, a high a fifty four. Mostly cloudy Thursday with a chance of
afternoon rain be high year sixty. Nationally out west, heavy snow being seen over parts of the Cascades, Northern inter Mountain Region, and the Northern Rockies, as monerate to heavy snow is seen over the northeast Meanwhile, freezing rain possible from the upper Mississippi Valley into the northeast.
Seven hundred W lw IM Kevin Gordon. This is America's struck a network, America's trucking network supports a mission and Reese across America. You can hear us every truck and Tuesday at five am and ten am Eastern on Reese Across America Radio. Available on the iHeartRadio app. Search the word Rese. Now that's wr eaths for Reese Across America Radio. And thank you to all our truckers for supporting the
mission of Reese Across America. If you miss any part of our shows, make sure you hit up that iHeart Radio app. Brought to you by our friends at Rush Trucks. Talking about this story, Bank of America CEO drops unexpected view on the economy. Now, all of a sudden, these people are coming out of the woodwork. And you know they've been very critical of the administration, very critical or maybe sitting on the sidelines, not saying anything, not quite
sure where to go. Well again, now all of a sudden, these people are coming out and it's a surprise to some of these people. And I'm sure, Margaret Brennan not only was she confused by Marco Rubio and what the administration did down in Venezuela. I'm sure back on when when was this December the twenty sixth, No, no, no, when was this anyway the Sunday before or whatever. Towards the end of the year heading into twenty twenty six, had an interview with the CEO, Brian moynihan, and I'm
sure she was confused by that as well. And it's no secret tariffs, trade wars, and recession chatter have died dominated the economic conversation over the past year heading into twenty twenty six, though Bank of America CEO isn't buying
into the panic welcome aboard. You know. Let's see going back to January the twentieth, with the economic policy that the Trump administration was putting into place, then with Liberation Day on April the second, and one of the people that was saying back then that hey, by the end of the year, although these experts, the Federal Reserve and all these people were saying that the gross domestic product, which is summation of all the goods and services, we
might hit one point eight percent growth compared to the two point four percent in the fourth quarter of the Biden administration, and back then in April, I said that by the end of the year, our inflation rate would be now I said at the time would be down to two percent, which is at two point seven percent. I also said that the gross domestic product would be
somewhere between four point five and five percent. Now, we haven't gotten the fourth quarter numbers yet, but we did get the third quarter numbers, and it was at four point three percent growth, certainly not one point eight that was being predicted. So we have been way ahead of the curve on this, and now late to the game. Brian, jeez, he's not buying into the panic, the panic that everybody was buying into back in April. So eight months later, he's not gonna buy into the panic. Oh my gosh.
So anyway, the predictions of this, and I wonder, and I've made this comment too that looking at the gross domestic product of four point three percent, that was smack dab in the middle of the Schumer shut down, forty three days of where the military and the air traffic controllers and many employees of the federal government weren't getting their paychecks. Even though some of them were still required
to go to work, they weren't getting their paychecks. And if you're not getting paychecks, chances are you're not out spending a lot of money. Chances are you're not buying things, and so that affects the gross domestic product. I'm going to I'd be curious, and I've not seen anybody talk about this. I may have to do a little digging to see what the effects of the Schumer shutdown in that forty three days was on the GDP. But we'll certainly see in the fourth quarter what that number is.
But anyway, getting back to this heading into twenty twenty six, so Bank of America CEO isn't buying into the panic. In an interview with CBS News Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, Brian moynihan made much quieter contrarian argument that the tariff induced shock englfing the markets last year is moving toward an end point four perspective. As of December the twenty sixth, and we talked about this last week. At the end of the year, Nasdak composite had surged
twenty two point two percent year to date. That is taking into consideration the twelve percent of thirteen percent dip as of April the second, so not only did they make that up, but then surged ahead twenty two point two percent By the end of the year. S and P five hundred was up seventeen point nine and the Dow is up over fourteen point five, contrary to what's being making the rounds. More and a Hand believes the
terraff situation is starting to settle down. He feels that once the dust settles around where the rates end up, landing businesses will adapt swiftly, cost will be cost will get priced in, and supply chains will adjust. Moreover. More and Ahan also points to steady consumer spending, ongoing wage expansion, and the loosening labor market that's far far from broken, far from broken, not weak. Like lyon Jerry Powell has been talking about the week week labor market. All these
so called economists talking about the week labor market. And again, let me remind I love this. Okay. This is a definition by Lawrence J. Peter. He is a academy from a professor from up in Canada, and he came up with the Peter principle. Basically, people rise in business, they rise to their level of incompetence. And I'm sure anybody's been involved in corporate America, you see that on a large scale where you know, it's just amazing that that
people advance. And there's a theory behind that. We won't get into that now, but he defined an economists. Economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he addicted yesterday didn't happen today. So again, economists always looking in the rearview mirror, trying to explain why stuff they predicted didn't happen. But they're they're great at telling
you why it didn't happen after it didn't happen. But again, I love to be well, you know, if they were listening, America struck a network again, you know, eight months ago, be so far ahead of the curve, don't even see your tail lights. Let's see morning hand points city city consumer spending and the labor market is far from broken. Even the Federal Reserve, he suggests, matters a lot less
than mister market thinks. Okay, again, the consumers. Now, I disagree with that to a certain extent, because if you talk about the Federal Reserve and them involved in interest rates and how what they do at the federal reserve level on those interest rates to the individual banks, that event filters through to our credit cards, into our car loans,
truck loans, business expansion loans, mortgages, and so on. So again, the focus on the federal reserve because of interest rate cuts, I think is a lot more important to the people on the street than it would be to say, uh, you know, CEO of Bank of America. Again, good comments he had, but I think he missed the mark a little bit as far as the Federal Reserve talking about that. We're too fixated with what the what the Federal Reserve is doing. Uh, Labor and consumer matters more than consumer.
Labor and consumers matter more than terriffs right now, according to moynihan. Moinnan is clear that the real economic wildcard sits elsewhere, with the big uncertainty for business currently being labor and not trade policy. He notes that for small and mid sized businesses, the real challenge is figuring out whether they can hire and retain workers. That means hire and retain workers, can they afford it because of interest rates? If they tried to expand labor availability, which is often
linked to immigration policy. Clarity continues getting tougher to plan around. You know, when you look at the population out there, when you look at the labor participation rate, there is a lot of room there. There are people that are out of the labor market that should be in the labor market. But because there are certain subsidies, because there are certain benefits to being out of the labor market, if some of those were tightened a bit, you might
get people coming back into the labor market. Point a hand points consumer spending through late November with the again the healthy four to five December was up four to five percent, and that's consumer spending. On top of that, the early season read data now shows it Visas estimating holiday retail spending was up four point two percent from
November until December. Talking about the job growth and talking about out other things, he again he talks about the strength of the American economy, and I think again Margaret Brennan was probably shocked by that, because, as I've been saying a long time, the spoon fed rec urgitators in the mainstream media have been doing everything they can do to talk down the economy, and in my opinion, manufacturer recession holiday sales, we'll tell me talking about those coming up.
I'm Kevin Gordon, America's Truck and Network seven hundred W Lwright.
News Radio seven hundred WLW, and iHeartRadio Station Guaranteed Human seven hundred WLW, HI.
Heard Radio, Progressive Commercial Insurance, protext truck owners with specialized coverages for heavy trucks, and sure it com be LW. I'm Kevin Gordon. I have been looking for these numbers for a long long time. You know, usually you will see numbers coming out well a couple two three days, you know, in between Christmas and New Year, because they have the visa sales, they have the store sales and all kinds of other metrics that they can look at
and come up with numbers. Didn't see any of that last week, and some of that is now starting to trickle in. And I wonder if because we had such kind of a strange As I explained last week, it was kind of a strange situation as far as our working habits or whatever. With that holiday being on Thursday. It's like people didn't know what to do with Friday. Should they take off for one day?
You know?
Again, you know, I go I was talking last week about how you know when you have a holiday like the fourth of July or something like that Independence Day, I should say, happens like on a Wednesday. So you have the Monday and Tuesday, you go to work, and then you're off on Wednesday, and then you come back Thursday,
and it feels like a second Monday during the week. Well, with the holiday, with being on a Thursday, people were taking a half day off on Wednesday, and a lot of instances took off that Thursday and pretty much took off that Friday, and then you had that short week the following week for New Year's and some people were in, some people were out. I noticed that in our office here at the station, a lot of people. You know, if you don't if you don't use it, you lose it.
As far as their vacation time, the final week, there was a very scattered few people in the office because a lot of people were getting squeezing in their last few days of vacation time. So a lot of other companies and a lot of people I tried to talk to or call on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday of last week to try to schedule interviews or to try to get some information. A lot of them were out of the office and they said, well, I won't be back in the office until you know, January of the
fifth or whatever. I'm like, my goodness, nice to have a type of a business that you can shut down for a week. Some people that was very shocked at a couple of businesses that were actually very off during that period of time. So again, people getting back, and I'm wondering if the people that put together these numbers
were slow to get them together. But one I did see from AYBC News, holiday shopping season sets forth the annual gut check for the US economy, prompting buyers to splurge in a show of optimism or cut back out of fear of what the next year holds. In twenty twenty five, shoppers open their wallets with gusto, though consumers appeared to favor low cost options and discounts, according to
spending data shared with ABC News. Now, you know I've seen you know, every year, you'll see these stories where people are saying that, well, you know, what, what are you going to be spending on Christmas this year? Kind of the man on the street thing. And almost every year I'm pretty shocked by that, because when you hear
the number, you're a little shocked at that. But then when you sit back and you think about it, well, let me see, we've got the grandkids, we got the kids, we've got this, and you start adding that all up and you go, oh, yeah, that's probably where they came up with that money. But what you you know, when you're thinking about it in increments of you know, you buy this gift, and you buy this gift and buy
this gift, you know pretty much it adds up. But when somebody says, well, I think I'm going to be spending X and such dollars. Now, what really floors me is when they will make a comment like, well, I've got five people, six people to buy for, and I think I'm going to spend five hundred dollars each on each one of them. And it's like, whoa, it's a
little excessive there. And I see some of these things on YouTube or whatever where people are just you know, thirty gifts under the Christmas tree for like each kid. So imagine at that time, I think they had like a family of three, so that was incredible. But anyway, holiday shopping, people, sports but again, you know, I guess maybe because I've always been this way. In the first place, I'm frugal, I don't I'm not an impulse buyer. I look at things, I look at the value. I compare.
I say, okay, if this if this item is you know, X and such a price, and this item over here is half the price. Is this item that you're getting? And of course, you know, you go on and you do customer reviews, and you look at them and you think, okay, what's the what's the benefit? Which one gets a four star rating or whatever the rating is, and you look at it and you say, well, okay, this item here is that's expensive, is good, but is it twice as good as this item here? And a lot of times
it fails in comparison with that. And so buying the thing that is a little is less money. Then freeze up more money so you can spend on other things. And it's it's a game. I mean, you know, you look at the trends and you look at what's in, what's out, or what's the hottest thing. There was a story last week that when I was on our sister station, I was talking about some of the dumbest things people spend money on. And you know, I mean, I'm not it's dumb money. But if you can afford it, fine.
But when the latest and greatest new gadgets come out, some people just have to have that latest iPhone, they have to have that latest piece of electronic equipment, they have to have that latest game box or whatever. And when you look at it from that standpoint, it's like, you know, is it is it really that much better?
Is it?
Does it do that much more? And we start seeing people what I guess what I'm getting at is value shopping, taking a step back and saying, you know, do I want to do this. I've talked about this as far as our grocery, you know, grocery shopping. And oh, by
the way, the Gordon household did hit that threshold. I mentioned several times that you know, in the years past, I've always tried to with our family that my wife and I have a family of two, although we are pretty much a family of three because I'm I'm a big eater. But anyway, so trying to save about one hundred dollars a month in terms of groceries, looking at the flyers, the circulars that come out at the beginning of the week, pick and choose what items is going
to buy. Not cheap stuff, but you know, very tasty stuff. And I'm surprised that we've been able to save as much money because we have switched over the last couple of years to more organic stuff and stuff that doesn't have all the preservatives in it, and that food is generally a little bit higher. But in terms of wanting to save one hundred dollars a month, in terms of our groceries last month last year, we hit a period because I added up a couple of the things from
the different retailers that we shop at. We saved over twenty four hundred dollars in groceries last week simply by using the coupons, simply by buying the buy one, get one freeze, buying things like I keep talking about the call I drink sales normally sells on the shelf, you just walk in and pick it up about fifteen bucks a canister, and yet if you get it when it's on sale, it's about ten bucks. And I've actually got
it for about nine bucks at times. So again, hitting those things when they're on sale is you can save a lot of money. And we've talked about I mentioned this on this program, where people will go in and it's almost like how fast can you get in and get out of the grocery store? And coming down the aisle, it's like grab here, grab there, grab here, grab there.
And you know, if you're that type. And again I've mentioned several times that if you're looking if you're going down the grocery, just for fun, just look at the different grocery. If you're looking at something eye level, look at the tag and it'll tell you how many cents per ounce or whatever the container is. Look at the shelf below that or above that, and see the difference in price. And it's amazing the difference in price per ounce.
So you're the figure that you're going to be looking at stuff eye level, and so that's what you're going to grab first. But if you go down to the next level, or even a couple of shells down, you'll find a lot the same item, same a better price. Anyway, they talk here about value shopping. What people were doing holiday.
Let me see, let's get back in here again. Performance defied concerns overhanging the economy for months as hiring slow and inflation ticked higher, seeming the underterred undeterred shoppers flex their's strength at the close of the year, offering some reassurance that the wider economy. Consumer spending accounts for about two thirds of the American economy. Holiday sales climbed three point nine percent compared to last year, according to MasterCard.
Let's see digital spending on Thanksgiving jumped five percent from the year earlier, totaling six point four billion and exceeding exceeding expectations. There's that phrase again, exceeding expectations. According to Adobe Analytics, on Black Friday, shoppers top the previous day's pace and spending sword about nine percent compared to twenty twenty four, adding up to eleven point eight billion dollars.
And then so on. For instance, they and then they talk about in the resurgence of thrift shops or off price retailers, how well they did and some of the other other retailers, et cetera. So interesting retail sales. I'm sure more will matriculate in through or trickle in through the next couple of days. But well, folks, that does it for us. Stay tuned for red Eye Radio. We're up against the hour here. Stay tuned for red Eye Radio. I'm Kevin Gordon, America's truck in Network. Seven hundred WLW.
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