Do you want to be an American flunny back on seven hundred WLW nine and ten Americans mind and ten of us are concerned about memory loss and the decline in brain function as we age.
The older we get, we see things at previous generations that didn't live as long, they never had to deal with these things we do. And in the two hundred years five hundred years from God only knows what malady's we're gonna face. But there's a concern over age related memory loss because as we get older, certainly are our minds change, and then there's disease. So what is normal and what is not? What is normal brain agent? What is some sort of neurodegenerative disease? And that's what we
worry about. This is what keeps us up at night. Doctor Mada fi Messetti is the vice chair of the McKnight Brain Research Foundation studies these things.
Doctor.
Good morning, Good morning, Scott, it's great to be on the show.
Thank you so much.
I think, first of all, the idea our brains are just limitless pots of things that take in a limitless sponges. I guess we get just absorb all as information all the time coming at us. And we got all this junk. Like I think, like, for example, you know some sort of temporary password that's that that that's in our head short term, or try to remember a phone number when it's all on our phone to begin with, and you
can go, I can't remember that. It's because we're not really designed to carry that much information, right, I mean, that's my understanding the human mind is it's kind of like a temporary thing on the stuff we use the most, that gets pushed to the forefront, but generally we get all this information that's disposable.
I think, I think you're partly right. I think it's important to understand here that the brain, like any other part of the body, is also aging. You know, from the time that we are born and what you've described some of the typical symptoms of an aging brain, And just like any other part of the body, we age differently, we age in distinct ways, but we all understand that as we grow older there are certain changes in our mental abilities in.
Certain cognitive.
Certain skills, and certain abilities improve as we grow older, such as wisdom and vocabulary and judgment. Certain other faculties decline. Some of the examples that you've mentioned are exactly that. We find it more difficult to learn and remember new information, We find it more difficult to pay attention to multiple tasks. At the same time, there might be more problems in
the speed at which we make decisions. So the important thing to understand here is that these changes are to be expected as a part of what we call normal cognitive aging. They are not to be feared. They're not
in and of themselves signs of a disease. And so what the MECH Brain Research Foundation is focused on is to try and help people understand what changes to expect as they grow older, as well as to provide them with all the resources they need to try and put in place lifestyle changes, put in place behaviors that can ensure that they protect their brains in health as they grow older.
Yeah, and unfortunately, as we go older, we see diseases that we never saw before, or maybe they did, and they just it's more widespread.
It's not like an epidemic.
It's just when you live till you're eighty ninety plus, you're going to see things, especially age related that appear physically. But also between those years of yours, you know, I think of our good friend or dear friend Jim Scott who has als, and I think of people who are older and dementia and all of these horrible illnesses that they have that we were let and see a couple generations.
Go as much.
That's true.
Neurodegenerative diseases are a completely different topic altogether, because those are diseases. Those are conditions that arise predominantly from a degenerative, usually progressive condition of the brain. Alis is one of the classic examples of a neurodegenerative disease. But I think what is important here to understand is that those neurodigenitive diseases have captured a lot of our attention. They get most of the research funding. This is what patients are
concerned about when they visit their physicians. But what has remained a little less, what has received a little less attention, is what changes to expect your normal aging. You know, that is something that all of us would experience, unlike you know, the minority of us who may experience a neurodegenerative disease. So I think we haven't focused enough attention yet on a full understanding of what normal cognitive aging is.
And so I think this is a great opportunity through the Magnet Brain re Search Foundation to bring that awareness to large numbers of people.
Makes sense, And I'm going to get into some of these points you're making right now, Doctor, I'm out of Tambasetti is if I share the McKnight Brain Research Foundation. I'm talking about the difference between normal brain aging and what is a neurodegenerat disease. Because you know, if you forget, I don't know what exit you're getting off. Go crap, I was supposed to get off there. It doesn't mean
that you have Alzheimer's. It just you may be getting older and your brain is so packed with other information something has to go. This shoe box is only so full that that is your brain. I could also talk about politics here too, where we have people who have are making big, big decisions to the highest levels of our government who are so older, incompetent. I'll just leave that as an open ended question.
So I think you know, the larger point that is to be made here in this context is that it's both I think a little unprofessional as well as you know, unethical to try and make diagnoses on people that the position hasn't personally seen interviewed or examined. But I think what this gives us a great opportunity to talk about is what changes to expect as people grow older in
terms of their abilities. Whether it's candidate is running for presidents, whether it's a radio radio host, whether it is a position like myself, We're all going to experience changes as
we grow older. So I think this is a fantastic opportunity for us while this topic is in the public domain, while people are talking about these candidates, where people are talking about what it means to lose some abilities as you grow older, I think it's a great opportunity for us to step back and try and see how much we know about normal age related memory changes and what we can do to day to try and preserve brain health as we all age.
Yes, And I think that's an important facet here too. You're really saying that, you know, when you're in your eighties, in your here, maybe in your thirties, forties or fifties, you look at it, Wow, is that what I have to look forward to?
Or is that an outlier?
With both of those gentlemen, you know, and I think like when as much speaking as they do, also sometimes you can only remember the first letter of something. You can flight you confuse names. You know, I'm trying to think of Frank and I keep saying Fred or whatever it might be.
Is that pretty.
Common as you get older and you you just have that whole and you know, the whole tip of the tongue phenomenon for example, where you you know the information is there, you just can't pull it out.
That's a great point. I think what you've described is what we would call, you know, benign age related cognitive changes. Occasionally forgetting a name, struggling to find the right word at times, maybe even occasionally forgetting a bill payment. I think all of these changes would come under the term
of normal age related memory decline. It's when these changes become much more severe, they become much more frequent, and they clearly started affecting an individual's independence and individual's ability to carry out the normal activities of daily living. That's when these changes might signal something a little bit more concerning and something that might require more detailed medical evaluation to make a diagnosis. But those more severe changes are
not what we're focused on today. We're trying to understand the relatively benign changes that may also be a concern to people and to try and empower them with all the inflammation they need to try and put in place behaviors today that might enable them to grow older with preserved cognitive function.
Yeah, okay, so what are the dos and don'ts of this?
Obviously, diet, exercise, sleep has got to be a big factor here.
That's going to be important.
A memory, which is why if you take a little nap, you know, you feel a lot better. That brain fog kind of goes away for a little bit.
I think you've raised you know, very very good points. The biggest factors today that we can put our finger on in terms of preserving brain health is understanding that a healthy heart goes together with a healthy brain. And so one of the most important factors that we know preserves brain health or may slow down memory loss as we grow older is to try and make sure that your blood pressure.
Is under good control.
Get screened for blood pressure, Understand what your blood presure numbers mean, make sure that your position is able to speak to you, assess your blood pressure, and if your blood pressure needs to be brought down the medication or by behaviors such as eating a healthier diet, exercising more regularly. That's something that you can proactively do today to try
and preserve brain health as we grow older. And then many of the other behaviors that you mentioned are exactly what you know now I get a chance to talk about as a position with my own patients. Regular exercise, being physically active, saying socially engaged, eating a heart healthy diet. All of these we know preserve brain health. Limiting alcohol intake as well. If you're a smoker, it's never too late to stop smoking and preserve brain health through preserved
heart health. So these are all examples of behaviors that we can put in place today to try and ensure that we preserve brain functions to the maximum capacity as we grow older.
Doctor, how does stress interfere with all this stuff? I guess in my mind, there's a lot of complex effects that it has. Right, if you have a lot of stress, it's interesting how your brain works. It has have a long term effect on your memory in this kind of cognitive decline we're talking about.
So there's experimental evidence that chronic stress, the stress over a prolonged period of time, can in use changes in the brain that may not be protected that they might in and of themselves, cause changes in your memory function,
changes in your ability to do certain cognitive tasks. We don't fully understand exactly how this might work, but we think there's some evidence that certain neurotransmitters can get released in the brain as a result of chronic stress, and that this imbalance in certain neurotransmitter levels in the brain can trigger these long term harmful effects in the brain. It's also important in this context to understand the effect
that factors like loneliness play. And we've just come off of a long pandemic that has taken a toll on our ability to socialize, to stay engaged with friends and family, and we are beginning to recognize that these changes, including loneliness and stress, might have a disproportionate impact on older individuals.
So that's another factor to bear in mind when we try and factor in stress, loneliness, depression, and low mood as risk factors for poor cognitive in poor cognitive performance as we grow older.
Yeah, and that makes sense too.
And I think that stress certainly is toxic to your body, but especially your brain. But I think also the society and the times in which we live We're interrupted at all times, and that's just a reality of modern life. I mean, your phones are going off, people are talking to you, kids crying, somebody's having a conversation with you.
You start daydreaming, is interrupting yourself basically, and then when we forget stuff, we think, oh my god, I'm in cognitive decline, I have some sort of neurodegenerative disease, when in fact, it's just modern society messing with our brains.
That's a good point, and I think that's all the more reason why, you know, we need to make time for ourselves, have opportunities for rest and relaxation, to try and get an adequate night's sleep. I think all of these factors play into controlling stress and doing as much as you can to make a positive impact on your brain health as you age.
Yeah, and yeah, talking about what is normal and abnormal when it comes to aging and your brain, because we all think we have some sort of incurable disease and it's our biggest fear, and so you're kind of looking for it. You think it's out there lurking, when in fact it's it's not as common as you would think. And also we're living longer too, when I hear all these things and go, all right, well, what's what's right?
What's normal? What about brain fog? Does that mean I have you? Mentally?
I got I have brain fog today. I've got some brain fog going right now, largely because I eat ham yesterday and it's full of salt, and my body hates me right now, and uh, I hate food. I normally don't eat, so I'm miserable. And well, that's what's causing the brain fog. So if you have chronic brain fog, you have it a lot. What can be done about that? Or is it just you just accept it?
So I think the term brain fog means different things to different people, And so in general, what I would recommend is that if you're concerned about your memory, if you think you've had significant changes in your memory, if there are skills that you could previously do without effort before that you now need extra help. If you're making mistakes with tasks that you could routinely accomplish without help before, those are all indicators that you might want to speak
to your healthcare provider and get a complete evaluation. There are certain factors that can be easily treated or reversible. I've had patients who've had first sleep at night, who've had a diagnosis of dementia or mild cognitive impairment, and once there's three problems to fix, their memory improves substantially. So there are certain reversible factors that might be responsible
for these memory changes. And again it highlights the need for you to be proactive in terms of seeking attention, in talking to a healthcare provider, in trying to empower yourself with all the resources in terms of information that you need to try and understand some of these changes. Be concerned when concern is warranted, but otherwise try and put in place healthy behaviors that can ensure brain health.
Finally, doctor, you know, we seel like with EKGs and echocardiograms and we get a baseline for your health at a younger age. We're getting a baseline. We need a baseline. Why don't we do that when it comes to your mental acumen?
Well, I think we should. I think that's the fantastic points. I don't think there is ever a good time, there is ever a right time. I think every opportunity that we get to try and get information, to try and speak to a healthcare providers about what changes we expect in memory as we grow older. I think all of
those opportunities are precious opportunities. And I think what you've just highlighted is the importance of being proactive, the importance of being attentive to these changes in memory as we grow older, and to pay attention to behaviors that we can implement the day to try and preserve rain health as we age.
Yeah, and also if your spouse or loved one of some is to pay attention to their health and if something seems off and they're more irritable or something's going on, that's that's a red flag for sure. Doctor Amadav the Massetti is the vice chair of the McKnight Brain Research Foundation nine and ten of is concerned about aging, memory loss versus decline and function and what's normal and what's not. And hopefully maybe got some useful information there before you
freak out. Doc, all the best, thanks for joining the show, appreciate.
It many thanks God News.
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Annually?
We spend the most in the free world, but don't have nearly the best outcomes. Lots of concern when it comes to our healthcare. There is a different route here, though. What if you just paid for everything yourself? I've often said, you know, if you cut out the middleman here and got rid of bureaucracy and that would be insurance and or government bureaucracy. Your costs had drop down dramatically, and
I think practitioners would be the doctors and nurses. Nurse practitioners like would have a better quality of life and everyone's happy. It's called it's the already, it's called direct primary care. I just kind of googled it and we've got about a dozen providers here in the tri States, and that number has grown over the last few years. He's the CEO of Healthcare to You, which pushes direct primary care, and his name is Andy Bonner. Andy, welcome to the show.
How are you well?
Thank you, I appreciate it.
Yeah, yeah, I'm.
Kind of familiar with this a little bit here too, So explain if I didn't do a decent job of that already. How does direct primary care work? Is its simply just paying you directly as a physician. You treat me, And it's kind of like the old days where I remember when when I was a little little my mom would take me to the you know, doctor who practiced out of his living room, basically, and I think she would pay cash. I think anyway, I'm not sure how
it worked. I was a little kid but I remember that I don't know the quality of care, but I'm alive today, so he must have done something right.
Well that that's exactly right. So it's really going back in time and trying to establish a relationship with the primary care for this and that oversees your health over you know, the entirety of your life, if you can possibly get that. But you know, the issue it with the care that we receive today. It's really reactive type care. It's really not looking at your whole being and being able to monitor your blood results and so forth over a period of time and seeing those little changes as
you age. And and really what direct primary care is establishing that relationship with a doctor who can oversee your health for a long period of time and see those differences and be able to work with you before those conditions turned to a bad state.
Okay, Yeah, And it sounds rather simple, and I think as we get into this, I think it's going to illustrate just how obsurd our system is and how much money is being wasted in going to middlemen and people who have absolute no concern over our care and the quality of our care that just get in the way and suck those dollars away from our desperately needed healthcare system. And so it's been around for a while. Here, it's starting to gain traction, as I mentioned, and I said
here in the tri State. In Cincinnati anyway, I've noticed there's been a slight uptick of the number. About a dozen or so now granted in the city this size, it's not many, but at least the needle is moving in the right direction. Let's look at them, the provider And why would a physician want to do this in.
The first place, Well, I mean for a provider today in the theef for service world, a couple of things have occurred, well, actually several things have occurred over the years. One is the administrative burden that a doctor has in order to be able to be paid in the fee
for service insurance world. Not only do they have to provide E and M codes, but they have to provide they have to know how to distinguish between sixty four thousand ICD votes to be able to provide a claim, submit a claim to an insurance carrier who then will reimverse them or find ways not to reimverse them over time. And so what's happened in the primary care setting is a lot of physicians either carry a large amount of bad debt because the coding is not correctly, the insurance
hasn't paid on time. They get paid ninety to one hundred and twenty days out. So they're being impacted from a castload perspective, and they're having to hire a lot more administrative staff in order to keep up with all the coding and requirements by the state or the government as it relates to Medicare, Medicaid, those types of patients.
So you know, a doctor has gone away from what they learned uh in med school UH and they become a very burdensome administrative staff that generally carries about five to one support staff to a position if you're in if you're in direct primary here, it acquires one support staff.
If that.
There are no plans submitted for the services that you provide. It's a direct contract with a physician who gets paid every month religiously on the same day, and the doctors paid to oversee your health. So there's no restrictions on time, there's no restrictions on what they can do.
There's not an.
Insurance carrier saying, oh, for that diagnosis, you should have only spent six minutes with a patient versus you know, the doctor wanted to spend twenty minutes, want to ask about them some family issues or some you know what happened.
Uh, you know what's.
Going on with your family and your relatives and so forth. So you can understand really a total picture of a part versus just a minute or six minute quick visit to deal with an acute issue or sickness and out the door.
You go, Yeah, it's interesting, you know you walk into I'll go to my primary care physician like twice a year, and I go in there and there's seven or eight people in the glass box and there's just countless numbers of files and there's coding going all this stuff. Like, wow,
it takes a lot to run a physician's off. It's not really all how much of that Steff's compliance almost all of it, right, it's government, it's insurance, it's someone who can code things in a medical Coding is a career in of itself, and it just goes to show you how burdens in the system is.
Yeah, if you look at I mean just a change.
From ICD nine to ICD ten, which was a requirement which is a requirement of doctors now to understand the coding systems. That's a change from about knowing twelve thousand or so codes to knowing over sixty four thousand toads.
So you're correct.
You have to have the higher specialist that understands and if you don't get the bill right, then the insurance companies will rejected and you have to resubmit and play that game back and forth.
And you know, really what happens in that game.
Is the insurance companies keep your money. You pay a premium every month for an insurance product, and the insurance company keeps that money until they absolutely have to give it up to the position. And unfortunately those positions are the ones who are left out.
Yeah, Andy Bonner is the CEO of healthcare. To you, we're talking about DPC direct primary Care. Basically you pay the position directly. What's the fees like? Typically what are we talking here?
It just depends. I mean, so just to give you a little information about us, you know, we're we've got about fifteen clinics. I know you mentioned it in the Cincinnati area, So we're we've got what we do is we partner.
With existing physicians.
Who have a fee for service practice.
Who want to dabble them dabble their toe into the direct primary care world, or do not want to get rid of their fee.
For service pass, so they carve out.
A piece of their panel to work with us, and our fees generally run less than fifty dollars a month for a relationship, and that includes everything that happens in the four walls of the physician's office, So think.
Of it that way.
You know, everything from skin irritations to upper respiratory to you know, you know, digestional issues. Anything that happens in primary care also in our is in our membership. And that would include an annual physical, a woman's well, women's a lab, the labs associated with that, and then we treat thirteen different front diseases, including diabetes and hypertension and those same clinics at that low fee rate.
So it's a.
Pretty encompassing program. It also includes twenty four to seven telemedicine. If you get sick on the weekends or late at night or whatever, you can pull in and to get a prescription called in. So it really is twenty four to seven access and unlimited access. So whatever you need, whether it be an acute condition of scirit skin irritation, or you need your angle physicals and so forth, that's all included in a membership fee.
Wow.
Interesting, Andy Bonder, CEO of Healthcare to you, it's direct Primary care DPC. What we're talking about getting rid of the middleman, which should be government and insurance companies just paying your position directly. And so for around one hundred or whatever it is a month a subscription rate, basically you get unlimited healthcare. How does this work with you kind of touched on but prescriptions.
Well, you have you have different programs that you can wrap a membership around, so you can add like labs. We have programs where you can add unlimited labs.
You can add.
A prescription program around it as well, and then.
You have you know, discount mri ct X.
Rays, discount labs so forth that you can include with this program and it kind of makes a nice bundle.
You know.
We are most of the time, we're not sold as a standalone product, and a lot of your DPC programs are not. What they're what they do with DPC is they wrap them into an insurance product to make those insurance products work better.
So we become the.
Base layer of the insurance and then you put whether it be a you have a lot of health shares out there in the world today that you can combine this with that.
You can combine this.
With a high deductable health plan so that you can lower your premiums. I'm saying this is the entry level and controls everything in a non claimed environment. So you know, for a simple visit fee or none, you can go see the doctor as much as you need to and be able to spend as much time as you need to with that position.
Okay, now that makes that makes sense.
So you're saying, if I need God's a big you know, there's cancer treatments or something that's extremely outside the scope of what my primary care position does, I would get high deductible insurance to kind of cover that.
Yeah, that's what we recommend.
The mean insurance is really there.
For catastrophic reasons and if you put together the right plan. The right plan is really US or another DPC program as the front door where everything funnels through.
And in our case, what we have is a complete call.
Center with an MA on the front a medical assistant on the front end, which is that same person that first enters the exam room when you walk into a doctor's office and they do the diagnosis for you, so the doctor can spend that six minutes time. We put them in a call center environment and our members never have to schedule a doctor's applointment. They never have to dial a doctor's office. We schedule all their care for them.
It's very high touch, white glove. We get them into the doctor's office and it doesn't matter where they go in our system. We are a fifty state uh DPC program, so we have members in the offices in all fifty states. So if you're traveling for work, if you're in another state, it's the same pier that's provided to you wherever you are in our system.
How would that work with a specialist though not necessarily you know, surgical or AUF because I would have the extra insurance for that, But if I need to see a specialist on something, how does that work well?
To give you an idea, So when you called uh and you have an app or you have a one eight hundred number and you're filling ill, you call into the doctor, you call into healthcare to you.
The m a answer.
The first thing they do is they triage you, uh, based on you know, what's ailing you today, and if it's something that we can care for in our world, then we schedule that care for you. If we need a specialist outside of that, then we can refer you into specialists, whether it be on the plan that you have.
Because every member when they join us, we we ask a series of questions so we know if they have underlying insurance, if there's other attached insurance to it, and we do our firm in network into whatever network they may have or whatever.
Insurance they may have. UH, so that you have.
That condity of care going between a DPC and a specialist organization.
Okay, good, that makes that makes a lot of sense. How does Medicare and Medicaid work. Is that in direct competition with this, because that that obviously that's not compatible what we're talking about. If you're on Medicare Medicaid, there's you know, that's that's taken care of and there's no outer well there's a little out of pocket, I guess I should say. And then there's part B and C and D and all that stuff as well. Is that indirect adds that we're talking about here?
No, I mean you can't. There are programs we don't. We don't deal in that world, and just because of the paperwork, we try to stay out of the administrative burdened area. But there are procms is looking at a program for DPC to be involved in that Medicaid program and Medicare. You're required to utilize those services first. So if you're on Medicare, you generally either you augment out kind of like you do with a B plan, with that primary care in the senior arena.
So there are programs out there who deal with both.
Okay, good again, Andy Bonner, CEO of Healthcare, to you, it's direct primary care. Basically pay a doctor a flat feet a month for unlimited healthcare and it keeps your costs extremely what's the typical savings for someone if you add it all up, I mentioned the head of this we spend individual for every man, woman, and child in America about fourteen thousand dollars per person. If you think about the younger folks, they use healthcare a lot less.
That means older folks are using way more than fourteen thousand per person. But out of that, what would you expect to spend in a year you know, we have.
There's been a lot of analysis done with different independent third parties that have looked at direct primary care and the impact of not only from the employer side of it being able to provide this for the employees as an alternative, but also on the individual side and depending on the price point.
In our case, we can generally show.
A first year ROI of anywhere between thirteen to twenty five percent net of fees, so savings both of the employer and the employee for signing up to direct primary care.
All right, is there a centralized website or number one can go and find out if there's a care provider near me?
Certainly, well, Healthcare to you, it's www dot help, the letter C, the number two, the letter U dot com.
Yeah, there's look a dozen, maybe fifteen or so when the Cincinnati area that number is growing. Is certainly something worth looking at. Andy Bonner, CEO of Healthcare to you, thanks again for the time, good info.
Well, thank you sir, appreciate the invite.
You bet Merry Christmas.
If you're hearing this, you go, well, wait a minute, the Affordable Care Act or getting cuts or get fat, don't know, fifty bucks or an individual hundred for a family for unlimited healthcare from a primary care physician seems affordable. Doesn't know why is it affordable? Well, because you cut out all the bs and you just paid the doctor directly. There's your affordable healthcare. Scott's Loan Show seven hundred w weld.
My uncontrollable movements called TD tart of dyskenesia felt embarrassing. I felt like disconnecting.
This holiday slash Christmas New Year's season, whatever it does, you celebrate or don't celebrate, getting time off man, treat yourself. Sloana here seven hundred wlw uh, thank you. And also I hate you to Brian Combs's sister in law because she makes the fiercest Christmas cookies. And I'm talking about not just like a little tray of cookies. I'm talking about a manhole cover, a Seg Dennison sized plate of
frosted goodness, absolutely incredible. Same time I just had four or five, and now these sugar portion is the sugar is spiking and I'm going.
To get the direction.
I never just stood those A one C commercials until this holiday season. I'm sure I'm over the limit, or I'm not sure where the wouldn't see.
But I don't know.
If you're over under it's better. But damn, those are some good Christmas cookies. Best time of the year, best time of the year. What else is going on? I heard a call over our police scanner that there was a fire in a house. I thought it was a Christmas tree. It turns out it was not. It was
just someone had left something plugged into the kitchen. I guess if you ever liked those scanners, it's funny because you're just sting to listen and calls will come through and you could find it's like a mini It's like a bunch of mini soap operas going on. It really is fascinating. But I laughed because I thought that Christmas tree fire. Is just talking about this, and it turns out it was like a toaster oven as opposed to a Christmas tree that was causing the problem. Not the
Christmas tree itself, but Christmas tree fires. To me, that is the razor blading candy of the Christmas season that you're supposed to check the kid's candy at Halloween for needles and razor blades. And we just at a store where someone had found or put a razor blood I think, in a loaf of bread in a grocery store. And someone had sent me that story, and I said, well, okay, I'm sure there are people that would do that, but that's more like the tailan all murders, right, than it
is Christmas than it is Halloween candy. I remember when mine were little, we never did it because I thought it was stupid. Then is you can take the kid's candy to a hospital and they would X ray it for make sure there's the and they did it for years and years and years. I'm almost damn sure no one ever found anything bad in the candy. And my whole idea betime, you know there may be a razor.
Brother got to check your candy for needles and razor blades is because mom and dad want their their taste, they want their peace, they want their cut, they want to wet their beak. To quote the Godfather, it wasn't about checking for oh that's maybe poison.
It's fine and dad.
Isn't it funny how all the reasones and snackers were somehow tainted. Yeah, I gotta confiscate this, I gotta have this destroyed. And you just go in the room and go in the closet and just eat yourself stupid on the kids treats. Why is it that every Snicker's bar dead, there's a needle or a raise. Well, it just looks like it's tank. I'm gonna I'm gonna set this. I'll throw this out, dispose. It's got to be put in an incinerator. It's a whole thing. It's it's compliance. It's osha.
You kids don't understand. And now it's Christmas tree fires, and like all right, I could see maybe back you know, one hundred and fifty years ago, when they would literally put the tree up on Christmas Eve, which it seems like a lot of work. Even back then too. You look at the old movies, there's tinsel and the whole production. To do anything back in the day, it took a lot of effort. Today, I go to the basement, pull the tree out, thirty thirty second, snap two pieces together,
plug in, and here we go. It's pretty lit, read and rock and roll. It's fire retardants. Got the led lights. They just I think there's that many Christmas tree fires. On hundred fifty years ago, they would literally light these live trees with candles. I mean, put a candle on the branch and now it's led lights. I mean they really throw no heat out. They're very low voltage. Where's the fire starting exactly? I will say, however, and I'll put the alert out there. Now it's going to be
what seventy degrees today? It's going to be Christmas in Miami here in Cincinnati shortly.
Space heaters.
You know a lot of people, older people for some reason get freaked out about so they'll unplug everything, coffee makers and stuff like that. One of the things you should unplug is a space heater because they can be dangerous. But yeah, okay, space heater fires are one thing. But Christmas tree fires, I'm not so sure about that. Not so sure about something else I'm not sure about. I'm sure by now you've heard about what they're doing in Australia relative to social media. Is a ban there for
children under sixteen, and that's now in effect. If you're sixteen hundred, you cannot get on social media. I don't know how they regulate that. I don't know how, I don't know how effective. I yeah, we're banning social media for kids. Well, how's that going to work?
Out.
Well, you know, you can't get on Instagram and you can't get on Snapchat and you get great. But there's probably thousands of other platforms out there that old adults don't know about that kids do. And that's how this stuff works. I mean, Facebook is a thing for teenagers for a long time before retirees discovered and then share their pictures of you know, their life, and then by then the kids are like, okay, well mom and dad and Graham and Grandpa have taken it over. I'm gonna
go to another platform where they don't hang out. That's how it is. I just I don't think it's gonna work, and only that, and I know that certainly there is if you spend a lot of time on social there are some damagings effect to your psyche. There is, But I think a lot of this stuff is really overblown. I think anytime that we get some new technology out there, and I consider social in the inner to be relatively new. Anyway, the idea is that this screen time is harming us.
If you spend all day it's like anything. You know when we bann marijuana, Well, there's people out there that's all they do all day. Well, yeah, if you do that all day, if you eat or drink anything all day, it's going to be bad for you. I would contend that, you know, if you're especially studious and you read books all day and never move, that's as bad. That's bad for you too. You know, everything in moderation. I just think that the effects of this can be in public
discourse and headlines be a little bit overstated. If you look at, for example, the United States, the biggest challenge to education, to learning and scores was COVID in from twenty twelve to twenty twenty two. In that ten year period, in the advent of social media, there was only a minimal decline in test scores. And despite cell phone use and like is the rate of anxiety depression IM pretty much leveled off? And yeah, you know you have mental
health issues for sure. But the countries, it's interesting, countries like Scandinavia for example example, where social media is big but it's not US big. They have more mental health issues there than we do here. And so I look at this whole thing and go, Okay, well, you know, it is a steady diet of social media bad for you, bad for your development. It's like you sure it is, but you know we're talking about banning it. That's an entirely different thing because kids are just going to go
run and then it becomes underground. And anytime you prohibit something, every time prohibition, you're gonna have a black market, and certainly that's going to happen here. I'd like to see more data on this. Yeah, less screen time is good. I mean, you know, our couple hours a day, not all day on it, But I don't think you know, if you spend an hour or two on social media really is the end of the world. But again, anything new we have a fear of. That's how it is.
Get a news update and we're turning the show. Anthony Davenport is here real quick. I always like to talk to him this time of year because end of the year, and you got some downtime presumably at the holidays, and you can't just sit there and drink eggnogny cookies like I do. You may actually like, Okay, I got little stuff to do. I've got some housekeeping you do. One of these shadow list is checking your credit reports. Details on that to follow right after this Scott's Loan Show.
This is seven hundred ww.
By I jiy. You need to entertain.
Hopefully during the Christmas break, the holiday break here, you'll have some time to yourself and maybe more time yourself to get some I don't know housekeeping stuff done. What are the things you should do? Put it on your calendar right now. That is to make sure you pull your free credit report once a year from the three major agencies you can pull your credit report for free. It's always good to go check up on that stuff to make sure that I don't know there's something to
wonk in there or your identity stolen. For details on that, let me bring in Anthony Davenport from credit cards dot Com. Anthony, welcome. You know what's insane here is that we're just supposed to know to pull the credit reports. Yeah, it's like woy, you're supposed to know that? How am I supposed to know that?
Yeah?
And what's crazy is you know, no one ever learns about this whole system. You're not taught about it in high school or college, or your parents can't teach it to you because it pretty much wasn't applicable then and
they didn't learn about it either. Yet, it controls so much of what we do it controls, you know, as you mentioned a mortgage, your credit cards, student loans, car loans, but it's now even being used for auto insurance home insurance, and the information they're collecting on you isn't always right
and you have very little recourse to correct it. And that's something that we delve into in a whole chapter called gaming the System how to actually correct this information and remove negative information being.
They're about you and most people say have to say, probably don't pull their annual credit report or look at their credit report.
They just assume that it is what it is.
Yeah, and you know, that's the worst thing in the world is to you know, we list the five biggest mistakes, and one of them is that people don't look at their credit and then they walk into a bank and say, I'd like to get a loan. That's the wrong time to figure out that something may not be quite right, and you're taking their word for it that they're going to give you the best deal because you just pay your bills on time, and that's nothing could be further from the truth.
In your job, because you do this for a living and you work with people to try and get their credit right and then some big names and some smaller names probably as well too, and everywhere in between. Typically, when someone is facing a credit issue, is it a bad decision they made, is it bad luck? Is it the credit bureau screwing things up? As a combination? What typically do you say?
It really is a huge combination of things. In many cases we see people with data associated to them because they have a similar name to someone or similar social But the biggest issue that I see, and it affects thirty five percent of Americans or that we get medical collections. And these are people that have health insurance. But because the system is so flawed, and when you go to the doctor, the hospital, the er, you hand over your
insurance card and you figure you're all good. But then the doctor, the er they have a fight with the insurance company over how much is supposed to be paid. The balance that's in the middle if they can't agree is your liability. And often you don't find out about it until it's on your credit report and it lowers your credit score by an average of fifty to one hundred points.
Well that's insane, and that that's medical. And so if you look at all this stuff and make it up. There's a lot of numbers. There's a lot of codes. It's meant for us not to understand eve when we look at it, except maybe that wonders that, yeah, what a one number. So let's start with this again, Anthony Davenport, you're a score and inside your secrets to understanding, controlling and protect your credit score this morning on the show.
So what are the numbers that go into Obviously it's on the amount you borrow, there's a ratio between the cap on your limit on your card and how much you have out time to pay, things like that, But what are some of.
The other factors.
So what catches most people off guard is that thirty five percent of your score, which is the biggest percentage of it, comes down to whether you pay your bills on time. But now the other sixty five percent has absolutely nothing to do with whether you pay your bills on time, and that's usually what people can correct easier than their payment history. So the next biggest chunk of it is thirty percent of your score. Almost as much as whether you pay your bills on time comes down
to how much of your credit cards you're using. And this is this is not like whether your pay your bills off in full each month. Remember that they only update the bureaus every thirty to forty five days. So if you're someone that maxes out a card and then pays it off a week later, your credit score took could plummet because of when they report that balance to the bureaus, and then you look like a credit risk.
Wow, that's interesting.
So it's something that seemingly you would never think of that factors in is having a huge impact.
On your credit.
It's massive impact, and it catches people off guard, no matter how much money they make or what their payment history is like.
Typically, when you run into problems with this, you start missing things like a mortgage payment, delinquency on a loan, going more than sixty days late on a car loan, things like that. Those are the big ones that are going to wind up getting you in trouble real quick.
Right, Yeah, they do. But I'll tell you that in terms of the things that impact your score the most, usually it's going to be like a collection account when you don't return that cable box or you get a medical collection needn't know about. Those things typically impact you a huge amount. A mortgage will impact you the most you know, if you miss your mortgage payment, but other
things like that will have a huge, massive impact. And another crazy thing that we get into is the fact that if you have previously immaculate history and then you have a late payment, that will impact you much more than someone who occasionally misses a payment here or there.
Yeah, that makes I guess it makes sense too. And you know, we buy stuff all the time. Most people use their credit card for purchases big and small, don't think anything of it, and try to pay the bill, I guess at the end of the month. But man, some things start falling between the cracks. You know, you get a bill that somehow doesn't show up, and you've got all sorts of problems and it compounds rather.
Quickly as well.
Do you have any recourse at that point though, with a credit bure er is if something like that happens, or do you have to go to the credit or is there anything they can do or is it a case where hey, it's out of my hands.
No, you absolutely can do something, and you should, especially if you know that you're going to be facing hardship in advance. You know, we put a whole chapter on how to recover when disaster strikes or wouldn't. It's really when life happens, because life is going to happen, and it happens to most of us and we go through these situations. So we basically a reference guide for if this happens to you, this is how to deal with it. This is how you deal with the creditor, this is
how you do with the credit bureau. It'll help you get back on your feet and it resolve the issues, but it does take persistence. It's not just a magical you know, hit a button and things go away.
Student debt relief is a big topic in Washington. The presidents trying to do it again and just continue to write off all this money and we're just borrowing it from our kids' future. So it's going to make it worse, not better down the line. But they don't care because money terms, that gets served and most they can be. There's eight years, right, But Anthony Davenport on that too. I mean, the candiates kicked down the road, but what happens to the credit marcus overall?
So that's the big looming question right now is what is going to be the next crisis and student loan debt is almost double the amount of debt of or on credit cards, so many people are getting them that Now they're been changing rules within the government about being able to garnish your social security because they're expecting people to go into retirement owing student loan debt. So people
are falling behind on that. They don't have the means to be able to make payments on these massive amounts of debt. And that's a huge issue. You know, we wrote about that extensively because student loan debt, falling behind on it, it's a massive, massive, massive problem.
It is too and I think that's a I don't know if I want to call it a bubble because it's so subsidized at this point, but I think it's going to catch up, right, because if you have all this outstanding debt and you have no means to pay it off and mom and dad co signed, you're going to screw up their social security. That's going to get garnished. Your social security is going to get garnished, and the whole industry is set up to make sure that that happens.
It's the one loan you can't get discharged. And I think they learned a lot too from the two thousand and eight crash and so on. Is to learn how to make sure that bubble dozen per so the money keeps coming in.
You're right, and the fact is most of these student loans are backed by the federal government, which has so many options to collect the money from you.
Again, the name of the book is an Insider Secret to understanding, controlling and protecting your credit score. Anthony Davenport, thanks for the time. Good stuff, appreciate.
It, Thanks Scott Pleasure.
It's kind of like the batteries and your smoke detector dur the time change. Got to remember to do these little things. Check those credit ports, just make sure. Just takes a few minutes anyway, and then you know where your stuff is. Set it and forget it. And speaking of money, we'll talk to Andy Shaffer from all Worth Financial one more time this year. He's at eleven thirty five. We've got news now though here on the Home of the Best Bengals coverage seven hundred WLW Cincinnati six million
packages every single day during the holidays. That number is going to go up. Americans will ship back and forth something like three billion packages, which is an incredible number. All I know is this. I get my Amazon app out, I'm a prime member. I see something I clicked by. Two days later, there's a box at my front door. What the hell happens in between? Adam Baker's here. Adam is vice president of Global Transportation Services and a global mile at Amazon.
Adam, how are.
You very good? Thank you very much for having me on your show.
Yeah, appreciate it. How come you have time to talk to me? You shouldn't you be out doing stuff?
I am very busy this time of.
Year, but this is my twentieth season, so I got I can make a little bit of.
Time for you.
You got some minions I got. I appreciate it.
How much more volume do you do in December, say, versus July or June or summer months.
Oh, the holiday season is one of our peak THEESUS throughout the year, you know, just going into the Cyber Monday and including Cyber Monday.
The eleven days we sold over a billion units.
That was a thousand items a second on Black Friday alone getting sold. So there's a tremendous amount of volume that comes through our system during this time period, and we've planned and prepared for this for many many months through our investments in our workforce, through one point two billion dollars in up skilling for training and education, as well as the onboarding of over two hundred and fifty thousand people during this time period.
So the hiring has been good for you guys. And I think it's interesting too because you see your ads all the time. You're always recruiting as big a company as you are, and the benefits and compensation are great. That then drives up I guess better wages and things for everyone else too, so it rises all ships. So the fast fulfillment dates because you're seeing an uptick. You're getting you got the bodies, clearly, you've got the fleet,
the facilities, and the logistics to do this. But because I can still get stuff in two days via Amazon, even this close to the holidays, it means your supply chain at the front and has to really move. It means your suppliers are cranking stuff out. So have you also seen an increase then and had to increase like the number of ports that container ships will ship to and such.
So we absolutely have a tremendous supply chain groups powered by AI actually, So it's the fighting optimization technology. It's a phenomenal organization. What they're doing is they're going through trying to figure out a four hundred million unique items that are being sold throughout the United States. They try to figure out how much to buy, how much, where to source those from, whether it's overseas or domestically, in order to make sure that we have it on time
for the point of sale. They then try to figure out where to place those four hundred unique items through hundreds of facilities in the United States and other places. And they also have to predict it at the appropriate inventory level to make sure when you click that buy now button, we can get it to your porch in a day and in many places three to five hours.
Yeah, I mean it's incredible what you can get same day or if I'll be here on your doorstep before ordered by midnight, And it's incredible to me. If it's something stupid, it's like not yeah, toilet paper paper tells something. But I need a I don't know, I build stuff, so I need a particular part for a remodel I'm working on, so I may order it and go, oh yeah, I'll be here overnight. The logistics and the hubspoken hub system that you have is incredible.
So let's go through that.
Adam Baker with Amazon in talking about I click, I buy something a day or two days later or the same day shows up on my door. But there's so much happening in between that too, So let's just start with this, I click and then what happens give me the deep dive on what occurs after I place my order.
Well, right, I'm in the same boat as you.
I have many everyday essentials delivered to my porch on a daily basis, but also in the middle of the garage, and I need a torquerench or something like that, and somehow we are able to get it to me before dinner.
So it's impressive. But this network starts with the time you click.
By now, we talked a little bit about how we place the inventory, but after that it then comes into our fulfillment centers.
Okay, the our fulfillment centers.
Yeah, I'm sorry, And let's before we get there, let's describe how the system works. Right, because I know that you took the Superdome in Detroit, which is about five hours away for us, four hours away from us, and turn that into a hub but we also have here in Cincinnati at CVG. You've got like twelve flights a day going out too, So you've got a completely automated robotic system here at CVG. So it's not just you know, coming from one place, you have these all over the place.
That's a great example of where we've deployed over seven hundred and fifty thousand robots throughout the Amazon network.
All right, so I ordered, I order this torks you mean, say, a Torqu's ranch or a Torqus driver, and I get that. All right, I need that, and it's coming in I don't know, overnight or whatever I place it order.
It goes to I don't know.
I guess the closest one where they stock like two billion things would be Detroit. I'm guessing it's coming out of there or somewhere similar, depending where you live. And does that get on a does that get on a plane? Is that is that then sent via truck the distribution network for that one little thing? How many hands does that pass through? How many ports does that go through?
Well, when we're doing our job right and well, it'll be coming through our regionalized network on the ground. So over the last year we went from a national fulfillment network in which an item could be flying through all these hubs from coast to coast, we moved into a regionalized.
Network that basically is there's eight regents in the United.
States, and within each region, we're actually able to fill seventy six percent of the demand within the region, and so we're keeping it on the ground, which is good for the environment, it's good for the speed, and it's also very good for our cost.
Adam Banker, vice president of Global Transportation Services and Global Mile of Amazon. We're talking about how you click and then the same day, the next day or two days later, this obscure object whatever is you order or order of multiple orders shows up on your doorstep. We just don't think about it. It's cool because you go out two
days This is amazing. I know exactly where it is in the world and when it's getting delivered, and I even know after it's delivered as well, when it's on my doorstep, which is absolutely incredibly Just take it for granted. With this time of year, the holidays being here, it's a better time than ever before to talk about what
happens after you click. And so that part then somehow ends up on my door inside one of these facilities, whether it's at CBG or in Detroit as well, what goes on there, How much of this is automated, how much of this is robotics, how much is that it hands on? And does that change based on the location the type of facility that is.
So I've actually been into the CBG hubs quite frequently, but yes, there's a tremendous amount of robotics in our facilities, especially as it relates to the items that.
We're talking about.
Those robots are moving inventory around to make a safer environment for our employees. They're eliminating some of the lifting that's required, so they'll actually pick up carts that contain completed packages and move them on to our trailers to go outside the door. So within each facilities, we also even have robotic arms that are used to be able to actotes as well as pick items out of individual inventory pods. So the level of robotics does vary depending
on how old a particular building is. But all across the US worldwide, we've created over seven hundred new job categories and over a hundred thousand new jobs.
It is amazing too because it works so well and we just don't think about it. We don't think about the user and I click and it shows up. But everything in between is a miracle of modern technology of AI, of computers. It's literally the cutting edge of American consumption, consumerism, and our capitalistic society. It's something else.
It's really impressive to be able to make robotics AI with our workforce. This creates a very collaborative environment with our employees to enable them to be able to work an incredibly safe and ergonomic environment while still be able to deliver at the speeds that our customers have come a customs to other applications that AI are actually even
in the delivery programs. So we talked about getting the item out of a fulfillment center and somewhat through our transportation network, but we still have to put it on your porch. AI has been used in that case to go through and try to group all those thousands and thousands of shipments together into a logical route that's carbon efficient, highly dense, and simple for our delivery service partner providers to be able to utilize. But when you have weather or any.
Other unexpected activity, when you're out on the road.
AI jumps in and recalculates those routes rewraps the driver to ensure that they have an easy, simplistic route to complete, as well as making sure we get that package on your porch on time.
Yeah, and I think it's an interesting part about it too, because you as well, we only make fewer right so fewer left turns as possible to save time and gas, and that's really a thing.
But AI is taking this to the next level.
Absolutely.
AI has begun to really change the way we actually do our routing, help us incorporate the unpredictable into what's been going on. And then we're beginning to use generative AI to go and take all the delivery preferences that people have had in terms of like how do you
get into some of these complicated apartment complexes. There are difficult entries into some houses and some neighborhoods that after you've done this successfully a couple of times and have that in your data set, the generative AI can help work and provide those simplistic instructions for those drivers.
Yeah, because I'd imagine with the number of bodies that you have, and they're human beings, they get sick, they take days off in vacations, and you may have different drivers on every route. I mean, my driver doesn't even look like it's the same driver every time, and yet they know. And that's because AI. That's because it's all right there in front of It tells them what to do step by step, so it doesn't matter the person
and they can literally slide in and do that. If you're trained as a driver, you can do that job in any neighborhood.
It sounds like well, and this.
Goes to how Amazon has been actually helping support small medium sized businesses with our Delivery Service Provider program so they can there's thirty five hundred small businesses that are employing two hundred and seventy.
Nine thousand drivers worldwide.
Our tools that we've built in AI, whether it's the generative AI that's coming out or the routing, has enabled these delivery service providers to be able to hire drivers and be able to change routes as necessary. But they have generated over forty five billion dollars in revenue.
So it's an amazing.
Opportunity for small businesses and shows our commitment to their growth.
It is an incredible thing to think of how quickly. The stuff from all the way around the world can get to us in such a short fast period of time. What's the biggest challenge for you guys moving forward here?
One of the largest challenges that we face is making sure that we are always focused on taking care of our customer in terms of the price selection and convenience that they demand. The customers never ask for a product to be slower, They never asked for it to be more expensive, and they never ask it for it to be less convenient. So that's the biggest challenge that we have.
When we're at the scale that we're at, servicing so many customers worldwide as well as inside each individual's small neighborhood, that is the biggest challenge is how do we continually to push that envelope on more than four hundred million unique items, be able to deliver in one day or less or in.
Many cases three to five hours.
That's an incredible challenge, and I believe that we continue to deliver on that price selection and speed for our customers.
One other thing I'd add too, With this time of the year and the demand, the demand is extremely high.
This is your busiest time of the year. The postal service.
I think they see a huge uptick they do like twenty million, you guys are going to do in the billions when it comes to Amazon outside of talent. You know what we saw during COVID where no one could go into work. That was a huge challenge for the supply chain and everything completely a huge learning experience for you guys. But I think the other intangible here is the weather. You've got high demand, you've got some challenging weather concerns with you know, snow moving in.
Et cetera, et cetera.
How does AI or how do you guys adapt to that make that change so it is seamless. You know, you may have a slight delay in an item, but it's only going to be a day. Whereas airlines, I mean it seems like passenger lines take a lot longer to recover from weather event than you guys do.
Well.
Weather is something that in the logistics business you get very used to. We actually have our own meteorology group that is providing us regular weather reports to enable us to dynamically adjust our delivery.
Times throughout the country.
So using AI and the meteorology group, we know that oh three feet of snow is very different in somewhere like Anchorage, Alaska that it is in Atlanta, and we can adjust our delivery promises for that, and using that information, we can make the great promises for our customers. As part of this, though, taking a step back, one of the things that I really want to spend some time talking.
About is those small medium.
Sized businesses that Amazon has partnered with for many years. Sixty percent of our web sales are actually coming from these independent sellers. They sold over four point one billion products and twenty twenty two alone. So this is a great commitment that Amazon's making to small.
Medium sized businesses to enable.
Us to be able to deliver your packages to the porch, whether it's snow or a wonderful sunny day.
And Baker, vice president Global Transportation Services and Global Mile at Amazon, and how you get your stuff so damn quick, especially when there's high demand and weather events here too. The inner workings of Amazon, which to CVG, They've got twelve flights a day now going out. That's the state of the art facility, and I expect more to come because of our location the efficiency here in the Cincinnati area.
Adam all the best, Thanks for taking time out. Appreciate you.
Thank you very much, and I appreciate being on the show.
Mary Christmas Adam. Yeah, I just kind of take it for grant. Stuff shows up behind the scenes of Amazon. Now you throw ups and FedEx in there, But to Amazon, that entire operation is just so mind blowing. The complex you just can't get you wrap your arm around it. How many packages and how they know stuff's getting delayed.
I think it's a model for everybody else. Like, wait, Amazon can tell I got a like that torch wrench you mentioned, I got a torch wrench come and I can say where in the world it is when it's been delivered. Hell, I got to keep out of my garage loss the Amazon driver that puts things in my garage. You know, the only thing I got to worry about is not running or over when I pull in. It's pretty cool, pretty damn cool how the stuff gets to
your house from Santa's workshop. Now, you know Scott Sloan show on seven hundred WLW, Cincinnati.
More than a few of our patients have talked to me about their first time. But it's not the first time. You're probably thinking.
Of, man, how to make it, how to keep it and how to keep others off your stats. This is all worth advice with Andy Shaeffer.
All right, we're gonna put the lid on twenty twenty.
What is this twenty twenty twenty, nineteen, twenty eight twenty.
I'm not sure what year it is, but I know that the year's almost over. I know that, Andy Shaeffer. How are you, brother?
I'm doing great. Christmas is ready for the family. We're just kind of settling in and looking forward to the holidays.
Yeah.
So you get gold bullyon again for the kids, and some of us get the chocolate coins. You know that you open it, you actually put the real gold coins in the stockings.
I like that about you.
No, I usually do. I'll do some lottery tickets for my nieces and nephews though, you know, try to get them started a little bit.
That's always fucking I try to turn them into the degenerates early.
I love it.
That's right.
Before you go, speaking of a holiday, I saw holiday spending numbers up four percent over four percent.
I think year over year. That's good? Is that normally where we are?
Yeah?
I mean, you know, you you get a little bit of a Santa claus rally as far as spending is concerned, and that's seasonal, and you know that's usually what we see and so you know, part of the challenge for me is really trying to understand the data and try to take the seasonality out of it and understand what the numbers really tell us. So it's a little bit murky to try to figure out where we are from an economic standpoint.
So but yeah, yeah, I mean spending is always up this time of year. All right, good, now what we want for sure? This year has been absolutely nothing short of incredible, I think and borring.
You know, we just have a few days left here.
God knows what could happen, and you never want to say it's impossible to screw this up.
But another great year for the market.
It's been fabulous, and you know, we did have a hiccup in April. Obviously, there was some fears about the tariffs when Donald Trump announced that he was going to place tarrifs on you know a lot of the countries that we do a lot of business with, and that was short lived. And the reason that it was short lived was that we started to see some flexibility from the Trump administration as far as deadlines were concerned on the tariffs in April, and so the market fell very sharply,
but it came back sharply. Ever since then, we've been slow and steady. You know, we've had some you know, inflation data that has started to cool a little bit. The jobs data has been a little bit sketchy, but not super bad. And so because of that, you know, investors generally have felt pretty good about where we are from an economic standpoint, and the markets have reflected that.
Yeah, if you look at that year, you know, January to January chart you every year, it's pretty much a hockey stack.
Yeah, I mean it's been great and I think you know, that's a lesson for every investor. You know, there's going to be some tumultuous times. We usually see a correction on average once per year, and a correction is a ten percent downturn in the market in any given year, and that's fairly common. So if you stay the course, you're disciplined with your investment approach, maybe make some small adjustments to certain sectors, you're gonna be fine.
Yeah, you mentioned tariffs.
Grand picture as we close out the year, so we're almost a year of tariffs at this point mixed bag.
I mean, has it done anything? Is it doing what?
It certainly doesn't seem like, you know, the sky fell, But at the same time, it didn't accomplish the goals that they wanted in the first place. It just seems like we're trading money, you know, on the form of taxes to rebates and handouts.
So did we do anything?
Well, I think it remains to be seen, you know, with anything, I think it's going to take some time to figure out and unwind and you know, kind of look under the hood and see how it has affected the economy in general. Now, you know, when we look at inflation, the fear was is that it was going to fire up inflation. You know, if the cost of goods is going to increase due to the tariffs, then that's going to hurt the pocketbook of you know, the
US consumer prices are going to continue to rise. And what we've heard from the FED is that essentially, hey, this is probably going to be a one off. Our economy is fairly robust. It probably won't have a long term impact on inflation. And that's really what has bared out when we look at the rest of the year. Now, as far as you know, what does it look like as far as industry here in the United States, Does it really move the needle as far as income is
concerned from the tax revenue that we get. That remains to be seen. But I do think that one of the long term benefits that we may see is access to other markets within the world. You know, part of the reason that the Trump administration wanted to increase terraff on you know a lot of our trading partners is that we really just kind of want access to their markets.
If Ford is able to sell F one fifties here in the United States, we want to be able to sell F one fifties over in China and Europe and things like that. And so it's not as much about the revenue that we're able to generate from it or protecting our industry here in the United States. It's more about being able to sell our stuff to countries that sell stuff to US, I think, and I think that we have seen a little bit of an impact there and hopefully it will open up markets for US.
Well, hopefully it does too. It just seems like it's a wash. You know, it's hard to and it's it's one of those things. I mean, you're basically changing the way we've done things for a long time. So it's going to take much much longer in order to see success, if that's the case. But we are not patient as Americans, and so we'll see what the next of your brains. I know, we finally got some updated consumer inflation reports. A CPI is finally out after the government shutdown.
Yeah, but it was a little bit murky. I do think there was a step in the right direction. Year of ear inflation showed, you know, about two point six percent. That was a decrease from two point seven percent, its lowest since twenty twenty one, and so investors were happy to see, you know, at least the arrow is pointing in the right direction as far as inflation is current concerned. Now, the problem is is that we didn't get a lot
of the price data for October. The November collection was partially delayed till later in the month because of the government shutdown, So a lot of the information that the FED was using was carry forward from a lot of the values that we had prior to the government shutdown, So it is full of anomalies. The November year of the year data likely understates the true underlying price of inflation,
but don't. But we're not dismissing it. It is showing a lot better than what we expected, and it is coming down and the FED feels pretty good about it, and that's why we cut rates in December.
All Right, how much of data starting to stream back in the faucet's been turned back on after the shutdown. But how much stuff are we getting in right now?
Is it?
Is?
It kind of hard to read because the numbers are sowingconsistent.
Yeah, but it's it's like putting a puzzle together. You know, we're able to get enough data from the private sector to where we can kind of piece together with the puzzle to be able to find out, you know, what is really happening. But it is, I mean, we are missing some data. Last week, you know, we had some labor market data. It was the first labor market data that we had in a few months, and so similar to the CPI release, that update was messy as well.
We had employers shed a total of one hundred and five thousand jobs in October. We added sixty four thousand jobs in November. Those numbers are a little bit more volatile than the underlying data shows, because most of that data was entirely by one hundred and sixty two thousand drop decline in the federal government employ employment range, and so when you look at the private sector, it was
more stable. We added fifty two thousand jobs in October and another sixty nine thousand jobs in November, and that's what I'm talking about. We kind of have to look at the private sector because obviously the government sector was a little bit skewed due to the shutdown. And when we do look at the private sector, it shows that things are not great, but they're not terrible either.
All right, So inflation down a tick from two seven to two six. The target, of course, or the FED has always been two and that's extremely sticky right now. And I'm sure Wall Street lights it the numbers going down, but to me, that's one of the number of indicators we have where there's a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. Most people don't notice what point one percent is in play. They know they're paying more for stuff
at the grocery store. When that starts to turn, then I think you got probably a lot more consumer confidence.
That's how works.
Yeah, that's how it works. But we also have to understand what wage growth is too, and what we're seeing is there is a net positive in wage growth inflation. So if inflation is up two point six percent, that obviously means that, you know, the cost of goods continues to increase. And I always want to communicate my clients and my friends and say, hey, you know, inflation is not when it comes down, it's not a decrease in
the prices. It's an increase less slowly. But if your wages continue to increase at a more rapid pace than the cost of goods, and so that leads to more of a net positive gain for the consumer. And that's what we're seeing right now. We're starting to see wage growth continue to increase, We're starting to see inflation decrease,
and ultimately it makes things more affordable for the consumer. Now, you know, I know generally when you talk to people out on the street and I talk to friends and clients, and it doesn't feel like that, but the numbers beare it out, and the numbers do suggest that the consumer is a lot more healthy today than we wore five years ago.
All right, shafers On from all Worth financial Sloan here seven hundred last session of the year between the two of us in here, and it's been a great year for the stock market. Of course, inflation is sticky, and maybe that will start to turn here with the with the interest rates dropping and the like.
What about job data right now? Where are things looking?
Yeah, the unemployment rate is rose risen to about four point five six percent in November. That's up from four point four percent in September. Again, we didn't have October unemployment rate due to the shutdown, and so the increase isn't not a result of people losing their jobs. It's mostly due to over three hundred thousand people entering the labor force to find a job. And so while the labor market continues to be characterized as cooling, it's not crashing.
This isn't shouldn't be a shock to a lot of people. Interest rates have been very restrictive over the past three years, and the rates have moved closer than neutral, and so that's the job market will likely stabilize or you know, over the next year, because we're going to continue to decrease rates. I do think that we'll probably see two quarter percent cuts next year. And maybe even three, and
that will help the labor market as well. So I think the FED is feeling pretty good about where we are. You know, things aren't rosy right now, but they're not bad. The porridge isn't hot, it's not cold. I think the porridge is just right. And I think that the investors that are looking at the stock market feel that, and
that's why the market has done well. And if you've been participating in the market, been very pleased with returns this year, and I suspect that we'll continue on into twenty twenty six.
Yeah.
I saw that crypto took a hit, specifically bitcoin, but at the same time, gold and silver hit record highs this week.
Well, I think gold and silvers have hit record highs a lot of due to the fact of the uncertainty. Usually precious metals are investments that investors will flee to if they're uncertain about you know, the markets in general, and you know how companies are performing. And because of the uncertainty, I think a lot of it has to do with the Trump administration and you know the volatility there.
I think a lot of people have started investing his gold as a safety net, and so you know, when we look at the safety nets that you have access to gold has been very popular. Furthermore, Costco even you know, opened up a lot of gold opportunities for investors, and I think it made it more not only accessible for investors, but also you know, you know, kind of endearing. And we've seen a lot of people invest in gold and it's form very well during these folatile times.
Now, the capo coscos you get buy twenty of them, you just can't buy one.
Yeah, well, and then you end up buying tires.
And yeah, yeah, the money I'm investing in saving I'm losing on.
Oh look, I have a fifty five gallon drum a mayonnaise. Why not let me load that in.
This is an interesting one and it hits close to us here Jim Beam pausing production for an entire year and get their plants in Kentucky because they have an.
Oversupply of bourbon.
I thought those words would never ever be heard or utter from my lifts, but we have an oversupply bourbon shaver.
Oh no, what are you gonna do?
Well, let's go, boys, I mean, well that that actually gave me Gary Jeff Fingers, Come on, let's go let's go, Rocky, let's go we got.
Well, maybe we got drinking to do well.
Maybe we'll plant a trip together down on the Bourbon Trail like that to help them out. But you know, there has been a resurgence in the demand for bourbon, and you're starting to see a lot of demand internationally for bourbon. You know, you're starting to see it, you know, in Japan, in a lot of the Asian countries where there is an appetite for it, and so you know, hopefully that will fix itself. You know, it's really hard
for small businesses, and those are small businesses. If you've ever been down to any of those distilleries down in Kentucky. They're not these giant, you know, megastructures and production plants. You know, they have a specific amount and so I think it's a challenge for them to figure out what the demand is and how much supply. And sometimes you can get over your skis a little bit, maybe produce a little bit more than what the demand is. But
I think they'll work it, work it out. And I have all the confidence in the world Scott that you'll help them with that over supply. So you we'll see how it goes.
Well, they're probably liking more than anything, the fact that our governor killed the entire THT beverage industry with a stroke of his pen.
Yeah.
I saw that, and I did really look into it as much. But you know, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. I think that's more of a political posturing than anything else, because you know, at this point, you know, with a lot of the THHC regulation and the flexibility there, it makes sense that you kind of deregulate a little bit, you know, as far
as those those beverages are concerned. I think you do have to keep an eye on it if you're a restaurant or a bar and how you distribute it and making sure that people aren't overserved in that regard, but that should be easy to do. So that didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me.
Yeah, it's you know, it's it's appealing I guess maybe to the tee tollers out there who aren't going to drink anyway, but they don't want anyone else to do it either, Like whether it's gambling or strip clubs.
I like boobies in bourbon. If you don't then't don't go well.
And I remember when Lawrenceburg was getting their casino, remember thirty years ago, they thought it was going to be the end of that area. And and you know, it's a big resurgent. And kids are going to college based on you know, the gambling dime, and so there's a lot of positives there. And I don't think the world is going to fall apart just because somebody wants to go out and have a good time every once.
Yeah, exactly right. I'm a responsible adult. And the reason why I drink is because of things like this. Andy Shaeffer, it all worth financial. He is their show airs weeknights at six on fifty five KR. See it's simply money. He pops on the show Tuesdays, last time for twenty twenty five. Brother, I appreciate it, man. It's been fun this year.
Learn a lot.
You're the best of what you do and I appreciate you guys so much. And hope you have a merry Christmas and happy New Year you too, Scott. Always enjoy it. Looking forward to twenty twenty six. Talking with you all right, brother, be good. Drink up, drink up, get some of that nog. We've got news update here in just minutes, and then it's a could be wheel of sub hosts for Bill CONNLESSI pops back in Toto, A show we like you did yesterday.
I Gotta Talk, I Gotta speak.
The American people made me, Now they really don't, Billy, seven hundred ww Cincinnati.
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