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Bill Handle Here.
It is a Thursday morning, March sixth Some of the big stories we are looking at right now. European leaders are scrambling as we're closer, that is the United States, we are closer and closer to well just not just a rift, but almost a separation from a very close allied relationship. It's well thing I say is just switching gears. Under a President Trump, we're becoming an isolationist country America first, which is very very different than what we have been
since World War Two. And the President has issued what he called a last warning to Hamas released the hostages. I'm sending Israel everything it needs to finish the job. This is what he posted. Not a single Hamas member will be safe if you don't do as I say. So if they don't think he's serious, what he's going to do is let just let Israel go for it.
Let the leash go all right, Joel Large Guard.
Every Thursday, we have Joel a host of how to Money Sundays from twelve to two pm.
His social address is at how to Money. Joel. Good Morning, Joel, Morning Bill all.
Right, we've been talking about tariffs now this entire week. It has been a seesaw with the President saying tariffs are kicking in, then saying hold off on instituting tariffs, and then the last day he goes, nope, I'm going back in on tariffs. And you've got tariffs of twenty five percent that are hitting Canada, Mexico, twenty percent in China.
Except because the car industry was going to be affected first and foremost and the heaviest between Canada and Mexico and the United States, which is they're so interlaced.
He said, Okay, we'll hold that off for a month.
So as that as an introduction, let's go talk about spending in relationship to tariffs.
What's going on, Joel, Yeah, So, well, it's amazing how just kind of the general economic consensus on tariffs has been has kind of been swept under the rug right now, and we are seeing I think the tariff idea is just it's not a good one and it's going to have impacts. We're already seeing that shakeout in the economy, even predictions of stagflation starting to resurface. But I think
what Americans are seeing they're starting to be fearful. They're nervous about what tariff implementation means and the predictions of higher prices because those inevitably materialize in an economy where
tariffs are instituted. And so CNBC just had this this survey and they found that the more Americans one in five are are so called doom spending, and so people are saying, well, higher prices are likely around the corner, So I might as well just like buy extra now, because I'm concerned that if if I hold off and by that thing weeks later or months later, it's going to cost a heck of a lot more because of these incoming tariffs.
It's let me give you a quick story if I can, because I have experienced that firsthand. As you know, I'm Brazilian or I was born in Brazil, and so in my younger days, i'd go to Brazil quite often. And I went down there once in the time of hyper inflation, much like Weimar Germany, when loaf of bread would cost you a barrel full of money, where the paper itself costs more than the money was worth. And so I was in Brazil and visiting family, and that's what was happening.
Inflation was so I mean wiped out savings, I mean pensions were wiped out.
The only thing to buy is hard goods.
And in the morning you saw a price of whatever, a refrigerator or a bag of oranges. By the afternoon the ices had risen five or ten percent. And so that's exactly what happened. Every dying people had was going into hard goods, and it was a disaster for the country until it was able to come out of it. And what you're saying is we may reach that point, not hyperinflation, of course, not like yeah, but.
No, certainly not that. But we've never experienced something like that in our c I mean, think about just even how people have reacted to increased inflation that is nothing like what many of the South American countries like Brazil have experienced over the past few years post COVID, and how much how difficult that was for consumers to endure, and how that led to essentially a political revolution to a certain extent, knocking out the last administration. People wanted
to change. And it's because inflation is such a difficult thing to endure, and it's again it's nowhere near what you experienced in Brazil. But and then the other thing that it causes there is this sort of like self fulfilling prophecy where people BELI leave that prices are going to go up. Then they start to act in that way by buying more stuff, by by pre purchasing things that they would have otherwise held held off on buying. And then that leads to guess what, the cycle continuing.
Right, higher prices, That's right, demand demand increases, the more demand, the more the prices can be asked for, and it is a cycle.
That's why, like the economists and the FED are always looking towards inflation expectations that consumers have because they want to quell that. They're like, Okay, inflation might be a little out of control, but what do people think inflation is going to be a year from now? And if that number takes higher, that's when they really start to freak out, because if people expect it, that's when they
start to change their habits. And so I just want people to know that, yes, we are kind of in a period of economic uncertainty right now, with tariffs, with inflation still not fully resolved, and I don't I just want people to be careful about buying more stuff now because they're expecting price to be higher. I think that is a recipe, especially especially if you're taking on debt
to buy those goods or to buy those services. Be careful because I would rather see people save more, and I would rather see people continue to invest to grow their net worth and not say, let me just go out there and rack up more credit card debt and buy more stuff because it's going to get more expensive. Because you know, especially with where credit card interest rates are right now, if you're putting it on the credit card, it's still a really bad financiview.
The other side of the coin is that is anything you can pay for that is a fixed rate, a mortgage payment that's fixed at two point eight percent or even three point five percent, or a car payment, then what happens is inflation helps you because it.
Becomes cheaper and cheaper and cheaper.
By the way, we're a thirty six trillion dollar debt national debt. The only way we're ever going to be able to deal with it is inflate ourselves out of it. It may take it may take one hundred years, but that's what's going to happen.
Yeah, and I think you make a good point, which is which is why too when when I get asked the question about paying off mortgage debt, my advice is it's it depends on what your mortgage det looks like, right, But for the vast majority of people they have that upper two s lower three sort of mortgage debt hanging around, they can earn more by sticking that money in a savings account. If you're comparing, you know, paying off mortgage debt versus buying more stuff, then pay off the debt.
But if we're talking about that, they're just more productive things you can do with your money, even non risky stuff.
Yeah, of course the problem is do people put away that money and invest it? Nobody does or very few or very few people do. Yeh, behavioral problem, No kidding, all right, uh, Joel. Student loan borrowers are kind of spinning. What's going on? I mean there are two groups of people that are spinning. Three groups. One illegal migrants not doing well, two federal workers not sleeping well. Student loan borrowers not so good either. What's going on?
This has been one of those things that's been tied up in the courts, and there was just another ruling recently that the SAVE Plan, which was like the really really generous repayment plan that the Biden administration instituted. You know, they tried to kind of create blanket student loan forgiveness, at least up to a certain point. That failed, and then they were like, well, let's do forgiven us by
another name. Let's institute a new repayment plan that creates a much shorter timeline to forgive us and essentially brings down payments substantially for borrowers. And that also has not stood stood the test of time in the courts. And so right now, man, student loan borrowers are in this massive limbo space where maybe they have signed up for the Save Plan and now it's in limbo. They're not
sure what's going to happen. And you can't even go on the Department of Education's website at this point and switch to another forgiveness or another excuse me, student loan
repayment plan. And so there are a lot of folks out there who are kind of not sure how to proceed, and there are a lot of borrowers, especially because we think about how long we punted student loan payments for basically three and a half years, who aren't used to that in their budget, and now they're like, they're like, oh crap, I have to start paying my student loans again.
They're not used to it.
And a lot of people have not been paying their student loan balances to the tune of millions of people, it seems like. And we're seeing more and more people see credits score drops because they're not making on time payment.
Trains themar student loans are concerned the moratorium on paying them does interest a crew or everything was put on hold until students could start paying back their loan.
Yeah, everything was put on hold essentially for those for those three and a half years. And even people think about people in the Public Service Student Loan Plan, those
are in PSLF. Those folks in particular are made out like bandits because they weren't paying a dime, and yet every single month that they weren't paying a dime was counting towards that forgiveness timeline of ten years, and so that was like for those people, it was incredible and a lot of people did really well under those times. What I said, the whole time for every single month essentially for all of those years was make sure to carve out that amount of money that's going towards your
student loans, sticking into savings. If you're doing well with savings, invest some of it, payoff debt, do productive things so that you come out of this three and a half years ahead, so that you've made financial progress. A lot of people didn't do that. They factored that their spending, and it makes sense because prices were going up to inflation was hitting people hard, and they're like, great, I don't have a student loan now that I can afford at.
Least to put that towards my bills.
But then they didn't have any sort of financial cushion on the backside, and a lot of people are in a much harder position when it comes to paying their student loan debt right now.
Now, are we only talking about federal student loans where the government has loan money, or these are private loans where the government guarantees that money.
So these are we're talking about federal student loans. There are private student loans, they're just they're just a fraction of the overall student loan market. Though, and some people, if they refinanced at the right time, they have incredibly low rate on their student loans because they because they took it, they took them away from being federal and
they refinanced them into a private student loan. But those also don't come with the same benefits, and you don't have the option to enroll in one of these income based repayment plans. But then again, federal borrows right now can't really opt into one of these different income based repayment plans either, because the Department of Education is essentially taking that off the website, and so it's a really awkward position to be in as a student loan borrow.
I think when it comes to talking to parents of kids who are getting close to going to college, I think it's even more important than ever to say, be careful how much date you take out. We don't know what the student loan space is going to look like in the coming years, and I just worry, you know, about people taking on so much student loan debt and then they're not being some sort of generous plan to
help you pay that off or to find forgiveness. We just don't know where income based re payment plans are going to go from here.
Yeah, and I guess for those of you that want to be a doctor, by the way, and get into a specialty, and maybe get into a super specialty being a going through a fellowship, be prepared for six seven hundred thousand dollars of student loan. It's going to be wonderful real quickly. For the affordabilities are what is that?
And are we getting one?
So it sounds like there's this new government position that's just been created. And you know, a czar for everything these days, but now there's going to be somebody appointed to overseeing the prices of everything in this country as they've kind of gotten out of whack. I'm curious to see how this shakes out.
Uh.
I don't necessarily have a ton of faith, especially when they're talking about we want to lower prices on homes and cars and groceries and electronics. And we live in a free market economy where it's really hard for the government to have pricing impact, and oftentimes when the government tries to involve itself in these private markets, it backfires. I will say, maybe the one place the affordable affordabilities are could have some uh, they could make some headway
is in the healthcare front. If they mandate or create more price transparency on that front. But I think ultimately, uh you know, listeners need to become become their own affordabilities are and part of that means listening to how the money every Sunday, Bill.
Yeah, makes sense.
And hopefully we get a cars are h and a ZAR for alliteration, because I like cars are rhymes sounds yeah, No, it's very strong, very strong and right. Uh, well we have ZAR, so why wouldn't we have others ours?
Right?
Yes, all right, Joel, thank you, you're right, Sunday twelve to two pm.
We'll catch you next Thursday. And this Sunday sounds good, thanks Bill.
All right, Now, there is a probe going on by the Justice Department into anti Semitism allegations that happened to colleges all over the country, UCLA, by the way, being the sort of a poster child of all this. And this is the latest Trump administration action against universities. It accuses of allowing campus anti semitism to fester since October seventh, when Israel, of course unprovoked, went into Gaza and started bombing the hell and destroying Gaza and killing now forty
eight thousand Palestinians. Which about a third of militants and most of them while the other ones mainly women and children. October seventh, ever happened to these people. What happened was October eighth is when all of this started. And the anti Semitism, well, it's there.
It is there. I mean, it's always been there.
Anti anti Muslim sentiments have been there for many, many years. We have a history in this country of well, even though we are a country of immigrants, we are a country of allowing and encompassing all the manner of people coming into the United States, because that's what we are. Some have a nice history of hating everybody too. And
that's what's going on right now. I don't know if you've ever heard this phrase, but this is a mantra of the Jewish people that has been around for millennia, and that is they came, they killed this, let's eat. That is what we do. And what is going on right now. And it's not the universities are fomenting this.
It's the universities are allowing this, or they did. And the use see investigation came after a January thirty, the thirtieth Executive Order, Trump pledged to Marshall all federal resources to combat the explosion of anti Semitism on our campuses and on our streets. Now, Trump has threatened to withhold federal money for a whole lot of thingsdi programs, and I'm going come on, really, I can see that, But anti religious sentiment.
I have a problem with that, and not just anti Semitism.
Remember when oh after nine to eleven and what happened the anti Arab, anti Muslim sentiment in this country. You couldn't I can lie about not being Jewish. I am a Catholic.
You know.
I put a big cross on my forehead on ash Wednesday.
You know that's easy for me to do.
Unfortunately, I'd probably put a star of David and that's very problematic.
No, then it's a whole different issue.
The point is that you can't lie about being a Muslim.
You can't lie about being black or an Arab. You just can't. And so or black or Arab necessarily Muslim.
And so it's something that we should not be proud of.
And here I agree with the Trumpet administration.
Let me tell you the defense that these protesters have. We're not anti Semitic or anti Israel. It has nothing to do with religion. And when we say, and this is a phrase, you was have an on phrase. This is a phrase that's being used by the protesters from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
We don't mean.
That all of that being the Jordan River, Jordan River to the.
Sea, the Mediterranean Sea.
We're not saying that all that should be Palestinian and Israel doesn't exist. Because right in the middle of that, all we're saying is that Palestinians should be free from israel occupation, that there should be freedom there. Here's the problem with that, and that is that in Gaza controlled by hamas in the charter, is the destruction of Israel and Jews right there, that is in their constitution is
the destruction of Israel. And their phrase from the river to the seas, Palestine will be free, that's Palestine.
And what gets in the way of Palestine, oh, the.
Country of Israel, which happens to be right in the middle of it. And so what's happening even if you have a protester who is arguing that we're just protesting, what's happening to the Palestinians in that part of the world you're parroting exactly.
What they're saying. I'm going to make an analogy here.
All we're doing is arguing that Palestinians should be free. We don't really believe any of that about destruction of Israel. All right, make let me give you an analogy, and I don't think it goes too far. There was a time in this country where African Americans were treated and this is pre civil rights, pre Civil Rights Day, but
a lot of people are alive who remember this. And that is, if a white person were walking down the street in a southern town and a black was going the other way, the black would have to get off the sidewalk and go to the street. A black person, that is correct, would have to do that. Now, is it a form of racism. No, we're just trying to keep the sidewalks clean. We just want to keep the sidewalks uncrowded. That's what that is. It has nothing to do with anti black sentiment.
It's not racist. It's just a sidewalk. Oh, when we.
Say from the river to the Sea, we don't mean the destruction of Israel, not at all. Well, you got the Trump administration, which in many ways I am not in favor of but on some man, you know, thank you for this, obviously for personal reasons, but I felt the same way after nine to eleven and after the attack on American forces all over the world by terrorists you know, which equals Arabs, which equals Muslims, which translates into anti Muslim sentiment. Here to the point where it
was embarrassing. Let me give you a little bit of history before we bail out of here. Crazy history in England once war was declared, World War One, when England fought to Germany. Germans, I mean English people, German extraction, German names had to hide, they could not be on the streets, and doxin's were being kicked around on the street, doxies because.
They were German.
I mean. That's how crazy it went, and that's how crazy you can go. All right, we're gonna switch gears. After the top of the hour or at the top of the hour. Gary and Shannon are here and you I'm inviting you to call me handle on the law marginal legal advice. I'm doing this off the air, and the number is eight hundred and five to zero eleven fifty. Now, when you're put on hold, you're still listening to Gary and Shannon, So they're fine with me giving out the phone number, saying it's right in.
The middle of their show or at the start of their show.
So Shannon, we don't want people with legal trouble. If you've got legal trouble, we don't want you listening.
Well, yes, and they and they.
Buy into that even when they have legal trouble as far as my show is concerned. So okay, let's just move on and let's promote what's going on with Gary and shiannin.
Well, we have breaking news. As you have mentioned. Trump says he's lifting the tariffs on all the goods from Mexico for at least a month, the same kind of reprieve he gave to the auto industry yesterday. And you better believe this is all about the stock market, right, Oh yeah.
And a couple other things that happened that just broke this morning. Al Green, the Texas congressman who was waving his cane and was thrown out yesterday from the House, or a couple of days ago thrown out from the House, was censured this morning. A couple things about Al Green. The Democrats missed a huge opportunity one. As soon as al Green was in the aisle, he should have just collapsed and become dead weight and let the Sergeant of Arms drag him out like.
A sack of potatoes.
That would have been very dramatic.
That's exactly one point. And the Democrats after the heckling shut up.
They didn't heckle anymore.
Had they continued heckling, forcing Mike Johnson to start them throw throwing them out by the dozen, that would have been spectacular.
I thought it would have been good if they if I was scripting this, right, because Trump went into this saying it was going to be musty TV. And if I'm the Democrats and I want to get my act together, I want to like I want to play him in his arena, right, play that Trump game.
You want musty TV, We'll give it to you.
I thought it would have been cool if the Democrats in mass stood up and then just walked out.
It would have been terrific.
Like within like he's introduced, it gets quiet, they stand up in unison and walk out like that would have been mussy TV.
And how would if he reacted to that?
He would have lost his mind.
By the way the censure that just took place, with of course the Republicans voting for the center of Al Green Center. By the way, just to slap on the wrist. All it says is you've been a bad boy.
Bad It means nothing, it's it's a resolution.
And let me tell you, the people that get censured are the ones that are convicted of crimes. Joe McCarthy in the Senate after what he did, he was censured.
You've been censured before. I was here one time when you were censured. I think you were censured for a week or two.
Actually I was suspended.
Well we call it censured. Yeah, I mean it's our version of censur.
Well, it was more than just a slap on the risk.
It costs more than Al Grene centurization.
But I think the Democrats lost a huge opportunity to make a point. And now what happened, and you look at the videos watching it on both CNN and Fox is the house went berserk. There was almost a fight on the house floor, chaos when the vote was just made censuring out Al Green. If I were al Green, you.
Would sing Let's stay together. I am acapella.
First of all, yes, But first of all I would vote for my own centre.
Sure sure, and just wear it as a badge of pride.
I think it is neat to be censured by this house.
If I'm a Democrat, I think you should get censured again. That was some we need some fun around. I don't care about to talk about.
It was a week's vacation. It was the pay that I had to give up.
That was it. I was fined for that week. Yeah, thank you very much. All Right, we're done, guys. Phone numbers eight hundred five two zero one five three four, eight hundred five two zero one five eleven fifty. That's it, eight hundred five to two zero eleven fifty. And I'm taking the phone calls in just a few moments for handle on the law. And as I always tell you, there's no brakes, no weather, no traffic, no commercial and
certainly no patients on my part. So I'll launch the phone calls, and Gary and Shannon are coming up, and so hang loose. Listening to KFI tomorrow morning once again, and it starts with Amy wake up call, Neil and I come aboard at six o'clock. Till now I got it. Kono's pointing himself and Kono's pointing to himself.
What does that mean? I have no idea, k oh oh oh. I just did mention you, Kono. I know, but Shannon was all confused, like, what is that? Okay, let me repeat that.
Shannon Kono is pointing to himself. This is kf I Am six.
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