Economic Survival with Carol Roth

get answers from my friend Carol Roth. She's awesome. She's a good friend, such a smart woman as well. She's the author of New York Times best selling book The Entrepreneur Equation. She also just most recently wrote The War on Small Business, just really smartly looking at what happened during COVID, how small businesses were just crushed. The average American was crushed in favor of the big right, like the walmarts, the targets, they all got to stay open, right.

Every one who's you know, tied to the you know, the government, tied to you know, powerful politicians, whatever, they gotta stay afloat recovering investment bank. Or's got a whole lot going on, including currently as it an outsourced c CEO. She's also just got a great sense of humor as well, which I feel like it is needed in this day and age. Right, everything so depressing, so we have to

laugh a little bit, we have to enjoy life. My favorite thing from her website and her bio, it says she advocates for small businesses, small government, and big hair. So she's got a sense of humor. So we're going to get into all these things with Carol Roth. You know, hopefully she clears some things up for us, so stay tuned. So I hate most people at home. I mean, we're all paying more, right, we're all saying that the economy is a total mess. So how bad is it? You know,

what do we need to know? So I brought my friend Carol Roth to the show. If you guys don't follow her on Twitter, you should. Not only is she brilliant, but she also has a sense of humor, which is needed in this day and age. So Carol, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, And I'm going to bitterly cling to anything that's even somewhat humorous. So I know this the overall the macro environment isn't funny, but we're going to do our best

to keep our wits about as Lisa well. And if you don't follow Carol for financial advice, which you should on Twitter, you should also follow her for where would you wear this? The post so Carol Carol hash tag on what occasion? On what occasion? Rather Yeah, So basically Carol posts these pictures of people distressing insane, but it's mostly like runway, and I think people actually think it looks good, but it's just very, very funny, and then the comments are funny. I try to chime in every

once in a while if I appreciate you. The funniest thing is that the one that I started it with actually was something that wasn't from a runway, was something that I had just kind of seen and I didn't mean to make it a thing. I was just like, what occasion would you wear this? But I've conditioned people to respond and to engage everything, and I got so many funny responses that like, I had to do it again.

And then when I got funny response, I was like, Okay, this is now officially a thing, and now the thing. But but you know, to the point, people do need some humor because you know, we're looking at the economy. Everyone's paying more for essentially everything. I mean, order uber eats, there's like search charges, taxed attached, you know, attached to everything. Everything is just more expensive. But how bad is the

economy truly right now? So it's always interesting when we talk about the economy because the economy is based and measured on sort of these aggregate things. It's based on government spending in part which we don't necessarily want that to be high and adding to our GDP. It's based on net exports, which obviously, given the current strength of the dollar globally and just some of the things, um that have happened around the world. Um, you know, sometimes

it's hard to gauge. And then it's based on business investment and the consumer. And so you know, we like it when businesses are investing and hiring and letting people participates, and we like it when the consumer is feeling great about things and it's spending to the extent that their expenditures aren't putting them in a bad financial position. And that's a part that I'm the most focused on and frankly the most furious. You know, we've we've gone from

funny to furious in like two seconds. But but this really is the part that I'm furious about because we've had all of these very bad policy decisions, monetary policy from the federal Reserve, fiscal policy from Congress and this administration and frankly the previous this administration, um and other government policies, and they have created the situation, like you said, that we that we are all feeling. But now they're looking to the consumer, the strength of the consumer to

spend and to bail us out. And what that means is as individuals people are going in, they are saving less, they are incurring more debts, and they're putting themselves in a bad financial position in order to quote unquote to quote endquote save the economy. So to the extent that the economy is doing well, it's somewhat on the back

of people making sacrifices of their financial position. And so, you know, there is this sort of push pull that's going on that I don't think enough people are talking about well. And there's also this shaming of people to your point, and we've got the media basically telling us that breadline are good, that scarcity is good, that like living, having a normal life is bad now, you know, So it's it's quite a time to be alive, it is.

It's it's really a slap in the face because the media have been these sort of cheerleaders and useful idiots to point out everything that is completely untrue, and then once it's proved true, to tell you why it's not a bad thing. And we saw that whip inflation, that that entire litany of you know, it's not going to happen. It'll run a little bit hot, it'll be transitory. And then it was, oh, it's the consumer's fault. No, actually, it's good for you. It's only bad for rich people.

It's greedy corporation's fault. Now it's Putin's fault. And like you said, breadlines are a great way to meet your neighbor. You know, it's like we're one step away from that um but there, you know, just wear a mask, you know. Yeah, I mean the people are not stupid. They're going to wherever it is, the growthery store, the gas station, trying to book a trip, you know, whatever it is that

they're doing in their lives. And they're seeing these you know, percentage increases, which by the way, are far higher than the reported percentage increases. Things like the CPI, which is the official measure of inflation, which has been changed a couple of times since the nineties to depress it because it's tied to adjustments and cost of living adjustments and

things like Social Security. If they told you the actual amount um, you know, that that things were really increased, they'd have to pay out a lot more in terms of a number of these different programs. So people know

that that they're getting screwed over um. But at the same time, the powers that be want to tell you what a fantastic economy it is, all of this you know, amazing, amazing stuff that they've done, And the part that's the most frustrating is sort of the out of context um comparisons, things like, oh, you know, well in the fourth quarter, was this you know huge as g d P. Well, yeah, like you shut the economy up and then they opened it back up on a comparison level like you would

expect it to be higher. It's nowhere near as high as it should have been. You know, by the way, in the first quarter this year, we had negative GDP, So like, you know, stop cherry picking this information and putting it out of context, because we're not stupid, even though you seem to think that we are. Well and to that point, so how do we you know, obviously I trust you, which is you know why you're or you're on the show, and we try to get to

the truth on this show. That's the whole point of it, Like who can we trust and who are the experts? Because well we you know, I made a mask or joke about masks. You know, masks don't work. But COVID was eye opening because we realized that the experts, the quote unquote experts are actually idiots. They lack any common sense whatsoever, and they lie to us. So you know, you look at the same logic applied to the economic experts. Who do we trust? How do we get to the

truth in this environment? Trust nobody, Lisa, trust no, don't even trust me. You know that you can't trust people. You have to look at information. You have to look at principles and so look at a wide variety of information, do your own research and then come to your own conclusions, and you know, keep track of people's track records as well. Uh, the economy is very difficult to predict because there are things that happen along the way that change the course

in the trajectory. But generally, look, you know, when you're listening to people and say, you are they repeating talking points? Is this something that makes sense in the context of all the other information that I'm seeing? Does this sit right in my gut? I mean, there there are a bunch of things out there where I'm hearing a stuff and I'm just in my gut, I'm like, you know, that just doesn't sit right with me. You trust, trust yourself, trust your guts over you know, any one specific person.

I think that this is the time we have to do, unfortunately, a lot of research UM independently and look at a bunch of different sources, and no, you're never going to have the right answer, but at least you'll have enough context and information to make us somewhat educated and informed

set of choices. And I think it's also why you need to as you approach UM, you know, your own personal finance and economic well being, why you have to remain optimistic but also be realistic and you know, set up that preparation because even if the worst case scenario doesn't come true. No one's ever say, well, you know, I'm really bumms that I you know, over prepared or whatnot. That that's never something that that any boy, scout, girl scout,

or anybody else would ever say to you. You've touched on it. But how much what we're face seeing is government driven? And well, obviously we saw the experts thinking we could essentially shut down the economy and then just reopen it, or even looking at the baby formula shortage. So I was reading about the WIG program, which kind of helped create this crisis, even dating back to think

it was like the eighties or whatever. But basically because of this government program, we've sort of allowed some of these manufacturers to have a monopoly in the market. I think there's really basically four main manufacturers a baby formula in the United States. And so you know, even with that, right, So, how much of our issues or our self inflicted or our government driven, I mean almost all of them? Um, the government all it does is create barriers to opportunities

and wealth creation. I mean I can't really think of anything that they've done where it's like, oh yeah, no, that's really helped foster growth and widespread individual wealth opportunities. UM So, I think they bear a lot of the blame, and it's you know, it's a reality that we have

to be aware of. Um. As you know, my previous book, The War on Small Business, UM I talked about, you know, sort of that great consolidation and the fact that the government works very closely with the big businesses to put up these barriers and to put up these regulations that do end up in scenarios like if something goes wrong with one of those companies, we have a systemic failure

and a baby food shortage. You know that that is insanity, and that is because you know, there isn't the widespread competition, whether it's you know, internal to the US or externally. Um you know, to to avoid that from happening. And you know, in the greater economic front, you know, all of the inflation was entirely driven by policy. You know, people say, well, the Federal Reserve isn't really the government, but really they get their mandate from Congress and they

give their profits back to the treasury. That sounds pretty government e to me. So you know, you can keep pretending that they're this independent agency, UM. But you know they're printing of trillions of dollars, the administrations UM printing of trillions of dollars, and especially the American Rescue Plan, which came after the economy was opened back up and the vaccines were rolling out, we were already seeing percolating inflation.

The decisions that they've made UM in terms of canceling oil and gas leases, the cozying up to the E s G lobby and having them direct capital away from

energy resource. I mean, all of these things are tied together, and all of these are central planning bad decisions, you know, outside the scope of the free market, and in every SCEAREO throughout history during all of time, those decisions don't do as well as your free market, open decisions being made by millions of people over and over again on a daily basis. Quick commercial break more of the economy with Carol Roth. Can we ever have a free market too?

When you're a point, you know, essentially everything is manipulated. So there's a spectrum, right, This is the way that I view it. So, so the free market, freedom, choice opportunity of many people that has a lot of transparency happening, versus that central planning, which is a handful of people making decisions on behalf of everyone, which is very opaque. And I just see it as sort of like a

pendulum or a movement along the spectrum. You either move closer to that free market scenario, or you move further away from it. And we had a time when we were much closer to that, and we have been, you know, kind of marching steadily in the other directions. Will we ever have at scale a hundred percent everything free market, It's highly highly unlikely and not you know, not at scale. Maybe in like little little areas or nuggets or unclaves, but not at scale. But we can move you much

further in that direction. But given the behemoth that the government has become at every level, in particularly the federal government, um, you know, it's going to take some serious fortitude, you know, whether it's getting a whole bunch of people into Congress, you know, willing to do the things to tear it apart, to tear it down to its foundational studs, whether it's

some sort of convention of the States or whatnot. But it's going to take a really concerted effort, um and it's going to take the fortitude of people to give up that little crom and morsel that you're getting and understand that you will do much better in the grand scheme of things by giving that up. I mean, that was the whole thing with you know, these COVID relief

dollars that so many of us tried to warrant about. Okay, you got your twelve hundred dollar check, but next year it's going to cost you an extra six thousand dollars to get that twelve check. Don't do it. And people said, no, I want my twelve hundred dollar check. I want my free money from the government. It wasn't free, it was

really expensive. Um. So the more people who can learn those lessons and eventually go okay, yeah, I'm willing to make that, you know, kind of short term benefit trade off for the long term wealth creation and freedom opportunities for ourselves. You know, if we can get more people on board with that, we will be in a much better position. So basically, it's going to take some people with some big cahunas. That's another way to say it. Yes, wait to wait to get right to the points on

that one. Sorry I had asked you earlier. You know how much of this is government driven, but how much of it is Biden driven? Um? So I like to be fair about this. I mean, the reality is that I hate the Yeah, yes, I mean there's not lots Like I'm not even sure that he's in charger he knows what's going on. You know, this was set in

motion before he came on board. The stupid decisions that the fifteen days to slow the spread was, you know, an architecture of the Trump administration, and then it went down to the States, and the States took it and abused it and made it a whole big thing. The Federal Reserve started intervening in the market in March of two, you know, on an emergency basis, support them by June of the NASDAC June five, in an intra day, all

time high, all time high. We don't need emergency port or support when you have one of the industries hitting an all time high. They could have just stopped it then. But again, you know, the former administration like the booming stock market, so certainly you know they weren't going to go, hey, guys, maybe you should pull back. So all of this was set in motion, and it would have been bad However, when Biden got in it put in place, he exacerbated

all of those things. So you know, as I said that, you know, the cancelation of the oil and gas leasas the changing of the energy Polly policy and embracing um, you know, this kind of e s g uh fringe group that's now become quite mainstream in terms of the direction of of what they're doing for capital allocation, the American Rescue Plan, you know, throwing one point nine trillion dollars onto this kindling fire. They took something that wasn't

going to be great and just fully exacerbated it. He you know, he reappointed Powell, he brought back Janet Yellen, who has Secretary of the Treasury who's been wrong about everything. So um, you know, he what he should be doing, frankly, is spending more time going yeah, I know it's tough, but you know I inherited all of these things instead of trying to sell how wonderful it is, because he doesn't want to have to admit to you know, his

peace um of contribution, which was substantial. But there is there's a two part issue. Part of this is systemic and it doesn't matter, you know, who isn't in in the White House or who's in Congress unless something shifts, and then part of it, you know, lay squarely at the feet of this particular administration, who, by the way,

have not done one positive thing since they start. There's there's not one thing that I can look at and go, you know, that was a decision that makes people lives better, not one thing since he started. See, I don't think they want to make people's lives better, Like I believe this is with intention. It's by design to push people

to the policies that they want. I mean, they're essentially giving people, the American people middle finger when it comes to gas prices because they want everything to shift towards their green climate agenda, right, So like they want people to suffer. I mean, he made those choices regarding fossil fuels, like nuking the Keystone pipeline with intention, and then they laugh at us, like his energy secretary being like, oh, we'll just get an electric card. You wouldn't be strong,

you know what I mean. So it's like they don't care, like they want us to hurt. And like I was even reading about, you know, with the war on fossil fuels. I mean obviously having an impact on gas prices and energy and all that, but even like chemical fertilizers increasing the cost of food because chemical fertilizers are made largely from natural gas, and so like the suffering is by design.

Have I opinion, Yeah, that's a huge point, because it's not just the cost of those fertilizers, it's the fact that we don't have enough of them at any cost. And it's not just here in the US, but it's

a global issue. And some of the decisions that they have made are going to lead if a few things don't fall into place here over the next couple of weeks, going to lead to mass starvation of potentially hundreds of millions of people around the globe, and that is going to lead to social unrest, which potentially could lead to large scale war, like much larger than just Russia Ukraine.

And again, these are all decisions that could be even if he went in in one direction, like he could stop, he could right now change things, and it wouldn't solve all of the issues, but at least it would kind

of move things in the right direction. And they fundamentally, like you said, don't care and you can't tell me any differently, because if I was looking at all the things that you potentially could do, and many people have brought them up, they are unwilling to do any of those and completely screwt the issues with stupid pr stunts, you know, laying the blame somewhere else, um, you know, or are just like trying to go local squirrel over

here and deflect. But these are real issues. See. I feel like I need to give like affirmations throughout these episodes because it's like everything so like you know, like like from the Help, like you are kind, you are pretty, you're important or whatever. It is, Like it's gonna be okay, guys,

we're gonna get through this together, you know. Well here, so let's let's talk about the optimistic stuff, because the optimistic stuff, you know, at the end of the day, you know, what makes America great is not the government. It's the people. And you know, the foundational principles and you know the companies and industry and you know all of those kinds of things. And even though we have things that are moving in a bad direction, we still have a lot of that. Right. We have a lot

of fantastic people. We have a lot of people willing to stand up for freedoms. We have a lot of great company companies, We have a lot of great innovation. Um. So, as I said, like, you know, this isn't the most like completely uplifting thing, but we are the skinniest kid

at fat Camp. Like there is no other place around the world where you're like, oh well, we really better watch out because that country, you know, they're really focused on individual rights and capitalism, and they're going to come and they're going to eat our lunch because you know, they're doing the things that we did a couple of hundred years ago. Um. You know, there there's there is There is no one else, Tina, There is no alternative.

So you know, that's the one thing that we have going for us, you know, in addition to just the solid foundation of what is America. But we the government is doing everything they can to mess this thing up. Um, and we we really really do need to start taking some serious actions. Quick break more about what you need

to know about the current economy with Carol Ross. But you talk about being the skinnies at fat Camp, but they're even attacking that is they're telling us that Lizzo is the epitome of health, So we can't even have that. I guess up and down down is up loved his rights? I mean it's um, you know it is. You joke about four analogies and people keep going, oh, you know, it's so lazy, but it isn't. It's like literally makes you feel on many days like you're living in a

dystopian novel. And it has gotten to the point where it's somewhat indistinguishable between parody and reality. Like I will often read a headline and go, is this a serious thing? Is this the Babylon be like is this somebody? Like? I can't I fundamentally, and I'm you know, I'm pretty insightful, Like I fundamentally can't tell any more Lisa and it. You know, we do need to keep our our sense of humor about that. I think, well, you really do. I wish I was trying to pull it up on Twitter,

but I can't pull it up fast enough. There's like something with Lena Dunham recently and a bathing suit and they're like, oh, she's so hot, like the media, and I'm like, no, that's not true. Don't we have eyes? People? You know, it's so frustrating. It's like a normal person too, because like unlike you who's like, you know, like super thin and gorgeous or whatever, Like I'm just like normal, So I kind of feel like you have to be

on one end of the spectrum. Like if you're like super huge and like you know, just ridiculous, they're like, oh, she's so beautiful and brave and stunning whatever. And then obviously, you know, if you're sinning beautiful, you're sending pautful. But like if you're starting is like, you know, an extra ten pounds, like forget about it. Like everyone in the middle like just it's it's like a barbelt. Like everything else. They're wiping out the people in the middle. They don't

care about the middle class. They don't care about the middle weight. Anyone who's in the middle is just you know, completely. I try to go the gym like every day, though, so it's probably not like the easiest one the best way to fast. I do too, but you're you're younger

than me. Once you hit a certain age, it doesn't matter how many Like I've I've worked out probably five to six times a week, but I also like food, so that's I'm not feeling that I'm thirty seven, all like two glasses of wine, I'm hung over the next day, so my body's but I want you back to the But you'd previously uh, you know, talked about E s G.

Talk a little bit about that for the audience. The Environmental Social and governance, you know what that is, Why it's impacting companies across the country, and just a overall culture. So just to touch on that a little bit, if you don't mind. S G is wild because it is something that has created such dislocation and capital markets, yet so few people, I mean even people at like high

levels of finance, I haven't even heard of it. I gotta I gotta teach ben Stein, the amazing ben Stein, Bueller, Bueler, voodoo economics, all of that. What it is um And basically part of the reason I think people don't know what it is is because it's intentionally opaque and difficult to define. So there are these quote unquote standards environmental social and governance created by lord knows who, you know, the the important elite people, and this is just basically

a centrally planned set of objectives. There people in the World Economic Forum, there are you know, leaders of the Green New Deal, all those kinds of people who come together and say, these are the agendas we want to push, and we need to put a wrapper around them to to make it palatable and to get people to comply. So we're gonna make this something that companies need to comply with. And so then you get a class of people, you know that the sort of Peter Thiel calls them

the rackets. Here's the consultants, the accountants, the lawyers, who all go, oh, there's a way to make a fee here. Same thing with people on Wall Street. Oh well, my E t F doesn't charge up any that much in terms of fees, but if I make a special E S G t F, you know, maybe then I can charge more. And so they start ramming this down the throat of corporations. And if you're a corporation, you just

want to mitigate risk. You don't want to not have access to capital, you don't want to know cause major disturbances. You're just like, Okay, that's fine, pay the consultants. And that's how it sort of gets entrenched. And you know, there's two pieces of this which are somewhat in conflict. There's a piece, that's just an entire scam about it. The former CIO of the kind of sustainable investing at black Rock quit over this and basically said it does

nothing for the environment. You know, it's it's a complete scam. It's a way to make fees. But at the same time, despite that, uh, you do have all of these people pushing it, and it has impacted the way that lenders and investors invest because if a company is targeted because it doesn't have a good E. S G score, you know, kind of social credit if you will, for companies, um,

they can't raise capital. And that's what we're seeing happen with a lot of these energy companies though, well you're not you know, green enough, and you're not doing the things that we told you you need to do, and so you know, we're not allowed to make investments in your company. And if you don't have the investment capital, then the companies don't make the investments. You know, oil gas, all that kind of stuff doesn't just like fall from

the sky. The process that's involved there and there's a long lead time, and so that's part of the problem why we're having the supply issues. UM. You here in the US you know, in addition to the cancelation of some of the oil and gas. So this E s G movement is you know, both nefarious from a hey it's a grift, but also from you know, kind of these people with bad intentions who are pushing it to try to cram different agendas down corporations throats because they

know that companies won't comply with their idiocy. You know that they're trying to do what's best for the shareholders based on market dynamics UM, and this is a way for central planners, you know, by holding capital allocation and other ratings hostage, UM can try to to manipulate companies and then you know, that comes back to you because it means that you're not getting the same level of innovation. It means companies aren't doing things based on the benefits

to their customers and shareholders. And if you're invested in these companies, it means that that somebody's messing with the internal capital allocation decisions and you're not going to get the best returns. So, you know, those are some of the high level things to keep in mind. Can we put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to central planning. I mean, even looking at COVID and in the premise of your your book and the fact that you know, small businesses got crushed the big gut bigger.

Can we put the genie back in the bottle? At this point I think we can. I mean COVID stopped because we said no, right Like eventually we're like, I'm not wearing a mask on an airplane. This is stupid. You got a judge to go, yep, that's kind of stupid, and it stopped. If that didn't happen, we would all still be wearing masks on a plane. We just need to continue to stand up and go no, yep, this

isn't We're not doing this. This is not happening. Um. And you know, especially you know with these of these corporations, there's a unique opportunity that we have in the economic environment that we're in and that we are going to endure for probably the next fault to eighteen months. UM. Companies who were kind of woke or off doing s G things or whatever it was, you had the luxury of doing that because they had all kinds of access to capital. Things were going well. Uh, we were in

a bull market. Now they don't have that luxury anymore, and so they're going to be very focused on making money and not making a ruckus. So if there was ever a time to influence, it is now. And how much of an impact you know, You've seen Elon Musk recently step up. I don't know if he's actually gonna buy Twitter or not, but at least say he's going to you know, embark on some sort of you know deal, which they're obviously both both sides are trying to get

the best deal possible or get out. I don't know, but you know, but we then we also saw governor to Santa stand up to Disney as well. How much is there a new trend on the horizon of you know, people stepping up and pushing back against these comp s,

G companies going woke all of that. So, first of all, I'm gonna fall back on something I told you, you know, not not that long ago in our discussion is trust nobody focused on the principles of what people are doing, but not on the people because they're going to ultimately do things to disappoint you. I don't think that either of those people are our saviors, but I do appreciate when people are stepping up in context, UM, I think there is an opportunity to have this kind of pushback

if it's done appropriately. Um. There are people obviously on the very progressive left that are super great at organizing and have influenced the companies to do these kinds of things. I do think that they're they're the pendulum can swing the other way, but it is going to take action. UM. So the runway is there, the opportunity is there, but we need more people to step up and seize that opportunity. And you can't just rely on Elon Musk around the santis,

you know, and what do you think is coming? I mean, we've got you know, Elon Musk reportedly plans to cut ten percent of tesla salary salaried workforce. He said he had a super bad feeling allegedly in an email to executives, you've got GP Morgan's Jamie Diamond saying there's a hurricane coming. You know what is coming and how do people prepare for? So again, as I said, you know, it's it's very difficult to fully predict these things because some of it

is predicated on actions that haven't happened yet. And you know, a whole series of different actions can set off a different chain of events. So let's assume that we don't end up in World War three, you know, because of the mass starvation that leads to social unwrestle. Let's leave that case as a you know, an outlier blacks well, well not black songs, as I can see it, just an outlier situation. If things just kind of keep going the way they're going. We have two issues which are

in conflict with each other. As I said, you have a push for the consumer to keep us from a recession. We have you know, if the consumer is strong and they go out and they continue to spend, and they continue to deplete their savings and go into debt, and then we're going to save the economy from the recession.

So that's one side. On the other that do you have the federal reserve that is trying to fight inflation and how do they try to fight inflation by raising interest rates and creating tighter credit conditions to cool demand? And cool demand is a fancy way of saying, hey, the consumer can't spend as much because if they do, then it will continue to stoke inflation. So do you see The problem there is that you've got on one side they're trying to cool the consumer demand, and on

the other side they're trying to stayble. The consumer has to spend otherwise we end up in a recession. So that's not that's like like circular logic, right, that's like you get you try that on your excelf breadsheet, you get a big circular reference. This does not compute. So that means that we have probably one or two scenarios ahead of us. We it could be a recession. We

could actually you know, recessions are always backwards looking. We had a negative quarter of GDP in the first quarter, we could be in one now or by the end of the year. We could end up in one or sometime next year. So so we could have a recession this sort of retraction of the economy, or we could end up with a prolonged period of stag inflation where we do see kind of like a little bit of growth,

but we just can't get inflation under control. I don't think inflation goes substantially higher than it is now on a percentage growth basis. But remember everything is cumulative. So even if you know we end up with four or five or six percent inflation for the next couple of years, Like that's not good. That's probably going to outcase wage growth, and that means people are going to be losing money on top of the money that they've already lost from

the inflation that's already here. So it is going to be a challenging situation. Um, I think we're going to see a lot of halves and have not And unfortunately, I think the halves, as we've been kind of alluding to, are those those bigger entities, you know, the people who are already wealthy, the big corporations that have really strong

balance sheets that can wait this out. You know, if you are a small business or you're somebody who is you know, scraping nd doesn't have that financial wherewithal, it's going to be a very difficult position. And so I think we're going to have just this further polarization, and they're gonna mix it because they're just gonna go look

at the average. We're gonna throw this all in the pot and look at the average instead of going you know, we have a big portion of people and of businesses who are struggling based on our stupid decisions and you know this is a bad, bad scenario. So you know,

I think those are probably the two places. But this whole idea that we're going to have the economy come in with a soft landing, that they're gonna thread the needle just perfectly, and all of a sudden, you know, by the end of the year everything is going to be fantastic. Um, there are a lot of weird things that all have to line up for that, too beat to happen. It's certainly not impossible. But like if I was a betting person and going to Vegas, like I

wouldn't pick that horse. But like if you're listening and you're saying to yourself, I want to be a have not have not? Are there safe steps? Like what can people do at home to prepare or just to be on the safe start? What are just the safe smart moves? So there are a couple of things there. There's and

again it depends on your current financial situation. If you're somebody who's you know, living kind of paycheck to paycheck or doesn't have a lot in savings, you want to make sure that you're calling back your expenses, you're paying down any sort of debt that is variable. Um. If you have something that you locked in, you know, like a mortgage at a fixed rate that's low, that's great,

keep that. But these variable rates things credit cards or anything that has an adjustable rate that's going to continue to go up with rises and interest rates. You want to pay that down because it's just gonna cost you more and more and it's going to eat away more of your spending power. If you're gonna really want to look at your expenses. And I know it's it's not pleasant, but personal austerity is a really good plan right now to just kind of call back, um and to see

what it is you can get rid of. I know it's a terrible time everyone's itching to do more things, um after you know, having everything disrupted for the last couple of years, But you would be wise to wait that out if you can. If you can prepay for things, um, you know, stock up on things like you know, meets, if you have a freezer and and freeze them to lock in pricing today. UM. You know, those are the

kinds of things that you want to do now. If you are somebody who fortunate is fortunate to be able to make investments, there are a couple of things that you can look at. UM. Someone is something called an

I bond. It is a Treasury savings bond. You have to go to the Treasury website I think it's called Treasury direct dot gov or the I r S has a program as well, and you can get an I bond, which is basically a savings bond that changes interest based on inflation and they change it up every six months, but again it is tied to you know, changes in inflation. Right now, the rate is something like nine point six two or nine point six three per cent. That's locked

in for at least six months. And so if you can put some money away I think the max is ten thousand dollars per Social Security number in your household, UM, and you can hold it for at least a few years because that's when sort of all the penalties go away. That's a good way to to UM protect some of what you have from inflation. And then you know, just in terms of you know, investments, you know the market

is going to have a wild ride here. But if you go back to old school valuation and looking at the companies with strong balance sheets and you know, big moats in their business, UM you know, the ability to survive, the ability to pass on price increases. You know, those are the kinds of companies that you know are worth investing in over long periods of time. Well, you know, and I know there's a lot of people like I, you know, my lease is up in December, and I'm

like should I buy? You know, like everything is so freaking expensive, like home prices and stuff. You know, I think a lot of people are wondering, is there a correction, commenting like what's you know, what's so economy? Like the housing markets? Like everything we have right now is so messed up. It's so it's like this is the most complicated I've ever seen anything in my entire career. Um So here the sort of the issues on the housing market. So the issue is obviously you have rates going up,

which impact mortgage rates, which means those go higher. And as those go higher, that puts pressure on people who you take out mortgages to say wow, this is too expensive and they drop out. So you have that and that should put some pressure, you know, some cooling pressure on the market on one hand. On the other hand, we are underbuilt in this country by between four and

five plus million units. We went through a whole decade after the Great Recession financial crisis where there was just substantial under building, so the demand and supply are completely out of whack. And even with some cooling, you know, you have a lot of all cash buyers, you're starting to have more corporate buyers. Um. You know, there are a lot of forces that you know, when it cools,

it probably at some point bounces back up again. I don't think that the resident school real estate market is in a place like we were in oh seven or oh eight, where people over levered and you know, there's a lot of issue with you know, all of a sudden all of the supply becoming available because of foreclosures. Very different in the residents or in the corporate real

estate market. But on the residential side, I think that long term, you know, under building issue, um even you're probably going to get it come down a little bits, but then I think it passed back up again because you just cannot get around the fact that we don't have enough homes in this country. You know, we look at that there's still labor shortage and you know, how much is that is, What's what's the root cause of that?

Oh how much time do you have? Okay, so right now we have about two jobs open for every job seeker. There are few things that are all happening that you know, some some are related and some are unrelated. So first we have the like dippy pandemic related policy that impacted the labor market. So you had three million people baby boomers who retired early, probably because their four o one caves were up in their houses. You know, housing prices were up, and they're just like, i don't need to

deal with us anymore. I'm just gonna piece out and go enjoy my life. So that pulled three million people out of the labor force. We had a halt on legal immigration, people both college educated and uneducated, who typically come into the workforce. The trajectory that we were on, if things that just kind of kept pace with the way that they were before COVID. It's estimated that there were more than two million legal immigrants who are not in the workforce to day that should be in About

a million of those are college educated. So that's been a peace. Then you have a piece where there are people who just kind of decided a I'm day trading, I'm doing a hobby business. You know, I don't know if they're gonna shut my kids school back down again, So I can't really re engage in the workforce in the way that I previously had. So you have all those things that are pandemic related, and you can add onto that the skills mismatch that we had before any

of this came about. So even before we had a situation where you know, we had a lot of jobs that we didn't necessarily have the right people for the for certain jobs. Like we have a serious issue in

terms of the airline industry in this country. Like if if you are somebody who's looking at a new career, or you have a kid or a grandkid, who is you know, thinking about what to do with their life, Like we need pilots, we need flight attendants like badly, and it pays really well, um, you know, and those are things where you can't just go, oh, we have all these people looking for jobs, like let's make them

a pilot. You know, that just doesn't happen. So there there's a lot of skills gap issues that's going to take some time to solve. And I know that you know, a lot of major airlines are proactively trying to do things, but that doesn't happen overnight, and then when you get you know, all this insanity that I just talked about,

you know, it just exacerbates the issue. Um. You know, now that being said, that could help us in terms of having a more shallow recession, because usually when you have a recession, you have all these people who lose jobs, and it's this this massive issue because they have so many companies who are looking, they may just stop looking, or you know, you may have some that have layoff for other people who can absorb that. So again, on

an individual basis, it's not a great thing. But on a macro basis, you know, that's sort of our silver lining other side of what's going on in the labor market, Carol, anything else you want to leave us with before we go, So I know this was a highly depressing discussion. Um. I think that you know, as Americans, as people who want to create wealth for ourselves and for future generations, we have to remain optimistic. I don't know any pessimists who you are able to do those kinds of things.

So I think it's it's about being realistic and being prepared and taking action, but also you know, not getting yourself worked up in such a frenzy to say, you know, this is the end. We always go through cycles. Um, we're definitely you know, running out of cycles. But I don't believe you know, borrowing again as I said, you know, some kind of crazy World War three scenario that this is the end of the road. But we're getting pretty close,

so we need we need to take action. But keep that optimism that you know your actions can impact what's going on on both sort of a general level as well as a personal level, and take those steps, you know to build your personal wealth and your personal economic freedom and support the people around you. Carol, always informative and funny. I appreciate you joined the show. Thank you, and I will look forward to your hashtag on what

occasion next? Insightly yes, and everyone followed Carol on Twitter Carol, what's your I'm looking it up right now, what's your It's at Carol j f Yes for both smart advice like what we just discussed, and also for the fashions. Take care, Carol, thanks so much. I appreciate it. Thank you, thanks so much for listening. I hope you learned a lot from that. I know thanks. Could be a little bit depressed in right now, but where the United States

of America. We will get through this together. You gotta stay in the forum, we gotta stay on top of things, and I'm going to continue to bring you the Truth on the Truth with Lisa Booth. Listen to us every Monday, every Thursday, every single week. Interesting guests like Carol and many others, just trying to get to the truth of what you need to know and what's actually going on

right now in the country. If you can go to Apple, leave us five stars, leave us a review, share the podcast with your friends and family if you don't mind. And I also wanted to thank my producer, John Cassio for always working hard to bring this show to you, so thanks so much, guys,