I mean, I focus on the things quite finely. And you know,
my clients are most concerned with not what a television is going to cost them,
the items that they're going to spend on every single day. And I
think that's most Americans, and that's getting worse instead of better. So they
they can give us a line of bowl and tell us, oh yeah,
it's coming down and it's not going up as quickly. But here in this
country we're getting smacked up side the head now. And I have the ability
to travel and different places around the globe, and when I see what other
people are paying for groceries compared to what we're paying for groceries, something's amiss
here. So something's not right. We've got breakdowns when it comes to regulation,
over regulation, if you will, and Washington, DC, what's spending,
a myriad of problems where we can't get out of our own way,
and the amage Americans supper. You're listening to Carrie Let's Financial Survival Network where
you get valuable information you just can't find anywhere else to thrive, and today,
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Go to Financial Survival and Network dot com. And get your free newsletter and
gift. Financial Survival Network now more than ever, and welcome you are listening
to watching the Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutz. Hey,
it's a mid September of twenty twenty three. Can you believe it?
We actually made it? There were times it didn't look like it. Well,
markets have been pretty strong lately. Is that good? Is that bad?
Does that mean there's nothing else available? And that's why you're putting your
money there? Well, we got some inflation numbers today, and it looks
like perhaps the Fed has some breathing room here, or perhaps these numbers are
total fantasy numbers and things are much worse than they seem. Well, we've
got to Watchdog on Wall Street dot com. Chris Markowski with us. If
you got a question for him or myself, I urge you to send us
an email will get you an answer. K l at Krylutz dot com.
That's the email address, Chris. It's been quite a while. It's really
great to have you back on the show. So inflation is done and we
should all be celebrating. Right right, last time I checked, actually pay
the bills in my house and the grocery bill is not coming down, the
gasoline bill is not coming down. My electricity prices continue to rise and go
right on down the list. This fantasy that's being pitched to us that you
know, everything is getting back to normal, are awesome, is patly absurd.
Even when they had the headline inflation at two percent, it was pat
lee absurd. I mean, I focus on the things quite lightly, and
you know, my clients are most concerned with not what a television's going to
cost them, and the items that they're going to spend on every single day.
And I think that's most Americans, and that's getting worse instead of better.
So they they can give us a line of bowl and tell us,
oh, yeah, it's coming down and it's not going up as quickly.
But here in this country we're getting smacked upside the head. Now. You
know, I have the ability to travel and different places around the globe,
and when I see what other people are paying for groceries compared to what we're
paying for groceries, something's amiss here. So something's not right. We've got
breakdowns when it comes to regulation over regulation, if you will, and Washington,
DC, it looks spending a myriad of problems where we can't get out
of our own way and the amage Americans supper. Hey, I know what
you mean, and you think, hey, well, I'll go grow my
own food, catch my own fish. I went out with a buddy fishing.
There are four of us on his boat. Now, granted he's got
a couple of the big engines on that boat. We didn't go out for
that long. We caught twenty but look to be red snappers. And I
said, oh, that's great. And you know, I got a food
here two three days. That's going to save me money. Then we went
and pulled the boat up to the pump and it was four hundred bucks to
fill the tanks. So this food, we probably had twenty thirty pounds of
it was similar to red snapper. I take the call, yeah exactly,
So what do we save? Right? I mean he was nice, he
paid for it. I would I offered to chip in, but he paid
for it, so it didn't cost me anything. But luckily he doesn't like
fish, so we had more. But you know, it's what are you
supposed to do? Gas is up to close to five bucks a gallon now,
right? Yeah? And I had no end in sight. You know,
yet he take a look yet, I mean, it's it's everything.
You take a look at the the average you know, price of an automobile,
a new automobile here and the strench I had that there's one car right
now, that new car United States or Mitsubishi clips that is just so just
under twenty thousand. I think it just went over twenty thousand dollars. Average
price of a new car. You know, it's close to forty grand here
in this country. The average price of a hole I actually did inflation adjusted
numbers compared to what it was in nineteen eighty and if I should adjusted,
it's hundreds of thousands of dollars more than it was back then. And easy
costs that Americans have to pay every single day. And you know, it
just gets this overall feeling. And this is why you take a look at
the polls and the people's feeling in regards to the economy feels like you're on
a perpetual hamster wheel that keeps getting faster and faster and faster. And that's
you know, that's that's tough on the America people. It's tough on the
Psyche other the American people here in this country. You just you can't really
many people just chance even get ahead of Hey, well, you know,
and the problems that you're describing, it's all government, self inflicted wounds.
Right, well, no government, but we vote for these people, and
that the unfortunate thing. You know, I got this. You've got a
uniparty here, you've got your donkeys, and you've got your elephants. But
no matter who's in charge, they're always they're always looking for more spending,
more projects. There's never any thought of actually reducing our debt and deficits.
I got to throw up in my mouth every single time I see that guy
with the aviator glasses tell us that he's cutting deficits two twillion dollars twenty twenty
three, two twillion dollars and deficits and more government spending coming down the pike
and handing subsidies out to this automaker and that automaker. And it's it's non
stop, it's perpetual. And the sooner that we can get people with the
positions of power that are going to get the government out of the way and
let the free market prevail, the better off we're going to be. Yeah,
well, I don't know when that day is coming, Chris, but
I'll tell you. You know, when you look at how prices have gone
up over the years, Like you're in the York, the tolls tolls and
bridge tolls have got up like twenty times faster than the so called rate of
inflation. Taxis on subway travel, your coffee shaming cream ain't go right on
down the list, everybody, everyday items you know that I did. That
song I would get on my show was from the Jungle Book. The bare
necessities that should be the inflation index should be their bare necessities inflation index the
stuff that you have to buy every single day to live on. Yeah.
Yeah, Well, one of my favorite inflation measures is the cost of a
Thanksgiving dinner. And I would also put a Fourth of July barbecue because those
things don't really change over time and you get a real indicator. And last
year Thanksgiving dinner was up twenty two percent. I don't remember exactly how much
the Fourth of July barbecue is up, but substantially. And yet we're supposed
to believe them that inflation is under control, right crazy, Yeah, that's
that's they're one of the grand wives that that's out there, no makes effect
that the FED to really do anything about it, and it's stout coward these
members of the Fed. Are you go back to to Paul Volker, Yeah,
did Key raise rates, but he also you know, chastised the Congress
in regards to Hey, listen, you're going to have to cut back here.
You know, spending does matter. You know, they've bet a pretty
much a credit card U for our federal government. All the profit that's spending
that's going on that needs that needs to be cut back. I mean,
the FED wants to really stop the inflation we're dealing with right now. They
got to can almost quote that ridiculous Kernel from the Vietnam War, you need
to destroy the village in order to save it, and he had that's what
we need to have. One. We need to get a deep procession,
almost a depression to get to get gasoline prices down. And we don't want
that. Yeah, you know, it was just in Columbia, and your
average lunch there is about five to ten dollars, probably closer to seven or
eight everything there. The food we eat at the best restaurant in Metagine up
on the mountains, and it averaged out the best restaurant like you know,
you're talking like boloo quality and we're looking at you know, forty five dollars
a person for that kind of dinner. You know, so see crazy,
you can't get out of Starbucks for a few people with that. At this
point time, I said, every summer I'd do my vacation where meat.
You know, my wife's family s week we go to Greece. So we
go to the islands there. It's it's way cheaper to go on vacation in
Greece than it is to go anywhere here in the United States. The same
thing. And we go with a bunch of people, you know, my
kids and their friends. They go out. I got a call, you
know, Dad. We had all this food to sulakee and beers and wine.
It was fifty bucks. Yeah, I mean, it is what it
is. I mean, it's just we're constantly being banged over the head here
in this country, and you know, it doesn't make any sense, yep,
yep. So so as an individual, obviously all these things are going
on. You need a new car, you got to pay for what it
is. How do you manage how do you invest your money? How do
you save enough money? To have anything to invest, to have anything left
over. I think many of you concerned about that. Well, yeah,
again, I've been tracking inflation prior to going parabolic and the FED telling us
it was transitory. This has been going on for some time. And again,
you know, i'd get given a realistic approach to my clients and rather
than the stupid commercials that are on TDV where you're going to retire. You
know, school teachers are retired with vineyards and nappa and that nonsense that they
try to shut down your throat. You gotta have to have the realistic approach.
And sometimes it's delaying and retirement for certain people there. Maybe it's retiring
from that job that you had and maybe working a couple of days a week
to the three days a week you might not want to do it. I
think it's a healthy thing to do quite and frankly, you keep your mind
as active as possible. Through my experience, it's one of the things you
had. But you know, you got to deal with the terrain. I
mean, you got all the people wishing, oh I wish we had this
in the defined pension systems that yeah, I understand all that, but also
the demographics are changed where people who are older are living longer and healthier lives.
Yeah, has a mortality come down here in this country, tap,
but that has more to do with drug overdoses and younger people die that it
does older people. And these pensions that were designed that worked for a while,
we're an essence SPONSI schemes to some degree because they weren't taking any of
these actuarial realities into account. In the same way that solcial security is going
to be cut by almost thirty percent within the next ten years, that's a
reality. You can pretend that it's not there. The two leading candidates for
the presidency right now, you've got Donald Trump and Joe Biden, they don't
even want to I acknowledge that that problem even exists. And it's there.
So these are things that you need to do. And again I don't try
to tell people you know you want to enjoy. To me, it's not
so much financial plan it's financial preparation. You're saving and you're putting money away
and your dollar cost averaging so you can take advantage of opportunities that are going
to present themselves throughout life. And you have to be honest. Okay,
you've got to have that that socratic know thyself and not that know thyself,
know what the realities of the terrain are. And these are the realities of
the terrain right now, right this is are going up. I don't see
them coming down any time. So this is what you're going to be dealing
with. So you have to prepare for it. And he did it.
We're seeing credit card balances off at levels that we ever see average ships over
ten thousand dollars per households here in this country. You don't want that to
not put I mean you have to take that extra job where you have to
make some changes within your household budget, do it due to it. Don't
get yourself behind the apall compounding can be the royal road to richest. We
could also crush you as well. And again, like I said, not
Mary Poppins, no spoonful of sugar going to make the medicine down. This
is what's presented. This is what we have to deal with. I was
thinking of a spoonful of something else, but hey, you know, look
I help companies, businesses that aren't profitable, that are losing money, that
might even be in a death spiral. Turnaround, and you know what.
The first thing we do is I look at every single expense that they have
in that company and I say, look, I could do it, or
you could do it, but you're cutting ten percent off minimum today. We're
not leaving this room until you cut ten percent off. You know what,
individuals, you me easily could cut ten percent off of our monthly spending without
even thinking about it. We just don't really necessarily have the incentives to do
it. Well, it's what of it. This is like a conversation that
I have with with people that come to us on a regular basis, and
this is not This has been going on for decades, notice for thirty years.
It's been going on for years. You get, you know, on
the Fassan, you get a wealthy, you know, young family. It
looks wealthy. You know, they got the car, they got the boat,
the members of the club, and they come down and they want to
start, you know, planning for you know, their retirement and planning for
their kids education. And I start looking at what you know they have,
and like I said, the facade, you know, nice watch all these
things, but there are tens of thousands of dollars in debt with credit cards
that are paying over twenty someth to present, and I have to present them.
I said, what do you think I'm going to be able to do
for you? Do you think that I'm going to be able to show on
a consistent basis or maybe on a rare occasion. I'm got to be what's
a credit card race out twenty five twenty six percent? Thirty? I think
I think so little hard he makes these charging thirty plus percent. Chris,
You've got to pay this off. You have to make changes. But now
we live We've always lived in a world way to you know, the whole
concept keeping up with the Joneses. But social media is taking keeping up with
the Joneses and is put it on steroids, and people are It's amazing how
many are unwilling to make those things. They get themselves further and further and
further into a hole then rather make some simple, necessary changes that would put
them on a much better path. And again, you know, we all
know what happens with families that have all sorts of financial issues. That's where
you have the divorce and all sorts of underbeck distances as well, and it's
self inflicted. So true. And you know when you do have a family
that's in financial trouble. It's not just the parents, yes, the kids,
because even if they don't tell the kids what's happening, the kids know.
Kids know there's something wrong, and it really makes an impact, a
negative impact in your kids' lives. So you owe it to your children to
do this. Hey, if you were you know, I just saw a
statistic yesterday. The average American has ten k worth of credit card debt,
all right, that they carry, all right, not that they pay off
monthly. And so you know what, if you don't go to Starbucks for
a couple of months, maybe six months, maybe you shouldn't go at all.
If you've got ten thousand worth of credit card debt, and you know
what, you keep the car going a couple of years longer, and you
don't buy the fancy clothes. Maybe you even downside your house depending on your
mortgage. You know, that's another thing. There's good debt, there's bad
debt. Well right now. You know, Robert Kiyosaki used to say that
a house is just a consumer item, and the debt that you incur for
it is effectively consumer you know, expenditure. However, now at a three
percent mortgage with an intriflation raging at whatever really is not what the government says.
And the fact that even if you downsize, unless you pay for pay
cash for your new home, it's going to cost you more to downsize than
it is to stay where you are. Yeah, these are all all various
different things that you have to factor in. You know, we we've seen
that this again a school gold standing thing people end up becoming, uh now
score. I kind of try to explain to people, you know, it's
it's it's a home. It's a bill that you have to pay. You
gotta look at as a bill money. You know, that's it. You
know, that's that's you know, if you make money on your own,
you also back up the factor in all your interest statements and the upkeep.
But everything that goes along with being on homeowner, and it's extensive. It's
not like if you're you're buying an S ANDP index one for for thirty years
or anything like that, because I'm telling you right now that should be index
one is you're to well outperform your home over thirty period of time. You
know, with everything that back there's into it, it's something we have to
have. Okay, we're not bad scaling from a tree. Your home means
a lot of things to you, and it should be in regards to memories
and time spent with your family. It shouldn't be something that is causing you
undue stress. Absolutely, Yeah, being house or is one of the dumbest
things. Keeping up with the Jones is all of that, keeping up with
the Kardashians, whatever it is. You know, it's ridiculous notion. And
because aside from everything else, when you're making your happiness contingent upon your relative
material riches, you will never be happy because Bezos and Elon Musk are always
going to have more than you. You'll never be able to compete with them.
So that should not be the price of internal happiness. But also we
can never forget we need a certain amount of resources, of financial resources to
sustain life and to sustain our quality of life and health as well. But
so many people, and I was one of them, just put health and
all the other considerations on the back burner trying to make money. Hey,
money is important, but health is way more important. One thing I've found
out. You can lose money and get it back, but losing health and
getting it back is a much more difficult proposition. Oh. I talk about
that a pretty regular basis on my program in regards to you know, your
financial preparation slash planning is the fact that you know it has to be something
that it has to be a life still has to be habitual. You have
to cheat care of yourself throughout your life because again, the costs that are
going to be involved as guess what the doctors might be able to keep you
alive longer, but what type of quality of life of you you're going to
have at that period of time, and you know the costs that are going
to be involved that you have to continually try to, you know, keep
yourself going. If you're not healthy. Again, we don't eat well here,
We really don't. I mean you could see it everywhere the process foods.
You know, you got it. You need to get away from that
and believe it or not, you can eat healthy here in this country at
a much better price than you are eating. Jokes, not to mention the
fact that you're going to be You're gonna be more alert, you're gonna be
better at what you do. It's just a myriad of things that we again,
we need to learn sometimes from other cultures to some degree that do it
much much better than we do here in the United States. Stay away from
the fast food. Unfortunately, the other countries have been learning from us,
as witnessed by the fact that you go anywhere in the world and you see
McDonald's all over and Starbucks and you know, fast food KFC. You know,
China has worse type two diabetes than the United States, and it's all
avoidable unnecessary. You know, Like the ultimate peer trade right now is you
buy Eli Lily because they've got that terremphant side and you sell McDonald's. Perfect
pair trade right there. You go, Oh, well, I don't know,
you know, people might think that, you know, that's the thing
that I can take this pill and I can continue to eat this jock,
which you might not work out for you. Well, not as much though,
because it kills your appetite. But hey, and we're not encouraging you
to go out and get a prescription for Wigovi or moon Jaro. Uh.
You know, it's super expensive, but if you're morbidly obese and you're starting
to have rapid health deterioration, that stuff could be a godsend. Chris,
Yeah, again, and I encourage people all the time that you said,
you know, you want to get yourself in shape, you start by going
out on a walk every single day, and you started there, build on
it every single day and in no time you've got to see leaps and bounced.
But you have to again, you have to take that first at absolutely,
you know. One of the biggest scams to me are health clubs,
and I belong to one for forty plus years. But the scam is go
to the gym and lose weight. No exercise is certainly a pillar of good
health, one of the pillars along with healthy diet, along with adequate sleep,
stress management. But you will not lose weight at the gym unless you
are a runner or a major aerobic person who swims for a couple of hours,
or you stay on the treadmill, you won't lose weight. Is only
going to make you hungrier. I mean, the most I can burn off
in one session in the gym is eight hundred calories three times a week.
That's a pound. It's nothing, and yet they tell us get into shape,
go to the health club. That's not it. Lose weight, control
your diet, go to the gym to maintain and improve your health, not
to lose weight. I'm a big weight lifting guy myself, and I got
I do it. My office is we have to build engine there and I've
done it my entire life. But I love it, and I can tell
you this day. I mean, see these guys that are you know,
been, the type of shape that they're in. It's it's eighty ninety percent
diet. That's really is. You got to work out, absolutely, but
you know it's it's garbage in, garbage out like anything else. You've got
to really advantage that. I mean, if you can't, you know,
lift weights and eat junk and expect to lose weight or getting any sort of
shape. Yeah, that's what I did for about thirty five years and it
really did. Hey, it did help me, I will say that keeping
muscle strength and various other things. I think it got me through COVID in
one piece. But I was never an optimal condition like I am now and
I still go to the gym three to four times a week. So yes,
JIM is essential to health, but it is not going to make you
lose weight. And yet it's marketed New Year's resolution. Hey, you go
to the gym like actually like a week or two before January first, said,
man, this place is crowded, and then like you go back after
January first, it's still crowded, and then all of a sudden, a
funny thing happens February first. Jim's as empty as it ever was. You
know, funny, I mean, I think. But again, unfortunately so
the psychea human beings, as they expect everything to happen quick and easy.
And you know, I was saying, you know, we Murkowsky investors,
Everything in life that has leading value and worth involves work time and effort.
It's the same problem you have with investors too, thinking that that there's some
quick and easy way to become wealthy and there's not. There's no short cuts
out there to going and building. Well, there's no short cuts in regards
to getting yourself back into shape or Yeah. Like I said, it's all
going to involve work time and effort, and you expect some sort of quick
fix. I ain't gonna have. Yeah, and it's it's time. It's
an investment, right. One thing we didn't talk about, like when you
have these clients come in and you ever tell them, look, go get
another skill, Go get another income source, invest in yourself so you can
produce more cash flow, because that's always an option as well controlling costs,
but increasing your income. That's why I don't let people are younger people.
So I'm going to sit They said target dates for their retirement. I'm like,
what are you talking about? You have no idea what life is going
to present to you from now until then. You want to be able to
take him as why you want to save money and put money away so you
can take advantage of maybe that business opportunity or whatever it may be, and
let life come to you rather than you try to, you know, fly
in your life away. So like I'm by calling a financial preparation not financial
planning because we all know the saying. You know, you want to make
God laugh. Tell them your plans. Yeah, best laid plans of mice
and men often lead astray. Hey, so best place to find you these
days is still your your regular irregular site to Watchdog on Wall Street, toogonwall
Street dot com. There you can find my podcast, radio show, television,
a parents, just columns and everything that we do available right there Watchdog
on Wall Street dot com. All right, excellent, Hey, you got
a question for Chris myself, whether it's health, whether it's finance or self
improvement, shoot us an email KL at Carylots dot com and make sure you
go to the site Financial Survival Network dot com. Uh show notes this interview.
Just click Chris's link, It'll take you right there. While you're there,
sign up for your free newsletter, Prince. Always a pleasure. We'll
have to do this again so anytime. Thank you so much for having me,
Thanks for listening to carry Lutz's Financial Survival Network, your solution to today's
trying times. For the latest, go to Financial Survival Network dot com.
Financial Survival Network now more than ever, The wis