Speaker 1: Ato six. I think you about Kara see the talk
Speaker 1: station right Tom.
Speaker 2: It's always happy to welcome back to this thinking about Garsey.
Speaker 1: Mornings you every Monday.
Speaker 2: At this time we do Money Monday with Brian James
Speaker 2: from all Worth Financial.
Speaker 1: Brian, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Welcome back
Speaker 1: to the show.
Speaker 3: As always, hope you did too, and thank you for
Speaker 3: the time to once again hang out with you on Monday.
Speaker 2: Always enjoy it. And of course I've been railing about
Speaker 2: this all morning. Moody stripped the US of its top
Speaker 2: credit rating, knocked this down a notch, of course, catching
Speaker 2: up with the likes of Standard and Poors who did
Speaker 2: that back in twenty eleven, INFIT Ratings, which did it
Speaker 2: back in August at twenty three. But the markets reacting,
Speaker 2: futures are down and of course treasury yields have jumped
Speaker 2: because the poorer you're credit rating, the more you have
Speaker 2: to pay people to invest in your well. In this
Speaker 2: particular case country, I mean, and they spelled it out
Speaker 2: in black and white, Moody's pointed it out. It's the
Speaker 2: growing burden of the financial and federal government's budget deficit
Speaker 2: and the rising cost of debt service on it.
Speaker 3: Duh, Yeah, this isn't too big of a shock, or
Speaker 3: is it so? So what the credit rating is, of course,
Speaker 3: is a way of comparing one country or really anything.
Speaker 3: Just about anything has a credit rating, governments, corporations, frankly,
Speaker 3: people do too.
Speaker 1: That's what those credit bureaus are for.
Speaker 3: But the whole point is to compare one entity to
Speaker 3: another in terms of how likely are they to pay
Speaker 3: their debts. And Moody's is the last of the three
Speaker 3: major rating facilities to cut the United States down from
Speaker 3: a perfect rating, and that that started in twenty eleven,
Speaker 3: so in the aftermath of two thousand and eight. S
Speaker 3: and P was the first one to cut us and
Speaker 3: kind of say, maybe we're.
Speaker 1: Not so good as good as we used to look.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and this isn't too big of a shock
Speaker 3: because we are putting ourselves, we are proactively deciding to
Speaker 3: present ourselves to the as a country, to the rest
Speaker 3: of the world in a different manner where that necessarily
Speaker 3: has an impact on the economic output of the country.
Speaker 3: And what are the what's the outlook of how can
Speaker 3: we be going forward, you know as we have in
Speaker 3: the past. And so for sure, that's now having an
Speaker 3: impact on the market. The futures are down one to
Speaker 3: two percent, depending on what you're looking at. This is
Speaker 3: but again, this can't be too much of a shock.
Speaker 3: We've consciously decided to do things differently. We talk all
Speaker 3: the time about how we can't afford ourselves, we're living
Speaker 3: beyond our means, and it is starting to surface here
Speaker 3: just a little bit in terms of the rest of
Speaker 3: the world's perception of the United States as a credit
Speaker 3: worth the facility.
Speaker 2: Well, I suppose the timing couldn't have been better, considering
Speaker 2: they're talking about this reconciliation package, which deals with the
Speaker 2: debt and spending, and I know there's some moderate Republicans
Speaker 2: who are standing in the way of advancing some steeper
Speaker 2: cuts because oh, it's my green energy product, you're not
Speaker 2: a project. You're not going to cut it in my state,
Speaker 2: or oh it's I'm in New Jersey and I wanted
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty four thousand dollars per couple salt
Speaker 2: tax because well, the taxes of my state are outrageous.
Speaker 2: I mean, we just subsidize the high tax states, high taxation,
Speaker 2: and the people that should be paying that by cutting
Speaker 2: their federal income tax. I mean, you know, the point
Speaker 2: of capping the salt tax at ten thousand dollars, so
Speaker 2: we wouldn't be subsidizing those outrageous states.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 3: What we're doing is taking active steps to hopefully you
Speaker 3: reduce that. But there's no way to do all this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff without pain that. That's the one thing
Speaker 3: that we have not been able to drag across the
Speaker 3: finish line here. Both parties recognize and have for decades
Speaker 3: that there is a problem and we are moving in
Speaker 3: the wrong direction. However, there has never been an effort
Speaker 3: where on one side has successfully reached across the aisle
Speaker 3: to actually do something about it. And that's really not
Speaker 3: even happening now. We just have a situation in situation
Speaker 3: where the Republicans obviously dominate both both parts of Congress,
Speaker 3: and that's the closest we're going to get to putting
Speaker 3: all this in place to make the fixes, but it's
Speaker 3: going to have to survive, Brian the midterm elections. Right So,
Speaker 3: right now, Donald Trump effectively has you know, pretty much
Speaker 3: cart Blanc to do just about whatever he wants to
Speaker 3: do because he's got control of Congress for the most part,
Speaker 3: and he's ignoring a lot of the rules and regulations
Speaker 3: that were in place anyway. But if a lot of
Speaker 3: this stuff doesn't get done before the midterm elections, I
Speaker 3: can't think that dependulum is not going to swing back
Speaker 3: the other way.
Speaker 2: Well back the other way, toward even more reckless spending.
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I hate to use the phrase
Speaker 2: existential threat again, but we're already paying a trillion dollars
Speaker 2: a year in debt service and that's only going to
Speaker 2: get worse and worse, and that takes away from literally
Speaker 2: anything else. That's I don't care what side of the
Speaker 2: political spectrum you're on, if you want the government to
Speaker 2: pay for something, the more money we have to allocate
Speaker 2: the debt service, which is required, you can't just ignore that.
Speaker 2: You're not going to have money left over for expanding
Speaker 2: this or funding that, whether it's military or one of
Speaker 2: the social welfare safety nets, they're all going to be
Speaker 2: deprived extra dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's absolutely right, And this is that's why it's
Speaker 3: been so important that we actually get people in the
Speaker 3: same room to talk and agree on something. We haven't
Speaker 3: been able to do that because the American people have
Speaker 3: not been willing to sacrifice what they need to, because
Speaker 3: if your congress person is out there trying to say, hey,
Speaker 3: we're living beyond our means, we have to stop doing that,
Speaker 3: what they're actually saying, if they're serious, is we need
Speaker 3: to give up something. And that has not been a
Speaker 3: politically tenable stance to take. If you are somebody whose
Speaker 3: career and livelihood depends on getting elected again.
Speaker 1: Well and there lies the problem. As far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: You should do what's right, what's fiscally responsible, what is
Speaker 2: going to save the country from itself, and not just
Speaker 2: to pease people see and get re elected. I could
Speaker 2: campaign if I cut back medicaid, well, simply requiring people
Speaker 2: that are able bodied without families to engage in some work,
Speaker 2: training or work. I mean to the tune of what
Speaker 2: twenty hours a week is really a small, small ask.
Speaker 1: I just that's not unfair to say.
Speaker 3: But that has to extend to the person who might
Speaker 3: take advantage of the opportunity to take down an incumbent representative.
Speaker 3: Because that person told the country the truth, it leaves
Speaker 3: them to being a sitting duck. Hey, this person told
Speaker 3: you had to sacrifice something, I'm telling you the opposite
Speaker 3: we're going to keep giving you money to resist that urge.
Speaker 1: But it's been the American way for several hundred years.
Speaker 2: Well, they need to just hold up the Moody's reports. Say, look,
Speaker 2: we've already been downgraded. Why because our national debt is
Speaker 2: so big it's sucking up all the life out of
Speaker 2: the room. This is what we're talking about. So yeah,
Speaker 2: you can tell people there don't have to be any cuts,
Speaker 2: but it's just gonna get worse, and our borrowing costs
Speaker 2: are just gonna get that much greater, and our debt
Speaker 2: service is gonna get that much greater. I mean, explain
Speaker 2: to my listeners if you can, Brian James, what would
Speaker 2: a default look like? How would that play out? If
Speaker 2: we couldn't make the debt service on our national debt?
Speaker 3: Nobody comes out of a US default looking pretty The
Speaker 3: entire world will be impacted because, whether they like us
Speaker 3: or not, we are by far, far, far, far far
Speaker 3: the largest economy on the face of the earth. American
Speaker 3: economy is twenty two to twenty three trillion dollars something
Speaker 3: like that. China is somewhere around nineteen twenty trillion, and
Speaker 3: it goes rapidly down from there. So, if all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, the rest of the planet basically being the
Speaker 3: entire universe, lose his face in the faith in the
Speaker 3: United States ability to pay its debt, then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, all those countries and the rest of the
Speaker 3: world is going to lose a substantial customer base from
Speaker 3: which to sell, and that's going to have a domino effect.
Speaker 3: So nobody, even those who would prefer that we get
Speaker 3: knocked off our pedestal, will not benefit from that disruption
Speaker 3: to that level.
Speaker 1: Now I'm looking at.
Speaker 3: I think these ratings, it's important to understand what the
Speaker 3: ratings actually mean because some people might say, well, we're
Speaker 3: still since we're the largest economy, that means the ratings
Speaker 3: aren't as important because you know, we're just so gosh
Speaker 3: darn big. Well, just to give some comparison, there, there
Speaker 3: are nine other countries now that have perfect credit ratings.
Speaker 3: You still can buy government debt that has perfect credit rating. Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, Australia, Singapore,
Speaker 3: and Luxembourg all have better credit ratings in the United
Speaker 3: States and subsequently have lower yields if you want to
Speaker 3: buy those countries' treasury bonds. You're going to be getting
Speaker 3: about two percent on a ten year bond in compared
Speaker 3: to the United States, which is currently.
Speaker 1: About four and a half percent.
Speaker 3: The yield on a bond is directly reflective, Brian of
Speaker 3: the country's ability to pay its debts. Are if you
Speaker 3: are a dead beat, then you're not getting a credit card.
Speaker 3: If you do, you'll be paying thirty percent. The rest
Speaker 3: of the world is saying the United States needs to
Speaker 3: pay four and a half percent while these other countries
Speaker 3: need to pay about two to borrow money.
Speaker 2: Well, it is illustrative of the problem. And I don't know.
Speaker 2: I guess at some point we may get junk status.
Speaker 2: What is junk considered? What nine percent and above or
Speaker 2: something along those lines.
Speaker 3: Well, the junk status has to do with the credit
Speaker 3: rating itself. It's not the yield directly, but that's triple B.
Speaker 3: Triple B is the last investment grade generally speaking, and
Speaker 3: below that you get labeled as junk, which doesn't mean
Speaker 3: you can't pay your debts. It just means you've kind
Speaker 3: of moved into a territory where it's a little more
Speaker 3: likely that anybody who owe that you owe money to
Speaker 3: ought to be paying attention to to make sure that
Speaker 3: you are good for it fair enough.
Speaker 2: If we're going to find out about starter homes and
Speaker 2: Greater Cincinnati, are there any even out there more of
Speaker 2: Brian James Wilworth Financial, Hey nineteen if you have fair
Speaker 2: CD talk Station Money Monday.
Speaker 1: Brian James Allworth financials.
Speaker 2: Hey real quick here, since you talk about credit rating
Speaker 2: and the Moody's downgrading a United States credit rating. I
Speaker 2: just checked my credit score the other day. I get
Speaker 2: a notice from LifeLock saying, hey, your credit score is changed,
Speaker 2: or I check it out. You know, I still have
Speaker 2: excellent credit, and at one point I actually had a
Speaker 2: perfect credit store. It didn't last very long, so it
Speaker 2: dropped two points. And the reason is because I have
Speaker 2: excellent in every single category except one. They say I
Speaker 2: don't have enough accounts that I should have more available credit.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, how bast awkward is that? That doesn't make
Speaker 2: any sense to me. I'm dutifully and timefully paying off
Speaker 2: what credit cards I have. I don't need any additional credit.
Speaker 2: Why in the hell would I want to go out
Speaker 2: and get more. It doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is kind of counterintuitive.
Speaker 3: What they're basically saying is that you're such a good
Speaker 3: credit risk that we think you should have more. I
Speaker 3: think there's a little bit of an ulterior motive in
Speaker 3: there to help you encourage you to do that.
Speaker 1: I've noticed that the biggest spikes I've.
Speaker 3: Gotten in my credit score is when you know, if
Speaker 3: we do something the house or whatever, and there's some
Speaker 3: kind of promotional zero percent rate. Sure, I'll take that.
Speaker 3: I don't really care about the credit, don't really need that.
Speaker 3: But all of a sudden, a month later, my credit
Speaker 3: score spikes because I have an extra line in place,
Speaker 3: off of which I'm not paying anybody any interest.
Speaker 1: It just gave me a better price.
Speaker 3: But yes, they do want you to have more if
Speaker 3: you take it, if you want to take advantage of
Speaker 3: those things, it will give you a higher score.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: I'm not interested in it because I'm still fine. It
Speaker 2: just drives me crazy when I read that, I'm like,
Speaker 2: damn it, why would I want to go out and get,
Speaker 2: you know, a more opportunity to borrow that I wouldn't use.
Speaker 2: To your point, I wouldn't need it. I don't need it,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't use it. So anyhow, moving back to your
Speaker 2: topics that you provided. Sorry for the curve ball there, Brian.
Speaker 2: I just found that very frustrating. Starter homes are there
Speaker 2: any around Cincinnati. I saw the article from Randy Tucker
Speaker 2: and from the Enquirer, and apparently they're in very short supply,
Speaker 2: very much.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so if you look around there, there's still plenty
Speaker 3: of building going on. Right, we've been talking about this
Speaker 3: housing crash that's supposed to be coming for years now.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe we've given up on talking about it. We
Speaker 3: found a new shiny object, but that simply hasn't happened.
Speaker 3: But no, there's not many starter type homes being built
Speaker 3: in Cincinnati, you know, the kind of homes one or
Speaker 3: two maybe three bedrooms with the most but obviously to
Speaker 3: allow a young family to kind of get started, really
Speaker 3: struggling for buyers to find a home for under three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand that doesn't require major work, or isn't a
Speaker 3: neighborhood that's not quite ideal. The demand is there. Of course,
Speaker 3: there are people in the situation. We probably all know
Speaker 3: young people who would prefer to get out of their
Speaker 3: apartments and their condos and get into something different. But
Speaker 3: the supply is not there, and the reason is it's
Speaker 3: just not as attractive for builders. Builders are prefer larger
Speaker 3: homes because there's more profit margin, that's more scalable. If
Speaker 3: you think about fixed costs like permitting and compliance and
Speaker 3: all the stuff that they have to do that has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with putting two by fours together, Those
Speaker 3: fixed costs are the same no matter the size of
Speaker 3: the ultimate home, and their preference, of course, is to
Speaker 3: make as much money as they possibly can, so they're
Speaker 3: focusing on the larger homes.
Speaker 2: Still in this area, well, it's always puzzled me because
Speaker 2: unless I've got the whole concept wrong, it seems me
Speaker 2: the trend is for people to pursue a smaller home. Now,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice on quality. You
Speaker 2: could really build a superior quality with all the amenities
Speaker 2: much smaller home. You don't have to build some mega
Speaker 2: mansion or mini mansion. And when you do, you've got
Speaker 2: so much additional you know, like heating and air conditioning expense,
Speaker 2: you got to furnish the rooms. It just it seems
Speaker 2: to be stupid to have that much space, most notably
Speaker 2: if you don't have a really big family, and with
Speaker 2: an aging population, the demand for smaller homes is probably
Speaker 2: increased because you don't want as much place to have
Speaker 2: to clean, Maybe you don't want to go up and downstairs,
Speaker 2: and you're looking for ranchumps. That just sounds to me
Speaker 2: like an ideal opportunity for a smart developer to build
Speaker 2: small er homes compared to what they've been building, but
Speaker 2: make them at higher quality to increase that profit margin.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think the higher quality part if you're
Speaker 3: if you're increasing the profit margin, you're increasing the price.
Speaker 3: And that's one of the non starters for a young
Speaker 3: family getting started at And we we have a.
Speaker 1: Dress that too with patio homes.
Speaker 3: Patio homes are popping up everywhere, but a starter family
Speaker 3: is not going to want that because they need somewhere
Speaker 3: to let the kids run around and storage of all
Speaker 3: the old baby stuff and all that other thing. And
Speaker 3: those neighborhoods tend to be fifty five and older anyway.
Speaker 3: So we just haven't filled that gap here in this area.
Speaker 3: Other cities have the cities with real real estate spikes
Speaker 3: that are really truly issues, such as Austin, Denver, Portland
Speaker 3: to Minneapolis. These are places that have changed how they
Speaker 3: do zoning laws. So for example, Minneapolis in twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: started to allow duplexus and triplexus city wide to at
Speaker 3: least let off some of that some of that demand.
Speaker 3: Those kind of steps have not been taken around here
Speaker 3: yet because it's still arguably affordable for a you know,
Speaker 3: somebody who's looking for a quote unquote starter home to
Speaker 3: get into that three hundred, three hundred and fifty thousand.
Speaker 3: But we're getting to the point where it's just not
Speaker 3: going to be feasible for somebody to take that step.
Speaker 2: Unless you're willing to buy one that needs maybe quite
Speaker 2: a bit of work.
Speaker 3: Correct or in a neighborhood that is hopefully going to
Speaker 3: turn around in the.
Speaker 1: Next decade or so.
Speaker 3: But yeah, you have to kind of you're taking a
Speaker 3: risk there if you really need that house with more bedrooms,
Speaker 3: you are looking to again pick up something that's gonna
Speaker 3: need a lot of work, or in a neighborhood that
Speaker 3: you may not want to be raising your kids in.
Speaker 2: Understand tough challenges out there in the world these days.
Speaker 2: Is there do you see anything that might turn this around?
Speaker 3: Honestly, we've been talking about this for years, haven't we
Speaker 3: been talking about this?
Speaker 1: Ever?
Speaker 3: Since two thousand and eight? Really, you know, I would
Speaker 3: have thought it would have happened by now. When is
Speaker 3: the bubble gonna pop where people just say, you know what,
Speaker 3: I just can't do it.
Speaker 1: I can't buy these houses.
Speaker 3: I'm talking to my clients who are retiring and some
Speaker 3: of them are still buying three and four bedroom houses,
Speaker 3: and I scratch my head, Brian, why are we doing this?
Speaker 3: It's almost like it's become ingrained that I just have
Speaker 3: to live in a house that's just all there is
Speaker 3: out there. So I'm gonna have a couple empty rooms
Speaker 3: just the.
Speaker 1: Way it is fair enough.
Speaker 2: Brian James will continue one more of that topic, right,
Speaker 2: you know, I admit, and you know I'm embarrassed to
Speaker 2: admit it, but I've said it so many times. Regular
Speaker 2: listeners know that I do watch shows like Wheel, Fortune,
Speaker 2: d wind Down before I go to bed at eight, Brian,
Speaker 2: and it always blows my mind to see the cost
Speaker 2: of some of these vacation trips that they put together.
Speaker 2: I'm like, Lord almighty, how does any kind of regular,
Speaker 2: average American family spend that kind of money to go
Speaker 2: someplace like that? And I was never a big guy
Speaker 2: when it came to travel, certainly not global travel. I've
Speaker 2: always enjoyed spending time here in the United States of America,
Speaker 2: where there see seems to be an endless supply of destinations.
Speaker 2: But I understand that the big summer vacation plans of
Speaker 2: being put on ice this summer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So when I'm doing financial plans for clients,
Speaker 3: what we always budget for vacation, and used to be
Speaker 3: that we would throw in if somebody didn't talk about travel,
Speaker 3: like it wasn't a retirement goal, I'd throw in three
Speaker 3: thousand bucks because everybody would go down to Myrtle Beach
Speaker 3: or Hilton Had, you know, once or twice, and three
Speaker 3: thousand bucks would cover. That minimum has now become five
Speaker 3: thousand for my folks who don't bring up travel, for
Speaker 3: the ones who say, yes, we've always wanted to travel,
Speaker 3: we can't wait to do it now, we're putting in
Speaker 3: ten to twelve thousand at absolute minimum. For the ones
Speaker 3: who want to hit it hard, we're budgeting twenty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars per year, and so there's stories in here about
Speaker 3: of course, if you're going to budget out a trip
Speaker 3: to Europe, that's going to be in the twenty thousand
Speaker 3: dollars range.
Speaker 1: To go.
Speaker 3: Make it worth your while. Nobody goes for a long weekend.
Speaker 3: You're going to make it at least ten days.
Speaker 1: Or so twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Now, we budgeted one for the James family. We didn't
Speaker 3: end up going because it was twenty twenty and you
Speaker 3: can remember what happened.
Speaker 1: Then. We were very close to swiping the credit card.
Speaker 3: But it was going to bet about thirteen thousand at
Speaker 3: that point to get all five of us through Scandinavia,
Speaker 3: and that was through cost Co, which is about as
Speaker 3: reasonable as you can possibly get. But yeah, So we're
Speaker 3: hearing stories about forty one percent of people this year
Speaker 3: or planning trips of three nights or fewer, meaning you know,
Speaker 3: we're taking long weekends. That that's up from thirty seven percent.
Speaker 3: So we've seen a ten percent increase year over year
Speaker 3: in the people who are saying we're not going to
Speaker 3: take as big of a vacation as we've as we've
Speaker 3: done in the past. Americans who are planning vacations period
Speaker 3: dropped below forty percent this year.
Speaker 1: That's still lower than twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: In about twelve percent of travelers say they've changed their
Speaker 3: plans because of the tariffs, which have spooked him enough
Speaker 3: to say, the heck with it, We'll just we'll stay
Speaker 3: in this summer.
Speaker 2: Well, I saw this one guy that's quoted in the article.
Speaker 2: He said the tariffs sort of got everybody around the
Speaker 2: world mad at us. He was worried about being treated
Speaker 2: poorly if he showed up at his original destination because
Speaker 2: the locals would frown upon US tourists.
Speaker 1: Is that really a thing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think some of that stuff is overblown, as
Speaker 3: for sexy headlines. So I have a good friend of
Speaker 3: mine who's a federal employee and he was sent to
Speaker 3: Europe for about three months during all this stuff. He
Speaker 3: just got back and we asked him that question, are
Speaker 3: you Are you getting grief from anybody?
Speaker 1: And most of it was good natured ribbing, you.
Speaker 3: Know, just kind of saying, hey, the United States isn't
Speaker 3: playing nice in the sandbox anymore. But he had no
Speaker 3: point faced any kind of true, you know, adverse consequences
Speaker 3: because of those headlines. So I wouldn't worry too much
Speaker 3: about that part. People know the reality that the average
Speaker 3: person wandering around the streets, you know, from the United
Speaker 3: States doesn't have control over this and may may not
Speaker 3: agree with Oh, I'm not so worried about that.
Speaker 2: That's the practical bottom line is. Listen, I'm not Trump.
Speaker 2: I didn't do it.
Speaker 1: For sure.
Speaker 2: I hurried him to the extent it's going to even
Speaker 2: do anything anyhow. Has tourism dropped off from foreigners coming
Speaker 2: into the United States? I know Canada had a fairly
Speaker 2: sizable double digit drop in Canadians interested in visiting the
Speaker 2: United States because of tariffs ligiously generally speaking, But how
Speaker 2: about generally the US tourism industry. Has it dropped off
Speaker 2: for a similar reasons?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? Yeah, for political purposes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So international travel the United States is down about five
Speaker 3: percent in twenty five compared to twenty four. That's despite
Speaker 3: earlier forecasts that were predicting close to nine percent growth. Now,
Speaker 3: those forecasts, of course, did not take into account what
Speaker 3: the United States was going to be doing politically here
Speaker 3: in the first quarter of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So we're now.
Speaker 3: Estimating that visitors spending is going to fall by about
Speaker 3: eleven percent, and that's going to cost US about eighteen
Speaker 3: billion dollars in money that is no longer coming over
Speaker 3: from overseas. In the handbook and the pursase of travelers.
Speaker 1: Well, but how does the dollar fare?
Speaker 2: And so far as you know, one's a spending ability,
Speaker 2: I mean, are we is a foreign national in good
Speaker 2: shape coming here? Do they get more value, let's say,
Speaker 2: for their euro here than they otherwise would. Where's the
Speaker 2: currency stand?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the US dollar is weakening, of course because
Speaker 3: and what that means is that it is cheaper for
Speaker 3: foreigners to come to the United States.
Speaker 1: In the United States should be.
Speaker 3: Looking like a more attractive, attractive option because mathematically speaking,
Speaker 3: it's cheaper for them to come overseas.
Speaker 1: I remember when the opposite was true. This is probably
Speaker 1: about twenty years.
Speaker 3: Ago, Brian, Yes, and I remember seeing ads in the
Speaker 3: paper of all this is how I'm dating myself now,
Speaker 3: but ads in the paper for how cheap it was
Speaker 3: to go spend a long weekend shopping in Europe.
Speaker 1: Because the opposite was true.
Speaker 3: The dollar was so strong and the euro was so
Speaker 3: weak it would cost next to nothing for you to
Speaker 3: fly overseas and do that.
Speaker 1: The opposite is it's not.
Speaker 3: Quite the same here but at the but it hasn't
Speaker 3: had the impact in terms of the travel demand because
Speaker 3: of all the geopolitical stif going on. So people right now,
Speaker 3: are focusing on their passions not the numbers.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Brian James another edition of Monday Monday. Thanks to all
Speaker 2: Worth for leaning out every Monday for a nice chat
Speaker 2: and helpful information. Brian, I'll look forward to another edition
Speaker 2: next Monday, and I hope you have a wonderful week.
Speaker 1: You too, have a good week. Talk to you Monday.
Speaker 1: Thanks brother,