Speaker 1: Let's bring our buddy Joel lars Guard to the table
Speaker 1: if that is his real name, host of How to Money,
Speaker 1: Sunday twelve pm to two pm.
Speaker 2: Great show. If you haven't heard it, you can also
Speaker 2: find him how to Money. Joel. Oh, Joel, how are you, sir?
Speaker 2: I'm well, Neil, how are you? Man? Great?
Speaker 1: What's what's the beer you're drinking these days? Anything happy
Speaker 1: or fruity?
Speaker 2: Typically? I mean, I'll drink it all equal opportunity drinker.
Speaker 2: I like that fruity.
Speaker 1: That's those are both opposite ends of the no I know,
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 2: I want a ninety nine and then something with a
Speaker 2: little I don't know, peach good for you?
Speaker 1: Is there?
Speaker 2: Is there?
Speaker 1: Because so for those of you who don't know Joel,
Speaker 1: who has what seventeen kids, he's only spent and he's
Speaker 1: like twenty two. But he spends his extra folding money
Speaker 1: on good beers. That's his splurge. So I always like
Speaker 1: to check in on him with that. Is there a
Speaker 1: brand that you're really into? A small brewery? Let me
Speaker 1: let me tell you an underrated brewery?
Speaker 2: Uh not?
Speaker 3: I mean a little a little drive for you, but
Speaker 3: not too too far. Casa Agria in Oxnard, California. Oh yeah, incredible.
Speaker 3: That's one of my that's one of my favorite breweries.
Speaker 3: And they run the gamut. They make some of the
Speaker 3: some some great fruity beers, some great hoppy beers, some
Speaker 3: some great stouts too. So I'm yeah, that's that's one
Speaker 3: of my favorite breweries around.
Speaker 2: Good to know. Thanks for the hot tip. I will
Speaker 2: shut that out.
Speaker 1: It's a stones throw away from where I grew up,
Speaker 1: so I know the era.
Speaker 2: Well, all right, so.
Speaker 1: Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs, what are we looking at and how's
Speaker 1: this gonna impact my midnight shopping spree on Timu and
Speaker 1: Ali Express.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my gosh, Well, I mean how this is
Speaker 3: gonna shake out and how severe the impact is going
Speaker 3: to be. It's kind of what everyone is trying to
Speaker 3: figure out right now. And we got at least a
Speaker 3: little more clarity because there'd been like the looming threat
Speaker 3: of liberation Day coming our way. And what's really going
Speaker 3: to happen is we're going to be liberated from our
Speaker 3: money and from low prices because of these tariffs. And
Speaker 3: this has kind of been historically understood in economics. Like
Speaker 3: people across the political spectrum, whether you're kind of more
Speaker 3: left leaning, right leaning centrist independent as an economist, like
Speaker 3: the idea that tariffs are attacks on individuals, on consumers.
Speaker 3: Because this is an import tax and then it gets
Speaker 3: passed on through higher prices. It's going to impact all
Speaker 3: of us, and especially with how widespread and significant these
Speaker 3: tariffs are, it will reduce the purchasing power of the
Speaker 3: average American family. And I think what the Trump administration
Speaker 3: is hoping or is saying, is, well, this is going
Speaker 3: to bring manufacturing back to the United States, and so
Speaker 3: it's going to be worth the pain the higher prices
Speaker 3: because it's going to mean more jobs. It's going to
Speaker 3: mean more factories, it's going to mean more production here.
Speaker 3: And I just don't know that that's a great goal
Speaker 3: to have, and I don't know that it's going to
Speaker 3: happen the way the President thinks it's going to.
Speaker 2: Well, that is the million dollar question. Now.
Speaker 1: I am not a huge fan of Trump or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I'm a rationalist. I try and look everything.
Speaker 1: I remove the d's, I remove the rs, and I
Speaker 1: try and look at things. And I know that if
Speaker 1: you walk in in the middle of an operation, it's blood,
Speaker 1: guts and nothing looks good. You have to kind of
Speaker 1: wait for everything to be sewn up. So I don't
Speaker 1: know where to land yet because we're seventy four days
Speaker 1: in or whatever it is, and it just looks like
Speaker 1: utter chaos everywhere. My hope is it's with the goal,
Speaker 1: like you said, to bring jobs back, to bring manufacturing back,
Speaker 1: and to do what we do as individuals, and that
Speaker 1: is to get the best bang for a buck and
Speaker 1: not be abused. And if the country is being abused
Speaker 1: and paying more than its fair share, I would hope
Speaker 1: someone would look out for us how that ends up.
Speaker 1: I don't think we have the fortitude for it really
Speaker 1: as the American people. You know what, Joel, we are
Speaker 1: no longer Americans, we're Americans. Well, I feel like we're
Speaker 1: looking for reasons to not build ourselves up sometimes and
Speaker 1: it's like, because it's gonna suck, But we buy a
Speaker 1: lot of crap. You save this all the time on
Speaker 1: the show. We buy a lot of crap that we
Speaker 1: don't need. Well, that is true, maybe we stop buying crap.
Speaker 3: But I also I also think and the Treasury Secretary
Speaker 3: I believe, was the one who said something like, well,
Speaker 3: the American dream isn't just about buying more stuff, And
Speaker 3: I get where what he's getting at, But then I
Speaker 3: don't fully agree. I think part of the American dream
Speaker 3: is like I think about the bike that the e
Speaker 3: bike that I ride around on with my kids. That's
Speaker 3: part of my American dream, and that's an item that
Speaker 3: I purchase, right, And I get that, like we all
Speaker 3: own too much stuff, and that's something that I talk
Speaker 3: about regularly. But yeah, I do think that that cheap
Speaker 3: things are part it does need to at least some
Speaker 3: of us able to choose the way we want to
Speaker 3: live our lives. And I do think that that widespread
Speaker 3: tariffs is going to reduce the how much cheap stuff
Speaker 3: we're able to get. And again, it's not about accumulating
Speaker 3: more and more, but it is about access to goods
Speaker 3: that aren't incredibly expensive. And so this I agree too,
Speaker 3: that the Trump arrangement syndrome or whatever the people are,
Speaker 3: that's the one that gets Yeah, I certainly.
Speaker 2: Don't want to be like that either.
Speaker 3: And I do think that the best possible solution or
Speaker 3: outcome here is if this is actually a bargaining chip
Speaker 3: for countries who have had higher tariffs against goods that
Speaker 3: we send. Yeah, but if the goal is to keep
Speaker 3: tariffs around because tariffs ultimately are going to make us wealthier.
Speaker 3: I think that's a misunderstanding of economics. And if widespread
Speaker 3: tariffs remain for months and years, then I do think
Speaker 3: that we'll all feel the economic pain. And obviously the
Speaker 3: stock market today is kind of reacting to the ARF
Speaker 3: news not very well. They also believe that this is
Speaker 3: going to lead to reduced choice for consumers, less wealth
Speaker 3: and enhanced There was a study from the Yale Budget Lab.
Speaker 3: They basically predicted that the average family is going to
Speaker 3: lose something like three to four thousand dollars in purchasing
Speaker 3: power if tariffs like this hang around. And I'd see
Speaker 3: that as a distinct possibility.
Speaker 2: Well, I you know, let's be honest, Joel.
Speaker 1: As much as we'd like stocks and all of that
Speaker 1: and trading to be an intellectual exercise, it's not.
Speaker 2: It's an emotional one, that's true.
Speaker 1: So I mean that really in a time where the
Speaker 1: country is at its peak emotional instability, So it's that's
Speaker 1: kind of a hard one. All right, We'll be back
Speaker 1: with more of Joel Lowe's Lars Guard. That's what I
Speaker 1: meant to say. I will tell you this, Joel. I
Speaker 1: found this early on. You're a younger guy than I am.
Speaker 1: They make these bikes that you can peddle, so that
Speaker 1: might save you a couple bucks, and they're very inexpensive.
Speaker 3: So I'm down for both the e bikes and the
Speaker 3: ones that you that you physically have to use.
Speaker 1: So everything has to have an E in front of
Speaker 1: it nowadays. Okay, E toilet, you're just E fridge. Let
Speaker 1: just get a bike, Joel.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Job switching, you know, there was a wild Joel that
Speaker 1: we started hearing, and I think it was I think
Speaker 1: it was just after the pandemic maybe where people were,
Speaker 1: you know, hopping around trying to find more lucrative jobs.
Speaker 1: They weren't necessarily doing the you know, two year stint
Speaker 1: somewhere and then going. They were just bouncing around and
Speaker 1: that might not be the best case financially these days.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's amazing how for a hot minute
Speaker 3: there you as an employee could kind of call the shots.
Speaker 3: You had this insane ability that rarely exists to kind
Speaker 3: of not.
Speaker 2: Dictate your pay completely.
Speaker 3: But the job market was so out of sorts post COVID,
Speaker 3: and that was because I think a lot of people.
Speaker 3: They took their their stimulus money and they said, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm going to work less or I'm not going to
Speaker 3: work at all. For a little period of time, we
Speaker 3: just had a little bit more financial flexibility, and so
Speaker 3: some folks took themselves out of the job market and
Speaker 3: that just created a really really tight job market that
Speaker 3: allowed for some folks to just really make a lot
Speaker 3: more money by moving down the street. Typically, you know,
Speaker 3: you go to your annual pay raise and it's like
Speaker 3: you might get a cost of living adjustment that goes
Speaker 3: it's in that two to three percent range, although those
Speaker 3: have had to go up in recent years too because
Speaker 3: of inflation. But yeah, people, it's amazing how much more
Speaker 3: people were able to command by jumping down down the street.
Speaker 3: I had so many listeners calling and be like, I'm
Speaker 3: getting paid twenty thirty, fifty percent more because I started
Speaker 3: applying for jobs elsewhere, and these employers are so dang
Speaker 3: desperate that I feels like you're able to pull off
Speaker 3: a heist. But that that job market no longer exists.
Speaker 3: It's fully gone at this point.
Speaker 2: So where are we.
Speaker 1: Is it back in the hands of the employer or
Speaker 1: are there just not jobs no.
Speaker 3: No, I would say, yeah, it's more in the hands
Speaker 3: of the employer. And I will say with the talking
Speaker 3: about tariffs just a second ago, that is creating more
Speaker 3: uncertainty about the future for some of these businesses. And
Speaker 3: so some businesses are saying, listen, we're just on a
Speaker 3: hiring freeze right now, or maybe their raises aren't going
Speaker 3: up as much as they predicted they would give to
Speaker 3: their workers. So I'm not saying that you can't jump
Speaker 3: ship and get paid more elsewhere.
Speaker 2: That's certainly still possible.
Speaker 3: It's just not like you know, shooting fish in a
Speaker 3: barrel like it was in twenty twenty two and twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three. So the post COVID job market is gone.
Speaker 2: We're in a new era.
Speaker 3: We still have a low overall unemployment rate, which is great.
Speaker 3: It's just that when you shoot your resume out there
Speaker 3: and you're trying to find something new, the rate of
Speaker 3: pay that you can exp you know, maybe you're still
Speaker 3: thinking like it was it's a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: You can't expect to get some sort of significant rays
Speaker 3: And it's kind of crazy to look at the line.
Speaker 3: The gap just closed significantly between hey before when I
Speaker 3: jump ship, I was able to make a lot more. Now,
Speaker 3: if I go to try to find a job elsewhere,
Speaker 3: the rate of pay is essentially going to be equal
Speaker 3: to what I'm finding now. And I think one thing
Speaker 3: that people need to think about is the secondary benefits
Speaker 3: that are offered through an employer, because those can make
Speaker 3: the big difference. So let's say the rate of pay
Speaker 3: is the exact same, I'm gonna jump over here. I'm
Speaker 3: going to make seventy grand. I was making seventy grand before. Well,
Speaker 3: what are the perks are there thrown in there? Because
Speaker 3: that can make a big difference, whether it's a bigger
Speaker 3: match to the four oh one k, whether it's a
Speaker 3: more generous healthcare plan, something like that. Think through those
Speaker 3: things because those matter even more. I think in this
Speaker 3: kind of job environment, I.
Speaker 2: Couldn't agree more those.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people look past those and
Speaker 1: they are not equal. And even the person you're working
Speaker 1: for or with makes a difference. And it's worth money
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean you have to work with with Kono,
Speaker 3: and that I think can be really tough. You got
Speaker 3: to get paid more to work, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Uh, sometimes it's a kick in the nuts. I'll be honest,
Speaker 1: and sometimes she doesn't really pay off. So that's like
Speaker 1: a fifty thousand dollars a year punch to the gut
Speaker 1: for me. But then you bounce that out with Amy,
Speaker 1: who's a doll and, yeah, you kind.
Speaker 2: Of worked your way through it all. That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Joel lars Guard heard Sundays noon to two pm how
Speaker 1: to Money. You can also find him how to Money
Speaker 1: Joel on social media. Thanks Joel, always good to talk
Speaker 1: to you, buddy.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Neil