Speaker 1: Always stronger than the setback, the comeback.
Speaker 2: The greatest comeback of all time.
Speaker 1: Here America's comeback fifty five KRC the talk station, the
Speaker 1: Shribato six here if you about GARCD talk station regular listeners.
Speaker 3: No, it is that time of week every Monday at eight,
Speaker 3: beenning around eight or if five we talked to Brian James.
Speaker 3: All were financials Brian James, and do that thing we
Speaker 3: call money Monday. Welcome back, Brian James. Hope you had
Speaker 3: a nice weekend. Get to enjoy this.
Speaker 2: Good morning, and and you two, and welcome to NFL
Speaker 2: off season. We need to officially start hearing what the
Speaker 2: Bengals may or may not do, which probably means we
Speaker 2: won't hear anything for a while.
Speaker 3: And we'll get to hear a lot about the stadium
Speaker 3: lease negotiation. I suppose to little side show in connection
Speaker 3: with you day yeah right, whatever, anyhow, beginning our first
Speaker 3: top of your conversation, appreciate all worth financial learning out
Speaker 3: for our listeners. Every Monday at this time, more tariffs,
Speaker 3: this time on aluminum steel.
Speaker 2: Tariffs, tariffs and more tariffs. It just seems to be
Speaker 2: didn't we just talk about this, Brian? I think a
Speaker 2: week ago. Right now, at this moment, we were talking
Speaker 2: about tariff's SATs.
Speaker 3: You know what, next week, at this moment, we'll probably
Speaker 3: be talking about them too.
Speaker 2: It seems to be the theme of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: So quick review. So this is gonna sound a little
Speaker 2: bit familiar, but let's talk about what we did talk
Speaker 2: about last week. So last week, the announcement was that
Speaker 2: we'd announced the United States announced new tariffs against Canada.
Speaker 2: That was twenty five percent tariffs on most imports, just
Speaker 2: just just a wide range of everything, and you and
Speaker 2: I went through a list of weirdness of stuff that
Speaker 2: was on there, and then also at only a ten
Speaker 2: percent tariff on Canadian energy products that was there was
Speaker 2: an announcement there that Canada was going to come back
Speaker 2: and slap some tariffs back on the US in exchange.
Speaker 2: And then everybody decided, hey, wait a minute, let's chill out,
Speaker 2: let's give it a month, and let's just kind of
Speaker 2: see how things go. Let's just all be friends. So
Speaker 2: today the news is that the United States is going
Speaker 2: to impose a twenty five percent tariff on all steel
Speaker 2: and aluminum imports from Canada and Mexico, and by the way,
Speaker 2: let's not forget why are we targeting Canada and Mexico
Speaker 2: because there are our friends, right, we want to target
Speaker 2: our enemy that seems to have changed. Right. Canada and
Speaker 2: Mexico are by far the largest trading partners of the
Speaker 2: United States. So in twenty twenty three, we had eight
Speaker 2: hundred billion dollars worth of goods and services exchange with Mexico,
Speaker 2: seven seventy three with Canada, and then it starts to
Speaker 2: drop off. China was five hundred and seventy five billion,
Speaker 2: then Germany at two hundred and on down from there.
Speaker 2: So we are basically slugging our best friends right in
Speaker 2: the mouth to see how they react. This is a
Speaker 2: trade war. It's what it looks like, is what it
Speaker 2: feels like. And we'll see if President Trump is able
Speaker 2: to get what he wants out of this, will we
Speaker 2: stick to it. We'll see.
Speaker 3: Well, the original tariffs we were previously talking about that
Speaker 3: got put on hold for thirty days. President Trump specifically
Speaker 3: stated it was an effort to get them to pony
Speaker 3: up some help on border security, and in response, both
Speaker 3: Mexico and Canada said, yeah, we will, and they allocated
Speaker 3: resources and troops to go to the various borders and
Speaker 3: help us control the illegal immigrant population. And so that's
Speaker 3: why pause the tariffs. This doesn't isn't connected with any
Speaker 3: specific announcement that I saw in cases like we are
Speaker 3: doing this because fill in the blank. It's just because
Speaker 3: we're importing the steel and aluminum from other countries, is it?
Speaker 2: You think?
Speaker 3: Has it been expressed somewhere that is Trump's hope that
Speaker 3: this will bring back the manufacturing of steel and aluminum
Speaker 3: in our country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that underlies a lot of the
Speaker 2: decisions you're going to see this administration make at the
Speaker 2: end of the day.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we want to stop the bad stuff from flowing
Speaker 2: across the borders, and this is a great way to
Speaker 2: get attention and do it. But another goal, and I
Speaker 2: don't want to call it a secondary goal, it's just
Speaker 2: another goal, is to impose the United States a little
Speaker 2: more in the world order of how these goods and
Speaker 2: services get traded. So we are we are an expensive nation.
Speaker 2: You and I talk about this all the time. It's
Speaker 2: expensive to produce things here because of all the rules
Speaker 2: and regulations we have. Some are good and should be there,
Speaker 2: some are a little probably a little overdone, and maybe
Speaker 2: need to be reviewed, but currently all we're trying to
Speaker 2: do because it's going to be harder to get all
Speaker 2: the all the regulation and all that stuff out. It's
Speaker 2: going to take more time, a lot more time to
Speaker 2: reduce the impact of that. But we're simply making it
Speaker 2: more expensive for other countries to compete with us, and
Speaker 2: that to me, that's a band aid, right, that's simply saying,
Speaker 2: in the short run, we can just make it more
Speaker 2: expensive for other countries to push their goods into the
Speaker 2: United States while in the background we're trying to reduce
Speaker 2: That's why you're hearing about this department's gone and this
Speaker 2: one's under review. Whether this stuff is constitutional. Who knows,
Speaker 2: not a constant constitutional law expert here. But the goal
Speaker 2: there would be to reduce the long term cost of
Speaker 2: producing these goods in the United States. In the short run,
Speaker 2: we're going to increase our competitiveness by just making it
Speaker 2: more expensive for other countries to compete here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I don't know if to get to point B,
Speaker 3: which is making it easier to manufacture here, I mean,
Speaker 3: do we have to go through the pain? I don't know.
Speaker 3: Trump's got that. You know, if every one regulation that's
Speaker 3: implementing got get rid of. It used to be two.
Speaker 3: But maybe the ten regulations that we're getting rid of
Speaker 3: might impact the cost of doing business in the United States.
Speaker 3: I mean, we've created this expense here. We've got OSHA,
Speaker 3: we've got EPA, We've got all these rules and regulations.
Speaker 3: We've got you know, union mandates in terms of contracts
Speaker 3: they negotiated for you really expensive hourly wages and mandatory
Speaker 3: work conditions and everything just makes it more expensive. Of course,
Speaker 3: if you can use slave labor like in China to
Speaker 3: manufacturer steel, of course it's going to be a lot cheaper.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, we have kind of done it
Speaker 3: to ourselves in many respects. Not to negate your legitimate
Speaker 3: point that some of these rules and regulations are important,
Speaker 3: it's just there's too many of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right, and we've never really had at least
Speaker 2: I can't think of in my adult memory. I'm about
Speaker 2: fifty years old, and I cannot think of my adult
Speaker 2: memory of any kind of major review or overhaul. Whenever
Speaker 2: the idea surfaced in Congress to get some of these
Speaker 2: things cleaned up, then it would be quickly shot down
Speaker 2: from the other side. I look at the social security
Speaker 2: argument we talked, but that doesn't work either, And bills
Speaker 2: hit the floor every year, several times a year to
Speaker 2: actually address that problem, but they're very easily shot down
Speaker 2: by either side. Well, now all of a sudden, there
Speaker 2: appears to be a third side that doesn't really have
Speaker 2: to cowtow to the other two sides. Now again, whether
Speaker 2: this stuff holds up in court, that's going to be
Speaker 2: the challenge, because there's some things coming out of DC
Speaker 2: right now that have nothing to do and go completely
Speaker 2: counter to the Constitution. Whether they're good moves bad moves,
Speaker 2: somebody is going to stand up and say, hey, this
Speaker 2: does not go again, go with the words that are
Speaker 2: in our constitution that we all agreed was a pretty
Speaker 2: good idea a few hundred years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And like all things, ultimately litigation will result and
Speaker 3: we'll finally get some answer when it finally ultimately reaches
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court if it goes out high. But you know,
Speaker 3: you're talking multiple years for any of these things to
Speaker 3: see the light of some final decision.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I think that's why Trump's taking the approach
Speaker 2: that he is, which is just let's just slam the
Speaker 2: door on these things. Whatever happens, maybe the glass in
Speaker 2: the door breaks, who cares, We'll clean it up. I'm
Speaker 2: not waving the flag saying this is a great idea.
Speaker 2: It is definitely a different idea, and it's a different
Speaker 2: approach sort of that scorch and burn. Let's burn everything down,
Speaker 2: tear it all apart, and we will rebuild the stuff
Speaker 2: that we have to rebuild and leave alone the stuff
Speaker 2: that apparently wasn't necessary in the first place. A lot
Speaker 2: of that comes from Elon Musk. That that is Elon
Speaker 2: Musk's way. If you if you read his biography, if
Speaker 2: you see how he built those businesses, he would he
Speaker 2: had very strict rules about same as you just mentioned.
Speaker 2: If we're going to put one rule in place, we're
Speaker 2: gonna get rid of five others. Every rule he creates
Speaker 2: must have somebody's name attached to it, so that ten
Speaker 2: years from now we can go back to that person
Speaker 2: to say, why does this rule exist and do we
Speaker 2: still need it, versus, like you said, regulations that have
Speaker 2: been in place for decades that may or may not
Speaker 2: have any application anymore.
Speaker 3: Right, and many of them redundant, many of them you know,
Speaker 3: just outlandishly expensive, too saying that's the keying. You got
Speaker 3: to pay a legal department to pay attention to the
Speaker 3: CODA FED federal regulations. And for every hour spent by
Speaker 3: a lawyer, that is profit that's being taken away from
Speaker 3: the company and time spent on something that most prudent
Speaker 3: businesses really wish they didn't have to spend any time on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's the American way. The legal companies and
Speaker 2: now they realize this is a huge opportunity. The more
Speaker 2: the messier this is, the more confusing it is, the
Speaker 2: more profit can be made. You know, look at look
Speaker 2: at the TurboTax people. Oh, I know the biggest lobbies
Speaker 2: in DC. Let's like people confused and unable to do
Speaker 2: their own taxes.
Speaker 3: Oh, if I could lay hands on a problem, I
Speaker 3: think that would be the first place I go. The
Speaker 3: United States tax code. It's insane and all it is
Speaker 3: used for as a vehicle for the federal government to
Speaker 3: manipulate businesses into doing things that they otherwise wouldn't do
Speaker 3: as prudent in businesses. Any pause, We're going to take
Speaker 3: an early, slightly early break eight fourteen. We'll bring him
Speaker 3: back and we'll talk about your insurance rates are going
Speaker 3: up stating the obvious, but why also how much you
Speaker 3: planned on spending on Valentine's Day. One more segment with
Speaker 3: Brian James this morning, be right back fifty five KARC
Speaker 3: the talk station eight eighteen fifty five KRCD Talk Station
Speaker 3: Brian Thomas with Brian James from Maulworth Mancher doing Money Monday. Wow,
Speaker 3: Insurance r. I know insurance rates are going through the
Speaker 3: roof ran. One might think immediately that it's because of
Speaker 3: the natural disasters. You know, wildfires in California, you got
Speaker 3: hurricanes hitting the Florida and you know running through in
Speaker 3: the flooding in North Carolina, and all this obviously has
Speaker 3: to be paid for by insurance companies, assuming insurance companies
Speaker 3: are actually ensuring these these these dwellings. But as I understand,
Speaker 3: it's large part the growing insurance rates are because of
Speaker 3: litigation lawsuits at least a corner to this article from
Speaker 3: Fox Business, I have Brian me there you are, yeah, go.
Speaker 2: Ahead, there we are, sorry about that. Yeah. So they're
Speaker 2: calling it the Torque tax. The average American household is
Speaker 2: going to pay about forty two hundred dollars a year
Speaker 2: through their premiums due to these litigation costs, which is
Speaker 2: simply that that's just how we've grown as a society.
Speaker 2: So we've always been a litigious society because at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, in the good old United States,
Speaker 2: a profit margin Suing people is a great way to
Speaker 2: make money, right, we all kind of know this, but
Speaker 2: it's gotten worse and worse. Just like anything else any anywhere,
Speaker 2: it is recognized that a profit can be made, a
Speaker 2: profit will be made, and it will be maximized and optimized.
Speaker 2: So there are companies out there who solely exist to
Speaker 2: take on lawsuits for people. For example, if you're if
Speaker 2: you're involved in some kind of a medical malpractice suit,
Speaker 2: there are plenty of law firms out there that have
Speaker 2: investors behind them who are investing in the research of
Speaker 2: that lawsuit. The person who was wronged by it will
Speaker 2: financially benefit, of course if there's a win, but obviously
Speaker 2: getting a much smaller percentage. These are literally like they're
Speaker 2: starting to look like little startup companies. Right, something happens
Speaker 2: to somebody and there's and there's a somewhat clear uh,
Speaker 2: you know, medical malpractice type of a suit. Well, let's
Speaker 2: not just sue the medical provider behind it. Let's get
Speaker 2: as much as we possibly can, regardless of the impact.
Speaker 2: This is just skyrocketing, and it's literally raising your and
Speaker 2: my insurance premiums because the insurance companies have to react
Speaker 2: to that as well as of course they have their
Speaker 2: own profit motivations as well. So there's a lot going
Speaker 2: on out there that is going to continue to raise
Speaker 2: these costs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I was really you know, I was a
Speaker 3: litigation attorney for sixteen years. I involved I did defense work,
Speaker 3: you know, towards liability or product liability that a lot
Speaker 3: of those defended companies like Cooper Industries for injuries that
Speaker 3: were claimed to be as a consequence of something that
Speaker 3: their product did. But this idea that that attorneys are
Speaker 3: expanding the expectations of the basically the jury pool by
Speaker 3: advertising my client got twenty million dollars from this auto
Speaker 3: accident and then going into court making wild, outlandish claims
Speaker 3: for damages. Because you know, you got to start someplace.
Speaker 3: It's like a negotiation. It's like Trump start now, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm going I'm going to buy Greenland. Maybe just get
Speaker 3: this the conversation started about how we can improve relations
Speaker 3: with it or whatever. You got to start somewhere, but
Speaker 3: they start these crazy amounts and juries get it in
Speaker 3: their mind that, well, that's kind of normal, but it's not.
Speaker 3: There's no connection with these wild claims of damage to
Speaker 3: the reality of the injury that that person allegedly suffered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you're right, those eight and sometimes nine digit
Speaker 2: jury verdicts are becoming normalized, and that's why you have
Speaker 2: these signs shoved in your face. You're just trying to
Speaker 2: drive to work and run to the grocery store, and
Speaker 2: you're seeing billboards that advertise this, We're seeing it on
Speaker 2: social media. It's just a way that this industry. Then
Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and call this an industry.
Speaker 2: It's a low cottage industry, I would say, Yeah, is
Speaker 2: affecting how you, as a potential juror might react. So,
Speaker 2: in other words, when you finally do land in that
Speaker 2: jury box, as all of us will probably once in
Speaker 2: our lives, you won't blink at the idea of a
Speaker 2: ten million dollar verdict that itself has a has a nickname.
Speaker 2: Nuclear verdicts is what they're calling jury verdicts of ten
Speaker 2: million dollars or more. The top one hundred of these
Speaker 2: have increased by about three hundred and fifty percent in
Speaker 2: the last six years. Overall personal injury verdicts since twenty
Speaker 2: ten are up three hundred and nineteen percent, so we're
Speaker 2: seeing a huge increase. Again, it's just a place, it's
Speaker 2: it's just a new business. There are literally investors here, yeah,
Speaker 2: hoarding law firms, like just like you would you you
Speaker 2: would raise funds for a technology company or something like that.
Speaker 2: They're supporting law firms who will go chase and prosecute
Speaker 2: these quote unquote opportunities.
Speaker 3: You know what, this seems to me a just a
Speaker 3: screaming cry for some uh some ethics reforms and some
Speaker 3: rules governing the practice of law. Because this article points
Speaker 3: out that foreign parties, for example, the Chinese Communist Party
Speaker 3: are some of the investors who finance these lawsuits. I
Speaker 3: mean the idea of some outside person financing and then
Speaker 3: glombing onto some chunk of the award which should have
Speaker 3: either gone to the plaintiff lawyers who did the legal work,
Speaker 3: or to their client who they represent, but that they
Speaker 3: have to shell out a chunk of this jury verty
Speaker 3: can give to some third party investor. That just seems
Speaker 3: to be just completely unethical. But who am I but a.
Speaker 2: Priorigation rationally thinking American. Unfortunately, we just put an administration
Speaker 2: in place that is not going to lift a finger
Speaker 2: to do that. Because to fight that, because that's going
Speaker 2: to be more regulation, we're gonna gonna be going in
Speaker 2: the opposite direction. You're going to hear more and more
Speaker 2: about this.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know that it requires federal legislation. This
Speaker 3: requires like state bar associations to enact rules that say
Speaker 3: you just can't do that. As a lawyer in the
Speaker 3: state practicing here, that is prohibited period. It could be
Speaker 3: done grassroots efforts have to get the plaintiff's bar behind it.
Speaker 3: Ha ha A good luck with that, all right, Brian,
Speaker 3: The answer for me is nothing. I may buy a
Speaker 3: card to celebrate the day of our engagement, but you know,
Speaker 3: Valentine's Day is just like any other day of the
Speaker 3: week from my perspective, and it's just an excuse for
Speaker 3: people to feel like they've got to go out and
Speaker 3: spend a lot of money, and apparently they do.
Speaker 2: They do. Indeed, so we're expected to spend twenty five
Speaker 2: point eight billion dollars fees in this. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: lot a lot of money. That chocolate just got expensive,
Speaker 2: and we'll spend an average of one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: five dollars on gifts and experiences. Now, this is this
Speaker 2: blows my mind. I hope Michelle James is not expecting
Speaker 2: one hundred and eighty five dollars worth of gifts and
Speaker 2: experience here. If you take she would flap me straight
Speaker 2: across the face if I did that anything.
Speaker 3: That's why the first place, right, she's prudent, she's frugal.
Speaker 3: She knows the value of a dollar, and she has
Speaker 3: low expectations that you're gonna go out and shot a
Speaker 3: boatload of money for well, just another day.
Speaker 2: She is so frugal that the first time I bought
Speaker 2: her flowers a million years ago, she yelled at me
Speaker 2: because flowers are expensive and they die and we've got
Speaker 2: more important things to spend money on.
Speaker 3: Sounds like you, very well the same kind of woman
Speaker 3: as mine. My wife is very frugal and prudent. And
Speaker 3: uh yes, that's that's wonderful. So maybe reflect on that.
Speaker 3: And if you get yelled at for not spending a
Speaker 3: whole bunch of money on Valentine's Day, you might want
Speaker 3: to reflect on that too.
Speaker 2: Brian, I really am not too worried that that's gonna
Speaker 2: be it.
Speaker 3: You have be buff, brother, you have e buff. That's
Speaker 3: why I'll be married thirty three years in June. It's
Speaker 3: a one of the big reasons anyway. Brian James always
Speaker 3: appreciate our conversations. And we'll do it again next Monday
Speaker 3: for another edition of Money Monday. And thanksgeting to all
Speaker 3: word for loading you out.
Speaker 2: You bet enjoy it. Every week we'll talk to you
Speaker 2: them all.
Speaker 3: Right, look forward to it eight twenty five right now.
Speaker 3: Coming up next, Mandy Agunna Sekhara with the book Y'all Fired,
Speaker 3: Southern Bell's Guide to Restoring Federalism and Draining the Swamp.
Speaker 3: We talked with her last October, bringing her back on
Speaker 3: to talk about what she thinks about Elon Musk and
Speaker 3: the Doge Department and the draining of the swamp. I
Speaker 3: hope he can stick around.
Speaker 2: Fifty five KRC.
Speaker 3: The simply