COT 112 === Jeff Kikel: [00:00:00] Hello audience.  It’s Jeff and Ron here with the sense of  

things once again for another week.  Big week. We took a week off during   the holiday and all kinds of things changed  with the big beautiful bill passing. Today  

Ron’s got some really cool stuff on just  some interesting facts about the markets.

Especially, a half year. Here’s where we’re at,  but also looking at an analysis of where the  

market, when it hits a high and then when we get  smacked down how long it takes to get back to that  

high and how long it runs. So really interesting  analysis from there. I’ll finish up today with a,  

an analysis, very high level initially of the  big beautiful Bill Act and what’s going on.

With that and what are the components  of it. And then over the next several   weeks I’ll interject some things in to get  some more details because yeah, it’s just,  

there’s a lot [00:01:00] to go through. So hang  on, we’ll be right back with you in just a second.

Jeff Kikel:  

Hey folks, thanks for joining  us on the sense of things. Ron, how are you doing, my friend? Good morning.

Ron Lang: Doing well. So we had a week hiatus  there for Yep. The holiday. And of course   nothing happened. It was quite boring. No news,  nothing going on in the market or the world.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And and Texas here,  central Texas, we got pounded with rain. Oh my God. That flood, I cannot believe.  Har Yeah. Har goes out to the 187 people  

who are still missing and the a hundred and. 20  that we’ve recovered at this point. I couldn’t

Ron Lang: imagine being the first responders  going out and trying to find people. It’s Jeff Kikel: insane. And just some unbelievable  heroes during this whole time period.

There was one specifically one of the [00:02:00]  Coast Guard rescue swimmers who personally rescued  

like 120 people. Just unbelievable. Heroism  during this whole thing, and it was a mess.  

I’ve canoed down that river when it’s normal and  it’s a bear to begin with. And when you put that  

much water in it, it’s literally, it starts at  a mountain or a hill and it just funnels down.

And unfortunately, that storm laid right  on top of where that mountain was and just.  

Funneled that water through, and it went  up like 35 feet. I had have to turn off Ron Lang: the news because  Yeah. Look, the news that,  

they want to put on stories that pull your  heartstrings. Yeah. I couldn’t listen anymore. It was yeah, it was just, it’s just so sad. Yeah,

Jeff Kikel: it’s horrible. Yeah,  we’re gonna be in central Texas.   We’re gonna be recovering for a while.  Fortunately our house sits way up on  

a hill. If we flooded. The rest of the  world would be in trouble. But but yeah,   it people I can count probably 20 or 30 friends  who were really [00:03:00] affected by this.

So heart goes out to ’em and hopefully they   were able to recover quickly. So  what you got for us, hopefully,

Ron Lang: besides the one big beautiful  bill, which is all porked up. Of course.  

Yep. We got end of quarter, end of half.  We got earnings coming up. Lots of good   information and of course couldn’t get all  the information this week, but for next week.

Of course, what did more of those market  strategists do? Change the price targets  

for of course. So this would be the third time,  if you think about it, since December in six  

months. Yeah. In December. Then they ch a lot of  changed again during the IFF tantrum April. Yep.  

And so it’ll be interesting to see who  you really wanna follow and go from there.

And then of course we’ll post what we  did. ’cause we didn’t change anything. Jeff Kikel: Nope. We’re, I’m not changing anything  till year end. I think we’ll be right where I  

think we’re at. So I hear you ready. All right,  let’s get going. You’ve got some fun stuff for us.

Ron Lang: Yeah. So some fun  facts. We did five last week. We did [00:04:00] five. We’re gonna do  five this week. If you could pronounce this  

piss and throw phobia is the fear  of thrusting people due to bad past  

experiences. Just in case. Just in case you  know some people, you know who they are now.

Jeff Kikel: I like pissed down the road, so I’m  pissed at you. So I don’t trust you anymore. I get it. Totally.

Ron Lang: Yep. Intelligent people are more  forgetful than those with average intelligence.

Jeff Kikel: Oh, I can clearly tell you  that. I can clearly tell you that ’cause   I am forgetful as hell. So tells me  I’m above average until, oh, you’re

Ron Lang: a 200 iq, that’s  for sure. Yeah. Now actually   I knew this because I do drink coconut water.

Okay. At least four or five times a week.  But drinking coconut water regularly helps   you lose weight. It hasn’t done that much  for me. But it reduces cramps and proves  

heart while providing you the vitamins  and minerals. I actually went out now   and bought coconut chunks. Okay, you can buy  a package now and just eat ’em like a snack.

Jeff Kikel: [00:05:00] I drink rum and coconut   water and it makes me dance  better. So I’m just saying,

Ron Lang: okay. Hey, look. Whatever works for  you my friend. Alright, a scorpion. ’cause we  

got those out here. Oh God corp. We got a ton ’em  in our place up to six days and wow. Can survive  

a whole year without food. I’ll tell you,  that’s a cheap date if I’ve ever heard one. No kidding. It could climb almost any surface.  It glows under ultraviolet light. I did not  

know that about scorpions. I did learn that  the big scorpions. Can’t hurt you as much,  

but it’s the small scorpions  that are the dangerous ones. Jeff Kikel: Yeah, I was I’m a big  fan of of a show called Expedition X,  

which is it’s on the Discovery Channel  and they were down in Mexico doing a,  

an investigation like in the Mayan  ruins or something like that.

There is a cave and the main guy is he’s gonna go  up to the cave. And so he flashes a ultraviolet  

light [00:06:00] and it’s just literally like  scorpions everywhere. And it’s no, I don’t think

Ron Lang: so. I’m not going in  there. They’re ominous looking.   If you kind, they are. It looks  like a land lobster, but yeah.

Jeff Kikel: It was funny. One night  it was probably about two months ago,   my cat, who’s lazy is all get out. Usually he’s  asleep at night and I’m, I was sitting there,  

getting ready to go upstairs, getting RT to  take upstairs, and I, he gets down off of his  

little bed and comes and he is sitting there  and he is like sitting right on the floor. And I like, why are you sitting there? And  I looked down, there’s a damn scorpion. So  

I would’ve stepped on the scorpion. Had  the doofus not woken up for once ever. Ron Lang: Oh, I hear you.  I don’t know how big they  

are by you, but by me. You need the  exterminators to come out and Yeah. And keep ’em out. Keep ’em outta  the house. You may see them outside,  

but Yeah, we usually can keep ’em  out. I have almost three years. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. It’s just been, when  we have rain, that’s what gets all of  

them inside the house. They all start to try  and come into the house. So [00:07:00] we we   were constantly spraying around our doors  and everything, any of the entry points.

Ron Lang: Gotcha. Alright. The last fact is  adding vodka to your shampoo can strengthen  

your hair, prevent dry scalp and stop  dandruff. I am a vodka tequila man. Jeff Kikel: I have not tried this.  Once again, rum, coconut water. I’m,  

I’m sure it’ll, I’m sure I could pour it over  my head and I’d have wonderful hair then too.

Ron Lang: I’ve been thinning,  so can I. Alright, so I thought,   actually I had this chart two weeks ago  and it’s actually serendipitous timing.  

Yesterday Nvidia hit the 4 trillion  mark and if you go back 30 years,  

go back 10 years. Think about how long ago  and what happened 10 years, 30 years ago. There’s only been four companies that have  dominated as the largest market cap. Each  

year for the last 30 years, and we all know about  ge and for the most part, they [00:08:00] flamed  

out around. Around the millennium, right? 2000.  Yeah. That was when they pulled back and then  

they just became one of those, what I call like  the GM or then the US Steel companies where Yeah.

Know, they weren’t being inventive. They  weren’t being what they do in order for   them to a really true get, get intrinsic value  of their company, they had to break it up.

Jeff Kikel: They did. And at  that time the problem was the   value of the company was their finance arm.

And, in the end it was a house of cards. That  all pretty much blew up on ’em between their   long-term care, arm and everything. It was just  a mess. And yeah, you’ve broken it up and yeah,  

it’s not as big of a company anymore, but  the components are actually pretty decent. Ron Lang: Yep. Now ExxonMobil there, there’s a  reason why they had that seven year stretch to  

actually, two reasons why. Number one, Exxon  merged with Mobil, or Mobil merged with Exxon,  

that was number one. So they created way  bigger, but also number two. Couple of  

decades. Oil always vacillated. In the  [00:09:00] 25 to $40 range per barrel.

2005 was the first year it breached the  $50 level. And if everybody remembers 2007,  

early eight is when it hit one 50,  pulled back. Yeah. And it covered   between 80 and a hundred to 105 for  several years. So that, and again,  

that’s why I don’t invest in energy  companies because they’re so pegg to oil. Yeah. Now is ExxonMobil. That  much smaller of a company? No,  

it’s because oil is, we’ve been drilling  and we’re hovering in the 65 to 75 range.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. And  yeah, it’s interesting. I’ll   do a little analysis. I was  doing some analysis of the,  

of the tariffs that whipped out this week,  the tariff letters and stuff like that. So I’ll share that next week because I, it’s  a lot. Yeah. ‘Cause I wanted to see what do  

we import from a lot of these countries?  And the vast majority of the ones that   got smacked pretty hard are oil producing  countries. We import mostly oil from ’em.  

So Of course, so it has really no effect on us  because we can [00:10:00] produce more oil here.

It’s really not gonna have a much of  an effect on us from that import side. Ron Lang: Nope. All right. So I love to show this  every quarter. We took a look at. Where there were  

gonna be some real potential opportunities.  Healthcare was my number one pick. It was  

doing pretty good up until the tariff tantrum in  March, April Swooned and has been on a rocket,  

I shouldn’t say rocket, but it’s been coming back  pretty quickly over the last six to eight weeks.

So even though healthcare is down at the  bottom, I truly think it’ll be a top three,   top four sector. Yeah, industrials. Have shocked  me. ’cause if you look right at the last,  

how many years here, if you look at the last  15 years industrials weren’t even in the top  

three. Or they were twice and early on, but they  haven’t even been anywhere in the last 10 years.

And in the top three, and here they are, year  to date, 12.7%. I think that’s interesting.  

I’d wanna [00:11:00] look at some of the  companies that are in there. But. I don’t   know what you think utilities have been on  a roll because of the data centers and ai.

Jeff Kikel: I personally think some  of the industrial it was largely a   lot of that tax the depreciation type stuff.

A lot of these companies are gonna have  the ability to build a crap ton of,   plants and things like that and they’re gonna get,  accelerated depreciation on ’em and everything  

else. So I think that’s a large portion of it.  And, I think a lot of the onshoring. Back here,  

it’s, it improves jobs and I think people  are rewarding these companies a little bit.

Ron Lang: Yep. No I agree. So we’ll have to look  at this again. Yeah, interesting that utilities Jeff Kikel: are hanging in there. Yeah. I’m not

Ron Lang: gonna say they’ve shocked me, but,  certainly, with the financials, they’re really   not gonna make money until the Fed lowers  another, at least half to maybe a full point.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: Just to for money. I know it lowers  the their interest rates for borrowing and   things like that. But they’re, [00:12:00]  they just started making some real money  

on loans and things like that, but  financials, they’re in our business   they’re in a lot of other businesses now, other  than just, taking deposits and lending out money.

Yeah. That kind of shocked me a little  bit, that they’re still up there. Jeff Kikel: And it’ll be interesting to see that  if we start to see interest rates pull back,  

are the credit card companies  gonna start pulling back their,   literally user risk. Interest rates,  which, yeah, I don’t know. I think  

it’s gonna take congress coming in and  popping ’em in the face and saying, stop Ron Lang: this.

I’ve only heard a couple of people in  Congress Yeah. Talk about the egregious,  

credit card rates. But here’s the  other thing too, if, obviously,   how much lobbyist money is going to them course.  But if you think about it, it’s really two things.  

It’s not just the interest rate, it’s, they keep  giving, they keep extending their credit line.

So you got people that are borrowing and they’re  running out. It’s a situation where they obviously  

are spending [00:13:00] more than they’re  earning. They’re paying an insane rate and oh,   you’re near the, we’re gonna keep giving you  more money to spend. At some point, I know  

we’ve been talking about this for two years at  some point, that’s got that bubble’s gotta burst. Jeff Kikel: Yeah.

Ron Lang: Absolutely. It’s all probably only  when unemployment is gonna reach some type   of a fever pitch, because then they don’t have  any money to even pay back the minimum payment.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And employment’s  really still rocking. That’s the thing,   last Friday’s employment report  was way better than a little bit.

It was way better than what the estimates were. It  was way better than ADP’s report, which I have no  

faith in ADP’s report anymore, do I? It’s just a  mess. I’m not sure that I really ever believed it,  

but I think it’s just a complete mess now, and  it just doesn’t, it is not predictive at all.

And like I said, I at least feel  comfortable that. What’s coming   outta the government is somewhat accurate,  but it’s better than it’s been And a As long  

as employment [00:14:00] stays, yeah,  as long as stay employment stays and,   I think people can still keep paying. Hopefully  we’ll start to see prices continue to go down.

Ron Lang: I think you and me and a lot of  other people have just lost faith in the   number. Like when we see the number, we’re  like okay let’s see what the revisions are.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: Or let’s see what happens  when there’s a change of people in   Congress or an administration.  Yeah, definitely is political.

I, I’ve been believing that for over 20 years Jeff Kikel: yeah. Ron Lang: At some point it’s probably close to  a number. But I think that the numbers itself,  

the way they’re presented, there’s  a narrative to it because especially   with today’s technology. Why are there  revisions two, three years down the road?

Here are the numbers. This is the number for  the month. This is the number for the quarter. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: Other than maybe a couple  of yeah, I can understand tweaks,

Jeff Kikel: but when you’re years later still  updating this information. Who does that? No,   I don’t get to do that. I don’t get to go

Ron Lang: back. All of a sudden you got new information. Jeff Kikel: Yeah, no. Two years, two years later, we  got new [00:15:00] information.

Ron Lang: So I love this chart and I actually  spent a lot of time looking at it and I’m like,   you know what? This would be a good chart to  review. So just to let you know, yeah. This  

chart is every year since 1929, how many days in  each year did the market hit an all time high.

1929. We all know what happened in 1929.  It took 25 years. I’ve talked about this  

for years. It took 25 years for the market  to hit an all time high. And we hit two more  

recessions in the 1930s to give people  an idea. And it took the World War II to  

bring this out of it. And then obviously with  that momentum to just build it out from there.

But I thought the other interesting timeframe.  Where the 1970s, as a lot of people call the   malaise because interest rates were growing a much  higher, obviously inflation hit 18% or it was, or  

I know mortgage rates were 18% by 19 80, 81. But  you could just [00:16:00] see there what happened.

Now if you take a look since a lot of the tax  changes in the early eighties 82 on. Other than  

a couple of big potholes that we hit after the.com  and the financial crisis, it’s been straight up.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. Once again, it’s another,   that 2001 to 2012 period  was another, malaise period.

It was just a dead 10 years even, actually 12  years in there. But since then the market’s  

been back on. Back on the hopper and  I don’t see it slowing anytime soon.

Ron Lang: I will say, if you  just look at recent history,   this area here 2020, we know  what happened with COVID.

We did hit a few all time highs in January before  the February, March swoon, but the majority of  

those days were in the second half of the year and  all the money. We were just pumping in from both  

administrations into 22. Created what we had  in 20. [00:17:00] In 21. Yeah. Helped create  

the inflation we had, and I believe 20 day  in 2022 was January 2nd because it took two.

’cause it took two years for us to get back  up there. Yeah. We did a full round trip. It   took 24 months for us to get there. And then we  know, and because obviously even though 20, 20,  

23 we were up 23 per 26%, I think that  year we didn’t hit an all time high.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: And of course 24 it just took off. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And 24 was such  a weird year too because we hit.

It was basically the middle part  of the year in 24, which that was   when the market was really taken off.  After the election it went sideways  

for a little bit. And the beginning of  the year was kind of garbage. So yeah,   it was a weird year because we typically don’t  get our highs in the mid part of the year.

It’s either the front half or the back half. Ron Lang: Yep. And the last quick point there is a  lot of the smart market strategists that I follow,  

the [00:18:00] majority of them we’re calling  for a recession by the first half of 2024.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. And  we still haven’t seen it. Ron Lang: No. But I gotta tell you a  couple of the people that were permeables

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Ron Lang: Said there’d be a recession  this year. Here we are almost six and   a half months in and I don’t see  any cracks yet. So there’s gotta be  

some catalyst. I’m not hoping or wishing  for it, but there’s gotta be something. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Absolutely. Alright,  

let me let me share my screen here real  quick. That looks like it should share right?

All right. That wall of Yep. Information. Okay. So  what I did I was, I admittedly have not read the  

900 pages of the one Oh yeah. Bill Act. However,  I leveraged rock AI to to go through it with me,  

and we pulled out some of what I call the  good and the bad. I don’t think there’s   a lot of ugly in the bill, but there’s  some good, and there’s some bad in here.

So I’m gonna go through these [00:19:00] real  quick. And then over the next several weeks,   I’m gonna go through a few of these. I know  Ron asked me the question and I still have  

the question on I. What the deal is with with  the social security side of it and all that. So  

I will be doing some analysis of that and I will  be updating my social Security Essentials book.

In the next couple weeks I’ll update that book.  So if y’all want that, you can just, I’ll order  

it off of Amazon. Okay. Biggest thing I would say  out of this permanent extension of the individual  

tax rates. So the tax rates that we’ve had since  what 21 are what? 2017 are 2017 permanently now.

So no change there. And I think one of  the biggest things about that and the  

thing that came to mind for me is this is  the opportunity to do some strategic tax  

planning. I know with my clients and with  new folks that I’m talking to I’m gonna be  

doing some strategic Roth IRA planning  [00:20:00] around these ’cause I know   that those rates are sticking so I can  plan much more directly so that we can.

Convert people over and have, tax free money  for retirement. Another big one is the increased  

standard deduction. So there’s an additional  increase temporarily up until 2028 of a thousand  

dollars for individuals, $2,000 for joint filers,  which means, and that’s a significant number.

It doesn’t seem like much.  But it basically ensures that,  

I think it’s 80% of the tax paying public  will just basically file a simple tax return.  

Now they’re not gonna have, not gonna  have to itemize and things like that.   So it’s probably just gonna be a lot of  business owners that’ll be, it be doing.

The itemized stuff or people that make a  lot of money will be doing itemized again.   The child tax credit expansion, once again,  that pops up. It’s another one till 2028,  

so there is some dead man [00:21:00] switches on  some of this stuff than it reverts back to the   2000 that was before. So 2028 we’re gonna  hear more, debate on some of this stuff.

So that’s the tax side of things.  Some of the other things that came   out of this. No. Tax on tips  or overtime? I think actually

Ron Lang: no, no Federal income tax, Jeff Kikel: no. Federal income  tax, yeah. State income tax.   They still can wacky on that. We’ll  talk about that in the bad portion.  

It does make it more complex for people  filing taxes that are in those areas. But I think this is a huge effect for people  in the service industry, manufacturing people  

that work a lot of overtime. It’s, it is a  good thing. It’s. Gonna be significant for   a lot of those folks. One thing I had not heard  about and I wasn’t aware of auto loan interest  

deduction. So there is a temporary deduction for  auto loan interest that expires 2028 once again.

But, could reduce tax liabilities. Ron Lang: Once again, there  is a caveat to that. The car,   if you’re gonna be able to duct it, the  car had to have been manufactured in the us

Jeff Kikel: That’s correct.  Yeah. So that’s another thing,   once [00:22:00] again, trying to encourage.  People buying here in the United States.

The salt deduction, this was a big fight with  a lot of the coastal sides of things. Oh yeah,  

it’s was $10,000, now it’s $40,000. And it’ll  be adjusted annually by 1% from 2025 to 2029,  

so I think that’ll be another big fight. Down the  road, especially if it reports back. Of course, Ron Lang: there’s no way it’s  gonna go back down to 10.

Jeff Kikel: No I can guarantee you  that, once again, it’s something Ron Lang: this I can guarantee  if you’re living in California,  

New Jersey, New York, or Connecticut or in Massa,   like there’s no way. I know my house would’ve  been $12,000 more in taxes if I was in Jersey.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Yeah. It’s  amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. And I argue the point that it rewards some  of these places that don’t manage their  

finances very well and tax the hell out  of people. But, it is what it is. There,  

there has to be some kind of  give and take when it comes to   a lot of this [00:23:00] stuff. The Trump  accounts, this is an interesting thing.

So beyond five 20 nines. Anything like that.  These are going to be accounts where the  

government, every time we have a baby born, the  government’s gonna put money into an account,  

a thousand dollars into an account. There’s  no details on this at all at this point.  

It allows the parents to put in an additional   $5,000 tax free until age 18, and then  it can be converted to an IRA account.

I think it’s an interesting idea. I think  it’s gonna be a ginormous nightmare trying  

to do this. And I can tell you right now after  surveying multiple of the big financial firms,  

I can’t even find even a remote mention of,  Hey, we’re working on this idea at this point.

Ron Lang: Here’s the other  problem. Is this pre-tax or a Roth? If the government’s putting in and the  parents could put in $5,000, yeah, a year is,  

but if the parents are putting [00:24:00] that in,   are they then getting a tax break because  it’s pre-tax or it’s post-tax and it’s going  

in as a Roth? So Roth can be converted to an  ira, or is it gonna move into a Roth? Huh,

Jeff Kikel: Ron, you’re asking, I  hear you’re asking the government,   they just put this shit together, man.

They don’t really, they, there’s, nobody’s  actually said, here’s what the rules are. Inquiry Ron Lang: reminds

Jeff Kikel: one. Oh, that’s exactly  right. It’s one big beautiful bill,   dude. Finally social Security and Retirement  Benefits reduced taxes on Social Security.  

I still don’t understand or know. And  once again, the devil’s in the details. We’ll see, I think part of this, it would’ve  automatically been because we’ve raised the  

the standard deduction. And for people  that are largely on social security,   they’re probably not paying taxes anyhow,  but. We’ll see how this all works out. So from

Ron Lang: what I understand, it is  tiered based on household income. Yeah. That you would either pay less  [00:25:00] taxes and the more income  

you make, you’re gonna pay the full  tax vote. So yeah, that’s from what I   understand. But again, who, yeah, who was,  I didn’t even get into definitive details.

Jeff Kikel: No clue. Yeah, I, once again, I’m  gonna be revising my social security book,   so I’ll be spending a lot of time  on this in the next couple weeks.

Just look for me to have some stuff on  that for you guys. Okay. Job creation and   lower energy costs, we’re drilling like  heck. So hopefully we’ll we’ll see lower  

energy costs there, but there’s only  a certain point that can go down to,   and then it becomes unprofitable  for those oil companies.

So it’s a balancing act when  it comes to it. All right,   let’s get into the bad increased national debt.  The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget  

estimates $2.4 trillion of deficits over  the next 10 years. They also estimate 1.8%  

growth, which if we grow, let’s say two  and a half to 3% during that time period,  

which is possible with a lot of the [00:26:00]  tax breaks for businesses, it doesn’t create that.

Depending on the side of our national  debt’s gonna be 40 trillion by next Ron Lang: year. Jeff Kikel: Yeah. Who knows? Who knows? And it  also doesn’t take into effect the money coming  

in from tariffs. Coming in. It doesn’t take  into account at all anything from tariffs,  

which we’ve already seen a hundred  mil or a hundred billion in tariff. Yeah. But Ron Lang: here’s the other  big thing. As part of this  

bill they increased the fiscal  limit. Yeah. Okay. So they had,   so what is that telling you? That means we’re  still spending more than we’re taking in.

And we’re gonna be for a while. Jeff Kikel: Yep. That’s  why it’s in the bad column.

That’s Ron Lang: why the debt’s gonna go up. That can’t   go down if you’re increasing the fiscal  limit. Gimme a break. It is crazy. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Yes. And I never put it past  Washington to go, okay, we’re just gonna,   we’re gonna stop spending as much money  or we’re gonna start spending less money.

They always want to spend more and I  don’t care who’s in, in office at the   time. Potential cuts and programs like Snap  and things like [00:27:00] that. It really  

isn’t in the be isn’t in the bill anything  cutting this, but there’s potential cuts. So  

we’ll put that in the bad side here. This is  a political football with Planned Parenthood.

Yeah. I’m not gonna comment. I honestly think  it is a bad thing. Because I know like when  

I married my wife, this was a big thing for her.  That’s where she got her annual physicals and all   that stuff done. ’cause she didn’t have a lot of  money at the time. So I they serve a good purpose.

However, now I will, I’ll co the other side of  the coin. They also have put themselves in a  

really bad position because they’ve taken  a political position instead of saying,   you know what, we’re here for  our community. They’ve taken  

a political position, and when you do  that, you can get smacked pretty hard. This is an interesting one that it, it came  up in grok. I’ve gotta really dig into this a  

little bit ’cause I’ve not heard anything about  this. Medicare Savings Program restrictions,  

it’s [00:28:00] blocking enrollments  in MSPs causing 1.3 million Medicare  

enrollees to lose coverage. I  am sorry. I don’t believe that. So I’m gonna dig into that a little bit more to  see what what the details are of that. Sorry,  

this is behind my screen,  so gimme just a second here. Ron Lang: No, but I will tell you one of the  things that I heard, and I didn’t know this,  

I. Apparently in order to qualify for Medicaid,  you can’t make more than a certain amount.

Yeah. I can’t remember what that amount is,  but they said there’s 30 or 40 Amer, 30 40   million Americans that are at or below that  amount that are qualified for Medicaid,  

and they said there’s 70 million  people that are getting Medicaid. Jeff Kikel: Yeah.

Ron Lang: So again, there’s always  circumstances, family, whatever it may be.

So that was one of the reasons why.  Now, of course, should that threshold   be higher. I don’t know. I know, who knows?  But again, it’s another government handout.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. And it’s and there’s a whole I  [00:29:00] actually saw somebody do a pretty in  

depth discussion of this that I follow her and I,  she’s done a wonderful job of digging into this.

And a lot of this, interestingly enough, for  the populations that should. Be covered by this,  

mothers, children, disabled people, the, I think  it was for every dollar that a state spends,  

they get like a dollar 30 or something  like that from Medicaid. However,  

under the expansion of Medicaid, under Obamacare.

For the additional population that was  covered. It’s like if they spend a dollar,  

they get $9. So this is why a lot of  these states are raising Holy bill   Hell is because they’re getting a lot  of money for that [00:30:00] population  

and it’s coming in. And so it’s just  this weird abomination and you got the Ron Lang: richer state  supporting the poorer states

Jeff Kikel: of course. So you know, I that once again. I don’t think  a lot of this was too onerous saying, okay,  

if you are a, an able-bodied  person who is not a, a parent,  

a new mother or something like that, if you are  an able-bodied male and you are on Medicaid,  

we are only asking you to work  or volunteer 20 hours a week. I don’t think that’s asking too much from that  standpoint. So I, yes, there’s situations and  

all that, but. It’s somewhat easy to deal with  based on what I understand of it. Okay. Let’s  

go here. Oh, I think that’s the last, oh, I  think that’s my last slide on this stuff yeah. Ron Lang: There’s always  gonna be more to come on this.

Jeff Kikel: Oh my God, yes. Yeah. I,  yeah. This is like the high level. Of   it all. But I’ll dig into a couple  of those areas a little bit more.  

I’m [00:31:00] really interesting on that  or interested on that whole Medicare savings   program thing because that was one that  I hadn’t really heard anything about, and  

that’s a big number of people to be affected for  this, not to have everybody going crazy and yeah.

And especially like A RP or somebody going crazy  about this stuff. I hear you. Until next week.

Never until a Ron Lang: moment. Jeff Kikel: Absolutely. Good thing is we got  plenty of stuff to talk about. I’ll do my I, I’ll  

share my analysis of the tariff letters next week.  It just, it was too much with this stuff today.

Everybody, thanks a lot. Hopefully you  enjoyed this. Hopefully this gives you a   little bit more of an idea and we’ll cover more  of it as we go. Just make sure you subscribe to  

the channel. Make sure you comment on  this stuff. Love to have that. I don’t   wanna have a bunch of political discussions  with you over the comments, but certainly if  

you have questions and things like that, share  that as a comment because it helps everybody. So thanks a lot and we’ll see you  guys back here the very next time.