TRANSCRIPT
hello everybody Welcome to the sense of things and another week and a week after
a inauguration so on today’s show Ron’s gonna give us a little update on our
Florida Men Stories
friends the Florida men uh he’s got some great articles on that and you just have to kick off the new year uh we we
haven’t done it yet so we had to get into our floor demands for the year uh in addition to that ronon’s going to
Economic Indicators and Recession Predictions
talk about leading economic indicators one of the things that used to be a good predictor of uh sessions but has not
been for the last 24 months uh it’s been in the negative so we’ll talk a little bit about that and then I’m going to
Market Updates Post-Inauguration
give you an update on our last show where we talked about some Market moving events going into the inauguration now
let’s talk about the backside of that what’s been going on this week so hold on we’ll be right back on in just one
second [Music]
hey everybody welcome to the show Ron how you doing bud good morning Jeff no things are good things are good I had
the inauguration things are kicking off so now it’s just a matter of buckling up and get your popcorn ready and let’s see
how things move forward here well we and we had snowpocalypse in Texas which you know snow apocalypse for us I saw
somebody put it out on Facebook they had a like a tape you know or measuring tape
and they had it setting in the snow and it didn’t even get above the little silver thing and that was snow apocalypse we shut our whole city down
because of that so but all the markets were sold out of bread and milk well yeah bread and toilet paper get it right
that’s in Texas it’s bread and toilet paper all right well there there you go get get it on the front end and the back
end apparently I hear you well look there I mean there could be new stories that we cover all the time I mean
obviously we’ll kick it off with some fun U and then we’ll get into the Lei which um I think this this month meaning
really for the December Reading had some interesting things and and kind of what
what they’re identifying is moving forward so all right let’s let’s get it going here go ahead and
share all right here we go so I think I may have done this one
Funny Florida Men Incidents
before but he drove his truck into the ocean and said U it’s I was the one that
did this one I love this guy yeah it’s it’s not his fault the truck doesn’t
surf now by the way there was no indication in the article which I did not include that he may have been
inebriated I’m not sure just saying there they’re might it so you’re saying there’s a chance I hear you and then we
have this this fella um this guy basically went into the the restroom in
a Walgreens and brought in a bunch of junk food and just ate it and he and
basically when he was arrested after he indulged in sweets and various items
inside a closed Walgreens for several hours he said I just came in here to use the
bathroom well certainly after all the junk food and all the soda he he probably needed to use the bathroom I’m
thinking so and and he was on a sugar high or he just collapsed from from an
insulin shock so definitely and then of course we always have the smartest
people you know that live among us this F was caught a video purchasing a mask
from a gas station before before walking across the street to burglarize an
unlock Bank nice I love this he was charged with burglary despite the fact
that he he only the only thing he he walked was the mask that set him back
five bucks this is great I mean people don’t people realize
that there are cameras everywhere everywhere they are so inexpensive versus the old
cctvs literally I mean you could basically put cameras all around your house for a couple hundred bucks yeah I
mean and and just people are just so ignorant stupid or just desperate who
the hell knows a combination of all I just that they got to do this it is not being smart is not a require of being a
criminal no think the guy at Walgreens there’s cameras everywhere they didn’t
see him putting all those chips and sodas and candies under his arm and going into the bathroom going into the
bathroom I mean even if the store’s closed they still got the cameras going well and I mean I every Walgreens I’ve
ever been to or any of those stores they have the monitors right up above you can see yourself on camera so you didn’t
happen to notice that you were on camera as you were buying the stupid thing crazy all right here we go let’s have
Economic Analysis and Manufacturing Concerns
some fun so I know when we did this one of the shows last month in December that
Lei was down 34 straight months it was a record amount of months it was down and
it kind of ticked up a little bit last month in some areas and ticked down again in December and obviously with the
gray areas here are the recessionary periods and we could probably come back to this but I find what’s very
interesting is the following if you really dig into the numbers here actually I’m sorry you know
what I’m going to do I’m going to go forward one and I’ll come back so the the board already said about six seven
months ago they gave up on signaling a recession so I’m trying to figure out like why why is this group which I
believe is a nonprofit group I don’t know for sure in business because they have basically said look we have proven
data over time that when and these numbers hit there’s a good chance of a
recession within what 6 to 10 period of 6 to 10 months absolutely even though it didn’t happen in that period of time
doesn’t mean it won’t happen and I heard a couple of really good economists talking about well one of the reasons
why it didn’t happen yet meaning something didn’t break was because the government’s been giving Mor fiend to
the American citizens with all the with all the free money programs and and the
you know and everything and and obviously the government hiring people and bloating up our government so um
we’ll have to see what happens but let’s come back we drill into some of the details here I don’t know what sticks out to you this is where get tell you
you see December and then you see six months ending in December and if you
notice December the ism orders here are have just been in a just a steady
downclimb and you know I m is the manufacturing and I know you had some numbers before on PMI and ISM and that’s
the most troubling to me whether or not the new Administration things that you know like what happened Tred to do eight
years ago bring that manufacturing back this is this has been ominous so we’ll
have to see how things go for the next six months but to me that’s the one thing that stands out how about you yeah
I totally agree I mean I you know and it’s this is you know if you remember we were looking at that I would say
starting in the fall of 2023 and rolling into most of last year if you looked at those manufacturing
indexes over and over and over again they were just always down and it was the same ones New York Richmond all the
kind of sector you know the places where okay there were some actual manufacturing going on and seeing those
things just consistently down it had to have effects on new orders and you know
I think some of it was kind of coming into the election not knowing who was going to be in charge you know was it
going to be more of the same or you know was it going to be different and really going up to the election not really I I
think even election night not really knowing what direction it was going to go yeah I think a lot of these companies
just started pulling back and saying you know what we’re just gonna hunker down it it’s going to be interesting I mean
this still rolled through December though so what’s you know are we going to see a shift now after the
inauguration you know I think the the thing that I’ve the the thing that I was reading this week I forget if it was in
the Wall Street Journal or Financial Times where they were talking about all these companies have set up like a trump
war room just so that they can understand you know they literally they’ve got people that are just reading all the executive orders and then trying
to figure out okay well how does this affect us what should we do how do we work around that so I
think probably a little bit more of the same here at least for the next several
months would be my guess yes so January I mean it’s pretty much done at this point you know you’re they’re they’re in
the middle of all that inauguration didn’t happen till the 20th so I would say January there I would say February’s
numbers are really going to be the most telling of is that righted the ship a little bit Yeah but the other thing that
Housing Market Challenges
kind of also stands out are the burning the the building permits private housing because even know it was slightly down
in December I mean it’s basically been flat for the last six months and I don’t
know what the administration could do about mortgage rates because they’re SL only slightly affected by the Fed rate
so and you got the 30-year fixed over 7% yeah so if they’re going to stay over 7%
even with all the the the the home builders they may be sitting on land but
they’re not going to be building spec housing with over 7% mortgage unless they’re going to do financing on their
own which we’ve talked about but even so building permit are basically flat so it’s not growing at all and we have a
housing problem yeah and that and and now have even a bigger housing problem in Southern California you know you’re
talking about and how are they even going to remotely rebuild at this point with all the regulations it’s five to 10
years yeah at least and we’re not talking you know yeah it was a lot of
really rich people but there was a lot of just Average Joe’s that had houses
that were you know built in the 40s and everything else they’re never going to be re able to rebuild that there was a
there was a lady I saw interviewed on the news the other day that she or I think it was in a news feed on my phone
or something she had a restaurant that had been there it was a former home that was built in the 1930s and it got wiped
out in Mal and she’s like I I’m never going to be able to rebuild because it’s
you know it was grandfathered in but now with the new rules she’s like I I’m never going to be able to rebuild
so but a lot of people couldn’t afford to put on the steel Roes put on the fire
retardant on pain on the side put in the double Paine glass you know that people
couldn’t afford to do that because number one uh they couldn’t afford the upgrades but number two they couldn’t
afford the move because where are they going to move to um housing is so expensive insurance is so expensive and
now think about it what insures even though they’ve been fleeing uh left and
right out of California for the last 20 years what insurers moving forward are actually going to stay in California
they can even afford to stay in California and actually from what I understood I just heard this from a couple of different sources in the last
couple of weeks that there were insurers that wanted to come in in the last five
years but they were like we can’t do it at these premiums they have to do it at y premiums and the state insurance board
said no you can’t if you want to come in you have to charge the lower premiums and they’re like it’s not worth it for
us yeah we can’t yeah we can’t manage the risk at that point all right so just a couple more oh I just wanted to go
back to this one here so this this being our last slide on this kind of how they basically called off a recession I think
the couple of things that are very interesting is the 10-year got all the way up to
4.8 and then scaled back to 4.6 has been kind of vacillating around there a lot
of people you know we always talk about the 10e being the the north star with all this I think it’s going to be very
interesting to see what happens here because I think if housing stays
stagnant I think that’s going to that could be a potential Catalyst right for
if people start losing jobs and and whatever happens with immigration we could have a housing problem yeah yeah
Government Work and Remote Work Trends
and I mean I think it’s interesting you know we we’ve been talking about government workers and things like that
about people being hired by the government and then you know now with with the government kind of demanding
that people get back to work in the in offices and things like that that’s going to be an interesting thing because
you know let’s say you were a federal government employee that’s employed out of Washington and you were able to work
from home so why would I live in expensive Washington I could live maybe in Western Virginia or anywhere in the
world and now I got to go back to work and I can’t you know I’d have to move at that that point I thought it was
interesting because they’re looking they’re looking very closely at this there are literally thousands of
buildings in Washington and the federal government that are basically either empty or have less than per 10 15%
occupancy occupy and they’re just basically they’re going to consolidate or sell the buildings and why not yeah
well I mean might as well use them for something because otherwise they’re just going to decline because not like the
government is going to keep up you know upkeep on these things if they have nobody in them and they’re not using them so why not I mean that’s when I
remember before Trump got elected the first time you know they bought the old post office which is a beautiful build
it’s a gorgeous building and bought the old post office and that was a s show
but you know I mean in the end why not use those buildings for something else they’re beautiful you
know it’s it’s wonderful real estate so if the government doesn’t want to use it then let somebody else do it I could see
that I honestly could see the federal government looking at well maybe we relocate because why do all these things
need to be in Washington that’s the funny part is like yeah I understand it in the early days you wanted everybody
to kind of be close to each other but why not relocate some of these agencies
to other states and spread it out across the country I think it would be smarter quite frankly no no no I agree and we’ll
have to see what happens I mean I’m not a big fan I know we’ve talked about this remote work but especially in in our
business I know it works for some not for others but we’ll have to see but on on a last uh quick topic it’ll be
interesting as we move forward here in the next couple of weeks doing some episodes on earnings the tech earnings
have actually shown to be pretty strong some Bank numbers have been pretty strong we got to see where a lot of the
other consumer companies kind of come in I think that’s where you’re going to
find out how the holidays went with the spending and maybe it may be a precursor
and a good indicator for 2025 yeah I mean I’m going to be looking for me I’m going to be looking at Walmart of course
I mean you know Walmart Target you know if we still see a decline on the target
side and we still see Walmart doing well that tells me that you know the the
consumer is still stretched at this point so you know all those numbers should be coming up in the next week or
two so I think that’s some things that we I want to keep my eyes on because that tells me where the consumer is yeah
you know if you look at the dollar stores and all that they’re just getting crushed right now their stocks are down
massively because you know I think one part of it is their margins are compressed and two you know even their
consumer which you know that’s that’s the the cheapest place you can buy stuff and if they’re struggling to even buy
there it’s not you know it’s from what I understand I don’t know if it’s 50% or not but I know it’s pretty I think it’s
over 35 or 40% of Walmart’s Revenue is the food food and groceries yeah so
Proctor and Gamble I believe has a second headquarters in Bentonville Arkansas because of the amount of
business that Walmart does with Proctor G but and I think Campbell’s and several of the other companies oh I’m sure they
do well I mean that the other problem is it’s so insanely expensive to fly into Bentonville when we were when I worked
for Fidelity and and I was supporting University of Arkansas we were required to fly into Tulsa and Drive the three
hours from Tulsa to the UA campus take a puddle jumper no no because the the
airport is so insanely expensive the flight’s in there because they know they’ve got you know all it’s all
executive people coming in to meet with Walmart I mean it was like $700 more
even flying on a little puddle jumper from Dallas to get in there so we we were required by the company to fly into
Tulsa and then drive three hours to get into here here’s my ignorance what’s the
nearest major airport Tulsa seriously okay yeah that it is the co I mean you
could fly into to Little Rock but I mean Little Rock’s like four and a half hours
from the UA campus and and not a real fun drive I mean the other one isn’t fun but but seriously not a fun drive right
let me let me share a little bit of what I was thinking about today you know so I started looking at if you remember the
Executive Orders and Historical Context
slides from the last show it was Market event moving into inauguration and you
know the first thing I let off with was executive orders and this is interesting and I’ll share another screen here in a
second but so far I I think the intention is for president Trump to sign
like 225 he signed somewhere around 26 27 so
far so he’s going to be signing but quite a bit but interestingly enough and
I’ll show you this chart from the from online here the most in history of executive orders
because remember we had that little chart a week ago and we were like oh Jerry Ford Nixon and all that there was
actually a swath of time from McKinley through Franklin Roosevelt where it was
the highest amount of executive orders I thought this was more of a new thing it
actually was a it was a thing between the turn of the century 20 or 20th
century up through um Truman’s Administration it was ridiculous and off
the charts so the two don’t forget very quickly to interrupt both of those were dealing with world wars yeah of course
yeah so I mean it makes a lot of sense they were using this but I just you know I thought this was more of a an An
Occurrence that happened in more current times where it was like I just don’t want to deal with you know Congress and
all that I want to get my agenda going but yeah Franklin Roosevelt 307 on
average per year so I mean he was dealing with the Great Depression trying to get everything the ship wred and you
know Major World War so I mean it makes sense that he did a lot uh wooder Wilson
same thing you know 225 we really didn’t get into though the the war until you
know 20 or 1916 so we were really only at War for a couple years of that time
period so that may not be the biggest or the best excuse sometimes I think it’s just an excuse to
kind of use the executive for more power than they need let me go back here for a second whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa
whoa whoa whoa trying to get out of here and I want to show this chart that I got
off of and this is off of it’s the presidential history project and it’s UC
Santa Barbara so it’s the American presidential or American president project can you see that Ron barely
okay you probably describe it okay so going back to our very first president
so this took this looks at every single president since the beginning of time
George Washington eight total orders so he did one per year his entire time in office
he was there for 7.85 years going forward you know it
wasn’t really much until we got to ulyses S Grant and you know it makes a
lot of sense out of the coming out of actually postwar yeah Civil War period
you know restoration and all that makes sense I mean he he was there for eight years and he did a lot of stuff during
that time period then it kind of fell out of favor again for a few years and then after McKinley was killed theore
Roosevelt coming in he was the first that really had the first thousand
executive orders over his eight years of presidency the most up to that time on
average per year 145 per year and then it was every president after that for the next
30 Years or 40 years yeah that’s the track record yeah Taft 724 Wilson 1803
Hardings 522 123 which I it was really surprising for coolage because coolage I
saw as more of a kind of stay out you know keep the government out of stuff
but he actually was one of the highest during that period and then of course Roosevelt 12 years in of course
3721 he holds the record for the most and he holds the record for the highest average 107 then it kind of fell out of
favor again you know it stayed in that 300 range until we got to the current
ERA and surprisingly enough our last three presidents Trump one Trump two and
Biden actually have been some of the lowest which you know it it seems like
it’s been covered more but they’ve actually been the lowest and they’ve kept the average relatively low in in
comparison over the you know when we look at the history of presidents from that point gotcha so crazy crazy crazy
International Affairs and Conflicts
we talked about IR you know Israel Hamas ceas fire and hostage is coming home it
is official the hostage is coming home I do not believe that Hamas is going to
there there’s enough crazy little factions of them in Islamic Jihad that I
just do not see them following through with this I mean you already had somebody go into a market in Tel Aviv
and stab a whole bunch of people I I just think there’s there’s not just one
group that you’re dealing with you’re dealing with a whole bunch of different factions and a lot of them do not want
to have a ceasefire so this whole 60-day period I think is going to be very
tenuous it sounds like there’s really only 30 some odd remaining hostages out
of the hundred that they right but they’ve only released like three or four I don’t understand that yeah they released three and then supposedly this
Sunday they release another three and it’s you know oh my God this this is a
bad deal yeah and and it’s like a hundred Palestinians for one hostage and
yeah I know I’m telling you ham Hamas got what they wanted out of this I what they always did you know and a lot of
these guys are ones that were I’m reading Trey in’s book now bloody Satur or bloody Saturday I think it’s called
or Black Saturday and it’s really good if if you really want to understand what went on during October 7th you really
need to read that book because he was right in the middle of all of that reporting for Fox during that time
period and he really did an excellent job of interviewing really both sides of the equation of all the people you know
from both the Palestinian View and from the Israeli View and and it’s it’s a really good book describing all that
went on and a lot of these people that they’re returning are people that were captured during that attack so they’re
basically giving away people who were murderers for getting their people back
just heard last night that Trump has threatened sanctions on Russia if they keep trying to bombard you know the the
power plants and stuff like that which you know I think that’s the only way you’re really going to get Russia to
step back a little bit is to slam them with some pretty big sanctions you know
and specifically their oil and all that because that’s where they’re making money at this point so that I think is
going to be interesting and then sanctions but then enforcing those sanctions I think that’s going to get
the parties to the table and hopefully that conflict starts to cool down a little bit uh because we are pouring
billions of dollars into it every month and I hate to say it I have no faith but yeah I I don’t I’m hopeful but no faith
yeah I I hope you know I mean the the reality is it could very well be Putin
pulls back just so he can lick his wounds a little bit and then go from there it’ll be interesting the the
relationship whatever you want to call it with with North Korea and Kim Jong-un
that that Trump has with Kim Jong-un sometimes of you know can he put
pressure on him to pull back his soldiers at that point another thing that we had you know the big talk was
drill baby drill well I think it’s not only going to be drill baby drill but nuke baby nuke you know with that
introduction and we’ll talk about that in a second the introduction of $500 billion do investment from soft see if
that happens a I think it will I mean they’re they’re already building this stuff in Texas I mean this there’s a a
big I know but they know how Trump likes big numbers so yeah well I mean it’s initial is 100 100 billion but I mean
hundred billion dollars that’s not too bad and at least if we can start to get
our heads around Ai and get ahead of the world and at and be the the you know the
the leader in AI you know I think it’ll happen and like I said they’re putting their
money where their mouth is here in Texas now the problem is these type of data centers and things like that require
massive amounts of power and yes we’ve got lots of natural gas uh yes we’ve got
lots of coal we can drill baby drill and get you know the oil prices down but
we’re going to need something else and you know I mean the rest of the world is nuclear you know if you look at Europe
which is very green and everything else they have massive amounts of nuke plants
in Europe um and it was funny because a few years ago they decided to start shutting those down because you know
they were concerned about all this and then with the the Putin situation they fired those nuke plants back up because
they you know they they need to do that and also takes 10 years I think to build a new one even with all the technology
and everything else so it’s not like the power is you know snap your fingers and
you could you know you’re going to be there going to take time yeah it’s going to take time and I think a big part of that is you know the the good part is
there we’ve gone so far from the The Three Mile Island type plants that were
very inefficient you know even here in Texas our largest plant kamanche Peak
you know I mean it was built like in 81 I think is when it went online 81 82 so
that was the last plant that I’m aware of that’s been built here in the country so technology has moved so far ahead at
this point and they can build them a lot smaller and a lot safer now with better
technology than they ever could before so I I see that as the future whether
you know environmentalists like that or not I just see it as the future at this point so you know I think those are the
things that I’m looking at after the inauguration that are having some major effects you know of course interest
rates are still going to be hanging out there and that’s not something that’s going to get fixed overnight a lot of
that you know we were talking about those 10-year interest rates a lot of those are driven by the market and I I
think the market is still uncertain about well are you know is Trump gonna have any tariffs is that going to happen
he already talked about kind of backing off of that a little bit this week so I
I think the Market’s going to have to the the bond Market’s going to have to kind of get their hands around this or
their you know the understand or get their heads around this a little bit I hear you well like I said uh a lot of
the Trump stuff will have to see how it pans out and yeah the Israeli Russian thing I I’m hopeful but I don’t have a
lot of faith yeah I do you know I I hope we we get back to a world where we don’t have a whole bunch of major conflicts I
mean I I the the good part is I I think you know in the F first few hours when
the he was being interviewed by the Press while he was signing some stuff you know they they brought up Israel and
and he I mean he was very blunt and said that’s their conflict it’s not ours so they need to resolve it themselves you
know we we’re there to support them as an ally but you know I I I hope that we
don’t you know have to put soldiers on the ground or anything like that we still don’t know what’s going to happen
with Syria because that’s a whole crazy mess now too you know but I think the
biggest part is most likely I would see sanctions on like Iran and things like
that which will stop the money flow going out of there into some of those crazy places that you know people are
launching Rockets out of so hopefully that will you know calm things down a little bit in the Middle East it’s never
God we don’t need an Iron Dome yeah I know I know I that you know that I was reading in in Black Saturday and you
know just the the a level of that and and the fact that every child is taught
if you hear a rocket just dive to the ground you know I that’s just not that’s
not a life I would imagine living like that yeah or or you know having your neighborhood bomb shelter I I really
don’t want to have to live in a place where I have to have a neighborhood bomb shelter I gotcha well when Texas when
Texas succeeds from the union then you could start building your shelters no they don’t want us to succeed or they
don’t want us to seced at this point so yeah we’re we’re not going anywhere anytime
soon I hear you okay well cool man thanks a lot for putting your stuff together on and folks we are here for
Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
you so make sure you subscribe to the channel make sure that you are watching every episode because we’re going to be
on this we’re going to be watching this stuff cor you know as we go in here certainly with Ron’s talk about the Lei
today we certainly need to see probably starting in February what those numbers
are going to look like and keep your eyes on uh the the the earnings reports
coming out because I think it’s going to be an interesting you know kind of finger in the wind to see what where the
the winds are going at this point so thanks a lot and we’ll see you guys back here the very next time