Jeff Kikel: Hello, Cents of things. It’s  Jeff and Ron here again with another  

updated weekly session of the Cents of  things. Ron, how you doing, bud? Good

Ron Lang: morning, Jeff. Doing well. I know  last time I said springtime is in the year  

is in the air, but I could tell you that it’s  feeling a little like summer here and I love it.

Ron Lang: It’s all good.

Jeff Kikel: We’re the opposite. It’s been  actually a little chilly here this week.  

We’ve been in the high forties in the  mornings or low fifties and afternoons  

in the seventies. So it’s been,  it’s beautiful. It’s my favorite  

kind of time of the year. It’s just been  a little drizzly all week, which we’ve had

Ron Lang: rain four out of the last six days.

Ron Lang: Some heavy, a lot of  drizzling, but yeah, some of this  

stuff wasn’t forecasted the day before. So  I don’t know what kind of [00:01:00] winds  

are coming off the Pacific ocean, but  yeah, we’ve had a decent amount of rain.

Jeff Kikel: You’ve had that kind of, Southern  California and you guys have had that like  

river of weather that was just parking  over the top of you for months on end.

Ron Lang: I’m a sunset sunrise kind of guy last  two nights Looking out towards the west. It’s  

been very interesting and I love weather. I’ve  always loved learning about weather like this wall  

of dark gray clouds and then in the horizon It’s  beautiful bright and blue with the sunset and it  

just looks like two pictures were merged together  And we always get some interesting sunsets here,  

but with that kind of weather, it’s just very  odd, just the pockets and how things move, but

Jeff Kikel: that’s awesome.

Jeff Kikel: You’re going to do we get  that. We get that off of our lakes here.  

Because I live close to Lake Travis.  And, are close, but 10 miles from me  

and we get that kind of weird stuff off the  [00:02:00] lakes this time of the year. So  

the sunsets are just absolutely gorgeous.  It’s all the colors and everything else.

Jeff Kikel: So nice. Cool. Let’s I wanted to  kick off today and just do one little piece that  

I thought was interesting because on every News  channel today. There’s a, there’s an annual thing  

that’s done. And it’s a combination of Gallup one  of the organizations within Cambridge university.

Jeff Kikel: And I think the UN, whatever they  are. And it’s a study of the ha happiness. So  

what countries are the most happy?  Which countries are the least happy?

Ron Lang: You us is not in the top 10.

Jeff Kikel: No. You us last year  was top 15. And has typically been  

this year us dropped to 23. Of course everybody’s.

Jeff Kikel: Freaking out because the world  isn’t happy and all that. I decided to  

look at it from more of a positive  perspective and say [00:03:00] okay,  

who is the number one, which since 2018,  it’s been Finland. And why are the Finns  

so happy? So I just decided to  put together a little bit of a.

Ron Lang: Nobody wants to wipe  them off the map and nobody wants  

to get in and they’re not going  to get into a war with anybody.

Jeff Kikel: That’s precisely  correct. So I think that’s

Ron Lang: all right. That was my guess.

Jeff Kikel: Now, so I think, when  we look at why they’re so happy,  

I think it, it really tells me what makes them  so happy. So why are the fence so happy? Is it  

taxes? Do they have the lowest taxes? And  that’s what we talk about in this country.

Jeff Kikel: If you have the lowest taxes,  you’re going to be happy because you get  

to keep more of your money. Military and  bases all around the world. That’s part  

of it. Nope. Lowest marginal tax rate only  up to eight or 8, 750 euros is 0%. Their  

highest marginal rate is 66. 75%. Now  they do have an actually of [00:04:00]  

surprise they have the same corporate  tax rate as we do So we’ve got we’re

Ron Lang: at 21 right now.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, so we’re actually they’re  actually very competitive on the corporate  

tax side sales tax is 24 percent country  anything you buy absolutely and this is  

very common in european countries they  call it a value added tax and Honestly,  

it’s a consumption tax and it quite frankly  makes a lot of sense and we’ve heard It Like  

some of our lawmakers say we need to add  a value added tax and all that stuff.

Jeff Kikel: We’ll get to why  that is not a good idea here  

in the United States in a minute. And  it’s part of the reason for the fins.

Ron Lang: Real quick

Jeff Kikel: about

Ron Lang: that to the fact it’s Finland.  I don’t know. I’m a little ignorant with  

them Are they a socialistic country because  most socialistic countries have a VAT? Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah

Jeff Kikel: They’re very and in most of  the cut it’s funny. I mean out of the  

top ten Eight. First off, eight of the  top 10 [00:05:00] are Nordic countries,  

so they’re all very similar. They’re all  very socialistic and we’ll talk about that  

in a second. But yeah they’re very much  very socialistic from that perspective.

Jeff Kikel: Is it the weather that makes them so  happy? Nope. From November to late January. It’s  

virtually dark the entire day. The sun just  doesn’t come up at all. The earliest snow is  

typically in November and it stays pretty much all  the way through May. I would lose my mind. Yes,  

I would too. And then from June until August,  it basically stays light 23 hours a day.

Jeff Kikel: So you just don’t really

Ron Lang: get. That’s

Jeff Kikel: it. Is it coffee? That’s a maybe.  Cause Finns consume the most coffee in any  

country in the world. Part of it is it’s  freaking dark for almost three months of  

the year. So they’ve got to do something to  keep themselves. Awake. As I went through  

[00:06:00] and I looked at what the Finns were  saying, they actually have a great website.

Jeff Kikel: If you want to look for  it, it’s called it’s about finland.  

com. It’s a great website where they  interviewed all these Finnish people.  

And I think this is my take on this whole  thing. Why it works for the Finns and why,  

what doesn’t work for us? What works for  the Finns is they pay a crap ton of taxes.

Jeff Kikel: But because they pay a crap ton of  taxes, they expect a massive amount out of their  

government, meaning that their government works  for them. They don’t work for their government,  

which ours seems to think that we work  for them. Their politicians they’re  

very focused on the areas that make  people happy, which is health care.

Jeff Kikel: It is the Finns actually get a  lot of time off. Almost a month’s worth of  

time off. So typical European, yeah.  Work life balance. So a lot of work  

life balance from that [00:07:00]  perspective. They as a country have  

this belief in benevolence. And I think  this is common in, in the year a lot of,  

a lot of company or countries over there that  they have this kind of benevolence thing.

Jeff Kikel: Everybody’s there to help everybody  else. And there’s that culture of it. And, what  

we see in our country right now is the opposite.  Everybody’s out for themselves and we’ve got a lot  

of, we’ve got basically these huge political  parties that are pulling everybody apart.

Jeff Kikel: So what do I take from all of this?  Do I want to increase my taxes by 70%? No,  

because I quite frankly, don’t trust  the people that are elected to be good  

stewards of my money. Yes, I am willing. To  increase my taxes and pay more if I were to  

have people that are in Washington and in my  state representative places that are not out  

for themselves or for their parties  and are out to make my leg good luck

Ron Lang: with that.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, which I don’t think that’s  [00:08:00] happening anytime soon. And until we  

change our view the interesting part was. The  in the study with the United States. I think  

it’s age 60 and above placed us number 10 in the  world. Age 30 and below pushed us to number 60  

in the world. So the young people think, the  world is terrible here and everything else.

Jeff Kikel: My suggestion is maybe  on social media locate go to Europe  

and you may be happier. I’m just saying,  but, I think from an overall view, it is,  

let’s stop worrying about. Where we’re  ranked from happiness perspective and  

all that and let’s start to focus on Okay,  what can we do to make ourselves happier?

Jeff Kikel: And I think a lot of that is i’m not  saying we need to become a socialist country But  

I think we need to get better representation  that cares more about us than themselves

Ron Lang: As I like to say whether it’s  president or congress or whatever any  

[00:09:00] other elected office, it’s not about  who’s qualified It’s about who’s electable

Jeff Kikel: That’s precisely correct.

Jeff Kikel: And unfortunately that’s the way  

it is. I hear you. All right.  That’s my rant for the week.

Ron Lang: That’s right. That was a good rant  though. All right. Keep going with our theme,  

getting all the really good feedback. So  all I’m saying is look at the picture,  

look what they’re holding and then understand.  Now, why she looks about six months pregnant.

Ron Lang: Why would they look so surprised  with a pregnancy test? Love this.

Ron Lang: Unless that’s saying  you got twinge. There’s no reason.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, and a pregnancy test  is not going to tell you that. So wow,  

that is awesome. Read

Ron Lang: the tagline when  you want to be sure. Now,  

I know my stomach is growing and I’m  eating well [00:10:00] and exercising,  

but my stomach is growing, but I  think I should take a pregnancy test.

Ron Lang: Just in case.

Jeff Kikel: Yeah, just in case.  Plus there’s somebody that’s using  

my bladder like a a punching bag  right now, but let me just check.

Ron Lang: Yeah, so I’m glad that  there are good luck guys. All right,  

here we go. So I’m just curious. Is this beef

Jeff Kikel: or is

Ron Lang: this chicken? Now I’ve  been to Texas several times and I  

know a good Southern dish is chicken fried steak.

Ron Lang: Yep. Just out of curiosity,  is this what that is made out of?

Jeff Kikel: It could be. I’m just,  made with all white meat chicken.  

Wow. I’m impressed. It could be the  origins of chicken fried steak though.

Ron Lang: So I don’t know about you, but this  is a kid’s math book. Maybe this is another  

reason why our happiness level is so horrible  and our education is going into the crapper.

Ron Lang: I don’t know, but I would love  for the kid to go to the teacher. Can  

you count [00:11:00] how many bananas  are on this page? Just saying folks.

Jeff Kikel: It’s made by a person that has six  fingers. That’s the problem. Is there? It’s the  

amount of things on one hand, the amount of  bananas on one hand. Okay. I have six fingers

Ron Lang: now for this packaging.

Ron Lang: You would have figured somebody  would have approved it before going out And  

I’m just saying they might have wanted  to change the font But maybe this was  

intentional because maybe the lights were  supposed to be used for something else.

Jeff Kikel: I really don’t. Wow.  Once again. Yeah. It’s just,  

maybe do you just want to take a look at the back?

Ron Lang: Wow.

Jeff Kikel: Let’s go with, let’s  go with sans serif next time guys.

Ron Lang: I got you. And I know the accounting  department at McDonald’s. Probably should have  

read this because I’m not sure if this  is false advertising or not But maybe  

there’s a reason why they’re losing, money  on the 10 chicken nugget meal You’ve been

Jeff Kikel: [00:12:00] nugget.

Jeff Kikel: They’ve been nuggetized,  

so that’s what the problem is. Yeah. It’s  like we just seem to be losing money on  

every chicken McNugget deal. Yeah. ’cause  you’re putting 11 in and you’re paying for

Ron Lang: 10. If somebody says, Hey wait,  I only got 10. It shows on here. I get  

11. I will say one time I was addicted to  these things with the sweet and sour sauce.

Ron Lang: That was my kryptonite for  a little while, back in the day. All  

right. Just you ever wanna know, yesterday the  Fed dot plot came out. Now currently we are at  

5 25. Okay. We’re right here. So what this  basically means is that each dot represents  

a a Fed Committee member anticipating where  the rate will be towards the end of the year.

Ron Lang: Okay, so at the end of 2024 They’re  looking at approximately 75 basis points lower  

and I love when people say oh three rate cuts But  they don’t say 25 basis points each You’ve had  

50 percent 50 basis point and [00:13:00] 75 basis  point rate hikes If there is some type of a crisis  

or catalyst they could easily lower 50 basis  points at one But here’s the interesting thing,  

and here is the hypocrisy that I’ve always  had with the Fed and what they come out.

Ron Lang: First of all, as we mentioned  many times, they’re always behind the curve,  

either to the upside or the downside, but  they’re always saying their data dependent. Yep,  

they’re so data dependent and they can’t make a  decision. Or anticipated decision two or three  

months out. How the hell are they anticipating  where it’s going to be in 25, 26 and beyond.

Ron Lang: We all know rates are going to go  lower, but what they’re showing here is at  

least three years out before we get down to. The  two and a half, 2, 7, 5 level it was yesterday,  

the day before 30 year fixed mortgage rate.  Top seven, 7.11 percent. [00:14:00] So they’re  

talking about, oh, you gotta lower it  to make home buying more affordable.

Ron Lang: Yeah. I’m sorry, the fed just  can’t lower rates to benefit the housing  

market. Yeah. And we’re coming right into the  strongest part of the year for housing. Yep,  

so I don’t know what your thoughts are  here, but I think this is interesting  

I don’t think you could garner too  much from it because we all know,  

you know about even the futures of the  fed rate they were wrong last year.

Ron Lang: They were already wrong  about march people are saying  

absolutely in june. Come on Give me a break folks

Jeff Kikel: My favorite, I think that I  can’t remember what it was probably on,  

on Fox business or something when I was  driving home last night and they were  

talking about the rate decision  and they didn’t lower this time.

Jeff Kikel: Okay. Nobody freaking thought  they were going to lower. If you, unless  

you were smoking SIGA weed, you thought  that it was going to go down this time.  

So then their thing was what the fed’s  thinking right now is that. Inflation is  

decelerating fast. I’m like it’s [00:15:00]  been going up, but it’s decelerating fast.

Jeff Kikel: And by the time we get to that  May, June timeframe, that it’ll get down  

to it’s 2 percent rate that, that they’re looking  for. And I’m like, there’s no chance on the earth  

that is going to happen. If there’s a crisis,  unless something. And the massive happens,  

we have a major failure in the banking  system or something like we had no, Oh, wait.

Jeff Kikel: And there’s no signs of  that even remotely happening in three  

months from now. So they’re not, it’s not  going to get below 3%. And it’s starting  

to rise back up. So the chances of, okay,  they might do a quarter basis point drop,  

or even if they did three in a row, the 75 basis  points, that’s not even going to make a dent.

Jeff Kikel: And where interest rates are,  and they’re not going to go farther than  

that because they know if they do, it’s going to  kick off a whole nother asset [00:16:00] bubble,  

in the, it’ll kick off a housing asset bubble and  it’ll make houses more unaffordable again. And,  

we’re off to the races so it’s  not going to happen until we  

have something massive happen,  and we do not have mass layoffs.

Jeff Kikel: We do not have, the money,  

the Fed or the government just  wants to keep kicking more money

Ron Lang: Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: Into it. I just heard this  morning, which actually is a good thing,  

that the administration decided to  do this, thing where it took public  

se receptor employees and it’s reducing  the reducing their student loan payments.

Jeff Kikel: That is a wonderful program.  These are people that have given their lives  

and careers to public service. They should  get it done. It shouldn’t be accelerated,  

by the way, because that was a 10 year program.  The problem is that program has been absolutely  

atrocious. Actually working with the servicers  to actually end those [00:17:00] student loans.

Jeff Kikel: They have to work for 10 years  and then they get it automatically done.  

Has nothing to do with the president or  anything like that. Now they’re trying  

to use that program to do this. Okay.  I’m in for that. These are people that  

are giving their lives and careers, and they  probably could make more money someplace else.

Jeff Kikel: So that’s okay with me to do  that, but okay. Now that’s money. That’s  

all going to get Popped out into the world  and it’s going to be more money that people  

are spending Meaning that it’s going to  be more money that keeps inflation high  

so we need to understand that and we  need to come to the realization that  

We are not going to see interest rates  go down for quite a while get used to it

Ron Lang: I think the interesting thing is just  as a historical point of reference Because I knew  

it when it happened and following it So when  they first start increase actually when you  

first get the inversion which happened march  of 2022 [00:18:00] two years ago this month.

Ron Lang: Yeah, typically recessions happen on  average again It’s the average either before or  

after 16 to 22 months after so we’re 24 months in  already passed. Yeah, right But the economist i’ve  

heard several economists say but the typical  lag effect From when they start raising rates  

is typically 24 months. So we’re now just passing  that threshold, whether or not we have a recession  

or not, but we’re, but the lag effect is you  can see how it’s affecting mortgage rates.

Ron Lang: You can see how it’s affecting  just the cost of goods and going out. I  

don’t know about you. I don’t know. Last  time, I’m sure you have when, breakfast,  

lunch or dinner, I just can’t believe.  What it costs for just a hamburger or  

eggs and toast for crying out  loud I just can’t believe it.

Ron Lang: I know they got cost  and everybody wants to make more  

money But the restaurants are still  full thursday friday and saturday

Jeff Kikel: And it’s [00:19:00] funny it’s like  a tale of two worlds though with restaurants  

and I you know So I’ll give you an example.  One of my favorite places to eat is a place  

called longhorn steakhouse it’s actually  part of I think it’s, I forget which one.

Jeff Kikel: It’s the one that  were red lobsters, part of it,  

Darden. Here’s an example I go and have  we get a chicken fried steak dinner and  

a chicken fried chicken dinner. We get a  massive steak. I’m joking. Yes. And it’s,  

it’s the chicken’s made out of beef  and the beef’s made out of chicken.

Jeff Kikel: But. I can go there. My wife  and I can go there. It is way more food  

than either of us can eat. So typically we  get two meals. We split those up. We eat  

the one meal and then we have leftovers  another night. Still full, still great,  

all that. Total cost for the two of us, like  38. Okay, for a really good quality dinner.

Jeff Kikel: I went to breakfast at a  local breakfast restaurant here. The  

only thing different was that I got  coffee, [00:20:00] 52. So I’m sorry,  

these are the same companies. They have the same  input costs. What’s the difference. And Darden,  

I haven’t seen him miss an earnings report yet,  from that perspective. So what’s the difference?

Jeff Kikel: It, I just don’t get  it. And why it is just so insanely  

high. There’s restaurants that I  think are great values. In fact,  

they’re just ridiculously low in comparison  to, these breakfast restaurants and stuff  

like that. So either employees are costing  more, or I don’t know what the deal is.

Jeff Kikel: It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Ron Lang: But Jeff, real quick, I’ll go  on to the next slide. So I had breakfast  

yesterday morning with somebody.  I had eggs, rye toast, home fries,  

and a coffee. She got a basic, just a  basic breakfast with gratuity, 47 bucks.

Ron Lang: And you’re out in [00:21:00]  the land of retirees. Oh God. Yeah,  

absolutely. Doing the lower left corner  first. I thought this was interesting,  

going back 35 years here. That temporary help  is on the decline and you can see the chart  

here many times that when people stop ramping  up temporary help and it goes the other way,  

typically that shows a slowdown and it’s  usually the other way around in an expansion.

Ron Lang: People are typically saying all right.  We don’t know how long this expansion is going  

to last Let’s hire temporary help. So this  way we don’t have to do all the benefits and  

everything else Meanwhile people are reducing  Temporary help hires because they’re saying  

what we have is working for us In the upper  left corner, the professional managers are  

buying tops I have actually never seen this  chart before but you know what these are the  

momentum traders These are the private equity, the  hedge funds, the day traders, the swing traders.

Ron Lang: These are people that say, Hey,  we’re in a [00:22:00] breakout mode. Let’s  

ride this momentum. We keep adding money  to it, but we always see what happens on  

the other side of this. And I know it’s,  it’s like an echo chamber. We said it many  

times about being bearish. There’s a lot of  part, there’s parts of this market that are  

doing extremely well and have strong earnings  and have strong top and bottom line numbers,  

but what is everything else telling you  about the underlying stability on this?

Ron Lang: So I don’t know if you’ve seen  these charts before and get your thoughts.

Jeff Kikel: Honestly, I’ve never seen that  professional money. My, it doesn’t surprise me,  

I, The hedge fund managers always make me laugh  because I mean there’s maybe 10 percent of them  

that really truly make people money and most  of them lose people a lot of money and it’s  

amazing to me that they have they’re able to keep  Garnering and bringing in money in those cases.

Jeff Kikel: But yeah, I, I think it’s interesting.  I’m a chartist and that the bottom right’s the  

one that tells me more at this point [00:23:00]  that companies are starting to pull back and say,  

okay we’re just going to make do with  a smaller staff because we anticipate  

a pullback in the market. And honestly think  that’s probably the direction we’re moving.

Jeff Kikel: At this point, I just  don’t know when it’s going to happen,  

and so I tend to be in the camp of, okay you  can’t, sit back and on the sidelines and wait,  

you got to make money when you can, but  you’ve also got to be able to adjust to  

the market when things are starting  to pull back the other direction.

Jeff Kikel: And that was the, the style of  investing that I grew up in working in big  

financial firms was that random walk down wall  street, don’t ever change your philosophy state.  

Fully invested all the time and rebalance.  And it doesn’t work at all. It was designed  

by a bunch of academics who never freaking ran  anybody’s actual money and never had to have,  

yeah, never had to have a conversation looking  a client in their eye, in the eye and say,  

you know what, I lost [00:24:00] 30 percent of  your money this year or during 2000 to 2003.

Jeff Kikel: Okay. I just lost you almost 45 to 50  percent of your money and it’ll get better. No,  

it won’t, so you’ve got to be much  more active today. You’ve got to be  

anticipating and protecting where you can,  but you’ve also got to let things run so  

that you don’t get yourself stuck. So you just  can’t be, I’m just rigidly going to do this.

Jeff Kikel: And, that’s why  I tell my clients, I’m like,  

You know what don’t trust the financial  advisor That’s really good at golf because  

they’re not looking after you on a day to  day basis and I am atrocious at the game

Ron Lang: Yeah, I think it’s interesting  with the professional man. Obviously if  

you look at the chart It’s certainly  not a 90 or 100 percent of the time,  

but I think it’s interesting that When the,  when you’re hitting a bottom here under 25%,  

that’s usually bottoming  out before it goes back up.

Ron Lang: And when the man, when the level  here is above [00:25:00] one Oh three, that’s  

when it’s topping out, it’s like a relative  strength, minus 30 above 70. I think it’s  

interesting. And I’d love to see a chart  overlaying this with a, like a relative

Jeff Kikel: strength chart, like last week.

Ron Lang: Probably do that.

Ron Lang: I’ll have to check into that. Yeah.  And if you guys haven’t you guys haven’t

Jeff Kikel: watched, yeah, if you guys  haven’t watched last week’s show, go back,  

Ron did some really good chart work on relative  strengths and. Stuff like that and overbought  

markets. It’s interesting to see, okay,  it’s, the, I’m a small little advisor,  

so I can be I can adjust to the world  quickly and adjust client portfolios.

Jeff Kikel: If you’re running billions of dollars,  

you just can’t, that’s a big battleship that  you can’t slow down or turn very easily.

Ron Lang: No, so that’s why you got to  be diversified. We’ve talked about all  

this We should probably do a whole episode  just on diversification and life stage and

Jeff Kikel: Yeah. What true  diversification actually  

means at that point, [00:26:00]  Ron, I think good stuff today.

Jeff Kikel: It was a fun discussion.  I got to rant a little bit,  

which has been a little fun for today. Folks,

Ron Lang: Hopefully you enjoyed

Jeff Kikel: this today. Make sure  that you hit that subscribe button,  

hit those upvotes, give us a comment  love to have those discussions with  

you and we will see you guys  back here the very next time.