PODCAST: Why Americans Are Moving (And What It Says About the Economy) | COT 145

Everybody, welcome to the show. Another  week with the sense of things with Ron  

and Jeff. We have got a quick show today  that we’re going to go over. Ron’s got  

some interesting stuff on cost of living in  different states. Of course, our our weekly  

what happened this week in history. I’ve got  some economic data that I wanted to share,  

some things that we’ve been following that I  wanted to just update on and what I think is  

going to be an interesting number this week.  So stay tuned. We’ll be right back with you.

And now

Hey everybody, welcome to the show. Ron, how are  you my friend? Good morning. Very well. I don’t  

understand this market, but everybody’s happy.  Once again, I think it’s it’s predicated on I they  

they think things are going to end up here pretty  soon and we’ll see. I don’t trust the Iranians to  

throw a stick at him, but we’ll see what happens.  Definitely not. All right, so here we go. This  

week in history, a couple of interesting things.  Not a lot, but a couple big ones. First thing,  

82 Beethoven Symphony number nine debuts. Yes.  Not the most exciting thing, but I thought,  

“All right, whatever.” That was cool. I didn’t  even know that. So, yeah. Serial killer HH,  

Dr. HH Holmes, one of the first well-known  serial killers, is hanged in Philadelphia,  

where all good things happen. That’s a good thing  that happened for sure. That’s interesting. So,  

I guess it it’s interesting that they  hanged him in Philadelphia because he  

was from St. Louis. Maybe that’s where  they caught him. Maybe that’s where  

Maybe that’s where he did some of his  killings. Who knows? Yeah, I don’t know. Yeah,  

that’s hilarious. I just thinking about that. I’m  like, he wasn’t from Philadelphia, but yeah. Okay,  

I know we covered it, but I think Philly was  still the capital of the country then. Yeah,  

Washington DC was remember Philly was the first  capital then. Was the first capital set up, but I  

don’t know when that whole thing changed over. It  might so I don’t know. Yeah, it was during Adam’s  

presidency when they started DC and stuff like  that. So, yeah, but yeah, I don’t know. Maybe  

he had ran to Philadelphia and that’s where they  caught him because they got him on a federal case.  

So, it didn’t really matter where they caught him  and hanged him. Gotcha. So, being a baseball guy,  

S Young, pitch his first perfect game. Wow. Very  interesting. And dead ball area, too. Yeah. 1904,  

US officially acquires the Panama Canal and  takes over construction. Didn’t this take 10  

years? How long it was? Was it during the road  the Roosevelt? Yeah, it it ended I want to say  

1909ish time period. Yeah. One of my favorite  movies of all time with with Carrie Grant is  

Arsenic and Old Lace. That there’s a whole thing  about the Panama Canal in there. Hilarious movie.  

One of my favorite Halloween movies of all time.  And I’ve been here now. I wasn’t there during it,  

but Hittenberg disaster in Lakeurst, New Jersey.  Oh, the humanity. Yes. It was very similar to the  

turkey drop during 1978. But what do you mean  turkeys can’t fly? Not as my witness. I thought  

they got a little too much girth. Yes. 1961,  Alan Shepard becomes first American in space.  

Yep. Not the first human in space. Yep. We were  just talking about it a couple weeks ago. Yeah.  

The right stuff. And what another good watch that  would That is awesome. Great flick. Great actors,  

great script, great everything. Another one of  those movies where it’s just this ensemble cast  

that is just really outstanding and a lot of them  weren’t necessarily that well known at the time.  

No. Dennis Quaid, Ed Harris. I mean, this they  were great actors, but this literally vaulted  

their careers. Yeah, it was funny. I was watching  something about they were they’re doing a thing  

on Fox News in the morning, this Route 66 thing,  and they did the Outsiders House. It was one of,  

you know, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They actually,  I didn’t realize they filmed most of the movie  

inside this house in Tulsa. And the guy from  House of Pain, the lead singer from House of Pain,  

actually bought the house and created this  Outsiders Museum. And then they were showing  

a picture of the cast and it’s holy crap. Every  single one of these guys went on to an amazing  

huge career. Interesting. All the Outsiders is an  amazing cast if you think if you go back and look  

at But the other thing too, bringing up Route  66. This year is the 100y year anniversary. 100  

year ann. why they were doing it is because it’s  there’s a couple in North Arizona that they’re  

doing. I’ve got to look that up. I’ve got to check  it out. But I thought that was interesting. 100  

years the game Yeah. The game plan for this year  actually was to to go to Chicago and drive out to  

see you in in Arizona, but we just I don’t think  it’s going to happen in in year 100. Come on. It’s  

the 250th year of our nation. What the hell? I  know. I know. I already did Philly for the 250.  

All right. 1963. If you’re a Bond person, Dr. No  debuts in theaters. It was a good It was a good  

kickoff to the fringe. Absolutely. And they did  three films in four years. Yeah. Three films. They  

did Dr. No in ‘ 62. They did love in 60 three and  Goldfinger in ‘ 64. Yeah. Yeah. They they were a  

machine. Dr. No is not my favorite of those, but I  love Yeah. I absolutely love Shan Connory as James  

Bond. He was the coolest of all the James Bonds of  all time. You know what? He I liked Roger Moore,  

but Shan Connory, they definitely cast him  correctly. Yep. Yeah. He just made that part  

so well. I I a lot of things I always like Pierce  Broden coming in because he he has that same cool  

about him a little bit. And and the last one I  think I was a big fan because he’s just a he’s  

a tough dude. But but yeah, none of them have  lived up to Shan Connory. And who had a role in  

the Dr. No cast before he got his famous a role in  a late 1960s throughout the 70s TV show? I have no  

idea. All right, take a guess. I don’t even know.  It’s been a while since I’ve seen No. All right.  

He paid he played Felix Lighter, Jack Lord from  Hawaii 5. Oh, that’s right. He was Yeah, cuz he  

was the Look it up. Like a couple things there.  Yeah, he was the CIA guy. That’s awesome. Come  

on. You Everybody knows they get a little piece  of trivia out of this. 1978 Ben & Jerry’s opens  

first ice cream store to make all the men fat in  America. Yes. With chubby hubby ice cream. The And  

and actually would just happened to a few years  back we were we were staying in Stow, Vermont,  

and that’s actually Ben and Jerry’s headquarters.  So you It’s a tiny little corner store. I saw a  

thing on it. Yeah. And even the factory is not  that big. It’s actually maybe an acre if that.  

One of them, Ben or Jerry, just resigned from the  board that bought Ben and Jerry’s cuz their whole  

deal was you have to make it a certain way. You  have to donate a certain amount of money. And now  

they now because of MY and the new CEO, they’re  changing all that. And he left the board. He was  

very upset. Oh, darn. I don’t know. I’m sure  they’re going whatever. Yeah, I know. 1980 mad  

founder’s daughter killed by drunk driver.  And all the idiots used to wear shirts that  

said damn. Yeah. BMM, which was drunks against  bad mothers. If there’s a will, there’s a way  

to twist everything. Yes. There’s a reason that  people need to be hit with a tackhammer. Yeah.  

1984 Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent win $180  million settlement. I don’t remember this. And it  

was seven chemical companies that had to pay. I  think Dow Dow was the leader. There was a couple  

of other companies in there, but I I thought only  DAO did Agent Orange. I didn’t know that there  

were others involved. Yeah, it’s one of those  things. It’s during wartime they’ll spill out that  

stuff so that they can get more production done in  a short period of time. But yeah, I think Dao was  

the creator of it though. Yeah. 2002 Spider-Man  becomes first film to earn over $100 million in  

first weekend been being released. Wow. Yeah. The  first one was big. It was like the first Iron Man,  

the reboot of Batman. They did a really good job  with those. Yeah, they did. And then they’ve now  

made 17 movies a year. Totally prostituted  the franchises. Absolutely. All right. Wealth  

migration. And I thought this was interesting.  Another visual capitalist. It’s when you look  

at this, I’m not sure why Alaska’s 210 million.  I think that might be because of the fires. But  

if you look at this, obviously this is a given  here with with California. Oh, no, it isn’t. I  

watched the debates with the governor candidate.  No, the people are migrating out of the state.  

You’re wrong. Yeah. I saw something with Roana the  other day. I don’t know what you’re talking about.  

my district’s got all these people and all that.  I’m like, yeah, everybody else that’s rational  

has left. Like I told you, since 2018-19, the  top six mo most populous metro cities, only  

Phoenix has population growth. And that’s because  of the migration from California. Yeah. Yeah. The  

greatest the greatest thing for Arizona is that  California is just shedding people non-stop and  

it’s the closest stop as well as Nevada. Look,  New York doesn’t surprise me. California doesn’t  

surprise me. I thought Connecticut would have  been higher. They have some of the highest sales  

tax and property taxes in the nation. And many  remember a lot of those hedge fund companies  

that were on the Gold Coast there outside of  Manhattan, they were moving to Florida. Yeah. So,  

I would have thought that would have been higher.  Yeah. Looking at things this week, the mayor of  

New York, I think he’s gonna shed another a pretty  goodsized company out of there after after some of  

his hijinks this week. Yeah, Florida had the most  gained. Yep. And obviously California had the And  

here it is. It’s 268,000 residents. That’s how  much they lost. And this is trying to see what  

year by 20. This is St. Louis. So this is a couple  years old. You’ve got to figure in the last two  

years they’ve shed even more. A lot more. Yeah.  And then my next one is the cost of living index.  

Why not kind of just cotail everything here? And  I thought this was interesting. Anything that’s in  

the orange to yellow section is the highest  cost of living. And again, you look at it,  

where was the migration of wealth compared to  the cost of living? California, New York, right?  

Even Florida is right in the middle. Arizona  is a little bit higher. You’re still pretty  

reasonable there. And that’s interesting because  cost of living here in Texas has gone up a lot.  

At least real estate cost now they’ve peeled back  from the heights of the pandemic. But but yeah,  

it’s still it’s a lot more expensive to  live here, especially in the Austin area,  

than it was a few years ago. Look, and we all know  Hawaii is just high cost of living. You and Mrs.  

want to move back to Massachusetts. I think that’s  the second highest on this chart. Yeah. I look  

at it is if you have enough money to live there,  that’s the fun part. When we’re in that situation,  

we’ll be good. All right. What do you got? All  right. Let’s quickly jump through here. Let me get  

all this stuff up. So, a couple things that we’ve  been watching for a while here have been new home  

sales. And of course, the federal government is  still behind um because of the government shutdown  

in the fall. So, we got February numbers and we  have some March numbers and they were basically  

the same. So, I just put one of them up. New home  sales are picking up again. We saw a revision the  

previous month. This was up, I think, from 490  to 587. Now, we’re at 636. So actually that’s  

it’s looking good that we’re starting to move in  the right direction at least on new home sales,  

existing home sales. See where that is in the  country. Yeah, that’s the thing. You got to  

kind of figure out all right, where is it? And  I still think it’s between the coasts somewhere  

because it sure as heck isn’t happening California  anytime soon because they’re they’ve got multiple  

neighborhoods in LA that they could rebuild  and they’re just not able to build. So these  

poor people that had their houses burned down,  they’re still sitting on empty lots at this point.  

One thing that I’ve been watching because of the  this whole issue in the Middle East, we don’t we  

produce a lot of oil, but what I’ve been watching  really carefully here is the petroleum status  

report because one thing I didn’t understand about  the stupidity of California is that basically they  

don’t really import any oil from the United  States or very minimal oil from the United  

states. They don’t produce much anymore, but they  get 90% of their oil from the Persian Gulf. So,  

they’ve put themselves into a position where  they’re they’re basically running out of oil with  

the blockade happening and all that. So, I’ve been  watching this because if this started to increase  

more, it was actually getting kind of ugly the  previous week. If this starts to increase more,  

it may be that we can’t necessarily help  supply California and they’re already at  

eight and $9 gas in some areas out there. So just  taxes. Yeah. Yeah. Almost $2 of it are taxes,  

but still it put themselves into a really bad  position because they’ve shut down refineries.  

They don’t want to import from the rest of  the United States. So it’s okay. You’re you’re  

not going to have any gas left. Sorry. jobless  claims floating around where they were. We saw  

a little bit of a drop in the prior week, but  I think this is our normal is about 200k. So,  

I think we’re in really good shape. Here’s the  really interesting thing this week was ADP. So,  

our ADP number, of course, that’s only going to  be private payrolls. It doesn’t really give you  

the whole picture of the economy, but I I love the  the analyst. That is a crazy range. Yeah. 40 to  

140. They have no idea. So they get this thing.  You can drive a truck through it. The consensus  

was 85,000. It came in at 109. So really good.  We have an employment report on Friday, which it  

be interesting to see. We had a really good one  the last time last month. I have a feeling we’re  

going to have a pretty dang good one this month,  too. And that is really it. There’s not very much  

information for the week. The only thing coming  up is employment situation on Friday and consumer  

sentiment. I don’t think people really care at  this point. They cover it. They cover. I think  

it’s important. Actually, I just heard earnings  this on the way into work today. McDonald’s and  

Shake Shack. Yeah. Oh god. McDonald’s beat top and  bottom line. Not that was difficult to do since  

they reduced their expectations and that’s been  up. Shake Shack was down 20 30%. Crushed. Well,  

obviously the difference is a $7 meal versus a  $20 meal and indigestion because I get indigestion  

from both. But they were talked, but both CEOs  said consumer softening and if they don’t know,  

who knows? Obviously Walmart is the big  indicator there. But even Walmart, remember  

last year said their average customer coming in  has a household income of 100,000. Yeah. People  

have traded down from the Targets of the world to  to Walmart. I think Walmart is included in that,  

too. Yeah. I think Walmart’s responded pretty  well to this whole thing. Up their game a little  

bit from where they used to be. We didn’t used to  shop a lot at Walmart, but they put a new Walmart  

in our area. It’s as nice as Target that’s right  up the street. And I’m like, if I can pay less for  

drugs and pay less for other stuff that I can get  there, I’m fine with that. I don’t have a problem  

with it. We have a couple Walmart superstores. I  mean, these things are like three or four airport  

hangers put together. Yep. They about more than a  third of the store now is just food and groceries.  

Yeah. Yeah. That’s what they’ve done. And they’re  I think they’re doing it really successfully. So,  

I think it’s a place for both consumers. I think  the low-end consumer and the kind of middle-end  

consumer. I don’t think the really the really  rich are not shopping at Walmart, but I think  

the middle class I think they’re looking at  Walmart and saying, “Hey, it’s a they’re trying  

to handle exactly what we need and what we want.”  And the stores are not trashy anymore like they  

used to be. Some of them are that you go to.  We’ve got another one right up the street that  

I call Walmart in the Hood, but it’s one is two  different worlds. One is the Walmart superstore,  

which is really nice and clean and all that. And  then the other one looks like the old Walmarts  

from the 1970s. So, it’s interesting to see what  happens. But considered a thrift store anymore.  

And just to give you an example, I don’t know what  the number is anymore, but I remember somebody  

that was very high up at Walmart. Our sons used to  play baseball together. We used to chat during the  

games. and he said that Proctor and Gamble  has a second headquarters in Bentonville,  

Arkansas because about 50% of their revenues,  Proctor and Gamble sales are through Walmart.  

Yeah. I don’t know what the number is today. I’m  going back a few years, but that’s astounding.  

I remember when I was with Fidelity, I used  to cover the University of uh Arkansas and we  

were not allowed to fly into Bentonville because  it was like eight times the amount that it cost  

to fly into Tulsa. So, we used to have to fly  into Tulsa and then drive the two hours over  

to Bentonville to the university. What’s different  today? I don’t know. I bet you it’s still as high.  

And it’s the worst airport. I It’s like this  empty airport. There’s never anything there.  

Nobody’s ever there because they fly private jets  in most cases for these big companies when they’re  

coming to Cowtown to Walmart. Yeah. But it was  hilarious. We went we were flying out I think on  

a Saturday and I think there may have been just  the plane we were flying out on there was it in  

the airport because there was like only one flight  on Saturday because it’s all during the week and  

it was wildly expensive to fly in there. Got So,  all right. Well, folks, thank you for joining us  

as always. We will be back here next week once  again. And we’ll see. Maybe there’ll be another  

ceasefire or maybe the market will be up 8,000  points. And I think pretty soon we’re probably  

going to do our halfyear our picks for the market  versus yeah, our forecast and see who’s changed  

their forecast and all of our folks again. So,  we’ll see you guys back here the next time.