Welcome back to another meet! Kevin report we're on episode 90 it is Saturday April 22nd abide. Within the next month is expected to sign another executive order, ramping up again. Limitations on exports to China and Investments by American businesses into China This is leading Taiwan to actually come out and suggest hey, uh, y'all might want to talk down the extremeness a little bit because uh, we're worried about getting invaded over here and y'all making it worse. Biden's new executive order is supposed to come with support of other G7 countries and specifically focus on Quantum, Computing and AI restrictions.

We look at flows for the stock market in April 12.6 billion dollars went right into exchange-traded funds, many of them long funds as opposed to the ultra short cash style funds that we've seen people flow into throughout 2022.. those actually have their first monthly outflow since January of this year when we had a big rally in tech stocks and uh, starting to appear like people are starting to move from those Ultra short positions into the more long-based positions stocks they want to hold for the next. say 10, 15, 20 years now. Remember what's interesting about ETS is when you hold an ETF and you hold that ETF hold on one second.

There we go. you hold that ETF ticker symbol. What ends up happening is if the ETF manager rebalances within it in a certain way and you go from having a potential capital gain, uh, you could actually have the ETF manager not pass any capital gain on to you if they trade the ETF in a certain way. This makes holding an ETF ticker symbol potentially really tax advantageous over like a mutual fund or just holding the shares yourself.

So kind of a pretty neat. uh, tax a loophole a lot of people are taking advantage of, but again, you need a manager who when there are gains, actually sets up the structure appropriately. So uh. Next, we're going to talk about the consumer and then we've got uh, stuff to talk about with the Fed and politics and a lot of different things to cover should be pretty fun.

So uh, we'll get started with the consumer here in about 10 seconds. Here, we'll go right into the uh, what's going on with the consumer and uh, it's pretty wild out there. Um, so cheers to your Saturday morning. All right here we go.

While Gallup polls finds that 50 of Americans find that their financial situation is now worse off than it was a year ago, that is the most negative read since the Great Recession the Consumer Conference Board, a leading indicator on the economy, also just had an unexpectedly sharp drop, hitting its lowest level. Since November of 2020, it's 12, a 12th decline in a row, and the longest stretch of declines that we've had since. Guess what? Also, the Great Recession subprime lending is tightening and lenders are ramping up car repossessions. So much so that the Wall Street Journal finds that it's quote Christmas for car repossession companies though even they are having struggles finding enough workers to actually fulfill the demands of car repossessions.

So what's happening with the consumer today? And what does it mean about a potential recession? Because remember, the consumer makes up over two-thirds of our entire economy. That's different in a country like China where the consumer only makes up about 30 percent of the economy here in America, the vast majority of our economy and its economic power and its growth is based on your spending. So what's happening with everyone spending in America and how similar does it sound to you? Well, let's talk about it first. There are many different segments We're going to break down here on the consumer, and the first is going to be the trade down.

We've known this since the beginning of 2022. people are spending less for the same product when they can, but there's an interesting trade-off here. see: higher income people might be spending more money at companies like Costco and Sam's Club as opposed to let's say a Whole Foods. Then you have middle-income customers or lower income customers who might originally be spending money at Costco and Sam's Club who are now moving down to potentially Walmart And then you have lower income individuals who are trading at or buying at Walmart who are potentially trading down to Dollar General.

The problem is, at some point you hit a bottom. You just can't trade down anymore. Not only can you Not trade down the store you're buying at whether it's Walmart instead of say Target Uh, and but now it's the Dollar General instead of even Walmart. But once you're already at the Dollar General you kind of hit rock bottom and it's difficult to keep trying to save money on stuff.

So what ends up happening is you have less money available to buy just discretionaries. You spend more money on the things that you need, whether it's medicine or food, groceries. Whatever problem with that is ordinarily people are able to move from like a you know, a branded product like a tie detergent or a Cheerios to maybe something cheaper like an O's brand or whatever of of a more generic cereal. But again, the problem is for lower income consumers, you hit a floor.

At some point you're already using the discount product and so dollar a Dollar General for example, is trying to come up now with its own private label Brands And this blows my mind because now we're literally talking about Dollar General realizing that there are people who are wanting to trade down from the brands that are in Dollar General to a Dollar General brand brand. That's weird. It's problematic, though, not for wealthier people or even middle class people who actually have room to move down. It's problematic for the poorest of the poor, specifically those for whom utility costs and high rents have really been slaying their ability to get ahead in life.

That's becoming even more difficult for them to stay ahead while at the same time, what's happening with richer folks? Well look at Lvmh for uh, your Louis Vuitton No sign of a Slowdown here. and what's weird is you didn't have a Slowdown in September of 2008 either. Lvmh spending was still strong, and the CEO in an earnings call from September of 2008 told us there was no decline in spending from richer folks. And so it seems that one of the earliest indicators that we get in a consumer-led recession is the lowest income tiers start suffering first.

But the question is, will the lowest income tier actually lead the entire economy into a recession? And that's much less clear. Generally, what you need is you need to see the middle and upper tier stop spending to actually be driven into a recession? For example, the Richer folks didn't stop spending at Lvma each until the second quarter of 2009. That's when the Federal Reserve was already printing money. And so it's no surprise that Lvmh stock didn't actually fall when their revenue hit a floor in Q2 of 2009, which would have been reported around July of 2009.

instead, their stock was Rising. So in a weird way, when you go back to 208-9 and if you look at sort of the wealthier cohort of stocks, well, those stocks may have gotten hit with the initial impression of the recession. and they certainly did from 2007 to 2008. But when earnings actually hit a bottom, the stocks had already meaningfully recovered and continued to recover from there.

And so it's interesting to see this deviation between the various different stock performances and what's actually happening with consumer spending. A lot of stocks right now are down, but consumer spending in some segments is still doing quite well. We look at companies like old Delta, which apparently has incredibly High pricing power, and their stock has actually been killing it. and so it makes you wonder.

Also, wait a minute. Now we get these misleading signals of what actually is happening. and that's actually where things really get fascinating when we consider what's happening with consumers. Look at.

For example, when we zoom in to Boomers versus Millennials, we're seeing a lot of spending growth led by Millennials and Gen Z. Consider this at American Express Millennials and Gen Z increase their spending 28 percent Boomers increase their spending eight percent. Now, maybe that's because Boomers own the majority of assets. after all, Millennials really only own about 2.3 percent of all the stock that exists, and Boomers and Gen X own like 56.3 percent.

Uh, plus another 25.3 for the Gen X. So combine the vast majority of stocks that are out there or just over 80 percent are owned by Boomers and Gen X and maybe they felt their wealth Decline and therefore they're not spending as much, but Millennials in Gen Z didn't have much wealth to start with and maybe there's a choice of hey, we just went through a disproportionately long coveted lockdown for a younger person, right? Well, you know, two years out of a 20 year old's life is 10. Two years out of a 60 year old person's life is a third of of a tenth of a or, well, ten percent. So about three percent, right? So a huge difference.

So maybe what you're seeing happening is sort of this deviation of the age of spend as well. And this kind of makes for again, a blurry picture of what's going on with the consumer. because if older folks are spending less because they're like, hey, going into a recession, We've been down this Rodeo before. We remember the 70s, Remember the 80s? We remember 08? We remember.com You know what? We're gonna hit the brakes a little bit and spend a little less and we've already seen our 401ks and our stocks go down fine.

But on the other hand, who's stepping in to spend more? Gen Z and Jen Uh, and Millennials who are also getting paid more at a lot of the jobs that they're working. After all, lower income jobs are the ones seeing the largest wage gains on a nominal basis. And if they're able to spend that money on travel and entertainment, then maybe that's why we're still seeing consumers as an aggregate, still somewhat propped up. but it's interesting because if you also go a little bit deeper into different kind kinds of businesses and business spending, you have almost what feels like the opposite.

The smaller and more immature companies like, almost like the younger folks. But in the business world, they're only spending eight, uh, six percent more year over year at American Express whereas larger corporations are spending 34 more year over year. Which is interesting because when I segment this and I try to understand this I think to myself, okay, so what you have are wealthier people still spending money at companies like uh, whether it's L'Oreal Lvmh larger corporations still spending money. So the the wealthy and the folks investing for the next 10 years, the larger businesses.

They're spending money like crazy. Then on the other hand, you've got younger folks who are like I'm making more money on an hourly basis whether it's a real wage gain or not. And so I'm gonna spend more money and I'm gonna spend it on travel and entertainment because we got to live a little and then there are some spots in between where we're looking saying okay, but some of the smaller businesses or like the really poor or who are you know much more paycheck to paycheck and and are having to shop between various different stores. Uh, you know whether it's Dollar General jumping over to Five Below whatever to try to get through some of this inflationary pain that we're seeing.

Are those sectors really going to hit the economy? Well, nobody really knows. And so that's the big question. And what I like to try to do to break this down is I Go. Okay, well, what's going on with savings? Because really, ultimately, we need to see savings decline for people at all levels to finally say all right, let's rein in our spending.

So in other words, let's see companies issue less BuyBacks and people have less money in their savings account and more unemployment. Those are the things that we should see as conditions for a recession. Yeah, wait a minute. What are we actually seeing? Or we're not seeing joblessness go up.

Even though that's a lagging indicator, we're actually seeing stock BuyBacks increase at companies more BuyBacks planned in the next 12 months than in the last 12 months. which is remarkable. And this was mind-blowing. Absolutely mind-blowing Bank of America says customers have a 53 percent higher balance in their checking account than they did before the pandemic.

But it's not just that, because that's fine. Like we could still have excess savings left over, right? but that's trending down right? that's going to evaporate, right? This was mind-blowing Look at this from Bank of America Here we go: Consumers are being more careful in their use of cash. However, they've got 53 percent more cash in their accounts than they did pre-pandemic But then listen to this line right here from Peak last year, consumer savings fell down a little bit all the course of the year and it's built back up in the first part of 2023.. What? Think about what that means for a moment.

That means when it comes to the consumer, we could not be getting a more blurry picture. We thought savings would blow up and then would collapse and then we would go into recession. But that's not actually what happened. Savings blew up Drew down in 2022, and now they're coming up again at higher levels now than where they were before the pandemic.

So wait a minute. How do we reconcile all of this data? Because this is pretty confusing and yet still, it makes us wonder what does this mean for a recession? Because we're supposed to see unemployment go up because if somebody gets laid off, they're going to stop spending, right? Well, maybe not because if you get laid off and then you go buy some Ulta and Sephora makeup and then you get another job and then you go right back to spending. Maybe the jolts that is the job openings and labor turnover survey actually shows us there's a huge cushion like a huge safety net. blanket of like lost your job.

No problem, come work over here. And in a weird way, when we put this together, we go. wait a minute. Maybe the consumer can actually get through whatever this period of time is that we're in and call it recession or not.

I Mean consider what we just learned: We learned that Millennials and Gen Z are spending more money. being big businesses are spending more money. We know that average savings accounts are actually growing again at the start of 2023, totally against expectations. We know that the lowest 20 of Americans are spending uh or less.

uh, where they can. but the question is, how much does that segment matter towards GDP So when we write that down, the answer is probably very little. In fact, we could probably Google uh, quartile contribution to GDP And my guess is the top four quartiles contribute substantially more than the lowest quartile. So we'll do some searching for that and see if we can get some answers on that.

But I think it's very interesting. Uh, so in the meantime, let's see here. which incomes contribute most to GDP Let's see if we could find it I'm sure we could find it here. GDP Contribution By by sector we don't care about, we want by income.

That's what we want. GDP Contribution by income. Uh, anyway, but let's just go with the assumption that the vast majority of GDP contribution is uh, from those of the highest income brackets. But when we put this together, we're kind of scratching our heads going.

is it does this sound like a recession? And really, when we look and we say, well, we don't have the unemployment yet, but we know that lags, we still have, uh, the high income spending, right? So if we have the high income spending, but that's also a lagging indicator, Does that tell us anything about recession? Well, probably the best leading indicator would be savings and job losses. But both savings are rising and job losses are relatively stable. So I'm somewhat confused by this picture of the consumer. The picture of the consumer shows pain at the lowest levels, the levels that can't trade down any lower, the levels that have the highest exposure uh to rent and also potentially subprime model loans or other subprime loans.

uh, like using credit cards credit cards, inferior form of subpride lending because you can't get a loan against your home or some kind of other lower interest rate, uh, debt. So what we try to evaluate the consumer in today's economy, It doesn't actually seem like there's a clear indication today that the consumer is completely dead. and if the consumer is not dead, in fact, some segments of our economy are continuing to spend like crazy, then could we potentially avoid a recession now? I Want to go ahead and try to find this segment here because I think it's going to be a big deal which income groups contribute to GDP the most. So let's go ahead and find that out.

and let me see here. let me write a little note here so I know we've got GDP by in by by industry that's so easy to see. but I Want to see um, what incomes contribute to United States GDP uh uh let's see here GDP Again, everything is always by the sector sector I Want like by by wealth? How How about this? How much does the bottom 20 contribute to GDP You know what? Let's try Chat GPT and see if it could get us into the uh, the right area: Trans income, wealth, inequality, income share, home. Wow, Why is it so difficult to find? That's okay.

we will get to the bottom of it. I Do think it'll be very interesting. So all right, Chat GPT It is and let's see if we can get an answer because I think it'll be useful to us. So the bottom 10 is 15 660.

the bottom twenty percent or higher. How about what does chat GPT have to say? uh uh wow. According to the World Bank in low-income countries, the bottom 20 typically contributes less than five percent of GDP while in high income countries the contribution is around 20 or is around 10 rather. so the bottom 10 or 20 contributes about 10.

How about um, how much does the top 20 percent? uh or how much does the top 20 percent of the population by income in America contribute to GDP See, look at Chat GPT Now we know some of this is. uh, you know this is going to be more sort of generic data because we're not going to have the most recent estimates from them. but see the top 20 percent of income earners contribute 52 percent to GDP Wow, Up to 55. That's really interesting.

Okay, so so let's go jump into uh, let's let's add add that in to how we think about this and then I think I Had one more thing I Wanted to hit here. So oh right, right, Right, Right right? Okay, yeah. I Had somewhat of a conclusion to this sort of my thoughts about potentially what's going on. so let's fix that.

Okay, here we go. Okay, so now we have the data. The fact is that the bottom 20 of income holders only contribute roughly 10 to GDP. In other words, the bottom 20 percent of earners are only contributing about basically half of their representative population to GDP whereas the top 20 of earners contribute about two and a half times as much to GDP.

That is the top 20 percent of earners contribute about 55 to 58 to GDP. So well wait a minute. Then, if wealthier businesses and wealthier consumers are still spending. yeah, the bottom 20 is getting whacked, but they're not representing as much of a contribution to GDP and we're not actually seeing the big waves of joblessness yet? Is it possible that maybe we could avoid ever seeing those levels of jobness and actually Dodge a recession? And in which case, if we Dodge a recession? what the hell was all of what we just went through? And this is where I think there are two potential answers.

Number one, We just haven't seen the real pain yet. That's probably the default analysis that. Don't worry, unemployment and wealthier spending is just a lagging indicator. As soon as those job losses accrue in the lower levels, the lower income levels, then they're going to trickle up from the bottom.

You're going to see those mid-sized businesses and larger businesses stop spending money. When they stop spending money, the entire economy will see even more job losses. It will be right back into 2008. that's one argument and it would make sense.

but we're not actually seeing job loss as accrue at even the lower levels. Nowhere are we seeing job losses accrue. It actually seems like we're still substantially able to get a new job, even if we got laid off from our last one. Maybe at a slightly lower income.

But does that necessarily mean we stopped spending? No, of course not. So then the question is okay. What is scenario number two? If scenario number one is oh wait, but we're still not seeing the levels of that, then what's the second potential explanation? Well, the second potential explanation is what I call a rejiggering? A re-jiggering is where we basically see the entire economy thrown into a blender, mixed up and shaken up like a salad that McDonald's doesn't serve anymore and you open it up and you get a totally different kind of economy. Consider it a little bit more bluntly.

people who used to work in the office pretty much all went to work from home. and then some of those people after the pandemic went back to the office and some stayed at home, and some who wanted to stay at home ended up having to get different jobs. So you saw layoffs lead to those people getting jobs somewhere else. people who went back to the office maybe went to work at a different office.

So you get this rejiggering of where people are working. You also get the shift of where people live. people move to coveted boom towns and then potentially move back or out of those coveted boom towns. I've actually talked to people who live in Texas who moved to Texas during the pandemic who was like who say I'm moving back to California and so then it makes us Wonder Well, wait a minute if a lot of the craziness we're seeing in the economy is just sort of a re-shifting And yeah, we're hearing about these last, but we're not actually getting job losses.

Is it possible we could get through this sort of consumer spending transition without a recession? And the answer is yes. And so that's what's Wild is looking at the consumer. There are so many negative things we could look at. Oh tighter.

Bank Lending is supposed to hit them. But you know what? even when I looked at tighter Bank lending. to research this, you know what? I realized, you know, even subprime auto loans. Even if 75 of people ended up defaulting on their auto loans because they were a subprime borrower and three out of every four defaulted, the people lending up for subprime Autos would still make a profit.

It's kind of like the system's just been rigged against poor people. I Mean, we kind of already know that it's the people with assets make the rules right. The people with the gold make the rules. That's the Golden Rule after all, So if that's the case, then maybe right now we're not actually going to see this banking crisis turn into any kind of crimp down of lending and therefore this massive joblessness because people can't afford to keep getting by.

Especially since Bank of America's Bank balances are rising and when you look at Discover what do they say? discovers jumping up and down going. We had our best quarter last quarter of people bringing money to our bank and us giving them loans. So yeah, there's some degree of normalization that we're seeing in consumer spend. but are we, and, uh, also consumer borrowing? But is is anything really that reminiscent of 2007-2008 in terms of the consumer right now? Not really.

And so that's fascinating from the point of view of maybe whatever this recession is is super nominal or nothing at all I mean it doesn't take much to go slightly negative on GDP right? GDP only has to be negative point one percent to technically be in a recession if you have that for two quarters in a row. but uh, I Have to say, studying the consumer here, not that scary. If anything, it actually seems like the first quarter of 2023, things are looking up again and maybe the real recession was when we had the technical recession in 2022. Pretty wild.

So anyway, with that said, if you want to get super powered book summaries and be inspired to maybe check out future books, go to Shortform.com Meet Kevin If you go to Shortform.com meet Kevin you can check out super powered book summaries on your phone uh through PD F You could audiobook the summaries. Basically really great for inspiration and hopefully you'll check out short form by going to Shortform.com Meet Kevin You get 25 off hire a negotiated deal for you. Check it out. Thank you! All right? Uh, okay, let's see here.

Let's see here. let's see what what's there? Looks like. There's some chat in the commentary here about FHA or whatever I'm a big fan of people uh, buying with FHA We live in an economy where Savers are punished like criminals I Don't think people are punished like criminals I Just think yes, saving is disincentivized because you you want to see people spend money. Let's see here, you're better off not using FHA financing if you have excellent credit.

Um no. I don't think it has anything to do with your credit score quite frankly I think it has to do with your debt to income and your your capacity for qualifying. Uh, so I I don't think your credit matters at all for that. Uh, let's see.

interesting some fascinating commentary I Always like looking at the commentary on the weekend. We've got the subscriber commentary here, so it's usually a little bit more. you know, rowdy. Uh, but uh yeah.

very cool. All right let's get to uh, the next topic so that's on consumers I Think a fascinating take their consumers I think it's just. it's so interesting to me about how you know we think we're We're so certain to go into a recession and uh, the data that we get is so mixed, if anything positive. The really the Bank of America piece was mind-blowing to me that Bank of America is starting to see consumer excess savings rotate up as opposed to down right I mean that? that blows my mind.

Uh, personal. Uh, let's see. So there's a question here. Let's see here.

somebody's asking what about personal debt to income ratios so we can figure that out Uh I can tell you personal interest payments Uh, it would be household household debt payments percentage of let's see here household Debt Service payments Here we go as a percentage of disposable income? Yeah, All right. So I think that's a good follow-up So good. follow-up here. Where's where's that question? Now here's a follow-up question: What is the ratio of debt to income from 2006 compared to now? Well, we actually have that chart.

All we have to do is jump on over to the good old. St Louis Federal Reserve and their beautiful charts. Uh, hashtag not sponsored on exactly this question. So basically, what is the percentage of uh debt payment that a household is making today compared to their income or should I say their leftover income, right? So once you take out housing payments and groceries, now, you're left with disposable income? What percentage of debt do people have as a percentage of their income? If the number is higher than 2006, that would indicate more stress, right? If it's lower, that would indicate less stress.

And so what do we see right here? Boom, Look at that. So in 2006, we were sitting about 12.5 percent. Today we're sitting at 9.7 percent. And what's remarkable is it actually flattened over here between Q4 or Q3 2022 and Q4 2022, which is where the data series ends.

We should be getting the next Q1 data here within the next few weeks, but it's fascinating because you're not. You're not seeing this go back to 2006 level. so you're actually seeing just the normalization to 2019. And so I think people are seeing this.

this Spike right here and they're like oh my God everything's so bad. but what if it's just a normalization to Trend Maybe that's actually what we're seeing when it comes to consumerism. So it's It's really fascinating and it doesn't indicate uh, and you know, a recession. You know somebody here says the extra money from stimulus and such has to dry out.

It's a slow process and it will not go away in one year. It's a patience game. Yeah, well. the longer it takes, the longer we could potentially avoid a recession.

And the indications are that you don't have to have a recession. But I mean consider what Bank of America told us. if what you you're saying is true and the only thing propping up consumer savings is stimulus. Why in Q1 of 2023 did Bank of America savings on net rise rather than continue to get drawn down like they did in 2022? Well, it's a sign that people are still able to make money so you're able to get out and and make more income uh, to pay to continue to spend even though the prices are higher.

So again, I I Don't know that there's a um, there's a substantial, glaring indicator here of of this horrible 2008 style recession. Uh, it. It really also aligns with what we're seeing in real estate. I mean the first three months of 2023, real estate has started booming again.

I Mean there's a lack of inventory. Prices have started Rising again. but there was a lack of inventory last year as well and prices were falling. So it's uh, it's really interesting this this potential that maybe things just aren't that bad.

something to pay attention to. You know, somebody here says, let's just ignore food inflation I mean quite frankly I I Don't understand why people sometimes make these like these, uh, these uh, loaded statements. You're suggesting that I ignored food inflation when I literally spent the first nearly five minutes of the consumer segment talking about how people are having to trade down to less, uh, expensive food because they can't afford it anymore. Of course, food inflation is a problem, but guess for whom, food and play inflation is important, the bottom 20 of people and again, how much do they contribute to the GDP 10 if that? So in other words, we're not here to say those aren't people and they don't have feelings and hardship and that they don't matter.

We are here to say that they're facing problems, but that's not indicative of what the rest of the economy is feeling. So you know you gotta be careful with the uh with with the people that that just make uh, loaded statements like oh, but but you know I haven't seen food prices go down? Yeah, but that anecdote has nothing to do with the greater economy at all and it also misunderstands what inflation is Right Stable prices does not mean prices are back to 2019 levels. it just means they're not Rising anymore. Anywho, so well, and the uh, consumer segment.

So let's see here. Okay, fascinating piece, All right. Next thing we got to analyze is oh yeah, this is gonna push some buttons. Oh, but it's a good one.

So oh, this one's gonna be fun. A little bit of politics. It's the weekend we got it. We get to.

We get to do Politics on the weekend. That's that's the rule, All right. So we'll pull this up and uh, then we will pull this up. Okay, Oh okay, hold on one second.

All right there we go. Thank you! Now this is sure to ruffle some feathers because Tucker Carlson is being Tucker Again, don't get me wrong, I think Tucker knows exactly how to identify what's bothering an uh Americans throughout our country and really highlight how we should be frustrated about the state of certain Affairs in our country. And sometimes he hits the nail on the head, but other times he has a tendency of using information and commentary that's not precisely telling the whole story and unfortunately, it can sometimes be an outright lie. Now what I'd like to do is break down What? Robert F Kennedy Just said who just announced that they're running for president? Now what you need to know going into this segment is: I ran for Governor in California and when I ran for governor against Governor Newsom I ran as somebody who's in the middle I called myself 5149 JFK Dem p People heard that and they're like, all right, that's the only damn I'd ever consider voting for I Hear it all the time What's fascinating is Robert F Kennedy has the same kind of commentary.

After he went on to Tucker Carlson's show, people were saying hmm sounds like a level-headed Dem somebody who's actually bringing reason back to the Democratic party. The problem is, the reason we got was a little flawed. Actually quite flawed and so we're going to break that down in addition to Breaking This down, you have to ask yourself, why would a Democrat be invited onto Tucker Carlson's show and why would Robert F Kennedy announce his run for president as a Democrat and one of the first stops he makes be Tucker Carlson show why wouldn't he be showing up on CNN or NBC or some of these other uh, you know, Msnbc's whatever. why not show up on some of these more left-leaning shows? Well, I can say from personal experience that the Democratic party is so rigged and in line with the media.

and I'm not saying the Republican party doesn't have rigging going on as well. They certainly do okay. but I can tell you with certain maybe it's just all politics. I Can tell you with certainty that when I ran for governor against Gavin Newsom the puppet basically of the media of the left, what ended up happening.

My campaign was often ignored by left media and yet I sat down on National Television on Fox News Fox Business KTLA Newsmax You name it, all of the right shows wanted to hear from me but not the left shows why. Though, if technically you're running under the D ticket, well, there's a reason for that: the right leaning media realizes the best characters to basic quickly on the existing Governor or the president or the other people within the party going. This party sucks and we need change in the party and that's actually what you end up seeing from Robert F Kennedy here. So I think it's really interesting because I ran a very strong campaign.

We got nearly a million votes in California one San Francisco to to change California for the better Now obviously I lost. Uh, but I learned a lot and I Have to say it's really fascinating seeing the similarities play out now on a presidential scale. However, I am still going to address where Tucker Carlson and his guests are misleading America because it's a perfect opportunity to break down why. You've got to think really critically about what you hear from Tucker sometimes.

All right. So let's listen in to this segment and see what they have to say. Who joins us now? Bobby Thanks so much for coming on! Um, so you are of course being dismissed as a vaccine nut, but watching your announcement today it wasn't about Pharma Even so much as it was about America's place in the world And what do we do about it? If you wouldn't mind summarizing for our viewers where you think we are and what you think we ought to do foreign, Thank you again for uh, having me on of course and for that very kind of an introduction. Um, you know they I think that the general theme in my speech was this corrupt merger of state and corporate power which has uh, which has gone uh, which is turning our country into corporate kleptocracy into a system of socialism for the rich and there's a cushy socialism for the rich and that's kind of brutal.

um, merciless capitalism for the poor I It keeps us in a state of War It bails out banks at the same time that it you know. This month last month the United States government told 30 million people it was cutting their welfare their food stamp checks by 90 percent. It took it took 15 million people off of Medicare The same month it gave 300 million dollars to the Silicon Valley Bank. So let's pause right there.

So far all three of those claims that I hate to say it. but Robert F Kennedy just made or actually highly misleading. Extremely misleading. Let's go in reverse order and actually address these claims.

He just mentioned that we gave 300 billion dollars to Silicon Valley Bank That is wrong. The FDIC spent about 20 billion dollars to bail out Silicon Valley Bank and about 2.5 billion dollars to bail out Signature Bank in New York That's not 300 billion dollars. That's 22.5 billion dollars and it's from an insurance corporation which will probably end up billing other Banks to help make up that loss. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think that's right.

I think there should have been more losses at Silicon Valley Bank. So that way the rest of the banking system doesn't have to pay for that 22.5 billion dollars. But let's be clear, the government didn't pay that 22.5 billion dollars. Ultimately, it will be other banks that pay that 22.5 billion dollars.

Now where the line gets blurred is that. Yes, Technically, we established a liquidity facility via the Federal Reserve backstop by taxpayers for Silicon Valley Bank In other words, in plain: English we gave Silicon Valley a loan Silicon Valley Bank a loan that was guaranteed by taxpayers. That is true, But after that money was no longer needed, that liquidity was no longer needed and the assets were liquidated at Silicon Valley Bank which is still in progress. Now the estimates are the total losses will be 22.5 billion and not for taxpayers, but instead other.

Banks That's a really big deal because when you're saying Silicon Valley Bank out of 300 billion dollar for uh, payment, it's wrong. Yes, they got loans that were repaid by the assets that they have and are being repaid by their assets they have. But it's very misleading so it's important to break down what is actually happening. In addition, this idea that 30 million people had their food stamps cut via the snap food programs is wrong.

What happened was a pandemic era. a coveted stimulus era food stamp program SNAP Benefit program benefits ended and other programs stepped into their place. The same is true for the 15 million people off of Medicare or Medicaid before their crisis. For example, people would regularly lose Medicaid coverage if they started making too much money.

Remember Aid is for poor people. Care is for old people Aid poor Care Old Just remember that Anyway, if you start making too much money, guess what? You don't qualify for the programs anymore. You get kicked off the duh. That's the point of a social safety net is that once you don't need the social safety net, you get your ass off of it.

so the money's there for other people. Well, what happened during Covet, the government said, don't worry, we're not kicking anyone off. We don't care how much money you make now. Medicare and Medicaid are actually checking if people qualify again, just like they always have in the history of Medicare and Medicaid.

So ending a covid pandemic stimulus error program that was designed to be temporary is not kicking people off. it's just going back to checking. Hey, do these folks still qualify? So this is really misleading to say this. I Think it's worth highlighting some of the differences here, but it gets worse.

So let's keep listening and tapped up the cost of the Ukraine war to 113 billion. We're sending 113 billion to the Ukraine. The entire budget of EPA is 12 billion. The budget of CDC is 11 billion.

We have 57 percent of American Citizens could not put their hands on a thousand dollars if they have an emergency. These things are true. But before the pandemic under the Trump Administration that statistic was exactly the same as well. 57 percent of people don't have a thousand dollars.

This is something you could easily Google It fluctuates between 56 to 57 all the time. That's not a surprise. Yes, it is true. The Epa's budget is 12.08 billion dollars and the Cdc's budget is 11.581 Yes, we did just spend upwards of 113 billion dollars in Ukraine.

This is true. So so far this is correct. Let's keep listening. A quarter of our citizens are hungry, so we're cutting welfare and food stamps by 90 percent and we're paying.

And we're bailing out the bankers. We're paying for a war that you know we we can't afford. And um, and with the way that we do, this is by printing money. We've printed 10 centuries of money in the last 14 years and that is that caused that, by the way, is also pretty misleading, just unfortunately because obviously ten dollars was worth a whole lot more in 1900 than it is today.

Uh, just like a gallon of milk was one third of the cost in the 80s compared, or one-third of the cost in the 80s compared to what it is today. Now, of course, part of that is because of the expansion of the money supply, basically inflating away the value of the dollar. But obviously on this Finance Channel We make it clear that we're not here to shill the dollar or tell you to have cash. Cash is stupid most of the time right now.

it makes a nice yield and you could use it as a hedge when asset values are falling. But the best thing to have in your life to build your wealth or assets? businesses, stocks, and real estate most important. So yeah, as those if inflate away, guess what, asset values actually go up in nominal terms compared to the dollar. But anyway, I I Don't know that that terribly matters so much.

but that's okay. We let's get to the real data here, which gets a little worse: inflation. So you know we've raised food prices for Basic Foods like chicken Dairy and milk by 76 Yeah in the last two years and now we're cutting people's food stamps and bailing out Banks The Same Again, though this argument is flawed, right? Yes, food prices have gone up. But then to say oh, we're taking people off of the social services programs because we're checking if they still qualify it is is not a fair comparison.

You can't link those two things and then misappropriate the fact that 300 million or 300 billion dollars went to to Silicon Valley Bank when that's not true Mont And uh, it doesn't make any sense and we need to get rid of this kind of corporate control of our government. It comes from. uh, this, you know it. it our our democracy is devolving into kind of a corporate plutocracy.

I I would think that what you just said and I I'll just be honest. I Agree with most of it. Um, but even if I didn't I would think boy, that's a really interesting thing to say. You have a coherent worldview.

You've written a lot of books on these topics. you've clearly thought about it. You're not in it for the money. So don't these issues deserve a wide hearing? Uh, before the public entering a presidential year, It seems to me that they do I would think they would, and particularly the issues of war.

And you know, my son went over and fought in the Ukraine as I said today. I think we're you know people, the major doyans, sort of diplomatic. The most respected diplomatic gurus like Henry Kissinger and Jack Matlock and Larry Wilkinson have all said that Ukraine war is a huge problem for our country because it from a geopolitical standpoint, is driving the Russians close to the Chinese which is the worst thing for us. We're there for the right reasons because we have tremendous compassion for the Ukrainian people and the illegal Invasion the brutality and also their Valor and their courage.

My own son was serving over there. He joined a Special Forces Unit as a machine gunner. he fought in the car cave offensive Americans care about the underdog? They care about that kind of suffering. But the question is, why are we in the Ukraine Because Lloyd Austin the Secretary of Defense that were there to exhaust the Russians President Biden has said that we're there to to de-platform to depose Vladimir Putin And if that's why we're there and we're killing a lot of Ukrainians as Pawns in a proxy war between between two great Powers.

Here's one last thing I would say: Nobody talks about this. There's 14 000 Ukrainian civilians who have died, but 300 000 troops Russians are killing Ukrainians at a seven to one to eight to one ratio. They cannot sustain this well. we're being told about.

This war is just not true. Okay, this is problematic. It's also problematic because I See somebody in the comments saying limits for Medicaid Eligibility haven't gone up. Uh, false.

There are inflation adjustments for them. They have gone up. They've expanded widely. In fact, the poverty level line has actually moved up.

from limits of 100 of the poverty line to 138 percent of the poverty line in some states. so be careful about that. We could go through some of these statistics, but what was just mentioned is really problematic because here Robert F Kennedy suggests that seven times as many Ukrainians are dying as Russians are dying in Ukraine. Which is quite fascinating because just five days before Robert F Kennedy's interview with Tucker Carlson listen to what Tucker Carlson said on his show.

The second thing we learned from these slides is that despite direct Us involvement, Ukraine is in fact losing the war. seven Ukrainians were being killed for every Russian Ukrainian air defenses have been utterly degraded. Interesting. The same statistic that the Robert F Kennedy guy just used a to tell back to Tucker Carlson was used five days prior on Tucker Carlson's show himself.

So first of all, Robert F Kennedy was wrong on quite a few things. wrong on Silicon Valley Bank He's wrong on the food stamps program and he's creating these correlations that are unfair to what's actually happening in the economy. But now we're looking at wait a second. You're saying seven times as many Ukrainians are dying did you just get that stat from Tucker Carlson And if you got it from Tucker Carlson where did Tucker Carlson get that stat from because that also doesn't appear to be true.

So the best thing to do here is try to understand where could this data have come from. If Tucker Carlson is saying seven times as many people died or Ukrainians are dying, where is he getting the stat from? Obviously, Robert F Kennedy is reiterating it. Whether he learned it from Tucker or somewhere else doesn't matter so much. but what matters is what the reality is.

and the reality is the following: This is the specific slide that they are referring to now: I Want you to pay it very, very clear attention to this segment down here: 16 to 17, 500 Killed in action in Ukrainians. Pay attention to this now. I Want you to see the peace that was leaked? Uh, well. quote unquote leaked after being altered on Twitter Take a look at this.

The numbers were changed from 16 000 to 17 000 to 61 000 to 71 000. Now I want you to closely examine this for a moment. Look at this right here. These numbers were 35 to 43 for Russians and those numbers were actually reduced to 16 to 17.5 But what I really want you to look is, look at how unaligned the text is.

Let me draw a line under the 16.5 k and look how it cuts off the rest of the scents. This segment was clearly edited not only because of that, but look at the period here and then the five right. We could see the five right here. Look at how large the Gap is between the 17.5 and the 0.5 which when you compare to over here, you do not have that large of a gap.

This actually looks relatively normal compared to this massive Gap that you see over here. So we know these documents were altered and the documents were altered to suggest that Russia is losing a lot fewer people and Ukraine is actually losing a lot more. This was a Russian propaganda tool. But wait a minute.

This isn't a seven to one sure. But you have to tuckerify this and this is where. wait a second, folks. We have to remember we're listening to Tucker Carlson The truth isn't the most important priority.

views are the most important priority and that's okay. We know that about Tucker. He's sort of summarizing the sentiment that we're feeling. So is the RFK guy, right? Look, people aren't pissed that food is more expensive, People are pissed that we're spending this much much money in Ukraine and a fraction of that, uh, on our own.

Environmental Protection Agency right? Why does that all seem so backwards? We have plenty of problems in America. Why spend all this money over there? There are plenty of sentiments we could totally agree with. but wait a minute when we actually try to figure this out. How could you possibly get one to seven ratio from this through laziness folks? That's how.

look. if you take 16 000 and you round it down, what do you get you get? ten thousand, right? You just take the first digit. All you have to do is take the first digit ten thousand and then take the first digit on on the lower side. Over here.

Uh, on the Uh Ukrainian side. but take the first digit of the higher number seventy thousand. Oh, look at what. you have a seven to one ratio that is seven times as many Ukrainians are dying as Russians in a doctored false piece in a Russian propaganda piece.

There's a reason why Tucker Carlson is the most famous American guest on Russian propaganda television. the Russians Love Tucker Because Tucker says stuff that makes the Biden Administration look bad and there are plenty of reasons to make the Bible Administration look bad. Okay the players: I'm not here to defend the Biden Administration But when you use Russian propaganda in your own stories and then your guests start regurgitating that Russian propaganda back to you, What you get is an uninformed electorate that gets unnecessarily pissed off based on false information and it's really dangerous. There needs to be fact checking for Tucker Carlson shows.

It's exhausting though because it seems like it's every day you have to kind of go through and go away. Where the hell did that stat come from? Oh, the doctored stuff Russia is using as propaganda. Oh and now you're It's like a virus. It's like Tucker says, is it there's uh, It pronounces it using false information and then everybody else is reiterating the Tucker comments.

It's a big problem. So the best thing I could suggest now is if it stresses you out, get life insurance in as little as five minutes by going to Metcaven.com Life Metkevin.com Life and you can Apple or Android pay for life insurance in as little as five minutes. On top of that, if you want to get super powered book summaries, make sure you go to Shortform.com Meet: Kevin get 25 off signing up for short form. Try them out.

Give them a trial. super easy to audiobook or PDF read super powered summaries of amazing books and get inspired laughs. Foreign? All right. we have another piece to go through.

Uh-huh this is a good one. Let's do this one. Oh man, uh. this.

Okay, we'll do this one and then we'll do a Fed piece. Uh, because I do want to get back to the FED as well. and uh, both of them quite. Uh, quite useful.

Well, both one's interesting, the other one's more useful. All right. let me pull this up. How y'all doing in the commentaries yet? Um, the dance for the intro? Oh no, uh.

all right, let's see here. Oh yeah, this one's juicy, but it will take me just a moment to get up here. You know what we can do in the meantime? just let me pull this and uh, let's see what they're saying over here. Oh I found it.

There we go. I'm just curious what they're saying over here. Uh, oops, not there. Oh, there reports at this point, so not surprising.

Um, we thought probably there would be a dissent or two, so we know that Justice Thomas descended. But Justice Alito wrote his dissent and basically said I don't think that the people who are pushing for access to the pill have shown that they will suffer any real harm. The fifth Circuit that next step below the Supreme Court has expedited this whole thing so they will actually hear arguments on this May 17th This is. yeah.

this whole abortion pill thing is pretty crazy I think it's going to be a lot bigger of a deal in the 24 election. and it's crazy because there's so many, so many important things. They're not saying that there isn't some importance in in figuring you know, getting this. Supreme Court Roe V Wade Situation ironed out.

but boy, it's just. there's so much going on. It's wild, all right. So yeah, let's do this one.

Well, this is pretty wild. You all know the my Pillow guy that shows up on Fox News like 27 times in an hour. You know. Now he's complaining that my pillow 1.0 isn't actually as good and you should buy as my pillow 2.0 because he's found some new proprietary threads.

Yeah, well. Anyway, this guy made an argument all throughout 2021 that he would pay five million dollars to anyone who could prove the material evidence that he had was not about Chinese interference and not from the Presidential 2020 election. In other words, Mike Lindell Set up a contest and said we believe there was election fraud and we have evidence to say that there's election fraud and anybody who could prove that our evidence is not election fraud, a material or material from the election, we will pay them Five million dollars. So what ended up happening? Well, this computer forensics expert decided who was a Trump voter two prime.

A two-time Trump voter decided to sign up for Mike Lindell's contest. He met the qualifications, showed up to the contest and got the data that they were alleging was provable election fraud data. In fact, Mike Lindell went as far as calling the election fraud data that he had that he revealed that the Cyber Symposium he called him. He said the data would reveal data that was like watching a movie of election data and specifically election fraud in real time.

That was the argument that Mike Lindell made and he put five million dollars on this. He says when we show them these packet captures, we're gonna just give them out to all the Cyber guys so they can have their own guys go. How many votes were flipped here in Tampa or in this area or in that area or whatever. Well yeah, the computer forensic scientist who ended up getting the data ended up looking at the data and going this is not from the 2020 election and that is a very specific word.

See, look at this. The rules provided that to win the five million dollar contest, the participant must prove quote that the data Lindell provides and represents information from the 2020 election. And if you can prove that it does not reflect information from the 2020 election, you win five million dollars. Now this document is the arbitration award agreement for the person who ended up winning this dispute with Mike Mike Lindell We'll talk about the result in a moment, but what I want you to pay attention to is this word right here.

From this was the word that changed the entire case. The arbitration board argued that all somebody had to do to win the five million dollars was prove that the data they were given was not actually from the 2020 election. So in other words, if you get data and you look at it and you can't link it to the being from the election, well then that evidence is not from the election. And if somebody can prove it's not from the election, then Mike Lindell loses 5 million dollars now.

Mike Lindell Was using this as a ruse to prove that there was election fraud because nobody could disprove it. By the way, it's worth noting that is a logical fallacy known as Shifting the burden of Truth The burden of truth of somebody alleging voter fraud is on the person alleging voter fraud. Okay, you think there was voter fraud? What evidence do you have that has not already been disproven or otherwise that there is voter fraud. And if you're just saying, well prove to me that there wasn't voter fraud.

What you're doing is, you're Shifting the burden of proof. It is an illogical way of constructing an argument. Unfortunately, we don't teach logic in our schools generally, so most people make logical fallacies in the way they argue. That's what I try to do on my channel is try to unwind the disasters of our educational system.

But anyway, take a look at the files that were gotten first. C Extract MP4 This would be a video file on how to basically extract information uh, from from certain code files and this States Here that the information had nothing to do with the 2020 election Something the other side Michael and Dell's side actually agreed with. Okay, fine. next.

Chinese Source IPS According to the person who was trying to win the five million dollars, this file included IP addresses and basically a ranking list organizing them from basically like one to a hundred and there were no packets of data despite Mike Lindell suggesting they had packets of data. Instead, all this person got was a text file with a list of IP addresses that were ordered and that can't be used to show any kind of packets of Chinese or interference data from the election. Because there are no packets of data, they're literally just IP addresses. Then we get file.

Election Process taxonomy: PDF but this is literally just a PDF on how voting machines work. Also had nothing to do with election fraud. Final Result: Actually, it says final Realt 2020 Hex t-ex This file was displayed and it indicated no readable data. A cipher had been placed on the file and it basically was just unreadable or perhaps just a bunch of gibberish.

Okay, so Mike Lindell is literally using gibberish and a text file to claim that he has election fraud data that he'll pay somebody five million dollars if they could say is not from the election. Another one files analyzed below: no packet data Target Machine ID No packet data therefore cannot be from election data. Basically more gibberish. Rich Text Files: very large spreadsheet.

spreadsheet does not include any identifile defiable package data, instead just includes source and Target IP addresses. Well, that doesn't mean anything. I mean you could literally make a list of IP addresses all day long. Oh right, I can make up IP addresses all day long.

Tool known as Wireshark which is commonly used to open bin files was Uh, was only able to return an error message. In other words, nothing found in these bin documents. Now Uh. The other individual the other side testified that he was able to do so during the hearing.

He was able to open like the Lindell's side is like. Well, we were able to open it using the program we said we should use during the testimony during the hearing, but then they didn't actually present what the results were. So the Arbiters and the arbitration board is like, what is this? Like you all say, there's voter fraud and election data but you literally have no data so far in a five million dollar contest. So the guy went to claim is five million dollars and Mike Lindell's companies like Fu Man, we're not paying you five million dollars.

So we took it to arbitration and the arbitration board decided that Mike Lindell has 30 days to pay five million dollars and there's the potential that Michael and Dallas contest was a total fraud, which it probably and realistically was. But an arbitration board is not a criminal board. So they're kind of gonna drop the whole fraud allegation because again, they're not a criminal board. So Mike Lindell You owe five million dollars to a computer scientist who basically proved that all of your arguments were.

You put five million dollars to shift the burden of proof to suggest there's election fraud and the best you could come up with were files of gibberish and that just cost you five million dollars. Congratulations Mike Lindell You're a loser. Literally, you just lost five million dollars. Okay, so um, that's a whole lot of pillows.

Oh, that's a good one. That one takes the cake. Oh dear. All right.

next stop we got a this is so ridiculous. So ridiculous. All right now we gotta do. Uh, let's talk about the Fed up.

All right. Oh yeah, I Have this up. Hold on. Let me make sure this is still up please.

Yes, Yes. Got it. It's a lot of pillows to cry on. Both parties are liars.

It's it. sucks. Man, it's all politics. All right.

Uh uh. Okay, here we go. So let's jump into oh yeah, the Fed and Mona Lisa Oh yeah, that sounds raunchy. So now we got to talk about the Federal Reserve the next hikes, and the Mona Lisa.

Yeah, that's right. We're literally going to talk about the Mona Lisa effect in regards to what the Federal Reserve may be up to. But first, we have to recognize that so far, earnings are doing pretty damn well. In fact, expectations were that earnings would miss pretty miserably in Q1.

Except what have we noticed so far in Q1? Well, we've actually noticed that American Saving balances are actually Rising Bank of America noticed American Savings declining throughout 2022 and everybody's thinking oh my gosh, as soon as they run out, we're in a recession and what happened first quarter of 2023, savings balances started to go up. What if we see three days ago before some of the recent earnings we had? well, we had Barclays provide commentary that European earnings per Share results came in above five percent over consensus, five percentage points over consensus and in America they came in six percentage points over consensus. Today, after this week's of earnings, what do we have Bloomberg Better than Feared Earnings Has analysts rethinking projections? Roughly 20 percent of the S P 500 has reported 77 has topped expectations quote. It's still early in earnings season, but the results so far are coming in strong enough that some on Wall Street are starting to wonder if they were too pessimistic.

Roughly 20 percent has beat by 77 percent. Large number of names that have recorded reported so far beating way higher than expected. The overall strength in results has Bank of America strategists pondering whether 2023 full year EPS targets are too low and maybe because investors are forward-looking a lot of this quote Earnings Recession Fear has already been priced in. and so maybe this whole earnings recession is a bunch of clickbait where instead we should be focused on what's actually happening which is a freight recession.

Look at JB Hunt JB Hunt sees a massive collapse in Freight demand. They've got too many trucks, too many containers, not enough stuff to ship. It's so bad that a lot of companies like Procter and Gamble are now cheering going. Last year when prices went up and our costs went up.

We raised prices on the normies and the consumers. We made it more expensive for people to buy Tide detergent today. we don't have to raise prices anymore, but freight costs are plummeting so we're making more money. Once again.

thank you very much. That's Corporate America for you. It's kind of disgusting because prices are still alive, but it shows you some of those pricing pressures are going away, while at the same time, many companies earnings are actually substantially better off than expected. And so what is this? Mona Lisa effect? Well, the Economist today had a phenomenal breakdown of something known as fumato and