Welcome back to another meet! Kevin Report: Today is Jobs Data Day, which comes out in about 55 minutes. We are expecting a change in non-farm payrolls of 188 000 prior release was 223. That should tick the unemployment rate up from 3.5 percent to 3.6 and we're expecting a change in average hourly earnings of 0.3 as well as a year-over-year change in hourly earnings of a 4.3 which would be down from 4.6 We'll see what we get. Yeah, but hey, if the ADP report was any kind of tell as to what we could get, we might get a big Miss To the downside, though, we don't want to get too excited because I think all it's going to take for this economy.

Well, I should say at least the stock market to take a nice little dumpy doodle would be a Miss on some data. But then again, we had a Miss on Jolt's data. And what did Jerome Powell tell us? After after first saying that the Jolt's data was important and that we needed to bring Jolt's data back into equilibrium where there was essentially one job opening per unemployed worker. Well, after all of a sudden, we got a report that said we're back to about 1.9 job openings per available unemployed worker Jerome Paul Said nah, it's an indicator, kind of brushing aside, passively acknowledging, but still passively brushing aside that a piece of data actually came in hot And so now it makes us Wonder Well, Jerome you know I know you're excited about inflation going down while jobs are still staying strong, but what does this potentially say? uh for uh, for this Jobs report today? Well, we'll see anyway.

Welcome back to episode number 12 of the Meet Kevin report and in this video, we're going to not only cover that Jobs report, but we're going to start with some other Eco data and cover a lot of information. So let's get started first. Ryan Cohen He is the activist investor that jumped into Bed Bath and Beyond and then bailed as soon as supply chain issues or mounting, which it seems like. he almost got some kind of insight into these supply chain issues first because he became a member of the board and then when those issues started mounting, he ended up bailing.

Well, apparently now Ryan Cohen has jumped into Nordstrom He has taken a large stake in the department store, wants to replace the director of the board, and uh, the stocks up already 31 year today. but uh, I I It's gonna be really interesting to see if people are still going to follow his moves given that, uh, last time they, he kind of bailed on everyone. rightfully so, of course. but still.

a lot of folks got a little frustrated about him being in and then being out. uh, but that's okay. You know people have the right to change their minds and flip-flop. but I think the problem is with when activist investors do that.

You don't get that instant news about it, you don't hear about it within hours Or within a day. you hear about it. Three months later when they actually file their uh, hedge fund holding filings with the SEC it's like, oh, okay, well, a lot can happen in three months anyway. Year to date, Nordstrom's actually up 34, but pre-market this thing's up 26.

Uh, after this potential for Orion Um, Well, actually Ryan Taking a stake not a potential and actually taking a stake Toronto's housing market has slowed to its slowest Pace since the first month of the Pandemic, 3100 homes sold in the largest city Toronto the lowest since April of 2020. There's definitely a lack of homes available for sale, but there are also a lot fewer buyers than there used to be. And that is true in the United States as well. So we'll see how that moves.

This year, we're starting to hear about liquidations potentially getting started in the Real Estate Investment Trust sector. This is the institutional ownership of real estate, and if liquidations are being forced there, whether it's an office, industrial, commercial, or Residential Properties, we expect to see inventory actually increase this year now that inventory increase this year could be offset by Falling interest rates. But if interest rates don't fall fast enough, increasing uh, increasing inventory at the same time as year-over-year numbers come in. Negative could create enough fear for the real estate market to take another leg down.

We'll see 10-year treasury stable at about 3.4 right now. that is down from about 3.5 from before Jerome Powell's meeting uh, press conference. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering capping late fees for credit cards. They currently sit at a 30 dollar limit plus potentially up to 41 in additional violation penalties.

Uh, and limits that say late fees cannot be more than 25 of the actual required payment. Uh, a total of 12 billion dollars in late fees were assessed in 2020. If this new rule passes, it would wipe away 75 of those fees. You would have only seen nine billion dollars in late fees.

And that was in 2020 when a lot fewer late fees were actually being doled out because of the pandemic. But uh, yeah, a cap of eight dollars for late fees for credit cards is, uh, substantially smaller than than what we've seen historically. But keep in mind, best case scenario, you're never late on anything related to your credit score. Your credit score is super super important, especially if you want to get into owning real estate really big fan and of you getting into real estate in fact I saw a uh, there was a I think a what's his name Caleb Caleb H something.

uh, hammer, whatever. Anyway, someone on YouTube uh made this video and he was sort of responding to an email hey, should I keep paying the minimum payment on my car and keep paying down my federal student loans or stop student loan payments and triple my car payment. Uh, to pay off the car before the interest starts back up again on the student loan. The car payment is 540 dollars and it's got eighteen thousand dollars left and the student loan is eleven hundred dollars and has 79 000 left on it.

Oh my Gosh. So the I think the first thing that I want to say I'm going to put this up on screen here so you can see it. First thing I want to say is it is remarkable how people get themselves into these sorts of payments. How how how do you have a 540 dollar car payment is eighteen thousand dollars left? It's a lot of money and I understand interest rates have gone up substantially.

But one of the worst things in my opinion for people building their wealth is people trapping themselves in monthly payments. The reason I say that is very simple I Come from a real estate background. You should always be thinking to yourself, every single dollar that you spend of monthly debt takes away two dollars and 34 cents of income for the purpose of buying a home. So think about it.

In order for you to make a 540 dollar car payment, you actually need to earn an additional 1263 dollars per month on an annual basis. That means you have to make an extra 15 grand and just to be back to qualifying for the same amount you could have qualified for before. If you add up 540 plus the eleven hundred dollars here for the Uh for the student loan, this individual just to have the same purchasing power for Real Estate as they would have had they had not had these loans would have to make an additional forty six thousand dollars. Let me put that another way.

Let's say this: somebody goes to school. They get a job and they make a hundred grand and somebody else goes to school. They get a job. They make a hundred grand.

Okay, the person who went to the Community College and got grants and doesn't have student debt and and got a cheap car for you know, five to ten thousand bucks used that they could pay off or have a very low payment on that person at a hundred grand could qualify for with a hundred thousand dollars worth of purchasing power, right? Which is pretty good because a hundred thousand dollars of purchasing power Uh is going to get us at Uh. Maybe a front end ratio of about 35 percent would let us have a monthly payment of close to three thousand dollars for a home. Okay, well, three thousand dollars a month for a home that you want to buy? Not necessarily terrible, right? The person who has eleven hundred dollars in student loans and a 540 dollar car payment would actually only qualify for Uh based on about 64 four thousand dollars of income. So they would only qualify for about an eighteen hundred and fifty dollar payment.

Eighteen fifty out of three thousand is about forty percent less home. That is insane. That's absolutely insane. So consider that for a moment if you were gonna buy a forty thousand dollar home because you had no debts and you could qualify for a a sorry four hundred thousand dollar home.

If you could buy a 400 000 home, you had no debts. If you had an eleven hundred dollar student loan and a 540 car payment, you'd be able to qualify for about forty percent less or only about two hundred and forty thousand dollars. That's that's like the difference between buying a home and not buying a home, right? It is such an insane difference. So when I see numbers like this and people are just getting started with their Finance I Just want to shake every human being who has not gotten into these sort of loans yet and tell them Do Not take on debt like this.

It is so stupid. because you are taking a gun and you're shooting yourself in both feet. To be able to buy real estate, you may can sickly make it impossible to become a millionaire. I Think the easiest way for anyone to become a millionaire is buying real estate.

and if you don't buy your own home because you can't qualify, then you're stuck. Instead of making payments on things that are actually increasing your net worth, you're making payments on stuff that really aren't helping you. Because with the student loans, you could have gotten probably the same degree for a lot less the car payment you don't need that stupid dumb car. Cars are stupid.

I really, really dislike people spending money on cars. Now that rant out of the way. What do you do in this situation? Apparently the student loan has interest rates of about seven percent, but the interest isn't due yet. The cars got payments of uh or an interest rate of just 2.9 percent.

Not great, but also a problem. Uh uh well. I mean it is great. I Should say the interest rate is great.

don't get me wrong, but the 540 is not great. It's a lot of money. Uh, but the 2.9 is is nice. That sort of mitigates some of that payment.

so should. I Keep making the minimum payment of my car and pay down. Keep paying down my student loans. or will this, uh, or stop the student loan payments uh and and triple off my car payment before the interest starts back up on my student loans.

So in in my opinion, once you get into this stupid Hole uh where now you're making choices between what debts to pay off and not the very first thing you should try to do is make more money now. I Know that sounds easy. Uh to say because well, it is pretty easy to say, but increase that Top Line and get something paid off ASAP Personally I would actually probably go for uh, if you can go for forbearance on those student loans. uh, or at least the interest payments are still on pause.

I'd be paying off that car payment as soon as possible I Know people like Kevin it's 2.9 You can make more money in that investing. Yeah, listen, if you're struggling between an eighteen thousand dollar payment on a car and and your student loans, you don't got lots of money anyway to invest. So don't talk to me about investing in the stock market. you're not even close to considering the stock market.

Vti should be like 10 years down the road for you. Like, go pay off the stupid debt first, then buy real estate, Buy real estate, Pay this crap off as soon as possible, Pay one of them off, take that extra money, throw it down on the other, take as much money as you can, and pay these suckers off as fast as possible, both of them, and then get into buying real estate. But if I could just send out a warning like a bad signal to the world, please don't take all these stupid loans. I I Believe that people watch my channel because they want to build wealth because eventually they want to become a millionaire.

Or maybe you're already a millionaire. in which case, I'm I'm honored. you're watching. Whether you're not a millionaire, you are a millionaire.

I'm honored. you're here watching. But geez, why? Why are people in the mindset that in America when when you turn 18, you have to sync yourself up to your eyeballs and student loan debt or you have to sink yourself into car debt? it? it blows my mind when I was 18 and I applied I did I applied for a student loan to see if I could get one I look at the terms and I actually qualified myself because I had already built my credit score up because I got a car loan out and I paid off my car loan because guess what? wanted to buy real estate and I made sure to buy a car that I knew I could pay off. I took advantage of some of the introductory financing and then I paid that sucker off within a year.

Then I bought real estate with money that I made. but I didn't take out the student loans because even though I could qualify alone because at that time I'm like am I gonna pay seven percent on student loans? Hell no. I'll go buy real estate and I don't want it to affect my ability to qualify. That's what I did when I was 18 and I supported myself, worked at Jamba Juice at Red Robin then became a real real estate agent.

Fortunately, being you have real estate agent pays a lot more money than working at Jamba Juice and I started right at 18. because my it look life is a lot easier if you can increase the top line of your income. So if your income's under 50K a year right now, you got to be thinking to yourself, how can I get a skill to add more and create more value so I could actually increase my top line? That makes it a lot easier to pay off this. but but don't get into that kind of stuff.

It's it's like, ah, it's so it just drives me nuts. Uh uh, so it doesn't make sense to me for people to get into this sort of debt. Uh, and it also doesn't make so much sense for people to discourage themselves from buying real estate. Everyone watching that should be buying real estate I Hear the excuses all the time People that big CAD housing is expensive now.

then buy something smaller then then buy a two in one or or one bedroom condo or a studio. go smaller. You don't need to buy your dream home. you're buying your first rental property, but you're gonna live there first for a year so you can Bank hack it and put three and a half to five percent down and put potentially even get down payment assistance granted to you from your local Community Development councils because that's what they do.

They hand money out to get people into Home Ownership So it just I I Don't know. Like the traditional Financial advice out there I Like somebody I Don't know who maybe was the same person. Somebody's like, oh, your car payment should not be more than eight percent of your gross take-home pay. and I'm like who made this stupid ass rule that is dumb because listen, if you are making thirty thousand dollars and and let's say that is, that's your gross take-home pay.

Okay, that means you're taking home 2500 bucks you should not be looking at uh, what is that? Eight percent a 200 a month car payment? I Know that sounds relatively low today because we're basing that off thirty thousand dollars. but 200 bucks a month if you're making bringing home 30k, that's a lot of a monthly payment you're never gonna get into. Home Ownership Now let's say you, you're taking home a little bit more. Let's say you're taking home nine thousand dollars a month.

Why the hell do you need a 720 car payment? We should be focused on building your wealth. These percentages don't make sense I Think the correct car payment is until you make more than a hundred thousand dollars. your car payment should be zero, Pay it off like he's cheap used car and pay the sucker off. Then once you start getting maybe 200 to 200 okay, maybe have a car payment, but have it in a side hustle.

make your car payment through like an S corporation. So that way it's not affecting your debt to income. You could personally guarantee it, but you don't want it to show up on your credit report because now you can qualify for a home and still have the monthly payment. It doesn't affect you.

Boom Tax hacks. That's why people come I think to my channel is to help you learn this kind of stuff and check out the programs on building your wealth. Link down below because today a coupon code expires. it is.

It's actually a last coupon code February 3rd. I Forgot to mention that at the beginning of the video Anyway, sorry I got angry when I saw this because of like the person put themselves in a stupid situation. Now they're trying to make stupid choices and they're getting advice or that normalizes the idea that it's okay to have a car payment. I know a lot of people have car payments and I get it I first when I was 18 at a car payment too.

but I made it my job to pay that sucker off. So I could buy as much real estate as possible with my income while focusing on increasing my income because that's how I became a millionaire and that is how I also became a multi-millionaire a bit way before social media. Uh, and that is how every normal person can do it as well in my opinion. I Really believe that? Uh, there's no there's no get rich quick with real estate.

So I Like the old saying, don't focus on getting rich quick Get Rich for sure. Uh, anyway, this is just my thesis on real estate. so I had I had to get that out of the way because it just bothered me so much. Uh, anyway.

oh okay, so uh. now we've got. uh, let's see here. Okay, now we gotta cover.

We've got. Oh my gosh, there's so much stuff to cover today. It's absolutely insane. You're not going to believe what California is up to now.

And it really pisses me off because I ran for governor in California and I'll tell you I'm pissed I didn't win because we got a weenie baby who has done nothing for homelessness, done nothing for mental health, done nothing for schools. and while he was bragging about a stimulus-induced surplus during the campaign I'm screaming dude, it ain't gonna last you idiot in California The Surplus is not gonna last if you spend it like a drunken sailor. And what no offense to drunken sale is because comparing drunken sale is to Newsome is an insult to drunken sales. But anyway, Newsome is now running a deficit in California and you know what Newsome thinks we should do for our constitutional rights.

especially our Second Amendment which he calls a suicide pact. Well, California just released the text of a CCW Bill a concealed carry Bill I'm actually a big fan of concealed carry I actually ran on the concept of expanding your concealed carry and moving more towards more gun rights and I understand, Uh, that California is basically like zero gun rights and in Texas it's and or Arizona it's like all gun rights, right? You're not going to get California to move all the way over, but bring them back to a little bit of normalcy because what you got in California is just kooky. Not so insane because people who are not criminals can't have a gun. but every criminal can walk into Walgreens steal whatever they want and they don't even go to jail because California is freaking broken.

It's disgusting. But not only that, okay, California just introduced a bill and you're gonna vomit when you see this. But let me let me just give you a little context here. Okay, there's been one person who had concealed carry license who murdered someone else and guess where they are now prison because they're a scumbag and they killed someone else when they shouldn't have.

There have been thousands. Dare I say hundreds of thousands of felons who still walk the streets who kill people all the freaking time. But they're not licensed because it's easier not to be licensed. It's ridiculous.

Uh, but anyway. California Just introduced this bill. It's called Sb2 I Kid, you know? Uh, it was just introduced and when I first saw the bill I thought oh my gosh, California is actually expanding the right to concealed carry. Oh my goodness, this sounds incredible.

In fact, look at this. The bill would require the licensing authority to issue applications and the bill would remove certain requirements like good cause requirements from the issuance. usually in: California If you want a concealed carry firearm, you have to show good cause and and you know you have to have like a clean criminal record they're removing that they're like look, we want more people to be able to have concealed carry licenses. So I started reading Bill I'm like Holy Smokes is California turning around boy was I disappointed and I think you're going to be pretty disappointed as well in just a moment.

So anyway, they start by loosening the requirements for who can carry a firearm. so you got to be 21. you got to be 21 to buy a firearm in California It's also worth noting that California has magazine restrictions. You can only have a 10 round magazine so if you get like a Glock 17, you ain't getting those 17 rounds.

you're getting 10.. Now of course, if you happen to find uh a a you know, 17 round magazine in Arizona or something and you happen to uh, you know, bring it back then then potentially you could loophole into having a higher cap mag, but California has restrictions on that. They also have restrictions on the type of firearm you could have uh, for example, you can't have, but maybe oh gosh. I Want to say the California rosters like 40 guns long and outside of that, you just can't even have them.

Uh, but okay, okay, whatever. So so initially again, just going back to the concept. SP2 Okay California Expanding people's rights to have firearms okay, legal gun ownership I'm a fan of that. especially.

You know if people are uh, you know were trained uh or or can can certify that they've been trained now I Ran on this on the campaign I Want to be very clear about this I Don't think that people who can't afford training uh should not receive help I do think the government should help people pay for for training, right? I Think that's fair. It's like hey, look, you know you're concealed carry and then maybe you know, once a year or whatever you do a quick little uh checkup at the local gun store and if you don't have enough money, the guns you know the state subsidizes you. That's fine. That's okay, right? just expand ownership for everyone.

But anyway, this is the part where where I just start vomiting and when I say vomit I start vomiting. Okay, you ready for this? You ready for for this? this what I'm about to read you is a list of where you are not allowed to carry a firearm. So hold on for a moment I Want you to think for a moment, where do mass shootings happen? Well, they've occurred at churches, schools, grocery stores, public events. uh, you know, concerts on buses.

You know, like, like outside your home, right? I Mean like, yeah, shootings have happened obviously at homes, but like you can have a gun at your home? Uh, but. But so think to your mom for a moment, where would a mass shooting occur? Okay, or like any kind of dangerous situation occur right? So now, yeah, Large crowds. Exactly right in a mall? Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Thank you for those of you in the comments.

Bingo Okay, now let me go ahead and show you exactly where California says after you get your license, you are not allowed to carry a gun via this new bill that California has introduced. Okay, you ready for this? Let's see how reasonable California is. I'm dropping my stuff over here because this is going to be ridiculous. All right, You ready for this? Here we go: No local government buildings.

Okay, no buses, trains, or other public transportation. Nowhere alcohol is sold. No public gathering or special event space Can inducted on a property open to the public that requires a permit? Uh, whether it's on a street or sidewalk, No playground or private? Youth Center No. Park unless there's hunting.

But there's basically no hunting in California So basically no park or Athletic Facility no property basically owned by the state of California No colleges, universities, or classrooms of any kinds. No casinos or gambling areas, No sporting events, No public libraries, No airports. Okay, I mean that one's Fair No amusement parks, No zoos or museums, No churches, synagogues, mosques, or places of Warships. Uh, worship.

No banks, financial institutions, No polling places. Okay, wait for a moment. Right now, you already might be thinking dude, Kevin that's like everything. Okay, that sounds like everything.

So in other words, you have a license to have a gun, but you can't Can't take it anywhere, right? Okay, listen to this. This is going to blow your mind. Okay, let me just read you this one and then I will explain it. Okay, we're ready for this.

Or you are not allowed to carry a gun, even if you are licensed in any privately owned commercial establishment that is open to the public. Unless the operator of the establishment clearly and conspicuously posts a sign at the entrance or on the premises indicating that license holders are permitted to carry So in other words, nowhere. So in other words, you could have your license to carry California but you shall not be allowed to carry it anywhere. I was thinking about it I'm like so so I Can I Can have it in my home and my car but like, where else because I can't go into the grocery store I Can't go into any store I Can't go into anywhere that sells alcohol and I mean we all know that's basically the only reason I leave my house I mean I didn't say that.

Um, you know you can't. You can't take it where shootings would occur like churches or Parks or public events or colleges or classrooms or sporting events or casinos or public transportation or or playgrounds where you want to protect your children. You can't You can't have it anywhere that folks is. Call me Fornia for you.

That is why I Ran for governor to try to bring some common sense I got almost a million votes you know I Came in second place out of recall candidates I think we did good, but holy crap I am just pissed. This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life I I I cannot even believe how much of it like who writes this stuff and actually thinks it is remotely logical. but I think that was my first mistake was assuming there was any logic in California All right, all right I had I Gotta take a deep breath over here because I'm pissed holding down the fort. Uh in Times Square And aside from getting the January Jobs report this hour, we're going to speak with: Chevron CEO Mike Worth Piper Sandler Vice Chairman Jimmy Dunn and Starbucks CFO Rachel Rogeri but first U.S Equity Futures Uh, at this hour dealing with some some I guess mixed reports late yesterday in the the tech sector, the NASDAQ was down about twice that when I first checked it this morning about 255.

So it's it's paired its losses to some extent, but the Dow and the S P both giving back some ground after what was a pretty solid month. pretty good performance in January Treasure yields we got below 3.4 on the 10-year 338 right now. the two-year um, it's moved up a little in yield, but I Thought that was possibly going to have a three handle at one point, but not quite yet. Still early and we're watching three Tech Giants that we mentioned that reported earnings last night out.

Apple Alphabet Yeah. I'm actually going to go ahead and pull those up myself over here, so let's look over here. We've got apples only down 1.4 and the pre-market right now. Uh, remember, Apple was up 3.7 on the day it did fall as much as five percent in after hours, but the the suckers already down to only 1.4 percent.

Google was down as much as five percent. It's up at three five. Tesla's actually positive in the pre-market Ford's holding on to its losses at about six percent. Amazon's down a little over three percent.

You've got Qualcomm down about two percent Intel down about point eight percent. Holy crap. Bill.com 21 Okay, so I want to be very clear personally I Think you want to potentially be very risk off when it comes to SAS software as a service I don't I don't think that's the year of 2023 I think these are very likely to potentially like sort of meme up but when they miss, they miss hard. uh and I'm I'm trying my best to stay away from software service I am exposed to Autodesk Uh, but uh, they just they just announced around on layoffs too.

Uh, and I'm a little concerned that a Slowdown in the real estate sector is going to hurt. They're only down about half percent right now. They were up about 2.7 on the day. But folks, that leads me to another thing that just pisses me off.

Okay and and look. I really try my best to be in the middle but I am pissed I Really really do try my best I try my best to be neutral I try my best to provide rational information information that makes sense and is logical and that both sides can can appreciate perspective on. But I don't know what is going on here. But now we are getting reports and this has been widely reported uh by uh Bloomberg The Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal the mainstream media.

Okay, it is pretty much confirmed that there is a Chinese spy balloon that has been found flying over America specifically by potentially uh Montana and the area where America stores its Minutemen 3 Intercontinental Ballistic Silos. Okay, so ICBM Silos are areas where we have our National Defense weapons and our national attack weapons. So if we need to go blow up an aircraft carrier, we could send an ICBM at 2500 miles an hour and do some work If we need to counter somebody else's ICBM we can send a counter missile like a patriot missile at like two to three times as fast and like five to six thousand miles an hour. Okay, and we launched these suckers from either Patriot missile batteries or silos specifically in the purpose of an ICBM right? Those come out of silos.

Uh, and that's where they're stored and maintained out of the weather. So when we need them, they work. And guess what, folks, our Administration like. First of all, it's worth noting when crap flies and and trust me, I am learning this very quickly when stuff flies in.

America You are under the jurisdiction of the FAA and the FAA don't mess around the FAA. They're like the cops of the sky and they will find the crap out of you if you screw with the FAA The FAA Serious people, right? So here's China flying in our skies and what does our Administration do? Nothing Instead they say Well It poses no physical or intelligence risk. We just want to leave it alone because it's traveling above the level of commercial air traffic. so it's not a collision risk either.

And we don't want to shoot it down because you know we don't want it to like fall on anyone and I'm thinking to myself, it's a balloon. You could wait for the appropriate location to take the darn thing out and let its debris fall. There's plenty of very empty areas around Montana That's why we have silos over there. This real estate's cheap.

Okay, so I apparently Beijing responded to this and said look the U.S is hyping this up China has no intention of violating anyone's sovereignty China's full of crap. They say that all the time. Oh no, no, we don't have intentions of invading Taiwan don't mind all the missiles that we just launched to show our strength hitting economic Waters between Japan and Taiwan and even incl incurting or in in creating an incursion into the economic zone. So around these countries right, areas where in other words, missile tests should not be conducted China says it's apparently tracking a similar style of of, uh, a balloon of of some sort.

Again, you can look at that. here. it's it's uh, you know, seems to be some form of uh, you know, if it's flying above commercial air traffic, it's got to be somewhere around 50 000 feet up. So this is almost on the edge of space.

Ace I Think you get to the edge of space somewhere around 55 to 70 000 miles. Uh, up into the sky. Commercial airliners tend to fly at about 35 000 feet. If you've got a private jet, you might be able to fly somewhere around 42 to 45 000 feet.

which is kind of neat because you can. Fly Above commercial air traffic. There's less traffic up there. It's kind of like having the HOV lane for jet travel.

I don't know little things you'll learn about over time. but anyway, apparently uh, the buy Administration is doing nothing. uh and and so I immediately thought to myself I'm like what would Donald Trump do and I don't even think we have to speculate much about what Donald Trump will do and look I even think Biden would do something Okay I'm not trying to like get political and suggest that hey, look, we've got a Chinese balloon taking pictures of of where all our weapons are in America threatening our national sovereignty and defense capabilities. you know I I I'm not suggesting that Obama would sit around and do nothing I think Obama would do something as well.

Uh, Donald Trump has made it very clear. uh on Truth Social, this balloon would be getting shot down ASAP Uh, Because after all, the argument is that our government and administration right now is basically saying the quiet part out loud is being talked about on Truth Social: the Chinese Communist Party can send spy balloons over our nuclear silos and we will do nothing I mean I I don't know about you but it pisses me off and and I'm I'm an in the middle kind of person so I can only imagine how enraged people must be on on other ants. and I I get it. It's like, well Secretary of State Lincoln's about to visit Beijing good.

He can bring the pieces of the balloon to Beijing and start the conversation off by going hey, you guys left this in our airspace now shall we have some Soju and uh, talk about uh, trade and other things I don't know Soju is probably Japanese Soju's Japanese I don't know Whatever they serve in China I I don't know what they serve in China The point is, uh, look, China is is is we know this. They're they're They're the second largest economy in the world, but they are still a developing country right now that doesn't give them any kind of excuse. Shouldn't absolutely give no one an excuse. they're probably 20 years behind.

America Militarily they've got a They do have about 2.8 million soldiers, which is about twice as many soldiers as America has, but the size can actually potentially hurt them from developing a modern force. Uh, and and that's because we have a more efficient force that are equipped substantially better than the Chinese troops. Think about this. For example: China spends roughly 12 billion dollars a year on their military.

So, and I'm saying this not to excuse the balloon should be shot down I Want to make that crystal clear? but I just want to give you some confidence that if this pisses you off as it should, uh, China's not close to us in in terms of their military capabilities. China Historically has been spending about 12 billion dollars on the military. They actually want to increase their total Defense spending to as high as 35 to 65 billion dollars. Okay, that sounds like a lot of money, but we just spent nearly a hundred million dollars sending Aid to Ukraine for military weapons and support.

China spends about half of that in total defense spending. The United States spends about 10 times that on its own military. We spent close to a trillion dollars a year. Uh, with half the troop size on our military.

So you know you, you'd really have to ramp Chinese military spending probably by about 50 to 100 percent for the next 10 years for them to really have strong advantages. Now China does have some strengths. Okay, don't get me wrong, they are an adversary. Probably the strongest strength that China has are their ballistic and cruise missiles.

You can actually hit forward U.S bases with Chinese cruise missiles in Japan and they've got pretty dang good accuracy. You're talking about five to ten meter accuracy. That's uh, that's about 15 to 30 feet accuracy. It's pretty good.

So if you wanted to Target a house, you could level a house with an uh, you know, a ballistic missile. Uh, from from uh, you know, hundreds of miles away. or or potentially thousands of miles away now. China Also has a little bit of an advantage when it comes to what's called counter Space.

The US has got about five times as many satellites as China, but China is a little bit better when it comes to testing. At least that's what we believe testing anti-satellite capabilities. This is kind of like pointing Jammers or lasers at satellites, basically breaking them. uh, you know, sending certain frequencies to to to almost sort of like microwave.

uh satellites I have look I'm no like scientist when it comes to that kind of stuff. but China does have some strengths. Okay, so Counter Space China's got some strengths uh, Icbms in the localized area of Uh. the South China Sea China's got some pretty good strengths.

and apparently now they have spy balloons that fly around unimpeded in America. But let's be very clear, the United States military is far stronger than China. The United States military, for example, with aircrafts, is on F-22s and F-35s These are fifth generation aircrafts. substantially better fighter jets than the old crap which are like the Uh fourth generation F-16s Don't get me wrong, China's got about 50 of their Fleet on 4th gen.

the other 50 and that's that's decent. Okay, that's decent. The other 50 is still like second Gen garbage from the 90s you remember watching. uh maybe you saw Top Gun Maverick and they get into like the old fighter jet and they're like oh gosh I haven't flown one of these and for it's kind of like that, except it's in real life now.

China's got around 200 launchers for air defenses, so the Us would have to be pretty good with Precision Strike weapons to actually take these out in the event of a sort of a combat or war between China and America uh, as the United States is potentially defending uh Taiwan for example, uh, and so the U.S their their anti-uh uh, you know, uh aircraft Weaponry is is pretty strong, but we've got the Precision strike Weaponry to take that sort of stuff down now. Uh, they are also pretty dang good at uh at fighting, uh, potentially, uh, our, uh, uh, our naval fleet. Uh, in terms of uh, the fact that they do have submarines, they've got about 41 submarines. About four of those have nuclear uh capabilities and uh, cruise missiles.

But don't don't kid yourself, we've got countermeasures to that stuff as well. Our naval fleet is the strongest in the world. Uh, so uh. the U.S Subs is just worth noting are very strong.

They're so strong that the Brookings Institute estimates that in just seven days if we wanted to, we could sink 40 of China's Navy I'll say that again in seven days. the United States Navy could sink 40 of China's Navy on cyber warfare TBD but the US is probably stronger. China does have nukes though. They're working on developing Next Generation nukes, but we've still got about 13 times as many nukes for every nuke that they have.

This doesn't necessarily mean like world ending, uh, blockbusting kind of nukes. It's more than blockbusting. but but you know, Big Boys Uh, uh, they could be strategic. Uh, like localized nukes.

but no, but nobody really wants to go that sort the world anyway. The the point is just to know that, uh, the U.S spends money like crazy on its military and uh, and if you look at just their military spending, we outnumber them almost 10x if you look at total total spending and by all means that you could suck together. Maybe they spend as much as 250 billion dollars a year and they are trying to ramp this up. uh, on on their military and their investments into personnel and new equipment.

and Technology but they're way behind way behind old equipment. The U.S has more tanks than they do. We've got 5x the military aircrafts we do. We've got substantially more modern vessels and ships than they do.

We've got more nukes than they do. We've got uh, we've got way better missiles than they do. Again, we don't want to go into any kind of conflict with China, But let's just make it clear: I Don't think the United States should be a little weenie baby and allow China to float their spy balloons over our uh intern intercontinental ballistic missile silo locations with impunity or like, oh, let's just ignore that because we're worried about some balloon material falling on the ground I Don't know me personally as somebody who uh, does their best to be in the middle. All right, That's all that's all.

I Gotta say I don't know CNBC For a moment we got the jobs data coming out in about 13 minutes. Let's see here, we'll sell so with coveted closures Weighing on demand. but in the U.S comps were up 10 percent and the company reiterated its fiscal 2023. Outlook Join us right now.

First on, CNBC is Starbucks is CFO I'm Rachel Jerry Good morning to you Uh, a bit of a mixed picture. the stock is off this morning. um I Think really up the expectations of uh the the reopen trade if you will uh for China and and not happening but I'm curious sort of how you see the China piece of this relative to the rest of the business. So when we look at China as you saw we had you know headwinds in Q1 and we expect that will continue into Q2 And that's largely driven by the fact that even though we're starting to see some signs of recovery which is encouraging, they're still.

You know there's still a lot of headwinds in the market related to Covid, and so as a result, we expect the back half of the year to be stronger than the first couple quarters. And that's what we've guided. but we have a lot of confidence in what we're seeing because when you look at our international business excluding China, we grew 25 in the quarter and that's largely driven by recovery. We have double-digit comps in markets like Japan in markets like UK and that just speaks to the strength of recovery.

So we have every confidence that the headwinds we're seeing in China today will lead to Tailwinds And that's what gave us the ability to be able to reaffirm our guidance on a full year basis, but also gives us a lot of confidence in the growth that we've uh, the growth that we've outlined for the years to come. You speak to, um, just the the strength of the consumer. I Mean you look at some of the numbers in the U.S of 10. Um, a lot of it.

It's not necessarily more people are coming to the store as though that is part of it. It's actually that people are just spending more. and and whether you think that's going to persist, well, it's actually a combination of both. We do actually have more customers coming into our stores.

We're up 10 versus price I Like how she actually uses a Starbucks store background like that's a green screen is suggesting that she's in a Starbucks and we all know she's not. But that's okay. this is the zoom World we're in. Uh, worth noting that Apple right now is actually almost break even in the pre-market This is incredible.

Tesla's up about 1.7 uh is some we got Jobs data coming out in about 10 minutes. That is either going to destroy everything for the day or it's uh, it's gonna lead to a continued rally and some continued Beauty. But uh, we've got about 10 minutes and 30 seconds before we get to Jobs data and therefore I want to talk briefly about smart bombs going to Ukraine Yes, uh there. This is a real thing the Financial Times just reported.

Apparently the U.S is set to provide smart bombs? uh to Ukraine. Now keep in mind what we are trying to do as much as possible is uh, Apparently this is the decision of the American leadership, uh and NATO and and the European allies to basically provide more and more and more stuff and weapons to Ukraine to try to take down you Russia and force them into a settlement. Remember, we started providing helmets uh and and initial money to Ukraine Germany. For example it was helmets and bulletproof vests.

Other parts of Europe were providing boots that then turned into to rounds of ammunition to where Germany was down to a stockpile of ammunition of just 48 hours. 48 hours. That's all they had left was 48 Hours of ammunition. uh and uh it.

And now we've moved on to providing armored personnel carriers and tanks which Joe Biden suggested there was no way we were going to send tanks because that would implicate World War III to Ukraine Now tanks are being sent to Ukraine Now it'll take a few weeks for Uh troops to get trained on these, both strategically and technically it takes about five to six weeks. It'll probably take about three months for the first tanks to actually get to Ukraine. But now the financial times is talking about the US. The United States is set to provide longer range smart Bombs Uh to Uh Ukraine.

These are small diameter bombs that would double Ukraine's current strike range as part of another nearly 2.2 billion dollar Aid package to be announced today. The smart bombs have a range of 94 miles and we can be fired from several kinds of rocket launchers including High Mars missile defense systems and Ukraine's been asking for longer range missile defense systems. However, the United States is worried that they would use those to strike deeper into Russian targets. although these missiles already allow people or Ukrainians to strike deeper However, not as deep as the Army tactical missile system, which is something Ukraine's been asking for gets you about 185 miles of range.

Now, one of the reasons these these smart bombs and sort of this this spending on Ukraine is important is because there's an expectation of potentially Ukraine trying to take back Crimea Now that would be a massive massive blow for Russia. In fact, there's a really good Financial Times piece on exactly this, and it briefly talks about what Ukraine needs to liberate Crimea And in essence, they've talked about: not only is uh Ukraine going to need tanks to liberate Crimea, but they're going to need Jets And now this is something that right now Schultz Uh is the chancellor of Germany is sort of backpedaling on the idea of even wanting to talk about Jets suggesting hey, let's just focus on tanks right now. But listen, everything Ukraine's been asking for so far. They've gotten singers: Patriot missile, a bass, uh javelins You want more weapons? You want more money? You want armored personnel carriers? You want tanks.

They've gotten everything they've been asking for. So it's just a matter of time before they get jets. But if they do get the Gen 4, F-16 fighter jets, it is potentially likely uh, that Ukraine could actually launch a pretty strong offensive Uh, on on Crimea which uh, Russia illegally annexed in 2014. now Russia of course, Uh was able to pull that off without a prolonged battle at all.

Uh, because of the location work uh Crimea is being relatively strategic for Russia to not only Supply materials, but uh, actually more weapons and troops to continue the fight within. Actually, Uh, Ukraine I Think it's worth taking a brief look at the map just to sort of understand the Tactical Battlefield a little bit here. Kremian Peninsula is over here. If Ukraine were to take Crimea uh, it would really potentially block Russia off.

uh, of of the Seas azab over here. uh where where they're essentially supplying materials uh, and weapons to Crimea to launch attacks from the southern regions of Ukraine And this would really allow Ukraine to not only seal Russia off of Crimea if they were able to take this and actually have a naval chance to to prevent Uh Russia's uh, as much Russian activity in the Black Sea because now you're cutting off the C as of over here so you've got to go around. Uh, but what you have is the potential to lock down Curson prevent the attacks on Curson on and really start moving Russia back and prevent the incursion that's happening here into the regions that are expected to potentially be negotiated away to Russia uh, like Dinesh. So uh, Crimea would be pretty pretty strategic.

Uh, and the Financial Times are not the Financial Times Foreign Affairs magazine has been regularly talking about the the strength of a negotiating power that Ukraine would have if they took Ukraine if they took Crimea Even to the point of taking Uh Crimea and taking the Uh massive massive Naval uh uh facility that Russia has over here at Sebastopol uh, it would be such a huge blow to Russia that a lot of folks uh and Military experts think that Russia would actually be forced into a negotiated Uh settlement if the Crimean Peninsula was actually taken over. They say here, without a land bridge or road or rail links to Crimea, the Kremlin would be forced to revert to Maritime resupply of of their troops. Uh, that uh, that? let's make that very clear. An easy way to get troops and supplies into Ukraine right now is right here through Russia through Crimea and then into the Curson area.

But again, if if this is held by Ukraine it's always Crimea that's blocked off. Now you want to resupply here. you're either going through the front lines which is difficult or you're going over the sea. But now Ukraine potentially has a a military and Naval access uh to the Sea as well.

potentially limiting exactly that sort of resupply. It's a great way to potentially choke off Russia's activity now. Uh, the expectation is Ukrainian forces would need to carry out weeks of strikes uh onto targets including logistic hubs, air bases Command and Control Center and this Naval installation installations. It would take a lot of work, but the the Uh Foreign Affairs Magazine believes that it could actually be pulled off as long as uh, more tanks and ultimately Jets get supplied to Ukraine.

So the Ford Affairs mag. they're big fans of continuing this sort of supplying. Now the problem is the more and this is where they do suggest Uh, there are some risks. The problem is if Ukraine takes Crimea there's a belief that it would take.

it would be such a huge blow in in fighting Russia that potentially Russia would be incentivized to maybe carry out its first nuclear, its strategic and tactical strikes against Crimea Because it's a peninsula, it's it's almost an island. You could say it's we're technically a peninsula because it's it's attached over here. but it's not like a Florida Peninsula. it looks like an island.

Uh, and and so there's a belief that this is so strategically important to Russia that if Russia loses this, it could potentially be where uh, the the first nuclear, uh, strategic strikes are attempted. Of course this would uh would would lead to a lot of uh, potential talk about World War Three And this is why there are a lot of people saying look, no, no, just just stop. Stop supplying weapons, stop supplying uh, uh, Ukraine stop funding Ukraine We don't. We don't want to push Russia to the edge of considering nuclear strikes.

of course. This is possibly also one of the strongest positions that Ukraine could end up having for negotiating, uh, a settlement. uh, uh with uh Russia uh So we'll see. who knows, but this is, uh, this is something to be be paying attention to.

So if you're watching the Ukraine war, the Takeover of the Crimean Peninsula could be uh, strategically the the best uh move for Ukraine But they're going to need a lot more support and so far it looks like the EU NATO and the United States are willing to provide that. especially since now we're talking about smart bombs uh, being sent to Ukraine by the Financial Times reporting that 2.2 billion dollar Aid package expected to be announced today. All right. With that said, now we are on to Jobs Data baby.

Jobs data. All right, Jobs data coming out in, uh, well, briefly here Jobs data coming out within the next, uh, two minutes Actually, So we're only about a minute away from Jobs data we're looking at again. Uh, I I Just want to remind you what we're looking at. we're looking at the estimates.

Estimates are 188k non-farm payrolls 3.6 uh, unemployment rate You've got a point: three percent a month over month, and 4.3 year-over-year expectation for the annual uh I'll go ahead and put those numbers up on screen so it's handy for you. We have the Jobs data coming out in about 40 seconds, which is the perfect opportunity for me to mention that today is the final expiration, the final final expiration, the coupon code. We're changing all of the marketing this weekend. Uh, if you're looking for the cheapest way to get lifetime access to all of the live streams to, today is the day to upgrade to the Elite Hustlers Course It is the most inexpensive at the moment limited time and it gets you all the live stream accesses.

so if your course member you can bundle up as well, email us if you need a custom bundle at Kevin.com and if you're not a member yet, it's the easiest way in to get lifetime access. It beats paying monthly. Uh, so do so before 11 59 Pacific time tonight. Uh, all of this will be changed this weekend.

Here we go. Jobs data on deck and it is. Uh. unemployment Rate: 3.4 Oh my, What the hell? 517 change in non-farm payroll 517 000 Average hourly earnings coming in at point three percent.

It's a match on the month over month, but year over year comes in at 4.4 slightly hot. How the hell did we add 517 000 jobs? The unemployment rate went down. It was supposed to take up point one percent. It went down to 3.4 What the hell is happening? This is absolute Insanity 517 000 jobs I'm not sure if this is like a massive seasonal adjustment or if I can't trust the Bureau of Labor Statistics at all.

I Mean maybe that was my first mistake is suggesting that I There was even remotely hope that you could trust them. What the hell? 517 000 jobs? This is insane. Uh, I Mean unless there's a reason for this, like a disparity between households and the establishment survey, this is absolutely nuts and this could potentially be just what we need for the market to plummet today. This is terrible news.

What the hell is going on here? Total non-farm payroll Rose By 517 000 jobs in January The unemployment rate was little changed at 3.4 percent Uh. Jobs growth was wide spread. widespread jobs growth led by Leisure and Hospitality Professional and business services Health Care Employment also increased in government, partially reflecting a return of workers from strikes. Uh, the household data was a little.

It was both the unemployment rate of 3.4 the number of unemployed person at 5.7 million. Little changed little that movement. Uh, this is quite. uh, bizarre here.

see the note at the end of this news release for tables about information about the annual production population adjustments to the household survey among major worker groups. The unemployment rate was 3.2 percent for adult men, women, 3.1 percent teenagers uh 10.3 Okay blah blah blah blah in January Participation rate was 62.4 percent Uh and the employment to population rate was 60. Uh, not changed. These were unchanged.

Okay, fine. Uh, let's see here. The number of persons employed part-time for economic reasons sitting at 4.1 million. Little change not in labor force was 5.3 million.

Okay, A little changed among those not in the labor force who wanted a job was 1.4 million changed a little in January This is this is the strongest jobs report by the way. since July Treasury yields are shooting up right now. the stock market's going down. You have a revision of more jobs in the prior months.

Uh added 71 000 jobs in the prior two months. The Uh year-over-year number missed. This is absolutely insane. Everything's going red right now.

This was my warning. Yesterday was all it was going to take was a Miss on the jobs report. You were going to have a have a poopsie doopsy. This is a massive Miss of 320 000 is the Miss on this payroll number.

This is insane. Non-farm payroll Uh 517 000 compared with an average monthly gain of 401 000 Leisure and Hospitality added a hundred and twenty eight thousand jobs in January The ADP report missed. By the way, Remember that, how are they counting? This is this multi-job counting. Again, This is insane.

Professional Business Services grew by Uh 82 000 Government by 74 000 Health Care by 58 000 growth in ambulatory Health Care Services Retail trade grew by 30 000 in January Construction added 25 000 jobs. Transportation and warehousing added 23 000 Social Assistance added twenty one thousand. Uh, let's see average hourly earnings again. We saw the point three percent and the point and the 4.4 year over year.

The 0.3 is stable, but the point 4.4 was 1 10 higher than expected. Uh, here we have the upward versions of 34 000 and 37 000. That's not great. Uh, in accordance, uh with annual practices.

What is this here? The basis for industry classifications? Okay, Revisions: Fine. Total non-farm payroll. This is insane. Okay, let's look at the actual chart here because I I Don't know.

Something seems off here. Let's listen for a moment to CNBC because now maybe it's it's hard hard to read right the second in the futures. Well, first talk I haven't mentioned how pathetic it was that I was the over I think and I was only half of the number. So um I I Don't know if there's some statistical quirk in all of this and I yeah, I can tell you where the job growth was one place for sure it was was at leisure and Hospitality we've seen this in Industry struggling to get back to the pre-pandemic level up 128 000.

government jobs also up strongly 74 000 I'm not sure about the source of that. Take me a second on the B1 table here. Everybody's favorite table. It looks like you know, uh, state government education.

that was back big up thirty four thousand. Big part of that, not on the federal side, more on the local uh and State Side Uh, you had construction jobs of 25 000, manufacturing of 19. retail up 30. if you're hearing a trend here, I can tell you what that trend is.

The trend is that the job growth was was broad-based It was not in a single um, uh, industry or a single sector. Um, there were revisions revisions to the upside of Nov number of thirty four thousand and Rick is Right new benchmarks on the Uh for the year ending in March up five hundred and sixty eight thousand. So the job market was much stronger. Um, you also lost one of the linchpins of those who thought the job market was slowing because the work week ticked up to 34.7 That was everybody said.

Oh, the work week's coming down. That's a sign of of the weakening job market that is gone. You know this is like this is insane, but uh, look at this for a moment. This right here is the Household Survey.

Okay, remember, the household survey is the survey that counts people who have a job. The payrolls The Establishment survey. The headline survey counts payrolls. So you can get double counted in a payroll.

but you can't get double counted in in the household data. But look at the household data. The civilian labor force increased Uh from about 439 000 between November and December and 866 000 between December and January. And the number of those employed grew about 700 000 between November and December and grew about another 700 000 between December and January.

So they are actually suggesting 1.4 million more jobs here in the household Survey catching up to the establishment survey. This is crazy because initially there was this huge disparity between the payroll survey and the establishment survey. and there's this huge Miss between the two. Now they're starting to catch up on the household number.

Uh, this is quite strange. Tesla was positive Before this data came out. It has now gone negative about a quarter of a percent. Uh, Apple's down about 1.71 Google's down about four.

You've got the NASDAQ on this news dropping about 1.75 and you got the S P 500 down about one percent at least in the pre-market on this news. Now, this could in okay in the weird way. I Like this is, this is a terrible report in terms of like actually suggesting that the labor market is softening. but we need to like put our Federal Reserve hat on for a moment, which basically is a tin foil hat.

So let's let's consider for a moment what this potentially means for the Federal Reserve Okay, the in in the weirdest way: I want you to think about it's not actually that weird. but I want you to think about what did your own Paul say what did Jerome Powell say he said. He was pleasantly surprised and delighted that inflation was plummeting without destroying jobs, and he actually hoped that could continue because it's a sign of a soft Landing Okay, all right so the concern is a wage price spiral, right? Concern. Wage price spiral.

Well, average hourly earnings stayed at point three percent, which is an annualized rate of 3.6 percent of an increase, right? So it we didn't get a miss here. we did like to the downside, it didn't come in softer than expected. Year over year, did come in a tiny little bit more than expected. At 4.4 we're expecting 4.3 That's fine.

Uh, that's not too terribly different from what we had. in fact, let me see here: 4.4 4.4 is still a reduction from 4.6 in the last report, right? Uh, so okay. Actually sorry. the revision to that just came in.

The last report was actually five percent. Holy crap. that was just revised to five percent That literally just flashed on my screen as I said that. Uh, Okay, so this is actually really interesting.

Okay, this. like initially, this seems terrible. Initially, this is like oh my. God uh, where's Paul Volcker, right? But Jerome Powell told us it was actually a great thing that the risk of a wage price spiral was declining.

and that is actually reiterated by this report. Year over year, wage inflation went from five percent to 4.4 percent. On top of that, we had the month over month. hourly earnings stay stable at 3.6 Now keep in mind three point, six percent is still higher than two percent, but when you factor in fate or flexible average inflation targeting, it's actually not potentially that terrible like that's.

okay. as long as inflation continues to come down, this could actually in a weird way, be good news, because remember what people are saying about the stock market And no, it's not. Your reminder that today the coupon code expires link down below: February 3rd, 11, 59 PM Last coupon code. We're getting away with coupon code.

No more coupon codes. Uh. even though I have been getting a lot of comments from you by the way, people are like Kevin First of all, we want to thank you for not having those annoying sponsors on the cha