Welcome to Moving Iron with Casey Seymour and Greg Peterson, the podcast for anyone and everyone involved and interested in the business of equipment. If you want to understand what trends and market forces are impacting the price of your iron, you've come to the right place. Buckle up, it's time to move some iron.
Hello and welcome to Moving Iron Podcast. Got Greg Machinery Pete Peterson on to talk about what's happening in the marketplace. This edition of the Moving Iron Podcast is brought to you by John Deere. Greg, how you doing this morning?
I'm doing well, Casey. How are you doing?
Doing good, man. Doing real good. It's uh got rid of the wind. We had some lot of lot of crazy wind up here. It's not uncommon, but now it's it's gone away. And we got some cold coming in. So, you can always tell when there's a dramatic change coming in the weather because there's uh typically wind that kind of brackets both sides of that weather change.
Well, if you want to send that wind our way, it'll help push out this uh below zero. I think we're Tuesday or Wednesday, I think we're looking at a high of seven below. So, that's cold enough.
That's uh plenty cold. Yeah, you keep keep that uh because that wind would blow it back down on us. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna keep the wind down here.
Okay. [laughter] I wish you luck.
Thanks. All right, man. Well, you've been tracking some stuff um as far as kind of an evolution a little bit of what we saw year-over-year of numbers on the marketplace on going to uh going to the auction market. So, Greg, as you're looking at that, talk a little bit about what your findings are.
Yeah, Casey, I just crunched some interesting numbers here. We're uh getting ready to go up to Manitoba, Brandon, Manitoba, speak as we're recording. I'll be speaking tomorrow at the uh Manitoba Egg Day, is a great event up there. And I got I knew I'd been up there twice. Uh 10 years ago in 2016 and then in 2023. So I I kind of got curious. I was like, "Okay, let's try to get in the in the headspace of what the used equipment market reality was 10 years ago when I went up there, January of 16, and then 3 years ago, January of 23." And of course, you know, it was pretty stark. So, as I was crunching that data uh to get up to date here, end of 25 into early 26, one of the interesting data points I'm focusing on is the volume of 0 to three-year-old uh tractors, combines, planters, sprayers sold at auction. And of course, if we wind it back to 24, huge huge jump across the board in all those categories as dealers were really trying to get ahead of it. Had too much late model, particularly large late model inventory. So the auction market was just a wash in zero to three-year-old, you know, tractors, combines, planters and sprayers. And then last year in 25, big pullback. So the data I crunched, I mean, tractors we saw 51.2% drop in basically new to three-year-old tractors sold at auction, and combines exact same 51.8% drop. Planters a little bit less but still significant 43.3% drop. Sprayers uh 29.1% drop. So we're seeing we saw much less of the really really late model stuff at auction, but overall I believe the last numbers I crunched, the the raw number of machinery auctions in 2025 I think was up 4 and a half percent. So to me that basically spells in 24 pressure was on the dealer front to, you know, again try to get ahead of it as they're able, and 25 the bullseye shifted onto the farmer side. So we saw many more restructuring downsizing sales uh retirement sales. Um so yeah just some interesting numbers. You know, they get at get at the current trends from a different angle other than just the final auction sale price. And I when I do have time to look at data on the sides of it, like you do with volume uh you know, dealer listings for sale, it it kind of it's usually a jigsaw puzzle that fits really tightly and uh you know, but again, huge drop last year in that late model stuff at auction.
Yep. And you know, it kind of it kind of correlates back what you're talking about. You start looking at listings for sale out there. I mean, you look at the one and two-year-old stuff that's out there, that one-year-old stuff, I'm talking 2025 model year stuff that's being listed right now. Um, and you're talking about 24 stuff that's being listed out there comparatively year-over-year. What those looked like is significantly different than what it looks like right now. I mean, it's it's drastically different what it looks like right now.
And with what we saw the action towards the end of the year, you're starting to see a lot of that stuff get cleaned up. I got to run the numbers here uh for the end of the month here coming up. Um, I've got a presentation I'm giving to a group over in a group of bankers over in Springfield, Illinois. But it's it's one of those things where as you watch the dynamics play out, you you're seeing a reshaping of the market and more and more of that is going to continue, I think, to to kind of grow and talk about. And like we've been talking about all through last year, um as you watched how we started out in 25 and how we ended in 25, that market just kept getting more and more firm and and and more and more um consistent pricing across the board as far as what you see auction values go. And that that contributes back to that um the less machines you see going to auction because as auction market firms, you know, they're the retail value of those things start to recalibrate themselves as well as dealers go back through and reprice and and do those kind of things, independent jockeys and whatnot, go back and reprice the marketplace and start looking at where's the market at now, what's people willing to pay for. And you can see that really start to pop up. And that again that that really solidifies that marketplace and continues to add that um that support to the to the auction market as well as to that retail side.
Yeah, exactly Casey, you're 100% correct. Uh, I know it was interesting as I got looking again heading to Manitoba, thinking back 10 years ago when I was up there January of 16, I pulled up a chart uh from our Machinery Pete used values index report. It's kind of my trying to, you know, basically for the investment community, but obviously use it for the farm analogies to uh farm audiences. But back then when the downturn started kind of mid-13, corn and beans fell basically coming off the ethanol uh push. Uh that took about 3 years where auction values dropped like a rock on late model big late model stuff. Combine sprayers, tractors, 24 planters and up. Uh, and this time combines took a couple years I thought, but this time tractor market, I mean, felt like a rock in 24 and then just like you said, we hit 25 and we just kind of went till November, December, then we went whoop, we started to go up again. So, it's interesting for me to chew on, you know, 10 years really isn't that long a time. Um 2016. But of course, we live in a day and age when the pace of change is just breathtaking. And so, you know, you look structurally what was different 10 years ago. They were way more dealers. Of course, um dealers weren't back then weren't able to do in mass what they did this time in 24 and just take bite the bullet, you know, get bloody, but just move that stuff. And uh so again to me like we've talked about uh occasionally over the last 6 months to a year the used space whether you like it or not is just way more efficient than it was a decade ago. And I think that has big ramifications going forward just like you were hitting it. You know, things are the dynamic is changing and again what wherever you're at on this thing, lenders, investment community, farm side, dealer side, um really got to absorb these changes and then as best we can try and extrapolate like you'll be telling the lenders there in Springfield, you'll lay out all the answers for them on what's coming for 26, I'm sure. Uh but it's uh it's way different than it used to be.
Well, yeah. You know, it's we've I've talked a lot about this with guys I, you know, used to work with and guys I still keep in touch with and those kind of things, but the amount of information that was available 10 years ago, we thought was an exponential amount of information compared to what it was the previous 10 years. And now you start looking where things are at now. And it's the speed. It's almost like as as and I think this is across the board accurate, right? Whether you're talking trucks, semis, or farm equipment, I don't think it really matters. But as you're looking things across, as more and more information becomes available and the ease of which that information flows through the the channels, I think it goes back to what we've talked a little bit here as it either extrapolates the speed of which a downturn happens as fast, you know, the the speed of which a downturn happens and then it also speeds up the the recovery part of that too because, you know, you go back to 2016 kind of at the end of the last real kind of downturn where things kind of normalized going into 2017 kind of things kind of normalized out. Now there was there were still a lot of things that you had to go manually go look if you wanted auction values. I mean, you go to Machinery Pete and look at auction values, but if you wanted to go see what, you know, hardcore auction values were and where those were coming stacking in, like you had to physically go to like Big Iron and Steffes and and, you know, uh Sullivans and so on and so forth, and you had to like you had like six or I mean, my joke all the time is when I was used equipment guys, if I had 10 screens, I'd be asking for 15 because it would be, you know, you just had so much stuff that you had to keep track of and you had a spreadsheet for this and a spreadsheet for that. Well, now that information is consolidated very well to where it's easy to easy to find, easier to find anyway. And then you throw AI into that mix and and the ease of which that information comes through, you can kind of start seeing when those those uh downturns are going to happen and what's going to cause them, right? And if you know what if you kind of know what's going to happen, you can kind of brace yourself to where it's not it's a very quick acute pain, but it's not going to linger, right? There's going to be a you can you can take that hammer and get smacked on the head with it one time instead of getting beat over the head with it repeatedly for for two and a half, you know, 18 months, two two years type of thing.
Right? Yeah. I remember, oh man, so I'm pushing 40 years doing this. I remember back in the day, Casey, when I would get auction price reports, I'd have to call out the auctioneers and I'd scribble them down on a sheet of paper and we were, of course, there was no internet, right? We were publishing our our auction price books four times a year. So I'd I'd get these reports on this sale today. I wouldn't have to type them into our system for two and a half months cuz that was when the next book came out. Um I remember being very excited when uh like 98, 99 when blogging kind of became a thing on the internet. So then when we would get a sale like Sullivans would have a sale and I I would I would get the prices right away and then I would start to, you know, talk about them. So it's uh but yeah everything is faster these days now I know for example tomorrow when I'm up Manitoba I'll have one eye on that big sale we talked about last week down in Arkansas, Pocahontas, Arkansas by Kirk Witcher with Witcher Auctions. It's for Hill Farms but really late model one-owner stuff. Uh a 23 model 470 Quad Track with 73 hours on it. A never used 24 model 550T KIH air drill. So those are the kind of things hard cashwise. You know, whether you're a farmer or a dealer or or a lender. Gosh, those are those are data points and they fill in the breadcrumb trail uh you know and give us a feel here. Now the calendar's flipped. We've talked a lot about November, December was stronger for hard cash auction pricing. Early signs in January, there aren't as many sales, but the really nice sales we've seen have been, you know, as I analyze, the prices have been just as solid as we saw back in December. So, you know, we'll see here if that continues. But again, I I think you're right. The the speed of everything is uh in trusted information. It's just easier to get now. And hopefully we can get to a point when it doesn't overwhelm us and make us numb, but gives us actionable insight to free us up to tie that with what your gut in your head is saying. And one of one of the things I've been trying to do a lot, and I see you do it, too, is take all this data we have and then try and triangulate it with, you know, farmer sentiment or dealer sentiment. Which is really important. Um and it's uh I've always noticed a lag with the farmer sentiment uh to the auction pricing. So maybe it's just a human thing, but you know, wherever I go covering sales, people tend to come up and say, "Oh, Pete, these sales are terrible." Right? And it's like this past year, it's it's been, "Well, actually, no. These are these are pretty solid to better than expected numbers. But what that gets at is like my friend Brad Olstead with the Steffes Group. He had a great comment. I I had a post the other day uh you know January you do a kind of a lot of look backs and I said the highest auction price last year 25 on a planter Steffes Group sold one last uh March I think in Nehawka, Nebraska the DB60 36 row 20 inch I think uh 24 model I believe one for anyway went for 398,000 bucks and I looked back 25 years and the highest auction price was on a 1780 the 240 20 inch for I think 77,000 bucks and Brad who's been with Steffes forever and great guy legend behind the mic super sharp guy he commented on the 398 and so when I post that and I say that's the that's whatever the highest auction price this year on a planter maybe highest whatever I'd have to check but a lot of people pile on and they go that's a terrible price but what they're comparing to is that retail asking price and Brad's point was that gap in that 25 year difference from 2000 to 2025 that gap is because of that price of new it's just the ratios are the same like you and I talk about but that price is so high that it's uh it's it's just done some some some uh well it just changes things no doubt.
Yeah, and I think if you go back and look at where where those things play out how that whole thing works is that you have to start looking at and I just think this market this is why I think the the dynamics of the market are changing uh to what it the the new normal looks like. I mean, the new normal, there's always been a new normal that comes out of every downturn. And typically, that new normal is a process associated with, hey, we're going to make sure that doesn't happen again, right? We're going to set ourselves up to where we can go do this. This new normal that's coming through is not necessarily a process driven new normal. This is a market driven new normal that is, you know, I can I can I afford to take $250,000 worth of depreciation in in one year, right? You know, because that again goes back to it. It's still the same 25, you know, 30% depreciation that you've seen year-over-year, but it's just the numbers have gotten so big and so just astronomical that it Yeah. feels like it's a horrible number. It really does. And same thing I heard the same thing when it was 50 grand, right? Oh my god, how could we ever how could we ever do that? Well, as these progressions that we see in the marketplace take place, it's going to change the way people buy and and where they buy from and what that looks like and all the things associated with it. And it's it's just you're starting to see those those changes right now. The conversations I'm having with my my dealer buddies and stuff like that, conversations I'm hearing from them is it's the way people want to buy is totally different, right? And we thought we were setting things up for the way people wanted to buy pre-COVID, but that's even changed it even to a whole another quarter turn to something different than we even anticipated. So now you start looking at all of this stuff as it flows through and it's just one change, little microscopic changes along the way, but it's just it's morphed into a completely different animal than than what we thought.
See, that gets really interesting, Casey, because you know, you're right. Our pace of change is just faster and faster. And uh you know, my dad taught me when I started 36 years ago, his one we've I've mentioned before, but his his best piece of advice to me was Greg, just keep your head on a swivel. So, one thing I read this week up here in uh Minneapolis uh paper was interesting stat. We have a company here in Minnesota, now not related to farm equipment at all. It's a Sleep Number make mattresses, right? These high-tech mattresses. My wife and I have had one for many years and they you it's it's data. It's connected to the internet. You can adjust your sleep number. It gives you all this feedback blahy blah blah whatever it it's good but their sales have dropped have fallen for 11 quarters in a row. Okay. And their majority their majority shareholder is one of these hedge fund type deals. And of course they're not happy and they're like what are we going to do about it? Right? So the CEO came out with a you know an attack plan for 2026 and for the first time they are coming out with a mattress like with no tech. It's got the same materials. They've always been like well our materials are the best. Well, I don't know mattresses. What I'm interested in is that's a pivot. That's listening to the change at the cusp back down to the customer level. People aren't buying our mattresses. Why are they not buying our mattresses? might and the the reasoning was they they were positioned at the very top end of the price point. Now the economy squeeze is what it is. The K-shaped economy if you're at the top end you got dough you just keep buying those high-priced mattresses. But there's a lot of folks who are on the other half and they're like I can't afford a $9,900 mattress and I ain't going to buy one that expensive. So then if you're Sleep Number what do you do? Well you've got choices to make. But I found it interesting that to me again their head was on a swivel listening back to the customer which I think it's always a good idea to listen to your customers.
Um and the the ground swell we've talked about on the farming side is again this kind of uh a mindset shift in terms of the volume of equipment you have on the farm. Again relate totally related to the cost of new and you know we can't we just can't swing that right now. So it's gone on long enough and folks are just starting to chew. You know I think I heard you and Aaron talking about it. It's just it you know it's real. And so now how will farmers carry forward with that mindset or will it will it just kind of drift away? What will dealers do? What will manufacturers do or choose not to do? So to me, it's uh when change gets faster and condensed, there's there's really market share at play, I always think in these periods of upheaval. And it's it's you know, and people remember that one of my things I write about often I come back to is a theory of opposites. When everyone else is pulling back, man, that's when I'm going to get uber aggressive.
Yeah. You know, uh, as I'm able. Now, you have to have your your powder dry to do that. But, you know, on the dealer front, for example, I'm hearing dealers now as as as it's becoming more of a reality about the supply crunching in and how fast that changed from 24. Now, who on the dealer side, who's going to be aggressive enough on the front to pay attention to what farmers are doing and maybe go proactively be an aggressive buyer on the auction market of that three, four, five, six-year-old stuff as it becomes available. I just said it's dropped 50% from one year ago, the number of it out at auction. And you know, if dealers are looking ahead, I think that's what I'd be doing. You know, trying to be aggressive out there as a buyer on this stuff. Um, you know, again, it's fascinating to study from from whatever angle you're looking at it.
Typically, when you hit the bottom of a market like this, it's a great time to jump back in, you know, and you can you can find some deals that are they're going to not necessarily saying that you're going to appreciate in value or whatever it might be. But a lot of that when you're looking at at the overall scheme of of what's happening, you have to buy the things that are going to complement the existing inventory you already have, right? So that you can fill holes that will then create um I used to go buy stuff to create um the opportunity to the stuff that I did have in my inventory. It created an opportunity to get it to get it to move, right? And you work your way through that. Those were all um all tools that you could use to to help kind of right size uh your offering to to your customers. I think the other thing too now is that you know we've been saying it for 15 years if not longer but you know um you know the internet makes the world a small place and that that town just keeps getting smaller and smaller and right and why it keeps getting bigger it keeps getting smaller right and that's the uh that's the avenue of of why um so much information is out there now and the ease of which you can find it. And and I remember I sold a machine early in my career from, you know, Wichita, Kansas to a guy in uh South Central Florida. And I was like, man, that is a long ways to come get a piece of equipment, you know? And it was like back then it was like, I don't know, it was $12,000, $10,000 trucking bill to get it down there. Which again, that was like astronomically out of like totally just out. I remember asking the guy like between Wichita, Kansas and South Central Florida, you there's not another one of these machines out there. And he said like the reason why I I wanted to get yours is because the information you had on it, the pictures, those kind of thing that it was very easy for me to make a decision on this one comparatively to everything else that was around here. Okay. Well, it makes sense. But at the end of the day, the idea that it was easier to shop for that piece of equipment, and that was almost 20 years ago. So now, if you look at it from how easy that information is to get today, I mean, my goodness, if you're buying a if you're buying a pickup truck and you want to use um Kelly Blue Book to figure out what it's worth, if you had the VIN number or the tag number, you can you can get kind of the specs of the machine or the track or the of the truck, sorry, uh to to really understand what it's worth and and get a get a picture of it. And I we're not that far away from that kind of stuff on on the on the equipment side, right?
Yeah. Don't you think too, Casey? Uh coming through the pandemic and then 21 and 22 when the issue was you know there just wasn't availability so if you found what you wanted you just kind of had to get it don't you think that on those transportation costs that when that just became kind of well I I have to it's in Kansas I'm in whatever I just that kind of that mindset kind of lingers with us once you get over that hurdle. So now folks you know you can call our friends our great friends at Valley Transportation Brad Graf and crew down there, they'll ship stuff all over the 48 states. And you know, I talked to Brad and uh yeah, you compared to 10, 15, 20 years ago, what you described as being like a holy smokes. I'd be at an auction all those years ago and the auctioneer would say, smart guys like Dan Sullivan when it sells online would go, "Oh my goodness, this planter is going to Wyoming." Mhm. And you could hear the farmers at the crowd go, "Whoa, we're sitting here in southern Indiana and that thing's going to Wyoming." Now it happens every day. But uh again, things just uh they change fast these days.
Yeah. You start looking at as a percentage of the sale, right? Back then that that 10,000 bucks back then was almost, you know, was it was 12 15% of the value of the thing you bought. Today it's that's not the case, right? It's that's at 1% 2% 3% type of thing. So that the back my grandpa always said me sitting on the back of this horse is an afterthought. You know it's like you know don't have to worry about it's it's got it's already 1,200 lb. Right. So
I think you should write a book Casey on your grandpa's sayings. It's a number of them. You just dropped truth bombs on me on this uh moving iron podcast. I love it. It's uh we should ask our our Machinery Pete audience sometime to uh to send us your favorite grandma or grandpa saying. Maybe I'll do that today uh on Facebook and uh I'll I'll say that we talked to push people to moving iron. But uh no, I love it. But isn't it amazing though that like what I was talking about before you know me, Mr. Smartypants, not a dealer here, but suggesting maybe dealers starting to go aggressively buy on on the auction market to fill out their offering. Who would have thought we'd ever could have said something like that 18 months or 24 months ago? And here we are. It's uh things are just light speed faster these days.
Yep. It's getting easier and easier to buy and and and one thing too it seems like every year and it's not necessarily some of the best lender lenders out there in the world but the the the access to capital is also changing the way that that people look and buy you know stuff too. So that changes things too. Now, that'll be interesting when you're visiting when you're talking to your lenders over there, give your presentation, but then uh yeah, be a sponge and hear what they're thinking uh for 26 and 27.
That access to capital sometimes these things was back like when interest rates were 0% we kind of got used to that and then and may hopefully access to capital won't become an issue a difficult issue but uh you know we get used to things as they are and uh it's not necessarily a saying for my one of my grandparents but uh you know up here in Minnesota people like to say things are as they are until they aren't. Okay. It's changed it. You don't have to like it, but it's different. Let's go. So,
Yep. Yeah. I've uh I've adopted that saying throughout my life. It's all X until it's not. So, and yeah, and the bottom line, yeah, don't get cemented, which is kind of what you and I are just, you know, generally prodding, advising, uh whether it's on the farmer side or the dealer side. Uh, and you know, you just don't just don't get cemented in your mindset, which was my that was basically my dad's advice 36 years ago is, you know, make yourself look sideways and backwards and just go, "Huh?" And then, you know, you you'll you'll have things that will be useful. A lot of them aren't. Just let those go. But, uh, yeah, it's an amazing day and age we live in, isn't it? Yep. Most like I tell my kids, you know, you got to be aware of your surroundings and and know what's going on around you. If you don't, you're going to get you're going to get hurt. So, good stuff. All right, Greg. Good place to stop. Folks want to reach out to you, get more information about what you're doing or have you come speak, what's easy way. Just go to machinerepeat.com or hook you up on on uh your socials.
Yeah, just go to our website, folks, machinerepeat.com, click the contact button. You can shoot a call in or an email to our office or like Casey said, hit our Facebook page. Uh did get a couple requests on Facebook the other day. I try and catch up with those as quick as I can. Sometimes when I'm moving around the Facebook messages, it takes me a couple days to get to, but if you hit our office, that gets right to me. So, uh, yeah. And, uh, I'll be out on the road a lot in February. So, look forward to seeing people out at the farm shows and auctions and, uh, yeah, should be an interesting 20 or start to 26.
You're going to Commodity Classic, aren't you?
I will be in San Antonio. Yes. You're going to be down there.
I'll be there so we can we can do this together sometime. Do you have a favorite place on Riverwalk? That's the big question, Casey. You know, it's been a long time since I've been what was in San Antonio last. I want to say I might have been in San Antonio before the River Rock was even there. That might have been how long ago it was. It's been it's been a minute since I've been there. So,
I think the first time I was there was uh again, this this gets off a little, but I was there in March of 97. Uh so, my business was 8 years old. One of my part-time jobs at that time, I was writing for the Rochester Post Bulletin in the sports department. So, I mainly covered high school games and community college stuff. Super fun. But, uh, Minnesota Gophers uh, made the final four that year in San Antonio. So, [music and bell] we talk I talked, see, now there's another technological difference [music] all these all these cell phones. But yep, I I talked the sports department into letting me cover those uh games to get to the final four. Boy, we had a lot of fun down at at uh at Riverwalk there. And uh that was back when our Gophers were uh pretty good at college basketball. Getting better now, but uh fun memories.
Yep, that's a good time. Yeah, stuff's a good time. But we'll have to uh walk walk around and and record some stuff and see if we can't run and give them shout outs. Well, Greg, appreciate you being on. We'll catch you again next week.
Sounds great, Casey. Have a good one.
All right. Stay tuned for more Moving Iron Podcast after these festivals. [music] Well, there they are, mocking you. See you next year, easy. That weedy area that's got you thinking, "Man, I hate that spot. Wish I'd sprayed better." Get the last laugh with a sprayer upgrade from John Deere. Precision upgrades that can increase your sprayer's performance, [music] like ExactApply advanced nozzles to give you more control at more speeds. It's just one of the many precision upgrades you'll find at johndeere.com. [music] Now, let's see who's laughing. All right, welcome back to Moving Iron Podcast, Marcus. I got Rich Pawsome back to talk about what's happening in the overall economy. Rich, how you doing today?
Doing good. Thank you for having me again.
Love having you on, Rich. Um, we've got a few things kind of going along. I want to pick your brain on something real quick. Well, first before we do that, talk a little bit about your podcast. There's a lot of good information that people need to hear.
Right. Go to criticalpointpod.com and you'll find some free stuff as well as some locked up stuff. I have a little membership. Uh some that's just for the grain markets. Uh some is more for stock market economy and then there's actually a combined subscription uh where you can get both. And uh I give you little morning briefs throughout the week. I do a weekly update for people who are interested in lengthier moves or they don't see a whole lot going on then they can just watch that one weekly update and it is video. So if you're busy in the tractor truck whatever you can just listen to it and you'll you'll have an understanding over time. But if you have that moment to look at those charts, you're going to see how well the signals are working of uh is the economy going up or down, is the commodity price going up and down, some price targets. And then I love to talk about the economy and some of the news and information going on there. And that's at criticalpoint.com. And they can email me at
[email protected]. That's a little different email. Had it forever and I keep forgetting to put it out there. So, uh, give me an email. So,
Right on. Okay. All right. Let's talk a little bit about inflation right now. So inflation is and all the so basically my most of my adult life has been under the guides of a very steady economy. You you're coming out of 2000s 2006. I mean they had a rough patch there with the dot bubble stuff those kind of things. But post.com bubble to about 2006 it was a pretty steady economy. Not a lot lot of crazy things happening. We had um you know September 11th happened, 2008 so on and so forth and you know then you see a huge reduction in in overall interest rates and inflation and everything else kind of took off there. We see this inflation thing happening. Now I can't tell you that I've followed this as closely as I followed over the last four or five years. But this particular moment in time you start talking looking all the all the Fed governors that are out there. There's many Fed governors that think inflation is under control as are scared to death that it's going to come raring. It's raring back and there's like this pretty hard divide between should we be raising or should we be lowering. Um we do have a new Fed chair coming in. Um I don't know for sure when he starts but he's he's coming in and obviously going to be a little more favorable to what to what Trump wants to see happen on that side of of the coin. But when I see that many people that are pretty evenly divided that there's a camp that says, "Hey, we're we're we're really really good." And then there's inside that camp there's like we're we're good, but we're not really good. But on the other side, there's a there's a bunch of them over there that are really concerned about seeing a huge explosion back into inflation as you roll through 26 and 27. So, as you're looking at this inflationary issue that we see in front of us here, Rich, what are your thoughts and what camp are you in?
Yeah, I'm favoring higher for 2026, but I'm thinking the faster pace increase may not show up the latter half of this year. So, it might not cause too many problems to rise here in the next few months. And I can see why it might actually be more sideways, not really do much of anything for a while yet. But I, you know, even though I realize most of us thought the tariffs were going to kick that in immediately, we could see over time, no, this is trickling through. This is going to take time. I'm not so sure we should give up on that. About 80% of the businesses who are paying tariffs, they're paying 80% of that tariff. 20% being passed on. So, it's only a matter of time that I think they're going to have to do catchup because they bought ahead of Trump raising the tariffs. They built their inventories. Now, they're running out of inventories. Now, they got to buy that more expensive stuff. They're paying the tariffs. I think eventually they got to pass some of that tariffs on because business today is so addicted to making sure profits are already always up there. If they can't figure out how to build business and create more profit, if they can't lower input cost, then they just simply raise their prices. And it's amazing how well they get away from away with it. Uh we're actually destroying some of these business cycles of how it's worked throughout the history of this country just because these businesses that for some reason it's easy for them just to keep raising that price. We apparently haven't broke enough people here yet to really snap that around. So I think some of that tariff stuff is still coming in. I think as economy picks up this year and I think it will that can also encourage them saying maybe they can get a little extra. Whereas right the moment they had been nervous of where we're going with all this Trump stuff and you could just see the jobs were so bad last year as far as jobs creation. They were saying, even if they were saying they were pro Trump and what the government's doing, they really weren't doing it on the business side. Okay, they're saying one thing, doing something else. There are people thinking we'll get some more jobs this year that they're calming down, saying they think they can live with this. But again, I think that's going to be allowing them to try to bump prices here and that inflation's going to go higher. Now, how much higher, how well that works out for me, I don't know. But the model has performed well enough for decades here. And it's just saying we better consider a higher interest rate. So, I agree with that side of the Fed. I understand what the other side of the Fed's looking at because with this not so good job stuff, even poor, if it keeps trickling through, we could have some issues here. Or the economy is going to get weaker and and what the Fed is wrestling with, could they get stuck in a scenario when prices are going like that, inflation, but the economy is going like this. All right? And we can get into stagflation, a real messy time that's really going to create a lot of tension in our society. Uh there's going to be more miserable people than what we have right now. Um where do I think the Fed's going to err? Um, I think they're probably going to uh uh at the end of the month here, I think they're supposed to have another meeting. I think they probably won't raise or lower interest rates. I think they'll say, "Let's watch us a bit more." I think in May is when the new chairman takes over. And it might be that Powell would like to just kind of coast into that and and get out and then let him do what they want. Already this morning, Trump has already shaken up the list of what he who he was probably going to pick. So now they're unsure once again who's he actually uh going to pick and how that's going to work. The Fed uh after Trump come out on this putting a cap on interest rates there. The Fed, you could see is is even if they're on both sides, even politically, you could see they're they're going to be more together of making sure they don't lose their uh dependence interdependence on from the Fed. Okay, dependence from the Treasury and the rest of government. In other words, they want to be independent. So, at least they're kind of in agreement, even the Republican kind of fed people where they might not go with Trump stuff. Even if Trump puts a a hardcore his put his man in there, there's some discussion there. He might not accomplish much as you might think. Um that uh they want to be careful just how much they do in that Trump direction. So, yeah, that could turn out to be real interesting for the rest of this year on the Federal Reserve side. But right at the moment, I do think inflation's going to work higher, but I'm not convinced anybody's going to get too scared about it right now. I would watch the CPI goes above 3%. It was so interesting late last year. I said, "Get me 3% or higher. We got an uptrend." Went right to 3% two months and then it's it's backed off. Uh, I'll I will I'm willing to say maybe inflation can actually ease back next couple months, but get it over 3%. I I think we're on our way higher. Um, and I think most of that will probably be late this year.
Okay, hang on a second here.
By the way, on the recent inflation report, it was 2.7% CPI, and that was unchanged from the prior month, which is a bit puzzling because I looked at the subgroups. You can probably even find it on cnbc.com. They had a list of the subgroups in that inflation. Looked like to me like 86% of them were showing higher inflation. The remainder were showing lower yet they still come up with an unchanged inflation. So I haven't don't quite get that. Okay. [laughter] And uh so uh it didn't didn't look good on the uh the sub side of that. And they even showed steak prices jumping 3.1%. Hamburger jumped like 2%. But there was a lot more on the increase than the other. And it could be a weighting thing there. But uh uh I'm going to stick with my idea this ought to at least ease higher on the inflation side here.
Yes. Are you talking like is your thought process behind where this inflation is coming from? Is that because of of like you talked about earlier like the materials they purchased pre tariff situation?
That could be some of that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they had a definite cushion built. I'm surprised how well they built inventory. They were starting to build it uh I think immediately after the election and built it right in all the way to when he had his uh I can't remember the big tariff day there. Uh and they were probably able to squeeze some a little after that. And once the tariffs hit, of course, then they were stuck of having to pay those higher prices, but they were working off inventories. Could see our imports uh actually drop quickly and then they came back some and they were just burning off some of that and I think that will
Partially explain why things were delayed. I mean, I think many of us in the markets and also an economist thought that inflation would jump, you know, by summer, at least of last year on into fall, and it only picked up some. All right? And I just don't think we've seen that full impact of these tariffs yet. And if they could draw it out, if these companies can be slow and just work that in, it may not turn out that big a deal. But if they get caught short where they hey got to pay full prices to get this stuff imported and they need it and the economy is there for them, I think they're just going to pass things on much faster than what they've been.
Yeah. Um so you talked about all the different stuff that you were looking at, the different categories and whatnot. Um I keep seeing these hamburger only went up two, you know, 2% and this that and another thing. It doesn't feel like it's 2% when I go get [laughter]
That's always been the problem with the inflation numbers. Yeah. Yeah. You hear that from the economists even, you know? They'll say, "Well, that's what it was." But yeah, my local stores. [laughter] So, like everybody hates Congress, but they love the congressman. You know what I mean? It's like it's [laughter] Yeah, there's something lost there in translation. So, uh yeah, I uh I bought I bought three sandwiches at a at a sandwich place the other day for me and my two my two sons went out and we had lunch together and it was it was 60 bucks to get two Yeah. three sandwiches, man. I was like, "What the" Which, you know, I don't think it catches you off guard because you're like, I can't believe I just spent $60 on a subpar sandwich, you I mean like this is anyway
For the decade we're up like 26 28% which really it could be a lot worse than that when you look at the history of the US back to 1800s. Uh this is kind of the low side even. So uh there's more room there to really really spike inflation unless we behave ourselves, you know, and you've seen other decades where it went about this high and that was about it. But uh we're only about halfway through the decade. So this this could get really interesting how expensive things get. I'm definitely not letting go of a 1970 scenario yet and question if it'll happen. But the point is I have to keep it on the table. And in the 1970s shot up early in 1970s stock market crashed 60%. Inflation went down stock market started back up. Late 1970s it shot up again. Okay. And the stock market was able to swallow that one. And that's why Paul Volcker had quite a tough time. He was wondering whether raising interest rates would it really kill that inflation. Well, he eventually did it and it caused a recession, but I mean it it worked, but that's a messy way of doing it. I I really hope younger generations here, especially working for the Fed, they can come up with something different than raising interest rates cuz that just hurts the middle class and poor far more than the rich uh in order to turn that inflation around when inflation's also caused by the rich too. So, it's um need a need a little better system there. I prefer more of a taxation system, but that has to be tweaked as well.
Let's talk about so on the same inflationary front, let's talk about affordability, what that looks like. Um here the last week or so, Trump's talked a lot about capping trying to figure out how to to do executive orders, those kind of things to cap interest rates on credit cards at 10%. and you got these, you know, BlackRock and companies like that that are that are buying up uh apartment buildings and houses and those kind of things. Um, you know, you look at some builder reports that are out there and it shows that their sentiment is not very not very strong right now and but on the industrial side, you see some strength on that. So I guess as you're looking at this whole, you know, where how much of my dollar do I get to keep at the end of the day this affordability thing, there's some pressure there. What feels good on one side always seems like there's a ripple on the backside. And I got to I got to believe that as much as I would love to have everything capped at 10%. That'd be awesome. There's got to be some some ripples there on the back side of that. That is a juice worth squeeze in some of these conversations. And I would love your opinion on it.
Yeah. Uh, I think we should do something like this. And credit cards have said it for many, many years. This is ridiculous. 24%. The other day, somebody with very good credit got a card and it said 36% or something like that. That's nuts, you know. Uh, and really, you know, supposedly it's supposed to help from, you know, getting too carried away or people borrowing too much this and that. I can't see it does anything. All right. Uh so I uh you know I I like to hear that but I realize that is a little government interfering with business which of course Republicans tell us they're not for that but they're doing it. Okay. Well trying to do it. Uh yeah immediately bankers come out. Oh they're furious. Okay. And now that really woke up non-bankers. A lot of business people that have been for for Trump some called the ring kissers. They're suddenly waking up. boy, you know, he's doing what we want, the tearing down the government, changing his country, but he might come after us, okay? Tell us what to do, right? So, this is going to get this is going to get fascinating this year on into to next year of uh how this all trickles out and and comes through. Uh I I I agree with the banks. Obviously, if they're going to cap it, there's some kind of a loss there, but I find it difficult. That's going to really wreck the the credit card system. All right. Um, I I think they're just kind of overreacting to protect themselves. They're kind of stuck in the mud. Don't want to change things like that. Um, I I personally would like to see it actually work. Try something uh something different there. Um, and I don't know is it is it going to go through or not? Because boy, the banks and Wall Street came right behind the banker street uh to try to back it up to to fight Trump on that. But he's trying to at least put an image out there that he's trying to do something about affordability, you know. So, and he is he's got a problem with this affordability. People are just talking more and more about it and saying this is getting more expensive, that's getting more, this is getting more expensive. And and even if they're getting payraises, saying I can't keep up, you know. Uh so he's trying his best to to come up with some things. I'm a little concerned a lot of this is just going to be band-aids and distractors and this and that. But he might actually hit on something that uh can work even if it doesn't work that well. I think whoever comes after him might well say, "Well, at least we were kind of on a track here." I can even see Democrats saying, "Well, we're kind of on the track here." Um they'll modify and change it. We're going to see lots of this kind of discussion of what is business really doing to the American people. It's no more about people are getting tired of just worshiping business, Casey. I mean it's they've woke up they woke up it's not just government can be your enemy business can be your enemy too. Uh so there'll be more of this uh kind of discussion and uh but to me the best I can tell for the monetary or banking system that shouldn't hurt them at 10% cap but they're sure going to holler about it. So [laughter] they don't want to be told what to do either. That's pretty much a human characteristic right? [laughter] somebody wants to be told what to do, right? That's now also Annie's idea of those large investors in uh homes, you know, many years ago back in the great financial crisis. I thought that was a good idea. I thought I might have been the first to put that idea out and then boy, it was only a year later I learned no man, they've already been doing this and uh it it kind of helped us out all the way to mid-2010s. uh and they just kept on doing it. Whereas I just wanted it a temporary thing to kind of support the economy, keep us from crashing and burning, help out people from losing their homes because what they were doing back then at least is they buy the home and then they rent it back to people and give them a chance to get caught up and eventually maybe sell it to them. But the problem is they just keep going and going and going even though there's no crisis of Denton in that sense. And it has uh it has been shown to to help increase prices of rents and the the homes. All right. And so Trump again getting stuck in this affordability thing is just saying, "Well, that's one thing I could do to maybe ease that back." And how far that goes, I had no idea. I don't even know where it's at right now. Uh but a way is a surprise to hear it and the other way I wasn't because I've been thinking all along, I'm not so sure I want those investors. And it was so messing around in homes. And it was so interesting that the leader of China um come out and made a comment that he said investors should not be uh owning homes that are meant for people to live in. And I said, "Well, thank you." [laughter] So maybe that'll raise some eyebrows a little and maybe not. But uh anyways, uh it is I, you know, I'm wondering what will come next in just the next few weeks because I'll tell you what, late last week, this week, boy, the Trump people in busy. There's all kinds of little things. Some things most people haven't even heard of yet. and I still have to research on um they're they're scrambling what can they do at least on this affordability issue ahead of the coming election.
Yeah. Okay. So now one thing I love having you on here to talk about is the stuff that you track and as you're looking at stuff track across your long-term stuff that you look at from 1980 till till today. what are you seeing that's different and how do you see that that playing out um as we move forward through through the rest of 26.
Yeah, it's interesting that there's a thing called the uncertainty index. It has to do with policies that are being created and what do people really think about it. And the chart I saw was only from 2006 to now, so I don't know if there's prior history, but it was record high. So it's just sending a message: the American people, business people, whoever's being pulled, aren't pleased with how things are going in the country here, where we're going with all these policy changes and government change. How does that impact us in terms of our living standards as well as just doing business? But record high. So there's a lot of nervous, upset people. Other types of polling, such as are they just in favor of Trump or not, and man, it's some of this stuff is like 80% against. They just don't think the country is going in the right direction.
But to get it more on the economy side, what I'd like to talk about is if we look from 1980s to date, and then we look from 1980s to prior, going back to 1950s, maybe World War II, maybe even the Great Depression. What we're finding is some interesting stuff that's coming out of people. I did this research all the way back 2000s. Haven't really updated it, but so pleased to see people talking about it now and they're getting really excited or upset about it. But what they're coming up with is that the GDP from say 1950s, 1980s was 4.1% per year. Pretty good economic growth. Then from 1980 to date, it's averaging about 2.1 or 2.8% per year. That's a big reduction.
And I, you know, every time I see this kind of stuff, I sit back and said, "Well, wait a minute. No, I voted for President Reagan. I voted for, hey, let's build up capitalism here. Let's do some business, man." And yet somehow we printed record sums of money, built a tremendous sized economy in record speed, made the rich a lot richer, bigger businesses even bigger and a lot richer. But somehow from 1980, we really lost a lot of our GDP in terms of how fast the economy is growing. And so I thought, okay, seems like somebody should be upset about that.
Well, what I've been talking about since early last year is the consumer sentiment did well in the 80s, 90s. People were saying, "We can buy into this whole Reagan, more capitalism, more kind of stuff. We can do that." And they actually were even happy right up to about 1999. They were very happy under Clinton because Clinton was basically just doing what the Republicans wanted on the economy side and had a fantastic stock market, one of the best stock markets ever. But from 2000, it's like you just flip a switch and the consumer sentiment goes like this all the way down to right now at Trump when it's at the bottom of the chart.
Okay, so along the way we had two Democrats. Okay, along the way yet it still slid anyways. So you kind of got to argue apparently both sides didn't really do enough to make people happy. All right. And if you look at what's going on with that slower economy, it's a little more understandable why they weren't happy.
Well, what's even worse is when you look at the pay, the percent pay as share of GDP. What are the workers making from our economy? GDP it was really around 1950s all the way up to, let's see if I wrote that down, all the way to about 2000 it was stable to maybe a little bit lower and then it just takes a nose dive from 2000. Now overall you could say it's gone down from 1950 to now, but really the biggest move, more dramatic move was just 2000 to now. And it's dropped, you might think it's only dropped from 64 to 54%, but that's still sizable enough. That is telling us as people were getting pay raises, it simply wasn't as good a pay raise as prior generations.
While the companies were making explosive amount of productivity, selling more and more, producing more and more, making more and more profits, they were just giving tiny little pay raises along the way. So, I think it's, you know, understandable that as a society, as how we think and behave, we're a miserable lot from 2000 to now. And now look at all this political stuff. It's no wonder that people will vote for anyone and everyone, whether they're the devil himself or an angel. You know, they just want something different, something done. And that's where we are today and that's why we're burning down the government, is basically people said this just didn't work. Right?
So I think and increasingly we're seeing especially more MMT that believe in the money printing system is actually a good thing that we have. We're basically saying, and I'm on board with them, that from 1980s to now we need to do away with all that. It's time to change it. Well, in a way Trump is actually wrecking Republicanism and conservatism but also the Democrats. Okay. And I'm starting to think, well, you know, this was ugly. This was nasty, but maybe it was a good thing. I think it's not going to last long and I don't see a plan from the Trump people where we're really going in the next 20 years. So, I'm guessing it's actually going to be someone else, something different.
So, I think we kind of had to burn the house down in order to shake us all up as saying, you know something, we got to come together and we got to get something better than what we've seen from Republicans and Democrats. Because the weird thing is even though they were fighting one another all this time, they were really just following the same path. And that's that story from 1980s to now. And like you can just see the economy just was not as good as it was from 1950s to 1980s. Okay? Unless you were the rich person, then you really racked in the big bucks, right? And the middle class and we got this K economy and it's ugly. I'm afraid it might get worse.
Even though I'm bullish the stock market this year. By the way, the stock market forecast is up this year, down next year, and it could be down a huge amount next year. And if you want more details on that and the signals along the way, become a member, of course, because I'll update you as fast or slow as you want. And I do have such crazy things as a once a decade sell signal that might protect us from a 50% drop in the stock market.
So, I think the stock market is pretty much rigged on this old thinking that as long as the Fed Reserve is printing money, and it is. As long as they're backing off quantitative tightening, which is just another form of also helping with the money printing. They haven't lowered interest rates as much as Trump wants. He wants it down a lot. And people are pretty much betting no matter who he hires and gets into the Fed, they're not going to drop it that much. And that would probably create a disaster later this decade if they did. But they could drop it some.
And the way Wall Street's looking at it, if interest rates stay the same or lower, that's a plus along with all this printed money. And then they're asking themselves, well, are companies at least making some money? And the answer is yes. And that is their core formula they've used probably since 1980 that is just an automatic buy, buy, buy. It doesn't matter if it makes any sense. Doesn't matter if the rest of the country is going to hell or not, okay? It's just buy it. Okay? And they're winning. Okay.
And I think this is probably going to follow through this year to put it right up some more this year as well, but next year something's going to hit. You can just see we're hitting to some extremes to bring that around. And I don't mean to flip over all the way to the stock market here, but I got some statistics I wanted to throw out. 94% of the years from 1928, the stock market dropped 5% at least once during a year. Or at least spread out over 1928. 63% of those years dropped 10%, 26% of those years it dropped 20%. And I like that one because it drops off quickly as it goes all the way down to minus 50%.
I can see these performances that's now out there on Wall Street being discussed. I can see they match some of my business cycles. When I get the once a decade sell signal, I'm thinking 20% to 50% down. When I get the once a decade buy, I'm thinking up 100 to 400. It's already worked for me. We're up over 100%. Got it. There's people that think this thing's going to the moon all the way to 2029. Well, I can allow to 2029 and then I think some serious problems going to hit. And the higher we go, the more serious the problem because that's just how it works.
But I'm wondering about 2027. I can see a 20% pullback and we'll be okay. And then we're going right to a record high. Rebuild the economy. It's probably just going to be a hiccup in the economy. But I can see that for many years I've forecast a problem. 2028 to 2031. I could see where that could strike in 2027. We might be down 30 or 50%. So, this is going to be very, very interesting under Trump because so much stuff is coming at us so fast. Things we've never seen before, things we've seen in the past that didn't work, but we apparently want to try it again. Those things can go.
But I must say, I think there's a chance we might see the economy improve here. Even with some inflation and higher interest rates, we could see the economy improve. We can see the stock market actually do pretty good this year. And Europe's doing very well for me. I'm a little new on forecasting European stocks. I mean, I've done it for years, but I never really put it in my service. Well, now it's in the service. We have a weekly update on just European and foreign stock indexes. And I got some money in Europe.
And you can just see these American investors as soon as there's a little bit of a rocky road there, more so from Trump than economic indicators, they just move a little more money over into Europe. And Europe is so sensitive. They don't have the markets we have. We built such gigantic markets. Just a little bit of money flowing in there can just knock those European stocks up. Now, someday that'll create a problem for Europe, too. And I think Lagarde at the head of the ECB is wondering about that someday too.
But right at the moment, I think it's probably a good time for Europe. It's going to pick up its pace and do pretty good with the stock market. So far Europe beat the US last year, believe it or not, even though the US did very well, up 17% for the year even after that crash earlier in the year, but Europe still beat us and they may beat us this year. But yeah, I got a feeling we want to watch out for some things that can cause some problems here by '27. And maybe the worst will delay to the end of the decade. I'm just saying I want to play it safe as I get close to that.
What else have I got? I think I pretty much ran through the idea that people obviously aren't happy and we have this K economy and the rich are happy, but believe it or not, stressed out. And then the lower side of that K is the middle class and poor that are not doing that well. Even if you find them doing well, they're really stressed. They're really concerned about the future. It's fascinating. They're investing in the stock market. They're buying the stock market. They ride out these big dips.
When professionals on Wall Street don't, they jump out and cause that dip, probably. Why are they doing that? I think it's their lonely little bit of hope that they are getting a piece of what the rich are getting. Okay? And other than that, I think they look at the rest of life saying they're not getting anywhere and maybe falling backwards. And someday there's got to be a breaking point on that.
By the way, Isabella Weber, a famous economist over in Europe, and she's on the more of the new economic things. She's always working on inflation and the gouging of inflation and are companies really causing that more than the Fed and government? And the answer is yes. But she showed a chart. It's a very complicated chart. Boy, they're getting into some things that I don't quite understand how to calculate. But she showed tracking oil prices of who gets what, when, and where, that 1% of the American population, therefore the very rich, are getting 50% of the oil profits, and the lower 50% of the American population gets 1% of the profits in oil. So, I'm sorry, I don't think anybody needs that much profit just to drill, punch a hole in the ground and pump some oil. [laughter] You can call me social, whatever, but [laughter] I just can't quite agree with that, right?
So there has to be some big adjustments. And I think the 2026 election, 28 election, the 2032 election is going to bring some of those adjustments. If by 2034 we have not changed a thing from now, I'm going to get very, very nervous where this country is going on into the 2040s. And we'll be discouraged that it's quite possible we're going to have a lost century when the rest of the world just does better and better and better. I don't think that's going to happen. My best forecast is the American people going to pull together here soon. I think we got to beat ourselves up more, drop us to our knees, get a bloody nose, and then I think we're going to stand up saying, 'Okay, we've had enough fighting and arguing this. What the heck are we going to do?' you know.
Worldwide though. I mean, it seems like there's a lot of this...
We're kind of, we're sick of it all, we're not going to take it anymore kind of approach to life, whether you're talking about Europe or Asia or...
Yes. It [clears throat] seems like everywhere kind of have the same feeling around the world.
Yeah. I must admit just a few minutes ago, I put something up on my YouTube private account, but hey, I only have a handful of people over there. I keep forgetting to use it, but right away a guy did a very intelligent rebuttal of some of my things and just wanted to point out that, you know, I keep saying, well, the US is such, you know, heading for the toilet or something, but he showed out, you know, around the world, yeah, we have these things are looking good, but we have these other things not so good. And I've always had this theory the world kind of follows the US and they've been following us also since 1980, building all this stuff, and they're running into some of their own issues as well. And they've printed a lot of money, and that's kind of why some people wonder why is the dollar not crash with all that printed money? Well, it really can't because everybody else is printing money, and the dollar, when you look at the value of the dollar, it's not really what it's worth in our country. I say it's worth zero, it's just a mode of transferring stuff around, so it can't have value. But as soon as we use our dollar compared to another country, it becomes an adjuster of their commodity prices, our commodity prices, and doing business. So, it does have some value.
Okay. And the reason it can't drop with all our printed money and government debt is one, I truly believe our government debt really isn't that big a deal. But I'm an MMT or the standard economist who might come back at me saying, 'No, you're wrong. You're wrong.' I would then say, 'Yeah, well, so what?' Because everybody else is printing that money around the world, too. These currencies, they can't get too out of line to one another, you know, and you can't really bring the whole world down. They don't, the currency traders don't know how to really work with that and they can't bring it up either. So the dollar is not a good tool to tell us whether or not we really have printed too much money.
That's why I stay with the idea that hey, if the dollar index, I think it's at right around 100, isn't it? I can't remember now. In the upper 90s. It gets down to about 65, call me because then I'll probably be scared that [laughter] something's wrong. Maybe we did print way too much money. In the meantime, most of this printed money, we can put it to work. It's just a sad thing that less and less goes to the middle class and poor and more to the rich and big business. And that used to work, believe it or not. I was there. I was waving my flag on the Republican side for many years. But today, it's not working. I'm sorry. It's just not working. And all everything burns out anyways when it comes to economics, nothing will work forever. But today we have just simply pumped too much money into the minority of this country and not the majority.
And a young person, you know, these really young people, they have a right to be mad. They really do. I used to downplay that kind of stuff saying, 'Hey, when I was a youngster, I was mad, too. But later on, I got to work, I made money, I invested, and you know what? It wasn't so bad after all.' But I got to tell you, maybe I'm missing something. But I look at some of these young people and I think, you know something, you do have it worse than what I had. I'm sorry. That's just the way it is. So, [laughter] you know, so what are we going to do about that? Well, we need to fix it. And we're going to fix it. And even though a lot of people will say I'm anti-Trump, but I feel as though maybe he did the right thing at burning this stuff down, but it's the other people, the rest of us have got to figure this out. And we now have that incentive, if you will, to also get mean, tough, get out there and say, 'Okay, we're not doing it really the Trump way. We're going to do it differently, but we aren't going back the way it was.' That would be the death knell of the US if we go back. All right? We got to do this differently.
And I really appreciate the younger people, especially those that are willing to get into the politics. I did some analysis here just last night and I was surprised. There's actually a few people in the silent generation, they must be like 90 years old, that are actually still in Congress. I didn't realize that. The baby boomers are getting, of course, old enough to go out. The Gen Xers are just now starting to move in to take power. And it's going to be the Gen X first that I hope are going to start turning us out of this. Millennials, I think, are going to do the better job of actually turning us around. And then the Gen Zers probably won't be empowered almost about 20 years from now. They'll probably put the final touch of whatever it is we're going to do in the next 20 years. And so I'm really excited what we do in the 20 years. I'm optimistic, but I got to tell you, if we're not careful, we can really screw this up. And I really am concerned this burning down stuff right now, it's not the answer.
We got to do, you know, to me the whole Trump people don't have the answer for us. But I can also tell you, I haven't seen it from the Democrats. I got a few people I really like inside of that that have some ideas. And my personal ideas, hey, get Medicare for all. Even the Republican millionaire billionaires, they know it'll cut costs for business. They know it'll cut cost for the people. And then universities have also done studies saying it also saves people's lives as well as cut the cost. Why the heck aren't we doing it? They all know it, but nobody seems to really push it, you know. And then do something on the minimum wage side, which if businesses are worried about raising it too fast, we can just print the money, believe it or not, and send that as a basic income. And then I frankly, I'm ready to write checks for people to put in the retirement accounts as far as I'm concerned. If you're 20 years old, put a half a million dollars right into your account right here, right now. Okay? Start putting money in for the babies that much smaller, scale them in and start making money out of that stock market and save Social Security.
There's no reason to, I think you could actually lower the tax rate for Social Security, make the rich pay their share. Tell the, have the government come out saying we will back it if the economy is that bad and the rich can't pay it. Nobody else can pay it. We're going to put the money in so Social Security will be there. And for Social Security, it should be low interest and safe. My idea of putting money into retirement accounts, I want you to put that in there and have some risk. Make some capital gain, take some capital risk. You put those two together, that's your portfolio. You know, any financial planner normally has some cash and then they have their stock and bond investments. So, that's the portfolio. And you know, it's just sad. We can print a lot more money than we think right now. And this debt thing isn't quite the issue on the government side. We could be living so much better.
And I know it's the American way that we have to work hard. We're kind of Puritan-based. [laughter] We have to work. Take the hard road is what we are determined to do. And I'm not saying we become so easy that it's a lazy way of doing it. I'm not saying that at all. And some of these things I'm talking about, it's already been proven in other countries. People didn't turn lazier. They became even more creative, more productive. They were even more happy to work. They liked their country better. They liked themselves better. We need to talk more of this and build these kind of things. And we're not there yet. Things may have to get worse before better. But if we do these things I'm talking about, it will change our attitude. We'll live longer, be happier. We'll get along better and we'll build business and have a better economy. And it's there.
Now when I said I'm less nervous of government debt, I am nervous of the private debt. And that's going to be the thing that's going to blow up on us again in the next few years. And I don't like all these bankers investing so much money in the stock market. I think they're kind of pushing things harder than people would normally do. And I think they're going to be irrational as well. I don't like all this AI trading. I think that's just going to act like an irrational trader anyways. So, let's stay in touch. I'm trying to be an optimist for 2026, but let's stay in touch because yes, something's going to, crap's going to hit the fan [laughter] once again. It does it every decade, Casey. And you could just see it's coming, but I think we can make a buck here first yet along the way here.
Okay. All right, Rich. Good place to stop. If folks want to reach out to you one more time with your podcast, the best way to find that and how to reach out to you.
Yep. Go to criticalpoint.com. 60-day free trial. Okay. There is free stuff there too, newsletter. And I got some videos. I'm even coming up with a new type of video with a different name. But um also email me, you know, tell me I'm wrong, but hopefully you'll include some facts. Like that person just a few minutes ago. They really gave me some some statistics to think about. Okay. Uh, so you can email me at criticalpoint podgmail.com.
Right on, Rich. Appreciate you being the podcast. We'll catch you again next time.
Thank you very much. All right, stay tuned for more moving iron podcast after this.
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All right, welcome back to Iron Podcast Markets. I got Chip Ninger with Blue Reef Aggra Marketing on to talk about what's happening in the market. Chip, how you doing today? Hey, doing well Casey. How you doing? Yeah, I'm doing pretty good. We got a uh got a little bit in the news right now that's kind of driving the markets a little bit. We finally got some outside market influence. You know, for the longest time, corn's just been kind of slapping back and forth with that amazing um help we got from the USDA a couple weeks ago. But uh but as you as you watch how things are moving along, as you look at the corn market right now, it's not as stagnant as it was. you see some volatility popping in, but it feels a lot more like outside money's coming in the marketplace. Your thoughts on that?
Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously the USD report a couple weeks back was uh was bearish obviously, you know, after the market reaction, but really within 24 hours we had that digested and and into the market and and now it's more about um you know some uncertainty the outside markets in my opinion and we've had a lot going on. We have this Venezuela situation. So, how's that going to affect crude oil? um hasn't seemed to affect it a whole lot yet. We still have a lot of um you know internal uh kind of strife happening in Iran. Will we go in there or you know affect some regime change that obviously could affect the crude oil and energy markets. And now we've got this Greenland situation with President Trump threatening some some European uh tariffs. Um that more than anything probably has seemed in the last uh you know 48 hours to kind of get the outside markets. We had a big move in interest rates. There's some uh some rumors of uh kind of a anti-US type um sentiment out there and some big investment. Uh whether that's a sovereign uh nation or a big fund dumping US treasuries. We've had a huge move lower in the dollar. Um is that going to maybe flame some inflation? Uh there's a lot going on out there just you know on top of obviously this bearish USDA report from a couple weeks ago and uh you know you throw that into the the boiling pot here and it makes things really interesting because it's not sometimes as you know just about the fundamentals of the grain markets here. We're knocking on the door of a massive harvest in Brazil. Beans have stabilized and now bouncing a little bit. So, you know, there are some things going on out there that uh really if you're just a pure fundamentalist, uh you're scratching your head wondering what, you know, why are beans staying here with a 10 in front of them and, you know, closer to 11 than 10 right now? Doesn't make sense with a a record Brazilian crop because of all these outside market influences, uh, you know, bubbling under the surface right now.
Yeah. Yeah. And it is, like you said, a lot of moving parts. this Greenland thing, which I thought was a joke when he first said it, but you know, during the during the election thing, is is getting getting hotter and hotter and and there's more and more uh I I think people realize that maybe it's not as much of a joke as we as you thought it was like it was going to be and you know, so it's it's going to it's going to drive some stuff. I mean, just as you look at European US relations and tariffs and this that thing, it's going to drive the market into uh into some different territory than we probably have seen in just something we've not seen before.
