Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest

Intelligent Investing, Glenn Leest, Navigating America's Debt Crisis and Protecting Your Wealth

• Glenn Leest

Share episode

Is America's financial future in jeopardy? Join us as we tackle the critical issues surrounding the skyrocketing national debt and the controversial economic policies driving it. This episode promises to unravel the complex interplay between traditional economic theories and modern monetary theory, shedding light on the implications of GDP, inflation, and the U.S. dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. We don't shy away from critiquing the current administration’s fiscal strategies, especially in light of the startling fact that 40% of all circulated money was printed during the pandemic. These revelations could have significant consequences for the future stability of our economy.

But that's not all—we're also sharing valuable insights on how to protect your financial well-being amidst these turbulent times. From investing in stocks, real estate, and commodities, to considering less conventional approaches like stocking up on canned goods, we discuss a range of strategies to hedge against inflation. Discover the potential of bonds and domestic treasuries in combating rising prices, and understand the broader economic ramifications of the Federal Reserve's actions and the producer price index. Our comprehensive analysis aims to equip you with the knowledge to navigate and thrive in an uncertain economic landscape. Don't miss this essential episode!

Thanks for joining us on Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest! Your go-to source for navigating the complex world of finance and becoming an intelligent investor. We appreciate your trust in us and your commitment to your own financial future.

Connect with Us:

Glenn Leest
Senior Investment Advisor
WT Wealth Management
Office Phone: (928) 225-2474 Office
Email: intelligentinvesting@wtwealthmanagement.com

Website: https://www.wtwealthmanagement.com/team/glenn-leest
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/intelligentinvestingwithglenn/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GlennLeestIntelligentInvesting/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@IntelligentInvestingGlennLeest?si=d6S0y14lghz0eaHa


**Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review our podcast on your favorite platform.
Your feedback helps us provide you with more valuable content.


We'll be back with more insights into intelligent investing and how it relates to your world.
Stay informed and make those smart financial choices.
Until next time, this is Intelligent Investing with Glenn Leest, helping you make your money work for you.
...

Speaker 1:

You're listening to a market update brought to you by Glenn Least of WT Wealth Management.

Speaker 2:

Glenn Least is with us as well. Mark Howitz here, love to hear from you. Talk with Jeff at iCloudcom. No, but America is running. Here's what's interesting. I think I alluded to it last hour. There is a sense amongst the people that's called people like me, tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorists just a few years ago. You know cause? How long have we been pounding on the debt and the and the spending problems in this country? Right, forever Right.

Speaker 3:

And we've always been oh, shut up, shut up, Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

There's a couple things.

Speaker 3:

There's the debt, that's one thing, yeah, but the other thing is printing money isn't necessarily bad, because we're not on the gold standard, we're on the GDP standard. If you make more product, you have to print more money to represent that product. We're on the debt standard, so there's two different reasons to print money. One is to pay off our debt, but the other is just to simply represent all the stuff we create.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and you're 100% correct. I got a lot to say about that, but go ahead.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, so because in theory the government can print up a whole bunch of money and pay off our debts tomorrow, but that would cause massive inflation. But I think it's a modern monetary theory looks at debt as a nation compared to their GDP, compared to inflation, and that's going to be more of the important metric. So if you have, say, really high inflation numbers but you have low economic growth, that's not good. You know they'll call that, you know, deflation or stagflation. So I think Mark's right is what does the GDP numbers look like?

Speaker 2:

Well here's, here's the deal. You've got people in charge that think they can print our way out of the debts. There is a guy that works for the Biden administration. He's one of their lead economic guys. I played his. I think I can't remember his last name, but I played a clip of it last week.

Speaker 3:

Oh, that was one of the worst clips I've ever heard, I remember he couldn't explain this guy's like the lead advisor to Biden.

Speaker 2:

He couldn't explain the national debt, how you pay for things, treasuries he had. No, he was utterly clueless. But this is the same guy that also said that he'd like to see, prior to he was to to him being in the biden administration. This is one of the top guys leading the economic way here for the country folks. He said something like I want america not to be the reserve currency anymore. I mean, I think they're. They're doing a, you know they're setting out on their goal.

Speaker 2:

They're doing pretty good why would you say that, though?

Speaker 4:

Why would you want that for your country?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. I don't think they like our country is the problem?

Speaker 1:

That?

Speaker 2:

seems to make more more sense than anything.

Speaker 2:

I wish I could answer some of these questions. Some of these guys are just out of their out of their mind, crazy. But no, okay, check this out. Back to this article.

Speaker 2:

So America's running out of money and nobody cares America's running? Did I repeat that? I might've repeated that An economic specter haunts America. It's also one that many American politicians Republican and Democrats say a great deal about but are reluctant to address. The name of that shadow is the United States national debt.

Speaker 2:

What the US Treasury Department defines as quote the amount of money the federal government has borrowed to cover the outstanding balance of expenses incurred over time. If you go to the Treasury's website, they put it at $34.2 trillion. The article goes on to and this is a regular guy that wouldn't have addressed the debt issue and the spending problem in this country and all of a sudden they actually care about it, which concerns me, because the fact that they're now bringing it up, I think, means that we're in a heck of a heck of a big problem here. It goes on to say that both parties know what the problem is, but they're not solving it. I don't think they do. I don't think they recognize it anymore. I think they think that we can just keep printing the money, keep spending the money, keep borrowing the money.

Speaker 4:

So let me get this straight they want to keep spending more money than they have, so they have to find buyers of that debt, but simultaneously they want us to not be the reserve currency.

Speaker 1:

That's why people do buy our debt.

Speaker 4:

We have the. You know the best you know. We have good ratings. We have a good military, good economy, stable government. These are all things that are important. So, yeah, what would you have as a reserve currency instead?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I don't know what they would go back to. It's not. Is it going to be the Chinese or NIMBY? Is it going to be the British pound? No, they already did that. They lost their status as reserve currency. I don't know what these people are talking about, but the bottom line is, the concern here is that these people are finally recognizing this is something a brewing you know is it is. Is something a brewing you know is it is. Should we be alarmed, glenn, you know? Should I be heading for the hills? Should I be, you know, buying more bullets and beans?

Speaker 4:

Gas Never. Never a bad thing to buy more ammo obviously, and beans, that you know, as long as it bushes baked beans, I, I don't know. It is kind of worrisome that now they're bringing it up, because it is always never really that big of an issue, like, oh, we can just spend more than we make and we'll print more money. But I think it was during the pandemic. They printed 40% of all money that's ever been in circulation. They created out of thin air.

Speaker 2:

In that short period, yeah.

Speaker 4:

Let that sink in of all time.

Speaker 3:

So we went from a point of our national debt was smaller than our annual GDP to now it's way bigger than our annual GDP to the national debt and we're at 120 plus percent debt to gdp as far as that that ratio goes, which is extremely high.

Speaker 2:

Uh, we, the last time we're at this, we're close to world war ii levels, you know, like when we were fighting imperial japan and nazi germany. We're not fighting them anymore I mean, we've got all kinds of wars going on, but we're not of that world scale.

Speaker 3:

I see the problem here is not so much how much we owe or printing money, but how much inflation is and how that's killing the average person. Yeah, it's a silent tax. That's the real issue.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, cause people look at their taxes and they go I paid 12% or 22,.

Speaker 4:

but if inflation goes up cumulative, which it has since 2020 to about now, it's around cumulative 25% or so Think about that, as that's an extra tax on top of whatever you're paying before, because when you go to the grocery store, you're feeling it and you're you're feeling it everywhere. And when you talk about the national debt, the one thing I've realized over the years is politicians have it's almost near impossible for them to spend less money because they have to cut programs. When they cut programs or constituents say we're not going to vote you in and they're going to vote you out, and so they can either spend less or tax more, which taxing more is also unpopular.

Speaker 4:

Drag on the constituents and yeah, it's a drag on the economy, it hampers economic output and anyone that says contrary hasn't made a decent amount of money or hasn't been a business owner and paid a lot of taxes. You go man. More taxes I pay, that's less I can put back into the economy and I think I'm a better spender of my money than the government.

Speaker 2:

But one thing they could do, which I'm not hearing anyone talk about is open up the floodgates for drilling and get more oil and send it and sell it across the world. He's saying exactly what Larry Barron's just said last hour, glenn, our energy expert said what you're saying, go ahead. Well, I've been saying that for a while.

Speaker 4:

Like I had in my 2024 market outlook, and I was just talking about certain things the current government can do to juice the economy, and there's three things I was naming. One was student loan debt forgiveness. Or pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, or drill baby. Drill, you know. Just open up the floodgates, you know. Finish the Keystone pipeline. We've got tons of oil, more than we know what to do with. Let's sell a little bit, maybe even knock down our national debt a little bit and have economic expansion. But if you do that, it means you don't care about the earth or something Right?

Speaker 2:

I just don't understand why there's such a hesitancy to not want to go down that route. Yeah well, we had Larry Barron's on last hour from Power of the Future and that was his op. Ed in townhallcom was exactly what you're saying and he says open the floodgates up. And he was more equating it to the Russia and, you know, dealing with Russia and stuff. Because Russia is making a ton of money, their economy is growing, he's saying, because they're making so much money, even after the sanctions, right, they're making so much money.

Speaker 3:

So on oil to China, I'll be the left wing devil.

Speaker 2:

Okay, please, why don't we?

Speaker 3:

just say so, go ahead. Why don't we just build more solar panels and sell solar energy to foreign countries?

Speaker 4:

because, because it won't work, because oil is a very efficient resource. A lot of people forget how you can't package yours up easy. Oil is to extract to uh, it's energy dense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's energy dense to transport, to use.

Speaker 4:

It's very versatile. Um, it doesn't have anywhere near.

Speaker 2:

It's just a liquid and it's very more bang for your buck in that, in that symbol of energy.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, um, yeah. So I've always wondered why, instead of us drilling our own oil and being self-sufficient and not being reliant, we're buying oil from our enemies, like our people that are at least not you know, you kind of venezuela russia, venezuela yes okay, so we don't want to be buying venezuela.

Speaker 4:

That that just seems wrong to me, because all that money goes directly to the dictator who then does terrible things. And even like some of these Middle Eastern countries, it's like, yeah, we're in good terms with maybe some of them now, but I don't know.

Speaker 2:

But they really don't like us. Yeah, they really don't like us.

Speaker 3:

It just comes back to.

Speaker 4:

Why are we even doing that?

Speaker 3:

like we're helping their economies or helping all these other economies build themselves up. For what reason? Well, here's the thing if we look at our oil production, we actually produce enough for america, but we actually export our oil, currently sell it, but then we buy saudi, venezuelan etc. Oil and bring it in because we get that oil cheaper and we can sell our oil for more there's different refinery capabilities too for different oil and stuff like that. Yeah, so we actually do export oil.

Speaker 2:

We probably could do more, but uh, and then we import cheap we still consume more than we produce as a nation. We could, and I think what glenn is saying and what larry said, that we could ramp it up even more, oh yeah, and flood it. The only flooding it, though, to play the devil's advocate, there is you flood the market. Technically. You would think that there would be a huge supply and then prices would come down, and then that would put people out as far as being able to produce oil in the US.

Speaker 3:

Well, it gets really weird If we look at the Russian situation with Germany. Germany was relying on Russia for natural gas but Germany had contracts with poland, so that natural gas actually made it to germany, and then they turned around how to export it to poland and so, oh yeah, they, they find back doors, is what you're saying?

Speaker 2:

yeah, you and germany stupidly put up a bunch of solar panels. Have you ever been to germany? I have the sun shines twice a year, it's very cloudy you three times a year or something like that.

Speaker 2:

It's a ridiculous way to go, so I don't know. So it's just interesting, though that is a way that we could probably ramp this up. I disagree. I don't think we're never paying off the national debt and we have a huge problem with and this article even admits that 68 percent of the federal government spending is now going towards the, the social security, uh, medicare and what's the other big one? They didn't include national debt. That's going to surpass uh. Yeah, defense is a discretionary item, believe it or not. You've got your mandatory social security, medicare and now, um, interest on the national debt, which is over one trillion dollars a year. Now just hasn't really pinged yet, uh, but as the treasury is mature, we're in this kind of death debt spiral with the federal government.

Speaker 3:

So, Glenn, I want to ask you inflation's killing people. What can we do? What can you get some basic advice? What can people do to beat inflation? Help us out here, Glenn.

Speaker 4:

Invest in things that are going to stay ahead of inflation, right? So if you're putting money in the bank account, that's not going to stay ahead of inflation Falling behind, right, yep, falling behind. If you're putting money into real estate, that's probably going to keep pace to inflation and maybe a whole lot more Real estate is. You know, for most people it's always a pretty good investment, you know caveat a couple of situations. They could buy stocks and companies because as they print more money and there's more money out there, inflation goes up. Well, these companies are now charging more money too. So, uh, ownership of companies is another big one. And you can also do like commodities too. So like oil, timber, steel, wheat, soy, coffee. Those aren't as easy for people to get exposure to. Most of the time it's going to be the stock market or real estate. So those are great ways to hedge against inflation. But you know it's a inflation's a tough beast. It's a, like I said, 25% more than you know two or three years ago, and we're not making 25% more.

Speaker 2:

Here's what I hang on, here's what I would do, because if you can't buy stocks, you can't buy real estate. You know you can't go and buy $900,000 home and flagstaff. Buy the canned goods Now. I've been saying this for a year or two. If you're going to eat it later, buy it now, because I think it's just, you know it's a non-perishable item.

Speaker 3:

Food prices are going up.

Speaker 2:

I mean, you're not going to be able to save a steak and you freeze it for a while, right? I guess you could do that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but I mean the stuff you use, the consumable kind of non-per Stuff you like, Remember in Y2K people stocked up on pinto beans and the little weenies that people think you eat when you're camping.

Speaker 1:

Things like that. You're listening to a market update brought to you by Glenn Least of WT Wealth Management.

Speaker 2:

Exuberance is back in the stock market, jeff Orbitz here, and a frenzy over artificial intelligence technology has stoked a monster run in NVIDIA shares. Major stock indexes are clinching repeated records and even Bitcoin is threatening to set a new high no-transcript. With over six decades combined experience, glenn Least and his investment committee at WT Wealth Management factor in your risk tolerance, time horizon and financial goals to create a balanced portfolio for superior risk-adjusted returns. Greatly mute the impact of down-market days while still enjoying the up days, and Glenn can show you how to refuse to go woke and be broke by avoiding companies that are more concerned with their wokeness than successful business policies. Don't let fear of missing out drive your decision-making. Call Glenn for a complimentary portfolio review at 928-225-2474. That's 928-225-2474. Glenn Leis, making your portfolio great again. Call 928-225-2474.

Speaker 1:

You're listening to a market update brought to you by Glenn Least of WT Wealth Management.

Speaker 3:

How are bonds doing? Is that worthwhile?

Speaker 2:

And we don't get financial advice on this show, but if Glenn was buying bonds personally?

Speaker 4:

So the bond market is a whole another animal as opposed to the stock market and so very different. You know area of expertise, and so me personally, you know I kind of track the domestic. You know treasuries and domestic debt, more so than international, yep, but it'd be the same basic concept. You know what's the stability of their government, you know what's their military look like, what's their economy look like and what's the value of their currency, and so all those things are factored into what people are willing to pay for their, for their bonds.

Speaker 3:

So even US bonds? Is that an inflation beater right now?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, yeah, right now, if they lower interest rates 5 percent. Yeah, like your basic money market is going to pay around 5 percent% and then three months CD like 5.4. And then you can get some treasuries you know closer to six.

Speaker 2:

It's tough getting ahead of that curve when the inflation kicks in, and that's where the word stagflation comes in. It's a, you know, an economy that's not growing while prices and stuff's going up, so you're not getting the wage increases or it's at least not keeping up with what it actually costs. You know you're getting wiped out with inflation and the economy slowing down. It's kind of the situation right now. I want to tell you about the Fed chair meeting. So Federal Chair Reserve Powell came out today. Well, the producer price index came out today. This is like the wholesale prices and they were expecting I think the number was point two percent month over month increase, which doesn't sound like a lot right, but it is. It's an increase. They were expecting that and they got 0.5% month over month increase, which is a huge, huge, huge miss, and that means more than double what they thought.

Speaker 3:

So if you compound, that number, just simple math. You're at over. That's 6% a year Over 6% if you compound it month by month.

Speaker 2:

Right, you know simple math, You're at 6% a year, over 6% if you compound it month by month. Right, that's the problem here. They told us that inflation was going to be transitory. You remember I was saying that was BS when that was coming out. I think you were on too and I was saying no, transitory, yeah, we're transiting to the new, higher level is what we're doing, because it's never your rent is not going to go. But I mean, I guess, if the economy absolutely dumped and we got into a really bad situation where people had to compete and say, yeah, I'll come do that for this amount.

Speaker 2:

However, they've put backstops in like I can't go work legally Like Mark, if Mark has a construction company, or Glenn, if I came to you and said, glenn, mark, I'm going to do this for me, just give me 10 bucks an hour, just give me 10 bucks. Look, I know Mark's over there and he wants the job too and he's like 20 bucks an hour, I would do the same thing. I need to put food on the table. Glenn, 10 bucks an hour, I'll do some part-time work for you. You're not allowed to do that.

Speaker 4:

So what you just said? You don't have a lot of skills to offer. The one thing you can negotiate or you used to be able to negotiate is how much they pay you. So that was where the minimum wage, you know, was never meant to be a livable wage. But you can say, hey, pay me 10 bucks an hour and I'm gonna get skills, and then one day I'm gonna be worth 12 or 13 an hour worth of my labor. But if you have an artificial floor set by the government saying you have to pay people 18 plus an hour, well shoot.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you can't. You can't go lower, you can't say in a downturn economy. They've set up a situation now where workers can't go and say I will work for less, I will compete and the market will set the labor rate, set the wage, because I need to put food on my table. I know that I'm worth 20 bucks an an hour, but right now I'll take 10 because I got to get this done. What a bad situation. So what are those people gonna do?

Speaker 3:

just sit at home wait for a government check in that situation.

Speaker 2:

Government check- so, anyway, the stupidity of government is awe-inspiring on so many levels all the time for me. But here's what jerome powell said, chairman of the federal reserve, who I believe to be a smart person, but I just think he's full of crap because he's in the middle of the government and you got to say this stuff, I guess, and they have a special kind of language that they use, like at the federal, like you work for the government. All of a sudden they must send them to like some kind of finishing school to come up with this kind of speak I don't know what it is for this stuff total orwellian, but anyway, quote.

Speaker 2:

It's like when he said his last comments were inflation was like we, we failed to do so. It was like they totally failed, but he worded in a way that sounded like they succeeded. You know total nonsense. So anyway, quote, we did not expect this to be a smooth road. Okay, I thought they said soft landing, but that's okay. But these inflation readings were higher than I think anybody expected. Not true, not true. There was. There is literally millions of us out there that were saying it's getting pretty expensive out here.

Speaker 1:

Just went to the store. Yeah, what is anyone? What?

Speaker 2:

some idiot that has too many plaques on their wall in some corner office in DC or New York or something, those people, or the people going to the store and actually buying crap and trying to put food on their table. But anyway, he said that, so I don't think anybody expected what. Okay. Then he goes on to say what that has told us is that we'll need to be patient and and let restrictive policy do its work.

Speaker 4:

Higher interest rates for longer? Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for translating that. The bureaucrat crap speak.

Speaker 4:

Interest rates are not going down, but that's not necessarily great for the US economy long term, because the interest rates that we had and the inflation that we had maybe in the 80s, was a whole different ballgame than what we have today. I've heard stories of people like oh yeah, I got my first eighties. It was a whole different ballgame than what we have today. You know, I've heard stories of people like oh yeah, I got my first mortgage and it was at 12% and I got a steal. Yeah, yeah, but your house is 50,000.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, if it's 500,000, you know, even translating, for you know, uh, you know, adjustment for inflation, it's still going to be a whole lot more. And so that is very problematic because I think the real estate market itself has been sort of stagnant because the higher interest rates, because you think about it, so if you're going to go sell your house and you're not able to sell it a top dollar because the person on the other side buying it doesn't have as much buying power, yeah so, so these eight percent, seven and a half percent interest rates are pretty restrictive on the end that marketplace and then across the board, you, you even look at corporate debt. So it's this hard situation where we need to keep the interest rates higher, but we also need them.

Speaker 2:

Right, you can get in touch with Glenn Least. He's with WT Wealth Management. I'll throw out your email here G-Least, g-l-e-e-s-t, g-least at WTWealthManagementcom. Managementcom.

Speaker 1:

You've been listening to a market update from Glenn least with WT wealth management.

Speaker 2:

Remember to seek out professional help for any of your investments and any kind of decisions you make going forward. This is for informational purposes only. If you want to talk with Glenn Least of WT Wealth Management, give him a call at 928-225-2474. That's Glenn Least at WT Wealth Management at 928-225-2474.

Speaker 1:

Or send Glenn an email at G-Least G-L-E-E-S-T G-Least at-E-S-T, g-l-e-e-s-t at WTWealthManagementcom.

Speaker 2:

Hope you all have a great rest of your day and we'll be you next time.