January 10th, 2026 - Banning Corporate Homeownership

This lively radio show celebrates its 11th anniversary while diving into financial insights. The hosts discuss market trends, such as the promising performance of the S&P and small-cap stocks, and delve into economic indicators showing a positive start to 2026. They also engage in entertaining banter about topics like California’s wealth tax, real estate ownership by corporations, and the improving financial health of American households

Transcript

Steven H Van Wie 0:01

It's Saturday morning, it's 10 o'clock. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 0:06

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 0:07

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 0:08

And how about that? We're playing with the full house today. So you got a lot of brain power here for anybody who wants to call in and ask some questions at Joey's. Microphone needs a little goosing, but we'll have Roger take care of that. No problem. It is the first part of the year. We'll get it all leveled out here pretty soon for the regulars. We're just. We're wrapping up this month. We're wrapping up our 11th year on the air. We start the 12th month at February 1st. So where it goes, I don't know. But to those of you who've made it possible for so long, thanks. Stay with us. We try to provide something each week that's of value to everybody. If you're new to the show. We aren't, but you are. Then you should get to know us. And the way to do that is every Saturday morning at 10 o', clock, you just dial in or catch us on the app. Got a lot of people listening across the country nowadays just by going to the app on their phone or whatever, and it's always just right there. We make everything easy and we try to always do that. One of the worst things anybody can do is think this is more complicated than it should be. Because, yes, there's a lot of complexity, a lot of details, but if you don't understand it, I'm leading to something here that we'll get to later. If you don't understand what's going on, then don't do things. Increase your understanding first. We are primarily an educational unit as we sit here on Saturday mornings. All right, enough of all that. We will have a trivia question after the first break. As always, who knows what else will come up? But if you want to call in, dial 904-222-8255

Steven H Van Wie 1:57

and we will put you right on air as we have promised and done for 11 years. It was quite a start to a new year, especially when people looked at the last two years and thought, well, this can't happen again. Yeah, we're gonna perhaps argue that today. That'd be my guess. All right, Adam, wrap it up. Let's let everybody smile this week.

Adam Van Wie 2:23

Yeah, definitely a lot to smile about this week. And I am back in, in the studio live after a hiatus. I had some traveling. I'm sure. I'm sure you guys roasted me suitably while I was gone.

Joey Loss 2:38

No, I think, I mean I was surprised. You gave me some good market wrap up content opportunity. Yeah, so I was appreciative. Normally I get the down markets when you're out of town, so thanks.

Steven H Van Wie 2:44

Oh, okay.

Adam Van Wie 2:48

But that's true.

Steven H Van Wie 2:49

Everybody like us likes to think they do their best work when they're out of town. And it's often true.

Adam Van Wie 2:52

Yeah, fair enough.

Joey Loss 2:55

Yeah, yeah.

Adam Van Wie 2:56

The. So the S P jumped off to a good start to the year. It's the first full week of trading. For 2026 it gained 1.6%. How however, the other indexes did even better with the NASDAQ gaining 1.9% and the Dow up 2.3.

Steven H Van Wie 3:11

And the small caps.

Adam Van Wie 3:13

Hold on, I'm getting.

Steven H Van Wie 3:15

I know that we're not used to talking about them. I've just been sort of following them lately. So I want to make sure they get their due.

Adam Van Wie 3:21

Yeah, the start to the year is great news because historically when the first week of the year is positive, returns for the rest of the year tend to be above average for the next month, quarter and year. So when the first full week is negative, the opposite tends to be true. For example, in 2022, the first week was down about 2% and the rest of the year was down almost 20%.

Steven H Van Wie 3:45

So I remember that.

Adam Van Wie 3:47

That is not, can't forget a hundred percent correlation, but it is a, a pretty strong correlation between the first week and the rest of the year. So that's kind of exciting. One index that we don't mention much, as dad alluded to, is the Russell 2000 small cap index. And that is off to a great start. This year the index has rallied almost 5%. And the same thing holds true for the Russell as does for the S and P. In that as the first week goes, so does the rest of the year. Could small caps be the internationals of 2026? What I mean by that is that both small caps and internationals have really lagged the S and P for many, many years. And in 2025, international stock finally rallied and finished the year well ahead of the S and P for the first time in I don't even know how many years, many years. In 2026 it looks possible that small caps could pull off that same feat. So that would be, that would be nice to see them get back to their historical average because traditionally small caps actually outperform the S and P. Yeah.

Joey Loss 4:51

I know of a couple fund companies that have been waiting for what you're saying for like 15, 20 years. And to be fair, Those fund companies that kind of overweight value and overweight small caps can kicked butt for like 30 years. And then it just did not. And then they just didn't.

Adam Van Wie 5:03

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 5:06

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 5:06

It's also good if you own the total market fund versus the S P 500, because you get the benefit of that small portion of. Of small caps in the fund. And so you might outperform the S P if you own a total market fund in that scenario.

Steven H Van Wie 5:21

Yeah. I know a few investors who have been banking on small caps so long that we were about to fall asleep.

Joey Loss 5:28

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 5:29

It's. It's hard to just as a contrarian or a value investor to look at something that's been just down for 15 years and say, why hasn't it come back? I mean, silver is another example. And I'll get to that one in a minute. But. And then you buy it and then you wait five years and nothing happens. It's very discouraging when you're in that situation. And then you get clients asking, why do we still own this? Why do we still own this? Just wait. Just. Just wait. And then you get a year like this year or last year in particular in silver, and you're like, oh, that's why we owned it.

Joey Loss 5:47

It's. It's.

Joey Loss 5:55

Yeah.

Joey Loss 6:02

Yeah. Well, the same for international. Right? Like, yes. You know, people are like, why am I not just 100% spy. Spy is outperforming every year. Well, and then last year happens. You're like, okay. You willing to give that up?

Adam Van Wie 6:10

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 6:12

Exactly.

Steven H Van Wie 6:13

One of my oldest sayings is there is no way to end a sentence that starts out. I'm thinking of putting it all in. You cannot finish that sentence appropriately unless.

Joey Loss 6:26

It ends with a perfectly diversified portfolio designed by Adam.

Steven H Van Wie 6:30

Prove me wrong. You can actually finish that thing.

Adam Van Wie 6:32

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 6:34

Speaking of international stocks, they have really kept up the momentum heading into 2026 with the All World Except Us index up 3.1% year to date. Emerging markets are doing even better, adding 4.4%. Israel is the hottest country. It's up 7.2%, while India's the. The worst performing market, down 1.3. Kind of a surprise on the. I have nothing reasoning behind that. Nothing. I just knew that was the case. Commodities have also rallied to start the year to not. Not really surprising considering what's happening in commodities, but that's driven by a continued frenzy to buy precious metals and an increase in the price of oil. Oil's up 2.4%. Gold is up 4.6. Silver is up 12.3% to lead all asset classes higher. And this follows 2025 where silver gained over 144%.

Steven H Van Wie 6:55

Yeah. I was going to ask you if you had any.

Adam Van Wie 7:27

And that was with a pullback in December. The silver chart is starting to resemble the global warming hockey stick chart at this point. It's just insane. Bonds seem to have returned to their pre Covid behavior after a very strange four or five years. The bond market returned just over 7% last year and is up about a third of a point this year. Both AGG and BND2, two ETFs that follow the bond market, they're yielding around 4% currently. And honestly, bonds look about as attractive as I've seen in a long time.

Steven H Van Wie 7:59

Well, then they deserve it because it's been ugly sad for a long time.

Joey Loss 8:03

Yeah, well, that, I mean, at 4%, there's now a healthy gap between what you get in a high yield savings and what you get from a bond fund, which hasn't been that true.

Adam Van Wie 8:12

No, it has. Yeah. And between the S&P 500 dividend yield. Yeah, it's. It just looks very attractive. Right.

Steven H Van Wie 8:14

And.

Joey Loss 8:19

Yeah. Starting to feel a little normal there. I see.

Steven H Van Wie 8:21

And we were looking in the office this week at the yield curve. Just the difference in the yield curve from three months ago and a year ago. Yield curve hasn't been normal since I can remember. And it's still not perfect, but it's sure a lot closer.

Adam Van Wie 8:29

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 8:36

A lot closer. And it looks. And the trend is definitely towards a normal yield curve.

Steven H Van Wie 8:40

Yeah. Frankly, long bonds are not paying what they should be yet, but it's definitely coming. All right, well, we'll take a quick break. I'm sure there's more to say about this and many other things, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 8:55

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van.

Adam Van Wie 8:57

We're Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 8:59

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 9:00

And we do have a trivia question. As usual today, and as always, it's sponsored by Paul Lloyd at First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888.

Steven H Van Wie 9:14

Things are getting better in the country. I don't know how many of you have been following it, but the. The Atlanta Fed has a tracking device for gdp and this week they doubled their projection. They went from 2.7 to 5.4. 5.4 would be an astounding quarter.

Adam Van Wie 9:35

Do you remember another quarter that was five. Anything?

Steven H Van Wie 9:38

Yes, I do, but not very many. Yeah, I remember two 8% quarters. One happened under Reagan and one happened under W. But it was following some real messy times.

Adam Van Wie 9:51

That's usually when you see those things. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 9:54

But for normal run of the mill times five is a big number and it doesn't surprise me either.

Joey Loss 10:01

But can I make a point on that? Just to like really make a point about how good that is. So the only other place that really has done that is China and the way that China does it. And they haven't always done it, of course, when they. That's when you have the government telling everybody to do one collective thing, you can achieve something like that. For us to be able to do that with the current vibes in the United States political arena under democracy and capitalism is incredible.

Adam Van Wie 10:26

And in China at least, I think the estimate is like 4% of their 7% historic growth rate is just from people moving from farms into cities and the productivity gains that you see there and the economic activity that that creates. We don't have that. Yeah, exactly.

Joey Loss 10:41

Which all that's behind us.

Steven H Van Wie 10:44

And if everything else fails in China, they've got that one last thing. They'll just flat out lie.

Steven H Van Wie 10:52

It's hard to beat that one. But that's not my trivia question. That was my answer. But this is setting up to be a really good year. And there was something that happened this last week in general, and it was a survey that's repeated frequently. It went under 50% for the first time in years. But I'm not going to tell you what it is because I want you to tell me what it is. What changed in the public this week to a very, very healthy degree, under 50%. I'll give you some hints as the day goes on, if it, if we have to. All right, back to what happened in the market this week. Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 11:35

I want to talk about the economic news. It was a little mixed, but mostly positive, I would say. I think the one exception was the jobs report. It fell short of expectations. It was. It wasn't a total disaster, but it wasn't this sort of boom number that I know a lot of people are hoping for. The forecast was for an increase of 70,000 jobs and it fell short. It came in at 50,000, but previous months were also revised down by a total of 76,000, so that the overall report was a negative 26,000, which, you know, it's just like kind of blah. It's not good, it's not terrible. The unemployment rate did tick down to 4.4%, which was a bit of a surprise. And but then when you combine that with the first time unemployment claims coming in at a very low 208,000, the employment picture, it looks like a employment picture where nobody's firing and no one's hiring. It's just kind of steady stability is not all bad. No, not after the last five years.

Steven H Van Wie 12:36

One more thing on those, on those revisions back, especially in October. October was government shutdown. Anything that includes October statistics is suspect. November still had some of the shutdown and people didn't get back to work. This was the first time that we've had everybody doing what they do, but their data might be a little corrupt. And I would think by the time we get to March and April, you'll be able to believe the jobs report much more than you do now. That's my, my overall view of it. I can't prove it, but I will be between now and April.

Adam Van Wie 13:14

I think the stat that a lot of people will find at least the most interesting, if not the best, is that federal government jobs, not including the post office, declined268,000

Adam Van Wie 13:27

in 2025. That's the most on record for any year going back to at least 1990.

Steven H Van Wie 13:33

Yeah, you don't have to make my day any more than that could right there.

Adam Van Wie 13:37

I think the most shocking government report that was released this week was that the trade deficit came in at 29.4 billion. That's the smallest for any month since 2009. The target, the forecast was 58.7 billion. I wonder why I don't remember a number lower than 50 billion since we've been doing this. So that, that was a huge difference.

Steven H Van Wie 14:02

It was a policy change and it worked.

Adam Van Wie 14:05

Another good Number was the ISM services number that increased to 54.4, well above the 50 that signals growth. And the forecast was 52.2. Unfortunately, the manufacturing index went the other way and showed contraction, which was kind of surprising. A lot of the regional Fed reports are reporting growth in manufacturing, but the ISM report is not. So I wonder who's right.

Steven H Van Wie 14:30

Yeah, look down the road a year for that one. There are so many factories being started, rehabbed, finished. So many things that aren't online yet, but they're coming in. And you gotta look at this next election and say I wish we could start these things faster, but construction takes a long time. It's not going to be easy if this, if it doesn't go well. It's one of those things that could derail a really good time. And who knows? I'm not going to Borrow trouble with it, that's for sure. Anything else important?

Adam Van Wie 15:07

Nope. That was. That was it for the market. Wrap today.

Steven H Van Wie 15:10

Okay, I am.

Steven H Van Wie 15:13

I don't think you mentioned this, that semis are really hot right now. The semiconductors.

Adam Van Wie 15:18

They are. Despite Nvidia being flat to down. So that's really good news.

Steven H Van Wie 15:22

Yep.

Steven H Van Wie 15:24

Yeah. And some of the smaller ones and the memory chip makers and things like that. This is. If you've been listening to us for a long time, this is one of the things that you hear us talk about. Back in the old days, it was always the transports that were the bellwether for the economy and hence the market. And it was, when the transports are moving, that means there's a lot of business being done in the country and therefore it should be good for the market and so on. Well, that became less important as we moved into the digital age. And I don't know who first declared it, but I think it was a stroke of brilliance. Somebody decided that it's now the semiconductors that are much better predictor of the economy and the market than the transports are anymore. And I just like to throw that out because they're humming right now. Really humming. So. See a boatload of good news out there.

Adam Van Wie 16:16

Yeah, it does feel like a. It feels like a good setup to the year, but we'll see what happens.

Steven H Van Wie 16:22

Some people say they don't like surprises. I love surprises when they're on the upside

Steven H Van Wie 16:28

or hopefully our clients are feeling the same thing because their accounts are sure looking better. All right, move on to news.

Joey Loss 16:39

Let's do it.

Steven H Van Wie 16:39

How about this one? That definition of irony right here in my left hand. New York City Transit hike. New York City's subway and bus fares rose to $3 yesterday, up 10 cents for most rides. H. Who yesterday was the mayor of New York. Oh, I know. He was the guy that said it'll be free.

Adam Van Wie 17:04

Is that something that was pre. That's what I thought.

Steven H Van Wie 17:05

It was pre.

Steven H Van Wie 17:08

I would eventually give him the credit he deserves for that because he didn't have a damn thing to say about it.

Joey Loss 17:14

You just wanted to have fun saying it.

Steven H Van Wie 17:15

It's just the irony of the situation.

Steven H Van Wie 17:19

They carry over 4 million passengers daily in the subways and the buses are over a million. And an estimated one in five New Yorkers struggles to pay for public transit according to an anti poverty group. Course, what are they going to say? They're going to find poverty if they can, otherwise who needs them, right?

Adam Van Wie 17:40

I mean, it's not hard to find poverty in New York. Who can afford to live there.

Joey Loss 17:45

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 17:45

You move there, you're in poverty. And speaking of moving there, guess what California is doing now to kick out people?

Adam Van Wie 17:55

Well, they implemented a wealth tax, I believe.

Joey Loss 17:57

Well, they haven't yet, but. So the stage that that whole thing is at right now is they're trying to implement a 5% wealth tax. And if that doesn't sound bad enough, just wait till you hear some details about how they're putting together the calculations for what wealth is.

Steven H Van Wie 18:12

Well, so enlighten us, please.

Joey Loss 18:16

Okay, so one of the things that they're doing is, you know, in the world of major tech companies, you have common shares, you have private shares, you have preferred shares, and then you have super, like super voting shares. What they're doing is they're looking at super voting shares, which, you know, may have 10 votes per shares, unlike common stock. And they're not looking at the liquid value of that stock price times the number of shares that you have to determine what that item means on your balance sheet, they're multiplying it by the voting power. So it. If you have a person like Larry Page and Sergey Brin, both of whom Google execs who have now left California and this hasn't even hit the ballot, they're just like, forget it. I'm not even waiting to find out. They're worth probably one to $200 billion each on paper.

Steven H Van Wie 19:00

For those who don't know, they're the co founders of Google.

Joey Loss 19:04

Right. And so a 5% wealth tax and $200 billion. Anybody want to do the math? It's a bad day. It's a really bad.

Steven H Van Wie 19:09

It's a bad. But the good news is they're going to spread it out 1% a year for five years.

Adam Van Wie 19:10

That's a really bad.

Joey Loss 19:15

Oh, right. Well, wait, it gets a lot worse. So if you multiply it by the voting power of their super voting shares. Their wealth in California by this law would be determined at over $1 trillion on which they're going to be taxed. They would have been taxed if they stayed 5%.

Steven H Van Wie 19:22

Oh, yeah.

Adam Van Wie 19:32

So that's actually a 25% tax, then.

Joey Loss 19:35

A 25% tax on their entire wealth per year.

Steven H Van Wie 19:39

Wow.

Joey Loss 19:40

Payable by Klarna over 20. The buy now, pay later option is still not that helpful.

Steven H Van Wie 19:43

You know, it's like you can do.

Steven H Van Wie 19:47

Coconut Grove just rolled out the Red Carp for Larry Page. And because he bought a little property there recently. Two of them close together on the water. One of them was only 73 million, but the other one was 100.

Adam Van Wie 19:51

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 20:04

Wow. I was listening to a podcast on the way here, and Trump's. What is it? The crypto czar, David Sacks, he just left California in December, too.

Joey Loss 20:15

Okay. Yeah. We're listening to the same thing.

Steven H Van Wie 20:15

Oh, really? Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 20:17

Yeah. So it's happening in droves. And he's a billionaire. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 20:22

And they're. What they always do and they're doing again, is they're creating their budgets to show you how they're going to get rid of their debt and deficits, and they're doing it on their. Their static, the kind of thing that you were just talking about. If nothing else changed, this is how much we get. And then people leave, so they always miss it. All right, got to take another quick break. We'll be right back. This is the band Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 20:50

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 20:52

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 20:53

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 20:54

And before we go any further, we had a caller ask a very, very serious and important question. How many ducks did you get, Adam?

Adam Van Wie 21:03

My limit is what I got both days. It was amazing, as always. Arkansas is just the. The cap duck hunting capital of the world for a good reason.

Steven H Van Wie 21:13

So apparently the ducks don't communicate well and say, stay out of this area.

Adam Van Wie 21:18

They're. They're not that bright.

Steven H Van Wie 21:21

That's excellent.

Joey Loss 21:22

Yeah. Adam sent a video, and it. It looked like it was a good day to be Adam and a bad day to be a bird.

Steven H Van Wie 21:28

Still did the usual dog tag along. Oh, good. You don't go duck hunting without a good dog.

Adam Van Wie 21:31

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 21:36

Yeah, we did the second day. The first day he tagged along, though.

Steven H Van Wie 21:40

Okay. It's funny. All right. I do want to remind everybody again, the lines are open 904-222-8255.

Steven H Van Wie 21:48

And the trivia question is out there. What very exciting, wonderful household event just took place where less than half of the households are. Are now saying that this applies to them, and it's really important, and it's a real interesting sign of things to come. I know it's not a traditional or conventional trivia question, but it has a point. And my point has always been that my trivia has a point. So that's why. All right, let's talk about the billionaire tax and then some other things. If we have beaten that one up, we'll go on to what I think is going to be a real interesting discussion of Trump and telling corporations what they can and cannot do. Private corporations.

Joey Loss 22:40

I have a final thought on the billionaire thing. Maybe you Guys have responses, but I think, Look, California's got 30 billion of debt, last I heard, and they're trying to figure out what to do with that. They've got a ton of social programs, whatever. If it works for them and the people that live there, fine. But obviously the way they're going about trying to close that debt is not working. And then in other states, we have all this fraud that's being exposed. It seems like the first step order business would be. And we just heard this on the podcast we're listening to, Adam, is figure out where the leak in the bucket is before you start pouring more water in from people that have nothing to do with it, presumably. So it'll be interesting to see how people come together. This wealth tax is not a sure thing, this point, but it has a lot of popular steam. Whether it hits the ballot has to do with whether the union behind it can get enough signatures, which is an expensive and arduous process to get it on the ballot. And it's not really clear whether Gavin Newsom and his crew is interested in this. If they oppose it, they might be able to do something to get it off the ballot, but ultimately it comes down to these signatures. So there's still a couple steps before this becomes reality, but sounds like in the case of people that have a lot of wealth and are looking at being poor in four years, they're getting out.

Steven H Van Wie 23:54

Yeah. And I was just saying that the reason people get afraid when they hear these things is that California has passed so many stupid things. Now they're on to reparations. They won't fund it, but they're going to pass it.

Steven H Van Wie 24:08

Every person who can qualify. And part of the problem out there is there's never been a slave in California, so it's hard to qualify, but they're going to get up to $5 million, but there's no money to pay them. So if they'll pass something that stupid, they could pass this.

Adam Van Wie 24:25

That's. Yeah, I just. If I'm a billionaire, which I'm not, but if I was and I lived in California, I wouldn't live there for much longer. No, it doesn't matter if they pass it or not. It's just the threat of it. It's like it's a. If at that point, it's got to feel very personal. They're coming after me. Why would I stay here? There are plenty of states that wouldn't.

Steven H Van Wie 24:42

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 24:45

Why Do I see the red dot on my forehead or force you out of my wallet? They want me to live so I can keep paying. The head of Nvidia Jensen Huang said that he, he is going to play and stay in Silicon Valley and I think it's just too, too big there to extra, extradite himself. And he was, he even said, and I would pay it, but I don't think he's real happy about it. And there's another guy I didn't know name is Patrick Collison and he is the founder of Stripe. And I don't know what that is either.

Adam Van Wie 24:50

Exactly.

Joey Loss 24:52

Right.

Joey Loss 25:20

Oh, it's a payment, A payment processor. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 25:22

Okay. But he, he is going to Miami. He just toured Miami and came back and said that place is just unbelievable. It is so tech friendly, it's so on fire, so entrepreneurial. And it's not Florida or it's not California. So I think they'll see him there. I don't know what he's worth, but there's a lot of people like that that are doing this kind of thing. I got a few other names in here too, but, you know, not going to win. I mean, this could exercise in stupidity.

Adam Van Wie 25:22

It's a big deal.

Adam Van Wie 25:57

These things can always change. But if you just look at what's going on in Florida right now, it's hard to imagine Florida not being the biggest economy, the biggest state economy in the country. If you project out what's happening. I mean, we've got mini Wall street in West Palm beach, we've got tech billionaires moving to Miami. We've got. Look at what's happening in Jacksonville. I mean, I drove downtown the other day by the stadium. It looks like a boomtown. It's just Jack's beach is 20 years ago, was kind of a dump. Now it's like every square inch of old property is getting bulldozed and replaced with high end new stuff. It is. And then we're just like little old Jacksonville. It's, you know, I think we're just benefiting so much. That's right. Even the Jags are benefiting.

Joey Loss 26:42

We're just a small market team.

Joey Loss 26:46

I know. Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 26:46

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 26:49

If they keep winning, it's going to.

Joey Loss 26:51

Get even bigger when the stadium's done. And you know, Jacksonville beach keeps doing what it's doing and all these companies keep moving off Butler and. Yeah, you know, I think it's a decade from now we won't recognize this place. The be a lot of good things going.

Steven H Van Wie 27:03

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 27:03

You've got the, the whole area south of Butler getting filled in now. And it's just, I think that Florida, I just Have a hard time believing Florida won't be on this amazing track for quite some time. If we keep making good decisions and other states keep making poor decisions, they.

Steven H Van Wie 27:19

Have to remember that parking is very important. I think there are areas of the beach that are. They're not reaching their potential because you can't park down there. So there's. There's some things that we have to handle better than we.

Adam Van Wie 27:33

These are, These are big city problems, though. Not. Not Jacksonville problems. It's just. This is. It's changing.

Steven H Van Wie 27:39

Yeah. Well, if you work downtown Jacksonville, I haven't had any experience with that.

Adam Van Wie 27:43

Parking is not a problem down there unless you park in a garage that closes over the weekend.

Steven H Van Wie 27:49

I don't wish that,

Steven H Van Wie 27:53

actually. It shows you how dumb some of those people are. The clothes. On a weekend, they close a parking garage. That's just nuts. Talk about a revenue loss. All right, Donald Trump, President of the United States, very powerful man, and he is fixing to tell corporations that they can't buy individual houses. And I just want to throw that open for some opinions in the room. It's uncomfortable.

Adam Van Wie 28:21

Let's. Not start with the opinions. Let's just go with the facts. This is a, this is a populist move, and I think it reaches across the aisle. Honestly, I don't think it matters who you ask, but if you ask someone off of the street, should blackrock be allowed to own private homes? That you will get a very strong response from many people. Absolutely not. It's driving up the cost of housing. And so this is a, this is a. This is like reaching out to the average person on the street and saying, I'm going to do something that you're going to like.

Steven H Van Wie 28:59

My free market principles that have been with me for 75 years, I get nervous. They're. They're showing a yellow caution sign on this thing. What do you think?

Adam Van Wie 29:12

I. I think it's a. I think it's a populist move that does nothing. The net effect of it is zero. I don't think that, that.

Steven H Van Wie 29:15

I.

Steven H Van Wie 29:19

What about the shareholders of BlackRock?

Adam Van Wie 29:22

I think that in terms of contribution to their bottom line, this makes up 0.05%. I mean, I just don't think it's relevant.

Joey Loss 29:32

We can put some more data behind this to contextualize it. So for the, the amount of. So the rule would apply to corporations that own over. I think it was a thousand homes.

Adam Van Wie 29:45

Okay. So it has to be at a certain scale.

Joey Loss 29:49

Yeah, sorry, I lost that number. It's either 100 or a thousand. Yeah. So it's not, you're not talking about like a limited liability corporation person who's renting five homes. We're talking about big, big institutional. I think it was a thousand. And that the amount of homes in America owned by that type of group is 1 to 3%. So couple million homes and the amount of the estimated housing shortage is 3 to 4 million, which is relevant. But not. It doesn't mean like if we get the corporations out, suddenly all these people have homes and they own and there's no housing shortage. People live in these homes. Right now we still, we're still going to have a housing shortage.

Adam Van Wie 29:51

That's okay.

Adam Van Wie 30:30

Those people have to go somewhere. If you sell it to a private investor who moves in, those people, those renters are displaced. Right.

Joey Loss 30:38

They're theoretically displaced. And you know who's. I think you'd have to look deeper at the data of what it costs to live in these places to know are, would they immediately then buy these homes and would their cash flow support it or are these people living in these homes and getting a good deal for the living experience that they have? I just don't think it's as vanilla and simple an issue. Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 30:56

And these seems like corporations are not setting the market rate on rent. Rent is decided by the market. And so they're offering them at market rates and people, families are probably renting them because they can't afford to buy and that provides a valuable service. Like a lot of families want to rent a home rather than rent an apartment. And there isn't always a great supply because it's not like any. The average Joe off the street doesn't own five rental homes. You know, it's, it's not an inexpensive thing to do and it's time consuming and costly to own rental homes. So having a corporation that does it, I don't think it's the worst thing in the world.

Joey Loss 31:03

Right.

Joey Loss 31:24

Right.

Joey Loss 31:35

And, and one of the major complaints about these large corporations doing it is they have very impersonal landlord and service experiences and stuff. And so I mean at what point does that become a federal issue or is that a state landlord law issue? You know what I mean? If that's the main. Right.

Steven H Van Wie 31:52

And I'm, it's just my little flag that's going off in my brain about dictating to private corporations, publicly traded, but corporations that they can't do something. But I guess if you look at the overall regulatory environment in this country and others, it's just one more if you want to be so.

Adam Van Wie 32:15

But does it bring down the price of housing?

Joey Loss 32:18

No, I don't think. And it doesn't solve the housing story. We have to build more homes. Period. No matter what you do with this particular. But I think, I mean, I get why people care about it. I get why people are mad at corporations when they're buying up all the homes and they can't get them.

Adam Van Wie 32:21

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 32:30

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 32:30

Yeah. I don't blame them either. Mortgage rates just ticked down. Another thing Trump did that we'll talk about as soon as we get back. All right. Don't go anywhere. One more break. And this is the Van Wie Financial Hour. 

Steven H Van Wie 32:43

Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie.

Adam Van Wie 32:45

I'm Adam Van Wie.

Joey Loss 32:46

And I'm Joey Loss.

Steven H Van Wie 32:47

And lines are open. 904-222-8255.

Steven H Van Wie 32:51

And what wonderful thing to just happened in a survey of American homes. It hasn't been the case for a long, long time. And it's good news. And give you about another seven or eight minutes before we even consider talking about it. All right. Everybody who has been listening for a while probably remember last year when IRS decided it wanted to do your taxes for you. And I came on the show more than once and ranted and raved, don't do it. I hate inherent conflicts of interest. If the people who want your money prepare your tax returns, that is a conflict of interest waiting to happen. It's over. They got rid of it. OBBBA shut it down. And I could not be happier. Unfortunately, in its wake, some people are thinking, well, I can no longer file for free. Not true. A lot of companies, it's usually based on income. A lot of companies will file for free for you. So, you know, search it or whatever you want to do. And you can always start with places like TurboTax and see if you make too much money. That won't happen. Otherwise, you can find a really good place, that very reputable place to do it. So don't fear that getting rid of it out of the IRS is a problem. It's not. I got just a few of them here. Some will do it for 84,000 incomes and others are 67 like that. So if you're a lower income person and you really don't need to and don't want to pay for a tax return, done. It's not a problem. You can still get it.

Steven H Van Wie 34:39

You guys each took the CFP because you got them when you were taking your classes and you were in the Social Security part of it. And I know Adam and I took it from the same guy. But I loved that part of it where he would be teaching you something. And it ended over and over with. And the 255. You know what the two. Remember what the 255 is? Since the dawn of creation. Basically. The lump sum death payment. Oh yeah,

Adam Van Wie 35:05

No.

Steven H Van Wie 35:14

it's 255 now. See, I've been a CFP for 25 years and this was before that. So it, I always got a kick out of it. And the 255. And it depends on if the person died with. With.

Joey Loss 35:30

And just to be clear for listeners, this is a death benefit associated with. You get one check for $255. That's been the case a laughable amount of time.

Steven H Van Wie 35:34

Yeah.

Steven H Van Wie 35:39

There is a bill called the Social Security Survivor Benefits Equity Act. It would raise that to 2,900 and then index it for inflation annually thereafter. How many times do I sit here and rail about the government not indexing every part of the tax code? This would be a good start. And what's interesting to me is the people behind it. This I would not expect. Maybe if I thought about it more, I would. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker and Ed Markey. Now, you could not assemble a bigger group of whacked out liberals in the Senate than that group. But they found an acorn. And I said, when you're right, I'll call you. I think they're right. I know it depletes the trust fund faster, which all good things seem to do. But it's just, it's a fundamental fairness factor to me. 25530 years ago, 255 today. No, thank you. It doesn't bury you.

Joey Loss 36:33

Right.

Adam Van Wie 36:35

Yes.

Joey Loss 36:52

Yeah. Yeah. The name White House is got to be the best political name. I've ever heard.

Steven H Van Wie 36:57

Yeah. Oh, and would he love to be there. Yeah, he, he's not. But he's never, he's never even invited there because he's such a whack job. But he would love to be in it. What can I say? All right, what do you guys think about this one? Wall street bulls I milder gains in 2026 after a three year surge. Any relation to that?

Joey Loss 37:01

I've never heard of his name before.

Adam Van Wie 37:21

I mean, it's logically it on the surface it makes sense, but it's pretty arbitrary to say something like that.

Joey Loss 37:29

Yeah. It's such a high bound to work with. You've given yourself like A. What's 18% range.

Adam Van Wie 37:35

That's true. So if we Get a. Just a 12% year. Is that quality. Yeah.

Joey Loss 37:39

Oh, I called it. Okay.

Steven H Van Wie 37:42

There's one thing your mother has taught me over the years. Just don't always believe the guy who wrote the headline because what he's talking about is an estimate of 9.2%.

Steven H Van Wie 37:55

That's not exactly bailing out or forecasting gloom and doom.

Joey Loss 38:02

I mean, I, I would be thrilled if he was right. I would be very grateful for a 9% year. But that's probably the least remarkable prediction choice you could have, like just historically on the nose.

Steven H Van Wie 38:14

Yeah, I've had this one out for a while and I haven't brought it up. And I know that there's a good chance Joey might know this. I, I thought that the portability concept for people who die with a net worth, where if each couple has, I think it's 15 million today. Each, each one of a couple have 15 million, that when one dies, the other one jumps to 30 without doing anything. That's how I learned about this. But this article, and it's from ThinkAdvisor, and I don't always trust these guys. They're. They're kind of edgy to me. But it says if you don't File A Form 706 gift tax return when one spouse dies, you won't get the portability.

Joey Loss 39:00

That's correct. It's like the most important thing. So I learned if you have a high net worth for most people, the reason it doesn't come up, it just for, for most people, the 15 million is more than enough.

Steven H Van Wie 39:01

It is true.

Steven H Van Wie 39:12

Well, I, I would file it regardless. If I had a net worth of 100 grand, I'd file it because what if the next day you win the lottery?

Joey Loss 39:19

Well, I think it's worth doing for everybody because let's say that person dies during an era like now where the exemption's extremely high, and then 10 years from now, we go back to an era where if you're alive, your exemption's 600,000. Well, now that 15 million portability that you locked in suddenly becomes relevant. So everybody should be doing that.

Steven H Van Wie 39:38

If anyone has lost a spouse or if, you know, if you're a son or daughter or grandson and granddaughter and one of the people died, it isn't a big deal to file it. It's a big deal if you don't file it. It's not a complex form. I, I have filed them in the past.

Joey Loss 39:50

It is. Yeah.

Joey Loss 39:55

Yeah. And that's form 706 verse, which often gets confused with 709. 709 is the gift tax form. And the way to remember this kind of morbidly is 706. It ends in six because you're six feet under. It's the gross way I remember it, but never get it wrong.

Steven H Van Wie 40:08

Okay.

Steven H Van Wie 40:14

Now I'll remember that one until I go six.

Steven H Van Wie 40:19

All right, good. I want everybody to remember that if you're a highly compensated employee, meaning you have a W2 for $150,000 or more and you contribute regularly to your 401k and you're of age where you can do catch up contributions that they, as of right now, they will have to be Roth contributions, meaning your tax bill is going to go up. And I do not prefer a Roth 401k version to a Roth IRA. I much prefer the Roth IRA. It's very flexible and you can self control it and all that kind of thing. So if you're one of those people and you can't afford to do both a Roth and the catch up contribution, I would start by funding the Roth and then do what you have to. I just think there's a valid preference using the ira. Feel free to disagree. Anybody, but that's, that's what I would do.

Joey Loss 41:18

Yeah, I think if, that, if the amount of money you have to save, I don't know, what do we normally say that the triage order is? First you max your employer match. No matter what you find a way to do it, it's free money.

Adam Van Wie 41:29

So in that case, if you're a low income individual, you definitely don't want to use the Roth IRA. You want to use the 401k because you're getting free money.

Joey Loss 41:37

Right. Exactly up to that point. And then once you hit that maximum match amount from your employer, then I think, you know, if, if you've got 6,000 more to save or 7,000 or whatever it is this year for the Roth IRA, I think it's 7,500. Yeah. Then you, then I agree with Steve. 7,500 in a Roth IRA is an excellent choice because you can buy the whole world of investments is available to you Instead of the 10 options your employer gives you.

Adam Van Wie 41:49

7 500.

Steven H Van Wie 41:59

Yeah. And if you're making good money and have good money put away, then a lot of people will treat the Roth IRA as this is where I want to put my risk assets and hope they really grow. So I think it's a wonderful idea. And this, I didn't know if this would actually take effect, but it made the cut. So.

Adam Van Wie 42:17

But if you're a high income person that wants to contribute to a Roth for whatever reason, your only option might be the Roth 401k. It's possible because you might make too much money to put do a Roth ira.

Steven H Van Wie 42:31

Possible. But if you can just lean Roth that ira. That's my version of it. Okay. Just this month, after years otherwise, less than half of Americans surveyed said they were living paycheck to paycheck. I find that astounding and great news to me. So now if we work on getting it under 40%, that'll be even better. But I was very surprised when that came up and, and very pleased. I really think that the average American and especially the super smart ones, you know, the kind that you see on TV blabbering, those are the really smart Americans. I think they're all in denial, I guess, that this economy is going to take off. They lived through four years of good economic policy and it was great. But what do they remember? Covid. So Covid isn't going to happen again. I'm really optimistic that this is going to turn into good news. Just thought I'd bring it up now.

Joey Loss 43:37

You have more people participating in the stock market now than ever before.

Joey Loss 43:41

I think that's a great, a great feature of the present moment.

Steven H Van Wie 43:46

Some companies are cutting food costs. I've got an example from home. If you go to Fresh Market on Thursdays and get their rotisserie chickens, they're $6. Oop. Not anymore. For two. Two Thursdays. Now they're $5. Some people are actually angry at Costco because Costco is starting to cut food prices.

Joey Loss 44:00

Wow.

Adam Van Wie 44:07

What was that trivia? That was it.

Steven H Van Wie 44:08

That was the truth. Yeah. It was about the. The financial. Not living paycheck to paycheck. And I don't think we have time to do anything else. But we'll be back next week. Hope you are. And we'll go through some more. We'd like to keep you apprised of what's going on right now, stupid or otherwise. Thanks for listening. We appreciate it. We'll see you next week. This is the Bantam.