August 8th, 2026 - Earnings, Inflation, and Retirement

Hosts Steve and Adam Van Wie dive into a surprisingly strong week on Wall Street, unpacking why markets are hitting all-time highs despite mixed economic headlines. They spar playfully over jobs reports, inflation jitters, baby boomers working longer, and even new legislation aimed at helping young athletes invest their NIL money. Callers from around the Southeast jump in with guesses on a trivia question about older workers, share why they’re still on the job in their 70s, and swap thoughts on how much cash to keep on the sidelines in today’s market.

Transcript

Steven Van Wie 0:00

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

And I'm Adam Van Wie.

Steven Van Wie 0:08

And Joey is off today. So the two of us will be hanging in here for the hour and talking about all the fun things that happened this week. Uh, it was just one of those weeks where everything seemed to click and it was kind of funny to me cause I didn't think all the news was good news. But there's enough good stuff going on out there that it kind of influenced the market on the upside. So we'll get into a lot of that today and a bunch of other things. Before we do, I want to welcome back all the regulars. You're the people that keep listening so that we'll keep talking after these— what, we're about at the 12 or— yeah, 12-year, 11 and a half years, something like that, pushing 12, or I never remember. We're in the 12th year. 11th?

Adam Van Wie 0:56

I don't know. I think it's the— we're in the 12th year.

Steven Van Wie 0:59

I can't remember long enough, long ago enough to, um, even remember that anymore. Seems like we've always been doing this. And as far as I'm concerned, we can keep doing it forever. It's all up to you. If you are new to the show, found it by accident or got told about it or something like that, try to listen in for the whole hour. We will talk about something that you like and you'll probably learn something along the way because it gets more and more complicated out there every day, so not everybody can know everything, including us, so if you play stump the band by calling in, we'll get you the answer by next week. And as I always remind people, there are no stupid questions because if there's something you don't know, then a lot of other people won't know it either. So don't be timid. We don't bite.

Steven Van Wie 1:54

904-222-8255. If you want to have your own way with the topic and we'll put you right up there. All right. As you all heard, it was a fun week and I'll let Adam get into the details of it and hopefully put a smile on everybody's face.

Adam Van Wie 2:11

Yeah, for sure. We, we saw the market surge to new all-time highs after big gains on Monday and Tuesday. But like you asked, what was driving it higher? It's hard to say exactly, but there is some renewed optimism around getting a deal done with Iran. And the reason I know that is that oil is now down to $77, and that would not be happening if the expectation was that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed for the foreseeable future. So there, there is some optimism there, but really what it comes down to is that earnings continue to come in really strong. And it's— I'm going to talk about it in a minute, but it's pretty remarkable how well companies are, are doing right now. And I think that despite some of the concerns about the, the continued spend on AI infrastructure, that is also driving the market higher because there is a lot of very smart people making a lot of decisions to spend a tremendous amount of money on this stuff. And they aren't doing that because they think the ROI will be poor. They're doing it because they think that the ROI will be better than what they're currently selling. So, so I just think there's a lot of optimism around corporate performance and, and, and the economy in general. But yeah, let's get into the details. With over 1,100 companies now having reported earnings, 78% of those have beat their earnings targets and 75% have beaten the revenue targets. Both those numbers are in the top 10% of all quarters. And it isn't like there was a low bar coming into this quarter. The 12-month earnings forecast for the S&P 500 is up 9.6%. %. That's a massive increase in the forecast. So the forecasts have actually been going up and companies are still beating earnings at, at the, one of the highest rates we've seen in quite some time. The 12-month earnings forecast for the— oh, sorry. The companies are also raising their guidance at a very high rate with 14.2% of companies raising guidance this quarter while only 3.8% are cutting. With numbers like these driving long-term performance of the market, it isn't hard to to make a case for a rally. I said it a few weeks ago, basically, that if the situation in Iran can get wrapped up in one way or another, it would be really hard for the market not to rally because of the numbers behind the scenes, all the earnings numbers coming in. And so just the slightest amount of optimism on Iran has really opened the doors for this market to rally. That's what I think.

Steven Van Wie 4:56

I have to agree.

Adam Van Wie 4:57

Interest rates came down a bit this week with the 10-year yield falling to 4.65%.

Adam Van Wie 5:04

While they're still in an uptrend overall, a pretty weak jobs report from both ADP and the government combined with lower oil prices could be the catalyst needed to bring rates back down a bit. The Fed is obviously very concerned about inflation and leaning hawkish in their statements, which is a tailwind for higher rates. So watch for the CPI and PPI that come out this week. That will be very telling about what happens next with interest rates. And then you've got the PCE due out on the 26th too. So some key inflation numbers coming up. I don't know what they're going to look like. Do you have any guesses?

Steven Van Wie 5:42

I would— I'd be guessing. But which I guess was what I was asked.

Adam Van Wie 5:44

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 5:48

That was what I asked you.

Steven Van Wie 5:50

I'd say similar to the last few months. I think we're still— if you just do the numbers, I think we're still over 3. And there's been a little creep in the Truflation over the last few days and it's up. It was about 1.98. Now it's up around 2.32. So it tells me that there are some things trickling in to the inflation number. Otherwise, I might be more optimistic about the numbers that are about to come out.

Adam Van Wie 6:18

Yeah, I'm a little bit nervous about them, honestly. I don't know if they're going to look that great with oil hitting—

Steven Van Wie 6:24

uncomfortable, not nervous for me—

Adam Van Wie 6:26

being between $80 and $90 for most of the last month.

Speaker 3 6:29

Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 6:29

And, you know,

Steven Van Wie 6:32

they're not going to just look at that, but it is an influence on them. And we all know it is. But the jobs number was very favorable to us.

Steven Van Wie 6:45

I got a lot to say about that when the time comes.

Adam Van Wie 6:48

Yeah, I want to talk about the JOLTS report that came out, the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. It was a miss on the headline jobs number, but the trend has been higher, more jobs open over the last 6 months. So still in an uptrend and it's still trending above the pre-COVID norms. So Even though it was a miss, it's still, it's still kind of a good number. And one interesting note from the report is that one of the strongest categories for hiring has been professional and business services. And that kind of flies in the face of the narrative that AI is replacing professional and business services jobs. I thought that was good. Another good sign is that the quit rate, it's been going sideways, not down. When times are good, quit rates go up, and when times are bad, quit rates go down. Nobody leaves their job when there's no other jobs available. And so the fact that it's going sideways right now says that there are people out there that have enough confidence to quit their jobs and go find another one. So I did mention the jobs report earlier, and you mentioned it wasn't very pretty. We're coming up on a break, but let's just talk about the headline number. It was negative 23,000 jobs versus an expectation of 80,000 positive. So not a good headline number. In addition, 37,000 jobs were removed from the June numbers and 66,000 removed from the May numbers. So not only did we miss by 100,000, we took another 100,000 from previous reports. So pretty ugly.

Steven Van Wie 8:25

And then right after the break, I'm going to tell you why it's really not as ugly as it looks.

Adam Van Wie 8:30

No, I thought the overall report was kind of— it didn't make a lot of sense, to be honest.

Steven Van Wie 8:35

There's that. And there's just so much you can't say in a short time. So I'll take a little bit more time right after this break. You'll hear it all. And don't go anywhere. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie. 

Adam Van Wie 8:50

And I'm Adam Van Wie.

Steven Van Wie 8:52

And as I mentioned earlier, Joey will return next week. And we'll take it today. We have a trivia question as usual sponsored by Paul Lloyd of First Coast Alarm. You can call Paul at 904-636-7888. Part of the structure of the jobs available and the labor force that is actively working right now, part of it is in, I would say, the baby boomer generation, and this is about that. What percentage of the labor force consists of workers ages 55 and up? I'm not even gonna give you any more hints than that. Just what percentage of the workforce as it's constituted today is people 55 and up?

Steven Van Wie 9:47

The, the good news, I guess the hidden good news, is partly explainable when you look at the jobs report that came out on Wednesday with the ADP private payrolls. That one didn't set off any alarms because it was positive, what, 44,000, I think? Yeah, 44,000. And that seems pretty logical. So when Friday came out, and it was negative, that didn't look so logical. But the first thing that caught my eye was local governments— these are primarily schools, teachers— local governments lost 50,000 jobs. Now that to me is music. I love seeing when government shrinks. Well, what happened partly was that a lot of schools have been extended into late June and early July. And at that point, a lot of those teachers are officially, for the time being, unemployed. So when they sample the population and you get a whole bunch of people not working, boom, up it goes. So they'll be back though. A lot of them will be back. So it's just kind of an artificial little bounce in there that was crazy. But there's more. Also,

Steven Van Wie 11:07

264,000 people left the workforce. This whole participation thing, it's kind of getting out of hand. Who is leaving the workforce? No, we logically say every once in a while, well, people are turning 65 at the rate of 10 or 12,000 a day on average. And a lot of those people are retiring. And actually, in the baby boomer generation, about 7,000 die every day. So it seems like there should be a lot more young people coming in. But the truth of the matter is that the young people is where the gap is. Out of that 264,000, a lot of them are working age. And it consists of two things. The biggest component of that is working age eligible qualified males who just don't want a job. They're not even looking. It's ridiculous. Another one though that they're finding out is married women who have finally discovered that they can live off of their spouse's salary, and a lot of them are opting to become stay-at-home moms or do something from home, probably. But, um, that, that is also a component of people technically not in the workforce. The way we measure the unemployment rate and what we use, the headline number, so to speak, is U3. And that does not count you unless you're looking for work and don't have it. But if you go up to U6, that includes those marginal people in the workforce. So we were what, 4.1?

Adam Van Wie 12:47

4.1. Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 12:49

But U6 right now is 7.9%.

Steven Van Wie 12:54

And that's what, when I was growing up, we used to call the unemployment rate. That's how we were taught. 7.9% is a function of people not wanting jobs. And I can't help them with that. I just, I can't understand it. But I do like the part where some people are being able to live off one salary. And, you know, I'd like to inject a little personal note into this every once in a while. Because hey, we can. When we were very young, Sarah and I were young, newly married. We've been married 54 years coming up here pretty soon. And when we were young, it was the late '70s and early '80s. And a lot of females were being sort of pressured by society. You got to have it all type, get a job and have kids and all that. And you can do everything and anything you want to do.

Steven Van Wie 13:51

I'm going to cut this off for a moment because we do have a phone call and they're first up.

Steven Van Wie 13:59

Good morning, Leroy.

Speaker 4 14:04

Leroy?

Adam Van Wie 14:07

No one there.

Speaker 4 14:08

Hmm. Hmm.

Adam Van Wie 14:12

Oh, well, okay.

Speaker 3 14:13

Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 14:14

Nothing there. He's on. I can't hear

Steven Van Wie 14:20

him. Wait, we have a technical glitch.

Speaker 4 14:25

That's all right.

Adam Van Wie 14:26

Let's just move on.

Speaker 4 14:28

All right.

Steven Van Wie 14:28

Well, as it's been— hang on, Leroy. You can probably hear me. We'll get it worked out while we carry on a little bit. Anyway,

Steven Van Wie 14:38

the young people, newly married people for the most part,

Steven Van Wie 14:43

are at that time getting a little pressure to get a job and all that. Leroy, you there?

Steven Van Wie 14:51

Nope, okay. We're getting there. And Sarah and I worked out a little formula for how much do you think you're gonna improve your financial life by getting a second job in the family?

Adam Van Wie 15:03

All right, I think we have Leroy now.

Steven Van Wie 15:06

Leroy?

Speaker 4 15:07

Yeah, I'm here.

Steven Van Wie 15:08

Hey, sorry about that.

Speaker 4 15:10

Hey, glad to hear you both back.

Steven Van Wie 15:12

Well, thank you. What's up?

Speaker 4 15:14

Okay, I was going to take a quick, uh, guess at your trivia since it's early.

Steven Van Wie 15:21

Okay, sure.

Speaker 4 15:22

Uh, 23.2.

Steven Van Wie 15:26

Um, interestingly, that's too low.

Speaker 4 15:30

That's too low.

Steven Van Wie 15:31

Yeah, surprise, isn't it? It is to me anyway. Yeah, that, you know, we're hanging around baby boomers, or they're people born from 1946 to 1954. That puts you and me in there, as I recall,

Steven Van Wie 15:48

in the older tier of them, shall we say. And it's quite amazing how many baby boomers are still wanting to work and doing so actively. That's a good thing based on the lazy kids we've been reporting about this morning.

Speaker 4 16:01

Well, you know, that's true, but there's awful lot of, a lot of people I know that are working for nothing more than their healthcare.

Steven Van Wie 16:10

Yes. Agreed. That's a problem that we need. We need to solve that.

Speaker 4 16:17

Yeah. If we had, you know, our healthcare was a better, a little better system, they hopefully wouldn't have to have to keep working for. And I don't think there's anything wrong working over 55. I think that's way too young to quit.

Steven Van Wie 16:30

Yeah, I'm 76 and still hard at it, so I'd have to agree with you.

Speaker 4 16:34

I mean, it's, it's good for body and your soul. So, yep.

Steven Van Wie 16:37

I— and if you were listening to Angela's show before us, yes, somebody mentioned the fact that a lot of people, when they do exit the workforce and they kind of lose their, their, um, goals or their, their enthusiasm, whatever it, it, they tend to die younger. So if you want to live a long time, stay busy and work. That's, I honestly believe that.

Adam Van Wie 17:02

Yeah. They say one of the keys to longevity is just having a purpose and not— And for sure, for a lot of people, a job does give them that.

Speaker 4 17:07

that's for sure.

Speaker 3 17:11

Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 17:12

And Angela was talking about it in terms of doing something as a volunteer. You don't have to get paid to have a have a goal in life and some satisfaction from getting out of the house and doing things. So I think this statistic will not surprise anybody once it gets completely out in the open. We appreciate it.

Speaker 4 17:35

Okay. Take care of yourself. Have a great day. Okay.

Steven Van Wie 17:38

You too.

Adam Van Wie 17:39

Bye-bye. Thanks. Thanks for the call.

Speaker 4 17:42

Yep.

Steven Van Wie 17:43

Looks like we're using the other column. I'm relearning the telephone system around here today. You're never too old. Anyway, we found out, remember, numbers are kind of different back in the '70s and '80s than they are now. But we started with, well, what would a, let's say you get a teaching job. And I think Sarah started at about $9,000 a year and we'd divide the expenses down and then trying to get down to an hourly take-home rate after the increase in taxes and so on. And we almost universally found that you're not working for money if you're doing that, because you might or might not take home about $0.50 an hour at that time, and you might not even get that. But one, one thing, strangely, this should come up in the, in the phone call. A lot of the reason that, that second earners were happening in households was because one of them was working for health insurance. And here we are 50 years later, and we have the same problem.

Speaker 4 17:48

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 18:50

Yeah, I mean, I don't know that it's— for some people, it's a problem for sure. But for others, I don't know, it's, you know, it's just one of those things that you have to figure out. It's you either pay $2,500 a month for health insurance, or you have one spouse who works for a company that subsidizes that for you. It's— that's just the current state of things. We do it. I mean, sure, it's not— I don't know that it's a terrible burden, you know.

Steven Van Wie 19:22

But a lot of women are very successful in the workforce too. So you could tell stories all day long about individuals. But it really impressed me when we started doing that for our friends back that many years ago, that just how little they were able to take home after all the expenses. It's kind of scary to be that way. Of course, nowadays minimum wages are a lot higher, but so are expenses.

Adam Van Wie 19:51

Yeah, I think, I think for most people these days, the math is 2 or 3+ kids, it stops making sense to have 2 working parents.

Steven Van Wie 20:02

Joey tells us about it all the time with the cost of daycare. I can't imagine I'm, you know, I'm a little past all that stuff now, but we interact with people who aren't all the time. So anyway, the numbers that you were looking at in the headline number and so on, there's a lot going on in this report and a lot of it is— there's a million non-American-born

Steven Van Wie 20:31

men who are no longer around. The growth in the population is slowing way down. We don't need the same kind of job creation that we used to need just to get things done. So there's probably 10 elements we could name in there. The bottom line on this and the takeaway from it is don't worry about that number, it's doing fine. And we do have somebody on the line, but I cannot get it because we have to take a quick break. So hold through it, please. Please, and we'll get to them. Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie. 

Adam Van Wie 21:05

And I'm Adam Van Wie.

Steven Van Wie 21:10

And we do have lines open, 904-222-8255.

Steven Van Wie 21:13

And I'm going to repeat the trivia question because somebody's calling in to take a shot at it. What percentage of the labor force in this country, as it's constituted today, are workers ages 55 and up? And we will let Rick take a shot at it. Good morning.

Speaker 3 21:33

Good morning.

Steven Van Wie 21:34

How's everything?

Speaker 3 21:36

I'm great. I'm going with a comment about working. I'm at work right now and I'll be 77 on Friday. And I think, you know, working is the only purpose. It's not about the money. It's about having a purpose. And what I do for a living is, um, uh, fun and enjoyment. So, Um, people have to live longer because they're out in the field working.

Steven Van Wie 21:58

I couldn't agree more.

Adam Van Wie 22:00

I love it. Yeah, that's great. And you're listening to us, so what, what better day could there be?

Steven Van Wie 22:05

Absolutely.

Speaker 3 22:06

Well, I came in early just so I can catch your program here at work because a lot of times I'm busy on Saturday morning. But, um, I've been listening to your program— gosh, I know it's been 20 years. It's got to be at least that long. Melbourne for a while. Now I'm on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. Really? And I just, I always pick up something that I really enjoy and it's helped me all along my way forever.

Adam Van Wie 22:18

Wow, that's awesome.

Adam Van Wie 22:30

Well, thanks, Rick. You just made our day.

Steven Van Wie 22:32

No kidding. And by the way, this is a non-solicited call. We don't pay him. Well, thank him profusely though. That's good.

Adam Van Wie 22:36

That's right.

Speaker 3 22:41

Well, people don't really pay attention enough to what their finances should do. And by just listening to a program or picking up something that gives them a financial tip has gotta be helpful for somebody later in life. Amazing how many people I talk to that don't even know what their money's doing or where it's going or have any idea. So I'm really fascinated by trying to help people in the financial business, and I'm not even— I do it for entertainment. It's fun for me. It's fun to look at stocks. It's fun to listen to programs like yours. And it's amazing to me that people have no clue. So you guys are— you're out there breaking the ice and Hopefully a lot of people will listen and take heart. I mean, what it's all about, I believe.

Steven Van Wie 23:24

Well, we've always said that we're not here to tell you what to do. We are here to tell you what can be done and hopefully get you some guidance and then going about getting it done.

Adam Van Wie 23:36

But if you can't do it yourself, give us a call and we can help you.

Speaker 3 23:39

Absolutely. Well, my question was kind of simple, a 60/40 mix of, uh, money market and stocks. I listened to Warren Buffett the other day, which is another idol of mine, and he said that the market is extended as far as it's been in history. And he was suggesting maybe having a little bit more cash on the sidelines. You know, at 77 years old and happy with what the market's doing, do you think that it's a good idea maybe to be looking to move to money market a little bit more?

Steven Van Wie 24:14

Well, it's hard to give anything like individual— you can't really do that on a radio, but I'm telling you, in our age group, because I'm the same age you are basically, I have an inordinate amount of cash, relatively speaking, just because of what you said. I don't have the, the ability to risk everything right now, so I've got a little cash supply where if things did get bad for us, I would not have to sell anything at a time when I would prefer not to sell it. If that answers your question, I can put it the simple way. Yes.

Adam Van Wie 24:51

However, uh, as far as the market being extended, I would have to disagree with Mr. Buffett because earnings have expanded so much that price-to-earnings ratios actually are just on the, maybe the high side of average right now. They're not even— I don't think the market's really extended. And you could make up— you could make the argument that at the rate of earnings growth, that the market's a bargain right now. But that's really just dependent on your personal view of things. So where you sit determines, you know, how you would feel about the market. And so that's not going to be true for everyone. But if you're a long-term investor right now, I don't know. I could make an argument that you may want to get in. Uh-huh.

Speaker 3 25:37

Well, I mean, a market works because of earnings and gosh, everything points to positive, like you say. And I was concerned about the money that was being borrowed by the mega stocks, but you know, it's a crazy market, but they're making money. My goodness.

Adam Van Wie 25:56

Yeah. They're printing money. Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 25:58

They are. And a lot of what they're doing is right now it's construction that turns into manufacturing. And unfortunately, that kind of manufacturing is very often mislabeled where it should be production. But the people who do these things do it their way. And the people who read it have to figure it out what it really means. I'm not telling anybody that they shouldn't have some cash, 'cause I think you always should. Cash is a genuine part of a portfolio, and it's just there for opportunities and necessities. How much, as Adam says, it's your comfort zone and your lifestyle and so on. But it's a good comment, and it's exactly what people need to think about and talk about. So I'd like it.

Speaker 3 26:51

Well, that pretty much answers it. Um, you know, I love the market. I enjoy your program more than anything. Um, can I guess 35% of the people over the age are working?

Steven Van Wie 27:02

You can do that and you'd be low.

Speaker 4 27:06

Wow.

Speaker 3 27:07

Goodness. Wow. That's a surprise.

Steven Van Wie 27:09

See, I've, as you know, from listening for decades, what I bring to the show with trivia, always has a point, and that point is generally made while I'm doing show prep sometime, and I see something or look for something and find it that surprises me. And I think we just heard a couple of expressions of surprise about this one.

Adam Van Wie 27:34

I didn't know the answer, and I was genuinely surprised.

Steven Van Wie 27:36

Yeah.

Speaker 4 27:37

So, hmm.

Speaker 3 27:39

Well, guys, thank you very much. I'm going to continue watching the program as long as I'm alive. I appreciate you guys.

Steven Van Wie 27:43

So, well, thank you. Us old guys are not out of here yet, are we?

Speaker 3 27:48

Thank you so much.

Steven Van Wie 27:50

Take care. Thanks for the call. That was fun hearing from another state. I know we do come in very well in Hilton Head. I've had lots of people tell me that, and that's cool.

Adam Van Wie 27:55

Yeah, for sure.

Adam Van Wie 28:03

Yeah, it is. That's, uh, well, shout out to Hilton Head.

Speaker 4 28:06

Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 28:07

And I have been doing this for 24 years between this program and the prior one, and I've never really changed too much about my opinions. I just got a lot older. It's amazing, isn't it? All right, um, I wanted to— there was one other thing I wanted to bring up here, and I can't remember what it was.

Speaker 3 28:20

Yeah, it is.

Adam Van Wie 28:30

So was it on the jobs— the jobs report?

Steven Van Wie 28:33

It was related to that. Oh darn it, I'll— it'll pop up. What the heck. speaking of money, We are. And that's this time of year. Those of you who live in Florida, at least the other people probably have other, other ideas like this. But we have a series of sales tax holidays throughout the year. And everybody is probably aware right at the moment that kids are going back to school on Monday.

Speaker 4 28:40

I—

Adam Van Wie 29:05

Can you believe that?

Steven Van Wie 29:07

I seriously have trouble with that. I'm not sure in St. Johns County. But yeah, that's Duval. Yeah. Where did it go?

Adam Van Wie 29:09

I do, too.

Adam Van Wie 29:16

I don't know. The summer's over though.

Steven Van Wie 29:19

But in honor of that, you know, we have America's best governor here who likes to take care of the people. And part of it is through the sales tax holidays. And we're running the back-to-school type right now. It's on and it ends on Thursday, August 20th. So you still have some time to go out there. And it falls into a lot of different categories, like personal computers or computer-related accessories, including calculators and electronic book readers, handhelds, so on and so forth, laptops, tablets. And when you're— it goes up to $1,500 per item and you're looking at a 7.5% sales tax saving. That is pretty enticing. It also— accessories include keyboards, mice, modems, monitors, some software, personal digital assistants, and stuff like that, and routers. And there again, these can add up into some money. Back when the sales taxes were more normal,

Steven Van Wie 30:26

or whatever the word is, lower, you wouldn't be saving as much. And as they keep bumping them up and bumping them up, This stuff gets more and more important. You can have wallets and backpacks and bags of all sort that are also exempt, and school supplies, everything from binders and books and discs and erasers and folders and pencils and pens, on and on and on. It is just the absolutely ideal time to stock up for your back-to-school needs. Some learning aids like flashcards, things like that are also included for the people who are learning that kind of thing, which we did. I grew up with flashcards and I know a lot of people out there did. And then there's probably the most important one: clothing, footwear, and accessories with a sales price of $100 or less. And that's pretty much universal. So if you're in need of ramping up a bit for the back-to-school crowd, do it before August 20th. When that goes away, September 1st comes up, and that's the Hunting, Fishing and Camping Sales Tax holiday. And this one runs through the end of the year. And it's basically anything you can think of for, for camping, fishing, etc., etc. Rods and reels and flashlights and camping things and on and on and on. Why pay sales tax if you're going to need something? Just get it at the right time. And you can Google it and go right to the state and the website will tell you all the various sales tax holidays that Floridians have. Thank you to Mr. DeSantis.

Adam Van Wie 32:17

And speaking of our wonderful governor, it is also early voting in, uh, I think both Duval and St. Johns County are open now. So get out and vote, uh, in the next week or so before you have to go on voting day. It makes it a lot easier.

Speaker 3 32:33

Yes.

Steven Van Wie 32:33

And if you've been watching any of the goofy results from any of the goofy states, you realize this is not the year not to vote. 

Adam Van Wie 32:40

No, get out and vote.

Steven Van Wie 32:42

If you got an opinion, put it on your ballot and you'll help. We'll be right back after a quick break and we'll cover everything else. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour. Welcome back to the Van Wie Financial Hour. I'm Steve Van Wie. 

Adam Van Wie 32:56

And I'm Adam Van Wie.

Steven Van Wie 33:00

And lines are open. 904-222-8255. What percentage of the current workforce is comprised of people 55 and older? And we know that 35% is actually too low. Quick note on jobless claims— stayed below 200,000 again. That's 3 straight weeks, and that hasn't happened for 57 years. 

Adam Van Wie 33:23

Hmm.

Steven Van Wie 33:24

Now it was 199, but it's still under 200. So I, I'm thinking perhaps that streak will be broken, but maybe not. You never know. Yeah, let's see, another one of my pet peeves that a lot of people I don't like it when Congress tries to pass a law for an individual or a tiny little group of people. And I want to get Adam involved in this one because I'm finding myself pretty comfortable with something called the Hustle Act. You heard of it?

Adam Van Wie 33:56

I have not.

Steven Van Wie 33:58

Hustle Act creates tax-advantaged investment accounts for, of all things, You know what NIL is? Name, image, likeness. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Adam Van Wie 34:12

I knew what it was, but I didn't know why you were bringing it up in that context.

Steven Van Wie 34:16

Well, this bill creates a tax-advantaged investment account just for that money, and it goes up to the annual gift tax limit every year. And overall, you could top it out at $35,000. And when all that's in there, it could then— when the kid goes on, it could turn it into an IRA and funds could be withdrawn penalty-free before graduation for career transition, education, or medical expenses. Now, how many athletes do you think are involved with NIL?

Adam Van Wie 34:54

Oh gosh, thousands at this point. 

Steven Van Wie 34:56

So it's not as small a deal as I've.

Adam Van Wie 34:59

Oh no, like, so you've got basically every D1 football player across the country and there's well over 100 teams and each team has over 100 kids. Now, some of these kids are just getting like $1,000 or something, but the top athletes are getting several million dollars. So, and there's a lot of those. I mean, you've got hundreds of kids probably making a million plus, at least.

Steven Van Wie 35:28

Okay, so this isn't even a big proportion of all that, but it is, it is a way to get those star athletes started on investing.

Adam Van Wie 35:38

Yeah, I don't hate it.

Steven Van Wie 35:40

I, I can't get uncomfortable with it. It just, it seems to me, if you look at the, the NFL players, for instance, within 5 years of retirement, a lot of NFL players are bankrupt. And I think it's for the simple reason that they don't get educated first.

Adam Van Wie 36:00

I think it's easy to think you're going to make that money forever. I'm going to be the one that lasts longer than the league average 3 years. Yeah, exactly.

Steven Van Wie 36:10

All right, we have Ronnie. Good morning.

Speaker 3 36:15

Good morning. What's happening? Trivia question?

Speaker 4 36:18

Sure. So I'm going to guess 55 years, 55%.

Steven Van Wie 36:25

Well, that's too high. So you've bracketed it for us and we appreciate it.

Speaker 4 36:32

All right. No problem. Thanks.

Adam Van Wie 36:33

Thanks, Ronnie. So somewhere between 35 and 55.

Speaker 3 36:37

Yep. Got it.

Speaker 4 36:38

All right.

Steven Van Wie 36:39

Thanks for the call.

Steven Van Wie 36:42

Um, it seems high, doesn't it? 

Adam Van Wie 36:46

It is. Yeah.

Steven Van Wie 36:47

Yeah, it's because it is. I don't know exactly what it says. You know, you can interpret numbers all you want. Anyway, there's the Hustle Act. I'm immediately turned off to this a little bit because of the concept of making a law for a few people. But I couldn't stay uncomfortable the more I read.

Adam Van Wie 37:07

No, I think it's well-intentioned. I don't know how long this NIL era will last. There's legislation

Steven Van Wie 37:13

I don't either.

Adam Van Wie 37:16

That is potentially going to address it here in the next year or two. But for now, there are a lot of kids making a lot of money with— I mean, you could probably do an IRA because it is earned, isn't it? It is earned income. Yeah. But that limits you at the pretty low numbers. And when you're making millions, putting $7,500 in an IRA isn't really—

Steven Van Wie 37:40

It's treated as a gift. For the gift tax limit, which is what, $19,000 a year now, which is pretty good. And it only caps out at $35,000, but they do allow you to roll that into an IRA later.  All right, we have Bosco. Good morning.

Adam Van Wie 38:00

Try again. I don't think it went through.

Steven Van Wie 38:04

Bosco. Good morning.

Speaker 3 38:05

Good morning.

Speaker 4 38:07

I thought I'd, uh, touch base with you all on this. You know, I just, uh, after I considered retiring, I kind of a forced retirement, um, Social Security, um, you know, you just had too much time on my hand, you know, on one's hands. And when you're work-oriented, you know, it's just, you know, you're going nuts. 

Steven Van Wie 38:29

Yep.

Speaker 4 38:30

You know, and so I went ahead and went back to, uh, work in an area never thought I would work in, which is the warehouse industry for a large box store that I'm sure— 

Steven Van Wie 38:43

Good.

Speaker 4 38:44

We all would know if I brought it out. But what was interesting was to see the, the age group of the different, uh, people in there and compared it to myself. And, uh, it's generally speaking a youth-oriented, uh, company. And, um, so my understanding, you know, in talking to them is that, you know, they were, you know, of like minds, um, work-oriented. So I wanted to throw out, um, a number at, uh, 64.

Steven Van Wie 39:18

We all— we already had a 55 is too high call, so— oh, take another shot.

Adam Van Wie 39:23

Somewhere between 35 and 55, right?

Speaker 4 39:25

Well, let's flip that around. 46.

Steven Van Wie 39:28

That is also a little too high.

Speaker 4 39:31

Wow.

Steven Van Wie 39:33

Yeah. I mean, we know it's a number that's surprising, but it's not quite that bad.

Adam Van Wie 39:40

Good deal. Yeah. I think there's a lot of people who are like you, Bosco. I know that I could not just sit around and be without something to do every day. I could do that maybe 1 or 2 more days a week. Than I currently do, but not, not full-time. So I, I think there's a lot of people in that same boat.

Steven Van Wie 40:00

Yep, I agree.

Speaker 4 40:01

By all means, you know. And, you know, I go to the gym early and I can see a lot of the 4 or 5 o'clock, uh, people in there. Most of them are about my age, you know. Yeah, it's in the '70s. That's in the '70s.

Steven Van Wie 40:14

Early to bed, early to rise.

Adam Van Wie 40:16

I do find that the earlier I go to the gym, the older the crowd, for sure.

Steven Van Wie 40:20

I believe it. All right, we appreciate the call, Bosco. Thanks.

Speaker 4 40:25

You betcha. Thank you again.

Steven Van Wie 40:26

Bye-bye.

Steven Van Wie 40:29

One thing, a little add-on to the whole hustle thing. This part made it more clear to me, but you got to know the players. This was introduced by Greg Steube. You know who he is? He is a member of the House of Representatives from Florida. And do you know about the Congressional Baseball Game? He was a professional athlete earlier, and he's the reason the Republicans always win because he can pitch to anybody. So all of a sudden, that makes a lot of sense. A guy who's been through all this understands that things could be made better for a bunch of young people. He's always kind of a character anyway.

Adam Van Wie 40:43

I do not.

Adam Van Wie 40:51

Yeah.

Adam Van Wie 41:13

It's been— you may not follow this because you're not huge into sports, but it's been in the news recently too. Exactly. A lot of debate around making college sports less of a wild, wild west than it is right now, because there's, there's college quarterbacks making more than NFL quarterbacks, which makes no sense because it's no sense. You're, you're, it just the, the economics are all off. The, the kids are going to whoever has the most money. There's no rules. There's no limits. It's just insane right now.

Steven Van Wie 41:42

Hmm. That's what happens when you rush into something, I guess. Oh, by the way, this— Greg's in the House, and this was also introduced into the Senate by one of my favorite people, Marsha Blackburn, who just won her primary to be the governor of Tennessee. Oh, congratulations. She's one of the keepers. Unfortunately, we're not going to keep her at the federal level, but if she's a governor, the world is a little better off for it. And the other thing. Manufacturing is absolutely booming despite everything that was said during the, the big debates on tariffs and so on. The manufacturing outlook in this country has not been better for a good long time.

Adam Van Wie 42:28

The ISM Manufacturing Survey came out this week actually, and it increased to 55.6, which is a really strong print.

Steven Van Wie 42:37

That is a big number. Yeah, just keep your eyes open for what's really happening. You know, the media wants us all to think this country's going to hell in a handbasket and on and on. It's just not true, and it's going to get better and better. And that brings me back to let's get voting right now. I'll be there by Monday, I'm quite sure. Uh, let's see, I'm gonna I think I'm doing a specialized show with Joey next week about 401s. There is a lot of stuff going on and I think it needs to have enough time and attention paid to it. And this, I'm going to break one of my own rules, I'm sure, because I very seldom, as you know, talk to the guys before the show because I like the spontaneity of what's going on. But I think I'll tell Joey that I'm going to concentrate on that. And if he has thoughts on it, I would like to hear from him then too. So if you have thoughts on 401s and that kind of thing, be prepared for next week's phone call and we'll be here to answer them. Uh, here's the sad news, and this is what really got me going on it. Nearly 3 in 10 Americans in their 50s lack a retirement account or pension at all. That is a formula for failure or for working later non-voluntarily.

Adam Van Wie 43:58

Yikes.

Steven Van Wie 44:07

There's also a little scary thing in there too, that about 50%, maybe a little more, of retirements are involuntary. More on that next week. The actual number, 37.2%, and I had the range from 36 to 39, So close, Rick, but no cigar. Call again next week and we'll have a new question. Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week as promised. This is the Van Wie Financial Hour.