What kind of a jobs picture are you expecting for the rest of the year then? It's going to be very, very strong. And I agree with what the secretary said, but why not add a little color to it, that about 25 million people benefited from no tax on tips. The average benefit was [00:00:16] $7,000. About 25 million people benefited from no tax on Social Security. That also was about a $7,000 benefit to get to deduct $7,000. And so the consumer is really, really firing on all cylinders, just like the corporate sector you're seeing in the earnings reports. And [00:00:32] they're doing that because they have so much more money in their pockets. In fact, I had the head of one of the big five banks in my office yesterday going through the credit card data. And just as Secretary Besson said, credit card spending is through the roof. They're spending more on gasoline, but they're spending more on everything else too. Yes, that is [00:00:52] the problem. That's why people are upset. All right, so that was National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett discussing the current state of the economy. And he seems very happy about the fact that people are spending more than they were before. And they're putting [00:01:07] all of it on credit cards. It's not quite the flex he's trying to sell it as, but wait, there's more. In terms of the jobs picture for the rest of the year, it's really hard to see having the unemployment rate go up, for example. It's probably going to drop a little bit, but it's [00:01:23] already very close to full employment. But I think a very healthy, steady jobs picture is what we're going to see. And finally, what you might have noticed about a week ago is that nobody's really losing their job. Nobody's being. initial claims for unemployment insurance were the lowest they've been since the 1960s. One of the lowest numbers is below 200,000, [00:01:42] one of the lowest numbers I've ever seen. Just like we get the highest capital spending numbers we've ever seen, we've got the lowest initial claims data for unemployment insurance data as well. So that's what you call a strong economy. I hate that he keeps citing all of this government [00:01:57] data because there's so many instances where this government had just stopped collecting data. They've stopped tracking things. So whatever they say, you can't really trust it because in their big doge exodus of people, they got rid of the people who were tracking and just [00:02:15] monitoring a lot of these things and then reporting it. So considering our government has stopped doing all of that, we- don't really have a good idea on the current state of our economy. We don't have a big overall picture. And there's just a lot that they're not telling us about the things that they are telling us about. But apart from the fact that people are just living [00:02:33] their lives and they can see that the things that Hassett is saying is not quite true. Even CEOs are calling BS on this supposedly thriving economy. So this is from Bloomberg, it says since the pandemic Americans have continued to spend. at surprising levels despite high [00:02:51] inflation, keeping the US economy growing and thwarting recession fears, but rising fuel costs might be too much to overcome. So by the way, a report did find that the top 10 % of earners, and that is people making over $251,000 a year, is now driving nearly half of that [00:03:12] consumer spending. So even that is not a great indicator. of our overall economic well-being in our country. The average American person does not make $251,000 a year, and they are certainly not the ones who are driving all of the spending the same way that the stock market [00:03:29] is not a really good indicator of our overall economy. And all of this is hitting different sectors of our economy. The CEO of Whirlpool, for example, was looking forward to increased sales following a very slow winter. But the Iran war has dashed those dreams out of the [00:03:45] way. It's not happening, the sales are not coming back. Also the CEO of McDonald's, who you might remember from that really weird video where he had to eat a cheeseburger for McDonald's and he seemed like he didn't want to do that. um That guy said that no one is eating at his [00:04:00] terrible restaurants anymore because of heightened anxiety surrounding gas prices. And yes, I'm sure That is why nobody wants to eat those terrible burgers for like $20 a meal at McDonald's of all places. And in general, people are just eating out much less than they were before [00:04:17] with places like Applebee's and IHOP really feeling the pinch. And again, part of that has to be the fact that the food is getting worse at all these places and it is getting more expensive. So they're not going to look inward, but there's going to be gas prices. So saving rates have also dropped as well. Which makes sense if credit card spending [00:04:37] is up and as you heard it is up right now credit card debt is at $1.28 trillion up 5.5 % from last year and that is significant. This is a result of the saving rates uh falling and also high borrowing costs and increased delinquency. And by the way, regarding those jobs numbers, [00:04:57] this is the same guy who last month actually bragged about slashing. 300,000 high paying government jobs from the federal payroll. And he said gleefully that those jobs are now gone forever. That's the same guy who's now very excited that credit card usage is up. It's [00:05:16] unbelievable. The gaslighting is, I can't even wrap my head around it. And I really hope nobody is hearing that and be like, sounds like a good thing. What do think, Brett? Just because you're buying stuff with credit cards doesn't mean you have the money to pay for them. In fact, [00:05:33] that's what credit cards are for. This guy is saying that we're spending more money now and that's a good thing. The way that you parse that sentence is it is either you live in [00:05:51] reality or you don't. The person who lives in reality would hear that sentence and go like, yeah, we're spending more money because everything costs more. The psycho Trump, and this guy is smart enough to know that he is wrong and he is misleading people. His job is to take [00:06:12] numbers and make them seem good in a world where every number is bad right now. He's like, people are spending more because the economy is flourishing. No, the rich people are getting richer. The poor people can't buy anything. And in order to get things that they [00:06:34] can't buy or pay for, they get into credit card debt, which incidentally record highs. I'm sorry, this is just the reality that the rest of us have to live in. But Fox News, if you turn that on for two minutes, you will bake your brain. It is such propaganda. I mean, [00:06:52] like, really hope and the thing is, like, I keep getting disappointed, but I'm like, after 10 years, surely people get it now. Surely people are getting hit to the game that they're all playing with us. You can't afford anything. I think what happens though, is people say, I can't afford anything. I'm struggling. Maybe I'm the problem because I guess everybody else [00:07:12] is doing okay. And if you don't talk to your neighbors, if you're continuously being separated from other people in the world. You just aren't having those conversations the way maybe you might have otherwise. And I think that's the problem. I think the problem is that we don't [00:07:28] talk to each other anymore. And we're all suffering silently and being like, I guess it's just me. No, it's not just you. 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