Retrospect
Retrospect
Limiting Debt Interest Rates | Retrospect Ep.164
In this week’s episode we discussed an announcement about working towards capping credit card interest rates at 10%. Bernie Sanders said he is looking forward to working with the Trump Administration and hopes that President-elect Donald Trump will stick to his promise on capping interest rates.
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Retrospect
Keywords
election aftermath, credit card interest rates, predatory lending, generational debt, student loan debt, middle class struggles, debt statistics, financial well-being, government efficiency, military education, inflation impact, debt by region, gender debt disparities, financial responsibility, debt reduction strategies
Ian
Welcome to the retrospect podcast, a short people come together from different walks of life and discuss a topic from their generations perspective. My name is Ian, and as always, I'm joined by Jason.
Jason
Hello, everyone
Ian
and Stoney,
Stoney
Hello.
Ian
How's everyone doing?
Jason
Doing good. It's, uh, I think I saw we might be getting some some rain moving in. Okay, yeah, at the time of this recording. I think we got some pretty bad weather, and then a actual good change in temps, yes, after this. So we might be,
Ian
uh, and we can all say, I
Jason
mean, it's been not quite a, not quite a frost, but it's gonna be chilly. It's been about
Ian
a week or so for us since the election and everything, and I don't think the world has burned down. No, it's not. It's amazing, which is kind of, which kind of makes me a little more nervous, because it feels it's like, it feels a little bit like it's a little too quiet, like I'm just, well,
Stoney
there's still a lot going on. I don't know that it's too quiet, right, but all of the really bad stuff that the liberals were saying was going to happen, is not happening other than so many people are looking for peace right now, right China has said, Oh, we want to work with the Mexican president. The new female Mexican president said, Oh, well, I know we got to do some stuff to keep good relationships with America. So amazing.
Jason
Huge
Stoney
shift train of people coming up that has magically dispersed. Yeah,
Jason
well, I mean, when people saw Joe Biden and President Elect Donald Trump sitting in the same room and they're all smiling and, you know, all the talk of the Second Coming of Adolf Hitler and all this stuff, I think people start kind of seeing the ruse that, you know, they're all on us. This is just how politics works. It's just unfortunate that it's it has to be that way, but,
Stoney
but none of those things have happened. Well, the
Jason
only thing that's my concern is up. I saw that Biden approved the use of long range rockets in Ukraine, which I have no
Stoney
idea that the Biden cram family and the Liberals want us in a war. They want this so they can say, Look, this was Donald Trump who did this, but it was Joe Biden who approved the use of those missiles, not Donald Trump.
Jason
Yeah, we've got to change this, this trajectory that, this how we do things around here. I
Stoney
have a feeling January the 21st is going to be one heck of a day for executive orders. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Jason
I agree, totally. I think it's I think we are at that point and we need to. We gotta, we gotta roll some of this craziness that's been the staple of our lives for the last four years
Stoney
well, and I think that's part of what's going on, and that's gonna actually work toward our episode today is that Bernie Sanders is actually trying to work with Donald Trump on an issue. Heard of this? Yeah? Heard of this? Yeah, they want to cap credit card interest rates to 10% I it,
because what they're doing, and I believe this, this is the rich keeping the middle class and the poor poor and predatory practices, yep, and Donald Trump said one of his biggest things, and we talked about this in the last episode, was getting Americans out of debt.
Jason
Yeah, well, I
Stoney
mean, we're gonna have to battle a lot of the Biden crime families practices over the last four years. This started for me. Miranda and I were talking, and she found something that the average weekly grocery bill. Okay, where do you think Louisiana ranks in that weekly, weekly grocery
Jason
I would say, I'd say about $400
Stoney
weekly, yeah. Okay, where do you think it ranks in the States, how high or how low?
Ian
So, one out of 50, yeah, oh yeah.
Stoney
Where we where do we rank? I
Ian
think we rank somewhere towards the bottom. I say the bottom 25
Stoney
so the bottom 25 Yeah,
Jason
I would say, I mean, I would say somewhere around 40. Okay,
Stoney
okay. So Louisiana is 10th in the country for weekly expenditures on food at $283 Wow. Now obviously you know Alaska and Hawaii are gonna be the highest. 329, and 334, a week. California is only $13 More than Louisiana at 298 that's impressive. Nevada is 295 New York is 266 but Louisiana is 10th in the country on weekly expenditures. For
Jason
me, very curious. What you know would be an interesting statistic is to find out what exactly makes up what type of items, well, whichever or being purchased in Louisiana versus the Midwestern state, and are lower that kind of place because
Stoney
they're closer to the production of the food, right? Okay, the further you go out, right, the more expensive it gets. And you know, if you think about it, even New York's kind of closer than we are. So they have some things, but you know, Iowa is 227 Wisconsin's 221 which is actually the lowest? Wow. So it's just, you know, Illinois is 269 Wow. Florida, just for the record is 287
Ian
which one is the is the most
Stoney
that would be, let's see Hawaii, 334
Ian
that checks out though. I mean, that's because
Stoney
they're the furthest away from you know, but, and that just kind of brought me to how expensive it is to live. I mean, if you're thinking about it, that's over $1,000 a month on food, right? That's the average. I mean, obviously a couple is not going to spend as much as a family of five, right? Or six or seven or eight, good lord, of course. And so that's just kind of the average. Are we putting this on our credit cards, or how are we paying for this right now? And generationally? It's an interesting breakdown. Also,
Jason
yeah, I was looking at some things here, and there's a lot of statistics on on how much debt different groups are carrying. Which,
Stoney
which generation holds the highest debt amount that'd be Generation X, Generation X, really, in my generation? Yep,
Jason
and I could see that, and I've read some of the reasons why we carry that, partly because we are a sandwich generation. So in many cases, we're, you know, raising children, and you're also taking care of your elder, the elderly parents. So I think the the circumstances that are kind of built in that kind of lend to that reason. But yeah, I'm looking at a chart here. It's total average debt in the United States. In this was 2023 it's in 1000s of dollars. Millennials sit at 120 505, which would be 125,000 in debt. So is
Ian
that like an average? Or that's an average? Get out 100,000
Jason
Yep. And Generation X 157,056 baby boomers are at 94,088 and the silent generations at 38,006 and I think Generation Z is, I think there's somewhere
Ian
I don't, I don't think a lot of them are, or maybe, I mean, they are old enough to get
Jason
Generation Z is 29,082
Stoney
which is Surprising. Yeah. One of the things I found was that millennials net worth is higher than the older generations at their age. So in 2022 millennials, age 26 to 41 had a median net worth of 84,941 and when the Gen Xers were about the same age, they were like at 78 333, so baby boomers, at that same time, their net worth was about 58,000 Wow.
Jason
Yeah. I'm looking at a chart here by news nations. This is called tracking debt, which generation knows the most, and then they have it, of course, broken down by types of debt, like the average household debt in 2023 was $104,215 mortgage debt was 12.51 9 trillion Wow, total revolving home equity debt, 380 billion in total auto loan debt at $1.626 trillion so, yeah, there's A lot of debt that we're carrying. And, you know, you know, going back to what you were saying, Stoney, about, you know, Bernie Sanders wanting to work with Trump, and I think that's what you saw. And the reason you're seeing that is because, I think for the first time, you saw a new coalition of people, yes, come together. And. And vote, vote for Donald Trump and and I think that this is the new, in essence, Republican Party. It has become a kind of the last stand of somewhat of a common sense, 100% that that? Okay, I may not agree everything about what Republicans do, but at least on the basics, you know, they make more sense, yeah, than what the other side is saying. And so that's what you saw, was working class people in New racial groups that traditionally voted the other way. Basically said, You know what the other side is, is, is crazy, well, but you also we need to do something different. More younger people right than they expected, and they voting for Trump, right? Because, like I said, I think in the last episode, this is the first generation since George Washington that's not going to do better than their parents. And I found a little chart that that was kind of interesting to me, and it goes into the age range, Baby Boomers, Gen X,
Stoney
millennials, percent with a positive net worth. Okay, this was the survey for this one for baby boomers was in 1989 83.9% had a positive net worth, 11.9 had a negative net worth. And these are roughly. There's some other little statistics. I'm just trying to give the basic ones in 2007 they did the Gen Xers, 86 with a positive net worth and 11.5 with a negative millennials. And this one was taken in 2022, 86.6 with a positive net worth and 12.7 with a negative net worth. Wow. So it's kind of creeping up a little bit. And obviously the Gen Xers had some problems, because they had the Black Friday. They had multiple recessions and the big crap, you know, stock market crash. And what was it? 87 Yeah. And that kind of created some situations for people too,
Jason
yeah. Talking about running up credit card debt, I'm looking at something here. About 2 million Americans do it every year. Run up $50,000 in credit card
Stoney
Wow. But right now they're doing it just to stay alive and well,
Jason
there's a lot of factors that go into that. You know, inflation, high interest rates, you know you're having to maintain credit card balances month to month. Well,
Stoney
they also, what was? They said that 75% of Americans are one major auto repair away from bankruptcy.
Jason
Well, this is encouraging. Around 23% of Americans are debt free, according to the most recent data available from the Federal Reserve, which that's a nice feeling. Yeah, it really is, to be debt free. You know, you hear people like Dave Ramsey, and you listen to, you know, he comes on your own local radio station every day from one to three, and he's basically all about paying off the home, right? You know, I've kind of gone back and forth with paying off the house. If I did that, I would have literally nothing to write off. My taxes every year. I would get raped every year. So, you know, I've been told to, don't pay the house off, because it at least gives you something versus you have other people you need to pay the house off in, and it's, you know, yeah, it'd be nice. Then I have a house note every month, right? Same time I would dread when it came time to income taxes and what I would be forking out. But, you know, I guess there's different opinions on that, one way or the other, but, yeah, I mean, we have a we have a lot of debt in this country. And, you know, I'm encouraged that there's talk of Bernie Sanders and newly elected President Donald Trump to possibly come together to come to figure out, what can we do to improve the standing of middle class Americans in this country? Because that's, you know, the reality is, that's what makes the country go is the middle class. It's not the super rich, nor is it the poor. It's the people in the middle it's the shop owners and stuff like that that drive the economy. So I'm hoping we can come to some resolution on that, but it's going to take a change, though, in American thinking too, where we. People have to learn to save money and to basically impose some self discipline and not be so compulsive to buy things, and we will live in a very consumeristic environment. Well,
Stoney
remember back in your age, and starting in my it was keeping up with the Jones. Exactly, okay, everybody, the neighborhood, everybody was keeping up with the Jones. But that's even more statistically. You can look at the dollars of how many people are spending so much money trying to outdo the Jones. Now it's not just keeping up with them. Now I have to look richer. I have to look more wealthy. I have to look more successful. And what people are doing, you know when, when I, when I started growing up, you knew you were going to get a starter home, and you're probably going to drive a used car, and when you were 35 or 40, you might start looking at buying or building your dream house. Well, now the kids today want to come out of high school or come out of college, they want the new home, the the dream home. They want the brand new car. They want the motorcycle. They want, the watches they want the, you know, $400 sneakers. They want all of the stuff they want it now and the changes is, in my error, you were willing to work up toward that. You were hopefully gonna still get it, but that was 20 or 30 years after the kids today are wanting it. Now, now, now, now. Well,
Jason
I mean, unfortunately, I may hate to say it, but I have to blame my generation that absolutely have have have allowed you know this, this idea of kind of an unrealistic view of of what life actually is. I mean, you just look at homes. Look at the type of houses that people live in now, even at young ages, that's,
Stoney
that's what I'm talking about. And I don't go get that little, tiny starter home where two people really put it off in the holiday
Jason
they don't even build those homes anymore. That's the problem. I mean, it's the whole,
Stoney
that whole, because nobody's buying them, right?
Jason
It's like, you look at, you still go into old neighborhoods, you look at the kind of homes that, you know, I know the kind of house I grew up in. It was very, very small. It was very modest, you know, we didn't have a whole lot of money, and so we did what we did. And I remember
Stoney
when I took Cott Dr Miranda to one of the first homes that I grew up in as a kid, yeah, and she looked at it and said a whole family of five lived in that and I went, yep, it was tiny. It was small, and it just looked even smaller now. But, you know, 60 years later, but it was kind of crazy to see that little house and go, yep, that's where I lived. And she was like, just, yeah, yeah.
Jason
It's, I mean, some of this, this, I mean, it's just, it's mind boggling on some of these statistics on how much money this country is in debt. And I think the last time, I mean, our deficit was somewhere around $32 trillion which is just, you know, you're not even going to be able to afford the interest payments on on that, on that kind of debt. And so I'm always, you know, you hear people that are very concerned about our debt, and you know, that's, you know, America, well, we can always print more money. Yeah, our
Stoney
debts over $115,000 per person. Yeah, it to pay off the debt. If we were to pay off the debt, every person would have to man, woman and child in America would have to write a check for 115,000 I think it isn't. And please forgive me, listeners, I may be wrong. I got brain damage. I can't remember everything, but I thought the last time I heard, I think it was around $115,000 a piece. You know, I have some an interesting breakdown here of Baby Boomers, Gen xers and millennials on how much they spend every year. And so they're looking at years of 1988 for baby boomers, 2006 for Gen Xers, and 2022 for millennials, total expenditures. So remember those year dates for baby boomers was 63,700, Gen Xers was 69,000 and millennials was almost at 68,000 for food, baby boomers, 9080 800 for Gen Xers and 9000 for millennials. I mean, this is kind of nuts when you're looking at shelter, 12,000 15,015 five for millennials. Now, fuel and utilities. 20 520 820 700 for millennials, housekeeping supplies. I mean, they got this thing broke down. Yeah, you know, millennials. Were spending almost $900 a month, where boomers were around $700 a month. Wow. How did they expect us to live like that? You know, healthcare for baby boomers was 1900 for Gen Xers was 2300 and for millennials is almost $3,600
Ian
Oh my gosh.
Stoney
I mean, that's wild. We can't keep this up. And a lot of this stuff I got from lending tree and the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics, yeah. So I had fun actually researching this, realizing how much not fun is an moral right, right, realizing how much those differences are. And I think that's what makes this show unique, is that we actually look at it from just the generational perspectives. But there's some crazy stuff here right
Jason
now. This is the median income for the top 1% of the United States. And this was in 2022 was 570,000 the top 10% made a medium of 212 the lowest 25% made 34,429 and the lowest 10% made 15,640 bucks, wow, it said an annuity.org. Study found that when comparing income to debt and using the 570,000 figure as 100% the following is true, those earning less than 20% pay 26 point 11% of income toward debt. 20 to 39% paid 11.98% of their income toward debt, 40 to 59% paid 7.33% of income toward debt. And it just goes on and on depending on that debt to income ratio. So it's a, you know, we've got, we've got some issues here, and I don't know what the I don't think people gonna stop buying No, no, definitely. I mean, we're getting close to Christmas. Guess what people are starting to do? They're gonna start spending money again.
Stoney
I found an interesting thing here. I was kind of curious as to where the debt is coming from. And like the silent generation, their total debt, and this was 28 to 45 was around $40,000 3100 was credit card, because that was the early credit cards and going on. Mortgage debt was 29,000 the auto loan was around 4200 and the average student debt at that time was $1,100 baby boomers was 97,000 6000 for credit card, 66 for mortgage, 15,000 for auto loan, and about 3000 student loan. Gen X, this is where it goes crazy. Average debt for Gen X was almost 145,000 credit card was 9000 mortgage was over 90. Auto Loan was 20,000 and the average student loan debt was 40, almost 46,000 in Millennials now the average debt and because Millennials can't do certain things, right? So their debt is a little bit different than 115 credit cards at 4300 the mortgage debt is less because most of them can't afford a house right now. So it's at 70 loan debts are 18,000 and the average student loan is 33,000 and Generation Z. Think about this. This is 97 to 2012 they're already in debt. That's correct, okay, because that's almost what, 20 years now. Oh, yeah, 30, how many? How Yeah. So the average debt is 16,000 average credit card is 2800 the average mortgage debt is zero. Now, I'm sure that really changes with some numbers, because I think this is like two years old, but the average auto loan debt is 5000 and the student loan is 20,000 where they're just getting started. They haven't had time to really start accumulating, of course, right? They're really just getting started. So, but that'll change, obviously coming up. Oh yeah,
Jason
and just FYI. Here's a biggie, and we all heard about student loan debt going to school. That's gonna be American Indian and Alaskan Native student borrowers are the most likely to have payments of $350 a month or more and pay an average of 247 a month. Black and African American students, borrowers are the second most likely have monthly payments of 350, or more, and pay an average of 289. Asian students, borrowers pay an average of 272, a month. White students. White student borrowers pay an average of two. 29 and black degree holders have an average of 27,260 in undergraduate student student debt, Hispanic borrowers, 25,006 76 Asian borrowers, 25,006 70 white bars, 21 578, and Native American bars are 23, 343, and, of course, those things are huge, because I know one of the big issues robbing millennials is paying off the debt that they they incurred trying to get their education, or
Stoney
the government paying it off for them. Well, because they can't do anything with their basket weaving. Degrees? Well, I
Jason
mean, I think that goes to a bigger question than is, you know, what, what? What, exactly you taking loans out to learn? And I think that's that that lends to me another discussion. I think we've kind of touched on it, you know, regarding, you know, is this being, is this justifiable, the amount of money, right, you're putting out, are you going to be to get out of pay this off, right? Are you just ultimately going to, hopefully the government smiles at you and forgives that debt which is really not forgiven, somebody's going to, somebody's paying it. It just the way it is. And I think that needs to go back to a broader discussion on what is the point of higher ed in this country, what's, what's the overall mission, and if it's just simply to rack up debt for useless things, then you know, maybe some things to you know, maybe as a and this is something that the new administration may look like, these are part of these discussions. I know Bernie Sanders has been one of these people that have pushed for free, free education, and that's where I think I have problems with him on that I would agree that some professions should be free teacher
Stoney
if you want to be a teacher, I think if you want to be in law enforcement, I
Jason
think there's certain things that society should say, we need more of this, okay? And then I'm willing to pay for this and use tax dollars to do that. But there's a lot of degrees that are just kind of like, well, you know, that's fine if you want that, but don't expect the government to pay for that, right? You pay for that on your own. If that's what you want to do, do it. I
Stoney
also think if somebody goes into the military, they should get a free education. If you do four years or more in the military, I think one of the things we're going to do for you is pay for your education.
Jason
Yeah, you know. But then again, you would simply ask, what you are you saying for any type of degree? Well,
Stoney
I mean, you know, somebody that goes into the military is not going to go and get something in basket. We even are they, Oh no, they won't. They're going to come out and they're gonna want something to be productive,
Jason
right? As I'm saying, as long as it's something that it's, it's because a lot of people that go into military, and they come out and, you know, or, you know, I mean, not all of them go out and become engineers, right, you know? I mean, it's, yeah, now I would think you would look at paying off any or pay for any technical training. Yes, absolutely. I want to be a welder or Carpenter, whatever the case may be. Once again, I just think it's we have to kind of rethink what we're doing, and I know that's gonna, unfortunately, that that's gonna rub a lot of people wrong way well,
Stoney
and there it is gonna rub people the wrong way. And I think this started when we removed the warning labels. Okay, I'm sorry. I believe in Darwin's law that we need to, you know, take remove the warning labels off of things, and let stupid people kind of move on to the next level, and this is something else. Why do we have to pay for other people's stupid decisions? If you go get a degree in basket weaving, I'm sorry, you're going to need to pay that back. And if you can't, somebody else doesn't need to. But if we're going to have somebody that wants to be a productive member of society and truly help out like a teacher. I think that's one of the most noble causes on the planet, is to be a teacher. I have a number of teacher friends and the struggles that they go through just trying to keep their classroom. Miranda's daughter is now a teacher, and hearing what a new teacher has to go through and what they're doing to keep their classrooms up and things like that is ridiculous to me. We can do better as a society. Of you know, as Americans, American citizens, we can do better than what we're doing for education. I think we can, and I think that needs to be a big conversation on what we can do. All right, I agree. And I'm tired of having to pay for other people's stupid decisions.
Jason
Well, I mean, I think you're justified. I mean,
Stoney
I mean, here we are. We got we're talking about having $115,000 per man, woman or child in America in our debt. You know, if you can afford to be in two or three wars, you're taxing your people too much, and this is part of it. I would rather spend that money on our education, on our law enforcement and the defense of America, protecting our border, protecting our people, looking at our infrastructure. We don't need to be sent they're trying to send out another $40 billion to the Ukraine before Trump takes office. Really, we can't do something with that money here. Well, I, I can think of a couple of things we could do and
Jason
well that, I think that's kind of what drove that a lot of the turnout on this election is we got to, we have to rethink how we do business, instead of catering to a few companies that benefit and make money off of these decisions? Yeah, you know, that's the problem we have. I mean, we, we're, you're allowing a select few companies dictate basically how we're going to spend money. And I think that's where our problem comes in, and why people so angry? You know, I do. I mean, I think of all our flood protection issues, and there's no money to do this, and there's no money, but yet we have money to give to foreign countries. And it's like, you know, I understood America's role post World War Two. We re have to rebuild Europe, rebuild Asia, get those economies going again.
Stoney
But should we have to? But if you attack an American, I'm sorry, I'm not going to rebuild the country. I'm sorry. I'm not going to do
Jason
it. I mean, part of that is tied into, you know, the dollar being the reserve currency, and then the obligations that comes with and but, you know, that's why I think right now, I mean, you saw that discussion going on in with Justin Trudeau in Canada, with, you know, they're not meeting their their 2% contribution to NATO, yeah. And so other, you know, the Americas having to basically pony up, and their military is the Canadian military is not much. Yeah, it can't do much. And so, you know, this whole bit, but that all this contributes to America carrying a lot of this debt is because it's having to fund a lot of things that it shouldn't have to fund at this point. Very reasonable. If
Stoney
you looked at the Constitution, letter for letter, America wouldn't be in that business.
Jason
Well, I agree, but there were things that happened after World War.
Stoney
I don't care, see, I don't care. Stay on the Constitution. If we stayed on the Constitution, the UN wouldn't be in New York. We wouldn't be part of the UN. We wouldn't be sending all this money. We'd be back to the time of Thomas Jefferson, when the Barbary pilot started pirates, started taking American hostages and killed them all, and then came back to America and said, Don't do it again. Okay, so that's where we need to be. We need to be worried so much about the American citizen, right? We put the American citizen first. And if you touch it's like when Donald Trump was sitting there with the leader of the Taliban and said, I want out of Afghanistan. You've seen this video when they're talking about it, and he tells the leader of the Taliban that I want to leave, but there's a conditional leave. If you hurt one hair of an American's head, I will kill you. And the translator was like, wait, what? And he said, tell him what I said. And then Donald Trump pulls a picture of the Taliban leader's house out and hands it to him and walks out the door. You see, that's the America we need. We need for people to leave us alone. We're going to leave them alone, and we need to take care of the American citizen, because this is a constitutional republic. This has never been a democracy. I hate when our politicians say they're leaders and that this is a democracy. Number one, you're not a leader. You are supposed to be my representative only. And this is a constitutional government, Republic, government. So stop doing this. Let's, let's bring it down and be very simple. What was the new president of? Was it Argentina that came and clipped 87% of the bureaucracy of the government? Yeah,
Jason
I think he showed the picture of him with a chainsaw. I think it was he. And that's
Stoney
what, that's what Donald Trump loved it, and Elon Musk and vaswami. How do you say. Name. I can't remember, Vivek. Vivek, vivid, vivid. Department of government efficiency, they are going to start cutting waste.
Jason
Well, I'm
Stoney
excited to see what these two cats are gonna do. I've
Jason
read an article, and I know these are, you know, people can always pull these stories out. But I saw an article the other day that they paid a study to watch hamsters on steroids fight. Yeah, it's like $3 million right? Really, yes. So, you know those kind of low hanging fruit things. I mean, they're going to go after that and but look, but you see,
Stoney
that's what true pork is, okay, I want this bill to come through, but everybody that signs on to the bill is, well, I need a playground in my city, or I need a new park in my state, or you need to do this, or you need to do this to get monies coming into my area. No, I think that's something else that should happen in the government, one bill, one law. Don't add all this pork to it. You want to present something, present it, and you can't tack anything else on it. That's it. Well, I
Jason
am. You got to follow the money trail, though. I mean,
Stoney
that's the problem. There's too many money trails. What is it? The Department of Defense just failed their eighth Yes, eight audits. They can't
Jason
attribute 800 some billion dollars.
Stoney
There's a problem. Eight thought it in a row. You were shut down until you get your money right.
Jason
We don't know where it's at, and it looks like that's the military industrial complex, exactly. Let's be honest. Some of that money is going into black projects. There's no they're down on the books. You know,
Stoney
there's not $850 billion
Jason
of it. Well, it goes here, and it kind of brings up the stories of $50,000 toilets and, you know, all that other stuff. Let's and let's be honest, it's not all the government's fault too, right? A lot of these companies built the government, and I think some of the contracts, I think I saw was at Kevin, Kevin O'Leary. He's that investor guy that he was on Shark Tank, and he's been prominent on the news lately. I know he's was very critical the previous, you know, the previous administration. And I think he's very happy that Trump got elected because of just the overall, the regulations and but he was talking about, I forget the term that he used. It was contracts plus or something like that. Forget the exact name, but basically it allows basic companies to just build the government for tons of money. Well, yeah, I
Stoney
think about this
Jason
combination of all. It's it's us as people that have to come to to a realization that, yeah, what is fair to deliver a product if the government needs this, it's not a means for me to get rich, just like a private company wouldn't go and try to build another company that because they knew they wouldn't get it. But they
Stoney
do that exactly. Do that, because they allow two things to happen. If they want a new jet, we're going to pay you just millions and millions of dollars to develop the jet. Okay, well, at that point in time, that's where it needs to stop. But no now that you're going to have the same company start building these jets. What was it? The b1 bomber, the b2 bomber that was, they were over $4 billion to build, but they could have been built for, you know, $500 million but they were charging billions for it, because that's how the company makes its money and does research. No How about we're going to put this out here, and we're going to pay X amount of dollars for, you know, the ideas. And then we go to the next step, and then, okay, somebody, how much is it going to cost you to build it right and and instead of just keeping this military industrial complex going with unseen funds of the American public, right to check, right to check, right to check, and there's been how many times that we pay these military industrial complex companies and still haven't received the product?
Jason
Well, that okay, this is the, this is the term, I will say. It's called contract plus a cost plus contract is an agreement where the client agrees to cover the cost of the project or service, plus an additional fee for the service providers, overhead and profit. So yeah, some of these things, some of these things, are going to be looked at by this new department of government efficiency. I could tell you, because a lot of this is getting, you know, the fat cats are not happy right now, I could tell you, and matter of fact, I've said one of the biggest people that were fighting fighting the election of Donald Trump, because exactly this is what they feared. Yes, where I said, why do people hate? Hated Trump so much? The reality, the reality is, is he's going to close down some of these money channels. And that's where people get start getting real. Start getting real. You know, antsy and you start doing that because they've been living a certain way and generating a certain income, and now they're no longer going to be able to do this. Now, I'm not naive to sit back and tell you that all that's going to go away. It's just the nature of the beast. Oh, but we can close it down some can we can minimize or you can at least get some accountability back in, in the system to a degree, you're never going to have 100% accountability in government. It's just not possible, right? It just, it is, because there's too many people that benefit from government inefficiency, right? I mean, I mean, let's be honest. Yep, you know these companies that have these, cost plus contracts. Yeah, they like it just the way it is. That's right, you know,
Stoney
that's a loss, plus whatever it is, they
Jason
can get more money. So, I mean, it's, you know, they don't want nothing, you know, it's like, I've said, it's so funny, I read up here in our own state, you know, governors will have campaigned on on good government and stuff like that. And I heard a legislator one time say, because you're not going to like what good government is going to be, because good
Stoney
governments almost no government, exactly. I
Jason
mean, say it, it's basically a force 100% honesty. Well, there's a nobody that's right. Nobody wants to really be honest.
Stoney
Let's be honest here. Okay, let's be honest here. Kamala Harris said she's gonna come out and she's gonna fix the economy, right? So in less than four months, she raised over a billion dollars for her campaign and wound up $20 million in debt. Tell me again how she plans on fixing our economy. Oh, she's a great person to look to for that, right? I
Jason
mean, she, she, I mean, no,
Stoney
she's not a good person to look for for that. Well, I mean
Jason
she, I mean look, I mean now with the elections in rear view mirror, I mean the fact of the matter, she was a bad candidate, and she never could articulate a single position. She flip flopped on everything that she wants. Well,
Stoney
they had proof of that, where she was talking to some people pro Hamas and talking to another group about pro Israel, three days apart, just in different areas of the country.
Jason
I think the Democrats have a they got to do some soul searching with their heart. They need to do some soul searching with their party. And look, and I want a country with two viable parties. Yes, because you're three or four, I remember the fact in the mail, you'll never have three. It's going to always be two, and unless something just some paradigm shifts change like you, for example, you know, what Trump put together is not the traditional Republican Party. It's not, I mean, in many ways, the Republican Party is a lot like Democrats were back in the 60s, of what it stood for and what are the issues that it was kind of their, their, their kind of bell cow type issues. It's different now and so, you know. But the other side also needs to figure out, and needs to look at themselves in the mirror and going, What Why did? Why have we lost all these people? You know, because there was a massive shift to the right. Yes, there was in all the age demographics everywhere in the United States. I mean, if you look at the charts of any Democrats, you'd be very concerned. And if they keep doubling down on stupid when you can just look at that and go, that don't even make sense. How does that even work? Yeah, then you they're going to be in the in the political wilderness for a long time, and maybe they need to be in the political
Stoney
areas blue, where the the areas that did not require voter ID, all right, think about that. That says something for itself. And I would like to remind our listeners that I don't know who did this, but I appreciate it very much, but someone started and let us know a hashtag, Stoney for President. Okay, I just want to remind everybody about the Stoney for hashtag, a Stoney for President. Hat. I
Jason
would love it, you know, I would love, you know. So, you know, I love to get some of these, these, some of these national figures on our show. Great. But
Stoney
this is, this is about debt. And I want to get back to that right quick, back in, you know, the early 1900s you know, the bank system kind of started, I think the Bank of North America chartered. And what was it? 1781, and it was one of the first commercial banks. But where, say, 1900 the early 1900s what was the largest lenders in America? I don't know two things, pawn shops and loan sharks,
Ian
really,
Stoney
yes, because when the Great Depression happened and things like the banking system was closed, so the largest lender in America was loan shark, was pawn shops. And then, of course, if you didn't want to have collateral to get your 30 day loan from them, then you went to a loan shark and
Jason
paid an exorbitant amount. Yeah, the interest.
Stoney
And, you know, through the 19th century, the installment lending kind of, it kind of started getting really big and credit cards in the mid 20th century, you know, by 2000 over 70% of US households have at least one general purpose credit card. Yeah, that's pretty significant there. I found
Jason
this kind of interesting for talking about debt levels vary according to a region that you live in, really, and they say consumers in McAllen, Texas have the highest auto debt across all generations.
Ian
Wow.
Jason
This is from lendingtree.com so Gen Z ers in northeast cities like Boston and New Haven Connecticut had the highest amount of loan debt, while Millennials carried higher student loan balances in southeast cities like Durham, North Carolina and Atlanta, Georgia, and they basically said they use this analysis On 428,000 anonymized credit reports from lending tree users. So according to them, they said the median non mortgage debt balance by generation was Gen Xers, and this was at 44 to 59 was 33,000 858, 59 millennials, ages 28 to 43 30,005 58 baby boomers, age 60 to 78 18,007 79 and Gen Z ers, 18 to 27 $16,562
Stoney
you know, there's another aspect We need to look at too is the predatory lending, oh yeah, stuff, the overall cost, predatory lending practices, cost American borrowers, approximately $25 billion annually, about 9.1 of that is predatory mortgages and predatory rates, payday loans, these are really short term, high interest loans. You know, when you go against your check and you write a check and they just pull that right about $3.4 billion and the rest of it is just other you know, predatory lending practices, you know that that catch people. That's just insane, and that's one of the things that are leading possibly Bernie Sanders and Trump, you know, for
Jason
just short, looking, did we, I think, matter of fact, I thought maybe we did an episode or a show on predatory lending practices before,
Stoney
no, but I'd like to do it, if y'all are inclined. Yeah, that might
Jason
be that may be a good topic to look at. Maybe less for that one too. Yeah, in depth, but, but, you know, this is fun, fun. Stat here, so four of the five metro areas where Gen Xers owe the most, or in Texas, McAllen tops the list, where Gen Xers owed a medium balance of 46,001 66 hefty auto loans appear to be the main driver in the Lone Star State with Gen Xers typical car debt hovering around 29,000 in multiple cities. Wow. So something's going on in Texas, or, you know, just maybe it's lending tree com is they say Gen Xers credit card balances with the highest in the northeast and Florida, Bridgeport, Connecticut, 8006 69 in New York City. 7922 top to list, followed by. Miami with 7007 97 Lakeland 7777, and Cape Coral 7714, only 25% of Gen X are still carry student loans. However, their median balance is 31,066 the highest of any generation. So, yeah, that's kind of a little overshot for Generation X, right?
Ian
This is crazy hearing all these statistics and these numbers and like, it's daunting. Yeah, it is. It's, it's kind of a it also kind of gives me a little bit of peace to knowing that, like, I'm not the only one that's, like, in some debt right now, that I'm that I'm a little bit like, concerned about, especially, like, you know, you know, given my generation, I feel like there's a lot of people that I've talked to recently that are, like, you know, struggling as well. And I don't know it's, it's crazy to hear all this and trying to equate it in my life.
Jason
Well, I mean, you know, it's, they have it all broken down. Oh, I mean, it really does. I mean debt and gender, you know, the medium, full time, yearly way for men in 2022 was 61,001 52 and for women, was 50,700 Wow. Um so women over 65 also lag when it comes to retirement income and savings. About 50% women, women ages 55 to 66 have no personal retirement savings, compared to 47% of men, according to us, census, that's wild. They say, yeah, overall, Experian found that men have more debt than women, including 2% more credit card debt, 20% more personal loan debt, 16.3% more auto loan debt and 9.7% more mortgage debt. So I think it all kind of balances out a little bit, you know. I mean, men may move morning more money, but the same time they're carrying more debt. Yeah. So, you know, kind of pick your poison if you want to make more money, you want more debt, you know? I mean, I yeah, I don't know. I mean, unless you're willing to just go live off in the wilderness somewhere and live off the grid. They say some 44% of women 18 to 29 said debt has led to them delay buying a home, getting married, having children or making other life adjustments, as opposed to 34% of men in the same age bracket. Wow, so women start life after college and deeper financial hold than men, holding 58% of the student loan debt borrowers. Borrows who also identifies LGBTQ also start out at a debt disadvantage, with an average of 16,000 more in student loan debt than those who don't. I'd like to see that a little bit more broken down. What degrees, gender, what men are going and generally major in versus what women major in. And I have a feeling men are more going to be getting degrees in what I would call fields that can pay back and have higher incomes, right versus women? Because I think I saw something where, generally women, for the most part, if you look at total, a lot of their their degree choices, are not what I would call,
Stoney
you know, super high paying jobs. They're teachers, they're nursing exactly, you know, they're more,
Jason
more human centric, yeah, type which you need those professions. It's just for whatever reason those professions don't generate or demand that that kind of income. So, I mean, as I say, you got to look at all this stuff and, you know, it's, you know, one thing is one way because of this. And so some of these studies, you got to probably look kind of beyond the numbers a little bit. And
right now it looks like credit card balances by age. It looks like anybody from 40 to 59 are about the same 2.2 trillion of what they of what they what they owe. So, yeah, it's, it's a lot of this stuff is just a. Medical loan debt. This is interesting. 15,000 the third, let me see if I'm reading it right, medical bills. Now, of course, those kind of things nobody wants. A lot of times, those are just unfortunate life throws at you. Say, a study found that 25.8% of people with medical debt reported low or very low levels of financial well being related to the debt. Percentages of those with medical debt, concerned about financial health by income, so that 15,000 to 3499 999, showed a 40.2% of this financial well being. So, yeah. So, yeah. I mean, we are in we're in
Stoney
trouble, we owe
Jason
a lot of money, and we're in trouble. And I just think, and if you look at the age groups of who saves money, and it's generally older people, older generations, I'd say, I would say saving was more of a hallmark of the silent generation and Baby Boomer generation. And let's be honest, it's because they generally, at least those older ages, kind of remembers not having and unfortunately, we have been very blessed as a country. We you know, I've always said we're a victim of our own success, that most of us live fairly decent lives when it comes to what we want and what we can get, and our material well being is, generally, for the most part, kind of taken care of. So we've, you know, newer generations, Generation X, myself, Millennials, Generation Z, right? You know, we've never lived in an environment where there was potential soup lines or everything just completely your money becomes worthless, right? And what do you do? I
Stoney
think would have been close to that, have we another? Had another four years of the liberal Biden
Jason
crime? I think would have been close. I think you Yeah, I would agree that the current practices would have continued. They would have just continued printing money, and unfortunately, that would have driven inflation higher and higher and higher. And that's, unfortunately, the side effect of of doing that,
Stoney
bad practices.
Jason
It's, it's just how we how we're going to get out of this. We'll say, I mean, the problem is that, you know, the Trump administration, they really have two years, because, you know, these congressmen are going to be looking at two years, they're going to be looking at reelection. And
Stoney
I think they're going to, we're not going, we're not going blue next time. So I think we'll be all right,
Jason
oh yeah. I mean, we'll say, I mean, I mean, you know, maybe the, you know, the Democrats will, will, will come to their senses on some of this stuff. So, yeah, there it is. I just pulled up this site. What is the national debt today? Yeah, 35,967,910,592,000
and and $77 that's 100,006 681 for every single person in America. Wow, so and it just seems to be going up so as
Ian
wild. Yeah, like I said earlier, it's crazy to see that. It's crazy to hear all the numbers and the statistics on things. It's daunting, and it also makes me feel just a little bit better knowing that I'm not the only one that's like, you know, struggling with some stuff. But yeah, that's a
Jason
so, yeah. I mean, this is something we can look at. I mean, I think definitely we can look into the some of these predatory lending practices, yeah, and unfortunately, a lot of these places pop up in very, in very poor areas. And unfortunately, does it keeps these people basically a perpetual loan, right? And, you know, I mean, it's a legitimate business, but at the same time, is it, is that really what you need there? So, I mean, that's something maybe we can discuss in another episode, right?
Ian
All right. Well, as we usually do at the end of the at the end of the episode, as always, we have different place. Is where you can comment and reach out to us, like I've been saying recently, we have the YouTube channel and the faith or, well, YouTube, Facebook and Spotify, all have like comment sections where you can, you know, leave more short form answers. We have an email address get defended together@gmail.com, where you can send more longer form responses. If you want to do that. Still have the website on the website, and we're also trying to tiptoe our way towards video stuff in the future. So yeah, looking forward to that.
Stoney
We've journeyed through decades of financial shifts, exploring how debt has shaped and sometimes shattered the American dream. Thank you for joining us on this exploration. If you have some thoughts, stories or insights, we'd love to hear from you, remember understanding these issues is the first step toward change. Keep learning and keep questioning,
Ian
and until next week, thank you so much for listening. Bye.
Jason
Goodbye everyone. God bless.
Stoney
Thank you for hanging out with us today. You're the best. Peace.