For Where Your Treasure Is

Are you storing up treasures on earth or in heaven?

Are you focused on the temporal or the eternal? Hi, I'm Rob West. Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 6 that our hearts will always follow after what we treasure. Was He talking about money? Chad Clark shares his insights with us today, and then we'll take your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith in Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, Chad Clark, our FaithFi executive director joins us again today, which always means something exciting is in the works. Chad, great to have you back with us.

Thanks for having me. So our team here at FaithFi has been spending some time in the Sermon on the Mount, specifically where Jesus talks about our hearts and what we treasure, and I'd like for us to talk about this idea today because it's really important for each of us to answer this question, and it's a central part of what we do here at FaithFi. Isn't that right?

Yeah, it absolutely is. Our vision here at FaithFi is that every Christian would see God as their ultimate treasure, and I want to unpack that a little bit today by looking at the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Matthew 6, 19-21, and I'd love to read that if that's okay, Rob. It says, Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Yeah, that's such a powerful verse and one we use a lot when talking about stewardship because it challenges us to evaluate what we treasure most.

Yeah, it really does. We can see what is it that our heart is really desiring, and we can look at this literally and replace the word treasure with money, and so it's common for us to say where our money is, there our heart will be also, and we can use this sometimes to encourage generosity for people to look at their checkbook to see where their heart really is based on what their treasure is or where their treasure is going. But I think there's another way that we can look at this word treasure, which actually isn't specifically treasure physically, but more of this idea of what do we value or what are we devoted to? I love kind of the parallels here between this Matthew 6 verse and what we see in Matthew 13 44, where Jesus tells us the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field which a man found and covered up, then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Now we see the word treasure here in both of these. But for this man in Matthew 13, there is nothing more important, more valuable or more glorious than this treasure that he has discovered.

Well, that's exactly right. And so when we say our vision here at faith fly is for God to be our ultimate treasure, what we're saying is that he becomes our heart's desire. He is our devotion. And that's really foundational to the way we end up managing money, isn't it?

Yeah, it really is. And Jesus follows up this statement in Matthew six, we see in Matthew 6 24, he says, no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot cannot serve God and money. You see, money is a terrible master, Rob, but it is a useful tool.

I love how Paul David Tripp puts it. He says money is one of God's good creations, but a good thing becomes a bad thing when it becomes a ruling thing. So the question that I want us to wrestle with today is where is our treasure is our hope, joy, safety, satisfaction, our identity found in money, and the things of this world, or in the person of Jesus?

Wow. Yeah, that's a powerful question. And as you even say that, it makes me think how sometimes we may look to money to do what only God can do for us. Only he can provide hope and joy and safety and satisfaction when he is the object of our abundance.

Absolutely, Rob. You mentioned how money is a terrible master, Chad, but it's a useful tool. So help explain how viewing God as our treasure impacts our usage of money in our remaining moments here. Yeah, I think when God's the treasure of our hearts, it completely changes the way that we view and use money. We come to see money as a tool for his glory, and our desire is to just faithfully steward what he has entrusted to us. And that means that our financial decisions may look and probably should look very different from the rest of the world, because we aren't here to build our kingdom, but his.

Well, it's an important message. It's central to what we do here at FaithFi. And folks, if you'd like to partner with us to help others on their stewardship journey, would you consider supporting FaithFi? A gift of any amount would go a long way to helping us bring this message to more people. In fact, a gift of $25 or more would allow us to send you a copy of our new study, Rich Toward God.

Just go to faithfi.com. We'll be right back. The opinions offered during this program represent the personal or professional opinions of the participants given for informational purposes only.

Any information provided is not intended to replace advice from a financial, medical, legal, or other professional who understands your specific situation. It's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to take your calls and questions today. The number to call is 800-525-7000. Again, that's 800-525-7000. We've got some lines open today, but here on a Friday before a holiday weekend, probably you have a question or two rolling around in your mind about your financial life.

We'd love to help you think about it in light of biblical wisdom. So again, you can call right now at 800-525-7000. Let's dive in today. We'll begin in Chicago. Hi, Tina. Go right ahead. Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. We are getting ready to purchase a new home. My question is about capital gains. My husband and I bought the home over 30 years ago. We bought it at a sheriff's sale before sheriff's sales were even a known thing, and so we got it at 100,000. It is now worth roughly 500 to 550, and we owe no debt. We have no mortgage or anything, so I'm just wanting to make sure, are we going to be getting hit with any capital gains? We are buying a new home, but it's going to be, we're downsizing, and the new home is at 450.

Okay. Yeah, so what you do with the money after you sell it has no bearing on it, and whether or not there was a mortgage has no bearing, it's all related to the capital gain, meaning the gain from the original purchase price to the selling price, and so you're able to subtract that original purchase price from your selling price, and then you would also subtract out any improvements you made, not maintenance, replacing a roof at the end of its life, but things that enhances the value of the property. But if you've lived there two out of the last five years, so from the date of the sale back five years, if you lived in that as your primary residence for two of those five years and you're married filing jointly in terms of a tax status, then you can exclude a half a million dollars of gain from the capital gains that you would owe on it.

So in your example, if you're selling it for, you know, anything less than $600,000 because you have a $100,000 basis and you get a half a million dollars of gain excluded, assuming you're married filing jointly and you've lived there two out of the last five years, then you would have no capital gain. Does that make sense? Yeah, yes it does. I just wanted to make sure I was looking at it properly and since we're buying something at less price. So as far as improvements, as you said, so normal, every house has a roof, every house has windows, those kind of improvements don't vary, but we really don't have to worry about it then because we're within that range, or do I need to dig out the records from the patio addition, the sunroom addition, and stuff like that. It doesn't sound like you do. So just to be clear, you did live there two out of the last five years as your primary residence, not a second home or anything like that, correct?

We have been here over 30 years and the basement looks like it. Okay, got it. All right, and your tax status is married filing jointly, correct? Correct, yeah. So as long as you, I mean, if you paid $100,000 for it, as long as you sell that property for less than $600,000, you have no capital gain. Now if the selling price were to go above that, then we may want to do some math on, okay, what are the fees that were involved in the transaction, or were any of those improvements that you made, and you'd talk to your CPA about this, classified as truly improvements and not maintenance, and you know, you all could justify a case for that, but it doesn't sound like it's necessary because the selling price is less than $600,000. Yeah, at this time, that's what we're anticipating. But again, in our market, in our zip code, there is absolutely not one house on the market. So it's going to be interesting to see what it ends up at.

Yeah, and maybe they bid you up, that'd be great. And if it gets above 600,000, then at that point, you could get with your CPA and say, okay, what else can I add to this cost basis? Let's look at the fees involved in the sale of the property. Let's look at our list of improvements over the last 30 years. And you tell us, will any of these actually be applied to our cost basis as improvements? And then you all could figure out whether or not you get that up above 600,000.

But if you don't sell it for more than 600,000, you're probably in good shape. Great. All right. Thank you very much. All right.

God bless you. Thanks for calling today. 800-525-7000. The lines are filling, but we do have several available. 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's go out to North Carolina. Hi, Rita. Go right ahead.

Hi, thank you. I have started, I've got two adult children now, 23 and 26. And when they were little, I started joint CDs and I have multiple ones for them. It's actually under their social security numbers, but I contribute to them. And I was just wondering if they're listed all as payable upon death. Not that I'm wishing for mine at the moment, but if that happens, do they end up having like inheritance taxes? And I also have another question with that.

Yeah, let's tackle that first and then we can get on to your second question. So there is no inheritance tax. So if there was any tax to be paid at your death, it would be that your estate would pay taxes prior to then distributing whatever assets remain after debts are paid and taxes are paid to your heirs and they would not pay any tax on receiving the inheritance. Now there is no estate tax currently until you have an estate more than $13 million.

That's going to drop to $5 million as of 2026. But unless you have a pretty sizable estate, you don't have to worry about taxes on any of that. Now you mentioned payable on death, which has to do with how the assets will pass outside of probate, but you also mentioned joint. So do you know, are these titled jointly where your joint tenants and so therefore you and your child are equal owners, 50-50 owners of each of these accounts? Is that your understanding? I have my name on them as well.

I think they're 50-50 at this point. If I change it, I think there's something having to do with the signatures on files and and all or have them being have to be present during the time. Maybe because you set them up when they were little, so these may actually be custodial.

I would get a little bit more information because, you know, it does change things a bit. If they're only in your name and they're just payable on death to the to the kids, then they will just receive them at death as a part of the inheritance. And, you know, it's your asset until you pass away. If they're too truly jointly titled, then they're already owners of 50 percent of this and the other 50 percent is yours and at your death, then the other 50 percent would be left to them as, you know, their inheritance or part of it, according to your will or according to the the POD, the payable on death. If they're 50 percent owners now, that means they're actually paying the girls taxes on the interest along the way because they're responsible for half of that interest.

So you may want to check into that just to kind of clarify, but in either case there is no estate tax currently until you get above 13 million, soon to be 5 million, and there is absolutely no inheritance tax, so I wouldn't worry about that. And the POD is great because it's going to make sure that they get whatever portion is not already theirs through a joint ownership directly outside of probate immediately on your death, so it's very efficient. I've got to take a break, Rita, but once you stay right there and we'll tackle the second part of your question when we come back. This is Faith and Finance Live biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Call right now 800-525-7000. Stick around. It's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We've got a few lines open today.

800-525-7000 is the number to call with your financial questions. Right back to the phones we go. Before the break we were talking to Rita in North Carolina about some CDs that she set up a long time ago for her daughters. And Rita, you mentioned you had a second part to the question, so go right ahead with that. Yes, the second part is if, say, my daughters take the money out, whatever the reason, buying a house, car, whatever, you mentioned about the taxes, would the taxes on the interest from that CD would have to be kind of split between her and me for paying, even if she took all the money out, or should I, could I just take my name off the CD and just give it to her? Yeah. I know more than one question, sorry.

That's okay. Yeah, so typically the interest, so there's income on those CDs, you know, and it's typically taxed at maturity. If it's a longer term CD of more than 12 months, oftentimes it will get taxed as it accrues, so it might be paid annually over a multi-year CD. And then, you know, that income is taxed, considered, the interest earned on the CD is considered taxable income by the IRS, whether it's received as cash or it's reinvested. And so you report on it each year, and it would be split based on the ownership of the account. So if you were joint owners, then you would be responsible for half of it, and they would be responsible for half of it, but that would be done along the way as it's owned. A shorter term CD, typically at maturity, that's when the interest is credited, and then you'd recognize it as taxable income in the year the interest was credited upon maturity.

So, but it is, it is definitely going to come down to who owns it. Now, you could gift them your interest in the CD if you truly are joint owners, and then, you know, you could do up to $18,000 per year if you're married. You and your husband could do $36,000 per person, and you don't even have to tell the IRS. If you go above that, it would chip away your lifetime gift exemption of which stands today at $13 million also, same as the estate number. So you can give away that amount over your lifetime. So it would be a gift of that account, your portion of that account, so they would be the sole owner of it, and then at that point they'd be responsible for 100% of the interest that would be taxable income as far as the IRS is concerned. Does that make sense?

Yes, let me just check. So I could gift them up to $18,000 of CDs per year without implication. Yeah, and there really is no implication beyond that other than you have to fill out gift tax form 709 and just tell the IRS you did it because it's going to chip away at your lifetime exemption. So there's an annual exemption of $18,000, that's the number this year, 2024, per person. And when you go beyond that, you start to chip away at your lifetime exemption. Doesn't mean there's any taxes due, you just have to let the IRS know, and they'll chip away at your lifetime exemption. But if these were long-term CDs, you've been paying interest along the way, which would have been part of your tax return, is that correct?

Yes, and any interest has been just kind of rolled into the CD, all the CDs. But it's still taxable whether or not you receive it in cash or it's reinvested. So a lot of that has already been taxed, so it would really be just, you know, whatever is the new amount that's being credited at maturity or as an annual credit, if that makes sense.

Okay, it's making a lot more sense. I think your next step related to this portion, Rita, is to connect with your CPA. Do you normally use a CPA or do you file your own taxes? I've been filing my own taxes but having some assistance, but not from a CPA. Yeah, well just having a tax professional or somebody who's knowledgeable in this area help you here, just because you're looking to perhaps make a change in the ownership of this account, which has implications from a tax standpoint, at the very least just letting the IRS know of the gift. And it's also going to change how you're treating the taxable income moving forward.

So I would just check with somebody in the tax area before you made this decision, but this isn't complicated and you should be able to take care of exactly what you're doing. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate you being on the program. Let's go to Florida. Hi Sandy, how can I help?

Hi there. My husband and I recently, about two, almost three years ago, moved from South Florida to Central Florida. When we moved up here we were told that we really wouldn't have to worry much about hurricanes. But I have this kind of a fear because I'm hearing about how many hurricanes we're supposed to have this year and we don't have any hurricane shutters or anything like that.

It didn't come with the house. So we've looked into getting impact windows and it's going to run about $45,000. And so we're looking at different ways that we can possibly get this money. We have investments.

We thought about a HELOC. It just so happened that my husband got a letter from Discover offering him a personal loan at $7.9 for $40,000. Or the window company offers a year of no interest. But then of course if you don't pay it off in the year, whatever the interest rate is going to be at that time, I don't know. But I'm not sure about going into my investments because I don't know what's going to happen in our country in the next year or two.

That kind of freaks me out, how that's going to affect us. So I just don't know where to pull the money from and feel like I'm still doing the right decision. Yeah, I totally understand. I can understand being from South Florida, I understand hurricanes and impact windows.

As a new married husband and wife, we made the decision to invest in impact windows. And I also can understand how you're trying to navigate, okay, where do I pull this from? Do I pull it from existing assets? Do I borrow it?

And if I borrow it, where do I borrow it from? So these are all great questions, Sandy. Let's do this. I'm headed toward a break.

That was really great background information. So you stay right there. And on the other side of the break, I'll give you my thoughts. Thanks for your call. We'll be right back on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today. Also coming up in the next segment, we will hear from Jerry Boyer. It's always great when Jerry joins us to give us an update on the markets and he's been working on some corporate engagement with some of the biggest companies in the world.

He'll give us an update on that as well. Before the break, we were talking to Sandy in Florida and they're wondering about investing in hurricane impact windows in their home. It would cost them about $45,000. They've got a little over a half a million dollars in investments, no mortgage, no debt. She's retired and collecting Social Security.

He's still working at age 62. And because they've lived modestly, they've got a couple of thousand dollars in surplus every month. And you're just wondering how's the best way to go about this. And you know what I would say, Sandy, is I like the option of you getting the impact windows. I realize they're expensive. But if you are in need of new windows and you said you don't have shutters, so you're going to have to do something, then even though there's more expense, I think you're going to get a good bit of that back upon the sale, number one. Number two, it'll keep you safer. I mean, the thing that I loved most about putting impact windows in our home in South Florida was that when we did go through hurricanes, especially when they were small ones and we decided to stay, the best part was you could actually see what was going on, especially if the hurricane hit during the day. Whereas when you're all boarded up, you have no idea what's going on.

It's all dark. And it was really nice to just be able to look out the window and know we were still protected. I think the other piece that you have to factor in is you should get a benefit on your homeowners insurance. And so that would be another consideration in terms of savings. I like you leaving the investments alone, especially because, you know, you've got such a significant surplus here. And so, you know, if you have the ability to put something down, I mean, let's say you could take five thousand dollars and put it down on this project and then you put two thousand a month against it. I mean, you'd have this paid off in a couple of years. So I think from that standpoint, I mean, there is something to be said about should you do it at the zero percent with the in the contractor? Because, you know, let's say you do it at zero percent. And at the very least, if you guys are diligent after year one, you know, you've already put, you know, 12 months of two thousand dollars a month from your surplus against this.

And, you know, that's twenty four thousand dollars. So you've only got twenty thousand left and maybe a time it at that point to pull twenty thousand out of the investments if you don't want to switch it over to a home equity loan at that point. But I think given how quickly you're going to be able to pay this down, if you prioritize this out of surplus, normally I would be cautious about taking the kind of, you know, 12 month no interest because you get, you know, often people will pay so little during that period because it's just not any incentive to do it because they're not paying any interest.

And then they get stuck at the end and get a high interest rate and end up paying a whole bunch of money. But you all could have a plan at the end of that 12 months to either put the remaining 20 K on a home equity loan or, you know, at that point, just pull less than half of what you would have ultimately pulled and pull it out of investments. But I think just given the surplus you have, I'd probably go that route and just be really diligent to put as much as you can toward it over that 12 month period. Does that make sense?

That does make sense. Let me ask you something about the HELOC. Should we I mean, should we go ahead and have that, you know, apply for it and have it there if we need it, just in case at the end of the year of the zero percent, we instead of going taking money out of the investments because I don't know what the stock market's going to do. I'm going to have that same amount of money.

Yeah, yeah, that's a good word. I could be on board with that, especially if you get the HELOC because it's a variable rate. And that way, if 12 months from now you haven't paid it off and you decide not to pull it from the investments because we're in a recession and your portfolio is down 20 percent, not to scare you, but that's certainly possible.

You've already qualified for it. It's sitting there. And let's say interest rates are a couple of points lower a year from now than they are today. And and we would certainly expect they're going to be lower.

We just don't know how much lower than you would get the benefit of that because the variable rate would go down with the interest rates. OK, that's a good idea. OK. Yeah, that all makes sense.

I really, really appreciate your advice. Thank you so much. All right. You're welcome, Sandy. God bless you. Let's see.

Enya's in Florida as well. Go right ahead. Hi, good afternoon. Is the first time I called the program. So I'm a real estate agent and the good Lord has blessed me the last month. And I, I did I did about fifteen thousand on a CD with Marcus at four point nine seven. I don't know if I did well. So for the next for the last remaining balance, what would you be the difference between high yield?

I wanted to protect some of this money because I had a very hard, bad hardship a couple of years. So what do you advise me to do? Yeah. So the the Marcus CD, was that a 12 month CD at four nine seven? Is that right?

Yes. But I took like a six month. Oh, you did a six month CD at four nine seven. OK. And how long ago was that? I just did it.

OK. OK, great. And how much did you put in that? Fifteen thousand fifteen.

All right. And how much do you have left in you? What what's the amount that you're considering what to do with next? Another fifteen.

Another fifteen. OK. And does this thirty thousand, does any portion of this thirty represent what I call your emergency fund or do you have that separate from this thirty thousand? No, the emergency separated because I continue doing my deals and I know there are more more pending clauses that I'm going to get commissions paid to. OK, OK.

But with my my bills and stuff. Sure. But but do you have anything in emergency savings today or is it all just future earnings that you're expecting?

Future earnings. OK. So I think from that. And I. Oh, I see.

OK. Yeah. I mean, so if this represents all of your liquid savings today, I would probably go with the high yield savings because that way you wouldn't have to pay any penalties if you need the money. And I realize you're saying, well, I've got some homes listed and they're probably going to sell.

But, you know, probably doesn't work when the unexpected comes, because by definition, the unexpected happens when we're not looking. So I kind of like the idea of you going with a high yield savings, which fortunately, you know, with high yield savings right now. I mean, although these are variable rates and they'll change with interest rates, you can get that same five percent today. If you go to Bankrate.com right now and click on high yield savings, you'll find something that's exactly what you're getting in that six month CD with FDIC insurance. So I think you're in good shape there, but I'd probably go high yield savings just given that you don't have anything else that's liquid currently.

Wonderful. I'll check that. Actually, I checked from previous programs. I went to Bankrate.com and I will double check with Fidelity maybe and make an appointment to go there and close with them. Yeah, you certainly could. I mean, most of the high yields are right now around four and a quarter. But you will see there's some at five and even five and a quarter right now that are five star rated that have FDIC insurance that are liquid savings accounts.

So I'm looking at five of them right now that are all five or more five star rated with FDIC insurance. So check that out when you have time. Thanks for your call. May the Lord bless you.

Well, folks, we're going to take a quick break when we come back. Jerry Boyer stops by and we take more of your questions. By the way, if you'd like to support our work here at Faith by between now and June 30th, it's a really important time for us to hear from you. Just head to faith by dot com and click.

Give a gift of any amount would help us finish the year strong and meet our giving budgets as well. We'll be right back. It's great to have you with us today on faith and finance live before we round out the program today with our final callers. Jerry Boyer is here. Jerry stops by each Friday afternoon to update us on the markets and what's taking place in the world of corporate engagement. And Jerry, a Memorial Day weekend upon us, huh?

It is. And I hope you have a good one. Hope you and your family have a have a good Memorial Day weekend. Yeah, we are looking forward to it. Should be fairly quiet.

And we're always grateful for a day to honor those who lost their lives defending our country. That's for sure. What what will the Boyer house be up to this weekend? I were thinking about once in a while we do this thing, this bonfire thing in the backyard. We have like created a little wood burning stone kind of thing. And if it's not rainy, I think there's I'm hearing rumblings out there in the in the Boyer text world of doing one of those, depending on the weather.

So that would be nice. I love that. You know, I'm starting to get to the age where my kids are old enough that, you know, they make plans for us. And it's always fun when that family text stream just starts going and the ideas start flying.

You never know what you're going to end up doing. Yeah. And it's an important day. And I don't know. I know this is not what we're going to talk about, but I did some research about the origins of it. And apparently, you know, probably the origin was after a particularly important battle where many Union soldiers died, that afterwards a group of freed slaves gathered together for a worship service.

And the children had a parade of singing hymns to God as part of the service to honor those who had fallen to end slavery. And that's an origin of this day that I wish more people knew about. Well, I'm glad you mentioned that, Jerry.

I didn't know that myself. And so thank you for sharing that. Well, we'll have to keep that in mind as we celebrate and remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our country this weekend and Monday.

Well, Jerry, let's go ahead. It was a day of worship. I'm sorry.

It was a day of worship before it was a civil holiday. Anyway, I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, that's that's very good. Let's talk about those markets. And I'd love for you just to give us an update. We've had some strength and then a sell off yesterday. It looks like market's catching its breath today.

Where do we find ourselves? Well, we're down for the week and usually there's one or two big drivers. And you mentioned Nvidia earnings and also sort of the big news in terms of macroeconomics was that the central bank, the Fed released its minutes. So the bank, the central bank, the Fed meets, makes an announcement, you know, like Punxsutawney Phil, it's going to be more weeks of winter or whatever. They make an announcement and they say, we're either going to pump more money into the system or we're going to pump money out of the system. They don't say it that way.

Mechanically, that's what's happening. They say we're going to lower rates, which is pumping money into the system. We're going to raise them, which is pumping money out. But we don't know exactly why they said that, because their notes, the notes from the meeting, the meeting is in secret, are not released right away.

Well, the notes from the last meeting were released this week, so we had to wait a few weeks. And basically, the notes indicated that the members of the Fed were basically finally maybe willing to admit that they haven't beaten inflation yet. So, you know, when when market participants look at that, when investors look at that and they say, OK, well, the Fed thinks it hasn't beaten inflation.

And they got that part right. And we know how they think, because they're Keynesians, not biblical economics advocates, where, you know, productivity and growth is the key to the future. They think that the way to fight inflation is to slow down the economy. So they slow down the economy by pulling money out of the system, making it harder to get loans, basically kind of slowing things down, decreasing the amount of credit. And so markets concluded this week that, you know, as they go back and forth between their two conflicting mandates, pump money into the system to get the economy going, pull it out of the system to slow down the economy to fight inflation. This week was one of the weeks where they think, OK, they're going to hit the brakes. They're going to try to slow the economy down.

They're not going to give us rate cuts. So the 40,000 Dow was based on an expectation that money party is going to start up again. They're going to start pumping. They're going to spike the punch ball again. And this week, markets said maybe they won't spike the punch ball.

And so they went down. That's the tremendous influence of the Fed. The other thing is that some of the bloom is coming off the rose when it comes to A.I.

There's so much of the market performance this year. The increase in the market was driven by expectations about what artificial intelligence could do. I think they do not have a fully biblical understanding of human nature. So they think that A.I. can essentially replace humans. And if machines can replace humans, then that means that whoever builds those machines that are going to replace humans is going to make a whole lot of money. But machines can't replace humans.

And they can never be as well made as we are. And we're beginning to find that out in some ways with quality control issues, excessive use of power. I mean, think about how much electricity A.I.

uses. The human brain, you know how much electricity the human brain uses? About as much as a ceiling fan set on low. That's how incredibly efficient we are. When you're charging your cell phone, that's about the amount of wattage that a human brain runs on. So we don't have to run giant power plants to make a brain work, right?

Brains can work on 1500 calories a day. Brains are much better than A.I. And I think people are beginning to figure out the power demands of A.I. are a real problem. The demand for chips is a real problem. Those chips are made out of stuff that only China has a lot of. So that's going to be a problem.

And those rare earths are really expensive. And that's going to be a problem. And wait a minute, you're using A.I. and it's hallucinating. Look, I love A.I.

I think it's a great tool, but it's a lousy God. And when you think something is a God, when you express that by worshipping it, liturgically, in the world of finance, when you think something is a God, you express that by creating a bubble valuation. And A.I.

got into bubble valuation territory. Interesting. Boy, it's such a helpful insight, Jerry, as we just think about this brave new world we're entering of A.I. making all of these promises, which when you remind us of a biblical worldview and how we should think about an intelligent design from Creator God, it just trumps anything that man will ever come up with. Absolutely.

So the most intelligent thing in the universe is us, because we were made as the highest thing in the universe by an infinitely wise God. Nothing's going to touch that. Now, that having been said, A.I. is a wonderful tool.

Sure. So feel free to use it. Don't worship it.

And don't give it P.E. multiples that are consistent with it doing miracles. Yeah, we've been there with Tulip Bulbs and Internet and Dotcom and all the rest.

Seems like we'd learn our lesson, but it seems like we just keep repeating the past in these situations. Jerry, let's quickly turn the corner. I know this was a big week for you. It seems like every week is with earnings season. You are participating in one of the big shareholder meetings.

Give us a quick update. Yeah, I helped a ministry, a pro-family ministry that was involved with Amazon to put a proposal on the ballot, which basically tried to hold Amazon accountable for banning some books. These books were trans skeptic books like Ryan Anderson, very respected, very sober Christian scholar, not a hater, not a crazy who wrote a book called When Harry Became Sally that questioned the wisdom of transition surgery, especially for minors.

But in general, that book was banned and some other similar books were banned. And they've also banned some other conservative sites from their from their Web. And the Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council, again, not haters, just mainstream Christian groups were kicked off their SMILE program where there's matching of charitable contributions.

So there was bias against Christians. And this ministry tried, you know, started that conversation, gave a speech, got a debate going. So that was progress. Yeah, Jerry, it seems like that's just kind of the order of the day that as you continue to shine a light on this and others are doing it as well.

But I think in many respects, Jerry, you and your team at Voyager Research are leading the charge. You know, these shareholder resolutions are not passing, but we're seeing more and more people coming to the table. And the conversations are being had where previously they were not correct.

Yeah. And some of the really bad proposals are also not doing very well. For instance, there was a proposal designed to disarm Israel that basically said to Amazon, cut off Israel from having access to your cloud computing services. The Israeli Defense Forces need that. And the argument they made was about civilian tragedies and deaths in Gaza.

And that's a terrible thing. I don't see how making Israel's smart bombs less smart or making the surveillance less effective and blinding them, you know, like blinding Samson in Gaza twenty five hundred years ago. I don't I don't see how that helps any. That doesn't help people in Gaza who are civilians who are getting caught in the crossfire.

But it does help Israel maybe get destroyed and wiped off the face of the earth. That proposal did very poorly. And I'm really happy that at Voyager Research, we we we've noticed that these proposals were coming and they were worried, worried in sneaky ways.

And we were able to blow the whistle and say to everyone, hey, wait a minute. This is not a due diligence and customer relations proposal. This is a destroy Israel proposal.

And once that happened and it got out into the press, then these proposals, the support really plummeted. So really. So I'm thankful to God that they lost.

Yeah. Well, Jerry, great work. We always appreciate you stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful weekend with your family and enjoy that bonfire, my friend. Thank you.

All right. That's Jerry Boyer. He's president of Boyer Research.

He's our resident economist and joins us each Friday. Roxanne, I know you've been waiting patiently, unfortunately, amount of time. But if you stay there, I'd love to chat with you off the air.

We'll hang out in the studio here for a few minutes and see if we can tackle your question. You know, folks, so thankful for you stopping by each day, being a part of this program. Thank you for the notes that you write and the comments that are so kind that you share when you call in and send us emails. We appreciate it. We love what we do here. And I couldn't do this without this amazing team that joins me each day to bring you this broadcast, beginning with our on air crew here today. Amy Rios, who's producing today, is along with Tahira Haines and our call screeners.

Today, we have a brand new call screen, a screener, a tiara. We're grateful for her, as well as Lynn, who's sitting in working with her and also Jim Henry serving us really well as well today. I do hope that as we take a moment to remember those on Memorial Day who have paid the ultimate sacrifice, that you would do that with a prayerful attitude and with a time just to enjoy the relationships that you have and the friends and the family around you this weekend. And that you'll come back next week and join us again as we continue to bring you biblical wisdom for financial decisions here on this broadcast each day. Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. Let me also say, if you'd like to support our work, this is a really important time for you to do that. As we head toward the end of our fiscal year, June the 30th, just go to faithfi.com and click Give. In the meantime, we'll see you next week. Bye bye.