Why It Goes Wrong

Today's version of Faith in Finance Live is prerecorded, so our phone lines are not open. Have you ever wondered what God's plan for the economy was before the fall?

Hi, I'm Rob West. The good Lord certainly intended for the world and economic activity to be quite different from what we see today. I'll talk about that with Jerry Boyer today. You'll find this discussion fascinating.

Then we have some great calls lined up, but please don't call in today, because this program is prerecorded. This is Faith in Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Okay, does he really need an introduction? Probably not, but Jerry Boyer is our resident economist and go-to guy for all things economic.

He's the president of Boyer Research, and you'll find his columns at World News Group. Jerry, welcome back. Always a pleasure to be with you, and I don't mind listening to the introductions.

I kind of like them. All right, I'll keep it up. Now, as you know, Jerry, this is actually part three of a six-part series on a Christian economic worldview that started during the financial crisis when you got a whiteboard out and decided you needed to tell somebody—it happened to be your children—how God originally created economics in the ideal economy. Well, I guess a couple of hours later after a lot of whiteboard scribbling, they had a pretty good framework, and you're going to share part of that today, right?

Yeah, they were my captive audience. It was the kids, and I did that because at the time I was in a lot of meetings with the White House, with the West Wing folks, the Council of Economic Advisors, conference calls with them and people from Treasury, and I felt like they didn't really have a principled approach to what was going on. So originally their thought was, well, nothing's happening here. Everything's fine. It'll all blow over. And I said, no, we're violating some fundamental principles. It's not all going to blow over. We're doing something wrong. And then when it didn't blow over but blew up, then they said, well, what we need is a massive bailout.

We just need to, you know, tax the people and borrow and then give that money or invest that money in the banks. And I said, that won't help. That's not the answer. And I just found myself frustrated in talking to them because they already thought they knew they had a framework already.

It was basically Keynes. And they didn't have the right framework. And when you tell someone truth from within a biblical framework and they don't have a biblical framework, they don't have ears to hear and eyes to see.

And so what does Jesus say? Well, in order to enter the kingdom, you have to be like a child. So I gathered together the children who didn't think they knew about economics. They weren't the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, so they were teachable. And I decided to teach them the basics of economics. And that's how this series came about. Yeah, well, we've talked about the ideal economy, part one, and part two, what goes wrong.

And by the way, if you miss those, you can find those on our website, faithfi.com. Today we're talking about why it goes wrong. Jerry, unpack that for us. Well, it goes wrong because we fix it the wrong way. And so, you know, things go wrong because we put, you know, the state in the center rather than God, because we don't recognize that economic growth is based on productivity rather than consumption.

And we don't recognize that you have to defer gratification. There is no growth if you consume everything now. All knowledge is done with capital.

Let's kind of get back to that. George Gilder has a new book out on this about how all wealth building is really knowledge building. So unless there's a period of time when you're doing something and learning how to do something, it's not valuable yet. No one will buy it yet because you're learning. Well, that's done with investment capital.

Somebody is paying you or you're not paying yourself. You're deferring your gratification. And what happens in the fallen world is we want it all now because we want to comfort ourselves in this in this veil of tears in this world where there's, you know, labor by the sweat of your brow and thorns and thistles.

We just want to eat it all now. And we don't defer. So the government comes along and says, we'll fix that. You're not savers, but we're going to create money out of nothing. And that will make you feel like you're rich and you will defend you. You don't have to defer gratification, but you can still build businesses. You can build houses. You don't know for sure that anyone's going to buy those houses. No one's stopping and saying, wait, did we build too many houses? Kind of like we did. Or wait a minute, did we build too many dot coms? Or wait a minute, did we build too many college campuses? You don't ask that question because governments attempt to fix the problem by creating an abundance of money when there isn't an abundance of savings creates a distortion and that makes things worse.

Yeah. And obviously, as this alienation between God and man works its way through the system, it leads to a shrinkage in production and in the amount of wealth created. And that virtuous cycle that you told us about in part one is disrupted. Well, why don't we see it and do something about it? We'll talk about that and much more with Jerry Boyer today.

We're talking about God's design for economics and why it goes wrong when we remove him from the equation. Jerry Boyer with us today. Much more to come just around the corner. I'm Rob West. This is Faith and Finance Live. And even though we're not here today and can't take your live calls, there's much more ahead on the program.

So please stay tuned. Great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. Joining me today are resident economist Jerry Boyer. We're talking about a Christian economic worldview. We're in part three of a six-part series talking about God's design for economics and wealth creation.

In part one, we describe the ideal economy. In part two, Jerry described what goes wrong. And today we're looking at why it goes wrong.

And Jerry, you were unpacking that before the break. I guess my question is, why don't the people in charge of things see this problem, this breakdown, and then do something about it? Well, in order for them to see it and do something about it, a couple of things need to be the case.

Not just one of them, but you have to have a few of them. One is, somebody needs to tell them. If no one's taught them, then how will they know? If no one's taught them about God and the design of the economy, the design of the universe, if no one's walked them through the creation account, but you don't just stop because that kind of ends on the curse, but there's a promise of redemption, then we get redemption later in the Gospels and we see the whole arc of history from garden to city in the Bible.

If no one taught them that, then they won't know it. If the Church doesn't teach biblical economics, what do we think? The masters of the universe, the people at the Davos meeting, that they're going to teach themselves biblical economics?

No. So they have to be taught, but they also have to be willing to overcome the natural bias of people who are part of ruling classes, which is to be God. Normally, most of my life, I've lived in neighborhoods that are, let's say, lower middle class, middle class, et cetera. So my friends, my fellow church members have not been members of elites for the most part. They're not tempted to think that they're like the gods of the world. Poor people, middle class people, we have our own temptations, but there's a particular temptation of people who are at the top of the state or at the top of giant corporations or at the top of giant foundations, which is to, you know, they don't trust that God exists, so they're going to play the role that the Bible gives to God and control everything and save the world from whatever they think is threatening the world, global warming or overpopulation or whatever. So they have to overcome the natural pride of being a member of the ruling class to say, as much as I feel like I'm powerful, I have to acknowledge that I'm really weak. James says, let the brother of high status exalt in his loneliness.

Well, that sounds weird, but they were in fact lonely. You know, the people at the top in Jerusalem, you read about this in my book, The Maker vs. the Takers, they felt like they were in control, but they were about to lose everything. They can't control the world.

They're not big and strong enough. So first of all, the church, it doesn't have to be necessarily the ministers. The church is all the people of God, although I think ministers should do it too, should teach biblical economics. They should not just teach it to members, but they should proclaim it to the nations. And then the rulers of the nations can either disobey, crash, and then we can explain, this is why it happened, or they can repent and obey. So why don't they change? Because we didn't teach them.

And because it's hard for somebody who's wealthy and powerful to put themselves in a humble role and submit. Yeah, interesting. Well, Jerry, obviously, one of the fundamental breakdowns that occurs in this is understanding the relationship, God's design for the relationship between man and his creation, and that human beings are a blessing, not a curse, and that we're to be productive. But this humanistic worldview of economics undermines that, doesn't it?

It does. It sees mankind as some random thing that happened. And, you know, the world kind of came up with us randomly through Darwinian evolution. And for some people, they say, well, that's okay. And for other people, no, humanity is a cancer on the earth.

And Gaia, the goddess, is angry at us for our modern economy. And there's a constant sense that, well, there's too many people. You know, the earth can't handle all these people. Well, the Bible said to fill the earth with people.

So I'm sorry. I mean, the zero population growth people are directly at odds with Moses, who's speaking with the authority of the Holy Spirit in the Torah. Fill the earth and subdue it. So the revolt against the biblical view. And by the way, the people who are doing it know it. You know, some of these articles in the 60s and 70s, they go back to the book of Genesis and they say, this is where Western civilization went wrong. The idea that we're supposed to fill the earth and subdue it by embracing that idea, we came up with modern technology and modern technology is all the bad things in the world. You know how I know modern technology is so bad? Because people tell me that on Twitter. They tell me that, you know, electricity is bad and the technology is bad.

They tell me on Facebook, they tell me on cable news. So they're in kind of a parasitic relationship with modern technology. So the Bible tells us to fill the earth and subdue it. The inverse is we are not to fill the earth. We're to leave as small a footprint as possible. We're to change as little as possible.

We're to leave things untouched, unsouly, pristine. Well, that's the opposite of the biblical worldview. And to the degree that we've turned from a biblical worldview, our economic growth has largely slowed down and our economic growth over the past couple of decades has largely been sort of things that we're addicted to, like streaming services and online gambling and social media, not the actual filling and subduing the earth stuff. You know, like energy and transportation and agriculture, you know, the actual physical world. So we're really, as my friend Peter Till says, we're really not growing much anymore. We're growing or we're growing in ways that aren't very healthy. Well, I think that goes back to rejecting a biblical view that we're supposed to shape this creation to go. The Bible begins in a garden and ends in a city, and that's where we ought to be going. And this obviously has been accelerating in the 20th century, largely because of the foundation under this rejecting God at the center of economic design, and replacing that with modern economics, which comes from John Maynard Keynes, I guess, right?

It does. And for John Maynard Keynes, growth causes inflation, so we don't want too much of it. And for John Maynard Keynes, the economy is basically a matter of what he calls animal spirits because he thought we were just animals. And, you know, for John Maynard Keynes, you know, he saw essentially the thrift. He saw monogamy, heterosexuality, and thrift. These are the Victorian virtues. Well, he's the Edwardian era, so he's after that.

So he was rebelling against the Victorian virtues. Well, the problem is, you know, that the United Kingdom became incredibly powerful and important. Some of it was bad, like imperialism, but a lot of it was really great. Technological progress, economic growth, rising standards of living. People were living longer. We were getting rid of infant mortality. We were getting rid of all these contagions and diseases. Humanity was, we were progressing so much that we were tempted to worship progress rather than the God who gave that blessing. The 20th century revolts against that. There's a Keynesian revolt, there's a Marxist revolt, and there's a fascist revolt. And so the 20th century could have been the great century of growth in human history, but instead it was the great century of warfare and genocide because at the beginning, we left the biblical moorings.

Jerry, unfortunately, we've got just a minute left. So sum this up for us. What happens ultimately when we remove the one true God from our economic endeavors? Things get bad. And then if we react to the bad things with bad behavior, they get worse.

And if we react, you know, even more badly to them getting worse, they get worse. Jordan Peterson, who's not a God on all spiritual, but he says, yes, he's interpreting, you know, the idea of hell, you know, what he takes, he interprets it just psychologically, but he says, what it means is things can always get worse and they can go back and read the history of the 20th century. And in some places, things got incredibly bad, but you can always repent. Now, there is a time happened to Sodom and Gomorrah where you repent and the nation isn't saved or the same thing with Jeremiah and Israel. It's too late and you repent, but there's a remnant. I don't think we're there, but the nation can't turn back to God unless Christians tell it how to. And that, to me, starts with biblical economics and the biblical view of politics.

Well, this is an important topic, Jerry. And we're going to talk next time about the way out, because there is a way out of this if we return to a biblical worldview. Thanks for stopping by, my friend.

Always a pleasure. God bless you. That's Jerry Boyer, our resident economist. Much more ahead on Faith and Finance Live. Stay with us. This is Faith and Finance Live with Rob West. Hey, if you hear a phone number mentioned today, please ignore that number and don't call us, because today's broadcast was previously recorded. But we think the upcoming information will help you and make you a wise steward of what God's given you.

So please stay tuned. Always a privilege to have Jerry Boyer stop by and recenter us on a biblical worldview, especially as it relates to economics. You know, we see everything going on around us with the debasement of currency. We see the printing presses rolling and we see the debt building. We see inflation sky high, although it is falling. We see rapidly rising interest rates and it can be a cause for concern. And so every now and then we need to recenter ourselves on a biblical worldview of money management, including God's design for economics and wealth creation.

And those certainly apply to nations as well as individuals. We've got to repent, be on our knees and seek the Lord for all of this to turn around. And join me in praying to that end. We're grateful for Jerry's insights today. We'll continue to have him back as we unpack this six part series on really God's design for economics, where it's gone wrong and what we need to do as a way out.

We'll have Jerry back in the next couple of weeks. All right, let's get to our calls. Let's begin today in Louisiana. Hi, Mary. Go right ahead. Yes.

Hi, Rob. I have a situation that money is with principle. Okay. I don't know if you are familiar with the company. Sure. Okay. They've notified me that my money has to be moved or to be frozen.

And it's around forty five thousand. Okay. I'm single.

I have no debt. I own my home and I'm in the workforce clean. Oh, hard, hard job. But I do an excellent job. I'm a good cleaner. I love that. Well, you're clearly doing work as unto the Lord as you work with diligence and excellence.

That's great. Mary, is this a 401k with a previous employer or what type of account is this? Yes, I was with Lowe's at the time. I see contributing and they were matching and I since left Lowe's.

Okay, very good. And so you're going to need to roll this out of principle financial. What I would likely recommend is that you move this to an IRA, an individual retirement account that will get it out of principle. You could move it to any brokerage firm you want. Really, you could put it at Fidelity or Schwab or you pick when it goes into the IRA, the individual retirement account. It stays in a tax deferred environment. So this is not a distribution.

It does not become taxable to you. And then at that point you would be able to select how you want it invested. You could do that yourself or you could have somebody help you with that. This is probably not enough money for an investment advisor to take full discretion over this and manage it for you. However, there are options to get you some assistance as you navigate this process of both opening that new account, transferring out of principle financial by the deadline, which is going to be here in two weeks. We've got to move quickly and then getting that reinvested before these funds are frozen.

What I would do here Mary is probably reach out to our friends at soundmindinvesting.org. They take a biblical approach to everything that they do and they work with investors at all stages from those just getting started to those with wealth that are preparing for retirement. And they could help you determine where to open that account, how to get that rolled over and then also selecting some mutual funds that are appropriate for your age and risk tolerance. Probably something that's fairly conservative, probably largely bond related as opposed to stocks. Bonds are very attractive right now because interest rates will likely be moving down from here. If they go up anymore, it's not going to be by much. So as the interest rates come down, the bond prices will rise. Plus you'll get the yield that's paid out on those bonds, which is fairly attractive right now. And you can be broadly diversified by using mutual funds.

So it'll probably be a bond mutual fund or a balanced fund with bonds and stocks. So the place to go is soundmindinvesting.org and I think they can walk alongside you Mary as you get all this set up. Okay. Does that make sense?

It is. So I think the next step for you is we know we need to get it out of principle. We want to roll it to an IRA and soundmindinvesting.org can help you.

That's really all you need to know. Now, if you wanted to do it yourself, then you would just go to a Schwab or a Fidelity, open the IRA and then you would request the rollover paperwork from principle and they would just roll it into that IRA. And once it got there, then you could figure out what to do with it. But if you want somebody to walk alongside you, I think that's where the folks at soundmindinvesting could be helpful. And is there a fee? Yeah, well, it depends on how you approach it.

There may or may not be. I mean, the mutual funds you select will have fees inside of them for those that are managing those funds. But you know, just to get started at soundmindinvesting.org, there shouldn't be really much cost depending upon what role they play in helping you get this set up. Okay.

All right. But if you wanted to do it all yourself, where you would go from here is you would open an IRA at Schwab or Fidelity or any brokerage firm you want. And then you would contact principle and say, Listen, I have an IRA and I want to roll my 401k out because you told me I need to do that.

So I need the paperwork. So I can tell you my new brokerage firm, the name of my account, which is going to be your name, comma IRA, and my account number, and they'll just send the money out, it'll deposit in the form of cash. But again, it's a rollover, so it doesn't become taxable to you. So that would be the other option. And then at that point, you could determine how you want to invest it from there, whether that's CDs or bonds or stocks.

So I would go one of those two approaches and I think that'll get you what you need. Thanks for calling today, Mary. We appreciate you being on the program before we head to our break. You know, as I read scripture, I see this big idea jumping off the page around contentment. You know, I think as we consider our role as stewards of God's money, we need to foster this attitude that the apostle Paul talked about. And that is contentment. Remember, he said that it's learned. I've learned to be content. He was in a time of plenty and in a time of need, and he'd learned to be content in either of those. Contentment's a choice.

And when we increase our contentment, well, then we can focus on what God has given us and not on what he's given others. I hope that's an encouragement to you today. Again, we're not here today. We're away from the studio, so don't call in, but just around the corner, we have some more questions to tackle. I know you're going to enjoy the calls we have coming up. Stay with us. We'll be right back. Thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live.

Let me remind you, our team is not here, so don't call in, but we lined up some great questions in advance. We'll get to those in just a moment. Before we do, let me remind you, if you haven't downloaded the FaithFi app, we'd love for you to check it out. It's got three sections in it. The first is the money management system based on Larry Burkett's digital envelope system. It helps you manage God's money in a way where you know exactly what's left in each envelope at any point during the month. There's also our Learn tab, where you can access the best content and biblical finance to grow in your understanding of God's way of handling money. And our Community, where you can post questions, get comments and ideas from other stewards on the journey. So download it today on our website, faithfi.com. Just click App. All right, let's head back to the phones to a first-time caller in Louisiana.

Tyler, thanks for being on the program today. Go right ahead. I just am having a little bit of a problem and kind of a moral dilemma. I passed some credit card debt, and as a Christian, you know, I know that we're supposed to be tithing, and I have around four credit cards with around $10,000 of credit card debt.

And I was just kind of wondering for some advice on how I should handle that. I kind of find myself obsessing about that statement balance every month, and I find that I'm depleting my checking account. And I know that I'll eventually catch up probably maybe six to ten months from now. If I keep on doing what I'm doing, I'll probably catch up, you know, to the point where I'm not worried about high interest anymore. But it just doesn't feel very healthy. I just feel like I'm obsessing about paying that number off every month on those different credit cards that I have not been giving my money.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that, Tyler. You know, this is—obviously, you're wanting to honor the Lord with all that you're doing in managing His money, and clearly that credit card debt's weighing on you. I get that, especially right now with the average interest rate on a credit card up north of 20 percent.

You're wanting to pay that off as quick as you can. There's also a conviction and a stirring in your spirit about wanting to be able to be faithful in giving as unto the Lord. I love the principle of the tithe as a beginning point, the idea that we would give a tenth off of our increase. This comes from the Old Testament.

Actually, in the Old Testament, the tithe was twenty-three and a third percent because there was three of them, and one of them was every three years. But Jesus raises the bar when He enters the scene. He takes giving to a higher level, shows us a different way of giving, what I would call whole-life generosity, by giving His life as a sacrifice.

And then when He talks about money, I think He raises the bar. He says we should give as we've been blessed, and to whom much is given, much is required. And then there's this most famous giver that He commends, that poor widow who gave out of her poverty her last two copper coins.

And then, of course, He challenges the rich young ruler to give all of his wealth away as he sees that that's really the barrier to surrendering his heart. And so, where are we in that? Well, I think it's incumbent upon each of us to be on our knees before the Lord, saying, Lord, what would You have me to do? I realize a primary role for You in trusting anything to me as a gracious gift is not only to provide, but really to give, to be a part of where You're at work, Lord, and that's a privilege as we give to participate in God's activity. But we have to balance that with other competing priorities, which are very biblical as well. Saving for the future, there's precious oil in the house of the wise, the foolish man swallows it up, so we need to have some margin and some savings, starting with an emergency fund. We need to dump debt, because we know the borrower is servant to the lender, is slave to the lender, and so although borrowing is not a sin, it can absolutely hinder us from all that God has for us, and we see lots of warnings in Scripture around debt, so we sure should be dumping debt. And then we also, as I said before, we need to be givers, so how do we balance that?

And ultimately I think that's something we need to be on our knees before the Lord. You know, perhaps a starting point is not to, you know, look at, well, do I give or do I pay down debt? Perhaps there's a third alternative, which is, where can I cut back spending, lifestyle spending, during this season so I can accelerate my debt repayment and continue to give at whatever level the Lord leads? Now, remember, God's not an accountant, it's not about a legalistic approach, you're not checking a box to do your duty, it's really about a heart posture, that's the giving that God accepts when we give it as an act of worship, and so perhaps during this season you continue to give systematically, maybe it's at a level below 10% right now. I think the key is to continue to exercise that giving muscle, do it with the right heart posture, again God doesn't need your money, He's got it all, it's all His, but He wants our hearts, and so I think that's a conversation that you need to have with Him as to what level you're giving, and I think it should be accompanied by, Tyler, a real hard and honest look at your other expenses to say, where can I eliminate some spending to free up more that I can put toward debt reduction or additional giving along the way? As to the credit cards, I would recommend you take at least a hard look at what's called a debt management program, our friends at ChristianCreditCounselors.org could help you get those interest rates reduced, it wouldn't replace the debt, you're not talking about taking on a new loan, they'd stay right where they are with the original creditors, it's just that if you pay through them, they'll drop the interest rates, and that level payment through ChristianCreditCounselors.org combined with those lower interest rates could help you pay that off 80% faster. So I think a combination of those three things, meaning first, a conversation with the Lord about where you should be giving right now, secondly, a hard look at your budget to eliminate any kind of spending that you can to free up more margin, and then third, enrolling in that debt management program I think perhaps is a great path forward for you.

But give me your thoughts. I think that sounds really good, yeah, I think I can sometimes get a little legalistic and obsessive with that 10%, and that's really not what God intends for that, like you said, it's about the posture of the heart. I think that also sounds really good. Thank you very much for the advice and I'll prayerfully consider all of that and maybe make some small trimmings on my budget, maybe with some food spending, going out to eat and stuff like that. Yeah, well that's one of the big threes that really can so often wreck our budgets, it's food, it's housing, and it's transportation.

Housing and transportation are a little more challenging to deal with if they're out of whack, but the combination of those three, all of the housing expenses, all the transportation plus food really need to be below 65% if at all possible to give you enough margin, but food is one, especially now with prices so high that usually you can do some quick surgical strikes in your budget to try to get that right size, free up more margin, and then the folks at ChristianCreditCounselors.org can help you work up that new budget, give you maybe some new ideas you haven't thought of, and I think that will get you pointed in the right direction, you'll feel a lot better about where you're headed. If we can help you further along the way, Tyler, don't hesitate to reach out. We appreciate you being a first-time caller on the program today, sir. God bless you. We're going to head to a quick break here in just a moment.

Tommy, I know you're a first-time caller in Louisiana as well, and you want to talk about your mutual funds, I'd be delighted to do that. We're going to have to do it on the other side of the break, so I give you enough time to unpack that. You know, folks, you know when it comes to giving what we just talked about with Tyler, here's one of the big ideas, is that giving breaks the grip of money over our lives. If money is going to compete with God in our lives for first position, the things that will loosen that grip of money over us is generosity.

Think about that today. We're going to head to a quick break and back with our final segment here on Faith and Finance just around the corner. Stay with us. Hey, you're listening to Faith and Finance Live with Rob West. Today's broadcast is pre-recorded, and that means we won't be taking any calls. But we do have some calls lined up and lots of great information coming your way that we think you'll find helpful. So stick around for more Faith and Finance Live after this brief break. This is our final segment of a Faith and Finance Live program that we previously recorded. Thanks so much for being with us today, and we hope you'll stick around and enjoy the rest of the program. Let's head right back to the phones to another first-time caller.

Tommy, thanks for calling there in Louisiana. Go ahead, sir. Hey, I'm here.

Hi there. I'm near retirement. I'm still working full-time. I have two and a half million dollars in stocks and company stocks, mutual funds.

Anyway, I have two questions. One was involving my financial manager. A guy wants to be my financial manager. He wants to basically manage all my funds and charge me a fee to manage them. And that fee would be like 0.92%.

He'd take that out quarterly. It's going to wind up being like $13,000 a year to manage my funds. And he is saying that he's with a real reputable group, and he said that they have best-in-class funds available. Anyway, they had this software program.

It runs through a bunch of scenarios, and all the scenarios are successful. He's also advising me. Part of this is waiting until I'm 70 to start doing Social Security, because I'd get like $4,000 a month, so I wait until I'm 70 versus $3,200 a month now. But my underlying question was, is that 0.92% is that a reasonable, or is that kind of a way to go with that much money, or should I just try to manage it myself? Because I believe, in principle, I can set up a program where those give me a monthly distribution. Yeah, yeah.

A couple of thoughts here. First of all, is that an appropriate fee for discretionary money management, 0.92%? So just slightly less than 1% a year on a $2.5 million portfolio? Yes.

That is perfectly in line. When he's saying charged quarterly, that's not 0.924 times a year. That's one-fourth of 0.92% every quarter, based on the balance at the end of that quarter. Is that your understanding?

Yeah. That 0.92% would be a total of like the $13,000. Yeah, it's actually $23,000 on $2.5 million. If you're 0.92% on $2.5 million, that's $23,000, so maybe even $10,000 higher than you thought. And I realize that's a lot of money.

But at the same time, you have to recognize, I mean, you spent a lifetime building this nest egg. So to put it on autopilot or to try to do it yourself, if you don't have the expertise, not to mention just the emotional connection you have to your money that a professional does not. I like the idea of you hiring somebody here to manage this. I think, you know, less than 1% on that size portfolio annually is appropriate, even though it's a significant amount of money. I would fully expect you to make that up in terms of the return that you get by having somebody who's actively overseeing this on a regular basis. I might look at, though, the various options that you have, you know, as opposed to using an insurance company, I might look at a registered investment advisor just to get a couple of other thoughts on this.

Maybe you have two or three individuals that you interview, him being one, but look at a couple of others before you make your final decision. The other piece to this is whether or not, and I think this is a conviction matter that's up to each person, this is not hard and fast in Scripture, but if you have a conviction on using a faith-based investing approach where you would intentionally, or your advisor would intentionally select investments that align with your Christian values, avoiding certain companies, embracing others to make sure there's not, you know, companies that are actively engaged in things that violate your values as a believer, you know, that would be another option. And that's why we recommend the Certified Kingdom Advisor designation. 1,300 professionals across the U.S. and Canada have achieved the designation, and this would be a professional that's met high standards and character and competence and experience, but also been trained to bring a biblical worldview of money management. And if you wanted a couple of CKAs in your area to, you know, weigh in on this as well, you would just head to our website faithfi.com and click find a CKA, you could do a zip code search.

But I think to answer your question, I like the idea of you having professional management instead of handling this yourself, and that fee is perfectly appropriate just based on what would be normal and customary. Okay. You said that that website's faithfi.com?

That's right, faithfi.com, faithfi.com, just click find a CKA, it stands for Certified Kingdom Advisor, and you can do a zip code search. Okay. All right? All right, sounds good.

Very good, Tommy. If we can help you further along the way, sir, let us know. And let me ask you just quickly, what are you most looking forward to in this next season of life?

What do you think God has for you? Well, I've been about to continue supporting a lot of my family members, and I did not want to do a little traveling and just not be on the phone all the time. I hear you. Well, that sounds wonderful. I will say, and I didn't mention this, but you said that the advisor was suggesting that you wait till 70 until taking Social Security. I like that a lot as well. If you don't need the money, you might as well get that guaranteed increase of 8% a year until age 70 so you can maximize that.

It's going to take you about 12 years to get paid back for what you gave up between full retirement age and 70. But once you do, if the Lord tarries and you're in good health, you'll have that higher check for the rest of your life, you know, beyond age 82 or so. So I like that approach a lot. Listen, sir, if we can help you further, don't hesitate to reach back out to us. And God bless you. To yet another first time caller in Iowa. Hey, John, thanks for being on the program, sir. Go ahead.

Thanks for taking my call. Listen, I was wondering on a parent gifting a child's money every year. Is there any way that the nursing homes can call back any of that money or what other gifts that the parents would give their children, real estate, other investment stocks or whatever? Could the nursing homes, you know, try to repossess at a later date, I guess? Yeah, the nursing home can't call back this money, but the state can under Medicaid rules. So there's a five year look back period. And if that money was found to be given away during that period, then that absolutely could affect Medicaid eligibility. So that gift would certainly fall under that clawback period, which would come again from the state, not the nursing home. OK. And Medicaid, if if the parent was on a military insurance that Medicaid wasn't even involved in, is that still the same situation or is a military, you know, insurance type program hooked up with Medicaid somehow? Yeah.

You know, that's a good question. I wouldn't know the details on that as to whether that look back applies there specifically. I'd be happy to get our team to look into that a bit further and we could reach back out to you. But I don't know right offhand how that connection works with regard to the same asset levels, whether they apply or not. Certainly does with Medicaid. But whether, you know, there's a an implication to that through a military insurance, we would have to look further into that. And that five year clawback that you're speaking of, that would even include like the legal yearly gifting to your children.

It absolutely would. Yeah. So that's all that is is just an annual amount you can give away without eating away at your lifetime gift exclusion of 12 million dollars. So that absolutely is a part of your assets.

And if you give it away, even under that 17,000 annual limit, they're going to look at that and see that as a part of the clawback period. I see. OK. All right. Well, God bless you for all your knowledge and taking our people's calls like this. Well, delighted to do it, John. Thank you for your service to our country, my friend. And we're grateful for you being on the program today. May God bless you. Quickly, an email. These come to us at AskRob at FaithFi.com. DJ writes, Hi, Rob.

Listen to your show all the time and greatly appreciate the content. My wife and I are 30 years old with two young sons. When my wife worked full time, she had a 401k with about fifteen thousand. Are there any options for the funds in her 401k plan to be moved to some type of college savings for our boys?

Or should I roll it over into my plan or is it best to just leave it alone? Probably the best thing would be to roll your wife's old 401k DJ into a traditional IRA and then you could do a conversion to a Roth IRA. You know, just given your age, you could go and pay the tax now and then allow that to grow tax free, you know, until retirement.

You guys still have 35 years or so, potentially until retirement. So you could get a lot of benefit out of that Roth IRA over that time period. Unfortunately, there is no way to get that money into a college fund without creating a taxable event. You would have to withdraw the funds and they'd be added to your adjusted gross income for the year. Additionally, it cannot be rolled into your retirement plans. Retirement accounts are individual, whether it's a 401k or an IRA, it has to stay in your wife's name only.

So the only option you would have in terms of getting it out of the 401k without creating a taxable event would be to roll it to an IRA in her name. And then at that point, as I said, you could do the conversion to the Roth. Hey, before we wrap up today, let me remind you, you know, financial decision-making can often seem overwhelming, seemingly endless decisions about money, but we can boil it down into something perhaps a bit more simple. All we can do with money is live, give, owe and grow. There's the money we spend on our lifestyle, the money we owe for debt and taxes, the money we grow for the future and the money we give to the Lord's work. And all of those are addressed in scripture. Every one of those have principles that we can pull out of God's word, our hope and prayers that we can help you do that on this program each day. Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faithfile. Let me say thank you to my team today. Couldn't do it without them. Have a great rest of your day and we'll see you next time on Faith and Finance Live.