Banking On Eternal Rewards

Do not lay up treasures on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and thieves break in and steal. Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Matthew 6, 19 through 21.

I am Rob West. Put another way, that means right now counts forever. And that certainly includes our financial decisions. Are you banking in a way that honors God? Aaron Cade joins us today to talk about it. Then it's on to your calls at 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. This is Faith and Finance Live, biblical wisdom for your financial decisions. Well, Aaron Cade joins us again today. Aaron's the chief marketing officer at Christian Community Credit Union and underwriter of this program. And Aaron, it's great to have you back. Thank you.

It's great to be back, Rob. Aaron, I think most Christians have head knowledge of stewardship using God's resources for kingdom work, but they sometimes miss opportunities to incorporate that into daily living. Would you agree with that?

I would. And in fact, we recently did some research on this very topic. We surveyed over 250 Christians on stewardship, and we found that respondents had a good conceptual knowledge of stewardship, but they really didn't feel like they knew how to apply it to their daily lives. So some things we learned included, you know, over 80% believe that applying the principles of stewardship to their life would have a very positive impact. Over half of them wanted to learn more about the basics of stewardship. A third of them would like to learn how they can use their financial blessings in a God-honoring way. I mean, essentially, they wanted to learn more about the practical ways that they can manage God's financial gifts in a way that honors him.

Well, I'm delighted to hear that. And of course, this is something that Christian Community Credit Union does on a daily basis, helping to further God's kingdom. I'd love for you to tell us about House of Refuge Sunnyslope, because it's a great story. Yeah, you know, they're a ministry in Phoenix that has been providing transitional housing for over 35 years. And what I love is they intervene at that moment to catch people who are tumbling toward homelessness, and they help them get back on their feet. And they see their mission not only as providing an earthly shelter, but also sharing the promise of their eternal home with God, that Christ brings restoration and new life. So they surround the residents with love, they provide them housing and nourishment, and they try to equip them to live the life God intended for them.

I love that. That's powerful. So how exactly did Christian Community Credit Union help this ministry there in the Phoenix area? So they had a great opportunity to acquire housing and land adjacent to their existing property. And this is something they had dreamt of for years, they had a chance to double the size of their single moms program. So it was a prayer answered, but they had to move quickly or they'd lose it.

They had to close the deal within a timeframe other financial institutions told them was not possible. Then they turned to Christian Community Credit Union. We were able to move quickly, we were able to help solve problems rapidly. And we were able to provide the affordable financing they needed on the timeframe they needed to acquire those properties and greatly expand the number of families they're able to serve. And House of Refuges CEO, Julie Suppley, even remarked, CCCU was so flexible, so responsible, and they prayed for us.

Hmm. Wow, that's powerful. Now, when someone joins CCCU, how do they participate in this kingdom work, Aaron, essentially, what we said storing up treasures in heaven? Well, CCCU is unapologetically Christian. So when you join our family, you're joining a financial institution that's guided by Scripture. The resources you entrust with us are invested into ministries that spread the gospel, combat human trafficking and protect vulnerable children. So the deposits you entrust with the credit union help provide affordable financing to build new churches and help ministries grow. And our products not only benefit our members, but they also give back to God's kingdom.

They work in those two ways. So for example, the cash rewards Visa card members earn 1.5% cash back for themselves. And we give a portion of every swipe to Christian charities. That's incredible. And that's going, Aaron, to thousands of Christian ministries across the country?

Exactly. And to date, we've given over $6 million to Christian ministries, to missions operating both domestically and abroad. That's incredible. Well, that's how we come full circle, because, folks, that's how you can align your values with, in this case, your banking partner at Christian Community Credit Union. Aaron, we're out of time, but thanks for joining us today. Thank you so much, Rob.

It was great to be with you. To learn more, just head to joinchristiancommunity.com. That's joinchristiancommunity.com.

We're going to take a quick break. Back with your questions just after this. 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Stick around. 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. Great to have you with us today on Faith & Finance Live. I'm Rob West. All right, it's time to turn the corner and take your questions on anything financial.

We'd love to hear from you. The calls are coming in quickly, but we still have four lines open. 800-525-7000 is the number to call.

Again, that's 800-525-7000. You know, here's our approach each day during this hour on the broadcast. It's really about starting with the big idea that God owns it all and therefore we're stewards and giving you a really hopeful but biblical perspective of managing God's money. Because this is a high calling, an important task. We want to be found faithful in managing God's resources.

The only way we can do that is to look to Scripture and pull out the principles and the big ideas. Now, you may be hearing me right now and saying, you know what, I'm going through a really difficult season right now. I mean, money is tight. I don't know how I'm going to pay the bills. And let me just say, I understand that. I mean, we have a range of callers on this program, some that are wondering how do they steward well, a significant amount that they've been entrusted.

Others really struggling just to get by and pay their bills and everything in between. And I think the key is we're to be found faithful wherever we are. There will be tribulation and trials in this world.

But Jesus has overcome that. We can trust God as our provider implicitly. We're to apply the principles we see in Scripture to our financial life to put ourselves in a position to experience God's best. But we won't be free from trouble. And so we trust the Lord.

And that's where the body of Christ will need to step in on occasion and help to provide and be the hands and feet of Jesus. And our role in that is just to be an encouragement to you, to get you pointed to either a professional or a counselor that can come alongside you to help and encourage you and hopefully give you some practical advice as it relates to your money questions today. So let's do that together. We'd love to dive into your questions. Give us a call at 800-525-7000. Let's go.

We'll begin in Pennsylvania, New Holland specifically. Joan, go ahead. Hi.

Thanks for talking with me. I was literally about to go into a bank and open up a CD. It is, the bank advertises on a Christian radio station and basically that's all I know about it as apart from any other bank. But I was listening to your program and heard about Christian Community Credit Union. And as that's known specifically, you know, I would know specifically at least that the money is going to the Lord's purpose. I was wondering if Christian Credit, Christian Community has anything comparable to doing like a CD.

I can't do like real long-term deposit. I was hoping for like a year or less, like a 10-month CD. Yeah, very good. Well, you're exactly right. They do have options like that. And they are expressly Christian in that they really exist to serve believers and as Aaron shared a moment ago, a portion of everything they receive goes to support the work of some incredible Christian ministries all over the globe. You can read more about that on their website. It's joinChristiancommunity.com. Again, that's joinChristiancommunity.com.

Specifically to your question, Joan, they do have I think exactly what you're looking for. For instance, their welcome CD is offered at five and a quarter percent for five months, five percent for 10 months. And so that would kind of put you right under that 12 month mark and give you a really competitive yield for a CD that, you know, has the NCUA backing. So it's federally insured. The other great thing about CCCU, and this would be true of a lot of the institutions in this category, is that they're a member of the co-op network, which just means, you know, there's actual branches, other credit unions, both physical branches as well as ATMs that you can access if you need to walk in someplace physically.

You know, there's over 5,600 shared branches in that co-op network and 30,000 surcharge free ATMs. So, you know, it can help you when you're working with somebody who's not right there in your backyard. But, you know, I think it could be a great fit here just what you're describing. OK, great. By looking up the dot com address, I could find out maybe if there's anything physically nearby.

You could. And you could look if you click on ATMs and locations at the top, you'll see everybody in the network that you can walk into and access your account, whether it's a Christian Community Credit Union branch or not. So it's again JoinChristianCommunity.com. And Joan, we appreciate your call today. Thanks for listening and calling. We've got two lines open, 800-525-7000. You can call right now. Let's stay. Let's go to Akron, Ohio. Hi, Stephanie. Go ahead.

Hello. Thank you for taking my call. I really need your input because I'm not clear on this. In 2009, the company that a division of the company that I worked with closed and I had a 401K with them. And what they chose to do is send it to a holding company. Now, at that time, you may remember 2008, the nation was on the verge of financial crisis. So rather than option of getting stocks, I just went with cash. And at that time, I had about 4000 dollars. OK, now over time, because now we're in 2024, I only get a statement like once a year. OK. And I just got a statement and that holding company went to another holding company. And it just shocked me because from 4000 dollars, I'm down to 3000 dollars.

And it's it's leveled with fees like a 10 dollar fee, even for a statement, a 40 dollar fee. The thing is, I thought because it was an employer 401K, there was some fiduciary responsibility that because it was cash. So there was no investment consolation. There was no record keeping.

It was, well, record keeping other than my cash account. But I do I have any options here? Because this is I feel this is like I'm being robbed legally or not. I don't know. And that's what I'm asking you.

What are my options here, if any? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm so sorry to hear about what's happened here yet. It's very unfortunate. I mean, if you want to try to take action and and file a complaint against your 401K administrator, you would do that through the Department of Labor.

Actually, it's the Employee Benefits Security Administration of the DOL that is ultimately responsible for administering and enforcing what's called ERISA, which is the Employee Retirement Income Security Act that really defines this whole sector and what's permissible and what's not. I suspect what you're going to find is, despite the fact that it doesn't make sense. And I would agree with you, especially the magnitude of of what you've seen in the declines here, you know, over a thousand twenty five percent of the account, a thousand dollars. The challenge is it was just so low to begin with that the fees are not a percentage of the account. They are what they are. And so they were a much higher percentage of a of the account than somebody who maybe had one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand in the account.

Again, doesn't make it right. I understand your frustration. But, you know, as long as they disclose it, which it would have been in all the fine print, those fees can add up very quickly. And it's regardless of whether you're in the cash account or you're in the mutual fund, unfortunately. So it's one of the reasons, Stephanie, that we encourage folks when they separate from a company to go and roll it out to an IRA because those fees can add up.

And once you separate, they can even be higher. So the DOL employees benefit security administration's where you go if you have a concern. Thanks for your call today. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on faith and finance live. It looks like all the lines are full. So let's get right back to the phones.

Logan's Port, Indiana. Hi, Gary. Go ahead.

Yes, sir. Yesterday, my wife and I was listening to your program about Social Security that I went to Social Security office and they told me that I made too much to qualify and get my Social Security. And we heard you said something about fifty thousand.

Yeah, I'm not sure where the fifty thousand number came from. I mean, if we're talking about the same thing, bottom line is if you wait till full retirement age, which is now either sixty six or sixty seven, you can earn any amount you want without affecting your benefits whatsoever. Now, where you get a reduction in benefits is when you take your benefits early and then continue to work. And, you know, your benefits will be reduced a dollar for every two dollars you earn above the limit, which for this year, twenty twenty four happens to be twenty two thousand three hundred and twenty dollars. Now, you eventually get paid that back after full retirement age in the form of a higher check.

But there is a reduction that occurs in terms of this situation. Now, could could you have been talking perhaps about the the year in which you turn full retirement age? Because there is a higher amount that you can earn in that year.

I'm not sure. I just I'm sixty five years old. Maybe I went to Kokomo and they told me that I made too much to get Social Security, but I still have to pay for my Medicare. Yeah, no, some something's not right there. Or you misunderstood because there is not a point at where if you wait until full retirement age, you're not taking your benefits yet, are you?

No. OK, if you wait until full retirement age, you know, you you can earn an unlimited amount and you still get your benefits. Now, there is a limit in terms of the year you hit full retirement age. That cap for this year is fifty nine thousand five hundred and twenty. But but that's only where, you know, the the reduction occurs. Even then, it doesn't eliminate your ability to get benefits. But if you wait until full retirement age, you can earn an unlimited amount with no effect.

So what is all retirement for me? You happen to know, sir? Yeah. When when were you born? 1958. OK, so if you were born in 1958, it's going to be sixty six and eight months. OK.

So as long as you wait until sixty six and eight months, you can earn as much as you want and they will keep paying you that benefit. Thank you, Rob. OK, thank you, Gary. We appreciate you being on the program, sir. God bless you. Let's go to Georgia.

Hi, Van. Go ahead. OK, so I have a full retirement age and I collect my Social Security. My concern is I have some real estate properties that I'm going to sell. And I'm just wondering if I sell these properties and I have that capital gain, how will it affect my Medicare benefits?

Because my brother told me I'm going to end up paying a ton of money if I earn too much. Yes, that's right. You're exactly right. And so Medicare, the cost does fluctuate based on your income. And so what is it that you will have? Is it for this year? Is that what you're concerned about? Yes, it will be for 2024. Yeah.

OK. Yeah. And so if you have a higher income, you'll pay an additional premium for Medicare Part B and the Medicare prescription drug coverage. You know, they call it an income related monthly adjustment about. And so I would just, you know, go to Medicare dot gov or, you know, on the Web site and get the information, you know, so you can see exactly what your income level is.

There's something called Irma I.R.M.A.A. that comes into play, which is an extra charge for the Plan B or Plan D that does take that up based on a certain income level. And all of that information is readily available. So you could kind of look at what your expected income will be and then how that will affect your Medicare payments. So, you know, it can range between two hundred and thirty dollars a month.

It can go all the way up to five hundred and sixty dollars a month. OK, even though it's not earned income, it's like just the sale of property. And I see. Yeah.

No, no. It really is based on your modified adjusted gross income. So I'm not aware of where your capital gain would affect that. So you may want to just check with Social Security Administration to be sure of that.

But the Irma I'm talking about in terms of these price fluctuations is really about your AGI, not a capital gain. OK. OK. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Absolutely.

I do a bit more digging on that, but it's a great question. Let's go to Chicago. Andrew, go ahead. Yes, so this question does not exclude my emergency fund, so I have an emergency on top of what I'm talking about. So I have about a thousand one hundred thousand dollars in my bank account. I'm earning four point five percent interest just for sitting in my bank account. And I owe one hundred and fifty thousand on my house currently. And my house is at two point seven percent interest. Should I take that one hundred thousand dollars and put it into my mortgage and get my house paid off this next year?

Or should I continue to keep putting money in my bank account, which is earning slightly more interest than what my mortgage payment, my mortgage interest currently is? Yeah, it's a great question, Andrew. So I'm going to ask you to do this. I want to be sure we can process this together because I do have a couple of questions for you. And I'm up against a break here.

So I've got the details. You've got one hundred thousand beyond your emergency fund. It's earning a bit more, a couple of percentage points, at least today, more than your mortgage.

So you're wondering, does it make sense to pay off that mortgage or keep putting that money in the bank account? We'll talk about it right around the corner. This is Faith and Finance Live.

Stick around. It's great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today.

We've got one line open, 800-525-7000. We're going back to Andrew in Chicago. Before the break, we were talking to Andrew. He's got about a hundred thousand in a bank account, earning four and a half percent interest on it. Wondering if he should take that money and pay off his mortgage or keep that account growing with the interest. His mortgage is about a hundred and fifty thousand and he's got an interest rate of only two point seven percent.

And I think there's a couple of factors here. I mean, the first is if we just purely look at the financials. Yes, you're making more today on that money than you are paying. Now, you've got to pay tax on that.

So you'd have to factor in the tax on the on the interest that you're getting from the CD. And, you know, we know that this is temporary. I mean, the Fed has said they're going to lower rates three times this year.

They expect. Could it be six? Could it be zero? Because the economy is more resilient than we thought. And in fact, the data as of late, including this week, the jobs report was much stronger than expected. And the Fed is going to be very leery to lower rates in this environment. So, you know, perhaps these higher rates stay up for a period, but eventually they're going to start coming down. Now, let's say you lock this money in for five years. You could go and lock it in today at four percent for five years.

But, you know, how much do you really getting after you pay the tax on that? You know, the delta between what you're paying on the interest rate at two point seven and the real return after taxes is not going to be a whole lot. Then we have to look, Andrew, at the non-financial side, which is just, you know, do you have a conviction about being debt free? You know, are you reading the scriptures and praying about it and just feeling the Lord impressing upon you to get out of debt?

Are you married and are you and your wife thinking about this together? So I think that would be the other consideration. And if you just felt like I have a conviction to be debt free, then I'd say go for it. But if you're saying, listen, I'm comfortable hanging onto this mortgage if it makes sense financially, then it's really just a math equation. And at that point, yes, you're going to come out ahead, but you're probably not going to come out that much ahead. You know, at least I mean, maybe now, but certainly as these rates start coming down, you're not going to end up with a whole lot of margin between what you're paying and what you're getting out of it.

Does that make sense? It totally does, you know, and that's the thing that I the whole biblical Proverbs about, you know, get out of debt with all costs, you know, don't be a slave to lender type stuff, you know. So that does weigh on my heart tremendously. But then it's, you know, it's just an interesting place to be like, wow, I'm making this in the bank account and my mortgage is there. So it's just a juggling act that I'm trying to figure out what the right thing to do is. So I appreciate your expertise on this. Absolutely, Andrew.

It's a great question. I don't think you'll ever go wrong getting out of debt. I mean, I've never had anybody call in all the years I've been doing this and say, man, I paid off my house and I've regretted it ever since. I just don't get that call. So you probably can't go wrong there.

But again, there's not a wrong answer on the other side of that either. So appreciate you checking with us, sir. Call back any time. Let's go to Bradenton, Florida. Hi, Jacqueline. Go ahead.

Yes, thank you for taking my call. My question is the following. I can take start collecting my Social Security at the end of the year in December. I'm planning to work for another.

5, maybe 7 years. The question is, can I start taking that money and. Putting put that money into.

The market and or my. Investment account and have it. Invested and the reason that I'm asking is because my 401k. Took a huge hit of 50,000 dollars and I just want to know if I can take that money and start collecting it and invest it instead of, you know. Checking it for myself and put it in the market and have it, you know.

Yeah, it's a great question. What age would you be when you start taking it? 62. OK, I mean, the only downside to that, which is why I would recommend you not do this, is that you're going to take a pretty significant reduction in the amount that you're going to get. So your benefits will be reduced at 62 around 30 little more than 30 percent lower than if you were to wait until full retirement age. So by waiting, you will see an increase in that check of about 8 percent a year. And there's no way you're going to get an 8 percent after tax return in the market, at least not one that's guaranteed. And there's a guaranteed increase for this Social Security to go up one twelfth of 8 percent every month that you wait and, you know, to get closer to full retirement age. So if, you know, the only folks that I would ever encourage to take Social Security at 62 and lock in that permanent reduction of 30 percent are folks that just have no other place to turn for income for any number of reasons. But if you don't need the money, I would encourage you to leave it there, let it grow inside, you know, the Social Security Administration and take it later unless I'm missing something in your question. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Well, I was planning to invest it in bonds, not stock or anything like that. I don't know, maybe utility bonds or, you know, tertiary bonds. But there's no bonds that are going to pay you 8 percent a year. And that's what you're going to get by leaving it there. You're going to get it's going to increase 8 percent every year if you leave it there and don't start taking the benefits.

So I guess what I'm wondering is why, if you don't need the money, why would you take the benefits and invest it in something that's going to return less than if you don't take it and just leave it with the Social Security Administration and they're going to increase your benefit, you know, by 8 percent a year? Okay. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Okay, very good. Thank you so much for calling today. We appreciate you being on the program. Let's see, 800-525-7000 is the number to call. If you have financial questions today, we'd love to tackle them.

One line is open. Let's go to Sarasota, Florida. Hi, Josh, go ahead. Hi, Rob.

Thanks for taking my call. My wife and I recently purchased our house. We owe 207,000 on it, and we were wondering if we have some extra money, say like 10,000, for an example, or maybe 50,000, and our mortgage payment is $1,839. So what, like, if we make a lump sum payment to the principal, how much does it change it? Like, say if it's 10,000 that we would put to the left, how much does that change that 1,839? Or if it's 50,000, how much does it change the 1,839?

Yeah, it doesn't. So with an amortized mortgage, Josh, your payment is level for the entire length of the mortgage. Your payment doesn't change.

It's fixed. And the only time it changes is when it goes to zero when you pay the loan in full. The reason why you would take that money from selling valuables or an inheritance and put it on the principal is not so you could get your payment down. It's because then you're not going to pay interest on that portion of the loan for the rest of the loan. And any mortgage calculator online could show you the benefit or the interest savings if you just, you know, run through that scenario. But that doesn't affect the mortgage payment one bit.

Does that make sense? There's no way to change the mortgage payment. There's no way to change the mortgage payment unless you refinance the loan, which right now you don't want to do because rates are high and it's going to cost you 3 or 4 percent of the loan in fees or pay it off.

Only way to change the payment. Josh, I've got to hit a break here. Thanks for your call, bud.

Take care. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live here in our final segment today. On a Friday, Mr. Boyer stops by. Jerry Boyer joins us with his market commentary and analysis. And Jerry, I guess when we look at the headlines today, it's all about jobs, huh?

It is. Mr. Boyer, I like that. Mr. Boyer. A little bit more respectful than the usual, hey, Jerry, how you doing? I'll take it. I have immense respect, Jerry. I'll call you Mr. Boyer any day. Hey, Mr.

Rob. Yes, it was about jobs. Yesterday, the probability of staying pat for the Fed, according to the futures market, was 6.2%. Today, it's 27%. That's how much things shifted in the past day. So that's how kind of volatile expectations are.

So why is that? Well, because the jobs market was good. Today's report indicated that the jobs market last month was good. When the jobs market is good, there's a fear that that's inflationary. I know that's crazy, but that's how they think.

That's the ruling class ideology of Keynesianism. So if that's inflationary, then they're less likely to cut. Now, what I'm having trouble figuring out is why markets weren't hit by that.

They were a little bit, but not as much as I'd expect. And that might have something to do with earnings. There might actually be some slight paying attention to the fundamentals of finance this week when earnings season is coming out. We're hearing from a lot of these companies and they're finding out that their profits are up. So it might be that this is not a week completely driven by the Fed, that profitability might have had some impact. And that might be the case when there's like a close call. You know, if the Fed, we think it might stay pat or it might just go down, you know, a quarter of a percent.

At that point, when you're talking about such small differences in terms of expectations of how much they'll move, it might be that markets start kind of going back a little bit and starting to look at earnings when they decide whether to buy stocks or sell stocks. Jerry, I'm looking at the kind of net change across this jobs report. And, you know, it was concentrated in health care, business services, manufacturing was up there, of course, government. But anything that you take away from just where these jobs are coming from?

Yeah, I think it's pretty broad based. And I think there's something we need to pay attention to, which is that the unemployment rate didn't change at all. So isn't that strange? Jobs growth of three hundred and fifty three thousand blasts past expectations, says the Wall Street Journal blasts.

That sounds big. Then sort of down there in the subtitle is, oh, by the way, unemployment didn't change at all. So that's something a little weird going on there. And part of that is that there's there's two ways to get off the unemployment statistic. One is you can get a job and the other is you can stop looking. So if we have job creation, but we don't change the unemployment rate, what does that mean? It means that some people, they got out of the unemployment bucket by getting jobs. Well, then why didn't the unemployment go down? Because other people got back into the labor market and people can get back into the labor market because they think it's worth it now. Maybe they lost hope or they can get back into the labor market because they're running out of money. We've had a kind of almost optional working situation now because of all the stimulus checks and the government programs. People could work or not.

But when they start to run out of money, then they have to work. Which means that the unemployment rate is not going down when there's a big job creation, partly because people are they have to go back to work and they're looking and they haven't found jobs yet. So it's some of the details of the jobs report are not so great. And the media coverage has definitely shifted this year. I don't might have something to do with politics. Over the past few years, bad news was headline. This year, good news is headline and the bad news is put down into the sub headline or kind of buried in the story. So if we've got three hundred fifty thousand jobs created, that's great.

But the unemployment rate isn't changing. That's an odd thing. And it seems like something's a little off there. Yeah, no question.

Jerry, one more question before we let you go today. We've had some questions recently about China. You know, there's a lot of talk about the fact that the Chinese economy will overtake the U.S. here, I guess, in the next decade. We're also hearing about the destruction of their real estate, you know, a segment of their economy. We also know that they're actually shrinking. They're actually population is declining and pretty rapidly. So how do you reconcile those two things? Yeah, they may have peaked already or they might peak in the near future.

I mean, you've seen me do the two thousand years of economic history and we see the bubbles going up and down. And China is historically the largest economy in the world, but their own abortion revolution and not just pro-choice. I don't like that phrase, but pro-choice is the woman decides whether to get an abortion. Well, in China, the government decides that she's going to get an abortion. The one child policy has been incredibly destructive to them demographically, and they're going to start feeling that now. So there was this sense that it's inevitable that China will overtake us. And it is quite possible that they almost do or overtake us for a moment and then fall back down into oblivion as their incredibly shrinking workforce continues to shrink. Also, they're very heavily dependent on on economic stimulus and government mandates and government subsidies, I should say. They have a higher home ownership rate than we do. That's kind of people don't know that. And so they're very dependent on real estate and they got a huge real estate bubble. And it's popped.

How do I know? Because Evergrande declared bankruptcy about a week ago, and that was their biggest real estate developer. They have another one, not the second largest is called Country Garden. Evergrande is a little bit like the risk taking one, a little more subprime.

Whereas Country Garden, just like it sounds, a garden in the country. You know, they're they're a little more staid, a little more risk averse, but they defaulted. They didn't they haven't gone bankrupt, but they've defaulted.

So their housing bubble is collapsing. They said their growth in the last quarter was five percent. That's extremely low for them. I don't believe Chinese GDP statistics.

They never put a negative number up there. So to me, five percent. You know, when you when you always have to say everything's great in G's in G's China, everything's wonderful.

Five percent probably means zero percent or less. So I think they're in a recession or near a recession in China. And I really I do not believe that China's ascendancy over America is faded or inevitable.

I don't think anything's faded or inevitable. If we get our act together, China is a non-issue for us. Now, if we don't get our act together and we stumble, maybe they'll kind of hobble past us. But both economies have serious problems and they've got a far worse demographic problem than we do, because they have they had a lot more abortions, a lot more a lot more contraception, a lot lower birth rates. And their economy is much more.

We've had bubbles in our economy, but they've had more bubbles because there's more government control. Yeah. Yeah. That's very helpful, Jerry, and a great explanation. All right, sir, we're going to have to leave it there.

But you have a great weekend and we'll talk to you next week. Same to you, Mr. West. All right. God bless you, Mr. Boyer. That's Jerry Boyer, resident economist here at Faith and Finance Live.

He joins us each Friday and he's president of Boyer Research. All right. Let's go back to the phones as we round out the broadcast here today to Patricia in Chicago. Go ahead. Hello.

Thank you for taking my call. I have a concern. I'm 70 and I live comfortably off of my monthly without touching any of my investments.

But my concern is my RMD. I have a mortgage at three percent. Which is cheaper than than I'm making more money on the market. So I don't think I should pay off it.

But I'm wondering if should I buy take money? From my. I guess my my issue is the the IRA.

OK. And the RMD. Yeah. And so should I invest money and buy property to avoid that?

Or how do I avoid paying all those taxes? Yeah. So what is your age today? Seventy. OK. You're 70 today, which means, you know, you haven't started taking your RMD, right?

You're going to take that at at 72. Right. OK. And so you're wondering about just minimizing your taxable distributions. I mean, one way to do that would be through qualified charitable distributions. So once that time comes, you could do all of your giving out of your IRA through a qualified charitable distribution. And anything that comes out through a QCD is not going to be taxable. So you don't get a deduction, but you don't add it to your taxable income. Are you aware of that option?

No. So would that be to your your family? No, it's got to go to a not for profit charitable organization. So think your church, you know, any giving that you do to a nonprofit, a charity or your church would qualify through a qualified charitable distribution. So you could stop doing any giving out of cash and do all of your giving out of your IRA.

And anything that comes out through a qualified charitable distribution would not be taxable, but it does apply to your required minimum. OK. Yeah. So that's one option.

And what should I should I like now? Can I pull money out and buy property? You could. The problem is that any time you pull it out, whether it's at seventy two for a required minimum or today to pay off a mortgage or buy property, it's you're going to pay tax on it. So it went in pretax. It's been growing tax deferred. And the deal is if you're going to put money into a 401K, we're going to give you the deduction when it goes in during your working years. But then you're going to pay Uncle Sam when it comes out. So apart from you pulling it out through a qualified charitable distribution, it's going to be taxable when it comes out, whether that's today or two years from now. So I did pull some out for the last couple of years and put it into a Roth. OK, so you went ahead and did a conversion and you paid the tax on it, right? Right. OK, but I can only do that. I'm at twenty two percent, so I can only take out so much.

Yeah, that makes it. No, you can take out as much as you want. It's just going to continue to push your tax bracket up. So I'd leave that Roth as long as possible because that's not going to have a required minimum.

And then, you know, take from the the traditional IRA next or first and then leverage the qualified charitable distribution when when the time comes. Hey, Patricia, thanks for your call today. We appreciate it.

Faith and Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and Faith. I thank you to Laura, Tahira, Amy and Jim. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.