Why Choose Faith-Based Financial Solutions?

If then you have not heard about it today, 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 journey. Well, there's no question that each and every one of us wants to hear those words in Matthew 25, 23. Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little.

I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your Master. Many Christians believe that verse is about tithing, or perhaps even sacrificial giving, and that's certainly true. But not just about giving back 10% to God's kingdom.

It's also about how we manage the other 90% that God has given us. Deuteronomy 8.1 tells us that God provides every penny we have. It reads, Beware, lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of My hand have gotten me this wealth.

You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the power to get wealth. God created all things, and therefore He owns all things, including us. Psalm 50, 10 and 11 states, For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills.

I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is Mine. God is worthy of honor and glory in all things. Revelation 4, 11 states, Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created. And 1 Corinthians 10, 31 teaches that there is nothing too mundane that we should not honor God in its practice. It reads, So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. And Colossians 3, 17 teaches, Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

So if God provides all things to us, are we honoring Him in all things? With every financial decision we make, are we choosing faith-based financial solutions? Does glorifying the Lord enter our minds when we decide where to shop, invest, and even where to keep our checking and savings accounts? We can certainly avoid shopping in stores or ordering online from vendors with ungodly corporate practices and policies.

That's easy enough. We can also choose investments that honor God and make the world a better place. That's much easier these days because there are many financial institutions in the faith-based space that can guide us to God-honoring investments that don't sacrifice principles for performance. But what about banking? Actually, that may be the easiest of all. A one-time move to an institution that honors God in all of its policies.

If that's been on your mind, you're not alone. Christian Community Credit Union, an underwriter of this program, recently conducted a nationwide survey of 1,300 professed Christians. It found a strong belief that banking should be faith-based, just as much as investing.

Over 30 percent of respondents considered switching banks in the last 12 months. Alignment with Christian values was in the top three reasons why. Sixty percent care deeply about managing their finances biblically to honor God, and over 50 percent said it's more important than ever that their bank reflects, aligns, and supports their Christian values. Well, CCCU has taken this a step further and completed another survey where over 250 devoted Christians shared their insights and perspectives on stewardship. Ninety percent of the respondents said they think about whether their finances reflect what God wants. Still, more research shows folks have a strong desire to align their bank with their values.

They just don't know what options are available. The bottom line is that stewardship is important to most Christians. They take 1 Corinthians 4 to very seriously, and it reads, Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful. So here's what I would say to you. If you're looking for a faith-based financial and banking solution that aligns with your beliefs and values, consider Christian Community Credit Union.

Plus, each account is insured up to $250,000 by ASI. You can find more at JoinChristianCommunity.com. That web address again is JoinChristianCommunity.com. All right, your calls are next.

The number, 1-800-525-7000. You know, folks, as we think about how you can relate and interact with this program here, there's a couple of ways. Beyond even calling, you can always send us an email, AskRob at FaithFi.com. You can also jump into our community when you visit FaithFi.com.

Post a question, answer somebody else's question, and join a community of faithful stewards. 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. So thankful 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. We're wondering what's on your mind and your financial life.

There's got to be something. I know I always have questions on finances and I'm the money guy, so I'm supposed to have all the answers and I've got a lot of them, but I do have some questions too. And if you're like me, you do as well. So let's talk about them together. We'll try to help you make a wise decision in light of biblical wisdom. The number to call today with lines open is 800-525-7000.

That's 800-525-7000. Let me just take just a quick moment before we dive into the phones today and just invite you to be a financial supporter of the ministry here at Faith and Finance Live. You know, we hear from so many of you. I mean, literally, it's overwhelming sometimes just to hear how God has used this program in your life.

It's not about me. It's about the principles that we're able to uncover from God's Word. I know you tell us it's a source of encouragement to you. You've found help in the advice or the wisdom from God's Word.

You've been able to apply it in your financial life and you're reaping the benefit of that. And we would just say if you count Faith and Finance Live as a part of your faith community, maybe you see it as something you rely on or look forward to each day or on a regular basis and you'd like to support the ministry so others could experience that, we would certainly be grateful if you became a monthly partner with us at any amount or made a one-time gift. It's quick and easy to do on our website at faithfi.com.

That's faithfi.com. Just click Give right there at the top of the page. You'll find a form to give quickly and securely online. You'll also find a toll-free number. You can call and talk to someone from our team or a mailing address if you'd like to mail a check-in. But again, that's all at faithfi.com.

Just click Give and thank you very much in advance. All right, we're going to head to the phones today. Again, that number is 800-525-7000. You can call right now. We're going to begin in Cleveland today.

Tracy, go right ahead. Hi, thanks for taking my call. I recently started a new job and I have my 401k from my previous employer. And when I called to get the check to be transferred to my new 401k, he mentioned because I am 55 and older, I can take out money without being penalized in any way if I wanted to. Well, I mentioned it to my husband and he said, well, you know, our furnace and air conditioning has to be replaced in the spring. It's around 9,000 and we have some other repairs. So why don't you take $15,000 to use that for these repairs? I have not done that. I'm a little nervous because I don't, I'm a little shy about taking my retirement, but I know we need those things. Is it wise to do that?

Or do I just say, no, we're going to have to use our home equity line or whatever it might be? Yeah. Yeah.

Well, certainly. I mean, it's a great thought. I mean, it's worth considering the benefit, as you said, is there's rule of 55 that basically says, uh, if you separate from your employer for any reason, whether or not you go fully retired or get another job at 55 or older, you're able to get around that penalty that you would normally have for withdrawals from a 401k prior to age 59 and a half. So you don't have to wait to 59 and a half. You've separated from your employer, you're 55 or older, so you miss the penalty. Now what's the downside?

Well, the downside is twofold. Number one is you still add that to your taxable income, so you're going to pay taxes on it. So you'd have to set aside that portion that would be equal to your marginal tax rate of the 15,000 because you're going to have to pay that at tax time.

That's number one. Number two is that money's no longer there in the 401k or in the IRA if you roll it out, uh, to grow for the future. And so there's the opportunity costs that you're giving up of this money continuing to compound. And often, you know, if you don't need this money right now because your husband's continuing to work or you're going to get another job, I mean, we're talking potentially at least a decade, maybe several decades before you'd need to start drawing this money. And that's all that tax deferred compounded growth that you would be giving up of this 15,000.

So it's more than just, you know, the, the lost amount of growth you'd have, you know, over the next few years, it's compounded growth for a long, long time that you're giving up. Now what's the alternative? And that's what we always have to look at this in light of, and, uh, you know, is there an option number one for you guys out of current cashflow, whether that's existing cushion, meaning money leftover at the end of the month, or by creating that by cutting back expenses, could you fund these expenses over time? Maybe you don't do them now, but you do them over the next year or two, and you try to fund them out of current cashflow or maybe a combination of that home equity line of credit and the cashflow so that we're not having to pull out of the 401k. I think that's at least worth considering. Yes, there's a cost to that. You know, number one, you'd have to potentially wait on some of this and you may or may not be able to do that.

Number two is there's the actual interest costs until you're able to pay that line of credit back for what you pulled out. And we've just got to weigh that against the lost opportunity cost of you not having this 15,000 growing on a tax deferred basis for the next decade plus. So just given all of that, give me your thoughts.

Well, again, I was hoping you were going to sway me, but one way or the other, but I still have to pray about it. I'm just not certain that I want to take out $15,000 because I can't borrow from my retirement. I understand, though, we can't take it with us and things like that and things that we've been happy have been happening in our family recently. Loves ones going on to heaven and now the money is gone or they're using Medicare, Medicaid and you have to get rid of all your money assets anyways when you go into a home.

We've recently seen that. So my husband's like, well, you lot, you're going to lose it all anyways when you have to go into a home. But I'm torn. I don't. Well, you know, here's the thing. I mean, all things being equal, I would rather you not pull it out.

So let me just be really clear. But the reason I'm not saying that's absolutely the way to go is we have to compare that against the alternative. You know, if you all absolutely have to make these repairs in the next three months, then there's no time to save. And if you don't have the savings, it's all going on the line of credit. And I don't know about your ability to make those payments in a reasonable time period where you can pay it back in a relatively short period of time. And so that may then force you to look at other alternatives. And of course, the 401k is one of those. And there is this benefit of no penalty. But all things being equal, either you delay those renovations and repairs or you do a combination of that plus a smaller amount from the the line of credit and you've got the cash flow, the excess in your budget to cover, you know, a relatively short payback, let's say over three years at the most, then I'd say, great, let's do that and avoid pulling from the 401k.

So my preference would be either delay and pay cash or delay and pay part cash, part line of credit, so long as you could pay it back in three years. That would be my preference. But if neither of those work, then this perhaps could be a third option. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Thank you very much. You're welcome, Tracy. Thanks for your call today. We appreciate it. All right, folks, we're just getting started. A lot more to come. We're going to go to where I'm actually going to stay in Cleveland here in just a moment and talk about the U.S. dollar being devalued. That's always an interesting topic.

Plus your questions. We've got some lines open today. You can call right now.

Eight hundred five two five seven thousand. This is Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West and a lot more to come just around the corner. I'm so glad you're with us today on Faith and Finance Live.

I'm Rob West. We're taking your calls and questions today. Eight hundred five two five seven thousand. I've got a few lines open, but that won't last long. So if you have a question, go ahead and call right now.

Eight hundred five two five seven thousand. Let's go back to Cleveland. And Tom, you'll be next up, sir. Go ahead. Yes. Quick question.

Very simple. But, you know, because of the devaluation of the dollar with the BRICS situation now and the concern that it's going to have a major factor, didn't know what to do, like for our 401ks, it's going to affect it, you know, down the road and what to kind of invest or look at or protect us as a Christian and looking at, you know, do we invest in gold or we invest in other things that protects that we don't lose anything, you know, as it is with inflation being so high. That's a major concern. Yeah, it's a great question, Tom.

And, you know, I've thought a lot about this. And, you know, I think particularly with the BRICS, the challenge is that two of those countries are Russia and China. And, you know, China's got some real challenges. I mean, they've got a real estate bubble right now that's bursting. They have an over dependence on real estate.

I mean, you can see that in some of these ghost cities that they've built. They have high private debt. Their population problem is worse than ours because of their one child policy.

They have a significant trouble with the rule of law. And we've never had an authoritarian dictatorship as a reserve currency. You just simply have to be trusted by the global markets. And so that's why the U.S. dollar is the de facto reserve currency. It's involved still today in 90 percent of the foreign exchange transactions. And we're still the most trusted. Now, you could say we're losing some confidence to who? Well, to the yuan, to the yen, to the euro.

But you normally don't lose that status unless you lose a war. And, you know, I think the other issue here is just you have to look in the rear view mirror and say, OK, if not the U.S., then who? You know, it's kind of like that joke of the, you know, the two guys that are out in the woods and they see the bear coming and one of them stops to tie his running shoes and the other one looks at him and says, you're not going to outrun that bear.

And he says, I don't have to. I just have to outrun you. You know, it's that idea that, you know, we're looking in our rear view mirror saying, OK, who's behind us? And, you know, as long as we outrun the yuan and Japan hasn't grown in twenty five years and Europe's not growing, you know, I think for that reason, there's probably rather than just a, you know, some sort of collapse or sudden change.

I think it's probably a slow leak out of the U.S. in that is a result of some of our fiscal policies, this massive, you know, deficit that we have in the mounting U.S. debt. But I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon. So what do you do with that if I'm right? Well, I think you stay the course. I think the best way to offset the power, the effects of inflation and continue to grow your wealth is to be in a properly diversified stock and bond portfolio. And yes, you should have some allocation to gold.

But I wouldn't overweight there. I mean, I think I'd have no more than five to 10 percent. It just doesn't perform as well as stocks and bonds.

You know, it doesn't have any income. And, you know, it's at the end of the day, it's a fear trade. So it's a way to have, you know, more diversification. You know, you're uncorrelated to the stock market. And so therefore, if we did have a major correction or a crash, I think we'd recover. Even if we had a debt crisis, we'd recover like Europe did in 2012, 13, 14, 15. But we wouldn't lose our currency status.

I don't think it would just be inflationary. So I think at the end of the day, you stay your course. You have an allocation to stocks. You don't play into the fear trade, you know, with your all the ads you're seeing on TV.

And, you know, you still keep invested in stocks and bonds. That's my best advice. Give me your thoughts on that, though. I think that's an excellent because that was the idea. I was just like, OK, Lord, show us exactly what to do. And, you know, that was something that's important, you know, to just as a good steward of his money, not our money, but his money. And that's that's the most important.

So that that doesn't answer the question. And I think that that does hit the nail on the head, so to speak, to kind of look at things and just stay put where we're at and just, you know, listen to God and keep focusing. Yes, sir. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I appreciate it, Tommy. Clearly, you want to be a wise and faithful steward. I do.

Everyone listening to this program does. And so we seek God's counsel and wisdom. You know, we don't want to be our heads in the sand. We want to, you know, be like the sons of Issachar who understood the times. And so we need to be alert and following the leading of the Lord, trusting in God, not in the economy or our stock portfolio or our bank account, but trusting in God. But we also want to be wise in how we manage God's money as well. And so that's where the multitude of counselors comes in.

But hopefully that's helpful, at least giving you a few things to think about. Thanks for being on the program today, sir. Let's go to Chicago. Hi, Sally. Go right ahead. Hi. Thank you for your ministry and your wisdom.

I really appreciate it. I have a question regarding real estate property. I own a building and I live in it. I have a couple of tenants that live in there as well.

And the building is about 100 years old, very well built up, but still a lot of problems. And I'm able to do a lot of stuff myself. I come from a working family.

My dad was an electrician and most of my family was involved in real estate. So, but the problem becomes that I'm never able to deduct any of this stuff on my taxes. And I still spend a lot of my time or time on my family or friends that I know. And in return, I do things for them that they're not able to do. So we kind of barter. Is there a way for me to charge for my time or some of the time that is donated for these projects and still stay within the lines of law?

Yeah. Unfortunately, there's really not a great option. I mean, I would always check with your CPA to make sure you're not missing anything because I'm not a CPA.

But the answer unfortunately is no. As a landlord, you can't deduct the value of your own labor on a rental property, even if you act as the property manager or perform maintenance or repairs yourself. This applies whether you're full time or part time as a real estate investor. Now, there are still plenty of things you can deduct. Mortgage insurance, property taxes, insurance, repairs and maintenance not done by you.

Utilities, depreciation, legal fees, advertising, supplies, just not the work you do yourself, unfortunately. But get that CPA to look over what you're doing and see if you're missing anything. We'll be right back. Hey, great to have you with us today on Faith and Finance Live. We've got a couple of lines open.

800-525-7000 is the number to call. By the way, in the next segment, Jerry Boyer is going to stop by. Jerry will update us on the markets. Big jobs numbers out this week.

Jerry will weigh in on them. We'll also get him to weigh in on some of what President Biden shared last night in the State of the Union. He talked about the economy. In his words, the economy is raging. Inflation's down.

More job creation than we've ever seen. Jerry has a little different take on perhaps where the economy stands today. So we'll ask him about that just ahead.

All right. Let's go back to the phones to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Hi, Jane. Go right ahead.

Hi, Rob. Thanks for checking my call. I am confused, I guess, about tithing. I received an inheritance, I'm going to say roughly 10 years ago. And when I received it before anything was redeposited, I typed on the amount that I received. Part of my money went into an annuity to give me an income stream when I retired, which I have now done. Do I tithe on that income that I received or has that already been tithed on?

Yeah, it's a little more complicated than that. I mean, first of all, I love that you're wanting to get this right, because clearly you want to honor the Lord in your giving. And I love the principle of the tithe as a guideline.

I mean, we're not under the law of Moses any longer. And yet when we look at the Council of Scripture, we're clearly to be generous as stewards. And if we look at the New Testament, we clearly say that we're to give proportionately to whom much is given, much is required. We're to give sacrificially.

We look at the Jesus commending the poor widow. We're to give freely and cheerfully. Don't give under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. So I think that those should be the hallmarks of our giving. So using the tithe for those of us who have seen what Jesus has done for us on the cross, just as an act of worship to, you know, demonstration of trust to give back to God, using the tithe as a guideline, what Randy Alcorn calls the training wheels of giving, I think is a great idea now. So we have to if we're going to apply the principle of tithe, we have to say, well, what does that mean? Well, it was a gift on the increase and it was a tenth, although there were several tithes in the Old Testament.

But let's just stay with the concept here. So you'd give a tenth on the increase. Now, your increase occurred when you got the inheritance. Well, as you said, you gave a tithe on that.

Great. Then you put it into an investment. You can put it in stocks and bonds. You can put it in an annuity. You put it in an annuity. Now they're paying an income stream back to you. And a portion of that is a return of what you put in.

And a portion of that is the growth. And, you know, so you'd have to determine, you know, how much is the return of the capital or the investment and how much is considered the income. And that portion, you know, is is taxable. And so, you know, you could call the insurance company and ask them for kind of a guideline on how much is a return of capital versus how much is the increase. And if you truly wanted to continue to tithe on it, you'd probably establish a percentage. Maybe, you know, 30 percent of every check is the increase and 70 percent is the return of capital.

Or maybe it's 60-40. So again, it gets somewhat complicated. I think ultimately there's not a right or wrong decision. It's between you and the Lord. You could say, you know, I'm just going to tithe on the whole thing, seeing it as a gracious gift from the Lord. I'm not going to tithe on any of it because I already tithed on the original amount.

Or you could kind of take a 50-50 approach where maybe you consider half of it just coming back to you, what you've already tithed on, and the other half is truly the increase or the income on top of it. Does that make sense at all? Yes.

Yes, it does. OK. And that's what I kind of have been wrestling with. It's like, how in the world would I figure out what the increase is on, you know, what I invested?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think, you know, you ultimately have to determine that. And I think either the insurance company can help you with that. Your CPA might be able to help you with that because there's a taxable portion of this, you know, and that might be a good starting point. You could just kind of use a, you know, a 50-50 or a 60-40 guideline where, you know, you just tithe on half of it and just kind of look at it that way because you can't outgive God.

So you're not going to dial it into an exact number. But I think the spirit of this is you want to continue to be a giver. We shouldn't limit our giving to the tithe. But, you know, I think there's an appropriate response in here that's ultimately between you and the Lord. Don't feel like you have to check a box or God's going to be angry with you.

He just wants your heart. And I think wherever you land is completely appropriate. OK?

OK, that makes sense. All right. Thank you for your call, Jamie. Lord bless you. Let's go quickly to St. Louis. Maureen, go right ahead.

Thank you, Rob. I'm 71. I'm still working. I'm a widow. I have my husband's pension. And so my own Social Security, I'm drawing.

And so I'm in a good place with income. I'm trying to play catch up on retirement to prepare for retirement. And I max out my 401K and I'm doing fine there. My questions about IRAs. Does it make sense to take I can take seven thousand dollars out of savings and just lump sum into an IRA?

And if I do that by April 15th, that counts for 2023, then I could do another 7000 for 2024. Am I going to be taxed again on that then? I mean, I've already been taxed as earned income.

Yeah. So, you know, if it's sitting in your savings, you've already paid the tax. So you'll either just put it into a Roth and there's no tax there.

You can make that contribution because this is after tax money, which is what you have to put in a Roth. Or you could put it in a traditional IRA and get, you know, a deduction on that money going in. And because you're getting the pension and Social Security and you're continuing to work, your CPA might say, yeah, this is a great idea because when we take it out down the road, we're going to be in a lower tax bracket because you're not going to be working any longer.

You'll just have the pension and Social Security. And so a tax benefit or deduction today on that contribution is more powerful. Now, the unknown is where are tax rates going?

If anywhere, they're probably going higher. We're still in the Trump tax cuts until 2025. So it may get offset, meaning tax rates might be higher a decade from now, but your income is lower.

And so maybe it's a wash. But at the very least, I think the idea is you could put that money in. Now, if you do the traditional IRA, you are going to have to start taking some money out as a required minimum distribution here in the next couple of years. So, you know, probably at age 73 for you. So you just need to recognize that, whereas the Roth doesn't have the RMD, so you could put in that after tax money. Do you anticipate stopping working in the near future or are you going to just continue to work for the foreseeable future?

I'm going to say a year and a half to two years. OK. And at that point, would the pension and Social Security be enough or are you going to have to turn around and start drawing an income from the retirement? I'll be drawing an income from a retirement.

All right. And what do you have already saved in your 401K and other vehicles before this potential contribution this year? And everything altogether, you mean? I'm going to say $300,000. OK. And do you think that you could, you know, pull out only $1,000 a month plus Social Security and pension and be OK?

Yes. OK. Well, so you're fine on that $300,000. So I'd probably put it in the Roth if you're feeling like you need more. And that way you don't have the required minimum. You don't get the deduction, but you can invest it and let it continue to grow and just be a part of that $300,000 that's growing for your future.

That'd be my suggestion. But it sounds like you're doing great, Maureen. I love that you continue to work and save.

And I think you're going to be in great shape. Thanks for your call today. We'll be right back. Hey, thanks for joining us today on Faith and Finance Live. I'm Rob West.

This is where we apply the wisdom from God's word to your financial decisions and choices. Here on a Friday in the final segment, we're joined by our good friend Jerry Boyer. He serves as our resident economist and he's president of Boyer Research.

He weighs in on the markets and the economy each Friday in this segment. Jerry, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Rob. How are you? I'm doing well, sir.

It's good to talk to you. Hey, all eyes on the jobs report this week. I'd love to get your thoughts. Well, my thoughts are that the headlines certainly trumpeted it as a very good report because of the job growth, the number of jobs added sort of in the details was that the unemployment rate rose. People get really confused by that because that happens actually fairly often where there's a lot of new jobs created, but the unemployment rate goes up or there weren't many new jobs created, but the unemployment rate fell.

How can that be? The way it can be is that there's different surveys used by the government in order to determine those two different numbers. It comes out as one headline, but they're actually two different reports that come out on the same day. The one that's based on jobs is they call a bunch of businesses and they say, are you adding jobs or taking away jobs on balance?

They tell them and they add that up and that's the number of new jobs. For the other one, they call households and they say, are you working? Yes. OK, great.

Thank you. Are you not working or not working? Well, are you looking for work? Well, if you're looking for work and you're not working, you're unemployed. But if you've given up looking for work and you're not working, you're not considered unemployed anymore.

You're out of the labor market entirely. So what happens is sometimes when people get moving back into the labor market, because maybe they've run out of all those stimulus checks that we've been getting over the past several years and they now have to go back to work, that could look like a sign of economic growth or whatever that people are entering back into the workforce. But they might be forced into it actually because the economy isn't doing so well. And that's that's how you get a situation where new jobs are being created. But we have the unemployment rate rising. In other words, new jobs are being created, but they're not being created as quickly as people getting back into the labor force and looking for work. So the jobs report was a kind of a mixed deal.

Not as good as I think the top line number would suggest. Yeah, yeah, that's helpful, Jerry. All right. Let's talk about this in a different way. You know, I watched the State of the Union last night.

I know you did as well. Obviously, if you listen to the president, you know, he was dealt about economy. It's now roaring. Inflation's been beat. We're creating all kinds of jobs. We're bringing, you know, workers home and companies are coming back into the U.S. I mean, it's all rosy. I'd love for you to kind of put on your non-political hat for a second and just grade this performance of this economy under this administration.

Just call it as you see it. Yeah, he he wasn't dealt a bad economy. He was dealt coming in as we were coming out of a bad economy because we had a forced shutdown. So in economics, the lower the baseline, the more the ability to bounce back. So if we have what amounts to a depression, we had 30 percent contraction in 2020. That's like the Great Depression because we shut everything down because we had a pandemic.

Okay. That is it's easy to beat that baseline. If you come in in a situation like that, of course, you're going to get great job growth and great GDP growth when we're coming out of a crater like that.

But the question is, when you return to normal, when you're out of that, when you're past that baseline, then what kind of growth do you have? And since then, we've had substandard growth. So actually, a lot of politicians have done this. They say, when I came into office, you know, we were in the midst of a recession. But look what happened.

Like I turn it around. It's a great time to come into office when there's a recession because everything is low and there's more ability to come up because recessions don't last forever. So coming out of a recession is almost always higher growth than normal. What's surprising and the same thing happened with Obama when we had the Great Recession and he came out to look how great things have been. Again, he came out of that baseline.

And by the way, what happens with Republicans as well? So Ronald Reagan could claim some great economic growth. But again, we had a really serious recession.

So what you want to look at is after that cycle is over, when you get back to normal, what do you have back to normal? What we have is below average growth and above average inflation. And the president mentioned inflation last night. That really bothered me because he said, well, you know, we started with inflation at 9 percent and then it went down to 3 percent. I'm sorry, Mr. President, you didn't start with inflation at 9 percent. You started with inflation at something like 2 percent and it went up to 9 percent, partly because of your bad policies. And then it went down to 3.5 percent. So what the president can do is make things really, really bad for a year and a half.

And then they start to get better from that really, really bad and then say, look how much things have improved. I mean, I'm sorry, that's just political propaganda. And I know the president's chief economist. He's someone I've debated a lot.

I saw him last night. This is something that I've seen him do many, many times. Instead of honestly looking at the data, he goes and finds some way to kind of there's an old there's a book called How to Lie with Statistics.

They're lying with statistics. I don't like saying that. I don't like saying that about a president.

But I think that was a really extremely misleading thing to do. If you want to be fair about it, just say when he became president to now, what's happened to purchasing power? The answer is we've lost about a fifth of it. Our dollars by about 80% of what they bought when he became president. The fact that it got really, really bad, a couple years into his presidency, and then it's gotten back to just kind of bad, but not really, really bad. He shouldn't get credit for that. He should get credit for his whole record. And his whole record is a major loss of purchasing power.

Yeah, no doubt about it. So Jerry, what's the key moving forward in this country to really get us on a path to growth, despite some of the, you know, inherent challenges we have that we're not going to overcome anytime soon, like our, you know, population and not replacing our workers? You know, where do we go from here? Well, I think what we need to do is decrease the incentive to not work. So I think, you know, Jack Kemp used to say we want to have a social safety net, but we don't want to have a hammock.

And I feel like to some degree, we set up a hammock after COVID. And we've just increased that so that young people can basically not work at all or work very little and have a living standard that they can be comfortable, essentially, on government aid. And so we have a lot of people out of the workforce that should be in the workforce.

And a lot of them are young, and we need that energy in the workforce. That doesn't mean I want to be heartless. But, you know, I got to be honest, I think the most heartless thing to do is to create the incentives in such a way that someone in their 20s wastes away playing video games rather than building a career. That's heartless, because that's setting them up for a lifetime of failure. If you love them, then what you're going to do is push them out of the little nest. You're not going to drop them out of the nest.

You know, if some people need help, that's fine. But they need to be nudged out of that nest and into the workforce. And what we need to do is make it costly to not work rather than costly to work.

If you have too many social service benefits, you actually lose money by getting off of welfare and getting back into the workforce. So that's a major thing we can do. The other thing we can do is we should extend the tax cuts that are set to withdraw. And the other thing we need to do is regulators just need to get off the neck of business, especially in the area of energy policy. And look how expensive gas is. That's a drag on an oil. That's a drag on every aspect of our economy, because there's a war on fossil fuels. And that war on fossil fuels is a war on the economy, which means it's a war on the American people.

We need to get rid of that. By the way, the president I agree with him last night about Putin. Putin's terrible. Republicans should lose their love affair with their love affair over states. But there's a little crush that some conservatives have with Putin.

I'm sorry. The man's terrible. You know what? You know, we'll put him out of business getting oil down to 50, 50 dollars a barrel. You know, that would bankrupt Putin's war machine. So unleash American oil and gas ingenuity and and Putin's tanks will come to a stop because there won't be any money to pay for them anymore.

Yeah. Well said, Jerry. Well, that was a great synopsis of where we need to go from here. I'm all for it.

Jerry Boyer for Treasury secretary. But all right, my friend, enjoy your weekend. Do you have the grandkids this weekend or you and Susan laying low? We had the grandkids today, but not for the weekend because we bought chicks.

And so whenever we buy new chicks, the grandkids all visit on Chick Day. Well, keep the heat lamp on and have a great night. Exactly.

You've done this, too, I guess. Yeah. God bless you, buddy.

We'll see you next week. Thanks. All right.

That's Jerry Boyer. He's our resident economist joins us each Friday with his lively analysis of the markets. Always look forward to it. All right.

Quickly to Lombard, Illinois. Robert, you're going to finish this out today, sir. Go ahead. Okay. I heard you a broadcast a while back about reverse mortgages, and there was one that you recommended that is usually better than reverse mortgages are usually pictured as.

Yeah. I was wondering, did you say it was an FHA reverse mortgage or something like that? You want most reverse mortgages today are what are called HECM's HECM Home Equity Conversion mortgages, and those are insured by the Federal Housing Administration, which is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

So that's what you want. You want a home equity conversion mortgage that's backed by the FHA. That means there is no recourse on that other than your home. So regardless of how much they pay you and regardless of how much how long you live, you can never owe more than the value of your home if in fact they pay out more than your home is worth when it's sold at your death or when you move. The government will step in and pay the difference.

So that's what you want. That's unlike a conventional mortgage. Normally you're signing on the dotted line. If your home doesn't satisfy the mortgage for whatever reason, you're personally obligated for it. That's not the case with a home equity conversion mortgage. If you want to learn more about that, our friends at MovementMortgage.com can help you with that and you can learn all about it. But I think it's a planning tool that's underutilized and so I would encourage you to at least check it out. Listen, I love the idea of getting out of debt completely and staying there, but in some cases in this season of life where we were sitting on a lot of equity in a home and we just don't have the income to maintain our lifestyle and give and meet our needs, converting that to an income stream in this way can be a great planning tool. It's often overlooked.

Again, MovementMortgage.com would be where you could do that. Thanks for your call, Robert. That's going to do it for us today, folks.

Faith in Finance Live is a partnership between Moody Radio and FaithFi. So grateful to have you with us today. Thankful for my team today, Amy and Jim and Tahiro. We're grateful for Laura as well and hope you have a great weekend. We'll see you next week. Bye-bye.