Ep 1169 | You Need to Calm Down (About Tariffs) | Guest: Ron Simmons
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Summary
American Girl is celebrating Ramadan and we will look at the progressive shift of American Girl and what it means for us. We will also be talking to my dad who is going to calm us all down about the stock market and tariffs and tell us what is really up. We ve got all of this and more on today s episode of Relatable.
Transcript
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American Girl is celebrating Ramadan. That's right, American Girl. We will look at the
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progressive shift of American Girl and what it means for us. We will also be talking to my dad
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who is going to calm us all down about the stock market and tariffs and tell us what is really up.
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We've got all of this and more on today's episode of Relatable.
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far.
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We've got my dad on at the end of this episode, the last 20 or so minutes, to talk us off the ledge
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when it comes to tariffs, the stock market, the economy. He'll be answering some practical
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questions, addressing some concerns that you guys sent me on Instagram. First, we're going to talk
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about this cultural story that I've been wanting to talk about for a while about American Girl.
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As a girl mom, this makes me very sad and concerns me. So we'll get into that in a second. But just
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a few announcements. Number one, we've got some behind the paywall subscriber content coming for
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you on blazetv.com. So make sure you subscribe. You can go to blazetv.com slash Allie for our relatable
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at home stuff. It's parenting. It's homemaking. It's cooking. It's really good. We've got other
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content for free to keep our content alive and to allow people to see it. We just never know when they
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could pull the plug because they don't like what we have to say. So subscribe to blazetv.com. Also,
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if you haven't gotten your tickets for Share the Arrows, make sure you do that. Sharethearrows.com.
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If you are a Christian woman who needs courage, who needs fellowship, who wants to be surrounded
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of thousands of like-minded Christian women, then you need to be there on October 11th in
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Dallas, Texas. We've got awesome speakers that you can see up there. We've got Ginger Duggar
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Volo, Elisa Childers, Shauna Holman, Katie Faust, Taylor Dukes, Francesca Battistelli, and yours truly.
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It is going to be awesome. I can't wait. Also, if you are in the South Carolina, North Carolina,
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parts of Georgia area, or maybe even if you want to drive a little bit farther than that,
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then you should come hear me speak at Clemson University tomorrow night. Doors open at 6 p.m.
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It's in an auditorium. I put it on Instagram so you can see the details of that. And it starts at 7 p.m.
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It's going to be pretty casual. I'll be giving remarks and then I'll also do a Q&A, but it should
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be fun. You don't have to be a student. You don't have to purchase a ticket. Don't worry. It will be
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heavily secured just in case there are any troublemakers there, but I don't have that
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expectation. I think it's going to be fun. And guess what? My dad's going to be there too.
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And so if you want to meet my dad and if you want to meet Chief Related Bro, then you should come to
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Clemson University tomorrow night. And thank you to the Turning Point chapter there for hosting me.
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All right. Let's see. Do I have any more announcements to give? If you love this podcast,
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leave us a five-star review wherever you listen. Subscribe to YouTube. If you haven't done that
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already, you can watch on Spotify now, which is really fun. Let's see. I'm just going to get them
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all out of the way because sometimes I forget to make these announcements or ask these questions.
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If you haven't bought Toxic Empathy and you need the facts to feel equipped in having contentious
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political, cultural, theological conversations with your family and your friends about people you know
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about the things going on in the world, you need Toxic Empathy, How Progressives Exploit
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Christian Compassion. I'm very grateful to the Lord. It was a New York Times bestseller
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and hopefully it equipped a lot of you and continues to raise a respectful ruckus for the things that
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matter. You can go to ToxicEmpathy.com or you can get that book wherever books are sold. All right.
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I promise that's it. I promise. Let's get into it now. Let's get into this American Girl story.
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I saw this circulating on Acts a couple weeks ago and we've kind of been pushing it off just
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because there have been so many pressing things that we had to discuss. But as I said, I'm a girl
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mom. I'm a girl mom who has three little girls who love dolls and would love American Girl. I would
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love them. I would love to take them to the American Girl store. I grew up reading the American Girl books.
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They were some of my favorite books. I remember their lives. I remember their stories and all of
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their different personality traits because they just kind of left an indelible mark on my young,
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impressionable mind. And they were always really sweet. I mean, they always championed basic virtues
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and also just showing appropriate confidence as a girl and the value and the uniqueness of being a girl.
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And so I would say even if maybe you have some contentions with American Girl of old and I'm just
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not remembering correctly because I was young, I would say certainly their impact has been a net
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positive. But we've started seeing some sketchy things over the years because as we know, as a
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principle, if an institution is not explicitly biblical, not just explicitly conservative, but explicitly
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biblical, it will end up veering into degeneracy. It will end up veering to the left, questioning
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basic realities like gender, breaking down the moral values that we have agreed upon at least as
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culturally Christian Americans for a very long time. And that's certainly what we've seen with
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American Girl. And we'll get into some of that background in a second. But I'll tell you about
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what I saw that I was like, well, that's interesting that that is the direction that we are going.
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American Girl posted a picture on their Instagram of a doll wearing a pink hijab to celebrate an Islamic
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holiday, Eid al-Fitr. I apologize if I'm not saying that correctly. It says Islam's feasting holiday
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that marks the end of Ramadan, a month of fasting. Here's Satu.
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Eid Mubarak to you and yours. Today, I'm going to make some baklava to celebrate Eid al-Fitr.
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Eid al-Fitr is a feast that's celebrated by Muslims worldwide. It celebrates the end of Ramadan when we
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fast for a month from dawn to sunset. It's ready. Happy Eid al-Fitr. Too soon. Still hot.
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Okay. I simply find that strange. Now, if you are still living under the impression that we
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live in a neutral, multi-ethnic, multicultural, multi-religious society, that we simply have to
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say, okay, if Christianity is represented, then every other religion has to be equally represented,
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then you probably see no problem with this. But if you have awoken to the reality that there
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is really no neutrality, that the existence of right and wrong and truth and falsehood,
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that they not only exist, but that they actually matter. If you realize that America, this is
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American girl, is actually a country with a Christian or some would say Judeo-Christian
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foundation. And what is meant by Judeo-Christian is that there are principles in the Old Testament
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that both Jewish people and Christians agree upon that helped lay the foundation of America that
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provided the principles that are in the Declaration of Independence, namely that we are created by
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a God who gave us inalienable rights and that that power supersedes the power of any government.
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The Imago Dei was the driving force behind the principles and the pillars of Western civilization.
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And that is something that both Jews and Christians agree upon. And so when we see Islam as now a very
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formidable part of American society, it is actually okay. I just want to give you permission in case you
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needed it. It is actually okay to say, huh, is this good? It is actually okay to say, well, you know,
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when I look at Muslim majority countries everywhere, most of them are completely wrought
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with archaic violence and chaos and oppression of the most vulnerable. When we look at all of the major
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terrorist groups around the world, you can ask Grok, you can ask ChatGPT, you might have to dig a little
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bit deeper. You can even look on Wikipedia. All of these terrorist groups, save a couple, are Islamic
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in nature. When we look at the religious affiliation of the groups most violently persecuting both Jews
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and Christians around the world, it's all Islam. Okay? That is not to say that every person who is
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Muslim is violent. That is not to say every person who is Muslim is going to be a terrorist or is going
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to be a radical extremist. But obviously, we see the common denominator there. I mean, the greatest
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terrorist attack that we've had on our soil was committed by people who did so in the name of Islam.
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And yet, ironically, darkly ironically, since 2001, we have only seen greater acceptance and greater
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mainstreaming of Islam. We've also seen how this has evolved a lot of communities. We're actually
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seeing in Texas right now, outside of Dallas, this whole epic city controversy. I don't know if you guys
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have seen this, but that's an acronym that basically stands for like an Islamic community that is
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apparently trying to be governed by Islamic law. It will be its own city that is kind of separate from
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the metroplex, separate from the regulations that rule the metroplex of DFW. And there will be Islamic
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schools, Islamic mosques, and basically an entire separate city just for Muslim people. Okay, so that kind of
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thing was unheard of 10, 20, certainly 30 years ago. That is going to change our communities and our
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communities' values. And you have to expect that if a large group of people in a concentrated way come from
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a country that is wrought with violence and oppression because of the religion that is driving their laws,
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that that is going to have possibly a similar impact when they move somewhere else, right?
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And we've seen those trends throughout Europe. Now hear me when I say that doesn't mean that you
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shouldn't love your neighbor. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't live in peace with them because of
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course you should, but that's just the reality. And so yes, I do think it is odd for a company like
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American Girl to be promoting this as if it is the same as promoting Christmas or Easter or even
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Hanukkah. You can see it on their website. They're selling this, the Eid al-Fitr outfit,
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the Muslim holiday, meaning festival of breaking fast in Arabic comes at the end of Ramadan. And so
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they explain even the spiritual significance of this. And on the Instagram post, some people ask
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questions and express some concerns. They said, that's awesome. Can I have a Christian American
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girl doll with a cross and Bible? I love that. Obviously, I think that there is a little tongue
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in cheek there. That comment received these kinds of responses. Girl, there's a time and place.
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White Christians try not to make everything about themselves challenge. That's not the point,
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girl. You basically have a holiday like every other month and especially own December, even though
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there are also Jewish holidays there too. Deal with not having an American girl doll. So you see
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just the antipathy towards Christians, especially in favor of Islam. Now, most of these people that
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have that kind of attitude are progressive themselves. And it is very odd that progressives
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would support such a regressive belief system that stands against everything that they say they stand
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for. But we had Pastor Andrew Sedra on this show who grew up in a Muslim-majority country,
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and he pointed out the truth that the commonality between progressives and Islamic ideologues is a
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hatred of Christianity. And so, of course, there is going to be a partnership there. So are there
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other holidays that American Girl is promoting? Like, are they promoting them all equally? Which I would
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say they don't have a responsibility to do. They're American Girl, and I don't think that they have to
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represent every belief system around the world in their dolls. But are they even giving a nod to
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Christianity and Christian holidays? We'll take a look at that in a second. Let me pause and tell
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Okay, so they post on Instagram about all of these different holidays. They did post about Christmas
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on December 24th. I don't think they ever talked about the significance of what Christmas actually
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is, but there is like a Christmas post on December 24th saying Merry Christmas. There's a Happy Hanukkah
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one on December 25th. And then on December 26th, they celebrate Kwanzaa. You guys, Kwanzaa is not
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an American holiday. It has nothing to do with African Americans, has nothing to do with even
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African history. It was like something that was completely made up by a weirdo. Bree, do we have
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that information about what Kwanzaa is? Yes. So it was created by Molana Karenga. And he was not
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convicted of murder, but he did have a controversial history. He was convicted of felony assault and
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false imprisonment in connection with a violent incident involving two women from his organization.
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Okay, so that's Kwanzaa that American Girl is celebrating here. The fact that anyone is ever
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pretending to celebrate Kwanzaa like Kamala Harris is just ridiculous. Okay, then we're celebrating
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Lunar New Year, January 29th, 2025. Again, like what country is American Girl actually representing
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here? We're also celebrating on November 2nd, 2024, Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead,
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this very like morbid holiday that is celebrated, if you can even call it a holiday, separated or
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celebrated in Mexico. We've got Diwali being celebrated November 1st, 2024. Okay, I only know what
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Wally is because of the office. And then, okay, at least we actually have something that is an
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American holiday. I am totally fine and great with them celebrating Juneteenth. Juneteenth is actually
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a good thing that happened in the United States. And so I think it's a little bit of, it seems a little
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bit like obscure, but it's become less obscure over the past few years. And I have no problem with that.
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We're happy about the ending of slavery and slaves freed. So this is an American holiday that American
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Girl is representing and celebrating there. And I say that's fine. I just think it's strange that a company
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that is supposed to be celebrating not only women, but Americanism is trying so hard to celebrate every
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single holiday, every single celebrated under every single thing celebrated under the sun. So they have this
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whole cultural celebration subsection of its website. None of the Christmas outfits are for sale.
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The very last, the very bottom of the page, there is text saying what Christmas is. It's a Christian
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holiday that honors the birth of Jesus, but this is not put in any of the collections that are being
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sold on this cultural celebrations page. The only Christmas-specific items they sell currently,
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it's a Christmas accessory set, which includes small toys and Christmas cookies, a book titled Molly's
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Christmas Surprise. Same thing with Easter. If you could even consider this Easter, it's like a bunny
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and some cookies. Now they do have like St. Lucia Day on their Instagram. It does look like they kind of
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have an Easter post from 2024. Again, very bunny-centric, which I just think is interesting because for the
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other religions, the religious symbols are actually put there. Like you've got the Star of David for the
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Jewish doll. You've got the different Islamic symbols for the holidays that they are celebrating. But at least I
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have not seen any crosses, any mangers, any nativities for these Christian holidays. And they certainly
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are doing what they can to try to put this to the bottom of their cultural celebrations. Again, it just
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doesn't surprise me that's what institutions do when they are becoming more liberal. American Girl was
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founded by a woman named Pleasant Rowland in 1986. She just wanted to write books and have dolls that
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represented different points in American history. And then she sold American Girl to Mattel for $700
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million, which is wild. And then obviously since it has been owned by Mattel, it has become
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increasingly progressive. They began to abandon the girl part of their name in 2017. They released its
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first boy doll, Logan Everett then too. In 2021, AG's Girl of the Year was a doll named Kira Bailey,
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who wrote about her that she had lesbian aunts. The same year, AG released a street chic collection of
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dolls with blue and purple hair. Okay. Also in 2021, American Girl introduced the World by Us line,
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which featured three characters who came with their own social justice cause. You had Yvette Peters,
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climate change activist, Haritza Okoa, soccer and immigration, like a soccer player, but an
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immigration activist telling about her immigration experience. You had McKenna Williams. She was an
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anti-racist activist. And then they also had a girl of the year in 2022 that was supposed to be like
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a figurehead for the stop Asian hate movement. And then of course they had the huge woke controversy
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of their 2022 edition of a smart girl's guide to body image. We'll get to that in just a second.
00:21:24.060
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slash Allie. So in 2022, they released a new edition of the Smart Girls Guide to Body Amage.
00:22:39.760
And those of you who are my age, you're a millennial. You probably read one of these books
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about our changing bodies when we were preteens and teens. And of course, it was really sweet and
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wholesome. But now it has changed and it has introduced gender ideology into books meant for
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eight to 12 year old girls. They faced a lot of backlash for this, for pushing children,
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really not even just as young as eight, but actually as young as three into changing their
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gender through their popular body image book. The book contains lines that give advice to
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prepubescent girls on how to change their gender without their parents' knowledge. A passage in the
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book marketed to girls age between three and 12 advice is this. If you haven't gone through puberty
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yet, the doctor might offer medicine to delay your body's changes, giving you more time to think
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about your gender identity. Isn't that insane? Like American Girl is pushing permanent sterility
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to children via puberty blockers. It also provides a list of resources for organizations
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the children can turn to. Quote, if you don't have an adult you trust. Okay, so driving a wedge between
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parents who love their children, who want what is best for their children, who know their children
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best and the children themselves in the name of gender ideology, in the name of telling a young
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girl you might be born in the wrong body. Maybe you should get pumped with testosterone, cut off your
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breasts, take out your uterus so you can pretend to be a man. The author of this book will not have to
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deal with the distress and deal with the long-term depression and deal with the lifelong physical and
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emotional repercussions of a child butchering their body because they were introduced to this kind of
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insanity through her book. It will be the parents that American Girl is suggesting you shouldn't trust
00:24:45.940
because they're not affirming you who are dealing with that, who suffer through that, who will find their
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child in the aftermath of a suicide attempt. It will be them going through that tragedy, not the author of
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this book. This is absolutely reckless. I think this far more than any other cultural thing that I've talked
00:25:06.160
about today is the reason that you need to abandon American Girl. I mean, this is evil, sick, demonic,
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life-ruining, body-butchering stuff that American Girl, the American Girl of our youth. It's a little
00:25:20.680
different, but the same company is pushing on young women. I don't want my daughters to stumble upon
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this kind of ideology, and I just can't support it. I'm not trying to shame you if you've taken your
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daughters to the American Girl store and you've gotten her an American Girl. I still think
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that a lot of the dolls and a lot of the stories are really sweet, but we really like Faith Friends
00:25:48.420
doll. I don't know if you've heard of that company, but it's a Christian alternative, and they actually
00:25:53.800
are unapologetically Christian. And all of the accessories and all of the fun things that come
00:25:59.600
along with the dolls all support a girl's confidence in Christ and biblical values, and I've given these
00:26:06.820
to several people as gifts. It's Faith Friends doll. You can find them on Instagram. But I love the
00:26:12.220
alternatives to this kind of degeneracy and this kind of just compromise that they are popping up and
00:26:19.540
that we have the opportunity to support them. And so I just encourage you to do that. American Girl
00:26:26.320
is different. And by the way, this is Mattel. This is what Mattel is doing now. I just posted the other
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day on Instagram my Barbies and how much I loved playing with my Barbies growing up. But I will say,
00:26:38.460
Mattel was obviously kind of sketchy back then. I was a lot more interested in my Barbies from the
00:26:47.160
time I was eight than my daughters were. I was like, all these memories were coming back. But some
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of their clothes, it's crazy how skimpy these outfits were for Barbies that six-year-olds are
00:26:58.860
meant to play with. Like, no business. And why did I have a Baywatch Barbie? Like, why? A lot of you
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reminded me that they came with this little dolphin that made a noise. And now I remember that. Now I
00:27:11.880
remember that. But Mattel has kind of, I don't want to say they've always been sketchy, but they've been
00:27:16.420
sketchy for a while. Like a lot of these corporations, they are also bound to these ESG metrics that
00:27:23.340
incentivize them to be more progressive, including when it comes to gender. And somehow, in a very
00:27:30.040
contradictory way, that includes the promotion of Islam. And that is, again, that's not a neutral
00:27:37.360
ideology or a neutral idea that a company like American Girl needs to be promoting. I'm interested
00:27:44.300
what you think about all of that. Maybe you disagree on some of it. And I'm willing to hear your feedback,
00:27:50.740
but I'm telling you in general, like, this is not a good direction. And again, the commonality
00:27:55.460
among a lot of these groups that seem to be totally disparate when it comes to their values
00:28:00.580
is just a hatred for Christianity and a hatred for Christians. And we can expect the secular world
00:28:07.580
to love Jesus and to understand and promote Christianity. But what we can do is we can support
00:28:13.980
companies who do, who get it. That's part of what sharing the arrows is, is believers.
00:28:19.480
All right, let's get into this conversation with my dad about tariffs in the economy. If you're
00:28:24.500
worried, I understand that. Or if you're like me and you're like, this is a little over my head and
00:28:30.480
I'm just kind of hoping and trusting that things are going to be okay, but I really want to understand
00:28:35.560
it. We don't want to be ignorant of it. We don't want to just say, la-di-da, politics matter,
00:28:40.680
policy matters, people matter, and this policy affects people. And so we should do our best to
00:28:46.520
try to understand what's going on and to make really wise decisions that are controlled by the Holy
00:28:52.200
Spirit and by wisdom and not by headlines and not by the stock market. And so my dad and his trademark
00:28:58.080
style is going to calm us down and inform us of what's really going on. Before we get into that
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Dad, thanks so much for joining us again. Okay, people are freaking out about tariffs, this tariff
00:30:41.560
war. Let me give the most recent updates and then we'll get you to walk us back from the ledge. So
00:30:48.040
after China threatened to impose an additional 34% tariff on American goods, Trump added an additional
00:30:54.200
50% to their existing tariffs, bringing the total tariff against China to 104%. That's 10% universal,
00:31:03.520
34% reciprocal, 50% additional. Effective midnight, April 9th, China retaliated with an 84% tariff
00:31:12.080
on U.S. goods up from the earlier 34%. The EU is also expected to vote on countermeasures against U.S.
00:31:20.800
imports today after Trump rejected their zero for zero offer earlier this week. People who are against
00:31:29.160
this tariff war are saying this is going to raise prices in the U.S. astronomically, it is going to hurt
00:31:35.860
the economy and it is going to hurt Trump's agenda and everything is ruined. What are your thoughts?
00:31:44.420
Well, first of all, let's talk about what people should be doing now and really they shouldn't
00:31:51.700
be doing much. I think I've said this before on the show, Allie, and that is if you have money that
00:32:00.020
you need to use within the next 12 months, that money should never be in the stock market.
00:32:06.200
A stock market is a long-term play and you shouldn't do anything related to the stock market
00:32:13.200
right now. I would not be selling. I haven't been selling and I don't know that I'd be buying yet
00:32:18.200
because what I like to do and I'm willing to give up not buying at the absolute bottom. So you'll give
00:32:23.800
up a little bit of the uptick. I want to see the market kind of start going back up for a few days
00:32:29.220
before I would get back, you know, engaged if I had some cash laying around. But if you're already
00:32:35.940
in the market, if you're already in, you got that within your 401ks, do not change that. Now, in the
00:32:41.420
future, again, remember, if you've got money that you know you're going to need to access within the
00:32:46.780
next 12 months at a minimum, do not put that money in the stock market. Put it in a short-term CD or the
00:32:52.680
money market, something where there's virtually no risk involved. Now, as we go on to the tariff
00:32:58.220
scenario, and I'm glad you brought up China right off the bat because that's really the big
00:33:03.020
elephant in the room, so to speak, meaning that, you know, I heard it explained the best actually
00:33:09.560
by President Trump. A lot of people think he hasn't done a good job explaining and understand
00:33:14.200
what people may feel that way. But remember, if they were charging us 34% tariffs on everything that
00:33:21.860
we sent over there, all right, all the goods that we sent over there, then that means
00:33:28.060
that that revenue went directly to their government. And their government doesn't have
00:33:34.600
anything that would be positive for us, help build up their military, help continue their
00:33:43.600
cyber wars against us. So, and I think somebody quoted that, that was hundreds of millions of
00:33:49.900
dollars a year. And so I think what he's trying to do with the other countries, if he can get good
00:33:57.280
deals with the other countries, which I know that he will, then I think he's trying to box out China
00:34:02.800
a little bit. And that would be okay, too. I think China is different than the rest of the world,
00:34:08.700
pretty much. You know, you might include Russia and Iran and North Korea in that same group. But
00:34:14.100
I think it's pretty different than the rest of the world. As far as the rest of the world's
00:34:17.920
concerned, these deals are going to come to play. I wouldn't spend a lot of time worrying about them.
00:34:22.940
Over 70 countries have already called and said, hey, let's see what we can do. And I do think,
00:34:29.420
and I agree with Elon Musk, that if we can get a zero for zero trade deal with the European Union,
00:34:35.440
that's what we ought to do. Now, there's more to it than tariffs, though, Allie. There's also
00:34:39.740
barriers. Sometimes it's not just them putting a tariff on our goods. It's just not letting us sell
00:34:45.740
any particular, a particular good in their country, no matter what, right? Whether that be,
00:34:52.420
you know, whether it's timber or something like that, they have an absolute ban on even not even
00:35:00.840
not worried about the tariff. They just don't even let us sell it. Some countries don't. So,
00:35:04.420
but I think all this is going to get worked out. I think you'll see some significant improvement by the
00:35:10.280
summertime. And by the end of the year, I think it will have all been something that we certainly
00:35:17.860
were concerned about. It's OK to be concerned. But taking rash action is exactly the wrong thing
00:35:23.620
to do. Our economy is still very, very strong. All right. People that want to work can work.
00:35:29.600
People that want a good wage can get a good wage. Things are a little bit more expensive. We're still
00:35:34.420
unwinding from the Biden four years of hyperinflation. And it's just going to take a while to get
00:35:40.140
that done. Yes. And just to bring it back to the basics, and you've explained what a tariff is,
00:35:47.000
but for people who are like, OK, I'm overwhelmed by all of this vocabulary. As a reminder, a tariff
00:35:53.300
is a tax that we pay when we import a good abroad. So if we are trying to, or export rather, if we are
00:36:02.200
trying to export, say it's maple syrup to Canada, Canada would say, OK, we're going to put a 50% tariff
00:36:09.300
on that so that we have to pay that tax. And our product being sold in Canada is more expensive
00:36:16.820
than the local maple syrup that they are selling. And that is a way to protect their local economy
00:36:23.980
and protect the products that are being made domestically. And so all of these countries have
00:36:30.840
tariffs on our products. We have tariffs. Tariffs have always existed. But the problem that President
00:36:36.180
Trump has zeroed in on is that we are paying a lot more, that it's not proportionate and that it is
00:36:43.780
not reciprocal, right? Especially with China. Our average tariffs are like two and a half percent.
00:36:50.900
Right. So with China, as you said, it's not fair because they are competing to be the world's
00:36:59.700
superpower. They are nefarious. They're stealing our technology. And Kevin Leary from Shark. Is it
00:37:06.560
Leary? O'Leary from Shark Tank? He said on CNN, oh, I don't think it should be just 100%. I think it
00:37:12.620
should be 400% with how bad China is. Here that is. It's 13. 104% tariffs in China are not enough.
00:37:20.260
I'm advocating 400%. I do business in China. They don't play by the rules. They've been in the WTO for
00:37:26.880
decades. They have never abided by any of the rules they agreed to when they came in for decades.
00:37:32.220
They cheat. They steal. They steal IP. I can't litigate in their courts. They take product,
00:37:37.480
technology. They steal it. They manufacture it and sell it back here. Never has an administration...
00:37:44.360
Can Americans understand 400% tariffs? What would that look like?
00:37:46.880
Chi on an airplane to Washington to level the playing field.
00:37:53.920
I think he's exactly right. Now, I think 400% is just hyperbole.
00:37:59.460
So I'm not really that concerned about that. But I think the point is, is that, you know,
00:38:05.720
this is a, in a sense, this is a war. And we have to realize that if the enemy is fighting with
00:38:13.300
those types of weapons, we're going to have to do the same thing or something similar to get them to
00:38:18.240
the table to quit the fighting. And China never pays attention to any of the rules, just like
00:38:24.860
Kevin said. And we're going to have, you know, so therefore we have to be kind of a bully. And I
00:38:30.500
think that President Trump is doing that. The other thing to consider, Ali, is that I was listening to,
00:38:36.020
I was on the phone yesterday with Heritage Foundation people that have an economist in this
00:38:41.960
area. And he was saying that there's $600 billion of revenue that US businesses don't get because of
00:38:53.040
the tariffs and trade barriers that other countries put on us. So just to think about that,
00:38:57.780
$600 billion of revenue that could be in the US economy, not from taxes, but just because we can't
00:39:06.480
export all that we would like to export to other countries. And then the other thing is, Ali,
00:39:13.940
and this is a little bit maybe complicated, and we may have to come back on another time and go over
00:39:19.660
it again. But we have an income tax, we have a federal income tax, we do not have a federal sales tax,
00:39:26.980
almost all the other countries in the world have what's called a VAT tax, a volume added tax,
00:39:33.460
which you and I would think about that as a sales tax, okay? And those are federal taxes. So that when
00:39:40.200
somebody buys a US product abroad, their government gets revenue, the federal government of the UK gets
00:39:51.480
revenue from that. So like it used to be 17%. I don't know if it's still the same.
00:39:56.140
All right. When we in the US buy a product from say the UK, our federal government doesn't get any
00:40:05.100
revenue from that. So it's a little, and that's not anybody's fault. That's just the way the system
00:40:10.520
works. So it's a little bit of a paradoxical, in a sense, playing field there. And when you try to
00:40:19.960
calculate what's fair in this, you have to consider that as well as we're definitely funding the federal
00:40:26.880
governments of many countries to a large extent, and including the countries that don't want to
00:40:32.660
increase their defense spending up to what levels it should be. While there's nothing that we purchase
00:40:39.460
as citizens of the US from other countries that aid in reducing our deficit, or increasing our federal
00:40:49.300
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You got a lot of people saying that this is simply not conservative, that it's not going to work.
00:42:26.780
Obviously, it's going to, or the companies are saying it's going to raise the prices on some
00:42:31.240
products, because if these companies have to pay more to export their stuff in order to compensate
00:42:36.740
for that, they are going to raise the price, right, of their goods and their services that
00:42:42.180
they're offering. So people say tariffs are actually a tax that we pay and spending more money on these
00:42:48.480
products. So some people are saying that's a bad thing. It's also not conservative, and this should
00:42:53.980
go through Congress. And then other people are saying it's short-term pain for the ultimate good.
00:42:59.560
Trump is telling those companies, hey, if you don't want to pay those tariffs, then you should
00:43:04.240
bring your manufacturing to the United States rather than to China or to Vietnam or to Thailand,
00:43:10.080
where they are now. So what is your take on that debate?
00:43:14.500
Well, first of all, tariffs are legal. So Congress has already said tariffs are okay. Now, if they want
00:43:20.080
to change it, they can do that. But it rests where it rests with the executive, you know, with the
00:43:27.160
executive department. The idea about it not being conservative, I disagree with that. And what the
00:43:34.280
reason I do is because fairness is always conservative. And President Trump is not saying,
00:43:41.100
hey, you charge us 2%, so we're going to charge you 20%. That's not what he's saying. Now, he might put
00:43:46.960
that out there initially to get people to the bargaining table. But what we're looking for is kind
00:43:53.820
of tit for tat, that 2% versus 2%, 10% versus 10%. And I think that's where we'll get to. Hopefully,
00:44:00.300
we'll get to zero in a lot of them. And I would tend to agree with him. And some of this is, you know,
00:44:06.540
what happened when we put together NAFTA. And a lot of the jobs went to Mexico and to Canada. And we have
00:44:14.800
to, you know, rein that back in so that some of those jobs can come home. It won't be all of them.
00:44:19.740
But some of those jobs need to come back home. And companies, I believe, will realize that.
00:44:25.960
Yeah. President Trump, like you said, he is exercising his authority under the International
00:44:30.940
Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977. He's declaring this a national emergency or economic
00:44:38.060
situation. And he's imposing these tariffs under the IEPA in order to address the, quote,
00:44:44.980
national emergency posed by the large and persistent trade deficit that is driven by the absence of
00:44:50.100
reciprocity in our trade relationships. The explanation for that is what you've already
00:44:54.000
given, that we are funding federal governments that not only don't have our interest in mind,
00:44:59.020
but are actually trying to compete against us in very nefarious ways, especially China,
00:45:03.980
which is why they are taking some of the worst tariffs. You've got Prime Minister of Israel,
00:45:08.800
Netanyahu. He met with Trump on Monday, pledged to eliminate Israel's trade deficit with the United
00:45:15.480
States after the administration imposed 17% tariffs on Israeli goods last week. The European
00:45:23.160
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union is ready to negotiate with President
00:45:29.060
Donald Trump over tariffs, offering the zero for zero tariffs on industrial goods. He, I guess,
00:45:34.640
rejected that deal. He didn't think it was a good deal. But it does seem to be at least
00:45:38.780
right now. It looks like it's kind of working that these leaders are saying, yeah, OK, we'll do what
00:45:45.140
you want. Yeah, and I agree. And the stock market overreacts, right? Yeah. I mean, there's nothing
00:45:51.240
that's happened to an individual company in the last week, OK, relating to what, you know, they haven't
00:45:59.300
lost a bunch of revenue or business or anything like that. The stock market overreacts on the good and
00:46:07.180
the bad. And that's what's happened. It's overreacted. You have people in the market that
00:46:12.020
what they call short sellers, they want to bet the markets going down. And so they essentially in ways
00:46:19.200
which I don't agree with, don't think it should even be legal, but it is essentially can force the
00:46:25.360
market down. Some of these big traders, especially in this high frequency trading, which is where they're
00:46:31.300
trading, literally making thousands and thousands of trades every second. And that's what ends up
00:46:39.160
making these big swings in the market. And that's why you have to, if you're going to be in the market,
00:46:44.060
you have to be in it for the long term. And it will almost always perform well for you over a long
00:46:51.140
term period. So I would just tell you, people, don't panic. I don't see it increasing prices at home on the
00:46:56.180
things that you and I buy every day. You don't think? Very much. Because that's something that
00:47:00.120
we're hearing a lot. Maybe a little bit temporarily, but not in the long term. I believe it's just going
00:47:04.600
to be fine. There will be some more bumpy roads. I think they can communicate a little bit better
00:47:09.180
than what they have. Maybe get somebody else other than the president communicating about it in a little
00:47:14.960
bit better way. But I'm confident. Listen, what people need to understand too, Allie, and I know
00:47:20.880
we're probably running out of time, but people need to understand that we are witnessing a potential
00:47:28.660
transformational change in our federal government. And I think change is, for the most part, for the
00:47:35.820
good. And it's not easy to overcome what essentially has been, since the Civil War, a pretty center-left
00:47:46.280
ruling as far as it goes on taxes and spending and our dealings with other countries. And so
00:47:53.260
I believe that this is something that we're witnessing that I think in the long term will
00:47:59.580
benefit your kids, my grandkids, and their kids and kids of theirs for generations to come.
00:48:06.720
So when we hear short-term pain, that's a phrase that I keep hearing. It's short-term pain. I've even
00:48:12.560
seen some commentators say, oh, if you feel like you can't buy that new device, it's fine. Don't look
00:48:18.520
at your 401ks right now. It'll all be okay. Like, how short-term are we talking? When do you think
00:48:26.280
people are going to start to see, okay, that worked and I'm feeling the benefits of this trade war?
00:48:33.100
Well, I think the benefits will be that the market stops going down, obviously, from a stock market
00:48:40.720
standpoint, which I think that'll be very soon. And then as far as the benefits that they'll see
00:48:49.080
individually, like when they go to the grocery store or go shopping, which is, I guess, what we're
00:48:53.740
talking about, is I think that'll be gradual over time. I don't think it will. But here's what I don't
00:48:59.920
think. I don't think you're going to see a radical increase in prices, right? I just do not see that
00:49:05.180
happening. It hasn't happened yet. Maybe if there's a big ticket item or something that you're looking
00:49:09.720
at, you know, if you're looking to buy a new Rolex until they get it worked out with Switzerland or
00:49:13.960
whomever it is that's selling those these days, you know, where they have a 25% tariff now, maybe you
00:49:19.620
should wait on that. But as far as grocery store items and things like that, I don't see there being a
00:49:25.220
big change in those. I mean, I could be wrong on that, but I just don't see it.
00:49:29.920
Interest rates. A lot of people are thinking about, you know, they've asked me,
00:49:36.220
what is a good time to buy a house? And I don't know the answer to that, but I want to know if you
00:49:41.760
do. Well, the interest rate, what happened, Allie, it's not y'all's fault. Your generation and the
00:49:49.260
generations behind you is that you were exposed to historically low interest rates where you could
00:49:57.300
buy a house with a 3% mortgage, right? The interest rate, which is crazy. The average mortgage
00:50:03.660
over the last century or so has been about 6% interest rate. So we're not far from it. I would
00:50:11.300
like to see it get down to 5%. I do not see it getting back down to 2% and 3%. I actually think
00:50:16.940
that was not great for the economy. It allowed people to buy houses that they really couldn't
00:50:22.280
afford. And some of those were on these adjustable rate mortgages that have now are getting ready to
00:50:27.760
bump up to 5%, 6% and they're going to be in a world of trouble. I would never buy an adjustable
00:50:33.100
rate mortgage. I would only buy fixed mortgage and I would try to do it on 15 years if you can.
00:50:39.300
And anywhere, I think anywhere in the 5% range, whether it's 4, 7, 5 or 5 and a half, I think you're
00:50:46.320
fine. You're fine on that. Now, the challenge we have in the U.S., in most parts of the U.S., we have,
00:50:51.460
we still have a housing shortage. So that makes prices higher just because we have a housing
00:50:57.060
shortage. We're having a hard time keeping up with especially single family homes. And in the
00:51:05.220
fast growing places, that's going to make prices be a little bit higher. But I don't think that
00:51:11.000
you're going to see a big fall off the cliff of interest rates right now. I do think they'll come
00:51:17.040
down some. And I don't think housing prices are going to just fall out of the bottom. So if you're
00:51:24.120
looking at buying a house and you can afford it and you've got a reasonable interest rate,
00:51:28.680
what I've mentioned before, then again, houses should be long-term purchases if possible.
00:51:34.860
Here's what I would love the government to crack down on too, because all of this also intersects with
00:51:40.120
the immigration debate and H-1Bs and all of that. And we both agree there's a level of immigration,
00:51:47.060
good immigrants that can be good, but there's a lot of reform that's needed, especially with
00:51:52.640
overstaying visas and illegal immigration. But something that happens is that many of these
00:51:58.060
immigrants who are coming in on H-1Bs or they're coming in from poorer countries, they will
00:52:04.420
infiltrate a neighborhood and they will have multiple generations living in one house who are
00:52:12.680
all income earners. And the typical American family who is trying to live on one income,
00:52:19.480
the mom and the dad with the two kids, cannot compete against the offers that are being made
00:52:25.300
on these houses. And typically what happens is that it actually ends up being this kind of chain
00:52:30.520
effect, this domino effect. I mean, people know they'll go into a neighborhood and it's people
00:52:35.980
from all one country or all one ethnicity who are living in these multi-generational homes,
00:52:42.080
and that changes the market. And that makes it very hard for the normal young couple to be able to
00:52:48.000
afford a house. And these are supposed to be single family homes. So I would like to see a crackdown
00:52:53.700
on that kind of thing. I think, I mean, I'm not an economist. It seems to me common sense that that
00:52:59.800
would help the housing market. So immigration, the economy, the price changes of these houses,
00:53:05.140
it seems to all kind of intersect. And I just hope that the Trump administration is looking at all of
00:53:09.940
it. Well, you know, I don't, you and I may not be totally in sync on this. I mean, if, if someone's
00:53:17.980
here legally and they want to have their parents live with them or whatever the scenario is, I mean,
00:53:25.700
that's just, I mean, that that's their freedom to do that. And I agree, it does change the dynamics,
00:53:32.660
especially have, you know, multiple earners in the household. It can make, they'd be willing to pay
00:53:38.120
more because you got, you know, more than one family living in there. I'm not so sure what you
00:53:43.220
can do about that though. I'm not, you know, I think we'd have a hard press saying, okay, there's a
00:53:49.340
maximum number of five people that can live in this home. Now, maybe there is a top number there that
00:53:54.160
you could crack down on, but that's an interesting dynamic, Ali. I don't really know the solution to
00:54:01.940
that one, but I do understand the concern and the effects are real. You're, you're not missing that
00:54:06.640
at all. It's just that that's a little bit more complicated when you are talking about people's
00:54:12.900
liberty and their freedom on their own property. Well, if we have less immigration overall, then that
00:54:19.320
will solve at least one part of the problem. Maybe that's not where, maybe we don't. One reason our
00:54:24.120
society, I will agree with Chuck Schumer on one thing. We just don't tell anybody. Okay. Everybody,
00:54:30.160
let's keep this a secret. And that is our population is not growing fast enough. We need more babies.
00:54:37.100
I mean, that's part of the problem that we have is we need, we need families to, you know, have more
00:54:42.860
than, you know, one or two children. They need to have, you know, at least three children so that
00:54:48.620
you've replaced yourself and added to it. And, you know, I think we're seeing some of that, but
00:54:54.080
that's still, it's still our average birth rate is certainly down. Yeah. And that's a whole big
00:55:00.520
cultural, spiritual problem that we got. We got issues. We got issues, but you're here to tell us
00:55:05.220
that it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. It's going to be good. Okay. Well, thank you so
00:55:10.940
much, dad. I really appreciate it. You always calm us down and tell us what's really going on.
00:55:16.580
Next time we'll have you back in the studio and we'll have a longer conversation about
00:55:21.420
everything, but thanks so much. Okay. All right. Take care. Bye.
00:55:26.100
All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with my dad. I hope that made you feel better.
00:55:35.260
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